《Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich》


 Chapter 1

    <h4>Chapter 1: I Really Am a Good Person</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°I am a good person.¡±


    Although everybody knew that I was a good person and aw-abiding citizen, why did the public security officer in front of me still harass me to no end?


    ¡°As aw-abiding resident of Sulfur Mountain City, I pay my taxes on time and work diligently. In my workce, I am a hardworking employee. In this locality, I am known to be a good neighbor and a good friend. I¡¯m even an avid pet lover! Look at this medal¡ªmy Ah Bao is the champion of the Community Pet Superstar Competition!¡±


    The medal and ribbon hanging on the wall served as evidence of my past glory. Carved on the medal were the words ¡°The 7th Annual Sulfur Mountain City Community Pet Superstar Competition Champion¡± and ¡°Blessing our lively and cute Ah Bao to forever stay healthy.¡±


    At the same time, Ah Bao, who I was obviously very proud of, was blissfully enjoying his meal by the foot of the wall.


    Yet no matter how much I tried to exin myself, the Dark Elf Public Security Officer simply stared at me silently¡ªit was as though as she had already decided that I was lying.


    ¡°Pet? Ah Bao? You mean that fearsome monster? He¡¯s one of the reasons why we are receivingints about you! The Lop Family hasined about your pet attacking their son!¡±


    Below the medal, my Ah Bao was fervently licking a bone as his saliva dripped from his mouth. When he noticed his owner looking at him, he smiled at me. Such a cute pet!


    ¡°Lop Family? Who are they? I really don¡¯t have any memory of them.¡±


    Just as I was hesitating over whether I should use a Reconnaissance Spell to refresh my worsening memory, the Dark Elf Public Security Officer seemed to notice my memory slip and shed a cold smile.


    ¡°... Don¡¯t you think your wordsck reliability? After all, his son¡¯s tibia [1] <sup>1</sup> is still in the mouth of the monster you are rearing.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Ah! So you are talking about the neighboring skeleton soldier family. Their family seems to be fond of ying with Ah Bao. Such kind people they are.¡±


    I flitted towards Ah Bao and tried to wrestle the bone out of his mouth, but it was to no avail.


    Frustrated, I raised my fist and knocked this silly dog on the head.


    ¡°Let go, let go you idiot! If you don¡¯t want to be locked up in the pound then let go!¡±


    Such an obedient dog! When he saw how obstinate I was, the cute Ah Bao whimpered and yielded his treasure with a pitiful look.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Ah Bao. After I get this bitch off my tail, I¡¯ll make sure the entire Lop Family ys with you for an entire year,¡± I promised him in a hushed tone.


    It would be hard to refute her with this tibia here serving as a proof of the crime. I tried to squeeze out a smile and fawn over the Public Security Officer.


    ¡°A misunderstanding, it¡¯s all just a misunderstanding. Ah Bao is just too passionate. He has always liked to make new friends and whenever it¡¯s time to leave, he would always be ever so reluctant. Isn¡¯t it normal to receive a memento of remembrance from a friend?¡±


    I tried to pass over the tibia, but the Public Security Officer abruptly took a step back.


    ¡°Stay away¡ªmaintain a safe distance from me. Who knows what kinds of nefarious curses you may be preparing? Myrades are still out there. If I don¡¯t return, you will face the wrath of the entire Town Order Security Army (simplified as Town Security).¡±


    Although I had put myself in such a lowly position, thisss was still unwilling to spare me some face, and my good intention of handing over the tibia was met with a look of disgust. She even retreated two steps and assumed a false bravado despite her wariness of me.


    ¡°I am a Public Security Officer who represents the city. Do you know the consequences of attacking a Public Security Officer?¡±


    ¡°Just a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding. I really am a good person.¡± I silently sighed to myself andmented how sensitive and alert the dark elves were to magic. With no other choice, I silently dispelled the Hypnotism Spell and Venom Snake Curse I had ced on the bone.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care if you¡¯re a good person or not. ording to Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Public Security Rules and Regtions, you are to pay a fine of fifty gold coins and deliver an upfront apology within three days.¡±


    That bitch. After leaving behind some harsh words, she snatched away the tibia, turned her head, and left.


    ¡°You better remember it well if you don¡¯t want me knocking on your door again. The next time, the entire Town Security troop will appear at your door!¡±


    After closing the door, my face immediately soured.


    ¡°That bitch better be careful and not get smashed by a wooden bat and sold to a ve market. In this underground world, the dark elves have always been a best seller¡ªtruly a valuable trading product.¡±


    I cursed her venomously in my mind. After all, if my words happened to be heard and the bitch really got sold away, then wouldn¡¯t I be the primary suspect? I¡¯m not so foolish as to dig my own grave.


    ¡°Big Sister, you¡¯re really amazing to be able to stand up against such a scary monster. I can¡¯t calm my nerves in his presence.¡±


    ¡°Well, Armin, these fellows are actually all the same. Strong on the outside but weak on the inside. As a dignified member of the Town Security, you must know...¡±


    The conversation of the two dark elves could be heard from not too far away.


    ¡°Tsk, to belittle me¡ªif I hadn¡¯t decided to turn over a new leaf and be a good person, you would have been sold to a brothel by now.¡±


    When the cute Ah Bao noticed how depressed his owner was, he came over and licked my face with hisrge tongue that was covered with poisonous thorns.


    ¡°Take it easy, take it easy. Ah Bao, remember that you are a dignified Chromaggus [2] <sup>2</sup> and not some dumb family dog that salivates all over the ce. Let¡¯s go apologize to the Lop Family and eat our dinner while we¡¯re at it. Yup, ¡®dinner¡¯.¡±


    The two heads of this dumb dog simultaneously started salivating upon hearing that there would be something to eat tonight. He pounced on me and began licking me with enthusiasm.


    There¡¯s no doubt that a dog is a man¡¯s best friend. This was even more true for a two-headed hellhound; it was just that his food was slightly on the pricey side. Magic-filled bones were said to be one of the best types of food for him, and with the passionate support of the Lop Family, I could probably save around a month¡¯s worth of food.


    Oh right, I forgot to introduce myself. I, Rnd Mist, am 376 years old, and I am a good man¡ªto be exact, a good lich.


    ...


    If one were to ask the people of this world about their views on liches, there probably won¡¯t be many positivements.


    ¡°Heinous viins.¡±¡±The ultimate existences of the undead and dark magic.¡±¡±The nightmares of the living, the kings of the undead.¡±


    Although I take these to be the envy of the mediocre and the nder of the hypocritical, these discriminations did, undeniably, bring me quite the amount of trouble.


    At least, in Sulfur Mountain City, where internal fighting was banned, I had to deal with several ¡°Evil-ying Hero Parties¡± or ¡°Evil Lair-Soloing Adventurers¡± every month.


    Most of the time, however, they were incapable of even breaking the barrier of my house. Yet, at times, I would still wee them in, especially when Icked experimental materials. Like now...


    ¡°...I must... kill you... don¡¯t touch me there! Damn this tentacle demon! ...Not here too! I¡¯m sensitive there. Ha... ha... ha... no... I¡¯m begging you, kill me please, kill me please! Kill me if you have the guts!¡±


    Justst week, the half-elf adventurer currently suffering in front of me was still threatening boastfully about bringing divine retribution upon this heinous viin. Now, she could only lie motionless in the dirty cell.


    ¡°Let me go! At least... kill me... don¡¯t!¡± For too many times, she would be sent to the peak of stimtion and reach a certain state before an intense shout would ring out as her body would tighten, and she would fall back to the ground weakly.


    Despite losing their focus, those hate-filled eyes would continue to stare lifelessly at me. After half a day, however, her eyes would fill with hatred again.


    ¡°Aiyo, don¡¯t look at me like that! Overexcitement is bad for the body.¡±


    ¡°Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!¡±


    ¡°... Do Elves have a limited vocabry for abuses or did yournguage teacher die too early? You know, using the same word over and over again won¡¯t excite me.¡±


    ¡°You rogue...¡± The numerous days of torture in this cell had eroded the will of the female adventurer, but her pride as a high elf still remained. Even after exceeding the limits of her stamina, the golden-haired girl would continue to mumble her curses at me.


    ¡°Okay, you have rested enough. Let the next round begin!¡±


    *Snap!* With the snap of my fingers, countless ck tentacles started to move again. These demons summoned from the pink book could no longer resist the allure of being in close proximity to a female.


    ¡°No! ...I am begging you! Let me go!¡±


    But it was a pity that there was no reason for my summoned demons to listen to the pleadings of a prisoner.


    ¡°I can¡¯t stand the tickling!!¡±


    Yes, it¡¯s just tickling. I am a good man, you know. I wouldn¡¯t do anything illegal.


    ¡°It¡¯s not up to you. Tentacles, give a heavy sentence to her waist and her neck! They¡¯re her weak points!¡±


    ¡°Ha... Hee hee... Kill me, you bastard! ...Haha!¡±


    As expected from a punishment that female adventurers were terrified of. Under the assault of numerous tentacles, she quickly ended up rolling on the floor,ughing crazily.


    ¡°Bah! Serves you right! You barged into my house without permission; this is obviously a criminal act. If I don¡¯t settle this score, everyone would just take me as an easy target!¡±


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t do anything that wasn¡¯t beneficial. Wasting my mana just to punish her¡ªhow could that be possible?


    ¡°I¡¯m begging you; I admit my loss. I give up... I will ede to any of your requests!¡±


    ¡°No need; seeing you in agony is the best way you can contribute.¡±


    Looking at the numbers on the screen increase gradually, I couldn¡¯t help but sigh.


    ¡°Sigh, it has already been three days, but I have only gained two Evil Points. How long will it take me to reach a hundred thousand Evil Points so that I can revive my body?¡±


    Pining for a blissful sex life [3] <sup>3</sup> that many look forward to, I gazed downwards, only to see my own body that consisted only of bones. Very quickly, however, my sight turned towards the other unfortunate ones in the cells.


    ¡°Punishing evildoers is also a kind act. For my points¡ªno, for justice, for my blissful sex life¡ªno, to be a good person, your agony is required for my happiness! So just give up!¡±


    In each cage were prisoners of varying races, such as the taurens, the elves and the most populous of all, the humans.


    ¡°Let me go!¡±¡±I am innocent!¡±¡±Don¡¯te here!¡± Wails of agony and cries to be spared could be heard, but the lich simply ignored them all. In fact, those who were harsher with their mouths were whipped silent by the skeleton soldiers keeping guard.


    ¡°Ruhr; human, rapist, guilty on 6 ounts and has been arrested 3 times. However, due to his good brother, the leader of a gang in the harbor area, who intimidated the victims, there were none willing to report him. In the end, the High Court of Sulfur Mountain City was forced to release him due to insufficient evidence.¡±


    It was just that at this moment, the young master of the gang was the one shouting miserably.


    ¡°Since you are so fond of mating, I shall allow you to mate to your heart¡¯s content.¡±


    Thus, I found a couple three-meter tall ogres to y with him every day... However, they were all male and a certain something was thicker than the leg of a human...


    Alright, since his current state in his cage was so appalling that even I feel disgusted just by talking about it, let¡¯s talk about his neighbor instead.


    ¡°Dia Gold; goblin, professional swindler. Although he had dozens of cases filed against him, his way of handling matters was so superb that his victims oftencked decisive evidence against him. Also, thisd was willing to spend the money to hire the bestwyers in Sulfur Mountain City. Thus, he has managed to escape the reaches of the justice to date.¡±


    At this moment, this gambler was sitting red-eyed, thoroughly engaged in his duel.


    ¡°I¡ªI won!! Your money is mine now! You have to abide by your promises to let me go! I have four kings!¡±


    The undead card yer opposite to him, however, merelyughed and shed his cards. Four aces, a hand just slightly better than Dia¡¯s.


    ¡°No¡ªno¡ªno¡ªimpossible! You¡¯ve already won seven hundred and sixty-seven matches consecutively! You cheater!¡±


    ¡°A cheating method that has yet to be caught is legal; isn¡¯t that what you often said? Alright, how about you tell me where you have hidden your fortune and secrets instead!¡±


    ¡°I¡ªI will redeem myself the next match!¡±


    The undead card yer was, of course, cheating with a special deck of cards that I had infused magic in. The undead yer was able to manipte the cards directly, making it impossible for Dia to win.


    If it was any other normal person, they would have long given up after losing a few hundred rounds. However, Dia, whose eyes went red from gambling, was just a step away from his freedom and his fortune¡ªhow could he give up now?


    The undead card yer didn¡¯t have to use any schemes to lure Dia into ying his game; he only had to sh his cards to attract the idle Dia, who was greedy down to his bones, to join in on his own ord.


    ¡°If¡ªif I were to win just one match, I would be able to recoup everything.¡±


    Thus, just like the victims he had swindled before, his greed pulled him into the abyss, making him lose his life savings in mere moments.


    Truthfully, I had no interest in his swindling tactics or his secrets. But every time he lost a match, the anger and unwillingness from the depths of his heart would bring me more Evil Points. Inparison, his neighbor, who was already numb at this point, was giving me fewer and fewer Evil Points.


    This was hell¡ªa hell that belonged solely to me. It was prison housing those who had conducted heinous crimes but for numerous reasons, the Judges of Sulfur Mountain City were unable to pass an appropriate judgement upon them.


    My unreliable System was able to extract power from other people¡¯s pain or misfortune, and as a good person, I could only choose the route of punishing evil to encourage kindness.


    Thus, making use of certain connections, I got these bastards here as fodder for my ¡®Evil Lich System.¡¯


    The ¡®Solo Hell Raider¡¯ adventurer could be said to have the best treatment here already. Anyways, she had only broken a couple flower pots and had destroyed a few skeleton gardeners. After ying with her for a few more days, I will set her free.


    As for the others, they were all viins who warranted the death penalty. I would make them suffer as much as they had done to others.


    For example, making a rapist feel what it was like to be raped, letting a swindler enjoy the sensation of being duped of his life savings, making robbers and burrs feel how it was like to have something stolen from them, and causing the profiteers who purposely stockpile to create a famine know how it felt to sleep on a mountain of gold yet be unable to buy even a single slice of bread.


    ¡°Lunatic! You lunatic!¡±


    ¡°Please! Let me go!¡±


    Doing things that hurt others but didn¡¯t bring any benefits didn¡¯t have any meaning. Their pain, through my nameless System, would turn into my power and wouldy the foundation for my resurrection.


    ¡°I¡¯m not crazy¡ªyou¡¯re the crazy one!¡±


    ¡°You crazy lich! I am begging you; let me go. I¡¯m willing to do anything!¡±


    Crazy lich? Quite a few people have imed that I have gone mad, but the first to say it was that person.


    I stroked my chin with my forefinger as I tried to recall.


    ¡°Exactly when did I start to go mad? Was it during my previous life, when I had insisted on being a fair and righteous judge yet ended up being stripped of my position and exiled out of the industry, not even being able to serve as awyer?¡±


    ¡°Was it when I had reincarnated into this world with this weird System, thinking that I was the protagonist of this world and promised to bring prosperity to my family and my people, only to find that the cruel fate nned for me couldn¡¯t be changed, and I lost my country, my family, and my kin?¡±


    ¡°Or was it when I swore revenge on the gods and the hypocrites as I brought about an iplete body and formed a great legion of undead, but on that very route to my vengeance, I realized that my back was filled with mountains of corpses and rubble and that I was no different from those hypocrites and ambitious people, putting on a righteous front yet bringing about disaster and tragedy?¡±


    ¡°Hee hee, or maybe, from the very start, after realizing the truth of this world, the me who has memories from two lives had already gone mad.¡±


    Note:


    1. ording to Wikipedia, in human anatomy, the tibia is the secondrgest bone next to the femur. As in other vertebrates, the tibia is one of two bones in the lower leg, the other being the fib, and is aponent of the knee and ankle joints.


    2. Chromaggus -> Hearthstone reference


    3. Blissful Sex Life -> It is a Chinese pun. It has the same pronunciation as ¡°happiness¡± in Chinese.

 Chapter 2

    <h4>Chapter 2: The Evil Lich System</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Legend had it that every transcender who broke through the boundaries of space and time would receive a gift from the world¡ªyeah, it wasmonly known as the Golden Ring [1] <sup>1</sup> , said to be a must-have for every transcender.


    The Evil Lich System... that was my damned Golden Ring.


    A long time ago, it didn¡¯t go by this name. It had the beautiful name of ¡®The Training System of a Holy Knight,¡¯ but as soon as I gave up the identity of a Holy Knight and embarked on the path of dark magic, it ended up with its current name.


    A long time ago, the daily quests it offered me were to help old grannies cross the road and help little girls find their lost kittens. Those were vastly different to the ursed missions I had been receiving recently.


    ¡°Let¡¯s look at the daily quests today... it¡¯s the damned choose one-of-two-options-type again. Destroy a town with a poption of 30,000 people or above; reward: 10,000 evil points. Steal lollipops from 3 children; reward: 1 evil point. If neither of the quests ispleted, then 2 points will be deducted.¡±


    ¡°Tsk! You think I¡¯m stupid? If I really destroyed a town, a crusade of Epic-ranked Holy Knights would definitelye hunting me down. Even if I earned the points, there wouldn¡¯t be any life left in me to spend them.¡±


    As such, I casually snatched a lollipop from a passing tauren loli and watched as the crying girl was pulled away by her mother. I subsequently popped the lollipop into my mouth and grimaced as the shing sound between the lollipop and my bones resounded in my ears. It was only then did I recall I had lost my sense of taste.


    ¡°Sigh, when can I experience the joy of eating delicious food again? Although mana can make me feel full, it doesn¡¯t feel satisfying at all.¡±


    Despite the mother¡¯s attempt to pull her daughter away, the little girl seemed unwilling to give up. She stared at me with herrge watery eyes, and hope seemed to bloom within her after noticing my inability to consume food.


    Do you think this uncle lich is only pulling a prank? Do you think I will return the lollipop back to you?


    Alright, so as to not betray the other party¡¯s expectations... *kacha* *kacha* I bit the lollipop into many pieces before spitting them one by one onto the ground.


    ¡°Boohoo!! Mum, that weird uncle stole my candy!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t look; let¡¯s go.¡±


    Just as I expected, a resounding cry pierced through the air. In that instant, my mood lifted as a memory of a certain fearless kid shed through my mind.


    ¡°Are the undead not entitled to human rights? Ancient magic scrolls were treated like rough paper and vandalized, dragon blood ink was used as color paint, and an alchemy medicine, which had taken me so much trouble to make, was drunk as soda. Even my bones were secretly disassembled just for them to be reassembled again¡ªit was like ying with a puzzle. I had only slept for two hours and yet my entireboratory had turned into a wreck. The destructive power of kids is too scary...¡±


    ¡°Sigh, when can I have my revenge?¡± Thinking about those fearless rascals, especially a certain untamed kid, I uncontrobly ground my teeth in anger.


    Suddenly, I heard a notice from the System.


    [Ding! Congrattions on sessfully driving the 100th young child to tears. Reward: 10 Evil Points¡ªA loli that looks like she is 6 years old but is actually 20 years old is a legal loli?! An expired pseudo-loli is evil!]


    Looking at my sudden aplishment, I felt a surge of joy. The first aplishment unlocked always warranted me 10 points, which was equivalent to the points I received frompleting 10 days¡¯ worth of daily quests.


    ¡°Following this train of thought, if making a hundred of them cry unlocks an aplishment, then making a thousand of them cry should have one as well, and the reward will at least be multiplied by several folds...¡±


    Thus, I turned my attention to the lolis and shotas on the street...


    ¡°Bah! Even if I did not receive a daily quest for it, making those disobedient kids learn how to follow rules and preventing others from suffering the same fate as I are the duties of a good person.¡±


    ¡°What should I y? Right, I can grant life! I shall turn the toys of those rascals into disgusting monsters that run about. In addition, I shall paint their lollipops the color of feces with my magic paint.¡±


    As a frequent victim of those rascals, simply being reminded of my destroyed magic scrolls and precious ssical books was able to provide me with an endless flow of evil ideas.


    ¡°No, no, that isn¡¯t enough; how about I turn their pillow covers into magical beasts that eat humans? That will make them shiver whenever they see a pillow in the future. Right, there is also Evard¡¯s ck Tentacles! I can make them enjoy a ticklish hell.¡±


    ¡°Oh, aren¡¯t those rascals afraid of monsters and ghosts? Heehee, it is time to start rebuilding my undead army. Awaken, my Undead Cmity!!¡±


    That was the day I finally learned that there were less than 200 kids living in that area...


    Bringing about a few thousand skeletons, abominations and Duhans on the street seemed to be an overkill...


    That day, before the Town Security arrived on the scene to capture me, I had already visited every nook and cranny of the street. Even so, I had only managed to drive 160 of them to tears...


    Moreover, after the Town Security members realized that the reason I summoned an army of undead was to exact vengeance on yful kids, their dumbfounded faces and despising looks became my new dark history.


    [Congrattions on simultaneously receiving despising looks from a hundred females. You have received the special aplishment ¡®Did this kid¡¯s brain get soaked in water or paste?¡¯ and you have been awarded the noble title ¡®Mentally Disabled Kid.¡¯ After equipping this title, there is a fixed probability of receiving sympathy from females, but the females¡¯ impression of the wearer as a male will be lowered by 100 points.]


    ... Anyway, I was already used to being yed a fool by the System and my reputation was already at its worst. Given the System¡¯s affirmation of my charisma evidenced by my -88 charm, it didn¡¯t make much of a difference even if my luck with the opposite sex was reduced by 100 points¡ªthe ending would still the same; I would be unable tond myself a girlfriend.


    Even though it was only a rational analysis, why did I feel as though my eyes were bleeding tears as these words came out of my mouth? Alright, I was a great wizard who had been single for 300 years, but at the very least, I had exacted my revenge against those rascals! [2] <sup>2</sup>


    As the memory of those wailing children surfaced, Iughed in satisfaction. An idea about what to write in my diary today hit me.


    AD 1896, the summer of the Year of the Dragon, 6th March. The legend known as ¡®The Lollipop Hunter Incident¡¯ and ¡®The Man-Eating Pillow Incident¡¯ was destined to be forever carved in the memories of the rascals of Sulfur Mountain City.


    ¡°Thenceforth, the kids will remember the terror of that man¡¯s dominance evermore... the shame of having one¡¯s beloved items taken away, the despair of being eaten by one¡¯s own toys, and the fear of being surrounded by the undead...


    As I thought about what to write in my diary, the System Notice sounded out again.


    [Ding! You have unlocked the aplishment: Making a Hundred Kids Cry Within a Day! Reward: 10 Evil Points. Congrattions, you have been awarded the noble title ¡®Bane of Kids.¡¯ After equipping this title, lolis and shotas who are 12 years old and younger will naturally feel threatened by you. As a kind reminder, if you seed in making 500 children cry in one go, you will be awarded the noble title of ¡®Kids Killer,¡¯ and if you seed in making 1000 children cry...]


    The System Notice suddenly stopped at this point. I was involuntarily overwhelmed with anticipation; although this was undeniably a spiteful title, it could be considered to be a blessing in disguise if it could grant me the power to keep those rascals away.


    [...in one go, you will be awarded the noble title ¡®To Argue With Kids At Your Age, Can¡¯t You Be More Mature.¡¯ Oh, you should thank me. Actually, this should be the title most befitting you at the moment.]


    ¡°Sh*t! I can¡¯t tolerate this anymore! Darned System, this is all your fault! You are going down!!¡±


    ...


    ¡°Master, you got locked up in jail this time for stealing lollipops. Next time, will it be due to stealing a girl¡¯s underwear? I really don¡¯t want toe here to fetch a pervert.¡±


    The one currently speaking was my loyal servant, the half-demon residing in my mansion, the silver-haired Elisa.


    Gold-ck framed spectacles, silver ponytails, tiger teeth, a purple tail with a butterfly knot at the end and a European maid costume. It perfectly showcased the little demon¡¯s character and, at the same, exposed a certain lich¡¯s interest...


    All along, I was satisfied by Elisa¡¯s outer appearance. However, she would truly be perfect if only she could change her personality, expressionless face, and venomous tongue.


    ¡°It¡¯s not like you aren¡¯t aware of my darned System. Getting points by just making a few little girls cry is what a good person should be doing.¡±


    ¡°Here!¡±


    She passed a thick photo album to me.


    ¡°This... Oh, well done, Elisa! As expected of my loyal servant!¡±


    ¡°I can roughly guess what happened. These are the contact details of children attending Sulfur Mountain City¡¯srgest kindergarten. I have carefully picked out the names on the list, and it should now be convenient for you to finish your quest.¡±


    ¡°Well done! To think that I was convinced you were looking forward to my death so that you can regain your freedom. I guess it was all a misunderstanding on my part. Good job; you are a good person as well.¡±


    ¡°Let me see!¡± Upon opening the list of contact details, however, my face turned bitter.


    ¡°Contact details for the three children of Sulfur City¡¯s Holy Church Archbishop¡¯s kindergarten, the daughter of Dragonyer Amro, who just started going to kindergarten, and War God Xynso¡¯s precious son¡ªare you sure you¡¯re trying to help me and not trying to send me to hell?!¡±


    My anger, as usual, was disregarded by the other party. The half-demon youngdy pushed her spectacle frame upwards as a cold gleam reflected off the lenses.


    ¡°The great reputation of the ¡®Lollipop Hunter¡¯ has already spread throughout the entire Sulfur Mountain City. I am criticized the moment I leave the mansion. For the sake of thisdy¡¯s [3] <sup>3</sup> reputation, I would really like to change my job. Or rather, Master, you should start paying the sry you owe me for the past ten years.¡±


    ¡°Hahaha, let¡¯s not talk about money¡ªit sours rtionships, you know. Let¡¯s go; I can¡¯t wait to return to our warm home.¡±


    ¡°A gentleman should not engage in escapism, and please don¡¯t change the topic¡ªwhy are you making me run with you? What are you nning this time?¡±


    ¡°As expected of my little Elisa who has stayed by my side for so long. Today¡¯s daily quest is a splendid explosion, you know¡ª¡±


    ¡°I get it. Please hold on tight; I will now use my mana to escape!¡±


    A silver go-anywhere door [4] <sup>4</sup> opened and both master and servant hurriedly entered. When the short-distance instantaneous movement magic dispersed, there were no longer traces of anyone in our surroundings. In the background, arge explosion suddenly resounded, which was closely followed with the ringing of fire rms.


    ¡°Dyed bomb? I thought the Town Security seals the magic of their prisoners?¡±


    ¡°No, it only looks like a bomb, but it¡¯s actually flour put together with chili powder andpleted with a touch of dust¡ªa dust bomb. It doesn¡¯t have much power so it is insufficient to kill anyone. On top of that, I doubt they will be able to find concrete evidence against me.¡±


    ¡°As expected of the ¡®wise¡¯ lich. To think you would be able to create a bomb simply made of food ingredients even after having your magic sealed.¡±


    ¡°Thank you; your praise humbles me.¡±


    ¡°No one is praising you. Alright, as a lich, I guess this can be considered praise.¡±


    What was a lich?


    ¡°Not a good person; the most fearsome of undead.¡± This image was probably what most people conjured upon hearing this word.


    ¡°The lump of bones that makes their hair stand on end; the frightening soul-fire burning in their eyes, emanating a feeling as though they are engaging in some malicious act.¡± This was the view of normal citizens.


    ¡°The ultimate incarnation of evil, the viinous schemer!¡± This was how the Church¡¯s Holy Knights viewed them.


    As an undead and the ultimate form of ck mages, the liches, who had only bones remaining, often did not enjoy a good reputation, but...


    ¡°nder! It is tant discrimination! How can one be judged based on their race!? I have always thought that race, skin color, social stratification and all kinds of discrimination are simply human foolishness. The world only has lowly people who despise and discriminate others and there is no such ¡®lowly¡¯ race, skin color or birth. I really am a good person.¡±


    ¡°If a person such as yourself can be considered a good person, then what about the bloodthirsty undead living in the east of the city? Can they be considered saints, then?¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say they are saints; they are all just cold-faced, warm-hearted pacifists. Just look¡ªthe undead are thrifty with their rations and do not take up much space. A single grave can fit an entire family. They do not eat or drink, and they work passionately toplete their jobs. They contribute yet don¡¯t demand luxury in return. They are all good people.¡±


    The half-demon maidughed. The restricted zone, which housed the rumor of having ¡®no living person ever walk out of it alive,¡¯ was actually viewed as a gathering ce for good people by her master.


    ¡°Hoho! Master, you really know how to joke. Bloodthirsty undead are good people? What about the Priests of the Holy Church who are well-received by the people? They heal the citizens for free and even give out free meals every Sunday to feed those in poverty.¡±


    ¡°They are merely a bunch of hypocrites and pedophiles. You see, Elisa, humans have desires and needs. If one suppresses their desires too much, even if they aren¡¯t pedophiles now, then they will turn into them when they are finally unable to suppress their desires any longer and it bursts. Although they say that desires are a sin, they are definitely perverted pedophiles underneath their outer demeanors. I mean, just look at how those old men act so chummy with those little boys¡ªit would be weird to think that there is nothing wrong with them. Also, those single-celled organisms known as Holy Knights¡ªthey are a bunch of barbarians who threaten to kill me whenever they see me!¡±


    ¡°Fine, master, I get that your illness is acting up again. I guess even that Ancient Red Dragon, who lives in the sulfur mountains, is feared by all as the Disaster of Veron [5] <sup>5</sup> , and also destroyed a country by herself, is a docile and cute being in master¡¯s eyes, huh.¡±


    ¡°No, no. Little Red hasn¡¯t been paying much attention to her diet nowadays and is getting a little bit overweight. If she were to lose 20 to 30 tons and shed that extra fat to bring out the curves, she will be even cuter.¡±


    ¡°Then, what about the awe-inspiring and helpful Dark Elf Town Security who maintains the peace of the city? You should be quite close with them, right? Just counting these two months, I have been in and out of the prison five times just to fetch you.¡±


    ¡°...You can try asking those unlucky store owners who have been tyrannized by them. My views are the same as them. Tsk! A bunch of crazy bitches; our Freedom Gentleman Alliance are archenemies with them.¡±


    Shaking her head in frustration, she ignored the suspicious-sounding organization that her master spoke of and continued her questioning.


    ¡°...Then what about our City Lord, who saved the world and had his name spread far and beyond? He raised the g of equality and established this city in the chaotic Underground World, creating and of peace for different races to coexist on and constantly raved by war.¡±


    ¡°A severe <i>chuunibyou </i>[6] <sup>6</sup> patient who has been sick for a few hundred years. How old is he, to still be ying hero and ying the demon king to save the world? Such an old-fashioned story. Serves him right to be single his entire life.¡±


    ¡°...You really dare to say it, huh. You messed with two of his weddings and now everyone¡¯s saying that he is destined to remain single. Upon birth, he brings misfortune to his family. Going on an adventure, he brings misfortune to his brothers. With regards to marriage, he brings misfortune to his spouse. He has such great qualifications coupled with good looks, but because of you, not a singledy in Sulfur Mountain City is willing to ept his proposal now.¡±


    ¡°...It is not as though I did it intentionally. Does he have to hold the grudge for so long...¡±


    ¡°Not as though you did it intentionally? You did it purposely, didn¡¯t you? Let¡¯s not talk about how you made me spread the rumors about how he was cursed by heavens to remain single. At his wedding, you created an Undead Cmity, setting ghosts free to wander about. Do you know how many girls you frightened that night?¡±


    ¡°I was just celebrating his wedding for him. Seeing how that old bachelor was finally getting married, I was simply too happy and brought a few hundred ghosts to do the robot dance. Who knew that his wife-to-be would be so frightened that she peed on the spot.¡±


    Despite rejecting her ims of it being an intentional act, I was secretly satisfied with my work. ¡°Bah! Since I haven¡¯t resurrected to possess aplete body yet, how can I allow him to enjoy a blissful sex life?¡±


    ¡°Master, do you know you have the habit of putting your hands on your hips and stomping your feet whenever you get excited? Look, your evil intentions are spilling out right now. Fine, let¡¯s not talk about your ¡®great results.¡¯ What about your lich brethren in the Empire of Undead Xiluo? Those guys are on the wanted list in many countries and if any single one of them were to get out, the world will definitely be plunged into chaos.¡±


    ¡°... Actually, it is just a misunderstanding that everyone has against us. Isn¡¯t the reason why we study the profound intricacies of the cycle of life and death just to allow everyone to have longer lives? Actually, we specialize in treatment as well. Whether you¡¯re talking about the effectiveness of the treatments or the possible side effects arising from the treatments, our treatments are much better than those of the Priests. Don¡¯t just look at how convenient their Holy Light is. It actually consumes the person¡¯s life force and shortens their lifespan. Our art of biological re-engineering is toxic-free, harm-free, pollution-free, and best of all, we solve the root of the problem at one go.¡±


    ¡°...Then why are you depending on the System to revive yourself? Why don¡¯t you just make a body for yourself?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to be a deformed monster with 3 hands and 6 legs. Even if it is a perfect humanoid shape, problems will ur sooner orter...¡±


    Seeing the low level of confidence that the lich himself had in his biological re-engineering skills, what else could Elisa say?


    ¡°Fine, then in your eyes, how do I fare?¡±


    ...A cold-faced demonic old granny? An A-cup youngdy? Of course, I wouldn¡¯t be so dumb to voice these words out loud.


    ¡°Oh, Elisa, you are of course my most trusted subordinate. We once made a promise to fulfill our dream of conquering the stars.¡±


    ¡°Before you realize your dreams in the stars, shouldn¡¯t you first pay this poor lonely girl her sry, which you have owed for over ten years?¡±


    Knowing that her master¡¯s illness was acting up once again, the silver-haired half-demon propped up her sses, a cold gleam shining on the surface of the spectacles as cold words spat out from between her teeth.


    ¡°If you continue to be so flippant, I guess your treasured collections are going to...¡±


    ¡°Fine, Elisa, I apologize.¡± Worried about his precious collections, a certain lich immediately surrendered.


    ¡°Hmph.¡± Seeding in subduing her superior, the fallen angel hummed a tune as she sashayed out the door.


    As the housekeeper of the mansion, she did not have the luxury to waste time on her chuunibyou master.


    However, as I stared at her dejected back, my mood took a dive.


    A moment after she walked out the door, memories started to flood my mind, and I mumbled to myself.


    ¡°...I guess, grudgingly, she can be considered family. I still remember the girl who, even under the worst conditions, even when she was floating in the River Styx, persevered on and refused to give up. She is also the girl who hunted in the night of a blizzard just to stay alive. You are probably the best thing this world has given me and bringing you back is the best decision I ever made in my life.¡±


    Suddenly, a face popped out from behind the door.


    Its usual coldness was tainted by an emerging bright-red color, which spread to her long, trembling ears.


    After which, she disappeared behind the door once again.


    ¡°Hehe! Although you know me well, do you think I wouldn¡¯t understand you as well? You foolish evil granny. Even if you are sly, you still have to repay the debt you owe me obediently until your death.¡±


    I spoke these harsh words out loud andughed maniacally. However, in my heart, I panicked.


    ¡°... She heard it! She definitely heard it!!!¡±


    Note:


    1. ¡°Golden Ring¡± is a termmonly used in games and novels to refer to cheat-like abilities or certain unfair advantages.


    2. There is a rumor that says if a guy remains single for 30 years, he will be a wizard.


    3. She is referring to herself in third person.


    4. The ¡®go-anywhere door¡¯ is simr to the one Doraemon uses to travel around.


    5. ¡®Disaster of Veron¡¯ may be a reference to some DND, but I¡¯m not really sure of the exact trantion.


    6. <i>Chuunibyou </i>refers to people who are caught up in their fantasies, like ¡®I have a sealed cursed hand and if released it will destroy the whole world¡¯ etc. That isn¡¯t from me.

 Chapter 3

    <h4>Chapter 3: Gachapon</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Nine Yin [1] White Bone ws!!¡±


    Following the tradition where one had to shout out the skill¡¯s name while using it, I roared as my w struck down heavily on the body of the skeleton soldier.


    *Kacha!* Two bones fractured simultaneously.


    Looking at the otherworldly secret manual named ¡°Nine Yin White Bone w¡± [2] in front of me, I used my mana to regrow my injured fingers while I sighed in frustration.


    ¡°Another useless object. I had definitely fulfilled the conditions of possessing white bones and ws. I had even substituted the ¡®nine yin¡¯ with ice elemental magic. This should bepatible with the skill, but I was still unable to use it.¡±


    I casually threw it to one side, cing it together with the rest of its ¡®seniors¡¯ from other worlds, forming a collection unvisited by anyone.


    Yes, this was a product that originated from another world. From the introduction stated on the secret manual, it seemed to be an extremely powerful offensive magic, capable of prating anything and usable under any circumstances.


    ¡°Exactly where did I go wrong? My interpretation shouldn¡¯t be wrong. Doesn¡¯t yin simply refer to ice and the negative attribute? Nine means a lot, so I made sure to produce ¡®a lot of ice,¡¯ and I also have my ¡®Bone w.¡¯ Then, why is it not working?¡±


    But then again, if the books onplex magic from this world were to be put in another world, they would be nothing but useless trash as well.


    ¡°Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms [3], the legendary magic rumored to be capable of destroying Dragons. Initially, I thought I could finally seek payback from Little Red, but in the end, I almost died from just one of her strikes. To make things worse, she even ridiculed me by making me do the skeleton dance.¡±


    ¡°Buddha¡¯s Palm [4]. It may sound very mighty, but this is obviously Holy Magic used to curb those of the dark and evil attribute. If I were to really learn it, I should maybe consider allowing those Priests of the Holy Light to brainwash me.¡±


    These otherworldly secret manuals were all obtained from my unreliable System¡¯s gachapon.


    At the start of every month, the System would give me a single chance at the gachapon function, allowing me to choose among mystical secret manuals, godly equipment, or unique and rare treasures.


    Even though there was a greater than 90% probability that I would get something useless, I still chose to draw among the mystical secret manuals, gambling for that less than 10% chance of receiving a true treasure.


    In fact, beside the pile of unusable secret manuals was an extremely old bookshelf. ced on it were the treasures I would asionally get.


    ¡°Discussing the organization structure of the undead army and its manpower allocation to ovee blind spots. Teaching you how to theoretically maximize the fighting power of your undead army. ¡ª Kel¡¯Thuzad.¡± [5]


    ¡°The mystery of the past and the present, the restriction of space and time? Totally pointless! I am the true master of space and time. ¡ª Raistlin Majere.¡± [6]


    ¡°The way to create soul equipment and phcteries. How can you call yourself a final boss when you get destroyed in a single round? Convert to an undead to revive 10 to 20 times and disgust your opponent to death. ¡ª Tom Marvolo Riddle.¡± [7]


    ¡°The 18 basic self-defense strokes for mages¡ªlet Uncle Mordenkainen teach you how to fight physically! Who said that mages can¡¯t use martial arts! A dahh!! Waghhh!¡± [8]


    ¡°Magic puppet army andrge AOE war spells¡ªEvangeline¡¯s choice of graceful magic spells. A true great magician doesn¡¯t dirty his own hands. Let your subordinates drown your enemies! Let your enemies die without even catching sight of you!¡±


    Such magic ssics filled half of the bookshelf. These profound magic knowledge books that came from other worlds were collection items that I treasured more than my own life.


    For a lich who had given up his own body in pursuit of endless knowledge, this otherworldly magic knowledge was more important than anything else.


    But, to ascertain whether these magic spells were workable, was, indeed, a very troublesome task.


    It seemed that the only way to deduce the usability of this knowledge, which came from many different worlds, was to try them myself.


    ¡°Six Pulse Heavenly Sword ¨C Duan Yu Version [9] ... Isn¡¯t this just a watered-down version of aser? Although shooting light swords out of the five-finger tips is creative, what does ¡®fixed probability that it may work¡¯ mean? To rely on such an unreliable skill¡ªisn¡¯t that making light of one¡¯s life? This is probably only suitable for protagonists who depend on their luck to survive.¡±


    ¡°The biggest bullshit of all is that Crossing the River with a Reed technique! [10] What Floating Magic that does not expend mana! What the lighter one¡¯s body weight is, the better one is able to unleash this skill! I am only bones and yet I sink instantly. In the end, Elisa even had to find a fisherman to hook me up from the river; how embarrassed I was then.¡±


    ¡°Master, the Evil Points from the Underground Prison for this month has been tallied. We collected a total of thirty-nine points, two points less thanst month. We have two prisoners who are unable to generate any more points. I suggest we rece them.¡±


    Elisa¡¯s reminder reminded me that it was once again the start of a new month. This time, I was determined to get something good.


    ¡°Great Lich System!¡±


    Following mymand, a golden interface appeared in front of me.


    There were only 3 choices avable, ¡°Gachapon,¡±¡±Quest,¡± and ¡°Strengthen.¡±


    Quests could be divided into daily quests and main storyline. Daily quests normally consisted of mundane tasks in exchange for small rewards. As for the main storyline, its menu was disyed in gray, which apparently indicated its ¡®locked¡¯ status at the moment due to unknown reasons.


    Strengthen was another function that I had prior experimentation with. Reflected on the choice¡¯s interface were my stats, albeit it also being colored in gray, indicating its unavability.


    Nheless, this was not due to the malfunctioning of the System but, rather, my personal issue.


    [Rnd Mist, Male Lich (Phctery wounded, unable to strengthen until phctery is repaired.)


    Strength 5


    Agility 5


    Intelligence 30


    Charm -88


    Willpower 5


    (10 is the base stat of an average human. Other than a mage¡¯s main attribute, Intelligence, the rest are a trashy 5)


    Job: LV60 Mage / LV1 Lich / LV20 Law Incanter (Total LV81, Fighting Power Evaluation LV79, Golden Pinnacle Mage)


    Soul Imprint: Mark of Justice, The Crown of Undead (Damaged), The Ice Treader (Damaged), Son of Light (Destroyed).]


    ¡°Ahhh, my fighting prowess fell by so much! Iron Bloodline, Bronze Body, Silver Pride, Golden Will, Respected Legend, World Saint, Immortal Myth, and Indestructible SemiGod¡ªto think my rank dropped from SemiGod to Gold in such a short period of time...¡±


    A Soul Imprint was the crystallization of a mortal breaking into the realm of Legends. It was the convergence of one¡¯s life, experience, and strength, the stepping stone to even greater heights. Since each person only possessed one life, they could only have one Soul Imprint.


    I, on the other hand, had four Soul Imprints. Unlike the other short-lived humans, I had experienced four lives whereby my four Soul Imprints were a representation of me dying three times and entering the realm of Legends four times.


    The Master of Ice, The King of the Dead, The One Blessed by Holy Light¡ªthey were all once my pride and glory. But, at this instant, they were damaged and iplete.


    However, to still be able to remain so lively after experiencing death three times, I guess I should be feeling satisfied. Moreover, considering the damage to my Soul Imprints and ignoring my inability to get stronger, the very fact that I was still alive was already an incredible feat in itself.


    It was just like what myrade, nicknamed Voldemort in another world, had said. Without reviving a few dozen times and transforming three to five times, how could I be considered as the ultimate boss?


    Although significant amounts of losses were sustained with each time I perished, overstepping the boundaries of death and returning to the human world was able to garner me high returns as well.


    The first time I died in battle, I had barely stepped into the realm of Legends. The second time, I had managed to reach the sixth rank, Saint Pinnacle. Nevertheless, it was only right before my most recent death a hundred years ago that my phctery got damaged, causing my fighting prowess to dip steeply. At that time, I had already attained the eighth rank, SemiGod.


    ¡°...The loss of memories and valuable knowledge does make my heart ache, but overall, there is still improvement... However, it is so humiliating to die here and there, especially getting killed in the streets time and time again which made my reputation plummet. On top of that, I have to change my armor again.¡±


    Anyway, I wasn¡¯t really feeling discouraged since this wasn¡¯t my first time having to start from scratch. As a matter of fact, as long as I could earn sufficient points to repair my phctery or even recreate my body, with the help of the System, retraining would help me reach even higher grounds.


    ¡°Even if bones are all that are left of me, I will persevere. Of course, I already had enough of being a lich. Although my talent in Ice Magic and Necromancy is superb, my stats are too skewed. If I want to climb higher, a perfect living physical body is something I need to have. Cough, it definitely isn¡¯t because I no longer wish to remain a bachelor after witnessing many couples get married.¡±


    ¡°Hm? Who dares to despise me? The number of undead in the east part of the city getting married isn¡¯t small in number and those of the Blood Tribe have even created families. Then, why is it that although we are all undead, liches have to be single for life? Liches also need love!!¡±


    Liches were built slightly different from other beings whereby their souls weren¡¯t infused into their bodies. Instead, it was ced in a treasure chest, the phctery.


    As long as the phctery remained undestroyed, even if they were killed, they would just revive on the spot after a period of time. However, if something were to happen to their phctery... experiencing a steep fall in fighting prowess and being stripped of the power to grow stronger for over a century could already be considered a positive oue, just like in my scenario.


    However, in the case of mages, knowledge was equivalent to power. Therefore, despite the restrictions on the growth of my fighting prowess as a result of my phctery being destroyed, this otherworldly knowledge was able to bring me great returns.


    ¡°Repairing the phctery takes 80,000 points while recreating a body only takes 100,000 points. How foolish would I have to be to use my points to repair my phctery?¡±


    Sneaking a peek at the 49,763 points reflected on the System¡¯s screen, Imented over the fact that I was not even halfway through umting sufficient points for my resurrection. I sighed and turned my attention towards the final option¡ªGachapon.


    Gachapon draws were only avable once a month. Other than secret manuals, it also offered ¡°godly weapons¡± and ¡°unique and rare treasures.¡± However, speaking from experience, I normally wouldn¡¯t choose either of those two.


    ¡°Earlier draws had gotten me an Evil-ying Sacred Sword that almost killed me, a Fountain of Life that actually had a natural ability to drive away evil, and an East¡¯s Exotic Red Fruit that was all-natural and boosted one¡¯s longevity. Although the East¡¯s Exotic Red Fruit may seem like a good draw, how am I supposed to consume it when I don¡¯t even have a digestive system? In the end, I fed it, along with The Fountain of Life, to my dog without a second thought... Forget it, knowledge is power. I guess I better obediently try my luck with the secret manuals.¡±


    On mymand, the golden roulette started to spin.


    ¡°The Art of Mass Teleportation, The Art of Great Destruction, The Secret to Manipting Beasts... Hurry and stop!¡±


    The roulette spun faster and faster...


    ¡°The Holy Judgement! The ns of Fate! The secret manuals of the Holy Church that are reserved only for the top brass! Even if these are of no use to me, I can still sell them to the Holy Church. There is pretty good stuff included in the draw this time; hurry and stop!¡±


    The roulette spun even faster...


    ¡°FFF Cult me Interrogation Magic Manual! [11] Sounds like it will fit me perfectly; hurry and stop!¡±


    Alright, the pictures on the roulette couldn¡¯t be seen clearly anymore.


    This was the part about gachapon that depresses most people. Although the treasures were right in front of you, the roulette would just spin right over what you want.


    Furthermore, it was a once-in-a-month opportunity, so I was unwilling to close my eyes and quietly wait for the results. Finally, after ten torturous seconds of valuable secret manuals shing past my eyes, the cruel roulette stopped.


    ¡°¡®Sunflower Bible, let elder sister Dong Fang teach you how to weave flowers.¡¯ [12] What is this!? Even the needlework for weaving flowers can be a secret manual?!¡±


    Even so, a glimmer of expectation resided within me. Wasn¡¯t there a saying from the past that experts were often entric? Maybe the weaver was also a legendary expert.


    However, it didn¡¯t take long before the cruel reality struck me hard once again.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it stated in there that anyone who does not possess ¡®The Root of Desire¡¯ is eligible to practice this? All I have left are bones, so why am I still unable to practice this skill?¡±


    Note:


    1. Yin is normally associated with females, coldness, and the moon.


    2. The ¡®Nine Yin White Bone w¡¯ is a skill from a very famous Chinese wuxia trilogy by Jin Yong, the Condor Trilogy (ÉäùmÈý²¿Çú).


    3. ¡®Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms¡¯ a fictional martial arts skill that appears in multiple Jin Yong novels, such as The Legend of the Condor Heroes, The Return of the Condor Heroes and Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils.


    4. The Palm of God, or Buddha¡¯s Palm, is a skill in used in ssic Chinese movies and, more recently, in Kung Fu Hustle.


    5. WOW reference.


    6. Raistlin Majere is a fictional character from the Dragonce series of books created by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.


    7. Reference to a *certain* series about witchcraft and wizardry.


    8. DND reference.


    9. Liu Mai Shen Jian Duan Yu Ban (The 6 Pulse Heavenly Sword, Duan Yu Version) is a pretty godly skill in Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. One of the protagonists, Duan Yu, happened to learn this skill by chance, but due to hisck of proficiency, the skill sort of only works on a chance basis.


    10. Yi Wei Du Jiang (Reed), is a reference to a story of how Bodhidharma crossed a river by riding on a reed he plucked by the riverside.


    11. A joke in the series Baka & Test ¨C Summon the Beasts, in the series people who get confessed to or hangs out with girls etc., will be ¡®kidnapped¡¯ by a group of people and brought back to be interrogated. You all should check it out if you all never watched this anime.


    12. One of the top martial arts skill in The Smiling, Proud Wanderer. In the story, there is an evil cult called Sun Moon Holy Cult. A man in the cult known as Dong Fang Bu Bai usurped the position of the cult leader through schemes, stole the Sunflower Bible from the previous master, and practiced it to be probably the strongest person in the series. It is known for this saying: ¡®If you want to practice this skill, direct your knife towards your manhood.¡¯ (That¡¯s why he is called Dong Fang Sister; he bes more and more feminine in the series.)

 Chapter 4

    <h4>Chapter 4: The Indefatigable One</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Karma, or rather fate, exists. Without any external influence, the apple would eventuallynd on the floor, rot, and be the seed for the next harvest.


    If a farmer were toe and harvest the apple, it would still be a part of fate for the garden and the apple itself because the farmer could be still considered as part of the garden. The act of harvesting could be said to be a fixed route of fate for the apple.


    However, if a tourist from overseas were to walk through the garden and casually pick an apple, then the apple would leave with the tourist and the farmer would be unable to pick the apple. Everyone¡¯s fate would change along with the tourist.


    And that casual action of the otherworldly visitor had unknowingly changed what fate had in n for everyone.


    This was because his actions weren¡¯t in line with what the world had nned. His mindless act had changed the originally rigid fate of things and eventually triggered a series of effects known as the Butterfly Effect.


    There was always someone responsible for each and every injustice in the world. Simrly, every debt in the world has a creditor. The effects of karma would have to be borne by the transcenders.


    That System of mine took these effects of karma and converted them into Evil/Kind Points. Under my will, the System acted like a wish granter, causing ripples of effects in the world. [1]


    Of course, this what I learned from only my own research. It could be correct, but it could also be wrong. However, after a fortuitous event, a game walk-through book from another world made me more convinced about the possibility of this theory.


    ¡°The Great Eich Purgatory War¡ªthis is the name of the game. The book that I drew from the System¡¯s gachapon records every single happening in this ssic game in its 30 years of operation.¡±


    And the world I was in was called... Eich.


    So, the world that I live in was only a game in another world? I wasn¡¯t surprised or shocked. From a rational viewpoint, there was a history of those who dreamt about other worlds and seers who had broken through the confine of time and space in the great world of Eich. In fact, this wasmon knowledge here and was sufficient to exin everything.


    As for the ¡®purgatory¡¯ part... there had been sevenrge-scale updates, which meant that the order in this world was overturned seven times.


    In the seven crises that almost destroyed the world, the continent became and of living hell. The confident me of then who believed that he was a hero blessed by the gods, capable of changing everything, realized that after the 3rd update, the name of the final boss was actually Rnd Mist.


    ¡°The Demon Overlord Rnd Mist returns from the depths of the Abyss. With his army of demons, he swore revenge against all of the living. Endless armies of undead and demons swept the world into chaos, destroying countless countries and reaping countless lives.¡±


    Rnd Mist? Wasn¡¯t that my name? I actually became the final boss destined to destroy the entire world!?


    However, reality wasn¡¯t a game. Demon Lords don¡¯t always fall. Or rather, the me who was then known as The Son of Light had no reason to be an evil Demon of Chaos.


    But then everything still happened. The darkness hidden within the depths of the Holy Church, the betrayal from people I trusted the most, and the nobles and royalties who added insult to the injury caused me, who was a heroic Holy Knight, to gradually walk away from my faith and step into the darkness.


    However, I knew about the ns fate had in store of me. As a transcender who possessed control over his own life, how could I simply allow all this to happen?


    Thus, I did many things in an attempt to ovee fate.


    As a transcender with the power of karma on my side, changing my personal fate wasn¡¯t that difficult. However, changing the fate of the entire world wasn¡¯t such an easy thing, after all.


    After a series of ¡®coincidences,¡¯ all my hard work became for naught. I failed and the currents of fate easily crushed me, causing everything to walk the path fate had paved out originally.


    The current me, after dying again and again, was barely living in this world as a lich. Thus, I was incapable of bing the Demon Lord who tried to destroy the world. It was a pity, however. My foolish twin brother, Karwenz Mist, reced this useless brother of his and had done many mind-blowing great things, eventually walking into the gates of purgatory.


    Maybe, before long, I would need to face the Demon Lord named Karwenz Mist.


    Thus, no matter what, I must live on. Even with this iplete and damaged soul of mine, I must still live on until the day Karwenz returned to the surface.


    Therefore, no matter what, I needed strength. Regardless of which world it came from, whether the strength was righteous or not...


    ¡°This is a solemn promise from I, Rnd Mist. I will resolve the problems that I had created! Thus, even if I have to soil my own hands, even if I must be unscrupulous, I will gather sufficient Evil Points to revive myself, be stronger, and deal with that foolish brother of mine.¡±


    ¡°Master Lich, just interrupting for a moment¡ªdo the things that you just said have anything to do with the current situation? Before you continue with your impassioned speech, please return back to reality and look behind you.¡±


    Just as I was getting more and more riled up, mypanion ruined my moment.


    I turned back and looked. All the dark elves who were currently chasing me were cutting close. Their eyes were blood-red from theirck of sleep, and their originally beautiful oval faces had been distorted from hatred. Judging from how deep their grudges appeared to be, it didn¡¯t seem to be a good time to reason with them.


    ¡°Don¡¯t run! You bastards!¡±


    ¡°I will skin you alive!¡±


    ¡°Hehehe... Hand those bones to me! Hand them to me! My dowry, my 30 years of hard work, gone in a single night!¡±


    ¡°Momo has already bought seaweed and chili! Tonight, I am going to eat pork ribs soup... The pork ribs in front, are you listening? You are going to be the main dish for tonight! Stop!¡±


    It seemed that the grudges from yesterday¡¯s explosion really weren¡¯t trivial. I would be a fool if I were to stop now; I cast a Floating Spell on myself and hastened my footsteps.


    This time, I overdid it a little. The Town Security troops were equipped for war. If I were to be caught by them, even though I was just bones and could not be skinned, I would be taken apart and fed to the dogs.


    However, I wasn¡¯t the only one being chased.


    ¡°The Beyar brothers¡ªwhy are they chasing you too? Were you two selling counterfeit goods again?¡±


    The Beyar brothers were well-known dishonest merchants, even among the greedy goblins. As long as you paid sufficient money, drugs, counterfeits, and simr items¡ªthey had it all. Furthermore, to save money from paying taxes, they didn¡¯t even bother to apply for a license.


    Naturally, this kind of dishonest merchant would oftene head to head with the Town Security. Through these shes of revolution, we had forged a deep bond of friendship.


    ¡°Who knows what¡¯s wrong with those bitches. It seems that some fool had offended those crazy bitches. Since yesterday afternoon, they had conducted a search on the entire city, shouting phrases like ¡®Swiftly and heavily, we shall severely punish thosemitting crimes,¡±Destroy those illegal traders and **,¡¯ and ¡®Return Sulfur Mountain City its blue sky!¡¯ Tsk!¡±


    The Master Engineer Jinya Beyar was the older brother, and at this moment, his thick, lush hair had been shaved. He was extremely pissed.


    Although his looks are so-so, the System showed me that he was a LV59 goblin Master Engineer, just a step away from the LV60 Gold rank.


    ¡°This bunch ofsses are incredible. Although the Town Security iscking in personnel, it is amazing how their entire force isposed of solely Holy Knights. Holy Knight is a tanking job, resilient to attacks. Furthermore, not mentioning how they are equipped with dwarf mithril chain mails, dark elves are blessed with strong magic resistance and a resilient physique, simr to a steel can. Some of their leading figures are even armed with godly weapons. With this kind of equipment and personnel, they could be pulled to fight a war between gods and demons, much less operate as the Town Security in a city.¡±


    Yingou Beyar was the younger brother. During his search and arrest, his clothes had been burnt and his tools destroyed, which resulting in his overflowing anger at this moment.


    A LV57 Master Alchemist, he should have specialized in the treatment of patients. However, it was the nature of those rted to the goblins to be unreliable.


    At least, as far as I could remember, half of the medicine that Yingou made would explode upon consumption. The other half? They would explode even when unconsumed.


    ¡°Endure it! Sulfur Mountain has been dominated by the 3000-strong Town Security for more than a day or two. Those ursed gold coins, their equipment weren¡¯t that advanced in the past! Wait till I find out who was the one who betrayed us and sold such good equipment to them for mere profit¡ªI will definitely make him unable to survive in Sulfur Mountain City.¡±


    ¡°Other than the gingerhead dwarf on Flower Street, who else could it be? Other than a Master Smither like him who specialized in armor, who else could make a mithril chainmail of such level? When I shake thosesses off my tail, I will smash his shop. Who asked him to bring harm to his brothers?¡±


    I remained quiet. If myrades were to know that the Town Security¡¯s Holy Swords were bought from me, that I was the intermediary for the sale of the chainmail and that it was I who had struck a legal deal with them to let me off that once, we probably would be unable to remain as friends.


    ¡°Old cow, what happened? Usually, they would just overlook you. Did you do something recently?¡±


    A tall tauren warrior ran beside us. He possessed a square face and an honest smile hung on it. His innocent eyes were filled with righteousness and bewilderment, as though he was ignorant of the reason he was being pursued.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything. I was just thirsty and wanted to drink some milk. After all, theirs are so big, so they should have quite a bit of milk in them. Isn¡¯t it normal for taurens to want to drink milk? Isn¡¯t it normal for a nature-loving tauren to be nude? Why must they chase with me so furiously with weapons?¡± [2]


    Even though his square face looked iparably honest, and his innocent voice tinged with the grief of being falsely used, he was a pervert. Even when confusion and righteousness spelled out on his face, he was still a nudist.


    At the current moment, he waspletely naked. His fit and wild body caused the females by the roadside to scream non-stop as he waved his hands in sync with the movement of a certain object...


    ¡°The Bull Demon King is here again!¡± [3]


    ¡°Mummy! It¡¯s so scary! I can¡¯t get married anymore!¡±


    ¡°Where? Where? Let me see how long his toothpick is, to dare to wave it around. Hohoho! As expected of a tauren, so it seems that it isn¡¯t a toothpick but a mace. The tauren in front, please hold on! Let me give it a try.¡±


    The sounds of screaming and mysterious noises that echoed from the back made him even morecent, inducing him to perform bodybuilder poses amidst his run, thus generating all kinds of screams among the crowd.


    Although most may know him as a pervert, they were not aware that Tauren Xueti, through my eyes, was a LV89 Legend Warrior. Even in Sulfur Mountain City, where many strong people gathered, he was considered as the cream of the crop.


    But, no matter how strong he was, he was still a pervert... I had to say it twice because it was very important.


    ¡°Damn! They have blessed silver arrows! Emperor Orloss¡¯ Sacred Sword and the Angel yer. Sh*t! To even have dozens of nameless evil-ying holy swords, even the extravagant And Kingdom aren¡¯t as outrageous as they are.¡± (Lilith)


    Leading at the forefront of those being chased was Lilith Mn. Known as the Prince of the Night, she had a reputation for being a passionate casanova in the entire city, and she was the dream of countless rich youngdies in the Underground World.


    It was just that for someone who viewed her disposition as important as her life, her attire was now battered. Even a LV72 Gold-ranked Blood Tribe Assassin could only escape frantically in the presence of such a powerful enemy.


    That¡¯s right, she¡¯s a her and not a him... Her other nicknames include The Frenzied Wild Lilith, The Sentimental Mn, and The Moving Obscenity and Female **.


    Due to themon fate of being suppressed and beaten down by the Town Security, the Freedom Gentlemen Alliance was created (better known as the Gentlemen Alliance). To the Nudist Tauren, The Moving Obscenity and the Explosion Maniac Brothers, the Gentlemen Alliance was just another name.


    After ourrades were captured by the operation ¡®Swiftly and heavily, we shall severely punish thosemitting crimes,¡¯ the only survivors at this moment were the stronger top brass of the alliance.


    ¡°The lich who has a screw loose! Even the weakest lich is of Legend-rank, so turn back and cast a Great Cleavage on those bitches!¡± (Lilith)


    ¡°If it was 300 years ago, I could give it a try... However, my phctery is damaged at the moment and my control over magic is unstable. Well, I could still cast Great Cleavage, it¡¯s just that I am unable to direct it at my target urately. Of course, it is impossible for me to die once more, but are you sure about it?¡± (Rnd) [4]


    Great Cleavage was a powerful spell used by the best mages. Legend had it that it was capable of destroying anyone it struck. However, I had no interest in ssic spells. Not to mention that my phctery was currently damaged; it was impossible for me to unleash such a spell. However, even though I might lose out to them in terms of fighting prowess, I refused to lose in a verbal war.


    ¡± <i>Tsk! </i>Useless!¡±


    As expected, once I mentioned the possibility of the spell going out of control, they, who were afraid of death, wouldn¡¯t allow me to use it.


    However, if the Town Security troops were to continue pursuing me like this, my good person reputation that I had been trying to build up would go down the drain. Thus, I decided to make my move.


    ¡°Slippery Oil Spell!¡±


    I instant-cast a 1-circle magic, and arge area of oil appeared before us. As a lich, floating through the use of magic was the bare basics. Thus, I simply floated across the oil.


    ¡°...What is the use of a 1-circle magic? Even the weakest among the fellows behind us is of the Bronze rank.¡±


    In the eyes of the pissed off Jinya, a 1-circle magic spell was useless to any warrior that could fight.


    But thismon sense was only limited to normal mages, and I am no normal mage, you know.


    * <i>Peng! </i>*


    Right after he stopped speaking, Jinya stepped on the ground and fell uncontrobly. No matter how hard he tried, he was unable to stand up anymore.


    ¡°Jinya, I guess the only thing powerful about you is your mouth. See how I¡ªit can¡¯t be! How can it be so slippery!!?¡±


    Right after heughed at his elder brother, his younger brother, Yingou, followed in his footsteps.


    ¡°I improved it.¡±


    Improvement? More like I reshaped the spell.


    The normal Slippery Oil Spell only used oil derived from animal fats for the spell. However, I chose to utilize top-grade oil used for machinery. At the same time, I adjusted the level of friction on the road, thus generating zero friction on the surface.


    After my rank had been locked and I became unable to use higher circle spells, I spent my efforts on improving my current spells.


    For the normal Slippery Oil Spell, warriors who were slightly more experienced could disregard it altogether. As for my improved Slippery Oil Spell, even though it was just a 2-circle spell, Gold-ranked warriors still had to tread carefully around it.


    But my pride immediately crumbled in the face of reality.


    ¡°Ha!¡±


    Using his hoofs as a sleigh, the cow slid across the oil as though he was sliding on ice while throwing nces at the crowd. Despite his seemingly clumsy heavy body, he possessed excellent bnce.


    ¡°Well done. I see that the crazy lich¡¯s brain can function properly asionally.¡±


    The sly vampiredy jumped on the back of the stupid cow and hitched a ride.


    ¡°Hurry, let¡¯s go!¡±


    Seeing that the Town Security was closing in the distance, we ignored the Beyar brothers who were still struggling in the oil and swiftly left.


    Just as I had expected, equipped in heavy armor, the Dark Elf Town Security Knights fell down one by one in the oil, creating a huge mess.


    ¡°Damn it, why is it so slippery?!!¡±


    Afterining, the vice-captain, Victoria, finally got up with much effort, but she slipped and fell once again.


    ¡°Save me!¡± The shouts of help from the Beyar brothers drifted towards us.


    While showcasing his muscles, the cow-head turned around with the intention to head back to save them. However, Lilith pulled him back on track to escape.


    ¡°Those guys are wearing heavy armor; they aren¡¯t able to catch up with us...¡±


    ¡°I am not worried about them. If the Beyar brothers were to realize that they were unable to escape... Surely you wouldn¡¯t have forgotten what they have on their bodies?¡±


    The cow-head might have a slow reaction speed, but he definitely wasn¡¯t a fool. After patting his head in realization, he lowered his head and proceeded forward.


    ¡°Boom!!¡± Sound of explosions could be heard from our backs, proving that our judgement to leave them behind was correct.


    Engineers and alchemists were already experts at causing explosions. If we were to add the prefix ¡®goblin¡¯ in front, the probability of an explosion urring increased by 10 folds. Ignoring the fact that the Beyar brothers would choose mutually assured destruction when they realized that they were in a dire situation, they had many messy toys on them. Just by bumping and falling a few times, those things might just explode if your luck was bad.


    ¡°Bastards! Grab hold of those two fools.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re running! Hurry up and chase them!¡±


    A cloud of smoke rose in the background, and the Slippery Oil Spell caused the fire to intensify. However, judging from those curses behind us, this kind of unnned small explosion could barely hinder those powerful knights who were fully d in mithril.


    However...


    ¡°Slippery Oil! Slippery Oil! Slippery Oil!¡±


    The ground behind us gleamed with the shine of oil. Foolish elves equipped in heavy armor, slowly train your bncing abilities on my oil.


    ¡°Prepare to die!!¡±


    Hearing that yell, I realized that my happiness was short-lived.


    Appearing from the corner of the street was the captain of the Town Security, Diana. In her hands was the sacred sword that I sold to her, the Silver Avenger.


    Immediately, we changed direction. However, led by their vice-captain, Yawen, another group of dark elf knights darted out from a corner.


    ¡°Damn it, it¡¯s a trap!¡±


    As the three groups converged, we realized we were surrounded!


    ¡°Bastard! I thought that you were really a good person, but... the dress that I just bought ispletely ruined!¡±


    ¡°And my tidbits!¡±


    ¡°My cosmetics!¡±


    ¡°And Momo¡¯s <i>mimi </i>!¡± [5]


    ¡°Isn¡¯t your <i>mimi </i>originally this small?¡±


    ¡°No! It is my pet cat Mimi! Also, my breasts are at least bigger than yours.¡±


    ¡°I am a male; don¡¯t you feel embarrassedparing yourself to me?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, you look too effeminate. I forgot that you are a male.¡±


    The noisy dark elf knights surrounded us from all three directions. Ignoring the internal strife between the dark elf siblings, judging from how they were rubbing their knuckles against their palms, they were probably prepared to strike at any moment.


    Under such circumstances, the first thing I did was ...


    I performed a cart-wheel and dodged a strike from my back. Then, following up with a Floating Spell, I floated a foot off the ground to escape from another sh.


    ¡°Bastard, so you were the one who dragged us down. How many times has it been?!¡±


    As expected, the aggressors were the old cow, who had an apologetic look on his face but used full force in his attacks anyway, and a crazy vampire who was busy castigating me.


    ... As expected, my foremost priority should be to get rid of these two foolishrades who were already too used to betraying others. They were much slyer, and thus more difficult to deal with than the dark elves. Aftering to a realization that the operation carried out this time was my fault, they wouldn¡¯t spare a second thought to betray me.


    If I were to be captured this time, even if the dark elves didn¡¯t deal with me personally, my cellmates would surely take good care of me.


    ¡°Ah! I mustn¡¯t get caught by any means!¡±


    Under thebined attacks of two of the top ten fighters in Sulphur Mountain City, my movements were a mess as I tried to dodge their attacks. As for the dark elves, they were willing to sit by the side and watch the dog fight. Some of them even brought out chairs to enjoy the show.


    ¡°An opportunity!¡±


    How could those bitches understand the solid friendship we forged under oppression? Just a single look and we understood what we had to do.


    The cow-head grabbed me and Lilith with both of his hands and threw us out of the blockade.


    ¡°You bastards!¡±


    When the dark elf knights finally came to, we were already out of the blockade. The poor cow, despite having the strongest fighting prowess of all, due to his meaningless principle of not hitting women, was pushed down to the ground by a group of female knights.


    ¡°Old cow, we will remember your sacrifice!¡±


    ¡°Lich, what did you do!!¡±


    ¡°Yesterday, when they caught me, I burnt their barracks.¡±


    ¡°Well done! I have wanted to do that for a very long time.¡±


    Iughed for a bit, as though I was pleased with my actions, but then I casually pointed a finger towards her.


    ¡°Art of Truth, Incapacitate!¡±


    Due to my sudden attack, the unwary vampire¡¯s movements were sealed.


    Although my Art of Truth could only stop her for a few seconds, that was more than enough.


    Her eyes were filled with iprehension. We had already escaped from the Town Security, so she was unable to understand why I would choose to betray her.


    But the next instant, she understood. The mad lich Rnd was well-known in the city for bringing harm to others for no apparent reason or benefit to him. Otherwise, despite bring the incarnation of fear, why would he gain the glorious title of ¡®screw-loose¡¯?


    As the army drew closer, the incapacitated Lilith Mn, despite her indignation and anger, could not do anything.


    As she was pushed to the ground by the dark elf knights, the System notice finally rang out.


    [Daily Quest: Betrayal isplete. Quest Objective: Betray 3rades who trust you; the reward depends on the strength of those who were betrayed.


    Quest Progress: Jinya Beyar, Yingou Beyar, Lilith Mn¡ªthe average strength of the three are above the Gold rank and your current strength. As the quest ispleted perfectly, you are rewarded with 10 Evil Points.]


    ¡°As I thought, betraying all of you is worth the effort.¡±


    Alright, since the daily quest waspleted and I had received my reward, now was the time for me to really try to get away.


    After turning into a quiet corner, I put on a special silver magic robe with golden linings and a faceless silver metal mask. I stood there quietly, waiting for my pursuers to catch up.


    ¡°My¡ªcrap! Sorry, lord!!¡±


    After turning the corner, the furious Town Security troops immediately turned into obedient little girls.


    As Diana rushed over, she suddenly caught sight of me and her smug expression disappearedpletely. She became as quiet as a hibernating cicada, not daring to talk at all, behaving as how one would act when looking at their superiors. Finally, as the captain, she bucked up the courage.


    ¡°Chief Justice Lord Wumianzhe, why are you here?¡±


    Yes. I, Rnd Mist, had another identity. I was the city¡¯s top judicial officer, Chief Justice Wumianzhe, The Indefatigable One [6]. I was not their direct superior but their superior¡¯s superior¡¯s superior¡¯s superior.


    Note:


    1. Cause and effect. He changed fate (cause), so the effects of his actions will change the world.


    2. Taurens have cow heads and human bodies.


    3. Journey to the West reference


    4. Phctery refers to the object which one¡¯s soul is deposited. Has the same concept as a horcrux.


    5. <i>Mimi </i>is also used as a ng for breasts.


    6. <i>Wu Mian Zhe </i>means the one who doesn¡¯t sleep, and has sort of a literary meaning of how he overlooks the entire city for crimes at every single moment. Its English trantion is ¡®The Indefatigable One.

 Chapter 5

    <h4>Chapter 5: Chief Justice (G)</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Sulfur Mountain City was a good ce. This was amonly epted fact in the Underground World.


    In order to understand what kind of ce Sulfur Mountain City was, one must first understand what kind of ce the Underground World was like.


    ¡®And for exiles.¡¯ This was probably themon understanding among those living on the surface.


    The Underground World was a crevice under the continent of Eich. The total size of the Underground World was immeasurable, its geography far tooplex to be mapped out properly. It was even said that there was a route in the Underground World that led straight to the Chaos Abyss.


    Initially, there weren¡¯t many residents here, but as eras passed, it became and of gathering for the exiled.


    The elves had exiled the dark elves, the dwarves had exiled the gray dwarves, and the gnomes had exiled the wild gnomes. 40% of the beastman tribe were chased by other factions into the Underground World. Even the powerful great dragons chased the brutal Red Dragons and cunning ck Dragons into exile here. This was also where the Titans had exiled the Volcanic Giants.


    The dominant race of the surface, the humans, were no exception as well. Although it was all their brethren they exiled, it was the mostplicated bunch of all, including witches, extremists, cultists, necromancers, revolutionists, demon worshippers, scientists and so on. It seemed as though the Underground World was a disposal ground.


    As time passed, the races of the Underground World became far tooplicated to be calcted, but there was onemon rule here.


    In the Underground World, there was no order. Strength spoke the loudest. The winners earned it all while the losers were enved.


    Even in the chaotic Chaos Faction, this was one of the messiest ces. The Underground City Lords waged and fought wars all year round.


    They annexednd, stole rations, attacked cities and enved the poption. Of course, the countries on the surface were no better, but due to the restrictions by the different religions worshipping the Gods of the Order Faction and the different Councils of each country, it was still mainly peaceful there. However, in thend abandoned by the Gods, the Underground World, the war had never stopped.


    Those who were able to survive in the chaotic Underground World, when ced inparison with those on the surface, were far from being weaklings.


    Well, if we were to use the analogy of a game, the Underground was a dangerous zone for the high-leveled, openedter on in the game. Only yers above LV40 were able to form parties to enter.


    In most of the cities of the Underground, due to the presence of diverse races, there would normally be just one dominant race oppressing the others.


    But, Sulfur Mountain City was different.


    This cityy next to the Sulfur River but did not have a long history. It was slightly younger than 130 years, and in the eyes of those tribes blessed with longevity, that was no more than a blink of an eye.


    But they aplished a deed that the surrounding Underground City Lords had been unable to achieve for a few millennia.


    There was no war here, no nobility or oppression.


    In fact, there was no ruling race here. The City Lord Adam Han, a well-known hero, took up the lonesome job of bing the City Lord. Despite Adam, a human, being the City Lord here, humans were the scarcer race within the city. Furthermore, there wasn¡¯t even a single ruling-ss nobility present here.


    And, the fellow being was jokingly said to be muscle-brained. The City Lord was even more renowned for having totally no interest in power ornd.


    Contrary to the armies in other Underground Cities, which numbered in the tens of thousands, Sulfur Mountain City only had a few hundred people in the reserve army and public security team. In fact, the strongest of them was the Town Order Security Army, better known as Town Security, which mainlyprised of dark elves. Yet even so, their scale didn¡¯t even cross the 800 mark.


    In the chaotic Underground World, pacifists were synonymous with weaklings. With their backs to the mines in Sulfur Mountain coupled with their weak defense force, they naturally attracted aggression from the other Underground City Lords.


    But, after a couple of battles, no one dared to set their gazes on them anymore.


    The reason? Their fists were strong enough.


    No army? In actuality, there was no need of one.


    Ein Mezus, the ancient Red Dragon who was titled Disaster of Veron, lived in the sulfur mines behind Sulfur Mountain City. This evil dragon onceid waste to dozens of human kingdoms, but for reasons unknown, it became the guardian beast of this city.


    Adam Han was one of the most renowned heroes of this era; he had once killed Undead Emperor Lord Yongye [1] <sup>1</sup> and saved the world. Aftering to the Underground World alone, he destroyed a city of dark elves with just brute force. That was 40,000-50,000 dark elves and a hundred thousand of other races. He himself was probably the most famous Thousand Man Killer.


    The Great Saint Margaret, nicknamed ¡®The Child of Heaven¡¯, wasrades with Adam on their journey to seal Lord Yongye. She was rumored to be a remarkable existence capable of summoning an army of angels by herself.


    It was said that there was once an Underground City Lord who, while on his way to attack Sulfur Mountain City, was ¡®persuaded¡¯ to leave by a prominent figure without even catching sight of the city walls...


    It was said that as long as the three heads of Sulfur Mountain City existed, it would remain an impregnable fortress.


    In my System, these three fellows were LV200-300s perfect super boss level characters. Not mentioning the current era, even after 3 or 4 updates in my game walk-through database, they were still extremely powerful characters, far beyond the reach of those LV80-90s barely Legend-ranked Underground City Lords in the surroundings.


    It was due to their strong protection that this city had turned into the only cleannd in this chaotic Underground World.


    However, having only military strength was insufficient. The Great Saint took up the role as the Head of Internal Affairs and kept the city in good order, while the Chief Justice Wumianzhe¡ªyup, that¡¯s me¡ªeven went on to create the most equal and fairws in the entire Eich.


    As for the City Lord Adam, he spent most of his time doing what he usually did, being a useless lucky charm.


    Coincidentally, I, who was rather close to the 3 heads of Sulfur Mountain City, became one of its founders.


    Previously, when I was questioned by the Town Security, I didn¡¯t lie. I really am a good employee with a proper job¡ªthe Chief Justice of Sulfur Mountain City!


    Although my memories had been mostly scattered after three deaths, I still managed to retain most of the important knowledge.


    As awyer and judge in my previous life, I had umted knowledge of legition far beyond that of this era. The legition I had written for Sulfur Mountain City had be a role model for the entire Underground World, and the surface dwellers even sent schrs to study from us.


    The conflicts due to the diverse races? I carved Martin Luther King Jr.¡¯s ¡®I Have A Dream¡¯ on the city markets and city gates such that everyone entering or leaving the city would see it. And this was only the first step.


    I established racial discrimination to be illegal, and offenders would be severely dealt with. I then came up with a series of policies to tackle racial tensions, and I severely dealt with a couple of fools who crossed myws to give a stern warning to others.


    As someone interested in sociology, I understood that society would get used to the presence of a rule as long as it gained recognition and agreement on the surface. After sufficient time, it would be viewed as being morally correct.


    As an immortal undead, the only things I didn¡¯tck were time and stamina. After spending long years trying to change other people¡¯s mindset, I had at least seeded in nting the ideas of racial harmony in the minds of the citizens of Sulfur Mountain City.


    Theparatively harmonious rtionship between different races was the basis of Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s prosperity, and the next step would be security.


    Killing a person and stealing his items was a heavy crime? In other Underground Cities, one could pay his way through his crimes, causing rich merchants and nobilities to not treat folks of other races with proper dignity and respect. Here, however, it was a non-negotiable death penalty. Under the threat of heavy punishment, the security of the city turned for the better.


    Of course, there must be sufficient strength to put these legitions into action, and a group of queer dark elves, who were driven out of their n for believing in the Holy Light, became the cornerstone of the security team. After devoting a lot of resources, I managed to turn them into a team of Public Security Officers trusted by the citizens.


    Sometimes I did regret getting such good equipment for the Town Security. Giving them so much power made the difficulty ofpleting my daily quests twice as difficult and the frequency of me being locked in a cell increase progressively... Cough¡ªcough¡ªlet¡¯s not talk about how I managed to shoot myself in the foot. Let¡¯s continue talking about how the blood and tears of a transcender ushered in a new era for the Underground City.


    The religious conflicts that resulted in the splitting headaches of the leaders of other parts of the Underground World? This was indubitably a difficult problem for other cities to handle due to the physical manifestation of Gods in the world of Eich. The Underground City Lords were often believers of certain Gods, so how can they be trusted to be impartial? An oppression against certain races would cause endless conflicts in the city.


    In this city... amongst the three heads, Red Dragon Ein Mezus believed in gold coins, the City Lord Adam Han was well-known for not having a faith, while the Great Saint believed in knowledge and Adam...


    Yup, you didn¡¯t hear it wrong. The Great Saint has had a ¡®crush¡¯ on the Great Hero for very long and this was a well-known fact throughout the world. However, the blockhead seemed to be ignorant of it. Little Red and I couldn¡¯t stand looking at the situation any longer so we trashed his wedding reception twice. [2] <sup>2</sup>


    Of course, I couldn¡¯t deny my ulterior motives. Other than the Evil Points I earned from causing utter chaos, looking at Adam¡¯s dumb face on the verge of tears was really gratifying.


    Alright, looks like I¡¯m going off topic. Let¡¯s continue talking about the Underground World.


    The faiths of the three heads weren¡¯t reliable and if I, arguably, were to have a faith, it would probably be ¡®to give those who sinned what they deserve¡¯ and ¡®to grant the innocent the protection of thew¡¯ and such, in the spirit of the justice in my previous life. Thus, I did something never seen before in the history of Eich¡ªI granted the citizens of Sulfur Mountain City the freedom of faith.


    ¡°Faith is an individual choice. While we will allow one to spread their faith within the city, no religious organizations are to force others to convert to their beliefs. Those who break thisw will be exiled from Sulfur Mountain City.¡±


    In Sulfur Mountain City, there were people who believed in demons, the Holy Light and even those who believed in Gaia and such. There was an incredible number of altars and shrines in the city. However, if any of them tried to use religion as a g to oppress others, they would face severe punishment.


    While the rest of the Underground World coped with internal conflicts, wrestling over political power, the frequent war of faith between different churches, and the casual plundering of the weak by the strong, our Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s was exceptional in the fact that it was politically stable with suitablews put in ce. We had great efficiency in governance, peaceful and orderly. We attracted countless talents and merchants, making our city a prosperous one that eventually became known as the paradise of the Underground World.


    In reality, the city wasn¡¯t all that good. It was just that the other Underground Cities were too chaotic¡ªthe city looked much better inparison to its surroundings.


    Chaos had already be a symbol of the Underground Cities and the Underground World, which resulted in many resources and manpower to actively seek out our city, heightening its prosperity.


    On the surface, even the Holy Light Church was so taken aback by the peaceful city within thend of chaos that they sent Holy Knights and Priests to receive teachings from the city. Many Holy Knights were stumped by how diverse races could get along, and the majority of them chose to be stationed in the city for extended periods of time. During their time in the city, they studied the ¡®scripture gifted by the Holy Light¡¯ while they tried to spread the greatness of Holy Light and enlighten the ¡®evil Underground World residents¡¯.


    As a lich, the natural enemy of Holy Knights and Priests, my detest for them was great. At times, I would be tempted to peel off my mask and tell them that their ¡®scripture gifted by the Holy Light¡¯ was the creation of an evil lich to see if the faith of some people would crumble from that fact.


    Let¡¯se back to the present. This facade had be my best cover while under pursuit.


    No one would have expected the fair, impartial, and infallible Chief Justice Wumianzhe to actually be Lich Rnd, who often stirred up trouble and was known to ¡®have a loose screw in his head¡¯.


    When I took on the responsibility as the head of the Supreme Court, I insisted on putting on my mask. Due to the unreliable Evil Lich System, I was cursed to be unable to retain my dignity, and as a judge who would takew into his own hands, dignity and authority were crucial.


    After all, any legition without authority or fear was just another piece of scrap paper.


    At this moment, the dignity that I had umted throughout the years worked its wonders.


    Right now, despite only standing there silently, the members of the Town Security, under long years of being under my authority, were quivering down to their feet.


    I turned my head and looked towards the one leading the team, Diana Syfan.


    ¡°Lo¡ªlo¡ªLord!!¡±


    There was no doubt that from the trembling of her voice, she was definitely having a guilty conscience.


    I was the superior of their superior of their superior of their superior, and this does not only mean that my official rank was higher than theirs. They were members of the Town Security, and the Town Security was a subsidiary of the Subordinate Court, and the Subordinate Court was a subsidiary of the Supreme Court, while I, Wumianzhe, was the head of the Supreme Court.


    In the legition that I drafted, as a subsidiary of the Subordinate Court, the Town Order Security Army did not have the rights to authorize an arrest. They could only listen to the orders of their superiors. They had to request for an approval from the Subordinate Court to carry out an arrest, who would then send a report to the Supreme Court. This was especially so if they wanted to carry out arge-scale event along the lines of ¡®Swiftly and heavily, we shall severely punish thosemitting crimes¡¯ to enforcew


    As the head of the Supreme Court, I hadn¡¯t received a report for therge-scale arrest warrant.


    ¡°...Insubordination?¡±


    Of course it was an act of insubordination. I had just bombed the base of the Town Security yesterday but they had started with the operation today¡ªhow was it possible for them to request for an approval and receive the approval within such a short period of time? Even just considering submitting the request, they would have to first gather the documents required from the mess of their base and that was quite a big project!


    Diana¡¯s face turned white in an instant after hearing my muttering.


    ¡°No matter how righteous the rhetoric is, the enforcement ofw is a violent process. Thew enforcers are the tools for carrying out such violent acts for the court. If these tools were to grow their own mind and start acting as they please, then it might be time to get rid of these tools.¡±


    This was one of my well-known quotes and was on the first page of every Town Security member¡¯s work manual. It served as a warning.


    I reckoned that they were intending to carry out a sudden raid and fill up on the administrative matterster on. On other days, the Subordinate Court and Supreme Court would just turn a blind eye, but they hadn¡¯t anticipated my sudden appearance. They were caught red-handed in the act.


    Merely looking at them silently caused the dark-skinned dark elves¡¯ faces to turn ash-white¡ªit surely put them in a very good position topete with that of the undead.


    Insubordination? No matter the reason or the oue, for a group ofw enforcers to do as they pleased was a very dangerous act. Today, they could bemitting insubordination to beat up others, but tomorrow they could very well bemitting a coup d¡¯¨¦tat, trying to overthrow the current order.


    Following Sulfur Mountain City¡¯sws, those who tried to overstep their authority, even in the lightest of sentences, were to be exiled from Sulfur Mountain City.


    The dark elves hadnded themselves in a desperate situation. If the person they met with was one of the other members of the Supreme Court, they could still negotiate with them and settle it privately. However, the man in front of them was the man who had miraculously converted the intangiblews of justice into an actual power simr to Holy Light, the very symbol ofw. They had never heard of an asion where hepromised with those who tread on the boundaries of thew.


    Town Security Captain Diana¡¯s face was bitter, but it was time for her to stand out.


    ¡°After working so hard for a long time and going through many difficulties, the ¡®evil¡¯ dark elves finally managed to receive recognition from the citizens. Will it all go to vain like this? After leaving the city, will we have to go out there and live the days of blood and brutal killings... How can I face my sisters who believed in me like that?¡±


    The youngdy¡¯s red lips were bleeding from being bitten on, and her purple eyes were filled with tears. They thought back to the days where they fought just to survive, and they thought of how they were finally able to find a blissful home and lead good lives after being exiled from their n. The dark elves¡¯ beautiful faces were distorted with pain.


    ¡°Lord... It was all my individual decision! If you have to punish, please only punish me!¡± The strong Town Security Captain threw away her pride and knelt for forgiveness.


    ¡°Big Sis Diana!¡±


    ¡°It is not big sister¡¯s fault, we did it all for the order of Sulfur Mountain City!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, what rights do you have to punish us?!¡±


    Surrounding their captain, the other Town Security Knights were drunk in their emotions. Some of them started ring angrily at me, and the situation seemed to be on the verge of turning physical. Thus...


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Silence!!¡±


    Following the echo of my voice, a mysterious magic started to take effect. In the midst of air, a silver gavel struck down, and a reverberation spread through the entire plot ofnd.


    As the silver ripples undted outwards in all directions, not only did all sounds disappear, but even the intense indignant emotions vanished.


    In this mystical world, if the faith in the concept of Order and Holy Light could be transformed to be an origin of power, then how could the faith inw and justiceck the support of supernatural powers?


    It had to be said that while I was in court and the fourth Soul Imprint began to take shape, the one who was the most surprised was me. This meant that the code ofw that I had single-handedly created was recognized by the source of the world and had be a part of the powers of Order.


    Law was the power of words. The rules of the world were known asws, and as the one who controlled the rules and the code ofw, my words could be the rules of the world.


    And that was the Incantation of Law.


    It was a unique magical art thatbined the concepts ofw and magic. Although it was very different from the Art of Truth used by mages and themandment branch of Divine Arts used by priests, as long as one fulfilled the strict requirements for its usage its prowess was one to behold.


    At this moment, I was dealing with a case with this Town Security as the used and the narrow alley as my court.


    As I called for silence, all living beings must quiet down and listen to my truth.


    The dark elves¡¯ innate resistance against magic was useless in the face of my Incantation of Law. No one was able to hear their words or their body. Their hearts felt as though they were soaked in icy water as they felt a chill run down their back. They all quieted down in an instant.


    Only now did they recall that the man in front of them was not just the Chief Justice, but even more so a great mage whose limits had yet to be tested.


    The Incantation of Law he had created bybining bothw and magic together had be a unique rule-based magic; its fame had spread far and wide. It attracted even the great religious heads and saints from the surface to study. The Supreme Court had be a sacrednd where only powerful Gold rankers could learn the secrets of the Incantation of Law.


    He created three new jobs¡ªKnight of Justice, Judgementor and Law Incantationer. They were equivalent to the Holy Knights, Cardinals and Monks that the Holy Church was so proud of.


    ¡°How fearsome... My magic resistant skin has been totally ignored.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m unable to analyze the level of this magic. In fact, I can¡¯t even feel the pulsation of magic, but it¡¯s at least at the Saint rank (i.e magic used by a Saint).¡±


    In their eyes, defying orders meant starting a war against the entire Law Organization of Sulfur Mountain City. Even if they tried to escape, they might not be able to escape from the hands of the judges. What was in front of the dark elves seemed to be a dire situation where they might very well end up exiled.


    In the face of such dire circumstances, everyone¡¯s heads drooped as they waited for me to pass my verdict.


    ¡°My Lord! Please consider how I worked for Sulfur Mountain City for so many years! Please only punish me!¡± Diana knelt with a teary face.


    A respected female Knight Captain just knelt down; how could the other knights still continue to remain standing? Thus, the sight of a group of kneeling knights unfolded in front of my eyes.


    Aiyo! Looking at how deep their sisterhood was, I started to feel sentimental myself.


    In reality, the Town Security Captain Diana was also a LV81 Legend-rank Knight, and her abilities were definitely above mine. As for why she was unable to stand up against me? Other than her guilty conscience, it was the workings of my God-tier equipment.


    The enchantments of this silver robe were done by me during the most powerful phase of my life. Initially, I had used it mostly to scare other people, but after I became a judge, I mainly used it to pressurize the used. After realizing the Incantation of Law, the Elite-ranked magic robe turned into a piece of SemiGod equipment for no apparent reason.


    [SemiGod Equipment: The Dignity of Judicature (Bound)]


    [Defence: 10 Points (Even metal tes only have 5 Points of defense. For a cloth magic robe to reach this level of defense is already very incredible.]


    [Unique Ability 1, The Self-Judgement of the Sinner: Induces guilt within sinners, and as time passes sinners would fall deeper into a state of fear and helplessness. The greater the sin, the greater the effect of this ability. The innocents are exempted from this ability.]


    [Unique Ability 2, The Dispassionate Judge: The user equipped with the mask would have his charm fixed at 100. Resistance against seduction, detection, illusory and simr magic +20.]


    [Unique Ability 3 isn¡¯t activated as the user doesn¡¯t satisfy the basic requirements.]


    [Unique Ability 4 isn¡¯t activated as the user doesn¡¯t satisfy the basic requirements.]


    [God Equipment Curse, Weight of the Gavel: The user equipped must have a job rted to the legitive system and must carry out his job impartially. If he were to twist thews for personal reasons or speak falsely, thew robe will transform into an unquenchable fire, destroying the user¡¯s soul and physical body.]


    [¡°Please use the authority granted prudently. The choice made after the gavel strikes down doesn¡¯t merely decide the rise and fall of an individual, but represents the dignity of the legitive system and its impartiality.¡±¡ªChief Justice Wumianzhe]


    In the continent of Eich, SemiGod equipment and such were that troublesome. Its abilities were specific albeit strong but were often affixed with some kind of troublesome God Equipment Curse.


    The magical robe was exactly the case. Other ordinary robes could only boost the effects of spells cast. It, however, didn¡¯t boost one¡¯s intelligence, but in exchange, it came with several powerful special abilities.


    The first Unique Ability saved me quite a lot of hassle while on trial. Be it a serial killer or the head of a triad, as long as they retained a shred of conscience they would all be a bunch of chickens in front of me. As for the second Unique Ability, it allowed me to disregard all attempts at figuring out my true identity.


    As for the God Equipment Curse, being unable to defy thews set and being unable to lie wasn¡¯t too big of a deal to me. Firstly, I was single, and thus there was no reason for me to flout thews for personal reasons.


    Taking a step back, if I were to engage in a scam, it would be more than sufficient to y a word game to mislead others. Instead, using lies that could be exposed were actually less effective.


    ¡°I don¡¯t lie, but this doesn¡¯t mean that you are able to understand the true meaning of my words. Don¡¯t me me if you misunderstand my words.¡± The SemiGod Equipment Curse might not work on me but its power didn¡¯t take a cut.


    Right now, thew enforcers, who believed in the Holy Light, had overstepped their authority and were filled with guilt. Under the pressure of the SemiGod equipment, they felt as though invisible chains were restraining their bodies and pushing them down, causing them to be unable to straighten their bodies.


    I estimate that by simply standing there, the pressure the other party encountered wouldn¡¯t be inferior to that of a dragon, and this would continue to increase as we proceeded on with the judging. However, seeing the current circumstances, if I continued to pressure them so, I might end up seeing some girls wet their pants.


    Alright, this should be sufficient. If I were to go too far, they might just snap and do something desperate. Furthermore, I had no intention of driving them from the city.


    Thus, I turned around to leave, leaving just a few words behind.


    ¡°I just happened to pass by and didn¡¯t see anything. Tomorrow, remember to get your captain to file the report.¡±


    Hearing my words, I could hear tears of joy and thanks sounding from my back.


    ¡°Thank you, my lord!!¡±


    After I turned about the corner, the dark elves copsed onto the ground together, some of them hugging each other crying, celebrating the dangerous circumstances they had just ovee. I smiled under my mask.


    ¡°Lord Wumianzhe may seem frightening but he is actually a kind person.¡±


    ¡°That scared me! Momo almost suffocated to death. Sister Anna, let Momo rest on you a bit.¡±


    ¡°You wrench, don¡¯t touch as you please. You should go find Lilith Mn instead.¡±


    I left a little toy to listen in on their conversation¡ªcough¡ªI meant the naughty wind delivered their discussion to my ear.


    ¡°To listen seriously to theints of your subordinates is the responsibility of a superior. If I don¡¯t know who is talking bad about me, what if I mistreat the wrong person...? That girl is called Stacey, right? She really knows how to talk. Of course I¡¯m a good person.¡± My mood lifted significantly and I decided to lighten their punishment. However, in the next instant, I knew my mood would worsen.


    That was because just by the street, my loyal maid, Elisa, had been waiting for a long time.


    ¡°Master, what happened to you? To think you would actually let them off?¡±


    ¡°Thew is dead, but we are alive. A legition with no flexibility or humanity would only create grudges. Their actions and motives weren¡¯t wrong; it is just that the procedure they worked by is illegal. Exiling them would be going too far. See how the great me dealt with this perfectly, holding the executioner¡¯s de high up in the sky yet putting it down lightly. This is how a true superior official should act; learn a bit.¡±


    ¡°The truth?¡± Her lips curled in disdain. The maid with a vicious tongue, my number one loyal servant, once again chose to ignore my facade and glee.


    ¡°... It isn¡¯t fun ying them to death at one go. Haha! I really earned quite a bit today. Not only was my daily quest a huge sess, I also got a handle and a favor over the Town Security. Heh¡ªthosesses, see how I will deal with you all tomorrow! You all actually dared to steal the feed from the mouth of my Ah Bao!?¡±


    I would forever remember the dark elf named Diana, that evil bitch who had taken Ah Bao¡¯s bone from me.


    Tomorrow, when you go to the Supreme Court to file the report, I will let you understand what a superior¡¯s harassment meant. I will let you understand what non-violent aggression was like, what bloodshed in the office meant!


    Chasing you out of the city? As dark elf knights who believed in the Holy Light, you all are probably the only such ones in the entire Underground World. Wouldn¡¯t I lose a hard-toe-by toy and useful tool like that?


    Elisa sighed helplessly.


    ¡°As expected, I really shouldn¡¯t hold any expectations for your conscience. You really are evil to your bones.¡±


    ¡°No, I am a good person! One day, I will definitely convert those Evil Points to Justice Points, then work hard at doing good deeds. Then, I will finally be able to enjoy a good reputation!¡±


    From a certain viewpoint, my current situation could be said to be caused by that mess of a System... Having to do evil deeds to earn points, just how could I earn a good reputation doing evil deeds? I even had to wear a metal mask just to go to work...


    If only that was all. What I really couldn¡¯t tolerate was that...


    ¡°...That darn mask and robe, for it to be a SemiGod equipment set. Just by looking at me, those beautifuldies are either stunned with fear or shaking their legs and peeing their pants, causing me to still not have a girlfriend despite being advanced in age.¡±


    ¡°No, what is wrong isn¡¯t the mask or your dress up but your brain. An undead lich looking for a girlfriend? ...Hehe, I can¡¯t evenugh at such a joke. Right, I heard that while you were still a human, you retained your virginity... Reality may be harsh, but please don¡¯t escape from it.¡±


    ¡°Tsk! I don¡¯t want to scare you, but there¡¯s a female who says that she wants to marry me.¡±


    ¡°Aiyo! Which necrophile would have such heavy taste... No, I get it, it must be some naive loli, agreeing to marry someone after receiving a lollipop. Even though you aren¡¯t popr, but to go to the extent of lying to lolis just to satisfy your own pride, that really is too pitiful... Aiyaya, master, why does your face look so awful? Don¡¯t tell me Elisa has guessed it correctly again?¡±


    ¡°Elisa, you bastard! I... I want to be a good person! I also want to have a girlfriend!¡±


    Thus... This time, the citizens of Sulfur Mountain City had the honor of seeing the tears of the Head of their Supreme Court.


    Note:


    1. <i>Yong Ye </i>means ¡®Eternal Night.¡¯


    2. Little Red is the nickname for Red Dragon Ein Mezus.

 Chapter 6

    <h4>Chapter 6: Work</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Lord! We, the demirams, have been making a living rearing goats for generations after generations. That day, after expending much effort, we finally found a fertile grasnd. But just as we were loosening the restraints on our darlings, the demons came!!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right! She stole our darlings and even tried to take away our possessions. Look, she even said that she was aw enforcer [1]. Where on earth do you find such a thief-likew enforcer?¡±


    In front of me were a bunch of indignant demirams. These short and diminutive beastmen were well-known to be cunning and annoyingly talkative. Right now, tears were flowing down their cheeks and their faces screamed of indignation¡ªit was as though they had met with great injustice.


    ¡°My Lord, you must redress our grievances! Our entire fortune has been stolen by these demons.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right! My poor little Sia. He was barely 2 months old, not even past the age of breastfeeding. Yet, he was taken away from his mother by those demons. How can this be allowed!?¡±


    ¡°When the wind blows from the South, the snow floats along. Our goat is still so young, but that heartless wolf came to our house and...¡± [2]


    I had seen many pitiable people in court, but the sight of the demirams gathering in a group, crying andmenting together, wasn¡¯t something I got to see every day. As expected of the artistic demirams¡ªthey even started staging a musical about their grievances.


    Initially, I was still rather touched, but after watching it for half a day, I realized that their standards were so-so and their lines were repetitive. I lost my interest, yawned, and began to announce my verdict.


    ¡°Thew enforcers are not guilty of malpractice. The Camusi Demiram Tribe can retrieve their goats under custody after paying their fines. This is my final verdict. The intiffs [3] are not to file any appeals.¡±


    ¡°My Lord!!¡±


    ¡°This is unfair!!¡±


    On the defendant [4] stand, Town Security Vice Captain Yawen heaved a sigh of relief. The intiffs were still busy bemoaning to the heavens about the verdict, but I refused to budge from my stance.


    ¡°Court Police, take them out. Next.¡±


    ¡°Corrupted officials are rampant; our justice system isn¡¯t fair!! The foolish judge sides with the evil officials!!¡±


    Sigh, it always ended up like this. However, I felt slightly displeased at being called a foolish judge to the face.


    ¡°Intentional nder towards the judge! I sentence you to a fine of 10 gold coins. On a side note, the next time you release your cattle on the city¡¯s greenery, your cattle will be directly confiscated.¡±


    While they did have the rights to rear their cattle, they had used Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s own greenery for ranching. It was no longer a problem about personal freedom but more of damaging public property.


    Just within the past 6 months, we had spent a few hundreds of thousands on the damaged grasnds and gardens, and this was just calcting the cost of the resources and manpower required for the operation. On the other hand, what the demirams saved were only a few hundred gold coins of grass feed.


    This time, the demirams specialty of arguing right from wrong had worked against themselves. They actually tried to sue the Town Security for malpractice in enforcingws¡ªthey surely must take me for a fool.


    ¡°Right, the one who said that I was a foolish judge just now, go to themunity center and volunteer for 2 months of freebor. Anyone who adds in anymore crap will end up like him. Next time, go to the grass patches to buy grass feed or ranch outside of the city. If you were to continue ranching as you please, your entire tribe will be driven out of Sulfur Mountain City.¡±


    Towards the scheming butzy demirams, taking a nap while bringing the goats out for ranching was already an extremely tiring job for them.


    To make them work like the other races could be considered a harsh punishment, and for the greedy them to do free volunteer work for others was definitely a harsher punishment than the death penalty.


    The more you speak, the harsher you get punished. Instantly, the crying and singing stopped as they lined up orderly to leave the court.


    Thus, I nodded my head, satisfied.


    ¡°Next!¡±


    I looked at the case files for the next hearing, but as I stared at the smiling defendant, I couldn¡¯t help but frown. No wonder the other judges left this case to me. It wasn¡¯t an easy case to tackle at all.


    ¡°Defendant, Beifeng [5] Herault, Dracon [6] Hunter. used of kidnapping and inappropriate sexual actions.¡±


    The evidence on this fellow was sufficient, and the man himself had confessed to the act, but this case still left me with a splitting headache.


    His methods may be dirty, but Hunter Beifeng had justpleted the dream of hunters by seeding in capturing a druid as a pet. However, after he seeded, hemitted obscene acts with his ¡®pet¡¯ in public on numerous asions. What¡¯s more, sometimes the druid would transmogrify into a bear, sometimes a panther, sometimes a bird¡ªit was just that there wasn¡¯t a single time they did it in human form... Furthermore, the druid was male, and Beifeng was a male as well...


    ¡°Too dirty! Too disgusting! This severely affects the social values and culture of the entire Sulfur Mountain City. I strongly request subjecting this homosexual with a fetish for beasts to the death penalty under the reason of ¡®correcting the social values of Sulfur Mountain City.¡¯¡± The goblin prosecutor [7] on the intiff seat spoke passionately. This case had been brought up from the ground level to the Supreme Judge, and now was the critical period to push it through.


    ¡°We must heed notice to the identity of the dracon defendant. In their eyes, ¡®being partners with beasts¡¯ is a tradition and a natural thing to do. Citizens of Sulfur Mountain City have long prided themselves on being epting towards the culture and traditions of other tribes. The basic principle of our codex states that we can only punish those who have tread on thews and in our codex, is the act of engaging in sexual activities with wild beasts prohibited? Since it isn¡¯t prohibited, then it isn¡¯t a crime. Thus, he cannot be passed off as guilty and even more so, he cannot be punished!¡±


    Reading out his interpretations towards the codex, the Elf Defense Attorney Krose [8] managed to gain the upper hand, despite his looks of despise and disdain towards his defendant.


    In the eyes of the elves who respected nature, Hunter Beifeng¡¯s behavior should have warranted his death a few thousand times, but in the court, he could notpromise his professionalism as awyer for his personal gains.


    Just as Krose mentioned, due to theck of aw dictating that his actions were a crime, the prosecutors were not even able to name out the exact name of his crime, much less determine the punishment he should be receiving.


    ¡°Which codex ofw would ouw such a disgusting crime like beastiality!! If this bastard turns out to be innocent, then how can we continue to uphold the dignity and fairness of thew!¡±


    Hearing that, the goblin prosecutor was filled with fury. Even though he wore a silver mask that covered his facial expressions, from his furious tone of voice and the veins popping from the mask, he seemed to be on the verge of exploding.


    But this was to be expected. For this case, he spent great efforts and went to court twice. Now that they were in front of the Supreme Judge, he was even more determined than ever to not let that pervert escape the ws of justice.


    I looked at the lizard face of the pervert and he looked back at me. His face was calm, not a single hint of insecurity or restraint a defendant would normally have.


    Furthermore, my SemiGod court robe was still in its activated mode. To exhibit such calmness under the pressure of a God-tier equipment, it could only show that he really believed that he was innocent and his heart was free of guilt. Thus, the equipment was rendered ineffective.


    ¡°Different culture? No, the other dracons do not share the same hobby as him. He probably has knowledge on thew or has been informed of it, making him aware of the fact that we aren¡¯t able to judge him guilty. Hoho, as expected, there are always interesting crimes in a foreign world.¡±


    ¡°Hoho! So can I go back now? My pet is still waiting to be fed.¡±


    As I startedughing, that dracon startedughing along with me.


    That seemingly calm expression andughter was a kind of challenge to me, and it caught my interest.


    ¡°Bam!¡±


    The gavel struck down and I made my judgement.


    ¡°Judged innocent; the defendant is to be released.¡±


    The codex did not state that such an act was illegal, and since thews that I wrote had a loophole in them, I admitted defeat this round.


    Hearing this, that Beifeng Herault let out an honestughter, but his smile was full of glee.


    ¡°Of course, Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s judicial system [9] is the fairest in the world.¡±


    But...


    ¡°Prosecutor Lowe, don¡¯t be mad. You should have known earlier that since it is not deemed as a crime in the codex, I cannot judge him guilty.¡±


    Lowe knew this, and it was because he was aware of this that he was so furious. To allow a sinner to escape the reaches of justice was as good as an insult to the Supreme Court and the judicial system itself.


    ¡°But, my lord...¡±


    ¡°Have you finished preparing for thew drafting meeting at the Hall of Legition next week?¡±


    ¡°Hmm?! Oh, I understand!!¡±


    Due to my sudden seemingly unrted question, Lowe was stunned briefly before realization struck him, and a hint of a smile creeped across his face.


    As the Supreme Court, we were not only an organization that dealt with judging criminals. Among the 4 Subordinate Halls, the Hall of Legition was responsible for drafting up newws. The Supreme Court, other than conducting the final inspection, had the authority to create newws and define their legal understanding.


    ¡°Yup, since our friend Herault here has helped us to find a loophole in our legition [10], then let¡¯s fill it up. Krose, when the neww has passed through, send a few inclothes to talk frequently with our friend to send him here soon. After all, we have to give our thanks to him.¡±


    These words didn¡¯t seem to have been missed by Beifeng Herault. In this instant, his face steeled, as though imagining the moment he got caught and sent in here again.


    As for deciding never to do such a disgusting act in the future? From the very start, for him who viewed ¡®treading along animals¡¯ as the greatest joy in life, it was never an option.


    Hearing this, even Defendant Attorney Krose¡¯s face was filled with joy and relief.


    ¡°Yes, my lord. I will go handle it immediately. ¡®Treading along animals¡¯ is such an unnatural and disgusting action; he should be punished! Doing it public, his punishment must be doubled!¡±


    ¡°Right, remember to add in a section against the abuse of animals. Such actions should warrant the removal of the owner¡¯s rights to own pets. This should be sufficient to serve as an insurance to block all the means of that guy tomit such actions.¡±


    As an honorary member of Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Pet Lover Club, how can I allow such a person to continue oppressing those cute little animals? Let¡¯s directly remove his rights as a pet owner.


    Finally, Beifeng Herault started crying. If he were to want to continue staying in Sulfur Mountain City, then his hobby of ¡®treading with animals¡¯ would have to be halted from now on.


    Thus, under my scheming, the dignity of thew was preserved.


    What if that fellow decided to turn over a new leaf? Let¡¯s first not talk about how I personally thought how difficult it would be to change his fetishes, but if he really seeded in changing, it would be a matter for celebration.


    ¡°Next!¡± Even though these cases were troublesome and boring, weren¡¯t all jobs the same?


    Boring and tasteless, but sometimes, it felt significant and meaningful.


    Note:


    1. ¡®Law enforcers¡¯ refers to the people who go out and catch criminals (i.e The Police, Town Security).


    2. Lyrics from ????????


    3. The intiff is the one who brings a case against another in a court ofw.


    4. The defendant is the one being sued (the one which charges are being pressed against, i.e the demirams and Beifeng).


    5. ¡®Beifeng¡¯ literally means Sorrowful Wind. Dracon is his race and Hunter is his job.


    6. Decapitalizing dracon, here. <- Note to all our previous readers.


    7. Prosecutor is thewyer who institutes the legal proceeding against someone (helping the one suing, i.e the goblin prosecutingwyer).


    8. Defense attorney is thewyer on the side of the defendant (i.e Krose)


    9. Judiciary is the branch in charge of the interpretation and application of thew (i.e the courts).


    10. Legition refers to the act of drafting upws.

 Chapter 7

    <h4>Chapter 7: Strolling With My Dog</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Voke, half-elf half-beastman, Bronze-ranked assassin. The lives lost under his hands are countless, and his favorite hobby is hunting down children. He was captured by an operation carried out by the dark elves of Sulfur Mountain City, and was sentenced to imprisonment for 376 years, never to be let out his entire life. Tsk-tsk.¡±


    While reading the information, I tsked in fascination at the half-elf assassin in the cage. Half-beastmen were a rarely seen breed. For the other half to be their mortal enemy, the elves, it made his breed even rarer.


    ¡°Lich? Wait, don¡¯t kill me! Don¡¯t use me for your experiments, too! You must have a lot of enemies; I can help you get rid of them!¡±


    After realizing that he was sent to the lich, Volk was initially stunned because even the weakest of the liches was at least a Legend. Then, he soon felt at ease as liches belonged to the Chaos Faction, simr to him. At the very least, they were easier to deal with than those full-of-justice dumb-headed Holy Knights. Those hypocrites of the Order Faction never understood the wonders of making deals andpromising.


    But, at this moment, I stared at him, smirking. I didn¡¯t bring him over from Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s prison to get an underling.


    I ced a withered bony finger on the forehead of the half-elf. Even though he was an unforgivable serial killer who hadmitted great atrocities, the warmth of the living still brought onefort.


    It was only that the other party¡¯s face didn¡¯t look very good. Perhaps he had heard of the legends of liches ying with people¡¯s souls and corpses. Under the icy touch of the white bones, his face whitened drastically.


    ¡°...Really interesting. I thought that you were just a serial killer. To actually be a hidden blood flesh ritual-doer, a worshipper of the filthy demons. You used the life of young children and made deals with the devils from hell for strength and an extended lifespan.¡±


    As expected, when I said those words, the dirty memories hidden in his subconscious started to float out, and following it was the memory he feared the most.


    ¡°Tell me, interesting fellow. Tell me what you are afraid of the most.¡±


    The human brain was extremely interesting. The more you tried not to think about something, the more your subconscious would think about the matter.


    The 4-circle Memory Reading spell wasn¡¯t a veryplicated spell, but it wasn¡¯t a very useful ability, either. True secrets were always hidden in the depths of the mind, and the Memory Reading spell could only see what was on the surface.


    I, however, had my special way of doing things.


    By asking ¡°what secrets are you hiding,¡± the person in question would tend to subconsciously think about what he had to hide, and in that instant, all his secrets would float to the surface, allowing my Memory Reading spell to ess them.


    ¡°...The thing you fear the most is your true identity getting exposed? I see. Then, what is your true identity?¡±


    ¡°Chrome City¡¯s spy? Wow, that is really interesting.¡± After a series of questions, his hidden motives became clear.


    My luck wasn¡¯t bad today. Initially, I had only wanted to change 2 of my prisoners to increase my Evil Points, but after a bit of questioning, I actually found out that he was a spy sent by other cities.


    Underground City Chrometaxo was probably the closest city to Sulfur Mountain City. But,pared to the prosperous Sulfur Mountain, its poption is significantly smaller.


    The city was mainly dominated by the beastmen and gray dwarves. The City Lord was a dumb beastman who believed in the God of Tyrants Ban. The city¡¯s mining industry was quite advanced, but their other industries weren¡¯t looking that good.


    This spy was recruited while he was in Chrome City. His mission was the most basic of all¡ª collecting information. But, this was sufficient to prove that Chrome City was up to something.


    ¡°Elisa?¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡± The elusive headmaid appeared behind my back the next second.


    ¡°Interrogate him seriously. Find out all of his secrets and send Margaret a copy of the report. Tell her that if she doesn¡¯t intend to bother with it, I will dump this task on Adam.¡±


    In my mind, catching a spy = a dark hidden secret = an ambition of a certain influential figure = a series of troubles... which was equivalent to unpaid volunteer work!


    Since there were no benefits to be derived from working on it, I didn¡¯t want to interfere in such a bothersome matter. Since I managed to stumble upon it, let me just dump it on someone who might be interested. The Head of Internal Affairs, the Great Saint Margaret, would follow the clues and unravel the fabric of truth.


    As for the criminal? Before he was even sent to me, he was already deemed to be guilty of unpardonable crimes. Now that he was here, he didn¡¯t have to dream about leaving.


    ¡°Bam!¡±


    Following two thunderous rumblings, my entire dwelling trembled slightly. Dust was shaken off the ceiling, floating in the stale air of the underground prison.


    The prisoners coughed violently in response, and even my bones were cloaked in a thickyer of ash. Elisa was well-prepared beforehand, and used a handkerchief to cover her mouth


    ¡°Looks like Ah Bao can¡¯t wait any longer.¡±


    This earthquake was created by my beloved Ah Bao. As it is way past the time for his usual walk and his master had yet to appear, he decided to jump about as a way to ask me to hurry up.


    Thus, I irresponsibly dumped all of the work on Elisa. It was the end of work time and themencement of Ah Bao¡¯s strolling time.


    Or rather, should I say that now is the time when I get pulled about by my gigantic two-headed hellhound...


    Just like other dumb dogs, right after leaving home, Ah Bao seemed to have forgotten the presence of his owner. He started dashing around everywhere joyfully. As the one holding the leash, my entire skeletal rack doesn¡¯t weigh more than 15kg and my strength is a measly 5. Naturally, I ended up flying in the sky, pulled around by a 10-ton humongous beast.


    Of course, after suffering several times under such circumstances and at a time like this, I would cast a floating spell on myself, tie the leash to the strongest bone on my skeleton, and act as a qualified kite...


    Furthermore, this kind of strolling method had reaped me some unexpected benefits...


    ¡°The skull g has risen; that big dog ising! Everyone, keep your stores!¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯s the Town Security? Call the Town Security!!¡±


    ¡°Everyone, buck up! Let¡¯s build a defense line to protect our meat stores to ourst breath. Today, don¡¯t dream about snatching away my fresh rib bones!¡±


    Alright, the me who was being dragged around in the air became the rm for Ah Bao¡¯s presence. To prevent themselves from getting injured by the raging dumb dog, all the booth owners within 2 streets started packing up their stores to get out of Ah Bao¡¯s way.


    ¡°Go to the city¡¯s East Undead area! That area shouldn¡¯t be under the jurisdiction of the Town Security!¡±


    Hearing their words, I immediately issued an order to Ah Bao and use all my strength to tug on the rope to get him to turn around.


    On previous asions when I brought Ah Bao out for a stroll, the most we caused was only chaos in the flow of traffic. We never hurt any people in the past. (skeleton soldiers aren¡¯t considered to be people!)


    Normally, the Town Security would have more important cases to deal with and after they were done with their current tasks, I would have been heading back home already. Yet now, as the final survivor of the Gentlemen Alliance, without the other members of our alliance creating trouble for them, I definitely would not underestimate the speed of their deployment and their determination to get rid of us.


    ¡°Woof!¡±


    Under my directions, Ah Bao kicked away the tauren blocking the road and sat on the roadblock with his gigantic bottom, destroying it in the process. Then, he sprinted all the way to the city East, leaving dust in his wake.


    ¡°Hold it!!¡±


    ¡°Momomands you to stay still! It was all because of you that Momo wet herself in front of Lord Wumianzhe yesterday!¡±


    Fine, it looks like I still underestimated the other party¡¯s determination to take me down. To think the Town Security would actually prepare an ambush.


    But... ¡°Jump, Ah Bao!¡±


    The gigantic hellhound leaped into the air and flew past the obstacles in front of us.


    The Town Security behind us stopped in their tracks, frustrated.


    A 6-meter tall skeleton giant held the gold-ted city gates as a shield in front of them, blocking their path.


    The empty sockets where his eyeball should have been didn¡¯t show a hint of emotion, yet no one dared to bypass him.


    We were already in the City East, the Undead District, and this plot ofnd wasn¡¯t under the jurisdiction of the Town Security. If they wanted to carry out an arrest here, they would have to write a report and go about the proper procedures. But, by the time they were done with it, the lich would have been long gone from their sights.


    I finally reached my destination for today. I sent Ah Bao away to look for food... cough, to y.


    Afterwards, I greeted every single undead in front of me.


    ¡°Hi, long time no see, do you all miss me? Musclehead, your rotten flesh has be much smellier now. Smallbones, your skull is really shiny; which brand of oil are you using? Uncle Aca, your bones are getting rusty. Ah, why don¡¯t you try the new lubricant I just created? It is made of natural ingredients, it¡¯s environmentally friendly and has no side effects...¡±


    But the undead, who were just pouncing around in front me, stood in daze after catching sight of me, and then...


    ¡°Run!! That lunatic is here again!! He scared the hell out of me!¡±


    ...It was such an upsetting sight to see everyone scatter in all directions.


    The skeleton giant, carrying its own axe, jumped across the roof, while the Duhans charged away with their heads in their arms. Even the pitiful skeleton warriors tried to slip away.


    The sight in front of me was really depressing...


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªis that how you wee your nsmen? I only used you all to experiment necromancy, do daily chores for me, and test out the might of my sacred sword...¡±


    The more I said, the less confidence my words had. A familiar voice sounded out from my back.


    ¡°Your Majesty, you have already spoken of the reasons yourself so I shall not dwell on that any further. This time, is the reason for your visit that it is time for us to fight?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m a pacifist. Fighting and such stuff are things I hate the most. However, the time I promised is indeed about toe. So, is our army prepared and ready to go?¡±


    ¡°Of course, Your Majesty. Your army, no matter is it 376 years ago, 250 years ago, or 130 years ago¡ªwhen have we let you down?! The remaining 24602 of the fallen Red Hunting Hounds have been sharpening their edges and grinding their teeth, awaiting the day for their deployment. We already can¡¯t wait for the moment we return to the battlefield.¡± [1] <sup>1</sup>


    The fallen soldiers¡¯ voices were filled with fighting spirit. My general, as expected, was still as reliable as he was in the past.


    ¡°Today, are you here to view the soldiers¡¯ training or to overlook the experimentation of the new gue? Our alchemists have invented a new weapon. While possessing great destructive power...¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯ve already said that I¡¯m a pacifist. Fighting and killing are meaningless to me. Today I¡¯m here to view the preparation of that matter.¡±


    ¡°You are saying that dumb¡ªno¡ªyou¡¯re talking about <i>that </i>important matter? The preparations areplete and it¡¯s ready to be activated anytime.¡±


    I nodded, satisfied. Turning my head around, I noticed that there wasn¡¯t a single person in sight.


    ¡°Woof! Woof! Below! Woof! Woof! Below, Your Majesty! You are doing it on purpose, aren¡¯t you? Is teasing me fun? I am one of your strongest generals, you know!?¡±


    Lowering my head, as expected, was my cute Little Bas. He was currently chasing his own tail and turning in circles by instinct.


    He was Ah Bao¡¯s elder brother, one of my most trusted generals in the past. Now, he was a cute skeleton puppy.


    ¡°I am not Little Bas! I am Bastian, the Demonic Spatial Hellhound Bastian!!¡±


    ¡°Yes, Ah Bas.¡±


    ¡°Bastian!! I am your general, you know! The vicemander of your army who knows no defeat!¡±


    ¡°Alright, Little Bas, you don¡¯t have to emphasize it that much. I have always thought that you were great¡ªyup¡ªand most important of all, you are very cute! Of course, pets are human¡¯s best friend while little rascals are their worst enemies.¡±


    Hearing my increasingly unreliable deration and how the tone of my voice felt like I was coaxing a naughty little kid, Little Bas¡¯s tail and eyebrows slumped down as he crouched on the floor, covering his face. He knew that when his master got into his crazy state, nothing he said would matter anymore.


    A skeleton dog with a face of despair¡ªI had finally managed to witness it today.


    ¡°Fine, I won¡¯t tease you anymore. Little Bas, are the preparations all ready?¡±


    ¡°Anything that goes along with you. Although I¡¯ve always thought that it was a terrible idea, and you have always been known for being unreliable, I will just take this as a y to humor you...¡±


    ¡°Cough!¡± A soft cough interrupted itsints.


    ¡°Then, I, Lich Rnd, hereby dere the opening of the new facility of Sulfur Mountain City Undead Tourism! The Undead Royale Theme Park is now up and functioning!!¡±


    Yes, fighting and killing was meaningless. Nowadays, what was important was the economy; a livelihood for our citizens! Our Undead District must also venture into new industries, which, in this case, was an Undead Theme Park.


    Duhan Polo Competition, the Piecing-Together-A-Skeleton game, the Ghost Festival Dance Frenzy Competition and the Skeleton Dragon Sightseeing Tour around the entire Sulfur Mountain City. I had already prepared a series of popr activities for the theme park.


    As for the thing spinning around behind me, it was the theme park¡¯s greatest selling point¡ªa gigantic Ferris Wheel created by piling up countless skeletons. Its height was a hulking 300m, and when it spun around, the eerie wind that followed it was simr to a dancing ck Dragon. Its overall size was reminiscent of the gigantic titans such that it could be seen even outside the city.


    Previously, it took me much effort to convince the living that it wasn¡¯t some kind of scary war weapon or some sinister plot... But, this was all worth it!


    This Ferris Wheel was a living advertisement for the theme park. Soon, countless customers would be visiting the theme park, and riches woulde flowing in.


    At this moment, my skeleton retainers were dressed up as clowns and were ying music at the entrance as I patiently awaited the arrival of customers.


    Unexpectedly, after half an hour, not a single tourist came forward. I turned to Ah Bas who was lying on my head.


    ¡°All the adverts were given out, right?¡±


    ¡°Given out long ago.¡±


    ¡°We already paid the goblins the advertisement fee, right?¡±


    ¡°Paid.¡±


    ¡°The safety assurance by the Supreme Court is written in the advert, right?¡±


    ¡°Of course, to think that you would be able to receive permission and a guarantee by the Supreme Court. Without this, I doubt anyone would dare toe.¡±


    ¡°Is my advertisement slogan not good enough?¡±


    ¡°No, it was extremely interesting and eye-catching. ¡®View your own future and greet your future neighbors. Dance with the ghosts from the mirage and enjoy a unique experience. Free entry for the first 3 days and the first 100 customers will be entitled to a mysterious gift! Safety guaranteed! Great fun and joy guaranteed!¡¯¡±


    ¡°Then why is no oneing!!¡±?


    I stared at this dumb dog, but it simply smiled.


    ¡°Hoho! Master, have you forgotten that this is the Undead District, the forbidden zone for the living? What do you think, in the eyes of the living, we undead stand for?¡±


    Hearing that, I was stunned for a moment. ¡°What are the undead you speak of?¡±


    Note:


    1. Fallen -> He uses a phrase that means the remaining soldiers on the losing side of the war.

 Chapter 8

    <h4>Chapter 8: The Undead yground</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    What are the Undead? I¡¯m afraid, in the eyes of most of the living, the first thought would be endless death.


    In truth, there¡¯s nothing wrong with that kind of saying. In the battlefield between the Order Gods and Malevolent Chaos Gods, the Demon Lords created a spell that rises the dead. From that day onward, the Undead Cmity became the nightmare of the living.


    But in truth, this cannot be med solely on the Undead themselves.


    In this great continent, there are 2 reasons for the rise of the dead. The first is when someone dies with great injustice, regret or dreams and they are unwilling to disappear just like that. Then, there is an extremely small chance for them toe to life again.


    This kind of natural-born Undead have an extremely low probability of urring but they are often very powerful. After all, to defy the calling of death requires extraordinary willpower and resentment. It is said that the God of Death Ayer is the oldest natural-born Undead.


    Undead who are born from such great resentment would tend to be twisted. However, relying solely on their will to defy death to linger in the mortal world, they are often able to retain their self-awareness.


    Of course, among them, the strongest and noblest are the incarnation of the will of heroes after dying. They will be epted by the Order Gods and granted a new immortal spiritual body along with a beautiful name ¨C Heroic Spirits.


    Other than the natural-born Undead, the other type of Undead would be the frequently seen Undead Cmity, the ones who were enved by the evil Necromancers to create even more deaths.


    The magic for the summoning of the dead originated from the Demons. To date, there are many different kinds of variations and developments of the spell.


    At the very start, there were only corpses with low mobility. Afterwards, there are the swift Skeleton Warriors, Abominations made of flesh and blood stitched together, Skeleton Mages who are capable of wielding dark magic, ck Knights who are skilled in martial arts and finally, the strongest necromancer ¡ª Lich.


    Following the development of Necromancy, the number of Undead tribes in present times are innumerable and those who are individually stronger than Liches don¡¯t just number a few. But, Liches, natural-born masters of Necromancy, are still the core of the entire tribe for no other reasons. Only the cunning Liches hold the key to the evolution of the Undead and what they specialize in is the research and creation of new Undead and Necromancy magic.


    99.9% of the existing Undead are that kind of man-made Undead and only upon reaching silver-rank can they start to develop self-awareness. Even the strongest Undead heroes, upon waking up through Necromancy, are only monsters who recognizes no kin. Their thirst for blood and souls would make them attack the ones they love and once they savor the taste of killing and delicious souls, it is hard for them to turn back anymore.


    The bloodthirsty Undead Cmity, such a saying isn¡¯t wrong at all.


    The Demons of the Chaos faction have a temperament to destroy themselves. They managed to coax the ancient Mountainous ns to fall to depravity. But then, they created their own mortal enemy, the Devils. They invented Necromancy, but then, they created a new race who were hostile towards them.


    TL: Both Demons and Devils are of the Chaos Faction. The Mountainous n (originally the Order Faction) fell to depravity and became the Devils (of the Chaos Faction), and despite being of the same Faction, they are mortal enemies.


    The Undead who regained their freedom had no hesitation in revolting against their own creators and even built their own nation. The current Necropolis Broly and the Country of Undead Xiluo have be the vanguards against Demons.


    In the country consisting of the dead, Xiluo Empire, the authority is centered around the Council of the Night, which is made up of Liches, while the living only serve as lowly ves. Furthermore, there was an Undead Cmity hundred years ago, the Yongye Catastrophe, which almost resulted the end of the world, causing the undead to be viewed in repulse by the Order faction.


    Heroic Spirits, natural-born Undead, the intangible race, the high-rank Undead with self-awareness and the instinctively bloodthirsty low-rank Undead. Normal citizens don¡¯t have the knowledge and ability to differentiate between them. Thus, in their eyes, the Undead District in the east is just a gathering of scary demons.


    ¡°That is to say, no matter what we say or do, it is all useless?¡±


    ¡°Of course, the living have their own world of the living and the dead have their own world of the dead. Your Majesty, you might be able to ignore this kind of boundary, but to get normal citizens cross it, it would be a difficult task.¡±


    Ah Bas, who is lying on my head, says so. Although he is only a dog, at this moment, he seems like a philosopher who has seen past life and death.


    Not that far away, Ah Bao is currently hugging a pile of bones and he licks them, satisfied.


    Looking even further away is a sight of demons prancing around. But, in my eyes, it is a scene of a daily life that can¡¯t be more normal.


    The Undead don¡¯t need sustenance but this doesn¡¯t mean that the high-rank Undead with self-awareness don¡¯t have any desires. Right here, in the biggest market of the East District, rows and rows of shops are currently in business.


    ¡°How much does this preservative cost? Add another insecticide in too, the ones without sulfur. My skin is sensitive to it.¡± This is a big sister Skeleton Mage, she¡¯s currently troubled by the increasing bug poption in her empty skull.


    ¡°ck bandage, cursed bandage, I guarantee you that your magic would be as stable as your intestines. Is there any mummy or zombie uncles that are interested? It is the newest model from The Ring of Mystical Magic, you can even choose between the mushroom picture and the bear picture.¡±


    TL: The Ring of Mystical Magic (????)-> Name of somepany


    ¡°All kinds of fresh blood for sale. Humans, Elves and Dwarves, we have kinds of races stocked up here. Virgin(female), virgin(male), homosexual, we have different kinds of gender as well. If you purchase 2000CC at once, you can even enjoy a long-term home delivery service.¡±


    The little girl who is wearing a red cap running around looks extremely cute, but the goods she is selling was equally scary.


    ¡°Skulls for sale, golden jade, bronze, stone, dragon bones, whatever you need, we have it. Does anyone want to change their brain? Uncle Lich, do you want to change your brain? We even have a ck ISO quality guarantee, we assure you that your magic would flow smoothly and that the material is tough and durable, no fake goods in the mix. There is a trial period for 3 days and you can refund it without any reasons.¡±


    After waving my hand to chase away the annoying red-hat Blood Tribe girl, I focus my attention on the distant and see the Skeleton Giant Klon, who is in charge of guarding the gates, waving to me. ¡°Phew, those Town Security personnel are gone, I can finally go back now.¡±


    The Undead District is unique in the entire Sulfur Mountain City. It is aparatively independent district, where the Town Security has no authority to enforce thew.


    I guess I had underestimated their will to capture me, to think they would actually block the gates. Looks like they were on a long-term ambush n, waiting for me to walk into it so that they catch me to calm their anger.


    Caught off guard, their ambush almost seeded but fortunately, Klon was there to block their advances.


    To assault an Undead at the boundary of the Undead District, this kind of actions could easily lead to a conflict. But as a good person, I proactively came up with a suggestion to solve the dispute.


    ¡°I heard that the Supreme Judge isn¡¯t very satisfied with the Town Security army? No no, of course this isn¡¯t a threat, I won¡¯t send aint to the Hall of Enforcement, nor will I stand in front of the Supreme Court with banners and shout out my grievances. No, I am a good person, this definitely isn¡¯t a threat. I just want you all to do an experiment for me. If you all do so, I would even be willing to leave with you all.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, it isn¡¯t the first time I am bumping heads with you. Rest assured, this experiment isn¡¯t some kind of evil magic. You should know, the main project of the year, the tourism-based Undead Theme Park is opening for service today and I am the contractor. But look, there isn¡¯t a person in sight here to join in the fun. So, I am only inviting you all to be the first batch of customers and if you all had fun, you could help me advertise a bit as well.¡±


    I rub my hands together, fawning on them.


    ¡°Of course, it is free, entirely free! As the first batch of customers, there is even aplimentary mystery gift!!¡±


    ¡°Breaking my promise? I am a believer ofw and the God of Fairness, you are insulting my faith! There isn¡¯t such a god? Well, there will be one in the future. Have faith in me, I will do what I promised you all. As long as you all help me finish the tests on all of the entertainment programs, I will immediately leave with you all.¡±


    Thus, they agreed to my request...


    Then, they regretted...


    ¡°Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Smelly bones! Let Momo down!! Momo¡¯s entire body is aching!! Momo is dying.¡±


    ...In front of me is a certain female knight who is dangling by a rope.


    Then, silence, because... the rope snapped...


    ¡°...Ah Bas, next time write a sign on the bungee jumping station that one must strip their armor before bungee jumping.¡±


    Looking at the big hole in front of me, I expressed my condolences.


    ¡°Ahhhhhhhhhhh! I knew that you pile of bones wouldn¡¯t be up to any good!! Let me down!!¡±


    Whooshing past me while shouting is vice-captain Yawen which I met just not too long before. At this moment, her tanned face hardens, as though as she would puke anytime now. Apparently, she isn¡¯t suited to the high-speed turns of the roller coaster.


    ¡°Let me down, you devils! ept the judgement of the Holy Light!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t, don¡¯t!! Don¡¯t summon the Holy Light on the roller coaster! ...Forget it, looks like I was slow. Ah Bas, remember to write a sign saying ¡®Don¡¯t summon the Holy Light on any one of the yground¡¯s facility.¡±


    My warning waste. No matter what, the materials for building are still the products of Necromancy and if it were to meet its fated enemy, Holy Light...


    The sight of the car dissipating when the roller coaster is on a slope hundred meters high and dashing down with high-speed, I finally had the honor to see it today...


    ¡°Wow, she flew really far...¡±


    I swear that I didn¡¯t do it on purpose...


    ¡°Owehh! You bastard!¡±


    The beautiful Elfdies sitting in a circle puking without any care of their image, this sight...


    ¡°Ah Bas, lower the Hell Turning Cup¡¯s speed by 300%.¡±


    Looks like I forgot that the living would get giddy when turning too fast. Yup, yup, it is best to lower the turning speed.


    ¡°My brain!!! I can¡¯t see anything, you are going down today!!¡±


    ¡°The Universe Flying Saucer should just stick with a 180-degree turn, we should forget about doing a 360 degree.¡±


    Looks like, I forgot that when a living¡¯s head is hanging outside down for too long a time, they would experience temporary loss of vision and even death if hanged even longer.


    ¡°Too high, I¡¯m scared, even the heavens and earths are shaking! Let me down, I¡¯m begging you.¡±


    ¡°The Ferris Wheel only need to slowly move up and down, the carriage don¡¯t have to spin.¡±


    ¡°Retreat, you evil beings!! Holy Light, I face so much evil spirits in front of me, is this the end?¡±


    ¡°I guess we shouldn¡¯t use real spirits in the haunted house? But that wouldn¡¯t be scary enough. But if we use real spirits, then what if those warriors really go all out against them. Hey, I should just close it for now.¡±


    ¡°Stop, I¡¯m begging you! My head is spinning... no! Ah!¡±


    ¡°Pah!¡± The resounding resonance of someone crashing into the wall makes one¡¯s head hurt just by listening.


    ¡°The Spirit Horses can pass through walls, but the living...¡±


    ¡°Luckily I did a test with them! It is wonderful that no life is lost. Even the Holy Knights known for their great endurance are suffering so much, if it were the normal poption...¡±


    Looking at the tragedy in front of me, hearing their sharp shrieks and yell of agony, I can¡¯t help but feel fear. I tried to bring the idea of an amusement park from another world but it seems like it doesn¡¯t go well with this world. If it weren¡¯t for these ¡®kind people¡¯ helping me to experiment them, it would probably cause a disaster.


    To thank them, I decided to fulfill my own promise and follow them back to the Town Security base after the test but...


    ¡°Today you have all worked hard. There are still another 120 segments to go. After finishing the testing, let¡¯s all go report to the Town Security army together, I definitely won¡¯t run away.¡±


    ¡°You... You better remember this. You might have won today but one of these days, I will take you into custody!¡±


    But they all ran away...


    ¡°Don¡¯t forget yourplimentary mystery gift. It is a free year ticket for the Undead Theme Park. Remember toe by the next time!¡±

 Chapter 9

    <h4>Chapter 9: The Demon King</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    On the muddy sand field, a lonesome figure is running about.


    Despite it being a running track made of cinders, the figure runs barefooted on it, enduring the pain of objects digging into the flesh while carrying a heavy armor weighing beyond a hundred kilograms on the back. This is no longer a type of training but a kind of punishment.


    Water has been sprinkled on the cinder road. The ashes may no longer rise up from the running about, but instead, it turns into a mud filled with ill-will. The smooth foot from before is now full of wounds.


    Every few hundred meters of running, the slim figure would fall down once. Even when the body is full of wounds and mud, the youngdy will struggle up and head forward once again, then...


    Fall down once again...


    Fresh blood was flowing from both her feet, forming a bright red line on the cinder path.


    To the youngdy, the physical pain she was suffering was nothing. What that truly hurts was the piercing re from


    All the passerby couldn¡¯t bear such a sight but no one walked forward to stop her.


    This is because it is Sulfur City¡¯s Supreme Court. In the eyes of the poption, it is the most sacred and impartial location. If someone is being punished here, they must havemitted a crime deserving of it.


    On the running track, two judges dressed in a court robe and silver-mask were discussing softly.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that Diana, the Captain of Town Security? Why is she runningps here with her legs bare and even carrying that heavy armor? It is like she is being punished.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t Lord Wumianzhe pass an order for the running track to be watered? Looks like it was prepared for her.¡±


    ¡°What did she do?¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t the Town Security army overstep their authority a few days ago? They started a round-up exercise without proper authorization and Lord Wumianzhe seems to have caught on to it.¡±


    ¡°Acting without authorization? Isn¡¯t that an extremely heavy crime? Even at the least, it would warrant exile... Oh, I get it!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, to sentence them all to exile seems too heavy, but going without punishment is impossible. Thus, when they came to submit the report these few days, Lord Wumianzhe refused to see her. Today, he was willing to meet her though, but he only casually said that he wanted to see the Town Security army doing freestyle running with heavy load, and thisdy consciously went to carry it out.¡±


    ¡°...Going by standard procedure, if we leave it to the court to judge, they conducted violent acts without authorization, that warrants an exile at the minimum but this is obviously over the top. But if they go without punishment, then there would be someone who would follow in their footsteps and it would be hard to find a reason to punish them then.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, the best way of handling it is probably like that. First, give them the cold shoulders for a few days to let them know how grave the matter is. Then, make them ¡®consciously¡¯ get punished to warn the others. Thew is dead, but we humans are alive. This way, not only did he manage to protect the dignity of the judiciary, he also manages to deal out a suitable punishment to those who did wrong. The bnce struck between the two is worth studying. Lord Wumianzhe is really impressive.¡±


    TL: Thew is dead, but we humans are alive -> Means thew is inflexible, but as humans, we should be flexible.


    ¡°...I think we better get back to work. I feel like Lord Wumianzhe is currently at the top of the tower looking towards here. If we leave an impression that we aren¡¯t serious in our work, then we might get in trouble.¡±


    The two of them leave hurriedly. It is already the time for work to start and as judges, they have their own cases to work on.


    Dark Elves have very sensitive ears and the discussion between the two judges didn¡¯t escape Diana¡¯s ears. Thus, grinding her teeth, she stands up once again and shakily carried the hundred-kilogram armor to continue on with her punishment.


    Not too far away at the top of a tower where Wumianzhe¡¯s office is, the heartless Supreme Judge is carrying some binocrs to look at the running track. It is different from what the judges¡¯ guessed, he wasn¡¯t overlooking the punishment but looking at scenery with the mindset of appreciating the view.


    ¡°As expected, the wet shirt showcases the entire figure of the beautifuldy. The mud, in contrast, made the exercising copper body to look more well-proportioned. Next time, I will ignore the opposition of those fellows! I will make mud wrestling of beautifuldies a program of the Sports Day!!¡±


    Putting down the binocrs, I seriously thought about the possibility of this being approved in the council.


    What, punishment? Dignity of the judiciary? Are these toys important?


    ¡°Those stubborn old fools in the council may not approve of it, but I will!!¡± (Adam)


    Appreciating the sight along with me is a middle-aged man who is smiling obscenely. He is blessed with good looks but he radiates a kind of tiredness from his soul.


    Red light armor, fiery vermilion great sword, crimson hair reminiscent of the burning mes, his entire figure is like an inferno burning wildly. Despite being in the peaceful city, he was equipped in his battle armor as usual and the broken silver sword on his waist may be the only other color on his body.


    ¡°The Phoenix of the East¡±, ¡°The Deathless Man¡±, he has a bunch of nicknames along those lines but the one most people are familiar with is his identity as the Red Lotus Sword Saint Hero.


    130 years ago, he brought his team of adventurers to assault Lord Yongye¡¯s undead army and managed to decapitate the Undead Emperor Lord Yongye, causing the entire undead army to fall apart. It is as though the ssic fairy tale where the hero kills the demon king and saves the world.


    After that, he refused the gifts and recruitment from other countries and inconceivably, came to the abandoned underground world and built this unique city.


    As the unique name of Sulfur Mountain City once again spreads to the surface, the reputation of this hero soars once again.


    ¡°The Living Epic¡±, ¡°The Perfect Hero¡±, this is how the humans on the surface call their hero now.


    But at this current moment, facing the wet top and seemingly visible sexy curves, on that honest square face is a face of lewdness that all men know.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we just conduct a mud marathon and call the Town Security Dark Elves and the bunch of Priestesses in the church to join. The only attire allowed is underwear. Haha, we would make a fortune just by selling the entrance tickets.¡± (Rnd)


    The Red Lotus Sword Saint Adam.Han is my direct superior, Sulfur Mountain¡¯s City Lord. His greatest pleasure nowadays is creating trouble for his subordinates and the Public Council. My suggestion will definitely cause those old geezers to jump in rage, so there is no reason why he wouldn¡¯t like it.


    Don¡¯t just look at how improper he seems. In my system, this fellow is actually a LV262 SemiGod-rank existence. If ced on the surface, he would at the very least rival the king of a country.


    ¡°Hey, you old virgin, you have gotten stronger.¡± (Rnd)


    When I saw himst week, he was only LV260. At such a level, even progressing a single step is difficult. But he actually gained two levels in a week, this is really unbelievable.


    ¡°Yeah, old virgin, your eyes are still as sharp as ever. For a thing like the Fire Phoenix, the older he is, the stronger he gets. The me in my current state, my heart of the Phoenix is currently burning at its limits. I should be able to beat the you at your peak period now.¡± (Adam)


    ¡°Hehe, even if you are invincible now, aren¡¯t you still an old chuuni virgin.¡± (Rnd)


    ¡°Yeah, just like the bones you are, an old virgin.¡± (Adam)


    The two old fellows who have been single for a few hundred years now, after doing their daily routine of pouring salt on each other¡¯s wounds, both sighed together.


    ¡°When will my single lifee to an end, I really want to get a girlfriend...¡±


    ¡°I am already numb to my lefty and righty. If it weren¡¯t for you messing up the situation, I would have already got a woman by now and maybe, even a son or grandson.¡±


    ¡°Are you showing off? Do you think having a meat body is worth showing off? My lefty and righty are only bones now!¡±


    ¡°Showing off? Show off your head. Your rumors, saying that I am destined to a lonely star, caused all the beautifuldies in the city to avoid me! Justst week, I ¡®identally¡¯ bumped into a hot chick and it should be a wonderful encounter. But, she ran to the Holy Light Church to dispel the curse. To think of it as being a curse... Do you know what I was feeling then!¡±


    ¡°Of course, I know, that is why I told that desert beauty that you were born under a lonely star!¡±


    ¡°I knew it! Why would an outsider know about these rumors otherwise, it was indeed you, bastard!!¡±


    Alright, after that exchange, the Perfect Human Hero Adam and Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s most dignified Supreme Judge Wumianzhe starts fighting together like kids.


    But as usual, this meaningless fight came to an end very quickly.


    This SemiGod warrior might be able to beat this trash whose fighting prowess is not even a 5, but I don¡¯t even feel pain so why would I be afraid of him. Different variety of virgin sarcasme rising up from my mouth.


    ¡°Serves you right for being single your whole life.¡±


    ¡°Legend has it that being a virgin for 30 years make you a great wizard, you are already reaching 200 soon. It can¡¯t be that you are already a great archsage. Come, let me see you shoot a fireball.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t I use magic to transform your lefty and righty into cute girls? I assure you they will be extremely cute. Oh oh oh, you wavered, you are actually wavering! Don¡¯t be foolish, if magic can aplish such a thing, why would I still be single now?¡±


    Of course, while I was hurting him with my words, my heart was also bleeding.


    ¡°I am already 376 years old, but still single... I want to be resurrected!!¡±


    Until we remembered that there were still matters to be dealt with today, it was already evening. As expected, just like how a certain philosopher said, hurting each other would only leave a vacuum in its wake.


    ¡°Hey, you didn¡¯t call me here today just to fight, did you?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, Margaret called me toe here for an official task, what is it? Let me think!¡±


    ¡°Indeed, you are going senile already.¡±


    ¡°Stop being so noisy! I got it on the tip of my tongue! Oh oh, right, there are two matters today. No, actually it is only one.¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    ¡°I am about to die, you know that right.¡±


    Despite talking about his own death, that blockhead was saying it lightly as though like he was talking about where to go to y tomorrow.


    ¡°Of course, in a minimum of a year and a maximum of 3 years, you are going to die.¡±


    Of course, I would know. In the system notice of his personal data, there is a red box beside his name (Lifespaning to an end), his death isn¡¯t too far away.


    ¡°157 years, I have already lived long enough and there aren¡¯t any regrets as well.¡±


    Really? No regrets? I guess he isn¡¯t wrong too. On the continent of Eich, a normal human¡¯s lifespan is about 60 ¨C 80 years and this fellow managed tost to near 200 solely on his frightening fighting prowess, so he could be considered to have a long lifespan.


    ¡°Actually, there is no difficulty in expanding your life span.¡¯


    Of course, there isn¡¯t any difficulty to it. With his powerful fighting prowess, as long as he was willing to believe in Gods and get an identity as a worshipper, he could achieve longevity. Otherwise, if he doesn¡¯t want to work for other people, he could convert to some race with long lifespan, such as Angels, Demons, Undead and such. For him, it wasn¡¯t a particrly difficult task.


    But Adam simplyughs,ughs lightly,ughs as though there is no regrets left. Despite being young, he acts just like a senior who have seen through the world.


    ¡°No, 150 years for a human with a short lifespan is way too long, I have already lived enough. A useless vige youngster has alreadypleted his dream as a hero and those he is acquainted with are already mostly dead. There is nothing left that I want to do, so it is about time to rest. Also, having an elderly hogging on to the top position looks ugly too, it is about time for neers to take the top spot.


    ¡°... You still miss Lisa.¡± His words couldn¡¯t fool me.


    Lisa.Grant, Adam¡¯s previouspanion and his crush. However, hundred years ago, she died in a battle against Lord Yongye.


    With this fellow¡¯s abilities, if he really wants to get a girlfriend, there is no reason why he wouldn¡¯t be able to find it. Furthermore, for his two attempts at marriage, if he was determined to persevere to the very end, with his fighting ability, there is no reason why he would simply watch as we crashed his wedding.


    ¡°Hey, you really are a love saint. But, this is too selfish.¡± (Rnd)


    ¡°Yes, I am really selfish.¡± He actually lowers his head and admits to it. ¡°I am apologetic to Margaret. As an immortal, she is still young, she should choose a better partner.¡± (Adam)


    The Great Saint Margaret has a crush on Adam, but Adam can¡¯t let go of his dead ex-girlfriend. This has already be an open secret among Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s top brass.


    As for the two attempts at marriage, he is probably intending to convince Margaret to give him up. Of course, the fact that Margaret unhesitatingly contacted me to deliver Adam her wedding present shows that she was unwilling to give up.


    Things like rumors can spread around easily, and at the same time, it can be stopped easily. The reason why it became a secret which everyone knows of is probably because the city lord Adam simply watched upon its development.


    ¡°What a foolish triangle rtionship. Alright, as an outsider, I won¡¯t pry into your affairs but since you already decided to die, then the other matter, I roughly know what you are going to talk about.¡±


    ¡°Of course, since the jailer is about to die, then as the prisoner, it is about time we wrap up your sentence and prepare for your release. Congrattions to you, Lord Yongye, how do you feel about regaining your freedom?¡±


    Yes, this Sulfur Mountain City is actually a prison. Hero Adam, Great Saint Margaret and the Ancient Red Dragon Little Red, these three heads are the jailers.


    And I, previously known as Undead Emperor Lord Yongye, am the only prisoner of this jail!


    ¡°Then, Hero Adam, are you certain you want to let me out to destroy the world?¡±


    ¡°Anything that pleases you. A world without Lisa, if you want to destroy it, go ahead.¡±

 Chapter 10

    <h4>Chapter 10: The Whisper Of The Demons</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Lord Yongye? Truth to be told, the name came from a joke-like deration.


    TL: Yongye means eternal night


    ¡°The Holy Light is inextinguishable just like the sun, its radiance will forever shine upon the masses? Since I have already been abandoned by the Holy Light, then let me drown the world in an eternal night.


    Betrayed by the Holy Church I was loyal to and losing my family and my kingdom, I cursed the Holy Light that I believed in. I promised to bring about a new order to the continent and sweep the corrupted kings into the annals of history.


    ¡°Since you all decided to do turn your backs on our alliances for the benefit your kingdoms, betraying my kingdom and my citizens, then in return, I shall destroy your kingdoms.¡±


    Fine, I know I sound very chuuni, but don¡¯t everyone have a dark history that they hope to erase?


    A chuuni is scary, but a chuuni Transcender who have the backing of a golden system is even more scary.


    The Evil Lich System grants me point based on how significant my actions are in causing a divergence in cause and effect of the world. ying pranks don¡¯t have much of an effect on the world, thus the rewards are limited. But, if I decided to bring about death and destruction, I would be granted endless points and these points would allow me to grow stronger to create more cmities.


    What else can bring more death and destruction than a battle for the world?


    Fine, a war. A war that destroys everything.


    Just like how the epics on the surface records, the nameless Undead Lord summons his unyielding army of undead. The ck wings of the Blood Tribe cover the rays of the sun on the horizon and eternal night descends upon the world.


    In the endless night, the undead dances on the battlefield and the frenzied ck Knights start apetition on hunting human heads. When a tinge of white starts appearing on the horizon, the sea of skeletons has already arrived on the shore and the long night of blood fest has arrived.


    On the battlefield, following the creeping of death, my strength and army expands like a rolling snowball and eventually, I became the only SemiGod Undead Emperor in recent times.


    Undead Emperor ¡ª Lord Yongye, became the nightmare of the living.


    Under the Undead Cmity, four great empires with a millennium of history behind them ended and 3munal countries and 6 kingdoms were swept into the pile of rubbish in history.


    No one was able toprehend how Lord Yongye got stronger throughout the battles, how he gained sufficient magic power to control his great 10 million army and how he gained sufficient strength tomand his 10 Undead Lords.


    Finally, the sea of unless undead swallowed everything. After Lord Yongye¡¯s army destroyed the alliance army organized by the Holy Church, everyone thought that the age of the living wasing to an end and the age of the undead was about to arrive.


    Then, a sudden news spread across the entire world, causing a frenzy of joy among everyone.


    Lord Yongye was assassinated, the Undead Army has copsed!


    ¡®The Red Lotus Hero¡¯ Adam.Han became famous overnight.


    The entire Eich continent sung praises of this name, the elderly raised their cups to pray that this heroic name remained permanently etched in history while the middle-aged sung praises of his heroic epic. The young and the children saw him as their future goal and idol.


    A calction after the incident, if it wasn¡¯t from the hero who seemed to have walked out from a fairy tale, Adam.Han, and his crew ying Lord Yongye, the entire continent¡¯s poption would very well be 30% of what it is.


    At this very moment, the legendary hero seemed like a kid who was fooled, his face full of anger.


    ¡°Hey, I am already dying so you should just tell the truth. That incident, did you go easy on us? Why was the defense team so empty? Why were the royal guards Red Hunting Hounds thousands of miles away? Why was there not a single Lord-level Undead around you? Why did you who have attained the powers of SemiGod lose to a bunch of Legend like us?¡±


    TL: Undead Lords are Myth-rank, just 1 rank below SemiGod.


    I hesitate from a moment then, decides against saying the truth.


    ¡°Well, don¡¯t you know reviving after death would cause one to lose a portion of their memories? I have already forgotten those stuff.¡±


    In reality, after destroying a few of the kingdoms who turned their back on us and incidentally, destroy the main church of Holy Light who betrayed my mothend, the West Mist Communal Country, my anger has subsided quite a deal. At least, I was more rational.


    Slightly envisioning what was going to happen, if the Yongye army continues to push forward, what would be left is only endless death and destruction.


    At that moment, it was already hard for me to halt the movement...


    As my subordinate Undead Lords were enthusiastically talking about building a country and how to convert the entire Eich continent into a haven for the undead, the Yongye army whichprises a few hundred Undead Lords wasn¡¯t something I could stop alone.


    Thus... As the leader of the alliance, I naturally had to pass away. On top of that, I left a will saying that only those who found the emblem of my kingdom, Eternal Night Scepter of Authority, can be the symbol of the next Undead Emperor.


    ¡°God weapon, Eternal Night Scepter of Authority, the symbol of the King of the Undead. This is said to be a personal possession that Yongye keeps safely with him. It is said that the great secrets of the Emperor are concealed within but to date, the scepter has yet to appear on the stage of history.¡± Illustrations of God Equipment by Tower of Ten Thousand Magic, that¡¯s how they introduced the Eternal Night Scepter of Authority.


    Of course, as I died too hurriedly, I didn¡¯t manage to voice out what exactly is the Eternal Night Scepter of Authority and thus, the Undead Lord started suspecting each other for possessing it... Who said that undead don¡¯t have desires? Strength and authority are worshiped by all intelligent beings.


    Well, I won¡¯t borate too much about what happens after. An outburst of internal conflicts led to the end of the Undead Cmity and the current Country of Undead, Xiluo Empire, over half of its 12 greatest Undead Lords are old acquaintances of the alliance army.


    ¡°Hehe, there is even a legend that says that whoever who obtains the Eternal Night Scepter of Authority will be the next Undead Emperor. But what a pity, the legend is destined to be a lie because... Eternal Night Scepter of Authority doesn¡¯t exist!¡±


    Yes, even the title, Lord Yongye, originates from a joke, so how is it possible for there to be such a bizarre God Equipment in the world, everyone was fooled by me.


    After seeding in my revenge, I had no more goals. After changing another body, I would be a reborn man.


    Initially, I intended to start all over after reviving, umte my strength and wait for the supposed ¡°game events¡± to unfold while awaiting the return of my dumb younger brother.


    However, the only thing that was unnned was that the Saint Margaret managed to see through my ploy. She knew that it was hard for a Lich to be totally killed and thus, she sealed by horcrux, restraining me.


    Sulfur Mountain City was originally a plot of barrennd that they decided to live in but after a few refugees came, this became the start of the city we knew.


    In the underground world where danger lurks, the protection of the strong is more important than anything else. At the least, they wouldn¡¯t end up the prey of ve merchants or the food of wild beasts.


    As expected, Adam that fellow was warm-hearted in helping others while Margaret willing did anything Adam was agreeable to. As for Little Red, she was happy upon finding a new toy, which was me, and decided to help out as well.


    Eventually, more and more refugees came seeking protecting and slowly, Sulfur Mountain Vige took shape and after hundreds of years, the small vige before has evolved into the renowned city of paradise.


    Thus, the 3 bored and idle fellows became known as the three heads of the city. Adam became the lucky charm City Lord, Margaret was forced to govern the Internal Affairs while Little Red still continues her sleep, asionally waking up to cause everyone some trouble.


    After watching enough of them fumbling around, the equally idle me, using my knowledge from both worlds, created a set of governing andw system which sustained until present date.


    Watching the Lich in front of him who was ying with his finger bones, Adam gave a deep sigh.


    Following the mainstream view of Eich continent, the Holy Light and Law that belongs under the Order and the Death and Destruction that belongs under the Chaos should be like oil and water. The moment one was born of a certain race, his faction was already decided.


    ¡°When we heard that you wanted to be the Supreme Judge and take charge of thew and order, we all thought you were joking. I didn¡¯t expect that you would really seed. For Sulfur City¡¯s famous judicial system that is praised as the masterpiece of the Order faction to be created by a Lich who was the embodiment of chaos and death, even if we advertise this, I doubt anyone would believe it.¡±


    The Lich in front of Adam¡¯s eyes was even more iprehensible.


    If we say that he was a good person, he single-handedly created countless tragedies as the evil incarnation of chaos, the undying Lich. If we say that he was a bad person, then in this hundred years of living together, he surprisingly didn¡¯t do any astonishing evil deeds and instead, he was the one upholding justice and striking down on the evil.


    For the Blood Tribe and the Elves who are blessed with longevity, they tend to live with a slow tempo while giant Dragons and Undead are even more known to have no concept of time. Normal races with short lifespan cherish their short time and busy themselves and after reaching the 50 mark, their spiritual tiredness and pain makes them sluggish and idle.


    Humans are social creature, leaving the group would only make one an entric loner.


    Someone once did a calction, no matter how kind and upright a mage was before turning into a Lich, after hundreds of years of leaving themunity, in the eyes of outsiders, the corruption by ck magic would make one turn entric and evil.


    Even an undying warrior like Adam has finally reached a day where he felt sick of living but the Lich in front of his eyes, unlike his other brethren who were solemn, he lives energetically and creates new trouble every day.


    ¡°Weirdo... Truthfully, I really admire you at times.¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    ¡°...Incantation of Law and Law Incantationer, your Codex of Origin could provide the strong an opportunity to job advance as a Justice Knight, Law Incantationer or Judgementor. This means that the Origin of Order have approved of your energy of Law. As the creator of an energy of Order that is equal to the Holy Light, you should have had a glimpse of beyond the boundary.¡±


    Hearing that, I was stunned. I seem to have underestimated the man in front of me. As expected of someone who climbed his way step by step to be a SemiGod warrior. He seemed to also have felt the boundary, the one that belongs to the realm of gods.


    My eyes swim to the side as nonsense floated to the tip of my tongue but seeing how Adam¡¯s lifespan was reaching its end, after hesitating for a slight moment, I decided to tell him the truth in ount of our rtionship for countless years.


    ¡°Hoho, death grants me endless power and the Undead are borncking something, causing Undead to never be able to step foot into that realm. After reviving once again, I can probably reach that realm.¡±


    ¡°Is that worth it? Death takes away your body, power... and also your memory. How much of your past will you remember? Will you still remember the days we went adventuring?¡±


    ¡°Evelyn, Karwenz, Father...¡± Numerous faces floated across my mind but these face which were etched onto my brain was mostly iplete...


    However, I won¡¯t regret it. At the least, I have already avenged them. As for memory or whatsoever, it is sufficient as long as we live in the present. If we keep remembering the past, we will only grow weak. It is pointless.


    ¡°Of course it is worth it, my ambitions are like the sea of stars. My Codex of Justice will one day overtake theme power of Holy Light.¡±


    ¡°Hah, I am really envious of your liveliness. Then, I would be at ease leaving Sulfur Mountain City to you.¡±


    An overdose of shock took me few minutes before I reattached my fallen lower jaw bone.


    ¡°Stop joking! Where can you find a prisoner bing their own jailer! Don¡¯t dream about being an irresponsible jailer!¡±

 Chapter 11

    <h4>Chapter 11: Finally, The Main Storyline is Being Recalled</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    What is my rtionship with this unlucky man in front of me?


    I¡¯m afraid that it is difficult to exin it properly.


    There was a period of time in the past when we were adventuringpanions. After that, for a longer period of time, our rtionship was one of a hero and a demon king. Then, for the longest period of time, it was one between a prisoner and a jailer.


    Now that the jailer says that he is tired, old and reluctant to work, he decides to hand the prison over to the prisoner?


    ¡°What kind of joke is this? Handing over the entire city to a Lich like me? I am the demon king who almost destroyed the world, stop joking!¡±


    Adamughs bitterly.


    ¡°I also don¡¯t think that it is a good n. Then, who else do you think I should pass it on to?¡±


    That¡¯s true, who can he pass it on to? Little Red, as a red dragon, is true to the unique traits of her race. Eat -> Sleep -> Wake up -> y -> Tired -> Sleep... If she were to be the city lord, I¡¯m afraid she would have sold it away for gold coins by the next day.


    What about thest of the three heads, the Saint Margaret? She is smart and knowledgeable and thus, she should be the forefront candidate.


    ¡°Margaret is no doubt the forefront candidate but she said she was quitting.¡±


    Of course she would quit. She spent over a hundred years of her youth here and now, not mentioning how that blockhead still remains oblivious, he even intends to die for love after such a long time and shove his responsibility onto others. Margaret is already showing a lot of restraint by noting here to fix him personally.


    Looking at the man who have a look of unhappiness on his face, my anger bursts. How did such a gooddy like Margaret fall in love with this idiot?


    ¡°Damn it, if only I had a great girl like Margaret in love with me...¡±


    ¡°Hehe.¡± Adamughs gleefully, augh which makes one want to punch him hard in his face.


    ¡°Bastard, you have already hit me.¡±


    Alright, actions speak louder than words. Since I am already thinking of it, why should I hesitate. Let me give this old handsome two ck eye circles.


    Afterwards, the two of got into a messy fight but 10 secondster, due to the disadvantages of my job, I was suppressed by his physical strength. As he sits on my spine and starts to pull my thigh bone back, I can only p the ground and surrender, frustrated.


    ¡°Stop folding it! My bone is about to break, about to break! It broke! You bastard, if only I was still a Holy Knight...¡±


    ¡°Okay, now speak, are you taking over or not!¡±


    ¡°Not taking over! It was tough for me waiting for my sentence to end to be released and I still have matters to deal with. Giving me the position of a jailer to keep this prisoner tied up here? What kind of joke is this!¡±


    ¡°Prison huh? Until now, you still view this city that we built with our blood and sweat as your prison? Can you bear to watch it lose its guardians and be the satellite city of some other underground city lords?¡±


    ¡°Definitely...¡± I was intending to say ¡®definitely a prison, who cares about it¡¯ or something like that but while saying it, I hesitated.


    Do I really think of the city that took me hundreds of years to build with my own hands as a prison that binds and restrains me? I have to say, of my long lifespan, the days in Sulfur Mountain City are one of my happiest.


    Diverse races cohabiting, norge-scale war for many decades and the citizens are satisfied with their current life. This unique city is most probably different from any other city on the continent of Eich. This is the city that we built brick by brick.


    ¡°I concede. To let those greedy pigs take ownership of the pearls that we painstakingly created is indeed vexing. Then, what do you want me to do? Don¡¯t tell me that you want me to be the City Lord. You know that I have things to do so I don¡¯t time the effort to do it, just give your bottom line.¡±


    He knows me, and I know him as well. He knows that I cannot ept bing the City Lord. Most probably, the lines that he is spouting out now are prepared by Margaret. By taking a step back, he is actually advancing through by making some things seem more eptable to me.


    ¡°Hehe, your reactions are exactly the same as Margaret mentioned. Since we are all unable to take over as the City Lord then, let¡¯s hand it over to the next generation, shall we?¡±


    ¡°Next generation? We are all single so what is the next generation you speak of? You mean...¡±


    ¡°Yes, Ann, my disciple, your rumored girlfriend, red-haired Ann. She¡¯s back.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Ann, orphan, age... probably about seventeen eighteen.


    Don¡¯t look at me like this, she is an orphan that Adam adopted. Thest time I met her was around seven to eight years ago and Liches aren¡¯t really sensitive to the passing of time. The fact that I can roughly remember her age after so many years puts me in much better position than the others.


    As for the thing about being my rumored girlfriend, it is only a joke. Back then, when she was still a young, the two of us brothers wereining about how we don¡¯t have girlfriends and kept hurting each other. She said that she pities me and promised to marry me when she grows older. Thus, Lich Rnd and his necrophilia girlfriend became amonly usedughingstock.


    ¡°Stop joking, pass it on to Ann? Are you sure that there will be anything left of Sulfur Mountain City the second day?¡±


    What kind of person is Ann? Using just one word to describe, rascal!! The world¡¯s most rascal-ly rascal king!


    When we first met, I was using rubbing some maintenance oil on my bones. It was a high quality good, snake-cow oil with a special salt added in it. Just as I was happy over my shining skull...


    ¡°Hah, shoot!¡±


    A shout from a child-like voice and the scenery in front of me retreats rapidly. The view in front of me rotates continuously and only that day did I know even Liches can die of giddiness if their head spins too fast.


    That day, my brain flew out a few miles and a headless skeleton scared countless passer-by to death. Finally, I found my brain in a rubbish bin...


    Even though I no longer had the ability to smell, but that afternoon, I was disgusted by those trash and smelly bugs.


    Only then did I know that the aged 6 Ann was currently in a craze over the sport we 2 ¡®invented¡¯, Ser. Her favorite hobby then was to follow her instincts, which was to give a loud shout and kick anything that is round, regardless whether it is a rubbish, a kitten or puppy on the street.


    Well, a Lich¡¯s skull is also round, and the reflection from the shiny head is simr to a white ball...


    I am not a petty person, so I won¡¯t squabble over everything with kids but it seems that she fell in love with the sensation of kicking everything with a huge force.


    ¡°Those leather balls are made for girls to kick, they burst as soon as I use a bit more strength. But Uncle Bone¡¯s skull gives a feeling that is full of magic and is much more interesting than those other useless balls, kicking it feels extraordinary satisfactory.¡±


    After that day, I only feel great resentment towards the innocent smiles of rascals.


    What is most incredible about it is that, ignoring how her attacks arepletely unpredictable, there is actually no malice behind them. The defensive spells I cast on myself mostly activates in response to malice... Thus, the days before I rewrote my defensive spells were really memorable.


    It turns into a disaster every time I meet her.


    In those days, I often only hear her signature greeting ¡°Hi! Uncle Bones.¡± before the vision before me retreats back swiftly, the heavens and earths rotates 360 degrees around me before urately entering a hole...


    My hatred for little rascals also began from that.


    After that, when rock¡¯n¡¯roll and rapping were in trend, the rascals heard from some unknown sources that using bones infused with magic makes the best magic drumstick and has the effect of sending the crowds into overdrive...


    As for the highest-grade bone-rted magic ingredient, other than the bone dragon, what else canpete with the ultimate undead creature ¡ª Lich.


    Fine, her band ¡®Skull Rock¡¯ eventually managed to stun the entire city but if it wasn¡¯t for that instruments couldn¡¯t be considered a member and that the music my rib bone yed was praised as being outstanding, how could I be happy over this incident.


    When she read from her storybook about an ice castle and frozen mountains, she actually thought about creating an art exhibition with bones as the main topic.


    ¡°We don¡¯t have snow here, only sulfur... But arge dosage of sulfur is poisonous. However, we are also well known as the City of Undead so let¡¯s use undead as art materials! My artistic cells are burning with passion!¡±


    When thisss left the city and went to bring catastrophe to the outside world, the entire country went into a state of wild joy. The happiest ones are probably the undead of the East District who were the victims of arge number of her pranks.


    Duhan Polo Competition, the King of Skull Dancers Competition, the Siren¡¯s ¡°I Am A Singer¡±, she totally doesn¡¯t have any fears that a normal person should have and the entire East District turned into an undead theme park.


    TL: ¡°I am a singer¡± is a super popr show in China.


    The current undead theme aimed at tourism originated from this idea and the ¡®using undead tourism as a selling point, prop up Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s economy¡¯ n has already been realized.


    ¡°Don¡¯t say it like that, thatss Annie may be yful but isn¡¯t it due to her yfulness that closes the distance between the undead and the rest of the poption. Don¡¯t you feel that being the lord of this city does not require one to be exceptionally powerful but rather, the ability to view all of the citizens equally? In this aspect, Annie is superior to all other candidates.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, Margaret must have asked you to say that.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, this is also my true thoughts. If her poprity wasn¡¯t that great, everyone wouldn¡¯t have bothered ying along with her.¡±


    ¡°...As the new head, it is not sufficient to have a positive external image and be popr among the citizens. There must be arms working in the shadow as well. So, what both Margaret and you want me to do is to give her a hand?¡±


    ¡°It is sufficient to just set her on the right path, it won¡¯t take too long. If you feel that she would be unable to do a good job then, you can totally rece her, since there probably isn¡¯t a person that can stop you here.¡±


    Adamughs gleefully. ¡°Furthermore, little Annie is your fianc¨¦e. Helping her should be one of your duties.¡±


    I didn¡¯t reply to his words. Initially, I intended to reject him but a sudden change in the situation disrupted all of my ns.


    In this instant, a golden interface appears in front of me.


    ¡°Ding! Congrattions for triggering an Epic mission, The Revival of the Phoenix.¡±


    ¡°Quest objective: Investigate and resolve the dangers that Sulfur Mountain City would encounter. Groom Annie.Layde to be a capable leader-like figure before Adam¡¯s demise.¡±


    ¡°Quest rewards: Epic-ss discount voucher (Using this, you can purchase any Epic-level and below merchandise from the System¡¯s merchant at half price), the right to start quests of the main storyline.¡±


    ¡°At least... before leaving your hometown, pass it down to someone reliable. After all, you wouldn¡¯t hope to see only rubble when youe back.¡± (System)


    ¡°Quest failure penalty: Would turning you into skull with a mushroom growing on it be good? Or would a skull growing from a mushroom be better? Both of them aren¡¯t good? Then let¡¯s make it a mushroom skull growing from a skeleton.¡±


    In the past, I triggered quite a few of the system¡¯s darned sudden quests but they were often about getting rid of a number of beings and awards some unreliable glory titles. It was the first time it was giving something proper.


    But in this instant, I was attracted by its rewards, ¡°the right to start quests of the main storyline¡±. In that instant, I understood that it was time for the events of that game walkthrough to begin. The so-called main storyline probably refers to what the game yers experience in the history, the unwithstandable Seven Catastrophe of Hell.


    This was all within expectations and what really makes one¡¯s heart move is the other reward.


    ¡°Discount voucher? If I can purchase my body at half price, doesn¡¯t that mean that I can bring forward my revival?¡±


    But following immediately, another mission pops out.


    ¡°Ding! Congrattions on triggering an Epic mission, The Return of the Lich King Again (Why did I say again)¡±


    ¡°Quest objective: Who cares whether it is some evil god or a sinister plot, bow down before the Lich King. Absolute violence may not be able to resolve everything but at least, it can resolve the protesters. At the shortest time possible, be the City Lord, rebuild the Yongye army and let the living once again taste the fear of an Undead Cmity.¡±


    ¡°It is time to make thezy bones of the East District start moving. If they were to continue frolicking about, it might really turn into an undead theme park. They are about to forget the honor as the East Wolves of the Night.¡±


    ¡°Quest rewards: The right to start the storyline for The Feudal System and The War for the Continent, and a perfect SemiGod Lich body.¡±


    ¡°Quest failure penalty: To say the truth, for a cunning fox like you whose ability to bring cmities is unparalleled, I can¡¯t think of a reason why you would fail the mission.¡±

 Chapter 12

    <h4>Chapter 12: 4 Halls 1 Court</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    All along, the options in the system¡¯s quest page were in a gray and inactive state, thus I inferred that it would only be activated when the events in the game walkthrough begins.


    I have been waiting for the main storyline to start for a long time but I didn¡¯t expect it to offer me two choices at this point.


    But after giving it some thought, it was something to be expected.


    In this world named Eich, which was made of countless dimensionsbined together, the species on it are innumerable.


    This world and its greatest piece ofnd is named after its creator, Goddess Eich, but somehow, there are no traces of her in this world. It was said that due to exhaustion from creating this world, she fell into a state of eternal sleep. However, before she went to sleep, she left all the responsibilities for the world to her two daughters.


    Goddess Astrya, the Guardian Goddess of Order and Daybreak, she created the High Elves, Metal Dragon tribes, Angels, Titans and simr Golden races.


    Goddess Cynthia, the Dictator of Chaos and Night, she created Demons, Elemental Dragons, Yellow tribe (??(?)) Blood tribe, the Elemental tribes and other Sulfur races.


    The two Goddesses represent the two main factions the Gods and countless other races belong to. The elder sister, Astrya, hopes for all races to be bathed under the warm sunlight and believes that each race should be attributed a certain role by the Gods and walk the path decided for them. She believes in hierarchy and her creations tend towards order and kindness.


    As for Cynthia, she hopes that her creation could metamorphose throughpetition. As the creator, she tries not to interfere excessively and does not enforce her own rules upon her people.


    For mortals, the difference in beliefs may only be a verbal argument but for the true gods who are the incarnation of those concepts, a sh in beliefs means questioning the meaning behind the other¡¯s existence, thus both parties would naturally explode into a battle.


    The two Goddesses, equally strong, fought each other to the point of exhaustion and went into a long rest. Their creations then continued their endless war for them. After the Golden tribes and Sulfur tribes went extinct due to war, the Moon Elves, representing the Silver tribe, and the fallen Giants, representing the Mercury tribe, continued their battle.


    The war has never stopped ever since its inception.


    When the Order managed to suppress the Chaos, the onset of a rtively stable Order era starts. On the other hand, if the Chaos managed to im superiority, an orderless and chaotic era begins. A change in era represents the rise and fall of countless races.


    In current times, it is the Iron era belonging to the Order faction, otherwise known as the Age of the Mortals. The previous dominant species, the Great Demons of the chaotic faction gave up their positions and passed the baton to the current dominant species, the Humans of the Iron tribe.


    TL: Just to rify, Great Demons and Demons are different beings.


    Order and Chaos fighting and taking over each other¡¯s position have always been the main movement of the Eich continent. My Codex of Law, being recognized by the Origin of Order, has be a part of it as well. Thus, many other Holy Knights who belong to the same Order faction havee forward to learn it.


    From my view, there is nothing incredible about it. Within Order exists Chaos and even for the leading races of the Chaos faction, the Devils and Undead, the strict power hierarchy and the superior and underling rtionship, isn¡¯t it also a special kind of Order?


    In my eyes, it is about which side you choose. It is a simple question of deciding whether you want to mingle with the Gods of Order or the Gods or Chaos.


    If I choose to allow Ann to inaugurate as the new City Lord, I would have to take on the role of a senior and a teacher. Then, as nned, I would gain a new physical body and start again from scratch. Such a decision is sided towards the Order faction.


    TL: Meaning, if he chooses this decision, he would be a part of the Order Faction.


    After all, living humans are the backbones of the Order faction no matter how you look at it.


    On the other hand, if I were to choose to be the City Lord myself, the system would restore my powers back to the moment when I was at my peak. However, a SemiGod Lich, no matter how you look at it, is a King of the Undead, a leader of the Chaos faction.


    This may look like a normal choosing process, but it is an important choice that would determine the road I walk on from now.


    ¡°Hey, what is there to hesitate about. Walking on a road that I walked on before? I choose... Epic mission, Revival of the Phoenix. I want toe back to life!¡±


    That¡¯s right, my previous experiences have proven that simply brute power won¡¯t resolve the problem. The bunch of idiots in the Chaos factionck order and live as they please. The internal conflicts would never end as long as they live and they are destined to never aplish great things. If so, why would I stillmit the same mistakes. Besides, without a proper body, a Lich can only reach the level of a SemiGod.


    Yup, yup, it definitely isn¡¯t because undead can¡¯t taste delicious food, can¡¯t date, can¡¯t enjoy the pleasures of the physical body. I don¡¯t want to be an undead!


    ¡°Fine, let Ann be the City Lord, I will give her a hand. Right, her full name is Annie, right? I thought you called her Ann in the past?¡±


    ¡°Ann is, after all, just a nickname. Furthermore, it could be used for both sexes. Margaret helped toe up with it. Actually, I have always thought that Annie.Han had a nice ring to it but somehow she ended up with Margaret¡¯s surname.¡±


    ¡°Annie.Layde huh?¡±


    Somehow, I felt that this name was somehow familiar.


    ¡°Da!¡± With a snap of a finger, arge book with ck cover opens and the pages flip continuously until it finally stops on a colorful page.


    That is a picture of a mature woman with a heroic aura looking at the distant with a sword in her hands. Her entire body screams of fiery red. Her scarlet battle robe has an embroidery of a phoenix on it and her vermilion sword generates a field of inferno. It was obvious that it was the Blessing of the Phoenix that belongs to the idiot in front of me.


    ¡°The Fire Phoenix of the East, Annie.Layde. The Great Commander of the Alliance against Demons on the East defense line. The hero who personally killed the Dark Warrior Emperor Rnd.Mist.¡±


    You teacher and student must have a grudge against me! How deep is your hatred!


    The student is going to kill me in the future despite me going through so much just to change the future. Furthermore, the father had already killed me once! Am I really going to get chopped the Blessing of the Phoenix once again?


    Killing me once wasn¡¯t enough and just when I finally changed the future, I am going to be killed once more?


    No wonder, I thought it was weird how Ann was my nemesis. So, the one which fate chose to get rid of me is you rascal!


    ¡°Don¡¯t dream of it! You bunch of bastards, get out! Incantation of Law: Expel!¡±


    Unable to suppress the howling in my heart, I used all my power in the spell.


    After the sacred light of Order scatters, somehow, the SemiGod Adam got ejected out of the room, confused.


    ¡°Pah!¡±


    Hends heavily on his butt. Immediately afterwards, a book strikes him squarely on his face.


    The words on the book have been tranted and Adam, who had received secret martial arts manual from Rnd in the past, reads out slowly.


    ¡°Sunflower Bible? What is this. ¡®To practice this sacred art, direct your knife to castrate¡¯?¡±


    (Refer to chp 3)


    ¡°Go and learn this, I think it is suitable for a ball-less person like you!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    It isn¡¯t the first time that thed got me angry. He is probably used to getting thrown out. After rubbing his bottom, he walks away.


    After he leaves, I fall into a state of confusion. What is fate? Just what kind of a life did he n out for me? Am I really destined to be a Demon King from birth, and furthermore, a Demon King with a tendency for suicide? After grooming Adam into a hero who killed me, do I have to groom another hero who ¡®used¡¯ to kill me?


    ¡°If I didn¡¯te here, Annie wouldn¡¯t have met Adam and thus, wouldn¡¯t receive Adam¡¯s inheritance, the Blessing of the Phoenix. So, I am the reason for their meeting? Is the crusade against me long decided? Or, am I fated to be hunted down by the wielder of the Blessing of the Phoenix, whether it is Adam or Annie.¡±


    A pity that my study of the patterns of cause and effects are a mess and I didn¡¯t even try to learn divination. But then, such a deep philosophical question of cause and effect, it would be weird if I can make sense out of it.


    ¡°Forget it, I will stop thinking about it. Since I have already decided on my goal, so let me think about it after finishing my quest.¡±


    Since this problem can¡¯t be resolved by thinking, then I shan¡¯t think about it. This has always been one of my strong points. The most important thing now is to finish my current quest ande back to life!


    Thus, after thinking over it for a moment, I press the bell on my table.


    ¡°Call the head of the 4 Halls toe to meet me.¡±


    Initially, I created the court to judge sinners and earn myself those Evil Points. Wouldn¡¯t I be abandoning to primary objective if I were to tire myself over this?


    Thus, I built an organization whose system and mechanism allows it to be self-sufficient, thus, allowing me to spare the effort sustaining it on other pursuits.


    Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s judicial system was created by me personally. Following the other world¡¯s model of splitting up the authority of the judicial system using the principles of checks and bnces, I divided the judicial system into 4 independent blocs.


    Firstly, it would be the Supreme Court, the dominant bloc of the judicial system. I am the head of this bloc, giving me the power to approve the passing of newws and the final say in the judging of criminals, effectively making me the big boss of the entire judicial system.


    The 4 subsidiaries under the Supreme Court are the organs and backbone of the entire judicial system.


    The Hall of Enforcement, responsible for the enforcement of criminals and maintaining order. Yup, it ys the role of the viin, maintaining discipline through patrols, managing those street peddlers and such, all of the troublesome jobs are under them.


    As for the Town Order Security Army, shortened as Town Security, it is one of their subsidiaries. Different from the security team in the other world whose main targets are street peddlers, the Dark Elf Knights goes at all sort of criminals, making their jobs simr to the responsibilities of a police.


    Their head would be the tall and buff masked man in front of me ¡ª Tauren Xueti.Edta.


    Yes, it is that perverted Tauren Xieti who likes to go nude running...


    Name: Xueti.Edta/ Race:Tauren


    Job:LV60Warrior/ LV20Justice Knight/ LV7Guard of Order (Total LV87, Fighting Power Evaluation: Legend, 2nd Job Advanced Great Warrior)


    Title: Guardian of Steel


    Fortunately, perhaps it is to imitate the silver-masked Wumianzhe, in order to show that they have given up individualism to deliver thew impartially, my judicial team have all decided to wear masks. Otherwise, I really don¡¯t know how to face this ¡®despite being the head of the Hall of Enforcement, butnds in jail for soiling social values¡¯ underling of mine.


    Luckily... Every time he goes to enjoy his ¡®hobby¡¯, he consciously tries to hide his identity. Even when he is surrounded and bashed up by the Town Security due to nude running, even when he is thrown into the dark prison, he never used his Power of Law and expose his identity as aw enforcer.


    The second subsidiary would be the rarely seen Hall of Law.


    Hall of Law, they are a department that specially analyses thew and the legition, but at the same time, they are the location for job advancement for Law Incantationer, Justice Knights and Judgementor. The minimum requirement for job advancement into aw job is at least a gold rank. Although it is not well-known to outsider, this hall is actually the strongest among the 4.


    But these strong people serve as the rookie judges that are mainly responsible for the primary hearing. Through encountering more cases and judging them, they are refining their understanding towards the Power of Law.


    Under my system, only those who earned the recognition of the Origin of Codex and seeded in their job advancement to be a part of the judiciary can have the authority to judge others individually. Thus, not many people know that even the weakest of those seemingly gentle schrs are at least a gold-rank.


    Their leader is an old schr who is on the verge of sleeping in front me, the High Elf Kale.Diya, one of the politicians in the country of Huanfa, he is also the strongest Mage in Sulfur Mountain City other than the Great Saint.


    TL: Huanfa means circr magic


    Name: Kale.Diya/ Race: High Elf


    Job: LV60 Mage/ LV30 Guardian of Knowledge/ LV10 Guardian of Law/ LV5 Law Incantationer (Total LV115, Fighting Power Evaluation: Worldly Saint, 3rd Job Advanced Mage)


    Hall of Legition, its name may seem awe-inspiring but once the role of writing newws and governing it is thrown to the other departments, what it needs to do is mainly doing logistics and help keep the subordinates of other departments in check. For example, for a meeting for the approval of a neww, it would gather the other departments together and help to gather the proposals for thew and such.


    As a logistics department, the Hall of Legition doesn¡¯t need much strong people. What it needs is the flexibility and attentiveness in getting things done. Thus, arge portion of its members are rookies in probation or femalew enforcers who are unwilling to get on the front lines.


    Their head ¡ª Lilith.Mn... Yes, that Frenzied Wild Lily, the Moving Obscenity...


    I can¡¯t help but feel d repeatedly that our judicial team have to put on mask and give up their individuality otherwise I really don¡¯t know how to face these tworades of mine in the Gentlemen Alliance and the endless despise from the citizens.


    I even questioned myself countless time where exactly did things go wrong for these two perverts to climb up to be the top brass of the judicial system...


    Alright, let¡¯s not talk about these depressing matters.


    Last but not least, the Hall of Judgement. It might sound very mighty but when the responsibility for the primary hearing is left to the Hall of Law and the final verdict is dependent on the Supreme Court, what is left is probably all kinds of appeals. Once the Town Security finds someone they are unable to deal with, that is when they strike.


    Responding toints, defending the defendant, finding the true culprit and capturing the criminal are part of their job scope. This is the kind of troublesome job that gets on people¡¯s nerves, and somehow their nerves are especially easy to get on. So, the hall is also known as the Hall of Quarreling and Hall of Fighting.


    One thing worth mentioning is that the Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s prison is under their jurisdiction and before the Town Security was built up, they are the only fighting power of the judicial system on the surface and of course... If we were to measure their internal battle power, they can be safely said to be the second from the back, just slightly stronger than the Hall of Legition which is in charge of logistics.


    Their head, Kelvin, is an ideal role model for Holy Knights. Middle-ss power, a stable personality and average looks. What is unique about him is how ordinary he is, his strength is how ordinary he is, and his weakness is still how ordinary he is, but in the judicial system¡¯s top brass, he is the rare toe by normal person...


    I don¡¯t know why, at this point, sadness seems to well up... Why don¡¯t I have more normal people in the midst of my judicial system, why do I have so much perverts! Is it because I am a pervert myself?!


    Cough cough, back to the topic...


    This 4 Halls and 1 Court became the outline of the entire Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s judicial system. It also serves as the cornerstone to its stability. Once everything is put in ce, what I have to do every day is to go to court and earn some points.


    Since, I have decided to help Annie to be the next City Lord and stabilize her position, then the 4 Halls and 1 Court under my possession must start moving.


    ¡°The reason why I gathered you all today is to prepare for the future.¡±

 Chapter 13

    <h4>Chapter 13: Council Meeting</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Today, at 8:61, the 97th Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Judiciary Elder¡¯s Meeting was held punctually at the Supreme Court. The meeting was organized by the head of the Supreme Court Wumianzhe. During the meeting, a review of the main problems of the legal system was held and the matters to be discussed at the meeting are as follow:


    The meeting will ensure that the entire bureau and its personnel will study seriously from City Lord Adam regarding Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s 4 main drives and earnestly fulfill their responsibilities as a part of our legal system, obey thew and follow the regtions provided while carrying out their job.


    At the end of the meeting, the old role model of the judicial system, our most respected elder Judge, Lord Wumianzhe, made an important deration, requesting for all government organizations and personnel to follow the spirit of respecting one¡¯s superior and unite under its core, Annie.Layde as the next generation of Sulfur Mountain City. They are not to waver, not to hesitate, focus on just one core, two points...


    Alright, I will stop with the bullshit. Other than thest sentence, which is to make Annie the boss, the rest of it are lies...


    ¡°Don¡¯t say that I¡¯m trying to dictate everything, I am here to request for everyone¡¯s opinion. I shall tell you all a big news, don¡¯t spread it to the public just for now. In the future, Annie, yup, Margaret and Annie¡¯s precious secret daughter, is the future big boss of Sulfur Mountain City. It is good that none of you all have many objections. If you all have objections? Hehe, of course I would humbly ept your opinions. Yup, only epting.


    I verbally attacked the two fools without holding back. I thought that bynding this bomb, they would be shocked but unexpectedly, the four great heavenly kings seated below me were strangely silent.


    They looked at each other for a long time. You look at me, I look at you and eventually, everyone¡¯s eyes were fixated on the honest Kelvin. Only then did he buck him his courage and stood up.


    ¡°Lord... Don¡¯t tell me that you were only just informed of it. Half a month ago, the entire city was already aware of it. I thought you were gathering us to prepare to usurp authority.¡±


    ¡°What!!¡±


    Thus, I was at a loss for words.


    After that, I spent half a day before getting a clear picture of what happened.


    From the start, Margaret already guessed that I would not grab the baton and after a discussion with Adam, they internally decided on Annie. Initially, they wanted to hold a quick swap of power before the crowds could even react... But that bbermouth Adam bbered the matter in public. Thus, it didn¡¯t take long for the entire city to learn of such breaking news...


    ¡°Who is Annie? If the incumbent City Lord decides to step down, there is still the Public Council Head Grant, Wumianzhe of the judicial system, Head of Internal Affairs Margaret and much more suitable candidates out there, what exactly are they thinking? Are the other guardians of the city also leaving too? Then, who is going to protect Sulfur Mountain City?¡±


    To the normal folks, they aren¡¯t worried about who ising to power. Or rather, they are more bothered with whether the price of vegetables would go up and whether the price of housing in the central of the city woulde down.


    Yup, what they are truly concerned about was never a political switch or an influential figureing into power. Rather, they are worried about whether their lives would change and whether tomorrow would still be full of hope...


    One of the three heads Adam have decided to shirk responsibility as the guardian of Sulfur Mountain City. Yet, the one taking over is an inconspicuous littless. If so, can she take hold of the situation? Will the other underground lords take this opportunity to make a move? Will the other influential figures in the city listen to hermands?


    This may seem unrted to the daily life they are worried about but if an upheaval ripples throughout the city or even worst, a war urs, then theparatively luxurious daily life that they had against other cities would stop at that moment.


    These days, the politically aware citizens are feeling an inexplicable weight above their heads, a pressure signaling the arrival of the storm makes the air heavy and suffocating.


    ¡°That idiot!!!¡±


    I grind my teeth. If I heard this news yesterday, seeing Margaret and Adam working their ass off might make me call for a celebration. But now that I have epted the quest, then the idiot¡¯s actions became a great source of trouble for me.


    Doing a rough estimation, I can almost see how everything is a mess out there. No matter where it is, the ambitious and violent are nevercking. In the past, the three heads were able to suppress the situation but now that Adam was giving up his ce, there would surely be some that tries to make a ce for themselves.


    Lying on the chair, countless evil ns run through my mind while my fingers habitually knocks on the table.


    ¡°There should be some people standing out by now. Those objecting and those in approval.¡±


    The Hall of Legitors is also the intelligence department of the system. When I asked, Lilith immediately replies.


    ¡°Arge portion of the government organizations and their leaders have expressed their ideas. At least, on the surface, most of them are in approval of Annie taking over as the City Lord. But, there are still two influential figures that have yet to make a statement. Everyone are making guesses on whether they have other ns.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°Public Council Head Grant...¡±


    ¡°Him huh? What a fool, once an ambition exceeds the scope of your own power, you are just seeking your death.¡±


    However, at least in name, the Public Council is an organization that represents the will of the public. If they adamantly reject Annie, that would be quite a trouble as well.


    As for why I say ¡®in name¡¯, actually, there is some history behind it.


    After Sulfur Mountain City was established, in order to resolve the disputes between races whose rtions are getting more and more tense through the days, Margaret followed the example of the Kingdom of Elves on the surface and created a Public Council which provides a tform for the representative of different races to talk it over. In the start, it managed to achieve some sess but eventually, it caused more troubles than the problems it resolves.


    Th first council is exclusive to the heads and elders of different races. They have high social standing among their brethren and when they be the spokesperson for their people, they would strive to get more benefits for their people. However, there is limited cake to go around and when a few stronger races form an alliance, the living space and resources for the smaller tribes are eaten up and gradually, following the formation of circles and cliques, as the interests of different races start to tangle up, the council started getting more and more powerful.


    Once the proposal to build a ¡®human-only district¡±dwarf-only district¡¯ was brought up, seeing how these proud ¡®big figures¡¯ fought passionately for their own interests and how their backing can no longer be disregarded, the ¡®wise¡¯ Great Saint finally tasted the feeling of carrying a boulder but crushing your own foot (Trying to achieve something but end up making things worse).


    Thus, she turned to the devil... Yup, that is me.


    Using my experience from both worlds, I sent her what was known as the answer of the devil.


    At that time, there were people going to street everyday as different organizations organized rallies and protests, as though as the rights of the people was above everything else, that the will of the people must be fulfilled. The evil dictator would be defeated tomorrow and the Public Council would be the new governor. In reality, this has turned into an oppression of the majority against the minority.


    Seeing this situation, I know that if we dissolved the council, violence would probably ensue then our efforts for the past several decades would go to vain. Thus, I thought of a n.


    Didn¡¯t you all request for more power for the council? Fine, I shall agree to it. In fact, I¡¯m afraid you all might not have enough personnel so I shall allow you all to expand the number of seats on the council to recruit more council members.


    At that time, the serving Council Head old Bart was delighted. In fact, they marked that day as the council¡¯s Victory Day, but...


    ...Now, it was known as the Foolish Day...


    The initial council is limited to 30 people and only people fromrge race or tribes can be elected to join the council.


    ¡°How can this be? The council is the representation of every citizen, 30 people isn¡¯t enough. Even smaller race and tribes should have their own council member. Let¡¯s just increase the member count.¡±


    Thus, I increased the number of council members to tenfold of what it was in one go, 300 people!


    That day, they celebrated. After all, in their hearts, the more council members there are, the greater the voice of the popce.


    However, they met with problems the next instant. The number of council members have been expanded by tenfold in one go, then where should the rest of the council member be recruited from?


    The next moment, what Kobold merchant, the second son-inw of the dwarves¡¯ elder, the brother of the goblin¡¯s tribe leader, all of them want to be a council member to enjoy the authority.


    ¡°Approved. Everyone is a representation of the will of the people, why would I stop you all.¡± All of the list of council members that were sent to me were approved.


    Thus, the number of council members increased but even so, I still maintained the stand that it wasn¡¯t enough.


    ¡°Hm, let¡¯s add another 100 seats this festival. You all can decide among yourselves. Don¡¯t keep all the seats to those strong ones. You all took all the meat, but you all should also leave some soup to the rest of the people. Give a chance to those engineers, normal citizens, teachers and schrs to join in on the governance.


    At this point in time, the number of council members increased rapidly and there are people who felt that something was amiss. But even so, everyone was busy grabbing hold of the council member slots. Whoever tries to block the expansion of the council bes the enemy of everyone.


    ¡°Hmph, you Dracons only have this amount of people. Of course you all wouldn¡¯t want the other races to increase their number of council members. Hmph! Self-interested lizards!¡±


    ¡°Fine, let¡¯s not increase the number of seats of the Public Council. Then, you darned sharp charcoal ears, give up your seats to us, the son of earth.¡±


    Alright, let¡¯s ignore this boring process and go right to the conclusion... Despite having just a poption of 3 million, we have 10,000 council members.


    Alright, can you imagine the situation of having more than 10,000 people squeezing into a small room and holding a meeting? Can you imagine how long will it take for a single suggestion to pass through, given how 9,000 people have to sign in agreement of it? Can you imagine how a day is wasted for the entire council to arrive?


    Alright, due to overcrowding and low efficiency, when they need an entire month toplete the most basic of council discussions, the current Public Council is as good as just decorations...


    Of course, they also have tried to reduce the size of the council but taking back the authority they gave is simply too difficult. Everyone is a representative for the public, so exactly who are you going to expel? What rights do you have to expel me? Aren¡¯t all council members of equal standing? Why must it be me who leaves and not you?


    The identity of a council member can be directly linked to interests and behind them are the support of merchants. You try to kick someone out and that someone will go all out with you.


    ¡°Hey, the council needs more representative on the basic level. I think there should be a representative on the most basic level to give their own say.


    When there is arge surge of housewives and fishmongers in the Council members and when the identity as a council member bes nothing, what plotting to usurp authority and fighting for the interests of one¡¯s family and tribe, all of it just became aughingstock.


    Now, arge portion of the council members are just dealing with small problems like whether a tax should be imposed on the products that fishermen brings here and even so, they would all fiery arguing on it. Those ¡®leaders of great family¡¯ often end up with a face full of spit from the arguments of the peasants and sometimes, they even resort of violence.


    As for important meetings on the developments of the city? From half a year ago, before the meeting has even concluded, the other government organizations have already started on their work.


    ¡°What? What for you all to conclude your meeting? I¡¯m sorry, if we don¡¯t deal with it soon, the harvest is going to go bad/ that city wall is going to fall/ the other city is going to dere war against us.¡±


    To add on, if they want to rewrite the constitution for the Public Council, they must seek approval for a legal organization and the right of change the legition lies on the Supreme Court, which is under my control... Hehe, let the council continue their quarreling and arguments. There are times which I bring my tidbits andpanions to the council meeting to watch them dash it out... Cough, to hear the opinions of the public.


    I admit, the Public Council that embodies the will of the public is amazing but the current council can no longer achieve anything. 90% of their efforts and time are wasted in endless internal strife. The voice of influential figures? Cough cough, I¡¯m sorry but everyone was voted up as a representative of the public. Everyone¡¯s the same, there are no ¡®influential figure¡¯ here.


    Thus, the ambitious and those seeking authority are buried in the endless sea of people.


    It is not like there isn¡¯t smart people but the system of councils is a new thing in this world while I am used to these systems. It was already toote and impossible to go back when they realize that there is something wrong with it.


    ¡°Increasing the number of seats on the Public Council and giving the council more say, isn¡¯t that your public¡¯s will. Why, you decided to go against the public¡¯s will now? How are you going to exin this to the public who elected you?¡±


    Well, they are only grind their teeth until they chip off and swallow it.


    At this point in time, only those who are dumb beyond the point of saving won¡¯t know that they have been had by me. Thus, I became known to them as the ¡®Cunning Wumianzhe¡±The Devil-like Masked Man¡¯. Of course, those council members, council heads and the powers backing them have never had good rtions.


    ¡°Grant¡¯s objections are within expectation. He is as ambitious as his father Bart but such a pity, at least his father still has a few shreds of intelligence while he is dumb like a pig. Does he really not know that once Adam and Margaret made up their minds, there is no one in Sulfur Mountain City that can stop them? A fool that does not know his limits, he really thinks that just because a tiger doesn¡¯t hunt humans for three years it would be herbivorous? Hmph, what about the other dumb fool who haven¡¯t made a stand yet?¡±


    Suddenly, Lilith who was just talking big went mute. The entire room was silent and all eyes once again shot towards Kelvin...


    This time, the honest and timid Justice Knight¡¯s both eyes looked up, pretending as though he doesn¡¯t exist. After a long period of time, after I realized that I have said something stupid, Lilith gave a face of resignation, bucks up her courage and finally talks.


    ¡°It¡¯s you. That¡¯s why we thought you wanted us to prepare to usurp authority...¡±


    At this point, I was speechless.


    ¡°Elisa, why didn¡¯t you tell me? Or perhaps, it is time to reduce the budget of the intelligence team.¡±


    Following the rule that a four heavenly king must have a secret fifth personnel, my fifth heavenly king is the ¡°Eavesdropper¡± in charge of the intelligence department, Elisa.


    From our spiritual connection, I hear the reply of my head maid.


    ¡°I¡¯m really apologetic, the day that the rumors broke out, you were detained by the Town Security. It wasn¡¯t a good time for me to infiltrate in to send reports to you. Thus, I left the report on your work desk, you didn¡¯t see it?¡±


    Remembering how I haven¡¯t went to work for a long time and looking at how the steady work desk made of willow wood was on the verge of breaking by the mountain of documents, I solemnly cut off the connection with that foul-mouthed maid.


    Even though we were far away and that her words and filled with respect and surprise, I can already picture the sight of her gleeful expression, a nk expression but her back bent fromughter.


    Closing my eyes, I sink into my chair and fall into deep thoughts. There¡¯s no need to think about the past, what is important is the future!


    The Public Council maybe unable to work up a storm, but if thoseplicated big families were to object together, that can cause quite a trouble. To fight those old fellows, just violence isn¡¯t enough, that is also the reason why Adam would entrust this task to me.


    A marvelous idea shes through my mind but of course, calling it a sinister plot doesn¡¯t make much difference... Gradually, a perfect n is taking shape.


    ¡°Alright, listen to my proposal...¡±


    After I gleefully finished describing my n, they were stunned.


    ¡°This... Lord, wouldn¡¯t that be going too far?¡±


    ¡°Lord Wumianzhe, although this may not be breaking the way, this... it goes againstmon sense? It goes against morals?¡±


    ¡°This old man disagrees; this idea is too crazy. If the outside world were to find out, our 4 halls 1 court will have its reputation falling to the abyss.¡±


    ¡°I think that it is interesting. Boss, just go ahead. Whatever you want me to do, I will aplish it.¡±


    Looking at the four heavenly kings of the legal system who were creating a ruckus, Iughed gleefully.


    ¡°Hehe, as a special gift before my departure, let¡¯s make it a big one.¡±

 Chapter 14

    <h4>Chapter 14: Dragon-ying de</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    That is a ck-colored de.


    The de which is as thick as the smallest finger is filled with ck rust and there is not a sliver of reflection of light from it. Rather than a weapon, it seems more like a rusty knife used for cutting vegetables.


    However, looking at the rust, it is already an unusable lump of metal.


    But I know that this is only an illusion a God Equipment creates. As seen from how I identally split apart the frame of my bed and my pinky finger, the sharpness of this de is unfathomable.


    Otherworldly God Weapon: Dragon-ying de?


    In my system, it implies that this de is a well-known dragon-ying god equipment but it was a pity that what follows it was just a short exnation.


    It was created by the otherworldly precious material, Nine Heavens Dark Metal. It is exceptionally sharp?


    That¡¯s it. Just like that.


    Yes, it is that simple an exnation. Even a normal fruit knife would at least have ?Attack Power: 0-1 Durability: 1 Sharpness against fruits +1? kind of effect exnation, yet this obviously extraordinary otherworldly God Equipment had such a simple description.


    In reality, the otherworldly God Equipment that I obtained through the system¡¯s lottery system have the same kind of problem. As they aren¡¯t an existing item in this world, thews of the world are unable to analyses them and thus, my system naturally is unable to do anything to them.


    If it cannot be analyzed, it cannot be used. Then, no matter what kind of glorious history of past they have, if I am unable to call out their true name, it can only probably serve as a slightly bigger fruit knife.


    Then, it is just in useless...


    Initially, these otherworldly God weapons are just a bunch ofrge toys that waste my storage space but a fortunate ident provided me a secret method to make known its real form.


    ¡°Law of Incantation: Obligatory Enforcement!¡±


    As the gavel strikes down, two silver-colored light encircles me and Elisa and a sigil of a scale representing fairness appears in the sky, which represents the establishment of the contract between the two of us.


    Following which, the scale began to tilt towards one side. This represents me owing Elisa quite a bit of her wages.


    Incantation of Law: Obligatory Enforcement?


    Effect: Forcefully enforces the terms of the contract made by both parties?


    Shylock: Praise the noble freedom of contracts. Foolish Antonio, now that you have broken your promise, then following what we agreed on, I shall cut away an entire pound of meat from your body as punishment!?


    TL: Merchants of Venice


    This Incantation of Law is used to enforce a contract. If one party owes the other something but haven¡¯t paid it back yet, it will forcefully carry out the contract and takes away the possession of the other party to repay the debt.


    As I owe Elisa quite a bit, all sorts of different items automatically flew from my body to her, thus bing her possessions. Of course, this includes this unnamed treasured de.


    But in this instant, a problem urs.


    My Incantation of Law is a power that walks the closest to the Origin of Order. The effects of the spell may seem simple but in fact, it is almost the level of the rules of the world, a Legend-rank great magic.


    The value of the bones on my body can be determined by the both of us and the Origin of Order can alsoe up with a value. But, how much this de is worth is an unknown figure.


    Mages have their own identification magic but that is only based on the records of the Origin of Order, so they are actually just identifying what is known to this world. But, otherworldly items are innominate.


    Thus, this spell is stuck...


    The silver energy of order envelops the treasured de and tries to analyses its value but the otherworldly de, as though a stubborn rock, isn¡¯t showing its true form.


    ¡°Unable to read its history and its materials aren¡¯t able to be analyzed. I can almost hear the moaning of the Origin of Order. As expected, no matter how high tier something is, what ¡®The Origin of Countless Matter¡¯, ¡®The Nemesis of the Chaos¡¯, ¡®The Incarnation of the Goddess of Order¡¯, energy is still energy, it can be fooled and made use of.¡±


    The Origin of Order is themonly recognized origin of power of the Order faction and also the superior concept of the Holy Light, as well as the superior concept my Power of Law. The people of this world sung countless praises of it, as though as it was iparably sacred but as the creator of the Power of Law, although I am using the Origin of Order, I could only see it as a brainless power storage.


    ¡°As it as it fulfills the rules of Order, anyone is able to harness it. Suchck of chastity, and you still can it isn¡¯t brainless? Rather than saying it is noble, why not say it is dumb. Then, if I were to grant a demon that believes in Chaos the physical body of a human, then isn¡¯t that demon able to harness Holy Light as well. Giving your own power to one¡¯s nemesis, you still dare to say it isn¡¯t brainless?¡±


    This is one of my debate with the Archbishop of the Holy Light. When the other party mentioned that as long as one believes in Holy Light, anyone is able to harness the mystical powers of Holy Light, that is how I replied him.


    Well, the ending... It is just like talking to a devoted believer the historical materialism of Karl Marx, the old archbishop couldn¡¯t catch his breath and almost went directly to heaven to continue the worship of his Holy Light.


    The Origin of Order may be brainless but as the ultimate origin of energy that built this world, it is exceptionally strong and soon, that thick de began to look sharper and light reflected of it as its shape changed.


    The Power of Order rejects all chaos and what is unknown is chaos. Since its original properties cannot be analyzed, then let¡¯s just grant it new properties. Thus, the ¡®noble Power of Order¡¯ became my coolie and started to help me convert the weapon into a God Equipment that fulfills the rules of this world.


    Very soon, when the Light of Order scatters, the solid wood-chopping de disappears and instead, a gigantic silver saber tattooed with a dragon appears in front of me.


    God Weapon: Dragon Saber?


    Attack Power: 0-35 Tier: Epic?


    Special Ability The Unyielding Saber: 100% chance of directly destroying a weapon below Elite-tier. 50% chance of directly destroying an Elite-tier weapon. 30% chance of directly destroying an Epic-tier weapon. 1% chance of destroying any weapon below God-tier.?


    Special Ability The Life-robbing Radiance: Yes, it is not Sight-robbing radiance but Life-robbing radiance. Owning this sword, you will be the main character in everyone¡¯s eyes. Yup, the main character of a tragedy. The owner of this weapon will have his luck reduced by 10, charm increased by 10. If the owner is a golden-haired and golden-eyed man, an additional penalty of 10 luck will be imposed.?


    Special Ability Frenzy: 1% chance of falling into a frenzied state that recognizes no kin. In this state, you will first target and kill your own kin.?


    There are some yellow inscriptions on the hilt of the saber: In an ancient mantra, this used to be godly weapon that symbolizes status, ¡®The pinnacle of the world, the saber that ys the dragon.¡± But now, there is a brand-new interpretation... The saber that ys the dragon, like and get one free.?


    Looking at these figures, I was stunned.


    In Eich, the different tiers of weapons are broadly known to be Normal, Superior, Elite, Epic then Legend. Back then, Adam¡¯s god weapon the Blessing of the Phoenix is a Legend-tier weapon and above that would be the SemiGod-tier and God-tier weapons that no man can create.


    In reality, the difference between the weapons aren¡¯t too great as weapons are highly dependent on their users to exert to their full potential. The main difference between a high-tier weapon and a low-tier weapon is its special abilities.


    Elite-tier normally have 2 special abilities, Epic-tier 3 to 4 while for Legend, it could have between 4 to 6.


    This Epic-tier weapon has 3 special abilities, of which, 2 of them are negative special abilities. While it cannot bepared to the Blessing of the Phoenix which has 5 positive special abilities, its only positive special ability is exceptionally strong.


    Special Ability The Unyielding Saber: 100% chance of directly destroying a weapon below Elite-tier. 50% chance of directly destroying an Elite-tier weapon. 30% chance of directly destroying an Epic-tier weapon. 1% chance of destroying any weapon below God-tier.?


    Normally, for a golden-ranked expert to possess an Elite-tier weapon is already quite an aplishment. Epic-tier weapons, just as its name suggests, it is the weapons once wield by masters who left a trace in history and even an Epic-tier weapon would probably be destroyed by this Dragon Saber within 3 strikes.


    That is to say, if it is a normal weapon, basically it would be broken in one or two shes and in a heated fight, if the weapon suddenly breaks... Just thinking about it makes shiver goes down one¡¯s spine.


    ¡°So this is the result of the Origin of Order converting the exceptional sharpness of this sword to fit in with the rules of this world huh? I didn¡¯t expect that I would unexpectedly pick up a treasure. Although its attack power isn¡¯t too stable and its negative effects are troublesome to deal with, just this weapon-breaking special ability is enough to destroy just any opponent. Hm? Ites in a duo set and its other part is also a weapon ¡ª Heaven Sword?¡±


    The gray-color set attribute bonus hasn¡¯t been activated yet but just the name, Heaven Sword, makes one¡¯s heart tremble. Looks like I must try more of that otherworldly God Weapon lottery system.


    ¡°Boom!!¡± ¡°Boom!!¡±


    Just when I was delighted over the new god weapon that I obtained, a consecutive explosion made the entire house shake.


    ¡°Intruder?!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Alright, so the entire episode is centered around a Chinese show The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, which is some kind of god weapon and a status of prestige in the show. The Dragon Saber was wielded by Xie Xun known as the Golden-Haired Lion King. His family was killed by a man named Cheng Kun and in his fury, he went on a rampage, killing many people and ming it on Cheng Kun. He was blinded by a daughter-like figure she threw a dart in self-defense when he went on an insanity rampage.


    And if you haven¡¯t guessed it yet, he is golden-haired and golden-eyed.

 Chapter 15

    <h4>Chapter 15: A Game With the Intruders</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Never proactively invade a Mage Tower with an owner and even more so, don¡¯t underestimate the moral boundary of a Mage. Unless you hope to end up like me, I X, 12 consecutive traps, aren¡¯t you afraid of triggering it yourself? Indeed, all Mages are madman ¡ª Great Adventurer Kuse.¡±


    From a certain sense, this saying has be an ironw among adventurers, especially when this adventurer is well-known in the circle for being carefree and his skill in escaping. In an exploration of a flying castle in an alternate dimension, he was dissected into 13 pieces by a great Warlock¡¯s consecutive traps. The saying that he used his life to emphasize made the saying additionally convincing.


    For a species like Mages, they often view the pursuit of truth and knowledge as the goal of their life and their living quarters and their Mage Tower are their research center and their treasure trove.


    Therefore, when the fruits of their research and their lives are being threatened, their moral bottom limit and chastity is exceptionally low. Their living quarters and researchbs are filled with all kinds of traps and mechanisms, magic traps that even master thieves can¡¯t do anything about. For example, opening a door may very possibly result in you being transported into another world.


    A Legend-rank Mage¡¯s living quarters and Mage Tower¡¯s threat isn¡¯t lower than infiltrating the den of a Dragon and even the weakest Lich are at least a Legend.


    Thus, I am extremely curious exactly what kind of people will directly attack the living quarters of a Lich, especially while he is obviously at home.


    ¡°Elisa?¡±


    ¡°There are two teams of intruders, one of them attacking head-on while the other is climbing the wall at the back. Judging from their skills and their weapons, it should be the Dark Elves, 7 silver-rank and 3 gold-rank. Quite a powerful group I must say.¡±


    Elisa reports as I expected, but this wasn¡¯t the answer I was looking for.


    ¡°Why are there explosions? Didn¡¯t I tell you to just set up some safe and quiet rms on the outer perimeter? Such a loud explosion at night will draw the Town Security in soon.¡±


    Following ?The Town Security Guidelines (Wumianzhe¡¯s 6th Edition?, after hearing the explosions, they will form a small team to scout the scene within 5 minutes. Furthermore, my living quarters is in the central area of Sulfur Mountain City, not too far from the Supreme Court. I reckon at minimum, they will be here in 10 minutes.


    ¡°They would definitely take this opportunity to conduct a raid against us! If that¡¯s the case, then wouldn¡¯t those forbidden goods in my basement be discovered!?¡±


    The Town Security only have the authority to enforce thew on the crime scene. To enter other people¡¯s home to conduct an arrest, they would require a search warrant from their superiors. The superior of the Town Security is the Hall of Enforcement and the superior of the Hall of Enforcement is the Supreme Court. There is no reason I would sign a search warrant to allow the Town Security to raid my house...


    That¡¯s right, from the start, I was never worried about them intruding. I am simr to those corrupt officials and illegal merchants in the sense that when their illegal goods get robbed, they do not dare to report the case. If the Town Security were to use this opportunity to raid my quarters, I¡¯m afraid that I might be thrown directly to Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s jail.


    Despite hearing myints, Elisa maintains her poker face.


    ¡°Yeah, you said that you want a ¡®Safe¡¯ anti-burry system, right? Just like what you requested, what I set up on the outer perimeter is just some Engineer-made rm robots only.


    ¡°Then why are there explosions?¡± Following which, after taking into ount the heavily emphasized ¡®Safe¡¯, realization struck me.


    ¡°From ¡®Safe¡¯? It can¡¯t be that you are talking about the ¡®Safe¡¯ brand goblin machinery on Gold Coin Street? The one opened by the Beyar brothers?¡±


    I definitely would know that store. That Safe brand goblin machinery, due to selling fakes and explosives, was stripped of its license and it should still be operating without one now.


    Of course, the name of the store is a hoax and there are people who bought the wrong ¡®Safe Goblin Goods¡¯ but after a few incidents, there is no reason why anyone would buy from their store. This brand also became a negative example.


    ¡°Of course, I thought that you were asking me to help take care of your brothers and thus, specially requesting me to purchase from them?¡±


    ¡°They are not my brothers! What use are their goods other than exploding? I must have gone mad if I asked you grace their shop!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, looks like I misunderstood your words.¡±


    She apologized sincerely but seeing how the edges of her lips were slightly arched upwards, I knew that this introvert half-demon is definitelyughing inside. She must have done it on purpose!


    ¡°You... Fine, I admit my loss. You really went through all the efforts just to torture me.¡±


    ¡°As long as you pay me all my wages, I guarantee you that your life from now on will be a breeze.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, dream on. Don¡¯t you think that I wouldn¡¯t know the pattern of you demons. Paying your wages means the end of the contract. You want to regain your freedom? Continue dreaming.¡±


    While we were chattering idly, the two teams closed in on us but I paid them no attention.


    ¡°Have you found the identity of the intruders yet? If you haven¡¯t done so yet, I¡¯m going to cut your pay. Hmph, don¡¯t think that I don¡¯t know that you were secretly eating into the household expenses, using it to buy your personal items. Despite being advanced in age, you still like those light flowy clothes. Hoho, a steel-faced spinster with a ballet tutu. Do you need me to give you an allowance to buy a doll...¡±


    I couldn¡¯t continue on with my sarcastic words as the seemingly tangible ck mist of anger kept on reminding me that I will meet with bad luck within the next few days. For example, my diary might be blown away by a strong wind while writing on it, my energy source turning into dog food, the oil I use for clean and maintain my bones turn into natural asphalt, half of the Town Security falling from the sky towards me when I am doing my


    ...Thinking about all these, an inexplicable feeling of sorrow overwhelms me. Exactly who is the master and who is the servant? Should I really start considering to pay her all of her wages to get rid of her?


    ¡°Boom!!¡±


    Another gigantic explosion interrupts my train of thoughts.


    ¡°What is that? Landmines? You bought that thing and nted it in the flower garden!¡± I made use of this opportunity to be difficult. ¡°Hmph, disobeying orders and breaking our contract. I shall make use of this opportunity to cut 10 years of her wages.¡±


    ¡°...That location, it should be where my fully-automated goblin sprinkler T130 is.¡±


    ¡°Boom!!¡±


    ¡°Here too? Thewn mower?¡±


    ¡°No, it should be the entrance, the doorbell ¡®Loud-kun¡¯?¡± The youngdy tilts her head innocently.


    ¡°Indeed, loud enough, fortunately I never had the habit of pressing my doorbell... No, that isn¡¯t right. For even the doorbell to be of Safe brand, you intend to kill me and steal my wealth?¡±


    ¡°Boom!!¡± ¡°Boom!!¡± This time, it is a consecutive explosion. I know that the flooring of my entrance probably needs to be changed now. No, judging from the intensity of the explosion, my quarters probably need a new entrance now.


    ¡°This is? My shoe rack?¡±


    Elisa nods her head bitterly. ¡°Safe brand¡¯s fully automated shoe rack model XT-137. It is said to be able to automatically help its owner choose his shoes, brush it and polish it...¡±


    I can¡¯t help but feel d for being a Lich and float while moving from ce to ce, thus never finding the need for shoes. But after that, I felt that something was wrong.


    ¡°That can¡¯t be right, I have no shoes, so why did you buy a shoe rack for??¡±


    ¡°Ah? My Lord, it was my negligence.¡±


    ¡°A negligence in a murder plot? You are really getting better and better at ying with words.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s all thanks to your effective teaching.¡±


    ¡°Ah, my Evil Points went up again, looks like another one died... Let¡¯s just hope that some if the intruders would still be alive. At least, I can bring them to the experimentalb to try out the new magic traps I came up with.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Arunide is the second daughter of the noble Third Family from Morsblight City. The fact that she became a gold-rank Lorci Priestess under 200 years old symbolizes that she has the favor of the Mother of Spiders. As the next rising star of Morsblight City, she is used to looking down on others.


    This time, she was under orders by her family to bring a team to Sulfur Mountain City to aplish a diplomatic task. After much consideration and investigation to ensure that it isn¡¯t some ploy from other female priests to usurp her position, she received the mission, ted.


    ¡°Stupid and dirty two-legged bugs, how dare you inferior males reject the kind will of the Spider Queen! I see, you all don¡¯t even have the qualifications to serve as ves. Then, burn in the fiery inferno of the Abyss while regretting your decisions.¡±


    Even as a diplomatic ambassador, she, just like most of her other brethren, look down on all other species that aren¡¯t female Dark Elves. Due to that, from the very start, there wasn¡¯t a possibility for the diplomatic talks to seed.


    But, as Dark Elves, their motives here naturally include spying, and their true mission has only just begun.


    ¡°All of you, go and carry out the mission granted by the Spider Queen. Assassinate all of the people whose names are on the list if possible. Or else, just collect information on them for the time being.¡±


    That¡¯s why these days, the Town Security army receivedints from their Dark Elf mates moving suspiciously in the city, putting them in a hard position to make a move.


    That bunch of bitches wearing thoseughable uniforms and worship the Holy Light, just looking at the dumbasses who betrayed the Spider Queen makes me sick... If I am able to find an opportunity to kill them, the Mother of Spiders would definitely send down more rewards!¡±


    But to Arunide, carrying out her family¡¯s mission as a spy was only a bonus. Her true goal was to convert the team attached to her into her devoted subordinates that would give up their lives for her interests.


    But before she was able to find trouble with the misfits among her brethren who worship Holy Light, one of her aplice from Chrome City was unexpectedly captured.


    ¡°Useless males, the way he died is too pathetic, too weak. But it would be troublesome if he talks. If Sulfur Mountain City were to get a hold against us, our diplomatic team from Morsblight might be expelled from the city. Not mentioning how embarrassing it is, if we fail the reconnaissance and assassination mission coupled with our secrets getting revealed...¡±


    Remembering the harsh torture her family dealt towards failures and the punishments the Spider Queen imposes upon weaklings, turning into a half-human half-spider freak or so... Surmise can¡¯t help but shiver in fear.


    Fortunately, the wise Spider Queen still favors her and the mark left on the male indicates that he was taken away from the impregnable Fire Mountain Prison and brought to this weird house.


    Despite hearing that it was the living quarters of a Lich, she didn¡¯t back away.


    Just another foolish man. Are you all virgins who haven¡¯t enjoyed the service of those handsome Mages in the family before? To actually read a Mage? Even if he is a legend-rank Mage, but what about it? We, Dark Elves, are the natural nemesis of Mages. We have 2 Shadow Dancers and a Priest of the Spider Queen, we can down him in an instant...¡±


    But in this moment, she no longer possesses the calmness and confidence she had then.


    ¡°Explosions, explosions. Explosions everywhere. The doorbell explodes, the door mat explodes and even a small pebble by the road explodes as well... Exactly what kind of ce did wee to?¡±


    The body of the gold-rank Shadow Dancer, who is equal to her in fighting prowess, lies on the icy-cold floor. A hole has been opened in her head, her skullcap had been blown away and blood and brain matter flowed endlessly from within. Her cause of death...


    ¡°The powerful Blood of Haxinti actually died to an exploding coat rack. Would anyone be able to believe it? How am I to exin to my family that I lost our strongest Assassin. In less than 3 minutes, only 3 people remains of our 2 teams and we haven¡¯t even met our target yet.¡±


    The surviving no longer dared to proceed on and after the retreating Haxinti died to an exploding cost rack, they don¡¯t even dare to retreat anymore. They huddle together, wary of the surroundings.


    But very soon, they no longer have to worry.


    That is because in front of them, a floating figure appears from the dark night. The silver-colored Ice magic and ck-colored death magic hovers around the skeleton. In the eyes, a purple color soulfire burns wildly and the icy-cold voice formed by the reverberation of magic brings one despair.


    ¡°Nice to meet you, test subject 17893, test subject 17894 and test subject 17895. Wee to my researchb. Un, please do remember your assigned numbers. From today on, that will be your new names. Here, will be your home until your deaths. I hope that I can make you feel the warmth of home.¡±


    The voice created by a Lich¡¯s magic was gender-ambiguous and has no trace of emotion within it. It was as though it was just announcing a known fact. The eyes that it looks at towards yourself, there was no lust towards males or jealousy or females. If there was anything, it was only the interest towards the construct of one¡¯s body.


    Somehow, looking at the ghostfire burning in its cold eyes, Arunide remembered the warning of her grandmother who doted on her.


    ¡°In the view of the world, we, Dark Elves, are evil, dangerous and crazy. But, in the face of true evil, we are just pitifulmbs waiting to be ughtered...¡±


    ¡°Grandmother, I finally understand the reason behind your sigh then. But a pity that it¡¯s already toote... No benevolence or evil, no love or hatred, these eyes that only see an animal waiting to be experimented on. Is this the shape of true evil?¡±


    Before she lost her consciousness, the rising star of Morsblight City, the second daughter of the noble 3rd Family Arunide sighs for the final time.

 Chapter 16

    <h4>Chapter 16: Scheme</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    It was easy for those intruders, who have something wrong with their head, to die. After all, only 3 of them were left when they barely reached the entrance of my home. But, the difficult part of resolving the issue afterwards is on me.


    Thanks to Elisa¡¯s help, the sound of those ¡®Safe¡¯ goblin machinery¡¯s explosions reached the heavens. Especially on such a silent night, even those from 3 streets away could hear it. Before, this was said to be a haunted house but now, its infamy is going to spread further.


    Completely within my expectation, upon realizing that the location of the reported case is the living quarters of the ¡®poisonous tumor¡¯, the Town Security army immediately woke up all their sleeping sisters and sent an impressive formation of 30 elite Knights.


    Led by a legend-rank Holy Knight, the formation consists of 30 Holy Knights of at least silver-rank... This is already sufficient to challenge a dragon. Are they here to save someone or making use of this opportunity to get rid of the ¡®poisonous tumor¡¯ who is affecting the city¡¯s climate, it is obvious to see with one look.


    ¡°That Lich bastard, we alwaysck evidence to prosecute him. This time, Yawen will lead Team A to conduct the rescue mission while I will lead Team B to conduct the raid. Hehe, I don¡¯t understand why the Hall of Enforcement is always siding with him but I don¡¯t believe that the Lich don¡¯t have a single banned good. If we seed in the raid this time, as the captain, I will treat you all to drinks.¡±


    ¡°Ohhh, get rid of him! For our ssic magazines in our storage room... that got exploded!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, let¡¯s first tie him up and hang him in the sky. Then, spin him until he vomits and afterwards, send him flying straight to the wall with the Spirit Horse... Sisters, the time for revenge havee!!¡±


    ¡°For Momo¡¯s little bear!¡±


    ¡°For my dowry! Knights, charge! Attack!¡±


    From these passionate roars, it can be seen that someone did not neglect doing good deeds in his pastime... The depth of hatred isn¡¯t normal.


    The Lich with a loose screw may not have any major crimes but if we are talking about the mental turmoil the Town Security suffer from his pranks, even all of the criminals added up together don¡¯t equal to a half of his.


    If they manage to take him down this time, not only do they receive a bonus reward from the captain but they can also pay back him back for blowing up their base and all the different grudges from the past. Ever since they set off to apprehend the Lich, their morale was exceptionally high and they managed to run at speed surpassing that of riders.


    When the Town Security finally arrived at the scene, they, unexpectedly, found their head, The Guard of Steel (Xueti) have already arrived. Furthermore, looking at the corpses on the floor, their faces turned pale white. Their grudge with the Lich went to the back of their mind.


    ¡°Dark Elves? Why?¡±


    The corpses are that of their brethren. Looking at the Spider Silk Shadow Hat that boosts one¡¯s movement speed in the shadow, the Cat¡¯s Sneakers which reduces the sound of footsteps, a dagger and knife with a green glow on its edge, even if we do not consider their terrible reputation, the reason why they are here is obvious at a nce.


    ¡°It is the standard equipment for Venomous Spider Gang when on assassination missions. A 2nd job advanced Assassin requires the blessing of the Spider Queen. Only big families can afford to groom them.¡±


    On the surface, just by being a Dark Elf can be considered a sin and even in the underground world, many ces choose to capture the Dark Elves first before investigation and questioning. Furthermore, they normally aren¡¯t wrong in their arrests. Of course, for demons and devils, you won¡¯t go wrong burning them before investigation...


    In this world, there are times when a race itself is seen as a representation of kindness or evil and the faction they belong to. In Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s case, they are considered to be entric for using the ¡®evil and chaotic¡¯ Dark Elves as guards for the city.


    If it is just her brethrenmitting crimes, Town Security captain Diana is already used to it, just punish them ordingly. But the shout from the back made her heart stop.


    ¡°It is Carlos from the 7th Family. He came with the Morsblight diplomatic team.¡±


    ¡°Morsblight City?¡± Just thinking about the name of her hometown, Diana shes a bitter smile. As an outcast that worships Holy Light, she doesn¡¯t have any good memories back in the territory of the Spider Queen. ¡°...What shoulde wille. The Spider Queen never forgets her enemies and there isn¡¯t the word ¡®forgiveness¡¯ in the dictionary of Dark Elves. It is impossible for them to just let us go.¡±


    As Dark Elves, even though they converted their faith to believe in the Holy Light, they never forgotten those underhanded methods. That is also why, to criminals, the Sulfur Mountain City Dark Elf Knight squad was difficult to deal with.


    Arunide was nning to get rid of these traitors of the Spider Queen but at the same time, the Dark Elf Knights were wary of these ¡®diplomatic ambassadors¡¯ from their hometown. At the very least, tabs from the spies on the doorstep of the hotel which the diplomatic team was residing in never stopped.


    But obviously, they still underestimated these elites from their hometown. They managed to bypass the spies they sent out and in the worst-case scenario, the recent serial murder case was caused by them...


    ¡°Yo, isn¡¯t this Captain Diana? Haven¡¯t seen you in a while.¡±


    As usual, this Lich was speaking nonsense. However, unlike usual days, the worried Diana didn¡¯t have the mood to find trouble with him. She was apprehensive of what was going to happen during daybreak when news that there are casualties from the diplomatic teame to light. Would Morsblight City, which never takes an insult lying, me this incident on her and her sisters?


    Even if she neglects the response from hometown, the recent suspicious movements of the Dark Elves in the city have brought them great pressure and now that those Dark Elves that tried infiltrating the Lich¡¯s living quarters are found dead at the scene, it is as good as them being caught in the act.


    While she expected such a thing to happen, what she was truly worried was when the citizens discover that the true culprit behind the serial murderer case recently was Dark Elves, then based on her understanding of her brethren, it would be harder for them to gather evidence.


    If they are unable to resolve the case swiftly, the name of the Town Security might take a blow. After all, before this incident, there were already a few big merchants murdered and being unable to solve these cases, they were subjected to quite a bit of pressure by the popce.


    ¡°Diana, your luck isn¡¯t bad this time. Looks like the case of the murder of the merchants can be concluded.¡±


    ¡°Concluded? That consecutive killings directed towards merchants?¡± Hearing that, the Dark Elf Knights shakes violently, their faces full of surprise and disbelief


    ¡°There is evidence!?¡±


    Diana found it difficult to believe in. Even though they suspected that the murderer is those fellows from the diplomatic team, but Dark Elves rarely leave concrete evidence behind. Furthermore, as aw enforcer of Sulfur Mountain City, they cannoty their hands on suspects without evidence, especially towards ambassadors, thus they were severely limited to simply surveince.


    ¡°Yeah, this fellow actually brought the hit list with him. This time, we have concrete evidence. We can take this chance to send a letter of protest to Morsblight City.¡±


    At this instant, the solemnrge block of metal was extremely overjoyed, a rarely seen sight. Well, I guess that is to be expected. As the Head of the Hall of Enforcement, being unable to resolve the case of the serial murders, the pressure he feels is probably even greater than mine.


    ¡°Right, are the Beyar brothers are still under custody?¡±


    ¡°Hm? Beyar?¡±


    ¡°That pair of explosive-obsessed maniacs.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that pair of green-skinned ticking time bomb. To save money, they actually chose to use RDX (a type of highly vtile explosive used for blowing up mountains) as the power source of the machinery. It was impossible for that thing to not explode. They are still insisting that they are innocent, that it is a secret recipe passed down by their ancestors and definitely safe. They are unwilling to pay bail and fine, so we are currently collecting evidence tounch aint, sue them for the creation of dangerous and inferior good. But, we still can¡¯t find any evidence because all their products that exploded...¡±


    ¡°There is evidence now! Look at these Dark Elves and those broken machinery pieces, don¡¯t you find that their cause of death is quite familiar?¡±


    ¡°Xueti, despite looking so honest on the outside, you sell your friends without a hint of hesitation.¡± Hearing that Taurenw enforcer talking excitedly, I couldn¡¯t help but draw a cross for the Beyar brothers in my heart and pray for them. Then, without hesitation, I joined the betrayer club...


    ¡°Lord, it is all the fault of those greedy goblins. Just a while ago, my maid went to the Safe Goblin Machinations to purchase some furniture. But, all the furniture we bought end up exploding. Fortunately, those kind-hearted people over there helped me to avoid a tragedy. Otherwise, the one dead one would definitely be me. Lord, you must redress my grievances!¡±


    ¡°Dark Elves are good-hearted people? Isn¡¯t Liches already dead? Can they die again? Besides, it would be weird if a walking trouble like you can die.¡± Looking at how the corner of the eyes of these twow enforcers keep twitching, I can roughly guess what they are thinking.


    At least, their gaze speaks of ¡®Do you really take us for idiots or are you an idiot yourself¡¯. Theirck of trust makes me unhappy, especially when I am restricted by the God Equipment Curse to be unable to lie... I really don¡¯t know about it; those Dark Elves really did help me ward off a cmity.


    Hey hey, if you don¡¯t start showing some trust, you better be careful of myints. I will secretly make your life difficult and send you all to the sulfur mine as watch guards!


    ¡°Cough cough, the destructive ability of the Beyar brothers¡¯ machinations shouldn¡¯t be that great though?¡± Finally recalling that such a gaze is rude, Diana turns her nce elsewhere and diverts the topic.


    Seeing the presence of her superior here, she understands that her n tond the Lich in trouble has gone down the drain. However, she has once personally tried the might of the explosives and it was highly improbable for the elites of Morsblight City to die to such unnned small-scale explosions.


    It¡¯s this.¡± Xueti retrieves a silver fragment from the corpse¡¯s wounds.


    ¡°High purity Holy Silver Beads. It seems that it has been embedded in the engine if the machinations such that once it explodes, the explosion provides kic energy to the beads, allowing it work like the rifles of the Dwarf. The true murder weapon is these fragments.¡±


    Looking at these Holy Silver fragments, my mouth began to twitch. ¡°Elisa... You really nned everything out well.¡±


    ¡°Looks like it really isn¡¯t your handicraft. Did you offend the Beyar brothers for them to n to murder you?¡±


    This time, I don¡¯t have to exin myself further, all the suspicions are washed off. Holy Silver, a sacred object that was blessed by the Order gods, is deadly to Demons and Undead. Simplying into contact with it can cause me devastating burns, and the damage goes straight to the soul. There was no way I could use it.


    ¡°Did I deserve this? To go this far.¡± I recall a memory a while ago, one where Elisa¡¯s hands were bandaged. She was never one so concerned with chores, it must be to install up these Holy Silver fragments. Even for a half-demon, touching these things must have been excruciating.


    ¡°To avoid dying for no apparent reason, I better pay two years of her wages first...¡±


    ¡°Boom!!¡± Out of the blue, there were consecutive explosions and arge figure rushed out.


    ¡°Stop him!¡±


    ¡°Who is that?¡±


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHHH!¡±


    How can they allow suspicious figures to get away at this point? The Town Security went up and surrounded the figure, but the response they got was a ferocious battle cry of a Beastman.


    With a sh of silver, his gigantic de shes in all directions like a dancing dragon. With disbelief in everyone¡¯s eyes, the elite weapons wielded by everyone instantly broke.


    ¡°How is this possible! Ah!¡±


    ¡°Be careful, there is something wrong with his weapon! Don¡¯t go head on with him!¡±


    ¡°Kua kua kua!¡± A crisp reverberation sounds. Under therge de, the thick armor of the Town Security was cut through like thin paper. Wherever the shadow of the de appears, cries of agony could be heard and blood stters everywhere!


    Making use of the momentum, the frenzied Beastman dashes out of the heavy encirclement.


    ¡°Voke, how could this be?!¡±


    It was no wonder that Diana was able to recognize this red-eyed half-Beastman. In order to catch this brutal and cunning criminal then, the Town Security put in a lot of effort before seeding.


    ¡°That can¡¯t be, how can he be so powerful.¡±


    Half-Elf Half-Beastman, a Bronze-rank Assassin. Even with his both eyes-red and his swollen muscles, as though as he went into a Berserker state exclusive to Beastman and Barbarians, but as a bronze-rank fighter, it was incredible that he was able to bash through a bunch of Knights of silver-rank and above.


    ¡°It is that de! There¡¯s something wrong with that de, don¡¯t touch it!¡±


    The crowd quickly understood what was wrong. Even though everyone¡¯s weapons were quite bad, but in front of that giant de with a dragon tattoo, it was just a matter of one or two shes before it is cut into two.


    ¡°Make way!!¡±


    A good weapon allows one to challenge another surpassing their rank, but the one here now is Diana. Not only is the difference in abilities great between the two, the sacred sword Silver Avenger was also an epic de that isn¡¯t inferior to the Dragon Saber.


    ¡°ng!¡±


    The sword and the de cross edges, but the unlucky Silver Avengers was directly cut into two. Cracks also started appearing on Voke¡¯s de from the impact and for a moment, Voke was defenseless. Diana sent him flying away with a fierce kick.


    Diana¡¯s usage of force was skillful so as to keep him alive for questioning. However, Voke was first tortured cruelly, next all of his energy was sapped from the Frenzy, then he was controlled by his sword before a legend-rank Knight finally sent a kick to his chest. After vomiting two mouthfuls of blood on the ground, he died instantly.


    When the Holy Knights finally found something amiss with the situation and decided to use the once-a-day usage of Holy Treatment to save him, Voke was already without a pulse.


    ¡°I need an exnation!! Why is Voke, who should be at the Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s prison, here and why did the Dark Elf Assassins infiltrate this ce!¡±


    Saying that, she points the remaining half of her silver short sword at me. Looks like if she won¡¯t simply let this slide if she doesn¡¯t get her answer today.


    But I simply smiled... Everything was just as I expected, the fish is onto the bait.


    After a mutual nce with Xueti, I remained silent. In the end, he stood up.


    ¡°It is like that. Actually, Rnd and the legal system have some secret dealings. He is an expert in souls and an interrogation techniques master. If we meet a stubborn prisoner, we would ask him for a favor...¡±


    These exnations are actually the truth. At least, it is the truth that Xueti knows. Diana was already vaguely suspicious of how the legal system was too lenient on the Lich in front of her. It was weird that when she was chasing him that Lord Wumianzhe appeared and weird that the Head of the Hall of Enforcement in here as well.


    ¡°Yeah, we are all one family.¡± I can¡¯t lie, so this sentence is definitely the truth. In reality, I am saying that I am Wumianzhe but in the eyes of the Holy Knights, they think that I am confessing to the dealings with the legal system. In this instant, Diana reacted just as I anticipated, a look of realization.


    ¡°Hmph, no matter who¡¯s behind you, don¡¯t let me catch youmitting crimes! Otherwise, no one can save you! Retreat!¡±


    Before leaving, she threatens me menacingly in the presence of her superior. She really is the ideal example of a dumb Knight, so innocent, so easy to make use of!


    Just as I wasughing at them while watching them taking the body along their team, I hear a familiar voice just beside my ear.


    ¡°The confession we just got out of Voke has been ascertained by the experimental subject known as Arunide. I have already copied 2 reports and sent it to Margaret and Lord Adam through the secret channel. However, my Lord, wasting so much effort for just a show and even exposing your rtionship with the legal system on the surface, is it worth it?¡±


    ¡°Of course, it is worth it. To say the truth, I underestimated the psychotic killer. To think he had such an important secret in his hands. In order to calm down those who are on the verge of taking action, Voke has to die and it must be in front of everyone else. This way, as long as the experimental subject really escapes, the rumor of the diplomatic ambassadors escaping in the middle of the night will look authentic as well. After that, as long as our experimental subject reports the false news obediently, I doubt that they would suspect that their intelligence have been leaked.¡±


    ¡°You yed out such a show just to numb those fellows? Even paying an epic weapon in the midst?¡±


    ¡°That Dragon Saber? That is a useless good, the 1% chance of Frenzy actually increases by 1% every second, which means that after 2 minutes, one would recognize no kin. It would be better to just give it out. Besides, I remember that there is someone in the Town Security who can use that saber, and aren¡¯t the Town Security my arms? Their strength is as good as my strength.¡±


    ¡°... Why do I feel that you are just cherishing them and protecting them by making the clues which they are investigating stop in their track so that they don¡¯t get involved and end up getting killed as a pawn.¡±


    TL: Cherishing -> The phrase the author used is directed towards women and means that you sort of cherish them greatly that you don¡¯t want anything to befall them.


    ¡°Hah, such wild imagination.¡± Iughed and looked up to the sky.


    ¡°That isn¡¯t the case. This incident involves the other underground city lords, the Malevolent Elemental God and that bunch of bastard traitors. The Town Security have great fighting prowess but some things just require one to use their brains. They don¡¯t have good political skills so if they get involved, they won¡¯t even fit being cannon fodder. It was difficult to create a Holy Light Knight Squad so to waste them just like that is a waste. I still intend to get them to do a few more years of hard work after all.


    While saying that, I started getting excited.


    ¡°An ancient Malevolent God and an Underground Autarch. Looks like there¡¯s finally an enemy worthy of me going all out. Hehe, maybe this is the sign that a new age is about toe.¡±


    TL: Autarch = someone who has absolute power

 Chapter 17

    <h4>Chapter 17: Truth and Reunion</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    The Whisper of the Demons is the name of the first prelude to ?Eich¡¯s Seven Hells?.


    This future toe signals the start of the Eternal War. With the assistance of the demons, the Ancient Elemental Gods, subordinates of the Goddess of Chaos, who have fought in the ancient wars gradually break away from their seals and bring the continent endless catastrophes.


    Following the awakening of the Elemental Gods, the Fire Elemental Warlords, the Wind Elemental Governors, the Water Elemental Monarch and simr elemental beasts gradually be the first boss-ss opponents of the gamers.


    Not longter, sensing the arrival of a new order, the ambitious and idealists start to make their move. Among them, the most dangerous of all are those who hope to create an independent country, the cultists who wee the descend of the Malevolent Gods, the Underground Lords who hopes to return back to the surface gloriously and the undead kingdoms who crave for ughter and destruction.


    Of course, the word prelude is a hint that these troublesome things mostly have the shadows of demons behind it. As the Elemental Gods descend one by one, even if it isn¡¯t their real body but their manifestations, the elemental tide will gradually befall and the might of elemental magic bes even more powerful and the advancement to be an expert bes easier.


    TL: Although I use the word manifestation, it is actually a split body of them.


    The continent of Eich will finally reach a magic era where Liches are everywhere and legends are like dogs. Under the elemental tide, the Eich continent and other dimensions be more connected, causing travel between dimensions to be easier, resulting in frequent arrivals of foreign guests.


    As the young generations on the surface are heading towards prosperity and the countries are positive about their future and even harboring ambitious thoughts of expanding theirnd, they didn¡¯t expect that it was a ploy of the demons and the Malevolent Gods of Chaos. As the magic tide arrives and opened the doors between dimension, especially the one to the Abyss, swarms of demons would swarm to the mortal world. But before that, the world would have to survive through the waves of Undead Cmity.


    The Alliance among the Underground Lords to invade the surface should be a content of the next installment ¡°The Vulture of War¡±, which is supposed to be around 10 years from now. It is still a bit too early for it but if we were to think about it, it is to be expected.


    After all, the Underground World is still extremely chaotic now and even if the Underground Autarchs were to reorganize the proud and aloof Underground Lords, it would take massive amount of time. Now should be the period in which they reorganize their troops and destroy the nonconformists.


    The Sulfur Mountain City which we reside in is an obvious obstacle in their path. Or rather, we shouldn¡¯t use such a description to describe to a human on these Underground Autarchs.


    TL: The phrase the author used means that we were blocking a human¡¯s path literally (though it shouldn¡¯t be taken literally)


    ¡°It is said that the blood-rted daughter of the Spider Queen, the High Priestess Kajah.Lorci, has united all of the Dark Elves and their targets are the surface Elves...¡±


    ¡°The Dragon Empress Molly, the leader of Red Dragons and ck Dragons, the epted King of the Dragon Tribe by 7 Dragon Cities of the underground. Their goal is to return to the surface and if possible, get revenge on the Dragon God Bahamut who exiled them.¡±


    ¡°Ainsterna.Eduar, ck Mage, his race is arguably a human... His motives are unknown, his strength is unknown but he hasmand over 50 underground cities. If we just look at the size of a regr army, he isn¡¯t inferior to any of the human kingdoms. He has superb ability in conducting warfare and is the future High Commander of the Underground Alliance in name.¡±


    ¡°Shou.Nuya, a Scorpion-tail Lion Beastman, the head of the Nuya tribe and the elected sovereign of more than hundreds of underground Beastman. Although the Beastman tribes are full of internal strife, their aptitude towards fighting is astounding. The talents of underground Beastman is much stronger than those of the surface Beastman. If we just look at the numbers of experts, they live up to the name gold are like dogs, legends are everywhere. Their motive... Surprisingly, it isn¡¯t to exact revenge on the surface tribes but to return to the home of the Beastman, the legendary nuya ins. But now, the ins belong to a strong empire of the humans, Saint Antonio, and it serves as their granary. That is to say, if they were to fight, it would be a level of battle which nations and tribes get destroyed...¡±


    As the authority these 4 possess is a tier higher than that of other Underground Lords, they are acknowledged as the Underground Autarchs.


    But the everyone understands the story where one monk has water to drink, two monks fetch water to drink, three monks don¡¯t have water to drink. If there is only one Underground Autarch, they would have long unified the entire underground world and send troops to invade the surface. But now, there are four Underground Autarchs that is keeping each other in check, causing the underground world to be even more chaotic.


    TL: Meaning the monk fight for water, the Autarchs fight for authority.


    This time, just as how the history on the game walkthrough records, the ck Mage Einsterna and underground Beastman Sovereign Shou, sensing the opportunities from the arrival of a new era, have formed an alliance and they intend to send an invitation of Kajah and Molly, offering them great incentives to solidify the Underground Alliance. By gathering over 40% of the Underground Lords in the underground world, they would have created the greatest alliance army in history.


    But I know that things aren¡¯t that simple. From the ¡®history¡¯ in the game walkthrough, there is a third party interfering at the back of the Beastman and ck Mage... The figurehead behind the ck Mage is the cunning Devils and behind the Beastman is the chaotic and bloodthirsty Demons. Both of them intend to use them as a pocket to interfere and cause both of them to fall out. This is also the only way for the formation of the strong alliance army to fail.


    Of course, the Spider Queen Lorci and the ck Dragons aren¡¯t innocent and kind people either. They are also furthering their own motives.


    ¡°My head hurts. This isn¡¯t a problem of quantity anymore.¡±


    The signing of the Underground Alliance pact and the formation of the Alliance Army should be something recent. Even if I have the heart to interfere, but I don¡¯t have the influence to alter the situation. The invasion of the Alliance Army to the surface is already fixed in stone.


    ¡°Those pigs on the surface can enjoy the warm sunlight and clean night breeze without doing anything. Inparison, if we don¡¯t do anything, we can¡¯t even differentiate day from night. We can only use the cold lingering light of the luminescent algae, drink the underground water which has strong sulfuric taste, live in fear of earthquakes and stampedes, a life without day or night, a life that isn¡¯t even fit for dogs and pigs. Tell me, my brethren from the underground, do you all intend for your grandchildren and descendants to also live this kind of hellish lifestyle? We, the ones who have been exiled, why should we be inferior to others? Why do we have to bear the sins of our ancestors? Everyone should have the right to live under the sun, we are only getting back what that should belong to us.


    Three years ago, this powerful inciting speech was shouted out by Ainsterna and very soon, it spread to the entire underground world.


    Now, the invasion of the underground world back to the surface to enjoy true sunlight is the craving of every single life here. It is destined to be make history. (The underground world has no sun, but the ceiling of the rocks has many luminescent algae that provides some light)


    Even I don¡¯t intend to block such a strong tide with my weak arms. The Underground Alliance formed by countless underground cities cannot be stopped, but the internal betrayal in Sulfur Mountain City as a result of the movement cannot be spared.


    ¡°Councilor Welter, Councilor Kern...¡± These foolish councilors, they actually intend to bypass Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Internal Affairs Bureau and directly liaise with the other underground cities to form a pact and join in the future crusade to the surface.


    As the current City Lord Adam of Sulfur Mountain City is hailed as a hero by the humans on the surface, despite not knowing why he has decided to live here for the past hundred years, from the start, the big figures from the surface ¡®Hero¡¯ Adam and ¡®Saint¡¯ Margaret is seen as an enemy by the Underground Alliance.


    Following the progress of the Alliance, the Dark Elf-owned MorsBlight city willingly served the as the underling of the Spider Queen¡¯s Supreme Priest Kajah, while the Gray Dwarf and underground Beastman¡¯s Chrome City turned to the Beastman Sovereign Shou.


    Sulfur Mountain City has been a pacifist all along, so it is impossible for them to wage a world war against the surface. Thus, from the start, Sulfur Mountain City has been a thorn in the eye for the Alliance.


    But not everyone is unambitious like us... At least, quite a few ¡®big figures¡¯ in Sulfur Mountain City expressed interest in thend of the surface. Sulfur Mountain City might not have any nobles, but the surface and other underground cities have nobles...


    Thus, when the two cities started exerting pressure on those foolish Councilors and offered themnd on the surface, a portion of the self-interested people started formation factions, creating the ¡®Alliance Faction¡¯. Coincidentally, Adam was intending to pass on the seat of the City Lord, thus providing them a good opportunity.


    The diplomatic team that came to Sulfur City, on the surface, they were to talk over the terms of trade, something that no one took it for real, while in the shadows, their true motive was to help these Councilors solidify their power. Those merchants who were assassinated, excluding those unlucky fellows who were used to pull wool over our eyes, most of them had a seat on the Council. As the obstacles were rooted one by one, the Alliance Faction were gradually gaining traction.


    No one would be foolish to start a head-on conflict with the SemiGod ss Adam. What they are waiting for as they umte power is for a fault to happen in Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s inauguration of the new lord and an opportunity for them to stroke the mes of rebellion and take over as the new ruler.


    The Dark Elf Town Security might be very efficient in dealing with criminals but due to their birth identity, they are condemned to the suspicion by a portion of the citizens. If they are pulled into such a scheme, if the Alliance Faction find them an obstacle to their motives, they might end up as fodder for this conflict.


    Just by pondering over it a bit, I can think of dozens of dirty ways to destroy them, such as to incite public will by saying that they are the true culprits of the serial killings and they were only pushing the fault to the ambassador team. Then, they could force them to hand over ¡®the true culprit¡¯ and motivate the public to stand against them, me them for theft and spheming the Holy Light. Afterwards, they could bring in the judgement by the church and force them to their death. Or, if they retaliate with force, hoho...


    Cough, I better rein myself in a little. Those Councilors may not be as ¡®wise¡¯ as me, but as experts in internal strife, they may not be able to think of a dozen but one or two definitely isn¡¯t a problem.


    My reason for putting them out of the picture isn¡¯t because I cherish them as Elisa said, but my instinctive ability to protect the weak.


    Right, just protecting the weak. Who would like those sillysses who always interfere with my work, like I would care about their deaths.


    But they are now my underling¡¯s underling, they are a member of my Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s legal system alive, a ghost (undead) of my Lord Yongye dead. If they were to be killed for no apparent reason with so much grievances, isn¡¯t that throwing my face.


    Hearing the news that Elisa got out of Volk, it seems as though all of the problems were solved. However, I realized that there was still some things that weren¡¯t logical.


    ¡°... Why are they so fixated on Sulfur Mountain City. This city,pared to the proportion of the entire underground world, isn¡¯t even more than a dot.¡±


    I am unlike those boastful councilors that think that the sky would fall without me. Even without Sulfur Mountain City joining in the alliance, the Underground Alliance still retains the power to sweep the surface.


    ¡°I seem to have heard Volk saying that there is a very powerful magic thing sealed here, and the Dragon Empress seems to be very interested in it. She even put up a very high price for it, that¡¯s why he came here to try his luck.¡±


    ¡°Bullshit, I have been here for more than a hundred years. It is only a piece of barrennd, what kind of strong magic thing would be sealed here...


    Suddenly, as I remembered something, I stopped in my tracks.


    ¡°A strong magic thing? Seal? It can¡¯t be so coincidental. Are they referring to me, Lord Yongye? That shouldn¡¯t be, the news of me being here shouldn¡¯t have leaked. After all, my true identity is only known by Adam, Margaret and Little Red and they aren¡¯t people who would leak secrets... No, there is someone with a loose mouth.¡±


    ¡°Thatd Adam dug a hole to trip me again?¡±


    Propping up her gold-framed spectacles, Elisa seemingly nods her head bitterly, but I could tell that she was secretlyughing.


    ¡°A year ago, the Councilors invited the City Lord to a party and on the party, there was the strongest Beastman Eviscerate Beer... After drinking too much, the City Lord spent 3 hours describing how he defeated the strong demon lord and that he sealed him in the depths of hell. He didn¡¯t specify which demon lord it is and most of the Councilors took it as a joke but apparently, someone took it for real.¡±


    ¡°Lord Yongye huh?¡± I seemed to have mumbled, but it is also a question just to see whether anyone would answer.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t Lord Yongye. Based on the analysis of the Dragon Empress, the SemiGod Undead Emperor isn¡¯t someone Adam could have dealt with then, needless to mention sealing him. It was more probable that he just got sick of fighting and left the continent.¡±


    The new test subject seems to have acknowledged her situation and took the initiative to hand over valuable news that I wasn¡¯t aware of.


    ¡°Furthermore, if Lord Yongye was really sealed here, then it isn¡¯t a target that we could take control of. In the eyes of all living beings, he is a dangerous fellow that shouldn¡¯t be released. Looking for Lord Yongye is just a false rumor that we created. Our true motive is the Ancient Fire Elemental God Arweiss.


    My lie-detector ring also authenticated that it was the truth. Thinking of the unique traits of the fire element, realization struck me.


    This is Sulfur Mountain City, just behind us lies the endless sulfur mountains and a thing like sulfur is easily found in the surroundings of a volcano. For such arge sulfur mountain to exist, it is obvious that it isn¡¯t a product a nature.


    ¡°In that game, all of the Ancient Elemental Gods that descended were defeated and exiled in the long battles toe, but the only exception is the Fire Elemental God. Now that I think of it, it isn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t descend, but that the Fire Elemental was in the underground world from the start. After all, what kind of ce would be more suited for a fire elemental to live in other than the sulfur mountains.¡±


    ¡°Underground? Within the sulfur mountains?¡±


    ¡°Yes. The Councilors in the Alliance Faction have already sold a portion of the rights to mine in the sulfur mines to us and our Gray Dwarves have found some remains that is very possibly the altar heading to where the Elemental God resides. Now, the few obstacles that remains is the leakage of news. We have to attain the rights to mine in the entire sulfur mountain. Those who are against the sale are also on the assassination list this time. The second is its guardian... The Dragon Empress guessed that Adam built this Sulfur Mountain City to keep watch on Arweiss and if we were to touch the seal, the guardian would definitely be alerted. But, against the SemiGod Adam, we might not win even if the Dragon Empress were to go against him personally.


    I pped my forehead. I feel the urge to cry but no tears flowed out.


    ¡°Adam, you really are my nemesis, you tripped me 130 years ago and now you are tripping me again. If you didn¡¯t go around bragging, why would other people treat you as the guardian of the Elemental God, they also wouldn¡¯t view this city as the thorn of their eyes. Now you even dragged me into this problem. Can¡¯t you keep your mouth shut properly and stop causing me so much trouble every day.¡±


    ¡°If this is really thend where the Elemental God was sealed, the demons could even interfere here personally. Then, I really have to start preparing.¡±


    Closing my eyes and thinking deeply, many thoughts floated around my mind and just as I vaguely felt like I was onto something, the door was suddenly bashed open. A reminiscent figure and voice made me instinctively lower my upper body and huddle together but I was still a stepte.


    ¡°Hi, Uncle Bones! Long time no see, Annie hase today to y with you.¡±


    Before flying out of the window, my final thoughts were the sh of pink then the continuously rotating world in my sight and the irrepressible wandering of my mind...


    ¡°She sure has grown, I could only fly 30 meters high then... Now, I can see the 300-meter-high rock ceiling and luminescent algae. Hey, mother vulture, you are here to hunt for food I see. Today¡¯s weather isn¡¯t bad huh.¡±


    Although I was flying so high up just as in the past, unexpectedly, I wasn¡¯t angry at all. The reason? While flying up in the sky, my brain kept rewinding the scene I just saw, the reason why my mind keeps popping up weird thoughts...


    ¡°Cough, its pink color. I have to remind her thatdies shouldn¡¯t go around spreading their legs to kick other people, otherwise it is very easy for them to sh. Girls sure are mystical creatures, they change totally when they mature. To think that in such a short period of time, she turned from a little brat to a tall and elegant beauty.¡±


    Yes, despite it being just seven to eight years, but in that instant, I saw clearly that the brat that used to stir trouble has grown into a cute youngdy.


    A fleshy bum and beautiful curves, full of liveliness. The young and innocent face coupled with a good figure and good personality, she is my ideal type.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t I consider marriage after I revive? However, after rejecting Adam so many times, if I were to change my word now, isn¡¯t that a little shameful.¡±


    Do I have such a thing as shame? Looks like I don¡¯t. Very quickly, I decided to test if Ann still remembers the Uncle Bones who dotes on her and often y with her, and her promise of marriage that I exchanged with a lollipop.


    But just as I enjoying my imagination, a bunch of uninvited my guests arrives...


    ¡°Go away, you smelly bird. I am not your prey, I am the fearsome Lich. I am very scary, beware of my bite...¡±


    A bunch of carnivorous vulture surrounds me. Bones seem to their favorite good...


    ¡°Go away, smelly birds!! I really will bite you. The touch of a Lich is scary, a Lich who only have its head remaining is also very powerful... Looks like before considering going through with the marriage, I have to first get rid of this bad habit of hers, teach her what can be kicked and what can¡¯t be kicked!!¡±


    Terminology may not be clear before but the world of Eich consists of one main world, and also the biggest piece ofnd ¨C the Eich continent, the Abyss (where demons and devils roam) and other dimensions which can be considered to be part of Eich as well. Travel through different dimensions are normally difficult in normal times.


    The MCes from a world that is not part of the world of Eich or any of their dimensions. (Thus outside of the system)


    Goddess of Chaos refers particrly to Cynthia, while Gods of Chaos refers to the gods under Cynthia¡¯s faction.

 Chapter 18

    <h4>Chapter 18: The Little Red Dragon</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    On the mountains that were filled with the smell of sulfur, there is a gigantic cavern where arge beast seems to faking sleep.


    Graceful, beautiful,rge and savage, these contradictory phrases fuse together perfectly in front of this beast whose size resembles a small hill. The sharp knife-like scales reflect a stream of light that mirrors the sun and those shining silver ws are of the size of gpoles.


    Its very existence is the incarnation of majesty and its breath can bring about storm and lightning. Under the gaze of those mystical dragon eyes, it feels as though life ising to an end.


    In this moment, this natural-born king narrows its eyes, as though as looking at something. Out of a sudden, it gives out a frightening roar.


    ¡°Ao ao ao!¡±


    Following the gigantic beast¡¯s lightning-like roaring, the entire mountain shakes and innumerable demonic beasts escapes in response to the roar. The savage carnivorous demonic vultures escape frantically in all directions just like frightened sparrows.


    When the peak of the food chain, the true owner of this mountain ¡ª Ancient Red Dragon Ein Mezus roar in anger, there is no living being that wouldn¡¯t feel fear.


    Even so, the content of the roar makes one speechless...


    ¡°AH HAHAHAHA, TO THINK THAT YOU WOULD HAVE SUCH A DAY. I¡¯M ABOUT TO DIE OF LAUGHTER.¡±


    The gigantic beast was actually hugging it stomach and starts rolling about. The entire cavern starts to tremor violently, as though it was going to copse anytime soon.


    ¡°Shut up, Little Red!¡±


    Yes, the person in front of her is me, Lich Rnd. But right now, my situation isn¡¯t that good...


    ¡°...Isn¡¯t this our wisest Lord Rnd? Where¡¯s your body? Why is there only a head left of you?¡±


    In front of the gigantic beast reminiscent of the mountains, there is a skeleton head which doesn¡¯t even reach the size of one of its scale. Un, that¡¯s me.


    ¡°Hmph.¡± I really don¡¯t want to bother with her but the scorpion-tailed lion on the other side was reporting to its master about its acquisition.


    ¡°Awuu, awuu.¡± The scorpion-tailed lion¡¯s weird nasally voice was mixed in with some dragonnguage. I can¡¯t really make out what it is saying, but Einz Mezus seems to getting more and more interested in its story.


    ¡°Oh oh, so you are saying that he was first fought over by a bunch of vultures, then the dogmans hit him down. Afterwards, the griffins stole him from the dogmans and after witnessing it all, you all decided to rob the griffins. You all found him quite familiar, so you decided to gift him to me for me to enjoy?¡±


    ¡°Rnd, what an exciting adventure you had. I will share this with Adam and the rest.¡±


    Ignoring this stupid dragon, I retained my silence.


    Yes, the bones of the Lich aren¡¯t that good to digest. With only my skullcap remaining, I enjoyed a tour about Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s food chain and went one level by one level up, finally ending up in the hands of Ein Mezus who was at the tip of the food chain.


    Of course, I have a way to directly recover by expending my mana but if I wait until noon, my skeleton body will automatically reassemble itself under the effects of my spell. Thus, I didn¡¯t have any intention of wasting mana to forcefully reassemble myself and this resulted in me... enjoying a tour around Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s food chain.


    ¡°You are getting overjoyed too fast. Think about it, what would the reason for me being in this state?¡±


    The Red Dragon used its gigantic ws to support its chin, putting out a position simr to a human thinking. In the beginning, she was still rather carefree but very soon, she thought of a possibility and her body bends, causing her chin to knock violently on the floor, but it wasn¡¯t the time for her to care about the pain.


    ¡°It can¡¯t be. Don¡¯t tell me that that person is back?¡±


    I nodded my head bitterly.


    ¡°Right, she¡¯s back. Furthermore, it is a leveled-up version with a great boost in her specs. Look at how high I flew this time...¡±


    Before I finished with my words, the gigantic dragon actually started bellowing.


    ¡°Quick, quick! Help me put up a ¡®Not free for battle¡¯ sign at the bottom of the hill, just say that I went out to visit my friends. Right, where is the key to the safe? Throw it into the volcano, we mustn¡¯t let that brat into my treasure vault at any costs. Forget it, I am really leaving now.¡±


    That day, the gigantic dragon remembered the times when terror being dominated by that rascal... The shame when her proud dragon scales were full of children drawings after an afternoon nap, the fear when her treasure vault was filled with water, the smell of fresh meat being mixed with sulfur andva, the insult those shining golden coins were converted into worthless ss...


    ¡°Meow, I am not like those dumb lizards, you think that those shining ss can be exchanged for goin coins? Dream on!¡±


    ¡°Wuuuuu, I just want to make Auntie Little Red happy. Everyone says that dragon auntie likes shiny things. Wuu, Ann is sorry, don¡¯t hate Ann.¡±


    Back then, facing the crying little girl and the resentment of her parents Adam and Margaret and my ¡®you made a little girl cry¡¯ kind of snickering, even a gigantic dragon was unable to retain her dignity and she could only give in and try to console Ann.


    ¡°Un, un, sister dragon loves Ann the most. Ann, don¡¯t cry anymore, be obedient Ann. Auntie have some sweets for you. No, this is a god equipment, it is worth a lot of money. Here, I¡¯ll give it to you. You don¡¯t like it? Then try this one, the blessed winged armor. You can wear it when you grow older...¡±


    From my experience which could be seen by those vandalized precious books as evidence, the scariest part about rascals is not their ability to cause devastation, but rather it is when after they are finished with it, you, as the victim, still have to be the one to wrap up the disaster. If you were to reprimand them a little harsher and they cry, you even have to pay the price to console her.


    That time, Einz Mezus paid a God Equipment, a set of Epic chainmail that she treasures and two... lollipops. Actually, I think the items in front are unneeded, just two lollipops would have been enough. Of course, I won¡¯t take the initiative to remind this dumb dragon.


    Right now, hearing that Annie hase back, she remembered the misery she suffered then such that even the Ancient Red Dragon dubbed as the Disaster of Veron was forced to go into hiding.


    The Attack of the Rascals, even gigantic dragons would have to kneel before them.


    ¡°Don¡¯t panic, she is still in Sulfur Mountain City. I will inform her when shees up to the mountains. But now, since we met, there are some things that I want to discuss with you.¡±


    ¡°Discuss what? I have to move my treasure vault! I am busy.¡±


    ¡°How about we talk about your mother?¡±


    It was a rude question, but Little Red calms down quite a bit after hearing it


    ¡°What do you mean? The self-proimed Dragon Empress Molly? What is with her?¡±


    Yes, the Ancient Red Dragon Einz Mezus is the unfilial daughter of Dragon Empress Molly. She is the rebellious daughter who have been exiled by the underground dragon tribes and just like every teenage girl who left home during their rebellious period, she has a lot of grudges against her mother and brethren.


    ¡°She has her eyes on Sulfur Mountain City. Or more concisely, the God of the Origin of Fire sealed below here. Don¡¯t tell me that you have never noticed that there is a malevolent god sealed here.


    ¡°...I have been wondering for a long time why it was sofortable to sleep here, so warm, just like a hot pit. So it is because there is a hearth hiding below here.¡±


    Alright, the Red Dragons and Fire Elementals likes active mountains. To her, if there really is a Fire Elemental God sealed under the mountain, it is only a veryfortable source of heat.


    ¡°So, the present situation is a little bit troublesome now. The seal below your home is already their target. It is just a matter of time before the fellows from other underground cities organize an alliance army here. I¡¯m sure you don¡¯t want to see your house bing a mess and your treasure vault getting smashed and robbed after a nap.¡±


    ¡°Furthermore, Annie is about to take over as Adam¡¯s sessor. Even though she is a rascal, but she is a rascal that we brought up together. Now those fellows down there are about to make their move, are you willing to see our child get bullied?¡±


    Hearing this, a scarlet red glint of rage shes across the dragon¡¯s eye. Following the killing will is a frightening pressure.


    As a tangible dragon pressure is exerted, the strong quasi-legend demonic beast scorpion-tailed lion was frightened to the point of huddling together. But, as the one directly in the face of the pressure, I smiled.


    I understand her. Little Red mightze around in her house a lot, but she definitely isn¡¯t a fool. Her spies have sent her a lot of intelligence.


    Also, her mouth might be a little harsh, but the one who dotes on Annie the most is still this dragonss who is way-past her marriage age but still single and flooding with maternal love. She views Annie as half a daughter or else, why would a Red Dragon who was known to be greedy and selfish bear to give out a precious defensive god equipment.


    Now that I mentioned that Annie was going to be bullied, her killing will would naturally be directed towards those fools in Sulfur Mountain City who thinks that they seem to think that they can ascend the heavens.


    ¡°Stop with the crap, just say it you have any n. Just like how it normally is, you work your brains and I work my arms to destroy them.¡±


    Hearing this, Iugh gleefully. Since Little Red was willing to be my fighter, my goal foring here today have been half-realized. As for the other half...


    ¡°I want to stage a show, a good show of an evil dragon invading a city.¡±


    ...Now that I am done preparing the stage. What is left is my quest!

 Chapter 19

    <h4>Chapter 19: Change</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Ka! Dang.Dang.Dang...¡±


    The Big Ben in Sulfur Mountain City echoes through the sky, signaling that it is noon lunchtime. As the reassemble magic is triggered, after a bout of dizziness, I return back to my home where my body is.


    When my head returns to where it belongs, the first thing I did was to check my body.


    ¡°1, 2, 3... 24. That¡¯s weird, did the rascal change gender? To think that there isn¡¯t a single rib bone missing.¡±


    When I was surprised over the fact that there isn¡¯t a single rib bone missing and was about to begin checking if any of my toe bones are missing, a voice filled with unhappiness could be heard from my back.


    TL: The author used a phrase ¡®??¡¯ which means like faked unhappiness (something like acting cute, like when your lover teases you and you aren¡¯t really angry but acting angry, but can¡¯t find a word for it)


    ¡°Uncle Bone, I am already grown up. I will no longer anyhow touch the parts on a man¡¯s body.¡±


    There is nothing wrong with the sentence but why do I feel so awkward hearing it.


    Turning around, I see a red-haired teenage girl staring at me. Just as what I saw in a nce before, that young snotty brat has be a fine youngdy now.


    Due the unique training methods of those with the blood of the Fire Phoenix, she has simr traits with Adam. Long fire-red hair that sways with the wind, slender long thighs that are straight as apass, the originally circr face that were filled with baby fat has transformed into a sharp oval face. The only thing that remains unchanged was the innocence in her eyes and the mole under her red eye that added to her femininity.


    TL: Compass as in the mathematical tool.


    ¡°Hey, humans really grow very fast. Just yesterday, you were still a rascal shouting ¡®kuma¡±kuma¡¯but now, you have be a finedy.¡±


    As my head turned around with a kaka cracking sound, Annie¡¯s face, at the start, was still solemn, then a look of surprise before she burst intoughter.


    ¡°Crap, my image.¡± Without a trace of emotion on my face, I tore away the note on my head. Then, I silently took the cloth Elisa was passing over and wiped away the turtle on my skullcap.


    Why? You can¡¯tprehend what is going on? While waiting for the reassemble magic to trigger, I yed 8 rounds (??) of mahjong with Little Red and identally lost 2 rounds... Hmph, I wasn¡¯t the loser. Little Red has it worse than me. Her entire body is filled with scribbles and now she doesn¡¯t even need make up to pass off as a ck dragon to go conduct robbery.


    TL: If I¡¯m not wrong, 1 set of Mahjong consists of 4 rounds and a full mahjong game consists of 4 set or 16 rounds.


    As for why didn¡¯t we use gold coins or our finances as bet and chose to just paste notes and draw turtles, it is because we are both magic experts and there isn¡¯t any bottom limit to our chastity. If we really put up something attractive as a bet, then this game which was used as a pastime would ultimately be a game of cheating or... What was that? Supernatural Mahjong Shoujo?


    TL: Shoujo -> Youngdy


    Alright, seems I identally arrowed something. Let¡¯s just make it Genius Magic Mahjong Teenager then.


    ¡°Sigh, nowadays, why is it so hard to just y a game of normal Mahjong.¡±


    Annie giggles behind her hand. I know my face must look terrible now. After all, it is hard to see a Lich with a turtle drawn on his head. Those Dracons who were called in to y with us also looked at us with the same surprised look...


    ¡°Is it very weird? Can the evil Lich and the destructive Red Dragon not sit down together to y Mahjong as a pastime? As long as we


    ¡°No, that¡¯s not it.¡± The red-haired youngdy shakes her head.


    ¡°After spending some time travelling out there, the world has changed. Aftering back, those people whom I was close with has be weird. They are always trying to get Annie to do this and that, their gestures are weird but they refuse to simply say it. Looking at those fake smiles, Annie feels so stressed out these days. But now, seeing that Auntie Little Red and Uncle Bones are still the same, I feel so relieved.¡±


    Annie smiles, a smile thates along with indescribable yearning and satisfaction. Looks like, this training tour this time has made this little princess of Sulfur Mountain City mature quite a bit.


    ¡°Pah!¡±


    Yet, I broke the mood and knocks on the other party¡¯s head with my bones.


    ¡°Just how old are you? Don¡¯t speak like an elderly. Lamenting about life and remembering the past should be left to the elderly. Even I am still young. Also, I am fine with you calling me uncle but calling Little Red...¡±


    ¡°Annie knows, when I see Auntie Little Red, I will call her Sister Little Red. Otherwise, when everyone is gone, Auntie Little Red is going to hide in the rock walls and sob secretly. Her cries are super loud, we can even hear it clearly from the bottom of the mountain. She doesn¡¯t even realize that, how embarrassing.¡±


    ¡°Un, that¡¯s right, those over-age unmarried youngdies are extremely sensitive. We should pity them, sympathize with them and love them. If you see Margaret, how should you call her?¡±


    ¡°Sister Margaret! Annie knows.¡±


    ¡°Right, remember to call her that in front of Adam.¡± I said that while snickering.


    Annie is Adam¡¯s disciple and at the same time, her goddaughter. Despite knowing this, Margaret gave Annie her own surname Layde, which indubitably expresses a certain wish of hers. But, not to mention calling her mother, Annie has always been calling her sister, which results in Adam suddenly bing a generation more senior than Margaret, causing her great distress.


    Of course, making her more distressed is also part of my duty.


    ¡°Remember, you must frequently praise Margaret for being young and beautiful and that an uncle like Adam isn¡¯t worthy of her.¡± The prerequisite for a child being loose with their words is that there isn¡¯t anyone around to teach them...


    ¡°Lord, teacher Margaret has left a message. If you continue to teach Annie these stuff, she will put in her weight as the Head of Internal Affairs to deduct the funds you imed to be ¡®work allowance¡¯ but used to purchase those limited edition ssic books.¡±


    I almost forget that I had Margaret¡¯s spy just by my side. I have always thought it was weird how a saint and a half-demon managed to get along so well but my head maid Elisa is indeed Margaret¡¯s disciple in name.


    Short hair, gold-rimmed sses, expressionless and a venomous tongue, these are all unique traits of Margaret. Even her action of intentionally standing on high ground and giving me a look of despise with icy-cold eyes while her right hand supports her gold-rimmed sses was so simr to her. I couldn¡¯t help but sigh.


    ¡°Can you don¡¯t imitate Margaret so much? Recently you are bing more and more alike with that old spinster, be careful that you might not be able to get married.¡±


    ¡°To be able to be simr with teacher is my honor. Also, I will pass along your evaluation of teacher to her, just wait for your funds to get cut.¡±


    ¡°Then, I will first cut the operation expenses of your ¡®Observer¡¯ so that you can experience the taste of being chased for wages by the spies under you.¡±


    ¡°Feel free, then I will steal from the living quarter¡¯s household expenses. You want to try experiencing a lifestyle where water supply and gas supply suddenly stops? You want to experience how is it like when all the candles suddenly go off deep in the night? You want to feel how it is when the toilet bowl suddenly explodes...¡±


    ¡°Hey hey hey, this isn¡¯t rted to the funds anymore. You are already plotting a murder to steal my fortunes. You evil maid!¡±


    ¡°You ck-hearted boss who owes your workers their wages...¡±


    ¡°Pu!¡± Seeing the both of us bicker, the excited Annieughs out.


    ¡°Sister Elisa is still the same as ever, I¡¯m d. The rtionship between Sister Elisa and Uncle Bones is so close that it really makes one jealous.¡±


    ¡°Our rtionship isn¡¯t close!¡± This time, Elisa and I, in a rarely seen coincidence, happened to say the same words at the same time.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Annie yed for a bit in my old quarters before leaving for home. As the future City Lord who just finished her adventure outside, there is a lot of things that she still need to learn


    Sitting by the window, I look how boisterous rascal jumping about before below has changed into a finedy walking elegantly. I felt a little sentimental.


    ¡°She really changed a lot.¡±


    Yeah, humans are indeed creatures with high tendency to change. Annie¡¯s changes upon growing up was huge, way beyond my expectations.


    ¡°Annie.Layde Race: Human


    Job: LV60Warrior/LV18Sword Saint


    Total: LV78, Fighting power evaluation: Gold-pinnacle, Quasi-Legend


    Yes, what I meant wasn¡¯t personality or figure, but her basic power.


    The current Annie, if I don¡¯t resort to my aces, I might not be able to beat her.


    Iron Bloodline, Copper Body, Iron Dignity, for a normal human, every stage is a tough hurdle they spend their entire life trying to bypass. If a person reaches LV60 pinnacle of silver, if they want to take a step forward, they must undergo job advancement. This is the boundary between mortals and heroes.


    If they seed, they receive a higher-tier job and enters the stage of Golden Will, also what the world call Expert. In the eyes of most people in the world, their impressions of gold-rank experts are all a bunch of elderly.


    Annie is only seventeen years old and to reach silver-rank at this age can already be said to be a genius by the view of the world. As for pinnacle of gold... Elisa is also pinnacle of gold and even under the tutge of two SemiGod Mage, me and Margaret, it still took her a hundred years...


    The reason why it is named Golden Will is because gold-rank experts are able to use their wills to twist the reality of the world, something beyond the means of mortals.


    When I was praised as the Child of Light, I reached gold-rank when I was only 14 and this was because I had the augmentation of the Power of Holy Light as a Holy Light, which makes crossing the boundary between different ranks easier. Back then, I was still far from the Gold pinnacle and yet, I was praised as the Holy Church¡¯s 1 in 300 years genius.


    ¡°Should I be astonished? As expected of the superhero who killed me in the ¡®original history¡¯. So, if back then I was known as a 1 in 300 years hard-toe-by genius, then should Annie be called the 1 in 500 years hard-toe-by genius?¡±


    Somehow, I remember another man that was known as a genius and a hero. That year, the red-haired him stood with a face full of silliness in front of me.


    ¡°Big brother, your swordsmanship is really incredible, can you teach me? My name is Adam and I came from White Rock Vige. My goal is to be a hero and marry Lisa as my wife then... brag to everyone back at the vige! Right, I must also be a big property owner so that I can be like old Peter next door who can simply collect rent, smoke weed every day while watching other people work...¡±


    A hundred years have passed and from a countryside teenager, hepleted half of his heroic dream. But a pity it is that the other half is destined to never be fulfilled.


    That silly boy then is still silly now, but just a few days ago, he told me that he had enough of living, that he misses home and hopes to die...


    ¡°What a pity, Adam...¡±


    I shook my head. After years of getting along with him, I know that he determination will not waver. At this moment, I should abandon the excessive emotions and focus my attention on thinking rationally.


    Annie growth is too fast, to the extent that it is inconceivable.


    ¡°Even though there is the help from the elemental tide as well, which makes going up the ranks easier, but even so, it wouldn¡¯t be that fast... No, Adam then was also quite outrageous. It might be the special trait of their inheritance. A life-form like the Phoenix grows stronger the closer they are to death. Before they burn themselves to death, they will pass on their power and experience to the next generation, helping them to improve by leaps and bounds... So that is to say, Adam¡¯s time is about toe huh.¡±


    Thinking about it, I should have expected it. Thatd, if it wasn¡¯t the final straw, he wouldn¡¯te to me seeking help.


    Somehow, I remember the days we spent adventuring 130 years ago. The Adam then was a dumbass, Margaret was still a rookie Mage, Lisa was a natural thief that couldn¡¯t even rival a rookie and Little Red is our lucky object and hidden boss of our party.


    Rather than party leader, I am more like a nanny who is bringing rookies out to earn some experience. My main role is to resolve the mess they stir up. Every day was tiring, but at the same time, it was fun.


    ¡°Then, I should hasten my footsteps. Hopefully I can revive earlier then, at least, as the big brother from the mouth of that dumbass, I can use my original looks to send off that silly guy.¡±


    The arrow on top (the reference to the Supernatural Mahjong Shoujo) refers to Saki


    Quasi-Legend means someone who has the power level of a legend, but not the special trait of the legend (The Soul Imprint) i.e they could be considered a legend-rank, but not really fulfilling all its criteria

 Chapter 20

    <h4>Chapter 20: The Unassable Man</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Lord, I beg you to help me!! I really don¡¯t have any other means.¡±


    The elf in front of me had tear stains all over his face, both of his eyes were filled with natural charm, his green hair was smooth and beautiful and his lips were bright red. Just simply by looking at outer appearance, he is definitely a cmity-level big beauty.


    TL: Chinese have a saying which beauties cause the fall of kingdoms (e.g. Yang Yuhuan)


    But right now, tears were flowing freely off his cheeks. Those two beautiful eyes looking at me were full of sincerity and imploration. In an instant, he dives into my embrace but I quickly pull away the robe he was holding on to and takes a step back, pulling apart out distance.


    ¡°What happened? Don¡¯t forget, you are awyer and a man!¡±


    Yes, the elf crying pitifully in front of me is the capable first-ss defense attorney Krose.Ainta of the Supreme Court.


    The male elves are naturally androgyny. Even more so, Krose is hailed as the top beauty of the legal system. People often suspect that he wrote the wrong gender on his work tag, and he even made history by being pulled into the female toilet by other people. He is also troubled by such circumstances and he tries to act more masculine in daily life.


    Other people wear the silver mask to symbolize the surrendering of one¡¯s individualism to be impartial and as far as I know, Krose wears the mask even after work. In fact, he has some kind of obsession with collecting masks and making them.


    It is said that he has collected an entire cab of masks of the legal system. Those exquisite silver masks are made with handiwork unique to elves, the presence of intricate carvings, and he was willing to throw in mithril strips, pure gold, gems and different valuable goods into the mask. His dexterous hands are skilled to the extent that he was able to draw out Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s scenery onto the mask. But, masks are also a part of the uniform, so how can they be different from what others wear. So, to not affect his job, his carvings are small to the extent that it is indiscernible without a magnifying ss. In other words, all of his efforts are in vain and he carved it for nothing...


    Even so, he still sees them as his treasure and wipes them multiple times every day. He doesn¡¯t take off the mask even while bathing and sleeping... Why would he do that, everyone knows it well in their mind but no one is so silly as to point it out.


    In the past, these masks did indeed give this feminine defense attorney elf courage and dignity and his innate nature to be meticulous helped him to gain a deep understanding of thew. His faith and love in thew earns him my respect and in my eyes, ignoring his outer appearance, he is an extremely capable defense attorney and it was the first time he removes his mask and sobs in front of me, asking for help.


    ¡°Calm down, Krose. Take a deep breath. What happened, was Sulfur Mountain City Jail raided and all of the criminals escaped?


    Krose shook his head vehemently and his tears stter around, dampening my sleeves.


    There already are people pointing and gossiping about us. In order to prevent suspicion in my sexuality and not to be the top news of the rottendies of this foreign world, I quietly took a step back, widening the distance.


    TL: Rottendies -> Fujoshi (Same kanji characters)-> Mainly refer to girls who read yaoi


    ¡°Are the evil dragonsing to attack the city? Did you inform the city lord?¡±


    He continues to shake his head, looks that that isn¡¯t it.


    ¡°Did the demonic beasts invade...¡± I continued asking a few questions that would most likely be it but he only continues to shake his head. Finally, after Krose managed to catch his breath, he starts talking.


    ¡°It is Beifeng, that perverted dracon Beifeng.Herault! He went too far!¡±


    In this moment, the beauty wipes away his tears. Recalling that he was still in the courtroom, he tries his best to squeeze out a smile. A smile by a beauty after the rain, it could be said to like the ink lotus that charms all that catches sight of it... Hearing voices of shock and shrieks, I quietly take another step back, pulling apart our distance by 3 meters.


    TL: ??????? direct trante -> Ink Lotus Spread Faints One Charming Life, hard to trante it and I can only roughly guess its meaning, but anyway the main point is that it describes how beautiful he is in that instant.


    Then, listening to ¡®his¡¯ narrative, I roughly got the hang of what happened.


    That Dracon with a special hobby, after ?Restriction of rtionship surpassing friendly between humanoid-life forms and non-humanoid life formsw? and ?The qualifications for the raising of pets? measures which were directed at him were quickly passed and his ¡®pets¡¯ and ¡®lovers¡¯ were taken away, indeed, he took a severe blow but very soon, he stood up again...


    He is no longer a Beast Hunter, he changed his job to a veterinarian that specializes in gynecology...


    Initially, this isn¡¯t much as well. The Beast Hunter has deep knowledge on animals and treating pets is its expertise. Being a veterinarian is as though like his calling, coupled with his patience and passion, despite starting work for just a week ago, his nursing techniques that were full of love had many good reviews. He even created the ¡®Touch of Love¡¯, a method of calming down animals, but...


    ¡°I brought my family¡¯s Little White to see the vet but I ended up meeting this pervert. How is this pervert a vet, he was obviously using wretched methods to y with everyone¡¯s pets. He was evenughing at me gleefully while ying with my family¡¯s Little White¡¯s there... Wuuuuu, Little White was so innocent, he even happily licked his fingers... I, I must kill him and avenge Little White¡¯s shame!!¡±


    If I recall correctly, Little White is the pet dog he raises...


    Krose was crying very pitiful. Born as a druid Wild Elf, he feels deep repulsion against these kinds of unnatural actions. As awyer, Krose even defended him. Beifeng¡¯s actions werepletely disregarding thew. Don¡¯t just look at how Krose was crying as though like a youngdy acting cute, I don¡¯t doubt his will to kill Beifeng.


    TL: The acting cute don¡¯t have that kind of negative connotations as the English trantion would have


    From what I understand from his inflexibility, he will definitelye and confess to the crime begging for death aftermitting it. In the worst-case scenario, he could be here to resign as awyer thenmit a double suicide with that pervert.


    I was a bit speechless. If I were to let a capable subordinatemit suicide over work for such a dishonorable reason, I really don¡¯t know how to deal with it.


    Thus, I spoke weakly to the people behind me.


    ¡°Don¡¯t just watch the show, help me invite the pervert here. This is the first time I am seeing an opponent that can disregard myws.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my lord.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my lord, we will set off now.¡±


    As expected, a dozen or so of them answered at the same time, they were indeed hiding at the corner of the wall to watch the joke.


    Krose finally recalls that it is a public spot and hurriedly stands up. But his eyes that are filled with anticipation and trust really makes one at a loss on how to respond to it.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    My office isn¡¯t very big. I faced the pervert across my table and for an instant, I am unsure of what to say.


    Do I have to erect a neww to prevent him from being a doctor? No, aw directed towards a crime is eptable, but if I were to write aw that is directed towards a certain person, I will be aughingstock.


    Also, changing thews too often is a big taboo. This means that the original legition is problematic and this could negatively impact the dignity of thew and the judiciary.


    Directly kill the other party? Is it easy to achieve that but the crime and the punishment handed down should be of equal scale, that is also the basic principle of the legal system. Thisd may be a pervert, but that doesn¡¯t warrant his death.


    From a legal perspective, if we are unable to find evidence of his crime and judge him to capital punishment, it is a foolish act that undermines the existence of the entire legal system.


    Lock him up? I¡¯m sorry but he isn¡¯t guilty of anything. He is just fulfilling his responsibility as a pet gynecologist and calming those cute pets down meticulously. Some ¡®touch¡¯ cannot be avoided... I¡¯m guessing that would be how he would argue and it is logical, we do not have evidence...


    I sat on my chair. This was the first time I felt so weak.


    ¡°We can¡¯t kill him or lock him up, so does this mean we can only continue watch him do such indecent things to those cute pets? Even the alliance army of the Holy Church isn¡¯t as hard to deal with as this pervert.


    Beifeng.Herault¡¯s eyes turned, as though as he had made up a decision.


    ¡°My lord, can I return now? I still have work to do, a lot of pets are still queuing up waiting for my diagnosis.


    Thisd may seem to be smiling honestly, but in reality, he was mocking me. ¡°Is the Supreme Court incredible? But you still can¡¯t do anything about me.¡±


    ¡°Normal methods aren¡¯t suitable, but I am an expert at unorthodox method. nder, rumor, frame and assassination, it is easy to kill you.¡± Just as I was about go about the unorthodox way to get rid of the pervert in front of me. It was a voice beside my ear.


    ¡°Master, based on your n, we need one person to infiltrate the jail, isn¡¯t him very suited...¡±


    Thus, I smiled and paid close attention the man in front of me.


    ¡°Why is it that no matter how I look, he seems likes like a pervert that should be sent to jail. Maybe he is suited for it. Un, no mistake about that.¡±


    After making up my mind, I raised two of my fingers up.


    ¡°Let¡¯s make a legal deal then. Just 2 things, if you aplish them, I will make a pet owner license for you so don¡¯t being a veterinarian. As long as you don¡¯t soil the climate of the city in public, you can do whatever you want at home, I will turn a blind eye to it.¡±


    Yes, Beifeng¡¯s hobby is only a sin if you see it from a moral side. As long as he doesn¡¯t do it publicly, negatively influence the society and trigger the crime of soiling the city¡¯s climate, he hasn¡¯t really touched my red line and I can still tolerate it barely, but... Looking at the disgusting gleeful smile on the person in front of me, I feel really nauseated. If I could, I really want to send a finger of death to kill him.


    I had to close my eyes to avoid seeing the glee on his crooked smile. It was only after a long time that I managed to calm my emotions and keep my killing intent in check.


    ¡°The first matter, apologize to Krose. Un, it is that elfwyer that you drove to tears. No matter what, he defended you in court before and yet you repay him with ingratitude, how is this eptable.¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes, my lord, I will apologize to Miss Krose immediately!!¡±


    ¡°It is Mister!¡± Predictably, a look of surprise appears on the Dracon. I continued speaking.


    ¡°The second matter, go andmit a crime. I will throw you into Sulfur Mountain City Jail, there¡¯s is something I need you to do for me inside.¡±


    ¡°What?!¡±


    ¡°Raid the jail!!...¡±


    When Beifeng finally left and I finished working on the work that had piled up over this period of time, 4 to 5 hours have already passed and it was time for the moon to set.


    Standing by the window, I felt a little sentimental seeing the sight of prosperity outside.


    ¡°Sulfur Mountain City has been peaceful for too long. Too peaceful to the extent that some of them are overstepping their boundaries.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this all thanks to your efforts. Are you self-praising?¡±


    A venomous tongue as usual. But in this instant, I didn¡¯t have the mood to bicker with her.


    ¡°No, we should be thankful to Adam and Margaret, they were the ones to fought fiercely in the underground city which was full of internal strife to protect this city. But apparently, some people have already forgot the grace they were bestowed with and it is time to remind them of it.¡±


    Elisa nods her head.


    ¡°Traitors cannot be forgiven. Actually, following the rules of underground cities, we can just get rid of them. This is also the view of most of ¡®Observer¡±s top spies...¡±


    ¡°This is Sulfur Mountain City where everyone is equal. There is no authoritarian might existing here. Un, at least on the surface there isn¡¯t any. It was difficult for us to achieve peace, fine, peace on the surface so we should cherish it more. Let¡¯s just work within the rules of Sulfur Mountain City. We need some ¡®ident¡¯ to gather evidence on those traitors and let some people die identally.¡±


    ¡°Yes, once chaos is created, my spies will begin to collect evidence. As long as we are able to find conclusive evidence, it would be time for the Hall of Enforcement and Hall of Judgement to do their work.¡±


    ¡°Have you finished preparing the trackers and magic tracking insignia? I don¡¯t want any criminals to really escape.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I have finished preparing everything. The magic tracking insignia is already added into the drinking water of the prisoners and won¡¯t vanish for 3 months, more than enough time to capture them all back. The entire 3600 members of our ¡®Observer¡¯ will participate in this mission. As long as the ones who break out is within a thousand people, then there won¡¯t be a single innocent citizen getting hurt.¡±


    ¡°Un, then set the dogs out to bite then. Sulfur Mountain City has been too peaceful, and why should I be the one cutting away the rotten flesh personally.¡±


    Letting the prisoners out to lure the snake out of itsir, it is a dangerous move. Back then when I was exining the n to the four heavenly kings, it spent me quite a bit of effort before I got their support for this movement.


    ¡°Yes, the ¡®Observer¡¯ will force the special criminals to a suitable location. Even if they do not head there, our internal spies will also bait them there. However, I am worried about whether that Beifeng can sessfully raid the jail.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate him, just look at this.¡±


    Looking at the documents in front of her, even the emotionless Elisa gave out a shout of surprise.


    ¡°How can this be, a gold-rank Beastman Hunter! A Beastmaster?¡±


    ¡°Yes, this is an inborn advantage of those with long lifespans. As long as you live long enough, you will eventually be strong. A Beastman Hunter is also a natural Beastmaster, his love for animals... Forget it, let¡¯s not talk about it. It¡¯s too disgusting. Look at this report again...¡±


    ¡°Less than an hour after Target X entered the jail, all of his cellmates requested to change cells. There is even a person shouting ¡®Don¡¯t put me together with this pervert! If you don¡¯t change my cell, then I will die!¡¯. At the same time, there is really a prisoner who had really bashed his head into the wall asking to be killed... This is really too exaggerated!!¡±


    ¡°... Not just that, there is even a ¡®jiji¡¯ sound that ising out from his cell. It should be him calling those mice to help him... I hope they are just helping him to raid the jail, I don¡¯t want to go down this train of thoughts.¡±


    Somehow, the killing intent that took me so hard to suppress rages once again.


    ¡°Must we really do it? There are no secrets that can be kept forever. If we let the prisoners out and news were to spread, your reputation...¡±


    ¡°Even if we manage to suppress the news, just the fact that the jail of the legal system was raid, a demotion, interrogation and punishment are something that can¡¯t be avoided. Even if Adam doesn¡¯t pass down any punishment, I will ask for it myself.¡±


    After half a day, Elisa continues asking.


    ¡°Is it worth it for you to suppress your reputation like that?¡±


    ¡°If the reputation and prestige of a subordinate is higher than the highest leader, then it would be hard for the leader to do his job. Since I have decided to put Annie up as the city lord, then let¡¯s just go through it. Besides...¡±


    ¡°Besides?¡±


    ¡°A new generation of change ising, it is a tide which no one is able to stop. In the change of era, what does this reputation of mine count as. Besides...¡±


    ¡°Besides, you are thinking that maybe little Annie will be touched by your sacrifice and propose to you.¡±


    My face was full of shock, but I heard the words that followed.


    ¡°Hmph, propose to you? Hoho, given her personality, she will only be angry at you, frustrated at you and ignores you. Hmph! It would be best if you ignore you the rest of your life!¡±


    Looking at the red-faced half-demondy was different from her expressionless face usually, I, as though cursed, said something taboo.


    ¡°You, are jealous? Jealous that I treat Annie better than you?¡±


    After that, in an instant, the air in the office froze... Looking at how the redness on the venomous head maid extended to her ears and the embarrassment in her eyes, I started praying for those collections of mine.


    ¡°Finished, I misspoke. She would definitely get revenge for it!!¡±


    How weird, she maintained the queer silence. Only half a dayter did she squeeze out a sentence.


    ¡°If I was really jealous, then you...¡±


    Elisa¡¯s voice got quieter and quieter, the part behind was totally inaudible.


    ¡°What?¡±


    Just as my mind was twirling to find some words or jokes to say to bring back the atmosphere, the door to my office was suddenly pushed out. Krose rushes in and the red-faced Elisa immediately disappears into the shadows.


    ¡°My lord, something bad has happened. Sulfur Mountain City Jail has been raided!!!¡±


    ¡°Why are you panicking? Isn¡¯t this part of the n.¡±


    ¡°But... But this isn¡¯t part of our n! That pervert hasn¡¯t started digging a pathway yet but another sector has already been raided. Someone has invaded the jail! It is a true jail raid!! The prisoners have all escaped!! We are losing control of the situation.¡±


    ¡°Pacha!¡± This is the sound of me identally using too much force and breaking the armrest of the wooden chair. Following that, what that has lost control is a suffocating magic siphon.


    In the next second, the entire world was warped. Only two colors, ck and white, retains of this colorful world. Elisa was driven out from the shadows and Krose was sent flying by the magic power out of the door.


    ¡°Those bastards must be tired of living. To actually cause trouble on my jurisdiction!! Those blind bastards, I will ughter you family!!¡±


    Alright, in this office, the gangster-like deration would eventually be the polite and restrained Supreme Judge Lord Wumianzhe¡¯s ck history...

 Chapter 21

    <h4>Chapter 21: The Unassable Man</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Before someone¡¯s shameless expansion of the Public Council¡¯s scale, Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s councilor was once a well-respected job.


    They were the representatives of the interests of different trades and races and through socializing with the Bureau of Internal Affairs, the legal system and the city lord, they are able bring up certain proposals or opinions. If their view was supported by the entire Public Council, then even the city lord would have to take it seriously.


    When Adam, as the lucky charm, refused to interfere in city affairs and the legal system is only interested in security issues and the judging of criminals, on many asions, the council was able to make the solitary Bureau of Internal Affair give in, even if the head of the Bureau was the Great Saint Margaret.


    Of course, authority also brings along benefits with it. By simply changing the tax of a good or approving the import of a good, it could bring in countless shining gold coins and as the councilors start to understand the advantages thate with the power in their hands, how could they still be satisfied with just being a normal merchant.


    After all, in this world, there are nobles that are born ¡®born great¡¯ and even royalty who views ¡®country as private property¡¯. The human heart can never be satisfied. In a stable and peaceful city, they naturally strive for greater heights.


    Now, when normal workers, farmers,munity aunties and fishmongers be councilors, when ¡®Is morning dancing exercise considered bothering the civilian¡±Can the council provide free lunch¡¯ reced ¡®Should we purchase the ck gold mines from Chrome city¡¯ kind of debate, the value of the identity as a councilor for big merchants, tribal heads and elder have been pulled down, making them incredibly displeased.


    When the Public Council have been swollen to the point that it was incredibly inefficient, councilors of opposite stands spit on each other and the council had be the ce for citizens to watch a good fight, the original councilors were heartbroken and carved on their hearts the name of the seeming friendly suggester ¡ª The devil-like cunning evil Wumianzhe.


    ¡°Council Head Grant, please make up your mind!!¡±


    Right now, in Council Head Grant¡¯s office, a bunch of young and overbearing Alliance Faction councilor had the old and ordinary council head surrounded. They were forcing him to make up his mind now.


    ¡°Right now, the escapees are all around the city and chaos is spreading. We must protest against the idle city lord and remove the foolish masked man who failed his job and interrogate him! Also, we must push for the dissolution of those dark elf bitches!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, the city lord¡¯s sessor Annie is still too young and inexperienced, she is incapable of leading the people. That is why such chaos is happening, she must also be removed from her position and punished!¡±


    Pah pah, the office desk made of high-grade redwood was mmed repeatedly by the agitated councilors. Yet, the old council head turns his head to look outside the window. It is already time to get off work. On other days, there would be a crowd of people returning home, elderly bringing their grandchildren for a walk, young couples strolling in the flower gardens while the shops by road advertising meals unique to different kind of races, the aroma of the food travelling far and wide...


    But right now, only thick smoke could be seen. The road that was filled withughter on other days, other than screams and fire, there was nothing else!!


    ¡°Enough.¡± Taking a deep breath, the renowned ordinary Council Head quietly took off his sses and looked at his well-dressed colleagues.


    ¡°What?¡± The one leading the pack, Councilor Karn, didn¡¯t expect the Council Head to have such a reaction.


    ¡°Pah! I said, enough!¡±


    The old man¡¯s shout shocked all of the councilors. Those blood-red eyes are like a ferocious beast looking at its prey. Even though they were used to the noisy council meetings, but they are still surprised how the monotonous and ordinary council head of the past, the old man who drinks tea and sleep during meetings would have such an angry look on his face.


    ¡°Other than the escapees outside, there should be some of your private armies mixed within. Do you know what you are doing, this is rebellion!!¡±


    The rage of the old Council Head made the other councilors subconsciously retreat. But Karn, who was well looked upon to be the next council head, stood out.


    ¡°Sulfur Mountain City belongs to everyone, so how can this be considered a rebellion? We are just asking City Lord Adam to make aeback to calm down the situation, as well as punish those officials who failed at their job. After everything calms down, we will invite him to remain as our permanent honorary city lord.¡±


    Looking at this luxuriously clothed middle-aged councilor looking at him with a calm look on his face, Council Head Grant was stunned for a moment. Then, he smiles.


    ¡°Ho, you aren¡¯t that foolish. I understand, you all are scared. You all fear that after the old city lord steps down, the new city lord is unable to protect you all in the chaotic underground world. You all want to force Annie to step down, then install the old city lord as the so-called honorary city lord and continue serve as your guardian deity?¡±


    ¡°It is best that you understand. At that time, you would be our future Head of Internal Affairs...¡±


    ¡°Shameless!!¡±


    A mouthful of spit was spat on Karn¡¯s face. The face of the big boss of a jewelry instantly distorts.


    ¡°You all wish to chase away other people¡¯s god daughter, yet you all still expect him to protect you all to his death, you bunch of shameless people! To think that you all dare to harbor such a thought, to think that you all have the cheek to say such words, I feel ashamed being in the same organization as the rest of you!!¡±


    The councilors seemed to want to speak, but the incensed old council head didn¡¯t stop his reprimand. His fingers are pointed towards a lively old gentleman.


    ¡°Rulus! Fifty years ago, due to the sin your fathermitted, your entire family ended up as ves and was about to be sold to Chrome City as tributes for cults. It is the kind old city lord who risked falling out with Chrome city to save you personally. I still remembered that you were a kid then and you cried while kowtowing to him, saying ¡®I will never forget your grace¡¯. Is this how you repay him?¡±


    ¡°Tuine! Your father once died in work for Sulfur Mountain City and you always appear before the citizen using your identity as the son of a hero. Hmph! Son of a hero? A soldier who was killed by a stray bullet while escaping! Do you still have any shame? Lord Margaret only gave him an honorable death because she knows that your family requires the pension to survive! Is that how you repay the lord¡¯s gracious heart?¡±


    ¡°Suedna! You, we were once the three musketeers of the Public Council. You had suffered a great tragedy, your entire family of 13 was killed by someone and you were the sole survivor. Let me ask you, who was the one who personally stood out and spent more than half a year to trace the culprit a few thousand miles away to capture him back for judgement, so as to avenge your family? Who was the one who paid for the tuition fee until you matured? You can¡¯t answer? I thought you were a speaker with great oratory skills, specialized in inciting the public¡¯s will? Let me answer that for you then, it is Lord Wumianzhe who you condemned as a devil!¡±


    ¡°Kart! Your cursed family bloodline, if it wasn¡¯t for the Great Saint...¡±


    ¡°Lunaris! You...¡±


    ¡°And you! Karn! let me ask you, when your family went bankrupt after you were duped, who was the one who helped you retrieve back part of your family¡¯s assets? If it wasn¡¯t for the Bureau of Internal Affairs acting as a guarantor, you think with that old face of yours, those goblins will provide you a loan without increasing interest rates? You owe both Lord Margaret and Lord Wumianzhe a favor, and yet you still have the cheek to rebel against them?¡±


    One councilor after another were severely reprimanded and yet no one dared to raise their heads. After all, sometimes, in front of an old man who was aware of everything, the guilty would find it hard to raise their heads. Sometimes, even sinners understand that justice lives on in the heart.


    ¡°You bunch of shameless fools, have you forgotten where you all are? This is Sulfur Mountain City, it is in the cursed underground world! Without the protection of the city lord and the others throughout thest hundred years, you powerless fools would have long be the ves and food of others...¡±


    ¡°Enough, we don¡¯t need the most ordinary council head in history to step up to the task. We will do it ourselves!¡±


    The embarrassed and angry red-faced Karn turns around and leaves.


    The other councilors follow Karn with their heads lowered, not daring to look at the face of theirrades. To them who had their masks ripped off, every second in this office was as painful as being stabbed by a knife.


    But the sarcasm of the old man resounds from their back.


    ¡°Ordinary? Indeed, I am ordinary and foolish but do you know that I created a new record for the council?¡±


    No one replies him, but hearing a new record for the council, all the councilors stopped in their tracks.


    ¡°I, Grant.Bart, this ordinary old fellow, had been on the seat of the council head for more than 13 years. I am the second longest serving council head of the council. I still intend to try breaking my father Bart¡¯s record of 16 years. But a pity, you all messed it up.


    This council head who was well-known to be foolish throughout the city, at this moment, his red-face was spirited without a trace of foolishness. His gaze towards his colleagues had an additional weird emotion, that is... pity?


    ¡°Hmph, you just had a long life. What is there to be proud about!¡±


    ¡°Hah, of course it is something to be proud about. The previous Council Head, Li Wensi, he was from the East, skilled in both academics and martial arts. Against all pressure, he intended to reduce the number of council members. Everyone was expecting great things from him but in the end? ...Dead, in the third year as council head, he was turned into a zombie by a passing necromancer.¡±


    ¡°The previous previous Council Head Cloven,he is well looked upon by the citizens. He organized multiple mass protests to force the Head of Internal Affairs Lord Margaret to give in on several asions, giving him the nickname as Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Uncrowned King but in the end? ...Also in the third year as council head, he died. He was stabbed by a pickpocket in his stomach, his intestines spilling out on the floor of an unfrequented alley


    Karn and the other councilors had an impatient look on their face previously but now, they were sweating profusely and their hands were cold.


    ¡°The previous previous Council Vice-Head Ben, hehe, the council head Karya then was sided towards the city lord. Thus, he fabricated rumors of him having illicit rtionships, causing him tomit suicide. Ben was indeed talented, hemitted everything perfectly. Even the fierce dogs of the legal system weren¡¯t able to find any evidence but in the end? ...After being involved in a fight in a bar, he went missing for 20 years. But every year on Karya¡¯s death anniversary, there would be a part of a male body on her grave as an offering. Last year, it was a finger on the right hand, and on it was the copper ring belonging on that old fellow Ben. Hehe.¡±


    In this instant, all of the councilors turned around with fear on their face. They no longer dare to underestimate this old fellow who seemed on the verge of dying.


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me it was done by Adam and the others!! I thought they were good people...¡±


    ¡°Lord Margaret and the old City Lord are good people, you aren¡¯t wrong about that. But do you know, the one who was scolded by you all as devil-like cunning, what his first nickname is?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Thews of hand that is even stronger and evil than the devils. This is used to describe his intangible hands. No matter who it is, as long as he crosses the line and steps on the codex ofw, kacha, the de would slice down on them. You think that only you all are skilled in inciting, controlling the opinions and will of the citizens? That lord can even alter memories. What difficulty is it to him to make rumors develop the direction which he hopes to see?¡±


    ¡°My old father, also the history longest serving Council Head old Bart, he only said one thing to me before his death. Do you all know what it is?¡±


    Now, none of the terribly frightened councilors have the guts to reply him. Their faces are as white as corpses. The pack leader Karn bucks up his courage and shouts.


    ¡°Old fellow! I am not interested to know...¡±


    But the old council head shakes his head, his face full of reminiscence as he continues talking.


    ¡°He said to me ¡®Sulfur Mountain City is a paradise in the underground world. But, that is due to a devil doing all the dirty jobs by himself. He gets rid of all the lesser evil and dirty things, thus on the surface, it would naturally look clean and beautiful like heaven. If you wish to be a council head in the future, it is actually quite easy. Just be a bit dumber and don¡¯t have ambitions that exceeds your own abilities. The fools in front of you will all die sooner orter. Then, you would be able to be the council head.¡¯ Hah, to think he was actually right. The both of us, as the longest serving council head, we are probably the history¡¯s most ordinary council head.¡±


    At this moment, Karn have lost all the arrogance he had previously. His mouth was open wide as he breaths heavily uncontrobly, simr to a toad on shore. He seems to feel an intangible chain being ced on his neck. The icy-cold sensation that bears resemnce to death makes one feel suffocated.


    ¡°Right, you all liaised with Chrome City right. Do you all think that you all can defeat the three big heads just by colluding with the underground alliance? Be the next nobles and royalty? Hehe, you all have never seen true war, my naive children. No matter who wins or loses, the first one to be killed are you all, the petty traitors!¡±


    ¡°Old fool!!¡±


    The impulsive Suedna punches the face of the old council head, Grant crashes into the table violently, his spectacles shattered. The edge of his mouth and eyes were bleeding, but he was still smiling, satisfied.


    ¡°Hehe, why do you all think I am talking so much without fear of it being spreading out? It is because I want to live, you fools! Am I right? Lord Wumianzhe, the dead won¡¯t reveal secrets. Since these dumb snakes have been lured out, it is about time to pull in the.¡±


    ¡°Pah, pah, pah.¡± That was an eerie apuse which bears resemnce to bones knocking into each other. But in the ears of the councilors, it was a music note that seemed to be counting down to their death.


    A slender figure appears from the shadows. Under the silver mask is a pair of icy-cold red eyes. That eerie apuse originated from the crystal ball on the hand of the enforcer.


    ¡°Silver Rose! The head of the intelligence team ¡®Observer¡¯! The underground queen of Sulfur Mountain City!¡± The appearance of Wumianzhe¡¯s trusted underling, the infamous intelligence queen¡¯s sudden appearance destroyed the final line of defense in the councilor¡¯s hearts.


    ¡°You, you...¡±


    Looking at the agitated councilors who were pointed a finger at herself rudely, Silver Rose frowns in displeasure. ¡®Pacha¡¯ With a snap of her fingers, the invisible wires set up in the room tightens.


    In the next moment, all of the councilor¡¯s neck tightened as the invisible wires hang them up in the sky.


    Yes, from the start, the intangible chain that Karn felt wasn¡¯t an illusion... As traitors, they were being sentenced to a verdict ¡ª Death penalty!


    ¡°Ke!!¡± After a few seconds, just like a fish which was caught, the struggling councilors started to quieten down one after another, eternal silence...


    Seeing how hisrades were suddenly hanged to death, old Grant¡¯s face was full of anxiety.


    But the voice from the crystal ball made him calm down once again.


    ¡°Looks like I underestimated your father and you. Forget it, I am still quite satisfied with you. If you don¡¯t want to end up holding a funeral, you better keep that grandson of yours who stirs up trouble using your name. Right, good luck for the next election. I am looking forward to you being re-elected.¡±


    The silent Silver Rose bows to Grant, then took a step back before disappearing in the shadows once again.


    The old council head slumps down on the table, panting heavily. He has be the only survivor in the entire office...


    ¡°Haha, hahaha!! I survived! I survived!¡±


    Even after Silver Rose has walked out of the building, theughter of the old man who managed to survive could be heard even from a long distance away...


    Sulfur Mountain City has totally descended into chaos. The escapees and the private armies of big merchants are busy stealing and destroying properties while outside the city, Dark Elves are preparing to blend in with the elite Town Security. Seems like, the paradise of the underground world has turn into a hell.


    At the same time, in the tall tower, I looked with interest at the utter chaos below and behind me, the Head of the Hall of Enforcement Xueti, the Head of the Hall of Law Kale and the Head of the Hall of Judgement Kelvin were filled with rage looking at the tragedy urring below.


    ¡°Alright, alright, don¡¯t look so bitter. The corrosion has already prated the bones. If we don¡¯t bleed a little, how can we get rid of the rotten flesh. If our heads do not bleed, then how else would we remember the pain. To put the craving for peace into the heads of those fools, for the stability and peace of Sulfur Mountain City in the next 3 decades, just have some patience. Besides, our men have started moving so the situation should improve soon.¡±


    Then, when Silver Rose, right, my head maid Elisa, appears before me once again, I immediately understood that there is a change in the situation.


    ¡°Hm? Those fools actually colluded with other underground cities and their armies are going to march into the city? Hehe, my four heavenly kings, looks like there¡¯s something fun going on. Let¡¯s go and y then.¡±

 Chapter 22

    <h4>Chapter 22: Baiting</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°I am a good person, I really am a good person.¡±


    This has pretty much be my catchphrase. Every time I say these words, the listener¡¯s expressions and attitude would subtly change very weirdly.


    ¡°Hehe, today¡¯s weather isn¡¯t bad. A clear sky and a light breeze, very suited for outdoor camping. Right, we Taurens aren¡¯t very interested in eating grass feed. Next time we go for outdoor camping, can you bring steak instead of grass? I like it medium-rare, it tastes best with a hint of blood.


    Which dumb cow is it, proiming that it only eats beef. He is obviously changing the topic, but this also the reply that I am mostfortable with.


    <


    ¡°Hehe, master, you really like cracking jokes. But this joke is a little outdated.¡±


    ¡°HAHA, good person? I am about to die out ofughter here! If you are a good person, then I must be a love saint!¡± Adam doesn¡¯t spare me any face.


    ¡°No, even Rnd bes a good person, it is impossible for you to be a love saint. But, Adam, you really have lofty goals, love saint huh? Why don¡¯t I build you a forbidden city so that you can collect beauties?¡± Very quickly, Margaret¡¯s tangible resentment let Adam know what troublees from the mouth means. Un, I was the one who passed along his words to Margaret.


    Alright, most of the people who knows me would probably have the same reaction as Elisa and that dumb Adam, treat my ¡®good person deration¡¯ as a type of joke.


    However, within my own means, I am indeed trying to be a good person.


    ¡°As a Lich, if I were to help old grannies across the road, the old grannies would probably go running for the Town Security for help. However, getting rid of evil is also a kind act. Getting rid of a criminal is much more effective than doing ten kind little things. Granting order to this city and allowing the citizens to live in prosperity, no matter how I look at it, it is equivalent to doing 10,000 good deeds.


    But, that Evil Lich System refuses to ept it and continues to send one after another immoral daily quests.


    Furthermore, I can¡¯t avoid doing these missions and if my Evil Points keep getting deducted, how am I going to revive myself. But, as aw enforcer, I cannot simply do as I please thus, I have to spend my brain juice to ponder upon how to convert these destructive daily quests into a prank which does not overstep the boundary ofw.


    ¡°Make more than hundred people roll on the floor in despair? Let¡¯s try the tickling hell...¡± The side effect is that the chicken feathers that I used to create the tickling hell awarded me with heavy fines and reconciliation fee...


    ¡°Torture an intelligent being in public, the more gruesome its death, the better it is? This is simply. I choose you, cockroach-kun. An intelligence raising spell then a full set of my 10 most cruel tortures. Hehe, should I start with Wu Ma Fen Shi* or the stabs of a thousand knives. Elisa, lend me the needle you use to sew clothes. What do I need it for? Of course, it is for an operation.¡±


    TL: Wu Ma Fen Shi, a death penalty used in ancient China. It involves 5 horses and a rope is tied to connect each horse to a limb and thest to the head. Then, the horse all run in different directions, ripping the body apart.


    The side effects of that incident are Elisa ignoring me for an entire week, refusing toe within 3 meters of me for a month and the eyes she looks at me with were full of despise. When she has no choice but to call me, she would shout ¡®Smelly bug master¡¯...


    Messing around like that is tiring from the start but eventually, it became an interesting intellectual battle with the Town Security. Hm? I seem to finally understand why Xueti and Lilith always seem to join the faction against the Town Security and pit courage and intelligence against them. The words of sages from the past weren¡¯t wrong, happiness and perversion is contagious.


    Hmph, as aw enforcer, they can¡¯t always cause trouble to the Town Security army. I must find an opportunity to talk to them (Mysterious voice: You have the cheek to say them?!)


    Cough, looks like I went out of topic. Let¡¯s go back to talking about important matters.


    I used to not understand why the system refuses to admit that I am a good person, and that whether I am condemned to be an evil Lich forever. But one day, as I was shouting at a criminal, the thought suddenly struck me.


    ¡°You think that after killing the other party¡¯s father, then giving up all of your wealth topensate his daughter and doing moralpensation, you would be guiltless? You are simply lying to yourself! You hypocrite!¡±


    ¡°No matter what you have do afterwards, you have already sinned. The victim¡¯s pain has be a reality the moment youmitted the crime. No matter how you try to exin orpensate, you can¡¯t change what you have done. Only through epting the judgement and punishment of thew can you wash away your misdeeds. If you really regret what you have done, then reform yourself properly in prison, atone for your sins ande out to start anew.¡±


    As the daughter of the victim pleaded for him, he was sentenced to a lighter verdict, 15 years of imprisonment for an impulsive murder.


    After this case was concluded, I felt extremely weak. I have never felt so useless...


    In a solitary chamber, I slumped on the chair. I grabbed my head, but when I could only see those skeleton arms, I suddenly felt enlightened.


    No matter what I do in the future, the past sins still weigh upon me. The souls that died because of me were sufficient to fill the entire River Styx. No matter how many people I save, how many good things I do, I am still a sinner. I can¡¯t even lie to my own heart, so how am I able to get the system to admit that I am a kind person.


    ¡°The words on thew monument at the entrance of the Supreme Court were even handwritten by me? Only impartial judgement and the punishment can wash away sins, no one is an exception?¡±


    But, it seems that there is no one that can judge me. Then, I can only continue treading the lines of good and evil and wait for the day that might not even arrive, the day that I can be judged...


    Perhaps, I have vaguely sensed it in my heart that it was ironic that a great sinner who almost destroyed the entire world end up proudly on the seat of a judge and sentence those criminals who have killed a few people. How funny it is...


    ¡°Hah, so what if I am a hypocrite. I am not going to say dumb words like asking for a peace of mind. I only think that since Eich continent isn¡¯t destroyed yet and the original ¡®history¡¯ have proven that normal means is not sufficient for us to escape this great cmity. If so, then let this hypocrite give a try his unorthodox methods.¡±


    Yes, so I managed to do it but then, I met with a little trouble.


    At this moment, we received intelligence from ¡®Onlookers¡¯ that the ones who were invading Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s east gate is Chrome City¡¯s ckwater army, the Royal Guards of the City Lord Steelback Pig Hng Hng.


    Yeah, ¡®Hng Hng¡¯ is the name of this Beastman city¡¯s lord. Please respect the Pig Tribe¡¯s tradition of calling their child by the sound they make when they are born.


    But, it is a pity that this tradition has a side effect. If you were to shout ¡®Hng Hng, I shall do your X¡¯ in a ce where the Pig Tribe Beastmen are gathered, then around 300 to 400 Hng Hngs wille find trouble with you...


    There was once a wise sage from Red Heavens Pig Tribe who suggested putting a number behind the name to solve that problem. But, due to the low intelligence of the Pig Tribe Beastmen, they can only count to 20 using their toes as well. It was impossible to put this idea into y, so he could only give up in frustration.


    Alright, the creator is still quite fair. The Pig Tribe Beastmen may have low intelligence, incredibly ugly and smelly to the point that makes one think of a pig sty, but they are born with great strength and thick skin. Most important of all, they reproduce very quickly. Amon fact among any race, as long as their numbers stack up, there are bound to be geniuses and experts appearing.


    The ckwater army is an ideal example. Every new soldier is specially chosen from thousand pigs. Then, they are trained through killing each other. The weak are eliminated while the strong one remains. The final ten who survives would have the glory of be Hng Hng City Lord¡¯s Royal Guards.


    The ckwater army may only have 3000 personnel and as foot soldiers, they have an obvious weakness, which is their mobility. But, their average strength is LV50 silver-rank, and their formation consists of the ssic Beastman Berserker coupled with Beast Shaman. The Pig Tribe Beastman, who were born with naturally thick skin, and when buffed with a Bloodthirst sorcery, they go into a frenzied state and on the battlefield, it is reminiscent of countless moving mountains of flesh, making it hard to block them head on, making them quite a prestigious army.


    Of course, this is when ced in the underground world where experts are everywhere. If such an army were to appear on the surface, it would be the level of a human empire¡¯s Royal Army.


    15 minutes ago, almost a thousand ckwater foot soldiers and ck Shamans charged in at through the opened east gate, rushing in straight without fear.


    Looks like in order to express goodwill to the Underground Alliance through taking down Sulfur Mountain City, City Lord Hng Hng was willing to send out over half of his total military power and those corrupt councilors actually hid them outside the city all this while.


    The newest team to meet them head on is the Dark Elf Town Security Patrol Team who first got the news and they are only a small team consisting of 10 people...


    Covering the back of the citizens so that they can escape, the small team of Dark Elf Holy Knights fought to their death without even retreating. Furthermore, Dark Elves are well known for their beauty and the Pig Tribe Beastman are born savage and with strong sexual desire, they aren¡¯t even choosy between the living and the dead...


    They yed and defiled the corpses while eating them. The corpses of those responsible guards ended up as toys for the Beastman. Should I grateful for the Pig Tribe Beastman¡¯s loose military discipline and their foolishness? To fight over the priority in usage of their ¡®war trophy¡¯, they even began to start fighting.


    Then, just as I arrived, the sight before me is one depicting hell in the mortal world.


    ¡°Hah, however, I am still quite grateful for the Evil Lich System now. As long as I do as I please, I can be stronger. How easy is that. After all, evil people need evil people to sharpen their edges. Also that, to be more evil than evil, be more reckless than thugs is something that makes one happy.¡±


    A cold and venomous curse resonates with my soul and countless killing intent roars within my head. Finally, it transforms into an ice-cold phrase.


    ¡°Kill them all!¡±

 Chapter 23

    <h4>Chapter 23: Bloodshed and Forbidden Spells</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    When the entire Sulfur Mountain City descended into chaos, the 3 big heads fell into a state of eerie silence.


    There are even rumors saying that the 3 big heads are making use of this opportunity to get rid of radicals. However, ignoring the other people, if that single-cell organism Adam was in the city, it was impossible for him to not act.


    In reality, none of the 3 big heads were in the city now. In fact, even the city lord sessor Annie wasn¡¯t in the city as well.


    When I reported to them that there could be a Fire Elemental God sealed under the sulfur mountain, Margaret immediately carried out investigations and verified that there was indeed a Fire Elemental SemiGod-rank or above living in the mountains.


    ¡°Troublesome, very troublesome. I am not sure who was the one who sealed him but he actually used the entire sulfur mountain to suppress the seal. While he skillfully used the entire underground leylines to suppress the energy source of the seal, making it extremely stable, but if something goes wrong, the entire mountain could explode along with Sulfur Mountain City.


    When everyone was worried, a mysterious voice nts its eyes and looks around its surroundings... Alright, Little Red is still asleep and I was busy ying hide-and-seek with the Town Security. Adam just heartlessly looked at us while smiling himself silly. At least, Margaret was worried.


    What made everyone speechless was when the overjoyed Adam expressed him ¡®genius creativity¡¯.


    ¡°A natural source of underground heat. Then, if we were to add a little bit of water, wouldn¡¯t we get a hot spring! Sulfur hot spring, it is said to work wonders on all kinds of skin problems. Also, it helps one recover from fatigue. I have been wanting to build one since long ago.


    Alright, his actions are faster than his thoughts, ¡®definitely an ideal ape whose mind is dictated by the movements of his limbs (Rnd¡¯s words)¡¯ Adam immediately started work and in less than a day, he found the source of the heat and used his sacred sword to dig a reservoir. After that, he even invited the Druids from the city to send rain to fill the hole up with water...


    But just when Margaret and I were about to teach him why flowers are red, Adam, whose nose is bruised and face swollen, thought of an exnation, or rather, prepared an excuse.


    TL: Why flowers are red -> Because they are dyed red with blood.


    Why is his nose bruised and face swollen despite having exined? After ying with everyone¡¯s feelings, do you think that just by exining he could escape physical punishment? I immediately took opportunity of the chaos to strike him first, Margaret used this as a chance to vent her long pent up resentment while Little Red is just doing it to create trouble for fun...


    Cough, let¡¯s not talk about that enjoyable 3v1. Back to the main topic, Adam that fool¡¯s exnation was rather convincing.


    ¡°The Revival of the Phoenix requires me to burn myself in the fiery inferno. My Phoenix inheritance also requiresrge amount of heat. Using this pool, I can use the heat from it to help Annie finish the highest quality inheritance, thus retaining most of the powers of the after the revival so that she can mature quickly. Furthermore, the heat source is also equivalent to the stamina and mana of the Fire Elemental. If I were to spend it, that Fire Elemental God is as good as half disabled.¡±


    I must say, despite being unreliable most of the time, but that fellow Adam is indeed a qualified ¡®Hero¡¯, his luck and instincts are quite spot-on and this action of his might seem random, but in reality, he was stabbing where it hurts the enemy the most.


    For some people, the release of the seal of the Fire Elemental God directly affects the arrival of the Elemental Tide. It affects the entire ¡®history¡¯ of the world. When they start to realize that Arweiss is getting weaker, or even worse, he might not be able to quicken the Elemental Tide, they wouldn¡¯t be able to ept it.


    Thus, the City Lord and Head of Internal Affairs brought the City Lord Sessor to the sulfur mountains quietly and for the sake of their safety, they chose to use Little Red¡¯s cavern as a cover.


    But obviously, there is no news that does not leak in this world. In this world where prophecy-rted magic is rather developed, there isn¡¯t any absolute secret. Maybe they heard it from Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s internal spies that the City Lord was leaving the city, or maybe it was through their investigation of the Elemental Gods that they felt something was amiss with the situation, or perhaps, they might have simply used prophecy magic and found that there was something suspicious going on.


    The 3 big heads are stuck there...


    Draped in a light blue robe, the youngdy stands there alone. The long and slender wooden wand didn¡¯t have any trace of modifications to it and just like its naturally beautiful owner, simply by existing there, it feels as though it has gone through eternity like the long river of history, old, deep and naturally formed.


    Her looks could only be considered decent-looking, on her head was a blue-colored neat shortyer hairstyle. Her golden-rimmed sses have slid to the tip of her nose and if it weren¡¯t for that silver chain fixed to her Elf ears, it would have probably fallen to the floor.


    The Immortal One stands there quietly, but there is the natural scent of books and scrolls. If only looking by the outer appearance, rather than saying that she is a wise Saint with concrete authority in her hands, she looks more like a librarian who buries herself in books and often forgets her lunch.


    But right now, this ¡®librarian¡¯ is going on a killing frenzy.


    ¡°The Heavens above, the Earth below, as evidence of my contract with books and stars, using the life of Saint Margaret, I plea for the ancient star spirits to listen to my summons, the Chimera constetion, the Leo constetion, the Unicorn constetion and the Chariot constetion, descend!¡±


    With a wave of her long wand, countless Noble Spiritsnds on this mortal earth with the descending stars.


    The tall and bulky, as though like a tower, Chariot Giant. The three-headed magic beasts that specializes in fire, lightning and ice. The radiant and white Unicorn which symbolizes protection and purity. The Leo army whose member consists fully of gold-ranks...


    The Heroes of the legends transform into reality. The legend-rank warriors fight under the orders of the Saint. It is the power of a single SemiGod Mage who is able to rival a country.


    But even so, her condition wasn¡¯t very good.


    That is because from the start, this battle wasn¡¯t fair. She was fighting single-handedly against an entire army... Her enemy, despite it not being a country, but is definitely more dangerous than any empires on the surface, the Underground Alliance.


    The other remaining 2000 warriors of the ckwater army are here. Dressed in a ck Mud Armor, Hng Hng City Lord, despite being an underground city lord, dashes straight to the front lines. Even so, his movements were sloppy in front of the arm of Noble Spirits. If it weren¡¯t for the guards sacrificing themselves and serving as meat shield, he would have probably died countless times by now.


    In the face of a SemiGod-rank Mage, a Legend-rank warrior like Hng Hng can only be considered a slightly higher tier fodder.


    However, to be able to let an underground city lord like him willing serve as fodder, this can only show that the standing of themand of the Underground Alliance army is high and astonishingly prestigious, to the point that an underground city lord of Hng Hng¡¯s level was unable to go against their orders.


    ¡°Wu huuuuuuu!!¡±


    Following the sound of a horn, another thousand-man army of Beastman enters the battlefield. There is the bloodthirsty Leo, the savage and agile Werewolf and the Elephs whose strength knows no bounds. Even the weakest of their warriors are at least gold-rank. Yet, they enter the battlefield solemnly. The solemn bloodless and fleshless star spirits enter an intense meat-grinding blood battle and dies solemnly, allowing for other spirits to enter thisnd...


    TL: Leo = Lion man, Elephs = Elephant man


    ¡°The ck Solo Insignia, it is his established trademark army of personal guards. He sure is willing to part with it.¡±


    Looking at the gigantic figure on a mountain far away with his arms akimbo, Margaret seems to be deep in thought but her spells were still relentless.


    ¡°The Earth below, the Humans above, as evidence of my contract with books and stars, let death rain upon my enemies, Starfall!¡±


    Following Margaret¡¯s chant, starlight actually appears in the underground world. Following the slow descent of the starlight, the destruction they cause in their wake is a 3-meter deep hole. Filled within the holes are naturally, the flesh and blood of Beastman.


    The underground world¡¯s Beastman Sovereign Shou.Nuya. His 3-meter-tall figure isn¡¯t really much in the Beastman tribes whose superiority lies in their physique. Wearing a ck eye-patch actually made him seem less ferocious and now, standing at the sidelines of the battlefield, he watches coldly at the sight of his tribesman and warriors lose their life worthlessly.


    ¡°This feeling, Saint-pinnacle? What a pity. It seems he has some intelligence about me to staypletely out of my attack range. If only I was in my Mage Tower now...¡±


    But, it seems that even if his entire army was destroyed, the experienced Beastman Sovereign had no intent of heading to the battlefield personally. With just a wave of his hand, the horns beside him sounds and another elite army of a thousand people enters solemnly...


    He is obviously exploiting the weakness of her Saint job. Saints analyses their opponent¡¯s magic and are excellent at duels. However, theyck destructive power and he was obviously trying to wear her down with numbers.


    ¡°Looks like I¡¯ve been underestimated by my juniors.¡±


    Margaret smiles calmly. Then, with a light wave of her wooden vine wand, magic veins reminiscent of music notes appears on the Seven Radiant Stones floating around her.


    ¡°The first to the third, chant ¡®Ice Aeon¡¯, the fourth and the fifth, repeat my incantations and the sixth and the seventh, apply magic barrier.


    The red, orange and yellow Saint Stone gathers together and start to replicate Lord Yongye¡¯s final elemental magic, causing the entirendscape to be and of ice. Snow floats in the sky while snow fairies were ying around. This was the initial phase before the activation of a Strategic-level magic capable of wiping away an entire army.


    The green and blue Saint Stone began to automatically chant the magic that the Saint just casted.


    ¡°The Heavens above, the Earth below, as evidence of my contract with books and stars, using the life of Saint Margaret, I plea for the ancient star spirits to listen to my summons, the Chimera constetion, the Leo constetion, the Unicorn constetion and the Chariot constetion, descend!¡±


    ¡°The Earth below, the Humans above, as evidence of my contract with books and stars, let death rain upon my enemies, Starfall!¡±


    That voice was no different from that of Margaret¡¯s and the Starfall casted casually wipes out the thousand-man army who just entered the battlefield. At the same time, apletely identical army of star spirits to the one previously summoned reces the ces of the lost and dead, re-building up a new defensive formation.


    The most dangerous of all is still the Strategic-level magic. The long-range troops of the enemy wouldn¡¯t allow ¡®Ice Aeon¡¯ to be casted.


    Countless sharp arrows and magic were shot in the direction of Margaret but she didn¡¯t even bother looking at it. She continues to patiently control her Saint Stone and thest 2 Saint¡¯s Stone started to circle around here, creating a magic barrier from the intertwined blue and purple. The panicked attacks were easily stopped by the barrier.


    Very quickly, the red, orange and yellow Saint Stone¡¯s reaches the final stage of their incantation. Just then, a ck color nameless arrow shoots towards the ground among the three Saint Stones.


    ¡°Pacha!¡±


    Withouting into contact with the ground, the arrow disintegrates and a ck magic cyclone suddenly appears, interfering with the incantation of the Saint Stone. A distortion urs and the Forbidden Spell Ice Aeon actually activates in advance!


    The white snow abruptly crystallized into a ball and bursts in all directions!


    The snow rains down as the chill creeps further. In an instant, the entire world turnspletely white. Under the might of the Forbidden Spell, the active volcano turned into a snow peak and regardless of whether it is the Star Spirits or the Beastmen, anyone who is caught in the area of the spell turns into an ice sculpture.


    As for Margaret, due to the Forbidden Spell being activated despite being iplete, she was also caught in its midst. Fortunately, the blue-violet magic barrier protected her.


    The Saint frowns. If it wasn¡¯t because of the Saint Stone doing the incantation in her ce, she might have suffered magic feedback. Then, it wouldn¡¯t end up with just one or two mouthfuls of blood


    ¡°Magic Combustion Arrow? I didn¡¯t expect that the renowned Mage Hunter Minial is here too. Isn¡¯t he the tribe head of the Centaur Beastman and known to be proud and unyielding to authority? I never expected that he would submit to Shou.Nuya. Is returning to the surface such an attractive deal?¡±


    The Ice Aeon which activated in advance only had a third of its original might, but it had enough power to turn the entire mountainous terrain turned into and of ice. Even the ground where the Beast Sovereign was standing froze, but 2 gigantic ck Dragons were blocking in front of the expressionless Underground Autarch.


    ck Dragons were born with nearplete immunity to magic but it wasn¡¯t enough in front of this weakened Ice Aeon. The two ck Dragons who risked their lives to protect their master has turned into two white ice sculptures.


    But their sacrifice had taken the brunt of the impact for the Beastmen behind them.


    Even so, the tall Scorpion-tail Lion lord didn¡¯t even nce at the subordinates who sacrificed themselves for him. With a tug of their dragon tail, using just brute force, he threw the two dragons¡¯ corpses to one side.


    Even though the sight in front of him had turned into an ice mountain, his eyes were still as calm as they were, as though it was all within his calctions. He picks up the horn from his frozen subordinate and personally blew on it.


    ¡°Wuuuu, wuuuu, wuuuu!¡±


    After 3 rapid blows of the military horn, a dark-green tide seems to gradually move in from the horizon and the cobbling of hoofs and sounds from beasts intertwined together.


    ¡°At least 3000 cavalries? Sigh, my head is starting to hurt.¡±


    Margaret frowns. Despite forcing the enemy to y their hand, but the opponent was exceptionally well-prepared. No, it was more like the enemy was not bothered at all about the sacrifices which made it hard to ept.


    The red, orange and yellow Saint Stones had disintegrated due to the feedback from releasing the Forbidden Spell. The green and blue ones who were imitating the incantations had already ran out of power and only the blue and purple ones which were responsible for protection had magic power remaining.


    ¡°I have expended over half of my mana but the enemy is totally indifferent to their expenses. It is a little troublesome to deal with them.¡±


    She nces behind. In the field of ice, there was ake of fire which was still burning fiercely. There, the mes formed an image of a fire phoenix flying around and a fire pirs bursts into the heavens. Evidently, the inheritance was at a crucial step.


    ¡°There was no longer any possibility of retreat. If only I was at my Mage Tower... Blog, there are no ifs in this world, there is no meaning in hypothetical situations. Number 6 and number 7, repeat my incantations! Number 4 and number 5, begin re-charging mana.¡±


    An army identical to the previous 2 appears and this time, even the expressionless Shou frowned. The opponent¡¯s strength is too overpowering. The loss incurred was already more than sufficient to conquer any underground city.


    Furthermore, the assaults of aerial troops and the death charge of berserkers which they specialized in were totally ineffective. If they had to use numbers to rece quality, how much did they have to sacrifice.


    In the sky, the powerful Griffons and Scorpion-tailed Lions were still engaged in a bloodshed but in reality, no one¡¯s attention was on them. The strong predating magic beasts couldn¡¯t even qualify a supporting role on this battlefield.


    A vermilion inferno bursts through the sky and two pitch ck gigantic figures falls to the ground, forming two huge lumps of meat. From the aroma, there are at least medium-done.


    These two ck dragons seem to have intended to nk Margaret but just as they were about to get in the range for them to use their dragon breath, a dragon breath from further above grilled them.


    In midair, an intense battle that wasn¡¯t inferior to the one on the surface was going on. A gigantic Red Dragon was singlehandedly taking on an entire dragon city.


    Using the same gueri tactics, 12 young Red Dragons formed 3 teams which took turns to attack. They were using their flesh and blood to wear down the stamina of the Ancient Red Dragon Ein Mezus. But much different from the situation on the surface, their strategy was taking effect.


    The reason? On the sidelines, hiding and moving freely behind her people, the Ancient Red Dragon who was significantly higher than Ein but yet, wasughing sinister was the main reason.


    ¡°Molly, you little bitch! Face me personally if you have the guts! Hiding behind your brethren to assault me, you are much more despicable and shameless than you were back then!¡±


    Ein Mezus¡¯s right wing was broken and her left eye could hardly open. Wounds were all over her body but she continued to fight bravely in the air while roaring, enraged.


    ¡°My foolish daughter, you indeed have muscles for brains. Our Red Dragon¡¯s prided art of battle was actually regarded by you as despicable. Looks like I wasn¡¯t wrong when I exiled you from Dragon City that day.¡±


    Yes, that shameless Ancient Red Dragon is one of the Underground Autarch, Dragon Empress Molly.


    While dealing with the young dragons at close-quarter battle, she had to be in the guard for Molly¡¯s sneak attacks, making it difficult for her to cope.


    The moment she tries to do something, like charge up for a powerful magic, Molly, who was proficient in the powers of Red Dragons as well, would interrupt it in advance. In such an unfavorable situation, it was hard on her tost until now.


    In this moment, forcefully using her dragon breath to get rid of the ck Dragons who tried to nk Margaret, she showed an opening and her neck was viciously bitten by Molly. The bright red dragon blood created a blood rain on the surface.


    Against the Alliance Army consisting of two of the Underground Autarch, the 3 big heads were forced into a corner.


    ¡°Quickly, Adam. If you don¡¯t finish the sealing and inheritance soon, we might all die here today.¡±


    When Little Red was finally at her limits, a pir of silver light that tore apart the sky appears from the direction of Sulfur Mountain City at a distance suddenly.


    ¡°What is happening? That is the Light of Order, Rnd that that cunning fox is actually getting serious?

 Chapter 24

    <h4>Chapter 24: The Power of Law</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Kill them all!!¡±


    Or perhaps, in this instant, my orders were excessive.


    The one leading the frontlines is without doubt, the one known as Guardian of Steel, Xueti. As the Head of Hall of Enforcement, the Town Security army can be considered his direct subordinates. They were the one he came into contact with the most often and he was even able to name out each and every one of them in the 800 men strong Town Security. Now that they were getting injured in front of his eyes, how can he not be enraged! How can he not feel hatred towards the enemy!


    Xueti¡¯s eyes rolled to the extent of showing only white and the final sanity in his head turned into bloodshed. After he decided to go into a frenzy, the role model of a good manpletely disappears. The one charging now isn¡¯t the one who can¡¯t retaliate under the pursuit of the Town Security but a mad bull driven by vengeance.


    ¡°Heroic Charge!¡±


    This is one of the simplest skill of a warrior. It simply rockets its user forward like a fodder but in the hands of the Guardian of Steel, it became a charge of death that destroys everything in his path.


    Taking it upfront? He simply charges over you unreasonably.


    Using spears to stab him? Even the sharpest enchanted spears are unable to prate his steel body.


    The strong ckwater army was as weak as a bunch of chickens in the face of the Legend-rank old bull. As though finding that the usage of weapon wouldn¡¯t appease his anger, he grabs a Pig Tribe Beastman with each of his hands and crushes them together to form two pile of meat soil. Afterwards, he moves on to the next target...


    ¡°Sorcery.Frog Hex!¡±


    An old Shaman whose head was filled with chicken feathers used its most vicious sorcery on the old bull but with just a fierce re by the Guardian of Steel, the sorcery was reflected back to the Shaman.


    ¡°Ribbit ribbit¡±, a frog that jumps randomly around appears on the ground. Then, he was stepped to his death by a mad bull.


    Iron Bloodline, Copper Body, Silver Dignity, Golden Will, Respected Legend. Upon reaching the stage of a Legend, one could forge their own Soul Imprint and using their imprint as the core and the power source, they can significantly strengthen aponent of their abilities.


    ¡°Steel Heart¡± is the name of Xueti¡¯s Soul Imprint. He believes that his body is like metal, his soul forged by steel, indestructible and wless.


    Fine, its side effect is that one would be overconfident of his perfect physique and would think that not stripping to show to the entire body would be the regret of the world. Thus, he formed the bad habit of exhibitionism...


    Cough, we are at the battlefield now, so let¡¯s be a bit more serious. Let¡¯s speak less of the gossips and get back to the main topic.


    A Gold-rank expert can use their will to affect their physique and the world and with this pure enhancement type of Soul Imprint, Xueti only has to gather his own will, coupled with the basic abilities as a Legend-rank Justice Knight, he would be an infallible steel fortress.


    If so, destroying a few inferior weapons and reflecting a few low-level sorceries is just a piece of cake!


    Against the formation of the ckwater army, he is like an unblockable meat grinder. The slow but determined march, charge, assault and suppress then what is left behind him is a floor of broken weapons and lumps of scattered meat.


    ¡°ept the judgement ofw! Criminal! Incantation of Law: Judgement!¡±


    Compared to Xueti who was rushing in a frenzy, at least Kelvin remembers to use the one-circle spell that all Justice Knights must know.


    This incantation was modelled over the Holy Knight¡¯s Divine Art, Detect Evil, but there is great difference in its effects. Divine Art Detect Evil seems like a skill to differentiate the good from the bad, but if good and bad can be differentiated so easily, then why do we still need police andw enforcers? We could just send Holy Knights to check everyone and throw all evil people into jail. Then, we would have evesting peace.


    What Divine Art Detect Evil truly detects is the energy within one¡¯s body and their bloodline. If it is sided towards Chaos, then naturally, the red light representing evil will appear. Otherwise, if it is sided towards Order, then a white light representing justice will appear...


    It might be unreliable but in certain senses, it is quite effective. At least, for Liches which is filled with the Power of Death and the Dark Elves who have a bloodline sided towards Chaos, it would definitely shine bright red and admittedly, they are normally up to no good.


    As for my Incantation of Law: Judgement, it looks into the mind of the one who had the spell casted on them and judges them by the Codex of Law based on their actions within an hour. If guilty, the spell would shine red. Otherwise, if he is innocent, the spell would shine white.


    Of course, I would be extremely pleased if I could further the time the Incantation of Law could probe into. This way, our legal system could save a lot of hassle. However, it is a power derived from thews of Order and I am unable to change it as an individual.


    In front of him, as the divine light of Judgement falls, all of the Beastmen naturally shone bright red. This would increase the might of the Incantation of Law cast on them afterwards by several folds.


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Silence!¡±


    The gavel strikes from midair, followed by silver ripples spreading outwards. The light of silence disperses and all of the Shamans find themselves unable to chant magic. Immediately after, all of the Berserkers realized that they are unable to release their warcry!


    This Incantation of Law was a 2-circle magic that was used to keep silence in a court. Naturally, it can shut the mouth of the sinners!


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Proof of Crime Lock On, Equipment Strip!¡±


    This Incantation of Law is famous for being the most shameless spell of Justice Knights. If the opponent is a criminal that was currently breaking thew, the Justice Knights are able to pinpoint an equipment as evidence of the crime, preventing the opponent from using it. (5-circle magic, spends quite a huge amount of magic. The prerequisite for the spell is that the person has been judged guilty)


    The duration of the spell might be short and it is single-target, but just think about it, if your weapon and armor suddenly leaves you in the middle of a battle...


    ¡°Sin-Splitting Strike!¡±


    It was impossible for the experienced Justice Knight Kelvin to miss the opportunity provided when the enemy lost his weapon.


    Kelvin strikes with his longsword, bringing along a silver light on the sword from the buff of Incantation of Law originating from the Origin of Codex¡¯s Power of Order. A criminal who is hit by this blow would suffer a damage several folds higher.


    Under the ordinary longsword, the Pig Tribesman¡¯s prided thick skin was as easily cut through as paper.


    With another strike from his sword, the silver light shoots out in the form of a spinning chakram. Aiming at more valuable targets, he kills numerous prestigious military officers at one go.


    The ssicalbination of something resembling the Holy Knight¡¯s Divine Arts and physical attacks. The mostmonly seen battle style of Justice Knights as aw enforcer were physical attacks and lower-circle magic that were exceptionally effective on those who broke thew.


    As for the mad bull Xueti, he is an exception. Ignoring the fact that he doesn¡¯t use spells or weapons, he actually finds his clothes in his way and started stripping his own protective gears...


    Cough, it is good that a warrior has passion for battle. As long as you¡¯re tougher than your armor, then you¡¯re free to decide on whether you want to use weapon and protective gear or not. There is nothing stopping you from going nude on the battlefield.


    Actually, as a rarely seen Legend-rank Warrior whose abilities were purely in physical enhancements, the durability of his body might be close to Adam¡¯s, these normal weapons aren¡¯t really necessary to him. Anyway, getting ripped apart or sliced apart isn¡¯t much of a difference to the victims.


    Perhaps, the reason why Xueti¡¯s true identity as the Battlefield Exhibitionist hasn¡¯t been revealed is only because those who have seen him in his mad bull state has been reduced to meat lumps by him...


    ¡°What a splendid fodder.¡±


    Looking at how the two-men fodder team charging ahead had captured the attention of most of the opponents, I couldn¡¯t resist sighing.


    The other two Mages, Kale and Elisa shed smiles of agreement.


    In the Eich Continent, there is amon saying that roughly means that Mages look down upon others not of their own. In their eyes, there are only two main distinctions of all jobs. Mage and non-Mage fodder...


    This is another argument for the supremacy of magic but I must say, thus opinion is biased.


    ¡°In this old man¡¯s eyes, it is obvious that there are 3 categories. Mage, useless fodder and useful fodder and Kelvin and Metal Lump (Xueti¡¯s nickname) inevitably belongs to the category of the most useful, ssical and limited-edition fodder that should be well-cherished! Look, due to their charges, those dumb pigs actually forgot about our existence, forgot about the Mages who are at the core of the battle.¡±


    As a Mage who pursues the truth, Kale.Diya¡¯s reply is satisfactory as always.


    ¡°Actually, I categorize them by their power ranking. Xueti is a Legend-rank fodder and if we look at his Soul Imprint, his value can be upped one notch, putting him at the level of ssical collection worth stashing away. Kelvin is slightly inferior... Alright, Elisa, don¡¯t re at me like that, I know we are working on serious matters. Cough, since our fodder have attracted the liveliness of our enemies and fulfilled their purpose, then let¡¯s destroy them in one go.¡±


    ¡°Alright, let this old man go first. Incantation of Magic: Stripping of Freedom.¡±


    This is a single-target 4-circle magic. Normally, it restricts the movement of a criminal within an area. But, in the hands of a Saint-rank Mage, it has evolved into a powerful AOE magic that restricts the movement of a group. In an instant, all of the ckwater soldiers who were marked with a red light within sight became unable to move.


    ¡°Hng! What¡¯s going on!! Hng hng!¡±


    ¡°Hng hng! Let me go!¡±


    An individual Mage is often treated like a cannon but in reality, it is only when Mages form groups and work together do Mages show their true prowess.


    The Saint-rank Kale.Diya spentrge amount of his mana to restrict the enemy¡¯s freedom. In fact, to sustain the spell, he was unable to move himself. This was all so that Elisa and I could cast our magic on the frozen enemies as we please.


    Since the conditions are good now, then the spell we should use now should naturally make use of the enemy¡¯s inability to move to the fullest.


    ¡°Ice Carving!¡±


    As a Half-Demon, Elisa was born with a strong Chaos bloodline, which makes it difficult and ineffective for her to utilize the Power of Law which was a subsidiary of the Origin of Order. Thus, I imparted to her my expertise when I was still Lord Yongye ¡ª Necromancy and Ice elemental magic.


    For an Ice Mage, creating a few ice sculptures is a piece of cake but these products of ice dock offensive power. However, if these ice sculptures appear in the wrong positions...


    Fine, I will get straight to the point. In this instant, beside the feet of all of the Beastmen, icicles were slowly growing and the sharp edges were aimed at the Beastmen¡¯s reproductive organs...


    ncing at the corpses of the Town Security who were defiled, I secretly wiped away my cold sweat and made a mental note not to offend women. I know that this time, Elisa is really furious.


    Maybe it is to make those Beastmen regret their actions before their deaths, so the icicles grew at a slow pace. But, looking at the sweat beads on Kale¡¯s forehead and hearing the cursing of those Beastmen, I felt the necessity to give them a hand.


    ¡°Extreme Magic.Soaring Spell!¡±


    Compared to the 2-circle Floating Spell which Mages use to jump from high locations, the 3-circle Soaring Spell is its upgraded version, allowing people to fly slightly higher, around 1 to 2 meters.


    In this moment, even after I used the Extreme Magic Technique to convert it into an AOE spell, it only turned into a 6-circlemonly used mystical spell. Very quickly, the entire group of Beastmen were enchanted with the Soaring Spell and due to the restriction of movement from the Incantation of Law, they can only move up or down...


    The current me cannot bepared to the SemiGod tier top-ss Mage I was then. It might just be a 6-circle mystical spell, but this Lich also don¡¯t have much mana to waste, so...


    ¡°Pataa!¡± With a snap of a finger, the effects of the Soaring Spell were released and all of the Beastmen dropped down rapidly. Then, they met with the icicles which had been waiting for them for a long time...


    ¡°This is too tragic! I can¡¯t bear to watch it any longer.¡±


    The scene in front of me made me recall the candied apple that were skewered together with a stick. I decided that I would never eat this kind of food again. Then, I realized that I already no longer need to ingest food, it was all excessive thoughts...


    ¡°Hng hng! Demon!! Hng!¡±


    ¡°Quickly run! Hng hng! Run!!¡±


    When half of an army faced the other half of an army which had been converted into ¡®Pork Candied Apple¡±, even the most elite of soldiers would escape in despair.


    The panicked dispersion of the ckwater army before me was within expectations.


    ¡°Not chasing them?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t, forcing them to retreat from the city is sufficient.¡±


    If I went by my style of doing things normally, I definitely kill every singlest one of them. Even if they managed to escape from the city, I will pursue them to the ends if the world. But, I decided to shelve it aside temporarily because of an unease I felt, a feeling that I was missing out a crucial factor.


    Truthfully, when I saw the devastation outside the city gates and the ckwater army, my first reaction, other than anger, the more dominant one was surprise.


    ¡°Why did they send the ckwater army who serve as the Royal Guards. If it was a bunch of elite thieves sneaking in to cause trouble, he could still argue his way out of it. But, if he sent his Royal Guards, it be an obvious act of war. Hng Hng¡¯s head must have been dunked in water, or else why would dare to fall out with Sulfur Mountain City and start an all-out war with us. Just what kind of back-up does he has.¡±


    But soon, when I realized that I was unable tomunicate Margaret who was outside the city, I could roughly guess what happened.


    ¡°The Underground Alliance and the Underground Autarchs huh? Looks like Hng Hng has really decided to fall out with Sulfur Mountain Citypletely. I underestimated our opponents. The attack by half of their army was probably just to stall our internal firepower... Aren¡¯t they afraid of Adam getting back at them? To offend 3 independent and free SemiGod experts at one go? If they don¡¯t solve the root of the problem, they would just be seeking their own deaths. So, it seems like the Underground Autarch is intending to weed our roots out. The fact that I am unable tomunicate with Margaret probably indicates that they are in trouble, deep trouble.¡±


    At this point, I made up my mind.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go back to the court. Let¡¯s begin the hearing.¡±


    ¡°Begin the hearing? You intend to use the Origin of Codex? Lilith just reported that the situation in the city is still under control, even so, you intend to use our trump card? Is it worth it?¡±


    ¡°Of course, it is worth it. There are changes in the situation. Elisa, go and prepare the God Equipment and the ritual. We must immediately halt the internal strife. In the worst-case scenario, our great City Lord might still be waiting for our rescue.¡±

 Chapter 25

    <h4>Chapter 25: Judgement (RT)</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    After Goddess Eich created the world, Goddess of Order Astrya and Goddess of Chaos Cynthia created the first generation of dwellers. Ever since then, the war between Order and Chaos became the unending theme of this world.


    When the 2 equally powerful Goddess overexerted themselves, and fell into a deep slumber concurrently, the remains of their creations continued to fight the war for them. After the Gold Tribe and Sulfur Race fought each other to extinction, the Moon Elves, representing the Silver Tribe and the Giants, representing the Mercury Race, continued the war of souls.


    This war had never stopped ever since the inception of the world.


    When the Order suppresses the Chaos, a rtively stable era of Order begins. On the other hand, if the Chaos manages to reign supreme, a Chaos era of pandemonium begins. A change in era could represent the rise and fall of innumerable races.


    The future 7 Trials are more or less rted to this eternal war. Or rather, it could even be considered an extension of the eternal war.


    When the 2nd Generation Goddesses fell into a deep sleep after their fight, it was rumored that they were dead. Astrya¡¯s subordinate, the God of Light, also the God who singlehandedly created the Holy Light, became the core of the 3rd Generation Order Gods.


    Of course, just like every ruler who got on the throne, he quickly got the mortal humans with short lifespans to praise the greatness of Holy Light, making them forget the prestige and greatness of the ruler of the previous generation.


    As for the Chaos Faction, due to the fact that they regard violence and freedom as a virtue, to date, they have yet to decide on a boss... But their absolute power had always been a tier higher than the Order Faction. After all, in the Chaos Faction where power reigns supreme, those who remain weak cannot survive.


    Furthermore, when the First-Generation Children of Order, the Angel Civilization, became a history and the remaining Angels became the servants of Gods, the First-Generation Demons of Chaos are still engaged their merry-making in the Abyss and asionally, they cause some trouble on the Main Continent as well.


    It is to the extent that the Order Faction only has 7 Main Gods whereas the Chaos Faction has a total of 13 Main God-level existences. having only 7 Main Gods on the Order Faction, the Chaos Faction has a total of 13 Main God-level existence. If they were to unite together, perhaps, only the Goddess of Chaos Cynthia would reappear in the world once more.


    This is the basic setting of Eich¡¯s Hell. In the game, there are 2 main faction, Order and Chaos. Every gamer, before their birth, must choose between the two and their choice is permanent, unless you delete your character and start all over again.


    The war between the two Factions has continued since ancient times till today. Each of them has tasted their fair share of victory though more often than not, it was the Order Faction that held the upper hand


    Well, everyone should understand the reason. Since they are living by the primitive and barbaricws of the jungle and since you can¡¯t be stronger than me forever, then on what basis that I can¡¯t be the one sitting on the throne instead of you? Alright, it ends up in an internal strife. When battling outsiders, they to drag each other down, causing them to fall together in the end despite their strength.


    The Sulfur Race and Golden Tribe are exceptionally strong. Even the weakest of their grown individual is at minimum Gold-rank and their sovereigns aren¡¯t any weaker than true Gods. Due to the nature of the Chaos Faction, Chaos beings tend to be more experienced in battle and are slightly stronger than their Order counterparts of equal power rank.


    Even so, they are still equals in war. Eventually, after many wars, 90% and above of the Sulfur Tribes and Golden Tribes fell in battle. The Elemental Dragons and Metal Dragons, noticing the usible threat of the extinction of their species, were unwilling to continue acting as pawns for the war. So, they started walking together secretly and formed the Dragon Tribe of today, distancing themselves from this eternal ¡®Sacred War¡¯.


    Under the perseverance of the Gods of both faction, as well as to continue fighting on... The high-tier Elves replicated their body structure to create the Wood Elves, Moon Elves, Night Elves, Silver Elves and simr kinds of Elf tribes. Even the Angels have created the First Generation of Mountainous Human Tribe. These tribes, in their grown form, have the battle power of a Silver-rank at a minimum and thus, they were named the Silver Tribe.


    Naturally, when there is an injection of new blood on one faction while the other¡¯s poption were gradually dwindling due to war, the scales of war began to tilt.


    Then, the Sulfur Race who weren¡¯t adept in creationism found their own solution.


    The Demons, through offering strength, longevity and knowledge as incentives, managed to sessfully tempt the First-Generation Humans, the Mountainous Tribes, to join the Chaos Faction. Now, they are known as the dwellers of the Abyss of Hell ¡ª Devils.


    Of course, after the incident, the Devils and Demons started an endless bloodshed to vie for the crown of evil, making the Demons iparably regretful of their decision then. But again, it was their fall to depravity that strengthened the battle power of the Chaos Faction significantly back then.


    After tasting the sweetness, they sessfully lured Fallen Angels, Red Dragons, ck Dragons, Fire Giants and Giant Devils to join their ranks. These new races formed the Mercury Tribe and became the arch-enemy of the Silver Tribe.


    The betrayal of the first intelligent humans, the Mountainous Tribes caused the Order gods to purge the First-Generation Humans. Eventually, the Second-Generation Humans, which is the humans now, are created.


    However, this generation of humans was designed to use as pawns.


    Compared to the other tribes in the past, they are extremely weak individually and their lifespan is exceptionally short. What the creators was hoping to make were just pawns who can¡¯t cause much damage even if they were to turn their back on them.


    But surprisingly, this weak race changed the entire flow of the battle.


    Weak at birth? This provided them the motivation to pursue power through creating weapons, studying magic and such. They studied martial arts from the Beastmen, smithing from the Dwarves and Giants and magic from the Elves.


    Short lifespan? This made them cherish their time more. With an endless desire and motivation for knowledge, their footsteps reach even Heaven, Hell and many other dimensions.


    Furthermore, the ironw of the world dictates that the stronger a race is, the harder it is for them to reproduce. Inparison, the weak humans have fearsome reproduction ability.


    Basically, once the numbers are there, the humans wouldn¡¯tck geniuses who could face the Gods and Demons head-on.


    After experiencing countless wars, when the age of the Giant Devils finally came to an end, the fact that the world belongs predominantly to the humans now is the best proof.


    The powerful existences in the Chaos Faction weren¡¯t just for decorations as well. They were still unable to create living beings but they are capable of twisting thews of the world... Thus, the Ancient Human King, the dictator who ruled the world countless years ago crawls out from his tombstone, powered not by stamina or blood pulse but by the endless Power of Death.


    He was the first Undead, as well as the oldest Death God Ayer.


    For a significant period of time, Undead served as a tool of war for Demons and the Malevolent Gods. The Undead swung their des towards their closest kin mercilessly.


    TL: Malevolent gods refers to gods of the Chaos Faction.


    I must say that the bloodthirsty Undead who crave for the souls of the living to fill their void are a convenient tool of war. They do not fear death and their numbers are endless.


    No one would wish for their own brethren to be reduced to simply pawns and tools of war. So, Death God Ayer secretly granted the intelligence of the Devils to his own brethren. Even though only Undead who were Silver-rank and above could possess the ability to think, this was enough to create the earliest Undead Lords. Under themand of the Undead Lords are countless subjects who fight fearlessly for them.


    Since they weren¡¯t even afraid of death, why should they ept very?


    Alright, so what happened afterward was the betrayal of the entire race.


    As seen from the Xiluo Empire now, the Undead are an independent race. Often, there are human Mages who fear death and in search of longevity, they convert themselves to an immortal Undead and the core of the Undead race ¡ª Lich was born like this.


    The never-ending war between Order and Chaos is something not even the dead could escape from. Upon death, the souls of those who believes in the Gods of Order would be sent to the Heaven Realm where the Gods live. The strong would have a chance to be a God Envoy and continue fighting for them. As for the faithless, cultists and evil, their souls would flow along the River Styx through the Abyss and Hell. There is a possibility that they might be converted into a Devil or Demon at any time and climb up to shore.


    The War of Dimensions between the Abyss and the Heaven Realm, the eternal war between the Order Faction and Chaos Faction continues to function as a never-ending meat-grinding machine


    For the yer, this is not only the past history but also the storyline for the future plot.


    Once you choose a Faction and join the world, endless wars and cmities would follow by your side.


    Eich¡¯s Seven Trials, the first 2 trials are problems which could be solved internally by humans. At that point in time, on the Surface World, Silver-ranks are sufficient to serve as the main attacking force. When the 3rd Trial, The Undead Cmity, and the 4th trial, The Return of the Demons and Devils, begins, the war would have escted to the point the Golden Tribes would interfere directly in the war. At this point, the Gold-rank humans can only be considered as higher tier pawns.


    Not mentioning the 5th and 6th for now, the 7th Trial, also the final Trial, is the revival of the 2 Goddesses. The ancient history would then y out once again. At that time, even with the strength of the SemiGod which I once reached, can only count as slightly higher quality cannon fodder.


    When that timees, the Gods begin fighting directly on the mortal world. The Eich Continent cracks and cracks once again. The Foreign Dimension Gates open and the powerful foreign races would turn this entire world into a living hell.


    As for why the reason why there isn¡¯t an 8th trial, when the world has been cut into 3000 pieces or more, that isn¡¯t important anymore...


    No wonder Seers would tend to be entric. How can I take it lying when I know that a future of a doomsday is awaiting...?


    Perhaps, I became mad the moment that I became aware of the cmities awaiting us in the future. I pursued power in a frenzy, ughtered in a frenzy and used my Golden Finger Game System to improve myself in a frenzy. Of course, in the midst of doing so, Imitted unpardonable crimes as well.


    Going by that principle of mine that sinner must be judged, I¡¯m afraid that the first one that should be burnt on a stake is me.


    Even so, I don¡¯t intend to argue my way out. I admit to my crimes but I have no regrets. Besides... I seem to found a way to divert the course of the world and have done much in preparation for it.


    In this moment, the time that I have waited so patiently toe is probably here. The main storyline mentioned in the System Notice also represents the start of the 1st Trial ¡®Whisper of the Demons¡±.


    The start of the main storyline, in the original ¡®history¡¯, also represents the point when yers entered the game to change the fate of this world.


    If it was just like what the strangely pragmatic advertisement slogan says, ¡®A true world is awaiting, you hold the future in your hands¡¯, then the cause 7 Trials probably have something to do with those short-sighted and foolish yers.


    The one who opened the seal to the Abyss that allowed the Demons and Devils to roam the mortal world is a bunch of yer mercenaries who were blinded by greed. Furthermore, the one who ignited the Cmity of White Bones which gued the entire world was, in fact, an invasion by an Undead Lord yer.


    The irresponsible otherworldly visitors fight for the sake of gold coins and equipment. They view the original inhabitants as puppets to fool to extract their remaining worth out, turning the hard-to-survive cmities into an impossible-to-survive hell.


    Of course, for the world to continue moving forward, the ones who fought the war and sacrificed themselves many times for it, some even having their ounts deleted as a result, were also this bunch of otherworldly guests.


    This time, in this real world, there are no longer any gamers who hold the future in their hands. The only one who can change the future is me, a defective Skeleton Beholder.


    ¡°I swear to reverse cause and effect, change the course of fate and bring the popce safely out of the cmities.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Alright, after a bunch of crap, I believe that everyone is sick and tired of the settings and background. Let¡¯s get back to something concrete.


    For a long time, I have been thinking and thinking about how to tide through these cmities. Un, at the very least, how to stop the repeating loop of the Eternal War.


    ¡°Holy Light huh?¡±


    The Holy Light which conquers over 30% of the world¡¯s believers became my experimental device.


    The foolish God of Light have indeed fulfilled his motives and became the strongest God. However, due to the excessive influx of faith, he was assimted by the faith and lost his humanity, turning him into a Concept-like existence.


    A little tough to understand? It is like an old PC downloading the entire inte¡¯s data at one go, causing the CPU to explode. The entire system is jammed, leaving only the hardware to operate.


    Un, the God of Light is that PC which exploded. He is only now instinctively maintaining the basic programs whereas his owner has already disconnected. On the other hand, as he represents the Concept itself, losing his owner made him even stronger.


    As Concept Gods too, the ¡®great¡¯ Mother of Earth and ¡®wise¡¯ Goddess of Magic are incredibly powerful Gods. But, other than providing power to their own believers, they don¡¯t even have a sense of self, thus depriving them of the ability to interfere with the world.


    ¡°Any child of Order who worships the light has the authority to wield the Holy Light.¡±


    This dictum of the Holy Light might seem sacred but in actuality, it is just a machine-like way of dealing with the prerequisites to use Holy Light. There are two prerequisites to using Holy Light and anyone who fulfills these requirements are able to utilize it. Firstly, he must be of an Order bloodline and secondly, he must worship the light...


    Alright, my experiments have proven that it is just a load of bull. Even a Demon can utilize the Holy Light when possessing the body of a human. It is enough as long as you brainwash him and to fool that receiving machine that you really worship the Holy Light.


    Just the Holy Light itself isn¡¯t sufficient for my ns.


    Holy Light is a Lower Concept of Order. Its key Concept revolves around ¡®Cleanse¡¯. That¡¯s to say, it causes everything to proceed on naturally along thews of the world. So, existences that defy thesews, such as the Undead who defied thews of death and the Demons and Devils who are children of Chaos, are naturally its arch-enemy.


    In reality, Holy Light is indeed the nemesis of these two Chaos lifeforms... So, those who intend to use Holy Light to pursue peace and harmony are just like those who pursue military might to bring about world peace. Anyway, the result of it is destroying all of their enemies.


    Eich¡¯s long history has proven that it is impossible topletely wipe out a faction. Order and Chaos can¡¯t destroy each other totally. After a short-lived victory, a merciless vengeance would soon follow suit.


    Since destroying the other faction is impossible, then getting along is the only usible solution... Getting along with thepletely unreasonable Chaos lifeforms? If word were to spread out that I said this, then I would have really proven true my honorary title of ¡®The Lich whose head was dunked in water Rnd¡¯.


    ¡°If only there was a boundary, a boundary that everyone would acknowledge.¡±


    This is my most initial thought. Afterward, I recall the agreements made among countries in my previous life. Then, I remembered the legal career I passionately worked in in my previous life...


    ¡°Alright, since I¡¯m so idle now, being trapped Sulfur Mountain City, why don¡¯t I just give it a shot? There¡¯s nothing to lose anyway.¡±


    Thus, ¡®ding ding dang¡®, the Supreme Court was built. ¡®Ding ding ding¡¯, the 4 Halls were erected. ¡®Ding ding ding¡®, the entire legal system has been formed...


    So, when the thick notebook which I filled with differentws was somehow recognized by the Origin of Order and became the God Equipment Origin of Codex, the Power of Law also rises to be a Concept equal to the Holy Light. The one who found it hardest to believe that these all had happened is me myself.


    After a long state of disbelief, I fell into a state of uncontroble frenziedughter and intense joy... Then,ughing andughing, I started crying. I don¡¯t even recall how long had I been in a state of madness, how long I had struggled...


    ¡°Hahahahaha, so the solution was so easy after all. For an entire 300 years, I had been walking in circles. To think that the key would be on me from the very start.¡± After countless failures, this is the first time I saw the light of hope.


    The core of the Holy Light is ¡®Cleanse¡¯, putting everything back to the order they belong to. The core of my Power of Law is ¡®Equality¡¯. Every life has their own reason of existence and order. Even Chaos itself is a twisted form of Order. As long as both parties work within the boundaries they agree on, then coexistence could be possible.


    This boundary is the basis of the Power of Law.


    ¡°Those who bypass these boundaries will be punished and even sentenced to death. Regardless of his identity, strength and race, in the face of the scale ofw, everyone is equal.


    The first Power of Law is simr to the primitive form of thew we have now, revolving around the concept of an eye for an eye. It is very crude and hard to control, wounding both the opponent and the user. Fortunately, as long as my phctery isn¡¯t damaged, it is just a matter of reviving. I am used to dying anyway... Cough, after adding in morews and changing the core principles, the current Power of Law is getting closer and closer to the ¡®Laws of Equality¡¯ I hope to create.


    ¡°As long as Law Enforcers give up their individuality to fight for justice and equality, they will be able to wield the Power of Law.¡±


    I imitated the simple rules of the dictum of Holy Light but I was still far away from the day of achieving that.


    As a newborn power of concepts, the Power of Law is still weak and requires an influx of faith for it to grow. Now, only in Sulfur Mountain City where the Power of Law is the thickest, in an area around the Origin of Codex can the Power of Law be a Concept equal to the Holy Light.


    ¡°After all, there¡¯s no God of Law. However, there will be one...¡±


    Just like what I said when I was teasing the Town Security (Undead yground), there will be a God of Law and the Power of Law that is recognized by the entire world. As long as my scheme... Hehe, I think using the word n is better, seeds, what should be there will be there.


    ¡°There will be a God of Law and Enforcers, who wield the Power of Law, will roam the entire world. Every city will establish its own justice and legal system...¡±


    ...It will all be there! I swear on my phctery!


    This time, I won¡¯t be the silly individual who tries to block the truck with his weak arms to attempt to change ¡®history¡¯. This time, we, all of the Law Enforcers who believe in thew, will be the authors of a brand new history.


    When that fool, Adam, asked me if it was worth it to sacrifice so much for such an intangible dream, my answer remains the same.


    ¡°Of course it is worth it. My dreams are like the sea of stars. My Power of Law will one day surpass theme Power of Holy Light.¡±


    Yes, without a doubt, I am poaching from the Holy Light. Maybe I should be d over the fact that the God of Light has lost his sense of self or else getting erased by a ray of light from the sky all of a sudden would be my ending.


    But now, those foolish Holy Knights are instead overjoyed over the creation of a new power in the Origin of Order and even specially sent people here to study it...


    Let me return to my corner tough a bit. When the Power of Law bes mainstream and legal systems are built up all over the continent, would there still be a need for the existence for a Holy Church who repetitively preaches old values? Is this the legendary act of cornering oneself?


    This reminds me of another world where the teachers in those monasteries became the creators of modern science, thus digging the grave for creationism... History are indeed simr all around the world, it is always the people inside who dig the holes for their own downfall.


    Un, when that timees and they lose their jobs, as repayment, I will open the system and provide job changes for Holy Knights to Justice Knights, Priests to Judgementor and Holy Mage to Law Incantationer. The tips I would earn from the service I should be quite substantial.


    ¡°Lord, we are done with the preparations.¡±


    Elisa¡¯s voice interrupted my wonderful daydream.


    This is the First Hall of the Supreme Court as well as thergest Court, capable to holding up to a thousand people. But, due to itsrge size, it is expensive to upkeep this ce and thus, I have only used it on several asions.


    ¡°Now, it is time to show the world the true divinity of the Power of Law. From now onwards, starting from Sulfur Mountain City, the Power of Law will prate every corner of the world...¡±


    The in and calm description of a deep voice reverberates within the huge hall, resulting in an ancient and heavy resonance, as though like it is a feedback from history, as though it is the decided future.


    Now, as I sit on the top of the court, the entire spectator stand remains empty. On my left stands the strongest person of the judicial system Judge Kale.Diya and on my right, the nk-faced Xueti, who is a Legend-rank.


    Elisa carefully passes a thick old book filled with yellow pages forward. The old book which feels like it might scatter with just a blow of the wind is the highest God Equipment of the Power of Law, the Origin of Codex.


    ¡°Oldpanion, I haven¡¯t used you ever since you became a God Equipment.


    Caressing the familiar binding, I feel a little sentimental. Looking around me, Kale and Xueti nods, indicating that they are all prepared to go. Thus, I started speaking.


    ¡°I, the Supreme Judge Wumianzhe.¡±


    ¡°I, first-tier Judge Kale.Diya.¡±


    ¡°I, second-tier Judge Xueti.¡±


    ¡°We call for a Council of Judgement! Begin the hearing!¡±


    Following our deration, the silver light of the Power of Law scatters down like stars and the entire world is shrouded by a blinding silver light. The next moment, we are no longer in the old court, but in a space devoid of anything.


    ¡°Kale.¡±


    Taking over the God Equipment Origin of Codex, the Saint Great Law Incantationer Kale.Diya strokes the beard he is proud of and speaks with a deep voice:


    ¡°The Court of Stars!¡±


    Legend-rank experts pull their distance away from Gold-rank experts by showing to the world the mor of their souls, their Soul Imprint. If so, then what does a Saint-rank expert has to differentiate themselves from Legend-rank experts?


    ¡°It is the world. Saint-rank experts have their own Soul World, allowing them to project the ideal world in their hearts into reality. In the world they created, they are able to exert 300% of their usual strength.¡±


    Very quickly, with the help of the Origin of Codex, Kalepleted the creation of his own Soul World.


    That is a court created by the light of the stars. There is the Judge¡¯s Stand, Defendant¡¯s Stand, intiff¡¯s Stand, whatever a court should have are all there. In this court, all kinds of fighting tools and abilities have been voided and no lies could be spouted. The only thing that one can rely on is facts and interpretations of thew.


    In this moment, the empty spectator stand is filled with figures created by the glimmer of the stars. The star spirits of ancient heroes are invited as spectators to view this miraculous judgement.


    But unlike normal spectators, they will use the justice which the world sing praises of to make a judgement. If they find the judgement to be unfair, they can forcefully terminate the judgement. On the other hand, if they find the judgement impartial, they won¡¯t be stingy with their apuse.


    ¡°First of all, the crime of escaping from jail!¡±


    ¡°Pah!¡± The gavel strikes down and innumerable starlight gathers. In this moment, the Defendant¡¯s Stand fills with intangible figures as the escapees from Sulfur Mountain City Prison fell into a daze.


    Their physical bodies are now looking nkly forward without any strength in their limbs. They simply stood there in a daze, as though their souls had escaped. In reality, their souls have been brought to this star-filled court.


    ¡°Why am I here...¡±


    ¡°This is?¡±


    Towards the chatter of their souls, I lightly knock the gavel.


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Silence!¡±


    Then, only the sound of Xueti¡¯s mumbling of the incantation could be heard.


    In this court, the effects and the consumption of mana for Law Incantations have been increased significantly. Despite it being just a 1-circle Incantation of Law, he has already chanted for an entire 30 seconds!


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Judgement!¡±


    When Xueti finally activates the Law Incantation, a bright red light appears on all of the souls and a vague image appears on their forehead, signifying their guilt. It shows how they attacked the prison wardens, escaped from jail, killed the patrols blocking the way and brought harm to ordinary citizens along the way.


    ¡°147 innocent citizens have died and the estimated loss totals to 3.62 million gold coins.¡±


    The star spirits on the spectator stand begin to ramble angrily. To these ancient heroes, the hurting of innocent citizens is the shame of the powerful. It is an act they can¡¯t ept. Many of them even disy a thumbs-down gesture towards them.


    ¡°Death penalty!!¡±


    ¡°Death penalty!!¡±


    Then, all of the videos turned into a scene of the physical monument outside the Sulfur Mountain City Prison gates. Carved on it is somews that I have written personally.


    ¡°Sulfur Mountain City Statute 97: Escapees from prisons will be hanged!¡±


    ¡°Pah!¡±


    My gavel also strikes down immediately.


    ¡°1461 defendants judged guilty of escape from prison. The court sentences them to death by hanging! The sentence is to carried out immediately!!¡±


    The next moment, all of their souls return back to their body. Just when they were, despite being drenched in cold sweat, d that it was just a nightmare, they fail to realize that a sensation on the neck is making it harder and harder for them to breath...


    Following which, ¡®hh¡¯ and an intangible rope pulls their heads up, leaving only their legs to kick frenziedly in midair.


    Even though they were grabbing their necks frantically, causing multiple scratches on their necks, they were unable to grab hold of that formless rope. After numerous seconds of struggling, both of their hands slump down, devoid of strength.


    After concluding the first round of judgement, I took a deep breath.


    ¡°The execution has beenpleted. The second crime, the crime of betraying the city!¡±


    It was simr to the previous process, just that the defendants this time are the remaining Councilors who conspired with the other Underground Cities, the trolls who made use of the chaos to rob and ughter others and such...


    ¡°Death penalty!! Decapitation!¡±


    Following the fall of the gavel, thousands of heads fall to the ground. Seeing how the sinners suddenly fall dead in the midst of wreaking havoc, citizens of the city kneel down, thankful for the appearance of this miracle!


    ¡°The third crime, the crime of war and the crime bribery!!¡±


    This time, following the strike of my gavel, my sight changes continuously. Finally, I arrive at the battlefield a distance away, in the sulfur mountains which have changed into an ice field!


    The both parties on the battlefield don¡¯t seem to have noticed the arrival of the Court of Stars. Only Margaret and the Beastman Chieftain seems to be tilting their head to look in this direction.


    ¡°It is normal for Margaret who has stepped into the realm of SemiGod to feel me but that Beastman... Looks like he isn¡¯t a normal Saint-rank.¡±


    But the arrow is already drawn, I have no choice but to proceed ahead.


    ¡°Thou warn the court that the crime is still ongoing and the invasion is currently proceeding along, so a verdict must be executed immediately to lower the losses of the victim!¡±


    ¡°Pah.¡± Kale¡¯s suggestion is logical and at the same time, it could save a portion of the powers of the Origin of Codex, which is on the verge of drying up. There¡¯s no reason for me to reject it.


    ¡°Agreed. Shorten the process and begin judgement immediately!¡±


    ¡°Thisnd belongs to the jurisdiction of Sulfur Mountain City. The invaders, the Underground Alliance Army, and the victim, Sulfur Mountain City, is clear to see. Following the codex...¡±


    ¡°Death penalty!¡±


    ¡°Death penalty!¡±


    ¡°Death penalty!¡±


    The 3 judges came to the same conclusion and chants of ¡®death penalty¡¯ could be heard from the spectator¡¯s stand. The judgement of the Council immediately takes effect and thus...


    In the next moment, on the ground, regardless of whether it is the strong military officers of the Beastman or the old experienced Beastman veterans, after beingbeled with the mark of guilt, blood started to bleed from their eyes, nose, mouth and ears. One after another, they drop to the floor silently. In the sky, the eyes of the Red Dragons and ck Dragons roll back and they fall to their deaths.


    The mysterious deaths of strong warriors one after another causes the entire battlefield to be enveloped in an eerie silence. Even the wise Margaret stuns upon such a sight.


    The fiery battlefield from before chills down in a blink of an eye after the verdict was passed.


    The ground was full of corpses of the invaders...


    In this moment, the Underground Alliance Army is almost annihted. The only exception would probably be the Dragon Empress who was loitering around the sky.


    After realizing that something was amiss, the strongest Dragon of the Underground World abandons herrades and flees from the battlefield without a second thought.


    From the very start, I didn¡¯t include the SemiGod Dragon Empress into the judgement. As a SemiGod tier, she is too powerful. Given Kale¡¯s strength, even with the augmentation of a God Equipment, he is unable to judge her. If he were to do it forcefully, the entire Soul World might even shatter.


    ¡°If only I was in my best condition...¡± I shake my head. Just like Margaret¡¯s catchphrase ¡®Hypothetical situations are meaningless, [if] is only an excuse used by the weak to console themselves¡¯. I better focus my attention on the present.


    The judgement has ended and the star spirits have scattered. Sweeping across the battlefield with my eyes, I see the dead Beastman Sovereign standing up as he res furiously at me.


    In his beast eyes, a ck-green inferno is burning fervently with bone-piercing hatred.


    ¡°So it really is the doings of the Demons? Furthermore, it looks like it is a noble. Seems like I won¡¯t be able to get him.¡±


    I am familiar with that me. That is the Chaos Inferno that originates Hell, only great Demons of noble bloodline can wield it.


    In the next moment, Shou.Nuya¡¯s figure disappearspletely in a patch of ck smoke.


    As for our side, the dissolution of the Soul World seems to have reached the final phase.


    ¡°Lord, looks like I must apply for 2 months of long break.¡± After saying this, the old Kale who had overworked himself this time falls to the ground unconscious.


    ¡°Good job.¡± After getting Xueti to settle Kale properly, I nce helplessly at the Origin of Codex which has lost its glow. After spending so much energy, it looks like the God Equipment is in for a longer break.


    But looking at the city area which begins to regain its peace, the survivors are thankful for the miracle as they hugged one another and rushing to and fro to report their safety to their families, I feel that it was all worth the effort.


    Finally, I strike the gavel down lightly.


    ¡°End of hearing. Court dismissed.¡±


    Wow, long chapter. This represents the end of the internal strife arc. The next arc is going to be a little more interesting.


    ¡°When that timees, the Gods begin fighting directly on the mortal world. The Eich Continent cracks and cracks once again. The Foreign Dimension Gates open and the powerful foreign races would turn this entire world into a living hell.¡±


    TL: Alright, retranting Chapter 25. Since I¡¯m on it, allow me to rify that the there is a difference between Dimension Gates and Foreign Dimension Gates.


    TL: I will leave the words RT on the chapters I retranted to bookmark for myself. Anyway, if you still spot mistakes in chaptersbeled with RT, please doment and I will change it

 Chapter 26

    <h4>Chapter 26: The Pitiful Holy Knights</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°15 years ago, when I was studying in the Basic Warrior Academy, I was the pride of my parents and teachers. Whenever the vigers in my hometown saw me, they wouldment ¡®Why are the children of other families so outstanding?¡¯.¡±


    ¡°When I was 10, I had already grasped over 10 types of basic fighting techniques and had sessfully advanced into the Iron-rank. I became the pride of the school, a future hero of humanity. I was always surrounded by cute female juniors. Walking around school, I would ¡®identally¡¯ disy my talents in front of them...¡±


    ¡°¡®That genius from B ss? He has only grasped the concept of Consecutive Counterattack, right? If he were to continue working hard for another decade or so, he could possibly reach half of my current level.¡¯ Casually criticizing those fools without talent, I basked in thepliments and gazes of admiration from the cute female juniors. I thought that my life would continue on like this until the end of time. I thought that when I grew up, I would be a great hero and marry a rich woman. Until that day...¡±


    ¡°¡®Talent for Divine Arts? The notification for the qualification of Academy of Holy Light? To think that I would be able to be a noble Holy Knight! I¡¯ll go, I¡¯ll go!¡¯¡±


    The me back then had been looking forward to bing a suave Holy Knight. When I was overjoyed upon receiving the notification of my qualification, I seemed to have ignored the worried looks on my parents¡¯ face,¡±


    ¡°To be a part of the noble Holy Knight seems like a bright future but in reality, it was just the start of a nightmare...¡±


    ¡°Graduation equals to unemployment? How can this be, I am a genius from the Academy of Holy Knights, one that only appears once a decade!! Look at my Holy Light!! Look at my Noble Charge!!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, we are all devoted believers in the Holy Light, but what we need are talents who can help to spread our teachings, and not violent warriors who could only fight and kill. Our department should only consist of 12 people, but now it is cramped with 24. Everyone here has graduated from the Academy of Holy Knight and they are all your seniors. Why should they give up their cing to you?¡±


    ¡°I... Then I¡¯ll go and be a free adventurer.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but as a Holy Knight, you have a responsibility to repay your gratitude to the Church of Holy Light with your strength. The 7th Holy Church iscking a volunteer to clean the altar and the toilets... Volunteers aren¡¯t given wages, but the Holy Light will pay you for your hard work. Don¡¯t worry, you won¡¯t have to do it for too long. Three years will pass in a sh.¡±


    I still remember the gaze of the old Priest when he turned around to look at me. ¡°Boy, you¡¯re a neer? I have been working here since I was twenty. I have been tolerating this job to the point that my hair has turned white, so enjoy doing the job, you snotty brat!¡±


    ¡°I... I will go and be a free adventurer, that should be epted right!!¡±


    Of course, it is epted but I didn¡¯t expect that it would be the start of the true nightmare...


    3 yearster, I finally became a free adventurer. You are asking why is it 3 yearster? If you don¡¯t want to be chased about by the Holy Church, how can you skip the mandatory 3 years of volunteer work...


    Alright, looking at how my juniors had be veterans and the core of their adventuring team, I sighed. Even so, I didn¡¯t feel too discouraged because, with my Silver-rank abilities, I was confident that I would soon be the star in the eyes of the crowd.


    But very soon, the cruel reality crushed my dreams with a spiked mace.


    ¡°You don¡¯t want? Why, as a Silver Holy Knight, I am willing to join your team of Bronze-ranks. You should be happy about it. Or is it... is it because I am a Holy Knight?¡±


    The thief who stood opposite to me nodded his head.


    ¡°Holy Knights speak too much nonsense and have too many canons to follow by. Can you tolerate having Undead and Half-Demons as yourrades? Can you socialize with gray organizations and can you remain quiet when we are splitting up our trophies of war? As adventurers, we would have to do dirty work most of the time. Can you ensure that you will listen obediently to our orders and not hinder us?¡±


    Of course not! The Holy Church had clearly stated that all missing items have to be returned to their owners. If you couldn¡¯t find their owners, then you should hand them over to the officials. How could they be divided among us as trophies of war! As for Undead and Half-Demons? The evil Beings of Chaos! I will never stand on the same ground and smell the same air as you lot!


    Alright... Since our paths are different, we should not walk together. Since you aren¡¯t willing to allow me to join your party, I will just have to create my own...


    The process of building a new party went rather sessfully. The Adventurer¡¯s Guild and the taverns were filled with Holy Knights and Priests who were unable to find a party as well. Soon, our party, ¡®Let Light Shine Upon The World¡¯, started on our adventure.


    But...


    ¡°What does not being able to eptpensation means? Does that mean we can only starve?¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t your teacher teach you about it before you became an adventurer? We are Holy Knights, and we serve the Holy Light and the public. The adventures of a Holy Knight can only be considered as a journey to umte experience. Helping citizens in need is our duty and since it is a duty, how can we eptpensation for our work?¡±


    ¡°Screw being an adventurer if we can¡¯t earn any money! Do we just starve to death like this!!¡±


    A mysterious smile shed across the face of that senior. Indeed, he had an idea in mind and this was how the previous Holy Knight adventurers managed to avoid starving to death.


    Although we couldn¡¯t eptpensations, if we epted them as a form of donation for the Holy Church, we were able to keep a third of it as a token of their appreciation, but...


    ¡°However, given that it is a donation, we can¡¯t squabble over the amount we receive. But I can only buy two rye bread with the single bronze coin I received from getting rid the entire tribe of Ogre, it isn¡¯t even enough for me to buy medicine! Right, I still have to donate two-thirds of it to the Church...¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t the worst. You probably haven¡¯t met with requests from the Goblins yet. That is the one that really breaks one¡¯s back.¡±


    ¡°Un?¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t fuss over how much other people donate. In fact, we can¡¯t evenin if the person doesn¡¯t donate, or what he donates to us... It was still fine if a stingy Goblin refused to donate after fulfilling his request. If he were to donate a ton heavy boulder to you, you would have to cut it into three equal pieces and carry two of them back to the Holy Church to pay it as tax... As a senior, allow me to warn you in advance. If the Goblins were to hand you a machinery that seems decent, even if it means going against the teachings of the Church, you must dispose of it as soon as possible. If he isn¡¯t using you as ab rat to experiment his tools, which would explode sooner orter, then the thing he is passing you must be a real bomb, of which, he is still using you as ab rat.¡±


    ¡°Right, be careful of the Mermen as well. Thest time we helped the Mermen to clear up the coast, they donated a bunch of smelly mud fish. Under the hot sun, it started to stink halfway through our journey. That stench could be smelled even ten miles away... I had to bathe under the waterfall for three days straight after that. I still remember the looks of despise those Priestesses shot me with when they were collecting the donations. It was as though they were looking at something dirty.¡±


    The additional information from my Priestpanion chirped in was hrious but I couldn¡¯t bring myself tough. On the other hand, I somehow felt like crying.


    ¡°Also, be careful of DemiRams, they are truly damned. Those stingy things used their fur aspensation and furthermore, they went by strands!! Can you imagine the feeling of holding a bunch of goat furs in your hands and recounting them every few steps to avoid any falling onto the floor so that you could pay the correct amount of tax...¡±?


    ¡°Also, as Holy Knights, all of us are poor so we shouldn¡¯t resort to scheming against one another. But that other time, I met a...¡±


    Swiftly, the teaching session became aining session for our party. As for me, I only saw despair for my future as a Holy Knight.


    ¡°... At least, Holy Knights are dashing so they should be popr among women!!¡±


    But very soon, reality swung another heavy bat at me.


    ¡°Do you have a house? A mount? Savings?¡±


    I lived in themon dormitory filled with sweaty men. Naturally, it couldn¡¯t be used as my home after getting married. As for mounts, I did have one, but how could I afford to raise a stallion by myself? Thus, I deposited it with the Church and I was only allowed to use it during times of war. As for my savings... During thest war, when thepany selling feed for the horses sent in the receipts. Hehe. Hello,dies. Goodbye,dies.


    After taking so many consecutive blows, I finally met an innocent and cutedy. She didn¡¯t mind my poor qualifications and was willing to date me!


    ¡°Ah, how beautiful and kind she is. She is my goddess.¡±


    But it was bizarre that the most intense activity the both of us had ever engaged in was holding each other¡¯s hands and strolling through the park. She would always reject my offer to advance our rtionship.


    At that time, I was a little perplexed but I held in my curiosity. After all, she was so pure and innocent. But after five years passed, I was already 30-years-old and there was still no progress whatsoever. I couldn¡¯t hold it in any longer so I bucked up my courage to ask her about it.


    ¡°Ah? Aren¡¯t Holy Knights the Knights of God? Aren¡¯t they devoid of desires?¡±


    ¡°I XX!! We are Holy Knights, not Monks (In fact, only a few Battle Monks would make a vow to stay away from lust)!¡±


    So, I spent a lot of effort exining the difference between Battle Monks and Holy Knights to her before she was able toprehend. But, what I received was a reply that made me fall in despair.


    ¡°That... I¡¯m sorry, I wanted to have a tonic rtionship, that¡¯s why I came to find you. Can we still remain as friends?¡±


    ¡°Friends?! Friends your head! I am already 30 years old!! My ssmates already have dozens of children now!¡±


    That night, in that dormitory full of sweaty men, I cried sorrowfully as my colleagues stood solemnly beside me to console me.


    ¡°Do you remember Arult? That genius Holy Knight from Lucart City?


    Of course I would remember that winner in life! He found himself a rich and beautiful girlfriend.


    ¡°Why are you mentioning him? You don¡¯t think that I am sufficiently pathetic as it is?¡±


    ¡°He fell into depravity and converted into a ck Knight. He had be the ws of the Chaos Faction. That rich and beautiful girlfriend of his was actually a Demon who approached him to corrupt him...¡±


    ¡°How many does that make? Before this, many people in the Church already had their doubts why a good woman like her would choose to go for a Holy Knight and everyone had warned him about it. Yet, he just wouldn¡¯t believe it... No, he probably knew about it but he didn¡¯t want to face the truth. He wanted to enjoy the blissful life a bit longer.¡±


    ¡°Heh, we are all numb to this already. If we take the initiative to look for girls, we would only end up rejected. On the other hand, women who approach us on their own ord usually have a screw loose. What¡¯s worse is that the Holy Church bans us from spending money to solve our physical needs. Even relieving ourselves is a forbidden evil act...¡±


    ¡°We are humans! Not beasts! Just two days ago, the love affair between two Holy Knights in the West Mountains was exposed and both of them were exiled from the Church. They were myrades and I even sent them off when they initially departed there. But from the looks of it, the both of them seemed to be happy over the fact that they could stay together from now on... But they are both men! They were originally normal men who liked women! If we restrain ourselves too much, something will really happen! The number of gays in the Church is increasing at a rapid pace!¡±


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯ve started to think that I could reluctantly ept man...¡±


    ¡°Actually, I feel the same too. Why don¡¯t we try? ...¡±


    Ever since the sudden formation of the ¡®couple¡¯ that day, I fell into total despair and lived like a zombie...


    ¡°You want to break away from the Holy Church? Stop being a Holy Knight? You don¡¯t have other skills to earn a livelihood with and you are already getting old. Starting afresh isn¡¯t something easy. The only ss you can convert into without losing too much fighting ability is the ck Knight. Are you sure you want to try it?¡±


    At that moment, I felt absolute despair toward life. When I was dispatched to the dangerous Underground World, I didn¡¯t even attempt to reject it. As long as I could stay away from the increasing number of gays by my side, what did putting myself in danger count as?


    But from there on, my life took a turn.


    ¡°South Ascension Law School? Currently epting students for short-term training and ites with a job rmendation? Holy Knights don¡¯t have to undergo interview?! Is this real?¡±


    ¡°I should just give it a try, things can¡¯t get any worse anyway.¡±


    I didn¡¯t hold too much hope as I entered South Ascension. After all, my age was getting a bit on the advanced side and my capability to learn was swiftly deteriorating.


    But very quickly, I realized that the Power of Law they were imparting to the students wasn¡¯t much too different from my Power of Holy Light. The silver Light of Law was extremely simr to the Holy Light and it was a Lower Concept of the Origin of Order as well. Many techniques and skills between the two were simr, making it easy for me to catch on.


    Furthermore, they really provided jobs for their graduates! No, it wasn¡¯t just at the level of providing jobs. It was to the extent that an old fellow like me, who haven¡¯t even graduated from the academy yet, had dozens ofpanies vying for me!


    ¡°Security guard, police, judge and other members of thew system, they are all respectable figures of the upper-ss society! To think that a useless old man like me would have a day that I would see the onset of spring!¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t have an annoying Church or any Gods that we have to serve. We only believe in the codex and in maintaining justice and equality. But at the same time, we are also humans and we need to make a living. As graduates of South Ascension, it isn¡¯t a difficult task for us to deal with criminals and viins. Even if we don¡¯t be a member of the police force, we are also trusted with other jobs such as security guards. As Justice Knights belonged to the Order Faction, they cannotmit crimes and they have to follow by their vows and promises. This made them trustworthy employees to their employers, thus greatly increasing their opportunities for promotions.¡±


    That year, when my teacher was speaking passionately on the stage, I didn¡¯t quite believe him, especially after all that I had gone through.


    ¡°But after that, everything changed, just like how that teacher described it to be! After graduation, I got a job at arge merchant guild. Just by chasing away those weaklings who cause trouble at the front reception for twenty days each month, my monthly sry was actually a staggering 10 000 gold coins! 10 000 gold coins!! That is 200 times more than that of a Holy Knight! Furthermore, I didn¡¯t have to suffer the batter of the rain or risk my life for it!!¡±


    ¡°What, you are saying that a Holy Knight could do the same as well? Dumbass, Holy Knights are Knights who serve the Holy Light and the God. How can they be employed for their personal gains?¡±


    ¡°Very quickly, after I saved sufficient money to buy myself a house, I found my loved one! I even bought a cute Dragon Horse which had the bloodline of a Red Dragon. It could travel a thousand miles in a single day and spat mes from its mouth. I am finally a true Knight and not a foot soldier who deposited his mount with the Church.¡±


    ¡°Just a while ago, I informed my oldpanions of it and all of them immediately rushed over. After graduating from South Ascension, some of them served as sentries for the city, some of them joined the Town Security and others became judges. As for the two gay Holy Knights, after earning some money, they became their own bosses, married a wife each and even have their own children now!!¡±


    ¡°My Holy Knight brothers,e and convert to be Justice Knights. Putting aside the fact that you all get to retain most of your strength upon changing sses, we are all still standing on the same line in the Order Faction. The Holy Church would surely be d to see everyone changing sses. After all, they don¡¯t sufficient budget to raise all of us.¡±


    ¡°Which school is best at teaching the usage of the Power of Order? Come to South Ascension Law School in the Sulfur Mountain City of the Underground World. You can choose to pay after learning in the academy and users of Holy Light can get in without an interview. The first month of your wages after starting work will be taken as the school fees. We have a free month-long trial for people who would like to try it out. Our motto at South Ascension is to study hard and work hard. Power, promotions, and sry wille rapidly along with a rich and beautiful wife! My mother no longer has to worry about me being unemployed and even I can be my own boss.¡±


    ¡°This is just an advertisement slogan? You are still worried that you are unable to find a job in the future? Let me work the math for you. Every city needs its own police and public security officers. Every enterprise needs security guards. Every government requires aw system. There are so many job opportunities avable and you, as the vanguard of the Law Faction and the favored one of the new era, you are actually worried that you are unable to find a job? Come to South Ascension, we provide you everything. Graduating from the Academy of Holy Light is equal to unemployment but at South Ascension, you can be employed even before graduating!¡±


    The above is all the content of an advertisement flyer. The writer is the Supreme Judge of the Supreme Court of Sulfur Mountain City, Wumianzhe...


    ¡°Hey hey, aren¡¯t you going too far? It is said that when the Archbishop of Holy Light, old Bill, saw the flyer, he fainted on the spot and almost died from excessive bleeding from his head!!¡±


    Yes, I am poaching personnel from the Holy Church and I am doing it very openly.


    Of course he would vomit blood. Even though this advertisement flyer was written by me, but the contents written above were entirely true. It was the sore spot of the Holy Church.


    After all, I was once a Holy Knight and many of the examples were from my personal experience... A sudden heartache made me mutter subconsciously, ¡°Fortunately, I am no longer an unlucky Holy Knight.¡±


    At this moment, facing Adam¡¯s question of whether I have gone too far, I smiled.


    ¡°I don¡¯t see anything wrong with it. When I personally passed this flyer to the Town Security, they were overjoyed!!¡±


    Of course they would be overjoyed. Previously, they were not allowed to join thew system officially. But now, they were given an opportunity to study the Power of Law. This also meant that myw system and the Sulfur Mountain City hadpletely epted their presence here.


    They already used their fresh blood and hard work to prove their loyalty. If I continue to turn my back away from them, that would be too heartless.


    ¡°...You reorganized the Town Security¡¯s Holy Knight army into a Justice Knight army? You haven¡¯t told this news to old Bill right, I¡¯m afraid that he might be unable to hold on to his life.¡±


    ¡°I sent a messenger personally to report the news to him!¡±


    ¡°Lord!! You are vomiting blood again!! This is the 20th time this month! Things are going badly and we can¡¯t hold on anymore. We better return to the Surface World.¡±


    ¡°Archbishop, bad news! After seeing the flyers, many Holy Knights and Priests said that they want to go to South Ascension, we can¡¯t hold them back anymore!!¡±


    The Archbishop of Holy Light continued to vomit blood...


    Elisa reported the happenings after the Archbishop received the news of the Town Security switching faiths to me, saying that he was shocked and vomited blood. After which, a farce even broke out. Hearing those words, I smiled gleefully.


    ¡°You old fool, who asked you to preserve your own strength when things were in chaos. You even tried to spread your teachings when everyone was in a state of fear after the battle. Just because a lion hadn¡¯t hunted for a long time, it didn¡¯t mean that it was sick cat. You deserved this!¡±

 Chapter 27

    <h4>Chapter 27: The Fragile Bnce</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Time flew by like a beautiful fleeting melody... Alright, it wasn¡¯t that long, I just wanted to use that saying. Truthfully, it had only been two days and Sulfur Mountain City has regained its peace.


    That day, when all the escapees and viins who made use of the chaos to run amok were judged, they were either hung in the air by an intangible rope or their heads simply fell off their necks. Those who had yet to bypass the boundary or had intended to test the bottom limit, upon realizing that they were already on an invisible execution tform, immediately stopped in their tracks.


    The chaos didn¡¯tst for too long. Once the outsiders were cleared, the One Court Four Halls sent out Law Enforcers to help maintain order. Very quickly, order was reestablished in the Sulfur Mountain City.


    A gigantic Red Dragon, whose body was still full of wounds after a gruesome battle, bled profusely as she glided past half of the city before crashing into the Holy Light District. When news that Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Guardian Deity, Ancient Red Dragon Ein Mezus, was injured to the point that she required over hundreds of Holy Knights and Priests to treat her wounds, the rumor of the Three Heads standing by a corner and watching everything happen crumbled.


    Rather, under the intentional maniption of information by some, the news that the Three Heads fought a great battle against two of the Underground Autarchs, a battle which resulted in Ein Mezus¡¯s heavy wounds, had already spread through every street and alley.


    Of course, the fact that the cause of the battle was due to the seal of the Fire Elemental God was kept secret. On the surface, the reason for the outbreak of the battle was territorial ambitions, amon reason for wars in the Underground World.


    Despite the strength of the guardians being greater than that of the invaders, they had sustained tremendous wounds in order to protect the citizens. The citizens who survived the cmity due to the guardians who sacrificed themselves for them felt gratitude, pain, and relief. With the presence of all these factors andplex emotions, this diverse city was more united than ever.


    If there had to be something different about the city, it was that all of the tomatoes and smelly eggs were sold out. The reason behind that? The betrayal of the Public Council had been revealed and the fact that they were sentenced to death by that miraculous judgement served as evidence for their crimes. At this very moment, the entrance to the Council Room was stered with smashed tomatoes and broken smelly eggs, and all of the windows were broken.


    Whenever the few more famous Councilors were to leave their homes, if they don¡¯t to leave home clean and return home colored, they had to bring along bodyguards and shields to guard themselves against the firepower of the civilians.


    The death count in this cmity totaled up to more than 300 people. Given how the dead had already passed away and the sinners were punished and killed, the victims and their families had to find a target to vent their resentment, resulting in the fruit stores outside the Council Room to sell out in record time. Society was harmonious. Banzai, banzai...


    Some merchants had even found business opportunities at the doorstep of the Council Room...


    ¡°You¡¯re still using the primitive tomatoes and smelly eggs? That is already outdated. Here, try the Dwarf Smelly Bomb made specially using the Dwarves¡¯ smithing skills. Costing only three gold coins, its smell is hyper-concentrated and won¡¯t fade away with time. We also have the Dwarf Color Bomb which costs a mere two gold coins. We have 13 colors for you to choose from and a color card is given for each one bought. If you collect the whole set, we will even give you aplimentary Dwarf Chicken Machinery! Different from the Goblins, the machinery of us Dwarves are of high-quality and definitely will not explode. I repeat, definitely will not explode!¡±


    ¡°Goblin Smoke Bombs! Goblin Explosives Number 1 to 7. I can guarantee you that with its might, it will st injuries in your adversaries without killing them. It is a necessity in relieving one¡¯s hatred! Furthermore, it is cheap!! It only costs half the price of the toys of those sissy Dwarves, just one gold coin each!¡±


    ¡°Enough, Roren Goldcoin from the Hall of Judgement, I have already tolerated you for a very long time! You can insult me, but you cannot insult the product of the intelligence of the Dwarves!¡±


    ¡°Sissy Miheuer Suicidestorm from the Hall of Legitor, you are the one who verbally attacked us first. To think that you Dwarves would dare to talk bad about the products of us Goblins? Yes, the gadgets you make might not explode, but the unintended functions of your tools are even scarier than explosions. Touch your heart, do you dare to say you have never been transported to the middle of the sky by the Dwarf Transportation Device, never been electrocuted by your Dwarf Electrical Net and never been miniaturized by your Dwarf Death Ray? The products of you Dwarves are just like your name, Suicidestorm, professionally made formitting suicide!¡±


    ¡°It is Magicstorm, Magicstorm!!¡±


    Hearing that, the Dwarfd with a kid-like figure was enraged.


    ¡°Taste this!!¡± He took out a gadget that resembled a toy gun and fired it. Then...


    ¡°BawkBawkBawkBawkBawkBawk!¡± A small chicken appears on the spot and jumped around while the chicken-transforming gadget fell to the ground...


    ¡°Hahaha! Look, the gadgets of you sissy Dwarves aren¡¯t reliable at all!¡± Laughing crazily while pointing his finger at small chicken, Roren takes out three small silver balls and started juggling them.


    Despite handling the bombs without any protective equipment, there wasn¡¯t a hint of fear in him and his hands were steady. Through his actions, Roren disyed to the audience the courage the Goblins possessed.


    ¡°Look at the miraculous work of us Goblins! We had never tried to deny the unpredictability of the results of the mystical engineering study, but as long as we, the intelligent Goblins, continue on with our research and pass on our heritage from one generation to the other, the Goblin¡¯s engineering industry will be more and more advanced. Even though my father and my grandfather had died in idents in the midst of their research, I will continue to push on. I believe that even if I were to fail, my sons and grandsons will continue working towards that ultimate goal!!¡±


    Ignoring the attacks by the angry little chicken by his foot, Roren raised his head, protruded his chest and dered loudly, as though he was prepared to sacrifice himself anytime.


    The Goblin¡¯s sacrificial spirit in pursuing the study of engineering unexpectedly won apuse and cheers from the audience.


    ¡°Well said!¡± There were even people who intended to step forward to purchase Roren¡¯s goods. But Roren continued on:


    ¡°When my grandfather died, it was only a 13-meter hole. My father aplished in exploding an entire 30 meters. When I die, I must create a 100-meter massive hole! Our Goldcoin n must sessfully create a big bomb that could destroy an entire city!!¡±


    Alright, as soon as the true nature of the Goblin showed through, all of the buyers immediately backed off. The audience also took a huge step backward, and it was fortunate that they did...


    ¡°Ah, what is this bent copper te?¡± The fierce attacks of the small chicken finally attracted his attention. Roren looked at the copper te that just dropped from his clothes and went into deep thoughts. After that, he started sweating profusely...


    ¡°It¡¯s the safety screw!!¡±


    ¡°Boom!¡± ¡°Boom!¡± ¡°Boom!¡±


    ¡°This... This is only a small failure, I won¡¯t give it up! I... I will be back!¡±


    Alright, while disying the courage of the Goblins in pursuing their dreams, he exhibited the frequent suicidal tendencies of the Goblins once again.


    After three consecutive explosions, our Goblin Engineer merchant was sted into the sky with a trail of ck smoke trailing behind him. But from the looks of the energetic roar, it seemed like it was just the start...


    Standing behind the crowd, I had witnessed this farce. I turned toward Elisa, who was standing beside me, and said:


    ¡°The situation in the city isn¡¯t sufficiently stable yet for them to be causing such trouble. Record it down, this will be the order from the Head of the Supreme Court: Ban all engineering activities for the next month. Find some excuses, throw all of these troublemaking lilliputians into detention and have them reflect on their actions for a month. All of the Town Security and Hall of Judgement personnel will be mobilized for this movement.¡±


    ¡°As long as it is an Engineer, capture them before conducting a search. They are definitely guilty. What if we make a false arrest? I will go and apologize to them personally then. Don¡¯t worry, just like how there isn¡¯t a man in the world without lust, is it possible for there to be a Goblin who doesn¡¯t cause explosions and a Dwarf who doesn¡¯tmit suicide?¡±


    ¡°Oh right, are the Beyar brothers still under detention?¡±


    ¡°Yes, they still have 3 days left in there.¡±


    After receiving confirmation, I nodded my head in satisfaction.


    ¡°Tomorrow, pass them some engineering tools. They will definitely be unable to resist the temptation of ying with bombs in the detention barrack. We would then have another reason to lock them up for another month. Without these two leading authorities on explosions causing trouble outside, those troublesome Engineers will find themselves without a head and the ban would be easier to impose.¡±


    After passing down my orders, I turned around to leave. The City Lord Residence wasn¡¯t too far away, but upon catching sight of the charred Magicstorm lying on the floor, I stopped.


    ¡°Right, I almost forgot. When Suicidestorm recovers from him ¡®fried chicken cutlet¡¯ status, tell him and Roren: ¡®You two don¡¯t have to collect their wages for the next 2 months. I don¡¯t care what you two do privately, but the next time you all im that you are members of the Supreme Court and soil its reputation, I will...¡¯¡±


    At this point, I suddenly stopped. These lilliputians were born with astounding guts. Explosions and traveling across dimensions were like daily routine for them. Exactly what kind of punishment could frighten them? I am at a loss.


    But Elisa¡¯s whisper solved my dilemma.


    ¡°Make the two of them exchange their engineering tools and products. Order the Goblin Engineers to use the Dwarf¡¯s engineering tools and the Dwarf Engineers use the Goblin¡¯s engineering tools to make ten of the other party¡¯s engineering toys.


    Looking at this ice-cold face and hearing this bell-like voice, I was stunned for a moment.


    ¡°This is even worse than killing them outright. Goblin Engineering and Dwarf Engineering may seem simr, but their principles all the way down to the core are totally different. Ten toys? It might even take them a lifetime. Furthermore, they have to use the tools they hate and study the principles they detest. It really is a cruel punishment. But...¡±


    I disyed a thumbs-up. ¡°Good idea, your style is bing more and more simr to mine.¡±


    Cough, back to the main topic. The reason why I chose to walk towards to the City Lord Residence was because I wanted to see how the restoration of Sulfur Mountain City wasing along after the conflict. Seeing how they still possessed excessive energy to cause such a farce, I am actually quite relieved.


    As the mastermind, I am quite satisfied with ¡®Observer¡¯ and the Sulfur Mountain City Thief Guild¡¯sbined ability in manipting intelligence. At least, on the surface, nothing had changed.


    Yes, only on the surface. Two Underground Autarchs allied together to conduct an attack, but only the Autarchs themselves managed to return back safely; their entire armies were destroyed. After such a huge incident had urred, how could there be no changes at all?


    ¡°Tell me straight, what do you intend to do by creating the South Ascension Law Academy, poaching the members of the Holy Church and expanding the personnel of thew system by three times?¡±


    In the City Lord Residence, Margaret and Adam were already chatting as they sipped on tea. Little Red was absent as she was still recovering from her injuries. But the instant I sat down, Margaret started to interrogate me.


    ¡°Hehe, thosesses fought bravely, sacrificing themselves just to protect the citizens. I am only giving them a chance to integrate fully into thew system. It has been their wish for many years. Don¡¯t tell me that you aren¡¯t aware of it.¡±


    With a bone knife in my hand, I carefully carved on a ck-colored wooden scepter.


    Ever since the judgement ended, I started to get hooked on wood carving. This was a skill-based chore, requiring me to focus all my attention on it.


    ¡°The truth?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s too troublesome, I don¡¯t feel like exining.¡±


    Margaret shook her head and sat back down. As usual, the Lich was scheming something. However, it is impossible to get anything out of him when he is unwilling to reveal anything.


    Try to guess his thoughts? The mind of this fellow is weird and unorthodox. There were many times when he seemed to just be ying around, but when the timees, it turned out that everything was actually aplex design of his ns. If he really intended to do something secretly, even if the Saint had been watching the scenes all along, she would still be unable to figure what he was up to.


    Margaret had once questioned him about it but, in return, she received a baffling reply.


    ¡°Your thoughts are too direct. It is just like the Magic War Chess that you all love to y. You all scramble over every single gain and loss to rue tiny wins to achieve the final victory. It may seem like a wise strategy, but in reality, the weapons that you are pointing toward your enemies be very apparent. This made it easy for others to see through your thoughts. Instead of being on the upper hand, you are actually in a disadvantageous position. As an expert on Go, I scatter my pieces around the board and wait patiently most of the time. I don¡¯t try to aim for the small wins. Instead, I go for the big one from the start.¡±


    ¡°Go? Is there such a chess in this world? Could it be a game that had disappeared in history?¡± Margaret pushed further on this topic several times afterward but Lich Rnd seemed to be focused on other stuff and ignored her questions.


    ¡°Right, I intend to create a branch in the next few days, Supreme Court Chrome Branch.¡±


    Chrome City¡¯s City Lord Hng Hng had already died under Margaret¡¯s Forbidden Spell during the invasion a few days ago, leaving Chrome City without a leader. My intentions were rather clear.


    ¡°No wonder you are increasing the number of personnel. You are intending on taking over Chrome City?¡±


    ¡°Of course, after killing the boss, I can ept not leveling and not receiving any treasures. But if I don¡¯t conquer theirnd andy my hands on some of their beauties, my efforts would have been in vain and I would die on the street from the indignance.¡±


    Alright, just as usual, they ignored my crazy speech straight, even though the words that I spoke were the mainstream view of the world. Personally, I think that it was sufficient to just live happily. When you¡¯re bored, you can tell a joke and feel happy over it, or perhaps cause some trouble so that everyone can have augh over it. Inparison, it was more tiring to go around with a gloomy face and be obsessed with fighting and ughter all day long just to feel powerful.


    Back to the main topic, I did intend to take over Chrome City but my goal was not to im supremacy.


    ¡°On one hand, the Power of Law requires more believers and faith. Also, we need more chips on our hand. Otherwise, how else can we deal with the Underground Alliance?¡±


    Hearing my words, everyone went silent.


    The Underground Alliance¡¯s n of invading the Surface was supported by arge portion of the residents of the Underground World, and as such, there¡¯s a high probability it would be realized. The reason why we could defeat the coboration of two Underground Autarchs was because they rushed here after hearing that the seal was going to be strengthened. They might have even used Teleportation Magic to do so. Given the limited amount of time they had, they only brought a small portion of their guards with them. In fact, the invading army probably wasn¡¯t even a tenth of their real influence. At the very least, we hadn¡¯t seen the powerful experts under theirmand.


    Furthermore, even if we were able to defeat the Underground Autarchs, can we defeat the thousands to ten thousands of the Underground City Lord¡¯s Alliance Army? I had already learned my lesson that the tide of ¡®history¡¯ cannot be stopped. If I were to try stopping it with my weak arms, I would only be crushed.


    When the two Underground Autarchs invade once more with their full army, or perhaps, bring 300 to 400 Underground City Lords along to deal with us, Sulfur Mountain City would be the fool who tried to block the entire world with the strength of an individual. Eventually, it would just be a corporeal scar of history ¡ª ruins.


    ¡°Let me propose a solution. Actually, your thoughts are too inflexible. Do we really have to stand on opposite sides with them to oppose their invasion to the Surface? If we were to always sing a different tune with them, it is just a matter of time before we get isted. You all are sufficiently strong, so it doesn¡¯t really matter much to you all. But when Annie finally takes over, and the resentment from the enemies whom you all have offended bursts, will she be able to take them on?¡±


    ¡°Then what should we do?¡± Margaret had also thought of it but she didn¡¯t have any solutions to deal with it.


    ¡°You know, we could just join them! Yes, join them! The status quo is four dominant figures within split into two factions, thus maintaining a fragile bnce among them. However, can you imagine what will happen if another Underground Autarch were to appear?¡±


    Adam¡¯s face spelled of confusion but Margaret went deep into thoughts.


    ¡°Indeed, no matter what, we managed to defeat two Underground Autarchs and thus, we should have the qualifications to be an Autarch ourselves. Since only two Autarchs came, it proves that they aren¡¯t as unified as we thought they were. Thus, if we were to show our support to the other side...¡±


    ¡°Yes, the leadership of the Alliance army is something worth fighting over.¡±


    Somehow, I thought of my faraway home. Amidst five old established factions, there was a new growing power. During its growth, it kept changing factions and obtain many benefits through such. Furthermore, when ites to decision-making, it used its rights to veto the decisions made or give up on their vote altogether, annoying the other countries. Eventually, it became the leading power of the new generation.


    ¡°Furthermore, I have an important present, a present that could drive that subtle bnce into an unresolvable chaos.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°What important present?¡±


    Iughed gleefully as I ced the ck wooden scepter on the table.


    ¡°God Equipment Eternal Night Scepter. This is the highest God Equipment equivalent to the royal authority of the Empire of Undead Xiluo. Created by the Emperor of Eternal Night himself, it is definitely authentic. We are willing to allow experts to verify it and if proven to be fake, we will refund you tenfold.¡±

 Chapter 28

    <h4>Chapter 28: Step-By-Step Guide Teaching You How to Make Fake Goods</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°God Equipment, Eternal Night Scepter, the symbol of authority of the Undead. It was said to be an object the Emperor of Eternal Night kept closely by his side and hidden within it is the reason for his overwhelming strength. However, it has never once appeared in history before.¡± That was how Eternal Night Scepter was introduced in Illustrations of God Equipment by Tower of Ten Thousand Magic.


    As the only Undead Emperor in recent times, the rise of the Emperor of Eternal Night and his disappearance were equally mystifying. No one knew how he rose to power, and simrly, no one would have guessed he would be defeated in at his strongest state. However, quite a few people reckoned that his sudden rise to power might be rted to this God Equipment.


    ¡°This God Equipment which has never appeared on the stage of history has had its existence questioned (By presenting the head of one who spread such rumors, one can im 100 gold coins from the Xiluo Empire¡¯s 7th Administrative Bureau), but there are numerous Royal Guards and followers of his, with me included in their midst, who heard him mutter these words.¡±


    ¡°You want to obtain my power and authority? Go and find it, the object that I have put my everything into¡ª Eternal Night Scepter.¡±


    ¡°The Emperor¡¯s wisdom is as deep and vast as the ocean. No one would have thought that the invincible Eternal Night army would fail. But he was the only one who wasn¡¯t fooled by appearances, the Soulfire that burnt in his eyes allowed him to peer into the future. That seemingly ominous mumbling of his was actually his way of passing down his will for the future of the Empire, when he¡¯s gone.¡±


    ¡°Ever since his disappearance (With me included in the midst, there is still numerous high-tier Undead who refuse to believe that their invincible Emperor would die in battle), a rumor has been spreading like wildfire. ¡®Only the owner of Eternal Night Scepter can be the sessor of the Undead Emperor¡¯ has already be themon knowledge among all intelligent Undead. If only there was really someone who obtained the scepter, then perhaps the Empire wouldn¡¯t have ended up like that. The Emperor has already prepared the best future for the Undead Empire, but...¡±


    ¡°The foolish Undead Lords actually ignored the teachings of our Emperor. After his departure, they engaged in an internal strife for their own benefits. Despite not having any legitimacy, they hoped to use violence to forcefully ascend to be the Undead Emperor of the new generation. In the end, the dream of forming a great Undead Empire bursts and the invincible Yongye army ground itself down. Eventually, its remaining members formed the Xiluo Empire.¡±


    ¡°Due to this historical reason, even though the authority of Xiluo is split between 12 of its strongest Senators, it is still considered an Empire. However, we won¡¯t allow anyone within our midst to climb up to that seat. That seat of the Undead Emperor has been empty for over a hundred years and it is destined to remain empty until the owner of that scepter appears ¡ª The Keeper of History, the 7th Senator of Xiluo Empire Spider Marquis, the Eternal Royal Guard of the Undead Emperor, Lionheart.¡±


    Cough, when I saw this ¡®known work of history¡¯ written by little Lionheart, my jaw immediately dropped. I really don¡¯t how I should react to this. If I was still living; sweat, cold sweat, sweat profusely, sweat like a waterfall and Genghis Khan, I¡¯m afraid none of it would be sufficient to exin myplicated emotions then.


    TL: It is a pun. Genghis Khan has the character for ¡®sweat¡¯ in its Chinese name.


    From a certain perspective, the joke that I made in bad humor has achieved an effect way beyond my expectations. Today, in order to make this Underground World even more chaotic, I had prepared to realize thetter half of the joke with malice.


    Eternal Night Scepter is a meter-long ck wooden scepter. It may seem like it is entirely made of wood, but in reality, its interior is filled with bone powder.


    I made the scepter personally and the blood rose carvings and ornaments on it were all to my style. Mypanions back then would recognize it as my work with a single nce. The scepter even had the words ¡®Eternal Night Scepter¡¯, which I have written with Death Ice Mana, an attribute that was exclusive to me. Just the outer appearance itself screamed that it was a high-tier item but even so, it was still far from being enough.


    ¡°The first problem we have to settle was its origin. A treasure without an origin would cast doubts on its authenticity. Adam, sign on this document with your Soul Imprint.¡±


    Looking at the document, Adam, the type of person who only feared that the world wasn¡¯t sufficiently chaotic, gave a heartyugh and happily signed his name on it.


    ¡°Adam Han.¡± The fire-like words that quietly burned on the paper were surprisingly cool. The Soul Imprint, which originated from the soul, is different for everyone. It is the symbol of the identity of a Legend-rank and is entirely impossible to forge.


    The name that I wrote on the scepter with gray Death Ice Mana smelled heavily of death and ice. It was my Soul Imprint when I was the Emperor of Eternal Night, and thus, its presence added to the authenticity of the scepter.


    What I wanted him to sign was a document entrusting the auction of this scepter to someone else. The one entrusted with the task is the biggest auction in the city where the Underground Alliance was formed, Velkastance City.


    At the very least, this document of authentication proved that the Eternal Night Scepter originated from the hands of Hero Adam Han. This strongly hinted that the origin of the God Equipment was legitimate and that it was the spoils of war Adam retrieved from the Emperor of Eternal Night. Adam was using his own reputation to ensure that the scepter is real!


    When word spreads out, everyone would suspect that Adam had hidden the Eternal Night Scepter after defeating the Emperor of Eternal Night. If so, the Eternal Night Scepter was likely to be a real.


    Cough, in any case, what was written on the document was indeed the truth. Adam did receive the scepter from me. However, you couldn¡¯t me me if you misunderstand the timing when he received the scepter...


    After that, I grabbed onto the end of the scepter and infused magic into it. On the other hand, Adam grabbed onto the other end and infused his power into it as well. Then, with a twist, a pull, and a rotation...


    Kacha


    When the fire and ice mana collided with one another, an explosion immediately urred and the scepter nearly broke into pieces. Countless cracks appeared on its surface and on one end, the scars from being incinerated by mes could be seen while on the end, a gray-ck color from corrosion and frost.


    ¡°Alright, this would be the damage marks when the Emperor of Eternal Night and the Red Lotus Hero fought. So, if there¡¯s anything wrong with it, they could me it on the damage it incurred during the battle.¡±


    But it still looked a bit new, thus I threw it on the floor, jumped and stepped on it. Adam wanted toe over and ¡®help¡¯ as well, but I immediately kicked him away with my foot.


    This rascal didn¡¯t know how to control his strength properly and his strength was exceptional. If the scepter was left to him to y with, it would immediately break immediately. Then, wouldn¡¯t what I did before go to waste?


    ¡°Un, the scars of history on the scepter is still a littlecking, but it should suffice.¡± Seeing the scepter which was full of dust and footprints, I nodded my head in satisfaction. It was no longer that brand new wooden scepter anymore. At this moment, it was obviously an ancient artifact which had undergone the trial of time.


    Margaret went into deep thoughts and after hesitating for a moment, she spoke up.


    ¡°No matter how real it looks, but...¡±


    ¡°Yes, it is still not enough.¡± Of course, I would know it wasn¡¯t enough. The Eich Continent had a different way of authenticating artifactspared to that of my previous world. People did not just depend on their experience and knowledge to find ws in the object. This is a world with true Gods and innumerable divination techniques. As such, faking an object wasn¡¯t that easy.


    However, I had also considered this problem from the very start. Both Adam and I had once attained the powers of a SemiGod, the most powerful existence below true Gods. Normal divination magic was ineffective to us. Even so, there were still a few powers that were rather troublesome.


    The High Priest¡¯s Revtion of God Spell allowed a person to pose questions to the God he served. If the God happened to be free (Even if a priest favored by the God used this art, the probability of sess of was still less than 1%), they would answer your question. However, the answer was limited to only ¡®yes¡¯ or ¡®no¡¯.


    Archmage¡¯s Otherworldly Art of Truth summoned a Truth Spirit from another world, at which, one was allowed to ask him questions. But the only answers it could give was ¡®YES¡¯ or ¡®NO¡¯.


    TL: This yes and no is written in English, thus the caps.


    There¡¯s also the Witch¡¯s Tarot Divination. It brought the user to the truth by reading the lines of fate. However, it could only answer with a ¡®True¡¯ or ¡®False¡¯ as well...


    From what I know, those reliable divination techniques had amon problem. Putting aside the fact that they were usually ineffective, they could answer with ¡®yes¡¯ and ¡®no¡¯. Also, the shorter the question, the greater the possibility of one receiving an answer. After divining once, the person wouldn¡¯t be able to divine again for a period of time.


    This wasn¡¯t a coincidence but aw of the world. The stronger a divination technique is, the closer it is to the truth of the world and thus, the stronger the restrictions on it. If you wish to obtain more intelligence, you will have to be prepared to sacrifice more in return to uncover the truth. At the same time, it made it likely for one to neglect the underlying truth behind the matter, especially with the huge cost involved in it.


    Indeed, I could have paid a price and just like how I hid on the lines of fate, I could make divination techniques ineffective on the Eternal Night Scepter. But sometimes, being unable to find a problem with something would indicate that there is a problem with it. If divination couldn¡¯t be used on it, it was likely there was something wrong it. Then, the conclusion was clear, we needed to make the divination techniquese up to the wrong conclusions.


    Causing the 100% urate divination techniques toe to a wrong conclusion seems incredible? Hehe, sometimes, just because it¡¯s correct doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s true, and just because it¡¯s true doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s correct...


    Since it could only answer with ¡®yes¡¯ or ¡®no¡¯, a two-dimensional answer, there were actually a lot of things we could do with it.


    I deduced that there were 4 questions that they were likely to ask. Firstly, also the most important question that had to be asked, was this scepter the Eternal Scepter handmade by the Emperor of Eternal Night... We don¡¯t have to y any tricks with this one, this scepter was definitely handmade by the Emperor of Eternal Night.


    Then, the second most possible question to be asked was ¡®Is the secrets of the Emperor of Eternal Night hidden within?¡¯.


    This question was simple but of great importance. If there was no secret hidden within it, then the scepter was as good as a fake, regardless of its authenticity. I could personally assure you that this question would be asked over and over again.


    Thus, I had already written a note with the word ¡®secret¡¯ on it...


    Alright, I know this seemed like a bad prank but it should be useful. After all, those dumb divination techniques would definitely be screaming ¡®YES!¡¯ ¡®yes¡¯ ¡®true¡¯


    The third, ¡®Is there the secret to bing the Emperor of the Xiluo Empire hidden in the scepter/ Is it useful against those Undead Lord?¡¯


    This question was asking whether the God Equipment had value in helping one rule over the Xiluo Empire... Alright, I wrote the little secrets of those Undead Lords and their little quirks within it, such as like the Queen of Bone Dragon Gria sang very awfully and snored in her sleep. If you took these little secrets and threatened them, if they were to give in to it, then naturally, it would be useful to your life in politics. Of course, the prerequisite was that you had to avoid getting silenced first...


    Based on my understanding of them, it was much more probably for one to head to a Human Empire and demand the emperor to step down and pass the throne over to you than for those great evil beings to give in...


    The fourth, ¡®Is the secret rted to why the Emperor of Eternal Night was so powerful/ rted to great power¡¯


    Cough ¡®Study hard every day and aim for greater heights. Fight hard against mobs and try your best to level up.¡¯ This was definitely the truth behind the Emperor of Eternal Night¡¯s strength. You can feel free to challenge that if you disagree with it...


    Alright, now that I had prepared all these methods and the issue behind the authenticity and importance of the Eternal Night Scepter had been resolved, the news of it would spread across the entire Underground World from the day that the auction received the good. It would draw the attention of all powers in the Underground World, even though no one would be able to use it... No, not only that, the Surface World would send people over as well. At the very least, those Senators of the Undead Xiluo Empire would all go in a frenzy for it... If the Undead Empire and the Underground City Lords were to suddenly get into a fight, then maybe the 2nd Cmity could be somehow be avoided just like that.


    Fine, I admit that I was being too positive, but trying doesn¡¯t hurt right.


    ¡°So, my first step to causing chaos in the Underground World has been achieved...¡±


    Looking at this scepter, I still felt a little dissatisfied. I didn¡¯t think that people would be able to tell that it was a fake. However, to the powerful experts, unreasonable intuition was sometime much more reliable than rational thinking, knowledge and experience. It was almost impossible to fool one¡¯s intuition.


    Thus, after hesitating for a moment, I said to Adam.


    ¡°Since I have already finished serving my sentence, return my Rnd Sacred Sword to me.¡±


    ¡°Here.¡± Without a second word, the fiery red Adam removed the only different color on him, the silver-white broken sword on his waist, and passed it over to me.


    Standing beside him, Margaret was stunned. She seemed to have wanted to say something but the words didn¡¯te out.


    ¡°My phctery, we haven¡¯t seen each other for a long time.¡±


    Yes, this was where my soul resided. As long as my phctery wasn¡¯t destroyed, I, as a Lich, would be indestructible. The phctery could take on any shape; it could even be a book or a hat.


    From the secret manual in the system¡¯s Lottery, that otherworldly Uncle Tom once broke his soul into 7 parts and made into 7 phcteries...


    Even though it made the person difficult to kill like that, wasn¡¯t he afraid of turning into a madman with personality disorder when he split his soul into so many pieces... Alright, perhaps he was already crazy from the very start.


    The phctery of a prisoner was naturally left in the hands of the warden, Adam, and he brought it along with him everywhere. Of course, this rascal was still quite smart. At the very least, he wasn¡¯t dumb enough to try using my phctery to threaten and force me to y along with his games...


    Touching this broken sword, I felt a little sentimental. The reason why I used this family heirloom to make my phctery back then was because I shared a name with this Rnd Sacred Sword. Also, this sword, dubbed as the ¡®Indestructible Sword¡¯, had survived thousand years without a scratch on it. But now, under the tide of fate, our country hade to an end and this indestructible sword has been ¡®destroyed¡¯.


    In this moment, with my phctery in my hand, the gray-colored mana around me gradually expanded. The difort of being suppressed disappeared and I regained some of my strength.


    ¡°Legend-rank primary stage? If so, it would be easier to do many things.¡±


    I rubbed at the broken edge of my sword and easily pinched out some metal fragments. The pulsation of a soul could be seen from the fragments.


    Afterward, just like how one scattered sesame seed on top of a biscuit, I scattered the fragments on the ¡®Eternal Night Scepter¡¯ before stroking lightly on it. There was a sh of light and sparkling gems resembling stars appeared on the scepter.


    The gems sparkled a brilliant silver radiance and starlight seemed to be hopping from one gem to the other, crossing each other. If you were to take a closer look, the starlight seemed to have a tempo of its own, as though a living being. After embedding the fragments of my soul into it, this Eternal Night Scepter gained its own soul and became alive.


    However, different from this broken sword which held my soul, the person wielded this scepter would be affected by the words of my soul and his decisions would be influenced by me. After a period of time, his soul might even be corrupted by mine, causing him to be my ve... The situation seemed a little wrong, haven¡¯t I retired from being a Demon King for a very long time? Alright, seemed like old habits identally...


    Looking at the sight, Adam sucked in a breath of cold air. He might not have understood what I just did but he instinctively felt that this scepter had be extremely dangerous and that there was something eerie about it.


    On the other hand, Margaret stared at me furiously. She could roughly tell what I was doing and she was using her re to express her displeasure. But her protest was ignored by me, as usual.


    ¡°Fine, seems like my habit kicked up again and I went a little overboard. But it had to be at least of this level for the Underground Autarchs, Undead Lords and all of those experts to desire it to the point of being willing to jump into the eye of the storm.¡±


    Then, I opened my mouth and swallowed the broken sword. The broken sword didn¡¯t fall through my body which consisted solely of bones. Rather, it disappearedpletely.


    I had transferred the broken sword to somewhere and safe. Right now, it could be said that I had been finally released from my sentence.


    ¡°It is said that the trip to the headquarters of the Underground Alliance Velkastance City will take around 2 months. We have to prepare in advance. Let Annie bring the team there, it is about time for her to try standing on her own feet. After all, you can¡¯t shelter her from the storm for her entire life. Don¡¯t worry, I will follow along and operate in the shadows to protect her.¡±


    After finishing my piece, I turned around to leave.


    ¡°Going to Velkastance will take 2 months? No, Master, you are talking about ancient times. There are 3 routes now and it is much faster.¡±


    I nced at the eager maid behind my back.


    ¡°Although I do not hold much expectation for your words, say your piece.¡±


    ¡°Going by normal carriage would indeed take close to 3 months but the advancement in technology has created a new and faster route. The first route only takes a second, the Dwarf¡¯s Dimension Ripper Machine...


    ¡°...Isn¡¯t that the teleportation portal of those suicidal Dwarves? Forget it, I don¡¯t want to be stuck in another dimension. If you want to travel to other dimensions and be the queen of some Back Pce, go ahead!¡±


    TL: Back Pce -> The ce where all the concubines of Ancient Chinese Emperors live.


    ¡°The second route would only take 3 days, the rocket car of the Goblins...¡±


    ¡°No, that will only take 1 second as well. After 1 second, I would be sted to the heavens. Forget it, I have already guessed what the final route would be. You don¡¯t have to go on anymore.¡±


    But the female head maid simply propped up her sses and secretlyughed beneath her expressionless face as she followed behind her master, continuing on with what she was saying.


    ¡°3 hours, the Goblin rocket. It goes directly up and down and it is both convenient and fast...¡±


    ¡°Is this any different from the one you just said? Oh, one has wheels and the other one doesn¡¯t? Just how much do you want to kill me to obtain my wealth? I think I have treated you quite well to not deserve such treatment!¡±


    The departure of the unreliable master and servant left the two SemiGod behind in deep thoughts.


    ¡°Annie huh? Perhaps, what Rnd said isn¡¯t wrong. It is about time for her to give it a try. After all, at her age, we were already running around the world in our party.¡±


    ¡°I know that Annie should go out to gain some experience, but aren¡¯t you afraid of plunging the world into chaos by setting Rnd free?¡±


    The Hero Adamughed in response to the doubts of the Saint.


    ¡°You probably won¡¯t believe me when I say this, but my intuition tells me that this world mighte to an end anytime, and the only unknown factor is this Lich.?¡±


    Hearing this, Margaret¡¯s face scrunched into displeasure. Then, with her eyebrows raised, her face changed into one of disdain.


    ¡°You sure believe him, I...¡±


    She wanted to say something in disdain but Adam¡¯s straightforward gaze towards her prevented her from spouting any lies. In the end, she stomped her feet.


    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like this, you block of gay wood. I believe you, are you satisfied? He might be a bastard but he is cunning. If he can¡¯t do it, then nobody else in the world would be able to!¡±

 Chapter 29

    <h4>Chapter 29: Waiting</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Hey, brothers, don¡¯t you feel like everyone¡¯s gaze toward us has been a little weird recently?¡±


    Tim was a Knight Captain of the Holy Church branch stationed at Sulfur Mountain City. Even though this was an Underground City filled with ¡®evil¡¯ dwellers, he still continued the good habit of patrolling regrly, even if he wasn¡¯t responsible for the security of this city.


    I must say, no matter how corrupted and depraved the upper echelons of the Holy Church was, those hardworking Holy Knights and Priests at the fundamental level who followed the teachings of the Holy Light when dealing with stuff, helping the weak and destroying ¡®evil¡¯ was the main reason why normal people approved of the teachings of Holy Light. This was also the main reason why the Holy Church was able to maintain its sphere of influence among many of the Human Kingdoms.


    In the Surface World, the Holy Knights were extremely used to this kind of daily patrol. They would offer assistance to the citizens and if they meet with viins, they would unsheathe their swords to rid the evil. Of course, this was all for free...


    However, in this unique city, the daily patrols of Tim and hisrades had caused much trouble from the very start and thus, their presence wasn¡¯t really weed.


    Even though the oue of their kind gestures wasn¡¯t good, Tim still felt proud of himself. After all, if they were to speak of their adventures, it could very possibly be a legendary story passed down among taverns.


    For example, they attacked a Dark Elf who was scamming an olddy (Actually, the Town Security was escorting the olddy back home), crashing in on the Undead¡¯s mysterious tribute ritual (The well-known skeleton dance team¡¯s performance stage) and destroyed the evil Lich¡¯s super-sized Bone Spirit Tower (The theme park¡¯s Ferris Wheel. It took me so much trouble to build it. Of course, after the incident, I sent a giant fine to old Bill and it was said that these idiots are still cleaning the toilets for the entire team).


    They even saved an innocent young woman who was being petrified by Medusa (The poor Medusa sculptor was scared out of his wits. He was repeatedly emphasizing that he was kidnapped by a bunch of lunatics who were praising Holy Light and was coerced into changing his sculpture into a human), and challenging an Ancient Red Dragon who was attacking the children. O Holy Light above, it actually intended to eat those little children...


    The heavens above could serve as the witness. That day Little Red was only habitually giving into her maternal instincts and was ying ¡®Heroes VS Evil Dragon¡¯ with the children of the park. Then, a bunch of ¡®old children¡¯ couldn¡¯t read the situation joined in... Fortunately, Little Red¡¯s mood was quite good that day, that¡¯s why old Bill could still dig out these metal-skinned cans from the sand pile in the park instead of conducting a ritual for the departure of souls...


    Of course, they also had to pay the price. After all, the parents of those frightened kids weren¡¯t easy to appease, especially when only their heads were protruding from the sand pile. After going through a relentless ¡®assault¡¯ from the parents, they spent many days before managing to clean away the smell of rotten eggs and tomatoes from their heads.


    When they finally understood that they were no longer in the Human Kingdoms of the Surface, understood that the environment they were in was unique and that their actions were only causing panic and fright... Un, more importantly, with the hefty fines sent and the detentions they were subjected to, they had to learn to be more obedient.


    At least, they knew that this city which followed the Law belonged to the Order Faction and that this city didn¡¯t require their assistance in vanquishing evil. Finally, they stopped the action of shouting ¡®O Holy Light, that evil viin is worthy of a fight¡¯ and charged at a race of Chaos after catching sight of one.


    Un, Tim already remembered that in this city, this wasn¡¯t called ¡®vanquishing evil¡¯ but ¡®inflicting intentional physical harm on others¡¯ and it would result in jail time. The most ridiculous aspect of this city was that it actually prohibited duels that were filled with the spirit of the Knights. Theybeled it as ¡®premeditated murder¡¯ and it was a heavy crime that called for a harsh punishment.


    Of course, there were religious fanatics everywhere who just couldn¡¯t learn to keep themselves in check. When it came down to it, the Sulfur Mountain City governor would protest and issue a document to have them sent back to the Surface.


    Tim was considered the better of the lot. Aftermitting a few mistakes, he started to nurture a habit of assessing the situation properly before drawing his sword. He also gradually got used to the presence of the ¡®ws of Chaos¡¯ roaming the streets.


    In reality, when he knew that the Dark Elf Town Security Knight army also believed in the Holy Light as well, he made a decision to pursue a non-human wife. After all, the Holy Light didn¡¯t rule that the wife one married had to be a human. The few beautiful Priestesses in the Church always had hundreds of flies buzzing around them. He knew that there wasn¡¯t much hope for him.


    But very quickly, he gave up. He thought that a matrimony was possible since these female Dark Elves believed in the Holy Light. However, they still retained the traditional view of the Dark Elves. The Dark Elf society was a ssical feminist society. In a traditional Dark Elf household, a husband was a phrase that is synonymous with ve...


    However, what was weird was that despite knowing this, there were still a few diligent colleagues who normally didn¡¯t bat an eyelid toward normal females actually tried even harder to pursue those female Dark Elves, especially that female Dark Elf Momo who used a whip...


    Alright, the Tim who had vaguely guessed something took the initiative to pull apart his distance from these colleagues of his, who were getting weirder.


    But after that chaotic fight, he felt that the situation changed once again. On previous days, the citizens were wary and guarded against him, but they were still to an extent, friendly. But nowadays, the wariness in their eyes disappeared and what could be sensed was sympathy and that weird way of calling.


    ¡°Leftover Knight!? If it is just that Beastman auntie who obviously can¡¯t recognize words pronounce it wrongly then I can just ignore it, but why does even the boss of the flower shop and the waiter of the restaurant pronounce it wrongly. Recently, I will even somehow get discounts and benefits while dining. Walking on the street, there will even be people shouting behind me ¡®don¡¯t give up, tomorrow would be better!¡¯.¡±


    TL: (?, sheng) -> means [Holy] while (?, sheng) -> means [Remaining, left behind] Truthfully, for Chinese words, even with the same Hanyu Pinyin, they normally have different intonations to so that one can differentiate the words but these 2 words have the exact same Hanyu Pinyin and intonation so I have no idea how did he managed to hear the difference between the two.


    ¡°Hmph, it is just being called Leftover Knight a few times, there is nothing big about that. We are the ¡®knights who are left behind¡¯ anyway, so what is wrong with this nickname.¡±


    Lucas was also sent here together with him. He is normally warm-hearted and often help people to fix water pipes and draw water, thus giving him the name of ¡®Good-man Lucas¡¯. Just that since 2 days ago, he would sit down in dormitory silently like an ice-cube. What was even weirder is when Tim decided to pull him out to patrol so that they could have a chat about what was bothering him.


    But throughout the path, no matter what he says, Lucas remains silent and he would only stare at that withered lily in a daze. Now that he was finally willing to talk, it was a good thing!


    ¡°Lucas, exactly what happened to you? You have been acting weird these two days, everyone is worried about you.¡±


    The concern of hisrade made Lucas¡¯s frozen heart feel some warmth. After another moment of silence, he gives out a long sigh and begins describing what he met with 2 days ago.


    ¡°2 days ago, a female said she want to marry me.¡±


    ¡°Waaaaaaa. Isn¡¯t that a good thing!! Then, why are you still so depressed.¡±


    But very quickly, the tragic history of hisrades shed through his mind, and many different kinds of tragedies reaches the tip of his mouth...


    But seeing how Tim suddenly stopped talking, Lucas managed to guess what was running through his mind and shakes his head.


    ¡°The other party isn¡¯t a fallen angel or demon who is trying to corrupt me. My position in the team is a mere average, not worthy of such treatment.¡±


    ¡°Then?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not as unlucky as Fenk and Welon. What I met with isn¡¯t a Beastman auntie that was above 40 years old or a cute little boy. She is very cute with an innocent oval face. She has a beautiful smile with skin like white jade. She is always prancing around and she gives everyone as lively feeling.¡±


    ¡°Then why are you still...?¡± Since her qualifications were so good, then why is Lucas still so depressed? Tim was unable toprehend.


    At this moment, Lucas¡¯s face was full of reminiscence as he speaks softly.


    ¡°She carries a flower to me and says brother knight, don¡¯t be sad. Little Xin will be your wife. That smile is just like the warm sun and that sweet voice, is as attractive as honey. But...¡±


    In an instant, the clear skies turned cloudy and Lucas started crying.


    ¡°...She is only 9 years old! 9 years old!! She is still so young and I am not a beast!!¡±


    Finding the root of the problem, Tim pats Lucas sympathetically. Just as he was about to say something, a smile creeps on Lucas¡¯s face.


    ¡°However, she said that she was going to marry me when she grows up. Haha, she even says that when she grows to an adult, even if I am the Leftover Knight on the flyer, I should already have enough money to buy a house and a mount.¡±


    In an instant, Tim found himself at a loss of words. After a long period of time, he squeezes out a word from his teeth.


    ¡°That... congrattions.¡±


    ¡°Urghhh!!¡± But then, the hint of glee on Lucas¡¯s face disappears as he lowers his head to cry in agony while hugging the purple lily.


    ¡°Lucas, stop crying. What does 10 years count as. Look at me, I am almost 35 but I am still a bachelor. Even you wait 10 years, you would only be 37 years old. You will still be much better than the other brothers in our squad.¡±


    ¡°Urk, no... Not 10 years!!¡±


    ¡°Hm? Even if you wait a little longer than that, but we Leftover Knights can afford to wait!!¡± Reaching this point, Tim also understood the meaning of Leftover Knights and started toprehend the meaning behind those weird gazes and sympathy.


    But after hearing his constion, Lucas cried even more miserably.


    ¡°I... I can¡¯t wait until that day! Arrghh!!! It is not 10 years, it is... Is 200 years!! She is an Elf and need 200 years to be an adult!! That is to say, she thinks that it would take me 200 years to buy a house!! 200 years, when she finally bes an adult, I would already be ashes!¡±


    Hearing that, other than hugging this brother of his who became more hurt from his rare shot at love, what else can Tim do...


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we go to Nanxiang and give it a try. From what I know, a lot of cities provide lodging for their Public Security members.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Nanxiang¡¯s recruitment for students was sessful to a point of incredulity. Within 3 days, it had managed to pull away a third of the Church¡¯s total personnel in Sulfur City. Afterwards, there are also many people who signed up...


    The legal system in Chrome City was also in the midst of being built and in 2 months, after the first batch of short-term training ss students graduate, we could invest them into Chrome City¡¯s administrative and legal system.


    Then, very quickly, the scattered page of the Origin of Codex could disy it uses and start to collect the faith of the citizens towardsw and fairness. Then, we could grant the Power of Law to personnel of the legal system and provide military might to the enforcers and the judgement. When this cycle happens, the recovery of the God Equipment Origin of Codex would be hastened.


    When this city is taken under the wing of the legal system and its citizens eptsw as one of its beliefs, the Power of the Law in the whole world will grow stronger and would be able to grant even stronger power to its believers. Probably, the initial Holy Light also started growing like that.


    When the belief inw starts to spread, hopefully, the views of humans towards other races would not just be limited to simply Chaos and Order and this change in views might be the starting point to harmony.


    ¡°Since wiping out an entire faction is impossible, then why not try sowing the seeds ofmunication andpromise. Now, in Sulfur Mountain City, even Holy Knights are learning to judge people based on their crimes and not their races. At least, this shows the that there is a chance for sess.¡±


    But, for now, I am able to look so far ahead and can only be stressed over the daily quest in front of me.


    Now, the Evil Points that I have umted is 49 888, not too far away from the day of my revival. However, the few daily quests that have appeared are ¡®Kill a hundred humans¡¯, ¡®Destroy a few Beastman family, leave not a single one remaining¡¯ and such quests, which are not easy to y around with. This caused me to lose quite a few points. If I were to continue losing points like that, how can I revive?


    ¡°Daily quest: Create a nude running event that would catch the attention of the citizens. The more people who joins in the run, the more audiences there is, the more screams and shrieks there are, the greater the prize!¡±


    I fell into deep thoughts. Due to the recent quests being too brutal, I had to give them all up. This quest that is in bad humor became my rain in the drought.


    ¡°Lord, perhaps we would require the help of others.¡±


    After knowing what my quest is, Elisa said that.


    I nodded my head and sent out my bat messenger...


    ¡°Old cow, I heard that you have been getting by well recently. I, Lich Rnd, have something which I would like your help for. I heard that your rtionship with the Wild Druid Alliance isn¡¯t bad. The thing is that...¡±

 Chapter 30

    <h4>Chapter 30: The Entrusted</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Explode a public bath? Steal the clothes in a shop¡¯s changing room? Or summon a corrosive acidic rain? Or directly ssh dirty water on passerby?


    I won¡¯t do any of those stated above. Not mentioning that these are all against thew, they go against my principle of trying my best not to involve the innocent. Un, only trying my best...


    I have a much better idea! And it ispletely legal!


    After all, there are quite a bit of perverts in this town and I don¡¯t have a reason tomit the crime personally...


    Sulfur Mountain Wild Druid Alliance Branch, simplified as Wild Bull Alliance, is a moderate Druid organization. Un, just moderate inparison. In many ces, Druids are synonymous with terrorist organizations and a bunch of trouble.


    TL: Un is the sound made with the tongue on the tip of your mouth normally used to express consent, agreement.


    Why? In the eyes of the public, aren¡¯t Druids friendly? The son of the jungle, coexisting harmoniously with nature, absence of desires and self-sufficient.


    However, I must say that those who say these words are people who have yet toe into direct contact with Druids.


    As most people know, Druids worship the nature. To simplify it, anything that is natural is good and anything that is man-made is bad.


    The Druids who follow the original teachings detest everything that is man-made. They view metallic tools as the enemy of nature, needless to say engineers and product if modern industries. They even view cities as a cage made of metal and concrete. In their ideals, it is best culturees to an end and everyone return to living like in primitive societies.


    In the world I lived in previously, these kinds of organizations also exist. To protect nature, they kill poachers and destroy factories. In reality, that sets them no difference from terrorist organizations.


    The Druids who are able to interact peacefully with other life can roughly be considered the moderate faction and the Wild Bull Alliance is the moderate faction within the moderate faction. Otherwise, Sulfur Mountain City wouldn¡¯t allow for their existence here.


    Alright, even in Eich continent, people still hope that their life gets better by the days rather than bing more and more primitive. This kind of tribe and teaching isn¡¯t suited for life in normal societies. Also, there isn¡¯t ack of normal people within Druids as well. There are always people who want to eat delicious food rather than furry blood-stained ones. Thus, their internal structures are always re-organizing and breaking apart.


    ¡®We only oppose to excessive logging (Of course, we also reject mining. But, it is only a verbal rejection, we won¡¯t stop it physically)¡¯ and ¡®We only oppose against the hunting of whales. (We also reject the hunting of dolphins and sea lions! We don¡¯t protect crabs and as for sea horses, we still need to hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss over it)¡¯. This kind of moderate faction, in actuality, is only using these multiple stands in rejecting certain actions to retain their identity and teachings of Druids. In fact, they aren¡¯t much different from normal people.


    As the moderate faction within the moderate faction, the Wild Bull Alliance only rejects one man-made object and is known as the role model to the harmonious coexistence of the Druid and Human society.


    But, it is a pity that the man-made object that they reject is too unique, resulting in their faction being unable to expand for a long time... Well, not everyone has the courage to remove that man-made object.


    Alright, now that I have got to this point, everyone should be onto that man-made product that they object to.


    Yes, they reject clothes...


    Right, their teachings preach that the physical body is the most perfect creation of nature and clothes are a sin. Even more so, we, Druids, are the incarnation of nature and should not be, in the least, clothed, so that we can show our naturally perfect and wild physical body.


    The ¡®Sulfur Mountain Wild Druid Alliance Branch¡¯ is initially named ¡®Only Wild Body is Natural Beauty, Druids That Wear Clothes are Cultists and Heresy Alliance¡¯. Such a ¡®gentleman¡¯-like man, it was impossible that I would allow it to be registered with Sulfur Mountain City. Thus, after several edits, it became the Wild Bull Alliance that I could reluctantly ept.


    TL: In Chinese, gentleman can also be a ng word for pervert.


    Even so, they are still an organization that everyone wants to beat up and their reputation is even worse than the Gentleman Alliance that I¡¯m in. After all, not everyone can ept the sight of a bunch of nude men rushing past them when they are busy... Cough cough, it is in disgusting just thinking of it. I knew that I should have chased them out.


    But, in consideration of the diverse poption living here, I didn¡¯t write aw that dictates ¡®soiling society¡¯s culture¡¯ as a crime from the start. After all, the lifestyle of each tribe and race is vastly different, thus it is easy for misunderstandings to arise. For example, Taurens have the habit to drink breast milk at any time which, in the view of other tribes, is obscene in public.


    Also, ording to the codex, perversion could only be seen as a problem in morals and the brain, using thew to deal with this seems a bit overboard. So, there was no reason for me to refuse them moving to the city.


    Of course, I regretted my decision quickly. After sessfully registering and moving in, there isn¡¯t a single moment that they weren¡¯t plotting to spread their teachings to the citizen to expand their influence. This caused a splitting headache for the enforcers and judiciary. To be more direct, they secretly organize group nude runs and waste my manpower.


    Towards these entirely nude fellows, normal enforcers really can¡¯t do anything against them. Start a fight directly? But the other party didn¡¯t break thew and if we use words, it gives them a chance instead to spread their teachings.


    ¡°Ha, we are the most primitive beauty. Mother nature created us nude, so what is there to be ashamed about...¡±


    Many different twisted logics were incorporated within and the main problem is that their argument wasn¡¯t weak. Furthermore, their leader is a Legend-rank Great Druid who is difficult to deal with.


    Fortunately, after the Dark Elf Town Security started taking on the role as enforcers, their arrogance took a blow.


    ¡°...You dare to show this tiny furry worm around. Furthermore, it isn¡¯t shaved. You sure are courageous.¡±


    ¡°Wahhh, that fellow has such an ugly birthmark on his ass. His legs are also asymmetrical. Despite being naturally deformed, you still dare to run nude. You are really too brave, too shameless...¡±


    ¡°Inferior underground world, get away from me! You are too smelly. How long have you not bathed for? Barbarian!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t cry, Momo actually sympathizes with you. Heehee, even though it is indeed quite small, not even half the length of Momo¡¯s whip. Cough! Un, it¡¯s not that small, hee, so please continue to try hard living on. Someone might like it! Un, there¡¯s sure to be someone who likes it. Hahaha, Momo can¡¯t control herself anymore!¡±


    For a man, for him to be despised in this aspect is indeed quite unbearable. If the one despising is a prettydy, that makes it double the pain.


    Surrounded and criticized by a bunch of sturdy Dark Elfdies who cone from a feminist n, the Wild Bull Alliance who had their shattered almost disbanded on the spot. Even the powerful Legend Druid Eaglestorm almost tried to drown himself in the river...


    After this incident, the Dark Elf Town Security became the weakness of the Wild Bull Alliance. Every activity that they organize is carefully nned to avoid areas where the Town Security could appear.


    Back to present time, I am writing an extremely long and boring speech for Elisa to speak on my behalf in myw robe. Attendance ispulsory for allw enforcers (including the Town Security) so that they can learn from it. That speech... is so boring that I might fall asleep from it. Furthermore, it will take at least 3 hours to finish it and the most shameless of it all, I requested for them to jot down notes that will be submitted afterwards so that I can track the progress of their learning. If they aren¡¯t serious, their wages would be deducted.


    Fine, it is obviously a kind of torture... I have finally vented my frustration from being constantly vexed by my heavy workload. I am too evil, oh yeah!


    Hehe, now, I only need that old bull Xueti to pass the message that the Town Security is busy to the Wild Bull Alliance. Naturally, they would then definitely organize a group activity. When the Town Security finally walks out giddy-headed from the hall, the activities of the Wild Bull Alliance would have long ended.


    However, as I don¡¯t really like the Wild Bull Alliance, so there are discrepancies in the notified timings and the actual timings. It is around 1 hourte. So, when they are finally retreating after ending activities, they would happen to get caught red-handed by the Town Security and take a heavy mental blow from them. Then, they would require 1 or 2 months of peace to recover for the wounds...


    That being said, do you still think daily quests are easy? You still have to n it out properly. But, it is finally the time to reap the rewards. Sit back and watch the show.


    ¡°Pu!¡±


    ¡°Pu!¡±


    Sitting in a cafe that has an entire view of therge square, I ignore the naked men who just ran by as I nced at the unlucky fellow who just spat out the coffee in his mouth. While happily flipping my newspaper, I enjoyed the havoc in front of me with my peripheral vision.


    ¡°The ck brothers have always resolutely supported Lord Annie.Layde as the core of the second generation... Looks like the boss of the Thief Guild of this generation is still quite smart. Then, I will let them go for now.¡±


    ¡°Pu!¡±


    Alright, looks like I was happy too early. Elisa, who was opposite of me, spat out her coffee towards me, leaving my head dripping wet.


    ¡°Elisa, you did it intentionally!!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry!! It really was an ident, master.¡± The half-demon maid hurriedly pulls out a handkerchief to wipe me dry but...


    ¡°Wait a minute!! Why are you here? Didn¡¯t I ask you to conduct the speech for me? You...¡±


    ¡°I did intend to do the speech in your ce then, but when the proposal for the speech reached the Hall of Legitor for approval, Sister Lilith said that since it was a lesson for the Hall of Prosecution internally, it is a little too much of the Supreme Judge does it personally. It is enough to leave it to the Head of Hall of Prosecution to do it himself.¡±


    ¡°Oh!¡± Hearing it, I calmed down. As long as I can keep the Town Security in reins, it is fine that I leave the task to Xueti. But suddenly, I sensed some hesitation in Elisa sitting opposite of me.


    ¡°Why? You feel embarrassed? Hehe, no matter how vicious your tongue normally is, you are still a woman after all. Scared by a bunch of guys nude running? Rx, I know you didn¡¯t do it intentionally so if you¡¯re embarrassed, you can head back first and wait for my great harvest today!¡±


    I smiled gleefully but Elisa shakes her head with the word ¡®pity¡¯ all on it.


    ¡°...Master, the reason why I am acting unusually, please look behind you.¡±


    ¡°Behind?¡±


    Turning around, it is indeed the scene of demons prancing around. The sharp-nosed Eaglestorm and Xueti were holding hands, jumping and singing at the same time as they surround 2 Holy Knights who were hugging each other, shivering.


    Surrounded by a bunch of dancing naked men, I guess it is a first even for the Holy Knights.


    Even worse, someone is beginning to strip them of their clothes so that they can join their tour...


    ¡°That is... Tim and Lucas? They are really pitiful, to meet with these perverts... I hope they don¡¯t leave behind any mental scars, it is unlucky enough being a Leftover Knight.¡±


    TL: Sheng -> means left behind (will keep it that way until I find a better word)


    Of course I remember that 2 dumbass Holy Knights. I haven¡¯t settled the score with them over destroying my Ferris Wheel. But, since they have already met with such misfortune, and my mood is fine today, so I guess I will stop looking for a chance to get even and let bygones be bygones.


    ¡°Wait, this isn¡¯t right! What is Xueti doing here!!¡±


    My question only received a look of sympathy. Elisa coughs lightly and imitates a familiar voice.


    ¡°Lord Silver Rose, please don¡¯t help Lord Wumianzhe by taking on his job. Even though your imitation is really like the original, but if someone were to find out, it would affect the reputation of our judiciary. Right, please tell Lord Wumianzhe by the way that as the Head of Hall of Enforcement Lord Guardian of Steel cannot be found anywhere, so the speech would be dyed to 2.30 in the afternoon tomorrow. Tell him to join in if he¡¯s interested¡±


    The way which Elisa imitated Lilith¡¯s take on trying to be formal is incredibly skillful but I didn¡¯t have the free time to be immersing myself in the enjoyment of art...


    ¡°So the speech has been dyed? So the Town Security is currently at work as per normal and can appear anytime!!!¡±


    ¡°Bastard!! It¡¯s you perverts again! Holy Light, no, Law, grant me power! Incantation of Law: Judgement!¡±


    It is a scene of utter chaos behind me. The sudden appearance of the Town Security caught the Wild Druid Alliance and Xueti by surprise. Immediately, they thought that they were had.


    ¡°Bastard Rnd, betraying your brothers again. This old bull is never going to let you off!!¡±


    The roaring old bull who was ignorant to the situation thought that the Lich set him up, oblivious to the fact that he was the one who ruined the n. He raises his head and roars towards the heavens, as though as he has been put through some great grievance.


    ¡°Damn, it isn¡¯t safe here.¡±


    I throw 2 gold coins as newspaper fee and turns around to leave the shop. But, at the entrance of the cafe, 2 Elves are smiling straight at me.


    ¡°Hi, mastermind in the shadows. It¡¯s you again.¡±


    One of them is Captain Diana of the Town Security. The other one is Vice-Captain Yawen and right beside her feet is the heavy and bulky Dragon Saber.


    She is born with total immunity to mind-rted magic, which is the main reason why I passed this demonic saber, which drives its user into a frenzy, to the Town Security. But, at this moment, I couldn¡¯t feel dness for being able to find a suitable owner for the demonic saber. Rather, I was frustrated with how I managed to shoot myself in the foot once again.


    Looking back, Elisa has disappeared without a trace as expected. The half-demon¡¯s talent in travelling through sub-dimensions is really first-ss, allowing that cold-hearted demon to abandon herrades decisively. In this instant, I, who was half a beat slow to react, had my surroundings casted with a sub-dimension anchor, making it impossible to escape with spatial magic.


    Thus, after a longughter, I raised both of my hands and...


    ...Squatted down while hugging my head.


    ¡°Don¡¯t hit my face!! I still want to go matchmaking to find a wife!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Just as I was enjoying the warm reception from the Town Security beauties, I hear the familiar voice of Elisa beside my ear.


    ¡°Master, didn¡¯t I say yesterday that this quest requires some help from others?¡±


    ¡°Hm!? Stop talking and save me!!¡±


    ¡°...Actually, I didn¡¯t mean for you to look for those Druids. You could have totally looked for those oldrades of yours in the Undead District. Zombies, Skeleton Soldiers, Butchers and Bone Dragons, they are all naked and you could have brought them to the street until daylight. If you had done that, the quest would have been a huge sess!¡±


    I seem to have already seen in my sights, a youngdy who was secretlyughing gleefully on the inside but on the surface, a straight face full of confusion, acting innocent...


    ¡°Elisa!! You tricked me!!¡±

 Chapter 31

    <h4>Chapter 31: Little Phoenix</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    A meter-tall mountain of documents filled 3 office desks. The entire room is stuffy and unbearable. A littless and her 2 helpers were busy in work while moving between the desks.


    The overly tall mountain of documents made it such that no silhouette of anyone could be seen, only sounds of screaming, footsteps and the scribbling of pen on paper could be heard. This was my first impression when I walked into the office of the City Lord.


    On one side of the wall, bamboo swords, take-copter, gomoku and many different types of toys were scattered over the floor with a thickyer of dust over them. Looks like Adam hasn¡¯t been to this room for a while.


    TL: Take-copter -> Doraemon¡¯s helicopter while Gomoku is a game like tic-tac-toe except you have a much big board and you are supposed to link 5


    Truthfully, to be capable of turning the office into a game room, he is a masterpiece among city lords.


    Annie is 1.7m and considered pretty tall for females using human standards. But right now, she resembles a Dwarf student stuck in front of a desk. Looking from the front, only the documents and book can be seen.


    A thick ck eyes circle is on her face. Due to being overly busy in her fight with the sea of documents, she wasn¡¯t even aware of my arrival.


    Walking there, I signaled to stop the helper that was going to call Annie and picked up a few random documents to take a look.


    ¡®The Proposal for the Reparations of the Municipal Facilities that were Destroyed During the Chaos in the 7th to 9th Street¡¯, ¡®3 Proposals to Finish the Drainage System Before the Rainy Season¡¯ and ¡®The Settlement of the 4 New Tribes in the City¡¯


    ¡°Lord Wumianzhe, this is Lord Margaret¡¯s will. All of the B-ss and above files of the Internal Affairs Bureau must be looked through by Miss Annie for her opinions for the matter before passing to Lord Margaret to give her opinions. Then, it would be passed back to Miss Annie to look through before going through with it.


    That is to say, every file, before any documents are finalized for actions to be carried out, Annie must deal with it once before Margaret gives her own opinion on how the matter should be dealt with. Then, it is passed to Annie for her to finalize the decision, so she has to look through it twice.


    This is literally teaching her step by step. I silently sighed. Looks like Margaret really decided to wash her hands clean of these, that¡¯s why she¡¯s using this kind of ¡®fill up the holes¡¯ kind of teaching method. She is hoping that Annie could quickly grow to be capable of independently dealing with governance.


    ¡°Is that how you Internal Affairs Bureau work? All of the documents must be personally looked over and signed by Margaret? Individually dealing with all of the governance tasks?¡±


    After receiving the other party¡¯s answer as though it was something incredible, I looked at the incredible mountain of documents and couldn¡¯t help clicking my tongue in amazement. The entire poption of Sulfur Mountain City is near 3 million. Just thinking about it and you would know that there is an astronomical amount of work to deal with, but to look over each and every one of it? I can finally understand by Margaret rarelyes out. It is fortunate that Margaret is an immortal who basically needs no sleep. But...


    ¡°This kind of method to deal with matters of governance is too primitive. It is just like how ancient kings use only their wisdom and knowledge to make judgement. An immortal who don¡¯t need rest and is forever rational could perhaps achieve it but for humans...¡±


    The mountain of files here might even only be umtion from a day or two. If we were to leave everything to the city lord to handle, she would probably have totally no free time at me.


    My job is to create a qualified city lord and not a lunatic who is crushed by work. Thus, I coughed lightly to signal my presence to the city lord trainee.


    ¡°Annie, do you know what is the essence of governance?¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    What is the essence of governance? To make everyone contented with life and work? To convert make utopia into reality? To let all the race and tribes live harmoniously?


    No, no, it is not thatplicated. Governance is just working within a fixed system, ideals and other things can¡¯t be achieved through simply governance means.


    But governance isn¡¯t that easy as well. A gap in the administrative organs could result in the workings of the city to stop and an overly inefficient governing body would result in great discontent against the government. It is indeed an existence that no city can go without.


    ¡°As the city lord, I... I will try my best to make everyone happy.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much with that small brain of yours. I¡¯m just asking you the essence of governance. Forget it, I¡¯ll just tell you directly. Anyway, you really need a rest right now.¡±


    I pulled thess to one side and indicated the helpers to bring some tea over.


    Thess¡¯s face was a little sunken in without a hint of liveliness, the fiery red hair lost much of the luster it used to have. She seems to be avoiding my gaze, afraid that I would reprimand her.


    Shaking my head, I can roughly guess what has happened. Margaret is an impatient perfectionist who would always entrust task to her subordinates ording to her own abilities.


    ¡®If I can do it, why can¡¯t you¡¯, ¡®don¡¯t try to reason with me, hypothetical situations are meaningless¡¯, these kinds of words are her catchphrase. But in reality, as a Saint that is recognized as the ¡®Mobile Library¡¯, coupled with her identity as an immortal who is has no limits to her stamina, how can ordinary people keep up with her pace...


    As Adam¡¯s disciple, Annie¡¯sbat talent and her physical body is excellent, but for intelligence... For a pure warrior, intelligence can be said to be the most useless stat. Adam that rascal only has 9 points in intelligence (the intelligence here refers to the main stat of a Mage, normal people have 10 points. The basic stats in this novel is very hard to be improved), but he still gets by day to day happily. ording to my system, Annie has 11 points in intelligence, making her much better than her dumb father. But if she were to go by Margaret¡¯s 26 point in intelligence standards in learning... She would be driven mad by just learning by the standards of a 13 point, needless to say 26.


    Somehow, I seem to see how the Internal Affairs Bureau ended up being her personal organization. She probably couldn¡¯t stand those ¡®intelligencecking¡¯ ¡®inefficient and slow¡¯ subordinates of hers, thus she took on the burden of doing everything. In the end, she got used to it and decided to just do it all by herself.


    This kind of person would probably be considered a sage king in ancient times. But their fatal w is that it would difficult for their sessor to cope. After all, you can¡¯t expect the son and grandson of a sage king to be an indefatigable and wise sage king as well.


    ¡°Hey, as expected of an immortal, to think that this kind of workload won¡¯t tire her to death. Annie, don¡¯t take Margaret¡¯s scolding to heart. Her way of teaching really isn¡¯t reliable. In the past, Elisa and Kale almost got yed to death by her, and furthermore, they are Mages.¡±


    Hearing this, the youngdy started to whimper and instead, shakes her head vehemently.


    ¡°Big Sister Margaret didn¡¯t scold me, she is just very disappointed. Annie feels useless, Annie is really useless. Annie doesn¡¯t have the confidence to be a good city lord anymore.¡±


    The tears of the youngdy fall down drop by drop onto the floor. Looks like Margaret¡¯s cold gaze when she¡¯s disappointment and her action of walking away silently while shaking her head afterwards had left a deep wound in her heart.


    This kind of silent resignation, this kind of disappointment thates straight from the heart, it hurts the other party more than any other sharp-edged sarcasm, making the other party start to doubt their own capabilities and intelligence...


    Why am I so clear of that? In the past, when her lessons aren¡¯t going as ideal as I hoped, Elisa would be very depressed over it and even secretly use me to vent her frustration... Although I was the first one to use that technique to hurt Margaret. Hmph, me it on herck of skills in chess, acting to smug despite being so inflexible in her thinking.


    Alright, you need to find the one who tied the knot to solve the knot. I finallyprehend why Margaret said that I muste visit Annie today. She must have been subconsciously aware that she used that technique to drive Annie to tears, but had no idea how to resolve the situation.


    ¡°Haaaa, stop crying, let Uncle Bones teach you. Actually, Margaret¡¯s way of doing things is a mistake by itself. It is normal that you aren¡¯t able to do it her way. On the other hand, it would be troublesome if you really learn it her way.¡±


    Annie¡¯s eyes widen, her eyes spelling iprehension.


    ¡°Actually, governance isn¡¯t thatplicated. Its essence is just to solve problems. That¡¯s right, governance is just a means to solve troubles and problems.¡±


    Yes, governance us just the act of solving problems and the Internal Affairs Bureau is an organization catered specially to solving problems.


    ¡®This job isn¡¯t within the range of job scope, please direct it to our superior to deal with it.¡¯ = ¡®Bro, this trouble is too big for us to deal with, talk to our boss instead¡¯.


    ¡®This n should be carried out, but the cost involved is too high and we are unable to fulfil the requirements currently, so it is ced on hold temporarily.¡¯ = ¡®Bro, what you said us excellent and we want to do it too. But, our treasury doesn¡¯t have any money so just leave it first¡¯.


    ¡®We understand your difficulties but this job concerns the privacy of others, so it isn¡¯t convenient for our department to intervene. Please settle it internally¡¯ = ¡®Idiot, don¡¯t waste my manpower. It is such a small matter so deal with it yourself¡¯.


    What is the point of saying it soplicated and kindly, the main goal of governance is to settle the problems and troubles that turn up in daily life or development, allowing most of the poption to lead stable lives... The book I personally wrote ?The Art of Language, Step-By-Step Guide to Deal with Comints and Resolve Arguments (Also known as The True Meaning Behind Official Dialect Manual)? has been well-received and it significantly improved the governing efficiency of the judiciary. The citizens interviewed even said that ¡®Even though I didn¡¯t understand what they were saying, but it sounds impressive. It feels like my opinions are respected.¡¯, but the side effect to that is that people are shooting me weird gazes and I even see people flipping the book while listening to me talk...


    ¡°In reality, you all have underestimated Adam that 9 point intelligence dumbass. Actually, in my eyes, I find him an excellent city lord.¡±


    Hearing that, Annie raises her head in shock with disbelief on her face. These days, she has heard countlessints against her surrogate father.


    ¡°But... Everyone says that it is because of Big Sister Margaret helping out, that¡¯s why he can be a good city lord. If he could take on more responsibilities, everyone¡¯s job would be easier and life would be more...¡±


    ¡°Then Sulfur Mountain City would not be too far from its doomsday. Yes, he does depend of Margaret to deal with most of his governing affairs but even if Margaret isn¡¯t here, he could have got other people to deal with it for him, despite the lowered efficiency. His greatest strength is that he knows how to use others and trust them, after entrusting the matter to others, he won¡¯t interfere and create trouble.¡±


    ¡°You are the city lord, not the head of Internal Affairs Bureau. What you need to just to find people who can solve problems for you and dump it all on them, not to solve it yourself.¡±


    Annie seems to be about to say something, but I interrupted her.


    ¡°Look, he entrusted affairs of the legal system to me, Internal Affairs Bureau to Margaret and the troublesome civilian problem to the Public Council. No matter how it went, at least this city is the fastest developing one in the underground world and winners don¡¯t have to be criticized. Besides, city lords also have their own responsibility, and that is much more important than these boring matters on governance.¡±


    ¡°Responsibility of a city lord?¡±


    ¡°Yes, you might feel that Adam is obviouslyzing around, but the citizens still respect him a lot. That is because he is fulfilling his main duty as the city lord.¡±


    ¡°Main duty of a city lord?¡± After savoring these words, she recalls the daily routine of her father and suddenly, sparks appear in both her eyes and the youngdy found her own shine again.


    ¡°Protecting everyone, right? So as to let everyone live peacefully in this chaotic underground world?¡±


    I smile and nod my head.


    ¡°Yes, protecting everyone and be the one that leads everyone into the future, allowing everyone to be able to have good expectations for the future. This is the true job of a city lord. As for the other meddlesome affairs, find a few fellows with good head and dump it on them. If they screw it up, just sack them and find someone to rece them. There is bound to be someone suitable.¡±


    ¡°In this chaotic underground world, military might is a must and you should quite talented in this aspect, being Sulfur Mountain City, no, the entire underground world¡¯s youngest quasi-legend.¡±


    Hearing my words, Annie nods her head forcefully after finally finding her strengths. In my eyes, it looks like a cute dog that was happy and satisfied after finally finding its own worth.


    ¡°Godfather says that I¡¯m just a step away from Legend-rank. I can enter legend mid phase right after I ept the Phoenix Heart at the end of the inheritance. Afterwards, I would be able to attain Saint-rank within 30 years.¡±


    ¡°Wow. This speed is really inconceivable.¡± Even I am stunned by this astonishing speed. The average age of normal legends is past hundred and Annie isn¡¯t even 20 yet. I was also past 100 when I first got to Saint-rank. ¡°But, to be smiling so happily, she probably doesn¡¯t know what is the Phoenix Heart.¡±


    Shaking my head, I decided not to interfere as it is their family affair, I should not be the one to say such things. For now, my goal is only toplete the main storyline quest and groom Annie into apetent city lord...


    ¡°Un, after 2 days, follow me to the Underground Alliance. I will teach you about the other job of a city lord. ¡®How to use the carrot-and-stick approach to maximize the gains in a negotiation¡¯, but since it is an underground city, I¡¯m afraid that I can only teach you about the stick.¡±


    ¡°Anyway, the goal of this trip is to show our might, so there will be many chance for you to strike out on the way. I will also be bringing the city¡¯s biggest troublemakers like the Beyar brothers, Stormeagle and the other living treasures of my subordinates. You just have to responsible for giving a tough face on the surface and leave the rest to me. We¡¯re going to y big and overturn the entire Underground Alliance.¡±


    ¡°Adam¡¯s Soul Imprint is the Undying Phoenix, making him suited for long battles. As long as you are unable to kill him in a single go, he will absorb the damage and the Phoenix¡¯s Cradle will be stronger and stronger before exploding in one go. It might be an inheritance but you might not be suited to his fighting style. I feel that you are more suited for an offensive style that suppresses the opponent right from the start. This requires battle experience, so give it your best in the fight with the Underground Alliance.¡±


    TL: In Chinese mythology, the more damage/grievance etc. a phoenix goes through during its ¡®cradle¡¯ stage before its, the more magnificent and stronger it would be when reborn.


    She was indeed still like a little girl on the inside. She would tighten her will and do the governing affairs she hated with a crying face but when you start the topic of something she likes, she would immediately be very energetic and enthusiastic...


    ¡°Governance? This is simple, isn¡¯t it just solving problems? Find a few merchants that are good at financing and let them do the ounting. Un, just create a new department in the Internal Affairs Bureau and call it the... Finance Department.¡±


    ¡°As for the building of public amenities, we can look for miners, architects and buildingpanies. But, we must first strip them of their self-interest. Right, we could call it the Infrastructure Department.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t follow Margaret¡¯s footsteps, it is too tiring. You just have toy out the backbone and choose people suitable. If they can¡¯t do it well, just change the people on the job. To protect this city in the future, you have to devote much of your attention into training. Hehe, I would like to hear of the heroics if the new generation of Red Lotus Hero.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t panic, you are already ahead of that dumbass by a lot. The Adam back then was much more useless than you. He can¡¯t be anymore silly. The first time he tried to settle other people¡¯s feud, he actually...¡±


    Slowly, Annie, who have not slept for 2 days and just undergo a great fluctuation in emotions, actually fell asleep on me while listening to me speak.


    Looking at the deeply asleep youngdy who was snoring lightly, I can¡¯t help but reminisce the past.


    ¡°Humans are really a unique life being. Yesterday, she was still a snotty brat but in a turn of an eye, she¡¯s already an adult today.¡±


    Back then, when Adam brought Annie home, she was so small but now, not mentioning that she has already physically matured, she us already intending to take on the heavy responsibilities that her elder left her with.


    Seeing the ck circles below Annie¡¯s eyes, I felt a little resentment towards Margaret.


    ¡°Seriously, she left Adam to be so carefree yet treats Annie so strictly. Adam too, Phoenix Heart, it is the heart of the Phoenix. Such a heavy responsibility, do you think she will be able to shoulder the truth?¡±


    ¡°Uncle Bones, Big Sister Margaret, Father...¡± Suddenly, the tears seep out from the sleeping youngdy as she calls out our names.


    ¡°...Don¡¯t go!! Don¡¯t abandon Annie! Annie will be obedient.¡±


    The dream of the tragedy made my outstretched hand stop in midair...


    I never said that that I was leaving and even more so, Margaret and Adam never mentioned that the current city lord was going to die... But it looks like we underestimated this seemingly talkative and sloppy youngdy.


    It was after a long pause then did I carefully wipe away her tears and caress her hair.


    That apologetic mumble was something I couldn¡¯t even hear clearly myself.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, little Annie. Adults are all selfish... We are a bunch of selfish jerks.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    But what I didn¡¯t know was that in the City Lord Residence, 2 people were speaking the exact same words as me.


    ¡°I knew that Rnd could solve the problem. Stop ming yourself, Margaret. Little Annie is actually much stronger than we think she is.¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    ¡°...Stop crying, Margaret. This isn¡¯t like you. If you can¡¯t bear to leave her, you still can choose to stay.¡±


    That¡¯s right, the one who was silently whimpering at the corner isn¡¯t Annie who was hurt unintentionally, but the one who asked for my help. Due to being too worried, she went against her principles of listening in, the perpetually calm Saint Lord Margaret...


    Hearing the words of the heartless man, fire of anger started burning in the eyes of Margaret who still had tears on the side of her cheeks.


    ¡°You also could have chosen not to die! Then everything would be solved! You selfish bastard!¡± If looks could kill, Adam would have been pierced by thousands of arrows.


    ¡°...Yeah, who asked us to all be selfish adults. It¡¯s just that we are all apologetic to little Annie. Besides... hehe, don¡¯t be worried about it so early.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯reughing? You...¡±


    ¡°Calm down, no matter what, I am still Annie¡¯s father. There is no reason why I wouldn¡¯t know what she wants and needs the most. Hehe, rx, I have it all nned out. It would definitely be a happy ending, a happy happy ending.¡±


    ¡°I will believe you once more, the final time!! You selfish bastard!¡± The Saint abandons her image and grinds her teeth while roaring furiously.

 Chapter 32

    <h4>Chapter 32: Lisa</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    When I finally leave the City Lord Residence, it is already quitete but I really don¡¯t feel like returning to the Watch Room.


    Watch Room? Yes, Lich Rnd is still under custody in the Watch Room for causing that huge chaos and he only sneaked out just now.


    The nning of a group nude run may not have broken any of thews and really couldn¡¯t be considered a crime, but locking them up for 3 to 5 days for them to reflect over their actions is a must.


    I had summoned a skeleton to put my usual essories, clothes and cast some magic on him to fake a Lich that is sleeping while I ran out myself. If it was other days, I had to rush back to not get noticed.


    After all, Dark Elves are sensitive to magic and it wouldn¡¯t be hard for them to notice the difference while patrolling. But now, they didn¡¯t have the time to bother with that obedient Lich at that corner.


    The reason? That is because they are busy, extremely busy... To tell the story, I must start from where my sin begun, the month ban on engineering.


    From the perspective of purifying Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s culture, the effects of the ban could be said to be perfect. After those damned living time bombs, Dwarves and goblins, were sent into the Watch Room, the crime rate of the entire Sulfur Mountain City and the cases reported went down by 3% instantly. There isn¡¯t even a single explosionst night.


    But, when the Town Security Knights delightedly slept a peaceful night, they realized that it was, in fact, the start of a nightmare.


    What is worse than a trouble that cannot be settled is when multiple troublese together. When the many engineers in the Watch Room started to unite, when the g for the first Sulfur Mountain City Engineering Conference was hailed, even the worldly-experienced me and mypanions were shocked.


    The goblin Engineers discussed their experiences of exploding bombs and being exploded on while the goblins talked about all kinds of different unique ways to thinking and methods. Alright, they were mainly different kinds of suicide methods. What¡¯s more is that despite being body checked to be clean, in the intense boredom, the Dwarves and the goblins were even discussing vehemently about the product of thebination of the two types of engineering study...


    Initially, I was still merrily inciting the mes at one side... ¡°We could create a Goblin Shredder that is as big as a mountain. With just a chainsaw, it would be able to cut down the Ancient War Trees of High Elves. Impossible? Will be extremely heavy? Child, why are you socking in imagination? You forgot that there is not only a master here. If we were to use the Dwarf¡¯s electrical conduit and pressure regtor, not only will it not be too heavy, it always won¡¯t explode too fast.¡±


    ¡°We can create a gigantic fire-spitting dragon machine, then color its head red. Like this, it would be 3 times faster.¡±


    ¡°We could create a head that would continuously rotate, a screw saucer. We could use it to drill all the way to the surface. This way, we won¡¯t have to pay the fee for passing through the underground city guarding the route to the surface.¡±


    But very quickly, I realized that the situation is getting out of hand. Their motivation was too strong. Once I mentioned the idea ofbining techniques and new aspects that could be researched, as they were euphoric over the discussion, they actually started to work on it.


    ¡°No fire source? My shoe is a flint, capable to creating sparks by knocking with the surface.¡±


    ¡°No spare parts? Hehe, my little brother Yingou is a part-time Fire Mage, what does melting a few metal poles count to him.¡±


    ¡°No gunpowder? Hehe, I am a Double Master in both goblin Alchemy and goblin Engineering. Come, pick up that soap for me... No, I¡¯m not a gay, I only want to use that soap and the animal fats in your lunch as ingredients. Look at my how I hand make glyceryl trinitrate!! This is the ultimate skill that I learnt from Sealman in the South Roz. After getting hold of this secret recipe, my mum never has to worry about my machinecking fuel anymore.¡±


    TL: Glyceryl trinitrate, also known as nitroglycerin, explodes from tremors.


    ¡°No fuse, catalyst and winder? Wait, let me strip... Hey. I really am not gay. Look, these clothes have been soaked in liquid hexogen, it could explode if I were to casually tear a cloth out. (The goblin beside him looks at him in respect, the meaning being ¡®You are really a role model for the goblin¡¯s research spirit. You actually dare to wear this kind of thing on your body¡¯). By putting together these buttons, it forms the most basic equipment tool set. There is even wrench, chisel and vise. You want it? I¡¯m not selling it. This is the birthday present that the smart Lich gave me. It is the symbol of our friendship!! ...If you really want it that much, it is not like I can¡¯t part with it. It costs at least 30000 gold coin!¡±


    Touching his hairless chin proudly, the weather-beaten Jinya.Beyar smiles at me and gives me a thumbs-up.


    Looking at the Beyar brothers who, using their superior skills, vaguely became the leader of the crowd, watching how they passionately pluck out the metal poles and melted it to make spare parts, using soap and animal fats to create explosive, I feel so regretful that my intestines are turning blue. Un, that is if I still have intestine.


    ¡°...I swear that when I get out, I must find a reason to throw back all back in again. The crime? If I¡¯m not wrong, if they were to continue on this path, there will be one awhileter.¡±


    Fine, in order not to see the Watch Room which was built with taxes by the citizens get sted to the sky, and more importantly, to not get sted into the sky, I decisively called for support.


    ¡°Elisa, go and report to the Town Security Headquarters. Say that the bunch of goblins in the Watch Room are creating a gigantic bomb that can destroy the entire city!¡±


    Alright, what is left is easy. Once the Town Security arrive, they will suppress this bunch ofwless engineers with the guards of the Watch Room...


    But this was only the beginning... Once the fire of the pursuit of knowledge has been ignited, then it can never be extinguished ¡ª goblin Master Engineer Jinya.Beyar.


    They only changed from a surface coboration into an underground collusion. All kinds of engineering blueprints fly around like underground intelligence, with just one mutual look in the eye, they are able to transfer information...


    Furthermore, the idea of Sulfur Mountain City Master Engineer Coboration Project had been somehow spread to the outside. Afterwards, many engineer masters from the outside began to stir up trouble to look for a chance to join this ¡®Grand Meeting¡¯, and they were even willing to offer their precious spare parts as an entrance fee.


    The final result is that when the guards turn around, clink nk clink nk, they start to get to work but the moment the guard¡¯s eyes are on them, they start to whistle and act innocent.


    Helpless, the Town Security could only gather all their force to stare at all of them to stop their actions. Naturally, the other criminals would then have it easy and I also took this opportunity to sneak out to see Annie.


    Cough, end of the recollection. Right now, the Watch Room is like the entrance to a volcano, ready to cause a ruckus at any time. Un, the word ruckus, perhaps, it would be more appropriate to swap it with explode.


    A gentleman won¡¯t station itself under an unsteady wall. Besides, I never thought that I am a gentleman who abide by morals and ethics, and even more so, wouldn¡¯t take the initiative to enjoy an explosion.


    ¡°Then, before they get out of control and things start exploding, I better go somewhere else to spend my time. Un, let¡¯s go visit Little Red.¡±


    But unexpectedly, throughmunications, I got the news from her underlings that she wasn¡¯t at home.


    ¡°Hehe, she suffered the greatest indignant loss in her entire life this time, she must be fuming. Right now, if she isn¡¯t looking for someone to fight with, she could only be there!¡±


    As expected, when I arrived at the Central District¡¯s biggest Bar Fiery Red Rose, just as I was walking into the room we often frequent, I could hear a familiar voiceing from within.


    ¡°Rnd, apany me for a drink!¡±


    ¡°Why, changing into human form and drinking so gloomily by yourself? Alcohol isn¡¯t good for wounds.¡±


    Yes, not any different from an unmanageable teenage girl, Little Red¡¯s, who was also in her rebellious phase, favorite hobby is drinking and fighting. Now that there aren¡¯t any suitable opponents for her fight, she could only look for a ce to drink.


    ¡°Hmph, that is a ban which only you fragile humans need. For me, drinking a little alcohol can help me numb the pain and sleep morefortably.¡±


    Pulling apart the curtains, a ck-haired ravishingdy was hugging a wooden barrel and drinking directly from it. Furthermore, it was one with extremely high alcohol content made for the Dwarves.


    Her long ck hair was as smooth as silk and her crescent eyebrows gave her additional femininity. She has a tall figure and her tight leather shirt showcased the entirety of her perfect figure. Her slender arms are white like snow and her features had a refreshing taste to it. Her green nails had a hint of blood color to it. Just looking from outer appearance, she feels like ady from a family of schrs.


    There is an eye-patch on her left eye and there were quite a lot of bandages on her body. Her entire body was filled with the smell of medicated wine, making her seem delicate.


    But, the moment she opens her eyes, no one would treat her like a weakdy. The wildness in those eyes of the beast. No, it should the gaze of the hunter on the top of the food chain evaluating its prey, making the weak feel like their life lies on a thread as they tremble in fear.


    Why, are you disappointed? Did you think that all female Red Dragon would turn into a loli dressed in red? Too naive, you think a gigantic dragon would like to turn into a little girl? A stereotypical view from those who watch too much Knight novels.


    Why? In the wilderness, a little girl with strong physical abilities suddenly appears. Despite the ground being full of dirt, her clothes are totally spotless? Even a fool would know that something is amiss.


    TL: Knight novels sort of refers to story of a knight saving a princess etc., all these kind of nice delusions, fairy tales.


    Cough, back then, this female dragon really read too many Knight novels and she intended to sneak into our adventuring team just like that to start on an epic adventure. Unfortunately, we seen through her right from the start.


    Just that, we were happy to have another strong fighter and a lucky charm, so why would we expose it? Instead, we tried our best to pretend to be ignorant of it as we raised both of our hands to warmly wee this ¡®Legend-rank Female Berserker and Fire Mage Rookie¡¯.


    In the end, she showed her true form due to an ident but facing the rest of us who were calm and obviously looked like we knew the truth long ago, she pressured us into telling her what went wrong with her disguise. However, that answer became the shame of her life and her greatest dark history.


    ¡°Strength requires time to build up. A Legend-rank that looks around 10 years old, after excluding several possibilities, the disguise of some other strong race bes the most probable answer, and the one who can most possibly do this kind of thing should be the Dragon race.¡± This is how the cold-faced Margaret exined. Back then, she was still a normal human Mage who was sharp with her tongue but soft in her heart, she was still rather worried about Little Red¡¯s pride.


    ¡°I guess it is your Equipment and Weapons. Looking at your Spider Queen Mage Hunter¡¯s Spider Thread Skirt, if you were to put it in the market, you should be able to earn enough to buy a small city.¡± Considering the tender personality and gentlemanly attitude a Holy Knight should portray, I thought that I should consider her pride at a time like this. So, I squeezed my brain juice and tried my best to find a subtle w in her disguise and mentions it smiling.


    ¡°Dumbass Little Red, the first time we met, you tackled an entire week of our ration at one go, causing us to have to go hunt to top up on our ration. Do you think a human can eat that much? Hmph, you caused to go on a diet for an entire night.¡± Fine, the Thief Lisa.Grant was still harboring a grudge over her hunger that night.


    ¡°Hahaha, all of you fools, you only realized it thiste. I knew it at first nce. Wasn¡¯t Little Red reading a book then, the popr Knight novel ?My Dragon Princess from the Stars?, isn¡¯t it a story about how a dragon turned into a young girl to roam the human world, and even started a romance with a human? To think you all failed to see through such an obvious w. Haha, to think you all always call me a fool, I think that you all are the fools instead... AHHHHH!!¡±


    This is... Un, indeed, it is that dumb Adam. After that, we spent a long time before finding back the dumb Hero who was sent several miles flying from a punch from the embarrassed and angry Little Red.


    Un, at this point in time, the cute loli Dragon Princess disappeared and recing her is a mature-version Big Sister Dragon. But, this actually suits her personality quite a bit. Thus, even though the Dragon Tribe could change the age and race they change into (The Transmogrification Spell allows them to choose from Elf and Human, but their outer appearance will not change), she always chose this look.


    As for the red dress, that was real. Normally, when a Dragon transmogrifies, they like to choose clothes that are close to their skin color. Little Red likes red color but the problem is...


    Adam that fellow is also dressed in red. Furthermore, that fellow always go around causing trouble and being an idiot. If she were to be dressed in the same clothes as him, won¡¯t she be treated as hisrade? There isn¡¯t a person who wants to be ced in the same category as an idiot... Back then, Little Red said it like that, it definitely isn¡¯t me trying to nder him.


    ¡°What are you thinking about,e and help me cook the meat. I remember that you were the best at cooking meat back then in our team, let me see if your skills have deteriorated since then.¡±


    ¡°You still remember huh.¡±


    Yes, the one who knows that I am the leader of the team, Holy Knight Rolo, on the surface, is only Little Red, Ancient Red Dragon Einz Mezus.


    The method and angle how the dragons of the Golden Race look at others is different from mortals. In the face of the Dragon Eyes which sees into one¡¯s soul, there wasn¡¯t a chance I could keep it from her in the start.


    Just that, our rtionship, rather thanpanions, it would be more suited to say that it is aplices... Sometimes, it is better to act ignorant for somethings than to expose it and cause awkwardness in the rtionship.


    Right now, while grilling my meat, I scatter my secretly-made spices (The main ingredients are cumin and chili powder. At the same time, there are materials required for casting a smoke-rted magic), but before I can even brush oil on the meat, she snatches it over, eats it in a mouthful and swallows it the next moment. She seems to be having great fun eating it.


    ¡°This time, I made you suffer indignantly. I will help you to get back at them.¡±


    Little Red indeed suffered a lot this time. If it wasn¡¯t for some reasons, don¡¯t even mention losing, she wouldn¡¯t even be injured.


    She is just reluctant to ept her loss? What is the troublesome part about the Dragon Tribe? Strong physical abilities, outstanding talent in magic? That isn¡¯t it. What makes them hard to deal with is their wings! They can fly!


    The Dragon Tribe are the favored ones of the sky. Their flying techniques are outstanding and infant dragons can use magic to help them levitate. Grown dragons can fly as they please and for an Ancient Dragon like Little Red, flying is as natural as breathing to her. In fact, she can even break thews of physics and truly fly as she please in the sky without using her wings.


    The usual strategy that dragons use to deal with enemies is suddenly swiping down from the clouds and even before the enemy can react, they would spit their dragon breath and use magic to destroy their opponents. Then, before the enemy starts retaliate, they start flying upwards and leaves the field.


    This fighting strategy may sound shameless but it is highly difficult to deal with. If you wish to y a dragon, please first think of a method to make the dragonnd on the ground. Thus, even Supreme Empires wouldn¡¯t casually offend the Dragon Tribe. After all, no one would wish for a fire to break out in their capital once every 2 days yet being unable to track down the culprit.


    The high mobility of the Dragon Tribe is what that makes them extremely difficult to deal with. 90% of those sessful dragon hunts is because the dragon was blocked in their ownir or that they had fell into some kind of trap. For a dragon in the open, even if they are unable to defeat you, they can definitely escape and when theye back to hunt you for revenge, it would be difficult to cope with it.


    This time, the reason why Little Red is injured so badly is because Adam and Margaret is behind her, causing her to be unable to move. So, she can only stand there and get beaten up like a sandbag.


    To be treated by others like a fixed punching bag, this kind of insult would naturally make the proud Little Red feel indignant and displeasure.


    When she heard that I would help her get back at them, Little Red stunned for a moment, before picking the wooden barrel by the side and gulps down the alcohol.


    ¡°Cough cough!!¡±


    But as she drank in a hurry, this stupid dragon identally choked. I quickly helped her to pat her back.


    ¡°...No thanks, I will get back at them myself. I will find Molly personally, so don¡¯t interfere.¡±


    I shake my head. Knowing her reluctance to admit defeat, I have expected her to give such an answer. However, Little Red¡¯s individual abilities are slightly above that of Dragon Empress Molly. Otherwise, that old granny would have long appeared to clean her household. After all, Little Red is one of the few existences that could threaten her position as the Dragon Empress.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go and get back at them together. I have sustained quite a bit of loss this time as well.¡±


    Just as I expected, when I started to talk about the trip and a n to cause trouble, Little Red, who only fears ack of chaos in the world and was looking for an outlet to vent her stress, agrees happily.


    Just that, after I finished speaking, she looks at me yfully.


    ¡°Is Lisa still doing fine?¡±


    ¡°...What are you talking about? Oh, Elisa? Her tongue is still a venomous as always. It is a pity she chose to learn from Margaret. She is bing more and more difficult to deal with nowadays. Just 2 days ago, she caused me to be arrested into the Watch Room. Back then, it was really a mistake to pick her up.¡±


    ¡°Stop ying the fool, you know that my Dragon Eyes peek into the soul. Elisa is Lisa, right? The final member in our team, the Thief then whose goal was to be a billionaire, Lisa.Grant whom the fool Adam had a crush on for half his life. Hehe, Elisa is just Lisa with a letter E in front which emphasizes the word behind, such a simple word game, I reckon only that fool Adam can¡¯t see through it.


    ¡°...When did you see through it?¡±


    ¡°From the moment you brought that half-demon girl back, which is right from the start. Hmph, you aren¡¯t any better than me, your disguises still have a lot of ws to them. However, you sure are impressive. I clearly remember that Lisa is dead and even her soul has returned back to the source... Wait, half-demon, you didn¡¯t go to the River of the Dead to find her back, did you?¡±


    ¡°Yes, the human Lisa is already dead. The Elisa now is a brand-new life and soul. You can say that Elisa is Lisa, but isn¡¯t Lisa at the same time.


    Looking at the interested Little Red, my face bitters. Looks like it¡¯se to a time toe clean with things that had happened then.


    Difficult chapter to trante, too many technical words to convert and facial/physical description which I am really bad at.

 Chapter 33

    <h4>Chapter 33: Truth and the Half-Demon</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    The pale yellow me of the oilmp dances along with the wind. Not too far away in the hall, the singing of bards could be heard. The wind brings along with it the sweet and fragrant scent of alcohol, the sound of the snoring of drunkards and the sound of chattering. This atmosphere really makes one drunk on it and it feels that it would be a good ce to reminisce their memories.


    ¡°Dang.¡± Throwing out an enchanted gold coin out, it forms an invisible barrier that blocks off all possible spying.


    Some things had to be ounted for. Then, where should I start from?


    Then let¡¯s start with the usual bomb, the ursed Chaos and the heartless Order which threw all races and lifeforms into its Eternal War.


    Just like what was said before, this war has no end. Then, why does it have no end? Going by logic, a thing like war should stop when both parties suffer losses beyond a certain eptable range.


    To exin that, we have to start from the origin.


    Life, death and the never-ending reincarnation.


    I also mentioned before that every life, after their departure, if they believe in the Gods of Order, their soul would be guided to the Pir of Heaven and follow it all the way up to the Heavenly Realm where the Gods of Order dwell. They would then be a Devotee who serves as a source of faith for the Gods or be a God Envoy or God Attendant who fights for them. Among them, the strongest are the different type of War Angels.


    Basically, when you believe in a certain god, you be a member of his Heavenly Realm. Devotees are the lowest-tier existence in the Heavenly Realm, their only job is to pray continuously to provide the power of faith of the gods. Then, when a Devotee is unable to provide any more faith, they would be abandoned to send back into the cycle of transmigration.


    As for the Chaos faction, it is technically the same thing. Just that,pared to using the honor and embrace of divinity to ¡®guide the pure souls into Heaven that is free of worries¡¯, the means of the Chaos Abyss are much more violent.


    The endless River Styx passes through countless dimensions and using the words of the Order faction, ¡®the cursed souls of the sinners will suffer the pain of the corrosion of their souls for eternity¡¯. In reality, the nature of souls tends towards Chaos and any souls that don¡¯t believe in the Gods of Order would fall into the River Styx after their death. However, because souls that tend towards chaos are normally selfish and reckless, calling them sinners aren¡¯t that wrong as well.


    To continue on, the souls of those who died in the Chaos faction would follow the flow of River Styx through countless worlds and dimensions. If the soul is attracted by the world¡¯sws, then it would climb to shore, returning back to life.


    For example, if they were to climb onto the shore of the main battlefield of the Eternal War, the Ten Thousand Abyss ins, then, the evolution of the new soul would most probably be a bloodthirsty battle Demon. If they climb up on a Ragefire Scorched ins full of ck Chaos Inferno, then the new soul would most probably be a fire-elemental Demon and the terminal of their evolution would probably be the strong Fire Demon Balrog.


    Of course, there are also worlds and dimensions that tend towards the good. Quite a lot of swindlers, immoral business men and thieves (who fail to steal anything) reincarnate into the cunning and evil but promise-keeping Devils. On the other hand, the souls of serial killers, burrs and different type of violent criminals reincarnate into Demons who are said to be the incarnation of Chaos itself.


    In reality, before climbing to shore, the River Styx would have alreadypleted the transmigration between life and death. The Demons and Devils who climb onto shore are a brand-new life which requires the consumption of other life for a living. The survival of the fittest is the only rule and evolving to be stronger before a predator beyond their means appear is their only means of survival.


    The Demons and Devils who climb up from the River Styx have already lost their memories from the time when they were mortals. The only thing on their empty brain is the primitive consume and evolve. Every Demon who have evolved to a certain level would have already consumed countless of their brethren.


    Talking to them about order, the beauty of peace and cooperating for survival is equal to talking to a criminal, who depends on fighting and stealing to be influential, about the harmony of society and helping others is a joy. Isn¡¯t that basically denying the value of their entire existence?


    Even if the Demons can evolve into a Demon Nobility and after grasping their true name, they are able to regain the memories when they are a mortal, but they already have an entire new set of values for the world and their previous memories would probably be like how mortals view themselves as the main character of a certain novel or movie. It won¡¯t have much of an effect on their personality and the new experience and knowledge could instead make them more cunning and difficult to deal with.


    Even the stronger Fire Demon Balrogs, who are able to y a dragon individually, are only a normal member of the Demons. A Demon Nobility, even if it is the weakest Baron, is still an existence that is able to suppress a Fire Demon Balrog with just a single hand. It is said that their nobility is granted by the Goddess of Chaos and the Chaos Abyss itself. For example, the Demon Prince which is slightly higher-ranked than a Demon Duke may seem like nothing much but in actuality, it is almost equal to the godson of the Goddess of Chaos and is an existence equal to the Main God of the Order faction...


    Fortunately, the Demon Nobles, due to their great strength, are unable to head to the Eich continent normally. Even if they were to send an incarnation down, it would normally be surrounded and destroyed by the God Envoys and incarnations of the Order gods.


    Of course, not every soul that tends towards Chaos would be Demons. Arge portion of souls would find themselves being unable to climb to shore and only when the River Styx reaches the very end of the Chaos Abyss can they be reincarnated.


    Alright, since if there is life, there will be death. The souls of the dead are constantly reincarnated to be new soldiers for both faction. Naturally, the Eternal War would then be never-ending. These are allws of the world, simr to how ¡®the sun is going to rise, the seawater is salty¡¯ kind ofmon knowledge.


    But a hundred years ago, a man tried to break this rule.


    He tried to make the sun never rise again. He tried to make all the living die and build a country for the dead. He tried to make the Holy Light disappear for good... He is Lord Yongye, yes, the me who was a frenzied chuunibyou back then.


    Cough, since it is a dark history, so I will speak less about it. No matter how I try to refute it, Lisa did die from my army, to the hands of one of my most capable Four Heavenly Kings, Bone Dragon Queen Gray.Sin, which is equivalent to dying in my hands. I, who was at my pinnacle then, couldn¡¯t ept the fact that I identally killed one of mypanions. So, I tried to challenge themon sense of the world and alter life and death.


    To the me then, if it was just raising someone up to be an undead, they would still be dead, making the act meaningless. If I were to want to revive someone, then it must be a revival true to the word.


    The souls of the dead will lose their memory and everything else in the River Styx. But this requires time. After all, even though the water of River Styx is fatal poison to any life, but for it to take effect swiftly, it must be drunk into the body.


    So, if I were to use Divination Magic to look for Lisa¡¯s soul and pull her out of River Styx before the its water started taking effect and recreate a physical body for her...


    This isn¡¯t a theory that I came up with but a ssical joke that spread among the Mages. This is because that despite being feasible theoretically, but the River Styx can corrode any soul that ites into contact with. Since it can¡¯t be touched, so how can one pull a soul away from it?


    Even the Great Demons who can use secret methods to gather the water from River Styx to create medicine dare not touch the River Styx directly. They definitely have no wish to start evolving from the lowest demons again... Falling into the River Styx is also considered one of the most cruel curses in the world of Demons.


    However, this concept would have to be corrected. River Styx is the river of souls in this world and also the creator of all living beings. Indeed, she can make any souls from this world sink within its depths, but what if the soul doesn¡¯t belong to her andes from another world... For example, a Transcender from a foreign world.


    Back then, I was also dripping with cold sweat. Fortunately, my purely theoretical guesses were correct. But, reality has also proven that this drop of fortune is the start of greater misfortune...


    ¡°You are insane!!! You are challenging the Order which all of the Gods have acknowledged, you are provoking the dignity of both the Malevolent Gods of Chaos and the Gods of Order!!¡±


    The gigantic dragon¡¯s shock and roar was just beside my ear. What can I say other than nodding my head bitterly.


    ¡°Yes, now that I recall it, I was rather crazy back then. I must really be mad to try to totally break the boundary between the living and the dead. Hehe, if it happens once, then it can happen again. If the dead aren¡¯t reincarnated sessfully, then what can the Order and Chaos continue fighting with? Both parties definitely won¡¯t allow me to continue causing anymore havoc.¡±


    Little Red drinks arge mouthful of alcohol.


    ¡°Who did you meet? The descend of a true God? If it is just an incarnation, then you should be able to escape even if you can¡¯t defeat him.¡±


    ¡°Death God Ayer, the very first Undead, the most ancient God.¡±


    ¡°Pa da!¡± The alcohol bottle immediately shatters on the floor as the fragrance of the alcohol leaks out. Ancient Red Dragon Einz Mezus widens her mouth, allowing the alcohol to flow freely down from her mouth. That kind of idiotic look is really rarely seen.


    ¡°Hey hey, image, image. If this silly look of yours were to be leaked, then how will you marry in the future?¡±


    I tried to warn her kindly but I ended getting pulled up by her and she stares directly at my eyes.


    ¡°YOU. STOP. JOKING. In the million years of history of our Dragon Tribe, that man has only made a move thrice and his opponents were all true Gods! Do you think that you are really amazing? You are only a SemiGod Undead Emperor of recent times, there are much more of those in ancient times. You totallyck the qualifications to make that man move.¡±


    The questioning wordse out one by one. Both of her dragon eyes were filled with disbelief and suspicion.


    ¡°I. Am. Not. Joking. It really is Ayer, the most ancient God. The super old senior who once followed the Goddess of Chaos and Goddess of Order, the oldest king of the ancestors of Devils, the Mountainous Human Tribe and the oldest Death God who granted intelligence to all Undead.¡±


    ¡°Then why are you still here prancing about? I don¡¯t think that a SemiGod like you would be able to escape from his hands. The true Gods who he has set his eyes upon have all fallen and you, who is just a SemiGod Undead Emperor, what do you have for you to still be here.¡±


    Remembering the gray figure that represents death itself, the blood rose-colored ring on that pale white finger, I couldn¡¯t help but shiver. I also felt that it was a miracle that my soul hasn¡¯t disintegrated yet.


    ¡°...Now that I recall, Death God Ayer never returns the prayers of the undead. Perhaps, he is a representation of Death itself. Or maybe, that is his Concept of Existence and his Obligation is to maintain the order in death itself, that is to say, as long as nothing interferes with the River Styx and the souls of Order from returning to their Gods, then he would definitely not make a move. Back then, I tried to interfere with the River Styx, which was as good as stepping on his boundaries. It was really a suicidal move.¡±


    TL: Obligation -> Actually means his job as a god. All Gods of Order has a specific role e.g. Moon Goddess, the Moon would be her Concept of Existence and the Obligation would be everything rted to the Moon. This word is going to appear quite many times further in the novel.


    I unconsciously sipped a mouthful of alcohol but ended up looking frustrated at the alcohol dripping down from my lower jaw, wetting my shirt. I shake my head and smiles helplessly. It was my worst defeat in this world.


    ¡°He only used an incarnation, which only struck once, and he managed to easily sent me kneeling with my soul almost destroyed entirely. My rank went dropping frantically. Ever since then, I terminated the possibility of an undead bing a true god, because he would have to defeat Death God Ayer. For countless years, the seat of Death God has never changed, showing that this was an impossible task.¡±


    ¡°... No wonder Adam and Margaret could defeat you back then. He had been taking it to heart and he suspects that you secretly went easy on it. I never expected that you were badly injured then.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, since an Undead Empire cannot be built and the Demon King is destined for failure, so why not pass on the glory of defeating the Demon King to my brother. However, as my rank dropped frantically, ws appeared in my initial ns. Margaret saw through my ns and I went from faking my death to almost really dying. I guess it could be considered the only ident.¡±


    ¡°You haven¡¯t told me how you escaped from Death God Ayer!!¡±


    ¡°... You are wondering why the Undead Empire cannot be built? It is actually pretty simple. From Ayer, I found out that the Gods of Order couldn¡¯t possibly allow the undead to rece all of the living. If so, the cycle of life and death would be broken. An Undead Kingdom which doesn¡¯t extend beyond half of the world is already the limits of what is eptable to them...¡±


    An irresistible brute force strikes on my brain and Little Red¡¯s word by word question thunders in my eardrum.


    ¡°I. AM. ASKING. YOU. HOW DID YOU ESCAPE FROM AYER? STOP CHANGING THE TOPIC! AND STOP TALKING CRAP.¡±


    The Soulfire in my eye flickers and finally, I helplessly said the truth.


    ¡°I can¡¯t say it. I really am unable to say it. This is all for your sake.¡±


    The dragon girl¡¯s head tilts and she pouts her mouth, her face filled with disdain.


    ¡°Hmph, I can guess it all the same even if you don¡¯t say it out loud. It must be your specialty in spouting bullshit. Ayer, who doesn¡¯t belong to any faction of Gods is a well-known rebel. He is probably like you, unhappy with the current world, so you might have conspired some sinister plot with him and came to an agreement, such as to overthrow the current order...Wuuuuwuwuuuu¡±


    The words thate afterwards won¡¯t be said out anymore as my bones were stuffed right into her mouth.


    After being assaulted suddenly, her ck eyes were full of rage. Then, after seeming to have guessed something, the anger changed into shock before turning into panic and fear.


    ¡°I, I, I... I couldn¡¯t have hit the jackpot?? Tell me that this isn¡¯t real. Lord Ayer, please spare me. I am still young and unwed yet. I haven¡¯t raised any small dragons and I don¡¯t want to be silenced!!!¡±


    TL: To those who understand Chinese, silence -> he used a phrase ???? which means to kill a dragon to silence it.


    ¡°Calm down, you don¡¯t know anything. Nothing at all. Why would Ayere find you? You are just sitting here today chatting with me. You didn¡¯t guess anything at all, you didn¡¯t think of anything at all!¡±


    Under my constion and persuasion, she finally calms down after a long period of time.


    ¡°Un, remember it. I don¡¯t know anything at all. You didn¡¯t say anything as well. The Dragon God above, I won¡¯t guess anything anymore.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t say it, you really mustn¡¯t say it.¡± I nod my head and wiped the cold sweat that doesn¡¯t exist. Thisss, why is she so good at guessing randomly. She really has the ultimate crow beak with a loose mouth.


    TL: Crow beak -> Someone who make inauspicious remarks and jinx it (as in what that was said really happens)


    ¡°Right, so what is the deal with Elisa? Why would Lord Ayer let her off?¡±


    Since this is an obvious attempt at changing the topic, so why would I turn away such a good opportunity.


    ¡°... While I was pursued by Ayer, I randomly transported Elisa to a faraway ce. When I recovered my ability to move, it was already 3 dayster. However, Elisa has already started her fight for survival within rubble and was long corrupted by thews of the dimension into a half-demon. What was left is that I settled her down then afterwards, she was brought to Sulfur Mountain City and you should know what happens after that.¡±


    ¡°Half-demon? Shouldn¡¯t be. Normally, half-demons are offspring of Demons and when their bloodline finally awakens, they are able to undergo a ritual to awaken their demonic blood to gain strength. For Elisa who hasn¡¯t converted from a dead to be corrupted into a half-demon half-human existence by the world¡¯sws, it might seem to be not so different from normal half-demons but in actuality, they are different down to the core.¡±


    I hesitated for a moment. Based on her understanding of thews, Little Red made her judgement.


    ¡°No wonder you said that she is Lisa but at the same time, isn¡¯t Lisa as well. The original Lisa has already died and the current Elisa should only be a fragment of her soul which was converted into a half-human half-demon. Really one-of-a-kind in the entirety of Eich.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, Ayer has also told me that a person ispletely dead the moment they touch the River Styx. Those who climb to shore afterwards are newborn from the original material. Even now, the Chaos Abyss is still continuously calling for her soul, attempting to convert herpletely into a demon. She came to shore on the Ragefire Scorched ins so if she were to be converted, she should be a fire-element Demon. So, I thought her Ice Magic which was the nemesis of fire so that she could resist the corruptioning from her core.¡±


    ¡°You sure are dumb, ending up empty-handed in the hand. You even almost paid yourself in.¡±


    ¡°I have nothing to refute your words. It is the dumbest thing I have done in my life. But, I don¡¯t regret it in the least.¡±


    ¡°Have you ever regretted anything in your life? Don¡¯t talk about regrets, I haven¡¯t even seen you depressed before.¡±


    After thinking about it for a while, countless sad memories shes through my memories and finally, I smiled.


    ¡°Nothing. Since I chose seriously in everything I did and tried my best to thest moment, even if it ended up in failure, there is nothing for me to regret. Regret only denies the life that I had so even if I end up in failure, I just have to total up my experience and try harder the next time.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, of course you won¡¯t regret. Now you have another maid whose mind is all on you. Ha, isn¡¯t this just like the past, Adam that rascal having a crush on Lisa but Lisa only looking at her Team Leader Rolo.¡±


    ¡°Can you stop mentioning the pot that didn¡¯t open? I am still quite vexed over it. Initially, I thought that there would be a chance this time but in the end, Elisa and Lisa¡¯s taste are exactly the same, totallyck of feeling towards Adam.¡±


    TL: Pot that didn¡¯t open -> Stop specifically talking about whatever that didn¡¯t happen (especially when you wanted it to happen)


    ¡°Does Adam know?¡±


    ¡°You think that he wouldn¡¯t be aware? That fellow may only have 9 points in intelligence but his instincts is really outrageously urate.¡±


    ¡°Just like how he knows you are his Big Brother Rolo but chooses to act dumb?¡±


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯m not sure about that either. Some matters, if you expose it, it would only end in awkwardness. Sometimes, it is better to just act blur. But for Elisa, he dide talk to me about it but he only said ¡®Elisa is Elisa, Lisa is Lisa. Lisa is dead, so is my heart¡¯.


    ¡°I suddenly feel sympathy for Adam.¡±


    ¡°I also feel sympathetic for Margaret. Looking at the situation, Adam has been on a single-sided crush for half of his life as his subconscious continuously beautify his memories, making Lisa a perfect full stop in Adam¡¯s heart. He is just putting his memory on rey and beautifying the image of the past Lisa in his mind. He is instinctively rejecting anyone from entering his world. How can the living defeat the dead? Margaret¡¯s hard work is destined to go to vain... Why are you looking at me so weirdly, am I wrong?¡±


    ¡°No, I am just a bit shocked in the authentication of a saying.¡±


    ¡°What saying?¡±


    ¡°Old virgins tend to cherish woman, even if the woman doesn¡¯t belong to him. Tsk tsk, Margaret has a sharp tongue but soft inside. Back then, despite you being superior in Adam in all aspects, being good-looking, strong and steady in how you settle things. You even have a kind of depressing aura when you are alone which attracts silly girls. That dumbss Lisa wasn¡¯t willing to leave you alone but Margaret seemed to be unable to give up the Adam who was going around causing trouble like a pitiful dog, helping to clean up after him for half of her life. Finally, after having such a difficult love for more than half of her life...¡±


    Holy Knights make a living off their face, it is impossible for them to be unskilled in flirtatious words, otherwise how can they receive plentiful donations. As for the depressed image, when I devoted my body and soul to defeating an opponent out of my league for revenge, it is natural that I would end up depressed.


    ¡°Tsk tsk, hehe.¡±


    ¡°Why are youughing so hysterically? Did I say anything wrong?¡±


    ¡°No, I am just surprised over the authentication of another saying. Even an overage spinster would be a love expert in endless procrastination and matchmaking!¡±


    Sparks were fired between the two pair of eyes and finally, it turned into a pair of helpless sigh. After all, this seeming weak spot would just cause both of us mutual damage.


    Suddenly, the pair of dragon eyes light up and Little Red hugs me, even intentionally cing my head in front of her chest. The scent of alcohol on her body and the soft sensation made me feel a bit weird...


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we, the left behind male and female, form a group together!


    The snow-white flesh presses down on me. Fortunately, I no longer need to breathe, or else...


    ¡°This... This is a confession!!!? The first time in history? My... Is my springtime finally here? I am finally going to have my first romance in my entire life?¡±


    Before I can even think of a reply from my confused mind, a familiar coldughter sound could be heard from my back.


    ¡°Hmph, I sensed that master used a barrier and I was worried that you might be in some trouble, so I rushed here all the way. So, you are eating and flirting here. Hehe, a romance between a skeleton and a giant lizard, really makes one at a loss for words. Maybe I can inform the Sulfur Mountain City Daily Newspaper and ywrights so that the citizens can get juicy news to gossip about and the concert hall will have a new romance y.¡±


    If I could still sweat, I would be drenched in cold sweat by now.


    As for Little Red, she was already rolling on the floorughing. Obviously, the confession was just a show she made after sensing the arrival of Elisa so as to do me in.


    Somehow, disappointment and sadness wells up in my heart and the fact that I wavered for a moment just now makes me really feel like dunking my head into the alcohol barrel. The knife-like re also makes one feel like running away.


    ¡°I... I, Ultraman is fighting with monsters, I must go and assist him!!¡±


    Leaving behind some hysterical words, I immediately escape, missing out on the battle between the women behind my back.


    ¡°I... Master is mine...¡±


    The deration she made after bucking up her courage only received looks of sympathy from the other party.


    ¡°It was a younger sister then. This time, she probably regards you as his daughter, you¡¯re still quite pitiful. Good luck, even though the route is long and highly impossible.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t admit defeat, even if the opponent is you!¡± She seemed to regarded the pity of the other party as the easygoing-ness of a person with the winning ticket in hand. The deration this time was filled with anger.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ve no interest in that pile of bones. Even though Rnd suits my appetite, but my goal is to have little dragons. I could reluctantly ept a dragon offspring with mixed blood but he can¡¯t even offer me that, and I¡¯m not a necrophile too.¡±


    Shaking her hand to signal Elisa to leave, the ck-eyed ck-haired dragondy continued her way of drinking that scares even the Dwarves. Her entire head is submerged directly into the alcohol barrel and gugu, only the sound of water flowing could be heard.


    When the confused Elisa walked out of the tavern, she caught sight of me, who was dazing off at the entrance.


    ¡°Is this the ending for someone who shoots their mouth? Indeed, I really have an extremely inauspicious mouth. Hehe, so this world really does have Ultraman fighting monsters.¡±


    In front of him is a humongous goblin robot. It is 20-meter tall with 2 heads, one of them being a fire-spitting dragon, which followed my words and was dyed red and even has a horn constructed on it. As for the left and right arm, it is a gigantic screwdriver!


    The fully-armed robots were fighting against the Town Security and furthermore, they had an overwhelming advantage due to the humongous size of the robot.


    ¡°The Wise Lord Rnd, your ideas are really incredible. Look, this is the product of the coboration of the engineering of both Dwarves and goblins. To thank you for inspiration and contribution, we named him Rnd No.2!! Praises of your wisdom and your unique thoughts will be sung by Dwarves and goblins toe.¡±


    That sound of the shouts from the microphone spreads throughout half of the entire Sulfur Mountain City. In that instant, I knew that I would be in the wanted list of Sulfur Mountain City the next day.


    ¡°Little Red, I take back what I just said. I... I¡¯m regretting what I said!! Who knew that those lunatics would take my word for real and really make it!!¡±


    Thatrge robotman was fighting while small explosions happen on its body. But the next instant, a goblin and Fire Dwarf jumps out and after a few knocks, Rnd No.2 was ready to fight once again.


    ¡°Boom!¡± The Big Ben of Sulfur Mountain City just became a part of history.


    ¡°Boom!!¡± The Watch Room that was doomed is really doomed now.


    ¡°Boom!¡± ¡°Boom!¡± ¡°Boom!¡± After consecutive explosions, the Town Security Headquarters which was just rebuilt 2 weeks ago turned into rubble once more...


    Looks like I won¡¯t just be on the wanted list, I can go straight to the top of the list.


    Without hesitation, I turned to face Elisa and told her something.


    ¡°...Inform everyone on the list that tonight, we are packing our luggage and escaping in the night. No, I mean, we are heading to the Underground Alliance!!¡±

 Chapter 34

    <h4>Chapter 34: Judgement</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    As the top organization of the judiciary system of Sulfur Mountain City, the Supreme Court is normally shrouded in a quiet and serious atmosphere. Just like the teachings carved on the wall of the hall ¡®Properly attired, upholding thew strictly and diligently, talk less and work carefully¡¯. What it means is for those working within the legal system to have a serious expression, use simple and concisenguage and work swift and effectively. Thus, they are looked upon well by the citizens. But, the situation is slightly different today.


    The silent corridors are filled now rowdy and filled with arguments. The ¡®prisoners¡¯ who are carrying metal chains waiting for their hearing filled all of the cells. Even more so, the empty field is crowded with people.


    At the corner of the field, a giant goblin robot man is reduced to a lump of useless metal. Or rather, considering that it has filled almost half of the area of the field, it should be called a metal jungle or a metal junkyard.


    Beside it, a group of goblins and Dwarves are surrounding it, crying. There are even goblins who started dancing their Hip Dance passed down by their ancestors (also known as tropical culture belly dance), as though treating this robot man as one of their family members, sending it off.


    But on the outer perimeter, numerous citizens who were affected by the disaster weren¡¯t in the mood to appreciate this ¡®passionate dance¡¯ that was filled with foreign culture. Following Sulfur Mountain¡¯s traditions, they used tomatoes and smelly eggs to wee these trouble-making engineers. Of course, beside the enraged citizens are goblin merchants who have sold quite a bit of ¡®ammo¡¯.


    The guards of the Supreme Court were too busy running about to bother about these small things.


    As the Watch Room and Town Security Headquarters arepletely destroyed, there was ack of space to house the suspects. If Sulfur Mountain City Jail was still in its perfect state, they could be transferred over. But due to the aftereffects of the jail raid back then, a portion of lightly-sentenced criminals were transferred to the Watch Room. This time, all of them had to be moved away, so only the Supreme Court is left.


    The 4 Halls of the Supreme Court are already on the move but manpower seems to be stillcking.


    Sounds of shouting, crying, being pursued and beat up and pleas to be spared has converted this somber and silent hall of justice into a market full of haggling.


    At the same time, the me who frowned and tried my best to ignore the racket outside but ultimately ended in failure could only order the guards to seal the doors and windowspletely and pull down the blinds to bring the court hearing a silent environment.


    Yes, court hearing.


    My n to escape through the night, oh, no, I mean emergency dispatch n was heartlessly refused by Elisa from the very start.


    Sulfur Mountain City can do without Lich Rnd, but if the one who was somehow on the way to bing the 4th Head after the miracle, Sulfur Mountain¡¯s king behind the veils, the Supreme Judge Wumianzhe, were to disappear suddenly, I¡¯m afraid the oue might even be more serious than the effects of an earthquake.


    More importantly, the other people are totally unprepared. Even the documents for diplomacy aren¡¯t prepared yet. It would only turn into a scene if I were to work individually.


    However, if I were to remain here in my capacity as Rnd, I can start to count exactly how much bones would be left of me the next day. I believe that the Town Security whose home has been crushed would definitely not have the patience to listen to my exnation. In fact, blowing me up to make soup could be considered a merciful act.


    I may have done many deeds that I won¡¯t be able toin if the victim were to use my bones to make soup, but I really am innocent this time. I was just randomly shooting my mouth in anticipation of explosion and firework. Who would have expected that they woulde up with that toy... Thinking about that 20-meter tall iron giant, I shivered uncontrobly.


    ¡°A simplified version of a metal Titan? A monster-killing machine that is enough to defeat a Legend-rank? Seems like they really identally managed to create an incredible machine.¡±


    Of course, the other side effect of Rnd No.2 being strong is that a huge price was paid to deal with it. That makes the crime of the mastermind, Rnd, even heavier.


    Thus, I can only end up allowing the Town Security to watch the scene of ¡®Lich Rnd¡¯ riding on a Bone Dragon across half of the city until he escapes from Sulfur Mountain City... At least, until I manage to prove my innocence, Lich Rnd is noting back.


    In this instant, I met with my first trouble, which is right in front of me now... This case is way beyond the capability of any other judge, so I ended up stepping up to the task.


    On the Judge Stand in the 3rd Court, I nce at the crime reports that is stacked like a mini hill, then nce at the defendants with a ¡®look of innocence¡¯. On the intiff Stand, the agitated Town Security are shouting ¡®ursed Rnd¡¯, ¡®just wait for the day I feed you to dogs¡¯, ¡®Lord Wumianzhe, please give us the authority to directly draw our swords and deliver the verdict. I will cut him into 13 pieces and bring him back¡¯ and ¡®Momo doesn¡¯t care about his deal with the legal system, please allow Momo to bring a team to raid his house. There is bound to be tons of banned goods in his house and after we sentence him to life imprisonment, Momo is going to give him first-ss treatment. Haha haha!!¡¯. Hearing the frenziedughter of these homeless Dark Elves, my head started to hurt.


    On one side, Prosecutor Katarina is currently reading out the publicints to amass evidence...


    ¡°4.20 in the afternoon, smoke suddenly rises up from the Watch Room. Then, making use of the chaos, the engineers from the outside came into contact with the rest in the Watch Room. The both parties were equipped with engineering equipment from the start to the end...


    ¡°Objection! Since smoke was rising up, what evidence did you have to infer that my client is equipped!! My client could have been making use of the smoke to cook their lunch instead.¡±


    The goblin Prosecutor Roren interrupts the words of his colleague and proposes an extremely absurd idea.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, we were only barbecuing sweet potato/smoking fish.¡± The defendant¡¯s side starts moring. goblins and Dwarves have an innate passion for jeering.


    ¡°Only man-eating fishes could be found in the river of Sulfur Mountain City, where can you find fishes to barbecue!!! Also, going by that pathetic fishing skills of yours, you don¡¯t have to dream of seeding your entire life.¡± Katarina roars in anger. As expected for a Female Hunter from the Amazon Tribe. Her golden ponytail sways along with the wind and her aura was as sharp as a dagger, making her reminiscent of a War Goddess on a hunt. But, what she was concerned about was slightly off the target...


    ¡°No, as long as the correct method is used, man-eating fish also can be caught. We have Parker¡¯s fishing rod...¡±


    I finally understand why goblin Roren, despite being highly skilled in prosecuting, decides to defend his own race. This fellow is obviously making a fool of things. Furthermore, being familiar with the act of prosecuting, he knows that Prosecutor Katarina likes to stay factual, making it easy for her to be led to a dead end. Then, if he were to make a foolery of the court, then this judgement would be inconclusive...


    In previous days, it isn¡¯t a big deal to let a hearing end up as a farce but in this instant, for specific reasons, it must definitely not be allowed!


    ¡°I can¡¯t let it go down like this. If the goblins are proven innocent, then Lich Rnd would have to take the core of the me.¡±


    Looking at the Town Security Elves who were angered to the point they were on the verge of biting their tables, I made up my mind to make sinners pay the price... Let the metal te bitten apart be my witness, my bones are definitely not as hard as the metal te.


    ¡°Roren.Jinbi, may I ask you where were you at 4.20 in the afternoon yesterday? Don¡¯t bother lying, you know the consequences of lying in my court.¡±


    As expected, the moment I asked this question, the temporary Defense Attorney who was still talking passionately then instantly became speechless.


    I touched my forehead in frustration, portraying an image that there was nothing I could do about it. In reality, a beautiful smile was blooming under my mask.


    ¡°Easy peasy. I knew that you rascal wouldn¡¯t stay at home obediently. Now is your turn to take the me for me.¡±


    ¡°Roren.Jinbi, to vite thew despite being a part of the judiciary, you have really put the Supreme Court to shame. Now, obediently shut your mouth up and sit at the Defendant Stand. Right, apologies to those Dark Elfdies first, look at the harm you brought to them.¡±


    Hearing my words, Roren removes his mask, symbolizing stripping himself of the identity as a member of the judiciary. After apologizing with a lowered head, he sits obediently like a small kid on the Defendant Stand together with his brethren.


    ¡°Right, that who, find Suicidestorm for me too. I dare use my knee to guarantee that the fellow is definitely involved too. You don¡¯t know him? Suicidestorm from the Hall of Legitor. That short one...¡±


    ¡°It is Magicstorm!!¡± A sharp child-like voice unique to Dwarves echoes from the Spectator Stand. Miheuer.Magicstorm jumps over the barrier and walks to the Defendant Stand.


    I secretly praised how heroic this fellow was but after walking halfway, I see him turning back to say something.


    ¡°Since wemitted the crime, then we should be punished. What are you all waiting for.¡±


    Afterwards... A messy bunch of themes down... There were goblins, Dwarves and even Humans together with other races, totaling up to around 30 to 40 people. Probably, all of the engineers of Sulfur Mountain City are gathered here.


    Looks like none of those engineers expected that the incident would be blown so big, so they all came to confess obediently.


    Shaking my head, I looked helplessly at the empty Defense Attorney Stand.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think it is possible to find a suitable defense attorney in a short period of time so you all just try to defend yourselves. Eaglestorm, tell me why even though you all shouldn¡¯t be involved in the matter, why did you all appear on the scene.¡±


    ¡°Those evil engineers are enemy of nature. Chirp chirp, that unnatural creation made of a ck-color cursed material (Human-made iron giant), the twisted being that roars and spins is an existence that that desecrates nature (That being is a wood felling machine, of course it is an enemy of nature), woof woof, so as the sons of nature, we must cleanse this cursednd (So we want to get rid of him)...¡±


    While trying my best tolerating his weird ents, the middle of his sentences was filled with a few weird callings of the animals. In the start, I was still trying to trante it into humannguage but looking at the equally confused spectators, I finally snapped.


    ¡°Speak humannguage! Otherwise I will lock you together with Beifeng.Herault!!


    The dracon Beifeng¡¯s hobbies is already well-known all over Sulfur Mountain City. His evil actions of catching Druids and treating them as pets makes people feel even more shock. To the victims and their Druid brethren, that man is as good as the very incarnation of fear.


    ¡°He seemed to have actually forgotten that he is a man, and think that he really is a dog! Chasing his tail every day! What exactly did that dracon do to him!!¡±


    ¡®Dragon of Ultimate Evil¡¯, ¡®Nemesis of Druids¡¯ Beifeng.Herault, that is how all the Druids in Sulfur Mountain City calls him... Even the Great Druid Eaglestorm, upon hearing this name, instinctively trembles.


    ¡°We saw the metal giant and it really goes too much against our teachings. My brothers said that we shoot beat him up and I thought it over. I felt that we should really beat him up, going by the book that my grandfather left behind. So, we went to beat him up, hehe.¡±


    Looking at the Great Druid who was stillughing simple-mindedly, I... I am speechless. He is really direct this time. But, looking at his dumb face, I can¡¯t help but want to punch him.


    ¡°Calm down, calm down. Reputation, reputation, this isn¡¯t the first time that these fellows aren¡¯t being reliable, so I shouldn¡¯t get angry with them... Cough, fine, then the next matter. The Holy Knight army who suddenly joins in the fight. Tim, I can already roughly guess what did you all do.¡±


    ¡°My Lord, please look into it. We are only fulfilling the duties and responsibilities as a Holy Knight.¡±


    ¡°Un, looking at that huge machine destroying a portion of the city wall, you all shouted ¡®Holy Light, that sinner is worth a fight¡¯, ¡®For Holy Light, charge¡¯, and then charged towards it? Then, you casually destroyed another 2 parts of the city wall and over 30 houses?¡±


    Alright, I can understand that they were dispirited when their original chances at ¡®chivalric acts¡¯ were stolen by the judicial system and it was a hard-found opportunity for them to finally act, so they got into their top gear but...


    ¡°I¡¯m only halfway through. Why aren¡¯t you exining how you end up fighting with the Druids? Do you really think I don¡¯t know that you had a grudge with Eaglestorm after the nude running incident previously? Later, remember to send the reparation bill slips to old Bill. I hope that his stomach is feeling better, it was quite scary when he vomited blood previously. Un, the bill this time will be tripled, so that maybe you all can learn from your lesson.¡±


    Ignoring Tim who looks like the sky has fallen down, I turned my gaze towards an uneasy young man.


    ¡°Lucas, you just converted from a Holy Knight to a Justice Knight, so why did you bring other students from Nanxiang to cause troubles? You even specially picked your exrades to beat up, don¡¯t you know that for aw enforcer who is learnt in thew to break thew, your crime is much worse?¡±


    TL: Nanxiang is thew school created by Rnd, if you all don¡¯t remember.


    I had great expectations for this young man so I was curious why even though they were here to save the civilians, but it ended up in a group fight between Holy Knights and Justice Knights. If I didn¡¯t remember wrongly, Lucas and Tim should be quite close.


    ¡°I... I don¡¯t have a problem with big brother Tim and big brother has always been very caring towards us. However, other than big brother¡¯s Third Order, the Holy Church¡¯s First Order actually came as well. They intended to y the part of the hero to seduce girls, so I lost control of myself...


    Other people had looks of confusion on their face but I immediately got what he was saying.


    The First Order of the Holy Church in every district is known as the Ceremonial Order. Rather than Holy Knights trained forbat, they are more like handsome guys used for social event and ceremonial purposes.


    The First Order only has one mission, to find the local nobility and merchants for donations and sexydies tend to be more generous with their money...


    So, the members of the First Order are carefully picked out. Un, the requirements are that they must have a good face, skilled in diplomatguage so that if they can identally make the nobledies happy, the donations would naturally be more.


    So, while the other teams are busy destroying evil, the First Order is busy with balls and dealing with richdies. While the other teams are training under the hot sun, the First Order is in the secret chamber doing group facial... Furthermore, for their image, the maintenance of the steeds and armors of the First Order is sponsored by the Church. This difference in treatment naturally makes the image of the First Order terrible in the eyes of other Holy Knights, but I must say...


    ¡°Doing facials are expensive and the money came from our pocket, you know. Furthermore, when we attend balls, it feels terrible to have to maintain your image despite drinking to the point of wanting to puke! Do you bastards think all those richdies are all beautiful like flowers? In reality, arge portion of them are like pigs! Even though these oily trotters are disgusting, we must tolerate it. If we were to identally chop down on them, it will be a diplomatic problem you know!¡±


    ¡°Most importantly... Don¡¯t just look at how they are surrounded by women. In reality, the First Order, to attract the fancy of richdies for more donations, they aren¡¯t allowed to fall in love and still have to recite their lines every day, practice the art of being cool and try their best to act like a love saint. Even if he meets a hard-toe-by good woman, he can only watch her and not eat her!! This kind of emotion feels even worse than failing to court her you know!!¡±


    Alright, I didn¡¯t verbally say out theints above... But looks like I identally spilled some of my dark history... Cough, when I was still a Page, I have been to the First Order. Despite hanging out the main fighting teams afterwards, but it took me more than a year to kick away those odd habits.


    TL: Page is an apprentice Knight, usually used as a servant for knights.


    ¡°Don¡¯t me this little brother over here, we all understand, we all understand¡± The leader of the First Order Muln who was rubbing his hands together is a blonde handsome guy. Not to mention, he instinctively flings his hair and shoots a seducing gaze to the sides.


    While disgusting men, there were women who shouted ¡®so handsome¡¯. I sent a look of sympathy towards him.


    ¡°59th Art of Head Flinging, 63rd Art of Seductive Gaze, looks like the church hasn¡¯t really changed much these days. Seeing by how experienced he is, it should be a big hottie-level seductive gaze. In order to maintain his skill, he must at least practice it 300 times a day... He probably can¡¯t even speak normally anymore and would habitually send seductive gaze to guys as well. He is really at the bottom of the pit for being pitiful


    Thus, I spoke seriously to Lucas.


    ¡°Apologize to Captain Muln now. In this instant. Hurry up.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s alright, it¡¯s alright. Little brother, we are allrades under the Order faction!¡± While saying these words, Muln¡¯s eyes were still scanning, as though looking for a target in the Spectator Stand. Then, he habitually sends seductive gazes all around.


    As a senior and someone who went through the same thing, I knew that this is the instinct to ¡®find food¡¯ that they were forced to hone. However, in the young Lucas¡¯s eyes, it was a look that he wasn¡¯t taking him seriously.


    ¡°I... I definitely won¡¯t apologies!! Even if I don¡¯t be a Justice Knight, I... I won¡¯t be a human anymore! I will go to the Undead District to be a ck Knight!!¡±


    It was difficult for him to find a new faith but when he realized that he still had to lower his head to his sworn enemies of the past, this young man (?) was unable to handle the cruel truth and tears started flowing... But, he must be mistaking something, there are no Dark Knights in the Undead District, only Death Knights...


    Cough, alright, back to the main topic at hand. At this point, things are quite clear now.


    From the very start, the engineers created a gigantic robot man. Then, the Town Security came to apprehend them, but they ended suppressed by the huge physique of the robot giant. Afterwards, the Druids joined into the battle, followed by the Holy Knights who came to rid evil. At the same time, Tim made use of the chaos to settle his scores with Eaglestorm, so the Druid started fighting with the Holy Knights.


    Further down, the Nanxiang Justice Knight intern thought that the First Order, who was here as support, was making use of this opportunity to flirt with girls, so they also made use of the chaos to attack them... This is really chaotic. In the end, no one even bothered about that robot anymore. Everyone fought their own battle, they are obviously using this as an opportunity to settle their private grudges.


    If I were to really punish them, then a few thousand people who be locked in at once... Looking at the situation of our Jail and Watch Room which are still rubble, and in consideration of the fact that there are no casualties... This incident is really an unintentional ident.


    ¡°Pah!¡±


    Thus, I resolutely knock my gavel down.


    ¡°Court temporarily put on hold, all of the used will be released temporarily. Before getting approval from the Supreme Court, suspects are not to leave Sulfur Mountain City. The reparation fees for the destruction will be equally split among those who joined in and are involved in the fight. At the same time, the judiciary system will hasten the reparations for the Jail and Watch Room. When the mastermind, Rnd, is found, the court hearing will begin once again.


    Fine, everything ends up as Rnd¡¯s fault... Looking at the indignant Town Security who was on the verge of doing something, it seems like they intend to apprehend Rnd personally.


    ¡°Looks like Rnd isn¡¯ting back... Elisa, do you think Rosie or Robert sounds better?


    ¡°...¡± Alright, after the incident yesterday, she is in the midst of ignoring me...


    However, this judgement has caused me to make up my mind.


    ¡°If I¡¯m not here, these fellows are going to cause chaos throughout! Then, the ambassador party has been decided! I will bring these living treasures over and at the same time, fix Rnd No.2 and thoroughly flip the Underground Alliance upside down!!¡±

 Chapter 35

    <h4>Chapter 35: Scattering Seeds</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    The Underground City Chrometaxo, probably the underground city closest to Sulfur Mountain City. Though it is not a route that merchants must pass through to head to other underground cities, but quite a handful of merchants would choose to head out from there to stock up on subsistence, or purchase some mining products, jewels, ves and other special products.


    70% of its citizens are Dwarves and Underground Beastman, and the original city lord is the king of the Pig Tribe, Underground Beast Man Hng Hng. Thend here is infertile and after the army raided a few merchants, it caused the infamy of the greediness of these pigs to spread afar. Nowadays, they have no other choice than to rely on their mining industry and very trade.


    When the news of the death of City Lord Hng Hng spread out, it wasn¡¯t surprising that the entire Chrome City plunged into chaos.


    There is reason why the entire underground world is viewed as and of Chaos by the Order faction. At least, in most of the underground cities, what they believe in is the primitive survival of the fittest, and the city lord together with the nobles are the ones with the strongest fist.


    The outstanding reproductive ability of the Pig Tribe resulted in their massive poption and in previous days, it was only through bncing of power that allowed a certain level of stability within the tribe. However, Hng Hng died too suddenly this time and he even brought along the number 1 elite army of the tribe, the ckwater army, down with him on this operation, causing his son and sessor, Haha, to not have enough influence and power to stabilize the situation, so the powerful figures in line for the throne started wavering.


    TL: Powerful figures mean influential figures/ powerful people (may be individually or as a group), can¡¯t really find a suitable word for this and this phrase appears quite a lot in the novel.


    Or rather, using the word ¡®wavering¡¯ to describe these pigheads are a bit too merciful. After news spread out that afternoon, all restraints are cut and the internal strife started.


    The 2nd biggest tribe Gray Wood Lizards and Gray Dwarves teamed up together, intending to enthrone themselves. Also, the peasants couldn¡¯t live on in the city anymore and the miners who intended to flee for their lives... Chaos is contagious and fights started breaking out everywhere. Chrome City¡¯s 700 thousand poption immediately cuts by a tenth.


    Alright, it was already a picture of disaster when Lilith and her team arrived at Chrome City. If she dyed her schedule and arrived 2 dayster, Chrome City¡¯s poption would have probably cut by a half.


    Of course... When the situation has settled, the victors get to reap the rewards. Very quickly, there will be new city lord and nobles in Chrome City, then it would go into another rtively stable period. As for the ves and peasants who died in the chaos? No one cares.


    The underground world that is formed by exiled is this kind of world. The strongest fist, the winner eats it all while the weak dies...


    But looking at the smoke rising throughout the city, the guards and armed Beastmen are actually casually ughtering the citizens they should have been protecting, Lilith and the other enforcers of Sulfur Mountain City went into a rage.


    Thus, Lilith activated the God Equipment Scattered Page of Codex, letting the God Equipment of Law sending the entire city into the Great Judgement.


    Of course, to do it like what I did the previous time, directly judging the entire city through thews, is impossible. But this scattered page of a God Equipment is still a God Equipment, and has the power to back it up.


    TL: Through thews -> Actually here he means thew of the world. Just like how Holy Light is thew of the world, the Power of Law, after being recognized, can be considered thew of the world as well.


    Scattered Page of the Codex (God Equipment)


    Faith in Law: 367/999 (The belief from 1000 people in a week allows it to increase by 1 point every week, and the cap is 50 points every month. When the points reach the maximum, it will automatically replicate another Scattered Page)


    In every period of time, when the God Equipment Origin of Codex collects sufficient Faith in Law, it will create a piece of Scattered Page. It is a part of the God Equipment of Law Origin of Codex, and is a manifestation of its will and power. ¡ª There is a line of words on the Scattered Page (The Indefatigable One never rests, the gaze of his intangible eyes is always on you)


    Effect 1: The Land of Law (Passive): In the heart of the city where it is ced, the entire city will be a Land of Law and in the area where its effect is active, Enforcers can wield the Power of Law.


    Effect 2: Great Judgement (Active): Requires 100 Faith in Law to activate, and consumes 1 point every minute after activation. After the user activates it, everyone in the city will be cast with a Legend-rank level Judgement Spell and be judged on their actions in thest 3 hours. If guilty, their freedom will be restricted and debuffs such as intangible cuffs and weapon seal will be inflicted on them. In the Great Judgement, the effects of the enforcer¡¯s Incantation of Law will be multiplied several folds and their power ranking will be increased by 1. (The requirements for usage: Thews in the city are in chaos, criminals are doing as they please and the city is on the verge of destruction)


    Effect 3: Unknown


    TL: For those who forgot, Wumianzhe -> Indefatigable one.


    God Equipment are God Equipment after all. When they are utilized, they have the potential to change the flow of a battle. The number of God Equipment that changed history are numerous. Even if, the Scattered Page of the Codex is just a replica.


    After the Great Judgement, all of the criminals are judged and inflicted with a bunch of debuffs while the enforcer¡¯s power ranking went up by 1... A Gold-rank like Lilith bes a Legend-rank and expecting the chaos in Chrome City, her ¡®logistics department¡¯ known as the Hall of Legition obviouslyck firepower. So, to stabilize the situation, I sent the strongest Hall of Law over.


    The Hall of Law is filled with old fellows that are well-versed with thew. Normally, they are the judges of the Supreme Court and most of them have a job in the legal system. Then, the weakest of them all is a Gold-rank.


    TL: Can¡¯t exactly remember, but one of the requirement to change your job to one in the Law seems to be a minimum of gold-rank.


    This time, almost the entire of the Hall of Law was sent out, that is over 200 Gold-ranks and 7 legend-rank. That is to say, during the 5 hours of Great Judgement, there are 200 Legend-rank and 6 World Saints...


    But it is a pity that Head of Hall of Law Kale is still recuperating at home. If the World Saint were to go up another rank, that would be Epic, just a step away from SemiGod. If he tries out the power in advance, it could do him some good for his advancement in the future.


    But even so, 200 Legends and 6 World Saints, this is already outrageous enough. Even the previous City Lord Hng Hng was only at Legend pinnacle...


    What happen afterwards is simple, in the 5 hours before the Faith in Law is fully expended, all of the murderers and thugs were cleared and when the red light of sin is bright to a certain extent, it means that the crime warrants a death penalty and the experts of the Hall of Law, towards these ugly crimes, don¡¯t know the meaning of the word mercy. Thus, the Great Judgement bes a Great Execution... After the incident, the smell of blood in Chrome City didn¡¯t dissipate for 10 days.


    As for those who were rescued in the catastrophe, arge portion of the citizens of Chrome City started regarding these outsiders as their saviors. Capturing the weakness of their heart after the incident, the Judgementors tried their best to spread the ideas of Law and Order and the withered God Equipment Scattered Page of Codex also starts recovering under the faith of the citizens who were rescued, even if the next time it could be used is 3 monthster...


    This movement to take over the city is bound to shock the entire underground world. Its effects would be far greater than the setback faced by the two Underground Autarchs...


    After all, the opponents that the 2 Underground Autarch was facing were the almighty SemiGods and the Forbidden Spell that judged all of the criminals and destroyed the armies of the invaders could be exined as a prepared Forbidden Spell trap. But this sudden appearance of a powerful army, over 200 Legends and 6 World Saints, this can no longer be exined by saying that they were prepared. This only shows the power and the peculiarity of this new Power of Law.


    I can already start imagining what would happen afterwards. Very quickly, the information of Power of Law and the Law Jobs would spread across the entire underground world.


    Perhaps, my Justice Knights created by the Power of Law wouldn¡¯t be able to explore around like the Holy Knights and are unable to fight and tank to make a huge difference in an offensive war. But, as protectors of the Order and Law, when they are protecting citizens for viins, they can easily exert a battle power several times stronger.


    My Judgementors don¡¯t need to go around like Priests to spread their teachings, sing praises about the greatness of Holy Light and the purity of the Order Gods. He only needs to spread around the Codex of Law, understand and analyze the cases and create a simple court one after another, punishing the evil-doers and redressing the grievances of the weak. Then, the normal people who benefited from it and achieved a peaceful life would naturally start believing in thew and provide the Power of Faith.


    TL: The Power of Faith is the main power source of the Order Gods Chp33.


    My Law Incantationers will study the integration of the legition with the power of the rules, creating new Incantation of Law, making the Power of Law and the fighting ability of Law Jobs to be even greater.


    TL: Power of Law is acknowledged by the Origin of Order and so its spells must go by the concept ofws.


    Power of Law? It is a purely defensive and targeted power. Very quickly, the underground city lords will end up with this kind of conclusion and their heart will start to waver. After all, who wouldn¡¯t wish thend they govern to be more peaceful and prosperous.


    Mass producing security officers using the Power of Law to provide support to the internal security of theirnd, one would know just by thinking about it that it is a beneficial act.


    Simply producing these kind of Law-ss experts wouldn¡¯t bring the world to them (If they join in the army of invaders, the sin of starting a war would cause them to lose their Law Job identity and their Power of Law), however they can use the manpower who are originally used to maintain peace in the city to fight the war, leaving behind these Law-ss experts to protect their homnd (Law Jobs are allowed to join in the fight to protect a city), wouldn¡¯t it also improve their total fighting power in the end?


    The underground world¡¯s pursuit of strength is never-ending. Very soon, those who came up with this conclusion would send people over to learn, steal and even snatch... As for me, I intend to give out the Codex of Law for free and not mentioning the secrets to practicing the arts, I will even give out the God Equipment Scattered Pages of Codex to rtively friendly cities.


    TL: Btw Codex of Law refers to a in book onw.


    ¡°Hehe, whoever who wants it can go ahead to take it. I will first say it beforehand, it is a defensive Power of Order that targets sinners. That is to say, if the opponent is not a sinner or if their sins aren¡¯t as heavy, then it is far from matching up to the almost omnipotent Holy Light.¡±


    Of course, these underground lords will not give up just because of my warnings and instead, they will go mad over the limited stocks on the God Equipment... Hehe, I will look forward to the day that they, who are full of sins, are brought up to the execution tform by their citizens. Will they remember the words that I said to them the day I passed the Power of Law over to them?


    If everything goes on sessfully, the Power of Law will spread to every single corner of the underground world very quickly... Maybe, in a short period of time, a decade of two, its effects may not be in to see. But when a new generation who wields the Power of Law arises, hehe, the entire underground world would gradually go through a massive change.


    Furthermore, the underground world isn¡¯t the end of the road for the Power of Law... The Holy Church who have long received the Codex from me should be trying it out on the surface and achieving good results.


    As people who respects the Order, they would be even more obsessed with the advantages the Power of Law has for maintaining security and the judgement of crimes. Maybe, in 3 or 4 decadester, there would be existence of Law Jobs in every city.


    This is my wish and also the most important part of my n, is let the seeds fly along with the wind. I¡¯m not hasty about this and rather, I am willing to take my time...


    Perhaps, someone would see through my scheme, oh, no, since it is all exposed on the outside, calling it a project would be much more suitable. Even if they see through my project, this gigantic benefit that I offer will make them happily swallow this sweet poison. Afterwards, as the roots of the Power of Law stretch deep and the grows healthily, the intangible executioner¡¯s de willnd on the heads of the underground city lords.


    But the current me didn¡¯t have the leisure to think so far ahead. Only yesterday did the ambassador team and the construction workers arrive Chrome City.


    Looking at this pile of wreckage, the faces of the citizens were still filled with smiles and hope for the future. Indubitably, it means that our takeover has already won the support of the citizens. Thus, even though I already find her very trustworthy, in this instant, my satisfaction bar with Lilith shot through the roof.


    In just a few short days, she managed to reorganize the entire government structure and judiciary system and wield the authority of the city lord temporarily in her hands. When everything starts to settle down, she will pass the power on to the Public Council that about to be created.


    As for the authority to write the legition? Of course it belongs to the hands of Sulfur Mountain City Supreme Court¡¯s Chrome Branch, converting this city into a Land of Law.


    Indeed, if we don¡¯t consider the unspeakable private problems that she has, she is the hard-toe-by ¡®normal person¡¯ in the top brass of the judiciary system. Even more so, she is the head of logistics of the entire judiciary system, so her efficiency in getting things done is top-notch.


    ¡°You bear with it for the moment and stay as the city lord before the Council elections arepleted. Then, are you interested in bing the Branch Head?¡±


    The moment I said these words, the faces of the others who was with her hardens and shakes their head vehemently behind her back. They weren¡¯t worrying about the ¡®young¡¯ Lilith catching up with them, but...


    ¡°Lord, please reconsider. If I were to be the Branch Head here, I¡¯m afraid that problems would ur in the Sulfur Mountain City Headquarters. After all, the other Heads are...¡±


    There wasn¡¯t any need to say any further. As a disciple-in-name of the Saint Margaret, even if Kale isn¡¯t injured, he would have been obsessed in books and scrolls,bining theory together with experiments to create new Incantation of Law. As for Kelvin, his presence is too weak and his leadership ability can almost be entirely ignored. As for thest of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Judiciary, the Guardian of Steel Hall Head... Looking around me, I don¡¯t see any Guardian of Steel, only a pervert who was currently discussing his experiences in nude running with Eaglestorm!


    ¡°Yes, just like how you can¡¯t leave Lord Silver Rose, the 4 Halls 1 Court can¡¯t do without me for now.¡± There was a tinge of pride within these words that Lilith said. She has seen her previous aplishments in her job as the pride of her life.


    Indeed, if Elisa is my private head of logistics and my outer conscience, constantly reminding me not to go too far, then Lilith is the head of logistics and only conscience of the entire Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s 4 Halls 1 Court, allowing the humongous system to operate healthily. If she wasn¡¯t here, big problems would probably arise.


    ¡°Un, then let Kelvin transfer here. You find him a helper from your Hall of Legition to help him deal with his work. Are the ambassadors from Kajah and Ainsterna here yet?¡±


    TL: The other 2 Underground Autarchs if you don¡¯t remember


    ¡°Kajah¡¯s ambassador is already here. Ainsterna¡¯s ambassador should be here in a few more days.¡±


    I nodded my head satisfied. This is also one of the reason why I must stop at Chrome City. Since I have already offended 2 of the Underground Autarch, then naturally, I should try to get along with the other two and they have decisively stretched out their hand of ¡®friendship¡¯ to me.


    Joining the Underground Alliance would, needless to say, require an invitation letter. I would be lowering our value if I knock on their door. Right now, these ambassadors are definitely bringing me the invitation letter that I want.


    ¡°Just like how the surface Elves and Beastmen¡¯s rtionship forged by blood and hatred, the Dark Elves and underground Beastmen are deep-rooted enemies and the agent of the Devils and the agent of the Demons and even more so, destined to be mutual enemies. The Beastman Sovereign Shou¡¯s rtionship with Kajah and Ainsterna were destined to be fractured and Molly is an unreliable 2-faced ally. Even if the enemy of an enemy cannot be considered an ally, but they can form an alliance built on benefits.¡±


    But if you believe the Dark Elves who believes that betraying and murder is a value, and really treat the cunning and evil Devils as an alliance, that is equal to tying a knot on your own knot and handing over the knot to the other party... Not a single one of the Underground Autarchs is easy to deal with.


    ¡°Has the news of that Eternal Night Scepter is about to appear spread out?¡± As I predicted, the other party gave his confirmation and I turned my attention to the field.


    There, 16 gigantic Gnome robots were nervously testing out their weapons. The engineers from Sulfur Mountain City were currently working their hardest to rush these robots out and Chrome City¡¯s outstanding Gray Dwarves cksmith with a history of mining would be a steady pir of support for these engineers. At least, with the city¡¯s rich mined reserves, the metal used for these big fellows are much better than the original, much firmer and longsting.


    ¡°No one listens to the words of the weak in the underground world. If the weak has a treasure that no one steals, that can only mean the treasure is a fake. Then, if we want to y out a show, we should go all the way through. Before Ainsterna¡¯s ambassador arrives, let¡¯s finish building our ¡®Treasure-protecting army¡¯. Right, are these toys really safe?¡±


    ¡°This is the 3rd time you have asked today. Roren has already done 17 edits on the blueprint to refine it to perfection, it is definitely safe. Un, from theory.¡±


    ¡°Theory again. I was afraid that they would edit it to be too perfect. They are always unsatisfied with the blueprint and try to incorporate some of their unique skills and secret techniques into the product their making and call it perfection... Thest time, a Gnome did some refinement to a shaver and destroyed the entire barber shop. 2 days ago, when I asked those trouble-causing bastards again, I realized that I overlooked a blind spot.¡±


    ¡°Un?¡±


    ¡°At that time, even though the giant robot is surrounded, but in the end, everyone was fighting their own battle and no one bothered with the big fellow.¡±


    ¡°Then how was it destroyed... I get it, I will immediately get Roren and Miheuer to do an 18th edit.¡±


    Yes, that giant robot wasn¡¯t destroyed by external attacks but rather, from what I expected from the start, suicide explosion... That being said, I am starting to feel that these bastards who were punished deserved it. While getting engrossed in fighting, you all actually forgot your primary objective...


    ¡°Right, can you change the name? The name makes me panic.¡±


    A string of words could be seen from the front, Rnd No.3, Rnd No.4... all the way to Rnd No.18... These Rnds who could explode anytime, how was it possible for me, Lich Rnd, to not panic?


    ¡°That, I have already said it many times but the Gnomes and Dwarves insisted on using their creator¡¯s name and said that this was a tradition. In fact, their pilots were also very adamant, making it impossible to change it.¡±


    ¡°The pilots? You mean those pilots we chose from the Dark Elves? They shouldn¡¯t have a reason to insist on it though? I thought they hated Lich Rnd to the guts?¡±


    ¡°Yes, they really hate him very much. But they said, sitting in Rnd Number makes them feel like they are sitting inside the body of their enemies. Looking at the painted name of Rnd, it reminds them of their treasures and dowry that was destroyed twice, giving them infinite motivation. This way, they will not forget their vows to catch that bastard, no matter where he escapes to and what he disguises as... Lord, why are you squatting there, are you feeling unwell?¡±


    ¡°No, I just feel like I should reduce my size a little bit. They are so tall there, so they shouldn¡¯t be able to see my clearly right...¡±

 Chapter 36

    <h4>Chapter 36: Crossing Sword</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    From the very start, it is just a small young sprout.


    As the dew drips down, the silver sprout begins to grow gradually. Its branches extend and silver leaves started to unfurl towards the heavens...


    Afterwards, the buds of flowers begin to awaken. It, no, she stretches her back and a thin veil begins to form, turning into beautiful petals one after another.


    Its slow growing phase waspleted in just a short few seconds. Unfortunately, the one that bloomed isn¡¯t a true rose but an ice rose on the finger of a youngdy.


    ¡°Ice Creation, Rose Garden.¡±


    Lightly pinching on the branch of the rose, the leaves and flower petals floats away with the wind. Hidden under the calm tone is explicit killing intent. Behind Elisa¡¯s back is an entire garden of silver roses and rewinding just a few seconds before, it was an empty plot ofnd devoid of life.


    Every single rose is exquisite to perfection. Every branch and leaf vein seems to be trembling and breathing, as though it really has a life. Just looking at its silver chilling qualities, it shows apparently that it is a product of magic.


    A wind blows... No, the air is still calm, it is just those roses that yed the part of being blown by a wind. Countless rose petals float along the wind, bing sharp knives in the wind.


    ¡°Killing Intent: Dancing with Roses.¡±


    This may seem like a serene and beautiful sight, but it is a fatal trap that takes away lives. From the start, there wasn¡¯t any wind here. Those rose petals that seemed to be floating in the wind are in reality, knives of ice controlled by the Mage.


    Every single petal of that ice rose may seem soft and weak, but it is iparably sharp. It can even cut through te mails.


    Every single ice de is targeted towards one target... It is that fiery red giant egg.


    Countless cold flower petals attack the giant egg, but the moment ites close to its body, the tiny petals vaporize instantly.


    But Elisa didn¡¯t give up. With a snap of her fingers, another 3 roses bloom in the air. It frantically absorbs ice mana to strengthen itself and the result of the flower petals gathering the magic is that the ice branches begins to mature.... Looks like she is gathering her magic to throw a big one in.


    ¡°Sigh, to force out the Little Cradle so fast. Your family¡¯s Elisa really isn¡¯t simple at all. Compared to the immature Annie, it really is a strength thatpletely suppresses hers. Did you teach her that? It really is beautiful, I didn¡¯t expect you still have a technique like this. But, if I didn¡¯t sense wrongly, her killing intent is real? She really wants to get rid of Annie?¡±


    It is impossible for Little Red to mistake it with her eyes. She is phrasing it this way just not to make things awkward for me.


    I shook my head. I knew her meaning, how was it possible for my Ice Magic to be so exquisite...


    ¡°No. You know that my understanding towards magic is very simple and violent...¡±


    ¡°Gather magic power and st him. If you can¡¯t destroy him, gather more magic to st him. If you still can¡¯t get him, st his outer shell a few more times, then gather firepower towards his core. To tell the truth, your deration then made me and Margaret speechless. Your understanding towards magic stopped at the stage of a cannon stand and your understanding towards Elemental Magic stopped at colors. Your control towards element is also so rough and you totally ignore the properties of elements. I really can¡¯tprehend it, how did you be a SemiGod Undead Mage?¡±


    ¡°Of course it is relying on the golden fingers of the system, as long as my strength is there, rank is not a problem!¡± Fine, I won¡¯t say this kind of truthful words.


    The talents of humans tend towards the good. Outstanding talent towards the Power of Order (Holy Light, Law are all lower concepts under the Power of Order) and swordsmanship talent has already made me easily be an ace among the knights. When I converted to dark magic, I had difficulty grasping the ideas of dark magic. But, Necromancy is obviously a lower concept below the Power of Chaos, but I was able toprehend and use it easily, which shows that my aptitude towards the Power of Chaos isn¡¯t that bad either and this was already very hard toe by.


    As for controlling Elemental Magic exquisitely, is simply sting magic power over a mistake? The simpler it is, the more basic and powerful it is. Back then, when I invented ¡®Ice Aeon¡¯, which left its mark as an extremely powerful Forbidden Spell in history, its original principle was still using magic power to st the enemy, except that its mana consumption is much more outrageous...


    Elemental Magic originate from the Ancient Elemental Gods so going by logic, it should belong to the Chaos faction. But due to its outstanding destructive powers and the low requirements to learn it, it became the one of the mainstream magic between the 2 factions.


    ¡°Hmph, the understanding of other people¡¯s view towards Elemental Magic are the wrong one... Fine, don¡¯t look at me like this. I know that I suck at that aspect, you are a master of Wind and Fire, well recognized Fire expert, so don¡¯t bully this Ice Mage rookie.¡±


    ¡°No, don¡¯t put yourself down. Your skills may suck but as your mana is pure and your storage capacity is humongous, you are, on the contrary, extremely scary when ites to releasing Forbidden Spell-level magic. But your disciple went the exact different road form you. Her control over magic even allowed her to carve the veins of the leaf. The rose des are indeed very creative, but due to its exquisiteness, it is weak and fragile, so she seemed to have went overboard to.¡±


    ¡°She is a Fire Elemental Demon after all. Even if she had studied Ice Magic for nearly a century, but the amount of Ice mana that she can umte is limited. You also know, the only Ice magic that I do know are those big magics. When though they aren¡¯t difficult to grasp, but they have a high requirement on the mana capacity. She is unable to utilize the higher-level magic and Forbidden Spells, so she spent a lot of effort on Ice Creation and rted magic which I don¡¯t specialize in. But the results seem to be quite good.¡±


    Little Red and I chatted while at the same, keeping our guards up to be ready to strike out at any time to prevent any serious injuries from urring.


    Initially, Annie had already decided to go out to gain some experience in real battle. When she learnt that Elisa is also a Gold Pinnacle Mage, Annie challenged her and the sight before me is also within expectations.


    They may both be Gold pinnacle but with the umtion of hundred years of experience, Elisa was able to have an overwhelming advantage over her and very swiftly, she forced Annie into the Little Cradle stage.


    ¡°Pah!¡± Which a snap of her fingers, the 3 roses which have gathered sufficient magic power bursts open and the fragments, as sharp as knife, rotates as it flies towards the giant egg.


    ¡°Aoooooooooooooo!!!¡±


    Before the ice fragments hit it, following a roar, the giant fire egg bursts open and the mes spread in all directions. At the same time, a 3-meter big Phoenix flies to the sky.


    ¡°The Little Cradle absorbs and stores its power until its limit before exploding into a Phoenix Strike, Adam¡¯s ssical shameless battle strategy. In the Fire Phoenix form, Annie¡¯s high body temperature can easily melt any ice, the ipatibility in elements is too obvious. Looks like your student Elisa is going to lose.¡±


    I smiled in reply. ¡°She won¡¯t lose. Why don¡¯t we bet something, like that red gem defense essory in your treasure vault?


    Little Red also smiles, ¡°I¡¯m not betting. After so many years, is there any single bet you lose in?¡±


    I tried my best to recall and realized that that it was true I haven¡¯t really lost in a bet... Without a 100% chance at victory, I refuse to bet. Even if I am forced into it, I would definitely cheat and if I were to really lose, of all odds, I would probably refuse to pay.


    Little Red¡¯s had decided not to bet but the scene that unfurled before her eyes made her regret her decision a bit.


    The Phoenix flies to the highest point and after a sharp roar, it starts swiping down. At the same time, Elisa didn¡¯t stop her attacks but in the face of the burning Phoenix, the countless ice splints, ice spears and ice awl melted into water even before it could touch her.


    Facing immense danger in front of her, Elisa was extremely calm. Her both hands twirl around in the air and the water vapor that was gathered earlier instantly solidifies and countless ice threads tied the Phoenix in ce.


    ¡°You, cannot tie Annie down!!¡±


    Following Annie¡¯s deration and burst of strength, the ice threads melt continuously and Elisa could only continuously form new threads in exchange to seal the Phoenix¡¯s motion. It has alreadye to a critical period of their duel, it is the harmony of Fire and Ice, a dance between the two youngdies.


    When Elisa finally finish weaving her web, sealing Annie within, a familiar call of the Phoenix rings out and fire begins to burst in all direction again before forming back into a Fire Phoenix which begins its charge once more.


    ¡°A second Cradle? Little Annie sure learns fast.¡±


    This time, after using the formless web of water vapor is gone, Elisa no longer has any methods of stopping her.


    When magic is ineffective in stopping her, facing Annie who was charging in at high speed, Elisa had nowhere to retreat to.


    ¡°The Warrior has closed in on the Mage, Elisa has lost. Ahhhhhh, I knew I should have bet with you. Were you just faking it just now?¡±


    ¡°No, if you really bet with me this time, you would have lost. For sure!¡±


    Little Red was on the verge of asking something but the next scene that she saw left her in shock.


    Towards the charging Phoenix, Elisa actually took in a deep breath of air and opens her arms, getting ready to catch her.


    ¡°That charge of that Fire Phoenix Transformation is actually the God Sword Blessing of the Phoenix, she is seeking death!¡± Little Red was intending to terminate this duel but I stopped her. ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate Elisa.¡±


    ¡°Tssssssssssssssss!¡± That is the familiar sound of meat being grilled on a metal te. Most probably, her both hands are already cooked but Elisa, seeming to feel nothing, threw away her staff, pulls in her stomach while sticking out her chest, draws her right hand behind and punches!


    ¡°Dang!¡± This fist actually gave a sound like the metal pole hitting the bell.


    TL: Metal pole hitting the bell -> This


    While everything was still shaking, the Elemental Barrier of the Phoenix scatters and a red-haired youngdy who was turning her head around appears from within...


    What happen afterwards is a one-sided ughter.


    ¡°Arm lock, throwing techniques, grabbing the enemy¡¯s hand while hugging their legs and sending a hook, metal te crush, neck-pulling and the Hell¡¯s great rotation... Aren¡¯t these those weird fighting techniques of yours?


    TL: All attacking techniques and really no idea what it means so I¡¯m just going to directly trante word for word.


    ¡°Please call it self-defense skills of a Mage. These are precious fighting techniques that came from another world.


    Un, calling it wrestling techniques aren¡¯t wrong too...


    At this point, Annie¡¯s arm has been locked in a ? position and can only pat the ground to surrender. The winner is already determined, and it is Elisa¡¯splete victory.


    ¡°So that¡¯s how it is, half-demon huh? What fearsome brute strength.¡±


    ¡°Yes, this brute strength is sufficient topete with DemiDragons. You haven¡¯t seen her sweep yet. With just a light sweep, she can send the entire sofa flying. Then, she would take my secret money stash and treats it as the wages that I owe her...


    Fine, seems like I identally exposed something but this isn¡¯t the main point now.


    ¡°She hasn¡¯t demonstrated her battle prowess in mid to near rangebat when she gathers all of her steel wires mixed together with ice wires. Have you forgotten that she is a fire element half-demon? She has astonishing immunity towards fire damage. Also, coupled with her ice magic that is effective against fire magic and her outstanding closebat skills, she is Annie¡¯s nemesis.¡±


    ¡°You seem to be very delighted?¡±


    ¡°Of course I am delighted. My disciple just beat Adam¡¯s disciple. She might have certain advantages due to shes in their attributes, but doesn¡¯t this mean that my ability to teach is above that of Adam¡¯s?


    ¡°Hah, she is a shared disciple between you and Margaret.


    Finally, after watching the entire battle by the side, Lilith couldn¡¯t take it any longer and interrupts.


    ¡°Madam Lorci¡¯s envoy has already waited for 2 days. May I ask when does my Lord has the free time to meet her?¡±


    ¡°No hurry, Dark Elves all have cheap bones. If you try talk to them nicely, they won¡¯t listen to you. Leave her be for 2 days, until she understands her situation.¡±


    Hearing that, despite the fact that I was obviously ndering her own brethren, Diana and Yawen who was standing beside Lilith nods their head vehemently.


    ¡°I heard that it was a Matriarch of a middle-ss family, so it is more unlikely for them to interact obediently. In my opinion, we should at least leave her for half a month.¡±


    It isn¡¯t the first time I am trying tomunicate with the Dark Elf Nobles so I am quite experienced. If these female nobles are Lorci¡¯s Priestess, that would make them even more difficult to deal with. In the eyes of Lorci¡¯s Priestesses and Dark Elf Matriarchs, there are only 2 types of males in all races. A ve with a master and a wild-born ve that is temporarily without a master...


    I don¡¯t even to have to see her to know that the envoy would immediately use a tone of as though doing charity towards me, choking people to death the instant she opens her mouth.


    ¡°Males, may the light shine upon your head (This is one of the most venomous curse of the Dark Elves), our female goddess has sent her will and you must...¡±


    Basically, socializing with Dark Elves will be a one-sided affair of them giving orders. It is one thing if you agree, but if it is war straight if you refuse to agree. This kind of entric socializing method makes it highly possible for discussions to fall through... However, Dark Elves basically don¡¯t need to socialize. They spend most of their time fighting. In a way, being able to socialize means that the other party has recognized your strength. At the very least, fighting would not be beneficial.


    I can guarantee that the Dark Elves still think that we owe them a favor... Why? Back when the 2 Underground Autarchs attacked, by not joining in and stabbing us in the back, in the bizarre values of the Dark Elves, just by not causing further harm, it can already be considered as an outstanding act of kindness.


    This situation is sort of like a test. If the proud envoy still managed to get VIP treatment, this means that you have something to plead them for. Then, they would propose absurd conditions in exchange.


    So, to interact with Dark Elves, time and patience cannot becking. Whoever who takes the initiative to negotiate would be at a disadvantage right from the start.


    But, if we arepeting in terms of patience... Hehe, I am a very patient person. It is best to wait until the envoy of thest Underground Autarch is here so that everyone can start the haggling together.


    In this instant, from the other side of the field, a group of Dark Elf Justice Knights ran here. They are wearing thin shirts and are barefooted. Yet, they carry a heavy chain mail and were shouting a fearsome chant as they walked past us...


    Do you feel like the scene is a bit familiar? That is how I punished Diana from the start.


    Seeing my questioning eyes, Diana replies slight embarrassed.


    ¡°The punishment was tough but after I reached my limits, I felt like my powers reached a new peak. This kind of carrying weights barefooted drills is very effective in training one¡¯s will and pushing one¡¯s body to the limit. Thus, I promoted this sort of training method in the team. Then, 2rades who were stuck at Silver pinnacle broke into the Gold-rank right after their first try.¡±


    Gratitude could be seen from her beautiful eyes but I didn¡¯t feel the happiness. Instead, I asked worriedly.


    ¡°I am not asking about this, your chant...¡±


    ¡°Oh, that, ¡®one two one two, train hard, three four three four, catch Rnd, five six five six, boil Rnd soup, seven eight seven eight, save our dowry¡¯. That was created by thess Momo, reminding us that we must remember our goals.¡±


    ¡°The others are still okay but dowry? Are you all in such a rush to marry someone? Then why did you all reject the advances of the Knights in the city?¡±


    ¡°Oh, you are misunderstanding something. This dowry is a ng word we are used to saying. You see, we, Dark Elves, don¡¯t have the same concept of marriage as other races. Finding apanion, isn¡¯t it still marrying a man? In our ng, ¡®dowry¡¯ refers to ¡®marrying a man¡¯s money¡¯, which is equal to your so-called treasuring a wife for money.¡±


    TL: A bit hard to trante, treasured wife¡¯s money (???????) -> ??? means something to be cherished while ??? refer to men who marry women for money.


    Speechless, my head swayed.


    ¡°I respect the customs of different tribes, so I still can ept it. But, isn¡¯t Rnd...¡±


    Before I can finish my words, the two Dark Elves Captain¡¯s faces were full of frost...


    ¡°Two times, our house, our sry and properties that took us so much difficulty to umte. Lord, just this thing, I can¡¯t give it up. I must ount to my sisters!!¡±


    Alright, there is nothing more to say. Looks like this crime is mine to carry.

 Chapter 37

    <h4>Chapter 37: Xiluo and the Four Heavenly Kings</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Xiluo Empire consists made up of Xiluo Swamp, Karda Desert and Beyja Hignds. Itsplicated terrain makes it an easy territory to defend, but hard tounch an offense from... Actually, to be more precise and blunt, it is a horrendous ce where the living are unable to reside in.


    The Great Death Swamp, the sparsely popted Great Desert and the Freezing Hignds, these are the 3 great dangerous restricted areas for the living, forming a hell for the living and yground for the dead.


    Not a lot of people knows that in this magical world, the harshness of nature isn¡¯t unbeatable. In the depths of the Great Swamp, there is and where it is spring all year round, the grasses and wood are dense and the scenery just like a painting. That is the capital of Xiluo ¡ª Xiluo, the Kr Administrative District.


    Even this seemingly miraculousnd was traded for with a high price and a lot of time, the Soul Towers at the areas beside the capital were forever radiating the light of souls and magic. In other times, it would have meant a death flood of white bones but now, it is just countless undead workers who were working.


    As long as it is an intelligent being, even if it is a high-tier undead who hates the living, they still retain their sense of aesthetics from when they are living. No one likes it when their home is a pile of wreckage and dirty mud.


    The immortal Undead nevercked time and manpower. When the people of the world still thinks it is a sight of hell here, but then somehow, this ce has already started to gradually change.


    Xiluo Empire¡¯s capital Xiluo, there are nearly a million silver-rank and above intelligent Undead, 20 million living that serve as servants and ves and the number of low-tier Undead arepletely immeasurable. The scenery in the city is breathtaking, it is well-equipped with all the basic infrastructure and transportationwork, that consists of underground pipes and floating crafts, were extremely technologically advanced. If we only look at the city¡¯s scale and design, even the And Capital which is known for its extravagance can¡¯t evenpare to half of Xiluo¡¯s.


    The sculptures by the road might just be a certain country¡¯s royalty heirloom that was passed down for thousands of years. This is the umtion from the Undead Empire which has destroyed numerous kingdoms.


    TL: umtion -> can¡¯t think of any suitable English word for this word is normally used to refer to a person/country/anything has umted quite a bit and has huge resources behind it. For e.g. can be used to refer to a multitude of financial resources an old merchant umted throughout his lifetime. Can be used for military power etc. too


    In one of the luxurious mansions within Xiluo City, the 7th Senator of the Empire, Spider Marquis Lionheart is currently dealing with matters of governance. As one of the strongest Death Knights in the Empire, he is the Commander of the Death Knights in name and their teacher. However, in the eyes of the people of the Empire, he is always dressed in a loose clothing reminiscent of schrs and appearing with the image of a gentle and intelligent general.


    TL: The capital of Xiluo Empire is Xiluo.


    But those truly understand him will know that once this fellow gets on the battlefield, he would be a ferocious beast that cannot be controlled. There was once he went against the orders of his superior and made an inhuman record by traveling 2000km within 17 days to destroy an entire kingdom. The so-called ¡®Keeper of History¡¯ and ¡®The Polite Schrly General¡¯ can only be said to be his hobby and disguise off the battlefield.


    But today, this ¡®Eternal Royal Guard of the Emperor Yongye¡¯, ¡®Goes Mad the Moment He Gets On the War Chariot, the Irrational Undead War Chariot¡¯ was inside his own residence and deeply in thought with 2 intelligence reports in hand. His dignified face hardens, as though he has met with an extremely difficult question.


    ¡°Lionheart, why are you looking so bitter? Is those long-ears in the West starting to cause trouble? Or did the barbarians in the South go down their mountains? If it is this kind of interesting stuff, then let big sister share your worries.¡±


    A cold andzy female voice could be heard from outside the residence. Despite it being a question, a strange sense of happiness and teasing could be felt within her tone, as though as she was getting excited from the thought of fighting.


    ¡°Lord Gray.Sin, there is no fighting and please do not try to stir up war. I have told you many times that the wariness the living has towards us has already reached the limit. Towards the Empire, a meaningless war isn¡¯t a good thing.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, then why did you call me here today. You know that I am only interested in war. Or, could it be that the bunch of Liches of the Council is bored and looking for things to do? Or is it the diplomacy problem thest time. You better go look for other Senators, I, the 4th Senator, the Duchess of the Empire, Bone Dragon Queen Gray.Sin is uninterested in those matters.¡±


    Looking at just the outer appearance, she is a cold and tall female Elf, her long silver hair reaches down all the way to her waist, her pale skin which has no trace of redness from blood had a bizarre kind of aesthetics to it and a long skirt that drags all the way to the floor had the color of red and ck intertwining on it. The most striking part of her appearance is her eyes, those inverted ck-white eyes that seemed to be felt like a ck hole that is absorbing light. There seems to be something there, yet nothing there.


    TL: Meaning ck sclera, white iris


    Xiluo Empire¡¯s structure is probably the weirdest one in the entire world. Despite being an Empire, it doesn¡¯t have an Emperor and all of the authority is split among the 12 Senators. There is a Council of Dark Night which takes care of everything in the Empire but towards the 12 Senators, they only have the authority to suggest ideas...


    Simply said, there is a bunch of Undead Lords (Senators) that were grasping all of the military might, which the Council of Dark Night isn¡¯t able to interfere with. But, the Senators also can¡¯t do anything towards the authority of the united Liches. So, without the Undead Emperor with the highest authority, both parties can only walk their own way without interfering with each other, resulting in the formation of this weird structure.


    Of course, there are Senators that are close to the Council. In fact, the Head of the Council is the 2nd Senator Feyman. There are also quite a few other Senators which walks very closely with the Council and the debate to abolish the council is brought up every year. But, if they don¡¯t want to start an internal war, then this suggestion is destined to never pass through.


    Gray.Sin and Lionheart are Senators which aren¡¯t close with the Council of Dark Night. In fact, while most of the Senators has set their eyes on the seat of the Emperor, they were the very few of the Royalty Faction who believes that there will be a day where Lord Yongye would return... This is a very idealistic notion that is weed by old soldiers of the time of the Emperor, but as it is unrealistic so it is unable to strike it big in the undead tribe which is getting more and more pragmatic. As time passes, more and more of theirpanions started to turn to other factions.


    Not long ago, the Royalty Faction which had 4 Senators began to fracture again as one of the Four Heavenly Kings under the Emperor, Ghoul King Decars turned to the Council Faction, striking a heavy blow to this small faction.


    Wanting to be the Big Boss Faction (Most of the Senators), the Council Faction (The 2nd Senator leading the pack), the Idealistic Royalty Faction and the Living Life Casually Faction, this are probably the biggest factions in Xiluo Empire.


    It might sound veryplicated but if you were topare it with the hundreds of factions in a Human Empire, in a country with more than 10 million intelligent beings, the situation with the undead could be said to be very simple already. Not to mention, most of the undead has already shouted out their goals directly ¡®wait for the Emperor to return¡¯, ¡®the Council takes over the governance, I will be the leader¡¯, ¡®Ah Dang doesn¡¯t have any opinion on who bes the leader, Ah Dang only wants to eat¡¯, ¡®if I be the leader, I will start another Undead Cmity¡¯, these kinds of words would be considered inconceivable in the human society which likes to beat around the bush.


    Right now, 2 of the leaders of the Royalty Faction are meeting directly in the day. Probably, rumors are flying around right now.


    But in this instant, under Gray.Sin¡¯s questioning, Lionheart didn¡¯t even raise his head and only threw out a sentence at her.


    ¡°There is news on Eternal Night Scepter.¡±


    Gray.Sin was stunned for a moment before shock covers her face.


    ¡°I thought you said the Eternal Night Scepter definitely doesn¡¯t exist? I thought those famous works of yours is just used to scare others?¡±


    ¡°Yes, going by my judgement then, the Emperor is probably treating it as a joke. In fact, a joke in bad humor. Those things I wrote was just to make those ambitious factions that are intending to enthrone themselves spend their efforts to look for a wooden scepter that would possibly never be found.¡±


    Lionheart raises his head and his sword-shaped eyebrows twisted together and his expression could be said to be vorful, there is happiness, angry, reminiscence and uneasiness...


    ¡°Yesterday, I received 2 news regarding the underground world. One of them was regarding the Eternal Night Scepter... But, I rmend that you see the other one first.¡±


    Gray.Sin snatches it over, but...


    ¡°I thought that it was some important intelligence, but isn¡¯t this a tourism brochure? Lionheart, do you intend to go on a holiday? And inviting me too? I¡¯m sorry, you are a good man, but other than the Emperor, I am not interested in any other Undead.¡±


    Already used to his unreliablerades, butpared to the other 2 of the Heavenly Kings, the Bone Dragon Queen which tends to overthink things is much easier to deal with. He solemnly epts the good man card and says inly.


    ¡°Please look at it more carefully.¡±


    ¡°The Death Royale Undead Theme Park and Ghost Festival Tourism Week, enjoy a tour full of surprise of darkness and death. There will be 30 free entrance tickets to give away before we open for business? What is this!! Is this some kind ofme n that an idiot came up with? Boring, I would be interested in a War Theme Park though. But Undead Theme Park and Ghost Festival, don¡¯t we have that every day here?¡±


    ¡°Please look at it more carefully.¡±


    ¡°Sulfur Mountain City? Oh, Adam.Han finally went mad? That is something to celebrate about!!¡±


    ¡°Please look at it more carefully...¡± Even the patient Lionheart was starting to lose it with the Bone Dragon Queen¡¯s entric and scattered thoughts. Helplessness and pleading were infused into his tone.


    Looking at the steeled face of her little brother, Gray.Sin finally decided to get serious. When she flipped to the second page, she stunned.


    That was a very vivid advertisement picture. On it, many different Undead were wearing weird clothes while walking the streets. Some were banging the gong and hitting the drums, some were singing and dancing but if it was just it, how could Gray.Sin be startled?


    Right now, she can only open her mouth wide, pointing towards a corner of the picture, her image as an Undead Lords all went down the gutter.


    Dressed in many different colors with peacock feathers poking into him, the Skeleton Dog was trying his best to use his lower limb to handstand. Below him, there is a green colored ball. It is a game of a cute pet pushing the ball.


    However, its bncing techniques didn¡¯t seem to be outstanding, just a careless mistake and he would fall and the artist managed to capture the silliness in the instant he fell.


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH... IT IS BOSS! Bastian, the fierce and strong leader of the Four Heavenly Kings, the Demonic Space Hellhound Bastian!!¡±


    Lionheart has already covered his ears in advance but even so, he was rattled to the bones by the Bone Dragon Queen¡¯s siren-like scream. This ancient Bone Dragon Queen¡¯s voice was long reputed to be the Throat of Death... ¡°Seriously amazing dissonance. I give you all the authority to beat her up the moment she starts to prepare to sing ¡ª by some Emperor¡±


    In this instant, Lionheart could also understand the shriek of death by the other party. Back then when he first looked at this painting, he wasn¡¯t much better either.


    Demonic Space Hellhound Bastian, the Captain of the Royal Guards of Lord Yongye, the Red Hunting Hounds, the vicemander of the entire Yongye Army, the leader of the Four Heavenly Kings, there are bunch of these kind of titles but what is known is that he is the strongest Undead Lord. He has destroyed countless armies and kingdoms by himself and only wreckage is left on thend he passes through. He is the most trusted and relied on general by Emperor Yongye.


    His subordinates and he should have been killed in that war but his sudden appearance, and furthermore with such a cute look, naturally scared Gray.Sin badly.


    ¡°It can¡¯t be wrong, that weird bend of the tail, the scars on the brain and more importantly, the eerie sight of having 2 left legs in the front and 2 right legs at the back, it is impossible for any other skeleton dogs to look like that.¡±


    ¡°Yes, other than Lord Bastian, I can¡¯t think of anyone else who would take out their four limbs when the sleep and reattach them randomly after waking up. Front leg, back leg, left leg, right leg, he reassembles it as he pleases and then when he starts walking, his four limbs moves freely, causing him to instantly walk in circles...¡±


    The sudden appearance of the leader of the Four Heavenly Kings who should have been dead and what it means made Gray.Sin feel like happiness came to quick and happiness, yet at the same time, she felt a little unconfident.


    ¡°Could it be that the artist drew it randomly...¡±


    ¡°No, you look at the back.¡±


    Turning to the next page, there is a Skeleton General that has 18 arms. Right now, what is on his arms isn¡¯t swords with fresh blood on it but wooden poles with spinning tes on it.


    There was even an exnation below ¡®The Jack-of-all-trades Defay will show you tricks that defy human limits, spinning 18 tes at once!¡±


    Squinting her eyes, Gray.Sin stared for a long time but didn¡¯t really get it.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think that there is anything there. Only a fellow that knows how to spin tes.¡±


    ¡°When Skeleton Generals go up in rank, they can choose to grow another pair of arm to wield more weapons, but the soul has its limits. Being overly focused with too many weapons would only hurt oneself. A normal Skeleton General is able to control 4 weapons at once, top-ss weapon experts can wield 8 at once and Undead Lord-ss could wield 12. There is a person that can wield 16 though, the subordinate of Lord Bastian, the Head Instructor of Red Hunting Hounds, Great Sword Saint Fayde. Looks like he has improved.¡±


    ¡°Defay? Fayde? There is totally no effort give for this fake name!¡±


    ¡°There is also this person.¡±


    This is a Duhan using his own head to y Polo... Note below ¡®An exciting race that you have never seen before.¡¯


    ¡°Camisia that dumbass!! That stupid bald old man! That cross-eyed idiot, I would recognize him even if he turns to ashes.¡±


    ¡°Yes, the person with strength of a Titan, the terrifying charge of courage, the Vice-captain of the Red Hunting Hounds, Lord Camisia. Also, there is this person...¡±


    It is a Lich with her hands rubbed together. In this instant, her face was full of smiles and she was carrying a bag of green-colored liquid... Note below ¡®You have definitely never drunk before such delicious drinks. Created especially for you by Master Alchemist Feyfey, the favorite of those who likes to exercise.¡¯


    ¡®That insignia of Alchemy and that queer hat... The Mistress of gues Kaka. Even Undead do not dare to drink the medicine she makes. Those living, puu, after drinking it, they would definitely be strengthened but I hope that they still remember what they look like, so that they can try to find back their original appearance.¡±


    ¡°There is still this, this and this.¡±


    ¡°The legendary Bone Dragon who serves as a ride, a female Viper who dances belly dance and a great Witch who does divination... I roughly get it.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my intelligence team disguised as tourists have went in to y for a while and even received thememoration badge indicating that they are the 9th tourist. Looks like their business isn¡¯t doing good. Un, they have confirmed that the people in the picture are all real, that is to say...¡±


    Gray.Sin stands up, her eerie eyes full of happiness.


    ¡°That is to say that our Emperor is still alive! Yes, only our Emperor can make these top warriors dress in such a look and only our Emperor can make our leader obediently y with his ball!!¡±


    ¡°Un, this is only a primary conjecture. Back then, there were many things amiss with that incident. Why did the Royal Guards Red Hunting Hounds suddenly leave behind our Emperor and head to and a thousand miles away, why did the armies of the other 3 Heavenly Kings suddenly be deployed to the sidelines far away from the core of the battle, allowing them to escape the brunt of the internal conflict... Maybe, the underground world will bring us some answers.¡±


    What that should originally be breaking news about the appearance of Lord Yongye, in the eyes of these two, due to the small tourist brochure, became unimportant.


    ¡°I must go to the underground world, Now. Hmph, damned Decars, he was brought up bit by bit from a weak Ghoul by the Emperor. Back then, you were the one most who spoke up the loudest for revenge so we thought that you were the most loyal of us all. In the end, you managed to hold on for a hundred years but still betrayed us in the end. When our Emperor and leader is back, look at how they will deal with you.¡±


    After hesitating for a moment, Lionheart speaks softly.


    ¡°Actually, Lord Decars¡¯s betrayal is suspicious as well. 10 years ago, when we received news about Adam.Han but the proposal to exact revenge was blocked and even we didn¡¯t support him to do as his please, didn¡¯t he go to Sulfur Mountain City by himself to look for Adam for revenge? We thought that he wouldn¡¯t return...¡±


    ¡°Yes, no one would have thought that not only did he return, but he even happily organized a few fighting tournaments. Just when we were happy with how he thought it through, he...


    ¡°In a turn of the eye, he abandoned us for the Council Faction... Maybe, this is the most suspicious point of all. Emperor had praised Decars and his most loyal dog many times. This may seem like an insult but you also know, our Emperor has an exceptional affection towards dogs so Decars has always treated this title as the highest honor and the Emperor¡¯s exclusive nickname for him.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, back then he wanted to use ¡®Night of Dog Packs¡¯ this weird name to rece the name of the army ¡®Night of Winter Wolves¡¯, it was ddening that you managed to stop it. But, it was a pity that the Royal Guards still went with the name Red Hunting Hounds. Pink Queen Army obviously sounds much better.¡±


    ¡°Cough.¡± A light cough eventually became an internal nder. ¡°Your taste in names is as entric as the Emperor¡¯s, and in addition to your Throat of Death, that is the reason why Emperor chose Lord Bastian and not you as the Head of Royal Guards to apany him around.¡±


    Of course, he wouldn¡¯t say these words out loud.


    ¡°I believe in our Emperor¡¯s judgement. Since he believes Decars to such an extent, then Decars should be worthy of our trust as well... Or maybe, Lord Decars met someone in the underground world, or someone gave him certain instructions...¡±


    Saying these words, the gaze of the two people immediately shot towards the tourism brochure on the table.


    ¡°I¡¯m heading out now.¡±


    ¡°I am unable to leave Xiluo so I can only depend on you. The underground world would definitely be chaotic now. If even we ¡®ignorant militarists¡¯ (a nder for the Council) can find news about the Eternal Night Scepter, the fellows who have been looking for it for a century would definitely go all out for it. Lord Gray.Sin, please prioritize looking for that person. If I am not wrong, that scepter is most probably a trapid by that person!¡±


    Gray.Sin isn¡¯t a person who doesn¡¯t listen to advice. That little brother, despite not being one of the Four Heavenly Kings, but just based on his loyalty towards the Emperor and his wisdom, he managed to climb up step by step to the core of the Royalty faction. His suggestions tend to be useful to an old fellow like herself, so she would naturally try to respect it.


    ¡°Right, please bring along Lord Ah Dang. If I didn¡¯t guess wrongly, since the person is causing a storm right now, he should be looking forward to reuniting with Lord Ah Dang.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure? Fine, I get it, I will bring it along.¡±


    The Carnivore Ah Dang, the final head of the Royalty faction, the 12th Senator. In reality, it is a Giant Abomination. It didn¡¯t have high intelligence but if you were to look at individual battle prowess, there probably isn¡¯t a single undead in Xiluo that would dare challenge this ¡®dull-witted kid unworthy of being an Undead Lord and Senator¡¯.


    TL: Abomination -> Probably looks something like this


    Ah Dang doesn¡¯t have a high intelligence but after the departure of the Emperor, he listens obediently to the words of his big brothers and big sisters. As long as Gray.Sin asks for it, he would even tear apart the Council¡¯s building and bash those Lich Councilors who ndered the Emperor.


    Looking at the leaving Gray.Sin, Lionheart stands up and looking at the sight of prosperity outside the window, he falls into deep thoughts.


    This is the teaching of the Emperor...


    ¡°Small Lionheart, just being able to fight isn¡¯t cute. A fighter wouldn¡¯tst long and someone who only knows how to charge straight would be treated like a fool. It is better you study more and get a proper job. Right, do you like history? I have always thought that reading history would make one more intelligent. If you have the time, study more history books.¡±


    Remembering that pair of big warm hands (After being beautified in his memories), the gentle, knowledgeable and caring voice (Also being beautified), the Emperor¡¯s servant Small Lionheart has now be the Keeper of History Lionheart and after trying to study history to understand the present, he used his both eyes to see through the boundaries of time.


    ¡°You are always worrying while reading those history books, as though those disastrous catastrophes that destroyed eons and worlds mighte again and those weird prediction notebooks that even I am unable to understand? God of Order? God of Death Ayer? Chain reaction? Butterfly effect? Emperor, just what were you looking at, just what made you despair and give up everything to start from scratch... Who!! Come out!¡±


    After a roar, a familiarughing face appears outside the door. It is Gray.Sin who went and returned.


    ¡°Little brother Lionheart, it¡¯s better to lower down your volume when you talk to yourself. Otherwise, if it spreads out, other people will treat you like a lunatic.¡±


    ¡°You heard it...¡±


    ¡°No, no, I only came back to inform you of something, I heard nothing at all.¡±


    Facing this Bone Dragon Queen who was trying her best to act ignorant, Lionheartughs, albeit a little irritated. Ah Dang and her are his most trusted people in this dangerous country.


    ¡°Inform me what?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t call me Gray.Sin in the future, change it to Gria. Don¡¯t call it wrongly.¡±


    Hearing this, Lionheart felt a little baffled.


    ¡°Why? You have been called Gray.Sin for the past thousand years so why change your name suddenly? It can¡¯t be that you have listened to those fortune tellers in alleys, they are con-artists who are unskilled, you know.¡±


    ¡°No, no, it is just that some trouble came up and I must change my name?¡±


    ¡°Inconceivable! Who can make a first-tier Duchess Senator of the Empire change her name?¡±


    ¡°Before that, didn¡¯t the Elders tried to reorganize the nobility system and their inheritors of the whole country? Suddenly, they realized that my name was unable to appear inside the magic website, so it cannot be printed. Thus, they rmended that I change my name.¡±


    ¡°Unable to appear? Why?¡±


    TL: Her name is Ge Lei. Si -> I would have tranted it to Grace if it wasn¡¯t for the dot.


    ¡°It is that Lei Si that caused the problem. It is said that in a faraway mountainous area, Lei.Si is another way to call women who has a unique sexual orientation. Didn¡¯t we undergo a system update and the magical website, for the sake of the creation of society, started to block out these banned words so now, that magical website instantly changes all banned words in XX.¡±


    ¡°So, if you insist on calling me Ge Lei.Si, in the future, my namete would show Empire First-Tier Duchess, The 4th Senator Ge XX... Isn¡¯t that too embarrassing? So I had no choice but to change my name to Gria, so don¡¯t call it wrongly.¡±


    ¡°Can there be an even more ridiculous reason for your change? For a Senator of the Empire, you changed your name for such a ridiculous reason? Don¡¯t you hear your pride and dignity crying?¡±


    ¡°Alright, I heard that the main reason is that some will of the universe couldn¡¯t be bothered to put a dot in the middle of my name, so my name had to change...¡±

 Chapter 38

    <h4>Chapter 38: The Elves and the City of tinum</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Underground City Velkastance, in the words of the goblins, it means ¡®City of tinum¡¯. It has a very unique geographical location, being in the middle of quite a few active volcanoes. It is a city among volcanoes and the river ofva that flows tirelessly cuts the city off from the surroundingnd.


    To enter the pavilion in the sky, one must go through the spiral staircase at the city below and the moment they meet invaders, they only have to block these spiral stairs or simply drown it with water or poisonous gas then basically, they would be cut off the rest of the world.


    At the back of this city, between the wall of rocks, there is actually an opening that leads to the surface, allowing it to dominate the business between the surface and the underground world and even more so, giving it an escape route in times of danger.


    In the underground world, safety is a something viewed more important than any other incentives. Very quickly, after it drew in numerous merchants to permanently reside in the city, it became a city with business from near and far. Other than the goblins who insists on using its original name, other races normally name it as Vance.


    Vance City¡¯s outstanding geographical location makes it an ideal fortress, turning it into a true golden city of the underground world, earning the goblins who found and built it a great deal... Of course, in the underground city, not possessing power to protect your treasures and fortune is also an original sin.


    But, the wall behind its back cannot protect it from daggersing from the back and the breath of flying dragons. After a series of scheming and calctions, the pioneer batch of goblins who created this city has already disappeared and now, this ce is without a City Lord, making it neutral city without a lord.


    The reason? As the factions within the city is tooplicated, there are influences from every underground lord within the city so whoever who bes the city lord could very possibly be assassinated the next day, Thus, this formed the eerie situation of not having any lords.


    ¡°Leave this as a public passage to the surface and a location to trade with other cities, a neutral zone for diplomacy¡¯, the Underground Lords and Underground Autarchs who have tasted the sweetness formed a consensus on this issue.


    This is also the main reason why Vance city is used for negotiating the Underground Alliance. After all, if you negotiate on the grounds of the Dark Elves, the Gray Dwarves and Beastmen would be displeased, if you negotiate on the Beastmen territory, the Elves, Dwarves and Humans wouldn¡¯t be able to ept it, if you try to strike the deal in the Dragon City, everyone would have to grow a pair of wings first and if you do it the goblin territory which is highly business-focused, due to the expensive fee in entering the city and for lodgings, everyone won¡¯t be pleased.


    The lord-less Vance naturally became only choice.


    One week ago, there was an astonishing entrance to the city. The news of 17 gigantic metal Titans and the Eternal Night Scepter that it was protecting has already spread across the entire underground city and Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s young City Lord Annie has started to gain some fame.


    Right now, cloaked in my long robe and a mantle, I started wandering around this city which was quite simr to Sulfur Mountain City.


    When I say that Vance City is simr to Sulfur Mountain City, I meant that it is a city with diverse races, without nobility, a well-known prosperous trading city but in my eyes, it is the exact same points on where they differ.


    Other than the Undead, who very few people can ept having them as neighbors, most of the Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s different races live together. A small shop, a patrolling team, a barber, it is possible that their members are of different races and also, the mindset of that all races are equal has already been ingrained in Sulfur Mountain City so very and such isn¡¯t an eptable act.


    But in this city, the very trade is quite lucrative and in fact, there are even markets and coliseums specially for ves. There might be many different races living here, but the districts they live in are demarcated very clearly. The boundaries of each race are clear and their fighting has never stopped in the shadows. For example, the 2 Wolf Rider humans who just got dragged Beastmen District would probably be nevering out.¡±


    ¡°... This should be the Elf District and only they would be so free.¡±


    The Elves are publicly known to be the number 1 race in their aesthetics sense. Their pursuit for beauty and art is boundless. The exiled Dark Elves are no different and if you think this only applies to infrastructures, sculptures and paintings, you are underestimating them.


    In front of me at the top of the rock cliff, a gigantic stone has been carved into a vivid image of an elegantdy. That seeming to reject yet weing expression, the lips that were slightly curved up and the sexy figure which her 2 hands were unable to cover tend to make one think about some unspeakable things.


    ¡°Uncle Bones, look at this sword. It is so pretty!!¡±


    Since it is a private visit, then naturally, I wouldn¡¯t bring too much people along. Behind me, also wearing a mantle, is the envoy team¡¯s leader in name Annie and my external conscience Elisa.


    In this instant, Annie was waving a thin mithril sword. The sword¡¯s body is long and slim like a needle. On it, there is golden-color rose carved on it and on the handle, 2 Fallen Angels beside each other was sculpted on it. Their wings were spread apart, as though roaring towards the heavens.


    Yet, the glowing green de indicates that it isn¡¯t just a piece of decoration but a lethal weapon that has been enchanted with poison. At least, the dark-skinned Dark Elf merchant is currently trying to convince the young city lord on this point.


    Art Piece: The Sword of Fallen Angels?


    Attack Power: 0-5 (+1 Poison Damage) Tier: Superior ?


    Special Ability: None. Oh, no, she still has a special ability. At least, it can show that you are rich and silly enough to buy this luxurious but unpractical toy. Perhaps, if you dance with it in the dance, you might still be able to blind your enemy¡¯s eyes with her.?


    Weakness: Fragile. When shing arms with Superior-tier weapons, there is a 70% chance it will instantly break. Eich above! This dumbass Elf, for the sake of beauty, actually carved the sword empty!?


    This is a ssic Elf artwork, elegant design, exquisite carving, expensive material, perfect workmanship and then, useless! Battle? Do you really intend to bring an art piece to the battlefield? Or do you want your grave to be carved to indicate that you are an artist? Better go and choose from the bulky Dwarves.?


    In this instant, facing the Annie who was using her strength to wave the sword, on the verge of buying it, I am a bit speechless. What does it take to get the system to acknowledge that you are an Art Piece, what does it take to get the system to acknowledge that you are a piece of trash, the goods of the Elves are as good at making people speechless as always.


    The pursuit of art and beauty is perfectly normal, but to do it to such an extent, using the precious enchanted metal mithril to make the body of the sword, but yet overdoing the carvings, resulting in the de being weaker than normal weapons, isn¡¯t this forgetting the initial goal of weapons?


    Using the same materials to make weapon, Elf cksmiths are always able to make it look so elegant and beautiful but by overdoing the adornments, they sacrifice the practicality of the weapon for beauty, resulting in them always making some stuff that would leave people speechless. For example, the Elf Thin Sword here and the more famous Elf Chainmail.


    That toy is famous for itspatibility with Mages. Normally, metals would have a huge effect of spell-casting. Even War Mages who often go on the front line would tend to wear a Mage Robe rather than a Metal Chainmail which has a more outstanding defensive ability. But, the Elf Mages invented a new Elf Chainmail known as the ¡®Song of Harmony¡¯, known to be asfortable for a Mage wearing a normal robe and wouldn¡¯t affect spell-casting.


    In reality, they managed to do it. They overjoyed Elf Kingdom spent huge amount to make this series of Chainmailmonce but then, they found a small problem with it... This Chainmail¡¯s defensive ability is inferior to robes!


    Chainmail are normally made by solid metal bent together to provide reliable defensive ability. But, the ¡®Song of Harmony¡¯ hollow metal pins break the instant it touches something, giving it totally no defense against metal weapons whatsoever.


    Sometime, rolling around to avoid arrows would result in the chainmail scattering all around the ground. Afterwards, they still have to spend several hours to put it back together and wear it thick-skinned, pretending as though everything is still okay. After all, the poor soldiers cannot afford topensate that chainmail which has four 0s on its price tag.


    Then, when the court did an investigation on the design and attempted to improve it, they realized that it was precisely because it was hollow enough, that¡¯s why magic power is able to flow through the spellcaster but for it to be hollow to such an extent, there is no need to think about increasing its defensive power. If it is thick enough, it will be like other metal defensive gears so this line of thought is contradictory, thus it is unable to be improved.


    That Kingdom¡¯s treasury was totally spent on purchasing the expensive metal and the country was destroyed not long after in an Undead Cmity. The ¡®Song of Harmony¡¯ then became a symbol of the Elf equipment¡¯s luxurious and unpractical design...


    To tell truth, I don¡¯t really know to deal with those precious metal left in my storeroom, over-working on it and the enchantment already made it impossible to work on them any further. In the end, I threw it to those Elf cksmiths for them to struggle over the creation of an art piece.


    This is why Elves¡¯ creations are unweed in the underground city but very popr among the nobles of human kingdoms. The best-selling weapons of underground cities are forever the Gray Dwarves¡¯.


    Of course, the Elves wouldn¡¯t admit it. They would think that it is the nder of those with short life span. ¡°We have sufficient time to master it to perfection. You are just jealous of our artistic cells. You dumb and short-sighted objects, you all are more suited to use the Dwarves¡¯ ugly burnt metal sticks.¡±


    The gigantic female Elf sculpture was also like this. Someone seems to think that it is a sculpture of Goddess Lorci or some material required for a magic ritual, but even if the system doesn¡¯t tell me directly that it is ?Statue of a Sculptor¡¯s Dream Stripper?, I could roughly guess that it is the result of the Elf¡¯s artistic talent acting up.


    Hanging on the wall of the cliff, a sculpture 100-meter tall that requires a Floating Spell to reach, incredibly beautiful, attracting countless gazes but in the end, it is just a sculpture.


    If it is done by a human craftsman, it would probably require at least a 400-man army to work together for 5 to 6 years. But if it is an Elf, it could very well be some great artist¡¯s sudden inspiration causing him to spend a few hundred years here to do something meaningless.


    For an Elf whose lifespan is, on average, a thousand, they would have the time to waste but humans don¡¯t have such leisure...


    The conclusion of thepetition of patience with Lorci¡¯s Archbishop and Goddaughter Kajah has been revealed. After I consecutively caused the third Matriarch¡¯s Envoy to take their leave, she also decisively left me a letter, inviting me to Vance¡¯s Elf District for negotiations.


    At this moment, Elisa behind me, by using the reason that we are about to conduct secret negotiations so it is inappropriate for us to interact too much with local business, managed to convince Annie to give up that sword... Un, art piece.


    ¡°Lord Annie, please prioritize official matters. For simple tasks like purchasing or so, you can leave it to servants like us.¡± Her tone, as usual, was filled with venom but ever since Annie realized that she was unable to beat her in an argument, un, of course part of the reason is that she is unable to defeat this big sister, she also began to learn to ignore the malice in the other party¡¯s words.


    But looking at this situation, I started to frown. Annie is our appointed City Lord and Elisa might very well be our future Head of Internal Affairs Bureau or the Head of the Supreme Court of some kind of other high official. If they are unable to get along, or even be enemies, it might cause big trouble in Sulfur Mountain City in the future.


    ¡°Even though Elisa can maintain basic respect towards everyone, howe she has such great resentment towards Annie... Looks like I must look for an opportunity to talk to her about this.¡±


    Suddenly, the Elf Guards in front of us split into 2 by the sides and following that, a tall Dark Elf Priestess walks out from the shadow. Behind her, there are many proud female Dark Elves dressed extravagantly...


    ¡°There are a total of 72 Dark Elf cities in the underground world, but it looks like more than 20 Matriarchs of the First Family came here. If we were to ignore those who were unable to make it due to being too far, there is at least half of the Spider Queen Lorci and her Priestesses here. Are they trying to showcase their might now?¡±


    Of course they are showcasing their might. The Matriarchs here, in their own underground cities, their authority and might wouldn¡¯t be inferior to Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s City Lord. Now that they are standing quietly in a line by the side like a subordinate, it makes Kajah¡¯s authority seem more apparent and indubitably, it is a silent way of pressuring us.


    ¡°Mortal, you must learn to be humble. You can sit together with my subordinates.¡±


    But I smiled.


    The Emperor would neverpare his authority with his farmers. A true authoritative winner doesn¡¯t need too much adornment. To stage such a show, it can only show that she is unconfident. She is worried about Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s strength and even fear it, so she wants to find something to suppress this new rising power.


    ¡°Hehe, looks like the show I staged for the entry of this city is quite effective.¡±


    That day, when we entered the city, 17 of the Rnd series giant robot walked in arrogantly into the city.


    After being stopped, we sent one of the robots and bashed the 2 ck Dragons that were guarding the gate into pulp. In the chaotic battle, we even ¡®identally¡¯ destroy the city¡¯s metal alloy gates, showcasing the powerful strength and the sturdy material of the gigantic robot.


    After the incident, I made Annie announce that these are machinery that Sulfur Mountain City is going to auction off, causing an even bigger ripple.


    This is much useful than advertisement and bragging. Everyone would start thinking ¡®They are even willing to split with this kind of war machine that could defeat a dragon independently. Does this mean that Sulfur Mountain City still have some kind of ace up their sleeves...¡±?


    Of course, this is just me making a fake impression. At this moment, I can¡¯t help but remember the report of Roren a while ago.


    ¡°Lord, the preparations for Rnd No.3 to No.18 is finished. If the one controlling it is a Gold-rank Warrior, it should be able to disy a battle strength of half a Legend.¡±


    At that moment, I was quite surprised. After all, the image of Rnd No.2¡¯s powerful charges were still in my mind, that kind of powerful battle strength can easily suppress Legend-ranks. Even though it might not reach the stage of a World Saint, but it shouldn¡¯t be too far off. Now that these robots are only half a Legend, it feels like the result is a little unsatisfactory.


    But very quickly, I understood what was going on from the exnations.


    ¡°Rnd No.2 is a prototype! A prototype, no matter what price we pay, how many expensive and precious metal we use, we must prove that our design concept is correct. Back then, over a hundred engineers brought their private stashes, a master even infused the Titan¡¯s Heart that was passed down from his ancestors, thus allowing Rnd No.2 to have such might. If we wish for other Rnds to have such battle power, I¡¯m afraid that even if our engineers are able to do it, you are unable to pay the bills.¡±


    Very quickly, I got proof that no matter it is what type of engineer-made robot it is, it is all made of an energy source, an exoskeleton armor, an engine and transmission device. The Titan¡¯s Heart is a heart-shaped jewel that is formed after a Titan¡¯s death. It contains the highest quality power of electricity and is also the highest quality energy source.


    After all, this world is fair. A Legend-rank and above battle power cannot be replicated easily. Even if I were to make an extremely strong exoskeleton, without a top-notch energy source, it is impossible to create an even more powerful battle tool.


    In reality, in this bizarre world where fossil fuels just came into y but rockets are still flying around, a superior energy source can only be obtained normally by hunting powerful magic beasts and luck still ys an important part. A powerful energy source that can provide sufficient kic energy is the core for engineering to show its true potential.


    Talking about this, I can¡¯t help but remember a simr experience that I went through.


    Before, didn¡¯t I use the system¡¯s Lottery? That time, I managed to obtain an equipment that surpasses God Equipment ¡ª A mystical gadget called Small Light that came from the pouch of a blue cat in a certain world!


    At that moment, I was overjoyed. I thought that the Lottery was finally operating properly for once, giving me a top-ss equipment that I can truly use. But afterwards, I realized that I was tricked again, that I was happy too early, that I underestimated the bottom limit of the system¡¯s shamelessness...


    The Small Light is real, but... There isn¡¯t battery inside!!


    Looking in the manual of the Small Light that I was unable to use, I begged the system to trade me a battery... However, that bastard system didn¡¯t intend to let me grasp hold of the God Equipment that can overturn cause and effect, so how is it possible for it to allow me to trade.


    After drawing the Lottery with the battery as my goal, I only managed to obtain the Take-copter flying machine which alsock batteries, a toy pistol of a certain eye cowboy and also a random bathtub that fills itself with hot water. I finally understood the system¡¯s persistence in ying pranks, then I decided to rely myself.


    Afterwards, after confirming that in engineering, there is no such thing as a small-scale energy source (battery), I squeezed out my brain juice and collected countless chemistry books. Only then did I realize that going by Eich continent¡¯s technology level, to make something like battery, the first thing that has to be solved is the liquid required for electrolysis, conductors for electricity and a few bottlenecks. Also, after solving these problems, we still have to tackle the problem of creating a whole string of technical problems. By the time we managed to get everything required on the tree of technology, a conservative estimate would be around 200 to 300 yearster, and this is assuming that it would be a smooth journey full of miracles. I had no choice but to give up on the idea of causing an industrial revolution in the Eich continents.


    Cough, looks like I went too far. Back to the topic.


    Even though Rnd.2 will be very powerful, assuming it hasn¡¯t blown up yet, but No.3 and machines after that can only reach the power of half a Legend. Thus, I immediately changed my n.


    All of the Rnd system will use No.2 at its blueprint, not a single difference is allowed. Even the number written behind the Rnds were wiped clean, so that other people can¡¯t tell the difference between them.


    The things that came after that is easy. After staging a show of Rnd No.2 ¡®heroically fighting the evil dragons¡¯, the Rnds behind became the most effective threat... To tell truth, I feel very awkward every time this name is called but I was unable to get a consensus on changing the name.


    In the eyes of those who are aware, it is an existence of a robot that crushes Legend-rank and 16 half Legends. It may be scary to normal city lords, after all normal underground city lords are only a Legend-rank, but to the Underground Autarchs who have 3 figure number of underground cities under their control, what can it count as. But now, after staging that show, in the eyes of those who are unaware, that is 13 Saint-rank war machines. Even Underground Autarchs have to be careful of it.


    TL: Not sure if it is a typo but it does say 13 twice so I¡¯ll stick with it.


    After dering that there will be an auction, the whole is shock by Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s backing, to be able to casually sell 13 Saint-ranks. At the same time, I am able to earn quite a bit. At least, I will be able to get back my material fee and manpower cost.


    ¡°If both parties aren¡¯t on the same starting line, then what is the point of negotiating an alliance. No matter how we negotiate, it ends up with the weaker one getting eaten up and merged in.¡±


    The effect that I spent all my effort nning for has finally been achieved. The daughter of the true God Lorci, the High Leader of all of the Dark Elves in name, Kajah, making her force known is sufficient to prove everything.


    ¡°You must be Wumianzhe. May the Spider Queen¡¯s footsteps resound in your ears. Perhaps, we can talk. You and me, privately, secretly.¡±


    Kajah¡¯s voice has some kind of special magic to them, as though a lover that is whispering sweet nothings, as though a sacred Priestess that is preaching. Somehow, it makes one unconsciously wants to continue listening on.


    However, after listening to her words and warmth wee, all of the Matriarchs behind her bursts intoughter.


    In the Dark Elf¡¯s bizarre and straightforward views on love, this seemingly warmth wee is actually equal to ¡®hey, let¡¯s go get a room¡¯, that kind of rude and crude message.


    ¡°May the Spider Queen¡¯s footsteps resound in your ears¡¯ is also naturally, not any good words. It may seem like she is asking for the Goddess she serve to bless you, but in reality, it is a vicious curse. Lorci is the Goddess of Spider and spiders do not have footsteps. When she is intentionally stomping her foot for you to hear, it is only to warn you of her arrival, or maybe, it means that she is going to get rid of you, or that she wants to see your ugly state while struggling for life.


    ¡°How many years has it been, Elves still like to y this game of adding in sarcasm and curses into their greetings. If you are unable to detect it, they would mock yourck in knowledge, the short lifespan of your race and yourck of experience.¡±


    However, this trick is useless on me. In the long life that I had went through, I have seen a couple of Elf Kingdoms which have an history of over 10000 years destroyed and their countless precious manuals became my private collection. What does this kind of sarcastic joke count as.


    ¡°Respected Madam Kajah, I thank you for your greetings. May the Spider Queen¡¯s eight eyes be always on you, I pray that the envoy of the candlelight descends beside you.¡±


    This is also not pleasant words. The Spider Queen Lorci is vicious, cunning, skeptical, fickle-minded, jealous (actually, as her reputation is really bad, you can almost add in any negative adjectives behind here) and it is well-known throughout the world, so how can her gaze being on you be anything good. Envoy of the candlelight? It just means Yochlol, those evil creatures are Lorci¡¯s envoys. After they descend, it is definitely a whole string of scheming and trouble, and you might not even be rewarded for finishing it. If you don¡¯t do it satisfactorily, you can go and meet Lorci immediately. Un, go with your soul, leaving your physical body behind... For the Matriarchs, these kind of superior is better off not meeting.


    TL: Okay, I just realized that the Spider Queen¡¯s name should be Lolth from D&D but... A littlezy to change so I will stick with Lorci for now. Anyway, Yochlol


    My blessings could be considered a disaster to the person, but to a Priestess of Lorci, being highly regarded by her superior is a good thing... So, Kajah isn¡¯t able to retort.


    But the Kajah who has just lost the verbal battle simply smiles lightly.


    ¡°As expected of the great saint who single-handedly created the Power of Law. Your knowledge and wisdom is worth our respect. Let us just abandon the minutiae and talk about the topics that we are focused on.¡±


    Saying that, she stretches out her hand, allowing me to kiss it.


    But afterwards, Kajah¡¯s outstretched hand was left hanging in midair. That is because I solemnly took a step back, allowing Annie behind me toe forward.


    ¡°Nice to meet you. I am Annie, Annie.Layde. Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s next City Lord. Uncle Wumianzhe says that I should be the one taking to you.¡±


    With a pleasant smile, Annie greets Kajah and grabs the other party¡¯s hand, shaking it with force.


    In this instant, Kajah whose body is shaking non-stop from the handshake stares at me unexpectedly. To the Dark Elves who view usurping of power and position as a natural instinct, she has neglected this ¡®puppet little city lord¡¯ form the very start. She is unable to understand why, despite having advantages in all aspects, did I allow Annie toe forward to represent Sulfur Mountain City.


    I, who was at the back, solemnly watched everything in front of me. Saying something that no one would believe, I don¡¯t have much confidence in Annie being able to negotiate anything decent. After all, I only told her to go ahead and negotiate, but I didn¡¯t reveal anything to her.


    ¡°I can¡¯t apany you for your whole life. This is training and a test... Good luck, Little Annie.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Lord, you sure have thought everything out lovingly. As expected of a fianc¨¦, your attitude totally different. But, little Annie doesn¡¯t seem to be a necrophile. Do you need me to prepare for you your 999th heartbroken constion party?¡±


    ¡°Stop spreading rumors! Someone will believe it! Also, it isn¡¯t the 999th time, it is only the 46th! It hasn¡¯t even reach 3 figures...¡±


    ¡°Master, I find it appropriate to remind you that the hearing of those long-eared Elves is excellent. Proiming your lovelorn records so loudly, all of the Matriarchs here can hear it. It seems that some of them are even staring at your lower body. From their looks, it seems that they intend to try a new vor, the thousand-year virgin chicken. Maybe, after the incident, I can prepare a red packet for you to congrattion you. But...¡±


    TL: Virgin chicken -> A pun, could be read as Spring Chicken but separately, is read as Virgin Chicken


    Saying this, she propped up her sses as the edges of her mouth curls up, revealing a seemingly sympathetic yet mocking gaze...


    The meaning of her words was clear. ¡°You fellow with only bones, you still want to get a woman?¡±


    ¡°I... I don¡¯t want red packets!! I want to revive¡± After saying these words, someone ran away crying.


    ¡°Then, if you have a physical body, you are willing to be eaten by these old women who are old enough to be your great great grandmother? How filthy.¡± A certain maid takes the opportunity to push in a final blow...


    The chapters seem to be getting longer :X It used to be just 3000 words but now it is taking up to near 5000.


    Anyway, if you still don¡¯t know who is the blue cat with a pouch, it is Doraemon and Small Light is the shlight which he uses to shrink people (took the name from the wiki)


    Right now the story is progressing a bit slowly but it is slowly building up, gonna be more interesting in the next few chapters.

 Chapter 39

    <h4>Chapter 39: The Market</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°This is the proposal from my side. As a part of the Alliance, we hope to be able to obtain the purchase rights of the 30 goods on this list on market price. Also, we hope that Elf traders can go in and out freely from your city.¡±


    In the wide conference room, the extravagance of the Elves could be seen by the fact that even their table edges were carved with pictures of Elves dancing with the sword. Hearing the negotiation from both parties, I am almost on the verge of falling asleep.


    ¡°Annie will negotiate about the military matters while Margaret will assist her with economic deals. I guess there is nothing much for me here. Since I have nothing to do, then, I might as well look for some joy.¡±


    ¡°...Within the list, these 23monly seen goods in our market can be sold at market price, but mercury, dragon poison, liquid sulfur that has been worked on and the other of the 7 goods belong to the goods which our officials control or ban its trade, so it isn¡¯t allowed to be sold to the outside. Unless, you all agree to an equal trade with the unique goods we have on our list. Also, as long as your Dark Elf merchants are proper merchant and not assassins or spies wearing the cloak of a merchant, then why would they be afraid of our checks.¡± Propping up her sses, Elisa replies.


    ¡°... Big sister, must you haggle about this little amount of cucumber? Fine, 25 dors, take it all. But, you must take away these tomatoes. Don¡¯t worry, they are all fresh goods.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, little girl, then we shall deal with these one by one. To say the truth, all these trade is just an appetizer to tighten our rtionship. Perhaps, we should start talking about the main question now. For example, about that Power of Law of yours.¡± Kajah smiles and says.


    ¡°Hehe, so young one, let¡¯s do it this way. Auntie don¡¯t really care about this little bit of money. Right, how much are you charging for that yellow croaker?¡±


    This time, Elisa starts to frown but didn¡¯t say anything much. Instead, she looks at Annie.


    ¡°Un, you can leave this matter for Annie to settle. If you Dark Elves are interested in the Power of Law, you are free to send people to Sulfur Mountain City to learn. But before that, you all must swear in the name of the Spider Queen to not harm the citizens. At the same time, you all must swear to stop your assassination of those Dark Elves in Sulfur Mountain City.


    ¡°Un, that yellow croaker, if you want it, its 12 dors 1 catty. I am making it cheap for you. This yellow croaker is fresh from the sea and its taste is fantastic after cooking it. However, if you were to ept this yellow croaker, then you can¡¯t fuss about the money I owe over your potato before.¡±


    TL: 1 catty = 600g


    Hearing Annie¡¯s reply, Kajah shakes her head.


    ¡°The will of the Spider Queen cannot be ckened, traitors must be cleared. We Elves have all the time to wait, so let those traitors wait patiently for the day they will be terminated... Alright, let¡¯s not talk about these unhappy stuffs. Maybe, we can talk about even deeper matters. For example, a military alliance against a certain faction. Of course, it would not be on paper.¡±


    ¡°How can that be, our canteen¡¯s boss is very particr with debts, the money you owe for the potato must be paid in total... But, let¡¯s talk about other things. For example, when should we go and beat up that big fatty who always bully people. Of course, if we got found out by the fatty in advance, I won¡¯t admit it.¡±


    Of course, all the previous things discussed were just appetizer. The private military alliance that they were talking about now is the main reason for the secret meeting today. Annie hesitates but Annie¡¯s eyebrows knitted together and her face is full of frost. She seems to be troubled about something.


    He, it should be very troubled. Of course she would be very troubled. This decision would determine the future of countless lives. However, it is because of this immense pressure that they will grow up and improve. I have high expectations of you 2, Elisa and Annie.


    ¡°... Please give me a moment.¡± Finally, she steels her heart, stands up straight and then... walks to my front.


    ¡°Master!! Have you had enough? Can you stop ying thoseme vegetable lines in my head! Stop interrupting our discussions!!!¡±


    ¡°Ah, did I mention it identally? Sorry, sorry,¡± An apology with no hint of sincerity was said. Then, I lowered my head to reduce my presence... Of course, sarcasm has to have a target, otherwise if I talk to myself, wouldn¡¯t that make me a lunatic?


    TL: Sarcasm -> He uses a word Tu Cao (??) and ording to here, it originates from the Japanese work ???? (Tsukkomi), which is bringing a point from the other party¡¯s word with the intention to tease (and I couldn¡¯t find another word for it in English) cause this word appears quite a bit in the novel.


    Fine, in the eyes of outsiders, Elisa is just standing silently in front of me, staring at me. At the same time, I remained silent, as though passing over the rights to make the decision to the other party.


    ¡°Sorry for the trouble.¡± After apologizing, Elisa returns back to her seat.


    ¡°Actually, what I¡¯m saying isn¡¯t that wrong too. Isn¡¯t negotiation about haggling and counting every single cent, so is there a difference between it and the market?¡±


    ¡°I am thinking right now, so please be silent.¡±


    Alright, alright, you all only know how to bully these old bones, thenin that these old bones are getting annoying. Fine, then these old bones will go out to venture around, this will do right.


    Just nice, I was starting to get tired of the uninteresting atmosphere in the negotiation room, so I stood up and prepared to leave...


    ¡°Please take care and return back to our base early. Don¡¯t pick up random things on the street to eat and don¡¯t make too much little children cry, so that their parents won¡¯te knocking on our door. Also, don¡¯t get caught while doing bad things. I am not very close with the police station here, and I don¡¯t want to go and fetch someone from there.¡±


    Fine, hearing this nagging that seems to be directed towards an old child, I started to reflect on exactly where did I go wrong. Back then, the cute little girl who was afraid of dark and loneliness, the girl whoes hugging the corner of my shirt to sleep with me when the during stormy days, exactly how did she be so venomous and twisted under my education.


    On my way out, I had to tolerate Elisa¡¯s cold re and pretend not to see the passionate gaze and secret invitations from those Elf Matriarchs... What a pity, the Dark Elves¡¯ adult art and all kinds of techniques are known to be one of the world¡¯s ¡®precious art collection¡¯, and it is the dream of every man...


    Fine, even without that venomous maid, I still can¡¯t do anything much. But it should be okay thinking about it right. As a man, imagination is not a crime right!! ...Elisa! Can you stop singing in my head ¡®Gong Gong Pian Tou Tong!!¡®, I really shouldn¡¯t have taught you to sing pop songs back then! Even more so, I shouldn¡¯t have told you what a Gong Gong is!


    TL: Means eunuch. In the song, there is a line in the chorus that says ¡®In the Back Court, there are 3000 beautifuldies, but none of which he could touch.¡¯


    ¡°Hmph, wait till I revive...¡±


    Before I leave, I looked back once more at Annie who was talking very seriously. I look forward to the day she would able to hold up the fort independently, so that I can collect my reward and revive...


    Yet, I didn¡¯t know that when I left, all of the Dark Elf Matriarchs seemed to have heaved a sigh of relief at the same time.


    ¡°That magic robe and mask seems to be all God Equipment. I can¡¯t detect his true appearance or powers at all.¡±


    TL: I used to keep trantew robe and magic robe interchangeably for him (it¡¯s all the same robe) because ? can mean is both the first word for magic andw. I will stick with magic robe.


    ¡°There are totally no changes in his emotions and even his heartbeat can¡¯t be felt. If I close my eyes, it is as though he isn¡¯t there at all. How the hell does something like this exist?¡±


    ¡°Is it a demon? A human? Elf? Undead? There is totally no way to find out. The two young girls seem to be very reliant on his judgement and yet he chose to leave now. Why is that so? Could there be some scheme?¡±


    From a certain sense, the only thing hindering this negotiation is that Wumianzhe.


    From Dark Elf Matriarchs who had lived through countless years, the strong isn¡¯t something to fear. What is to fear is always the unknown and Wumianzhe is just too bizarre and dangerous.


    ¡°As the finder of a new kind of Power of Order, it is impossible to overestimate him. If the Power of Law is destined to be a powerful Order like the Holy Light, then we might be facing a future God. But no matter what, his departure is a good thing for the negotiation... Or maybe, we should let some ¡®shadow¡¯ follow him, if there¡¯s an opportunity...¡±


    Luciana, the Number 1 Matriarch of Morsblight City. From a certain sense, she is a neighbor of Sulfur Mountain City. Even though those entric Dark Elves who believed in Holy Light and betrayed the Dark Elves had caused the original First Family to lose the trust and doting of the Spider Queen, it had allowed the Syfan family which Luciana belongs to gain power.


    But no matter what, Diana and the others who had escaped and were living better lives remains the disgrace of Morsblight City. If they do not get rid of this disgrace on time... The Spider Queen was never a reasonable true God. The screams of agony by the previous First Matriarch when she was turned into the spider was still etched onto her eyes.


    But at the same time, Kajah, who was still talking with Annie, gazes at her, as though seeing through her private wishes.


    ¡°...If there is a chance, send out a small present to improve our rtions with that Lord. If we are able to forge an alliance with this rising Autarch Sulfur Mountain City, it would be easier for us to fight for themand of the Underground Alliance. This is a big affair that concerns the entire Dark Elf tribe. No one would be so short-sighted to allow their personal desire affect the entire situation.¡±


    Even though Luciana changed her words fast enough, but when Kajah¡¯s gaze continued to remain on her, she felt like her heart was about to stop, her back was instantly wet with cold sweat.


    Just having Lorci¡¯s blessings isn¡¯t enough for Kajah to control over half of the Dark Elf Tribe. In the cruel and heartless society of Dark Elves, this High Priestess who was always smiling also uses bloodshed to suppress those who goes against her, leaving their bodies cold. Otherwise, for the Dark Elves who see insubordination as an honor, there would be no reason for them to bow to this High Leader in name.


    ¡°Then, the present would be prepared personally by you, the noble Matriarch of Syfan. What we need now is, indeed, a trustworthy ally.¡±


    ¡°Yes, that is my honor. I will make sure to get it done perfect.¡±


    She already has no longer any energy to bother with the secretughter of the other Matriarchs. Luciana.Syfan can only rejoice over surviving this cmity.


    ¡°Then, just to confirm on our mutualmunication channels...¡±


    The Alliance of two powers, even if it is an Alliance which each of the power have their own goals and aims, they still have many minute details to discuss thoroughly over, so this meeting is destined to take quite long.


    But, I don¡¯t really care. Or rather, I don¡¯t need to care.


    Just like what I told Elisa, the discussion between countries and different powers is actually no different from buying vegetables in the market. It is just about how you give me 2 more cents and I will give you additional carrot and potato.


    When the market prices are fixed, even if your negotiation skills are top-notch, but it is also only a small rise from the price line.


    To tell the truth, the conclusion of the negotiation is normally determined even before the talks. What that cannot be obtained on the battlefield would normally be unobtainable on the negotiation table... Alright, I know that there are exceptions so let¡¯s not talk about that unbearable history. If the ruler is useless to such an extent, then discussions and fighting are all meaningless.


    That ¡®market price which determines the result of the market trade¡¯ refers to the circumstances of the two parties before the negotiations, what they have and what kind of bargaining chip do they have to exchange. The side that is more anxious with less bargaining chip would find it harder to gain the initiative the lead the discussions, while the side with more chips on their hand will find it easier to earn more despite giving in less, achieving a bargain.


    Due to our hard work throughout this period, the initiative in this negotiation is already in the hands of Sulfur Mountain City. Also, Molly and Shou has started made quite a bit of moves while Ainsterna.Eduar and the Devils backing him are cunning and fickle, an apparent two-faced faction which cannot be relied on. Also, with the Dark Elf Matriarchs who don¡¯t know the concept of loyalty behind her back, Kajah should be under intense pressure.


    I remember that in the original ¡®history¡¯, 10 years after the epic war where the Underground Alliance started invading the surface, the High Leader of the Dark Elf is a Dark Elf Matriarch named Victoria... The retirement of an influential Dark Elf is never peaceful and it is impossible for them to retire on their own ord. After all, that often means an ending worse than death.


    Then, no matter whether it is for her and the Dark Elf power that she represents, she needs an alliance very urgently now.


    For Sulfur Mountain City, this negotiation and even the invitation to the Underground Alliance, we can totally turn our heads and leave if the negotiations fall through. At least, before that small joke which isn¡¯t convenient to tell others and my little tricks get exposed, Sulfur Mountain City has no reason to step into these muddy waters.


    Since the initiative for the negotiations are in our hands, not mentioning that the other party has requests to ask of us, they have already made up their mind to strike an alliance with Sulfur Mountain City, so the Dark Elves have to ensure that this goes through by hook or by crook. But, my side don¡¯t really have to care about the results of the negotiation and we have plentiful of bargaining chips so no matter how we talk through this negotiation, the final winners will still be us.


    This is also the reason why I kept refusing to interact with Kajah and Ainsterna. I want to make them panic, worried that I might reconcile with Shou and Molly and instead, cause the internal bnce of the Alliance to tilt once again.


    This is also the reason why I say the results of the negotiation is decided even before the negotiation. Also, Elisa¡¯s negotiation techniques are above average, there was no trace of her shying out or panicking and that¡¯s why I can leave peaceful.


    At this moment, as I walk on the street of Vance, looking at this other kind of prosperity, I decided to start on my little n.


    ¡°I, Wumianzhe Rnd, am not a very forgiving person. Since you all dare to attack Sulfur Mountain City, you all should have thought about my revenge. Shou and Molly, the things that you owe me, it is time to return them now.¡±

 Chapter 40

    <h4>Chapter 40: Bait</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Iron Bloodline, Copper Body, Silver Dignity, Golden Will, Respected Legend, World Saint, Immortal Myth, Indestructible SemiGod, the names of these power levels tell a lot.


    Iron Bloodline is demarcated as LV1 to LV20 in the system. In this period, arge portion of people would have just gotten their job and most of the power they possess now originates from their bloodline. But, it is during this phase that the route they are going to walk on are decided.


    Sounds a little difficult to understand? Then let¡¯s use the system¡¯s interface to exin.


    Below, there are 3 mostmonly seen close-range job of different tribes.


    ¡°Standard Beastman Berserker Model /Strength: 15 Agility: 12 Stamina: 12 /Main Attribute: Strength /Race Talent: Berserk¡±


    ¡°Standard Dark Elf Assassin Model /Strength: 12 Agility: 14 Stamina: 9 /Main Attribute: Agility /Race Talent: Magic Immunity Skin¡±


    ¡°Standard Human Warrior Model /Strength: 12 Agility: 8 Stamina: 10 /Main Attribute: Strength/ Race Talent: ...None¡±


    Strength is the total fighting power that a physical body possesses. Agility is the sum of reaction speed and bnce. Stamina is the measurement of the health. These are all the most important attributes for closebat jobs.


    In the Iron stage, the rookies of different races will work hard towards their ideal physique and through training, they will grow stronger. The supposed ¡®god strength¡¯ just probably means that they are born with 2 additional strength stat. As a result of their hard work, they will grow closer to their ideal physique and when their basic stats reaches a certain mark, they will be able to break through to the next rank.


    Why, you areining that it is unfair? The Beastman and Dark Elf¡¯s summation of all 3 stats are 35 but for the human, it is only 30, and there is no race talent? I¡¯m sorry but the world is never fair. The stats and talents of different races are simply unfair, otherwise why would there be so many arguments and discrimination.


    If 2 people work hard together, the difference in talent will instead cause their strength to be pulled apart. This is just likeparing a foot soldier to a cavalry. If they are given equal time, the cavalry would have ran much further than the foot soldier.


    For example, if a normal Beastman¡¯s strength growth rate is around 0.1 per level, by LV20, their strength would have increased by 2. But, if a Human Warrior is able to get 1 point growth in strength by LV20, they can already be called a good bud for a strength-type Warrior.


    Furthermore, this is not taking into ount of their race talents. The race talents of strong tribes tend to be quite frightening.


    It is amon knowledge for the strength of Warriors that are equal-rank but of different race to be greatly different. But in exchange, the humans with the worst potential tends to grow the fastest. The stronger a race is, the slower their growth would be. The Dragon tribe require at least a century before they can be considered a teenager and the Elves take 200 years to be an adult. For a human, 70 to 80 years is sufficient for them to reach their pinnacle.


    If we were to use the analogy of a game, the weaker a race is, the less experience it requires to level up. Using myself as an example,paring with another Legend-rank, the experience bar of Lich is roughly 3 times of that of a human Mage, so retraining is actually quite a pain.


    However, as the breakthrough for every stage is too difficult, so this advantage actually isn¡¯t that great for top-tier experts. But, the advantage of humans in mass creation of low-level Warriors (otherwise known as cannon fodder) as a mortal race is apparent. Elves of the Silver Race is adept at creating arge army of middle-ss experts and while the poption of the Dragons of the Golden Race may be pathetic, but no one dares to underestimate them.


    If the Iron-rank is considered to be the start of the journey and their main goal is to follow on the route that their seniors paved, then for Warriors that have reached the stage of Bronze Body, they are trying to discover their own talents to improve themselves and forge the perfect body for fighting.


    To put it in easy-to-understand gaming terms, trying the best to learn skills, maximize your talents and improve your stats...


    Silver Dignity, at this stage, the physical body has almost reached the limit of mortals, so practitioners start to forge their will and learn battling techniques. Bybining both the strength of the spirit and the will, they create their personal battle styles.


    In gaming terms, the character has started to take shape but growth of attribute stats is much slower, so relying on growth in stats to be stronger is too difficult. So, they start learning a few big skills to show off.


    Golden Will, experts at this stage start tobine their talents to search for a path suited for them. If they are able to get themselves a fixed high-tier job and inheritance, then their growth would be even faster.


    In gaming terms, it means choosing a route for job advancement, step into a new level and start afresh from the very basics.


    Climbing up thedder, there is the Soul Imprint of Legends and Soul World of the Saints, but as I have touched on them before, so I will skip them for now. At this point, I guess there would be someone who have already figured out why Annie is unable to beat Elisa no matter what.


    Annie is a human. What is remarkable about her is that she has a portion of Phoenix blood in her, making her a mixed-blood human. At Gold pinnacle, despite having no race talent, her main attribute, strength, has already reached 19, a step into the boundaries of a Legend-rank Warrior, which is pretty amazing. (Different from other games in foreign worlds, it is hard for the basic stats to grow in this world but inte game, the difference in all 4 or 5 stats would be exceptionally huge)


    But her opponent is Elisa, whose race is ¡®Half-Demon blessed by the Abyss¡¯, and her race talent is Calling of the Abyss. As long as she is willing to return the calling and demonify, she can receive massive increases in her stats. At her current stage, she is already ¡®Demonification Intermediate Stage, Strength +12 Agility +12 Stamina +12 Intelligence +12 Charm +6 Will -6¡¯.


    Just solely by these additions, Annie is unable to defeat Elisa.


    As a demon progeny, Elisa¡¯s basic strength is 12, and adding another 12 onto that... A Mage with enough strength to suppress a Warrior is born. If we factor in agility and stamina, she would have an advantage in all aspects. Just like how it is a joke for a monkey to defeat a dinosaur with its martial arts, no matter how powerful are the techniques that one possesses, basic stats are still the primary factor to determine one¡¯s strength. That¡¯s why Elisa could grab the God Sword with her hands.


    In addition to those messy martial arts that I imparted her and the close-quarterbat that she invented involving martial arts with ice magic, not mentioning a Gold pinnacle like Annie, even a Legend-rank like Xueti might not be able to win against her... As my prided student, as a closebat Mage, Elisa has, undoubtedly, surpassed her master.


    This is unfair, butpared to Little Red¡¯s ¡®Ancient Red Dragon¡¯s Perfect Body. Complete immunity to Poison, gue and Fire. All stats are raised by 30¡¯, Elisa¡¯s ¡®Demonification Intermediate Stage¡¯ is already considered quite fair. I reckon that even if she were to demonifypletely, all of her stats would only be increased by a total of 20 with a massive fall in her will.


    Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch in the world. The strength of the Abyss of Chaos isn¡¯t that easy to take.


    A massive fall in will means that it would be more and more difficult for her to resist the callings and demonification. Eventually, she would turn into a demonpletely and this is the main reason why I banned her from using her ¡®Call of the Abyss¡¯ race talent.


    Fortunately, by using the Contract Magic that Devils invented, I wrote this line into the work contract between Elisa and me. Before all of her wages are settled, her physical body is banned from using its demonification power instinctively.


    The Devils and Demons originate from the River Styx and the two of them are indubitably, mortal enemies. This could be said to be using the power of the River Styx to deal with the callings of the River Styx, it is the only solution I could derive from a problem that has no solution.


    TL: The entire phrase is ¡®Thinking of a solution when there¡¯s no solution, finding an exit when there is no exit.¡¯ Magic Contracts originate from Devils.


    Maybe, there will be one day when Elisa, like the other demon progenies, would be unable to resist the Calling of the Abyss from her blood and just like my dumb brother, she will walk into the gates of the Abyss and Hell, turningpletely into a resident of the underworld. But, I hope that with me in the path, that day could be extended indefinitely or at least, I would prevent it from happening as long as I am here.


    Anyway, benefits and detriments alwayse hand-in-hand in this world. Just by relying on this ¡®Half-Demon¡¯ race advantage, Elisa¡¯s actual fighting prowess would not lose to any of the other underground city lord¡¯s prided Legend-rank fighting prowess.


    Elisa is indeed powerful. As a human, Annie is slightly weaker than her. After all, she is just a 19-year old youngdy, albeit possessing the strength of the Golden pinnacle that overwhelms most human. However, Adam and I are still unsatisfied. In this underground world where experts could be found everywhere, the underground city lords can only be considered of average standard.


    Right now, Elisa and Annie are still at Golden pinnacle, stuck on the step of forging their Soul Imprints...


    It is hard for outsiders to help them here as Soul Imprints require them to slowly grind it into shape. No matter whether it is from fighting or from life, they need to suffer setbacks and failures to discover their inadequacies, obtaining victories after tough fights to rediscover their talents and confidence. They would require every experience that ys a crucial role in life and while the both of them have exceptional talent, their basics being knocked into ce by Adam and me, but what they mainlyck is experience.


    ¡°The Dark Elves won¡¯t be easy to deal with but with Margaret and Adam, 2 SemiGods, as your backing, they won¡¯t dare to directly touch you all. Good luck, we don¡¯t have much time left... Even with this butterfly causing chaos about, the day which the underground world forming an Underground Alliance to invade the surface won¡¯t be too far away.¡±


    Alright, let¡¯s stop with those serious words here.


    What I am going to do now, if I were to dump it on them, it wouldn¡¯t be umting experience but outright murder.


    As I walk solemnly towards Vance City¡¯s tinum Order Auction, the sound of chatters could be heard from all locations. But from the moment I walked in, all sound disappeared.


    Everyone¡¯s gaze is directed towards the figure at the entrance... because, he is simply too bright!


    The Silver Light of Order and Light of Law ripples around the robe. The SemiGod Mask brings about the stern demeanor as though everything was being judged. A bulky yellow-covered book hanging by the waist was shining with the Lines of Rule (of the world) that was exclusive to God Equipment. The worn-out gavel on the other side was also bursting with the radiance of the Power of Law. It is apparent that the gavel is, at the very least, a SemiGod Equipment.


    A God Equipment and 3 SemiGod Equipment, even a true God would be tempted. It would be unfathomable if one doesn¡¯t get robbed going out like that. In the worst-case scenario, the entire underground world might even be involved in the robbery.


    ¡°Hmph, my goal is to blind you all anyway.¡±


    But even a fool would know that those who are capable of bringing these kinds of equipment out would have extremely hard bones.


    However, there are always fellows who want to try their luck. In the next instant, 2 thieves who were forced out by their superiors appeared from the shadow and tried to approach me.


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Judgement.¡± My luck wasn¡¯t bad, this unlucky fellow must have done atrocities to be shine red to the point that it was turning ck. Thus...


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Capital Punishment ¨C Hanging!¡± Under a 6-circle death penalty verdict, an intangible rope hangs him in midair and what is left is the time for the sinner to regret his actions before his legs go limp...


    Facing this 6-circle Incantation of Law (Gold-rank) of the Power of Law which targets criminals, this pitiful Silver-rank Thief didn¡¯t even have the time to cry in agony and walks into the embrace of death directly.


    Looking at the corpse in front of him, the other unlucky fellow fell limp to the floor, scared to the point he couldn¡¯t stop trembling. After all, before he can even react, his old partner has already died somehow in front of him. On top of that, it was quite a brutal death.


    Everyone was prepared for the little soldiers who was testing the waters to die, but no one expected them to die in such an eerie matter. The emptiness that represents the unknown is always the color which everyone is most wary of.


    Ignoring the lucky fellow who survived due to notmitting any crime in thest few hours, I walked to the front desk of the auction like it was nobody¡¯s business and the path that I walk through splits apart like how Moses splits the ocean then.


    ¡°I, am here to auction something. A God Equipment.¡±


    Everyone¡¯s eyes are on me. The moment that my word rang out, a tsunami seems to have crashed down. The Auction Hall which was bizarrely quiet a moment ago immediately gets drowned in discussions and shouts of shock could be heard from every corner.


    Of course they would be shocked and stunned. Putting aside God Equipment, a SemiGod Equipment or even Epic Equipment in an auction could already cause a fearsome storm that would be etched in history. As for auctioning a God Equipment, it is destined to make history.


    ¡°AHHH... Auction? Fine, fine, you want to auction God Equipment? God Equipment? GOD EQUIPMENT?! YOU SURE!!!¡±


    The poor centaurdy¡¯s eyes saw stars and started shouting about with a look which says that she was unable to ept reality and an expression that was broken.


    ¡°Un, God Equipment. Congrattions to your auction house, this should be first auction for a God Equipment in the underground world. Your tinum Order Auction House is destined to leave its name in history.¡±


    That Centaurdy couldn¡¯t care less whether her name would be left in history. When she heard that a God Equipment was really going to be auctioned, her eyes flipped and she immediately fell t on the floor.


    ¡°God Equipment = Worth a lot of money = Many people will snatch for it = If you were to identally break it, you can¡¯t pay for it in your whole life = Get captured to work as a ve = Get sold in the ve market by some demon with special interests = Forced to do all sorts of things that makes one embarrassed...¡± This is the train of thoughts that floated in Centaur Anya¡¯s mind...


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to be ve and XXXX.¡± Then, thisss who is rich in imagination immediately faints from her head overheating.


    ...This kind of matter of important people is hard on a youngdy who is obsessed with dimension-travelling novels and just left her farming vige 3 months ago.


    ¡°ve? Who? I am not Beifeng, I won¡¯t have an interest in you.¡±


    Even I didn¡¯t expect to meet such a situation. What is wrong with thisdy, why did is her expression so rich with everything appearing in an instant, and she even shouted such a perverted line...


    But now that the auctioneer has fainted, what should I do? Should I just return?


    ¡°Lord, Lord. I... Please hand it over to me. I am the manager here, Carlos. Here is my name card.¡±


    A goblin who is well-dressed rushed out, but looking at his bloodshot eyes and messy clothes, it was apparent that he just received the news and rushed here.


    ¡°The item that you would like to auction, is it this book?¡±


    Looks like, as the manager of this auction house, Carlos is still pretty good at valuing items to know that the God Equipment would be surrounded by the Lines of Rule representing it.


    But I shook my head and ¡®pah¡¯ I snapped my finger.


    A Skeleton Soldier walks out from my back with a ck-colored wooden box in its hand.


    Then, the box is opened...


    The next second, the entire hall is radiated with starlight. Carlos even thought that the box contains a star that was just plucked from the sky until the radiance finally scatters...


    It is a ck scepter and its body is dull without any trace of extravagance, full of the dust of history. There are even marks from being burnt and frozen. The God Equipment¡¯s power seems to be hidden internally, the only thing shining on it is silver-colored gems on it.


    Starlight seems to be jumping from gem to gem that the light also has its own tempo, as though as it is a living being of its own.


    Compared the star-like shine of these gems, the expensive inextinguishablemps lighted with Mermaid Oil in the auction house feels just like the shabby and worthless candles of the Kobolds inparison.


    ¡°God Equipment, it is definitely a God Equipment. Are these stars lighting its Lines of Rule... Wait, it is a scepter!! A SCEPTER!!¡± Suddenly, Carlos¡¯s face steels and the sharp piercing scream of a goblin resounds in the entire hall.


    Looks like my primary objective has been achieved. As an existence who brings about 3 SemiGod Equipment and a God Equipment with him, if I were to take out another God Equipment, most people would subconsciously think that it is real too.


    ¡°Yong... YONGYE!!!!! ...¡± He forcefully swallows back the rest of his words. He knows how precious the auction item in front of him is, that is at least the worth of an Empire! He is already starting to envy that rookie who faints, and was tempted to faint himself and end it all there and then.


    ¡°Yes, Eternal Night Scepter.¡± I heartlessly broke the final hope that he has as I looked yfully at the face of despair of the goblin.


    ¡°... Eternal Night Scepter?¡±


    My voice isn¡¯t very loud but with everyone on the field looking at us, this level of voice is sufficient. Very quickly, the news about Eternal Night Scepter reappearing in the world spreads across the entire hall.


    Arge portion of people were stunned, then they expressed the glee of greediness before turning into fear...


    ¡°Call everyone to gather and leave, something big is going to happen here!¡±


    ¡°Hurry up and leave. Kai isn¡¯t willing to go? Fine, then let¡¯s go by ourselves, just leave this fool to die here.¡±


    Even if you manage to gain possession of God Equipment, you would need to be alive to utilize it. Going by the rules of the underground world, a fool who possesses a precious treasure without the strength to match up to it would end up dead sooner orter. When the news that the Scepter has reappeared spreads out, many top-tier powers will all crowd in. At that time, it would be toote to leave.


    Of course, there would be fools and those who are willing to give their life for wealth. Many people chose to leave but there are also a few who remained. But, they were still frightened by how the Thief died eerily then, so they were afraid of charging head on.


    Towards those who were eyeing for it butck the courage to, I ignored them totally and instead, I smiled at the goblin who was holding up the scepter, his hands trembling.


    ¡°I only have 2 requests for the auction. The first is that the auction should be held 30 dayster, 3 in the afternoon. Every individual and power are allowed to attend. Second, if the auction item disappears, I want you all topensate me 20 top-tier underground cities that includes ¡®Miheu Oasis¡¯, ¡®Cloud Water Box¡¯, ¡®Flying Dragon City¡¯ in its midst.¡±


    ¡°What... Pay, pay... you underground cities? I... don¡¯t have underground cities... Miheu, I get it, Lion King!!! You are aiming for the Lion King!¡±


    Alright, that pitiful goblin¡¯s eyes immediately flipped white and follows in the footsteps of his subordinates.


    He did point out my goal correctly. Of course I came here for Shou. If I want to start an auction in this city, how can it do without sufficient backing. The backing for this auction house is the Beastman Sovereign Shou.Nuya and the underground cities that I said are all his properties.


    Hearing the name of the Underground Autarch, a few of the ¡®audience¡¯ suddenly regain their rational thinking and their instinctive fear and chose to leave. At times, knowing too much may also result in death.


    ¡°Hey, fainting again. Is there anyone else who can take charge?¡±


    All of the workers who meet my gaze either avoid my gaze or just fall down directly, faking their deaths.


    ¡°Haha, isn¡¯t this Wumianzhe? It has been long since west met. You are here to auction something? Fine, we will ept your deal.¡±


    A gruff and grand figure walks through the entrance apanied by resoundingughter. Before the figure even walks in, the sound is already echoing throughout the hall.


    Exactly the same as how I saw him outside Sulfur Mountain City, the single-eyed old Lion has thick hair and his muscles over his body is, unexpectedly, not very exaggerated. The scorpion tail at the back of his head drags on the floor and that seemingly average ck-colored leather armor he wears is actually a Legend-tier armor that is hard to buy with just money itself.


    At this point, the old Scorpion-tailed Lion isughing cheerfully on his domain, seeming to not bother at all about the loss of his soldiers in his overwhelming defeat then.


    ¡°Hey, old thing, you are still alive. As expected as man who uses his own soldier as his shield. It must be your thick-skin that saved your life. To think you still dare to appear in front of me, aren¡¯t you afraid of me killing you directly?¡±


    Don¡¯t reveal one¡¯s secret when beating someone, but I deliberately want to aim for all of his weak spots. Instantly, the old lion¡¯s face scrunches.


    TL: Saying goes like this ¡®Don¡¯t aim for the face when beating someone up, don¡¯t aim for the weak spots when you are scolding someone¡¯ simply means don¡¯t go too far.


    War is an extension of governance. All of the influential figures care about their image and under normal situations, no matter how intense the secret fights between underground city lords were, but if they were to be seated together in public, they would still spare the other party some face and interact politely. But, meeting an opponent that doesn¡¯t spare him any face, it is probably the first time he is seeing someone like that and his face steels immediately.


    This might be true under normal circumstances... But why should I spare this bastard any face!!


    The old lion tightens his grip on the sword behind his back but the next instant, he was blinded by my body of God Equipment.


    Shou remembers that Forbidden Spell that involves the entire city. That formless and majestic eye of the sky, as though as it was prepared to judge everything. Even the Beastman Sovereign felt some fear and couldn¡¯t bring up the determination to go all out with me.


    ¡°Lord!! The Vance city has a pact against fighting!¡±


    Realizing the hesitation of his master, a fox Beastman dressed in a Mage¡¯s robe steps forward, as though reminding his master about this city¡¯s rules. In reality, he was giving space for his own boss to step down.


    With someone persuading him, Shou¡¯s face gradually rxes and he releases his grip on the sword¡¯s handle.


    Of course, a neutral city bans fighting but there are coliseums that allow one to resolve personal grudges. Furthermore, when did these domineering Underground Autarchs start to follow rules.


    But the next moment, the surrounding people exims in shock. They dare not believe that the invincible Beastman Sovereign would actually take this lying. It can¡¯t be that the rumor that the Beastman Sovereign had led an army on an expedition but ended up getting wiped clean in a farawaynd is true?


    Following Shou¡¯s style of doing things, to not act up facing other people¡¯s illments is sufficient to testify the authenticity of the rumors, causing heavy damage to the reputation of this Beastman Sovereign.


    But, the single eye that gazes at the surrounding made all of the restless people stop in their tracks... Even if this news is false, there is a high possibility of it getting out. If Shou were to mistake them as the one who spread it out, then wouldn¡¯t they die wronged


    The single-eyed Beastman Sovereign suppresses his anger, but it was impossible for him to continue interacting with this ¡®rogue¡¯ in front of him. Thus, the fox Beastman, after a meaningful gaze, steps up.


    ¡°Basics in doing business, everyone thates knocking is a customer, so we should ept them with smiles on our face, even if the customer is rude, don¡¯t you agree, Lord Wumianzhe?¡± This message doesn¡¯t put themselves down, nor does it anger other people. At the same time, it is a verbal attack, yet it is humorous. It is a very apt message. Iughed in reply, getting us past the vicious words I shot out just now.


    Since he provided an opportunity to alleviate the situation, I might as well take it. Anyway, my goal today is not to fall out with them.


    ¡°That is to say, you all are epting my auction deal?¡±


    ¡°ept, of course we are epting.¡±


    ¡°Fine, then let¡¯s sign an agreement using mine.¡±


    That little fox takes the sheepskin agreement and his face turns white in an instant. On it, thenguage of the Devils of Hell is used instead of the usualmonnguage. This is an agreement belonging to the Devils.


    The agreements on it is just like what I have said, number 1, the auction is to be held 30 dayster, number 2, if the scepter is lost, 20 cities must be paid to me. The only thing different is that I added another restrictive use that if none of the 2 terms are fulfilled, then the person who signed the deal will fall into River Styx, unable to redeem themselves.


    To humans and Beastman, swearing to the River Styx is no different from swearing to the sun, anyway none of it is effective anyway. But to the Malevolent Gods, Demons and Devils who live in the Underworld, their power and live originate from the River Styx. If they were to go against the promise they made to River Styx, even the Spider Queen Lorci would be reduced to a tiny little spider.


    TL: Underground world and Underworld is different (Underworld -> Abyss, Hell etc.)


    Of course, my message in taking out this contract is clear, that the Beastman Sovereign is Demon wearing the cloak of a Beastman...


    The little fox passes the contract quivering to Shou then, he was sent flying by the enraged Beastman Sovereign.


    But as he grasped the contract, he hesitated. The power backing him seems to be extremely interested in this scepter and if he were to let go of it...


    ¡°If you don¡¯t ept the deal, then I will head over to the ck Pearl Auction House next door.¡± I made a timely increase in stakes.


    The ck Pearl Auction House is backed by another Underground Autarch Ainsterna Eduar and the power behind him is the Devils. No matter how you see it, from their background or how they were vying to be the leader of the Underground Alliance, Shou and Ainsterna were destined to be archenemies.


    ¡°If Ainsterna were to sessfully hold the auction and alliance with Sulfur Mountain City, that would make it a 3V1 situation and Molly isn¡¯tpletely reliable yet... No, the worst situation is him sessfully unlocking the secrets to Eternal Night Scepter within the 30 days.¡±


    But then, Shou naturally thought that if Ainsterna could unlock its secret, wouldn¡¯t he be able to do the same too? Even if his ck Shaman subordinates weren¡¯t really skilled in this aspect, but he has Lich underlings as well. If that can¡¯t do too... He can ask for help from the one behind him!


    ¡°No... If I really to uncover Lord Yongye¡¯s secret to his strength, I can be the 2nd Lord Yongye, then would I still need his support?¡±


    In the face of treasure, countless thoughts were running through his brain and in the end, they all converged into just one.


    ¡°I¡¯ll sign. But before I sign, I want to check the good.¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    Thus, I tried my best to hold in myughter. Why? No matter how those Mages try to phrase their question, those ¡®yes¡¯, ¡®yes¡¯, ¡®true¡¯ is really making meugh.


    TL: One of the yes is in English while the other is in Mandarin


    While leaving with the signed contract, I threw a message at him.


    ¡°You, might regret it.¡±


    Within my expectations, an angry roar reminiscent of a Lion¡¯s could be heard from my back.


    ¡°The Beastman Sovereign never regrets!!¡±


    Fine, let me continue to hold in myughter...


    That night, I heard that the old Lion was confined in his study for an entire night and he casually killed 7 strategists with the little fox included in the mix, 8 Mages and 6 ck Shamans. When he finally steps out, repeated mumbles of him saying ¡®although I have heard the sound of the breathing, how do I activate this¡¯ could be heard.


    That night, I heard that the old Lion suffered numerous attacks at the auction so he moved to the military barracks. Even so, there were more than 30 attempts at burry, 5 military mutinies and 4 assaults from other underground city lords...


    In that night, it is said that most of the underground city lords began to rush to Vance to prepare for the auction 30 dayster. Of course, the ones making the move with them is their army.


    That night, it is said that all of the Necromancers and Thieves went mad and the tunnel heading to Vance was filled with all kinds of dangerous personnel. At the same time, someone sent a report that an Undead Lording from the surface was spotted.


    Rumors has it that in the 2nd day, the old Lion¡¯s hair turned white overnight, and he looked like he has aged 10 years...


    As for me, I looked at the sky which was starting to have traces of white as I waited for morning toe.


    ¡°The wind has finally started blowing but, this, is only just the beginning.¡±

 Chapter 41

    <h4>Chapter 41: Fracture</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    In the southwest suburb of Vance City, there is a wall and a small castle. This is where the mercenaries of a wealthy Gray Dwarf merchant used to station.


    In the underground world where the powerful thrives through exploiting the weak, money is often forced to make dealings with strength and wealthy merchants are often not too far from having a big army. But, it is a pity that the mercenary team that the Gray Dwarf chose to hire was a little too ambitious. In less than 3 months of being employed, they got rid of their boss and escaped with his money.


    Afterwards, thisnd was purchased at a cheap price by another merchant. This merchant has trade dealings with Sulfur Mountain City so he sold it to us at a slightly higher price.


    Personally, I like this piece ofnd a lot. It might be a little too far from the heart of the city and thend around it is quite remote. But to us, who have quite a bit of enemies in the city, it is actually a good thing.


    At least, no one would be hurt in the traps set up by the Hunters and Mages and thendmines happily set by the goblins.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    ¡°Un, it was indeed the right choice, Otherwise, these frequent explosions would disturb the neighbors.¡±


    After hearing the explosions that I have gotten used to, I nodded my head as I looked at the 70% done goblins whose souls were floating out of their body.


    Looking down, I casually ignored the 2 naked man who just flew past... Eaglestorm who grew a pair of wings + Xueti who is riding on him.


    Should I exim at Eaglestorm¡¯s powers? Despite Body Transformation being a high-level technique that only few of the Great Druids who specialize in Transmogrification can use, but he used it to give himself a human body to spread his teachings of not wearing clothes.


    ¡°Wowowowowo! I am the king of the world!!¡±


    Alright, looking at the Tauren, he was pping his chest and shouting loudly in the air. He is simply too much of an eyesore to ignore, so...


    I picked up a round-shaped goblinndmine and threw it over like a frisbee.


    The frisbee made a perfect curve but Eaglestorm¡¯s sharp eyes notices the sudden attack. By tilting his body slightly, he easily dodges the attack.


    ¡°Haha, you missed!!¡± That dumb cow didn¡¯t know that his identity was long exposed by me and still shakes his butt towards me, flinging his bird...


    ¡°Using that ¡®King of the world¡¯ as the target, test the might of the fixed cannon towers and the gnome¡¯s hand grenades, fire!¡±


    After passing down an order to the engineers and firers, I turn around and leaves. As I expected, the screams of agony of the 2 fools could be heard for a long time.


    ¡°Hmph, to dare to show your bird in front of me... Anyway, they are Legend-rank and their tough enough, they won¡¯t die even if they fall down directly. It is a good opportunity to test the effectiveness of our defense devices.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Lord!¡± Truthfully, my words were excessive. To an engineer, as long as there is a chance to try out their treasures, why would they be worried about the life and death of theirb rats.


    3 goblin cannons continuously fires and the gnome firer¡¯s hand grenades never stopped. ¡®Suoooooo¡¯ and multiple rockets fly towards the sky...


    While arge portion of people looked skeptically at the rise of engineering, perhaps due to my interests as a Transcender from a foreign world, I made Sulfur Mountain City support the development of engineering.


    In current times, due to the presence of many engineering master, Sulfur Mountain City has be the sacrednd of engineering for the entire underground world.


    This time, in order to sustain those ¡®Rnds¡¯, I brought all of the engineers to make up for the incident previously. With the help of the engineers, thest-minute defense system is currently being renewed at the speed of 3 times a day... Seems like I identally used the wrong phrase, but it is enough as long as the meaning is there.


    TL: He used the phrase that the authors normally use to promise their readers to public _ amount of chapter each day and the phrase means 3 chapter a day.


    Cough, after researching the engineering system of this world carefully, I realized that their energy source is still mainly derived from the energy crystals found within magic beasts. The fossil fuels are still a few centuries too early before it can be truly used. In that instant, I knew that it was impossible for engineering to hit it big in a short period of time.


    Why? It is just the basic conservation of energy. If you want to move a giant device that is sufficient to kill a top-tier magic beast, you must first use the magic crystal of a top-tier magic beast... The Titan Heart and other kinds of permanent energy source cannot be mass produced. On top of the unrefined usage of fossil fuels by goblins, the negative view in most people¡¯s mind that engineering = explosion also makes it difficult for engineering to be spread around the world.


    At the same time, there is a ruckus at the doorstep. I walked there and saw the familiar Dracon, Beifeng.Herault. He is currently carrying a sack with something struggling within, intending to sneak in... But it is a pity that the Dark Elf Knights wouldn¡¯t let such an obvious criminal act go and had him surrounded tightly.


    ¡°Let go of that horse!!¡±


    2 hoofs were exposed from the struggling in the sack.


    ¡°...I am a Centaur, not a horse! Right, is there anyone outside? Save me! Save me! There is a kidnapper here!¡±


    ¡°Hey hey, Town Securitydies, I am just following the teachings of my instinct and fulfilling my role as a Hunter by bringing a prey back. This isn¡¯t a district under your control so you can¡¯t dictate my actions right.¡±


    In a moment, the Town Security was at a loss of words. From a certain sense, they really do not have the authority to carry out thew in this city.


    Looking at this perverted Hunter who is good at debating, I couldn¡¯t help but to think of the new perverse meter created by the Town Security ¡ª Beifeng meter, and my head starts to hurt.


    ¡°There are too many perverts in Sulfur Mountain City but Beifeng¡¯s pervert meter cannot be matched, so he became a SI unit for perverse. The Beifeng meter is decided by a vote from everyone. As he is hated by everyone, he is known as 1 Beifeng. The one that always flirts with female nobles, The Moving Obscenity, only has half of his hate ballots, so she is 0.5 Beifeng. The explosion maniacs brother is 0.6 Beifeng, that ugly eagle hooked-nose (Eaglestorm) is 0.8 Beifeng, that Tauren who always strips naked is 0.1 Beifeng...¡±


    ¡°Wait, even though they are both perverts with a fetish for nude running, why is there such a great disparity between them?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, it is hateful how he brings it out and flings it about despite not having the capital.¡±


    Their answer made me sweat profusely.


    ¡°Also, don¡¯t just look at how gruff he looks, that Tauren is actually quite obedient. He doesn¡¯t retaliate when you hit him, he doesn¡¯t even scold you back when you insult him. He is fit and can undergo beatings, fulfilling all the standards of a good man in our heart. Actually, many girls in our team are interested in him. If he could get rid of his bad habit of stripping naked, he might be even more popr. After all, no one who wish for their own property (male) to be exposed in the public...¡±


    Fine, should I say as expected of Dark Elves? At that time, I tried to test them a little...


    ¡°Then, what about Rnd?¡±


    ¡°10 Beifeng! I¡¯m sorry, I know that he has dealings with the legal system and you hope to spare him. But whenever we think of him, everyone starts to grind their teeth in resentment and finally, we decided to give him the highest value!¡±


    ¡°...10 Beifeng huh. Hehe, then what about number 2? 5 Beifeng?¡±


    ¡°Of course it is Beifeng himself 1 Beifeng! Hmph, that bones must be a pervert whose head got dunked in water, otherwise why would he keep doing things that harm others and don¡¯t benefit himself.¡±


    Fine, the moment I recalled of the fact that I was seen as a 10 Beifeng dumbass whose head is dunked in water while the silly cow on top is only 0.1 Beifeng and popr among the girls, my anger seems to rise from somewhere...


    ¡°Engineers, if you all are unable to shoot him down, then you all will be confined as a group. If you hit them down, they will be confined instead. Put in more effort, I want to see results before lunch.¡±


    Alright, the moment that my voice echoes out, the firepower is increased by more than 3 times. At the same time, I walked slowly to the side of the Dracon who was still standing triumphantly.


    ¡°You lot, did you all turn dumb from reading too much codex? Indeed, this is not the district under your control, but you all aren¡¯t enforcers here too. Since you all came in your own capacity as an individual, there is no one here to interfere with you all. What is the point of considering so much when you want to beat someone up?¡±


    Beifeng is indeed alert and just when I finished my sentence, he was already ready to make a run for it.


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Judgement, Incantation of Law: Stripping of Freedom.¡±


    As expected, Beifeng who had just done a kidnapping turned light red and was immediately stopped on the spot by the Incantation of Law.


    ¡°Beat him up!¡±


    Maybe mymands were excessive. The Town Security whose hatred was exploding immediately swarms in. Those who are kicking were already considered mild, there are those using whips and shovels... Looks like, the rule in Sulfur Mountain City preventing the abuse of those captured had the Town Security quite frustrated from restraining themselves.


    A fight bursts out here and instead, I look worriedly at my quest board.


    ¡°Daily quest: Set your dogs out to hurt others. Order your subordinates to surround and beat up people who you find an eyesore. The stronger the target, the more vicious the beating, the better the reward. Current progress: 2/3... Hero, did you think that as a Demon King, I won¡¯t have my loyalckeys? If you want to face me, first get rid of my underlings the Left and Right Guardians 3 Sky Gods 4 Heavenly Kings 5 Gold Warriors 6 Protectors 7 Arhats 8 Sky Dragons. Hahaha, I will be waiting for you at the 99th floor of thebyrinth.¡±


    TL: References to Buddhism, can¡¯t find the exact English wordings


    ¡°There is still one morecking, who should I look for? Forget it, anyone will do. With these bunch of perverts, do I still need to be afraid of being unable to find a reason to beat someone up?¡±


    ¡°Thank... Thank you. But, can you be responsible for me?¡±


    A shy voice resounds by my side, but the content was unbelievably explosive. Even the Town Security forgot to beat up Beifeng and the goblin cannon firers stopped from the shock.


    ¡°What, what, what, responsible? Me?¡±


    Fortunately, the mask covers my expression. Otherwise, everyone could see my silly look from my old lower jaw bone falling down.


    Looking carefully, it seems that I recognize her.


    ¡°You... from that day?¡±


    ¡°Great! Lord, you still remember me. All because of you, I lost my most precious thing that day.¡±


    A golden-colored horse tail sways along with the wind. The other half of the horse body is still in the sack but the redness of her embarrassment extends all the way to her neck.


    ¡°Lord... Can you be responsible for me... I don¡¯t request a lot, as long as I have sufficient food, I don¡¯t mind sleeping by the corridors.¡±


    Vaguely, I feel that the gazes from my back has changed from respect to one looking at trash.


    ¡°She is so small... It can¡¯t be that Lord is also a special product from Sulfur Mountain City ¡ª Pervert.¡±


    ¡°Furthermore, a centaur. Her lower body is a horse. So his taste is the same as Beifeng¡¯s. No wonder Lord couldn¡¯t find a girlfriend in Sulfur Mountain City and fools around the moment hees out.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, Momo¡¯s perfect image of him in my heart has crumbled, how disappointing. I thought Lord was cool but I didn¡¯t expect him to be a pervert as well. What¡¯s more, a hypocrite who pretends to be righteous. Hate meter explodes! At least 0.9 Beifeng!¡±


    ¡°This... Actually, we shouldn¡¯tment too much about his private rtionship. Lord is a male after all, so he has the freedom to choose who he loves. However, messing around in the start and abandoning her afterwards is wrong!¡± The Town Security Captain Diana is understanding like always, but I really don¡¯t need this kind of interpretation.


    ¡°Hu!¡± Hearing the sound of the movement of ropes, I immediately lowered my head. Not surprisingly, a cold magic wire flies past slightly above my head.


    ¡°Hmph! Master, do you like Phoebe or iron? Let me book for you in advance.¡±


    TL: Phoebe


    ¡°I don¡¯t need a coffin!!¡± Even if Elisa doesn¡¯t point out what these materials refer to, but the frost on her face, the blood veins on her pretty face and those endless wires that were furiously twisting about is sufficient to tell everything.


    ¡°Such a picky customer. Then, just die on the cross on the fields. Not only is it environmentally friendly, we can also make good use of trash as a scarecrow to get rid of pests.¡±


    Under Elisa¡¯s summons, countless ice form from the solidification of water vapor, turning into wires that brings about death. As for me, I can only dodge frantically.


    ¡°Centaurss! I promise you! I promise you everything and I will be responsible. Help me exin quickly!!¡±


    ¡°Great! Lord, since you are willing to provide Anya with a job, Anya will work very hard for you. Ahhh, ever since I lost my job because you of, Lord, I really didn¡¯t know what to do. It was fortunate that you were willing to provide me with a job.¡±


    ¡°Job!?¡±


    ¡°Responsible?¡±


    After shouts of surprise, from the exnations of the Centaur girl, everyone finally understands that it is just a misunderstanding.


    The one before me who is speaking shyly and even ying with her horse tail is Centaur Anya, the unlucky fellow who lost his job after I caused a scene in the tinum Order Auction House. She, who viewed her first job in life as the most precious thing to her, naturally can¡¯t forget about me who caused her to lose it.


    ¡°...That, initially, on the afternoon 2 days ago, I found a job in a restaurant as a waitress. But, a Holy Knight caused a scene there, saying that she wants to arrest a criminal. In the end, she broke tables and chairs in her fight and ran away. In the end, the boss said that I failed to stopped them and even wanted me to pay... Those Elf Holy Knights are so fierce, how could I have stopped them.¡±


    Holy Knights? Furthermore, Elf Holy Knights? This isn¡¯t Sulfur Mountain City, so I turned my gaze to the Town Security and unsurprisingly, thatss named Momo was intending to sneak away.


    ¡°Capture her!¡± Alright, a few secondster, there is another dumpling on the floor that is mumbling to herself. ¡°This is too much. How could it be my mistake to punish those ve traders, Momo isn¡¯t wrong.¡±


    ¡°Yesterday afternoon, I found another job in the bath house... But, it was so scary! A bunch of naked perverts rushed in to bathe and after bathing, they ran out naked again. Furthermore, they didn¡¯t pay any money and scared away all of the customers. The boss med me for not stopping them again and I lost my job once more...


    I silently focused my gaze on those engineers. In the next instant, the firepower tripled once more.


    ¡°Yesterday afternoon, I found another job as a servant at the Lion King Residence. But, several hourster, I met with misfortune once more. It was so scary, a very beautiful big sister suddenly rushes in, saying that she wants to borrow the scepter to take a look. My boss refused and they actually started to fight. In the end, half of the Lion King Residence was destroyed.¡±


    ¡°Is that big sister ck-haired red-eyed and there is a dragon tattoo-like insignia on her left face?¡± That centaur girl¡¯s story is simply too legendary that even Little Red came over to listen. But at this point, she suddenly asks seriously.


    ¡°Dragon Empress?¡±


    After receiving confirmation, Little Red smiles and her smile was full of malice.


    ¡°It is her. Hehe, borrowing Eternal Night Scepter to take a look? This can only be used to fool a kid. The 3rd reasonmonly used by the Dragon Tribe¡¯s for extortion ¡®Lend me that so that I can take a look, I¡¯m just going to take a look¡¯... If you really lent her that scepter, then you can be prepared to never get it back.¡±


    ¡°The 3rd? Then what are the first 2?¡±


    ¡°I heard that there is a beautiful princess in your home, I heard that the boy in your home is destined to be a dragon-ying hero...¡±


    ¡°Then, wouldn¡¯t there be a reason to extort from both guys and girls... Who created them? How exquisite! Truly a genius.¡±


    ¡°Of course it is me who was born smart and pretty. But it is a pity that those idiots wouldn¡¯t admit. I was obviously the one who created it but everyone just used it.¡±


    ¡°Ha, there are some things that can be done and not said. Now that you said it out directly, naturally, their pride cannot ept it. However, since the fragile alliance of the Dragon Empress and Beastman Sovereign is starting to fracture, the Dragon Empress should havee alone... Un, pass the message to Kajah and Eduar. Maybe, today¡¯s 3rd dog will be quite strong and I would be able to reap great rewards from my daily quest.¡±

 Chapter 42

    <h4>Chapter 42: The Truth of History</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    It is not without a reason that I would choose to conduct the auction 30 dayster.


    There is still 2 weeks more before the Underground Alliance¡¯s biannual Alliance Meeting. All of the top brass of the alliance should be on their way and it is better to have fun together as a group than as an individual. Tripping an entire nest is much better than tripping an individual, so let¡¯s get everyone to jump into the hole happily.


    TL: Just means pulling everyone down into the mud, the more the merrier.


    TL: The word used is ? -> Hole, Pit. Sort of means toy a trap then harm someone (could be yful, could be malicious) Can¡¯t find a single adjective in English that epass it.


    Following the procession of the Underground Alliance, entering the Alliance is actually pretty easy, requiring only the approval of any 2 Underground Autarchs. But apparently, just entering the Alliance isn¡¯t sufficient for my goals.


    A chance to showcase my might in front of the top brass is required.


    An internationalw, a new Autarch must step on the old Autarch to get in ce (defeat or a draw). Perhaps, a long-established Autarch like the Dragon Empress would be the ideal stepping stone.


    After all, even though her individual strength is the strongest among the Autarch and the Dragon Cities under her are full of experts, but her total military might and influence is definitely the weakest in the underground world.


    It is the weakest, not one of the weakest, and this is a problem that arises from the core.


    There are no other reasons and it is totally unrted to her scheming and strength. It is just purely a reality check on how the races of the underground world affects the political situation.


    The current Underground Autarchs in power, while their individual might cannot be underestimated, but what that truly makes one unable to underestimate them are the underground cities supporting them.


    Take for example, Ainsterna. His individual strength is said to be Saint-rank rookie, while Kajah is Saint-rank intermediate and the old Lion is Saint-rank pinnacle. The Dragon Empress¡¯s total fighting strength is on the line of the SemiGod, triumphing over the other Autarchs by more than a rank. Despite Ainsterna being the weakest among the Autarchs, but he is vaguely bing the centerpiece of the Alliance.


    TL: Rookie -> Just entered the rank/ Intermediate -> Halfway there/ Pinnacle -> Peak of the rank


    In ¡®history¡¯, he is the final head ofmand of the Alliance to bring about the invasion to the surface, which means that he is thest one standing then. The underground world is always a ce where fist speaks the loudest. He might be the weakest individually but he has the strongest influence. Having 50 underground cities directly under him is already very scary, but there are at least 400 underground city lords who support him secretly in the shadow.


    The reason? He is a human, at least on the surface. That¡¯s why the other human underground city lords support him. It is that simple.


    The old Lion and Kajah is also the same. As an underground Beastman Sovereign and a High Priestess of the Dark Elves, their potential supporters are a strength that cannot be estimated. From a certain perspective, they are the highest leader that represents the benefits of their race. Of course, arge portion of the underground city lords will not admit to it but their private inclinations are quite obvious.


    This was also the reason why when Shou attacked Sulfur Mountain City, he was able to get City Lord Hng Hng who doesn¡¯t fall within hismand to act as cannon fodder. When an alliance works together towards a single goal, in order to not be cannon fodder, in order to earn more benefits and for a plot ofnd with better sunshine, many underground city lords will look for an Underground Autarch to support and join. Shou, Ainsterna and Kajah¡¯s army will grow stronger like a rolling snowball and be an Underground Autarch true to its title.


    Underground Dragon Tribe? The young dragons who are willing to listen tomands are already serving under the Dragon Empress. Certainly, there are many hidden Ancient Dragons and even Immemorial Dragons, but are they people that Molly, who is only an Ancient Dragon, is able tomand?


    At that time, when the boat of the other Autarchs float up, the only one that remains in its original position, Dragon Empress Molly¡¯s, wouldck behind and probably end up as a high-tier fighter. So, her pursuit for strength is much more intense than the other Underground Autarchs and thus, the Eternal Night Scepter is much more attractive to her.


    Fights have never stopped in the underground world. Normally, people will still leave a line of morality against people of the same tribe whereas a war between foreign races will be extremely violent and bloody. There are more than a few that have grudges against other races and it is said that even the old Lion had once been enved as a coliseum diator by a human underground city lord. That¡¯s why, the Beastman Sovereign treats the underground Beastmen rtively well and is unforgiving towards humans.


    As for Sulfur Mountain City, due to its diverse poption base, even though it won¡¯t be seen as an enemy by the other underground city lords, but it will never receive the goodwill of any other underground cities other than the human¡¯s. But due to the city lord being Adam.Han, who in the eyes of the grandchildren of those who were exiled and the exiled, a hero who has saved the world is too radiant, making it difficult for them to walk together. Thus, perhaps it would be much better if Annie, who was also born in the underground world, to take over.


    Then, even if Sulfur Mountain City were to join the Underground Alliance and gain a seat as one of the Underground Autarch, it is destined to be sidelined. From the very start, I gave Sulfur Mountain City a fixed role...


    The stick that creates problem, the smelly rocks in the toilet...


    Yes, since we are unable to join the core group, then we should just create trouble for the core group. There are minorities and those who were sidelined everywhere. I will gather and unite all of these minorities and form quite a sizable power. If you want to strike the east, I will intentionally go for the west. When you want to attack the city, I will deliberately vote for protecting our homes.


    This way, the bloody war with the surface could at least be dragged by a few years. When the invasion of the Undead Cmity and Demons starts, then it would be time for this group who are skilled in internal conflict to hug together for warmth.


    TL: Skilled in internal conflict -> Good at internal conflicts but bad in dealing with external threats


    It is like that in the ¡®history¡¯ too. The reason why it was getting harder and harder to deal with the cmities afterwards is because the Eich continent¡¯s losses were too great from the first few cmities. Especially for the dominant Human Empires who despite having the most poption and strongest overall strength, but the constant war among kingdoms, internal conflict among cult teachings, the invasion by the underground world, the invasion by the undead and the invasion of demons... They totally failed as a pir to prop up the entire Eich continent. They were totally destroyed in the course of these few wars. Of course, one of the reason is because there were quite a few races who view humans, who were populous and take up the mostnd, as an eyesore.


    In the original ¡®history¡¯, when the underground world and human kingdom is done with their bloody war on the ins and each of their poption has been cut by 30%, the timely arrival of the Undead Cmity (in the original history, Xiluo Empire doesn¡¯t exist, only the Undead Lich Council. They opened the gates leading to the Undead Dimensions) converted the 2 of the sides who were still fighting passionately into an ant on a noose.


    In the more difficult days ahead, countless people conjectured that if the human kingdoms and the underground world didn¡¯t fight to such an extent and instead, retained over half of their fighting power, perhaps the situation wouldn¡¯t end up like that.


    At that time, in order to deepen the friendship and trust of both sides, one of the few remaining heads of the Underground Alliance, Queen of Dark Elf Victoria.Syfan, even had a political marriage with the And Empire¡¯s King of the Winter Wolves, and they fell in love from there on, making quite the talk in history.


    ¡°It is a pity. It is said that Victoria.Syfan, even within the Elves who were filled with beauties, is a rarely seen cream of the crop. Hehe, perhaps that is the reason why the King of Winter Wolves left behind his famousst words ¡®You resent that I was bornte, I resent that you were born early. Throughout my life, the thing that I hate the most is even before my death, I was unable to forget you.¡¯ However, being able to marry an unforgettable beauty back to his home and still die with resentment, he really should learn to be satisfied, or else what are we bachelors supposed to with ourselves.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, Master, how can you be a bachelor when you are so popr?¡± Even though the misunderstanding was dispelled, but the frost on Elisa¡¯s face didn¡¯t have the trace of melting, so it was a little mystifying.


    ¡°...Weird, you should have known from the start that it was a misunderstanding. Let¡¯s not talk about the centaur, even if it is a beauty, what can this sack of old bones do? You are intending to make use of the situation tomit a coup d¡¯etat!!¡±


    My angry roar didn¡¯t cause the cold eyes that seemed to be looking at trash waver... Normally in this kind of situations, I probably would have really done something wrong but I obviously didn¡¯t do anything wrong recently.


    ¡°Under the cover of the ?46 Skills of ck Magic? on your shelves...¡±


    ¡°No wonder, no wonder, no wonder, you are the one who changed my drawings of Elves on the beach into drawings of the male goblin body. Those green naked goblins, I almost puked on the spot. When I was sharing it with Adam, the eyes that he looked at me with is even colder than yours. The message he was expressing was obvious. ¡®So you are actually a pervert with a fetish for goblins, stay away from me¡¯. At that moment, I even had the thought of crashing my head onto the wall and just fall dead!!¡±


    ¡°Oh, so Lord Adam also yed a part. Looks like I must tell Lord Margaret. It is time to clean away illegal magazines in the city.¡±


    ¡°I... I need to clean up my family today.¡±


    TL: The phrase is used normally used when you rid disgraces within your family.


    ¡°?The Little Tips from the Enchantress???Mage Carl¡¯s Hunting Compass???Hehe, You Did Well. But, Fire Explosion is already Here!?...¡±


    I felt a shiver running down my back as each and every one of these book names were called. Those ¡®artwork¡¯ that were under the cover of seemingly proper books... They are my life, they are precious treasures that took me much effort to collect in this ¡®resource¡¯cking world.


    ¡°Master Elisa, please spare those children. If anything, please direct them to this pile of old bones.¡± With hostages in her hand, I had no choice but to lower my head.


    ¡°Hehe, you should be well aware of what you did. Take care.¡± After finishing her piece, Elisa bows and leaves. On other days, after making me surrender, she would be extremely overjoyed but now, looking at the drooping tail, she seems to not only be angry, but her mood is very down.


    Looking at this situation, Anniees bumping over with a yful smile and whispers in my ear.


    ¡°Uncle Bones, the reason why big sister Elisa is angry is because of the present sent over from Morsblight City. It is a very pretty Dark Elf big sister, you know.¡±


    ¡°Present? What?¡± I didn¡¯t know how to react to this sudden catastrophe. It is normal for the Dark Elves to send a present to tighten our rtionship but I didn¡¯t expect them to send over a living person.


    ¡°Un, it is a humongous beautiful big sister. Annie has never seen such a beautiful big sister. Un, she seems to be called Victoria.¡±


    ¡°WHAT!!! VICTORIA? VICTORIA.SYFAN?¡±


    ¡°Ah, you also know her, Uncle Bones? So, she is very famous. But I guess it is to be expected, such a beautiful big sister. However, Annie will try hard and drink more milk. Big sister Margaret has said that men like big chests. Even though that big sister is very beautiful, but she doesn¡¯t have breast at all...¡±


    I totally ignored what Annie was saying. After hearing the match in names, 10,000 mud horses (Cao ni ma) whistles through my mind. What exactly is this situation, why is the future Queen of Dark Elf sent over to me? Without her taking over as the Queen, how can the situation with the surface powers be resolved? Is the butterfly effect that exaggerated?


    TL: A homophone for screw your mum.


    I hurriedly rushed over and saw a beauty being surrounded by a bunch of Dark Elf Knights.


    Fine eyebrows with warm eyes. Facial features like a painting. Seductive red lips coupled with some blush brings out the image of a fairy descending. She doesn¡¯t have the sharp heroic spirit and domineering personalitymonly seen in Dark Elves, but she has a kind of warmth and disposition simr to a jade, making one feel at ease. It is a kind of beauty that makes one¡¯s eyes want to linger the more they stare at her.


    From the perspective of a man, this kind of virtuous wife and kind mother type of women is the hardest to resist. Also, if you mustpare her outer appearances and disposition with the others, she is even above that of Margaret and Elisa, who are also rarely seen beauties themselves. It is no wonder she left her mark in history for her looks.


    TL: Virtuous wife and kind mother -> Amon phrase used to describedies


    No wonder the King of Winter Wolves couldn¡¯t forget the image of her and no wonder Elisa would vent her anger on me. This is an extremely beautiful person with the personality of a virtuous wife and kind mother. Exactly my dish... But why is it that I instinctively felt that something was amiss.


    ¡°This is weird, I don¡¯t get the impulse I get when I see beautifuldies. On the contrary, my instinct is telling me that she is a trouble, a gigantic trouble.¡±


    Afterwards, Diana¡¯s fierce roar made me understand where the problem arose from.


    ¡°Vicadore.Syfan! Why are you here, and why are you dressed like this?¡±


    ¡°Diana.Syfan, please call me Victoria.Syfan now. Currently, I am a female Priestess of Lorci. Due to your irresponsible betrayal, Lorci¡¯s wrath came falling on me and as your only kin, I suffered the God¡¯s punishment of being transmogrified permanently. But fortunately, Lorci found that the female me had extremely high aptitude for the Divine Arts and allowed me to serve as her Priestess, sparing my life. This is all thanks to you, my beloved sister!!¡±


    Facing the seemingly calm but in reality, full of reproach reply of her brother, Diana¡¯s face immediately tightens as her hand trembles. The sacred sword Silver Avenger suddenly falls to the floor and the helpless and troubled face of the female knight seems to be thinking about where did she go wrong.


    ¡°I... I X. So she is actually a boy, or rather, used to be a boy!!¡± No wonder I instinctively felt that something was amiss. So, hidden behind this body of a world-ss beauty is the soul of a male.


    ¡°Wait, if I didn¡¯t create Sulfur Mountain City, then Diana might not have escaped in betrayal, or at least, would not have escaped for so long to cause Lorci to deliver a God¡¯s punishment personally in anger. Then, could it be possible that the Queen Victoria in history is a male!!¡±


    This is totally possible. In the female-dominated Dark Elf society, it is impossible for a male to strike it big. If you want to climb up thedder, faking your gender is an obvious thing to do. Furthermore, the natural beauty of the Elves makes them androgynous and hard to tell apart...


    Alright, my face ?-ed. This time, the mud horses (cao ni ma) that whistles through is twice in number than the previous.


    ¡°You resent that I was bornte, I resent that I was born early... No wonder he used the masculine term. Maybe, it is the servants who heard it wrongly. It should be ¡®you resent that I was born female, I resent you for the same (You hate that I wasn¡¯t born a female, actually, I so hate you equally for not being a female), no wonder the King of Winter Wolves hated himself for being unable to forget Queen Victoria. He picked up a male who cannot be refunded for a political marriage and what¡¯s worse is that he fell in love, being unable to forget him even on the verge of death. If I were to be in his shoes, don¡¯t just talk about the regret of my life, I would even have the intention to destroy the whole world!¡±


    TL: The poem is a homophone as well.


    I noticed Victoria¡¯s gaze on me. She ces her hand on her forehead, seeming to want to say something...


    Ignoring Diana¡¯s pleading eyes, I turned around to leave... Let the truth of the history be buried within history. An existence that can twist the Emperor of And, too fearsome!!

 Chapter 43

    <h4>Chapter 43: Butterfly</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Looking at the gentle young dy¡¯ in front me, my mind is extremely troubled.


    I once thought that if I really meet with important figures in history, I could act like the senior Transcenders in those novels and use the powers of a seer to win great benefits. Now that I¡¯ve finally meet one, furthermore a really big one, I am at a loss at where I should start.


    Following the mainstream views in novels, when facing important characters in history, I should either try my best to build up my rtionship with her to reap rewards in the future or take the opportunity before she matures to scare her, shake her, shake her violently, sprinklerge amounts of money on her and collect this future expert as my underling...


    But this kind of situation I am facing now has never appeared in dimension-travelling novels! I don¡¯t need her to repay me anything, nor do I need any new underlings. But if I were to help her without expectations of any rewards, then wouldn¡¯t I be casually grooming a potential enemy? It seems like a silly move.


    If it is a book with heavy taste, this would be a great development in the plot. I would give out 2 deviantughter and grab for the candles and leather whip behind me. Then, reaching out my hands, I would follow up with a ¡®hehe, your sister is in my hands, you know it...¡¯. But if the story really develops in such a fashion, then Elisa and the rest who are secretly listening in outside would immediately rush in. Also, even if I had decided to sin, I don¡¯t have the tools required... Somehow, inexplicable sadness wells up. O Great Will of the Universe, can you stop using this joke? It really hurts me so much.


    Alright, if it is a story happening in a man-restricted dimension, at this moment, I would have fallen heads over heels by ¡®her¡¯ beauty and kindness, smitten by her and willing to do anything for her. In essence, bing a subject under her skirt. In the end, depending on whether the author wants a ¡®normal¡¯ or ¡®X beautiful¡¯ story, I would either help her to regain her identity as a man or remain this way with her.


    Of course, if the author¡¯s sadistic side suddenly works up, then I might end up meeting with a series of tragedies before die. If the authores with a story of pure love, we might even end up being childhood friends and lovers in our previous life. Then, we would meet with a series of difficulties... Seems like in that dimension, not once has the male lead have a good life.


    Un, if it is a drama about fighting against the Japanese, then at this moment, we would have drawn a shotgun and ¡®bang bang bang bang¡¯, we would be rolling about while firing our guns. In the end, without a single wound or a trace of damage on our clothes, we would start engaging in hand-to-handbat and depending on which one is the invader, the person would get torn apart before the budget runs out...


    TL: This gun.


    If this is a certain 8PM primetime drama of a certain country, then Victoria¡¯s leukemia should be acting up soon, or she would get hit by a car while walking on the street, or an evil mother-inw would make things difficult for her. Also, if the drama manages to shoot on for a long period of time, an old doctor might even pop out and shout ¡®actually you are siblings¡¯... This ending doesn¡¯t sound too bad, at least the one who suffers is the female lead.


    If this is a certain detective show, then a scream of agony would be heard from outside now. Then, I would be able to shout proudly ¡®the murderer is our midst¡¯ and then a bunch of messy exnation. Un, this seems to be a nice way to take up the word count...


    ¡°Lord?¡±


    A warm voice echoes in the room. As the host, I have been standing in a daze from the moment I entered the room. This may be disrespectful, but Victoria made good use of this opportunity to assess this riddle-like man.


    A bulky robe and a silver mask might have shrouded all of his features, but the heart rate, the gaze, habitual motions and even the rate at which the finger taps on the top of the desk at can reveal a lot to someone who specializes in observation.


    Vicadore, no, it should be Victoria now, has confidence in her observation skills but even though 10 minutes have passed, she didn¡¯t manage to get anything important.


    ¡°As expected of the great saint who single-handedly created the Power of Law. No heartbeat, introverted eyes and no excessive motions. He seems like withered piece of wood sitting in meditation, totally nothing can be seen about him.¡±


    In Victoria¡¯s mind, Wumianzhe, who maintained that eerie silence ever since entering the room, was testing her patience. While she was observing the other party, the other party was also observing her and the eyes behind the mask may seem lifeless, but it seemed to have seen through everything about her.


    In the room that wasn¡¯t very spacious, a formless pressure is getting stronger. 10 minutester, Victoria, who can¡¯t stand the situation any further, finally breaks the silence. This is also equivalent to admitting defeat in thispetition of patience.


    ¡°Lord? You have something to discuss with me?¡±


    As for me, I had no idea what went through the other party¡¯s mind. But dazing away after calling someone here, it was quite disrespectful of me. I felt a little embarrassed.


    ¡°Cough, can you talk about your past? Including the part about your sister.¡±


    In order not to get treated as a spy, Victoria won¡¯t try to hide anything. Very soon, I authenticated my guesses that the reason why Queen Victoria (male) became the Priestess Victoria is because of my butterfly effect.


    I took the time to look through the game walk through awhile beforeing here. It is impossible for information on Queen Victoria, who yed an important role in ¡®history¡¯, to becking. Then, I noticed a part which I had neglected before... Epic Hero Knight of the Moon Diana.


    Yes, the Captain of the Town Order Security Team (simplified as Town Security) that I created on my interest and the silly female Knight that I always tease. ording to the records of ¡®history¡¯, she would grow quickly in the future battles and be the general of the Imperial Guards and the most trusted general of Moon Queen Victoria.


    ¡°Where the bright moon reaches, all filth would be exposed. Despite her heritage as an evil female Elf Knight, she transcended the boundaries of race and skin color to be the incarnation of divinity and justice.¡±


    Reading to this point, I was shocked, I actually changed this powerful and perfect female knight in ¡®history¡¯, through a few decades of peaceful life in Sulfur Mountain City, into a person who shouts her cheers while going to exercise everyday punctually, makes use of the clear day to quickly dry her clothes and the naivedy who looks at new fresh tidbit and restrains herself from collecting dowry...


    But personally,pared to the cold Epic Hero, I prefer this sillyss who is nice to make fun of...


    Cough, looks like I went out of topic. Back to the main matter at hand... Knight of the Moon is the most trusted sword of the Moon Queen and now, the reason is apparent. As his only blood-rted sister, it is natural for him to trust a Legend-rank sister following him about, even the ¡®lowly males¡¯ can grow and mature properly in the Syfan family throughing into contact with magic and important knowledge of the outside world. Facing the harsh present and future, he toughens his determination to change everything. As a male Dark Elf is destined to be unable to climb up thedder of power, he disguised as a female and with his sister¡¯s help, he manages to build up his own power and starts to rise in power...


    But now, due to the escape of his sister, he became the abandoned child of the family. From theck of flexibility of his flesh, Victoria obviouslycks the talent to be a warrior and bing a Mage requires money, an astronomical amount of money. It would already be good if the poor and weak Vicadore was able to prevent that little pocket money he has from getting snatched away, so how was it possible for him toe into contact with magic? In addition to that, hecks strength, resulting in his ce in the family getting lower and lower.


    ¡°Hehe, it is actually kind of funny now that I think of it. If I didn¡¯t transform into a girl due to the God¡¯s punishment and awaken my talent to the Divine Arts, I might have be a bed toy of some Matriarch. However, a small Silver-rank Priestess is still a toy in the face of those influential figures. Lord, I am your property now. So, what do you intend for me to do?¡±


    There is traces of worry within the smile of the ¡®youngdy¡¯, but her delicateness made her seem more pretty and feminine. The soft voice that sounds almost like a pleading can incite a man¡¯s desire to dominate. In the instant, I recalled the small drama that yed in my brain.


    ¡°Hehe, your sister is in my hands, you know it... I¡¯m sorry, I identally used the wrong words.¡± This face is really too dangerous, I identally almost said all of my heartfelt words out...


    Looking at the door, there seems to be movement. Fortunately, I stopped in time, so they didn¡¯t rush in.


    ¡°Then, you...¡±


    At this point, I was a little vexed. My initial decision was to stay as far as possible from such a dangerous existence. But Victoria is the future Moon Queen in ¡®history¡¯, the potential in her strength and influence is something cannot be doubted. If I were to just leave her to rot, it would really be a pity.


    Turning the Epic Hero to a naive woman was enough, if I were to change this Female Queen into a rice bug, it would be seriously a waste.


    TL: Naive woman -> The word used for woman here describes her as being manly/ having heroic spirit


    ¡°Just follow your sister for now. But, we don¡¯t keep idle people here. What are you skilled at? I will help you look for a job.¡±


    ¡°...A male Dark Elf¡¯s must-know techniques to serve their father. Actually, it is useful on both males and females... My evaluation in this aspect is very high and now that you are my master, if you have requests, I...¡± At this point, the ¡®youngdy¡¯ lowers her head embarrassed, the blush extending all the way to the ears as her face brought about the look of spring. Her Elf ears quivered, adding on to her cuteness. This is already a rare show of restraint among the Dark Elves, but...


    ¡°Please excuse me!¡± I stand up and walks towards the wall. Then... I knocked on it with great strength.


    ¡°Pah pah pah!¡± The entire mansion shakes and not longter, this kind of earthquake would happen multiple times in this small camp. Fellow male brethren would look at the swelling of their friends and sh an understanding smile.


    ¡°He is a male, Rnd, you must endure it! Even if she is the prettiest one you have met, but he is still a male! Even if her physical body is a female, but he is still a male! You, Rnd, are definitely not a gay! Definitely not!¡±


    After chanting silently in my heart, I offered my boundless sympathy to the King of the Winter Wolves... Looking at such a face every day coupled with such a cute personality, it is simply too easy to walk down the wrong path...


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s continue on. What are you skilled in? Don¡¯t bother talking about Lorci¡¯s stuffs.¡±


    ¡°But... Lord, is your head okay?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, continue on.¡±


    Looking at this ridiculous man whose head turned more than 200 degrees and was crooked at the neck, Victoria can only exim in her heart ¡®Lord Wumianzhe is really incredible. Even when his neck is crooked to that angle where a normal man should have long died, he seems not to be in pain at all.¡¯


    ¡°I am not very good at interrogation and poisoning, the instructor said that I didn¡¯t have much talent in them. However, for history, strategies and military affairs, I am the best in the entire academy. In fact, I am probably the best in the entire Morsblight City.¡±


    Hearing this, I started to pay more attention. Her strengths in analyzing history and military stratagem just might just be the best in the entire Dark Elf race. Then, I would have really picked up a treasure this time.


    ¡°Then, help me to analyze the situation of the current Underground Alliance.¡±


    ¡°That... Eternal Night Scepter should be a ploy that Lord set up, right?¡±


    ¡°Un?¡±


    I personally sent this Eternal Night Scepter over, causing Shou to be under immense pressure to the extent that he even almost fell out with Molly. Following the flow of time, trouble will keeping. This is obviously a trap for him, so saying that it is a ploy that I set up isn¡¯t wrong. If he only analyzed this much, then I must say that the Moon Queen might really be have been blown away by the wings of the butterfly.


    ¡°Then, Lord, are you intending on attacking Dragon Queen Molly? If that is what you are intending, please give up. You are underestimating the Underground Autarchs. This is a trap that they have set up!¡±

 Chapter 44

    <h4>Chapter 44: Before The Storm</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    In ancient times, when tacticians face city lords that have requests of them, they will often phrase the situation in a way that make it seem like they are in a very difficult situation, as though their lives may be lost anytime.


    Everyone have fears. When one¡¯s life is threatened, they would be extremely alert and careful. When the city lords hear from their tactician that their life is hanging, they would uncover it to the end despite how much they don¡¯t believe in it. If they realize that they are in a precarious situation after an intensive interrogation, naturally, they will seek for a solution through the tactician.


    Then, the opinions of the tactician would be much more respected. When the crisis is averted, the standing of the tactician would naturally rise through the ranks. Following their rise in standing, their new opinions will be more and more respected, allowing their rise in power to be more and more rapid.


    The saying ¡®I ept the responsibility of leading the army when the country¡¯s on the verge of defeat. In times of trouble, I will carry out my job¡¯ probably means this kind of situation. This has nothing to do with the matter at hand, it is just a trick used by tacticians to be more respected by the city lords they are serving. The wiser the tactician is, the better they are at employing this trick.


    ¡°Master, please teach me.¡± It seems that ording to thisdy¡¯s script, I should be shouting these words.


    After that, she would analyze for me how did the Lion King and Dragon Empress fake their falling out and that as soon as we make a move against them, they would dere war on us, spreading the notion that we are spies sent by the surface to destroy the Alliance from within, causing others to be wary of us. Then, they would personally attack us and force us to the corner. By then, it would be toote to leave.


    But if it is just to this extent, they are really underestimating me, Wumianzhe.


    ¡°I got it, you stay with your sister for the time being. You both should have a lot of things to say.¡±


    ¡°I...¡± Facing my unexpected coldness, Victoria sits up, agitated, with anxiety spelt on her face. She seems to be on the verge of saying something but looking at the emotionless me, she ends up leaving the room helplessly.


    ¡°Elisa.¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    ¡°If you don¡¯te out now, your wages next month will be gone.¡±


    ¡°...Master, please pay me the wages you owe me onst year¡¯s this month before saying such words.¡±


    ¡°Cough. Elisa, what do you think of the present sent by the Dark Elves.¡±


    ¡°Lord, this must be a trap.¡± Propping up her sses, she says these words beside my ear, emotionless.


    ¡°...Duh. The kindness of the Dark Elves is ascking as thatss¡¯s chests. I am asking you what do you think of the thing with the Dragon Empress.¡±


    ¡°Lord, the original saying is ¡®the kindness of a Dark Elf is equally improbable as a rational Beastman¡¯ and mocking thecking of others isn¡¯t a proper action for a gentleman that respectsdies. If she were to hear your words, she would be depressed.¡±


    Even though she said these words, her tone obviously softened by 20%.


    ¡°But, from my personal view, her words are probably true.¡±


    ¡°The reason?¡±


    ¡°Intuition.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, intuition your head. Don¡¯t tell me that you haven¡¯t received the report and analysis from ¡®Observer¡¯.¡±


    As a diplomat, it is impossible to survive blind and deaf in and full of enemies working against you.


    As soon as we entered the city, my intelligence team ¡®Observer¡¯ immediately dispersed and started to collect information. From my understanding of their work efficiency, all kinds of reports should be stacked up on Elisa¡¯s desk by now.


    ¡°... The Lion King and the Dragon Empress really crossed blows and their fight was quite intense. Half of the Lion King Residence being destroyed isn¡¯t a false news. But it is precisely because of that we can be sure that they are definitely staging a show.¡±


    ¡°Is it too fast? Too obvious? That¡¯s right, there is still more than 20 days before the auction date, they could have researched it together. Even if a fight were to blow up, it shouldn¡¯t happen right now.¡±


    ¡°No, it is just that if they really fell out, the Dragon Empress which is 2 ranks higher than the Lion King would have long stole the items and escaped. But, the Scepter is still in the hands of the Lion King, which shows everything. Furthermore, when 2 such experts start fighting, it should the entire street around the Lion King Residence getting destroyed and not just the Lion King Residence itself. This is just a show and if we were to really make a move, they would move on to make us the public enemy of the Alliance.¡±


    I nodded my head satisfied. What Elisa said concurs with what I was thinking.


    From the very start, we, Sulfur Mountain City, is the anomaly of the underground world. Joining the Alliance would not necessary be a good thing to the few current Underground Autarch, especially for the Lion King and Dragon Empress who have a grudge with us.


    I could collude with Kajah and Ainsterna and make use of the Eternal Night Scepter to divert firepower away from us. But, Shou and Molly aren¡¯t fools and the tacticians under them wouldn¡¯t be so incapable to be unable to see the situation clearly. Naturally, they won¡¯t allow us to sessfully join the Alliance, so it is almost an inevitable that we would face schemes and troubles.


    Even if this isn¡¯t a trap, I only intend to contact Kajah and Ainsterna. I never intended to get involved in it.


    We are the neers, neers that don¡¯t belong to any factions or powers. It cannot be helped that people would be wary of us.


    If I were to take the initiative to attack the Dragon Empress, then they would only have to spread rumors that we are ambitious for power and that Adam is born on the surface. We would be seen as enemies by most of the neutral city lords. When this gets past a certain extent, coupled with the incitement of Underground Autarchs, we would be exiled by the Alliance and even hunted down.


    ¡°Obediently staying in our home base is the best decision? Hey, this really makes one feel so helpless.¡±


    ¡°Yes, as the date of the auction and the Alliance Conference at the end of the year approaches, the burden on Shou will be heavier and heavier. This would put us further away from the eye of the troubles. It is best we don¡¯t do anything now and wait patiently. That would be the most appropriate decision.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, to pass the initiative to the opponents isn¡¯t a good habit... Tell those fellows that they are granted the freedom to get on the streets and cause as much trouble as they please. If there¡¯s anything they find an eyesore, feel free to interfere. Show them the might of Sulfur Mountain City. All is good as long as they don¡¯t get bullied. If they find someone they can¡¯t defeat, call for support. If they are still unable to settle it, return back to base. I will handle it even if the sky falls.¡±


    Hearing that, Elisa gasps, shocked.


    ¡°You are allowing those perverts to act as they please? Authorizing those single-celled Knights to go on the street to enforce thew? Let those devoted believers ofw spread their teachings on the street? You do know that this city is different from Sulfur Mountain City, there are criminals everywhere right? If they were to fool about, it would definitely get to the point of no return. Do you intend on destroying the whole Vance City?¡±


    ¡°The underground world respects the strong. The voice of the weak won¡¯t be heard. I am just using my own actions to do my self-introduction, otherwise I would have just brought those bastards here just to waste my rations. Right, get the engineers to prepare the Rnd series to move out. Leave some pilots here to wait for orders so that they can reinforce the others at all times. Tsk, those stubborn fools still refuse to change the name, this name really feels so awkward.¡±


    ¡°...I got it. Then, how should I deal with Victoria?¡±


    ¡°¡®Wash her clean¡¯ first.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I will wash her clean and tie her on your bed. But, your physical condition doesn¡¯t seem to be at a good state, I¡¯m afraid you might not be able to enjoy her. Do you need me to call some adult toy shops to purchase some tools?¡±


    ¡°Stop fooling around, you know what I mean.¡±


    The kindness of Dark Elves? If you were to put these 2 together, the entire underground world just treats it as a joke. The Dark Elves pride themselves on betrayal and lies, it would be weird if there¡¯s nothing wrong with their present.


    But even if there¡¯s a problem with Victoria, it isn¡¯t like there is no solutions to it. Since they sent over a living person, then she must either be a spy that might betray us anytime or a living bomb that will explode at any moment. What thatpels Victoria to follow the orders of her original master would probably be a Magic Contract, threatening her with the life of her kin and such means.


    Magic Contracts can be erased, the wires of the bombs can be cut and hostages can be stolen over. ¡®Washing clean¡¯ is amonly used spynguage. It means to force the person in question to confess all her secrets to see if she could be saved. If there is a possibility to convert her over, then we¡¯ll try to pull her as one of our people.


    ¡°You sure are concerned about her, I thought that you would give the order to erase this vtile factor. It is too easy to make her die of an ident. I reckon that silly sister of hers shouldn¡¯t be sufficient to affect your judgement. Unless, you have really learnt to cherish women?¡±


    Towards these kind of ¡®presents¡¯ whose history is unknown, I would normally decisively erase them so as to prevent problems in the future. But if Queen Victoria in ¡®history¡¯ dies just like that, it would really be a great waste. Furthermore, since I realized that I had been neglecting Diana¡¯s potential all along, I shouldn¡¯t allow her to continue wasting it. In the future, she might be a powerful fighter on our side and falling out like this really isn¡¯t worth it.


    But it isn¡¯t easy to exin these things to Elisa. Pretending to be a Seer of cmities is already a limit. If I were to be so godly as to predict that a stranger has the potential to be an Epic Hero, that would be too over the top for anyone to believe. Un, it definitely isn¡¯t because I found exining troublesome that I found myself a bunch of reasons. Thus, I simplyughed. Haha.


    ¡°Stop saying silly things, you know that it is a guy inside and I, Lich Rnd, is definitely not a gay.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, who knows.¡±


    Even though she said it like that, but from the looks of her swinging tail with a butterfly knot at the end during her departure...


    ¡°Elisa¡¯s mood is quite good huh. Un, since those stocks that were discovered are going to face with tragedy sooner orter, I should go to Vance City¡¯s underground book collection to top up my collection. Since her mood is good, she might even let me off even if she catches me in the act...¡±


    What? No guts to ask someone out? I also want to ask someone out but other than enjoying eye candies, what else can I do...


    I stare at this unfamiliar and empty room. Somehow, I feel a little lonely. I shake my head, opens the window and look at the scenery of lights outside.


    ¡°Schemes are not the true way to go but it is a pity that we aren¡¯t strong enough.¡±


    If we were to trace everything to the source, the main reason is our powerlessness. The total military power of the envoy team is only these 5 to 6 Legend-rank while those Autarchs, under their umtion from a few centuries, when they move all of their people, they are capable of taking out 400 to 500 Legend-rank city lords. If we were to go at them directly, we will be the ones who suffer.


    The only top-tier power that we can move from our side is Little Red and there are already 4 Underground Autarch standing on the other side. Also, it is unknown how many other equal tier existences there are.


    ¡°If Adam and Margaret are here... No, even if they abandon their job of protecting Sulfur Mountain City and the investigation of the seal of the Fire Elemental God, it might not good for our situation here if they reallye, it will make us stand out. With an overly powerfulbat ability and an identity not of the underground world, they might cause us to be seen as enemies and assault us from the very start.¡±


    TL: Exact phrase used when he said that it might not good if they reallye ->It might not be a good thing for the swan to stand tall in the midst of a group of chickens.


    ¡°Adam that dumbass isn¡¯t good at acting and Margaret couldn¡¯t care less aboutpromising. In the end, there¡¯s an 80% chance a full-blown war might break out. It is a much better decision for them to be acting as a threat behind our backs now, preventing the Lion King and Dragon Empress from getting physical with us. Sigh, if only we had 2 more top-tier powers.


    Just when I wasining over theck of fighting power, I failed to consider that this isn¡¯t my old dwelling that I am familiar with and the empty room on the left has a small secret chamber. From there, there is a peephole which the original owner left to look and listen into the happenings in the library...


    ¡°What should I do! Lord Wumianzhe is actually that bad Lich Rnd. I identally overheard a big secret, will Momo be silenced? Momo doesn¡¯t want it, Momo hasn¡¯t saved up sufficient dowry to marry a husband.¡±


    This secret chamber was discovered by Momo when she was checking out the mansion. But, delighted over this unexpected surprise, she didn¡¯t report it and instead used it as her secret cking and snack spot.


    On the other end of the chamber, Diana¡¯s face was dumbfounded. Initially, she was worried about her own brother and Momo said that she had a way to find out what they were discussing. So, she followed Momo into the secret chamber she discovered and instead, learnt this explosive secret.


    ¡°No wonder we were unable to catch Rnd, no wonder Rnd is always a step behind the boundaries of punishment... What should we do?¡±


    But very soon, she remembered the city which she and herpanions view as home. The future Knight of the Moon made up her mind.


    ¡°The grave and wise Wumianzhe is the core and the basis of the judiciary system, so he must be infallible... Momo, you definitely must not reveal this matter! Absolutely never!!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡°Ah... chooo!!¡±


    In the empty underground tinsel, the sound of the sneeze echoes loudly, travelling a great distance away.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong? Ah Dang, you can actually catch a cold?¡± The one speaking is a female Elf riding on a tall Skeleton Horse. The extravagant robe on her extends pass the body of the horse to the floor. Her eyes, which resembles a whirlpool of intertwining ck and white, had some kind of inexplicable eerie to them.


    The Skeleton Horse which is moving slowly is obviously no ordinary being. It is more than 3 meters tall and on the ground it steps on, an icy hoof could be seen. In this instant, the Bone Dragon Queen Gria who doesn¡¯t even bat an eye to the end of the world was actually surprised at how herpanion which was normally healthy to an outrageous extent could actually get sick.


    ¡°Papa misses Ah Dang. Papa needs Ah Dang. Ah Dang must go and see Papa.¡±


    The one saying this is a short Dwarf. His face is full of pimples and he is biting on a chicken leg-like food.


    His eyes are unfocused and saliva drips uncontrobly from his mouth as he walks, making him look dim-witted. But, the seemingly normal walking motion, even with him asionally stopping to pick up stones to throw at the nests of birds, he still manages to move faster than the tall Skeleton Horse.


    ¡°Is that so? Looks like Lionheart isn¡¯t wrong. As the first Undead created personally by our Emperor, you are indeed our Emperor¡¯s eldest son in a certain sense, so there should be some kind of connection between you and our Emperor... Our Emperor, no, your father, where is he? Can you confirm his location?¡±


    ¡°Below!! Ah Dang feels it, he is below!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, that¡¯s good. We shouldn¡¯t be far from our destination, Vance of the Underground Alliance, right after this fortress. We just received reports that Lamost and the rest have arrived so we must hurry. Otherwise, your father might find himself in a bad situation.¡±


    ¡°Ah Dang will beat up anyone who dares to bully Ah Pa! Ah Dang will eat anyone who blocks Ah Dang from finding Ah Pa!!¡±


    The voices of Dwarves are simr to that of human children, so that childish-sounding threat may seem weak. But Gria knows that even if the one in the way is legendary Dragon Empress Molly, Ah Dang will still fulfil his words. If he says that he is going to eat her, then, not a single scale will be left.


    Not too far away is the Granite Fortress in the underground tunnel. That is a barrier set up by underground city lords around this area. On the other days, they are responsible for collecting tax for using this path but today, fully armed Beastman soldiers can be seen everywhere.


    Just as the two people approaches the security radius of the archers, the fire used for lighting up the area flies towards them.


    ¡°Who¡¯s there? It is an emergency situation now and the Lord Beastman Sovereign has ordered for all underground tunnels to be sealed. No matter who you are and your reason for heading to the underground world, please return back from the path you came from.¡±


    Gria assesses the Lion-tribe Beastman who is leading the team on the frontlines. Finding no unique individuals, she lies on her vine chair uninterested. She knows that Ah Dang has starved for far too long since thest meal from the previous underground city and in the face of the starving Ah Dang, she has no chance to fight at all.


    ¡°Ah Dang is hungry, Ah Dang wants to eat meat!!¡±


    Looking at the small Dwarf running towards him, the Leo Commander raises up his double-handed great sword warily.


    ¡°Don¡¯te over, stay where you are!!!¡±


    But, the Dwarf continues to advance, so the Leo Commander raises his right hand to give out a signal for arrows to be fired. Afterwards...


    There is no more afterwards...


    In a distortion, the Dwarf disappears and what is left on the ground is that thigh of the Dragon Queen he was chewing on.


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHH! What kind of monster is this!!¡±


    Shrouded in dark fog, arge figure fills up the entire tunnel. Arge monster that exceeds all imagination seems to have transverse beyond the world of dreams into reality and the terrified Beastman soldiers had nowhere to run to.


    After 1 minute, when everything calmed down, what was left is a gigantic hole... Yes, the entirety of the Granite Fortress and the Beastmen in it has disappeared have all disappeared without a trace. The only thing remaining is a gigantic hole.


    ¡°How is it? Delicious?¡±


    ¡°It is a little tough, and some of it even got stuck on my teeth... Not delicious, not delicious!! Ah Dang wants delicious food!!¡±


    ¡°Un, then let¡¯s go to Vance. Your next restaurant is waiting there.¡±

 Chapter 45

    <h4>Chapter 45: Legend</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    The luminescent algae quietly hang eternally on the walls of the underground world, giving the descendants of those exiled the right to light.


    This kind of nt has once been analyzed and discussed about in another world. The theory in question here is probably the assimtion of the DNA of a firefly into the DNA of an algae, allowing the fluorescence of the firefly and the light of a nt coborate together to create an energy cycle flow with minimum loss of energy, effectively creating a self-sufficient system that provides continuous light for the underground.


    It can be nted in mines to prevent it from copsing and one of its derivatives, Algae Bulb, can be used for illumination in public. Using the luminescent algae source to improve society¡¯s energy structure... It may seem wonderful, but the technology hurdle for it is simply too great. Even if we can resolve the gaps in technology, if we forcefully put together the DNA of a nt and animal together, who knows what kind of abomination would be created. In the end, it terminated at its theoretical stage.


    I didn¡¯t expect that the purely theoretical discussion that I saw in the Science magazine then actually became something real in a foreign world. Indeed,pared to the limitations of magic and science, the potential of natural evolution is boundless.


    Going by records and research of the schrs on the surface, this kind of bizarre nt that can give out both light and heat would probably have a bunch of prefix and technical jargon that would make one¡¯s head spin. But in the underground world, it has a beautiful name that is contrary to its ugly outer appearance ¡ª Sunflower.


    TL: Literally Flower of the Sun.


    Every underground city is destined to be constructed on grounds where the luminescent algae clusters. If a cluster of luminescent algae is found outside an underground city, this kind of natural light zone will attract countless beasts who would engage in a bloodfest for its ownership.


    In recent times, a Great Druid had discovered a way to cultivate the luminescent algae, allowing the scale of the underground city to not be limited by the luminescent algae. However, the primary condition is that one must be able to find an extremely powerful flying beast that is able to fly to the top of the ceiling of the underground world and a Great Druid to ride on the beast to nt the seeds. Thus, the cost for expansion is still quite high.


    Maybe, only an important city like the tinum City would be willing to sparerge amount of money to breed more luminescent algae to expand the territory of the city.


    At this moment, looking at the radiance gradually growing brighter at the horizon, the luminescent algae here will start radiating light very soon too. A new day is about to dawn.


    All physical body requires sleep to recover their fatigue and give their brain a rest. On the contrary, normal undead do not have the concept of fatigue and do not require sleep. Thus, I half-jokingly came up with the name The Indefatigable One (Wumianzhe).


    But, at the level of the Undead Lords, arge portion of Undead Lords began picking up the habit of sleeping again. Some say that it is to recover from their mental fatigue while others say that temporarily stopping the machinations of their body can allow them to recover mana faster. But, from my research that I did when I was bored, there are much better methods to recover from mental fatigue and recharge mana. There is totally no need to go into deep sleep, make one lose their consciousness and putting oneself in danger.


    After several experiments, my final conclusion that there are many Undead Lord who work and rest just like living people. Those with a moreplete physical body can even regain their taste buds. Sleeping, to arger extent, is just a spontaneous habit inside one¡¯s soul and effects of the physical body instinctively imitating those functions.


    That¡¯s why Abominations, Gargoyle, Skeleton Colossus and other kind of man-made undead beings do not develop little habits that makes them operate like living people, even if they became the intelligent high-tier undead. But then, being curious, I did a little experiment.


    ¡°The reason why an unnatural being like an undead could exist in this world is often because of the crystallization of resentment and hatred. If so, ¡®unwilling to pass on like this¡¯ can also be thought to be a source of power. Then, what if a purely man-made were to start having desires? Will they be strong solely based on their desires? If so, then let me first start with ¡®gluttony¡¯ which represents the endless appetite.¡±


    My initial ns were to create the Seven Deadly Sins and make 7 samples of the experiment. However, I didn¡¯t manage toplete the Seven Deadly Sins, neither did I manage to mass produce them. It isn¡¯t because the results of the experiments were unsatisfactory. Rather, it is because the results are too satisfactory.


    The first sample ¡®Carnivore¡¯ Ah Dang, the eldest brother of the Seven Deadly Sins, is already the most fearsome monster in the entire history of undead. Then, as my expertise in Necromancy improves, the few Deadly Sin that I created afterwards became more and more scary. In fact, I was starting to lose control of them.


    Thus, I felt that if I went on like that, I might end up back returning back to my starting point. Sooner orter, I wouldbine my knowledge of both worlds to create a monster that destroys everything. Considering this, I stopped the experiments.


    TL: Starting point as in bing a Demon King and destroy the world.


    ¡°Hmph, I admit that I don¡¯t have much of a talent towards Elemental Magic. I am also totally unable toprehend Magic Resonance and that kind of shit. But, I am able to grasp the feel of Necromancy and learn it swiftly. My talent in creating beings is to the extent that I am afraid of it myself. Indeed, crazy scientists are meant to destroy the world.¡±


    Waking up from a rare dream of the past, I was attracted to the soundsing from below.


    The usual ruckus created by the Town Security army as they head out and their orderly chants couldn¡¯t be heard. It seems that they have all followed my order to enforce thew on the streets. But, there were still some people sparring on the usual training grounds.


    The narrow space is filled with the marks of ice and fire. But, the people who are involved in the sparring this time weren¡¯t just Elisa and Annie.


    ¡°Ice Creation: Ballista Formation!¡±


    Under Elisa¡¯s orders, dozens of Ice Ballistas all shot their arrows. The spinning Ice Arrows were all focused on the target in midair.


    Annie, equipped with a sword, summons Wings of me and swoops down like an enraged Fire Angel, trying her best to keep her opponent¡¯s attention to her.


    But, even when she made use of the force umted from the momentum of her downward motion, her opponent only had to use a finger to lightly deflect her blow to direct the sword to the other side.


    Due to the massive difference in strength, the God Sword can¡¯t even scrape the skin. This is the strength difference of between her and her opponent that is a minimum of 2 ranks apart.


    At this point, the Ice Arrows are already in the face of Little Red. But, as though not seeing it at all, she simply shakes her head, unsatisfied with the performance of her juniors.


    ¡°Ha!¡± With a loud roar, Annie and Elisa¡¯s movements suddenly stop. In the next instant, they started feeling faint from the st of air.


    ¡°Too slow, too powerless and too weak. Your elements are unrefined and impure and your fighting techniques aren¡¯t precise enough. Your movements in attack aren¡¯t sharp and your reactions in dodging are slow. There is not a single move you all made that is up to standard and you all still wish to fight on the same stage as me? Dream on!¡±


    Little Red seems to be really enraged. With a heavy stomp with her long legs, the entire ground trembles and Elisa and Annie, who have yet stabilized their footing, immediately falls down.


    The Ice Arrow is now in the face of Little Red. With just a re, she dissipates the spell midair before it could even touch her skin.


    Alright, the 3rd sparring, or should I say a one-sided crushing, it didn¡¯t even take 2 minutes before it ended.


    ¡°Looks like they have been provoked.¡±


    That day, there were more than 20 Legend-rank and a few Saint-rank of the other party on the negotiation table. On our side, there were only 2 young gold-ranks. Despite being future city lords, their power difference is too massive. No matter how open-minded they are, they would still be provoked by such a massive power difference.


    This is also one of my motive for sending them to negotiate the deal with themselves. Cruel reality is the most direct motivation. If the both of them can really break through like this, we will have 2 more Legend-ranks on hand and this disadvantageous battle would be much easier to fight.


    ¡°The one watching the show from the window, since you already saw it all, why don¡¯t youe down to offer some guidance? I really can¡¯t get used to the way you human-shaped beings fight. In this form, I can¡¯t even exert half of my battle strength and your rank break throughs are really baffling to me, so it is better for you to do the job.¡±


    TL: Dragons don¡¯t go by the same route as humans like forming Soul Imprint


    Little Red¡¯s nudge made me unable to continue watching the show leisurely. Little Red is an expert at fighting, her experience in battles are plentiful and the effects in her passing on her fighting knowledge is apparent. But, if she is teaching a human... The Dragon Tribe¡¯s growth depends 90% on their talent. She didn¡¯t even cultivate her strength to break through before, so how can she be a human¡¯s teacher.


    If she teaches you Wing Smack, ws and Fang Rip, Tail Sweep and sting a Dragon Breath from the sky, can you learn them? Un? It seems that Elisa can really learn some of it, at least she can try learning the Tail Sweep. But, thinking about the increasingly elusive and violent half-demon maid, I think I better not shoot my own foot.


    Actually, I can already see the root of the problem of the 2 gold-rank pinnacles. Their basics are already there, all that is left is for them to form their Soul Imprint. That Imprint is the crystallization of a mortal breaking into the realm of Legend, the umtion of their experiences and strength of this life to form a stepping stone for their entry to higher grounds. Simply said, they are trying to confirm the path for their future development.


    But it is different when it gets to the specifics. Elisa has too many potential route, making her extremely indecisive in choosing just one of them.


    ¡°Elisa, Race: Half-Demon Blessed by the Abyss, Strength: 22/ Agility: 20/ Stamina: 20/ Intelligence: 24/ Charm: 18/ Will: / Job: LV60 Mage/LV1 Law Incantationer/LV12 Ice Treader/LV 10 Sacred Pugilist (A Battle Monk¡¯s advancement that specializes in destroying undead)/LV5 Assassin. Total Level: 88 (Due tock of Soul Imprint, total level evaluation is LV79 Gold-rank Pinnacle.


    TL: Pugilist = Boxer, but Sacred Boxer sounds like sounds like the name of some dog so


    In the span of a decade, the things she learnt is too scattered. There is the Ice Magic that I imparted to her, her talents as a Half-Demon that originates from the Abyss, the ssical magic that Margaret taught her, her self-created Wire Magic and the Thief skills and Pugilist techniques that I have no idea where she learnt them from (When I saw that her Sacred Pugilist job, which is well-reputed to be an undead killer, actually had 10 levels, my feet immediately lost its strength). Since her basic strength and stats are up to the mark, she could choose any one of the route to enter the realm of Legends... But sometimes, having too much choices makes one indecisive. Choosing one would mean giving up the rest, so she is still hesitating.


    As for Annie, it is because her umtion is too thin. The Phoenix Inheritance made her strength soar at a rate way beyond her umtion of experience. Find a path that has unlimited potential and suited to her at the same time is quite a difficult hurdle for her who isn¡¯t even 20 yet.


    This is a choice that affects their development in the future, so it is hard for outsiders to assist them. After all, only you would know the path suited for you. This is also the reason why Little Red is at a loss. After all, she can¡¯t make a decision for these two.


    But for me, it isn¡¯t that there isn¡¯t any way to help them. While we can¡¯t help them make their decision, but we can provide them the experiences of other people when making their choices so that they can analyze other people¡¯s path and their experience. This could help them to mature quicker.


    Going by logic, I, who have entered the Legend-rank 4 times and formed 4 Soul Imprints, should have the biggest say. In reality, other than the Power of Law represented by the Mark of Justice, the other 3 are exchanged through the cheat-like system using EXP and points... And the appearance of the Mark of Justice was even more inconceivable, it is like aplimentary gift by the Origin of Order after inventing the Power of Law, thus it cannot serve as a case study.


    ¡°Little Red, tell them the experiences of Adam and Margaret when they broke through into the Legend-rank. It should quite useful to them.¡±


    ¡°Hey, you were there yourself. Why don¡¯t you tell them personally?¡±


    ¡°I forgot and I amzy to flip my diaries to check it.¡± In order to prevent the loss of memory from death, I have a habit of jotting things down on my diary. To present date, my diaries have filled an entire underground library and this thing has obviously urred too far back, so it would be troublesome checking it up.


    ¡°...Fine, fine, I will say.¡± A voice that is transmitted through Telepathic Voice Spell felt crestfallen somehow.


    Shaking her head, she pulls up her spirit and Little Red ps.


    TL: Can¡¯t find a word for it, anyway the idea should be ¡®trying not to be depressed¡¯ ¡®pulls herself together¡¯ along those line.


    ¡°...Margaret¡¯s experience in breaking through the Legend realm is a little special, so it might not be serve as a good case study. Back then, when we were at Creus Elf Kingdom, we went through much difficulty to gain permission to enter their National Library for 3 days. Margaret stayed in there to browse through the books, not wanting toe out at all. In the end, she managed to finished reading through the entire collections of the library within 3 days. By the time she walked out of the library, she was already a Legend-rank. The reason why she formed the Corridor of Time Imprint is just because she purely wants to read more book.¡±


    Her voice wasn¡¯t soft. Not only can the people on the ground level can hear her, even I, who was on the second floor, can hear her voice clearly.


    ¡°Since you have forgotten, allow me to jot your memory a little. Other than looking for information of magic she needs, records on treasures that Lisa wants, data on fighting techniques that Adam needs and information on God Equipment that I desire, she also checked the entire Elf Kingdom¡¯s record on the destruction of the Mist Country for you. At that time, you even said that you owe her a very big favor. So, if there is a chance, remember to return the favor.¡±


    This time, Little Red¡¯s voice only sounds out by my side. I was stunned. The Mist Country is my country that was destroyed. Back then, one of my main goals in exploring was to investigate the truth behind its betrayal and the reasons for its destruction. I didn¡¯t expect that the information was attained from there. It looks like a person with memory loss will never remember what important memories they have forgot. Death really takes away a lot of things.


    Just when I was really getting serious in listening to her story, Little Red startsughing uncontrobly.


    ¡°As for Adam, Puu, that is really a joke.¡±


    Hearing the name of their almighty city lord, the audiences¡¯ interest peak. After all, who wouldn¡¯t want to know that man¡¯s epic adventures in the mortal world. There were many people in the base who were trying their best to stretch their ears to eavesdrop.


    ¡°Back then, our Adventuring Team offended a bastard city lord who worships a cult. In the end, he sent his underlings to distract our Holy Knight Team Leader Rolo and Warrior Adam while assaulting our temporary base. He kidnapped our Mage Margaret and Thief Lisa who were recuperating from their wounds then. He even left a note, dering that if we don¡¯t surrender at some ce in some residence, then they will do XX to our hostage before killing them...¡±


    ¡°Then Lord Adam exploded in anger? He suddenly breaks into the realm of Legend andes with a ¡®hero saving the beauty¡¯. It might be rather old-fashioned, but it is indeed ssical. Perhaps, that is how Lord Margaret fell in love with him.¡± The fast-mouthed Momo and Diana are the only 2 members of the Town Security who didn¡¯t go ¡®leisurely walking¡¯ on the streets. At the moment, they were also listening into the story by the side.


    ¡°Heh, back then, Adam was indeed exploding with anger. He points his sword towards the heavens and howls furiously ¡®you shameless and despicable bastard, I will shred you into a thousand pieces just like this paper¡¯. Then, he coolly throws the letter into the air and with a sh of the sword, he cuts it into powder. Then, he allows the wind to blow these pieces of the paper freely, iparably cool...¡±


    TL: The word used is here means unrestrained and carefree, normally refers to cool people.


    ¡°Afterwards, he met with strong opponents and fought them, breaking through to the Legend realm in the middle of the fight?¡±


    ¡°No, the next sentence he said was ¡®Shit, I haven¡¯t even copied down the address!! What should we do???¡¯....¡±


    ¡°WHAT!!!?¡±


    At this moment, Little Red was satisfied with the shocked and perhaps, even idiotic face of everyone.


    ¡°Wait, then how did they resolve the situation? Did anything happen to Lord Margaret and that female thief?¡±


    ¡°That can¡¯t be. He couldn¡¯t be so foolish. What happens next?¡±


    Shaking her head, her face reminiscent of the past, Little Red continues with her story.


    ¡°Yes, without the address, they lost their clue to saving them. Team Leader Rolo was maddened and pped Adam flying 4 meters away, bumping heavily onto the tree. This was the first time I saw big brother Rolo who was gentle and polite to everyone angered to such a point. After that, Adam that fool runs out searching everywhere, as though possessed...¡±


    ¡°Did he find it? Within 3 days?¡± As this matter involves her godfather who was known to be perfect, Annie is quite curious.


    ¡°No, he only found them on the fifth day.¡±


    ¡°Then...¡±


    At this point, everyone was shocked. They didn¡¯t expect that their city lord Adam would have such a dark history. Doesn¡¯t this mean that the 2 hostages have been...


    But Little Red shakes her head andughs.


    ¡°What are you all thinking of? Adam may be immature and unreliable, but this doesn¡¯t mean that big brother Rolo was unreliable too. He spent 2 days 1 night picking up 4654 paper fragments... Or should I say, fragmented powder, from theke and bush, put them together bit by bit stubbornly and managed to find the address. Then, he rushed all the way, tiring 2 war horses on the journey, and managed to save Margaret and Lisa on time. After a very long time, Adam that fellow then managed to follow the trails of the kidnappers to the location.¡±


    ¡°...Isn¡¯t he too unreliable.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, after seeing Margaret and the rest still intact, he cried very loudly, just like a baby. Afterwards, after learning from the lesson, he became more reliable, at least he learnt to think before moving. Alright, end of story. Ladies, are there anything youprehended from the story?¡±


    The 2 seemingly thinking people nodded their heads and eximed at the same time.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t expect that godfather/city lord would have such a dark history... Wait, you haven¡¯t told us how did he break through to the Legend-rank.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, back then, as he hugged everyone crying, he swore to never give up hispanions and that he will protect everyone properly. Just like that, he formed his ¡®Indestructible Phoenix¡¯ Soul Imprint, unable to be killed no matter how you hit him, bing a cockroach true to its name.


    At this moment, Little Red¡¯s face is filled with smiles.


    ¡°Probably, this is how Margaret fell in love with him. After all, every girl would have some expectations for a reliable guardian.¡±


    ¡°No.¡± The one who denied it isn¡¯t the person in question but Annie.


    ¡°I once asked Big Sister Margaret why would she fall in love with Godfather. In the end, Big Sister Margaret smiled bitterly and in the end, only left a message ¡®back then, he cried too pitifully, I felt like I couldn¡¯t leave him alone just like that, otherwise he would cause his own demise one day.¡¯ Afterwards, when I pressured her on the matter, she refused to tell me more. I guess that ¡®cried too pitifully¡¯ should be referring to this incident.¡±


    ¡°...Feels like he can¡¯t be left alone, so she put her eyes on him. Afterwards, she unknowingly fell into the trap? Actually, this is quite romantic too.¡±


    Diana nods her head in agreement, only to see everyone staring at her, surprised.


    ¡°Why?


    ¡°No. It is just that we didn¡¯t expect Dark Elves to have normal values in love.¡± Although this is themon understanding of everyone here, no one said it out loud. Instead, they nod their head in unison.


    ¡°...This isn¡¯t fair.¡± A cold voice of objection sounds out from the direction of the wall. It is Elisa who had been silent for quite a while.


    ¡°How is it unfair?¡±


    ¡°The reason why they could be saved is obviously because Rolo spent so much effort and energy into it. Then, why did Lord Margaret be thankful to Adam who just made matter worse, and even fell in love with him. Rolo is obviously the one who should be thanked. He stubbornly put together the note and rushed all the way to save hispanions, but he didn¡¯t receive the thanks that he deserved. This is so unfair.¡±


    Little Red stuns and stares with a look of shock at Elisa for a long time before being able to squeeze out a word.


    ¡°Back then, Lisa also said the same thing. Afterwards, she started pestering Rolo, but Rolo didn¡¯t agree to her.¡±


    TL: Pester as in, trying to get his fancy.


    ¡°Then, what happened to Lord Lisa and Lord Rolo?¡±


    ¡°Rolo huh? He went missing. He left behind a letter saying that he is going to look for his enemies to exact vengeance. Afterwards, no one knows where he went. However, his defiled body was found afterwards. He was probably converted into some undead being. As for Lisa... She is dead.¡±


    ¡°Dead?¡±


    At this moment, the eyes Little Red looks at Elisa with was bizarre.


    ¡°Yes, she died in the Undead Cmity caused by Lord Yongye, in the hands of one of the Four Heavenly Kings under Lord Yongye, Bone Dragon Queen Gray.Sin.


    Elisa¡¯s eyebrows shoot up. She doesn¡¯t know about Rolo and Adam¡¯s past, but she knows who Lord Yongye is. She wanted to say something but since the person in question wasn¡¯t bothered about it, she didn¡¯t feel like she had the right to interfere.


    ¡°The reason why you are looking at me like this, is it because you have orders for me?¡±


    ¡°No, I am thinking that having bad memory sometimes might not be a bad thing.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡°Ah.... CHOOOOOO.¡±


    ¡°Big Sister Gray.Sin, you caught a cold?¡±


    ¡°It is Gria, Gria. Undead don¡¯t catch cold. It¡¯s probably the same as your case, someone is probably talking about me. Un, perhaps the Emperor is thinking about me! Quick, Ah Dang, we are reaching soon.¡±

 Chapter 46

    <h4>Chapter 46: Greed</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Clint is the son of the city lord of Iron City. But, as Iron City is often in a state of war with 4 other underground cities in its vicinity, he spends more than half of his time on the battlefield. Rather than the Prince of the City, he is more like a soldier.


    Despite being a normal human with average height, his 2-meter tall gray heavy armor covers everything. On the bizarre bird-head helmet, a pair of bright eyes could be vaguely seen.


    Even when he is given the full authority by his father to go to thend without war, Vance, as a diplomat, he decisively brought along his full battle gear. The adamantine heavy armor that never leaves his body is just the configuration, there is still a 3-meter long gun behind his back, 2 swords and a Dwarf pistol by his waist where it is easy to reach out for.


    The little prince who managed to escape with his life due to luck on the battlefield dozens of time is already used to being in a state ready for battle anytime.


    ¡°Actually, Prince Clint, you don¡¯t have to be so wary. In fact, there¡¯s no need to make your servant get into a battle formation. This is Vance, the City of tinum where gold can be found all around. This isn¡¯t an endless battlefield here, unlike your homnd.¡±


    The goblin Merchant Seross, who is tagging along with him, feels frustrated. He is already regretting his actions of epting the request to bring Prince Clint to Vance for the Alliance Conference, coveting the small request fee. On the way, he already had enough of that over-sensitive nerves of the Prince and his War Syndrome.


    It is no wonder why Seross is so unhappy. It is enough that their camping ground is surrounded by goblin Mines. In the tent, he ced a few ymores within the tent. Fine, so he should already be safe like that. But, what is the point when you put a dummy on your own bed and sleep on the tree instead.


    Every morning before the merchant team can set off, they have to spend up to half an hour to find him. Not only that, they also had to be careful of the trapsid around him so as to not get injured from it.


    ¡°While you were asleep, the sentry on night duty tried to cover you with a nket out of goodwill but he almost got cut into half by you. Your nerves are really too sensitive! I know that your homnd may be unstable, but you can rest easy here! There is no war here!¡±


    After a short moment, the metal can stretch out his forefinger, swirls it around the air before putting the finger into his mouth.


    ¡°...The taste of smoke, crawl down!!¡±


    Afterwards, the iron giant really falls to the ground and his servant follow suit.


    ¡°YOU...YOU, IT IS SAFE HERE...¡± The goblin¡¯s shriek is still sounding by his ear when two crimson red light whizzes past his body. The deadly heat wave that came along with it almost vaporized him. Afterwards, the light of fire starts to spread and the buildings not too far away plunges into a sea of mes.


    ¡°Dragon Breath!! It should be an Adult Dragon, get ready for battle!¡±


    Clint immediately gets moving together with his servants. He starts to create a temporary base, using his luggage as a blockade and starts assembling his rifles... To enjoy such treatment right after entering Vance City, the goblin Seross ispletely astounded.


    But, this isn¡¯t the moment to be in a daze. The next moment, 2 Red Dragons sweeps past the top of his head. This shows what kind of scary fight they were caught in.


    The next moment, a deadly sh of darkness cuts across the skyline and the Red Dragon didn¡¯t even have time to groan before it was sent spiraling down to the ground while spilling a rain of dragon blood.


    ¡°St!¡±


    The smashed meat and dragon blood crashes onto the ground right in front of him. The goblin Merchant, who was hugging his head with both of his hands, can no longer find the courage to promise the others that this is a safe zone.


    Following which, another Red Dragon seems to have seen some kind of nightmare and immediately tries to fly higher and escape. But, a red light simr to the sh of darkness before pierces through its head. Fresh blood stters everywhere and the headless dragon corpse falls to the ground like a shooting star.


    ¡°AHHHHHHH!¡±


    Before Seross¡¯s piercing scream could escape fully from his mouth, arge metal hand stuffed it right back into him. Clint shivers as he stares at the sea of mes. It isn¡¯t because he was worried but rather, it was the sharp instincts of a prey reacting in rm to a naturally powerful predator above.


    In the sea of mes caused by the Dragon Breath, a slow humongous figure advances gradually. The Beastman that were trying to stop his movements by his side seems just like small ants inparison to it.


    It is more than 30-meters tall and the 8 gigantic pirs of hoofs it is walking with seem to be as sturdy and heavy as metal towers. Every time it moves, the surrounding houses would tremor.


    The Gigantic Skeleton Beast has 3 heads, all of them made solely of bones. One of them was the head of a Giant, one of them a Goat-headed Demon and thest, the head of a Bone Dragon. The goat-headed Demon¡¯s brain still has ck light encircling it while the mouth of the Bone Dragon had inferno still lingering in it. At this moment, the head of the Giant seems to have just finished its long incantation and it was time for its performance.


    ¡°Pr Storm, The Icy ins of Giants.¡±


    Under the curse of the Pr Giant, snowkes began falling and the ground started to freeze. Vast ice ins became reality as the legendary homnd of the Pr Giants was summoned to this ground. Inparison to the Pr Giant, which had a physical body allowing it to ignore the extreme cold, the Beastmen were too weak; they had zero resistance towards the cold and they died frozen as a group.


    ¡°The Demonic Bone Beast Crimspur, the most dangerous mutated Bone Beast in the world, the 6th Senator of the Xiluo Empire!! Why is it here!!¡±


    That diabolical battle form is the best name card for the Undead Lords.


    It may seem to be moving very slowly but in reality, it was a false impression due to its gigantic stature. Within mere seconds, the three-headed Bone Demon is already right in front of their eyes. The head of the Giant even nces at them, but looking at the wary Clint and his guards, he only tilts his chin in scorn and continues moving on.


    ¡°Boom!¡± ¡°Boom!¡± Apanied with the sounds of explosion and earthquake, Crimspur advances towards his next target.


    ¡°... We were ignored.¡±


    ¡°We were spared!! Let¡¯s leave quickly!!¡±


    The sound of the catapults of the Beastmen could be heard from afar. The war between a single being and an army continues. No one wishes to be cannon fodder for no reason, so Seross pulled Prince Clint and escapes.


    10 minutes passed. The group from Iron City, who had sessfully escaped, pants heavily by the side of the road. At this moment, the old goblin has managed to make sense of the situation.


    ¡°Prince, it seems that there are still 3 weeks before the legendary Eternal Night Scepter would be auctioned, that¡¯s why the Undead Lords from the surface are trying to steal it. Hehe, our luck is really bad. However, you can rest easy now. The gate that we passed by earlier on is the East Gate, the territory of the Beast Sovereign. The reason why we got entangled in that mess is because the Scepter is in his hands. Now that we are out of his territory, you can loosen up.¡±


    Clint stares quietly at the goblin and points behind him. A bunch of wild beasts were rushing through, sending innumerable passersby flying and wrecking numerous vendors.


    The one riding on the head of the bull and leading the way is the Dracon Hunter and chasing at his back are countless pursuers.


    ¡°Bastard, you actually opened all the fences in the zoo and the Druid¡¯s territory, did you eat something wrong!¡±


    ¡°You even imed that you were a vet, return our animals to us!! You scammer!!¡±


    ¡°Little Xue, don¡¯t be sad. I know that you are disconste over your husband¡¯s death, but look. Am I not strong? And don¡¯t I resemble your husband? ept me as your Alpha Wolf and I will treat you sisters well...¡± His expressions and movements in trying to poach them were sincere, making one feel quite moved. But the person he was talking to is a female wolf, he was intending to create a Wolf harem...


    The dumbfounded goblin spent half a day before his spirit floated back into his body. Wiping away the sweat on his forehead, he continues.


    ¡°Hehe, there are scammers and criminals in every city. Our luck has been terrible, but this city should be mostly safe.¡±


    Clint shakes his head and points towards another direction.


    Right there, a bunch of viins were surrounding 2 female Elves, and seemed to possess malicious intentions. In the chaotic underground world, such things happen too frequently. Old Seross shakes his head, not intending to interfere and not possessing the strength to interfere as well.


    ¡°What a pity. These two are probablydies of nobility who secretly escaped from home. They are indeed beauties that I have yet to seen, it is really such a pity.¡±


    But in the next instant, he recalls that Clint possesses decent fighting, so it was possible for him to save them. The old goblin sends a gaze of expectation towards him, but the other party simply shakes his head in response.


    ¡°...Too many people. Trap. The baits are male.¡±


    The bbergasted Seross turns his head back. It was about time to rein in thes for the trap. A group of Dark Elf Knights suddenlye rushing in from the corners of the road.


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Judgement¡±


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Judgement¡±


    This instant, the crowd turns into a sea of red. But the targets of the Justice Knight were the bunch who were the reddest. They must have carried out other crimes on top of this one.


    ¡°Big... Big returns! I knew that putting Krose and Victoria up as baits is a good idea. Look, even when the rest of you walk around in provocative clothing, you only end up catching 7 to 8 of them. On the other hand, despite not putting on makeup and not sending seductive looks around, just by walking around with lowered heads, they managed to catch 300 to 400 of them. Look at those few well-dressed people, they are shining the reddest. They must be veteran scammers and viins.¡±


    ¡°The security here is really bad, there are bastards everywhere... The criminal in front of me, hold it right there. You are almost purple from all of the red and you still dare to creep away. I will give you 3 seconds to stop, otherwise I will sh you... You still dare to run! Try my Rotten Shoe Strike (Po Xie Zhan), oh, wrong one, Demon Destroying Strike (Po Xie Zhan), wrong one again... Sin-Splitting Strike!!¡± (Zhan Zui Ji)


    TL: The rotten shoe strike is the traditional skill which a woman takes off her shoe and throws it at the man.


    ¡°Hmph, to say the truth, it is a little depressing to lose in femininity to a man. However, losing to the number 1 beauty of the judiciary, Krose and Victoria, I don¡¯t even feel a tinge of sadness. Have you seen any women who are more beautiful and feminine than them? Right, this must be the highest record for our catch. Who is the one with the lowest record? Say it out so that everyone canugh about it.¡±


    ¡°Vice-captain Yawen, 1. Captain Diana, 0. As expected of our big sisters, they are really masculine such that those scums don¡¯t even dare toe near them.


    ¡°...Pu, they are really pitiful. Even Momo attracted 16 of them. Big Sister always have a solemn face that scares away others. Coupled with the pressure as a Legend-rank and her Epic-ss weapon, her result is quite normal. I think the most pitiful one is still Second Sister. She speaks like a man and looks like a man. No wonder people call her ¡®Buddies with the Saber¡¯, so it was actually another way of saying that she doesn¡¯t have any suitors. Right, this joke is also not bad. Let¡¯s tell it to the rest when we get back, it is more funughing together as a group.¡±


    TL: Buddies with the Saber, refers to someone who is a weapon maniac.


    ¡°Momo... Vice-captain Yawen is behind you.¡±


    ¡°Ah Li, you tricked me!! Second Sister, I am just joking. Come on, give me a smile. Why are you drawing your saber!¡±


    Looking at these female knights with silver light radiating from them, the old goblin was quite astonished. That is obviously the Power of Order. It can¡¯t be that there are actually Holy Knightsing from the evil Dark Elves. Then again, the Holy Light should be gold in color, so this is really confusing for him.


    Very apparently, these knights are different from normal Holy Knights. They actually ignore the Demon Progeny and Necromancers they meet by the road. These were enemies that Holy Knights would go all out and fight to the death against upon meeting.


    This time, the old goblin could only mumble to himself.


    ¡°Change is happening too fast. But at least, the goblins should still be normal.¡±


    This time, Clint points towards another direction. There, gnomes and goblins were testing out a rocket car with a gigantic rocket tied to it. The sight of harmony between the two races, in the eyes of Seross, is like a bolt out of the blue.


    ¡°What kind of joke is this!! Goblins are actually working together with those ugly Dwarves. These goblin traitors, let old Seross fix you all.¡±


    Just as he is about to go up to challenge them, he is stopped by hispanions... It is fortunate that he was stopped, because just as the rocket car starts to move, it starts flying upwards above everyone¡¯s head until it turns into a shooting star, until it reaches the ceiling of the roof.


    After that, ¡®pah¡¯, with a loud bang, it turns into fireworks.


    ¡°... It is all because that old bull is too heavy, that¡¯s why we set the horsepower too great such that it flew up instead. We need a much lighter experiment subject, errr, no, I mean pilot.¡±


    ¡°Lowe, isn¡¯t it about time to show your willingness of you goblins to sacrifice everything for the development of engineering?¡±


    ¡°The best contribution I can make towards goblin engineering is my survival... Where can I find a dumb goblin? Ohhhhh, this friend here, are you interested in the goblin rocket car?¡±


    Very apparently, if he were to nod his head now, then Seross¡¯s 30 years of experience as a merchant would be in vain.


    It took him a lot of effort to shake off the annoying goblin Engineer. Old Seross¡¯s face is filled with exhaustion as he sat on the step of stairs, smoking his pipe.


    ¡°This world is really changing too fast. Maybe, there would be a bunch of lunatics running nude the next moment...¡±


    Eaglestorm and his tribesman runs across the sight of the group. As quickly as they came, they left. Lightly waving their hands, they bid farewell to the dumbfounded audiences. They didn¡¯t take away any fanfare, nor did they leave anything behind... They aren¡¯t even wearing anything, so what can they leave behind?


    The old goblin rubs his eyes in a daze.


    ¡°Inconceivable, what I say reallyes. Is it possible that we might even meet with the Senators from the Undead Empire?¡±


    Not too far away, the sounds of the hoofs of a horse could be heard.


    ¡°Ah Dang, do you really feel something? We have been looking a week now, is our Emperor really in this city?¡±


    ¡°Ah Pa is here, Ah Dang is sure!¡±


    The two Undead Senators walk past them, riding a Skeleton Horse...


    ¡°ck sclera, white pupils, it is the Bone Dragon Queen!!! Wait, even if Titans were to appear in front of me now, I won¡¯t be surprised too...¡±


    ¡°Pah!!¡± Following the loud boom, the tea stand in front of them was reduced to t ground. A gigantic Metal Titan walks past them. At the back of the Robot Titan,rge words ¡®Rnd Titan¡¯ were shining.


    ¡°I...¡±


    ¡°Shut up.¡± This time, even the reticent Clint couldn¡¯t stand the inauspicious mouth of the old goblin...


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡°Thanks to the effort of those trouble-makers, arge portion of the attention on us has been diverted away. Our secret interactions with the other underground city lords were quite sessful. There are already more than 27 underground cities that are willing to support us in the Alliance Conference. This afternoon, we will be getting in touch with 3 more factions. One of them is the Underground Autarch Eduar, you must meet with him personally. Also, the prince named Clint seems to have be quite eminent. He has expressed goodwill towards us, so it would be best if you meet him personally as well.¡±


    I nod my head, expressing my approval. It is about time for me to meet personally with Eduar. Also, the Iron City was said to be a cityprising many different races, I was interested in the city from the start, so there is no harm meeting him.


    Within a week of entering the city, the Dark Elf Knight army¡¯s demonstrations of the Power of Law in public made it into treasure coveted by many city lords. Using this as a bargaining chip, the meetings for alliances were quite sessful.


    Noting my agreement, Elisa continues her report.


    Within a week, the Lion King Residence has been destroyed 12 times. There is not a building left there now, only a gigantic pit remains. Thetest news, the 6th Senator Crimspur has appeared along with his old partner, ¡®Ant King of Corrosion¡¯ Lamost.


    ¡°Has the Undead Lord crossed swords with the Underground Autarch yet?¡±


    ¡°Not directly. It seems that both sides are still testing each other. Crimspur has destroyed 2 military barracks in the Beastman District and an entire street. But, only Molly¡¯s Red Dragons counterattacked. Furthermore, there were only two young dragons that weren¡¯t of age, so...¡±


    ¡°Destroyed in one blow huh, it¡¯s normal. Crimspur is an Undead of the previous generation that survived thest Sacred War. He has been staring ambitiously on the seat of the Undead Emperor for a long time, so it won¡¯t be easy to deal with him. However, he should have already received results from his probing. It seems like the Scepter should be in the hand of the Dragon Empress, otherwise Molly wouldn¡¯t be willing to send young Dragons to serve as cannon fodder.¡±


    TL: Destroyed in one blow -> Literal means getting killed in seconds.


    ¡°It looks like we must reassess the rtionship between the Dragon Empress and the Lion King, to think that he would be willing to lend the Scepter to the other party to research...¡±


    ¡°Hehe, looks like their alliance is much stronger than we thought. Ah hahaha, rest easy, everything is within control!¡±


    Iugh maniacally but Elisa seems to be a little restrained.


    ¡°Master... There are some things which I don¡¯t know whether I should say.¡±


    ¡°Do I seem like a petty person? Go ahead!¡±


    ¡°We have no money. If you don¡¯t start thinking of an idea, we might end up living on the streets.¡±


    ¡°What?!¡±


    Hearing this, I eximed in shock. I remember that the funds I brought should be sufficient for us to live here for 3 years.


    ¡°You remember telling those fellows that they can call for backup anytime they want if they find themselves on the losing side? They really did it. They called for backup more than 60 times this week. The depletion of Magic Stones, the recement of the machine¡¯s parts and even the acquirement of new machines to rece the destroyed ones. This adds up to a massive sum and we didn¡¯t take these into ount when calcting our budget.¡±


    I nod my head, expressing my acknowledgement towards Elisa¡¯s report and the additional expenses. Previously, we didn¡¯t expect that we would be able to prepare so many ¡®Rnds¡¯, so it is very normal for us to overspend. Engineering is a job that burns money, and those big robots are even better at burning money. To face mary crisis in such a short period of time, I guess it made logical sense.


    ¡°Hehe, fortunately, I made additional preparations. Come over here, let me introduce you to my new treasure! It is called Greed, isn¡¯t it cute!¡±


    On the experiment desk, there is a transparent bottle. Within the bottle, a bizarre and slimy liquid is thrashing about. It seems to be trying to break through the seal of the bottle but it is sent flying back due to the lightning shock from the seal of the bottle.


    ¡°Really... Really gross!! White and sticky, it is indeed the same good that you use for thinking.¡± Elisa says with a look of despise.


    She is just mocking me for using my lower body to think. I have already experienced this kind of level of venomous tongue many times when my collections were revealed such that I am already numb to it. Instead, Iugh gleefully.


    ¡°That is because you don¡¯t know how useful it is. Don¡¯t judge it by how small it is, I only have to assimte it into the waterways of this city and it will start cloning itself rapidly, forming countless clones. Within a few hours, this milk-white Slime would fill up the pipes and drainage system of the city...¡±


    ¡°Extremely disgusting!!! I beg of you to stop talking! What exactly do you intend to do!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, you really aren¡¯t good at appraising things. It is called Greed, it instinctively looks for gold coins, swallow them and bring them back to the main body. This way, we would be able to solve our financial problems.¡±


    Usually, even if there¡¯s an ultimate treasure that is to be auctioned, the Auction House would normally bring out a few items of equal level to hype up the crowd. I do not expect to meet another God Equipment, but as long as the Lion King hopes to retain his pride, he would definitely bring some good stuff to the auction.


    Thinking about the auction that is about to be held, I intend to gather more money so as to buy some local specialty. Ever since I dreamed about my experience in creating Ah Dang thest time, I focused my attention on getting my hands on the ingredients required for my specialty, Undead Creation.


    And Greed here is the result of my hard work for an entire week.


    Mutated Slime: Greed/ Tribe: Undead Slime/ 1 point in all stats/ Race Talent: Targeted Devour, Fiber-Dposing Secretion, Rapid Cloning/ System Evaluation: Extremely dangerous. Please destroy its main body as soon as possible. If you were to lose control of this being, not mentioning this entire city, the entire underground world might disappear. As a side note, please stop creating beings. Your talent in this aspect is totally wrong. If you were to continue on this route, you might destroy the entire world even before the cmities strike.?


    Seems contradictory? Its abilities are obviously trashy but it actually generates so much fear in the system.


    It is an existence hovering between life and death. To all beings, the simpler their demand is, the stronger the desire for it. This Greed represents avarice. In my settings, gold coins, mithril and different kinds of precious metal is the reason for its existence.


    The simpler the being is, the easier for it to reproduce. The expenditure in cloning a single-cell organism is very low. Following the settings of its creator, Greed will clone itself frantically to steal gold coins. It has no attacking ability whatsoever, the only thing it can do is to invade vaults with iron-tight defense, dpose the sacks that are full of treasure and steal the gold coins and expensive metals.


    However, I can understand the system¡¯s concern as well. If ¡®Greed¡¯ were to lose control, as long as it reproduces to a certain point, the countless Slimes could take over all the living space, leaving no space for other beings.


    Of course, the precondition is that there is no limit to its cloning...


    ¡°Look, its main body is in this bottle. I will only release a tenth of it, so their reproduction ability and its size will be limited to a tenth of the original. Also, their lifespan will be limited, so they will all die within 2 days. At most, it will only be a gold coin thief.¡±


    While exining, I carefully release ¡®Greed¡¯ into the waterworks. Suddenly, a wind blows and somehow, my nose which should be devoid of any senses feels itchy.


    ¡°Ah.... CHOOOOO! Who is gossiping about me!?¡±


    ¡°MASTER!!!!!!¡±


    Elisa¡¯s shout made me regain my focus. But, half of the main body of ¡®Greed¡¯ had already been released into the drainage. Very soon, it will follow this thousand-mile-long ancient drainage system and clone itself in the waterways. Then, it will swiftly invade the entire city.


    ¡°...Calm down, there is still half left. ¡®Greed¡¯ will only be slightly stronger than expected.¡±


    ¡°How much stronger? Will it hurt anyone?¡±


    ¡°It will be slightly bigger by 5 times than expected, slightly bigger than the size of a human. Following their intelligence setting, it might change its attacking pattern to swallowing a person and disintegrate their clothing while taking all the metal away from them... Calm down, I have adjusted the settings properly, ¡®Greed¡¯ definitely will not harm any beings, it will leave after swallowing clothes.¡±


    ¡°Swallowing clothes? The entire city?¡± A terrifying image appears in Elisa¡¯s mind. Countless Eaglestorms and Xuetis dancing around in a circle and more and more perverts started joining them...


    ¡°MASTER!! PLEASE RESEARCH A WAY TO DESTROY THIS DEMON FROM ITS ROOT QUICKLY!!¡±

 Chapter 47

    <h4>Chapter 47: Messing With The Situation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    The biannual Alliance Conference which should have been held the next week has been postponed indefinitely due to some overwhelming circumstances that cannot be resolved...


    The reason? The empty streets in the city is the reason. The streets which should have been filled with crowds of people ispletely empty. The single being that could be seen is a meter-tall transparent slime.


    ¡°AHHHH! Don¡¯te over, I am only here to sell my vegetables!!¡±


    Yet another innocent victim is born. After the Slimes were satisfied after their assault and leaves, a naked Beastman Auntie runs in a frenzy with her basket in hand. Her oily bs trembles around vigorously and sweat drips down like the rain. Wherever she passes by, sounds of vomiting could be heard.


    ¡°It is the 3rd time for that female Hippo Beastman. It probably isn¡¯t an ident. I guess this incident gave some people an opportunity to release the wildness within them.¡±


    Due to the sudden rampage of the mysterious Slimes, the internal workings of Vance City paralyses. These little things aren¡¯t difficult to deal with. Even though Slimes have high resistance against physical attacks, but they have almost zero resistance towards Magic and the Divine Arts. In the underground world where experts could be everywhere, they aren¡¯t that difficult to deal with.


    However...


    ¡°Even if you can deal with one, can you deal with 10, deal with 100, deal with 1000? This toy is almost endless! Furthermore, if you identally allow it to close in on you, your armor would be reduced to spare parts in an instant and taken away. Your clothes would disintegrate, not leaving a single cloth behind. Being fully nude, how much of a fighting prowess would you still have?¡±


    That¡¯s right, no matter how strong you are, as long as you dare to wear clothes on the street, you would definitely be suppressed by the Slimes immediately with their overwhelming poption and be totally nude. There is a Mage who created a Fire Wall by his side, protecting himself within the high temperature of the inferno. In the beginning, he managed to get rid of quite a few Slimes who pounced on him. But after 6 hours, he still ran out of mana and ended up like a newborn baby.


    But, his experiment proved that this being is brainless and their numbers are innumerable. Fortunately, their weakness is found very quickly. They can disintegrate the fibers of cloth and take away metal, but they aren¡¯t able to do anything about wood. In fact, they seem to instinctively fear it. As long as you leave a wooden pole on the window, doors and circle a piece around your taps, they will retreat immediately. (The back door left by a certain Lich)


    TL: Crap, theye out from your taps?


    But, this doesn¡¯t solve the root of the problem. After all, you can¡¯t really go on the street wearing a bunch of wooden sticks. Thus, the entire city retreated in the face of these small Slimes and went into a bizarre paralysis. They aren¡¯t interested in humans who are nude, but not everyone can awaken to their new self like that Hippo Auntie.


    The life of the citizens became inconvenient but in this instant, a group of warm-hearted young people pushed a wooden cart and walked fearlessly naked on the street.


    They helped other people to purchase their groceries and run their errands. Also, they allow people to pay on tab and even recruit volunteers into their team.


    ¡°The natural body that God gave us is perfect and wless, the unnatural clothes are an original sin. What wrong is there in releasing ourselves ¡ª Simplified as The Release of the Heaven¡¯s Body Group. They took this opportunity to spread their beliefs (If you join in the group now, you get the right to purchase a wooden pushcart at member¡¯s price, only limited to one per person!).¡±


    When more and more young people started to acknowledge those bizarre teachings, they treated this Slime as a kind of heavenly punishment passed down that target clothes, an unnatural creation. The Release of the Heaven¡¯s Body, whose core group is the Wild Bull Alliance, grew at a fearsome rate as innumerable people who are aiming for the business opportunities, those who awakens to a certain instinct and even the young people who acknowledges this bizarre cult started walking around the street naked to fight for their future wealth or their teachings.


    Even so, the losses in this catastrophe were still quite great. Before the weakness of the Slimes were exposed, there were many vaults and rich merchants who fell prey to the Slimes. (A certain Lich: Why should we announce the weakness, we should give it some time first so as to earn more right? |A certain Maid: Shut up, hurry up and research on how to solve this problem from the root. Isn¡¯t solving the problems that you stir up yourself one of your known sayings?)


    Vance City was unable to function as per normal. At the very least, the Alliance Conference has been postponed indefinitely. The faces of the nude underground city lords seem to be like countlessughing face that were mocking at the dignity of the Underground Autarchs.


    When the Autarchs¡¯ patience finally reached a limit, they even proposedpletely destroying the whole city and its underground works before rebuilding the entire city. However, a sudden rumor spreads around the entire city, bringing a surge of joy across the entire city ¡ª The Release of the Heaven¡¯s Body Group¡¯s leader Great Druid and their authoritative old Physician (Specializes in treating beasts) Beifeng.Herault had did their research and found out that these Slimes only have a lifespan of 10 days. Within 4 to 5 days, they should start withering as a group.


    The entire city went into celebration, but no one seem to question why 2 unknown rookies were able toe up with such a conclusion when the top Mages were at a loss with this current catastrophe. But, the one who gave the biggest sigh of relief should be the Lion King himself. When the Conference of the Alliance is postponed, the responsibility is shared by everyone. However, if the auction is unable to carry out as promised, the contract of the Devils would be enforced and he might end up pulled straight to the River Styx, ending it all for him.


    ¡°Oh, I could actually still do that!¡±


    I p my hands together in realization. There was such an easy method to get rid of the Lion King, but I identally let the opportunity slip pass me.


    ¡°Actually, it still isn¡¯t toote. If I release the remains of ¡®Greed¡¯ down, then it will...¡±


    ¡°Cause another 10 days of catastrophe?¡±


    ¡°No, it will be ¡®Greed¡¯ in its perfect form. Its individual strength would at least be increased by 10 folds and there would be no limit to its longevity. If this goes on forever, the Lion King would definitely be unable to hold the auction.¡±


    ¡°REJECTED!! The underground world will be destroyed like this.¡± Wearing a bikini created by 2 banana leaves, her both hands are hugging her chest to prevent exposing the **. Her little tail keeps on knocking against the ground, causing a ruckus. It looks like the recent happenings had made Elisa be extremely irritable.


    TL: No idea what is **


    The silk that has been worked on, fiber clothing that did not cover the back, rattan and leaves shirt, they have all became thetest fashion trend... What, we seem silly for stepping onto our own trap?


    ¡°Heh, if other people suffered from the trap that weid but we don¡¯t fall for it, doesn¡¯t it obviously show that we were the one who set up the whole incident? Furthermore, my creations aren¡¯t that useless and weak. They wouldn¡¯t let you all go just because you all are myrades.¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t something to be proud about!! Why do you still have clothes to wear!¡±


    Yes, in the entire base of Sulfur Mountain City, as the catastrophe hit us extremely early (It started the moment I threw Greed in), we are actually pretty badly affected by the catastrophe and there aren¡¯t many here who have leaves shirt to wear. Only I am left with my clothes intact.


    ¡°Do you want to listen to the truth or lies? The lie is that my clothes are a SemiGod-ss equipment, so they aren¡¯t able to get near. As for the truth...¡± (They are unable to disintegrate high-tier equipment, but this doesn¡¯t mean they will stop their attack. The reason why my entire body is so slimy is because of their secretion which is unable to get destroy my clothes)


    ¡°The truth is that they remember that you are their father, so they won¡¯t attack you?¡±


    ¡°No, how can my creations have such a foolish weakness. Their ability to attackes from their instincts, they do not discriminate against their enemy. Look, this is a wood-shaving spray. It is a product from dissolving wood into a solution. As long as you spray it on your body, the Slimes, who fear wood, would definitely stay away... Hey hey, I¡¯m sorry for telling you about this, but we are all civilized people so let¡¯s not get violent!! Put down the leg of that table!¡±


    Alright, under the threat of violence, I admit that it isn¡¯t that I forgot to tell them about it but rather, it is for my eye¡¯s feast. But, my honesty only ends up bringing about Elisa¡¯s rage andnded me in in jail. Coming right after is the long-awaitedmunication through wrestling...


    After a moment, the panting Elisa sits on my spine and asks the me who was lying on the floor.


    ¡°Have you researched out the way to end this catastrophe?¡±


    ¡°I have researched it, I have researched it! Stop bending it, my old bones are about to break!!¡±


    ¡°Then why don¡¯t you stop the Slimes! Is it because you feel sorry for them?¡±


    ¡°It will take at least a week to collect the ingredients required to make the necessary arrangements! I swear to the River Styx that I definitely am not lying this time.¡±


    It takes 1 week for the antidote toe out ¡ª But 5 dayster, the Slime Cmity has ended by itself ¡ª What she did, forcing her master to research the antidote, was in vain. This series of equation links up in her mind. Then, the maid rages.


    ¡°Kacha!¡± This is the crisp sound of the breaking of Elisa¡¯s sanity and my thigh bones. That day, I managed to experience firsthand how powerful a Half-Demon is coupled with a Saint Pugilist Job, its fearsome physical abilities.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    I am not so foolish as to ce the main body of ¡®Greed¡¯ in the camp. That is equivalent to waiting for people to trace the stolen goods back here. The main body has been ced in the deepest area of the waterworks and countless of its children serves as its guards.


    Out of expectations, there was an additional volunteer guard.


    When the first gold coin is brought back to the main body, the first one to find her way to the main body is Little Red... When she got the details of the story, she immediately requests to serve as the guard of the treasure vault, the reason being...


    ¡°I am used to sleeping on treasure. I have been insomniac for so many days, it¡¯s about time for me to have a good nap.¡±


    Fine, I know that it is an excuse. Going by our unspoken rules, since she was willing to put in effort, she would be entitled to half of it as a wee present. However, with her guarding the main body, I feel at ease.


    At least, if she really meets with an extremely powerful opponent that isn¡¯t easy to deal with, Little Red¡¯s speed in running is extremely worth trusting.


    Now, the only thing that we have to be worried about is how to sell the goods afterwards. However, in the underground world, this is the thing that we need not worry about.


    Alright, since everything is in ce, thest thing that we need to settle is the Alliance Conference. When the Slime army starts to wither and die as predicted, everyone heaved a sigh of relief. The Underground Autarch swiftly sends invitation letter for the Alliance Conference.


    ¡®The gathering of primitives¡¯, ¡®Can those underground city lords do the H dance?¡¯


    TL: H


    When the street vendors start to discuss vehemently over this topic, appropriate clothing were sent soon after the invitation letter, making those unfortunate underground city lords feel thankful towards the thoughtful organization while heaving a sigh of relief. In the market now, clothes that still could be wear had long shot up to sky price, it would be difficult to purchase them.


    But at this moment, the good that were the best seller weren¡¯t thecking clothes, but information on the study of Power of Law.


    ¡°Still worried about the invaders and Demonic Beasts that keep harassing you? There is the nemesis of those who break thew here, the senior of the Holy Light from the same sect. Even Undead, monkeys and Half-Demons can grasp this power of the new generation ¡ª Power of Law!¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t cost 3 to 4 thousand, it doesn¡¯t cost 1 to 2 thousand either, it is yours for 998 for real! Exquisite workmanship with 99 main functions. Communicating with the Origin of Order doesn¡¯t require money and learning how to control the spells don¡¯t require money either. Furthermore, the spells sparkle!! Stop hesitating, head on over to Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Envoy Base to reserve and purchase it!!¡±


    TL: Exquisite workmanship -> Literally means the skills required to create the Hearts and arrows


    ¡°Furthermore, the first 100 buyers will receive a second chance at lottery. The top prize is the God Equipment Scattered Page of the Codex! We will send it straight to your house and even tutor you for free.¡±


    ¡®Hey hey, do you know how to judge?¡¯ ¡®Judge men! Mama, you don¡¯t have to worry about my spell incantation failing anymore. Granny, my dream of bing a Holy Knight has been realized.¡¯


    TL: Not a typo.


    ¡°Power of Law is trustworthy. In order to make it for convenient for our big customers toprehend and wield it, other than the basic 998 package, we even prepared a 9998 Deluxe Package for the noble you. Of course, if you feel like that this is unfitting of your high social position, we also prepared a 19998 Perfect Luxurious Package, whiches along with a lottery card, allowing you to join in the lottery for the God Equipment Scattered Page of the Codex!¡±


    ¡°What are you hesitating about? Our address is Vance 32nd District Tauren Road No. 88, firste first serve. While stocksst.¡±


    Striking it rich, I started to look forward to the auction and the Alliance Conference that was around the corner.


    ¡°Master, didn¡¯t you just bring a few hundred identical information books? Those Deluxe and Perfect Luxurious version...¡±


    ¡°It is all the same, all the same.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid that they might get even with you?¡±


    ¡°Hehe, Elisa, you are still too inexperienced. You have to think about the mindset of those underground city lords when they purchase goods. Those underground city lords who are willing to fork out 998 Diamonds to purchase the information don¡¯t really bother much about spending another 9000. ¡®What? You thought that it was 998 gold coin and not diamonds? Police, chase this viger away.¡¯ When this word is spoken, those rich suckers who value their face will eat it no matter how expensive it is. Do you know what is an overlord and a Little Xiong? An overlord is someone with great wealth, the big boss. No matter what they buy, they will choose to buy the most expensive one rather than the best one! It is because they have a reputation to uphold. Look, all 4 of the Underground Autarchs bought the Perfect Luxurious Version right? They can¡¯t afford to let anyone see them buying the normal Deluxe version. Thus, our motto for our sales it that we don¡¯t go for the best but the most expensive. Once our business is done, we won¡¯t have to open our shop for 10 years.¡±


    TL: Little Xiong (??)-> Means someone who is ambitious and ruthless.


    ¡°You are really scheming.¡±


    ¡°Thanks for yourpliments.¡±

 Chapter 48

    <h4>Chapter 48: The Circles of Nobles Sure is Messy</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    After thousands of years of reparations and restructuring of the city, the multiracial city Vance underwent thousands of years of change. Its streets are messy without order, the districts which were once defined clearly through squares and rectangles changedpletely after numerous expansions of the city.


    The Gnomes who came to the city built their Alchemy Experimental Lab, Engineering Experimental Lab and arge-scale racing track. The Beastman brought along their Coliseum where fresh blood and glory could be found. With the arrival of the Elves, Theaters and Man-made Jungles starts materializing in the city. The Mages appeared together with their high-rising Mage Towers that reaches the clouds.


    On the both sides of the streets, infrastructure of different cultures from different eras could be seen. The solemn Dwarf¡¯s baroque-style buildings, the mysterious and sorrowful Dark Elf¡¯s gothic-style buildings, the Gnome-style buildings that were infused with metals and the smell of smoke and even the recent-times serene rural-style buildings by the surface Elves due to the Druid and ck Shaman¡¯s residing in this city.


    Perhaps, the equally diverse Sulfur Mountain City might have the potential and liveliness to be a simr a well-known historical city. But in the face of this ancient city, it is still too young and impetuous now.


    The buildings of the new generation intertwine with those that has settled down in history. The different tribal styles of the essory and the special products sold by the street vendors could also be treated as a beautiful scenery. The charm in this ancient city forged by the assembly of many different races cannot be denied. From another perspective, this shows the ancientness and the changes in the City of tinum.


    In current times, as eras changed, the original orderly design has totally disappeared. Time and history has changed the different districts into countless ?-word shape, ?-word shape and a disorderly picture of a ¡®valley¡¯ on the map. As the Alliance chose to station their headquarters here, more and more race and underground cities chose to dominate a plot ofnd in this city. Facing a city that is changing every day, even the old Vance-ians who had been living here their entire life cannot be sure how many different race or their unique buildings are here or which alley would lead to where.


    TL: Probably looks something like this?


    But, there is a ce here where all Vance-ians will never forget ¡ª The tinum Chapel.


    Of course, the reason has to do with therge surface area it takes up and the 7 tall Mage Towers in the vicinity. Since it can be seen from every single corner of Vance City, it is impossible to forget it.


    It was once called the Residence of the King of tinum, well-known for its extravagance in history. At that time, the Underground Autarch who rules over this city and hundreds of other underground cities in the vicinity suddenly gets a stroke of inspiration and used up a hulking amount of money to build this city within a city that is more than 6 kilometers long. In fact, to be true to its name with its name, mithril and tinum is used to te the outer walls. Under the rays of light, the castle shines, seeming like the homnd of the Angels in the castle of clouds. Within it, jewels and treasures were glowing by the streets, beauties in faille were all around, ready to serve, and the pond of wine and forest of meat were prepared everyday...


    TL: Faille is a type of fabric simr to silk.


    Fine, let¡¯s not mention about how that fellow ruled oppressively and overtaxed the poption, or how the resentment of the public umted against him and he was overthrown. The hero who ruled the days then had been reduced to just bone ashes. But, the tinum Chapel that he left behind became the symbol of Vance City.


    Even if the extravagant ting of precious metal has been long scraped away and the walls are filled with vine-like magical nts, but that humongous and luxurious pce still remains as Vance and the underground world¡¯s most beautiful pce.


    The underground world today isn¡¯t like back then, when the tinum King was the only big faction. The 4 Underground Autarchs restraining each other keeps Vance in a state without a city lord. No one dares to im ownership of this pce but today, it is about to be used once again. It is the location for the Alliance Conference and in fact, its scale would be muchrger than when the pce was in its peak condition.


    The fireworks in the sky never stopped as Griffons and Scorpion-tailed Lions walk to and fro weing guests. The majestic gigantic Dragons could only serve as the sentry and door guards for the gathering. Each and every carriage were pulled by powerful Magic Beasts. The ingredients for the food on the lunch table were all precious top-tier Magic Beasts. The attending underground city lords were full of experts, true to the saying ¡®Saints are everywhere and Legends are like dogs¡¯. Maybe there isn¡¯t the luxurious and wealth of a Human Kingdom, but in the underground world where the strong reigns supreme, they used their own way to decorate this biannual Conference.


    TL: The author really likes to use this saying although it sounds so awkward in English.


    Despiteing pretty early, it is already crowded everywhere. The event location is split into 3 main districts. The Outer District is the outer area of the tinum Chapel. Normal civilians are allowed to enter and this is where the guards of the city lords will stand on guard. There are also many different kinds of activities and performance here. The buffet set up would at least remain for an entire week. The Middle District is where the city lords of smaller cities and well-known heroic figures will hold a drinking party for 3 days straight. As for the Inner District, it is also where the session would be shortest. Within 2 days, the different influential figures from different ces will wreak havoc with their arguments.


    More than 10 Rnd Robots walk together, their footsteps in sync, creating a light earthquake with every step. The carriages in front are forced to give way to us. A gigantic Metal-backed DemiDragon who blocked the way with his gigantic bottom was lifted up and kicked away by Rnd No.2 like a metal ball... I wouldn¡¯t waste money for nothing. Although they could only be ced on the grounds outside of the Outer District, it was perfect to showcase our might.


    Very few underground city lords have good temper, so there were many sparks on the road. The security personnel also tacitly remained silent. On our road here, we saw quite a few duels and among them, there were nock of Legend-rank fighters.


    In truth, the reason why arge portion of city lords brought their strongest guards were to showcase their might and for their security. The Underground Autarchs, even more so, aren¡¯t able to skip by that tradition. There were already 7 to 8 Red Dragons guarding the gates, an obvious show of power by Molly.


    By the way, Little Red should havee but as she was unwilling to give up her bed (give up those treasures...), I could only send her a signal toe when I require her presence when signing the Alliance pact...


    But when Molly saw us, she heaves a sigh of relief. She knows the personality of her daughter. If she were to get group lynched in the middle of the meeting, then she wouldn¡¯t know where to put her face... Or, could it be that the bunch of Red Dragons at entrance are used to block Little Red from entering? Somehow, I feel like I got a glimpse of the truth.


    ¡°Hi, olddy, I am here. How have you been these days?¡±


    Starting a battle in the duration of the Conference is forbidden. Those who break this rule bes the public enemy of the Alliance, but this doesn¡¯t stop me from taunting them. Or rather, in such an asion where everyone can only move their mouths, it is more convenient for me to attack them verbally. As I started the topic of how the experience they had these few days, the beautiful face of the Dragon Queen immediately distorts in anger.


    Of course I know that they haven¡¯t been well these few days. After all, they suffered multiple attacks from thieves, underground city lord and even Undead Lords. Even if they have many hidden aces, but how can they take proper precautions when everyone is the enemy. It must have been suffocating to live like a rat crossing the street.


    TL: Rat crossing the street -> Means someone which everyone hates


    ¡°Hehe, looks like the 6th Senator has appeared. It is fortunate that the first 3 aren¡¯t here... If they came, I probably won¡¯t be seeing you all now. How is the ant poison from Lamost? You must be dying from the excruciating pain.¡±


    From the outer appearance, the Dragon Queen is a red-haired beauty. However, she brought a pair of ck gloves which extends all the way to her shoulders and her fur coat covers her entire upper body. This style of dressing is vastly different from her usual. It is apparent to see that she is wounded. Furthermore, I heard that she crossed des with Lamost yesterday, so it is very possible for her to have been afflicted by that deadly gue-like Ant Poison. I am purposely jabbing at where it hurts.


    TL: The word used is ??, which the first one means Ant. But the word also means Formic Acid, which is secreted by ants.


    Of course, Molly was so enraged that her magic tattoos starts to deforming. But then, she grinds her teeth and tolerated it.


    Grabbing over a cocktail from the tray of the servants, she swallows it in one shot and left a word behind before leaving.


    ¡°You won¡¯t be gleeful for long.¡±


    I immediately reply to her taunt.


    ¡°Right, your daughter says that she wants to beat you up. Remember to bring more bodyguards along, the bunch at the door isn¡¯t enough for her to beat.¡±


    I purposely said it loudly. The surrounding underground city lords were surprised that there was someone who dared to challenge the Dragon Queen. Even more inconceivable, the Dragon Queen merely grinds her teeth and leaves, not even returning the taunt, seeming to ept reality.


    ¡°Uncle Bones, if you taunt her like that, won¡¯t she obstruct our entry into the alliance?¡±


    ¡°Will she not obstruct us if we don¡¯t mock her? Since we are destined to offend her, we might as well just go through with it. Besides, in the underground world, only those who are strong will be respected. We might have offended the Dragon Queen, but at the same time, we would receive the goodwill of her enemies. Look, the bald fatty there is smiling so happily.¡±


    The bald fatty that I just mentioned is currently chatting happily with Kajah. Seeing that I am here, he waves his hand and gestures for me toe over. Shock gasps could be heard everywhere. Not mentioning how we just triumphed verbally over the Dragon Queen, just the invitation from the Underground Autarch Eduar is sufficient for us, the group of ¡®freshman¡¯ to be on the headlines.


    Ainsterna.Eduar, his body is round and almost devoid of any hair. From afar, he seems quite simr to a moving boiled egg, but there weren¡¯t any who dared to express such an opinion out loud.


    In response to the invitation, I retreated instead to allow Annie to fulfill her responsibilities.


    Due to the recent chaos, Annie had many opportunities to fight. Also, due to there being many people taking the initiative to assault her, there are some improvements in her strength. After listening to the experiences of her godfather during his breakthrough, she seems to have grasped onto something, it wouldn¡¯t be weird if she were to break through anytime soon.


    But,pared to the fast-progressing Annie, Elisa behind my back was somehow solemn. Different from Annie who has taken up the role as the future city lord of Sulfur Mountain City, Elisa is unsure of what she wants exactly and it is impossible to enter the realm of Legends with doubts about the future you wish to walk on.


    These few days, she had been quite silent and irritable.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much into it, you are good the way you are now.¡± Even if the words of the outsiders aren¡¯t useful to the ones choosing their path, but I couldn¡¯t help but to say these useless words.


    My constion makes Elisa jolt suddenly. She seems to be on the verge of saying when ¡®dang dang dang¡¯, the sound of the bell echoes. A bunch of colorful gs hangs in sky along with the firework and the chatter outside was so loud that even the heavens tremor. The Conference begins.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go in.¡± Looking at the underground city lords who start swarming into the Inner District, I also hurry my footsteps. I can¡¯t leave Annie to attend the Conference by herself in the Inner District.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    ¡°I propose to form an Alliance Army topletely wipe away the spies sent by tailless monkeys on the surface.¡± The furious howl of the Lion King reverberates in therge hall. Those eyes of fury stares at me. It was obvious he was talking about when he mentioned the spies.


    ¡°Even their city lord is a Human Hero from the surface. Whose side are they actually on? What rights does Sulfur Mountain City has to join the Alliance, aren¡¯t they just intending to join in as a spy? I propose that we kick them out! Whoever who opposes my suggestion will be enemy of the Dragon City.¡± The Dragon Queen¡¯s threat is very direct and effective. Offending the Dragon City means represents all of the subordinate Dragon Tribes under the Dragon City and that isn¡¯t something small.


    As expected, the moment the Conference starts, before we could even be introduced to join the Alliance, the Lion King and the Dragon Queen starts shooting at us. But, looking at this situation, I am so happy that I smiled.


    ¡°Then, let¡¯s treat it as the first matter at hand. All of the city lords, please make your decision.¡± What that surprised the Lion King and the rest is that Kajah and Eduar didn¡¯t try to stop them but rather, they even proposed to vote on the matter directly.


    Following which, a shocking sight appears. If a matter were to receive over half of the votes of those present here, it could be passed. However, in the big hall filled with a few thousand people, only a few hundred people raised their hands in agreement.


    ¡°Alright, the first proposal is rejected.¡±


    At this point, they would really be dumb if they don¡¯t get that something is amiss. The Dragon Queen and Lion King stares at each other with astonishment and disbelief on their face.


    The underground cities tend to be quite far from each other, and many of the Alliance member have deep-seated grudges against each other, so the Underground Alliance was originally built as a loose organization. Even the Underground Autarchs don¡¯t dare to say that they have definite control over their own supporters. But now, even the underground city lords with good rtionship with them gave up on their rights to vote. What exactly is going on!


    They have expected Sulfur Mountain City to try their best to pull the other underground city lords to their side. But, these underground city lords are arrogant and aloof and they are quite far away from one another, so it is a daunting task to try to bribe them.


    TL: Quite far as in the distance.


    These few days, they became the thorn in the eye of everyone else. They couldn¡¯t spare any attention to set up obstacles for Sulfur Mountain City. From a certain sense, my goal for throwing out the Scepter has been met.


    Eduar nods his head and continues.


    ¡°Alright then, Kajah and I will be proposing the 2nd matter. We want to ept Sulfur Mountain City as one of us and give it a status equal to me Shou, Lord Dragon Empress, Kajah and I. Yes, we might have another Alliance Vice-head.


    After this proposal was said, amotion breaks out in the hall. The position of an Underground Autarch isn¡¯t something the Alliance can decide, but if this proposal is passed in the Conference where all powerful underground city lords attend, then there¡¯s no difference between Sulfur Mountain City and the other Autarchs. As for the Alliance Vice-head, it is just an official way of calling and Autarch.


    ¡°This matter is more important so going by the rules, we require more than 80% of the members to not disagree. It will be an anonymous vote so everyone can rest easy and just vote as you wish.¡±


    No one felt that this incredulous proposal would be passed, except for me...


    ¨C I told Kajah and Eduar, ¡°This proposal definitely won¡¯t be passed. After proposing this, if we take a step back and propose something less extreme, it would be easier for it to be passed. Give us a hand, we need an explosive entrance. To repay you both, we will...¡±


    ¡°Those in favor, 110 votes...¡± Hearing this vote number, the Lion King and Dragon Queen¡¯s face are full of smiles, their gazes full of contempt against me, as though saying ¡®a countryside bum wants to ascend the Heavens in a single step, dream on.¡±


    ¡°... Those against, 206....¡± ¡°Impossible!!¡± It is natural for the votes in favor to be little, but the votes against being few is inconceivable as well, the Lion King stands up abruptly.


    The Lion King¡¯s expression seems like he is ready to eat anyone made the speaker quiver.


    ¡°Neu...Neutral votes and abandoned votese to a total of 2367, the number participating in the Conference is 3583, the proposal is passed! AHHHHH!¡±


    After throwing the conclusion at the audience, the speaker immediately crouches down and rolls away.


    The Lion King snatches the voting results and looked at it for several times. The results were clearly written in his face. In the end, he could only express a nasty face and tear it apart to vent his anger.


    ¡°How did you do it?¡± Kajah leans over and says in my ear, her breath smelling like flowers. However, I simply smile mysteriously, refusing to answer.


    Actually, it is not that big of a deal. Just when everyone thought that I was ying around, I did quite a bit of important preparations.


    For example, as a veteran Lawyer who is skilled in exploiting the loopholes of thew and a Legitor who fills these hole, I studied the rules and regtions of the Alliance one by one...


    TL: Veteran (???) -> In a way means veteran, but it means someone who is been in the industry/trade/anything else for very long and became quite cunning in dealing with its matter. Can also be used to refer to a cunning/¡¯slippery¡¯ person.


    ¡®Important decisions can be passed as long as at least 80% do not oppose it.¡¯ Yes, in order to prevent a decision being unable to be made due to its diverse members, each having differing views, such a rule was made. So, when the Underground Autarchs are unable toe to a consensus, this rule allowed arge portion of the underground city lord¡¯s proposals to be passed.


    But, they neglected the fact that just because they are not against it doesn¡¯t mean that they are for it...


    It may be difficult to pull the votes of the underground city lords over to our side, but it isn¡¯t entirely possible to stop them from voting against us.


    ¡°The portion of the information of thew is indeedcking, but if you are willing to not vote against us joining the Alliance, I will pass the rest to you after the Conference. Yes, it is sufficient as you don¡¯t vote against us, we just don¡¯t want to lose that badly...¡± This is a threat...


    TL: He means the book he sold.


    ¡°Hah, this is Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s present. Your clothes should be destroyed in the catastrophe, right? These leaves and rattan clothing are rushed out by the Druids of The Release of Heaven¡¯s Body Group. It is made of natural materials and we guarantee that it is in line with its teachings. Hehe, you don¡¯t have to pay us, it is free. It would be sufficient if you all can help us a little in the Conference voting. You know, we are new and don¡¯t know much about here. I hope to be able to rely on your big brother.¡± This is a favor...


    TL: There are 2 types of you in Chinese. ? -> Casual ? -> Used to address others who are more noble or respected. The more formal one is often used when they address Adam and Wumianzhe. He is also using it to address the person now as it makes one seem more humble.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you all feel like the situation isn¡¯t right now? There are now 4 Underground Autarchs who are split into 2 factions. It is just a matter of time before war breaks out between them. Don¡¯t you feel like we need a lubricant kind of existence in the Alliance? He should be strong, but not too strong. It would also be best if he isn¡¯t ambitious...¡± This is reasoning...


    When the Lion King and Dragon Queen were distracted by the Scepter, I had plenty of opportunities to pull votes over to my side. Those underground city lords, when they came with the mindset that since they require 80% of votes for the proposal to be approved, then even if I were to abandon my vote, the proposal wouldn¡¯t be passed anyway¡¯, we were destined to seed.


    ¡°Congrattions to our new Alliance Vice-head.¡±


    Eduar¡¯s congrattions brought along with it an ill-intent sarcasm. Ignoring the High Priestess of the Dark Elf who is already leaning on me, the other 2 Underground Autarch on the other side is already exerting their killing intent... Normally, the more cheerful a Dark Elf seems to smile, the more ruthless they would be. No one likes it when their authority is split. No matter how well I have put it before, I have already offended all of them.


    Also, the looks that arge portion of the city lords looked at us with aren¡¯t that friendly anymore. After all, I lied to them all, even though what I said was the truth.


    ¡°However, this is what I hope to achieve.¡± I smile, satisfied. However, being stared at suddenly by over a thousand Legend-rank experts, the two people by the side feels uneasy.


    Furthermore, arge portion of the ill-intent gazes were shot towards Annie who is sitting in the middle. After all, she is the future city lord of Sulfur Mountain City.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have the time to wait for Annie to mature slowly. The greater the pressure, the faster the growth. From now on, the entire city is our enemy. Endure through it! This is my test towards you.¡±


    ¡°Rnd! Hurry up ande over to help, we have met with big trouble!! The base has been attacked by Undead Lords!!¡±


    Suddenly, Little Red¡¯s voice rings at the back of my mind. She actually used the emergencymunication and for her to require assistance against an Undead Lord, the Undead Lord is at least of the level of a Xiluo Senator.


    ¡°You won¡¯t be gleeful for long.¡± Molly¡¯s taunt shes across my brain. In that instant, I understood what happened.


    ¡°Using the right to join in the auction or to view the Scepter to strike a deal with the Undead Senators so that they can be your fighters? Infighting isn¡¯t allowed during the duration of the Conference, but the Undead Lords aren¡¯t restricted by this rule. Indeed, the Underground Autarchs aren¡¯t to be underestimated.¡±


    I stand up, intending return to the base to back the rest up, but the Dragon Queen blocks the entrance.


    ¡°Where are you intending to go? The Conference isn¡¯t over yet. Leaving the Conference on your ord, this isn¡¯t very respectful to the... AYO, brat, what are you doing!¡±


    By the side, a gnomed is using its short legs to kick the Dragon Queen with all of its might. What was weird is that even though the motion of his short legs weren¡¯t fast, the Dragon Queen was unable to avoid the kicks! The kicksnded squarely on her knees every time.


    ¡°You bad person, bullying Ah Pa, Ah Dang hit you.¡±


    Somehow, I felt that this voice is very familiar, but I didn¡¯t have the mood tough at the moment. At the same time, a premonition creeps into my heart, as though something unfortunate is going to happen to me.


    ¡°I can guarantee with my years of experience of meeting with misfortune, this feeling means that a big trouble is about toe.¡±


    The gnomed raises his head, his face full of pimples and his snot flowing all the way to his chin. His 2 eyes stare intently at me. Then, he smiled foolishly at me.


    ¡°Ah Pa.¡±


    ¡°...Ah Dang!!¡± If it weren¡¯t for his unique way of addressing me, I wouldn¡¯t be able to connect the extremely big Abomination that I personally created with this little gnome in front of me...


    At this moment, I hear a chilling voice from the back of my ears.


    ¡°...You even have an illegitimate son, and it is a gnome. Master, I have nothing to say about your tastes. May I ask you what did you do with the mother of this child? Did you abandon her? Master, you are too filthy.¡±

 Chapter 49

    <h4>Chapter 49: Transform and Roll Out</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    It was total chaos within the brilliant golden chapel. Even when the organizer tried his best to main order, he couldn¡¯t stop themotion among the underground city lords.


    Even though they were tricked, to be able to make this proposal pass in the Conference, it could also be attributed to Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s might. The decisions made in the Conference weren¡¯t a game and couldn¡¯t be change, otherwise the basic trust in the Alliance will waver.


    The Fifth Autarch ¡ª Sulfur Mountain City, these are the phrases thates up often during the chatters which underground city lords are engaged in now. Many of them had begun to ept it as reality within their hearts.


    A sudden emergence of a new Underground Autarch means a reshuffling of the powers within the Alliance. In the worst-case scenario, it might even incite thousands of battles to rewrite the territories of the biggest factions. These sudden circumstances represent endless trouble... and a hard-toe-by opportunity.


    None of the underground city lords who are qualified to sit in this Inner Hall are easy to deal with. These days, everyone has their own ambitions and since Sulfur Mountain City is able to climb up to the top spot, then there¡¯s no reason the rest can¡¯t do the same. Furthermore, the new Autarch stillcks supporter. Perhaps, some will take this as an opportunity to side with him to win themselves resources and backing... Countless desires and ideas made the underground city lord¡¯s mind start to turn and naturally, the Inner Hall¡¯s atmosphere bes bizarre and lively.


    As for my conflict with the Dragon Empress, other than the few people who sit near to us, there weren¡¯t many people who noticed it.


    It is a pity as that means not much of the crowd would notice the Dragon Empress Molly, who strikes fear in the entire Underground World, acting like an infuriated old cat, baring her teeth towards a small gnome. Furthermore, she could only express her wrath verbally. Despite being an Underground Autarch, she doesn¡¯t dare to start fighting in the Conference Hall.


    What that is even more pitiable is that despite the Dragon Empress, who is used to be being unreasonable, is going to be reasonable for once, but the silly-looking gnome isn¡¯t giving her any face.


    TL: The exact meaning for ¡®isn¡¯t giving her any face¡¯ is inflexible mind.


    ¡°What... What are you staring at! Stare... Stare some more and I will eat you!¡±


    The gnome who is full of big words ignores the restraint of the Dragon Queen. His arrogance causes the surrounding audience¡¯s eyes to fall to the floor. But I know that this threat isn¡¯t just for show. When Ah Dang says that he will eat her, it means that he really intents to eat her and, he probably has the ability to carry out the action.


    TL: Full of big words -> The exact phrase is an adjective used to refer to a person talking big and still not regretful/ashamed etc. about it


    But, the base is still under attack right now. It isn¡¯t the moment to be wasting time with the Dragon Queen who is obviously trying to drag our feet.


    ¡°Ah Dang, before I allow you to, you aren¡¯t to eat any living thing.¡±


    Ah Dang¡¯s face bitters instantly, but he still nods his head in reply.


    However, it is fortunately that Ah Dang¡¯s brother gave him another name, Ya Dang Si, preventing the Dragon Queen from recognizing Ah Dang from his nickname from the start... Even though Ah Dang sounds nice, why can¡¯t we use it as his real name. I have pondered over this question but couldn¡¯t understand the reason.


    TL: Can¡¯t think for a good name for him so I¡¯ll just direct trante his name for now.


    ¡°Ah Bas (Demonic Spatial Hellhound Bastian) too. To think that the head of the Four Heavenly Kings, the elder brother of the Seven Deadly Sins Wrath, would reject the name I bestowed on it. Look how obedient are Ah Bao (Chromaggus) and Ah Dang. Now that they are used to their nickname, I doubt that they will remember it even if you call their real name.¡±


    From nowhere, a familiar voice sounds from the emergencymunication channel that we agreed on earlier.


    ¡°Are you here yet? There are 3 Undead Lords of the level of Xiluo Senator. I can¡¯t hold out for long. If you don¡¯t back us up soon, I will bring the rest of the guys to flee.¡±


    There wasn¡¯t a single trace of pride of the Dragon Tribe seen in the legends, running away decisively when the odds aren¡¯t in their favor. In reality, Little Red is just following the standard Dragon Tribe way of doing things. On the contrary, the Dragons find themselves unable toprehend why the Dragon Tribes in the epics would they fight to their death.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t they escaping even though they can¡¯t beat the opponent? They evennded down to fight with those metal can foot soldiers, are they stupid?¡±


    However, from Little Red¡¯s more and more panicked urging, I shouldn¡¯t waste any more time.


    ¡°Go.¡±


    I grab the hand of Ah Dang, who was acting very aggressively towards the Dragon Empress, while intentionally ignoring the stare behind me which was getting more and more colder and Ah Dang¡¯s mysterious saliva while staring at the Dragon Empress... The Dragon Empress grabs her leg, grimacing in pain. She didn¡¯t try to stop us. Unexpectedly, she found herself instinctively fearing that shorty, both her eyes were filled with confusion.


    ¡°Heh, slowly think about it. I don¡¯t believe that you would be able to guess that the small gnome would be the savage ¡®Carnivore¡¯ Ya Dang Si.¡±


    However, from the vicious stare the Dragon Empress shot us with, the trouble has just begun.


    ¡°Elisa, you stay behind to help Annie. I don¡¯t feel at ease leaving her here alone.¡±


    ¡°No, I want to go... Besides, didn¡¯t you say that you want to train her so that she can stand up individually? This is such a good chance for her.¡±


    I turn back in shock. It is rare to see Elisa persisting on a matter. ¡°I feel like there¡¯s something ahead waiting for me. I must go. Perhaps, this would be useful to me in breaking through to the Legend realm.¡±


    Those who are in a bottleneck will tend to have intuitions of usible opportunities for them to break through. Since she has already said so, there is no reason for me to stop her.


    ¡°Diana and Victoria, enter the Inner District to support Annie. Victoria, it is your turn to perform, don¡¯t let me down. Diana, if there is anyone who tries to stop you both from entering, feel free to beat them up. No.3 and No.4, remain here to support them. The rest of the Rnd Robots, follow me back, we have something up at our base.¡±


    After delegating simple instructions, I left Xueti in charge and jumps onto Rnd No.2 to take a free ride back. ¡®Boom¡¯, ¡®boom¡¯ a series of earthquakes made the buildings by the side of the road shake.


    Sitting on the head of No.2, I close my eyes, deep in thoughts. Behind me, Elisa consoles me.


    ¡°Rest easy, with Lord Einz Mezus (Little Red) there and those defensive power we left in the base, nothing bad will happen.¡±


    I nod my head in silence. I will never tell her that I wasn¡¯t worrying just now, it was just that I was hesitating over whether I shouting ¡®Autobots, roll out!¡¯ or ¡®Decepticons, roll out!¡¯ would be cooler.


    However, looking at the tension on the faces around me, I think I should adapt to the situation and don¡¯t say things that would make me get beaten up.


    ¡°Hahaha, so fun! Ah Pa, this isn¡¯t a living thing. Can I eat?¡±


    The salivating Ah Dang is bouncing around like a pinball due to the movements of the Robot. Even so, there¡¯s not a single possibility of him falling down. In this instant, he is even pointing at the Rnd No.2 beneath his feet. It looks like the massive figure of the Robot has evoked his appetite.


    ¡°You can¡¯t, Ah Dang. Also, you aren¡¯t allowed to call me Ah Pa here, just call me Wumianzhe or Lord will do.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Ah Pa.¡±


    ¡°Wumianzhe...¡±


    ¡°Okay, Ah Pa.¡±


    ¡°I X, can you stop being so inflexible.¡±


    ¡°...Ah Pa, Ah Dang is not inflexible. Ah Pa is Ah Pa.¡±


    Alright, considering that this joke has been overused and no longer servesedic purpose, I will skip the see-saw interaction between me and Ah Dang. In the end, with Elisa looking at themotion with a smile, I admitted defeat, allowing him to call me whatever he pleases. I don¡¯t care anymore.


    However, it seems that Elisa knew from the start that this little gnome can¡¯t be my blood-rted son. Her performance in the Hall is just her habitual venomous tongue acting up.


    ¡°You just had to learn from that gutless Margaret. Saints are used to looking at changes from the perspective of an onlooker. However, sometimes being an onlooker means that you are ying a passive role, thinking too much and over-considering everything, resulting in theck of courage to change. Putting everything else aside, let¡¯s just talking about her feelings. If only she had a little more courage, she could have just pressured Adam and force the fool to take responsibility. As for why did she drag the matter until now, it is because she is too gentle and too considerate about other people¡¯s feelings. Sometimes, it might not be a good thing. Isn¡¯t being a little selfish good? There isn¡¯t such a thing as a happy ending for everyone in the world.¡±


    Hesitating for a moment, I upped the volume of my ¡®mumblings¡¯.


    ¡°Margaret is Margaret. Elisa is Elisa. If you can¡¯t even recognize this, you don¡¯t qualify to create a Soul Imprint that belongs solely to you, you can¡¯t show the world that you are an existence that surpasses the mortals and you won¡¯t be able to open up your path as a Legend above the rest.¡±


    The sharp-eared Elisa could hear my ¡®muted¡¯ mumbling clearly. Her delicate body jolts and the expression she looks at me with isplicated... It was enough saying to this point, it could even be said to be excessive. I turn my head to question Ah Dang.


    ¡°Ah Dang, you probably didn¡¯te alone right. Who brought you here?¡±


    ¡°Big Sister Gria.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡± I nk out for a moment. There isn¡¯t anyone named Gria within the Undead Lords. Could it be a super rookie who appeared recently? To be able to bring Ah Dang without ending up as spare ration, this isn¡¯t what a normal Undead Lord is capable of.


    ¡°It... It¡¯s that Big Sister who sings very badly!¡± Hearing that I didn¡¯t understand him, Ah Dang¡¯s hands waved about in a panic.


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s Gray.Sin! You can just say the Throat of Death. Could it be that there are too many victims recently that her reputation took a plunge, so she decided to change her name to scam others to attending her Concert of Death?¡± Hearing that the person sings very badly, I immediately thought of the familiar Bone Dragon Queen.


    Gria¡¯s singing has reached the level of polluting one¡¯s mind. Yet, she is totally oblivious to it. Her actions that keeps creating new victims consistently is even more famous than she herself.


    ¡°Other than Ah Pa, if other people call her that, Big Sister Gria will beat them up. Ah Dang don¡¯t want to be beaten.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, it can¡¯t be that you can¡¯t defeat her. My Ah Dang won¡¯t lose to any one of the Senators.¡±


    ¡°No, Ah Dang don¡¯t hit Big Brother and Big Sister. Ah Dang is obedient. Whoever who bullies Big Brother, Big Sister and Ah Pa, Ah Dang will beat him up. Ah Pa, is Ah Dang obedient?¡±


    ¡°Very obedient! This is what I call a good kid.¡± I happily carry this small cutie and turn around to wink at Elisa, hinting her that this is how a good kid should be like.


    ¡°...Yes, such a regret. You were such a cute little girl then, exactly where went wrong to create the venomous-tongued housewife today...¡±


    Alright, in consideration of my precious collection, these words in my mind better stay in my mind. I better not challenge her.


    ¡°Ah Pa, Ah Pa. Big Sister Gria flies very fast. I let her go help the fight first.¡±


    The little gnome sucks in his mucus as he jumps about with a face of expectation, just like a kid waiting to be praised.


    ¡°Does she know the location?¡±


    ¡°...I, I asked her to fly South-West of the city. Beat up annoying people on the way.¡± It may seem unbelievable, but this kind of experts who arecking in intelligence that even their cultivation depends on instincts, the intuition is often much stronger than rational thinking. Apparently, Ah Dang and Adam belongs to the type from thinks with their body, depending heavily on their intuition.


    ¡°...Bone Dragon Queen Gray.Sin is here, she is actually here to help me...¡± Little Red¡¯s message makes me heave a sigh of relief. Gray.Sin¡¯s singing throat may be unreliable, but her fighting prowess is definitely reliable.


    But, if we remain with our passive approach, problems will ur sooner orter. We can¡¯t just depend on others. We are still at least 20 minutes away from our base. Besides, what if I reach the field and end up getting recognized by those familiar fellows...


    Back then, from the intelligence of the Dark Elf spy then, I knew that even if Lord Yongye is sealed, the Dragon Empress would not dare to lift the seal. The Underground World will also treat it as an extremely dangerous existence that should remain sealed forever. If Lord Yongye really reappears... Maybe, the battle between the surface and the underground can be stopped and change into an alliance army to hunt down Lord Yongye.


    ¡°Ah Dang, change to your flying model. Allow me to enter.¡±


    Ah Dang nods his head. With a stomp of his feet, he is immediately shrouded within a dark fog. A few secondster, when the dark fog scatters with the light of the divine arts, the lively gnome disappears. On the ground where he was standing on is a beautiful Silver-ted Sky Dragon. It is more than 20-meter long without any legs. There isn¡¯t a strand of hair on its entire body and instead, there are 6 gigantic metal wings.


    Ah Dang¡¯s entire body is equipped with a heavy metal armor that seems as solid and heavy as the city walls. But, looking carefully, the tough armor is all grown within the flesh. Even more so, the triangr-shaped Dragon head is filled with traces of metal all around. Countless spare parts are lodged into the flesh. The gears of its 4 limbs are rotating a high speed. This is a perfect harmony between machine and a body of flesh. The Sky Dragon seems like a perfect art work, totally different from themon idea of an Abomination.


    TL: It says spare parts but not sure what these spare parts refer to. Probably just bits and pieces of metal I guess


    ¡°Ah Dang, Ah Dang, roll out!!!¡±


    Elisa and I walk into the control room within the Dragon¡¯s body. After a dragon roar with traces of a child¡¯s voice within, the 6 wings of the Dragon stretch out and crimson-red inferno shoots out. Just like a rocket car, Ah Dang uses the counter-force tounch himself out.


    It may seem smooth within the control room, but gauging from the rapidly retreating scenery, a normal gigantic Dragon probably don¡¯t even qualify to eat his dust.


    TL: Think of vehicles on the desert -> Dust flies up.


    An Abomination that can transform? Sounds incredulous? Actually, it isn¡¯t. It is the cornerstone and shackles for his existence.


    The original sin that Ah Dang represents is ¡®Gluttony¡¯. Gluttony, to be direct, simply mean excessive appetite and appetite is the most basic need of a living being.


    Living beings need to ingest food and digest them as nutrients. The basic motive is for survival and to grow stronger so that they can achieve victory in the cruel natural world and gain the opportunity to evolve.


    Gluttony = Evolution + Survival.


    When this equation formed in my brain, history¡¯s smallest Abomination was born. It was only 1.2 meter and couldn¡¯t even raise a pebble. His only ability was to eat...


    Abominations are basically the melding of corpses together, making it suited to meld other living beings together with it and evolve without boundaries.


    It is able to integrate the strength of the prey he eats into his own flesh and very soon, after several wars, a mountain-like Corpse Monster became the nightmare of all living souls. But then, on one asion when he was ingesting, he self-exploded.


    I analyzed the reasons for failure and that is because no living being or dead being can evolve continuously and exceed the limits of their physical body. Overly powerful strength, due to theplex structure of the flesh, will only cause deformity and self-destruction.


    Then, when the equation of excessive evolution = self-destruction has been formed, the next step is to set a goal, direction and limit for his evolution... Fine, I admit that I copied a certain masked knight with many forms in this process.


    TL: Masked knight refers to Kamen Rider.


    The experiments weren¡¯t all smooth-sailing. More than a dozen of experimental subjects self-destructed, the only one sessful was Ah Dang


    After that, I set certain goals for Ah Dang. A transformation for normal battles, a transformation with flight ability, a transformation with diving ability, a full offensive transformation and such, then I allowed him to eat as he pleases to evolve.


    For example, no matter how many genes that are suited for high-speed flying are swallowed, they are only limited to the flight transformation. For example, after ingesting the wings of a Sky Dragon and the wings of a Phoenix, he will use the better gene to build his own wings while the weaker gene will serve as backup and ration... After swallowing and merging like this a couple of times, naturally, the perfect flying transformation will be created.


    Stealing the ws of the Behemoth, stealing the wings from the gigantic Dragons and stealing the talent to use Holy Light from the Angels, Ah Dang is really the perfect living being and a terminal existence.


    Fine, this design concept has seeded but without doubt, I have gone too far... On theory, Ah Dang who is always evolving can eventually evolve to the point where he can ughter Gods. Of course, in order to reach such a level, he must first consume several SemiGods without bloating himself to death. However, I feel that before this happen, Mother Earth will first send down a hand to p me to death for creating this unnatural monster capable of destroying the world.


    Fortunately, perhaps due to its excessive strength and limitless potential, he was envied by the heavens. No matter how much I try, I am unable to increase Ah Dang¡¯s intelligence. Magic and martial arts cannot be executed on instincts itself. Theck of sufficient intelligence restricts him from maximizing the potential of his flesh. This is also why he, despite obviously having the strength to be number 1 among the Senators, he is ranked first from thest.


    However, if we were to separate the physical body and the brain, then put a pilot into the physical body to serve as a pilot, then theck of intelligence wouldn¡¯t be a problem. Fine, I admit that I copied from the gigantic robots who always bully those little monsters for Ah Dang¡¯s design concept... However, a hero¡¯s origin isn¡¯t questioned. No matter whether it is a ck cat or white cat, a cat that can catch a mouse is a good cat, isn¡¯t that right?


    ¡°Ah Dang, how many transformations do you have that are at least of A rank?¡±


    ¡°There is a total of 12. 9 of the battle transformations are S rank and above and among them, the Ferocious Beast Form and City Siege Form is SS rank.¡±


    Hearing that, I can¡¯t help but to click my tongue. Back then, Ah Dang only has 7 designs and of which, only 4 of them are at least S-rank. But today, there is actually one which reached the SS rank under my evaluation. That is...


    ¡°Under the condition that the pilot is skillful, it should be able to shock even SemiGods... Don¡¯t turn into your SS rank transformation in front of other people. You should only require S rank transformation to deal with today¡¯s matters.


    Greed and Gluttony are the type which start out extremely weak but have unlimited growth potential. But, Ah Dang¡¯s rate of evolution still makes me surprised. Initially, I thought that it would take him a thousand years before he can reach such a state.


    ¡°Ah Dang, don¡¯t eat living beings from now on, stop your transformation temporarily. Turn your attention into improving your fighting techniques and your control over magic.¡± Excessive evolution isn¡¯t a good thing for both him and this world. He should be receptive to my orders.


    ¡°Yes, Ah Pa. We are here.¡±


    ncing downwards, we have indeed arrived. The spectacle below is one of the battle between gigantic monsters.


    The 6th Senator ¡®Demonic Bone Beast¡¯ Crimspur, the 10th Senator ¡®Ant King of Corrosion¡¯ Lamost and the 11th Senator ¡®The Great Mathematician¡¯ Penny.Horst. Other than the 11th Senator who, as a Lich, has the normal size of a human, the other opponents are gigantic beasts above 30-meters tall.


    On the defensive side, Ancient Red Dragon and Bone Dragon Queen weren¡¯t losing much in physiquepared to them. Right now, the Red Dragon is fighting with the Demonic Bone Beast while the blue crystal Bone Dragon that keeps creating a dissonance is soloing the remaining 2 Senators.


    As they roll on the ground, a whole bunch of goblinndmines buried under the ground explode, but that wasn¡¯t even sufficient to scrape their skin. The cannons from the goblin has yet to stop, but simrly, it has been neglected totally.


    ¡°Ah Dang, Ah Dang wants to eat meat!¡±


    With a battle cry, the Silver-ted Sky Dragon disappears within the ck fog and an enormous ape appears on the ground. Its muscles are well-developed and its arms that muscr to the point of deformity is shining with the radiance of metal. He is the tallest and strongest among the giant beasts here.


    ¡°Koseidon,ing to visit!¡± The gigantic ape stretches out its arm and does a weird pose.


    TL: This, quite an old cartoon.


    Noticing the strange gazes the people in the surrounding were looking at it with, aposite voice diffuses from Ah Dang¡¯s body.


    ¡°As expected, I shouldn¡¯t this kind of old joke that reveals my age, look at how cold the crowd is. Then...¡±


    TL: Cold -> Awkward.


    That gigantic ape beast crosses his hand in a ?-shape at 90 degrees, going into another weird pose aiming towards Crimspur.


    ¡°Hehe, look at my Action Beam... No, Ultra Beam!!¡±


    TL: Action Beam (Crayon Shin-chan Ultraman parody)


    Alright, the crowd still remains cold...


    ¡°Boom!¡± But, aser really shoots out from the arms, pushing Crimspur down.


    ¡°Hah, you think that I¡¯m just faking it?¡±


    Then, facing the strong enemies who start surrounding us, the ape beast sudden raises his both hand and does a handstand...


    ¡°Un, so that button is actually the cannons. Right, where is the punching button? Is it here? Don¡¯t bother me, Elisa. I am very skilled in fighting games. Un un, so this is kicking? Okay, now that I am used to the basic controls, now it is time for Chinese Martial Arts to sweep the foreign world off its feet!¡±


    Ah Dang is actually quite a ¡®country bumpkin¡¯-like name.


    Okay, really weird chapter, it seems the author is really obsessed with sentais.

 Chapter 50

    <h4>Chapter 50: The Marauder</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    To a Necromancer, recalling the dead souls to summon their own Skeleton Warriors is indubitably their 1st lesson. As for the 2nd lesson, naturally it is to finely control the undead beings.


    If you allow the unintelligent low-tier undead to move instinctively, the efficiency and effectiveness is unreliable. He might just trip on his right leg, fall on the ground and disassembles. For a Skeleton Soldier which onlyprise bones, there is not a single thing cute about it. Furthermore, if you were expecting it to save you and it disassembles its body while moving towards you, it would really make one want to cry.


    TL: Exact phrase -> Want to cry but no tearse out, used to refer to ridiculous yet depressing situations


    Thus, cing one¡¯s consciousness into one¡¯s own undead creation, align and resonate along with it and using one¡¯s will to direct the movement of the undead creation, this has be a necessary lesson for Necromancers.


    And I, Lord Yongye, at very least, am a qualified Necromancer.


    When I realized that the control system that I designedst-minute out of interest isggy and that orders aren¡¯t conveyed clearly, it goes right when you point left, I naturally gave up on it. Instead, I used the most basic undead control technique ¡ª Convergence of Consciousness.


    ¡°Hah, eat my Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palm! Although there aren¡¯t any dragons.¡±


    With a steady horse stance, Ah Dang steps forcefully on the ground and his whole body shoots out. The next moment, the ws are at Crimspur¡¯s head. His deformed upper arms acts like the barrel of a cannon and the powerful strength of metal bursts.


    TL: The ws are the cannon ball while the arm is the cannon.


    ¡°Break!¡±


    A low howl and the Dragon Head, kacha, is reduced to just fragments which are sted all around.


    ¡°O¡± ¡°Impossible!!¡±


    Crimspur¡¯s remaining 2 heads exims in shock. He has crossed blows with Ah Dang before and back then, he wasn¡¯t that powerful to be able to destroy his head at the first encounter.


    As a talented Swordsman in the past, I have seen innumerable martial arts and the techniques hidden in secret manuals from foreign worlds are totally different from the mainstream martial arts of Eich continent. What martial arts in Eich continent aim for is to improve oneself from within and transcend the limits of a mortal. It doesn¡¯t focus much on the little technical details. In contrast, the martial arts from foreign world aim to dig out every inch of potential of the physical body, exchanging one point of strength into 3 points of power. It is simr to the techniques Battle Monks use in exerting their strength, but it is much more exquisite and refined.


    The only regret is that their martial artck the reinforcement of mana and instead, require a special kind of mana to support the skill (Ki and internal energy), so it has only served as decorations for my home. But, with Ah Dang¡¯s perfect physique, theck of mana could be made up for with his strength.


    TL: If you haven¡¯t watch Chinese martial arts drama, the concept is like Chakra from Naruto. Although Rock Lee using taijutsu, he also has the support of chakra to boost his attacks.


    Right now, Ah Dang, who is in sync with me, is using such a perfect strength exertion technique for the first time. Looking at its tremendous might, he is also quite surprised.


    But this isn¡¯t the time to be surprised.


    ¡°Next!¡±


    Ah Dang ces his 4 limbs on the floor and starts sprinting like an enraged ape. Every jump of his brings a great shock that the earth cannot bear. His entire body is like an unstoppable rolling snowball, getting faster and faster.


    ¡°Dodge!!¡± Crimspur could no longer underestimate my attacks. However, it is impossible the muchrger and slow Lamost to dodge my attacks.


    Ah Dang¡¯s speed bursts and when he reaches the side of Lamost¡¯s body, he suddenly stands up and treating his whole body as a cannon tower, he rams into him unreasonably like a raging bull.


    ¡°Metal Mountain Crush! Although there isn¡¯t any metal mountain!¡±


    TL: It is a move from China¡¯s Bajiquan


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The massive six-legged giant ant couldn¡¯t even make a single noise when it was sent flying. His 6 legs danced wildly as he flew backwards, destroyed everything in his path.


    His trait of Gluttony has allowed Ah Dang¡¯s physical body to evolve to the point of perfection while the martial arts of foreign worlds allows one to maximize the potential of one¡¯s body to the maximum. Combining the both together, the fighting prowess of Ah Dang shoots up rapidly.


    When the giant ape beast sets its sight on the final Undead Senator, Lich Penny immediately creates a Dimensional Gate and escapes immediately without leaving behind a single word.


    They were only working together because of the alignment of their interests. Furthermore, the Eternal Night Scepter isn¡¯t in their hands yet, so the 3 Senators didn¡¯t have the intention to go all out from the start. When Gria appeared and expressed her intent to help our sides, in consideration of their rtionship with their colleague, they started to secretly go easy on us.


    TL: Not really rtionship, it is more of giving someone face so as to not sever the rtionship to a point it is irreconcble.


    Go easy (???) -> Truthfully, I have no idea what it really means. Literally means Fist of Peace.


    Right now, looking at the rampaging Ah Dang who cannot be stopped, he is obviously in a frenzy from fighting. If this silly fellow really ignores their previous ties and knocks them to death, then wouldn¡¯t they be theughingstock of the people, dying for nothing.


    Powerful races like Undead Lords and the Dragon Tribe depends heavily on their talents. Little Red is only in the basic stage of Myth-rank, one tier below SemiGod, but ifplemented with the talents of the Dragon Tribe as a Golden Race, even Adam might not be able to deal with her easily if they start fighting.


    Initially, Little Red would be sufficient to deal with 2 Senators by herself (Arge of portion of the Senators are only Saint-rank, but due to their race talents and their army of undead, they are able to stand on equal footing with Myths). Now that the opposing side has the support of another 2 Senators, furthermore their rankings are above theirs, they are obviously at the losing side.


    A good man doesn¡¯t suffer the losses in front of him, for an Undead Lord to be able to survive for such a long period of time, just having strength isn¡¯t sufficient.


    Thus, noticing the raging Ah Dang and the departure of Penny, the long-lived Crimspur decisively carries Lamost away. There is still a few days before the auction, the main show has yet to start and I still need them to y their part. Thus, I had no intention on chasing them.


    ¡°Lo...¡± Gria¡¯s expression is agitated and she tries to say something, but I stop her with my Telepathic Voice. ¡°We¡¯ll talkter.¡±


    When Ah Dang releases his transformation and turns into a lively small Dwarf, I habitually took out a small manual from my back and passes it over to him.


    ¡°Lad, I see that you have a unique bone structure, you have potential for martial arts that can¡¯t be found may not be found in ten thousand people! The mission for protecting the world depends on you now! I have a secret manual Buddha¡¯s Palm here. Seeing that how we are fated to meet, I will lower the price and sell to you at a price of $10.¡±


    TL: Kung Fu Hustle


    ¡°Ka cha.¡± The hungry Ah Dang swallows the manual in one mouthful, almost biting my hand in the process. Then, he stares at me with expectant eyes, hoping that his Ah Pa will continue feeding him.


    ¡°...Eaten, wait, spit it out! I am just joking, I haven¡¯t made a copy yet and I haven¡¯t seeded in learning it yet. This toy is the real thing, even if I can¡¯t practice it, I can also treat it as a family heirloom to trick others.¡±


    Ah Dang looks very wronged at the old thing who is digging something out from the mouth of a small Dwarf. If other people tried to y this on him, he would have long swallowed them. But, seeing that it is his Ah Pa, he can only allow him to act as he pleases. He stares very pitifully at his Big Sister Gria, hoping to be saved.


    However, Gria, who has transformed back into a human, couldn¡¯t care less about saving her younger brother at this moment. Her pair of beautiful eyes is locked onto her Emperor. The disguise is meaningless in front of her. Everything in her surroundings has been neglected, her eyes of passion is sufficient to burn down everything.


    ¡°Emp...Lord, long time no see.¡± Remembering that her Emperor is in disguise now, seemingly trying to conceal his identity, Gria changes her words.


    Like a young girl that is in crush, Gria with embarrassment on her face pulls on the sleeves of the Emperor, ying with her own fingers while tip-toeing about.


    What ¡®question why the Emperor abandoned everything to fake his death¡¯, what ¡®the mission that Lionheart entrusted¡¯ has been all thrown to one corner. Right now, the agitated cold-faced Queen can¡¯t even speak properly, tinge of red actually appears on her pale face. Her inverted ck-white eyes didn¡¯t have the deepness and intrigue that it used to have. She stares intensely on the heartless person in front of her, afraid that he would suddenly disappear.


    Of course I would recognize that passionate gaze, but I am unable to reply her and could only secretly cry in agony. I might be dead, but I am not a necrophile, thus I don¡¯t have any feelings towards a dead human, no, a dead dragon...


    ¡°Lord?¡±


    Just when I am trying to squeeze out my brain juice toe up with some nonsense to say, I suddenly sense danger and lower my head instinctively.


    At the same time, the person who is immersed in the joy of being reunited with her Emperor suddenly feels a gush of cold air from her back, jolting her awake. She spreads her bone wings and flies away.


    On the spot she was on, there is the traces of cuts from an Ice de.


    ¡°Elisa, you don¡¯t have to...¡± My shock lingers in the air as I notice something wrong with Elisa.


    Her eyes are bloodshot and even slightly yellow. Her pupils narrow like a wild beast, her emotionless face that she normally equips disappearspletely. Scales appear on her face as she pants heavily while staring deeply at Gria.


    Her right arm has alreadypletely transmogrified into a Demon¡¯s hands with reddish-orange scales on it. The horns behind her ear is growing thicker at a pace visible to the eyes. The tail behind her is also gradually distorting and changing shapes.


    ¡°High Demonification!! How can this be!!¡±


    I immediately take out the Devil Contract and didn¡¯t find anything wrong with it. However, without a doubt, Elisa has broken the seals of the contract and underwent High Demonification.


    ¡°AHHHHHHH, DIE! DIE!! DIE!!!¡±


    The frenzied Elisa jumps into midair and spreads open a reddish-orange wings of flesh. Then, with a bend of the wings, she actually rushes downwards to deal a deadly assault towards Gria.


    To a normal person, just the wind pressure from the demonified metal fists is sufficient to im their life. Looking at this stranger which suddenly charges at her, Gria frowns, feeling frustrated for being disrupted during her reunion with her Emperor.


    Her opponent isn¡¯t weak, but she is stillckingpared to her.


    ¡°Finger of Death...¡±


    ¡°Gray.Sin! What are you doing!¡±


    The furious howling of her Emperor made Gria, who don¡¯t fear anything, shivers. She scatters the magic which she was casting and obediently bends down hugging her head, not even bothered by her silky silver hair getting dirty. That turtle-like defense could be said to be perfect, the wires and sharp ws couldn¡¯t even scratch her.


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Obligatory Enforcement!¡± I shout while lifting the Devil Contract up in the air. Under the help of my Soul Imprint Mark of Justice, a 7-circle spell instant-casts.


    In midair, a silver gavel knocks down and 2 silver light encircles me and Elisa. The scale representing fairness appears, the contractual rtionship between me and Elisa is being examined.


    Following which, as Elisa broke the contract, the scale loses its bnce and arge amount of Power of Order shrouds around Elisa¡¯s body, restricting her and starts to enforce the terms of the contract to undo the Demonification.


    However, the Chaos Abyss and Origin of Order are equal powers. In the end, the rampaging Power of Order couldn¡¯t do anything and the effects of the spell scatters. It could only restrict Elisa¡¯s movement, but the Demonified portions were like water that is spilled, unable to be undone.


    Even when she is unable to move, Elisa stares furiously at Gria, her beast-like eyes full of killing intent. That is a heavy grudge that makes one want to grind the other party¡¯s bone even after killing her.


    ¡°Pah.¡± Little Red knocks on Elisa¡¯s head, leaving her unconscious. Then, she carefully carries her.


    ¡°Rnd, it is all my mistake. I forgot to remind you not to bring Elisa her. Back then, it was Gria who killed Elisa. Looks like when she saw the person who killed her in her previous life, the resentment in her soul is incited, allowing her to break the shackles of the contract and to lose her rationality.¡±


    I carry my maid over from Little Red and shakes my head, sighing.


    ¡°No, it isn¡¯t your fault. It is all my fault, all my fault...¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    The deeply asleep Elisa seems to be floating within thefortable sea and countless powerful existence apanies her. As long as she is willing to take it, the secrets of the Abyss, limitless power and the seat of the Demon¡¯s nobility, it is all within her grasp.


    ¡°No!¡± Instinctively sensing that there are more important things to do, Elisa rejected the temptation from the Abyss.


    Then, she went from one dream into another. In the dream, she is a small Thief whose goal is to be the richest person in the world. Following her Big Brother Holy Knight, Big Sister Mage and that fool Adam on an adventure, the small team of adventurers traveled across the world. Be it the underground world, the deserts or the cial, they left their traces around the world. Gradually, these rookies start to mature, bing the legends in the mouth of new rookies...


    Life is an adventure and adventure is living, all emotions were mixed within the journey...


    There were happy things and depressing things. During the journey, her goal has unknowingly changed. Seeking treasures has somehow became a hobby and bing the richest person on the world has be just a phrase that she is used to.


    The one most important to her is the one who is always walking around with a cheerful smile and yet, his heart is full of sorrow and pain. The one who kept giving discreetly, the silly big brother who protects her and her otherpanions...


    ¡°...Elisa, Elisa, can you hear me?¡±


    A familiar voice rings by her ear. Elisa knows that her dream is about toe to an end. In her confusion, that hand of withered bones oveps with the pair of big and warm hands.


    ¡°...Is it Big Brother Rolo?¡± In the gap between reality and dream, Big Brother Rolo¡¯s refined face stuns before turning into an expression at a loss of whether to cry orugh.


    This is the expression he shows whenever he clears up the mess for her and that fool-dam. Back then, when she wasn¡¯t matured yet, she loved looking at the helpless and over-spilling loving look of her Big Brother Rolo. For that, she even caused trouble around, causing her Big Brother Rolo to have to drag her to house after house to apologize.


    TL: fool-dam -> Short form for Foolish Adam.


    But the next moment, the illusion scatters and the warm smile of Big Brother Rolo turned into the skeleton head that makes one grind their teeth. Maybe, the only thing that didn¡¯t change is that helpless expression and the over-spilling love and happiness thates from within


    ¡°...Oh, so it is the bastard Master.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s good that you¡¯re okay, it¡¯s good that you¡¯re okay. You have been unconscious for 3 days, so it is normal for you to feel weak. Rest more.¡±


    When her master leaves, Elisa struggles to get up. Looking around, she realizes that it is her own room. On the tea table beside the bed, there is in water and porridge prepared for patients. There are even a few plum candies.


    Porridge is the only food that her Big Brother Rolo and her equally clumsy master can make. Looking at the traces of yellow within the white, it seems that it was the best among several failures. As for the candies...


    ¡°Heh, how many years has it been? Bastard master, you still think that I¡¯m that little girl, who in the midst of a fever, would drink my porridge obediently when offered candy?¡±


    Even though sheins, but Elisa still slowly removes the wrapper and throws the candy into her mouth. She closes her eyes to savor the taste, it is still the familiar taste in her memory, sourness within sweetness.


    The gallery of memories is still ying within her mind. Bits and pieces of events that happened in the past shes past her window in her mind. The happenings of her previous life and her current life all be real memories for her. The weakdy struggles by the bed side and struggles to stand up.


    ¡°What have I be, to be unable to even face the real me. No wonder Master said that I was unqualified to enter the realm of Legends. Isn¡¯t the goal of my life already decided? I am not the over-rational Margaret, nor am I the weak Lisa. I am Elisa, the one and only Elisa. I won¡¯t be like those 2 sillydies, waiting until the end of time. What I want, I will take! I will take it with my own strength!¡±


    Following Elisa¡¯s deration, boundless fire pirs and sea of ice drowns the entire room. Unexpectedly, there isn¡¯t a hint of warmth of cold.


    ¡°Your Soul Imprint, is to chase your desires and obtain the item of your dream.¡±


    Deep within Elisa¡¯s soul, a bleeding Dragon Head is biting another ck Beast. Both of them are frantically attacking one another to ughter each other. At the final moment of the ughter, it turned into an Imprint of 2 beasts biting at each other.


    This Soul Imprint of fangs sinking in one another represents the unstoppable offense of its owner and in this instant, Elisa steps into the realm of Legends.


    ¡°The Marauder, that is your name.¡±


    2nd Chapter of the Day??


    The Chinese name for The Marauder is (???) which means someone who snatches by force.


    Btw, due to the use of very Chinese phrases which I really find it hard toprehend sometimes or find it hard to trante, so some parts may not be tranted as literally as I wanted to. But, I will try to keep the meaning of the sentences.


    Theplete sentence for the Kung Fu Hustle reference, 1:28:30 (??,???????,??????????!?????????????!?????????????,??????,??????,?????????)


    Plum Candies

 Chapter 51

    <h4>Chapter 51: Edward¡¯s Belt</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Lord Wumianzhe. Please lend me some money! As long as you are willing to lend me money, I am willing to do anything!¡±


    The youngdy¡¯s face is blushing furiously red while her eyes are full of tears and desire. I am a little dumbfounded.


    Just when I was about to head out, Victoria pulls onto my robe, refusing to let go whatsoever, saying that she wants to borrow money from me to buy some belt.


    ¡°That... Lord, we just got information that there will be a unique item for the auction this time called Edward¡¯s Belt. If possible, I would also like to request this of you. For this, you can deduct my wages. I am still young and I can still work another 200 years under you.¡±


    Diana, who had been avoiding me recently, bucks up her courage and tries to request for financial support from me for the happiness of her brother. She was even willing to sign a servant contract for a few hundred years for it.


    When Elisa removed dozens of curses from Victoria¡¯s body, including a Shaman¡¯s Dark Arts in the mix, Victoria lived with her sister. However, perhaps due to listening too many rumors about me, she was a little frightened of me and always stayed out of my path. Even if we meet by the hallways, she would tiptoe away, as though I was carnivorous.


    ¡°Lord!! If only you are willing to buy that belt for me, I... I am willing to give everything up and use my technique I used on serving my father to please you. I know that you like boys! Last time, you rejected my service because of that. But, you should be happy since I have a chance to turn back into a male right! I will make you happy.¡±


    ¡°Victoria!!¡± Her sister Diana stares in shock at her little sister. She didn¡¯t expect that concealed under Victoria¡¯s cheerful look normally is such pain and sorrow. For the opportunity to turn back into a male, she is willing to sacrifice so much.


    ¡°Big Sister, say no more. There is only one Edward¡¯s Belt in the world. If I were to miss this opportunity, I will have to live on as a woman for the rest of my life. As long as I can turn back, it¡¯s not a big deal having to sacrifice my physical body to serve the demons!!¡±


    The female Elf¡¯s face shows her determination. For her goal, she is willing to even sacrifice her body to serve the demon. This reminds me of some heroic revolutionaries...


    ¡°Cough, then, as a ¡®demon (With an emphasis on the word)¡¯, can you tell what happened?¡±


    The two Elves were trembling in fear. Under my pressure, they quickly exined the case to me.


    Edward¡¯s Belt, also known as the Belt of Edwina, is an Epic-ss unique item that is cursed. Its only use is that it is able topletely change the user¡¯s sex. Furthermore, when equipped, it cannot be removed by the user for the rest of his life.


    Due to its bizarre effects, all of the people who identally put it on will not reveal it, otherwise beingughed at by other people is still a small matter. If someone were to hunt you down and kill you for the item, that would be too much of a tragedy.


    This time, in order to protect his dignity as an Underground City Lord, the old Lion used the entirety of his influence to look for precious treasures that can help to build up the momentum for Eternal Night Scepter during the auction.


    A certain subordinate Underground City Lord of the Lion King who has unique tastes killed the love of his love to hand over this Belt of Edwina over to him.


    There is no such thing as a true secret in this world, the news that the belt is to be auctioned has been long revealed. To normal people, this precious treasure could be their worst nightmare but to Victoria, it is her only straw of hope.


    ¡°Lord, I¡¯m begging you. I¡¯ve had enough of the empty feeling below when I wake up. Also, the eyes that those guys look at me with seem like they will gobble me up in one mouthful. This is too hard to bear. Whenever I think of it, my goosebumps start rising up... Also, the day whiches once a month, to a man, is no different from a living nightmare!!¡±


    Looking for thisdy who is sobbing pitifully while crying about the nightmares of a male, I somehow felt that it was a little amusing. In this moment, for the sake of Wumianzhe¡¯s image, I can only try to best to suppress myughter so as to not be disrespectful... But, I suddenly remember the words she just said.


    ¡°Wait! You mean that the reason why I rejected youst time is because your physical body is a female? You even said that you would be willing to serve me when you turn back into a male? That is to say, you think that I¡¯m gay!!¡±


    There¡¯s no man who can pretend that they didn¡¯t hear such a rumor about themselves. Thus, my blood boils and I immediately question her.


    ¡°Who said it!! Who fabricated these rumors! I will make them suffer!!¡±


    ¡°But, all of the big sisters in the team said so. Isn¡¯t your lover City Lord Adam? Besides, the reason why the both of you haven¡¯t married for more than a century is because you both have each other. Although I¡¯m still young so I don¡¯t really understand, this hundred years of twisted love makes one really feel touched. Big sisters even have novels and drawings with both of you as the models... Wuuuuu, big sister, why are you covering my mouth.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, Lord, I¡¯m sorry, it is all the random ramblings of those below. There aren¡¯t many people who know about the secret between you and Lord Adam. We will help to keep the secret, so rest easy!!¡± Covering the mouth of her little sister who spilled the massive news, Diana nods her head in sympathy.


    At this moment, 10 thousand mud horses (Cao Ni Ma) runs through my mind and I could hear the rumbling of lightning by my ear.


    TL: Homophone for screw your mum


    ¡°Lord Rnd is already a Lich, so his love with City Lord would be even tougher... Ah, I really want to reveal these details to those artists. Their drawings are too conservative, too outdated. It is a life and death ** same-sex love, so beautiful!! No, Diana, you must control yourself. You mustn¡¯t reveal Lord Wumianzhe¡¯s secret for your own desires.¡±


    If I knew the thoughts of this seemingly serious and proper female knight, I would have killed her with a single strike of my hammer or find a pir to knock my head with on the spot.


    ¡°WHO. SAID. IT! WHO IS THE ONE WHO SPREAD IT FIRST!!¡± If a rumor spreads to a point where there is even a book on it, I find it hard to believe if there¡¯s no mastermind behind it.


    ¡°Lord... Lord Silver Rose. It has already been 15 years... Everyone thought that it was true. The drawings already have more than 100 versions, so everyone thought you have acknowledged them.


    In that instant, my rage suddenly cools down. I am speechless.


    ¡°Elisa!! Fifteen years ago? Isn¡¯t it around the time when I asked her to spread rumors about Adam?¡±


    I felt like raging but yet, I found the situation quite hrious. Back then, didn¡¯t I order her to spread rumors about Adam so that he won¡¯t be able to find a girlfriend? As usual, looks like I managed to shoot my own foot again.


    Back then, I was even surprised by how the rumors was so effective. Looks like, the content of the rumors was secretly changed by the cunning Elisa. How could a man whose sexuality is twisted be liked by women? No wonder all of the men and women trembled in front of Wumianzhe after the incident.


    ¡°As I expected. Elisa, the reason why I am unpopr and why I can¡¯t find a girlfriend, no matter how I think about it, it is your fault!!¡±


    Back then, whenever I said such words, there would bound to be an icy-cold voice who retorts coldly to myments.


    ¡°No, the reason is because your brain has been dunked in water/ Do you need me to give you a mirror/Wanting to date even though you are an undead, hehe.¡±


    Fine, even if she isn¡¯t here now, I am used to adding in her venomousments in my head.


    At this moment, the venomous-tongueddy, who is used to hiding in my shadows, is currently lying quietly in her own room, unconscious. Thinking about this reality which makes one feel helpless, rage rises up from within and the next moment, it disappears.


    A feeling of weakness spreads through my body. I weakly wave my hand in denial.


    ¡°I am not gay. Help me exin the matter properly and confiscate those messy things, then I will help you get that belt.¡±


    After hearing my reply, the two Dark Elves are so happy that tears start flowing down. Hugging together, they nod their head. But, behind the walls, a bunch of men jump out and frantically waves their hands and shakes their heads. There is even a thief who used the signnguage that thieves use for reconnaissance.


    ¡°Un... ¡®Don¡¯t agree¡¯ Why is that so?¡±


    Looking carefully, some of them are rookies from the Hall of Legition, some of them are judges from the Hall of Judgement. There are elderly and the young there, the onlymon point is that they are all male and that they were wearing the same badge with the same logo on it.


    ¡°Victoria Fan Club No. 1 Fan!¡± Alright, I roughly get it.


    ¡°Men and women are actually the equal, only small Vicadore is superior.¡± This may seem a little twisted and he is the only person there who is nodding and shaking his head at the same. Apparently, he is stuck in a dilemma...


    ¡°Long live Queen Victoria!!¡± Hey, this fellow actually managed to hit bulls-eye on the truth of history, he does have talent as a seer.


    I understand that the news must have leaked somehow, that¡¯s why these fellows are rushing here to prevent Victoria from turning back into a man.


    Facing the agitated guys, I sh a faint smile and signal out a few hand signals myself.


    On the other side, the Dwarf who is well-versed in the Thief¡¯s signnguage is deciphering my message word by to word to hispanions.


    ¡°You all can go to die for all I care. Tomorrow, all of you submit a 10000-word essay up for me to check! The topic is a discussion on normal core values! If any bastard dares to not submit their essay, they will be sent to feed Beifeng.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡°As long as it has not been revealed, then schemes and sins are non-existent.¡± This is a well-known saying among the Dark Elves. Lorci encourages her daughter to ughter each other and in the end, the strongest and most cunning one would ascend to the throne. The ranking of each family in each city, even if it represents the highest glory and status, but it is also a target to assassinate.


    From a certain sense, the rules of the game the Spider Queen ys with the Dark Elf is also the rules of the entire underground world. Even though I know that the Dragon Queen and Lion King pulled one over me, but I am unable to confront them head-on for revenge.


    During the duration of the Conference, all acts of war is banned. Those who break this rule will be the public enemy of everyone else... But if I can¡¯t exact vengeance on the openly, can¡¯t I do it discreetly?


    During the Conference, we offended quite a few underground city lords. In the underground world, there is no such phrase as repaying hostility with kindness. If you are unable to get back at the opposing party, others will just view you as weak, and weakness is a cardinal sin in this world. Those underground city lords don¡¯t know what the meaning of offering a helping hand in times of crisis is. On the contrary, they are more likely to split your corpse among them


    TL: Offering a helping hand in times of crisis -> Literally means sending charcoal in the middle of winter| Split your corpse -> Literally means multiple wolves splitting your corpse, meaning that they will divide your property among them after you are dead.


    I threw the Scepter to them, obviously trying tond the other in trouble. Now that the other party has exacted vengeance through the Undead Lords, all of the underground city lords will probably be keeping tabs on the happenings and treat it as the crossing of des between the new and old Autarch.


    So, I must repay them back, repay them back with heavy interests. The repayment must be in line with the rules, making the other party feeling actual pain without a trace of bloodshed.


    In reality, my head hurts a little. Going by logic, the closer we are to the date of the auction, the greater the stress on the Lion King will be. Undead Lords aren¡¯t easy to deal with, so sitting by the side to view the fight between the 2 would be the best course of action. Then, at the end of their battle, I will add insult to injury. This is much more worth it than to challenge the old Lion King as the new generation.


    But, if I don¡¯t anything, not only will I be belittled by others, I also can¡¯t take this lying down.


    Victoria¡¯s request has provided me inspiration for my revenge plot.


    Purchasing the belt? From the very start, it is an impossible task. Firstly, we identally offended all of the underground city lords. If we were to express intent to buy anything, those underground city lords, who don¡¯t have high regard of view, in order to get back at us, they would surely be willing to dump all their money in. Even if no one stands up and puts their money in, those Underground Autarchs also won¡¯t let us go like that.


    Since we are unable to buy it, then we might as well steal it. Of course, due to the matter with Eternal Night Scepter, the auction would definitely be on their guard and the defense would be tight. But, isn¡¯t the world¡¯s number 1 thief ¡ª ¡®Child of Greed¡¯ in my hands?


    No matter how tight a defense is, it is targeted towards humanoid living creatures. Even safes and cages wouldn¡¯t be able to keep out a liquid-like living thing with the ability to morph its shape freely.


    The main body of Greed in the underground tunnel has died, as I expected, but this doesn¡¯t mean all of the Child of Greed would simply die off. A portion of the Child of Greed has been taken by the Druids of the Wild Bull Alliance and treated as their ¡®sacred object¡¯. The animal alliance member who is drafting in others to spend their life together, that Beifeng, also caught of them to make it his pet. He used his abilities as a Beastman Hunter to keep them alive... I already can¡¯t imagine what would he breed them into and what would happen after returning to Sulfur Mountain City.


    ¡°As I expected, I must dump this bunch of perverts here and let them fend for themselves.¡±


    But now, I feel a bit thankful to these perverts. Otherwise, I would have to open the bottle of the main body of Greed which has been topped up while under the pressure of knowing what is going to happen... If I identally go too far, un, based on my understanding on myself, there is an 80% chance that I will go too far, ande with a shirtless city, Elisa would kill me as soon as she wakes up.


    I should borrow an animalpanion of a Druid and undergo Mental Resonance with this mysterious slime who is half-dead half-alive... Why don¡¯t I borrow from Hunter Beifeng? Mental Resonance will instinctively cause one to share the physical memories of the undead. I don¡¯t want to know a single thing about what the world¡¯s strongest pervert has done.


    Due to the trap Iid, the auction and the Lion King¡¯s Residence are now history. Now, the Lion King and his family fortune should be together with the Dragon Queen.


    Thus, I brought the little thing to the entrance of the temporary residence of the Dragon Queen and put it down, letting it navigate through the underground works...


    Fine, let¡¯s ignore the waterway¡¯s horrid smell, as though as a salted fish has been ced for 30 months, ignore the pitch-ck residents of the waterway and ignore once again the projects between several guards that involve the pitting of intelligence and courage. After much trouble, I finally reached my destination.


    It is an extremely big treasure vault. A gigantic dragon sleeps at the entrance of the vault and the dragon is actually the Dragon Queen herself. Looks like they have had enough of the endless thieves and burrs these days.


    Squeezing in from the vent, its interior actually has a wooden fence that serves as a blockade against the Child of Greed. But, with my direct control, this back door I created is only an instinctive fear towards it, how could it be able to stop me. After carefully creeping past several traps, I entered the core of the vault.


    Numerous auction items are ced together. There is a capacity limit to a Slime¡¯s body, so only a few items can be taken away. The first one that I should give up on is the Eternal Night Scepter that is ced at the center of the treasure vault.


    ¡°Hmph, almost the same as my handicraft. Just that there isn¡¯t any soul feedback, I know that it is fake.¡±


    Looks like the Underground Autarchs aren¡¯t fools. There are only fakes within the treasure vault that the Dragon Queen is guarding. At the same time, I can sense that the real Scepter is still in the custody of the Lion King.


    ¡°The Key to the Water Elemental Dimension? Titan Core? Hehe, I really struck it rich this time.¡±


    Being excessively greedy isn¡¯t a good thing. After taking away the few most valuable items and the belt, I started on my journey back.


    But, on the way, just outside the vent, I can hear the discussion between the Lion King and a certain person.


    ¡°You must protect the Scepter properly. If you screw this up, Lion, death isn¡¯t the end. Your soul will be crying in agony in the Count¡¯sntern for eternity!¡±


    ¡°Yes, lord. Please tell the Count that I willplete the mission.¡±


    A Count that can actually make an Underground Autarch act so meek? It should be a Demon Count. Listening to him mentioning a Soul Lantern, a familiar name appears in the depths of my brain.


    ¡°Demon Count, Soul Eater Kakajil.¡± Just when I wanted to inch closer to listen in, the voice sudden turns deep and hard to interpret. They must be talking about some secret, so they faded out their voices using magic.


    But, for a Slime, they don¡¯t listen with their ears, just the fixed tremor from the sound waves is sufficient.


    ¡°...Dimension Gate will open... The army of the Count will drown everything¡±


    ¡°Sulfur Mountain City... Fire Elemental God... Traitor.¡±


    Apparently, from the look of these key phrases, the Lion King and the Demon has yet to give up. They seem to be plotting something, but it is a pity that something is interfering with my eavesdropping, causing the intelligence I get to be scattered.


    Then, to prevent getting noticed by Detection Magic, I removed my control from the Child of Greed, allowing it toe back through the underground works by itself... Fine, I admit that it is the mainly that spell and the ck thing that makes on nauseated.


    Surprisingly, on the way back to the base, I felt that while it was climbing out of the underground waterworks, someone attacked it and it died.


    ¡°Looks like someone thought that it was an Assassin and killed it. Oh well, seeing the reaction from my Power of Law, it should be arade from the Hall of Judgement. I will ask them about it tomorrow to retrieve my items.¡±


    Considering that it was already 4 in the morning, I etched the location where I lost connection with the Slime in my head and made up my mind to retrieve those items when day breaks.


    The next morning, before daybreak, a high-pitched female scream caused the entire mansion to wake up earlier.


    TL: Time system don¡¯t work the same there.


    ¡°...This sound, seems like it is Krose... Wait, Krose! The number 1 beauty of the judicial system!!¡±


    The ce where the disturbance is at seems to be Krose¡¯s bedroom.


    I stare speechlessly at the blue sky. From my experience with misfortune, it seems that something has gone wrong again...


    As expected, when I took out my Dwarf binocrs, what I saw is a youngdy running around in tears. Along with the long pants for the male uniform, there is a brand-new belt. As for the upper body, there is a bloat in her shirt around the chest, the plump mountains cannot be covered even with both of her arms. The face of the beauty is surprisingly simr with Krose¡¯s.


    ¡°Looks like the number 1 beautiful person is about to turn into number 1 beautifuldy. Can I feign ignorance over this matter? Right, prepare a file tomorrow. First, ban the Victoria Fan Club. Then ban the ¡®Krose Fan Club¡¯ which has an 80% chance of appearing. Un, I am a good person. These misfortunes really aren¡¯t rted to in any case.

 Chapter 52

    <h4>Chapter 52: Tragedy</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Return it to me! That is my belt!!! Wuu...Wuuuuuuuuu! For it, I am willing to pay anything. Why must you snatch away my final hope.¡± The female Dark Elf¡¯s face is full of tears, but she still resiliently holds onto Krose¡¯s waist, her tears wetting the other party¡¯s chests.


    ¡°Let go!¡± Krose also feels like crying. She only picked up a belt from a ¡®Child of Greed¡¯ and she just wanted to give it a try seeing how pretty it is. How did it end up like this?


    Therades from 4 Courts 1 Hall all looked at Krose with sympathy... Alright, let¡¯s ignore those people whose faces are smiling weirdly and those mysterious saliva, let¡¯s treat those as sympathy as well.


    ¡°You took away my final hope. I... I¡¯m going to kill you.¡± The immature Victoria raises her fist, intending to do a double suicide with Krose.


    ¡°I... I¡¯m even worse than you. I even have a fianc¨¦e!! I will be returning to my old home to marry in 50 years! Wu... Wuuuuuu.¡±


    Remembering her childhood sweetheart, the weak Krose sits down on the floor, paralyzed, as tears flow freely down her face.


    ¡°Wuuuu... why are we so unfortunate? We should both be men.¡±


    Looking at Krose who cursed to the same fate as her, Victoria¡¯s puts down her little fist she was waving about. In the end, the ill-fated ¡®girls¡¯ hugs together and starts bawling.


    Helpless, I shake my head. I might not have done it intentionally, but I do have to take responsibility for this incident. At least, I should try to think of some ideas to end this farce.


    ¡°Actually, this world¡¯s Necromancy is much more effective than stic surgery and sex-change. Organ transnt can¡¯t even count as a minor surgery. If both of them all don¡¯t mind using other people¡¯s organs, why don¡¯t I ask them whether they would like me to help them do a little surgery.¡±


    In the end, I gave up on this idea that solve the crux of the problem. Somehow, I feel like if I said it out, not only do I have to be beaten up, the remaining dignity and chastity that I have remaining will be lost.


    TL: Again, this chastity refers to restraint and not the other one he is never losing.


    ¡°I better look for other ideas...¡±


    In this moment, the system jumps out to brush up its existence and look for trouble.


    ¡°Ding! Number... Alright, the system doesn¡¯t recall how many people has met with misfortune because of you. But, even the system can¡¯t look on at such a tragedy, so I think I better award you something. You have awarded the noble title: The Star of Misfortune. After equipping this title, you will gain the passive skill ¡®Aura of gue¡¯. This title cannot be hidden and the aura is active permanently.¡±


    TL: The full trantion of the title is Born as the Star of Misfortune but the first 3 words doesn¡¯t go along well.


    ¡°The Star of Misfortune: In daily life, you have always seen the looks of other people meeting with misfortune. In fact, you even started thinking that this is the normal flow of the world. However, one day, you realized that you are the source of all their misfortune! After equipping the title, Charm -10, Damage you take from little animals will be tripled.¡±


    ¡°Aura of gue: For some reason, the pets you keep always die, the people you meet are also unfortunate. If someone feels that his life is all sessful and fears nothing or when someone feels that his life couldn¡¯t get worse than it is, then, he must have yet to meet you.¡±


    ¡°Effects of the Aura: Hidden stat Luck +10%. Yes, increase, you didn¡¯t see wrongly. However, as long as there is a possibility of meeting with misfortune, even if the chances are only 1%, someone is bound to meet with it. The lower the Luck, the higher the chances of meeting with the misfortune. If there¡¯s no one who takes the blow, then the one who will be unfortunate will be you! PS: The Aura doesn¡¯t work on Lancer and the female lead of Korean dramas. Why? You know that the same effects cannot be stacked. If we are talking about misfortune, their ¡®Lancer and Supporting Cast is Bound to Meet with Tragedy¡¯ is much stronger than your ¡®Aura of gue¡¯!¡±


    TL: Yup, from the fate series


    ¡°Now you know why I increased your Luck right? Go and find some unlucky fellows to serve as your lightning rod.¡±


    I finally understand what it means for the system to acknowledge that you are a Star of Misfortune.


    That negative effects for the -10 Charm, for my -88 Charm, there is actually not much meaning in it. Anyway, I can already use my face to scare off other people. Then, there isn¡¯t much of a difference between scaring a few and scaring dozens of people.


    However, this is the first time that I am aware that there is actually a Luck stat in this world... Somehow, even if the system doesn¡¯t show it, I know that my Luck is bound to be shockingly low.


    However, I am a little interested in the Aura of gue. Experts must learn to use every factor that can be used, even if the factor looks like it is a prank and is screwed up. It¡¯s hard to say that maybe a precious jewel will be found in a little stone by the side of the road.


    ¡°The lower the Luck, the easier to meet with misfortune huh? Then... Let me give it a try.¡±


    Casually picking up 3 stones, I throw one of them into the sky with all of my might.


    When it is flying halfway up in the sky, a strong wind blows and after a beautiful arc of trajectory, ¡®peng¡®, it happens to knock onto Rnd No.2 which is under repairs and slides down the gigantic Robot¡¯s body.


    ¡®Dang, dang, dang.¡¯ After several rebounds, it finally found its target.


    ¡°AH! IT HURTS!!! Who is it, who is it? Who is the inconsiderate one!!¡± The stone happens to hit on the head of Centaur Anya who is hired as chef. Then, it slides down...


    ¡°AHHHHHHH. ANYA¡¯S SOUP!! AH. MY PLATE! DON¡¯T, THAT VASE IS VERY EXPENSIVE. UNCLE HENRY WILL KILL ME!!¡±


    The stone rebounds between a few porcins. ¡®Pah pah pah¡¯, ¡®guang dang guang dang¡¯, After a few crisp sounds, under Anya frantically tried to salvage the situation, all of them broke into fragments.


    In reality, seeing the situation clearly, if she doesn¡¯t move at all, she would have only destroyed a te at most. However, she ran about with her 4 hoofs and clumsily tried to grab the stone, overturning several tables on the way, causing all of the tes and porcin to shatter.


    ¡°The person with the lowest Luck has appeared huh? Poor child, I hope that you can pay that off with 1 month of your wages.¡±


    Sympathetically shaking my head, I stare at the figure who is grabbing the broken tes, trying to put them back together. Noticing the silhouette behind her, I decided to give her a helping hand.


    ¡°That, Diana, go and help Anya. Beifeng has set his gaze on her and is currentlyughing indecently by the window. Don¡¯t let him seed and there¡¯s no need to consider my reputation. Just beat up until he is the verge of death. You don¡¯t have to be worried about him dying, the Gold-rank Hunter is actually quite sturdy.¡±


    I send the Town Security team off with my gaze. Currently, the one who has the lowest Luck stat is indubitably, the unlucky Centaur Anya who lost several jobs due to our appearance.


    ¡°The second...¡± After hesitating for a moment, I still decided to give it a try.


    This time, despite a wind blowing, the stone actually bizarrely maintains its previous motion and simply flies straight up and down.


    ¡°It can¡¯t be, it¡¯s me....¡±


    Just when it is about to hit my head, the wind blows again and floating with the wind, it hits on the head of another unlucky fellow.


    ¡°Ah, it hurts!¡±


    The unlucky Victoria happens to take the blow. The small rock falls into her long hair and the ufortable Victoria shakes her head forcefully, causing the stone to fly out.


    ¡°Bo.¡± That is the crisp sound of the lumps of flesh hitting each other. The thing that shouldn¡¯t exist shook uncontrobly due to the impact of external force and under the rough motions, the shirt which is already stretched to its limit finally breaks. Snow-white flesh bounces out and Krose immediately turns red.


    This isn¡¯t the end yet...


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHHH!¡± Following the exmation of the lechers, the rock continues to slide downwards into her pants. At this moment, the panicking Krose starts to cry again.


    ¡°Don¡¯t move, big sister. Let me retrieve it for you.¡± Due to their equally ill fate, Victoria, who has just forged a strong revolutionary friendship as ¡®sisters¡¯ with her, takes the initiative to put her hands into the other party¡¯s pants to search for the stone.


    ¡°STOP!!¡± But Krose, who is frightened by the situation, feels extreme fear at the foreign feeling between her thighs and is shivering. She immediately grabs the demonic hand which is about to do evil. In the end, it turned into a ¡®physical fight¡¯ between two ¡®sisters¡¯. The wolves in the surrounding were agitated and howling about, especially in response to Krose¡¯s opened shirt.


    Alright, I better clean up my own mess. It is too dangerous to allow this situation to develop like that.


    Will I say that the scene of the exposure of the two top beauties gives me an urge to roar to the heavens.


    ¡°Yawen, take those bastards whose male hormones is excessively secreted to... to the kitchen to clean it up.¡±


    Not far away, the Town Security team is currently lynching Beifeng who was intending to ¡®hunt¡¯. On the other side, Anya keeps apologizing to Head Chef Henry of the kitchen while picking up the broken fragments.


    Alright, in reality, fearing that she would be fired, the panicking her is still destroying the kitchen.


    ¡°Pah!¡± ¡°Why did it break!! Anya didn¡¯t do it on purpose. Uncle, please don¡¯t fire me!! Anya will try her best to clean up. AHHHH, why did it break again.¡±


    ¡°Go quickly, before the clumsy Centaur destroys all of our tableware, causing us to be unable to eat our dinner!¡±


    Just two stones have brought terror of another meaning here. Looking at the final stone in my palm, I shivered. Perhaps, this stone might be even more dangerous than the Eternal Night Scepter than I made with all my effort.


    ¡°Un, so is the 2nd one Victoria of Krose? Forget it, it¡¯s roughly the same. I will just rank both of them as number 2. Since I already have 3 lightning rods, as long as they are beside me, I don¡¯t have to be worried about the effects of the Aura of gue. No, for such a thing like a lightning rod, it is better to have more of it.¡±


    After making up my decision to continue, I cast a Dash Spell on myself and flies far away so as to not affect those around me.


    ¡°Go, my lightning rod detector. Show me who is the next unlucky fellow!!¡±


    But, the stone disappears from sight the instant it flew out. It actually followed the draft of the wind all the way up to the clouds. Then, a roar could be heard.


    ¡°Which bastard is it throwing stuff at other people!! I?%?...?¡±


    It¡¯s Little Red¡¯s voice. Recently, people have been knocking at her door and beating her up. As she has yet to get even with them despite suffering under them, her resentment has been piling up.


    ¡°It¡¯s Little Red? Isn¡¯t her luck quite good normally? Hehe, looks like this toy isn¡¯t very urate.¡±


    ¡°So it is you bastard!! You are the reason why I have been so unlucky recently! You still dare to challenge me! Eat my Body m!!¡±


    Fine, looking at the dark silhouette which keeps growing bigger and the angry roar, I corrected my judgement.


    ¡°Oh, so I am the 3rd one. Un, I better keep a lightning rod by my side at all times in the future.¡±


    Cough... Let¡¯s not talk about how I caused a chaos and how I managed to escape with my life. After this incident, I am resolved to bring a person with lower Luck then me at all times.


    After that, as lightning rods, I felt quite bad to Victoria and Krose who helped me to avert quite a few cmities. In the end, I found far-fetched solution to it.


    ¡°Spring of Drowned Man.¡± A magical spring from an old manga. It can grant a unique physique to a female, such that whening in contact with hot water, she would turn into a male, and whening in contact with cold water, she would turn back into a female.


    TL: Ranma 1/2


    In order to win this rare treasure from a foreign world, I spent just a lot of points and a few Lottery chances and finally got what I wanted, but...


    There is only one Spring of Drowned Man...


    At that moment, Krose and Victoria who have be even closer than blood-rted sisters, for the opportunity to be an iplete man, they fought each other and in the end, under the effects of a certain Aura of gue, the spring water ended up being overturned on an unlucky passer-by...


    ¡°Tragedy!!¡±

 Chapter 53

    <h4>Chapter 53: The Chieftain of Centaurs</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    That night, the skies of Vance City weren¡¯t peaceful.


    It was at a small market outside a mining area. It is also a ce where many underground trade deals were done.


    After all, this market is rather far from the city and there are only broken slums in the surroundings. Movements would leave behind trace, making it hard for an ambush to seed, thus effectively preventing assaults from other gangs.


    Even so, there is still a messy graveyard here that is used to bury those unlucky fellows who thought that this was a safend but still ended up sleeping here.


    The residents here are also used to overlooking the scene of 2 trading parties failing toe to an agreement and breaking out in a fight.


    At this moment, another trade wasn¡¯t sessfully negotiated and the both parties came to blows. If I have to point out something was different about it, then I could only be say that the scale of this conflict is slightly bigger...


    The injured Ancient Red Dragon is howling in agony. The big window opened in its abdomen bleeds continuously and its wings are tied together tightly by a pitch-ck spider silk, unable to spread it open at all.


    TL: I will just stick closely with the author¡¯s use of his, her and it


    ¡°Want to eat, but Ah Pa don¡¯t allow...¡±


    The gigantic eight-legged spider keeps harassing her, the mysterious venom that it left on her paralyses her physical body. In a state of dizziness and blurred vision, she waspletely unable to leave the surface.


    ¡°Crimspur! If you continue acting so indecisive, our agreement will be cancelled. You will have to face the wrath of us, the Royalty Faction. Or maybe, do you think that your strength can rival with Ya Ding Si, your scheming canpare with Lionheart. If so, you can just wage war on us directly. Do you want to try to see if the 12 Senators will just end up with 10 Senators before you can return to Xiluo!


    TL: Ya Dang Si -> Ah Dang¡¯s full name (Still looking for a better name)


    The roar of the blue crystal Bone Dragon in the sky made the indecisive two muster up their determination.


    ¡°The Corroded ins of Ants!¡±


    Following the furious howl of the Ant King Lamost, the Soul World that belongs solely to him activates and the entire world changes. The badly injured Dragon Queen Molly is forcefully dragged into a decayed ins.


    ¡°Bzzst.¡± ¡°Sisi¡± A bizarre sounding from the movement under the ground of the ins could be heard, making one instinctively feel threatened.


    Soon after, ant holes open one after another and a beige-colored giant Ant Soldier appears from within. They aren¡¯t very strong individually but what that causes fear is their endless numbers.


    It wasn¡¯t long before the desertednd is full of holes. Below each and every hole is a kingdom of an ancient foreign ant-shaped race. Responding to the call of their king, countless Ant Soldiers opens their own ant hole. They are the soldiers and servants of the king when he was still alive. Just that this time, from the look of their Soulfire burning in their blue-green eyes, they are a member of an undead army.


    Before Lamost was killed, he was the king of an ancient bug tribe. When his corpse was resurrected as an undead, his kingdom revived along with him.


    The long years have caused their physical body to be mostly decayed, resulting in their strength being diminished significantly, but his endless people is still his pride.


    The Ant Warriors raise their oddly-shaped spears and wooden barriers and shouts their cheer before charging in fearlessly. The Elephant Ants which are about the size of a small hill serve as their War Beasts while the Flying Ant Officers carried Poison Sac Bombs filled with acid and begins their strafe of death. The Ant Queens standing at the very back starts to release their Dark Witchcraft which is long-lost in history.


    In an instant, the powerful Dragon Queen ends up being lynched by the army of Ants. When she kills one, ten others rush up to fill their ce. Her Dragon Breath burns hundred Flying Ants to their death, but thousand more appear afterwards. Furthermore, the troublesome Death Curses and Dark Witchcraft is fatal and dangerous.


    There isn¡¯t a single Undead Senator that is easy to deal with. Lamost may be weak individually, but he has a strong Soul World to make up for it. It is just that his powerful Soul World ¡®The Corroded ins of Ants¡¯ depletes his mana extremely quickly, so he doesn¡¯t use it usually, causing his ranking to be on the lower side.


    ¡°Hmph! An idiot who uses Soul World to make up for hisck of strength. If Ya Dang Si didn¡¯t harass the Dragon Queen, she would be able to fly and the first thing she would do is to kill you even at the risk of aggravating her injuries. Idiot, individual strength is the basic and the most important of all.¡±


    What Gria said is the truth. For powerful fighting races like Undead Lords and the Dragon Tribe, their overwhelming talent restricts them for developing their own path suited to them. While their talent may be able to overpower them, but it also means that the level of the other techniques that they learn will be much lower. However, for them to face the weak mortals, just using their physical body would suffice.


    TL: Meaning they focus on their race talents rather, causing other aspects to becking


    In fact, in the eyes of a portion of extremists, mortals must cultivate to reach the height as them and they view this fact as an evidence of their great strength and their high-born. If they need strength, they just need some time to retrieve it from their bloodline. Things like cultivating and studying aren¡¯t needed for them.


    Of course, there are also quite a few who are like Einz Mezus, who despite being an Ancient Red Dragon but reached quite a scary level of attainment in the field of both Wind Magic and Fire Magic.


    However, those are like Little Red are still the minority. Most of the members of the Dragon Tribe still depend on their physical talent to feed themselves. They normally just sleep and wait for them to evolve by themselves with the flow of time. In fact, there are quite a few Dragon Tribe who don¡¯t have Soul Imprint. But, simply by using their fearsome physical body and basic strength (basic stat), it is not that difficult a task to tear apart a few Legend-ranks.


    As for Undead Lords, there are quite a few who are born strong that acts that way as well. Even more so, Ah Dang is a monster without any notion of power rank. However, even SemiGod Humans have to be careful around him.


    Fine, our Lord Gria will never admit that she doesn¡¯t have a Soul World at all and she is very envious of this powerful Soul World, especially when this Soul World has been praised by a certain someone and acknowledged by the masses.


    ¡°Hmph, what the Soul World that is the closest to the level of Undead Emperor. It is just that he has the same type of Soul World as the Emperor, that¡¯s why his one has been overestimated by quite a bit. What is the use when he can only sustain it for 3 minutes? Look, it is already revealing its true form.¡±


    The situation of the fight below changes. The panting Lamost finally finds himself unable to sustain his Soul World. As the illusory world starts to shatter, the heavily wounded Dragon Empress starts her counterattack.


    Crimspur stands in front of Lamost to guard him. With a strong physical body, he makes up for them deficiency of the Ant King. On other days, they have always teamed up like that. However, this time, from the look of the ck figure that is suddenly descending from the sky, there is no chance for him to strike.


    ¡°Die!¡±


    Gria dives and sends a fatal Phosphorus Dragon Breath down, plunging thends into a sea of green mes. This kind of vicious poisonous me is extremely acidic. If it gets on you, it will immediately prate the bones and burn it to ashes. Even if it is Molly, in the face of this dangerous sea of mes, she could only retreat.


    Her movement to dodge the mes gave Ah Dang an opportunity. From the form of a Spider which represents binding, he turns into an ink-green big-mouthed monster in a distortion. With the entire body of a gigantic deformed monster that seems to have only a mouth remaining, he uses his short legs to jump up in a manner reminiscent of a frog. Opening his wide mouth that is big enough to bite into mountains, he actually directly swallows the Dragon Queen!


    ¡°...This isn¡¯t eating. This is attacking!¡± For delicious food, Ah Dang is enlightened for once.


    With her life in danger, the Dragon Queen gives a final look at her wings which is bind and corroding under the spider silk. Then, with a twist of her body, she actually retreats a few steps in an awkward position in midair.


    ¡°AHHHHH.... OWWWWWW!!¡± Even so, in the next second, dragon blood and a shriek of agony fills the air. The Dragon Queen has just suffered a heavy blow.


    With that mouthful from Ah Dang, her two dragon wings disappear. But the Dragon Queen smiles in response.


    ¡°Like this... I can finally fly.¡±


    The vicious Dragon Queen actually took the initiative to gift her own wings to Ah Dang. After getting free from the spider silk which restrains mana, she regains her ability to fly. Losing her 2 wings as support, it will be more difficult, but the ability to fly of the Dragon Tribe doesn¡¯t just depend on their wings.


    Using all of her remaining mana to fly, a formless wind lifts the Dragon Queen¡¯s massive wounded body and lifts her up rapidly.


    Without any consideration about her mana consumption, her speed is actually much faster than usual days. Even without the support of her wings, for the Red Dragons who are the most skilled in flying techniques among the Dragon Tribe, it isn¡¯t difficult for her to shake off a Bone Dragon who is known to be slow.


    Her calctions are well done, but...


    ¡°OUCH! Who is so inconsiderate, flying around with their eyes closed!!¡±


    TL: She says ouch in English.


    The Dragon Queen who is anxious to flee identally bumps into a gigantic Dragon who ¡®happens to be passing by¡¯. If it was just a normal Young Dragon (within 10-meters), he would have been sent flying by the Dragon Queen. However, the one she bumped into just had to be an Ancient Red Dragon (30-meters and above) as well!


    ¡°Flying with your eyes closed, changing your path randomly and flying against the direction of thene. Where did you learn your flying rules from? Aren¡¯t you afraid that 12 points will be deducted from you at one go, causing your flying license to be confiscated?¡±


    The Ancient Red Dragon who is full of nonsense yawns and gazes downwards curiously.


    ¡°Ohhhhh. Isn¡¯t this my vicious old mother who ruthlessly killed her own husband, 1 son and 3 daughters? Why, are you so lonely that you can¡¯t sleep that you sneaked out for a walk in the night? Hehe, looks like we are on the same line. Should we fly together?¡±


    Molly, whose magic power and wind current which has been messed up by the crash, can only dive down straight like a metal ball. In the end, she realized that the flow of current has beenpletely controlled by the other party, causing her to be unable to even float. In the end, she gives up the useless struggle of pping the remains of her wings, frustrated. She dives down straight like a piece of rock.


    Below, the Undead Lords are waiting for her while sharpening their des. In the end, she could only helplessly scream at the Dragon.


    ¡°Einz Mezus! You won¡¯t die a proper death!¡±


    Little Red simply yawns in response, turns around, glides away and continues on her walk, leaving behind just a single message.


    ¡°Old one, your teachings back then aren¡¯t wrong. The howling of a loser is really hard to look at.¡±


    TL: ?? -> Can mean old mother, albeit in a disrespectful way. It is also how the Dark Elves often refer to themselves with. In this case, it is a bit like a gangster-like way to refer to yourself.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    The heavy ck clouds crush the sky of Vance City. As the date to the auction draws closer, the atmosphere of the city grows more and more tense and suppressing.


    Arge portion of underground city lords didn¡¯t leave after the Conference. That auction which hasn¡¯t been publicized anyhow has already spread across the entire city. In their eyes, the show is just about to start. The new and old Autarchs are sure to cross blows on the auction, causing a change in the splitting of powers in the entire underground world.


    A true God Equipment is going to be auctioned. An item that involves the absolute treasure of Xiluo¡¯s royal authority is going to be auctioned. The intelligencework of the kingdoms and their Thief Guild isn¡¯t just for show. A month is more than enough for the news to spread furiously on the surface.


    As the city is quite close to the tunnel leading to the surface, the city is already full of expertsing from differentnd and different races. At the very start, the Beastman Sovereign has tried to seal the tunnel but very quickly, he realized that it was an arduous and impossible task. The allure of the God Equipment is too great. The normal Beastman Soldiers are meaningless to experts and if they happen to piss off the other party, they might just end up erased.


    After their sentry posts has been cleaned more than 10 times, even though the order to seal up the path has yet to be lifted due to the ¡®dignity¡¯ of the Autarch, but in reality, the leader of those sentry posts has already been changed into the old and the weak. Of course, the soldiers who are being treated as cannon fodders aren¡¯t foolish too. They gamble, y mahjong, drink alcohol and everything else except for stopping the passersby from the surface in the sentry post. The sealing order has just be the ears of the blind ¡ª decoration. Once again, the Lion King¡¯s reputation goes down.


    TL: I think it is eyes of the blind but I¡¯m just going to go with the raws in the off-chance I¡¯m wrong.


    As the countdown to the auction starts, not mentioning the appearance of the Chaos beings like Demons and Undead, the public enemies of the surface, even the Seraphims, God Envoys and War Angels, the Order beings from the higher dimensions, can be seen on the streets. What is even more incredulous is that they actually seemed to havee to an understanding. Despite drawing their swords and staring at each other furiously, they didn¡¯t start a war directly.


    This kind of eerie situation makes one feel theing of a storm even more clearly. To be truthful, looking at this situation, I feel that even if they send 2 SemiGods down and wins the auctions, they might not even be able to bring it out.


    The ones who got hit the worst is probably the alliance between the Beastman Sovereign and the Dragon Queen. Apparently, there are people who don¡¯t have the patience to wait until the day of the auction. The uninvited guests who tries toy their hands on the Scepter grows more and more stronger and savage. When the thousand-meter long Mosgiel Giant Beast plummets rapidly from the sky of the city, not mentioning the Beastman who was caught in the st, even I started to suspect if Vance will be destroyed just like that.


    Fortunately, the 2 Underground Autarch has shifted their elite forces here. After paying a heavy price, the Scorpion-tailed Knights and Red Dragons managed to defeat the Giant Beasts who suddenly appeared and suddenly disappeared. When someone was surprised over the disappearance of the Dragon Queen over the course of the battle, another inconceivable rumor started to spread ¡ª Dragon Queen Molly has been assaulted and is heavily wounded.


    TL: Not the same Giant Beast as the Mosgiel Giant Beast above that belongs to the Beastman


    The Dragon Queen has been dominating the underground for over thousands of years. Even more so, her individual strength is within the top 10 of the entire underground world. (There are quite a lot of experts among the underground city lords. Autarchs only represent the influence) She is also well-known to be cunning. This kind of expert can escape even if they are defeated, so for her to be forced to the brink of death is quite unbelievable.


    Furthermore, if it wasn¡¯t for the timely appearance of the backups from the Dragon City, the underground Dragon City might have to elect a new Dragon Queen by now.


    The ones whounched the attacks were the 5 Xiluo Senators. The reason? It is said that the Dragon Queen actually dared to owe the farmers their wages, so the head workers who failed in their protests for their sries started to lynch her... Cough, alright, there is no is farmers in this world, nor is there head workers. The truth is the Dragon Queen hired assassins but she went back on her promise afterwards, saying that if they don¡¯t the mission, she won¡¯t allow the Undead Lords toe into contact with the Scepter. In the end, the angered Undead Lords surrounded her to beat her up.


    However, those who are aware of the situation knew that this is the revenge from Sulfur Mountain City. After all, the ones who had their promise broken were only 3 Undead Lords but the one exacting the vengeance were 5. Furthermore, they directly assaulted her just after a bit of disagreement. Not to forget, there are also grudges among the Undead Lords, making this incident smell very obviously of a scheme.


    In addition to that, at the key moment, the one who prevented the Dragon Queen from sessfully fleeing is the Disaster of Veron Einz Mezus who happens to ¡®pass by¡¯.


    Alright, I admit that it was my n. To be able release her all her frustrations in one breath, Little Red was so happy... She has finally exacted revenge from the grudges she umted from being lynched in Sulfur Mountain City.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t we being underestimated if stealing a few things can count as revenge? You hired Undead Senators as your fighters to attack me, so I will also hire them to exact vengeance on you.¡± This method of retaliation conforms to the hypocritical rules of peace of the underground world. Even more so, it lets the world understand that Sulfur Mountain City is not to be underestimated.


    The individual strength of the Dragon Queen is the strongest back up for the Dragon-Beastman Alliance. Now that the news that the Dragon Queen is heavily wounded, the Beastman army which have already suffered quite a heavy blow delves into chaos. The morale which didn¡¯t fall even when the Morsgiel Giant Beast was killed started wavering.


    It is said that escapees started appearing in the military barracks that night. This is the first time ever since Shou built his army. It is said that the Lion King¡¯s heart was broken. Previously, his hair turned white overnight. This time, his mane turnedpletely white.


    The ones who wavered even more is the arrogant Dragon Tribe. The Dragon Queen got her into her high position by killing her husband. She depends on her individual strength to suppress and rule over 7 Dragon Cities. From the very start, the ck Dragons only view her as their leader in name, she was only able to dispatch the young Red Dragons. Now that she was defeated, everyone started pushing on the copsed wall. The ambitious Young Dragons of the Dragon City is already plotting an opportunity for them to usurp the position while the older Elder Dragons even proposed to bring back Einz Mezus.


    TL: Immemorial Dragons > Ancient Dragons > Elder Dragons > Young Dragons


    But to me, what I was most surprised about is the sudden visit of the important guest in front of me.


    Mage Hunter Minial, the Chieftain of the Centaur Beastman and well-known Myth-rank expert. If we are just talking about individual strength on the surface, he is even stronger than Shou. It is said that he has bad rtions with Shou. His skills with the bow thatbine the techniques of his predecessors with his own Magic Arrows is famous in the whole underground world. More importantly, I have a grudge with him...


    ¡°Margaret has been well taken care of by you. Minial, you actually dare to appear in front of me. You really think that your strength is enough for you to do as you please? You are not afraid of us bringing you down?¡±


    In the battle outside Sulfur Mountain City, Minial¡¯s Magic Combustion Arrow caused Margaret¡¯s ¡®Ice Aeon¡¯ to be cast prematurely and 3 of the precious Saint Stones were destroyed. Fixing them would require an astronomical amount of gold coins. Margaret would grind her teeth in anger every time this Centaur is mentioned.


    A size bigger than normal Centaurs, he doesn¡¯t have any defensive object other than the copper Heart-Protecting Mirror. The huge bow on his back is rather eye-catching. If we just look at outer appearance, this gentle-looking Centaur with a long beard does have the aura of a schr.


    Right now, in the face of my enmity and challenge, the old Centaur smiles.


    ¡°I am really sorry for that incident then. I was negotiating with Shou back then and through a series of coincidence, I was brought to Sulfur Mountain City. If it weren¡¯t for the Forbidden Spell being too scary that I would be caught in its midst, I wouldn¡¯t have struck out. Besides, my attack towards Lord Saint wasn¡¯t life-threatening and that should be enough to show my sincerity.


    Despite it being an arrogant deration, but I instinctively feel that he is speaking of the truth. After all, while being surprised that the Chieftain of Centaur would side with Shou, Margaret was curious why she didn¡¯t meet with the Magic Prating Cluster Arrow where his expertise lies in. This also proves from another point of view that he is indeed speaking the truth.


    ¡°The entire underground world knows that we are different from those uncultivated barbarians who eat fresh meat and drink blood. I am quite pleased to see the losses of Shou and his subordinates, the bunch of butchers. If I wasn¡¯t forced to y my hand, I¡¯m afraid that my gifts and congrattory letter would have been long sent to your residence.¡±


    I have also heard a little about this. Centaurs and Taurens are known as the ¡®Herbivore Alliance¡¯ and they have bad rtions with the current Beastman Sovereign Scorpion-tailed Lion Shou and his close subordinates. One side scolds the other as ¡®fresh meat-eating barbarians¡¯ while the other scolds them ¡®grass-eating hoofed livestock¡¯. This has already be amon situation.


    ¡°Then, why are you here today?¡±


    I thought that he would start rambling about a bunch of what ¡®the enemy of an enemy is an ally¡¯ or simr kind of crap and just like other underground city lords, they forge a secret alliance with us. But the old Minial smiles bitterly and shakes his head.


    ¡°Wumianzhe, since we have alreadye to this step, why are you still ying the fool? Just tell me directly if you have any terms. Can you allow me to see my grandniece first!¡±


    ¡°What!?¡± This tone, it feels like the helplesspromising of an old wealthy merchant to the kidnappers when his nephew is kidnapped.


    ¡°Stop feigning ignorance. I will give in to your terms. I have no idea how you found out that Anya is my only kin, the candidate as the next Chieftain of the Centaur Tribe. I have obviously hidden so well for so many years... Just speak if you have any conditions, just don¡¯t go too far. Otherwise, the bow and arrows in our hands aren¡¯t that easy to deal with.


    ¡°WHAT?!¡± This time, I was really surprised. That number 1 misfortune lightning rod for me, the annoying sillyss who keep repeating her words is actually the candidate as the Chieftain of the Centaur Tribe? If she really bes the Chieftain, then won¡¯t the entire Centaur Tribe be destroyed?


    ¡°You... You all really didn¡¯t know?¡± The instincts of an expert made Minial realize that I wasn¡¯t feigning ignorance.


    ¡°I really didn¡¯t know! Who would treat that sillyss as an important figure?¡± After my shock passed, I simplyugh while shaking my head. ¡°But, now I know.¡±


    Minial regrets his word deeply. Now, he must pay an additional price for his carelessness.


    ¡°There is no problem for you to meet her.¡±


    But my decisiveness in letting her go make him extremely surprised. It isn¡¯t that I don¡¯t want to make use of this situation to extort something, but...


    ¡°... Quickly take her away. At least, before all of our tes are destroyed. Yesterday, quite a few of us used cups of eat dinner. Also, do you eptpensation bill? Given her rate of destruction, if you start epting itte, you would have to prepare more cash.¡±


    These few days, we finally understood why Anya keeps getting fired. It is enough that she is clumsy, a hardworking but sillyss is also cute. But, her luck is so bad that idents can happen anywhere and everywhere. While wiping the ss, the sses would break; while moving the tables, the tables would copse; she would even meet with the copse of the rotten floor while wiping it. This is a little too much for one to bear.


    The things she does makes people mad, but when looking at her tearful and sincere apology and the fact that it wasn¡¯t intentional, just in bad luck, it was hard to harden one¡¯s heart to criticize her.


    ¡°Quickly take her away. Do you see that file on the table? It is a report on the damage she caused. Remember to pay the bill before you leave.¡±


    Minial, who is at a loss of whether tough or cry, nods his head, but...


    ¡°I¡¯m not going back!¡± Unexpectedly, Anya directly refuses to go home.


    ¡°Why not? Is it because those bunch of bastards back at home treat you badly? Rest easy, your 2nd granduncle will stand up for you.¡± Shocked by the refusal of his grandniece, the dumbfounded Minial immediately replies frantically.


    ¡°No, that isn¡¯t it. Big brothers treat Anya well. It is just that Anya doesn¡¯t want to stay in Camule Grasnds.¡±


    ¡°Why? It can¡¯t be that there is someone who is vying over the session at the Chieftain. Don¡¯t worry, as long as I¡¯m here, you will be the first sessor!¡±


    ¡°That isn¡¯t it either. It is not because of such a boring reason.¡±


    ¡°Then?¡±


    ¡°No one wants to be the Chieftain or whatever. Anya just doesn¡¯t want to stay in the countryside for the rest of her life. Anya¡¯s goal is to be a richdy of the city. 2nd granduncle, just look, there is nothing in the grasnds but grass and livestock. There is nothing nice to eat, no beauty products, no tall buildings or streets, no entertainment facility, no... (and 300 other stuffs).¡±


    ¡°...Anya had enough to the life where I had no relieve myself in the grasses. Anya¡¯s goal is to be a wealthydy in the city. It might not be very sessful in the start, but I am finally on the right path after much difficulty, I¡¯m definitely not going back. Those horrible days where there isn¡¯t a single candle during the night and I could only sleep.


    The little Centaur spoke faster and faster, talking andughing at the same time. On the contrary, the old Centaur¡¯s face is getting darker and darker. There are quite a few youngsters who left the Tribe for the sake of afortable life in the city, but he didn¡¯t expect his precious grandniece which he put all his hopes on would actually be like that as well.


    ¡°... The big brothers and big sisters here treat me well. Even if Anya identallymit a mistake, they never criticize me or fire me like the other boss. I want to build my standing in the big city starting from here! I will first save my wages, then buy a little house. If I were to just work a little bit harder, there will be a day which I be affluent!¡±


    ¡°Enough!! I have really spoiled you too much. You aren¡¯t worthy of being the descendant of the line of heroes of Centaur. To throw away the traditions of the golden bloodline of the Centaurs so casually. Despite having the noble blood of the predator of the Grasnd, but for a cowardly and weak life in the city, you are willing to be a pig waiting in the fence to be ughtered. You are the shame of the Centaurs. Come back with me now, I will train you properly.¡±


    Old Minial drags the struggling Anya away. If it was just a few minutes ago, I would be more than willing to see such a sight.


    But now, after hearing the deration of this youngster, I suddenly recall a Thiefss who also came from the countryside. She might have also made a simr wish ¡ª ¡®I will dig treasures out, be the number 1 wealthiest person in the world and live the life of a richdy!¡±


    Perhaps, other than their goals, the twosses aren¡¯t in the least alike. At the very least, Elisa seeded in striking it rich in the end but I didn¡¯t see the possibility of Anya¡¯s goal being fulfilled. But somehow, I feel like helping thisss.


    Thus, I stopped them both.


    ¡°Centaur Chieftain, perhaps we can talk about some interesting things. Such as the Beastman Sovereign. Such as the Blood of the Demons. Un, for example, if the Beastman Sovereign of this generation has already been corrupted by the demons, perhaps, it is about time to rece him. Maybe, it is the time for the Centaur Tribe to rise. Look, if Vance City is your future territory, then, maybe, the youngsters of your tribe wouldn¡¯t always think about leaving the Tribe.¡±


    2nd andst one today.


    Ended up tranting this chapter quite slowly. Was distracted by Ice Fantasy that was broadcasting by the side. Their characters and backgrounds are really too striking. Anyway, because I am distracted, there may be even more grammar errors in here.


    Super long chapter, so tiring. Anyway, it¡¯s a happy day for me since I drew Wind Pr Queen while writing this chapter. Maybe I should open the scrolls while writing next time. Finally, my 2nd nb5 after Zaiross ahahahhahahahahahahaaahHAHHAHAHAHAHHA


    Wanted to post this tomorrow but I wanted to brag about my Tiana so...


    Btw, just to rify, un is the sound you make in acknowledgement to something someone is saying, something like the uh of uh huh.

 Chapter 54

    <h4>Chapter 54: The Lucky Horseshoes and Soul Imprint</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    The negotiation with old Minial isn¡¯t sessful. Of course, the part that didn¡¯t go well isn¡¯t our request for an alliance. Since we have amon enemy, in the face of a strong enemy, forging an alliance is an entirely rational thing to do.


    It isn¡¯t because the old Lion treat others badly. In actuality, his reputation among the Beastman Tribes is actually not bad. However, a powerful person would draw in enemies. The position as the Sovereign of the Beastman is very tempting. Many people are aiming for the position of an Underground Autarch. The moment they show a weakness, countless of underground city lords will try to usurp the position.


    Minial in front of me is obviously against the old Lion. The tribes under him has been fighting with Shou¡¯s tribe on the surface and secretly for several centuries. If the old Lion were to show a weakness, the first one to impeach the old Lion would be him. After all, viewing the circumstances of the underground world, there must be a Beastman among the Autarch. However, the Beastman need not be Shou.


    One of the reason why old Minial came over is to negotiate an alliance. Since we both have mutual interests, so the alliance went sessful. Multiple agreements that is targeted against a certain Lion has been agreed on swiftly. However, when we started to ¡®gossip¡¯ about Anya¡¯s future, we got stuck in an impasse.


    Very apparently, towards a stubborn old man who wishes to allow her grandniece to inherit the family business, using ¡®the grandchildren have their own happiness that they want to pursuit¡¯, ¡®the youngsters have their own world¡¯ is meaningless. In their mind, there is nothing more important than tradition and the business passed down by their ancestors. For the interest of the family, they are even willing to sacrifice themselves, needless to sacrifice the freedom of choice for a youngster. Besides, in their eyes, this choice made for you is actually for your own good.


    TL: Used the world business but actually isn¡¯t that sided to themercial aspect. Inheritance, but not thatmercial


    ¡°Since it is impossible to reason with him, then let¡¯s just go with deception.¡±


    I firstined about how the education of the elderly were too outdated, which led to youngsters not listening to them. Then, Ipared Anya with Annie as an example.


    ¡°Look, they are both future sessors of a city and there are huge expectations of them. Our Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Annie is already Gold-rank pinnacle, ready to break through to Legend at any time and she isn¡¯t 20. Even ifpared to the entire world, she could be said to be a genius. What about your family¡¯s Anya? I don¡¯t think she is even Silver-rank.¡±


    ¡°This is only aparison of power. What is more important to a city lord is experience and qualifications. Look at our Annie, she has started doing her job as the City Lord Sessor and even served as the main ambassador of our envoy party. Our Annie is able to stand independently in the Alliance Conference. What about your family¡¯s Anya?¡±


    ¡°Do you know how did we groom her? Lions will take the initiative to throw their cubs off the cliff. Annie has gone out to adventure when she was 12 so as to experience the world, that¡¯s why she is able to have such achievements today. You put your children in arge grasnd without a single thing, how can you expect them to have the opportunity to explore and broaden their knowledge. They can¡¯t fight with strong opponents to refine their skills. Using your words, are they the eagles soaring in the midst of a hurricane or a fledgling shaking under the tree?¡±


    I almost convinced myself with these words, but not all of these words are true. The reason why Annie is so strong individually is because of her unique inheritance. As for the experiences and knowledge she umted during her journey...


    Hehe, I have heard her talk about her journey. ¡®It feels terrible to starve at night, but I mustn¡¯t follow strangers even when I am hungry¡¯ and ¡®Getting wet from the rain feels ufortable, but I felt warm when I started running about¡¯ appears the most in her story. Next would be ¡®Even though I am hungry, I can¡¯t just casually pick up things from the ground to eat. If it is a poisonous animal, it should be edible after getting rid its poisonous sac and its head. However, the more colorful a nt is, the more poisonous it is. You can¡¯t eat it at all¡¯ and ¡®If you got lost in a mountain for too long, then you should randomly find a direction and walk straight, breaking the mountains if one stands in your way and dig a way out. However, it feels horrible to be buried alive so be careful.¡¯


    Back then, my reaction was ¡°What the heck, as expected of the goddaughter and disciple of Adam. Exactly the same good and learnt the exact same thing. To still be living like that, her life force must be really strong.¡±


    Cough, looks like I went out of topic. At this moment, after a bit more coaxing, all kinds of half-true lies start spouting out form my mouth. There are even a bunch of historical examples of countries getting destroyed because of its the bad judgement of its leader, causing the confused Centaur to stare nkly.


    ¡°Look, Prince Clint from Iron City also came independently as an envoy to Vance as such a young age. I have seen that person. He might be young, but you really can¡¯t underestimate him in any aspect. It will be the youngsters¡¯ generation next, do you intend for your family¡¯s Anya to lose at the starting line?¡±


    Minial who is already in a daze after my words stare at me dumbfounded.


    ¡°That, so if I put Anya with you, a suitable leader would be groomed?¡±


    Of course that isn¡¯t it. I didn¡¯t say so much just to put this unluckyss by my side, giving me more trouble. It is sufficient as long as you are willing to let her roam about. As for what happens next, I don¡¯t want to bother about it and I can¡¯t bother anyway.


    I am the type who thinks the process is unimportant, only the ending matters. As long as the ending is good, there is no need to bother too much about what happens in the process. Since I have already coaxed him to this point, I might as well do it to the end.


    TL: The exact phrase for coax is ?? which means a bit like fooling, but very very mild.


    ¡°Of course not...¡± Suddenly, someone interrupts my speech on shirking responsibility.


    ¡°Of course you can! Lord Wumianzhe is extremely skilled in teaching others. Even Big Sister Margaret praised him, he will definitely teach Anya properly.¡±


    Suddenly, Annie walks through the door and promises him in an instant. Furthermore, the eyes that she looked at me with is sparkling.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t expect Uncle... Lord Wumianzhe to view me in such a manner. I always thought that you were unsatisfied with Annie. Annie is more motivated now!¡±


    Minial carefully assesses the City Lord Sessor who had been praised to heavens and is surprised to find that I wasn¡¯t lying. It is quite outrageous for a human who is yet to be 20 to reach the boundaries of a Legend, and the Fire of Phoenix which her body is charged with shows of her limitless potential. It is very possible that she wouldn¡¯t be just a normal Legend after breaking through.


    To an experienced veteran like him, he knows that strength is the root of everything in this underground world where the weak serves as food for the strong. Annie¡¯s abnormal strength is the best proof, it is also the final straw that convinced old Minial.


    ¡°Fine, I will pass Anya over to you all. She will be the best guarantee for our Alliance. We, Centaurs, always keep our promise. If you can deliver your promises, we will be your alliance forever.¡±


    Anya grabs the right hand of the old Centaur that is in the air. In the ancient Centaur traditions, this is the symbol of an agreement being made.


    ¡°Yes, not just Lord Wumianzhe, I will also share my experiences with Anya and we will work together. Both of our people will be true friends.¡±


    Then, she turns her head and leaves.


    ¡°Uncle Bones, I did well right! Did I seem like a real City Lord?¡± Even if she didn¡¯t say it oud loud, but from the gleeful look that Annie gazes at me with, I can sort of tell what she was trying to express.


    ¡°...Share experiences, more like sharing how tond other people into trouble and how to act like a rascal.¡± Fortunately, my mask prevents me from revealing my expressions, otherwise my whole face would be full of bitterness now.


    No matter how I put it, Anya is an ambassador in name. Now that we have made a friendly alliance with the other tribe, can I still reject her? Afterwards, I still have to fulfill the requirements of the agreement and turn this unluckyss into a passable city lord... Seems like an impossible mission. Looks like I can only try to wash her brain with my Necromancy.


    However, the Centaurs of the grasnds are well-known to be trustworthy. If we can earn an alliance mate that we can truly rely on because of this, this is also a great thing for Sulfur Mountain City. The only one who met misfortune because of this is probably just me who is stuck with this hassle.


    ¡°Shot my own foot again huh? It is hard to be a good person these days. Right, why didn¡¯t that unluckyss fulfill her role as a lightning rod? Or maybe, I can use this toin about her.¡±


    Looking at the delighted Anya,


    ¡°Looks like Anya¡¯s luck is really bad, if an ident were to happen...¡±


    Before I even finished speaking, Minial shakes his head.


    ¡°This is a symbol of the royalty of our tribe, the Golden Bloodline. While we are blessed with hidden powers within our bloodline, it also brings along a curse of misfortune. However, we have a treasure that brings luck. If Anya stays here, I will pass it to her so that her situation will improve.¡±


    A treasure that brings luck? It is quite unbelievable just thinking about it. Alright, I¡¯ll admit that my heart wavered. If I have this, maybe my luck will get better, especially my luck with women...


    ¡°Fine, hand your grandniece to me.¡±


    ¡°Ohhhhhhhhhhh, that¡¯s great. Lord Wumianzhe, everyone says that you are gay and scary, but I didn¡¯t expect that you really are a good person!!¡±


    Hearing that she doesn¡¯t have to return to the grasnds, Anya is already pouncing around at one side happily like a little deer. Rage surges in me who just gotten another ¡®good man card¡¯.


    TL: Good man card -> You are a good man, but...


    ¡°WHO SAID THAT!! I am going to send him to the sulfur mines to dig sulfur!¡±


    TL: Sulfur is poisonous, good kids please don¡¯t imitate.


    By the side, Minial nods his head, his face smiling cheerfully as though saying ¡®This is great, if he is gay then Anya will be safe. Although she is a Centaur, there is too many perverts in this era.¡¯


    ¡°What safe. There is Beifeng here.¡± Alright, this kind of criticism should remain in my belly. Family scandals shouldn¡¯t be boasted about.


    Anyway, it will just get moreplicated the more I try to exin. Do I still have to exin my sexual orientation? Shaking my head in frustration, looks like there will still be many days toe that I will have to refute the rumors. I can only pray that the old Centaur doesn¡¯t like to gossip.


    Old Minial expresses that he would be back after a few days to teach Anya their family¡¯s Archer Skills and prepares to takes his leave. Seeing that, I immediately questions him.


    ¡°What about the treasure?¡±


    ¡°Oh, the Lucky Horseshoes. Wait, I will take it off now.¡±


    I am a little agitated. The legends that horseshoes can bring about fortune is already well-known. To think that it would be secret treasure of the Golden Bloodline royalty of the Centaurs. To be able to get hold of such a rare treasure, it can¡¯t be that my luck is turning about?


    Very quickly, the old Centaur takes off 2 horseshoes and passes it to Anya.


    Lucky Horseshoes/ Myth-ss Equipment/ Effect: Increases the user¡¯s Luck dramatically? Ohhhhhh, looks like it¡¯s a top-tier good.


    You want to obtain Luck? Remember to find a cksmith to nail it on.?


    Looking at this, I went silly.


    This is an equipment. You get it, equipment must be equipped before it can be useful. Do you have hoofs? Congrattions for doing volunteer work. Actually, you can stop struggling already. There is no hope for your luck, just give up.?


    No wonder old Minial gave these Horseshoes which are almost equal to a God Equipment to Anya so decisively. Although there is no requirement to equip, others are destined to only watch it... If you want to equip this toy, you must first find a nail to nail it onto your hoofs!


    Fine, looking at the delighted Centaur darting about while having to suffer the tease of the system, I am really getting more and more unlucky nowadays.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    The misfortunes keeping in nowadays. Perhaps, the only good news that I heard these days is that Elisa was awake.


    When zing pirs of inferno shooting into the heavens and a quiet flowing river of ice appeared, I, who was experienced in this field, was shocked.


    Using 2 conflicting power of Elements as the core for the Soul Imprint, it is an act that defiesmon sense. However, what was even more inconceivable is that she actually seeded, and it was a level far beyond the level of manipting the Elements, reaching into the level of Rules (of the world) and the level of Concepts. Of course, this is all good thing but the ¡®concept¡¯ itself makes one overthink.


    ¡°Marauder, is it? Why does it feel like it¡¯s Soul Imprint is sided towards the Chaos faction? Looks her she is still influenced by the blood of Demons.¡±


    The power which the Soul Imprint represents is usually rted to the experience of the person in the past and his type of power. The imprints from the experts of the Order Faction tend to side towards strengthening, control, solidifying and simr other rules. The shape it appears in tend to be a buff, such as Xueti¡¯s Steel Heart, which makes his body as tough as steel, and Adam¡¯s Indestructible Phoenix, which allows him to never fall down permanently. Even my Mark of Justice and Margaret¡¯s Corridor of Time has the effect of strengthening a certain type of magic.


    It is different for the Chaos Faction. They tend to distort or destroy the existing rules and their offensive power tend to be extremely powerful.


    The rule of gue is basically a destruction of the rule of Health, the rules which implements control over the Elements is a destruction of the natural cycle of Elements and the rules of Undead is the destruction of the rule of Life and Death. Elisa¡¯s The Marauder is even more so, breaking the concept of ¡®existence and possession¡¯. It is normal for it to appear on Demons and Undead. However, for it to appear on Elisa who serves as a Law Enforcer, it is hard to tell whether it is a good thing.


    ¡°However, I feel that this rule is very powerful, it is a little simr with Ah Dang. As long as it is power thatplements it and the physical body is able to take it, it is able to steal it. As long as the user umtes to a certain level, it is definitely a very powerful source of power. However, if the user were to steal randomly as he wishes, causing his attribute of his power to be scattered, it might not be a good thing too.¡±


    Thus, I requested Elisa to not use this power casually. She agreed immediately but somehow, I felt that something was amiss.


    Rank Advancement makes the recovery of the body hastens significantly. The 2nd day after she awakes, she requested to remain to the team. Looking at the terrifying pile of work and official letters sent by Sulfur Mountain City, I did a few basic examinations on her and after confirming that her health is good to an outrageous point, I approved of her return.


    Just like previous days, she served as my assistant and head of intelligence coldly and efficiently, but...


    ¡°Totally no change at all, that is what that is wrong!! That calm look makes one feel like she is scheming something.¡± Maybe it is that I have been tricked so many times that I have be paranoid, but there is basis for my guess.


    Soul Imprint is the crystallization of a person¡¯s past experiences and strength. It affects not only the one¡¯s strength, it will also imperceptibly affect one¡¯s personality. When Adam attained his infallible Indestructible Phoenix, he became more stubborn and strong. My Mark of Justice allows me deal with things rationally in matters rting to thew, Margaret¡¯s Corridor of Time allows her to roam in history, bing an onlooker of history and reality and not a participant while Xueti¡¯s Steel Heart is an obvious negative demonstration...


    Furthermore, this is for the milder Order Faction. The changes should be much greater for the Chaos Faction after forging their Soul Imprint. I expected changes to ur in Elisa and changes should happen, but the change has still yet to appear. It feels like a heavy rock hanging in midair, there is bound to be a moment when it falls. However, it persistently remains up there, making one feel uneasy.


    But very quickly, I didn¡¯t have the attention to bother about it anymore. The auction is just ahead and a savage war, from the moment when Eternal Night Scepter was brought into this city a month ago, was destined to happen.

 Chapter 55

    <h4>Chapter 55: Elf</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    The City of tinum which has a rich history, in this instant, is no longer as prosperous as it was before.


    The far spreading inferno creeps across the streets full of history, swallowing everything it sets its sight on. In the eyes of the destroyers who have lost their sanity, the preciousness of these scars of history isn¡¯t worth a second look.


    In the sky, an army of Dragons and Demons were fighting. The eyes of the white-winged angel went red from all of the ughter. Just like butchers, they were killing of the ¡®evil¡¯ they see in front of them, even if they were still ordinary peasants the moment before.


    ¡°They are dead! They are all dead!!¡±


    ¡°The High Priestess Kajah has been assassinated! The Dark Elves have all gone mad! They are killing everyone in sight!¡±


    ¡°Why are there Gold Dragons and Angels in the underground world? Are the Order Gods getting rid of us? Or is the army from the Surface invading us?¡±


    ¡°The Beastman army has entered the city, they have started fighting with the Dark Elves!¡±


    There is not a trace of the peaceful Vance of yesterday. Countless beacons of war have been ignited and the thousand-year old ancient city is on the brink of destruction.


    To tell the story, I must start from the auction which is bound to end in war.


    4 in the morning, the auction which was supposed to be conducted in the tinum Chapel has changed its location at thest moment.


    No other reason, the Chapel which has a capacity of 10000 people was too small for the number of people attending the auction this time. Due to the condition I listed in my contract that ¡®everyone is allowed to attend the auction¡¯, before 3 in the morning, the Chapel where the auction is supposed to held at 12 is already overcrowded. Thus, there was no choice but to change the location of the auction.


    Considering that the new location for the auction should be wide, they chose the location which the auction house normally used. There is arge basin there where the edges cannot be seen from the center, it is definitely wide enough.


    It is impossible for the auction to end peacefully. Since the Alliance Conference has ended, the restrictive rule of not allowing fights to ur in the period of the Conference has been annulled. Vance is a neutral zone that restricts fighting? I¡¯m sorry, but if it wasn¡¯t for the bnce in power and that the powerful factions are wary of each other, this city is a natural location where others would fight for.


    In reality, everyone knows that no matter who manages to win the auction for the God Equipment, it would be snatched on the spot. Without power and influence that is able to suppress everyone, they are definitely unable to take it away.


    However, humans are born greedy and everyone still believe in luck somehow.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t all the novels about the legendary knights all written in such a way? Perhaps, during the fight for the God Equipment, it might just fall in front of me. Afterwards, I might be able to decipher its secret and not longter, ascend as the next Undead Emperor of Xiluo Empire, marry a beautiful and rich wife and walking to the pinnacle of life. Just the thought of it makes one agitated.¡± This kind of thought is whirling around everyone¡¯s mind. Those are quite a few who, thinking they are strong enough and blessed with good luck, couldn¡¯t resist the temptation of trying their luck to earn a bargain on the spot.


    It is said that when the auction begun that day, the entire ¡®field¡¯ has been blocked to not even allow water to pass through. The few items in front may be all rare treasures, but no one paid them any heed. In fact, under the threatening gaze of tens of thousands of experts, no one dared to bid for them, causing them to be passed immediately.


    Why would I say that it is said? Stepping into a hole that I dug myself would seriously be foolish. Not only did I not go, I even strictly ordered all of my subordinates to not go to the auction. At the same time, I heightened the wariness around the base and activated everything that could improve our defenses. Everyone was equipped in their armor, ready for battle anytime.


    Why? I am thinking too much? Actually, it isn¡¯t excessive at all. Under normal circumstances, there should be only an owner in each city. Only this way will the citizens and army know where they belong to. However, in this city, there is at least 4 cores.


    It might be a multiracial city but different form Sulfur Mountain City, the different races aren¡¯t governed under the samews and governance to promote mutual trust and co-existence. In this city, Dark Elves are Dark Elves, Beastmen are Beastmen and Humans are Humans. Their habits and even the districts they live in are totally different. Naturally, the Autarchs govern their own districts. If one were to walk to other district at night and they were killed or robbed, in the eyes of others, this is perfectly natural, the person who deserved it.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t right, isn¡¯t right at all.¡± This excessive segregation made the idea of a multiracial society pointless. On the contrary, due to the rumors that were blown big that promotes discrimination and misunderstanding, the fracture between different races just keeps getting deeper.


    When I first arrived at this city, I realized that there was something amiss with the situation. A legendary ancient city with ten thousand years of history may sound amazing, but if they had lived separated like that with friction constantly urring among different groups, wouldn¡¯t that also mean an umtion of ten thousand years of resentment?


    The countless infighting and even destruction of this city throughout history has ascertain my guesses. The structure of this city has doomed it into a cycle of ¡®umting resentment¡¯, ¡®venting of resentment¡¯ and ¡®rebuild¡¯. Right now, when all 4 Autarchs are gathered here, the debate and even fighting over the interests of their races in the Alliance have caused sufficient resentment to build up. What is left is just an igniter.


    And I just had to deliver the Eternal Night Scepter at this moment.


    Alright, I admit that it was a suicidal move, but that there would be such circumstances under the image of a beautiful and harmonious city.


    If the Scepter is the reason for the fighting, then when the ¡®Observer¡¯ agents who brought back the igniter, the reason for the war, when the war finally breaks out, I felt even more helpless.


    ¡°Just after the auction is concluded, the fool that paid 10000 gold coin was split into 13 pieces and everyone broke out in a fight. At that moment, a Fire Angel threw his sword, but it was deflected by a Tauren Master Smither. The zing God Sword ended up being rebounded towards a Dark Elf Matriarch, frightening her?


    ¡°The Matriarch is dead? But that shouldn¡¯t be enough for the situation to escte to such a level that they would go all out in a war? Isn¡¯t Kajah overdoing it like that?¡±


    ¡°No, the one who died isn¡¯t Luciana.Syfan from Morsblight City. She immediately tried to pull a person beside her to serve as a barrier block the attack. Back then, it waspletely chaotic and the Matriarchs are all Priestess who have slow reaction. In the end, she really seeded.


    ¡°Pu, which fellow is so unlucky?¡±


    TL: The sound of bursting intoughter


    ¡°High Priestess Kajah. Her heart was pierced directly, she died to the point she cannot be even more dead. She returned to Lorci¡¯s embrace in an instant.¡±


    If I were to take off my mask now, it would definitely be a ? expression. The Supreme Leader of the Dark Elves in name, Lorci¡¯s secret child, died just like that? In such a ridiculous manner?


    ¡°Impossible, I have already warned her not to go to the location...¡± My shocked mutterings stopped halfway. I did warn my ¡®allies¡¯ that there would be danger there. But if they were to listen to my advice, that would be unbelievable as well.


    ¡°How did this happen? Is her luck really that bad? Is she destined to die as a foot soldier?¡±


    My mutterings to myself was treated as a question by the Elf spy in front of me. She nods her head.


    ¡°Lord, in order to ensure her safety in the chaos, Kajah brought out the SemiGod weapon that Lorci passed down, the Nine Serpent Spear. However, the God of Misfortune never turns the other way just because of a person¡¯s social standing. The powerful High Priestess would actually meet with such misfortune. Afterward, there were people who recognized that spear and quite a few people started to fight over it. There were a lot who died because of it as well.¡±


    I was dumbfounded. This is simply too effective.


    I expected that there would be chaos, but Kajah¡¯s sudden death caused the chaos to plunge into arge-scale war.


    The sudden death of an Underground Autarch, especially the secret child of Lorci who the Dark Elves worship. Following the traditions of the Dark Elves and Lorci¡¯s past history, if there weren¡¯t sufficient blood tributes, Lorci¡¯s rage would hit everyone and the Dark Elf Matriarchs don¡¯t have the kindness in them to wait for God¡¯s Punishment just not to sacrifice innocent people.


    Thinking about this, I shivered. The Dark Elves are one of the main races of the underground world. There is at least a few hundred thousand in Vance. What if all of them were to go mad at once? Probably after the catastrophe, there isn¡¯t even a need for Vance to be rebuilt.


    ¡°Lord?¡±


    ¡°Un? Is there something else?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s like this. Luciana.Syfan has caused Kajah¡¯s death, so Lorci sent a curse to change all Syfan Priestesses into spiders. The First Family of Morsblight City is wavering, empty on both inside and on the surface...


    ¡°You are saying Victoria, Victora.Syfan?¡±


    At this moment, Elisa walks out from my back.


    ¡°Yes, Master. Victoria has sent me a request. Right now, she is probably the only Lorci Priestess in the Syfan Family in Morsblight that is still in Elf-form. Following the traditions of Dark Elf and the rules of Lorci, she should be able to be promoted to a Matriarch straight. Thus, Victoria hopes to gain Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s support in helping her gain control of Morsblight City. Of course, she made a lot of promises in exchange and these promises are quite attractive. What do you think, master?


    Based on what Elisa said, as long as we are willing to send a fixed amount of fighting power to support her, then we would be able to obtain a city that is close to Sulfur Mountain City. I have no reasons to reject her request, but instead, I fell into deep thoughts. I am really starting to hesitate.


    What that made me hesitate isn¡¯t the matter in front of me.


    ¡°Kajah is dead and Victoria is starting to ascend up the ranks. Is this the trace of ¡®history¡¯? Can the rise of the Dark Elf Queen unpreventable? This is the supposed flow of history? It can¡¯t be that the wings of the butterfly are going to be corrected by history again? Are my efforts destined to end in vain?


    If everything ends up back to its starting point, then what is the use of my ns. In an instant, a sense of weariness starts to arise from the depths of my soul, making one feel despair, not wanting to do anything at all.


    ¡°Lord?¡±


    But, a warm and caring voice brings back my sanity.


    It was rare for Elisa to show such a worried expression. After being together for so long, it is her first time seeing her overly energetic master showing such a tired look.


    ¡°That was dangerous, too dangerous. Undead depend on their lingering will to remain in this world. My greatest will is to change that darned fate. That kind of state is really too dangerous. It would be ridiculous if I end up going to heaven just like that.¡± I shake my head and dispel my other thoughts. I know that I identally pushed myself to a corner again.


    ¡°I am just overthinking it. History has already been changed. No matter what, Victoria has startedte and her personality is much milder then how it was in ¡®history¡¯. The personality would determine her future fate. She is destined to be different from the Victoria in ¡®history¡¯. Furthermore, even with my support, it is impossible for her to gain control of the entire Dark Elf Tribe within 10 years. Maybe, it is just that Victoria is fated to not live an ordinary life. If so, then having an Elf Matriarch that is close to Sulfur Mountain City and perhaps, a Dark Elf Queen who would make peace with the surface, no matter how I look at it, is a good thing.¡±


    Thus, I nod my head in agreement.


    ¡°ept her request. Send a few people to take over the remaining power of the Syfan Matriarch. Try your best to take over, but retreat immediately if you all meet with danger. After this incident, send a group to help her gain authority in Morsblight City. Right, give this note to her.¡±


    Thus, I quickly wrote a letter and passed it to Elisa.


    It isn¡¯t some incredible n within a pouch but a double insurance again a certain someone.


    Actually, there are somethings which isn¡¯t easy to say and not up to me to say. But, if I don¡¯t say it, I will be really worried about your future. You were turned into a female due to God¡¯s Punishment. As a Priestess, you should know that a God¡¯s Punishment represents the will of the God. If the offender were to dispel the punishment, then that would be like pping on the face of the true God. You should know that Lorci was never a forgiving Goddess. There¡¯s no benefit in saying more, so take care.?


    Everyone knows how much Victoria wanted the Belt of Edwina. Even if Victoria seems like a nice person, but the horrid reputation of Dark Elves and Lorci¡¯s Priestesses made them wary of her, even if she is still underage.


    So, for the sake of Krose¡¯s safety, I better prepare an insurance. This way, for fear of enraging a true God, Victoria should try to suppress the desire in her heart.


    Of course, things are never coincidental that everything I want woulde. The message on the note may be all true but when putting all of it together, it makes a big lie.


    God¡¯s Punishment is indeed rted to the reputation of a true God. If you were to dispel a God¡¯s Punishment of a God punishing an evil sinner, you might just end up getting struck by lightning the next moment. However, Lorci¡¯s situation is quite unique. Other true Gods are careful with the God¡¯s Punishment, for fear it might hurt the innocent.


    However, Lorci often showcases her might in Dark Elf Cities and there are multiple times when she sent an incarnation down. She also imposes God¡¯s Punishment quite frequently that it is just like a thunderstorm in summer. Ites randomly and after the rain would be sunshine. When everything goes back to normal, a person receiving God¡¯s Punishment can no longer be considered a news.


    Given Lorci¡¯s ¡®busy¡¯ schedule in leaving her traces, she might have long forgotten how many people she has punished. Personally, I think that even if the God¡¯s Punishment were to be dispel, she might not even notice. Un, so saying that dispelling God¡¯s Punishment will bring about her anger is true, Lorci not being a forgiving Goddess is also the truth. It is just that I forgot to add in a line saying that ¡®The situation with Lorci is unique¡¯, so it turned into a big fat lie. This is a linguistic technique that I learnt from those scammer in the underground prison.


    I don¡¯t think that Victoria is able to see past my lies. For a Priestess, the will of the God is just like the sky. It may seem not far away, being able to see it just by looking up. However, it is something that cannot be approached. She knows the significance of the God¡¯s Punishment and what would happen if it is dispelled. There is not a single book of the teachings of a true God that would teach you how to dispel God¡¯s Punishment or what would you meet with after dispelling it. After all, it would be sphemy.


    Fine, I am also doing it for her good. For her who is intending to return to the Dark Elves to spend ¡®his¡¯ days, it is definitely a good thing. After all, male Dark Elves are no different from ves in their society.


    Hey eh, in order for them not to end up killing each other, for there to be a good ending, it has been tough on me, their superior. I think I should present myself with a que ¡ª¡¯The 10 Good Boss Who Moves Sulfur Mountain City¡±.


    Just awhile after Elisa¡¯s departure, a voice of a delighted female and the depressed sigh of males could be heard from the windows. After that, I took the chance to fix the content of the lecture next week ¡ª Discussing the importance of normal sexual orientation to the development of the society.


    When the world outside is plunged into chaos, I was busy on my office desk. Countless reports were passed to be through Elisa, waiting for me to make the final judgement.


    ¡°The Dark Elves who have lost the daughter of Lorci have gone mad. They are urgently trying to obtain more souls and fresh blood so that they can avoid God¡¯s Punishment, so it is impossible for to remember our alliance. Also, the Dragon Queen and Lion King who has been savagely attacked by us won¡¯t let us get away scot-free. The chaos will soon spread throughout the entire city so get everyone to prepare. For the sake of our position as an Autarch for the next decade, not only must we win this war, we must do it beautifully.¡±


    When I finally made my judgement on the oing war, I nodded my head towards the ¡®secret weapons¡¯ in the room, so that they can prepare themselves.


    Just when I was about to get prepared myself, I suddenly recall a treasure that I have neglected before.


    ¡°Right, what about Kajah¡¯s corpse?¡±


    Yes, that treasure is Kajah¡¯s corpse. To a Necromancer, the corpse of an expert is an excellent material. Furthermore, the physical body of Kajah, the daughter of Lorci, is flowing the blood of a true God, making it a treasure among treasures. If I can obtain this Half-God body (different from the SemiGod realm), I have the confidence of creating an Undead Lord that wouldn¡¯t lose to any of the other original sins.


    However, the ¡®Observer¡¯ spy shakes his head.


    ¡°The corpse has disappeared. The Dark Elves are searching frantically, but there were totally no traces of it. It is as though the corpse has walked out by itself.¡±


    ¡°A corpse can walk? Bullshit! Wait... It could be possible.¡±


    Isn¡¯t what I want to do now making a corpse move by itself? There is more than one Undead Lord in Vance now. If it is the other lower ranked Undead Senators, they would only waste this hard-toe-by Half-God body. However, there is an Undead Senator who hasn¡¯t appear recently. Furthermore, she has been wanting to attain a perfect physical body of an Elf.


    ¡°The 3rd Senator, Queen of Banshees Harloys. This is going to be troublesome.


    The cing of the Undead Senators is dependent on their strength. However, the top 3 is on a whole new level than the others. There are even people who say that the rest are just there to fill up the numbers, so that the first 3 won¡¯t be so striking.


    Among Emperor Yongye¡¯s subordinate, Gria is able to rise to the position of the 4th Senator, but it is impossible for her to advance any further. That is because those above her in the rankings are ¡®colleagues¡¯, their rtionship with the Emperor is a ¡®partnership¡¯ rather than subordinates. Just this point itself is enough to prove the how extraordinary these 3 Undead Lords are. Also, from their history, they are all seniors of the Emperor.


    Of them, the 3rd Senator Queen of Banshees Harloys is once the princess of an ancient Elf Kingdom. It is not the Elf Kingdoms that are fractured into small countries by the descendants but one during the Era of Elves, the ruler of the Supreme Kingdom that rules over 70% of the continent by itself. She is also known as ¡®The Omniscient One¡¯, a praise directed towards her vast understanding in the field of magic.


    Also, the only reason why she is ranked 3rd is because the physical body she was using before was destroyed in the Undead Cmity before and she wasn¡¯t willing to find an ordinary body to rece it, so she could only make do with the 3rd. If she were to really get hold of Kajah¡¯s body, the rankings would probably have to be reshuffled.


    ¡°Yes, half a month ago, there were quite a few people who remarked that they have heard the epic bad by the Ancient Elves, ¡®The Sunset of the Gods¡¯, but they couldn¡¯t find the singer. That is her trademark, so people started guessing that the Queen of Banshees is here. That¡¯s why I said that despite 6 Undead Senators have arrived, only 5 have appeared.


    ¡°Yeah, if it is her then it would really be troublesome. She is not easy to deal with.¡± My mumblings were acknowledged by the Elf ¡®Observer¡¯ in front of me.


    ¡°Yeah, she is indeed known to be smart, wise, strong, charming...¡±


    ¡°Wait! How do you know the song is called ¡®Sunset of the Gods¡¯, that should be thenguage of Ancient Elf! There isn¡¯t more than a handful in the entire Eich that can understand it!!¡±


    My query made the Elf spy in front of me smile. She slowly takes off the mask on her face.


    It is a very familiar face, so familiar that I just seen it 2 days ago...


    The white skin of the High Elves started turning ck and the red hair started changing into a silver-white color unique to Dark Elves. The face that belongs to Kajah seems even more mature and confident than previously. The slightly raised eyebrows on her face gives a feeling of Elf arrogance and pride, just like a Queen who was born with everything, the right to look down on everything else on birth.


    ¡°Yo, long time no see, little Yongye. How have you been?¡±


    Okay, I¡¯m gonna just leave all my writing below.


    So to rify some content (they were written previously but just to jot memory)


    There are Order Dragons and Chaos Dragon


    The Chaos Dragons are the Elemental Dragon while the Order Dragons are the Metal Dragons. Currently, they don¡¯t really belong to any faction due to a peace pact.


    The Senators ranking are determined by their strength. The top 3 are so strong that Emperor Yongye can only be of equal standing to them (asrades) rather than subordinate


    Incredible n within a pouch -> Reference to Liu Bang, which his strategist gave him 3 pouches which he is supposed to open in times of crisis and it would help tide him over it.


    After the rain would be sunshine -> Not very explicit, but it refers to Lorci¡¯s mood.


    And wooo, one of my favorite character in the novel just appeared.

 Chapter 56

    <h4>Chapter 56: Capture</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Looking at the Elf in front of me, I understood what was happening in an instant. Why did Spider Queen Lorci¡¯s High Priestess suddenly die of an ident and why Harloys, despite already being in Vance, didn¡¯t appear.


    Looks like she has set her eyes on Kajah¡¯s physical body from the very start. There is also a 99% chance that Kajah¡¯s supposed idental death was caused by her.


    ¡°Hey, not even greeting your teacher when meeting her?¡±


    Yes, the person in front of me, in a certain sense, is my teacher in Necromancy and Ice Magic. Of course, she had a motive in imparting her teachings to me.


    The Senators are actually the warlords of the Xiluo Empire. Gria of the Royalty Faction might have taken the 4th ce, but no one believes that there is only a step away between the 3rd Senator and the 4th Senator.


    The 2nd Senator Feyman is a rather ancient King of Lich. There are innumerable Liches under him and the Council of Dark Nights that were formed by the Liches under his control is the leading faction of the Xiluo Empire. In ¡®history¡¯, he led the Undead Lich Alliance to open the gates to the Dimensions of Death, causing an Undead Cmity that swept the entire continent.


    The 1st Senator, Ancient Bone Dragon Gricasio was once a mount for the God of Holy Light and his most trusted subordinate. Now, his individual strength cannot be calcted because he is toozy to move and that there is no one that is able to pressure him to move. However, from the fact that Feyman chose to obediently remain as number 2, he is definitely an existence above the other Senators.


    The 3rd Senator¡¯s circumstances are unique. There is indeed a group of Banshees under her, giving her the title of the Queen of Banshees. But, she doesn¡¯t really interfere in their affairs and she isn¡¯t interested in authority either. Her only goal is vengeance.


    Yes, vengeance, just like me.


    As it is too far back, other than the academics who specialize in the history of Ancient Elves, there¡¯s probably no one who is sure how the Ancient Elf Kingdom which dominated the continent was destroyed. However, looking from how the Elf Gods were destroyed and the Order Gods rose in power, there is probably a lot to do with the Order Gods.


    Back then, the me who was wholeheartedly aiming to exact vengeance on the Church of Holy Light got along well with her instantly. Not only did she impart me vast knowledge on magic, she is also one of the founders for the Yongye Alliance Army. At least, without a veteran like her linking the bridges, the me who ¡®just came out¡¯ probably won¡¯t be able to gather so many thousand-year-old monsters, and I probably won¡¯t be able to keep them in check either.


    Back then, the first 3 Senators were only in a partnership with me (There are other 4 unlucky fellows too who died in the infighting) and if it wasn¡¯t for the system which allowed me to break through to be the only SemiGod Undead Emperor in recent times, I would probably just be a puppet Emperor.


    High-tier Undead are a stubborn life-form which is driven by their lingering will. My will is to change fate while Harloys only wish is revenge against the Order Gods.


    Hundred years ago, she almost seeded in her aim. If all of the living were to die and an Empire of Undead were to be established, the cycle of reincarnation of Eich continent would be broken and that would be the best revenge against the Order Gods. Perhaps, there may be even a few Guardian Gods who will fall because of this. Back then, she was nagging beside me on how to destroy the churches of the Gods, how to sully the reputation of the Holy Light Church, how to convert the living into Undead and how to make true Gods lose their faith...


    Fine, I learnt from Death God Ayer afterwards that if I really proceeded on with it, the Gods will risk everything to descend to the mortal world to destroy me. There is a 100% possibility then for my physical body to be reduced to ashes and my soul destroyedpletely.


    Perhaps, the one who took the destruction of the Yongye Army the worst is her. After all, this is the first time she came so close to sess in thousands of years.


    I don¡¯t think that she is able to change. If she changed, she would have long ascended to the heavens and be reincarnated.


    I don¡¯t think that the little tricks I yed would be able to fool her. This time, since she came to find me, there are only 2 possibilities. One is to settle the scores with me while the other is to force me to continue our rebellion... Based on my understanding of her, there is a 90% possibility that she would make use of the difference in our strength to beat me to the brink of death. Then, she will take control of me and make use of my name to reorganize the entire Xiluo Empire.


    And I would be unable to ept both of these scenarios.


    Thus, my first reaction upon seeing her isn¡¯t drinking tea and chatting like when old friends meet once again but instead...


    ¡°Adam,e out to beat this one, this one is a little tough!!¡±


    Fine, I really shouted it out loud.


    I have never been so d. Yesterday, finding the opponents too strong and that our fighting prowess wasn¡¯t sufficient, I called for support from Sulfur Mountain City, asking Adam to sneak in to serve as my hidden ace. I am even more d that he only arrived this morning, making it impossible for the news to leak.


    Listening to my call, the smiling Harloys suddenly stuns. Then, she disappears all of the sudden. A ck metal longsword drives into the space where she was at earlier. If she was just slower by a split second, she would have ended up stabbed.


    The secret weapon Adam takes off his mantle. Facing the escaping Queen of Banshees, his yfulness on his face is reced with his rare serious look. After closing his eyes for a few second, he suddenly points his sword downwards and taps lightly on the floor.


    ¡°Kacha.¡±


    The entire space seems to be like a spider web-like shattered ss. When the space was cut by the will of an expert, vaguely, gaps in space starts to open. The next moment, a shout of agony could be heard from the corridor.


    ¡°Ah!! Damn it!¡±


    Without any hesitation, ¡®bam¡¯, Adam rushes through the wall and swings his sword towards where he heard the voice.


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Judgement! Incantation of Law: Restriction of Freedom!¡±


    As I expected, Harloys who justmitted murder is instantly shrouded by red light. Then, the effect on the restriction of movement takes effect.


    Due to the great disparity in power, the restriction can only be sustained for a short instant. But, an instant is enough... I know that someone won¡¯t waste the opportunity I created.


    ¡°AHHHHH!¡±


    A sh of de and the right arm of the Dark Elf flies away along with blood and flesh. However, the long sword was stopped by the body which turned metallic.


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!¡±


    The piercing scream continues but this time, it is an attack by the Banshee.


    The sound wave that brought along a dark mana with it, The Scream of Siren, which is known as the scariest death magic, didn¡¯t have any effect on us.


    I am already dead and the indestructible Adam wouldn¡¯t fear the calling of death by the Queen of Banshees.


    He charges straight at the scream filled with negative energy, and as though ignoring his opponent, he closes his eyes and started to recite some words.


    ¡°A century passes in an instant, nothing is constant. Companions depart, only I continue existing. The cycle of the withering and blooming of flowers repeat every year, I only pray that I die in the midst of a bed flowers, remembering the past in a semi-drunk state. The Severance of the River of Time.¡±


    After obtaining the old eastern philosophy culture of a foreign world from me and a local book on philosophy and secrets of space-time from Margaret, in a span of hundred years of refining, Adam¡¯s techniques have started to be one with his life, bing a kind of philosophy of himself. Perhaps, this is the basis of how he managed to enter the SemiGod realm with the body of a mortal.


    Right now, as the SemiGod Warrior recites the words to hypnotize himself, The Severance of the River of Timements the seemingly slow flow of time broke the boundaries of space and time, making the sh seem slow yet fast. No, speed is already meaningless for this sh.


    Just like how no one is able to avoid the aging from the flow of time, everyone is equal under this sword, there is no way to avoid it. In fact, under this dreamlike sword, they would instinctively stare at this sword, being unable to avert their eyes and get shed obediently.


    A normal longsword that could be bought with half a gold coin brought about a mysterious pink glow and elegance. It seems like the dazzling smile of a drunk beauty among peach blossoms, attracting everyone¡¯s attention.


    ¡°So beautiful... No!!¡±


    Even if it is the Queen of Banshees who have survived countless fall and rise of eras, she still fell for the technique in that instant. However, in the next moment, she woke up.


    ¡°What is so beautiful about that broken sword.¡±


    However, when Harloys¡¯s attention was attracted in that instant, the conclusion was already decided.


    The longsword cuts through the waist. The Queen of Banshee Harloys couldn¡¯t resist the sh whatsoever. The newly revived physical body was cut into two and a pale-white soul starts to leave the body, intending to escape.


    ¡°Incantation of Law: Restriction of Freedom.¡±


    Alright, the perpetrator, without doubt, is the soul of the Queen of Banshees. Thus, she is forced back into that iplete body. Then, her heart, which already has a hole on it, is pierced once again by a longsword. Kajah¡¯s upper body is fixed onto the ground.


    At this moment, I heaved a sigh of relief. If it wasn¡¯t for Adam secretly sneaking into the camp, I might have been dead by now. Fortunately, she just obtained the physical body and hasn¡¯t synchronized it perfectly. In this state, she is even weaker than her soul state. Otherwise, even Adam who is an entire rank stronger than her would be unable to take her down easily.


    ¡°You... You actually dare to treat me like that. You actually dare to kill your mentor!¡±


    ¡°Firstly, you aren¡¯t dead. Can a thousand-year-old disaster die? I¡¯m sorry, it should be ten thousand. Or is it hundred thousand? Million? Auntie, I identally forgot your real age. As for killing mentors, isn¡¯t it the tradition of our bloodline?¡±


    Harloys is speechless in an instant. Back then, she was telling me gleefully about some past events about how she managed to dupe the Great Saint Cecily¡¯s trust and after obtaining the magic knowledge from the other party, she killed her mentor to obtain her flesh.


    rms are ringing and people would being soon. Kajah¡¯s corpse being here won¡¯t be easy to exin.


    I whip out a small bottle. It is amonly seen tool in Necromancy, specially used to trap soul body.


    ¡°Soul Sealing Bottle!? You, you can¡¯t treat me like that. I am the Queen of Banshees, not an inferior dumb wraith!¡±


    ¡°Of course I can. Come, go in obediently.¡±


    Looking at the struggling soul body in the bottle, I am so happy that I felt like singing. This time, I really got a big bargain.


    From the way she operates, she probably found me a long time ago but she continued to investigate secretly to make sure that there are no powerful fighters around me before moving out personally. After attaining her ideal body, she gotcent and thought that she could get rid of my steadily, thus she appeared in her weakest state. Not only did she not do a secret assault as she would usually, she even insulted me directly.¡±


    If she thought that her power wasn¡¯t sufficient and took over the body of the people around me to give me a sudden blow, that would be truly be a disaster.


    ¡°Right, Rnd, I think I am in love again. Who is that girl? She is so gentle and she has such a sweet smile.¡± Adam¡¯s sudden words scared me out of my wits.


    I shake my head, already used to it. Adam¡¯s crushese several times every spring and he has been teased by us for having an animal¡¯s mating season.


    But, if he were to really pursue it seriously, most of it ends in tragedy. No, ignoring the scenario where it ends in a farce, if the other party ends up really is interested in him and wants to date for real, this fellow would back away thest moment.


    ¡°Don¡¯t harm thedy. Which one?¡± However, there has been too much vexing matters recently, so looking at Adam ending in tragedy could help change my mood.


    Following Adam¡¯s finger, I looked out of the window. Then, I smiled. Should I say as expected of Adam? His choice in people is really excellent!


    ¡°As expected of our City Lord! That is the top 2 beauties under mymand. Rest easy, we have been brothers for many years. No matter which one you like, I will support you.¡±


    ¡°Really? You aren¡¯t having a fever? You actually aren¡¯t trying to trick me?¡± Adam¡¯s happiness made me harden my will to continue luring him into the trap.


    ¡°Un, rest easy. Have I ever tricked you?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t even remember the exact times now... You really aren¡¯t tricking me this time? It can¡¯t be that they have a boyfriend? They won¡¯t be like that lesbian Lily you introducedst time, right?¡±


    TL: The Lily used here is the flower.


    Ignoring that look of deep resentment, I was surprised that a single-cell organism would have such a good memory. After a light cough, I honestly spoke the truth.


    ¡°They don¡¯t have boyfriends and their sexuality are normal. Rx, I am not lying.¡±


    ¡°Un? You didn¡¯t lie at all!! Then, thanks!!¡± The dumb fellow¡¯s intuition has been quite sharp. However, towards a truthful lie, it is useless.


    Alright, an hourter, I hear the long-awaited shout of agony ¡®I will never believe in love again!¡±. I feel my mood lifting.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t lie. Victoria and Krose are really the most beautiful people under mymand. Besides, they definitely aren¡¯t engaged and they aren¡¯t gay.


    Undead Emperor -> SemiGod


    Undead Lord -> Myth

 Chapter 57

    <h4>Chapter 57: A Condition</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    In Vance City, beacons of war were lit up all around the city. For the God Equipment, as well as for great power and for absolute authority, the experts who were usually noble and reticent were all involved in the chaos.


    Kings, gentlemen, schrs, saints, and even powerful hermits; in this moment, they are all ughtering one another as though a bunch of mad dogs.


    On the other side, due to the assassination of Lorci¡¯s High Priestess, more than twenty Matriarchs have brought their army and started to collect fresh blood. However, the most confusing of them all is the disappearance of the one who is at the core of the problems, the Beastman Sovereign Shou.


    I don¡¯t think that Nuya.Shou who has been with the Scepter for extended periods of time can resist its temptation. After a month with it, his soul already belongs to the Scepter. Not to mention, the whispers of the Devils linger in his ears. There is no way he could let go of it, and the mastermind controlling him from the back wouldn¡¯t allow it anyway. At most, he could only be viewing the situation by the side, waiting for an opportune moment to strike and win himself the greatest benefits.


    At this moment, due to the unexpected situation of the Queen of Banshees killing Kajah, the situation is developing out of my control.


    The deaths of those fellows fighting over the Scepter aren¡¯t pitiable. After all, they themselves allowed greed to blind them. Since they wanted to obtain the God Equipment, they should have been mentally prepared for the possibility of death... Besides, there is too many powerful figures and experts vying over the Scepter. With Saints all over the ce, I couldn¡¯t interfere even if I wanted to.


    But I can¡¯t ignore the Dark Elves.


    Victoria came back in a while right after she went out. There is no need to collect the troops left behind by the Syfan Matriarch. All of the Warriors and those following the party have been torn apart by the other Matriarch to serve as fresh blood tributes to appease Lorci¡¯s anger.


    Even so, they still found the tributes insufficient.


    Chaos is something contagious and resentment is something inheritable. The Dark Elves will choose to sacrifice those of the other tribes first to appease Lorci¡¯s anger with bloodshed. When they really begin on their ughter, the hatred that has been umting in Vance for many years will explode all at once. The ending will surely be a genocide and a destructive riot.


    In my hands, there is indeed an ace that is able to suppress them...


    [God Equipment: Origin of Codex]


    [Faith In Law: 557/99999 (The belief from 1000 people in a week allows it to increase by 1 point every week, and the cap is 50 points every month. When the points reach the maximum, it will automatically replicate a SemiGod Equipment, Scattered Page of Codex.]


    [Effect 1: The Land of Law (Passive): In the heart of the city where it is ced, the entire city will be a Land of Law and in the area where its effect is active, Enforcers can wield the Power of Law.]


    [Effect 2: Great Judgement (Active): Requires 100 Faith in Law to activate, and consumes 1 point every minute after activation. After the user activates it, everyone in the city will be cast with a Legend-rank level Judgement Spell and be judged on their actions in thest 3 hours. If guilty, their freedom will be restricted and debuffs such as intangible cuffs and weapon seal will be inflicted on them. In the Great Judgement, the effects of the enforcer¡¯s Incantation of Law will be multiplied several folds and their power ranking will be increased by 1. (The requirements for usage: Thews in the city are in chaos, criminals are doing as they please and the city is on the verge of destruction)]


    [Effect 3: All is Equal in the Face of Law: Demarcate a zone and lower the rank and stats of people within the zone to be of the equal level as the user. Duration: 10 seconds. Requires 1 Faith in Law to activate.]


    [Effect 4: Sinners will be Judged (Active): Activate Great Judgement towards a single target, cleansing him of all his sins through the judgement. Requirement: The target must be willing to undergo judgement.]


    Seems very strong? But it still isn¡¯t insufficient. In Eich, God Equipment tend to have God Energy and God Soul embedded within. This codex may represent the origin of the Power of Law, but without the support of a God of Law, it is slightly inferior to other God Equipment. Of course, it is still much stronger than any other SemiGod Equipment.


    The rumors of Eternal Night Scepter have be quite outrageous. Other than the nonsense I made up, there is a rumor that says that the secret and fragmented soul of an Ancient Malevolent God is hidden within and Emperor Yongye is the only one to decipher it. Even worse, some say that the soul of Emperor Yongye is within and he will choose the most suitable person to be his sessor... Fine, I finally understand what it means for a rumor to be more convincing the more it spreads. In the face of greed, people will try to correct any logical ws in their mind.


    Now that Vance is on the brink of destruction, the conditions for ¡®Great Judgement¡¯ has been fulfilled. It seems like we can replicate the quick actions taken in Chrome City previously where the city was cleaned by over hundred temporary Legends during the Judgement.


    But I didn¡¯t want to do that.


    The situation may seem simr, but in actuality, it is entirely different. The Chrome City, which only has a few Legends, is different from Vance, which had over twenty Dark Elf Matriarchs and powerful apanying guards. If we were to try to suppress them coldly like we did back then in Chrome City, we might not win even if we had an additional 300 temporary Legends into our force. At the very least, half of our forces would be wiped in the battle. Besides, this is the dumbest course of action that we could take.


    Why? War is always born from politics. When considering whether to fight a war, we must remain practical and take interests into ount. It might feel good to lower our des on them, but if we were to kill over 20 Elf Matriarchs in one go, we would forge an irreconcble grudge with the underground Elves as well as Lorci. This trade which only brings hatred to us is really not worth doing.


    It may seem to be a dead knot, giving us only the choice of either watch the city being wiped clean or to suppress them with bloodshed. However, it is my specialty to turn a cruel war into a farce, reversing tragedy withedy.


    ¡°Stop struggling and enter!!¡±


    ¡°No, I am the noblest Queen of Banshees, not your pet! Keep away that milky-white substance from me! You vile disciple, **, sex fiend, old bachelor...¡±


    ¡°Hehe, continue scolding as you please, your mouth is the only thing formidable about you now anyway. Wait until you enter, I will make sure that you feel so much pleasure that you feel like dying from it! Wahahahahhaa!!¡±


    ¡°Noooooooooo!! Pervert, I am your mentor!¡±


    ¡°It is because you are my mentor that there is joy in doing so! Wahaha, resistance is futile. This is my territory, no one will save you no matter how you scream. Just surrender and serve me.¡±


    ¡°MASTER!!¡± Hasty footsteps could be heard from the back. Then, the door opens and the anxious Elisa lifts the broom she is holding behind her back and smacks it violently onto my brain, pulling my rationality back from my excitement.


    Only viewing the situation within the room did the panting Elisa calm down.


    The lewd scene that she was expecting didn¡¯t appear. She only saw a certain someone holding two test tubes and mixing the contents of the two together, seemingly trying to experiment with it. At this moment, she looks innocently at me.


    ¡°Why did you hit me?¡±


    ¡°That... I¡¯m sorry, Master. It is just that I happen to overhear your conversation and I thought that you were...¡±


    ¡°I am doing serious work now. Wait, I had cast an Istion Magic here, how did you hear it? It can¡¯t be that you installed a hearing device here!!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, let¡¯s not pursue a woman¡¯s secret.¡± The youngdy blinks her eyes in embarrassment and the mischievous look she has on her face with her tongue stuck out is extremely cute. Being able to find her true self after breaking through into the Legend realm is a good thing, but...


    ¡°Secret you head! Don¡¯t act cute at a time like this!¡± At this moment, Elisa suddenly seems to be attracted to the butterfly knot on her tail and lowers her head, trying her best to feign ignorance. I started to reflect on whether I am too forgiving towards these juniors.


    However, thinking about what we were going to face and the heavy responsibility that is about to be entrusted to her, I suddenly lost my interest in pursuing the matter.


    ¡°Forget it. Your arrival is timely, there are some things that I want to brief you about first. After my n activates and everything is sessful, I¡¯m afraid that there won¡¯t be much time left for us to interact.¡±


    The inauspicious meaning of the words makes Elisa nervous.


    ¡°Master?¡±


    But before briefing her, I look towards the struggling Harloys in the bottle and hesitates for a brief moment. In a certain sense, my n will strike a fatal blow into the core of the Order Gods, so it should be aligned to her goals. If I could get her to help, the sess rate of the n would be increased significantly.


    Don¡¯t underestimate Harloys just because she was caught so easily. Actually, I think of her as the hardest to deal with of all the Undead Lords. Knowledge is power and wisdom. In the face of ¡®The Omniscient One¡¯ Harloys, who has gone through countless eras, Margaret and I weren¡¯t even qualified to address ourselves as apprentices before her.


    The reason why we were able to sessfully capture Harloys, 90% had to be attributed to her suicide tendency.


    If she wasn¡¯t toocent after obtaining the body with a God¡¯s Bloodline and immediately ran out to find me when the synchronization of her soul with her physical body wasn¡¯tpleted yet, causing her to not even possess a third of the power she had when she was at the peak of her strength; if Adam, one of the strongest Warriors in the world, didn¡¯t manage to catch her, a Mage who was helpless in closebat, by surprise; if not for my assistance in restricting her movement, it definitely won¡¯t be an easy task to get hold of her.


    To say the truth, Adam and I had good teamwork and we have long attained the level where 1 + 1 = 3. With Adam serving as the main fighter and my support, I have the confidence to make even an Avatar of a spellcaster ss God kneel and submit to us.


    The fact that I was able to catch Harloys made me so happy that I got engrossed into ying my part and spouted some indecent lines which caused Elisa toe barging in.


    ¡°Just give it a try. If it doesn¡¯t work, you can always silence her.¡±


    Thus, I started talking.


    ¡°All of this began with an agreement. That was back when I was still Emperor Yongye. By the River Styx, I made an agreement with Death God Ayer...¡±


    The n isn¡¯t very long orplicated, it took only ten minutes for me to finish my piece. However, Harloys stopped me in my tracks multiple times to plead me to strengthen the Anti-Eavesdropping Barrier and Anti-Spying Magic. After the end of my story, the Queen of Banshees in the bottle seemed to have malfunctioned and could only repeatedly mutter the same few words as though a psycho:


    ¡°I didn¡¯t hear anything, haha, nothing at all.¡±


    ¡°Hee hee, as expected of my disciple, really ying it big this time. Should I feel sentimental upon seeing my disciple being on the verge of surpassing me?¡±


    ¡°Wait, something is wrong. Why are you telling me this? Are you finding a reason to get rid of me? However, if this n seeds, it seems that my vengeance would also beplete and there would be no reason for me to live. Should I rejoice?¡±


    Elisa, after listening to the entire story solemnly, fell into silence.


    ¡°Master, to sacrifice so much, is it worth it?¡±


    ¡°Un, of course it is worth it. There won¡¯t be any rewards if we don¡¯t sacrifice something in return. If we don¡¯t change anything, all that awaits this world is destruction and cmity. Personally, I think that there is still a lot of things in this world worth living for.¡±


    Elisa lowers her head and became even more depressed.


    ¡°Selfish.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t deny it.¡±


    ¡°Bastard!¡±


    ¡°True, sometimes I do find that I¡¯m a bastard.¡±


    ¡°Pervert.¡±


    ¡°I would have to deny that. I don¡¯t have the conditions to be perverted. Just look at me, I am so poor that only bones remain...¡±


    However, the motion of Elisa raising her head stopped my words. Her widened eyes stare fixedly at me, but the cold face she puts on usually is reced with a wretched face full of tears, not a trace of her dignified appearance normally.


    Looking at the silent flow of tears, an ache in my chest makes me lower my head helplessly. Just like before, I carefully wiped the tears off the crybaby.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need an apology...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m really sorry.¡±


    ¡°...You viin, I said don¡¯t apologize... Wuuuuu!¡±


    My rare sincere apology was like a trigger, plunging this Legend back into the times of her childhood, where she would just sit there, paralyzed, crying without a care.


    Cajoling little children has never been my expertise. I panicked. But very quickly, Elisa stops and with tearful face, she speaks of her request.


    ¡°...Fine, I am willing to bear everything, but you must ept one condition to repay me.¡±


    A condition? This is something that should not be epted at all costs. Who knows what the other party would request of you. What if she requests for you to solo a Demon Prince? However, looking at the sobbing girl, I somehow nod in response to her request.


    ¡°Fine, as long as it doesn¡¯t go against my principle, no matter what condition youy out, I will agree to it.¡±


    Looking at her nodding her head, I heave a sigh of relief. However, somehow, the ache in my heart worsens. Thus...


    ¡°Master?¡±


    Hugging the youngdy lightly, I felt her familiar warmth and smell and I felt that my heartbeat which has stopped seem to start beating again. I feltforted.


    Undead may not have body warmth, but my rare gentleness made Elisa raise her head to stare at me.


    ¡°Just for a moment.¡±


    ¡°Un.¡± It felt as though we had returned to the past, when she would happily look for reasons during thunderstorms to dive into that body that wasn¡¯t warm but yetforting. Despite having grown up, the girl takes a half a step forward and allows me hug her tighter as she quietly makes her wish.


    ¡°... Even now, is it still only kinship? Big Brother Rolo, Master Rnd, the next time we meet, I will be a good woman that you would be unable to ignore.¡±


    ¡°Cough cough, this is really touching, but have you two forgotten that there is a third party here? Looks like it¡¯s another teacher-student rtionship, seems like it is really in our heritage. Back then, if Cecily hadn¡¯t fallen in love with that Wood Elf bitch, I wouldn¡¯t have hardened my determination to kill her. Now that I think about it, Cecily¡¯s techniques were truly incredible. It was truly a pity that I did not retrieve her soul to make a doll.¡±


    Without any hesitation, Harloys revealed her dark history as a lesbian while ying the role of an excessive third party. The usually thick-skinned Elisa, upon recalling the tears andughter from a moment ago, lowers her head in embarrassment and quickly pushes me away. In that instant, the air stilled.


    ¡°No one will treat you as a mute if you remain quiet.¡± Displeased, I red at the soul inside the bottle. Upon seeing the delighted expression on the soul, I immediately knew that she had already made her decision.


    ¡°Un, as expected of my disciple, ying quite a big game there. I will help you, but you must let me go first. Kajah¡¯s physical body can still be used after stapling it together. After all, you know of my strength. The reason why I failed this time was because of my carelessness. If I were to help you, the sess rate of your n will be much higher.¡±


    I shake my head. Then, I lift another bottle up and look at it with a smile. The bottle is filled with a thick white-colored transparent fluid. I open the bottle and heartlessly pour it into the bottle with Harloys¡¯s soul.


    ¡°That is two separate matters. What I need the most now is countless numbers of Child of Greed. You should just obediently merge with the main body of Greed.¡±


    Yes, that bottle of disgusting fluid is the main body of Greed and not that special secretion. My n to turn this tragedy into aedy is to reenact the y of the nude city. I don¡¯t believe that the Dark Elf Matriarchs can continue on their rampage that way. Without their weapons and clothes, I doubt if they still possess sufficient strength to go against my Enforcers.


    However, it would take a long period of preparation before my n can get into action if I were to only use the main body of Greed to clone the Children of Greed. Furthermore, this would potentially end in a great loss for me as well, and that will affect my future ns greatly.


    The original n of using ¡®Great Judgement¡¯ and Adam¡¯s presence to intimidate the Dark Elves would result in great losses on our side, and given the many negative aftereffects it will bring about afterward, it cannot be called an ideal solution. However, Harloys¡¯s sudden appearance gave me an additional choice.


    No one is able topete with the Banshees, who wield the talent of ¡®possessing physical bodies¡¯, in controlling other people¡¯s physical body. The Queen of Banshees Harloys, despite having ablutomania which prevents her from using any physical bodies other than those of female Elf royalty, her unparalleled ability in controlling physical bodies allow her to rapidly clone Child of Greed immediately after possessing the main body of Greed. It is also an easy task for her to control over ten thousand clones and limit the attacks to the enemies.


    TL: Ablutomania -> Obsession with cleanliness


    ¡°No, disgusting!! This thing is weird, the vitality of this soulless physical body is shockingly high! It holds too great an attraction towards my soul, I¡¯m afraid that I will be unable to leave the body after possessing it! How can I help you if that happens!¡±


    The reasoning of the Queen of Banshees¡¯ sounds convincing, but I already have it all nned out.


    ¡°Rest easy, this is one of my prided creations, Greed of the Seven Deadly Sins. Its potential hasn¡¯t been unleashed yet. Later, I will help you fuse a bit of Kajah¡¯s God Bloodline into it, allowing it to evolve into aplete body. I ensure that you will be very energetic, making you so happy that you won¡¯t even think about possessing other bodies. Right, it is better for the main body to retain human shape, right? Do you prefer loli physique or a young maturedy physique? Forget it, since a fluid being is able to transmogrify, I will just add all of it in.¡±


    TL: Young maturedy -> As it means, a woman who dresses maturely, looks maturely, acts maturely despite being young


    ¡°Your Seven Deadly Sins? This Slime is your Undead Creation? SAVE ME!!! SOMEONE IS KILLING THEIR MENTOR! Bastard, have you forgotten what Pride did back then? You still dare to create Undead even after that?¡±


    It is impossible for her calls for help to leak out anyway, so I ignored it and continued with my work.


    Un, young mature woman, mature woman, teenage girl, olddy... Wait, olddy seems to be a bit too strong a taste, I better delete it. Then, the hairstyle, hair color and clothes... It feels like ying a gal-game. Hehe, I feel quite excited.


    ¡°You disloyal disciple, I was blind to ept you back then. My greatest regret in my life is to teach you Undead Creation, look at what kind of monsters you built! This time, you are even using me as an ingredient for it. What is this? Why is my color changing, why would a soul have color?¡±


    Continuing to ignore her, it was about time for theplete product to appear.


    ¡°I, I am melting? Why would a soul melt? What have you done? Death God above, why did you allow me to meet you, why would the perfectly normal Undead Creation turn into something like that in your hands!¡±


    TL: She is using the word ¡®olddy¡¯ to refer to herself. It is what 30~40 gangster-likedies (or crude) use to refer themselves to, especially when they are trying to intimidate someone.


    ¡°** Maid costume, fallen angel maid costume, beast-ear maid costume, standard English maid costume, robot teenage girl maid costume, extremely short H maid costume! AHHHH, my creative juices are burning!!¡±


    ¡°Stop doing weird stuff in my body, you bastard maid fetish... So warm, sofortable. Wait, it can¡¯t be, how can Undead have feelings. What did you do!!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, are you happy? Proud? You are going to be my greatest creation. Let me think about what other maid costumes there are... Right, angel maid costume! Completely natural wings and the feeling of the flesh and feathers arepletely identical! Perfect!!¡±


    Looking at her motivated master, Elisa knows that she can¡¯t stop him. After solemnly expressing her sympathy towards the Dark Elves, whom misfortune is going to fall on, and Harloys, who deserves to burn on a stake for over 10 times, she closed the door and leaves.


    She still needs some time to organize the information she just got hold of. At the same time...


    ¡°Hmph, I am not just a silly woman who will just wait obediently. You want to use the family card to dump me? Dream on!¡± Elisa also has her own schemes and she has already started taking actions.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    In the slums beside the mines not too far from Vance, an eerie blood-red altar has been constructed on the chilly cliff where the Dragon Empress almost died.


    The locals there have be the tributes on the altar.


    ¡°Don¡¯t!!¡±


    ¡°That is my child!!¡±


    In the face of the heartless thugs, the workers of the mine tried to retaliate but their actions are destined to end in vain. That¡¯s because those thugs are once their protectors and the master of this mine, the personal guards of the Beastman Sovereign!


    The single-eyed Lion King looks at the cries of despair below. The citizens who he protects are being sent to their doom. The Beastman Sovereign, reputed to the close with his people, looks at such a sight without a single expression on his face.


    But, among the crowd, a stubborn Kobold male rushes out and shouts towards the Beastman Sovereign.


    ¡°Why!! Lord Lion King!! We pay your taxes and my nephew even died for you!! Why...¡±


    He couldn¡¯t continue his words. He has been forced to the ground by some soldiers carrying the insignia of a single eye. That soldier looks up towards the Lion King, as though asking for the opinion of his superior.


    On other days, to win the favor of his army, Shou.Nuya would take good care of the family of his soldiers, but now...


    Ignoring the questioning look from his subordinate, the Lion King looks on without a single change in his expressions. The old soldier stuffs the mouth of the Kobold and carries him to the altar. Bringing his de down, a head rolls down and fresh blood stters on the floor.


    ¡°Haha, you traitor. I will patiently wait for the day where you get abandoned by your people. You... You actually turned to the Demons!¡±


    This is the howling of an ex-ally. At this moment, the Dragon Queen only retains sufficient strength to howl. Her severely injured body is tied to the top of the altar. She is to be served as a super high-tier tribute.


    There is no way the knowledgeable her would be unable to identify that this eerie blood-colored altar is a Dimension Gate leading to the lower realm where Demons live.


    ¡°You came.¡±


    Shou ignores his ex-ally. The only thing in his sight is his new ally who just arrived.


    ¡°Ainsterna.Eduar, the Spatial Distortion leading to Sulfur Mountain City has been prepared. Is your army ready yet?¡±


    The ones who walked out from the Dimension Gate isn¡¯t just the bald and plump Ainsterna, but those who were Shou¡¯s enemy for a long time as well.


    ¡°Of course. However, correcting a point, from today onwards, they are your army. I am allied with Sulfur Mountain City and you are the mutual enemy of us. If you fail, hehe, you know it.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, cunning Devils. Betting on both sides again? Then, if Sulfur Mountain City is to be destroyed, then you will be my ally?¡±


    ¡°Hehe, as long as there are enough profits, we can be the allies of anyone, even if it is those foolish Demons whose heads are filled with muscles.¡±


    Ainsternaughs,ughs to the point that the fat on his belly is trembling. He looks like a gleeful merchant who just finalized a big deal.


    ¡°Hehe, haven¡¯t we been allies in the Underground Alliance all along? Actually, I have a good impression of that Wumianzhe. He is exactly like a natural Devil Lord, but it is a pity that the new City Lord of Sulfur Mountain City is also a human. The underground world only needs one ¡®human¡¯ Underground Autarch. Having a second would be too dangerous.¡±


    The two Underground Autarchs with their own plots smile as the other Underground Autarch who is treated as a tribute curses them. The cries of despair that apany the tributes at their moment of death could be heard, even from the far distance.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    PS. Still that the same phrase, Squirrel don¡¯t write tragedies. I am thankful for all your support. With the acknowledgment and support from everyone, Squirrel is able to maintain the motivation to continue writing this book.


    Isn¡¯t it good to write a rxing story? Even if the world is filled with despair, but there is always a way out. The sun alwayses out after a storm, there is always a solution to everything, one could always face everything smiling. Squirrel likes to write rxing and interesting stories, so I hope everyone likes it too and willugh cheerfully because of it.

 Chapter 58

    <h4>Chapter 58: Greed</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    That is an eight to nine-year-old Elf girl.


    Under a parasol, she sits in her small chair. The little girl¡¯s silky golden hair drifts along with the wind. While secretly giggling beneath her hands, she was tackling the lollipop in her hands with all of her strength.


    Her white skin looks just as smooth as milk and her cute princess skirt has pictures of little bats on it. Her pink and chubby face has a shy and sweet smile on it, reminiscent of a little angel which identally descended onto the mortal world.


    Noticing that I was looking at her, she immediately blushes red in embarrassment, but her pink tongue didn¡¯t stop its motion. Instead, just like a hungry cat secretly sipping on a bowl of milk, she hastens her action. It didn¡¯t take her long to digest over half of the lollipop.


    The eyes of onlookers might just see an innocent little girl secretly smiling due to the joy from licking her delicious lollipop. However, I only got goosebumps watching at the sight.


    ¡°What a cute girl. Master, where did you kidnap her from?


    Elisa has finally finished reorganizing her emotions and just when she steps into the room, she saw this unfamiliar little girl and was curious.


    ¡°Your senior, the ¡®Omniscient One¡¯ Harloys.


    I reply her with a nk face. All of her reports that she was holding in her hand falls to the floor. Then, she props up her sses and starts to pick them up silently.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you ask anything? Like why did the old granny suddenly turn young and where did Greed go?¡± This overly calm reaction makes me curious instead.


    ¡°No, the moment that I think of the fact that she was your mentor, she probably ys in part in why you turned out like that; I suddenly felt like I could ept it no matter what kind of person she was.¡±


    What does it mean that it was eptable because she was my master? It sounds like I was hopeless and unreliable.


    ¡°When have you been reliable? When has anything that you got involved it end up well? Stop guessing, I can¡¯t read minds and you didn¡¯t identally blurt it out. Even if you are wearing a mask, but when were you able to hide your emotions for me? It seems that you have forgotten that I have followed you for many decades.¡±


    A venomous tongue as usual. Elisa, who seems to have regained herposure on the surface, lowers her head as much as possible to hide her swollen red eyes and I, who was feigning ignorance of it, didn¡¯t know what to do.


    Fortunately, there is a fool that can¡¯t read the atmosphere by the side.


    This granny seems to finally recall that she is the 3rd Senator, the Queen of Banshees, and it is unbing of her to be licking on a lollipop like a little kid. She first hid her lollipop behind her, intending to dispose of itter, but then she felt that it was a waste so noticing that we were still chatting, she immediately turns about and swallows the rest of the lollipop.


    Afterward, before she could even finish swallowing all of it, she turns around...


    ¡°Haha, my good disciple. I didn¡¯t expect your Undead Creation to have reached such mastery. Cough cough! ...Un, to be capable of making Undead regain their taste buds, wa kaka... cough cough cough, this body is really powerful. I can feel the God¡¯s Bloodline circting in my body. It is possible that I might even be stronger than when I was at my peak. Cough cough cough!!! ...I finally managed to spit it out, I almost died again.¡±


    The wind created by magic lingers at her back, allowing her small physique to float slightly in the air. The words that she intentionally used an old andmanding tone to say, in the perspective of the listeners, didn¡¯t have a trace of dignity it should have. Other than the exceptionally innocent and cute voice of a kid, she choked on a lollipop just after saying a few arrogant words and her continuous coughing were hrious.


    I can understand the agitation of an Undead who suddenly regained her taste buds, but it isn¡¯t correct for her to act cute like this. Not to mention, the thought of her being an old granny dispels every single thought of her being cute. So, Iughed.


    ¡°Wahaha, Elisa, look at her foolish look. Being of such an age yet choking on a lollipop...¡±


    But I stopped after a few seconds of mocking her. That is because Elisa¡¯s gaze at me was full of sympathy, as though as I was an infant that wasughing at someone despite not being much better.


    I can roughly get the message she was trying to express ¡ª ¡°You probably would need a mirror. Remember that time when you used too much lubricant so many times to you were unable to fix your bones together properly? Afterward, I had to use glue to help you stick them back on. Back then, you probably looked just as foolish.¡±


    Fine, it isn¡¯t that I can read minds. Elisa has already said it out.


    ¡°Cough, Harloys, I...¡± Just as I was trying to change the subject, Harloys interjected.


    ¡°Call me master. I am satisfied with this body and your n interests me as well. So, I will consider this favor and I hold off the matter of expelling you.¡±


    Shaking my head, I don¡¯t retort. It is just a name and besides, she has indeed taught me many things. If she is willing to continue being my mentor, then so be it.


    ¡°Fine, demon... Mentor, why did you turn into such a look? You have dozens of fixed looks for this physique, so you should be able to interchange between them easily. Maybe, it is your personal interest? You want to try to pretend to be young?¡±


    Harloys sighs and shakes her head helplessly.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t that. This is my true look when I died. When the soul and physical body is aligned, it is easier to it for resonate and merge together. In order to allow my physical body and soul topletely merge, it is better for me to maintain this form temporarily. Speaking of it, you all are probably the only ones who know the existence of this look of mine.¡±


    ¡°WHAT!!?¡± Hearing this, even me who knew her for a few centuries was bbergasted. That is to say, this is the true look of the old demon granny¡¯s soul. Back then, when she turned into an Undead, she looked so cute and innocent and she was just slightly bigger than this at her moment of death.


    ¡°What is there to be surprised about? Don¡¯t you know about it? Undead are the product of lingering will and curse. The more pure and noble the soul is, the more it will despair under the darkness of reality, the more the vicious the curse it gives out would be and the easier it would be for a strong Undead to be born. Back then, you also...¡±


    ¡°Cough, let¡¯s not talk about excessive things. Right, what is the progress with the Dark Elves?¡± I didn¡¯t want my history to be dug up and so, it was my turn to change the topic.


    Knowing that I don¡¯t want to talk about these past matters, Harloys shakes her head and raises her hand. Sand float in the air and congregate to form a fortress. In it, countless sand men were moving freely and if one were to take a closer look, they would realize that they were no different from real people.


    In the fortress, there were innumerable sand groups that were chasing the sand men. The moment they caught up, they would jump on it and merge together as one. When the sand group finally leaves, the sandman would be left on the spot without any equipment or clothes and would simplyy there paralyzed.


    ¡°The potential of the Child of Greed is limitless. Just by evolving a little bit, its offensive power can be increased by at least 10 times. If you allow me to use my human form to control and organize them into different armies and have themplement one another, I can guarantee that it is a simple matter to gain control of this city.¡±


    [Child of Greed (Evolution)


    Race: Half-Undead Slimes


    Stats: All 5


    Race Talent: Equipment Devour, Fiber-Dposing Secretion, Rapid Regeneration, Single Elemental Control, Single Elemental Immunity, Paralyzing Venom, Fluid Transmogrification


    System Evaluation: I have nothing to say. If you want to destroy the world, just do it. If you don¡¯t want jelly to be the only thing remaining in the entire world, then control her properly.]


    The God¡¯s Bloodline is extremely powerful. It may seem like there isn¡¯t much of a change with the Child of Greed, but the individual power of each and every one of them is at least 10 times stronger than before. Fluid Transmogrification allows it to have extremely strong resistance against physical attacks and depending on its color andposition, the Single Elemental Control and Resistance grants it a certain level of ability to cast spells.


    In order to counter the Dark Elves, 90% of the Child of Greed she sent out were ck-colored ones. Against the Lorci Priestess who specializes in curses and dark divine arts, these ck Slimes, who arepletely immune to the Dark Element and negative energy, are theirplete nemesis and their worst nightmare.


    However, if we were to really do as she says and create Slime Warriors, Slime Mages and such to start a War of the Slimes, it might really cause the Underground World to think that another intelligent race against them have appeared. That would cause quite a bit of trouble.


    ¡°Right, my good disciple, can we negotiate?¡±


    ¡°Of course we can. I have always been one for negotiation. That is, except for dispelling the Magic Pet Contract.¡±


    ¡°I am the Omniscient One, the noblest and ancient Queen of Banshees. How can I be a foolish and lowly Magic Pet! That is the job of the foolish animals!¡±


    ¡°You are already a Magic Pet so stop ying little tricks. ording to the contract, if I die, you would have to apany me. If you die... I will try my best to squeeze out two drops of tears to grieve for you.¡±


    Yes, in order to tie the toughest and most resilient metal chain on these extremely dangerous personnel, the Queen of Banshees Harloys has be my Magic Pet.


    [Magic Pet: Harloys (Main Body of Greed)


    Race: Unable to be ssified


    Strength: 22


    Agility: 10


    Stamina: 40


    Intelligence: 28


    Will: 25


    Charm: Depends


    Job: LV60 Mage/LV20 Omniscient Mage


    Rank: Legend


    Race Talent: Transmogrification (Myth)


    System Evaluation: This is your Magic Pet, but she is constantly thinking of how to get rid of you within the limitations of the contract. You better keep her in check or maybe, wait for her to get the better of you.]


    The only reason why Harloys is being so obedient is because she has signed a Magic Pet Contract with me. Under normal circumstances, a Necromancer might be able to sign a Magic Pet Contract with another Undead, but it was impossible with a powerful and intelligent being.


    It is just that I made use of a loophole in the Rules. As a Necromancer, I am entitled to signing a contract with my own creation ¡®Greed¡¯ and Greed doesn¡¯t have any soul, thus it is impossible to sign a Magic Pet Contract which requires the binding of souls. However, if we were to put the unconscious soul of Harloys into the body of Greed at this moment, the contract would naturally take the Harloys who had obviously lost all resistance as the soul of Greed. Thus, the contract was able to be sessfully established.


    As my Magic Pet, based on the basic Rule that the rank of a Magic Pet cannot exceed the Mage himself, Harloys strength went down all the way from Myth to Legend rookie. At the same time, she became much more obedient.


    I also benefited quite a bit from the contract. A tenth of the basic stats of the Magic Pet would be augmented on its owner. To a normal Mage, it normally doesn¡¯t have much of a use. After all, those ducks, ck cats, bat, and eagles have pathetic basic stats. It is quite rare for a tenth of their stats to even increase one¡¯s Agility or Stamina by 1.


    However, my Magic Pet grants me Strength +2, Agility +1, Stamina +4, Intelligence +3, Will +2, effectiveness of Necromancy +30% and effectiveness of Elemental Magic +20%. It is really quite a big gain, not mentioning my Pet¡¯s extremely high fighting prowess and the ability of the Child of Greed.


    But to the end, the main reason why I signed this Magic Pet Contract with her is because Ick basic trust in her and don¡¯t dare to keep her out of my sight.


    ¡°My Magic Pet Contract can be retained even after I revive. At that moment, even if this powerful Magic Pet ends up at LV1, it will still be a powerful force to rely on when starting on a clean te.


    ording to my n, it isn¡¯t too far away from my day of revival. I should start nning ahead.


    Thus. I looked at Harloys with bad intentions.


    ¡°40 points in Stamina. Such a high-quality meat shield and tanker. Teacher, I will be relying on you to act as my shield in the future.¡±


    At this moment, Harloys suddenly shouts in shock.


    ¡°Hmmm!? Why did these fellows suddenly appear on the field?¡±


    On the fortress of sand, a bunch of experts was moving towards the direction of the city gates. Looking at this situation, I smiled.


    ¡°Ever heard that there is a soul in the God Equipment that chooses its master?¡±


    ¡°Bullshit. The number of God Equipment that I havee into contact with is at least 2 digits and I have yet to seen a God Equipment that can choose its own master. No matter how powerful a God Equipment is, it is made for others to use. If a God Equipment were to gain self-awareness to the point that it chooses its own user, it would have long returned to the hands of their original user. Or perhaps, it might simply get annoyed by seeing those fools vie over it and choose to dig a hole to bury itself. A God Equipment choosing its own master? This is obviously some nonsense made up in knight novels to make its main character seem extraordinary. If a God Equipment can really grow its own legs to run, then don¡¯t dream about getting the God Equipment to acknowledge you. The first thing you should suspect is whether you have walked into some scheme or trap.¡±


    ¡°It is a pity that some people didn¡¯t think so. Or perhaps, they might be thinking that it is an exception and chose to go along with it.¡±


    Looking at the crowd rushing out of the city on the sand field, I can¡¯t help but sigh.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Spatial Distortion is a natural passage. It normally appears in ces where the fabric of space isn¡¯t stable and the destination at the end of the passage ispletely unknown. 90% of the Spatial Distortions arepletely random Dimension Warps like this.


    However, there is a connection between Spatial Distortions. The most likely situation for the destination of a Spatial Distortion is another Spatial Distortion. There are even some rtively stable connections between Spatial Distortions that are used as a tunnel for passage, as though walking across a bridge.


    There are quite a few such stable tunnels in the underground world and they are view as normal tunnels. Underground city lords have viewed it as an important location for the umtion of wealth and military presence, so they built a fortress around it.


    However, the formation of Spatial Distortions ispletely natural. There are much more Spatial Distortions in the spatially unstable underground world aspared the surface world. However, for a Spatial Distortion to appear around Vance City and for it to coincidentally lead to the vicinity of Sulfur Mountain City, the possibility can be neglected altogether. However, using an extremely profound Spatial Magic apanied with a great price, it is possible to create a temporary tunnel.


    That sudden and unexpected assault on Sulfur Mountain City back then was conducted through forcefully distorting this hidden Spatial Distortion in the mines here to activate and connect it with a cavern 30 meters South of Sulfur Mountain City. Then, the 2 Underground Autarchs brought their personal guards to conduct the assault.


    Of course, from another angle, this means that they have started plotting against Sulfur Mountain City from a long time ago. Connecting two spaces needs to be done from both ends and requires great effort and time. It isn¡¯t something that can be kicked up on a whim.


    After the Beastman army waspletely crushed that time, the Lion King runs all the way back to prevent the Spatial Distortion from being discovered.


    The situation is much different this time. The forceful reactivation of the connection between 2 Spatial Distortion causes the unstable Spatial Connection to be stable. The temporary tunnel will be a permanent one. At the same time, the price to pay for reconnecting the tunnels increases exponentially.


    In the mastery of Spatial Magic, if the Demons that gue the countless Dimensions in the Lower Realm were to say that they were second, there probably wouldn¡¯t be a race that would dare to say that they are ced first.


    This blood-red Demon Altar intends to use the unstable spatial fabric of this Spatial Distortion and a massive amount of tributes to open the gates to the Dimension of Demons so as to get back-ups and support. At the same time, the Demon Count who have been long-awaiting would personally active the Spatial Connection to Sulfur Mountain City.


    ¡°As long as Sulfur Mountain City disappears, what would the rest of those fools count as?¡±


    Shou¡¯s words may sound awful but he did urately point out the weakest link of Sulfur Mountain City. Sulfur Mountain City has a weak defense andcks a strategic vantage point. Furthermore, it only has one city.


    ¡°Hehe, what does a history of a century count as. If we were to break their nest, then no matter how strong Adam and that Wumianzhe is, they, who lost their roots, wouldn¡¯t be able to overturn the situation.¡±


    Of course, there are some words that they didn¡¯t tell each other. For example, the leaders of both sides have requested for the release of the seal of the Fire Elemental God. For example, the intent to fall out immediately after getting rid of Sulfur Mountain City.


    At this moment, countless soldiers are getting into formation and waiting for the Dimension Gate to open.


    ¡°My 12 armies, 79000 underground Beastman! In the face of my veteran elites, those cowards of Sulfur Mountain City aren¡¯t even worth mentioning!¡±


    ¡°I will lend you four divisions. They might onlyprise 30000 people, but there are 2 Mage divisions and 1 Shaman division in it. This should be enough to make up for the magic firepower youck.¡±


    The oppressing dark army starts to gather and silently, the gs started to rise up. This is the umtion of the Underground Autarchs, the elite army of over 10 underground cities.


    There was a considerable number of Legends and Saints in their midst. In fact, there are even a couple of Myth experts within their ranks. Different from the situation before, the Underground Autarchs are well-prepared this time.


    Suddenly, Shou looks towards the sky of Vance City. He was delighted for a moment, then shocked before bing angry and finally, he felt a trace of fear.


    ¡°Eternal Night Scepter?! It is flying here by itself.¡±


    Yes, the sight here is just like what those knight novels normally depict. The God Equipment chooses his own master and flies over thousands of miles to seek him.


    To the deeply poisoned Lion King, this is naturally something to be delighted about. But, what that made him shocked, angry and even frightened is those people who are chasing the Scepter. Apparently, they don¡¯t believe that a God Equipment could have a soul to choose its own master.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare to touch it. It is mine, Crimspur¡¯s!¡±


    ¡°No, only I, Lamost, who has been said to be the one closest to the recent Undead Emperor is suited for this Scepter. I can already hear its calling.¡±


    ¡°You fool, that is just your misconception. The Scepter is obviously calling for me! This is its test for me!¡±


    Those who are in the forefront are the 3 frenzied Undead Senators. Looking at the madness burning in the green mes in their eyes, it seems to be burning even their own souls. Behind them, there is everything.


    It is really a mystery how the gigantic Nine-Headed Dragon Emperor coulde here from the swamp it lives far away. Its gigantic body shouldn¡¯t allow it to even pass through the underground passage.


    Over there, a Great Angel carrying the Sun¡¯s Bow is currently fighting with another Fire Demon who is dancing with his Inferno Whip while chasing the Scepter. In this instant, the Sand Dragon King from the desert is destroying the entire underground tunnel. The Elf Knights riding unicorns are racing with the Death Lords. Thousands of experts of different races are chasing the Scepter and the ones blocking them are the alliance army of the 2 Underground Autarch.


    In this instant, Shou somehow remembered the words left behind by the man dressed in a long robe and hidden behind a mask a month ago.


    ¡°You, might regret it.¡±


    Back then, he replied arrogantly.


    ¡°The Beastman Sovereign never regrets!!


    Right now, watching as his army got involved in a battle due to some ridiculous reason, not to mention that they were getting suppressed and ughtered by the experts of differing races, he feels a sensation of weakness which he had never felt before. Looking at the radiant Eternal Night Scepter in front of him, he senses the disappearance of Eduar, who has dumped his army on him. He has been forced into a corner in all aspects. The white-haired Old Lion could only sigh helplessly.


    ¡°Wumianzhe. You were right, I am regretting it now. But...¡±


    ¡°WAGHHHH!! Beastmen never surrenders!¡±


    The next moment, after a deafening roar, the Lion King leaves another scar on his face that represents another score to settle. The undefeated Lion King has returned.


    ¡°The one who is even more cunning than the Devils, Wumianzhe! This old man admits that he is regretting it, but this doesn¡¯t mean that I¡¯ll lose! Wumianzhe! I will return it tenfold back to you one day!!¡±


    ¡°The First, Seventh and Ninth Divisions, face them head on! The Du Yan Division, get into formation, prepare to face the brunt of the charge! Let them witness the might of the Beastman army! The weak surface dwellers actually dare to mess around in the underground world! Kill them!!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    ¡°Greed, it is forever the original sin that is difficult to suppress.¡±


    Looking at the Eternal Night Scepter fan group that disappeared without a trace on the sand field, I stand up to prepare to move out.


    ¡°You aren¡¯t waiting anymore?¡±


    ¡°Un, the Underground Autarchs aren¡¯t that easy to deal with. We must also do some preparations. Elisa, help me thank Minial for the report he sent over. If he didn¡¯t inform us about the gathering of the Old Lion¡¯s army, we might really be outdone this time. Right, ask Annie and Adam to prepare to move out as well. It is time for the final battle.¡±

 Chapter 59

    <h4>Chapter 59: Demon Count</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Compared to the clear skies of the surface world, the sky of the underground world is always yellow and dark. People are already used to thinking it through before deciding to drink that murky underground water which is full of impurities. They are also used to have their clothes full of dust if they hang it outside from too long and coughing blood at the young age caused by all kind of respiratory problems.


    Perhaps, this is the basic reason why the descendants of those exiled look forward to the blue sky and white clouds of the surface world. After all, who wouldn¡¯t hope for a better life for their children.


    At this moment, the yellow sky turns even more awful. The clouds in the sky turned into an eerie blood-red color. The crepuscr wind blows slightly and if it were to be slightly closer to the surface, one could smell the nauseous smell of blood.


    The crepuscr wind isn¡¯t formed naturally. In the world of Eich where souls are an actual entity, the echo of the gloomy wind is the ghastly apparition formed by the fragments of the soul. When sufficient blood fills thend at one go, sufficient people have died, it would create a natural rtively confinednd of negative energy that is known as the Land of the Rise of Undead ¡ª The Cursed Land.


    When too many people die at one go and the souls linger around, reluctant to die just like this, their feelings will resonate and the dead will remain in the world. Undead will rise in bulks. In history, there was even an incident when a city is massacred, the entire city turns into a Necropolis and the knights who gave their life for their country turned into Death Knights.


    This is also the main reason why the battlefield has to be cleaned by the victor at the end of a great battle. Other than collecting their spoils of war and burning the corpses that could bring gue, they have to invite Priests to purify the souls of warriors who died with grievances.


    Otherwise, if thisnd turns into another Cursed Land where Undead gather in the next few decades, it would really be a big source of trouble.


    Even so, as evidenced from those Undead Lords often prowling around ancient battlefields, if the death toll numbers up to several tens of thousands or several hundreds of thousands, coupled with the death of sufficient powerful people, the heavy Aura of Death might be unwilling to scatter. The bright red blood stains even a few meters beneath the ground. The despair of the experts lingers around the mortal world as a curse. When all of these conditions are met, the Purification of the Priests won¡¯t work, it will still forcefully turn into a Cursed Land. Or even worse, it might be the high-tier Land of Death.


    This time, surroundings around the mine outside Vance is destined to be the new Land of Death.


    This is smell of a battlefield belonging to the medieval era. The scent of blood drifts along the wind, even people a few miles away could smell it clearly. The dark and murky crepuscr wind prowls high in the air of the battlefield. The tears of the living and the cry of agony of those surviving echoes throughout the battlefield.


    Standing on the bloodstainednd, the Old Lion looks at his old subordinates who have followed him for several decades for ast time. Carrying his axe, he offers the final relief to an old soldier who only has half of his throat remaining.


    ¡°Clean the battlefield.¡± There is no ce for kindness on the battlefield. This is an order squeezed out from gritted teeth.


    On the battlefield, Healing and Potions are always insufficient. The Priests and other healing jobs have long expended all of their mana on the battlefield. The phrase ¡®cleaning the battlefield¡¯ refers more to offering relief to both the enemies and allies who are on the brink of death.


    ¡°Have we won?¡±


    Yes, the Old Lion and his army have won. After losing over half of his army, after the fearless charge of over tens of thousands of soldiers, after face of innumerable destruction of life and souls, the experts whose rationality have been overran by their greed finally weigh the importance of keeping their lives as greater than the pursuit of future authority and strength.


    Those living have all started to scatter. But those who are dead and heavily injured are bound to remain on this foreignnd forever.


    At this moment, it was already toote.


    ¡°HAHAHAHA, such a pleasing sight. Shou.Nuya, I have seen your doomed future. I never thought that the curse would be taking effect so soon. I will be waiting for you in hell!¡±


    The Red Dragon who witnessed everything, the one whose fresh blood has filled the entire altar and is being tied to it as though a poultry waiting to be ughtered, mocks her archenemy without any sympathy.


    ¡°I lost huh?¡±


    Yes, despite winning this battle, the Old Lion lost as well. What he lost is everything.


    The elite core of the 12 divisions all have losses numbering over half. 2 of the divisions werepletely crushed. This ace army, the Du Yan division, in the face of the primary charge have casualties over 90%.


    However, what he lost was not just those on the surface.


    War is an extension of politics. If a war is unable to bring about any profits, then even if they won the war, it is still a loss that is determined from the very start.


    Looking at his trembling hands, Shou recalls the moment when he was smashing the skull of ¡®The Great Mathematician¡± Penny.Horst. He could see absolute madness and curse within her eyes as her green Soulfire extinguishes.


    He knows that this isn¡¯t the end of things. Since Liches don¡¯t die that easily, when she revives, the assault of great army of Undead could be almost said to be inevitable.


    The death of Xiluo Empire¡¯s 11th Senator is just the smaller part of the trouble. The 10th Senator ¡®Ant King of Corrosion¡¯ Lamost doesn¡¯t have the ability to resurrect himself after death. The look of his old partner Crimspur as he leaves with his iplete body, the gaze of intense hatred, it was also the shadow of a new war that is looming about.


    Furthermore, the Undead Senators were just a portion of the experts there who met with casualties.


    ¡°Done. I¡¯m done for.¡±


    Just as how Molly mocked him, Shou¡¯s career as an Underground Autarch is done for.


    He and his army just chopped off the head of a Knight of Royalty of Felix Elf Kingdom and hung the head of an Advisor of And Kingdom on a spear. Even the legendary Beast Tamer Jeredas¡¯s only disciple was ughtered. Eventually, the Beastmen could no longer recognize which ¡®influential figure¡¯ it is and which power was backing him. They were already numb.


    Shou knows that there is no individual or organization that can still live under the wrath of so many powers. No one...


    Needless to say, this is the underground world. The ones with the highest casualties is still the underground city lords who he has barely met with or even those under hismand.


    ¡°A debt of blood.¡±


    Shou doesn¡¯t regret his actions at all. Should he surrender his head just because the enemy have the backing of powerful figures or organizations? Since the enemy have already expressed clearly of their intention to get rid of this sessor of the God Equipment to be the next Emperor Yongye, should he obediently pass his head and God Equipment to them?


    The only thing he regrets is the looks his soldiers were staring at him with. Those were no longer respectful and trusting gazes. Their eyes are full of confusion and fear. Sometimes, when their eyes locked together, they would divert their gazes and whisper silently about his secrets.


    ¡°Look at those yellow pupil, and the ws and wings of the Demons... Our king is actually a Demon, then why are we fighting for him.¡±


    Shou was forced to his limits under the Undead Senators. In order to survive, he was forced to tap into the powers of the Demon, causing the traits of Demons that would never appear on an ordinary Beastman to materialize. He couldn¡¯t fool the eyes of tens of thousands of Warriors.


    The enmity of the underground world towards the Chaos Faction isn¡¯t as strong as on the surface. As an underground city lord, one could collude with the Demons, side with the Malevolent Gods and scheme together with the Devils. However, if the Underground Autarch which represents the entire Beastman Tribe isn¡¯t even a Beastman, then what rights does he have to sit on this position.


    Shou can already imagine the situation when these rumors spread through the entire underground world. Those ambitious underground city lords will use this as a reason to raise the gs of betrayal. The soldiers under him would probably be confused for whom should they should fight for.


    ¡°No, I am not done for yet!! I still have this!! I am going to be the next Undead Emperor.¡±


    The brilliant God Equipment in his hands has be his final straw.


    Suddenly, from the back of an altar, a blinding light of blood-red and countless souls and blood were absorbed into the altar by an intangible force. The fresh blood forms a river and the grievances of the souls of the experts who died were crying in despair. All of it were pulled into the gate leading to another Dimension.


    ¡°Tributes. Such rich tributes! So many high-quality souls, so many delicious dishes! I... I,


    The altar has already been activated. By a series of coincidence, unexpectedly, this fight became the best tribute for the Demon Count Kakajil.


    In this war, thousands of Legends have fallen and hundreds of thousands of elite Beastman Warriors perished. Their souls and fresh blood is even sufficient to allow this Demon Count who is known for devouring souls to step into higher realms. Perhaps, in less than a thousand years, a new Demon Duke would be born.


    However, Demons are beings that doesn¡¯t know the concept of satisfaction.


    ¡°Scepter. Quickly, pass Eternal Night Scepter to me!!¡±


    Even to Demon Counts, a God Equipment that conceals the profound secrets of a SemiGod Undead Emperor is a rare treasure. Perhaps, afterying his hands on the Scepter, he is able to add ¡®Death¡¯, ¡®Undead¡¯ or simr Chaos concepts into his power. If so, his route to breaking through would be smooth.


    Hearing that his master wants the Scepter, Shou¡¯s face immediately hardens. He wants to escape with the Scepter, but with the sufficient tributes, the connection to the Lower Realm has already been established. In the face of a Demon Count, it is impossible for him to escape.


    Large deformed hands stretch out from the empty space within the Dimension Gate. With slight gesture from his fingers, the Scepter flies into his hands.


    ¡°Ha, Eternal Night Scepter! This is great. Is it my lucky day today? Later, I will go beat up some Devils for entertainment.¡±


    Shou kneels despairingly onto the floor. Even his final straw is gone. His position of the Beastman Sovereign will be stripped very soon. With such rich tributes, the Demon Count could probably descend onto the mortal world himself. His job as his proxy has probablye to an end.


    Suddenly, a furious roar causes this entire space to tremble.


    ¡°Fake, it is fake! Who is it! Who dares to fool this noble and great Kakajil!! I must tear him into pieces!¡±


    The entire Dimension Gate starts to tremble. Very quickly, a gigantic hoof with zing with inferno steps out of the Gate of Hell. Soon afterwards, that savage goat-head appears from the gate.


    The entire world starts to darken and the cracks appear on the ground. The fire hidden beneath the ground all rises to the surface and a few extinct volcanoes erupts.


    With great rage, Demon Count, Soul Eater Kakajil descends on the mortal world!


    At this moment, Shou was still in shock over the fact that the Scepter is a fake. He gave everything but in the end, he was made a fool of from the very start?


    ¡°Impossible, impossible!!¡±


    In his mutterings, that word suddenly appears in his mind once again.


    ¡°You, might regret it.¡±


    ¡°WUMIANZHE!! YOU DECEIVED ME!!!¡±


    At this moment, the frenzied howling of Shou was ignored by everyone. The furious Demon Lord already has him in his hands, holding him straight in front of his face.


    ¡°Who is it? Who dares to deceive the great Kakajil? Is it you? You Demon bastard!!¡±


    Just by standing there, the hundred-meter tall body seems to corrupt the earth. All of the nts wither and dies. The volcanoes explode and cracks appear on thend. Kakajil¡¯s existence starts to destroy the Rules of the surroundings. A Demon Duke is capable of crossing blows with Gods while the Demon Count, which is a tier lower, can be said to be an unrivaled existence on the mortal world.


    The stinging stench of sulfur makes one feel suffocated. His great strength crushes all of Shou¡¯s bone together. The gigantic mouth that devours blood, flesh and souls is right in front of him. The Beastman Sovereign had to justify everything for the sake of his life.


    At this moment, under the questioning of his master, the silhouette of the hateful man appears once again in Shou¡¯s vision.


    ¡°No, it is Wumianzhe and that darned Sulfur Mountain City. The Scepter was sent by them. It was all their scheme! That man deceived you, noble Demon Count!¡±


    Hearing that, the Demon Count hesitates. Looking at the frightened Beastmen by the side, he decides to spare the life of this mixed blood.


    ¡°No one can deceive Kakajil without paying the price. Use your life to atone for your sin. If you do well, then I will spare your wretched life.¡±


    The Demon Count waves his hand and the Dimension Gate opens entirely. Countless Demons crowds in. At the same time, another brand-new gate on the other side opens.


    In there, a beautiful city by the mountains could be vaguely seen ¡ª Sulfur Mountain City!


    ¡°Our new tributes are there. That city is filled with the hateful Power of Order. Fool, show the way to where the Fire Elemental God is sealed. If you were to dy Prince Karwenz¡¯s ns, I will make you cry in agony for all eternity in myntern.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    At this moment, our group was moving slowly, chatting while walking slowly, as though like we were on a tour.


    From the very start, I didn¡¯t think that those greedy fellows would be sufficient to deal with an Underground Autarch. After the Alliance Conference, it¡¯s perfectly okay for an Underground Autarch tounch a war campaign against another underground city lord. In the end, power is all that matters.


    TL: Truthfully, I don¡¯t get the point of what he is saying. I¡¯m just going to trante directly


    The location for the final battle has been decided. What is left is the entrance of the audience.


    We don¡¯t have much people here. Me, Adam, Little Red and Margaret who is still at Sulfur Mountain City, excluding Lisa who can¡¯t be here, the entire team back then is all here.


    However, we intentionally brought Annie and Elisa this time.


    Little Red and Adam are excited on being able to get on the battlefield and Elisa maintains silence as per usual. On the contrary, Annie lowers her head, looking depressed.


    Her state affects the progress of my Epic mission. Whether she breaks through legend or not, I intend to get Adam to pass on the seat of the City Lord to her at the end of this battle so as to fulfill the basic conditions for my revival.


    ¡°I am finally on the verge of getting my physical body. If I were to continue on with the weak state I am in now, how can I deal with future troubles.¡±


    As long as I revive with a new body, using the system and my advantage from being knowledgeable about the ¡®events¡¯, I can grow strong rapidly and start on my series of ns. Furthermore, I look forward to the ss of the physical body I would get when I revive.


    There are different sses for physical body? Of course there is, the Goddess of Order and Goddess of Chaos weren¡¯t fair from the moment they worked on their creations.


    The direct creation of Goddess of Order, the great Dragons are considered as the Golden Race. Without doing anything, they will be able to attain the minimum strength of a Gold-rank when theye of age. Yet, the 2nd generation humans could hardly be considered as the Iron Race. Normal grown adults can¡¯t even defeat a Skeleton Soldier.


    TL: The 1st generation humans are the Mountainous Tribe that fell to be Devils.


    My current body of Lich is actually called ¡®The King of Undying (Silver)¡¯, it is equivalent to the more powerful Silver Race. The strength that it provides me isn¡¯t inferior in any ways to the bonus Elisa gets from Demonification.


    It is unfair, but it is the cruel reality.


    Adam might have reached the peak of humans as a SemiGod, but he might not even be a match for Little Red who isn¡¯t at the same level as him. Back then, Elisa could beat Annie using just one hand despite both of them being of the same rank. This is effect of physical body to one¡¯s total fighting prowess. It determines the basic stats and the race talents, race abilities and even serves as the basis of all strength and magic.


    No matter how skilled your swordsmanship is, you can¡¯t do anything with a weak body. Imagine wielding a sword with both hands and meeting an 8-handed monster whose strength is 3 times of yours, if you are both of the same skill level, there is totally no way you could beat him.


    A building of ten thousand fathoms high is built from the ground. The height of the building is dependent on how solid the base is. For one¡¯s fighting prowess to be strong, the physical body and bloodline is important.


    TL: Around 18.2km


    Of course, the weak races have the advantage in numbers and tools. Furthermore, normal Golden Bloodline grow extremely slow. Otherwise, the surface world wouldn¡¯t be dominated by the weakest race, the humans.


    But, in order to face the problems that will ur in the future, power is something I cannotck. The Demon army won¡¯t go talk sense with you. Their race talents and basic stats are even more so, strong, that it makes one shiver.


    ¡°How strong would the race talent of The Favored One of the Abyss, the Demon Prince be? Most probably, even the Dragons who are known as the Golden Race can¡¯tpare with him. Hehe, thest time, I am already of Silver-rank. This time, will I get a body with talents that is equal to the Dragon Race? Or, even a rank higher.¡±


    However, in history, the Demon Prince still ends up getting ughtered by humans. This shows that perhaps, race talents aren¡¯t everything... Fine, I know that the unlucky Demon Prince in history is ¡®me¡¯ and the Hero who killed ¡®me¡¯ is Annie in front of me, who is obviously not in a good state.


    ¡°Why? Are you afraid?¡±


    Suddenly, recalling the history, do I count as a Demon King who counsels the Hero before the battle? If someday, she was to grow up and slices me apart with her sword, then don¡¯t I have to prepare a medal for myself ¡®The Demon King Who Touches the World, Trying His Best to Dig His Own Grave.¡±


    ¡°No, I just myself really dumb, not being able to help much.¡± Different from the awkward Elisa, Annie is a straightforward kid. When someone asks her about her trouble, she replies directly.


    However, Adam and Little Red, who was listening in by the side, smiles. In their eyes, the trouble Annie was facing really don¡¯t count much.


    I used my gaze to invite Adam over to console her. However, he looks at the ceiling, trying his best to feign ignorance. At the same time, Little Red was suddenly interested in the ant holes on the ground. Frustrated, I look around me. In the end, I could only do it myself.


    ¡°Heh, those fellows have been training for hundreds and even thousands of years. You aren¡¯t even 20, so it is normal that you are unable to catch up with them.¡±


    ¡°That isn¡¯t it! If it is just strength, Annie can ept it. However, Annie just finds herself really dumb. Despite seeing everyone being so busy, I can¡¯t help much with them. Big Sister Elisa can do everything well and little Victoria was able to suppress everyone during the Conference. But, as the future City Lord, I could only look from one side.¡±


    Looking at Annie who was truly frustrated, my head hurts. Young boys and girls like topare with others of the same age as them, so it is much easier for them to corner themselves.


    Just like how the one who was the most carefree in our team is dumbass Adam because he thinks that he will screw things up if given the responsibility, this generation,pared to Elisa who is the head of ¡®Observer¡¯ and the seemingly mild but cunning and devilish Victoria, Annie does seem immature.


    However, if I were to say the truth, she would probably just get more depressed. If the future City Lord were to lose her confidence, my Epic mission would go down the drain.


    ¡°Hehe, it seems that you have misunderstood something. Remember what I told you thest time? The thing is that the most important to a City Lord is to use talents properly. Throw the troublesome things to those who are skilled in dealing with them. I mean, look at the current City Lord, isn¡¯t he still eating and cking around without a guilty conscience?¡±


    ¡°Cough cough!¡± After hearing my evaluation of him, Adam fakes 2 cough, indicating me to stop talking about him. It looks he still have some self-awareness, he knows that nothing goodes out from talking about him.


    ¡°But, Uncle Bones, you said that everyone¡¯s path is different. I don¡¯t want to be like godfather. Everyone is obviously so busy and there is so many things he could do, but he chose to hide and ck around. Normally, he alsozes around, inciting criticisms from the people. I think that this is very embarrassing.¡±


    Being said to be embarrassing by her goddaughter, Adam face immediately turns sorrowful. Little Red bends over,ughing loudly. Elisa nods her head and looks at me with a meaningful look that says ¡®you are the same¡¯.


    Normally, I would pull down his reputation further without any hesitation. But this time, even if it gets my frustrated, I have to help to protect his image.


    ¡°Actually, there is also another important task for the City Lord to work on other than protecting everyone. It may be hard to rush to gain sufficient strength to protect everybody, but there is another thing which you can try work hard on now, and Adam is quite sessful in that aspect.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°You are the head, so you have to point out the direction for everyone, so that everyone would have more confidence in tomorrow, giving them the motivation and hope to live their hardest every day. Even if you can¡¯t find one, it is alright to make one up.¡±


    ¡°But, I don¡¯t even know my own direction.¡±


    ¡°Then, you can try asking your subordinates what do they wish the future to be like. Combine all the dreams and expectations for the future of everyone and maybe, that is the direction where you should lead them towards.¡±


    Hesitating for a moment, I felt that perhaps this is the moment for me to rify some things. I started to talk about my own personal experiences.


    ¡°Giving an example, many years ago, there is a tyrant who decided to stop invading other countries. He started peace talks with the surrounding kingdoms. However, if he were to say this to those city lords and generals beneath him, there could only be one conclusion.¡±


    ¡°What conclusion?¡± Annie asks curiously.


    ¡°He would be overthrown. His hungry generals aren¡¯t satisfied yet and the noble city lords beneath him aren¡¯t content with the new territory and poption they earned. They will overthrow the current king who is in their path and swiftly nominate new leader, continuing their invasion.


    The one who answered Annie¡¯s question is Adam. Looking at his leisurely look, it is apparent that he has been considering this question for more than a day or two.


    Yes, back then, there are 7 Undead Lords who are just slightly weaker than me in the Yongye army. Even if there is a screw loose in their head and they agreed to stop the invasion, how can I exin this to the middle-tier and high-tier Undead Generals? When every single Undead General is anticipating the arrival of the Age of Undead, I don¡¯t even have the confidence to convince my Four Heavenly Kings to make peace with the living. The only oue for me then if I did so is the urrence of a coup d¡¯etat and getting overthrown.


    ¡°So, many times, the enthroned rulers are just thebined will of his people. The direction that he must point everyone towards is just the future which majority anticipates. So, you don¡¯t have to overthink it and just try your best to listen.¡±


    ¡°Look, there might be a lot of freaks in our city, but everyone is living happily. Even those perverts who often get locked in the cell didn¡¯t leave the city. If you like this city too, protect it well, allow it to operate just as it did. Isn¡¯t that enough?¡±


    Yes, just like I said, given the strength of Beifeng, Eaglestorm, Xueti and Beyar Brothers, they could go anywhere in this wide world. Who knows, they might even be able to be nobles in some other locations. However, they chose to stay in this city that is full of rules here and there. Despite messing around, they were willing to lower their pride and ept the punishments. This shows that there is something that they want here, something that other ces won¡¯t provide them.


    My words were too broad, the female City Lord nods her head, confused.


    ¡°Try your best to think about it and build up using your effort bit by bit. Everyone walked the same path like that. Your Big Sister Elisa will help you.¡±


    This time, Elisa spares me some face and just nods her head solemnly.


    ¡°Un, Annie will work hard.¡± There is still a bit of confusion in her eyes but from the look of her clenched fist, it seems that she has regained her spirit.


    Congrattions, Epic mission The Revival of the Phoenix is 50%pleted. Please try your best. When the mission ispleted, there will be a special reward depending on how the situation turns out.?


    The system also brushes up its existence at this time. However, the tangible rewards bring me the motivation to work hard.


    Before we even reach our destination, the earth starts to shake and split open. Even more so, the volcanoes far way starts erupting and the sky is full of ominous red clouds. Something is obviously wrong.


    At the same time, with the God Sword that he borrowed from Annie, Adam shes the rock wall while charging forward, splitting apart half of the hill.


    Then, he raises his long sword, making the standard pose of a Knight preparing to charge as he roars towards the hill.


    ¡°Who are you! Come out! Otherwise, I will cut you along with this hill.¡±


    Thezy Adam is actually agitated. There isn¡¯t any need to draw his sword to split the hill, so, Little Red and the rest had looks of iprehension on their face. But, I just frown in disdain. My Magic Eye has already told me the conclusion.


    ¡°Heh, isn¡¯t it just cause you just lost face in front of your juniors, so you hope to salvage the situation by this? You will just end up crying.¡±


    Following Adam¡¯s furious roar, a bald Gnome spy appears runs out from the back of the hill.


    ¡°City Lord, don¡¯t cut, it¡¯s me! ¡®Observer¡¯ number 4267. We are on the same side!¡±


    ¡°Just you?¡±


    ¡°Just me.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s enough, you don¡¯t have to say anything. Looking at your thick eyebrows andrge eyes, to think that a person with such honest face would actually be a revolutionary. You traitor, to think you lured us here to ambush us. I will kill you in the name of Sulfur Mountain City!¡±


    ¡°Pah!¡± This isn¡¯t the sound of a gunshot. It¡¯s just that I really can¡¯t watch one and kicked the Adam who despite obviously knowing that he is wrong but persistently pushing on. This spy obviously has important intelligence. If we were to continue messing around, it might end up in a disaster.


    Quickly flipping through the intelligence, even I was dumbfounded. Looks like there is an exnation for the earthquakes just now. A Demon Count won¡¯t be easy to deal with.


    I threw the information to Little Red. After reading it, she turns into her Dragon form without any hesitation.


    Due to the existence of Dragon Knights in all kinds of knight novels, arge portion of giant Dragons actually dislike mortals riding on their back. However, at this moment, Little Red couldn¡¯t care less.


    ¡°Come up, I will fly as fast as I can. We must make it in time to stop them! The opponent this time won¡¯t be easy. You all better recharge your energy and prepare for the final battle!¡±


    Alright, I will upload twice a week until the end of October. I¡¯m going to be out for October so... Hopefully I would have an editor by then to correct my grammar and sentence structure ??

 Chapter 60

    <h4>Chapter 60: Charge With Me</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    What are the Demons? No matter what race it is, the first reaction they would have towards this question is abhorrence, extreme abhorrence.


    It isn¡¯t to directly say that no living being would like Demons, including themselves. They mostly feel resentment and hatred to their own brethren as well.


    Chaotic, violent, malevolent, destructive, greedy and untrustworthy. Other than scheming, it seems that almost all of the negative adjectives could be attached to them. The only reason why no one would me the Demons for being scheming is because this kind of Chaos life form often do not have the interest or the time to spare for interaction. If it is a problem that can be solved with violence, then it will never be solved verbally. Thus, needless to say, they wouldn¡¯t go out to use their head to scheme against others.


    The equally evil Devils, despite their bad reputation, but they are much more wee than Demons. The main reason would be because they like to sign contracts and exchange with others. They are rational and can be reasoned with. Even if there are terms written that shirks them from responsibility and hidden terms within such that there would definitely be fraud and hidden methods within the exchange, but Devils are known to be trustworthy. In a way, they are much better than the Demons who simply destroy everything.


    Demons are the 1st generation that is created by the Goddess of Chaos Cynthia. There were the ones who tempted the 1st generation of humans to fall into depravity to be Devils. They were also the one who created the Undead Cmity so going by logic, they should be the original inhabitants of this multi-dimensional world, the core of the Chaos Faction. (In this novel, Devils belong to be Chaos Faction and they follow the Goddess of Chaos. However, as they used to be from the Order Factions, their way of doing things are more sided towards the Order)


    In reality, the Demons are the archenemies of the Devils, themon foe of the Undead and the infighting between them is savage. Despite all of the races hating them, they are still able to control most of the dimensions in the Lower Realm and do as they please in each realm.


    The reason for that is that they are strong enough and that there is enough of them around.


    As long as the River Styx continues to flow, the souls of the dead flowing within will continuously convert into the lowly Dretch. This way, there would be endless backup for the Demons. The dimensions where the Demons live are always fraught with internal battle and after a cruel infighting and devouring, a new powerhouse would be created. If a Demon and Devil of equal rank were to fight, there is a 90% chance that it would be the Demon who lives.


    Every time a hole leading to the Demon¡¯s Dimension opens in the Main Dimension, it would cause a huge trouble even if it is just a small group of Demons entering.


    After leaving the Lower Realms, they would gradually grow weaker. But, before the grow weak until the point they die and return to the Lower Realms, they will bring countless souls away with them and souls are forever the most valuable currency in the Lower Realm.


    This time, we are really in for it deep. On other days, the Demon worshipers only dare to secretly sacrifice a few people, even sacrificing a thousand people is a shocking big amount. This time, tens of thousands of veteran soldiers and over a thousand Legend experts been sacrificed has indubitably created a new record. A tribute of a level that was never seen before allowed the Demon Count to descend with his true body. This is a catastrophe that was never seen in history.


    Demon Count, it may seem that his position as a noble isn¡¯t high and there are quite a few of them in the Abyss as well. But, he is already an existence of a division leader of the Demon army. If he were to progress another step upwards, it would be the Demon Duke. They are often the leaders of some dimensions and they are able to fight equally with true Gods. (The Marquis and Grand Duke are just noble titles within the Demons. The Demon Marquis are stronger than most Counts and the title is used for those who don¡¯t have their own dimension and thus, aren¡¯t able to rise up to the position of a Duke. Thus, that title is used for the stronger Demon Counts. As for Demon Grand Duke, they are existences that can scoff at normal Duke-level Demons.)


    Vance City is already in a mess. The news that a noble among the Demons has descended has already spread around somehow and even Lorci couldn¡¯t spare the effort to bother about her own daughter getting killed. After being banished by the other Elf Gods, the underground world serves as her only territory and her source of Faith. If it were to be turned into a wreck by the Demons, she would have go to into hibernation or even descend.


    Of course, it would be more embarrassing if she sent an incarnation down and got beaten up on the streets. She is probably discussing the decision to send out troops together with the other Gods of the underground world.


    But, when the true Gods really move out to settle the problem, the entire underground world would probably be partially wrecked.


    Dimension Summoning and Dimension Movement are the expertise of the Demons. Making use of the Spatial Distortion and the Demon Altar, the gate to the Abyss is pulled open.


    Responding to the summoning of their leader, Kakajil¡¯s direct army rushes frenziedly into the Main Dimension. Dretch, Quasit, Subus, Bebilth, Retriever, Vrock, brezu, many different kind Demons who could be ssified and the many Demons who can¡¯t be ssifiede rushing into the Main Dimension until the Dimension Gate can no longer handle the pressure and kacha, it breaks into fragments.


    TL: Too much DND reference, copied from here for the names.


    The entire battlefield is filled with ck Demons who looks at the faraway Vance City. The desire for fresh blood and souls of the lower-tier Demons were suppressed by their master. Suppressing their own instincts, each and every of them goes through another permanent Spatial Distortion ¡ª Sulfur Mountain City.


    The vast and mighty Demon army advances and the Rules of this dimension are eroded by the group of them standing together. Wherever they past, nts naturally wither and die. The ground turns red and barren and very soon, new bizarre nts start growing out. They are likely to be carnivorous nts with great offensive power.


    The existence of the Demons created by the Chaos Faction by itself is sufficient to destroy the Rules of the dimension. Right now, half of an army of the Demons have descended to the mortal realm, coupled with the true body of a Demon Count, if they aren¡¯t driven off quickly, the Rules of this dimension might be totally twisted, possibly turning here into another Lower Realm.


    A low-tier Hellhound¡¯s body is crimson-red and it looks even more ugly than the ugliest wolf. They serve as the dogs and the hunting pack simultaneously. Without even waiting for the arrival of the main army, they started their assault. After clearing away all of the different tribes in the way, they captured an unlucky family of Terrorw Beasts and just as they were about to earn some credit from the master, they realized that there was one person blocking in front of the entire army.


    Yes, just one person. A figure wearing a light blue robe, she still carries the same green vine wand in her hands and she looks quietly in the ancient books in her hands. Even when the hellhoundse rushing forward, she didn¡¯t even raise her head.


    ¡°Kacha¡±


    The low-tier Hellhounds were frozen in midair and turned into an ice sculpture. Then, the sculpture breaks into fragments of ice and falls onto the floor.


    At this while, Margaret¡¯s attention remains on the book.


    Only when the great army closes in does she raises her head and lightly taps her wand on the Saint Stone floating beside her.


    ¡°Ice Aeon.¡±


    The long-prepared Forbidden Spell explodes instantly. The Ice Elves carol in midair and the entire underground world turns into a scenery of white snow. Endless frost and hailstorm rushes towards the Demon army.


    ¡°Huuuuu!¡±


    After the hailstorm, the entire world turns into ice. The number of frozen Demons are uncountable, but Margaret frowns. After all, she was only copying other people¡¯s magic. Without the augmentation of her Soul Imprint and talents, what she is unleashing is only the basic might of the spell, making it much inferior to the original version.


    If it was the Ice Aeon used by Lord Yongye, even the Demon Count would be destroyed, being sted head on like this. However, if Margaret was the one casting it...


    ¡°Kill her!¡±


    Among the white snow, a hundred-meter tall figure stands up. Its body is full of zing mes and it begins charging while roaring.


    ¡°As I expected, arge of portion of the might was blocked by this Demon Lord huh?¡±


    Shaking her head, Margaret doesn¡¯t lose heart. She waves her wand and the other Saint Stone shines a bluish-purple light of the essence of space. The next instant, she was transported to another location a few miles away.


    ¡°Foolish bumpkin from the Main Dimension, to dare to make a fool out of the great Kakajil! I will pull you apart and feed you to the dogs. Then, I will roast your soul on fire for ten thousand years!¡±


    However, Margaret who has escaped far away would not hear this vicious curse.


    Therge portion of the might of the Forbidden Spell was blocked by the Demon Count. Other than the Fire-element low-tier Demons who died instantly from taking double damage from Ice Magic, the losses of the army weren¡¯t great. However, after walking a few miles, the exact same event happened again.


    ¡°Integrated Forbidden Spell: The Harmony of Fire and Wind!¡±


    It is an original Forbidden Spell by Ein Mezus thatbines both fire and wind. A fire tornado hundreds of meters high is created and it even pulled the powerful Kakajil far from the surface. However, the result of this attack is even worse. This magic uses wind toplement the mes and it mainly depends on the mes to destroy the enemy. However, as Demons have strong natural resistance against mes and Margaret, once again, can only deal the basic damage, the Demons who died don¡¯t even number in thousands. Rather, the ¡®weak¡¯ Beastman fodders who was caught in the mes and died instantly numbers over ten thousand.


    Afterward, looking at the female Saint who disappears in a Dimension Gate once again, the furious Kakajil could only grab a few Beastmen and chew on them to vent him anger.


    However, what was bizarre is that the other Beastmen didn¡¯t resist when looking at their brethren getting devoured. In fact, none of them even discussed about it.


    Furthermore, their looks seem to be abnormal now. Their originally big bodies have grown a notch bigger and countless blood veins appeared in those blood-red eyes of theirs as they stare at thend in front of them nkly. No matter which Beastman Tribe one originally belongs to, an unhealthy blood-red color starts to grow on their skin and on the bodies of therge portion of the experts, there were a symbol exclusive to the Demons.


    ¡°Demon Blood.¡±


    Yes, just like I originally overheard, as a final ace of Shou, Demon¡¯s Blood has been long mixed into the drinking water this morning. The moment it activates, Shou would not be able to retreat anymore.


    In this instant, the Demon Blood which was granted by the Demon Lord personally has been activated, granting these Beastman elites the ability to maximize the potential of their physical body. While bing numb to pain and having their fighting prowess increase exponentially, they also became a puppet of the Demons.


    As for Shou himself, he is the number 1 cannon fodder who rushes in a daze. Right now, half of his body was frozen and the other half burnt. To be able to survive a Forbidden Spell, one can only say that he is really resilient.


    In the top of the mountains far away, Margaret looks at the darkened Saint Stones and roughly calctes. She is slightly surprised.


    ¡°Escaping through a Dimension Gate after dumping a Forbidden Spell, the ssical kiting technique of a Mage. I didn¡¯t expect that messy strategy of that fellow would be effective. But, it is a pity that I don¡¯t have any more copied Forbidden Spell. Using a normalrge AOE spell would probably not be effective at all. No, at least I was able to stall for some time. They should be arriving soon.¡±


    Before disappearing once again in the Dimension Gate, killing intent appears in the tranquil eyes of the Great Saint. That is the anger when something that one treasures is being threatened. From this position, the figure of Sulfur Mountain City could be seen. If the Demon army were to be allowed to enter Sulfur Mountain City...


    ¡°Definitely not! I definitely will not allow it!¡±


    But, things never go along with one¡¯s wish. After the Demon army and Kakajil were prepared, this kind of kiting strategy was no longer effective, especially when the Saint has finished the magic which she copied and stored, her own offensive magic requires a long time to cast and its destructive power iscking.


    In fact, after the somehow familiar Chaos Demon Dragon warned her, there were 2 times Margaret almost got Dimension Anchored. If her reaction was slightly slower then, the only oue awaiting her is getting surrounded and killed.


    Finally, realizing that she is no longer able to stall them and she was just wasting mana, she grinds her teeth as she looks at the Demon army and teleports to the city wall.


    But, what surprised her is that the city wall was full of people.


    Sulfur Mountain City doesn¡¯t have any army. After half of the Town Security which could be reluctantly called an army were taken away by Wumianzhe, the remaining half are all here.


    However, what that surprised her the most were the ¡®civilians¡¯.


    Engineers of all races were doing their best to put cannons and catapults together. The Wild Bull Alliance Druids, on a rare asion, were wearing their leather armor and carried their wooden wands. The Nanxiang students carried their wooden swords as they walked up to the city walls. However, the Priests of the Holy Church were giving their own equipment to the young people to equip.


    At least they can still fight. Those aunties and uncles who were equipped with a pot on their head and wielding choppers as weapons made one at a loss of whether tough or cry.


    ¡°This...¡± Looking at the people who were busy preparing for war, Margaret felt a little touched yet speechless at the same time.


    ¡°Who asked you all toe, ridi...¡±


    ¡°They volunteered.¡± I stopped Margaret¡¯s words. By one side, Little Red was so tired that she was lying on the floor with her tongue out. On the other hand, Adam was sitting on a cannon on the city wall while squinting into the distance. He may look leisurely but I know that all of his attention was fixed onto that tall Demon Lord.


    Initially, Adam and the rest intended to halt the Demon army halfway, but looking at the endless Demon army and the incredibly powerful Demon Lord, I suggested waiting for them toe knocking in Sulfur Mountain City. After all, my final trump card is hidden here.


    ¡°Yes, everyone did it voluntarily. Everyone just wanted to use their own hands to protect their own homnd!¡± Looking at this busy sight, Annie¡¯s fighting will has reached the peak and the crimson-red inferno on her God Sword burns intensely. Looking the will of the people uniting as one, she has vaguely felt the boundaries of her own road as a Legend.


    ¡°This feels not bad.¡±


    There are many capable people in Sulfur Mountain City. When the news of the invasion of the ill-reputed Demon army spreads, the civilians of this city whichcks an army didn¡¯t all flee as expected. Instead, those who are stronger equips their full battle gear and walks up to the city wall while the other weaker civilians organized themselves to settle the logistics. Everyone worked hard within their own capabilities under the same g, using their own hands to protect their own homnd.


    Somehow, I seem to see past the veil of time and peer into the distant future. Every city in the future would be like this, without any army to invade others. Under the radiance of thew, civilians would distant themselves from crimes and live their hardest to enjoy the pleasures of live.


    When equality finally triumphs, the concept of kindness and evil won¡¯t be something stered on an entire race. Wars will only appear in musicals and myths. The youngsters would leisurely criticize the war heroes of the past andment the peace has buried their talents, that they are too unlucky...


    ¡°Hehe, looks like thest 100 years weren¡¯t in vain. Suddenly, I feel motivated again. Looks like, I won¡¯t have trouble living another 100 years.¡± I look at the figures busying themselves on the city walls and Iughed, joy radiating deep from my heart.


    At the same time, Margaret was still trying to persuade those ordinary civilians to distance themselves from the city walls. But, looking from the civilians whoe crowding in from both sides, this attempt is bound to end in failure.


    As the Demons close in on us, myugh grows louder.


    ¡°Looks like those fellows intend to defeat us by outnumbering us. What do you think?¡±


    ¡°Hehe, topete with an Undead Emperor in a battle of armies? Lord, please allow us to teach those immature Demonds what a true military is like and what a true fearless charge is.¡±


    That is a tall and headless Knight. The polo stick in his hand is just as striking as his bald head in the other. At this instant, he is staring cross-eyed at the Nightmare Horses, he has been wanting to change his mount for a long time.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, I have been spinning the roulette for so much recently that my bones are aching. Finally, there is an opportunity for me to draw my sword. Waa, there is even an Eight-hand Snake officer, leave him to me. I will kill whoever who snatches him from me!¡± This is an Eighteen-hand Skeleton General. Right now, he is busy changing the poles with tes spinning on top on his hands with sharp swords.


    ¡°I am finally rid myself of that colorful ball. My lord, please allow me to set off. I am a general under yourmand, not your pet dog!!¡±


    The one who said those piteous words was a small Skeleton Dog whose limbs were fitted randomly. Looking at him covering his nose to look piteous, no one would expect that he is actually the fearsome head of the Seven Deadly Sins, Wrath.


    Looking around me, the high-tier Undead were looking piteously at me. On their backs were a blue war g. The picture of a castle within the hurricane is obviously one from a few centuries ago, making one feel nostalgic.


    ¡°You all even took out Mist¡¯s War gs, so why are you still making a show of asking me?¡±


    ¡°Wuuuuu! This is great, my bones are almost rusty!¡±


    ¡°Long live Your Highness!!¡±


    Yes, Your Highness and not Emperor. The reason why they used this honorary term to call me was never because I am Emperor Yongye but I was the final prince of the previous Mist Country which was destroyed. They are the few remaining soldiers of the kingdom, those who aren¡¯t willing to pass on like this. Fools who are willing to walk to the end of time with me.


    ¡°My general, is our army prepared and ready to move off?¡±


    ¡°Of course, Your Highness. Your army, no matter is it 376 years ago, or 250 years ago, or 130 years ago, when have we let you down?! The remaining 24602 of the fallen Red Hunting Hounds have been sharpening their edges and grinding their teeth, awaiting the day for their deployment. We already can¡¯t wait for the moment we return to the battlefield.¡±


    He is still the same pet dog who died with regrets, he gave the exact same answer that he gave me 2 months ago at the Undead Theme Park. But, this time, the feeling it gave was totally different.


    Looking from the zing Soulfire in the eyes of the Undead, it seems that no matter how much failures we meet with, they are still determined to follow me until the end of the world.


    I took a deep breath as the Rnd Sword by my waist is starts to heat up. It can¡¯t be that the blood of Undead could boil as well? Fortunately, Undead can¡¯t cry otherwise, it would really be shameful of me.


    This moment, my old horse, Yongye, walks to me with his sides facing me as he looks at me expectantly, as though anticipating the moment I ride on him again.


    Yes, their determination has never changed. Then, what am I waiting for? What am I hesitating for? What am I considering for? What am I fearing?


    ¡°Yes, my Knights. You all have never let me down. Strike the war drums, blow the horn, rise Mist¡¯s War gs up high! My Knights, charge with me!¡±


    Noble Rankings:


    Archduke


    Grand Duke


    Duke


    Marquis


    Count/ Earl


    Viscount


    Baron


    But anyway, for now, only the position of the Count, Marquis, Duke and Grand Duke are here so it isn¡¯t sure whether the rest of the titles would be used.


    Sometimes I really hate this novel, so many names that I find it hard to trante. Truthfully, when I was reading through it, I just read through the names and ignore them :X


    So, I¡¯ve decided, for those that are easy to trante (or if I am able to google them and get a result easily), I¡¯ll trante it but for those which I seriously cannot find and the names doesn¡¯t make a huge impact on the story, I will just roughly trante (as long as the idea is there)


    Demon Lord -> In this case, the lord means more ofnd lord rather than a title.

 Chapter 61

    <h4>Chapter 61: The Infallible Diffindor</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    [At the extreme North, in thend of frost, there is a Country of Snow, Mist Country. It has rich mines and specializes in producing magic crystals. The country is wealthy and the businesses were prosperous. They had a strong military force that allowed them to withstand the invasion of the Beastman and Elf in the East and the Demon Abyss in the West for almost a thousand years. Its royalty has a rich tradition and the Princes of every generation serves as generals. However, nearing the demise of the country, there is the birth of a twin prince, an ominous foreboding. Afterwards, foreign tribes invaded them and cmity beset them, causing the fall of the country...]


    ¡°These papers are all bullshit!¡±


    Every time I see the description of Mist Country on that book on historymonly used in the continent, I feel nauseated. What kind of history is this, it is obviously the victors singing praises of their own war effort. What cmity were they talking about, it was obviously the doings of human!


    Allow me to recall the truth of the history that Ipiled.


    AD1518, 378 years ago, when the Beastmen and Demons invaded simultaneously to steal from the prosperous human world, the Mist Country started a full-out campaign against them. Going by tradition, the East battle line is led by Prince Rnd while the West battle line is led by Prince Karwenz. At that time, both Princes were only 12 years old.


    4 years earlier, when the tyrant, Caroni, took over the throne of Saint Fortrya, a neighboring country of Mist Country, his tyrannical rule caused his people to live in fear. In order to divert away the problems within the country, he pointed his sword towards the rich and powerful Mist Country and often caused trouble at the borders.


    At this moment, looking at how the Mist Country is short on manpower, Caroni colluded with two other countries which had long set their eyes on them and invaded the Mist Country¡¯s only safe zone, its South border, putting Mist Country in a dangerous position.


    Due to the urgent circumstances, Prince Rnd, who is a Holy Knight, went back to the headquarters of the Holy Church and on the joint conference ofrge countries, he used those invaders of invading his country without any consideration of basic morals and requested for them to withdraw their enemy. However, the prepared Saint Fortrya instead used him of being a heretic and colluded with Demons.


    Cardinal Ben.Zuma, who has been bribed by Saint Fortrya long ago, adjudicated that Rnd was guilty of heresy and he was arrested to await public punishment. Also, Saint Fortrya secretly promised to split the right to develop the magic crystal mines to other country in exchange of keeping out of this matter. If it wasn¡¯t for that they went too far and word got out that the Holy Knights and Priests at the bottom of the hierarchy started a violent protest, I might have been sentenced to death on the spot.


    On the same year, Karwenz invaded the Holy Church Headquarters and killed countless guards to rescue the locked up Rnd. Fresh red blood stained the stairs of Baine Great Church and even the illegitimate son of the Pope then was included in the list of deceased. When news spread out, the event shocked the entire world and the Church lost its dignity. This incident came to be known as the ¡®Bloodshed of Baine¡¯.


    The Holy Knights and Priests Faction, which was full of experts, simply watched quietly at the incident. 2 yearster, Pope Saint Paul the 9th took the me and steps down while Ben.Zuma was exiled.


    But, before the Pope stepped down, with the ¡®Bloodshed of Baine¡¯ as a trigger, the Mist Country and its royalty was stripped of their books on the teachings of the Holy Church and their entire country was adjudicated as a country of heretics. But, what was ironic is that the country¡¯s East battle line has been broken through by the Beastman alliance army while the West battle line is in a savage fight with the Demons. This im of us being heretic, it is really too hard to tell how were we heretics.


    AD1519 spring, 377 years ago, the current Pope Saint Paulunched a ¡®Holy War¡¯ against the heretics. The countries who were extremely attracted to the profits from the magic crystal mines, the special product of the country and the ve trade actually quickly responded to the invitation to this ridiculous Holy War. At the same, the Holy Knights and Priests, under the suppression of the upper echelons of the church, could only helplessly remain silent.


    On the same year, all of the battle lines of the Mist Country were broken through. Under the summons of the royalty, all of the surviving citizens escaped into the only remaining city, the capital Diffindor. All of the scattered army retreated back to protect the capital.


    AD1520, 376 years ago, after being trapped in the capital for 15 months, all of the rations and supplies were running out. It wasn¡¯t long before the human kingdom Mist Country¡¯s final capital Diffindor was broken through by the human alliance army. Prince Rnd led all of the remaining guards to fight to their death while Prince Karwenz has disappearedpletely. That year, both of the Princes were 14 years old.


    The human alliance army, who had suffered great casualties, ughtered the entire city to vent their resentment. However, the long period of war and the hatred of the civilians and soldiers at the brink of their death caused Diffindor to umte so much that it went beyond being a Cursed Land, converting directly into a Land of Death. The Knights who died to protect their countries and the civilians who were reluctant to die just like that, they all turned into the servants of death and started their vengeance against the living beings.


    The alliance army got caught off-guard and suffered heavy losses. In the end, the missing Karwenz appears once again. This time, he really colluded with the Demon army and started his revenge against the world of humans and the Holy Church.


    All in all, the warsted for 16 years. Numerous human kingdoms were destroyed because of the war and the entire human society was plunged into hell. In the end, the Demon army was destroyed and Karwenz was banished back to hell by the Holy Church. The Holy Church also ended up conducting a massive reorganization its internal structure.


    After that, under the Yongye Cmity more than hundred years ago, the different kingdoms who invaded the Mist Country waspletely crushed. Many tribes that were blessed with longevity suspected that Lord Yongye is the Prince Rnd back then. After all, Mist¡¯s War g was too eye-catching. However, the Holy Church denied the im with all its might and the matter closed like this.


    Afterwards, the Mist Country is deemed as the dark history of the entire human society. In the case which it must be mentioned, a simple and twisted introduction is left on the history book.


    ¡°...However, nearing the demise of the country, there is the birth of a twin prince, an ominous foreboding. Afterwards, foreign tribes invaded them and cmity beset them, causing the fall of the country. Prince Karwenz colluded with the Demons and brought them into the country, causing the destruction of Mist Country and 17 other nearby countries.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, destruction?¡±


    The Skeleton Horse beneath me charges ahead. Looking at Mist¡¯s War gs dancing in the air and the Demon army that are at the horizon, I feel like I returned back to the war back then. Thus, I lift my broken Rnd Sword. It is the symbol of the royalty of Mist Country.


    ¡°As long as I, Rnd, lives, the Mist Country will never fall!¡±


    ¡°Mist Country will never fall!¡±


    Isn¡¯t the one carrying the War gs and charging ahead the Great Skeleton General Fayde? As a Royal Knight of the Mist Country and the top Sword Saint of the Red Hunting Hounds, he has experienced countless battles in a few centuries. His body is full of wounds but there isn¡¯t a single scar on his back. The reason? As the g bearer, not mentioning whether the g has fallen, the g he carries has never even tilted before!¡±


    ¡°Charge, my Knights! Beat up these darned Demons.¡±


    That is the Mistress of gue Lich Kakana. She can¡¯t be med for that nondescript order to her troops to charge. After all, she isn¡¯t even military personnel. If it wasn¡¯t for the events that happened, she would have probably been an Alchemist Merchant that is selling beauty and nutrition products.


    A portion of the 24602 remaining soldiers are the soldiers who died for the country while the rest of them are ordinary civilians who gradually became soldiers. Theye from many different ces and theirposition are messy. However, this bunch of unreliable colleagues have be the home for my soul.


    My people are at my back, my Knights are beside me and this is where my kingdom is. Then, what do you mean by destroyed, what do you mean by demise? It is all a joke!


    ¡°Return to us, our kingdom, our capital ¡ª ?Soul World, The Infallible Diffindor?¡±


    Snowkes starts to fall slowly from the sky as a gust of strong wind whips up the snow on the ground. Time seems to have rewind to the winter that year.


    My Soulfire burns intensely. After paying a price, the first Soul Imprint to be awakened is the already damaged Ice Treader.


    The snow extends for tens of thousands of miles and in the great snowstorm, it is to look at the distant. The mountains and surface has been covered with snow. Thousands of miles sealed with ice and the frosty North wind, this is the North Winter that we were familiar with.


    The Demon army whichprise mainly Fire Elemental Demons shiver in this unexpected snowstorm that suddenly beset them. This world gives them a feeling even more dangerous than the Forbidden Spell from before. That is the frost from the natural world, it is something that mercilessly steals away all life and eliminates them.


    At the moment when the Demons shiver, my Undead armyughed manically. Undead never fear the cold, needless to say these fellows who grew up in the Snow Country. Fighting in the snow, their fighting prowess would be increased significantly.


    Yes, the Soul World that I was proud of is only a purely support-based world. It is meaningless without my army. However, as long as my army and I exist, without doubt, it is the strongest one in the world!


    Furthermore, thisnd of snow is just the start...


    ¡°I am the Lord of Undead, the Prince of Mist Country, the final Head Knight of the Order. I swear to protect my people and mynd! I swear to never surrender to any invaders! I swear to change fate! I swear to bring equality to all life!¡±


    That is the solemn promise of the Prince of an ancient destroyed country. Thenes the vows of the Knights.


    ¡°Your Highness, I am your kindest Knight. I vow to treat the weak with kindness and help anyone who requests of me.¡±


    nce, the kindest Knight. He escorted the refugees for a thousand miles to Diffindor. In the entire group, the only one who died of hunger during the journey is him, who split the food in the group.


    ¡°Your Highness, I am your strongest Knight. I vow to stand bravely against violence, not regretting my actions even if I die a hundred times!¡±


    Camisia, my prided Titan Warrior, the fearless vanguard. Even when he was decapitated, he never stopped his charge.


    ¡°Your Highness, I am your most righteous Knight. I vow to correct every mistake, no matter where ites from!¡±


    Fanderk, my Holy Knight brother who went to denounce the injustice in the joint conference of countries. I was saved by Karwenz but he was hanged on the squares of the Holy Light Church. Even to his death, he insists on the justice in his heart and he refused to cave in to anyone, regardless whether it is to the Churches of the world or the Holy Light he holds faith in.


    ¡°Your Highness, I am your most useless Knight. I vow to fight for those without weapons, but I can only serve as a wall with my body.¡±


    Carlos, who dares to say that you are useless! To save those escaping refugees, despite being exhausted, you used your body of flesh to shield the civilians and guarded the rock bridge by yourself without retreating. In the end, you died from getting pierced by hundreds of arrows.


    ¡°Your Highness, I am your most brotherly Knight. I vow to help my Knight brothers to protect their families by using this body of flesh.


    Lucas, you have seeded in your aims. The families of everyone survived but what that makes everyone¡¯s heartache is that you failed to protect the 15-year-old you.


    ¡°Your Highness, I am your most loyal Knight. I swear to follow you to the ends of time.¡±


    Bastian, my son of Wrath. From a pet dog, you advanced slowly to be the Captain of the Red Hunting Hounds. Someone said that you relied on the strong physical body that I granted you to climb to that position. Someone insulted you and said that you are a brainless pug who only knows loyalty. But, you faced their insults and sarcasm with a smiling face and treated the dog-like loyalty as the greatest honor. Your ws and anger are always directed towards the enemies.


    ¡°Origin of Order, if this kind of Knights aren¡¯t qualified to be Heroic Spirits, then your eyes must be blind! If this kind of Knights can¡¯t be called Heroes, then those heroes in Myths are simply those who deceived the world for their fame. Return and fight for me, my Knights!¡±


    The Soul Imprints that represents my life start to awaken once again under the injection of my Power of Soul. The damaged Crown of Undead and Son of Light starts to light up again. The Power of Order and Power of Chaose into conflict and gradually, they merged together, forming a Light of Rule that changes everything.


    Under the chants of my Knights and I, a light radiates and the entire world has been reced, my Soul World recing the real world.


    It is an endless snowfield under the starry skies. Smoke and war cry surrounds us, this is the scenery of a battlefield. In the faraway distant in our vision, the city named Diffindor is still burning fervently. That is the home that we have always anticipated, but can never reach.


    This is Soul World ?The Infallible Diffindor?. Under its effects, we have returned back to 376 years ago. On the day when a snowstorm rises in the night, at that moment, Diffindor has yet to fall and my Knights and I were still struggling.


    The descend of my Soul World means that reality is being rewritten. My knights are no longer in the form of the ugly-looking Skeletons and Corpses.


    The g of a tornado flies up high. But below the g were lively faces. Their healthy and fit body were equipped with superior equipment with an insignia of a tornado on it. They are no longer normal Undead. They are the incarnation of the wills of Heroes after their deaths. They have been granted an immortal Soul Body by the Origin of Order and there is even a nice name to go along with it ¨C Heroic Spirit.


    There is a boundary between Heroic Spirits and Undead. In my Soul World, the Knights that were loyal to me are the only Heroes worthy of the title of Heroic Spirits.


    Right now, they are overstepping the limitations of the iplete body of the Undead with the centuries of strength and experience they have umted. With a perfect physical body that is suited for them to exert their strength, their fighting prowess would be increased by at least three folds.


    Looking at the sudden change, the fearless Demon army starts to tremble and back away. Going by logic, every Heroic Spirit is at least a Legend-rank existence. They have no chance at victory.


    ¡°Demon Count? Far from being enough. Bring a Demon Prince or Great Duke here.¡±


    The Heroic Spirit Knights has already started sweeping away the Demon army. The frenziedughter of Camisia, Bastian and the others echo on the battlefield.


    The g-bearing Great Sword Saint Defays dances in the midst of Demons. His 18 sharp swords float around his body and ughters the enemies. Despite being just a single person, he seemed to be like a Sword Formation. The body of the Heroic Spirit granted him the ability to use his will to control his swords, allowing him to better disy his skills aspared to when he is still an Undead.


    In this moment, the Three-Headed Hellhound Wrath has shown their powers. Standing together, Ah Bao and Ah Basbines together in a spatial distortion and their true body appears. The Three-Headed Hellhound starts to chant the Choral of Hell and the gate leading to the Death Dimension opens. This is Wrath who represents the Grim Reaper.


    Leading the charge, I am already deep within the Demon army. The gigantic Demon Kakajil stands in front of me. However, I smile happily and swings the Rnd Sword which somehow becameplete again. I swing the reins and the gigantic ck War Horse Yongye increases its speed with a loud howl, leaving after-images in the battlefield.


    In this world, I am still that Holy Knight Prince Rnd and not the Lich Rnd who only has an iplete and damaged body remaining. I am the Head Knight of the Order!


    At this moment, Adam, who was already fighting with Kakajil, looking at me reinforcing him, he stuns for a moment before smiling.


    ¡°As expected, it is Big Brother Rolo. Why? Have you finally thought it through and decided toe meet me for thest time?¡±


    Yes, I have regained my look of the past, albeit the age not being correct. However, the face shape should be very simr to the Big Brother Rolo in his memories, confirming the guesses that he was confident of.


    ¡°Sigh, I intended to send you off with my face after I fully revive. Let¡¯s cut the crap for now, someone is waiting for us. So, do you need help?¡±


    ¡°Of course, don¡¯t duel if you can lynch. Isn¡¯t that what you often said?¡±


    Old enemies? Old friends? Old brothers? I haven¡¯t been able to say for sure for a long time now.


    We smiled mutually at each other. The crimson-red God word and the silver longsword cross by each other in midair and sparks were produced from the friction. In the next instant, we shed at the Demon Count at the same time.


    ¡°The Severance of the River of Time!¡±


    ¡°Holy Light, that is an enemy worth fighting!!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª-


    PS1. Rnd has been upped a tier because he used the God Equipment Origin of Codex. In order not to affect the reading, I didn¡¯t mention it in the main text. Also, the reason why his Soul Imprints and Rnd Sword becameplete again is because he burnt his soul. That is a kind of suicide, but there¡¯s a reason for that.


    PS2. Now that I¡¯m on a critical period, to ensure the quality, I will write slowly

 Chapter 62

    <h4>Chapter 62: Demon ying</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    The conclusion has been decided the moment ?The Infallible Diffindor? descended.


    In the face of the Mist¡¯s War g drifting in the sky and the loyal knights who have survived the trial of time, when the horn to advance is blown, the vast demon army isn¡¯t worth mentioning in front of me.


    I have always believed that in the face of this drifting Mist¡¯s War g, no matter which Demon or Devils from the Lower Realm or Angels and Heroic Spirits from the Upper Realm, they aren¡¯t able to withstand the charge of my army. We will be invincible.


    Camisia, who is opening up the road of me, is currently back in the pinnacle of his strength and incredible muscles are hidden underneath his gigantic armor. The Nightmare Horse he is riding on is rushing forward with all its strength, leaving fiery footprints in its trail, while two 4-meter long Dragon Lance serves as his spear.


    How many years has it been? As my strongest warrior, he still stands at the forefront of the army.


    Regardless of whether it is a Hezrou with boundless strength or the gigantic Bebilith, in the face of Camisia who is blessed with God¡¯s Strength, they fall down like little chicks with just a little bump by their sides. Even the extremely heavy adamantine Dragon Lance which normal people are unable to lift, he can use both of them simultaneously easily.


    On other days, this extremely powerful expert who can¡¯t be stopped when he begins his charge has a fatal w. That is, due to his heavy weight, it is easy for his mount to tire. However, when his Undead Mount has also stepped into the realm of Heroic Spirits, his fearless charge no longer holds any possibility of being stopped.


    On his right, the young man Carlos who is dubbed as the ¡®most useless Knight¡¯ carries his shield up high, blocking arrows and magic spells for him. At this moment, he is the grindstone which ensures that the sharpness of the flying arrow.


    ¡®The Mobile Fortress¡¯ is the prided nickname of that young Knight. In terms of skills as a Defender, Carlos still remains the top among the Royal Knights. Even when this noble Heroic Spirit is stuffed into the body of an abhorrent Abomination Undead, this tall and strong young man still solemnly blocks the attack for himrade using his body as a shield.


    He might not be skilled in offensive martial arts or magic. But, if there is someone who looks at him in despise because he isn¡¯t suited to offense and calls him ¡®useless¡¯, then he can prepare a coffin now. That¡¯s because therades that Carlos saves will step out and use their life to protect the honor of this young Knight without any hesitation.


    But, looking at how this beige-hair young man easily wards off the arrows and magic, it seems that his ability with the shield is much stronger than the past!


    On the left of Camisia is old Sir Feyde. He is the Swordsmanship tutor for both me and Karwenz and the strongest Swordsman of the Royal Knight. Even more so, he is the father of the Great Sword Saint Fayde and the one who guided him on his path.


    TL: Yes, both of their name has the same hanyupinyin :X


    The old general¡¯s hair has long turnedpletely white. Facing the Demon army, he didn¡¯t even use the Swordsmanship that he is most proficient in. Instead, he lifts up his silver bow and shoots. Squinting his eyes, he pulls the bowstring and shoots 6 arrows at once. None of Demon Captains that he sets his eyes upon has yet to live.


    Regardless of strength or prestige, he is the Knight that is most qualified to respond to my call. However...


    ¡°Respected Sir Feyde, are you still ming yourself for not being able toplete your mission? Please don¡¯t, it really isn¡¯t your fault. No one would have expected that the undefeated Knight would run out of time and die of old age while carrying out the mission. Perhaps, it is my fault. If I had seen through the meaning of the 3 cups of heavy liquor you had before heading out and your forced smile while holding on tightly to the remnants of your lifespan, I wouldn¡¯t have allowed the retired you to head to the battlefield and carry out a mission that is destined to end in failure.¡±


    At this moment, the old General seems to have venting his will to fight. As a lightly armored cavalry, he often charges too far ahead identally. But, if the Demons think that they could make use of this opportunity to get rid of him, this old Sword Saint will use his sharp sword to prove them wrong.


    The female Holy Knight riding behind Camisia, Lani, the older sister of Fanderk, is spreading the radiance of the Holy Light around the battlefield. The sacred glow of Light heals herrades while purifying and destroying the Demons.


    The war hammer-carrying ¡®Human Siege¡¯ Lucas, the one whose spears are as swift as the wind, nce, the Great Sword Saint Fayde, the Mistress of gue Kakana who is throwing Alchemy reagents around andst but not least, the Dragon Knight Timier... In the midst of the arousing drum beats, countless Legend Knights gather under the Mist¡¯s War g. These Heroes who have underwent countless battles seem to view the battlefield as another celebratory banquet asughed heartily while charging fearlessly.


    ¡°Mist¡¯s War g? The Spirit of Mist? What is that.¡±


    When I was young, I viewed myself as the protagonist of the world, so there is no way the Spirit of the Knight of these natives would resonate with me. Towards the me who spoke arrogant words, my father, the King, only patted my shoulders and said ¡®You are a descendant of the Mist. You will understand.¡±


    When I was 12 years old and urgently summoned back from the Headquarters of the Holy Church to lead the army, I thought that I would just be a puppet General. After all, arge portion of time was spent in the Holy Church training as a Holy Knight. Furthermore, the Holy Church had a hostile rtionship with the Mist Country, so how could the 12-year-old me then get everyone to submit to me?


    But, regardless of whether it is the old veteran soldiers or the young and arrogant genius Knights, they all followed mymands. Even if I made some mistakes, they would secretly correct them. In the war, they continuously imparted to me what they were skilled at, all kinds of battle experience.


    ¡°As expected of a descendant of the Mist.¡± Every time I had outstanding results and led an army to victory, they would say so gleefully as though this was their pride as well. When I made a judgmental error due to myck of experience, they would say ¡°You¡¯re still young, it is fine like that¡± and forgive me like how a doting grandfather would. Then, they would sacrifice their blood, sweat and even their lives to correct the mistakes that I made with any hesitation.


    Those who gave in their life just for me to grow up were innumerable. Towards these people, how could I not grow up quickly.


    ¡°As expected of a descendant of the Mist.¡± Gradually, these words that made me ufortable became my greatest pride!


    The Mist Country were often in a state of war with foreign tribes. Our country is in an istednd far away from the prosperous center of the continent. We might have precious and rare mines, but they had to be exchanged for different kinds of food and resources. In a ce where half of the year is a bone-breaking chilling period, it is obviously a bad ce for humans to live in.


    In the course of thousands of years, the soldiers and civilians gave their all to trust the descendant of the Mist Royalty to protect this barrennd. The Mist Royalty used equality and sacrifice to repay their trust. For generations, the Prince of each generation served as Generals and treated dying on the field as an honor.


    I finally understood what is the Spirit of the Mist. It isn¡¯t some high and mighty teaching. It is like the mist of a valley, intangible but definitely existent. It is like the fortress among the raging wind on the Battle gs, the final defense when pushed to a corner!


    ¡°You are a descendant of the Mist. You will understand.¡±


    Haa, indeed. Father, I finally understood. I didn¡¯t expect to understand it that quickly.


    In this instant, we were still in the battlefield where ice and fire intertwines all around. The Mist¡¯s War g still flies up high. Our battle has yet to end.


    ¡°I am the descendant of the Mist. I am a pitiful person who couldn¡¯t even protect his own country and citizens. I admit that we are just lonely souls who miss the mortal world, that we are defeated soldiers. But...¡±


    ¡°We are dead but we aren¡¯t willing to die like that! We are defeated soldiers but we are unwilling to put down the past! There are still too much unjust and tragedy in this world! How can we shut our eyes and sleep peacefully? Our remains have yet to rot and our arms are still capable to lifting weapons. We want to ride on our mount and charge,unching a crusade against the ambitious who creates war and chaos!


    The cheers of the Knights are their lingering will which allowed them to be Undead and the faith that allowed them to be Heroic Spirits.


    Under the Mist¡¯s War g, I point my Rnd Sword towards the direction of advance and the Knights used their faith and courage to repay my trust.


    ¡°Charge!¡±


    As a loyal cannon fodder, under themands of their master, the bloodthirsty Beastman army blocks our path. However, just like how a mantis is unable to block a carriage, they were crushed under our advance.


    In the chaos, isn¡¯t the one who old Sir Feyde beheads with one hit the Beastman Sovereign who never regrets? He didn¡¯t even stop us for a single second.


    Maybe, dying meaninglessly is a suitable punishment for an ambitious and ruthless person who steps on other people¡¯s life to fulfill his own desires like him.


    When the gigantic Ancient Hell Dragon is forcefully dispatched by her master to block us, that familiar gigantic Dragon already had a destined enemy waiting for her.


    ¡°Molly, you are really a big disgrace!¡±


    Before she could even swipe down to assist, Ein Mezus, who suddenly descends down, tackles her, causing her to continuously roll in the air.


    Yes, the previous Chaos Demon Dragon from before is the Dragon Empress Molly. Due to the unexpected battle that urred, she, who was supposed to serve as a tribute, survived. Afterwards, facing the Demon Count, she gave up her pride and chose to convert into a Demon Dragon ¨C Hell Dragon.


    TL: The Chaos just means that she is a Demon Dragon sided towards the Chaos Abyss.


    The two Ancient Giant Dragon tears each other apart while howling furiously. Despite the fact that the Hell Dragon should be much stronger in a physical battle than the Giant Dragons on the surface, but the one who had advantage in all aspects was the smaller and younger Ein Mezus.


    ¡°Where did the dignity of the Dragon Tribe that you often said go to? Did you swallow it down? I can¡¯t stand looking at such an ugly appearance! Die!¡±


    The furious Ein Mezus discards the final inch of kindness of hope in her heart and for the first time, attacks Molly with the intent to kill.


    Ein Mezus, the master of two elements, showcases her deep understanding of magic. There is no need for incantation or hand gestures, just the breathing of the Dragon Tribe, whose bloodline is full of mana, is magic itself. Just by pping her wings and staring at Molly, Wind and Fire were created continuously.


    The Wind gives a boost to her while interfering with Molly¡¯s flight. On the other hand, the Fire is more flexible. Sometimes, it changes into smoke to block the Molly¡¯s vision. Other times, it explodes in front of Molly, breaking her scales. Furthermore, every single attack of Ein Mezus is infused with the power of Elements.


    As the fight went on, Molly¡¯s heart chilled as she realized that she had no hopes for victory. Thus, her fickleness acts up again and without regards for the severe wounds she just incurred, she abandons the boss she just chose to serve under and escapes into the horizon.


    The rapid loss of the two original Underground Autarch seems to start a domino effect and the Demon army falls back continuously under the assault of the army of Heroic Spirits. Not too far away, the battle between the 100-meter fall giant Demon and Adam could be seen. The light of victory is within sight.


    As long as the Demon Commander who summoned the Demons is killed, those low-tier Demons would naturally be driven back to the Abyss.


    Even the bloodthirsty and frenzied Demons treasure their lives. In the face of the unstoppable charge, they have started to scatter.


    But, before we even arrive, arge silhouette couldn¡¯t hold in its anger any longer.


    Thatrge ck silhouette leaps up and despite being a 60~70-meter tall gigantic beasts which should have slow reactions, but it seems to be as agile as a leopard. It bypasses the few Balor Demons who serves as bodyguards and crashes violently into the giant Demon Count.


    That is the Captain of the Red Hunting Hounds, Demonic Spatial Hellhound Bastian!


    The gigantic Demon Lord falls to the ground with his Demon Halberd supporting his body. His upper body is simr to a goat while his lower body is like an iparably bid lizard. Bastian uses his 3 heads and directly tears apart one of his limb!


    ¡°AHHHHH! FILTHY WORMS!¡±


    The gigantic Three-Headed Hellhound Bastian, in the formation of our Knight Order, the job of this Captain was never a Knight. Instead, it is a Giant War Beast and a Siege Machine!


    It normally serves as the vanguard to tear apart the enemy¡¯s formation. This huge ck war beast would jump into the enemy¡¯s formation and cause a fatal chaos within. That gap would then be torn apart to be a fatal blow that couldn¡¯t be fixed.


    The reason why I use ¡®huge¡¯ to describe his body and not fixed numbers is because his size is never fixed.


    The center head of Bastian is the incarnation of Wrath. He doesn¡¯t have any name or rationality, but he is responsible for using his fangs and ws to rip apart the enemy. When his rage reaches a point, he will grow bigger because of his anger. For a Giant War Beast, arge mass means greater strength than cannot be countered.


    Just like how there is no limit to rage, as long as Bastian turns back into his original form on the battlefield, as the battle proceeds on, his wrath and size is limitless. We once encountered a difficult battle for 2 days and 2 nights. There was an Ancient Gold Dragon that suppressed our army but in the end, it was crushed to death by a single leg of Bastian! Not to mention, the number of city walls and city gates he crushed under his feet.


    The reason why he usually splits into 2 different body and keeps his main consciousness in that pitiful Skeleton Dog is to suppress his endless wrath.


    But, if he only has this much, he wouldn¡¯t be worthy of being called the Head of the Four Heavenly Kings, the strongest General that I trust the most.


    The head of the savage beast in the middle who moves instinctively only listens to the order of the other two heads. The left head is Ah Bao (his sub-consciousness). His soothing voice brings about the order of death. The right head is Bastian¡¯s main consciousness. Having a vantage point of the entire field, he often roars orders tomand the movement of the entire army.


    It is said that the Three-Headed Hellhound is the gatekeeper of Hell and for Wrath, I only designed one ability for it ¡ª Soul World Gates of Hell.


    When the Three-Headed Hellhound howls together, the vague image of the gates of hell will appear behind them. When Ah Bao opens the left door, the Undead allies who just died in a distance not too far away who has his soul intact would be revived. When Bastian opens the right door, the Air of Death would rush out, causing all surrounding life to wither away.


    Of course, resurrection cannot be without a price. For every 10 taken away by the right door, only one cane back from the left. When both doors are opened together, there will be endless destruction.


    In this instant, Bastian has already rushed into the midst of the Demon army. In an instant, Adam who was using his Inferno Wings to deal with Kakajil became part of the audience. When Bastian and Kakajil was pitting together physically while tearing each other apart with their fangs, the doors of death has been long opened.


    Perhaps, as the leader of the Seven Deadly Sins, Bastian¡¯s individual fighting prowess may not be on par to Ah Dang of Gluttony. But, in a team battle, Bastian who can revive,mand and serves as a war machine still serves as my strongest General.


    ¡°Don¡¯t duel if you can lynch. I have said that before. This is one of the basic strategies of war ¡ª Gathering soldiers to get in the upper hand to destroy the enemy¡¯s isted and weaker soldiers.¡±


    At this moment, when Kakajil¡¯s arm that was holding the Demon Halberd and his throat was bitten firmly by Bastian, the God Sword of the man in the sky strikes relentlessly on the vitals of the Demon Lord. The isted Demon Noble who can no longer move fate is sealed. He can only serve as the punchbag of the charging army.


    In the face of the absolute army formed by 24602 Heroic Spirits, no matter how strong he is individually, the only possible ending for him is to get crushed.


    However, in the face of a critical situation, the infuriated Demon activates the talent that he can only use once a day.


    ¡°Soul Extraction Curse!¡±


    That is a powerful curse created bybining the ability of the Demon Lord and his SemiGod Equipment ?Kakajil¡¯s Soul-Burning Lantern. The target of this curse would have their soul forcefully extracted and for a soul that has left the body, there is no way it is able to withstand the attraction of the Soul-Burning Lantern.


    However, it chose the wrong target.


    The gigantic finger points towards me. The ck tattoos of the curse spreads rapidly across his body in the shape of a spider¡¯s web. The next second, it went still.


    Indeed, if the summoner of the Soul World dies, the Soul World would disappear along with him. The Royal Knights will turn back into their original forms as Undead Knights, bing significantly weaker. Thus, using his strongest talent, his curse, to kill me instantly is a correct strategic move.


    But, even though I look like a living being, I am still dead. Let¡¯s first not discuss how can a soul be extracted from the body of a dead person, even the River Styx which has the greatest ability to attract and eat into souls cannot do anything to my soul, so what can a SemiGod Equipment do?


    ¡°Charge!!¡±


    Seeing the master they serve being attacked, the Knights were enraged. Even without my orders, they won¡¯t stop their charge.


    After arge AOE Holy Light buff, the silver arrows carrying with it the nemesis of the Demons, Holy Light, with it turns into a rain of arrows that fills the entire skyline.


    The tip of the arrow is filled with the bane of Demons, Power of Holy Light. Just like how corrosive poison works on living beings, the areas hit by the Holy Light causes the wound to widen. The area around the impact immediately bloats up and explodes. Perhaps, it might not be really effective against the massive Demon Count, but it is definitely excruciating.


    ¡°AHHHHHH! DARNED WORMS!!¡± Enraged, he smacks away the equally big Bastian. With his remaining hand, he summons a destructive Forbidden Spell.


    But my Knights won¡¯t simply sit back and allow him to do as he please.


    As the Heroic Spirit Mages start to show their might, innumerable Magic Restrictions forcefully caused the casting of the Forbidden Spell Meteor Rain to fail again and again. In the end, only a small me in his palm remains.


    That is the helplessness of a Great Mage without cannon fodders to shield him. Facing an entire army of Mage¡¯s Magic Restriction, the fact that he is able to summon a small me means that his basics are very solid.


    After Camisia, leading the charge, cuts out a terrifying hole of flesh and blood on the tower-like gigantic legs, the other Knights follow suit like carnivorous ants, inflicting severe wounds on the body of the Demon Count.


    Adam made use of this opportunity to stab the Blessing of the Phoenix into Kakajil¡¯s eyes, destroying an eye of his among screams of agony. When Bastian expands once again and crushes Kakajil to the ground, everyone knows that it is the end of the powerful Demon Count.


    Kakajil is strong, extremely strong. But, war isn¡¯t a duel. Even if he is strong individually, but there is a limit to what he can do alone.


    He rolls around on the ground in pain, using his Demon Halberd to shake off the ¡®little worms¡¯ on his body. But, this was no different from suicide. The corrosive blood of the Demon flows out continuously and due to excessive corrosion, thend he is on starts to turn into scorchednd.


    Very quickly, when his neck was severed, the Demon Count Kakajil finally falls. His massive body gradually turns into ashes.


    This time, he used his true body to descend. Even if he is able to revive, he would have to start afresh from the lowest-tier Demon. Following the fall of the summoner, the Demons disappear one by one as they are banished back to their own Dimension.


    This time, they didn¡¯t get to im much soul. After the depletion from the journey here and back, the losses they incurred would take centuries to gain back.


    ¡°Victory!!¡±


    When the horn symbolizing victory is blown, not only on the battlefield, even Sulfur Mountain City, which is not that far away, is hit by a wave of joy. Regardless of whether they knew each other before, the citizens hugged each other in relief, celebrating their survival in this cmity!


    But, this is only the start of my trouble.


    ¡°ng!¡±


    The crimson-red God Sword and silver Sacred Sword shes together violently. Despite the fact that their master was assaulted, the Heroic Spirits only had the intention to look at themotion. In fact, a few of them even started epting bets. All that iscking is some stools and sunflower seeds to enjoy the battle.


    Adam¡¯s stupid face is right in front of me and the words that he squeezes out from his gritted teeth were filled with deep resentment.


    ¡±


    ¡°Rnd, no, Big Brother Rolo, maybe it is about time for us to settle our old scores!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    PS. Since someone asked and the plot is here already, so I will exin for a bit. For all 3 of his lives, he started out as a Holy Knight, just that he got into other fieldster on. After all, going with something that he was experienced with saves him a lot of effort.


    The first time he died was at 14 years old. His second life would be mentionedter on in the series and his 3rd life is the one with his identity as an Adventurer named Rolo.


    TL: This old Sword Saint will use his sharp sword to prove them wrong -> Exact phrase is the spicy ginger are the old ones, which, in this context, means something like the strong ones are still the old ones.


    Btw, I really can¡¯t stand the word Mist :X Somehow the feeling feels totally different from in Chinese. It is a bit like trying to convert the Han of the Han Dynasty into English. But, Lan Country looks visually ugly.


    I realized how little English words there are for angrypared to Chinese today. Also, I will confess that I am gettingzier in typing properly as I anticipate the arrival of my editor.


    Somehow, there is 2 different chapters for Chapter 62. The 2 chapters are quite simr in the story flow. The one that I am tranting is the newer one but the older one has some details which the newer one doesn¡¯t have. I probably won¡¯t trante it so I will just put the summary here.


    It starts out with him saying that Rnd worships the Holy Light, just the Holy Light itself and not the God. After all, other than the fanatics who have a screw loose in their head, no one would worship a system that controls the god power that doesn¡¯t have any sense of self. Even so, he is the one closest to the Origin of Holy Light. While viewing it as a tool, he studies and analyses it, which is the main reason how he was able to create the simr Power of Law.


    The core of Holy Light is ¡®Purification¡¯. It is a power that mends the world, destroying everything that doesn¡¯t belong to this world and returning the distorted Rules back its original state. It is what the Origin of Order expects of the world.


    Its healing abilities is just the reparation of life. It is useless towards those who are reaching the limit of their lifespan, because life, sickness and death are a natural part of life.


    However, to the Demons who can distort Rules and Undead, whose existence is a distortion of Rules, the reparation of the distortion is equivalent to destroying them.


    So, the Holy Light is the nemesis of Demons and Undead.


    Thus, no matter how good it sounds, Holy Light can never rid the world of war. The Judge must be a neutral party. How can the conflict be resolved if one party wants to destroy the other. Wiping away the other party to end the war is a joke (As long as the River Styx continues to flow, Demons will be created endlessly). That is the main reason why I gave up on the Holy Light and created the Power of Law.


    Starting out as a Holy Knight for 3 of my lives, I have absolute confidence in my control of Holy Light.


    -Then, he buffs his sword and says that if his Soul Imprint Son of Light is still intact, even the Pope would have to bow to how pure his Holy Light was-


    -He fights with Adam against Kakajil when joking about-


    -Molly swoops down to help him but was driven away by Ein Mezus, who was using a weapon (talon)-


    -Margaret summons her Star Spirits to fight with the Demons-


    -Molly appears once again and throws Shou into the battle of Adam and Rnd against Kakajil, exacting vengeance on the person who used her as a tribute-


    -Shou gets destroyed by a three-pronged attack of them 3-


    -Molly escapes once again after being scared off by Ein Mezus-


    -Using Adam as a distraction, Rnd looks for a weak spot in Kakajil¡¯s armor and prates it, then cutting his veins etc. from within-


    -Kakajil is in pain. He destroys hisntern andmands the spirits inside to hunt down Rnd who is wreaking havoc in his body-


    -Rnd uses Holy Light to purify these spirits-


    -Kakajil falls-


    -Adam and Rnd starts fighting (This time it feels more like shing on friendly terms)-

 Chapter 63

    <h4>Chapter 63: Adam</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°Big Brother, your Swordsmanship is incredible. Can you teach me? I am called Adam and I am from White Stone Vige. My goal is to be a Hero and marry Lisa. Afterwards... Go back to the vige to brag to everyone! Right, I must also be andowner so that I can be like old Peter living next door, being able to collect rent without working, smoking weed while staring at other people working...¡±


    Back then, that silly-looking youngster stood in front of me. Despite not being even a Bronze-rank, he spoke so arrogantly of bing a Hero. It was really a mystery where his confidence came from.


    ¡°Your movement is slow and your basics are weak. You don¡¯t have any special bloodline and your ability to understand is weak. If it weren¡¯t for your ability to think on the spot and make urate decisions sometimes, you are as good aspletely useless! You will not break through Silver-rank in your entire lifetime!¡±


    Since I was free and bored, I decided to try training this untalented Swordsman. But very quickly, I lost my interest in him.


    ¡°Just a normal person. Not even qualified to serve as a cannon fodder.¡±


    But, as a Holy Knight and a good elder brother, how could I say that.


    ¡°Good! You have the determination. Just follow the training schedule that I nned out for you. If you try your best toplete it, you would definitely be a great Hero.¡±


    ¡°Running 50km with weights of 50kg. Swing your sword for 20 000 times every day. Easy, easy!¡± Afraid that I wouldn¡¯t teach him, Adam strikes his chest confidently in response.


    I wasn¡¯t lying to him. That is the training for the rookies of the Royal Knights of Mist Country. Just that, I casually increased the repetitions by 10 times. Rookies take around an hour to swing their sword 1000 times and the efficiency would be lower as they continue on. When the muscles have reached their limit, every additional swing will be a great torture to the body.


    Within expectations, it didn¡¯t take him long before he came running to me with sore arms, saying that he was unable toplete his training. At that moment, I would say ¡®You are really lousy. Fine, I will lower my expectations¡¯ while adjusting the training based on his situation.


    However, I didn¡¯t expect that this dim-witted youngster, afraid that he wouldn¡¯t be able to finish his training, would sneak out at 3 in the morning and onlye back at 4 in the morning the next day.


    ¡°Big Brother! I finished it!! You can check my work! The big tree by the river was cut by me!¡±


    Do I still need to check? Looking at his battered body and those blisters on his hand, for the first time, I felt that this fool was a little cute.


    ¡°He didn¡¯t notice that I was just ying with him? Looking at how his muscles are torn, it seems that he didn¡¯t remove his weight even when he is practicing his swings. His foolishness really makes one at a loss for words.¡±


    Thus, looking at the red-haired youngd who fell asleep while taking out a biscuit to eat, I decided to be more serious in my teachings.


    Adam, with his numb body,id on the bed for an entire day and when he found that he would have to remain in such a state for 3 more days, he tearfully took out the money for his food expenses for the next month to get a Priest to heal him. At that point, I said.


    ¡°Let¡¯s adjust the training n. Run 5km twice every day to warm up your body and do 2000 swings every day. When your basic strength is there, I will impart you true swordsmanship.¡±


    When I said this, the youngd agreed


    However, this time, he left home at 2 in the morning and returned at 12 at night.


    ¡°Hehe, Big Brother Rolo, I finished today¡¯s training before 12! You don¡¯t have to reduce the training repetitions! I know that I am dim-witted but as long as I am willing to work hard, I can definitely finish it.¡±


    The youngd copses after reporting to me happily. He managed to renew my understanding towards fools.


    Thus, on the third day, I secretly followed him out.


    Looking at the regret the foolishd felt waking up at 4, he hammers his own head before realizing that he is wasting time. He quickly climbs up and starts to swing his sword with all his might. Looking at the sight of the total mess of swordsmanship, the skin on the arm that splits open from the aftershock of the swing and him gritting his teeth to endure the pain, I suddenly felt that I was getting ck.


    ¡°It seems that my expectation of myself has lowered recently. Then, let me start form the basics too, from 30000 swings.¡±


    Un, that night, I returned home an hour earlier than that Fool-dam. During dinner, the hands that were serving the bowl were shaking. Of course, even so, I am still much better than Adam who was sleeping by the entrance.


    TL: Fool-dam -> Foolish Adam


    That night, I pulled the Fool-dam who was sleeping on the streets back. After pouring cold water on him to wake him up, I dumped all the basic techniques on gripping a sword and swinging it on him.


    The second day, I realized that other than his diligence, his instincts and understanding towards swords are actually quite good, just that no one was willing to teach this countrysided in the past.


    ¡°Let me go with 40000 swings today. I will finish it 2 hours earlier than that Fool-dam.¡±


    When I started seriously imparting him skills, he realized that I was also practicing basic swings. He secretly added the number of swings to do, unwilling to lose to me.


    As for me, how could I possibly be overtaken by that Fool-dam. My swinging speed is much faster than him and my physical strength is much higher than his. Furthermore, I can use Holy Light to heal myself. As long as our training duration is equally long, I would definitely get in more swings than him. Thus, he lost every single time.


    ¡°If I were to continue on like this without changing, I won¡¯t be able to catch him to him my whole life.¡± Very quickly, the dim-witted him came up with this conclusion.


    Thus, he started to research his own swordsmanship, how should he hold the sword when he stabs? How should he hold the sword when he shes? How can he prevent wind resistance to increase the speed of his sword? I must say, once a fool devotes his effort into one goal, results woulde out from his one-track mind.


    Training with his sword, experimenting his skills, thinking about his shorings, refining his sword techniques, training with his sword, experimenting his skills... The dim-witted Swordsman has already found his own path. The only thing I can teach him is just other people¡¯s experiences and high-level techniques.


    However, since he is able to do it, there is no reason I can do it! So, my Swordsmanship also improved gradually.


    ¡°Fine, since we are around the same, so let¡¯s pit our will.¡±


    After that, we starting increasing my training goals to surpass each other. 20000 swings every day? Just an appetizer before breakfast. While moving about, we would swing our swords to sh imaginary foes. When we are the forest, we would cut leaves. When we are at the mountains, we would cut rocks. When we are at the ocean, we would cut water. Eventually, we can¡¯t even remember how many swings we did each day. Without noticing, our sword speed also reached a speed where normal people can¡¯t see it clearly.


    Indeed, in the eyes of outsiders, our Swordsmanshipe from the same school, the Monarch Swordsmanship. Without any fanciful tricks, our swords are fast, urate and lethal. In reality, that is just the result from the umtion of the basics. If we aren¡¯t fast, urate and lethal, then how could we finish our training n and make it for dinner in time.


    What isughable is that in the future, people would call the dumb Adam as a genius in Swordsmanship. More like naturally dim-witted, I would say.


    Afterwards, in order to make up for hisck of bloodline and special abilities, we hunted a Phoenix and stole the Phoenix Heart so as to help Adam obtain the Inheritance of the Phoenix.


    Now, hundred years has passed and after going through countless battles and turmoil that can make one¡¯s heart shatter, from ad by the countryside, hepleted his Hero dream and even more so, stands at the pinnacle of strength of humans. But, not long ago, he told me that he was tired and he intends to throw away everything to rest. To sleep for eternity.


    Just thinking about this, my rage explodes.


    ¡°Idiot! Coward! Just a woman can turn you into that state! What about your dreams and goals? Your sword? The sword you spent so many years to forge? Those don¡¯t matter at all? Tell me! Big Hero!¡±


    I can understand the weariness thates from the soul. It often bugs me, sometimes I wish that I could rest for eternity. But, how can I ept this kind of reality!


    Sacred Sword Rnd turns dull as the Holy Light fades away. However, my furious will causes the light of my soul to shine!


    ¡°ng!¡±


    Our swords shed. Simrly, there isn¡¯t any me on the crimson-red God Sword. Towards my questions, Adam shouts with gritted teeth.


    ¡°What do you know! No matter how hard I tried, Lisa only looked at you! Even when she died on my shoulders, her final words were your name. Can you understand this kind of heart-shattering emotion!¡±


    Rolling backwards, I dodge Adam¡¯s vertical cut. Somehow, my eyes shot towards another direction. In that instant, Margaret¡¯s head is lowered, she refuses to look at us. At the same time, she feels uneasy and the ground is slightly damp. Apparently, she has been crying secretly. Thus, my anger heightens!


    ¡°Lisa, Lisa, everything Lisa! You have been nagging about it for more than a hundred years! For a woman who have died for a hundred years, is this worth it! Is a dead person that perfect in your eyes? What about the living! Margaret has sacrificed so much for you, what do you intend to do!¡±


    My furious roar causes Adam to stun for a moment. Then, he roars back with an even louder voice.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know! I am stupid anyway, aren¡¯t you all responsible for all the thinking! Come out with an idea for me!¡±


    Acting dumb because you can¡¯t face her? Messing around because you are forced into a corner?


    The Adam who is messing around made meugh. Thus...


    ¡°¡±A century passes in an instant, nothing is constant. Companions depart, only I continue existing. The cycle of the withering and blooming of flowers repeat every year, I only pray that I die in the midst of a bed flowers, remembering the past in a semi-drunk state...¡±


    At this moment, Adam was dumbfounded. Isn¡¯t this the poem of his philosophy? It can¡¯t be that...


    ¡°The Severance of the River of Time!!¡±


    ¡°The Severance of the River of Time!!¡±


    The blink of the light, the heartless time, the sh of a sword resembles the flowing water of a creek. A fallen leaf floats on the slow and clear water. Hundred years feel like a moment, a moment that is filled with the umtion of memories. 2 exactly same Swordsmanship philosophyes into contact with each other and both people return back to reality from their illusion, staring at each other furiously.


    Lamenting the death of a beauty, the heartlessness of time. If we are talking about things that we lost, I definitely have much more than that fool. He only lost a crush while I can¡¯t even remember loving the person. If Adam is able toprehend the philosophical swordsmanship, there is no reason I am unable toprehend it.


    ¡°Is such a simple sword skill worthy of being called profound? I am able to understand it so easily.¡±


    ¡°Hah, is that worth bragging? The feeling required for this philosophy is sadness. Being able to understand it easily? That can only mean that you are more pitiful than me!¡±


    Of course, that hateful Adam. He is only sharp at times like this!


    ¡°You are only quick on the uptake on this kind of things. Your instincts are as hateful as usual. Then, look at this!¡±


    With the Rnd Sacred Sword in front me, this time, my eyes turned dark and all light seems to have been swallowed by the sharpness of my de.


    ¡°Bitter over the early death of the young, bitter over the lonely widow, bitter over the passing of her, bitter over the destruction of homnd, bitter over the absence of friends, bitter over the sufferings of the masses. Secret Sword.Seven Bitter Sword.¡±


    The silver longsword moves even without me swinging it. Different from the eye-catching Severance of the River of Time, the dark sh of the sword makes one instinctively avert their eyes yet somewhere in between, the sword splits into 7. Just like how it is impossible to avoid agony and pain in life, it quietly shrouds around your body.


    This is the Swordsmanship Philosophy that I understood after shutting myself for half a month after seeing Adam¡¯s Severance of the River of Time. Since he is able toprehend the profoundness from the experiences and life of philosophers from East, then as someone originating from the East, there¡¯s no reason why I am unable to do it!


    ¡°ng!¡±


    Even so, this new Sword of Philosophy is stillpletely blocked by that rapid swing of that God Sword.


    ¡°Now, I can be sure that you are much more pitiful than me. You are really worth sympathizing.¡±


    Even though he is speaking words of sympathy, but that ungrateful man smiles gleefully, as though he has won something.


    ¡°You fool! I must teach you a lesson today! Why I am the big brother and you can only be the little brother!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, isn¡¯t it enough for a Holy Knight to just use his Holy Light? Using Swordsmanship to challenge a pure Warrior Swordsman genius? Dream on!¡±


    The crimson-red God Sword and the silver Sacred Sword cross blows continuously. We were attacking each other happily. All kinds of depressing philosophye pouring out and sarcasms aimed at the opponent¡¯s weak spots shoot out endlessly. At the same time, weughed loudly and happily. It has been long since I had such a great time.


    I possess the body of a Heroic Spirit which knows not of death and tiredness while Adam has a true indestructible body. This battle is bound to be a long one.


    Not too far away, looking at the two men who have forgotten everything and wereughing happily, the calm and tranquil Margaret of usual grits her teeth tightly and anger and hatred fills her entire face.


    ¡°Adam and Rnd, you both said that adults were selfish. From what I can see, it should be that men are selfish! Annie, remember it, next time you find a lover, you must not find one like these two bastards! Even if you fall in love, you must break up immediately!¡±


    Beside her, Annie nods her head, seeming to not really understand what was told to her. She looks on worriedly at the fight between her Uncle Bones and her godfather.


    ¡°So Uncle Bones used to be so cute.¡± Somehow, she remembers the promise and the message her godfather told her awhile back. The youngdy blushes. Margaret¡¯s warning seems to be in vain.


    ¡°Is that really Swordsmanship?¡± Seeing the foreign eastern Philosophical Swordsmanship for the first time made Fayde and the rest engrossed in this duel. The profoundness of these skills requires emotions and the state of mind. Rather than saying that it is a sword technique, it has already reached the depths of Rules where magic can¡¯t hope to reach. It is totally different from the mainstream sword techniques in this world which pursues strength and destructive ability. This duel is equivalent to opening an entirely new world for these swordmasters.


    Since the battle has ended, other than the few remaining audience, the Red Hunting Hounds and the rest has disbanded. Their goal is to head to a restaurant or some other locations. After all, it isn¡¯t the time to waste their time with their physical bodies. They must make every second count.


    In this instant, I was still racking my brains on how to beat down this bastard which refuses to fall. However, his face suddenly changes and fire shoots out from his back, plunging his surroundings into mes.


    ¡°Looks like time¡¯s up.¡±


    The helpless Adam smiles bitterly. The recent battles caused his body to instinctively borrow more power from the Phoenix Heart and it seems that he has finally reached the end of his time. His physical body which has reached it limit can no longer restrain the Phoenix Heart.


    Looking at this situation, I grit my teeth, intending to fulfill my final promise. But Adam suddenly starts to regret.


    ¡°No, Rnd, I feel that since you even more pitiful than me, so I should do it myself so as that you won¡¯t be even more miserable.¡±


    Fire shrouds the entire body of Adam. With a quick motion, he stabs his right hand into his left chest. After the stter of blood and flesh, a fire-red object is dug out.


    ¡°Phoenix Heart!¡±


    Yes, the so-called Phoenix Heart is not the name of some treasure or some description. It is a true beating heart of a Phoenix.


    After losing his heart, Adam didn¡¯t die immediately. Instead, he smiles while looking at the pink heart in his hands.


    ¡°Back then, for this object, we spent more than 2 years tracking and hunting down the Phoenix. Even after Little Red ¡®exposed her identity¡¯ and used the entirety of her strength, we still ended up lying in the church for a month after the incident. Actually, I have been regretting since then for epting the Inheritance of the Phoenix. I almost caused the death of the entire team.¡±


    After looking at it for the final time, he casually passes the most precious Phoenix Heart to me.


    ¡°I still have to trouble you in the end. I am sorry, Big Brother Rolo. I have bothered you with many things in my lifetime. It looks like I won¡¯t be able to see the creation of the great world in your dreams. But, Big Brother, you are so amazing, I¡¯m sure nothing can stop you. You will definitely seed.¡±


    After the passing of so much time, hundred yearster, he still called me Big Brother just like back then, when we were adventuring.


    Looking at the heartless person with a big hole in his chest, looking at this little brother of mine who felt regret being unable to see the world in my dreams, what else can I say?


    When he can stand no longer, Adam copses by the side of the rock wall.


    Looking at him, I am at a loss of words. Finally, a feeling that I never had before arises from me, make me unable to suppress my words no longer, makes the lump in my throat disappears.


    ¡°Foolishd, I want to let you see it. If you all aren¡¯t here, then what meaning is there to my dream! Dumbass, treat it as the pleading of your big brother, live on.¡±


    Indeed, even if peace were to reallye, what meaning would it have if I ended up alone in this world.


    The tears of the dead drips drop by drop on Adam¡¯s face. But, he still looks at me with that silly smiling face.


    ¡°Big Brother, we have known each other for so many years but this is the first time I see you shedding tears. Hehe, should I be proud? But, I am really tired. I have done everything that I wanted to this life and I am contented. Let me rest.¡±


    In a confusion, Little Rednds to the surface and the blue figure closes in. Even when she cannot see him clearly anymore, her words stille pouring out.


    ¡°Selfish! Bastard! You never consider other people¡¯s feelings!¡±


    Looking at the tearful youngdy, Adam opens her mouth to say something but in the end, it turns into a weak apology.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Margaret. I am really sorry... If there is an afterlife, I will definitely marry you.¡±


    I suddenly felt an urge to convert Adam into an Undead or Heroic Spirit. But Adam seemed to have seen through my thoughts and mustered his strength to shake his head towards me.


    ¡°Bastard! Your instincts are only spot-on at times like this!¡±


    Unable to look on at Adam¡¯s final farewell, I turned around. But, when I looked at that foreign yet familiar figure, I was stunned.


    ¡°In the end, I still feel like meeting Lisa. At least, give me a chance to confess...¡± This is the final farewell from Adam, words that he was afraid to say so as to not hurt Margaret.


    After hundred years have passed, the figure of the youngdy that he had a crushed on has already be blurry in his memories, needless to say to love her. Maybe, Adam knows that he has driven himself up a corner, trapping himself in the memories of the past. Just that, he really finds himself unable to take that step forward.


    ¡°Fine. Say it. I am listening.¡±


    That is a familiar voice, the voice that echoes in his dreams countless times. Adam widens his eyes in disbelief.


    ¡°Lisa!!¡±


    Yes, that is the Great Thief Lisa. Equipped in light leather, high-cut boots with many different tools and daggers by her waist.


    But, in our eyes, the traits of the Demons that were covered by her illusion were obvious. She is obviously Elisa dressed up as Lisa. But, how would she know the dressing habits of Lisa?


    ¡°Why are you looking at me so bizarrely? Right, Big Brother Rolo, I must thank you. You pulled me out from the River Styx on time. After breaking into the realm of Legends and awakening my true Demon name, my memories have all returned.


    Could it be that a miracle has happened? Demon Nobles will remember memories of the past but it would be just like watching the life of others. However, Elisa is not aplete Demon yet. At that moment, too many possibilities rushes into my mind and my brain turns into mush in a moment.


    ¡°I... I.¡±


    Even though the one in his dreams is just in front of him, but he just couldn¡¯t say the words ¡®I like you¡¯. Instead, his eyes were somehow attracted by Margaret, who is crying by the side.


    The cold beauty of the past has turned into a tearfuldy. Despite being obsessed with hygiene, mud was all over her and yet, she pays it no heed and simply sits there, weeping.


    ¡°Why are you looking at Big Sister Margaret? Is the target of your confession her and not me?¡±


    The death of his loved one in his embrace in the greatest regret of his life. When his memories continuously beautified the dead, it became a dead knot. No human ispletely emotionless. Perhaps, he has already been conquered by the cold-faced warm-hearted Saint who quietly sacrificed for him for a hundred years, just that he kept rejecting the possibility using Lisa as a reason.


    Now that Lisa has appeared in front of him, escaping is no longer possible. He doesn¡¯t even know what kind of feelings he was harboring for Margaret in this instant.


    In terms of feelings, there are memories that will be continuously beautified and past grudges. The dead can never be beaten. In this instant, the conflict in his emotions for many years, the intangible dead knot, under the miracle of the resurrection of the dead, has started to undo.


    ¡°Alright, even if you confess to me, my answer would still be ¡®I¡¯m sorry, you are a good person. The one I like is Big Brother Rolo¡¯. Right, Fool-dam, Big Brother Rolo and I have started dating. If you don¡¯t believe me, you can ask him.¡±


    ¡°Me?¡± Just when I was stunned, Elisa¡¯s words ring by my ear.


    ¡°Master, do you remember the favor you owe me? ept my confession. That is my condition.¡±


    That familiar way of calling me made me confirm that the one in front of me is Elisa. Somehow, I heaved a sigh of relief. After hesitating for a short while, I nodded my head.


    ¡°Un, we just started dating. I didn¡¯t have the time to tell you.¡±


    ¡°Wait. If you both are dating, then I would have died ridiculously for other people¡¯s woman, wouldn¡¯t I be a bigughingstock! Hey, you both are teasing me right?¡±


    Adam¡¯s sharp instincts, as usual, are sharp in unneeded times. By the side, Margaret, sensing the changes, is overjoyed. She immediately stops the time of Adam¡¯s physical body so that he wouldn¡¯t die on the spot.


    Looking at this situation, I understood in an instant. I smiled.


    ¡°Fine, then continue living. I have a few proposals here. For example, join my army?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want!¡±


    It is ¡®I don¡¯t want¡¯ and not ¡®I don¡¯t want to live¡¯. In that instant, we are ecstatic.


    From the way how Adam keeps on secretly peeking at Margaret, I somehow guessed that it wasn¡¯t the appearance of Lisa that changed his mind. Rather, Lisa¡¯s appearance made him unable to continue avoiding it, forcing him to face Margaret¡¯s feelings head on. Naturally, his thought of dying disappears.


    ¡°Fine, I still have dozens of proposals...¡±


    ¡°Remove those which are obviously bringing me down! To be other people dog, I don¡¯t want to fight for those hypocritical Gods.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, then there is only one remaining. I will remove the Titan Heart from Rnd No.2 and together with the Titan Core that I obtained from the auction (stolen it previously, the outer skin of the Titan Heart), we will make you a man-made Titan Heart. You have seen the 500-year-old cradle of a Phoenix, have you seen a Titan die of old age? Your physical body will rapidly be one belonging to the Titans. However, your attribute will turn from fire into lightning and that Titan Heart is still far inferior from the Phoenix Heart, these will cause your strength to fall rapidly for a short period of time. Are you still willing?¡±


    ¡°Ok! Do it quickly, I had enough of the empty feeling in my body, it feels awful.¡±


    Somehow, seeing how this stubborn fellow is finally enlightened, we all heaved a sigh of relief together. Frenzy joy fills our heart and we smile to each other.


    But, the Rnd Sacred Sword which is gradually shortening, returning back to its original form, reminds me I don¡¯t have much time left.


    Fortunately, Kakajil did something good through the permanent Spatial Distortion. Little Red was able to retrieve the Titan Heart and Titan Core from Vance City swiftly. Furthermore, I did the operation personally, making it much more sessful this time round.


    Very quickly, when everyone surrounds Adam, who has just been operated on, and Annie, I leave silently. The trouble with Adam has finally been settled and now, it is time for me to achieve my aspirations.


    Returning back to the Sulfur Mountain City Court, Elisa is already waiting for me there. Holding in her hands is the Origin of Codex.


    ¡°Alright, it is time to shock the world. The Law Faction, it is about time it should have a true God.¡±


    Alright, I used philosophical swordsmanship to describe the technique. While I did say it is philosophical (and this is the closest word I can find), there is also the idea of profoundness (after all, you are able to evoke this philosophy in your swordsmanship), so it is supposed to be a hard technique to grasp.


    Also, rather than creating techniques for this philosophical swordsmanship, it¡¯s described like it somehowes to you. Like how eatinges instinctively to you and there¡¯s one way around it. You can only ¡®understand¡¯ it, you can¡¯t ¡®create¡¯ it (just like how you can understand how to eat, but you can¡¯t create how to eat)

 Chapter 64

    <h4>Chapter 64: Ascending to Godhood</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    In the cold courtroom, on the huge stand where the gavel and documents are ced usually, hot dishes areid out in its ce.


    Just like my otherpanions, I made use of my limited time to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh with Elisa.


    Alright, don¡¯t get innuendos. I just mean eating. Can you sympathize these pitiful old bones who have been deprived of his sense of taste for more than a hundred years?


    There aren¡¯t many dishes. Fried intestine, fruit sd, vegetable soup and butter bread. The taste can¡¯tpare to the food by the Imperial Kitchen that I remember, it is obviously the rushed work of some restaurant. But, for a hungry ghost who have not eaten for a hundred years, even a rock-hard barley bread would be treated as the finest culinary to him.


    ¡°Cough cough!¡± Too anxious to eat, I identally choked. I quickly grab my neck and knocks on the table violently, signaling Elisa toe to my rescue.


    ¡°Acting like a child despite being so old. Heh. You¡¯re exactly like a small kid now. Isn¡¯t there anything that you want to say?¡± Elisa pours some tea for me while patting my back.¡±?.....???????,????????,?????????¡±


    ¡°Cough... I almost got done in by the cucumber slices. If I really die because of that, everyone would probably die along with me, fromughing.¡±


    ¡°The dead still can die once more?¡±


    ¡°Of course, if I don¡¯t die and resurrect a few times, how can be considered a final boss? Other people might not know, but there isn¡¯t much difficulty for me to die a few dozen more times.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, die faster so that you can get reincarnated earlier. Quickly pass on if you are done eating.¡±


    ¡°Hey hey, even those on the death penalty have a final feast for them. Isn¡¯t it too early to be keeping the tableware now?¡±


    ¡°Is there such a rule?¡±


    ¡°Oh, looks like there really isn¡¯t one. I forgot to add it in. Remember to pass the message to Lilith so that she could bring it up during the next legitive meeting. Even if thew is heartless, enforcers must still retain their humanity. Give those on the death row some privileges, we should at least give them this much.¡±


    ¡°Tell her yourself.¡±


    ¡°That, I¡¯m afraid it will be difficult. There isn¡¯t enough time...¡±


    ¡°Leave a note then.¡±


    Looking at this youngdy with a frustrated face, I know that, by her personality, she wouldn¡¯t agree to my request. Helpless, I can only take out my pen to write a note and leave it on the Judge Stand.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯m done. Thanks for the hospitality.¡± Satisfied from the alcohol and food, I nodded my head.


    ¡°It is just some cheap good from the bar. We didn¡¯t have sufficient time.¡± Elisa shakes her head, regret and hesitation showing in her eyes.


    ¡°Yeah, if only you could have made it for me personally.¡±


    ¡°You know that I can¡¯t cook. If I really make food, you have to finish it all.¡±


    Indeed, Elisa, who is capable in all other aspects of housework, iscking slightly in this aspect. Perhaps it is because of her Demon Bloodline, but her sense of taste is bizarre. The food she makes has extremely heavy taste, spiciness within sweetness, poison within spiciness. Alright, maybe not poison but going by how my tongue was swollen up like a sausage, it is much worse than poison.


    At this moment, I heaved a sigh of relief. Lisa is a true master of housework, the culinary she makes surpasses that of normal great chefs. In the end, worried, I couldn¡¯t resist asking her


    ¡°Is it Elisa?¡±


    ¡°Un, Elisa, not Lisa. I only used that to scare the others.¡±


    After giving aplete sigh of relief, I smiled.


    ¡°I think that Adam will get over it.¡±


    ¡°So what? Didn¡¯t you say that a one-sided crush will onlyst for 36 days, a crush thatsted for more than a century is just escapism. Even if he were to face reality, epts his own feeling and finally thinks it through, he would only y dumb. Aren¡¯t men only good at ying dumb?¡±


    As Elisa speaks, she stares fixedly at me, even emphasizing the ¡®aren¡¯t men only good at ying dumb¡¯, an obvious attempt at pointing finger towards me.


    ¡°Haha, Adam isn¡¯t ying dumb but he is really dumb.¡± Fine, some innocent man just got narrowed and is currently trying his best to y dumb.


    A certain woman continues ring furiously...


    ¡°Fine... I¡¯m sorry.¡± In the end, unable to stand the re filled with reproach, a certain man apologizes helplessly.


    ¡°What I need now isn¡¯t an apology!¡±


    ¡°... I can only offer you an apology.¡±


    Maybe, the one escaping from reality isn¡¯t just Adam. I don¡¯t have the confidence to get past what I am about to face. Even if I know what Elisa wants is just a promise, I can¡¯t offer her one.


    ¡°Hmph, fortunately I didn¡¯t expect that a rock would be able to be enlightened, so I made preparations.¡± I couldn¡¯t hear her mutterings behind her gritted teeth.


    ¡°Alright, now that I¡¯m full, it is time to move on.¡±


    ¡°Treating the utmost glory of Ascending to a God as a cruel punishment, aren¡¯t you afraid of sphemy?¡±


    ¡°Cruel punishment? To me, bing a God is much worse than a cruel punishment.¡±


    Bing a God?


    It sounds fine, but it actually isn¡¯t much.


    Since I am talking about bing a God, then I have to borate a little about what is a God. In reality, there are many type of Gods and they are vastly different from each other. At the very least, the Order Gods and Malevolent Gods of Chaos are 2pletely different concepts.


    Most of the Order Gods obey some kind of Rule or Concept. Often, this Concept would be their Jurisdiction and their God Realm. The core of their existence is the materialization of the Concept of their Jurisdiction. Most of them have a certain job such that the Guardian God of and and epts faith from the people to grow stronger.


    However, this also limits their actions. They must work under the restrictions of the Rule they made to spread their Concept. One of the most famous example of this is the Mother of Earth, God of Holy Light and the Goddess of Magic. These 3 Gods are unbelievably powerful but they have lost their sense of self, bing aplete Conceptual existence.


    The Malevolent Gods can also ept faith to grow stronger but they have much more freedom in this aspect. For one, despite Lorci messing around in the underground world, no one has leaped out to give her a p.


    This is the secret of the Gods which no church will leak out. To me, this is just an image to deceive the people.


    The biggest difference between the 2 is that the Order Gods follow the Goddess of Order, Astrya, who is sleeping on the Origin of Order while the Malevolent Gods of Chaos have to offer their loyalty to the Goddess of Chaos, Cynthia, who is sleeping in the Chaos Abyss.


    Alright, I seem to have identally leaked some important news. Since I¡¯ve already said this much, I might as well finish my piece.


    Astrya is deeply asleep on the Origin of Order, guiding the souls who believe in the Order Gods to ascend to the top of the Heavenly Pir. When the souls are unable to provide any more faith, they are sent back into the cycle of reincarnation. The fragment of souls from the faith in Order will be nutrients for Astrya so as to hasten her awakening.


    Cynthia is also the same. The only difference is that the one guiding the souls isn¡¯t the Heavenly Pir but the River Styx. Also, the ce that she sleeps in isn¡¯t the Origin of Order but the Chaos Abyss.


    This is also why the ¡®Sacred War¡¯ is never-ending. Even if the 2 Goddesses are forced into a deep sleep, but they both instinctively hope to awaken. As long as the cycle if reincarnation continues for a sufficient amount of time, they will eventually awaken. Furthermore, the greater the faith towards Order or the more a soul is sided towards Chaos, the more nutritious it is. Also, the roar of despair of by the souls of the warriors who died in battle will serve as an even more nutritious tonic.


    So, if both Goddesses instinctively hopes to revive, the source of all life, the Origin of Order and the Chaos Abyss, won¡¯t wish for the war to stop. For them to awaken, the Sacred War will happen again and again. If the war continues on, there will be a day when after obtaining sufficient tributes, Astrya and Cynthia will awaken from their sleep and the War of Gods will happen in the end. The world will be reduced to its primitive form.


    In the ¡®history¡¯, the darned catastrophe happened. After the tributes from 6 Cmities, the 2 Goddesses of Creation finally awakened and led the Gods and mortals under them to battle. The conclusion was just like the 1st Sacred War, there is no victor. The 2 Goddesses went back to eternal sleep, the different mortal races went extinct, many Gods fell and the Eich continent was destroyed like this. Maybe, when civilization finally props up again, the cycle will continue.


    This is the ultimate secret that even the Gods of the new generation do not know of. But to me, it is just the final piece of information written on the game walk through.


    ¡°What the heck. I know that the Goddesses of Creation are great, being able to create so many races. But, can you sisters limit the fight to you two and not drag others down the mud!¡± This is my reaction when reading it for the first time. If it wasn¡¯t that I was a Transcender, I would have long been burnt on a stake.


    That¡¯s why from the very start, I kept wavering between the Chaos Faction and Order Faction (I don¡¯t think that either sides are good). I followed the mainstream line of thought that Chaos is evil and Order is kind. Also, despite belonging to the Order Faction, I made use of the very core of the world, the Origin of Order, without any respect.


    Fine, now that I¡¯ve said so much, the question is here. Since Chaos will note to an end as long as the River Styx continues its flow, then everyone would be done for if this war goes on. So, how can it be stopped?


    It might seem totally impossible but exploiting loopholes is my expertise. After spending many years, I finally thought of an idea but the first step involves the ascension as a God to strengthen the power of the Law.


    The Power of Law is considered a lower power of the Origin of Order. Although I¡¯ve talked about recing the Power of Holy Light with the Power of Law, the Power of Law is still much too weak. It is impossible to learn and practice the Power of Law in a ce without the God Equipment of Law. However, the Scattered Pages is limited in number, so if we were to want to spread the Power of Law through it, it would take too much time.


    So, just like the Holy Light has the God of Holy Light, the Law must have one as well, even if it is just a God Power Regtion System. This way, no matter where and when, people are able to derive actual power from believing in Law. Only this way will there is a possibility for the Power of Law to rece Holy Light.


    But, before all this can happen, the very first core step that must be made for my ns...


    Then, since we have rified what a God is and established the need for a God of Law, then, how can one ascend to be a God?


    In reality, bing an Order God isn¡¯t difficult. Other than those fortunate ones who managed to stumble on old God Power or God Jurisdiction, as long as one creates a new important Concept and Jurisdiction and he has reached the realm of the SemiGod before (This is so that he can manipte the God Power so as to not implode from the God Power), he can make a deration, ascend to Godhood, spread his faith and recruit devotees. At least, this is how the God of Holy Light came about. He should be the very first Priest of Holy Light.


    The birth of every new Order God will strengthen the Order Faction significantly. All of those who created new Concepts to Ascend to Godhood will be acknowledged and rewarded by the Origin of Order, allowing them to grow strong quickly.


    This is also why Kajah and the others viewed me as a future God. This ¡®future¡¯ prefix should be only there because they thought that I have never reached SemiGod but I, Wumianzhe Rnd, the previous SemiGod Undead Emperor, has already long fulfilled the conditions for an Ascension.


    But, a true God¡¯s ability to interfere with the mortal world is limited. If I were to Ascend to Godhood and be a true God controlled by the Origin of Order, then I wouldn¡¯t be able to stay out of the fight of the 2 Factions. My n would go down the drain. But, I found a loophole in the God system and now, with all of my betting chips in, it is time to start this crazy n.


    ¡°I, Wumianzhe, the founder and user of the Power of Law, in Sulfur Mountain City, thend of origin of the Power of Law, dere to the world that I will Ascend to Godhood and take on the Jurisdiction of Law as a true God of Law.¡±


    The Origin of Order, which has been waiting for a long time, sends down a gigantic pir of light and the thickness if the Power of Order makes it hard to breath. As the deration to Ascend to Godhood spreads across the world, all life stops in their footsteps and looks respectfully towards the sky.


    Adam, who just climbed down from the operation stand, just like the others, stare at the pir of Light of Order dumbfounded, only muttering a few words.


    ¡°Rnd, you are really ying it big this time. You intend to fool the Gods?¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Short chapter but the others afterward would be long T_T


    Let me borate a bit, some bit spoilers but it is just background info. The Gods who have been infused with too much faith be Conceptual existence which means they don¡¯t have a sense of self (unable to think), but this doesn¡¯t mean they cannot do anything. Think of Terminator, they will react when their Concepts are being threatened etc. More like a smart machine I guess. Also, not a strong Order Gods are Conceptual existence, e.g. Ayer


    Last chapter in my inventory for today boomz, time for a long waiting period

 Chapter 65

    <h4>Chapter 65: Sinners Will Be Judged Eventually</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°I, Wumianzhe, the founder and user of the Power of Law, in Sulfur Mountain City, thend of origin of the Power of Law, dere to the world that I will Ascend to Godhood and take on the Jurisdiction of Law as a true God of Law.¡±


    The deration of a true God rings beside the war of all living beings. Regardless of whether it is an adventurer who have travelled great distance, the busy merchants advertising their products, the nobles who are socializing in a ballroom or even warring soldiers, all of them stopped in their tracks to listen to the deration of a true God.


    ¡°I promise to treat all life equally. The fair Power of Law will shield all innocent and punish all sins. In order to carry out the Rules of Law with absolute fairness, I am willing follow in the footsteps of the God of Holy Light to give up my sense of self to be the Rules of Law itself. From now onwards, I am the Law and the Law is me. One doesn¡¯t need to recite my name to obtain the Power of Law. One only needs to believe in enforcing the Rules of Law.¡±


    To fight for devotees andnd, expanding the faith and advancing the God¡¯s power, even a few hundred years wouldn¡¯t be considered a long time to achieve these. I do not have the time to waste time with other Gods and the Law Faction urgently needs a God Power Regtion System. So, I will be one myself.


    A true God without self-awareness wouldn¡¯t be met with enmity by other Order Gods. Furthermore, by bing a pure Conceptual existence, the growth would increase exponentially. As long as the faith inw spreads, the God would able to grow powerful very quickly.


    A brainless God Power Regtion System won¡¯t think of devouring other Jurisdictions after growing stronger so no matter how one looks at it, it is a great benefit to the Order Faction. This way, I don¡¯t have to worry about Gods taking the initiative to start a war to destroy this newborn God.


    Of course, it is impossible for me to serve obediently as a God Power Regtion System.


    Then, is there any other way for my Ascension to fail? Is there any way for my deration to be voided?


    In history, there isn¡¯t any precedent. But in theory, there is one possibility ¡ª Death.


    If a person died and his soul goes into the cycle of reincarnation, how can he Ascend?


    That is the reason why I ignited my soul without hesitation previously, seeking for death!


    Of course, it is not like it is impossible for me to failpletely. Anyway, a God Power Regtion System doesn¡¯t really need to think so it should be sufficient to split a fragment of my soul to it. I have prepared a horcrux-like Soul Container to build the new God. In fact, there are 2 SemiGod Equipment involved in it!


    SemiGod Equipment: Dignity of the Judicature (Bind)?


    Defence:10Points(Even metal tes only have 5Points of defense, for a cloth magic robe to reach these level of defense is already very incredible.?


    Unique Ability 1 The Self-Judgement of the Sinner: Induces guilt within sinners and as time passes, sinners would fall deeper into a state of fear and helplessness. The greater the sin, the greater the effect of this ability. The innocents are exempted from this ability.?


    Unique Ability 2 The Dispassionate Judge: The user equipped with the mask would have his charm fixed at 100. Resistance against seduction, detection, illusory and simr magic +20.?


    Unique Ability 3 Horcrux: A technique from a foreign world allows a fragment of Wumianzhe¡¯s Soul to be embedded within.?


    Unique Ability 4 Set Effect: If SemiGod Equipment Wumianzhe¡¯s Gaze is equipped together with this equipment, the user will be acknowledged by the Rules of Order as the founder of Power of Law Wumianzhe himself and receive the following buffs from the Origin of Law. Power of Law +30%, Magic Immunity +50%?


    SemiGod Equipment: Wumianzhe¡¯s Gaze (Bind) ?


    Defence: 0 Points?


    Unique Ability 1 The Gaze of Truth: No illusions or lies can fool Wumianzhe. The wearer will be able to see through all falsehood.?


    Unique Ability 2 The Voice of Justice: The wearer¡¯s word cannot be recorded and tested by any magic, even if the words he speaks are true. Immunity to Intimidation, Deceive and rted verbal skills +20?


    Unique Ability 3 Horcrux: A technique from a foreign world allows a fragment of Wumianzhe¡¯s Soul to be embedded within. ?


    Unique Ability 4 Set Effect The Origin of Law: If SemiGod Equipment Dignity of the Judicature is equipped together with this equipment, the user will be acknowledged by the Rules of Order as the founder of Power of Law Wumianzhe himself and receive the following buffs from the Origin of Law. Power of Law +30%, Magic Immunity +50% ?


    Curse of the God Equipment, Weight of the Gavel: The user equipped must have a job rted to the legitive system and must carry out his job impartially. If he were to twist thews for personal reasons or speak falsely, thew robe would be an unquenchable fire, destroying the user¡¯s soul and physical body.?


    ¡±Please use the authority granted prudently. The choice made after the Gavel strikes down doesn¡¯t merely decide the rise and fall of an individual, but represents the dignity of the legitive system and its impartiality. ¨CThe Supreme Court Wumianzhe?


    This is my mask and robe that I don as Wumianzhe and SemiGod Equipment recognized by the Origin of Order. What I want to make use of is their Unique Ability 4 Origin of Order. As long as the Light Pir or Order loses me as its target, then the equipment, which possesses a fragment of my soul, will be a qualified God Power Regtion System. At this moment, they are put together like a persona and under the effect of the Unique Ability 4, they form a Wumianzhe acknowledged by the Rules of Order!


    But, as I expected, even if the Rules of Orderck self-awareness, it isn¡¯t that easy to fool it.


    The Light Pir of Order which guides the Ascension of true Gods totally ignores that fake. At the same time, it didn¡¯t gather around me. Instead, it binds the Rnd Sacred Sword. After all, the only thing required for Godhood is the soul and the soul of a Lich is in its phctery. As for my Phctery, it is in this Sacred Sword.


    In the endless silver light, the extinguishing Soulfire due to the ignition of my stone is zing up once again and the broken sword is actually starting to reforge itself!


    This was a possibility that I have considered. The matter that I was the most worried about has happened. The Power of Order actually started to fix my broken phctery! If it is in the past, I would dance in joy and this means that I can level up and grow but now, it is the amulet to my death!


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to be forced to Ascend! Elisa, carry out the n!¡±


    ¡°But...¡±


    ¡°There are no buts. From the start, I should have been judged! Sinners will be judged eventually.¡±


    Yes, sinners will be judged eventually, regardless of their identity or the reasons. It is all because the sin exists.


    No matter what I do in the future, the past sins still weigh upon me. The souls that died because of me were sufficient to fill the entire River Styx. No matter how many people I save, how many good things I do, I am still a sinner. I can¡¯t even lie to my own heart, so how am I able to get the system to admit that I am a kind person.


    ¡°The words on thew monument at the entrance of the Supreme Court were even handwritten by me ¨COnly impartial judgement and the punishment can wash away sins, no one is an exception. (Chapter 22) ?


    Sinners will be judged eventually, this is my personal faith towards Law. A person who has his hands stained in blood isn¡¯t qualified to be the God of Law. Perhaps, this is the main reason why I avoided the choice of Ascending to Godhood personally. Perhaps, it is because of my subconscious anticipating the day when I am saved through judgement that gave the God Equipment Origin of Codex the final Unique Ability.


    Effect 4: Sinners will be Judged (Active): Activate Great Judgement towards a single target, cleansing him of all his sins through the judgement. Requirement: The target must be willing to undergo judgement.?


    Looking at the Silver Light of Order growing stronger, Elisa is finally forced to raise the Codex as she grits her teeth.


    ¡°Sinners will be judged! Sinner Rnd! Are you willing to ept judgement?!¡±


    Looking at the blood stains on Elisa¡¯s red lips that were bitten by her silver teeth, I know that I am being too cruel. I actually forced Elisa to punish a person she likes... But the words for an apology rolls in my mouth, refusing toe out anyhow. In the end, it turns into a helpless sigh.


    ¡°Sigh... I am guilty and ept the judgement.¡±


    Another Light of Order bursts and my soul is brought into a Court of Stars. All of the part-time jurors and the ancient Heroic Spirit audiences are already seated. Elisa sits on the Judge Stand and the Codex floats in front of her. Countless memories that I remember and forgotten shes in the Court and right now, they serve as the evidence of my guilt.


    In one of the images, my Yongye army is engaged in reckless ughter. The towns that the Undead army crosses path with are reduced to rubble. The dead rises as new soldiers and the fresh blood of the living forms a river of blood. The overwhelming resentment rises even to the Heavenly Pir, enraging the Gods.


    Sinner Rnd, you are sentenced to death penalty for war crimes!?When the trial begins, the user of the Codex is under the control of the absolutely fair Codex. Even if reluctance was written all over her face, Elisa reads out the verdict.


    Yes, death penalty. Death penalty without any doubts. If we are talking about creating tragedies and war, then Shou who just died in the battlefield isn¡¯t even qualified to serve as my apprentice. It is right for me to be sentenced to death because of war crimes.


    ¡°Yes, I plead guilty.¡±


    A sudden leap in space-time and my soul and flesh is locked on a ck-colored guillotine simultaneously. Then, the decapitation de descends and kacha, the head separates from the body.


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHH!¡± Even if I was prepared, but the pain and emptiness of death is still intolerable. The head that was cut off may no longer be able to make any sound but my soul was shouting in agony.


    Pain, absolute pain. My life is quickly receding from me with my head missing. The instincts of a living being makes me scream uncontrobly.


    In the final throes of my screams, my soul and flesh start to disintegrate. This is true death. The me who doesn¡¯t believe in the true Gods of Order enters the cycle of reincarnation and falls into the River Styx!


    But, a silver light suddenly falls and in an instant, the scattered soul bes clear once more. To think that I would be forcefully revived by the Origin of Order!


    Looking up at the slightly thinner Light Pir of Order, I grit my teeth.


    ¡°Continue the judgement! It is useful! Let¡¯s go all out against it.¡±


    Under the heartlessmand of the man, the tears of the youngdy drips down silently. In the end, it turns into a quiet weep. However, under the effect of the God Equipment, it turns into a solemn and cold judgement.


    Sinner Rnd, you are sentenced to death penalty for fraud!?


    The image in midair shows all of my truthful lies. In the biggest screen, the video of me handing over the Eternal Night Scepter I created to the auction with ill intents could be seen.


    Yes, ill intentions and fraud are heavy crimes, the death penalty is definitely a fitting punishment.


    In midair, I was pushed onto the gallows. Then, the steps under my feet suddenly disappear and endless nk space could be seen below my feet.


    The rope on my neck tightens and the pain on my throat esctes to crazy levels. The choking sensation of my soul is even harder to tolerate then the one on my flesh. I want to shout but no soundes out. In the end, both of my legs cken and everything went silent.


    Just when my soul starts to disintegrate, a silver light falls and I am revived once again...


    ¡°Continue!!¡±


    Sinner Rnd, you are sentenced to death penalty for murder!?


    This time, it is death my poison. Boundless pain gathers in my veins. The pain from my veins expanding, a stabbing pain, a frosty feeling, a burning sensation and in the end, what is left is a corpse without any feelings.


    Silver Light falls...


    ¡°Continue!! It is already much thinner.¡±


    Elisa¡¯s face was long tear-stricken. But, she is unable to stop now. Once the judgement begins, the Court will not stop until all of the sins of the great sinners are judged. I, who havemitted many crimes within these 300 years, dying 3 or 4 times are far from sufficient!


    Sinner Rnd, you are charged with the crime of anti-sentient being crime (Anti-humanity Crime)...?


    It is the soul electric chair this time.


    Silver Light falls.


    Arson?


    Burnt on a stake.


    Silver Light falls...


    Crime of poisoning?


    Drown to death.


    Silver Light falls...


    One crime after another is yed on the Judgement Stand as I revive and die again and again. My soul disintegrates and reforge again and again. At this moment, I had the thought of simply dying and ending it all.


    Finally, after dying countless times, just as I, numb from everything, started to give up hope, the Light of Order that falls finally has a short dy in between!


    ¡°Quick, quick, use that!!¡±


    The one that I was pointing to is therge de that is leaning by the Judgement Stand, Dragon Saber!!


    Elisa releases her grip on the Codex, carries that heavy de and strikes the Rnd Sacred Sword with it.


    Special Ability The Unyielding Saber: 100% chance of directly destroying a weapon below Elite-tier. 50% chance of directly destroying an Elite-tier weapon. 30% chance of directly destroying an Epic-tier weapon. 1% chance of destroying any weapon below God-tier.?


    This is the most useful ability of the God Equipment Dragon Saber that came from a foreign world. Even though Rnd Sacred Sword is a hard-toe-by Godly Weapon, able to stand toe-to-toe with SemiGod Equipment, but it is still not a God Equipment and there is a 1% chance of it being destroyed in an instant. Furthermore, once the phctery of the Lich is shattered and it doesn¡¯t revive on time, then I will be dead for sure!


    That¡¯s why, my first reaction upon seeing this Godly Weapon is to involve it in my backup ns in case something goes wrong.


    ¡°Dang dang dang!¡±


    This the sound of the shing between the sword and the saber and the sound of my impending demise. However, I wish from the depths of my heart that it woulde faster because the Light Pir of Order is starting to gather in the sky!


    ¡°Get away! This Light of Order is fatal to someone who has Demon Bloodline like you!!¡±


    However, Elisa ignores my words and increases her shing speed.


    However, the silver Light Pir sudden falls in the next instant without any warning.


    The moment the Light Pir falls, I fell into despair. I don¡¯t really mind Ascending and at worst, I just have to find another idea or just be a God Power Regtion System but Elisa...


    ¡°NO!!¡±


    I have never felt so regretful, so regretful for the decisions I made! Regretful that I will never be able to see this youngdy again! Regretful that I ignored Elisa¡¯s hints and regretful that I was unable to say some words!


    ¡°The Rage of Lightning!¡±


    A rampaging lightning suddenly strikes towards the Light Pir in the sky, colliding forcefully into it. But, the Light Pir quickly destroyed the lightning and continued its descend.


    At the same moment, a figure shrouded in lightning is already standing in the face of the Light Pir.


    ¡°Adam!¡± Yes, despite just finishing his operation and is still in a weak state, Adam stands once again in the battlefield.


    He doesn¡¯t need to ask why we are struggling against the benevolent Origin of Order. Just the furious roar and cry of agony from hispanions is enough for him to put his life on the line ande to our rescue!


    ¡°Lightning, respond to my summons!!¡±


    Countless lightning bolts gather under the order of its master. The enraged Swordsman aims his sword at the heavens and shes. This time, when the smoke finally scatters, the lightning and Light of Order has destroyed each other under the collision.


    In the next moment, as though incited, an evenrger Light of Order descends. If struck by it, even Adam who possesses the Titan Bloodline will die instantly.


    But, ncing below, he didn¡¯t have the slightest intention to dodge the attack. Instead, he raises his sword and charges ahead!


    ¡°Corridor of Time!!¡±


    Fortunately, a voice suddenly echoes and under the entire strength of a SemiGod Saint, the time surrounding the Light of Order is forcefully slowed.


    ¡°You bastard! You want to die that much?!¡±


    Alright, facing the interrogation and angry howl from the blue figure, Adam could only smile foolishly.


    Even with thebined strength of 2 SemiGod experts, the slowed time and the lightning bolts that continuously ascends to strike, they were only able to slow down the descend of the Light of Order.


    But, this gave an opportunity to reverse the situation below.


    Finally, that 1% Unique Ability has been activated.


    ¡°Kacha.¡± With a crisp sound, Rnd Sacred Sword shatters and the gray soul within dissipates.


    ¡°Great!!¡±


    Hearing my voice, Adam gives way and Margaret, who is already perspiring from the struggle, immediately removes her magic, allowing the Light of Order to descend.


    This time, the shattered phctery can no longer attract its attention. Instead, it strikes on the fake persona beside!


    At this moment, I took this opportunity to activate the soul fragments in the SemiGod Equipment to make it more reminiscent of aplete person.


    Afterwards, following the flow of the Light of Order inside, the iplete soul is being filled and this faker persona gradually bespleted. Even more so, it started its evolution from a human to a true God.


    As for me, I am already lying peacefully on the ground, waiting for the call of death. But, in thest moment, I saw the red eyes of Elisa and that bizarre smile on her small face as she grabs a saber while walking towards me.


    Special Ability Frenzy: 1% chance of falling into a frenzied state that recognizes no kin. In this state, you will first target and kill your own kin.?


    Alright, I¡¯ve already known that with my Luck, if that 1% probability of destroying the Sacred Sword of the Special Ability is able to trigger, then this 1% Special Ability of Frenzy is bound to trigger as well.


    Looking at thedy who raises the giant de to sh down, I was unable to move at all. I could only smile helplessly.


    ¡°Should I be d that she treats me as her kin? NOOOOO! THIS KIND OF DEATH IS TOO UGLY! IT IS JUST LIKE HOW A PHILANDERING HUSBAND IS DECAPITATED BY HIS WIFE USING AN AX! I DON¡¯T WANT THIS KIND OF DEATH!!¡±


    But, the next instant, my eyespletely went dark. In the end, I have no idea whether I really got decapitated or Adam managed to stop her.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    2 monthster, in the Inferno Abyss of the Lower Realm, on the River Styx that is normally quiet, there is a soul that is creating a ruckus, very much different from all of the other lifeless souls.


    ¡°I love bathing, to get good skin~ With my shower cap on, prancing about~ Piranhas try to escape, rinsing the top while cleaning the bottom... Never mind since I can¡¯t remember it. Ah, boss, if you don¡¯te soon, I wouldn¡¯t even be able to remember my own name!¡±


    TL: This is the original song. The original lyrics should be Mermaids try to escape


    That person looks like a teenager and the song he is singing is a nursery song from a foreign word but somehow, there is something there that doesn¡¯t fit into the song.


    ¡°...one hundred and eighty-four thousand six hundred and twenty-one, one hundred and eighty-four thousand six hundred and twenty-two...¡±


    Fortunately, just when he was so bored that he started counting from one to two hundred thousand, a small ck boat appeared on the River Styx, where boats shouldn¡¯t appear at all.


    The boatman is a dashing young man dressed in ck. He isn¡¯t tall or short and there isn¡¯t anything that is defining about him. The ck robe seems especially fitting on him, giving the impression of a silent dark night.


    I was overjoyed after floating for such a long period of time! Even the soul of a Transcender is about to be unable to withstand it.


    ¡°Hey hey, here!!¡±


    Hearing the shout, the small boat changes its direction and very quickly, I was pulled up by the boatman.


    ¡°Boss Ayer, if you came anyter, I would have really thought that you have went against your words.¡±


    Yes, the young man who seems extraordinarily ordinary is the most ancient God, the High King of the first generation of Humans, Death God Ayer.


    ¡°Hehe, you have done such a great job so why would I go against my words. Your avatar, the God of Law Wumianzhe, is currently the hottest topic among the Gods. In order to help shield you from all probing-rted Magic, even I had to spend quite a bit of effort. Even so, it is worth it.¡±


    The praise of Death God Ayer is rare. Even towards the ¡®absolute¡¯ true Gods, he rarely shows them any consideration.


    ¡°Then, let¡¯s carry on as we nned.¡±


    ¡°Of course, I have already spread the word. Whoever who dares to touch Wumianzhe would be waging a war against me, so you can rest easy about your avatar. Your next step should be to expand the faith of Law and increase the God Power of the God of Law.¡±


    ¡°Un, yes. That is the 2nd part of my n, to make Law rece Holy Light as the number 1 faith of intelligent lifeforms. It may be difficult, but it isn¡¯t impossible and I have my own ns in this aspect.¡±


    The ck-clothed Dark God smiles. For the first time, he feels that letting thisd with a silver tongue go back then was a fortunate thing.


    ¡°Fine, but to make the God of Law into the God of Judgement and even the God of Hades and build your own God System, you would have to defeat at least 4 to 5 strong Gods to take their Godhood and Jurisdiction. This path isn¡¯t easy.¡±


    Yes, the Ascension of a God of Law is just the starting point. To turn all of this around, just a God of Law isn¡¯t enough.


    In the East of a certain foreign world, if one starts talking about Judge, the first reaction of the elderly wouldn¡¯t be the dignified judges in court but the King Yama and his Judges of Hell in the ancient Myths. There are also many legends in Egypt, Japan and many other countries about a simr system of judging one¡¯s soul after death and determining how they should be treated based on their actions when they were alive.


    This is the expectations of people for the kind to be rewarded and the evildoers to be punished, as well as a warning in ancient times for people not tomit evil. In the past, when arge portion of people believed in the existence of Gods, it sessfully yed its role in warning them. Nowadays, the elderly still often tell the younger generations not tomit sins, otherwise they would go to hell.


    While there are true Gods in this world, but there isn¡¯t any Gods of the Underworld. The only God that is rted is the Death God Ayer, but he is only in charge of managing the system of reincarnation.


    For the eternal war to stop, we must stop the reincarnation system which keeps pumping new blood into both parties so as to stop the awakening of the two Goddesses. To reject the reincarnation system is meaningless. If one feels that the reincarnation system is wrong, then he must propose a new system to rece the reincarnation system.


    Thus, I thought of Hades and Hell.


    If a soul doesn¡¯t rise to the Heavenly Pir or fall into the River Styx depending on his faith when he is alive and rather, a neutral God System is allowed to judge them so that those innocents can continue on in their path of reincarnation while sinners would have to serve their sentence, this could perhaps be a warning and restriction to the living. This world would be a much better ce. More importantly, the two Goddesses who lost their source of tributes would never be able to awaken.


    But just thinking about it, it is an impossible mission. However, since the imusible move of allowing an avatar to rise to Godhood has been aplished, perhaps there isn¡¯t anything impossible in this world.


    ¡°Un, only the words of the powerful would be heard. This is also true for the world of Gods. The first thing to do is to spread the faith of Law and allow the God of Law Wumianzhe to grow stronger.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, this isn¡¯t easy. Do you intend to head to the human world yourself?¡±


    ¡°Un, I don¡¯t think that other people would be able to aplish this mission. I will head out after reviving. The first stop is the West Mist Communal Country. After all, that is my homnd.¡±


    ¡°The country built by the legendary Holy Knight Rnd.Mist? The descendants of the Mist?¡±


    Hearing that, I shook my head. I have heard of the legend but I¡¯ve never treated it as seriously.


    ¡°They are probably just making use of my name. I died when I was 14, so it is impossible for me to leave behind descendants.¡±


    ¡°You sure?¡±


    ¡°... I¡¯m unsure, the memories I lost are simply too much. However, going by my habits, the possibility of leaving behind descendants are simply too low. Perhaps, they might be descendants of Karwenz. He was always popr with the girls. Why, is the Death God interested in the gossips of humans as well?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m just asking for someone else.¡±


    ¡°Who would be able to get you to help them to get these gossips?¡±


    ¡°Your lover.¡±


    ¡°Wait! When did I get a lover! Howe I don¡¯t remember!¡±


    ¡°2 months ago, on the day before you Ascended, do you not remember?¡±


    Master, do you remember the favor you owe me? ept my confession. That is my condition.? Instantly, I remember the words that I said then. The condition then wasn¡¯t making a show in front of Adam but to ept this supposed ¡®confession¡¯.


    ¡°Elisa... you were aiming to strike 2 birds with one stone! Making a show real? Is this considered a confession?¡±


    In that instant, my brain turned into mush so how could I respond quick enough. I thought that that was to allow for a happy ending, so how would I have thought of it as a confession!


    ¡°Un, it is that girl named Elisa. She is really brave. She insulted me by the side of the River Styx to incite me, so that I would fulfill my promise to fetch you.¡±


    ¡°Lord, please don¡¯t hold grudges against her!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, why would I hold grudges against a little girl. On the other hand, I admire her courage and determination, so I sent her a little present. However, it might spell trouble for you.¡±


    A foreboding premonition floats in my head. The frenzied figure holding a saber appear in my head once again. Somehow, I felt like jumping from the boat and escape, even if this is the River Styx which represents death.


    ¡°That, where are we going now?¡±


    ¡°Of course it is to meet your little girlfriend. I have promised to bring you to her.¡±


    ¡°Can I jump off the boat?¡±


    ¡°Feel free, as long as you feel that you can escape from me.¡±


    A soul escaping from the hands of the strongest Death God? Helpless, I can only howl in misery.


    ¡°Misfortune!¡±


    I guess it¡¯s a blessing to be ¡®sent off¡¯ by your loved ones ??


    TL: I know I tranted it as horcrux in the past but the more urate term for it is phctery, so I will stick with this. Horcrux is more of splitting a fragment of your soul while phctery is cing your entire soul into an object.


    ? -> It is actually a Chinese version of God of Hell. Because there isn¡¯t word for it in English and I¡¯ve already started using River Styx anyway, I¡¯m just going to call it Gods of Underworld/Hades and Hades would be referring to the underworld (in case someone thinks that I¡¯m talking of a certain God)


    I get that there is a sudden transition from 3rd person to 1st person POV in the 2nd part but that¡¯s how it¡¯s written. It isn¡¯t as unnatural as it is when in Chinese than in English, so just bear with it.


    Alright, this is really thest one until October 20+


    Btw, I haven¡¯t been to discord for a long time so I¡¯m not really sure but thanks to the person who has been helping me add in the chapters and the table of content stuff etc. in each chapter.

 Chapter 66

    <h4>Chapter 66: Marquess</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    The small boat advances slowly on the River Styx. Despite it moving so slowly that it seems stationary, but in reality, it is jumping between dimensions, shortening the distance to our destination.


    The water of the River Styx that is full of the silent dead flows peacefully through countless dimensions, collecting the souls of Chaos. If someone isn¡¯t worried about being robbed of their souls and memories by the River Styx, they could use it as a convenient tool to transverse between dimensions.


    However, it is a pity that only Death God Ayer¡¯s small boat is able to travel on the River Styx. Previously, a Demon Duke from the 63rd level of Chaos Abyss created a Soul Boat out of dead souls, but the boat and the Duke himself ended up erased by Ayer himself. This not only shows that Ayer restricts the right to travel on the River Styx, even more so, it proves that the Death God which rarely appears isn¡¯t some good guy.


    Even I cherished this hard-toe-by experience.


    The priceless River Styx (The main reason is because extracting it is too difficult) is just in front of me. That is an important ingredient to countless top-grade Alchemy Potions and right now, I am trying to scoop some of it up. After all, if I don¡¯t take some of it back, how can I be qualified as a thrifty Lich that manages his family.


    Very quickly, after scooping it up, I realized that my soul doesn¡¯t have any containers to fill it with. Borrow from the Watcher of the River Styx, Ayer? What is the difference from a burr taking too much money and borrowing a sack from some police?


    ¡°You want to take the River Styx¡¯s water? Here.¡±


    Looks like this ¡®police¡¯ really don¡¯t regard the thing he is watching over as anything important. He casually throws an old and broken bottle to me, but my system evaluates the bottle as a precious treasure.


    [Bose¡¯s Drinking Bottle. Ancient Unique Object. Able to fill 7 different kind of liquids within. This bottle has been blessed by Bose, so the water stored within will retain its original quality as long as it is kept within.]


    Bose is an Ancient Sea God but he has already long fell in the long river of time. After going through countless eons, it is to be expected that Ayer¡¯s fortunes would be massive. Even a casual object that he gives out turns out to be an Ancient Unique Object. However, the thing that surprised me is that there are already 2 types of liquids stored within.


    [The First Generation Human Mountainous Tribe Royalty¡¯s Concentrated Blood, Diamond-ss Order Bloodline. If this were to be submitted to the System while forging your new body, it will provide you an additional option in choosing your body ¡ª This dull red blood has witnessed the rise and fall of countless tribes. As the first generation sons of Order along with the Ancient Angels and Ancient Demons, this blood might not have much power left in it but it contains limitless potential.]


    [The Devil Lord¡¯s Concentrated Blood, Diamond-ss Chaos Bloodline. If this were to be submitted to the System while forging your new body, it will provide you with an additional option in choosing your body ¡ª The depravation of the entire First-Generation Humans created the evil race of Devils that are able to stand toe-to-toe with the Demons. There is limitless power that is hidden in this blood. However, please take note that this power cannot be obtained without a price. The fall to depravity thates along with the Devil¡¯s Bloodline cannot be avoided.]


    ¡°These are?¡±


    Ayer was once the King of the Ancient Humans, so it is normal for him to have the Bloodline of the Ancient Humans. However, the Devil Lord¡¯s Concentrated Blood is the core of a Lord-level Devil, it cannot be obtained even by killing them. The only way of obtaining it is to get them to submit it willingly at the risk of them losing great power and to make a Devil Lord lower their head like that, looks like the rumors of Ayer colluding with the Devils might just as well turn out to be true.


    ¡°You are probably going to recreate your body. Although I have no idea what kind of method are you going to recreate your body with, you would still need ingredients and you could probably use these.¡±


    Should I be thankful that I managed to hug on the correct leg? If I had these in the past, I wouldn¡¯t be so gleeful over having Silver Bloodline. It is Diamond Bloodline, an existence that is able to suppress the Golden Tribe, the Dragon Tribe¡¯s Bloodline. In front of these, even Little Red¡¯s Golden Bloodline that has evolved into half a Diamond Bloodline¡¯s Ancient Dragon Bloodline is considered as trash.


    Thus, I happily epted the bottle. Ayer shakes his head and mentions another matter.


    ¡°Right, didn¡¯t you talk about Hades and Hell back then? Also, the Ghost Guards? Do you know that there is Hell in our world as well?¡±


    Of course I know but it is a totally different thing. The Hell I am referring to is a jail in the Underworld, used to lock up and torture the souls of the sinner. However, the Hell of Eich is the dwelling of the Devils.


    ¡°I have talked to little Tias about it. If we are really able to create Hades, then he is willing to give in Hell and even allow all of the Devils to try to be Prison Wardens.¡±


    Little Tias? Camier Tias? The head of the current 9 Devil Lords? Making the other party give in Hell to serve as Hades? I can finally confirm that the rumor is false. Looks like it isn¡¯t that Ayer is colluding with Devils but the Devils are serving as the subordinates of Ayer!


    This leisure chat and suggestions has exposed the greatest secret of this world as well as the many risks involved. This is an assistance out of goodwill, the boasting of the partner¡¯s own power as well as an attempt at trying to sound me out.


    However, if the powerful Devils were to be able to join in this n, the sess rate would be increased significantly. Of course, the prerequisite is that their involvement mustn¡¯t be revealed. After all, their terrible reputation will make many things beplicated.


    However, my greatest goal is the realization of my n. Since this matter is helpful to the realization of my n, there is no reason for me to reject it. But, even close brothers will count their debts, there are some words that must be rified.


    ¡°Alright. However, the leader of Hades and the Supreme Judge must still be under the control of Wumianzhe. Also, what does the Devils intend to achieve form this? Just say it directly, otherwise it really makes one worried about what they might do.¡±


    Of course, Devils are well known to be cunning. Why would they do unprofitable work?


    ¡°Freedom.¡±


    I wouldn¡¯t be surprised no matter what Ayer says. But, that word was iprehensible to me. Freedom? Could it be that the powerful race of Devils is ving under someone? This way, won¡¯t they also be controlled by someone even if they join Hades eventually?


    ¡°It is not the freedom on the surface, but true release. You also know that once one bes a high-tier Devils, even if he were to be killed in other dimensions, they would just be forcefully sent back to Hell with their power taking a blow. However, if they were to die in the Lower Realm, that would be true death.¡±


    Vaguely, I guessed what Ayer is going to say.


    ¡°You mean the reincarnation?¡±


    ¡°Yes, in order not to join the Sacred War, my people sided with the Chaos Goddess. In the end, in every Sacred War, Devils still ended up serving as cannon fodder. Those old fellows are already sick and tired of the war and swindling they do as Devils. They hope to be released but yet, they don¡¯t want their souls to be destroyed. The reincarnation might open to any other race and tribes but Demons and Devils don¡¯t have to think about it. After all, they are the main army of the Sacred War.¡±


    ¡°How many of them? This can¡¯t possibly be a decision supported by the entire tribe. How many of the 9 Devil Lords agreed to it?¡±


    ¡°Including little Tias, 4 Ancient Devil Lords that converted from Ancient Humans have expressed their approval of the n. Of course, it is not that the others don¡¯t agree but we didn¡¯t tell them at all and we don¡¯t intend to tell them either.¡±


    Looks like it is a secret agreement? However, I like it. Your reputations are really too soiled. If we get exposed, there will be endless trouble in the future so this kind of secret agreement is the most suitable.


    Afterwards, it is time to discuss the terms of the contract.


    The Devil¡¯s Contract is well-known in the world. As long as you are able to get by all of thenguage traps, it will be the most effective promise in the world and the Contract that is personally signed by the Devil Lord cannot be changed even by the Chaos Abyss.


    Even if the Devils express sufficient sincerity and the terms are beneficial, but since you are looking for me for a partnership, I would be a little silly to not exploit food that is sent to my doorstep. Thus, after more than 3 hours of difficult negotiation and among Ayer¡¯s praises of ¡®you are even more devilish than the devils¡¯ ¡®you are even more greedy than the demons¡¯, I finally managed to get a Contract with terms I am satisfied with.


    ¡°Lord Ayer, are you tired as well?¡± Looking at the desire for reincarnation that the Devil Lords expressed in the Contract, I started to form a new opinion of Ayer who is bind to the seat of the Death God.


    ¡°No, no. The world is a beautiful ce and the evolution of different races are interesting. There are still things that I would like to do. This seat as a Death God may be slightly unbearable, but it is carefree so I don¡¯t have much of an opinion of it. But, I am a King after all and I must spare a thought for the wishes of my people. If you are a King as well, you should be able to understand.¡±


    Nodding my head, I didn¡¯t question him further, although he aroused my curiosity of history. Ayer in front of me may seem young on the outside, but he is an immemorial monster that existed in the same era as the 2 Goddesses. Perhaps, I am able to find out many true secrets from him.


    ¡°You should have met the Goddess of Order Astrya and the Goddess of Chaos Cynthia. What kind of people are they? Why would they cause the eternal war?¡±


    Ayer turns around to look at me. The calm look in his eyes somehow made all my goosebumps rise but I was fine with it. Anyway, the man in front could easily kill anyone, even Gods. Since there is nothing much to lose, it would really be a great pity to lose this opportunity to listen to ancient secrets.


    In the end, Ayer sighs a long breath and starts speaking.


    ¡°Mother Goddess, she is a good woman. She treats all living beings as her son and daughter. However, excessive maternal love could impede the progress of the children. She hopes that all of the races could live in the way she nned out, but that was impossible. Big Sister Cynthia is the extreme opposite. She is lively and likes to look at duels and battles. She admires the relentless spirit of warriors and hope that her children can evolve independently. Can you believe that the Ancient Demons aren¡¯t actually evil, they just like all kinds ofpetitive sports...¡±


    On this small river, time isn¡¯t a problem. Countless ancient secrets were exposed through the mouth of this old God. Despite it being an epic legend, but in through this mouth of this seemingly young old man, it sounds like the fight of the 2 unfilial and useless sons of the neighbors on the streets. Despite it being the bloody ughter in the forceful recing of Gods, he said it in a way as though it is a prime-time drama full of romance and vengeance. However, I was still absorbed in it.


    ¡°Un, this might turn out to be useful. I didn¡¯t expect Demons to have such a weakness.¡± Yes, history is also an intelligence and intelligence is often the stepping stone to victory. I would probably only have this single opportunity so how could I not grasp onto it tightly.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    As the boat approaches the shore, I heave a sigh of relief before anxietyes hitting again.


    After seeing me, Elisa seemed to have heave a sigh of relief as well.


    This is a dark river in the underground world but under the prompt of the Death God, it became as part of the River Styx. Aftering to shore, the flowing River Styx disappears along with Ayer himself.


    ¡°I am back.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, looks like you still remembered to return. Then, I won¡¯t sell your old dwelling to pay for my wages for now.¡±


    ¡°Hey hey hey, don¡¯t burn the bridge after crossing it. It is bad enough that you cut the formalities and stopped calling me as master. To think that you would sell your master¡¯s house after he is gone, is this eptable?¡±


    ¡°Do couples still need formalities? Or perhaps, you like this kind of master-servant humiliation PLAY?¡±


    TL: PLAY is in English.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re too much! Now you¡¯re acting dumb, didn¡¯t you just ept my confession.¡± Elisa in the midst of faking tears...


    Remembering that darned confession, I was at a loss of what to do.


    ¡°That is counted as well? Back then...¡±


    ¡°Hmph, that wasn¡¯t enough? No matter what, I am a girl. As a man, it is enough that you weren¡¯t the one confessing, now you are evenining about my confession being insufficient?¡± Elisa roars. However, as someone familiar with her, how can I be unable to see the worry beneath her incredible aura. She was worried that I would ¡®regret¡¯.


    ¡°That...¡± After hesitating for a moment, I feel like I really owe her too much. Thinking about the figure who refuses to back down even when the Light of Order is descending down and looking at her current look, I lost all my will to continue pursuing the matter.


    ¡°Alright, alright. Is Sulfur Mountain City still fine?¡±


    ¡°Sulfur Mountain City is fine, but the old City Lord Adam isn¡¯t fine.¡± Although she said it calmly, it seems that she is still quite delighted in seeing that I didn¡¯t object vehemently and take back my words.


    While feeling sentimental that there would be a day which I get a girlfriend, I am a little curious over hearing that Adam isn¡¯t fine.


    ¡°Un? Could it be that some problem urred when he was blocking the Light of Order? Did something happen with the Titan Heart? I don¡¯t think that there would be a problem with my transnt surgery. Adam¡¯s thick flesh shouldn¡¯t be that weak.¡±


    ¡°No. It is just that after Wumianzhe just Ascended to Godhood, he and Margaret announced that they were dating and were preparing for the marriage. In the end, a rumor started to arise that ¡®Lord Adam has been abandoned by Lord Wumianzhe and Lord Margaret attacked in the time of his weakness¡¯. There are even ywrights who used it as a topic and they added it into the newly published Legend of Wumianzhe. Now, it is a bestseller in Sulfur Mountain City, especially those previous grudges and love-hate rtionship, it is really heart-wrenching and exciting. I didn¡¯t expect that we would have such an intertwined rtionship back then. Right, are you and Adam really blood-rted brothers? You have a fianc¨¦e with leukemia?¡±


    ¡°Intertwined rtionship your head! Didn¡¯t you remember your time back then when you were still Lisa? Despite being present, you still listen to these falsehoods they made up. Damn it, to think that the rumors that I was together with Adam still had a continuation!! Right, didn¡¯t you spread the rumors? You still dare to say it!¡±


    But Elisa replies confidently.


    ¡°Of course, as your true girlfriend, I have the right to keep watch to ensure that you retain a healthy private lifestyle.¡±


    ¡°Alright, then as your true boyfriend, can I ask what happened to you? Why are you only an avatar right now? Also, when did you have the ability to project an avatar!¡±


    Yes, I have long realized that the Elisa in front of me is Elisa but not Elisa. She is only a projection of her avatar and only the true Gods of the Upper Realm and the Demons and Devils of the Lower Realm can have this kind of ability!


    ¡°Hehe, looks like I can¡¯t fool you. Right now, I am not the Half-Demon Elisa. Please call me Marquess Elisa. Congrattions, to be the girlfriend of a Marquis-level great Demon, this is really a record breaker.¡±


    Marquess? Even if Elisa Demonifiespletely, it shouldn¡¯t be possible for her to rise through the ranks so quickly? To surpass Kakajil in an instant, how is this possible? What happened in these two months!


    Just when I was shocked about it, Elisa¡¯s avatar starts to blur. Looks like her time in maintaining the avatar is running out.


    ¡°Alright, looks like today¡¯s projection time is up. About the matter that has happened, I have written them in a letter on the work desk in your old dwelling. You can also ask Annie.¡±


    Suddenly, the dissipating Elisa walks forward, shifts her hair to the side, lowers her head and lightly kisses on my red lips. On the moment where our lips touch, I only felt a slightly cold sensation before she backs away.


    She smiles with a bright-red face, as though as she is the happiest person on the world.


    ¡°Un, my target has been achieved. Also, you aren¡¯t allowed to phnder. Be careful of my sudden checks.¡±


    Afterwards, the avatar projection disappears in midair. The only thing remaining is me and my shocked face together with a silver ring on my hand.


    ¡°ELISA!!¡±


    An ominous omen lingers in my head. The shout of my soul reverberates by the riverside. It can¡¯t be that I turned single right after I just got myself a girlfriend.


    Suddenly, a familiar voice rings by my side.


    ¡°I am not dead yet so stop shouting. So loud, my ears are turning numb.¡±


    Elisa¡¯s voice came from the ring.


    In this moment, in a certain battlefield in the Lower Realm, a silver-haired Demon Marquess lies on her throne. While calmly directing the battle in front of her, she speaks to a familiar skull she holds on her hand.


    In front of her, an endless army of Demons were engaged in a ughter. It is a Demon Count who is in the midst of a coup d¡¯etat. As a Demon Marquess who is favored by the Abyss and soared to the top suddenly, there are still many battles she has to face.


    ¡°I have said that I will not let go of those which I set my eyes upon. Regardless of whether it is the power to determine my fate or you, remember, before I return, you definitely aren¡¯t allowed to take off the ring or phnder. Otherwise, you still remember what happened that day. I can tell you honestly that your skull is now just a decoration on my cor!¡±


    Alright, in the face of such a cute threat, I am at a loss again. Finally, it turns into a helpless sigh.


    ¡°Sigh, System, time to finish the quest. I want to revive.¡±

 Chapter 67

    <h4>Chapter 67: Myth</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    [¡°Ding! Congrattions for triggering an Epic mission, The Revival of the Phoenix.¡±


    ¡°Quest objective: Investigate and resolve the dangers that Sulfur Mountain City would encounter. Groom Annie.Layde to be a capable leader-like figure before Adam¡¯s demise.¡±


    ¡°Quest rewards: Epic-ss discount voucher (Using this, you can purchase any Epic-level and below merchandise from the System¡¯s merchant at half price), the right to start quests of the main storyline.¡±


    ¡°At least... before leaving your hometown, pass it down to someone reliable. After all, you wouldn¡¯t hope to see only rubble when youe back.¡±


    ¡°Quest failure penalty: Would turning you into skull with a mushroom growing on it be good? Or would a skull growing from a mushroom be better? Both of them aren¡¯t good? Then let¡¯s make it a mushroom skull growing from a skeleton.¡±]


    Initially, when I just received this mission, I didn¡¯t expect so many things to happen.


    Right now, starting from the moment when I received this mission, the situation in the Underground World has changed vastly. Without this troublesome mission, I wouldn¡¯t have taken the initiative to create trouble during the Alliance Conference. In the end, no matter what happens during the Conference, whether the Conference will result in the solidifying of their alliance and elect a leader as expected or them responding to Shou¡¯s calling to gather together to attack Sulfur Mountain City, if it wasn¡¯t for the mission, many things would be different from what it is now.


    ¡°I want to finish the quest. Hey, System, stop feigning dead.¡±


    [Requisites for thepletion of the Epic Mission: Firstly, Sulfur Mountain City averts the crisis; Secondly, Adam didn¡¯t die and won¡¯t seek death in the short run; Thirdly, Annie.Layde bes the a leader-like Hero. To think you would seed in all of them! Congrattions, you actually seeded in seeing through all of the traps andpleted all of the hidden missions. The rewards this time will be extremely satisfying for you.]


    This cold notice is actually telling me of the fact that I was tricked once again. The goal of the third mission is to groom Annie as a passable City Lord and that was the expected oue I was working towards. As for the other 2 requisites, I really didn¡¯t expect them.


    The part where the mission spoke about resolving dangers, I thought it meant dealing with those traitors and the invading army. Who would have known that this darned System would actually want me to investigate the mastermind and destroy the danger at its root? As for the time limit ¡®before Adam¡¯s death¡¯, it was actually expecting me to stop his death?


    However, even if I didn¡¯t know of these requisites earlier, I somehow still managed toplete all of them. The system might be screwed up, but it can be trusted to pay an amount equal to how much one achieves. I am starting to anticipate the rewards I would receive this time.


    [The triggering of the main storyline has revealed that your soul does not tend towards any of the Faction. The System is evolved into itsplete form ¡ª Fate System. From now on, all Evil Points and Justice Points will be converted into Fate Points and you will gain power from actions that reverses the despairing fate.]


    Fate System? Obtaining power through changing fate? Isn¡¯t this my greatest wish? Looks like the theory that the System is a part of my soul might just turn out to be true.


    [The missions from now on will be a choice between justice and evil. The calction for the rewards for the Epic Mission will be triggered now.]


    [Mission Objective 1, to track the mastermind and remove the dangers threatening Sulfur Mountain City. The mastermind Shou is dead while Molly has lost her position as the Dragon Empress and Underground Autarch and thus, she is unable to pose a threat to Sulfur Mountain City. Also, the seal of the Fire Elemental God has been released, causing the Demons and Chaos Abyss to lose their interest in Sulfur Mountain City. Sulfur Mountain City has be thend of origin for the Power of Law and a true God. Countless Practitioners of Law will traverse and station here, improving its security significantly. All in all, the mission objective has been aplished perfectly. 5000 Fate Points awarded.]


    The rewards may be very attractive but at this moment, what I was more focused on was the important message hidden within the notice.


    ¡°The seal of the Fire Elemental God has been released? Who released it? Although we have agreed on to release the seal eventually so that the Chaos Faction would give up on it, releasing the seal so casually may result in vast amount of trouble. We have to at least weaken it for a decade or so first. But, judging from the fact there is no Fire Elementals rampaging around, is the seal really released?¡±


    I didn¡¯t receive any answers to my question. The System only systematically calcted my next mission objective.


    [Mission Objective 2 (Hidden), reverse Adam¡¯s fated demise. By recing the Phoenix Heart with the Titan Heart, the death of his physical death has been avoided. Currently, he is busy stopping the rumors from spreading, preparing his betrothal gifts and his honeymoon tour. All of his suicidal thoughts has disappeared. Mission 2 has beenpleted excellently. 3000 Fate Points awarded.]


    Looks like the System is really getting used to scamming me. To think that saving Adam and preventing him from dying was actually a hidden objective.


    [Mission Objective 3 (Main), groom Annie into a leader-like figure and an eptable City Lord. The System will total up all of the Fate Points rued through the main storyline and a final evaluation will be made.]


    Hearing this, I feel like I have been scammed again. The System was requesting for a leader-like figure from the very start. If I had only interpreted the phrase leader-like figure as a City Lord, the reward I would be awarded will probably only be the basic one. The Fate Points that I rue probably only looks at how much I have achieved in the mission. If I had only stayed in Sulfur Mountain City to wait for Annie to take over as the next City Lord, I probably wouldn¡¯t even earn a single point.


    [Secret Mission: The Secret of Queen Victoria has beenpleted. Under your influence, Victoria has started on her path as the Queen of the Dark Elves. She might have started out slower, preventing her from bing the absolute monarch of the Dark Elf society, but she will at least be one of the most influential leaders of the Dark Elves. Her friendly rtionship with Sulfur Mountain City will bring benefits to Annie. 3000 Fate Points awarded.]


    In Morsblight City, the newly-appointed Syfan Matriarch, Victoria, was lecturing everyone from the stage. After gaining control of the Syfan family¡¯s influence, she immediately purged the 2nd Family who were about to usurp their ce. At this current moment, she, who has just achieved the ultimate victory in making all of the other Matriarchs of the other families of Morsblight City submit to ¡®her¡¯, has her eyes fixed upon the remainder of Kajah¡¯s influence.


    [Secret Mission: The rise of the Centaur n has beenpleted. Due to your actions, the power behind the Beastman Sovereign Shou Nuya has fallen apart. The Centaurs under Minial made use of this opportunity to rise up. Due to several circumstances, his niece, Anya, has been inaugurated as the Beastman Sovereign and became the newly-appointed Underground Autarch. She will be one of the most powerful ally of Annie.Layde. 5000 Fate Points awarded.]


    In the tents on the grassy ins, old Minial could only look helplessly on the newly-appointed Beastman Sovereign rolling around the entire ground. ¡®I don¡¯t want to go for the meetings, those old geezers are really scary¡¯, ¡®I want to go to Sulfur Mountain City to y with Big Sister Annie and buy new clothes¡¯, ¡®Ah, when is my delivery packageing? I already said that I don¡¯t want to live in the countryside, look how inconvenient it is.¡¯


    There wasn¡¯t a single trace of the viciousness of the old Minial a month ago when he suppressed the ambitious crowds to snatch the position of the Beastman Sovereign. At this current moment, in order to protect the dignity of the new Beastman Sovereign, he could only strictly order the guards to prevent anyone from entering while looking helplessly at his own niece, at a loss of whether tough or cry.


    (Can¡¯t fit in somehow due to limitations of my grammar and vocabry abilities but Minial has taken control of Vance)


    At this moment, the wrinkled face of his is not one of the Chieftain of the Centaur tribe but rather, an elder who wants to discipline a spoiled child yet being unable to muster the will to be harsh with her. In the end, he could only nod his head and give in. ¡°Fine, we will move to Vance 2 dayster. Let¡¯s all go together. We will all live in mansions instead of tents.¡±


    [Secret Mission: The return of the Dragon Princess has beenpleted. After news that Molly has been converted into a Chaos Demon Dragon leaked out, the Underground Dragon City stripped her of her position as a Dragon Empress and her identity as one of the Dragon Tribe without hesitation. Furthermore, as the one who defeated the previous Dragon Empress and the sole survivor of the bloodline of the Dragon Emperor, Einz Mezus (Little Red) has been chosen as the new Dragon Empress. However, as Einz Mezus insisted on staying at Sulfur Mountain City, the Dragon Tribe built a new Dragon City in its vicinity. From now on, Sulfur Mountain City wille under the protection of the Dragon Tribe. Even though Ein Mezus took over the crown to be the new Dragon Empress and is one of the newly-appointed Underground Autarch, as she looks upon Annie.Layde as her daughter and dotes on her as such, she will be the most reliable backing of Annie Layde. 5000 Fate Points awarded.]


    Sulfur Mountain City. Little Red squints to look at the countless giant Dragons in the sky and the gigantic Dragon Pce being built at a distance not too far away while yawning. She has absolutely no interest in the position of the Dragon Empress. On the other hand, she was extremely interested in how she could exploit her position as the Dragon Empress to steal the fortunes of other giant Dragons legitimately. After rising to the position, she is currently looking for a reason to settle old scores with a few of her old friends, making use of the opportunity to clear their treasure vault.


    ¡°Hehe, even if it is an Ancient Dragon, there is no way they could disobey the words of a Dragon Empress. After losing contact with the Dragon City for so many years, it is time for you all to pay 200 years of tax. No money? You can use God Equipment in exchange as well. You don¡¯t even have God Equipment? How the hell are you able to be an Ancient Dragon? Fine, then a dozen of Myth-ss treasures.¡±


    Seems like under the control of this powerful Dragon Empress, there is hope for the Underground Dragon City to regain its previous glory.


    [Secret Mission: The origin of Law has beenpleted. At the moment which you ascended to Godhood, the news that Sulfur Mountain City has be a sacrednd for Law has spread to each and every corner of the world. At this moment, countless Adventurers are heading here to study the Power of Law. The Spatial Distortion to Vance, which is just next to the surface world, gives this city extremely highmercial value. It will be one of the renowned cities in the world. Being a city governed byw, its new system of splitting the power between the governor and judiciary and the unique way how different races interact will be the role model for many other cities and its City Lord Annie.Layde will gain fame because of this. 10000 Fate Points awarded.]


    ¡°Why is it me!! I don¡¯t want to be that what Supreme Judge.¡±


    At Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Supreme Court, after sending away a guest who came to congratte him on bing the Supreme Judge with a calm face, the moment after he closes the door and turns around, the old cow immediatelyshes out and roars at his colleagues who were looking at themotion.


    He had been so busy recently, so busy that he was unable to engage in his favorite hobby, so busy that he feels that his little partner has not felt the breeze of the wind for too long, leaving him weak spiritually.


    ¡°Cough cough, I am too old. I won¡¯t be able to withstand the such heavy responsibility. If my physical condition were to deteriorate such that I am unable to carry out the heavy responsibilities that our Lord has left behind, wouldn¡¯t I be a sinner?¡±


    While faking a cough, Kale Diya nced at his other colleagues. It seems that this pure old man is reallycking in strength physically. In reality, everyone was thinking ¡®you already had this look when we saw you a few decades ago. As a High Elf, even after we all die of old age, you will probably still be living on with this old dying look of yours.¡¯


    ¡°Furthermore, there is a need for me to remain at the Hall of Legition. I am probably the only one who can keep those powerful people who came here to study the Power of Law in reins. Not to mention, the mission of creating new Law Incantations. I am really unable to leave my current post.¡±


    As the number one expert of the 4 Halls 1 Court, there is indeed a need for the presence of a powerful one to keep the situation under control. Also, as the strongest Law Incantationer, the responsibility of studying and creating new Law Incantations lies upon him.


    Lilith looks helplessly at the silly cow who was panting heavily.


    ¡°I don¡¯t really mind it either way but right now, Lord Margaret is preparing for her honeymoon trip and her sessor, the Silver Rose, Lord Elisa, suddenly shirks off all her responsibilities and quits her job. Are you willing to go in my ce to the Internal Affairs Bureau?¡±


    Alright, he understands that he is definitely unable to deal with all those documents which are sufficient to drown even an entire room. Xueti shifts his gaze towards thest of the Four Heavenly Kings of Law. In response, Kevin, who just got promoted to the Supreme Judge of Chrome City, tries his best to squeeze his body together to make his existence less noticeable.


    ¡°Kevin, let me swap with you. I will go to Chrome City to continue your work. You can serve as the Supreme Judge.¡±


    ¡°Fine, then the first thing I will do after Ie into power is to create aw that rules nude running as a heavy crime. At the same time, I will get rid of the Gentlemen Alliance and Wild Bull Alliance which is filled with perverts and gays, hanging them up on the g poles three stories high to dry them.¡±


    With the current weather, being hanged three stories high up will cause sweat to drip down like rainwater. They would probably die of dehydration in less than 2 hours. Drying them on the gpoles? That is unless one is intending to make jerky out of them after drying them.


    The honest looking middle-aged manughed heartily as a glint of cold light shes through both of his eyes. It seems like it is true that the dogs who bite people are the ones who never barks. The ones with the darkest stomach and heart is often those who seem friendly and honest. Xueti immediately backs down in response to Kevin¡¯sughter.


    ¡°Cough cough, since everyone trusts me so much, I will try my best to be an excellent Supreme Judge!¡±


    Alright, under several threats, Xueti carries the God Equipment Origin of Codex and the SemiGod-ss Gavel with a teary face to deal with guests who consistentlyes knocking on the door. Behind him, his colleagues were celebrating over the fact that they were able to avoid this heavy responsibility.


    However, from another perspective, after the original sessor, Elisa, chose to resign, the one who had the most prestige of all was him, making him the most suitable sessor. It could be said that him taking over as the Supreme Judge was also the wish of the public.


    [Main Storyline Mission: The only Female Queen of the Underground World has beenpleted. Annie.Layde has already stepped into the realm of Saints. After receiving the full support of the newly ascended Dragon Queen and Beastman Sovereign, the influence of Sulfur Mountain City grew together as a whole. Furthermore, with a portion of the Elves supporting it, Sulfur Mountain City is backed by 4 out of 5 of the Underground Autarchs. Going by the System¡¯s calctions, there is a 70% chance that the entire Underground World could be united by under Annie within 10 years. The Main Storyline Mission has beenpleted perfectly! 20000 Fate Points awarded.]


    If I still had a chin, this is definitely a situation for my chin to fall off. After all that I have done, another Emperor was about to appear in the Underground World? Based on what happened in history, it is definitely an extremely big disaster for the surface world.


    [Due to your amiable rtionship with Annie.Layde, when the Underground World is about to invade the surface, you can try to use diplomacy to remove the possibility of war. Congrattions, you have done very well. You have managed to change the future for the happening of one of the cmity that was fated to happen.]


    To think that it would praise me? Is this still that darned system who always tricks me? However, its reminder made me open up my eyes. A Queen like Annie is totally different from those other ambitious fools who crave to build their kingdoms on the surface world.


    The dwellers of the Underground World crave for sunlight and clean air, so the invasion cannot be avoided. The countless wars that urred in history has proven this point. However,pared to Shou, who has sworn allegiance to the Demons, Eduar, who swore allegiance to the Devils, and the arrogant Dragon Empress Molly, if we were to gain control over the proceedings of the invasion, then perhaps, we would be able to make this war into one which wouldn¡¯t destroy everything.


    Immediately, I thought of a few countries which I had grudges with and a few desertednds where poptions were sparse.


    ¡°Un, as long as we invest sufficiently, those deserts and barrennd can be made suited for living. It looks like I would have to make a trip to Human countries who have ess to the tunnels to the Underground World. Also, I have to figure out a method to make these Human Kingdoms ept new neighbors. It may seem highly imusible, but there is still hope.¡±


    Just when I thought the notices has ended, the System rings out once again.


    [From now on, we will start to calcte the Fate Points derived from the individual heroes. Moon Knight Diana has hardened her determination to seek her own path. She has conducted a Moonlight Ritual to change her own skin color and will head to the Surface soon. Friendly notice from the System: You are rmended to apany her on the journey, she will be an effective nanny and meat shield.]


    [Eaglestorm has brought a portion of his tribesman back to the Surface. He feels that he has found a new faith in Sulfur Mountain City and not too far in the future, a Druid Faction which seeks neutrality and bnce as their goal, hoping to fulfill it throughw to realize the possibility of harmonious cohabitation will rise up. 1000 Fate Points awarded.]


    [In Sulfur Mountain City, coborations between projects of gnomes and goblins has started. Not too far in the future, an entirely new engineering study will arise. The Wise Rnd¡¯s name will be scripted on the annals of history as the founder of the new study. The Rnd series robots will also pave the way for daily-use, night-use, water-type, air-type and many other types of robots. 1000 Fate Points awarded.]


    [Beifeng.Herault, under your influence, has finally understood the equality of all beings. Thus, he started on his legendary path... Alright, he is really too disgusting, even the System doesn¡¯t want to borate more on it. You only have to know that his title is ¡®the man who single-handedly created multiple races¡¯! 10000 Fate Points awarded!]


    Looking at that scary 10000 points, I don¡¯t even dare to question on.


    ¡°For a Myth Hero, even a new Druid Faction would only give 1000 points. 10000 points? What exactly did that pervert Beifeng do!! Single-handedly created multiple races? He isn¡¯t a Mage, so how did he do it!¡±


    I have roughly guessed a few things here and there but has chosen rationally to refuse to think about it.


    After a series of notices, I am already numb to it. Finally, it is time to tally the total amount of Fate Points I have.


    [Fate Points:124587]


    Looking at this scary number, I sucked in arge breath of cold air. That darned System wasn¡¯t lying when it said that this Myth Storyline would award me with generously.


    Of course, given the changes that urred with the Underground World¡¯s new Queen and other rted powers, this is sufficient to change the entire path of what Fate has in store for the Underground World, so naturally, the amount of Fate Points I was awarded wouldn¡¯t be little. However, the only thing that continues to baffle me is Beifeng.Herault.


    The shining golden discount voucher appears in my hand. It looks like I have enough points even without using it for my revival.


    ¡°Alright, let me revive!! Right, there¡¯s still Elisa! What happened to her!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    When the Four Heavenly Kings of Law were still pushing away the position of power to each other and stabbing each other in the knees, in the Undead District of the exact same city, another Four Heavenly Kings were having a joyous reunion.


    Even counting in the battle that urred not too long ago, [The Infallible Diffindor] has only appeared in history twice. Furthermore, all of the people who seen it the first time has already died entirely. However, the vast and powerful military might still have shocked the entire Underground World. At this moment, all of the brave Undead warriors were living life as they usually did. The dancing Banshees continued dancing and the divining Liches continued divining. It is just that due to the Undead Army who protected the city and all of its citizens that day, the rtionship between the two has improved significantly. There were quite a few customers in the Undead Royale Theme Park.


    Of course, there were bound to be troubles. However, the Red Hunting Hounds has never been afraid of trouble, especially when there is a true God protecting them now. Even though all of the enemies who have seen that Soul World has vanished, but those who were on the same side and seen it before followed the clues and came knocking.


    At this moment, seated one side in a secret chamber in a shabby old tower are Ghoul King Decars, Spider Marquis Lionheart, Bone Dragon Queen Gria and on the other, Demonic Spatial Hellhound Bastian and the Abomination Ah Dang, who is snoring away. The Four Heavenly Kings under Emperor Yongye (Someone has mysteriously insisted that a Four Heavenly King must have a fifth personnel) has all gathered together and their secret talks went on for several days.


    ¡°...This is our Emperor¡¯s ns. Of course, this is just a portion of it. If you all are willing to join in, I will tell you the rest of it. The Emperor means to say that you all are free to join, and he will not force you into it.¡±


    In the face of shocking secrets, even Lionheart, who is known as the best strategist of the Xiluo Empire was caught off-guard. However, just as he was still hesitating, hisrades have already made their decisions.


    ¡°This means that our Emperor is still in the mortal world! This is great, I want to look for him.¡± Alright, Gria didn¡¯t pay any heed to what scheme or ns, she was just happy over the fact that Rnd is still in the mortal world.


    ¡°Whatever Ah Pa wants Ah Dang to do, Ah Dang will do.¡± Within the Four Heavenly Kings, Ah Dang and Bastian are part of the Seven Deadly Sins, creations of Emperor Yongye. Indubitably, they are the most loyal ones of the Royal Faction.


    After hesitating for a brief moment, Lionheart nods his head in the end.


    ¡°I also believe in the Emperor¡¯s wisdom and decisions. We, the Royal Faction, has always been loyal to the Emperor and looked forward to the day for the return of the Emperor.¡±


    All of the gazes settle upon the final one of the Four Heavenly Kings, Decars. He has joined the Council Faction, and if not for the letter from Emperor Yongye in his hands which proves that he is trustworthy, Bastian would have long got rid of him.


    ¡°I have long returned to themands of our Emperor. I have results of the investigation of the secrets that our Emperor has tasked me to uncover. 6rge-scale Dimension of Death including Skeleton, Frost and sphemy has been opened since 15 years ago. Feyman has been traversing through these dimensions these few days.


    Hearing news about the Dimension of Death, everyone was dumbfounded. After all, the Undead Emperor and Undead Lords in these Dimensions could be said to be the seniors of everyone here.


    ¡°However, the Undead Emperors of the other Dimensions aren¡¯t that easy to negotiate with. With just Feyman and his Council of Dark Night, he would just be eaten up by the other party. Based on his progress, a few of the Dimensions has agreed to work together with him and this is only because of the First Senator Gricasio stepping out to conduct these negotiations. I¡¯m afraid that therge-scale Undead Cmity that our Emperor predicted wille, it is only a matter of time at this point. Feyman analyzed that the time these Undead Lords and Emperors would require for the preparations of war would not exceed 30 years. Boss, help me send this news to our Emperor.¡±


    Yes, Decars, whose appearance is of arge-built man right now, was tasked by Rnd to serve as a spy in the Council. Despite spending more than 10 years in there, he wasn¡¯t able to gain sufficient trust to ess important information but through tracing trails and bribing spies, he gained quite a bit of information.


    The emergence of the collusion between the 1st Senator and 2nd Senator as well as the military intelligence of the intention of many Undead Dimensions to invade Eich made them fell into despair.


    ¡°Darn it, if the 3rd Senator was still alive, things wouldn¡¯t have progressed to such a state.¡±


    Lionheart immediately understood how new experts were appearing one after another in the Council Faction. When the 1st Senator and 2nd Senator coborate together with the support of the Dimensions of Death, coupled with the death of 2 neutral Senators with thest one severely injured, the tilting of the power of Xiluo Empire towards them is just a matter of time.


    Fine, due to someone¡¯s interference, the disappearance of the Queen of Banshees Harloys has be a case without any leads. Without her keeping the powers in Xiluo in check, the Council Faction is without any equals, allowing them to gain control of the full authority at an even quicker pace.


    However, Bastian simply smiled. All of the proceedings were within the expectations of the Emperor.


    ¡°Then, since everyone decided to stand on the same boat, then let¡¯s listen to the words that our Emperor left behind. This is what he said...¡±

 Chapter 68

    <h4>Chapter 68: The Arbiter</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    2 weeks after Wumianzhe¡¯s Ascension to Godhood. After Annie took over the position of the City Lord, many things started to fall back into ce. Due to Rnd¡¯s departure, Adam was much more caring towards Elisa.


    However, what was reassuring was that Elisa was exceptionally strong. She didn¡¯t wallow in sadness as they expected. Rather, she not only worked as per normal, she showed even more smiles than she usually did, as though as she had already got past her previous trauma.


    But, it seems that she was only using work as an excuse to bury her sadness. She took the initiative to work overtime, leaving early in the morning and returningte at night. She appeared less and less frequently in public ces. Her friends also sympathetically didn¡¯t interrupt her at this point in time.


    At the same time, outside Sulfur Mountain City, the hot spring that Adam built out of a whim became a tourism spot well-known within the city.


    The originally normal pool water was used by Adam as a medium to draw heat away from the Fire Elemental God. In order to suppress and weaken the Fire Elemental God, Annie took over his job and went there every night to draw heat away from the pool.


    Due to the excessive heat, the pool water turned into a man-made hot spring. After the news that the Druids had inspected the water, which had a hint of sulfur smell simr to that of the mines, and affirm that the water was beneficial to one¡¯s body, it instantly became the hottest tourism spot of Sulfur Mountain City.


    However, it is a pity that good sights don¡¯tst long. The extraction of heat that was estimated to go on for at least more than a decade suddenly came to an end. In less than a week, the water of the hot spring cooled down. After amotion thatsted for just a few days, it reverted back into a desertednd without a single person.


    Releasing Arweiss only when he is weakened to his limits, thus halting any ns that the Chaos Faction has regarding him. At the same time, allowing the Elemental Tide to progress as how it did in history while weakening the impacts of the release of the Ancient Elemental God. This is the n which Rnd and the rest came up with after a series of discussions.


    But, at this moment, the heat suddenly vanished. This could only mean that the Ancient Fire Elemental God Arweiss grew weak rapidly or even died. The Chaos Faction could not possibly allow such a thing to happen. The one who came previously was a Count, the next one might just happen to be a Duke. It is something that makes one worry about.


    However, what was bizarre was that even after Adam and the rest heightened their awareness and the security around the area, even stopping the drawing of heat from the spring, the pool water mysteriously became colder and colder. Even so, the Chaos Faction didn¡¯t make any moves.


    Thisck of reaction makes one feel like there might be a greater scheme behind it.


    Annie, who was tasked to look over this spring, woulde every day to inspect the spring every day. Today, she decided to follow one of the suggestions of her godfather and dug a little hole in the water to bury herself in it. Finally, through this foolish method, she found the culprit behind Arweiss¡¯s weakening.


    At midnight, at the peak of the freezing cliff, 2 female warriors were crossing blows.


    Simr to the countless usual fights they had, Annie, who as a Warrior, was being suppressed by a Mage in a direct battle. Just as she was putting all of her mind into the physical brawl, a cold thread suddenly hooks onto her ankles.


    Then, with a pull of the thread, the enemy made use of her loss of bnce to throw in a few blows. Her old opponent didn¡¯t go easy on her at all. The young Annie was bound totally with several cuts by the threads on her body.


    ¡°Why, why, Big Sister Elisa! What do you want!¡±


    Yes, the one who turned the pool water icy cold and caused the Ancient Fire Elemental God to weaken to the point of death was Elisa.


    ¡°What did I do? I only used my Marauder to rob the Fire Elemental God of his powers. Arweiss, who ispletely suppressed by the seal, to me, who is also of Fire Element belonging to the Chaos Faction, is a piece of delicious and nutritious fodder.¡±


    ¡°You... Impossible! That is way beyond the limits of your physical body! How can an ant eat an elephant?¡±


    ¡°Then, I would just have to eat a little bit of snacks to increase the capacity of my physical body.¡±


    The mountainous winds cut at night. A cold gale blows and the dark clouds scatter slightly. The faint yellow lights of the luminescent algae shine down. It was a familiar face, yet it seemed slightly unfamiliar.


    Half of her originally silky-smooth silver hair has been dyed a blood red color by the Fire Element. The other half of her hair had the additional smell of ice. Her icy cold face of previous days vanished without a trace. On her face which rivals with those of the seductive subus is an even colder smile. It is the kind of brutal smile that looks forward to ying with its prey and ughter it. The night wind blew apart her fringe, revealing the dim yellow narrowed pupils of a beast, the most distinguishing sign of a Demon.


    At this moment, Elisa is no longer a Half-Demon. After letting go of herself to ept the calling of the Abyss, she is already a true Demon.


    In an instant, Annie understood it all.


    ¡°Then, what about Kakajil¡¯s heart which is ced in the nation storage vault? Did you take it too?¡±


    A demon¡¯s heart is the source of their power. Demons consume each other to evolve. In actuality, the thing that they eat is the other¡¯s heart. In that war, Kakajil¡¯s physical body was reduced into ashes, but its heart still remained, making it the most valuable of the spoils of war, thus it is kept in the nation vault.


    ¡°Yes. Although I stamped the Internal Affairs Bureau and the Supreme Court¡¯s seal by myself, no one actually checked it and allowed me to simply walk into the vault. I spent a week to devour those 4 Demonic Hearts.¡±


    No matter how much you try to prevent something from happening, an insider¡¯s job is always hard to guard against. Who would have expected that the most probable sessor to the Supreme Court and the Internal Affairs Bureau would actually steal the thing she was guarding?


    Elisa¡¯s Soul Imprint is very unique. It allows her to take away power that her body is able to bear. Kakajil, who scorches thend it walks on and was proficient in using shooting stars and fire rain kind of Forbidden Spell, is also a Fire Element Demon, another suitable nutritious fodder for Elisa.


    Cold sweat trickles down Annie¡¯s back. She also knows of the ability of Elisa¡¯s Soul Imprint and the basic ability of Demons to consume each other to further their power is a perfect match with her Marauder. With these 2 together, even if Elisa couldn¡¯t match up with Kakajil now, she wasn¡¯t far off from him.


    ¡°It seems that you have finally got it? In order to sustain this state of mine without being driven off to another Dimension, it wasn¡¯t really easy for me. Don¡¯t force me to use my true strength, it wouldn¡¯t be good for anyone.¡±


    There was a hint of bitterness to Elisa¡¯s smile. She finally attained the power she hoped of but the first person she had to use it on after obtaining it was actually against her own friends. This is really a kind of amazing irony.


    After finishing her piece, she intended to leave like that. Since she got found out, it is best for her to hasten the speed of the devouring, perhaps opening the seal tonight toplete the devour.


    ¡°Like that, Uncle Bones will be upset!¡±


    ¡°Upset? She only treats me as his daughter, his younger sister. I don¡¯t want that kind of upset.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be like that, Big Sister Elisa. There must be some other way, we can work it out together.¡±


    Annie¡¯s shout from her back made her stop. Annie thought that she was hesitating but what she was about to face was Elisa¡¯s furious questioning.


    ¡°Annie Layde! What do you know! Do you think that everyone is as fortunate as you, destined to be a powerful expert? It took me nearly a century to reach my current level but you were able to stand at the same height as me despite not even being 20. If this goes on, give it another 20 years, after you fully merge with the Phoenix¡¯s Heart, I would be even less of an opponent to you. Is this the difference between our talents and hard work?¡±


    ¡°You are a genius that everyone takes good care of. Everyone dotes on you, the Phoenix Inheritance waits for you, the Godsword Blessing of the Phoenix waits for you, the seat of the City Lord waits for you! As for me, what do I have? I only have that log-headed fool! Now, because of these darned cmities, he is about to leave me too!! I don¡¯t have anything left... nothing left. Speak, how do you intend for me to ept such a reality.¡±


    ¡°Big Sister Elisa...¡± Mumbling, Annie really doesn¡¯t know how she could reply.


    ¡°Do you know how it feels like watching the Light of Order shining down on you, bringing about your impending doom? Do you know it feels like to watch the person you love die again and again? I have had enough. I have had enough of this feeling of weakness and inability to do anything. I have had enough of standing behind that fool, watching him being wounded again and again. This time, I want to amass sufficient power to stand by his side, regardless where the poweres from! Regardless of whether this power is the evil in everyone¡¯s eyes.¡±


    Under Annie¡¯s question, the icy cold emotionless mask finally shatters. All the emotions that she had been umting finally finds an opening to be released. Along with her furious howls thate from deep within her heart, tears start to fall from the youngdy with clenched fists, but they turned into embers from the overflowing Fire mana within her, extinguishing in midair.


    Seeing the tears of the other party, Annie stands up.


    ¡°Annie doesn¡¯t understand, but Annie knows that if Big Sister Elisa goes into the world of Demons, Uncle Bones will be depressed. Annie doesn¡¯t want Uncle Bones to be depressed, nor do Annie wants Big Sister Elisa to leave. Annie doesn¡¯t want this kind of future. Annie just wants everyone to stay together happily, to have a future where no one has to shed tears!¡±


    The mes of the Phoenix burn once again. The bloodline which turns one stronger the more they undergo has turned Annie into a human-shaped Phoenix. As the light of Rules light up, a Soul Imprint of the Order Faction finally forms. At this crucial moment, Annie.Layde sessfully breaks through into the realm of Legends!


    ¡°The Watcher!¡±


    The mes of the Phoenix turn into an insignia of a shield and bow crossing each other with clear eyes behind them. The insignia showed the nature of the Soul Imprint, to protect and to watch over.


    Following afterwards, the faint image of a Phoenix burning in an inferno shows that she is definitely not any kind of normal Legend-rank. After breaking through this bottleneck, she immediately heads directly towards the next bottleneck and attempts to advance into the realm of Saints.


    Before Annie could even make sense of her new-found power after breaking into the realm of Legends, a punch heads straight towards her face. The fearsome brute strength sent the Legend-rank Warrior flying. In the next moment, countless threads follow her and binds her again.


    ¡°Annie, let Big Sister teach you one final lesson. Without power, you can¡¯t achieve anything. A kind will without power to back it up, it is just harming you yourself and those around you!¡±


    Along with the rising mes, the new Demon Noble Elisa showcases her power. With a furious roar, the endless Phoenix mes were absorbed by her.


    Under the heavy blows of Elisa, Annie was unable to retaliate anyhow and faints. With the threads drawing power from her, the newborn Legend expert is probably going to be asleep for a long time.


    At this moment, there is no longer anyone who is able to stop Elisa frompleting her evolution through devouring Arweiss. When the future Demon Marquess walks out from the seal, 2 people were already waiting at the entrance. Annie, who was left hanging on the tree, was now lying peacefully in the embrace of a figure dressed in blue.


    ¡°Hey, Elisa.¡±


    Still the same greeting without any consideration for the atmosphere. It seems as though the 3 of them have nned on this meeting together, Elisa and the 2 SemiGods weren¡¯t in the least surprised by the other party¡¯s presence.


    ¡°You two aren¡¯t going to stop me?¡±


    ¡°Of course, everyone has the right to choose their own future. This is your choice, so why would be stop you? We are just here to send you off. It matters not whether you are Elisa or Lisa, at the very least, we were once friends.¡±


    Squatting there and speaking unreliable words, Adam took out a handkerchief and waved to her to send her off. Immediately afterwards, the handkerchief with blue lilies stitched on it was immediately confiscated by Margaret, who was blushing bright red.


    ¡°¡®Without power, you can¡¯t achieve anything. A kind will without power to back it up, it is just harming you yourself and those around you!¡¯ Although it is a bit extreme, you aren¡¯t wrong. Annie should be able to ept it.¡±


    Margaret was looking at Elisa with a face that is simr to how one would be delighted by their best apprentice was doing well in her career. While saying these words, she nods her head in approval.


    Since they heard all these, it means that they had arrived long ago, just that they didn¡¯t appear earlier. Shaking her head, Elisa didn¡¯t say anything else. After all, some things are better left unexposed.


    As the Demon Gate opens and Elisa was about to walk in, Margaret¡¯s voice suddenly sounds out again, only this time, the usual coldness in her voice is absent and in its ce is warmth.


    ¡°No matter what happens, Sulfur Mountain City is your home. If you suffer any grievances, you are weed back anytime.¡±


    ¡°I will be back. Rnd that fool needs me.¡±


    As the voice disappears as the Dimension Gate closes, leaving 2 SemiGods staring at each other.


    ¡°Looks like Elisa has finally found something within her. From my estimates, there is an 80% chance that Rnd, being soft in his heart despite having a vicious mouth, would be unable to withstand her attacks. What do we do with Annie now? What about the thing you promised her?¡±


    This time, it is time for Adam to look helpless.


    ¡°Initially, I intended toe with ast minute entrust. Before my death, I would hold Rnd¡¯s hand and say ¡®promise me that you will marry Annie, otherwise I would be unable to die in peace¡¯. Going by Rnd¡¯s personality, he would most probably agree to it on the spot. As long as he agrees to it, he would most probably carry out his promise. But, I didn¡¯t manage to die so, why don¡¯t we try it once again after Rnd returns?¡±


    Alright, it seems that Adam¡¯s supposed preparations was actually just this. But, should it be said, as expected of Adam? It might seem nonsensical but he was able to urately pinpoint on the vitals. If he were to really carry it out, there is a high possibility of it actually seeding.


    Looking at his foolish face, Margaret¡¯s anger appears all at once.


    ¡°Nonsense! Do you believe that fool around this time, Rnd will really kill you with a single de. Forget it, let¡¯s not bother anymore. Our child will find the one suited for her, let her settle it by herself.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡°Alright, let me revive!! Right, there¡¯s still Elisa! What happened to her! Also, who released the seal of the Fire Elemental God.¡±


    There was no reply to my question once again. In the end, a piece of memory pierces through my mind, one that was left behind by Elisa.


    That memory shes through my brain and after that, I was silent for a long while.


    ¡°It is worth it?¡±


    ¡°Of course, you have asked something like that before. Do you remember it?¡±


    I suddenly recall, that was when I told the n to Elisa. This is how she asked me.


    [¡°Master, to sacrifice so much, is it worth it?¡±


    ¡°Un, of course it is worth it. There can¡¯t be rewards if we don¡¯t sacrifice something. If we don¡¯t change anything, what is awaiting this world is only destruction and cmity and I personally think that there is still a lot of things worth living for here.¡±]


    But, the voice of a youngdy suddenly projects out at this point.


    ¡°But, don¡¯t be mistaken. I am not doing this for the world. I am just doing this for a log-headed fool. Remember, the world doesn¡¯t owe me a favor, but you do.¡±


    After being silent for a long time, I finallyughed.


    ¡°Fine, I owe you that. When you return, I will repay you back.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s more like it. I will help you look up news on Karwenz. That¡¯s all. Recently, I have been really busy. Those Demon rascals, they betray me and conduct rebellions time after time again, they are even more deserving of a beating than you.¡±


    Soon after, the silver ring darkens. It is difficult for amunication device to transcend dimensions. Based on the description by the system, this ring can only be activated a maximum of 3 times every day and the total time it is activated cannot surpass a minute. Seeing by how contact is made suddenly these 2 times, the word to activate this ring is probably ¡®Elisa¡¯.


    At this moment, I solemnly jot down this favor I owe in my mind and turn my attention towards the System. In this instant, the System, in response to my request, has listed down all of the different types of physical body I could make.


    [Normal Human¡¯s Physical Body,


    Strength: 10


    Agility: 10


    Stamina: 10


    Intelligence: 27


    Will: 19


    Charm: 10


    Race Talent: NIL


    Lifespan: 60 years


    Rmended Job: Any Job]


    This Normal Human¡¯s Physical Body is really not worth mentioning. Other than the Intelligence and Will stats thate along with the soul, the other stats are a mere 10 points. Furthermore, it has a short lifespan. Naturally, I wouldn¡¯t choose it. However, the advantages that a Human possess is that it can choose any job and is able to move freely on the surface.


    The difference in basic stats may not seem like a big thing at this point but as they grow, the gap in the basic stats and race talents will just grow bigger and bigger. This is the greatest disadvantage of the body.


    The System also had quite the one-sided mind. It listed out more than 50 types of body but over half of them are just a white-tier physical body (No System Ranking) that I wouldn¡¯t even consider. The ones that attracted me the most are naturally the few Golden Bloodlines listed at the very bottom.


    [Son of the Ancient Red Dragon, Dragon Descendant


    Strength: 19


    Agility: 12


    Stamina: 28


    Intelligence: 25


    Will: 17


    Charm: 16


    Race Talent: Dragon Form, Dragon Wings, Dragon Breath


    Rmended Jobs: Mage, Warrior


    Lifespan: 2000


    Evaluation: Silver Pinnacle


    System Notice: You can find Dragon Empress Einz Mezus to undergo the Dragon Form Ritual to gain her bloodline to turn into a true dragon. Considering your rtionship with her, it isn¡¯t hard to carry out this task at all. However, you would probably have to call her mum in the future.]


    Although the System Notice really makes one at a loss of words, the power of the Red Dragon is not one to be underestimated. An Ancient Red Dragon is a Half-Diamond Bloodline. If they were to evolve into an Immemorial Dragon and obtain a Diamond Bloodline, their battle prowess would be even more reliable. Furthermore, after ying around as Lich for a long period of time, I have had enough of having a brittle physical body. The powerful physical body of the Dragon Tribe is indeed very attractive. But, the fall in the Intelligence and Will stats rather than increasing shows that this physical body has a negative impact on Intelligence.


    However, considering that I would be heading towards Human civilization in the future, an obviously unorthodox species such as a Dragon Descendant isn¡¯t very suited. I will only keep this in mind and consider it if there aren¡¯t any better choices.


    [The Immortal One, Man-made Physical Body


    Strength: 12


    Agility: 12


    Stamina: 15


    Intelligence: 30


    Will: 20


    Charm: 18


    Race Talent: Immortality, Rapid Learning, Spellcasting Proficiency


    Rmended Job: Mage (After that, Saint is rmended)


    Evaluation: Hold


    System Notice: There is no need talk about how this bloodline came about, it is definitely powerful. As it is the clone of a particr person, there might be some side effects, such as having the same outer appearance and skin color as the original, you understand. Now, if you were to call in, we will even send you aplimentary Margaret suit!]


    Side effect? Simr skin color? I think even the face would look alike. A portion simr to her? I reckon that it will be identical, turning me into a woman. Trying to scam me? It won¡¯t be that easy! A straight pass!


    [The Divine Child of the God of Law, God Descendant


    Strength: 12


    Agility: 12


    Stamina: 18


    Intelligence: 27


    Will: 17


    Charm: 20


    Race Talent: Son of Law (The speed which the Power of Law powers up at is increased by 100% and its effectiveness is heightened by 30%)


    Rmended Job: The bunch of Law Jobs which you invented yourself


    Evaluation: Gold


    System Notice: Stop hesitating. This is the job most suited for you. Also, I would like to ask you, how does it feel being your own son?]


    Alright, ignoring the darned notice once again, I am a little tempted by this physical body. However, this body of a God Descendant is obviously sided towards the Order Faction, which means I would have to split ways with Necromancy. This way, my [The Infallible Diffindor] would turn useless.


    On this point, the weakest human is instead the strongest. They don¡¯t have any inclinations towards any factions, they are able to undertake any jobs and they could utilize any power.


    However, thinking of humans, I recalled the previous generations of the children of Order, reminding me of the 2 unique presents that Ayer gave me, so I immediately handed them over to the System.


    After a long period of time, in the menu list of the System, 2 more physical body options appear.


    [The Bloodline of the 1st Generation Child of Order (Royalty), God Descendant


    Strength: 18


    Agility: 18


    Stamina: 20


    Intelligence: 27


    Will: 17


    Charm: 20


    Race Talent: War Angel Form


    Evaluation: Diamond Bloodline


    Rmended Job: Order Knight


    System Notice: As expected of the ones favored by the Goddess of Order, powerful beyond the expectations. Order Knight is a basic job that System created based on this bloodline. It is able to use any Power of Order, including Law and Holy Light. It is definitely powerful. Perhaps, it might not be as powerful as the one below, but it definitely has limitless potential.]


    Some things can only be seen throughparison. Without doubt, this bloodline is really overpowered. However, the Child of Order has the same weakness as the Child of Law, they aren¡¯t able to tolerate Necromancy, causing negative effects on my Soul World.


    On the other hand...


    [The Bloodline of the 1st Generation Child of Chaos (Royalty), Devil Descendant


    Strength: 22


    Agility: 20


    Stamina: 22


    Intelligence: 29


    Will: 20


    Charm: 8


    Race Talent: Sinful Devil God Form


    Evaluation: Diamond Bloodline


    Rmended Job: Chaos Witch King, Devil Knight


    System Notice: Seriously overpowered basic stats together with a perfect physical body. Choose him and you will obtain endless power. Of course, if you were to identally reveal your Devil Bloodline, hehe, just hope that you can run fast enough.]


    Other than charm, all of the basic stats are beyond 20. These are stats that are easily above that of the basic stats of Legend-rank experts. This physical body is really powerful beyond all imagination. However, it has the exact same problem as the one above, it is unable to tolerate Powers of Order.


    Thus, I really hesitated. Without doubt, this choice is extremely important. But, no matter which one I choose, there would be regrets left behind.


    ¡°If only I can put the both of them together into one.¡±


    How can there be such a wonderful thing in the world. Just by thinking about it, one would know that it is impossible. Thus, I shook my head but suddenly, the System rings out.


    ¡°It is possible, but Fate Points has to be paid for the physical bodies of both of the bloodlines.¡±


    ¡°What? If it is doable, why didn¡¯t you say so earlier? Why didn¡¯t you list it out?¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t ask me.¡±


    ¡°Fine, stop the crapping, quickly list it out.¡±


    [Bloodline of The Arbiter


    Strength: 19


    Agility: 19


    Stamina: 19


    Intelligence: 29


    Will: 19


    Charm: 19


    Race Talent: War Angel Form, Sinful Devil God Form


    Evaluation: Double Diamond Bloodline


    Rmended Jobs: Order Knight/Chaos Witch King


    System Notice: The bloodline of the Arbiter which lies on the border of both Order and Chaos doesn¡¯t belong to any of the Factions and is also able to coexist with any of the Factions. The Bloodlines which came from the same source but yet are different created this miracle-like physical body. Perhaps, it can¡¯t be said to be the strongest, but it definitely holds the greatest potential.]


    Looking at this, I was delighted. However, I hesitated and asked a question which shows myck of contentment.


    ¡°Since we are able to mix, then can we add a bit of Dragon Blood, Phoenix Blood and such to strengthen the toughness of the physical body? I can gather blood from them.¡±


    However, the System¡¯s reply was a bucket of cold water.


    ¡°Do you think that a mixed-breed dog would be more valuable than a pure-breed dog? This is the cloning of gics to create a physical body, not creating a medicine. Excessive bloodlines would only cause the physical body to break apart. You would be fortunate if you just turned into a monster. This physical body is only possible as both bloodlinese from the same source but under a Creator God level God Powers, turned into 2 opposite kind of life, that¡¯s why it is possible for them to merge together as one. This is a rare exception. However, you can try to collect 7 different colors of Dragon Blood and make a wish, see if it can be a rainbow-colored Dragon Bloodline. I will help you make a Mary Sue¡¯s 7-colored long hair.¡±


    TL: Mary Sue really not sure which show this is, I googled the Chinese word and this is the result I got.


    Since that¡¯s the case, then there¡¯s nothing more to talk about. This would be it. However, going by my understanding of the System¡¯s spirit to scam me, it would be weird if there is nothing wrong with the body. There is no mistake in being warier.


    ¡°What kind of deficiencies does this physical body has, just say it out straight.¡±


    ¡°This body, in order to maintain equality, must train in both Order and Chaos Power simultaneously, thus requiring one to invest arge amount of time and effort.¡±


    ¡°Double basic jobs? Order Knight/Chaos Witch King? This is a good thing. Or rather, is there other fatal ws?¡±


    Opening the introduction page to the System¡¯s Job Introduction, I found out that Order Knight is just like thebination of both Holy Knight and Justice Knight while Chaos Witch King is thebination of Necromancer and Elemental Mage. These are all routes I have walked on before and thus, they are paths that suit me the best.


    This double job isn¡¯t separate. On the screen, the four skill trees intersect with each other, forming each other. The skills and abilities that I have learnt before are indicated by a gray mark on the skill tree. For example, [Ice Aeon] which is on the top of the Ice Magic skill tree and [The Infallible Diffindor] which requires all 4 sses to be at least of Legend-rank. At where the Necromancy skill tree and Ice Magic skill tree intersect, there are evenbination techniques like [Summon Ice Lich].


    ¡°The growth rate of special sses is 1.5 times the difficulty of normal sses. However, going by the 2 times difficulty of a double special ss and considering the slow physical body growth rate of a Double Diamond Bloodline, all in all, it is at least 3 times the difficulty of a normal human¡¯s growth.¡±


    Hearing this, I only felt joy. Isn¡¯t it just 3 times experience penalty, what do I have to be scared about growing slightly slower? After all, I am able to use Fate Points in order to forcefully raise my experience bar.


    Right now, problems outside here will keeping one after another. Even if I don¡¯t have enough points, I can just do a few more Epic Missions to earn them. I am not afraid of it growing slowly, I am just afraid that it will not turn out strong enough in the end.


    ¡°Alright, this will be it!!¡±


    The physical body which has a sales price of a hulking 200000 Fate Points, after using the discount voucher, turned into 100000 Fate Points. Even so, the points that I earned so great difficulty only had 20000 remaining. It is difficult to earn money, but easy to squander it all in an instant.


    Following the descend of light on my body, the familiar touch of a physical body broughtfort to me. I, Rnd.Mist, is finally revived. Finally, I am a man once again. I finally have my little partner. I can finally openly whistle towards beautifuldies!


    As usual, my happiness wasn¡¯t long-lived...


    Very quickly, when I looked at my reflection by the dark river, a scream of agony is released once again.


    ¡°System! You actually scammed me again! One of these days, I will strike you!¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t ask about it. Hehe, the motto of our service is that your dissatisfaction is our satisfaction, your unhappiness is our happiness, the one we are scamming is you! Thank you for your patronage, we will be looking forward to your return. Oh, and don¡¯t forget to leave positive reviews!¡±

 Chapter 69

    <h4>Chapter 69: The Return</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    ¡°I was foolish, I really was.¡± Cloaked in a ck mantle that I borrowed from a kind merchant, I cover myself tightly as I tread carefully across the roads of Sulfur Mountain City.


    ¡°I knew that the System would never have good intentions, its rmendations would always have problems, so those are the ones which I should never choose; What I didn¡¯t know was that even things that seemed to have no problems will have problems urring after going through the hands of the System! Look, the average stats of the 2 Bloodlines is much higher than my current stats, this obviously shows that there is a problem with the physical body. Also, that darned Charm value, there is no way the System would allow me to be weed into the embrace of those seductive eyes. This is obviously a trap, why did I jump into it then. I was really foolish, really really foolish.¡±


    The little bat beside me stares fiercely at me.


    ¡°Enough! This is the hundredth or two hundredth time that you have been nagging about it. Did your intelligence disappear along with your previous body?¡±


    ¡°No, it is just that my mood lifts after seeing you in an even more pathetic state than me, so I felt like nagging a bit more.¡±


    [Magic Pet: Harloys (Main Body of Greed)


    Race: Unable to be ssified


    Strength: 12


    Agility: 10


    Stamina: 30


    Intelligence: 28


    Will: 25


    Charm: Depends


    Job: LV1 Mage


    Evaluation:


    Race Talent: Transmogrification (Lower Tier)


    System Evaluation: This is your Magic Pet, but she is constantly thinking of how to get rid of you within the limitations of the contract. Now, you don¡¯t have to worried about her rebelling against you. The great Queen of Banshees can only alternate between the form of a bat and a little cat. The most destructive skill of hers is probably just a cat paw. Well done, to think that there would be someone worse off than you.]


    When I died temporarily, Harloys, who almost got destroyed because of it, was absorbed into the System. Now that I am revived, she was revived along with me. It is just that even at LV1, I am still a living person while she is unable to sustain her human form at LV1.


    ¡°...Are you sure? If I were to remove your mantle here and scream that there is someone running about nude here, what do you think will happen?¡±


    Grinding her teeth together, the little bat spits out the most fearsome threat that she knows. But, I simply smiled in response.


    ¡°Feel free, nude running is already a daily urrence here, no one will be bothered by it. Nude running can no longer be considered a news, only no one engaging in nude running for a few days can be called news.¡±


    ¡°Heh, do you take me for a fool? How can there be such a fearsome ce...¡±


    ¡°Catch that naked bull!! Right, the one who is nicknamed King of Nudity! Don¡¯t let him get away. After staying put for a few days, you Wild Bull Alliance actually started to be active again. This time, we will lock them up for an entire month.¡±


    Before Harloys could even finish her words, her eyes and mouth widen in shock. I stare numbly as the naked Tauren leading a pack of naked men whistling through. Soon afterward, a group of Dark Elf Knights passes us by.


    ¡°A Supreme Judge with the glorious title of King of Nudity?¡±


    Somehow, my heart starts to ache. My worry for the Supreme Court and the shame I feel from that embarrassment originating from my organization intersected together. I had an urge to cleanse my organization of this embarrassment by assassinating him. However, if I were to draw my de in rage at this moment, not only will I be unable to kill him, I would be destroyed instead.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, I have many toys in myb that uses illusion to change outer appearances. There¡¯s really nothing I can do with my current appearance.¡±


    While looking for a method to deal with that fellow in my head, I tightened my grip on the mantle wrapped around me. From a certain perspective, this city is the safest one of all of the Underground Cities but from another perspective, it is also the most dangerous one of them all, especially now that I am not in my best condition.


    While dodging the sights of others, I pull my Magic Pet along with me. At the same time, Harloys stares dumbfounded at the opposite street. A few Holy Knights were currently chatting happily with a Death Knight.


    This is a scene that can¡¯t possibly be seen in any other areas, a harmonious sight between the Order and Chaos. I wanted to brag a bit to Harloys but the next instant, they started fighting together while hurling insults at each other. The fight was quite intense with both sides throwing lethal attacks at each other.


    ¡°This is more like it.¡±


    Harloys nods her head, satisfied. But when the contents of their argument reach us, Harloys freezes once again.


    ¡°You lying bastard, where is the match make with the Banshee that you promised? Why were there only female zombies present? Look at her face, there are even maggots on it, do you think we can look at her?¡±


    ¡°Tsk, you little rascal who don¡¯t understand anything, this is the fashion of our Undead District! Also, do you think you are all that innocent? What about the beautiful Priestesses you promised us? Why did canteen auntiese instead! You think that we are fools!¡±


    There are already quite a few audiences who are cheering by the side. The more heated their argument got, the more brutal their blows became. However, the Death Knights didn¡¯t draw their Runeswords while the Holy Knights didn¡¯t use their Holy Light. Instead, they fought just like normal men with their punches and their kicks.


    ¡°You want the Banshees and Medusas of our District? Don¡¯t even talk about opening the doors for you, even the windows are tightly shut. The few of us aren¡¯t even able to get our hands on them, why should we introduce them to you?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I will just tell you truthfully. We even have to wrestle with our bodies just to gain the opportunity to talk with the Priestesses. With such severeck of resources, why should we introduce them to you?¡±


    Alright, from the jeering of the audiences, the entire matter is made clear. Both sides had formed a group in hope ofying hands on the female resources of the other side without giving in anything. In the end, when the both sides sh together, they realized the other¡¯s intentions.


    ¡°A match make between the Undead and Holy Knight? Has the world gone mad or am I the one who has gone mad?¡± Harloys has still yet to recover from the sight.


    Should I be thankful for the fact that I have a living body? Looking at these living treasures, I grab my belly. That should be where my stomach is. For the first time, I experienced what stomachache and neuralgia is.


    TL: Neuralgia: intense intermittent pain along the course of a nerve, especially in the head or face.


    ¡°Can anyone contact the Town Security...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t move, who is the one causing this ruckus? Haha, it is you bunch of bastards again. You all are quite amazing, to actually bring a DemiRam and a Centaur for the previous three matchmaking sessions. If we didn¡¯t react quick enough and called the legendary Beifeng over to scare away our beauties, we would have handed them over to you for nothing. This time, let us settle the new scores together with the old ones. Eat my Sin-Splitting Strike!¡±


    Alright, looks like we don¡¯t even have to call the Town Security over. Those graduates from Nanxiang have already arrived but somehow, from the words they say... Should I be surprised about their rtionship? Alright, somehow, the pain in my stomach intensifies.


    ¡°Hey!¡±


    Suddenly, a person violently sent me flying.


    ¡°Sorry, sorry, Momo was chasing those bastards.¡±


    So it was a Dark Elf Town Security member who identally knocked into my body while engaging in an arrest.


    My mantle was knocked off and light res into my eyes, stinging me. However, the moment I see the look of surprise on Momo¡¯s face, I immediately awaken from my confusion.


    I immediately used my mantle to cover my entire body once again. The System isn¡¯t so kind as to gift you a free set of clothes just because you revived. Just as what Harloys said, a newborn physical bodyes totally nude, I was wearing nothing beneath my cloak.


    ¡°That, I have no rtions with those fellows of the Wild Bull Alliance. I am a neer here to learn the Power of Law, just that I met with some thieves, causing my clothes to be stolen.


    I tried my best to recall my Smile Number 2 when I was still a Holy Knight ¡ª A righteous smile of someone innocent. At the same time, I tried to distance myself from that bunch of perverts. I don¡¯t have to be caught into the Boys Home for no reason.


    ¡°I am without a penny, I am here to seek help from my Lich uncle named Rnd. This is Ah Meow, my best friend.¡±


    Then, I raised Harloys up to the face of the Dark Elves. At this instant, under my orders, she has transformed into a cute little ck cat.


    Again, under my orders through the Pet Contract, the dignified Queen of Banshees, despite her eyes being on the verge of shooting fire beams, could only obediently learn to meow to look cute.


    ¡°Meow!!!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, girls don¡¯t have much resistance towards cute things. Furthermore, after seeing that I am of no threat, they would definitely let me go after conducting a simple check.¡±


    But very quickly, I realized that my actions were excessive. The female Dark Elf Town Security ignores the meowing Queen of Banshees and instead, stares fixedly at me, not saying a single word.


    Then...


    Saliva starts dripping down...


    ¡°I have finally struck it rich! A top quality shota!!!¡±


    At this moment, an inconceivable fury boils in me as I howl out.


    ¡°You are the shota. Your entire family is shotas.¡±


    Alright, I admit that I have been scammed by the System once again. What training from young is good for one to gain perfect control of their body and what this allows one¡¯s soul to merge better with one¡¯s physical body, no matter how much self-consoling excuse Ie up with, I am unable to hide the fact that I had been scammed.


    A fourteen-year-old physical body is indeed the expected age of my physical body, as well as the true form of my soul, thus a body of that age will allow merging of my soul and my physical body to go more smoothly, but...


    ¡°How the hell would I know that the Ancient Humans have a lifespan that exceeds 200 years. 14 years old is still a kid to them!¡±


    Yes, the first-generation Humans had an average lifespan that is at least twice as longpared to the current Humans. With my fourteen-year-old physical body, I look at most 10.


    I should have known thatpared to the other two physical body choices, the reason why the stats of this physical body are slightly on the lower side is because it is simply too young and the reason why my Charm is so high is because little kids tend to be cuter.


    That¡¯s right, cute. Cuteness that has nothing to do with handsome.


    Golden-colored hair that is radiating the glisten of the sun paired with red cheeks that is reminiscent of a red apple that was just rinsed with water, tempting one to give it a bite. The white skin looks very hydrated, as though it has nevere under the sun. Last but not least, the sun-like smile that is affixed to his little face makes one really feel his lively personality.


    Turning younger isn¡¯t scary. What is scary is that even when I used the dark river as a mirror to look at my reflection, I felt that I looked like a gigantic doll, extremely cute.


    19 points in Charm! If a grown man were to have so much Charm, he would be unmatched if he uses it to flirt with girls. However, on a child, what is the use of being so cute!


    But this still isn¡¯t the most treacherous thing about the System...


    Having a youthful outer appearance isn¡¯t a big matter for Mages, there are all kinds of medicines and tools that could be used to conceal one¡¯s true age. Old grannies and old demons acting young could be seen everywhere. As long as I return to myb to retrieve some of my hidden tools, there no difficulty whatsoever in passing off as a grown man.


    However, my greatest problem now is that ¡ª I might have my little fellow now, but it hasn¡¯t developed yet. That is as good as not having it at all! That is the crux of the problem!


    I knew that the System would definitely be up to something. It was difficult for me to get rid of my body as a Lich, but in exchange, I was given this undeveloped physical body.


    Now, my first aim is to quickly return back to my underground study to check up on the time required for the first-generation Humans to develop and when I can get married... Alright, I know that there would be no book that would be some to talk about these, but it isn¡¯t a crime to think about these.


    At this moment, looking at the frenzied Dark Elf who had a puddle of saliva on the ground below her, I knew that I was facing a big crisis.


    ¡°Small cutie... No, I mean little friend, do you want to see goldfishes with Big Sister? Big Sister¡¯s home has many cute little animals.¡±


    ¡°Goldfish? Goldfish in the Underground World? You think that I am stupid?¡±


    Being just LV1, there is definitely no way I am able to beat a Town Security member who is at minimum a Silver-rank.


    ¡°Right, little friend, I have a lollipop here.¡±


    Looking at this idiotic Elf actually retrieving arge bunch of candies from her breastte, I had totally no idea what her brain is made of. Is this still the Town Security that Sulfur Mountain City prides itself on? Thinking about this, my stomach hurts even more...


    ¡°Release me!!¡±


    ¡°No way! It was so difficult for me to find one that fits my taste. Momo is definitely going to capture this one back to raise!! After a few years, I would be able to reap my rewards. Momo would be the one to marry first!¡±


    Alright, Momo seems to have forgotten her role as an Enforcer and is currently lost in her daydream.


    ¡°Hehe, to have such a cute little hubby, Momo would be envied to death by her other sisters.¡±


    I want to flirt with beautiful girls, but not this kind of beautiful girls who are into child grooms. Without a second word, I turn around to flee.


    However, with just 2 steps, the pain in my stomach intensifies and I fell to the ground helplessly.


    ¡°Why does it feel so awful? My entire body iscking in strength. Could it be that there is something wrong with theposition of my physical body!¡±


    Suddenly, I felt the sensation of being carried up. The voice of the frenzied Elf echoes by my ear.


    ¡°Why are you so light, little friend? Have you obediently eaten your meal yet?¡±


    ¡°Eaten my meal?¡± Alright, I finally recall what I forgot. I spent 2 days walking here from the dark river. Having just revived, I have long forgotten about the habits of the living, so I totally didn¡¯t expect that I would have to eat. At the same time, Harloys who is also an Undead wouldn¡¯t think of reminding me.


    ¡°So it isn¡¯t a stomachache, it is hunger pangs. Seeing from how I am fine from not eating for 2 days, it seems that this body is still quite healthy.¡±


    Aftering to a realization, in the next moment, I faint from hunger.


    But fortunately, before fainting, I spent thest bit of my strength to shout ¡®Save me, there is a weird auntie here who wants to feed me milk¡¯. Seeing how the other Town Securitye rushing over in a hurry, I should be able to retain my chastity.


    ¡°A tragedy! Darn System, I will never forgive you!

 Chapter 70

    <h4>Chapter 70: The Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    Due to the disappearance of Lich Rnd, the Dark Elves no longer have to worry about their home getting destroyed again. Thus, they clenched their teeth and after withdrawing thest of their savings, rebuilt their home for the 3rd time.


    With many freebor (Such as the Leftover (Sheng) Knights, the Liver (Sheng) Knights and the Holy (Sheng) Knights) helping them, the Town Security headquarters was quickly rebuilt.


    Designed by the Gray Dwarves Architects, the new Town Security headquarters is earthquake-proof, explosion-proof, fireproof, flood-proof and Rnd-proof. As for how did I know all these, it is all written clearly on the blueprints, the few bright red words could be seen clearly even from more than a hundred meters away.


    ¡°I can understand what the first 4 is about, but what does being Rnd-proof means?¡±


    Un, I made use of the right that only children possess, the right to be inquisitive. However, the event that happens next renders Diana¡¯s answer pointless.


    ¡°Rnd!! Who mentioned that name!¡± The moment the name popped out of my mouth, numerous female knights seem to jump out of nowhere. Fully clothed in their armor, they hold sharp swords in their hands. Their eyes are filled with blood veins and their murderous aura makes it seem like they are ready to ughter someone.


    ¡°That ¡®Rnd-proof¡¯ refers to an Anti-Undead Barrier that we hired a master toy down in order to deal with a certain someone. Right, little Rolo, don¡¯t say your uncle¡¯s name here.¡± I nodded my head with an intentional look that spells of confusion while secretly wiping away the cold sweat on my palms.


    ¡°Even after so long... Is their grudge that deep? I was the one who approved of the subsidies at the High Court, you know, otherwise, it is impossible for you all to rebuild your headquarters so quickly! You heartless bunch of Elves.¡±


    I peeked at those crimson red eyes while mumbling curses directed at these ¡®aunties¡¯ under my breath. I know that it is impossible for me to be exposed but I still instinctively tightened the cloak around me.


    ¡°Wakaka, I didn¡¯t expect your reputation to be so horrid. As expected of my disciple.¡± Alright, I was even mocked by the old demonic granny in my mantle.


    However, that Diana seems to have recalled something and immediately adds on.


    ¡°Don¡¯t say the name when you are outside too, absolutely not! Your uncle... That, he has quite a bad reputation in the city. I am not really prejudiced against him but there are some words, as an elder, that isn¡¯t suitable for me to say. Anyway, little Rolo, for your own safety, you mustn¡¯t tell anyone that you are Rnd¡¯s nephew.¡±


    Alright, looking at this red-faced Moon Knight who seems to be embarrassed about speaking badly about others, that ck cat is already rolling around the floorughing.


    ¡°Little Brother Rnd, what exactly did you do? Why are you faring so badly on your territory that even the female knight feels ashamed to talk about you?¡±


    ¡°Shut up, my magic pet. Otherwise, I will make you learn how to talk like a squirrel and do 360-degree flips on the spot for 2 and a half weeks until you puke!¡±


    After hearing my words, despite boiling with anger, Harloys knows that I will carry out my threat. If I say that I will make her do flips from 2 and a half weeks, there is no way I will make her turn around for 3 weeks. Harloys, who is always good at reading situations and adapting to them, immediately shuts up obediently.


    ¡°Alright, Little Rolo, hurry and go eat.¡±


    After hearing these words, my excitement starts to well up. I have been meeting with misfortune for the entire day. Looks like my luck is finally turning around. I don¡¯t even have a single bronze coin on my entire body, so it is a good opportunity for me to get some food.


    On the road to the canteen, looking at this hesitating female knight, many thoughts ran through my mind.


    There are many things that I have to do, but the one with the topmost priority is to get rid of this young form!


    With my current stature, even the hilt of the sword isrger than my hand. I can¡¯t even grab a sword stably, so how in the world am I going to fight. Furthermore, the small figure means that my steps would be small and with my limbs short, I would face difficulty in exerting my full strength and coupled with many other limitations, it would be hard for me to perform.


    Furthermore, I woulde into contact like the top brasses of the nobles in the Human World in the future. Reality isn¡¯t like a Knight Novel. Outer appearance may not determine everything, but being young, it would be difficult for me to inspire trust in others. All of my ns would go down the drain like that.


    ¡°If I were to wait to grow naturally, who knows how long it would take for this body to mature. I must first look for a way to hide this form. Right, the Dragon Tribe is a kind of tribe where the older they are, the stronger they are. Going by her age, Little Red isn¡¯t supposed to be old enough to be promoted to an Ancient Dragon. Perhaps, there might be some kind of secret arts involved. I will go and question herter.¡±


    After making up my mind, I start to enjoy the lunch that I have been waiting a long time for. The other side of the table is full of ¡®aunties¡¯ who keeps staring secretly at me.


    Not just the tables, even the doorway is filled with people.


    At the corner, Momo is tied up by a chain and keeps on howling non-stop.


    ¡°Momo isn¡¯t a pedophile, it is just that the person I like just happens to be a child. You bunch who haven¡¯t touched a man for several decades, you bunch of thirsty #@@£¤@, touch your heart and ask yourself if you all really do not wish to dye that innocent smile with your own color. He already has a master and that is me, Momo. I will not let any of you snatch him away from me!¡±


    Fine, even her colleagues can¡¯t stand her salivating and pleading look that they even stuffed up her mouth.


    On the corner, even with her mouth stuffed and her neck fastened to a cor, Momo is still trying her best to pounce over like a frenzied wild dog. Her colleagues were trying her best to push her down while I pretend not to hear or see anything at all.


    Looking at how I am eating heartily, Diana hesitates for a moment before speaking.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid that you came a step toote. Your uncle won¡¯t being back. Why don¡¯t you live with us temporarily?¡±


    Hearing this, before I could even react, cheers that almost flipped the roof filled the entire canteen.


    ¡°Big Sister, you are finally enlightened! I thought that you aren¡¯t normal.¡±


    ¡°Big Sister, well done. You can enjoy him first, just remember to leave a small part to me.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. Even if we are unable to devour him, it is good to have him stay as an eye-candy. However, Big Sister, you won¡¯t truly be thinking of keeping him to yourself?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I am not a pedophile, so I am not really interested. However, after 30 years or so, lend him to me for a while, I probably won¡¯t reject him. Anyway, humans grow very quickly and you should be sick of him by 30 years.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, you aren¡¯t a pedophile, you are into geezers.¡±


    Should I say as expected of the open Dark Elves? The bluntness of their words really makes one exim in shock. At the same time, as the Dark Elves rejoiced, I trembled from the depths of my heart. I started to wonder if it was worth entering a lion¡¯s den just for a meal.


    After hearing the cheering of herrades, Diana stuns for a moment before smiling bitterly.


    She couldn¡¯t exin what she was really feeling. Was it a coincidence for her to know that Rnd is Lord Wumianzhe and now that Lord Wumianzhe has Ascended, is this child fated to never be able to find his own uncle?


    Furthermore, even if it is Sulfur Mountain City we are talking about, it is still part of the dangerous Underground World. If he were to run into some ve peddler or perverts... The thing which Sulfur Mountain City doesn¡¯tck is thetter. At the very least, the ¡®wild beast¡¯ which is bound by metal chains is definitely one.


    ¡°Consider it. Seeing from your white and smooth skin, you don¡¯t look like a kid from the Underground World. This is a totally different ce from the Surface, you should really think deeply about how you are going to survive here.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Big Sister. But Uncle Rnd told me that if I was unable to find him, I am to look for Lord Einz Mezus.¡±


    Looks like I can only thicken my skin to look for Little Red. Scanning my surroundings, these Elves seem to be concealing something suspicious in their mouths. Their eyes are glowing green. No matter how I look at it, they look like a pack of hungry wolves. Staying here is simply too dangerous.


    However, due to a certain reason, I have to return back to my old home for a short period of time. Perhaps, I might have to look for a reliable ¡®guardian¡¯ for me.


    Hearing the great name of the new Dragon Empress, Diana stuns for a moment before recalling that the child in front of her is the nephew of Wumianzhe, so there is a high possibility that he would be rted to Lord Einz Mezus. Coming to a realization, she nods her head.


    ¡°Alright, then I will send you over after you are done eating.¡±


    Ignoring the sighs around me, I continued eating. Once I was done, Diana passes over a form to me.


    ¡°Looking at how you are, you should be able to write. Fill in your basic particrs so that I can make you a temporary pass for ease of movement within the city.¡±


    The eyes of the predators around made cold sweat trickle down my back. I had the intention to flee long ago and so, swoosh swoosh swoosh, I finished filling up in an instant and throwing the form, I left immediately.


    Gossip is almost a trait that women are born with. The moment Diana, their Captain, leaves, the group of female Knights immediately rush up to vie for the form. However, what was mysterious was that despite being Elves, they weren¡¯t able toprehend the words on the form.


    Then, only after someone eximed it did they realize that the little boy had actually beenmunicating with them using their mother tongue, the Dark Elf Language.


    Afterward, under the intense study of a few schrs simultaneously, they realized that the form which had words no one couldprehend was actually abination of more than a dozennguage scrambled together. Despite being incredibly messy, there wasn¡¯t a single mistake in it.


    ¡°The first word is in Dragon Language while the phrase at the back is written in Devil Language. The middle part is jotted down using the Ancient Elf Language. Yet, they are put together using the dialect of the Leopardians of the Far South. If this isn¡¯t a Great Saint well-versed innguages showing off his linguistic abilities, then it must mean that the one writing it has gone mad. Language is used as a medium for thoughts and all creatures use their mother tongue to think. If these words are the derived from his thought process, then there is a good chance that he is alreadypletely mad.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Despite bing the noble Dragon Empress, Ein Mezus¡¯s life didn¡¯t change at allpared to the past. She still sleepszily in her den every day. Eat some food, exchange some blows, other than the quality of her opponents getting higher and higher, there isn¡¯t really much difference in her lifestyle.


    When she was still sleeping in her den, she heard from the Dracon Tributes that serves her that there is a fellow named Rolo who seeks her presence. Overjoyed, she immediately rushes over to the doorway to wee him. However, upon seeing him, she stuns for a moment before...


    ¡°Puuu! Haha, to think that you would have such a day too, Rnd! Come, call me auntie!¡±


    A certain Dragon starts rolling around the floorughing without any hesitation. Herughter reverberating in the entire den was so hateful that it makes one grind his teeth. Angry, I sent a kick towards her. However, not mentioning that she totally disregarded it, sheughed even louder.


    ¡°I can¡¯t take it anymore! You even named yourself Rolo! Big Brother Rolo,e, praise the Holy Light and justice and continue leading us on our adventures.¡±


    Alright, since I am unable to defeat her, I can only wait for her to finishughing. That fellow actually continuedughing for 10 minutes straight that tears were flowing down her eyes. The moment I mentioned my demands, she immediately shakes her head.


    ¡°A secret method to hasten growth? There is indeed such method, but if you do not wish to be reduced to a state of being unable to even remember your own name, it is best that you do not use it.¡±


    It seems that the Dragon Tribe used this method to hasten the incubation of the Dragon Eggs in order to create fodder. In just a short 3 weeks, a Dragon Egg is able to turn into a Young Dragon. However, due to the rapid growth, the Dragon¡¯s brain will suffer fatal damage, turning it into a mindless fodder.


    ¡°You humans really don¡¯t respect life. Every single phase of life has its own meaning. By ying around, toddlers train the coordination of their limbs and their ability to move around. Children use games to cultivate their thinking and their cooperation. They imitate their elders and inherit their knowledge and skills. Teenagers start to try to gather teams in order to face the cruel nature. The middle-aged, having their stamina deteriorated, learn to shoulder the responsibility of propping up a family while the old, despite turning frail, gains wisdom.¡±


    ¡°Every age group has a way of living that is most suitable to for their survival. This is a gift from nature. Those who just look at the future don¡¯t have a present. Without a present, how can one have a future?¡±


    Hearing these whole bunch of words, I was stunned. This doesn¡¯t seem like words Little Red would say.


    ¡°Why are you looking at me like this? No matter what, I am a giant Dragon that is old enough to be your great grandmother. It isn¡¯t that big of a deal for me to say something that has a philosophical.¡±


    ¡°Molly said that?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, there¡¯s no way she would know all these. It is my dad.¡±


    Alright, so it is that unlucky Dragon King that I have heard so much about. However, looking at the gleeful look on Little Red¡¯s face, is this what it means for someone to be cursed of being unable to remain cool for more than 3 seconds?


    However, what she said makes sense. I couldn¡¯t help but recall the journey that Fool-dam went through. He slowly trained his body and learned bit by bit from the experience he underwent. Gradually, as his physical body grew powerful and his powers started to mature. With his basics in ce, it formed the foundation for him to walk even further.


    ¡°Taking the long-term into ount, I rmend that you take it slowly. Train yourself gradually so as to uncover your own potential. No matter what, this is better than pulling on the seedling in a hope that it would grow taller.¡±


    ¡°However, this can¡¯t do as well. I can¡¯t even grasp a sword like that. I would require a body that is able to fight at the minimum.¡±


    ¡°If you only want the outer appearance of a grown man, you have looked for the wrong person. You should have looked for Margaret. Space and Time is her specialty. Changing one¡¯s physique without affecting one¡¯s growth should be a simple matter for her.¡± While speaking, Little Red reverted back to her human form.


    ¡°Margaret? Who? Oh, that Saint who likes to dress in blue? Can you introduce her to me?¡±


    Nodding my head, I reckon that my guess should be spot-on. However, somehow, after my words sound out, Little Red¡¯s face turned white in an instant, showing an awful look.


    ¡°What are you joking about! You... You forgot about her first once again. Forget it, there¡¯s no use getting angry with you. Come with me.¡±


    Alright, looks like I won¡¯t be able to avoid Adam this time. Under Little Red¡¯s lead, charging through everything else, it didn¡¯t take long before we arrive at the City Lord Residence.


    ¡°Hahahaha, so cute. Little Brother Rnd, it gives me such satisfaction to see that you would actually have such a day!!¡±


    Alright, I knew that this would happen from the start. The fellow who is rolling around andughing just like Little Red previously is my mortal enemy which I find myself at a loss for words to describe.


    ¡°Uncle Bones is so cute!¡±


    Annie¡¯s dazed gaze looks a little dangerous. However, seeing from how she didn¡¯t directly pounce at me, she is much better than the female Elves.


    The Saint dressed in blue also smiles faintly at me.


    ¡°A Time-Changing Ring, that¡¯s simple. Come and retrieve it in a week.¡±


    ¡°I am really thankful to you. To ask you for a favor despite meeting for the first time, I am really deeply apologetic. I will remember this debt and repay you in the future.¡±


    An iprehensible situation happened. Even I knew that it is only right to thank someone after seeking them for their help, but why is it that the moment those words left my mouth, the atmosphere which was still warm a second ago chills the next moment.


    ¡°Cough, un, you haven¡¯t gone back to your dwelling huh.¡±


    ¡°Un, I will be heading backter. This time, my losses seem to be more severe. I¡¯m afraid I would have to spend at least 3 months holed up in there. Right, did you all collect the Rnd Sacred Sword¡¯s fragmented pieces? I think that I should be able to reforge it.¡±


    Yes, when I asked the System topensate me for my current state, the System threw me the additional right to use my Fate Point to create a weapon that is suited for me. Since I am able to make God Equipment, the first one that I thought of is the treasured sword that serves as my family heirloom.


    ¡°Cough, of course. Give me a moment, I will go take fetch them.¡±


    When Adam who tried to fix the situation left, the entire room turned bizarrely silent. Even when Adam brought back a bag of fragmented pieces, no one said anything.


    In the room of the not veryrge City Lord Residence, a strange atmosphere starts to arise, causing everyone to fall silent. Naturally, under the circumstance where no one was willing to say anything, this reunion ended abruptly. After bidding my farewell, the moment I walked out of the room, I heard sobbing sounds at my back.


    Now, I know that it must be something that I have done wrong. Thus, I hastened my footsteps to return to my dwelling quickly so that I could find out exactly what I did wrong.


    ¡°Looks like I must have said something I shouldn¡¯t have. Sigh, what exactly did I forget along with that 1 point of Intelligence.¡±


    Intelligence is the basis for one to use magic. At the same time, it also represents a human¡¯s rational thinking and memory. It is a part of the soul, but it is also influenced by the physical body.


    I remember that back when I was still a Lich, my Intelligence was 30. Reducing the 2 points that is additionally given by the Lich¡¯s Body, my basic Intelligence should have been 28. But, at this moment, it is only 27. Obviously, I suffered some kind of loss when I died.


    How could it be possible for one to not pay any price for death? The concept of death itself is the dissipation of one¡¯s soul. The water of River Styx is a lethal weapon that steals away memory. However, I didn¡¯t fear it at all.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t the first time anyway. I won¡¯t die just by forgetting something. Anyway, I don¡¯t even know what I have forgotten, so I wouldn¡¯t feel regretful or upset over it, so it is really nothing.¡±


    After stepping into my old dwelling, the extinguishedmps light up one after another and the entire housees to life.


    However, I didn¡¯t stop at just the residential area. My goal from the very start was the underground chamber under my dwelling. That is also the reason why I had to return to Sulfur Mountain City.


    The passageway was reminiscent of towers in the Middle Age, not even a glimmer of light could be seen and the only thing that reverberates is the sound of footsteps.


    The moment I stepped into the bottom-most floor of the underground chamber, the entire underground library lights up. Under the effects of Mystical Arts, countless books flew around the room just like birds who have just obtained life.


    ¡°No mistake in soul detection. Wee back, Master. I am this Lab and Library¡¯s man-made Tower Spirit 007. I hope that you didn¡¯t forget about me this time. Then, following the tasks that you entrusted before your departure, the education sequence will be triggered. This time, where do you intend to start reading from? My personal suggestion is to start from Language, then Math, Physics and Chemistry. After filling on all of the basics then should you start studying about actual battles.¡±


    ncing around, this is really a sea of books. Thousands of shelves stood there silently and under the effects of Spatial Magic, this is just a corner of the gigantic cier.


    On the shelves, there arebels such as Physics and Chemistry. There are also shelves which arebeled as Army Stratagems, The Secret of Gods and Magic Arts. But what that wasbeled on thergest portion of the shelves are logs, experimental logs that belong to me.


    If death was that easy to deal with, then there would be no reason for everyone to fear death. Even if I am lucky enough to not enter reincarnation making use of the System and the special protection that being a Transcender grants to my soul, I am still tortured by the missing pieces in my memory and knowledge after reviving. Furthermore, gauging by how my basic stats actually dropped, this is my greatest loss by far.


    ¡°The damage is quite heavy this time. It looks like I have died too many times that even the material of my soul is starting to crack. However, it matters not. The Intelligence point that I have lost can be regained and the knowledge that I have forgotten can be learned once again. As for the memories I lost... At least I am able to find back a portion of them from my logs.¡±


    Yes, this is my library and myb, as well as the treasure vault of my memory and knowledge. I know that my goals are hard to realize, so death cannot be avoided and the memory loss that I face during death will ur time and time again. However, as long as I jot down everything I learned and learn from it again, read it once more, I should be able to remember most of the things I lost.


    ¡°Tower Spirit 007, start from my experimental logs. Un, let¡¯s start from the logs of my previous life. The tagbeled on it should be Crazy Lich. Also, look for the phrase Margaret. I want to first understand what was it that happened just now.


    I have cultivated a habit of writing diaries for a few centuries now. I will record everything in it; when I go outdoors, brush my teeth, close the lights and sleep; the daily newspaper that I buy and schemes and ns for wars; from boring cases I face during trials to fixing the legition. No matter whether it is an important matter or a small affair, I would record all of it down on my logs.


    Perhaps, I might lose my memory after death. But with these countless shelves and diaries as my substitute memory vault, as long as nothing happens to it, I am able to start afresh no matter how many times it takes.


    ¡°1,2,3...5,7,8,9, Seems still okay, I only forgot 2 of the basic numbers so filling in the gaps shouldn¡¯t be that difficult.¡±


    The reason why I was counting while floating on the River Styx is not really because I was that bored but rather, I was trying my best to find out how much I have forgotten as well as to try to jog my memory.


    Memories are often interlinked. A human¡¯s knowledge is often intertwined together like a tree. If Language is the basis of all Sociology disciplines, then Math is the basis of Engineering. It might seem as though I just lost my memory for a few numbers, but this represents a series of gaps in my knowledge.


    At this moment, I have much more important matters to remember. Under the propulsion of magic, using Margaret as a key phrase, the Experimental Logs of the Crazy Lich has flipped onto the page where everything began. Those are the days where we adventured together.


    ¡°Ah, crap. I better apologize tomorrow. No, since she is a Saint, she would be very sensitive and careful. If I were to throw her an insincere and casual apology, it would only make things worse. It would better for me to apologize after finishing all of my logs. Sigh, thest time I took 2 months and that was a hundred years ago. With a total of 300 years of logs, how long will it take for me to finish through all these? Three months? Half a year?¡±


    Immediately, I knew that I was being too positive.


    ¡°Ah, seems like I have really died too many times. To think that I wouldn¡¯t be able to even recognize the words I wrote. This square-looking word... Tower Spirit, please pass me a Chinese learning material first.¡±


    Very quickly, arge stack of books is stacked in front of me on my desk.


    ¡°Men at their birth, are naturally good. Their natures are much the same; their habits be widely different.


    If foolishly there is no teaching, their nature will deteriorate. The right way in teaching, is to attach the utmost importance in thoroughness...¡±


    In front of the study desk, a young kid carries a book that is even bigger than him. The melodious tune of him reciting from the book echoes between the shelves, into the distance...


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    PS. The name of the book? Lich was never the main point, the main point from the start was the diaries/log.


    Squirrel once hesitated whether I should name this book ¡®The Savior¡¯s Logs/Diaries¡¯, but as it is too chuuni and without a context, I chose to go with the current name.


    TL: Reference for the 3 character ssic. It is much concise in Chinese. (¡°ÈËÖ®³õ,ÐÔ±¾ÉÆ.ÐÔÏà½ü,Ï°ÏàÔ¶.¹¶²»½Ì,ÐÔÄËǨ.½ÌÖ®µÀ,¹óÒÔר...¡±)


    I alternated between the usage of logs and diaries but it is actually the same thing, mostly hesitating because diaries somehow seemed more appropriate in certain cases

 Chapter 71

    <h4>Chapter 71: The Journey and the Sacred Sword</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>StarveCleric <strong>Editor: </strong>StarveCleric


    In the vast Underground World, due to the presence of dangerous Magic Beasts and thieves, it is inconvenient to travel between cities.


    Different from the rtively chaotic Underground World, the somewhat rich merchant on the Surface dares to form a merchant party just by hiring a few mercenaries. Inparison, in the Underground World, Legends don¡¯t match up to dogs and Liches are everywhere. During the journey, one can be robbed by a Red Dragon and Legend experts or turned into food by super Magic Beasts.


    The smaller merchant parties don¡¯t really dare to go outdoors. Due to such a situation, going by the basic rule where returns are proportionate to risk, as long as a merchant party safely arrives at their destination, their profits from selling specialties are bound to be incredibly high.


    Listing a simple example, Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s specialty is to alloy ingots of adamantine and sulfur. Its sale price for a single unit of goods is 2,000 gold coins. If it¡¯s shipped to Chrome City, its price doubles to 4000. If it¡¯s shipped to the Vance, which requires 2 months to journey to, the price would inte by at least 15 times higher. On the other hand, if it¡¯s shipped to the Surface, given the limited number of products found in the market there, it bes a type of goods where the demand far outstrips the supply. You¡¯re lucky if you¡¯re even able to purchase it with 100,000 gold coins.


    Of course, there is a limit to the production of specialties. Given its rarity, the price tends to inte to a ridiculous point. However, other daily products, due to it being consumed at a rapid rate, their supply in the market is always insufficient, so the profits for these goods are also not to be underestimated.


    Due to such circumstances, thanks to Shou and Kakajil¡¯s ¡®selfless contribution¡¯, the Spatial Distortion that connects straight to Vance has determined Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s prosperity.


    A journey that requires two months has been reduced to just a short week. The ones who have benefited from this aren¡¯t just the two cities. As the merchants and customers frequent to and fro from these cities, the surrounding underground cities are also prospering from the Spatial Distortion.


    The deepening of economic ties brings about the solidifying of political rtionships. Those merchants who are sensitive to profits have already started looking upon this as the road of gold, while those politically-sensitive Underground City Lords have started sending their sons and daughters to bothnds to pull closer their rtionship between the two cities.


    In the end, a faraway rtive cannot beat a close neighbor. When their profits are locked together and if the leaders of both sides were to inconceivably offer mutual trust to one another, Sulfur Mountain City and the Vance¡¯s new owners, the Centaur Tribe, amiable rtionship will further deepen. Furthermore, given that Sulfur Mountain City is the home of the Dragon Empress, 3 of the 5 Underground Autarchs have started working together. Thus, in the eyes of the wiser ones, a gigantic monster is currently surfacing slowly from the water.


    Economic mergers, political mergers, mergers due to personal ties and mergers of experts started to ur between the two. But more importantly, under the order of the new Laws, the different tribes and races started to try to forge amon understanding with the others. This represents a true merger and not just some alliance contract where both parties simply had their own goals in mind.


    There isn¡¯t another ce better than the cruel Underground World that can make people understand the power of working together. There also isn¡¯t another ce where, due to theck of resources and the bloodypetitions that result of from it, co-existing harmoniously is so difficult. It is a time that inspires fear, when words like furthering individual goals and betrayal have be another name for temporary alliances, all the more so with the emergence of gigantic beasts beginning to merge together in all aspects.


    ¡°Perhaps, the entire structure of the Underground World is going to change. Perhaps, give it a decade or so, a new Underground Emperor or Queen will be enthroned. Perhaps, the current Underground Alliance will be reced by the giant beasts formed by multiple factions. Perhaps, the chaotic Underground World will find itself in an age of peace.¡±


    But these are all just spections of the future. At this moment, on the road of gold, a normal-seeming merchant team is gradually trudging forward.


    The reason why it seems normal is because there are only around twenty carriages, the goods aren¡¯t of top quality and the escorts hired for the trip are just normal Dark Elves and Beastmen mercenaries. However, if one has to find something abnormal about it, it is that despite the journey not being that far, we had surprisingly not met any single trouble along the way. The thieves and Magic Beasts that appears frequently had disappeared without a trace, all of the mercenaries were surprised by such a sight.


    I am also part of the party.


    The three months of filling in the nks of my knowledge have sessfullye to an end. I have sorted out all the entirety of my previously scattered knowledge, and thus, it was time for me to leave the Underground World.


    At this moment, with the help of a magic tool, my physique was no longer one of that of a short young kid.


    [Time Distortion Ring, Myth-ss Unique Treasure.


    The user¡¯s physical body will be affixed at his 20-year-old state, allowing him to maximizebat potential. However, it is unable to change the attributes of the physical body.


    Creator: Margaret


    Material: The shattered fragments of the Saint Stones and Mithril


    System Notice: This means that your little fellow is still in a state where it can be seen but can¡¯t be used. This time, I am not the one scamming you. Margaret definitely did it on purpose. Are you sure that she is unable to create a ring that can change your physical body perfectly?]


    Ignoring the System Notice that is obviously trying to incite something, looking at the changes my physical body underwent, I am still just satisfied with this ring.


    In order to avoid stress created on my body by the ring, I have to remove the ring for a few hours every day. I could do this just fine by removing it before going to sleep. At this moment, I am greatly different from the previous me.


    The dull golden te armor I am wearing might be a little old and without any high-tier enchantments, and overall couldn¡¯t be considered a top-tier piece of goods, but the Rnd Sacred Sword on my waist had silver light shimmering around it. Without any ornaments on it, the sword itself looked like an artifact of history and practically screams that it¡¯s not an ordinary sword. However, when the people beside me look at the other sword behind my back, their eyes seem to be mocking me.


    I am no Sword Saint or Adventurer, neither am I able to wield two swords simultaneously. There is totally no meaning to me carrying two swords at once. The sword on my waist and the sword I am carrying on my back is just another piece of solid evidence that I had, once again, been scammed by the System.


    TL: Sword Saint -> Does not mean the person is of Saint rank, it just refers to people who have broken through a certain realm in their mastery of Swordsmanship.


    [Rnd Sacred Sword, SemiGod Equipment (Evolved from Orange Legend Equipment to Silver SemiGod Equipment)]


    [Attack Power: 22-44+11]£¨+11 additional damage due to it being a +11 SemiGod Equipment. Even if the Sword deals damage of the lower limit, it will deal additional 11 unavoidable Silver Inferno Magic damage£©


    [Indestructible: Even against God Equipment, this Sacred Sword will not break.](Out of the two times it has broken, one of it is because of Ayer, while the other time is because it¡¯s already in an iplete, weak state, which allowed the Dragon Saber to destroy it through its Unique Ability)


    [The Royal Seal of the Mist: Rnd Sacred Sword is a symbol of the power of the Mist Royalty, only with the acknowledgement of the King can one use this Sacred Sword. Along with the rise of the Mist Kingdom once again, it is trying its best to evolve to be even stronger. At the same time, this proud Sacred Sword can only be used by the king of the Mist Kingdom and his trusted knights.]


    [The Prestige of the King: Strength+2, Agility+2, Stamina+2, Charm+2. In the country built by the Mist bloodline, the reputation would be equal to the respect the user earns.]


    [There are yellow words carved on the body of the Sword: The Rnd Sacred Sword is the sword used by the Holy Knight Prince Rnd in the legends. Only his descendants and inheritors of his will can be acknowledged by this Sacred Sword. (Prerequisite to equip: Mist Bloodline)]


    In order to fix this sword, I threw my remaining 20,000 Fate Points into, instead of exchanging it to level up. I walked carefully to Sulfur Mountain City with a throbbing heart, but in the end...


    ¡°Oi, System, are you sure it can be repaired? It won¡¯t end up with you saying that my points are insufficient halfway through, will it?¡±


    ¡°Definitely not. Through my calctions, you have sufficient Points. In fact, there will still be a few thousand points left for you to power up.¡±


    ¡°The repaired Sacred Sword won¡¯t end up as trash, will it?¡±


    ¡°I promise you that it will be powerful. It will evolve from Orange Legend (In order to prevent people from getting confused from the Legend-rank of people, the weapon a tier above that of Purple Myth will be called Orange Legend) to a SemiGod Equipment, there will definitely be a change in quality itself.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t be that kind, though? Will there be level restrictions, like I have to be LV120 to use it for something? If so, let¡¯s just forget it.¡±


    ¡°The only restriction is one¡¯s bloodline. If you don¡¯t believe in the omnipotent System that much, you can take a look at it for yourself.¡±


    Alright, it threw the blueprints at me and I studied it twice. Staring at the silver words that is representative for SemiGod Equipment and its fearsome attack power, as well as unique abilities, I startedughing maniacally.


    This time before confirming my decision to fix it, to make certain that I won¡¯t be scammed once again, I studied the prerequisites for usage multiple times. I wanted to ensure that the only requirement for usage is to be the King of Mist Kingdom.


    I was scammed.


    ¡°The only restriction is indeed bloodline. Only Rnd¡¯s descendants can use it? Doesn¡¯t that mean Rnd himself is unable to use it!¡±


    ¡°Of course not. Although you won¡¯t admit it to yourself, the Mist Country has been destroyed. There is a shift in the power of royalty at the moment of your first death. Now, it is named the East Mist Communal Country, a new country created by the descendants of the legendary Rnd. Its size and poption isn¡¯t even a quarter of what it used to be, but it is indeed the sessor of the Mist Country. It doesn¡¯t matter whether you look at it from their identity or bloodline, they are the true royalty of the Mist.¡±


    Alright, although the System scammed me once again, it revealed a lot of important information.


    ¡°The East Mist Communal Country is really built by the Mist bloodline? Then, are they my descendants or Karwenz¡¯s?¡±


    Alright, as expected of that darn System. At an important time like this, it refuses to answer at all.


    However, the use of this sword is very obvious to me now. If only the Kings and the Knights of the Mist Country are able to use it, then I have to either just throw it to one of the supposed Rnd descendants or have him knight me.


    ¡°Sigh, but it¡¯s still quite troublesome to deal with. If so, I¡¯ll have toe into contact with the new royals earlier than nned. What kind of persona should I use? Their great grandfather? I am the lost son that your great grandfather left behind? Or perhaps, I could just try to hide my identity while trying to get myself a position among the knights. With the identity of a human noble, it will be much more convenient for me to move around on the Surface as well.¡±


    But, just as I was considering my options, someone cut off my train of thought.


    ¡°Holy Knight Rnde,e down to help.¡±


    TL: His full name is Rnd Mist (Xiluo Lan.Lan), the name he usually uses is Rolo (Xiluo Xiluo) and the name he is using now is the first character of his name and his surname, which sounds exactly the same as his original name Rnd (RoMist) but it sounds awful. :X


    Yes, I¡¯m still ying the role of a Holy Knight and still using the same name. The reason why I¡¯m using the name Rnde, and not the fake name Rolo that I¡¯m used to, is because of the person in front of me.


    The Sacred Sword Silver Avenger shines with a blinding golden Holy Light. The owner of the sword is equipped with a full body te mail made of some alloy that is so thick that it could probably crush an elephant to death, but somehow, the person still manages to move around freely as though equipped with light leather armor. After resigning as the Captain of the Town Security, the Moon Knight still looks as valiant as ever, but there is a certain part of her that has changed. Her skin has turned significantly whiter.


    Of course, this isn¡¯t because of some stic surgery of this foreign world, but due to the path of the Moon Savior that Diana chose.


    The Moon Goddess Patricia is the Guardian of the Moon and the Lost. Under her protection, if Dark Elves choose to abandon the evil faith of Lorci, they can change their faith through the Moonlight Ritual.


    The crux of the Moonlight Ritual is equal to using the Moon Needle to restitch one¡¯s skin; it is both painful and time-wasting. However, within half a year¡¯s time after the ritual is conducted, the ck skin tone of the Dark Elves will gradually grow lighter, and they gain the right to bathe in the sunlight and moonlight.


    After the ritual, although their skin wouldn¡¯t be white as jade-like those of the Surface Elves, but it would still be significantly whiter than those of the Dark Elves. Their own brownish-ck skin still remains extremely striking.


    The Gray Elves under the Moonlight, this is the name given to previous Dark Elves who decided to walk on the path of justice. The Sacred Moon Insignia on their arms is the mark of their identity.


    However, Diana slightly differs on that ount. There is indeed the Sacred Moon Insignia of Patricia carved on her left arm, but at the same time, etched on her right arm is the Insignia of Scale that represents Wumianzhe.


    That is the golden scale. The left side of the scale represents judgement and the gavel that punishes sinners, while the right side of the scale represents reward and the gold coins that protect the kindhearted. At the back of the scale, a vague figure of a blindfolded man could be seen, that is the incarnation of justice of Wumianzhe himself.


    Under the tide where Holy Knights rush to convert into Justice Knights, only Diana retains her identity as a Holy Knight. This isn¡¯t because she has other ideas nned but rather, it is because she has forged her Soul Imprint as a Legend-ss Holy Knight. Even if our advertisement slogan states that the Holy Light could be converted into the Power of Law without any loss in power, in the end, it¡¯s just an advertisement slogan, so there is a certain level of exaggeration in it.


    If she converts into a Justice Knight from a Holy Knight, when all of her power is converted, she would be unable to use her original Soul Imprint, causing her to fall from the Realm of Legends. If she were to try to break through once again, it would require a certain amount of luck. It is unknown how long the process would actually take.


    A Legend with limitless potential isn¡¯t easy toe by, so a loss like that is really a great pity. Back then, when I was still assuming the identity of Wumianzhe, I tried to convince her to retain her identity as a Holy Knight. Considering the need for top-tier experts in the Town Security, she heeded my advice.


    When she decided to leave Sulfur Mountain City for some reason and search for her own route on the Surface, I, who had intended to use her as a bodyguard and meat shield on the way, naturally leaped out with the identity of the Holy Knight Rnde. I brought along the rmendation letter from the City Lord, requesting forpanionship as a rookie Holy Knight.


    Yes, I am still assuming the identity of a Holy Knight this time. After all, the Order Knight is able to use arge portion of the powers of the Holy Knight. Summoning the Holy Light is one of my forte and to add on, Holy Knights have quite a good reputation in many countries and are quite popr. This allows me to traverse around more conveniently on the Surface, so there is no one better to disguise as than Holy Knights.


    ¡°Nice to meet you, respected Gray Elf Madam. May Patricia¡¯s radiance light your path. I am Holy Knight Rnde from the Surface Human Kingdom Kalin. Due to certain circumstances, I was separated from my otherpanions and I happened to overhear that you are heading to the Surface, so I would like to apany you on the journey. You see, my individual strength still doesn¡¯t permit me to move around freely in this dangerous Underground World. Aye, if only I am able to use my family heirloom, this Sacred Sword.¡±


    Humble, polite, self-aware, unconfident of his own strength and ashamed of the fact that he is unable to use the Sacred Sword passed down in his family, this is the perfect image of a rookie Holy Knight.


    [Rnd Mist


    Strength: 20


    Agility: 19


    Stamina: 20


    Intelligence: 29


    Will: 19


    Charm: 19


    Race Talent: War Angel Form, Sinful Devil God Form, Sword of Order, Titan Body


    LV21 Order Knight/LV21 Chaos Witch King]


    Even after I dumped the 3,000 points I had remaining from repairing the Sacred Sword into my growth, the 3 times experience point penalty only allowed me to raise my strength into a LV21, barely reaching Bronze-rank. However, this still allowed me to understand how scary this Diamond physical body is.


    Just by growing to LV21, my physical body¡¯s Strength and Stamina increased by 1. This may seem quite insignificant since a normal Beastman Berserker is also able to do the same. However, stat growth doesn¡¯t work in a straight line. When the numbers hit 19, the limit of mortals, this tiny increase is already very scary. Initially, I thought that my basic stats were too high, such that it would be impossible for it to increase before I reach Gold-rank.


    The main stats of mortals are often jammed at 19. This is the boundary to enter the realm of Legends, requiring one to train themselves to the brink of life and death in order to break through. But, my body managed to break through this boundary so easily, which could only mean that the Legend-rank doesn¡¯t count as anything for this body. It¡¯s just like the Great Angels and the Ancient Dragon Tribe, who are able to break into the Legend-rank easily, as long as their age reaches a certain mark.


    Due to my Strength reaching 20, I awakened my Race Talent, Sword of Order. At the same time, my Stamina reaching 20 awakened another Race Talent, Titan Body.


    These 4 powerful Race Talents, coupled with my overpowered basic stats, gave me the confidence to solo any Silver-rank existence despite barely reaching Bronze-rank.


    The awakening of these kinds of Race Talents depends solely on luck. It is iprehensible how it could be awakened so easily. However, very quickly, the moment I saw that my stats are all stuck at X9, I came to a realization.


    ¡°After all, 20 is the upper limit of mortals. They would be significantly stronger the moment they break through the bottleneck of their physical body, it is natural for their dormant Race Talents to awaken at this point. However, for all my stats to be at X9, could the System be helping me?¡±


    ¡°Yes, you dumb fool. Even that Red Dragon is much smarter than you. Each age group has a specific role assigned to it, only youths have the potential to grow. If I were to give you a matured physical body that is above 20 years old, it would be impossible for you to awaken any Race Talents.¡±


    Immediately, I fell into confusion. Did the System who had been scamming me for so long change its nature? To think it would actually help me?


    ¡°This is the final chance. If you fail again, there won¡¯t be a next time. Besides, you are so pathetic that I couldn¡¯t stand looking at you anymore, so I decided to help you this once. Try harder, the enemies this time aren¡¯t that easy to deal with.¡±


    ¡°Then what about that Rnd Sacred Sword?¡±


    ¡°If I didn¡¯t do this to link it with the fate of the country, then do you think that that sword of royalty could possibly have evolved to a SemiGod Equipment or even to the level of God Equipment? If the whole world gets destroyed, even you can¡¯t escape the fate of death. You might have lived long enough, but don¡¯t pull me down the mud along with you.¡±


    Fine, to think the darned System would help me for once. If I fail this time as well, then I can only be damned.


    Even if I have the strength to solo Silver-ranks, the Underground World is a ce where Legends are everywhere, so it is still quite dangerous for me. Hence, the need to look for a bodyguard to escort me to the Surface.


    Listening to the suggestions of the System, I chose Diana as mypanion. At that moment, I deeply understood that the System was still the same as always. Perhaps, it could be trustworthy at crucial periods, but it wouldn¡¯t pass by an opportunity to scam.


    After I suggested the idea to travel aspanions, Diana, who is also a Holy Knight and is curious about me as a Surface dweller, immediately epted me into her group.


    However, the moment I see my traveling mates, I immediately regretted it...


    ¡®Furious Dog¡¯, un, that is the nickname I came up for her. She, who has alsopleted the Moonlight Ritual, looks at me with suspicious eyes and keeps questioning whether I have a younger brother named Rolo... Seeing how a mysterious liquid keeps flowing from her mouth the moment she mentioned Rolo, I wouldn¡¯t tell her that I have a brother even if I really had one. Even more so, I made up my mind to never take my ring off in front of her.


    Alright, of them all, this is still the one that is the easiest to deal with.


    Gold-rank Judgementor Krose, or rather Krose now, after converting into a true female, sessfully evolved from the Number One Beautiful Person of the Judicial System into the Number One Beauty of Sulfur Mountain City. Her current goal is the Elf¡¯s Sacred Spring on the Surface that is said to be able to dispel any curse.


    TL: ¿ÆÂÞ˹(male) VS ¿ÆÂåË¿(female), homophone but one had slightly more masculine words while the other one is more feminine.


    After I realized that the Aura of gue is still working, personally, I do wee the presence of this lightning rod. At least, there is someone en route that could bring jokes constantly to relieve boredom. However, from the murderous look that the other two ¡®Flower Guardians¡¯ keeps shooting me with, I don¡¯t seem to be very wee.


    As my strength iscking at this moment, if I were to get closer to her without any consideration, it could probably turn from watching a joke into bing a joke. That would be bad. Thus, I consciously bent my body and smiled, shaking my head at the same time to indicate that I don¡¯t feel anything towards beauties. But somehow, after realizing that I am not as annoying as the other flies, Krose came on her own ord to talk to me, filling the two ¡®Flower Guardians¡¯ with resentment against me.


    Alright, these are still quite easy to deal with. The ones who are hard to deal with are the other few.


    The Armor Expert Master cksmith Hoyle, Gray Dwarf, nicknamed Big Orange Head Shortie, has quite the temper. If I were to use the shortest sentence to describe how unique he is, un, he is one of the core members of the Gentlemen Alliance and one of the targets on the top of the Town Security¡¯s cklist. Okay, I don¡¯t think I have to borate any further, everyone should get it.


    Yingou Beyar, another core member of the Gentlemen Alliance. He is also the organizer for this merchant party. If I knew from the start that this merchant party is the ¡®Safe Brand¡¯, then I wouldn¡¯t have joined in, even if I were to be beaten to death. Even now, I am shivering as I sit in the carriage provided by the goblin.


    Both of them are the organizers of this merchant party, providing the goods and carriages. It seems that they are heading to the Surface to attend some Council of Great Masters but from the look of how the few carriages are jointly dragging a heavy load of goods behind them, there is an 80% chance that it is a Rnd... That name is still very awkward. They are actually using it now as an official name.


    Beifeng Herault, this fellow... Alright, we don¡¯t have to introduce more about him. The moment I think about that inconceivable 10,000 points and how this fellow¡¯s noble title is ¡®The Man Who Singlehandedly Created Multiple Races¡¯, I have an insuppressible urge to draw my sword.


    ¡°That day, a true God sent me a revtion. I, Beifeng, a lost Dracon, decided to step on a journey to find myself.¡±


    ¡°Who @#@@ sent you a revtion! Stop talking nonsense! You¡¯re %£¤% just a pervert, stop associating yourself with Wumianzhe!¡± When I heard what he said, even I couldn¡¯t suppress the urge to scold with vulgarities.


    Alright, Krose, who is a Judgementor, still fulfills her role responsibly. At the very least, she knows that she has to protect the honor of her own true God. After herrades held Beifeng in ce, those small fists struck viciously onto his flesh. Even so, it didn¡¯t stop Beifeng from confessing his deep feelings to the passing giant Kodomo Lizards.


    ¡°Nice to meet you,rade. It is because of God¡¯s revtion that I had this romantic journey which created the possibility for our meeting. I am Beifeng and I am a male. You?¡±


    ¡°Oh, you are a male as well?! This is great!¡±


    Alright, the moment he brought the Giant Lizard to head to the back of the carriage, the crowd could no longer suppress their urges and lunges towards him. That was quite a good beating, making one feel refreshed.


    This kind of incident has already happened three times along the way and yet, Beifeng refuses to change his ways. I have even started to suspect whether he has awakened to a new kind of interest.


    Alright, back to the topic, afterpleting our daily mission of dealing with Beifeng, Diana actually took the initiative to seek my assistance.


    ¡°Holy Knight Rnde, we haven¡¯t met with any thieves or Magic Beasts along the way. There is obviously some kind of problem. There is a high possibility that the thieves might have banded together to ambush us. There is a quite a narrow and long valley ahead. If there¡¯s going to be an ambush, it is very possible it would ur there, so act ordingly together with meter.¡±


    I know that she is doing this out of goodwill. Among the entire merchant party, I seem to be the weakest and she¡¯s worried that I¡¯ll be plunged into danger. However, I would like to say that she is overthinking it.


    ¡°Ambush? In this kind of situation?¡±


    I scan my surroundings and at a distance, I can clearly see a few ck silhouettes swiftly hiding their presence.


    I could sense that within the dark clouds, the ominous wings of death move slowly and steadily. Three kilometers ahead, the ¡®head of the merchant party¡¯ looks back every few minutes. Not too far away, the deep rumbling of thunder could be heard, indicating that some battle is going on there. An agile figure seems to be hiding behind a stone pir, while a teleporting blue figure follows behind the figure¡¯s back.


    ¡°Gria, as the newly-appointed 3rd Senator of Xiluo, there should be endless official matters for you to deal with. Is it okay for you to act so leisurely? Little Lionheart, to be looking back so frequently, doesn¡¯t your neck feel sore at all?¡±


    ¡°Xueti, stop hiding. That big body of yours can¡¯t be hidden by that small tree sapling.¡±


    ¡°Adam and Margaret, even the both of you... Forget it, I won¡¯t bother anymore.¡±


    Yes, before leaving, I had told them clearly that they need not bid me farewell. However, I really didn¡¯t expect that they would be so worried about something happening along the way that they all came (together, without agreeing on it) to escort me secretly.


    The result is a bunch of experts trying their best to imitate the techniques of thieves, secretly tracking the merchant party. What about the thieves and Magic Beasts along the road? They were all instant killed dozens of kilometers away.


    ¡°Forget it, they mean well, anyway.¡±


    Not rifying it, since it isn¡¯t easy to exin. Although I said that they were being excessive, I couldn¡¯t suppress the joy from the depths of my heart.


    The system of the Power of Law has been built and the true God of Law, Wumianzhe, hase into existence. The change in the Xiluo Empire¡¯s Royal Faction and the change in powers of the entire Underground World. Even if the future still remains bleak, butpared to the ¡®history¡¯ which is doomed for destruction, many things have changed.


    ¡°This time, I am no longer alone.¡±


    Somehow, looking at all these fools who are hiding and dodging about, Iughed.


    Just like English uses he and she to distinguish male and female, Chinese also have ¡®he¡¯ and ¡®she¡¯. However, the author never indicates Krose¡¯s gender with he or she (which is doable in Chinese but hard to achieve in English).


    Just to rify one part (again), due to Rnd trying to hide his identity (by choosing a fake name that sounds exactly the same), I will use Rnde whenever the fake name is used.

 Chapter 72

    Chapter 72: As a Knight, One Must Solo a Giant Dragon


    ¡¾Hi, this is the System who is furiously brushing up its presence. There are two daily missions for you. To celebrate the System¡¯s upgrade, you will be provided with a great bargain: both of the missions will be from the Justice Faction. From now on, you mustplete at least one daily mission everyday or I will to reduce you to tears by deducting your points. If youplete both of the daily missions, there will be an additional Fate Point for you.¡¿


    ¡¾Daily Mission: As a Knight, one must solo a giant dragon. Kill an evil, adult dragon by yourself. Normally, there is no reason for me to reward you for a little dragon, but considering that you have only the strength of around 500 Meows, there would be quite a bit of difficulty in challenging an evil dragon with the strength of 30,000 Meows. Therefore, an additional 100 Fate Points will be awarded. However, please clearly look at the word ¡®solo¡¯. So, if you were to hide behind your helpers, 1,000 Fate Points will be deducted on the spot.¡¿


    Without a second thought, I ignored the ill-intentioned ¡®solo an evil dragon¡¯ mission. Even if I am in dire need for Fate Points to strengthen myself, I don¡¯t n on courting death to do it. However, the other daily mission leaves me feeling even more clueless.


    ¡¾Daily Mission: Every Epic Hero starts out from helping little girls find their missing cats. Find a girl, no, look for a meow alien and return it back to its owner. 3 Fate Points will be awarded. If neither of the 2 missions ispleted, 100 Fate Points will be deducted.¡¿


    ¡°Darn it! How do I look for a cat in this barrennd? And it even has to be one that¡¯s lost, isn¡¯t this obviously a plot to deduct my points? As expected, I was too naive to think that the darned System would change its nature.¡±


    However, I remembered that even though the System could be quite the bastard at times, the missions it sets are never impossible. Or rather, my line of thought could have been wrong from the very start. These missions might be the type that requires indirect methods in order to sessfullyplete them.


    ¡°Perhaps, I can do this...¡±


    Afterward, Krose picked up a suspicious little cat, one that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Un, it is indeed suspicious. Not mentioning the fact a little cat wouldn¡¯t be able to survive in the cruel wilderness of the Underground World, its attitude of ignoring the Beast Tamer¡¯s summoning ability and racing straight towards the ¡®youngdy¡¯ is suspicious too, no matter how one looks at it.


    Of course, Krose, whose maternal instincts surges from the cute meowing of the little cat, instantly bought a bottle of milk from the Gnomes and happily fed it.


    ¡°Those darn Gnome bastards, this milk is too diluted.¡±


    Alright, from the moment she turned into a cat, Harloys¡¯sints have never stopped. Words like ¡®This is hurtful to the pride of the Queen of Banshees¡¯ and ¡®Despite the soul being male, how could he look so much like a female, even using the excess meat on his chest to crush me, your underlings are indeed a bunch of perverts and you are the king of perverts. No, God of Perverts¡¯ popped out from her mouth. Considering that I still need her in order toplete the act, all theints about the milk being too diluted and such are dealt with in the same manner, ignored.


    Un, since there is a cat as well as a youngdy raising the cat now, what needs to happen next is the losing of the cat, as the mission dictates.


    However, losing the cat for no reason at all is illogical. Thus, the moment the righteous Holy Knight Rnde arrives on the scene, Beifeng.Herault, titled as the Dragon of Absolute Evil, happens to be intending to do something to the frightened and pitiful cat who is bundled into a ball.


    Alright, when I heard that the angry ¡®owner who lost her cat¡¯ brought her subordinates to beat up Beifeng frenziedly, I shed a few drops of crocodile tears.


    ¡°You might be innocent this time, but who asked you to always...¡± When I thought about his usual routine, even the little shred of guilt remaining in me turns into anger. ¡°Krose, don¡¯t give me any face, beat him to death!!¡±


    ¡°He... He isn¡¯t innocent. Master, wuuuuu, it¡¯s all thanks to you arriving on time, otherwise, my virgin body would have been ruined.¡±


    Harloys¡¯s frightened shivers weren¡¯t actually faked. She was totally helpless facing the legendary Beast Tamer on her own, and now that she has finally found her pir of support, she starts whimpering on the spot.


    In an instant, my face scrunches together. Virgin body? Let¡¯s not mention how the experienced Harloys didn¡¯t have such a thing in the first ce, to actually drive the Queen of Banshees to tears and frighten that vicious mouth of hers to obediently call me Master, Beifeng, what exactly did you do?


    ¡°You are really too heartless,ying your hands on something so small!¡± Considering therge difference in physique, I suddenly became curious about how he was going toy his hands on her. However, aftering up with some conjectures, I became too disgusted to continue thinking about it.


    ¡¾¡±Daily Mission: Every Epic Hero starts from helping little girls find their missing cats.¡± has beenpleted. You are awarded with 3 Fate Points. Continue working hard.¡¿


    Alright, ignoring the daily brutal beating of Beifeng, I took Harloys with me and silently left the tent full of mysterious lifeforms.


    ¡°Looks like I avoided having my Fate Points deducted. Continue working hard? To y dragons? Isn¡¯t that simply seeking death?¡±


    But suddenly, I recall the System¡¯s recent bizarre change and its attitude all this time. Considering the unusual way this cat mission waspleted, some thoughts start to conceptualize in my head.


    ¡°Given the darned nature of the System, if a mission is unable to bepleted, it would havee up with a sky-high reward to disgust me. Is there really no way to im these 100 points?¡±


    After hesitating for a moment, I nod my head.


    ¡°Since there¡¯s no loss in failure, then it¡¯s worth a try.¡±


    Thus, just outside the temporary campsite¡¯srgest tent, I find old merchant Carter who is very familiar with this road.


    ¡°What? There really is the den of an evil dragon nearby?¡±


    ¡°Although it¡¯s just a young ck Dragon, it often assaults people and robs goods, bringing a massive headache to merchant parties. However, our party has a Legend-rank Holy Knight, so we don¡¯t really have to be worried about the crafty Dragoning to attack us. However, justst week, it wiped out two merchant parties. Right, I heard that because it greatly affects the movement of merchant parties traveling to and fro the city, Liu Huang Mountain City has sent troops to get rid of it several times, but on all asions, it has managed to escape beforehand.¡±


    Fine, I roughly get it now. Thus, I raise my longsword high in the air and shout a vow.


    ¡°Those whomit sins must be punished! Fine, since the evil dragon exists, then allow me, who represents justice and the Holy Light, to destroy that evil ck Dragon. I shall single-handedly remove its head.¡±


    Alright, not just Carter, everyone in the vicinity stares at me with a look of surprise. This isn¡¯t only because of the suicidal vow I made, which fulfills the style of the Holy Knights, but also because of my extremely loud voice. Probably, half of the entire camp have heard my words.


    Afterward, as I expected, I feel the Power of Death that was circling around the clouds move once again. Thus, I nod my head, satisfied.


    Under everyone¡¯s ¡®Ah, yet another chuuni Holy Knight who has been brainwashed by the Holy Light, I won¡¯t walk you out¡¯ gazes sending me off, I left the campsite by myself.


    The dragon¡¯sir isn¡¯t too far away. Following the trails it left behind, I find the way very quickly.


    Who left the tracks? Un, there is no need to pursue this question.


    ¡°Meow, Rnd, did you see that Scorpion-tailed Lion that was all scorched ck? It seems to have been electrocuted, are there any powerful Lightning Element Magic Beasts nearby?¡±


    ¡°Oh, there could be one, I guess.¡±


    ¡°Hey hey, do you really intend to look for trouble directly with that adult dragon? Given your trashy battle power now, you¡¯ll be instant killed.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I am confident.¡±


    Afterward, the sight that I see the moment I enter the Dragon¡¯s den, toughens my resolution.


    ¡°Wow, these unlucky Ogres were obviously torn apart by brute force. Did they meet the Titans or giant Behemoths?¡±


    ¡°They probably met the Bull Demon King.¡±


    ¡°I think that I roughly understand where that ridiculous confidence of yourses from.¡±


    ¡°It is sufficient for you to just understand. Don¡¯t say anything unnecessary, we are here to ¡®solo¡¯ a dragon.¡±


    Emphasizing on the ¡®solo¡¯, there are no mistakes in my words, no matter how many times I say them.


    ¡°Puuu! That must be the Bull Demon King you spoke of. That silly cow actually thought he could use that banana leaf to hide. That¡¯s weird, why is he naked?¡±


    ¡°Sigh, I¡¯m getting more and more worried for the Supreme Court now. Cough, Harloys, stop speaking nonsense. What silly, naked cow are you speaking of, it¡¯s probably just some kind pervert walking by.¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes, we came alone. But, what about those?¡±


    Not too far away from my line of sight, a group of Hook Horror Zombies is currently fighting with their brethren. The biggest weakness of Zombies is absent in this bunch ¨C slow movement. Not only are they agile and fearless of death, the brainless Zombies even fight by cooperating together through battle formations,pletely suppressing the original Hook Horrors.


    They are obviously the product of a master of Necromancy. Looking at the excellent positioning of the Zombies in their formation, the person behind the Zombies is most probably a top-tier Death Knight.


    ¡°Perhaps they¡¯re just a bunch of kind passersby. Don¡¯t worry, they will leave soon enough.¡±


    ¡°Zzzttttt.¡± A furious bolt of lightning shes past me. Regardless of whether it was the Zombie formation or the Hook Horrors that were kept by the evil Dragon, they all disappeared without a trace. The only thing that remains is a plot of scorchednd.


    ¡°This?¡± Even Harloys is at a loss for words. This is obviously the God Lightning of the Titans.


    ¡°I reckon it¡¯s just a kind-hearted Ultraman shooting an Ultrabeam. There are really a lot of passersby today huh. Un, let¡¯s not bother about these kind-hearted passersby, let¡¯s go y the Dragon.¡±


    ¡°Fine, I won¡¯t be surprised at all if I see a ck Dragon bound in ropester on.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t be surprised as well.¡±


    Things were as expected. In the deepest region of the Dragon den, I finally see the evil Dragon. Although it isn¡¯t tied up, its actual fate is much worse.


    The entire body of this man-eating evil Dragon ispletely scorched ck. Its wings were ripped apart and thrown to the corner, while all four of its limbs werepletely sealed by Spatial Magic. The Power of Death is currently corroding its entire body. From the looks of it, it was obviously lynched by a group of SemiGods earlier on. Even if we leave it be, it definitely doesn¡¯t have much longer to live.


    Silently unsheathing my sword, my de swings downwards.


    ¡°For Holy Light!¡±


    ¡°ng!¡±


    Alright, the Dragon hide is too tough. This cheap longsword is too useless, not at all able to actually prate it, and is instantly deflected.


    But it¡¯s not a big deal. Let¡¯s try again a few more times.


    ¡°For justice!¡±


    ¡°ng!¡±


    ¡°For honor!¡±


    ¡°ng!¡±


    ¡°For...¡±


    The show that is going on in this instant is destined to be a long one. Harloys is already starting to turn around in circles to chase her own tail out of boredom. If it wasn¡¯t taking all of my effort to think of something new to shout out, I sincerely wanted to remind her that cats don¡¯t chase their own tails, only dogs do.


    ¡°For Fate Points!¡±


    Alright, after I sending more than thirty shes at him, I couldn¡¯t think of any new phrases to shout. The evil Dragon also looks at me with resentment, his crying face seems to be saying, ¡®Can¡¯t you be any faster, this is really torturing for a Dragon, I still have to collect my bento box, you know.¡¯


    ¡°For the second uncle¡¯s father¡¯s neighbor¡¯s daughter¡¯s girlfriend¡¯s teacher¡¯s dog!¡±


    Alright, I don¡¯t know whether it¡¯s due to the godly effect of these words, or that the ck Dragon finally sumbed to its injuries, but after thatst phrase, its neck bends and it falls dead to the floor.


    ¡°Ha, ha, finally, I finally sessfully slew the Dragon!!¡±


    The reason why I¡¯m panting so heavily isn¡¯t because I¡¯m tired from swinging my sword but rather because I¡¯m tired of shouting those war cries...


    ¡¾Confirming that only the user¡¯s own Magic Pet Harloys was in the vicinity when the userpleted his mission, thus fulfilling the ¡®solo¡¯ requirement of the mission. Congrattions forpleting the Daily Mission ¡®As a knight, one must solo a giant dragon¡¯. 100 Fate Points awarded. As all of today¡¯s daily missions arepleted, an additional 100 Fate Points is awarded. System Notice: To think that you would actually notice. However, don¡¯t expect tomorrow¡¯s daily mission to be that simple.¡¿


    Alright, I already don¡¯t feel like talking about anything else. System, you need to top up on some restraint!


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    In the temporary campsite, a group of Knights is currently sparring.


    As the icy-cold swords sh together and separate, what surprised everyone was that the one being suppressed in the duel isn¡¯t the rookie Knight who inconceivably managed to sessfully y a Dragon, but the Silver-rank Justice Knight.


    ¡°As expected, if I only take into ount Strength, despite the massive gap in level, I definitely have the strength of at least a Gold-rank Warrior.¡±


    Although the main stat of Dark Elf Knights is Strength, I don¡¯t think that the Dark Elves, who are naturallycking in Strengthpared to other races, are able topete with my 20 point Strength, which transcends the limits of Mortals.


    ¡°Hah, seems like you¡¯re not all looks. The strength of your charge isn¡¯t bad, it¡¯s just that I have no idea how good your techniques are. It better not be just for show, with you crumbling in just a few moments.¡±


    Despite beingpletely suppressed while crossing blows, despite her hands beingpletely numb, the ¡®Mad Dog¡¯ Momo didn¡¯t forget to taunt me. Her words earn her cheers from the onlookers.


    However, how could I fall for such an obvious taunt? There is no reason for me to give up this opportunity when a Dark Elf, who is naturallycking in strength, is foolish enough to pit her Strength against me while crossing blows.


    ¡°Hah, the barking of the losing dog?¡± I roar, as I grip my sword with both hands, sweeping downwards violently. Our swords sh together and under my powerful sweep, due to the difference in our brute strength, Momo is forced into a one-leg kneeling position.


    However, after undergoing countless spars in Liu Huang Mountain City, my opponent isn¡¯t just any ordinary Knight. She has already started mumbling the incantations long before this. I must say,pared to the Priestess and Holy Knight, whose main stat is Will, the Law jobs which depend mainly on Intelligence, are much more suited to the Dark Elves who have superior Intelligence.


    ¡°Aha! Incantation of Law: Equality of Lifeforms!¡±


    ¡°Darn! It is this shameless skill again.¡±


    The Light of Order shines and the situation reverses instantly. Momo, who was forced into a kneeling position, bounces up in an instant. On the other hand, I end up being suppressed.


    ¡¾One of the abilities of the God Equipment Origin of Codex; All is Equal in the Face of Law: Demarcate a zone and lower the rank and stats of people within the zone to be of equal level as the user. For every 10 seconds this effect is sustained, 1 Faith will be consumed.¡¿


    This¡¾Incantation of Law: Equality of Lifeforms!¡¿is the simplified version of the God Equipment Origin of Codex¡¯s¡¾All is Equal in the Face of Law¡¿and it¡¯s well-known as a shameless skill.


    Being a simplified Law Incantation, its effects are far from that of the God Equipment, so it is only able to lower a single stat of the opponent. Also, the shortest time taken toplete the Incantation is 6 seconds whereas the duration of the effects is only 10 seconds. However, if the spell is sessfully released, its effects would definitely disgust any opponent.


    The Strength on my window immediately falls to 16. Although our basic stats are the same, Momo has nearly 40 levels of advantage, which allows her to suppress me easily while crossing blows.


    ¡°Should I say that I brought this upon myself?¡±


    At this moment, Momo strikes heavy blows, one after another. ¡®ng ng ng¡¯. In the midst of the repeated sounds of longswords striking against each other, the situation has been reversed. I am forced to continuously retreat.


    ¡°Damn it, 6, 5, 4, I still have 3 seconds more. Un?¡±


    I bite my teeth together, trying my best to survive these 10 seconds. However, on the 7th second, the heavy blows suddenly feel lighter. I have returned to my normal condition. In that instant, I remember the Race Talent I had recently obtained.


    ¡°The Titan Body actually works on conditions inflicted by the Power of Law! As expected of the Diamond-ss Race Talent.¡±


    ¡¾Titan Body (Diamond-ss Race Talent): Your physical body contains the primal strength of the Titans. Your skin will gradually turn into that of the Titans. Reduce any damage and debuffs by 30% and reduce all damage incurred by 5 points.¡¿


    This is the Race Talent I awakened when my Stamina reached 20, transcending the limits of mortals. Its exnation may be simple, but its effects are incredibly useful.


    ¡¾Exquisite Two-handed Sword (Iron)¡¿


    ¡¾Attack Power: 0-8¡¿


    ¡¾System Notice: 2 broken swords that cost 10 gold coins and you still expect there to be a System Notice? I have nothing else to say, you are actually thick-skinned enough to use such a broken sword, even I feel embarrassed for you. Actually, I still have a couple of good swords here and they are quite cheap. Of course, I doubt that a small troublesome curse could beat you down. To tell the truth, I still feel a bit resentful that I didn¡¯t manage to turn you into a girl, why don¡¯t you try the Gachapon again? I have arge quantity of Spring of Drowned Girl, it would be a waste to just leave it there.¡¿


    Alright, the fact that I¡¯ve been scammed multiple times has made me realize the importance of cherishing one¡¯s life and the importance of staying away from the System. Let us ignore this bizarre resentment of the darned System.


    Back to the main topic at hand, if I use this lousy sword to cut myself, without any additional increments from my Strength, the highest damage I can deal to myself is 2 points. Furthermore, there is an above 80% possibility that the damage would be ignored altogether. Even taking into ount the additional damage increments from the opponent¡¯s Strength, I am wearing a Knight¡¯s te mail, which provides me with excellent protection. Thus, I have nothing to fear.


    At this moment, under the effects of the Titan Body, the 10 second Law Incantation was forcefully reduced to 7 seconds. Furthermore, this reduction was unexpected. In an actual battle, every split second counts, needless to say, a miscalction of a full 3 seconds.


    Thus, making full use of this slip, my longsword crashes furiously into hers, and with a twist, I send Momo¡¯s two-handed mithril sword into the air. Making use of the temporary gap in the opponent¡¯s attention, which was captured by the flying sword, I pick up speed and knock violently into her.


    A full-power crash by a Holy Knight with 20 Strength, dressed fully in armor? That¡¯sparable to a small railway train! In an instant, Momo is sent flying straight out. Even though she manages to stab her sword into the ground in time to adjust her bnce and stabilize her footing, her head is already spinning from the impact.


    A Silver-rank Knight who lost her sense of bnce? That¡¯s just arge, metal-skinned, fixed punching bag.


    Thus, I made use of this opportunity to use the other Diamond-ss Race Talent. Since it is awakened from my Strength breaking into 20, then it¡¯s probably a powerful offensive skill.


    ¡°The Light of Order descends upon my sword, prepare for my own strike, Sword of Order...¡±


    But before I can finish my sentence, I am pulled backward by a humongous force, and my iron longsword is deflected.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough, Momo. Stop looking down on others. From the moment you were forced to use the Incantation of Law, Rnde had already won. Alright, going by the pact made, apologize to him.¡±


    In the face of the Legend Knight Diana, as a Bronze Holy Knight, I am far from being able to match her. I was easily stopped in an instant.


    At this moment, I suddenly recall Momo¡¯s proud words, saying that she can easily take care of me using only her swordsmanship. In the end, not only did she use the Incantation of Law, but she was even suppressed and defeated. Going by the conditions we had promised earlier, I had long won the match.


    But even though I won this time, many of my shorings were exposed.


    Just looking at swordsmanship and battle experience, it was obvious that I should have aplete advantage over her, but there were many times where, despite my eyes and thoughts having already reacted, my physical body was unable to keep up. This wasn¡¯t a problem due to theposition of my physical body but rather, theck of training of a newborn physical body. Yet to undergo training, the sword techniques haven¡¯t been carved onto this body on an instinctual level, resulting in an experienced mind being unable to cope physically.


    I smile and shake my head towards Momo, who reluctantly came over to apologize, indicating that I¡¯m not bothered about it. However, my mind is somewhere else.


    ¡°Looks like I have been ckening recently to the point I have forgotten my basics. Let me start from 10,000 swings every day to restore them slowly.¡±


    However, what surprised me most was when an unfamiliar visitor interrupted my training ns, while I was swinging my de in my tent alone at midnight.


    Moon Knight Diana quietly sneaks into my tent with an embarrassed blush on her face.


    ¡°Is... Is this the legendary night attack? My king father in heaven, to think that reviving would allow me, Rnd, to have such a day dawn upon me. Ah, as expected of the legendary Dark Elves, for them to be so direct, I am so lucky!¡±


    However, when I recall my little partner who is still undergoing puberty, I almost cried tears of blood on the spot.


    ¡°Misfortune!! Is there anything more unfortunate than this?¡±


    However, the moment Diana opens her mouth, I know that I have jinxed myself. The God of Misfortune is still looming over me.


    ¡°Rnde, no, Lich Rnd, Lord Wumianzhe, it has been long since west met.¡±

 Chapter 73

    Chapter 73: Misunderstanding


    ¡°Are you Lord Rnd, Lord Wumianzhe, small Rolo or all three of them?¡±


    In a tent at midnight, the interaction between a male and female often brings about an intimate atmosphere. But, following Diana¡¯s question, that sliver of an intimate atmosphere instantly scatters in the air and somehow, feelings of weakness and depression cause me to lower my head silently.


    ¡°As expected, I knew that for my entire life, my only luck with women is one that would bring catastrophe rather than romance. Sometimes, there would be those whose eyes get clouded as they fall in love with me, but they were all either Bone Dragons or perverted serial murderers. I will probably remain like this for the rest of my life, destined to never obtain the favor of a normal female.¡±


    TL: Peach blossom is often used to describe luck with women.


    Alright, her noticing it is within my expectations, what made me depressed was the fact I was cursed to a fate where women would only bring catastrophe and not romance.


    However, I only expected that I would be exposed as Lich Rnd. I didn¡¯t expect that my identity as Wumianzhe would be found out as well.


    The reason why I was sure I would be exposed? That day, when Xiao Hong rolled around the floorughing right after seeing me, she shouted out my name in the midst of her taunting. In the den, the loudness of a giant Dragon¡¯s voice isn¡¯t that far off from thunder. Back then, Diana, who brought me to her, didn¡¯t have time to move that far away. Unless she was deaf, it would be weird if she didn¡¯te to a realization.


    ¡°Then, Lord, what should I address you as?¡±


    ¡°Rnde, Rnd, anything will do. Since the pronunciation is the same. However, how did you tie this look of mine with Rolo and the rest?¡±


    Now, I am in need of a reliable helper. Even if she hadn¡¯t approached me, it would have only been a matter of time before I sought her out instead. However, I am indeed curious on what exactly gave me away.


    ¡°Your ring and that little cat.¡±


    Alright, I smacked my head. I finally understood what the problem was. On my right hand is Elisa¡¯s ring. Also, the Queen of Banshees¡¯ cat form had once appeared in front of Diana. To a Legend-rank Knight, being sharp-sighted isn¡¯t a difficult task. It is natural that she would notice it.


    ¡°Alright, the reason why you avoided the crowd to look for me tonight definitely can¡¯t be just to expose my identity. Or rather, there is some private matter you need to talk to me about.¡±


    The Gray Elf who was still valiant a second ago, suddenly lowers her head and nods, flushed with embarrassment. The redness extends all the way to her ears. I widen my mouth and identally knock over my cup, causing it to fall to the floor.


    ¡°Could it be that spring ising? She is actually into me?¡±


    The Dark Elf in front of me is one of the very few who has a conscience within the Town Security Army. She possesses moral integrity, something that probably couldn¡¯t be found within one in ten thousand Elves, making her an anomaly. She is known to be conservative and traditional and because of this, she is even nicknamed as a Dark Elf-skinned Dwarf. In the entire city, she is quite well respected.


    Due to her Legend-rank strength and her identity as the Captain of the Town Security, along with such legendary events where she brought her tribesman to flee for a thousand miles, there are already people who put her side by side with the legendary Gray Elf Adventurer Zuich. The only reason why she remains single even to this day, is because she makes those going after her feel ashamed of themselves. But now, her heart is starting to flutter because of a stranger like me?


    I pinch my own face and it hurts. It probably isn¡¯t a dream.


    ¡°The omnipotent System, I won¡¯t talk bad about you anymore. I am thankful for the +19 Charm that you blessed me with! May the System bless me so that the next stats raised will also be Charm! Haha, living off one¡¯s face is the way to go. A Holy Knight is a job that depends on his face, and so my Rnd era has finally arrived.¡±


    Finally, Diana, whose head was lowered and was ying with her fingers, musters her courage.


    ¡°Lord!!¡±


    ¡°Un, I¡¯m here!¡±


    ¡°I have something I want to consult with you, but I am embarrassed to talk about.¡±


    ¡°I love matters which people are embarrassed to talk about!¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t mock me? Even though I am a Holy Knight, I have acted so shamefully.¡±


    ¡°No, of course not. Shameful or whatsoever, I like them the most.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s great, Lord! I knew I could trust you. Please guide the path for my wayward self. I am currently lost in the pursuit of my faith in the Holy Light.¡±


    ¡°WHAT!?¡±


    Seemingly realizing that what she said was too concise, Diana immediately fills me in on the details.


    It seems that the shameful matter that Diana was talking about is that, despite being a Holy Knight, without realizing it, she had somehow abandoned her faith.


    Initially, just like most of the Dark Elves, she worshipped Lorci. However, as she hated vying with others, she determinedly chose to worship the Holy Light. But the Holy Light views Undead and Demons as its mortal enemy. In that previous battle, the Undead who turned into Heroic Spirits, weren¡¯t as chaotic and evil as preached by the teachings of the Holy Light. Thus, she started to have doubts once again towards her faith in the Holy Light.


    What started as a small crack, became a gaping hole due to my appearance. With the physical body of an Undead, I Ascended to Godhood and now, the avatar that I sent down is actually capable of using Holy Light. Does this mean that Undead aren¡¯t evil? Could it be that the God of Law and the God of Holy Light are the same God? All of my actions were overthrowing the basic teachings of the Holy Light faith. This kind of fact which would normally crush one¡¯s perception of matters caused her faith to waver, so she hoped for me to clear up her confusion.


    It seems that she views me as an avatar sent down by the God of Law, which exins why she was bizarrely solemn throughout the journey. At this moment, she is trying to consult me about her faith.


    Hearing this, I suddenly feel my blood pressure rising and blood veins start appearing around my pupils. I feel like I suddenly understand the principle behind the Berserk skill of Beastmen. So, this fellow is trying to use me as a Priest!


    What about the romance we were promised? What about the night assault by the beauty we agreed on? What about the instincts of Dark Elves and their variety of techniques that we spoke about? Darn System, a beauty actuallying in the middle of the night to consult me about her faith? I am not a Priest of Holy Light, why did you look for me! I am a male, you know, a beast! I will transform at midnight!


    Alright, I know that my little fellow can¡¯t do anything, but it¡¯s fine to have some idle chat for our rtionship to progress in future, right!


    As a wizard with strong credentials, an inconceivable me starts burning in my chest. I secretly make up my mind. Since you are consulting me, then I will teach you what Gods really are and what faith is about.


    ¡°Firstly, I am not an avatar of the God of Law. I am a living mortal. Let me tell you the secrets of the Gods. Firstly, all of the teachings of true Gods are bullshit...¡±


    Activating my magic ring and the Detection Barrier it came with, I disrespectfully exposed the secrets of the Gods, despite being an existence just one step away from bing a true God.


    ¡°True Gods are just a unique existence. They live off and evolve through faith. You can view them as a portion of the world. Un, thinking of them as leeches of the World System wouldn¡¯t be wrong as well.¡±


    Thus, under the prerogative of that inconceivable me, I tried my best to talk the worst about Gods.


    I believe that after this night is over, the supposed wavering in faith will just turn out to be a joke. I can assure her that she will be like me. After thoroughly understanding what Gods really are, she will treat faith and true Gods as somethingughable.


    ¡°...All in all, the Gods of the Order Faction are all pitiful worms who are mixed together with the Concept of Order. Even more so, the God of Holy Light is an ultimate pitiful worm who doesn¡¯t even possess a self. Regardless of whether it is my clone, the God of Law Wumianzhe or that nameless God of Holy Light, they are just God Power Regtion Systems who work by following guidelines. Un, they are just like another type of machine simr to Rnd No.2. They are inflexible and will lend their powers to anyone who obeys theirws.¡±


    ¡°The teachings of the God of Law was written by a mortal like myself. As the God of Law is the very Concept of Justice, even if I am unable to leave a backdoor for him, even if he has lost his self-awareness, he can still be fair and treat all prayers and salvations from the mortal world with fairness. As for the teachings of the Holy Light, it was made up by a bunch of people from the Holy Church. Using the idea of ¡®Purification¡¯ as its basis, they added many additional ideas to it. I doubt even the God of Holy Light would be able toprehend them, so there is no need for you to be bothered over those messed up teachings.¡±


    Some words don¡¯t have to be finished. If the God of Holy Light is the incarnation of the Concept of Purification, then the God of Law is indeed the incarnation of the Concept of Justice. The Incantation of Law¡¾Equality of Lifeforms¡¿is the most obvious example.


    However, if it was possible to leave a backdoor for the God of Law and if there were to be exceptions to thew for some people, then he would be a failure as a God of Justice. However, sometimes a backdoor isn¡¯t the only requirement to cheat. The fact that Wumianzhe, as one of my clones, Ascended to Godhood remains an important ace that I prepared.


    Of course, I won¡¯t divulge such important secrets to Diana. However, the words I had actually said were sufficient enough to crumble the faith of the Legend Holy Knight¡¯s world. And this is the exact result that I wanted.


    The situations that I will face in the future will be too difficult to ovee. In the Surface where I have no friends or kindred, I will require a helper. A helper who is willing to devote their entire soul and all thoughts into helping me. A powerful ace at hand, before I grow strong once again, one whom I can truly trust.


    However, what left me puzzled was that even in Liu Huang Mountain City, where experts could be found everywhere, there was basically no one at all who could serve as my trump card, while still being able to move freely in the human society.


    We can exclude the guys from the Undead District and the Xiluo Royal Faction right from the very start. If they were to head towards the Human kingdoms on the Surface, it would be equivalent to a deration of war between the Undead and the living. It is the same for the Four Heavenly Kings of Law under mymand. Kale.Diyacks stamina and mobility but more importantly, it is too striking for a High Elf to be in human society. As an ex-Senator of Huanfa Country, his appearance would stir up much trouble.


    It is the same for the other Heavenly Kings of Law as well. Well, Lily is from the Blood Tribe, so there¡¯s nothing more to borate on. Kevin is a human, but he is shackled by work and his family. Besides, as a Gold-rank Justice Knight, he might not be effective enough to serve as a trump card able to reverse a bad situation.


    As for the strongest candidate for my helper, the hidden Heavenly King Elisa, even if she still remains in Liu Huang Mountain City, there is not a single possibility for me to bring her around.


    After all, it is an impossible mission to find another race with a reputation worse than the Demons. The traits of the Demons are very obvious and the Power of Chaos that fills their body equally as striking, so just about any Holy Knight would be able to notice it.


    As for the Naked King... Even if I was willing to bring him along, and the Liu Huang Mountain City Supreme Court was willing to let him out, we would have to ce a cor on his neck to disguise him as a Tauren ve. After all, the humans on the Surface view most of the Beastmen as either enemies or ves.


    As for the Town Security group, unless they¡¯re willing to endure that excruciating Moonlight Ritual, and also considering the Dark Elves¡¯ horrendous reputation on the Surface that would lead to them being burnt on a stake, bringing them along would definitely end in trouble.


    In the end, there are many experts among my underlings, but in order not to be branded as a heretic, there is no one suitable to apany me.


    After much consideration, this ¡®innocent¡¯ Gray Elf Legend Holy Knight became the ideal candidate. Not only is she trustworthy, her fighting prowess is up to par, her potential is limitless, as proven in the ¡®history¡¯, and more importantly, she is naive and easy to fool. This is also why I said that even if she didn¡¯te knocking, I would have taken the initiative to look for her.


    ¡°Naive, strong and beautiful, such an ideal bodyguard.¡±


    Alright, after confirming the target, a certain unscrupulous fellow continued to coax Diana.


    In order to attract the other party toe under mymand, I vaguely revealed myrge n, making her struggle between the dilemma of following her heart and taking action.


    In the end, at daybreak, Diana tells me that she wants to return to her tent to consider it. When she stands up to leave, I can see that her beautiful eyes are bloodshot from theck of sleep. The valiant female knight seen on previous days was mentally drained. She looked so fragile, as though she was just pulled into an alley by a dozen Beastmen to spend the night.


    When I saw the hesitation in her eyes, I nodded my head in satisfaction. From my understanding of her, I reckon that her reply would most probably gratify me.


    Looking at the sky, gradually turning lighter, I too felt a little tired from staying up the night. I decided to make use of this time to slip in an hour or two of sleep to refresh myself.


    But ten minutes after shutting my eyes, in my semi-conscious state, I was assaulted by a violent dog.


    ¡°You bastard! What did you do to our Big Sister!!¡±


    The angry female Elf rushed into my tent with a sword. Without saying anything else, she flipped my bed with a kick.


    ¡°...What?¡±


    ¡°Momo has never seen Big Sister so fragile before. She was crying while walking back into her tent. You bastard, what did you do to Big Sister! Could it be that you forced yourself on her despite having lousy techniques? Big Sister is so pitiful. Even though it was her first time, she met someone like you, a person only good for their looks, leaving her with tragic memories.¡±


    TL: Momo describes him as a ÒøÑùÀ¯Ç¹Í·, silver-like solder spear. Solder looks like silver, but is actually quite a weak alloy, meaning that it looks strong and pretty but is actually useless.


    What the hell is she talking about! Looking at this fellow¡¯s messy clothes and her bloodshot eyes, she might have even been eavesdropping outside all night. Secretly, I felt thankful that I activated a barrier to keep away any eavesdroppers earlier on since I was going to talk about the secrets of Gods.


    However, Momo was getting more and more agitated as she spoke on.


    ¡°I told her that she shouldn¡¯t just look at the outer appearance of men. There are many of them who have the looks but can¡¯t be used. If I knew that it would end up like this, I should have stopped her before Big Sister walked into your tent. That way Momo could have taught you some techniques first. Although Momo doesn¡¯t have much experience as well, Momo has read a lot of books and interacted with the sisters often. Bybining theory with the practical and practicing it on the spot, I could have guaranteed that the both of you will £¤@#@, giving you two a perfect and pleasurable first time.¡±


    Every time I think that the darned System and Ick restraint, whenever I look at these tough females speaking words that should be censored, I always feel like I am still a person with morals, a noble man, a man who has transcended beyond cheap interests.


    Alright, having my limited sleeping time interrupted, I, who wascking in sleep from the start, was quite pissed off. What happens next is, of course, the reenactment of the duel between Knights that happened yesterday.


    When this ridiculous fight ended, I went to fetch a bucket of water but unexpectedly, I realized that everyone was looking at me differently.


    Seeing how the two Flower Guardians made the obscene hand sign of a finger passing through a hole, as a man, I immediately understood.


    Even with the cover of the night sky, the concealment techniques of a Knight dressed in armor is definitely not going to work. The way she walked into my tent, with the nging of her armor, had ensured it. When everyone saw that Diana had stayed in my tent for an entire night and then hade out with bloodshot eyes and a drained expression, I doubt that I would be able to clear myself of suspicion even if I were to jump into the Yellow River.


    This time even Harloys, who was closer to me than the rest, kept her distance, gazing at me as though I were something dirty. After all, in her perspective, for such a thing to happen between Diana and me, when we were barely acquainted, would mean that I am a yboy.


    Alright, if something happened, I would have confessed to it at this point. But, I really am innocent. Yet, if I were to say that Diana and I stayed up all night just to talk about faith and Gods and that it was a pure rtionship between a guy and a girl, even I wouldn¡¯t be able to convince myself.


    Taking into the consideration that Harloys may be able to contribute to my future ns, I can only thicken my skin and try to exin the situation to her. But, seeing in her eyes how guarded she is towards me, it seems that it wasn¡¯t very effective. Furthermore, what happened next would condemn me to a fate of being unable to clear up this misunderstanding.


    From not too far away, Diana removes her heavy armor. Dressed in light garments, with the Silver Avenger in her hand, Diana walks slowly towards me with a solemn expression.


    It is an expression of realization, like a Priestess walking to the altar to sacrifice herself.


    Right after she walks up to me, she suddenly kneels on both knees in front of me, and with a serious face, she slowly raises her arms, presenting her own Sacred Sword to me.


    ¡°My Lord, I vow to follow your teachings my entire life and be your most reliable support. Your enemy will be the target of my longsword. Your happiness will be my greatest honor and my life¡¯s greatest aim is to be someone you can be proud of.¡±


    Alright, I instantly understood the situation. Kneeling with one knee is how knights show their loyalty to their master, whereas one only kneels with both knees to one¡¯s elders and Gods. She is treating me like a real God by bowing to me. The seemingly intimate vows at the start is just a prayer that one says to dere your faith and allegiance to a true God.


    I might be able to understand it, but the others don¡¯t.


    ¡°Big Sister!! Rnde! What kind of voodoo did you cast on Big Sister to seduce her, you¡¯re going to die today.¡±


    Alright, the violent dog immediately turns into a mad dog. This tant killing intent and the crazed swings that bring wind pressure with it, seems that she¡¯s serious about this.


    ¡°Ah, I knew that those Elves and Humans were unreasonable. Look, they hooked up together within just a few days. Look at the human male, there¡¯s always a lecherous smile on his face. He is obviously not a good person.¡±


    Yingou.Beyar, you actually dare to smear my reputation, I will definitely get my revenge! Furthermore, exactly what part of my smile looks lecherous to you? It is obviously the 59th Style Holy Knight Standard Smile, a sharp weapon used to earn the donations of richdies, a secret technique that I spent quite a period of time to master.


    ¡°There is yet another talented one from my generation, rejoice, rejoice.¡± Alright, if this wasn¡¯t praise from a degenerate Dwarf who engages in drugs, pornographic materials, and gambling, I would have epted the praise happily.


    ¡°Tsk, a male without any hair on his face, what is so good-looking about him.¡± This... Alright, a person with such a unique sense of beauty, everyone should know who he is.


    ¡°Misfortune!! Stop chasing me, I really only spoke with your Big Sister for the entire night.¡±


    In the end, the one who screamed so pathetically was me, who left my sword in the tent and is currently trying my best to escape the pursuit of the mad dog.


    ¡°Hmph, talking for an entire night and not doing it even when you¡¯re losing sleep. Unless you¡¯re sexually impotent or a little brat who has yet to develop, is that even possible?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re too much, I... I will kill you.¡±


    Alright, a certain someone just got stabbed in his fatal point and started brawling with Momo.

 Chapter 74

    Chapter 74: Absolute Gentlemen Alliance


    Walking on the familiar streets of Vance, I look at crowds of people walk to and fro once again, but the atmosphere is totally different this time around.


    It is still the same group of people, but the atmosphere is much lighterpared to how tense it was back then, during the period of the Alliance Conference.


    After reaching Vance, the shadows following behind us disappear one after another. Except for the silly Tauren who returns back to the same path, the rest of them disappear into the underground tunnels, apparently heading straight for the surface.


    At this moment, while the merchant party is reorganizing their goods and supplies in Vance, I go off to settle some private matters, such as recing that darned lousy metal sword, as well as registering as a small mercenary band. This would make it more convenient for us in the future.


    ¡°Mercenary? Us? Is there a need for it?¡± Momo seems anxious to leave this city.


    ¡°Yes, if we were to assume identities as mercenaries, it would be more convenient for us to move about on the Surface.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to work for those humans.¡±


    ¡°Of course, we are just creating the mercenary band, we won¡¯t be epting any missions. I also don¡¯t have that much leisure time to roam about, so we are just assuming the identities of mercenaries. Like that, we can use missions as a reason to pass through different blockades. There are several countries that we have to go to after visiting the East Mist Communal Country, so it would be more convenient to obtain a license as mercenaries.¡±


    ¡°Then, why do we have to register here? Can¡¯t we register on the Surface?¡±


    Momo and I are chatting in front of the Mercenary Guild. By our side, lying unconscious on the floor, is a Dark Elf who had just challenged us.


    The Moonlight Ritual isn¡¯t without a price. The right to move freely on the Surface is exchanged by using one¡¯s life. For Lorci, who views the entire Dark Elf Tribe as her personal possession, the act of switching allegiance to the Moon Goddess is equal to pping her hard on the face.


    For each Family, Gray Elves are forever a special tribute to be presented to Lorci. From the moment we stepped into the city, the news of two Gray Elves being present in this city has probably spread to the whole of the Dark Elf Family. Maybe they even had internal conflict within the Family, beforeing to confront us.


    Thus, even though our time is tight, naturally, Momo could notprehend my insistence on registering a mercenary band here in this town.


    ¡°Although there are Mercenary Guilds in every country, from another perspective, mercenaries are also a kind of spare military power for the City Lord and the country. If you were to register on the Surface and a war urs on thend where you registered at, there is a high chance of getting involved in the battle.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s a reasonable exnation.¡±


    Hearing my words, Momo nods her head.


    ¡°This madam here, although there is truth in the words of this little brother here, in actuality, that isn¡¯t the main point. Even if a country were to meet with its demise, the carefree mercenaries would never fight on the battlefield for free. That kind of spare military power is like ears of the deaf ¡ª decoration.¡±


    ¡°The main motive of this little brother here is to probably make use of the one-of-a-kind advantage of the Vance Mercenary Guild: not requiring to produce identification so that one¡¯s identity cannot be dug up. Many criminals and murderers do the same.¡±


    That is a rather valiant-looking, handsome Centaur guy. Equipped with a purple-colored, human-shaped, soft copper te mail on his upper body, he wore light horse armor on his lower body. On his back is a bow made of bones, radiating the orange glow of Divine Magic. That probably isn¡¯t any ordinary bow.


    ¡°Casio?¡±


    ¡°Yes, my lord. Although I have no idea how you persuaded that stubborn grandfather of mine to send me out, since he gave the order as the old Chieftain, I will follow it.¡±


    This person in front of me is one of the grandchildren of old Minial, as well as brother-in-name to the new Beastman Sovereign Anya. However, unlike the rest of Anya¡¯s brothers who dote on her, Casio is quite ambitious. And the truly troublesome thing about him is that he has the ability and prestige to turn his ambitions into reality. After going through multiple wars against outsiders, the Golden Bow Casio is a well-known hero of his tribe.


    To old Minial, it is a pity to kill this ambitious grandchild of his. However, there is a high chance of Casio rebelling against Anya after his death, and it would be hard for her to suppress him.


    Thus, when Imunicated with old Minial through a certain channel to borrow an outstanding Centaur Archer, with no hesitation whatsoever, old Minial thought of this Golden Bow.


    At this moment, Casio stood there silently, looking like a sculpture of a well-built hero, uncaring of his surroundings. However, through his quivering ears and the fingers stroking on his arrows from time to time, there is probably nothing in our surroundings that could escape his senses.


    ¡°My lord, do we register now?¡±


    ¡°No, we¡¯re waiting for another person. I promised to meet him here.¡±


    Seeing how the Dark Elves are fearful of him, refusing toe up to stir trouble in his presence, at least up until now, the arrival of the seemingly respectful Casio appears to be a good thing. However, to be able to strike fear in those scheming Dark Elves to the point they don¡¯t even dare to approach us, from another point of view, it shows how fearsome this man is.


    ¡°That silly unluckyss cannot even begin topare to him, no wonder old Minial threw him out so happily.¡±


    The reason why I want a Centaur Archer is because of the obvious shoring of having three Knights in our party and not having any mounts ¡ª theck of mobility. Due to the presence of Centaur tribes in quite a few Elf Kingdoms on the Surface, Centaurs are one of the few Beastman races who can move freely in the Surface and the Underground World. As long as we do some concealment, no one would be able to guess that Casio is from the Underground World.


    As for the other person, he would be able to make up for our shorings through another aspect. Very soon, the person I am waiting for arrives.


    However, rather than saying that the person is a human, it would be more appropriate to call him a human-shaped piece of armor. A gigantic gray armor that covers every single feature other than the two vaguely clear eyes that could be seen through the bizarre birdhead helmet.


    On his back, there is a three-meter long spear while on his waist, two swords and a Dwarf rifle can be found. It is a weirdbination of weapons that leaves a big question mark about his job. However, seeing the string of Dwarf grenades on his waist and the drumming sounds from the gunpowder bag on his back, he has probably just finished stocking up on his firepower.


    ¡°The entric Prince?¡±


    When we were stationed in Vance previously, Momo had also met this Prince Clint from Iron City. Instantly, she shivers and instinctively takes two steps backward.


    Of course, I know what it is that frightened her so much that she had to retreat. That Prince Clint is a human gunpowder vault and an obvious battle maniac. His nerves are incredibly oversensitive.


    An idental bump to him, explosion.


    Suddenly walking past him, explosion.


    Entering his room without his permission, still an explosion.


    Fine, I¡¯ll admit it. Even if you don¡¯t do anything, as long as you don¡¯t stay a safe distance away from him, there could be an explosion as well.


    However, different from the Beyar brothers who often gets caught in their own explosions, all of his explosions and traps are systematic. They are obviously controlled and intentional. He doesn¡¯t trust anyone and is forever wary of everyone. This obviously has something to do with how he was brought up.


    I¡¯m not some psychiatrist who can treat his post-war syndrome. The reason why I wanted him to join us is because his alertness and intuition could be useful to me.


    Most of the time, the reason why people lose their life on a journey is not because of a strong enemy charging straight at you but rather, the poisonous snake hiding in the grass, stabbing your back with a dagger. I have a feeling that his intuition for danger will be extremely useful to us.


    ¡°Clint, nice to meet you. I am Rnde, Holy Knight Rnde. You should have received our notice. In this temporary team, I¡¯ll be your leader.¡±


    That iron helmet nods his head, showing that he has no objections.


    ¡°Fine, now that everyone¡¯s here, let¡¯s go in. Let¡¯s hope that Diana has finished her cleaning mission.¡±


    Yes, cleaning mission. At the window where mission details are given and wherepleted missions are reported to, a group of reckless mercenaries is already lying all over the ce. They are the targets for her cleaning.


    This isn¡¯t the first time I am assuming the role of a mercenary. Upon seeing neers, these fellows who often sell their life for money will test their strength. This is a warning towards the neers who will bepeting against them for mission resources, as well as an initiation ritual to wee and bless them. Of course, if you pass the test, it would be a blessing but if you don¡¯t, it will just be a brutal initiation ritual.


    In my perspective, since it is impossible to avoid shing with them, then we should throw the Legend Holy Knight Diana at them and let them crash headlong into a metal te.


    Of course, at the end of the sh, the bunch of unfortunate fellows lying on the floor is the losers.


    Slowly walking to Diana¡¯s side, I sh my standard 59th Style Business Smile and spoke to the service personnel.


    ¡°I would like to register a small mercenary band. The leader is me and the vice-leader is this beautifuldy here.¡±


    ¡°Alright, alright.¡± The mercenaries who are currently lying on the floor are actually the core members of this Mercenary Guild. They would be really foolish if they still don¡¯t get that they¡¯ve met someone beyond their abilities.


    ¡°May I ask what is the name of the mercenary band?¡±


    ¡°Momo and Her Little Friends!¡±


    Alright, everyone ignores this female Elf who is trying to act cute.


    ¡°Law and Holy Light. We have Justice Knights and Holy Knights, I find this title very suitable for us,¡± Diana spoke after a moment¡¯s hesitation.


    I shake my head. From a certain perspective, this name is also representative of Diana¡¯s dilemma.


    ¡°Trying to lean towards both sides of the fence also means not being on either side of the fence. It isn¡¯t eptable to waver continuously between the two.¡± I pointed out meaningfully to her. Diana hesitates for another moment before finally nodding her head.


    ¡°Then, Law and Justice.¡±


    I shake my head once again. This name would mean that we are rted to the God of Law. It would restrict the movements of the mercenary band. Furthermore, it would easily serve as a spark in starting pointless conflicts. Thus, I threw out the fantastic name that I had prepared for a very long time.


    It is a name that is much more endearing than Ah Dang and Ah Bas, an even better sounding name.


    ¡°The New Freedom Gentlemen Alliance!¡±


    Immediately, the face of the two Town Security members in front me crumble. One draws her sword, while the other one stares furiously at me. How could they ept naming the mercenary band they will belong to with the name of their mortal foes.


    ¡°I agree, I think that Gentlemen Alliance sounds great.¡±


    A familiar figure suddenly appears in front of us. Instantly, as though meeting the gigantic beast from our nightmares, we instinctively retreat two steps.


    ¡°Beifeng! Why are you here?¡±


    ¡°Of course it is because I want to form a mercenary band with you all to tour the Surface.¡±


    ¡°Rubbish, didn¡¯t you say that you wanted to go on a journey to find your true self...¡±


    Alright, looking at how he is salivating while staring fixedly at the Centaur Archer, I immediately understand his true purpose.


    ¡°I will say this! Don¡¯t even think about it! There is no way we will allow you to join us.¡±


    ¡°Actually, I am quite strong as well. I am definitely a qualified Beast Tamer.¡±


    Of course I know that he is an extremely qualified Beast Tamer, otherwise, he would have been beaten to death from all the trouble he kept stirring up.


    Also, given his fervent love for pets, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he suddenly forges ¡®Love for Wild Beast¡¯ or simr Soul Imprints along the way, and advances into the realm of Legends. However, even though the Beast Tamer possesses decent long-rangebat abilities, able to use his pets for scouting and surveince and is overall a strength that we require, I still decided to look for Casio and Clint so as to avoid teaming up with this pervert.


    ¡°However, I think that Gentlemen Alliance isn¡¯t sufficient to describe that strong passion within us, I suggest that we name it Wild Brothers Club.¡±


    Alright, he seems to have long thought of himself as part of the band, to actually ask directly for a pen to write down that incredibly peculiar name.


    ¡°Stop it!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it!¡±


    Alright, those two from Town Security can no longer suppress the ¡®excitement¡¯ in their hearts and as usual, they use their fists to express their deep feelings.


    As for me, I made use of the chaos to rush to the confused service personnel and said:


    ¡°Absolute Gentlemen Alliance, thank you.¡±

 Chapter 75

    Chapter 75: The Surface


    Laince Fort, or Laince Stronghold, is the city nearest to the underground tunnel¡¯s exit. It is also the city which we chose to reside in.


    The Laince Stronghold lies on the Kier Hignds. Located on thends of the Ming United Kingdom, it is one of the sturdiest Forts in the entire country.


    Designed by master architects, the thick brick walls are both elegant and strong. Spanning ten meters tall and three meters thick, the enemy they had in mind when designing it was the Giant Tribe. Man-eating fish can be found filling the moat.


    The reason? They have one good neighbor. The entrance of the Underground World is always open. Anyone can enter, anyone can exit.


    The seasonal plundering of the Underground Beastman, the traditional training of the Dark Elves to assault the Surface Elves deep in the night, the departure of Red Dragons and ck Dragons through the underground tunnels to look for new vors, the Liches and Necromancers who sneak out in search of experimental materials, the Demons who look for tributes, the worshippers of Malevolent Gods... Alright, even I find it reasonable for the citizens of the Underground World to be exiled and viewed with hostility.


    At least, just counting those in the underground tunnel, we have met three Dark Elf assault parties and two Beastman scouting teams. Thetter, after seeing Casio, bows and leaves, whereas the former, upon catching sight of the Gray Elves, are stunned for a moment and without any hesitation whatsoever, change their training targets and pounce towards us.


    Alright, just after forming our band, I was already nning to conduct a little bit of training so as to grind our teamwork together, as well as to see the fighting abilities of the neers. However, it was when Casio raised his bone bow to point the golden arrow in the bowstring towards one Elf after another, as though choosing between targets. Someone shouted the ¡®Golden Bow¡¯, upon which all of the Dark Elves immediately retreated.


    Of course, that valiant look of Casio pulling the bowstring to shoot is visually amazing, totally different from that foolish Anya. However, after noticing a certain Beast Tamer¡¯s eyes turn green and salivate at the sight of Casio, I start to worry for this Centaur hero once again.


    ¡°Gold-rank primary stage? If he hasn¡¯t reached 30 years of age yet, which means that he has barely reached adulthood among the Centaurs, it would be quite an incredible feat. However, he is still slightlyckingpared to the Dracon Beast Tamer who is at the Gold-rank pinnacle, especially given the fellow¡¯s unscrupulous means to achieve his goals. The more outstanding you perform, the more danger you are in, you know.¡±


    I was of the mind to warn the Centaur, but along the way, Beifeng was chatting happily with him, which put me at a loss on how I should approach them.


    Beifeng, just looking at his outer appearance, is tall and burly with a quaint face, giving quite a favorable impression. His deep and steady voice is always so slow and gentle. The words that he speaks are interesting and knowledgeable, giving a philosophical feeling through his speech, as though spoken by a matured, wise elder.


    Alright, it is precisely because he has a decent appearance with a glib tongue, that¡¯s why there are so many victims, which makes him a big threat to society.


    His image as an honest older brother, the appropriate and implicitly kind intent, as well as his honest and sincereughterplements Casio¡¯s disposition, who seems cold but actually worries for his future. More importantly, Beifeng went along with the flow of the young Centaur and very quickly, after doing an initial probe under Beifeng¡¯s hard work,ughter was added into their conversation.


    Diana found it hard to watch on and kindly walked forward to warn him. However, being bad with her words, before she could even slip in a sentence, she was instead sent off stomping back, aggravated by Beifeng.


    ¡°Intelligent lifeforms are forever so short-sighted, they are used to judging life by their race and outer appearance. Yes, I am a Dracon with the bloodline of the ck Dragon flowing within my veins. But, those who are acquainted with me know that I am someone who passionately loves life and little animals. Yes, I might be ugly, but those who are familiar with me understand that I am gentle too.¡±


    Alright, his hurt expression seems as though he has just been put through a great grievance, as though Diana is the bad person racially discriminating against him. In the end, under Casio¡¯s annoyed and angry gaze, the good-hearted Diana is unable to speak of his disgusting past actions and could only walk away, shaking her head.


    ¡°Big Sister, you are being too nosey! Won¡¯t the Centaur kid understand it in two days or so?¡±


    ¡°But by then, it will already be toote!¡±


    ¡°Puu!¡± As expected, those who are purer tend to have a wilder imagination. Hearing the words ¡®toote¡¯, the other people immediately break out inughter and stare teasingly at the famous Golden Bow, especially at the horse armor on his lower body.


    ¡°The little brat knows not of the harm of Beifeng, the next day he will sing of the chrysanthemum.¡±


    TL: Chrysanthemum... There is a phrase in Chinese called ¡®exploding the chrysanthemum¡¯ that means screwing a man¡¯s ass.


    Alright, I have no idea who made that twisted poem, but theical pronunciation and lyrics make everyoneugh even harder. Un, facing Diana¡¯s ¡®how can you be like this¡¯ questioning stare, at least I won¡¯t admit that it is my own sudden inspiration.


    The rather proud Casio ignores everyone else after joining the band, even pretending not to hear Krose¡¯s polite greeting. On the journey, he even called out to other people by just their race, like ¡®Hey, that Gnome over there¡¯, ¡®Hey, that fat human¡¯ and very quickly ended up offending quite a lot of people.


    Thus, seeing that Beifeng has set his sights on him, the rest of the band, other than the kind Diana, have no intentions to expose Beifeng¡¯s intentions and choose to happily watch him make a fool of himself.


    Back to the main topic, other than the joint attack by the Dark Elves near the exit, the journey was still quite smooth.


    But then, when we walked onto the Surface World, bathed in the familiar yet unfamiliar warmth of sunlight, gazing at the boundless blue sky and the vast endless earth, even I felt agitated.


    The Rnd Sacred Sword on my waist slightly resonates in tune with my feelings, as though describing its impatience to head somewhere. The direction it hopes to proceed towards, naturally, is the north of the continent.


    ¡°East Mist Communal Country, huh? The descendants of the Mist? I do want to test his capabilities. If he is unable to meet with my expectations and insult this glorious title...¡±


    Shaking my head, I throw all excessive thoughts to one side. Looking behind me, I realize that my partypanions aren¡¯t doing very well all of a sudden.


    The previously high-spirited Momo sits weakly on the floor with her eyes shut, while the pale-faced Diana half-kneels on the floor with her body lowered, muttering words that seem like a prayer from her lips.


    ¡°I won¡¯t fall upwards, I won¡¯t fall upwards.¡±


    Walking up to her, I realize that she is actually talking to herself. In that instant, I can¡¯t suppress myughter.


    This isn¡¯t any rare ailment. Even on the surface, after staying too long in the mines, when one stares at the vast, endless sky from that narrow entrance, there would be a feeling as though one will be taken away by the sky, an illusion of falling towards the heavens.


    This is an instinctive misperception of living beings. Those experienced miners would feel better after a while, but for the Dark Elves who have stayed in the Underground World for their entire lives, it isn¡¯t that easy to deal with.


    They were born in the Underground World, they are already used to seeing the dark solid rock walls on top of the clouds and even more used to the first light of dawn being brought by the luminescent algae.


    When the rock walls which felt right to them have suddenly disappeared, it is just like if the Surface humans¡¯ sunlight and blue sky were to be suddenly taken away from them. Even if they rationally know that they would be fine, but the difort they physically feel still cannot be avoided.


    Based on what I know, this is known as a ¡®phobia of vast open spaces¡¯ and it is a reflex action. It will take at least a couple of months to ovee it, with quite a few who fail to ovee it their entire lives.


    The Gray Elves, who from the start aren¡¯tfortable with light, are in the worst shape of all. They are sent straight to the carriage so that they can rest. As for Casio, even though his four hooves are slightly trembling, he still puts on a calm front and tries his best to stand up straight.


    Yingou, Hoyle and the other veterans have been to the Surface World innumerable times already. Same goes for the few fellows possessing Law jobs; they are already happily doing what they should be doing.


    As for Clint, it should be his first time on the Surface as well. His expression cannot be seen under the thick armor and that bird-head helmet. However, looking at how he keeps trying to feel for the grenades on his waist to seek a sense of safety from his explosives, he doesn¡¯t seem to be in good condition.


    What, we are stillcking a person? Alright, I¡¯ll admit that I intentionally left him out, yet you all still want to talk about him. That¡¯s suicidal.


    ¡°Are you still okay? Why don¡¯t you rest in the carriage for a bit?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s okay. I¡¯m fine.¡±


    Looking at how the others are fine, even when his Big Brother Beifeng sincerely asks for his condition out of concern, how could the stubborn Centaur admit defeat in front of everyone else.


    ¡°My brother, let me lean on you a bit, I am feeling a little giddy.¡±


    The ck Dracon suddenly sits on the floor and rests on Casio¡¯s abdomen. Casio is stunned for a moment before realization strikes him. A smile appears on his cold and proud face.


    ¡°Alright, since that¡¯s the case, then I will let you lean on me for a bit.¡±


    Thus, the proud Centaur Prince lowers all four of his legs and sits down just like a war horse, allowing Beifeng to lean on one side of his abdomen.


    Gradually, sitting on the floor with someone to lean on, he feels the warmth of hispanions and the solid ground. The young Centaur Prince¡¯s wildly beating heart slows down as his ¡®phobia of vast open spaces¡¯ improves.


    The ice mountain of the cold-faced, but warm-hearted Centaur Prince finally melts as he smiles gratefully.


    ¡°Thank you, Big Brother Beifeng.¡±


    ¡°Why are you thanking me, I should be the one thanking you.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, Big Brother, you sure are a good person.¡±


    ¡°You haven¡¯t seen the best side of me yet, but there will be more opportunities in the future.¡±


    Leaning on each other, the Dracon and Centaur start chatting. Their hands even ¡®identally¡¯ make contact before being pulled back hastily. The sight of their love is hard to look at properly.


    Looking at the fearsome sight unfolding in front of me, I rub my temple and secretly make up my mind to quickly find a secluded corner to bury Beifeng alive, so as to prevent him from further corrupting my eyes.


    Also, looking at how the others are grinding their teeth or feeling nauseated, the majority of the group are definitely having the same thoughts. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the young ace Archer wasn¡¯t weak, we might have already taken action.


    Laince Fort isn¡¯t that far away from the exit. We manage to reach our destination before sunset. However, just as we approach the city gates, we meet with new trouble.


    ¡°That guy over there, remove your helmet for inspection. Also, whose Dracon ve is that? Will he bite? Has he been immunized?¡±


    At that instant, hearing that his Big Brother is treated like an animal, the reckless Casio reaches for his bow, intending to shoot the guards in his usual fashion. I rush to his side to stop him. I don¡¯t want to be a fugitive immediately after reaching the Surface.


    Actually, what the guard had said also makes sense. After seeing the Dracon, if it weren¡¯t for the presence of Holy Knights in our band, he probably would have long called for people to surround us and put us down.


    The Dracons, being an artificial creation, are unique. They are different from the Dragon Descendants who have mixed blood.


    Although they have their own tribe and culture, they are indeed an unnatural creation. During the chaotic ancient times, the 7-colored Evil Dragon Goddess Tiamat and an evil Necromancer created them to serve the Evil (sided towards Chaos) Color Dragons (Red Dragon, ck Dragon, Blue Dragons etc), and Beifeng himself is a Dracon possessing the bloodline of ck Dragons.


    On the other hand, theparatively kinder Metal Dragons (The Gold Dragon and Silver Dragon who are sided towards Order) don¡¯t have the slightest goodwill towards these Dracons. Due to the natural restraints of their bloodline, arge portion of Dracons still act as the servants of the evil giant Dragons, such as the new Dragon Empress. There are countless Dracon servants in the Dragon City which Xiao Hong is currently building.


    This is also why Beifeng could use those words to gain Casio¡¯s recognition earlier on. That is because in a lot of ces, even if they are blessed with talent and are strong individually, due to them being cursed to live the life of servants, Dracons are being discriminated against.


    Of course, in the chaotic Underground World, even ck Dragons and Red Dragons die easily from battle, thus it is easy for their servants and their following descendants to achieve freedom. The Underground World is probably the ce where most of the free Dracons are.


    Due to this, in the eyes of Humans, the ck-skinned Dracons are equal to the fangs and ws of the evil giant Dragons. However, there is a Holy Knight in the band, which leads them to deduce that this Dracon is the ve of a certain Mage or a spoil of war.


    ¡°I am the ve of this Lord Centaur.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, Little Brother. It¡¯s fine, I have seen a lot of worldly people like him, don¡¯t stoop down to his level.¡±


    Beifeng pulls the rash Casio and whispers in his ear. Also, in order not to put the other party in an awkward situation, Beifeng even took the initiative to im that he is Casio¡¯s ve. At that moment, Casio somehow felt touched.


    When the eyes of the two men meet, electricity shoots in all directions. All of their emotions are conveyed through the exchange of gazes, there is no need for excessive words. In the eyes of the onlooker, the scene bes one that cannot be looked at again.


    ¡°UEHH! Momo wants to puke, Momo is really puking!¡±


    At this moment, I am very seriously considering whether it is usible for me to dump the two, leave them to survive on their own and find another archer for our band.


    Alright, when the problem on that side is finally settled, another problem urs on the other side. Clint insists on not taking off his helmet. Of course, the guards are unwilling to give passage to us if it¡¯s like that. Their conflict attracts the presence of even more guards. When these guards look at us with wary eyes and the cannons on the city wall slowly move towards us, I knew that this cannot carry on.


    ¡°Detect Evil!¡±


    Upon using this 1-circle Divine Art, after the Holy Light has descended, all evil-doers, or should I say those possessing the Power of Chaos, will be dyed a shade of red.


    Immediately, the ck-skinned Dracon shines bright red while the others give out a dim white light.


    ¡°This mighty soldier here, look at the light shrouding his body. He is also a kind Order citizen, it¡¯s just that my brother was scarred by high temperatures and looks awful beneath the armor. He has been afraid of scaring others, that¡¯s why he doesn¡¯t dare to reveal himself.¡±


    On the surface, I was grabbing onto the hand of the sentry, exining to him. However, with a shake of my wrist, a small coin pouch slides into the sleeves of the other party.


    ¡°Help us? On Beyana¡¯s (Goddess of Wealth) ount.¡±


    It isn¡¯t the first time this young sentry with a pockmarked face was bribed. Looking left and right, after confirming that no one was paying attention, he shakes his sleeves and the sound of jingling metal could he heard within. Furthermore, the pouch wasn¡¯t light as well. Thus, he nods his head in satisfaction.


    ¡°Go in. Don¡¯t stir up trouble.¡±


    After our carriages enter the city, Harloys¡¯s voice sounds by my ear.


    ¡°That pouch didn¡¯t seem light, how much did you spend? This isn¡¯t how you do things.¡±


    ¡°Guess.¡±


    ¡°I guess that it is full of bronze coins. Or at most, thirty bronze coins. But to the guard, it probably isn¡¯t a small sum.¡±


    ¡°Five gold coins.¡±


    ¡°How is that possible! A stingy fellow like you would actually be willing to make a loss!!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, I earned quite a bit from this expedition, so what does that little money count?¡±


    ¡°No, this isn¡¯t a problem of money. It is about that your personality which causes you to definitely never make a loss! Five gold coins? Are they gold coins made from Flower Elves that will disappear after a night?¡±


    ¡°That toy is a hundred times more valuable than normal gold coins. In order not to allow the other party win, wouldn¡¯t I be making a huge loss instead?¡±


    ¡°No, based on my understanding of you, as long as you¡¯re happy, in order to bring unhappiness to others, you are willing to pay as much as it is required. Hey, stop keeping me in suspense, your teacher, me, is quite curious.¡±


    ¡°Then continue being curious.¡±


    While being surprised by how deeply this stupid cat understands me, I do not intend to reveal the answer to this riddle.


    Based on my understanding of her, the one known as The Omniscient One, this Magic Cat¡¯s pursuit of knowledge is boundless. The moment curiosity starts to strike her, she would definitely pursue the case all the way to the end. Otherwise, she would be unable to sleep at night. If so, I could make use of this opportunity to fulfill my goals.


    ¡°Hey hey, don¡¯t be like this, otherwise I will spend the whole night thinking about it. How about I promise to teach you Ice Magic, an Ice Magic that even a magic idiot like you can use. You should be able to say it now, right.¡±


    Un, as expected. She immediately gives in. My goal has been fulfilled.


    Right now, I am still too weak. It is good even if I grow stronger just by a bit. Personally, I am a Master Necromancer, and in my current state, I can use Necromancy and Ice Magic. However, if I were to bebeled a Necromancer and be reduced to a fugitive, then my identity would have to be abandoned.


    Thus, although it belongs to the Chaos Faction, the Elemental Magic that Human Mages would train in became the only option.


    My knowledge of Ice Magic is still stuck at the stage of gathering my magic power and sting it. With a Master Mage adept in all categories by my side, naturally, I would consult her.


    ¡°Ptui, you want me to teach you, an unfilial disciple, to be killed once again? Dream on!¡±


    Alright, if I were to use the Pet Contract to force her, she would definitely teach me. However, if she were to purposely leave out a part, that would be more than sufficient for me to get destroyed during crucial periods.


    However, I am not impatient at all. She might understand me, but I also understand her. Actually, as long as you choose the correct means, this Queen of Banshees is actually quite easy to deal with. I only have to patiently wait for an opportunity to hook the curious heart of the other party.


    As expected, even before a week has passed after her arrogant words, she was hooked.


    Looking at the little cat who scratches my neck with all of her strength but was unable to even break the defense of Titan Body, Iughed.


    ¡°Alright, I will unveil the riddle. It is indeed five gold coins. Previously, wasn¡¯t the two iron longswords worth ten gold coins, broken during my duel with Momo? Thus, I ced the broken fragments in the bag. I guess that is an effective use of useless objects. However, it was indeed worth five gold coins and now, it is still worth five gold coins.


    The workmanship of the longsword is inferior, so the crafting fee can be neglected altogether. The price of the material and the cost of the sword is equal, however, I am not so bored as to reforge another iron sword.


    ¡°Impossible, when did you prepare it!¡±


    ¡°I have long prepared it while on the road. No matter how many years it has been, as long as my performance is up to standard, this trick has really never failed before.¡±


    Yes, I have long known that problems will ur during our entry into the city. That bag of broken shards was long prepared while I was still on the road. Even the lines used for the bribery and the action of handing over the money was rehearsed.


    ¡°You bastard! You actually dare to trick me! Lad, just you wait.¡±


    A sudden yell that echoes from the back makes me shake my head.


    ¡°Sigh, even this line has yet to change. You reallyck creativity.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid of him bringing his friends to stir trouble against you?¡±


    ¡°It is bad enough that a footman like him tries to eat a bribe, it would be really bizarre if he can get his colleagues to settle his private grudge.¡±


    ¡°If he nders you by saying that you are a spy, wouldn¡¯t he be able to get helpers? That¡¯s what those Knight Novels often write, it is a ssical development.¡±


    I looked sympathetically at Harloys. Those conventional Knight Novel indeed will damage one¡¯s brain after reading too much of it. With her intelligence, she still calls herself The Omniscient One.


    ¡°Then, he would have to exin why he let the spies into the city. Besides, if it is proven that we aren¡¯t spies after an examination, then it would mean that he is reporting false military intelligence to settle his private grudges. If so, that footman would lose his head.¡±


    ¡°As expected of my disciple, indeed a sly old fox.¡±


    ¡°Thanks for your praise, but please call it experience.¡±


    The teacher and apprentice look at each other, feeling a sense of connection with one another. Behind, Momo who was looking at this sight suddenly pulls Diana¡¯s sleeves.


    ¡°You look at that Rnde, the way he looks at that cat is really weird. It is really as though he treats it like a human. Could it be that he is a brethren of Beifeng, that¡¯s why he didn¡¯t touch Big Sister the other night?¡±


    Ever since Diana showed that she is still a virgin due to Momo annoying her, Momo has been making malicious inferences about Rnd.


    ¡°Shut up! Don¡¯t talk about that night!¡± After remembering the bizarre gazes that everyone looked at her with after that day, Diana sighs helplessly.


    ¡°Recently, my luck seems to be quite poor, it is as though I have offended a God of Misfortune.¡±


    Not long after, herints reached my ear. Instantly, I grinned happily.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t offend the God of Misfortune. The one you offended is the Aura of gue. Haha, looks like I found another one with even lower Luck than me. Nice to meet you, Lightning Rod Number 3, let¡¯s get along well.¡±

 Chapter 76

    Chapter 76: The Knight Princess


    Using the light from the oilmp, I read a book on the bed as I wait for the first ray of sunlight to slowly creep into the room. The sunlight gradually warms my body and soul. Such an ordinary thing that people experience in their daily lives, and currently one of my greatest pleasures to enjoy.


    I didn¡¯t manage to get much in from the reading, as my mind was wandering all over the ce. The mind is always the clearest during daybreak and all kinds of evil schemese popping up, one after another. Perhaps, this is an instinctual reaction of life towards light.


    We arrived at Laince Stronghold almost half a month ago, and Yingou¡¯s merchant party had long left. They are to head for And Empire to attend the new Emperor Darsos¡¯s inauguration ceremony. The Rnd Robot will serve as a congrattory gift to him. The And royalty and nobles are known to be extravagant and fervently pursue rare artifacts. This kind of interesting novelty, a giant robot, is definitely one of a kind on the Surface. Through Yingou¡¯s calctions, this long journey to present the gift is definitely an investment that will bring lots of benefits.


    Arge part of the party has left, but I had no intentions of leaving. Every day, I focus only on training my swordsmanship, reading books, roam the streets, chat with strangers and enjoy my tea, as carefree as retired personnel.


    ¡°Could it be that this fellow really came to the Human world for a vacation?¡±


    Others look at my actions with iprehension, but in actuality, I have already done a lot of things.


    For example, gathering information and updating my knowledge on the situation, learning changes in the different countries on the main continent and adapting my future ns to these changes.


    I must say that due to the underground tunnel being too long and dangerous, not to mention that the Underground World is iparably chaotic, by the time news of the Surface reaches the underground, it would long be history. Unless it is the scouts bringing back important information, normal information would have a minimum gap of half a year, and mistakes in the information cannot be avoided as well.


    Furthermore, most of the dwellers of the Underground World don¡¯t even have enough time to handle their own life, so there is no way they would have the spare time to worry about the Surface, which is thousands of miles away. Even the gossips take a long time to spread around. Thus, the reports that Liu Huang Mountain City obtains on each country are mostly derived from the idle chatter of the merchants moving to and fro between the two worlds. Most of the news they have are above thirty years old.


    Inurate information will only lead to inurate judgement. If we don¡¯t even understand the personality and background of the leaders of each country, then how can we make the proper preparations ordingly. There is a need to work on this aspect.


    Un, while I put it in an elegant and intelligent manner, but it really only involves looking at newspapers and browsing through books.


    Due to the existence of the God of Knowledge, the Eich Continent¡¯s printing industry is rather advanced. Simr to Liu Huang Mountain City¡¯s daily newspaper, the Ming United Kingdom also has its own news industry. Although the newspapers that the capital, Casi City, sends to this stronghold are often three months old without much variety to them, it is much more useful than the useless intelligence which are decades old.


    Even so, the old newspapers and magazines that I finished in half a month are sufficient to fill up three to four rooms.


    ¡°¡¾The Evil Underground World is starting to make a move? The legendary Underground Alliance finally appears! Our wise King Arthur the Second is gathering troops to prepare for a long war!¡¿, heh, even Molly¡¯s name is spelled wrongly. A long time has already passed since the Underground Alliance was changed entirely. The intelligence is equally old and outdated.¡±


    However, to be able to predict the Underground World¡¯s intention to attack the Surface ten years in advance and start preparation for a long war, it seems that Arthur the Second, who is reputed as a Sage King by the future generations, is still rather capable.


    Gathering intelligence is just a small part of my daily schedule. There are still a lot of seemingly unimportant matters but in actuality, are absolutely essential to deal with.


    For example, my background and my way of speaking. In order to fully integrate into the Human society, I must first settle these two problems.


    The way ancient people speak and modern people speak arepletely different. Even themonly used words are extremely different in terms of tone and pronunciation depending on the area. This might seem like a small matter, but it is often a crucial gap which is exploited to find out one¡¯s true identity.


    To me, learning how to imitate an ent isn¡¯t a problem. What I find difficult is deleting those archaic words that have long disappeared from history. If a 300-year-old archaic phrase and intonation were to suddenlye out of my mouth, it would be a huge problem. To deal with this problem, I need to practice through chatting with people and reading the newspaper.


    I can only test one word after another. It is a huge waste of time and effort, but it is already bearing fruit.


    As for my background, I have already prepared it long ago. Under my arrangements, a fallen noble family from the Mist Country has been living in this city for more than two decades. Their ancestors once helped the previous king to ascend to the throne, thus receiving the title of a Knight, bringing the family to prosperity. In the current generation, they might have lost their aristocratic title and are barely maintaining their lifestyle through a few plots of farnd, but they can still be considered as members of nobility.


    The family has a son afflicted with leprosy who is named Rolo. He was sent to the monastery to live a life away from the world. He would asionally return, but with bandages and ck cloth wrapped all over his body for fear of afflicting others with his illness, leaving his appearance an enigma.


    Just four years ago, perhaps his sincere prayers were heard by the Heavens, and so the God of Light performed a miracle and healed the pitiful young man. He was granted the identity of a Holy Knight and the young man, inconceivably, risked his life to head to the Underground World alone.


    In the eyes of most of the nobles in the city, it is just another story that the Holy Church came up with to spread its influence. The man isn¡¯ting back, so no one would be able to verify the story anyway. However, what surprised everyone was that there was a continuation to the story.


    The poption felt regretful for this young man who was miraculously healed, yet in a moment of recklessness, charged headlong to his death. However, he actually managed to return half a monthter. Furthermore, he brought quite a lump of fortune back with him. The nickname of that man is Rolo, whereas his real name is Rnde.


    Currently, under the intentional efforts of a certain someone, that legendary story has started to spread around the city.


    Alright, at this point, everyone should have guessed that the certain someone is me.


    Yes, this neen year old Rolo doesn¡¯t actually exist, and that family is a group of people that I sent out twenty years ago. All real characters who are involved with this identity have long settled down in Liu Huang Mountain City.


    In order to make these two identities more believable, I personally yed the role of Rolo the few times he came into contact with his neighbors. Furthermore, I even intentionally left behind some personal quirks, such as a weird intonation while speaking and a bizarre sitting posture.


    Preparing twenty years ahead just for a nobility status and a clean background seems excessive? No, in my perspective, I feel that I have not yet done enough.


    It is frustrating, but in this world, the humans who govern the world are probably the most xenophobic of all the races. If one wants to do well in the human society or even rise to the social status of a high noble who has a say in governance, it is necessary for that noble status to have been passed down for at least three generations. Furthermore, if you are seen as a spy by another race, all your efforts will have gone down the drain.


    Of course, there are many nk holes in the story I came up with. If someone were to investigate my background, there would be many suspicious points to it. However, it would be more trustworthy to have an identity that is suspicious than an entirely nk te. An unknown background could be a weakness which others could attack. If there are only suspicions, others would have to retrieve evidence to prove that my identity is a fake. That would be difficult.


    Recently, I have been strolling the streets almost every day and greeting the uncle and auntie next door, as well as the store vendors. I do this all while showcasing those weird quirks of mine. This is to let the two identities ovep and raise the credibility of my fake identity.


    However, due to certain reasons and my pathetic Luck, I seem to have overdone it...


    ¡°Puu, Rnde, I hear that you¡¯re into old grannies?¡±


    Nonsense! Is there such a nonsensical interest? It¡¯s just that the darned daily mission required me to help old grannies across the road, for ten times. However, there isn¡¯t the so-called pedestrian walkway and the number of horse carriages are even fewer. In the end, after waiting for an entire afternoon, I only managed to find three old grannies to fulfill the requirement. I even had to beg them to let me help them across the road... I was caught looking around for old grannies with a light in my eyes and to fawn over them, resulting in such an absurd nickname.


    ¡°No no, the one I heard is the Wild Dog Terminator.¡±


    Rubbish, dogs are the human¡¯s best friends. I really liked the mission to bathe the wild dogs, it¡¯s just that the dogs hated it... After experiencing the sharp teeth and honed ws a few times, it was fortunate that I was able to cast Holy Light, otherwise, I would be unable to face anyone the next day.


    ¡°Ahh, I heard that you followed a beautifuldy all around with bad intentions, and in the end, you got arrested on the spot?¡±


    Bullshit, my objective was only to strike evil and clear away those gangsters! But it is a pity that I failed to catch a single gangster that day. As expected, is it because my Holy Knight¡¯s concealment skill isn¡¯t up to par? As for getting arrested, I am a Holy Knight, so how is it possible for me to get arrested? It took me some time to persuade the police.


    Other than allowing me to deeply understand that the System is still as darned as always, the oue of these missions also made meprehend that doing good deeds are harderpared to performing evil acts. It made that ¡®legendary Rnde¡¯ and ¡®the fortunated Rnde¡¯, turn into ¡®overly-enthusiastic and kind Rnde¡¯ and then into ¡®the Rnde next door with a screw loose¡¯ and finally ¡®It is a pity, thed is young but his brain has been burnt by the Holy Light¡¯.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay. This way, the others would have a more striking impression of me. Being a little more foolish suits the background of me rushing hot-headed into the Underground World to die. It is a good thing! A good thing!¡± This is me deceiving myself in tears and blood.


    But sometimes, when misfortunees one after another and one¡¯s reputation keeps crumbling, there is a limit to deceiving oneself...


    ¡°A good thing, your head. Previously, the cute little sister from the flower shop opposite here used to look at me with adoration, but now it¡¯s turned into sympathy, as though looking at ackwit! There are even people behind me shouting, ¡®Don¡¯t give up on hope, don¡¯t give up on treatment¡¯. It took just one week for my entire image to be destroyed. If this goes on, the identity of Lich Rnd with a screw loose will turn into Holy Knight Rnde whose brain got burnt by Holy Light.¡±


    But in order to get stronger as soon as possible, the darned daily missions that are growing increasingly worse must be done. I am starting to miss that evil System that pranks others. These days, doing good deeds is really much tougher than scheming evil acts.


    ¡°Helping an old granny across the road causes me to be suspected of wanting to rob the elderly. Helping others carry their luggage causes me to be suspected of theft. Voluntarily sweeping the streets and yet I am treated like a lunatic. Helping to bathe the dog and shave its hair, yet others think I intended to make a dog hotpot. Can humans have a little bit more trust in each other? System, you have won. Can you take pity on my fallen reputation and image and let me off the hook!¡±


    Right now, even Diana, that silly older sister, looks at me weirdly. Seeing how I am when I was scammed by the System, she wasn¡¯t as surprised as before and instead, she nods her head as though it were natural, seemingly saying that ¡®Un, Rnd should be like that. As expected, the dignified Judge Wumianzhe is a fake persona.¡¯


    Today, while flipping halfway through the news, I was attracted by an article from three months ago.


    ¡°The powerful And Empire¡¯s new Emperor is about to ascend to the throne. 42 subordinate states including Bub Communal Country, East Mist Communal Country and Carsilo Kingdom will be sending members of their royalty to give their blessings. Experts have predicted that during the ceremony, they will offer their gs to proim their loyalty and trust...¡±


    ¡°Kacha.¡± A crisp sound and the newspaper is torn into two.


    ¡°Subordinate state!?¡±


    My blood pressure suddenly rises up. I can no longer see the remaining words. An inexplicable rage and feeling of wrongness fuels the mes in my heart and yet, I cannot find an outlet to vent it.


    I knew that the East Mist Communal Country hasn¡¯t been that powerful and independent a country for thest thousand years. I also understood that it ismon practice for smaller states to proim their loyalty torger states. But the moment I think about the Mist War g, which represents the spirit of unyielding and protection, is about to be ced below the royal g of a certain Empire, the feeling of oppression makes me so angry that I could kill someone.


    ¡°Those darned unfilial descendants, useless!! To actually reach such a state that they have to swear loyalty to other countries. You have soiled the thousand years of pride and honor of the Mist Bloodline.¡±


    Alright, even though I know that my resentment isn¡¯t rational, but the inexplicable me still causes me to rage within the room.


    It takes a long moment before I calm down. I sigh helplessly.


    ¡°Sigh, I can¡¯t really me them for it.¡±


    I know that there are some things that can¡¯t be med on the future generations. It is already quite a great feat for them to rebuild our homnd. If I must me, I can only me our generation which brought our country to its knees.


    Thus, after calming down, I gaze once again at the newspaper I had torn up and start stitching it back together.


    Although it is very infuriating, this intelligence is still very crucial, so there is a need for me to study it carefully.


    ¡°The new Emperor Darsos, isn¡¯t that the King of Winter Wolves in history? Although he is that unfortunate fellow who turned gay for Victoria, his military achievements are still quite striking in history, so he isn¡¯t someone to be underestimated.¡±


    Then, when I think about Victoria and the tragic ending of Darsos, somehow my spirits are lifted. A twisted idea full of bad intentions pops up once again.


    ¡°For an Emperor of such a great Empire, it might be because he¡¯s had enough of luxurious flesh, and that¡¯s why he ended up so infatuated with a rare, androgynous beauty like Victoria. And while Victoria isn¡¯t here anymore, Krose still is, and she¡¯s an extreme beauty that sides more towards the androgynous side. If so, why don¡¯t I try to twist his sexual orientation, make him leave behind another famous line in history.¡±


    Alright, even though I just said it teasingly to vent my frustration at the Mist royalty for being forced to bow their heads, Krose, who was spreading her faith in the za, suddenly feels a cold chill down her spine and shivers, as though misfortune is about to strike her.


    After which, I flipped to thest page of the newspaper, where there are drawings and a short summary on the representatives that the different subordinate states are sending to attend the inauguration ceremony.


    ¡°East Mist Communal Country, here it is. A princess? Reyne.Qin.Mist?¡±


    ¡°Kacha!¡± The newspaper that took me much effort to stitch back together ispletely destroyed. This time, it wasn¡¯t because of rage but rather, I waspletely surprised at this sight in front of me.


    On the corner of the newspaper, there is a vivid drawing of a valiant female Knight dressed in silver armor, waving to the crowds with a warm smile on her face.


    ¡°Knight Princess Reyne, the final descendant of the Mist, is well-trusted by her people.¡±


    A person who is falsely making use of the Mist name as one of its descendants? All of these assumptions can be dumped down the gutter. Looking at the face of the valiant female Knight, I have to admit it even if I don¡¯t want to.


    ¡°Rnde!! Look at this! This Lord Princess really looks like you and Rolo, could you all be from the same family? Don¡¯t even try to deny it, this time there is even evidence here. Quick, let Momo meet the cute little Rolo.¡±


    Momo rushes in and waving in her hand is the exact same newspaper which I was holding.


    That Knight Princess named Reyne actually had a face that is 90% simr to mine! If it weren¡¯t for that bit of femininity between her eyebrows, instead of masculinity, as well as her sharper face and her slightly thinner eyebrows, we would be identical.


    Staring fixedly at the drawing of the youngdy, I secretly make up my mind.


    ¡°Looks like we must first head to the capital of And, Kagersi City.¡±


    The full name of the Ming United Kingdoms is Ming Ting United Kingdom which literally trantes to The Ming Court United Kingdom (Think of those historical Chinese dramas where the king sits on the throne, while the other officials report daily matters to him)


    Somehow, it sounds awkward so I shortened it to Ming United Kingdom (which also sounds weird)


    Androgynous beauty -> Think of a beauty with traits of both male and female. For example, Japanese has a category of man called bishounen. Although Krose is a female now, she has features of guys as well.

 Chapter 77

    Chapter 77: Ice


    ¡°Reyne.Qin.Mist, 14 years old. When her father, Kashgar.Mist died in battle, she became the sole sessor of the Mist Bloodline and is deeply trusted by her people and her army.¡±


    The history of this Knight Princess is quite simr to what we previously underwent. A year ago, there were conflicts on the border and the Beastman army suddenly invaded. The previous King fell in battle and this Knight Princess was sent straight to the battlefield at thest moment. Her army charged for a thousand miles, sweeping the Beastman army back to their ownnd.


    However, in that battle, there were no records of her personally appearing on the battlefield, so her fighting prowess and job are still unknown. However, regardless of whether it¡¯s internally in the country or beyond, there are rumors spreading thatpare her with the Legendary Twins, Rnd and Karwenz.


    Three hundred years ago, the Holy Knight Rnd from the legends grew swiftly in war, reaching Bronze by the age of 12, Silver by 13 and Gold by 14. Before his demise, it is said that the God of Holy Light seemed to have brought about a miracle which allowed him to step into the realm of Legends, giving him the power to ughter countless enemies. However, it is a pity that he was too young and eventually died in the war.


    Even if he was a human with the greatest potential, this kind of growth rate was still unfathomable. If he were to carry on growing at such a speed, wouldn¡¯t it mean that he would have be a SemiGod by the time he reached 20? Even more so, due to the speed of his progress being too outrageous, there were even secret rumors that his resentment pierced through the heavens, such that the God of Holy Light couldn¡¯t even stand looking at it. Thus, he granted him the power to ovee his limits.


    Furthermore, with this rumor as the basis, there was even a bishop who proposed to canonize Rnd, giving him the posthumous title of Saint Rnd, However, the action of exposing their own dark history was equivalent to pping the face of the entire Holy Church and would never be passed.


    Alright, it sounds so legendary but the truth is that in a bid to level up, a certain Transcender grinded his level up by killing mobs with a frenzy, hoping that he could reverse the situation in the end. However, he was unable to avoid the tragedies that fate had in store for him.


    Also, if Rnd is a growth-type prodigy, then Karwenz would be the incredible-type prodigy. Being both a Mage and a Warrior, he reached Gold-rank for both fields early on in his life. By the age of 12, he was already a double Legend, which resulted in the Bloodshed of Baine. If Rnd is the Holy Church¡¯s one-in-three-hundred-years prodigy, then Karwenz would be the entire Eich Continent¡¯s one-in-a-thousand-years prodigy.


    TL: Bloodshed of Baine, refer to Chapter 61


    I¡¯m the only one that knows Karwenz had long touched the boundaries of the Saint-rank. From the start, it wasn¡¯t that he simultaneously studied both magic and martial arts and then broke through them both. Rather, after reaching the Legend-rank in magic, he became bored so he went to learn martial arts and eventually reached the Legend-rank for it as well.


    This kind of growth rate is inhumane, but if the person in question isn¡¯t human from the start, it could be understandable.


    Through my investigations in myter lives, I managed to find out the truth. Karwenz is a Demonic Offspring. Or rather, although he is a human, he is the person chosen by the Chaos Abyss, so it isn¡¯t possible for him to be normal. It can be said that the Demon Invasion back then was quite suspicious. Their primary objective must have been to get the Chaos Abyss¡¯ favored one to return.


    Also, in another one of my adventures, I identally discovered that there were many dark secrets behind that incident.


    A certain retarded Seer predicted that in the country of the far north, of a twin born, one will be the Prince of the Chaos Abyss. In order to prevent that kind of fate from happening, a bunch of idiots who thought of themselves as the protectors of the world first pressured the upper echelons of the Holy Church and then forced the Mist royalty to hand over their elder son to the Holy Church to serve as a hostage. They intended to resist fate by converting one of them into a Holy Knight and getting rid of the other. On many asions, they sent assassins to get rid of the younger son. However, this turned into an opportunity for the younger son¡¯s powers to grow and mature.


    I¡¯ll admit it, the prophecy wasn¡¯t wrong. With the System by my side, if I were to go all out and kill people to level up, I would definitely be even more demonic than Karwenz. Furthermore, in the ¡®history¡¯, it is indeed Rnd who turns into the Prince of Chaos Abyss. If so, it isn¡¯t wrong to say that either one of the two Princes could turn out to be the Demonic Offspring.


    However, sometimes I would ponder, that if the ridiculous prophecy didn¡¯t exist, we wouldn¡¯t be forced into such a state. Was the prophecy absolute in predicting those future events or was it that the prophecy, through the butterfly effect, resulted in it turning into reality? Probably no one can say for sure. If we were to really study it, it would be a paradox of whether the chicken came first or the egg came first. It is unsolvable and thinking about it is pointless on its own.


    On the other hand, flies won¡¯t be attracted to eggs that aren¡¯t cracked. Even without schemers fanning the mes from the back, given the situation back then, under the temptation of profits, war will still be triggered in the end. Being alone, we would not have been able to withstand the invasion of the allied forces, so the ending would still probably be the same.


    Alright, back to the main topic at hand, the Princes of the fallen country, one of whom was a tragic hero who died for his country, while the other was an anti-hero who sacrificed everything just to seek vengeance for his lost country, even if this twisted history isn¡¯t epted by most of the masses, but even now, the Twin Princes remain the pride of the Mist Country. For this princess to bepared to the Legendary Twin Stars from three hundred years ago, it is enough to show how loved she is by her people.


    However, there was something else I noticed. The way Princess Reyne dressed up in the painting, and even her hairstyle was one imitating that of the Rnd back then. In fact, the silver female te mail that she wore is a feminine version of my Thorn Battle Armor from before. Also, that seemingly happy smile is a derivation of the Holy Knight¡¯s standard smile.


    ¡°If it isn¡¯t that she worships those heroic characters from three hundred years ago, then the greatest possibility is that she is intentionally trying to imitate the heroic characters from legend. It might be due to overwhelming circumstances that are out of her control, that has led the princess to resort to this kind of tactics to gather the support of the people. This isn¡¯t a good omen.¡±


    Perhaps all this while, I have been subconsciously trying to avoid the new owners of thatnd, and that is why I have been either trying to treat them as fakes or with apathy. Even when I started to gather and organize intelligence from each country, I didn¡¯t start from the East Mist Communal Country.


    Now that the facts are thrown at my face, if I were to avoid them any further, I would really be a tortoise hiding in its shell. This isn¡¯t my style of doing things.


    Stepping into the bathroom alone, I soak myself in the bathtub. Taking off my Time Distortion Ring, I carefully set the number from 20 to 12 before putting it back on and then...


    ¡°As expected, still exactly the same.¡±


    When my age regresses to the point before puberty, the unique traits that each gender possesses isn¡¯t that apparent on me. The reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall, which looks almost exactly the same as the face on the drawing, crushes the final sliver of hope that it might just be a coincidence.


    ¡°Ahhhhhhh, could it be that I really drank too much back then and got into trouble? But that shouldn¡¯t be possible. Back then, the Holy Knight Order was full of different kinds of prohibition. Before I reached the age of 12, I led a life like a monk in Baine and after turning 12, I spent my days fighting in wars. So, how could I possibly have the time to make such a mistake?¡±


    What can be more iprehensible than a great-great-great-granddaughter suddenly appearing? However, the only thing that was reassuring was that although they have advertised themselves as descendants of Rnd, whether they really are Rnd¡¯s or Karwenz¡¯s is still a mystery.


    After all, when Karwenz led the Demon army to cleanse away those who destroyed our homnd, he made many enemies and much resentment was directed towards him. Under that kind of situation, even if she really is Karwenz¡¯s descendant, she¡¯d probably try to avoid admitting it. So, it is natural that she would raise the g of Rnd.


    ¡°That darned little brother. I still have to carry the me for you, even at a time like this.¡±


    Remembering back then, as twins, we were totally identical. Even though I was obviously much better at talking, Karwenz was always much more popr than me. Not to mention, he wasn¡¯t limited by the many troublesome prohibitions of the Holy Knights. At a young age, he was good at acting innocent to bypass those big sisters¡¯ defenses. Not just the maids in court, there were even quite a few daughters of nobles that had fallen into his hands. He often bragged about this to his big brother.


    Even though I felt the urge to grind my teeth in anger, I still had to maintain my image as a member of royalty and as a Holy Knight. I had to be gentlemanly and be careful of my reputation and people¡¯s perception of me. In the end, at the point of my death, I was still a virgin. But now, there are a bunch of people iming to be my descendants, making me feel really wronged.


    Alright, I admit that this is the envy and hatred of a 300-year old Great Archmage (Well-known among themoners, a 30-year old male virgin will naturally turn into a Wizard. If so, three hundred years should be long enough to create a Wizard of Forbidden Spells or Archmage right?), but when I think about the fact that I might have a great-great-great-granddaughter whose physical age is older than me (the exact rtionship isn¡¯t clear at this point), I somehow feel my head start to hurt.


    ¡°Un? The door isn¡¯t locked? Oh, I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    Suddenly, the door opens. That mad dog abruptly walks straight into my bathroom. After looking at the me who was soaking in the tub, she immediately turns around to walk out.


    Oh, no, she didn¡¯t walk out. She went to lock the door! What does she want to do!!


    ¡°Hehe, I knew that something was wrong. That is magic that changes one physique right? So, which one is your true age and name? Rolo? Rnde? I¡¯m guessing that it is Rolo, otherwise, you would have already taken advantage of our Big Sister. You also wouldn¡¯t be so mad when I talked about being sexually impotent and being underdeveloped. I¡¯m sorry, seems like I identally hit your sore spot. Next time, Momo will be more sensitive.¡±


    Although what you said sounds nice, but what exactly do you intend to do? Why are you closing in on me! Why are you stepping into the bathtub! What is with that saliva drooling down your mouth!!


    ¡°Let Momo hug you a bit, just a bit. Momo won¡¯t do anything, I promise!¡±


    Wipe away your saliva first before saying those words! Also, that depravedughter, should I say, as expected of Dark Elves? What exactly does that bizarre action of you twirling your fingers mean! What do you intend to do!


    ¡°Be good, little darling. It will hurt just a bit.¡± The mad dog has already turned into the incarnation of lust. I, who was dumbfounded, had already been forced into a corner.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it! Dark-skinned Elves! Don¡¯t you touch my man.¡±


    ¡°Momo, what are you doing!¡±


    Just a second before Diana shatters the doorknob and enters, a burst of light suddenly shoots out from the ring on my right hand and strikes squarely on Momo. Under the rage of the Demon Marquess, she is immediately sent flying.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Rnd. The emergency rescue sequence has been activated. The energy in the ring has been exhausted. I¡¯m afraid that we won¡¯t be able tomunicate with each other for three days. I really didn¡¯t set the presence of water as the activation sequence. As for bathroom PLAY and bathroom peeping, I am not interested in it at all.¡±


    Alright, Elisa. Even if you act cute at a time like this, I won¡¯t find you cute.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, my Lord. I will talk to her.¡±


    Fine, you have already rushed in. Also, can you stop looking at me so calmly? Even if I am an undeveloped boy, I still have human rights!


    The Gray Elf who came rushing in heaves up her colleague while lowering her head in apology. However, her action of covering the mocking smile hanging on her mouth after sneaking a nce at me really makes one feel infuriated.


    Alright, after the two Gray Elves leave, the bathroom bes peaceful once more. However, I solemnly get out from the bath. The first thing I do is remove Elisa¡¯s ring and ce it below my clothes. Next, I readjust the Time Distortion Ring and wear it once more. Lastly, I retrieve the spare sword among my items and ce it by the bathtub before continuing on with my bath.


    Five minutester...


    ¡°Un, the door is spoilt? Is someone inside? Oh, a man¡¯s clothes. Then, since the tub is big enough, let¡¯s all just bathe together. We can wash together and even scrub each other¡¯s backs.¡±


    ¡°Big Brother, your soap dropped. Let me pick it up for you.¡±


    This time, the ones who appear are the duo brothers that I¡¯ve been finding harder and harder to look at, Beifeng and Casio.


    ¡°I¡¯ve had enough of perverts! Eat my Sin-Splitting Strike!¡±


    However, due to the vast difference in power, Beifeng was able to sessfully catch my sword bare handed.


    Even so, I thought that preparing the sword is a correct decision. The mistake was with this band¡¯s name. With a name like ¡®Absolute Gentleman Alliance¡¯, can I really still expect there to be any normal people in its midst?


    ¡°You think that you¡¯re a normal person just because you said that? Gentlemen and perverts, they all attract one another.¡±


    Suddenly, from the tub, a wet little cat jumps out. After shaking off the water on her body, she struts past me and walks out of the bathroom.


    ¡°Harloys! You were there too!¡±


    ¡°Slimes have to re-hydrate themselves frequently. I got in even earlier than you. Seriously, even though you are so old, to still be so calctive with a little cat. Right, your body in your younger form is not bad, quite cute. Do you want to consider joining my harem? Although I don¡¯t ept males, for such a cutie, I guess I can make do with a male.¡±


    ¡°Harloys! Eat my Holy Light Strike!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    The pitch ck night doesn¡¯t mean the end of a day. In the end, the ¡®ident¡¯ during the day turns into a farce that entangles everyone within it. Feeling tired and sore all around, I wanted to take a bath to rejuvenate myself. However, remembering that the bath is the start of everything today, in the end, I could only lie helplessly on my bed.


    Unexpectedly, the cat-transmogrified Harloys also jumps into the room through the windows.


    ¡°Hey, it is time for lessons. You probably don¡¯t want news about a Holy Knight learning Elemental Magic to spread. It would be best for you to cut down on the freak titles.¡±


    She might be dangerous and unreliable, but valuing promises and the inheritance of knowledge has always been one of the few good points of Harloys.


    Remembering the Ice Magic lessons that she promised me, my excitement suddenly surges. During my second life, I had already learned Ice Magic from Harloys. However, Harloys wasn¡¯t that easy to talk to back then, so it¡¯s hard to tell how much of the knowledge she imparted me was real. On the other hand, she still kept criticizing me, calling me dumb, and that¡¯s why I wasn¡¯t able to truly learn it well.


    But half an hourter...


    ¡°I said that you are a pig and you really are acting like one. There is really no way to teach such a dumb disciple. What I want is for you to feel the breathing of the Elements, not for you to control them. Communication, you get it? Communication. Not ordering them, threatening them. With you screwing around like that, let¡¯s not mention SemiGod, how the hell did you even be a Legend Mage?¡±


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s through cheating via the System.¡±


    Alright, it is enough to just think about this in my mind, there isn¡¯t a need for me to say the words out loud. However, it seems that even if Harloys were to properly teach me back then, the result would still be the same.


    ¡°I really have no idea how you taught Elisa. She has already found her own path for her Ice Magic and her potential is limitless. As for you, your understanding of magic is still stuck at the level of an apprentice.¡±


    ¡°I only threw the book about Incantation and my study notes to her, telling her to consult Magaret if there¡¯s anything she¡¯s unsure of. That¡¯s all.¡±


    The cat sighed helplessly. Then, in a sudden distortion of space, she warped into the form of a human. Due to me leveling up, her transmogrification abilities are getting stronger as well. The golden-haired young girl appears once again, but...


    ¡°Puuu, how cute.¡±


    Looking at the 10cm-tall, tiny doll-like figure acting like a teacher, I immediately burst intoughter. The intent for vengeance is clear within theughter.


    Harloys sighs helplessly.


    ¡°Are you learning or not? If you¡¯re not interested, I¡¯m going to go sleep. If you were a little bit more capable, would I transform into a figure so small?¡±


    The Magic Pet¡¯s abilities are directly corrted with its owners. As I am still extremely weak now, she is still far from being able to transmogrify into a human.


    ¡°Elemental Magic originates from the Ancient Elemental Gods. The Elemental Gods and Elements have their own temper. Each type of Elemental Magic has their own nature. As your understanding of Ice Magic is still stuck on the surface level, it is natural that you are unable to progress any further than that. What do you think the nature of Ice is? Why did you choose to study Ice Magic back then?¡±


    The nature of Ice? Isn¡¯t it caused by low temperatures? Why is that hard to understand?


    Why did I choose Ice from the start? It¡¯s all because I was born in a country of snow, making the cruelty of the frigid winter etched deep into my mind, thus making me feel that the potential of Ice Magic is limitless.


    ¡°Actually, every top-tier Elemental Mage has their own understanding of Elements. The reason why I didn¡¯t teach you before this is not because I am keeping the knowledge to myself. Rather, I hoped that you could discover it yourself. But, seeing how even after a few centuries, you are still stuck at this level, I know that given your talent in Magic, it would be a few millenniums before you reallyprehend. I will just talk about my own understanding of it then.¡±


    Her small hands wave slightly and an extremely small-scale Fire Eagle soars around the room. Harloys points and a white cloud floats over to it. I thought that the Fire Eagle would explode due to the collision of Fire and Ice but what surprises me is that the Fire Eagle only turns white and slows down.


    This totally collides with themon knowledge of what happens when Fire and Icee together. Suddenly, I seem toprehend a little on why Elisa is able to simultaneously control both Ice and Fire.


    ¡°Based on my own understanding, Ice isn¡¯t something that exists in reality. She is a kind of state and tendency that is able to slow down all matters or even stop them entirely.¡±


    Hearing these words, I suddenly feel a surge of respect for Harloys. Temperature is a kind of energy and lowering the temperature will reduce the activity of matter. This concept of Physics is nothing for a Transcender, but for a local Mage to be able to deduce this from Elemental Magic, it would require the umtion of countless theories and experiments. This proves that Harloys¡¯s talent for Magic Creation is pretty high and she is indeed worthy of the noble title of The Omniscient One.


    ¡°Every Ice Mage has a different understanding towards the nature of Ice. There is no such thing as superior or inferior understanding, nor is there a right or wrong way of understanding. Your little disciple is skilled in Ice Creation. I think she probably understands Ice as ¡®The Moment of Silence¡¯. The reason why she is able to train both Ice and Fire simultaneously is because she views Fire as ¡®The Moment of Movement¡¯, thusplementing each other to form an entire world. Warriors strengthen their physical body to change the world, while Mages use their will and imagination to affect the world. Don¡¯t use the dumb methods of Warriors to understand magic, otherwise, you will be stuck at the level of an apprentice for your entire life.¡±


    Looking at the serious face of this 10cm-tall doll, for the first time, I feel that she is indeed a teacher. I silently nod my head.


    ¡°Ice Magic, huh?¡±


    Closing my eyes, I fall into thought. In my hometown, during winter, the tall and steep snow mountains and the ice rivers. In the cruel elimination game of nature, all life struggles to vie for the right to survive and nature uses its own methods to choose the strong ones who have the privilege to live on.


    ¡°Thank you, teacher. I roughly understand.¡±

 Chapter 78

    Chapter 78: The Treader


    ¡°Warriors strengthen their physical body to change the world, while Mages use their will and imagination to affect the world. Don¡¯t use the dumb methods of Warriors to understand magic, otherwise, you will be stuck at the level of an apprentice for your entire life, or as a magic-sword-carrying-dumbass-Warrior.¡±


    Harloys wasn¡¯t wrong. I went down the wrong path in the past. It was only because I was troubled by the Holy Knight career¡¯sck ofrge AOE and long range attacks, and thus, without any thoughts about my actual circumstances, I blindly chose to study Ice Magic.


    Demand determines the supply. Back then, I also didn¡¯t really find the need to dig up the potential of Ice Magic.


    Alright, just like Harloys said, even if my talent for Magic is just sub-par and my sense for the Elements is so insensitive to the point of imbecilic, but by using the System to forcefully pull me up, I still rose through the ranks.


    However, without having a bottleneck to be stuck at, I lost the period of umtion when one is stuck in a bottleneck, as well as the experience and understanding that one will gain when breaking through via one¡¯s own understanding.


    This is just like a Science and Technology faculty nerd using his own rational thinking to analyze a literary work. Perhaps, he is able to analyze why the work is attractive to others as well as its good points, and that everything he says may be logical. However, if you were to ask him to write his own literature piece, only the backbones of the essay will appear.


    That is because hecks the emotions and dedication for the work. He is unable to pull in the bits and pieces of the good parts to create a truly good story. In the end, it can only serve as a simple and concise news report script.


    Based on Harloys¡¯s description, learning magic is quite simr to creating art. They both involve using one¡¯s will to picture one¡¯s little world and affect reality through it.


    Then, it is necessary for there to be one¡¯s understanding and one¡¯s personal views to be inside it.


    It may seem that this thought process has nothing to do with one¡¯s power level, but it is of utmost importance. They determine a Mage¡¯s own road. On the other hand, losing these sentimental understandings, one¡¯s path will just be more and more narrow.


    I am the most obvious example. I treated the literature works that require sentimentality (Elemental Magic) as Math (Martial Arts that require routine training and umtion) to learn and in the end, I can only follow the main content and copy the footsteps of the predecessors, learning standard Magic and turning my own Ice Magic into an Ice Bomb Tower.


    Charge mana and st it; this became my utmost understanding of Ice Magic. As a Mage who managed to create a Forbidden Spell, this is too big of a waste.


    However, what is fortunate is that hard work is never wasted, even if one is working in the wrong direction.


    Even if I didn¡¯t do research on magic with sentimentality, but my time and effort spent on studying it rationally aren¡¯t wasted. The Fate Points that I spent brought me rewards. Although I didn¡¯t realize it rationally, the sentimental part somewhere deep in my soul had gained a certain level of understanding. Un, it may sound confusing so let¡¯s just put it as ¡®although the mouth says no, the body is honest¡¯.


    The crystallization of understanding and one¡¯s experience, the once in a lifetime Soul Imprint.


    ¡¾Soul Imprint: Mark of Justice (Destroyed), The Crown of Undead (Destroyed), The Ice Treader (Destroyed), Son of Light (Destroyed)¡¿


    On the System board, the four destroyed Soul Imprints are arranged in a row. ¡®Increase effectiveness of spells by 1%¡¯, ¡®Increase the effect of Necromancy by 1%¡¯. These Soul Imprints offer this kind of insignificant additional buffs that can only be used to reminisce on their existence.


    Of course, unless I were to have suicidal thoughts and burn my soul once again, they would probably stay like this forever.


    In my second life, ¡¾The Ice Treader¡¿ is my Soul Imprint but apparently, I seem to not have lived up to its true meaning.


    Treader, it refers to a person who treads, a person who measures the world through their steps. Through the perspective of an adventurer, they gaze at the scenery, feel and understand nature and experience life.


    The Ice Treader. Actually, it¡¯s just an adventurer of snow mountains, obsessed with the culture of the Northern Countries.


    The vast snownds without boundaries. The horizon seems as though an unreachable destination. The beauty of life when it is fast asleep. The roar of the heavens during an avnche. The world under the ice river that can¡¯t be frozen. The white wolf pack who howls towards the sky. The giant monsters and hidden snow leopards in the snow mountain. The seedlings that appear from beneath the snow. Life and nature vying and coexisting in harmony.


    Even Gods have to be humble in the face of the true power of nature. The recement of life is a rule of nature that hasn¡¯t changed for millenniums. In order to survive the cruel winter period, everyone has to work and cooperate together. The winter wolves who gather in packs to hunt understand, the true countryman of the North also understands.


    When Harloys mentions her own understanding of the nature of her Ice Magic, my memories of the culture of the Northern Countries seems to repeat itself in my mind again and again as though a zoetrope.


    ¡°So, the truth is that no matter whether it is back then or now, I have always missed home.¡±


    Deep in the night, thunder starts to roar outside. I solemnly ce my hand out of the window. What fell on the center of my palm aren¡¯t the snowkes that I was so familiar with but rather, the summer rain that brings a trace of warmth in it.


    What can an adventurer who lost his way and misses his home do? Of course, it is to return home. But, it is a pity that even though the memory of the snow still remains, the g that stands proudly on top of thend isn¡¯t the same one as it once was. The Country of Snow, which seemed to have not changed at all, is no longer the country I belong to.


    ¡°I don¡¯t feel like going home. At least not now.¡±


    Then, since I have no home to return to, I shall temporarily have the most beautiful scenery of my homnd turn into the scene of my dreams. Perhaps, one day, there will be a chance that my world of dreams can transform into reality.


    ¡¾The Infallible Diffindor¡¿


    One¡¯s soul is always much more honest than one¡¯s mouth. In the three Soul Imprints that form the Soul World, The Ice Treader forms the winter scenery of my homnd. Disying its true powers, it turns into an unresting adventurer of the snow, depicting the natural frost and the beauty of ice in my homnd.


    ¡°Heh, I really am a failed master, to think I would be ignorant of my Soul Imprint¡¯s true powers. Is it because of its great powers that my senses are blinded? But it isn¡¯t toote for me to understand now. So, let it snow.¡±


    In the short moment after this silent voice, the rainwater outside the window turns into snow.


    It¡¯s a midnight snow that is limited to only this house. The neighbors might not even realize it, but it created quite a stir among the temporary residents living within.


    I seem to finally understand the path of my Ice Magic. It isn¡¯t the path of a cannon station that I thought I was adept in. Rather, it is using mana as a pen to turn the most beautiful and dangerous ice ins in my memories into reality.


    ¡°Heh, you seem to get it now, huh?¡±


    Harloys jumps happily onto the window ledge and turns back into the form of a small cat before disappearing into the snow.


    As for me, I close the window. My understanding is still in its primary stage. The night is still too early for me to be able to convert it into an actual fighting power.


    At this moment, in the depths of my soul, that ¡¾The Ice Treader£¨Destroyed£©£ºIncrease effectiveness of Ice Magic by 1%¡¿¡¯s insignia of an adventurer in the winter night is suddenly undergoing a change. At this moment, it is ¡¾The Ice Treader£¨Damaged£©£ºIncrease effectiveness of Ice Magic by 3%¡¿.


    ¡°Looks like I am really over-reliant on the System. My soul is still here and a physical body that nurtures the soul is also present. Naturally, the Soul Imprints which are crystallizations of the Soul can be recovered. Hehe, let¡¯s take it slowly. A Legend with four Soul Imprints. It really makes one look forward to it.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Very quickly, following the recovery of my Soul Imprint, my abilities in Ice Magic soared. It didn¡¯t take long before I was able to grasp the ultimate Forbidden Spell, Ice Aeon, once again. Then, using the Forbidden Spell as a threat, I forced the And Capital to acknowledge the East Mist Communal Country¡¯s independence.


    Alright, it is impossible for everything above to happen.


    Life isn¡¯t a dream. It is impossible to move a thousand miles in a day just because of a single epiphany. That is a story written in novels. In reality, one must slowly take one step after another.


    Even if I have understood the nature of my Ice Magic and that I have a n for the future, but the problems I had before still persist. That is...


    ¡°As expected, my talent in Elemental Magic is crap.¡±


    The same Book of Magic and the same person. Even if he were toprehend some logic, but it will still be the same loggerhead, so it is still hard toprehend it.


    Thus, after reading it for half a night, I can only shut it helplessly. Turning to the screen, I activated an old solution ¡ª Cheating through the System.


    ¡°20 skill points, I am really reluctant.¡±


    Skill points are good things. They can allow me to learn a technique or magic directly. Also, it can also allow magic to be upped by 1-circle. For example, 1 skill point can turn a 1-circle Ice Arrow into a 2-circle Ice Vector, increasing the attack power and other factors significantly.


    I, who have only reached the second rank, Bronze-rank, the highest-tier magic I can control now is 3-circle (The rtionship between magic circles and rank is [First rank -> 1-circle] [Second rank -> 2-circle, 3-circle] [Third rank -> 4-circle, 5-circle] and etc). If I were to throw a dozen skill points into it at one go...


    Alright, that would be a great waste. Let¡¯s not mention the fact that to upgrade higher-circle magic would require more skill points; the higher the circle, the greater the chance of failure when casting the spell. It is actually quite easy to die from your mana rebound. However, throwing too many points on 1-circle magic without much potential is an extreme waste of resources.


    My Fate Points aren¡¯t sufficient to pull me to the next rank. Currently, I am still a LV21 Order Knight/Chaos Witch King. By right, going by the usual 2 level ¨C 1 skill point calction, I should only have 10 points. However, while it expends four times the effort to raise my level, this double job gives me twice the amount of skill points as a reward.


    Previously, I didn¡¯t use it at all. This is due to the fact that as an Order Knight, I have the confidence to learn and use any ability and skill of the Holy Light and Law without using any skill points. As for Necromancy, this isn¡¯t the time for me to use it now. Thus, I saved all of my skill points so as to forcefully break through my bottleneck when I am at a higher-rank.


    But right now, I probably would require fighting power soon. I can already vaguely see my future path. Since my Chaos and Order powers have to develop equally, then my weak points would require me to devote a greater amount of time and effort to pull them to equal standards. Given my horrible talent in Elemental Magic, there¡¯s probably no way I can save my skill points.


    If there must be a difference to be said between using skill points and through one¡¯s own effort, then it would be that through understanding the concepts, one would be more clear on one¡¯s future path, allowing them to consciously choose the direction where they want to develop towards rather than choosing randomly as one pleases.


    Looking at the ton of Ice Magic on the skill tree, arge portion of them are powerful cannon-style magic. But, they¡¯re not what I require now.


    Very quickly, I found the one I was looking for.


    ¡°I can already use the 1-circle Ice Magic, Cold Armor. Now, with two other magic spells, I should be able to achieve my objective.¡±


    ¡¾1-circle Cold Armor (Iron): Form a thin Ice Armor around the spellcaster¡¯s body, slightly increasing one¡¯s defense. If the spellcaster were to be sessfully hit by an enemy, the enemy¡¯s speed will be reduced by 0.1 seconds by the chill.¡¿


    ¡¾2-circle Ice Breath (Bronze): Sustains a conical Ice Breath that deals 1 to 3 frost damage and creates a chill effect, reducing the target¡¯s speed. The maximum range is two meters and the maximum duration is six seconds.¡¿


    ¡¾3-circle Ring of Ice (Bronze): Create a Ring of Ice around the spellcaster which explodes outwards. The Ring will only fly for a maximum of fifteen meters and all those touched by the ring will be slowed by a chill effect.¡¿


    The attack power of these three magic spells is almost zero. However, they¡¯re the rarer type of Ice Magic that reduces speed. If my guesses are urate, they probably belong to the same ss and form the stepping stone to higher grounds.


    ¡°First, the Cold Armor which covers my body.¡±


    The Ice Armor, which is almost invisible to the eye, probably can¡¯t really defend me from attacks. However, it surrounds me in the Ice Element and it¡¯s one of the few magic spells which directly creates cold air that reduces speed. It is the same cold air that results in the effect of reducing the speed of the attacker as well.


    At this time, under the drive of my mana, a surge of cold air is created from the Cold Armor.


    ¡°Next, the Ice Breath.¡±


    The breath of ice turns into an icy fog and the cold air is refined and evolves. Ayer of thin ice creeps on everything that the cold air touches.


    ¡°Last but not least, the Ring of Ice.¡±


    Upon the end of my incantation, the umting cold air bursts out. This room is immediately wrecked. Regardless of whether it is the furniture or the ceiling, ayer of ice forms on everything in the room.


    A magic chain creates a powerful effect of 1+1+1¡·3, but I still knit my brows in displeasure.


    If I only wanted such an effect, then it would have sufficed to simply invest points in a higher-tier magic. I didn¡¯t throw in 2 entire skill points just for this.


    ¡°Is this still insufficient? Hm, I guess it is insufficient. Then, only this magic remains.¡±


    I opened the skill tree once again and find thatrge AOE freezing magic.


    ¡¾6-circle Snowstorm (Gold-rank): Create a small-scale storm and using the fallen snow, create arge AOE frost damage and slow effect.¡¿


    ¡°6-circle magic, even if I were to invest points here, I wouldn¡¯t be able to use it for quite a long time. 3 skill points, don¡¯t let me waste them without reaping any rewards.¡±


    At the moment when I cast Snowstorm, the Cold Armor suddenly dissipates and all of the cold air in the room seems to return back to me. Then, when it is released once again, it has already been refined into an even higher-quality, deadly-cold air.


    ¡°Ding! Congrattions, you have learned thebination skill ¡®Frozen Air¡¯. This skill is an emtion of the extreme cold of the natural world. No life is immune to its effect ¡ª Kid, you made a good choice this time, you seem to have finally figured out how to use me. Make good use of your resources, treasure your skill points.¡±


    ¡¾Frozen Air: A kind of deadly cold air that is without sound or presence. It can be enchanted onto one¡¯s physical body and weapon, as well as paired together with Ice Magic as an attack. Those who are touched by the Frozen Air will have all movements slowed by 1% and suffer 1 point of frost damage per second. This debuff can be stacked. If the target¡¯s movement speed is reduced by more than 20%, a frozen effect will be inflicted. Many negative statuses will be inflicted, such as the freezing of one¡¯s thought. If the target¡¯s movement speed is reduced by more than 50%, then there is a chance that the target might die at any moment due to massive loss of heat.¡¿


    ¡¾Usage Requirement: Soul Imprint of The Ice Treader. If the user were to reach Gold-rank and gain the ability to control the magic Snowstorm, Frozen Air will be automatically evolved to the next stage.¡¿


    As expected, my guess wasn¡¯t off. Under the effects of my Soul Imprint, the umtion of my experiences allowed quantity to create a change in quality.


    Just by thinking about it, one will know how treacherous and deadly this soundless and presence-less Frozen Air is. It is able to be stacked as long as we are crossing blows and by the time they realize that the frost is guing them, it will already be toote. Just like the pests in the farm who die due to a steep and sudden fall in temperature, they can only watch helplessly as strength leaves them.


    Furthermore, this is only the beginning. This kind of Frozen Air that emtes the harshness of the natural world will be my stepping stone to higher heights. In the end, I would be able to create the absolute winter that belongs solely to me.


    ¡°As expected, only by undergoing the frigid winter can one feel the warmth of spring again. Only after abandoning my iplete physical body and start anew can I progress to greater heights. Perhaps, under the umtion of experiences in my four Soul Imprints through four lives, this time, I would be able to step onto the pinnacle of this world.¡±

 Chapter 79

    Chapter 79: The Flower of Law


    ¡°Those who are passing by, don¡¯t pass on this opportunity! You won¡¯t lose anything in two minutes. You won¡¯t get cheated in just two minutes. As long as you give us two minutes, we guarantee you an entirely new choice in life! This brother over here, the Holy Light is watching over you.¡±


    ¡°Everything is possible. The Smiling Sisters sincerely wee your arrival. The Mother Earth is coaxing (protecting) you!¡±


    TL:This is another homophone. ºöÓÆ (Hu you -> Coaxing) and »¤ÓÓ (Hu you -> protecting/ watching over).


    ¡°Whatever you want, we will sell it cheap. Whatever you buy, we will give you a discount. Don¡¯t miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity. We are clearing out all our stocks, making a loss just to sell these! You can try it before buying it. We guarantee its quality. We will pay you tenfold if there is an imitation inside! Beyana¡¯s golden reputation, definitely trustworthy!¡±


    ¡°Dang dang dang, War Gods are good, War Gods are fantastic. It is said that as long as you believe in the War God in our family, then those who are sick will be cured, those who are healthy will be stronger. Regardless of whether you are having a cold, fever or tuberculosis, as long as you believe in the War God, we guarantee that you will make a full recovery. Ten years ago at the neighboring vige, old Han suddenly became severely ill at 93 years old. After joining our War God Church, not only did hee back from his grave, but he is now so spirited and physically strong that just two days ago, he left a dozen little rascals lying on the floor, moaning in pain.¡±


    If you think that this is the calling of the merchants of some big market, then you are sorely mistaken. This is the big field in front of the Laince City Lord Residence. It is also the part of the city that¡¯s crowded with the greatest amount of people, as well as its most bustling location. As for those who are prancing about, striking their gongs and ying with their drums, they are the respected Priests of true Gods.


    ¡°Hey hey, this big brother here, are you interested in the Goddess of Wealth Church? If you join now, we will even give you twoplimentary shampoos.¡±


    ¡°Pu, shampoo? The Smiling Sisters over there are giving out cooking oil, you are reallycking in sincerity.¡±


    ¡°...Wait, let me consult the archbishop. We should still have stocks of cooking oil remaining. I¡¯m sorry, seems like we ran out of cooking oil. Will toilet paper and shampoo do? Right, I also have a two-month voucher to eat freely at Saint Restaurant.¡±


    ¡°Deal, but can you wait for a moment? I just joined the War God Church. I have to stay for three months before they allow me to leave the church.¡±


    ¡°Fine, but you must join before the end of the year. You can leave right after the start of the year. And you must finish the year-end mission.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, you want me toplete the year-end mission despite offering so little? I think I will join the Goddess of Wealth Church, after all.¡±


    Alright, now that he feels that he has been shortchanged, that fellow turns around and leaves. However, looking at the dozen bags of little gifts he is carrying in both hands, exactly how many times has he joined and left these several organizations?


    Normally, these respected old gentlemen would be waiting in their churches for others to knock on their doors, to impart the teachings and cultivate faith in their true God. Instead, they are now acting like the merchants that they previously looked down on, trying to rope in passersby on the field, and giving outplimentary gifts all around to advertise.


    The reason? Simple, a powerful opponent has arrived in this city. Rapidly, she has already built up unbelievable prestige. Arge bunch of worshippers from other churches is switching their faith. The year-end mission that they were just about to finish, immediately became an impossible mission.


    Wild Elf Judgementor Krose!


    Upon speaking this name, the respected priests around this area would grind their teeth in anger. She has totally ignored the underlying rules that everyone had traditionally agreed upon. Without any advertisement pamphlets orplimentary gifts and just by standing on the field and showing a faint smile, countless young men would take the initiative to approach and ask for more information. In fact, just to bring a smile on the face of this beauty, some even directly switched their faith.


    Thus, in just half a month, a number of believers in the God of Law shot up at a rapid pace. In this world, where true Gods exist, worshippers are the origin of power for true Gods, the very basic building blocks of the Churches of true Gods. Recruiting worshippers is the year-end mission that all priests mustplete.


    Without any increases in the total poption of the city, given that the Church of Law is rapidly growing stronger, it is a natural oue that other churches are suffering losses. Facing dwindling numbers of worshippers, the other churches are panicking.


    And now, there are already pitiful young Priestesses dressed scantily, giving out advertisement flyers and gifts to passersby while repenting. However, the situation is immediately reversed the moment Krose smiles slightly.


    Now that the circumstances have developed to such a point, even the well-respected retired old Priests are walking the streets, carrying a bunch of paper bags containing gifts and starting their life as a salesperson.


    Of course, using just ¡®beauty¡¯ isn¡¯t enough. The crux is that the teachings that the God of Law advocates is very attractive. First, there is no need to pray in the God¡¯s name, so there is no need for a regional church. Thus, it doesn¡¯t need anyone to serve the God nor are donations required.


    Due to reincarnation and the existence of true Gods, it is true that those who die without any faith would fall into the River Styx. This is also the slogan used by the Order Gods to spread their faith. Thus, as citizens of the Order Faction, humans will tend to choose a true God of Order to worship. However, Churches also have to eat and donating a tenth of one¡¯s fortunes to the Church is already an unspoken rule agreed by most churches.


    But now, there is someone who isn¡¯t ying by the rules. He directly shouts that there won¡¯t be a Church and donations won¡¯t be enforced on the believers. In the end, it created a snowball effect.


    The first to change their faith is the merchants. This is just like two countries trying to get a merchant to build their factory in their territory. One of them has a tax rate of 10% while the other isn¡¯t collecting any taxes. Under the prerequisite that the other conditions aren¡¯t that different, as long as their heads are still functioning properly, they would choose thetter.


    Of course, the other Churches are hesitating on whether they should lower the donation amount expected of their worshippers. However, this isn¡¯t something a district Church can decide upon. Also, if they decide to y the price war, the other party doesn¡¯t even have a Church, a true zero-cost organization, how can theypete with that?


    Also, the God of Law Wumianzhe is a true God in the Order Faction, both in name and status. The female Judgementor over there can even provide a job change for the basic jobs.


    Right, basic jobs, such as Mages, Priests and Holy Knights, those kinds of basic jobs. With the help of the God Equipment Scattered Page, within half a month, there are almost a hundred Justice Knights and more than ten Judgementors (Judgementors require quite a high intelligence as a prerequisite for the job conversion) in this city.


    After Wumianzhe Ascended as a true God, Justice Knights and Judgementors which should have been a job advancement ss became a basic job. This doesn¡¯t mean that the Law Faction is getting weak but rather, it means that the entire Law Faction is bing significantly stronger as a whole.


    One has to first convert to a Holy Knight or Warrior job before they can convert to a Justice Knight after reaching the Gold-rank. This has determined that the number of Justice Knights would be severely limited. Also, how can talent groomed by other people be as trustworthy as the people that we groomed from scratch?


    In the past, the number of true Gods who could provide basic jobs wasn¡¯t many. The most famous of them all were the Holy Knights and Priests of Holy Light, from the Church of Holy Light. Now that Justice Knights and Judgementors have be a basic job as well, this means that the potential of the Law Faction is boundless.


    Thus, in just two weeks, the God of Law has be the hottest topic of this entire city. Krose has also be a famous figure known by everyone.


    Of course, there are ws under thisyer of perfection. For example, this beautiful Priestess (Judgementor is an equivalent to Priests), after spreading the teachings will tend to ask ¡®Are there any unique treasures that can turn one into a male¡¯ and her forced smile after receiving a negative reply makes one¡¯s heart break. People have started to suspect if the true God of Law Wumianzhe is especially fond of cute boys, thus forcing this beautiful Priestess to search all around for the means.


    ¡°The God of Law Wumianzhe loves cute boys the most.¡± This kind of rumor actually started spreading about.


    ¡°Little boys, your head, I¡¯m a heterosexual!¡±


    Truth be told, after hearing these rumors, I furiously crushed the teacup in my hands.


    Even if I am used to falling into misfortune, even while doing nothing due to that pathetic Luck of mine, but if I were to be the Guardian God of cute boys and gays, I might as wellmit suicide.


    The primary reason for Krose to head to the Surface is to look for these means is to dispel the curse or to find treasures that can change her sex once again. It is just that if one thinks that she set forth just for such a casual reason, one would be underestimating her sense of responsibility as an Enforcer.


    She applied for the mission to spread the faith before leaving the Underground World. After her application, it is said that just within an afternoon, Xueti received hundreds of applications to further the faith as well. Of course, if so many people were to leave all of a sudden, there would definitely be drastic negative impacts on the Supreme Court.


    Xueti didn¡¯t approve them. However, hidden behind the seemingly loyal and honest face is a ck-hearted cow. He didn¡¯t have any good intentions. He dered that there were only two slots and requested for them to decide among themselves.


    Alright, those incurable old bachelors fought even after the sky turned dark. It is said that out of the three hundred who joined the private group fight, there are less than ten who could still attend work on the second day. It was that intense.


    The final victors were a Gold-pinnacle Law Incantationer and a Gold-pinnacle Justice Knight, and naturally, they became Krose¡¯s ¡®Flower Guardians¡¯ (Companions for the journey). I found it iprehensible. As a Legend-rank Judgementor, would Krose still need the protection of you two?


    Yes, Wild Elf Krose converted from a Great Druid into a top-tier Judgementor. Although her personality is still too soft, at 700 years old, her fighting prowess was never low.


    As one who values responsibility, despite being gued with her private issues, she prioritized her job of spreading the teachings and ced the search for treasures to dispel her curse as her secondary objective. I am really thankful to her loyalty towards her duties. But, can you stop asking if the other party has some unique item to turn one into a male after spreading the teachings? It makes it seem as though looking for an item to change sex is the more important issue at hand.


    ¡°You are actually smiling on the inside huh, ex-Lord Wumianzhe.¡±


    Alright, this stupid cat has actually seen through it. Even though I keepining, I am actually quite happy.


    After all, the God Power Regtion System that I sacrificed so much to exchange for didn¡¯t go to waste. The Law faith is also being propagated at a rapid speed. Of course, not setting up Churches, allowing those who believe in Law to wield the Power of Law, while allowing the Law faith to be disseminated quickly; all of this has caused the Liu Huang Mountain City Supreme Court, which serves as the Church of Law, to lose its control over the basic wielders of Power of Law. But, this is within my expectations.


    The fact that the God of Law is fated to develop with its worshippers spread all over, divided, made the other Churches heave a sigh of relief. After all, in their traditional view, Churches are the basis to maintaining belief.


    ¡°It is sufficient as long as the Law Faith can be disseminated. Church or whatsoever, it isn¡¯t important from the start. When too many people start to gather, it would be too chaotic. Too many voices will cause the initial teachings to change instead.¡±


    ¡¾ In order to carry out the Rules of Law with absolute fairness, I am willing to follow in the footsteps of the God of Holy Light to give up my sense of self to be the Rules of Law itself. From now onwards, I am the Law and the Law is me. One doesn¡¯t need to recite my name to obtain the Power of Law. One only needs to believe in enforcing the Rules of Law.¡¿These are my vows I spoke during my Ascension.


    ¡°I said so in my vows during my Ascension. Thew is Wumianzhe and Wumianzhe will turn itself intow as well. This is equal to giving up one¡¯s sense of self. A true God without a sense of self cannot send down God Commandments. If so, the Church which serves the true God isn¡¯t important anymore. Even so, as long as Law were to be vastly spread throughout this world, Wumianzhe, as God Power Regtion System, will eventually be as powerful as the God of Light. Then, I would be able to start on my next objective.¡±


    ¡°Heh, just continue showing off then. But, there aren¡¯t many Judgementors that are as good as Krose, so the progress in other regions probably won¡¯t be as fast.¡±


    ¡°Thus, I should make good use of my resources. I will bring her along to And Empire.¡±


    ¡°Un? Could it be that you can make Wumianzhe send out his God Commandments?


    ¡°Of course... not. However, I have a message left behind by Wumianzhe before he Ascended. I can guarantee that it is written by Wumianzhe himself! Besides, with Krose following me, at least there is a chance through my monthly Gachapon. In any case, it is much better than searching around without any leads. At the very least, I don¡¯t have to worry about even more people believing that Wumianzhe really likes males!¡±

 Chapter 80

    Chapter 80: And Empire


    ¡®The Whisper of the Demons¡¯ is the prelude to the 7 Trials of Eich, as well as the start of everything.


    Along with the awakening of the Will of Chaos, the cults that worship the Malevolent Gods of Chaos, as well as the servants of Demons, will start to cause chaos and unease across the entire continent. Then, when all of the Ancient Elemental Gods would be released, the Elemental Tide will arrive. As a result, the entire world will change.


    Other than an exponential increase in the amount of Elemental Lifeforms and Magical Beasts and the experts of every race and tribeing out from their seclusion, it also increases the possibility of the Undead Emperors returning to the main continent from the Undead Dimensions. Even more so, the arrival of the Elemental Tide builds the foundation for the invasion of the Demonic army against the Main Dimension in the future.


    At the same time, the idealists and the ambitious will start to make their moves. Among the group, those who bring about the greatest threat are those who desire to build their own country, the evil cultists who wee the descend of the Malevolent Gods as well as the ambitious Underground City Lords who wish to return back to the Surface.


    The prelude to this all has started not too long ago. Other than the unlucky fellow in the Underground World who was weakened to the brink of death and devoured the moment he was released, the other Elemental Gods will be released, bringing a great amount of Elemental Lifeforms to this world.


    Of course, if it wasn¡¯t for the Epic mission that was brought by the plot of the prelude, I wouldn¡¯t be able to revive so perfectly.


    Ten yearster, when the next Trial, ¡®The Vulture of War¡¯, starts, under the movement of schemers and the ambitious, the entire continent would be plunged into chaos.


    Then, the question would be what exactly happened in this ten years.


    Firstly, it would be the appearance of young talents in each country. The emergence of new equipment and new armies caused a frenzied increase in the military power of the countries, causing the nobles ofrge countries to be tempted by greed. At the same time, some organizations and individuals were fanning the mes of war by the side, such as the nephew of an Emperor being murdered by assassins bearing the name of some smaller countries, thus providing the spark for therge countries who were already craving for war.


    Initially, the war only involved the annexation of smaller states byrger countries. But, as victories started to pile up, these countries started to fervently desire war. When endless greed and profits from war blinded the eyes of the Emperor and nobles; when the newly titled Knight Lords need to be given their ownnd; when the strength of these countries was growing stronger by the day, the Vulture of War was already circling the skies of the entire Human world.


    In the end, it is just the maxim that extreme prosperity will ultimately lead to destruction being proven true once again. When the Surface society upied mainly by the Humans develop to a certain point, therger nations would crave to climb even higher. Perhaps, they wish to be the legendary Emperor whose name will be marked in history as the man who unified the entire Human society, or maybe they crave to be the dominant leader of an area. Even without schemers inciting them, the outbreak of war would have eventually happened.


    To those who are standing at the pinnacle of the world, it is also about time for them to reap the fruits of their harvest as well. Thus, the Sacred War follows closely by the end of the war and the horns of war are blown once again.


    The Great World War. When therge nations bring their subordinate states to initiate a full-blown war against others, there are even people who prophesied happily that after the war, a new Empire will sweep the entire continent, bringing the Human society to greater heights.


    But then, cruel reality pped theserge countries in their face, telling them that this world isn¡¯t a one-yer game among humans but a web game PK among different races.


    The Elf Kingdoms will lead different tribes and rise up against the humans. Ignoring themon assaults of Beastman Tribes and such, the invasion of the Underground Alliance caused the human countries who are 100 times greater in terms of quantity to witness the sight of Gold-rank serving as cannon fodder, giant Dragonsunching assaults one after another, Legends filling the entire battlefield and SemiGods roaming all about.


    The Human army who outnumber their enemies by 100 times didn¡¯t even have the time to mock theirrge disparity in quantity of military forces when they experienced what suppression through individual abilities mean, what it means for an individual to be able to defeat a hundred, for ten to ward off an army of ten thousand, what it means for themand team to be wiped even before the start of war, what it means for an order of Knights to charge through the city walls.


    Even a division chief might not be as powerful as a veteran soldier of the opposing force. This war was really hopeless for them. If it wasn¡¯t for the Underground Alliance Army falling into internal conflicts over the spoils of war, if it wasn¡¯t for therge countries sacrificing the interests of smaller countries without hesitation to exchangend for time through bringing temporary satisfaction to the Underground Alliance to make them fall into internal conflict and postponing the final battle as a result, the war would probably be long over.


    Then, the Undead Cmity struck. Those ancient and perennial Undead SemiGods who were banished to foreign dimensions stepped onto the stage, making the humans even more aware of the pain ofcking top-tier powers and the ridiculousness ofparing quantity of cannon fodders against the army of the Undead Cmity.


    As for the invasion of Demons and thest few trials, in reality, it is just adding a few additional knives into the tattered Eich Continent. It was already at the brink of death and would have died even if it was just left there.


    Along with endless deaths, the war continued to intensify. By the time the Goddess of Order and Goddess of Chaos personally fought on the front line, everything came to an end.


    Truthfully, every time I see this part of ¡®history¡¯, a feeling of helplessness arises from the depths of my heart, depleting all of my motivation. In the face of the overwhelming circumstances of history, my strength as an individual is negligible.


    Prevent the outbreak of war? I am not that naive. However, those that I can do, I have done.


    For example, under the will of the citizens of the Underground World, the invasion of the Surface cannot be avoided. However, with Liu Huang Mountain City leading the pack, at least we would have arger say in decision-making and will not be on the passive end. As long as we settle it properly, there is still a possibility of cooperating together with the Surface against the Trials.


    Also, the variable that I personally created, the Xiluo Empire, has served a bizarre purpose ¡ª The Undead Catastrophe from the several Undead Dimensions has been brought forward.


    Initially, it should begin only after seventy years and not at a maximum of thirty years from now that Decars informed me. For this, I should be thankful for the efforts of the Head of the Council of Dark Night, the Second Senator Fend.


    It is a bad thing though? No, it is actually good news.


    As the Elemental Tide engulfs the world, it bes easier and easier to connect dimensions together. It is impossible for the Undead Emperors who have been eyeing the main continent for a long time to not toe. Rather, if they were to arrive earlier, it would cause the internal conflict on Eich to end early, allowing the warring forces to band together against the powerful external forces.


    Besides, to forcefully enter the Main Dimension during the beginning phase of the Elemental Tide, the powers of the Undead Emperors and their forces would take a hit. At the very least, the 3 Undead Emperors who have reached the level of true Gods would definitely be unable to enter. If so, the scale of the Undead Cmity would be much smaller than that depicted in history, thus bringing the possibility of dealing with them batch after batch.


    So, I ordered the Royal Faction to make peace with Fend and focus all of their efforts to make the invasion from the foreign dimensions ur as early as possible.


    It would be best if it urs before the invasion of the Underground World begins. That way, using cooperating against the Undead as an excuse, it wouldn¡¯t be difficult for us to get the humans to give up a plot ofnd or to steal it from the hands of the Undead Cmity. Perhaps, after the war, both parties can achieve co-existence and rue sufficient military power to deal with the troubles that would ur afterward.


    Of course, this is assuming the best case scenario of the invasion of the Undead Cmity being brought forward. The worst case scenario is that we might not be able to even survive the Undead Cmity, causing an early loss in the game. On the other hand, if the Underground Alliance goes out of control or if an agreement with the Humans fails to go through, then facing the Undead Cmity and Underground Alliance simultaneously, we would also be crushed.


    ¡°Sigh, there are too many catastrophes in the future. Since there isn¡¯t much hope from the start, then I might as well try to make ast stand.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    And Empire. With a history of seven hundred years, it can be considered the youngest of all superpower countries.


    However, they aren¡¯t the weakest of the bunch. On the other hand, after a few generations of wise kings who made good decisions, the country became wealthy and powerful and there are vague signs that they may surpass the existing superpowers.


    The capital, Kagersi City, is one of the greatest city in the entire Eich Continent and is built along a river. It is split into eight main districts and its poption numbers almost ten million. Of the eight districts, the Pearl District has a poption of three million and is known as the Nocturnal City.


    If we had to describe And Empire, then ¡®extravagant¡¯ would probably be the most suitable adjective.


    Also, the countless oilmps along the river, the magic-powered searchlights, the luxurious carriages on the streets, the cruises and cargo ships on the river, the refineddies dressed in elegant clothes strolling by the river and merchant parties who came from all around the world, all of these brings an astonishing amount of liveliness to this city.


    Now that the inauguration ceremony of the new Emperor is by the corner, colorful gs and jewels are hung on the trees by the river, an especially expensive silk carpet isid on the main street and even the gold-ted oilmps along the road were powered by the expensive mermaid oil. While causing the visiting tourists to criticize the ¡®loaded host¡¯, they couldn¡¯t help to envy And Capital¡¯s wealthiness and strength.


    The reason why this inauguration ceremony is made so grand isn¡¯t just for their reputation. Previously, having twenty-six subordinate states have already made it a big country. Now, if the number were to increase to forty-two subordinate states, the And Capital would be able to shake off its reputation as a political upstart and be an influential superpower in the entire world.


    Of course, there are some people who don¡¯t wish for it to happen. ck blood runs through his veins as he prepares to bring chaos and destruction.


    However, he is currently in a dilemma. After all, to meet someone from the same hometown in a foreign country is a rare joy in life. However, he really wants to pretend to be unacquainted with these old friends.


    ¡°As expected of Pearl City, it really is extravagant. To think they even give free pearls to passers-by.¡±


    ¡°Stop talking so much nonsense and quickly take them!¡±


    Alright, they are Goblin Yingou and Kab, familiar faces from Liu Huang Mountain City. They have set their sights on the jewels that are used to decorate the trees. Despite being surrounded by onlookers who were pointing at them, criticizing them, but they continued filling their shabby sack happily.


    ¡°Ohhhh, high-quality mermaid oil. Such a waste. It would serve a much better purpose as an additive in mybustion material for me.¡± (Hoyle)


    He recognises the people in front of him, but he would rather not know them. Indeed, they have set forth for And Capital in hope for a great windfall through their gifts. Looking at the date, they should have long arrived. However, to be able to meet in such a big city without any prior appointments, in a way, it could be considered as a cursed fate.


    ¡°You thieving bastards! It is you lot again! You are robbing in daytime now?¡±


    ¡°What? Thief? What are you talking about? Aren¡¯t these put by the road for people to take?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, just because you said that it is yours doesn¡¯t mean it is yours. If you were to call out to it now, will it reply you?¡±


    Alright, even as the Gnome Kab shouts back confidently, his movements hadn¡¯t slowed in the least. Very quickly, he fills his sack to the brink and flees with it.


    ¡°Cough cough, don¡¯t escape. You bunch of bastards!¡±


    These shameless experts from the Underground World had honed their agility through frequent shes with the Liu Huang Mountain City Town Security, so it was impossible for those normal human security personnel to catch up with them. They panted heavily as they ran but the gap only widens.


    ¡°Come and chase us.¡±


    ¡°Haaa, days without the Town Security is really lonely, like a winter night.¡±


    ¡°Hah, I, Kab, am unmatched now... ouch!¡±


    Alright, Kab, who was a famous expert at digging, slips and falls onto the muddy ground.


    ¡°Kab, what happened, what happened? I told you that after digging a hole, you must fill it up! Is this retribution? Also, who was the one who threw that watermelon skin, suchck of social conscience. Kab still owes old Hoyle 100,000 gold coins. If you identally killed him, are you all sure you all can pay for it?¡±


    TL: Hoyle is referring himself in a third person view.


    Alright, the first part of the furious rant is still reasonable but it gradually gets twisted towards the end.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t 100,00, it¡¯s a 100! It¡¯s only 100! Besides, you shortie obviously cheated in cardsst night, I won¡¯t even return you that 100.¡±


    Even when his forehead swelled up, Gnome Kab struggles with all his might to use his index finger to point a ¡®1¡¯. He was afraid that this old Dwarf who doesn¡¯t have the slightest sense of shame would make use of this opportunity to push this gigantic debt onto him. Indeed, if Kab really had 100,000 gold coins, he wouldn¡¯t have to go to the extent to dragging that shabby sack all around town to fill it with those decorations.


    TL: He pointed to one to show ¡®1¡¯ hundred (one hundred). What Hoyle said was ¡¯10¡¯ ten thousand (Íò)


    Those are indeed jewels, but they were of low quality, so they aren¡¯t really worth much money. Only Yingou, Kab and the other Gnomes who view wealth as important as their life would do such a thing.


    Alright, I can¡¯t stand watching on at such a sight. Apparently, there is someone who found such a sight even more unbearable than me.


    ¡°You bastards! Causing trouble even in other cities!¡±


    ¡°Town Security¡¯s big sillyss! How can this be? Didn¡¯t you all head to the North of the continent?¡±


    ¡°Damn it, there is also that mad dog!¡±


    ¡°Who is a mad dog! Don¡¯te up with random nicknames for other people! Momo has a nice name.¡±


    ¡°Big sillyss? Alright, I understand.¡±


    The two former Town Security members clench their fists and block them from the front and the back while the other few experts from the Hall of Judgement pressures them from the side. The three short fellows fall into despair.


    ¡°Don¡¯t hit my face!¡±


    ¡°Not the face!¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t even want your face anymore, do you think it is possible for me to not hit it?¡±


    Now, even the onlookers were amused by this farce. Making use of this opportunity, I put on a silver mask and smiles as I approach the few security personnel who were watching the show.


    ¡°It is a pleasant night, gentlemen! Today¡¯s skyline is quite beautiful, isn¡¯t it? May I ask where is the embassy hall for East Mist Communal Country?¡±

 Chapter 81

    Chapter 81: The Princess and Old Friends


    At Kagersi City¡¯s Pce District, there is a row of mansions built in the style that smells strongly of culture foreign to the And Empire. That is where the embassy for envoys stay.


    The East Mist Communal Country doesn¡¯t have an embassy in And Empire. In a certain mansion that was assigned to them at thest minute, even though it was alreadyte at night, a certain youngdy who was duped was enraged.


    ¡°Darned Darsos! This wasn¡¯t how he put it when he invited us! This is a scam, an insult to the entire country!¡±


    The 14 year old youngdy is currently holding a tantrum in her room but it is a shame that the one she is facing is just her female retainer.


    ¡°Yes, they lied to us. But as a small country, what can we do? Do we make it public and refuse to swear loyalty to them? They would just treat it as an insult to the Empire as well as the new Emperor and start a full-out war against us. We would just be providing them a reason for war.¡±


    Yes, this time, the East Mist Communal Country had no intention of bing a subordinate state at all. Princess Reyne was cheated here. Simrly, there were also a few small countries who refuse to serve as a subordinate state but were forced or duped here.


    ¡°Based on the current circumstances, the rise of And Empire can no longer be halted. While the other countries pledging allegiance to them, if we insist otherwise, we would be viewed with hostility by everyone else. To protect their dignity as a superpower, the And Capital would have tounch a crusade against us. Furthermore, we just ended a battle against the Beastmen, so we don¡¯t have the military power to fight such a war now.¡± They are obviously trying to take this show for real then use their strength to suppress all oppositions. Reyne grinds her teeth.


    ¡°Yes, they tricked us here because they have seen through all this. But, Big Sister Kelly, didn¡¯t you say that the Mist Bloodline doesn¡¯t yield! We should just go all out against them.¡±


    The female Wood Elf is the Court Tutor who have served the Mist Royalty for almost 500 years, Kblian, shortened as Kelly.


    She has already mentored more than twenty Kings and it is said that she is the teacher of the Twin Stars as well. She is a well-respected figure within the country and is deeply trusted by the royal family.


    ¡°That¡¯s why, if he is able to get the Mist Bloodline along with its long history to yield, Darsos and the And Empire would earn even greater prestige. But, if we don¡¯t yield, he would use it as a reason to start a war. No matter how we deal with it, it is a deal he would win. That is why he can openly y these kind of schemes and tricks.¡±


    ¡°Why? Aren¡¯t we all humans? Why are humans so much harder to deal with than the evil Beastmen?¡±


    Weariness shows on the face of the young Princess. These days in Kagersi City, facing those hypocrites who are hiding swords behind their words, she finds it is harder to cope with such diplomatic affairs than fighting in the battlefield.


    ¡°Hmph. It is because they are humans that dealing with them is so difficult. Your Highness, have you forgotten the reason for the downfall of the Mist Country? Serving as the guardians of the borders of the human society for countless generations, what did we get in the end? The shameless betrayal by the human kingdoms whom we were protecting and being judged as heretics by the Church. We were stabbed violently in the back. Never ce your trust in those foolish and short-sighted human kings who break their promises, as well as the untrustworthy Order Gods.¡±


    Although she is smiling faintly, in the words of the green-haired Woof Elf is her distrust towards the entire human society and the Order Gods.


    ¡°Also, if you were to ept the agreement to serve as a subordinate state, your poprity within the country will fall drastically. Perhaps, this is one of the motive they have in mind. After all, the damage that the Mist Bloodline had dealt to them in retaliation was not insignificant. Besides, your performance previously had probably put them on their guards. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why they paid no regard to their standing to set up such a ploy on us.¡±


    Reyne immediately goes speechless. Following which, a look of disbelief appears on her entire face. All these just because she performed excellently during the Beastman invasion? Forcing the East Mist Communal Country and her to lower their head to be a subordinate state in order to suppress her reputation?


    ¡°Impossible!¡±


    ¡°No, this possibility is very likely. Who asked you to have two famous fear-inspiring ancestors. Also, many talented people have appeared in the history of the Mist Bloodline, so it is natural that they would be wary of you. Furthermore, you look extremely alike with the twin prince. No, it is exactly the same. Whether it is another demon invasion or Night of Diffindor, it is something that they won¡¯t be able to allow to happen.¡±


    While speaking, their gazes suddenly lingers at the oil painting on the wall. Depicted in the painting is a battlefield. The battle was still going on and the young generals were currently advancing with the g.


    There is a pair of twins. A young man holding his sword was currently shing downwards from midair. Golden Holy Light radiates from him, making him reminiscent of a God descending to the mortal world. Even in the most intense and despair-inducing battlefield, he carries a peaceful radiant smile, as though a bright future awaits him.


    Behind him, another young man with the exact same face was carrying a sword in his left hand and a staff on the right. Inferno from originating from hell is burning fervently on his right arm. In contrast to his twin brother, fury could be found on his young face.


    A group of Knights were charging forth from their back. What they faced was a sea of endless Beastmen and Demons and by the corner of the painting, the gs of different human kingdoms can be vaguely seen, expressing the anger and dissatisfaction of the painter.


    That is an imitation of the famous painting of the East Mist Communal Country ¡®The Last Princes¡¯. ¡°Prince Rnd and Prince Karwenz, right? Big Sister Kelly, are they really that incredible? If they were in the same situation as me now, will they fare much better?¡±


    Reyne is a little depressed. The guilt she feels from letting her ancestors down make her feel weak.


    ¡°Don¡¯t speak such disappointing words, you have already done very well.¡±


    Kelly shakes her head.


    ¡°This kind ofparison is meaningless. Reyne is Reyne, the Twin Princes are the Twin Princes. If Karwenz were in your position, he would probably only have wielded his sword and ughter as his please. If so, wouldn¡¯t the situation simply worsen?¡±


    ¡°That is to say, if Prince Rnd was here, the situation would be vastly different?¡±


    Reyne discovers the hidden meaning behind Kelly¡¯s words and became even more depressed.


    Hearing these words, Kelly stuns for a moment before a look of nostalgia appears on her face.


    ¡°Rnd ah, if it was him, he wouldn¡¯t have allowed the situation end up like this, to be put in a disadvantageous position, in the first ce. That little fellow may seem very radiant and cheerful, but his veins are actually filled with ck water. He would already be kind to not scheme against others, do would he let others plot against him? Karwenz would definitely fall for it with a hundred percent probability. He would charge straight regardless of what stands in his way but somehow, he would always manage to charge out of these situations with brute force.¡±


    Reyne is quite curious. The Big Sister Kelly in front of her is a true elder of the Mist Bloodline and a living library. However, she disliked talking about past affairs all along. This was a hard-toe-by opportunity, so she decided to make use of this opportunity to question her further.


    ¡°That, Big Sister Kelly, can you tell me about the affairs of that two Princes? Are they really as powerful as the legends depict?¡±


    Reyne leans weakly on Kelly¡¯s body, allowing the other party to freely braid her own hair and touch up on her make up. This is already a daily habit she has cultivated through these two years.


    Thickening the eyebrow, outlining the eyeliner, trimming excess hair and using powder to conceal her overly pale skin. Under Kelly¡¯s dexterous hands, the distinction between a male and a female¡¯s face is further blurred.


    Under circumstances that just keeps worsening, what the East Mist Communal Country needs is a heroic Knight simr to Holy Knight Rnd in the legends to lead the country, and not an elegantdy of nobility who busies herself with social asions.


    ¡°Although it may sound inconceivable, they are actually even stronger than how they were depicted in the legends. If it wasn¡¯t for the outbreak of war which robbed them of their time to mature, that generation would have belonged to those two.¡±


    Hearing these words, Reyne suddenly raises her head, causing the makeup pen to stray off path on her face, messing up the makeup.


    ¡°Impossible, they were around my age when they died in battle. No, what Big Sister Kelly said must be the truth. As expected, I am useless. If only Prince Rnd can make decisions in my ce.¡±


    ¡°Puuu.¡±


    Kelly¡¯s chuckle beneath her hands surprised Kelly.


    ¡°Big Sister Kelly, what are youughing about! I am serious!¡±


    ¡°No, Reyne, it is just that there was someone who said the same words in the past.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°Rnd. He often said ¡®Aiya, this is so troublesome, depriving me of my book reading time. If only Karwenz can deal with them all, then I can spend all of my time reading books and cking off.¡¯¡±


    The legendary hero would actually have such azy side to him? Rnd, who was viewed as the role model of the royalty and Holy Knights, would actually like to ck around?


    ¡°Prince Rnd likes to read books?¡±


    ¡°Very much so. Regardless of whether it is about arts, music, literature, history, astronomy or geography, even if the messy alchemy and engineering, he likes them all very much. If he wasn¡¯t sent to the Church to be a Holy Knight, if it wasn¡¯t for the sudden outbreak of war, he would have probably eventually be a well-known schr.¡±


    ¡°Wait, Big Sister Kelly, wasn¡¯t he 10 years old when he was sent to be a Holy Knight? He started to like reading from such a young age?¡±


    ¡°The two Princes were a year old when they started reading. If not, they wouldn¡¯t be renowned geniuses in the world. But, there is still another little story within it.¡±


    ¡°Impressive. Little story?¡±


    ¡°Un, normal boys tend to learn how to walk only after reaching a year old. Even if the Mist Bloodline allows their children to mature early, but just after just one month of his birth, Karwenz already learnt how to walk and speak a few simple phrases. This is a feat of a super genius that would be recorded in history.¡±


    ¡°What about Prince Rnd?¡±


    ¡°He uh, when Karwenz was already walking, he was still crawling about. Karwenz could call papa and mama but he could only cry. However, a month after their birth, while we were still worried for Rnd, Karwenz, abusing his strength, snatched his milk bottle and finally, he spoke.¡±


    ¡°Spoke?¡±


    ¡°Un, he first said to Karwenz ¡®Hey, you brat, you might not be afraid of getting sliced up but I am. Can you calm down and be more professional, we are normal infants. You should learn how to cry,e, cry like your big brother. Waaaaaaaaaaahh! Come, raise the pitch a little, wahhhhhhhh¡¯ Then, after realising that Karwenz couldn¡¯t understand what he said and continued snatching his bottle, he shouted loudly for help ¡®Hey hey hey, can you all control this evil brat? He is already learning how to bully his older brother. Hmph, to dare to snatch my rations, I will pull you down with me.¡¯¡±


    TL: Just for note, sometimes Rnd and the rest would address themself as ¡®this old man/woman¡¯ when they are angry. In the text above, he said ¡®Hmph, to dare to snatch this old man¡¯s ration, this old man will pull you down with me¡¯.


    ¡°A month old child would actually know to hide his own talents? That is incredible.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. In these few centuries, I have taught several geniuses of the Mist Royalty but I have never seen such a ridiculous child. The world thinks that Karwenz is a super genius but in reality, Rnd was even more ridiculous. If it wasn¡¯t for him spending his effort on various academic domains, causing him to miss out on the golden period for training, he wouldn¡¯t be weaker than Karwenz in any case.¡±


    ¡°Can you tell me a little more about Prince Rnd?¡±


    Staring at the face of the exhausted Reyne, Kelly strokes her hair lightly. Just like how she did it when Reyne was still a child, she lowers her head and lightly kisses the forehead of the young girl.


    ¡°Un, then, since you have been spent from being busy the entire day, let¡¯s treat it as a bedtime story. Rnd, although he is smart, he isn¡¯t very reliable. There was once he happily dragged me to look at his new invention. He even said proudly ¡®Look, this transparent thing would definitely sell well. I call it ss. Since it can earn us a lot of money, the life of our citizens will definitely improve.¡¯¡±


    ¡°ss was invented by Lord Rnd? I remember that it existed six thousand years ago though.¡±


    ¡°Un, back then, he didn¡¯t know that. When I told him this, his depressed face really makes one¡¯s heart break. He even mumbled softly ¡®It¡¯s nothing, then I will invent the printing industry then.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Printing technology? Isn¡¯t that the industry monopolised by the God of Knowledge?¡±


    ¡°Un, I also said that back then. Thus, he became even more depressed. However, the next day, he started to study astronomy and biology, what living being evolution theory. Although it seems obviously groundless, now that I think about it, it makes some sense. For example ¡¾Living beings aren¡¯t created by Gods and they don¡¯t remain constant. They change and they evolve. Natural evolution is the way how living beings evolve. Living beings have a tendency to over-reproduce but living space and resources are limited. Thus, living beings have to fight in order to survive.¡¿¡±


    ¡°The beings of the mortal world isn¡¯t created by the Gods? Don¡¯t all lifeforms originate from the Origin of Order and the Chaos Abyss? Isn¡¯t this obviously a lie?¡±


    ¡°Un, but he didn¡¯t get depressed over this. Very quickly, he found new toys. He has always been like this, never knowing what being discouraged and giving up was. Even at the start of the war, he quickly matured from a rookie into a true war god. If only the enemies we faced didn¡¯t outnumber us by more than a hundred times.¡±


    Under the umtion of rage and exhaustion, very quickly, as words flew by, Reyne fell into the realm of dreams. Looking at the youngdy stripped of her armor, Kelly fell into deep thoughts.


    That armor is very elegant, looking like a heavy mithril te mail on the exterior. In reality, it is only a soft armor painted with ayer of gold alloy. It is even lighter than leather armor.


    It is impossible for talents to be born from the Mist Bloodline for every generation. Reyne isn¡¯t some genius expert. In fact, she isn¡¯t even a qualified Warrior. Having the fighting power of an Iron-rank primary stage at 14 years old, there isn¡¯t much difference between her and normal civilians.


    In that 1000km charge, she was only in charge of holding the gs and shouting the war cry. While trembling in fear, she led the army to build up her reputation. If she were to really meet with an opponent, any Beastman would have been able to easily kill her in an instant.


    However, it is a pity that the East Mist Communal Country is currently gued with internal and external problems. It is indeed a period which they require a hero-like Princess Knight. Reyne has sacrificed a lot but if the circumstances were to be allowed to develop on as it is, she would have to continue to be sacrificed even if very possibly, she would receive no returns. Perhaps, what would await her is a bad reputation and the iprehension of her citizen.


    ¡°Sigh, maybe what Reyne said makes sense, this job is really too tough for her to bear. Rnd, where are you?¡±


    Kelly lightly strokes the knife by her waist. On the hilt of the dagger, two giant dragons intertwines with one another and of the two pearls ced on them, one was radiating white light while the other was radiating ck light.


    This is the Light of Life, a secret art passed down in the royalty of many countries. When a member of royalty is born, a drop of blood would be taken from them to hold the ritual. Then, this pearl would be their Light of Life. If the light is extinguished, it means that the person is dead. This can also be used to prevent others from faking the identity of members of royalty.


    The two pearls on this decorative knife is the Light of Life of the twins ¡ª Rnd and Karwenz.


    ¡°Karwenz¡¯s Light of Life is bing darker and darker. It seems that he has fallen entirely to the Chaos. But Rnd...¡±


    The situation with Rnd¡¯s Light of Life is extremely bizarre. It lights up for a moment and extinguishes in the next, white for an instant and ck in the next, changing multiple times frequently.


    A hundred years ago, the darkness even exceeded that of Karwenz and not too long ago, it was extinguished suddenly. Then, two monthster, it lit up once again, turning white.


    ¡°If the reaction of this Light of Life depicts his actual condition and that Rnd is still roaming on this world, he must be leading a very exciting life.¡±


    Somehow, the knife slightly shudders, as though summoned by something. Kelly instinctively stands up and looking towards the direction of the pull of the knife, she discovers the silhouette of a person beneath the tree.


    ¡°Rnd!!¡±


    However, when she focused her sight, she realised that it was only a willow tree dancing along with the wind.


    Shaking her head, Kelly shuts the window.


    ¡°Heh, looks like I am just like Reyne, desiring a reliable shoulder to lean on.¡±


    However, she didn¡¯t notice that by the corner, beneath the window, a figure wearing a silver mask was currently grinding his teeth in anger.


    ¡°Darsos, to actually dare set your sights on the Mist Country, I will make sure that your fate will be even worse than that in history!¡±


    Don¡¯t ask me how the pearl managed to radiate ck light. It just... does.

 Chapter 82

    Chapter 82: The Revival of the Mist


    Without doubt, the And Empire is a powerful country. Their royal family¡¯s White Wolf Royal Guards is indisputably an elite tier 3 light cavalry. Thebined charge of 3 of these armies of Silver-rank mounted troops is unstoppable. Alright, this isn¡¯t the Underground World where Gold-rank are treated as pawns. At the very least, the military of the smaller countries that they are bordered with are unable withstand their charge.


    Compared to races blessed with longevity, a human¡¯s individual fighting prowess is definitely a shoring. However, humans are a race that depend heavily on tools and external items to achieve victory (The White Wolf Royal Guards can only reach Silver-rank when coupled with their mounts and equipment). The so-calledrge countries refers to those who possess an advantage in agriculture, manufacturing, alchemy, magic, breeding livestock and the grooming of talents, that¡¯s why they are able to equip and sustain a stronger army and military power.


    TL: The word ´ó¹ú rge countries), in Chinese have the idea of them being powerful as well. So, you all can safely assume therge countries I am talking about to not just berge in term ofnd size.


    For example, the armor of the White Wolf Guards is an alloy of Missilor Mithril. Not mentioning the blueprint for the armor of their light cavalry, even the basic materials required for the alloy itself is a ss 1 secret of the And Empire. The Missilor Savage Dragon Lance, Savage Javelin and Savage Sword that they specially created are all high-quality alchemy products. As for their Marlot horses, it is a top-quality war horse that they carefully cross-bred for many generations. It is said that this type of war horse feed on meat.


    It is because of such luxurious equipment that a Bronze-rank Knight is forcefully pulled to the strength of a Silver-rank (human). Coupling it with an overwhelming advantage in quantity and strategy, their fighting power would be one to reckon with.


    Not only unique troops are like that, all human soldiers are reliant on equipment. For example, a former farmer who undergo a year of basic soldier training, after giving him a Dragon Lance, he would be a tier 1 basic Spearman. If he were to undergo 2 year of shooting training, with a magic crossbow, he would be a tier 1 intermediate Crossbowman.


    If they undergo 5 years of strict training and equips full heavy te mail with alchemy medicine that increases one¡¯s strength, then they would be a tier 2 basic armored Berserker. On the other hand, if they started grooming a Griffin from young, then after it matures to the point that it could be ridden on, a tier 3 Griffin Rider would be born. Of course, basically, only nobles who can afford the feed for Griffins will be able to assume such an expensive job.


    Of course, due to being too reliant on external tools, it is unavoidable that they would be physically weak. Once dismounted, the White Wolf Guards are only Bronze-rank foot soldiers. They would then be heavily dependent on co-operation and formations. Humans are quite well-known for their military art and using thebination of different soldiers to cover for the weakness of another is a lesson that allmanders must undergo.


    The inheritance and innovation of technology and culture caused the continuous emergence of new types of soldiers and new equipment. Not to mention, the growth rate of humans surpasses that of the other races and tribes, so they had never feared a battle of attrition. This also the primary reason why the short-lived Humans who don¡¯t have any race talents are able to im supremacy in this world.


    For example, the Elves are indeed strong. It is perfectlymon for adult Elves to be at Silver-rank. However, it takes 200 years for them to mature... That is enough for the birth of 4 to 5 generations of humans. Furthermore, the odd one of the Elves, the Dark Elves, despite being the only one with strong reproductive abilities, they have the most intense internal conflict of all. However, admittedly, in a damned ce like the Underground World, the only way one can attain sufficient resources is through cruel elimination of adversaries.


    Thus, in the eyes of other races, the Human race only have 1 advantage ¡ª strong reproductive abilities. But, this advantage is sufficient by itself.


    Indeed, our fake Gold-ranks might not be able topete against the real Gold-ranks of your Elf Race. But, it wouldn¡¯t be a loss even if I had to exchange 10 of mine for one of yours. There are people to rece me even after I¡¯m dead as long there are sufficient equipment. By 10 years, my army would have recovered. But, you Elves have to wait 200 years for a new generation to mature, are you all sure you canpete with us?


    Also, as long as the poption isrge enough, top-ss talents would naturally appear. At the very least, every top-tier Empire would have at least a few SemiGod old geezers.


    However, the human kingdoms aren¡¯t infallible. In the invasion by the Underground Alliance in the future, against absolute power coupled with military tactics that aren¡¯t inferior to them, the Human Kingdoms also tasted the pain ofcking top-tier fighting power.


    Thus, the need for stronger soldiers stimted their advancement, they weed another period of rapid growth of engineering, alchemy and magic. That bizarre tier 5 soldier, Magic Machinery Dragon, is the product of the new Magic Machinery study and Magic Formation study.


    Alright, let¡¯s stop talking about the future that brings migraine to one. Just the present itself is causing me a headache.


    Arge tree attracts wind. In history, the And Empire urately disyed the meaning of this phrase through actual actions. Regardless of whether it is the invading Underground Alliance or the Undead Cmity, they decisively chose them as their primary target.


    It will be cool under the shade of arge tree? No, following the international rules, under the orders of the sovereign state, the subordinate states must go onto the battlefield as well. Furthermore, they woulde under themand of the sovereign state, so it is almost certain that they would be forced to serve as cannon fodder. When I start to think about the cruel wars that would happen in the future, the smaller a country is, the less cards they have on their hand, the easier it is for them to be crushed. This is also why I won¡¯t sit idly by and watch as the East Mist Communal Country to bes the subordinate state of the And Empire.


    However, just like what I have heard previously, if we were to reject them directly, it would probably cause a war. Both endings are equally bad, so it would be really difficult to choose between the two.


    ¡°Since it is hard to choose, then we might as well not choose. We should try to look for ways to turn it into a farce. As long as the subordinate state alliance fails and the n is postponed for a few years, the situation would changepletely. Of course, if I do not exact vengeance against them, I won¡¯t be able to take it lying.¡±


    Although I said these words, I still have no idea how I should strike.


    Even in the case of deflecting a thousand points of strength with one point of strength, one would require at least one point of strength. Compared to a gigantic organisation like the And Empire, the strength in my hands might not even tally up to half a point.


    ¡°As it is my first time here, everything must be started from scratch. I don¡¯t have sufficient intelligence andwork, so there is no way I cane up with a reliable action n. However, since I still have 3 months before the inauguration ceremony, I should make getting into their top echelons and collecting information as my primary objective.¡±


    This is also the reason why I am at the entrance of this dirty and smelly underground sewage now.


    ¡°It is really too smelly. Even if we have toplete a mission to please that Count, but there isn¡¯t a need to ept such a mission right?¡±


    The ex-Queen of Banshees and current Queen of Slimes pinches her nose as sheins with a look of resentment on her face.


    ¡°Look, it¡¯s your brethren.¡± I pointed at the pungent sewage culvert. Over there, a Mud Slime is currently struggling, its body filled with fetid filth.


    After ncing for a brief moment, disgust overwhelms her. Harloys immediately turns into a ck cat and pounces over.


    ¡°I am the noble Queen of Banshees! The Omniscient One of the secrets of magic, not some filthy Slime.¡±


    First w second bite third tail whip, she is quite well-versed in cat martial art. However, when used by this ck cat, rather than saying it is an attack, one might as well say it is an attempt to act cute. However, I didn¡¯t ignore it as I usually do. This is because Harloys¡¯s biting attacks have some threat to them now.


    ¡¾Frozen Air: A kind of deadly cold air that is without sound or presence. It can be enchanted on one¡¯s physical body and weapon, as well as paired together with Ice Magic as an attack. Those who are touched by the Frozen Air will have all movements slowed by 1% and suffer 1 point of ice damage per second. This debuff can be stacked. If the target¡¯s movement speed is reduced by more than 20%, a frozen effect will be inflicted. Many negative status will be inflicted such as the freezing of one¡¯s thought. If the target¡¯s movement speed is reduced by more than 50%, then there is a chance that the target might die at any moment due to massive loss of heat.¡¿


    From a certain sense, a Mage¡¯s Magic Pet is also a part of himself. The Touch of Ghoul, Touch of Lich and various other magic spells that require Mages to be in close proximity to the target to cast can be released through their Magic Pets. However, I never thought that the one to benefit the greatest from the passive ability ¡®Frozen Air¡¯ would be Harloys.


    As a cat or bat, she is a small target and the interval between her attacks are short. She is stealthy, making her suited for assaults. Furthermore, the minuscule damage that one incurs from her ws easily causes the other party to neglect her attacks. If she were to stack a few dozenyers of Frozen Air, then the person would probably not be that far off from death.


    Though, in the face of someone who knows about it beforehand, it bes meaningless.


    With a light step, a spin and a pinch, I managed to grab hold of the cat¡¯s biggest weakness, the back of their neck. After turning 2 rounds, what I received is a dead cat who is shooting gold stars from her eyes.


    ¡°Hmph, you are still too young to fight with me.¡±


    Iugh gleefully. My level has been stuck for quite a period of time due to the experience penalty which is getting more ridiculous. Also, I wasn¡¯t willing to invest my valuable skill points into that darned Ice System. However, along the way, I had been revising on my Holy Light and Power of Law, causing my battle power to soar.


    But, what that grew even more rapidly was surprisingly, my swordsmanship and martial arts. This should have been the main area of study for Warriors. After all, theyck the augmentation of supernatural abilities. However, for me, studying swordsmanship is like trying to recall my past memories, so there¡¯s no need for me to spend too much effort to learn it.


    This twist and step may seem simple, but it is actually a footwork with profound meaning. Coupled together with my profound swordsmanship, every attack is clean and thorough, making me look extremely cool. If I were to disy this outside, it would definitely stir the praises of experts and the screams of beautifuldies. How can I be so cool!


    ¡°Rnde! Can you be even more ridiculous? Other people are fighting and yet you are ying with your cat!¡±


    Momo¡¯s sword was quick like the wind. At this moment, she is currently chasing a group of Underground Rats, shing furiously at them. Judging from how their entire body is dyed red, they must have assaulted a group of passers-by not long ago.


    Fine, the mad dog may look decent, so reluctantly, she could be considered a beauty. However, the Dark Elf¡¯s sense of aesthetics cannot be trusted.


    Thus, I shot my gaze towards Krose.


    ¡°Lord Oracle, even if you are the one who carries out the will of my Lord, but if you such inappropriate behavior will bring shame to my Lord. Please fight seriously.¡±


    The Wild Elf Krose is brandishing a gigantic wooden vine staff which is even taller than her. Lightning shes time and time again in the pitch ck underground tunnel and every sh is apanied by a scream of agony. Our groupcks firepower and due the the apparent fact that we have an excess of Law jobs, she took on the role of a damage dealer as a Storm Druid.


    The Lightning Spell can be cast even in the underground. Although its might is obviously weaker than how it should be, the strength is still enough to overturn themon sense of normal Druids, proving that she has astonishing talent and potential in the control of lightning.


    ¡¾Krose.Ainta


    Gender: Krose


    Race: Wild Elf


    Job: LV60 Druid/LV12 Storm Druid/LV20 Judgementor/LV3 Storm Judgementor (Krose¡¯s self-created Legend job), Total LV95, Combined LV83


    Soul Imprint: The Storm Envoy


    Fighting Power Evaluation: Legend Priestess


    System Evaluation: She is a big thigh worth lying on, not to mention it is a beautiful one. As for that gender Krose, as this joke is too old, I won¡¯t talk more about it. Right, the Spring of Drowned Man will be added into the Gachapon recently so try your best to draw it so as to please this beauty.¡¿


    TL: Big thigh -> It is a Chinese web phrase, just imagine in an rpg, a newbie hugging the leg of a veteran while the veteran fights monsters.


    Although a letter that I personally wrote and Diana¡¯s testimony is sufficient to convince her that I am Wumianzhe¡¯s Oracle, somehow, she seems to always bring up strict requests of me such as ¡®You can¡¯t do that¡¯ ¡®You must discipline yourself properly, cking around everyday really damages my Lord¡¯s reputation¡¯, putting it as though I soiled the reputation of her God.


    ¡°Hmph, about soiling Wumianzhe¡¯s reputation, did you think that I was very reliable before?¡± Alright, saying words that insult a Priestess¡¯s true God is equal to throwing in a white glove to engage her in a duel to the death, there¡¯s no way I would say these words to her face.


    Even though she couldn¡¯t exactly be considered a ¡®beautifuldy¡¯, judging from how everyone was staring at me angrily, it seems like I have identally incurred the wrath of the crowd. I better keep myself in check.


    ¡°So, where exactly is that jade?¡±


    Something is amiss with this mission. Despite possessing solid authority and numerous experts under hismand, he tasked us, outsiders, to look for his family heirloom jade that he lost.


    ¡°Thisntern used to guide our path is obviously a type of necromancy magic, more like searching for souls and corpses. Hehe, looks like I have started to see the truth of this matter.¡±


    After biting on my finger with all her might as revenge, Harloys jumps on my shoulder. Sitting on higher ground allows her to distance herself from the smell of those putrid filth.


    I also found it odd that the Count would hand us antern filled with magic, saying that we would find the jade by following its guide. However, from my senses, it is obviously a necromancy magic that is guided by flesh and blood. It is a necromancy magic that tracks the missing limbs or the master of the sample of flesh and blood used in the ritual. Ignoring the fact that a human Count has a Necromancer under hismand, could the jade that we have to find a part of someone¡¯s body?


    ¡°Alright, it is right in front.¡±


    After everyone are done clearing the battlefield, I walk over with thentern in my hand. In the end, I stop in front of a giant pot left behind by the Ratman.


    Looking at how thentern is flickering at rapid intervals, it seems that the jade we are looking for is in this pot. Thus, I casually lift thedle inside and scoop up the contents inside a few times. The first few times, I managed to scoop up human fingers and ears. It seems that this really is a misceneous soup from the Ratman.


    But soon afterwards, I managed to scoop up my objective ¡ª the jade.


    ¡°Oh, so the jade refers to eggs.¡±


    Alright, the mad dog exined very straightforwardly. In front me is a part of the male reproductive organ, moremonly known as eggs. It is already cooked very thoroughly and looks... Alright, I am so disgusted that I find myself unable to continue describing it.


    ¡°Heh, there is only one truth! The unlucky Count must have been phndering outside, inciting his wife to bring the knife down on him fiercely. Afterwards, she threw his eggs into the underground sewage. Hehe, she sure is vicious, I feel a bit of an urge to meet that wife of the Count.¡±


    Somehow, after hearing Harloys¡¯s ill-intentioned conjecture, looking at her gaze which was filled with malice, I felt a chill down my spine.


    ¡°No, it isn¡¯t a wound from a knife but rather, it seems to have been crushed. Judging from the wounds, there probably isn¡¯t any culprit in this case. I suspect that the fat Count might have identally put his eggs between the toilet bowl cover and the toilet bowl and sat down. KACHA, and it fell into the underground sewage.¡± (There is an actual case on the web)


    ¡°Look, that Count is obese and movement isn¡¯t very convenient for him. Also, the sides of the metal toilet bowl is quite sharp. Thus, when pressure is applied, PACHI, it is immediately ripped apart...¡±


    Should I say as expected of a Judge who is a professional at analysing cases? In the end, Krose even pped her hands together to emte the action of a pressure acting downwards while making sounds like ¡®KACHA, PACHI¡¯, but...


    ¡°Why are you all covering your lower body, is there is a mistake in my conjecture?¡±


    ¡°No, it is just that everyone fills as though their eggs are being pulled, it hurts a little.¡±


    Alright, without doubt, the action of these man covering their lower body is the instinctive ability to empathise with another man. However, this result that left people speechless has determined that this day would be a farce that would leave us mentally and physically tired.


    ¡°Why can¡¯t we meet a slightly more normal person? It is enough for our band to be unreliable, but now, even our client has to be unreliable as well?¡± I question the blue sky and as expected, there is no reply.


    ¡°Do we have to bring it back? Disgusting, Momo doesn¡¯t want to touch it.¡±


    ¡°He probably wants the help of a Priest to reattach it, otherwise he wouldn¡¯t have spent money to hire us. Who wants to take it?¡±


    Apparently, no one wants to touch a thing like this. Just as we were trying to push the responsibility to the one another, ¡®boom¡¯ a loud explosion caused the entire underground tunnel to tremble.


    ¡°The Ratman army has arrived. They have always been a lifeform with strong desire for vengeance.¡±


    Clint quietly takes a step forward. His voice had a rare tinge of pride in it. It seems that the traps that heid by himself has worked.


    But instead of reassuring me, cold sweat starts appearing on my head. Looking at the rubble that dropped from the ceiling, this fellow seems to have used too much gunpowder.


    ¡°Clint, you didn¡¯t set up explosives going by the standards of the Underground World right? This is a man-made tunnel, there is no way it would be as sturdy as the rock walls of the Underground World. How many did you bury...¡±


    Alright, there is no need to question him further. From Clint¡¯s action of turning around to flee, it clearly says what is going to happen afterwards.


    ¡°BOOM!¡± ¡°BOOM!¡± A series of explosions caused the entire underground sewage to crumble. This clearly shows that not only did he bury explosives, he buried a ton of them.


    ¡°Damn it! Can¡¯t you all be more normal?¡±


    While escaping with all my might, I thought about Krose who was exining her conjecture calmly and the Prince of Explosions, I immediately regretteding up with the name ¡®Absolute Gentlemen Alliance¡¯.


    ¡°Krose whose gender is Krose. The mysterious Prince Clint who hides his face and ys with explosives. Beifeng. Un, there is absolutely no need for any description. Beifeng itself is the best adjective for perverts. Casio, who is getting closer with Beifeng (Although he seems normal at the moment, being friendly with Beifeng is a big problem by itself). The mad dog who is into shotas. The Dark Elves who seek the path of Holy Light and Law. 2 gays (The 2: We are not gays, we just love Krose). There really isn¡¯t a normal person here. I have decided, if I manage to escape safely from here, I will go out and look for 2 normal teammates!¡±


    ¡°You forgot yourself, you insane old monster.¡±


    ¡°Un, thank you for your reminder, the old granny who pretends to be young!¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t I forbid you from calling me that! I will bite you, I really will!¡±


    ¡°You already bit me, you bastard. I forbid you from stacking Frozen Air on me!¡±


    ¡°Apologise!¡±


    ¡°Absolutely not!¡±


    ¡°Then eat my attacks!¡±


    ¡°Do you think you are the only one who can stack Frozen Air to lower one¡¯s movement speed? Watch me.¡±


    When everyone escaped from the underground sewage, they discovered that not too far from the entrance of the sewage, a man and a cat is currently brawling ¡®intensely¡¯. While proceeding forward with the speed of a turtle, they tried their hardest to slow the other down. The entire underground sewage was already trembling, on the verge of copsing at any moment now.


    ¡°Rnde! Stop ying with the cat at such a time!¡±


    ¡°I am not ying with the cat!¡±


    ¡°We are fighting!¡±


    Alright, before everyone had the time to be surprised over the fact that the little ck cat could actually speak, the underground sewage finally copsed. Even in the instant when the rubble came crashing down, the sound of the arguments between the two could still be heard.


    ¡°Look, thanks to you, old granny! No milk for you tomorrow!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, you would need to have a tomorrow for that. To be able to pull you down with me, my life was worthwhile! Even after I fall into hell, I would wake upughing.¡±


    ¡°BOOM!¡±


    When innumerable rockse crashing down and everything is reduced to ruins, everyone was bbergasted. What kind of person was he, to sacrifice his life for an argument with a little cat.


    ¡°Haa, I almost died!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, disasters live for a thousand years. Given your ability to bring about catastrophes, you would even survive the end of the world. Look at my w of the Meow God!¡±


    Alright, looks like I spoke too early. A head pops up from the rubble. Despite being stuck there, he was still using his teeth to fight with his cat while insulting each other.


    But obviously, being stuck in the rubble, he is unable to defeat the cat. As scratches start to pile up on his face, without any hesitation, he surrenders and begs for forgiveness.


    ¡°3 times the portion of milk tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Milk bath, the highest quality one! Meow wants a vat.¡±


    ¡°Deal!¡±


    Alright, looking at the man and cat who quickly came to an agreement, let¡¯s not borate on what emotions they were showing on their face when they dug out their leader. They were all considering whether they should retreat from the band before they are dragged to their deaths by this living treasure. But, unexpectedly, they swiftly realised that the team leader Rnde was still holding that disgustingdle in his hands.


    ¡°You can¡¯t be thinking of going to im the reward right? After it is cooked and crushed, it is already entirely ruined. Just throw it away.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, a Gold-rank Priest may not be able to revive it even if you were to return it back. The Count will just end up angered by the embarrassment.¡±


    I shook my head. I already understood clearly why the Count would task this to an external mercenary band like us.


    ¡°Diana and Krose, follow me toplete the mission. This fellow handed us this mission despite having underlings of his own, he obviously intend to dispose of us after using us. Great, after he turns his back on us, we will take him down and threaten him with this toy. This way, we can manipte him and hiswork.¡±


    ¡°Your n sounds okay, but if thatdle touches me, I will make sure you go down with me!¡±


    I didn¡¯t reply to Harloys¡¯sint. At this moment, I was surprised by the System Notice.


    ¡°Congrattions, you have activated the Epic mission: The Revival of the Mist!¡±


    A few minutes ago, Kelly and Reyne was astonished after opening a thick letter.


    ¡°The blueprint of the full armor of the Aurora Knights? The blueprint of the royal family¡¯s heavy infantry Avnche Guardian? The training manual for training Asmu Hounds...¡±


    In the mix is more than 30 types of powerful soldier types that were lost, information regarding their jobs, training methods and equipment blueprint. All these are the pride of the powerful Mist Country and the Mist Bloodline, but they were destroyed in the battle in Diffindor along with the city.


    ¡°Could this really be the inheritance that we have lost? Did someone from East Mist who escaped to And Capital keep all these?¡±


    ¡°No, they are top-tier secrets. The number of people people who knew all these back then were in the single digits. Besides, look at the blueprint for this armor, we have it as well but it is slightly different... Inconceivable! With such a change, the defense ability would be increased by at least 20%. It is actually an improved version! Who is it, to be able to further refine such a perfect design. Also, the ink for the blueprint has yet to dry yet. It is probably written not too long ago.¡±


    ¡¾Just a small present, please ept it. I will be visiting you all soon ¡ª Rnde¡¿


    ¡°Who is Rnde?¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter who he is, there is hope for the East Mist Communal Country! As long as we take these back, give it 10 years, we would be able to rise up again as a powerful country in the North!¡±


    Not mentioning the two overjoyeddies, at this moment, my head was hurting from the mission that was suddenly triggered. I really didn¡¯t expect a whim of mine to cause such a big trouble for me.


    ¡¾Congrattions, you have activated the Epic mission: The Revival of the Mist!¡¿


    ¡¾Quest objective: Remove the threat of the East Mist Communal Country from being annexed as a subordinate state. Bring back the Country of Winter Wolves in the far North ¡ª in the face of the true King of Winter Wolves, Darsos means nothing at all.¡¿


    ¡¾Quest rewards: Rnd Sacred Sword will be upgraded to a God Equipment. The clue to the God Equipment Holy Thorned Crown ¡ª I know that you have been wanting to find this Guardian Equipment of your country.¡¿


    ¡¾Quest failure penalty: Turned into a female. I am serious, very serious. If you can¡¯t protect your country this time, you might as well be a girl.¡¿


    TL: The phrase for Guardian Equipment is Õò¹úÉñÆ÷£¬ which means an extremely powerful weapon used to stabilise the country/ deter enemies.


    ¡°My head hurts, where did the fellow Karwenz throw the Holy Thorned Crown to? Not even saying a word about it, now I have to look for it myself.¡±


    Although I wasining, the smile on my face probably didn¡¯t escape the notice of anyone.


    ¡°This time, I definitely will not fail.¡±

 Chapter 83

    Chapter 83: Double Swords


    ¡°Name? Age? Job? Expertise? Goal?¡±


    ¡°Aaron, 16, Iron-rank Warrior. My Swordsmanship isn¡¯t bad. I want to earn money and be a hero that saves the world!¡±


    Looking at the foolishly-smiling young fellow in front of me, I nod my head in response to his words. That in-looking tanned young man reminds me of the Adam of the past.


    ¡°Next.¡±


    16 year old Iron-rank, why are you even still training? Can you reach Gold-rank within 3 years? We aren¡¯t a group of nannies, you better look for a rookie party to grind your way up.


    ¡°Kavan, around 30 plus I guess, Silver-rank Shaman. My goal is to earn enough money to buy the Fire Dragon Circus.¡±


    ¡°Dixu, 40 plus, I am his big brother and a proud Warrior. My goal is to be a good big brother.¡±


    ¡°I am the big brother! Dixu, you fool who can¡¯t even count properly. We were born together, how can you be 10 years older than me?¡±


    Okay, this is a rarely seen Ogre Shaman. It is said that they were once the pir propping up a circus. After the circus disbanded, they came out to work as mercenaries for a living, hoping to earn enough money to bring back the circus.


    ¡°I am the elder brother!¡±


    ¡°I am, don¡¯t think that I would be afraid of you just because you can do a few light tricks with your hands. I am strong, you know.¡±


    ¡°Fine, then let¡¯s y scissors paper stone. The one who wins will be the elder brother.¡±


    ¡°Fine, one, two, three. Hah, stone.¡±


    ¡°Paper, I won. I am the elder brother.¡±


    ¡°Kavan, you were slow. That is not counted! Again, or I will beat you up.¡±


    ¡°Come on then, today I will show you the dignity of an elder brother, you fool who can¡¯t even count to 9.¡±


    But now, this rare double-headed Ogre Kavan and Dixu is actually brawling to determine which head is the elder brother. While beating each other up, they were both screaming in pain. It is just that it is hard to tell whether they were feeling pain from beating up the other or from getting beaten up.


    I nod my head solemnly. This double-headed Ogre is indeed quite powerful, being naturally talented in magic and martial arts from birth. Theirbined fighting power definitely matches up to the strength of a Gold-rank human. Even more importantly, different from the rookie just now, they would contribute to our fighting power as soon as they join our team.


    ¡°Next.¡±


    However, what Ick now is not fighting power but normal people. We already have enough perverts and weirdos in our band. If we were to add in a person whose left and right is brawling with one another, we would be going down the road of making our opponentsugh to their death.


    That day, after realising that the ¡®Gentlemen Alliance¡¯ iscking in decency andmon sense, considering the need to pull up the bottom limit of our decency, I decided to recruit 2 normal people.


    Of course, another one of the reason is that in this human country, there were too many foreign races in the Gentlemen Alliance. If we use a non-human as a front tomunicate with our clients, it would be hard to prevent others from overthinking things. Thus, even if it is just for show, I decided to recruit a few human mercenaries. Of course, it would be best if they were knowledgeable about this city.


    Even if they can¡¯t be of help, they would be useful as a cover. The situation of our band now, a bunch of foreign races moving together, is too striking. Inparison, it would be much better if it was a group of human mercenaries with a few foreign races in its mix.


    Thus, so as to not dy the matter, I immediately got down to it. Thus, I set up a stand in front of the Mercenary Guild early in the morning to recruit people. With the ¡®friendly sponsor¡¯ from the Count with broken eggs, the starting sry is one that makes eyes widen.


    However, it is a pity that as a foreigner, my background and identity couldn¡¯t be checked. Furthermore, with the tense atmosphere in the city due to the inauguration ceremony, the experienced mercenaries are all lying in wait to judge the situation. Those who responded to the recruitment are either rookies or oddities that other bands are unwilling to ept.


    Looking at Kavan and Dixu who were still brawling with each other, I shaked my head helplessly. I start to pack up my stand to leave. It looks like I have wasted an entire morning today.


    However, passing by the mission board, I stopped.


    ¡°A-rank reward mission: Look for the true culprit who destroyed the northwest underground sewage in Pearl District. Dead or alive, 200000 gold coins will be awarded.¡±


    This is really quite a significant sum. An A-rank reward mission can make a small mercenary band without any rank to climb several ranks at one go. 200000 gold coin is sufficient for one to buy a luxurious mansion in the Pearl District wherend is worth gold itself. It seems like the urrence of the mysterious vandalism just before the inauguration ceremony has struck the nerves of the officials of And Empire.


    I hesitated for a moment. Considering that I have earnt quite a sum recently, I am not in urgent need of money. It would feel great to betray the explosion maniac who is getting more and more dangerous in exchange for the reward money. But, considering that it would most probably end up implicating me as well, I can only regretfully give up on this opportunity to thoroughly rid me of a trouble.


    Yesterday, aftermunicating with the Count with broken eggs, it was as I expected. The reason why he seeked foreign faces to settle his tasks is so that he could get rid of them afterwards. When he saw that there were only 3 of us and that two were women, he was prepared to expose his true intentions but Diana immediately used her great Sin-Splitting Strike to chop up a dozen of his men while Krose destroyed the roof and everything else remaining. Then, I took out the Devil Contract.


    That fat Count was still quite knowledgeable at identifying objects. When he saw a Holy Knight expertly changing the terms of the evil contract using the Devil Language, he was so surprised that his jaws almost dropped off, as though he had seen an angel and devil dancing together.


    What happens afterwards was even more simple. After the contract was signed, seeing how he was scared out of his wits and considering the need to maintain a long-term rtionship with him, it wouldn¡¯t be wise to push him too far. He might retaliate with all he got without any consideration about the cost if forced to a corner. Thus, I didn¡¯te up with any unreasonable demands. I only extorted arge sum of money from him, a luxurious mansion to serve as our temporary base and made him our eye to provide us with intelligence.


    Of course, Devil Contracts mainly work by raising the stake bit by bit, pulling people bit by bit up the hook. If we were to y big from the very start, the tasty piece of flesh would be frightened away.


    I am still quite satisfied with our mansion, which is in the Pearl District. It doesn¡¯t feel right to be living in a hostel all the time. The mansion might be a little old, but the renovations and the garden could still be considered high-ss. Now, our entire band is currently cleaning up our temporary base and as the human leader of the band, I made use of the opportunity to sneak out to recruit personnel.


    If it¡¯s just me doing the recruiting, it won¡¯t be that be so striking. Without those decencycking fellows pulling me back, I should be able to get some normal people on the band.


    Un, I definitely did not do it to avoid the responsibility of cleaning up. Finding excuses to ck off, is it something an upright Holy Knight like me will do?


    ¡°Looks like without any reputation, it would be hard for us to recruit decent people. Why don¡¯t we try the legendary technique of Transcenders, recruiting the future heroes who still aren¡¯t faring well. Un, it is about time for that plot to happen, they should be born already. Sigh, when I received the walk through, I thought that I could get many powerful little brothers under mymand. But, I didn¡¯t expect that even their ancestors were still in their sperm and egg form. At that moment, I ‡å-ed. This is even more depressing than when I put in so much effort to create ss back then, only to realise that the toy has been long created. Heh, digging talents from And Empire, I don¡¯t feel any guilt at all.¡±


    Thinking about how cool I would be, leading a bunch of Epic heroes in the future, I couldn¡¯t help but daydream.


    ¡°I still remember that the ¡®Rain Swallow Sword¡¯ and ¡®Master of Magic Machinery¡¯ are still in the And Capital. If so, should I look for them tomorrow? Un, I should first head to the Count with broken eggs to obtain some intelligence first. Alright, the recruitment mission is done. So, where should I head to spend my time next.¡±


    ¡°Hey hey! This big brother here.¡±


    ¡°You haven¡¯t told us whether you will be recruiting us. We need money to revive the circus, we will listen obediently to you.¡±


    I was looking at the bounty list, thinking about how long it would take for the cleaning to conclude and where I should go to waste my time when the sight in front of me turns dark suddenly. Then, 2 ugly faces suddenly appear in front me, their bad breath hitting me squarely in my face.


    ¡°GHOSTS!¡±


    Alright, what is faster than my scream is my reflex action. Before I came to, my fist has already been struck out. Based on the sensation on my hand, it feels like I hit something physical.


    ¡°He hit him! He actually made a move against them.¡±


    ¡°Hah, to actually dare to taunt this silly Ogre who doesn¡¯t distinguish between allies and enemies, looks like there¡¯s a show to watch.¡±


    ¡°3:1 for the man dead, 1:10 for the man getting heavily injured.¡±


    ¡°That pitiful Fire Dragon Circus. They were already troubled by debt due to bad management and now, their members are going to hurt someone again. This time, no one is able to help them anymore.¡±


    The shouts of the onlookers proves that my judgement is correct. From my perspective, Kavan and Dixu¡¯s prowess is already quite decent, soparatively, to normal mercenaries, their strength would be at a shocking level. However, the reason why no one dared to hire them is because Ogres are easily enraged and would go into Berserk state. Once they start fighting, it is easy for them to go into a state where they wouldn¡¯t be able to distinguish between allies and enemies.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but you appeared too suddenly. It was an ident.¡±


    I smile sheepishly as I retrieve my hand from Kavan and Dixu¡¯s stomach. Some kind-hearted people were already shouting warnings at me.


    ¡°Lad, escape quickly! Why bother reasoning with Ogres. Just half a month ago, he severely wounded a Berserker from the Southernnds. Hurry up!¡±


    ¡°You actually dare to hit Kavan...¡± Blood-red veins appear in the 4 eyes of the 3-meter tall double-headed Ogre. Then, they start to roll upwards, showing the whites of their eyes. Saliva starts to flow freely from their mouth, and they were no longer able toplete their sentence.


    ¡°It is a Complete Berserk state! Everyone, let¡¯s face him together, otherwise we will all die here!¡±


    Alright, looking at this sight, there were already veterans who roared furiously and charged forward.


    Complete Berserk state is the ace (race talent) of Beastmen, Berserkers and Ogres. In exchange of their rationality, they burn through their life force for terrifying strength. Perhaps, they would die of exhaustion if they weren¡¯t treated in time after their Berserk ends, but until then, they would be a fearless killing machine.


    Kavan and Dixu¡¯sbined fighting prowess is Gold-rank, so they would be minimally be of the strength of a Legend-rank after Complete Berserk. The judgement of the veterans were urate. If the both of them weren¡¯t killed in time, everyone in their surroundings would probably die.


    But...


    The next moment, the 4 eyes of the salivating Ogre turnpletely white. Then, their heads suddenly nt and they crash to the ground, their gigantic body raising a cloud of dust.


    ¡°How is this possible? It isn¡¯t Complete Berserk but rather, they were knocked out? From a blow of this young man?¡±


    Disbelief can be seen on the face of the strongest mercenary of the group who were charging towards the Ogre. He really found it hard to ept such a reality. He was once partners with Kavan and Dixu and he knows how tough that Berserker and Shaman Ogre are physically. In fact, he has even seen the Berserk state Kavan and Dixu tearing a war elephant apart but now, they were knocked out by a single blow?


    After the dust settles, the cheerful smiling young man has already disappeared.


    At the same time, I, who identally used my full strength in the punch, made use of the chaos to escape.


    The basic strength of a normal Ogre is 16 points and as a Berserker, Kavan and Dixu should have at least 18 points. It is indeed quite fearsomepared to the 10 points of an average human. However, when ced inparison with one who have exceeded the limits of mortals, 20 points, there is a difference in terms of quality between the two. Furthermore, I identally used a strength exertion technique that I have been practising recently. This is also the main reason why they fell in one blow.


    Why did I have to escape?


    ¡°Darn it, even if I have to make a reputation for myself, but this kind of striking reputation is really unbearable. If I don¡¯t escape, I wouldn¡¯t be able to escape the title of ¡®Ogre Knight¡¯ or some simr nicknames.¡±


    I still roughly get the mercenary industry. For veterans, their titles often spread further than their real name. Furthermore, this title is often rted to how they made their name for the first time, it would be hard to change it after it is fixed. It would be great if it was some elegant title like Dragon yer. But, imagine ¡®Professional Kobold yer¡¯, ¡®The Destroyer of Gnomes¡¯ and ¡®The Ejector of Dogs¡¯ kind of titles, you wouldn¡¯t be able to raise your head for the rest of your life.


    As for ¡®Holy Knight who is stronger than Ogres¡¯ and ¡®Ogre Holy Knight¡¯ kind of bizarre titles, given my Luck stat, it is definitely possible that I would receive such titles. Thus, it would be best for me to escape as far as possible.


    Of course, before I left, I convenientlypleted one of my objective. Holding the bounty in hand, I found a way to spend my time before the cleaning ends.


    ¡°B-rank bounty: Blood Hand Brotherhood Band, an organisationprising pickpockets and assassins. Dead or alive, 100 gold will be awarded for normal members, a minimum of 1000 for their top brass and 50000 gold for the head of the band, Blood Hand Jim. If the task ispleted before the inauguration ceremony, the bounty will be doubled.¡±


    Although the reward is much less than the A-ss quest, what I require now is intelligence and a target to train with. When ites to intelligence, who couldpare with the thief bands who deal in intelligence.


    Very quickly, from the Count with broken eggs, I received basic intelligence on the Blood Hand Brotherhood Band. A lower mid tier thief band with less than 200 members. They had just carried out a big operation, stealing the tributes that a certain country was going to present to the Emperor, thus causing a bounty to be ced on them. It is said that their old den is by the harbor.


    ¡°200 people? Let¡¯s try toplete it before dinner. Un, I will bring back intelligence with me so that no one can say that I am cking off.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡¾Rnd.Mist


    Strength: 20


    Agility: 19


    Stamina: 20


    Intelligence: 29


    Will: 29


    Charm: 19


    Race Talent: War Angel Form,Sinful Devil God Form, Sword of Order, Titan Body


    LV22 Order Knight/LV22 Chaos Witch King¡¿


    In reality, ever since my revival, while being delighted over my high starting point, I have been thinking about what kind of training route I should walk on.


    Not talking about Ice Magic and Necromancy first, as an experienced Holy Knight, I am still quite confident in my closebat abilities.


    However, for this bnced and powerful physical body, if I were to choose the route of heavy armor and dual de, then my 19 points in Agility would be wasted. But, if I were to wear light armor and choose the route of an agile Warrior, then it would be a waste of my 20 points Strength which surpasses the limits of mortals.


    But, what surprises me the most is that despite my primary job being Order Knight, I didn¡¯t have a main stat. My overall fighting power could be increased with the rise of any one of my stats. Thus, I hesitated.


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me I would have the walk the route of dual des? Or should I learn from barbarians, carrying a heavy weapon in each of my hand? But, that would be starting anew.¡±


    Changing one¡¯s fighting style isn¡¯t an easy task. However, a small unexpected event made me make up my determination.


    ¡¾Frozen Air¡¿


    That treacherous buff that can be enchanted on the de of one¡¯s weapon, causing one¡¯s opponent to unknowingly fall into a desperate situation. Initially, I nned to use the radiant Holy Light to cover the Frozen Air on my sword, so that it would be even more undetectable and deadly.


    However, reality never works as nned. I tried many time but whether it is Holy Light of Power of Law, the moment theye into contact with Frozen Air, one of them would dissipate. It is either because their attributes sh with one another or that I am unable to meld them together in my current state.


    Ignore Holy Light and focus on Frozen Air instead? Can a Holy Knight who doesn¡¯t use Holy Light still be considered a Holy Knight? That would be either a pure Warrior or a 2nd rate rookie Warrior who is unable to focus on his swordsmanship.


    Naturally, I turned my attention into wielding dual des. One sword will be enchanted with Holy Light while the other with Frozen Air. Theoretically, using 2 unique powers to strike my enemy concurrently will definitely reduce my enemies to tears.


    Furthermore, not only can this bring out the advantage of my high stats which are developing at the same pace, a fighting style that uses two kind of attributes is also quite suited for me, given that I have many different attributes.. This also gives me the advantage of choosing what attribute I should enchant on each of my two sword to counter my opponent.


    But when I brought up my intention with the others, the Knights, including Diana in the mix, don¡¯t approve of my thoughts, viewing it as an impossible task and a waste of effort.


    ¡°Dual des don¡¯t simply mean using 2 swords, it is a totally different concept from wielding 2 swords in both hands. The cycle between attack and defense is extremely important. When the left sword strikes, even if the right sword doesn¡¯t go on the offense, it must move or the bnce of the body will be shaken. Splitting one¡¯s focus into doing multiple things at the same time is the norm for dual des. At the same time, it has a very high requirement of one¡¯s bnce and agility. It is a style almost unique to Elf Swordsmen and you are a human...¡±


    These are the words Diana said to dissuade to me. She almost directly said ¡®Dual des is a profession for Elf Swordsmen. It is impossible for you to learn it.¡±


    ¡°Dual des? Or wielding 2 swords? Haha, are you a 3 meter tall Ogre or a 2.5 meter Hignd Barbarian. To actually be able to think of such a ridiculous thing. If you can achieve it, tonight, I will...¡±


    Alright, looking at the scene in front her, Momo swallows her remaining words.


    At that moment, I was wielding a sword in my left and right hand each. In the start, my motion was still rigid and rusty. But, as I swung about, my motions gradually got more and more fluid. Eventually, my standard got to the level of veterans who have several decades of experience behind them.


    ¡°I don¡¯t believe it. It must be just the empty form without any contents inside. Come, let¡¯s spar.¡±


    Alright, Momo personally challenges me. To the astonishment of the crowd, after my initial fluster, I gradually got control of the flow of the battle. The heavy dual swords were so dexterous as though they were part of my body. The coordination of the two swords had a light and swift tempo, dancing a waltz that brings about an image of the rapid flow of a stream.


    For Momo who wascking in strength, she didn¡¯t even hold on for 30 seconds when she was defeated and retreated with numb hands.


    ¡°This is almost a miracle!¡¯


    The Legend Holy Knight Diana looks at me with surprise and disbelief. Then, she smiles and nods her head, as though that this was the way it should be.


    In reality, there was no doubt that I had cheated.


    ¡¾Ambidextrous: Allows your left hand to be as dexterous as your right hand. Prerequisite: Agility 15+ ¡ª System Notice: There is really no difference between left and right hand, please don¡¯t use this skill to do meaningless things¡¿


    There was a period when I was roaming in the Elf Kingdom when I was so bored that I started training to be ambidextrous, that¡¯s why that gray-colored option appeared in the skill tree. However, due to the fact that it is the core ability to a dual de Swordsman, even though my basic stats fits the prerequisite, I still paid 3 skill points for it.


    ¡¾Giant Wielding: Being blessed by God¡¯s strength, you are able to wield a dual-handed weapon like a one-handed sword. However, due to inexperience, the uracy and damage will be significantly lowered. Prerequisite: Strength 18+ ¡ª System Notice: Even though Giant Wielding is a closebat skill is an universal talent, but with 18 Strength, you can only learn it. To use the weapon properly, you will need at least 20 Strength. If one isn¡¯t of Giant race, normally only Legend-rank Warriors can fit the criteria. However, by then, their battle style would already be fixed, so how would they change to dual-wielding dual-handed weapons at this point. That¡¯s why this is called the most useless skill.¡¿


    After devoting 4 skill points into it, countless battle techniques and experience gushes into my mind and my body recalls those sensations. This saved me arge amount of training time. Under the gazes of disbelief by the crowd, I grasped the basics of dual-wielding dual-handed swords.


    Of course, this is only the start which brings about the possibility of trying such a battle style. However, if I were to want to be a grandmaster-ss dual-wielding expert like in the past, I would still require countless amount of time to grind my techniques along with actual battle experience and the opponents in front of me were very responsible sparring partners.


    ¡°Hah.¡±


    The dual-handed sword in my right hand radiates with golden light, brightening this pitch ck underground chamber. The next moment, the thieves who were hiding in the shadows were smacked flying.


    Un, smack, not cut. Dual-wielding heavy swords is a ssical way of using strength to subdue others. They can use their weight and its size to bully others by smacking, crushing and chopping them.


    But, seeing how there was no movement after being sent smashing into the wooden crates, it seems that for the physically weak thieves, being smacked or cut doesn¡¯t really make a difference.


    ¡°It is a pity. Just consider it your misfortune then.¡±


    Shaking my head, I continue walking forward. The moment I walked into the next room, an explosion urs and smoke rises up from the ground. Then, from my front and my back, thieves and assassinse charging out from hidden chambers.


    Alright, looking at the green oily daggers, I would be courting death if I were to go easy on them. Thus, using my full strength, it became a one-sided battle.


    The moment the battle started, I immediately understood why the Silver-rank Momo would be defeated so easily. Just by changing a battle style which makes full use of the advantage of my basic stats, my fighting prowess immediately multiples by several folds.


    Still the same agile, lethal and urate Monarch Swordsmanship without any tricks or unorthodox moves, but the swordse faster and faster, heavier and heavier, subduing the opponent through speed and strength.


    TL: Tranted as Sword of the King previously in chp 63, changed both to Monarch Swordsmanship.


    For the assassins who depend heavily on agility, losing in a battle of speed is fatal.


    The attacking arc for a dual-handed sword is already quiterge, not to mention that we are in a narrow underground chamber. Once I start swinging that two pair of dual-handed sword, the space they have left for dodging is reduced significantly.


    When the assassins were losing out in the battle of agility which they were proud of, the ones who was on the offense is basically me. Furthermore, if they wanted to close in on me, they would have to tank a heavy sword of mine.


    After barely taking a heavy sword of mine, which was enchanted with Holy Light, his bnce is already unsteady. As for my left sword, it is like a dangerous viper prowling about. It doesn¡¯t strike easily but the moment it does, it is aimed directly at the vitals, either their waist breaks or their throat would be crushed.


    The Silver-rank Shadow Assassin is the strongest of the bunch. Before the effect of my Frozen Air could take effect, he only managed to block 3 hits of mine before he was cut into 2 by my right sword.


    In just 10 short seconds, the thieves lost 7 or 8 of theirpanion.


    When their leader, the strongest of them all here, died meaninglessly in battle, the thieves finally recognise that the opponent in front of them is an adversary they cannot ovee. Thus, they scattered and fled without any hesitation.


    I didn¡¯t chase them, because the Queen of Banshees was alreadyining by my ear.


    ¡°If you don¡¯t hurry up, that fellow is going to escape. My clone is about to be taken away. It is difficult for me to split a clone at my current state, so don¡¯t waste it.¡±


    She does have the right toin. The reason why I am able to find thisir is really thanks to her.


    How did we find this well-hidden thief band? I yed the role of a profitable target to them and allowed the Blood Hand Brotherhood Band to pickpocket my wallet, in it is an extremely valuable tear-shaped gemstone.


    Just like in the intelligence I received, the Brotherhood Band has extremely strict control over their basic members. Very quickly, even though there is some mysterious slime on the corners of the gemstone, the tear-shaped gemstone was quickly passed to the hands of the top brass of the Blood Hand Brotherhood Guild. Afterwards, following the direction of the Child of Greed, I traced them all the way here.


    Harloys continues toin by my ear. If I don¡¯t hurry up, all of my preparatory work would be in vain. If the head of the band were to escape, I would lose out on the bounty rewards and the tributes, not to mention that my primary objective is the intelligence from the thief band.


    Despite in position, I couldn¡¯t see any path. There is definitely a secret passage in this underground tunnel. Thus, I hastened my search but very quickly, I realised that I didn¡¯t have any points in Detection and Mechanisms. Despite obviously feeling the presence of the Child of Greed inside, I just cannot find the mechanism.


    ¡°Forget it, being skillful really isn¡¯t for me. I am more used to crashing through using brute strength. Sword of Order! st me a hole!¡±

 Chapter 84

    Chapter 84: The Wolf King and the Crows


    ¡°Beifeng Caring Beast Tamer Hospital, providing you and your family members warm service. With the lowest price, you can enjoy royalty-ss service. Un, so it¡¯s fixed.¡±


    Under the setting sun, the moment I stepped into the mansion, which looks totally different from before, I heard such an explosive statement that I started to suspect if I had walked into the wrong ce.


    ¡°Let the world know my presence.¡±


    ¡°Let our descendants know my existence.¡±


    ¡°Even if I have to be cursed for thousands of years.¡±


    ¡°Please put your full faith in us. Please pass your beloved pets to us. We only treat pregnant pets. We have a hundred years of history, Beifeng Caring Beast Tamer Hospital is worth your trust.¡±


    That is the slogan written on all of the gs around the mansion. It almost blinded my eyes.


    Beifeng is currently arguing with someone while his blood brother, Casio, is currently carrying one of the g and shouting. However, it is hard for one to look directly at the slogan on the g he attached to his body.


    I start to wonder that if old Minial were to see his own grandson being reduced to such a state, would he be happy that he won¡¯t have to worry about there not being an internal war within his tribe or would he try to murder me.


    ¡°Big Brother Beifeng is so warm and peaceful, why do you all hate him? Could racial discrimination be that deeply affixed in society?¡±


    Looking at that passionate shout and the tears he has in his eyes for his big brother who he thinks is being misunderstood, I think old Minial would probably try to kill me. If he isn¡¯t sufficient to achieve this task, he might even pull his entire tribe into the fight.


    On the other side...


    ¡°May the Heavens strike Beifeng.¡¯ ¡®Go and die gays.¡¯ Alright, it¡¯s fine if it is others holding the g but for you 2 bastards who followed Krose here, do you all think you have the right to hold and wave that g?


    ¡®Praise the Law, The Great Court of Law and Church.¡¯ That g is stabbed into Krose¡¯s giant staff and the frenzied lightning around it gave people no doubt about her determination to protect her faith.


    ¡°The minority should give in to the majority. I say that we build the Court of Law. If you aren¡¯t pleased with the decision,e and fight!¡± Those words were from Momo and on her face is a fierce look that matches the words she spoke.


    Alright, the gs of both side is hard for others to watch. The ones leading the faction is Krose and Momo, as well as the two calefares waving the g and shouting by the side.


    Ed: Calefare means unimportant side characters


    Very soon, just as I was d that I had managed to sessfully escape the great clean up, I understood what has transpired here. In the end, as usual, I was the causal factor for the mess here.


    Before I left, I had casually said:


    ¡°This is such a big mansion, it¡¯s a waste to leave it as is. Our bedrooms are on the 2nd and 3rd floor. Why don¡¯t we use the 1st floor for something? If people walk in and out frequently, it can serve as a cover for us.¡±


    Alright, after these idle people finished cleaning up, they began to discuss how to make use of the 1st floor as well as the space in the garden.


    But as usual, the real debate onlysted for 5 minutes and the rest became a contention to realise their personal greed.


    ¡°It is better for us to make an animal hospital. We have Big Brother Beifeng, an experienced doctor here, as well as many beautiful nurses. We will definitely be able to make a fortune.¡±


    Perhaps it is something Beifeng collected when he was still serving as a vet. Casio is currently disying the nurse costume in his hands. Given the extremely short skirt and the ckces, it would definitely be extremely seductive if worn on the Elves. Not to mention the two whose gazes keep alternating between Krose and the nurse costume, they were starting to waver.


    ¡°Bastard, if people were to find out that I have worked in Beifeng¡¯s hospital, then I won¡¯t be able to get married in the future.¡±


    However, Momo was still very resolute about it. She is currently working hard for her future.


    ¡°Hmph, you fierce granny, you think that you can get married in your current state? You think that no one knows about you secretly staring at Rnde sleeping? You lecherous wolf.¡±


    ¡°Ahh, at least I¡¯m better than you. Can you still remain normal being together with Beifeng everyday? You want me to be a nurse? Fine, only if you wear it as well.¡±


    ¡°You... How can you say that. Our brotherhood is clean and pure! Fine, I will wear it. Do you think that I, the Golden Bow, am afraid of you? If I wear it, you have to approve of Big Brother Beifeng¡¯s proposal? I really don¡¯t know what you all are thinking about, such a good thing like making an animal hospital, why must you all stop him?¡±


    At the end of his words, Casio really began to strip his armor to study how to put on the nurse costume.


    The little fellow looks extremely handsome with a masculine tone to his face. His solid muscles weren¡¯t exaggerated, but it had the aesthetics of a finely sculpted ssical statue. However, if he were to put on a nurse costume... Let me go puke a bit first.


    Alright, if I don¡¯t stop him at this point, I won¡¯t have to eat dinnerter. Even khorium dog eyes will be blinded.


    TL: Khorium -> World of Warcraft expensive ore. In China, there is a phrase called khorium dog eyes for people who are lucky enough to find this ore (The idea is that they have such powerful eyes that they are able to find khorium)


    But fortunately, someone stopped him in advance.


    ¡°Brother, it is good that you have such intentions but don¡¯t chastise them. History tells us that those who tread on new paths are always lonely and there will be a day when the apathetic world opens their eyes. We only have to try our best to express our sincerity and quietly wait. As for me...¡±


    Beifeng¡¯s hands sp together as he smiles lightly like a Buddha. The light of a saint seems to vaguely shine behind him.


    ¡°The world nders me, bullies me, insults me, mocks me, underestimates me, corrupts me, loathes me and scams me. How can I deal with that? I can only tolerate him, allow him, permit him, avoid him, condone him, respect him, ignore him and look at him after a few years. What can I do when everyone views me with enmity, I, love the world too much, too deep... AH!¡±


    The final ¡®ah¡¯ is a scream of pain.


    ¡°Try acting profound, just try acting profound! You think we can¡¯t tell that the fake sacred light is from your stun grenade? You still dare to copyright the Buddhist Scriptures from the East?¡±


    ¡°Cure your head, you are obviously doing it to satisfy your own desires! You still dare to talk about love, must love make one depressed? I will beat you up, you warrior of love.¡±


    ¡°Flying Shoe Strike, Sin-Splitting Strike, Evil Destroying Blow! Try my Demon-Subduing Fist!¡±


    TL: (Po Xie Zhan (Throwing a shoe), Po Xie Zhan (shing him), Zhan Zui Ji (Probably some physical blow))


    Alright, I also can¡¯t resist hitting him personally as well. Looking at the treacherous smile on Beifeng¡¯s face and that saintly look he portrayed while that nonsense came out of his mouth, I really can¡¯t vent my frustrations if I don¡¯t beat him up.


    After that farce, the room got messed up once again by those gs with slogans on it despite just being cleaned up. I started to preach them.


    ¡°Look, how old are you all? Can¡¯t you all be more steady? Look at Diana, she isn¡¯tpeting at all, how good is that?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, it¡¯s because Big Sister doesn¡¯t know which one to go for.¡±


    ¡°Un?¡±


    Alright, in the hands of Diana, who blushed furiously red due to those words, I saw 2 gs.


    ¡°Rmend the construction of a Court on the first floor.¡±


    ¡°The Church of the Goddess of Moonlight, listen to the will of the true Gods.¡±


    Seemingless embarrassed from my staring, the Gray Elf seems to be mumbling something. After stepping closer to her, then I realised...


    ¡°Church of Holy Light is the best!¡± Alright, this sillyss who is one beat slow seems to have finally made up her mind.


    Hearing these, her face seems to be looking at me with expectation, seeming to hope that I, as a Holy Knight, would approve of her suggestion.


    I can understand that as someone who has walked on the path of a Holy Knight for a few centuries, now you have sworn allegiance to the God of Law but at the same time, chose the road as a Savior, a Gray Elf, under the Lady of Moonlight, but is it really okay to believe in 3 true Gods at once?


    Even if the Order Gods only have restrictions on people joining their Churches and don¡¯t ban polytheism, but as a user of Divine Powers, can you show a little bit of restraint? Stepping into 3 boats at once, aren¡¯t you afraid of retribution from the Gods?


    However, looking at how the valiant female Legend Knight turns cowardly and worried when she talks about faith, I know that there is no point in me lecturing her about it. What outsiders say won¡¯t help her at all, it all depends on her own decision in the end.


    I should have known that the Gentlemen Alliance wouldn¡¯t have any normal people. Even if they look normal on the outside, but there will be something wrong on the inside. Even if they are originally normal, they will turn into a pervert after staying too long inside (Looks at Casio sympathetically). Probably, only Clint, who isn¡¯t here, is a little bit better.


    ¡°Wait, this isn¡¯t right. We have 1 person missing here. Where¡¯s Clint?¡±


    How can I not be worried when there is one person missing, especially when the person missing is Clint, who is the most dangerous of them all!


    ¡°He disappeared the moment we started chatting. Perhaps...¡±


    ¡°KACHA!¡± ¡°BOOM!¡± Following the sounds of explosions and walls being blown apart, thick smoke starts to drift upwards. I stare speechlessly at the blue sky, once again affirming my decision to look for a normal teammates tomorrow.


    ¡°He probably...¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to speak anymore, I understand. Next time, remember to put a leash on him and look after him properly. Tell him I said that.¡±


    Alright, there is no need for her to borate any further, I can already understand the thought process of that entric King. Clean up finished -> The preparation of the fortpleted -> Activate rm system -> Set up a lot of traps and explosives -> Safetyes first -> Sleep peacefully at night.


    ¡°Safetyes first! You all don¡¯t have to be too thankful to me.¡±


    The next moment, that king appears from some corner and sends us a thumbs up proudly. Although I couldn¡¯t see his face below the helmet, I could feel that he wasughing gleefully below his helmet.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be back.¡± Somehow, looking at the icy cold metal giant showing a thumbs up, I remembered the famous phrase of a robot in a foreign world. Now, I am starting to get curious of what Clint looks like below his metal facade. Could he really be a iron core-controlled magic metal puppet, that¡¯s why he is so enlightened?


    ¡°Sigh, forget it, it isn¡¯t worth getting angry with him. It isn¡¯t the first time anyway.¡±


    Some people are destined to remain stubborn their entire life. Clint, who doesn¡¯t listen to teachings, is a prime example. There really isn¡¯t a point getting mad at him.


    Looking at plumes of ck smoke rising outside the window, considering how my blood pressure is getting significantly higher despite being young, although I was so angry that veins were popping on my entire face, I hold my chest and quietly count one two three, trying my best to stabilise my rampaging emotions and blood pressure.


    ¡°Try to think positively. Since it has already exploded, just let it be. The old must go to let way for the new. It is also good for us to set up new defensive mechanisms. Wait, what did he explode?¡±


    We just moved in here and we didn¡¯t have any customers yet, so who was it that just triggered the bomb that was just put in ce?


    ¡°The... The dinner I just ordered. Food and daily necessities!! I secretly bought some ssic treasure magazines and posters. Clint, you idiot! My exclusive collection, that was really expensive.¡±


    Rushing out, as expected, it is the dinner and daily necessities I ordered after iming my reward money. The carriage which is responsible for sending the goods has already been sent flying to the skies. The stableman and porter are still trembling there in fear. But, those expensive goods of mine have turned into charred waste.


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHH. I can¡¯t take it anymore. Don¡¯t run, let me kill you all and find new teammates! I will make sure to change them to some normal people this time.¡±


    Alright, looking at the few remaining charred pages of the treasures that I got with much difficulty at the ck market, the final strand of my rationality snaps. I didn¡¯t even get the chance to look at it before it was ruined. This isn¡¯t the time for me to be considering about my blood pressure, eat my great Sin-Splitting Strike!


    ¡°My dad and mum in heaven, I finally understand what it feels like to see your home wrecked after a hard day at work. I estimate that it is probably the same as what I am going through now. I regret, I have sinned, but can you not use these grown rascals to torture me? Can¡¯t you give me some normal people? If this goes on, I might explode from my high blood pressure before even reaching 20.


    This was what that was written in a certain someone¡¯s diary that night. However, as facts have proven, weirdos will always attract weirdos and lifeforms like perverts are contagious. My biggest mistake was naming this band ¡®Gentlemen Alliance¡¯ and this was only the beginning.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª


    It is a quaint pce. There isn¡¯t colorful paint on the walls, there isn¡¯t any luxurious mat on the floor and even decorations like flower vases arecking. Yet, it is the living quarters of the one holding supreme authority in the entire And Empire.


    ¡°Extravagance is just an appearance one shows to outsiders. Shove those messy things to one corner, they will only make my eyes hurt.¡±


    When the court officials persuaded Darsos to follow the tradition of the previous Emperors, rebuild the pce before his inauguration, the young Emperor threw those words at them. Ignoring the persuasion of everyone else, he moved to the unused pce of the Emperor 2 generations ago.


    ¡°Women? I¡¯m not interested. I might be interested in other people¡¯s women though, and even more so if it is other people¡¯snd.¡±


    The future King of Winter Wolves never tried to hide him ambitions and it¡¯s exactly because of his ability to turn his desires and ambitions into reality that allowed him to ovee the other 7 sons of the previous Emperor, allowing him to be sessfully crowned.


    War? There would definitely be one within 5 years of Darsos¡¯s inauguration. This is themon agreement among all of the foreign diplomats and state strategists.


    If it is a small country, everyone would have made a move when a war maniac were to rise to the throne. However, within the past 300 years, the And Empire has already umted enough underlying strength while the countries that border them aren¡¯t strong enough. From the peasants to thendlords, they all hope to receive an opportunity to reshuffle the cards and rise through the ranks. Under such circumstances, along with his promise of war, the inaugurating Darsos¡¯s poprity to soared to a fearsome level.


    Reyne and Kelly¡¯s spections weren¡¯t wrong. Darsos is using strength to put others under his control. If you surrender to me, then kneelpletely beneath me. If you refuse, then you are simply giving me a reason to beat you until you surrender.


    But there¡¯s one thing they were wrong about. Darsos¡¯s ambitions are greater than they expected. How can just one subordinate state fulfill his greed?


    ¡°Should I send the orders? The selection ceremony for the Guardian Knight of the Princess Knight.¡±


    Just as recorded in the history, the King of Winter Wolves is a rare handsome figure. A high nasal bridge on his masculine square face. His flowing ck hair reaches all the way to his waist and yet, it didn¡¯t give him the feeling of being a sissy. Perhaps, it is because of that eagle eyes which always had an aggressive gaze in them under those crescent eyebrows that made others unable to ignore his presence.


    ¶ø´Ë¿Ì£¬Èôá°Ö®¹úµÄ³¼ÃñÌýµ½ËûµÄ»°£¬¾ø¶Ô»áºÍËûÆ´Ãü¡£


    At this moment, if the citizens of the Mist Country were to hear his words, they would definitely try to kill him even at the risk of their lives.


    ¡°All preparations are ready. 2 Legends, 4 Gold-rank and 10 Silver-rank, our And Empire is overflowing with talented youths. Look at how much face we are giving her, we are giving such a good deal to that countryside Princess.¡±


    ¡°Hah, don¡¯t underestimate the Mist Bloodline. If it wasn¡¯t for the few wars with them that destroyed so many powerful Empires, it would be impossible for our And Empire to rise up. Even a dying camel is bigger than a horse. I am quite interested in the secrets of the royalty. It is said that the Aurora Knights are the rarely seen human tier-4 (Gold-rank) soldier. Even if just the slightest trace of it is remaining, it can definitely raise the military capabilities of our royal guards significantly.


    Yes, from the very start, what the And Empire wanted wasn¡¯t a subordinate state. They wanted to annex the East Mist Communal Country.


    Guardian Knight? In Eich Continent, there is another name for the Guardian Knight of female nobles ¡ª secret lover. Of course, it often refers to the personal choice of thedy which due to several reasons is unable to marry. But apparently, Darsos has decided to do it forcefully without any consideration for Reyne¡¯s opinion.


    There is only a female remaining in the Mist Royalty. If her husband is an And man, then the next generation king would have half the bloodline of And. Naturally, this would be equivalent to devouring this little country.


    If she refuses to choose a Guardian Knight? This would mean insulting the supreme authority of And Empire. Un, it is a move to force you to rebel.


    Reject the alliance? Launch a war and annex them.


    Reject the Guardian Knight? Launch a war and annex them.


    Reject the alliance and Guardian Knight? Directly annex them.


    Against this powerful and shameless And Empire who is obviously picking on the weak, there is nothing much that the East Mist Communal Country can do.


    In this shabby pce, on the gigantic map hung on the wall, the East Mist Communal Country and 4 other countries in its surroundings had gs of multiple colors stabbed in them. This represents important strategic locations for war.


    The newly crowned King of Winter Wolves has already set his eyes of a predator on the small countries of the alliance and out of them all, the one he is most satisfied with is the East Mist Communal Country in the South.


    As long as he were to take it down, there would be no one their match in the Southernnds. They would have free ess all the way to the borders with the Beastmen. Through expansion, gaining new territory, the And Empire will rise to greater heights.


    With a stable back, countless precious mines of the Southern Hignds and great profits from the trades by the borders, it would form the stepping stone for the great battle n of the And Empire to conquer the entire continent.


    After his subordinate left, the young King of Winter Wolves shut his eyes in deep thought. Just then, his connection with a someone in the shadows had been forged.


    ¡°Caw, well-done, as expected of ude¡¯s son. Looks like choosing you to be inaugurated is the right decision. Our cooperation will bring us to greater heights.¡±


    ¡°Hah, filthy crows. I don¡¯t care why you all are still obsessed with that bloodline. But, as long as you all are able to prove your worth, I won¡¯t be stingy with my rewards as an Emperor.¡±


    ¡°Then, let me first thank your majesty in advance. As long as you can totally rid the Mist Bloodline, we, the Celestial Tower are willing to pledge our allegiance to you. Please anticipate our performance.¡±


    On top of the pce, the pitch ck crows dive into the skies and disappears into the gray clouds.


    ¡°Heh, allegiance? A bunch of souls that should have been long dead. The remainders that Lord Yongye left behind still dare to talk to me about allegiance? However, a dog that bites is still a good dog, isn¡¯t that so? ude.¡±


    The young King of Winter Wolves said these words to the frame of his bed and below it, there is a cell in which a haggard-looking old man is trapped within.


    ¡°Unfilial son, kill me. I will never tell you the final secret of the And Empire. You will always be an iplete Emperor!¡±


    But, it is a pity that based on the design of the cell, sound above could travel downwards but the sound from the bottom is unable to reach the surface. The screams of the old man could only echo helplessly in the underground chamber.


    Celestial Tower (Õ¼ÐÇËþ) -> The 2 words in front means making prophecies from astrology while thest one means tower (Ed:duh TL:Tsk) Think of the typical xianxia where some old guy looks at the star and suddenly a shooting star passes by and hements that the end of the world ising.

 Chapter 85

    Chapter 85: The Selection for a Guardian Knight


    ¡°Alright, since your elder sister¡¯s not at home, then I¡¯lle visit another day. Please ept this present of mine, this is just a little token of my sincerity.¡±


    Yesterday, we spent half of the night forcing Clint at sword¡¯s point to remove all of the traps and explosives that he had set. The other half, we used physical force to subdue him before he temporarily gave up on his objective.


    I didn¡¯t sleep well that night after all the ruckus those fellows caused. Even so, I went out by myself before sunrise.


    Un, since those fellows aren¡¯t reliable, I better quickly look for some reliable ones. I browse through the ¡®history¡¯ of And Capital to double check that the few I am looking for are currently in the capital. But, at this point, they have all yet to mature despite being future experts.


    This time, in order to make sure that the ones I choose are normal people, I even bore with the pain and struck off a few names. The rest of them, regardless of them reputation, strength or character, they are all respectable future heroes


    However, what surprised me was that despite visiting 2 of their houses early in the morning, they weren¡¯t at home. For the 3rd trip, I found the home of ¡®Rain Swallow Sword¡¯ Svina di Nelson but I was told that she has also left early in the morning.


    I was a little surprised. Where could a female swordsman like Svina head to so early in the morning?


    ¡°Little brother, can you tell me where your elder sister went to?¡±


    If the first time is a coincidence, then three times surely cannot pass off as so. When I questioned the family members of the first two where they went, they tried to brush off my question. But now, since the other party is a little kid who is easy to coax, I won¡¯t let off such an easy target.


    ¡°Big Sister told me not to say... Big Sister went to attend a Guardian Knight Selection for a foreign Princess.¡±


    Alright, as expected of a small kid (rascal). The lollipop and toy I prepared for the little brother Svina loves immediately caused him to forget his big sister¡¯smands.


    ¡°Guardian Knight? Princess? Svina is a female, why would she join such an event?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but chuckle. However, when I remembered what the walk through wrote about the life of this female hero, I could understand why.


    ¡®Rain Swallow Sword¡¯ Svina, a descendant of a high noble of And Empire. After her family fell when she was still young, the wish of the female swordsman had been to bring her family back to its former glory. She once disguised as a male and joined the military in hope to rise through the ranks. However, when her identity was exposed, she was expelled from the Flying Dragon Knight Order which shemanded. From then on, she started to tread on a lonely road.


    Clearly, this elder sister is trying to aplish her prior goals in history, thus disguising as a male to join the Guardian Knight Selection for a foreign Princess. After all, as long as she is able to be the Guardian Knight of the foreign Princess, she is able to rid herself of her identity as peasant, thus taking a big step forward for the resuscitation for her family.


    ¡°Wait, Guardian Knight Selection? Foreign Princess? Little Tiago, which country did that foreign Princesse from, do you know it?¡±


    ¡°Un... Seems to be something Mist I think...¡±


    In an instant, realisation struck me. The raging emotions that boils in my chest caused me to be unable to perceive his remaining words.


    ¡°Darsos! You dare!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡°Rage? Helplessness? Fear? Despair?¡±


    Reyne could no longer use words to describe her own emotions. The bustling And Royal Sparring Field in front of her and the cheers of the innumerable audiences made her fall into a desperate situation.


    ¡°Congrattions, your respected highness Reyne. Your well-known beauty has even surpassed the boundaries of the Astor Mountains. Look, the youths who came today are not bad. You should be able to find a Guardian Knight whom you are satisfied with.¡±


    ¡°Guardian Knight? For my husband to be chosen by you Anders, how dare you!¡±


    Her furious roar regurgitates in her throat before being swallowed back in. The reason why this Guardian Knight Selection was shoved so suddenly into her face is so as to not give her time to react. If she were to make use of this opportunity to say ¡®I didn¡¯t agree on this¡¯ ¡®I won¡¯t acknowledge the Guardian Knight from this selection¡¯, the other party would make use of this opportunity to turn it into a diplomatic issue, turning it into the trigger needed to start a war.


    Looking at the bright smiles on the faces of the diplomats from other countries, their gazes of sympathy, helplessness and envy, Reyne knew that it was meaningless to ask them for help.


    There were all sorts of emotions on their faces except for surprise. Apparently, they had all gotten the notice in advance but as the person involved in this selection, she only got the news 2 hours ago.


    Who knew what the And Empire offered them? The alliance that they had agreed on just yesterday had crumbled today as they offered her as a sacrifice without any hesitation. Reyne was enraged, but there wasn¡¯t anyone for her to vent it on.


    She knows that in a social event,shing out would only make others question and underestimate her and her homnd while tears is only a sign of immaturity and weakness.


    ¡°Is this the rtionship between countries that teacher talked about? The bloody survival of the fittest? Those arrogant Anders! One day, you will all pay the price. The true King of Winter Wolves will crush your throats.¡±


    The only thing she could do is to try her best to squeeze a smile and engrave the hateful face of everyone else into the depths of her heart.


    The King of Winter Wolves Darsos stares yfully into the face of this littledy. 14 years old, it¡¯s an age where those from rich noble families are still fooling about. But, the littledy in front of him grinded her teeth and tried to suppress her emotions, apparently well-aware of what is going on.


    Facing such humiliation at a young age, being pulled into a situation which might bring unhappiness for life, it is rare for one to be able to keep their calm. However, as his opponent, as a stepping stone for his own ambitions, she is still too young. The rumor about her equalling to the might of thousands should just be propaganda.


    ¡°Cheers to the great alliance that we are about to forge! Cheers to the valiant youths of the And Empire! Cheers to our charming Princess Reyne!¡±


    As the Emperor raises his cup, the other nobles happily raises their golden cups of red wines along with him. The only who is not fitting in with the crowd is the Princess who was being showered with blessings. She stares coldly at them, like a wolf staring at her prey from higher grounds.


    Remembering this hatred and insult to exact vengeance in the future is the only thing she could do now.


    ¡°Pardon me, allow me to touch up on my make up.¡±


    But in the end, she is just a 14 year old girl. Anger, despair and the feeling of being wronged made her eyes turn red. Unwilling to shed tears in front of her enemies, she used the reason of touching up on her make up to leave temporarily.


    The moment she walks down from her pedestal, following Darsos¡¯s eye signal, 2 well-built guards follows her.


    The star of the show today is Reyne and the issue with the Guardian Knight has to be fixed on the spot today. Darsos won¡¯t allow any mishap to happen, so it is impossible for him to allow her to escape.


    Soon, with one of them standing guard outside the toilet, the other ran back to report. Darsos nods his head and turns his attention back to the performance below.


    In Darsos¡¯s point of view, he doesn¡¯t think that he has mistreated the young Princess. The contestants below are all small nobles and elites of the And Empire and he was also making use of this opportunity to find talents for him to use.


    Of course, the high nobles and members of royalty won¡¯t attend such a selection. While they are able to gain prestige and standing from a foreign Princess, it will also distance them away from the center of authority in And.


    Following the traditional practices of Guardian Knight Selections, this is a sparring contest. In order to woo their beloveddies of nobility, the young Knights disy their knight chivalry and their outstanding martial arts. As long as they show sufficient capabilities, even those who lose will be respected by the crowd.


    The two Legends prepared by the ¡®official side¡¯, after confirming that there are no ¡®dark horse¡¯ that would threaten this selection, resigned readily from thepetition. After all, the 2 Legend uncles aren¡¯t young anymore, so bullying thedy like this would be going too far.


    The battle has already proceeded into the semifinals. At this point, all of the remaining Warriors are at least Gold-rank and the Rain Swallow Sword Svina is one of them.


    The future Emperor of And Empire sips his cup while enjoying the love of his people. Suddenly, looking at the fierce and powerful swordsman who was like the storm, he frowns and calls for his servant, whispering some words into his ear.


    While the dignitaries of the And Empire were satisfied by this performance, no one¡¯s thoughts were on the foreign Princess whose present situation was like a meatid on a chopping board.


    At this moment, in the VIP dressing room, in the dressing mirror, an image of a tear-stained youngdy whimpering silently could be seen.


    After all, she is only 14 years old. Just a year ago, she was still a carefree Princess but now, the cruel war of politics were all forced onto her young shoulders. One wrong step could very well cause the downfall of her country. Thinking about her kin and her people back in her homnd who trust her, thinking about the humiliation she is about to face, she couldn¡¯t stop the tears from streaming down.


    ¡°Father, Big Sister Kelly, I¡¯m really not qualified to be a princess...¡±


    ¡°Then, do you want strength? Strength that can change your fate.¡±


    Suddenly, a voice seems to echo in the room from nowhere. The warm voices that reaches into her soul made Reyne instinctively trust it, as though it was the voice from the gods and her ancestors.


    ¡°Yes, as long as I can change everything, even if I have to pay everything, including my soul, I am willing... Who are you! What did you do to me!¡±


    Alright, the Persuasion Spell was broken. I received her answer but I shake my head in response to it instead.


    ¡°Sigh, it must be Karwenz¡¯s descendant, you are really too dumb. To give your bottom line at the start of the deal when you haven¡¯t even seen the other party¡¯s trump card yet. To be willing to give everything including your soul, any Devil thates by would be able to rob you of everything. You failed.¡±


    ¡°You... Who are you!¡±


    The Istion Barrier made sure that her voice didn¡¯t escape. Before the youngdy lost consciousness, thest thing she saw was a face identical to hers and a somehow familiar voice.


    ¡°Sleep for awhile. This burden is indeed too heavy for you to bear. Allow me to share your weight. But, your result for this pop quiz is 0 points. Youngster, remember to work hard for your retest.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    The Guardian Knight Selection has finally reached its final phase. The two remaining contestants are outstanding young Knights.


    The tall and well-built Carter is the team leader of And Empire¡¯s Flying Dragon Knight Order. Despite being just 27, through his outstanding martial arts and his Myth-ss Hammer ¡®Beastman Grinder¡¯, he swept his way through thepetition and is now standing on the stage of the finals.


    His enemy is that young nameless swordsman. That swordsman is the kind of enemy he hates the most, an agility-type swordsman. After realising that the handsome feminined¡¯s fighting abilities is even above that of his, Carter was initially very worried. However, at this moment, the sudden arrival of joyous news made him overjoyed.


    As expected, the moment they started fighting, the swordsman fought extremely carefully.


    ¡°You still hope to be a Guardian Knight despite being a girl? Are you sure you have the abilities to?¡±


    Yes, the news that he got is that his opponent in the finals is actually a girl. If the Guardian Knight turns out to be a girl, than the And Empire¡¯s scheme would naturally turn out to beughably for naught.


    Females can¡¯t bear offspring with another female. If so, wouldn¡¯t they be just freely giving a knight away to the other party?


    After being warned, Svina can only grind her teeth at the mockingughter of her opponent. When she received a secret message from the servant of the royal family, she thought that it was a recruitment notice, so she extremely ecstatic. However, she didn¡¯t expect that her identity has been exposed and she was strictly warned to not im the championship of this duel.


    She wants to win, and she has the confidence to do so as well. But, to disobey the will of the Emperor of the And Empire? Is she sick of living?


    In the end, before the final match even began, the ending was already pre-determined.


    On the pedestal, the ¡®Princess Reyne¡¯ who finished touching up her make up returns.


    It is still the same face along with the same battle skirt. Just that, this time, her aura seems slightly different.


    If her previous face, which was on the verge of crying, reminded others of a hatchling, then the current Princess Reyne, who smile as she walk with steady steps along with the natural confidence and pride she exuded makes one think of an eagle scouting its prey.


    ¡°My apologies to keep you all waiting.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s fine.¡± Somehow, when those smiling eyes were directed towards them, the few leaders of the small countries who just abandoned their alliance felt a little guilty.


    In just 5 short minutes, she seemed to have turned into a different person. Even Darsos is surprised.


    ¡°Ahhhhh, that swordsman is actually a female!¡±


    ¡°How could a female join thepetition?¡±


    ¡°The winner, Carter Dias!¡±


    At this moment, the victor below has emerged. The hesitant Svina got hit heavily on her shoulders and her hair which was bound tightly together bursts out. As her identity is exposed, she naturally lost the opportunity to vie for the championship.


    The 2-meter tall Carter carries his hammer and signals to the pedestal, his actions bearing a striking resemnce to a giant ape receiving a prize. There are already people who are discussing about the pairing of the wild beast and a girl.


    But, Princess Reyne simply smiles.


    ¡°Since you will be my Guardian Knight, then you should be at least stronger than me. Can I spar with you personally?¡±


    ¡°How can we dirty the hands of your highness? Your highness is more suited to be doing embroidery in the warm interiors of your pce. It is better to leave the crude job of leading soldiers to war to men.¡±


    Darsosughs but his words were sharp. He is sarcastically hinting that the other party is only suited to be a kind wife and a good mother. Even though he has thought of Reyne¡¯s battle records as a propaganda, but how could he give the other party an opportunity to overturn the situation at a time like this.


    ¡°Just a single blow will suffice. I just want to see if he is as sturdy as he looks on the outside. If he is useless on the inside, then wouldn¡¯t I be making a loss?¡±


    The youngdy sticks out her tongue, a gesture which is unspeakably cute. However, along with the words that doesn¡¯t fit her previous image, it caused uproar within the crowd.


    But, since Princess Reyne has went this far, it would make it seem as though the And Empire is petty if they do not give in. Thus, Darsos nods his head.


    Afterwards, his servants start to announce with a loud voice.


    ¡°Right now, my warriors, Knight Carter will face another challenge. Our respected Princess Reyne will personally try his strength. To prevent our strong Knight from injuring the cute Princess, this test would require Carter to receive 3 blows from our Princess. If Knight Carter is able to withstand them, then our new Guardian Knight would be born!¡±


    Alright, this servant obviously understands the meaning of his lord. He made it sound as though that Princess Reyne insisted on stepping on the battlegrounds and that they had to reluctantly agree to it. The original 1 strike turning into 3 blows may sound generous, but there isn¡¯t much of a difference to it. It is actually a type of arrogance and confidence.


    As for the final part about ¡®new Guardian Knight would be born¡¯, he is trying to reaffirm things so that there would be nowhere for Reyne to retreat to.


    ¡°Good job, Carter!¡±


    ¡°Princess Reyne, please go easy on him! Hahaha!¡±


    Mockingughter and racket fills the entire arena and everyone views the ¡®trial of 3 blows¡¯ as a joke. Even Carter himself couldn¡¯t help but nod while smiling foolishly, as though the Princess have already agreed to marry him.


    But, Reyne simplyughs.


    ¡°It is a pity that I didn¡¯t bring any weapon. Your majesty, can I borrow a sword to use?¡±


    ¡°Of course, as long as you are able to use it.¡±


    Darsos hands over his own personal sword with malicious intentions. That blood-colored legendary sword is well-known to be aloof and bows to no one. He¡¯s waiting for Reyne to make a fool out of herself.


    ¡¾Demon Sword: The Scarlet Conqueror¡¿ As the personal sword of the Emperor of And Empire, it is a Legend-ss equipment. It only submits to true conquerors, the weak won¡¯t even get a chance toe into contact with it. If they were to force themselves to use it, they would only be a blood ve for the demon sword.


    There are already a few unlucky fellows who have had their blood sucked by the demon sword. The few Anders who knew about the secret of the sword were waiting to watch the Princess make a joke out of herself.


    ¡°Your majesty, thanks for your kindness. Ah, such a feisty little fellow. But, a good kid has to listen obediently to instructions.¡±


    However, the scream and the tossing away of the sword that they expected didn¡¯t happen. Instead, in that slim arms, the red demon sword seemed to glow even brighter. In the next moment, all of the light seems to gather back within the sword, the blood light gathering on the de of the sword to prepare to battle. It seems to be even more obedient than a pet dog facing its own owner.


    As the sword¡¯s owner, Darsos couldn¡¯t believe what he just saw. He has never seen the demon sword act so humble. The Scarlet Conqueror only respects ambitious dictators. Could it be that in the eyes of this sword, this little girl is an even greater conqueror than him?


    Feeling that something is amiss, Darsos wanted to stop her but it was toote.


    Reyne didn¡¯t walk down the stairs that lead to the sparring field. Instead, she walks to the corner of the watch stand and raises her head to look at the blue sky.


    ¡°How many years have it been? The Mist Bloodline has been guarding the borders of the human world through the fresh blood and life of countless of its tribesman, but all it received was the enmity and suspicion of others.¡±


    Reyne steps on the border of the stand, causing amotion in her surroundings. Worried that she was about tomit suicide, the servants have all rushed up. However, light so dense as though it was tangible appears from her back, making them unable to get near to her.


    ¡°How many times has it been? Those bloody wounds have yet to heal and the new despicable traitors are stacking new wounds on top of the old, the sacred alliance ripped apart as though it was waste paper.


    A pleasant voice echoes from the stand. Despite it being simply normal words, there seems to be magic to it. Wherever those clear eyes gaze at, traitors feel as though they were being interrogated in hell by their conscience.


    ¡°All of you, you all wish to know of the secret of the Mist Royalty? Fine, let me tell you all. The Mist Royalty possesses the powers of God. God¡¯s Blessing: War Angel Form!¡±


    Reyne jumps off from the stand. The light that bursts forth from her back forges a pair of tangible wings. Flying in mid-air, under the stare of everyone else, she is surrounded by endless radiance and sessfully turns from a mortal into a War Angel.


    Different from the new generation of Angels who serve as God Envoys, this ancient War Angel is a personal creation by the Goddess of Order, it is the vanguard in the crusade against the Malevolent Gods of Chaos, the king of the entire Angel tribe.


    The golden wings represent the endless Power of Order while the burning sacred mes represent judgement and punishment. The golden marks that extends throughout the entire body is the engravings of the Rules of the World. In the far away ancient times, the only opponent for a War Angel is the stronger Malevolent Gods or Demon Lords.


    As the golden wings unfurl, the mes on her head burn furiously and the sacred and pure inferno seems to merge together with the blood light of the demon sword. With a p of her wings, the War Angel Reyne appears on the space above Carter.


    ¡°My Guardian Knight? Laughable mortals, do you admit your sin?¡±


    ¡°I, I, I...¡±


    Facing an interrogation by a War Angel, Carter starts to waver.


    The repeated teachings of several Churches have carved the image of Angels as the oracles of the Order Gods deeply into the mind of mortals. There are already very few oracles of true Gods in the world and now, a mortal actually dares to tries to vie for the adoration of an angel. Is this not a crime?


    Alright, he doesn¡¯t have to say anymore. ¡®I¡¯, Reyne didn¡¯t even wait for him reply before bringing down the blood-colored inferno sword on him.


    ¡°ng!¡±


    What was unbelievable is that Carter actually managed to bring up his hammer to block this sword. The 2 weapons met each other and sparks flew about.


    ¡°I managed to block it, I actually managed to take it... Why aren¡¯t you all cheering for me! I am the victor, just two more swords, I will be able to wed the Princess.¡±


    But soon, he understood why.


    Indeed, he managed to block the blow but the sacred mes on it followed the weapon and turned him into a human torch.


    He didn¡¯t even manage to scream out before he was reduced to ashes. The newly-appointed Guardian Knight was destroyed with just a hit from the person he was going to swear loyalty to, not to mention how pathetic his death was. In an instant, the giant sparring field turned silent and cold.


    ¡°Hmph, one who doesn¡¯t know his ce. A toad craving the meat of a swan.¡±


    Maintaining the War Angel Form really saps a ton of power. Within just 10 seconds, all of Reyne¡¯s stamina and Power of Order was squeezed dry. As she withdraw her wings back, Reyne turns back into a mortal.


    ¡°Pah pah pah!¡± What followed was Darsos¡¯s apuse and frenziedughter.


    ¡°Hahaha, indeed, he doesn¡¯t know his ce. How can a normal man be worthy to serve as your Guardian Knight.¡±


    Darsos walks closer and suddenly kneels with one leg in front of me.


    ¡°Then, the beautiful Princess Reyne, Can I, the Emperor of And Empire, Darsos.Menon, be granted the honor to be your Guardian Knight?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    This is equal to proposing on the spot. Furthermore, this is the Emperor who is known in the country to be uninterested in the charms of a female. In an instant, the field broke out in amotion, filled with discussions and cheering.


    But, I knit my eyebrow together. Un, me, not Reyne. The true Reyne has been long thrown to Diana. From the moment when Reyne returned from the washroom, it has been my show. Even more so, the War Angel Form is my race talent. Right now, everything that has urred is within my expectation with the exception of Darsos¡¯s confession.


    ¡°A confession from a male to another, disgusting.¡±


    But at this moment, there is an urgent need for me to consider it seriously. The proposal of an Emperor involves the pride of his country. If I don¡¯t settle it properly, it might lead to the start of a war. Since rejecting him outright or epting him are not usible solutions, then I can only settle it my way.


    ¡°Impossible.¡±


    ¡°Why! As long as you are willing to ept me, I can even give you half of my Empire as betrothal gift. You can be the Queen of And Empire. With the both of us working together, we can obtain everything in the world. Isn¡¯t this much better than suffering in the cold in hunger by the cold borders?¡±


    After being rejected, Darsosshes out like a furious lion, questioning me angrily.


    ¡°We are impossible from the start. I swear with in the name of Holy Light that I am uninterested in man, I only like woman.¡±


    Alright, the sparring field which was still bustling a moment ago turned cold. Their Emperor, who just proposed in public, was rejected in an iparably miserable way.


    For a Divine Job like a Holy Knight, the vow that they make using the name of the origin of their power must be true, otherwise fooling the true Gods would cause them to be stripped of the power that God granted them.


    As seen from the vigorous Holy Light around her, she isn¡¯t lying. She really likes females.


    At this moment, I walked straight to the final person on the stage, Svina, who lost due to her identity as female being exposed.


    ¡°I thank the And Empire for holding this Guardian Knight Selection for me, allowing me the opportunity to meet such a cute Knight. Un, she will do.¡±


    Lowering my head, I kiss the forehead of the girl who had been scared silly, thuspleting the final part of the ritual of a Guardian Knight.


    ¡°A Knight and a Princess falling in love at first sight. A beautiful tale has been created. Congrattions, congrattions.¡±


    Thousand yearster, history would be recorded as such. Reyne Qin Mist, or better known as the Lily Princess, despite being a female, has a Lily Back Pce with hundreds of concubines. Svina di Nelson would be recorded as the first Knight of the Lily Princess, as well as the first concubine she personally chose ¡ª The story above ispletely fabricated, if there is any simrities, it is due to coincidence.

 Chapter 86

    Chapter 86: An Old Friend


    When a certain ¡®princess¡¯ was performing haughtily, the real princess could only tremble in rage under the stage.


    Back then, when she awakened from hera, she realised that she was stripped naked like a small white goat, sitting in the stands with just a cloak wrapped around her. If it wasn¡¯t for the 2 Gray Elves watching her movements by her side and that she was afraid that it might lead to unresolvable troubles, she would have long held a tantrum.


    Initially, she was depressed over the fact that a bogus princess could handle the situation better than the real princess. Then, after witnessing the War Angel Form, she was dumbfounded.


    The humans are a very xenophobic race. Even so, there is one bloodline that not only do they not reject, it is even highly respected among most humans.


    ¡°Angel.¡±


    The first generation children of the Order Faction, the oldest son of the Gods who participated in the creation of the human race, a race of Gods that already transcended the mortal world.


    Compliments towards this race are far fromcking on the walls of the church and in the sacred hymns. Regardless of whether in history or novels, the Angels are always a pure and sacred tribe. Their existence itself is the will of God and where their de is pointed at would be the nemesis of the Order Faction.


    Perhaps, the current existing Angels might be unable to appear in the mortal world for certain reasons. This is also one of the main reasons why humans who believe in the Order Gods worship them so much. After all, for a true monarch, it is best for religion to be further away from their authority.


    At that instant, Reyne immediately understood the reason for the actions of the bogus princess and silently cheered for her.


    ¡°Could she really be here to help me? Just by the War Angel Form Bloodline Ability, the Mist Royalty would not be looked down upon. Even if it is just putting on a brave front, with the blueprints provided to us previously, as long as we have sufficient time, there will be hope for us to rise up once more.¡±


    Upon seeing the sword that struck down on Carter, Reyne clenches her fist in agitation. Not mentioning how she was disgusted by that giant ape, the frustration that she has been umting these days left her without a sliver of goodwill towards this country.


    However, Darsos¡¯ immediate proposal afterwards left herpletely stunned and in shock.


    The marriage between 2 monarchs? It is inconceivable just by the thought. Regardless of whether the guy is doing it for the Bloodline Ability or to annex East Mist Communal Country, while clearly disying his ambitions in public, he is also expressing his sincerity towards the Mist. Indubitably, this is an important diplomatic decision.


    At that instant, Reyne really hesitated on whether she should sacrifice herself to ept his proposal. Perhaps, this would grant her country some breathing space. But the next moment, she realised that when strength of 2 working partners are too far apart, then in another sense, one side would be effectively taking possession of the other.


    ¡°Reject it. It must be rejected by all means. However, wouldn¡¯t rejecting it directly hurt Darsos¡¯ pride and bring shame to the entire And Empire? If this isn¡¯t settled well, it could lead straight to war. Is there any possible way out?¡±


    Apparently, it is an unexpected event that no one was prepared for. However, putting the full authority of the And Empire on the line, Darsos never even expected that he would be rejected.


    However, in what the real Reyne sees as a desperate situation, to the bogus Reyne, it is just a walk in the park.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, you¡¯re a male, but I like females.¡±


    The result of Darsos¡¯ confident proposal is a merciless rejection. Even if he wanted to blow this matter up, he has no idea where he should start from. In the end, the situation could end as a farce and gossip before meals.


    For one¡¯s target for proposal to be someone with unique sexual orientation, that kind of rejection is probably the only one that leaves one helpless. At the same time, it is the most powerful reason for rejection ¡ª How can one date when the gender is wrong?


    While Reyne was still d over the fact that she and the East Mist Communal Country barely escaped a cmity, she immediately realised the new troubles she was about to face. Despite being saved, she seems to have fallen into a pit dug by the bogus Reyne and given the depth of the pit, it is one she is unlikely to escape from for her entire life.


    ¡°Wait, to use my face to make such a deration in front of everyone else, wouldn¡¯t I be unable to redeem my reputation in the future? Then, won¡¯t I be unable to marry anyone for my entire life?¡±


    Alright, tomorrow¡¯s headlines for all kinds of newspapers have been confirmed to be ¡®Emperor¡¯s Proposal Falls Through, Princess Reyne Exposes Her Sexual Orientation¡¯, ¡®The Secret History of the Emperor¡¯s Love Rival, Svina¡¯, ¡®The Love Triangle That Transcends National Borders¡¯. Without doubt, these would be the hottest topic for at least a period of time.


    What about Reyne herself?


    Under the witness of the God of Holy Knight, there is no doubt about the authenticity of her deration of true love as a Holy Knight. Very quickly, as rumors and intelligence start to spread, Princess Reyne¡¯s unique taste of being more into beauties than her kingdom would bemon knowledge throughout the entire world.


    Furthermore, this is the type of situation that requires her to follow through. If it is proven that she is normal in the future, then she would be seen as deceiving the And Emperor in front of his own people, humiliating the entire And Emperor. If so, the oue would be disastrous. Then, not only can Reyne not redeem herself, she still has to try her best to pretend to be an abnormal female. In the worst case scenarios, she even has to get herself a few wives and concubines.


    ¡°You bastard! I¡¯ll kill you!! How can I face the others after this.¡±


    Alright, if it wasn¡¯t for Diana holding her down, Reyne, who is dressed scantily, would have charged up onto the stage without any hesitation.


    As this tragedy turnedpletely into a farce, as the different presses rushed to inform the people about what transpired in the Royal Sparring Grounds, the real and bogus princess returned together to the temporary embassy and sit around the same table.


    ¡°Rnd, you are Rnd! You are indeed alive.¡±


    ¡°Long time no see, Kelly.¡±


    TL: He calls her Kelly-jie, a casual way to address someone you are close with and more senior than you (in terms of age)


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    Due to the exciting performance by the Princess, the obscure East Mist Communal Country became a hot topic in an instant. The embassy where visitors were few initially found its entrance bursting with people at this moment. However, the gate is firmly locked, expressing their intention to not ept any visitors.


    However, this didn¡¯t stop amotion from going on in the meeting room on the 2nd floor.


    ¡°Bastard, you¡¯re going down. To think that you would actuallyy a trap for me!¡±


    In front of the youngdy whose rage couldn¡¯t be quenched, I, who have returned back to Rnde¡¯s appearance, is sipping on the iced bitter tea leisurely. This is a specialty of my homnd. Given the fact that I haven¡¯t tasted it for a long time, I have to make sure to savor it properly.


    ¡°Then, can youe up with a better solution? One that doesn¡¯t hurt the pride of the And Empire while rejecting them at the same time. You should be thankful for me, otherwise you would be in deep trouble now.¡±


    Reyne isn¡¯t an unreasonable person. As the words I spoke are all true, Reyne immediately quiets down. She has been thinking about it all this while but not mentioning a better solution, she couldn¡¯t evene up with a feasible one on her own.


    ¡°Who are you? Rnd wouldn¡¯t address me like that.¡±


    Despite being initially delighted, after hearing how I addressed her, hesitation appears on Kelly¡¯s face.


    ¡°The arrogant Rnd would never call anyone else big sister or big brother, he...¡±


    In my diaries, Kelly is one of the few people which I was extremely close to in the past. As expected, I was unable to hide the fact from her. However, to think that I would be exposed the moment I opened my mouth. Then, let¡¯s try the second way of addressing her as written on the diaries. Right, there is the little secret about this Wood Elf as well.


    ¡°Un, little Kelly. Is the star-shaped birthmark behind your neck and the mole below your right breast and left thigh still there?¡±


    Hearing that, Kelly immediately covers her breasts with her arm, her face red from embarrassment. She stares at me with a look as though trying to ward off a sex fiend. Mypanion, Diana, also looks at me in shock.


    ¡°I have forgotten many things. But, for someone from a race of short lifespan to surpass their longevity, a price like this should be natural, right?¡±


    Kblian shakes her head. Even though her instincts tell her that the man in front of her is indeed Rnd, she is still hesitant to ept it.


    As this is quite a big matter, it¡¯s natural that she would be extremely careful about it. There is a possibility that the man in front of her might have just obtained that information from the belongings that Rnd left behind. Fortunately, she has a much better way of authenticating the identity of the man in front of her.


    She takes out the short dagger of two dragons coiled together, that is the ¡®Light of Life¡¯ that is directly linked to the soul.


    The moment I stepped closer to the dagger, the white pearl immediately radiates brilliantly, proving that it is my Light of Life.


    ¡°Indeed, it is you little pervert! But how did you manage to extinguish and light it up again and again!¡±


    Before I could even react, Kelly hugs me tightly, her overjoyed expression making one suspect whether she really is the same calm Wood Elf from a moment ago.


    ¡°Heh, that¡¯s simple. Reviving after dying, dying after reviving, that¡¯s all.¡±


    Hearing that, Kelly stuns. Reviving after dying, dying after reviving? It may seem easy but as long as one has a slight understanding of the world and souls, they would definitely know that it is an impossible task.


    ¡°Alright, it is hard for us to be reunited so let¡¯s not talk about these boring matters. Right, the color of the Light of Life is the indicator to show whether the soul is sided with the Order Faction or the Chaos Faction right? Looks like Karwenz¡¯s one is reallypletely ck.¡±


    Indeed, what else could be more sided to the Chaos Faction than the Demons who are the incarnation of Chaos. Surprisingly, Kelly shakes her head.


    ¡°130 years ago, your Soul Pearl was even darker than his. Can you tell me whether you are him? The nightmare who represents the dark night.¡±


    TL: Yongye means eternal night.


    The Wood Elf asks me with a trembling voice. Even if intelligence that Lord Yongye is Rnd has been spreading among the leaders of each country, as the mentor of the Twin Stars, she has been unwilling to believe that Rnd, who was kind and warm like a ray from the sun, would actuallye to such a point.


    ¡°Un, it¡¯s me. Back then, I investigated and realised that the reasons for the destruction of the Mist Country isn¡¯t that simple. Thus, I purged all of the suspects responsible for it and their aplices. Heh, it looks like I went a little overboard in the end.¡±


    ¡°Ah...¡±


    ¡°Big Sister Kelly!! What did you do! Why would Big Sister Kelly faint?¡±


    Alright, having her worst nightmare warp into reality, emotions start to surge in the silent Kelly, assaulting her heart, causing her to faint on the spot.


    After she faints, the 3 people remaining on the spot could only stare at one another. The me who has lost his memories and can only know from the diaries that Kelly really deeply loves the previous me is unable to understand her excessive reaction.


    After Reyne¡¯s immediate treatment, Kelly gains consciousness once again. Then, she suddenly hugs me and starts to weep.


    ¡°Wuuuu, it is all because of my uselessness that caused you and Karwenz to suffer so much.¡±


    The strong sense of self-reproach from watching the person she values fall into depravity, the warm prince to turn into a demon lord caused Kblian to weep silently.


    Tear drops moistened my back and the familiar yet foreign touch left me motionless. This is my first time experiencing the care and concern of an elder towards a junior. It made me feel ufortable, making me want to escape from it.


    ¡°Looks like I have to look for something to retrieve my memory.¡±


    Despite seeing the other party breaking down in tears, I couldn¡¯t feel anything at all. For the first time, I feel that diaries could not rece true memories. Some things cannot be retrieved the moment they are lost.


    Alright, it took me much effort before I managed to persuade the tearful Kelly from her self-reproach to return the topic to the main issue at hand.


    ¡°... Will you return?¡±


    The trembling Kelly questions. I shake my head in response.


    Why should I return? My people are still in Liu Huang Mountain City. The current East Mist Communal Country is no longer the original Mist Country. Besides, it is unconventional for a retired monarch to ascend back to the throne. Also, my goals also doesn¡¯t allow for me to be limited to only one country.


    ¡°However, I will help the Mist Country rise up once again. The blueprints have already expressed a part of my sincerity. The main show still awaits, starting from this sword.¡±


    ¡¾Rnd Sacred Sword, SemiGod Equipment¡¿


    ¡¾Attack Power: 22-44+11¡¿£¨+11 additional damage due to it being a +11 SemiGod Equipment. Even if the Sword deals damage of the lower limit, it will deal additional 11 unavoidable Silver Inferno Magic damage£©


    ¡¾Indestructible: Even against God Equipment, this Sacred Sword will not break.¡¿(Out of the two times it has broken, one of it is because of Ayer, while the other time is because it¡¯s already in an iplete, weak state, which allowed the Dragon Saber to destroy it through its Unique Ability)


    ¡¾The Royal Seal of the Mist: Rnd Sacred Sword is a symbol of the power of the Mist Royalty, only with the acknowledgement of the King can one use this Sacred Sword. Along with the rise of the Mist Kingdom once again, it is trying its best to evolve to be even stronger. At the same time, this proud Sacred Sword can only be used by the king of the Mist Kingdom and his trusted knights.¡¿


    ¡¾The Prestige of the King: Strength+2, Agility+2, Stamina+2, Charm+2. In the country built by the Mist bloodline, the reputation would be equal to the respect the user earns.¡¿


    ¡¾There are yellow words carved on the body of the Sword: The Rnd Sacred Sword is the sword used by the Holy Knight Prince Rnd in the legends. Only his descendants and inheritors of his will can be acknowledged by this Sacred Sword. (Prerequisite to equip: Mist Bloodline)¡¿


    The silver Sacred Sword emits blinding radiance while I shed tears silently. I knew that the System definitely had ill intentions when it allowed me to reforge the sword. From the start, it isn¡¯t a weapon that I could wield.


    To be a knight that is loyal to the royalty? Then, it would require an inauguration ceremony. Not mentioning that the current East Mist Communal Country is unable to do it. Even if it is able to, I am unwilling to be a knight that swears loyalty to someone, even if the person is likely to be my descendant.


    Even if I am able to use the sword, that is at most another top-tier weapon in my hands. Even though these kind of things are hard toe by, it is still possible to look for them. With the guide of ¡®history¡¯, I don¡¯t think that it would be too difficult to look for a recement.


    However, if the Crown Prince of this generation, the Princess Knight, were to retrieve the Rnd Sacred Sword, which is the mark of authority of the king, it would seem as though it were the nnings of the heavens. In this era where the authority of a monarch and religions intersect with one another, the recovery of a lost treasure representing symbol of authority in the country will greatly unify the entire country. Those previous citizens who left due to war will also start to reconsider returning back to their homnd.


    At the very least, Reyne, who managed to recover the Rnd Sacred Sword, will find her reputation soaring. With the weapon of royal authority in their hands, they can even try to negotiate a merger with the other 2 countries built by the refugees of the former Mist Country. Only this way, with bothnd and people, will there be hope for the rise of the Mist Country once again.


    ¡°Rnd Sacred Sword! Is this the legendary Rnd Sacred Sword?¡±


    The moment the jubnt Reyne touches the Sacred Sword, she was sent flying by a rebound. However, looking at how she wasn¡¯t burnt by the Silver Inferno, it seems she fulfills the requirements for its usage. It is just that she is still too weak, so weak that she couldn¡¯t even earn the approval of the Sacred Sword.


    However, looking at the determined princess, I started to ponder on a way to make her strong.


    ¡°Reyne, why are you so weak? Is there no one to teach you?¡±


    ¡°Reyne¡¯s talent for swordsmanship is still okay, but that is only stuck at the level of just okay. With many troublesome matter weighing down on her, there is no time for her to slowly train in her swordsmanship. On the other hand, she doesn¡¯t have any talent in Divine Arts, so it is impossible for her to walk on the route of a Holy Knight or a Priestess. Even though she is intelligent, she doesn¡¯t haverge amount of time required for a Mage to mature. Thus, the most she can do is to train a little bit on the way of the sword and strengthen her body. Don¡¯t use Karwenz and you yourself as a standard forparison. In the thousands of years of history of the Mist Royalty, you both are one-of-a-kind, so it would be unfair to the other members of royalty if you both were to bepared to them.¡±


    I nod my head. I have a rough idea on what I should do.


    ¡°I have a new job here, Justice Knight. Although they are the Knights of the God of Law, in reality, they are simr to the Holy Knight in the sense that they don¡¯t have to bepletely loyal to the Church. Also, unlike other Divine Arts, it doesn¡¯t require the Will Stat. What it requires is Intelligence, as well as understanding and analysis of thew...¡±


    ¡°Perhaps, the East Mist Communal Country can try toe into contact with the God of Law as well. If it is able to be its national religion, then many things would change...¡±


    ¡°Right, we also have to start grooming the Aurora Knights from this moment. It would be toote by the time the winter season starts...¡±


    We didn¡¯t take too long to talk about the main issues at hand. After all, I was the one who was doing most of the talking while the both of them listened to my words. The final decision isn¡¯t something that could be decided on the spot. However, there is a private matter that I would really like to ask.


    ¡°Right, Kelly, who exactly is Reyne¡¯s ancestor? Is it me or Karwenz?¡±


    An ugly daughter-inw still has to meet her mother-inw eventually. Despite feeling uneasy, it isn¡¯t an option for me to bury this concern of mine in the depths of my heart. In the end, I still posed the question.


    ¡°You don¡¯t even know the answer yourself?¡±


    Alright, it is natural for Kelly to be surprised. I could only shake my head in frustration, pointing at my own head to indicate my memory loss.


    Suddenly, a crestfallen expression appears on Kelly¡¯s face. She lowers her head and starts to rebuke me tearfully.


    ¡°It¡¯s enough for you to forget me! To think you would even forget our child!¡±


    ¡°Our child!¡±. ¡°Our child!¡±. ¡°Our child!¡±. These two words echo simultaneously in my head and in this room.


    ¡°Kacha!¡±. ¡°Kacha!¡±. Diana¡¯s cup and my cup shatters upon contact with the floor. Our gaping mouth couldn¡¯t be closed no matter what.


    ¡°ng dang.¡± At the same, Reyne¡¯s loses her grip on her sword. She also stares in shock at the big sister who brought her up. It can¡¯t be that her ancestor would actually be her children. Then, should she be calling her grandmother?


    ¡°I¡¯m just joking!!¡±


    I¡¯mpletely at a loss. The scariest part about losing one¡¯s memory is that one wouldn¡¯t know that they forgot. Could it be that I unknowingly forgot my own wife?


    ¡°Un, I¡¯m just joking. I¡¯m still unmarried.¡±


    Kelly sticks out her tongue and makes a face. Don¡¯t just look at how she is 700 years old, for the Wood Elves who are blessed with a long lifespan, she could only be considered a youngdy. Furthermore, the Wood Elves are known to be positive.


    ¡°Kacha!¡± This time, even the saucer holding the cup crashes.


    Iy paralysed on the chair while grabbing onto my chest. These sudden blows are really bad for my heart.


    I finally understand why the records on Kelly on the diaries would be so contradictory:


    ¡°Although she is gentle like a big sister and a mother, she is overly obsessed with pulling pranks and sometimes, it could be fatal. Never give her any chances or you will regret it. Never!¡± On this section, I even left an asterisk to indicate that it is important information.


    ¡°I almost believed it, you know. Can you not joke about these matters!¡± Alright, I admit that I totally believed what she said.


    ¡°Actually, I also don¡¯t quite know myself. Back then, when both sides were crossing fire, I returned back to Xuanlu Forest. When I returned, there was already no one I could recognise there. However, she should either be a descendant of you or Karwenz. In any case, she is a descendant of Mist and besides, after a few hundred years, the bloodline should be very diluted by this point, so does it make a difference?¡±


    TL: Xuanlu -> Melody. The pronunciation should be sh-uean lui (around there)


    There is a great difference! The difference is whether I am a 300 year old well-qualified archmage or not!


    Alright, saying this would mean self-exposing my scandal, as well as that my love life hasn¡¯t progressed a single step in the past 300 years. I am not that foolish.


    ¡°It should be Karwenz, after all,pared to you, that child is...¡±


    There is no need to borate further on it. I know that Karwenz is more popr than me but please stop rubbing salt on my wounds.


    Then, the familiar body scent starts closing in on me and big sister Kelly hugs me once more.


    ¡°If you¡¯re missing your beautiful memories, then we just have to create more of them. I love my cute little Rnd the most...¡±


    Despite having just reunited, I was already hugged 3 times. Instantly, I understood what the side note of ¡®beware of being treated as a bolster¡¯ means.


    ¡°Big Sister Kelly, I¡¯m no longer a little kid.¡±


    I¡¯m a little touched by her excessive warmth, but even more so, what I felt is being at a loss. After all, of the beautifuldies that I came into contact with in the past, half of them were trying to kill me while the other half was hiding daggers beneath their smiles. A beautifuldy hugging me with kind intention, it was something that has never happened before. On the contrary, it left me with no idea how to react to it.


    Suddenly, Kellyugh evilly and edges forward. Then, she sticks out her tongue and licks my ear lightly.


    The sudden soft sensation on my ear caused my entire body to shiver in an instant. Then, feeling lightheaded, I quickly retreated.


    ¡°You... What did you do?¡±


    Even without looking into a mirror, I know that my face is definitely intensely red at this moment. This time, I have beenpletely exposed.


    ¡°Despite having the exact same reaction as in the past, you still im that you aren¡¯t a kid anymore. After so many years, it looks like the love life of little Rnd is still aplete nk. I have seen the Time Distortion Ring of the Saint before. We Wood Elves are the Elves who are the most sensitive to life. Ascertaining the age of an ancient tree through touching it is the most basic race talent of our race. Judging from the smell, your actual age is different from that your outer appearance shows. Do you need me to guess your real current age?¡±


    I sp my hand together and raise them to indicate my surrender. Normally, I am the one whond others into trouble. Today, I managed to meet someone who is able to subdue me totally. Is this the experience of an elder? But again, it was so easy for me to trick the Queen of Banshees.


    ¡°Hmph, stop underestimating others. I watched you grow since you were still a baby. Those little tricks of yours are useless against me.¡±


    It looks like it isn¡¯t just the difference in ages and experiences. What is even more crucial is her understanding towards me while my understanding towards her only stops at data and books.


    Suddenly, seemingly unhappy with my sudden gaze of wariness, she hugs me once more.


    Just when I was looking warily at this woman who loves to prank others, I heard a whimper from the back of my ear. On my shoulders, Kelly starts to sob once more.


    ¡°Too much, smelly Land Land. To actually forget me. To think that I have been missing you all along, worried about you and yet, you only talk about official business with me. Don¡¯t you know how to care for me? Let me hug you for a moment, just a moment. Wuuuu, stupid Land Land.¡±


    Hearing the sobbing behind my back, I was left motionless yet again. Different emotions filled me in an instant and yet, I am still at a loss of how to react.


    I can ascertain now that this woman who is like a mother and a teacher is definitely the nemesis of my life. I would rather solo an evil Dragon then to guess what she will do the next second. In the end, I could only helplessly allow her to do as she please. Just this one hug, she hugged me for an entire 10 minutes.


    ¡°Little Rnd is also around the age which you can be an adult. If it is Rnd, I am okay with it.¡±


    Even after she finally let go of me, the casual and flirtatious jokes makes one unsure of whether she is being sincere or not.


    However, looking at the green-haired Elf who is smiling from the depths of her heart despite her swollen eyes from all the crying, I found another reason for me to continue trying hard.


    Then, 10 minutester, a sudden ze overwhelms the temporary embassy of the East Mist Communal Country. It seems to be the actions of the extremists who are unhappy with the Princess Knight rejecting Darsos¡¯ proposal. 20 minutester, escorted by a team of East Mist Royal Knights, the princess and her Court Mentor found a new living quarters ¡ª The 3rd storey of a western mansion.


    ¡°Wee to the base of the mercenary band Absolute Gentlemen Alliance. We will provide you the most reliable security and the most caring customer service.¡±


    Big Sister, Older Brother etc all seems so awkward, would you all prefer me to use jie, mei, di, ge in this cases? When I keep using big brother big sister, it makes it seem as though all of the characters are little kids. Also, there are different variations to the big brother big sister and depending on the variation, the tone are different. For example, when Annie calls other people, she goes with the full term jiejie gege, which makes her seem young. On the other hand, adults normally go with a more casual one like Kelly-jie, which shows her seniority and the closeness of their rtionship.

 Chapter 87

    Chapter 87: Sacred Sword and Demon Sword


    ¡°Is this the sacred artifact you are talking about?¡±


    Even before sunrise, the great great great granddaughter of a certain someone (?) kicked a certain someone out of bed.


    ¡°Is this a rebellion? What are you doing when the sky has yet to light up?¡±


    Due to several reasons yesterday, I wasn¡¯t able to sleepst night. Just when I was about to drift off, I was awakened abruptly, so in this instant, I¡¯m extremely angry.


    ¡°This is the sacred artifact that you gave me? Look at it yourself!¡±


    Sacred artifact? It may sound like a high-end top quality good, but it is just a unique object infused with God powers. For example, a cup filled with God blood, a wooden spear that pierced through a certain God¡¯s heart and a shroud a certain God used before. A sacred artifact of a certain true God is often an object that the true God has used before he Ascended. If a worshipper were toe into contact with it, they would be able to deepen their contact with the true God and increase the God Powers swiftly. They are the treasures of every Church.


    Naturally, I have arge amount of these sacred artifacts for the God of Law. After being appraised by the System, arge portion of those that can be used were left at Liu Huang Mountain City for the worshippers to use. I also kept a few pieces with me and now that Reyne has changed her job into a Justice Knight, I casually passed one over to her. To think that she would beining over it early in the morning.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this good? It¡¯s a sacred pillow with a pikachu picture on it, isn¡¯t it cute. Ah, you don¡¯t know the famous lightning mouse? Let me tell you, it is a cartoon picture that I designed. Look, its cheeks are red and its entire body is yellow, don¡¯t you think that it¡¯s cute...¡±


    ¡°Who cares about your lightning mouse! Saliva, it¡¯s the saliva! The back of your sacred artifact is full of your saliva. Halfway through my sleep, I identally got some on my face. Disgusting!¡±


    ¡¾Wumianzhe¡¯s Pillow: Sacred Artifact. Due to Wumianzhe¡¯s usage of this object over a long period of time, this pillow is already infused with his aura. Bying into contact with it during sleep, connection with the true God Wumianzhe can be deepened, increasing the rate of increase of Power of Law.¡¿


    Receiving the pillow, I flipped it over and there is really saliva on the back. After hesitating on a moment, I flipped it back and went back to sleep without a care in the world.


    ¡°Hmph, I¡¯ll use it since you don¡¯t want it. I haven¡¯t been sleeping well since I left this pillow.¡±


    Yes, the reason why I have been insomniac isn¡¯t because of a certain someone staying up for the night assault that has yet toe, but because of him losing the pillow that he¡¯s used to.


    ¡°Oi, wake up! It¡¯s time for morning training as well. What other sacred artifacts do you have?¡±


    ¡°Do you really take the sacred artifacts of a true God to be like cabbage that you can just pluck on the street? However, I do have a few of them here. You definitely would reject the sacred red scarf, do you want the sacred toothbrush?¡±


    ¡°No!¡±


    ¡°What about sacred cloth? Oi oi, don¡¯t get happy too early. I knew that you would misunderstand. It isn¡¯t those western armor types but a nickname for the sacred bathrobe. Furthermore, it is a pink-colored one.¡±


    TL: Saint Seiya


    ¡°Big Brother Rnd, no matter what, you are a legendary hero. I grew up listening to your heroic deeds. So, can you be more reliable? Does it make sense for a female like me to be walking around wearing a male bathrobe?¡±


    ¡°Fine, I still have another sacred artifact here. It is definitely the top one in maintaining your connection with Wumianzhe. Furthermore, you won¡¯t find it excessive wearing it and it isn¡¯t striking as well. It¡¯s definitely easy and good to use.¡±


    ¡°If it¡¯s that good, why didn¡¯t you take it out earlier? Where is it?¡±


    ¡°Take it yourself.¡±


    Thus, I flipped open my nket and continued snoring in my sleep.


    ¡°Where is it? Big Brother Rnd, can you tell me?¡± Lowering her tone when she has a favor to ask while acting haughty normally, it¡¯s quite easy to grasp the temper of this princess. However, she obviouslycks education.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this it? Sacred underwear, take it yourself. You can wear it inside. It is neither excessive nor striking. Furthermore, you get physical contact with Wumianzhe, so I can guarantee that your connection would be intimate.¡±


    ¡°You old sex fiend! Sexually harassing me again, eat my Sin-Splitting Strike!¡±


    Alright, having just changed jobs a day prior, her Sin-Splitting Strike still wasn¡¯t up to standard and only had the spirit to it. Thus, after taking care of her in an instant, I dragged her down for morning training. A new day starts with a certain unrespectable old man educating her little granddaughter.


    ¡°Tounch a sneak attack on this old man! 20,000 swings today, no dinner if you don¡¯t finish it. Practise seriously!¡±


    ¡°What are you old man-ing for? You want to y seniority? Big Sister Kelly has told me that you aren¡¯t as old as me yet. I only call you Big Brother Rnd in view of your little reputation in the past. Otherwise, hehe, little Rnd, do you want a lollipop?¡±


    This delinquent youngdy apparentlycks education.


    ¡°You really need a beating! Now, practise your swings. If you can¡¯t finish 30,000 by today, you will be punished with no dinner or night snack tonight. Just watch and see if your Big Sister Kelly will plead on your behalf!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t, Big Sister Kelly may seem gentle but in reality, when it involves sses, she turns into a ghastly old granny, extremely aggressive and scary.¡±


    ¡°Ghastly old granny is at your back...¡±


    ¡°Do you think you can fool me with such a simple trick? If that fierce bitch were here, I would have long heard her footstep. Recently, she¡¯s been getting a little overweight... Who is pulling on my ears!¡±


    TL: Bitch seems a bit over the top, is there any word that is milder but still an insult?


    ¡°Cough, it seems that I¡¯m a ghastly old granny and a fierce bitch. To think I would worry you over my health problems. Looks like Princess, you need some remedial lessons on social etiquette and hygiene. Please head to the second floor for lessons after you end your swordsmanship training.


    ¡°Bastard Rnd, you tricked me.¡±


    ¡°Now you¡¯re ming me?¡± I raised my head innocently in the end, but I was smiling gleefully.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡°I want a good sword. I¡¯m serious.¡±


    Although I want to look for a good weapon, I ended up arguing with my cat.


    The solo assault on the thief band a few days ago was unnned but within my expectations. I still require an opponent to test my skills at this point. After trying out the new battle style and discovering its strengths, I also discovered its weakness. Being forced to use my immature skills on the sparring field the other day, I was forced to face this w.


    ¡¾Demon Sword: The Scarlet Conqueror¡¿


    ¡¾Attack Power£º30-50+9¡¿£¨+9 additional damage due to it being a +9 Legend Equipment. Even if the Sword deals damage of the lower limit, it will deal additional 9 unavoidable Bloodthirst damage)


    ¡¾Blood Conquer: This Demon Sword has 5 forms. Depending on the amount of people who have fallen under the user¡¯s hands, a number of forms would be usable. For every new form unlocked, an additional special skill would be added. The highest and lowest damage would be increased by 10 points. Currently, it is at tier 3.¡¿


    ¡¾The Rage of the Bloodthirster: After activating this skill, the blood of all lifeform will be absorbed to deal arge amount of damage while recovering the stamina of the user.¡¿


    ¡¾The Poison Fangs of the Coldblooded: Those who are struck by the weapon will be afflicted by a bleeding status that cannot be stopped. The damage dealt by the bleeding status can be stacked infinitely.¡¿


    ¡¾The Curse of the Filthy Blooded: Using the de as the core, create an impure field. Everyone on the field will suffer the pain of their blood boiling.¡¿


    ¡¾There is a string of tiny blood-red words on the hilt of the sword: This Demon Sword craves for fresh blood and ughter at all moments, regardless whether the fresh blood is from your enemy or it originates from you.¡¿


    When Darsos handed me this demon sword, I was really hesitating over the sess rate of managing to escape with this treasure, especially with the enticement of the demon sword.


    ¡°My temporary master, the amount of fresh blood and souls you harvested with your hands is at least a hundred times greater than the fool (Darsos) here. Of my 10 recent owners, only the great you are able to use my final form. That would be a hundred times stronger than my current form. However, as a price, you need to offer me the fresh blood of 10,000 people within a year.¡±


    Arge portion of demon swords are the creation of Devils and Demons. Those who wield demon swords normally need to pay a heavy price and few of them end well. Equal exchange has always been themon rule in the world. After paying a heavy price, the strength that one earns would be fearsome as well. The tier-3 form of The Scarlet Conqueror is alreadyparable to the SemiGod Rnd Sacred Sword. If it was evolved to its final form, it is unimaginable how strong it would be. Probably, a God Equipment would also only be that strong.


    However, if a tier-5 demon sword requires the fresh blood tribute of 10,000 people, then at tier-3, it should be around 100. Furthermore, if the user is unable to pay the price, he would have to use his own fresh blood to pay the price. 100 people in a year, 1 in 3 days, Darsos is probably busy with his blood ritual.


    Back then, I rejected it. If it were to really be converted to its final form, then it would be difficult to exin how I managed to meet the prerequisites required for the transformation, not to mention the heavy price I would have to payter on. However, as a swordsman, given the overwhelming power and special abilities of the demon sword, how could I not be moved.


    ¡°I am reallycking good weapons. As a master in swordsmanship, to think that I would be stuck with 2 poor quality iron dual-handed swords. It is really hard to stand such a reality.¡±


    After using both the demon sword and sacred sword, now that I see that Reyne being able to barely wield the Rnd Sacred Sword, which is getting stronger and stronger, while I am still stuck with 2 iron swords which don¡¯t even amount to 10 gold coins together, I feel a strong sense of depression.


    ¡°Meow, if you want a sword, you should look for a cksmith. Why are you asking meow meow me?¡±


    It¡¯s hard to look the Queen of Banshees straight in the eye when she is getting worse and worse with her acting cute and ying the fool. At this instant, she is licking her paws.


    ¡°Stop feigning ignorance, you know why I¡¯m looking for you. We¡¯re both old foxes, so there¡¯s no need to y the type of games youngsters y. Tell me, are there any godly weapons nearby?¡±


    ¡°Meow, none at all. Though, I have 2 sharp fish bone des that I left behind from yesterday. If you want them, I can pass then to you.¡±


    Heh, I knew it would end up like this. Thus, I made some preparations in advance.


    ¡°Alright, it can¡¯t be helped then.¡±


    ¡°Meow, this isn¡¯t like you, for you to give up.¡±


    ¡°Un, I can¡¯t possibly make one appear out of nowhere. Since I don¡¯t have any, I will make one myself.¡±


    Harloys is a little bit surprised. She knows that the person in front of her is a prodigy in Undead Creation but she never heard that he was able to do smithing.


    ¡°Meow, you can even make weapons? Wait, Rnd Mist, my good disciple, what do you intend to do!¡±


    Soon after, she understood. Like a demon, Rnd wore a white robe, mask and sses. His eyes were filled with passionate sparks and in the test tubes and bottles in his hands, numerous bizarre fluids were flowing.


    ¡°You should have heard of the legends. The gold-element Slime can turn into an iron bat or some kind of weapon. Even more so, a gold-element Slime King is able to turn into a legendary godly weapon. Since you are already a Slime, changing a bit of your element and adding a bit of functions should mean nothing, right?¡±


    ¡°Right your head! Don¡¯t pour those things into my body, not even the tweezers! A drill? Too big! Do you want to kill me!¡±


    Alright, under the threat of her life, Harloys finally didn¡¯t have the leisure to continue acting cute.


    ¡°I surrender, I surrender. I¡¯ll tell you where you can look for godly weapons so please take away your drill!¡±


    ¡°Tsk!¡±


    ¡°What are you tsk-ing for! Are you that regretful? Do you really want to stab and drill around my body? You unfilial disciple!¡±


    Alright, facing theining Harloys, I raised my drill and test tubes once more and she immediately turns obedient once more.


    ¡°There is really one nearby that you¡¯re able to use. Do you know Pale Justice? The sacred sword that Legend Holy Knight Kane once used. He is an Ander and his descendants should be in this city. I won¡¯t borate more on it.¡±


    Sacred sword huh? I was overjoyed, this is a reward beyond my expectations.


    In the Eich Continent, sacred swords actually refers to swords that are divine and pure. However, if we return back to reality, there are often 2 types of sacred sword. The first type is the Sword of Protection that represents a certain area, country, race or family. Indubitably, the Rnd Sacred Sword lies under this category. The second type refers to treasured sword which had a pure soul infused into it. Often, this is a right exclusive to Holy Knights.


    In reality, the Order Gods opened a backdoor for their servants. When a Holy Knight dies with an unwillingness to stop in his pursuit to eliminate the Chaos Faction, he is able to infuse a portion of his strength and soul into a weapon for the usage of his descendants.


    Just like that, a pure god sword/ sacred hammer is born. The restriction for usage normally only allows Holy Knight to wield them. At the same time, the sacred sword is extremely powerful against Chaos lifeforms.


    Why do I say that this is the backdoor left behind by the Gods? That¡¯s because other jobs have tried the same but never seeded. Unless one turns into an Undead Spirit, otherwise the Order Gods and River Styx would never let a single soul of the dead go.


    To be able to receive news on the sacred sword, naturally, I¡¯m extremely happy. Thus, when Harloys heaves a sigh of relief, I raise up my drill once again.


    ¡°What do you intend to do! Didn¡¯t I tell you the location of the sacred sword? You intend to go back on your decision! You untrustworthy conman!¡±


    ¡°Firstly, I didn¡¯t promise you anything from the start. Helping you upgrade is one of my agendas of the day. Secondly, I just got addicted to reforming things and am unable to quench my passion. Finally, and more importantly, I¡¯m a dual de wielder, how can 1 sword be sufficient for me.¡±


    The foolish cat immediately ‡å as she reflects on how she was caught so easily every time.


    ¡°Can it be true that one¡¯s physical body will affect one¡¯s intelligence?¡±


    ¡°No, didn¡¯t I still manage to trick you in the past? Intelligence is something that you are born with, you should give in to your fate by now.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it!¡±


    From anger to sadness, from sadness to agitation, I never get bored of Harloys¡¯ expressions when she falls into the pit I dug. Perhaps, this is the main reason why I like to trick her.


    ¡°This is my territory, no one can save you even when you scream out your throat. So, just give in!!¡±


    ¡°NO, take the white oily fluid away from me! You damned pervert, why are there tentacles. Could it be that the legendary Book of Erotic Fantasy is really with you? Save me, someone is torturing cats!¡±

 Chapter 88

    Chapter 88: The Rules of God and Laws of Human


    ¡°OUCH! Darned cat, it¡¯s you again!¡±


    Recently, Rnde seems to have fallen out with his cat. Whenever his guard is down, his cat would immediately pounce towards him and conduct a chainbo with her ws and fangs. During this period of time, she would often wear slippers on her paws to conceal her presence and close in on him before assaulting him like a fierce wild beast. What made it worse is that there isn¡¯t any killing intent whatsoever before she strikes and her movements are fast, urate and vicious, causing Rnde to howl in agony multiple times.


    If it urred during normal asions, it would definitely cause a great cat-human battle to immediately ur. However, now isn¡¯t the appropriate time for such a farce to happen.


    ¡°Lord Rnde, if you are unable to keep your cat under control, then please y with it outside.¡±


    On the podium, Krose stares furiously at me through her sses. Frustrated, I could only grab Harloys by her neck, bestow upon her 4 to 5 full rounds before throwing her out of the window while she¡¯s still weak from the dizziness.


    ¡°That¡¯s too much. How can he treat animals with such cruelty? The cat will fall to its death.¡±


    Casio, who is growing more and more fond of animals, exims in indignation but I simply shake my head in response.


    ¡°Good people don¡¯t live long but disasters live for a thousand years. If she can die that easily, then she should have been dead several times centuries back then.¡±


    As expected, Harloys¡¯s curses andintse echoing through our telepathic connection.


    ¡°Darned unfilial disciple, to treat the great and noble Queen of Banshees like that. Just wait and see, I will leave scars on your pillow and...¡± After hesitating for a split moment, the damn cat finally releases the most vicious and immoral curse in her entire life.


    ¡°I will leave urine on your pillow and bedsheets. I will carry out my words. I am only a cat now, so don¡¯t expect me to be unable to do it! I don¡¯t care anymore. Since I said it, I will definitely aplish it.¡±


    ¡°Then, I will wrap up that pillow and bedsheet then post it to our old acquaintances in Xiluo Empire. I will put a picture of your current form on top of the package andbel the wet portion as the secretions of ¡®The Omniscient One¡¯. Do you think I should post it to your fervent followers so that they can worship it or should I post it to your enemies for them to hold a gallery and celebrate over it?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m wrong, I swear that I won¡¯t do it. I¡¯ll go practise transforming into a weapon now.¡± This is the part of Harloys that I like the most. After realising that she is unable to win, she would admit defeat right away, never pushing her way through forcefully. Perhaps, this is also the main reason why this disaster has been able to live for a few thousand years.


    ¡°Hmph, pitting against me, you are still far too tender.¡±


    ¡°Student Rnde, since you like to stand so much, I will allow you to stand as you please. Go and stand outside in the hallways.¡±


    But the next moment, I knew that I still fell for her tricks. Right now, I am in the middle of a lesson. Although I am talking to my Magic Pet through our telepathic connection, from the perspective of outsiders, I seem like a madman standing in a daze.


    It just happens that the temporary lecturer Krose is staring furiously at me at the moment. My sudden nk stare became an action that challenges her authority as a lecturer. Thus, I could only obediently stand outside helplessly.


    Yes, I am currently in a lecture now. The contents of the lecture is about the teachings of the God of Law and Law itself. Naturally, the one taking on the role of the lecturer is Krose, who has the highest power rank of the Law jobs here.


    After that intense fight, the final verdict was to have half of the first floor serve as a court ofw (a small church of the God of Law) and after some consideration, a small space was left behind to be used to serve as a Church of Holy Light for Diana and me.


    As for an animal hospital that a certain someone strongly persisted on... A booth outside the walls would suffice. Anyway, I will never admit that I am acquainted with him. Not only that, I even secretly reported his unlicensed business to the relevant authorities. It is a pity that the Town Security of this city couldn¡¯t bepared to those of Liu Huang Mountain City, it would be quite a difficult task for them to deal with him.


    Alright, back to the main topic at hand. Allowing Krose to exin the teachings of the God of Law is her own wish as well as the will of the audiences.


    Needless to say, Reyne and Kelly are listening attentively to the lecture, given that they are still hesitating over whether they should make the faith of the God of Law as their national religion and need to learn more about it. Even Diana and Momo, the two Gray Elves, are strongly insisting on allowing them to hold sses. However, what was most shocking is that Casio was not only the one who was interested in the faith of the true God which is growing rapidly in the Underground World, even that one whose name I refuse to speak of is unexpectedly interested in the faith of the God of Law as well.


    ¡°I still want to return to Liu Huang Mountain City. I believe that this new rising faith will spread to the corners of the world and as a man who treads on the boundary ofw, I have to first understand my adversary and the loopholes in it before challenging it.¡±


    A certain Dracon seems to resemble more and more like a philosopher recently. His words made me wonder if a new ideology will be born as a result of such a ludicrous reason. However, we don¡¯t have any reason to reject him from learning about the Law and besides, from the looks of the past two days, it seems that he is the one who is listening the most seriously to the lectures.


    At the same time, the group of Royal Knights who apanied Reyne to the And Empire were listening in to the lecture as well. A few of them were already considering whether they should job change to be a Justice Knight. Even though this is just the second day of the lecture, we already had 2 new audiences.


    Svina di Nelson and Raymond lon Nelson. Due to a certain ident, the elder sister became the ¡®love rival¡¯ of the Emperor, causing herndlord to kick the two siblings out from their rented dwelling without any hesitation. After meeting with blockade in everything they set out to do, Svina soon realised that even though And may be big, there isn¡¯t anywhere here that could shelter them.


    In this world which is in the feudal era of the human society, the interests of knights and the lord they are serving are firmly connected. If one of them falls, both of them will suffer together whereas if one of them prospers, both of them will prosper together. Lest needs to be spoken about Guardian Knights. Actually, there are also Guardian Knights of the same sex as their master and they are often intimate friends who would give out their life for the other. But, the rtionship between Svina and Reyne isn¡¯t that easy to exin.


    A knight who betrays the one they swore loyalty to are the type of knight that are despised the most. Helpless, she could only acknowledge that she was stuck on the same boat as Reyne and seek refuge with her. However, watching at how she would run away frightened whenever Reyne approaches her, those who are aware of the backstory would clutch their stomach inughter.


    As a top-notch preacher, Krose¡¯s voice is extremely charming and her understanding of the teachings are quite firm. For normal imparting of knowledge, she is more than qualified. However, facing Kelly and the 700 years of experience behind her, who also has to fully understand this faith to judge if it is beneficial to her country, the Wild Elf who is one generation younger than the Wood Elf noble often find herself unable to handle the situation.


    ¡°Then, can you exin why singr Law would be split into two parts, ¡¾Rules of God¡¿ and ¡¾Laws of Human¡¿ and what is the difference between them? There are quite a few portions that ovep between both of them. Going by themon knowledge of jurisprudence, won¡¯t oveps or even contradictions in thew cause chaos in the enforcement and the weakening of its authority?¡±


    ¡°But... But that is what is taught in the teachings. That is set by Lord Wumianzhe. It can¡¯t be wrong.¡±


    Being forced to a corner, Krose can only repeat the theories written on the book. Normally, this level of imparting of knowledge which teaches of the results but not the causes that derives it is sufficient, but apparently, it is insufficient to convince that East Mist Court Mentor. No way around it, I shake my head and walk back into the hall that is being used for this lecture.


    ¡°Cough, if possible, allow me to exin. I am acquainted with Lord Wumianzhe and I happen to have heard him talk about it before.¡±


    Looks of confusion could be seen on the faces of the crowd. I point one of my finger upwards and the silver glow of the Light of Law ripples above it, indicating my identity as one with a Law job.


    It is impossible to train in two types of powers simultaneously. If someone were to convert all of their Power of Holy Light into the Power of Law like what Momo did, it would be equivalent to starting anew. Fortunately, there are a few oveps between the two powers but even so, if one were to work on both of them together, it would be a waste of effort.


    Thus, other than Krose who muttered ¡®as expected of the God¡¯s Oracle¡¯ in approval of my identity as a Justice Knight, in the mind of the others, they were thinking that I was expending my effort on something fruitless.


    Anyway, this itself proves that I am qualified to lecture on Law.


    ¡°Cough, firstly, I will talk about the difference between the ¡¾Rules of God¡¿ and ¡¾Laws of Human¡¿. The Rules of God is fixed by our God. It consists of only 13 severe crimes which aremonly epted to be unpardonable sins and basically, it is unchangeable. The sins that can be judged by the Judgement Spell of the Law jobs consists only of those of the Rules of God. On the other hand, the Laws of Human arews that would be continuously changed by the Church of Law and is tied together with the jurisdiction and the monarch. The Rules of God is applicable to the area of jurisdiction of the Order Gods whereas the Laws of Humans is only applicable with the approval of the monarch. This is the main difference between the two.¡±


    The other Gods also havemandments like ¡®punish evil¡¯, ¡®banning extravagance¡¯ and ¡®forbidding lies¡¯ but it is often a difficult task to enforce punishment on people who are not their worshippers. My version of the 13 severe crimes aremonly epted and thus, there is no need to fear for the ire of other Gods, nobles or royalty. At the same time, it gives those assuming Law jobs a list of sins that they must eliminate. (It doesn¡¯t matter whether other people enforce it or not, but Justice Knights must enforce it)


    ¡°However, this doesn¡¯t mean that the two of them will conflict with one another. On the other hand, the both of them are representative of the same thing. The Rules of God is the lower limit of the Laws of Human. Since they are sins that Rules of God forbids, then the Laws of Human mustn¡¯t pardon the sinners. For example, the first of the 13 crimes ¡®iming the life of others wilfully to fulfill one¡¯s private desires will result in a strict verdict by the God of Law. Even after death, they would suffer in the mountain of des and sea of mes¡¯. The Laws of Human also have the corresponding use. The first use of intentional murder states that ¡®Intentional murder would result in the death penalty or imprisonment of minimum 10 years. However, if it is legitimate defence, in a war of justice or for any other reasons that are in conflict with the other uses, thetter use will be prioritised.¡±


    Despite it being the same crime, but the God of Law brought about a tone of a religion advising against certain behaviours. As for the final portion which may seem excessive, further punishment after death, in actuality, it is preparation for the future. On the other hand, the Laws of Human are ice-cold uses and sentences.


    Reyne starts to get a little agitated. She seems to have seen theplex value behind it.


    ¡°That is to say, those of the Law jobs only have to enforce sins that go against the Rules of God. If so, what is the significance of setting the Laws of Human?¡±


    ¡°That is prepared for countries and lords that are prepared to allow the faith of the God of Law to be their national religion. This Laws of Human would obviously infringe on the profits of the nobles in the region, so aren¡¯t you all afraid of them banding together to suppress the spreading or even push for the banning of your faith?¡± Kelly questions after deliberating for a moment. She has been living in the human society for quite a significant period of time, so she understood the corruption and hopelessness of those bunch of nobles. How could they ept the introduction ofws that would threaten their rule.


    I smile. This is also one of the consideration that I expected them to have.


    ¡°Indeed, in many ces, nobles only pay 1 gold coin for beating up ordinary civilians and some royals even confiscate the properties of merchants as they please. Are these vilews that support only the governing body eptable? Our Laws of Humans will infringe on their profits directly and so, being viewed with enmity and even being suppressed at the start is unavoidable. However, it is impossible for them to ban it. After all, our Wumianzhe is a true God. Banning the teachings of a true God is equivalent to revolting against all of the Order Gods. Why do you think Wumianzhe had to try so hard for his Ascension, it is all for this day.¡±


    ¡°However, it is meaningless if it just prevents them from banning the religion.¡±


    ¡°So, there is a need for someone to make a stand. If I am an ordinary civilian and merchant, on one hand is a set of vilews that view me like an animal and a ve while the other at least allows me the basic rights of a human, so where would I choose to live and work hard in? Actually, there is no need to hesitate and Liu Huang Mountain City is an ideal example. Arge influx of poption and resources would naturally bring about prosperity and power. This is required for any territory. Thus, the faith of the God of Law is actually beneficial to the development of any territories and we just need someone to make a stand.¡±


    ¡°So, you looked for the Mist Country. Little Rnde, you would actually pull your own people into a pit you dug. Haven¡¯t you considered the high possibility of turning hostile with the surrounding states after turning it into the national religion? Have you considered the possibility of being wiped out even before we rise up?¡±


    Kelly frowned as she spoke. Her considerations were legitimate.


    ¡°Of course, I have considered it. However, do you think that the East Mist Country won¡¯t attract hostility if it goes on like this? You are already surrounded by enemies on all fronts and since it isn¡¯t far from destruction, at least this is quite a good straw of hope to clutch on to. Also, if the God of Law bes the national religion, then using Liu Huang Mountain City as an example, the rapid development of the strength of the nation can be expected. Arge increase in the amount of Justice Knights and Judgementors would also significantly improve the ability of the country to defend itself. At the same time, it should be able to gain the assistance of thend of origin of Law, Liu Huang Mountain City. No matter how you look at it, its benefits is greater than the detriments it brings.¡±


    ¡°What if we still refuse to ept it?¡±


    ¡°Nothing, just continue to wait. When those of the Law jobs fill the entire world, when the teachings of the God of Law be widespread in this world, the umted resentment and conflicts will finally explode one day. By then, what is awaiting the nobles will not be a peaceful retirement. The guillotine will be washed with fresh blood until it turns rusty and hanging corpses will fill the gallows.¡±


    Kelly instinctively shivers, as though seeing the arrival of such a day. On the other hand, Reyne brings up her considerations.


    ¡°Going by the teachings, starting a war is a severe crime. If so, doesn¡¯t this mean that we would be unable to unify the Mist Country? Isn¡¯t this unfair for us?¡±


    ¡°No, although it is true that starting a war will cause those of the Law jobs to lose their Power of Law, helping allied countries who are being invaded and wars of justice such as to recover annexednd are still allowed.¡±


    ¡°Then, who would decide what is justice?¡±


    Beifeng who had been solemnly jotting down notes brings up a query for the first time and he managed to shoot right on the bulls eye.


    ¡°One vote by the God of Law Wumianzhe, one vote by the monarch of the country and one vote by the majority of the poption. If all three votes are in approval of the war, then the war can be considered just. Also, since Wumianzhe has turned in the incarnation of justice, then his judgement should be fair and eptable by his worshipers.¡±


    The questioner nods his head and sits back down. Then, new questions from the crowd starts popping up once again.


    ¡°I have a question...¡±


    ¡°Un, this is actually quite simple...¡±


    Initially, I only intended to just casually filling in on a bit of details but somethings cannot be stopped once started. This lecture which is fated to be recorded in the annals of history continued for an entire day.


    Krose, who was lecturing the ss initially, became the recorder. What she tried her best to record down would be eventually passed onto the hands of every worshiper. I can foresee that not too long from now, the flower of Law will bloom beautifully.


    In the end, the lecture turned into a debate and the debate turned back into a lecture. When the marathon imparting of teachings finally ended, Reyne and Kelly stare at each other beforeing to a final conclusion.


    ¡°The East Mist Communal Country decides to acknowledge the faith of the God of Law as our national religion. But you, Rnd, must be responsible to help us to the end.¡±


    ¡°Sigh, fine, I will treat it as returning what I owe you all.¡± Even though I wasining, the smile on the face couldn¡¯t escape the notice of anyone.


    TL: Waste of effort -> (What I am trying to express is) Getting less than proportionate returnspared to the effort you put in. (Couldn¡¯t find an appropriate phrase to exin the Chinese one)


    Just curious, has anyone realised what Rnd¡¯s goal is?

 Chapter 89

    Chapter 89: Arbitration and Justice


    Still the same simple and shabby pce along with the same young Emperor.


    Darsos is engaged in a battle of chess with his old friend and subordinate. But, looking at thepses in judgement, missteps and how he was being forced to retreat continuously, his thoughts are clearly not on the chessboard.


    On other days, he would swiftly wipe the floor with his old friend with his superior chess skills before talking about official matters while the other party is still wallowing in his depression. But this time, his usual calmness is absent.


    ¡°Hermit, have you found her yet?¡±


    ¡°Found? Oh, you mean that Princess Knight. They changed their dwelling and currently, they are living in the Church of the God of Law. Attacking the Church of a true God can bring about great troubles. For a woman, is it worth it?¡±


    The one speaking is a brte youngster with squinty eyes. With a monocle, he emits a schrly feeling. Simply by looking at just his outer appearance, no one would suspect that he is the head of intelligence of the And Empire, as well as the private financial advisor of the Emperor, making him one of the most powerful man in the Empire.


    ¡°Stop joking with me, you know that I am not looking for that littless. I am looking for the girl with the bloodline of the Angels, the woman who singlehandedly subdued the demon sword using brute force.¡±


    With his attention to detail, Darsos could tell that Svina is a woman with one nce. After that day, he started that guess that the Princesses with the identical faces but totally different auras may be 2 different people.


    ¡°The Twin Stars, yet another ominous twins. No wonder the Mist Royalty would hide her existence.¡±


    Alright, corroborating with history, there is a foundation for the story Darsos came up with. At least, in Darsos¡¯s eyes, they are definitely 2 different people.


    The most obvious evidence is the behaviour of the demon sword.


    ¡°Hermit, you should know the price I paid to awaken the third form of The Scarlet Conqueror. But, that woman could easily subdue the third form of the demon sword. What¡¯s worse, when she returned the demon sword to me, the feelings that the demon sword transmitted back to me was actually ¡®pity¡¯, ¡®fear¡¯ and ¡®rxation¡¯. There could only be one exnation, the demon sword has actually submittedpletely to her. It is very possible that she can even use the demon sword in its final form.¡±


    ¡°Impossible! The Scarlet Conqueror that was forged by the Tyrant of the Blood Sea will crave for fresh blood eternally. In order to use this sword, almost ten thousand lives have disappeared under your hands. Even today, we have to prepare a few hundred death row prisoners to pay tribute to the sword. The girl is still so young, how could she subdue the demon sword?¡±


    ¡°But she still managed to do it, didn¡¯t she?¡±


    ¡°Is that why you proposed to her? Not wavering in the least despite being rejected in public?¡±


    ¡°No, no. I had enough of those beautiful but fragile vases. I suddenly felt that a Blood Angel that is showered in fresh blood is also not bad. I am really smitten by her. However, I didn¡¯t expect that she would actually like women, it is really such a pity.¡±


    ¡°You intend to give up? Then why are you still looking for her?¡±


    ¡°Why do you think the Mist Royalty is hiding that trump card for? Do you think that they, who are holding such a chip in their hands, would obediently submit to me during my enthronement ceremony? Do you think that the proud Half-Angel who refuses to look me in my eye would kneel and swear loyalty to me on the day of the ceremony?¡±


    Recalling the sight of the proud War Angel who refuses to even allow her feet to touch the ground, Hermit shakes his head.


    ¡°From birth, some people refuse to yield to others. I don¡¯t think that she would ever submit to anyone.¡±


    ¡°But, we don¡¯t have any route to retreat to. It is either we carry this through or give up the n and be reduced to a 2nd-rate power.¡±


    Yes, the enthronement ceremony that forces the countries to submit to And Emperor is an oppression towards the smaller countries as well as a challenge to the And Empire¡¯s prestige and power. If they seed, they could be a superpower at one go. But, if they were to fail, then the subordinate states under them originally will start to waver and falling straight to be a 2nd-rate power isn¡¯t entirely impossible.


    ¡°This is a bet with great stakes at hand. It involves the fate of And 200 years from now. We can¡¯t afford to lose.¡±


    ¡°I understand, we can¡¯t allow for any variables at this point. I will send spies to investigate the secret of the East Mist.¡±


    ¡°No, hold it for a moment. Just send a few Magic Eagle Riders to keep an eye on them would be suffice. I have already sent out the Crows, it would be inconvenient for them to strike with our eyes firmly on them.¡±


    ¡°The Crows? Why, they aren¡¯t trustworthy at all. They are just a bunch of oversensitive lunatics who keep prophesying about the ludicrous end of the world all day long.¡±


    ¡°But, irrational mad dogs tend to bite the hardest.¡±


    Saying these, Darsos burst intoughter. Naturally, he knows that the Crows aren¡¯t reliable. But, even mad dogs have their own use. If it is just releasing them out in the public to bite others, then there is no need for them to have any rationality.


    ¡°I think I understand why you called me here.¡±


    ¡°Un, with the East Mist Communal Country as a variable at the core, do a few more emergency contingency n.¡±


    ¡°Do we have to prepare for the worst? The East Mist Communal Country being removed from the alliance.¡±


    ¡°No, the worst possibility is the East Mist Communal Country along with the other countries dering war on us while our military forces are being kept in check.¡±


    Hermit nods his head. He understands Darsos. Preparing for the worst in all scenarios is his die-hard habit but this doesn¡¯t mean that he doesn¡¯t have the confidence to follow through with the enthronement ceremony.


    On the other hand, preparing so many contingency ns in advance means that he has his eyes firmly set on the sess of the alliance.


    Other people might think that he is a crude ambitious man who pays no attention to little details but only thepanion who he grew up withprehends that the greatest strength of Darsos is his attentiveness to details. Perhaps, it is because he is always prepared for the worst situation that he is able to climb his way up a step at a time to the top.


    ¡°Don¡¯t panic, even chess requires one to move step by step to im victory. Let¡¯s first use the mad dogs to test their might. Hah, looks like you got distracted. Check, I won!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    Making the ambassadors of the East Mist Communal Country live with us wasn¡¯t an aimless sudden inspiration on my part.


    It is still 3 months away from the enthronement ceremony. It isn¡¯t a long period of time but it couldn¡¯t be considered short as well. Being in the capital, his own field, it would be inconceivable if Darsos doesn¡¯t y some little tricks to rebuild the reputation he lost.


    Besides, our connection with the ambassadors would grow more and more intimate. Rather than being looked with gazes of suspicion by others, we might as well directly link up together. This way, not only is it more convenient and safer, I can also discipline that littless.


    As for the Church of the God of Law, it can only be said to be an unexpected surprise.


    Initially, we only intend to build a Court to allow those of the Law jobs to train and learn in. Without the support of the ruler of the territory, we are unable to conduct judgement on others. We could only engage in arbitration work.


    Judgement requires the support of the ruler, and involves someone using the uses ofw from a higher position to judge the criminals of a lower position and force a verdict on them. On the other hand, arbitration is a process where the arbitrator is of equal position as the two people involved in the contract and a ruling would be made by the arbitrator.


    Indubitably, in ces where Law isn¡¯t recognised by the ruler of the territory, the Law jobs can only do arbitration jobs. Due to theck of authority in an arbitration, arbitrators require significantly deeper understanding of thew. In a certain world, one has to work at least 8 years in thew industry before there is a possibility of them conducting an arbitration.


    Of course, we are talking about bigger affairs in that sense. In actuality, most of them involve insignificant little matters.


    ¡°Aunt Lee, Uncle Lee only owes you 3 silver coins right? Since he said he will be returning to you in 2 months, calm down.


    ¡°2 months? Considering the interest, he has to pay me at least 4 silver coins 2 monthster!¡±


    ¡°3 and a half!¡±


    ¡°4.¡±


    ¡°Alright, let me be the middleman. Give him a little bit more time, Auntie Lee, then Uncle Lee can pay a little bit more on the interest. How about 4 silver coins for 3 months?¡±


    ¡°Deal.¡± ¡°Okay!¡±


    Although it may seemme, this is basically what arbitrators do. The only difference is the sum of money involved in the settlement and that whether the both parties are an individual, merchant guild or organisation.


    Of course, if both parties are still unable toe to apromise, then the arbitrator can conduct a forced arbitration in front of idol of God Wumianzhe. If so, there would definitely be one side whose interest would be harmed. Under such circumstances, the decision of the arbitration will be enforced by Wumianzhe¡¯s God Powers.


    Without the monarch backing it thew, thew enforcers won¡¯t have the authority to judge criminals and naturally, they won¡¯t have the right to enforce verdicts on others. However, as one has the freedom to make contracts and promises, the Law jobs could borrow Wumianzhe¡¯s God Powers and his Obligation to serve as an arbitrator for the affairs of the mortal world.


    The arbitration system has already been operating for decades in Liu Huang Mountain City. But on the surface, it is something new. Very quickly, the sensitive merchants realised the superiority of such a system.


    Its greatest advantage that it is fast, very fast. On other days, heading to the local jurisdiction to file aint about a contract or settle a disagreement over goods would take at least 1 or 2 year to settle. Even if they were to earn the settlement sum after winning the battle, they might very well be bankrupt by then. That is the typical case of winning thewsuit but losing one¡¯s livelihood.


    Furthermore, if it involves a certain noble or official in thewsuit... Then you just have to give in to your misfortune.


    An arbitration only involves the 3 sides who are involved in the case and an agreement can be striked very swiftly, often in a few days. To merchants, time is life itself, not to mention that no one would dare to refuse to carry out a contract that has been made in front of Wumianzhe. That bizarre Incantation of Law: Obligatory Enforcement leaves those who intend to go against their promise nowhere to hide.


    Kagersi City, which was built along the river, is extremely essible, one of the reason why it is able to be a famousmercial city. In a ce where merchants gather, this new way of settling conflicts immediately spread rapidly within the industry.


    ¡°To think that there would be a God to ensure the fairness of a contract, now I don¡¯t have to worry about those ruffians withholding payment. This is great!¡±


    Thus, when new contracts involving trades are signed, they will make sure to add in a line ¡®If a disagreement urs, then arbitration will be held in xx Church of Law¡¯.


    Thus, in less than a week, the Court found itself gaining a few thousand new worshipers, making it a regional religion.


    Alright, going by the rules of Gods, when sufficient worshipers appear in and, the true God Wumianzhe will start to notice thatnd. It wille under his sacred jurisdiction ¡ª Kagersi City Branch Church of Law is born as a result.


    When the ¡®Laws of Human¡¯ still require a long time before it would acquire the support of the localndlords and walk onto the stage of history, this new rising arbitration system will be a powerful weapon to expand the faith of the true God of Law Wumianzhe.


    Such an urrence is appearing in many different corners of Eich Continent. Thus, in the Realm of Gods, Wumianzhe received the first derivative of his Obligation ¡ª The God of Contracts.


    As the essence of fairness is weaved into the contents of a free contract, having weak God Powers now, he is gradually evolving to be a mid-tier God.


    ¡°Ah, I totally didn¡¯t expect it.¡±


    Adding the system of arbitration into thew system, I was just casually imitating thew system of my previous world. I didn¡¯t expect that the arbitration system that wasn¡¯t really significant there would bear flowers in this foreign world.


    ¡°Un, in this chaotic world reminiscent of the Middle Age, there is indeed a great need for a neutral party to guarantee, enforce and settle the disputes of agreements. The reason why it isn¡¯t that popr in that is because it stillcks an authoritative power to guarantee that it would be carried out. Even if the result of the arbitration is hard to enforce, in this magical world where true Gods that could guarantee the enforcement of the contract exist, arbitration bes something much more impressive.


    Such an unexpected oue is of course beneficial to me. This ident also made me realise the significance of the bloodline of my physical body as The Arbitrator...


    ¡°Chaos on the left, Order on the right, so I am standing in the middle as the Arbitrator? In the end, I would just offend both sides at once. System, are you trying to remind me that my goal is something which my efforts will not reap proportionate rewards?¡±


    Attacking a regional Church, and where true God gazes upon (The God of Law not setting up Church refers to it not being like other true Gods who throw Churches everywhere for the sake of spreading their teachings), is no different from pping the face of a God. Naturally, as the people staying in it, we would be in a much safer position.


    Even so, I can still see dozens of spies among the worshipersing to visit.


    ¡°Hey, this big brother here, it is indeed a good idea for you disguise as a travelling merchant with your big bag. But, can you change your military boots, there is still the insignia of the Flying Dragon Knight Order on it.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, your family uses such superior horses to ship grass forage? Is the money you earn sufficient to pay for the oat they eat?¡±


    ¡°That mark of noble on your sword... Can you be more professional? To think that you can stillugh about it.¡±


    Alright, regardless of whether it is those who are interested in the East Mist Communal Country who shone brightly on that day or those who are interested in this rising true God Church, the way this city expresses its passion to its guests is really hard to take.


    ¡°Lord Oracle! If you have the time to y with them, you might as welle help us!¡±


    After the Court became a regional Church, the most senior Krose once again takes the blow and got forced to be the regional archbishop. However, despite being promoted, not only did she not get a pay raise or new subordinates, on the other hand, her workload exploded.


    Despite being a small Church, the merchants are all rushing here to settle their disputes over their contracts. The average visitors thate each day numbers over a hundred and the queue extends all the way to Beifeng¡¯s small booth outside the mansion. As for the people who are receiving them and the arbitrators... 2 Gray Elves, Krose and her two subordinates, 5 people in total, that¡¯s all.


    Although Krose is trying her best to groom the first batch of Divine Art users, they are all starting from scratch and there is still a long way before they are able to handle the situation. Right now, Krose and the rest can only work overtime to try their best to handle the situation.


    So, even though the respect Krose had for me soared significantly after that lecture, but looking at how I wander about leisurely despite having deep understanding of thew, her ragees pouring out on me.


    ¡°Lord Oracle, if you are free, can you help look at the contract of the Gnome merchants? There are a few parts which I am unsure of and require your assistance.¡±


    ¡°Haha, I am busy today. Let¡¯s talk about it after I¡¯m back.¡±


    After throwing those words, I turn around and escape without any hesitation. Krose wanted to chase me but the crowd in front of her makes her stop helplessly.


    This time, I really am not trying to shirk responsibility, I really have something on. Today, I have an appointment with someone.


    The location isn¡¯t too far away, a plot of emptynd where people are scarce. Standing under a rotting old tree, I lean on it and pour a little wine on the floor. The gray mist gathers to form a silver specter. However, the usual coldness and aggressiveness of a specter is absent. This is someone who is between the existence of a specter and a Heroic Spirit.


    ¡°Hey, Uncle Kane, I¡¯m here again. I have already settled the problem with your granddaughter. The amount of money I left for her school fees is sufficient for her to use for 10 years. You can give that sword to me now.¡±


    After receiving Harloys¡¯s hints, I would be too useless if I can¡¯t even find my target. In the first day, I found Kane¡¯s soul. But, it is a pity that even though I conversed with him over many matters these few days and even helped him on several ounts, Kane still remained silent on the whereabouts of his own sword.


    ¡°Un, little fellow. I can see your sincerity. Let me tell you onest story.¡±


    If there is a mirror here, my face would definitely be ‡å. This specter really acts just like the NPCs in games. I had to do a few missions for him first before he tells me about his background story. Most probably, this story would be about his story and in the end, I would have to enlighten him so that he could move on.


    ¡°...The vige was threatened by Magic Beasts. The enemy would overrun his own outpost at any moment. That young Knight faced 2 difficult choices. One is to fulfill his duty to his king by defending his post and watch as the threatened vige is destroyed or he could go against his orders and his pride as a Knight to protect the vige. Youngster, if it was you, how would you choose?¡±


    Alright, I knew that it would be this kind of problem. This kind of question is as unsolvable as the one about who to save when one¡¯s wife and mother falls into the water. Not answering might instead be the best answer.


    However, I have done too many of this kind of questions. From the start, the answer isn¡¯t of the options given.


    ¡°I will act first. Either finish my mission before going to protect the vige or to get rid of those Magic Beasts who are threatening the vigers first then pull the vigers to help me aplish my orders. Un, the better option would be to pull all the vigers with me to guard my outpost.¡±


    ¡°This... This doesn¡¯t fit the prerequisites.¡±


    ¡°Whose prerequisites? The oneing up with the question? Or the ones you set yourself? As long as the endpoint is good, why should one care so much about the process?¡±


    ¡°No, that is impossible. I can¡¯t do those that you just said.¡±


    ¡°I can do what you can¡¯t do. To tell you the truth, if I was in your position, the moment signs of a threat from Magic Beasts appear, I would have thought of ideas to get rid of it as soon as possible before it bes dangerous. Besides, if you can¡¯t do it, you could have asked for others to help you right?¡±


    ¡°They have their own missions. How can I use my own private matters to soil the honor of other knights?¡±


    ¡°That is an outdated idea. No wonder you still aren¡¯t enlightened even a few decadester.¡±


    ¡°I... I will test if you are capable of doing what I can¡¯t do!¡± The old Knight rages from embarrassment.


    Alright, as expected, I had to fight him in the end.


    19 seconds. Including the time required to draw and sheath my sword. The Undead Binding Formation that I have long set activates and I immediately followed up with a standard Holy Knight skill, Turn Undead. Afterwards, I raise my sword and knocks him, causing Kane who had his movements sealed to fall.


    ¡°This is unfair...¡±


    ¡°Why? You thought that I would be like those foolish Knights andpete in swordsmanship against you who have once reached the realm of Legends? Being killed by you after crossing 300 blows, why don¡¯t you talk about how unfair it is for a Legend to bully a Bronze rookie. Look, isn¡¯t this way much simpler?¡±


    ¡°I... Young man, was I really wrong?¡±


    I hesitated for a moment before giving my answer.


    ¡°No, you aren¡¯t wrong. The decision you made is worthy of the respect of future generations. The one that is wrong is this cruel world who forced you to make a decision.¡±


    The old Knight saved the vige, thus failing to aplish his own mission. As a result, he lost his honor and prestige as a Knight, implicating his family. In hister life, he kept questioning himself whether what he did was correct and in the end, he died with that thought lingering in his mind.


    ¡®Pale Justice¡¯, that is the name of the soulsword, as well as the questioning screams he directs towards himself.


    ¡°Am I wrong? Is the justice that I insisted on a mistake? Should I have watched as the vige get annihted?¡±


    ¡°Locar Town, that is the vige you saved back then. It has been 70 years since and it has turned from a vige of 300 into a small town with a poption numbering ten thousand. You did well.¡±


    ¡°Is that so? That is great.¡±


    With a smile on his face, Kane¡¯s soul starts to disperse and the only thing that remains is a teardrop gem that scatters ice-cold white light.


    ¡¾Soul Gemstone of Pale Justice: A portion of Kane¡¯s fragmented soul and power is embedded within. Aplete ¡®Pale Justice¡¯ would be formed when it is merged together with Kane¡¯s personal sword.¡¿


    ¡°Whether justice is pale white or not, is that really important? As long as the things you do doesn¡¯t go against your conscience, what does the sounds of the external world matters?¡±


    That is what I wanted to say but I couldn¡¯t. To old Kane, the evaluation of the future generations weren¡¯t important. Just the prosperity of the vige that was saved is sufficient to show that his choice wasn¡¯t wrong. If so, what else has to be said?


    But reality is often much more cruel than fairy tales.


    ¡°Locar Town? Indeed, there used to be such a town. But, it has long disappeared once again in the annals of history. Back then, when the different kings were vying for the throne, war was rife and the people living on thend would have underwent 5 devastating war, at the very least. Even if the vigers survived the assault of the Magic Beasts, they probably would have died in the war that followed suit.¡± This is the answer that I received from the Civil Affairs Department.


    Stroking the soul gemstone that was emitting a pale radiance, I shake my head.


    ¡°There is still a long road ahead, let¡¯s just take it slow.¡±


    Suddenly, I recalled something.


    ¡°Wait, that¡¯s not right. Don¡¯t I have to look for the sword Kane used back then? Who knew where he threw it to. Have I been tricked again? The vige has already disappeared in the annals of history, so where the hell should I go looking for a sword? Old man, are you still there? Can you show me the location first before passing on?¡±


    ps: This story about the Pale Justice isn¡¯t my own creation. It is just that I liked it a lot, that¡¯s why I put it together. Just treat it as a tribute to the ssics.


    Pale Justice


    Pale -> It has the idea of sickness/cking in liveliness. In my own opinion, it refers to the rigidness of justice, whether there really is only one justice.

 Chapter 90

    Chapter 90: The Celestial Tower


    To me, the Celestial Tower is a name deeply etched in my memory, as well as one that should have long faded in the past.


    Currently, they are a famous evil organisation in the world. In the eyes of the world, they are equal to the famous Druid Kindness Movement Association (Animal Kindness Druid Association), a bunch of mad dogs who bite anyone they manage toy their hands on.


    Just like how bad-reputed organisation often have a noble goal initially, the Celestial Tower was also initially built on ideals.


    Regardless of whether it is the Celestial Mages who are skilled in astrology, the Witches who can divine fate or the Mages who are adept in the art of prophecy, on a certain level, they are all able to peer into the future. Thus, under the leadership of a highly-respected Mage, the Celestial Tower was built on the ideal of ¡®using prophecies to make life for the better and to avoid cmities¡¯.


    Then, how did an organisation with such lofty ideals turn into the ill-reputed mad dogs of today?


    Initially, the Celestial Tower¡¯s warnings towards natural disasters worked extremely well. At that era, the prophecy skills were very different from the current weak ones. Back then, the prophecy magic system was quite advanced and effective. Connected to the God of Fate and the Strings of Fate, they really managed to avoid cmities and disasters.


    After a golden era, roughly around AD200, the Celestial Tower met with trouble. No matter how heavy the price they paid, they are unable to peer into affairs beyond a certain time period.


    In the end, they came up with a conclusion. From a certain year onward, the Eich Continent would be a nk te.


    If it was only one seer, they would think that it was due to theircking abilities. However, if all of the seers reached the same conclusion, then there can only be one answer ¡ª The world has been destroyed, there is no future beyond that.


    Alright, prophesying the end of the world isn¡¯t a good thing but at the very least, knowing that it would happen, they could think of ideas to ovee it.


    But, their efforts were in vain. No matter how they prophesied and divined, they only received a single answer ¡ª This world doesn¡¯t have a future, they were unable to even confirm where the destruction originated from.


    Of course, I can understand the reason why they are unable to divine it. All of the lifeforms in the world originate from the Order and the Chaos. Naturally, you would be unable to prophesy that the destruction which originated from the Mother of all beings, even less so, prophesy the timing of the urrence.


    Alright, this is feels like the turmoil of someone on the death row awaiting his sentence. Unable to obtain any answers, they waited despairingly day after day as doomsday approaches. Then, a coincidence happened, one that would relight their mes of hope.


    Due to an intervention by the Celestial Tower, a certain young man who was prophesied to be a hero in the future met with an ident, causing the future surrounding him to be unable to be seen.


    The actions of a seer would cause changes in the future? The untimely deaths of historical figures and heroes will affect the entire history? If the fate of the entire world is rattled past a certain extent, will the world which is fated to be destroyed be preserved?


    Alright, since there is no clear solution to this mdy, they decided to try all the possible remedies. Through such a logic, the Celestial Tower found the most direct way to changing fate ¡ª Causing the untimely deaths of historical figures and heroes.


    Normally, a seer will try his best to prevent their prophecy from affecting the target of their prophecy. On the contrary, the Celestial Tower began on their rampage ¡ª Hunting down historical figure and shaking the future back into an unknown state.


    This isn¡¯t an easy task. After all, it is hard to divine urately a specific prophecy and on many asions, it alles down to luck. Not to mention, the seer getting involved in the situation will just make it even more chaotic. Under such circumstances, if an unlucky fellow were to cross the path of the Celestial Tower... Hehe, do you think that a future legendary hero would have the ability to resist them as an infant?


    The dragon-ying hero who would save the masses became ndered as an evil incarnation of demons, the great engineer who pioneered the development of technology became an unpardonable viin and the Sacred Priestess who saved a country from a cmity got burnt on a stake as a witch. Lies were spewing out from the previously respected seers. Due to their meddling, the path of fate became muddled.


    Indubitably, this is an act of flipping the table during a poker game where one is fated to lose. Since it will just end in a loss, something good mighte out from messing around with it. This is the desperation of the seers who were driven up the wall.


    Due to them overdoing it, the Strings of Fate of the God of Fate became messed up, rming the Order Gods who rarely interfere in the mortal world. They sent retribution down upon them, destroying their main headquarters. Only then, did they halt their actions for a moment.


    After the retribution, the God of Fate took back arge portion of the divination abilities and techniques that he left in the mortal world and cut the connection between his Pce of Fate in the Heavenly Realm and the seers in the mortal world, causing the standards for divination in the entire world to fall steeply. This was an event that urred over a thousand years ago.


    Today, the prophesied doomsday has still yet toe but their sins of killing the future heroes floated to the surface. Eventually, the Celestial Tower became a huge joke. But, I know that their prophecies weren¡¯t wrong. The cmity is just right ahead.


    To this date, a prophecy directed towards one¡¯s future is the greatest taboo a seer couldmit. The seers of recent times only divine events and not humans. However, it seems that the Celestial Tower has yet to bepletely destroyed. They are still hiding in a corner, continuing their unfinished job.


    However, it is hard to say whether they have gone mad from trying to save the world or whether they just want to seek vengeance against the Order Gods and the entire world.


    The prophecy regarding me and Karwenz from 300 years ago came from them. They also had a hand to y in forcing us up the corner.


    During my adventuring afterwards, I found their trails in the shadows. Thus, after turning into Emperor Yongye, I dug then up one by one from the corners and ughtered them one after another.


    However, looking at the charred corpse before me in this instant, the insignia of constetions and an eye on the ring on its finger clearly shows that I wasn¡¯t thorough enough back then.


    ¡°The darned remains of the Celestial Tower. To think you all still have the guts to appear before me!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    In a pitch ck room, the seats lit up one by one. All of the participants in this meeting were silent for a long period of time. Eventually, the person on the chairman¡¯s seat spoke.


    ¡°Darsos is already getting impatient. Are there still no reports from our scouts?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, the King of Winter Wolves? Lord Lamos¡¯s Eye, I say that we should kill him, not cooperate with him.¡±


    ¡°Calm down, our current goal is to wipe away the Mist Bloodline. We can talk about other thingster. It has already been a week, is there still no news? Darsos is starting to express his dissatisfaction against us.¡±


    There is really no mistake in calling them mad dogs. When the divination techniques regressed, their targets expanded from ¡®future historical figures and future heroes¡¯ to ¡®historical figures and heroes¡¯. Anyone of high standing working with them had to be wary of them. It is hard to tell when the knife would be directed towards them.


    ¡°You know that the presence of a Church of true God means that thend is a territory of the God, and this will result in the divination techniques of humans to be discounted. At the same time, our scouts also met with some troubles.¡±


    ¡°Un?¡±


    ¡°We sent a few Druids who can transmogrify into crows...¡±


    In the Church, Casio is napping under a tree. But, whenever a bird appears in the airspace of the Church, a golden line will cut through the skyline and following a caw, it would fall to the ground. A few knights would then rush to pick it up. This wildlife would serve well as an additional dish for their dinner.


    ¡°Although I don¡¯t understand why Rnde wanted me to shoot down all flying creatures, this is still a good opportunity for me to train my archery.¡±


    ¡°... All crows were shot down by an archer. If it weren¡¯t for the great agility they disyed while fleeing, they might have ended up as dinner.¡±


    ¡°Looks like they are guarded. What about our reconnaissance team? Our master Thieves.¡±


    ¡°They were all sted to the skies. The entire backyard is filled with Gnomendmines as well as all kinds of chain explosives and robot rms. The security is even tighter than a Gnome bank. We suspect that there are at least 4 to 5 master engineers who live in the Church.¡±


    By the corner of the wall of the backyard, Clint is in the middle of doing something when his ears suddenly twitch. Then, carrying a basket, he immediately escapes. As expected, someonees chasing him right after.


    ¡°Damn it, Clint. You are buryingndmines all around again. How many times have we said, products of engineering are dangerous and can¡¯t be left about casually. What if it explodes on some passer-by? Even if it doesn¡¯t explodes on others, destroying nts and flowers aren¡¯t good as well! Look at how many times have we fixed this wall of the backyard. Yesterday, when I met with the bricyer, he asked me if I wanted to buy a monthly maintenance pass. Tell me, if the Church of the God of Law turns into the Church of the God of Explosions, will old man Wumianzhe send a strike of lightning down in rage? Hey, listen to me! Stop running!¡±


    Diyer (finally he gets a name!), the Law Incantationer who had travelled with Krose, his traits are... Un, everyone has witnessed that for themselves, extremely naggy. However, he seems to be the nemesis of the silent Clint, which is also why I immediately chose to task him with the job of keeping watch on the explosion maniac.


    ¡°What about our Chief Spy, Feng Die? He can easily impersonate a worshiper to sneak in right? Given his experience, he should be able to easily get past that Holy Knight who is pretending to be strolling about at the entrance but is actually keeping watch.¡±


    TL: Feng Die literally means Phoenix Butterfly. Pronunciation for die (di-ye)


    ¡°He...¡±


    Feng Die is known as the Thousand Faces and specialises in impersonating all kinds of women. This time, he was quite sessfully in impersonating a richdy and managed to get close with his primary target, Princess Reyne, just that...


    ¡°Sin-Splitting Strike!¡± After a feminine roar, the silver-colored sacred sword, which was radiating silver light, flew out of her hands.


    ¡°Tee hee, my grip identally loosened.¡± Even though Reyne tries her best to act cute, it is unable to cover the fact that she actually managed to turn a swing into a throw.


    Kelly shakes her head helplessly. Even though Reyne was making good progress under Rnd¡¯s skillful tutge after switching to be a Justice Knight, her swordsmanship talent that is way past the golden growing primetime is just too horrible. At least, within a period of time, her swordsmanship will remain as one others will find it hard to look at straight.


    Then, following the trajectory of the sword with her eyes, she saw the Rnd Sacred Sword stabbing in between the thighs of a richdy. She immediately panics.


    ¡°Priest! There is a wounded here... Un? A male? Spy? Knights, gather. I think we better call an undertaker first.¡±


    After hearing that their most capable spy was exposed in such a ridiculous manner, the And branch head of the Celestial Tower, Lamos¡¯s Eye, is in a state of disbelief.


    ¡°It feels like ridiculous things will happen the moment we try to get close with that Church. Is that a Church of the God of Law or a Church of the God of Misfortune!¡±


    ¡°¸ÃËÀ£¡¶ÔÁË£¬ÎÒÃǵÄDZÐдóʦÁË£¿ÎÞÓ°ÐÐÕßµÒ¿ËÑÇÁË£¿´ÓÀ´Ã»ÓÐËû²»ÄܽøÈëµÄµØ·½£¬ËûÔõôÁË£¬Ëû¿É²»Êǻᱻ¶òÔË´ò°ÜµÄ¶ÔÊÖ£¬ÄѵÀÁ¬ËûҲʧ°ÜÁË£¿¡±


    ¡°Darn it! Right, what about our master of concealment? Shadowless Treader Decka? There has never been a ce where he can¡¯t enter. What about him? He isn¡¯t someone who would be defeated by bad luck. It can¡¯t be that he failed as well?¡±


    ¡°He...¡±


    Shadowless Treader Decka. He is famous in certain regions. It is said there isn¡¯t a single treasure vault that he is unable to enter and that he had once sessfully robbed a Blue Dragon. Lamos¡¯s Eye spent much effort to get him into the organisation.


    He is only a Silver-rank Thief but he possesses a legendary artifact that allowed him to move as he please


    ¡¾Sewage Cloak, Legendary Artifact: The wearer will be turned into a mouse and be receive 95% reduction from physical damage¡¿


    Using this artifact, he is able to sneak into the treasure vault of any kingdom as he please. Even if he were to meet with a powerful enemy who was able to see through his disguise, he had always managed to sneak away with that near immunity to physical damage.


    ¡°The final transmission from that lord was ¡®why is there a magic cat here!!¡¯.¡±


    It is about dinner time for the Church of Law and when a certain cat jumped onto the table, I scooped it up and threw it one side.


    ¡°Go, y by one side. Who knows whether you have eaten some dead rats and cockroaches.¡±


    ¡°Bastard, I am not a real cat. Besides, even if I am a real cat, I will be enjoying piles of fish and meat everyday. If I were to go hunting for rats, it would be only to y with my prey, there is no reason for me to eat it. Hmph, to think that I had a treasure that I wanted to show you. Such a heartless person, forget it then.¡±


    ¡°What treasure?¡± Hearing the word treasure, my heart immediately moves.


    ¡°Hehe, a transmogrification cloak. It is very suited for you. Do you want to try putting it on?¡±


    ¡°Hehe, you think that I¡¯m a fool? Seeing how you are taking the initiative to pass such stuff to me, it is definitely a cursed item to turn me into a rat or a squirrel. It can¡¯t be that I will turn into a slime... Looks like my guess is spot-on, you darned cat. No more dinner for you, go eat your rats!¡±


    At the same time, a short wounded figure is struggling in the backyard.


    ¡°Darn it, what a fearsome Meow Alien. To think that it would be skilled in the art of brawling and capable of both magic and physical attacks. I almost died from it. Cough, it is fortunate that it left after taking the cloak. Cough, yet another mouthful of blood. Looks like I am quite severely wounded . I probably won¡¯t be able to escape from the main entrance or by flipping over the wall. The sewage it is then.¡±


    After struggling to open the sewage cover and forcefully squeeze himself in it, he realised that someone has beat him to it and is currently waiting for him there.


    ¡°How could there be someone here. If you¡¯re the same as me, a peer, then please give... Wait, it¡¯s not a real person. Gnome Exploding Dummy!! To think it would be in the sewage! Who would be that bored!¡±


    ¡°Boom!!¡± ¡°Boom!¡±


    There seems to be a significant amount of gunpowder in it. The entire mansion trembled under the explosion. When I shot my gaze towards the dinner table, Clint immediately gets up and reports.


    ¡°Report! Following your orders, I have settled all of the unstable explosives by throwing them into the sewage.¡±


    ¡°The sewage? Hehe, whose thief is it, to be so unlucky? It¡¯s okay, you did well. Work harder next time.¡±


    ¡¾Ding! Congrattions, your Aura of gue has brought misfortune to its 100th target and has evolved into the Star of Misfortune Aura. The effect of the aura will be boosted by 50% and its effects will prioritise your enemies first. Now that you have reached the 100 mark, you aren¡¯t that far from 1000. Work harder. ¡ª Thatd is really unlucky. Anyway, it would be best for you to take a look. Your old friend is there. ¡¿ At this time, the System couldn¡¯t resist popping out.


    When I got to the scene of the explosion, I found the familiar insignia of the Celestial Tower and immediately knew that I met with an old friend. In that instant, I flew into a rage.


    ¡°For a being like mad dogs, the appearance of one means that there would be a den of them around. Kelly, I will be going out for awhile. I will leave matters here to you. Diana and Krose, follow me. We will be hunting mad dogs.¡±

 Chapter 91

    Chapter 91: The Sessor


    The Celestial Tower is a really troublesome foe to deal with. Ever since they became themon foe of the world, they scattered and concealed in the shadows, disappearing from view.


    Most of their members are of the spellcasters, inclusive of Priests, Druids, Mage, Incantationers, Witches and Witch Doctors in the mix. Regardless of race or tribe, spellcasters are always a sorelycking precious asset.


    A thousand years of umtion and inheritances has given these spellcasters sufficient power and connections and in this very world, power and connections can be easily traded for authority, not to mention the fact that they are assisted by their ability to divine.


    The most dangerous part about the Celestial Tower is that its members are often hidden in the midst of the upper echelons of the Human and the Elf society. Even between fellow members, they often use nicknames to address one another. No one would be able to identify the hidden spy until that member goes on a rampage, making them an adversary hard to guard against.


    A bunch of poisonous snakes that hides in your midst, capable of biting you at any moment. It is a thought that sends shiver down one¡¯s spine.


    After realising that the Celestial Tower has set their eyes on me, despite the world being already plunged in darkness, I rushed out of the mansion without any hesitation.


    I understand how they operate. Assuming the many spies that we encountered recently were their scouts, judging by how that troublesome group doesn¡¯t know the meaning of restraint, their failure in their reconnaissance mission will only motivate them to take bigger risks to aplish their goals. If so, instead of waiting for them to knock on our door, I might as well make the first move.


    But the moment I stepped out of the door, I realised a little problem...


    ¡°Harloys, to whom does this Celestial Tower Ring belong to? Smell it and find him!¡±


    ¡°Smell... Smell your sister! I am a cat, not a dog. That¡¯s not right, I am not a cat as well! Damn it, you bastard unfilial disciple!¡±


    Alright, looking at this dumb cat who bites relentlessly on my finger, I decided against reminding her that her ws and fangs were unable to break through my defenses due to my Titan Body.


    ¡°Heh, how can you underestimate yourself so much. The potential of Meow Aliens are limitless. They can conquer the entire world. Alright, stop biting me. I wasn¡¯t joking. I will just tell you directly now, I added a new function to you thest time.¡±


    ¡°A new function? No wonder I felt something wrong with my body these past 2 days. I¡¯m going to kill you!¡±


    ¡°Sit down! Hand!¡±


    Harloys immediately gets into a squatting position, one that was striking simr to that of a dog. Then, she sticks out her tongue and stretches out her cat paw. This is one of the new functions that I implemented, specially prepared for the Queen of Banshees who was getting more and more disobedient.


    ¡°Wuuuu, you are really going too far. I already agreed to work together with you and you evennded me into such a state. How can you treat me like this? No matter what, I am still your mentor!¡±


    The teardrops that drips down from the Meow Alien makes her look exceptionally pitiful. The onlookers, Diana and Krose, are full of sympathy towards her and even started to re angrily at me, the cat abuser.


    ¡°Drop the act. Did you forget our Magic Pet Contract? Your feelings can be transmitted over to me. Do you think I can¡¯t tell whether your tears are real or not?¡±


    Alright, the next moment, the tears stopped. A musing look appears on the ck cat and after a short moment, she sends me a short message.


    ¡°You should know that even if I am in such a state, I still have cards under my sleeves that can make your life hell. As long as you agree to help me seek vengeance against 2 people, no, 2 Gods and make them fall, I will remain as your pet obediently and devote all of my strength and knowledge to you. I would ept it even if I have to serve you in bed. Even though I have nevere into contact with men, my techniques are definitely in no way inferior to the Dark Elves.¡±


    Even though those words had a hint of intimacy to it, even though she was assuming the form of such a cute kitten, her endless resentment towards the Gods formed a tangible dark fog around her, her hatred could be clearly felt in her tone and her gaze still remains as fearsome.


    Despite being unable to hear anything, Krose and Diana instinctively raise their weapons and went on guard. Perhaps, the form of the cursed ck cat who brings about misfortune is the true face of the Undead Queen of Banshees.


    Time will bring endless power and knowledge to one. Even if she has fallen under my hands and has yet to find an opportunity to flip the tables on me, I never dared to underestimate Harloys. It is exactly because of the fact that I do not dare to underestimate her that I used the once in a lifetime Magic Pet Contract without any hesitation to tie her forcefully by my side. I have absolute trust that in my absence, she can single-handedly flip the entire Underground World around.


    ¡°Forget about the serving at night, I am not Beifeng and I am unlike the other fools who get blinded by illusions. 2 Gods right? Tell me which 2 Gods is it first, so that I can consider about it. After all, if you were to ask me to y Ayer and Karn, there¡¯s no way I would be able to settle them and naturally, I won¡¯t be able to agree to your conditions.¡±


    Harloys spits out 2 names telepathically and looks at me expectantly.


    As I expected, they were both true Gods of the Elf Faction. One of them were in my long-term target list while I would probably be unable to avoid the other old acquaintance. Since it is aligned with my goals, this deal is one that I could strike.


    ¡°To think that it would be the ex-Guardian God of the Elves. I guess traitors are even more loathed than the mastermind. Fine.¡±


    ¡°Great. It¡¯s a deal then.¡±


    ¡°Un? You don¡¯t want to make a contract?¡±


    ¡°Beingmitted to your promises is one of your few good points. Your consent is much more effective than any other contracts... If I were to really sign a contract and take advantage of you, I still have to be worried over you finding a loophole to go against your words.¡±


    Looks like she understands me quite well. It is just what like she said in thetter part of her words. Perhaps it is the obsession of one who walks withw, I have quite an intense level of obsession to recognise and fulfill the promises I make to others personally. However, if I was forced to make the promise or if an obviously unfair contract was presented to me, I would most probably try my best to go back on my words. (In the current civilw of the modern world, agreements that are unfair or forced upon can be cancelled. However, in this world, the terms of the contract that were established cannot be cancelled)


    ¡°Fine, I will write it down in my diary. You don¡¯t have to worry about it anymore. Now, quickly fulfill your role as a pet dog.¡±


    This time, Harloys didn¡¯t retort and instead, she performs a somersault excitedly before obedientlying over to sniff the ring in my hands. After a few seconds, the dumb cat falls into deep thoughts.


    ¡°How is it? With your current specially-made magic smelling organs, your ability to detect scents should be at least twice as strong as normal police dogs. Are there no clues yet?¡±


    After a long moment, Harloys lifts up her head hesitatingly.


    ¡°...It is all the smell of charred flesh. I couldn¡¯t smell anything else.¡±


    Now, it is our turn to look at one another at a loss of what to do. Recalling the fact that I retrieved the ring from a charred body, not being able to smell anything from it is natural. However, Harloys suddenly ran towards the backyard.


    ¡°I remember that he has a cloak with him.¡±


    Alright, the efficiency of one who is forced to work and one who works voluntary is totally different. After 2 minutes, anotherpanion joins us. Casio, who was almost bored to death, requested for us to bring him along. Considering the fact that a Centaur Archer would be equipped with tracking abilities, I didn¡¯t reject him.


    ¡°Wait a moment. If Casio goes, then I am going as well.¡±


    A certain someone requests to join in as well but we tried our best to ignore his presence.


    ¡°In terms of tracking abilities, a Beast Tamer is definitely much better than a pure Archer. There isn¡¯t a single person that I cannot find in this city.¡±


    ¡°What do you want?¡± That fellow may seem honest but in actuality, he is very crafty. He is the typical kind of person who doesn¡¯t move if there is no profit for him involved. It is impossible for him to do voluntary work.


    Beifeng nods his head.


    ¡°That cloak which can turn one into a mouse. It should the legendary Sewage Cloak right?¡±


    Alright, I really don¡¯t feel like pursuing the matter any further. I don¡¯t even want to think about what he would want to do with that cloak. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that we were short on time, I might have already got physical with him.


    However, considering the fact that what the Beast Tamer is the truth, that he is indeed skilled in the art of tracking, I can only suppress the urge to beat him up and treat him courteously.


    Just when I was about to ept his request, he seems to have sensed the decision I have made through the look on my face. With an excited look on his face, Beifeng does a silent whistle and in a short moment, a few dogse running here, a few rats appear from the underground sewage and even an eagleesnding down from the sky.


    ¡°You bastard, taking opportunity of one¡¯s weakness, you¡¯ve won this time. It is a deal... Wait, I don¡¯t need it anymore.¡±


    Not too far away, 2 broken carriages were stopped by the alley. A few people dressed in ck were secretly moving haystacks from the carriage and there were already a small pile of haystack by the wall of the Church. They were trying to start a fire but perhaps due to the night gale, they failed a couple of times, causing them to throw the matchsticks on the ground and stomp on it in a fit of rage.


    There is a spellcaster who is obviously trying to maintain an Anti-Detection Spell. However, even if he had sessfully prevented them from getting noticed from detection spells, I could still see him clearly from my current position.


    Looking at those unlucky fellows, I couldn¡¯t help but recall a rumor. It is said that due to the fact that they had really thoroughly offended the God of Fate Cartiero who rules over Fortune and Misfortune, a God Punishment, a Curse of Misfortune, was delivered upon this cockroach-like organisation. The moment one joins this organisation, the system of karma will immediately be activated, causing them to be stuck in the valley of misfortune for the rest of their life.


    In normal circumstances, a person gued with misfortune will find himself failing easily on the task he is working on. While crossing the road, he would step on dog poop and get bitten by cats. It isn¡¯t really that big of a deal as long as the person remains careful. However, when stacked with my Aura of gue, un, it should be called Star of Misfortune Aura now, those whose luck is worse than mine will trigger a series of idents, causing their misfortune to turn into something deadly. All of their misfortunes will eventually turn into an opportunity for them to meet with tragedy.


    ¡°What are you all waiting for? Get rid of this bunch of unfortunate fellows.¡±


    Alright, other than the spellcaster, the bunch of unfortunate fellows who came to burn down the Church of true God were only the lowest-ss pawns. They were subdued in an instant. Then, under the wrathful interrogation of Beifeng whose ploy was upset, our destination became clear.


    ¡°Their temporary meeting point is the Astrology tform of the royal family? Such a fitting location for their identity. However, since they are able to make use of the facilities of the royal family, then there probably is a certain Emperor who was upset from losing face backing them.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we reconsider it?¡±


    Due to the fact that the Emperor is backing them, Diana, who has been getting closer with Reyne recently, starts to hesitate. If we were to enrage the And Emperor once again, given the fact that we were still in the territory of the And Empire, even if our group would be able to simply escape, we would implicate the East Mist Communal Country¡¯s ambassador party.


    ¡°He is probably testing us out. If we were to show weakness, he would just strike at us more and more callously. Since he is ying the game by the rules of the shadows, we must make sure to keep up with his pace. If he stretches his hand, we will chop off the hand. If he stretches his w, we will rip off his ws. At the very least, we must make him feel pain. Not to mention, the Mist Bloodline...¡±


    ¡°The Mist Bloodline don¡¯t fear challenges. Since they areing directly at us, how can we back down? Yielding will only make the tyrants more arrogant.¡±


    It seems that the brawl by the wall has caught the attention of the people in the Church. Kelly and Reynee out escorted by the Royal Knights. Reyne¡¯s words made me nod my head in agreement.


    However, the words that followed it made the face of Kelly and the Knights lose their colors.


    ¡°I also want to go, Big Brother Rnd. Didn¡¯t you say that the battlefield is the best ssroom? You often tell me that I am in dire need of real battle experience.¡±


    ¡°Stop messing around, you are bringing trouble to everyone. You are just courting your own death.¡± Kelly immediately reprimands her in hope that it would dispel her thoughts of plunging straight into danger.


    She is indeed messing around. I couldn¡¯t help but chuckle. In a battlefield of Legends and Gold pinnacles, what is a Iron-rank rookie like you joining in for? A grenade could easily annihte you. Raking experience from a battlefield doesn¡¯t work in such a way. (Someone totally forgot that he is only Bronze-rank)


    ¡°I am already 14 years old. In the legends, Prince Rnd got on the battlefield when he was 12. I already had enough putting on the facade of a Princess Knight. I want to turn this glorious title into reality. If I can¡¯t even handle such a small situation, what will I do in the future battles?¡±


    Even when shouted at by her kin, the youngdy bites her lips firmly. Despite not saying a single word, the resolution on her face clearly shows that she would not give up on this.


    I gaze at her. Reyne¡¯s legs were trembling but the Rnd Sacred Sword by her waist is radiating bright silver light, as though showing its approval of her decision.


    ¡°¡®Rnd Sacred Sword is the personal sword of the legendary Holy Knight Prince Rnd. Only the descendants and the sessors of his will is able to gain the recognition of this sacred sword.¡¯ Sessors of my will huh?¡±


    At this moment, I somehow recalled the prerequisites for the usage of the Rnd Sacred Sword. Recalling how the death of my father caused Karwenz and I to step on the battlefield 300 years ago and looking at the striking resemnce between the previous me and the girl in front of me, I smiled.


    ¡°Sessor of my will? Fine, follow us then. Don¡¯t fall behind. Kelly, just like back then, some people are fated to be unable to bloom in a greenhouse. But, Beifeng! Protect her well. If something were to happen to her, your cloak will be gone.¡±


    Ignoring the Beast Tamer who rejoiced at my words, I whispered an apology in the depths of my heart to Kelly, whose face was marked with worry. Then, I started leading the way.


    ¡°Darned remnants, let¡¯s settle the interest of the debt you owe me in the past.¡±


    At this point, the System came jumping out once again to brush up on its existence.


    ¡¾Special Quest: The Will of the Legendary Holy Knight Rnd has been triggered. Before thepletion of the Epic Quest: The Revival of the Mist, a third of the Fate Points that you obtain from ying enemies will be transferred to the wielder of the sacred sword, Reyne. Using the Fate Points transferred, you can strengthen her. System Notice: The Special Quest is directly rted to the progress of your Epic Quest. Also, if Reyne were to die in battle or if she were to permanently lose the Rnd Sacred Sword, both quests will be marked with an instantaneous failure... But after turning into a woman, you can consider bing a true princess. You would definitely do a much better job than Reyne.¡¿


    ¡°I definitely will not fail! Before I die, Reyne definitely will not die!¡±


    Alright, my decisive furious roar and the oath to protect her heightens the morale of the Knights, as well as to cause a certain princess to blush bright red.

 Chapter 92

    Chapter 92: Sword of Order


    ¡°de Form.¡±


    Following my orders, a ck cat starts to change its form. The Gold Slime, following the blueprint I made, starts to reforge its own physique.


    A few secondster, a ck-color two-handed sword appears before me. That is an extraordinarily normal looking military weapon. There is not a single elegant carving or ornament on it. It is as simple as the inferior goods that the city guards carry around with them. There are indentations all over the de, giving a feeling as though it could break at any moment. Even so, an inconceivable killing aura emerges from it, simr to that from a veteran who have went through hundreds of battle, making one feel terror just by looking at it.


    ¡¾Pale Justice (Imitation)¡¿


    ¡¾Two-handed Sword


    Attack Power: 5-15. Tier: Superior


    Prerequisite: Strength 12+


    Special Ability: None¡¿


    ¡¾Man-made Magic Sword: This sword is transmogrified by Harloys. Even though she doesn¡¯t feel pain and don¡¯t fear breakage in this form, it is better to not to pit her against weapons which are 2 tiers higher. Also, treat her nicer, otherwise if she were to suddenly liquefy in the middle of a fight...¡¿


    ¡¾Elemental Control (Basic): Augment all magic damage by 25%. The de will carry 5 point of a chosen elemental damage with it (Current Element: Ice)¡¿


    I have found the true Pale Justice sword but due to certain reasons, I am unable to retrieve it at this moment. Right now, I had Harloys imitate the true product and the only special effect of increasing magic damage originates from Harloys¡¯s soul. Rather than saying that it is a magic sword, one might as well call it a magic staff. Furthermore, it is still the rare highest grade magic staff that augments the effects of all magic spells.


    To say the truth, this imitation is an insult to Harloys¡¯s identity as the Queen of Banshees. However, with the ¡¾Soul Gemstone of Pale Justice¡¿, it is an entirely different matter.


    After lodging the Soul Gemstone within, a pale Holy Light shrouds the entire de and the pitch ck magic sword turns into a silver-colored sacred sword.


    ¡¾Pale Justice (Imitation)¡¿


    ¡¾Attack Power: 15-20. Tier: Epic (Lower)¡¿


    ¡¾Two-handed Sword, Prerequisite: Strength 12+, Holy Knight Job¡¿


    ¡¾Man-made Magic Sword: This sword is transmogrified by Harloys. Being a Epic-tier sacred sword, as long as it isn¡¯t SemiGod Equipment, feel free to cross swords with any other weapons. However, due to the Soul Gemstone being ipatible, the sword is in a process of disintegration. Within 2999 seconds (50 minutes), it will be broke down and de Form cannot be activate for half an hour afterwards.¡¿


    ¡¾Elemental Control (Intermediate): Augment all magic damage by 35%. The de will carry 15 point of a chosen elemental damage with it (Current Element: Ice)¡¿


    ¡¾High Tier Sacred mes: Deal additional 20 Silver Inferno damage to Chaos lifeforms. To normal lifeforms, deal additional 5 Silver Inferno damage.¡¿


    ¡¾High Tier Courage: Immunity to fear-rted magic that are below 9-circles. The wielder will always be in a state of high morale.¡¿


    ¡¾High Tier Protection from Evil: The damage dealt from Chaos lifeforms will be reduced by 10 points.¡¿


    Sacred mes, Courage and Protection from Evil, they are all abilities that a typical sacred sword would possess. This is also the effects that the soul of Holy Knight Kane carries. Its effects might not be as good against normal people and the upper limit of its damage barely reaches the lower limit of the damage of Rnd Sacred Sword. However, if the target of its de are Chaos lifeforms like Demons and Undeads, then it would beparable to a Legend-tier godly weapon.


    Of course, other than natural-born Chaos lifeforms, it works just like the Incantation of Law: Judgement spell, those who are found to be using the Power of Chaos by the Holy Knight¡¯s Detect Evil will be viewed as a being of Chaos by the sacred sword.


    This includes the innocent Elemental Mages, the slightly guilty Demon Mages and thepletely guilty Necromancers, Dark Mages, Witches, Banshees... For a significant period of time in history, the Mages had been warring with the Churches of Gods both on the surface and in the shadows. The Witch Hunt and Wizard Hunt had caused amotion for several centuries. The Holy Knights who can use their will to gain immunity to magic possess significant natural magic resistance and there are job advancements that are specially directed to kill Mages. Naturally, it can be understood why they had poor rtionship.


    At this moment, I can¡¯t help but be thankful for the deep resentment against beings of Chaos that this sword possesses. The moment I stepped into the hall of the royal family¡¯s Astrology tform, the Mages immediately focus all of their firepower on Diana and me, who were standing in the front.


    Since we are aiming to crush the Celestial Tower who mainlyprise spellcasters so naturally, we would use Holy Knights to tank the front lines.


    To a Mage, the standard tactic when dealing with a Holy Knights who have high magic resistance but low mobility is to summon pawns. Then, while the pawns are blocking the opponent, the Mage would use an elegant spell to wipe him out.


    TL: Just realised pawns would be a good substitute for cannon fodder, I think I will alternate between the two.


    As for themon long-range control kiting tactic, due to the high magic resistance of Holy Knights, it is easy for the Holy Knights to resist the attacks and charge forth to kill the Mage, so it is falling out of times.


    To me who can¡¯t be more familiar with this tactic, I charged straight ahead into the barrier of pawns without any hesitation.


    The reason? The pawns that Mages summon are normally lifeforms from foreign worlds such as the Undeads from the Death Dimensions, Elemental Lifeforms from the Elemental Dimension and lower-tier Demons and Devils from the Lower Realm. No matter which one it is, they all share themon trait of being members of the Chaos Faction.


    ¡°Detect Evil!¡± ¡°Detect Evil!¡±


    2 Holy Knights used Detect Evil simultaneously and under the effects of therge AOE Divine Art, red light representing the presence of Chaos shrouds the entire group of Mages, as well as the Undeads, Demons and Elemental Lifeforms in front of us.


    The Titan Body reduces 5 damage from each attack whereas the High Tier Protection From Evil reduces 10 damage from each attack. Adding into the equation a heavy armor with outstanding physical defense, I became an outstanding tank against these beings of Chaos. Most of the time, the primary job of a Holy Knights, with their outstanding magic resistance, weak mobility and weak offense, is to serve as a good tank.


    ¡°Sin-Splitting Strike!¡±


    After ignoring the attacks from the pawns, I am not that far off from the Mages anymore. Swinging my sword, the Mage who just summoned two Skeleton Soldiers was cut into two before he could make a sound. Just like that, I took the first blood.


    When theirpanion fell, the rest of the Mage immediately directs the first wave of their offensive magic spells towards me. In an instant, Fireballs and Ice Arrows flew around in the air while Acid Arrow and Heat Rays were shot from all around the room. The Mystical Arts came rushing towards me like an relentless river.


    But when a slim figure came blocking them in front of me, no matter how colorful and dangerous the spells are, she blocked them allpletely without saying a single word.


    ¡°Are they dead?¡±


    When the fog from the ice and thick smoke from the mes scatter and the brown-skinned Elf Knight appears, to their astonishment, unharmed, she had already rushed to the stairway to the second level and many spellcasters were lying in her trail.


    ¡°It is fortunate that Dark Elf Holy Knights are exclusive to only that bunch in Liu Huang Mountain City, otherwise this would really be bullying the spell-casting jobs.¡±


    Before their fall, the Dark Elves were known as their Light ELves and they were high nobles of the great Elf Kingdom, possessing, at minimum, Bronze Bloodline. Physically, their stats weren¡¯t that much stronger than the white te humans. As a Warrior ss, their Strength and Stamina werecking even inparison to humans but no one dared to say that they were unworthy of being termed as a Bronze Race. That is because of their Race Talent.


    Magic Immunity Skin. That is the Race Talent that all Dark Elves possess. In reality, its prowess is frighteningly scary. Based on the power rank of the ones possessing the ability, the effects and damage of magic will be reduced and this reduction is rather significant. Magic arts whose effects are significantly mitigated by this ability includes those of Druids, Banshees, Witches and so on (including Holy Light). The only one thing that cannot be mitigated is the Divine Art of a Priest that contains God Power.


    This is also why the top echelons of the Dark Elf society are all Priestesses of Lorci. Under most situations, only lowly males would choose to be Mages. Even those who learn the barbaric martial arts (as known among the Dark Elves) have a higher standing than the Mages.


    A Legend Holy Knight who has an unbelievable level of resistance to magic + Magic resistant skin + The Silver Avenger which also has the effect of Protection from Evil. When the hall of the first floor is filled with Apprentice Mages who have yet to learn higher circle magics, Diana¡¯s charge is like bashing through eggs with a rail train. I can already see the ending.


    ¡°Sin-Splitting Strike.¡±


    Despite using just simple and inelegant moves, she managed to get a head per sh steadily. During the time when I was still carefully avoiding those magic in the air and the wolf and bear-transmogrified Druids, Diana has already ughtered to and fro multiple times.


    From her look of astonishment, it seems that she is quite surprised by how weak her enemies are as well. At the start, she was shocked by the sight of the overwhelming quantity of spellcasters.


    In the past, even when they were facing the Mages who were perfect countered by them, the enemy¡¯s creativity ining up with new tricks continuously caused the Dark Elves to suffer quite a great deal. Now, being able to reap 1, or even 2 to 3 heads per sh feels quite unreal to her.


    ¡°Cough. This is the Surface, you can¡¯t expect all Mages to be of the level of Lich Rnd.¡±


    In the human society, being of Legend rank will make you a prominent power of a region at the very least. To use her full strength to bully a rookie is indeed a little shameful, but for Diana who grew up in the Underground World, she doesn¡¯t possess the so-called ¡®dignity of the powerful¡¯. Seeing so many Mages, she was deeply afraid that she might be killed in an instant by a powerful spell prepared by the enemy if she were to move a single step slower, so she went all out from the start and killed a dozen on them in an instant. The result of it is that the main army behind who are only a few secondte in entering the tower are only left with leftovers.


    At this moment, the summoned pawns came into frontal contact with the Knights and the Gentlemen. The Knights engaged a group of them seriously whereas the Gentlemen began clearing the whole field immediately.


    Regardless of whether it is the two giant wolves under Beifeng or Casio¡¯s Bone Bow, they are the explosive offensive ability of a Gold-rank, allowing them to sweep the whole field. Before Krose could even prepare her firstrge AOE Lightning Strikes, the entire field has already been cleared.


    Out of consideration, they even left a skeleton soldier which was at the brink of disintegration for her...


    Looking at Reyne who is flustered from just dealing with a low level skeleton soldier, I shake my head helplessly. Needless to talk about ascending through the power ranks, she is far from even being a passable Warrior. Even if she were to rise through the usage of the external System, but experience and skills cannot be forged in a single day. Then, hearing the rms sounding out loudly, I know that I didn¡¯t have the time to be thinking about such matters at this point.


    ¡°The same goes for the second floor. Diana and I will be the vanguard. Hurry.¡±


    From the look of the blueprint we just obtained, the Astrology tform is a building with only 3 floors. The first floor is used to keep books, information and daily necessities and serves mainly as a museum. The second floor is the residential area of workers whereas the third floor is where the different kinds of telescopes are kept.


    The targets we are hunting for, the upper echelons of the Celestial Tower, are most probably in the second floor.


    This time, we met with trouble the moment we reached the second floor.


    The 2 giant metal magic statue furnishings immediately activates and all of the decorative armor and statues start toe to life. At the same time, sharp spikes traps and lightning traps appear on the floor. After leaving the main hall where normal people can enter freely, the Celestial Tower, considering their bad reputation as well as the countless enemies that they have made, restructured this ce to serve as their fortress.


    One of the giant metal magic statue got blocked by Diana but being made of superior steel, the magic statue is imprable by physical weapons and possesses unparalleled strength. They aren¡¯t something that I could fight face on against in my current state.


    ¡°It can¡¯t be helped. I will have to use my trump card. Sword of Order!¡±


    It is still a little forced for me to use this Race Talent with my current strength. With arge amount of stamina and Holy Light surging out of me, I feel the world spinning around me. However, with a slight flicker of my finger, a golden lightning ray strike through the wall and shes violently onto the physical body of the giant metal magic statue.


    That is a strike from a tangible sword made out of pure crystallization of Holy Light. With its might, there¡¯s nothing that it cannot destroy. The next moment, the sword of light explodes to deal a second damage. Even the metal magic statue which could easily subdue Gold-rank meleebatants begins to stagger before it copses downwards.


    ¡°Kacha!¡± A gaping hole has been opened in the back of the metal magic statue and dark smoke starts to pour out there. Diana stares at me in shock. As a Legend-rank, she has yet to finish dealing with the magic statue and yet I, who isn¡¯t even Silver-rank, has already managed to destroy it.


    But, I shake my head in response. Man-made magic statues are the favored guards for Mage Towers because of their resilience. This metal magic statue is obviously a superior quality good, it is impossible for it to be destroyed so easily.


    Although it is severely injured, looking from how the gears below its metal skin is still spinning and the radiant spiritual light shrouding it, it is still far from being broken down.


    But, how could I possibly allow it breathing space for it to regain its momentum.


    I have already jumped on the body of the magic statue, picked up my other two-handed sword and stabbed it in, twisting the sword inside its body.


    Where did the sworde from? It is summoned from my Race Talent Sword of Order.


    ¡¾Race Talent: Sword of Order: Summon a weapon forged by the Power of Order and deal damage to an enemy through a physical collision and an explosion. Afterwards, the weapon will continue to exist for an additional minute per summoner LV. The tier of the weapon will be decided by the power rank of the caster.¡¿


    ¡¾Weapon of Holy Light: Arbiter of Holy Light¡¿


    ¡¾Attack Power: 10-15, Tier: Elite¡¿


    ¡¾Two-handed sword. Prerequisites: Strength 12+, Holy Knight Job. Duration: 22 minutes¡¿


    ¡¾Crystallisation of Holy Light: Increase the effects of Holy Light by 50%, recovery rate of Holy Light by 100% and an additional 10 Holy Inferno damage will be dealt during an attack¡¿


    ¡¾Intermediate Tier Protection from Evil: The damage dealt from Chaos lifeforms will be reduced by 6 points.¡¿


    This Race Talent which I can only use once per day allows me to summon a Sword of Holy Light/ Sword of Law of eptable quality. At the very least, the buffs to Holy Light is really attractive but it is a pity it can only be sustained for 20 minutes now, which insufficient for my usage.


    Through infusing arge amount of Holy Light into the magic statue, the invasion of a foreign energy caused a conflict in its original power system, resulting in it twitching for a moment before it is done in.


    Judging from how I was awarded 200 Fate Points, the metal magic statue¡¯s absolute prowess is definitely above mine.


    Lacking explosive power remains as one of the fatal weakness of a Holy Knight. On the other side, despite Diana dealing massive wounds on the body of the magic statue that ck smoke is arising from it, she is still stuck in a stalemate with it. Only when Krose came with a series of consecutive lightning strike did the metal magic statue, who has weak resistance to lightning, finally slumps.


    But the next moment, the activated traps pose yet another trouble to us. I finally know what our partyck, obviously, a thief. These darn consecutive traps, you can¡¯t expect me to barge through all of it in hope that my physical body would be able to withstand them.


    In the end, using summoned lifeforms to scout the path, we eventually got through the traps section. However, as we were dyed significantly, by the time we managed to clean up the second floor and head towards the third, the Celestial Tower And Empire Branch Head Lamos¡¯s Eye has already disappeared in a Dimension Gate.


    The enemies of the second and third floors were slightly harder to deal with. However, given the time we took to reach the inner regions, those who had double identities in the Celestial Tower were already gone, assuming their other identity, causing the strongest power left behind to guard the tower to be 2 Gold-rank Mages who posed no threat whatsoever to our party.


    When we finally swept the battlefield and tally the amount of casualties among the enemies, I realised that the result is better than expected.


    ¡°Yet another unlucky fellow who got stuck in a wall after failing to pass through the Dimension Gate. For a spell like Dimension Gate which even novice Mages only have 1% probability of failure, to actually witness over a dozen of high-rank Mage triggering that possibility, looks like the rumors that the Celestial Tower has been cursed by the God of Fate is true.¡±


    At the same time, I, who should had been enraged from my opponents getting away, picked up a report that left me overjoyed.


    ¡°... For his great ambitions, in order to expand the influence of the And Empire, we have decided to help the 5th son of the old Emperor, Darsos, to the throne. In order to prevent him from burning the bridges after our assistance, we have left behind evidence of him killing his father and his siblings. That is... What is unexpected is that Darsos actually didn¡¯t kill his father. I don¡¯t think that he would just let him off, there must be some kind of secret behind it... As expected, after helping Darsos raid the ambassadors of Solo Federations, through some coincidence, we actually found out the final secret of And Empire. Perhaps, we can use this as a chip to extort him.¡±


    ¡°Killing his father and his siblings, such a ruthless character. Heh, this is just the intelligence I need. Darsos, perhaps, we can have a good chat.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡°Perhaps, it is about time for us to have a good chat.¡±


    The morning of the next day, news of fire breaking out and destroying the royal family¡¯s Astrology tform spread across the entire city. The spies of the royal family quickly reported the news to Darsos¡¯s confidant.


    Hermit who was still groggy from being woken up suddenly, after hearing such explosive news, immediately pulls himself together.


    ¡°You don¡¯t intend to suppress them with force?¡±


    ¡°From the moment their scouts are noticed, it took less than 2 hours for them to track them down and reach the Astrology tform. Based on the corpses we found in the rubble, there are at least 4 Legends in their forces. Not only are they ruthless, they also have the power to back it up. Since they have disyed sufficient strength, then we could at least have a talk. Besides...¡±


    ¡°Un?¡±


    ¡°My men didn¡¯t find the corpse of the mysterious Celestial Tower head. Perhaps, he got away.¡±


    ¡°That would be troublesome. That fellow knows quite a bit of things.¡±


    ¡°Un, there is no need us to foolishly wait for him toe knocking in order to kill him. Just put him on the cklist across the country to distance ourselves from him.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid that he might spill the beans?¡±


    ¡°So what if he spills them, will there be anyone who would trust him? Even if someone does, there is only one remaining son of the previous Emperor. Do they expect me to step down?¡±


    ¡°Heh. Right, has the old fellow given in yet?¡±


    ¡°No, the old fellow is still impressively stubborn as always. I will go and try again today.¡±


    After a while, when the flower pot on the ledge is shifted, a mechanism activates and a secret passageway leading to the underground chamber appears.


    ¡°Right, why don¡¯t we organise a ball in your name. We can invite all of the foreign guests and the children of nobility, it wouldn¡¯t be too striking that way.¡±


    ¡°Heh, you are probably just taking this opportunity to hunt them down. Fine, we shall fix it on the next week...¡±


    When Darsos lifts amp to lead the way down the pitch ck stairs, he didn¡¯t expect that a ck mouse woulde following him.


    ¡°Hehe, looks like searching for tidbits here paid off. This secret, it I sold it to that generous Rnde, how much would I earn?¡±


    For those who don¡¯t remember, Demon Mages are Mages who control Demons. I guess why they say they aren¡¯t really guilty is because 1) They aren¡¯t bending anyws of nature (unlike Necromancers) 2) They control Demons, but that doesn¡¯t mean that they belong to the Chaos Faction. (I remember tranting it somewhere around Kakajil but can¡¯t recall exactly)


    Leaving it here just for reference


    <strong><i>Power Ranking: (For Weapons, Weakest -> Strongest)</i></strong>


    Normal -> Superior -> Elite -> Epic -> Legend -> SemiGod -> God


    <strong><i>Power Ranking: (Weakest -> Strongest)</i></strong>


    Iron Bloodline -> Bronze Body -> Silver Dignity -> Golden Will -> Respected Legend -> World Saint -> Immortal Myth -> Indestructible SemiGod


    I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m using inconceivable and some synonyms of it correctly (I doubt so, that¡¯s why I¡¯m writing this :X) But anyway, I¡¯m using inconceivable to mean something unexinable, there is no basis for its happening, e.g, the part on Pale Justice, even though the de looks ever so simple, it is unimaginable that it would be emitting such strong killing intent.


    Anyway, grammar error no. 2, I haven¡¯t really been checking on my usage of which and that. For those who are unaware, there is a difference in usage between the two. (I apologise if I made mistakes previously, and I think I will probably keep making them haha) For those curious, a very simple exnation between the difference of the two can be found .

 Chapter 93

    Chapter 93: The Fleet and Presents


    ¡°Tell me, if I were to use my War Angel Form and stab Darsos in the back, what will happen?¡±


    ¡°Good idea, why don¡¯t you give it a try? Un, since it isn¡¯t too far from the river, you could steal his boat after killing him and sail down the river. Then halfway through, abandon the boat and hide in the water. Given our strength, there should be at least a 70% chance of sess.¡±


    ¡°Un, then we will use a shattered cup as our signal to move. You will turn into a de and we will immediately chop at his neck. Then, after taking his demon sword, we will flee.¡±


    ¡°Can you let me eat the demon sword? I think that it is quitepatible with my attributes.¡±


    ¡°Fine, but you probably won¡¯t be able to digest it now. Let me y with it awhile first.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness ¡®Reyne¡¯, I know that being forced to dress like this made you unhappy. But, please consider the citizens of the East Mist Communal Country, they can be regarded as the descendants of the Mist Country. They are unable to take another war in their current state.¡±


    ¡°Tsk.¡± A certain princess is still resentful.


    ¡°Hmph, foolish humans.¡± A certain Meow Alien speaks in disdain.


    Kelly looks at the cat-human pair who are really scheming meticulously to murder the Emperor and smiles bitterly. From a certain sense, the main reason why she is following them as a retainer is that she is worried that the prince might go too far after umting too much resentment from being forced to dress like ady.


    Princess Reyne received an invitation to a cocktail party held by the Finance Minister of the And Emperor and along with the invitation was a note ¡®The princess of that day, perhaps it is about time for us to talk. It is regarding the future rtionship of both of our countries, so it is best if youe personally. If you¡¯re going to send the indecisive little girl, then just forget about it.¡±


    The hint is extremely obvious, especially with him circling ¡®that day¡¯ with red ink and the ¡®indecisive little girl¡¯ written at the back of the message.


    Helpless, Rnd can only start putting on makeup once again. Princess Reyne, who should have been angry from being scorned at, actually happily helped with the make up and the clothing, fueling Rnd¡¯s anger.


    ¡°You are really beautiful. Gentle and cheerful with a hint of maturity and restrain, alluring but not flirtatious. My face could actually be something like that.¡±


    ¡°Prince Rnd, please stop it with that bitter face. You are actually very beautiful. Even though you look exactly the same as before, but the aura that you had umted throughout the years has created a big gap between you and the immature Princess Reyne. Actually, why don¡¯t you try bing a realdy? There should be a lot of Princes who would want to pursue you. Ah, I¡¯m sorry, there is already an Emperor who wants to make you his empress, why don¡¯t you give it some thought?¡±


    Alright, looking at how she is giggling under her hands, Kelly is quite heartless as well.


    Already enraged from being forced to wear that light and flowy dinner gown, after being provoked like this, Rnd immediately draws his sword and walks out of the door.


    ¡°That ignorant man, to dare to insult me.¡±


    Even after being stopped by everyone else, Rnd still sits there with a nasty face.


    In order to prevent idents from really happening, Kelly who realised that she has identally gone too far volunteered to tag along and keep an eye on him. Un, she definitely isn¡¯t using work as a reason to watch themotion.


    Right now, looking at the cat and man seriously scheming an assassination, Kelly regrets silently. If he were to really do it, the East Mist Communal Country would be in serious trouble.


    Although he is trustworthy for most of the time, once the hole in his brain opens and his bad personalityes rising through, it is really hard to tell what he will do.


    However, it is hard to me Prince Rnd for his rage.


    The ck-colored dinner gown that extends all the way to the ground brought out a noble and elegant disposition within him and maturity could be seen on his immature face. Thebination of contradictory yet harmonious dispositions makes him extremely attractive to the opposite sex.


    The light make up brought a tinge of gentleness to his masculine face. Under Kelly¡¯s magical hands, the moment the beauty reminiscent of a flower from mountainous regions walks out of the carriage, gasps of amazemente rising from the crowd.


    From Kelly¡¯s perspective, she could see Prince Rnd¡¯s eyebrows twitch a few times and a few veins could be vaguely seen on his forehead. Apparently, he is already on the verge of exploding.


    ¡°I can¡¯t provoke him anymore, or else he would really go on a killing spree.¡±


    Thus, after dering their identity, she quickly pulled Rnd into the hall for the cocktail party to prevent him from exploding on the scene.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡°Blush on a skeleton, flesh on white bones. All appearances are illusory.¡±


    Actually, I am not that angry. Isn¡¯t it just ayer of skin? I have already walked around with just bones, so what else could matter.


    Un, I am already a grown man, so why would I record down such little things in my little notebook so as to prepare to get my revenge on them one by one in the future.


    But, if I don¡¯t show a little rage, such things would definitely be forced on me again in the future. I would be making a fool out of myself too often. So, I tried to best to disy my wrath.


    Of course, the lingering gazes of the other men made me really furious. The dumbfounded look that Darsos revealed made me write another line in my book of resentment without any hesitation.


    ¡°Lad, I will introduce Krose and Victoria to you 2 dayster. No, that isn¡¯t enough, who knows, thisd might even earn a profit from it. I have to think of a way to draw the Spring of Drowned Woman and introduce Beifeng to him.¡±


    My mind is full of vicious idea but I still squeezed out a smile on the surface. After all, I am representing the reputation of East Mist Communal Country now and Kelly behind me is already on a verge of tears.


    Apparently, the Emperor has already gave out word, so there isn¡¯t many annoying fellows bothering me. Soon, in the room on the second floor, the secret discussion with two people on opposite sides each began.


    ¡°To actually darey you hands on the Astrology tform of the royal family, aren¡¯t you afraid that I wouldy the me for this case on you and start a war?¡±


    As expected, trying to suppress me the instant the discussion starts.


    ¡°You should thank us for getting rid of this trouble for you. To even dare to use the lunatics of the Celestial Tower, aren¡¯t you afraid of getting burnt? Right, we have found a few stuff there that you might be interested in, like the incident where the envoys of Solo Federation got assaulted.¡±


    The Solo Federation is one of the strong countries in the continent and the attack on their envoys shocked the entire world. But, the true reason for the attack is because the Soloians were interfering with the battle for the throne of the And Empire. Thus, the man before me sent assassins to destroy their entire group of envoys and even med the other party for not bringing sufficient bodyguards.


    Seeming to have anticipated my threat, Darsos shrugs with apathy on his face.


    ¡°It is all old news. If it was just a year ago, I might still be worried over it but now, hehe, you know also understand how much it only weighs now. But, let¡¯s forget the matter of the Astrology Tower and talk about the future.¡±


    ¡°Fine, let¡¯s treat the incident about the subordinate states as though it has never happened before and return back to where we belong.¡±


    ¡°That is impossible, the reputation of the And Empire will be damaged. We would rather start a war.¡±


    The advantages of a secret discussion is that excessive diplomatguage could be dropped and one can dive right into the main topic at hand. Just like what I have said before, discussion is just apromise made by exchanging chips after testing out the bottom line of the other party. It is decided by the chips and circumstances of both parties. Thus, it could even be said that the end point could basically be confirmed before the discussions begin.


    Originally, judging from the absolute strength of both counties, I, representing the East Mist Communal Country, would be in a disadvantageous position. After all, the other party only have to threaten us with war and put on a fearless front. In that case, we, who would want to avoid war at all causes, have to give way to them. (Remembering the lord foreigners from a certain era...)


    TL: Not very well-versed with China¡¯s history so while I have a clue what he is referring to, I can¡¯t confirm it.


    This is also what Darsos is doing. By ckmailing us with war from the very start of the negotiation, it is obvious he is trying to suppress us with force.


    However, what is fortunate is that I have found quite a few new chips in the Astrology Tower. As long as I cane up with a chip that is even more powerful than war, I would be able to reverse the situation.


    ¡°Cassomes.¡±


    After throwing out this phrase, I silently savored the high-end cake and red tea without even looking at the other party.


    But, from my peripheral vision, I can see two shocked faces of disbelief.


    ¡°You, how did you know?¡± Under excessive shock, the Hermit¡¯s poker-face couldn¡¯t be maintained.


    Although Darsos remained silent, judging from his action of stroking the demon sword by his waist, he seems to be subconsciously entertaining the thought of silencing me once and for all.


    Cassomes, it is the name of a ship. But, it is no original ship. It is the future And Empire¡¯s super weapon, the gship of their Air Fleet. At this moment, it should still be in the midst of being built in a secret base in an emptied chamber under the river.


    Other than regr armies, every super Empire will have their own trump card. The Solo Federation¡¯s Giant Elephant Legion that knows not of the existence of walls, the Beyer Empire who is rumored to be able to summon Giant Dragons to back them up in war, the Xiluo Empire¡¯s Cursed Contingent that is full of all kinds of abnormal war monsters, Cazo Kingdom¡¯s Sea God Brigade which is said to be able to cause tsunamis on the continent and the Beastman Tribe¡¯s Behemoth War Beast who could spar with Dragons reputedly. One of the reason why the And Empire is unable to join the superpower club is because theyck a strategic-level army.


    Thus, generations after generations of Emperors have been investing in this sector regardless of the returns. After screwing up a few times, the final goal that they have decided on is an Air Fleet.


    The Air Fleet, from the technical details of building one to digging a hole in the river to create a secret base for construction, spent the And Empire a total of 200 years and 4 to 5 generations of Emperor as well as the expenses of over half of the national treasury. If the walk through is urate, it would take another 15 years before it would first appear in the war with the Underground World. In the first time that they appeared, they annihted over 10 armies of the Underground Alliance, shocking the whole world. However, estimating the time, the construction should be in their final phase.


    Perhaps, the reason why they moved to this city by the river a few hundred years ago is because it would be convenient for Kagersi City to build an underwater base.


    This kind of country-level powerful weapon would definitely be under the direct control of the Emperor. However, Darsos didn¡¯t ascend to the throne normally. He wasn¡¯t even the crown prince previously, thus he had no rights to know of this secret.


    Only when he ascended the throne was he pleasantly surprised about the secret weapon of his country. However, he descended into a situation that one would find it hard tough at, he was unable to enter the treasure vault.


    The key to enter the underground base was originally in the possession of the Crown Prince Muse but Muse was already beheaded by Darsos. Without the key, no one can enter or exit the secret base. Gauging by the time, given that rations haven¡¯t been sent in for a significant period of time, everyone inside should have long starved to death.


    This isn¡¯t the civilised society that emphasises human rights. All of those aware of the secret were sent into the secret base together with their family while rations and everything else were controlled by the external side. The result of being so overly secretive was that when a problem urs in the chain, all connections would be broken.


    Thus, he could only spare that smelly and stubborn old fool, hoping that he would possibly have a spare key. He was even afraid of using necromancy to extract his soul for questioning in fear of failing.


    As for the reason why he colluded with the Celestial Tower and even gave them the Astrology tform was because he hoped to utilise the divination techniques of the other party to find the key. However, in this era, the art of divination has already declined and a series of anti-detection secret arts had been ced on the key, not to mention that the Celestial Tower is much more skilled in assassinated and causing destruction rather than prophesying at this point, so it is natural that he would reap no fruits from this attempt.


    Even if they were unable to use it, the fleet is still the top secret of the And Empire. If it wasn¡¯t for him joining in the rebellion, even Hermit wouldn¡¯t have the authority to know of it. Yet, an external personnel like me found out about it and even spoke of the name of the gship. Naturally, the intention to silence me wells up in him.


    It is to the extent that Darsos might even consider starting a war just to protect this secret.


    ¡°You do know that Angels can fly. Let¡¯s first not talk about whether the two Legends in that secret chamber is able to eliminate me in an instant, do you think that I would utter these words without being fully prepared?¡±


    The ck cat on my shoulder is the best hunting hound. She has discovered the hidden troops of the other party from the very start.


    After realising that it is impossible to silence me, Darsos killing intent retreated as quickly as it came. But, my chips wasn¡¯t just limited to this.


    ¡°I know where the key is. That bunch of mad dogs have found it but they didn¡¯t want to give it to you. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the bloodline of the royal family is required to open the lock, perhaps they would have already emptied your treasure vault by now.¡±


    ¡°That bunch of lunatics, bastards! Those untrustworthy wild dogs! Hermit!¡±


    ¡°Yes, my majesty. The wanted list will be released very soon. All of the members of the Celestial Tower that we have identified will be arrested, the treacherous fools will be hanged.¡±


    Even without looking in the mirror, a cruel smile is probably hanging on my face. Pushing the me to an enemy really brings such great joy to me.


    The Celestial Tower didn¡¯t find the key, but someone else did... That is an one-of-a-kind famous Myth-ss chain quest that would happen ten yearster. Triggering from a fortunate yer picking up an old backpack in an ancient well, it would end in the revival of the invincible fleet of the And Capital. The details of the process of how it happened isn¡¯t very clear in the walk-through but an abandoned ancient well is already a big hint.


    To others, this might be a great secret. When Beifeng told me that the new Emperor is coercing the location of the key of the fleet from the old Emperor, what is left is to find the location depicted in the walk through and after 3 nights of searching, I found the key in the 26th dried out ancient well I visited.


    ¡°If the doors were to open now, there might be a few surviving engineers and mages. This is much better than starting anew after finding all of them dead. A remote subordinate state should be nothingpared to an invincible Air Fleet. Right, if you intend to gamble and steal the key from me after killing me, go ahead. While I may not be capable of much, but I still have the confidence of making the key disappear forever. For example, feeding it to a fish in the ocean or a bird in the sky.¡±


    Smiling, I casually stir the drink in front of me as I admire the anxiety and unease of my opponents.


    Considering the unyielding spirit of the Mist Bloodline, giving their life for even the smallest thing as well as the ¡®good reputation¡¯ for remembering grudges, Darsos can confirm that if he were to continue using war as a threat, no matter what he earns, his trump card, the Air Fleet, would definitely be a goner.


    I am not worried at all. Since my chips arerger than that of the other party, I am already on the advantageous side. The first to take a step back could only be the other party.


    Kelly and I savor the tea delightfully while on the opposite side, their faces scrunch with anxiety. One side is smiling while the other is bitter. At this point, the situation cannot be clearer.


    After a long bizarre silence, finally, grabbing his forehead, the King of Winter Wolves sighs helplessly and gives in.


    ¡°I can allow for all of you to secretly sneak away. The East Mist Communal Country will be excluded in the alliance ceremony and the list of subordinate states, but your country must be careful so as to not wound the reputation of the And Empire. You must remain silent during themotion of the internationalmunity afterwards and in name, you must remain as our subordinate state.¡±


    Remaining as a subordinate state in name is the bottom limit of the And Empire, otherwise he would be unable to exin it to the other countries whom they are going to alliance with.


    However, I nod my head in agreement. Not talking about any other affairs, I have expected this to be their bottom limit. Going at it forcefully won¡¯t benefit me and besides, I already have an idea on how I could bypass it. The main matter at hand now is to profit more from them.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t enough. Our country is weak, so we require the generous support of your country. For example, the Missilor mythril alloy of your country, your specially-bred war horses...¡±


    Alright, what is left is a certain someone opening their wide mouth to bite into the flesh of the other and the other so furious that he could kill someone but could only continue negotiating with his weak points were firmly grabbed onto.


    Of course, as one of their national secrets, it is impossible for us toy our hands on the Missilor mythril alloy but if we were to start out big, it would be easier for us to negotiateter.


    After 4 hours of difficult negotiation, Darsos and Hermit gained a deep understanding that bargaining with a woman is almost suicidal. Not mentioning the ¡®Reyne¡¯, there almost no limit to the patience of the female Elf official. By pushing in bit by bit, she seems she would only be satisfied only when she forces the other party to flip the table in frustration.


    When the Devil¡¯s Contract is taken out by an Angel and skillfully altered using the Devil¡¯s Language, even Darsos find himself unable to keep up with the happenings.


    ¡°...The contractor Rnd guarantees in the name of the Mist Bloodline that as the true possessor of the royal authority in the Mist Country, after signing the contract, the Mist Country will be the subordinate state of the And Empire in name. However, the And Empire must pay the following resources to Rnd...¡±


    ¡°Rnd is your true name? That is a good name, just like the legendary hero from your family. Right, that is also the name of the sword representing your royal authority right? So it is a traditional name huh?¡±


    The Devil¡¯s Contract will only take effect when signed with one¡¯s true name. However, if one doesn¡¯t y a few literary game, then how can the contract live up to the vile name of the Devils who take pride in fraud?


    The country written in the contract is the Mist Country, not the East Mist Communal Country, even though many people in themunal country still identify themselves as citizens of the Mist Country.


    When the Mist Country is destroyed, in the eyes of the monarchs of different countries, the East Mist Communal Country is the revived Mist Country. Of course, for a professional diplomat, this kind of little tricks would be exposed in an instant. However, this is a secret meeting and apparently, these twods whose patience were at their limits weren¡¯t sufficiently professional.


    The result of this contract is that the destroyed Mist Country would profess loyalty to the And Empire while he would gift me arge bunch of resources and technology in return and if it is not followed... The Devil¡¯s Contract is signed using one¡¯s soul, so the result of it is obvious.


    By the time he realised that he was scammed, I believe that he wouldn¡¯t have the time and energy to settle the scores with me and the East Mist Communal Country.


    By the time we were satisfied with our returns, the tired Darsos smiles bitterly.


    ¡°I should be doing my job well as someone being ripped off. Then, as an outstanding profligate, can I invite you for dinner?¡±


    He holds out his hands in invitation but what he received was...


    ¡°AH! This little thing dares to bite me... My apologies, is this your cat? It is very beautiful but it seems to be like its owner, a wild rose full of poisonous thorns.¡±


    I smile, but it isn¡¯t because of this Emperor who changed his words halfway through.


    ¡°Did you obtain sufficient blood sample?¡±


    ¡°Who knows how much blood that key requires, we just have to try it after we get back.¡±


    After finishing discussing whatever that needs to be discussed, there isn¡¯t really any reason for us to remain for dinner. Ignoring the regretful Darsos, I stood up to leave.


    But, just as I was about to exit the venue, I was surprised by the chaos unfolded in front of me.


    The cocktail party has been trashed. The tables were flipped while the delicacies and wine were scattered on the floor. Elegantdies were shrieking as they escaped while their retainers and the gentlemen were surrounding the troublemakers.


    ¡°What happened!¡± Darsos, who seems to have found an outlet to vent his displeasure, roars.


    ¡°It¡¯s that human Emperor Da... Da something.¡± A Gnome said.


    ¡°Idiot, since you can¡¯t remember his name, then just call him your highness. Nice to meet you, your highness, in order to celebrate you ascending to the throne after getting rid of your father, we are here to present our celebratory gifts.¡± That is from yet another Gnome.


    ¡°Dumbass, stop prodding at their sore spots, getting rid of his father and ascending to the throne, it is obviously a rebellion. Right, that Da... da Vinci?¡± That is a orange-haired Gray Dwarf.


    Yingou, Kab and Hoyle havee to present their gifts to the new Emperor in hope of massive returns. After going through many exciting and tearful adventures (they were the primary cause of it), they finally found their target but apparently, their target was just about to go frenzy.


    ¡°Guards, arrest them!¡±


    The ck-colored dinner gown that extends all the way to the ground brought out a noble and elegant disposition within him and maturity could be seen on his immature face. Thebination of contradictory yet harmonious dispositions makes him extremely attractive to the opposite sex.


    TL: Or the same sex in this case (Just had to copy paste this to say this)

 Chapter 94

    Chapter 94: Congrattory Gift and Mockery


    Without doubt, engineering is a job that burns money. As the investor of the Rnd Series Robots, as the honorary director of the Liu Huang Mountain City Engineering Association, after investing without limits to develop the series, the Beyar Brothers of the Safe Merchant Group is already on the verge of bankruptcy.


    Even so, the Rnd series remains as an immature product. Although the towering giant robot may look impressive, if it doesn¡¯t even have thebat ability of a Legend-rank, then it is just a slightly higher-tier punching bag in the Underground World which is full of experts. But, if they were to add in a few high-tier parts to increase itsbat ability, then the funds required would be astronomical. Thus, they thought of finding an investor who is in need of higher-end military power on the Surface.


    The Rnd Robot that they brought isn¡¯t the newest product of the series. Even more so, it is a second-handed product where the technology and resources used is discounted. But, on the Surface world, it is still something full of the scent of new technology. At the very least, in the eyes of the Engineers, it is a very valuable gift.


    By presenting congrattory gifts of great significance or novelty to the ascending Emperor of arge Empire, not to mention that it is the And Empire which is known for their extravagance, astounding returns can be expected.


    The And Empire¡¯s Alchemy and Engineering industry is also rather outstanding, which is also the reason for the appearance of the Air Fleet and Magic Machinery Dragon in the future. At the very least, the Gnomes have already set their eyes on the secret alchemy art of forging alloys as well as the theory for Magic Engineering which is a mixture of both Magic and Engineering.


    The n that they had in mind was that in the best case scenario, they would trade the robot for technology and resources. Otherwise, earning some gold to fund their research would also be fine.


    The idea isn¡¯t bad and if left to an outstanding diplomat, the result should be satisfactory.


    But, from the very start, having a diplomatic partyprising Yingou.Beyar as the head along with Kab and Hoyle is a mistake in itself.


    Kab is a Gnome orphan born in Liu Huang Mountain City. It is said that going by his family heritage, he ises from a noble bloodline of Gnome Kings. He is said to be a master of civil engineering, although obviously, it is all self-taught. No one has ever seen him build any decent buildings. However, his overwhelming passion for architecture led to him examining and studying the foundations and beams propping the building up. If it was just examining, then it would still be okay. But, thisd likes to work hands on, so he would often pluck a few spare parts out to study them.


    Just think about it slightly, what would happen when the central pir of a wooden house is removed. It isn¡¯t just one or two times that he had buried himself among rubble.


    After creating big holes and rubble numerous times, people came up with nicknames for him ¡®The King of Digging Holes Kab¡¯ and ¡®The Green-skinned Termite Kab¡¯. He is also one of the major targets for the Town Security and ¡®tomorrow, Kab will be visiting your house¡¯ has be a vile curse.


    But, it is fortunate that he has a good head for business so he is rather wealthy. Personally, he doesn¡¯t have the concept of money and often spend money casually. After such incidents, he would pay the victims sufficiently and surprisingly, no one was ever hurt by the buildings he copsed. That¡¯s the main reason why he is always just outside the boundaries of the cell.


    There is nothing much left to introduce about Yingou, a moving professional explosion Alchemist. Despite being a Master cksmith, the Dwarf Hoyle is addicted to gambling, drinking and prostitution and is also well-known for his ability to cause destruction.


    A diplomatic partyprising these 3 living treasures to deliver their congrattory gift, to think that those short fellows could even think of it.


    After reaching their destination, the And Empire, the gambling addict Hoyle spent numerous nights in touring the different kinds of casinos and lost arge portion of their funds. Even worse, Kab copsed a monastery with a century of history andpensated them with the remains of their funds. Otherwise, they wouldn¡¯t be driven to the point of stealing ornaments from the trees by the road.


    Indeed, they have visited the pce, but these fellows have no socialising skills whatsoever. They insisted on meeting the Emperor before they are willing to present their congrattory gift and even forbid those rough guards to touch their own treasure. Seeming suspicious, these foreigners almost got treated as assassins who came with malicious intents. As such, their n to deliver the gift met with trouble all along the way.


    If such situations were to persist for a few more weeks, they might even be forced to sell their gift as scrap iron to earn a little bit of money for the journey back home.


    Then, 2 days ago, they became aware of the cocktail party in Hermit¡¯s mansion and that the Emperor is going to be present as well. Delighted, they barged in here to deliver their gift personally.


    However, the fact that they did not have invitations and that they were of foreign race made it impossible for the sentries to allow them in. The result of it was the three short fellows battling with the entire security troop of Hermit¡¯s mansion. With their experience in chaotic battles and their individual strength, the three fellows managed to im victory.


    If they were stalled for a moment just a moment longer, the Royal Guards would have arrived and they would be dealt with as assassins. The situation would be irreparable then.


    What is fortunate is that Darsos came out in time. But, at the same time, what is unfortunate is that these fearless fellows offended the person they had to please the moment they opened their mouths.


    ¡°Leaving aside the insincerepliments, to strike at the sore spot of the other party murdering his father and siblings the moment they open their mouth, are you all here to deliver your gifts or to draw aggression?¡±


    Shaking my head, I look at the enraged Darsos. I know that if I don¡¯t interfere, the result would most probably end in the three person being sentenced to death so as to vent his anger. This isn¡¯t the oue I would like to happen.


    ¡°Respected Emperor, since they are here to deliver their gift, allow them to present it first. This way, you are able to show the magnanimity as the monarch of a powerful country.¡±


    His unwillingness to lose face in my presence seems to have made my smiling persuasion effective.


    Taking 2 deep breaths, he suppresses his emotions which are on the verge of exploding and nods his head.


    ¡°Since Ro... Lady Reyne pleaded in your stead, then I will give you all a chance. Guests from a foreign tribe, identify yourselves and present your sincerity.¡±


    The 3 fellows immediately gathers together for a discussion and starts spouting introductory lines that they prepared beforehand.


    ¡°Since you have sincerely asked!¡±


    ¡°Then we will generously tell you!¡±


    For...¡±


    ¡°Enough! Exin it properly in 10 second or I will throw all of you into the river with a stone anchor tied to you all.¡± I wanted to listen to their newly edited introductory lines but apparently, Darsos doesn¡¯t have the patience for it. The roar of the Emperor made everyone lower their head and tremble in fear.


    ¡°We came from Liu Huang Mountain City of the Underground World. We have heard that your majesty is about to ascend to the throne, so we travelled a thousand miles to present to you our greatest gift.¡±


    As expected, threats are still effective.


    ¡°Underground World?¡±


    In the eyes of the human nobles, the legendary Underground World is a ce ruled with demons and monsters, filled with bloodshed and war, a totally different ce from the Surface. Hearing the Gnomes and Gray Dwarf say that they originate from the Underground World,motion broke out as faces of disbelief and shock appears on the faces of the nobles present.


    ¡°Cough, then show me what treasures you have brought.¡±


    Without doubt, looking at his raised eyebrows and the slight smile on the corners of his mouth, a gift from the citizens of the Underground World from a thousand miles away made Darsos feel exalted.


    I heave a sigh of relief. Their innovative idea of sending a gifts from thousand miles away is indeed an excellent one. As long no idents happen, even if the present is just so-so, Darsos would at least act pleased and reward them significantly so as to leave behind a good legend.


    ¡°Look, this miniature No.88 Robot scaled at a 20:1 ratio is our present to your majesty.¡±


    Kab pulls out a broken robot from his patched sack.


    That is a robot on the verge of breaking apart. It is only a metre tall and it is covered with green rust throughout its entire body. Apparently, it is made of second-handed waste spare parts leaving it without a shred of majesty that the original one possesses.


    The panicking Yingou didn¡¯t manage to exin clearly. What he meant to say is that he intend to present the bigger Robot No.88 but due to its hulking size, he can only rece it with a smaller model.


    ¡°Puu. This could be given to the kids to y with.¡±


    ¡°This is a direct insult to the Engineers of And Empire. Our Magic-Engineered Steam Armor is already 3 meter tall, what do you all mean by sending this over? Do you think that our Emperor needs this little toy?¡±


    In the eyes of the nobles here, what they see is a few fearless countryside bumpkins presenting a small toy to the Emperor.


    ¡°Look, he has a drill and a main cannon, there is even a jetpack at the back. They are all thetest technology of Liu Huang Mountain City, so they should be able to contribute to your country¡¯s engineering research...¡±


    I p my forehead. Without even clearing up the misunderstanding, Yingou continues to exin seriously, as though looking down on the engineering study standards of the other party, provoking their ire.


    ¡°Tsssssssss!¡± ¡°Kacha!¡± ¡°Boom!¡±


    Alright, there is no need to exin too much about this. Just like other Safe-brand products, under the hands of the Gnomes, this scaled down robot first short circuited and ck smoke came pouring out before it exploded.


    ¡°Enough! Is this your congrattory gift to an Emperor? Perhaps, you all take my kindness for granted!¡±


    Blood-red light emits from his demon sword, the Emperor no longer intends to conceal his killing intent.


    The 3 people stare at each other in iprehension. Although No.88 is the product of the crystallisation of the ingenuity of the Underground World engineering study, why does the other party seem to be on the verge of killing them. In the end, Kab¡¯s mind moves and he thought of a really bad idea.


    ¡°Since this present is unsatisfactory, then let¡¯s just find another present on the spot.¡±


    ¡°Lord, this is our real gift!¡±


    ¡°Audacious!¡± ¡°What audacity!¡± Looking at the presents Kab retrieves from his sack, the nobles of And immediatelyshes out.


    That is a bunch of jewels that looked familiar. It is the the ornaments used on the trees by the river. These inferior and cheap jewels that no one would pick is actually used as a gift to the greatest Emperor?


    ¡°Darn it, this is even worse than stealing flowers from the flower bed that a girl loves and using these fresh flowers to make a gand to propose to their original owner.¡± Such suicidal actions left me speechless as well.


    ¡°Heh, arguing with you all is really a waste of my time.¡±


    What is fortunate is that Darsos was so enraged that heughs instead. In the end, he shakes his head, deciding against squabbling with these Gnomes.


    ¡°Take them down. Forget it, you all can leave by yourself. Un? Liu Huang Mountain City? Isn¡¯t that thend of origin of the God who no one have heard of? Since the citizens there are like that, it shows how much a countryside bumpkin their true God is as well. Tell me, will the great God escape to the mortal world when a cmity there? Perhaps, our And will be blessed by a God as a result.¡±


    Although the Emperor¡¯s sense of humor is really lousy, these kind of cold jokes that mock a true God makes one really unable tough, but...


    ¡°I haven¡¯t even heard of the God of Law in the past. It was only a while ago did I hear that many merchants are switching to that faith. Indeed, as expected of the Church of lowly people.¡±


    ¡°Heh, we can see it from these fellows. Who knew how did that unknown fellow be a true God. He probably just got lucky and somehow Ascended to Godhood.


    However, Darsos is the Emperor. No matter how bad a joke is, the nobles under hismand have to try their best to follow suit. However, they aren¡¯t dumb as well. At the very least, they know that they cannot call out the true name of ¡®Wumianzhe¡¯, otherwise if they were to catch the attention of a true God, a God¡¯s Punishment wouldn¡¯t be funny.


    ¡°Enough, you all can insult us but you all cannot insult Lord Wumianzhe! You foolish humans! You all can¡¯t evenpare to a finger of his.¡±


    The hrious high-pitched shouting of the Gnome echoes around the hall and following it is the entire hall bursting intoughter.


    ¡°Don¡¯tugh! Do notugh! I, Yingou.Beyar, forbid you all fromughing!¡±


    But the more he shouted, the more angry he got, the louder theughter of the human nobles became.


    ¡°Do notugh, or our almighty countryside God is going to punish you.¡± As though confident in his sense of humor, Darsos pinches his throat and does a vivid imitation of Yingou. This caused the the hall to explode inughter once again. This time, the sound travels beyond the boundaries of the walls to outside the mansion.


    ¡°You... what do you all know, you bunch of short-lived ghosts! Wait until you all turn to dust, then the gaze of the true God will start to be directed towards you. In the face of Gods, you all must learn to be humble. How great do you think you are, Emperor of the mortals. In the eyes of that man, you are nothing.¡±


    Alright, the furious roar of the Gnome is indeed the truth, but it still hurts the pride of some people.


    ¡°Hmph, at least we had a rich and fulfilling life. What about Liu Huang Mountain City? Hehe, if you all are prosperous, you all wouldn¡¯t end uping here to steal gems and present it as gifts! That kind of ce is thend of origin of the God of Law? As expected, only in such a second-tier location will a countryside God be born.¡±


    The moment these wordse out of his mouth, the entire atmosphere chilled. Even Darsos himself immediately covers his mouth. Although he didn¡¯t mention the name of the true God so Wumianzhe wouldn¡¯t be able to sense it, if word were to spread out, the And Empire would be the mortal enemy of the Church of the God of Law.


    Suddenly, the old Dwarf who seems to be on a verge of sleep all along suddenlyughs.


    ¡°An Emperor of the mortals actually dares to insult the Gods of Heaven. Just on your guts, I will toast and gamble with you. But, it is a pity that you found the wrong opponent. Yingou that fellow tends to ramble nonsense but he isn¡¯t wrong this time. Compared to Lord Wumianzhe, even if it is the Lord Wumianzhe when he is still in the mortal world, you aren¡¯t even as valuable as a toenail of his.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I have heard of that man¡¯s story. Isn¡¯t he just some countryside judge who suddenly receives the approval of the Gods of Order, allowing him to Ascend as a God? It isn¡¯t wrong for me to say that he just got lucky.¡±


    The war between the authority of a monarch and the authority of a God is endless. Since Darsos has already offended the God of Law, there is no difference in going a little further. Thus, there is not a sliver of respect in his words towards the God of Law.


    Even this sight left me speechless. If it was the Town Security or the other Judges protecting my honor, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised at all. But, looking at this bunch of bastards, they are the perverts who have been struck down by the Town Security innumerable times. As Wumianzhe, I even took care of them several times. It is enough that they do not hold enmity against me, but for them to actually speak up for me? Maybe I should go check on my hearing and my sight.


    ¡°... Perhaps, you bunch of people may not understand. The Underground World is a true hell, it is perfectly natural for the weak to die. In that world, resources are so scarce that one could be killed over a cup of water. I am an orphan without anything and for an unlucky fellow like me, the ending that I would most possibly meet with is dying in some sewer. But, in Liu Huang Mountain City, weaklings like me are able to live on. They even provided me a chance to learn architecture, giving me an opportunity to live using my own strengths.¡±


    ¡°We are different from born winners like you who are rich enough to use jewels to decorate trees. We, the unlucky ones who struggle to live, know that allowing the weak to live with pride and allow the strong to live without depending on hunting down on the weak is a difficult task. In this entire world, the only one who is able to aplish such a deed is that lord.¡±


    The solemn Kab said so.


    ¡°¡®One day, my sons will live in a country where they are not judged by their race, but by their morals¡¯. These words are carved on the Liu Huang Mountain City Gates and its square. That year, everyone simply treated it as an arrogant deration but that man, he spent more than a century and through inching a step forward at a time, he really managed to eradicate racial discrimination. He really seeded.¡±


    ¡°Can you all imagine? Dark Elf Knights who are kind to the point of foolishness, Undead Warriors who are peacefully cking about everyday, Gnomeds who are hardworking and are not greedy. In Liu Huang Mountain City, races aren¡¯t important. What is important is that what you did and what you intend to do.¡±


    The old man shakes his wine gourd and gulps down half of it.


    ¡°Emperor of the mortals, perhaps, you are able tomand your armies to fight for you and your farmers to work for you, but can you make those ordinary citizens walk up to the city walls by their own free will and give up everything to protect their city? To fight a war that cannot be won? That man did it. He made the entire poption of that city sacrifice their all to protect their homnd.


    Somehow, the sight of the battle against the Demon Count floats to my sight and remembering those adorable citizens who walked up to the city walls by their own ord, I smiled.


    ¡°Hmph, isn¡¯t it just a political scheme? As long as I have sufficient time, I can aplish it as well.¡±


    Darsos¡¯s face hardens but he is still unwilling to give in.


    At the same time, the piercing shout of the Gnome echoes in the hall once again.


    ¡°Emperor of the mortals, you can probably tell that we aren¡¯t good people. In fact, we have been locked in the jail cells of Liu Huang Mountain City just a period ago because of certain things that we have done. Due to the schemes of some people, the walls of the jail fell but we didn¡¯t take advantage of the opportunity to escape. Do you know why?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, that is because you all are cowards.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, old Hoyle and I are already Gold-rank. Going by the standards of you humans, we are masters who have transcended mortal standards. But, those who were guarding us were just a few Silver-rank. With our strength, we are able to earn a living wherever we go. But, why do we choose to obediently stay in our jail cell and suffer the ire of our juniors?¡±


    The drunkard smiles. Those who escaped that time all died. After that incident, they reaffirmed that their choice to not escape that night was the right decision.


    ¡°Those who sinned must be punished and sinners will eventually be judged. Only through judgement can one be saved. These words were carved onto a rock ced in front of the jail. But, you all would probably just find it ridiculous. But, I can tell you that under the workings of that man, that became the rule of the city. The reason why we chose to stay in the cell is because we believe in the words of that man. After we serving our sentence, as long as we do not touch the bottom limit of thew, we can continue living with dignity in that city.¡±


    ¡°As long as one sins, one would be punished. As long as one is innocent, one can live with dignity. For a Gray Dwarf like me who isn¡¯t weed in any Underground Cities, we are looked upon with suspicion wherever we go. But, in our city, no one will discriminate against us just because of our race. Emperor of the mortals, can you do the same?¡±


    ¡°After saying so much, as an Emperor, can you build a beautiful homnd where everyone can work in peace such that they are willing to give up everything for it? If you can¡¯t do it, then you can¡¯t evenpare to a finger of that man.¡±


    ¡°Hah, old drunkard, how could he do it? Have you forgotten what we met with on our way here? If it wasn¡¯t for us possessing two hands, we would have long been ¡®rid of as evil¡¯ by someone and all of our fortunes would be confiscated.¡±


    ¡°Aiyo, that¡¯s right. Old Brother Beyar, I am starting to miss home. Perhaps, we should return back.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, what greatest Emperor in 300 years. As expected, rumors cannot be trusted. Without a heart that tolerates others, without the willingness toprehend the wisdom of others, filled with jealousy and biases, this country would be ruined in his hands sooner orter.¡±


    ¡°Emperor of the mortals, I know you wish to be immortal, because that is what all of you Emperors with short lifespan wish for. But, even if you were to be immortal, you would only be a zombie that craves for the mortal world. You can neverpare to that man who sacrificed everything to turn into the incarnation of the Law to change the world. Such a vulgar human actually dares to mock the God of Heavens, mock the incarnation of justice. Should I say that those who are ignorant are fearless? Or should I say that those who are shameless are invincible?¡±


    At the end of their speech, the 3 of them carried their sack, preparing to leave. But this time, they are stopped.


    Under the orders of a certain someone, the two Legends who were initially hidden in the secret chamber appears before them.


    ¡°To insult the Emperor in his face, you are guilty of insubordination. Throw him into the underground cer! I will see if that incarnation of justice of yours will save you.¡±


    Looking at Darsos¡¯ steeled face which is ready to open blood, I know that nothing I say would help them now.


    ¡°Sigh, looks like I have to gather information once again. Where is the royal underground cer? They really cause me tons of trouble.¡± Even though I say this, somehow, my mood lifted.


    ...theory for Magic Engineering which is a mixture of both Magic and Engineering.


    TL: I know it¡¯s obvious but...


    As long no idents happen, even if the present is just so-so, Darsos would at least act pleased and reward them significantly so as to leave behind a good legend.


    TL: Legend -> It more of means a good rumor, like when an Emperor spared who and who and it gets passed down in history.


    Wait until you all turn to dust, then the gaze of the true God will start to be directed towards you


    TL: Probably refers to the fact that after you die, the soul goes to the Heavenly Realm.

 Chapter 95

    Chapter 95: Losing Control


    ¡°A smart man turning dumb is a fish that is easiest to bait; This is because he is highly-educated yet is unable to see through his own arrogance. The foolishness of a fool isn¡¯t anything unique, what is funny is a smart man doing dumb things; That is because he is using all of his abilities to prove his stupidity.¡±


    ¡°In the country of idiots lies a smart king. He feels that he is nobler and greater than the Gods.¡±


    ¡°Oh, my brothers, please do not say that. The dignified lord is swinging about his stave of authority as he tries to ascend to the high throne. If you were to talk bad about him, fear that he would raise his stave of maggots to beat you.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, the narrow-minded Emperor who can¡¯t even ept words of truth. Those arrogant words of yours that described the God of Law as a countryside bumpkin are arousing theughter of the Gods in the Heavens.¡±


    ¡°Oh, who gave this hrious Emperor the confidence that with his short lifespan and his country, he is able to look down on the immortals?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps, it is because of his loud voice. At least, with his furious roar, he is able to make those crows shiver.¡±


    ¡°Or perhaps, it is because he is very rich. At least, he is rich enough to use jewels as ornaments on trees and toy mats for the road.¡±


    ¡°Or perhaps, it is because he is strong. At least, those 40 unlucky fellows intend to present their own gs and serve him obediently as hispdogs.¡±


    Theical trio, despite being blocked by Legend-rank guards, continued to sing their own songs.


    ¡°Hahahaha!¡± ¡°Hehehehe!¡±


    The hall has been plunged into chaos. The maniacalughter of the three short fellows echo throughout the hall while the nobles (crows) shiver in fear.


    ¡°The Emperor¡¯s voice is resonant? Hmph, the entire country might hear his furious roar but that man never needed to shout. Even when facing a penniless farmer, even when interrogating the noble SemiGods, he only had to take out his codex and slowly talk the senses of our Liu Huang Mountain City to the other party.¡±


    ¡°Let us slowly wait for the noble time to determine the weight of their words. 300 yearster, when only ashes of the bones of the great Emperor are left behind, will his arrogant words be mocked by future generations? The solemn immortal, will he have realised his dreams and changed the world with his own rules by then?¡±


    ¡°The Emperor¡¯s country is very wealthy? Oh, in order to put up a show, he opened his own national vault extravagantly to unt his fortunes, using jewels to decorate their greenery and using milk to fill the rivers. The judges of the countryside isn¡¯t that wealthy. They are so poor that they often spends beyond what they earn, writing a loan to pay for their bread tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°But, in his country, as long as you work, you won¡¯t starve. As long you follow thew, you will be respected. Every single civilian can enter his office toin about what is guing them or express their hopes for the future. But, your country is one where human eats human. The greedy nobles are wolves. The cunning merchants are innocent sheeps in front of the wolves but they turn into tigers when facing the civilians. As for you, the great Emperor, the almighty one who feeds on wolves and tigers, have you ever walked through the districts of normal civilians to listen to the ¡®moaning¡¯ of those sheeps who are in so much pain that they find it hard to live on. Have you listened to how they sell their sons and abandon their daughters just so that they can fill their stomach today?¡±


    ¡°The Emperor¡¯s country is strong? I¡¯ve heard that your Royal Guards are Silver Cross (Mark of a Silver-rank) Elites, that voice can make your neighbouring countries tremble. Then, do you know that in the Underground World where the strong reign supreme, even Golden Triangles (Mark of a Gold-rank) are only pawns in battle. Do you know that we have just eliminated a Demon Count that is able to rival a true God, together with his army, exiled the evil Dragon Empress and beheaded the Beastman Sovereign who oncemanded an army of over ten thousand Golden Triangles?¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t have nobles that protect theirnd and civilian because ournd do not belong to anyone. Our city doesn¡¯t have any army but if the shadow of war looms over our homnd, we are willing brave warriors who can give up everything to protect it. We have many enemies, but we have even more friends whom we are willing to believe in. But you, the great Emperor, the Emperor who is envious of the Gods, do you think that after losing your royal crown and stave, when your homnd is under threat, how many of your people are willing to give up their lives for you? How many nobles are willing to die for the country? How many allies wille to rescue you and how many won¡¯t stab you in your back?¡±


    ¡°The young Emperor who raises his rotten stave, you might think that you are a dignified monarch, but you¡¯re just a grandstanding clown.¡±


    ¡°An immoral person who killed his father and siblings, you think that you can look down on that man. But, regardless of whether it is your morals or your value of existence, you can¡¯t evenpare to a strand of hair from that man.¡±


    ¡°The foolish Emperor who envies true God, you think that you¡¯re powerful and rich. In actuality, you don¡¯t even know what it means to be strong. In front of that Lord, in front of the truly powerful, please remain humble.¡±


    ¡°You think that you are very incredible.¡±


    ¡°But actually you are hardly it.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a joke.¡±


    Alright, the three of them insult him one after another, Darsos¡¯s face turns bright red. In the end, the three short fellows got arrested by the Emperor¡¯s personal guards. Or perhaps, one should say that they surrendered after realising they were unable to defeat them. However, those who are more sensitive could feel that this matter has yet toe to an end.


    Hoyle and the rest don¡¯t care about politics or anything else, they¡¯re just bastards with many problems on them. But, they know who is the one who gave a good life to the citizens of Liu Huang Mountain City. So, even if you are the almighty Emperor, as long as you insult the benefactor in their heart, they will still put you in your ce.


    The human Emperor who mocked the true Gods and the short Gnomes and Gray Dwarf who mocked the Emperor. In the eyes of the onlookers, especially in my eyes, it is something that would be written in the annals of history.


    As I expected. Two dayster, something happened.


    ¡°... The nonsense of the three short fellows has been made into aical bar tune. Now, the tune is spreading in many of the bars and tea houses in the public district. Given how widespread it is now, I¡¯m afraid it¡¯s toote to stop it.¡±


    The momentum of history cannot be stopped. But, that so-called momentum is forged by countless individuals and events. In the country-level battles both on the surface and in the shadows, the three fellows are insignificant but often, it is these insignificant figures who do astounding things.


    ¡°There must be a mastermind manipting it behind the scenes. The lyrics are picked off the original words of those Gnomes and has been worked on, so the artistic level is rather high. Even our ywrights and music experts say that it is the work of a master... They even said that it might be a legendary piece.¡±


    ¡°The archbishop of the God of Law Krose has sent an official note, demanding us to release the prisoners as well as to exin for the disrespect to the God of Law. The Nore the 6th from the Church of Holy Light has sent a message through the urgentmunication channel to express their dissatisfaction with us and request for us to exin for the disrespect towards a true God. There are also 9 other Churches of true God that are watching the matter and severely warned us, demanding us to give them an exnation.¡±


    ¡°The Royal Guards have found a giant robot in the temporary quarters of those three fellows. That should be the present that they intend to present and based on the primary investigation from our royal engineers, it is indeed very advanced and there are quite a few techniques involved in it that could be helpful for the progress of our country¡¯s engineering study. But, it is a pity that the Gnomes refuse to cooperate with us. Not only so, someone let the word out and privately criticised the Emperor for repaying gratitude with enmity, mocking the Emperor for hisck of tolerance.¡±


    ¡°The intelligence organisation ¡®Midnight Rose¡¯ has sent a warning that there are idle chatter describing how you murdered your predecessor to ascend to the throne. Of course, these are unfounded ims but your prestige is being affected as a result of these rumors. As these vile rumors spread, civilians are starting to call Your Majesty as ¡®The Foolish Emperor who Envies the Gods¡¯. There are even people who are spreading rumors that our And Empire has the ambition of annexing the other countries. Out of the 40 countries, there are at least 30 who are wavering now and they aremunicating in private. They seem to be scheming against us.¡±


    Reports of bad news are stacked one after another on the table. The pen is mightier than the sword. The young Emperor is facing with his greatest challenge ever since he was confirmed for enthronement. This is a formless enemy, yet at the same time it is the doings of countless opposing forces, making one unsure of where to start tackling the problem from.


    From a certain sense, Darsos can indeed be considered a wise king. At least, under his rule, his subordinates dare to point out his mistakes as well as the bad circumstances that are urring without worrying for their head.


    ¡°Darsos, you really overdid it this time. Disregarding everything else, just for a little verbal conflict, you got pinned with the crime of looking down on a true God, resulting in hostility from the Churches of Gods. This is really a foolish decision.¡±


    As Darsos¡¯ good friend and brother, only Hermit dares to point out the Emperor¡¯s fault to him. But, at this moment, Darsos is also very vexed. Recalling the matter back then, it is really unlike how he usually settled things.


    ¡°Indeed, staying away from women is the right choice. Beauty really harms people.¡±


    Darsos finally recalls that the reason why he was so annoyed and why he failed to censor his words. It is most probably because of that ¡®Reyne¡¯ by his side.


    Being criticised and mocked in front of thedy that one likes, even the most humble and prudent person would not be able to suppress the rage in their heart, needless to say the Emperor of an empire who holds great authority in his hands.


    ¡°The contract probably yed a part as well. After all, those are the words of the Devils. More or less, there are some problems with thenguage of the Lower Realm.¡±


    Language itself holds power. Thenguage of the Lower Realm will incite negative emotions. The Chaos Language of the Divine Arts and the sphemous Language of the Art of Truth are spells that utilise the Devil Language and Demon Language from the Lower Realm. Comparatively, the Virtuous Language and the Sacred Language are spells that use the God Language and Angel Language from the Heavenly Realm.


    Having stare at the contract for too long, negative emotions unknowingly welled up inside Darsos. At the same time, the demon sword itself causes one to side towards Chaos. When he walked out of the chamber, his feelings were already very pent up, so it was natural that he would explode in rage after being mocked in public.


    ¡°It¡¯s toote to say all these. What¡¯s done is done. What is important now is to fix it.¡±


    If he just misspoke, it would still be easy to deal with. But, given that the one he insulted prepared a big gift for him, it made him look ungracious and narrow-minded instead.


    As the bizarre song started to spread around the entire city at rocket speed, the ¡®beautiful title¡¯ of ¡®The Foolish Emperor who Envies the Gods¡¯ got attached to him before he received the title of the King of Winter Wolves.


    For an Emperor in the feudal era, authority and honor are much more important than their life. Sometimes, reputation can equal to one¡¯s might. When an Emperor loses his honor and reputation, the nobles under his control will refuse to listen to hismands.


    All these weren¡¯t a result of someone¡¯s scheming but sometimes, mistakes that pile up as a result of cause and effect can be even more fatal than the plots of an enemy.


    This is especially so when Darsos and the And Empire weren¡¯t really that stable internally. His father and siblings might have fallen from the stage but the influence that they left behind hasn¡¯t been plucked out yet. Furthermore, the noble warlords are looking at the situation closely for an opportunity to push ahead their ambitions. How could they miss an opportunity that allows them to lower the king¡¯s authority and honor without losing a single soldier?


    Those little countries who are forced to join the alliance are already full of resentment. It is still manageable if there are no ws in the And Empire for them to pick at. But, now that a weakness has appeared, they are gathering in flocks to stab at it so as to seek an opportunity for them to break away to be independent.


    If it was 3 to 5 yearster when Darsos has a firm control over the country, these wouldn¡¯t pose as a problem. However, Darsos has been suppressing the internal and external situation with force in recent times, his situation is as though he is sitting on a volcano in this instant. Now that he finally misspoke and a hole has appeared in his defense, his opponents won¡¯t just let it slide.


    Thus, under the efforts of different factions, even without them colluding together, the rumors and the bar tune spread swiftly and all kinds of hidden problems came crashing in simultaneously.


    ¡°Since the mistake has been done, then let¡¯s just go through with it. Throw the three of them into our most secure prison and prevent them from meeting anyone. If we were to let them out, it would show that we are weak. Return a message to Nore, use slightly more tactful wordings and say that it was just a slip of the tongue and apologise for it. As for the Church of the God of Law, since we have offended them thoroughly, then just ignore them totally. As for the rumor, let our intelligence group create a few more unbelievable rumors so as to divert the discussions...¡±


    Even in a disadvantageous situation, Darsos calmly came up with solutions one after another to tackle the problems one by one. Even if it is a little toote, it¡¯s still quite an impressive feat.


    ¡°...That, Your Majesty, Lord Hermit, I have just received 2 new pieces of information.¡±


    A official suddenly rushes in and his words stops abruptly. It doesn¡¯t seem to be good news.


    ¡°Speak, what worse news can there be. I can take it.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know how the bar tune spread into the royal family prison, but the Gnomes have been humming it the entire day. Due to that, the other prisoners also began singing along. They¡¯re all mocking... There are some that say that the Emperor of this generation is useless and that the And Empire is going into decline.¡±


    ¡°Pah!¡±


    Despite knowing that they are just mocking of failures, words that won¡¯t affect him in anyway, Darsos is still unable to suppress his surging emotions. He smacked on the table with great force and the expensive red phoebe office desk split into 2.


    TL: Red Phoebe is a type of wood.


    The room suddenly turns silent. A momentter, the low voice of the Emperor after pushing down his bursting emotions rumble in the room.


    ¡°Alright. What¡¯s the next one? What other bad news is there?¡±


    The young official replies shakily.


    ¡°The East Mist Communal Country dered the faith of the God of Law as their national religion and Princess Reyne ced her honor on the line to guarantee the innocence of the three men. Furthermore, she guarantees that the present they gave out is a priceless treasure and they weren¡¯t disrespectful towards the Emperor in that sense. They demanded us to release them instantly.¡±


    ¡°Boom! Kacha!¡±


    This time, there is no salvage for the expensive office desk. After Darsos smacks the table in a rage, not mentioning how the entire desk was destroyed, a hole even appears on the floor.


    ¡°As expected, women are not trustworthy!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    At the same time, below the river, a figure is currently diving underwater and beside him is a ck cat who is walking slowly in the water.


    ¡°Is this it? There¡¯s a reaction from the key? Let¡¯s hurry up, we don¡¯t have much time left.¡±


    PS£ºÕâ¶Î¾çÇ鿨ÁËËÉÊóÁ½Ì죬±¾À´´òËãÕæµÄÓÃÊ«¸èµÄ£¬µ«ÄǾ͹À¼ÆÒª¿¨Á½¸öÔÂÁË.....ÄǾÍÉÔ΢ģ·ÂɯÎ̵ÄÏ·¾ç̨´Ê´ÕºÏ°É¡£Ë³£¬¼ÌÐøÇóƱƱ°É¡£Õâ¶Î¿¨¹ýÁËÓ¦¸Ã»á¿ìÒ»µã¡£RI


    Well, to be fair, Darsos hasn¡¯t even be the Emperor yet and it isn¡¯t practical to expect him to exact such changes instantly. I mean, Rnd had a hundred years behind him. Also, the background and history of both ces are different.

 Chapter 96

    Chapter 96: Sneaking In


    In a certain world, to deal with civil disputes, awyer must first learn how to create traps and avoid fraud in a contract so that they can reap more benefits for their employers.


    The Devils of this world are masters of deception and experts in contract frauds. However, if there isn¡¯t a single ounce of truth in their words, their reputations will sour sooner orter and no one would be foolish enough then to sign a contract with them.


    Thus, using the souls of both parties as a guarantee, as long as one is able to detect all of the possible traps in it, the Devil¡¯s Contract is instead, the world¡¯s fairest and most effective contract. This is also the reason why it is popr in many different dimensions.


    The characters of the Lower Realm that are used to write on the contracts possess magic. Even if it is the residents of the Main Dimension who can¡¯t understand the Devil¡¯s Language of the Lower Realm, they are still able to understand what is written in one look. However, if they think that the contract will be fair just because they are able toprehend it, they can¡¯t be more wrong.


    Contract fraud is something that the Devils have researched and studied like a form of art since tens of thousands of years ago. For example, if you were to take a magnifying ss to examine those elegant ornaments on the contract, you will realise that those are actually twisted words that form an additional use in the contract. If you don¡¯t notice it before signing on it, you can only admit your misfortune.


    The section that is overwhelmingly long andplicated that it makes you feel averse to might very well be hiding the true terms through the first word of every sentence or such. You might think that the contract should be read horizontally but when carrying out the contract, the Devil will tell you that you should have been reading it vertically or even diagonally, causing the meaning of the contract to change altogether.


    As for the inverted words, missing words, wrong terms and other factors that seem out of ce, never think of them as an idental mistakes or typos. Most probably, they are done intentionally and contains some kind of trap within.


    Hence, for a Mage who oftene into contact with the Lower Realm, the first thing to take note of when striking a deal when Devils is to never use the original contract they provide and insist on creating a new one on the spot, even if it means that it will result in a marathon-length showdown.


    As eras progressed, the hypocritical and deceitful human nobles began to employ the Devil¡¯s Contract amongst themselves. Of course, the human¡¯s aptitude for deception is in no way inferior to the Devils. For over a thousand years, they managed to y out new tricks in contract fraud that surprised even the Devil Lords. For example, they would raise an orphan and name them with an identical name with some influential individual and make them sign the contract in their stead. Even I myself wouldn¡¯t dare to use a contract prepared by somebody else, or allow the contract out of my sight.


    As expected, Darsos refused to use the contract that I¡¯ve prepared without a second thought. He even brought out a literary schr and magic schr from Hermit¡¯s residence and requested for a new contract to be written on the spot.


    Thus, we struggled against each other one use after the other. But very quickly, I managed to slowly seize the initiative for the creation of the contract.


    Ignoring the fact that the literary schr and the magic schr are not as professional as I am, the Devil¡¯s Language from the Lower Realm possesses magic. Its side effect of inciting negative emotions is still a small matter, what would be fatal is if it corrupts your soul, causing you to fall into depravity. The fight over the uses of the contract isn¡¯t just a battle of knowledge. Even more so, it is a showdown of one¡¯s physical stamina and will.


    I intentionally dragged out the contention over the uses of the contract and even verbalized the Devil¡¯s Language to ce greater pressure on them. By the time the contract is finally signed, the moment the tension on the schrs ease, they immediately faint on the floor. It seems that it would a year or so for them to fully recuperate.


    I am rather satisfied with the final contract. Also, the other party has seen the hard work the experts have put into the contract so Darsos and the rest are quite satisfied with it as well. Un, at the very least, before those loopholes are discovered, they should be quite satisfied.


    One of the victories that I found the most satisfactory is the use stating that ¡®No acts of military threats or war is allowed under any under cause within 10 years¡¯. This would ensure a period of peace for East Mist Communal Country. Without this use, if Darsos starts to threaten us again a few days after we finished trading our chips, we, on the weaker side, would still have to give in. This would mean that we have signed the contract for nothing.


    What about after 10 years? I don¡¯t think that he would have the leisure then to go after the East Mist Communal Country. Besides, if my n is sessful, it would be hard to tell who would be the one raising trouble with whom.


    With this secret contract, the East Mist Communal Country could be said to have truly achieved freedom. This is also why after discussing for a bit after returning back, Reyne and the others did not hesitate to acknowledge the God of Law as the national religion and demanded for the And Empire to hand over the three short fellows.


    Without a doubt, this is a challenge to the prestige of Darsos and the And Empire. Even more so, we were stabbing them savagely in the back just after the contract has been established. Yet, And was unable to do anything extreme retaliation.


    ¡°I stabbed you in the back. So what are you gonna do? Bite me?¡±


    ¡°Un? The East Mist Communal Country actually remained unscathed even after such provocation. Looks like the rumors that the And Empire being only strong in appearance is true. Perhaps, the young Emperor might turn out to be unable to evenmand the Dukes and Counts under him.¡±


    Surrounded by enemies, when the first one to jump out and question their authority isn¡¯t smacked down, many more would probably follow suit. If so, their authority would be endangered.


    This isn¡¯t a conjecture of my part but a fact proven by the recent changes in the situation.


    Indeed, I was the one who spread the song, but the melody wasn¡¯t my doing. At the very least, I know myself well. Even though my music talent is better than Gria¡¯s, an evolution from the Cry of a Banshee into the Cry of a Lich would create the same murdering effects. Perhaps, dying a slower death might turn out to be even more torturous.


    Since the melodies aren¡¯t something that I could haveposed, the few bar melodies, operas and the few other varieties which are spreading around furiously now surfaced too quickly. Without a doubt, someone is making use of this opportunity to move in the shadows to damage Darsos¡¯s reputation.


    Trying to assume an influential position by suppressing 46 other states during his enthronement, without a doubt, this is a big gamble. While its sess would bring about humongous rewards, but it also poses the risk of the situation rebounding back on them, both internally and externally.


    Given the speed which the songs areposed and disseminated, as well as the high quality of the finished products, there is a very high chance that it is the doing of the And nobles. It would be difficult for other powers to amass so many musicians and ywrights to work on it, and utilise arge amount of travelling poets to spread the name of ¡®The Foolish Emperor who Envied the Gods¡¯ to the masses.


    In a country that adopts feudalism, a ruler who manages to gather great influence and power isn¡¯t something the nobles would want to see. And Empire has 2 Great Dukes, 4 Dukes and 37 Counts. Of them all, more than 70% have their own territory and subjects. All along, they have been living like kings in their ownnds.


    In the future ¡°history¡±, Darsos would sessfully amass power and look for reasons to reim back one third of the noble titles, confiscating their territories and wealth along with it. Through that, he created a powerful centralised country.


    This is something inevitable. When a monarch gains power, the nobles will be suppressed. From a certain viewpoint, the nobles of And Empire didn¡¯t do nothing wrong. They have seen through the wild ambitions of their new Emperor and had been looking for an opportunity to exploit to ovee this threat.


    On the other hand, two hours after the East Mist Communal Country made the demand to release the three, thirteen other nations made identical demands, of which, three of them have hundred years of history as And Empire¡¯s vassals.


    The identity of the three prisoners is no longer relevant at this point. The envoys of the other nations probably don¡¯t even know their names, but this did not stop them from protesting. Those ¡®innocent¡¯ unlucky fellows have already became the breach that the smaller countries were looking for to challenge the might of the And Empire. As more envoy parties receive the authorisation of their kings, many more would probably join the protesting faction.


    Without doubt, the And Empire is facing retribution for oppressing the weaker nations to serve as their vassals. No nation would willingly submit to another. After all, they would have to pay tributes to them and serve as their pawns when war breaks out. Since the situation can¡¯t get any worse, so they chose to make a gamble before the new Emperor ascends the throne.


    Without a doubt, in this period of time, Darsos¡¯s authority and pride has been challenged from both internal and external factions. But, his way of handling it is really skillful.


    Despite facing so many provocations, he remained peculiarly silent. He didn¡¯t even try to me the East Mist Communal Country for it and instead, silently fulfills the terms of the contract, sending huge amount of resources and technology to the ambassador party.


    ¡°He gave in just like that??¡±


    Reyne and Kelly were shocked, this definitely wasn¡¯t the style of that oppressive Emperor. But, in my opinion, the man hasn¡¯t changed at all. He has the standard character of a gambler. The reason why he is keeping his silence now is just to raise the stakes further.


    If he decides topromise, he could just release the three fellows. However, he is keeping abnormally silent on that matter. Right now, he is just bearing all of the pressure so as to look for an opportunity to turn the tables around in one shot.


    Fulfilling the contract is just a part of his ns. Going by our contract, if the And Empire finish giving all of the resources and technologies promised in it, then I would have to pass the keys of the secret underwater base to Darsos.


    ¡°An opportunity to turn the tables... The enthronement ceremony? If he were to bring out the Air Fleet at that moment... No, he doesn¡¯t even need the entire fleet, he only needs to bring out one. That revolutionary weapon that no one has ever seen before should be sufficient to boost his reputation and influence, allowing him to suppress the voices of dissent.¡±


    I could even guess how he would alter the programmes of the enthronement ceremony. A military parade is always the best way for one to disy their military might. After several of their armies have shown their prowess and the parade reaches the climax, the entry of the new warship would allow him to suppress those restless nobles and vassal states, granting him greater authority.


    The reason why I called the Emperor a gambler is because despite the fact that his n seems feasible, it is dangerous gamble filled with uncertainty.


    ¡°If the despairing Engineers were to destroy the creations they painstakingly built, the interior of the of the secret base will just reduced to ruins; Even if the doors are opened, if none of the ships could bepleted within three months to make it in time for the enthronement ceremony, then his efforts and resources would have gone down the drain.¡±


    In any case, his actions of fulfilling the contract in advance is beneficial to the East Mist Communal Country. However, to me, it means that I would have to speed up my ns. After all, I am interested in the treasures of the underwater base as well. At the very least, the technology for the Air Fleet can be said to be a priceless treasure that every single country desires.


    Logically speaking, there should only be one entrance to the underwater base, which is situated near an old bridge. However, thend there has already been turned into the base for the And Royal Guards. The Emperor¡¯s most trusted elite troops are often stationed there, not to mention that the area is reinforced by the SemiGod ¡®Dragon Sniper¡¯ Deimos. Even getting close to that ce is problematic, needless to say entering the underwater base.


    However, in this moment, I am diving in the river to find something else.


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s indeed here.¡±


    Despite the constant protest, the multi-purpose Meow Alien can also glow underwater, making the search for my objective more convenient.


    After two fruitless nights, I¡¯ve finally found my target. It is a stone cliff with a White Wolf Insignia sculpturetched onto it. Although it is mostly covered by seaweed and the flowing water had eroded much of it, the savageness of the wolf¡¯s head still remains lifelike.


    I carefully ce the Wolf Fang Ne on the insignia but nothing happened.


    ¡°As expected, the blood I¡¯ve taken from Darsos isn¡¯t enough. It¡¯s fortunate that I made preparations in advance.¡±


    On the pouch on my waist is a bottle of fresh blood that was just retrieved. (Darsos¡¯s father: Unfilial son. This dungeon is filled with blood-sucking rats! Piss off, smelly rats! Despite living gloriously for my entire life, will I end up dying to the mouths mere rats!)


    The blood mixes with the river water, dyeing the entire ne red. Finally, the eyes of the wolf head sculpture emits white light a dark hole opens by the wall, causing a slight change in the water level of the entire river.


    ¡°As I expected, there is an underwater entrance.¡±


    Finally, I felt the burden on my heart lift. This kind of man-made underwater base would most probably have an emergency exit. Although it is a conjecture on my part, the cave that opens up before me after the mechanism is activated has proven my conjecture.


    However, this passageway isn¡¯t very wide. It probably isn¡¯t a passageway for boats as I guessed but rather, one for the flow of water or for the movement of the workers.


    I carefully sneak into the cave and head upward along the passageway. In a few minutes, I reach the surface of the water.


    The moment my head pops out to scan the surroundings, I didn¡¯t even have the time to take a second look when I submerged my water back into the water hurriedly.


    ¡°Despite all of the possible scenarios I have thought of, I didn¡¯t expect such a conclusion.¡±


    Regardless of whether it is me or Darsos, we do not hold any expectations there to be any survivors in the base. After all, the supply of water and rations have been cut for more than a year. Even if they use the river water to quench their thirst, no matter what, they would have all died from theck of ration for an entire year.


    However, after sneaking a peek, I realise that we were all wrong. Not only were there survivors, the survivors were even working hard building the ships. On one side, by the pier, there are already two medium-sized Air Fleet berthing by the port.


    ¡°To think that it would be a fellow peer. Looking at the amount of Low-tier Undeads here, there should be an Undead Lord here.¡±


    Yes, although there are survivors, there were no living beings remaining. Those who are working hard at the pier are mostly of them are Skeletons and Zombies. Judging from how their flesh have yet to fully dpose, they should have been converted to Undeads not too long ago.


    ¡°Is it Prince Carlohin? Worsee to worse, there could be a Saint-rank Lich in there. That would be hard to deal with.¡±


    Even if I were to ignore those Undead beings, the small-scale and medium-scale magic statues who were busy working on the pier are also not easy to deal with. As an important military base of the And Empire, it is hard to imagine it wouldn¡¯t be firmly guarded to the smallest detail.


    From the intelligence in ¡®history¡¯, the future invincible Air Fleet also has a section of Ghost Fleet. Of which, the Fleet Admiral is a High-tier Lich named Carlohin. It is rumored that he is the younger brother of the previous Emperor and Darsos¡¯s uncle.


    At that moment, there were many spections why a noble Prince of arge country would end up bing a Lich. What¡¯s even more incredulous is that the King of Winter Wolves would actually hand nearly half of the Fleet over to this undying. But now, it seems that it is the Prince who handed over the Fleet to the Emperor.


    Very possibly, the seclusion from the outer world is the impetus for that great Mage to turn into a Lich. After all, when he realised that there weren¡¯t sufficient food, he can¡¯t possibly just sit idly and wait for his demise. After converting into a Lich, he wouldn¡¯t require food. Perhaps, that is the best solution then for his survival.


    I quietly remain under the water, looking around the surroundings to etch the situation in my heart before turning around to leave without a second thought.


    ¡°Since my fighting power is insufficient, I just have to bring more people with me the next time.¡±


    But, after returning to the Church, my n met with an obstacle. The top fighter among my subordinates, the Moon Knight Diana, is fated to be unable to join in this project.


    ¡°That... I grew up in an Underground City. Water is a very luxurious resource. It is already wasteful to use it for bathing. If I were to use it for swimming...¡±


    Alright, nothing more needs to be said, the excuses the residents of the Underground World have for not being able to swim is simply too persuasive.


    Also, considering the fact that a heavy armor unit like the Holy Knight depends heavily on their equipment and the impossible challenge of swimming with one¡¯s armor, even the intention to get her to give it a try dispels from my mind.


    Scanning around, Beifeng and Casio looks up at the sky, trying their best to pretend that they didn¡¯t hear our discussion. Clint remains silent, but it is obvious that he is unable to swim just by looking at that heavy armor of his. On the other hand, Momo excitedly raises her hand and sounds off.


    ¡°I am the best swimmer among the Town Security. Back then, I have practised in the fish pond in Morsblight and I am able to hold my breath underwater for a minute! I can also swim 30 meters in one breath!¡±


    Alright, what the heck is the meaning of this record of a 10 year old? I got happy too early. In the end, I turn my pleading eyes to Krose but got an apologetic reply in return.


    ¡°Lord Oracle, Wild Elves never liked water. Due to staying in the Underground World for a long period of time, I didn¡¯t even learn how to transmogrify into a seal, so...¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know how to swim.¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t rain often in the Underground World.¡±


    Looking at the bunch ofndlubbers before me, a headache starts to consume me. However, the ck cat on my shoulderughs gleefully.


    ¡°Stupid, why don¡¯t you look for a Siren. Their Race Talent, Blessing of the Sea God, allows non-swimmers to be able to swim and breath underwater for a short period of time. It is definitely more than enough.¡±


    ¡°There is only a river here. Where do I look for a Siren?¡±


    ¡°Here.¡±


    It is a piece of tattered poster. On the picture is aical clown, Twin-headed Ogre acrobat, air trapeze artist and a Siren Beast Tamer who performs with her seals.


    ¡°Fire Dragon Circus? I seem to have heard of it somewhere before.¡±

 Chapter 97

    Chapter 97: Aurora Knights


    ¡°Aurora Knights? Aren¡¯t those just legends?¡±


    In the past, there used be an order of Aurora Knights among the Royal Knights of Mist. They are the rarely seen tier-4 (Gold-rank) human troop. 300 years ago, they should have disappeared along with the Mist Country.


    But, as time passed, that legend of that order of Knights was viewed with suspicion. After all, they number only a few and they rarely left the snowy fields of the Southern Lands.


    One of the unique traits of humans are their rapid growth. But, on the other hand, due to their short lifespan and the short period in which they are at the pinnacle of their strength, the average battle power of the human kingdoms remain at a bottleneck.


    For example, grooming a mature White Wolf Knight would require at least 7 to 10 years, which means a rookie would be around 17 to 18 years old by the time they be a qualified Knight. But, by 40, many aspects of their body will begin to deteriorate so normally, the period when they are able to serve rarely exceeds 20 years. The age in which Knights tend to be of their pinnacle strength is between 28 to 35.


    Ignoring the augmentations due to equipment, arge portion of the ace troops are unable to reach tier-3. That¡¯s also where the name Silver Dignity came from. For most of the human kingdoms, a Knight who reaches the Silver-rank is eligible to be the lowest noble.


    As for those lucky ones who sessfully advances into the Gold-rank, they are given the noble title of Masters, regardless of which race or tribe theye from. This is a level that exceeds where hard work can bring one to and is fated to be the privilege of only a few geniuses.


    The God of Fate is fair. The more reliant a Warrior is to their equipment, the harder it is for them to advance on to the next rank.


    Comparing it like that, the humans are far too inferiorpared to the other races. There is totally no difficulty at all for a mature Elf to reach Silver-rank and through hard work, they can easily achieve the level of a Gold-rank. Although the Beastmen have a slower growth rate, through their outstanding basic stats and Race Talent, as long as their weapons and equipment don¡¯tck too far behind, they can easily match two humans of the same power rank.


    But, humans were still able to suppress the other races to be the dominant power of the continent. Other than their overwhelming poption, credit must also be given to their numerous andplex ssification of troops as well as their outstanding ability to craft equipment. Special breeds, elites and aces, every single mature troop have their own specialised equipment and role to y in battle.


    Through the augmentation of equipment, on average, troops that reach tier-2 (Bronze) can be the backbone military power of each countries. The White Wolf Guards, being a tier-3 troop, ys an important part for the formidable strength of the And Empire.


    The Missilor Savage Dragon Spear that they made is indestructible after infusing mana into it while the one-time use Savage Javelin that explodes after being thrown has the equal might to a full-strength attack of a Gold-rank. On the other hand, the Savage Sword which has jagged edges with mes enchanted on it serves as a fearsome body shredder. Under the augmentation of these sturdy weapons along with the unbreakable Missilor Light te and the hefty investment in these by the And Empire without any regards to the cost, this ace tier-3 light cavalry troop is born (The reason why why it is a light cavalry is because the equipment is extremely heavy. Even the specially-bred horse is unable to withstand the additional weight from putting on heavy armor, thus only light armor protecting the vitals can be worn. Despite so, this light cavalry is known to be even slower than heavy cavalry.)


    This is already at the level of an ace troop of a powerful Empire, as well as the crystallisation of the progress in alloy smelting technology in the past hundred years. Yet, it is said that 300 years ago, in a country in the frigid snowfields, there is a tier-4 heavy cavalry known as the Aurora Knights. No matter what, people would be doubtful of its existence.


    ¡°The difference between an average Gold-rank and an average Silver-rank is as great as the heavens and earth. Exactly what kind of mounts and equipment can forcefully pull a Bronze-rank Warrior all the way up to possess the strength of a Gold-rank. Could they be Dragon Knights? With 100 of such Knights, one could dominate the whole world.¡±


    ¡°However, based on the information and a sample of their equipment that the other party sent over, our primary analysis has shown that the full strength of an Aurora Knight is of tier-4 standard.¡±


    Darsos opens his mouth in incredulity. It is hard to believe that they would send such a top-tier military secret just like that.


    During negotiations, Rnd had indeed jokingly mentioned that he would use the Aurora Knights to trade for the three great tier-3 troops of the And Empire, including the White Wolf Guards in the mix. However, in reality, the existence of the Aurora Knights has been viewed with suspicion all this while. If they really exist, their value would indeed be above that of the three tier-3 troops, so they only treated it as a joke.


    Thus, Darsos agreed to it without any hesitation. He even said that if the other party was willing to exchange such information, they would be willing to provide a thousand sets of sample equipment for the three great tier-3 troops each.


    This was just a verbal promise made jokingly. After all, even if the Aurora Knights were to really exist, they should have disappeared in the annals of history. If not, the East Mist Communal Country wouldn¡¯t be meeting with defeat after defeat, causing their strength as a country to diminish continuously.


    However, they actually really sent the information of the troop along with a sample during their toughest moments. What kind of situation is this? Are they using another method to disy their submission to the And Empire?


    Darsos delightfully questions:


    ¡°Where is it? Have you tested it yet?¡±


    Very quickly, when the sample is brought to him, Darsos¡¯s delighted face immediately freezes.


    That is indeed an elegant and artistic te mail. The thickness and bulkiness of it didn¡¯t cause the artistic value of it to lower. The sharp spikes on the armor apparently aren¡¯t just to entuate the aesthetics of the armor. The frigid air that surrounds the armor smells of magic.


    But... That equipment is melting. A puddle of water is already umting in its surroundings.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this an ice sculpture? How can it be an equipment!¡±


    ¡°Based on the information that the other party sent over, the armor of the Auroroa Knights is made using a special kind of ice. Based on the tests we conducted, before the special mana infused in it subsides, the hardness of this ice armor is actually 3 times of our Missilor alloy despite being just a quarter of its mass.¡±


    ¡°Also, the mount of the Aurora Knight is an apparition lifeform that is known as the Frigid Nightmare. It is stated very clearly in the information that the Mist Bloodline had made a contract with them for them to provide a batch of its youths every 2 decades to serve as the mounts of the Aurora Knights. This kind of umtion can be rued and they should have umted quite a sum of their youths throughout the past 300 years. That is to say, the East Mist Communal Country has at least a Knight Order of that level as its trump card.¡±


    At that moment, realisation strikes Darsos.


    This can be considered as a friendly gesture as well as a disy of might. The frost armor of the Aurora Knights and their spiritual mounts are obviously a unique product of the South. It is very probable that they might be unable to leave the Southernnds but if they were to meet with an invasion...


    ¡°No wonder the alliance formed by over a dozen of countries would meet with such heavy losses. Is the frost armor and its blueprint helpful to us?¡±


    ¡°It is extremely helpful. Although there are many ws in it, it is probably the pinnacle if what a human troop could hope to reach. As long as we are able to digest the theory behind this blueprint, our White Wolf Guards would be able to take one step forward. It is even possible that it might give rise to a new tier-3 troop.¡±


    Nodding his head, Darsos hesitates for a moment beforeing to a conclusion.


    ¡°Pass the information of the information of our troops with the exception of the White Wolf Guards to her and promise her that we would pass the information of the White Wolf Guards to her after 3 years. Also, to express our good intentions, open our trade channels to them. Right, treat the three fellows better as well. Perhaps, the reappearance of the Twin Stars may cause the East Mist Communal Country to rise once again... Right, ask her whether she is willing to have dinner with me tonight as well.¡±


    Not longter, while rejecting the embarrassing invitation, I am quite satisfied with the ¡®presents; that Darsos sent over.


    The Aurora Knights indeed exists. In fact, they were the main powerhouse of the previous Royal Knights of the Mist Royalty. But, it is a pity that the Contract Altar with the Frigid Nightmares is in the coldest region of the Southern Lands which is is no longer part of the territory of the Mist Country. It won¡¯t be an easy feat returning it to this world.


    The frost armor is actually an imitation from the coboration of me and the Queen of Banshees. The true Aurora Heavy Armor requires the power of the Frigid Nightmares and it doesn¡¯t melt that easily. In order to prevent the wearer from being frozen into an ice cube, it requires a contract to be established between the wearer and this ice element apparition-like lifeform. The true Aurora Knight is indeed a powerful tier-4 troop but the requirement for such a contract to be established is that the Knight has to be at least tier-3 pinnacle.


    To the other races, Silver-rank pinnacle may mean nothing but to the humans, it is already a height which mortals might be unable to reach within their lifespan. This is also the reason why the Aurora Knights are unable to be a standard troop. However, if a war were to really ur, as long as I have a hundred Aurora Knights in my hands, I wouldn¡¯t even lift an eyebrow at the sight of a thousand members of the White Wolf Guards.


    Of course, given the rate how a hundred youths of the Frigid Nightmare is supplied to us every 2 decades, the Aurora Knights has never been filled to its capacity before. However, just thinking of how no contract was established in thest 300 years, how there should be at least 1500 Frigid Nightmares waiting for the summons of the Knights in the South, I can¡¯t help but want to rush there to reim our stolennd.


    As for the information I supplied to the And Empire, I don¡¯t believe that he could recreate the Aurora Knights simply through those things. However, the information of the weapons we received in exchange can bring the Alchemy industry of the East Mist, which iscking behind the current times by 200 years, to greater heights. That is what that is important.


    Besides, since I have pped him soundly on his face, there is a need to provide him with some benefits. Contracts are not omnipotent. Standing on the direct opposite of the And Empire isn¡¯t something good. Besides, the type of enemy that are the hardest to deal with is those whose stand isn¡¯t clear. On the contrary, those who stand clearly in the enemy faction are easier to deal with.


    At this moment, I didn¡¯t have the attention to deal with these troublesome matters. The Knightds in front of me are full of strength but obviously, they had been living a pampered life before. They are alreadyining despite it not being long since the training started.


    ¡°Bite your teeth and hang on. When this final training is finished, you all will get your lunch.¡±


    What is unfolding before me is, without doubt, a scene of a tragedy of the mortal world. Under the assault by a bunch of wild dogs, the young Knights, whose hands were tied up, were squeezing out the final ooze of their stamina to escape from their sharp fangs.


    On the other side, Diana is currently supervising Princess Reyne¡¯s swordsmanship training and every single blow of hers has some kind of profoundness to it.


    The Frigid Nightmare is indeed a product unique to the Southern Lands. Physically, it is a soul being. When the Knight it is linked with dies in battle, if it doesn¡¯t chose to return back to the great snow mountains, it would slowly descend into a longa in one of that Knight¡¯s relics.


    If apatible Knight were to meet with such a relic, there is a possibility that he might be able to awaken that soul being and be a new Aurora Knight. If the new generation of Knight has blood ties with the deceased Knight, the possibility of forming a contract would be increased significantly.


    This is also the only other way for the Order of Aurora Knights to expand their numbers other than the regr supply of Frigid Nightmares. I still have quite a number of this kind of relics from previous Aurora Knights in my hands. Initially, I didn¡¯t intend to take them out at all but after hearing from Kelly that most of the Royal Knights who escorted Reyne here are descendants of the previous generation of Aurora Knights, the thought pops into my mind.


    ¡°5 Silver-rank pinnacle while the rest of you are just Silver-rank primary stage and Bronze-rank pinnacle. This won¡¯t do.¡±


    Even if I reallyck fighting power right now, but to be a noble Aurora Knight, having just the right bloodline isn¡¯t sufficient. If they were to want to inherit the honor and strength of their ancestors, they would have to at least show me their determination or at the very least, prove that they have a resilient life force.


    Thus, these few days, these Knights werepletely unfortunate.


    Right afterpleting the test on the limits of their stamina, the lunch they anticipated didn¡¯te but instead, a new test appears right before them.


    ¡°AH CHOO!!¡±


    ¡°Big Sister, stop sshing water on us! We have all caught the cold, there¡¯s no way to treat a cold in summer!¡±


    But, after receiving my approval, Momo threw another bottle of ice water on them without any hesitation at all. Immediately, the two of the young men¡¯s face turn white. Right before they are about to roll their eyes and faint, someone heads over and ¡®pah pah pah¡¯, ps them awake before throwing them into the ice bath.


    Perhaps finding it hard to bear such a sight of harshness, Kelly silently walks over and whispers softly in my ear.


    ¡°Meditating on the tip of a sword, walking on burning charcoal, escaping from frenzied dogs and bathing in ice water right after they worked out a sweat. Is such a training method effective? I only see these kids on the verge of dying, I don¡¯t really see them improving. Back then, Feyde didn¡¯t train them like that.¡±


    ¡°No matter how they are trained, the end point is still to force them to ovee their limits. When they find themselves treading the boundaries of death a few more times, they will break through their bottleneck. Rest assured, I received the most traditional Royal Knight Training back then.


    Kelly nods her head although it is hard to tell by her expression whether she really believes my words. Turning around, she barely walked a few steps when she seems to recall something and came running back hurriedly.


    ¡°I almost got fooled by you. Back then, you went off to be a Holy Knight when you were just 10, so how could you possibly undergo theplete Royal Knight training? At most, you were only taught basic swordsmanship.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, I am the legendary teacher who taught out a SemiGod. My way of teaching definitely isn¡¯t inferior to the conventional method in any ways. So, just rest assured. Look, didn¡¯t Reyne break through the Bronze-rank after undergoing my trainings?¡±


    Reyne¡¯s unexpected breakthrough is indeed something to rejoice over and that fact made my argument even more persuasive. Kelly didn¡¯t go on about it.


    But, what she doesn¡¯t know is that I am full of doubt as well.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t they breaking through? Didn¡¯t that fellow Adam somehow broke through like that back then? Why don¡¯t I try making them meditate under the waterfall, beat them into a half-death state for them to experience the cosmos or tie a ton of weights on them to train their will? Un, let¡¯s try them 1 by 1 then. As long as they don¡¯t die, there would surely be a day that they will break through. Oh right, it is said that bungee-jumping is also a way to stimte one¡¯s potential. Extreme hunger too, let¡¯s just deprive them of their dinner for 10 days.¡±


    A certain day, Annie asked Adam why Adam didn¡¯t teach him but rather, only imparted basic techniques to her before sending her off to adventure the outside world alone to gain some experience. Back then, Adam hesitated for a long time beforeing up with an answer that makes me at a loss of whether tough or cry.


    ¡°I really don¡¯t know how I can teach you. If I were to use what we did back then, I think that you would most probably die your zodiac isn¡¯t a cockroach. Right, by no means should you ever look for your Uncle Bones to learn martial arts from, definitely don¡¯t do it. Also, when he says that phrase, don¡¯t hesitate, run as far as you can.¡±


    ¡°That phrase?¡±


    ¡°Un, ¡®new idea¡¯.¡±


    At this moment, a sudden ingenious inspiration strikes me.


    ¡°Ah choo! Who is talking bad about me? Right,ds, I have a new idea. Why don¡¯t we try the racing with the horse game? You tie yourself to the horse and p the horse on its back, allowing the horse to pull you along on its run. What? You¡¯re afraid that you can¡¯t catch up? If you can¡¯t catch up, you will just get pulled on the ground for a few times. You all should be catch up with it soon enough. Back that, that fool and I used a raptor, you know. Its speed for short distance running is much faster than warhorses. But, raptors are difficult to find here so I can only use warhorses as a recement.¡±


    ¡°We might die...¡±


    ¡°We will definitely die!¡±


    But, it is a pity that their Princess has already handed them all over to the hands of the devil. No matter what, they can only follow through to the end.


    ¡°I have another good idea. It is said that carving a tattoo on one¡¯s chest will awaken one¡¯s potential. Why don¡¯t we give it a try?¡±


    A few yearster, when the first generation of Aurora Knight reminisce the past, tears would start flowing down their face. Whenever the word ¡®trainer¡¯ is mentioned, they would instinctively start to tremble. Some of them would bring tidbits everywhere. Some of them would shake in fear whenever they see ice and Dark Elves. Some of them would start catching cold when summeres and be cured of it the moment winter sets...


    One of the thing which people found the most incredulous about this group of powerful founding Knights is that each of them has a tattoo on their chest. For some of them, it is a tiger while for the others, it is an elephant. However, for the most of them, they have seven bizarre scars over there.


    TL: Fist of North Star, Kenshiro.


    ¡°You are already dead! My life is without regrets!¡±


    This is their most despair-inducing war cry to their enemies. The self-confidence and fearlessness of death from the war cry motivated the future generations of Knights to imitate it.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    In this generation where entertainment is sorelycking, especially for normal peasants, a travelling circus arrives at a town and starts to put up their tent, sound their gongs and distribute flyers. This is like a festival for that little town, bringing great joy to little children.


    But, for that circus, moving between cities tend to be unsafe, not to mention that their daily jobs are tough. There are rich merchants and nobles who find circuses low-ss and vulgar. Yet, if they were to cater mainly to the normal peasants, they would find it hard to make good money. Thus, it is often difficult for them to retain talents.


    This is why the history for typical circuses are short. Many of them disband within 3 to 5 years. Even if they were to asionally be popr for a moment due to the introduction of a certain interesting and novel program, due to the inflexibility of their management system, they would still meet with difficulties some time in the future and disband eventually.


    The Fire Dragon Circus is a long-standing circus with hundred years of history behind it. Just like the other new stars who were radiant for a period of time, they are also undergoing a period of downfall.


    Initially, this reputable circus was supposed to perform during the enthronement ceremony. This is a hard-toe-by opportunity for their big circus. If their name were to spread far and wide from it, they might even be able to hold regr performances at some theater or establish a long-term employment contract with some great nobles. This would release them from their fate of wandering about and anchor them to shore. However, just when the group was happily nning for their future, they met with an ident.


    First was the original circus master as well as the trapeze artist Isoro getting injured in the midst of training. Then, a series of training-rted idents follows by, causing them to be unable to operate temporarily. Seeing how the inauguration is just by the corner, theirpetitor, Fetero Circus and Soaring Wing Musical came to poach their people. Two of their three aces left. What¡¯s more, the Siren Tamer who remained brought big trouble for the circus.


    Seeing how they are unable to conduct even regr performances, the circus that was passed down within the family for 3 generations is on the verge of copsing, the heavily-injured Isoro almost died from anger. But, just before he went fully into aa, he passed the role of the circus master to the immature little Milor.


    But, even though Milor tried his best to sustain this family business, even when the old members were trying their best in the performances and even took the initiative to im a lower sry, the day of their disbandment still slowly approaches.


    But, today is a happy day. A rich investor is actually offering to finance the Fire Dragon Circus. Little Milor is overjoyed.


    ¡°Nice to meet you, esteemeddy. May I have the honor of knowing your name? Are you married? Oh, that¡¯s great. Can I have the pleasure of enjoying dinner with you today?¡±


    After walking into the tent with a big pool inside, Milor frowns upon hearing that deep and strong voice.


    The Siren Tracy might be one of the pirs propping up the circus, but her own natural charms has also brought countless trouble to the circus.


    ¡°This customer here, the circus is currently not in its operational hours, so I beseech you not to disturb our circus members... Ah?¡±


    After walking over to the pool, the sight that unfolds before him left him dumbfounded. The beautiful Siren stands dumbfounded at one side while the ones engaged in a conversation is a Dracon and a seal.


    At the same time, a golden-haired Holy Knight walks over with a smile on his face.


    ¡°Morning, Lord Milor. I am Rnde. There are some things which I would like to discuss with you about. It involves arge sum of money. Are you interested?¡±

 Chapter 98

    Chapter 98: Trade


    A white-colored fox walks out from the shadows. Emaciated, he hasn¡¯t been able to catch any prey for the past few days.


    The reason? Dressed in luxurious and expensive furs, he and his pack have met with their most dangerous enemy recently.


    ¡°Bang! I found the prey!¡±


    Alright, after the sound of a gunshot from a Dwarf¡¯s rifle, a certain white wolf abruptly falls to the ground.


    A short figure walks out from the trees. Despite being shrouded in weeds, he¡¯s in his peak condition, apparently excited over catching such rare prey.


    However, what happens immediately afterwards is the burst of rms and sirens all around his surroundings.


    ¡°How dare you, to dare poach on the privatends of Count Carlock. Back then, you killed the Aspen dog that the Count doted on and now, you dare to kill the snow fox that the Countess is fond of? You must be courting death!¡±


    Alright, appearing right after the furious roar is over a hundred of raging guards.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡°He got caught due to poaching? The legendary sniper?¡±


    Initially, I intended to set forth to the Fire Dragon Circus alone. However, even before I stepped out of the mansion, I met that Dracon who was already prepared and ready to set off.


    ¡°Thank you for your care in recent times. I am afraid I will have to leave for a period of time.¡±


    To say the truth, hearing Beifeng bidding his farewell, I feel as though I have eaten two pounds of apples in one mouthful and a band starts ying in my mind. I couldn¡¯t suppress the ecstasy I¡¯m feeling.


    ¡°You are leaving? That¡¯s... cough cough, how regretful.¡±


    Being stared at by Casio¡¯s resentful eyes, I could only change my words helplessly.


    ¡°Un, there is a grudge that I have to settle.¡±


    After putting on his windbreaker, the Dracon intends to leave but Casio stops him.


    ¡°Big Brother, you can tell me if you have enemies, I will help you. Setting forth alone like that, aren¡¯t you being too formal with me? Do you not treat me as your brother?¡±


    ¡°Casey, it is because I regard you as my brother that I don¡¯t want to involve you in it. This is my personal grudge.¡±


    ¡°Say no more, I have already made my decision. I am clear of the grudges between HHA and that organisation. Originally, I was sided towards the HHA but after interacting with you these few days, I started to understand how precious life is. So, I¡¯ve decided to choose that organisation.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t make sense of what they were talking about, but the newspaper on the table seems to be the culprit of his decision.


    ¡¾HHA¡¯s£¨Happy Hunting Association£©ace Hunter Lowens Bronzehammer will be performing his ultimate technique of Hundred Feets Piercing. We wee all hunter friends to join in themotion and exchange their hunting experiences.¡¿


    ¡°No, this won¡¯t do. It¡¯s enough to have a weirdo like me in this world. If you were to join the Kindness Association, you will be mocked by all the hunters in the world.¡±


    ¡°...Mocked? Hehe, Big Brother, didn¡¯t you tell me that as long as you walk on the path that you think is right, mockery and disdain are just the faces of the ignorant. Big Brother, say no more. I will definitely join the Kindness Association. I will be interfering in this conflict of yours!¡±


    ¡°Since you¡¯ve made up your mind, then I will say no more. Come, let¡¯s work together and bring a better tomorrow for cute little animals...¡±


    Looking at the sight in front of me which is turning gay all of the sudden, I quickly understood what was happening. The Kindness Association is the short form of the ¡®Animal Kindness Druid Association¡¯ and in arge number of countries, it¡¯s treated the same as the Celestial Tower, an unweed organisation filled with lunatics.


    Just as mentioned before, Druids are born connected to the word ¡®terrorist¡¯. The Kindness Association stands out even among its brethren. Their motto is even more extreme than the Wild Bull Alliance¡¯s ¡®Reject clothes and return back to our origins¡¯. What they hope to achieve is that ¡®All animals should be granted the equal privilege as intelligent lifeforms¡¯.


    It sounds great but if you were to think deeper into it, if the chickens and ducks that you consume have equal privileges as you, then in the eyes of the Kindness Association, wouldn¡¯t eating meat make you a murderer? Alright, towards ¡®murderers¡¯, the Kindness Association will show you clearly what the wrath of nature is.


    No doubt, this is too extreme for others to ept. Can you imagine a certain peasant being dealt a harsh punishment by the Kindness Association for eating meat and drinking beer in public? After some of their members injured civilians in public locations, they got into deep trouble and the Kindness Association became generally rejected by the public.


    Of course, such extremists only number a few even within the Kindness Association. Arge portion of the Kindness Association members are still able to tolerate others ingesting meat for due survival. However, they are unable to ept it when others hunt beyond what they require for subsistence.


    Thus, the Kindness Association sees the HHA as their sworn enemy. As an organisation formed by a group of people who hunts as an interest, arge portion of their members are outstanding hunters. They view hunting down strong or rare animals as the goal of their life. Due to the sh in their ideals, they became mortal enemies.


    At this point, I¡¯m totally shocked.


    As a Hunter, it¡¯s already surprising for Beifeng to not join the HHA. To think that he would even join the Kindness Association which is mainlyprised of Druids. What does he really intend to do? He even influenced Casio, who is a sniper, to join the Kindness Association along with him. This is really incredulous.


    Alright, end of the recollection. Since our goals align with one another, we naturally banded together.


    After reaching our destination, Beifeng is surprised to find that his mortal enemy caught and is in the royal family prison. What is even more unexpected is him taking the initiative to try to save him.


    ¡°I have a grudge with that guy, Lowens. One of my intimate lovers died under his spear. We have crossed blows for 6 times and the current score is 3 wins and 3 losses. Since our paths happen to cross on the Surface, then perhaps, it is a sign for us to settle the score once and for all. Even if he is destined to be punished and die from the sins that he havemitted throughout his lifetime, I should be the one to bring down this divine retribution onto him and end his sinful life.¡±


    I shall not point out why your intimate lover would die under the spear of a hunter but Casio, why are you so touched by his story? It makes others at a loss for word.


    ¡°Dracon, you should be Beifeng.Herault that Lowens once mentioned. This is my first time meeting a man who overlooks my presence, not bad.¡±


    Indeed, Siren Tracy has the right to say such words. Sirens are a symbol of beauty in legends. The stories of Sirens and sailors are ssics that survived the trial of time, often by word of mouth in bars. The woman in front of me, Tracy, is tall and elegant. There is a certain charm and attractiveness to her beautifully shaped face. Her green scales and dull-yellow iris doesn¡¯t destroy the bnce of her face by any means. If anything, it adds a kind of exotic touch to it.


    Her weird and shaky voice somehow carries a seductive tone to it. Sirens are born attractive. Their voices can confuse the ships sailing in the ocean and cajole young sailors to jump into the sea. It is no surprise that she would be one of the pirs propping up the circus.


    Judging from Casio¡¯s expression as he sneaked peeks towards her asionally, the cold beauty is indeed full of charms. Besides, this young Centaur has yet to walk too far on the road of life.


    ¡°Lowens mentioned me? What did he say?¡±


    ¡°Are you sure you want me to say those words here? It seems that you have a little friend over here too.¡±


    Her chuckle under the cover of her hands looks unspeakably seductive. Casio¡¯s eyes are firmly affixed on her whereas Beifeng¡¯s gaze remains fixated on the body of the female seal.


    If we allow Beifeng to carry on with the farce, I would be no longer to achieve my purposeing here. Thus, I took over the conversation and started talking about the important matter at hand.


    ¡°Blessing of the Sea God? I am able to cast it and even upped its tier before. I can make 10ndlubbers into swimming masters capable of breathing underwater. But, using this skill depletes my strength significantly. Why should I help you?¡±


    Alright, it is the time for the bargaining to begin.


    Initially, I thought that I only had to spend a bit of money to help the Fire Dragon Circus out of its precarious situation. However, I didn¡¯t expect that the Siren would have a different thought process than that of humans. She doesn¡¯t care about this circus at all, she is only staying here due to her promise to the previous previous previous circus master, as well as to assume a convenient identity for her to live in the human world.


    Different from the Mermaids who have a good reputation, Sirens are known to be fickle-minded and deceitful. The reason why she rejected the poaching of the other circuses without any hesitation is because the benefits those humans offered her doesn¡¯t mean anything in her eyes and that she finds moving a chore. Right now, since someone has a favor to request of her, it is basically impossible to get her to work without paying a price.


    ¡°Two things. Help me get rid of one person and save one person. If you ept my request, I will help you.¡±


    ¡°The person to save is Lowens right? Who is the one you want me to get rid of?¡±


    ¡°Lowens is my old friend. He is the one who invited me here to help and it isn¡¯t right for me tond him in jail. As for the one to get rid of, it is a hateful person who doesn¡¯t know his ce, a foolish weakling. He seems to be a noble among you humans.¡±


    ¡°This customer, the circus is currently not in its operational hours, so I beseech you not to disturb our circus members... Ah?¡±


    Perhaps, our negotiation has caught the attention of others. The circus master of the Fire Dragon Circus, Milor, appears.


    Initially, since we are have came to an agreement privately, the affairs of the circus shouldn¡¯t concern me then. However, considering that this circus could possibly be performing during the inauguration ceremony, I might be able to y a trick or two through them. Thus, I turn my attention towards owning this circus.


    But, what is surprising is that someone has beat me to it.


    ¡°Lord Knight, Count Carlock has already decided to invest in this circus. He will being to take a look today.¡±


    Count Carlock? This name sounds a little familiar. At the same time, Tracy whispers into my ear.


    ¡°He is the man that I want to get rid of. He keeps harassing me, not to mention how hateful he is. As long as you save Lowens and stop that guy from harassing me, the Blessing of the Sea God would be just a minor issue.¡±


    I hesitate slightly. Since we would be breaking into the jail, saving Lowens would be convenient, so it isn¡¯t anything much. However, it is obviously not wise to offend a Count in the capital of the And Empire. Rather than going one big round, it seems that using strength to force this Siren to submit may be more efficient.


    ¡°I...¡±


    ¡°I want to see who is the one who dares to steal my woman!¡±


    Just as I wanted to reject her offer, an arrogant voice echoes from the entrance of the tent. Somehow, that voice sounded very familiar.


    After a few seconds, a panting plump man walks over from the entrance.


    ¡°Who is the one who dare snatch the woman I have set my eyes... AH!¡±


    I was just thinking why that name sounded so familiar. No wonder, it is an acquaintance.


    ¡°It is the Count with broken eggs.¡±


    ¡°No, it is obviously Count Egg.¡±


    ¡°No matter what, he is still a Count. You must be respectful! The Count with half an egg, have you eaten? To think that you could be flirting around, the Priest that you hired must be pretty good.¡±


    Alright, ignoring the Count whose face steels but is afraid tosh out, I turn my sight to the surprised Tracy.


    ¡°Un, we ept your conditions. Let us first postpone the issue about saving Lowens, we need your assistance first.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡°I want to be a Mage. I want to be an apprentice of a real great Mage. If you can make my wishe true, I will pass the sword that my grandfather left behind to you.¡±


    When I found Kane¡¯s granddaughter, I have no idea how I should persuade this youngdy who resolutely wants to be a Mage despiteing from a family with a line of Knight heritage.


    ¡°Knight? My grandfather is one of the Knights whoe under the direct control of the royal family, a respected famous Legend Holy Knight. But, how did he end? My father risked his life fighting for the royal family just to restore the honor of my grandfather. In the end, he died on the battlefield and what did he earn? Just the broken armor and weapon that grandfather left behind.¡±


    Kane¡¯s son, Slork Solia, for the honor of his father, stepped on the road as a Knight as well. Back then, when the royal family was impressed by the loyalty of the Solia family, they passed Kane¡¯s previous weapon and armor to Slork. However, before Slork could aplish his goal of regaining the honor of his father, a new war broke out. In the end, the only things that returned back to the Solia family were 2 Knight armors and swords.


    ¡°So, do you want it or not? If it wasn¡¯t for you helping to pay for my school fees previously, I wouldn¡¯t have brought up such an offer in the first ce. No matter what, they are relics left behind by a legendary character, so they should be able to fetch quite a price.¡±


    Recalling the Heroic Spirit of Kane, I couldn¡¯t help but shake my head. I can understand the rationale behind Kathleen¡¯s thoughts. After all, very few of the seniors who walk on the road of the Knight has ended up well. Even if they were a renowned Knight family in the past, it is understandable that the new generation don¡¯t want to carry on the heritage. But, to the older generation, for the armor and weapon of the Knight which represents their honor to be sold like an antique, that is far too much for them to ept.


    ¡°Uncle, your equipment aren¡¯t bad so you should have connections. Introduce a Mage to me, a Silver-rank Mage would do. If not, a Bronze-rank would suffice as well.¡±


    Her demands are really not very high. But, as the inheritor of the family of a Legend Holy Knight, isn¡¯t there something wrong with the situation?


    Indeed, I can introduce a Mage to her. The Incantationers from the Church that followed Krose are Gold-rank Mages and they would definitely satisfy her request. But, at this instant,paring her to the Rain Swallow Sword who is also a woman but is adamant to bring honor back to her family, I really don¡¯t feel like introducing them to her.


    ¡°Give me your hand. Rx.¡±


    Kathleen follows my orders and the information that appears makes me click my tongue in surprise.


    ¡¾Kathleen Solia


    Race: DemiElf


    Job: LV14 Alchemist


    Strength: 9


    Agility: 11


    Stamina: 8


    Intelligence: 14


    Will: 12


    Charm: 14


    Race Talent: None¡¿


    Her other stats are still normal but her identity as a DemiElf is a very big problem. Most likely, Slork found an Elf wife eventually and had a DemiElf daughter. Even if he died early in life, he could already be considered a winner in life. Furthermore, Elves are borncking in strength and it is indeed unsuitable for her to walk on the path of a Knight.


    Looking at her hair which intentionally covers her ears and thews directed towards the nobles of this country, I roughly get her situation.


    ¡°DemiElf, if I am able to fix your natural weak strength, are you willing to be a Knight?¡±


    Hearing my words, Kathleen covers her ears and steps backward with a look of astonishment on her face. She was very confident in her disguise and didn¡¯t expect for it to be seen through in an instant.


    ¡°Cough, don¡¯t worry. I know that you would lose your nobility if your identity as a DemiElf gets exposed. I am not trying to ckmail you so, un, consider it for a bit. If you are willing to sign a contract with me to turn into a Magic Girl... Oh, willing to be a Knight, then find me, I will introduce a good Knight trainer to you. At the very least, you won¡¯t sully the glorious name of Solia. Of course, if you still insist on walking the path of a Magician, I will introduce a Gold-rank great Mage to you as well. However, that would be truly a deal that way. If so, don¡¯t expect me to settle what happens in the future .¡±


    ps£º°×ºüÀêͬѧ£¬ÁúÌ׺ÍÊ·ÉÏ×î¿ì±ãµ±Í¬Ê±Ë͵½£¬Ï£ÍûÄãϲ»¶¡£


    In case you all are wondering who Kathleen and Kane is, Kane is the ghost Knight who wields Pale Justice. He is the one who Rnd searched for when he wanted to find a sword, the one who chose to save a vige from a magic beast instead of protecting a fort (asmanded by his superior) and lost his honor as a result for going against his orders.


    Kathleen, as mentioned, is his granddaughter.


    <i>¡°As a Hunter, it is already surprising for Beifeng to not join the HHA.¡±</i>


    TL: I know I trante Beifeng¡¯s job as Beast Tamer but in reality, it is Beast King Hunter. Well, truthfully, he is closer to a Beast Tamer than a Beast Hunter and I thought it wouldn¡¯t affect the story much.


    <i>¡°Blessing of the Sea God? I am able to cast it and even upped its tier before.¡±</i>


    TL: Upped its tier as in, just like how they can rise from a Silver-rank to Gold-rank, I think abilities can also be ¡®upgraded¡¯.


    Side rant: He really likes to change his POV every single chapter. Back then, when I was reading, because the jump in between chapters are too great (at least for the introduction part), I always suspect if I skipped a chapter.

 Chapter 99

    Chapter 99: The Unexpected Attacker


    In the dark veil of the night, a silhouette was running.


    Sometimes, he is climbing up walls using ropes. Sometimes, he is leaping from roof to roof. Sometimes, he is darting through dark sewers. Whenever a passers-by turns towards the origin of a sound, most would only see the aftershadow of a ck cape.


    The sentries that appear every 10 steps are meaningless to him. The life-threatening traps and spikes only make himugh. The patrols who watch to and fro are only decorations in his eyes. As for the hounds who were equipped with steel braces... Un, they attracted his attention. Looking at their figures, he was stunned and almost forgot about his mission.


    Un, he is the justice of the night, the bane of sinners, the undying hero ¡ª Batman... Cough, I almost misspoke. Un, that¡¯s right, he is the legendary hero of wild animals, Beifeng.Herault.


    At this moment, after reaching the interiors of the jail, he immediately puts on the Sewage Cloak and turns into a little rat. Then, he struts proudly into the jail.


    The And royal family jail is well-protected. An Eye of Truth gazes from the top of the solid city walls, rendering the illusions of any trespassers useless. On the top of the hulking Mage Tower, sentries change shifts every 24 hours and keep watch round the clock.


    But, it¡¯s a pity that the legendary unique Sewage Cloak changes one¡¯s physical form, causing the user¡¯s very cells and body structure to be that of a rat. This isn¡¯t something that the 6-circle Detection Magic could notice. Very possibly, the only way to tell the difference between him and a rat is through checking his soul.


    As expected, despite numerous rays of light sweeping past him, there was no reaction at all.


    However, the animals guarding the jail noticed this invader.


    ¡°AHA, look at my rat karate! You bunch of rookies aren¡¯t even equal to my four turtle students! To think you would dare to challenge this old man here, you all are courting death!¡±


    After transmogrifying, the Beast Tamer¡¯s natural aura which makes animals feel intimate with him has been rendered ineffective. Facing a powerful enemy, the rat actually stands up on its hind legs and performs a set of elegant martial arts moves.


    After a series of fist-throwing and leg-kicking, the cats and dogs who came assaulting him were all knocked faint-headed. One pitiful eagle even lost over half of its feathers, making it resemble a chicken with hair loss problems. But, what was most surprising of all is that none of the animals were injured even in the slightest.


    As he advances ahead, he deals promptly with whatever is sent his way. Nothing could stop his steps. Very quickly, he found his objective.


    ¡°...That DaVinci, his face was red like an apple after hearing our songs. What, he¡¯s not called DaVinci? Oh, I think I recall it, he¡¯s called Darwin right? That¡¯s not it? Hmph, who cares what he is called. Anyway, he¡¯s just a foolish emperor who¡¯s jealous of the capable. Right, let us toast to the generosity of that foolish king.¡±


    ¡°Toast to the generosity of that foolish emperor! I remember that he seems to be called Uncle Dawen?¡±


    ¡°Cheers! Who cares what he is called. Say, despite scolding him so harshly, he still sent good food and drinks down here to us, don¡¯t you all think that he might actually like being insulted?¡±


    ¡°Hah, well-said! To the Darwin who likes being insulted, cheers!¡±


    Darsos kindly ordered for better treatment for these few ¡®political criminals¡¯. But, it seems that they didn¡¯t appreciate his kind will. Despite receiving good meat and good beer, they still insulted him as they pleased.


    As their beer mugs sh together, the beer froth carrying the rich scent of the beer stters on the floor, causing a series of sighs and salivation from the other prisoners. But, no one dares say anything about it.


    When they just entered, the other prisoners wanted to make use of that opportunity to threaten these short fellows to hand over their rations. However, after a ¡®friendly interaction¡¯, they quickly understood that these short fellows aren¡¯t to be trifled with.


    However, the appearance of a ck rat caused the passionate scene to abruptly halt for a split moment. Then, the three of them silently finished their beer before lying down to sleep.


    But, by Hoyle ears, a secretmunication is currently going on.


    ¡°Has the date been confirmed?¡±


    ¡°The date of the inauguration of that foolish emperor? Indeed, arge portion of their manpower should be on standby during the inauguration ceremony. We could make use of that opportunity to cause a big mess.¡±


    ¡°Is this the remote control for our Rnd No.88? Hah, with this, we can directly demolish the walls to escape.¡±


    ¡°Is this the meeting point after the escape? You all sure have it nned out properly. Lowens? Oh, that gray-haired Shield Dwarf. I get it, we¡¯ll bring him out along with us.¡±


    ¡°The codeword is ¡®Transformers, roll out!¡¯. I really don¡¯t get that codeword. However, as soon as we hear this codeword, we will make sure to cause a great mess.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, this time, we have to make that foolish Emperor know that even an old dog has fangs. Dwarves may be short but if you force us into a corner, we can still jump up to smash his knee!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    ¡¾Pale Justice¡¿


    ¡¾Attack Power: 20-25. Tier: Epic (Superior)¡¿


    ¡¾Two-handed Sword


    Prerequisite: Strength 12+, Holy Knight Job¡¿


    ¡¾Ultimate Sacred mes: Deal additional 30 Silver Inferno damage to Chaos lifeforms. To normal lifeforms, deal additional 5 Silver Inferno damage.¡¿


    ¡¾Perfect Courage: Immunity to all fear-rted magic, death-rted magic, race talents and abilities. The wielder will always be in a state of high morale. This effect can be shared with 3 party members.¡¿


    ¡¾High Tier Protection from Evil: The damage dealt from Chaos lifeforms will be reduced by 10 points.¡¿


    ¡¾The Judgement of Justice: Activate the Soul Gemstone¡¯s judgement ability. When this sacred sword strikes on a Chaos being, the target will be forced to undergo Judgement. If the target fails to pass the Judgement, the target will be directly destroyed thoroughly. Duration: 10 minutes. This ability can be used 3 times daily.¡¿


    Before me, the silver sacred sword emits a very slight silver light thatprise the Holy Light of Order. After receiving the original body of the sword, the sacred sword finally reverts back to its original form.


    Although this Sacred Sword is still unable to reach Legend-tier, as long as it is facing Chaos lifeforms such as Undeads and Demons, it would have the might equivalent to a God Equipment. Of course, if the other party is just an ordinary human, then this would just be like any other Elite-tier weapon.


    I can already foresee that among the enemies I would face, Undeads and Demons will not becking, so I am still quite satisfied with it personally. But, it is a pity that the enemies I am facing now do not fall under such category.


    ¡°Darn it! Why would there be Fishmen in the river! Sea Beasts as well!¡±


    Diving alone, I had intended to check on the underwater base, but I didn¡¯t expect to meet enemies on the way.


    If it wasn¡¯t for the timely reminder from the cat, a hole might have been opened up in my body by the bone spikes created from the bones of a whale.


    But right now, whether it¡¯s above or below me, weapon-wielding Fishmen surround me. Not to mention, Demon Sharks who are circling in the water around me. Behind the Demon Sharks, there are two medium-sized Water Elementals who are preparing their magic spells. Very possibly, I might have caught the attention of these Seafolks the moment I dived into the river. Unknowingly, I walked into a trap prepared by the other party and fell into a desperate situation.


    ¡°Could it be that the And Empire has bribed the Sea Tribesmen to guard their water territory? No, that¡¯s definitely impossible. The Sea Tribesmen would never listen to themands of the humans. Then, it must be Aylos! Yes, that¡¯s the only possibility.¡±


    The Ancient Water Elemental Goddess Aylos, the wife of the legendary Ancient Sea God Sidunwar. Going by seniority, she is the ancestor of the current generation¡¯s Sea Goddess Oswell.


    Just like the unfortunate Fire Elemental God Arweiss, she was sealed on a certain ind but looking at the rate of the Elemental Tide, it is apparent that she has been released.


    The only one s who could achieve such a feat are probably the Seafolk.


    In the ¡®Whispers of the Demons¡¯, the different countries will suffer the invasion of the tribes and Elementals under themand of the Ancient Elemental Gods. Looking at the present situation, it seems that the enemy that the And Empire would face is the Elemental Water Goddess Aylos.


    ¡°There should be 2 more years before the Elemental Catastrophe. I don¡¯t think there is this part in ¡®history¡¯. Forget it, let me first settle the situation here and think of a solutionter after I return.¡±


    The Mermen, whose mouths open widely as they stare at me hungrily, aren¡¯t anxious at all. They circle around me slowly, throwing their spears from time to time to taunt me. They were still taking their time to start the final showdown. Their tactics bore striking resemnce to a pack of wild wolves hunting down a cow, patiently waiting for their prey to show weariness and a w in their defense to exploit.


    The silver sacred sword can¡¯t be used underwater. But, from the previous crossing of blows, it seems that my physical ability isn¡¯t even a third of what it is onnd. Furthermore, if I were to fight with my full strength, I would definitely run out of breath. If I don¡¯t quickly think of a way to get to the surface to catch my breath, I might just die a ridiculous death.


    But, if I were to try to escape forcefully and expose gap in my defenses, then in that instant, the whale fish thorns that is attached to steel chains would be thrown towards me, immobilising me.


    Imagining the sight of over a dozen of fish bones and fish spears protruding from my body, I couldn¡¯t help but shiver. No matter how I look at it, fighting with the Sea Tribe physically underwater is a foolish decision.


    ¡°Looks like I can only try using that trump card of mine.¡±


    Thus, I keep my longsword and smile towards the Mermen, who narrow the encirclement on the prey whom they thought have given up hope.


    ¡°Sinful Devil God Form!¡±


    Bottomless magic power goes berserk. My Chaos Bloodline creates a streak of blue lightning which rampages in my veins. A scorching volcanicyer starts to emerge on top of my white and smooth skin and the fresh blood that flows from it causes the water in the surroundings to boil. The blue lightning gathers in my blue eyes as mystical magic tattoos appear on my hands and chest.


    At this moment, the Queen of Banshees has already turned into a pitch ck magic sword, augmenting my magic power. The Power of Ice shrouding the sword causes the water in contact with it to solidify.


    ¡°Ring of Ice!¡±


    The moment my hand sp together, Power of Ice bursts outward from me. Under the augmentation of my Chaos Bloodline, my original limit of a 15 meters radius for Ice Ring increases multiple times over.


    Below the water, a flower of ice blooms from me, who is at the core of the flower. The crystallisation of ice underwater starts to creep further and any Seafolks whoe into contact with the ice would be glued to it and be frozen.


    ¡°Frozen Breath!¡±


    The 2-circle Ice Breath has evolved into the even deadlier Frozen Breath. Creeping along the frozen ice, the Frozen Air caused the temperature of the water to plummet furiously and in a few seconds, the eyes of those struggling Mermen roll backward and they died from hypothermia.


    Even those Water Elemental who are in close proximity start to freeze and crack. This shocking sight causes the Seafolks by the side to quickly retreat.


    As for me, I didn¡¯t have the leisure to appreciate my own own art work. My skills with Elemental Magic are toocking. Even with the augmentation from my Chaos Bloodline, I still had to chant incantations to sustain my spells. The moment I opened my mouth...


    ¡°Cough cough... cough cough...¡±


    The moment I climbed onto shore, I felt like my entire throat was spasming as I coughed relentless, almost forcefully removing all of my stomach fluids.


    ¡°Cough cough, I drank too much water... I almost died like that. It would be really embarrassing if I died like that.¡±


    ¡°Dang!¡±


    A fish bonees smashing onto my back with great force. Although I feel a sharp pain on my back, the whale bone spike fractures into two instantly. The ability, Titan Body, is like wearing a formless armor. Also, the spears of the Fishmen aren¡¯t as deadly as they are underwater.


    The moment I turn and stare furiously at the Fishmen who were on the surface of the river, they immediately dive downwards back into the water, intimidated by the fact of how their weapons were ineffective.


    The weakness I feel after transforming makes me feel inexplicably ufortable and the river water that I drank makes me feel disgusted and nauseated. It took me quite a moment before I recovered. But, at this moment, I realised that a greater trouble awaits me.


    The Sinful Devil God Form made me expand physically several times over, and the burningva that appeared on my skin wasn¡¯t just for show. Not to mention, the destruction that my ice magic bore towards my clothes, so...


    ¡°All of my clothes have been destroyed! I¡¯m not Xueti! It can¡¯t be that I have to run back nude?¡±


    Yes, at this moment, I can¡¯t be any more envious of those mystical superheroes of my previous life. I have no idea how they could walk out of an intense battle with their clothes intact. What¡¯s even more enviable are those who are still clothed after transforming to assume a bigger form, especially a certain green giant who can turn into a two to three meter tall muscle tank out of the blue with his boxers still remaining intact.


    After a period of silence, I finally squeeze out apletely indecent question.


    ¡°Harloys, can you transform?¡±


    ¡°Go and die! If you make me transform, I will turn into a sharp pair of scissors and turn you into an eunuch!¡±


    Alright, considering how it was very possible for Harloys to realise her threat, for the safety of my little brother, I gave up this wonderful idea after much consideration.


    In the end, I thought of another alternative idea, a solution that wasn¡¯t really a solution. A method that could lower the embarrassment level of the situation to the lowest...


    Half an hourter, a ck carriage by the river embankment is halted by a cute little child.


    The little boy is dripping with water and clothed only by a leaf covering hisher regions. Even so, he is carrying a gigantic silver sword.


    ¡°That, uncle, can you give me a ride? The weather was scorching, so I went for a dive. But, the tide suddenly rose and my clothes got washed away. Can you bring me to the Church of the God of Law?¡±


    Carrying a gigantic sword with one hand while the other covers myher regions, even without looking in the mirror, I can judge from the burning sensation on my face that a bright red glow must be stered over my entire face. If it wasn¡¯t for that, fainting would be more embarrassing, I would really want to copse and never wake up again.


    ¡°Puuu!¡± At that moment, a certain princess stretches her hand from the carriage, she bursts intoughter.


    ¡°Hehe! Rnd, seeing you in this state reminds me of how you were when you were small. You were also just as cheeky and loved ying in the water. Do you still remember the days when Big Sister Kelly helped you to bathe when you were younger? Back then, you were alsopletely nude like that.¡±


    That Kelly who is chuckling beneath her hands, that is enough of you. Since you called yourself an elder sister, then you should know what indecent assault is. Stop looking at the lower regions.


    ¡°Of course you can! Rolo,e and let Momo hug you!¡±


    Someone, control this salivating lifeform! Stop touching about! Hey, you are not allowed to touch there! You are not allowed to flick and even more so, pull! Even a small little kid has his own pride!


    ¡°Lord, so the important thing that you were talking about was to go skinny dipping in the summer. Although I don¡¯t want to be always preaching to you, it is best for you to wear something the next time. Also, as expected of the core member of the Gentlemen Alliance.¡±


    Alright, Diana, you¡¯ve won. As long as you stop peeking, I will admit to anything you say. I won¡¯t retort to you saying gentlemen or anything else.


    Only at this moment did I clearly see the insignia of the Mist on the carriage. After waiting for 2 and a half hour, when my head was already giddy from being basked under the zing sun, I just had to meet with Reyne and gang who were returning from a trip outdoor. Obviously, it is another crimemitted by the Star of Misfortune Aura.


    ¡°Misfortune!! To actually cause me to run nude! Darned Seafolks, I will never forgive you all!¡±


    <i>¡°AHA, look at my rat karate! You bunch of rookies aren¡¯t even equal to my 4 turtle students! To think you would dare to challenge this old man here, you all are simply courting death!¡±</i>


    TL: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles~ (Damn I loved that show)


    rification of terminology


    The general word to describe intelligent beings living underwater is Seafolks


    The general word to describe unintelligent beings living underwater is Sea Monsters


    Sea Beasts probably refers to tamed monsters by the Seafolks


    Fishmen probably refers to fish body and human legs (Can¡¯t be sure) and they are different from Mermen (or Mermaid)

 Chapter 100

    Chapter 100: Rising Tide


    It is already pitch ck outside, but I still sat under the glow of themp, deep in thoughts. A pen has been in my grip for quite a long period of time, but I was unsure of how I should to start. In the end, I sigh deeply and eventually start to write.


    ¡°Dear Sir Ferdinand, it has been long since west met. I wonder if things are still going fine in Liu Huang Mountain City... It has been 300 years since many of our inheritances and secret arts were lost in the fires of war. In present time, the Mist Royal Family Knight Order can¡¯t even be considered third-rate. Perhaps, we have failed them as their ancestors. I have already came to an agreement with the current generation of the descendants of the Mist to provide them with some ¡®mentors¡¯ to guide those rookies.¡±


    ¡°After pondering over it, I decided to entrust this matter to you. Please bring along Great Sword Saint Fayde, Lucas... The young Knights have alreadye to a realisation. As their ancestors and imposing Heroic Spirits, please do not be overly-conscious about your identities as Undeads, just pay careful attention to the journey.¡±


    I expended quite a bit of effort to produce this letter. After all, it is meant for an elder to read. The contents are actually quite simple, I am requesting for the Red Hunting Hounds to dispatch some mentors to the East Mist Communal Country. But, if I didn¡¯t personally write the letter to invite them, to the old Ferdinand who felt guilt to his homnd, it is very probably he would choose to never return to those icy ins.


    But, without doubt, even when he has turned into a Knight of withered bones, old Ferdinand is still the old general who is the most suited to training new troops. Other than imparting battle techniques, he is able to impart something that is even more important, such as battle experience, fighting strategies, an unyielding will and the soul of the army that is harnessed in the war gs.


    ¡°...I am looking forward to the day that the war drums echo again. The young Knights would be able to carry the burden and glory that their ancestors left behind. There is no one else for this job but you. I sincerely hope look forward to the day when you reunite with thend of ice and snow.¡±


    The other letter is slightly simpler. I didn¡¯t have to consider the wording and went straight to the point.


    ¡°The East Mist has already established the faith of the God of Law as their national religion. It won¡¯t do for you all to be hiding in your shells at such a point. They need an Archbishop, aplete legition and judiciary system, aplete Church of true God... This is an opportunity and if we were to seed, decades and even a century of time would be saved in the spreading of the religion of Law. This is a gamble involved that is worth betting on. Putting up the banner of a true God, I don¡¯t believe that there would be anyone who would dare to interfere with your passage to East Mist.¡±


    Under the name of the Church of the God of Law, many of the forces in my hands can finallye to the surface. From a certain perspective, there are high stakes involved in this gamble. When I throw all my chips in, I would be sharing amon destiny with the East Mist Communal Country.


    The matter of of bing a national religion came earlier than I expected. From a certain sense, it is an opportunity as well as a challenge. If East Mist were to rise up from this point onwards, the Church of Law would also float up along with it like a boat in a river. If the East Mist were to be destroyed... Alright, we can still return back to the underground.


    The two letters were firmly sealed with wax. After contemting for a short moment, I wrote another letter to Adam whose whereabouts were unknown. There is still another letter which I really didn¡¯t want to write but I had no choice otherwise, so I got along with it helplessly.


    ¡°Darsos, looks like you and your country is in deep trouble. If you don¡¯t deal with it appropriately, the And Empire may be history. Perhaps, you may think I am just an rmist, but this all have to do with a bunch of Fishmen...¡±


    Indeed, I never expected that the assault I met with would pull a whole string of schemes and troubles. I must begin the story from the day when I returned nude.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Back then, cloaked in a mantle that I borrowed, I tried my best to ignore the mocking gazes of the women sitting opposite to me. I tried my best to turn my attention to the Seafolks who appeared mysteriously.


    The Seafolks aren¡¯t just an individual race. It is themon terminology used for Fishmen, Mermen, Shrawns, Sea Giants and intelligent underwater lifeforms. Most of them live along the long coastline of Eich Continent. These underwater lifeforms are unable to leave the water and exist through forming kingdoms and tribes.


    The greater the sea pressure, the more stronger the Sea Monsters get. The weak are unable to survive in the deep sea and the living space of the Seafolks aren¡¯t infinite.


    There are quite a few Fishmen tribes sparsely popting the coastlines. However, being unable to leave the water for extended period of time made them of limited threat to the living creatures on the continent. In fact, their attacks don¡¯t even measure up to an invasion by a neighboring country. However, due the extreme offensive nature of many Seafolks, they are hostile with the countries on the continent.


    Thus, even though it would still be understandable if I meet a Red Dragon in the river, it is inconceivable for me to meet an obviously well-organised group of Seafolks there.


    As the capital of And Empire, even if one just looks at the surface of the water, Kagersi City is definitely well-guarded. It is unbelievable for a Fishmen tribe to exist in the river.


    Fishmen are living beings who can survive in both freshwater and saltwater. However, a Fishmen tribe which is powerful enough to rear Demon Sharks are definitely unable to live in the river water. After all, Demon Sharks are creatures of the ocean, they would die sooner orter in the river water.


    That is to say, these Fishmen moved against the direction of the delta of the sea to visit this riverside city.


    This isn¡¯t an easy feat. The riverside cities of the And Empire all have their own fleets, so how can they not get noticed after passing by so many cities? For these Fishmen to arrive directly at the core of the Empire? What do they hope to gain, spending so much effort and taking such a big risking here? It can¡¯t be that they only want to visit this city to watch the enthronement ceremony.


    My suspicions didn¡¯tst long...


    ¡°Un? The bone spikes and bone spears made from the bones of a whale and Demon Sharks? If I recall, their fins seem to be white. Un, they should be the Fishmen of the White Whale Tribe. Since you met them underwater and were assaulted by them, it seems that they intend to purge this city.¡±


    Right after reaching home, recalling that Siren Tracy is also one of the Seafolks and that Sirens are of high standing among the Seafolks, I sent someone to call her over in hope that she might know something. In the end, just after barely exining the situation, the other party threw a bomb at me.


    ¡°Purge this city? Purge the capital of And Empire? Has their tribe gone mad?¡±


    ¡°They aren¡¯t mad. In the entire North Bay of the ck Sea, the White Whale Tribe is considered an extremely powerful tribe ranked in the top 3. Those Fishmen are only their vanguards. Depending on the strength of their targets, Nagas, Sea Giants and the Sea Snakes wille. There might even be Mermaids and Sirens.¡±


    ¡°But, this doesn¡¯t justify their intention to purge the city. This is equal to offending an entire Empire, aren¡¯t they afraid of being surrounded and destroyed by the fleet?¡±


    ¡°Heh, you don¡¯t understand the Seafolks at all. The Seafolks never have to worry about who they offend. Even more so, the White Whale Tribe is a well-known hunting tribe, as well as a mercenary tribe which epts missions. After receiving enough benefits, they can just leave. After all, do you think that the races on the continent would be able to pursue them? Besides, without someone leading them, do you think that they would be able to arrive at this city?¡±


    After pondering over it for a slight moment, I smell the scent of a scheme behind the encounter.


    The fleets by the river didn¡¯t notice them? Most probably, someone is controlling the fleet so that they would pretend that they didn¡¯t see them. Or perhaps, these Seafolks are loaded onto a merchant boat, allowing them an unobstructed passage through the river.


    As for the goal of those coborating with them? That is even more obvious. If the country were toe under attack at the same day of the inauguration of the new Emperor, Darsos¡¯s position would be shaken.


    Tracy speaks in disdain.


    ¡°That damn fatty is also involved in the n. Since he is so afraid of you, you can totally go ahead and question him.¡±


    ¡°The broken eggs noble? He is involved?¡±


    ¡°Un, I am the recon sent by the White Whale Tribe to connect with our allies. But, he kept harassing me, which is really annoying. So, I cast a Confounding Curse on him to cause him to do something silly subconsciously, resulting in him turning into an eunuch. However, it is weird but he seems to have recovered.¡±


    Alright, everyone¡¯s eyeballs fell to the floor. Right in our faces, Tracy didn¡¯t even hesitate to reveal that she is the spy of the Seafolks. To think that dumb mission that I received back then would be rted to it as well.


    ¡°However, the n seems to have fallen through. I took advantage of the opportunity to leave the White Whale Tribe.¡±


    ¡°Fallen through? Isn¡¯t this already considered a sess?¡±


    ¡°Another group whom I wasmunicating with suddenly got wiped off. Their den was set on fire. Without someone to guide their path from the human¡¯s side, it is impossible for the White Whale Tribe toe to this city from the waterways. They only look at the results and not the process. If I were to return back to the tribe after failing this mission, I will only end up as the seasoning for the afternoon tea of the tribe head.¡±


    Grabbing my forehead, I could roughly guess what was going on.


    ¡°Oh right, the ones who I was aliasing with wore a ring with the insignia of stars and an eye.¡±


    With all of the evidenceid out before me, I could tell what was going on by tying them all together.


    Apparently, just like how Darsos was guarded against the Celestial Tower, the Celestial Tower wasn¡¯t truly on Darsos¡¯s side either. They colluded with the White Whale Tribe to oppose Darsos and the nobles behind him. They have ced bets on both factions.


    If Darsos works with them obediently, the assault from the Seafolks probably would not happened at all. However, it seems that after all of their members were ouwed, the remnants of the Celestial Tower has decided to throw in their everything to pull Darsos down with them.


    ¡°Heh, those people actually dare to bring the White Whale Tribe here to attack the coastline. Apparently, they do not know that the Seafolks have grown at least 3 times more powerful after the awakening of that Lord. When the great waves finallye crashing, there is nothing that can stop its path. By the time the tides of the White Whales retreats, how many people would still remain standing.¡±


    ¡°Aylos?¡±


    Hearing this name, Tracy stuns for a moment before nodding her head solemnly.


    ¡°The current Seafolks is no longer the same as the Seafolks of the past. Under the will of that Lord and the Queen of Storms, all Seafolks are craving for the fresh blood and soul of the lifeforms on the surface to please their masters. In the near sea, under the guidance of great existences, with each and every tribes cooperating together, I¡¯m afraid that war cannot be avoided.¡±


    The Queen of Storms is the Guardian God of the Seafolks, as well as a member of the Malevolent Chaos Gods. It seems that prompted by the Ancient Water Elemental God and the calling of the Sacred War, after countless years of resentments rued from the conflicts with the surface lifeforms, the Seafolks have rid themselves of their neutrality and started to side towards the Chaos Faction.


    If the attacks were to really begin, no, judging from the circumstances, a raid from the White Whale Tribe would surely happen, it would immediately exceed the scale of which the nobles have expected and turn from a skirmish into a country-scale war.


    ¡°Different from them, I have quite a few friends in the human world. Those fellow probably never trusted me from the start. Perhaps, even the Count might have other objectives approaching me.¡±


    ¡°Then, why didn¡¯t you reveal it earlier?¡±


    ¡°I have alreadymitted treason by escaping, so I dare not return back to the sea. My source of information has been long cut. Now, I can¡¯t ascertain the urrence of an invasion, so how do you expect me to speak of it? Also, to whom should I speak these to? The reason why I can tell you all of these directly now is because the vanguards have already been spotted. Afterwards, it is up to you humans to settle it, it has nothing to do with me anymore. I am but an individual, there¡¯s not much that I can do. Even more so, I am of a foreign race, neither sides would ce their trust in me. Sitting on the fence would only cause me to offend both sides simultaneously. I am unable to interfere in this matter and I also do not intend to interfere in this matter.¡±


    After finishing her piece, the Siren¡¯s face rxes. On the other hand, the listeners feel helpless. She could rest easy now but the ball has been passed on to other people¡¯s hands.


    At that moment, we discussed over it for a long period of time but we weren¡¯t able toe to a conclusion, whether it is on the authenticity of the words of the Siren or a contingency n directed against an invasion urring.


    Yes, she may seem very honest by taking the initiative to reveal a series of secrets, but we still held doubts about the reliability of her words.


    Regardless of whether it is in the legends or in reality, Sirens are deceitful beings. By taking the initiative to exin the whole situation, it makes others even more doubtful and aware of the possibility of a trap lying beneath her words. Furthermore, somehow, I feel a slight dissonance in her words, as though she has left out something really important.


    Night fell and my spies has just returned.


    ¡°Is there any news?¡±


    The ck cat jumps onto the window ledge. Her original body has been in a state of pseudo-sleep by the table but in reality, she has sent out four clone spies who could slip through any cracks, sneaking and keeping surveinces on the dwelling of the Siren and the riverside.


    ¡°Yes, the Siren is indeed untrustworthy. At the very least, she isn¡¯t as uncaring as she described herself to be. She sent her own seals out to keep a watch on the Fishmen Tribe by the river while she herself has headed to a Thief Guild and Mercenary Guild to request a mission. She seems to be looking for something.¡±


    ¡°Something?¡±


    ¡°Un, it seems to be a tribute of some kind. I heard that it is rted to the Sea God.¡±


    ¡°Rted to the Sea God? Then, it is natural for her to seek it as a Siren. Aren¡¯t there any other news? What about the situation in the river?¡±


    ¡°The Fishmen are starting to construct their base in the river. It seems that they are really the front scouts sent in advance to prepare for the insertion of the army.¡±


    I nod my head in response to her words. Even though I have received the intelligence I wanted, I was still unable to make out the situation.


    ¡°We still do not possess sufficient intelligence. Our understanding of this country and the Seafolks is toocking...¡±


    ¡°Cough, Rnd, I have some guesses on the matter, do you want to hear them?¡±


    ¡°Unlimited supply of dried fish and milk until you are satisfied... Alright, I am only joking, I know that you aren¡¯t a cat. Don¡¯t bite me, get straight to the point.¡±


    Seeming to appreciate the look of mine when I am gued with a migraine, the gleeful kitty jumps from the window ledge and struts proudly to and fro, her tail pointing up to the sky.


    ¡°My foolish disciple, it is all actually quite simple. Interest and benefits. The Seafolks aren¡¯t some charity organisation. To risk so much to invade the capital of a country, the only exnation is that there is some incentive for them to get involved. Besides, the Water Elemental God isn¡¯t the Guardian God of the Seafolks and yet they are cooperating together. The Water Elementals are almost like one family with the Fishmen already. Without sufficient interests involved to serve as a fusing reagent, how could this be possible?¡±


    ¡°You mean... Darn it! They are really ying it big.¡±


    Through the illustrations of the kitten, a Water Elemental falls apart in the middle of the sky, turning into rainfall while in the rain, a bunch of Fishmen represented by wooden figures were advancing.


    ¡°With the help of the Water Elemental God Aylos, the Seafolks areing to shore?¡±


    ¡°It is feasible in theory. That kind of benefits are sufficient to make the Seafolks fall into frenzy. Perhaps, the And Empire is really in deep trouble this time.¡±


    <i>¡°It is themon terminology used for Fishmen, Mermen, Shrawns, Sea Giants and intelligent underwater lifeforms.¡±</i>


    TL: Shrawns = Shrimp + men, the word is formed bybining Shrimps + Prawn... Unless you all prepare Shrimpmen

 Chapter 101

    Chapter 101: Tribute


    AD1897, the summer of the Year of the Griffin, the enthronement ceremony of the And Empire¡¯s 20th Emperor was just around the corner. At the same time, the news of the invasion of the White Whale Tribe of the Seafolks was identally leaked.


    The Emperor was enraged. In a single night, he demoted 37 high nobles and stripped the position of over 200 high-ranking military officials in three armies and put them into interrogation. The crosses used to hang those guilty rose from the ground by the river, extending for several miles. This day became known in history as the ¡®Bloody Night of the White Whales¡¯.


    On the same day, the And 3rd Fleet which was stationed on the upper river from the capital Kagersi City and the And 1st Fleet which was stationed on the lower river arrived in the capital on the same day and began to surround and eliminate the White Whale Tribe.


    On the very same day, the Hermit River which was praised as the ¡®Flowing Chrysoprase¡¯ was dyed blood-red. The st of the cannons and the sound of ughter shook the heavens. The various districts of the capital became a battlefield.


    Pincered by 2 great fleets, they held advantage at the start of the battle. But, when the SemiGod Sea Dragon Hydra and innumerable Seafolks and Sea Monsters joined the battle, the And Empire Guardian Hero ¡®Dragon Hunter¡¯ Deimos got killed in battle while the Empire Advisor ¡®Blood Mage Emperor¡¯ Marsolit was heavily wounded. The half of the 2nd Fleet was wiped out while the 1st Fleet waspletely annihted.


    During the war, the Sea Monsters cooperated and exerted their powers together, causing the water level to rise and the Pier District, Bacteria District and a few other districts of Kagersi City were submerged under water. Asrge amount of Water Elementals came to shore, rainwater continued to pour down as the war gradually stalls into a stalemate.


    Two weekster, ten cities that were close to the sea or by a river got assaulted. Sorn City and numerous other cities fell in a single day. Of which, the Sorn City was invaded by the Blood Shark Tribe, whichprise man-eating Fishmen, resulting in the entire city getting purged.


    Symbolised by the Blood Night of White Whales, the horns of the eternal Sacred War is blown on once again. Led by the Water Elemental Goddess Aylos and the Malevolent Goddess Queen of Storms, the Seafolks who came to shore became the vanguards of this war and the Chaos Faction rises up once again.


    Due to a letter from Princess Reyne, the And Empire managed to avoid being cornered into a desperate situation from a sudden invasion. Thankful to the East Mist Communal Country and Princess Reyne, the Emperor dered ¡®The East Mist Communal Country will forever be a brother nation to the And Empire¡¯, and proposed to Princess Reyne in front of a crowd once again. But, due to the current chaos, Princess Reyne once again rejected the proposal of the Emperor under the pretext of being worried for her country.


    But privately, there were already rumors on the streets that Princess Reyne furiously reprimanded Darsos for being ridiculous and threw two red-colored high heels towards him, hitting both the Emperor himself and his Finance Minister Hermit. It is said that Hermit fainted on the spot and the situation turned chaotic.


    ¡°Being bugged by such matters when your country has fallen knee deep into such trouble, I have never seen such an idiotic Emperor. I have already said that I am uninterested in men. You want to marry me? Impossible, unless you find an Edwina¡¯s Belt ande to me in a skirt.¡±


    In the eyes of those who are aware, this move of Darsos¡¯s is indeed very crafty. By proiming that the East Mist is a ¡®brother nation¡¯, they were able to directly take the East Mist Communal Country out of the list of vassal states. As rumors and gossips started to spread, as the shadows of war creep closer, as rows of people are hung on crosses, as arge amount of those opposing Darsosnd in jail, his bad reputation is no longer of importance. As long as he is able to lead his people out of this period of turmoil, he would be able to unite the country even more strongly than any of those fleeting titles could.


    Although the public evaluation of the Emperor is generally negative, the Princess of the small country who entranced the Emperor to the point he loses his prestige and rationality has be the hottest topic recently. Praises of her beauty and straightforward personality spread far and wide that she became reputed as the ¡®The Pure Snow Lotus of the High Mountains¡¯.


    It is said that despite looking pure and young, she has a certain charm that the Emperor is exceptionally attracted to.


    At this moment, hearing the rumors that hispanions have collected, that flower is on the verge of murdering someone.


    ¡°Lotus of the High Mountains? Darsos, you sure know how make people owe you conveniently. Using me to divert the attention of the public? This old man will remember this grudge. Make sure not to disy any weakness for me to exploit.¡±


    At this moment, I didn¡¯t have the time to wallow in my resentment. There are many responsibilities here and there that I had to take care of.


    After receiving the news, Darsos investigated the authenticity of the news before waiting patiently for an opportunity to make use this topic to ¡®explode¡¯ and get rid of those opposing him to solidify his authority. This is still within my expectations.


    Afterwards, Darsos, using repaying the favour as an excuse, proims the East Mist as a brother nation, pulling the agreement on providing resources and assistance to the surface, thus hastening the progress of the fulfilment of the contract. Very quickly, when he fully fulfils the terms of the agreement, I would have to pass the key on to him. If I don¡¯t speed up the progress, then my efforts would be for naught.


    After all, this is the capital of the And Empire. Even if they have met with some trouble, no one thinks that the And Empire would actually lose.


    That dragon may be powerful, but it isn¡¯t invincible. As the trusted subordinate of the Malevolent Goddess Queen of Storms, it heading out to the battlefield also signifies the Malevolent Chaos Gods officially stepping into the battlefield. With top tier powers, its ability to pull aggression is also top ss. It is very possible that some Dragon-ying God Envoy of some true God is already on their way down.


    However, the reason why Darsos hastened the fulfilment of the agreement is probably because he still holds some expectations for the things in the secret base. If an Air Fleet were to suddenly charge out from the bottom of the river, it would change the flow of the entire battle. Of course, he has also prepared himself for the scenario that he might walk out empty-handed from the secret base as well.


    As for me, if I don¡¯t want to end up empty-handed, then I must really quicken my pace.


    ¡°Have you found Tracy?¡±


    While reorganising our forces for battle, the disappearance of the Siren caused quite a hassle for us.


    ¡°She suddenly returned to the circus with a box in her hands. There is a special seal on top of it. Judging from the mark of a shield and longsword crossing one another, an insignia of a guardian, it is probably the insignia of some royalty.¡±


    The insignia of royalty? Most probably, this is the stolen tribute. Harloys and I look at each other with a smile on our face. It seems that we have found out target. Our patient surveince has finally reaped its rewards and it is time to reel in the hooks of our fishing rods.


    ¡°Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle, a legendary God Equipment of the ancient Sea God. It is said that in ancient times, it could stir endless tsunamis. Even though it has lost arge portion of its powers after the death of the ancient God, if it were tond in the hands of the Queen of Storms and Sidunwar¡¯s wife, the Ancient Water Elemental Goddess, there is a chance it might regain its God Powers.¡±


    After finding out that the stolen tribute was such a treasure, the moment we received intelligence from a Son of Greed that the Siren is looking for the stolen ¡®tribute¡¯, we immediately came to a ¡®realisation¡¯.


    ¡°Regardless of why she revealed the secrets of the Seafolks, as long as Tracy manages to find the God Equipment, we must prevent it from returning to the sea by all means!¡±


    Solo Federation¡¯s tribute (congrattory gift) was stolen by the Celestial Tower. Given Tracy¡¯s previous rtionship with the Celestial Tower, if she had kept a lookout for it, she would definitely know where the lost tribute is. Based on our estimates, now that the members of the Celestial Tower are reduced to fugitives, she is probably the only one who can find the tribute now.


    Thus, the moment Tracy returns back to her own tent in the circus, uninvited guests came knocking at her door.


    ¡°Open the door! We are here to check the water meter. What? You didn¡¯t install water meter? Then we are here to deliver water to your doorstep! Forget it. You don¡¯t have to open the door. Your family will never need to open the door ever again.¡±


    Alright, when a Legend Holy Knight raises her sacred sword and charges forth, when a Legend Druid summons storm and lightning onto the entire tent, the tent is instantly reduced to wreckage.


    At this moment, astonishment is clearly shown on Tracy¡¯s face. With the barely opened box with the tribute in her hands, she looks at us, who suddenly appeared, in surprise.


    ¡°Haha, you didn¡¯t expect this, did you? We have been waiting for a long time now, hand over the God Equipment...¡±


    As I walk out gleefully, I set my gaze towards the box and the next moment, I am dumbfounded.


    ¡°What¡¯s this! Where is the God Equipment?¡±


    There is nothing that resembles a bottle in the box. That is a white jade sculpture and the shape resembles a banana or an ivory. It looks like a certain something, really alike... The more I look at it, the more it resembles it...


    ¡°This is a man-made dildo. This is a special kind of warm jade that simtes the body temperature of humans. Looking at its color and the handicraft, it is definitely a top quality good, the work of a master! This is the rarest of the rare goods. Definitely a God Equipment!¡±


    Okay, I am regretting my decision in bringing Beifeng along. In an instant, he spoke the truth of the matter that we were trying our best to overlook.


    ¡°This is the tribute?¡±


    Having her privacy invaded, Tracy nods her head in a daze.


    ¡°It is indeed a tool for concubines...¡± As the pronunciation for concubines and tribute is identical, it isn¡¯t weird that Greed would make such a mistake.


    TL: Concubines (gong1 pin2) and Tribute (gong4 pin3)


    ¡°Since you all found out, then I will hide it no further. Actually, one of my main goals in staying in the human world is to research adult toys. You all know that we Sirens are mostly females and that we are cold-blooded creatures. We live alone in the sea and it is difficult for us to meet with another of our kind, making the long nights unbearable. Many of our peers have that kind of habit...¡±


    ¡°... Thus, I intend to open the first adult toy shop on the sea. It would probably be weed by Sirens, Mermaids, Nagas and other simr kinds of female Seafolks. But, it is a pity that the more deeply I research the intercourse of both genders, the more shallow I realised I was. I felt regretful for my previous shallowness and made up my mind to spend another century here to research this art. Only when I be a master of this art will I open my mobile shop.¡±


    Even though this beautifuldy is speakingpletely indecent words, her eyes were filled with passion and her face was filled with the realisation of one seeking the utmost of their path. I instinctively feel that she wasn¡¯t lying, that she really intend to devote her entire life into it.


    I finally understand why I instinctively felt close and familiar to this beautiful Sirendy. Isn¡¯t it obvious that this is one of the specialty of Liu Huang Mountain City ¨C Gentlemen (Perverts)?


    ¡°It is a pity. Perhaps due to the difference in our races, but why are humans unable to understand our point of view? Whenever they hear me speak of this, they would look at me with a very strange gaze. That fat Count even pestered me to no end. Hmph, to us, tools are only used to dispel loneliness, it is a non-living thing. It is apletely different concept from apanion who would apany us in life and in death. Sigh, it is really difficult to find a soulmate.¡±


    At this moment, when the Sirenments the world¡¯sck of understanding in her, that man stood out. On his face is realisation simr to that of Tracy¡¯s.


    ¡°This is incredible! This is touching! Partner (Over here, it refers to one who shares the same goals), I can understand it. The art of the intercourse between two sexes is really tooplex. Actually, I am also searching for my own path and is unable to find anyone who is able to understand me. I can help you! Testing it personally or whatsoever, leave it to me... AH!¡±


    Alright, everyone can¡¯t stand listening to it anymore. Ignoring the Siren whose face lit up after hearing those words, we began on our daily mission ¨CBeating Beifeng up.


    Clutching my head, I am really at a loss for words. The Siren in front of me reminds me of those fellows in Liu Huang Mountain City, making me want to stay as far away from her as possible.


    ¡°What about the tribute? The bottle of the Sea God? Isn¡¯t it stolen by the Celestial Tower?¡±


    Tracy shakes her head.


    ¡°Back then, they worked together with a local Thief Guild. Un, they used the Thief Guild to conceal their own identity, the ones who did the job were still them. After all, how could a small Thief Guild deal with the envoy party for a powerful country. Afterwards, inpensation, the spoils of the battle were all given to the Thief Guild.¡±


    When realisation struck me, a faint ominous omen looms at the corner of my mind. Often, this is a foreboding sign that I have fallen into a pit.


    ¡°What is that Thief Guild called?¡±


    ¡°Blood Press Brother Band? Oh, I remember that their insignia was a bloody handprint, it should called the Blood Hand Brother Band.¡±


    Alright, this name sounds very familiar. The memories of the past felt fresh as though like it just happened yesterday. I felt like I was on the verge of crying. It seems that this time I have reaped what I have sowed, I have worked in vain once again.


    ¡°I roughly know where the bottle of the Sea God is. Harloys... Return me the milk bottle that I gave you.¡±


    Yes, after arriving at this city, I used the Blood Hand Brother Band as a target practice for my swordsmanship. Back then, I heard that they have stolen some tribute so I thought that their skills should be up to par. However, I simply ended up sweeping through them easily, even their Guild Master was sliced into two with just a single sh. I didn¡¯t manage to gain much from the experience.


    After getting rid of their Guild Master, I saw a box in the secret chamber and there was an antique bottle inside that looks like it could fetch quite a sum. However, the cat that I was rearing wanted me to buy her a milk bottle and personally, she also felt that this bottle had an artistic sense to it, so she just took it and used it.


    There were totally no response from the magic tattoos inscribed on it. Who would have thought that it would actually be an ex-God Equipment...


    ¡°Meow, no way. A God Equipment bottle suits my pte. If you want it, take out something of equivalent value to trade.¡±


    Just when I was about to rationalise with that darned cat and prepare to snatch it if it goes awry, a ¡®ding¡¯ sound echoes. I instinctively shivered. This sound never means anything good.


    ¡°Darn it, the System is here to pour salt on my wound again?¡±


    ¡¾Cough, you got the correct answer, but there isn¡¯t any reward. Congrattions on sessfully recruiting another Gentleman into the Gentlemen Alliance that you built, the beautiful Siren Tracy whose goal in life is to open an adult toy shop. When the Gentlemen (Perverts) in your Gentlemen Alliance reaches 10, you will be rewarded with an Epic Title ¨C The King of Gentlemen. Its effects is definitely powerful.¡¿


    ¡¾Now, you are justcking one more member. Please work harder. Actually, there is one just right before you. I rmend Ogre Kavan Dixu who likes brawling with himself. Although his Gentleman level is a little weak, the System will give you a hand and reluctantly qualify him as one.¡¿


    ¡¾The current 8 members in the Gentlemen Alliance includes: the Shota-fetish female Elf Momo, the entric Elf Diana with 3 faiths, Casio who is gradually walking down a twisted path in life, Beifeng (He doesn¡¯t need any description, he is a legend by himself, he is the legendary Beifeng), the Prince Clint who will one day blow a hole through the entire continent, the Krose whose gender is Krose, the Princess Reyne who is into her great grandfather and the Holy Knight Rnd who is gradually awakening into a cross-dressing fetish¡¿


    ¡°Cross-dressing fetish you head! You are the one with cross-dressing fetish, your whole family have cross-dressing fetish! You are the Gentleman, your whole family are Gentlemen!¡±


    <i>¡°...This day became known in history as the ¡®Bloody Night of the White Whales¡¯.¡±</i>


    TL to ED: Haha, trust me, it sounds cooler in Chinese. Crap, why must they be called White Whales, they sound so cute and fluffy and blubbery and huggable. Damnit.


    ED to TL: Narwhals Narwhals swimming in the ocean, causing amotion, because they are so awesome!


    <i>¡°On the very same day, the Hermit River which was praised as the ¡®Flowing Chrysoprase¡¯ was dyed blood-red.¡±</i>


    TL: Chrysoprase is a beautiful green gemstone.


    <i>¡°...he would be able to unite the country even more strongly than any of those fleeting titles could.¡±</i>


    TL: Emperors normally rule by propaganda. He means that he wouldn¡¯t have to rely on propaganda/image building any more.


    <i>¡°...Darsos, you sure know how make people owe you conveniently.¡±</i>


    TL: The exact phrase means Darsos is doing Rnd a convenient favor (building up a good reputation for Reyne).


    <i>¡°...I have already said that I am uninterested in men. You want to marry me? Impossible, unless you find an Edwina¡¯s Belt ande to me in a skirt.¡±</i>


    TL: Just like many other characters when they are mad (esp Momo and Harloys), he proims himself <io niang</i>here<i>, </i>which literally means old woman but in China, where age is traditionally equivalent to your social position, he is establishing that he is kind of senior albeit in a very crude way (This phrase is usually used by gangster etc)


    Okay, I know I keep repeating this but bear with it, somehow being unable to bring the gangster-ish tone over gets on my nerves.

 Chapter 102

    Chapter 102: King of Gentlemen


    ¡°This world is still full of love. Don¡¯t always think that there are schemes and trickery behind everything. After all, this isn¡¯t a novel. How can there be so many coincidences and masterminds? Look, didn¡¯t it all end as a big misunderstanding?¡±


    Un, this is my reflection of the Siren incident. Indeed, there is still true love in the world. We must learn to trust others!


    ¡°Meow, Rnd, no matter how much you try to turn your eyes from reality, what that wille will eventuallye. Open your eyes and look.¡±


    The ck cat on my shoulder mocks me gleefully.


    ¡°Shut up, aren¡¯t I pretending not to see it at all!¡±


    Yes, I am trying to escape from this scary reality. To think that the great Church of the God of Law would actually turn into a hideout for Gentlemen to exchange all kinds of perverted information.


    ¡°... Back then, I was still a normal Dracon. I had just emerged from my egg when I saw him. He is my birth mother, his crown was so majestic, his feathers were truly elegant... Only a long timeter did I know that my egg went missing and the one who picked up my egg used the livestock they were rearing to incubate my egg.¡±


    So, the only period when you were normal was the few minutes when you just emerged from your egg. How ridiculous can you be! Also, what is up with that birth mother of yours, he is obviously a male, isn¡¯t it? Since he has a crown, he is obviously a rooster. From the very start, you got it all wrong. It is said that a hatchling would regard the first being they see as their mother, are you Dracons the same as well? Well, I have never heard of it! You are the only one of your kind! Are you born a pervert?


    Let me catch my breath. There is really too many details on him to retort on, there is really no end to it.TL: Tsukkomi would be more urate but it isn¡¯t really an English word.


    ¡°... The Great Hero Odysseus? Indeed, he had a romance with a Siren friend of mine. But, he isn¡¯t any kind of great hero. He is obviously a gangster and a yboy. It is said that the Sirens which he had fooled andid his hands on number over twenty. He is really a bastard... We Sirens are really pitiful, we are born full of emotions but yet condemned to a lonely life. The treasures we pick up from the sea always end up getting scammed away by evil man who pretends to be some hero, such as the Saint Kaesora and Dragon Knight Edwin... Even if by chance, we really manage to meet a good man, he would turn into a sloppy uncle in less than 20 years. Just another nap and he would have turned into an old man and die, leaving us lovelorn for the rest of our life. That¡¯s the reason why most of us would find a remote ind to reside in. Even so, sometimes when the loneliness gets unbearable, we would still fall for such tricks.¡±


    Alright, big sister, I know that it is hard for you to find a soulmate to confide in, so naturally, you would be more talkative. But, please do not soil the image of those great heroes in my heart. How did those great heroes who left their mark in history be a bunch of yboys? Alright, if we were to look at those stories where Sirens had godly equipment and secrets robbed from them from another perspective, it does seem like they were the ones who bashed into the home of a lonely widower to im their body and steal their fortune.


    ¡°Hmph, that¡¯s only because you Sirens are too dumb. Look at us Elves, we won¡¯t fall in love with those with short lifespan. Those lifespan often shout their slogan of ¡®you only live once¡¯, proiming that they should not restraint themselves and live radiantly and carefree. Isn¡¯t that just another way of saying that they would be irresponsible and reckless? Just like you said, even if you meet with someone good, they would die off the next moment. No matter what, it would end in a tragedy... However, the innocent children are an exception. They are so pure and cute. Those gazes of trust and innocence staring at me. I would be able to slowly dye the color I want on this nk white wall without worrying that they would so astray and wait for them to mature to reap my fruits... To us Elves, what does 20 years count as? As long as we are able to savor the delicious fruit in the end, even if it is a tragedy, I will give in to it!¡±


    Hello, is it the police? There is a weird auntie here! Momo, can you stop sneaking peeks at me while saying these words? Can you stop salivating! I really feel that I¡¯m in danger!


    ¡°Explosion, is an art form.¡±


    ¡°No, explosion is just a means, a method to create a safe haven!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, how shallow! As expected of the short-sighted humans. No wonder your works are filled with the scent of a third-rate craftsman. Even if your bombs are precise and urate, there isn¡¯t a hint of passion and creativity in it.¡±


    ¡°I have seen the art that you speak of. What does it mean to be unsure of the time and strength your explosion? Do you intend to blow yourself up?¡±


    ¡°... This is an insult to the entire Gnome Engineering and Alchemy society! Do you know how we treat those foolish Dwarves who question the art of the Gnomes? We kick their butt and st them away!¡±


    Alright, Yingou Beyar, I know that you are excited from escaping from the prison cell. But, we didn¡¯t save you so that you can cause destruction. Also, Clint! I know that you are the practical type, but if you don¡¯t keep those bombs away, I will hang you on the ceiling! I mean what I say! You too, Beyar! If you dare to ignite the Alchemy Bomb in your hands, I will dump you into the main cannon of Rnd No.88 and st you back into prison.


    The district where the royal family prison is was also affected by the flood. Naturally, the short fellows who almost lost their old lives in their flooded cells won¡¯t calmly wait for their deaths.


    Without any hesitation, they brought forward the n to escape from the cell. A giant robot creating havoc at the prison and prisoners escaping from it is the recent headlines. Now, I can only hope that the spies of the royal family are spending their efforts on the battlefield and that Darsos does not turn against me during this crucial period. At the very least, before I finish my nning.


    ¡°Old fellow, even if you saved me this time, don¡¯t expect old Lowens to give up his own hobby. Next time, let¡¯s spar in the battlefield once more. Old Lowens will make sure to return this favour back to you. Also, the fallen Gray Elf, you as well. There will be a day which we will cross blows.¡±


    ¡°Hah, as expected of a smelly and rough Shield Dwarf. We should have left you there to drown.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, we Shield Dwarves aren¡¯tndlocked vigers who have never seen water our whole life. When old Lowens was hunting Snake-neck Dragons under the water, you were still feeding on breast milk.¡±


    ¡°Oh ho, we don¡¯t have to wait for that day toe. We can start right now.¡±


    Alright, I know that you Gray Dwarves are mortal enemies with the Shield Dwarves but at the very least, consider the camaraderie that you both have just built up as fellow prison mates. Alright, it looks like beating around the bush doesn¡¯t work, so I will say it directly. You short things, put down the stools and cups and fight outside! Otherwise, I will also throw you all into the cannon and st you all away!


    Somehow, I feel really tired, as though my mental energy is being polluted. As expected, I shouldn¡¯t have listened to the words of these fellows. I better continue appreciating the beauty of the world.


    ¡°Big Brother Rnd, your tea.¡±


    ¡°Oh, thank you.¡±


    Only my great great great great granddaughter cares for me. Just when I am thinking so, somehow, I feel that something is wrong.


    ¡°Great granddaughter fetish and great grandfather fetish huh? Such heavy taste.¡±As expected, this ck cat would not give me a moment of peace. If she didn¡¯t get tricked to be my binded equipment, going by the identity of this undying old demon and her twisted personality, she is definitely worthy of the title of the Great Gentleman.


    However, her sarcasm made my heart skip a beat. I am also a little suspicious of the obedient behaviour of this littless recently. Also, that System Notice which I found it hard to look straight at made my heart beat furiously.


    However, looking at how she proceeds to serve tea to her temporary mentor, Diana, with a sweet smile on her face, I shake my head and dispel my suspicions.


    ¡°She is probably just paying respect to her elders. The System is never reliable. After all, I am not a cross-dresser who is into female clothing. Naturally, Reyne wouldn¡¯t be so blind to be into me. After all, we look so alike. If she were to have a crush on me, wouldn¡¯t it be narcissism?¡±


    I hesitate for a moment before finally speaking out.


    ¡°Everyone, prepare for a little bit. I am going out to find 2 people. When I return, we would probably have a tough battle to fight. Oh right, also prepare to abandon this ce.¡±


    Yes, from the moment the invasion of the Seafolks began, the enthronement ceremony has been postponed indefinitely. From that moment on, our official reason of staying here for the enthronement ceremony would be voided and naturally, we no longer have a reason to remain here.


    Also, somehow, I feel that something is amiss with this situation. The development of this war is a little too bizarre.


    If it was just the prelude battle to the Sacred War, then the God Beast appeared too early. However, if we were to slightly think about it, it all made sense.


    It isn¡¯t difficult for a Nine-headed Dragon Emperor of his level to transmogrify to the form of a human. So, there is a high possibility that he was concealing under the river to overlook the troops. However, the sudden pincer attack of the two Fleets caught him off-guard. If he didn¡¯t make a move, the two SemiGods of And Empire would be more than enough to clear off all of the invading Seafolks.


    Thus, while the Nine-headed Dragon got to ughter innumerable lives, he was also forced into a bad situation. As a pet of a Malevolent God, he represents the will of the Malevolent God. If he were tounch an assault on the coastline, then the level of the battle would escte immediately. Even if the Order Gods don¡¯t make a move personally, they would also send an expert Dragon yer down. A direct warrior of a true God, that is an existence very different from the human SemiGods.


    If he were to escape, not mentioning how the Seafolks here would be wiped out, his master would also lose prestige as a result. Thus, not making a move became the ideal choice.


    The And Empire would probably have some trump cards behind their back. However, seeing how they chose bomb to bomb a few shells every few hours, they are probably afraid to offend the great God if they were to engage its subordinate. The same goes for the Nine-headed Dragon as well. It doesn¡¯t have any intention to leave its original position at all. As long as you don¡¯t get on its nerves, it would only spit two Dragon Breaths now and then. While the Seafolks are fighting maniacally on the surface, seven of its nine heads werezing about.


    The horns of the eternal Sacred War has just been blown on and no one is fully prepared yet. If they were to sh with their full might as this point, regardless of who it is, they would only be reduced to cannon fodder (pawns), the Nine-headed Dragon and And aren¡¯t dumb to not see such facts.


    But, on the contrary, this kind of stalemate made me feel the precariousness of the situation.


    A stalemate on a battlefield is often created through a certain bnce between both parties and this kind of bnce is always temporary. Both of them are only restraining themselves because they are not prepared for the heavy price they would have to pay for the conclusive battle. It is just a matter of time before preparations would bepleted. As the stalemate copses, it would most probably lead to theplete defeat of one party and going by the current situation, the one to fall is most probably the And Empire who is not fully prepared.


    If the Queen of Storms were to set her heart tounch a full-out war, even if it might mean her downfall or if some dumb SemiGod were to go and y her beloved Nine-headed Dragon... Just thinking about the possibility of it happening and what would happen afterwards, I can¡¯t help but feel that this city by the river is really unsafe.


    The technology that Darsos promised me is already in my hands and the carts of resources are already out of the territories of the And Empire. There is a possibility of the contract being fulfilled at anytime, so I have to start preparing for my retreat as well. But, before that...


    ¡°Reyne, follow me. There are two people who you must meet.¡± After hesitating for a moment, I decided in the end to call another person along.


    ¡°Yingou, you as well. This time, the person we are meeting is your peer. Your mission is doing what you are best at, brag as much as you can and try your best to coax them over to our side.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    ¡®The Master of Magic Engineering¡¯ Timmy Lade, ¡®Miraculous Alchemist¡¯ Olivia Wright. They are the creators of the Magic Engineering Study as well as the creator of the future tier-5 troop Magic Machinery Dragon. In the future epic war, of all of the rising stars, they are the two brightest ones.


    War is a stimnt for the development of new technologies and a training ground for troops. In the future war, the Magic Engineering Study that these two came up with will create numerous godly weapons and war equipment. They y a crucial part in the reason why And Empire was able to walk to the pinnacle of mankind before their destruction.


    Of course, in history, they would start proposing thebination of Alchemy Magic Formations and Engineering Study only after the war with the Underground World. Also, the Magic Mechanical Dragon is a product 60 years from now. Right now, one of the hero of Kagersi should still be a rookie Engineer who relies on selling toys for a living while the other is an unqualified Alchemist who just got expelled from the Alchemy Campus.


    Even if they are obscure unimportant figures at this point, even if history has changed and those two might not rise up as they did, these two people are way too important. Lacking manpower from the start, there is no way I would let them off.


    The reason why I haven¡¯t looked for them all along is because of the reason that geniuses tend to be entric and these two are supreme geniuses who have left their mark in history... Alright, I will be more direct. Back then, my goal for recruitingpanions is for them to be normal. The quirks and habits of those two are definitely the most gentlemanly of the Gentlemen, so why would I take the initiative to look for them.


    But now...


    Looking at the System Notice, I shake my head helplessly.


    ¡¾Exceeding the normal logic, un, otherwise known as perverted Gentlemen, we might not be understood by others. That is because we fervently pursuit the path in our hearts while ignoring the eyes of others. But, to a true Gentleman, so what if other people are unable to understand us? It is sufficient that those who are also seeking their own paths are able to understand one another. As the King among Gentlemen, you are able toprehend everyone¡¯s frustrations and pain. You are the brethren of all Gentlemen. Everyone naturally respects you. ¡¿


    ¡¾Honorary Title King of Gentlemen: As the Gentleman among Gentlemen, the legendary uncrowned king, your reputation will spread throughout all dimensions. All Gentlemen who you meet will feel as though they are meeting with an old friend and their intimacy towards you will rise significantly. However, normal people will resent and avoid you. At the same time, as the King of Gentlemen, you will attract Gentlemen to you. Also, if you were to extend an invitation to them, there is a higher probability they woulde under yourmand. ¡¿


    At that moment, even if the strength of the Ogre is really not bad and Tracy even guaranteed that he would listen to me obediently and that he would be a good fighter as long as I provide him food, I still hesitated on inviting him to join us.


    But, very quickly, my dilemma vanished. When the 4 short fellows escaped from jail, the number of members in the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance exceeded the number required and the System decisively granted this title onto me.


    ¡¾Congrattion, King of Gentlemen. As the King who rules over perverts, your Gentleman level is unmatched by anyone else. ¨C Don¡¯t talk to me. Mum, there is a pervert here! ¡¿


    ¡°Hehe, I suddenly find you a little more pleasing to the eye.¡±


    I have already tested the prowess of this aura and the words of the others made me a little happy. However, this ¡®pleasing to the eye¡¯ which came from the Dracon made a shiver go down my spine.


    Cough cough, back to the main topic at hand, after receiving the ¡®noble title¡¯ of the King of Gentlemen, after being so depressed that I almost gave up on myself, I can only hope that this title is as powerful as it is described as and that it would help me coax those two future rising stars.


    ¡°Hmph, I have never heard of that Timmy Lade but that Olivia is a well-known freak. Of the 13 main lessons, she failed 7 of them, resulting in her expulsion from school. She is almost bing the shame of the school, so how could she still count as a genius?¡±


    Unexpectedly, our band had a newpanion, the granddaughter of the Holy Knight Kane, Kathleen. She turned out to be an ex-student of Kagersi 3rd Alchemy Campus and ssmates with Olivia.


    Since the sword is already in my hand, naturally, Kathleen has made her decision. Right now, she is my Knight squire and a Mage apprentice.


    Yes, she chose neither the path of a Knight nor the path of a Mage.


    ¡°That... Can I try both of them? I really can¡¯t make up my mind.¡±


    From what I know, she hasn¡¯t given up on Alchemy yet too. The time and energy of a person is limited, learning 3 of them simultaneously is really suicidal but I didn¡¯t say anything. Anyway, reality would force her make a choice sooner orter. Her impression of it would be deeper if she were to crash into the wall herself.


    When she heard that we are looking for a genius in Alchemy, as a fellow Alchemist, she volunteered to tag along. But, when she heard that it was Olivia, displeasure could be seen on her face.


    ¡°It should be somewhere here. Do you know exactly where Olivia lives?¡±


    As expected, I got an affirmative no from Kathleen. Thus, I casually asked a passer-by for directions.


    ¡°Excuse me, do you know where Alchemist Olivia...¡± Alright, halfway through my words, the burly man¡¯s face turns ghastly white the moment he heard Olivia¡¯s name. Perspiration flows profusely from him as his eyes swims about.


    Alright, from the reaction of this passer-by, I can roughly guess what kind of person she is.


    ¡°If her Gentleman level is high, with the assistance of the King of Gentlemen title, it should be easy to coax her to join us. But, if she is too Gentlemanly, that bunch of bastards is already enough to deal with... Should I hope that she would be more normal or should I hope that she would be more abnormal? Such a dilemma.¡±


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    ¡°Alright, you don¡¯t have to show me the way anymore. Little bro, you better get going. I think I found her.¡±


    The beautiful green mushroom cloud, the shrieks not too far away and the action of the passer-by getting ready to escape spells everything out clearly.


    ¡°This color, looks like bringing along the Dwarf Anti-Poison Mask is the correct decision... It looks like there is no doubt about it, there will be another member in the Gentleman Alliance.¡±


    ps£ºÕ⼸Ì칤×÷ÓÐЩ棬¸ãµÃÿÌìÏ°ൽ¼Òºó²ÅÄÜ¿ªÊ¼Âë×Ö£¬×ÜÊÇÍíµã.....Ã÷ÌìÓ¦¸Ã»áÇáËɵ㣬ÕùÈ¡±¬·¢°É£¬ÓÖÇ·ÁËÈý´Î±¬·¢ÁË¡£RT


    ¡°...such as the Saint Kaesora and Dragon Knight Edwin¡±TL: I tried googling the names but I couldn¡¯t find who the Saint and Dragon Knight is, so I will leave the names here so maybe someone who is familiar with these names could enlighten me. <ÏÍÕß¿¨Ë÷À­¡¢ÁúÆïÊ¿°£µÂÎÂ>


    Terminology edits:


    God Pet -> God Beast

 Chapter 103

    Chapter 103: The Miraculous Alchemist


    Despite being called the ¡®Miraculous Alchemist¡¯, just by her outer appearance itself, Olivia looks just like an ordinary cute girl.


    Her golden wavy hair emits the radiance of youth. Her light green Alchemist Robe is unable to conceal her proud contours that surpasses those of her age. Her face has traces of baby fats, giving it a natural dazed look. In contrast to that, the silver-rimmed spectacles on her face adds a schrly touch to her tone.


    Although it is our first time meeting, Olivia gives me a kind of nostalgic impression. Perhaps, it is due to the schrly feeling that is simr to that of Elisa¡¯s and Magaret¡¯s, especially the silver-rimmed spectacles which is obviously serving as just an ornament.


    How do I know that? Not mentioning how Elisa¡¯s sses are t, in this instant, Olivia¡¯s spectacles werecking a lens. But, not only did the girl herself not realise it, there were guests in front of her and yet she was still muttering under her lowered head about where her experiment went wrong.


    Even when staring face-to-face with someone else, the eyes of the youngdy is unfocused as her thoughts were in the skies, not even guarded against us in the least. There were food stains on her face and her entire living room is incredibly messy. The first impression that she gives is that she is a very messy person.


    After roughly scanning the room, I can roughly understand why Kathleen wasn¡¯t very fond of Olivia.


    ¡°So it is a conflict due to them being of different levels.¡± The liveliness and youthfulness that Olivia emits, not to mention her proud and moving figure, gives the in-looking robe an elegant aura whereas when the same robe is worn on Kathleen...


    Having a slim and t figure is advantageous for cavalry battles. How can someone with a voluptuous figure hold firmly onto their weapons in a battle? You all are born physically talented as a Knight. Un, next time I see Kathleen stare at the chest of a beautifuldy, I will make sure to console her like that.


    Why you all? Alright, my page Reyne is also staring at her with hostility. Looking from the sides, she is even grinding her teeth.


    ¡°... So big, how could she be of the same age as me. Hmph, with such size, it will start sagging sooner orter.¡±


    Alright, allow me to rationally ignore this mysterious cursing and turn the attention back to the main topic at hand.


    ¡°Cough, Miss Olivia, nice to meet you. I am Rnde.¡± Although I greeted her, I am unable to bring back her floating spirit.


    ¡°Could it be that I added the Magic Rock Oil too early? Then, I guess I should try adding some fusing reagent.¡±


    ¡°Hey, hey! Miss Olivia, do you hear me?¡±


    Alright, the Alchemist starts to take out her pen and begins drawing and writing on a piece of paper, ignoring our presence.


    ¡°Since you want to y the game... Olivia! Big-breasted girl! The sun has risen! Lessons have started!¡±


    Kathleen sneaks by Olivia¡¯s side and screams into her ear. The echo of her voice lingers in the room for a few second, even I was stunned by it. Her resentment towards Olivia is really apparent. Only then did Olivia regain her senses.


    ¡°Ah, Teacher Dana, I am not dazing off, I am really listening attentively to your lesson!¡±


    Alright, the ex-student immediately stands in an upright position after being rmed from her junior shouting out her nickname. She seems to have forgotten that she was expelled from the school.


    ¡°Puu! Senior Olivia, did you think that it was still Teacher Dana¡¯s herbology lesson? Rest easy, no one is punishing you this time. We are here for some private matters.¡±


    ¡°Little bamboo stick, stop calling my nickname. You scared me, I thought that teacher was raging at me again. I really don¡¯t know why Teacher Dana is always targetting me.¡±


    Alright, while Kathleen¡¯s nickname is exposed, it turns out that ¡®big-breasted girl¡¯ is also a publicly-epted title for Olivia such that even the teachers were using it. Exactly how deep is this grudge?


    ¡°Teacher Dana is still unwedded despite being advanced in age. When she finally found a boyfriend after much difficulty, her boyfriend dumped her due to small chests. Naturally, she would feel her temper rising when she sees you. Can you at least try to sympathise with her? Big-breasted girl.¡±


    ¡°Oh, no wonder she is always staring at my chests. I even wondered if she was just like those weird boys...¡±


    ¡°Cough, Alchemist Olivia, there is something I would like to talk to you about.¡±


    Seeing how their chatter is getting more and more heated up, they probably forgotten that there is an existence of a male here. I try to interrupt their conversation but...


    ¡°... This smell, it should be a strong Troll Tonic. Why is itbelled as Hair-growing Reagent?¡±


    Yingou retrieves a bottle from the shelves and questions her with a high-pitched voice. Putting his identity as a Gold-rank Alchemist on the line, regardless of whether it is the color or the smell, it is definitely a Troll Regeneration Tonic. It is impossible for it to be a Hair-growing Reagent.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that is still iplete. I considered trying to localise the effect of the Troll Regeneration onto one¡¯s hair, so that no matter how stubborn the baldness is, hair would be able to grow out from one¡¯s head. In the end... Wait, don¡¯t drink it!¡±


    To an Alchemist, trying one¡¯s experimental product is the best way to understand its effects. Basing it on his outstanding resistance against such effects, Yingou opens the bottle cap and gulugulu, he drinks it without any hesitation.


    ¡°Owehh.¡± Yingou clutches his stomach as he kneels down. Then, a pitch-ck bunch of hair drops to the ground. So, it seems that he was wearing a wig all along...


    He wasn¡¯t trying to test the medicine in the first ce, he was making use of this opportunity to fill up his ws!


    ¡°Did the medicine fail? Will he be okay?¡±


    ¡°No, it is a sess. It is just that there is some slight side effects.¡±


    There is no need to ask anymore. The result before us has exined everything. Thick and long hair started growing out at a rapid pace from Yingou¡¯s bald and shiny head. That Gnome was so excited that he started pouncing about delightfully. But, very quickly, the trouble came. The hair has already reached his feet and yet, it was still growing longer and longer.


    ¡°This conceptual design is a sess but the problem lies in controlling the uncontainable regeneration ability of the Troll Tonic. That is to say, the growth cannot be stopped...¡±


    In just a brief moment, Yingou has turned into a gigantic hairball and his entire body is filled with pitch-ck hair. A round furball rolls around the floor, even his eyes and face disappears under the bulking mass of hair.


    ¡°Save me, I can¡¯t breath.¡±


    He wanted to retrieve his own medicine in his clothes to save himself but he couldn¡¯t even stretch out his hands. There were too much hair restricting his movement. Some were even invading his nose.


    Alright, if we don¡¯t start saving him now, he would suffocate to death from his own hair. That would be a hrious cause of death.


    I quickly withdraw my sword to sever the hair, but the severed part immediately regrows. This hair is even more troublesome to deal with than tentacle monsters. But, Olivia had an even better idea.


    She has already ran to her experimentb by the side and retrieved 3 reagents. She expertly pours them into one bottle and tosses it into the sky. The fluids mixes together along with the dancing of the bottle midair. In a few short seconds, the final product took shape. Then, she throws it forcefully towards Yingou.


    ¡°Pah!¡±


    As the antidote sshes onto him, the effects of the Troll Hair-growing Reagent dispels and his hair starts to fall off rapidly.


    ¡°I am saved. Phew.¡±


    As his hair falls to the ground, Yingou sits paralysed on the ground, thankful that he has survived this ordeal. But...


    ¡°Puu!¡±


    ¡°Haha, what is this? A chihuahua? An egg?¡±


    Gnomes look a little simr to cats and dogs and they have quite a bit of hair on their body as well. That¡¯s why Dwarves often mock them as furry short-legged dogs. This is also why the effect of the reagent just now didn¡¯t just cause the hair on his head to grow furiously, but the hair on his body as well.


    Apparently, Olivia¡¯s antidote is just as effective as her Hair-growing Reagent. If all of his hair were to drop off at the same time, then he would be as ugly as a bald dog would get. Furthermore, on that hairless head, even the eyebrows are missing. He lookedpletely like a white-cut chicken. He looks a little like the head of a hairless Fishmen, no wonder Reyne and the rest would be clutching their stomach, rolling on the ground from all theughter.TL:


    ¡°My... My hair, there were obviously 10 strands previously! It¡¯s all gone! Big hair, second hair, number 3... little ten, you all died tragically. How can you all leave me here alone? How can I live on by myself?¡±


    Alright, the bald Gnome bawls on the ground. His action of naming his 10 strands of hair is really...


    ¡°Puu!¡±


    I¡¯m sorry, I wanted to say depressing but looking at the tears flowing down that bald egg, I couldn¡¯t hold it in. Please allow me tough by the side first.


    Alright, back to the topic at hand. Yingou, who has suppressed himself to remain calm, starts to gauge the capabilities of his new disciple.


    Disciple? As a new Gold-rank Alchemist, even the principal of the Alchemy Campus wasn¡¯t up to his standards. Yingou only has to sh his identity, indicate his willingness to ept a disciple and show his approval for the rookie Alchemist¡¯s talent for her, who was just expelled from school, for her pay respects to her new mentor on the spot.


    At just 15 years old, Olivia is obviously still a rookie. Perhaps, she might hold great potential and many creative ideas are blooming in her head. However, herck in understanding of basic theories would require her to grind her knowledge for at least a few more decades. Being at Bronze-rank, she might be considered outstanding among her peers. But, to a master Alchemist, she is an obvious novice. Being expelled by the Alchemy Campus has made her aughingstock in this circle, causing her paths to further her studies has been cut. At this point, the future Miraculous Alchemist is just an innovative apprentice.


    ¡°Is this the medicine you made? This smell, it should be Savage Bull Tonic. Judging from its color, there is still room for improvement. What is the strength multiplier ratio?¡±


    After suffering once, even the master Alchemist refuses to test her medicine anymore.


    ¡°I reced the bull blood with the concentrated blood of a Tauren instead, increasing the effectiveness of the original drug by 30 times. If consumed, one¡¯s strength could be increased by 3 times. However, the side effect is that the person will find horns and tails growing out from their body and they would randomly go into a Berserk state.¡±


    I saw Yingou¡¯s face twitched for a moment as his hands shook, causing him to almost drop the little bottle in his hands.


    A normal Savage Bull Tonic would only increase one¡¯s strength by 10%. That 300% multiplier along with the transmogrification effects is incredible. But, great returnses with a price. While their strength would explode in the short-term after consuming it, there is a high chance they would die after the effect wears off.¡±


    ¡°Have you tried it?¡±


    ¡°Un, I tried it on Xiao Bai. Ah, that is a dog that my family keeps. After consuming it, he knocked down a wall and it took him half a year to recuperate from that. Now, he thinks that he is a hellhound and often spits saliva at others (breath fire).¡±


    ¡°That green bottle... That is a natural recovery medicine right, but why would it be red in color?¡±


    ¡°Hehe, I added Dragon Mane Grass and Petrifying Lizard Reagent into it. It is one of my prized work. While healing one¡¯s injuries, it will grant them the ability of Stone Skin, increasing their defense exponentially. For a bottle to have 2 different beneficial effects, it is one of the few sessful products of mine.¡±


    ¡°The side effect?¡± Yingou wasn¡¯t moved. He can already roughly tell that his disciple here is a little entric.


    ¡°That... I prepared a potion to undo the petrification and gave it out as aplimentary gift. I even wrote in thebel ¡®If you do not want to be a statue, please do not use this medicine when you are alone¡¯. It is weird that I am still unable to sell it to anyone.¡±


    It is entirely reasonable for you to be unable to sell it out. Who would dare to drink a potion that could cause one to turn into stone?


    ¡°This? Un? The smell of milk?¡±


    ¡°Oh, this is the Breast Enhancement Medicine that my juniors requested me to create. I managed to achieve my primary objective and this is also one of my few sessful works.¡±


    Hearing her words, Reyne¡¯s eyes glitter. She is tempted to give it a try but looking at the bald head and the bunch of freakish medicines, she hesitated.


    ¡°... Don¡¯t even think of it. This is one of the main culprit to why she was expelled from the school. This can indeed enhance one¡¯s breast size. But, to maintain its effects, a bottle of milk must be drunk every hour. During that period of time, all of the milk around the campus were sold out and the scent of milk engulfed the entire campus.¡±


    Hearing those words, Reyne hesitates once more. That side effect seems eptable to her.


    ¡°There should be something else, right? She shouldn¡¯t be expelled just because of this.¡±


    Suddenly, Kathleen¡¯s face reddens as she walks towards Reyne and whispers in her ear.


    ¡°... The milk can¡¯t possibly be ingested continuously without being excreted. When it is umted past a certain extent, it would spill out explosively. Back then, this was how our Teacher Dana screwed up her blind date. Nowadays, she don¡¯t even dare to meet others.¡±


    Alright, even though she was whispered it softly, but the ears of those in this room were quite sharp. At the very least, I regret hearing those words.


    The Miraculous Alchemist would only start to gain fame a decadeter. Apparently, we came too early. The side effects of herpleted products were much too strongpared to the original effects intended. However, a half-filled bucket has its own use. At least, she would be easy to coax.


    In this era, the rtionship between a teacher and a disciple isn¡¯t that different from one between a parent and a child. Since Yingou is willing to ept her as his disciple, this rtionship is much stronger than anything else. Alright, a certain line of heritage where murdering one¡¯s teacher is a tradition serves an an exception. At the very least, looking at the harmonious sight of the teacher and disciple duo, the kitten on my cat looks at me in resentment.


    ¡°Stop biting me, didn¡¯t I get done in by my disciple as well?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, you deserved it. Besides, you actually still dare to mentor someone else, aren¡¯t you afraid of the tradition working up once again?¡±


    ¡°That is two different matter. The reason why you got rid of your teacher was because your teacher attacked you, right? The reason why I got rid of you back then was because you had malicious intentions as well. You said that I was looking for it, but I think that you are the one who is reaping what you sow.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, forget it, let bygones be bygones. Just look, I think that this teacher and disciple duo does seem a bit like how we were back then.¡±


    ¡°I doubt so, I think Yingou would impart his knowledge seriously. He isn¡¯t like some stingy Banshee who requires her apprentice to do some mission to please her just to teach him a spell.¡±


    ¡°No, I am talking about the point where the disciple will get rid of the teacher sooner ofter. I mean, just look, didn¡¯t she almost seed already? Look at those things that she created. I bet that within 3 years, if the egghead doesn¡¯t die of anger than he would have died from poison.¡±


    Unsure of what was touched, after a cloud of red fog scatters, Olivia lowers her head apologetically while the old Gnome was on a verge of tears after losing his final strands of hair ¡ª eyshes, andpletes his evolution into a round egghead. Looking at the sight, I mutter to myself.


    ¡°I¡¯m in. But not three years, I bet that he would be yed to death within a year.¡±


    ¡°Then what the heck are we still betting for? Why don¡¯t we bet whether he would die from anger or poisoning?¡±


    ¡°I think he would most probably be blown to death.¡± Recalling Yingou¡¯s ¡®noble title¡¯ of being called the Alchemist of Explosion, if he were to impart all of his knowledge to the already dangerous Olivia...


    ¡°She is my future subordinate... Am I unknowingly digging a pit for me to fall into by creating a dangerous terrorist?¡±


    PS£º½ñÌìÍíÉÏ»¹ÓУ¬Ë³±ãÇóµãÔÂƱ¡¢ÍƼöƱ°ÉRI

 Chapter 104

    Chapter 104: The Frigid Nightmare


    From the beginning, Olivia isn¡¯t an Ander. She¡¯s the daughter of a merchant from one of the seven countries of the Southern Lands, Rhodes Kingdom, and she specially travelled here to study Alchemy.


    As a foreign student, she doesn¡¯t have any property here and her luggage is scant. After throwing her medicines and reagents into a Spatial Equipment, packing her books and notes, refunding the deposit and returning the key to thendlord, she is ready to leave.


    By the way, the East Mist Communal Country is also one of the seven countries of the Southern Lands. Half of thend of the seven countries altogether was part of the original Mist Country. If I were to reunite the Mist Country again, it would mean merging two countries together and imingnd from two other countries. Under current conditions, it isn¡¯t feasible.


    Olivia is quite delighted, being able to be the disciple of a Master Alchemist and to leave this country. After all, in the eyes of other countries, the people of the Southern Lands are barbarians who wear fur coats. Although she is happy over the fact that it isn¡¯t snowing half of the time in a year, she has met with numerous bothersome matters through these years when she was studying.


    Now that I¡¯m done with the ¡®Miraculous Alchemist¡¯, it is time to look for the ¡®Master of Magic Engineering¡¯ Timmy Lade. While searching for him, I stumble on some trouble. However, this isn¡¯t my first time meeting with such problems.


    There is still 17 to 18 years before Timmy Lade makes a name for himself. The current Timmy Lade... Alright, I wasn¡¯t surprised in the least when I saw a snot-filled rascal. At the very least, this time, I managed to the find the person in question. This is significantly better than thest time, when the ancestors of the historical heroes that I was looking for were still in their egg and sperm form.


    But I met with some trouble when persuading the guardian of the kid.


    Timmy Lade has an elder sister and they were interdependent on one another. When she finally returns, I soon realise that she is a person we are familiar with.


    ¡°Olivia, Kathleen?¡±


    ¡°Tea... Teacher Dana! Why are you here?¡±


    ¡°This is my home, I¡¯m still curious over why you lot are here. Didn¡¯t you all leave school already? What are you all doing here? Is something up?¡±


    The calm-lookingdy in front of me looks like she is in her early thirties. Her solemn face has a dignified atmosphere to it but there is a trace of bitterness on her beautiful face. Looking at her t contours, I recall the milk story from before...


    ¡°Puuu!¡±


    Alright, it is too impolite to beughing out like that. Reyne, I will make sure to report you to Kelly when we get back. You will be in for some remedial etiquette sses... Iughed as well? Un, at the very least, I didn¡¯t spurt out. I retained some basic respect for thedy.


    ¡°Nice to meet you, Teacher Dana. I¡¯m Kathleen¡¯s Knight mentor. I require the help of an Alchemist, so Kathleen rmended me to you. This is a long-term contract and I¡¯m afraid that you may lose your job at the school as a result. However, I can ensure that the remuneration will be generous. Furthermore, there will be opportunity for you to climb to higher grounds. This man over here is the Master Alchemist Yingou Beyar. He is a Gold-rank Alchemist, you can have a chat with him.¡±


    Given that Timmy Lade is interdependent with his elder sister, kidnapping the rascal by himself isn¡¯t a practical solution. On the other hand, as long as we are able to hire this teacher here, Timmy Lade will naturally tag along with us.


    However, what is unexpected is that after hearing my words, Dana¡¯s face lights up, as though she is moved by my offer. But the next moment, her face sinks again.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. While I really do require a new job, we have already decided to leave this city. I¡¯m afraid that I would be unable to ept your goodwill.¡±


    ¡°Leave? Why?¡±


    Initially, she refuses to speak but under my relentless questioning, she finally gives in.


    Actually, the reason is quite simple. She feels that the city isn¡¯t safe, so she decided to leave.


    The reason why she feels that the city isn¡¯t safe is because she could see the silhouette of that gigantic figure just outside the window.


    The gigantic body of the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor Hydra fills almost half of the entire river. The proud dragon heads could be seen even a few districts away. The Dragon Breaths every now and then might not mean anything much to the entire city, but to the unlucky fellows who got struck by it, it is definitely an instant death.


    This isn¡¯t some Nine-headed Snake in some marsh regions who inherited a portion of the Dragon Bloodline. The Sea Monster Hydra which has survived numerous tribtions since ancient times is a God Beast. It has obtained a portion of God Power from very early on. If a grade must be given to his bloodline, then his would definitely not be too far off from my Double Diamond Bloodline. When this kind of existence reaches the realm of a SemiGod, a human SemiGod doesn¡¯t mean a single thing in his eyes.


    From the very start, this Nine-headed Dragon Emperor is almost an invincible existence in the mortal world. Due to its overwhelming strength, the Hydra¡¯s movements is also restricted. Its aversion towards fighting is quite apparent. However, if you were to approach him and get on his nerves, then who can you me when you are the one seeking death?


    This is like a prologue of arge-scale war game. A few powerful figurese out to lecture you and fight with a few old friends to brush up their existence, but this are all simply part of the storyline. As a rookie, you can just treat it like a movie and just watch the show. However, if you think that you can solo the boss and charge forward, screaming ¡®Die, evil! I want to y the dragon¡¯ and get instant KO-ed, who else can you me for it?


    At the very least, after understanding the prowess of the other party, Darsos doesn¡¯t intend to break through recklessly, nor does he want to anger the master of the Nine-headed Dragon, the Queen of Storms. Looking at how he is trying to avoid battling while sending letters to numerous great Churches, he is obviously waiting for the Order Gods to deal with this problem.


    Of course, if the Nine-headed Dragon were toe ashore, Darsos would probably stake everything in and make a final stand to protect his country. The Hydra also understands that and it doesn¡¯t intend to escte the battle. That¡¯s the reason why the battle is stuck in a stalemate. On the contrary, the ones who were working the hardest are the Seafolks under itsmand. Other than there being a powerful being pressuring them from the back, the main reason for it was because of a coincidence.


    In order to disy their extravagance, the Magic Lamps were hung by the river coastline and the fuel used is the highest grade luxury of the human world, the expensive Mermaid Oil. Mermaids are the favored children of the sea, well-reputed as the royals of the Seafolks. Thus, when the Fishmen of the White Whale Tribe saw those oilmps, it is equivalent to a human watching an Ogre cooking human meat. No matter what, they would go into a frenzy. Naturally, the fight escted.


    Even if the Seafolks are unable to get past the solid defensive line and the temporary barriers set up, the And Empire still suffered considerable losses. The appearance of the Nine-headed Dragons has caused the Pier District to be submerged in water. There are a portion of civilians who managed to escape on time, but at the same time, there are also a portion who are unlucky and swept away by the river water along with their houses, fated to never appear onnd again.


    ¡°My uncle and his entire family lives in the Pier District. Also, my boyfriend¡¯s house was struck directly by the Dragon¡¯s Breath, not a single bone remains of his family. Thus, we decided to leave this depressing city.¡±


    There are quite a few people who choose to leave the city because of such reasons. Dana is just one of them. It is just that her luck is really bad. Despite just dating her boyfriend for just 2 weeks, he met with such a tragedy.


    Many of the wars on the continent are the same as well. Regardless of who wins or loses, no matter how sacred or reasonable the reasons for the war are, the ones who suffers first are the weak ordinary civilians.


    ¡°That¡¯s great. Oh, I am not talking about your kins. My apologies,dy. I have misspoke. What I meant is that this job requires you to move to a foreign country as well. Since you intend to leave this city, then this job may be suitable for you.¡±


    ¡°Really? Can you fill me in on the details?¡±


    Alright, since the other party also intends to leave the city, the generous remuneration of the employment contract easily moved the heart of Dana, who was worried for the future.


    When the two future rising stars were finally under mymand, I couldn¡¯t help but fall into deep thoughts.


    ¡°Since I interfered in their fate, will they still be as influential as they were in ¡®history¡¯? Will they still reach the pinnacle like how they did previously?¡±


    But looking at it from another perspective, even if I do not interfere, the fate of those two would have changed anyway. Since the sudden invasion of the Seafolks would cause Timmy Lade to leave, then regardless of whether he bes a Master Engineer or not in the future, there is already no basis for the both of them to work together in the future. If so, there is not a possibility for the emergence of the Magic Engineering Study. However, my interference may relight this possibility once again.


    ¡°Oh well, why should I think so much about it? At the very least, they are both good buds. If so, I should just wait patiently and groom them as an outstanding rookie. Un, since I introduced Olivia to Yingou, I should introduce little Timmy to Jinya. If the Magic Machinery Dragon were to be born in the future, it should be in the style of the Gnome Explosion Study.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª


    There is an ancient legend in the Southern Lands. Every year, in the few days when snow blocks all passageway to the great ice mountains, in its deepest core, spirits and monsters will emerge for a festive gathering. Regardless of whether it is the Specters, the Snow Woman, the Yetis or the Snowman, all that should be present will be present.


    There tend to be a basis for all legends. For this, it is the Frigid Nightmare.


    Nightmare, it refers to the demons who looms in our sleep. In reality, the Frigid Nightmare is themon term used for the nameless magic beings living in the ice mountains.


    They are intangible beings of magic, yet they are corporeal existences. They are just like the Aurora Lights unique to the Southern Lands. Theye in all shape, forms, colors and varieties and yet, when you approach them, you realise that there is nothing there at all.


    There is a few thousand years of history to their legends. Southerners would often tell their own children to not head to the great ice mountain in days where it is snowing heavily. That is until one day, a man who didn¡¯t believe the legends intentionally chose to meet the Nightmare of the icy mountains on the day of a blizzard.


    He is the ancestor of the Mist Royalty. No one knows exactly what happened in the depths of the ice mountains, nor do anyone know who exactly was the one who ventured there. But, after this incident, the Aurora Knights who turned the heads of the entire continent started appearing in this country of snow.


    Knights have always been a backbone of the human armies. This is due to the fact that all kind of mounts can make the originally weak humans be powerful. Even a rookie climbing up a Griffin would make him a tier-3 troop. However, for the weakest of the Aurora Knights to be a tier-4, this proves how powerful the Frigid Nightmare is.


    The Frigid Nightmare is a spiritual being, it doesn¡¯t have a fixed form. It is also due to this Aurora-like indeterminate property that allows the Knights to be have strong adaptation capabilities and high growth potential.


    The Frigid Nightmare will grow along with the young Knight whom it has linked its soul to. They will absorb nutrients from the soul of the Knight. That is the reason why the beast each Aurora Knight is contracted to is different. Arge portion of Nightmares will choose to assume the form of beings living in the ice mountains such as the Snowman and Snow Leopard. Of course, the one people are the most envious of are the Snow Women, despite their weak battle capabilities. Alright, I don¡¯t think I have the exin the reason for this, all men should be able toprehend it.


    However, in order to make it convenient for a group battle, all young Nightmares will be trained to assume the form of the Storm Eagle, Armored Arctic Bear and Ice Unicorn. This would allow the charging army of Aurora Knights to be able to switch among a flying assault, furious charge and violent stampede in a just a few short minutes. Without any doubt, they are the sovereign of the snow.


    As a top-tier magic being, the Frigid Nightmares possess high intelligence. A young Frigid Nightmare would already have the intelligence of a three to four year old child whereas a mature Frigid Nightmare is often even smarter than humans. The reason why most of the Aurora Knights who have a Snow Woman Frigid Nightmare remain unmarried could be attributed to the fact that they have fallen in love with their contractual beast.


    Due to the existence of the Bloodline Contract, those of the Mist Royalty can obtain the eptance of the Frigid Nightmares with greater ease. Many descendants of the Royal Bloodline would have a double identity as an Aurora Knight, making it a very prestigious job to attain among the civilians. In our generation, Karwenz is also an Aurora Knight. His Nightmare is able to transform freely between an Ice Dragon and an Ice Behemoth. In normal times though, it would assume the form of the Snow Woman. Not only is it strong, it is also pleasing to the eye, making others very envious.


    Alright, at this point, everyone should have already guessed it. The reason why I keep emphasising that I am envious of those who have a Frigid Nightmare who can transform into a Snow Woman is because I don¡¯t have one myself. In fact, I am not even an Aurora Knight.


    Silver-rank, this is the bare minimum required to gain the eptance of these proud ice magic beings. Back then, I was still a Bronze-rank rookie. By the time my power rank reached the standards, our country had already plunged into a long-term war and changing my power type at that moment wasn¡¯t a practical decision. Thus, I could only look on at the cute intelligent elder sisters by the sides of the Knights with envy and resentment. Then, in my 2nd life and 3rd life, the Aurora Knights have already went extinct in this continent. If another one were to appear all of a sudden, won¡¯t I be exposing my own identity? I am still not that foolish as to seek my own death.


    Now to the present, my power types have already been confirmed and I have a n on how I should develop on in the future. Given that I already have too many types of power in my hand, adding in an Aurora Knight into the mix would be much more disadvantageous,pared the benefits it brings. Thus, I can only look at those Snow Woman elder sister with envy and resentment.


    Yes, Snow Woman elder sister. There were only two people who were epted by the Frigid Nightmares during this period of time. One of them is a male Knight named Elohim. The usual form that his Frigid Nightmare assumes is that of a Snowman, or rather, should I say Snow Ape? Although it is shockingly unattractive, it possesses great strength and incredible agility, making it extremely suited for a chaotic battle.


    Other than because that Nightmare was apanion of his ancestor, a greater part of the reason why he was epted is because he is the only Gold-rank Knight of the Royal Knights.


    The advantages to using a Nightmare left behind by their ancestors is that they are able to skip by the long cultivation period. However, this would also mean that many gaps will appear in the coordination of the Knight and the Nightmare. They won¡¯t be as harmonised in thoughtspared to a duo whose Knight cultivates his Nightmare from young.


    As for the other new Aurora Knight, it is Reyne who I pulled up forcefully using the Golden Ring. Right after she reached Silver-rank, the bunch of incredulously proud Nightmares who refuses to approve of anyone took the initiative to look for her to contract with. In the end, she ignores the strongly-rmended heavyweight Ice Boar and Ice Giant and chooses a Snow Woman called Seva. Truthfully, those heavyweight giant monsters are the best way to bring up her pathetic fighting capabilities and grant her the ability to survive, an aspect which had been very worrying us.


    ¡°They are all very ugly. Look at how beautiful and mature Big Sister Seva is. I must choose her.¡±


    Alright, should I say as expected of a princess? The moment these words are spoken, the hearts of those hulking Nightmares were broken.


    But, I also approve of her decision. Although the Snow Woman form is extremely weak in closebat, they have the strongest Power of Ice, allowing them to forge an ice armor and ice weapon in the shortest period of time. At this moment, this is the ability that we require the most.


    With the help of Siren Tracy, we swam straight to the bottom of the river. Even if we met with the Fishmen patrol teams, as a high-tier race of the Seafolks, she can easilymand those lower-tier Fishmen to retreat.


    It is very probable that even a Mermaid would be unable to float when equipped with te mail and heavy weapons. Thus, to ensure the convenience of movement underwater, all of us were dressed lightly.


    By the time we reached the secret underwater base, the giant Snowman forged a whole set of equipment for his own Knight before heading to one side to prepare for battle. On the other hand, Seva created a weapon of ice for everyone else.


    ¡¾Magic Ice Sword¡¿


    ¡¾Attack Power: 10 ¨C 12


    Tier: Elite


    If the wielder is an Aurora Knight, the attack power will be doubled and the weapon will go up by 1 tier.¡¿


    ¡¾Frost de: Deal additional 5 Frost damage.¡¿


    ¡¾Indestructible Ice: The Extreme Freezing Magic of the Frigid Nightmare has made this Sword of Ice to be much stronger than steel. You can feel free to cross blows with Adamantine weapons¡¿


    ¡¾Frostbite: Anyone who touches this magic sword with bare skin will suffer 1 damage/second. If the wielder were to put on Arctic Wolf Gloves enchanted by a Frigid Nightmare, he would be immune to this effect for half an hour. Aurora Knights are not affected by Frostbite.¡¿


    Now that everyone has a handy weapon, the panting Seva starts to forge an armor for me.


    This is the ultra-heavy armor for a job unique to only the Mist Country, the Avnche Defender. When this heavy armor is put on my body with a door-size gigantic shield in my hand, I turnpletely into a moving fortress, assuming the role of a tanker which we are sorelycking.


    Although the Ice Armor also has the Frostbite effect which hurts the enemy as well as the user, my Titan Body ability renders this pathetic 1 damage/second null.


    Security rms echo throughout the entire base. Even the slowest of the Undeads would have already noticed us, who were preparing for battle. Looking at the Undead Knights, Zombies and Skeletons press closer, I stroke the Pale Justice in my hands and ignites the Sacred Inferno on the de of the sword.


    ¡°The Undeads who should have long returned to their graves, using my Sacred Inferno, I shall bestow upon you purification and eternal rest.¡± After finishing the standard deration of a Holy Knight when facing Undeads, I somehow felt displeased and muttered to myself.


    ¡°Why does that warcry sound so ufortable to me. Forget it, I think I will just use the warcry for charging. O Holy Light, that evil is worth a fight!¡±


    Chaotic battle -> Trying to refer to battles where everyone do their own things, imagine the sight when you send tons of footsoldiers in and they just fight as hard as they can to survive (something like that)


    And the final warcry, if I remembered it correctly, he used during the Dragon chapter (where Adam and the rest stalked him to ensure his safety), but I¡¯m a bitzy to check it up so :X

 Chapter 105

    Chapter 105: Sword Saint


    ¡°Give me 10 seconds!¡±


    After a roar, I unsheathe both of my swords. Facing the wave of attacking Undeads, I charge at the very forefront of the group without any hesitation.


    ¡°So fast.¡±


    Killing, is an art form and art form requires the devotion of one¡¯s mind and body, perhaps even one¡¯s soul.


    There¡¯s no need to think excessively on the battlefield. Just let go of everything and allow your body to dictate everything.


    The gasp of surprises behind me no longer matter as I dedicate my entire body and mind to swinging my sword.


    Swordsmanship is always the foundation of everything for a closebat fighter and indubitably, I am a Master Swordsman.


    On the Eich Continent where cold weapons reign supreme, swordsmanship is a skill an art of death. Through thousands of years of inheritance and development, each country and region has a sword style that belongs to them. A pure Warrior might not be have the magnificent Holy Light of a Holy Knight or the profound magic spells of a Magic Knight, but they still continue to stand at the pinnacle of closebat jobs. The only thing that they rely on is the 3 feet long sword in their hands and their physical body that is forged thoroughly through countless training and relentless hardships.


    The sword is the king of all weapons and Warriors who walk in the path of the sword is always in the majority. Even though everyone can train in the way of the sword, those who manage to reach high altitudes are few. If one surpasses the limits of mortals in the art of sword, they would earn the title of a Sword Saint. This has nothing to do with the identity of the person, his job or even his power rank. The only thing that factors in here is his skills with the sword in his hand.


    Sword Saint, the Saint of Swords, is a sword-bearer who has exceeded human standards.


    I am a Sword Saint. What¡¯s more, I am one without any inheritances. I am a wild Sword Saint who grew through battles.


    Self-taught, my swordsmanship isn¡¯t as mystical and diverse as the mainstream swordsmanship in this world. It doesn¡¯t have the ten thousand years of noble heritage of Karn¡¯s Soaring Eagle Sword and I am unable to use the Soaring Strike. It isn¡¯t as unpredictable as Solo¡¯s Illusory Dragon Sword and I am unable to create 9 clones with a swing of mine.


    And¡¯s Copsing Dragon Sword is violent and grand, that continuous wave of jianqi makes me envious. As a Holy Knight who grew up in the Holy Church, I didn¡¯t learn even learn slightest bit of the elegant and beauty Mist Swordsmanship of my homnd. Compared to the thousand years of heritage of different countries that created profound swordsmanship which could recreate the effects of magic, my swordprises the simplest art of killing. It is the crystallisation of my experience in battle, simple, inelegant and ugly.


    Even more so, despite being a wild Swordsman as well, even before he received the Inheritance of the Phoenix, Adam¡¯s swordsmanship had a fleeting and grand feeling to it, reminiscent to that of a Master Swordsman. After his inheritance, as his powers soared, his sword became even more elegant. The faint image of a Phoenix would appear and the call of a Phoenix would sound whenever he swings his sword, making it look extremely magnificent and striking. When he fights with his full might, the battlefield could be seen even a few kilometers away. In fact, that¡¯s how the praise ¡®A sword from the red lotus fills the sky with the afterglow of the Phoenix¡¯ came about.


    As half of a swordsmanship mentor to him, my swordsmanship still remains at the lowest level and consists only of basic sword skills. The only thing incredible about it is that it is just that bit faster, that bit more urate and that bit more deadly.


    The first thing I learnt was basic swordsmanship. After so many years, after learning countless famous sword arts and dozens of profound philosophy, the one that I was the most adept at and used the most frequently is still the simplest and most practical basic swordsmanship.


    Basic swordsmanship, just like how it sounds, is the basic fighting sword skills that every Swordsman, Holy Knight and Dark Knight will learn. Stab, hack, flick and raise, these are the basics. Fast, urate and deadly, these are the main focus. Strength, reaction and agility, these are the foundations. Everyone knows them but if someone were to say that they could be a Sword Saint with just these, the listener would probablyugh his teeth off.


    The Red Lotus Sword Saint is a well-known Great Sword Saint recognised by the entire world. In fact, his swordsmanship is even treated as the pinnacle of humans. However, whenever thatd Adam pits his swordsmanship against mine, he has never gotten the better of me.


    The reason? Truthfully, I don¡¯t even know myself. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I am extremely fond of ying with swords. Just by using swordsmanship that everyone is able to learn, I still became the most famous Sword Saint of that era.


    The sacred sword in my left hand turns into a radiant light whereas the magic ice sword in my right turns into an elegant aurora. The beautiful shes of sword reminds one of the wings of a butterfly as the colorful wings spread open into a three meter wide luster. Bringing it down violently, the entire ground trembles while I myself have already turned into a hurricane that brings about destruction.


    The two swords with differing attributes in my hands and Holy Light added a bit of color to my standard swordsmanship.


    The giant de in my left hand that was intentionally forged thicker is blunt, but the heavy body of the sword itself makes it convenient for me to execute different kinds of swordy.


    The zombies have overwhelming strength, their skin is thick and they don¡¯t fear pain? Decapitate it with a strong sh first. Then, by pulling the sword through at a nted angle, its pivot bones would be broken, reducing the indefatigable Zombie into a heap of flesh.


    The Skeleton General¡¯s skeleton rack is as tough as metal and they aren¡¯t afraid of stabs and sharp weapons? By twisting the de of the weapon, the giant sword turns into a giant club. With a smack, its bones would be rattled and might even fall apart to the ground.


    Death Knights? I have heard that you¡¯re good at martial arts and that you can use Dark Magic and Necromancy? Hey, what do you mean by falling in a single blow? Why are you weak? Even little Lionheart was thousand times stronger than you when he just resurrected.


    Banshee, it is said that you are immune to physical damage, that you are adept at all kind of Weakness Spells and Curses and that you are the nemesis of meleebatants? Un, Curses are indeed troublesome. Face my Secret Sword: Seven Bitter Sword... Hey hey hey, why are you escaping? Can you have some pride as a High-tier Undead. You really threw the face of Banshees. Look, even the Queen of Banshees on my shoulders can¡¯t stand watching you any further.


    Knock, flick, smash, chop! Heavy hammer, rapier, cudgel, katana! Despite it being a bulky giant sword that is difficult to use, many different fighting styles are executed through it. The swordsmanship fundamentals that I have umted allows me to turn the giant sword into a sure-kill attack catered directly to the weakness of my opponents. From the start of the battle, an enemy would fall from every single sword of mine and my armor has yet to suffer a single attack.


    That is only considering the Ice Sword in my right hand. It is even simpler for the sacred sword in my left. After I infuse sufficient Holy Light into that sacred sword, ¡®The Judgement of Justice¡¯ starts to dere the doomsday for the Undeads.


    ¡¾The Judgement of Justice: Activate the Soul Gemstone¡¯s judgement ability. When this sacred sword strikes on a Chaos being, the target will be forced to undergo Judgement. If the target fails to pass the Judgement, the target will be directly destroyed thoroughly. Duration: 10 minutes. This ability can be used 3 times daily.¡¿


    As long as the sword strikes them, even if it is just a slight scrape, the fragile Undeads would be reduced to a pile of ashes. After realising that this ability is extremely powerful against Undeads and finding the Undead¡¯s ability to retaliate pathetic, the sword on my left hand which was used primarily for defense starts to be utilised for offense as well. Immediately, my killing efficiency increases multiple folds.


    The Ice Heavy Armor only has the weight of slightly bulkier chainmail. My ordinary-looking physical body possesses overwhelming brute strength. Despite being dressed in thick armor, I am still able to execute the footwork of a swordsman.


    However, there is actually no need for me to. Not to mention getting injured, to this point, I haven¡¯t even been struck once yet.


    I finally realise that I have made an error. Using those fellows in Liu Huang Mountain City to gauge the strength of these newborn Undeads, that is just like how even though a little child in kindergarten and a powerful war veteran are both humans, there is an overwhelming difference between the two. If we were to use the might of the special forces to deal with little children, they would be able wipe out an army of them easily.


    Just as I was getting high from killing, the sight in front of me turnspletely empty. There isn¡¯t any more enemies in my surroundings.


    Thus, making use of this opportunity, I flip the sword in my left hand around and grips it in reverse. Then, I start to gather strength.


    ¡°Slow, blunt and foolish. Yet, you all still wish to pit your skills against mine? Dream on!¡±


    After a furious roar, I hold up both of my swords as the bright light flows through them. My whole body starts to turn, turning into a hurricane of death.


    Following the whirl of both swords, the jianqi-filled tornado starts to overflow. The excessive and rampaging jianqi starts to expand while the rapidly rotating des brought the jianqi into rotation as well. In the end, I turned into a formless but deadly storm of jianqi.


    ¡¾Ding, congrattions forprehending the general Legend-rank Secret Sword: de Storm. Using this skill, you will turn into a fast rotating storm of des. The rotating swords and jianqi will severely damage all enemynd troops in the surroundings. Under the effect of de Storm, you will not feel remorse, regret or fear. Other than death, nothing can stop you. Prerequisites: 20 Strength, 10 Agility, 15 Stamina ¡ª For those who get carsick, seasick or have low Agility, please use with caution. There is no way I will tell you that the invincible Sword Saint Hodore got dizzy from spinning too much and vomited. A group of Kobolds took advantage of that moment of weakness to kill him.¡¿


    Rather thanprehend, it is actually more like recalling memories. Basically, sword skills can be executed once the basic stats fulfills the prerequisites. I already can¡¯t remember the number of sword skills that I have prehended¡¯ along the way.


    There is a reason why de Storm is the favorite general Secret Sword used by Sword Saints. It has a wide AOE, allowing swordsman to get rid arge bunch of enemy at one go. Even more so, it is an effective means of dealing with a situation when one is surrounded. Of course, its weakness is that one would be unable to stop once they start using the skill. Not to mention, their path of movement would be very clear. If one were to meet with a strong enemy, then that turning top would be an easy target.


    At this moment, the Undeads who are struck by the hurricane of jianqi found themselves put in a situation as though they were attacked by two swords simultaneously. Those who were able to survive past two seconds could already be considered strong. Along my trail, there is not a single Undead who is spared from it. The de Storm consumes everything in its range.


    When I finally stop, the battlefield around me has been cleared. Only the corpses of hundreds Undeads remain on the floor.


    ¡°Hahaha, I am already invincible... What the heck, where did thise from?¡± Looking at my newly arrived opponents, I, who was just carried away awhile back, immediately turn around to flee.


    The reason? The newly arrived Undead army has pulled out high-tier siege cannons. In the distance, the airships which are slowly activating starts to turn their magic siege cannons towards us. With just a single hit, I would definitely be reduced to ashes and I can prepare to reincarnate once again.


    ¡°The rewards are not bad.¡±


    In a short moment, these experience gift packs allow me to level up again. Also, the System Notice about me receiving some spoils of war seemed to have popped up awhile back but it isn¡¯t the time to be organising my gains now.


    When I return back to my teammates, I found them all looking at me as though I was a monster.


    After all, I only said that I would be charging in for ten seconds to draw the enemy¡¯s firepower. However, not mentioning how I only went in for a couple of seconds, I singlehandedly cleared the Undeads by the pier.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, they were simply too weak. It is just so convenient for me to cut them up, so I didn¡¯t leave anything for you all... Why are you all looking at me like that? Oh, I never told you that I am a Sword Saint?¡±


    Alright, they shake their head harmoniously. Only Kelly who knew in advance nods her head slightly with a smile. On the other hand, Reyne looks as though she is witnessing the vicissitude of life. It seems to contain a slight trace of surprise, regret and excitement.


    ¡°As expected, his usual slovenly and unreliable look isn¡¯t his true self. The true Holy Knight Rnd is still extremely fearsome. I am still far away from his standards.¡±


    Initially, she was still delighted over bing an Aurora Knight, even more so after seemingly possessing sufficient power to suppress her mentor, who is still Bronze-rank. However, from the looks of it, even if he went into decline, the legendary Holy Knight Rnd is still a legend. Just by that swordsmanship of his, he is able to dominate the world.


    ¡°Bronze-rank Holy Knight Sword Saint, incredible.¡±


    On the other hand, the new page Kathleen is also shocked. Initially, she was dissatisfied with the strength of her mentor. But now, it seems like not only is he qualified to teach her, he could even teach a thing or two to her father.


    After all, swordsmanship requires a massive amount of practice, fundamental strength and the umtion of battle experience. Holy Knights focus most of their time on the Holy Light and Divine Arts. For a Sword Saint to appear among the Holy Knights who tend to be subpar in swordsmanship is already incredible. But, to actually witness a low power rank Holy Knight attaining the strength of a Sword Saint goes totally against theirmon sense.


    ¡°If only your magic had half of the talent of your swordsmanship, you wouldn¡¯t be the embarrassment of spellcasters, bing a cannon tower.¡±


    As usual, the ck cat on my shoulder puts me down. As usual, I ignore her words.


    However, it isn¡¯t the time for us to be chattering idly. The Mage Towers used to defend this secret base starts to glow and on the tallest Mage Tower, a dark figure stands out. Looking at the familiar skeletal rack filled with Death Magic makes me sigh ¡ª ¡°To think that it is another nude fanatic. Do you think you can choose not to wear clothes just because you are a Lich? How uncivilised and immoral. The name of Liches were soiled by people like you. If this was Liu Huang Mountain City, you would have been bashed by the Town Security.¡±


    What is even more dangerous at this point is the airships, which are already floating in midair by the port, is already starting to charge the ck holes of the magic cannons.


    However, I am not in the least affected by such a sight.


    ¡°Pah!¡±


    After a snap of the fingers, two cannons open fire at once but...


    ¡°Boom!¡± ¡°Boom!¡±


    The target of the Air Fleet isn¡¯t us but the two Mage Towers in the secret base. A hole is opens up in one of them and starts to copse.


    ¡°I never met such a lousy cannoneer. That short fellow over there, raise the altitude by 10 degrees and move 30 degrees to the left.¡±


    The voice of the Ace Hunter Lowens echoes from midair. From his gleefulmands, it seems that the st which destroyed the tower came from him.


    ¡°Idiot, we were aiming at the Lich.¡±


    ¡°Then, you were even more off. You all hit the wrong tower. Raise the altitude by 40 degrees and move 30 degrees to the left.¡±


    At this moment, Diana and Krose appear on 2 different airships. See, the ¡®we attracted the attention of the other party to allow the two of our top fighting power to bring the Gnomes and Dwarves who are skilled into using cannons to sneak on the two ships by the port and take them¡¯ n is sessful.


    ¡°Hah, I have already said that I am invincible... Keng, looks like this word really can¡¯t be said.¡±


    A few warehouses in the secret base opens and in an instant, four identical airships start to float upwards. Looks like our n isn¡¯t wless. After all, the airships aren¡¯t real ships. Since they are able to fly, they arepletely able to hide in the base.


    ¡°Those on top, focus on dealing with the airships. Leave the Lich to us!¡±


    Leaving the spellcasters to do as they please is almost like courting death. Looking at the Lich who is chanting under the protection of a group of Death Knights, the Snowman Knight below who serves as a tank is charges at the forefront. Since the Knights have begun to charge fearlessly, how can Ig behind?


    ¡°Stab, hack, flick and raise, these are the basics.¡±TL: Flick, think of a motion which the hand doesn¡¯t move, just the wrist. Raise, something like a sky uppercut but with sword (ording to videos)


    TL: Jianqi -> Sword Beam, imagine Getsuga Tensho of Bleach, where ¡®sword energy¡¯ leaves the tip of the sword. I will leave it in Chinese as so far still can¡¯t really find a word for it.Italics are used for hanyupinyin tranted words and sounds (although I keep forgetting to italics sound)


    Ding, congrattions forprehending the general Legend-rank Secret Sword: de Storm. TL: General as in it is a skill that all Sword Saints would be able to use.


    Snowman KnightTL: The Snowman in this case is probably just like the Snow Woman, a human-form spirit (rather than a bulk of ice) Snowman Knight refers to the Aurora Knight contracted with the Snowman.

 Chapter 106

    Chapter 106: Aerial Battle


    ¡°Only by knowing your own strength and your enemy¡¯s prowess will you be able to survive a hundred wars.¡±


    This isn¡¯t a new adage, but I have always believed that if one isn¡¯t even sure how much troops their enemy holds in their hands, then the war shouldn¡¯t be fought in the first ce.


    ¡°Those who forethink more brings victories, while those who forethink less brings losses, needless to say not forethinking at all.¡± Often, the conclusion of a negotiation is determined by the current circumstances of both parties. I believe that the results of war are also the same, determined before it even begins. A war that doesn¡¯t bring interest and without a possibility of victory is a war that one shouldn¡¯t start.TL to ED: This is famous phrase in China which before a war, the king and generals will gather to discuss their current situation and the enemy¡¯s situation. So, the more they know/discuss, the more they win. The less they know/discuss, the more they lose.


    Due to the sudden appearance of the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor, And and the Seafolks are stuck in a stalemate. However, stalemates are always temporary. I reckon that there will be a twist urring very soon. No matter which side gains the upper hand, it isn¡¯t a good thing for me and the East Mist.


    If And were to achieve victory, Darsos¡¯s seat on the throne would be stabilised. Given his character, he would definitely seek vengeance against us. If the Seafolks triumph... This city would probably no longer be the territory of human. It isn¡¯t impossible for it to be like the legendary underwater city Yaso, submergedpletely under water.


    Thus, I decided to make use of this stalemate to gain control over the underwater base to use it as my base of operation as well as to obtain the technology and a sample of the Air Fleet. This way, if we choose to stay, we may be able reap more benefits and if the situation sours, we also have the option of escaping. Anyway, we have already earned enough.


    The contract could be fulfilled at any moment and we are sorelycking time. We only have one opportunity. If our first attack were to fail, it would be much more troublesome the next time around.


    With the assistance of the Queen of Banshees, it isn¡¯t difficult for us to sneak a few Low-tier Undeads in. Before the attack, we have already done sufficient surveince and preparation.


    This structure of this secret base isn¡¯t veryplicated. There is the pier where the ships are built, the Mage District where the Mages live, residential area and researchb for the craftsman as well as six tall Mage Towers which is the most dangerous defensive structure here.


    A squadron of around 300 White Wolf Guards are stationed here. Other than those, the only force who could be considered as a fighting power are the Mages. Going by the usual 10:1 exchange ratio, there should be 30 of them who are qualified to be converted into Death Knights. As for the conversion of Mages to Banshees, Skeleton Mages and simr High-tier Undeads who possess intelligence and the strength of a Silver-rank at the moment of their awakening, the sess rate is even lower. No matter what, I don¡¯t think that it is possible for it to exceed the number of Death Knights. That is to say, the number of High-tier Undeads shouldn¡¯t exceed a hundred.


    But, from the looks of the current situation, there are a hundred Death Knights already. For there to be such a high exchange rate, there can only be one possibility.


    ¡°The King Carlohin has been secretly training in Necromancy since young? For a king of a country to be a Necromancer of minimum Saint-rank, it seems like he has great ambitions.¡±


    Very quickly, the sentries found a pit with a few hundred people inside. Looks like after he became aware of their istion, in order to reduce the consumption of rations, he started a ughter. Realising that something is amiss and suspecting that they will be unable to get into contact with the outside world within a period of time, Carlohin eventually decided to expose his identity as a Necromancer and converts himself into a Lich. Then, he converts his subordinates into Undeads. With the assistance of the sleepless Undeads, the pace of the construction went faster than nned.


    In reality, while scouting about, we discovered the Soul Gathering Tower which is an Undead Conversion Tool used to convert living beings into Undeads. It is unsure whether it is secretly built before or after the istion. This kind of evil tool that plunges living beings into endless pain while converting them into mindless Low-tier Undeads is definitely the worst of the worst.


    Such Undead Conversion Tool is banned even in Xiluo. After all, although this toy is able to convert beings into Undeads on arge scale, anything that goes in will be converted into cannon fodders like Skeletons and Zombies. Besides, the Undeads created through this method arecking, making it difficult for them to advance in power rank, needless to say to bing a High-tier Undead to awaken their intelligence. Also, it isn¡¯t like the Xiluo Empire doesn¡¯t have living civilians (although arge portion of them serves as ves). Besides, their many Necromancers fulfills the requirements for conducting a conversion. This kind of efficient but ineffective conversion method is only suited for wars when they urgently require pawns to ughter a city.


    The previous pit of a few hundred people have already touch the bottom limit of the Rules of God. A ughter along with the Undead Conversion Tool, King Carlohin¡¯s actions words can no longer be described using the word brutal. This also gives thew jobs a reason tounch a crusade against Carlohin. Otherwise, I would still have toe up with an excuse to fill the loophole of Krose and the rest.


    At this moment, the enemy¡¯s forces mainly consists of brainless Skeletons and Undeads who were probably converted from the craftsmen and their family. Looking at the daunting quantity, the forbidden Undead Conversion Tool does lives up to its name and reputation. Carlohin had done well to make the ¡®full use¡¯ out of his tools.


    I had done sufficient intelligence gathering beforehand, but it is impossible for anyone to be able to process all the variables that could happen in a battle. What that I wasn¡¯t aware of but expected to happen is that they were efficient in their work, there are actually four light assault airships in the storage already.


    ¡°Boom!¡± ¡°Boom!¡±


    The sound of the cannons shot from mid air echoes and ck smoke gushes upwards. asionally, some metal pieces and wooden nks would fall to the ground. The cannon battle between fellow airships seems to be even more intense and savage than the other battles urring at the moment.


    Eagle No.1 Assault Airship, its original model being the smaller frigates used on battle on the surface of the water, is a prototype for the Air Fleet. With a magic-charged main cannon, two engineer-type side cannons and two fish-hook cannons, it is originally a powerful weapon used for water battles. It can hold up to a capacity of 30 people but five to six members are sufficient to operate it.


    At this level, the Air Fleet is still stuck in stage of imitating the water fleets and has yet to attain the level of what it is ten yearster, the formidable might of an army conducting a sudden assault from the skies. In my eyes, two Legend Mages would be more than sufficient to smack them down.


    Although it isn¡¯t very powerful, what is important is that it is the original prototype. The turbine system as well as the air control system on the ship is the most ssic model. Being the ¡®initial design¡¯ means that its structure is simple, making it easy to analyse and imitate. This is the reason why even though And started to sell some of the lower-tier airships, they refused to sell this primitive Eagle series.


    Originally, in terms of manpower, we were in a disadvantageous situation. However, as Yingou brought a few Gnome Engineers to join our ranks,pared to the slow and blunt newborn Undeads, the shipmates on our side turns out to be much more capable.


    As for the Ace Hunter who had been wielding a rifle for more than two hundred years now, he disys astonishing capabilities in maneuvering the cannons. Not only is the main cannon he maneuvers a sure-hit, he even had the leisure to calcte the angle for another cannon on the ship.


    Newborn Undeads are still fragile. The Undead army of Carlohincks a core force. The intelligent Undeads under hismands are extremely limited. Not to mention, even though most of them are manipted by his Necromancy, they still possess hatred and resentment against him. After all, for the average human who worships the Order Gods, they would rather die and enter the Heavenly Realm then to be reduced to a bloodthirsty Undead that is viewed with hostility by the rest of the world.


    The ¡®personnel¡¯ he can use is limited. A group of them has to be dispatched to the airships. Two Skeleton Mages brought two Middle-tier Undeads who can barely talk up to the airships. At the same time, they order a group of Skeletons and Zombies to serve as the rower. The Skeleton Mage who serves as the Captain is most probably a Mage in the past, for him to forget to operate the cannons while he gets absorbed in fighting. Or perhaps, he realised that he is unable to hit any targets with the cannons, so he decided jumped on the deck and use magic instead.


    This, on the other hand, sent a reminder to Krose instead. Thus, a thunderstorm appears over their heads.


    As a Legend-rank, Krose¡¯s intervention made the scales of the battle in the skies tiltpletely. As lightning rampages, the enemy¡¯s airship suffers consecutive lightning strikes, such that their sail ignites and ck smoke gushes from the wooden tform.


    In the Elf kingdoms, Storm Druid is a job that is able to rival the Fire Mage in terms of their prowess as a cannon tower. When they unleash their full strength, it is as though dozens of main cannons suddenly came to life.


    ¡°Hu!¡± After a barrage of attacks from cannons and lightning strikes, the Eagle Warshipbelled with the No.3 starts to break apart from the center. Then, the rear of the ship carrying the energy system explodes and the front of the ship starts to plummet from the sky.


    At the same moment, the Mage Tower where Lich Carlohin is in emits intense red light. Then, a gigantic Explosion Fireball is shot with a crimson-red glow.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    Even though Krose tried to intercept the spell with her lightning, the gigantic Fireball still hits the No.1 Airship where Diana is at. The offensive ability of Fire Element Spells are formidable. The strategic-level Explosion Fireball that Carlohin cast with the augmentation of the Mage Tower isn¡¯t something Krose¡¯s Lightning Storm is able topete with. The next moment, the misfortune that happened on No.3 happens to its brother ship No.1, as it begins to fall apart amidst explosions.


    ¡°Jump from the boat!¡±


    The good habit of the Gnomes Engineers to always be prepared against explosions saved them. The next moment, white color parachutes open one after another. That is the Gnome Parachutes that were hung on the deck of the ship.


    But, it is a pity that...


    ¡°AHHHHHH!¡±


    As a closebat Holy Knight who often dons heavy armor, Diana ispletely useless in an aerial battle. Ever since they sessfully took control of the boat, she became like a decorative ornament and had free time on her hands. However, when she found an And Missilor Mythril Body te, she was extremely delighted. This is a treasure that cannot be found on the market. Recalling that we are still in a battle, she wears it without hesitation...


    Alright, I can understand the desire for good defensive gears of a melee Knight who serves as a long-term meat shield, but it is apparent that the parachute cannot carry a fully-geared Holy Knight. The Legend Knight who is shrieking as she plummets downwards serve as an ideal example. Even for a Holy Knight, it is important to allocate some stat points to Intelligence... Even if she is unable to contribute to the battle, dying from stupidity is still very embarrassing.


    Throwing a jar of apples from a height of 100 meters downwards, regardless of whether the jar shatters or not, the apple inside would definitely be reduced to apple jam. If Diana were to really crash down, regardless of whether she is a Holy Knight or not, she will definitely be reduced to Elf jam amidst the fragments of the armor.


    With her prowess as a Legend-rank, if she didn¡¯t don on this full body armor, she could still think of a means to survive. But now, even as she regrets her actions terribly, there isn¡¯t anything she could do.


    Moon Knight Diana, died in AD1897. Cause of death: Pilfering and too dumb. Silly Big Sister, why are you so foolish... She can already imagine what those callous fellows would write on her grave.


    ¡°AHHHHH, SAVE ME! THIS KIND OF DEATH IS REALLY TOO EMBARRASSING. I HAVE YET TO COMPLETE MY LIFE GOALS, MY... MY SAVINGS ARE HIDDEN IN MY BOOTS, PLEASE HELP ME HAND THEM OVER TO VICADORE, ALSO... LORD PATRICIA, PLEASE GUIDE MY WAY. I REPENT TO THE HOLY LIGHT. LORD WUMIANZHE... I HAVE YET TO DATE, I DON¡¯T WANT TO DIE. SAVE ME, LORD WUMIANZHE!!¡±


    Alright, she even starts to close her eyes and begins on her final prayers. But suddenly, she feels her body lighten as the speed of her descend slows. Soon, the descend seems to have stopped altogether.


    ¡°Idiot! At least you remembered to ask to be saved, you aren¡¯t incorrigible yet.¡±


    Opening her eyes, she sees a familiar person. Just that, the golden wings which were spread open, the burning halo of mes on the head and that legendary stance reminded Diana of a certain legend.


    ¡°Angel? Am I dead? Lord, why are you here as well? Are you dead too?¡±


    Panic shows on the face of the already traumatised Legend Knight. The moment she opens her mouth, she fully exposes her true nature of being blur despite her mature appearance.


    Indeed, in the legends, Angels are the one who guide the souls of the dead. However, why do I feel ufortable at her words?


    ¡°I take back the words that I have said, you are indeed incorrigible. What do you mean by why are you here as well? I have never been to the heavens in my whole life... Un?¡±


    My wings p and I circle in an arc, avoiding the Storm Arrows and Fireballs shot from the Mage Towers.


    ¡°I will talk to you about that ridiculous repentance of yours when we return back. If the three Gods were to hear it, with a worshiper like you, they probably would burst intoughter. But now, let¡¯s cooperate and deal with the important matter at hand first.¡±


    In the midst of gliding, I nce at the situation below. They were already in the midst of fighting.


    Other than the endless flood of brainless pawns, the main force of the enemy is obviously the Death Knights converted from the White Wolf Guards.


    Most of the newly awakened White Wolf Guards are still in a period of a confusion and have yet to recover sufficient intelligence for them to use ck Magic and their Race Talent, such that is a bit pushing it to say that they are Death Knights. They seem more like slightly higher-tier Zombie Warriors. Even so, they are still hard to deal with.


    There are no other reasons. The equipment of the White Wolf Guards are simply too good. The Missilor Savage Sword carries a crimson-red glow as the corrugated des roars. The specially crafted swords of the East Mist Royal Guards are unable to withstand more than a single blow from it. Furthermore, the Missilor Savage Javelin is arge AOE weapon of destruction. With just a single throw, a giant pit is sted open. A moment of folly and one could probably die from them.


    However, what is fortunate is that their intelligence are simply too low, causing them tomit fratricide continuously in the midst of the chaotic battle. When the Javelin is thrown, those who are sted are basically their own pawns, causing the Death Knights and Skeleton Mages who are leading the troop to stomp in anger.


    Due to King Carlohin¡¯s identity as a Necromancer, the number of Death Knights are much higher than expected. When I flew upwards to save Diana, the Snowman Knights is the only powerful meat tank remaining below. Not to mention, the enemy were assisted by Mage Towers. In a moment, the fight below stalls into a stalemate.


    It is fortunate that Beifeng and Casio are here. Against the dangerous Savage Javelin, their arrows can easily ignite them in advance, thus reducing casualties on our side.


    However, I didn¡¯t have the intention to interfere with the fight below. After all, it is important for one to take the initiative in a battle. Since I don¡¯t have much time left in my transformation, it is important for me to make the fullest out of it. As for the battle on the surface, I reckon that it is about time.


    ¡°Boom!¡± ¡°Boom!¡±


    As expected, very quickly, an explosion from not too far away catches my attention. The secret pieces which I had prepared prove their worth.


    ¡°As expected of Clint and Yingou. Throwing them into frontal battle is aplete waste. It would be more suitable for them to cause destruction from the back.¡±


    Following the explosion, the light of the Mage Tower starts to flicker before going darkpletely. Obviously, Clint and the others managed to fulfill the requirement for their explosions, destroying the energy source of this base.


    ¡°Before the spare generator and the smaller back-up energy source in the Mage Tower activates, let us aplish our primary goal.¡±


    Primary goal? That is Carlohin himself. To expend oneself against an army of Undead is always foolish decision. The endless sea of Undeads doesn¡¯t know the concept of tiredness and morale. They are always able to drain their enemies of their stamina and blood in a prolonged fight. Against this type of enemy, ying theirmander is always the wisest decision. As long as the Undead Lord falls, his army would naturally be meaningless. They might even start to disintegrate on their own.


    The fact that the Mage Tower is temporarily ceasing their fire means that the sky is mine once more. Bringing along our foolish ace fighter with me, if I don¡¯t go straight for the primary target, I would really be dumb.


    Spreading my wings, I glide through the sky. With a 20 points in my Strength, it allows me to bear the weight of the female Knight with my right hands.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    I identally knocked into the wind sail of the No.6 ship. I am fine, but a giant hole of a female Elf appears on the wind sail.


    I casually split apart the mast and watch as the ship descends into chaos. Then, I flew upwards once again. Lowens didn¡¯t let this opportunity slip by. Making use of their temporary stall in movement, he urately fires into the gunpowder vault, causing No.6 to ignite into mes.


    The situation in the air has turned into a 1V2. The side which is in a disadvantage in terms of numbers had a Legend Druid and an ace sharpshooter in their ranks, so I¡¯m not worried.


    ¡°Aiyo, I¡¯m very sorry. I didn¡¯t see it.¡±


    ¡°You must have did it intentionally.¡±


    ¡°No, that one before is really an ident. This one, however, is intentional.¡±


    ¡°AHHHHHH!¡±


    Looking at my rxed right hand and the screaming Diana below me, I smile gleefully. Looks like my aiming is on the mark this time.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The tform of the pitiful No.5 is broken through. The bones of the Skeleton Mage I had my eyes was crushed into shattered bones. On the other hand, Diana falls straight to the second floor.


    ¡°I¡¯ll give you two minutes! Clear away all High-tier Undeads here.¡±


    But, what was bizarre is that I didn¡¯t hear the sounds of ughter that I expected to hear. Instead, after the rumbling of footsteps, Diana appears on the tform once again.


    ¡°Lo...Lord, bring me away quickly. This ship is about to explode!


    Alright, I still hold great trust her words. I will speak my suspicions afterwards on the way. As expected, a short momentter, before we managed to get too far away, I heard the sound of explosion from my back.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The explosion this time is even louder than the previous. It seems that the gunpowder vault has mixed with some other object and explodes concurrently with it.


    ¡°What happened? You fell on the gunpowder vault?¡±


    ¡°...Why am I so unfortunate recently?¡± Diana mutters, regaining her senses only after she hears my words.


    ¡°On the second floor, I crushed another Undead Knight. Looking from its hat, it should be the captain of the ship. However, I continued to fall all the way to the third floor, into the power room, onto the main engine...¡±


    ¡°The engine is spoiled? For the entire ship to explode just after its engine spoils, looks like the stability of the airships are quite terrible.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not it.¡± Diana says with a tearful face, a red blush of embarrassment appearing on her face.


    ¡°Just when I was about to get up, I identally pressed a button. It is a red button with a skeleton head on top of it.¡±


    Alright, as we both came from Liu Huang Mountain City, it is sufficient to stop the story there. Everyone knows of the bad habit of the Gnomes Engineers to leaving behind a button with a red skeleton head on it.


    ¡°To crush two High-tier Undeads while falling through and press the self-destruct button when you are about to get up? This luck... choosing you to be my bodyguard was an excellent choice.¡±


    Such a great misfortune directing rod. No wonder I felt that my luck recently has been not bad. Looks like you have taken in all of my bad luck.


    I nod my head satisfactorily. On the other hand, a look of iprehension and helplessness appears on Diana¡¯s face after hearing my words. However, it isn¡¯t the time to be sentimental or exin what happened.


    Looking at the top of the highest tower, under the protection of a group of Death Knights, Carlohin is currently casting Burst Inferno and his target seems to be us, who is already a potential threat to him.


    ¡°Darned Darsos! You traitors, I, Carlohin, should have been the next Emperor of And.¡±


    Alright, this Lich seems to think that we are Darsos¡¯s men. However, there is no need to do exnations.


    ¡°Un, then, your highness, allow me to send you on your way.¡±


    Suddenly, the voice of the Queen of Banshees sounds by my ear.


    ¡°To think that it would be someone that we know. Look at the ring on his finger.¡±


    When I carefully examine him, I realise that there a mark of the Celestial Tower on the Lich¡¯s right hand. In that instant, rage fills me.


    ¡°Darned Celestial Tower, to think that their people would even be here.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not talking about that. Look at the insignia of a magic book on the ring on the pinky of his left hand. He should be one of my disciple in name, your junior.¡±


    ¡°Even if he is my junior, does it make a difference?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m just warning you to pay heed. None of my disciples, even if just in name, are easy to deal with. Every one of them would at least have a few underhanded tricks. Don¡¯t treat him just like any other normal Lich.¡±

 Chapter 107

    Chapter 107: SemiGod Equipment and Gamble


    Carlohin.Menon, the blood-rted uncle of the current Emperor Darsos.Menon, as well as the blood-rted younger brother from the same mother of the previous Emperor, Crowe.Menon. He was deeply trusted by the previous Emperor. As a Mage, not only is he the Head of the Court Mages, he is also one of the top 3 militarymanders of And. In hister years, the old Emperor entrusted him with the important weapon of the country, the Air Fleet, to him.


    But, the truth is that Carlohin has never thought that he is inferior to his elder brother. The reason why he helped Crowe in the vie for the royal throne is because they both came from the same mother. If he doesn¡¯t assist the elder brother he is closest with, he could only wait to be ridden of after some other prince sits on the throne. In reality, as the top genius of the Royal Family, his dream to be the Emperor has never been quenched.


    In fact, in order to gain power, the young him even hid his name and went to the fearsome Xiluo Empire to study Necromancy. He became the apprentice of the 3rd Senator, the Queen of Banshees Harloys, and researched specifically in Death Magic under her.


    Yes, on the surface, he might be a Legend-rank Fire Mage. But, at the same time, he is also a Saint-rank Necromancer.


    Necromancers aren¡¯t viewed as an evil job for no apparent reason. Other than interrupting the slumber of the dead, this ss of vile magic can sacrifice the living and ingest their blood, flesh and soul to be stronger. As their strength soars rapidly, these powers would umte in their body and obstruct their body and soul. Bearing powers beyond what their body can hold, they would be corrupted by the powers that they are unable to control, causing changes to ur in them in all aspects.


    For example, Necromancers are known to not treat humans as humans. They would gradually grow more and more indifferent to life and death. Demon Mages and Soul Reapers would gradually be less and less humane, such that it would be normal for them to salivate upon seeing other people¡¯s soul. When the Blood Mages finally be bloodthirsty, they would be even more vampiric than vampires. They would view humans as livestock. Those Evil Priests who gain powers from the Malevolent Gods would gradually be more and more fanatic. They would lose their sense of self and be the puppets of the Malevolent Gods.


    Of course, you can also progress a step at a time and digest these powers slowly, turning this unorthodox power into the demon sword in your hands rather than being consumed by this demon sword. But, for some people, if they were to do it slowly, it would go against their motive of learning ¡®evil¡¯ magic. They are willing to ept the side effects these powers would have on their mentality.


    The most alluring quality of these unorthodox magic is that it is very easy for them to be ¡®immortals¡¯, although they would tend to have to pay a price for their immortality.


    For example, Necromancers, as long as they don¡¯t meet with ¡®idents¡¯, even if they are not of sufficient standard to be Liches, it is of no difficulty for them to be a Skeleton Mage. To the humans who fear the unknown and death, sometimes the tempt of ¡®immortality¡¯ is hard to resist, especially to the ambitious who seek to climb to the pinnacle.


    Of course, those who train to the pinnacle via orthodox means are also able to be immortal. For example, the Heroic Spirits, God Envoy and God Beasts. However, they have to pay a price for it as well. Although they may seem to be of a much higher level, they are in fact just the servants and warriors for the Gods.


    Achieving immortality, Carlohin¡¯s ambitions had always been wild. However, despite the fact that the individual strength of his elder brother is negligible, Crowe possesses great talent in politics and military affairs. Under his rule, the And Empire was prospering day after day. Heroes are built during chaotic times. If the country is stable, no ground would be left for for troublemakers. Naturally, those ambitious would have to hide their intentions and feign as a loyal and capable subordinate.


    Thus, even though Carlohin is obviously a Saint Necromancer, he put on a facade as a Legend-rank. During his career in the military, he even groomed arge bunch of subordinates who are loyal to him, controlling nearly 30% of the entire White Wolf Guards. He was waiting for a gap to ur in Crowe¡¯s rule. He has long noticed that his nephew, Darsos, had wild ambitions but he helped to cover it. After all, as long as Darsos were to strike, he might be able to use his rebellion as an impetus for him to grab the crown.


    Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, perhaps it is due to Carlohin being too outstanding in feigning as a loyal subordinate or perhaps, Crowe had detected the ambitions of his younger brother and was afraid that a problem may ur during the inheritance of the throne, he made Carlohin ept the position of the Commander-in-Chief of the underwater base. Naturally, after realising that it is the biggest trump card of the And Empire, how could Carlohin reject his offer? Thus, when Darsos made a move, this ambitious uncle of his was instead trapped in the base, missing the ideal opportunity for him to strike.


    Alright, let¡¯s stop talking about how this ambitious unlucky fellow was sent out of the game for such a ludicrous reason. What we have to face now is the rage of a person who had prepared for decades for his wild ambitions.


    ¡°Die!¡±


    As he raises his staff, pitch-ck Power of Death warps into an eerie ghastly finger and rushes towards me.


    ¡°Instant casting Finger of Death? Impossible!¡±


    Finger of Death is a 8-circle magic which only Legend-rank Necromancers are able to wield. In order to instant cast it, its difficulty is heightened by at least 2 circles. That isn¡¯t something a Saint-rank Necromancer would be able to do.


    For my thoughts to be wandering even at death¡¯s door, am I seeking death? Actually, if this Finger of Death is directed towards Diana, even the Legend-rank female Knight with Magic Immunity Skin would have to tremble but if it is directed towards me...


    ¡¾Perfect Courage: Immunity to all fear-rted magic, death-rted magic, race talents and abilities. The wielder will always be in a state of high morale. This effect can be shared with 3 party members.¡¿


    Thepleted version of Pale Justice lives up to its name as the Order Faction¡¯s Sacred Sword of the Holy Light. Holy Knights are natural Undead killers and their abilities are almost specially tailored against every aspect of the Undeads. Regardless of whether it is deadly higher circle Necromancy Magic or fear-inducing curses, the sword ispletely immune to these all, leaving no gaps for the Necromancers to break through.


    As I expected, in the instant when the Finger of Death strikes me, the golden Holy Light shrouding the sacred sword radiates brightly and the dark mist of death starts to scatter.


    However, even though the death effect has been dispelled, the shock wave from the Power of Death still isn¡¯t something a Bronze-rank rookie could withstand. The ice armor immediately shatters and breaks apart while the impact from the blow sent me flying.


    Cold sweat trickles down my back. If it wasn¡¯t for the ice armor I had equipped, with my current ¡®fragile¡¯ physical body, I might have just died there and then.


    ¡°Death and Decay!¡±


    Alright, this time, it isn¡¯t an instant-cast. However, for a 9-circle Saint-rank Magic to be flung out like that as though it was nothing, this is really too unbelievable. What kind of Saint-rank Mage is this? He is just like a Myth-rank Mage already.


    ¡°Go!¡±


    It was due to my timely sharing of the aura of Perfect Courage that prevented the Breath of Death from evaporating the surrounding moisture and absorbing the life force in the area, which would have resulted in an instant death. Even so, Diana was still sent flying with a mouthful of blood. This time, the outstanding defense of her full body armor saved her.


    The Lich¡¯s choice of spells are well thought through. With both the physical damage from the burning steam in the surrounding and the Affliction of Death, Diana¡¯s Magic Immunity Skin isn¡¯t able to work its prowess.


    ¡°The Dark God¡¯s Breath of Death! That is a SemiGod Equipment, the ultimate treasure of Necromancers.¡±


    The ck cat on my shoulders shouts in astonishment. It is because of this personal weapon of an Ancient SemiGod Undead Emperor that Carlohin is able to throw all of those high-circle instant-death spells frenziedly withoutpromising their effectiveness.


    I unfurl my wings to soar into the sky to avoid the enemy¡¯s magic from locking on. Gazing towards our fighting ground, I can¡¯t help but feel that the situation isn¡¯t in our favor.


    Carlohin¡¯s guards have already rushed here. The Savage Javelin of those Death Knights are still difficult to deal with. If we do not end the battle fast, not mentioning how our n to behead themander would fail, Diana and I might even fall here.


    Looking at how Diana is struggling to stand up, I could tell that the 9-circle magic which had been augmented by the SemiGod Equipment definitely dealt serious damage to her.


    ¡°Darn it, the SemiGod weapon is too ridiculous. How can one possibly cast high-circle magic spells with such rapid speed? Is there really no way to subdue him? Think, there is no perfect human in this world. Hurry up and think!¡±


    ¡°Breath of Death? This name sounds like an effect which strengthens the effects of instant-killing magic. Even with the ¡®Perfect Courage¡¯ ability from the sacred sword, the shock wave from the Power of Death is still fatal. These days, other than the dead, who doesn¡¯t fear the Power of Death. If I had known earlier, I wouldn¡¯t have revived... Wait, the dead?¡±


    Immediately, an idea pops into my list of options. Thus, I start tough.


    ¡°You have an idea?¡±


    ¡°Of course, that is tradition!¡±


    After realising that he is unable to lock onto me, who is moving rapidly, Carlohin¡¯s gaze turns towards Diana. The next moment, I swipe downwards towards him.


    ¡°Foolish living beings. ept the misfortune fate has in n for you.¡±


    As I expected, a ck color vectores shooting towards me. That is a 6-circle Necromancy Magic Physical Frailty.


    The fact that two high-circle Death Magic is unable to kill me made him suspect that we might have some treasures on us that allow us to be immune to the Affliction of Death. Thus, he chose to cast this spell.


    Physical Frailty inherits the vileness of the Necromancy Magic. It will make the target feel as though he had carried 200kg of rice sacks to run two marathons. It is exceptionally effective against Warriors who depend heavily on their physical body and is reputed as the melee killer. If a physically weak person were to be struck by the spell, it isn¡¯t impossible for them to die from excessive loss of stamina.


    The vectores at me at high speed. I had no time to change my path of movements and was about toe crashing head-on with this ck vector. In that instant, Diana grinds her teeth and leaps with her hands stretching forward, attempting to try her luck with her Magic Immunity Skin while I...


    ¡°Move away!¡±


    I push away the foolishss without any hesitation and collide straight into the vector.


    ¡°AHHHH!!¡±


    Shrouded in pitch ck light, I couldn¡¯t help but shout in agony. The next moment, I crash violently onto the floor and roll around in pain. Even the gold wings on my back starts to disintegrate.


    ¡°Hah! As expected of the foolish living beings. To still be ying theughable game of friendship at a time like this... What!¡±


    ¡°Sin-Splitting Strike!¡±


    The location where I fell was less than five meters away from the Lich. After which, I pretended to roll to close in the distance on him by another two meters. Then, I leapt upwards and covered the final three meters in an instant. The sacred sword Pale Justicees striking down on his head along with the lethal Holy Light. It is impossible for him to dodge the attack.


    ¡°ng!¡±


    Even though the Lich has been forced into a kneeling position through brute strength, the sacred sword was still stopped by the pitch-ck short staff. Can the basic property of the SemiGod Equipment of being tough be used like that as well?


    The green soulfire burning in the Lich¡¯s eye sockets starts to ze. Judging from how his lower jaw is opening and closing at a rapid pace, it seems that he has started to chant another spell.


    ¡°Descent of the Hell¡¯s ck Core.¡±


    The darned cat¡¯s rich knowledge of magic spells allows her to instantaneously identify that this is a 10-circle Myth-rank Forbidden Spell, arge AOE destructive spellbining both Necromancy and Fire Magic together. As long as hepletes this magic, this entire tform would turn into the volcanic vent to hell¡¯s hellfire. There is no way we would be able to survive and the same goes for him as well.


    For a life form like a Lich, as long as his phctery remains undestroyed, he is able to revive again and again. Apparently, forced to this point, Carlohin no longer has the confidence to get away unscathed. He intends to die together with us, then revive himself.


    Actually, the reason why Liches are that abhorred by adventurers is that not only are they difficult to deal with, they also have the bad habit ofmitting a double suicide whenever somethinges up.


    As the sword and the staff crosses blows, I found myself in an extreme close proximity with him. I could see the malicious intent on the skull head and there is even a trace of gleefulness on it.


    However, to dare to chant your incantation after I had gotten close, aren¡¯t you looking down on me for a little too much?


    ¡°You want it? Catch it.¡±


    Thus, without hesitation, I let go of the weapon which we were pitting our strength through and in front of the Lich¡¯s eyes of iprehension, I stretch out my hands.


    ¡°Look at my Flying Dragon Cloud Exploring Hands!¡±


    ¡°Kacha.¡± A crisp sound echoes and the incantation stops. That is because I have removed the lower jaw of the Lich.


    ¡°Aha! Let me help you wash your bones and maintain it for you! Dragon Exploring Hands! Dragon Exploring Hands!¡±


    My both hands assault him simultaneously and continuously. In an instant, a bone from his hand and rib cage has been removed. Soon, even his spinal cord was pulled out and with a powerful stomp on the ground, his entire skeletal rack falls apart.


    As an experienced Lich, through thest century, I can¡¯t even remember how many times I have taken out my own bones to maintain it. Just like how an experienced veteran could take disassemble his gun with his eyes closed, I could take apart a skeleton into bones and put it back together with my eyes closed.


    In a few short second, all that remains of Lich Carlohin is a skeletal head without its lower jaw. I stab the sacred sword into the soulfire of his skeletal head without second thoughts. The bizarre ripple of his soul disperses and we could vaguely hear the scream of agony from the depths of his soul.


    ¡°Alright. He would take at least a few days to revive after his soulfire was incincerated by the sacred inferno. What we have to do next is to find his phctery before he revives.¡±


    After Carlohin falls, the shoring of an Undead army being over-reliant on an Undead Lord shows itself once again. Therge group of Low-tier Undead whom he was controlling with his Necromancy Magic immediately falls to the ground.


    A few intelligent Undeads shouts ¡®Anders don¡¯t hit Anders¡¯, ¡®We were all forced into it, actually we are all good citizens¡¯, ¡®Actually, I am your father¡¯. Of course, the one who shouted thest phrase got lynched.


    ¡°Reorganise them and question them where Carlohin¡¯s phctery is? Forget it, they can¡¯t possibly know it. How about we search Carlohin¡¯s room? Now is my favorite moment of a battle, collecting spoils of war... Cough, punishing evil.¡±


    Just as I picked up the ¡®The Dark God¡¯s Breath of Death¡¯ smiling, Diana suddenly leaps over.


    ¡°Are you fine? Why did that evil magic have no effect on you?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, what do you mean by no effect? I paid a heavy price for it. Look!¡±


    I open my clothes. In there, a ck cat with half of its body exposed outside is brawling with my resilient throat. She bites, gnaws and ws, using both her fangs and ws simultaneously, but she is still unable to scratch out a wound. However, when I looked at her, she spits towards me without any hesitation.


    ¡°Look, cat shield!¡±


    Dodging that feeble and unthreatening attack, I pull her off me and shake her about. Holding her in my hands, I made a stance of defense, as though she is a shield.


    ¡°...How can a kitten block such vile magic?¡±


    Towards Diana¡¯s suspicion, I smile mysteriously without replying her question. You can¡¯t expect me to tell her that although this darned cat seems very cute, she is in fact an ¡®evil¡¯ Undead creature? Alright, actually there is no need for the invertedmas for evil. If the Queen of Banshees Harloys cannot be considered as evil, then everyone else in this world could be considered as saints.


    Yes, when I said tradition previously, I meant our line¡¯s tradition of pulling our mentors down. Back then, I thought that Harloys would be a good meat shield against the Necromancy Spells.


    Currently, Harloys is an Undead Slime. Although she has a portion of theposition of a living being within her, she is still an Undead creation of mine. Using Death Magic against Undeads is just like throwing a fireball towards Fire Elementals. Other than making the other party even stronger, it has no effects whatsoever.


    Thus, after the ¡®cat shield¡¯ has blocked that Physical Frailty vector which is made of Death Magic, I am actually unaffected by its effects at all. All that came afterwards is just a performance to get closer to him to conduct a sneak attack.


    In a way, this is also taking advantage of the other party¡¯s inexperience. I deduced that being in an esteemed position, Carlohin must have often cast magic safely under the protection of many bodyguards, so how would he have thought of being assaulted like that? The result is just as I have anticipated.


    ¡°Wuuuuuuu, you unfilial disciples only know how to bully me! If only I knew that all of you had malicious intentions in mind. I was blind to ept you all as my disciples. Teacher, I finally know how you felt when I stabbed you back then. Now, I also have a knife stabbed in me, not to mention that it is by two of my disciples in both the front and the back. I will never have disciples again. Wuuuuu!¡±


    Alright, the only victim is the traumatised Harloys and her saddened heart as an educator.


    ¡°Stop faking it. If you had good rtionship with Carlohin, why didn¡¯t you say it back then? Which of your disciples have you never taken advantage of? Probably, if the other party knew that it was you, he would have went even further. Besides, have you forgotten the existence of the Magic Pet contract? Your true emotions cannot be concealed from me. You expect me to believe that such a minor thing would cause you to be in such a state of agony?¡±


    Alright, she got exposed. The next moment, the darned cat immediately stops her tears, shocking Diana, but displeasure could still be seen on her face


    ¡°Let me eat the SemiGod staff. I want to be stronger. I have had enough of the days of serving as a pet.¡±


    ¡°Fine, then show me a cute gesture. If I am satisfied with it, I will give the staff to you.¡±


    The little kitten smiles mysteriously.


    ¡°Meow, master. Give me the thick one, the ck short stick, okay? Loys really wants to eat the stick. I begging you. Meow!¡±


    ¡°Pu!¡± Alright, looks like I still underestimated the lower decency boundary of the darned cat. Initially, I only wanted to tease her, make her do some backflips and bark like a dog. After her words came out, not mentioning how I burst intoughter, Diana starts to look at me with a bizarre expression.


    This sillyss believes the words of others too easily. She is probably thinking of me as a Gentleman (Pervert) once again.


    However, I had intended to pass this SemiGod Equipment on to her from the start anyway. After all, bringing this SemiGod Equipment around in the mortal world is simply looking for trouble. Also, after Harloys consumes it, it would be more convenient for me to use it as well.


    ¡°That, can you stop overthinking it? Even if I¡¯m that desperate, I won¡¯t go to the extent of venting my frustrations on a cat.¡±


    Right after I exined myself to Diana, an evil smile shes across Harloys¡¯s face. After a distortion in space, she turns into a cute golden-haired Elf girl. Although she turns back within a single second, it is sufficient to mark the sight into the brain of the Legend Knight.


    Without doubt, this is the vengeance of the ¡®cat shield¡¯.


    ¡°No wonder it¡¯s called Gentlemen Alliance. So you are a Great Gentleman (Pervert) yourself, to actually make your own cat turn into a little girl, how much...¡±


    Alright, she doesn¡¯t even use respectfulnguage anymore. Looks like my reputation has gone down the drain this time.


    ¡°Actually, it is understandable for man to be slightly Gentleman. Actually, if you really can¡¯t bear it any longer, you can consider Momo. Although she goes a bit far with her words, she is really a good girl. She has liked you for a long period of time.¡±


    ¡°Forget it! She definitely can¡¯t make it! Anyone but her.¡±


    Diana¡¯s untimely matchmake reminds me of what happened a few days ago. We were conducting a selection for Aurora Knights and as a Silver-rank, Momoes running over to join in themotion. Originally, as she is considerably powerful, she had a chance to seed with the Frigid Nightmares. That is until she opened her mouth.


    ¡°Is there anyone who can turn into a cute shota? Hehe, that¡¯s right, an eight to nine years old little boy. Hehe, right, I have little Rolo¡¯s picture here. Can you transform into him?¡±


    ¡°Big Sister Seva, please help me just this once. On the ount of how I helped you deflect an arrow just now, just for a moment. Just for a split moment. I really want to see little Rolo, but I am unable to defeat that pervert. Wuuuu, Momo¡¯s life is so tough.¡±


    Looking at the Momo who is pestering Seva on the airship, Diana sighs helplessly.


    ¡°It is due to her bing weirder and weirder that I want her to marry out quickly.¡±


    ¡°Passing the disaster onto others just because you can¡¯t deal with it? Diana, you have also been corrupted. However, I have to thank you for your warning for yesterday¡¯s night assault. Otherwise, the oue would have been unimaginable.¡±


    ¡°Sigh, actually this is also partially your fault. In the past, she was obviously quite normal.¡±


    ¡°How can you me me for this, she is obviously the one... Alright, let¡¯s just me it all on me.¡±


    At this moment, I can¡¯t help but recall the ¡®King of Gentlemen¡¯ title, what all Gentlemen would proactively join my group. Throughout this journey, I have still yet to meet more than a handful of normal people.


    ¡¾Ding, congrattions for noticing the hidden effect of the ¡®King of Gentlemen¡¯. Not only will the title make Gentlemen proactively join your faction, it will also turn ordinary people into Gentlemen. Little Gentleman will turn into Great Gentleman, Great Gentleman will turn into God Gentleman and God Gentleman will turn into King of Gentlemen! ¡ª¡ªSystem Notice: Did you notice how I gave you the greatest honor amongst the Gentlemen from the start, aren¡¯t I caring?¡¿


    ¡°Caring your head! Do you think that we arecking Gentlemen among our midst!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    While we were celebrating our victory in the underwater base and getting a headache over the Gray Elf who is getting weirder and weirder, in the And Empire, the Emperor is meeting with an esteemed guest.


    ¡°Hah, with your help, what would that smelly nine-headed snake count as? Inform the envoys of the other countries. The enthronement ceremony will be brought ahead and it will be held along with the Lord Dragon yer¡¯s great undertaking. We will be written in the annals of history together!¡±


    ¡°Your highness has spoken too highly of me. I am only an insufficiently powerful old man who has yet to die. I could probably drive away the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor but killing it is probably impossible. My master also told me not to go overboard.¡±


    Despite looking like a handsome youth, he had the tone of an elderly. Judging from the golden glow radiating beneath his white skin and the halo behind his head, he isn¡¯t a mortal but a Heroic Spirit of a true God.


    After a bunch of formalities, when Darsos finally sends off the Heroic Spirit, the arrogance and frenzy he disyed previously turns into calmness.


    ¡°Dragon yer¡± Basr. When the enemy he is facing is a Dragon, will he show mercy? Even to the extent of not going overboard? That is an insane idea. Sending down this bloodthirsty Heroic Spirit, does the Goddess of Moon intend to sh with the Queen of Storms? Darn it. Get our army to make preparations. It is possible that the situation might get out of control.¡±


    ¡°Yet, you are still making use of this opportunity to hold the enthronement ceremony?¡±


    ¡°It is not like you don¡¯t know how many envoys are returning back to their homnd everyday. If And wants to be a superpower, then this alliance must be conducted sessfully. It is hard for us to step down at this point. Since the situation can¡¯t get any worse, why don¡¯t we just throw in all our stakes and gamble a big one!¡±


    Ps£º×î½üÒ»Öܹ¤×÷³¬Ã¦......ºÃ°É£¬ÒѾ­Ç·ÁËËĴα¬·¢£¬Ã÷ÌìÓÖÐÝÏ¢£¬ÕùÈ¡±¬·¢°É


    <i>¡°Instant casting Finger of Death? Impossible!¡±</i>


    TL: DotA reference


    Just rifying, the spells his cast normally carries Power of Death which I think probably works just like poison, afflicting someone with death (status), something like that. So, if it isn¡¯t dispelled, the magic will just assume like something like poison; if it hits, he will be poisoned/ whatever effects. But, when it is dispelled, the magic power probably bursts, resulting in a shockwave. (Based on my interpretation)


    <i>¡°Death and Decay!¡±</i>


    TL: WoW3


    <i>¡°Descent of the Hell¡¯s ck Core.¡±</i>


    TL: I can¡¯t find a decent trantion for it. I can¡¯t be sure but I think the reference is to Bastard!! (A Japanese manga and anime) There¡¯s one spell by its protagonist Dark Schneider whose name is really simr to the name of this spell and if I¡¯m not wrong about the English trantion, it¡¯s called Halloween.


    <i>¡°No wonder it¡¯s called Gentlemen Alliance. So you are a Great Gentleman (Pervert) yourself, to actually make your own cat turn into a little girl, how much...¡±</i>


    <i>Alright, she doesn¡¯t even use respectfulnguage anymore. Looks like my reputation has gone down the drain this time.</i>


    TL: If you recall, she always uses Lord and (rarely) a more respectful Chinese word for you. This time, she just addresses him casually as though like a peer.

 Chapter 108

    Chapter 108: The Secret of the Lich


    Trantor: StarveCleric Editor: StarveCleric


    The over reliance of the Undead Cmity on its mastermind dealt it a solid wound. Following the fall of the Lich, Carlohin¡¯s Undead army falls apart.


    In our eyes as ex-Undead Lords, this shows that the army¡¯s structure is extremely chaotic. The more mature an Undead army is, the more Middle-tier and High-tier Undead they would have. With more middle-levelmanders within the army, the low-tier cannon fodders would be able to exert a greater impact on the battlefield through their leadership. They would also be even less fearful of getting killed.


    However, the reason why Emperor Yongye¡¯s Yongye army fell apart after his death back then was because he also walked the opposite extremity. His army had too much High-tier and Middle-tier Undead in their midst. After losing theirmon leader, Emperor Yongye, along with the formation of the Country of Undead and the temptation of the Eternal Night Scepter, an opportunity opens for the powerful to climb to the pinnacle, causing them to fall into internal strife.


    ¡°That being said, that junior Lich of mine is really quite dumb. To actually chant right in front of a melee fighter, not to mention a spell with a long incantation. Is he that sick of living? Is this what you taught him? His battle experience is incredulously horrid. Looks like your standard as an educator is getting worse and worse.¡±


    The darned cat on my shoulders became so mad from my words that her hairs stood on ends. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that she is still feeling awful from trying to bite through my skin, she would definitelye assaulting me once again.


    I understand her quite well. Usually, she is about just as thick-skinned as me, indifferent to any words directed towards her. However, the moment when doubt is cast over the standard of her magic and her standard as an educator, she would be provoked in an instant.


    ¡°That... That isn¡¯t taught by me! Also, I don¡¯t teach such a basic thing. The fool is obviously the one whocks battle experience. I am not some kindergarten teacher; do I still have to teach these basics over and over again?¡±


    Yes, basics. As a fragile Mage job, the firstw that they have to observe is to maintain a safe distance from closebatants.


    During a battle between a powerful Mage and a closebatant, the closebatants would often be trying their best to close in distance on the Mage while the Mage would be using their defensive spells to avoid them and further the gap between them through Teleportation. This cycle will go on continuously until a gap appears in one¡¯s defense, and that would be the decisive moment.


    In the final conclusion, either the Mage would gain sufficient distance and time to focus their firepower to st away the closebatants or that the closebatants would sessfully grind away the defensive spells, escape spells and control spells of the other party and slice them apart.


    To say the truth, this isn¡¯t very fair. The Spellcasters could err over and over again whereas it could be fatal the moment the closebatantsmit a mistake. Under most circumstances, closebatants would find themselves unable to catch up with the Mages and end up being yed to death.


    However, there is no such as absolute equality in this world. Mage jobs have a high requirement for innate talent and they number less than a tenth of the other jobs. Furthermore, they require arge amount of time and fortune to groom. Thus, it is often easier for Mages to earn a position of respect in the human societypared to closebatants.


    Without doubt, as the Head of Court Mages and a king of the royal family, Carlohin possesses true authority. However, being in an esteemed position, he would becking in opportunities to umte battle experience. Venturing out, he would always bring along arge group of bodyguards. So, how could it be possible for him to stand on the frontlines and be forced into a life and death situation?


    Should I say that he inexperienced to the point of naivety? This junior of mine actually dares to chant right in front of a closebatant. Even though my power rank is much lower than his, he shouldn¡¯t underestimate me that much. Assuming that I didn¡¯t dismantle him forcefully, if I were to send in a few more attacks from the Pale Justice, he would also be done for.


    ¡°I... I think that I should expel Carlohin from my apprenticeship. I have never taught such a shameful apprentice. Actually, you should be secretly joyful over it. If it wasn¡¯t for this fellowcking in battle experience to such a ludicrous point, given his strength as a Saint-rank Lich along with his SemiGod Equipment, it is definitely impossible for you to defeat him.¡±


    What Harloys said is true. Actually, this couldn¡¯t be med on the teacher for not guiding him well. Apparently, he would usually make full use of his strength as a Saint-rank and his SemiGod Equipment to st everything with high-circle spells. Meeting someone who is immune to his spells, he immediately panics. If Carlohin wasn¡¯t that foolish, given his strength as a Legend-rank Fire Mage and a Saint-rank Necromancer, not to mention the possession of a SemiGod Equipment, he could have dealt with us patiently. There would at least be a dozen methods for him to im victory and he wouldn¡¯t have ended up decapitated.


    This sufficiently verifies an old adage. No matter how powerful a person¡¯s martial arts is, if their brain is unable to function well, they would end being put in ce by a concrete brick.


    I nod my head solemnly, even though a smile had creeped onto my face.


    ¡°Heh, this junior of mine is almost like a captain of a treasure delivery convoy. The equipment on his body is not bad at all. Then, I will be taking this SemiGod Equipment with joy.¡±


    [The Dark God¡¯s Breath of Death]


    [Attack Power: 1-2 Tier: SemiGod]


    [Single-handed staff. Prerequisite: Intelligence 15+, High-ranked Necromancer]


    [Breath of Death: Allows one to store 3 Death Spells that is of maximum 8-circles (Legend-rank), allowing the user to instant cast it the moment it is activated. For a 9-circle spell (Myth-rank), the user is able to cast it without incantation and only one 9-circle spell can be stored.]


    [Domain of Death: With this staff as the center, an intangible Domain of Death exists. In this domain, the effects of Death Magic is increased by 50% and the probability of Affliction of Death being inflicted is increased by 30%.]


    [The Countenance of the Dead: The wielder¡¯s Intelligence will be increased by 2, Stamina by 2 and he will be immune to all fear-rted and death-rted effects. However, his charm will be reduced by 10 (This stat can be reduced to the point of negativity)]


    [The Protection of the Dark God: Summon a formless protective barrier which can withstand 200 magic damage/magic equipment damage. Before the protective barrier breaks, the wielder will be immune to all stunning, hexing and any other control-type magic. Duration: 10 seconds]


    [The Rage of the Dark God: An active ability. After it is activated, the next magic spell will be enchanted with the Affliction of Death effect, even if it is just a normal Magic Bullet. The Affliction of Death effect would be equivalent to the power rank of the spell.]


    [Soul Conversion: Siphon the soul of a dead and convert it into pure Power of Death]


    [The Ancient Undead Emperor Dark God has once reached the pinnacle in the field of Death. It is said that just by breathing, he is able to plunge the living into the world of the dead. Even if he has already fallen, the SemiGod Equipment still contains a fragment of his soul. Perhaps, an Undead Lord would be able toprehend the profoundness of death through this equipment and ascend to the highest throne of as a SemiGod Undead Emperor.]


    This is a ssical SemiGod Equipment catered for battles. The Undead Emperor¡¯s soul fragment as well as the profound wisdom hidden within it that could send Undead Lords into a state of frenzy could actually be neglected. After all, it is much more dependent on luck than anything else, it is not something that could be attained forcefully. Rather, the three instant-cast Death Spells of the Breath of Death ability already makes it an astonishingly powerful killing tool.


    Just with this ¡®Breath of Death¡¯ itself, it doesn¡¯t need any other abilities. Throwing out three Death Spells in an instant, who would be able to withstand it? Also, with the ¡®Soul Conversion¡¯ ability, the wielder¡¯s mana would never run dry,


    No wonder Carlohin¡¯s battle experience would be thatcking. With this SemiGod Equipment, he is probably used to instant killing everything. Even if he is obstructed temporarily, he just has to siphon a few souls and continue sting spells over.


    ¡°Although they say that I am a cannon Mage, this junior of mine is obviously the true outstanding cannon Mage.¡±


    Looking at the Protection of the Dark God, it seems that I have underestimated the other party. When he chanted the spell tomit a double suicide with us, he seems to have been putting his faith on this protective barrier. To get through that 200 damage barrier, I would have at least taken me 7 to 8 strikes. I wouldn¡¯t have the time to do anything else even if I managed to break the barrier. However, he didn¡¯t expect that I would be unlike his previous opponents, that I wouldn¡¯t utilize my powerful weapons while challenging the powerful Lich and instead choose to pull out his bones barehanded. After pulling out his lower jaw with one strike, he was unable to even chant any spells normally and naturally, the odds fell in our favors.


    If this toy were to be exposed outside, the Church of Holy Light would probablyunch a crusade against me instantly. I intended for Harloys to consume it but the current her should still be unable to ingest a SemiGod Equipment. Preparations still have to be made and thus, I kept the SemiGod Equipment joyfully.


    Just when my evaluation of Carlohin went up after catching sight of that defensive ability which didn¡¯t activate as anticipated, five minutester, my overly high evaluation of him crumbles once again.


    ¡°This... I really didn¡¯t teach this. I... I don¡¯t know him!¡±


    ¡°I believe you. Such a brainless student indeed cannot be justified by the improper guidance of a mentor. He is probably born with a defect in his brain that cannot be cured with any medicine. His intelligence is probably on par with that sillyss. How did he ascend to Saint-rank?¡±


    The moment we walked into Carlohin¡¯s room in the Mage Tower, we began to ¡®collect spoils of war¡¯. However, the moment we started searching around his room, we found a square box under his bed.


    Opening it, we saw a blue bottle wrapped in velvet. Inside the bottle, a soulfire burns quietly.


    If there isn¡¯t a second Lich here, this toy is surely the Carlohin¡¯s phctery.


    This is an ideal textbook example. A model soul bottle, ced in a box in fear that he might lose it. To interpret the word ¡®phctery¡¯ literally to such a level, he could be considered as entric as well.


    TL: Phctery literally means Soul Box in Chinese. And his soul is literally ced in a bottle in a box.


    While other Liches are trying their hardest to disguise their phcteries over and over again, fearful of someone finding this weakness of theirs, this phctery which sits upright there without a hint of disguise left us stupefied.


    ¡°Hey, Harloys, if you were to be converted into a Lich here, how would you create your phctery?¡±


    ¡°I would find some debris and throw it into the water after sessfully converting it. I can guarantee that no one would be able to find it. You?¡±


    ¡°I would put it into an ordinary-looking concrete block and use it in the main passageway. Passers-by would cross it every day but they would never imagine that there would be a phctery under their feet.¡±


    The two of them stare at each other, a hint of a smile appearing in both their eyes.


    ¡°s, our heritage was unfortunate! Back then, I should have included an intelligence test in the entrance exams.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell others that I am his senior. I can¡¯t afford to gain such a title.¡±


    The sighs of the two harmonizes as one. Finally, someone can no longer withstand all the sarcastic remarks directed in his face.


    ¡°Darsos¡¯s dogs, do you think that you could insult me casually just because I have lost? No matter what, I am a king of And. My senior? Do you know who my master is? You think that you... Don¡¯t shake the bottle, I am feeling really giddy now. Stop shaking it!¡±


    One of the reason why the textbook example of soul bottles has died out is because that souls contained in a bottle is really too fragile. Just by slightly shaking it, Carlohin immediately surrenders without second thoughts.


    ¡°This sensation feels so familiar.¡±


    ¡°Un, it is made from your skin, darned cat.¡±


    Alright, ignoring the darned cat who stops what she was doing to bite me with all her might, I turn my attention towards the phctery which fell into silence.


    ¡°Alright, allow me to reintroduce ourselves to exin why I am your senior. Un, I should the oldest senior who managed to survive until this point. I am Rnd.Mist and this darned cat is our master, Harloys.¡±


    ¡°How could this be possible!¡±


    Carlohin is unable to retain his silence. Not mentioning how his heritage is exposed in a few words, how could that fearsome Queen of Banshees be reduced to a soft and furry little cat.


    However, that ck cat res at him in displeasure. An apparition-like figure shes behind her for an instant. That familiar ripple of her soul is the best name card.


    ¡°How have you been doing? By the way, don¡¯t im to be my disciple in the future. It is really embarrassing for me. Right, Harlock (Carlohin¡¯s fake name), seeing you in such a state, all of my anger has been dispelled. Let¡¯s just strike off the grudges we had in the past. Of course, you can also reject it and we could recalcte the debt between us.¡±


    The soulfire in the bottle ripples. If the bottle could nod its head freely, it would have most probably have turned into a roly-poly toy.


    ¡°Teacher Harloys, you said it as though I wronged you. You were obviously the one who made use of all of us. We should be the one seeking you for revenge, not... Alright, I will stop talking.¡±


    Noticing the ck cat baring her teeth, he recalls her narrow-minded and vengeful nature and that he is now in the other party¡¯s hands, Carlohin immediately gives in.


    ¡°Wait, the oldest senior? That legendary person is also one of Harloys¡¯s disciple and it is said that he is from Mist Country... Yong yong yong yong Emperor Yongye!¡±


    Alright, the agitation of his soul ripples throughout the room, revealing his shock and fear.


    As the only Undead Emperor and the founder of the strongest Undead Cmity in recent times, Yongye Cmity, Emperor Yongye is an existence well-known to all Necromancers. He is an obelisk which can¡¯t be surpassed as well as an existence which strikes fear in them.


    ¡°Un, that¡¯s me. You don¡¯t have to be that shocked. You are also an immortal existence yourself now. Are you that shocked that I didn¡¯t die?¡±


    I nned to reveal my own identity from the very start. The world of the Undead is much simpler than the world of the living. There is only onew in the world of the Undead, the powerful reigns supreme. With the golden name of Emperor Yongye suppressing him down, the reality of his failure just a while ago and his phctery in my hands, I don¡¯t think that he is able to y any tricks.


    ¡°I won¡¯t be saying anything excessive. From now on, you will listen to me. We are all from the same trade and are well-versed in means to torture souls. If you wish to y any tricks, go ahead. However, if your schemes are sub-par to the point that I can¡¯t stand looking at them any further, I don¡¯t think much have to be said about your oue.¡±


    Don¡¯t think much have to be said = Think for it yourself = Scaring yourself. There is no bottom limit to the imagination of intelligent lifeforms. The more used one is to being cruel to others, the more easily they are able to think of cruel tortures that could be done to themselves. This kind of method of inducing fear in others has works hundred out of hundred times, especially against Necromancers who are adept in torturing the souls of others.


    If Carlohin is really some warrior who refuses to yield even upon death, he wouldn¡¯t have converted himself into a Lich in the first ce. Seeing how even the almighty Harloys was turned into a pet, he lost all of his will to resist.


    Thus, what happens afterwards is me giving themands and him carrying out themands.


    ¡°... I will stop here. Anyway, you already have a grudge against Darsos, so when he opens the door, you can lead your army to battle against him. Of course, it will end with your loss, but do remember to end it with a splendid self-explosion. Of course, the information on the fleet must be left behind as well. Don¡¯t destroy it along with the explosion.¡±


    I don¡¯t think that we would be able to conceal everything from Darsos after we start to develop our own Air Fleet. However, it is entirely possible to create a little bit of chaos. The traces of the existence of Undead cannot be concealed, not to mention the scars of the battle which was just fought. The easiest way to conceal the scars of a fight is to cover up with new ones.


    Of course, there are no eternal secrets. There are some matters that would surely leave behind traces if done and a day wille when everything is exposed.


    To the East Mist whichcks everything, the rare alloy equipment of the White Wolf Guards is already a priceless treasure. There is no way we could give up on the spoils of war we collected here. The thing we have to do now is to do a series of preparations so that our existence here won¡¯t be exposed that quickly.


    ¡°Heh, after And is done dealing with the Seafolk, it would be about time for the onset of the ¡®Vultures of War¡¯, the great war of the human kingdoms. When the war finally ends, it should be about time for the onset of the Underground Alliance and the Undead Cmity onto the stage. As long as we are able to tide through our current crisis, I do not believe that he would still have the leisure to find trouble with the northern countries. Furthermore, the East Mist would have grown stronger by then. It would be hard to tell who would be the one finding trouble with the other. Right, the seven countries in the Northern Lands aren¡¯t that unambitious as well. Since we have decided to stake it all on East Mist, we should also make preparations for war.¡±


    No matter what, this is the territory of Lich Carlohin. The best way to clean up the base is to obtain the assistance of the other party. Currently, the most important thing to do is make him submit to us obediently. In order to make him work for us without worries, it is imperative for us to offer him some benefits after pping him in the face.


    ¡°I am not an unreasonable person. If you listen to me obediently, no matter what profound magic secrets or godly weapons and treasures it is, if there is something you want, feel free to bring it up. You should have heard of it before, that I am not a stingy person and I tend to be credible.¡±


    Emperor Yongye¡¯s promise is extremely valuable. Hearing my words, the soulfire in the bottle stuns suddenly before zing frenziedly.


    ¡°Pardon my insolence, but what is with the current form of yours and Lord Mentor? Could it be that you all have been revived?¡±


    This isn¡¯t something much to hide about. I nod my head directly.


    ¡°Then, have you all regained your senses? Do you all possess the desires of a physical body?¡±


    I nod my head once again. Although Harloys is still half an Undead, her functions on all aspects are no different from the living.


    ¡°Harloys¡¯s body is created by me. You should also be aware of my ability in that aspect. Why, do you wish for me to create a physical body for you as well?¡±


    ¡°Of course! I have had enough of the days living as an Undead. Although it is true that we aren¡¯t gued by hunger and thirst, we are also devoid of the desire to enjoy luxurious food. While it is true that we are devoid of the instinctive desires of the physical body, living on like this is really a torture. Lord, I am begging you, as long as you are able to restore the senses and desires of the physical body in me, I am willing to pay any price!¡±


    ¡°Alright. It is just a body of a male. It is but a simple task. However, I have to first emphasize that even though you would be simr to a normal person on most aspects, you are still an immortal Undead internally, so you will be unable to leave behind descendants. I am able to restore senses and desires, but I am still incapable of transcending the boundaries of life and death at this point.¡±


    ¡°Just restoring desires is enough. Just desires are enough.¡±


    I smile gleefully. I am not afraid of youing up with unreasonable requests, I only fear that you are devoid of pursuits. Since you have something to request of me, naturally, it makes it easier for me to control you.


    ¡°Fine, leave it to me. When it is time, pass me a painting of how you were previously. I can guarantee that I would be able to restore your original appearance.¡±


    ¡°That... Are you able to make a female physical body?¡±


    At that moment, I lost my footing and my hands loosened, almost dropping his phctery onto the floor.


    Based on my many years of experiences of meeting with such incidents, I can already guess the damned developments that is about to happen.


    ¡°That, liking cute little boys is amon little interest among nobles. I believe that Lord would be able to understand that as well. Although it was fine with my original body back then, if there is a chance, I would still like to change to a different style!¡±


    As though intimidated by my livid face, the next moment, Carlohin yells out his desire as though he is putting his everything on the line.


    ¡°No, I will honestly tell you, my Lord, that this is the goal of my life. This is also the main reason why I pursued Necromancy!¡±


    ¡°Shut up, gay!¡±


    I suppressed the urge to smash the bottle and ignored the darned cat who is busy rolling around in front of me inughter. She seems to have knew it from the start. I have no desire whatsoever to interact with this kind of pervert. The next moment, I turn around to leave.


    ¡°Lord! Please don¡¯t go. I am begging you, this is the deepest innate desire of a foolish man who was born in the wrong body...¡±


    ¡°Pui!¡± I already have enough Gentlemen by my side. This kind of gay pervert is challenging my tolerance and bottom line as a man. Thus, I refuse to stop for him.


    ¡°Lord! Have you heard of Cassomes?¡±


    Of course, I have heard of it. The future gship of the And Air Fleet ¡ª¡ª The Unsinkable Cassomes. That is a super warship that would be known by every single household in the future.


    ¡°Hmph, of course I have heard of it. However, if its construction isplete, is it possible for you not to take it out in this battle? That is a gship of an Air Fleet after all. It isn¡¯t that easy to build it.¡±


    ¡°Of course, its construction isn¡¯tpleted yet. However, its prototype, the King Carlohin which I built privately, is almostpleted! Lord, as long as you fulfill my wish, he would be yours.¡±


    No matter how powerful a person¡¯s martial arts is, if their brain is unable to function well, they would end being put in ce by a concrete brick.


    TL: i.e. Even if they are extremely powerful, if they are not smart enough, they will still end up defeated by creative methods sooner orter by an enemy.


    ¼´ËÀÀà·¨Êõ


    TL: Truthfully I had no idea how to trante this. Literally, it means Instant Death Magic and it afflicts an Instant Death Status (or Brink of Death status, depending on how you interpret the word). I tried googling it but couldn¡¯t really find any usage of it in any literature. So, I¡¯ve tranted it into Death Magic and called the status Affliction of Death. The terminologies I chose to use doesn¡¯t really affect the story or the meaning of it but just leaving a side note to inform you all.

 Chapter 109

    Chapter 109: Borealis


    Trantor: StarveCleric Editor: StarveCleric


    Unable to resist the temptation of the powerful warship, I eventually agreed to the request of the pervert. Even so, I drew a fine line between us in our head.


    ¡°After I¡¯m done using him, I will tie him to a boulder weighing a ton and toss him into the river. No, I¡¯ll feed him to Beifeng. Wait, what if his tendencies spawn a new attribute in Beifeng. That would be really scary. It¡¯ll be safer to just sink him in the river. Those Gentlemen are already a handful to deal with. I must make sure to prevent him from interacting with the rest!¡±


    I am gravely disgusted. After all, I¡¯m just an ordinary person. Yes, without a doubt, I¡¯m an ordinary person. After all, it is impossible for me to be the King of Gentlemen.


    ¡°Darned And Empire! They should rename themselves into the And Gay Empire instead. Hmph, one of them fell in love with a man who looks like a woman while the other one feels that he should have been born a female. I think that pair of uncle and nephewplements each other well!¡±


    However, with Carlohin¡¯s full cooperation, we managed to attain our goal of taking full control over the secret base a lot more efficiently. Also, whenever I see the super warship docked in the underground space below the Mage Tower, I would pinch the tail of the darned cat and verify that I am not dreaming from her shrieks and flurry of ws.


    The King Carlohin, originally named as the Warrior of And, is a prototype for the gship Cassomes. In reality, however, the capabilities of the prototype exceed that of his brother ship. Just like how the Rnd No.2 is much stronger than its other kin, prototypes are built without a cap on the budget to prove the feasibility of their theories. It is not surprising for King Carlohin¡¯s capabilities to be above that of the Cassomes.


    King Carlohin, super heavyweight battleship, length 243m and width 40m. It is armed with nine magic siege cannons, seven medium-sized Mage Tower, one Supreme Mage tower and 32 medium-light technical cannons. The main cannon of the ship has a range of 30km. Also, the ship has a hangar, allowing it to hold three Eagle Corvettes.


    The ship can be used in both air and at sea. Upon descending onto the water surface, it would disce 65,000 tons of water. Floating on the surface of the water, it would take around 10 minutes for it to start soaring into the sky. When it is in the sky, it can travel at a maximum speed on 120km/h. As a flying unit, its speed isn¡¯t very fast. However, when its big size is taken into consideration, I think that its speed can already be considered ridiculously fast.


    It is originally designed as the gship of the And Air Fleet. Due to ack of upper limit on the budget, regardless of whether it is the size, speed or firepower, the numbers on this super warship exceeds that of Cassomes significantly. However, in the official record, it is stated that the ship¡¯s aft suddenly exploded in the midst of a certain experiment and ¡®sunk¡¯ into the deep sea.


    Although both the sinking and the explosion are real, none of the crewmates on the ship lost their life. Their families are also well-taken care of by Carlohin. A year and a halfter after the incident, the King Carlohin activated once again and enters the underwater secret base, which was under Carlohin¡¯splete control. At this point, the ship has be his trump card in the vie for the throne, waiting patiently and silently for the day it would be renamed as Emperor Carlohin.


    On top of that, in order to raise the sess rate of an assault on the royal capital, when all eight Mage Towers are fully activated, the ship can form a formidable barrier as well as to go into stealth mode.


    This ship is the ultimate crystallization of the And Empire¡¯s centuries of effort, but yet, due to a certain person¡¯s greed, it has be a tool for seizing the crown.


    From the moment when Carlohin realized that the underwater base is isted from the outside world, he acutely sensed that the next time the door opens, he would fall outpletely with his nephew. To prepare for the day, he devoted 90% of the manpower and resources onto this massive ship right after tests on the Eagle¡¯s engines werepleted.


    With indefatigable builders, coolies and engineers, the construction of the King Carlohin is already 95%pleted. On the other hand, the Cassomes, which priority was given to, is only halfpleted.


    In ¡°history¡±, when the gates finally open ten yearster, Darsos found himself facing the strength of apleted fleet... If it isn¡¯t for the fact that their nation is in grave peril, forcing the uncle and nephew toe to a temporary ceasefire, as well as the fact that the noble title of the King of the Frost Wolves is already known throughout the continent, Darsos would probably found himself forced off the throne.


    But now, this super battleship that did not appear in any official records came easily into my hands.


    With Carlohin¡¯s assistance, we weren¡¯t impeded by the traps while heading to the bottom levels from a Mage Tower. Upon reaching the dock for King Carlohin, we found the ship surrounded by industrious Undead workers and top-notch Engineers.


    The weaker a person is, the lower the probability they would able to retain their intelligence after converting into an Undead. In order to retain the knowledge and wisdom required for the construction of the ship, all of those top-notch engineers and schrs from various professions were still alive.


    Despite having the remaining food supplies distributed to them, given the fact that they have been isted from the outer world for a long period of time as well as the hardbor they underwent with minimal food, they became so thin that they looked like Skeleton Soldiers.


    From another perspective, our assault on the base actually rescued the dying them. After being forcibly disced into this location then witnessing their friends and loved ones being converted into undying beings, the engineers hold deep resentment against And Empire, Darsos and Carlohin. Upon hearing that I am from East Mist Communal Country, my recruitment of the personnel went unbelievably smooth.


    Of course, being able to survive until now proves that they¡¯re all smart people. They know what choices they have to make to continue living on.


    ¡°It¡¯ll bepleted by next month and that it would be able to forcibly set sail in two weeks?¡±


    After obtaining this information from the jovial engineers and schrs who were enjoying the dried meat I distributed to them, I am astonished. If I were toe a monthter, we would most probably have no chance of winning the battle.


    ¡°Prioritize thepletion of the Mage Towers. If required, use the spare parts from the Mage Towers in this base. What we need the most now is the stealth ability of the ship to conduct assaults.¡±


    I gave out new orders on the construction of the ship delightfully. With this ship in my hands, I feel much more confident and hopeful about my future ns.


    King Carlohin... The moment that I recall that this is the name of a certain gay and that I might need to live in a ship named after a gay, I did not hesitate to put renaming the ship as my utmost priority.


    However, naming has never been my forte. Just as I was hesitating to shout out The Rnd as a name for the ship, the words of the darned cat dispel my intention.


    ¡°Have you forgotten the Rnd Titan robot? Do you intend to create a transformer set or a whole series of Rnd products?¡±


    Then, I thought of naming it over the concept ofw and justice, so I rmended the name ¡®Absolute Justice¡¯. However, the darned cat retorts, ¡°In short, cancer?¡±, and I was defeated once again.


    TL: Absolute Justice (Jue Dui Zheng Yi Hao) -> Cancer (Jue Zheng) which is a homophone for Cancer


    ¡°Love And Courage?¡±


    ¡°Little kid, how old are you this year? Are you trying to make peopleugh their heads off?¡±


    ¡°Angry Birds?¡±


    ¡°The name makes it feel like the ship would crash into either a pig or a house. Think of something else.¡±


    ¡°Angry Grape?¡±


    TL: i.e. The Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck


    ¡°This name feels like it¡¯ll bring us bad luck throughout the entire journey, as though we would meet with an economic crisis and go bankrupt!¡±


    ¡°Angry Banana?¡±


    TL: An author from Qidian


    ¡°How about Angry Squirrel! Give the name some serious thought! Stop considering the names of animals and fruits. Go for something mighty and domineering.¡±


    TL: The author of this book


    ¡°Archangel!¡±


    TL: Gundam Seed


    ¡°Although Archangel does sound impressive, it sounds like an extremely inauspicious name which would bring down its teammates.¡±


    ¡°Snowy Wind!¡±


    TL: Japanese Destroyer Yukikaze.


    ¡°No way, it sounds even more inauspicious. I can already feel a chill down my spine.¡±


    ¡°Danyang!¡±


    TL: It¡¯s the exact same ship as Yukikaze, just a different name after it came into China¡¯s possession


    ¡°Is there even a difference from the one you just proposed? Can you stoping up with such inauspicious names?¡±


    ¡°Titanic.¡±


    ¡°Will you only be content when the ship sinks? Do you hold some kind of deep-seated grudge against the ship? Can¡¯t youe up with an auspicious name?¡±


    ¡°Gentlemen, Unite¡±


    TL: Transformers


    ¡°Sure, I have nothing to say about that. However, do your parents know about your suicidal tendencies? Do you find the number of Gentlemen under yourmandcking?¡±


    ¡°Soaring Dragon.¡±


    ¡°I know at least 20 ships with this name. Are you sure you want to add a 3-digit number behind it?¡±


    ¡°Queen Elisa(beth)!¡± Alright, a certain Demon Marquess is crossing dimensions in a furious attempt to brush up her presence.


    ¡°Revoked. Why don¡¯t we name it the Chaos Banshee Empress?¡± Alright, you darned cat. Your intentions are finally revealed. That name smells strongly of the name of an evil boss. Somehow, it feels like the ship would end up imploding if we were to use this name!


    ...The endless proposals and rejections feels more like a depressing exam.


    I can confirm once again that naming is a task that saps one¡¯s spirit and strength. Even though I came up a whole string of more than twenty names, they were all rejected. (Mysterious voice: Are you sure you weren¡¯t looking for it?)


    ¡°Borealis.¡±


    TL: Aurora Borealis is the name of the Northern Lights. Borealis is a reference to a gigantic ship in Half-life 2. This.


    ¡°Although it feels like it¡¯s secretly representing something, let¡¯s use it since it has yet to sink.¡±


    Aurora Borealis is a natural phenomenon exclusive to the northernnds. From another perspective, it represents the desire of the Mist Country to rise up once more through all odds.


    ¡°Do we still require two more weeks? Can the progress be hastened?¡±


    The answer that I received is quite depressing. The ship can be forciblymissioned in two weeks, but it would only possess the ability to fly. Most of the cannons on the ship would be unusable. Furthermore, two weeks is an assumption of an idealistic situation. Looking at the current situation, there is a high probability that the work would be dyed.


    The destruction of the power source in our attack as well as my intention for the survivors who barely survived the crisis to take a break and eat some good food to recover makes a dy in thepletion of the ship even more probable.


    However, what is great is that as long as we are able to fly it out of the base, we couldplete the remaining construction in the midst of the journey.


    Without a doubt, with the standoff between the Seafolk and the And Empire, aplete outbreak of war between the two factions can erupt at any moment. On the contrary, this underwater base is the safest location at present time and very quickly, I made my decision.


    ¡°Since the And Empire has approved of departure within the contract, it¡¯s about time for the envoys of the East Mist Communal Country to return back to the North.¡±


    Once I return to the surface, I will arrange for a convoy back to the North. At the very least, on the surface, I cannot allow the envoy team to remain in this dangerous city.


    ¡°Reyne, find those people whose name are on this list. If their names are underlined in red, it means that the person must be acquired at all cost, even if it means the use of force or outright abduction. If their names are underlined in blue, it means that while it would be for the best if we could recruit them, but do not force them if they are unwilling to. The ones underlined in purple are the ones not to use force against no matter what happens, otherwise they will be a source of trouble.¡±


    We are already bound to offend the And Empire, it doesn¡¯t really matter for us to go a little further. Since we have already begun poaching their talents, we might as well im more of them while we¡¯re at it. With these ¡®historical figures¡¯ under ourmand, regardless of whether it is us, the East Mist Communal Country or the And Empire, the future would probably change significantly.


    ¡°After locating them, get their family to move in here. Remember to inform them that the city is in danger and that we are rescuing them. This is the truth, so go ahead and do what you must.¡±


    Without doubt, the underwater base and the Borealis in my possession is the ray of hope in this chaotic situation. It gives us a foothold with the option to advance and to retreat, guaranteeing our safety.


    However, my good mood immediately sours the moment I arrive back at the Church of Law.


    ¡°Inviting me to the enthronement ceremony which would be held in advance? Am I crazy or has Darsos gone mad?¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    Following the invasion of the Seafolk and the annihtion of their three main fleets, the And Empire is gradually losing their control over their coastal areas.


    All the towns along the coast hase under attack by the Seafolk and in response, the Empire has mobilized all of their garrison troops. The cities which had been purged by the carnivorous Fishmen Tribes has already hit the 3-digit mark. Despite the uneasy bnce that is being maintained in the capital, the surrounding areas have already descended intoplete chaos.


    Facing endless hordes of Seafolk, the And Empire¡¯s navy, which wasn¡¯t really strong in the first ce, began to be pushed back. On the great river leading to Kagersi City, the garrison fleet of the human forces are either annihted or has docked on the pier of the towns, seeking the assistance from the local troops.


    Hundreds of tribes are gathering and advancing forward. Under the leadership of the Storm Priests who possess the Crest of the Storm, the tribes are gradually transitioning from mere mercenaries into a true organized army.


    Among their ranks are the short and ugly Fishmen, the gorgeous and pure Mermaids, the gigantic and burly Sea Giants and the ones who number the most, the half-human half-fish Nagas and the many different types of Water Elementals.


    After their marshalling and a simple training ispleted, the Seafolk are prepared for battle with the Storm Priests standing in the core of the army. Under the guidance of the true Goddess, the Queen of Storm, after a long march, their destinationes into view.


    ¡°Capital, a new capital, a new capital that belongs to us.¡±


    This is what the Seafolk are chanting.


    Snowy Wind/ Yukikaze


    TL: Although she was known for being a lucky ship, various crews aboard other ships throughout the war viewed her as a bad omen, due to the fact that she escorted Shinano (when said ship was torpedoed and sunk by USS Archerfish), and Yamato (during Operation Ten-Go, where said ship and five others were sunk)


    Source: KanColle Wikia


    I have no idea when did I transit from Northern Lands to Southern Lands but just rifying, Mist Country is in the North (lol only realized it after noticing the mention on Northern Lights)


    I have reflected the other chapters to show so as well


    Just a question, do you all prefer double spacing or single spacing between paragraphs. My chapters alternate between the two but I tend to prefer double (though it takes more effort) because it makes it look neater and the words seems less cramped.

 Chapter 110

    Chapter 110: Dragon yer and True Love


    Trantor: StarveCleric Editor: StarveCleric


    ¡°¡®Dragon yer¡¯ Basr. Is the Goddess of the Moon crazy? Why would she send this mad dog out?¡±


    The arrival of the Heroic Spirit under the Goddess of the Moon is not a secret. After all, the difference between a Heroic Spirit and a human being is obvious at sight. Not to mention, that person didn¡¯t even intend to conceal his own identity, living in the city as though it is normal. His rate of appearance in the city is surprisingly high.


    In the legends of the Order Gods, Heroic Spirits are mighty heroes in history. When their lifespan nears its end and their feats are recognized by the Gods, they could sign a soul contract with a God, bing the God¡¯s glorious and eternal warrior.


    Of course, this is from an optimistic point of view. From what I see, Heroic Spirits are magnificent only in appearance. If one were to throw away all the meaningless praises and poetry, they are actually just a different kind of Undead in the Order Faction, not to mention Undead who signed a contract of eternal very. They are unlucky fellows who don¡¯t even have a private life or holidays.


    Their most obvious trait of that is that despite possessing a physical body and lust, they are unable to bear offspring. This was decided by the nature of their soul of the dead who has entered the process of reincarnation. This is true no matter how their physical body is changed. Furthermore, if one is just talking about restoring one¡¯s physical body and lust, my Undead Creation techniques are also able to achieve that feat.


    On the other hand, reincarnated God Envoys and Angels are able to leave bear offspring because they have been through theplete cycle of reincarnation, thus bing a living being once more. Un, the truth is that Angels actually originates from humans, simr to how Demons of the Lower Realm are made.


    Furthermore, they are beings of fixation just like the Undead. In fact, even the Heroic Spirits, despite possessing a much better name, are beings of fixation. There is no doubt that they were once great heroes of history, but being a great hero doesn¡¯t mean that they are saints devoid of desires. After bing Heroic Spirits, they still retain a high level of fixation towards the interests of their previous life and their past.


    Basr¡¯s past can be summarized through his title, ¡®Dragon yer¡¯.


    He is born a noble of the Wood Elves. Back then, the Elf Kingdom was prosperous and he should have had a blissful childhood. However, his happy days didn¡¯tst.


    During the era which he lived in, the Dragon race still weren¡¯t as rare as they were today. Just like many bedtime stories, he once had a happy family. However, one day, a Green Dragon passes by his house and casually breathes a Dragon Breath, simr to how some uncivilized fellows spit would do casually by the roadside, though the worst thing that could ur is them meeting with the fining auntie wearing a red armband. Unlike humans, the result of an uncivilized Dragon is Basr¡¯s entire family getting annihted, leaving him behind.


    Alright, the rest of the story is quite clich¨¦. Motivated by his past, the orphan slowly grows up and eventually climbs to the pinnacle of the world. However, even after his name tremors the world, he was still unable to find the Green Dragon who killed his parents.


    ¡°Since I am unable to find him, I might as well wipe out all of those vile Dragons. This is vengeance, as well as to prevent tragedies like mine from urring again.¡±


    Without doubt, these are arrogant words from someone afflicted with paranoia. However, when the one who said such arrogant words is an expert who has the ability to carry it out, tragedy strikes on the giant Dragons.


    The Dragon race holds deep hatred towards him. He doesn¡¯t limit his targets to just the Green Dragons. In his eyes, these massive creatures are all threats and only a dead Dragon is a good Dragon. Thus, exploiting all means, not questioning the morality of his actions, he doesn¡¯t even spare fledglings and their eggs. In his opinion, anyone who sides with the Dragons deserve to die.


    The vengeance of the Dragon race struck, causing him to lose his wife and his friends, plunging him into loneliness once again. This fueled his motivation further and he eventually became the most renowned professional Dragon yer in the world.


    As someone who is perfectly afflicted with paranoia and a Dragon yer hero, his abilities are catered specially against giant Dragons. Be it Dragon ying Javelin or Dragon ying Sword, he possesses it all. Also, it is recorded that the number of Dragons that fell under his hands number at least four digits and there isn¡¯t ack of SemiGod Dragons in the mix. Even after he incited themon wrath of the Dragon race and was lynched to death, he sessfully dragged down hundreds of Dragons down with him.


    ¡°My cute baby, listen obediently to your mummy. If you were to cause a ruckus, ¡®Dragon yer¡¯ Basr wille.¡±


    These words have be the trump card of the Dragon mothers to scare their children. Through their Bloodline Inheritance which passes knowledge down one generation to the other, the fledglings are well-aware of that title and the countless Dragon lives who have fallen under him. Thus, from young, they hold fear to this name.


    Even if it is the fearless Little Red, she also had a period when she is lulled to sleep by bedtime stories. Back then, when Basr is mentioned, unease and hesitation would appear on her face.


    It is to the extent that when the Goddess of Moon Patricia epted Basr as her Heroic Spirit due to her side Concept as a Goddess of Hunters, she is viewed with hostility by the Dragon Tribe. Two wars of Gods even broke out due to their soured rtionship.


    Judging from solely his strength, there is no problem whatsoever sending Basr down into the mortal world. Even if he could only forcibly exert the prowess of a SemiGod through his body as a Heroic Spirit, he still possesses fighting power capable of rivaling with the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor. At the very least, this Heroic Spirit has descended to the mortal world for three times in the past and during which, he was able to kill three powerful giant Dragons while clearing away a few hundred of grown Dragons along the way. In the view of most people, there isn¡¯t a single Dragon he is unable to defeat.


    ¡°As an outstanding Hunter, the first thing one has to do when hunting down a massive target is to study its habits, weakness and personality. These few days, Basr may seem to be strolling around leisurely but in fact, he is observing the weakness of his opponent. He is just choosing not to make a move now. When he makes a move, it will definitely result in a merciless and deadly ughter.¡±


    This is an evaluation from the veteran Hunter Lowens. Indubitably, Basr who views hunting Dragons as his raison d¡¯¨ºtre is an idol-like figure among Hunters like Lowens. These few days, this fugitive (escapee) had been willing to go through the trouble of putting on a mantle and avoiding the sentries and guards in the cities just to look at the hero in his heart from afar.


    Of course, his actions of peeping are unable to escape Basr¡¯s acute senses. However, what was surprising is that this Dragon yer who is reputed to be bloodthirsty is actually quite easy to get along with. He even took the initiative to call Lowens over to chat with him.


    When Lowens requested his idol to impart some hunting techniques to him, he even provided him some pointers. When Lowens asked him for the reason, this was how he replied:


    ¡°Heh, I can feel the screams of agony of wild beasts on the verge of death from your hands. We both walk the same path, so how could I be stingy with you? It is really a pity that you aren¡¯t an Elf Ranger and you don¡¯t use a bow, otherwise I would be able to impart you some little tricks on Dragon ying. The current generation is too weak and there are too few people who actively seek strong preys like you. It is about time for the periodical extermination of those cockroach-like lizards whoy eggs everywhere.¡±


    To speak of ying Dragons like a periodical clearing of cockroaches, his in tone made Lowens sense the formidable strength of this Heroic Spirit and his bone-piercing resentment against the Dragon Tribe.


    This isn¡¯t the only time the Gentlemen has met with Basr.


    ¡°It is a pity,cking just another half more...¡±


    The Dragon yer who seems to just be passing by suddenly appears, nces at him inly and sighs. His actions almost scared Beifeng to death.


    The pitiful Dracon Hunter was only strolling around the alleys when he is obstructed by the Heroic Spirit who had caught onto the scent of a Dragon. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that arge portion of Gods and mortals view Dracons as a DemiHumans rather than the descendants of Dragons, Beifeng would probably have been destroyed at that moment.


    ¡°It is such a pity.¡± This is the evaluation I casually made after I was aware of the incident. The moment I spoke those words, I noticed a wave of head nods in my surroundings...


    ¡°However, the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor Hydra is a God Beast. For Patricia to send down the Dragon yer who would never show mercy to him, does she intend to start a war with the Queen of Storms?¡±


    There is no doubt about his strength whatsoever. However, I made the same judgement as Darsos and the rest. There is no way Basr would show mercy. That is the crux of the problem.


    ¡°The moment he strikes, regardless of whether he wins the battle or not, the war would escte immediately. We must quicken our pace.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª


    To me, every battle and the time after each battle is precious. A real-life battle is the most direct and reliable experimentalb to test out one¡¯s abilities. Even the most powerful and striking Race Talent or battle technique cannot be considered reliable if it has yet to be tested in a practical battle.


    Personally, I am used to tallying the gains and loss at the end of a battle and I would write down my acquisitions and reflections on my diary. Of course, of what is written, the most important matter is the most important matter of all is excavating my weaknesses and making up for them.


    Although this battle isn¡¯t a long one, our opponents weren¡¯t weak. After all, he is a Saint-rank Necromancer and a moment of carelessness could potentially lead to our deaths... Alright, I admit that my words weren¡¯t really true. The more I find out about that Lich junior of mine, the more I feel that I wouldn¡¯t lose to the other party. Even if I didn¡¯t sessfully dismantle him back then, most probably we would have only ended up in a prolonged battle. In the end, the ones who would emerge victorious would still be us, the team who are weaker in terms of absolute strength.


    It seems contradictory for the ones with weaker absolute strength to emerge victorious? Actually, this isn¡¯t contradictory at all. Carlohin¡¯sck of battle experience only ys a small part in it. His soul which is corrupted and twisted right down to the core is the main culprit for the reason why he is unable to emerge victorious.


    ¡°Soul World? This Soul World you speak of sounds incredible. What does it do?¡±


    As a Necromancer who specialises in Death-rted offensive Magic, Carlohin¡¯s Soul Imprint augments the effects of the Death Magic. There is nothing really unique about it. On the other hand, I heard that his Soul World is the rare type which doesn¡¯t just boost one¡¯s stats. Hearing that news, I was astonished.


    Most of the Soul World of Saint-rank Mages consists just of a simple modification of their surroundings to create an environment suitable for them to exert their full strength. For example, a Fire Mage would be able to warp his surroundings into the Fire Elemental Dimension. Although it boosts the might of Fire Magic significantly, controlling it burns a lot of energy, making it highly inefficient.


    A normal Soul World is often used in battles involvingrge armies or to assist a few Mages of the same attribute in a fight. By stacking the bonus attributes on top of one another, if they are able to turn and of ice into a blizzard, that would be extremely scary.


    On the other hand, unorthodox Soul Worlds tend to be based on a person¡¯s experiences and is a protrusion of their soul. Although there may be a great disparity in terms of their might, given that the person is able to change the world solely on their soul alone, this would prove that the person¡¯s will and fixation far surpasses the norm. Not to mention, this kind of Soul World is hard to guard against and hard to deal with. Possessing a unique Soul World tend to be the exclusive right of powerful experts and serves as a symbol of their status.


    Hearing that Carlohin actually has a Soul World known as ¡®Real World¡¯, my curiosity was piqued. I raised my personal evaluation of my junior in my mind, which has reached rock bottom.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t expect that you would still have some aces on you. What is the effect of your Soul World? Why didn¡¯t you use it back then?¡±


    ¡°Hehe, it actually isn¡¯t that good. It is just a little obsession of mine. It works like this...¡±


    After hearing Carlohin¡¯s exnations, my evaluation of him lowers once more. This time, it isn¡¯t just rock bottom anymore, but underground level. Harloys, after listening to his words beside me, emphasizes once again for him to not im that she is his mentor.


    The reason? His Soul World really makes one at a loss of words.


    ¡°An AOE gender change? What meaning is there to it! Can you be more normal? For example, plotting a coup d¡¯¨¦tat or starting an Undead Cmity. If you were slightly more normal, you would have long overthrown your elder brother!¡±


    ¡°But this is the deepest desire in my heart, and Soul Worlds are the physical manifestation of one¡¯s hopes and desires, right?¡±


    Alright, although Carlohin¡¯s said this with a tearful face and the tone of his voicecks of confidence, his interpretation of a Soul World isn¡¯t wrong. The next moment, as though recalling something, a gleeful tone appears in Carlohin¡¯s voice.


    ¡°Also, I have used this Soul World twice and sessfully defeated a few extremely troublesome opponents. Of them, one of them is a Myth-rank expert!¡±


    Hearing this, I am a little speechless. Indeed, not every man is able to remain calm when they find two additional lumps of meat on their chests and the disappearance of their vitals. Having one¡¯s thoughts wander in the middle of a tense battle is suicidal. However, for an expert to die due to their attention being focused on theirher regions is also a little too embarrassing.


    I shiver at the thought of what would have happened if he had suddenly activated this Soul World of his in the midst of the battle then,


    ¡°Definitely by no means should you use this Soul World! Right, do not tell anyone about this Soul World as well, especially Krose.¡±


    I can¡¯t imagine what would happen if Krose were to know about his Soul World.


    ¡°You mean that female Elf Druid? Is she myrade? That¡¯s great, I¡¯ve been wanting to find someone to exchange thoughts with. I... Alright, Lord, stop staring at me like this. I will do as you say.¡±


    However, there are some things that cannot be avoided. What that woulde would eventuallye. The day which Carlohin would meet the Gentlemen eventually came. Furthermore, sparks flew about the moment they met.


    ¡°The reason why you still like grown men is because you have yet to meet a shota which you truly love. Age? That is never a problem!¡± A certain Gray Elf said.


    ¡°The reason why you still like females is because you have yet to meet a male you truly love. Gender? That is never a problem!¡± A certain Lich said.


    ¡°The reason why you still like humans is because you have yet to meet a life form which you truly love. Species? That is never a problem!¡± A certain... certain person who everyone knows said.


    Three hands grasp each other and a bizarre resonance ur between the three. A friendship exclusive to Gentlemen is being built swiftly, a rtionship of transparency and mutual understanding. Friendships between Gentlemen are always forged that quickly.


    ¡°Comrades.¡±


    ¡°Brothers!¡±


    ¡°Sisters!¡±


    The Gray Elf and Lich stare at each other in mutual understanding before eventually bowing in submission to the third person.


    ¡°Big Brother Beifeng!¡±, ¡°Boss Dracon!¡±


    Yes, if there is a unit of measurement for Gentlemanliness, then the unit would surely be Beifeng units. This clearly disys the noble and esteemed position Beifeng possesses in the road of the Gentlemen.


    ¡°All of us arerades who see past facades and dedicate our soul into pursuing ¡®true love¡¯. There is no need for formalities. My path isn¡¯t a lonesome one! From now on, let¡¯s address each other as siblings. Even if the world is unable toprehend our pursuit for true love, as least we still have one another. My little brother and sisters, don¡¯t you all think so as well?¡±


    ¡°Great! I am 67 this year, so I¡¯ll be the 2nd Sister.¡±


    ¡°Although I am 235, I am content with being the 3rd Sister.¡±


    Alright, I won¡¯t retort on why there are two younger sisters here and how the oldest Momo would turn out to be the 3rd Sister. Apparently, the way they determine their seniority of their sworn siblinghood isn¡¯t by age but by the level of their Gentlemanliness.


    When three pairs of hands grasp each other, when a certain Dracon became the elder sibling of the three and their rtionship were being established swiftly, when the True Love Three Siblings were born, the other people in the room found themselves blinded by the sight.


    ¡°I can¡¯t take it anymore! My eyes!¡±


    Someone rolls on the floor, clutching onto their eyes.


    ¡°Don¡¯t stop me, let me destroy her! The glory of Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Town Security cannot be ruined in her hands. For someone who catches pervert to turn into a pervert, for someone hunting mummies to turn into a mummy, this is too shameful.¡±


    Someone draws their sword in rage.


    ¡°Big Brother, I will try my best. Someday, I will also find my true love!¡±


    Someone feels moved and impassioned by their sworn siblinghood.


    ¡°If my true love lies with the dead, can I...¡±


    Someone, even though she didn¡¯t join in due to her pride, upon watching such a sight, she feels a surge of momentum...


    ¡°Stop it right there. I have had enough of all these damn Gentlemen. If you dare to join their gang, causing the proliferation of the ¡®True Love Siblings¡¯, I will really make a move.¡±


    Someone intends to use force to stop the Beifeng virus from spreading.


    ¡°That, can true love be with one¡¯s blood kin as well? That¡¯s not right, I remember that two people can only be considered as blood kin if they are within three generations of one another. We are one generation, two generation, three generation... Our n¡¯s genealogy book has been lost. Anyway, it has been many generations between us so there are no obstacles at all. Heehee.¡±


    Someone is chuckling in happiness secretly.


    ¡°To beughing so foolishly over nothing and even starting to count with her fingers. It looks like under the influence of Rnd, Reyne¡¯s etiquette has crumbledpletely. She is also bing more and more insane. This is unbefitting for a princess of a country. Looks like I will have to conduct remedial lessons for her after we return.¡±


    Someone is worried for the princess whose behavior is growing stranger by the day.


    As for me, I am deeply regretting my action of realizing my promise so quickly. My creation of Carlohin¡¯s body resulted in the formation of the True Love Siblings. Un, perhaps should I call him Rosemary (The name he came up with) now.


    When I received Darsos¡¯s invitation letter for the enthronement ceremony, which he sent with malicious intent, I immediately started working on the creation of Rosemary¡¯s physical body without second thoughts. In this beautiful female body, it contains the overwhelming vile intentions of mine.


    Her face is modelled after the Queen Victoria, who has tested and verified in ¡®history¡¯. Also, I added in a few aspects of Krose and many other people¡¯s androgynous beauty. On top of that, the body had the sexiness of a mature woman to the point that the seductive curvature seems slightly unnatural. Rosemary is also well-versed and educated in the mannerisms of females. Without doubt, this is a masterpiece. Furthermore, it is catered specially towards a certain person¡¯s interests.


    At the very least, when Rosemary made an appearance, the fellows from the East Mist Royal Knight Order were enchanted. The young Knights of the And¡¯s White Wolf Guards almost threw aside their treasured swords. Judging from how men were staring fixedly at Rosemary with an impassioned gaze, it seems that my workmanship is still up to standard.


    What about me? Just like how you make a puppet using mud bit by bit, how can I be attracted to a human-shaped puppet that I made by patching flesh together?


    At this moment, I am in a carriage, sitting on the opposite end of the supreme beauty as I spitefully thought of the shocked expression that would appear on Darsos¡¯s face to vent the frustration I umted from having to put on a skirt once more.


    ¡°Wait, stop for a moment.¡±


    Looking at the time, we were still early. I am a bit curious about the sight around us so under my request, the And Empire¡¯s reception carriage slows down its speed.


    By the side, I see a group of paupers along the street begging for alms. They are staring intently at our carriage, which carries the insignia of the And Royalty. I can feel a bone-piercing resentment under their expressionless look of calmness.


    ¡°Those? They are only some peasants from the Pier District. Princess, there¡¯s nothing much to see here. During the enthronement ceremony, the world¡¯s top-ss musical team and circus...¡±


    I nod my head subconsciously. I pull down the blinds of the carriage and allow the carriage to proceed on with its previous pace.


    Along the road, we have met four to five gatherings of such refugees who were affected by the disaster. As the stalemate with the Seafolk drags on, more and more refugees will appear. Most probably, the And nobles who are busy with the enthronement ceremony are just like the uncaring White Wolf Knight, choosing to disregard these unlucky fellowspletely.


    The carriages who were moving in the opposite direction as us caused a jam. As more and more civilians realize that there is something amiss with the present situation, more and more of them are choosing to escape from the city.


    Civilians won¡¯t care about the bnce of war or whatsoever. They only know that both their country and their lives are in danger and yet, the nobles and Knights are busy ying around, busying themselves with the enthronement ceremony, neglecting the calls of help from the bottom tier.


    This may seem like a small matter at hand, but this clearly shows how tense the current situation is and that internal problems are urring in Kagersi City. At the very least, the high prestige that the newly-appointed Emperor possesses among his civilians has been mostly lost and this has shaken his foundation as the monarch.


    ¡°It is impossible for Darsos not to see it, but he still chooses to not make any actions. It seems like he intends to make use of this enthronement ceremony to throw in all of his stake and gamble a big one. Making such a risky gamble when he doesn¡¯t even have sufficient knowledge of the Seafolk? I don¡¯t hold much confidence in his decision. It looks like we should retreat as soon as possible.¡±

 Chapter 111

    Chapter 111: The Arrival of the Storm


    The carriages on the road progresses slowly. Suddenly, a thunderbolt strikes across the sky. Then, dark clouds start to gather and the sky darkens. A momentter, rain starts to fall.


    A storm in the summer urs rapidly and departs rapidly as well. Just a moment ago, it was still a light drizzle but now, it is already pouring heavily. The raindrops strike on the roof of the carriage, making a tack tack melody. The view outside the carriage turns blurry and the appearance of the dark clouds and the heavy downpour plunges the day into night.


    ¡°Summer has just arrived and yet it is the third consecutive day that is raining this week. Recently, the rain has been falling quite frequently. It seems that Darsos¡¯s luck is incredibly bad.¡±


    Judging from the low-lying and heavy dark clouds, this rain probably won¡¯t be stopping anytime soon. The enthronement ceremony would be directly affected. After all, it isn¡¯t suitable to conduct a ceremony in such a rainy day.


    ¡°Could it be that they didn¡¯t prepare in advance? But, the Court Mages aren¡¯t the type to im their sries without working.¡±


    In this world of magic, even though there are many shorings to it, there are also many aspects of it which surpasses the technological world.


    For example, the prediction and control of the weather. Old veteran hunters and rangers are able to predict the weather just by looking at the shape of the clouds. Druids who are close with nature are also able to smell the scent of a natural disaster from the wind. Mages are also able to userge scale magic to control and choose the weather they want.


    Before heading out today, I went to look for Krose to ask her about the weather. I still remember how she replied me with hesitation on her face.


    ¡°...It should be sunny. However, my predictions have been erring recently. I have sensed clearly that it should have been sunny this whole week and yet it has been raining non-stop. I also don¡¯t feel the interference of anyone else. So, either my predictions are inurate or the ones interfering are much stronger than me.¡±


    It is still understandable for other people to predict the weather inurately. However, Krose is a Great Druid who specialises in summoning storms. For her to predict the weather wrongly is just as incredulous as a Fire Mage burning himself in the midst of cooking. On other days, it is still fine for the weather to be bad. But when there is a group of Seafolks living just by the river, the bad weather can prove to be lethal.


    It has been raining heavily for consecutive days, causing the regions flooded by the river water to expand significantly, increasing the area of movement for the Seafolks. Furthermore, humans would be inconvenienced by the rainy day whereas Seafolks, adapted to fighting in water, would have their fighting prowess increased significantly.


    Thus, every time it rains, the atmosphere among the garrison troop along the coast of the river would be very tense as they stand on alert in case of an enemy invasion. Fortunately, from the looks of it, the Seafolks still do not intend on making use of the rainy day to conduct an attack.


    ¡°The Mages of the And Empire aren¡¯t trash. There is no way they would allow the predetermined memorial be interrupted by a rainy day. If so, there can only be one exnation ¡ª¡ª The recent downpour isn¡¯t a natural phenomenon. Furthermore, the one interfering in the weather possesses power far superior to the And Court Mages. Normally, a powerful existence like that wouldn¡¯t be bothered with something minor like that. For him to exert so much energy to change the weather, there must be something he hopes to gain out of this.¡±


    The carriage suddenly stops and changes its direction, leaving me a little surprised. It can¡¯t be that Darsos would change his predetermined n just because of a rainy day.


    ¡°Why did we change directions? Where are we going now? Are we returning back?¡±


    Hearing my suspicions, the White Wolf Knight leading the team immediately exins.


    ¡°We have a contingency n for the enthronement ceremony if it were to rain on the day itself. In order to deal with the storms, we have prepared two locations. One of them is the open field whereas the other is the royal family sparring field. The sparring field has been sealed to create an indoor hall.¡±


    If other people were to hear his reply, they would most probably be impressed by the And royalty¡¯s preparedness. However, from his words, I could sense the helplessness and feebleness of a certain Emperor. Without doubt, being inaugurated under the spectate and blessings of the citizens of the country while celebrating the event together with them is the ideal choice to earn their support. However, now that the enthronement ceremony has to be held in an indoor location, it could only mean that they have lost some control over the situation.


    The road to the royal family sparring field isn¡¯t easy to tread on. Other than the looks of dissatisfaction of the crowd along the way, the horses thate from all directions created a blockade. Now, when two carriages were to cross path, the one to give way isn¡¯t determined by their social position but the level of ranking of the guests in the carriage.


    It seems that as a ¡®princess¡¯ of a small country, I am not that importantpared to the others. Also, spectating the ceremony in my capacity as an individual also means that I am not part of the envoy team who would be joining in the alliance, so there is no need for me to arrive in advance at the ceremony. In the end, we got jammed, not to mention the fact that we still have to give way to others. Just like that, a twenty minute journey took nearly an hour.


    When we finally arrived our destination, the flow of human and carriages which far exceeds the capacity had the sparring fieldpletely jammed. There isn¡¯t any location by the sparring field for the carriage to stop at. Helpless, we can only lift our skirts and tread on the muddy water, causing our feet to be smeared with mud, resulting in a buildup of frustration and anger.


    The only thing that is ddening about the situation is the performance of the female official who tagged along, Rosemary.


    She is one of my masterpiece in recent times. Other than the Royal Knights who keep sneaking peeks at her, the young males who keep walking into walls, through their actions, proved Rosemary¡¯s charm.


    An exquisite and enchanting oval face with a slim waist. Her curvaceous body fully disys the charm of a mature woman. Despite so, innocence is reflected in her clear eyes. Her short golden hair isbed into a cute small ponytail. The masculine gesture now and then makes her seem youthful and lively, adding a cute tone to her atmosphere.


    The contradictions in her beauty gave her aplicated disposition. In the gazes of the males, her actions and her speech causes constant changes in her disposition. Sometimes, she seems like a 28 years olddy and sometimes a 18 year old girl. Sometimes, she seems pure and adolescent and sometimes elegant and seductive. It seems as though every man can find their dream girl within her.


    ¡°Arthenya.¡± The true name of the Goddess of Beauty is mentioned time and time again. In the eyes of the crowd, this level of beauty is beyond what mortals could reach.


    Compared to a true flower, a fake stic one carved carefully looks even more exquisite and perfect. As a masterpiece which I meticulously carved by incorporating the strengths of countless different beauty, Rosemary is definitely the most beautiful woman I have ever met.


    Natural creations are an umtion of chance and idents. While idents can bring one surprise, these surprises often carry some kind of w along with it. Rosemary¡¯s perfect beauty is indeed not something a mortal can possess. That beautiful face is created by through matching the most beautiful features of numerous faces to achieve a harmony between all of them, resulting in a perfect creation.


    He is indeed a fake flower, but he is a perfect flower who suppresses the beauty of other flowers, a terminal creation unable to be created by natural selection.


    Aiyo, at this point, why did I remember a certain country¡¯s prided stic surgery industry? It is said that their idols do not debut if they do not fix their faces. Many of them look totally different from their children, causing quite a controversy.


    Back to the topic at hand. Initially, I only wanted to make a woman capable of charming Darsos as a vengeance against him. However, as a Necromancer who is responsible for his own creations, when I set my heart into it, my world destruction level talent started working its wonders once more. The result of my pursuit for perfection is that I have overdid it once again.


    ¡°Arthenya? I think she is more like Pandora. There probably isn¡¯t a single man who is capable to rejecting a request from a woman like this. She is a truly a troublemaker. However, that bunch of Gentlemen actually totally ignore Rosemary¡¯s beauty. Indeed, the sense of aesthetics for Gentlemen are different from the masses.¡±


    In my eyes, beauties are always a source of trouble while supreme beauties like this are an endless source of great trouble. Innumerable legends, myths and historical events has also proven my point of view. However, when I realised that I have went overboard once again, creating a cmity-level perfectly beautiful woman, I had no hesitation whatsoever in keeping him in And.


    ¡°Anyway, his phctery is in my hand so I do not fear him ying any tricks. Let¡¯s just send him out like that to harm others. Hehe, Darsos, ept that you will be unable to escape that cursed fate.¡±


    I muttered a malicious curse filled with resentment. After which, I looked once more at the new achievement I unlocked before setting off for the enthronement ceremony with tears in my eyes.


    ¡¾Mummy, why is this elder brother wearing a skirt? Ah! Don¡¯t look! Hurry up and go!¡¿


    The System jumps out once more. That childlike voice also made my heart stop. I thought that my true identity is revealed.


    ¡¾Ding. Congrattions for appearing in public ces wearing female clothes for the third time. You have unlocked the hidden achievement ¡ª¡ª ¡®Dress-wearing Man¡¯ and you have been awarded the honorary title: ¡®Tranny Director¡¯. After equipping the title, all living being who bear resemnce to females, un, this includes trannies, female muscr heroines, transexual and several other life forms whose genders are unknown, will feel significantly more intimate with you and their wariness against you will be lowered. The possibility of them falling in love with you is also reduced significantly. This title is automatically binded with the title ¡®King of Gentlemen¡¯ and the effect is constantly in an active mode ¡ª¡ª ¡°He seems not bad, it feels like I can tell him everything. He is really suitable as a sister and a soulmate. However, it feels weird to see him as a dating partner. Un, this is probably because I don¡¯t see him as a male.¡±¡¿


    ¡¾System Notice: I didn¡¯t expect that you would notice such a hidden achievement. As expected of the King of Gentlemen! Come and chant with me. Cross-dressing isn¡¯t a crime, only cross-dressing without sufficient beauty is a crime! I am the great King of Male Cross-dressers Lord Rnd, oh yeah!¡¿


    Actually, for Gentlemen and the like, I am already numb and apathetic to it already. However, that ¡®possibility of them falling in love with you is also reduced significantly¡¯ is an actual and tangible curse of misfortune. The curse makes a certain man who died inexperienced and who despite having a girlfriend but yet is equivalent to having none due to their ultimate long distance rtionship, inducing an urge in him squat by the corner of the wall and draw circles.


    ¡¾Ding, allow me to borate slightly more on it. Abnormal people, un, that is Gentlemen, would be unaffected by this side effect. Thus, please make sure to enjoy the true and sincere rtionship between Gentlemen. Right, if you do not wish to be dissected, as well as for the peace of the world, please make sure not to be caughtmitting adultery by the Demon Marquess who is bing more and more yandere. This is unrted to the peace of the world? It is very possible for her to send her true body down out of a moment of rage, prompting a war between Gods, causing the direct eruption of a world war. You still dare to say that your rtionships have nothing to do with the peace of the world?¡¿


    ¡°Lord? Lord Yongye?¡±


    Rosemary questions in a quiet voice, bringing me back from my thoughts. The royal family attendant by her side continues to maintain her smile and her manners even upon seeing me in a daze.


    ¡°Lord, our Emperor has invited you for a small discussion in the reception room.¡±


    Looks like what has toe will eventuallye. I did not think that Darsos would invite me here just to spectate the enthronement ceremony.


    Under the guidance of the attendant, I swiftly arrived at the VIP room. Soon, the main character of the day arrives dressed in countless ornaments, just like a Christmas tree ¡ª¡ªEmperor of And Empire Darsos the First.


    ¡°This is Rosemary, my attendant.¡±


    I introduced him with vile intentions at heart. Rosemary slightly lifts her skirt elegantly with a perfect smile. However, she didn¡¯t receive a corresponding response. After nodding his head perfunctory, that fellow actually continues to stare fixedly at me.


    ¡°You are still as beautiful as always. How have you been? I miss you.¡±


    Alright, his first sentence already nts in me an intention to draw my sword and murder him. From a certain viewpoint, this is also quite a remarkable ability.


    To say the truth, my current appearance ispletely identical with Reyne¡¯s. The young Reyne¡¯s development seems to be have been dyed, leaving some space for me, who has reverted back to a young boy, to impersonate her.


    ¡°This... this fellow can¡¯t possibly be a pervert who is into lolis?¡±


    ¡°Puuu!¡±


    Behind my back, after hearing those praises from his nephew, Rosemary bursts intoughter. Although she immediately covers her mouth, it is already toote.


    For an attendant to be so disrespectful, it is the same as mocking the Emperor in his face. The Emperor who has been angsty recently instinctively reaches out for his sword. But upon seeing me standing in front of my attendant to shield her, he furls his eyebrows, disying his displeasure, although his words speak otherwise.


    ¡°What I am talking about is your disposition, the disposition of a conqueror and not your figure... Actually, your figure is also not bad for your age!¡±


    Darsos¡¯s voice got quieter and quieter as he disyed what it means to stab oneself in one¡¯s own foot means with his own actions. However, as I am not a female, saying that I have no figure made me feel slightly happy instead. However...


    ¡°Males should have no figure from the start! Did somewhere go wrong? Did something go wrong from the very start?¡±


    I could only contain those furious roars to my heart. After a short moment, I suppress my anger and ask.


    ¡°Why are you looking for me? You should be really busy now. Just speak of what you want directly.¡±


    ¡°Princess Rnd. Are you willing to be the empress of And Empire? I promise you that I will not interfere in your personal life after the marriage. If you are willing to merge the two countries together, I will even grant the East Mist Communal Country the highest level of autonomy and make it And Empire¡¯s richest and most peaceful district.¡±


    ¡°I reject.¡± I squeezed out these words from the gaps between my teeth. Despite being filled with rage, not being able tosh out at him made me frustrated.


    I am really considering whether I should look for a Priest of the God of Fate to change my fate, even though there is a high probability they are just scammers bearing the g of the God of Fate.


    ¡°I know that you are worried that the And Empire will make use of this opportunity to eat into and annex the East Mist Communal Country. How about this, you can entrust your royal power to someone trustworthy. When our second child is born...¡±


    ¡°Enough! There is a limit to my patience, insult me no further!¡±


    My angry words stuffs the rest of Darsos¡¯s words back into his throat. He stares furiously at me before eventually shaking his head, signalling for his assistant to back him up.


    ¡°Hermit, it is exactly as you said. I can¡¯t convince her at all. You give it a try.¡±


    ¡°I have already said that your method may be useful in coaxing little girls, but it is meaningless in front of a true conqueror. Your majesty, since we are unable to get through via feelings, why don¡¯t we cut to the chase and talk about official business instead.¡±


    Hermit seems to understand my temper well and didn¡¯t say anything excessive, cutting straight to the chase by listing out their trade and terms.


    It seems that due to the changes in the situation and the signing of the contract, the And royalty has also changed their original goal. That proposal isn¡¯t a simple and innocent one. In their eyes, this isn¡¯t a means for them to annex the East Mist but a type of bribery directed towards the princess herself.


    ¡°As long as you are willing to be the empress of And, you will be the most authoritative person in the Empire, second to only the Emperor. The women in the back pce is free for you to touch. It is sufficient as long as you bear two children of the bloodline of the And royalty. Also, Darsos isn¡¯t a man who gives into lust, so you don¡¯t have to worry about him forcing himself onto you. Rather than saying that you are a couple, it is more like a rtionship between coborators.¡±


    ¡°Children?¡± Enraged to the limit, I even startedughing. However, the other party thought that it is a sign that my determination is wavering, so he steps up his persuasion.


    ¡°Military might, wealth, beauties,nd, whatever you desire, we are able to fulfill it. Why limit your attention span to just that small country by the border? If you ept our conditions, the whole And is yours. Our future lies in the whole world. With your assistance, we would be able to dominate the world!¡±


    ¡°Why me? As a countryside princess, how am I deserving of such prestige?¡±


    This time, the one replying is Darsos himself.


    ¡°Don¡¯t put yourself down. Who dares to underestimate the Twin Stars of the Mist Bloodline. Besides, judging by just how you were able to activate the Scarlet Conqueror¡¯s final form proves that you have the quality of a conqueror, not to mention your Angel Bloodline. You are worth us putting our stakes on. What does the East Mist counts as? The continent extends far and wide, waiting for our discovery and dominance.¡±


    ¡°Besides... Although I might be a little unreliable, my intuition tell me that if I were to want to conquer this continent, you are a factor that I cannotck. Your true potential and strength is definitely not just limited to the extent you disyed. Alright, I admit that these are all excuses just to convince myself. I have fallen for you and I think that you are the one most suited to be my empress. Marry me. Together, from the And Empire, we will rule over the entire world, bringing our own order upon Eich.¡±


    Indubitably, this is a kind of bribery. If the one listening to these words here is really the princess of that small country,pared to returning to her poor and weak homnd and struggling for the fate of that country in the icends, being the queen of arge country is a much better decision. Not to mention, when the person he is convincing is a 14 year oldss, the probability of sess is much higher. However, he has miscalcted right from the start. This option was never one that I would have taken.


    ¡°Lord, can Iugh? I really can¡¯t take it any longer.¡±


    Rosemary who is disguised as an attendant may seem calm on the surface, but I could stifledughter in his voice from his phctery.


    ¡°Hold it in!¡±


    Should I say, as expected of the legendary King of the Winter Wolves? That incredible intuition of his allowed him to see through part of my disguise. However, the problem is that he has been wrong right from the very start!


    ¡°I would still have to reject your offer. I will im whatever I want for myself. I don¡¯t even want to consider such a foolish matrimony. Besides, your proposal today is a mistake by itself. In the future, you, probably, will regret it.¡±


    ¡°I, Darsos, never regret my words.¡±


    Alright, this time, it is my turn to try my hardest to stifle myughter. The one who said that he would ¡®never regret his words¡¯ previously was the old Lion King, but he didn¡¯t end up well. I estimate that there is a high possibility he probably regretted his actions eventually.


    As for Darsos, no matter how I looked at it, it is obviously the plot development that would lead to a tragedy. My mood suddenly lifts and I smile mockingly.


    ¡°Hmph, I look forward to the arrival of that day. Who knows, when the contract loses its potency ten yearster, we might even end up crossing blows.¡±


    Finallyprehending that his proposal and his n to bribe me have failed utterly, Darsos sighs and shrugs lightly. He seems to be on the verge of saying something when the door to the room suddenly opens.


    ¡°Who is it? Didn¡¯t I say that no one is allowed to enter?¡±


    The Emperor¡¯s furious roar made the man shiver. However, recalling the intelligence he just obtained, the royal attendant rushes to the side of the Emperor¡¯s ear and whispers into it.


    Although he is speaking silently, my ear which isn¡¯t too far away from him has always been sensitive.


    ¡°The water level has suddenly risen, the Seafolks have climbed to shore. The defense line along the river has been breached!¡±


    ¡°Lord Basr has started fighting with the Nine-headed Dragon!¡±


    Even before the enthronement ceremony even begun, the situation in And Empire¡¯s capital, Kagersi City, went out of control. War has already erupted.


    ps£º×ÜËãÍê³ÉÁË£¬Ò²ËĵãÁË....ÄÑ°¾µÄÁùÔÂ×ÜËã½áÊøÁË....´ó¼ÒÔÂƱºÜ¸øÁ¦£¬ÓÖÇ·ÁËÁù´Î±¬·¢£¬ÔÛÂýÂý»¹°É


    Arthenya <-> Pandora.


    Truthfully, I don¡¯t get the link here. When I first saw the word, I thought Arthenya would be Athena but it doesn¡¯t seem so (she isn¡¯t the Goddess of Beauty either, it is Aphrodite) I tried googling but there isn¡¯t any results.


    Gonna reach the climax of the arc soon :> A dozen or so more chapters to the next arc~ Feels like an aplishment every time a new tab opens by the side of the chapter list.


    BTW, please do point out grammar mistakes so that I can take note of it the next time I work on the chapters

 Chapter 112

    Chapter 112: City of Rain


    AD1897, the summer of the Year of the Griffin, a year fated to be etched in the hearts of many.


    Regardless of whether it is the year of the onset of the eternal Sacred War, the year which the Seafolk first stepped on the stage of history or the year the City of Rain Feloci is born, this would be a year that would be marked by theter generations. After all, too many events happened in this single year.


    From the very start, everyone, including me, has underestimated the ambitions of the Seafolk, as well as the Queen of Storms and the Water Elemental Goddess who are backing them.


    The very first prerequisite to make an urate assessment of a situation is to receive reliable intelligence of the entire situation. However, the surface dwellers know too little about the Seafolk. When the Seafolk first invaded, even the brightest strategists could only make conservative assessments based on previous incidents in the past.


    ¡°It should only be a small-scale war. Or perhaps, it can¡¯t even be called a war. It is only an attack on the cities along the shore. After all, they are unable to climb onto shore to upy our territory. This kind of war is meaningless and as intelligent creatures, the Seafolk understands it. They can¡¯t possibly be thinking of killing all of those living on the surface and consider it as a victory. As long as our living spaces cannot be ovepped, they are unable toe onto shore and we are unable to live in the water, then a full-blown war between both of us is pointless and impossible to happen.¡±


    Profits are always involved when ites to war between countries and races. Regardless of whether it is a fight for living space, resources, settling grudges between top brasses, stabilising the hearts of their people or themon will of the military, there is a possibility of war breaking out. However, if there isn¡¯t sufficient profits for one to reap or when the losses far surpasses the gains, then the probability of the urrence of this kind of meaningless war is almost null.


    ¡°The Seafolk are unable to stay on the surface for extended periods of time. They are just cannon fodders forced onto the shore by the Malevent Goddess Queen of Storms. As long as we drag it out, they will retreat sooner orter.¡±


    In this world, even the will of the Gods aren¡¯t absolute. The Gods above epts the faith of different tribes and races. In exchange, they would protect their worshipers based on their Concept and the territory they rule over. However, if they were to force everyone to devote themselves into a war that would bring about deaths with no profits in exchange, it would already be a positive situation for them to be insulted behind their backs. In fact, even abandoning the faith and looking for a new one is a possibility.


    After all, this isn¡¯t a world ruled by just a single faith. Many of the Gods were once humans and the distance between humans and Gods aren¡¯t that far apart. Gods require the faith of the mortals while the weak mortals require the protection of the Gods.


    This is also the basis for the And Empire¡¯s strategy to drag on the war. The think tanks of the royal family pat their chest in confidence, putting their lives on the line to guarantee that the attacks of the Seafolks are strong externally but weak internally. They im that this is only the prelude to the Sacred War and their offensive line will crumble in a matter of time.


    Due to the think tanks emphasising that the Seafolk aren¡¯t sufficiently ambitious, the ones most of them are guarded against is the Chaos Malevolent Gods who forced them onto the shore. Most Anders neglected this threat right in front of them and instead, they devoted their attention to scheming against their own race (vassals).


    In reality, while a portion of Seafolk is able to climb to shore, nearly no surface life forms are capable of surviving for extended periods of time underwater. This caused the intelligence between both sides to be unproportionate. For one, Tracy who has left for the ocean for more than a few months is totally unaware of the revival of the Water Elemental Goddess, as well as the great change that urred in the world of Seafolk.


    To exin this, I would first have to touch on the living conditions of the Seafolk.


    Even though the ocean is incredibly vast and it seems as though there is endless resources and living space, even when the strength of an average Seafolk isn¡¯t low, the life of Seafolk is actually much more difficult and tragicpared to the life of the surface dwellers.


    The deep sea is an extremely dangerous location. Not mentioning the low temperature and water pressure which could prove to be fatal, the giant oceanic monsters whose strength cannot be assessed are the true dictators of the ocean. Most Seafolk can only live by the shallower coastal sea areas by the continent to make end¡¯s meet. There is actually a limit to the living space of Seafolk.


    In their limited living space, they face a very practical problem ¡ª¡ª Food is never sufficient.


    There are countless shoals of fishes in the ocean? However, the truth is that living off hunted fishes isn¡¯t a reliable n. There may be many school of fishes around but most of them are owned by someone else. The amount of fish in the shallow waters is extremely limited. After growing agriculture in the ocean became a joke, when depending on simply hunting is insufficient to ensure their survival, in order to ensure that there is sufficient food in their surroundings, rearing fishes became the only option. In fact, fish herders have a long history behind them and is a long-established tradition.


    The resources in the fish rearing industry determines the amount of members in a Sea Tribe. The number of members in a Sea Tribe and their strength determine the territory they would possess for the rearing of the fish. Just like herding on the surface, the fishes they are herding would consume nts or hunt other shoals, resulting in the bnce of the environment getting destroyed. When there is a negative growth in the herd, it is impossible for them to avoid migration.


    The livelihood of the herd and the Seafolk would deplete the resources in the area. The bigger the tribe is, the shorter the interval between their migration. From a certain sense, they are just like Centaur nomads, just that the livestock that Centaurs herd are cows andmbs and they seek for areas with grass whereas the ones the Sea Tribes herd are shoals of fish and they seek the tidal currents.


    The ability of the Siren and Mermaids in summoning shoals of fishes to them through their voice may seem mystical and amazing but in reality, it is just a tool for herding. It is no different from the flutes and whistles of the shepherds. Furthermore, the ones who respond to their summoning are only their own herd and their oceanpanions.


    Herding fishes may seem magical and beautiful but it is actually a tough job. Chasing the current tides and searching for aquatic nts requires a great amount of experience. Furthermore, migrating brings around a whole lot of danger. Who would know if they would meet with a Sea Monster or an opposing Tribe in their next migratory spot? If their luck is bad, they might even meet with great losses in consecutive migrations, resulting in the dissolution of the tribe.


    Those of the herding tribes possess an aggressive nature, causing most of the tribes to work as part-time mercenaries or even bandits. On the other hand, their way of survival through herding in tribes has determined that a centralised power of a country will not be born. When a tribe reaches a certain number, in order topete for limited living space and resources, they would definitely fall apart.


    Without a capital or demarcation of territories, how can the a feudal state be born? There are few areas in the shallow waters where resources are concentrated at. However, there are limitations on the numbers who could stay there for extended periods of time. Every period of time, the people staying there would change. Only the strongest Tribe ispete over these ces and achieve victory to live stable lives.


    No one can guarantee that they would not meet with a cmity that they are unable to withstand in the next migration and die tragically. A stable life in a fixed location is the desire of the Seafolk, as well as the main reason why they envy the surface dwellers, viewing them with resentment even.


    ¡°Why should those weak surface dwellers possess a blissful and stable daily life when we don¡¯t even know where we would be tomorrow?¡±


    At this point, since fighting a war requires profits and reasons, what the Water Elemental Goddess Aylos and the Queen of Storms could offer to those practical Seafolk for them to willingly stake their lives, serving as cannon fodders, is obvious.


    A capital, a city to serve as a stepping stone towards a new world, to the sacrednds in the hearts of the Seafolk. After their capital is built, a kingdom will be created. A kingdom that belongs to the Seafolk.


    Indubitably, most Seafolk are unable to leave the surface of the water and survive for the shore for extended periods of time. However, what if rain falls continuously on that plot ofnd and there is always a few meters depth of water on the surface of thatnd? This way, the Seafolk would be able to live freely in their water kingdom. They could retain a portion of drynd to serve a farnd and enve the surface races to serve as farmers. This gives rise to the possibility for the birth of a kingdom belonging to the Seafolk on the surface.


    Sounds inconceivable? But in this world of magic and true Gods, everything is possible. Furthermore, storm and rain is the Concept of the Guardian Goddess of the Seafolk, the Queen of Storm. Not to mention, the Water Elemental Goddess Aylos is an expert in water arts. If there someone could build a city of rain with an internal cycle of rain, it could only be them.


    In the original history, the revival of the Ancient Elemental Gods became the first wave of bosses in this world. Every single one of them are close to the existence of a true God, so they were far beyond the abilities of the ¡®yers¡¯. Thus, the omnipotent ¡®developer¡¯ god nned a series of plot leading to their death, causing those unlucky fellows who had barely awaken to die tragically under the hands of the natives and the ¡®chosen heroes of fate¡¯ and turning their servants, the Elementals, into training fodders for the ¡®heroes¡¯.


    There is still a difference between that virtual game world and the real world. In this world, there isn¡¯t the existence of the powerful god named ¡®Game Developer¡¯. Otherwise, if those level ten to twenty rookies were to really meet with the barely awakened and weak Ancient Elemental Gods, they would not have proven their worth by ying the Gods through their overwhelming explosive luck. Probably, they would end up offering their physical body and souls as nutrients for them.


    Due to this, other than the unlucky Fire Elemental God, the other released Elemental Gods began to recover from their long slumber. As beings who have once lived gloriously, how could they be content with being forgotten by the world? The moment existences of their level make their move, everything will change. They are a few plots written in the walk-through that are wrong, ¡®History¡¯ and ¡®Fate¡¯ had been on different paths from the very start.


    Under the great temptation ofpletely changing their own life as well as their descendants¡¯, the invasion of the Seafolk is no longer a skirmish as it was in ¡®history¡¯. It has turned into an all-out war, a destructive invasion. The And Empire which has neglected the determination and the strength of the other party is still dreaming of bing a superpower, not noticing at all the cmity that is on their doorstep.


    At this moment, a grand ceremony is being conducted on the surface. Concurrently, another ceremony is also being held underwater at a muchrger scale.


    At the bottom of Kagersi River, concealed by a magic fog is a bustling sight.


    Over hundreds of elites of the Seafolk are serving as guards without anyints. Countless powerful Seafolk are concentrated at this area. The arrogant and insolent Naga royalties have a smile of humility on their face, the irascible and savage Sea Monsters are wearing a helmet muffling their voices and a chain that binds their movement and the bloodthirsty Sea Giants have also put down their rusty anchors, trying their best to lower their heads to feign humility.


    The only one who could make these powerful beings to lower their head is an even more powerful supreme being.


    On the giant altar carved on a Seven-color Coral Rock, there are two thrones, one big and one small, made of jade. Of the two, the smaller one is empty whereas therger one has an ice beauty with snow-white skin sitting on it. Her form is half-human half-fish, the upper half of her body is human while dragging along a long tail reminiscent of a Sea Dragon in her bottom half.


    Although she looks small and beautiful in contrast to the giant altar, she is actually taller than the bulkiest Sea Giant. She looks even more elegant than the royalty of the Seafolk, the Mermaids, who are known for their beauty. If one were to stare closer, the skin of the beauty who possesses scales and tail seems to be a little transparent, as though it is made of water.


    ¡°Let¡¯s begin.¡±


    The cold voice of the Water Elemental Goddess has a faint tinge of weakness to it. Her voice isn¡¯t loud but it resounds by the ears of every single Seafolk. This isn¡¯t magic, just the river water conveying the will of their master. This is the world of water, her world. In here, she possesses limitless authority and unmatched prestige.


    After Aylos¡¯s will is conveyed, the ritual officially begins.


    As Aylos¡¯s white jade like finger touches into nk space, an intangible gate opens. The Water Elemental Dimension could be seen on the other end. That is Aylos¡¯s home as well as her kingdom.


    Countless Water Elemental Fishes swim out and the moment they reach the altar, they turn into pure water in a series of ripples. Nourished, the coral altar emits a faint light.


    Middle-tier Water Elementals, Water Elemental Warlords, Water Elemental Elders and Ancient Water Elementals, strong existences appear one after another on their own initiative to be sacrifices for the altar. Elemental life-forms do not fear death. To them, death is just another passageway back to their world.


    On the other side, a ck-robed Seafolk walks onto the altar. Carrying the Crest of Storm, they are the Priests of the Queen of Storms. Capable of bringing about storms and creating gigantic waves capable of swallowing warships, they are of noble standing and possesses great influence in each Tribe.


    At this moment, despite their esteemed position, they could only do the same task ¡ª¡ª Walking to the altar, picking up the short ritual dagger and stabbing their own heart before copsing in satisfaction.


    As these respected Storm Priests fall one after another, a faint figure starts to appear on the smaller empty throne. She is only about the size of a regr human, far from the size of Aylos. Even so, any Seafolk who sees her would lower their proud heads trembling.


    As a Malevolent Chaos God, she doesn¡¯t possess a resounding reputation on the surface just like her otherrades. The Queen of Storms is delighted to ept the blood tribute from her worshipers and her will has already descended here.


    ¡°Your souls will step into my God Realm and your doings will be sung by your descendants.¡±


    The words of approval from the avatar of the Goddess made even more ck-robed Priests quicken their pace onto the altar, vying for the opportunity to sacrifice themselves in front of their God.


    As the tributes fall one after another, the faint figure of the Queen of Storms gradually turn more and more tangible. Along with the descend of the avatar of the true God, a powerful storm and roars of lightning appear in the sky on top of the river.


    Just like Aylos, the green-skinned Queen of Storms also possesses traits unique to the Seafolk. The moment she turns corporeal, the impatient Goddess couldn¡¯t immediately begin on what that would turn out to be a cmity for the surface life-forms.


    ¡°Kagersi City? From now on, only the capital of the Seafolk, City of Rain Feloci, will exist. My people, use your own strength to fight for the kingdom you dream of.¡±


    The will of the God is conveyed through the storm. The next moment, the imposing avatar of the true God picks up a ritual dagger herself and stabs it into her own heart. By the time the will on the avatar returns back to the main body, the body of the vatar has already turned into multiple tornadoes under the effect of the ck-colored God Power of Storm.


    The sacrifice of the avatar of the Storm Goddess would probably cause the strength of her main body regress significantly. However, sending such a big present in when the Sacred War has just begun, the Order Gods are in for a headache.


    At this moment, the numerous tornadoes pierces into the heavens and a new cycle of nature is being constructed. Concurrently, the Water Elemental Goddess conveys her will.


    ¡°I will grant that city the name of City of Rain Feloci. In an area around this city, rain will never stop falling. Thend will always be apanied with water and the citizens of the City of Rain will be the subjects of water. ¡±


    In the face of countless storms and the great strength of a true God, the boundary between water and the heavens is broken through. Countless billowing waves is pulled into the sky to form new rain water. A new cycle of nature has been created However, even though the water level of the entire city is rising, the water in the flooded Pier District is slowly retracting.


    Very quickly, when the water level is maintained at around a meter tall, the storm diminishes significantly. Under the assistance of Water Elemental Grand Dukes, the pale Aylos passes through the Dimension Gate and returns to the Water Elemental Dimension. Due to her overexerting herself, she is bound to return to a long slumber.


    ¡°Following the will of the Queen of Storms, let¡¯s fight for our own capital!¡±


    The reticent blue Sea Dragon floats to the surface, the Sea Giants pick up their giant anchor while the Nagas begin to prepare their spells.


    ¡°Ha, it seems like it has finally begun.¡±


    By the river, the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor Hydra who has restrained himself for a long time became the first one to enter the city, creating tremors throughout the city.


    The sudden rising waves crushes through the barriers that were set in ce. The falling rain caused the resident¡¯s vision to blur while the waist-level water severely limited their motions. The And garrison troops who were at a loss from the sudden bizarre phenomenon and the flood will soon face their hardest aquatic battle.


    ¡°Evil dragon! Die!¡±


    A silver sh of lightning streaks across the sky. The dragon head at the very front is shed into two in an instant. Green Dragon blood spills out and corrupts the river water with a pungent smell.


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Darned Dragon yer!!¡±


    While the mortals are gradually falling back from the aggressive Seafolk, the first one to dere war against them is the Heroic Spirit Basr


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 Chapter 113

    Chapter 113: Desperate Situation


    The roar of the storm outside the windows could no longer be considered to be just in the background. Along with the onset of the flood came the rage of the oceans.


    Humans had conquered the most fertilends for far too long. As the victors of the previous Sacred War, they do possess the right to be proud. The Seafolk are chased into the dark and cold ocean, the Beastmen lost their grasnds and ins while the Undead disappeared into the marsnds and deserts. Even the Elves who belong to the Order Faction just like the humans was forced into seclusion in one corner of the world under the aggression of the humans.


    The losers of the previous Sacred War have been suffering in agony for the past 1700 years. Those surviving with long lifespans still remember how their kin and homnds were destroyed in the war. They hate and fear war, but yet they crave for it. They detest the destructive war which took everything away from them, but yet they can¡¯t quench the desire to return to the homnd of their ancestors. They hope that they will be able to vent their resentment and hatred through a war of vengeance and snatch back everything they lost.


    In contrast, the short lifespan humans already view themselves as the core of the world, the blessed ones of Eich, the kings of all beings.


    Bianluya ins is the sacrednd as well as thend of origin of the Beastmen. The cknd is so fertile that it is reputed that a seedling would even grow from raw rice. Yet, in the endless territories of the Saint Antonio Empire, it is considered one of thend of lesser importance. On the other hand, its original owner, the Beastmen, are ughtering others mercilessly in the Underground World for the sake of survival or scavenging for food on barrennds.


    Back then, when the Seafolk were known as Water Tribe, they could be found in every river, reservoir, sea andke. However, if a Seafolk were to appear in ake on the continent now, an army would be mobilised to exterminate it in an instant, not to mention the adventurers who are attracted by the bounty on them. The Elf Kingdom which should have been an ally could always find their own kin in very markets. The skirmishes that ur between the Elves and human kingdoms by the borders have never stopped.


    The heroic Knights of back then have be slothful. Compared to the other races, the humans have been living too peacefully and their easy life makes them arrogant and egocentric. Being born without longevity, their short-sightedness allows them to forget their ancestors¡¯ hard work and glory. They feel that they are the leader of all beings and that the other life-forms should be their servants.


    ¡°Beastmen? Aren¡¯t those just barbarians who can¡¯t even speak properly? In the face of our new technology and war machines, these wild barbarians are not worth mentioning. Elves? Heh, a bunch of foolish antiques. If the Sacred War were to recur, any two of our superpowers would be more than sufficient to sweep through the whole continent. We could probably end up as the easiest victor of the Sacred War.¡±


    The victors of the previous Sacred War are still gleeful over their dominance, devoing their body and soul into igniting an internal conflict among their own race. On the other hand, the losers are suffering in agony, bearing all pain as they bided their time for a chance to flip the tables.


    The different attitudes of both sides towards war have caused the original victors of the Order Faction to unknowingly descend into an absolutely disadvantageous situation.


    On the ins in the South, the Earth Elemental God and the Beastmen had started walking together. On a frigid night, sitting by the bonfire to warm themselves up, the Chieftains point to the homnd of their dreams as they roar and cry. The Beastmen Warriors share a drink of their blood as a symbol of alliance while preparing to set off. On a barren ind in the South, there are the ckwings who have been reduced to a mere pirating tribe. Yet, under the assistance of the Wind Elemental God, they regained their ability to fly. Activating their ancient floating ind and picking up their sacred spears, they are ready for the new hunting season.


    If it wasn¡¯t for Elisa consuming the Fire Elemental God as a tonic, when the four Ancient Elemental Gods move out together, the Elemental Tide of the entire Dimension will rise exponentially. Magic, Divine Arts and supernatural abilities will be easier to learn and use. As the origin of all Elemental Magic, the power of the four main elements will increase explosively


    At the same time, it will be easier for guests from other dimensions to traverse over. The Elementals will be a usual guest in the Main Dimension while the Demons of the Chaos Faction has already embarked on a new bloody battle of elimination. The new warlords will gain the opportunity to lead the Demons to reap the souls of the surface dwellers.


    Perhaps, this may just be the prelude to the eternal Sacred War. However, if the humans are unable to even withstand the prelude, then calling it the final battle isn¡¯t wrong as well.


    Other than the humans, the next strongest faction in the Order Faction should be the Elves, who had fractured into countless kingdoms, race and tribes. However, from a hundred years ago, the Elf kingdoms had begun sealing their territory up. Despite receiving an omen of the onset of the Sacred War, the Elves and their Gods didn¡¯t have the intention to notify their ¡®allies¡¯. After all, they know that even if they were to inform them, they will most probably only meet with indifference and sarcasm by the arrogant humans.


    You can praise an Elf for their looks, for their kindness and for their intelligence. However, you can never praise them for being forgiving. In the Elfnguage, forgiveness and short-term memory are synonyms. For those narrow-minded long ears, the resentment they have umted for a thousand years ago feels fresh as though it was from yesterday. For them, who had wanted to stay out of the battle, it is already considered kind of them to not put the humans down.


    Also, there had been information that the Elf Gods have been in contact with the Malevolent Gods of Chaos all along. It is unsure whether these rumors are true but it is a fact that the Human Gods have rtionships with the other Gods. After all, there would always be some estrangement between an ex-leader and a current leader. It is just like an ex-celebrity looking at an idol that is popr at the moment. Even if they say nothing on the surface, they were bound to have certainplicated emotions in regards to it. It is impossible for their rtionship to be good.


    Alright, back to the main topic at hand. The current situation is already apparent before us. The Chaos Faction has been sharpening their knives for the past thousand years. Inparison, the human kingdoms are still in a state of peace and expending themselves in an internal struggle. At the very least, the result of the war in the early stages is bound to be disastrous for them.


    Afterwards, while I was reflecting on my actions, I realised that I made the same mistake as the Celestial Tower. They were too reliant on prophecies while I was too reliant on my ¡®history prophecy¡¯. Just because that ¡®history¡¯ is the projection of true events that had urred and the portion in the beginning was urate doesn¡¯t mean that it would go down the way it was written. Other than my existence that causes a butterfly effect on the world, just the very fact that there isn¡¯t any other ¡®yers¡¯ existent means that everything would be different.


    In a real world without ¡®yers¡¯ blessed by the heavens, the three great Elemental Gods can¡¯t possibly be killed by some ridiculous plot. The level of the Elemental Cmity far surpasses what was projected in the walkthrough. Perhaps,pared to the entire Sacred War and the continent, it could only be considered as the appetiser before the meal. But, this prelude battle would definitely be much more gruesome than in ¡®history¡¯.


    Alright, even if I predicted the events urately, even if I wasn¡¯t squatting in the prison called Liu Huang Mountain City while studying and refining thews, I am still helpless in the matters which involves countless powerful Gods.


    The current situation has already diverged from ¡®history¡¯. If things were to go down as projected in the walkthrough, when the four Elemental Gods were eradicated, three of them were sealed and only the Fire Elemental God managed to escape from his seal in the Underground World. He worked together with the Underground Alliance which freed him, causing the conflict between the Underground World and the Surface to escte. At present, due to my influence, the Fire Elemental God which should have been a big headache ispletely gotten rid of. On the other hand, the other three Elemental God found their own helpers, bing a source of huge trouble.


    It is meaningless to debate which history would be better. Assumptions do not hold in history and there are no ¡®ifs¡¯. It is impossible to debate for sure which side would is better.


    At the current moment, I have to face the storm that was created by the wings of the butterfly of fate, the great wave that is stirred by the Water Elemental Goddess.


    Right after walking out of the reception room, despite experiencing numerous wars, I was still shocked by the sight before me.


    Tornadoes fill the entire sight outside the windows. They seem like a giant dragons pulling water to the sky while the ominous dark clouds continue to rain at a fixed pace. The entire city has already been converted into a City of Rain.


    ¡°A phenomenon of God!¡±This isn¡¯t a description but a judgement towards the situation. Only God Power can create such a bizarre sight.


    Inside the sparring field, the hall on the first floor is already in a mess. Water floods the interior of the location and on a temporary stage that was built for this event, nobles aremunicating urgently with their subordinates.


    The moment Darsos walks down, informants rush up and surround him. Innumerable glow of the Mystical Arts flickers. The valuable high-tier Mages have be the only reliable messenger here.


    ¡°The defense line along the coast has been broken through, there are too many Seafolk! These Sea Giants cannot be stopped!¡±


    ¡°Head of Court Mages Halso has died in battle. The defense line of Court Mages is copsing. The White Wolf Guards from different locations are being surrounded and exterminated by the Seafolk. They can¡¯t break out of the encirclement!¡±


    ¡°All roads for the movements of troops to assist the defense lines have been blocked by the escaping refugees. Nobles aremanding their private army to kill them to open a way through.¡±


    Bad newse floating down like snowkes. However, what grips the hearts of the crowd here are the disys sent over by the Mages who are stationed at different streets.


    In a certain disy, the And¡¯s prided White Wolf Guards who are equipped with top-tier equipment are blocked by the short Fishmen. It is difficult for the war horses they bred carefully to move even a single step in the flood. In order to move in the flood, a Knight got off his horse and unequips his prided Missilor mythril alloy equipment helplessly.


    In the water, it is impossible for them to conduct a fearless charge which they are known for. The indestructible Savage Heavy Sword cannot find its targets. In the heavy rain, it is impossible to throw the exploding Savage Javelin at all. The Knights wading through the water couldn¡¯t catch up at all with the Fishmen swimming away. Their heavy armor and weapon became their greatest burden. The powerful White Wolf Guards fought poorly in the water, their performance not even matching up to a fisherman.


    ¡°Ahhhh!¡±


    Even though the voice that is sent along with the disy isn¡¯t loud, the distorted face of the Knight in pain, the spear that is stabbed into his back and the blood flowing out from his wound is clear to see.


    ¡°Wlla!¡±


    Cheering delightfully, the head of the Fishman who killed the Knight pops out from the water surface. Then, he dives back in again and he bides his time for another opportunity to conduct an assault.


    The short figures of the Fishmen, which were usually mocked by the other races, have be their strongest weapon in this flood. Mud is mixed into the river water, making it impossible for the Knights to discover the Fishmen hiding in the water.


    On the other hand, a sturdy-looking Knight got captured in a. Then, with a jerk, he is pulled down. He is still wearing his armor as his powerful body is able to carry it. He struggles in the, unable to climb back up at all. He uses all his might in an attempt to tear apart the but to no avail. In the end, he could only widen his eyes with his hands clutching onto his neck. Just like that, he drowned to death in front of everyone else.


    ¡°...That is little Mickey, the youngest Silver Knight of the guards. His ability to maneuver his horse in a charge is the strongest in the 7th Squadron. For him to die like that to a lowly Fishmen! Hauk, the strongest Knight of the 7th Squadron, for him to drown to death just like that! Lord, please think of a solution. We can¡¯t all die like this meaninglessly!¡±


    The furious roar of the White Wolf Guard in the hall makes everyone feel deste. One of the core values of the Knight is that they do not fear sacrifice. However, there is also a rule that their sacrifice has to hold some meaning. If they were to die in a charge towards a Giant Dragon, then that would be an honor. However, dying in the hands of the weak Fishmen who don¡¯t mean a thing on other days is an insult to the Knights.


    Given how the powerful White Wolf Guards are already in such a dire situation, the Anders in the other disys are in a worse position.


    A beautiful Mermaid dances under the water. The pouring rain reminds her of the waterfall in her hometown. Thus, she fondles the magic seashell in her golden hair and starts to sing.


    The singing of the Mermaids is well-known in the world. The beautiful and elegant figure of them dressed in seashells are even more enchanting. However, the Warriors on the battlefield didn¡¯t have the leisure to enjoy the performance. That is because along with the song of the Mermaid, threats lurk in the waters.


    ¡°AHHHH! A carnivorous fish! There are carnivorous fishes under the water!¡±


    The Warrior who cries in agony falls into the murky water. A few secondster, a pile of white bones with teeth marks on it floats on top of the red water.


    ¡°Jellyfish, there are poisonous jellyfishes! Everyone, leave the water surface!¡±


    The transparent and colorless jellyfishes are undetectable under the water. Their tentacles and skin are filled with deadly venom that would cause even the strongest Warriors to be numbed to death unknowingly.


    ¡°AHHHHHH! Swordfish!¡±


    This Warrior can be considered fortunate. At the very least, he knows who is the one that killed him. The swordfish¡¯s long mouth stabs into his waist. Clutching his intestines, he struggles slightly for a bit before falling into the water, dead.


    Along the sweet singing of the Mermaid, the delicacies of the sea that were served in the restaurants on previous days turned into deadly predators.


    Everyone knows that staying in the water even a moment longer could mean death. However, in the City of Rain blessed by the two Gods using God Power, there isn¡¯t a single part of the city that isn¡¯t flooded. There aren¡¯t any ces for the Warriors to escape to.


    Although there are people who abandon everything to climb to the roof, looking at the fins from a group of sharks below, what await them is still their doomsday.


    Arge amount of Seafolk surge into the city. If the low middle-tier fighting power of the Seafolk made their opponents sigh helplessly, then the strength of the top-tier fighting power made them feel despair.


    ¡°Summon Explosion mes!¡±


    In despair, a battle Mage who specialises in Fire Magic summons the Fire Spell he is the most adept in. However, before the mes could even take shape, a young Naga ps her hands together and a wave of water rushes towards him, extinguishing the mes.


    As an incarnation of the Water Snake Spirit, every Naga would at least be capable of a little bit of Water Magic. Perhaps, on the continent, it would be only sufficient to quench their thirst. But in the water, they can raise menacing waves capable of great destruction.


    Furthermore, she was only an apprentice. The Seafolk¡¯s fighting power has increased exponentially under the blessings of the Water Goddess and Sea Goddess. The shockwaves from the footsteps of the Sea Giants generate gargantuan waves capable of breaking through the sturdiest fortress easily. The Spellcasters of the Seafolkugh sinisterly as they summon giant waves while hiding under the water to scour everything.


    The ones here today are the elites from more than a hundred tribes. The human Warriors who are separated from their groups by the billowing waves are surrounded and killed. Even in terms of the quantity of high-tier fighting power, the human faction aren¡¯t in an advantageous situation.


    ¡°Never fight with the Seafolk in water, unless you possess fins and don¡¯t need to breath.¡±


    It is unsure who is the one to say this ancient adage. The hall in the sparring field remains eerily silent. Then, faint sobbing could be heard.


    Yes, no one is able to defeat the Seafolk in the sea. Just like how I almost died from the encirclement of a group of Fishmen just a few days ago, the fighting prowess of the Seafolk in water is unimaginable. This is also the reason why the two Goddesses can rest peacefully after they finished their blessings on the City of Rain. In their opinion, there is no need for them to interfere in the situation anymore.


    The current situation proves that their judgement is urate. From the moment when the city flooded, the victors have already been decided. The And Empire is fated to lose its extravagant City of Pearls.


    No one expected that the powerful Empire would meet with a cmity of this level on such a joyous day of celebration. Everyone sets their gaze on Darsos as they wait for his final decision.


    A city isn¡¯t the only thing an Empire possesses. In their vastnds, they can still form new armies. As long as they remain alive, there will still be hope and the day of their vengeance wille.


    It is meaningless for them to give up their lives right now. Everyone knows and understands what they have to do now, but the cruel call has to be made and borne by the inaugurating Emperor.


    ¡°...Abandon the defense line. All those who can leave, retreat out of the city!¡±


    Shouting these words from the gaps between his teeth, Darsos seemed to have aged 10 years.


    ¡°NO!! My parents are still at home. Your majesty, please save them!¡± A son of nobility cries out and this is only the start.


    ¡°My precious little son is still fighting, how can we give up now! This is the most despicable betrayal!¡± An old general roars at the Emperor. His soldiers are dying tragically one after another. The moment a retreat urs, they will all turn into sacrificial cannon fodders. There will be no possibility for their survival.


    ¡°Kagersi is our capital. Losing our capital, how can we still stand with our heads up high in the Eich Continent. We will be theughingstock of the entire world.¡± The old Dukeughs miserably. What he said is true. The only ones who smile cheerfully at this situation are those envoys of the states who are forced to submit to the And Empire. Even though they are worried about their safety, happiness could be seen on their face.


    To the envoys, even if they were to die, as long as they do not sign on those uses which brings shame to their country, as long as their descendants can live with their heads up high, it will all be worth it even if they were to die at this instant.


    ¡°I said, retreat!¡±


    The Scarlet Conqueror emits a blood-like glow as the Emperor stabs the sword into the ground.


    ¡°Staying in this city to await death? Foolish! So what if we lose our White Wolf Guards? We can build the White Lion Guards and White Tiger Guards. So what if we lose our capital? There are vastnds to our And, there are countless cities simr to Kagersi. We can just pick a new one. Indeed, we have lost today. We just have to mark this shame and tomorrow, our great armies will repay everything back to them!¡±


    ¡°I say, we retreat! Take away anything of value and discard those useless mary objects. Take away all of our nation¡¯s treasures. Prioritise our technology, children, women and elderly. Other than that, only those of high standing will be prioritised. All young males whose limbs are intact, pick up your weapons and stand alongside me. My Knights and I will maintain a defense line here until the final moment!¡±


    When his rage esctes past a certain level, the tone of the King of Winter Wolves turns calm instead. Just that, his trembling beard of his disys the rage he is suppressing.


    The Emperor¡¯s calmness and initiative to stall for time stabilised the situation at an important moment. His deration to stand guard without second thoughts allowed him to avoid the most tragic ending. As for me, it is time for me to make a decision as well.


    ¡°My apologies, I didn¡¯t expect for it to turn out like this. You can leave together with the first wave of those retreating. No, I should say, please leave with them.¡±


    ¡°The Goblin Bank of Green Bay. If you fulfill the terms of the contract, you can im the key from there at any time. However, it would only be there a monthter.¡±


    I didn¡¯t reply directly to his words and as usual, my words do not bear truth. I am still in the midst of making final preparations for my departure, so why would I tell the other party that the key is still on me.


    Leaving right now? How can this be possible! Little Reyne, following my requests, is walking around town to recruit talents while Krose is still guarding at the Church. They are definitely in danger at this moment. If I were to take the crucial key and escape now, not only will myrades on the surface die for certain, even the fellows who are in the underwater base will starve to death.


    ¡°You intend to save yourrades? Stop joking around. The entire city is filled with Seafolk. Even if it is you, fighting with a Seafolk in water is suicidal! A pointless sacrifice, that is the shame of a Knight!¡±


    ¡°Heh, suicidal? I don¡¯t agree with your words.¡±


    There is no point in exining anything to him. I shake my head and walk down to the main hall. I take out my Dimension Pouch and search through my old items.


    Yes, even for me, there is not a chance of victory if I were to cross blows with the Seafolk in the water. Furthermore, the War Angel Form is extremely limited. The moment I enter the water, I won¡¯t be able to escape the pursuit of the Seafolk. If so, there is no way I can achieve my goals. However, as long as I have that item, it isn¡¯t entirely impossible.¡±


    ¡°There isn¡¯t a chance of victory if I were to fight in water. However, things would be differently if it is on ice. Here it is!¡±


    After pouring out a bundle of prune, marbles, handmade poker cards and many other misceneous object, I finally found the item I was searching for. It is a hand carved wooden dagger. It is only slightly bigger than my hand. It is obviously a child¡¯s toy. The craftsmanship is coarse and there are a few squiggly words carved on it, as though written by a child.


    ¡°Karwenz¡¯s sword. Rnd cannot secretly take and y.¡±


    Those few words are really written by a child. That is the signature Karwenz left behind on his treasured wooden sword. Back then, when he was younger, he was unwilling to address me, who was only a few minutes older than him, as his elder brother. Normally, he would just call me by my name.


    Fondling the scars on the sword, I feel as though I have returned back to that warm and worry-free childhood. I could almost see that rash and straightforward foolish little brother of mine.


    Shaking my head, this isn¡¯t the time for me to be reminiscing the past. What I need now isn¡¯t the wooden sword itself but the soul sleeping within it.


    ¡°Erebe, I need your help.¡±


    TL: Will be using just Silver to describe the power rank of the people. Using rank sounds a bit weird now (suddenly, maybe I stared at it for too long), though if the phrasing is unclear, I will still use it.


    Couldn¡¯t reflect it without sounding awkward so I removed it, but it is clearly stated that the two Goddesses chose to go through the ritual even though they knew it would hurt them greatly because they are confident the Seafolk would be able to push it through.

 Chapter 114

    Chapter 114: Erebe


    Despite the royal family sparring field being built on higher grounds, that icy-cold river water still defiesmon sense and flows into the interior. This is a distortion of the physical phenomenon of ¡®water flows towards lower ground¡¯ to ¡®water flows to be of average height¡¯. This is modification of thew of nature and only the highest governor of the Water Element is able to do it.


    At every single moment, the situation is worsening. I do not have time to waste.


    ¡°Erebe, I need your help. I need your strength.¡±


    The water slowly creeps below my feet. Yet, I am still talking patiently to the wooden sword. Perhaps, I am seem like a fool to the eyes of the onlookers. However, I know that this is the only solution.


    Erebe, this isn¡¯t the name of a human, but a deeply wounded soul. A beautifuldy who has been sleeping for more than 300 years already.


    Although my plea for help has been voiced, it seems as though my plea had sunk into the deep ocean, there isn¡¯t any response at all. However, I know that she has already awaken, just that she doesn¡¯t want to respond to my calls. Or rather, she doesn¡¯t know how she should respond to my calls.


    ¡°Irene (Erebe¡¯s abbreviation), there isn¡¯t much time left. We must sign the Soul Contract as soon as possible. Only with your help can I battle on the surface of the water.¡±


    A weak voice finally echoes by my ear.


    ¡°I am already very tired.¡±


    Soul beings do not possess physical body, so how can there be the concept of stamina and tiredness? However, I am able to understand what she means.


    By saying tired, perhaps she is referring to her erection of a barrier to protect her wounded heart from shattering again.


    ¡°Yes, so you have already rested for more than 300 years. If you don¡¯t wake up and walk under the sun for a bit, you might disintegrate soon.¡±


    This isn¡¯t a lie. To humans, excessive depression is a dangerous mental illness but to the soul beings whose souls are their physical bodies, negative emotions are like lethal poison.


    ¡°Perhaps, disintegrating might be a good thing... You should know that I don¡¯t want to contract with any other Knight again.¡±


    ¡°Un, that¡¯s why I didn¡¯t allow Reyne and the others to interrupt your slumber back then.¡±


    ¡°You should still have other options. Even if you have yet to reach Silver-rank, as long as you were to approach them to contract with you, those Frigid Nightmares will not reject you.¡±


    Yes, the one sleeping in the wooden sword is a Frigid Nightmare, apanion of a previous Aurora Knight. At this moment, I am trying to poach her to be my mount.


    ¡°What I want isn¡¯t a chain who would bind me from growing further, but a pair of wings which could make me soar higher. Only you are capable of bing my wings, and not a pair of manacles that would hinder my development.¡±


    There are many paths for one to climb to the pinnacle. However, to reach the pinnacle, just one is enough. Having more powers isn¡¯t necessarily a good thing, being too greedy would just result in one¡¯s powers losing its purity.


    I have already mapped out a clear n for my own development. Ice, Death, Law and Holy Light. These four fields are more than enough for me to research for my whole life. The Frigid Nightmare can indeed boost my battle power, but it isn¡¯t something necessary.


    Of course, bing an Aurora Knight will boost my fighting power significantly, so it is something that I need right now.


    However, the reason why I never considered contracting with Frigid Nightmares is because Frigid Nightmares will grow along with the Knight¡¯s soulwave. A mature Frigid Nightmare will have many marks from their previous owners. This would instead my limit my growth.


    As a soul being, newborn Frigid Nightmares are a nk te. As they grow along with their contracted Knight, their master¡¯s memories and emotions will be their nutrients. The desire of their owner to be stronger will be their motivation. They are the most trusted mounts andpanion of the Aurora Knights. From a certain viewpoint, as their memories and emotions tend to be extremely simr to their master¡¯s, they are like half of their master¡¯s soul.


    Under normal circumstances, epting the Frigid Nightmare of others can allow the person to grow swiftly. However, it would be hard for them to climb to the pinnacle. Even so, there are exceptions to everything. The Knight whom Irene contracted with previously has a soulwave simr to mine. Or rather, saying that it is identical isn¡¯t a mistake as well. She doesn¡¯t even have to do additional adjustments to adapt to my soulpletely. No, if it is the Frigid Nightmare of that person, it would most probably boost my strength instead.


    Of course, finding an infant Frigid Nightmare can also fulfill my objective. However, not mentioning how difficult activating the altar will be, even if I were to obtain a Frigid Nightmare, I can¡¯t afford to wait that long a period for it to mature. When the Frigid Nightmare finally matures, I probably wouldn¡¯t need it anymore.


    A long silence follows after my invitation. What I received eventually is still a bitter rejection from Irene.


    ¡°I am already very tired and Ick battle will. In my current state, I would definitely pull you back.¡±


    To a Warrior,cking battle will is equal to death. How could I not know that? A Warrior who seeks death will eventually die. Even though I know that Irene is able to strengthen my current battle prowess, I never tried to awaken her from her slumber. But now, other than her, I can¡¯t find any other solution that could help me protect the people I would want to from this desperate situation.


    ¡°Help me, will you? I need your strength to save myrades.¡± To a person whose heart is dead, it would be hard to get logic through them. If so, it is better to try getting through via emotions and reality.


    ¡°Without your help, not only will I die. The final inheritor of the Mist Bloodline will also die. If so, the contracts with the Frigid Nightmare will be cut totally. Alright, Irene, regardless of whether it is for our friendship when we were younger or for the future of the Frigid Nightmares, please lend me a hand. The spirit of the Knights dictates for them to save anyone in need.¡±


    ¡°As expected, you are still that same despicable Rnd.¡±


    Yes, very despicable. I know how to say words that the other party is unable to reject. A true Knight is unable to ignore the pleas of others. All along, that person only listens to persuasion and does not submit to force. As half a soul who shares his memories, Irene is unable to ignore my request.


    ¡°Besides, that person would probably return to the Main Dimension not too longter. Don¡¯t you want to question him why would he make that kind of decision? Why he, despite already making up his mind, chose to abandon you?¡±


    ¡°...I already know. I have already thought it through. In his eyes, the foolish spirit of the Knights cannot give him the strength he needs for vengeance. Betrayed by the humans he trusted plunged him into despair and agony. The sacrifice of his elder brother made him swear to exact vengeance towards this world. Thus, he made his choice. He abandoned everything and responded to the summons of the Chaos Abyss, entering the gates of Hell, in hopes of gaining sufficient strength for vengeance.¡±


    ¡°That fool has always been so extreme. However, don¡¯t you still want to ask him to his face? Ask him how he has been, whether he was beat up in the Chaos Abyss, whether he misses home or if he regrets abandoning you... Abandoning you, is it because he fears that his fall to depravity would corrupt you!¡±


    ¡°Despicable. Despicable. Despicable. Despicable.¡± It seems that myst question has hit the bullseye on the weakness of the other party. Irene is bing agitated.


    The profanities of an agitated little girlcks skill. Lacking in vocabry, she could only repeat ¡®despicable¡¯. This is probably the vilest phrase that she could recall.


    She is considered a little girl even though she is a few centuries old? It was only ten years after hatching from the egg that she fell into slumber again. Even if they shared memories and knowledge, a person who has less than ten years of experience can only be considered a little girl.


    However, I seem to have underestimated the resentment of the little girl.


    ¡°Prince Rnd, haven¡¯t you been mocking the Knight¡¯s values of protection and sacrifice? The Spirit of the Mist which Prince Karwenz believes in was treated like a joke by you. Going by your personality, shouldn¡¯t you rationally give up those chess pieces to retain your strength? Why are you choosing the path of a protector which you have despised all along now?¡±


    Yes, Irene is Karwenz¡¯s Frigid Nightmare. This young soul has been brought up to be dim-witted like him. However, a long slumber left her time still stuck at 300 years ago. She still treats me like that young Holy Knight Prince.


    ¡°Was that what I thought back then? It does sound like something I would say.¡±


    There¡¯s no need for me to get sentimental now. Since she asked such words, I know that her will is wavering.


    ¡°... Back then, I was indeed quite arrogant. In the end, I lost terribly. Now that I have gotten back to the starting point, Karwenz started walking on my old path instead. Therefore, I intend to stop him. Erebe, join me. I have hidden many things from you. After our contract, you can see it all for yourself. If you are dissatisfied then, you can always break the contract.¡±


    A white light silently seeps out from the wooden sword. That is Irene¡¯s reply. From the moment I invited her, it has all been decided.


    The pale white cold light shrouds me as the soulwaves of the two souls approach one another. The benefit of being twins is that Irene doesn¡¯t have to match her wavelength to mine to contract with me.


    ¡°What kind of joke is this! So many things actually happened that year! So many cmities, how did you get through them!¡±


    ¡°So much hatred, despair and resentment. Why haven¡¯t you gone mad yet? Greed, emptiness, nder, envy and pain. You have seen so much evil of the world. The future is so bleak. How? How can you remain so positive? Why haven¡¯t you given up hope!¡±


    A contract between souls means exposing everything to the other. The full memory of my 300 years in 3 lifetimes. That could be called a legendary experience. This made the innocent Irene shocked. Those suppressed emotions and memories of the soul became like the most nutritious delicacies to her, causing her to grow rapidly.


    ¡°Perhaps, even after Pandora¡¯s Box was open, even after all of the cmities have been released, but hope still remains at the bottom of the box. Besides, I am not alone this time...¡±


    ¡°Alright, stop looking at me like that. I know this is very literary, very chuunibyou. Then, let me use Karwenz¡¯s words instead ¡ª¡ª You cheated, I refuse to ept it. Let¡¯s fight again. I don¡¯t believe that there won¡¯t be a day which I beat you to the ground!!¡±


    ¡°Pu! Back then, Prince Karwenz really said that.¡±


    Irene bursts intoughter. She suddenly recalls the duels between the brothers back then. Despite possessing an advantage in all aspects, thatzy elder brother always managed to im victory in the end through ploys.


    ¡°Hmph, that brat likes to go to the extremes. He refuses to turn back until he hits into a wall, not giving up until he reaches the River Styx. Yet, he is extremely talented and strong, not to mention how blessed with luck he is. If he bumps into a wall, he would probably just bash through it. It also isn¡¯t impossible for him to get past the River Styx either. His actions always end in an irreconcble situation... This time, he really overdid it. When he returns, I will beat some sense into him to show him the prestige of an elder brother.¡±


    ¡°Prestige? You have such a thing? He always ends up calling your name straight though, the elder brother who always steals his younger brother¡¯s toys and tidbits?¡±


    ¡°Hmph. This is my way of letting him know the cruelty of the world so that he can cultivate apetitive spirit and a strong will to fight on! This is the way an elder brother shows his care and concern to his younger brother. Please call me Boundless Love Elder Brother, the cold on the outside hot on the inside brother.¡±


    ¡°... Continue bragging then. You are obviously jealous of your younger brother¡¯s luck with women. Hee, Rnd, have you forgotten that after the establishment of the Soul Contract, I am able to look into your memories?¡±


    Communication between souls don¡¯t need time. While joking about, Irene who has ingested sufficient nutrients recovers swiftly. In a few short seconds, the Frigid Nightmare turns into an ice cocoon. In Darsos¡¯s eyes, I probably just quietly took out a wooden sword and dazed out for a few seconds when a white cocoon suddenly appears in front of me.


    Aftering back to my senses, I touch the ice cocoon lightly. The giant cocoon starts to crack and following which, an illusory battle horse appears before everyone.


    She is shrouded by an ice mist. Stars could be seen twinkling in both her eyes. Her physical body appears vaguely for a moment and disappears in the next, as though it doesn¡¯t belong to this dimension. Starlight shines on her physical body. The moment she stands up, with a slight tap with her hoofs, the ground she steps on turns into solid ice. This is a war horse that doesn¡¯t belong to the mortal world.


    Suddenly, the yful little Irene blows a cold breath towards me.


    ¡°Ah choo!¡±


    Covered in cold air, I subconsciously sneeze. Before I could even react, ayer of white snow stacks on top of me, turning me into a Snowman.


    I shake my head helplessly. Lightly shaking my body, the snow falls into the water, creating a thinyer of ice. On the other hand, a silver te appears on me.


    The ice te created by thin ice isn¡¯t very thick, neither is it heavy. It seems like a fragile artwork. Yet, it is firm and durable. On Irene¡¯s body, Ice Magic seems to be turning corporeal. A saddle and many different weapons appear on the mount. Javelin, spear, round shield and a long sword. Those exquisite-looking ice weapons are filled with Ice Magic.


    ¡°Aurora Knight!!¡±


    Even Darsos who is aware of it beforehand exims in shock. As fellow Knights, the White Wolf Guards will never forget the nemesis in their imaginations, that legendary order whose members are said to each possess the strength of a Gold-rank.


    ¡°Your majesty, I ept your goodwill but there are things that I still have to do. I will entrust my attendant Rosemary to you. Please bring her to safety.¡±


    Throwing my future spy Rosemary behind, I delightfully tear through the annoying clothes I am wearing, allowing the ice te toe into contact with my skin. Even though there are many worries guing my mind, somehow I feel rxed and happy.


    Due to effects of the Soul Contract, the ice armor feels extremely warm. It doesn¡¯t have the restraining feeling of the ice armor previously. I also feel my body getting slightly lighter. The ice armor actually improves the mobility of its user.


    While Darsos is still intending to say something, the white Knight has already charged to the entrance with his war horse, leaving behind footprints of ice on the water surface his horse steps on.


    Darsos shakes his head bitterly. He could only retract his gaze helplessly.


    ¡°Begin the retreat...¡±


    At this moment, I rush through the streets on my Frigid Nightmare. I activate my cold barrier, preventing the rain and storm from bothering me.


    ¡°Can you turn into a giant Ice Dragon? You used to be able to do it, so you should still be able to do it now. Although it is too striking and thus a little dangerous, it would be much faster if we fly there.¡±


    ¡°I can, if you reach Legend.¡±


    On certain aspects, establishing a Soul Contract with the Frigid Nightmare is simr to a Mage¡¯s Magic Pet Contract. The maximum strength of the servant cannot exceed that of his master.


    ¡°Ice Behemoth?¡±


    ¡°...Time works just like a butcher¡¯s knife. In the past, Lord Rnd wasn¡¯t that forgetful.¡±


    Under themands of the Naga officers, the Fishmen before me stretch open several fiss. It seems that they intend to trip my mount. However. with a light push on the surface, Irene leaps into midair, disregarding the enemy¡¯s attempt to intercept us.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t have such a venomous tongue in the past! Where did that Snow Woman big sister with a gentle smile go to?¡±


    I tossed Ice Javelins while making a jab at her. The Ice Javelin rotates in midair in an arc before pinning the Naga Spellcaster into the water. Following which, a Ring of Ice explodes, freezing the few Naga Guards who dared to step forward to assist her.


    ¡°So the previous me had such an image in your heart? I can turn into the form of a Snow Woman if you want, but due to myck in strength, the form I assume will be slightly younger. Are you sure you want to charge riding on a Snow Woman?¡±


    Imagining it for a moment, a fully equipped Knight riding on a young girl, shouting, ¡°Holy Light, that enemy is worth a fight!¡± while using a whip on the young girl¡¯s bottom, forcing her to charge ahead...


    ¡°I want to try... No, that¡¯s too immoral! Irene, maintain your current form.¡±


    I suddenly thought that if I were to be seen in that form by others, I probably will never be able to shake off my honorable title as the ¡®King of Gentlemen¡¯.


    ¡°Uncle police, that¡¯s the guy! Prince Rnd, have you forgotten that our memories are shared? Also, the world that you were in previously is too perverted.¡±


    As our souls are connected, my memory from the other world is also shared with her. That familiar retort left me stunned for a moment before I chuckled.


    ¡°Actually, you can use the keywords ¡®Gentlemen Alliance¡¯ and ¡®True Love Siblings¡¯ to search in my memories... Right, in order to protect the underage you, please do not search Beifeng.¡±


    ¡°...I retract my words. There are indeed perverts in every world. Also, you did it purposely, didn¡¯t you. The more you ask me to look, the more curious I would be. I almost turned blind! You must take responsibility!¡±


    ¡°I will take responsibility by introducing you to Beifeng.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, please do not take responsibility for me!¡±


    Even while joking about, the rapid Aurora war horse didn¡¯t stop her footsteps. Using her ability to turn the water surface she steps on into ice, she is able to easily avoid the encirclement of the Seafolk. Even the fastest Sea Horse is unable to keep up with her pace.


    The benefits of our thoughts being connected is that I don¡¯t have to be worried about being shaken off the horse, I only have to choose which target to assault and kill. If some powerful offensive magic were toe my way, the protective barrier of the SemiGod Staff is perfectly suited for this situation.


    ¡¾The Protection of the Dark God: Summon a formless protective barrier which can withstand 200 magic damage/magic equipment damage. Before the protective barrier breaks, the wielder will be immune to all stunning, hexing and any other control-type magic. Duration: 10 seconds. Can be used three times per day.¡¿


    By the time I used the final barrier of the day to block off a Chain Frostbolt by a Naga Spellcaster, before the arrival of the enemy¡¯s flying troops, we have already arrived at the edge of Pearl District.


    ¡°Head to the Church of Law to meet up with everyone else first! They better be alright!¡±

 Chapter 115

    Chapter 115: Ice Secret Sword


    For experts, actual battles are the best way to ascertain one¡¯s skills. Even if a skill may seem incredible and high-tier, if it is unable to prove its worth in an actual battle, then it is useless.


    The most recent battle I had with Rosemary¡¯s (Carlohin) Undead Army is probably the most intense one since my rebirth. As far as I was concerned, it was also the perfect opportunity to test my abilities and determine future routes for development.


    There were quite a few problems that were revealed through battle. Among them, the most obvious of them all are that I have too many power systems, the absence of a decisive killing move and the powers and techniques I was using against each and every enemy were a little chaotic.


    Cultivating both magic and martial arts is often the exclusive right of long-lived species. This isn¡¯t only because of the fact that they have plenty of time to squander, allowing them to climb to the summit with both magic and martial arts. Also, this isn¡¯t only because of their Race Talent and stats which allow them to reach a peak unattainable by those short-lived species. The very core of it is that they have an inheritance of a secret art that allows them to ovey the effects of magic with martial arts.


    Nightfall de and Jade Stab are fearsome top-tier sword skills in the Elf Tribe. Those Warriors don on a light leather armor and brandish their magic swords. They choose the buffs most suited to them and enchant their des. Years and years of training has ensured that their martial arts would not be inferior to any opponent, and the magic sword that they conceal in their sleeves would often prove to be lethal to their enemies.


    They are adept at enchanting the magic sword against their enemies. As long as they have prepared in advance, the seemingly coarse and wild but cautious and intelligent Nightfall de is a ughtering machine on the battlefield capable of facing a hundred enemies on its own. On the other hand, the Jade Sting specialises in all types of concealment such as removing one¡¯s presence and Anti-Detection Magic. Facing them in war, you have to prepared for the bizarre situation of your enemies disappearing multiple times. Of course, the precondition is that you would have to first survive their deadly assassination. They are the top-ss Assassins, the bane of all Mages.


    The Blood n¡¯s Corrupted Blood Swordsmen and the Golden-Armored Warriors are forbidden existences, Demon Hunters. On the other hand, the Cursed Spear Dancers of the ckwings aremonly-seen badly-reputed troops. The Death Knights who inspire fear in all living beings could be considered ssical troops who possess the advantage of being skilled in both magic and martial arts.


    Different to the humans¡¯ high-tier troops who are reliant on equipment and mounts, these special inheritances often arise in the form of a job advancement. Their unique fighting and training methods are the crystallisation of the innumerable eons of the long-lived species. There is basically no chance of an outsider inheriting their legacy.


    They may not number much, but their appearance on the battlefield is definitely the nightmare of their enemies.


    Of course, humans have made great efforts on this front. The Gold-rank Mage Knights were the result of their efforts. However, in reality, they were famous for being a useless profession. Not mentioning how it has high requirements on talents, in order to perform magic, the Knights are unable to equip heavy armor. Thus, as a closebatant, they were weaker than Warriors and Holy Knights who are of the same power rank. The only magic they could produce is ¡ª¡ª Fireball.


    That¡¯s right, the Magic Knight were most adept at using the 3-circle Fire Magic, Fireball. Perhaps, there were results in low level battles. However, in battles between Gold-ranks, who would be afraid of a 3-circle magic?


    Proponents of the Mage Knight once argued the ¡®Five Fireballs ovepping in a specific location can destroy everything, we don¡¯t need any other magic¡¯ theory with Fire Mages backing them. As a result, the bizarre ¡®Five Fireball Divine Cult¡¯ was born.


    Ultimately, their main ws were that their magic and martial arts didn¡¯tplement one another and it did not have a clear role in battle.


    In my opinion, the main reason why the Mage Knights were a failure (Even when the personnel who sessfully advanced to be Mage Knights didn¡¯t exceed 10, the Five Fireball Divine Cult still refused to admit failure), the primary reason is because their attention has been divided between two entirely different fields. They attempt to be both skilled in closebat and long-range and as a result, they were incapable of either.


    As for the reason why other races were able to sessfully advance, is is due to their clear goal and specialisation they want to pursue. After which, they utilised both martial arts and magic to strive towards their specialisation. If it is a skill that doesn¡¯t contribute to their goal, even if it proves to be useful, they would choose to not squander time on it.


    A result of that is the obvious fact that those who sessfully train in the two are either powerful closebatants or powerful long-range troops. They weren¡¯t so ambitious to be like the Mage Knights, capable of crushing Warriors in closebat and Fireball-flinging Mages in long-rangebat. In the end, the Mage Knights would only get crushed by their weaknesses.


    To specialise, one has to put their ¡®specialisation¡¯ as the core of everything to realise their own role and position. Then, utilise their strengths to make up for their weaknesses and make their strengths further the might of their ¡®specialisation¡¯. This is the general theory for Warriors with multiple abilities.


    In that case, for a body like mine which contains four kinds of powers, if I were to attempt to create an all-round Warrior, I would only end up like the useless Mage Knights.


    ¡°What do I specialise in? How can I use my other abilities to propagate my specialisation andplement my weaknesses?¡±


    Ever since I was revived, I had been thinking about this question. Then, I found my answer.


    ¡°If you have to choose a profession, then a Death Knight who is skilled with soul arts is definitely the most suited for you. If your talent for the Holy Light is ten points, then it would be twenty points for Necromancy and forty points for swordsmanship. Just through Necromancy and swordsmanship, you would surely be able to reach the summit of Death Knights. Didn¡¯t you see how the strongest Death Knight, Lionheart, was willing to be your eternal little brother? In the end, your aplishments in the field of a Death Knight have exceeded all your predecessors and probably no one capable of surpassing you would appear in the future.¡±


    ¡°Pui! I am a Holy Knight. Not to mention, I can cast Ice Magic...¡±


    ¡°Cough! Don¡¯t ever tell anyone that your Ice Magic was taught by me, I can¡¯t afford to bear this reputation. If your talent for Holy Light is ten points, then your talent in Ice Magic is at most 0.1 points! Back then, my head must have been caught in some doorway for me to ept you as my disciple to teach you Ice Magic. Let me ask you, ever since you haveprehended the essence of ice, have you learnt any new Ice Magic Spell?¡±


    Of course...not! If I had the time, I might as train in my swordsmanship and study Undead Creation. No matter what, it would be better than investing time in this hopeless Ice Magic.


    Just as expected, my straightforward reply caused the furious cat to fly over and bite me.


    Harloys is still a passable teacher. Even though the students she taught are mostly backstabbers and perverts, her ability in catering the sybus to her students is still top-notch. Admittedly, the main reason why the entrics among the disciples she have taught are increasing is partly due to this advanced personality education.


    Cough, I should stop speaking. Otherwise, that darned cat will use some unorthodox methods to exact vengeance. It feels horrible to awake with milk poured over me in the morning. Also, the previous time a paper with white fluid was glued onto my hand, I had to spend an entire morning exining the situation to Reyne.


    However, on the topic of talents, the darned cat has already revealed my greatest aptitude ¡ª¡ª Swordsmanship.


    Just like how Adam had once ridiculed me, when the other Holy Knights were focused on tanking and utilised their Divine Arts to strengthen their defense and support, bing the leader-like figure in the team, the one I was the most skilled in was offensive swordsmanship. After numerous reincarnations, I even surpassed most of the Sword Saints who prided themselves in their swordsmanship. Without doubt, this is like an ironic joke that left others speechless and left Adam, who is praised for his swordsmanship, aggrieved.


    ¡°A Sword Saint who is unable to defeat a Holy Knight in the domain of swordsmanship? Not to mention, one of the tops in the world in the way of the sword? What kind of joke is this!¡±


    Even as he grew, I also grew along with him. Eventually, I would still stand above him. Perhaps, Adam¡¯s greatest regret while he was in the Underground World was his inability to defeat me through swordsmanship at the very end.


    However, this is to be expected. Not mentioning how my talent with the sword is not bad, swordsmanship is an art in itself. When the foundations are brought up to the level of an artform, it bes a form ofprehension towards the world and life. These things could be washed away by the currents of reincarnation, but picking them up again isn¡¯t a difficult task.


    In a certain sense, I can be considered as a true immortal and a long-lived species. While the other long-lived species are squandering their time to enjoy their 200 years of childhood, I viewed time as precious as life, just like the other short-lived species. I spent day after day pondering to gain something. To date, the battles and experiences I have gone through probably exceeds that of ten Heroic Spiritsbined together. When these skills andprehension settled down, the swordsmanship and profoundness that I have umted in three lifetimes finally evolved in terms of quality. I do not believe that any Sword Saint could do the same as me.


    In my perspective, Beastman Sword Saints are too violent andck in sentimentality. Elf Sword Saints, in their pursuit of the utmost of art, neglected the true form of swordsmanship as a cruel killing tool. If the two were to be put together along with their sword skills, perhaps a truly powerful Sword Saint would emerge.


    What about the Dwarf Sword Saints and Human Sword Saints? Those Dwarves actually dare to call themselves Sword Saints by their knee chop, rolling de and mountain-splitting strikes? Human Sword Saints are an even greater joke. Seventy percent of them have identical abilities, not to mention most of them couldn¡¯t even produce sword qi without their equipment. I would normally consider them as jokes.


    In that case, the path for my development is clear. I would specialise in closebat swordsmanship while the other powers of mine would serve as support to supplement me.


    In a duel between experts standing on the pinnacle, pure swordsmanship woulde to a bottleneck. Not mentioning those who are immune to physical attacks, the great Demons and giant Dragons have enormous bodies with solid defense. It is too difficult to deal with them through the ¡®small toothpicks¡¯ of the Sword Saints. Otherwise, we wouldn¡¯t have to go through all the trouble for Adam¡¯s Phoenix Inheritance, so that he could utilise the mes of the Phoenix toplement his swordsmanship.


    When I had decided to be a closebatant with swordsmanship at the core while using my other powers to supplement it, the road in front of me widens instead.


    ¡°Secret Sword: Flowing Water Rapid Sword¡±


    Ice Magic gathers on the ice sword. Under the will of my sword that depicts a flowing river, the ice forms a beautiful ice river, simr to that in my homnd. Thus, I changed its name.


    ¡°Ice Secret Sword: Moment cier!¡±


    The transparent and clear ice sword is as beautiful as a sword forged of gems. Along the trajectories of the sword which is reminiscent of a flowing river, the sword qi and Frozen Air that were released forge a beautiful ice river in midair. As reality and illusion ovep, the water surface and the Seafolk before me turn into a part of the river of ice.


    In the moment of their freezing, the conceited Naga officers were stillmanding the Fishmen and Sea Beasts arrogantly. The army of charging Fishmen became beautiful ice sculptures and the flying fishes and waves solidified. In the face of Moment cier, no one life could react. Their minds were still stuck in the moment of their freezing.


    Under the augmentation of Ice Magic, the Secret Art which was used to divert the attention of an enemy turns into a powerful AOE skill. As far as the eye could see, the countless enemies stretching for thirty meters ahead of me had beenpletely cleared. On the other hand, the frozen river water had be the best runway for me.


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    The first timebining sword skills with Ice Magic has already created a might of 1+1>3, even I am surprised. After all, when I was testing it out privately, it didn¡¯t have such might.


    ¡°Heh, it¡¯s me! If we arepeting in the ability of controlling Ice Magic, even White Dragons aren¡¯t our opponent!¡±


    Irene¡¯s voice echoes from beneath. Realisation strikes me.


    As a Frigid Nightmare who stands at the very peak of the creatures of ice and snow, the Power of Ice and Snow that she brings about is several tens of times greater than what I possess as a Bronze-rank. Also, her control over the Ice Magic isn¡¯t as horrible as mine. When I was executing my technique, she wasn¡¯t cking by the side. She was helping me adjust and manipte the Ice Element toplement with my Secret Sword. This is just like a dual-core CPU working simultaneously, forcibly expanding the might of the skill by multiple folds.


    Alright, I know that some people will retort that thisparison is not suitable in this world of magic, and that if Irene is the most advanced CPU, I can probably only be considered as the obsolete i386. Just make do with it, this is just an improvised analogy.


    At this moment, I realised that I have underestimated the usefulness of external tools yet again. My talent in Ice Magic is pathetic, but if I were to dump this sector to Erebe to settle for me, won¡¯t I be able to make up for this w perfectly? Simrly, if I were to dump the Power of Death, Power of Law and Power of Holy Light to other Magic Pets to augment, thus creating a few more processors, mybat power might rise exponentially.


    ¡°Harloys!¡±


    Alright, at this moment, I decisively recalled the ¡®Omniscient One¡¯ Harloys. However, the current Harloys only retained her knowledge and skills, she doesn¡¯t possess sufficient strength and a suitable body toplement with the attributes, thus she is unable to fulfil my demands.


    ¡°Harloys¡¯s 37th patch (regarding the change of colors of her four limbs), Harloys¡¯s 38th patch (a revise of her three measurements) must be executed as soon as possible. Right, there¡¯s also the Super Meowrio! Hmm, I can still add a few more edits along with it. It should be interesting to see her grow up when she eats a mushroom and throw fireballs after she eats a flower. Hehe!¡±


    However, this isn¡¯t the moment for my thoughts to be wandering. I am not too far from my destination. While charging in solo is exhrating, but at the same time, I am exposing myself to the entire battlefield. If their leaders aren¡¯t fools, they would surely send elites in to contain me.


    Just as I expected, right after charging past this street corner, two Sea Giants suddenly appear before me.


    The enormous Sea Giants are the height of the city walls. Even in the giant family, they could be considered to be of tall stature. Wielding rusty anchors with their extraordinary strength, mature Sea Giants possess at least the strength of a Gold-rank. In the water, when their ability to induce tsunamise into y, even giant Dragons dare not topete physically with them.


    Their greatest hobby, other than duelling with Sea Dragons, is to sink ships. The ships which had fallen under their hands are innumerable. However, the reason for their attacks is ridiculously simple. As it is impossible to start a furnace to smith underwater, it is difficult to obtain a metal weapon. In order to obtain a good weapon, the Sea Giants set their eyes on the giant anchors of huge ships. At the same time, they could have an additional mealprising sailors.


    When the other races became aware of this fact, they decided to just bring a giant battle anchor to serve as payment for the road. However, the delighted Sea Giants first epted the bribe before dismantling their anchor as a spare, then proceeding on to have them as an additional snack.


    ¡°The reason why we don¡¯t hold promises? Hah, little thing, do youmunicate with barnacles and seaweeds? Un, neither do we.¡±


    This is the lesson a certain ¡®intelligent¡¯ navigator learnt with his life after trying to bribe the Sea Giants with a giant anchor for safe passageway.


    The thick-skinned Giants aren¡¯t easy to deal with. Not to mention, the Sons of the Sea, Sea Giants, are giants among the Giants. The two Giants stands by one another, blocking the entire street with their giant figures. As they stomp their legs, a furious wave is generated. If one were to be struck by those waves, their body would definitely end up crushed.


    On the street behind them, the Church of Law is glowing with a radiant Light of God. Countless corpses of the Seafolk hung on formless gallows. As a Church of a true God under the God¡¯s jurisdiction, until the entire city falls, the Church will not fall. For them who have piled up the sins of war and genocide to charge into the Church of the God of Law, should I say that they are backwards or that they are heartless?


    Going by the rules of the War of Gods, when this city finally change hands, the idol would probably be sullied.


    However, I didn¡¯t have the leisure to be worried about my idol now. The giants are already before me.


    ¡°Little insect, don¡¯t move! Let Rabah trample you to death!¡±


    ¡°A Knight? Yet another iron can. Bynes don¡¯t like cans. Stuck in teeth!¡±


    Getting obstructed would mean my demise. However, I already had no other alternatives.


    ¡°Since there isn¡¯t any other road... Upon meeting on a narrow path, the brave will emerge victorious!¡±


    The ice dragonnce rotates vigorously by my side. At the same, Irene picks up speed. I flick my sword up from the water, generating huge waterworks.


    ¡°Pointless tricks of an useless insect! Scream miserably for Rabah! Rabah loves watching little insect¡¯s final performance!¡±


    Sea Giants are far nimbler in the sea than onnd. Rabah lightly grabs and a wall of waves appears before him to block my charge.


    Following which, the moment the tip of thence barely pierces through the wall, the giant has already grabbed the tip of the rapidly rotating dragonnce. Although the rotatingnce has cut his left hand, the massive anchor on his right hand immediatelyes smashing down on where the Knight is.


    ¡°Done already? How boring!¡±


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    An anchor weighing several tons crushes downwards, causing crushed stones and snowkes to be sent flying. The entire street tremors.


    ¡°Yee? Where¡¯s little insect?¡±


    When the giants realise that their target has gone missing, it is already toote. After concealing myself in the waterworks I generated, I threw the dragonnce and right now, I am already by the side of the giants.


    ¡°Secret Sword: de Storm!¡±


    As I started to rotate, the floating Snow Woman loli augments my skill, thus creating a whirlwind of snow and ice.


    ¡¾Secret Sword, de Storm: Using this skill, you will turn into a fast rotating storm of des. The rotating swords and sword qi will severely damage all enemynd troops in the surroundings.¡¿


    At the beginning, it was merely an ordinary de Storm. However, when the Power of Ice and Snow on both of des start to seep out, the entire world begins to snow.


    Under the permeation of snow and ice into the formless sword qi, they became ice des and ice thorns, thus increasing the might of the de Storm explosively.


    Even so, this was only the beginning. What that would turn out to be even more lethal was an unexpected surprise.


    At this moment, a continuous stream of water is pulled into the whirlwind. Then, under the rapid rotation of the whirlwind of ice, they form ice cubes and ice vectors which were then thrown out violently. Somehow, I have became a top that tosses out ice arrows continuously.


    Under the full support of Irene, who is assuming her Snow Woman form in midair, every single ice de that flings out possesses the strength of an Ice Arrow thrown out by a Silver Ice Mage with his full might. Individually, they may not be powerful. However, when their quantity is sufficient to cloak everyone¡¯s vision, the de Storm has already evolved from an AOE Legend Secret Sword to a Saint Magic Secret Sword with astonishing destructive might.


    The whirlwind of ice continues to turn frenziedly. Be it buildings, thin ice,mpposts or whatever they once were, they were reduced to fragments in an instant.


    By the time I stop dizzily, there isn¡¯t anything left in my surroundings. The two iparably powerful Sea Giants have became a ho¡¯s nests; thousands of ice arrows are embedded in their flesh. The Sea Giant farther away is still barely living. However, the closer Sea Giant had innumerable ice arrows lodged into his head. Clearly, he can¡¯t be alive.


    When the Giants fell onto the ground with arge thump and I was weakly gasping for air on the ground, Krose has already arrived.


    ¡°Great, you are unharmed, my lord! Everything is in chaos now, what should we do?!¡±


    Grinding my teeth, I struggled to my feet. At the present moment, every dyed second means greater danger.


    ¡°Assemble everyone, bring away all of our luggage and rations. Let¡¯s ughter our way out!¡±


    Under the will of my sword that depicts a flowing river, the ice forms a beautiful ice river, simr to that in my homnd. Thus, I changed its name.


    TL: A little hard to exin but it is like imagery. The image in his mind is a flowing river, so his sword also takes such a form. <<<< Coined as sword will.

 Chapter 116

    Chapter 116: Judgement and Assassin


    When the Aurora Knight equipped in a white helmet and te charged out from the sparring field, arge portion of the nobles looked at him as though they were looking at a fool. In their eyes, this Knight Princess who hadn¡¯t listened to the warnings of others was already a dead person.


    There were only a few people who vaguely felt that the Knight wasn¡¯t the type who would die young. The next time they meet, many things would probably change.


    As the retreat progressed in an orderly manner, Hermit secretly pulled to one side a White Wolf Guard officer that was in charge of facilitating the retreat.


    ¡°...If that female Knight were to bypass the encirclement, find an opportunity to kill her. I will take responsibility for it.¡±


    As the trusted advisor of the And Emperor Darsos, one of the masterminds in the shadows, Hermit¡¯s determination is resolute on this matter.


    Despite being in a desperate situation, the female Knight charged out with a smile. This made him recall the legendary Will of the Mist and its previous glory. She was obviously the princess of a small country, which put her in a disadvantageous situation, yet she had gained the upper hand through a series of shes. He began to suspect that the other party might have the wit and strength to break out of this hopeless situation.


    Moreover, the reappearance of the Aurora Knight could be a sign that the various powerful troops of the Mist Country are gradually awakening. It feels as though there is a possibility that the glorious history of the Mist will leap out from the past and appear in the present.


    If the Mist Country were to rise up once again and the seven countries of the Northern Lands unite as one, perhaps that sovereign of the Northern Lands would be able to conquer the north once more. Not to mention, his own Emperor is infatuated with her. Ten years of ceasefire made that target an even more crucial one. In Hermit¡¯s mind, this kind of unique existence is unneeded from the very start.


    Perhaps, he might be doing something excessive, or maybe he is being despicable. Maybe, the Emperor would be enraged and punish him severely, or perhaps the leakage of such news would result in a chain reaction. However, as the subordinate of the And Empire¡¯s Emperor, he feels that the descendant of the Mist would prove to be a threat in the future. He has to make full use of this opportunity to get rid of this variable. Even if he would be punished as a result, it would be worth it. This is his undying loyalty towards his lord and his country.


    ¡°No matter what, I find that woman is simply too dangerous. I am unable to find the slightest bit of goodwill towards her. Killing the beloved woman of the Emperor on my own whim would probably cause him to turn against me. When the scandal that I killed the princess of another country during a disaster spreads, I might have to carry the me of scheming against our allies right before the Sacred War. Perhaps, I will be thought of as a fool who can only scheme internally against my ownrades by the people and would be dealt with harshly. However, as long as this is beneficial for the country and Darsos, even if other people are unable toprehend my actions, what does it count as for me to be sent to the gallows?¡±


    From a certain viewpoint, this Intelligence Head whose eyes are always squinting and carries a scheming smile may look like a yboy, but his loyalty to the And Empire and the Emperor has already reached the level where he is willing to die to protect them.


    Just because he feels that the person would be a threat to the And Empire¡¯s ambitions, he decided to get rid of her. This is a very simple and logical thought process. Or perhaps, it might be the conclusion he came up with after analyzing countless intelligence, or maybe it is just intuition. However, when the Intelligence Head Hermit makes up his mind, he would make an immediate move.


    ¡°The rest of you will go as well. If the White Wolf Guards aren¡¯t in a good position to strike, you all willplete the task in their stead. If you all do not spot the target leaving the city, help the guards to hold the final defence line. If you all don¡¯t aplish this mission, do not return.¡±


    Seemingly muttering a few words to himself, a few shadows disappear into the distant. The spies have begun to share intelligence on the target, preparing for their dishonorable assassination.


    Then, when he turned around to get on top of the human-powered carriage to leave, he found Darsos already waiting on it.


    By his side, in the hands of a Mage, a disy was ying the video recorded by a Mage Eye. As he nces at it, fright paralyzes him and cold sweat drenches his back.


    The video that is ying shows the words he spoke just a short moment ago, ¡°...find an opportunity to kill her!¡±


    At this moment, Darsos slumps like a wooden puppet with a stoic face. However, Hermit is aware that this is the expression he disys when he is incensed. He lowers his his head, prepared to face the wrath of his liege, but he only hears a question with suppressed powerful emotions beneath the voice


    ¡°¡®Blood Mage Emperor¡¯ Marsolit should have been mobilized already. Help me convey a mission to him in my stead. Ask him to head to my underground chamber through my bedroom to retrieve that old fool who should be on the verge of drowning.¡±


    After saying those words, he throws over a Blood Dragon Head Insignia to him. This was the only token of authority that the bloodthirsty SemiGod obeys.


    What is this situation? He didn¡¯t intend to punish me? Hesitation appeared on Hermit¡¯s face.


    ¡°This mission has to bepleted in utmost secrecy. Thus, if you were to meet anyone on the road, silence them. Right, emphasise to Marsolit that if the old fool seems like he is scheming something, silence him before he can do anything.¡±


    In that instant, Hermit understands. The current situation is chaotic, and only supreme experts are able to move casually in the battlefield. Marsolit, who had participated in the rebellion, is capable of flitting around like an apparition. Even if he were to bring someone along, it is impossible for him to be noticed. This isn¡¯t a mission to save the old Emperor. Rather, he is giving him a chance to kill the princess through the hands of another.


    ¡°Hermit, do you still remember what our dreams were? I want to make And stand at the peak of the world. Compared to this, what does a woman count as?¡±


    He continues to talk about official matters, not mentioning the least about the assassination on the princess. However, those words that he squeezes out from the gaps of his teeth proves his determination.


    The one who signed the contract is Darsos himself. Under the intentional or unintentional ¡®neglect¡¯ of both parties, they only limited the prevention of ¡®acts of hostility¡¯ to countries. They ¡®forgot¡¯ about the safety of themselves as individuals. If a subordinate of theirs were to act on their own whim... If the SemiGod were to identally kill someone while in the midst of carrying out his mission... It is impossible for the contract to intervene with such a curved ball.


    Thus, in the eyes of the contract and Darsos himself, he isn¡¯t the one making the call. It is all the doing of his subordinate.


    ¡°Since she is destined not to be mine, then the only thing she could be is my enemy. If I cannot attain her, then nobody else can.¡±


    Hermit is unable to hear the voice in the depths of the Emperor¡¯s heart, but the trust Darsos holds towards him, his willingness to sacrifice his everything for the ¡®greater justice¡¯ makes the usually dispassionate Hermit to feel moved. That is the reason why he respects and serves him loyally.


    ¡°Yes, your majesty! I will not let you down.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡¾Ding. You have killed a Sea Giant beyond your power rank. 198 Fate Points is awarded. You have received the item Sea Giant¡¯s Soul and Sea Giant¡¯s Smelly Socks. Sea Giant¡¯s Soul: Upon usage, the soul will possess your body. Strength +5, Agility -2. The user will gain the ability to breath underwater and control giant waves. As for the Sea Giant¡¯s Smelly Socks... You can try using it as a raincoat, it is definitely waterproof. It can even boost a few of your stats, as long as you don¡¯t have a nose or your nose is retarded, so that you won¡¯t die from the stench.¡¿


    ¡¾Ding. Congrattions for creating a Saint Magic Secret Sword: Pr de Storm. Your physical body has broken through its limits, Strength +1, Agility +1.¡¿


    ¡¾General Legend Secret Sword, de Storm: Using this skill, you will turn into a fast rotating storm of des. The rotating swords and sword qi will severely damage all enemynd troops in the surroundings. Prerequisites: 20 Strength, 10 Agility, 15 Stamina¡¿


    ¡¾Saint Magic Secret Sword, Pr de Storm: This skill is an upgrade of de Storm. Only a Sword Saint who has fully mastered de Storm can try to execute this skill. Using this skill, you will turn into a fast-rotating ice vortex of des. The rotating swords and sword qi is only the first barrage of attacks. What would terminate your enemies are the lethal cold air and the ice arrows. This technique is extremely powerful and has arge AOE. Prerequisites: 22 Strength, 15 Agility, 20 Stamina. Theplete version of Pr de Storm can only be executed with the assistance of Frigid Nightmare Irene.¡¿


    The System Notice sounds out numerous times, bringing me great delight. I am more interested in the Race Talent that I had unlocked upon reaching twenty for my Agility. However, I didn¡¯t have the time to be admiring it. The strong sense of giddiness and tiredness made it difficult for me to straighten my body.


    Although the upgraded de Storm holds significantly greater destructive power, the requirements to execute it also increase significantly. I have barely reached the basic prerequisites for it, though there is one hidden prerequisite that I am unable to ignore no matter what ¡ª¡ª power rank.


    Secret Swords aren¡¯t better just because they are stronger, the most important factor is still suitability. As a Bronze-rank, despite my high stats and strong physical body, it is already pushing it for me to execute the Legend Secret Sword. If I were to execute Pr de Storm which is a rank higher than de Storm, it is as good as suicide in my current state.


    Through the quantification of the System, the basic information of the sword skill is apparent. A strength-type Secret Sword requires the Strength stat to boost its destructive prowess while Agility is used to maintain the attack speed, uracy and bnce of the attack. Stamina mainly deals with the rebound one incurs from the skill, so that they won¡¯t die from executing it. As for Intelligence, that is the requirement on the magic aspect.


    Every time my level or power rank increases, it increases in the ¡®quantity¡¯ my basic stats. The current me, even though I barely meet the basic requirements in terms of ¡®quality¡¯, from the ¡®quantity¡¯ side, I am stillcking severely.


    Thus, both of my hands ended up getting cut by the sword qi. Even with Irene serving as an external magic power vault, my minute amount of magic power is sapped in an instant. I feel a splitting headache from theck of stamina as well as an urge to puke. The main reasons why I didn¡¯t die are because of Irene dealing with the rebound on the magic side in my stead and my high level of expertise in swordsmanship. Even after sacrificing so much, the Pr de Storm still wasn¡¯t at itsplete might.


    Under the limitations of my physical body, the strength of the de Storm and its duration is barely a third of the original. Its evolved version, the Saint Magic Secret Sword, probably doesn¡¯t hold a tenth of the might of theplete version.


    Otherwise, struck by a Saint Secret Sword in close proximity, the result would just not end up with one killed and one wounded even with the unexpected augmentation by the river water. The Sea Giant with the strength of a human Gold-rank would definitely be killed in an instant.


    ¡°For the Magic Secret Sword to be truly feasible in battle, I cannot cken on my swordsmanship and my magic. From the looks of my current situation, I can only wait for my power rank to advance for my swordsmanship to improve. What is troubling is my Ice Magic... When I return, I will immediately activate Harloys¡¯s patches!¡±


    However, what is most important now is not the future or the potential strength of theplete Pr de Storm. If I am unable to get by this situation, there probably would not be any future for me.


    Under Krose¡¯s assistance... Alright, it is an assistance at proximity, let us ignore the mysterious furious res in the distant.


    ¡°Krose, can you allow me to walk on my own?¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t do, Lord. Don¡¯t push yourself.¡±


    I am not pushing myself! Your clothes are already wet, please consider your current identity as a female! Youing to me at such proximity is what that is called pushing yourself!


    Despite being an Elf, to possess such an explosive figure, is this scientific? Some unscientific parts of yours are in contact with me, not to mention how your clothes are clinging to them, you are tempting me tomit a crime, do you understand that? The smell of the natural herbs in your hair causes my will to waver even more, do you believe it? Not far away, Diyer and Muse are already crying from envy, have you noticed it yet? Most importantly, upon recalling that your soul is a male, I really feel like finding a pir to knock against it, can youprehend that?


    Alright, before the resentments became corporeal, we arrived at the Church of Law.


    The Church is emitting a faint silvery light. That seemingly gentle glow blocks away the river water carrying God Power that floods every inch of the city.


    Krose informs me that the Sea Giants aren¡¯t there to intercept me. Rather, they are obeying orders to stop all living beings who intend to enter the Church to seek asylum. Before I came here, they had already crossed blows with Krose multiple times.


    There are many small groups like this among the Seafolk. Their goal is to prevent important figures from hiding in the Church to catch their breath. Actually, the Seafolk do not intend to attack the Church forcibly, and there isn¡¯t a need for them to as well.


    A Church is a territory of God and the territory of God is immune to all invasions. This is the authority of a true God. However, following the fall of the city and the death of the God¡¯s worshipers, the Kagersi Branch Church would soon find itselfcking sufficient worshipers to be considered as a Church. If so, they don¡¯t even have to strike with their own hands. As soon as that happens, they just have to drown the Church with the river water. The idol would also serve as an excellent tribute to the Malevolent Gods of Chaos.


    Even though the numerous Seafolk who invaded the Church on their own whim are hung on formless gallows, the interior of the Church is still a mess. However, what reassured me is the numerous carts ced in the main hall.


    Those aren¡¯t God Equipment or mary wealth. They are the most important things we require right now ¡ª¡ª rations, medicines and other necessary supplies.


    It is impossible for us to bring a lot of rations to a fight. The rations left in the underwater base are those we brought along in our personal inventory. Those are insufficient to sustain the engineers and the rest. Thus, after returning to the surface, I had Krose gather food rations secretly.


    If contracts are perfect andws can stop every single crime, this world would have long be and of peace. On a territory where many are hostile to us, how could we sleep in peace? From the very beginning, I had already made preparations for our retreat.


    As long as we are able to bring those neatly packed carts of rations to the underwater base, it would give us the option of attacking and defending. It would be a strategic victory.


    ¡°Are you all ready?¡±


    ¡°Yes, my Lord. We can set forth at any time. If it wasn¡¯t for you insisting for me to change my clothes, we could have set off ten minutes earlier! Hmph, Lord is such a conservative man.¡±


    Alright, ignoring the cuteints which induce an urge to bash my head on the wall, if I didn¡¯t force you to change out of those dripping wet clothes, even if those Gentlemen with unique tastes won¡¯t do anything to you, it is hard to say the same about the resentful Reyne and the others.


    ¡°Reyne, her figure is just slightly better than yours. Do you have to look at her so enviously? You should be worried about your back. Look, Kelly is already jotting something on her little notebook. A new remedial lesson is in the midst of being born.¡±


    Anyway, it isn¡¯t the time to be thinking about such things. Looking at the elites of the Seafolk gathering outside once again, I made up my mind.


    ¡°Then, let¡¯s begin the Great Judgement.¡±


    Krose holds up the SemiGod Equipment Codex in her hands and deres loudly.


    ¡°I, the Archbishop of the Church of Law And Branch Krose.Ainta (Her full name which has been forgotten by everyone else) deres that there are sinners running rampant, a genocide is taking ce and a war of injustice is urring before me. I swear upon the name of my God, Wumianzhe, that I will judge all sins in this city!¡±


    ¡¾Scattered Page of Codex (A clone of the God Equipment, has been strengthened significantly after the Ascension of the God of Law)


    Faith in Law: 169/2000 (The belief from 1000 people in a week allows it to increase by 1 point every week, and the cap is 50 points every month. When the points reach 1000, 1000 points can be expended to replicate a Scattered Page)


    Effect 1,3: Negligible


    Effect 2: Great Judgement (Active): Requires 100 Faith in Law to activate, and consumes 1 point every minute after activation. After its activation, everyone in the city will be cast with a Legend-rank level Judgement Spell and they will be judged based on their actions in thest 3 hours. If guilty, their freedom will be restricted and debuffs such as intangible cuffs and weapon seal will be inflicted on them. Under the effects of Great Judgement, the effectiveness of Incantation of Law will be multiplied several folds and the power rank of Law Enforcers will be increased by 1. (The requirements for usage: Thews in the city are in chaos, criminals are doing as they please and the city is on the verge of destruction)¡¿


    Following her deration, the silver light of Order turns into a pir of light and expands. Countless shouts of astonishment overwhelm the city. Apparently, the Seafolk are distressed by this spell which they had never seen before.


    ¡°...Although we are unable to save most of them, if we restrain the enemies like this, perhaps more civilians would be able to escape. There is a limit to the duration of Great Judgement. Let¡¯s set off now. We have to reach the underwater base before its effects run out!¡±


    At this moment, two Frigid Nightmares have already turned into heavyweight Ice Boars suited for charges. The escape team assumes a formation of an arrow with Reyne and I standing at the very forefront.


    With my power rank raised by the effects of Great Judgement, I regained a little bit of my stamina and mana. Smacking my mount, I rush forward to break through the encirclement.


    ¡°There are still 68 Faith points, so we should have 68 minutes. Normally, the journey would take around 40 minutes. I¡¯m not sure whether we have enough time... Forget it, rather than dwelling on it, let¡¯s leave it to fate instead.¡±


    It is impossible for me to fathom that many obstacles would stand in our way. Other than the And SemiGod Mage who is in the midst of carrying out his secret mission in the rain, at our destination, the battle between the SemiGod Hydra and the Heroic Spirit is getting more and more heated and savage. The sky has been torn asunder and the river is parted into two, water flowing back in before it is parted yet again. The Seafolk caught in the battle disintegrate instantaneously, leaving no corpses behind.


    On the path the ration carts have to pass through to reach the underwater base, the nine-headed giant blocks the path!


    ¡°Hurry up! We would be safe once we get to the base!¡± Breaking through the encirclement around the Church, we didn¡¯t expect that the giant creature would be standing in our path.


    ¡°Somehow, I feel that things won¡¯t go that smoothly.¡±


    ¡°Touchwood, darned cat. Shut up. Otherwise, I will learn from those witches and turn you into a crow so that you can only caw all day long. Hmmm? It sounds like a good idea. Triple transformation pet Elf! That will be you, Harloys!¡±

 Chapter 117

    Chapter 117: Dragon Hunting


    A sacred silver light engulfs the entire city. In the Great Judgement, the Seafolk who are busy annihting the remaining And forces finally meet with trouble.


    Along with Krose¡¯s deration to judge, a silver pir of light emits rays of light that represent Order. Every invader who had turned red from the Judgement would be struck by a ray of light and restrictions would be forced upon them by the Power of Law.


    Depending on their crimes, some of them would have their area of movement restricted, some of them would have their weapons confiscated, some of them would be shackled and some of them would find themselves sanctioned by all three.


    There are multiple kinds of shackles. The mostmonly seen one is the handcuffs. For those whose crimes are severe, leg irons would be added. For those who went too far, it isn¡¯t impossible for their entire body to beden with heavy metal balls.


    As this is an AOE Judgement by a replica SemiGod Equipment and the only thing that is expended is the stored up Faith in it, the restraints on each individual target isn¡¯t really drastic. Also, the material for the handcuffs isn¡¯t not stronger than unrefined iron, so any Beastman Warrior should be able to break out of it easily.


    Perhaps, to true experts, this may not mean much. However, to the low-tier Fishmen, this could prove to be deadly. In every army, the pawns always number the most. In the invading army of the Seafolk, there is an astronomical number of low-tier Fishmen. In this kind of situation, they are the main power that causes the greatest destruction to the city. However, when their weak bodies are bound by metal chains, handcuffs and metal balls, not many of them retain the ability to move.


    An estimation after the event shows that the hour of restraint allowed at least seventy to eighty thousand civilians to escape. To the Warriors, the significance of the Great Judgement is even greater.


    In the crossing of blows between two Warriors, if one of them were to be restrained suddenly, even just for 0.1 of a second, it could be a determining factor to their duel.


    This is the might of an army-level strategic Forbidden Spell (The spell contains both Magic and Divine Arts). Perhaps, it might bepletely ineffective against SemiGod and Myth experts. However, if it were to appear on a battlefield, it would be able to turn the tides of it. What the two Chaos Gods did was a country-level (permanent type) strategic Forbidden Spell ¡ª¡ª The Blessing of the Sea God: City of Rain Feloci.


    Army-level and country-level are just a type of ssification towards extreme magic, it doesn¡¯t show which is superior to which. For example, the ¡®Ice Aeon¡¯ of Emperor Yongye might only be army-level, but it is capable of wiping away an entire city and convert thend a hundreds of miles around the city into an ice field. This is much stronger than most of the country-level Forbidden Spells.


    The greatest difference between the two is probably its duration and AOE. An army-level Forbidden Spell normally has a short period of effectiveness. On the other hand, the ¡®City of Rain¡¯, despite only changing the environment and not causing any direct damage, its duration of effectiveness is probably eternal. However, this is also the reason why heavy prices and sacrifices has to be made to cast a country-level Forbidden Spell, thus causing it to not bemonly seen in history.


    This time, the Seafolk and the Gods have put so much on stake, so their ultimate goal definitely won¡¯t just be a plot ofnd. The dark clouds in the sky will slowly spread and the City of Rain will gradually expand as time passes. In the area under the effects of the Forbidden Spell, other than the dry areas designated by the caster of the spell, allnd will be new territory for the City of Rain.


    Although the rate of expansion is slow, as long as the spellcaster and the source of power for the spell, the Water Elemental Goddess, doesn¡¯t die, the expansion will not stop. This will prove to be a major source of trouble for And.


    It is very probable that countless Seafolk are on their way here now. As their territory continues to expand and new tribes settle here, the City of Rain will eventually be the country of the Seafolk. This is just like the cancer cells on a cancer patient. The longer you wait, the more deadly it would be when it strikes.


    Thus, when I noticed the interference from Gods and the effects of the Forbidden Spell/Divine Art, I immediately gave up on the idea of turning the tables against them. The only way to turn the tables right now is to kill the spellcaster of the Forbidden Spell. Not mentioning how the spellcaster wouldn¡¯t be so silly as to not escape to a location where she would be absolutely safe, even if she were to appear before us now, the Goddess spellcaster is not someone I could deal with now.


    The ¡®Great Judgement¡¯ of the Law Faction may be powerful, but it is more of a support army-level Forbidden Spell. Its effects against the enemies aren¡¯t really considerable. Rather, its most powerful effect is its ability to pull up the strength of Law Enforcers by one power rank as well as multiplying the effectiveness of Law Incantations. However, without sufficient Law Jobs here, the true might of the Forbidden Spell cannot be disyed.


    This was also the main model in mind when it was being designed. Perhaps, it might mean nothing now, but the fact that this Forbidden Spell, which has strict requirements for usage, could be activated through a replica of the God Equipment means that as long as every city has some Law Jobs in the future, all empires and races would have to re-evaluate the risks and losses they would incur before starting a war.


    When this fact bes acknowledged by the world, there would be a surge in Law Jobs in small and weak countries, thus propagating the rise of the Law Faction from another direction. When the Law Faction finally rises up and the fact that it is effective on Order lifeforms who have overstepped the boundaries ofw and that Chaos lifeforms are capable of wielding the Power of Law are revealed, perhaps it would be time for this new rising power in the Order Faction to reveal its intention to be a neutral faction.


    Due to this, in order to obtain the best results in my ¡®advertisement¡¯, I have intended to find an ideal opportunity for it to disy its might rather than using it on this battlefield on the faction which is destined for loss, turning it into an additional glory on the crown of the victors.


    However, I didn¡¯t expect that the usage of the Forbidden Spell, which is fated to contribute little to our goal, would bring about unexpected gains.


    ¡°AOOOOOOOOOO!¡±


    The nine heads of the roaring SemiGod Hydra roars. He is frenziedly spitting venom, mes, ice and lightning but yet, he is unable to strike the agile opponent before him.


    The ¡®Dragon yer¡¯ Basr flits in and out of existence in midair. Every time he appears, the floating Dragon ying Spear would crush one of the Dragon heads. Even though a new one would quickly grow out due to the Hydra¡¯s incredible regeneration ability, the blind spot created by the loss of a head allows the Dragon ying Sword to destroy another one.


    Even though the the Hydra would regenerate a new one within seconds as well, Basr would seek his next target without second thoughts. He knows that when his Dragon Sealing abilities take effect, the Hydra¡¯s regeneration ability will no longer be limitless.


    The Hydra roars angrily, but he is unable to escape from his shackles. That bizarre shackles that tightens around him prevents him from transmogrifying and severs the connection between him and the river water. If he were to expend himself at this rate, his regeneration ability would be sapped dry in a matter of time.


    The Hydra roars angrily, as well as fearfully. As an Ancient Sea Monster, he could vaguely see his end.


    For the scale of the battle between two equal opponents to fall towards one side, credit has to be attributed to the Great Judgement which was activated forty to fifty minutes ago.


    Actually, at the start of the battle, the Hydra held the upper hand. Due to the activation of the Forbidden Spell by the Malevolent Gods of Chaos, Basr was forced to strike in advance, thus losing the advantage to initiate a sneak attack on his prey. Naturally, he fell into a disadvantageous position.


    However, when that silver light of Order descends, the situation reverses.


    Currently, massive chains bind the body of the Nine-headed Dragon. Surprisingly, its gigantic body is unable to break through those chains which are supposed to be incredibly weak. The chains are radiating a dark gold light. Runes and magic formations that repress Dragons could be be seen vaguely appearing on it. It is clear that the chains have be a top-tier Dragon ying tool.


    Looking at that bizarre sight before me, I was stunned for a moment beforeing to a realisation. I coincidentally discovered the reason why ¡®Dragon yer¡¯ Basr is nearly invincible against Dragons.


    Even the tallest buildings are built from the lowest foundations. Before Basr became a Heroic Spirit, he was a normal Wood Elf Ranger, but he advanced to be a ¡®Nightfall der¡¯. Nightfall ders are adept at enchanting their equipment to counteract their opponent¡¯s strengths and attribute.


    It seems that even now, Basr still remains as a Nightfall der. He still specialises in enchanting his own equipment, just that the enchantment he uses possesses Dragon ying effects, an enchantment normal Nightfall ders are unable to wield. That is also the reason why he always has arge bunch of Dragon ying equipment with him.


    If so, the reason why the situation developed to its current state is apparent.


    When the giant chains and shackles fall from the sky, Basr, who has overcame innumerable hopeless situations, didn¡¯t let this golden opportunity slip by. He immediately used his abilities to enchant ¡®Dragon Sealing¡¯, ¡®Dragon Binding¡¯ and ¡®Dragon ying¡¯ effects on it, thus forcibly converting the giant chains which the Hydra could easily disintegrate into a godly weapon that could bind a SemiGod Dragon, not to mention the fact that the chains are already around the Hydra¡¯s massive body.


    ¡°No matter who he is, I, Basr, thank him.¡±


    The scales of the battle fallspletely towards one side. Basr made use of this opportunity to conduct a series of savage assaults against him and it seems that the Hydra is already on the verge of dying. Charging all the way here, our group managed to witness such an incredible sight.


    Even when bound tightly, the savage Nine-headed Dragon before us should not be underestimated. This mountain-like giant beast upies half of the entire river by himself. Every time a Dragon head fails to break free of its shackles and crashes onto the ground, a powerful shockwave would cause the surroundings to tremor. Also, the Dragon Breaths from the Dragon heads travel far and wide, easily devastating the green mountains in the distance.


    Basr, who holds the upper hand, is even more impressive. With a casual wave of his hand, the sword by his waist floats in midair for a moment before erging into a massive Dragon ying de. Magic runes that represent ¡®Dragon ying¡¯ sh on the sword. As the gigantic dees surging down, venomous blood spurts out of the gigantic Dragon head as it falls into the river.


    Honestly, in the face of such a battle, I really want to just turn around and leave. Given our current strength, if we were thrown into such a fight between top-tier powers, we would end up dead from from the shockwaves alone. However, the Hydra¡¯s gigantic body is blocking the road to the underwater base. There is nowhere we could retreat to now.


    Wait for Basr to emerge victorious? It is too hard to tell who would win. There are only 20 minutes left to the Great Judgement and when the time runs out, all of the ¡®sinner-binding shackles¡¯ will disappear immediately. Regardless of what Basr does, when the enchanted weapon disappears, the effects of the enchantment will also dissipate. Thus, the Hydra would regain his freedom.


    Hope that 20 minutes would be sufficient for him to end this battle? For a battle between SemiGods, if their strength are around the same level, it is possible for them to fight for several years straight. If the Hydra was so easy to deal with, forty to fifty minutes should have been more than sufficient for Basr to kill him. Due to his powerful regeneration Race Talent, the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor had been dubbed by many as the Master of Prolonged Battle.


    Staring at the carts behind, I silently pull out my sword. However, I didn¡¯t have the intention of allowing any of the others to join in the battle.


    Under such circumstances, even though the ssical saying depicts that the brave one would emerge victorious when two people meet on a narrow path, in reality, the both of them have to be at least around the same strength. Otherwise, the sacrifice of the brave would just end up meaningless.


    Getting involved in a battle of this level would mean certain death. Thus, I could only think of a way to avoid it. This is a demanding trial on my eye for discernment, battle experience and flexibility. Currently, our strongest fighting force is Krose, who is Saint-rank under the augmentation of the Forbidden Spell. However, this isn¡¯t something he, who has never undergone a fight between SemiGods, can interfere in.


    ¡°Charge! Let¡¯s get rid of that evil Dragon! That enemy is worthy of a battle!¡±


    Just when I was still thinking of a solution, someone seems to have misunderstood my action of drawing my sword. The action seems to have given her courage. Reyne smacks her horse and rushes forward!


    ¡°Damn it! Stop creating death gs! Hurry up and return!¡±


    There is a reason for Reyne¡¯s overconfidence. Reyne has risen to Silver-rank under the effects of the System¡¯s gold fingers. After receiving her Frigid Nightmare, she barely crosses the boundaries to be a Gold-rank. Then, under the Forbidden Spell, she gains the strength of a Legend and the overwhelming power within her that she has never felt before made her feel invincible. Not to mention, ughtering those powerful Seafolk on the way here built up her confidence.


    However, in my opinion, any Silver veteran would be capable to dealing with this inexperienced ¡®Legend¡¯ easily.


    Just as I rush forward to stop her, a blood-red figure blocks my path. He is a red-robed Mage. Despite the silver hair, his face is red like an infant¡¯s. There is a kind and warm smile on his face and he looks like an amiable elderly.


    ¡°A courageous and mighty Legend Aurora Knight, as expected of the great Knight Princess! I am And Empire Advisor Marsolit. Under the orders of the Emperor, I have came to protect the Princess. Allow me to lend her my strength! Also, I could make use of this opportunity to avenge Deimos!¡±


    Raising his staff, crimson-red light shines on both us and the enemy. Under the effects of ¡®Bloodthirst¡¯, Reyne charges with greater speed and might towards the Nine-headed Dragon. On the other hand, the attack directed towards the Nine-headed Dragon is a vile Blood Drain Curse. The Dragon head which the Hydra is trying to regrow spurts out arge amount of blood and the regeneration fails.


    ¡°Blood Mage Emperor Marsolit? Why would he be here?¡±


    Any other person would think that he is a kind person. However, I instinctively felt guarded and rmed by his actions. This And Empire Advisor has always kept a low profile and maintained the image of a good person before others. However, ¡®history¡¯ has exposed his true face as an uncontroble bloodthirsty maniac.


    Just as mentioned previously, Mages who train in the art of unorthodox Water Magic, Blood Magic, would be bloodthirsty. Marsolit is already at the stage of viewing other lifeforms as living mobile blood bank. Personally, he favors the blood of females and infants. The crimes he hasmitted are innumerable and unpardonable, even sentencing him to death a hundred times would be insufficient for him to pay for his sins.


    As for his im to avenge Deimos, that is even greater bullshit. Indeed, when the Hydra first appeared here, he killed the ¡®Dragon Hunter¡¯ Deimos and severely wounded Marsolit, who was attacking the Seafolk from the fleet. However, in ¡®history, they were both mortal enemies. The reason why Marsolit was willing to cultivate in the art of the depraved Blood Magic was to exact vengeance on Deimos. He should have been happy over his demise.


    For a bloodthirsty demon to suddenly spout a bunch of lies, it immediately heightens my wariness against him. At this moment, Reyne is already at the edge of the battlefield between the SemiGods.


    ¡°Darn it! Scram!¡±


    PS: Previously, when he said he is using closebat Magic Sword as his primary choice of offense, it doesn¡¯t mean that he is giving up on the others. The King of Undead Lich, the Envoy of the God of Law, the Winter Knight of the Northern Country and the legendary Holy Knight Prince Rnd. Every one of these jobs are a source of power, his identity as well as thepanions beside him. In order to realise their ultimate aim of reversing fate, every single one of this identity is important, so naturally, he cannot give up on any one of them.


    Really sorry for changing the terminologies now and there (caps)I know I keep saying that I would go back and edit the previous ones to standardise. Even though I haven¡¯t got to doing it yet, I really intend to do so but I have been a bit busy recently (a bit of procrastination as well)


    Well, if anyone is interested in doing it feel free to apply and look for me ??

 Chapter 118

    Chapter 118: Two Liars


    ¡°The Guardian of the Forest? Those fellows popped out from nowhere and said that they would protect your family¡¯s forest. If you chase them away, not only will you lose your forest, you will also lose your vi and your old horse. What kind of protector is this? They are obviously bandits ¡ª¡ª A certain unfortunate fellow who lost his family¡¯s forest and vi.¡±


    As a nature conservation extremists, the reputation of the Druids has always been bad. As the ex-member of the Guardian of the Forest (An extremist Druid organisation which propagates for the protection of nature), although she has been trying to conceal and escape from her past, I could still deduce a lot of things from her.


    From her intentional heavy make up, she is probably a wanted criminal on the Surface. Not to mention, she does seem to behave a little guiltily. Also, judging by her skills, the bounty on her is probably quite high. However, I could only thank her for her rich battle experience which forged her intuitive reaction speed.


    ¡°Krose!!¡±


    Under the buff of the Blood Mage, the rascal has already charged to the edge of the battle between the SemiGods. My subconscious shouting of Krose¡¯s name became the only straw of hope left for her survival.


    Fortunately, Krose didn¡¯t let me down. Just by calling her name, she knew what to do.


    ¡°Lightning Prison!!¡±


    As an extension of one of the four great basic elements Wind Magic, Lightning Magic has been known for its high offensive capabilities. Along with Fire Magic, they have been dubbed as the two great cannon towers. However, different from Fire Magic¡¯s destructive abilities and great AOE, Lightning Magic is able to strike with high speed at high frequencies and is well-known for its sudden attacks.


    Different from Elemental Mages who directly control the Power of Elements, Druids have two different ways to controlling lightning. One of it is to directly control it just like the other Elemental Mages while the other one is tomunicate with nature and use it as a medium to adjust the weather to summon lightning. Although the usage of thetter may be inconvenient, not to mention the numerous weaknesses such as requiring pre-calction and such, the lightning cast tend to be much stronger with greater range. Furthermore, the unpredictability and suddenness of the attacks make it difficult for people to guard against it. Thus, this method became the primary choice for Storm Druids.


    As a Great Druid who specialises in summoning Lightning, the current stormy weather causes her powers to soar. The temporary Saint-rank Krose gives up on her incantations and uses her will to guide the fall of the lightning. The moment she calls out the name of the Divine Art, seventeen consecutive lightninge striking down violently, forming a lightning barrier. Its target isn¡¯t the enemy but the Knight who is blindly charging...


    ¡¾6-circle Storm Druid Divine Art, Summon Lightning Barrier: Seal and hinder the movements of an enemy. In its primary form, six lightning rods are summoned. The amount will increase ordingly to the spellcaster¡¯s strength. The moment the barrier is touched, the lightning rods would explode. ¡ª¡ª ¡°In a lightning storm, what you want isn¡¯t an umbre but a lightning rod. Why? You would be struck if you carry a lightning rod instead? Fine, let me just say it directly. That ¡®lightning rod¡¯ refers to the foolish soldiers who carry their spears to charge on a rainy day. Remember to hire spearmen with high wages and purchase insurance for them. Everyone has a part to y in caring for the spearmen. Please support thew which dictatespulsory insurance for spearmen.¡±¡¿


    ¡°Tzzzzzzzzzzz!¡±


    Under the augmentation from being a temporary Saint, the original six rods of lightning increase to seventeen rods. Of which, fifteen of them served as barrier to seal Reyne¡¯s movements. The remaining two, which are the weakest two as well, strike on her head, warning the rascal through the running currents that she is on the edge of crossing into dangerous boundaries.


    However, even though Aurora Knights are the rare few who possess top-ss Magic Pets who are able tomunicate telepathically with their Knights, Reyne is one of the rare few who doesn¡¯t influence her pet positively. Rather, she caused her mount to correctly determine and execute the movements of a super rookie Knight.


    ¡°Tzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!¡±


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!¡±


    After noticing the Lightning Barrier, the Frigid Nightmare Seva stops hurriedly. However, Reyne, who has yet to react, chooses to charge on. Under the sh of the two wills, even though the furious charge had sessfullye to a stop, the duo take a step further and crash into the lightning barrier, causing the lightning rods to explode. Lightning currents run through Reyne and Seva¡¯s body and gauging from the decibel of their screams of agony, they seem to be at least medium rare.


    However, the events that happen a secondter prove that our efforts were not futile.


    Not too far away, a ball of green-ink venom suddenly falls to the ground, corroding it. Without any sound, a 5 meter radius hollow is created on the spot.


    There are no blind angles to the Nine-headed Dragon who possesses eighteen eyes. Even when his physical body is bound tightly, it is impossible to him to not notice our arrival and Reyne¡¯s charge. Thus, he casually sends a Dragon Breath through the Dragon head which spits venom to deal with us.


    If Reyne didn¡¯t stop due to the Lightning Barrier, under the precise calction of the Nine-headed Dragon, she would collide straight into the ball of venom. Then, she would be corroded to the point that not a trace of her would remain.


    If it wasn¡¯t for Krose¡¯s timely reaction, it would be about time for me to consider what I should carve on the rascal¡¯s grave.


    ¡°This foolish Princess actually dreams of charging towards a giant Dragon just like the protagonists in knight novels. However, it is a pity that she only met with windmills throughout her life, that is until the day she finally saw a SemiGod Nine-headed Dragon. She could finally fulfill her wish to prove her courage. Then... Since she charged towards a SemiGod, how could she still have any then! Just like that: Reyne.Qin.Mist, died in AD1897, 14 year old. Cause of death: Heavily poisoned by knight novels!¡±


    However, I didn¡¯t have the leisure to discipline her right now. There are many troublesome things to deal with.


    After realising that Reyne has escaped from death, a look of pity appears on the face of the And Empire Advisor Marsolit¡¯s face. A ¡®why didn¡¯t she die¡¯ face of regret hangs on his face.


    ¡°This is such a pity. If only the charge were sessful, you could have dealt fatal damage to the evil Dragon.¡±


    Fatal damage? A rookie Knight whose total strength barely reaches Gold-rank against a SemiGod Hydra? Even if she manages tond a square blow, it would probably just be disregarded. This kind of lousy excuse which obviously was thought without using one¡¯s brain and that incredibly fake look of worry ispletely insulting my intelligence as ¡®the one being lied to¡¯.


    However, there is no need for me to specte his reason for being here. He is obviously here to kill us.


    The proof? This entire city is currently under the effect of Great Judgement. Previously, when he just appeared, he was still normal. However, the moment he cast ¡®Bloodthirst¡¯ on Reyne, his body is dyed in red light, the color of a criminal. This is the verdict of the Judgement Spell on his attempted murder.


    Why did he go for Reyne and not Rnd? After tearing away my clothes, I was almost nude when I returned to the Church in my ice armor. Afterwards, I naturally put on a male¡¯s knight armor, not to mention the full body ice armor concealing my face. Furthermore, the person under the heavy armor is obviously a male, so he couldn¡¯t have possibly inferred that I was the one. Besides, Marsolit¡¯s mission is to ¡®Kill away the Shadow Princess of the Mist Royalty. She is an Aurora Knight with the strength of a Gold-rank or so.¡±


    In the earlier periods, Reyne couldn¡¯t conceal her strength of not even being of Bronze-rank from true experts, so how could it be possible for her to be an Aurora Knight which requires one to be of at least Silver-rank? From the very start, Marsolit thought that Reyne is the ¡®Shadow Princess Rnd¡¯.


    At this moment, Marsolit still thinks that he isn¡¯t exposed given his covert schemes and his esteemed position. To add on, he is a Mage cloaked in a red mantle, not to mention that he trains in the way of Blood Magic, causing his entire body to be shrouded by a mist of blood, thus causing the red light from the Judgement Spell to be barely visible. Also, the debuffs which the ¡®Great Judgement¡¯ send towards him couldn¡¯t even break his defense magic.


    ¡°However, it is great that you are safe.¡± He is still trying to defend his actions.


    However, I don¡¯t intend to reveal his intentions. On the other hand, I nod my head in agreement at his words.


    ¡°Indeed, just a little bit more, Ro... Princess Reyne would be able to make a name for herself, it is really such a pity! That would have been a true legend.¡±


    Carrying an ice helmet, I yed the part of a foolish brutish Knight vividly. That ¡®identally¡¯ leaked news verifies Marsolit¡¯s conjecture. He strokes his lower jaw in satisfaction, as though delighted over his intelligence and acting skills.


    At the same time, Imunicate through the Lich¡¯s phctery to pressure Rosemary on the intelligence and weakness of this Advisor.


    After all, he is a SemiGod and the strongest power we have in our hand is Krose, who only has ten minutes left as a fake Saint. No matter what, facing him straight on doesn¡¯t seem like a wise n. Even though he is said to be severely injured, a SemiGod is still a SemiGod. He would definitely be hard to deal with. Even in his death throes, he is more than sufficient to pull us down together with him.


    ¡°...Weakness? How could someone like him have a weakness! Fine, fine, stop pulling my phctery. I am thinking!¡±


    ¡°He really doesn¡¯t have any weakness. Even when he is heavily injured, he is able to extract the fresh blood of others to recover from his wounds, forcefully maintaining his body¡¯s condition. His ability to survive is extremely strong. If one is unable to kill him, his revenge would prove to be fatal...¡±


    ¡°Wait, did you say that he depends on sucking blood to maintain his ability to move? That means the blood in his body doesn¡¯t belong to him?¡±


    After receiving an affirmative answer, a thoughtes to my mind.


    ¡°Since there isn¡¯t any loss, let¡¯s just give it a try.¡±


    Thus, I remove my helmet to reveal a bright smile unique to only pure Holy Knights.


    ¡°And Empire Advisor Lord Magrint, we have killed a Seafolkmander on the way here and picked up a bottle. Some of them confessed that it is a God Equipment. Since you are knowledgeable, can you help us take a look at it?¡±


    Not far away, the pale-faced Reyne is rushing back on her horse. Marsolit retracts his gaze of a predator from her upon hearing my words and smiles.


    ¡°Not Magrint, it is Marsolit. Do you muscle-brained Knights know what a God Equipment... Un? Something seems to be off about it. Let me take a look!¡±


    The ancient copper bottle smells deeply of history. Even though there isn¡¯t a ripple of magic on it, the brand new material shows that the concept of time is meaningless before it and even more so, how extraordinary the bottle is for being able to transcend history.


    ¡°It is truly a treasure. It is a pity that the original God of the God Equipment has fallen, causing the God Power of this God Equipment to dry out. Right now, its only remaining use is to serve as a toy with unique effects... Let me study it for a moment. When I am done with it, I will send you all generous rewards.¡±


    From those twinkling eyes and the eerie ill-intentionedughter, I could tell that we are already dead people in Marsolit¡¯s eyes. The generous rewards he spoke of probably means to allow us to diefortably.


    ¡°Then, I shall thank Lord Mabier! Hehe, I amcking the money to get myself a wife. My old family¡¯s Xiao Fang has been waiting for me for many years.¡±


    ¡°It is not Mabier... Forget it, anything that pleases you.¡±


    Then, the Blood Mage focuses his full attention on the ancient bottle.


    The charm of a God Equipment to a Mage is indescribable through words. Even though it is already useless at this point, if he is able to dig out a secret or two of the Gods, Marsolit¡¯s strength could still increase exponentially.


    This is even more so when the God Equipment originates from an Ancient Sea God. The art which Marsolit trains in, Blood Magic, is an extension of Water Magic, thus making the God Equipment even more attractive to him.


    When his efforts finally bear fruits, I smiled.


    ¡°So this is how it is. Let me try activating it... AHHHHHHHHHHH!!¡±


    When the God Equipment is activated, the blue God Light twirls around the SemiGod Blood Mage. Then, fresh blood spurts continuously from his body and shoots into the distance like a red arrow.


    Due to excessive blood loss, Marsolit, who was already severely injured, lies unconscious in the water.


    Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle, the God Equipment of the legendary Ancient Sea God. It is said that in ancient times, it could stir endless tsunamis. Sidunwar is the husband of the Water Elemental Goddess Aylos, the one who forced this desperate situation upon us. Even though this ancient God Equipment has lost arge portion of its strength due to the passing of the Ancient God, it still retains a single ability.


    ¡¾Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle: After activation, it causes the user¡¯s blood to return back to its most basic and pure form.¡¿ This is the result I got after identifying it through the System.


    Its description may sound a little confusing but after using it twice, I have a rough idea of how it works. Actually, this God Equipment doesn¡¯t hold much use. It is only capable of separating a mixture into individualponents. For example, if you were to mix seawater and river water into a single bottle, under normal circumstances, it would be impossible to separate them. However, when this God Equipment is activated, it would be separated into a bottle of river water and a bottle of seawater.


    After losing the support of the God Power from a true God, it became the most useless God Equipment in history. However, this history¡¯s most useless God Equipment has contributed greatly to us. It has destroyed a SemiGod.


    Marsolit¡¯s entire body isposed the fresh blood of others. Since Blood Magic is considered a divergence of Water Magic, then naturally blood would be considered as a type of fluid. In the end, under the effects of the God Equipment, the foreign blood in his body returns back to where they belong, returning Marsolit back into his immobile form.


    Furthermore, under the rebound of the magic and his excessive loss of blood, his injuries are even more severe than the ones inflicted by the Nine-headed Dragon from before.


    Sometimes, the retributions on those wrongdoerse so fast and the expression of justice can be so simple. Sending a violent punch towards the paralysed vile criminal who tried to murder us, I smile satisfactorily.


    Following which, I stare nkly at the bottle which fell into the water.


    In the surroundings of the bottle, the flood water scatters away. It seems that even this City of Rain which was created by a Forbidden Spell infused with God Power could be returned back to its original state under the effects of this God Equipment.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t they say that due to the existence of the two Goddesses of Creation, the ancient era is a feminist society? It seems that the Water Elemental Goddess Aylos is a ¡®husband-control freak¡¯.¡±


    Of course, that is a joke. However, it shows that from a certain aspect, the God Power of the Ancient Sea God Sidunwar is able to suppress the Water Elemental Goddess Aylos.


    Somehow, I feel that the God Equipment left by the ex-husband of the Water Elemental Goddess is the key to releasing this country-level strategic Forbidden Spell City of Rain.


    ¡°Hmph, ignoring how that fellow has turned against us, the ¡®Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle¡¯ which has lost its God Power can only maintain a meter water vacuum, so how could it be sufficient to deal with an entire Forbidden Spell of the Gods?¡±


    However, it is indeed a convenient tool to use at this moment. I retrieve the bottle and keep it in my embrace. Under the effect of the God Equipment, the surroundings clear to form a clean space.


    Even though I unexpectedly cleared away the unfortunate Blood Mage easily, there is still a massive problem before me. If we don¡¯t deal with him in the remaining five minutes, under the rage of the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor, even our option of escaping is nullified.¡±


    ¡°Heh, since we don¡¯t have sufficient strength, then let¡¯s just try my tricks. Harloys, can you help me contact Dragon yer Basr?¡±


    1TKO-ing a boss :O

 Chapter 119

    Chapter 119: Unexpected Rewards


    ¡°You picked up an old man? Why didn¡¯t you try asking whether he is able to forge pills? Or whether he possesses several decades of internal strength and is currently looking for a sessor? At the very least, you have to ask whether he has godly weapons or if he has a rich, beautiful and young daughter who he left behind.¡±


    After defeating Marsolit, the first thing I did was to send Harloys out in her bat form along with the ¡®Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle¡¯ to shelter her from the rain so that she could be our air reconnaissance.


    Since Marsolit is able to find us, it is possible for the other assassins to track us down as well. However, even if it is the spies of the royal family following behind us, I do not think that they are able to avoid Harloys¡¯s detection.


    After all, in such a heavy rain and flood, even if a high-tier Shadower is able to remain invisible, it is impossible for his physical body to disappear. If he is concealing himself in the water, there would probably be a bizarre giant hole appearing in the water. The same goes for the Mage¡¯s Invisibility Spell. All kinds of concealing and transformation techniques are rendered significantly less effective in water.


    ¡°Disappearing under my sight? What is that, your wet footprints are still there. Color concealment? I¡¯m sorry, the dye on your body has already faded. Next time, remember to purchase high-ss waterproof paint. That one using Conceal Magic... Water is already sshing on you, do you intend to cosy a Water Elemental?¡±


    However, what is gratifying is that Harloys did not spot any other scouts. This means that there are probably none of them left.


    But when she reports that there is a white-bearded old man on a tree not too far away, I can¡¯t help but recall the ssical lines in the knight novels. Thus, I said those words on top right away.


    After all, in knight novels, if one were to find a white-bearded old man out of a blue, half of the time, it is the start of the protagonist¡¯s road to achieving great heights. They would always turn out to be some elder, some god or some great expert.


    ¡°...Such destiny. He even has an incredibly rich child who is interested in you.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Darsos.Menon! This old man is Crowe.Menon, the previous emperor of the And Empire as well as the brother of your cute junior. Why? Hurry up and pay respect to your father-inw!¡±


    ¡°...Your tidbits for tomorrow are confiscated. If you don¡¯t shut up, I will turn you into a dog who salivates everywhere it goes. Or perhaps, I should turn all your little fish tidbits into dog biscuit, un, all of those would be expired!¡±


    This threat which is very likely to be carried out causes Harloys to instantly fall silent.


    Even though I said such words, I am actually very delighted. Finding the previous emperor, Crowe, is a big reward. Looks like Marsolit had originally intended to take away this previous emperor. As long as we are able to escape from Kagersi, just the news of this old Emperor being alive would allow us to carry out many different kinds of schemes.


    ¡°This is really just like a knight novel, dropping treasures upon killing the monster. For a SemiGod to end like this, it could be considered a tragedy.¡±


    I have already thrown the SemiGod Blood Mage Emperor Marsolit to the Knights following us to keep an eye on. Under the verification of the System, he doesn¡¯t possess even a single SemiGod Equipment. Also, the several powerful looking equipment on him aren¡¯t of Epic-tier. Other than those, the Blood Dragon Head Token he was carrying looks familiar.


    ¡¾The Blood Dragon Insignia of the Royal Family, the Seal of Authority of the Emperor: Although it represents the utmost authority of the And Empire, it is a useless tool in your hands. However, a certain Emperor would definitely look forward to regaining it. Other than serving as an evidence, this token made of special metal contains many undiscovered secrets.¡¿


    Whilementing how poor the boss is, I turn my attention to the entrance of our escape route which is firmly blocked by the Nine-headed Dragon not too far away. That should be our main goal at the moment.


    ¡°Darn it, of the entire stretch of the coast, why must hee to shore here?¡±


    However, I know that this isn¡¯t a coincidence. Perhaps, my horrible luck is working its wonders again or the ovepping of certain reasons resulted in this inevitability.


    A month ago, the And Empire had arge amount of garrison forces here along with a SemiGod. However, due to those unlucky fellows posing a great threat to the Seafolk, the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor chose this location as his primary target.


    Although they are both SemiGod, the Nine-headed Dragon who has evolved into a SemiGod Nine-headed Dragon Emperor isn¡¯t a being whom a human SemiGod is capable of handling. Back then, the human SemiGod was yed in an instant. Following which, the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor went back and roamed about freely in the river.


    Now that he is required for the battle, he naturally chose this location toe to shore at. Yet, the moment he climbs up, Basr blocked his advance. Thus, after a series of inevitables, he blocks our path like a mountain, leaving us helpless and frustrated.


    That battle is still being fought intensely and Basr still holds the upper hand. All kinds of Dragon ying and Dragon Sealing godly weapons appear, slicing the heads of the immobile Nine-headed Dragon Emperor, spraying blood all over his head.


    However, the problem is this Nine-headed Snake is known for its resilient life force and its regenerative capabilities. It is said that even with a single head left, the Nine-headed Snake is able to fully recover within three days. If its body is torn into two, it is able to split into two smaller individuals. An existence at the level of the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor is able to regenerate indefinitely when in contact with water. It is difficult for him to die even if he is willing to.


    Basr is a Heroic Spirit who doesn¡¯t know the meaning of fatigue. He intends to continuously destroy the enemy¡¯s Dragon heads and drain it of its regenerative abilities to fight an attrition fight. He does have the time to spare and ability to drag the battle on, but we don¡¯t.


    I know that once the Great Judgement ends, the Nine-headed Dragon would immediately flip the tables around. At that point, we would be goners.


    There is no difference from charging to the Hydra frommitting suicide. However, is there no solution for us to achieve a victory without having to fight the Hydra face on? After squeezing my brain juice dry, I found a very unorthodox solution to the problem.


    ¡°Dragon yer Basr, I am the God Envoy of the God of Law. The caster of the Forbidden Spell is someone on our side. I have to tell you an unfortunate news. The duration of the Forbidden Spell ising to an end and in five minutes, the chains will disappear. If I¡¯m not wrong, the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor will regenerate and the battle would go back to a standstill. Very quickly, this entire city will fall and the Seafolk will alle to shore. You probably don¡¯t have much time left to squander on it.¡±


    The bat-form Harloys flies to a location not too far away from Basr. Under my coercion, she fulfills the basic role of a Magic Pet, transmission of messages.


    ¡°I have a n here, though it is an obvious breaking of the rules, so it would depend on your decision. If you are willing to carry it out, nod your head. The n goes like this. We will help you store that dumb snake for a short period of time, during which, you will...¡±


    After exining the n, Basr hesitates for a moment. However, he is unwilling to let go of the prey before him. Thus, he nods his fierce furiously, agreeing to my n.


    The next moment, with both of his hands raised up, he gathers lightning on his hands. After which, the Dragon Spear behind him expands to the size of a small boat. Then, enchanting lightning on it, it turns into an indestructible lightning spear.


    Then, summoning with his full strength, the clouds scatter and a sliver of moonlight falls.


    As a Heroic Spirit of the Goddess of Moonlight, Basr is only able to exert his full strength under the moonlight. A pale white energy is infused on top of the lightning spear. Theyer of silver light on the spear tip may seem inconspicuous, but it is the power granted from a true God.


    After enchanting Moonlight de on the spear and obtaining the blessing of the Goddess of Hunting, the might of the lightning spear surges.


    ¡°Ain Spear of Destruction!¡±


    The Nine-headed Dragon struggles furiously, creating gigantic waves from the river water. At the moment, waves after waves of tsunamis billows as shes of lightning appears here and there. It really looks like the sight of the end of the world. However, no matter how much the Hydra struggles, the Anti-Dragon enchantments which Basr keeps recasting on the chains leaves him unable to move in the least.


    ¡°AOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!¡±


    Even when his roar fills the heavens and shakes the ground, that seemingly slow but fast Dragon ying Spear strikes the Nine-headed Dragon brutally.


    ¡°AOOOOOOOOOO! I curse you, I curse that you will never obtain redemption and release, that you will always be gued with nightmares of your loved ones, that you will never sleep soundly! Darn you, Dragon yer!¡±


    Under the furious roars and curse of the Dragon Emperor, two of his Dragon heads immediately severs and a massive amount of venomous green blood spurts out, turning the surrounding water body into a lethal venom that corrodes one¡¯s body and soul.


    ¡°Heh, your screams of agony and curses would be my luby at night.¡±


    Following which, without even looking at the results of his attack, Basr floats towards us. On the other hand, I prompt Erebe to charge forward to rece the position of the Heroic Spirit.


    ¡°Sigh, 19 seconds is sufficient for it to regrow its Dragon head. This Nine-headed Dragon is really difficult to deal with.¡±


    The moment I step into the Nine-headed Dragon¡¯s area of vignce, lightning, mes, venom and ice awls alle shooting towards me.


    Even as the Nine-headed Dragon screams agonisingly in pain and two of its Dragon heads are still spurting venomous blood as he curses the Dragon yer to meet with misfortune, the other seven heads had already regained theirbat ability.


    ¡°...This is the benefit from possessing multiple heads. Should I go and modify Ah Bas when I return? The times are changing and a Three-headed Cerberus seems to be outdated. Twelve heads shouldn¡¯t be too much for a hellhound. However, it is a pity that Ah Bas is in his rebellious phase and probably won¡¯t agree to my modifications. Thest time, not only did he reject the beloved nickname I came up for him, he even dered that ¡®even if the world ends, I won¡¯t let you modify me ever again¡¯. However, the upgrades I did for him thest time was obviously great.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, he even forced me to cancel the automated function to crow at six in the morning everyday. As a captain, it is important for him to supervise his subordinates to go for morning trainings punctually. Have you never heard of the saying ¡®dancing with the chickens¡¯? You actually backed down after hearing someone call you ¡®Demonic Spatial Rooster¡¯? Don¡¯t I also suffer from beingbelled as having a screw loose by others as well? Useless. Right, should I implement some wheels on him? It seems that Transformers is quite popr nowadays.¡±


    TL: Dancing with the chickens -> Originally, it is referring to people who train in swordsmanship early in the morning. Then, it became used to refer to people who are motivated to improve themselves for a good cause.


    Four destructive Dragon breath is already right before me, yet I am still thinking about other matters.


    This isn¡¯t because I am belittling my opponent. The Nine-headed Dragon Emperor who has undergone countless battlefields is experienced, so the locations he chose for his Dragon Breaths are not bad. The four Dragon Breaths strikes urately from my front, back, left and right simultaneously and intersects towards me. If nothing goes wrong, I would have died no matter how I choose to dodge it.


    However, since I didn¡¯t die, something still went wrong.


    The charging ice war horse suddenly disappears and turns into the young Snow Woman who then sits on my shoulder. Golden wings sprout from my back and with a leap, I turn the momentum into a driving force upwards. In my War Angel Form, I soar into the skies.


    As a War Angel, my Race Talent consists of controlling the sacred inferno of Order. At this moment, the sacred inferno has boils countless falling raindrops. The rain doesn¡¯t really affect me much. However, I don¡¯t dare to stop and continue to soar upwards so as to dodge the Nine-headed Dragon¡¯s consecutive attacks in advance.


    My decision is proven to be the right one. A few secondster, the position where I was previously at is oveid by storm and a sudden tsunami.


    This is one of the basic knowledge in a top-tier battle. To deal with an agile opponent who is adept at concealment and hard to hit, the easiest is to not get tangled up with him and instead, userge AOE spells to destroy him and wherever he could possibly hide.


    If Reyne was here, she would have probably died even if she possesses my skills. Outstanding battle experience is a requirement to predict the enemy¡¯s moves in advance. While turning around in midair to dodge all kinds of breaths, I send Ice Magic attacks on the Nine-headed Dragon.


    Yes, Ice Magic. Furthermore, they are Bronze-rank magic spells which are below 3-circles, Ice Magic which the Nine-headed Dragon is able to disregard. Of course, with my temporary Silver-rank, I am capable of using 5-circle magic spells as well. However, as I am not willing to waste my skill points on them, I don¡¯t know a single Silver-rank (4-circle, 5-circle) magic spell.


    Since the quality is insufficient, I choose to make it up with my quantity. The ice residue which I casually create can also be used to create a manmade hail when falling down from the sky. However, what stands below the hail isn¡¯t some weak windscreen of a car or some tearful car owners who are regretting their choice to not get insurance.


    That Water Magic of the ancient Sea Monster below is not inferior in any ways to a top-ss Water Mage. Water Magic and Ice Magic is connected in many minute ways. Not to mention, the Nine-headed Dragon¡¯s Ice Dragon Head specialises in rapid freezing magic. That little ice residues of mine pales too much inparison.


    However, the Ice Dragon Head simply disregards my attacks and a scornful look appears on his face. However, the main body of the Nine-headed Dragon meets with a little trouble.


    His body permeates a crystal blue color as a thinyer of ice start to form on the Dragon¡¯s body. He has been afflicted with a Frozen status.


    ¡°His skin really thick. Even though the System never said that it is impossible to resist the Frozen Air, to think he resisted more than half of its effect for it to take effect only now.¡±


    I never do meaningless tasks. From the very start, the seemingly meaningless attack is actually an attempt to propagate the effects of Frozen Air.


    ¡¾Frozen Air: A kind of deadly cold air that is without sound or presence. It can be enchanted onto one¡¯s physical body and weapon, as well as paired together with Ice Magic as an attack. Those who are touched by the Frozen Air will have all movements slowed by 1% and suffer 1 point of frost damage per second. This debuff can be stacked. If the target¡¯s movement speed is reduced by more than 20%, a frozen effect will be inflicted. Many negative statuses will be inflicted, such as the freezing of one¡¯s thought. If the target¡¯s movement speed is reduced by more than 50%, then there is a chance that the target might die at any moment due to massive loss of heat.¡¿


    The strength of this ability isn¡¯t exceptionally strong but it has the advantage of that no living things can bepletely immune to it. Of course, I wouldn¡¯t dream to trying to freeze this terminal lifeform, a Nine-headed Dragon, to death. However, the disgusting negative effects of slowed thinking process and reaction speed would help me in aplishing the dangerous mission of drawing his aggression.


    On the other side, they have already reached the final stages of it as well.


    ¡°Are you willing to follow by the will of the God of Law and fight forw and justice...¡±


    Krose¡¯s voice trembles with agitation as he conducts the Job Change Ritual for the SemiGod Heroic Spirit. This isn¡¯t something an ordinary Archbishop could meet with.


    Yes, from the very start, my goal is clear. Since the only being on our side who could pose a threat to the Nine-headed Dragon is Basr, then pulling up Basr¡¯s strength would be the most ideal decision at the moment.


    As long as we add a halo of a Law Job on top of him, his power rank would be pulled up a level by the ¡®Great Judgement¡¯ and the rank higher than a SemiGod is... Alright, it is impossible for him to attain the strength of a true God. However, he would still gain the strength to easily subdue the Nine-headed Dragon.


    However, I estimate his overwhelming power will cause the Great Judgement to end earlier. Also, the strength he would possess is most probably not something his body of a Heroic Spirit would be able to withstand. In the best possible scenario, he would go down after the Hydra with a single blow. However, Basr is already a dead person, so how could he be bothered over this? What he is worried about is whether he is able to get the Dragon down with him in that single blow.


    At this moment, even with the assistance of the SemiGod Equipment Scattered Page, procedures still have to be followed to grant Basr a Law Job. Krose has to finish chanting the long prayer. Furthermore, the ritual is sacred, so they are unable to move in the midst of it.


    The Nine-headed Dragon isn¡¯t a fool either. The ice master in the sky who, astonishingly, was able to freeze him is obviously stalling for time. While he doesn¡¯t know what the Dragon yer is doing, it definitely isn¡¯t a good thing for him.


    Thus, he lifts all nine of his heads without hesitation and starts charging up his Dragon Breath on every single one of his heads. If he were to release it, not mentioning how Krose and the others would die for certain, the entire pier would disappear from existence.


    ¡°No matter what the situation is, no matter what schemes they are up to, first shoot a st at them before thinking about it? I like that thought process, because I am the same as well. Harloys, n C! Give him a big one!¡±

 Chapter 120

    Chapter 120: Decisive Battle (1)


    The storm didn¡¯t seem like it would end anytime soon. The ughter and screams of agony in the distance seems to be dying down. In the moment when the Seafolk are about to sessfully im ownership of their new capital, our journey to escape is also nearing its end.


    The Nine-headed Dragon before us opens his mouth and the remaining seven dragon heads vomit seven-colored dragon¡¯s blood. At the same time, different types of magic are gathered together and under the careful control of the Nine-headed Dragon, the seven Dragon Breaths form a colorful floating ball. The result is a lethal Ball of Elements.


    This is the specialty of multi-headed Dragons. When multiple Elemental Magics arebined into one body and the seven-colored ball of light bes pure, a light that can destroy everything will be born.


    That is the way of the battle for a top-tier Magic Beast. Abandoning all of the useless flowery tricks and instead, try their best to strengthen their physical body and Race Talent. From the looks of it, the Dragon Breath whichbines multiple attributes will eventually be an attribute-less shockwave.


    Given the strength of the Nine-headed Dragon, even though he is without two heads at the moment, the might of this attack can rival even that of Forbidden Spells.


    A powerful physical body and a simple, yet powerful, Race Talent attack¡ªthis is the basis for top-tier beings, like giant Dragons, in suppressing everything else. When fighting with such unreasonable beings, one¡¯s strength is required to do the talking.


    From the look of those ripples of magic, if he were to sessfully cast it, forget about the others, even the entire pier will be eradicated.


    ¡°Hmph, did you think that I would allow you to do as you please? Harloys, n C! Give him a big one!¡±


    ¡°Niang niang, I am afraid that this concubine is unable to do so.¡±TL: Niang niang -> How concubines in China address the queen.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Reporting to the queen, this concubine would like to st a big one as well, but do you think that it takes no time to prepare? I need at least five minutes! Can¡¯t you spare some thoughts for the rescue troops who need to arrivete? How can rescue troops arrive at the crucial period for a hero, so do it yourself! Don¡¯t hold expectations for supporting roles like us, I believe in you!¡±


    Listening to her retort, which has the vor of modern times, I decided to never say such messy stuff to the darned cat anymore. On the other hand, I am really put into a helpless position.


    I could understand theck of time for Harloys to prepare sufficiently. However, if this Dragon Breath were to really shoot out, then I wouldn¡¯t need any more ns because nothing would be left.


    ¡°Darn it! Giant fellow, look at this!¡±


    Taking a deep breath, I don¡¯t intend to charge at the Hydra. I fly towards the stone cliff in the opposite direction from Krose and the rest. I won¡¯t need wings for what I¡¯m about to do.


    ¡°Sinful Devil God.¡±


    Folding in my wings, the fatigue from releasing the War Angel form embraces me. However, I didn¡¯t have the time toin about it. Light of Chaos shrouds me and turns me into another form¡ª¡ªSinful Devil God.


    The angle of view increases by quite a bit due to the ergement of my physical body. My breathing carries along the smell of sulfur. That is the mark of a Demon.


    My white and smooth skin assume ayer of ugly, light-blueva. Along with the rhythm of my breathing, my bizarre magic tattoos start to shine, reminiscent to the Elemental lifeforms.


    The Chaos Bloodline causes the blue lightning in my veins to explode, before pouring out from the magic tattoos. The emitted power can make the rain in the air evaporate. Lightning shines in both of my eyes. When my form has been fixed, it looks as though a Devil God has descended onto the mortal world.


    I don¡¯t like this transformation at all. Other than the fact that the Power of Chaos brings about trouble just from its bad reputation, this form which looks like the boss of the viinous faction is really ugly. It reminds me of my dark history back when I was the Lich when I scared myself just looking into the mirror in the middle of the night.


    However, at this moment, I need this ugly transformation. Although this form is hideous, the strength it provides me isn¡¯t at all cozy.


    ¡°The spirits of the snow, the snowstorms of the extremends, listen to mymand...


    If the War Angel Form is a form which allows me to move at great speed, making it suited for closebat battle, then the Sinful Devil God Form would be one that boosts my control over magic, my will, intelligence and several attributes and stats that are rted to magic, making it a typical magic-based transformation.


    ¡°...Under my will, the old era of decay and the end of the terminal will arrive...¡±


    The long incantation carries along with it the ripples of a destructive magic. The spirits of the snow are singing along in the air. The top-tier Ice Forbidden Spell¡ªIce Aeon, is about to descend on the battlefield.


    It¡¯s different from Magaret¡¯s pirated version, while the copied Ice Aeon probably doesn¡¯t even hold a third of the original¡¯s strength, I, as the original creator of the Forbidden Spell, am able to raise its power to 200%.


    The concept behind this Forbidden Spell is simple. Crystallizing the purest Power of Ice and Snow and afterpressing it multiple times, st it outwards. This is no different from the concept of a Fireball.


    However, Harloys once made an evaluation on it. Due to its simplicity, it is pure and suits the very nature of ice and snow, thus making it powerful.


    ¡¾SemiGod Equipment, the Dark God¡¯s Breath of Death: Soul Conversion: Siphon the souls of the dead and convert it into pure Power of Death¡¿


    The Power of Death passes through me and converts into the purest ice mana. Should I be thankful for the great ughter that Carlohin carried out and his years of umtion? Countless souls have created a massive mana vault in this SemiGod Equipment, and this happens to be what Ick the most at this moment.


    ¡°...the winter¡¯s hibernation is destruction as well as rebirth...¡±


    With me at the very core, while mana frenziedly surges out from the raised ck staff, and as the chanting grew louder, the blue magic inscriptions that represent ice and snow extend on the ground while the snow spirits sing in chorus.


    Even before the spell is released, the entire cliff turns into and of frost. The rainwater falling from the sky freezes into snow. The humid and warm summer wind blowing over bes a bone-chilling storm of the extremends.


    Even more so, due to the rapid fall in temperature, a thinyer of ice starts to form over the flood, and so the endless flood seems to have met its nemesis for the first time.


    In the end, the two newly-regenerated dragon heads raise themselves upwards and stare fixedly at me, their giant eyes about the size of an adult man emitting a furious red light. That is truly a bare intent to kill.


    In the short distance between us, the snow is insufficient to block his sight. He is measuring whether my magic could threaten him.


    In the mind of the Nine-headed Dragon, as long as he is able to destroy the Dragon yer and the hateful chains in one blow, what does getting struck by a Forbidden Spell count as? Anyway, it isn¡¯t the first time the Hydra has been struck by a Forbidden Spell. Since it¡¯s resilient and wouldn¡¯t die from it, he would fully regenerate in just a few days.


    However, taking just one look, he knows that this is a situation unlike any he has undergone.


    His regeneration ability is a Race Talent as well as an extension of his Water Magic. Fioros is confident that as long as there¡¯s water, he would not die. However, what if his supply of water were to be stopped.


    Water Mages often cultivates Ice Magic to strengthen their own magic¡¯s destructive power and adaptability. However, this doesn¡¯t mean that these two types of magic don¡¯t contradict one another. On the other hand, the most hated opponents of pure Water Mages are Ice Mages.


    Water Magic often presents itself in the form of water arrows and giant waves. Basically, it is the control over the shape and use of fluid. Thus, it has two nemeses. The high-temperature Fire Magic, which evaporates fluid, and Ice Magic, which freezes water into a solid form.


    Regardless of whether the water is evaporated or frozen, when it is no longer in its fluid form, it doesn¡¯t fulfill the concept of ¡®water¡¯, thus destroying the Mage¡¯s basic ability to control it.


    Nine-headed Dragon Fioras is contemting, but the more he thinks about it, the more he feels that something is amiss with the situation.


    The magic before him is obviously an Ice Magic Forbidden Spell. From the looks of the natural phenomenon and the resonance with the elemental spirits, it is obviously an extremely powerful Forbidden Spell.


    Although there is no magic rippleing from the caster before him (Bronze-rank Magic means nothing in his eyes), the ck stick is releasing an unlimited amount of magic. Furthermore, the Ice Mage who just froze him has proven his extraordinary talent in Ice Magic. If this Forbidden Magic were to sessfully freeze him...


    Enjoying his life in an ice cube that would never melt? His regeneration abilities wouldn¡¯t be useful under such circumstances.


    ¡°A Hydra who went into a refrigerator and forgot toe out? We can still earn a bit of money from selling the tickets to this exhibit.¡± This joke isn¡¯t funny to him at all.


    If Rnd were to be allowed to go a step further and freeze all the river water, rainwater, and his bodily fluids, his regeneration abilities would be annulled. It¡¯s quite possible for him to freeze into an ice cube and die upon breaking into ice fragments.


    Usually, the Nine-headed Emperor Fioras doesn¡¯t think anything of the Forbidden Spells of humans. However, at this moment, he didn¡¯t have the confidence to face it head on.


    ¡°Pah!¡±


    Beneath the feet of the Mage, the frozen earth cleaves apart and the boundary between illusion and reality disintegrates. Arge hole opens.


    After which, a giant, ck skeletal hand reaches out from the hole, its ws stabbing into the firm ground. Every single finger of it is as though the size of a grown man and this is only the beginning. The true nightmare is returning back to the surface.


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!¡±


    As that pitch-ck giant skeleton head returns to the mortal world from the Underworld and the crowned skeleton head releases a peculiar ¡®kakaka¡¯ughter, all life that sets its gaze upon it instinctively screams, as though they have caught sight of the grim reaper who reaps all souls.


    ¡°...We will bring about equal end and death to all life...¡±


    The incantation continues on. On top of theughing skeleton king¡¯s head, the Mage who is standing on the ice crown continues to chant as the ice crystal crown bes his throne.


    The mountains have already been converted into snownds. On top of the snow, the king of iceughs maniacally. Just his very existence is sufficient to bring termination to all lifeforms.


    On top of the cliff, the endless ice has started to freeze the flood. Even the air is starting to freeze. Upon the descent of the king of eternal night, all life will face its end.


    Even though the ice has yet to creep onto the Nine-headed Dragon, fear appears in its blood-red eyes.


    Under the gaze of the skeleton king, the Nine-headed Dragon Fioras has never felt so close to death. Even though his Seven-colored Dragon Breath is in the midst of gathering, his instinctive fear of death causes the ancient, vile beast to shiver uncontrobly.


    This isn¡¯t determined by the difference in strength, but the fear that results from the hierarchy of the food chain. The one before him is the ck skeleton king, the hunter of all lives.


    The Nine-headed Dragon understands that the skeleton king before him, who is taller than him, is just an illusion, that it¡¯s just a divine apparition simr to a Soul World upon releasing the Forbidden Spell. Although this is the unique privilege of experts who had once approached the realm of true Gods and are rarities in this era, it all means nothing to him, who is ancient himself.


    However, the divine apparition that is projected is that person, that God¡¯s true form. He has seen before the divine apparition of the Queen of Storms, the furious projection of the God who creates storms that can destroy cities. Yet, her might iscking too far behind this ck skeleton. The only one who canpare to it would probably be the Ancient Death God Ayer¡¯s apparition.


    ¡°Ayer? God of Death... That same skeletal body and a ck SemiGod staff, could he really be that person from the legends? I have heard of rumors that he has appeared in the Underground World and destroyed a Demon Count. Is it possible that it is the legendary... The ultimate Forbidden Spell, one which destroyed countless Elf Kingdoms¡ª¡ªIce Aeon!¡±


    ¡°...Under my will, the aeon of frost will return back to the mortal world and the world belonging to the dead will once again...¡±


    At this point, the Forbidden Spell cannot be stopped at one¡¯s whim anymore. Even if the spellcaster stops the incantation, the snow spirits in midair will still continue the incantation.


    At this moment, the bizarre choral incantation echoes throughout the entire battlefield. Even though this is thenguage of a foreign world, everyone canprehend the true meaning behind this bizarrenguage.


    It isn¡¯t like some malevolent curse. Rather, it sounds just like a historian recounting the history he haspiled. There is a possibility that the spellcaster is illustrating the future which he thinks would happen¡ª¡ªWhen the Ice Aeon descends and all life freezes, the Gods and the living beings will either die or go into a long slumber. Then, the Undead who do not fear the cold will be the conquerors of the new era.


    Although this is just a simple description, it carries with it endless death and despair. This is Emperor Yongye¡¯s doomsday poem¡ª¡ªIce Aeon.


    It¡¯s a kind of inconceivable distortion, but based on natural history, it¡¯s definitely a usible doomsday that could happen in the future.


    In order to bring this doomsday to the living, the Emperor Yongye of back then created history¡¯s most dangerous and lunatic Forbidden Spell. The most ludicrous part about it is that he seeded. From the day this Forbidden Spell was created, ¡®Ice Aeon¡¯ was fated to be the nightmare of all living beings.


    Upon realizing that his opponent could be that person, Fioras feels despair.


    When he was at his pinnacle, even a 2nd-tier God would have to avoid his path. His army had once hunted countless existences of his level and was well-known in the circle of top-tier Magic Beasts. His memory of him is very distinct. It would be too foolish of him to be unable to recognize him when the incantation has gotten to such a point.


    ¡°Emperor Yongye!!¡±


    The terrified Nine-headed Dragon Emperor shouts that forbidden name and his roar tremors the entire vige. Countless eyes dart over and the entire world shakes in fear.


    At this moment, Fioras doesn¡¯t doubt in the least that this Forbidden Spell would take his life. If theplete Ice Aeon were to be released, the one who should be worried on whether an entire corpse would be left behind is this city, not himself.


    In reality, it would be like that too. If theplete version of Ice Aeon were to be released, the effects of the City of Rain could be disregarded. Within a century, thisnd would be an extremend of only ice and nothing else.


    At the final countdown of the Seven-colored Dragon Breath, knowing his nemesis who views ughtering Dragons as his ultimate goal is before him, he chooses not to exact vengeance when his life is ticking away before him.


    ¡°AH!¡± ¡°Kacha!¡±


    The two newly regenerated Dragon heads bite away the other six Dragon heads. The pitiful terminal lifeform Nine-headed Dragon Emperor bes a three-headed snake. Losing six of the energy source, the remaining head is finally able to freely control the rampaging ball of Dragon Breath.


    Thus, he releases the Dragon Breath with his full strength towards Emperor Yongye without any hesitation.


    At this moment, I may look impressive, but in reality, I am already on the verge of tears.


    I am just a Bronze-rank rookie Ice Mage and the entire mana that my body contains is not even sufficient to put together a hailstorm. Ice Aeon or whatever, it¡¯s just a faraway dream for me.


    However, just like how I re-prehended¡¯ de Storm, given how I am aware of the theory behind it, reprehending the ¡®Ice Aeon¡¯ that I have created isn¡¯t a difficult task. However, without the foundations to support it, there is no way I would be able to release it.


    ¡¾Ding, congrattions forprehending the SemiGod-tier destructive Forbidden Spell Ice Aeon. ¡ª¡ªSystem Tip: What? You want further exnations? Since you can¡¯t possibly execute it, why bother wasting my saliva. Besides, if you were to really release it, remember to buy a coffin beforehand. What? You think that you should use this rare luck to buy a lottery ticket? Are you dumb? How can the dead buy lottery tickets? Right, you can try to bet on ser and I can earn some money meanwhile. Un, it is a definite win as long as I stand on the side opposite to you.¡¿


    As usual, I ignore the retort of the noisy system. At this moment, in order to distract the Nine-headed Dragon who is disregarding me, I intend to take out Ice Aeon to scare him, even using the mana stored in ¡®Dark God¡¯s Breath of Death¡¯ just for it.


    However, the moment it speaks, I know that the situation is dire. I have goo far again.


    ¡°Darn it! Stop!!¡±

 Chapter 121

    Chapter 121: Decisive Battle (2)


    ¡°Darn it! I can¡¯t stop!!¡±


    Around me, the snow spirits dance and sing. The incantation is mouthed through me, but amplified through their chorus, resonating with the entire world.


    It¡¯s just like how an experienced Knight is capable of performing several tricks through manipting the movements of his horse whereas a rookie Knight often ends up falling from his horse and then dragged along with it. At this current moment, I am the unlucky rookie Knight who is being dragged along.


    Furthermore, the more stubborn the horse, the harder it is to tame. Once you start chanting out a top-tier Forbidden Spell, it¡¯s very difficult to stop, like a rocket that can¡¯t be interrupted once it¡¯s beenunched. My previous experiences and the urgency of the present circumstances caused me to miscalcte the entire situation. The differences between the living and the dead have caused a significant difference in the spell from the very start.


    When I started to chant the supreme Forbidden Spell¡ªa spell way beyond my level¡ªand used the ck staff as my source of mana, I became that rookie Knight being dragged along by his horse. I became a part of the Forbidden Spell.


    The delighted dancing snow spirits are granting me their blessings of the snow. The re-usage of the Forbidden Spell has significantly improved myprehension towards the Power of Ice and Snow.


    And at this moment, the Soul Imprint ¡®Ice Treader¡¯ on my System panel is being regenerated at a rapid pace.


    ¡°7%...14%...30%, what kind of joke is this! Normally, none of you would be this helpful. Yet, at a crucial period like this, all of you are popping out and bringing me trouble!¡±


    In order to prevent the Forbidden Spell¡ªwhich I¡¯ve lost control of¡ªfrom exploding at any moment, I pump all of my skill points into the Ice Magic skill tree without hesitation.


    ¡®Ice Control¡¯, ¡®Bone-chilling Freeze¡¯ and other rted skills are being enhanced altogether. So long as they were skills that would lead to Ice Aeon in the skill tree, I would frantically pump skill points into them.


    Devoting my skill points in such a way resulted in immediate effects. Although my position on the skill tree is still far from reaching Ice Aeon, the control over Ice Magic that I derived from the skill points I pumped in grant me a certain level of control over the Forbidden Spell. At the very least, I don¡¯t have to worry about it exploding all of a sudden.


    However, fortune is always paired with misfortune. After I solved the problem of an implosion urring, a new form of troubleys itself before me.


    In my eyes, the entire world has turned into ice rivers and ciers. Other than frost, nothing else can be seen on this ice in. All living beings are asleep under the frost. This isn¡¯t an illusion, but a sign that the Forbidden Spell is about to be released. The snow spirits are jubntly informing me the beautiful future of their wishes.


    However, what the snow spirits like may not be the same for living beings.


    Just as the System says, if I were to throw the Forbidden Spell, I could even spare myself the coffin. It is very probable that my body and soul will be frozen here. My endless reincarnations wille to a halt as well.


    ¡°Erebe! Knock me out!¡±


    Hearing my orders, my cute Frigid Nightmare Snow Woman turns into a Frost Ghoul. But before she cannd a blow, the giant hands of the ck skeleton grab her and then hesitates for a moment before throwing her far away.


    The divine apparition automatically carries out its defensive mechanism. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I instinctively view Erebe as a trustworthypanion, that giant hand would have crushed her to death instead of throwing her away.


    ¡°82%...89%...91%.¡±


    The reparation of my Soul Imprint is almost at its end. What should have been an event worth celebrating has instead be the countdown to my death. I can vaguely feel the moment the Ice Treader is repairedpletely. That would be the moment Ice Aeon will be released, and thus, my life will havee to an end.


    Even my life force will be used as a propent for the release of the Forbidden Spell. It would be unbelievable for me not to die after that.


    Just as I await my final judgment in despair, the Nine-headed Dragon actually bites away its other six heads, then changes the target of that deadly Dragon Breath towards me.


    In that instant, I am so overjoyed that I almost run up to the ugly dragon head just to hug it and give it two kisses.


    Yes, joy¡ªnot fear or anger. My Forbidden Spell has already reached the stage where it will automatically release itself. Just like how the spell expelled Erebe from my side, it instinctively makes its own judgments and will try to destroy any obstacle preventing the sessful release of the Forbidden Spell.


    At that moment, an equally threatening offensive magic spell has been thrown its way, and if I¡¯m not wrong, there is only one possible reaction to it.


    ¡°...let me bring the living their eternal end! Ice Aeon!¡±


    As expected, the breath of ice is released in advance and collides with the ball of Dragon Breath.


    Collisions between two Forbidden Spells are always bizarre. The collision between the ice breath and the Dragon¡¯s Breath whip up a hurricane of death. All living beings caught in the midst of it would first freeze before shattering into fragments.


    The river water also falls victim. Presently, the river has been frozen into fragmented ice shards.


    The blinding white light robs mortals of their sight. When I finally regain my strength, only rubble remains before me.


    Should I be thankful to the flood for evacuating all civilians living in the Pier District? After all, the collision between the two Forbidden Spells haspletely wrecked that area. The result of the sh is that I held the upper hand, despite the Forbidden Spell being iplete.


    I am still panting on the mountain cliff, whereas half of the Hydra¡¯s body has been frozen in solid ice. Two of the dragon heads have turned into ice fragments amidst howls of agony. This is the best proof of my victory.


    If the Hydra hadn¡¯t used all of its life force to protect the remaining main head, this ancient Magic Beast might have met its end in that previous blow.


    The Forbidden Spell didn¡¯t go through the final few stages of suppression, refining, melding, resonating as well as several more processes, and therefore it hadn¡¯t beenpleted. It was due to its ipleteness that I was spared.


    I lie paralyzed on the floor, with my body¡¯s stamina and mana sapped dry. My transformation was released, and I don¡¯t even have the strength to get up.


    However, I know that we should have already won.


    ¡°...I, in the name of my Lord Wumianzhe, grant you the job of Justice Knight!¡±


    The inheritance ceremony hase to an end. Those difficult four minutes that I had to vie for, finallye to an end.


    ¡°AOOOOOOOOOO!¡±


    Even though only one head remains, Fioras still releases furious howls. He is unwilling to fall just like that. He has already noticed the surge of strength within Basr and can vaguely guess what is about to happen. The remaining dragon head of the Hydra realizes that the end is ticking closer for him.


    However, something urs that leaves the others speechless. As Basr¡¯s strength and power rank furiously increases, his Heroic Spirit body¡ªwhich can only hold the power of a SemiGod (as written in the Dragon Hunting chapter)¡ªbegins to dissipate.


    Golden light particles enshroud him as Basr calmly watches his body dissolve. He knows that it¡¯s about time for him to return. However, he doesn¡¯t know what will await him, especially after epting a Law Job.


    ¡°Although it¡¯s a pity that I won¡¯t be able to view the end of this little snake with my own eyes, it was worth being able to experience strength at this level, even for just a moment.¡±


    His two legs have already been reduced to golden light. Yet, the Heroic Spirit still calmly draws his sword and spear. After hesitating for a moment, he throws the spear to a young female Knight who has been looking at him with eyes filled with respect.


    ¡°Keep it as a souvenir. He¡¯s called ¡®Dragon Massacre¡¯. I admire the courage you possessed when charging towards an evil Dragon. There should be a day when you will be in need of him.¡±


    Basr then takes a longing look at the scenery of the mortal world, before throwing his treasured sword into the air.


    This time, his golden sword didn¡¯t change forms or sh bolts of lightning. Even the very hilt starts to dissipate in the golden light. However, in everyone¡¯s eyes, they somehow feel that the sword cannot be blocked, as though fate decreed for it to seal the end of the Dragon.


    In fact, Basr didn¡¯t even aim properly for this attack. He knew that the sword wouldnd on the Dragon¡¯s body.


    In that instant, he touches the boundaries of a true God and infuses the unique God Power known as ¡®Dragon Death¡¯ within the sword. This is the God Power which he¡¯s just grasped. However, the price for using such forbidden power: he slowly dissipates into a golden light, to be banished back to the Heavenly Realm.


    Just as the disappearing Heroic Spirit Dragon yer said, his only remaining regret was not being able to view the end of the Nine-headed Dragon with his own eyes. However, in his mind, he knows that the moment this strike¡ªwhich has reached the level of a God¡ªis thrown out, Fioras is bound for death.


    Meanwhile, the savage Hydra is still unable to ept its doom. Even at the very end, he continues to struggle and defy fate.


    The temporary disappearance of Great Judgement granted him his freedom. However, his frozen body also sealed his ability to move. He wants to tear apart his main head so that it can survive independently. However, he doesn¡¯t have the strength or a dragon head to carry out the act.


    ¡°It¡¯s the end.¡± Finally, a giant teardrop falls from the despaired Hydra. He knows that his demise is approaching.


    ¡°It¡¯s the end! ... We¡¯ve finally won! We¡¯ve survived!¡± This show of delight is from me and the others.


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    Suddenly, an inconceivable plot-twist urs. A red figure crashes violently into the sword in midair.


    ¡°AHHHHHHHH! I curse you!! Damned Celestial Tower! Darned Lamos¡¯s Eye! I¡¯ll make sure you all apany me in hell!¡±


    Without a doubt, the red figure who ¡®sacrificed¡¯ himself to save the Nine-headed Dragon is the Marsolit who had just fallen. Naturally, he isn¡¯t the kind of person who would use his life to save others. He was thrown by someone else to take the bullet!


    The Knight who was keeping watch on Marsolit is currently lying unconscious in the water.


    Under the guidance of the remaining God Power, the weakened Dragon ying Sword still stabs into the body of the Hydra. However, the SemiGod shield was exceptionally effective. Although the body of the Nine-headed Dragon has been reduced to ashes, the main dragon head still survives and is now starting to regenerate!


    ¡°Ya-ya! Fool, fool!¡± The crow¡¯s malicious calls echo in midair. Then, with a twist, it turns into a familiar figure¡ªAnd branch head of the Celestial Tower, Lamos¡¯s Eye!


    Although colluding with the Seafolk, he has treated their invasion as an opportunity to exact his vengeance. He has been staring outside the Church for a gap in their defenses to appear.


    After waiting patiently all this time, he manages to reverse the situation by striking at the crucial moment. Seeing that his vengeance is exacted, Lamos¡¯s Eyeughs happily.


    Behind him, the Nine-headed Dragon is already regenerating once more. Without the Dragon Sealing Chains binding him, even if a mere dragon head remains, as long he is granted sufficient time and water, he will be able to recover back to hisplete form.


    Unless we destroy the main head before his second head is regenerated, we¡¯ll just end up as his food. It¡¯s really disappointing that we were taken advantage of after fighting to this point.


    Yet, the shivering Reyne, who was battling with her fear, stood up.


    Without a second word, she jumps on Seva, who has transformed into a wild boar and holds up high the ¡®Dragon Massacre¡¯ she just obtained, charging towards the unbeatable evil Dragon.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t expect to use this spear so quickly... Everyone! Now isn¡¯t the time to despair! As long as we do not give up, there is still hope!¡±


    The Frigid Nightmare creates for her a set of standard Knight equipment of the Mist Country. At the very back of the mount, the Mist War g unfolds. It stands strong and unwavering in the midst of strong gales to protect their territory. The sight of the King of the Mist Country leading the charge feels reminiscent of the past.


    The white-armored Knights charge atop the surface of the ice. Carrying their silver spears and the determination within them to y the giant Dragon, a silver inferno shrouds their nation-guarding sacred swords. The Silver Princess Knight, just like her ancestors, charges forth towards an insurmountable challenge.


    ¡°If I am destined to die, then rather than dying as a coward who doesn¡¯t dare to do anything on her deathbed, I would rather die valiantly in the midst of a charge.¡±


    For the very first time, the Princess seems to understand the seemingly obstinate family motto recorded in her family and n¡¯s records. Perhaps, her ancestors charged to their own deathsughing heartily like that as well.


    Even if the evil Dragon before them is formidable and the Princess knows that the difference in their strength would be the cause of her death, for the sake of this momentary honor, she had no regrets!


    Hopeless situation? That¡¯s probably about right. At this moment, the Hydra is almost done regenerating. By the time he stands up again, it will be doomsday for all life on the surface.


    ¡°Hah, interesting. To not know when to give up, you have indeed inherited the nasty temper passed down in the Mist Bloodline. Reyne, if you survive this trial, I will acknowledge you as the true King of Mist.¡±


    At this moment, I can¡¯t allow the younger generations to look down on me. Thus, using my sword as a crutch, I stand up once more and stagger to Irene, who charges forth alongside me as my wings.


    ¡°What? I will lead the charge!¡±


    At my side, there is only myself, whereas following behind Princess Reyne is a group of the Mist Country¡¯s Royal Knights.


    They know that they collectively don¡¯t mean a thing to the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor who is about to recover his full strength. However, isn¡¯t a valiant charge in the midst of despair the kind of glorious death that every Knight seeks?


    ¡°No wonder my Lord always says that Knights are a bunch of fools. They are truly a bunch of cute fools... Then, we, as the Law Faction, mustn¡¯t allow others to underestimate us as well!¡±


    Behind the group of Knights, Krose, who is already fatigued from casting consecutive spells, is charging along on a streak of lightning, whereas her two ¡®Flower Guardians¡¯¡ªDiyer and Muse¡ªaren¡¯tgging far behind. One of them stands on her left, while the other stands behind her to guard her.


    ¡°In the end, Lord Krose, there are a few words which we¡¯ve suppressed within our hearts for a long time. If we don¡¯t say them now, we might never get a chance.¡±


    ¡°Then, continue suppressing those words! Cough, Lord Archbishop, I also have some words that I would like to say...¡±


    Let us forget those living treasures, who are still pulling each other back even at the veryst moment. At the very least, they fulfilled the vow they made to theirrades and are using their very lives to protect the most beautiful ¡®fresh flower¡¯ in their minds.


    However, from the look of astonishment on the face of the flower, she isn¡¯t aware of it. It might be better for them to be unable to speak of their intentions. After all, it would definitely end with rejection.


    Shaking my head, my mind whirls about to generate ideas on how I could block their advances. Suddenly, a voice sounds by my ear.


    ¡°Niang niang, preparation for n C is ready. Do we activate it now?¡±


    TL: The way concubines address the queen.


    Do you still need to ask! This is regarding the world, what are you ying at! Quickly do it!


    ¡°I am waiting for you to save me! Why the hell are you asking for permission? Quickly activate it!¡±


    ¡°Save you? Then my tidbits for the year...¡±


    ¡°I will be paying for your tidbits next year, as well! No matter what conditions you have, I ept them all!!¡±


    Alright, motivation indeedes with potential profits. The next moment, I hear the sound that I had been waiting for a long time.


    ¡°Deng deng deng!¡±


    ¡°Kacha kacha!¡±


    That is the sound of the lock mechanism being unlocked and a gate being opened The stone wall suddenly splits apart, revealing the secret base hidden within. The warships are floating in mid-air, well-prepared and ready to strike at any time. When their bombardment begins, he has already begun his charge.


    The supposed n C is actually very simple. It only requires Harloys to bring the key down to the underwater base and open it during the crucial moment tounch a two-pronged attack.


    Without a doubt, this is the crucial moment. The next moment, under the encirclement of three parties, is a besieging battle of the majority against the minority.


    In the secret base, the remaining Mage Tower shoots a dazzling Fireball. In just the first encounter and already the foolishly dozing-away-Lamos¡¯s Eye is shot down.


    After which, the Mage Tower shoots multiple Fireballs consecutively, whereas the defensive cannons of the secret base sts over lethal lead cannonballs! At the same moment, the rapid Eagle Assault Warship has already begun its assault on the enemy.


    ¡°Shoot the enemy¡¯s dragon head! That¡¯s its only weakness!!¡±


    My reminder didn¡¯t go to waste. In the next moment, after the hoarse shouting of a few Dwarves, the main cannons of all the ships are shifted ordingly.


    ¡°Ha? I found some prey!¡±


    After hearing the familiar catchphrase, the main cannon on the warship shoots a perfect arc towards the unguarded final dragon head, exploding it.


    Just like in the legends, as long as all of the dragon heads are destroyed at the same moment, the Nine-headed Dragon would truly die for good. Seeing his body, which had regenerated by more than half, dissipating into ashes, I feel the burden in my heart has lifted.


    ¡°We¡¯ve won! We¡¯ve finally won!¡±

 Chapter 122

    Chapter 122: Old Friend


    In the old movies, the police would always arrivete. The ys and novels about the knight orders in charge of security were the same as well.


    In the epics of these legendary heroes, the allies of justice would always only arrive after a battle. It is doubtful whether they had been squatting by the corner of a wall and rushed out to bootlick the victor only after the battle had concluded. Or perhaps, they could have been waiting for an ideal moment to pop out for the spoils of war.


    At this moment, the Seafolk army who arrivedte had been met with some trouble.


    Interfering in a battle between two normal SemiGods would lead to one¡¯s death, let alone that the both of them weren¡¯t normal SemiGods. Even those who were spectating were at risk and had to remain vignt at all times. After a few Sea Giants who tried to help had perished to the sharp wind created by the sword and Dragon Breaths, no one was foolish enough to enter the fray and help mit suicide).


    The sh between the Forbidden Spells was earth-shattering. The voice of ¡®Emperor Yongye¡¯ which resounded through the entire city; the mountain-like Hydra who fell to the ground; the apparition of the ck skeleton king who covers the sky; the snow and ice of the surroundings; and the radiance from the Dragon Breath. If one could miss the sight and sound of all these, they could very well be deaf and blind.


    The fall of the Hydra struck fear in the hearts of the Seafolk. Strictly speaking, this leader of the Seafolk wasn¡¯t considered as a Seafolk. Rather, he was a Sea Monster of the deep sea as well as the beloved pet of the Queen of the Storms.


    He only came to help under the will of the Gods. He was caught in the battle out of sheer coincidence and died in it unexpectedly. This was beyond the expectation of the Goddess. This was bound to result in a series of chain reactions. First and foremost, it would be difficult to appease the rage of the Queen of the Storms.


    This ambitious Queen of the Storms may not be well-known on the continent, but her reputation had spread far and wide in the ocean and among the fishermen. She is famous for her violent temper, being irrational, her fickle-mindedness and unforgiving nature.


    The Queen of the Storms had been eyeing the Jurisdiction of an Avenger for a long time. Her propensity to hold grudges made her a troublesome foe to deal with. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that she just took a heavy blow from destroying her own avatar, she might have already sent down another avatar to seek vengeance.


    For the Seafolk who would then be victims of her rage, capturing the offender and offering him as a blood tribute would be a wise decision. However, it was a pity that due to the sh of the Forbidden Spell, the flow of the river had been stopped. The surrounding flood had been reduced to ice, causing the Seafolk distress, given that most of them were unable to leave the water.


    After all, they are the sons and daughters of the sea, not children of the snow. Those who were in proximity to the sh had been sealed solid in the water, while those who were a distance away found it unbearable to step foot onto theyer of ice.


    In response to the current summer season of And, the Seafolk who came are mainly those from warmer regions. Being cold-blooded and thinly-clothed, they were exceptionally sensitive to the weather. On the other hand, the Water Elementals were capable of passing through the frozen river. However, the moment they came into contact with the core regions of the sh, they were frozen solid inrge groups from the overwhelmingly low temperature.


    This is the result of a Forbidden Spell which had a low level ofpletion. If theplete Ice Aeon were to show itself to the world, the City of Rain would immediately go to waste, leaving a mark in history. After all, the previous few appearances of the Ice Aeon had caused the destruction of some certain cities or a certain kingdom, all having been recorded as important historical events.


    Even though it is only to this extent this time, I still feel a splitting headache from it. The re-emergence of this trademark Forbidden Spell means that the news of the reappearance of Emperor Yongye would soon spread across the entire world. Perhaps, the only thing that could be refuted would be that it wasn¡¯t Emperor Yongye himself but his sessor. However, one thing for sure was that the words of the Hydra were bound to bring about new trouble.


    Of course, it was also thanks to this iplete Ice Forbidden Spell that I didn¡¯t freeze myself over and am not bathing in the River Styx at this moment.


    ¡¾Your contribution for the hunt of the SemiGod Nine-headed Dragon Emperor Fioras is 89%, above the 80% basic requisite. Given the vast difference between the Hydra and you and the perfect elimination of the other party, you have been awarded with 16489 Fate Points, rankless Nine-headed Dragon Heart x1, Legend-tier Nine-colored Tear Stone x1, Legend-tier material Hydra Perfect Dragon Scale x4, Epic-tier material Hydra Superior Scales x32, Epic-tier material Hydra Tendon x7...¡¿


    ¡¾Due to the sessful hunting of a SemiGod giant Dragon, you have been awarded with the honorary title ¡®Dragon yer¡¯. After equipping the title, your damage against all Dragons and the descendants of Dragons will be increased by 10%, the effectiveness of the Race Talent of Dragons will be reduced by 20% and your noteworthiness to the Dragon Tribe will be increased by 200%. This title can be upgraded. ¡ª¡ª System Notice: To upgrade the title, the weakest Dragon you would have to hunt is Myth-tier Dragons. However, there would be additional bonuses if you hunt Immemorial Dragons.¡¿


    I ignore the vile advice of the System. Immemorial Dragons are capable of easily subduing Ancient Dragons like Molly. I would think twice before letting myself be in their bad graces even back then, when I was at my pinnacle. Although this is a hard-toe-by title thates with buffs, the difficulty in upgrading it is much too high.


    Looking at the numerous rewards I obtained via the System Notice, I am quite satisfied with the gains.


    As expected of an ancient being who had lived through countless ages, the Hydra was indeed filled with treasures. As for the 89% contribution, I was initially taken aback upon seeing it. However, when I thought about it, it did make sense. If I didn¡¯t contribute to the battle, this dragon hunt could not have ended in a victory in any other way.


    Before the sh between Forbidden Spell, the Hydra, who was adept in regeneration, was already in hisplete state. If it wasn¡¯t for my Ice Aeon, the Hydra would not have tore away six of its heads to gain control of his Dragon Breaths to counter it. The sh between the Forbidden Spells had severely wounded him, destroying another two of his heads. Only then was it possible for the Hydra, who only had a single head left, to be killed.


    The negative debuffs as a result of the aftermath of having his source of water frozen proved much more effective than the Dragon Sealing Chains, locking the Hydra¡¯s regeneration ability directly. He was then forced to use the final remaining bit of his life force to forcefully regrow his physical body, which revealed the chance for the Dwarves to destroy him in the end.


    While the risks were great, the rewards were incredible as well. Previously, I was on the verge of tears while looking at the zero skill points remaining on the System panel, as well as the messy Ice Magic skill tree which had skill points thrown into it. However, the rewards that I have reaped were sufficient to make up for my losses.


    The System might be unreliable, but it still obeys the basic principle of hard work being proportional to reward. It is impossible for the Sea Monster who doesn¡¯t don armor to drop any equipment, thus the System made up for it with arge sum of Fate Points and precious materials.


    With these points, I am able to pull myself up into the thirties (Bronze-rank). On the other hand, it seems possible for Reyne to reach Gold-rank... Now that I slightly calcte it, I realised that I have been scammed once again. The difficulty of growth for Reyne is probably a few dozen times easier than me. By the time I reach Gold-rank, she would already be Myth-rank.


    ¡¾System Notice: The regeneration ability of a Nine-headed Dragon could already cause you so much trouble despite fighting in a non-oceanic battlefield, where it is unable to exert his full prowess, and that after he is fatigued after getting thrashed for more than an hour by the Dragon yer. Are you sure that you want to challenge these immortals using your human form? If you¡¯re sure, please enable physical body exchange. The System will offer you a great bargain, just 2000 points.¡¿


    Of course not, how silly would I have to be to give up the Double Diamond physical body that I worked hard to attain in exchange for a mere unranked human physical body which has significantly lower upper limits.


    ¡°Denied, absolutely denied. So what if my growth rate is slow? It is all worth it as long as I grow powerful in the end.¡±


    ¡¾Warning: The Queen of the Storms has marked you. If there isn¡¯t a need, please do not approach coastal areas and, even more so, do not enter the sea. ¡ª¡ªOf course, if you insist, you can try to kill other Sea Monsters and true God¡¯s avatars. As long as you are in the sea, I can guarantee you that the rewards will be better than this.¡¿


    The Queen of the Storms marking me as a target for vengeance is within my expectations. To tell the truth, given my understanding of that person, it is bizarre for her not to send an avatar now at this very instant. As for challenging the massive Sea Monsters and the Storm Goddess in the sea? My suicide tendencies are not that advanced yet.


    ¡¾Warning: The reappearance of Emperor Yongye has piqued the attention of the Elven Gods. Please do not draw anymore attention to yourself or enter the Elven Churches. Otherwise, you get it. ¡ª¡ªTo those vindictive long-ears, the destruction of the Elf Kingdoms seem as though it had just happened yesterday. I wonder if you feel a chill down your back asionally, as though you have been cursed. Truthfully, your name has been carved on voodoo straw dolls, and they are selling like hotcakes.¡¿


    ¡¾Warning: The God of Holy Light has decreed for his worshipers to investigate the existence of the Undead Emperor. Once his existence has been verified, God Envoys and Heroic Spirits will be sent to the mortal world to pursue them. ¡ª¡ªDue to the onset of the Sacred War, the God of Holy Light has heightened his awareness. It seems that this God Power Regtion System is still in good working condition. However, I believe that you wouldn¡¯t really think of challenging the Heroic Spirit Holy Knights. Don¡¯t think that Dragon yers are the very pinnacle of Heroic Spirits. In the long annals of history, there are countless heroes. Among them, there are a couple of them whom even true Gods fear.¡¿


    ¡¾Warning: The War God whom the Beastmen worship, to your existence, is...


    ¡¾Warning: The Smiling Sisters, to your existence is...


    Should I say that I have had my fair share of radiance? Given my notoriety, the moment I reveal some signs of my existence, the attention of a bunch of big bosses appear on my System Notice, leaving me stunned.


    ¡°Darn it, the Sacred War has just barely started and their attention is focused on us? This will be troublesome.¡±


    ¡¾Notice: The Goddess of Moonlight has expressed some goodwill towards you and gifted Basr to the Heroic Spirit Hall of the God of Law. Due to your hard work, Wumianzhe has gained his first Heroic Spirit. Wumianzhe will probably reward you soon. Please work harder in poaching personnel.¡¿


    The God of Law Wumianzhe has already became a God Power Regtion System. Going by normal logic, there is a need to reward worshipers who made great contributions to the faith. The rationale behind his action is easy toprehend. On the other hand, the Goddess of Moonlight didn¡¯t get angry at losing a Heroic Spirit. On the other hand, she expressed her goodwill through Heroic Spirit Basr. That makes me at a loss.


    However, this isn¡¯t the moment to be thinking about such stuff. The Ice Aeon that I cast isn¡¯tplete and the ground will soon thaw. When the army of Seafolkes charging in, I would have to start considering what I should inscribe on my tombstone.


    We should make use of this opportunity when they had yet to catch a clear view of us to hide in the secret base. That would be wisest decision at the moment.


    When the remaining Eagle Assault Warshipsnded, the others quickly rushed up the ships. On the other hand, Reyne seems to have some other ns. She rides her mount into the distance and her destination seems to be the fragmented dragon head.


    ¡°What is thatss doing?¡±


    Helpless, I could only follow her to take a look. However, the moment I close in on her, I got the shock of my life.


    Reyne had rushed to the open wound of the dragon head and was just about to touch the flowing dragon blood.


    ¡°You idiot, that cannot be touched! Are you seeking death?¡±


    Frightened by my furious roar, Reyne felt indignant.


    ¡°But the knight novels always say that bathing in the dragon¡¯s blood would allow one to be imprable by any weapons? Furthermore, one would gain absolute strength. It can¡¯t be that those books would lie?¡±


    I am a little speechless. I immediately erase the thoughts of allowing her to rapidly advance into Gold-rank. I thought that her performance previously was not bad, but it seems that she is still the same rascal whocksmon sense. The stronger a rascal bes, the more trouble they bring you. I better slow down her growth a bit.


    ¡°Have you ever thought if those who wrote those novels have seen a true dragon before? That is poisonous blood! It can corrode stones! Do you think you are tougher than a stone?¡±


    ¡°But that person survived! Even now, he is still absorbing dragon blood.¡±


    ¡°That person?¡±


    Following the direction where Reyne¡¯s finger is pointing towards, a mortally wounded person lied in the midst of the poisonous blood. His current state is terrible, but from the look of the rhythmic motion of his diaphragm, he seems to still be alive.


    ¡°Marsolit?¡±


    Yes, that is the Blood Mage Emperor Marsolit, who was treated as a shield for the Hydra. That attack of the Dragon yer had attained the very pinnacle of the Concept of Dragon ying. Yet, in the midst of doing so, it didn¡¯t pose any additional threat towards targets who were non-dragon. Marsolit, whose chest was pierced through, didn¡¯t die on the spot.


    Hovering between life and death due to excessive loss of blood, he could only instinctively absorb blood for his survival. At this very moment, the only blood present in this battlefield was the poisonous blood of the Hydra.


    Marsolit is no longer in the form of a human. The right of his body has been corroded by the poisonous blood into disgusting lumps of flesh while the left of his body is frozen in ice. If it wasn¡¯t for the frost on his left protecting his heart and various important organs, he would be long dead. Even so, the condition of the left of the face ispletely different from the right, creating a sight thatpelled one to avert one¡¯s gaze.


    If we leave him here like this, he would die eventually. Even if we choose to save him, his body is filled with poisonous blood such that even the best Priest in the whole of And would probably be unable to treat him. He would still die in the end. After hesitating for a moment, I make my decision.


    ¡°Bring him along. I am probably the only one in the entire world who can save him.¡±


    A few minutester, in the midst of the strong wind and rain, the Eagle Warship flies into the secret base. By the time the Seafolk rush to the scene, the only thing that is left is the gigantic corpse of the Hydra.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Arlodante is a very small neutral country on the continent¡¯s southwest. The country consists of only around a dozen cities and most of its poption is concentrated in its capital, Arlo. However, no one would think of it as a small country.


    The Mages¡¯ Country, Country of Magic and Superpower Without City Walls. These are the more well-known titles of Arlodante, as well as factsmonly agreed upon throughout the continent.


    This is a heaven for Mages. Not just for themonly seen Elemental Mages in the continent, but Mages of Divine Art, Seers, Warlocks and Dark Mages are also gathered here. There are also private research facilities for Necromancers and Blood Mages, who are the public enemy of the continent. As long as they don¡¯t overdo it, the country¡¯s governing body would simply turn a blind eye to them.


    Around 1% of its entire poption are spellcasters. Even though 90% of them are rookies who can¡¯t even be considered as a disciples of magic,pared to the other countries, they have a more than 100 times ratio of Mages that be useful assets.


    It is the sacrednd of all Mages. By the way, the 2nd generation Rnd also trained here previously and even went to school. This is where he met Harloys.


    There are nobles in this country, but the nobles do not hold privileges aspared to the civilians. In this country, true authority is held in the hands of the spellcasters.


    The atmosphere of academics is very strong here. Countless spellcasters study and grow here and the number of Mage Organisations here are innumerable. Only the wisest and strongest Mage are allowed to possess their personal experimentb in the Floating City ¡®Cloud Tower¡¯.


    The true authority over the decision-making of this country belongs to the 18 strongest Mage Organisations in the Cloud Tower. The individual masterminds of these organisations then created a council termed as the ¡®Truth Symposium¡¯. The name may not sound authoritative, but even the small kids in Arlodante know that the members of the Symposium are the ones who hold true power over the governance of the country.


    At his moment, in a hotel in Cloud City, a young man and woman, seemingly a couple, areining to one another. Of the two of them, the female is one of the hottest new stars in Arlodante.


    ¡°The previous time, it was Battle Mage Hilton from the ¡®Sword of Order¡¯, and this time, it is one of the top ten Mage Mentor of the Red Sea Conference. This is the sixth time this month. Adam, do you intend to bash every single spellcaster in the Cloud Tower at least once?¡±


    ¡°Magaret, it was really an ident. The fool said right in front of me that those who came from the Underground World are a group of barbarians. Thus, I showed him the wrath of barbarians.¡±


    ¡°Wait, it¡¯s a him? I am talking about Mage Mentor Amelia, she is a female.¡±


    ¡°Oh oh oh, I recall now. Yesterday, I drank too much and identally kicked a horned Wyrm. To think that little bastard would dare to bite me... In the end, after I was done thrashing it, I realised that it was someone¡¯s Magic Pet. Thus, I got into an argument with its owner.¡±


    The expressionless Magaret props up her sses as a cold glint shes on it. This was a habitual movement of hers when she was enraged. It is often a premonition that someone is going to meet with misfortune. And so, Adam, who got into trouble, immediately takes a step backwards in fright.


    ¡°There is only one person with a Horned Scorpion Dragon in the entirety of Arlo, and that is Great Summoner Fendi from Blue Tower. His mentor is my friend. Adam, tell me the truth, how many fights have you got into this month?¡±


    Facing Magaret¡¯s interrogation, Adam seems like a grade schooler who feels embarrassed getting reprimanded aftermitting a mistake. Adam lowers his head solemnly as Magaret shakes her head in response.


    ¡°Silence won¡¯t solve the problem. Tell it to me straight, some things would have to be settled sooner orter. I still hold quite a bit of seniority here, so they should probably let it slip on my ount. Hmph, given how you would feel embarrassed by this, it seems like you are maturing.¡±


    ¡°Wait, I am almost done counting. The one in the bar two nights ago, forty-seven. The one in the restaurant two days ago, forty-eight...¡±


    So, it seems that he didn¡¯t lower his head due to embarrassment. He was busy counting with his fingers the number of fights he had got into. Magaret realises that she has underestimated the thickness of Adam¡¯s skin once again.


    Even though she is almost numb to this after being tortured by the unreliable nature of Rnd and Adam in the long period of time they had been together, the Magaret who usually deals with trouble calmly begins choking in anger.


    ¡°It has only been seven days this month and you have already fought almost fifty battles! Are you really intending to bash the face of every single spellcaster?! How do you expect me to walk with my head held high like that?¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to be promoted to a Truth Overseer? It has been spreading furiously throughout the streets and alleys. That is the highest executive of the country, and I am still intending on using your name to feed myself. The man of a Truth Overseer, how impressive it would be when I boast about it to the others.¡±


    Truth Overseer is the non-official title for members of the ¡®Truth Symposium¡¯. Bing one of the members of the symposium means to be one of the few who holds ultimate authority in Arlodante.


    At this moment, the Great Saint who is about to wield ultimate authority has a face of helplessness. She stares fixedly at the man who ims to want to rely on her for his own image, wanting tosh out at him but has no idea where she should start from.


    ¡°I refused.¡±


    ¡°Ah? Why did you refuse? That is such a pity. I won¡¯t be able to eat for free like that.¡±


    Despite his words indicating overt regret, Adam¡¯s face has a smile which said that he expected it. From the very start, he knew that Magaret would make such a choice.


    ¡°In the end, I was dragged down by you bastards. Rnd might not be reliable, but the words that he speaks of earnestly has to be taken seriously and carefully. If so many things are to happen in the future, what meaning would there be for me to stay here? Besides, I have already said that which should be said to my old friends. I am already tired of dealing with those petty little problems.¡±


    Rejecting the position of ultimate authority in a country is almost equivalent to dumping away a source of trouble. To Magaret, authority is only an obstruction and burden. She would have to spend arge portion of her time on administrative affairs. A Truth Overseer may seem to be a position of great glory, but there isn¡¯t too much of a difference between a Truth Overseer and a busy administrative official.


    ¡°Three hours ago, thetest information has arrived from east Eich, saying that they have found traces of Emperor Yongye¡¯s Forbidden Spell, Ice Aeon, and that they hope for specialists to be sent to ascertain it. There are a few Truth Overseers who view this information with utmost concern and have sent their trusted aides to investigate the matter.¡±


    ¡°Less than half a year has passed and Rnd has already stirred up trouble. That is quick. Then, is it considered as my victory?¡±


    Magaret nods her head in frustration. Who would have expected that he would be revealed so swiftly.


    On their way here, Magaret made a bet with Adam on whether Rnd would be able to stay out of trouble for a year. Apparently, the victory went to Adam, who knew Rnd better.


    ¡°Un? You have already packed your luggage? Where did you get your news from?¡±


    ¡°Two days ago, I received a letter from that fellow. It contains a bunch of nonsense about how he has been well recently, and how he has been popr among females recently, even finding quite a few beautiful girlfriends. Judging from how the fellow only talked about nonsense, how there isn¡¯t even an iota of realism in his bragging, he has obviously met with some troubletely and requires help. It is rare to see that fellow lowering his head to seek help. Thus, I had been happy these few days and celebrated for a bit.¡±


    ¡°Your way of celebration is to beat up passers-by? Forget it, it is all my fault. Bringing you here was a mistake of mine. Anyway, I have finished conveying my messages and it is about time to leave. Right, the one to lead the team to east Eich is Mage Mentor Amelia, un, the one whom you beat up. We will be travelling along with them.¡±


    ¡°That... Can you find another crew? That woman is a little scary.¡±


    ¡°You have indeed recalled her, but yet you chose to pretend that you aren¡¯t aware of it. What did you do? How did you make the kind Amelia get so angry?¡±


    ¡°... I mocked her pet, saying that it is too weak, iparable to Rnd¡¯s. In the end, she said that she wanted to use me as an ingredient for her new creation. Thus, I beat her up.¡±


    ¡°If you just mocked her, she probably wouldn¡¯t have been provoked. Even as an ex-Truth Overseer, she is well-known for her amiable temper. As for using you as an experiment ingredient, I can¡¯t imagine such wordsing from her.¡±


    ¡°That... I only mocked her after trying my hands on those little fellows of hers. Who knew that those little fellows are so brittle, falling apart instantly. They are much inferior inparison to those fellows in the Undead District.¡±


    ¡°That is to say, you ruined Amelia¡¯s experimental creations? No wonder she is so furious. However, even if just on my ount, she wouldn¡¯t say such vicious words. Although her field of expertise is a little hard for normal humans to ept, she is third in the ¡®Mage who I want as my girlfriend¡¯ poll. Furthermore, she was already a teacher even when I was still an apprentice. Back then, she was already well-known for her cordial disposition. No matter what, she doesn¡¯t seem like a crazy Mage who would say such words.¡±


    After pondering for a moment, a look of realisation appears on Adam¡¯s face.


    ¡°...Back then, the moment I mentioned that Rnd¡¯s creations are much stronger than hers, she became very agitated. Afterwards, she immediately started hurling insults. She even shrieked ¡®Rnd? You mean that useless fool who can¡¯t even cast Snowstorm? The thief who stole all my research data? The scamming bastard whom I insult ten thousand times every single day?¡¯.¡±


    ¡°That Rnd? Could it be an ovep in their names?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think that there is anyone other than that Rnd who can turn a smiling and gentledy into a frenzied shrieking woman with just his name. Furthermore, I looked through the graduation portraits of that year and I can confirm that it is that Rnd.¡±


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say so earlier? If so, it would be hard to reject her. Aren¡¯t we bringing Rnd trouble this way? As an ex-Truth Overseer, Amelia isn¡¯t easy to deal with.¡±


    ¡°Heh, how difficult can rejection be? We can just sneak off. Besides, judging from how happily you are smiling, you are probably waiting for him to make a fool of himself.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you smiling as well? Are you that happy that you can pull one over on him?¡±


    The two people chat as they walk along the street. Under the setting sun, their shadows extend for a very long distance. In the alley by the side, a female cloaked in a mantle is leaning against the wall, staring at the two of them.


    ¡°Indeed, you all know the whereabouts of Rnd. I definitely won¡¯t let you all get away. This time, I will get my revenge! Darned Rnd, darned Rnd, darned Rnd...¡±


    The stalker-likedy bites on her finger while frenziedly cursing Rnd. She is oblivious to the fact that the skin on her finger had torn from the biting and fresh blood is flowing out from the wound. The look of her cursing frenziedly bore no resemnce to what an idol of the crowd would look like. Even the most dangerous and vicious of the witches probably wouldn¡¯t be as deranged as her.


    ¡°Lord Amelia?¡±


    Amelia pauses for a moment before turning around. At this very moment, her face is one of a gentle and kind mentor.


    ¡°Good evening, students. Are you all here for a walk as well?¡±


    From a certain viewpoint, her skill in changing faces has already reached the pinnacle. When the male students left happily with her signatures, she turns around and her face contorts back into resembling a frenzied witch once again.


    ¡°Darned Rnd, darned Rnd, darned Rnd...¡±


    Wyrm


    ->Using it as a word to refer to an inferior species of Dragon


    TL Rant: Hehe, appearance of another one of my favorite characters in the series. She¡¯s a little scary, though.

 Chapter 123

    Chapter 123: Competition


    Even though the secret base was locked down, its interior was still bright as though it were daytime. In addition to the activation of the illumination tools, the Mage Towers were also in operation, brightening everything in their surroundings.


    At this moment, an anachronistic event is urring on a stretch of tnd.


    ¡°Handball, handball in the restricted area! Referee, this is a penalty kick. It is definitely a penalty kick! Hell, ignoring me. Did you ept a bribe again?!¡±


    Diyer is full of resentment. If the referee is not going to call a foul on such an obvious handball in the restricted area, how could this match go on?


    ¡°Ha, you actually dare to howl at the referee, red handkerchief (Substitute for the red card)!¡±


    The gleeful Yingou whips out an old handkerchief that¡¯s painted red and waves it towards Diyer.


    ¡°Friendshipes before victory. Such obnoxious yers and such a fair referee. I praise you, the fair Goblin referee,¡± Beifeng deres with a calm expression. However, if he wasn¡¯t the one whomitted the handball foul in the first ce, perhaps his words would be much more convincing.


    Enraged by Beifeng¡¯s words, Diyer whips out his staff in preparation to start a battle against him. However, his teammates swiftly stop him.


    ¡°It is normal for Goblins to ept bribes. On the contrary, it would be abnormal for them to not ept bribes. It¡¯s because we already know that he¡¯s been bribed that we don¡¯t have to worry about him extorting us. Furthermore, it¡¯s not like you don¡¯t know how greedy thatd, Yingou, is. Since he epted the money, he¡¯s obviously already thrown his pride away. If you get into an argument with him, he would only make use of this opportunity to expel more of our yers out. If that happens, we will lose for sure.¡±


    ¡°Yesterday, didn¡¯t you all say that we were going to send in money too? Why is that fellow even more against us today?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because we only sent in 2,000 gold coins. But the Gentlemen National Football Team (Simplified as National Team) sent in 6,000. Given that his eyes twinkle at the mere sight of money, how else would that Goblin referee?¡±


    ¡°Then why did our lord allow that Goblin to referee? Can¡¯t we swap him out for an impartial one?¡±


    ¡°I have also asked our lord. Lord Rnd said that Goblins have short legs, making them unable to y the game properly, so neither team was interested in employing them into their lineup. It is possible to swap the referee, but that¡¯s as long as we have sufficient yers. Are you willing to ept yers whose knees don¡¯t even reach the height of the ball?¡±


    ¡°...Actually, they can try bing the goalkeeper. Oh, let¡¯s just forget it. We¡¯d just beughingstocks.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, indeed. That¡¯d be even more ridiculous. Even if they jumped, they probably wouldn¡¯t be able to touch the ball.¡¯


    Anyway, it was only for entertainment. The price for losing was just some household chores. The two people chuckle without thinking too deeply into the matter. To the side, Yingou, Kab, and the other Goblins¡¯ faces darken upon hearing their words, as rage well up within them.


    ¡°Insulting the referee, foul! Red handkerchief!¡±


    ¡°Red handkerchief your head, we¡¯re already off-field! Are there any football rules that make it possible to foul someone for chatting?¡±


    Un, you¡¯re not seeing things. This is a footballpetition between an allied union of the Law Faction and the East Mist Communal Country (Simplified as France National Team) and the Gentlemen National Football Team (Simplified as National Team). Again, you¡¯re not seeing things. These simplifications were my brainchildren. I only wanted to make use of this opportunity to vent the frustration I had been piling up in the depths of my heart for many years.


    TL: Law (ÂÉ·¨)| National/ Country (¹ú)| Thus, when simplified, ·¨¹ú -> France.


    It¡¯s been a month since we started hiding in the secret base. There¡¯s sufficient food and potable water here, but staying a long period of time in the restricted space of this chamber made the group, which was used to being carefree, ufortable. The morale of the group was low, and thus, it was time for a sports event that could be used to vent one¡¯s excessive vigor.


    Thus, I ¡®invented¡¯ football, basketball, badminton and simr ball-rted sports. However, the only sport epted by the group is football, which has the highest level of difficulty. After all, basketball and such are too dependent on one¡¯s innate talent. Furthermore, the various races are much too different, making it impossible for them to y on the same field.


    For example, in basketball, there would inevitably be physical shes between the yers. In such cases, then the races blessed with strong, physical bodies had the greater advantage. Furthermore, even the Giants would be dunking with their heads lowered, as well as the Goblins and Dwarves who can¡¯t even see the even with their heads raised. The reason why football is epted by the masses is because everyone isn¡¯t used to kicking with their foot. Thus, they were all on the same level.


    Even so, there many kinds of messy scenarios that still kept on happening.


    ¡°The heck, Beifeng. You¡¯re really getting too hooked on it! Can¡¯t you just follow the rules and use your legs to kick the ball!¡±


    The seemingly honest man smiles faintly.


    ¡°Excluding the hands, the rules allow yers to use their other body parts to hit the ball. Tails fit such a description. How about you try using your tail as well?¡±


    With an honest smile, Beifeng¡¯s face is full of astonishment, seemingly doubtful as to why the opponents weren¡¯t using their tails.


    ¡°I¡¯m a human, why would I x have a tail! You #%......%£¤%!¡± I have no idea how many unlucky fellows have been provoked into hurling abuse at the captain of the National Football Team, Beifeng.Herault.


    Alright, this here is the crux of the problem. The rules for football yed between humans aren¡¯t suitable for foreign races. Thus all kinds of bugs crop up during the game.


    However, should I say that the simplified name, National Football Team, was used very aptly? Leading the National Football Team, Beifeng and his crew are experts at searching for bugs and loopholes. All kinds of messy tricks continuously appear on the field, as they cross the limits of decency over and over again.


    The two teams have exchanged blows for more than thirty matches, but the France National Team has only won five. The remaining ones were won by the National Football Team through their schemes.


    Of course, bugs that appear on the field will be fixed when the game ends. In a sense, this is also a way of forcing the National Football Team, who iscking in yers, to search for new loopholes in the rules.


    ¡°Insulting the opponent, red handkerchief!¡±


    After epting their money, the Goblins diligently fulfill their responsibility and immediately calls a foul towards their opponent.


    Alright, at least he¡¯s the third unlucky fellow to have been sent out today. The current situation turns into an 11v19 match.


    What, the number of yers isn¡¯t correct? Initially, we yed 11v11, but that group of Gentlemen was simply much too savage. It¡¯s impossible to y without additional ten yers or so in the other team. Even then, under all kinds of underhanded tricks, the France National Team was only able to win a handful of matches, while the National Football Team continues their winning streak.


    What? This is open corruption? After so many years, watching thepetition of the National Football Team is just like a penalty game. Since we¡¯re at a foreign world now, let¡¯s just continue on with the open corruption for a while longer.


    Sigh, when can the National Football Team get into the world cuppetition again? I don¡¯t expect them to win, but it should at least end in a draw so that we can celebrate it a little.


    ¡°You want to win? In the afterlife!¡±


    Just when I¡¯m drifting off into wondend, the Dwarf Lowens¡¯s hoarse voice pulls me back to cruel reality.


    Thus, I start my revenge without any hesitation.


    ¡°Ice Wall!¡±


    My ice sword stabs into the ground, and an ice wall rises up in front of Lowens, who is dribbling the ball. Pang dang, he crashes into the wall, and the dragon-skin football smashes into his face before he falls violently onto the ground.


    In the rules that I came up with, direct aggression or any hindering of opponents is off-limits. However, the creation of a wall on the ground isn¡¯t. Furthermore, the one I¡¯m dealing with isn¡¯t an opponent.


    ¡°Bastard Rnd, we¡¯re from the same side! Why the heck are you blocking me!¡±


    Perhaps it¡¯s due to Lowens¡¯s incredibly buff body that allows the Dwarf to surpass the disadvantage of having short limbs and thus, be a member of the team.


    Furthermore, the words that he shouted are the very same, making me both distressed and depressed.


    I originally intended to join the human¡¯s faction, yet why did they insist that I join the Gentlemen¡¯s side? Furthermore, they even restricted my actions, preventing me from using underhanded methods and forcing me to be a goalkeeper who¡¯s unable to move freely. Does this mean that rather than a human, I am more of a Gentleman?


    ¡°That, I didn¡¯t do that. Look at Reyne on the opposite side, she¡¯s also an Aurora Knight. She must be the one responsible for it.¡±


    ¡°What are you going on about! How could thatss, Reyne, be so despicable? She¡¯s even using a three-tier wall that caters to one¡¯s height. Knocking on the knees first, before the abdomen and finally the head! My waist...¡±


    While the teammates of the National Football Team are busy arguing, the ball has been picked up by Casio, who is ying the role of a forward. In an instant, tension can be seen on the faces of the France Football Team members.


    Recently, the rules have undergone a series of changes, limiting all kinds of supernatural abilities and race talents. However, one thing that cannot be limited is Casio¡¯s four legs.


    That agile Centaur is a true sharpshooter and a nomad. Previously, in order to limit him, the France National Team came onto the field with a Knight order, forcefully turning football into polo.


    However, this kind of y is unfair to the other yers. Thus, after that single victory, horse riding has been added to the list of banned actions in the rule book.


    Of course, absolute fairness is impossible to achieve. Regardless of whether Casio is able to run faster than a war horse, it¡¯s highly improbable to expect a Centaur to be able to walk on two legs.


    At this moment, Casio fully expresses his ability as a fantasista. After a few feints, he manages to get past the defenders through a series of high-speed maneuvers and soon, he approaches the scoring region, about to earn another easy goal.


    ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHH!¡±


    Indeed, young men do getcent after being praised a few times. The moment I finish my words, he trips on his front hooves and falls to the floor.


    ¡°That bastard dug a pit to trap horses! To think that he even prepared a rope to trip me, you all are too vile! Do you all think that this is a battlefield? Where is your sportsmanship?¡±


    At the back of the field, I fondle my nose, not saying a single word. It was something I thought of when chatting with Reyne yesterday night, but I didn¡¯t expect that they would really carry it out.


    ¡°Looks like rule number 643 is also confirmed¡ªthe banning of any tampering of the football field beforehand.¡±


    Around forty to fifty new ways to cheat would appear in every single game. Presently, our football rule book is already as thick as a telephone directory. I reckon that if they continue on this way, by the time the final edition of the rule book has been confirmed, it would probably berge enough to fill a whole bookshelf by itself.


    ¡°Heh, by then, when new yers join the game, we¡¯d first have a written examination, banning all yers who score less than 60 points from entering the field. After the written examination, we¡¯ll test them on their ability to dribble, making turns and carrying out underhanded tricks, one item at a time. Before they can even pass the examination, they¡¯d probably be so pissed off that they¡¯d be tempted to murder the examiner. After passing the examination, a C-ss license will be given. If you¡¯re able to survive on the football field for ten years, you¡¯ll be promoted and given a B-ss license. Additionally, football stars will be able to exchange it for an A-ss license.¡±


    Of course, I can limit the rules to state what can be done rather than what cannot be done. However, there isn¡¯t much point to it. Anyway, this is for entertainment purposes, and it¡¯s much more interesting this way.


    Furthermore, it seems that they¡¯ve already treated football as a battle of wits. The true way of winning is toe up with underhanded methods to trip their opponents. What used to be a pure battle of physical prowess has be an integrated sport in which yerspete over both physical prowess and intelligence. I can¡¯t wait to see how football will evolve in this foreign world.


    ¡°No matter what it bes, at least it¡¯ll be much better than homicide tennis and table tennis.¡±


    Cold sweat drenches my back the moment I recall the past two failures. I had already limited what the yers were able to do in those two sports, thus sealing arge portion of the loopholes that could be exploited. However, the sports apparently evolved in a bizarre direction.


    ¡°Since I can only serve in the way the rules dictate, I will put my full strength into it. Prepare yourself¡ªWhite Whale Serve!¡±


    The female Aurora Knight¡¯s serve is elegant, and the Snow Giant transformation adds great force to it. However, after seeing the shattered metal tennis ball, it seemed that if her serve hadn¡¯t been off, someone might have died on the spot.


    ¡°Hmph, it¡¯s time for me to show you what true skills are. Look, Disappearing Magic Ball! There is only one true ball in the midst of thousands of golden balls!¡±


    Golden balls, your head! Those are obviously countless arrows shot by a golden bow. What do you mean by there¡¯s a true one in its midst? The main problem here is the countless tennis balls on the tennis court! You disappear, Casio!


    ¡°Prepare yourself! The saber severs the physical body, the heart splits the soul. Razor Serve!¡±


    Do you think that it¡¯s a razor just because you said that it¡¯s a razor? Where is your ball? I can only see sword qi! Do you think that other people won¡¯t notice it just because you¡¯re using a racket to create Sword Qi? I know that move, too. Look, Whirlwind Cut Serve, let¡¯s see if you can survive this!


    It¡¯s fortunate that it¡¯s a special ball created using dragon skin. Otherwise, it would have been reduced to powder just from their brute strength. Very quickly, no one yed these two games anymore. After all, other than the few perverts, everyone cherished their own lives.


    I learned from this lesson. If the rules dictate everything too rigidly, the yers would only be able to increase the force behind their serves and returns. In the end, each return would be even more bizarre and heavier than the previous one. It¡¯d just be a matter of time before someone died.


    ¡°Homicide tennis or whatever, let¡¯s just drop it and focus our attention on cheating. This should be safer for the yers and the audience.¡±


    However, reality has already proven that safety is rtive. When forced into a corner, Giant¡¯s Leg Bone and Nashor¡¯s Tooth will start appearing on the battlefield. Suarez¡¯s fang and Suarez¡¯s ws are alsomon visitors on the field. Nevertheless, everyone is still interested in the game, which shows that this bizarre version of football still has room for development.


    ¡°Perhaps it might even make it to the Country of Mages and a bunch of Mages could ride brooms in midair to y the game. Then, there can be someone responsible for smacking opponents off their brooms. Un? Somehow, it seems familiar. I think a foreign wizard has already invented it. I think it¡¯s called... Quidditch!¡±


    While I¡¯m busy recalling the memories of the past, a France National Team member has dribbled the ball forward, and a knight shoots with great force.


    ¡°Ice Wall!¡±


    My ice sword stabs into the ground once more, and the entire goal is blocked by an ice wall. The enemy¡¯s kick is unable to send the ball through, and it¡¯s deflected back.


    This is clearly an act of cheating. Naturally, this method of creating objects in front of the goalpost to hinder the ball will be banned afterward and can only be used once.


    ¡°Rule number 644. The banning of the tampering of the football field¡¯s geography. Damn it, one less loophole to exploit.¡±


    Although I¡¯m internally depressed due to the fewer loopholes to exploit, I smile brightly at the opponents so as to suppress their morale and confidence. However, in the next moment, a lightning strike destroys my ice wall.


    ¡°Ice Wall is a 4-circle magic spell. He doesn¡¯t have much mana, so it¡¯s impossible for him to cast it too many times. Don¡¯t give up, push on!¡±


    Krose¡¯s voice invigorates the morale of the entire team. However, I frown. Naturally, it¡¯s not because of the youths who are cheering loudly before me.


    ¡°Rule number 645. The banning of off-field members from interfering with the field. To get your cheering squad to help, this is too much.¡±


    Wearing a short skirt, Krose is pushed onto the position of the cheering team. However, all along, she has been hoping to get on the field.


    At this moment, Reyne has already dribbled the ball to my front. However, I had no intention of blocking her advance.


    ¡°Aiyo! I¡¯m in pain! My tail has been bent from the impact!¡±


    Yes, the reason why I¡¯m not at all worried is because of my golden defender¡ªBeifeng.Herault.


    With him around, scoring is no longer apetition of one¡¯s physical abilities. The first thing you have to deal with is his endless, thick-skinned underhanded tricks.


    This time, just by having his tail stepped on (I realized that he intentionally ced his tail under the person¡¯s foot), the fellow lies down on the field, puts on an act, then...


    ¡°Red handkerchief!¡± How could the bribed Yingou miss out on such an opportunity? A red handkerchief once again changes the entire situation.


    The presence of this referee is simply too strong. The boos from each side of the field pierce into the heavens.


    ¡°Rule number 646, if the other party strongly objects, the spectators can vote to enable the substitution of referees.¡±


    After a series of messing around with one another, the football match finally reaches itsst moments. The National Football Team is leading by 30:9 (You didn¡¯t see wrongly, it¡¯s much easier to score in this messy game than in conventional football games.)


    ¡°It¡¯s time to end it. If we don¡¯t, the France National Team¡¯s goals will reach the double digits.¡±


    ¡°Referee, we want to change yers! I¡¯ll be going off-field for Clint¡¯s entry!¡±


    The moment those words are said, the hyped up crowd immediately turns silent. When the giant figure enters the field, the surrounding crowd collectively takes a few steps back.


    After all, he caused quite an impact when he walked onto the field a week ago.


    Back then, when I shouted, ¡®The crucial moment is here. Everyone, charge! Kill them!¡¯, that fellow just presses a button and boom boom, the entire field and all the yers on it were sent flying.


    Although he did control the quantity of gunpowder properly and no one was injured by the explosions, the chili powder, and pepper that were mixed in it still brought about excruciating pain to those caught in it.


    After the smoke clears, most people were gued with red eyes and coughed for two to three days. At the time, Clint was beaten up to the point his face swelled up like a pig¡¯s head. He is also demoted from a key yer to a substitute.


    I only found out after the matter that it was because of me saying that the football field is like a battlefield and that we have to prepare in advance. That fellow took my words seriously and actually made preparations as though it were a battlefield.


    A night before, he dug several holes in the field and filled it with over nine hundred miniature Goblin explosives. Fortunately, he designed the explosions in a such a profound way that no one was severely injured. Even so, thepetition was ced on hiatus for three days, and quite a few spectators were caught in it.


    Even though explosives have been clearly banned from the field, his hulking figure undoubtedly reminds everyone of the tragedy that happened.


    ¡°Clint, I will leave it to you. Destroy them!¡±


    The person Clint substitutes is me. His hulking figure makes him suitable to be a goalkeeper. However, the truth is that Clint doesn¡¯t know how to defend the goalpost. The reason I substituted him in isn¡¯t for him to defend the goalpost either. At this moment, my primary goal is to quickly escape and find a safe spot.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. This time, I didn¡¯t bring any explosives...¡±


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    His lie is exposed in two seconds. The unlucky Diyer was sent flying.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The second bomb was in the spectator stands. How could the spectators remain interested in watching the match after that? All of them, including the yers, scatter and run in all directions. Under the multiple sounds of explosions, with various yers being sted around in the background, the football match ends prematurely as usual.


    The next day, the drama-like ending of the football match is still the hottest topic of conversation. The figure of the sinner who hangs upside down on the football field bes the target of contempt for the masses.


    ¡°Hmph, it¡¯s all thanks to that bastard that I lost all my money.¡±


    ¡°What did you bet? The victory of the France National Team? Then, you really deserve to lose.¡±


    ¡°No, the National Football Team is too shameless. As long as underhanded tricks are still allowed, the France National Team, even with their overwhelming numbers, can¡¯t possibly win. I only bet that the France National Team would score ten or more goals.¡±


    ¡°I also bet on that. It was so close, just one more goal. It¡¯s such a pity! However, it seems that there are a lot of people who chose to bet that as well. The results made them so enraged, they¡¯re on the verge of exploding.¡±


    ¡°You all don¡¯t get it. This time, my bet is on Clint sting away the entire field. In the end, I was spot on! It¡¯s a ten times payout!¡±


    ¡°The heck, to think you would even get that spot on. You¡¯re really incredible. However, is such a bet allowed as well?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t say. There¡¯s even a ¡®Suarez¡¯s fang¡¯ option. As long as a biting incident urs on the field, it¡¯s considered as a win. Previously, someone won quite a sum betting on it. This time, I also chose to bet on this one. It is a pity that I was off.¡±


    ¡°Impressive, to think someone would dare to bet on such a minuscule possibility and even win. However, that ten times payout for an explosion on the football field seems to be unexpectedly low.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, it seems like there¡¯s a fellow who ced great stakes on this option. If I¡¯m not wrong, he seems to have also bet on the ¡®An explosion closure before the France National Team can score 10 goals¡¯. He single-handedly won 90% of the stakes, which caused the payout rate to be lowered...¡±


    In a certain pitch ck room, the fortunate ones who won the majority of the stakes, stare at the mountain of gold coins before them andugh maniacally.


    ¡°Stopughing, it¡¯s time to split the spoils!¡±


    I survey the surroundings. My aplices, Yingou, Beifeng, and Reyne, are all here. Their eyes are filled with a thirst for the profits.


    ¡°Yingou, here is your portion. A fifth of it. You¡¯ve worked hard for the referee work and the preparations for the explosives.¡±


    Yingou happily collects the money pouches. To a Goblin, nothing brings greater happiness than counting gold coins.


    ¡°Let¡¯s continue working together. We will make big money together!¡±


    I nod my head with a smile. I didn¡¯t intend to tell him that due to him going overboard on the field, his rights as a referee have been stripped from him. The next time, the one sitting beside me to split the spoils may very well be the Goblin Prince Kab.


    ¡°Beifeng, here¡¯s yours. A fifth of the lump-sum. You did well on the field, but...¡±


    ¡°I understand. I won¡¯t forget Brother Clint, who took the me. As the elder brother, I have to value our brotherhood, otherwise, how else can I convince the crowds. Leave the aftermath to me, I will make sure that Brother Clint will be satisfied with the ending.¡±


    Although I had no idea when this person had be the publicly recognized leader of the Gentlemen, I still nod my head at his words. In a sense, so long as it¡¯s something that doesn¡¯t concern his hobbies, the cunning Beifeng is a reliable ally. His actions are swift and nimble, and he is much more trustworthy than anyone else.


    ¡°Reyne, a twentieth. Be more serious the next time you kick. Your expressions and actions are much too fake. We almost got exposed, did you know that?¡±


    ¡°Brother Rnd, didn¡¯t we agree on a fifth?¡±


    ¡°You fool, what use is there for a kid to have her hands on so much money? I will help you take care of it and pass it to you when you grow up.¡±


    ¡°Oh, alright.¡±


    Perhaps the princess was just joining in for the fun of it. Despite being exploited, she didn¡¯t get angry in the slightest.


    ¡°Oh right, Brother Rnd, do you know that Big Sister Kelly made a bet with me as well?¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    ¡°She said that you would definitely confiscate my portion through the reason that children should not spend money extravagantly.¡±


    ¡°Heh, she sure understands me well... No, that¡¯s not right. Do you think that your Big Brother Rnd is such a person?¡±


    Suddenly, I realize that something is amiss.


    ¡°Wait, how did Kelly know about this?¡±


    ¡°Hehe, it¡¯s as you¡¯ve said. My expression was too fake, and I got exposed.¡± Knocking a fist on her head, Reyne yfully sticks out her tongue.


    The moment she finishes her words, Beifeng and Yingou grab their money and prepare to sneak off. But before they can leave, the door suddenly opens.


    ¡°As I expected! Lord, you, you are really unbelievable! When I first heard of it, I thought that someone was framing you. How can you call yourself an oracle of the God of Law like this!¡±


    Krose¡¯s face is filled with sorrow and shock, as though seeing her own child walking down a twisted path.


    ¡°The fortune that Momo saved up with much difficulty... It¡¯s you again, you evil Rnd! But as long as Momo is allowed to hug little Rolo to sleep tonight, I will let it slide. Hehe, Momo promises that she won¡¯t do anything. Really! At most, I will only remove his clothes a little...¡±


    Momo, wipe your saliva before you continue speaking! What do you mean by doing nothing? I would be truly foolish if I trusted your words.


    ¡°Little Rnd. Hehe, to think you would dare to lead Reyne astray. Did you forget the ways of your Big Sister Kelly? Big Sister Kelly definitely isn¡¯t angry just because she lost money.¡±


    That, Big Sister Kelly, I will refund you the amount you have lost. Don¡¯t smile at me in that manner, you are scaring me.


    ¡°My armor. The Missilor mithril alloy full body armor that I almost lost my life to obtain. Lord, can you return it to me?¡±


    The door has been blocked by angry debtors. There are familiar looks of anger on familiar faces. After lowering my head in contemtion for a moment, I make a deration.


    ¡°One must remain rational when watching football. Gambling will ruin one¡¯s entire life, and I mean it! Furthermore, humans live to fulfill their greed, so it is impossible for me to refund you all. Right, Yingou and Beifeng are about to leave, do not let them escape. Finally, please do not hit my face, I still have to meet someone tomorrow.¡±


    ¡¾Rule number 647. The personnel rted to the footballpetition aren¡¯t allowed to ce bets on it. Rule number 648. The greedy Goblins are not allowed to serve as referees, and the cunning Rnd is not allowed to join in thepetition! Goblins and Rnd are permanently banned from gambling in footballpetitions!¡¿


    TL: National Football Team -> China National Football Team

 Chapter 124

    Chapter 124: Envy


    After ying around, whates next is the urgent daily work. There is an even more important reason for us to stay in the enclosed and small secret base.


    This is the cradle of the future super weapon of the And Empire, Air Fleet. Just from the facilities, their technology, and the expertise of the craftsmen and engineers, they are the pinnacle of the entire continent.


    Based on the initial n, the Borealis should be capable of floating within two weeks. However, it would only be capable of flying then.


    Even though there is arge difference between thepleted product and the semipleted product, due to the existence of the contract, we could only quickly find other spare parts to finish the work on time. Of course, due to the difference in the foundations of the industries between both countries, it would be best if the construction of the ship ispleted here.


    Due to the invasion of the Seafolk, a variable popped up in the building phase of the contract which unexpectedly gave us the sufficient time we need. If we don¡¯t make full use of it, it would be too much of a pity. Thus, the moment we entered the secret base, I made an order toplete the construction of the Borealis in full scale and to the highest possible quality seeing as we have the time to do that.


    ¡°Poor working conditions will only cause the workers to feel resentment and hatred to their employers. They will think of ways to circumvent their responsibilities. On the other hand, a joyful working condition is not only beneficial to the worker¡¯s morale and efficiency, it can also bring about inspiration that could possibly improve the end product in ways you never expected.


    Thus, in order to allow everyone to work and live here in ease, I thought of ways to improve the working conditions here. For example, I raised the standards of the food and drinks here. I organised cultural performances, football, other conditions and such. In fact, for the food, I even secretly sneaked out to fish.


    With Tracy¡¯s Song of the Tides, the Seafolk are probably confused over where their fish schools are. Even if they were able to deduce that someone was hunting down their fish, they would only think of the culprit as one of the other tribes.


    The effects of these entertainment activities are excellent. After all, to the residents of this world, entertainment is something that is sorelycking. The only w of my n is that I seem to have gone overboard. The engineers are drowning in those entertainment opportunities and are unable to focus their attention to the work at hand.


    However, soon with arge group of Undead beings under themand of the recovered engineer, as well as the assistance of the Gentlemen and Knights, our progress went faster than we have nned.


    I didn¡¯t make many changes to the original ship design. After all, this isn¡¯t my field of expertise. However, towards the weapons system on the ship, I stated my intentions.


    ¡°8 Mage Towers and 33 cannons? How is that enough? Give me 16 Mage Towers and 64 cannons! No, I want 32 Mage Towers and 100 cannons!¡±


    ¡°There isn¡¯t sufficient resources? Rest easy, I have my own ns. There isn¡¯t sufficient space? Don¡¯t you know how to add a cannon on top of a cannon?! Build a small cannon tower in between two cannon towers? Don¡¯t worry too much about the symmetry of the ship. What we need is more cannon towers and more cannons!¡±


    ¡°Remember this, you rookie engineers, don¡¯t be overly obsessed with outer appearance and ornaments, focus your intelligence on how you could increase the number of cannons and the cannon caliber! Come, chant with me! More is beauty, massive is magnificent, caliber is justice and cannon towers are the way to go! The weak RPG, go and die 300 times!¡±


    ¡°What? You all don¡¯t know what is RPG? That refers to fools who ride on their own gunpowder and st themselves out as a cannon ball.¡±


    Alright, currently, the spreading of my teachings of more cannon towers has been going pretty smoothly. At least in the recent days, as the number of cannon towers on the Borealis increases. The ship is getting more and more deformed but in exchange, a different kind of beauty could be seen from it. More and more engineers are starting to appreciate this different kind of beauty.


    While working, there are already some engineers who are shouting, ¡°The billions of stars and billions of cannon towers. If there isn¡¯t cannon towers, then there is nothing!¡±, ¡°All of the cannon towers are equal, but there are some cannon towers who are more equal than the others!¡±, ¡°I praise you, the almighty many cannon towers.¡±


    However, there are some of them who weren¡¯t inspired by the teachings.


    ¡°... As long as we are able to solve the basically unsolvable problem of limited energy, it is not like I am unable to understand the modification of the cannons. However, there is really no need for some of the additional work. If we exclude the additional procedures required for the ornaments that you added in, we would have long finished the construction.¡±


    The chief engineer of the Borealis, Piacenza, is a rather conventional old schr. He is unable toprehend the edit proposal that I added in at thest moment¡¯s notice.


    Ornamental procedures? Indeed, going by the mainstream route for shipbuilding, stitching the valuable dragon scales and dragon skin onto the boat and inserting the one-of-a-kind mystical magic gemstone into the core of the ship, other than unting one¡¯s wealth, doesn¡¯t have much uses. To him, it seems like a non-expert is trying to guide an expert in their own field. In the eyes of the experts, trouble would soon appear due to these additional procedures.


    It is true that I am not building a boat though, I don¡¯t even know the fundamentals to build one.


    ¡°Undead Creation.¡±


    From a certain viewpoint, I have been treating it as a theoretical and rational scientific field. Just like how the western doctors of the foreign world dissect corpses to understand the functions of the human organs, the Necromancers of this world also start to understand corpses from dissection. They view that humans are a series of spare parts (organs) ced together.


    In that world, there are already organ transnts, human reformation, human cloning and multiple other technologies. However, in this world, due to the existence in magic, a rookie Necromancer is even more crazed than the craziest scientists and surgeons. There is absolutely no difficulty whatsoever in transnting an organ. It isn¡¯t that difficult to pile together a group of spare parts to stitch together a human.


    After all, a surgeon has to consider whether that person is capable of surviving the operation whereas a Necromancer is able to make do with both the living and the dead. This is where the two differ from one another. As Necromancers realised the importance of the soul, they came up with the simple equation of ¡®life = physical body + soul¡¯. Then, without any fear or restrictions, they are able to challenge the authority of the creator with no one going crazy. On the other hand, if a surgeon were to dissect a human into multiple spare parts, ignoring the fact of whether the person is able to be resuscitated when he is put back together, if the news were to leak, he would probably be treated like a murder suspect the next day.


    If an analogy has to be made, then it would be just like the hardware and the software of aputer. Necromancers are able to split life into two portions where the physical body is the hardware and the soul is the software. As long as the physical body is able to move under the will of the soul in the end, then the process and whether the physical body and soul ispatible with one another isn¡¯t important at all.


    Thus, simr to those who frenziedly pursue DIYputers and work toe up with all kinds of weirdputers, to the Necromancers, as long as there are souls and physical bodies, it is possible for them to y with it as they like. After going through countless eons of trial and error, the number of Undead Creations is innumerable. Thus, a superior physical body and a powerful soul are the most beloved experimental objects for every Necromancer.


    ¡°Defiling life and Gods? The only difference between us and the Gods are that they are much more experienced and advanced than us. However, we will improve and one day, we will create something that will surpass them.¡±


    The arrogant Necromancers dered so and worked hard towards the goal. As the most famous Undead Creation Specialist in recent times, my Undead Creation Study has a new element infused into it ¡ª¡ª Undead Evolution Theory.


    Once the stiff and dead physical body has taken shape, it would be hard for it to evolve by itself. The stagnancy of its form will cause its strength to be fixed. This is the reason why it is easy for Undead Creations to hit a bottleneck, although it isn¡¯t impossible for them to ovee the bottleneck.


    My solution to it is to merge a soulpletely together with a physical body before modifying the creation through the soul. Afterwards, I will use overwhelming emotions and desires to drive the soul towards its evolution.


    Ah Dang (Gluttony), Omar (Pride), Bastian (Wrath) and Harloys (Greed). The reason why they are able to evolve continuously is due to their powerful and fixated soul.


    The core of the theory may be simple, but it isn¡¯t a simple task to aplish it. I can say proudly that my Seven Deadly Sins are the only Undeads who are capable of continuous evolution and I am the only one who holds the key to the technology.


    Alright, after saying so much, most people should be able to guess what I am about to do.


    Yes, I might not be able to modify a ship body design. Thus, I intend to turn the Borealis into a living super Undead.


    The precious dragon skin and dragon scales on the deck and the side of the ships may look like extravagant and pointless ornaments. However, they are the tools required for me to summon a soul. As for whether the interception of the Hydra¡¯s soul will cause the Queen of the Storm¡¯s wrath... Since I have already offended her, it doesn¡¯t make a difference whether I go a step further or not. Besides, it is probably impossible for her to identify the culprit as me.


    Of course, there isn¡¯t much point to it if I could only summon the soul. The intelligence of Sea Monsters isn¡¯t high and a summoned dead soul would tend to just be the fragments of the oncerge soul. This will result in severe side effects to the Undead Creation. To put it simply, not only will the Undead possess low intelligence, they might even go berserk. Thus, the soul is unusable until further work is done to it.


    Thus, I intend to attach an ¡®operating system¡¯ to it, an equally powerful soul.


    ¡°Marsolit, are you ready?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Lord Rnd. Everything is set to go.¡±


    Following my orders, the voice of a young male resounds to and fro the deck. From the moment the Blood Mage Emperor absorbed the poisonous blood of the Hydra, he was fated for death. Making use of the time when the ice is still sustaining his life, Imunicated with him.


    There is still a wish he has yet to aplish and he is willing to roam the world with the identity of a semi-dead being to see it finished. As the price of saving him, if I am able to maintain the wholeness of the soul and grant him sufficient strength for his vengeance, then he is ¡®willing¡¯ to serve me for a century. Furthermore, if I were to assist him in fulfilling his wish, this service would go on indefinitely.


    ¡°Dragon Hunter Deimos has killed my daughter and my wife, so I want to seek vengeance on him and those behind him! He is already dead? No, the one who died is Deimos the Third. The one who killed my daughter and my wife is his master ¡ª¡ª Deimos the First! They have a special kind of inheritance. The second generation is also known as Deimos. I have no idea where the second generation and first generation are, but the Emperor of the And Empire is sure to know. That n has been working for the Emperor generation after generation!¡±


    Alright, before Crowe regains his ability to speak, let¡¯s hide the fact that he is amongst us from Marsolit.


    Of course, since he has epted my Undead Modification, I don¡¯t have to worry about his loyalty towards me.


    cing a SemiGod Blood Mage Emperor into the body of a Lich who is deprived of flesh and blood is a waste. It is a coincidence that I require a powerful soul to drive this warship while Marsolit requires strength. Very naturally, the two handse together in a p.


    In the control room of the Borealis, Marsolit¡¯s lower body has merged with the control room. Only his upper body remains on the outside. The heart of the Nine-headed Dragon beats faintly right before him. Along with the beating of the heart, a different energy starts to circte throughout the giant ship. The power that belongs to a Necromancer alone.


    At this moment, Marsolit can already be considered as an Undead, although his physical body is still gued by frost and poison. There were attempts to cover up his appearance, but they were ineffective. In order to not frighten young children with his yin yang face, he took the initiative to put on a mask.


    He seems to be resting with his eyes closed, but in reality, countless amounts data is shing before him. He is currently preparing to take control of the entire ship by understanding the state of it and fine tuning his control over the ship before its activation.


    Looking at the man who is working seriously before me, I am d that I have entrusted this responsibility to a reliable person. Even so, a feeling of depression somehow glooms over me.


    ¡°Lord, what happened?¡±


    ¡°That, I somehow felt depressed. I will be fine after resting for a moment.¡±


    I could only say so. After all, you cannot expect me to be venting my dissatisfaction to the heavens and request for a cuter operating system.


    ¡°Damn it! Why do other people get sweet-smiling cute ship operatingdies dressed in a sailor outfit while I get a masked yin yang face ship dude. The will of the universe is unjust! Isn¡¯t this too much? Can I swap a bit?¡±


    TL: Yin yang face -> Refers to a person whose one side of the face is different from his other side.


    ¡°Of course you can, how about Rosemary? She¡¯s an outstanding beauty.¡±


    Alright, the will of the universe wouldn¡¯t answer such a question. However, Harloys wouldn¡¯t give up on any opportunity to strike a blow into my heart.


    From a yin yang face to a yin yang person? Contemting for a moment, I rejected the offer firmly. If we were to be in Rosemary¡¯s body in this instant (Why does this sentence sound so ufortable), she might be using her authority as the ship operating systemdy to peek at the male crewmates showering or so...


    TL: Yin yang person -> Transexual, a person with the qualities of both Yin and Yang.


    ¡°Don¡¯t insult me! I am also selective in the aesthetic appeal of men. Which part of those ugly males are attractive! I have much better taste that that!¡±


    So, you only deny that you won¡¯t look at an ugly male? So, that means that you peek if they are handsome? The furious howl from Rosemary¡¯s phctery reveals the deepest wish in her heart. Once again, I rejoice over the fact that I didn¡¯t make such a decision that could very possibly end in a tragedy and choose Marsolit instead. Finally, there is a normal person in the Gentlemen Alliance. Rejoice!


    ¡°Right, my lord, the area of the dragon skin on the left side of the ship isrger than the right side by 17.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s alright. It will be fixed automatically when the ship is activated.¡±


    ¡°My lord, my second cannon barrel and ninth cannon barrel is slightly bent. Can you help me put it back in shape?¡±


    ¡°I doubt so. It is obvious to see if the cannon barrel is bent.¡±


    ¡°I am very sure of it. The second cannon barrel is bent to the right by 2 degrees while the ninth to the left by 0.5. You would notice it if you pay closer attention to it. Right, can you move the bucket on the left side of the deck to the middle? The absence of symmetry makes one feel ufortable.¡±


    ¡°Also, can the potted nts ced on the left and right be ced symmetrical to one another? Right now, there are three more on the left than on the right. It is unpleasant to the eye.¡±


    ¡°Also, can you move the painting on the wall slightly? It is 30 degrees nted. I feel awful looking at it.¡±


    Hearing his words, I immediately understood. How could it be possible for a normal person to appear in the Gentlemen Alliance. I suddenly recall the appearance of the red-robed Mage back then, how not a single hair of his is out of ce and was ced perfectly in a neat fashion. Ie to a realisation.


    ¡°He is deeply afflicted with obsessivepulsive disorder!¡±


    Alright, the obsessivepulsive disorder patient continues nagging on and on about the floral patterns on the deck, the picture on the sail, the way the butterfly knot is tied on the cables to the uniform of the sailors. All kinds of unimportant information came sting towards me.


    A normal obsessivepulsive disorder patient would only bother with what is happening with him and around him. However, when Marsolit himself turns into the ship, this is equivalent to his body expanding by countless times. As such, the number of things he is bothered about increases exponentially.


    His obsessivepulsive disorder isn¡¯t really a big problem. Rather, I, who have to listen to his opinions, am the one who is suffering.


    The left and right aren¡¯t in equilibrium? Uneptable.


    The top and bottom portion don¡¯t correspond to one another? Even more uneptable.


    The left side of the deck is cleaner than the right side of the deck? How can this be tolerated! Either clean the right side or dirty the left!


    Your beard isn¡¯t cleanly shaven and your clothes aren¡¯t worn neatly? I won¡¯t say anything else, get off my ship!


    Hearing the relentless nagging, I start to doubt my own decision. Should I change to a Gentlemen ship operating systemdy who could possibly spy on the males, or should I continue using this naggy obsessivepulsive disorder male? Finally, the words which I had been waiting for travel to my ear.


    ¡°Lord, all preparations are ready. Should the ship be activated now?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s great! Cough, I mean, since all preparations are ready, let¡¯s cut the crap and begin.¡±


    Under mymand, a light green light shrouds the entire ship. Despite the fact that it is clear that no one is operating the ship, a pair of searchlight flick on up in front of the ship, as though a giant beast has opened its eyes. The Borealis finally awakens andes to life.


    On the ship, arge number of low-tier Undead beings are merging together with the ship in a peculiar manner. They are bing one with the backbone and boards of the ship, andbing the skeletal rack of this massive Undead beast. Beside the normal energy cirction wires on the ship, green fluid could be seen flowing through a transparent pipe. That is the poisonous blood that originates from the Hydra, as well as new blood circtory system of this massive beast.


    The dragon skin stitched onto the ship slowly creeps over the uncovered portions and the countless magic inscriptions on the deck start to extend. The resonance between the skin of the massive beast and the nerve system is also progressing well.


    All unrted personnel have evacuated from the ship, leaving only Harloys and I on it. At the same time, Rosemary¡¯s phctery nags non-stop, ¡°This isn¡¯t magic!¡±, ¡°How is this possible?¡±, ¡°This goes against the ssical theory of Undead Creation!¡± and such useless words.


    However, what leaves me frustrated is that the chief engineer Piacenza is also nagging, ¡°This isn¡¯t scientific!¡±, ¡°This is too illogical!¡±, ¡°This goes against all the theories of shipbuilding!¡±.


    It is impossible for two systems to appear within a living being. As the howling apparition of the Nine-headed Dragon start to merge along with the ship, the dragon blood cirction system and the energy pipes start to merge together as one while the dragon skin and scales expand furiously. Very soon, they would form the true outeryer of the ship and the different magic inscriptions inscribed on the ship would serve a true nerves and organs.


    Along with the tributes of the Undeads, the dragon bones and the deck slowly grow thicker. Innumerable searchlights and probes float in midair. They would all serve as Marsolit¡¯s eyes.


    An additional defensiveyer of dragon skin appears on the Mage Towers on top of the ship. Also, the appearance of the heavy magic cannons have changed entirely. Carvings of dragons appear on the canon body and judging from the ink-green color it is radiating, the change isn¡¯t simply limited to its outer appearance.


    Before its awakening, it was still a patched-up ship made from several different spare parts. However, after it is awakened, the green dragon skin became the most magnificent paint for it. The Borealis whose outer metal shell is hidden has became an ultimate warship, as well as a breathing giant Dragon.


    25 Mage Towers, 27 Green Dragon Venom-type Heavy Magic Cannons and 127 Heavy Engineer Cannon (It is not like I don¡¯t want to install more of them, but they have been stacked three storeys high and there is really insufficient space). A Dragon Breath Cannon is installed at the bow and the stern of the ship. After this living ship dragon used its own heart and body circtory system to provide sufficient energy for this weapon systems, this warship is destined to be unrivaled in the world.


    ¡°Great, Marsolit. Oh, no, I should call you ¡®Envy¡¯ now.¡±


    ¡°Yes, your highness. Envy will work for you. That, can you help me twist the cannon barrel straight? They seem to have gotten more bent. Right, I¡¯m sorry but you seem to have buttoned your fifth button wrongly. Can you correct it, it is making me ufortable.


    Yin yang face


    It is a direct trantion and it means one side of the face has different qualities from the other. For example, half of the face is frozen while the other half is burning and such.

 Chapter 125

    Chapter 125: Voyage and Confession


    When the underwater gates opened, the water level of the entire river lowered significantly. However, it was fortunate that the new bnce created by the massive rain and hurricanes had caused the Seafolk¡¯s reaction to the change in water level to be dyed.


    When the giant ship floated to the surface of the water, we were surprised by the change in the city.


    The City of Rain, Feloci, truly lived up to its name. In the past two and a half months, when we were busypleting the construction on Borealis, innumerable Seafolk had followed the path of the river toe to this city, and the human city had already been transformed into a new city of dreams for the Seafolk who desired better lives.


    Harloys¡¯ clones served as our best scouts. Finding a transparent slime in the water is a near impossible task, not to mention that she had plenty of time to nt innumerable eyes across this city.


    The originally magnificent capital still remained as the capital, just changing hands. The White Whale Tribe was originally just a giant tribe living by the coastal areas, but due to its contribution in the assault, as well as the great prestige they earned through the overwhelming victory, they became the leaders of this new capital.


    Agus the 1st. This was the new name of the white Whaleman with the massive physique.


    The preparation that was made for Darsos¡¯s inauguration ceremony had been used for the inauguration of the Whaleman who was originally named Agus. The unrealistic fantasy ofbining the concept of a kingdom along with a country of Seafolk had been realised. Agus the 1st and his n became the new owners of Feloci. Under the rewards and protection of the Queen of the Storms, even if the new tribes who arrived at the city were stronger than them, they could only remain as his citizens.


    Feloci was the name of this city, as well as the name of the future kingdom of the Seafolk. The Guardian Goddesses of this country were the Queen of the Storms and the Water Elemental Goddess.


    The entire kingdom was structured in a staircase-like structure. The new tribes would move into the various districts based on their race, such as the Fishman District, Naga District, Sea Beastman District, Sea Giant District, and so on. On the other hand, the original tribes who fought in the battle would enter the royal city and be the new nobles who would serve the royalty.


    From a certain viewpoint, this was a fundamental change from their previous lifestyle of herding, as well as the dissipation of the authority held by the heads of the various powerful tribes.


    As a result, although a new way of life was extremely tempting, not every single chieftain was willing to serve beneath someone. There had been plenty of cases of tribes who left after living in the city for a period of time. Even so, there were many members who privately sneaked back into the city halfway through their departure.


    In this world of magic that resembled the time of the Middle Ages, the fixed poption in the city along with the movement of the poption to and from the city was the basis for the rise and fall of a city.


    Soon, as more and more Seafolk gathered here, the new City of Rain became more and more lively.


    Even though the borders of the city were still in a state of war, the new life for the Seafolk in the city had started to unfold. First and foremost was the opening of markets. The most popr goods were the daily appliances of the surface dwellers. Inexpensive vases, fresh fruits, and waterproof silk cloth could be exchanged for precious gems and jewels.


    The umtion of those newly-arrived tribes could not be underestimated. Many of the mystical treasures of the ocean could not be analysed, but judging from the magic wavelengths on them, there were indeed quite a few priceless treasures among them. Even so, their price wasughably inexpensive. An Epic-tier Dragon Pearl of a Sea Dragon could be traded for just two rolls of silk.


    This is almost like exchanging jewels for rocks. It was very possible that not even King Midas would make a fortune that quickly. The great profits involved in the trade made me a little tempted. If it weren¡¯t for the possibility of incurring trouble, I would have had Tracy barter for quite a few treasures.


    Aware of a merchant¡¯s temperament towards profits, I didn¡¯t doubt that the moment I started to spread the news, innumerable merchants would risk their lives to trade with the Seafolk. At that point, the Seafolk would be able to make up for their shorings with the technology and products they earned from the trades.


    Other than daily appliances, another bestseller in the markets were the multiple kinds of weapons used on the Surface. Even when the superior weapons made of alloy left behind by the And Empire had been hoarded by the White Whale Tribe so as to equip their own warriors, the longswords, pikes, knives, and other weapons from the Surface were far superiorpared to the wooden, rock, and bone-made weapons used by normal Seafolk.


    During these few days, the first shops to reopen were the cksmiths. Due to the purge and flood that followed the assault on the city, very few of the skilled cksmiths, craftsmen, and alchemists survived, and the few who survived met with quite a bit of trouble.


    Many of the amphibious Seafolk who had been on the Surface previously were almostpletely unknowledgeable about crafting, thus, the very first job of those cksmiths was to waterproof the weapons. However, judging from the long queue outside the cksmith¡¯s shop, it seemed that the flood had caused their craftsmanship to return back to the primitive, manual era. It would probably take a significant period of time before they would develop in this aspect. Even so, it was still a hard toe by powerup for the Seafolk.


    Every night, there would be a bonfire and banquet on the waterproof tform. Even though most of the normal Fishmen would be unable to get even a single slice of cooked meat, the festive mood still put them in high spirits.


    Their civilization may have still been primitive with many shorings, but this newly rising capital was exactly what the Seafolk had expected and desired, and they were gradually developing into a powerful, centralized kingdom.


    Every day, the City of Rain grew stronger. Every day, countless Seafolk arrived at the City of Rain. Soon, the city would be filled up to the borders, and in order to expand their living space, they would have to fight. It was clear to see that this would be the first battlefield of the eternal war.


    Fortunately, or perhaps, unfortunately, the And Empire was truly a rich superpower with deep running umtion. The great shame of losing their capital caused them to immediately reorganize their forces to prepare for war. Very quickly, a new defense line was built and the support troops from the numerous nobles from various territories arrived quickly.


    It was hard to say how powerful the army to reim the capital would be, but judging from the war power they had umted and the overall strength of the empire, I still thought that the And Empire would be the oneughing at the very end.


    Soon, the fight over living space would begin once again, destined to be savage.


    Regardless of whom the final victor of this war would be, it probably wouldn¡¯t be peaceful here for a significant period of time. And Empire would surely focus all of their efforts into reiming their capital.


    To us, neither of the sides could be considered as our friends. The only thing we wished for was to not get entangled in the fight, especially when we were under the very eyes of the Seafolk right now.


    On that day, the storm covered the sight of the Seafolk. In the eyes of the Seafolk, the fall of the Hydra was mostly attributed to the Dragon yer and the Forbidden Spell, so they ought to still be oblivious to our existence. Even so, we dared not continue staying here for too long.


    Predictably, in the near future, as more and more Seafolk gathered here, the increased Power of Faith would be nourishment for the Queen of the Storms. Eventually, when the Queen of the Storms finally converted this new city into part of her divine territory and a level of intimacy was established between the church and altars of the Queen of the Storms, the consciousness of the Queen of the Storms would most likely linger around here most of the time.


    Perhaps this underwater secret base might be able to avoid the sight of ordinary mortals, but I did not have confidence that the same hold true for true Gods. Thus, the earlier we set forth, the safer we would be.


    Thus, the seventh day after the Borealis had been sessfully converted to an Undead, when the newborn Undead had started to get used to its new body and the first batch of weapons be usable, we chose to set off.


    The underwater passage used specially for the ship opened and the 300-meter long gigantic warship dove into it, proceeding slowly, the shock waves of its movement creating giant ripples underwater.


    Of course, we met with a few Seafolk along the way. However, before they could have an encounter with the warship, they were blown away by the shock waves.


    When this aquatic dragon left the water to soar into the skies, it left behind a giant whirlpool in its trail. Then, when the Mage Tower on the warship sessfully activated its stealth mode, the interior of the Borealis exploded into cheers. After all, regardless of how incredible the design was, its practical abilities could only be proven in a real battle.


    ¡°First, the ship will leave through the east of And and enter the sea only upon reaching the sea in the east, as it should be safer that way. Then, moving along the coastal area, the ship will only soar up upon reaching North Trois. From there on, the ship would be moving diagonally straight towards the East Mist Communal Nation. This is the ideal path we have confirmed after multiple discussions.¡±


    ¡°Why must we dive into the sea? Why can¡¯t we fly straight to East Mist?¡±


    ¡°If we were to fly straight to East Mist, we would trespass the aerial territory of quite a few superpower empires. I don¡¯t think that they would be unprepared for any threats that appear in their aerial territory; even a stealth unit isn¡¯t really a rare toy to them. Do you intend on meeting their Dragon Knights? Furthermore, if the news of a floating warship were to leak out...¡±


    I immediately understood Kelly¡¯s words. It was best to keep some things hidden as long as possible. If the existence of this ship were to be exposed now, countless troubles could ensue.


    Kelly¡¯s suggestion was one made from judging the level of risk, and was worth a try. However, the suggestion of the chief engineer from Borealis, Piacenza, was much more practical and convincing.


    ¡°It¡¯s not rmended for the maiden voyage of a new boat to involve too great a distance. After flying for a period of time, we will need to make some adjustments to certain apparatus, as well as fixing faulty equipment. Based on the condition of our ship, entering the water is the optimal choice. Furthermore, we don¡¯t have many supplies left. Thus, we should send a dinghy to the pier of Kasilo Kingdom. It shouldn¡¯t be too difficult.¡±


    Actually, I was not very concerned with taking a detour, but rather hesitant upon entering the sea.


    The System might not be reliable, but it was the typical type which was spot-on on my misfortunes. I was quite concerned with its warning that reminded me to not enter the sea.


    ¡¾Warning: The Queen of the Storms has marked you. If there isn¡¯t a need, please do not approach coastal areas and, even more so, do not enter the sea.


    Of course, if you insist, you can try to kill other Sea Monsters and true Gods¡¯ avatars. As long as you are in the sea, I can guarantee you that the rewards will be better than this.¡¿


    The Queen of the Storms was a member of the Malevolent Gods of Chaos. Her Jurisdictions included Storm, Tempest, and the Guardian God of a portion of the Seafolk. Although she had wanted to attain the Jurisdiction of the Sea God, she has yet to aplish her goal in thest several thousand years.


    The current Sea God was Osweyar, another ancient that had survived until the present day. From a certain viewpoint, he could be considered as the descendant of the current Ancient Water Elemental Goddess Aylos. This Sea God was renowned to have a low profile in the Order Faction. Perhaps they might be acquainted with one another privately, but I did not think that he would spare the Queen of the Storms any face when the horn of the eternal Sacred War sounded.


    Detect the appearance of a single ship in the sea? Since even the Sea God Osweyar was incapable of such a feat, there was no need to speak of the Queen of the Storms, whose Jurisdictions did not include the existence of oceans. Even so, I dared not let my guard down.


    ¡°That ... must we enter the sea?¡±


    ¡°Yes, the probability of our engine malfunctioning exceeds 17%. Even if the fellows were to work overtime, they would probably be unable to keep it operating for long. We would need to stop it to conduct checks and repairs.¡±


    ¡°Fine, then get the guys to prepare for battle. Our theoretical enemies should be ... Sea Monsters. Yeah, let¡¯s treat that Hydra as our theoretical enemy.¡±


    Even without the System Notice, if the Queen of the Storms were to reallye seek trouble with us, there was a high possibility that we would meet with Sea Monsters on the way. After all, that queen had another title¡ªQueen of Sea Monsters, and there are quite a few Sea Monsters under hermand.


    ¡°If it were just normal Sea Monsters, we would be able to disregard them. Do you really think that we would meet with a Hydra-ss Sea Monster everywhere ... Alright, alright. You¡¯re the boss, we will follow what you say.¡±


    The others might think that I was being excessive, but based on my understanding of my own luck, as well as that System Notice, no amount of preparation would be too great.


    While waiting for the ship to descend to the sea, I still had some matters I had to deal with.


    ¡°Since they are unable to y ser on the ship, those fellows are getting bored. How many times has Yingou¡¯s alchemyb exploded? I heard that yesterday morning they froze a portion of the deck to y ice hockey. Aren¡¯t they afraid of getting beaten off the ship with a stick? Forget it, since I have something to inform them about, let me scare them while I am at it.¡±


    ***


    It was a sort of fate to share the same boat in the midst of danger. On the other hand, when the danger passed, being in the same boat would require a reason.


    Common profits? Common goals? No matter what, if they hope to walk together and call each otherrades, then there must be a core and goal that link them together as one.


    Eating, drinking, ying, and enjoying life in a carefree manner could also be considered as a goal. However, if one were to build an organisation with such a thing as the goal, it would probably end up as a bunch of scattered sand and all would do as they pleased. Anticipating such a crisis, I had already prepared in ordance.


    ¡°Why should I be the only who fears, worries, and loses sleep over the impending doomsday? Since we¡¯re all in the same boat, let me exin to you all the possibilities that may result in the sinking of the boat in the future.¡±


    I started my lecture with such words. However, as I expected, the bunch of fellows responded with impassive gazes¡ª¡±Even if the sky fell, there would be someone tall to hold it up. If the boat were to sink, the worst that could happen is that it won¡¯t arrive at shore. What could be so incredible about that?¡±


    Asking me how I could read so much simply from their expressions? That was because those bastards had already said it out loud!


    ¡°I am a Siren. I don¡¯t fear the sinking of the boat. It is just that it would be troublesome to bring those collections of mine along with me.¡±


    ¡°... Actually, I have been training hard during the period of time at the secret base. My swimming skills are not bad now.¡±


    ¡°Big brother, don¡¯t judge me just because I have four hooves. Recently, I have been learning swimming as well. After taking off my horseshoes, I am definitely able to float. If the boat were to sink, you can sit on my back!¡±


    ¡°Hey, hey, is this a new business opportunity? Looks like a chance to earn big bucks has arrived! We should start to hoard life buoys and floating nks!¡±


    ¡°Stupid! What use are the life buoys! We should start purchasing all kinds of resources required for survival and make a fortune by selling them back to their original owners when the boat sinks.¡±


    ¡°Idiot, how could we only sell it to their original owners? As long as they pay money, we would sell them to even the Fishmen and Sea Monsters!¡±


    Yingou and Kab¡¯s exchange was filled with the stench of copper. The two of them were seriously considering their n of purchasing the life buoys from crewman and selling them back to them if the boat sank.


    ¡°Gunpowder cannot be used the moment ites into contact with water. Should we prepare some waterproof apparatus?¡± Clint, stop thinking about your treasured explosives all the time. Please consider whether you are able to float with your heavy armor first.


    ¡°Do I have to strip the Silver Battle Hymn again? Lord, will the sinking ur too suddenly? Will we lose our personal belongings as a result of it? If we were to really lose them, would it be possible to reim them?¡±


    Ever since Diana got that mithril alloy full te mail back from me and got a Mage to enchant it, she had been wearing it all day long, oblivious to the scorching weather. She even gave the armor a name. Now that she heard that the boat might be on the verge of sinking, the first thing she thought of was still her precious armor.


    ¡°Big Brother Rnd is worried that the boat will sink? It¡¯s okay. If it happens, we just have to work together to freeze the surface of the water. This way, everyone should be able to climb onto the ice, thus averting the crisis. As long as no one dies, no matter how great the loss is, it should still be in an eptable range.¡±


    Alright, was that constion from Reyne the killing blow?


    Everyone discussed fervently, but no one wondered why the boat would even sink. They were only exchanging their escaping experiences, as though the sinking of the boat was already an inevitable event.


    I shook my head helplessly. Given the personality of this bunch of fellows, I should have expected such an oue.


    ¡°The boat I am talking about isn¡¯t the Borealis under our feet. She is called Eich, the continent Eich. Perhaps you might find it unbelievable, but our world is on the verge of destruction ...¡±


    In that instant, everyone looked at me with wide eyes. After all, going by themon sense of the crowd, those who imed that it was end of the world on a whim were either demonic cultist or lunatics.


    Even though everyone stared at me with wide eyes, I did not intend to continue borating on it. After finishing the introductions, I walked down the stage.


    On the other hand, the crystal ball which had been ced on the table earlier started to y a video that was prepared beforehand.


    ¡°The Seven Trials of Eich. From the start of the current Sacred War, our world would meet with seven destructive cmities, and we would be swept into the dangers of it as well. The core of it all is the eternal Sacred War. Now, the horn of the Sacred War has been blown again and this Sacred War is destined to be the final Sacred War as well...¡±


    Inside the crystal was an education lesson I had prepared beforehand, and the contents within it were meticulously prepared by me.


    ¡°This is the information on the war that is about to ur, but even so, this is just the appetiser.¡±


    The internal conflict among the humans, the rampage of the Elemental Gods, the invasion of the Undead, the raid of the Demons, and the possibility of a full-blown war between the Surface and the Underground World. Perhaps some of them might have predicted that the Sacred War would not be as simple as it seemed, but their information couldn¡¯t possibly be as detailed as mine.


    Speaking of the invasion of Undead, I could point out directly which Death Dimensions were making preparations for war, as well as the estimated time for their arrival. As for the Demon army, I had the evidence and information provided by Elisa. The schemes of the Elemental Gods were right before us, and the invasion of the Underground World Alliance Army wasn¡¯t a secret since a long time ago.


    Only through detailed information and numbers would the point that I would like to express be convincing. The photos that would be shown afterwards were the breakthrough point that I anticipated.


    ¡°Ah, what is that! Why is the Dwarf Mining City Helos in ruins? I was just therest year and the people there were still busy at work.¡±


    Whaty before them was a picture, a picture of a ruins left behind after a ughter by a great army. The picture looked lifelike, the details in it far surpassing what image altering was capable of doing¡ªthis wasn¡¯t a picture from this world, but one that was derived from the game walkthrough!


    ¡°Asloren? Impossible? How could that beautiful Eternal Forest of Euphony be reduced to such a state?¡±


    ¡°Galor Hignds, my beautiful and splendid homnd, how could it be possibly be a cknd contaminated and dyed red by blood! Who did it!¡±


    Photos of the Elven country which had been reduced to ruins, the human ins that had been corrupted to be and of Undead, and the Demon army ughtering life forms on the Surface. All kinds of genocides and destructive wars could be seen, all kinds of futures that would overturn one¡¯s perception of the world.


    ¡°I swear in the name of the Holy Light that these are all images of the future that I obtained through certain means. If we do not do anything, they will be a part of reality.¡±


    The dense Holy Light shrouding me testifies to the authenticity of my words. While they were still worried and shocked over the doomed future, I throw out an evenrger bomb at them.


    ¡°These tragedies are just the beginning. Those who lose their lives at this point can be considered as the fortunate ones, because they will not witness the despairing destruction that would ensue. There will be no victors in this Sacred War. The final ending is the total destruction of the entire world.¡±


    At this instant, the pictures switched to the image that I would like to show them. That is a picture of the Eich continent from outer space.


    The entire continent was fragmented into innumerable pieces and countless Dimension Doors had opened throughout. This was the result of the sh between the two Goddesses of Creation at their full might. Those who were able to survive until the very end, the strongest of beings, were screaming in agony and cursing the deste fate that awaited them.


    Finally, in the face of the final judgement, every life was equal. No one was spared, no one was saved, and no one was eternal. What awaited everyone was equal destruction.


    Perhaps the two Goddesses of Creation might have been able to recreate the world and life. However, the life forms of the previous generation would not survive to see that day. They would be terminated in this veryst trial.


    ¡°In order to prevent the worst ending, I have been preparing since long ago and have achieved some level of aplishment. However, the strength of an individual is insufficient. I need your help, I need your strength, to reverse the path of the world from its ultimate doom!¡±


    Alright, with new editorse new changes. This is so as to make the trantions more urate. As this is my first work, I didn¡¯t really start out well and many terms aren¡¯t as exact as I want them to be. So... Here is the edit log. My editor will gradually edit the chapter upwards down to standardise but til then, it will only be reflected in the future chapters


    Present -> Past tense for narrative


    Gnome -> Goblin (Yeah, that¡¯s why they are greedy pfft)


    Most jobs and races will not be capitalised, unless it refers specifically to a person.


    Beast Tamer -> Beast Mastery Hunter (The job is a reference to LoL)


    Celestial Tower member -> Celestial Towerist


    Okay, that¡¯s it for now. If there are any further changes, I will add it to the list


    Anyway, weing the new editor, weirdo~

 Chapter 126

    Chapter 126: Changes


    What are above the clouds? In the most ancient religious epics, it would be realm of the true Gods, the final resting ce of humans. At the top of the clouds, the world of the numerous Gods would be stare down for all eternity.


    ¡°Mama, Lord Priest said that Lord God is looking down at us from the clouds. But there are so many people down here, can they cope? If they are able to cope, doesn¡¯t it mean that they have eyes all over their body? That¡¯s scary!¡±


    On a field, a straightforward rascal said such words. On the very afternoon of the same day, he was tied to a stake and sentenced to death for the crime of heresy.


    Those were the famous ¡°Little Tom¡¯s Words of Truth.¡± In the future, it evolved to be a challenge towards the falsehoods created and spread by those in authority, as well as the ignition of the changes that would be made to the numerous churches of Gods.


    As for what exactly were above the clouds, the earliest batch of aerial knights who had been to the clouds wisely chose to avoid answering the question.


    As the era progressed to the current day, there were some things that could no longer be concealed. The truth that the Heavenly Realmid in another dimension was clear for all to see. As a result, the phrase ¡°The Gods are always watching over you¡± became empty words in books.


    Gods are not omnipotent. Altars and churches were locations where their consciousness descend toward and reside. If one were to chant their true name, it might be possible for them to hear one¡¯s words. Questions directed towards the god could only be channeled through the prayers of the priests and archbishops. Of course, it was possible for them to send an avatar or God Envoy down, but the resources that would be expended wasn¡¯t a minute sum.


    Distance and the unknown brought about fear and respect. Divine authority and the monarchies always vied against one another. Deciphering the secrets of the Gods might have always been a taboo, but the private investigations conducted by individual countries had never once stopped.


    In an era where every country had an oracle of a true God hade to an end and in this generation, the Gods had granted the humans a greater degree of freedom. However, it is within expectations that along with the start of the Sacred War, the humans would slowly be robbed of it.


    The Sacred War has already became an inevitable event. Without even requiring the Order Gods to send down theirmandments, countries already started preparing for war. After all, their enemies were already at their doorstep.


    In this Sacred War, the development of all kinds of aerial units would leap ahead exponentially. The Air Fleet of the And Empire might have been the most advanced of the lot, but it definitely wasn¡¯t the only one. The taboo of the past had already opened its doors to the mortals.


    However, reaching the clouds wasn¡¯t an easy task. Even without the existence of the taboo, the world above the clouds still remained inessible to ordinary aerial units. After all, the low temperature,ck of oxygen, and low pressure made it hard for even a physically fit warrior to bear. Those who tried to aplish such heights would most probably die in their attempt.


    Yet, at this moment, I flew freely about the sea of clouds, as though running onnd. Erebe had shapeshifted to be a Pegasus and the surrounding Ice Crystal Barrier isted me from the low pressure andck of oxygen.


    The low temperature that came with height was nothing to the Frigid Nightmares. The advantages of possessing a magic mount was apparent. However, the skies were far from being empty. In the distance, the sight of the mountain-like Cloud Whales turning about was a sight to behold, a sight that would leave one trembling.


    Rather than say that Cloud Whales were animals, they were more like a hybrid between Wind Elementals and mammals. They were muchrger than their counterparts in the sea and their movements caused the wind and clouds to billow. Even the Wind Elemental God was incapable of keeping this gigantic being in rein.


    It was said that the ckwings¡¯ ships and cities were also built among the clouds, and they were once a famous tribe in the sky. However, after being robbed of their privilege to fly, they had been reduced to pirates. I had always felt regretful for being unable to enjoy the unique way of living of the Sky Tribes.


    ¡¾System Notice: You won¡¯t be feeling regretful about it in awhile. I hope that you will still have the mood to enjoy the scenery by then.¡¿


    Ignoring the notice that suddenly popped out, I turned my attention towards the clouds not too far away.


    There were all kinds of mysteriously-shaped clouds in the sky. Their forms were ever-changing. Some of them resembled the mountains, some resembled the trees, some of them giants, and some the waves of the oceans. Through their contact with one another, their shapes were always morphing.


    However, not every cloud changed at every moment. Under the effects of magic, some clouds remained the same even throughout a span of hundreds of years. Those firmer clouds would often serve as theirs of the Cloud Beasts, and at this moment, they didn¡¯t seem to wee our appearance here.


    Even though I kept soaring ahead, a group of Cloud Beasts still continued to pursue us. Arge portion of them were the amiable Cloud Dolphins, who were here to watch themotion. The rest of them were small Cloud Dragons who hoped to prey on us, not knowing that their actions were suicidal.


    Even though they were called Cloud Dragons, they were actually just meter long wyverns. These little fellowspletely ignored the disparity between the strengths of the prey and predator and were fervently pursuing us in hope of an additional snack.


    Erebe might still be far away from the pinnacle of her strength, when she was capable of shapeshifting into an Ice Dragon, but the current her was still able to easily take care of these small fries.


    However, I chose to only pat her slightly to signal her to speed up so as to shake them off.


    ¡°Aooooooo!¡±


    After a deep howl, the Pegasus unfurled her wings and surged forward, pulling the distance between us and the Cloud Beasts in an instant.


    ¡°Lord Rnd, are you happy?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I am indeed very happy. You noticed it?¡±


    Of course I was happy, otherwise I wouldn¡¯t being here on a whim to tour the world above the clouds. If we had wanted to hasten our journey, travelling at lower altitudes would have been much more suitable.


    As for the reason why I was happy...


    In order to prevent the true secrets from not leaking, I didn¡¯t put the ssified strategic ns within the courseware. What the rest saw were just the tragedies that could possibly ur in the future. Other than stating the potential urrence of the Undead Cmity, invasion of the Demons, and the war with the Underground World, the courseware didn¡¯t even list the reasons behind these disasters or record the estimated time of their urrences, not to mention the strategies I have prepared against them.


    The only thing they were aware of now was that they would meet with a series of cmities, and that I was trying my best to resolve all of these troubles. As for how they would be resolved and the possibility of sess, it was all still an enigma to them.


    Although I was recruitingrades, my invitationcked sincerity.


    If they were to nod their heads despite having not knowing what they could expect, they would be handing their futurespletely over to me. To do so took great trust, and the foundation for this trust needed to be built up over time.


    I could understand their hesitation and silence. Forcing them to toil their lives away for another just with some cheap talk¡ªsuch a thing only exists in irrational novels.


    If someone were to tell me that ¡°The world is about to be destroyed, you can only be saved if you put your trust in me, so give me all your fortunes,¡± I would already be kind to not to p that person¡¯s face several times.


    ¡°Perhaps, this is the revtion from fate. Lord Rnd, I am willing to work for you. If destruction is what that awaits us, I am willing to face it with you.¡±


    Alright, just when I just said that such a plot only existed in novels, this sillyss jumped out to p me in the face.


    Holy Knights were always the bunch who are the easiest to coax, and Diana was the kind who was the easiest to coax even among the Holy Knights. Her eptance was a good start, but what that follows afterwards was still a long period of silence.


    ¡°Lord Rnd, there is another Lich in Liu Huang Mountain City who goes by the same name as you. Your rtionship with him is...¡±


    Yingou Beyar asked a seemingly unimportant question. However, his words captured the attention of everyone in the room.


    I hesitated for a short moment. However, since I had decided to face them honestly, I chose not to spout nonsense at this crucial period.


    ¡°That¡¯s me. However, I am unable to tell you the reason behind my revival.¡±


    ¡°Then, who is the Legend Holy Knight from more than 300 years ago? The legendary hero whom that bunch of single-celled knights chant about everyday, the final prince who left a mark in history?¡±


    This question was well thought-out. It seemed that even though this bunch of people were fooling around everyday, they weren¡¯t cking off. At the very least, they had been collecting intelligence to prepare for the future.


    If it wasn¡¯t for my determination to keep all of them on board, then some of them would have taken the initiative to leave the group back then when we had reached a safe zone.


    ¡°That¡¯s me as well, but I cannot exin the matter to you.¡±


    My confession caused several of them to gasp in shock. After all, arade of theirs who had been fooling about suddenly turned out to be a legendary hero.


    Furthermore, this legendary hero had been right before them, living with them for a long period of time. Shocking as it was, it also made people wonder why he hid his identity and resided in Liu Huang Mountain City for such a long period of time.


    ¡°Last question. What is your rtionship with Lord Wumianzhe?¡±


    ¡°Comrades. We have the same goals and same means. In a way, we are intimate to the point where we might as well be the same person. However, now that we¡¯vee to this point, those who choose to back down afterwards will have to sign a contract of silence.¡±


    I might have yed a bit of a word game, but my words were true. We were the same person, so naturally, we were intimate to the point that we might as well be the same person.


    Yingou looked at the Krose, who was standing silently by the side. The Archbishop of the God of Law hesitated for a moment before nodding to verify the authenticity of my words.


    ¡°Fine, I will speak in the stead of my elder brother as well. Our Safe Merchant Union will be staking everything on you. We will be under yourmands. However, if it is an action rting tomerce, we will be demanding payment! The motto of the Goblins dictates that ¡®Close Goblins ask for payment straightforwardly!¡¯.¡±


    This time, I was taken aback. From the start, I thought that the greedy and selfish Goblins would be the targets which I would have the greatest difficulty in convincing. I had already prepared myself for their refusal, yet they were the second to nod their heads. This waspletely out of my expectations.


    ¡°What is there to get shocked about? Lich Rnd has been our brother for many years. Furthermore, Lord Wumianzhe has always been a figure of respect among us. Since you have said that destruction is just around the corner, do we need to hesitate when there is a reliable backer right here?¡±


    Everything could be traced back to the question of trust. Even though it was clear that huddling together would be the best choice to deal with the iing doomsday, if one were to find the wrong tree to stand under, they would simply be waiting to be pawns in the war.


    From the moment that Yingou Beyar epted the deal, the winds swiftly turned to my favor, to the extent that I even started to suspect whether this was a trap set up by him. However, indubitably, his choice had a significant influence on the decisions of the others.


    ¡°I will listen to Big Brother Yingou. I also trust Lord Wumianzhe¡¯s decision. I know that he wouldn¡¯t ascend for no reason at all. Perhaps we might just be pieces on a chessboard, but I am willing to trust the chess yer, Wumianzhe. I believe that he wouldn¡¯t sacrifice us pointlessly.¡± The moment Kab¡¯s words ceased, the voice of the Dwarven cksmith echoed in the cabin.


    ¡°Since it is the will of Lord Wumianzhe, feel free to speak up if you are facing any trouble. It is enough for us to trust him. We might be short, but we are not blind. Without your help, we would have drowned in that cell. We will remember this favor.¡±


    At this point, things were still normal. However...


    ¡°Momo... Momo likes Lord Wumianzhe the most!¡± Alright, looks like you have noticed the equation of Wumianzhe = Lich Rnd = Little Rolo, but what do you intend to achieve by slipping in a confession in the midst of this chaos?!


    ¡°What about food?¡±


    ¡°Dixu, you idiot, how can you be only bothered about food! Lord, will there be meat in the meal? I am okay with once every three days.¡±


    Only bothered about their stomach, Kavan and Dixu were probably the ones who were the easiest to bribe.


    ¡°How can this be! There are so many beauties in the world whom I have yet toe into contact with. How can I let them all go to ruin? For more beautiful beasts... beauties, let¡¯s do it! No matter who it is, as long as they intend to destroy this beautiful and cruel world, I will fight against him to myst breath!¡±


    That should be the most normal reaction one would have towards the destruction of the world. However, in so many years, this was the first time I saw Beifeng acting so seriously. Furthermore, the radiance of the soul which could vaguely be seen meant that he was in the midst ofprehending something, very much so about to break through his bottleneck! A Legend Beastmaster was about to be born!


    ¡°I was wrong. In the past, my understanding towards love was too superficial. Loving a person doesn¡¯t mean that I must possess him. Protecting everything that is beautiful, that is my truest wish. Love surpasses boundaries, kindness without motives! Goodbye, the me of yesterday. The me of today is going toprehend the true profoundness of love.¡±


    ¡°Guardian of Universal Love! I solemnly vow to protect all charismatic existence, regardless of race, age, gender, job, whether it is cold-blooded or warm-blooded, itsnd of origin, whether it is dead or alive, whether it is an arthropod or a mammal...¡±


    That... How apt the name was. His love was simply much too universal! I had heard many different kind of vows. Advancing into the realm of Legends was the crystallisation of one¡¯s experiences andprehension, so the vow made during the advancement was often the true words derived from that person¡¯sprehension. However, this was the first time I heard one that left me speechless.


    ¡°... regardless of whether it is a bird or a beast, regardless of whether it is a fork or a spoon...¡±


    This vow was really long, but why is it that something sounds fishy about the vow the more I listened to it?


    ¡°Ah! Fight! Watch my Tiger Folding Stool!¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t take it any longer. Beat him up!¡±


    ¡°Safe-brand bricks, special discount, please take note of this green logo whenever you buy anything! Safe-brand products are always that safe! Boom! Boom!¡±


    Thest part wasn¡¯t a part of themercial, but the sound of an explosion. To be capable of making a brick explode, how the hell did you all do it, Beyar Brothers?


    Due to the vow that was devoid of a single shred of decency, someone couldn¡¯t stand it any longer and started on the daily activity of beating Beifeng up.


    However, even though he was knocked down, Beifeng¡¯s vow of true love didn¡¯t stop. The sacred light representing the advancement in realm continued shining. Judging from the duration the process was taking, the Soul Imprint that was being forged would definitely be extraordinarily strong. Most probably, Beifeng wouldn¡¯t just be a normal Legend after his advancement.


    ¡°... regardless of whether it is an egg or a chicken, regardless of whether it is an S or an M...¡±


    Alright, let¡¯s ignore the vow which was getting more and more difficult to listen to. He was probably the only one in the world who would was enjoying a thrashing while advancing to be Legend.


    Although they were fooling around as usual, the situation became less tense after the incident with Beifeng and easier tomunicate at this point.


    Should I say that Wumianzhe¡¯s reputation was astounding? After being informed that this was the will of the God of Law Wumianzhe, the living treasures of the Underground City decisively epted the offer one by one. However, at the very end, I unexpectedly got a single rejection.


    ¡°Can I just follow you all around for the moment? I need time to make such a decision.¡±


    Tracy¡¯s rejection was still quite polite. Arge portion of Anders also chose the same as her. Even so, quite a few of them decided to disembark from the boat after a period of hesitation. The only positive of the situation was that there weren¡¯t many of them.


    Trust needed to be built up over time. I agreed to the requests of Tracy and the rest immediately, allowing them to follow us as they pleased. However, for those who decided to leave, I didn¡¯t intend to force them to stay.


    ¡°Yeah, you can get off the boat after signing a contract of secrecy. However, you all aren¡¯t allowed to return to And within a year, otherwise it would be hard to exin your sudden appearance and disappearance. After all, you all probably do not wish to be locked in some dungeon of an intelligence institution for interrogation.¡±


    In the end, the results were much better than I expected. Only seventeen of them insisted on disembarking the ship and they were all the new talents whom we scouted from Kagersi before its fall.


    The operation could be said to be a huge sess, so how could I possibly not be happy.


    ¡°When the members of the Church of Law and my knights arrive, they would be able to serve as the backbone of our group and many things would probably be different. Perhaps, we might be able to build an eptable base. A Liu Huang Mountain City on the surface? Seems like a decent option.¡±


    Of course, even if I was happy, I wouldn¡¯t go out for a stroll on a whim. There was a reason why I headed out alone.


    Finally, I reached my destination. The copsed massive rock lion statues jogged a memory in me. The events that urred here reyed in my mind, that ¡°revolt¡± which overthrew the notions which high-tier undead held towards their own race.


    Near the entrance, two familiar figures cloaked in ck busied themselves around the rubble, seemingly looking for something.


    ¡°Camisia, Fanderk. Why are you two here?¡±


    Yes, the two people who were before me are my knights, Camisia and Fanderk. There was always a kind of inconceivable connection between an Undead Emperor and his direct subjects. The reason why I rushed here was because I felt their presence here.


    ¡°Your Highness, we started to head north upon receiving your orders. However, Lord Bastian said that the seal here was starting to unravel, so we came over to take a look.¡±


    The Headless Horseman¡¯s high-tier Nightmare possessed the ability of flight while Fanderk was an Aurora Knight. Being aerial units, they were both ideal choices as scouts.


    ¡°Your Highness, Omar¡¯s seal has been released! It looks like it is the doing of the Xiluo Empire. They are courting death!¡±


    ***


    ¡°The motion has been passed in the council. From today on, Omar Mist will rece the missing Queen of Banshees Harloys as the new 3rd Senator!¡±


    Shocking news was pasted on the notice board outside the council room. All of a sudden, a ¡°neer¡± stood at the very pinnacle of Xiluo Empire.


    Undead who had never heard of Omar asked around to figure out who the guy who suddenly popped out of nowhere was, while those who were aware of him cursed the insanity of the council.


    ¡°Darn it, does the council intend to destroy all living beings? Are they not afraid of Omar starting another revolt? Now that Emperor Yongye is no longer here, who could keep that frenzied Pride in ce!¡±


    ***


    Ever since I noticed the presence of the two knights here, I had roughly guessed what had happened. Even so, now that it had been ascertained, the good mood which I had while soaring through the clouds fell into the pits.


    Since the seal had been released, there was no reason to remain here any longer.


    Since both our destinations were the East Mist Communal Country, I brought the two of them back to the mouth of the sea where I had arranged to link up with the Borealis.


    The path back to the ship was smoother-sailing. However, when we finally reached our destination, we realized that the Borealis was currently busy entertaining ¡°guests.¡±


    A massive Kraken had wrapped itself around the boat and its poisonous ink had dyed the entire region of the sea ck.


    On the other side, a giant Horned Whale frenziedly knocked itself against the boat. Its white horn glowed with the seven colors that represented the Power of Elements, augmenting the strength of its ram.


    In an instant, I immediately understood the reason why we were assaulted by these two Sea Monsters.


    ¡°Haha, damned bastards, how could I possibly die so easily! Since I¡¯m not dead yet, you all will be the ones to die!¡±


    In mid-air, a crow which only had half of its feathers remainingughed crazily. Half of its face was burnt and it was astonishingly ugly. However, the familiar duck-like voice allowed me to recognise him instantly.


    ¡°The greatest cockroach of the Celestial Tower, the And Branch Head Lamos¡¯s Eye! You sure are resilient!¡±


    That day, when we were dealing with the Hydra, this fellow suffered a strategic-level Fireball from a Mage¡¯s Tower. At that moment, as we were rushing to retreat from the battlefield, we didn¡¯t have sufficient time to ascertain the results of the battle.


    ¡°The Queen of the Storms has granted me power! I am Lamos¡¯s Eye! Her most faithful servant!¡±


    Seemingly afraid of getting hit by the cannons below, he chose to fly up to a high altitude. The staff in his hand that carried divine power seemed to be charging up its strength in the midst of the storm. It seemed to be the catalyst he was using to control the Sea Monsters below. Unfortunately for him, I was above the clouds.


    ¡°Hey~, look. What did I find? A remnant of the Celestial Tower. A Celestial Towerist can provide us with several days worth of energy. Furthermore, it is rich in protein. However, a Celestial Tower inhabitant isn¡¯t easy to deal with. Not only does it possess strong life force, it is also exceptionally agile when trying to escape, equally difficult to catch as their brothers, the cockroaches. Thus, we have to approach him slowly. Be careful not to make any noise.¡±


    ¡°Hey, I caught it. Oh, it is struggling very fiercely!¡±


    ¡°Let us sever its head. We can eat the other parts of it raw.¡±


    ¡°Of course, if we have enough time, we could try barbecuing it. It would be much more delicious that way.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, the texture is not bad. Tastes like chicken.¡±


    ¡°Stupid Rnd, stop dubbing over my voice. Irene doesn¡¯t eat these kind of things! I will suffer diarrhea!¡±

 Chapter 127

    Chapter 127: Legend-rank Quest


    It was said that cockroaches possessed the ability to escape and reproduce even when they were decapitated, although it was a pity that their brothers, the Celestial Towerists, were incapable of such feat.


    Just as what was said previously, that resilient Lamos¡¯s Eye, without even making a real appearance in the text, died in the midst of a series of retorts.


    Due to the high altitude he was flying at, he was way too near to the clouds, thus providing an opportunity for three aerial units to swipe down towards him. Before he could even react, he was decapitated by the swiftest Camisia.


    Based on his strength and identity, being surrounded and lynched by two Aurora Knights and one Undead Lord-level Duhan, at least he wasn¡¯t really wronged in his death.


    After he had been decapitated, his body was frozen and thrown into the sea. I didn¡¯t believe that fellow would still be capable of climbing out of his tomb to cause trouble like that.


    What was noteworthy was his staff. It wasn¡¯t an ordinary treasure.


    ¡¾The Will of the Queen of the Storm: Through this staff, the wielder chosen by the Queen of the Storm can be the oracle of her will. The wielder would be able to order the Sea Monsters under hermand. Prerequisite: Worshiper of the Queen of the Storm or someone chosen by her.¡¿


    ¡¾This is a simple staff made from ancient oak. The craftsmanship and material for its creation is inferior and the God Power that is contained inside is not worth mentioning.


    System Notice: Through this wooden material, a certaindy who had undergone menopause for more than ten thousand years is able to view the surroundings about the wielder, and she is currently staring at you. You understand.¡¿


    Of course I do.


    Kacha.


    I smashed the wooden staff over my knee and the staff infused with God Power broke into two as the energy within started to dissipate into the surroundings.


    The container that was used to hold God Power had been destroyed. As a result, the God Power would either return to the God or dissipate into the surroundings. However, this time, the situation was slightly different.


    As one of the very few existences who had personallyprehended the nature of a true God¡¯s God Power, I could vaguely feel the sliver of God Power shrouding around me, as though it was unwilling to leave.


    God Power was devoid of intelligence, so I did not think that it was possible for the God Power to set its eyes upon me. So...


    ¡°Is this it?¡±


    There was nothing unique about the antique-looking old bottle. However, the moment I took it out, the intangible and formless God Power started to seep into it and a sliver of water appeared on the bottom of the carving of billowing waves on the bottle.


    In this world, God Power required a suitable container to hold it; not just any material could be a constituent of a God Equipment.


    This Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle was once a God Equipment, except that the God Power it contained within hadpletely dissipated through the long ages, along with the fall of the God. At present, after absorbing a part of the Queen of the Storm¡¯s God Power, it regained some strength.


    ¡¾Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle. Unable to be evaluated. Mystical object (Can be upgraded. However, due to the fall of its original owner, it can only reach the level of a Semi-God Equipment)¡¿


    ¡¾The Calm Ocean: After activation, it returns all fluids surrounding the user back to its most basic form and nature. Upon absorbing the God Power of the Goddess of Storm, it has gained the ability to calm storms.¡¿


    ¡¾The Favored One of the Sea God: The owner of the bottle bes the oracle of the Ancient Sea God. It is easier for the owner to gain the trust and goodwill of ancient Sea Monsters and ancient Sea Dwellers. When the goodwill reaches a certain level, it is possible for a Companion Contract to be signed. After the Companion Contract is signed, the contractee can be summoned to battle for you.¡¿


    ¡¾Wrath of the Queen of the Storms: That fieryss has already realized that her God Power has been stolen, and the bottle has be evidence of her setback. Thus, the owner of the bottle will be viewed with enmity and pursued by the Queen of the Storms¡¿


    ¡¾Osweyar¡¯s Displeasure: The current Sea God views every single existence who could threaten his Jurisdiction seriously. Do not give him an opportunity to pull one over you.¡¿


    ¡¾System Notice: This would prove to be a massive problem, so I rmend you to throw this bottle into the sea. Of course, with great riskse great benefits. What would you earn from offending these two true Gods? You want to know? Yeah ... actually I don¡¯t know it myself either.¡¿


    Looking at the System Notice, I breathed in a breath of cold air. Ignoring the System¡¯s disgusting attempt to act cute, ¡°Osweyar¡¯s Displeasure¡± and the God Equipment automatically fusing with the God Power on its own ord exined a lot about the bottle.


    ¡°God Equipment and God Power are often specific to one another. The God Power melding into the bottle and that subduing effect of ¡®The Calm Ocean¡¯ provides quite a bit of hint. Sidunwar¡¯s God Power is connected to the God Power of the Queen of the Storms. Furthermore, they probablye from the same source. That¡¯s why they would be able to meld with one another and curb each other. Since the incumbent Sea God feels that this bottle would threaten his Jurisdiction, that could only mean that hidden in this bottle is... a God Soul or a Jurisdiction?!¡±


    I could vaguely figure out a few things and I immediately went into action. I stuffed the bottle into my luggage and activated the Anti-Detection Magic Ring. The longer this object was exposed for, the higher the possibility that it would bring about trouble.


    ¡°Rmending me to throw it away, ¡®with great riskse great benefits,¡¯ what is this? Are you trying to dupe me? Why don¡¯t you just say that this toy is involved in some great secret, and I would reap great rewards the moment I seed, so don¡¯t throw it away? Wouldn¡¯t that suffice?¡±


    ¡¾System Notice: You would need to be alive to spend the money you earned. Are you sure you want to keep it? Alright, I admire your guts. Then, prepare to ept the Legend rank quest. System will be counting down from ten. Final confirmation: 10, 9, 1! Confirmed!¡¿


    ¡°Wait, why did ¡®9¡¯ suddenly drop to ¡®1¡¯! I haven¡¯t confirmed anything! Besides, what do you mean by Legend rank quest? Is it even more damned than Epic rank quest?¡±


    At this point, if I still did not realize that I was scammed by the System, I would truly be a fool.


    ¡¾Congrattions for triggering the Legend rank quest: Revival of the Ancient Sea God¡¿


    ¡¾The Ancient Sea God Sidunwar was the strongest God of his time. At his pinnacle, there were multiple Main God-ss existences under his faction. Back then, the Queen of the Storms was just a rookie who couldn¡¯t even fit into the ranks. The grandfather of current Sea God Osweyar, Ancient Sea God Bose, wasn¡¯t even born then. Sidunwar single-handedly ruled over the oceans, the area of which far exceeds that of the entire continent. In fact, he even challenged the prestige of the Goddess of Order. As for the results of that, since his bottle is in your hands now, I shouldn¡¯t have to borate too much on it.¡¿


    ¡¾Although he has already fallen, due to some coincidence, the God Equipment which holds his heritage and his profound secrets fell into your hands, and was activated by a God Power of the same origin. Perhaps, in the era nearing the end of the Gods, the might of the Ancient Sea God will be known to the world once again.¡¿


    ¡¾System Notice: Due to the overwhelming difficulty of the quest, the possibility of you aplishing this quest is low. Thus, this quest has been divided into three portions. Rewards will be granted for thepletion of each part. Furthermore, there are no punishments upon failure. Yep, that is because if you fail, there is no need for me to punish you anyway.¡¿


    ¡¾Quest Requirement Part 1: Collect God Powers rted to the ocean to feed Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle and evolve it to its Semi-God Equipment form.


    System Notice: Do not think about provoking the Sea God from the very start. Also, powerful Sea Monsters that survived the ancient and immemorial era would contain a trace of God Power of the Sea God within them.¡¿


    ¡¾Part 1pletion reward: Semi-God Equipment Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle, 100,000 Fate Points. Additional rewards will be granted based on the level ofpletion of the quest.¡¿


    Granting 100,000 Fate Points just bypleting the first part of the quest? Then, if the whole quest were to bepleted, wouldn¡¯t the final reward be 400,000 or 500,000? Previously, so much effort was expended toplete an Epic rank quest and in the end, I even had to kill a Demon Count. Even so, only 120,000 Fate Points were given.


    However, looking at it from another perspective, if a Demon Count were to appear in an Epic rank quest, then it would be difficult to imagine what kind of enemies would appear in a Legend rank quest.


    ¡°Do it! Make those withrge guts swell and starve those with small guts! With these points, not only will I be able to keep up with the progress of my n, it might even be able to be carried ahead!¡±TL: It means that those who are daring would get what they want, while those are timid would end up with nothing.


    In Camisia and Fanderk¡¯s eyes, my hesitation seemed like worry for the current situation.


    ¡°Your Highness, do you need us to make a move?¡±


    Even though Lamos¡¯s Eye, who instructed the Sea Monsters to attack the Borealis had died, the battle on the ocean did not cease. In actuality, it got even more out of control. As the Sea Monsters started to rely on their own basic instincts to fight, the battle grew even more intense and bloody.


    The giant octopus was one of the mostmonly seen Sea Beasts, to the point that it couldn¡¯t be called a Sea Monster. However, possessing a 100- to 200-meter long massive body, it was one of the stronger Sea Monsters. Before it, even the powerful Sea Giants are only a delectable meal.


    The snowy-white octopus was an Ice Element Magic Beast that often appeared in the Belor Oceanic Region and was reputed as the ¡°Living cier of Despair.¡± Regardless of the kind of ship, if they came into contact with the octopus, they would definitely end up sinking into the sea.


    With a thickyer of ice armor covering it, the octopus magic beast looked exceptionally beautiful. If it were to be shrinked by countless folds, it might have been a suitable pet for ady of nobility. However, the lethal poison contained in its ink made it too dangerous for such a possibility to be realized.


    Upon finding out that it was unable to pull the warship into the sea, the giant octopus entangled half of its body onto the Borealis, making full use of its physical advantage.


    Not only was the body of water surrounding the Borealis frozen by Ice Magic, the tentacles of the octopus that were full of suction pads held the body of the ship firmly in ce. Some of the tentacles even carried ice des that were the size of ciers. Poisonous ink sprayed down upon the boat like a tempest.


    Naturally, the Borealis wasn¡¯t sitting there idly. The poisonous cannons that carried the power of corrosion kept sting at the octopus, but due to the ipatibility of attributes, especially in the face of the ice armor of the magic beast, its corrosive abilities did not take effect. Even so, under the bombardment of over a hundred cannons, the octopus was soon wounded all over and its left eye burst from an urate shot. There were many times that the auto-regenerating ice armor failed to recover in time to ward off the attacks.


    Massive beasts tended to be powerful but slow. Their way of fighting heavily relied on the physical body they were blessed with, and they were inflexible in such an aspect as well. From our perspective, the brawl between massive beasts was not much different from a street fight between hooligans.


    The massive octopus that was riding on the ship and brandishing those ice des bore some resemnce to a frenzied female using her purse to hit an unfaithful man. The poisonous ink was not much different from the saliva she would spit onto his face. As for the Horned Whale on the other side, it resembled a powerful man wielding a thousand-pound hammer, looking for an opportunity to deliver the fatal blow.


    Whales were born thergest natural creature in the ocean, and the Horned Whale was an erged version of a normal whale. Just the portion of the monster that surfaced above the water was already a dozen stories high. From head to toe, it was around 300 meters long. Its gigantic body granted it a majestic presence. With just a slight whip of its tail, it was able to generate giant waves. Even more so, its ram possessed the strength to suppress everything.


    Before it, the super warship Borealis could only be considered a malnourished dwarf. Every single ram carried the strength of the mountains, and the giant horn at the forefront of the ram was like an incredibly sharp de that increased the threat of the attack by severalfold.


    Just by looking at the situation below, the Borealis had been suppressed to the point that it might break apart at any moment now. It was no wonder that my two knights would ask if we should make a move.


    However, I shook my head in response. The battle beneath us was not suitable for us to interfere in, and there was no need for us to interfere in it as well.


    ¡°... There¡¯s no need. Don¡¯t underestimate that boat. It is the brother of your captain.¡±


    Hearing those words, the both of them froze for a split moment. Then, Death Knight Fendark eximed in shock, ¡°Again? Your Highness, Omar has just escaped.... You are creating all kinds of weird things again. Aren¡¯t you afraid they will escape your control...¡±


    Before he could finish his words, Camisia hurriedly covered his mouth.


    ¡°You fool. Have you forgotten that our prince hates people criticizing his creations the most? He treats them all as his children. If you were to reprimand his children before him, he would surely find an opportunity to get back at you. Furthermore, what do you mean by ¡®all kinds of weird things¡¯? If these words were to travel to Captain Bastian¡¯s ears, how do you think he would deal with you?¡±


    ¡°Do you want to perform as a clown riding a unicycle past a ring of fire? Or do you want to put on a lion costume to y with rascals? If you want tomit suicide, don¡¯t pull me down with you! I had suffered enough back then when those rascals kicked my head around like a ball. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. I had pleaded to you for help, but why didn¡¯t you save me? Instead you chose to leave this headless knight running about to find his missing head. I even injured some innocent bystanders! Do you know how miserable I was?¡±


    ¡°Back then, I saw the ¡®ball¡¯ calling out so excitedly, the rascals were also having fun, and everyone was so happy. I thought that you were all having great fun ying together. So we took this opportunity to take a break. Thest time old Liester yed with the rascals, they took away one of his ribs. Eventually, he found it in a hole dug by a dog after his lunch meal. The smell of fermentation.... If it gets to such a point, I would much rather duel the Church of Holy Light to my death!¡±


    Recalling the most severe punishment of the Red Hunting Hounds, ¡°ying with the Rascals¡±, and those rascals whom even demons and gods went all out to avoid, even my fiercest knight couldn¡¯t help but concede defeat.


    ¡°That.... Your Highness, I¡¯m sorry. I have misspoke. Please do not hold a grudge against me.¡±


    Initially, when my beloved one was criticized, I was slightly angry. However, when I thought about Omar, who turned against me a few years after his birth, and the fact that I might meet him very soon, I could no longer find any interest in squabbling over this.


    ¡°In order to allow them to reach the pinnacle independently, after designing the optimal road to bing stronger, I didn¡¯t impose any restrictions on them so as to give them sufficient space to develop freely. Was my decision to give them freedom wrong? Omar, now that I think about it, the things that happened then were my fault.¡±


    I shook my head. ¡°Envy¡± Borealis and ¡°Pride¡± Omar were twopletely different beings. Envy was just the modification of a boat. No matter how strong it grew, it would remain as an individual. On the other hand, Omar was different. He was capable of creating the most powerful army single-handedly. At his peak, he was able to stand up against abined assault by the other Deadly Sins by himself.


    Pride was the foremost of the Seven Deadly Sins. From the very start, I designed him to be a leader figure for the Seven Deadly Sins, as well as my assistant. He was unique from the moment of his birth. Due to the excessive expectations stacked onto him, he became excessively ambitious and arrogant. Not to mention, he was still way too young andcked self-control and rationality. Although his abilities were outstanding, his mental state was too immature for him to be independent.


    In the end, when I chose Bastian to serve as my captain, Omar saw what ought to have been his being taken away. To Omar, the incarnation of ¡°Pride,¡± this was a heavy blowpared to the smooth-sailing life he had had. How could the young Pride tolerate this huge disparity between his expectations and achievements? Anxious, he chose to flip the table like a child and used his strength to start an uprising.


    ¡°Hm? What ability is that!¡±


    Just when I was reminiscing the past, a change urred in the battle happening below.


    The severely damaged Borealis suddenly glowed with a green light and the surrounding seawater bypassed theyer of ice and gushed towards the ship. Bathing in seawater, the green glow radiated even more brilliantly and the damaged surfaceyer and spare parts started to regenerate automatically.


    In ten seconds, along with the retreating of the seawater and the fading of the green light, the ship that was filled with holes a moment earlier looked brand new at the current moment, as though it freshly came out of the workshop.


    Did it seem very familiar? That was the main ability of the Nine-headed Dragon, the regeneration ability that left us with a headache then!


    The Borealis started to counterattack. Its first target was the Horned Whale, which was preparing to ram itself into the boat again.


    Red light shined on the dragon figurehead at the bow of the ship. Finally, the prerequisites of the ability of the ¡°Envy,¡± which had been prepared for a while now, was met and started to activate!


    The red light struck the Horned Whale and it started to thrash about in agony on the surface of the water. Following which, a savage apparition of the Nine-headed Dragon Emperor shed past the head of the massive whale and a giant, bloody wound suddenly appeared on the head of the whale. Fresh blood spurted out furiously from the hole, dying a huge volume of the sea red.


    A few secondster, that giant horn floated to the bow of Borealis and attached itself onto it. From now on, the warship Borealis would have the strongest ramming horn!


    ¡°Envy? It all originates fromparison. Nobody¡¯s perfect, so it is perfectly natural to meet someone stronger than you in certain aspects and feel envious and indignant over your inadequateness. If it is an optimal amount of envy, it can propagate growth and this is known as one¡¯s drive. However, if it is excessive, it will be warped into resentment against them, and when it happens, envy will be dangerous.¡±


    ¡°The butterflies have beautiful wings, but I don¡¯t. I¡¯m envious of it, thus I rip off her wings to create a sample. This way, I can delight myself over my collection, and the butterflies won¡¯t be flying around to incur my annoyance either.¡±


    ¡°The eagles have grand wings that can soar in the vast blue sky. We, humans, do not have wings, but we still dream of sweeping through the endless skies. Thus, through our hard work, we created a flying machine modelled after them.¡±


    ¡°My Envy of the Seven Deadly Sins, Borealis, is abination of the two kinds of envy. If it is envious of the butterflies, it will rip off their wings and attach it to himself. That way, it would be able to fly in the skies.¡±


    The designing process of this ¡°Envy¡± wasn¡¯t easy, but I had a n in mind, and I also possessed the required technology for it already. All along, the biggest problem was the materials. After all, energy was required to drive the many spare parts that were required for its construction. However, it was already a blessing if the materials did not implode due to the sh of ipatible magic. So, how could the organs that originate from different sources operate normally?


    ¡°Do I have to provide a source of energy and main system for each of the spare parts and organs? Then what¡¯s the point of ¡®snatching?¡¯¡±


    However, the heart of the Nine-headed Dragon and the Legend-tier Nine-colored Tear Stone perfectly resolved the problem.


    Each of the nine heads of the Nine-headed Dragon possessed different attributes, but it was able to release breaths of nine different attributes under a single energy source, and I had already deciphered the secret behind it.


    ¡¾Legend-tier Mystical Treasure Nine-colored Tear Stone: Allows the attribute of mana with the same origin as the Nine-colored Tear Stone to change freely.¡¿


    It was just a simple exnation of the object by the System, but it clearly showcased the noble status the Nine-headed Dragon held as a Semi-God. After experimenting and making certain modifications on it, the Nine-headed Dragon Heart and Nine-colored Tear Stone were adjusted to create a multipurpose energy source that served as both an energy source and attribute modifier system for ¡°Envy.¡±


    Judging from how Borealis had sessfully stolen the horn from the Horned Whale and melded with it, it seemed that the design of ¡°Envy¡± worked.


    Meanwhile, the battle was already reaching its end. After all, the enemy of the Sea Monsters was a fusion between And¡¯s most powerful warship and my Undead Creation abilities. When science and magic mixed together, the result was the birth of the most powerful monster ship of this era.


    The horn was originally attached to the skull of the Horned Whale, thus making it its strongest weapon as well as its greatest weakness. Losing its horn, even if it were to be left alone, it wouldn¡¯t survive for long.


    Seeing itspanion on the verge of dying and the disappearance of the envoy of the Queen of the Storms, it released its grip on the warship without any hesitation and escaped into the deep sea.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, we probably still have matters to attend to.¡±


    This was the first time Envy experimented with its unused talents in battle. If my estimations weren¡¯t wrong, its internal system was probably in a wreck, so I needed to quickly make some adjustments.


    As I moved forward, I realized that Camisia and Fanderk were still rooted to the spot.


    ¡°Your Highness, is it not suitable for us to be heading there in our state? We think it would be better for us to fly behind the warship. It is the same thing anyway.¡±


    Initially, I was slightly puzzled over their reactions when I suddenly came to a realization. They were hesitating over their identities as Undead. They were worried that they would be unable to get along with the living.


    Unlike Liu Huang Mountain City which was used to the presence of Undead, the fear and resentment the Surface humans held for Undead were deep-seated. It was perfectly normal for a Holy Knight to charge at an Undead to vanquish it upon catching sight of one. Camisia and Fanderk¡¯s worry wasn¡¯t unfounded.


    However, in response to their hesitation, I firmly shook my head.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. An ugly daughter-inw has to meet her mother-inw sooner orter. The more we try to hide something, the likelier it is to be exposed. Eventually, the lie might lead to problems that are difficult to resolve. Since it is impossible to conceal the fact, we might as well do it openly then.¡±


    ***


    Just like the River Styx, the Heavenly Pir seemed as though it led straight up, but souls traveling through it would need to pass through innumerable dimensions before reaching the Heavenly Realms of the various Gods.


    Of the many Heavenly Realms, there was one that was particrly deste. Aspared to the other Heavenly Realms that would ept an influx of innumerable souls every day, there were very few souls that entered here every month.


    ¡°The Heavenly Realm of the God of Law, Wumianzhe.¡±


    Without the invitation of the owner, trespassing on one¡¯s Heavenly Realm was a highly aggressive action. There had never been any visitors to Wumianzhe¡¯s Heavenly Realm until this day, so no one, not even the Gods, knew the appearance of Wumianzhe.


    The massive Heavenly Realm was forlorn. The devotees that should have been providing the God with the Power of Faith wandered about aimlessly, and not a single God Envoy that should have been upholding order here could be seen.


    ¡°Simr to the God of Holy Light, the God of Law has also lost his sense of self. The Goddess of Moonlight must be truly furious for the unlucky Basr to be dumped on the God of Law, Wumianzhe.¡±


    This event might have been a secret of the Gods in the mortal world, but to the servants of the various Gods, it was a well-known fact. Basr, who had incurred the wrath of the Goddess of Moonlight, wasbelled as an unlucky fellow by the many onlookers.


    Afterzing about in boredom in the Heavenly Realm for many days, just as he had really started to think that he was abandoned, he was summoned by God Wumianzhe.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be too surprised when you meet Wumianzhe.¡±


    While awaiting his audience with Wumianzhe, Basr couldn¡¯t help but recall the bizarre words the Goddess of Moonlight said to him a few days ago.


    ¡°Hmph, even if he has three heads and six arms, he won¡¯t be able to scare me.¡±


    But when he met Wumianzhe, in order to prevent himself from shouting out loud, he almost pinched his flesh out so as to prevent himself from eximing disrespectfully. Also, to prevent the overwhelming shock from being expressed on his face, the usually calm face of Basr forcefully scrunched up into a ball.


    The reason? Wumianzhe didn¡¯t don his mask in his Heavenly Realm, and he realized that he had met that face just a few days ago!


    ¡°Basr, obey my will. As my envoy, go to the mortal world...¡±


    When Basr walked out of that hall, those legs of his, which theoretically should have never felt fatigue, trembled. The hero who had fearlessly partaken in all kinds of battle felt afraid. He finally understood the feeling of being a pawn in a massive battle.


    ¡°This time, the stakes you all have put in are high. However, since I¡¯m already on the boat, then let¡¯s take it to the end!¡±

 Chapter 128

    Chapter 128: The Northern Lands


    ¡°Quickly shut down valves 17 to 30! The 3rd engine is on fire, hurry up and evacuate all personnel in the vicinity. Where is the firefighting squad? There¡¯s no such squad? Forget it, get an ice spellcaster then. There are no ice spellcasters too? What about Princess Reyne?¡±


    ¡°The C15-21 storage rooms on the ship¡¯s port are leaking. Where¡¯s the maintenance team? There isn¡¯t such a team too? Fine, freeze the leaking water and fix it after everything else is stable. Princess Reyne is in the engine room?¡±


    ¡°Knight Elohim, it is your turn to shine. What? Your Frigid Nightmare is a Snowman that is only capable of physical battle, and is unable of freezing anything? You log-head, why are you so useless! Tie you and your Snowman to the hole to clog it up!¡±


    ¡°Where have all those darned engineers gone to? What? They¡¯ve all gone to the bow to look at the newly-fitted ramming horn? Isn¡¯t that an ability of the ship? They aren¡¯t capable of magic, what can theyprehend by looking at it? What?! They are looking at it because it is unscientific? That bunch of bastards! Prince Clint, please help me drag them back here. No, you don¡¯t have to do anything. You just have to stand beside them to make them run back here.¡±


    ¡°Red alert. What happened? What? Knight Elohim really tied himself and his Snowman into the hole and got swept away!? I was onlyining and drawing aparison! He really did that? That log-head! Darn it, ask Tracy to pull that fool back up. I am already busy as it is! To think he would add to my troubles!¡±


    ¡°Princess Reyne, please head to the control room, someone in there is looking for you. That ... Lord Diana, I know that you were looking forward to having a great duel with the enemy, but can you not hinder our job by standing in the corridor, fully clothed for battle? We have already received severalints of your armor scratching them and you hindering their job.¡±


    ¡°That Legend Beastmaster on the deck, the battle has already ended and your beast taming skills didn¡¯t work. So, get your ass back here!¡±


    ¡°I almost seeded! Transmitting love takes time! Also, can you me me for this failure? Do you think you can convince someone by saying that you love him while beating him up?¡± Alright, the voice of a certain man who could not be evaluated still loudly resounded even in the midst of chaos.


    It was already a chaotic sight from the moment Inded on the deck. Kelly and Harloys¡¯s voice echoed from the cabin. That entric bunch was either helping or not. Anyway, every one of them were busy with something.


    Regardless of how well designed the Borealis was, and how incredible the theory behind it, this was still a new ship that had yet to be tested in a practical battle. Furthermore, it was pushing it a bit for the Borealis to face two powerful Sea Monsters in a prolonged battle for its maiden battle.


    It looked like I was overconfident in Envy. It seemed that the Sea Monsters weren¡¯t the only one forced into a corner.


    Practical battles were always the most effective verification tform. The first problems to be exposed were always the shorings and weaknesses of said tform. Under the strikes of the octopus and the ramming by the Horned Whale, regions that weren¡¯t converted into Undead weren¡¯t able to regenerate. In addition, the energy tubes were proven to be too weak and many of the initial designs were proven to be ineffective. In short, all kinds of ws started exposing themselves.


    ¡°Envy,¡± as the soul of the warship, was no different from a newborn infantpared to the long lives of the Undead, and it is still far from bing a force to reckon with. Sustaining the cannon bombardments and ordering the crew around sapped all of its energy while constant regeneration drained arge portion of its mana.


    These ws weren¡¯t really big problems. To make the evolution from a prototype to a real product required exposing its ws continuously so that they could be fixed over and over again. Even so, it would all be for naught if it fell in the midst of battle.


    ¡°Little Rnd is back? That¡¯s great. Hurry and help out at the port. It¡¯s still leaking over there.¡±


    I received a quest the moment Inded on the boat. In response to that, I simply smiled.


    ¡°Kelly, don¡¯t just grab me to be yourborer. There are also two other old friends here awaiting your orders. Fanderk is an Aurora Knight as well, you know. On the other hand, Camisia may be a little slow mentally, but he does possess incredible strength.¡±


    ¡°Ah! Aren¡¯t they ... All right, I get it. It has been long since west met. Representing the East Mist, I wee your return. However, now isn¡¯t the time to be reminiscing about the past. Little Fanderk, please help us freeze those ces where water is leaking. Sir Camisia, please help adjust the sail on the deck.¡±


    ¡°Big Sister Kelly!? Great, you¡¯re fine!¡± Hearing that voice, Fanderk was slightly agitated. However, he regained his cool quickly.


    ¡°All right, we¡¯ll do our best.¡±


    As the type whose actions spoke louder than words, Camisia had already started moving the moment he heard thosemands. However, judging from how motivated he looked, that ¡°wee your return¡± seemed to have made him very happy.


    That day, the trademark spell Ice Aeon was cast. Coupled with the insignia of Emperor Yongye, the divine apparition of a ck skeleton king, there was no way that the secret could be hidden any further. Furthermore, the gs that the Red Hunting Hounds carried then were the Mist War gs. Rumors that Emperor Yongye was Holy Knight Rnd had been spreading in the upper echelons of human society for a very long period of time. In the eyes of the wise, my identity had probably already been exposed.


    I did not doubt that there would be people who would make the link between me and Emperor Yongye, especially when the fact that I was an Undead Lich in my previous life had been exposed. At the very least, Kelly is aware of it. Of course, there were some matters that were better off not exposed. A huge batch of trouble would arise if the East Mist were to be associated with Emperor Yongye. Since they¡¯ve decided not to reveal the truth, it is best to leave it that way.


    Perhaps it is due to the camaraderie built in the midst of a crisis, or perhaps they had expected it to happen, but the two Undead Knights were swiftly epted by the masses, even though terming it as ¡°the masses¡± was slightly pushing it.


    Ignoring the Gentlemen from the Underground World who had gotten used to living by the Undead, the knights of East Mist were initially stunned by the assistance of the Undead Knights. However, upon realizing that they were their senior, heroic knights, their attitude changed.


    The initial estrangement between the living and the dead was resolved after Kelly and Reyna pulled them to one side to say something. After seeing the trademark Frigid Nightmare Mount, their wary gaze turned into one of reverence.


    The Knights could be found surrounding the two Undead Knights every day, asking for pointers. Camisia and Fanderk also happily imparted their experiences and battle techniques to their juniors.


    Upon seeing such a sight, I heaved a slight sigh of relief. After all, sending Undead into a country of living beings was a gamble. However, since the Undead Knights were able to get along well with the other knights from East Mist, this could be considered as a good start.


    Of course, this also had something to do with the numerous Gods being too busy with the prelude of the Sacred War. If that wasn¡¯t so, even if the national religion of East Mist was the absolutely fair God of Law, which was protected by Wumianzhe, I would have never considered such a preposterous cause for action.


    While the dwellers of the Underground World and people of East Mist were able to ept the two Knights, the reason why I said that ¡°the masses is slightly pushing it¡± was because of Anders.


    To most human kingdoms, the East Mist Communal Country was a nation of barbarians living at the borders. From the very start, they were living at the edges of the human society. Furthermore, with the past incidents, their rtionship with the other countries and churches was bad. Due to Diffindor turning into a Land of Death in history, though, and the Royal Knights exacting vengeance against their enemies as Death Knights, they did not view Undead with much hostility. Furthermore, given the position of the two as historical heroes of East Mist and the guarantee from the Mist royal family, it wasn¡¯t hard to achieve harmonious coexistence.


    On the other hand, And was one of the human empires. They had been brought up with the notion that Undead were evil and the enemies of the living. Furthermore, the urrence of the Undead Cmity more than a century ago and the appearance of Xiluo Empire had increased the pressure on them. The numerous churches of Gods also repeatedly spoke out against them. To them, being on the same boat as the Undead was no different than being locked in a cage with lions.


    This was the mainstream view of the human society. Anything associated with Undead was evil, and the Undead Emperor was the worst of the lot.


    Thus, the next day, I received over thirtyints, and more than a dozen of them changed their mind and decided to disembark from the ship.


    ¡°Umm ... why don¡¯t we fly behind by ourselves? We were already very happy these few days. After all, it is normal for the living to shun the dead.¡±


    Hiding behind their cloaks, the two Knight volunteers asked to leave. However, I shook my head to reject their proposal. I had already expected this and my will was resolute.


    ¡°Take off your cloaks now. I want you both to be like you were in Liu Huang Mountain City, living proudly with your heads held high. You two don¡¯t owe this world or anyone anything. On the contrary, it is this vile world that owes you all a debt.¡±


    My words made the two Knights lower their heads, even though they don¡¯t express their approval or disapproval of my words. I know that they are hesitating, afraid that their presence will cause a loophole in my ns.


    ¡°Since we¡¯ve already decided to tread on this path, there¡¯s no longer a road of return. Since we are intending to build a Liu Huang Mountain City on the Surface, so as to prevent the innocent from being discriminated or even punished due to their race and identity, we are destined to break away from the status quo of the world. The path will be fraught with dangers, and this stumble is just the appetizer. We have to ovee it. Since they¡¯re bound to leave sooner orter, why should we pay them any need?


    ¡°If our paths are different from theirs, there¡¯s no point in them apanying us on this journey. It wouldn¡¯t work out even if we were to coerce them. So, if they want to leave, let them be. After all, I only need those who tread on the same path.¡±


    ***


    Winter in the Northern Lands always arrived early. It wasmon knowledge among the Northerners to, before the arrival of the interminable and harsh frost, prepare sufficient provisions and preventive measures against packs of beasts.


    The packs in winter were the hardest to deal with. Starvation would make them rabid, and the result of the winter lockdown of the mountains was that they would start grouping together to challenge the human cities, regardless of the price they would pay for it. Anyway, starving to death was no different to dying in battle. Rather than starve or freeze to death, they would much rather give it a gamble.


    When the Mist Country was powerful, they took the initiative to clear away the hordes of beasts around the towns, sometimes even into the snowy mountains. On one hand, it was for additional provisions in winter. On the other, it reduced the number of wild beasts in the surroundings to the minimum, thus reducing the potential stress that each town faced in winter.


    When winter set in, the knights would engage themselves in the anticipated Winter Hunt. At that time, even if not for rations, the knights would volunteer to clear away the packs.


    In peacetime, the Winter Hunt was the best stage to showcase one¡¯s abilities. Every year, knights traveled into the depths of the mountains to hunt down powerful magic beasts.


    However, the current East Mist Communal Country does not hold such power. Lack of provisions and assault by savage beasts were like a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, and it was difficult to persevere through the winter each year.


    In this world where the strong preyed on the weak, weak countries would just continue to grow weaker. The war twenty years ago cost East Mist of its final enchanted metal mine, and life there became harsher.


    Sorloin was an ordinary city just a short distance away from the capital, Diffindor. When the And Empire was still in the midst of a zing summer, autumn had already started to set in here.


    In the past, this was the period where its residents busied themselves with harvesting their crops with the apaniment of joy and sorrow.


    Being able to reap sufficient provisions was definitely a joyous affair. However, if the crops that were harvested were of inferior quality most of the time, then a tinge of sorrow would apany the joy they felt.


    The Northern Lands were gued with winter half of the time, and most of itsnds were frozen. Having crops that ripened once a year in tiny amounts was a normal situation. Furthermore, this involved the issue of whether they were able to safely get by the harsh winter. Thus, whenever autumn set in, everyone would be slightly crestfallen.


    However, although the harvest wasn¡¯t splendid this year either, the situation was slightly different.


    ¡°Don¡¯t rush, there is enough for everyone!¡±


    The young knights carrying the insignia of the royal family were giving out provisions with bright smiles on their faces. It was already standard practice for the royalty and nobles to open their stores when food wasn¡¯t enough. However, the royal family wasn¡¯t really wealthy either, so they couldn¡¯t buy many provisions either. The military nobles in the Northern Lands might have been known for theirbat prowess, but they were equally known for being penniless as well. It was already difficult for them to sustain themselves, not to speak of helping others.


    Thus, the foodstuffs given out every year would run out quickly, and the winter each year remained a difficult trial for most.


    Thus, the food distribution in the past was simr to a battle, as everyone tried their best to fight for them. However, this time, they were all lining up neatly.


    The reason? The dozens of carriages and resources stacked into a small mountain. Since there was enough of it to go around, naturally, there was no need to fight over it.


    ¡°Princess Reyne¡¯s visit to the And was extremely sessful. Not only did she raise our nation¡¯s prestige, she even won many foodstuffs and supplies for us. Don¡¯t panic, everyone. There is enough to go around, be it food, clothes, or nkets.¡±


    Different from their usual bitter faces, the young knights were giving out food with happiness radiating from their faces as they promoted the greatness of the royal family.


    ¡°Umm ... big brother knight, can you give me a little bit more food? Last year, you only gave me a sack of rice, and I was so hungry.¡±


    The little knight froze. He remembered this seven- or eight-year-old green-haired girl. Last year, she came here with her mother. Upon seeing how emaciated both of them were, he gave a part of his rations to them. Even though the provisions were obviously still insufficient, the mother and daughter still thanked him profusely before leaving.


    ¡°Little girl, I can give you a little more this year, but where are your parents?¡±


    Little Ailee was still so young, how could they send a small kid to collect rations alone?


    ¡°Daddy was bitten to death two years ago by a pack of wolves while trying to protect mummy and I. Mummy gave all of her food to me, and she didn¡¯t make it. Now, I am the only one left in the house. But mummy taught me how to sew, so I can still make a living with that.¡±


    The children of the poor matured early. Despite being just seven or eight, little Ailee was like a little adult in her speech. However, what she didn¡¯t know was that her handicraft was poor, and the dolls she made were of poor quality, so how could she possibly make a living out of it? It was only that the little girl didn¡¯t have much to eat, thus the neighbors thought of a way to help this piteous but resilient girl.


    Hearing that calm recounting of a terrifying nightmare, the knight was taken aback. He felt as though something was clogged up in his throat and he can¡¯t find any words to say. In the end, he could only sigh. After all, too much of such misfortune had befallen this wretchednd. Even if he was motivated and filled with drive, how far could he help them? After such a long time, he was already numb to the endless waves of misfortunes that urred here.


    Thisnd had been poor for many years. As a knight, the only thing he could do was hunt for prey and perhaps, hope that he managed to exact vengeance on little Ailee¡¯s enemies.


    ¡°The rations were a little heavy, so you probably will be unable to carry it. So why don¡¯t you y around in the field for a while. After I¡¯m done with the distribution, I¡¯ll help you carry it to your house.¡±


    ¡°Yup, thank you big brother knight. I will be ying at the Twin Princes Square then. Meet you under the statuester.¡±


    The e-filled face of the young knight continued to stare at the figure of the little girl skipping away before shaking his head to jolt himself back. Putting his thoughts aside, he continued with the distribution.


    ¡°Looks like I will have to give out my rations this year too. Right, since it is time for the autumn harvest, there should be rats in the mine. After digging out a few wild grasses and tree barks from the ground, I can steal from the kitchen some ... Hey, strongd over there! Don¡¯t you feel embarrassed taking so much? Share a bit of it with the others! What? You are taking for that old granny over there? My apologies.¡±


    The rash young warrior hurriedly apologized for his misunderstanding.


    Little Ailee was very fond of the Twin Princes Square. Not only was it the location where her parents met and fell in love, there were also two beautiful statues depicting the Twin Princes, and her mother had told her many stories under the statues.


    The old rock sculptures had already faded in color, but the debonair two young knights were still clear to see. The one standing on the slightly elevated tform was charging forth with a sword that represented the symbol of authority of the Mist Country, and it seemed as though nothing could stand in his way. At the time, his silver te was soaked red by the blood of his enemies.


    The one who stood on the lower tform was a dashing young warrior. He carried a fiery staff in one hand, and a giant sword in the other. His mouth looked as though he was in the midst of chanting some kind of profound incantation.


    The two of them looked like thirteen- or fourteen-year-old golden-haired youths. The faces on both of the sculptures were identical, and it was clear to see that they were twins. Even though the sculptures had eroded over time, the elder brother missing an arm and the younger brother a leg, their unyielding will still clearly exuded from the statues.


    While the rest of the square was filled with fallen leaves and dust, the surroundings of the statue were swept clean. This showed the special position these statues held in the heart of the people.


    This had almost be a symbol of the East Mist Communal Country. Statues of the Twin Princes could be seen in nearly every single town, and in a certain sense, they had be the avatar of the Mist¡¯s unyielding spirit against fate, as well as the Guardian God of the Mist. In order to boost the morale of the citizens, Princess Reyne was also trying her best to imitate one of the two.


    ¡°Umm ... Big brother knights, I will be giving this to you. Please continue to protect our town.¡±


    Ailee ced a half-eaten rye bread below the statues. This was a part of the very few provisions she had left. She remembered that, in the past, her mother used to do the same as well.


    When she was younger, Ailee¡¯s mother often recounted stories to her, and the story of these two big brother knights was the one that was retold the most frequently. Even though the contents of the story had blurred in her mind, little Ailee remembered that the big brother knights managed to chase away the evildoers and protected everybody.


    She also remembered her mother saying these words.


    ¡°... Under the perseverance of the Princes, the Demons and Beastmen were driven back to theirir, while the greedy neighbouring kings and hypocritical church got their retribution, and everyone lived happily ever after.¡±


    ¡°But... But Ailee is still hungry. Is this happily ever after?¡±


    She can still see the bitter smile on her father¡¯s face then.


    ¡°... Daddy is useless, being unable to grant you a life of happiness. But believe in your daddy. The moment danger strikes, daddy will be just like the Twin Princes who fought to their deaths for the country. I will give up my life to protect you, mummy, and everyone else.¡±


    She still remembered the blissful smile on her mother¡¯s face then.


    ¡°Martin, I believe that you are the best knight, and that you will work hard to fulfill your vow when danger strikes.¡±


    She still remembered the moment when her father fulfilled her vow, and how miserable her mother wept.


    ¡°Stupid Martin, I don¡¯t need any knight, I just need you back!! ... When will these bitter dayse to an end!¡±


    She also remembered the smile on her mother¡¯s face before she departed.


    ¡°Little Ailee, don¡¯t resent the world, and don¡¯t hate this country. Our King has died in battle, and Princess Reyne was crowned when she was just fourteen. The Mist royalty has already gave their everything to fulfill their vows, so what do we have toin about?¡±


    ¡°Just remember the favorite catchphrase of your daddy, ¡®Hope lies at the end of despair. As long as the Mist g continue to hang up high, we, as the people of Mist, will never give up hope!¡¯¡±


    ¡°Little Ailee, your mummy and daddy were useless, unable to give you a life without woes. However, please live on with a smile. As long as you persevere, one day hope will arrive. Perhaps, the Twin Stars might even descend once more to salvage this country that is on the verge of copsing...¡±


    She remembered how hard she had tried to carve these words in her mind, but was still unable to recall the entirety of it. However, what left the greatest impression on her mind was the Twin Stars who would salvage this country.


    ¡°Big brother knights, perhaps you won¡¯t be here to save this country even by next year, but please bless me so that I can get past this winter. There¡¯s also Grandpa Marge, Big Brother Klore, Aunt Emmy, please bless them so that they remain safe through the winter as well. Oh right, there¡¯s Lulu too. She might always bully me, but don¡¯t me her. She doesn¡¯t have her daddy or mummy. Please look over her so that we can y together next year. Also, please bless ... yeah, that kind-hearted big brother knight from before as well ...¡±


    In a single breath, little Ailee recited over a hundred names; even the name of the dog who bit her was on the list. Just as she was still trying her best to think of the names of people who required blessings, her prayers that had never been answered received an answer for the first time.


    ¡°They will be here. Next year, the country will be salvaged by the Twin Princes.¡±


    ¡°Everyone will be blessed as well. At the very least, no one else will starve to death.¡±


    ¡°At the end of despair lies a glimmer of hope! When the Mist g flies high once more, the people of Mist will be saved!¡±


    The moment these words fell, a figure dashed past her. That familiar face made little Ailee exim in surprise.


    ¡°Big brother knight!!¡±


    At that moment, the young knight had finally finished distributing the foodstuffs, and was carrying Ailee¡¯s and his own rations over. What weed him was a panicked look on little Ailee¡¯s face.


    ¡°Big brother knight! It is the other big brother knight! The other big brother knight hase to life and he said that he will protect everyone and salvage this country!¡±


    The direction which little Ailee¡¯s finger pointed to was the elder brother of the Twin Stars sculpture. The Rnd Sacred Sword in his hand pointed into the distance, as though showing them the way to a brighter future.


    Knight Cloone was taken back for a moment, before nodding his head with a smile.


    ¡°Yup, Prince Rnd will protect the Mist Country forever. The Will of Mist never yields.¡±


    TL Notes:Sir Camisia -> Sir, as in how people address Knights.


    Ailee addresses Rnd as Big Brother Great Knight but as it sounds awkward... Gonna use it as the way it is now.

 Chapter 129

    Chapter 129: Returning Home


    Letters cut off by the mountains¡¯ ridges,


    Winter turning into spring.


    With trepidation I approach my homnd,


    Fearing to ask locals passing by.


    Heading straight north, the nearer I approached that familiarnd, the more I experienced the ¡°trepidation of approaching my homnd.¡± However, due to the worsening circumstances, it was impossible for me to back down even if I wanted to.


    Since it was fated to be unavoidable, I might as well face it head-on.


    Under my request, the Borealis stopped at every single town, and I would disembark from the ship to inspect the situation there.


    Due to the frequent stops, the journey to East Mist Communal Country that should have only taken a week dragged on for two months.


    This was my usual way of doing things, and I imparted this foundation of governance to Annie and Reyne as well. It was impossible to solve problems by sitting on a high throne andmanding one¡¯s subordinates. To truly solve a problem, one had to first investigate what the crux of the problem was.


    In this aspect, waiting at one¡¯s quarters for a report and witnessing it firsthand were twopletely different sensations. ¡°Twenty people starving to death¡± and ¡°personally seeing ten frozen bodies on the street, and the tragedy of humans snatching food from one another¡± were twopletely different matters. The former would only result in the information being thrown to the back of one¡¯s mind after flipping through it, while thetter could give any conscientious governor insomnia.


    At this moment, the more I investigated the situation, the more appalling I realized the situation was, contrary to my estimations.


    All of the worst predictions that I had held for the country came true. After losing its final mine, the bankrupt East Mist was unable to sustain its spending and had barely kept together for twenty years.


    Furthermore, the war with the Beastmen a year ago had shaken the final foundation of East Mist. After grinding away thest bits of the resources of the country, to the point that it did not have sufficient money to purchase rations for winter, the East Mist Communal Country was on the verge of copsing.


    As usual, the crops this year werecking, and the treasury was so poor that its doors did not have to be locked. It was nearly guaranteed that a famine would ur. It was an utter blessing that we had extorted arge sum from And Empire, so that not many frozen corpses would be found during this year¡¯s winter.


    Even so, seeing those citizens who didn¡¯t demand much of the country suffering so bitterly made one feel terrible inside. When I met cases which I was unable to tolerate, even though I knew that my actions wouldn¡¯t bear much effect on the country as a whole, just temporarily alleviating the situation of the individual, I still chose to lend a helping hand.


    ¡°Perhaps this may not be sufficient to change the fate of the whole country, but at the very least, it is able to change the fate of the person before me.¡±


    Throughout the journey, we collected more than thirty orphans. If that Ailee wasn¡¯t adopted by the warrior Cloone, I might have taken her away with me as well.


    Of course, where there were good children like Ailee who left one heart¡¯s aching, there were bound to be evil fief lords and immoral merchants who, as always, stockpiled like the ones that appeared in traditional folklore. No matter where, those who tried to profit from catastrophes could be found.


    Whenever I met with such situations, I jotted it down in my book to remind me to get even with them in the future. If they really went too far¡ªfor example, there was a fief lord who threatened to exercise his droit du seigneur to extort from his people. which caused all of his people to cry in discontentment. I would not forget to fulfill my duties as an executioner. Of course, at such a moment, I had to thank Reyne for the proof as an envoy of the royal family.


    TL: Droit du seigneur, also known as ius primae noctis, refers to a feudal lord¡¯s rights to conduct sexual activities with any woman in his territory. ED: There are no known contemporary sources for this actually urring in medieval Europe.


    ¡°Wonderful, the royal family has started to punish the evildoing nobles.¡±


    A chaotic era called for extreme means. Since it would be the death penalty even if they were to granted an impartial hearing, for the sake of the oppressed citizens of his territory, it would be wiser to spare the cumbersome processes.


    Even though I made sure to conduct my activities covertly, the rumors still spread like wildfire, causing a rise in prestige and authority of the royal family.


    However, what was relieving was that perhaps those nobles who craved for a better life had escaped to other countries. Perhaps this country had the tradition of distributingnd to those who had significant contributions to the military. Or perhaps, due being in the far north that the corrupt and extravagant means of the human nobles had failed to make its way here, arge portion of the fief lords didn¡¯t spout nonsense like ¡°Since we don¡¯t have grains, why don¡¯t we consume meat soup instead.¡± They did not try to free themselves of the smell of earth, and continued to fulfill their duty in protecting their people.


    Yep, using the words of the ¡°pure noble blood¡± inherited over a span of several thousand years by the ¡°true nobles¡± of And, the supposed nobles of the Northern Lands were barbarians who used their muscles to think. They had yet to shake off the stink of manure off themselves.


    However, if I had to say,pared to those supposed pure-blooded nobles who were obsessed with banquets, extravagance, and hallucinatory drugs, I still prefered these farmers and barbarians. At the very least, they had not forgotten their origins. At the very least, they were like the ancient fief lords, protecting their own people from famine and the savage beasts of the wilderness.


    While the royal family was stuck in a desperate situation due to long years of wars, arge portion of the fief lords were still trying their best to prop up the country. I had seen many who worked hard to bring better lives to their people, and there were also quite a few who were willing to use all of their fortunes to bring relief to their people. Every time I met with such situations, I couldn¡¯t help but feel that when the people and fief lords had yet to give up hope, this meant that the backbone of this country had still not broken. There was still hope for it.


    This was the aspect that I found the most relieving my entire journey. There was a solution even for the hardest external problems, but if even the bones had started to decay, then there was really no saving the country.


    I had promised little Ailee to change everything, but as for how I should go about doing it still remained a gigantic problem for me.


    In this era where the citizens did not demand much, there were two basic prerequisites to ensure a country¡¯s steady development. First, a steady supply of ration. Second, the security of the society. These two factors were closely associated with the basic problem of survival. As for jobs,mercial and education, all these were higher tier demands up the pyramid.


    The Northern Lands had never been a fertilend for growing crops. However, it was rich with mines. Using minerals to trade for rations and daily necessities was the standard norm that had been continued for thousands of years. In this verynd, the past Mist Country stood high and mighty in the North. However, the current East Mist Communal Country kept losing its territories and it was on the verge of copsing. This cannot be med on the previous generations of emperors for being inadequate. In truth, there was only a single reason.


    ¡°When the country is strong, its people will be strong. When the country is weak, the people will be weak. When a country is weak, everything really is sorrowful.¡±


    It was clear to see what the core of the problem was just by doing a slightparison.


    In the past, the Mist Country was a prominent country. Despite being small, it wasn¡¯t weak. The country had a militaristic tradition. The numerousbination of tier-3 troops and the Aurora Knights who were at a minimum of tier-4 were renowned throughout the entire world. Of the seven elite knight divisions under the Royal Knight Order, any two of them were sufficient to sweep through the entire Northern Lands.


    Back then, the powerful Mist Country had helped the human society ward off the Beastmen and Elves, while sealing away the Demon Abyss in the east. Furthermore, being rich with mines, not only did the neighboring countries not attempt to choke the Mist Country of its food supply, they even took the initiative to trade with it.


    However, after the East Mist Communal Country rose from the fallen ashes of the destroyed remains of Mist Country, many of its powerful troops were lost, and the rich mines were upied by other countries. Furthermore, the countless years of resentment that had umted throughout history brought it many different enemies. With its externals enemies and internal instability, it grew weaker and weaker throughout the course of numerous wars.


    ¡°Weak nations long for strength.¡± Perhaps a reason for the current weakness of the East Mist was due to the heroic Twin Star Knights being seen as its Guardian Gods. Although the Mist Country walked to its doom eventually, the historical story of how a single country caused the alliance army consisting of over a dozen country scramble to flee was still spreading to date, and those lost, powerful troops still remained as legends within the speech of the males of East Mist.


    However, whenparing to its glorious past, the current tragic state its people were in made them even more depressed. Even if the militaristic tradition still remained, the current East Mist Communal Country had already been reduced to a third-rate country. Not only was it unable to dominate the Northern Lands with its military prowess, it was barely holding up against the waves of beasts in winter and the ambitious neighboring country.


    ¡°If only we had sufficient provisions and resources, Ailee¡¯s mother would not have starved and frozen to death. With a stronger military, even if the Mist Country is still unable to conduct the Winter Hunt and prey on the winter beast packs, at the very least, it will be able to control the scale of the beast pack before winter arrives. Entire cities wouldn¡¯t have to move in the face of oing winter, and little Ailee¡¯s father wouldn¡¯t have died in the journey.¡±


    This was also why I said that I was only ¡°temporarily alleviating the situation.¡± The foodstuffs that we extorted would be finished sooner orter, and without sufficient military power, even if we were to survive this year¡¯s beast wave by some luck, we would still meet with problems next year.


    If I wanted to reverse all this, what I had to do was clear. Since theck of food and a weak military were our foremost problems, then settling the issue of rations and strengthening the army was what I had to deal with first. This was the path I had to take to settle the problem at its core.


    I already had a n for strengthening the army, but the greatest problem stilly with food.


    ¡°Provisions, is it ... This is really hard to deal with.¡±


    The barren, frozen ground may be rich in mines, but it really wasn¡¯t arablend. It was possible to hire Mages to adjust the weather in the short-term, but the Mages would require certain materials for their spell, and doing it on arge scale would be unsustainable for anyone.


    Since the solution eluded me, I should check the walkthrough. Naturally, the ¡°history walkthrough¡± wouldn¡¯t provide me with the answer for this question. The one I had to check was a different one.


    ¡¾Rnd¡¯s Foreign World Survival Booklet¡¿


    The thick and worn-out booklet had a thickyer of dust coating it, and the pages of it had turned yellow. Just by changing its cover, it could probably be sent to a museum as a historical artifact.


    This was the notebook I made when I first traveled to another world so that I wouldn¡¯t forget the knowledge of the foreign world. Upon consideration that I mighte to use it this time, I brought it along with me.


    ¡°Earning money by creating ss.¡± The front pages of the notebook were filled with ideas, but most of these ideas had a small note written below it. ¡°The creation of ss is a sess, but the idea is a failure from the start. Alchemists have already created an even more transparent ss in the midst of their experiments out of sheer coincidence. My efforts are in vain.¡±


    ¡°Inventing gunpowder ... Goblins have already invented it. Printing press ... The God of Knowledge has built his career on this.¡±


    My failures were jotted below each of those ideas. The notes written on it were the traces of my failures after my hard work back then. If words reflect a person, then these squiggly words clearly revealed my immaturity and anger back then.


    With the knowledge of a foreign world, I expected to build a big name for myself in another real world. Looks like I was filled with ambitions then, but was struck down repeatedly by the cruel reality.


    However, this wasn¡¯t the time to be reminiscing about the past. Recalling my primary objective, I flipped to the page on food, and I was shocked by it yet again.


    ¡°I got it! The solution to our food problem. Yeah, that is to nt highly resilient crops with high yield. Corn, sweet potato, potato, hybrid rice ... Using the high-yield foreign crops to rece the ordinary low-yield crops? This sounds like a great idea.¡±


    While nodding my head in agreement with the excellent ideas written on the book, I closed the book and threw it against the wall.


    ¡°That¡¯s easy to say! Where can one find corn and simr high-yield crops in this world!¡±


    Yes, that¡¯s the main problem. If this world had such nts, famine wouldn¡¯t be a problem in this world. Looks like I really wasn¡¯t reliable back then.


    ¡°I know that the possibility isn¡¯t high, but it is worth a try. System, are there any high yield crops that can be exchanged for points?¡±


    ¡¾There are.¡¿


    A question that I asked without expectations turned out to be affirmative. Even so, I wasn¡¯t moved yet. After all, I have been scammed too many times.


    ¡°What conditions do I have to fulfill for it? If it were that simple, I would have exchanged for it back then.¡±


    ¡¾10,000,000 Fate Points per high-yield crop.¡¿


    Alright, the System was still as damned as I expected it to be. However, this time, I unexpectedly received an exnation.


    ¡¾If high-yield crops were to appear in this world, under the propagation of Druids and Mages, it would change this world from its core. It might even shake up the society that is based on feudalism. You can¡¯t possibly afford such a twist in karma.¡¿


    So that was the reason why I am unable to exchange for it. However, the System¡¯s exnation reminded me of a possibility.


    ¡°Looks like I have to send a letter to Eaglestorm. It would be impossible for us to hire Mages, but as long as we acknowledge the teachings of the Druids, who are viewed as a threat in most countries, they shouldn¡¯t demand much from us.¡±


    Since we are intending to ept Undead in our country, Druids were naturally not a problem. Different from the expensive Mages, Druids didn¡¯t require a catalyst to utilize their spells, not to mention that ripening crops was one of their areas of expertise.


    ¡°However, that isn¡¯t sufficient. No matter how many Druids there are, it won¡¯t be sufficient to satisfy the needs of the entire country. Looks like I still have to scavenge for other ideas.¡±


    ¡¾I have already hinted you to such an extent, have you not realised it? The System might be unable to exchange high yield crop for you, but can¡¯t you create it yourself?¡¿


    Create it myself? My first thought was that the System was trying to scam me. I was only capable of Undead Creation. It was possible for me create a being that would turn one into an Undead when consumed, but it was definitely impossible for me to create a safe high-yield crop.


    ¡¾Have you forgotten from whom you learnt Life Creation from? You are still deeply etched in her mind.¡¿


    At that moment, I came to realization. My Undead Creation originated from thebination of the knowledge from multiple fields, and many of the theories within came from a certain great Mage of Life Creation. If my memory did not fail me, that great Mage¡¯s specialization was the creation and summoning of nts. It might be impossible to create a high-yield crop that was capable of changing the entire world. However, to create and modify a crop suited for a little country in the Northern Lands shouldn¡¯t be too much trouble for her.


    Thus, I hesitated for a moment on how I should write the second letter. That great Mage was different from Eaglestorm. If possible, I wanted to never meet her again in my entire life.


    However, after contemting it, no better ideas came to mind. Thus, I could only start writing helplessly.


    ¡°Dear Senior Amelia, it has been long since west met. Your junior has something to ask of you...¡±


    ***


    Even the longest journey wille to an end one day. All kinds of primary scouting job had beenpleted and the familiar capital, Diffindor,es into sight. However, I got lost in worry about personal gains and losses.


    There was no reason to drag it on any longer. When we were about to enter the city, news that I received impelled me to order the ship to turn around.


    Half an hourter, on the mountainous terrain twenty kilometers southwest of Diffindor, I found my objective. It was a quiet camp and a bonfire burned silently. The entire campground was filled with cloaked ck figures who were sitting around solemnly.


    ¡°The Church of Law led by Xueti has already entered the city, established the Church and started propagating the faith. On the other hand, Sir Ferdinand and the other Undead Knights are camping outside the city.¡±


    This simple news surprised me. After all, I understood Sir Ferdinand well. He was adamant about keeping promises and obeying orders. Since I asked him to lead the Undead Knights into the city to tutor the new generations of knights, it was impossible for him to discount my orders. He should have already entered the city by now.


    However, the moment I disembarked from the ship and caught sight of the situation of the campground, the reason immediately came to me.


    Initially, I thought that Ferdinand only brought twenty to thirty elite knights of the various troops to serve as instructors, so it should have been easy for them to sneak into the city. However, there were at least 300 people clothed in darkness at the camp!


    Not even speaking of sneaking into the city, with 300 intelligent High-tier Undead, at least thirty of which are Undead Lords, a force that was capable of stirring up an Undead Cmity and destroying any city of the living, if the news of them were to leak, the consequences would turn out to be disastrous.


    ¡°What is with you all, didn¡¯t I say that ...¡±


    Old Sir Ferdinand walked forward to bow to me. The old Skeleton General revealed an embarrassed expression. He was aware that he didn¡¯t do a good job with this matter.


    ¡°Upon hearing that we were heading to Diffindor, everyone wanted to take a look. As a result, the number of volunteers kept increasing. In the end, if it wasn¡¯t for Captain Bastian stepping out to suppress them and repeatedly adjust the number of personnel to send over, the number might have probably reached 5000 or 6000.¡±


    Looking over, Fayde, Lucas, Timier, nce, Lani, Kakana and all the ace knights were here. Under my gaze, they felt slightly embarrassed.


    I sighed helplessly.


    ¡°To think that you all walked over from the Underground World like that, you all didn¡¯t get noticed in the middle of the journey? However, it is good that you all came as well. It just so happens that I am in need of manpower.¡±


    ¡°We mainly chose tread in the barren mountainous regions and wilderness, resting the day and trudging forward at night. It was troublesome in some countries, and there were a few small-scale skirmishes, but no one was injured. However, as we are well-versed in the geographical terrain of Mist Country, no one should have noticed us yet.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. But for us to be able to creep to the vicinity of the capital without being noticed, the knights of this generation are far toocking.¡±


    Alright, after these fellows managed to sneak in easily, they even started toin about the other party¡¯s weak defenses.


    ¡°Have you all entered the city yet? What does it feel like?¡±


    Even though the bulk of the group might have been unable to enter the city, given their prowess, it shouldn¡¯t be difficult for a dozen of them or so to sneak in. But when I asked this question, the response I got was an awkward silence.


    ¡°You all ... It can¡¯t be that none of you have entered the city?¡±


    Yet again, silence. However, this time, it was silent consent.


    ¡°When we were far away, we were so tempted toe over to take a look. Yet, when we are finally approaching our goal, somehow our courage to enter just withers.¡±


    Fayde¡¯s words received a wave of head nods.


    Perhaps, this was another form of ¡°trepidation to approach one¡¯s homnd.¡± Even so, the Undead Knights did have other concerns.


    ¡°After all, we are already Undead, and we tread a different path from the living. Actually, I am already satisfied just by looking at it from afar.¡±


    ¡°The circumstances surrounding the Mist Country of this generation aren¡¯t good. If they were to be associated with Undead as well, they might end up being even more isted by the human society.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, our stubbornness has burdened you. Actually, we are already contented with walking about our homnd. We have already discussed about it and have decided to leave twenty people behind as instructors while the rest of us tread back on the path we took here...¡±


    ¡°Enough!¡±


    An inconceivable fury made me interrupt thementations of the knights.


    ¡°Are you all done? Satisfied with a single look? Tell me loudly that your journey of a thousand miles, shouldering the danger of traversing through the territories of countless countries was just to look at your home from afar! You all are just satisfied with this? You all are willing to return just like this? Do you all think of me as a fool?!¡±


    ¡°Of course ...¡± Lucas swallowed his words after a re from me. Apparently, he didn¡¯t mean what he said.


    The sight that unfolded before me was simr to the one with Camisia and Fanderk. The past few days, they also kept saying that ¡°I had fun these several days, but there are still fundamental differences between the living and the dead. We will be content with just flying behind you all.¡±


    The fact was that no intelligent being loved to be alone, not even speaking of being treated as a foreigner. Since they are happy with it, why should they allow the opinions of others to impede this happiness of theirs?


    I knew that they were hesitant and fearful of facing the living. They were worried that they might bring about unintended consequences to my n, that I would be viewed with enmity by the rest of the world. After all, the status quo was that Undead were evil. I could understand how this feeling of inferiority was born, but I did not intend to allow them to ept it!


    ¡°... Back then, you all died for the people of thisnd. The current you are all returning back to save them! You are all triumphant warriors returning back to your homnd, and not cowardly escapees! You don¡¯t owe anything to anyone, it is the bastard world that owes you all.


    ¡°Stick out your chests! All of you are my prided knights! Put away those pointless concerns of yours. Today is the day of our victorious return. For all of you who have sacrificed your lives for thisnd, why should you all hesitate to return to thend which you have given your all to protect? What are you all fearing? Answer me! Such cowardice. Do you all think you were wrong back then? Do you all regret your actions?¡±


    My confrontation caused the 300 pairs of soulfires to silently burn in the dark of night. Their minds weren¡¯t calm.


    ¡°No, we never regretted it!¡±


    ¡°Even if time were to rewind, we would still be willing to sacrifice our all for our homnd. But the current us ...¡±


    Who could be willing to simply look at the homnd that they have dreamed about from afar? The consciences of these knights were clear, so why should they be condemned to such a cruel fate? They feared, but what they feared weren¡¯t powerful enemies. Our knights never, had never, and would never fear a battlefield. I know that what they were fearing were the hostile eyes of those whom they had given their lives to protect, just because they were Undead.


    ¡°Great! Since you all don¡¯t regret it, then there¡¯s no reason to hesitate. Take off those meaningless cloaks and follow behind me standing straight as you can. Please continue to believe in me! I will bring you the honor and respect you all deserve!¡±


    All of the Undead Knights stripped off their cloaks and ck auras of death started to emanate from them. However, I smiled. These were the cute knights that I was proud of.


    ¡°Fayde, my g bearer, are you ready?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness!¡±


    ¡°Raise the gs!! Tell everyone that 377 yearster, we have returned victorious!¡±


    The tall Skeleton General carried the war g of the army and started to beat the war drums. The rise of the Mist war g also meant a deration to the world that the immortal army was gathering once again.


    Just as before, the horn of war was blown on and the war gs of the military soared in the air. The knights wielded their weapons and marched forward in their formations.


    Since it was a march of victory, how could there be only a single war g? Under my gaze, the other knights also raised their own gs and among them, there were gs carrying their glorious family emblems, division gs that represented the honor of the division, and even personal gs bearing their war contributions.


    To the knights, the war gs represented their honor. Even if they were to lose their weapons, they wouldn¡¯t allow the gs they bore to fall.


    The continuation of a family¡¯s honor, the glorious military, and the personal contributions of an individual. There were quite a few who bore all three of these gs together. There were even knights who carried over ten gs. However, they were only stubbornly shouldering the war souls of their brothers along with them.


    nce had twelve gs, Fanderk fifteen, Barak twenty and Setta seventeen...


    Some of the skeleton hands of the knights carrying the gs were trembling. This wasn¡¯t due to their weakness, but rather the heavy weight of the war gs. A g bearer who wasst in his division was afraid that he might bring shame to the honor the Snow Lion War g represented.


    Ed Ron. His family had served in the Snow Lion Heavy Infantry Division for generations. However, this infantry division was struck by forbidden magic during the battle in Diffindor, and the remaining one hundred survivors had fought to the bitter end in the ensuing battle.


    There were also knights who lost the final war g of their unit in battle. However, they used the fresh blood of the enemies to regain their honor, and the shabbiness of the war g that he personally stitched together made it hard for people to look at. Even so, no one mocked him. On the other hand, they allowed him to walk at the forefront of the marching contingent.


    His name was Timier. The ck Griffon Aerial Unit had been wiped out; not even their corpses remained. Only he, who was a Dragon Knight, answered my summons and returned from hell.


    The war gs were an extension of history. What he inherited were the bones of the loyal soldiers buried beneath thends, the will of the warriors who had given their all for thend.


    Every single g was unbearably tattered, and every single of them represented the countless sacrifice and passion of brave warriors, as well as the memories of blood and mes beneath these gs.


    In the distance, the morning sun slowly rose, and thest breeze of the night blew past. The tattered war gs rose in the air and we, the remainders of the fallen army, returned victoriously.


    ¡°Band! Rydestein¡¯s Heroic Victory, 3rd Movement¡ªCelebration of the Triumphant Return!¡±


    Apanied by the echoing of the horns was music that represented the victorious return of warriors. The banshees started to use a gentle and cheerful rhythm to sing along with the music and in the midst of the harmonious orchestra, even the most awkward of knights started to hum along.


    The march of triumph which brought a smile to everyone¡¯s face sounded by everyone¡¯s ears, as the celebration of victory in the past reappeared before everyone¡¯s eyes. This was just like the innumerable times when we had returned triumphantly, preparing to be weed by the cheers of the citizens within the city.


    ¡°We ... are home!¡±


    Notes:


    1. Weak nations long for strength ¹úÈõ˼ÎäÄÂ


    The literal meaning of this saying goes that a weak nation longs for the appearance Wu Mu (which refers to Yue Fei, a renowned general in the Han dynasty).


    2. ¡°Letters cut off by the mountains¡¯ ridges, / Winter turning into spring. / With trepidation I approach my homnd, / Fearing to ask locals passing by.¡±


    This is a poem from Song Zhi Wen when he was escaping from his exile back to his family.


    3. Bones of the loyal subjects buried beneath thends


    This is slight alteration of a poem by Ma Yuan, a general in Han dynasty. The whole poem means that the entirends are filled with the bodies of the loyal soldiers who had fought for their country, is there a need to trudge their bodies back in horse carriages just for burial? (that¡¯s how they sent back the bodies back then) Back then, when Mao Ze Dong¡¯s son died in battle, and his general asked if there is a need to bring his body back for burial, that¡¯s how he answered.


    Alright, so Rnd is 391 year old.

 Chapter 130

    Chapter 130: The Sinless City


    As the capital of the small country of East Mist, historic city Diffindor was quite renowned in the entire world. However, the tourists who were visiting the city for the first time always felt disappointed by the sight that awaited them.


    This city was far from the magnificence of the capitals of other massive countries. On the contrary, it was ruinous and to this day, many old abandoned buildings still stood. While ancient architecture was worth looking at and appreciating as an art form, ancient ruins werecking in that kind of attraction.


    The city might have held a significant area and possessed the grandest city walls and defensive capabilities in the entire Northern Lands, but the poption living in it was far from its historical height. Despite that only a third of the city was still in use, the people in the city were still sparse.


    The Mist Bloodline had guarded the northern borders of the human society for several thousand years, and this ancient city which had undergone innumerable battles was its capital. History records that this city had been purged by foreign tribes three times, but the people of Mist still stood time after time to reim their territory to rebuild their capital.


    In the long annals of history, it wasn¡¯t the barbarian invasions of the powerful foreign tribes that dealt her the fatal blow. It was the dagger in the back that almost reduced this infallible ancient, historic city into ruins.


    ¡°1520 AD, after guarding this city for 15 months and expending all gunpowder and provisions, the human alliance army finally sessfully conquered the final standing city of Mist Country, its capital Diffindor. Prince Rnd and the troops he led died in the city.¡±


    This simple one line description was written in the historical books. However, to the people of Mist, this was a grudge that they carved into their bones.


    That year, under the summons of Pope Paul the 9th of the Church of Holy Light, seventeen countries came together to form an alliance army. They took advantage of thepse in the Mist Country¡¯s defense, when its main army was dealing with the Beastmen in the north and Demons in the east, and stabbed their dagger violently into its back. Then, their purging of the city directly caused Diffindor to be a Land of Death.


    Soon afterward, the rampage of the Undead Knights blinded by vengeance and the Demon army that Prince Karwenz brought turned the seventeen countries into history, thus causing the most tragic loss of human society.


    ¡°The Church of Holy Light cannot be trusted. The darned human kingdoms and nobility are even less credible!¡±


    This had been the solemn vow the people of Mist carved into their bloodline after being betrayed three hundred years ago. From there on, that was also how they operated.


    More than two hundred years ago, the founder of East Mist Communal Country, Charles the 1st, imed to be Rnd¡¯s descendant and drove away the Beastmen colonizing thend and bought a portion of the Mist Country¡¯s territory back from the Elves and rebuilt the Mist Country.


    In order to purify the Land of Death so as to establish Diffindor as its capital once more, Charles had requested the assistance of the Church of Holy Light back then. Even though the Pope had expended much of his energy to turn the Land of Death into a suitable living ce, the perception of the people of Mist only improved slightly, from throwing stones behind their back to sneering at them, and building a regional branch in theirnds. Furthermore, this was in consideration of the fact that Prince Rnd used to be a Holy Knight.


    Of course, given that the faith of Holy Light was the main faith of human society, the Mist Country¡¯s hostility towards the Church of Holy Light and other countries caused it to be isted from the rest of the human society once again. This was also one of the major factors in its gradual downfall.


    However, the stubborn Northerners never regretted their actions. Anyway, they were already viewed as barbarians by the ¡°civilized¡± others, so it shouldn¡¯t matter that they are slightly more ¡°vindictive¡± and barbaric. Rather than believing in gods living above the clouds, they believed more in the swords in their hands and the protection of their ancestors. However, when they were viewed with enmity by the rest of the world, and had been pulled into innumerable wars, it seemed that the newborn Mist Country was nearing its end.


    However, there was a person who didn¡¯t agree with it. He intended to work together with the new Mist Bloodline to reverse this hopeless situation.


    Today was the day that would go down in history.


    The day had barely brightened, and the citizens deep in sleep awakened to the cheerful march of a victory tune. The sound of galloping horses could be heard from the royal pceing from the city gates, seemingly urging and rousing this ancient city from its slumber.


    A red carpet wasid at the entrance of the city gates. The royal family ceremonial guards and band started to y a tune as the Royal Knights begin to position themselves in a formation. The guards on the city wall tossed flower petals of all colors downward. This was the prelude to the march of victory, as well as the beginning of a festival that everyone enjoyed. However, the one that was held a year ago was for a battle a year ago that resulted in great losses for East Mist and the Beastmen, and the death of the king loomed over the joy of victory.


    Hearing this victorious melody once again, the civilians walked out of their doors excitedly and amotion burst forth as they swarmed towards the city gates.


    ¡°The victory melody? We didn¡¯t fight any war recently. Could it be that the Knights had went to hunt down the beast packs recently?¡±


    ¡°Are you a fool? Princess Reyne¡¯s diplomatic visit to the And Empire is so sessful this time that the returns from the trip are not any less than the gains from a war.¡±


    ¡°So that¡¯s the reason! Princess Reyne has returned? Yeah, thinking about it now, it¡¯s about time for it as well.¡±


    The carriages from And carrying arge amount of resources had arrived at their country earlier than the princess. The overjoyed crowd filled both ends of the street as they awaited the return of their princess, hoping to present their wee and gratitude to the returning princess.


    Kachi kachi. Amidst the sound of the turning of the tires, when the massive city gates gradually opened, the first figure that entered caused everyone to freeze.


    ¡°Princess? That¡¯s not it.¡±


    That person may have shared many traits with the princess, but there were also many differing features between them.


    Princess Reyne wasn¡¯t that tall, nor was her face that mature. More importantly, that older version of the ice armor obviously belonged to a man. There stood a young man with a smile on his face.


    ¡°He seems so familiar, but I am unable to put my finger on it...¡±


    ¡°Statue! The Twin Stars Statue!¡±


    ¡°Yes, if Prince Rnd was at this age, this should how he should look!¡±


    ¡°They really look identical! That disposition, that smile and that Rnd Sacred Sword by his waist.... Wait, Rnd Sacred Sword!¡±


    In the depictions of the statues, the missing symbol of royal authority was striking. There wasn¡¯t a single Mist citizen who did not know the design of the sword. Furthermore, the sword was emitting a light, silvery glow, simr to how it was described in the legends. Also recorded in the legends was that this sword fell along with Prince Rnd.


    While the citizens were shocked over the Rnd Sacred Sword, the Royal Knights, who had only received the orders to y the melody for the march of victory, burst intomotion as well. When the knights behind the young man entered the city, everyone was shocked.


    Those familiar tattered war gs swayed with the wind as the Undead Knights marched proudly under the sun.


    Before the Royal Knights could draw their swords as a precaution against them, the young man¡¯s deration echoed in the entire city under the assistance of Amplification Magic.


    ¡°I, Holy Knight Rnd, the final king of Mist Country, have returned along with my Knights.¡±


    ***


    The red carpet beneath our feet couldn¡¯t be considered high-tier, and it was a little shabby to be using it to wee guests of the country. However, as I stepped on it and gazed at the Mist citizens before me, I felt inconceivably happy.


    The Undead Knights had stepped into the city. At this point, they had already thrown away all of their doubts and the fiery soulfire in their eyes disyed their resolute will.


    Yes, they had nothing to worry about, and there was nothing for them to fear. They were just returning back to their country. Even if changes had urred to their bodies, the heart of a traveler craving to return back to their homnds hadn¡¯t changed.


    Soon after I passed the city gates, Reyne, who was riding on a Frigid Nightmare, appeared with a smile. Her presence effectively soothed the tense atmosphere initiated by the presence of the Undead.


    ¡°Princess Reyne? What is that? That lustrous white mount?¡±


    ¡°Frigid Nightmare! That is the mount of the legendary Aurora Knights! I never thought that I would be able to witness the legendary Aurora Knight with my own eyes. Could it be that the young man is really Prince Rnd?¡±


    While the citizens of East Mist were shocked by the reappearance of the Frigid Nightmares, while at the same time cheering for their Princess Knight for advancing to be a Legend-rank Aurora Knight, the very next sight made all of them gasp in shock, as well as verifying the authenticity of ¡°Prince Rnd¡¯s¡± identity.


    Fifty-four Frigid Nightmares marched in neatly through the city gates. Even though the knights riding on them were beyond recognition, the identically sculpted ice armors couldn¡¯t possibly lie. In the past, that soul mount that was emitting a bone-freezing chill was a privilege of the Mist Country. More importantly, those fifty-four Aurora War gs dispelled all doubts of their identities.


    ¡°The Order of Aurora Knights! It is the Aurora Knights Order, the legendary knight order that was able to easily defeat an army a hundred times its size! That was the most prided force of our Mist Country! The unstoppable Knights of the Northern Lights who had dominated the Northern Lands!¡±


    Weak nations long for strength. Throughout the years, when East Mist was suppressed and bullied by the other nations, the people of Mist couldn¡¯t help but recall their previous glory.


    ¡°Are those Alchemist Knights incredible? Are those Wolf Knights of the Beastmen incredible? If our Aurora Knights were still here, those shameless fools would never be able to be so audacious!¡±


    As their own knights got beaten down innumerable times due to the difference in the level of equipment, this resentment and grudge passed down from one generation to the next. Eventually, thementations became sighs of helplessness and despair. Sometimes, they couldn¡¯t help but ept the fact that their homnd was no longer as strong as it used to be.


    ¡°The Mist Country which used to dominate the world with their cavalry has became a weak nation with no powerful troops.¡±


    For a period of time, there were rumors that Princess Reyne had disyed the might of an Aurora Knight in the And Empire. However, to the Mist citizens who were aware of the history of the Frigid Nightmares, they knew that it was impossible. So, they simply treated it as a rumor.


    ¡°Sigh, if only it were true. If we still had Aurora Knights on our side, it would be impossible for the others to step on us.¡±


    At this moment, Princess Reyne, who the citizens were familiar with, stood out brightly even in the midst of the Undead Aurora Knights. The Frigid Nightmare in the shape of a horned beast verified those rumors to be true, and the Aurora Knights had returned to the world!


    ¡°Is it our Princess who has brought back our pride, the strongest Aurora of the Northern Lands?¡±


    ¡°That is Knight Captain Elohim! He has also became an Aurora Knight! The Heavens have blessed our Mist Country, the Aurora Knights have returned us! We will no longer be that weak third-rate country anymore!¡±


    Perhaps the Aurora Knights may not have been the strongest bunch of my order of knights. However, to the Mist citizens, they were the symbol of the strength of the Mist Country when it was at its peak, the precious jewel that they hoped to regain.


    The reason why I had the Undead and Aurora Knights line up at the front, putting Reyne and Elohim in the midst of them, was to lower the hostility the citizens may have held towards the Undead, as well as to establish some corrtions within the minds of the citizens.


    ¡°Could that man truly be Prince Rnd? Could it be that those Undead are the final Aurora Knights in the Battle of Diffindor?¡±


    As the host, Reyne knew what to do after I shot an encouraging look at her.


    The young, female knight stepped out of the formation and faced the hesitating citizens. She took over the possession of the Rnd Sacred Sword from me and made a deration that would go down in the annals of history.


    ¡°I, Reyne Qin Mist, a descendant of Mist royalty, in hopes of regaining the might of our country, found my ancestor, Prince Rnd, and his order of knights! From now on, the Aurora Knights will shine in the Northern Lands once again! Under His Highness and the loyal Order of Royal Knights under hismand, our East Mist will rise anew!


    ¡°Perhaps some worry about their identities as Undead. However, I can use my honor and life to guarantee that they are existences worthy of trust. My people, I know that you all have your own worries and hesitation. After all, they have all became Undead. Yet, back then, they used their lives to protect their own city. Now they stand up once more to avenge their friends and families even after their deaths. Even though they are currently Undead, and there is a risk of their souls being eradicated by such a course of action, they chose to help us. Towards these Knights, what do we have to doubt?¡±


    The deration of the young, female knight echoed throughout the entire city through the usage of Amplification Magic, and that clear and bright voice resounded to and fro in the city. In fact, even before she made that deration, the radiance of the symbol of royal authority, the Rnd Sacred Sword, had already ignited passion in the hearts of the citizens.


    ¡°The Rnd Sacred Sword! Holy Knight Rnd and his Order of Royal Knights have returned! Our Princess has found the missing symbol of royal authority and the knight order!¡±


    Facing the agitated crowd, Reyne paused for a slight moment before continuing.


    ¡°Their faces might be scary, but look at the emblems they bear on their armor and weapons. Look at the Mist War gs which had undergone countless wars. The Will of Mist will never yield, and the Mist War g will never fall. Even after their deaths, they still continue to protect their homnd. Isn¡¯t this another form of the Will of Mist? If we can¡¯t believe them, who can we believe? Are we to believe in the untrustworthy Holy Light instead?¡±


    Due to theck of time, I didn¡¯t have sufficient time to guide Reyne on her speech. Looking at the impassioned speech unfolding before me by the forthright Reyne, I couldn¡¯t help but to smile in relief.


    While Reyne was still in the midst of her speech, the sky suddenly darkened and a gigantic beast swooped across the sky, generating countless cries of shock.


    ¡°Bone Dragon? No, there¡¯s someone on top!¡±


    ¡°He actually jumped down! That is a Bone Dragon Knight!¡±


    Uponnding, Timier raised the familiar ck Griffon War g. Since the Rnd Sacred Sword and Reyne had already verified my identity, it was time for me to say something.


    ¡°Timier, the final remaining Dragon Knight of the Mist Country. In the Scott Aerial Battle, our ck Griffon Riders unit were besieged by enemies who outnumbered them by more than fivefold. In order to cover the retreat of our ground troops, the unit fought bravely to their deaths, and Timier himself killed two of the three Dragon Knights that were attacking him simultaneously!¡±


    Despite the intentionally t voice, my words still stirred countless shocked exmations.


    Without a doubt, giant dragons stood at the very top of the food chain. An ultimate force like the Dragon Knights could only be found in the greatest of the empires. It is something that the current East Mist dared not even think about. Based on historical records, the Mist Country of the past did possess numerous Dragon Riders. They never imagined that after such a long time, they would be able to witness this sight with their own eyes.


    ¡°Our aerial unit consists of a group of young men, but due to the brutality of an aerial duel, the losers often do not leave a corpse behind. Even though the aerial unit is the elites of the Mist Country, only Timier responded to my summons and dealt the second wave of vengeance against those darned invaders!¡±


    After bowing, the proud sole Dragon Knight waved the ck Griffon War g and led the way on the red carpet of victory, as though he was a brave warrior who returned victoriously from war. No, he was indeed a brave warrior who returned victoriously from war!


    ¡°These are our Knights. Vile Undead? No! We are just a foolish bunch who returned from hell due to the reluctance to ept the upation of our beautiful Mist Country by invaders!¡±


    As Timier and the Aurora Knights proceeded forward side by side, those who walked through the city gates behind them were the remains of each army, and I started to go on a recollection of their history.


    ¡°Pr Bear Squad, the heavy infantry of the royal family! It is made up of the merging of the remains of two squads near the end of the war. Equipped with Avnche Guardian tes, they are our strongest barrier and fortress! After going through innumerable wars, sixteen men remain of them, and the strongest in their midst, as well as the youngest, is Carlos Tills.¡±


    I nodded my head gleefully as I introduced one of my most trusted knights to the world.


    ¡°He is the ¡®Mobile Fortress¡¯ I rely on. In order to cover the escaping refugees, he used his body of flesh and blood to jam the rock bridge, using his physique to stall the butchering des of the invaders. Back then, he died from being pierced by hundreds of arrows. By then, his blood had already flowed dry from his body and not a single bone of his body wasplete. In the end, he could onlye back as an Abomination. That year, the Defensive Knight who I am so proud of even now, Carlos Tills, was only fifteen year old.¡±


    It was hard to imagine how an Abomination could show a look of embarrassment, but at this moment, Carlos was nodding his head in embarrassment towards the citizens. His smile still remained as it was in his youth.


    ¡°Perhaps you all have never heard of Asmu Hound Tamers, but it is a special type of Ranger troop. Their representative is our heroic scout...


    ¡°The Knight of Swift Wind, nce, might just be just an ordinary Dragon Lance Knight, but he is one of the backbones of the army of the Mist Country...


    ¡°Oh, this is Great Sword Saint Fayde. I¡¯m sure that you all must have heard of his name as the best Sword Saint of the Royal Knights. Of course, that is if his father, the old Sir Ferdinand doesn¡¯t undercut his position...


    ¡°This is...¡±


    One by one, the names of the knights were listed, followed by the identity of the knight and their past exploits. That history of their resolute determination appeared before the eyes of the citizens once more, and they realized that these frightening Undead Knights used to be the legendary heroes of the Mist Country.


    Going by the traditions of the Northerners, if they were upstanding heroes when they were alive, then they were figures worthy of respect even after their deaths.


    Since the unknown could bring about fear, then allow me to dispel that fog of secrecy.


    As long as they had not sinned, even as Undead, the loyal and powerful knights would only be a pride of mine, so there was no reason for me to conceal their existences.


    However, some citizens did not agree.


    ¡°Damn those Undead, to dare to step into the world of the living!¡±


    Despite the huge, golden robe, his plump belly could not be concealed. As the Archbishop of the East Mist Regional Church of Holy Light, under the protection of a ring of Holy Knights and Priests, Archbishop Lorf arrived at the scene. It was very possible that the panting him was the reason for the tardiness of the Church of Holy Light.


    Just like how no Justice Knight would let any sinners who defied the Rules of God slip by them, the Church of Holy Light on the Surface did not spare any ¡°evil¡± Undead. The proud entrance of the Undead into the city was an insult to the Holy Light and the Origin of Order.


    Under the drive of the fervent pursuit of their faith, despite the overwhelming difference in strength, the Holy Knights still put up a formation in front while the Priests prepared to assist them from the back, as though they were preparing to start a fight at any moment.


    Their arrival was within my calctions. In fact, they arrivedter than I have expected, and I had already prepared something in advance to deal with them.


    ¡°Why do I remember that this is a Land of Law? Isn¡¯t the Church of Holy Light overstepping its boundaries?¡±


    My confrontation caused old Lorf to freeze for a moment. Apparently, the fact that the Law had be the national religion of East Mist meant that he had failed thoroughly in his mission to spread the teachings of Holy Light.


    At this moment, the person I was waiting for also arrived at the scene.


    ¡°Hey, old Lorf, don¡¯t go too far. The East Mist Communal Country has already dered the faith of My Lord to be the national religion of the country. This is already a Land of Law. Aren¡¯t you going too far to try to kill someone before the Pope of the God of Law!¡±


    Xueti rushed to the scene on time, winking at me mischievously the moment he appeared. I saw many familiar faces standing behind him. That familiar silver mask exuded the radiance of the Power of Law. He looked like he had grown significantly stronger since the ascension of Wumianzhe.


    ¡°Tauren Pope!¡±


    The Church of Law that had arrived two months ahead of us had settled into East Mist officially, and the citizens had already gotten used to this amiable Pope Tauren.


    The moment the Church of Law arrived, they positioned themselves in between us and the Church of Holy Light, clearly trying to prevent a conflict between both sides.


    ¡°Darn it, they are vile Undead! They are the enemies of all beings of Order! Why do you all stop us?¡±


    ¡°Archbishop Lorf, before My Lord, there is only the ¡®innocent¡¯ and the ¡®guilty¡¯. Please do not use race as a means to differentiate good and evil. At this moment, I can only see you all trying tomit a crime. This is the divine territory of the Church of Law. Do you really take us as mere ornaments?¡±


    ¡°But they are still Undead. They are bloodthirsty and savage. Even if they used to heroic figures, can you ensure that they will not harm others due to their natural instincts?¡±


    The notoriety of the Undead was deeply ingrained into human society. The furious howl of the middle-aged Holy Knight Captain was extremely persuasive, causing hesitation among the citizens. At this moment, Xuetiughed heartily.


    ¡°Of course we can. I can guarantee in my name as the Pope of the God of Law that they are Heroic Spirits in the truest sense, and not vengeful spirits driven by their bloodthirstiness. They lived in Liu Huang Mountain City for more than a century, but never was there a murder case from them. Just a while ago, they yed a part in the ying of a Demon Count. That was a grand battle worthy of the word ¡®epic.¡¯ On the other hand, your Holy Knights always cause trouble in the name of eradicating evil, disrupting the order of the city.¡±


    The position of the Pope of the God of Law was iparably noble. From a certain sense, it was an equivalent existence to the Pope of the Church of Holy Light, Sincarlos the 3rd. At this moment, Xueti¡¯s words were even more convincing.


    ¡°You ... You vile dwellers of the underground, you are a conspirator with them. You are all miscreants! How can your guarantee be trusted!¡±


    A split moment after the Archbishop of Holy Light howled in anger, he immediately covered his mouth. Even so, he was unable to retract that gaffe that could even qualify as a personal insult.


    ¡°Are you sure? You dare to insult a Pope of a True God as a miscreant? Also, I cannot ignore your discrimination against the Underground World. This is a grave insult against the entire Church of the God of Law. I will send a letter of remonstrance to Sincarlos the 3rd.¡±


    A slip of the tongue in a public area could not be resolved that easily. Just as Xueti was intending to pursue Lorf on that matter, even though I knew that it wasn¡¯t an appropriate moment for me to be speaking out now, I still choose to stand up.


    Miscreant? Who was the miscreant? There were some things that just could not be tolerated any further.


    ¡°Lorf, is it? You are the sessor of the bloodline of Cardinal Lorf the Philosopher? Fine. From a certain viewpoint, I, already a Holy Knight from 300 years ago, can be considered as your senior. Then, let¡¯s talk about who the miscreant is. Fanderk Jenon, you should have heard of this name.¡±


    The moment my words rang out, sweat droplets started to flow down the forehead of ¡®Philosopher Lorf¡¯ profusely. As the future Cardinal sessor, Lorf was aware of that forbidden history.


    ¡°You are unable to reply? Of course, that is an unfair trial that the Church of Holy Light is ashamed about! For a kind, devout believer in the Holy Light to be hanged as a vile heretic, the true miscreant is the one who sits at the seat of the judge! Is this the justice and impartiality that the Church of Holy Light speaks of?¡±


    Under my interrogation, the pale Death Knight slowly stepped forward. To those who were aware of it, the face of the Death Knight was no different from the one recorded in history.


    ¡°Everyone! Just like what Prince Rnd has mentioned, I was once a Holy Knight. However, as I was unwilling to testify for the Cardinal, who was expelled from the Church afterward, I was hanged in the Holy Light Square to pin the me on Mist Country.¡±


    ¡°There... There is no such thing! No, I don¡¯t know about it.¡±


    ¡°Then do you dare to swear upon the authenticity of your words in the name of the Holy Light?¡±


    If one swore falsely in the name of the Holy Light, it was equivalent to turning one¡¯s back on the Holy Light. How could Archbishop Lorf, who viewed the seat of the Pope as his ultimate goal, possibly make such a vow?


    However, even if he didn¡¯t make such a vow, that awkward silence, pale face, and sweat drops that flowed down his forehead had exined everything.


    Amotion immediately broke out. Not only were the citizens astonished and furious, even the Holy Knights and Priests who were willing to sacrifice themselves for the propagation of the teachings of the Church were in disbelief.


    Even though the current Church of Holy Light had a good reputation, it did not mean that it didn¡¯t have a shadowy past. If they themselves were immoral and guilty, and hid their sinful past, what right did they have to represent the Holy Light in bringing judgement upon evil?


    Looking at that ugly, fearful state, Iughed. However, this was augh derived from overwhelming rage.


    ¡°I swear in the name of the Holy Light that the reason why the cmity then would develop to that point was due to the filthy and vile upper echelons of the Church of Holy Light. That supposedly sacred battle was just a depraved act by a bunch of greedy wolves under the leadership of a lion! You bunch of hypocrites are just using the g of a sacred battle to satisfy your greed through plundering. You all are the source of all evil! Look at me! How dare you degenerates use the Holy Light?¡±


    Unfolding the wings that radiated the blinding Holy Light and Sacred Inferno, that dense concentration of Holy Light power was the best proof for the authenticity of my words.


    ¡°I am a Holy Knight as well, but I don¡¯t worship the God of the Holy Light. Even more so, I won¡¯t be a puppet of thatughable Church of Holy Light of yours! I only believe in the justice of the Holy Light itself! The Holy Light never made us kill innocent. Knights, do you think that your own justice can be dictated by the teachings of the Church of Holy Light? If so, who will guarantee the justice of the Church of Holy Light? Perhaps your supposed actions of eradicating evil are only another ¡®righteous g¡¯ that you all use to murder the innocent!¡±


    As a War Angel, I was a God¡¯s Envoy in the teachings of the Holy Light. Under my furious re and the interrogation of the pure Holy Light on their conscience and faith, arge portion of Holy Light users in the field started to waver.


    And when these interrogations started to spread across the entire world, the Church of Holy Light would begin to fracture, and a faith that worshiped Holy Light on its own would emerge and grow at a distance alongside the Church of Holy Light. Eventually, it would result in a painful and embarrassing fission for the Archbishops.


    However, at this crucial moment, when Lorf was forced into a corner with his ugly self revealed, the gazes that the citizens of Mist Country shot at him became more and more hostile. On the other hand, the middle-aged Holy Knight Captain stepped forth once more.


    ¡°The Church of Holy Light of today is no longer the Church of Holy Light 300 years ago. We have been progressing and improving ourselves. Talking about this history bears no meaning. The main issue at hand is whether these Undead pose any threat towards the living. Pope Xueti, you are acknowledging that you originate from the same location as them? I remember that your court has a rule that states that anyone who is involved in the case cannot bear testimony. Since you are rted to them, your words are naturally nullified.¡±


    This is indubitably an attempt at changing the topic at hand, as well as a twisted interpretation of the teachings of the God of Law.


    ¡°Is this a court? Guaranteeing something and the testimony of an eyewitness are two different things. Going by your logic, if the guarantor cannot have any rtionship with the obligee, then there would be no one to guarantee for him.¡±


    Hearing that twisted interpretation, Xueti flew into a rage. Just as he is about to rebuke him, a familiar voice spoke up.


    ¡°Then can I serve as a guarantor?¡±


    This red-haired warrior appeared in the crowd all of the sudden at a certain point. Even though hisnguid voice was filled with mischief, the inconceivable might that could be sensed from beneath the outer appearance of the red-haired warrior made Holy Knight Captain Woode fearful of him, to the point that he even used politenguage.


    ¡°You are?¡±


    TL: He uses a politer form of you.


    ¡°Adam Han, Red Lotus Sword Saint, a loyal brother of Rnd, as well as the previous City Lord of Liu Huang Mountain City. Do you also wish to circumvent me?¡±


    The Red Lotus Sword Saint was one of the potential candidates for the strongest human in the world. His indelible results in terminating the Yongye Cmity made him a living legend and a saint. In front of him, even the current Pope could only be considered a junior of his.


    ¡°Margaret, Saint. Arlodante¡¯s Truth Overseer substitute. I have interacted with the Undead Knights for nearly 200 years. I trust them, and I am willing to use my honor to guarantee them.¡±


    Just a short moment after the Great Saintnded from the sky, that quiet vow echoed through the entire city and the trust within her words left a deep impression on its listeners.


    ¡°Representing the will of My Lord, I can also guarantee that.¡±


    This time, the voice also came from the sky. However, it was a familiar deep voice that carried the ent of the Elves. It reminded me of an acquaintance whom we had just separated from.


    ¡°Basr?¡±


    As expected, along with the descent of the Light of Order, the God¡¯s Envoy appeared.


    Hearing that prominent name, Woode¡¯s back was drenched in sweat. At this moment, he was still praying in expectation that it was just someone with the same name.


    ¡°The Heroic Spirit of the Goddess of Moonlight, Dragon yer Basr?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but I am Wumianzhe¡¯s Heroic Spirit at the moment. I will settle with you the matter of your twisted interpretation of the God of Law¡¯s teaching. Right now, there are two Semi-Gods and a Heroic Spirit guaranteeing them Is this enough for you?¡±


    Under the challenge of a Heroic Spirit and epic heroes, Woode was unable to rejoinder. When he was in a weak position and speechless, I suddenly felt like rationalizing it out with him.


    ¡°Fine, let¡¯s not talk about the past. Let¡¯s discuss the present and the future then.¡±


    ¡°300 years ago, you all used the annihted Mist Country based on an unconfirmed fact, resulting in the sixteen years of Demon Cmity, thus bringing about the most grievous cataclysm to the entire human society. Now, this country gued with innumerable problems is forced into a corner yet again, but what do you all intend to do? You all imed that you are protecting human society from the encroachment of evil, but in my view, your Church of Holy Light is the origin of evil!¡±


    ¡°We are guiding people towards benevolence!¡± The Holy Church was the origin of evil? This never before made im shocked Woode. After which, fear started to creep forth from inside. In that instant, facing the countless dark histories and the furious condemnations by the victims, even his slick tongue was unable to find the words to refute.


    ¡°Worshipping the Holy Church means to guide others towards benevolence? What a joke! The conduct of my Knights is a hundred times nobler than those pigs in the Church of Holy Light cloaked in the robes of an Archbishop! How many years has it been since my people have been on the verge of starving to death? Yet, I don¡¯t see the Church of Holy Light doing anything about it! Fine, the Church doesn¡¯t wish to interfere in it. I will! Then why is it that when I bring my Knights back to lead my citizens to a better life, you leap out to criticize our actions! Will those haughty superiors of yours be happy only when this country is destroyed and all of its citizens have starved to death?¡±


    The furious questioning left the other party tongue-tied. Suddenly, a small pebble hit Woode¡¯s head. It was a little girl venting her frustration.


    ¡°Bad man, don¡¯t bully Big Brother Knight!¡±


    While Woode was stumped for an answer, when the numerous grudges and resentments of the country were thrown under the sun from the continuous interrogation, the rage of the citizens in the surroundings was already on the verge of exploding.


    The action of the little girl was only the initial spark. Following, more and more pebbles, tomatoes, and potatoes were thrown.


    Finally, under my interrogations, when all of those dark histories were revealed, the Mist citizens¡¯ dissatisfaction with the Church of Holy Light burst!


    ¡°Murderers! Begone from the Mist Country!¡±


    ¡°You oppressors and miscreants, do you all not know the meaning of shame?¡±


    ¡°Karsha from Aymon family, if you still consider yourself a citizen of the Mist Country, take off that ugly priestess robe and return back to us!¡±


    Under the agitation of the crowd, the influence that the Church of Holy Light had developed here over the course of so many years would probably be uprooted in an instant.


    When the Church of Holy Light was viewed with suspicion or even exiled out of thends, my Knights would receive the respect they deserved in the future for their heroic deeds in the past.


    At this moment, I didn¡¯t have the leisure to be surprised about these ¡°minor things.¡± Basr had brought to me Wumianzhe¡¯s gift, and it was something that would astound the entire world.


    ¡°Divine Forbidden Spell: The Sinless City. This?¡±


    ¡°Yes, this is the gift that My Lord, Wumianzhe, has granted this city and the East Mist Communal Country. In this world, only Lord Rnd has the qualifications to use it! After all, how could it be possible for the Order Gods to allow the City of Rain to monopolize the market?¡±


    Perhaps I was the only one who knew what my inner thoughts were. This big gift was something that I required the most now. With it, the estrangement between the living and the dead would be swiftly repaired.


    After hesitating for a moment, I made up my mind.


    ¡¾I, God of Law Wumianzhe, deres that under my will, the capital of the East Mist. Diffindor. will be a sacrednd of the Law Faction¡ªAnd devoid of sins. ¡¿


    When I tore apart the scroll filled with God Power, the God Power gushing out from it controlled my speech. After which, from above and below, the voice of the God and a mortal merged together as one.


    This was the deration of a True God. The entire world must listen to my will.


    ¡¾In this city, no one shall be incriminated because of their identity, race, or social position. Before the Rules of God, all intelligent lifeforms are equal. If someone were to vite the Rules of God in this city, regardless of his identity, position, or race, he would be marked as a criminal by a permanent Judgement Spell, and all of my worshippers shall judge his crimes!¡¿


    At this point, the incantation came to an end. However, somehow, I moved my lips and additional content appeared within the deration.


    ¡¾In my city, Undead do not represent evil, and Holy Light does not represent justice. Before the Rules of God, everyone is equal. The benevolent shall be rewarded, and heinous sinners shall not be spared!¡¿


    TL Note: Weak nations long for strength ¹úÈõ˼ÎäÄÂ


    The literal meaning of this saying goes that a weak nation longs for the appearance Wu Mu (which refers to Yue Fei, a renowned general in the Han dynasty).

 Chapter 131

    Chapter 131: Ghost Festival


    ¡¾I, God of Law Wumianzhe, dere that under my will, the capital of the East Mist Diffindor will be a sacrednd of the Law Faction¡ª¡ª And devoid of sins ¡¿


    All mortals must remain humble before the will of a true God. When a God¡¯s deration was conveyed from the clouds, even the most furious of pdins and priests had to stop their arguments.


    The God beyond the clouds showcased their might and innumerable pirs of light descended from the heavens. The silver Light of Law illuminated the entire world. The faintyer of silver cloaked the ruinous infrastructure within the city, causing the city to look solemn and dignified.


    Contained in the golden scroll is the God Power of the God of Law. Without a doubt, this was a nation level (permanent) strategic Forbidden Spell.


    Along with the tearing of the scroll, the overflowing Power of Law turned me into the medium of this Forbidden Spell as I reced the God of Law to release this extreme Forbidden Spell.


    However, in the predetermined deration, I added in my own verse.


    ¡¾Can sunlight survive alone without the night toplement it; is there no darkness to the other end of the Holy Light?¡¿


    ¡¾In my city, Undead do not represent evil, and Holy Light does not represent justice. Before the Rules of God, everyone is evil. The benevolent will be rewarded, and heinous sinners will not be spared!¡¿


    The two souls of the same origin harmonized with one another, and Wumianzhe, who did not possess self-awareness, gave up his control in the end, allowing my will to rewrite the predetermined deration.


    When the deration of the true God echoed throughout the entire world, even I am unsure of what kind of repercussions it could bring, and what the additional words I added into the deration would cause.


    At the very least, in the eyes of those of the Holy Church, a true God bringing up the idea of ¡®Darkness to the other end of Holy Light; Holy Light does not represent justice¡¯ was a p to their face. At this very moment, despite being in the Order Faction as well, in the eyes of all Holy Light jobs, the God of Law had be the top enemy of the God of Holy Light.


    Even so, they were unable to censure us. After all, Wumianzhe was also a true God of the Order Faction, standing neck to neck with the God of Holy Light in a certain sense. On the other hand, the Church of Holy Light, in name, was the servant and representative of the teachings of Holy Light. No matter what, a servant criticizing apanion of his master was a disrespectful action.


    ¡°What does Wumianzhe mean by this? Does he intend to start an internal war among the Order Gods?¡±


    Facing an unpleasant guest, the servants might not be qualified to make a stand, but the owner was allowed to reprimand the other party for their discourtesy. Everyone waited for the God of Holy Light to respond to the deration, but the long-awaited response never arrived.


    Alright, actually, these two true Gods do not possess self-awareness. They operate only on their path of logic to expand their faith. My deration didn¡¯t contain any direct insults, and I only brought up the possibility of ¡®darkness to the other end of Holy Light, and that it does not represent justice¡¯. These were facts and would not be determined as an aggressive action by that simple logical thinking of his. In fact, in the logic map of the God of Holy Light, those words had nothing to do with him at all. And thus, it wouldn¡¯t elicit a response to my words.


    Perhaps, in the eyes of those who understood the secrets of the Gods, this was just a meaningless little trick. They would only be doubtful of how Wumianzhe, who had lost his self-awareness, was able to utilize such a y on words. However, in the eyes of most mortals, this was equal to the silent acknowledgement of the words of the God of Law by the magnanimous God of Holy Light.


    ¡°There could be viins hiding beneath the cloak of Holy Light, and shadows exist behind the Holy Light as well. Perhaps the Church of Holy Light isn¡¯t as sacred and righteous as it seems.¡±


    This was probably the thought going through the minds of a majority of the listeners. Very possibly, in the eyes of the world, the God of Law and God of Holy Light had already started to stand at opposite ends with one another. At the very least, the most direct impact of this deration was that there would be some friction among the Church of Holy Light against Law jobs.


    However, since my initial goal was to poach personnel from the Holy Light and even rece the Holy Light in its entirety in the future, hostility of this level is within expectation. On the other hand, only when faced with enmity on the outside could the Law Faction unite together as one.


    As the medium of the Forbidden Spell, I fully understood the effects of it.


    Being a God Power Forbidden Spell on the same level as the City of Rain, when the Light of Law permanently envelops the entire city, anyone who oversteps the boundaries of the Rules of God within this city will be marked with the highest-tier Judgement Spell, turning their entire body crimson-red. This effect would be sustained for 24 hours, and all Enforcers who were aware of it must pass judgement on the criminal.


    The Sinless City. When all tragic sins are exposed under the sun and it bes impossible to escape from one¡¯s crimes, the ideal of a city devoid of crimes will be reality very quickly.


    If Liu Huang Mountain City is the Law Faction¡¯s sacrednd of origin, then Diffindor is fated to be itsnd of miracles as well as thend where Law will start rising from. From today onward, the Law Faction would be intricately linked to the East Mist Communal Nation.


    At this moment, the agitated citizens were surrounding and attacking the bunch from the Church of Holy Light. Under the hint of my gaze, Xueti stepped forward to stop them.


    ¡°Under the gaze of my Lord, Wumianzhe, no sinners will be able to conceal themselves. Even if the Church of Holy Light has numerous past sins, the ones before us are indeed sinless. Please allow them to leave.¡±


    After the descent of the miracle, the position of the Church of Law, which had just be the national religion of East Mist, would reach greater heights. The Tauren Pope of the God of Law religion would, without a doubt, be one of top three most authoritative figures in this country. Under such circumstances, his words would naturally be influential.


    ¡°Archbishop Lorf, your presence here will only worsen the conflict. Please hurry up and leave. If you still treasure your pride, please leave this city as soon as possible. If you choose to persevere on here, please do not die in this city; you will only cause unnecessary work for us.¡±


    By the side, Xueti made sarcastic remarks while helping them out of the situation. With the Church of Law regting the situation, the moment a gap appeared among the crowd, the noble regional Archbishop immediately fled, leaving his guards and priests behind...


    ¡°That is enough. It will be troublesome for us if their Archbishop were to die here. Given their nature, it is totally possible for them to fabricate stories like ¡®The God of Law has colluded with the Undead and some Archbishop has died in the midst of carrying out his duties¡¯. Judging from his current look, he seems to be scared out of his wits, so he will probably lead his team out of the city soon. It would be best if the Church of Holy Light can give up on the entire Northern Lands. Sigh, given their overbearing methods of dealing with problems, the possibility of thempletely letting go of the Northern Lands isn¡¯t great. Looks like we will still have to toil out with them in the future.¡±


    With the departure of the ¡®viins¡¯, the citizens started to cheer triumphantly. The horns echoed once more and the symphony of victory yed.


    Under the war gs, the Knights proceeded on with their march; different from their prior solemness, the citizens joined the ancient heroes in the homing parade.


    With the guarantee from numerous heroes and the descent of the miracle, the estrangement between the living and the dead shattered, and the forced, one-sided show came to an end. In the start, I was still slightly worried and hesitant, but now, the crowds were finally cheering for the returning ancient knights.


    The grave atmosphere dissipated shortly after. When the living joined in the ranks of the formation, the parade started to exude joyfulness.


    The elderly tried to ask the knights about the difference between the history they knew and the true history, while the middle-aged tried their best to leave their impressions on the knights. The youngsters beheld the figures of the unyielding knights of Mist with admiring gazes, wondering if they could be one of them, whereas the mischievous children would secretly prod the ice swords and unt their bravery to theirpanions.


    The Aurora Knights at the front of the parade quickly became crowded. The elegant ice armors attracted the attention of the females and the children, while the legends of those donning it became the dreams of all males. At this moment, despite the stony faces on the Knights, happiness was gushing through their hearts. At the same time, they had to guard themselves against the sudden assaults by the rascals, as well as to exin the dangers the ice armor could pose to the crowd as well so that they wouldn¡¯t touch it.


    Most of the knights were the same as well. However, what left the greatest impression on them was the bizarre method of acknowledgement and reunion.


    ¡°The n insignia on the g... Could it be that you are my ancestor?¡±


    ¡°You... Are you the descendants of my younger sister? You truly resemble her!¡±


    ¡°Lord, can you visit our family when you are free? My children should be interested in listening to your stories.¡±


    ¡°Of course I can. I will head there the moment the parade ends! Everyone, look, I have descendants! I have a family once more; I am no longer alone!¡±


    These sights urred one after another. After receiving an affirmative, the living would receive the admiration of the other residents while the dead would be blinded by their joy and gleefully unt their descendants to theirpanions. Of course, most of them were the descendants of their siblings.


    As for those who had no descendants of their own, they solemnly decided to check the civilian records to see if there were any descendants that were of their bloodline, or any far rtives who had changed their names. At the very least, for a family of their own.


    Their cold outer appearance was like a barrier that the Undead Knights were used to putting on to iste the coldness of outsiders from the inner heart. However, at this moment, the barrier was slowly crumbling, exposing the gentleness within.


    The ones who were touched weren¡¯t in the minority, and I had seen two Undead Skeleton General whoughed their lower jawbone down.


    In my vision, even for the mentally resilient as Camisia, when young girls were busy putting on flower gands on the head he was hanging by his waist, that flustered reaction and cross-eyed look revealed how touched he was, as well as his inherent qualities as a virgin with centuries of experience.


    Should I be thankful for the fact that Undead were incapable of shedding tears? Otherwise, judging from the agitation of their soul, their uncontroble tears of joy would have flooded the whole ce, and the march of victory wouldn¡¯t be as magnificent as it was.


    ¡°Finally... This is a true march of victory!¡±


    Yes, what is a march of victory when only the triumphant homing warriors are involved? The waiting and weing vigers were the true reasons for the struggles of the warrior. Without the understanding and weing of the Mist citizens, without the blissful smiles on their face, what was the meaning behind the sacrifice of the warriors and their return?


    At this moment, the thousand pound stone in my heart was finally relieved.


    ¡°What do I do if the citizens are unable to ept the Undead Knights? If ites to that, everyone would be miserable, and it would be impossible to salvage the situation.¡±


    In reality, even though I spoke of it so confidently and was the first one who entered through the gates, my heart was pounding furiously.


    However, I know that I must not reveal my cowardice, otherwise ¡®escapees¡¯ will appear within those hesitant fellows, and we wouldn¡¯t have the sess we were experiencing now.


    Despite being massive and hideous, the Abomination Carlos had rascals climbing up his shoulders. Perhaps the young parents hoped that their children could interact more with this young knight who died young, or perhaps this was the Mist citizens using their own ways to console this unfortunate youngster.


    Should I be thankful to the Church of Holy Light for their hindrance? If it weren¡¯t for their enmity, the painful dark history wouldn¡¯t be pulled out and the Undead Knights wouldn¡¯t be so easily epted by the people.


    ¡°No, we should be thankful for the Mist citizens dwelling upon thisnd. It is my trust in them that made me stake in on this bet. It is impossible for the living to tread beside the Undead in any other countries!¡±


    ¡°Un, we might as wellmemorate this day. Every year, we will hold a small celebration to deepen the friendship between the two.¡±


    I didn¡¯t expect that this thought of mine would result in the birth of the famous Ghost Festival of the Northern Lands. On that day, youngsters would dress up as demons and mythical beasts to join in the night parade of a hundred demons. Naturally, there were true ¡®ghosts¡¯ in their midst as well.


    Undead not being viewed as evil will be one of the most important trademarks of the Sinless City. Soon, when the news spread, countless discriminated races and minorities would start to consider heading to the Northern Lands.


    ¡°I have not sinned, so why must you all pursue me to no ends? I have had enough of this.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    While Rnd was still busying himself for the future, a certain someone was destined for tragedy.


    A few monthster, when the news of the Northern Land reached the And Empire, the emperor who was still vigorous despite losing his capital showed his weariness for the first time.


    ¡°You will regret it.¡± The elegant figure and her words appeared in his dreams once again, and the words that contained another meaning beneath the surface became the greatest rue of a certain emperor.


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve regretted it! I¡¯ve truly regretted it! Is this karma? Is this retribution for allowing others to assassinate you? Or was I mistaken from the very start?¡±


    Every time the emperor drank on his own, he would be shouting these words while bawling over it.


    At this moment, the attendants who thought that the emperor was stressed due to the worsening war situation would close the doors and call for Lord Hermit and Lord Rosemary.


    The former was a strategist deeply trusted by the emperor. Regardless of whether it was matters concerning the war or daily affairs, he was always able toe up with suggestions that satisfied and left the emperor assured. On the other hand, thetter was a beauty that left one dizzy-headed. Empathetic, she was always able to soothe the burden and emotions of the emperor with a few words.


    This time, it seemed that Lord Hermit was too busy with war affairs, thus only Rosemary came.


    ¡°Emperor Darsos? Why did you drink so much again?¡±


    ¡°Rosemary? Come, apany me for a drink.¡±


    ¡°As you wish, your highness. Except, it will better for you to cut down on the alcohol. Drinking too much harms your body.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, I never expected that you, who she sent to me, would worry over me. Come, let¡¯s chat.¡±


    As expected, after a few words, the spirits of the doleful emperor lifted.


    ¡°Rosemary, you are truly my soulmate. Regardless of whether it is military affairs, politics, economics ormercial activities, you truly know it all. Perhaps, if I chose you to be my queen from the start, many things would not have urred...¡±


    Seeing the two of them hitting it off, the understanding royal attendants silently closed the doors. Perhaps, not longter, something would happen.

 Chapter 132

    Chapter 132: A New Era


    ¡¾Ding! Congrattions on building a new job advancement infrastructure. The job change to an Avnche Guardian has been unlocked. The job advancement to an Aurora Knight has been unlocked. The job change to a Swift Wind Knight has been unlocked. Please throw some citizens in, give it two minutes, and a powerful warrior will leap out... Did you think I would say this? Stop dreaming. This is the real world. There¡¯s no way such a disorderly job advancement system that¡¯s neither scientific nor magical could exist.¡¿


    ¡¾You want powerful warriors? Sure, train them yourselves, cultivate them. ¡ª¡ªYou expect soldiers to pop out just by building barracks? The Star Wars next door is beckoning you.¡¿


    Alright, it isn¡¯t that easy to obtain powerful troops, but for this System, which is neither scientific nor magical, to retort that I am being unscientific, it seems that it is as darned as usual.


    This is the third day since the ¡®homing¡¯ march of victory. However, not only did Diffindor¡¯s celebration not stop, the celebration activities even expanded to be national level.


    ¡°Since that¡¯s the case, we might as well allow the entire country to celebrate for an entire week and pardon all criminals. Un, the food will be provided by the nation¡¯s treasury so as to allow the citizens who have suffered for far too long to enjoy themselves.¡±


    This was the decision that I had made. It was clearly an attempt to win the goodwill of the people. But at the same time, it had the effect of calming the hearts of the people before the arrival of the storm.


    A celebration mainly consists of delicacies, alcohol, music and cultural performances, as well as all kinds of unique activities. The cheers of delight, dancing and singing outside the windows of the squares never stopped and the sound of the drums shook even the heavens. However, in the pce, everything had reverted back to the hectic daily routine.


    ¡°Going by your n, we still have sustain the homing celebrations for another five days, not to mention supplying the celebration of the other towns with food. This will exhaust at least two months of our rations. If things go bad, it might even cause a shortage in the rations that was finally sufficient tost through the winter. Although a kind man had sponsored us this time, and we earned quite a bit from him, the expected shortage in rations in the long term still remains a menace. If you weren¡¯t the one who brought up the idea, I would have gone all out to block the proposal, before finding an excuse to exile the perpetrator to the borders and have them serve as aborer.¡±


    The sentiments of the top courtdy Kelly was shared by most of the officials. Used to thriftiness due to the difficult and harsh life here, they would even tear a copper coin into two to spend it over a course of two days, so how could they tolerate such an ¡®extravagant waste¡¯? If it wasn¡¯t for me backing it adamantly, this celebration probably couldn¡¯t even be held.


    ¡°Everyone here has suffered. However, this will all be worth it. On one hand, this is a way to reward the citizens. Even though the harvests were pitiful this year as well, it isn¡¯t their fault. After toiling for an entire year, they should be granted a few days of rest. On the other hand, I want to leave a new impression on the citizens. ¡®From today onward, everything will be different.¡¯ With this at the core, life will be less difficult for them.¡±


    Morale? Poprity? The will of the people? All these may seem fleeting, but they can be a positive driving force from another perspective. At the very least, filling the stomachs of the citizens and painting a beautiful future for them to look forward to was all we could do at present.


    Of course, changing this country from the ground up was still something to be done step by step.


    I proposed an unrealistic request to the System, and as I expected, I received an even more unrealistic response. Every single warrior required several years, sometimes even decades, of cultivation. Hoping that troops would magically appear just by throwing resources into a newly-created barrack? If only this held true in reality as well.


    ¡°Then, the two foremost matters we have to attend to is to reconstruct the individual main divisions and to settle the problem with rations...¡±


    A sparrow may be small, but its internal organs were still present. This emergency internal meeting had more than thirty officials attending it, and based on the primary interaction with them, it seemed that there were quite a few talents among them. It seemed that these experienced and hardworking politicians yed a big role into why Reyne and the Mist royalty were able to persist to date.


    TL: The Mist Country may be small, but its internal workings are stillplete.


    A filial son can only be identified when the family is in poverty. Simrly, the truly loyal subjects are the ones who stick with the country through times of difficulty. Should I be thankful for the years of difficulty they have experienced? They were able to calcte out the burden that a month of celebration would have on the supply of rations next year, and settle on the locations of the new barracks within a short ten hours. This was something that that bunch in Liu Huang Mountain City, who goes ¡®What Lord Saint says is correct¡¯ for all matters, could never hope to aplish.


    However, no matter how efficient the governance was, and how well-utilized the resources are, it was still impossible to alleviate the situation when the country was that severelycking in resources.


    At this moment, the conference made one feel very ufortable. As a neer without any official position, I was sitting in the chairman¡¯s seat to officiate the internal affairs meeting. And yet, they were all treating it as though it was something reasonable, as though this was the way it was supposed to be... Un, the one who felt the most ufortable in the meeting was, no doubt, me.


    After all, I was already used to governing that bunch of unreliable subordinates of mine. Arge portion of the time, I would be arguing with them during the meeting, trying my best to direct the discussion, which had begun to digress from its boundaries, back to the topic at hand. In contrast, seeing the officials seriously discussing the problems now made me feel ufortable.


    Seeing the serious faces of the middle-aged and elderly officials as they jotted down notes on the meeting and pondered deeply before raising questions, I was tempted to bring Xueti, who was still enjoying himself in the square, over and show him how others dealt with matters seriously.


    ¡°As for the problem concerning rations, there should be a stock of meating in half a month. If stored properly, it should be able to slow down the depletion of our rations.¡±


    Kelly came to a realization.


    ¡°You mean that whale?¡±


    I nodded my head. It was too much of a waste to leave that corpse of the mountain-like Horned Whale in the ocean. Considering the problem of food East Mist was facing, I decided to send the Borealis to drag it back here.


    Considering that it was way too big, if it was impossible to drag it back as a whole, it was also possible to cut it into several pieces to ship it here.


    Even when top-tier Sea Monsters were dead, their might will linger in the surroundings for a period of time, thus there was no need to fear fishes and prawns from consuming it within a short period of time. The meat of the whale could be used as rations while there were top-ss spices within its body. It would be a waste to leave such a great fortune to rot in the ocean.


    ¡°As for the means to resolve the problem of rations from its core, I have a proposal. By selling our acquisitions, we should be able to purchase rations sufficient tost us for two to three years. Thus, we should start nning for the long-term.¡±


    After all, East Mist was a small country. Given that the resources given to us were sufficient to make the emperor of the massive and powerful And Empire feel an ache in his heart, it was even more so an astronomical sum to East Mist. It was possible to live off it for several years.


    At this point, the head treasurer flipped through his records and nodded his head affirmatively.


    ¡°If we were to sell away those jewels and minerals, it could sustain us for five years, let alone two years.¡±


    I nodded my head in satisfaction. At the same moment, I recalled the bitter face Darsos had when he was extorted by us. Recently, I had heard from Rosemary that she had sessfully invaded the inner circle of the And Empire. Perhaps, this may allow me the chance to interfere in their affairs in the future.


    ¡°I am really curious as to how she was able to infiltrate their inner circle of authority despite being a servant of obscure origin, and to say that it is possible to climb even higher on the totem pole...¡±


    Even though she refused to exin how she was able to do it, I do not think that she was lying to me. Other than the fact that her phctery was in my hands, the top ssified secrets of the entire continent that she was supplying me with also proved that she had gained sufficient trust to ess them.


    ¡°To survive by preying on the wealthy isn¡¯t a feasible long-term n, even though it is sufficient for us to survive for a few years. I will think of a solution for our rations. So, let¡¯s talk about the other proposal ¡ª¡ª Expanding our military.¡±


    If it was in the other countries, pushing forward an expansion in the military was an incredibly vexing process. It would cause an outbreak of war between the Dove Faction and the Hawk Faction. Unless the emperor forcefully suppressed the opposing faction, it would take at least three to five years, sometimes even reaching a decade or two, to expand. Furthermore, one had to take into ount the reactions of the various fief lords when strengthening the army of the central. Even if the motion were to pass by some sheer coincidence, by the time new divisions were being formed, people would be vying for military positions and authority.


    TL: The Dove Faction supports peacefulness, whereas the Hawk Faction refers to the nationalists.


    However, to the East Mist that had been struggling in the Northern Lands for a long time, it was something the poption fervently longed for. The main reason why the military wasn¡¯t expanded in the past was due to theck of funds and rations to sustain it.


    ¡°Regardless of whether it is to deal with future wars or to protect the people from the waves of beasts in winter, we require a powerful army. In the Northern Lands, one will never find military prowess excessive. Thus, the first thing that has to be done is to restore the previous establishment of the Mist Country. With my knights at the very core, the various battalions will be reformed. Their names and gs will remain the same, and the equipment and gears will be as it is in the past. With the old veterans leading them, the battalions should be able to take shape within ten years.¡±


    Looking around at the surroundings, the crowds nodded their head slightly in approval. Their eyes were filled with enthusiasm. After all, the Mist citizens had already suffered the bitterness of acking military strength. As long as there were sufficient resources, rebuilding a powerful military had been something they were dreaming of.


    ¡°In reality, the will of the younger generation to protect their country is strong. The numbers who actively applied to join the military has always exceeded our logistic capabilities. As long as the supplies are able to keep up, along with the attraction of the legendary troops, there should be no problem with the number of manpower.¡±


    ¡°Un, then let¡¯s begin the recruitment of the army as soon as the celebration ends. If we do not have sufficient equipment, use wooden swords and wooden spears for training first. Let¡¯s first get the situation kicking before we proceed on to the specifics. We must quickly make use of the time to allow them to undergo training before war starts.¡±


    There was someone who heard the other meaning behind my words and raised his doubts.


    ¡°War? Does Your Highness believe that war is imminent?¡±


    ¡°Un, you all should have heard of it. The eternal Sacred War is about to ur again, and the battle between And and the Water Elementals and Seafolk is just the prelude to it. The unrest doesn¡¯t just stop there.¡±


    Speaking of the eternal Sacred War, the faces of those in the room darkened. Expanding one¡¯s army was one thing, but fighting another war was something else. They barely had a few days of peace; why was trouble knocking once again?


    ¡°A few days ago, I received a confidential intelligence report that the ckwings in the South have allied themselves with the Wind Elemental God. Their Cloud Fleet is currently heading west and, along its way, has plundered quite a few towns. Even the capitals of two middle-tier kingdoms have been a victim of theirs. As for the north...¡±


    The moment I spoke of the north, everyone¡¯s attention focused on me. After all, this was the utmost north of the human society, and anything that happened here concerned their safety. No matter what, they had to be wary of whatever happened here.


    I sighed helplessly. Were the Mist citizens really condemned to a life filled with catastrophe? They had chased away the Beastman tribes a year ago and barely had a few days of peace when new problems arrived.


    ¡°...In the north, there seems to be quite a few tribes that have received the support of the Earth Elemental God and be powerful in an instant. That fellow proimed himself as the Khan of the Beastmen. Right now, they should be in the midst of an internal war, annexing one another. Going by their past history, it should be a matter of time before their great army starts venturing south.¡±


    TL: Khan -> The supreme leader of nomadic tribes.


    ¡°That is impossible! Ah, Your Highness, I am not saying that you¡¯re lying, but...¡±


    ¡°This is a destructive catastrophe! Your Highness, is your source of information reliable?¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, are the Beastman tribes from the hignds or the ins? Have the other countries of the Northern Lands received the news yet?¡±


    As expected, the moment the figurative bomb was thrown, the conference room burst intomotion.


    The Northern Beastman tribes could be divided into two groups. The Hignd Beastmen resided in the Oregon Mountains, the geographical terrains of which wereplex. Over 70% of the Beastmen of the Northern Lands resided there. On the other hand, while the Beastmen of the Holen ins may be fewer in number, their poption was more densely concentrated and the actual danger they posed is significantly greater.


    If it was the Beastman tribes from the hignds, there were at least a few countries who stood between us and them. On the other hand, the ins Beastmen share a part of the border with them. And due to historical reasons, the several dozen kilometers of the boundary shared with them had never been peaceful.


    Of course, this is still a positive situation. If it was the previous borders of the Mist Country, with the long border between both sides, the pressure would be even greater. In these two hundred years, the rise of a hignd country, the Suya Kingdom, and the neighboring Rhodes Kingdom, which were both ruled by those who share the bloodline of the barbarians, had split the great ins of the Beastmen into two, thus alleviating the pressure.


    By the way, these two countries were also the only two of the seven countries in the Northern Lands that have amiable rtions with the East Mist Communal Country. Other than the fact that they were viewed as a ¡®Nation of Barbarians¡¯, their countries were also built on thends of foreign races, and they did not annex thend of the original Mist Country. Theck of a historical feud among them formed the basis for their amiable rtionship.


    As for the other five of the Seven Countries of the Northern Lands, most of them were founded by the fief lords from the south. Some of them were even rtives of the seventeen destroyed countries, so how could the rtionship between them and the Mist be cordial... At the very least, unless it was absolutely required, merchants were unwilling to head to this ¡®Nation of Barbarians¡¯.


    The current chaotic situation of the Northern Lands was as such; ¡®The three countries of the Northern Lands where most of the indigenous poption of the north lives (There was also an ancient Fengqi Country on top of Rhodes Kingdom and Suya Kingdom. It borders the Rhodes Kingdom and its political stance leaned towards the north even though its royalty stemmed from the south)¡¯; ¡®The other four countries founded by Southerners (of which Sleuweir Kingdom is a product from the splitting of the Mist Country. They emphasize that they are the legitimate Mist Country)¡¯; a bunch of autonomous regions that weren¡¯t small in size.


    The entire Northern Lands had been regarded by the other massive human countries as barbarians; furthermore, the continuous conflict between the various countries of the north had caused thisnd of bitter frost to be the frontier and a ce of exile for human society. As for those supposed autonomous regions, quite a few are nds of freedom¡¯ governed by bandits and criminal organizations.


    ¡°...Unexpectedly, this intelligence was supplied by the Elf Kingdom, so it should be credible. ording to them, they have informed most of the human kingdoms. It is the Hignd Beastmen; it seems to be a tribe called Blood Axe Tribe.¡±


    ¡°Pui, that bunch of long-ears can¡¯t wait for us to grind ourselves thin with those Beastmen. However, just as usual, we were excluded from it all.¡±


    ¡°Hah, Sleuweir is in for misfortune. Those bastard traitors deserve it.¡±


    ¡°Karsomi Communal Country as well. It seems that the Blood Axe Tribe isn¡¯t too far away from them. However, the Rhodes Kingdom might be hit as well.¡±


    Amotion burst out below. At this point, the conference had finally gotten to its final point of discussion.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get too excited yet. Although we won¡¯t be at the forefront of the impact, it is very likely for us to be roped in. Furthermore, if they manage to break through the borders, we will still have to face the Beastman tribes, so we have to make preparations for actual war. Thus, I have a suggestion. Starting from this year, we will start one of the symbols of our past glory ¡ª¡ª The Winter Hunt!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    The conference room was still in an engrossed state, whereas I was resting by the corridor.


    Even though it was alreadyte at night, a ruckus could be heard from the square not too far away. The bonfire had lit up and the unrefined but lively music made me smile from the depths of my heart. I also saw the Bone Dragon, which was shaking its hips, dancing queerly. It seemed like they intended to party the entire night.


    After delegating all tasks that could be delegated, the remaining matters didn¡¯t require my attention. The arrangements for the homing celebration and the recruitment of soldiers for war were going well. The only debatable aspect was the Winter Hunt that I proposed at the end of the discussion.


    Only the Northerners were aware that the wild beasts in summer and the beast packs in winter were two totally different concepts. The beast packs that had been driven mad and bloodthirsty by starvation did not fear any enemy at all.


    When berserk from starvation, they could use their heaps of flesh and blood to fill the trenches dug along the city walls. Also, there were numerous mutated and powerful magic beasts in the snow mountains. If they were to go on a rampage, they would definitely be scary opponents.


    Spring and autumn in the Northern Lands were extremely short. When put together, spring, summer, and autumn only added up to five months. Thirty days from the end of autumn, snow and ice would fill the Northern Lands as the season of frost started to set in. In previous years, to deal with the beast packs, creating a solid wall and clearing away wild beasts were the optimal solutions.


    If the wild beasts were to gather into packs, then moving the citizens from the viges and towns to therge cities would be the only usible course of action. Even so, not everything could be brought along, which meant that when they return once spring arrives, the sight of their ravaged homnd would be all thaty in store.


    Furthermore, arge migration was extremely dangerous. If they were to meet with beast packs that had set off in advance in the midst of their journey, it would be equal to delivering food right to the belly of the beasts.


    However, to make the citizens totally give up their home, livestock, and farnds from the very start was even more unrealistic. They were barely able to survive with the harvest they had each year. Furthermore, there was limited living space around the cities, not to mention the problem of rations.


    It was clear to see that the methods of dealing with the problem of the beast packs were filled with loopholes. On the other hand, the Winter Hunt that I had proposed could bringrge amounts of meat, as well as unique products from the beasts, reduce the stress that would be exerted upon the cities when those beast packs were cleared, and boost the morale of the citizens and army. There were benefits in doing so.


    Of course, everyone knew of the advantages in doing so, but the reason why carrying it out had been postponed was due to theck of military prowess.


    Using defensive tools to deal with the beast packs, which were only capable of charging blindly into the cities, was totally different from heading into the wilderness to battle with the bloodthirsty and cunning beast packs. The reason why my suggestions were rejected by the masses was due to their understanding of the military might of the country, as well as theirck of confidence in it.


    ¡°However, without battle experience, how can one¡¯s army grow stronger? No matter what, those brainless beast packs should be easier to deal with than those frenzied Beastmen. If you are worried for those young fellows, there are old veterans to guide them, and only through facing true battles will they grow rapidly. An army that has never seen bloodshed before, no matter how outstanding their equipment is, they can only be considered as security guards.¡±


    I didn¡¯t argue with them. After all, it was all just cheap talk without evidence to support it. To convince them, I need to prove to them that we had the power to do so. Besides, the army was under my control, so I could make preparations for it in advance.


    Right, my current identity was also awkward. After all, I am a prince of the Mist Country. The royalties of this country imed themselves to be my descendants and had been acknowledged by the world as such as well. Thus, I should be a member of royalty as well. However, logically speaking, this would mean that I should have been an emperor who had stepped down. Yet, I had never assumed the responsibilities of an emperor before, and I am also still alive. So, do I elevate straight to the position of a retired emperor?


    This rtionship was soplicated that probably even the world¡¯s most incredible genealogist would be unable to make sense of this mess.


    Furthermore, the troops under me were held in the name of Princess Reyne¡¯s Guardian Knight.


    Yes, Guardian Knight and not a titled knight. After all, in order to use the Rnd Sacred Sword to verify my identity, I could only have Reyne confer on me the title of a knight on the surface. Yet, she conferred on me the title of the Guardian Knight at the gates of Diffindor.


    ¡°We¡¯re about to enter the city now, so it is impossible to find the Council of Elders to confirm your nobility and your territory. Since there have been many examples of one¡¯s father and elder brothers holding the role as a princess¡¯s Guardian Knight, and Big Brother Rnd is like my elder brother, so just make do with the title of a Guardian Knight.¡±


    While saying these words, Reyne¡¯s tiny face flushed red, seemingly embarrassed.


    However, the identity as a Guardian Knight is indeed convenient. I am able to handle matters in Reyne¡¯s name, as well as avoid many awkward situations. Back then, I thought that this idea was excellent, and I even praised her for it.


    ¡°Your ability to adapt to situations is excellent; seems like you are able to think on the spot. Un, you are indeed my descendant.¡±


    Despite it being a sincere praise from the depths of my heart, for some reason, after I said these words, Kelly and Reyne¡¯s face darkened. There were even some from the Undead army behind whoughed.


    Alright, back to the topic, at the very least, the identity as Reyne¡¯s proxy gave me some confidence during the conference when I did not hold any official positions.


    Also, there were many things that I had started working on that were inconvenient to mention at the conference.


    ¡°Since the symbol of royal authority, the Rnd Sacred Sword, has appeared once again, the East Mist and the various other Mist Country spin-offs can start discussing a coalition. Also, the Frigid Nightmare altar in the snow mountains should have umted quite a few newborn Frigid Nightmares, so it is about time for us to produce true Aurora Knights. Seems like I must handle these two matters personally to get them done.¡±


    Troubles popped out one after another. At such a moment, I feel illimitable yearning for Elisa. If she were here, I could confidently throw everything onto her... or I could make time to chat with her.


    ¡¾System Notice: Your suicidal abilities are about to break through the heavens... Cough, this time, I didn¡¯t appear just to lecture you on how you are courting your own death. There¡¯s another daily quest for you toplete.¡¿


    ¡¾Ding! Daily quest: Today¡¯s Unfortunate Fellow. Please punish at least three viins who havemitted evil deeds. Based on the identities of those who were punished, you will be rewarded with 1-100 Fate Points, and there is no upper limit for the reward of this quest. However, if you fail to aplish it, 1000 Fate Points will be deducted. ¡ª¡ªJust because you have earned a lot of Fate Points recently, you think that you don¡¯t have to do daily quests? If you fail this daily quest as well, the next deduction will be 10000 Fate Points.¡¿


    Looking at the daily quest, I was taken aback.


    Committing evil deeds did not necessarily mean that the deeds had to be illegal, but what was illegal often tranted to evil. In previous days, it would have been easy to find viins; there would be plenty of them in the jail cells. However, as it is the homing celebration today, and a universal pardon has been issued, where the heck would I find a viin?


    Even if I were to start looking for one right now, the deration of the Gods on thend devoid of sins was still seemingly echoing in the ears of everyone. Even the most insane viins would fear the might of a God and keep a low profile for some time.


    ¡°Looks like I can only give in to my misfortune. The darned System must have been unhappy with me and is trying to pull a prank on me. So be it, a thousand points then. But if it is going to be ten thousand points tomorrow, then I must really take caution... Pu!¡±


    The sight before me caused me to spit my tea out. I rubbed my eyes to double check if I was hallucinating.


    A bunch of men was running about, and there were quite a few familiar figures in the group. The one leading at the very front was the tall and mighty Tauren.


    ¡°Returning back to nature, treading along with the wind, this is the true nature of us Taurens. My true name matters not, please call me the Son of Wind! Come, my friends, join us in this wonderful run alongside the wind.¡±


    Not out of expectations, there were quite a few guards chasing behind this group of bastards. Their clothes and pants were messed up as they waved the wooden sticks in their hands around.


    ¡°Lord, at least put on your underwear. Your underwear. Your underwear!¡± The town security shouted as his words echoed through the streets. In that instant, my face turned green.


    ¡°Son... Son of Wind your head! Do you think that this is the Underground World? How many Taurens do you think that Diffindor has? I bet you were exposed from the very start! For the Pope to be bringing others to run around nude, how do you expect the judges of the Church of Law to do their work tomorrow? I thought that you would at least hold it in for a few days! s, our heritage is unfortunate!¡±


    Thus, I unsheathed the Silver Avenger without hesitation.


    ¡°I got it. It seems that the System isn¡¯t unhappy with me. It¡¯s the Tauren! Fine, today, I will be cleaning up my household.¡±


    ¡¾Ding! Bingo, but there isn¡¯t any additional reward. Further System Notice: Think about it, why did the quest only request for a minimum of three but did not set a limit on the rewards? Yes, as this is the miraculous Sinless City, even those local criminals would have to keep themselves in check for a period of time. However, have you forgotten that there is still another group of entrics who are skilled in dancing about the boundaries ofw?¡¿


    ¡°You want to be a fireworks expert admired by the crowds? You want toprehend the profoundness of a festival from the Underground World? Safe and reliable, shy and radiant, Safe brand fireworks, a product worthy of your possession!¡±


    Alright, a viin who sold dangerous objects and counterfeits had appeared.


    ¡°Hmph, it is about time for us to settle our grudge. I want to avenge my lover number 38!¡± Leaning against the wall was a Dracon Hunter who exuded the aura of an expert.


    ¡°Hmph, don¡¯t think that I would fear you just because you¡¯ve ascended to the ranks of a Legend. A true hunter will never fear the strength of his prey; it will only make us feel more blissful. Hmph, your weaknesses have already been exposed to me. The next instant will be the moment of your death.¡± This was an old Dwarven Hunter. Despite his ordinary outer appearances, his shining silver hunting rifle didn¡¯t seem ordinary.


    By the side, a Goblin was trying his best to shout.


    ¡°The grudge from thirty years ago is about to be settled, and an epic battle is about to y out. Kab Gambling Den is currently epting all kinds of bets. Those who bet on the victory of the Legend Dracon, the payout is 1:2, whereas those who bet on the victory of the Ace Hunter, the payout is 1:3. As for the both of them perishing together, 1:10, and for the two of them settling their grudge amiably, 1:100...¡±


    Alright, to think that there would be private brawling and a gambling fraud. At this point, I already knew what to do. Before the reputation of the Underground World and the Church of Law fell into the gutters at the hands of these fellows, I had to quickly deal with them.


    ¡°That, can I bet that the duel will be terminated due to special reasons?¡±


    ¡°Of course you can, but the payout is 1:7. However, the settling their grudge amiably ending isn¡¯t included in the mix.¡± The gleeful Kab raised his head, but his smile turned into a cry upon seeing me.


    ¡°You... Aren¡¯t you supposed to be in a conference?¡±


    Ignoring him, I threw a sack of gold coins on top of his head.


    ¡°Keep it well, I will be iming my prize money from you after I¡¯m done dealing with these bastards!¡±


    Alright, what happened afterward was a night of suppression that everyone was d to see. After running myself to exhaustion, I decided to ce rebuilding of the Town Security Army as the topmost priority.


    In the end, not only did Iplete the daily quest, I even earned more than 700 Fate Points.


    Of course, the nude-running Pope would also be the dark stain on the Church of Law. In the future, this was how the annals of history would record this dark history.


    ¡°AD1897, during the homing celebration, due to overwhelming joy from the return of the knights, the incumbent Pope then, Xueti, drank too much during the celebration and acted out of decorum. Even though he didn¡¯t vite anyw, in order to punish himself, he hung himself on the highest gpole in the royal pce for three days and three nights.¡±


    ¡°The world was impressed by the strictness he treated himself with and his noble character, and, thus, they titled him as the ¡®The Impartial Upside Down Man¡¯. Hanging upside down on the gpole had also be a method to find one¡¯s path when one was confused. Furthermore, in order tomemorate this event, sprinting along with the wind during the day of homing had also be a tradition. Naturally, most of the participants would still put on a pair of underwear.¡±


    Since Reyne, who is a descendant of Rnd (as they im), was the royal family, it meant that Rnd must have been an emperor.


    For example, if an emperor had 3 daughters and 2 sons, these 3 daughters and 2 sons were part of the royal family.


    If the elder son (son 1) inherits the throne, then the sons and daughters of (son 1) will be the main line of the royal family.


    In contrast, the children of the 3 daughters and the younger son (son 2) will NOT be considered as part of the royal family.


    So, if you work this way upwards, and if Reyne is the empress, it means that Rnd MUST have been the emperor.


    Also, the retired emperor held significant standing in China. In a country like the East Mist where the ancestors were truly respected, it was natural that they valued seniority as well. So, going by this logic, Rnd should be one of the most respected figures in the entire country (as well as highest standing in terms of social position).

 Chapter 133

    Chapter 133: Distance and Expectations


    1897 AD, the summer of the Year of the Griffin.


    Against the worsening situation in the country, as well as the eternal Sacred War that was about to ur, the East Mist Communal Country¡¯s ¡®Princess Knight¡¯ Reyne Qin Mist had decided to seek for the Mist Country¡¯s lost honor. After going through many tribtions and trials, she finally received the acknowledgement of the Heroic Spirit of her ancestor, Rnd Mist. Following the return of the Undead army, marked by the ¡°Homing Day Celebration¡± and the ¡°First Winter Hunt in 300 Years¡±, a page opened in the annals of history as the Northern King of Wolves crouching in the Northern Lands started to rise once more.


    That was the evaluation written in a certain history magazine many yearster. At this point, everything seemed normal in it...


    ¡°Of course, to arge portion of the audience, this isn¡¯t the main point from the very start. Princess Reyne who remained unwedded for her entire life chose her ancestor, Rnd, to serve as her Guardian Knight. This became the popr theme for the works of many ywrights. Even though there aren¡¯t many details left behind, considering the chaotic rtionship within the household of the Northerners and the fact of Princess Reyne remaining unwedded for her entire life, we can infer that there is some truth behind these creations. As for the rumors of Princess Reyne having a unique sexual orientation, that is likely just a tactic to divert the attention of others.¡±


    ¡°¡ªThe previous passage is extracted from The Truth Behind The Top Ten Historical Romance ys,piled by a printing press which was the subsidiary of the Arhinlo Empire¡¯s Cultural Department. Note: This book has been banned by the East Mist Communal Country and numerous other northern countries. The author is wanted by the East Mist and if someone is found bringing this book into the Northern Lands, he will be lynched. The publisher takes no responsibility for the damage incurred by the purchaser.¡±


    Alright, let¡¯s not pursue the matter about the incredibly suicidal future printing press, although it¡¯s not like I could pursue the matter even if I wanted to. Ignoring the problems that the position as a Guardian Knight would bring in the future, at the very least, it solved the problem of my awkward position, thus preventing the bizarre situation of having two central figures in East Mist.


    After all, East Mist Communal Country was in the midst of rebuilding its various divisions, but the head of the divisions were all Undead Knights. In the perspective of outsiders, I seemed to have appeared from nowhere to take control of the new armies, so it did seem like I was gaining too much power over the country. In the end, it is best to avoid some matters if possible.


    The formation of most of the divisions went well. The moment the intention to expand the army was revealed, the conscription points and the barracks were filled to the brim. Due to our industriesgging behind, it was impossible for us to equip all of them. However, at the very least, we weren¡¯tcking in manpower and training could be started.


    However, while some things were well, others weren¡¯t that lucky. There were some divisions which met with problems from the start, and they had problems that could not be resolved within the short term.


    ¡°Asmu Hound Tamers? We have theplete improved training methods of the troops, and those who signed up are intelligentds who are carefully hand-picked from the applicants. They are all good seedlings. The Undead Rangers also demonstrated their expertise in taming hounds and how it feels like to have ten Skeleton Hounds suddenly surrounding and assaulting an enemy in a battlefield. However, the problem is...¡±


    ¡°Tucker War Hounds are extinct? How is it possible?¡±


    Alright, we really didn¡¯t expect such a problem to ur. Tucker War Hounds were massive warhounds unique to the Northern Lands. They were around half a human¡¯s height and their snow-white fur was exceptionally resistant to the chill. Furthermore, they possessed sharp fangs, a strong sense of smell, and an aggressive and loyal personality. They were the bestpanions to an Asmu Hound Tamer and after undergoing training, they were capable ofpeting physically with lions.


    ¡°We had also just realized it. Back then, due to the overwhelming damage from the fall of our nation, all of the warhounds that we were rearing were lost. After which, natural disaster struck year after year in quick session. Even humans were unable to find food, needless to say, dogs. Those wild dogs that failed to escape into the mountains were all consumed as food by the refugees. At the very least, not a single warhound can be found in Diffindor now.¡±


    After hesitating for a moment, I finally asked, ¡°...Since the warhounds are extinct, why don¡¯t you all... change your job to Asmu Wolf Tamer? The Northern Lands mayck everything, but one thing it doesn¡¯tck is wolves. It seems that the Winter Wolves are rather powerful as well. Since they belong to the same family as hounds, there shouldn¡¯t be too much of a difference between the two.¡±


    Alright, the moment the words of this outsider sounded, the Undead Rangers stared at me as though I was an alien.


    ¡°Your Highness, wolves and hounds are twopletely different animals. Wolves have a wild nature, which makes them a difficult target to tame. Furthermore, Winter Wolves are Magic Beasts. No matter how I look at them, they have nothing to do with ordinary wolves.¡±


    My mouth opened, only to close without saying a word. After all, do you expect me to start talking to them about Darwin¡¯s theory of evolution? Besides, who knew how the hounds and wolves from a foreign world evolved? It was possible that they might be two different species. If I turned out to be mistaken, that would be even more embarrassing.


    ¡°Crossing species would be difficult, but...¡±


    At this point, talking about crossing species, somehow I recalled that certain someone/


    ¡°The reason why you still like humans is because you have yet to meet a life form which you truly love. Species? That is never a problem!¡±


    ¡ªBy a certain elder brother of the True Love Siblings.


    Thus, I tried advising them.


    ¡°It might seem inconceivable, but you all can give it a try. Look for the hunter named Beifeng Herault. Yeah, that ¡®criminal, Beifeng; crime, Beifeng; punishment, Beifeng¡¯ mortal legend. No, don¡¯t look at me like this, I have not given up on treatment yet, nor did I eat medicine today. Trust me, try looking for him first.¡±


    The rangers left half-convinced half-doubtful. Thankful that I was able to hoodwink them, I forgot the entire matter.


    I didn¡¯t expect that two monthster, the rangers would rush into my office and inform me of the surprising and pleasant news.


    ¡°What, that fellow actually managed to tame a Winter Wolf? Herault Wolf Tamer? Go ahead, what does a single name count as. Right, how did he seed? Hmm? Why did all of you go silent? Alright, I know that I shouldn¡¯t have asked, so please do not tell me. Don¡¯t go spreading it around as well!¡±


    While the Herault Wolf Tamer happened to find a substitute out of coincidence, there were few divisions that, due to numerous reasons, were unable to be formed.


    The meritorious ck Griffon Aerial Unit, who had its final remaining Dragon Knight Timier as its living signboard, had many people enthusiastically signing up for it. However, the recruitment closed within a single day, and Timier did not manage to ept a single person.


    The reason? How could an aerial unit be created when there wasn¡¯t any powerful aerial mounts? Just by the name of the ck Griffon Aerial Unit itself, it was clear that the Mist Country¡¯s aerial unit was not much different from those of the human empires. They depended heavily on griffons as their main fighting power. However, how could the current East Mist afford to raise those expensive Griffon?


    Furthermore, now that the Sacred War had started, these kinds of military supplies were hard to buy. Upon seeing his brothers building up their own divisions while his was still empty, Timier panicked.


    ¡°The proposal to transfer the Aurora Knights and Duhans into the aerial unit is rejected. Timier, don¡¯t look so bitter. I will have Bastian capture a bunch of Manticores here. Those are even more powerful than Griffons.¡±


    ¡°What? Aren¡¯t those twopletely different species? Can manticores even be tamed? Trust me, you only need a Beifeng. What? Only with Griffons can your group formation be executed? Alright, if you insist on having Griffons, I remember that Xiao Hong had been rearing a group of them. It should be fine if I borrow a few dozens of it from here. However, if it numbers over a hundred, even if she is willing to hand it over, we cannot afford to raise them.¡±


    Just like how the energy consumption of mechanical flying units is a hundred times that of a chariot, in order to escape from the bindings of gravity, aerial troops require a massive amount of food to sustain their energy consumption. Regardless of whether they were mechanical aerial units, magic lifeforms or living flying beasts, the same rules applied for all of them. In fact, the Griffons which humans raise and giant eagles can already be considered one of the better ones.


    Four hundred to five hundred Griffons could eat the amount sufficient to feed ten thousand humans in a single meal. Most probably, the Finance Head would faint from seeing the expenditure afterwards. However, it was true that there wasn¡¯t much use to Griffons if they didn¡¯te in a pack.


    ¡°Fine, the most I can ept is 30 mounts, so the division can only serve as a scouting unit. I really cannot afford any more than that.¡±


    If it could only number thirty, then so be it. After all, it was much better than having an empty division. As Timier left the room sighing, a new trouble came knocking.


    This time, it was the siblings Fanderk and Lani. They were once outstanding Holy Light users, and after they were converted into Undead, both of them became outstanding Death Knights. The division they were creating had met with great trouble.


    Initially, their ¡°Dawn Hammer¡± was a Holy Light division centered around Holy Knights and Battle Priests. However, not mentioning how the East Mist was hostile with the Holy Church at the moment, which would cause the growth of the recruited soldiers to slow, the divisionmander and vicemander were unable to use Holy Light as well.


    Having Death Knights who were incapable of using Holy Light to impart skills of Holy Light and the battle techniques of Holy Knights would be apletely awkward situation. Furthermore, if these Undead were to stay with a massive group of Holy Light users, they might just happen to be cleansed by it somehow someday, so they would have to be wary of it as well.


    ¡°... Why don¡¯t you try building an order of ck Warriors and ck Knights? Or why don¡¯t you just start a division of Death Knights and teach thoseds the battle techniques of Death Knights in advance?¡±


    In the end, the Fallen Holy Knight Order and Death Knight Order fell through. After all, the prerequisites for a job advancement was way too absurd. After all, no living knights would take the initiative to job change into a Death Knight.


    As for Swift Wind Knight nce, who was in the midst of discussions with me on building a Light Cavalry Order, the contents of our discussions can be summarised with nine words.


    ¡°Money? Mount? Equipment?¡±


    ¡°No money! No mount! No equipment!¡±


    Knights were a money-burning ss, and Knight Orders required arge amount of funds to be pumped into them. Only with strong finance could a country afford to support powerful Knight Orders. Upon hearing my reply, the cool nce turned around to leave. Perhaps, from the very start, he knew that it was impossible, but he couldn¡¯t give up without giving it a try.


    Initially, I thought that conscripting manpower to build new divisions would be an easy task, but when I am seated in this position, when innumerable small matters came flying towards me, I realised that my thoughts were too simple.


    Those ws at the very start were still solvable through thinking flexibly. However, there were a few aspects that were true dead ends. The greatest problem of it all was the East Mist¡¯s industries, which weregging far behind this era.


    Thisg was in all aspects, be it smithing, mining, refining, engineering, or alchemy. Every single one of them was still at the standards of a century or two ago. There were wise kings who had tried hard to advance these industries, but even if we ignore the fact that the East Mist was locked out and viewed with hostility by the main human societies, East Mist couldn¡¯t afford to buy those technologies.


    The design of the old furnaces was still stuck at that of two generations ago. All of the products in the alchemy and engineering shops were all some standardized low-end stuff with low specifications. Then, after the final mine was lost twenty years ago, the mining industry went into decline and at present, it was already basically negligible.


    In this world, smithing a good sword first required mining sufficient iron ores before refining it into metal ingots. After that, the metal ingots would be forged into swords under the hands of a cksmith. If it turned out to be a superior product, then an Enchanter and Alchemist would be invited to carve magic runes on the sword to enchant it.


    Given East Mist¡¯s current industry standards, besides trying to decipher the new weapons obtained from And, even repairing those damaged weapons in the armory was already a difficult task, much less producing new equipment of eptable quality in bulk for the new army.


    Even an inferior metal sword requires countless processes to be done on it before it can be formed, not to mention the superior equipment used by those ace knight orders. The East Mist fell into a bizarre situation where there were blueprints but no craftsman, technologies but no facilities, models but no resources.


    However, the talents that I had scouted from And were fortunately all from different industries. However, it would take a long period of time for them to truly integrate into this country, and the resource that we werecking the most at the current moment was time.


    Boom! Boom!


    The sounds of explosions in the distance reached the heavens. The roof flew across the sky, rotating into the distance. However, the citizens were already used to this sight. After all, the explosions had be a daily urrence.


    Previously, the citizens couldn¡¯t understand the rationale behind creating a specialized district for the various experts of various industries to do their research, but after numerous days of explosions and mes, they finally understood my painstaking efforts.


    However, this time, a familiar figure could be seen after the explosion. It was the ¡°Miraculous Alchemist¡± Olivia, and smoke was emanating from her. At this moment, even though she was a mess, a thrilled expression covered her face.


    ¡°Ever since she hase under Yingou, Olivia¡¯s explosion frequency has taken up half of the entire research district. Explosions ur at least three times every day, and on some days, it can number up to ten times. To be able to remain alive after all that, perhaps that¡¯s where the ¡®miraculous¡¯ of her title came from.¡±


    While I was ndering her in my head, Olivia smiled happily upon seeing me.


    ¡°Your Highness, there have been some results to the object that you wanted me to research. Just as you said, it could probably change this world.¡±

 Chapter 134

    Chapter 134: Revolution


    Magic Engineering was a new field of research that was bound to revolutionize the entire world. However, at this moment, it was still in its infancy stage.


    It wasn¡¯t something entirely new that popped out from nowhere, but an amalgamation of engineering research, scientific theories based on material engineering, and magic formation research, a magic system theory based on alchemy. In ¡°history,¡± it shone in the intermediate stages of the Sacred War.


    I had poached the two founders of the new study from And Empire. Putting aside Timmy Lade, who was still studying in the public school, Olivia, who had been studying under the great alchemist Yingou Beyar, was making great improvements.


    The Goblin had often bragged about his genius disciple on private asions (at the same time, he alsoments that the inventions of his disciple aren¡¯t reliable, and he had been a victim of them many times) and thus, as her sponsor, I gave her the research topic I wanted to embark on without any hesitation.


    Without a doubt, this was cheating. Giving the original inventor her original research topic, even providing her with facilities beyond what she was able toy her hands on in ¡°history.¡± If she was unable to seed even under such circumstances, then there was nothing more I could do.


    Of course, they still weren¡¯t as mature as they were in history when they founded the study either. Thus, I had prepared myself to wait patiently for the ripening of the fruits before harvesting them. However, upon hearing from Olivia that there was progress in their research, I was overjoyed.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, those that involve the other fields are still in the midst of being deciphered by everyone else. However, the ¡®Portable Energy Source¡¯ that you had tasked me to create happens to be within the field of magic formation research and alchemy which I have expertise in. With the help of teacher and everyone else, I have already roughly grasped some leads on the subject.¡±


    I was delighted. This ¡°Portable Energy Source¡± happened to be the research that I was looking forward the most to. If this hurdle were to be crossed, then the progress of the research could be carried ahead.


    In ¡°history,¡± there wasn¡¯t any newly developed technology that had had as much of an impact as Magic Machinery Research. The reason for it was because this technology was prepared for the physically weak humans, and humans were the main fighting force of the Order Faction.


    The concept behind its design was that humans needed to train for a minimum of several years to attain supernatural abilities, while on the other hand, Magic Beasts were born innately with their own talents and magic. So why not create an energy source to power a machine that mimics the abilities of these Magic Beasts so as to save the time required for humans to attain such abilities?


    The fighter who wields the equipment, the magic engine that serves as the energy source, and the external shell which serves as a medium to channel the energy, these threee together to form a perfect system. It was evident that the core of this technology was the portable energy source. When this system was formed, even the most everyday human was capable of using supernatural abilities.


    Even the Magic Machinery Dragon which was capable ofpeting with true dragons that was developedter on was an extension of such a concept. The only difference that set it apart from the others was its powerful engine and its sturdy outer shell. However, there wasn¡¯t any revolutionary change to the technology in terms of its concept map.


    From the very beginning, the outer shells of the machines weren¡¯t a problem at all. Liu Huang Mountain City¡¯s engineering research had been leading ahead of the world, and the machineries behind Rnd No.2 were formidable in and of itself. However, its energy source, Titan¡¯s Heart, wasn¡¯t a product that could be mass produced. The other machines of the Rnd series were energy core burners and the energy required to drive them added up to an astronomical sum. That was also the main factor that was preventing it from going into the production line.


    To my knowledge, the energy of the Magic Machines was derived from the kic energy of humans. One could also find a member of the spellcaster ss to recharge the energy within the weapons quickly. This meant that as long as one had a charging port, it was possible to reuse the weapon over and over again, making it a worthy one-time investment for many. That was also the reason why it was able to bemonce in the world.


    Of course, making heavy machines from the very start was a foolish action that was unlikely to bring many benefits. My ambitions weren¡¯t that unrealistic. And¡¯s White Wolf Guards were able to reach an average strength of Silver-tier relying on their exploding Savage Javelins and their Savage Swords which were able to cut through everything. This proved how important an artificial magic weapon was to the fighting style of an average soldier, as well as the potential rise in fighting prowess it could induce in them.


    I did have arge bunch of the standard equipment of the White Wolf Guards in my possession, but deciphering the secrets behind them wasn¡¯t something that could be done in the short term. I reckon that even if I were to sessful analyze the secrets behind them, theposition of the alloy and the high-level enchantment on them would still make them difficult to be produced on arge scale. Most probably, due to insufficient materials andck of technology, the results of it would contribute nothing to the military strength of East Mist.


    However, if I were able to provide a magic sword that had low prerequisites to every single soldier of mine, just with the basic elemental enchantments, every single one of them could potentially be mobile rechargeable cannons. This would revolutionize the role of a soldier within wars and the basic firepower of an army would increase exponentially.


    Thus, the first problem I had to tackle was the creation of a rechargeable magic engine, and the core technology behind it was its rechargeable energy source. At this very moment, Olivia was telling me that she had managed to ovee the first obstacle, so how could I possibly not be overjoyed?


    My estimations were that it would take a minimum of three years to get to this point. However, it had been just three months since returning from And and I was already presented with such positive results. I could hardly believe my ears.


    Perhaps due to my overly passionate gaze, Olivia felt embarrassed. She lowered her head and muttered.


    ¡°Lord, I didn¡¯t do it alone. Teacher Beyar (Yingou) and Lord Kakana had contributed greatly to the research as well. It was a group effort by us all.¡±


    Mistress of gue, Lich Kakana? I was taken aback for a moment before a realization struck me.


    Back in her time, Kakana was an ace alchemist among ordinary peasants. It was said that her goal back then was to be an alchemist merchant and sell beauty products and vitamin pills.


    The stronger one¡¯s will, the more resentment one will carry to one¡¯s grave, the easier it was for one to be an Undead. She, who still had lingering wills in the world (she still refuses to reveal what the matter binding her to the world was), responded to my summons and became a member of the newly formed Red Hunting Hounds.


    Alchemist and Saint were upations that had a great demand on one¡¯s umtion of knowledge, and they were well-known for the slow progress one faced climbing up the ranks. Time and experience were one¡¯s greatest limiting factor. At the very start, Kakana, who wasn¡¯t skilled in battle, was only a young sister who everyone protected carefully. However, she eventually became one of the most fearsome existences in the army.


    Alchemist was a job that became more powerful the more knowledgeable one was. The longer an alchemist lived, the more fearsome he became. With sufficient time, there were no dangerous experiments that one couldn¡¯t do, no out-of-the-box ideas that one couldn¡¯t try, and no poison that one couldn¡¯t concoct. An umtion of knowledge for 300 years made the tonics she brewed something that no Undead would dare to drink, much less the living.


    She slowly progressed from a mere Skeleton Mage to a powerful Lich. Even I was unsure of how strong she currently was. After all, there wasn¡¯t an opportunity for her to use her full strength. Given how Liches were existences that were at minimum Legend-rank, her strength was bound to be something not to be underestimated. Also, her title ¡°Mistress of gue¡± showed the impression the world had of her. The lives that had perished from her gues were uncountable.


    At the current moment, she had three apprentices, and one of them was a Lich just like her. Gold-rank alchemists were equivalent to a human kingdom¡¯s national treasure, much less say Legend-rank alchemists. An incredible research team thatprised two Legend ranks and two Gold ranks was something unheard of in the human society.


    It was precisely because of them being too capable¡ªwith their research directed towards poisons, gues, and such¡ªthat I had been depriving them of an opportunity for them to showcase their talents. Otherwise, if they were to start a few destructive gues there and then, even the Gods would coborate with one another to deal with us.


    The Goblin Explosive Alchemist Yingou Beyar, the Human Miraculous Alchemist Olivia, and the Undead Alchemist Mistress of gue Kakana and her research team. Somehow, intentionally or coincidentally, a research team consisting of top-tiered alchemists that evenrge countries were unable to match up to was assembled.


    ¡°No, luck yed too much of a factor into our sess this time. It was all thanks to Olivia¡¯s innovative thoughts.¡±


    A faint, blue-green soulfire burns in the sockets of a skeleton, and concealed beneath the white robes were withered bones filled with magic. The very existence of the being struck fear in the hearts of the living. If it wasn¡¯t for the slightly sharper voice synthesised by magic, no one would have thought that this individual was a female.


    However, by the looks of it, it seemed that she was slightly unused to the doctor¡¯s robe. As she walked, she would subconsciously tug on the cloth by her chest and her sleeves.


    It was my suggestion to have Undead put on clothes of ordinary humans. Of course, it wasn¡¯t due to my unique interests of wanting to see an Undead fashion show or a zombie rabbitdy. One of the contributing factors why the living was estranged from the Undead was due of their tattered and gloomy clothings. With a change in that aspect, even though the Undead weren¡¯t used to it, it helped to put onlookers at ease.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t think that the product of a failed experiment would be of use. It used to be an ice maker in my storeroom.¡±


    At this point, several Knights who had heard the explosion rushed over. They skillfully pushed aside numerous scattered fragments of the wooden house and pulled the half-fried Goblin out. The Goblin, who had been waiting a long time for them in the rubble, whipped out two bottles of medicine. Gulu gulu, he drank them and the scaldings on his body disappeared at a rate visible to the eye. Then, upon noticing my presence, he rushed here spiritedly with a smile.


    ¡°Old friend, a fatmb... Oops, I mean respected sponsor, we have alreadypleted the task you entrusted to us. It¡¯s about time to talk about mary rewards.¡±


    As long as there was money to be earned, this Goblin became more single-minded than a zombie. I was slightly taken aback by how quickly he bounced back to his usual liveliness despite being severely injured a moment ago. On the other hand, everyone else had an expression that said that they were already used to this sight. This ¡°Explosion¨CSwift Recovery¨CNext Explosion¡± cycle had already be a daily urrence in their life. In fact, in order to make the reconstruction and rescue efforts more convenient, their temporaryb was reduced to this simple log house.


    In their report, I soon understood the reason behind their swift breakthrough.


    ¡°That is to say, the original magic formation for portable energy source had been discovered by Olivia long ago, but she only remembered it because of the topic I gave her?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I happened to stumble upon it coincidentally when I was still a rookie. It was a magic formation that allowed energy to flow cyclically so as to lower the temperature of an underground chamber for extended periods of time. Using that as the basic blueprint, we created a miniature energy source that could store energy for extended periods of time.¡±


    The microwave was created in an experiment using the radar of the military. Penicillin was discovered identally due to a negligence in theb. X-ray was stumbled upon while changing experimental conditions. A falling apple led to the uncovering of gravity. In a different world, facts have proven the importance of ¡°coincidence¡± and ¡°luck¡± in scientific progress. I didn¡¯t expect that it would be the same for alchemy research in this world.


    Probably, from the very start, Olivia was the key to opening this vault, and my action of looking for the inventor to ¡°invent¡± this ending resulted in a sessful replication of this ¡°coincidence.¡±


    ¡°It is a magic formationprising flowing liquid. Its structure contains sixteenyers, but its size is barely that of an egg. It should be sufficient to meet your requirements.¡±


    Just by the outer appearance itself, it was apletely transparent crystal, and there was a light red liquid flowing slowly within. However, upon contact with the surface of it, I could feel the pulsating magic beneath its peaceful surface, as though it was alive and kicking.


    ¡°Well done, I will double the reward I promised you. Your next research goal is to put the energy source into practical usage in ordinary weapons. From the looks of it, it seems that we will have many new, powerful troops soon!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    ording to the others, I had been carrying a peculiar smile the entire afternoon. I would be smiling whenever I met others, shake their hands and return their greetings. Many people were shocked by my attitude.


    However, I had reasons for my happiness. Other than the increase in the strength of our army that ¡°Olivia¡¯s Magic Box¡± (I had been named it myself, but the initial name of Olivia¡¯s Vibrating Egg, which I came up with as well, had been vetoed) was going to bring, the breakthrough in this technology also meant that the massive fortune the Magic Machinery Revolution was going to bring in the future was already mostly in my hands.


    ¡°By that time, many countries wille knocking to purchase them. Going by my ns, we will definitely sell it to them. However, how we should go about doing it is a wisdom of itself. It is definite that we will have to extort arge sum out of them, and it might serve as an ice-breaker for East Mist in its diplomatic ties. After all, it is foolish to be making enemies out of the entire world. Even if it was very tempting to slice the other party apart, a friendly face should be shown on the surface. Only in this way can a backstab have the greatest effect.¡±


    During this period of time, I had been thinking about how I could extort their money out of them. Naturally, a bizarre smile would hang on my face as a result. The only thing that caused the smile to crumble were the two news that I received consecutively.


    The first one was within expectations. It was with regards to the restlessness among the Beastmen due to the arrival of the Earth Elemental God. The territory of the Beastmen was already filled with spies from each and every country, and Rosemary¡¯s news came at a timely moment.


    ¡°The internal conflict among the Beastmen will be concluded by winter this year. The frost will make it difficult for the Beastman army, which iscking in rations and clothes, to conduct a southern expedition. However, the moment the ground starts to defrost next year, it is very likely for the Beastmen to journey down the mountains.¡±


    Upon receiving the news, I sighed. What that wille eventuallyes. In any case, the good news was that they wouldn¡¯t being in the winter, so we had half a year to make preparations for it. On the other hand, if they really came during the winter, it would be easier to deal with them by making use of the adverse conditions.


    However, the other important news was apletely abrupt massive bomb.


    ¡°Xiluo Empire has suddenly dered war upon its surrounding countries. Its Undead army had traversed across the death swamp, the freezing hignd, the sweltering desert, and numerous other forbidden zones of the living to assault the other countries. This time, eight of the twelve Senators were involved in the attacks, and the size of the army was uncountable. The sudden raid was extremely sessful, the human kingdoms were caught off-guard. The armies of several kingdoms that were involved in the fight were pushed back continuously, and of which, one of the victims of their attacks was a superpower of the continent, Solo Federation.¡±


    If the assault of the Undead was within expectation, then what happened afterward left the intelligence groups of the various countries perplexed.


    ¡°The newly appointed 3rd Senator who was less than three months in his position, Pride Omar, has rebelled. He led the army he was just granted control of in a coup d¡¯¨¦tat, and at this crucial moment, the Royal Faction chose to remain neutral. As a result, the Council was forced to face him head-on. At present, the Xiluo Empire is divided into three factions and is mired in an internal struggle.¡±


    They were making good progress in the battle and two smaller kingdoms were already on the verge of destruction. Yet, at this opportune moment, an internal conflict broke out among them. Furthermore, it was a chaotic battle involving three factions in its midst. What were they up to?


    The Seven Deadly Sins, Pride Omar Mist, was a powerful expert who, despite his sudden appearance, was able to prompt the Bone Dragon Queen Gria to give up her position as the 3rd Senator to him. In an instant, the attention of the entire continent was focused on him.


    When he proimed himself to be the son of Yongye, the head of the Seven Deadly Sins, and the news of him once rebelling against Emperor Yongye was dug up, everyone had a ¡°The heck, so he is a formidable figure after all¡± epiphany.


    ¡°Still the short-sighted Fend as always. Did you think that by releasing Omar¡¯s seal you would be able to use him to suppress the Royal Faction? Yeah, it is true that he would be able to suppress them, but had you not thought that Omar would be able to suppress your Council of Dark Night as well? By handing him an army to lead by himself, aren¡¯t you giving him a chance to start a coup d¡¯¨¦tat?¡±


    I could roughly fathom the thoughts of Fend. He probably hoped to use Omar to keep Lionheart and the others of the Royal Faction in check. After which, making use of the chaos from the Sacred War, he would focus all of the strength of Xiluo into starting a war with the living.


    He probably thought that the reason behind Omar¡¯s rebellion back then was to obtain greater authority and strength. Thus, he promised him the world. As long as the main force from the Death Dimensions were to arrive eventually, it would mean nothing even if he failed to fulfill his promises.


    ¡°Other than me, it is impossible for Omar to obey themands of anyone else. As the incarnation of Pride, it is impossible for him to ept anyone being of a higher standing than him. For him, there¡¯s no need for any reason to start a coup d¡¯¨¦tat. If someone were to question his actions face-on, he would just find any random excuse such as ¡®You are an eyesore,¡¯ ¡®You are too ugly,¡¯ ¡®Despite being born so ugly, you dare tomand the suave me¡¯. Words that seem to havee from damned rascals would pop out from his mouth and drive the other party into a rampage.¡±


    I know that darned rascal and that Undead Control Ability named as ¡°The Highest Authority of the Dark Prince¡± too well. Any Undead that came under his control would serve him faithfully for eternity. Perhaps, just like back then, several Undead Lords might already be under his control. If so, then this internal conflict would probably drag on.


    For some reason, I felt sympathy for Fend. After nning so tediously for many years, gathering sufficient military power, gaining control over the twelve Senators, waiting until an opportune moment¡ªthe prelude of the Sacred War, perhaps even checking the points of entry for the invasion multiple times¡ª, they all gone to naught.


    ¡°Who will be the final victor? If I were to gauge based on the strength of the two factions, 3:7 for Omar to Fend. However, if Lionheart doesn¡¯t make use of this chaotic situation to y some tricks, the years he had spent by my side would have all been for naught. Forget it, it doesn¡¯t really matter anyway. No matter who wins, all that matters is that Xiluo has lost.¡±


    The intelligencework of the ambitious And Empire was truly formidable. However, the news that those elite spies risked their lives was sent to me at first time¡¯s notice through Rosemary¡¯s phctery.


    The situation of the variousnds differed from one to the other. However, there was amon point between them all. That was that none of them were peaceful.


    ¡°The storm is already brewing, we have to speed up our preparations. What that is of utmost importance now is... the autonomous region of the hybrids and the Northern Altar. I mustn¡¯t drag the matter on any longer. After I¡¯m done with the misceneous work here, I will have to set off once more.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Due to the very few members of the royal family, the East Mist Royal Pce¡¯s sparring field was opened to the Royal Knights as practice grounds. However, it was closed to them today. Other than the sparring experts on the field posing a threat to spectators, today was also the day for the experimentation of the newest weapons.


    The specifications demanded the new weapons weren¡¯t too high. Most of them were engineered magic swords with an inner core inscribed with a Fire Conversion Magic Formation.


    Both mes and machines were the expertise of the Goblin Engineers. As long as they were offered sufficient rewards, the efficiency and passion they showed in their work were iprehensible to the other races, to the extent of even toiling 23 hours a day. As such, in less than half a month, the prototype I had requested had started to take shape.


    The crimson-red magic sword carried with it the might of crushing mountains and billowing oceans. Radiant mes shrouded the de of the sword and the hot wind it generated caused its adversaries to feel suffocated.


    After the wooden dummy sustained a single blow, it started burning furiously. It was swiftly reduced to ashes.


    ¡°Is this a sess?¡±


    At the next moment, the gemstone ¡°vibrating egg¡± ced on the hilt of the sword shed before extinguishing altogether. At the same time, the de of the sword started to melt. After a few seconds, along with the diffusion of heat across the entire sword, the melting portion started to expand. It didn¡¯t take long before the sword was reduced to a puddle of metallic liquid.


    ¡°Another failure? The results are a little disappointing,¡±


    The wielder looked at the hilt of the sword in his hand in pity,pletely oblivious to the scalding metallic water dripping onto his body. After all, the temperature achievable by his physical body was not something this mere magic sword could ever hope to match.


    ¡°Of course. How can it possibly endure the infusion of your full strength? I simply wanted a SemiGod like yourself to test the limits of its might. How is it?¡±


    Adam scratched his head.


    ¡°Bronze pinnacle. No, grudgingly, it should pass for a low Silver.¡±


    Clearly, the firepower was far from satisfactory for him. Whilement could be heard from his words, the scribes by the sidelines cheer in delight. The result was already far better than their expectations.


    Those who were on the field were the top fighters of East Mist, and the reason why I had them here wasn¡¯t just to view the testing of the weapons.


    ¡°Alright, since the Magic Engineered Sword and Magic Engineered Firearms have passed the primary test, the next job is to develop two new forces with these at the core of them. In order to allow these troops to truly leave a mark on history, I have an idea in mind.¡±


    Heroic Spirit Basr, Adam, Old Ferdinand, and Fayde. The four of them were highly qualified Sword Saints. Furthermore, none of them were purely physical Sword Saints. On top of their swordsmanship, they had their own expertise as well.


    At this moment, even if I didn¡¯t say it out loud, they would have probably guessed it. After all, most of them knew that I had requested Basr for theplete information on his Nightfall de.


    ¡°Is it about the Magic Swordsman job advancement?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, we will open up a new path for everyone else. At the very least, this path shouldn¡¯t lead to a dead end after a certain point. Every single job has its own techniques and battle style that is suited to them. Thus, we have to develop a job advancement suitable for these Magic Swordsmen. The job advancement will be between Gold rank and Silver rank and it must be far superior to those useless Mage Knights. It will be called Four Elemental Swordcaster, and I am willing to be the very first Swordcaster!¡±

 Chapter 135

    Chapter 135: Sword Seals and Army Divisions


    Job advancement wasn¡¯t something that was rare in this world. On the contrary, almost every single expert who had reached a certain level would choose a job suited for them to advance to.


    For them, it was a necessity upon reaching a certain level, while in my System interface, there was a much more direct view on it.


    LV60 Warrior/LV7 Weapon Master; LV60 Justice Knight/LV2 Castigator; LV60 Mage/LV1 Fate Weaver. The former were the basic jobs whereas thetter were job advancements. For the basic job, one would have to continuously temper oneself and mature through the Iron, Bronze, and Silver ranks before they could reach the standards required for a job advancement.


    Actually, there wasn¡¯t much of a difference among the various basic jobs and most of the skills and abilities each job possessed were shared by the others. The main differing factor for their strength were their talents and basic stats. Choosing a job advancement meant choosing one¡¯s future path and what one was going to specialize in. At the same time, it meant giving up on the other countless possibilities. Even so, specialization significantly boosted one¡¯s strength. At Legend-rank, some of them were able to use the single specialization of theirs to crush everything else.


    For example, a certain more and more Beifeng individual whose name must not be spoken of had the basic job of a Ranger. After which, he advanced to be a Beastmaster, which was to say, he had given up on his previous Ranger skills¡ªhis archery, survival, trap setting, tracking, dual wielding, and numerous othermon Ranger skills, and instead, chose to specialize in controlling and taming wild beasts.


    When he had reached Legend-rank and forged that bizarre Guardian of Universal Love Soul Imprint, his skills in taming beasts and proficiency in controlling them were raised to his limits.


    It was said that during that battle in the ocean back then, he managed to cause a momentary hesitation with the Sea Monster. If not for the relentless cannon bombardments, he might have even sessfully tamed it. It was unthinkable for a Legend rank to induce such an obvious effect on a Sea Monster that was at minimum Myth rank.


    If he had really managed to tame a Sea Monster as his pet, his fighting prowess would be raised by a few hundredfold in an instant. This clearly showed the massive benefits specialization could bring to an expert.


    What? This fellow had been overpowered from the very start, and he wasn¡¯t a good representation?


    Yeah, your words weren¡¯t really wrong. I doubt that there would be another Beastmaster who would love their responsibility to the extent of forging their soul with their will, and deriving their strength from their soul. In fact, a normal soul was the limiting factor of mortals. The more obsessed and frenzied a soul, the more fearsome the potential it possessed. To a certain extent, he was a far distance away from the concept of normal. He is a ridiculous existence, but one with unlimited potential.


    At this point, I couldn¡¯t help falling into contemtion.


    ¡°If he were to continue rising up the ranks like that, given how the Jurisdiction of Wild Beasts and the position of Beast God is still empty, if he were to really step into the realm of SemiGod, there might be nothing to stop him in the most difficult step in ascending to Godhood.... That¡¯s too terrifying!¡±


    I can¡¯t help but picture what would happen if Beifeng Herault were to really be the Beast God. I feared that the world wouldn¡¯t fare well then.


    Alright, seemed like I went on a tangent. Let¡¯s not talk about the fearsome future for now. At the very least, I definitely would not allow that to ur. Let¡¯s get back to the main topic at hand, yeah, job advancement.


    Job advancement meant choosing a specific path to specialize in. As a simile, it is like climbing a mountain. The further one goes, the narrower the road gets. However, when one turns back to take a look, one would realize that he had soared above the others.


    Using a much more down-to-earthparison, an ordinaryw student had focused in financew when he was in his Master¡¯s, before going on to specialize in international anti-monopoly cases in his Doctor of Philosophy research.


    This was an example of going from a broad range into a specific genre. It may seem as though one is walking into a narrow path, but in actuality, they are climbing higher and higher. After all, was it possible for them to just forget thew knowledge they had studied? Of course not. It¡¯s just that there wasn¡¯t any need for it anymore. For them, their specialization would more than suffice.


    My situation was slightly more unique. Other people only had a single path, but I had four paths mingled together. If I were to diverge my efforts into training them one by one, not only would I tire myself to death, I wouldn¡¯t be rewarded greatly either.


    Thus, I decided to pave my path like how the rivers lead into the sea. The four rivers would eventually converge together as one into the ocean. Thus, what I had to do was to find the point of convergence for the individual rivers. Then, extracting the strengths of each field, I would pave my own way, and this time, my goal wasn¡¯t just a mere SemiGod.


    It was a difficult path to tread, but it wasn¡¯t an impossible one. That was also the reason why I made up my mind to research the magic swords.


    After reaching a certain level in my path of magic swordsman, it was only a matter of time before I had to create a job advancement suitable for myself. Rather than being forced to make a choice when Ie to a bottleneck, I might as well n ahead of myself.


    As for the reason why I chose to create a new job advancement rather than to utilize an existing job advancement for magic swordsman was because, although creating one¡¯s own path was difficult, it was bound to be the most suited for oneself. On the other hand, one might progress quickly upon walking the path of another, but it would be difficult to surpass the strength of the creator.


    Of course, from a certain viewpoint, it was a luxurious difficulty. Given the short lifespan of ordinary humans, it was sufficient as long as they could rise up the ranks fast enough. Such a difficulty was normally the privilege of the Elves and the other races blessed with longevity.


    The appearance of experts whom even true Gods feared after Magic Machinery Research reached its advanced stage proved the unlimited potential in this path.


    ¡°Star Shatterer¡ªTonight, please remain with me. I will knock down the brightest North Star for you!¡±


    ¡°A single person fleet¡ªBillions of cannon towers, billions of radiance. My final goal is the Milky Way!¡±


    ¡°The undefeatable passionate fool¡ªMy ship-ying de is capable of cutting through everything!¡±


    ¡°Using cannon bombardments to make friends, the Super S Mobile Cmity¡ªThat... Please believe me! I only wanted to make friends with you. I didn¡¯t intentionally destroy your city.¡±


    ¡°The f¨¹hrer of the Jedi Order¡ªHow infuriating, all that hinder my path are trash!¡±


    TL: In China, Hitler isbelled as the ¡®moustache¡¯ for his moustache.


    At this moment, when the light of the new generation was presenting itself before me, giving me an opportunity to lead the era, if I still failed to grasp it, I would truly be foolish.


    Of course, the other Sword Saints were unable to see that far ahead. However, as long as they trust me and support me, that would be more than enough.


    Under the efforts of the craftsman, the sacred sword Pale Justice had been modified. There was an additional aperture at the hilt of the sword to insert attribute magic cores, while the entire sword was an Olivia¡¯s Magic Box that had aplete magic cirction system.


    ¡°Sword Seal of the Vermilion Bird!¡±


    A red-colored attribute core had been inserted within and theplete magic box immediately activated. Under my control, an apparition of a crimson-red divine bird appeared on top of the seal and scarlet magic mes enveloped the sword, extending beyond the tip of the sword for several centimeters.


    Every single sh was reminiscent of a shooting star severing the skyline, the radiance of the mes leaving a trail behind it while the fire sparks fell from it, creating an extraordinarily beautiful sight reminiscent of the Milky Way.


    Furthermore, every single target thrown at me, upon getting struck by me, would swiftly incinerate. At the same time, the enchantment on the sword would be consumed and the apparition of the Vermilion Bird gradually darkened.


    After dozens of blows, the sword seal finally vanished altogether. Along with a kacha sound, the empty attribute core flew out.


    ¡°49 attacks. That was better than I expected.¡±


    ¡°Is it possible for it to be improved?¡±


    ¡°There is a limit to the maximum capacity of portable energy sources. Unless we expand the magic box and the attribute core, which means that the size of the weapon will be increased, it will be difficult. However, if we were to do so, the value of it would be lowered. Anyway, in a practical battle, that much is enough. At most, one just has to bring more attribute cores to switch it out. Let¡¯s go on into the second segment.¡±


    The attribute core was an extremely miniaturized version of Olivia¡¯s Magic Box (portable energy source) with a specific attribute to it. On the other hand, therger magic box that it was slotted into was an attributeless energy source. When the attribute core was activated, the entire energy source would be converted into the corresponding element. When the energy source had consumed entirely (Most of the time, the attribute core would be expended while the attributeless energy source still have remaining energy.), it was possible to use the attributeless energy core to charge it up.


    Allowing the magic boxes to maintain the sword seals by themselves let the wielder focus on using their weapons, thereby preventing the suicidal action of diverting one¡¯s attention onto multiple actions.


    The researchers by the side burst intomotion, while the Sword Saints and craftsmen were looking over interestedly. From the very beginning, most of them grudgingly chose to help out either in deference to me or for the wages. However, upon seeing the technology take shape and gradually proving the worth of its existence through facts, the endless wonders of the new object started to pique their interest.


    ¡°Sword Seal of the ck Tortoise!¡±


    Just like before, a snake-tortoise sword apparition was activated and a pale white frost started to diffuse. I raised my sword, and facing the target ten meters away, I swung the sword with great force.


    ¡°Sword Seal Burst Mode!¡±


    Apanied with a furious howl was the apparition of the snake-tortoise flickering, and a snow-white arc was released along with the swing of the sword.


    The speed of the snow-white arc wasn¡¯t exceptionally fast, and cold air diffused from it during its trajectory, causing ice crystals to form along its trail. It was an incredibly beautiful sight.


    Kacha! Cha!


    The target was immediately sliced into two before freezing and shattering upon contact with the floor.


    When the sword seal was activated, its default form was an enchantment on the sword, making it suitable for physical battles. On the other hand, this sword seal burst mode refers to using the remaining mana left in the energy source for a single long-range burst attack.


    Currently, there were only these two offensive models, and the four sword seals that corresponded to the four ssical elements, under my suggestion, had been named after the divine beasts which never appeared in this world.


    Of course, due to this inconceivable persistence in the eyes of the others, I suffered much criticism, especially from the Goblins, who surrounded me toin resentfully in an attempt to gain the rights to name it.


    ¡°I would be able to understand it if the Fire Phoenix was the divine beast of the fire element, but why did you have to name it the fire element sparrow (The Vermilion Bird in the view of the Goblins). This is obviously a low-level magic beast. That ck Tortoise is even more inconceivable. I have never heard of a magic beast who is a tortoise on one side and snake on the other.¡±


    ¡°As for the Azure Dragon, it probably refers to Green Dragons. Their talents obviously consist mainly of manipting the nts in the forest.... Alright, since it is able to fly, I can barely ept its rtion to the wind element, but White Tigers are only a rare mutation breed. Even if its skin is beautiful, as an earth element divine beast... To tell the truth, we have always thought that Ruby Sword Seal, Gold Sword Seal and Jade Sword Seal sounded nicer! Please respect our opinion! As the craftsmen, we also have the rights to its name.¡±


    Facing all kinds of opinions, a single reply of mine settled all of the disputes.


    ¡°I am the sponsor.¡±


    Alright, this was one of the aspects I loved about the Goblins. Anyone who had money was the boss. The moment I said those words, every singleint disappeared.


    This was also the only exnation I could offer them. After all, am I to exin to those of a foreign world that the divine beast of the north, ck Tortoise, has a water attribute, and the ice attribute was an extension of the water attribute, while the divine beast of the west, White Tiger, is of metal attribute, so it had to make do with the earth element? As for the Azure... There was no wood element in the four ssical elements, so I could only correspond it to the wind element.


    The reason why it was named Four Element Swordcaster was because there were only four main sword seals, modeled after the four ssical elements created. The fire attribute is called the Vermilion Bird Seal, the wind attribute is called the Azure Dragon Seal, the water (ice) element is called the ck Tortoise Seal while the earth (metal) attribute is called the White Tiger Seal.


    Of course, these were only themonce basic sword seals, there were still a bunch of additional ones. For example, I possess ice mana. If I were to use the ck Tortoise Seal, I could refill the energy of the attributeless energy core directly. As long as I were to swap the cores quick enough, there were no restrictions on my ability to conduct prolonged battles. Also, I had privately created some sword seals that were unsuitable to be released to the public.


    ¡°Pride Sword Seal¡ªO¡¯ Holy Light, who gave you the authority to dictate what justice is, and to incriminate others through your own justice?¡±


    ¡°Wrath Sword Seal¡ªAnger against viins and injustice is the propelling force of the Law. However, excessive justice will only harm you and others. Calmness is of necessity. Never allow wrath to cloud your rational thinking.¡±


    ¡°Sloth Sword Seal¡ªDeath is the sweetest slumber. However, it is a pity that it isn¡¯t time for you to get off work yet. Thus, make good use of your time to continue living an exciting life.¡±


    These three sword seals were created in correspondence with my other three powers, Holy Light, Law, and Death. I was using Olivia¡¯s Magic Box and the job advancement to sort out my chaotic and diverse energy systems, so that I could make these rivers converge together into a single ocean, creating an even more powerful fighting prowess.


    Of course, these three energy systems weren¡¯t suitable for public release. The current four sword seals were more than enough for those rookies to study.


    In the midst of the development of the sword seal, I had some epiphanies. The future road of development for this job should be to develop a certain systematicbination of sword seals, to create and grasp new and higher-leveled sword seals, or to seek more and better ways to exploit greater use out of them.


    For example, the Azure Dragon Sword Seal could be used to create a hurricane to propel or negate arrows while the Pride Sword Seal could be used to disperse Undead. I could already foresee these magic warriors gathering as one and turning the tides of a battle.


    As for the Magic Gunner that was disclosed along with the Four Element Swordcaster, in actuality, it was only turning the Sword Seal Burst Mode into a model suited formon use, turning the sword seal enchantment into ast resort when the enemy happened to close in on them. If some conspicuous difference had to be pointed out about them from the Four Element Swordcaster, it was that most of the weapons they chose were bows, rifles, and staves.


    Of course, the strength of an individual was limited. Thus, without any hesitation, I decided to dump this responsibility on others so as to pool in the wisdom of others.


    ¡°Fendark and Lani, didn¡¯t you twoin about being unable form your own division? I will leave these original prototypes with you all. Fendark will be responsible for training the Four Element Swordcaster whereas I will entrust the Magic Gunners to Lani. Periodically, we will try out different variations and new battle styles. Together, we shall perfect this job!¡±


    When Fendark and Lani delightedly epted the posting, I jolted abruptly. The familiar sound of System notice rang out in my ear once more.


    ¡¾Ding! Congrattions on triggering the unranked quest (At minimum Epic-ss): My Struggle¡¿


    ¡¾Quest objective: To the greatest extent of your ability, perfect the abilities and techniques of the Four Element Swordcaster. Also, open up its job advancement, construct an army, and turn this brand new job into the new favored one of the era.¡¿


    ¡¾Quest rewards: It will be decided based on the level ofpletion of the quest. There will be no upper cap to the rewards. If you are able to uncover the potential of this job up to SemiGod-rank, then the rewards will be SemiGod-tier as well. (Notice: As this is a long-term quest, the rewards will be released irregrly.)¡¿


    ¡¾Quest failure penalty: None. However, this is your own path. The moment you fail, your road to the summit alsoes to an end. Without any strength, you are unable to challenge those experts. As a result, your goals also be illusions. This is already the harshest penalty.¡¿


    ¡¾System Notice: Under your diligence, a brand new fighting ss walks on the stage of history as well. The development of the Magic Machinery Research had been brought forward by fifteen years and the strings of fate that lead to the end of the world have already been tangled up. All prophecies are destined to be unfulfilled.... Well done, please continue to overturn everything. Only through this can your insane goals be realized one day. Also, the massive amount of Fate Points you will gain as a result will allow you to stand up against any opponent, even if the enemy is the legendary Goddess of Creation!¡¿


    What else can prove that I am treading on the correct path than this rarely serious System notice? Thus, I smiled gleefully.


    ¡°Fendark and Lani, I will be depending on you two. Right, the name of the new division isn¡¯t fixed yet, so why don¡¯t we call it...¡±


    ¡°Please don¡¯t! Your naming abilities had too much of an impact on the morale of the troops! Even now, Lord Bastion still rages out instantaneously at anyone who dares to call him by that nickname, growing into a small mountain in an instant.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, it is better to leave such a minor matter to us. The name of Olivia¡¯s Vibrating Egg has already gotten out and, initially, she was happily going around bringing up this name you came up for her. That is until Tracy¡¯s adult toy shop opened.... The depressed Olivia holed up in her dwelling for ten days straight, and everyone is still trying to console her. Your naming abilities are way too formidable. What if we fail to recruit a single person after you named the division?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, if not for the name of our division being changed from Night Watchdogs to Red Hunting Hounds, everyone would probably be embarrassed to be walking around. It was all thanks to Lord Bastian going all out to veto the name.¡±


    ¡°Cough, Rnd. I think you better give up on it. The names of the four sword seals may be slightly bizarre, but they are barely eptable, so my impression of you just improved by a little. Everyone knows that your naming abilities are still stuck at the level of an elementary grader. If another Xiao Hong, Xiao Bai, Xiao Gou were to pop up, everyone¡¯s impression of you, which had just barely risen slightly after so much effort, would go down into the gutters once more. You must reconsider your decision.¡±


    Alright, the few knights who had been following me all along became agitated. Even Adam jumped out to join in themotion. However, why do I feel some traces of gleefulness from his heart-rending expression?


    Looking at the agitated crowd who were trying their best to persuade me otherwise, I swallowed back the name that was on the tip of my mouth helplessly, and grudgingly muttered silently.


    ¡°Twin-headed Chihuahua Division is obviously such a great name. Not only does it fit the concept of the division, it also sounds cute as well.... Or, since the first prototype of the magic engineered weapon is a silver sacred sword, why don¡¯t we call it Silver Sword Division?¡±


    Looking over, although everyone had clearly heard my ¡°silent mutter,¡± everyone was busy doing their own things, pretending not to have heard my words. But when I walked out the door, the cheers of ¡°Victory!¡± that sounded from my back made me harden my resolution.


    ¡°Later, I will go to the military barracks to register the name of the division. I choose you, Super Silver Sword Division!¡±

 Chapter 136

    Chapter 136: Return and Reunion


    ¡°Fresh fruits and vegetables for sale at a cheap price!¡±


    ¡°Hey, you over there, the one who looks strong. Our engineering team is facing ack of manpower. We provide food, lodging and favorable treatment. Are you interested?¡±


    ¡°Here! Bread fresh out of the oven! Buy one get one free! Knights get a fifty percent discount! Do you want one? Alright, it will be two bronze coins.¡±


    ¡°Tom? Your entire family has returned! Great, it is enough that you all have returned! This time, do you all intend to stay permanently?¡±


    Strolling about East Mist City, I looked around at the busy crowds, the traffic flowing to and fro, and all kinds of construction grounds. Somehow, a smile crept onto my mouth, one that came from the depths of my heart.


    Rome wasn¡¯t built in a single day. Even with great funds pumped in without concerns for the potential returns, the rebuilding works of the city were still stuck at the phase of clearing up and renovating the older district. The resources we had obtained also only improved the living standards of the civilians slightly, and the difference in the overall standard of living wasn¡¯t apparent. What made me smile happily was the faces of the citizens who were gradually bing increasingly spirited and expectant.


    The journey north towards the East Mist Communal Country had shown me much tragedy and suffering, and my mood gradually worsened.


    When humans met with tragedies, they would often carry bitterness on their faces. Even more so, their eyes would reflect heart-rending numbness and confusion. I understood that when someone had no expectation for the future, when he believed that the future would only be more and more bleak as time goes by, no matter how mentally resilient the person is, hisplexion and mental state would only grow worse and worse. When there was no hope for his future, he would naturally treat others colder and colder.


    The reason? It was probably because this nation gued with cmities would eventually just meet with another catastrophe.


    That year, when the Mist Country crumbled, they did not fall. When they lost their homnd for nearly a century, they did not migrate. Two hundred years ago, the East Mist was annexed by the wars waged by its neighbors. Even so, they persisted on. Twenty years ago, after losing the final mine they were reliant on for their survival, they continued to fight on. A year ago, when the old emperor died, they gave their lives to follow behind a fourteen-year-old princess to charge against their enemies, achieving a miraculous victory in the war.


    They weren¡¯t superhumans with wills made of steel; they were just ordinary mortals who had a longing for their homnd. Perhaps in the eyes of outsiders, this barrennd of the north was a useless plot ofnd in the wilderness. But for those whose ancestors had lived here, there was too much nostalgia and longing for this plot ofnd.


    Outsiders were unable to understand the sentimentality Northerners held for their homnd. Perhaps they were exactly like the ciers of the Northern Lands. Just because their core was here, their souls adamantly chose to guard the homnd their ancestors had created for them.


    ¡°As long as we do not starve to death, as long as that g doesn¡¯t fall, we will clench our jaws and endure.¡±


    However, not long ago, they finally found themselves unable to endure any longer. In the span of a year between the death of the old emperor and Reyne¡¯s returning with provisions for survival in hand, a significant amount of the poption chose to leave their homnd out of frustration.


    I knew that they couldn¡¯t be med for it, and neither did they break their vow.


    The citizens of the Mist did not fear sacrifice and war; they only feared the unknown future.


    When the shadows of war fade away, the tattered farnds and the ruined viges became a sight of hopelessness. Facing the onset of winter, under the menace of the wolf packs, they did not have the provisions required for them to survive through the winter. When the neighbors they knew died of starvation and froze in the streets, when the life-saving rations allocated during winter was insufficient, even the most optimistic of people had to consider their future.


    ¡°I don¡¯t mind living this tragic life, but my child isn¡¯t at fault. He doesn¡¯t deserve this.¡±


    No one could stand idly and watch as their children starved to death before them. No one could chastise the Mist citizens who left. Even if they knew that this would be a one-way trip, and that they would likely die in the midst of the dangerous journey, they could only leave their homnd reluctantly.


    However, what was even more ironic and cruel about their departure was that it allowed more rations to be allocated to each individual, thus saving more people. Compared to the previous few years, the amount of people who died inst year¡¯s winter was the least.


    No one could be med for this cruel reality. If someone had to to take the me, then one could only me the Mist royalty who had failed in their duties for protect their people. If one had to go even further, it could probably be traced back to my generation, the generation which created many potential enemies for the country.


    Thus, despite knowing that And was up to no good, as the descendant of the Mist, Reyne, who had yet conduct an official coronation ceremony, gritted her teeth and journeyed there. After all, death awaited them if they chose to do nothing. As long there was a ray of hope, she had to go through with it.


    Should I say that when one door closed, another opened.... If I was even a yearte in regaining my physical body and returning to the Surface, the East Mist Communal Country might have already disappeared by then. If not for the irksome And Empire forcing them into a corner, I might not have even met Reyne.


    At this very moment, after the bustling Homing Ceremony two days ago, many things had changed. At the very least, in ce of their confused gazes was expectation for a brighter future.


    ¡°Have you seen it? Barracks have been constructed in the old districts by the west of the city. That is the army of Prince Rnd.¡±


    ¡°Back then, I was the first one to rush to the conscription point. It is a pity that I was just a bit off from being qualified.¡±


    ¡°Keep bragging. Who doesn¡¯t know that even though they were recruiting significant amounts of manpower, the threshold to be epted was very high? The very first test was already a physical one. Seeing how you are as skinny as a monkey, how many sandbags can you carry? You probably got eliminated in the first round, and you still dare to brag that you are just a bit off?¡±


    ¡°To know it so clearly, can it be that you...¡±


    ¡°At the very least, I survived until the third round! I, Aiken, do not intend to give up. As long as there are divisions that are recruiting, I will give it a try. If I still fail even then, I¡¯m will make do with being a security officer! Right, there is the Church of Law as well; they are also recruiting. I heard that they impart fighting techniques as well.¡±


    Despite being eliminated, the bulky man, Aiken, had a face full of pride and honor. The surrounding crowd was also gasping in surprise, as though they were looking at an amazing expert.


    When a country is weak, the safety of its people are threatened. The citizens of a weak country are looked down upon. No one knew this logic better than the citizens of East Mist, which had been ravaged time and time again. Even after establishing the Church of Law as its national religion and, from a certain perspective, bing a permanently neutral country, it was clear to see that East Mist was still in a dangerous situation. The Beastmen of the north couldunch an invasion southwards at any moment, and the neighboring countries were eyeing East Mist with greed. Even if one didn¡¯t assault the other countries, there was no guarantee that the other countries would do the same.


    In this world where the strong preyed on the weak, one had to possess formidable strength in order to be truly neutral.


    Thus, the establishment of every single army division became a reason for the citizens to rejoice. After all, this meant that their country¡¯s ability to defend itself was growing stronger and stronger. At the same time, this new army also provided the younger poption an opportunity to develop themselves.


    Avnche Guardian, Swift Wind Knight; one after another, these legendary jobs popped out from history. Their legends were attracting every single one of the youngsters and they craved to create history with their own hands, just like their ancestors did.


    In the past, citizens were also enthusiastic to join the army, but that was only to make a living. However, right now, they were building a future for themselves while defending their country. The motivation of the citizens between the two scenarios were iparable with one another.


    Furthermore, the fact that the citizens felt pride in joining the military was representative of their faith in the country. This was also symbolic of the faith they had in me, the legendary Holy Knight Prince Rnd.


    However, this wasn¡¯t the happiest and most remarkable news yet. Thinking about it, it had to be the migrants from the East Mist returning back to their homnd.


    After the news that the legendary Prince Rnd had returned with his vanished army and liveliness was returning back to their homnd, even though the situation wasn¡¯t looking too good, the Mist citizens still chose to return. Every single day, there were carriages and individuals returning back to their homnd.


    Outside the city gates, the roads were packed with all kinds of carriages and travelers who were waiting to enter the city. The streets were packed with tired but happy returnees. ¡°Is everyone still doing well? I have finally returned here.¡± ¡°You¡¯re back? That¡¯s great, that¡¯s great.¡± Such conversations could be heard everywhere. The returning travelers were extremely curious about every single change that had urred after their departure. Many of the crowd were pointing to the division gs andmenting about them. In fact, some of them even grabbed familiar faces to interrogate them about it.


    Furthermore, this was only the beginning. Those who had managed to return at this point were mostly those who had migrated to the neighboring countries. As the news traveled to the different corners of the world, those Mist citizens who had left within the past twenty to thirty years started to contemte on whether they should return or not. When the Mist War gs rose up high once more, the disparate Mist citizens would start to reunite as one.


    Not too far away, a group of travelers had just arrived. Some of them were wearing thick cotton caps and others, light feather hats. Judging from their entirely different clothing, it was clear that they had just returned from different countries.


    At the beginning, the returnees were discussing how they were getting along in a foreignnd. Eventually, it devolved into aining session.


    ¡°...We were lucky to have not met with any wild beasts and bandits in our long journey to the other countries, but if not forced into a corner, who would be willing to leave their homnd? After all, do you think that speaking a foreignnguage and living an entirely life from what we were ustomed to is enjoyable? Those locals would always look at us as though we were savage barbarians, do you think that it was pleasant being treated as such? Upon opening our eyes every morning, the feeling of istion when all we saw were foreigners speaking a foreignnguage sometimes made us despair. Sometimes, we would even think ofmitting suicide.¡±


    That was a young man, but the heavy under-eye bags, depressed expression, as well as his callused hands and his rough skin made him look like a middle-aged man in his forty or fifties. Due to overworking himself and his constant low spirits, he seemed significantly older than his actual age.


    ¡°We were discriminated against due to our foreign ents. Even when we were bullied, despite holding the moral high ground, we did not dare to argue with them. Who can understand the indignation that we felt then? The loneliness we felt during the festive periods of our homnd, sometimes even suffering from insomnia due to excessive longing for our homnd, families, and friends¡ªall those heart-rending emotions we felt while struggling to make a living, who could understand them? Furthermore, if we were to express them, we would only be isted even further.¡±


    Despite being his prime where he should have been filled with ambitions, this middle-aged man was the same as the young man before. As he spoke, he recalled those past events and the anger he felt made him m his mug on the wooden table.


    ¡°When we finally made new friends after much difficulty, in the midst of our conversation, a slip of the tongue results in ¡®East Mist? Oh, I know, it¡¯s that barbarian tribe that had been destroyed. Could it be that you are that legendary barbarian princess?¡¯ When those by the side areughing, in order to fit in, despite feeling so furious that you could beat the hell out of the other party, you could only try your best to force aughter and pretend as though it was nothing. That life was too aggrieving, too torturous!¡±


    That indignantdy spoke impassionedly. From her seething tone, it seemed as though she had suffered many grievances.


    After all theints, an abrupt silence suddenly settled over the atmosphere. Everyone had suffered quite a fair bit. After a moment of silence, someone suddenly led the group into raising their mugs towards the city¡¯s west, the direction where the military barracks were.


    ¡°Let¡¯s thank the princess who had been propping up the g for so many years.... At the very least, we have returned, and there is still a ce beneath the gs for us to return to. So, everyone, let¡¯s be more cheerful from now on. For our blissful future, cheers!¡±


    Even though the heavy burden of life had crushed his waist, the young man¡¯s heart had yet to die. He still dreamt of a beautiful tomorrow.


    ¡°Let¡¯s thank Prince Rnd for providing us a reason to return.... No matter what happens from now on, at the very least, we will be able to die in thend of our ancestors. Perhaps all we needed was a reason to return here.¡±


    The middle-aged man was much more pragmatic. His resolve to remain here even if it meant his death caused the atmosphere to turn heavy and dismal.


    ¡°Let¡¯s thank...¡±


    Even though they were words of appreciation, the drinking toasts were bing more and more sorrowful. Soon, someone found it unbearable.


    ¡°Hey, stop acting as though we are marching onto an execution tform. Didn¡¯t you all see the Homing Ceremony that day? Prince Rnd¡¯s army is powerful and those Undead Knights are elites that have gone through countless wars throughout thest three hundred years. They are all the Heroic Spirits of our Mist Country! With them serving as the core of our military, our army will charge through battlefields undefeated! Our country will only grow stronger and stronger and our life will only improve as time goes by!¡±


    The one who had interrupted abruptly was Aiken, who was boasting a while ago about how he had bashed through several trials but regrettably failed in the end. At this moment, he was walking over to the group.


    ¡°You all are overthinking it. Hehe, you all must be unaware of how powerful our new guardians are. That Bone Dragon the Dragon Knight was riding on was so massive that it was evenrger than the city walls. Do you know who he is? He is the final Dragon Knight of our Mist Country! The Knights under Prince Rnd are that incredible, he himself...¡±


    Aiken began boasting about the scenes he had seen during the Homing Ceremony, speaking of it even more gleefully than his own glory. All kinds of rumors were mixed in with the truth in his words and all kinds of legends came bursting out of his mouth. In a moment¡¯s time, I became a 2.8-meter wide, nine-headed, fire-breathing, winged, SemiGod monster from their gossipping.


    From the very start, the returning travelers were curious about the things that happened on that day. Even though it was clear that Aiken¡¯s words were exaggerated and filled with nonsense, they were absorbed into his story.


    Under the ceaseless questions by the audience, Aiken became more and more impassioned in his story. When he went overboard with his story, some of the onlookers would interrupt and correct him. With a word here and there, the atmosphere in the tavern heated up.


    ¡°Say, this is a hard-toe-by opportunity! So many ace knights are building their own divisions and they are intending to personally train the soldiers. You can¡¯t imagine the sight of all of the nobles of the country being present for the tests. Even so, they were eliminated just like everyone else. I, Aiken, was always just a little bit off every single time. Perhaps if I were able to leap over this hurdle, I might be a knight under Prince Rnd¡¯s directmand! That wouldn¡¯t just be my honor, but the honor of the future generations of my descendants toe! If my deceased father were to hear of it, he might even leap up from his grave in sheer joy!¡±


    ¡°Shoo shoo, you were unsessful for so many times already, to think that you would still try to brag about it! I don¡¯t think there¡¯s any hope for you anymore, you should just be content with serving as Town Security.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, let¡¯s wait and see. I vow to be a knight one day! After this toast, I will go to the newly established Silver Cross Division to take the test. Are any of you willing to follow me?¡±


    ¡°What is there to be scared of? Let¡¯s go then!¡±


    Alright, the more these few fellows spoke, the ruddier their faces grew and the more agitated they became. Waving their hands about furiously, they dashed out to register for the test.


    ¡°...The Silver Cross Division requires one to be capable of learning how to utilize the Power of Elements. This fellow¡¯s intelligence doesn¡¯t even reach 9, it is impossible for him to pass the test.¡±


    Silver Cross Division was the Swordcaster and Magic Gunner division that Fendark and Lani were building. After my Silver Sword Division was mercilessly rejected by everyone, the image of an intersecting sword and staff into the shape of a cross representing the duality of magic and physical might became the insignia of the division, as well as the origin of its name.


    I knew the basic requirements for admittance into the division and looking at the bulky Aiken, who was still boasting in the midst of the crowd, I shook my head. I highly doubt that he would meet the cut for the Silver Cross Division. With a smile on my face, I ced three bronze coins on the table to foot the bill and left.


    ¡°Aiken huh? I shall remember his name. At the very least, he has a glib tongue. I could ask Kelly to see whether theyck talents in the public rtions department.¡±


    I strutted down the street, not fearing that anyone would recognise me at all. At this moment, a young man approached me.


    ¡°Uncle, a cup of fruit wine only costs two bronze coins.¡±


    ¡°Here, I will give you a tip since I¡¯m in good mood today.¡±


    Yes, that teenager called me uncle. That¡¯s because my current outer appearance was that of an middle-aged uncle.


    The Time Distortion Ring which changed one¡¯s outer appearance in correspondence to the age it is set at served as an excellent disguise. After changing my age and donning a wig and fake moustache, I didn¡¯t believe that there would be a single person who would associate this shaggy-bearded middle-aged Knight with Prince Rnd.


    I was happy. With such cute Mist citizens before me, how could I not be happy?


    I strolled calmly along the streets. Even though investigating the plight of the citizens wasn¡¯t my duty, looking at the country slowly progressing towards prosperity and the optimistic and spirited expression on the face of the citizens gave me confidence.


    The living standards were still harsh and it was highly possible that we would face war in the future. However, as long as our citizens believed that there was hope in the future, the country would take a turn for the better. As long as they could face their harsh lives with a smile, as long as they ce their trust in me, I had the confidence to pull them out of the mud they were in.


    ¡°Yes, I am conducting an incognito inspection. I am not doing this to escape those endless documents. Damn it. By having me look through all of the army logistics and the crops that will be nted for next year, do they intend to tire me to death?¡±


    Making a rough estimation, the royal pce should have noticed my disappearance by now. Kelly, who often gave people ¡°surprises,¡± was probably handling those endless documents in my stead at this moment.


    Considering the resentment Kelly would build up after having bury herself in the sea of bitterness, she would probably look for some ¡°enjoyment¡± afterward. At this moment, I was considering whether I should stay out for the night.


    ¡°Yeah, I am not shirking my responsibility. This is called trusting my subordinates and granting them the authority to make decisions. I will phrase it like that when I return back to the pce.... For my safety, I should bring back some snacks to humor her. If I remember correctly, there is a good cake shop somewhere around here.¡±


    Considering how there were no limits to Kelly¡¯s pranks, I thought it imperative to bribe her. ording to notes I had jotted down in the past, she should be fond of sweet desserts.


    However, before I found the cake shop, I saw something which caused my good mood to utterly vanish. Looking at the signboard in front of me, I didn¡¯t even know how I should respond.


    ¡¾Prince Rnd¡¯s direct subordinates, the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance, are recruiting. Do you wish to contribute to Prince Rnd? Do you wish to be prioritized in the substitution of the position of the Royal Knights? Wee to the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance! We are the most trusted army of His Highness and we are entitled to conversing directly with him!¡¿


    Alright, I hadn¡¯t really bothered with the mercenary band which I had created at a whim ever since reaching Diffindor. After withdrawing from the management of the mercenary band, the vice-captain, Beifeng, took over control. Looking at that three-story mercenary band headquarters and the poptioning to and fro the building, it seemed that the organization had somehow grown massive and powerful!


    I wasn¡¯t bothered with the idea of them using me as an advertisement for the recruitment. After all, I was still the head of this mercenary band. However, what that worried me was...


    ¡¾As long as you can prove that you are an Absolute Gentleman who hasprehended true love, you can join our ranks directly without going through any tests.¡¿


    This recruitment notice left me at a loss of what I should start retorting at. Did they think of the number of freaks and Gentlemen among them as insufficient? Furious, I stomped in. But the next moment, I heard a cry that left me even more speechless.


    ¡°Why? Why do you reject my application? I am a true big breast maniac! I am also unepted by the world!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, shallow! Do you feel passionate love over just a trait? Doesn¡¯t that mean that you will ept anyone who fulfills that condition? Do you think that the Gentlemen are something that shallow? Your understanding of true love is way too shallow!¡±


    Momo¡¯s furious rebuke echoed in the corridors. In that instant, I felt an urge to turn around and escape.


    ¡°Such is the way: All that has form is illusive and unreal. When you see that all forms are illusive and unreal, then you will begin to perceive your true nature. Young man, you have strayed from the path. You are too obsessed with physical traits. A true Gentlemen loves the beauty within that illusionary outer shell. My kind has abandoned such illusions to view the truth, and yet, you have lost your core due to a trait, thusgging behind.¡±


    TL: ¡®Such is the way¡¯ is a phrase normally used at the start of Buddhist scriptures.


    After hearing words that seemed to have came from an enlightened monk, I was taken aback. Only after a long moment did I manage toprehend the profoundness behind those words. However, by then, Casio¡¯s exnation was already by my ear.


    ¡°What Big Brother means is that you are a fake Gentleman who is obsessed with a certain trait. When a true Gentleman loves something, he loves it from the depths of his heart, and not over a temporary and fleeting trait. True lovees from the within, not over outer appearances.¡±


    Much less the audience in the room, even I was stunned by his words.


    ¡°In the midst of worldly desires and attachments onees and goes alone, is born alone and dies alone. One¡¯s happiness and bitterness is solely his, nobody else can take his ce. Leave, our paths differ!¡±


    ¡°What my Big Brother means is that although we may live together in this world, our hearts are lonely. Our desires are too unique, and as such, we are often gued with worries, and it is difficult to find a soulmate whom we can confide in. However, you aren¡¯t one of our kind, so please leave.¡±


    Finally, I couldn¡¯t stand it any longer. What the heck is this? Gentleman is about to be a type of philosophy already! If this goes on, will a cult worshipping Beifeng be born?


    ¡°Speak humannguage!¡±


    However, the moment I rushed in with a howl, I immediately regretted my action. The moment the door opened, Momo, who seemed to have been waiting for a long time for me to enter, immediately hugged me.


    ¡°Hehe, little Rolo, I knew that you were outside the door! I have been waiting a long time for you.¡±


    While pushing away the Dark Elf Knight who wastching onto me, the infuriating exnation and deciphering was still going on and traveled to my ears.


    ¡°All conditioned phenomenon are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow; like dew or a sh of lightning. Thus we shall perceive them! Excellent, my path isn¡¯t lonely!¡±


    ¡°What Big Brother means is that, look at that Momo. Without even using her eyes, just by using her intuition, she was able to see through all falsehood and tell that her beloved shota hides beneath the shell of that middle-aged man! That is a true Gentleman. Wait... The shota that Big Sister Momo loves, isn¡¯t that... Prince Rnd!¡±


    ¡°The wind presses hard, sound the retreat!¡±


    ¡°What Big Brother means is to quickly flee!¡±


    Alright, even though these Gentlemen with guilty consciences were scattering before me as though a threatened flock of birds, it wasn¡¯t possible for me strike them down. Other than the female Elf who was clinging onto me as though an octopus, there was another familiar figure.


    ¡°Rnd!! It has been a long time since west met!¡±


    ¡°Amelia!¡±


    ¡°All phenomena are born of karma, and destroyed by karma. Prince Rnd, this female peer has been chasing behind your fate for a long time and was brought here as a result of your doing. Excellent!¡±


    ¡°What Big Brother means is that you are in deep trouble...¡±


    This time, Casio¡¯s exnation is finally interrupted.


    ¡°Shut up!¡±


    ¡°Shut up!¡±


    ¡°All that has form is illusive and unreal. When you see that all forms are illusive and unreal, then you will begin to perceive your true nature.¡±


    This saying came from a Buddhist scripture known as Diamond Sutra


    Source


    ¡°In the midst of worldly desires and attachments, onees and goes alone, is born alone and dies alone. After death, one goes to a painful or pleasant state of existence. Each receives his karmic consequences and nobody else can take his ce.¡±


    (This is the full saying as tranted in the Source)


    I edited it slightly as the Chinese version slight differs from the English one, the interpretation of it as well.


    This saying came from Longer Sukh¨¡vat¨©vy¨±ha S¨±tra, another Buddhist scripture.


    Source


    Basically, what it means that even though one might be surrounded by friends and families, but one is, in a sense, alone. After all, it is nigh impossible to find someone who understands one, someone who knows what you are thinking and someone who you can share your thoughts with. In that certain sense, we might be surrounded by people who love us, but we are still alone. (In the Chinese version) Thus, we should pursue happiness. Whether it is happiness or bitterness, we have to ept them, and no one can substitute us in it.


    ¡°All conditioned phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow; like dew or a sh of lightning. Thus we shall perceive them!¡±


    This saying came from a Buddhist scripture known as Diamond Sutra


    Source


    ¡°All phenomena are born of karma, and destroyed by karma¡±


    I gave up finding it and tranted this by myself.


    Buddhist scripture from Prat¨©tyasamutp¨¡da

 Chapter 137

    Chapter 137: Sharal Autonomous Region


    Even though the earth had yet to freeze, the wind blowing through the Northern Lands had already turned frigid. Based on how things were in the previous years, within two months, the first wave of snow would descend onto the world. The seven months of winter would be the greatest challenge of all lifeforms residing in the north.


    Those who managed to adapt will survive; the strong survive while the weak are eliminated. Nothing was more suited to serve as the cold-blooded and merciless examiner than the harsh natural world.


    In the Northern Lands, the short period before the end of autumn wasn¡¯t an optimal period for one to travel around. After all, one might very well end up getting trapped on dangerous terrain when the first wave of snow sets. However, I did not have the privilege to be picky.


    When the warm spring sets in and the flowers blossom next year, the great army of the Beastmen will most likely travel southward. By then, it would no longer be possible for me to make this trip. The urgent thing to do now was to make use of the meagre remaining time we had to achieve more so as to earn more chips to protect ourselves.


    ¡°The autonomous region of the hybrids? That is truly a demeaning past. However, this seems to be the only way out for us.¡±


    The autonomous region of the hybrids is officially known as Sharal Autonomous Region. However, not a lot of people know of this name. After all, thatnd was an ignominious remnant of history.


    Whenever different races warred with one another, the losing faction would often forfeit arge portion of their territory and people, especially the females who would then be the spoils of war of the victors. As such, extended periods of governance under a foreign tribe represented the birth of arge amount of shameful hybrids.


    Arge portion of the Northern Lands, including the Mist Country, was dominated by the Beastmen who invaded southwards. The Demons had also contributed a fair bit during their campaign against the Northern Lands. The Elves were also implicated in the mess, as multiple Elf Tribes made up arge percentage of the ve trade. As such, there were quite a few DemiBeastmen, DemiElves, Half-Demons and all kinds hybrids living on this plot ofnd. Of course, the majority of them were DemiBeastmen.


    Naturally, the ¡°quite a few,¡± when put inparison against the poption of country, was a negligible figure. However, when the human kingdoms managed to reim this plot ofnd and the enved humans were cheering joyously, these newborns who were stuck between the two were put in an awkward position.


    Their identities as hybrids made their lives better than ordinary humans when they were under the dominance of another foreign race. However, on the other hand, they were destined to be targets for people to vent their resentment.


    When the foreign race was driven back to their homnd, these DemiBeastmen were unable to follow them back. The unique racial characteristics that they possessed made others remember the painful history they had undergone. With the slightest friction or intentional provocative words, an uncontroble genocide would probably ur.


    Furthermore, quite a few of those DemiBeastmen weren¡¯t kind-hearted souls either. During the years under the dominance of the Beastmen, in order to reiterate their stand, they treated their fellow human ¡°peers¡± cruelly. Most of the shocking tragedies that urred were a result of the doing of these bastards in awkward positions.


    When the humans finally reimed thends that they had lost a centuryter, a great judgement and bloodthirsty vengeance that urred left most of these hybrids hanging on the gallows. As for the remaining ones, they were either unable to be convicted of anything or they were too young. In any case, they were still exiled. These were events that transpired before the East Mist Communal Country was founded, happenings in the generation of the founder of the East Mist, Charles the 1st.


    In that era where one could be executed for the slightest association with the Beastmen, the only hybrids who were able to survive the unjust trials of vengeance were powerless children and women. Even those DemiBeastmen who were known for being friendly towards humans were only allowed to bring more personal possessions with them in their exile.


    In that era where the desire to exact vengeance had clouded the minds of the poption, no one dared to speak up for those ¡°Beastfolk¡±. Otherwise, if someone were to use them of being a spy for the Beastmen, wouldn¡¯t they die indignantly?


    In that frenzied era, not a single country was willing to ept those hybrids. On the other hand, the borders to the Beastmen Hignds were sealed (The few who sessfully trespassed over didn¡¯t end up well either. Most of them became tools of frustration for the Beastmen who had lost the remation battle.). As for the supposed exile, to the powerless DemiBeastmen then, it was no different from a death penalty. It was just that they chose not to personally execute them and, instead, left them to fend for themselves against the harsh nature.


    If the Mist Country was the dark history for the entire human society, then these hybrids were the dark history of the entire Northern Lands.


    When all countries denied them entry and mobilized their knights to drive them away, they could only helplessly trudge forth toward the remote mountains. As time passed and everyone started to forget their existence, thinking they had died in the frigid snow and to the beast packs, in the depths of the mountains, in a miraculous valley, a new autonomous region appeared¡ªSharal Autonomous Region.


    Naturally, the current Sharal Autonomous Region wasn¡¯t the same autonomous region the hybrids upied two hundred years ago. This nation still wasn¡¯t recognized by the various countries, but it had already be a haven for those who belonged to no country and criminals. Humans, Beastmen, and Elves could be seen on thends, but the ones who imed the majority were still the indigenous hybrids who had unique traits.


    For example, the young warrior standing outside the carriage had cat ears and sharp ws belonging to that of the Feline Beastmen. However, he was dragging along the long tail of the lizard, not to mention that he had a lower body simr to that of the Centaurs. It was clear that he was the product of interracial mating.


    The ranger in the shadows had beautiful white feathers, seemingly possessing the blood of a certain species of Avian Beastmen. However, the human hands he had on his left and the long lizard-scaled arm on his right were in disharmony with one another.


    ¡°This is heaven!¡±


    A certain Beast Tamer, who was bing more and more philosophical, upon catching sight of the plot ofnd and its residents, immediately threw aside that iprehensiblemunication method of his and spoke so directly that it was hard to retort against it.


    At this very moment, surrounded by numerous hybrids, he was overjoyed. He had been taking the initiative to strike up a conversation with another, and judging from the increasing intimacy between the two, it seemed that the hybrid warrior who carried the bloodline of the Centaurs would probably be unable to escape from the experienced hands of this veteran.


    When we first arrived at this inspection point, the DemiBeastmen warriors weren¡¯t amiable to us. Leading their army forward, they tried to intimidate us with numbers. The sharp arrows of the rangers on the trees were also aimed at us.


    When I whipped out the merchant identification to prove that I came from East Mist, not only did their attitude towards us ease, they were also morex with the inspection aspared with the carriage before. My escorts even started to chat happily with the warriors, which gave a certain male an opportunity to make his move.


    ¡°The rtionship between East Mist and Sharal Autonomous Region is not bad?¡±


    Harloys, who was slumped over on top of my head, was forced to go on this journey right after she had justpleted her evolution. At this moment, she was feeling sluggish and was reluctant to move. As a result, she spent her whole day slouching on top of my head with a displeased expression.


    ¡°East Mist has good rtions with all powers who are viewed with hostility by the human society. Of them all, its rtion with Sharal Autonomous Region was exceptionally good due to certain other reasons.¡±


    That was a dark history that had surfaced along with the passing of time. When the hybrids coincidentally found a suitable valley for living amidst the mountains, the Sharal Autonomous Region was born. Lacking clothes and food, they led a tough life. Thus, the first king of East Mist, Charles the 1st, felt guilty and secretly aided them.


    ¡°Initially, I only intended to help those innocent exiles and the descendants of the Mist. However, as their state was simply too unbearable, I went the extra mile. Alright, most importantly of all, if you only provide the descendants of the Mist with food and clothes, it would be stolen away the moment you turn your head. It would be equivalent to bringing them harm. Thus, I could only help them all. It was fortunate that we were still wealthy then.¡±


    When that line was uncovered from the diary of the previous emperor, the thirty years of assistance formed the foundation for the brotherhood between the Sharal Autonomous Region and East Mist Communal Nation two hundred yearster from then.


    Throughout these years, as the two were gradually isted from the rest of the human society, they began to walk closer together. The close interaction between the two strengthened their mutual rtionship. Merchants from foreign countries who wanted to enter Sharal had to find a way to obtain an East Mist merchant identification. Also, many of those who wielded authority in Sharal Autonomous Region viewed themselves as the descendants of Mist.


    One thing worth mentioning was that the valley amidst the mountain was a rare granary for the Northern Lands. When the tides turned and the descendants of the previous Emperor Charles fell into difficulty, the residents of thisnd brought them aid. If it wasn¡¯t for the ¡°borrowed foodstuffs¡± without any interest from Sharal Autonomous Region, perhaps the fall of East Mist would have already urred many years earlier.


    Packed in the carriages were a bundle of medicines and resources which the Northern Lands was in direck of. They were definitely luxurious goods which one couldn¡¯t buy in the Northern Lands even if they had money. They were also East Mist¡¯s interest payment for the many years of debt from the food they ¡°borrowed¡± us.


    Allowing the debt to drag on wasn¡¯t considered a favor? Drawing an analogy, they allowed apany that could potentially dere bankrupt at any moment to owe them money, and even more so, continued to loan them emergency rations when there were low possibility of returns. Looking at it from that perspective, it was truly a massive favor that they had showered upon us.


    Since the Sharal Autonomous Region had not forgotten the kindness Charles has showed them previously, naturally, East Mist would return this favor generously.


    The amiable rtionship between the both was also a reason why I chose to visit thisnd first. In the other countries where I had no associates, I would unlikely be able to achieve anything within the short period of time that we had.


    However, a coincidence had given me a new purpose for this journey.


    ¡°Senior Amelia, what do you think of thisnd? Is it suited for the growth of nts? Do you think that you will be able to cultivate the new type of seedlings I want here?¡±


    ¡°It is impossible to achieve it so quickly! I still need time to experiment and analyze it. Right, don¡¯t forget what you have promised me!¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t forget it.¡±


    Alright, remembering that promise that I was coerced into, I couldn¡¯t help but smile bitterly. To recount the entire incident, I would have to start from the coincidental reunion we had half a month ago.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡°My Seven Deadly Sins are invincible! They are much more powerful than those weeds of yours!¡±


    ¡°W-weed? Hehe, you sure are audacious!¡±


    With a lowered head, the great Mageughed frenziedly. Countless shadows crept forth from her back. In an instant, the scent of danger and sweet-sour, venomous liquid reached my nose along with the wind and a blood-colored, man-eating demon nt began making its move from the shadows.


    ¡°Wuuuuu!¡±


    Seemingly sensing the rage of its creator, a certain lifeform seemed to be weeping silently. Giant vines grew from the shadows and chainsaw-like mouths started appearing on the green leaves on it.


    Even though the man-eating nt¡¯s saliva was already dripping right before me, and the venomous thorn on its thick vines were about to wrap around me, I still remained motionless, as thoughpletely oblivious to its presence.


    Even though she was the one who hadmitted the greatest amount of murders among those I knew of and she wasn¡¯t restrained by morals or those things, if she were to make a move now, she would be admitting defeat.


    Those of the same trade were often nemeses of one another. When academics met, especially when academics whose fields of research ovepped with one another but their views differed greatly from one another met, they usually started off by greeting the other with sarcasm before proceeding to bellow at one another and eventually concluding with bricks being thrown.


    However, if an academic were to achieve victory through murder, that would instead mean that he was unable to surpass the research of the other and could only resort to such methods to eliminate hispetitor. Perhaps, this would mean aplete loss instead.


    As expected, the Great Mage Amelia, who was prepared to get rid of me upon our meeting, eventually suppressed her rage amid my sarcasm and pulled back those dangerous man-eating nts to bring the battle back to an academic one.


    ¡°Hmph, Seven Deadly Sins? You haven¡¯t sessfully put them together yet, right? Pride, whose seal was just released, Gluttony and Wrath, there are only three of them.¡±


    ¡°Recently, I have made Greed and Envy. I am just off by two now. What about you? Are your Seven Heavenly Virtuesplete yet? Don¡¯t tell me that you are still stuck with ¡®Temperance¡¯ and ¡®Diligence¡¯ as you were a century ago?¡±


    ¡°...I, I have also created ¡®Humility¡¯ to deal with your Pride!¡±


    ¡°Yeah? Interesting, but talk is empty. Bring it out for me to take a look.¡±


    After which, Amelia fell into an odd silence. Based on my understanding of her, she wasn¡¯t the type of person to resort to lying. Most probably, she truly had some other reasons for being unable to take it out now.


    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for that darned Adam destroying my darling...¡±


    Alright, upon hearing those words, I was stunned for a moment before subconsciously wiping away the beads of sweat on my forehead. I couldn¡¯t help but be d for being able to escape a cmity. However, the next moment, my rage billowed.


    If the toy of the other party was still intact, she would probably immediately whip it out to unt it in front of me. Given my current strength, I would probably be ughtered in an instant. However, I had no intention of thanking Adam, because I had already understood the other meaning in her words.


    ¡°Great, you darned Adam. I was wondering who it was who leaked the news of my existence, prompting this shut-in who bothers not with worldly affairs to choose to go on a journey to hunt me down. I finally understand that bizarre expression you had on your face thesest few days. You were intentionally keeping the fact from me, so that you couldugh at my misfortune then, is it?¡±


    However, this wasn¡¯t the time for my thoughts to stray. Making use of the temporarypse of weakness in the opponent, I whipped out of trump card.


    ¡°Do you still remember our teacher, Harloys? Right now, she is my Greed! Hey, you darned cat, wake up! I need you to save my life!¡±


    After consuming ¡°The Dark God¡¯s Breath of Death,¡± Harloys had been in a slumber, as though she was conserving her energy for a breakthrough. However, I urgently needed her presence to save me at this instant.


    ¡°Teacher Harloys? Isn¡¯t she a Banshee?¡±


    When I whipped out that darned cat, there was no longer any need for me to say anything else. That slime monster who was taking on the form of an alien cat was more convincing than anything else.


    Thus, when Amelia¡¯s attention was focused on analyzing that darned sleeping cat, I finally had an opportunity to ask the others about the happenings that had transpired in my absence and why this fellow was here.


    ¡°Allow me to exin. Yesterday, right after we put up that signboard, thisdy came and imed to be your acquaintance. She said that she wanted to give you a surprise and wanted us to invite you over. However, my Big Brother sensed that even though she is our kind, she is your enemy, and thus, we had been dragging the matter out. Throughout this period, thisdy had shut herself in her room, as though she was busy researching something. As time went by, we soon forgot to ask her about it. That is, until you came knocking today.¡±


    After hearing those words, I was speechless. Perhaps they really did it out of the kindness of their hearts, but by surviving until now, they were truly fortunate.


    ¡°You all actually dared to house the depraved culprit of the serial killings that urred in the Mages¡¯ Country over a span of hundred years in the headquarters? In search of inspiration andb rats, she dares to evenmit murder in the Cloud Tower. You all... Wait, Big Brother? You are?


    That was a tall and sturdy man. Underneath his tight leather clothes were solid muscles that were reminiscent of a sculpture. Wearing sunsses, his calm exnation of the situation gave others an impression that he was an exceptionally reliable person.


    ¡°He is Pierre Papin, the new number two of the True Love Siblings. We all call him Rina Papa-san!¡±


    Alright, I shall retract that ¡°reliable¡± evaluation I had of him. Being the new member of the True Love Siblings was the best annotation for him.


    ¡°Umm... May I ask if you have a daughter?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I love my daughter Rina deeply. I love her more than myself and anything else in the world. That is also the reason why everyone allowed me to join the band.¡±


    After hearing this, I heaved a sigh of relief. He was just a father who had a daughterplex. It was still within eptable range.


    ¡°Rina is a ship, a warship.¡±


    Alright, Momo¡¯s words made me realize instantaneously that Gentlemen were something that would increase exponentially if not kept in check! So this fellow was into ships.


    ¡°Um, I¡¯ve heard that sailors who stay offshore for too long view their own ships as women. I can understand that. I really can understand that.¡±


    Even though I said so, I was slowly retreating backwards so as to stay away from this bunch of Gentlemen who were getting more and more ludicrous.


    ¡°Hehe, Second Brother Papin, I told you that you were overthinking it. How is it possible for His Highness to notprehend you? He himself is the King of Gentlemen. You are only 0.4 Beifeng while he was already 10 Beifeng during his time in Liu Huang Mountain City!¡±


    Momo¡¯s exnation was unnecessary, because at this very moment, Rina Papa-san¡¯s eyes were already filled with fanaticism.


    ¡°It is not that kind of shallow love for one¡¯s shell! Don¡¯tpare Rina with those vulgar things. Rina is the most adorable girl in the entire universe. Do the other ships have towering cannons like hers? Do they have such smooth and beautiful decks? Do the other ships have such elegant curves? Do...¡±


    Looking at this different type of ¡°daughterplex¡± going into a frenzied state, I couldn¡¯t help but sigh helplessly. Indeed, it was impossible for there to be anyone normal in the Gentlemen Alliance! How can there be any normal existence among the True Love Siblings!


    Alright, ignoring the new Gentleman who was still singing praises ¡°Ah, that warm engine room~ Oh, that charming and hulking pir~,¡± I set my sights on Amelia, who was squatting in one corner with a depressed face, muttering ceaselessly under her breath.


    ¡°A half-dead, half-alive Undead? How is that possible? That should already be at the level of the Creator. He has improved again? Or could it be that I have fallen behind times?¡±


    I felt exhrated seeing her in such a state. However, if things were to drag on, she might give up the final shreds of her dignity and go on a rampage, forcing me to reveal the secrets behind the technology. At my current state, I was definitely unable to match up to her. Thus, I dropped her some bait.


    ¡°Senior Amelia, as long as you fulfill two tasks for me, I will bring you up to greater heights!¡±

 Chapter 138

    Chapter 138: Zombies VS nts


    ¡°Roar! A new wave of zombie is approaching.¡±


    ¡°My nts will tear you apart!¡±


    Staggering, the gray-colored zombies inched forward. With a Gargantuar serving as the tank in front, a dense congregation of an army of zombies followed closely behind it.


    On the opposite side, shrouded in fog, Peashooters popped out from the ground abruptly one after another and spat shiny green pea bullets furiously at the zombies. A raging Melon-pult catapulted explosive watermelons one after another. As the watermelons exploded, fatal shock waves gushed outward into the surroundings and mushroom smoke clouds appeared above them.


    Lacking the support they usually received as close-ranged fighters, the zombie army could only trudge forward slowly while tanking the rain of ammunition. Even though they had suffered great losses in the midst of their advance, a massive number of them still remained, making them fearsome adversaries.


    When the two armies came into contact with each other, an intense battle broke out between them.


    When the zombies collided with the Wall-nuts, a brownish-gray Boomer exploded itself. Green and gray poisonous clouds rose up ceaselessly, and all nts that came into contact with the venomous liquid and gas rapidly withered and died. A no man¡¯snd swiftly emerged on the battlefield.


    As for the nts, despite being immobile due to their roots, they, who were able to absorb energy from the earth, possessed unlimited ammunition. Although they weren¡¯t able to maintain nonchnt in the face of death, unlike the brainless zombies, at the very least, when their frontliners were sacrificing their lives to block the opponents, they were able to use their unlimited firepower to bury their opponents.


    Soon, due to the overwhelming firepower, an opening appeared in the formation of the zombies and the nts began to counterattack.


    ¡°Will of Death! The speed of all members of the Undead Tribe is boosted!¡±


    Upon realizing that the zombie army was in bad position, a certain mastermind behind the shadows expended the final Army Command he possessed.


    When the ck fog started to creep over, the zombies frically increased their speed. Furthermore, what was boosted for those zombies wasn¡¯t just their speed. On a rampage, they began to dig out their intestines to throw it on their opponents.


    ¡°The Protection of the Forest and Sun! For thirty minutes, the attack speed and HP of all nts will be doubled.¡±


    When themand was passed down, the interval between bullets of the Peashooters reduced to the point that it shot out in a continuous stream and the sound of explosions echoed ceaselessly on the frontlines.


    Facing the frenzied bombardments of the nts, the zombie army could only helplessly trudge forward while sacrificing the ones in front of them. When newly born Cherry Bombs jumping out one after another to destroy the main army of the zombies, the fric zombies no longer possessed the might to break through the firepower of the nts.


    Thus, I could only watch helplessly as my remaining zombies died under the bombardment and I fell in defeat helplessly.


    ¡°The victor, Great Mage Amelia!¡±


    With the scattering of the radiance, the battlefield morphed back into the shape of a massive chessboard. The zombie chess pieces were dull and unlit whereas the nt pieces on the opposite end were shrouded in white radiance, seemingly ready to strike.


    This was the currently most popr magic chess game¡ªZombies VS nts. Naturally, the ¡°inventor¡± and the manufacturer was me. The one we were ying wasn¡¯t the usual game, but a true war edition which demanded a certain level of strength out of its yers. The ones that were sold to the public were the normal editions which consisted of small chess pieces that were made of magic oak.


    Just to add on, in less than a month, there were four different editions released. As such, the series had beenbeled as the ¡°Vampiric Money-sucking Master.¡±


    ¡°Sigh, this new version seems a little too imbnced. Even though the zombies have the advantage in terms of quality, their winning rate is still way too low. On the other hand, the explosions of the nts are way too powerful, allowing it to whittle down the main force too easily. Looks like I have to do some bncing. Yeah, let¡¯s cut the bombardment abilities of the Druid Faction in the next version!¡±


    ¡°Hah, losers sure know how to find excuses.¡±


    ¡°Or, why don¡¯t we add two Bone Dragons and Liches to the Zombie Faction? However, that wouldn¡¯t be zombies anymore, and it wouldn¡¯t be considered as Zombies VS nts 3 Sword and Magic Edition. Forget it, names are just like decency anyway, there is no meaning in it. Let¡¯s just add it in the next edition.¡±


    ¡°Up to you, but based on the rules of bncing, in order to satisfy consumers, troops of equal level must be added to both factions. I will match your Lich with a Yggdrasil Tree and Bone Dragon with a Blood Bramble Wall. The one to win in the end will still be me.¡±


    Amelia chuckled demurely. She was in love with the game because she was able to win against me frequently through it.


    ¡°However, will this really help meprehend the profoundness of life and step into higher realms?¡±


    After ¡°inventing¡± this game along with me, she got absorbed in it instead. After which, we continued inventing Zombies VS nts Tower Defense Edition, Zombies VS nts King of Fighters Edition, Zombies VS nts War of the Magic Beasts Edition and other money-sucking editions. After enjoying herself tremendously thesest few days, she finally recalled her initial goal¡ªBringing her creation abilities to greater heights.


    Facing this question of hers, I smiled.


    ¡°Of course... not! This is just a game. Alright, keep your man-eating nt, allow me to exin.¡±


    ¡°You... You scammer! You fooled me again! You toyed with my emotions again! I will never trust you ever again!¡±


    After realizing that she had been fooled once more, the shrieking Amelia became hysteric. Manic blood tattoos shed in her beautiful eyes, and her long smooth hair began to morph into nts. Vines grew frantically from the roots of her hair. The domain of the nts expanded and very soon, a real-life edition of the Zombies VS nts was able to y out.


    As the zombie who was about to be pummeled, I felt great pressure upon me.


    However, I still had my trump card.


    ¡°I will split a tenth of the profits from the game with you.¡±


    ¡°That, how much is that?¡±


    ¡°This game is already a bestseller. As long as the pace of our manufacturing can keep up, adding up the total revenue from all of those editions, you would earn a few hundred thousand gold coins at minimum.¡±


    Alright, in the next moment, everything calms down. That crazy witch from a moment ago appeared without a trace. All that was left was a gentle senior who was sipping quietly on her ck tea in front of me.


    It wasn¡¯t that Amelia was greedy; rather, Mage was a job that burned through money. The more advanced a Mage was, the more money they spent. Of course, Mages were also able to sell the products of their experiments to earn a huge profit. However, putting aside how an experimenting freak like Amelia had zero financial sense, she didn¡¯t even spend any effort on producing goods that could earn her profit. Even if she happened to make a fortune, she would immediately dump it into a new experiment. As such, she was exceptionally amiable to her investors. Now, upon hearing that she would be able to earn money, she immediately adopted the business facade she showed to her donors.


    You say that I am mistaken? Should it be investors, not donors? Unfortunately, I am not mistaken. Given how she allocated her funds without any consideration of mary rewards that could be reaped, one would make a loss equivalent to how much one invested. If this wasn¡¯t a donor, then what was this?


    ording to Margaret, Amelia didn¡¯t even have herboratory now (It was taken away from her when she went bankrupt.). After which, it was rumored that she had embezzled funds from the Cloud Tower. Upon getting exposed, she was expelled from her position as a Truth Overseer. At this moment, the wages she earned as a teacher went to repaying her debts.


    It was a wonder how she, as a SemiGod Mage, managed tond in such a state. In the field of investment, her reputation was so poor that she was unable to coax any donors to finance her despite her efforts. In the end, she could only grab her students to serve asborers and engage in lucrative research to finance her research.


    ¡°Besides, this isn¡¯t just a game. The functions of these nts should have given you quite a bit of inspiration. I do not believe that after these few days of war simtion, your ability to arrange the formation of your nt army and coordinate them as one has not improved. At the very least, it should have given you some inspiration in designing new nt troops.¡±


    Amelia nodded her head. After all, what I said was true.


    ¡°Furthermore, at our level, it is a daunting task to advance even a single inch forward. Be patient. After all, I have already promised you. Have I ever broken my promise?¡±


    After hearing me dere my trustworthiness, the teacup the senior held in her left hand was immediately crushed. Even though her right hand had caught the falling teacup in time, even though she still had a smile on her face, from the looks of her trembling arms and twitching eyelids, she seemed to be on the verge of a rampage once more.


    ¡°Junior, you sure dare to speak. Back then, who was the one who proposed for us not to be restricted by those dumb theories and we should dump them aside and explore the secrets of life together? I thought I had managed to find a hard-toe-by soulmate, and I was overjoyed. Yet, in the blink of an eye, all of my research had disappeared without a trace and a letter of my misdeeds was sent to the Truth Symposium. I was almost exiled from the Cloud Tower.¡±


    ¡°Ah, did I do all those back then? I¡¯m sorry, the damage reincarnation did to my memories was way too great so I can¡¯t really remember it. Yeah, we should look to the future instead, let¡¯s just forget those pointless things of the past. Right, how did you manage to settle the affair back then?¡±


    Can¡¯t remember? Of course that was a lie. Back then, this fellow had not a single shred of decency. It was so extreme that even I, who didn¡¯t have much decency either, couldn¡¯t stand watching on any longer. Who else should I do in if not for her? However, seeing her getting along fine now made me a little curious. Back then, I wrote a letter reporting that she was using her students and other living humans in her experiments to the Truth Symposium. There were at least five Truth Overseers on the spot when I reported it, so I was quite interested in how she managed to settle the matter.


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing much. Back then, my teacher helped me suppress the matter temporarily. Then, I got rid of a Truth Overseer who was biting on my tail relentlessly and I reced him in his seat. After which, I paid a small price to have the other Truth Overseers turn a blind eye to the matter. Dammit, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I could only use those on the death row for my experiments, how could I possiblyg behind you! You were probably able to break through that boundary because you were able to obtain experimental subjects on the battlefield. Indeed, one should collect as much experimental subjects as they can! Hee hee, now that there aren¡¯t any bothersome figures watching over my actions here...¡±


    That hystericalughter made my hair stand on end. I knew that she was the type to do as she said, so I hurriedly tried to persuade her otherwise. Of course, stopping her directly was impossible and she wasn¡¯t the type to restrain herself because of others either.


    ¡°Do you have a suitable research topic at this moment? If we were to collect arge amount of experimental subjects, we would probably have to escape. Thus, going through all the trouble for an ordinary research topic is a big waste. In two years, there will be endless experimental subjects avable for your choosing. Furthermore,pared to those fragile humans, the resilient Beastmen would serve as much better experimental subjects. So, let¡¯s just tolerate it and work on some theoretical research within these two years first.¡±


    Upon hearing my words, she stared at me nkly for a long time before replying.


    ¡°Indeed, you are the one who understands me the best. Whenever others hear me say such words, they will either start to chastise me severely or be terror-stricken. Those fools are unable to understand how honorable their sacrifices are to be able to contribute to my research of the truth.¡±


    ¡°You are too soft-hearted to be conversing with your experimental subjects. Normally, I just seal their mouths and throw them onto the experimentation tform. After a few muffled screams, they gopletely silent.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, after all, I am a woman. I get too soft-hearted too easily. Previously, there was a death prisoner who insulted me nastily. In order to prevent him from dying from the pain, I even applied anaesthesia on him in advance before dissecting him. The cost of the anaesthesia was enough to trade for a bag of new seeds, you know!¡±


    Hearing those words, even though I was going along with her to cajole her, I found it hard to continue. By saying that she was soft-hearted despite dissecting him alive, wasn¡¯t she afraid of getting punished by the heavens? It seemed like she was still a dangerous figure who viewed others as mere livestock, and that I was still overestimating her decency and restraint.


    ¡°Cough cough, let¡¯s put aside the topic of experimentation. Let¡¯s contemte how we should earn more money to finance our experimentation. Do you think we need to make some changes to this ¡®Zombies VS nts¡ªSword and Magic Edition¡¯ before introducing it to the market?


    ¡°Actually, I think that we could change our marketing strategy. It is foolish for us to sell all of the chess pieces and chessboard together when we can sell them separately.¡±


    ¡°Hmm? But if the chess set isn¡¯tplete, won¡¯t they be unable to y the game? If so, will the consumers still be willing to purchase it?¡±


    ¡°You fool, you can just put the basic chess pieces and the most primitive chess board inside the set. If they want stronger and unique chess pieces, they have to purchase them. Of course, those stronger chess pieces mustn¡¯t break the bnce of the game. As long as they have a slightly more unique outer appearance and abilities, they could be sold for money. Right, since the original set is called the Basic Set, then let¡¯s call this the Expansion Package! Also, we could add some elements of lottery into it. In every pack, there would be a unique chess piece. They will be trying their luck time after time again until they find themselves bankrupt and swear to never to touch it again. In order to appeal to the younger yers, you can even give rarity levels to the chess pieces. The more valuable a chess piece is, the more one is able to brag about it. I don¡¯t believe that after going this far, we are still unable to empty the pockets of those little kids!¡±


    ¡°Ohhhhhhh, my impression of you have improved. You are truly talented in marketing. Indeed, those rumors that you aren¡¯t capable in management are lies.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, it must be Margaret badmouthing me again. It¡¯s not like I am unskilled in managing businesses, it¡¯s just that I don¡¯t care to do so. Besides, this is also how I coax sponsors to invest on me. Selling the results of a research in different batches and to different people every time, this is the way to make a killing!¡±


    Looking at that gleeful, degenerate Mage, I finally understood why, despite her incredible capabilities, her name in the investment field was horrid. If you just scam others once, it was still possible to regain their trust. However, if you scammed a few thousand people over a course of two hundred years, a person would truly be foolish to approach you and invest on you.


    ¡°Very despicable, but I like it! Let¡¯s make a killing together!¡±


    If such actions were aimed at milking money out of a minority, it would definitely cause an outrage among the public. However, given that it seemed like an attempt to venture into uncharted waters instead, there was no reason for me to give up such great innovation.


    ¡°As expected, you are my soulmate.¡±


    Alright, let¡¯s ignore how the sinisterughter of the aplices frightened many of little children passing us by and how this ¡®Zombies VS nts¡ªSword and Magic Edition¡¯ was cursed and sworn at by others while being a bestseller. The main reason why I created this game wasn¡¯t just for money.


    ¡°One more round! One more round! This time the zombies will win for sure!¡±


    ¡°Mummy, I want one as well. Buy one set for me!¡±


    ¡°Oh, Undead don¡¯t seem to be as scary as I thought. They aren¡¯t even able to defeat nts!¡±


    At this moment, we were currently ying in an empty field and crowds were surrounding us to spectate our duel. Our simplified version of Zombies VS nts was already selling like hotcakes, and the audience wasn¡¯t satisfied with just watching a single battle. The passionate crowd demanded for us to y another round and thus, after chatting for awhile, we began another round.


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard that the East Mist Communal Country¡¯s national religion is the God of Law. As long as they do notmit crimes, even Demons and Undead are epted among their ranks. It¡¯s rumored that even Druids have established their own academy there. I have also heard that Necromancers were advertising and selling their products by the side of the streets. Perhaps the rumors are really true.... Will they ept hybrids too? I¡¯ve heard that Diffindor had recently set up many advanced institutions for all kinds of experts to change their jobs. Perhaps we could send our third child there to study.¡±


    Earning money was just an additional benefit. The reason why I chose to disy Necromancy in a form eptable with the public was to allow those of the Sharal Autonomous Region to understand and ept East Mist¡¯s changes. This was also the main goal of my journey here.


    ¡°Diffindor has established all kinds of institutions and is currently recruiting students. We provide professional training for Druids, Engineers, Alchemists, Necromancers, Justice Knights, and other battle-oriented sses. There are only limited ces, so if you want to change your fate, do not pass this opportunity by. Quickly apply! We have an information pamphlet for new students here.¡±


    The shoutings of the admission staff members who I had brought here had earned the attention of the bystanders. There were already a few who were willing to head to East Mist to take a look. Eventually, an onlooker watching at the sight from the shadows could endure no longer and walked out.


    ¡°Prince Rnd, Lord Gagalol invites you over for a conversation. These are his exact words: ¡®We have already felt your sincerity, so it¡¯s perhaps time for us to discuss an alliance.¡¯¡±


    After receiving the cold shoulder for a week, on the third day of our advertising, I finally received a formal invitation from Sharal¡¯s Lord. Looked like it was time for a negotiation.

 Chapter 139

    Chapter 139: Hidden Currents


    From the very start, we had agreed upon an alliance. After all, without an invitation with sufficient weight behind it, it was impossible for a top brass of another country to visit other countries so casually.


    It is also within expectations that I would get the cold shoulder. They had only invited a run-of-the-mill diplomat, yet contrary to their expectations, I came. This was equal to baiting and preparing to fish for a carp, yet catching a whale instead. Naturally, the fisherman would find the situation hard to process.


    Furthermore, if it was just an ordinary diplomatic visit, they wouldn¡¯t make such a big fuss over it. However, the East Mist¡¯s diplomatic party seemed to have ambitious dreams of this trip. The first thing they did after entering the city gates was unloading the goods of nearly a hundred carriages at the square, iming to ¡°thank Sharal Autonomous Region for their many years of help. In return, we are giving additional gifts on top of the ones used to repay their debt, and every resident can im aplimentary gift¡± and such advertisement, creating amotion and making everyone in the city aware of their presence.


    Theplimentary gifts that barely numbered three hundred were all snatched clean in less than a day. However, the citizens who came upon hearing the news had also spread the news, so probably everyone was aware of the fact that the diplomatic party of East Mist was in Sharal right now. Furthermore, the one leading the group was the legendary Prince Rnd.


    One¡¯s name and history always stays with them. When this legendary figure appeared from out of the epics and paid a visit to them, the Sharal Autonomous Region¡¯s reception unit panicked.


    It wasmon knowledge that someone of equal standing in the country had to receive the diplomats, and the receiving host being of higher standing than the guest was a form of respect towards them as well. For example, the hosting side¡¯s sovereign can personally receive a fief lord of the diplomatic party, and it wouldn¡¯t seem out of ce. However, if the king of another country came, and the hosting side weed him with a fief lord, that would be disrespectful.


    Furthermore, although I had no official authority in East Mist, as the ancestor of the founder of the nation, my standing was significantly higher than that of Queen Reyne. Perhaps, even their sovereign who had the bloodline of Mist flowing in him could only be considered his junior. This was a difficult situation for them.


    ¡°If Princess Reyne came, Lord Gagaloling to wee her personally would already be a great honor on her part. However, now that it is Heroic Spirit Rnd, going by seniority, even Lord Gagalol¡¯s retired father isn¡¯t qualified to wee him.¡±


    Do they really have to dig out the ancestors who founded Sharal Autonomous Region and say, ¡°This is His Highness whom you have always spoken of. You are the only one who is qualified to wee him. Right, he has already said that we will count each other as individual entities, so please don¡¯t treat yourself as his citizen and don¡¯t insist on greeting him as a subordinate.¡± After all, this was probably the only way they would not be considered as disrespectful.


    Not only were those of the foreign affairs department distressed about it, even the top brass of Sharal Autonomous Region felt gloomy about this incident. They had only invited a diplomat to negotiate an alliance to counteract the Beastmen army, which was likely to invade southwards, so why did this fellowe instead? Not to mention, he was extremely high profile about it.


    All of Sharal probably already knew that East Mist was here to negotiate an alliance by now. Furthermore, given the amiable rtionship between the two countries and the massive gifts that we have brought, we created an impression that something incredible was about to happen. On the other hand, there was no news from the lord on their side.


    In an alliance negotiation, when one party came prepared while the other party waspletely ignorant about what was happening, it was very easy for the unprepared to be disadvantaged. They had already held meetings for three days straight to figure out what was going on. On the other hand, I had been dawdling about the embassy before I decided upon carrying forward my next step, swaying public opinion.


    At this point, Gagalol finally made his decision. It was impossible for them toe to a conclusion with those doors closed, so they decided to invite me over.


    The moment I stepped into the Lord¡¯s Residence, just as I was about to prepare a surprise for the other party, I was surprised by them first.


    Based on the information I had received, Gagalol Haber was a plump man. However, the toned man before me who had his upper half bare and had an eagle tattoo on his chest, which fluttered along with his breathing as though it were alive, definitely wasn¡¯t him.


    ¡°Respected Lord Rnd, I am Gars, the eldest son of the Chieftain of Eagle Tribe. I represent my father and the tribe in paying respects to the immortal one.¡±


    The passionate handshake of barbarians (if it was in the mountains, it would likely have been a hug) wasn¡¯t that pleasant to ept. In the face of the 2.4m tall giant, I was like a bean sprout. Whether the other party was capable of bearing their passionate wee and innate brute strength was also an important factor barbarians used to evaluate whether the other party was worth making friends with.


    ¡°This strength should be around 18 points. Possessing such strength despite being at Silver-rank, how fearsome. As expected of a battle tribe whose members were all of Bronze Bloodline.¡±


    However,pared to me, who had strength exceeding 20 points, it was as though his strength was entirely negligible. No matter how hard he squeezed me, his hand would just end up aching.


    As expected, Gars released his grip first, shaking it forcefully to get rid of the aching sensation. On the other hand, Gagalol stepped forward with a smile, saving him from this difficult situation.


    ¡°Prince Rnd, wee to Sharal Autonomous Region. I am the lord here, Gagalol. Our ancestors from 300 years ago should have been your people as well. Your arrival here is an unexpected surprise, as well as an honor. Please be seated, please be seated.¡±


    At this moment, I was trying my best to suppress myself fromughing impolitely. Gagalol¡¯s protruding stomach, stout stature, fish-like ears, and bulging eyes were exactly as what was stated in the intel. He did resemble a standing frog.


    In response to the passionate wee of the other party, I chuckled.


    ¡°We were a family 300 years ago? Then, are you willing to be a family with us 300 yearster?¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    If creating new armies gave an instantaneous rise to a country¡¯s military prowess, then education was aimed at grooming new talents, talents that would bring the country to prosperity.


    In this world, ¡°knowledge is strength¡± weren¡¯t just empty words. Building a high institution to groom the growth of a certain upation was a reflection of the history, overall strength, and umtion of a country.


    The Mages¡¯ Country was difficult to deal with because of all sorts of established Mages¡¯ institutions around the country. When the Mages, who were known to be difficult to deal with among the battle sses, gathered as one, when the immortal top-tier Mages chose to conduct their research there, no one would be so foolish as to provoke them of their own ord.


    Olivia traveled over a thousand miles to And to study because And was well-known in the world for its alchemy, and its alchemy institutions had groomed countless master alchemists. As a result, they had attracted numerous apprentice alchemists to study with them. In turn, this also helped solidify the And Empire¡¯s position as the leader in the field of alchemy.


    Up until today, other than rebuilding the army barracks, Diffindor had built all kinds of schools, such as the Kindness Faction Garden Art Academy, Diffindor Life Medical School, Beast Tamer Technical Academy, Nanxiang Law Academy East Mist Branch, and West City Engineer Academy.


    TL: The first word for Druid means kindness (Kindness Faction -> Druid Faction)


    If you evaluated them based on their names and thought that they were ordinary institutions, you couldn¡¯t have been more wrong.


    The full name of Kindness Faction Garden Art Academy is Druid Forest Art of War Academy (Garden Art ss¡ªWe also teach you how to cultivate nts as well!). All those selected as lecturers were all some kind of leader figure in the Druid Faction. In other words, most of the lecturers were dangerous terrorists wanted all over the continent.


    Most human kingdoms were hostile towards Druids. As such, they often lived in mountains and forests, isted from the rest of the world. However, the various denominations among them had a unique and swift way ofmunicating with one another. Under Eaglestorm¡¯s guarantee, quite a few ouws were willing to try out ¡°a life without sinning.¡±


    As for what kinds of students such a dangerous teacher would teach, that was an enigma to me as well. At the very least, from the very beginning, I had already been rebuked by those ill-tempered Druids.


    ¡°What? Cultivate a new crop that could endure the cold? Do you know why we all became ouws? Because we punished those bastards who went against the will of nature. Are you sure you want us to cultivate such aberrations of nature? We will really beat you up!¡±


    As expected, when I brought up my request, I received a blunt and rude response.


    Among the raging Druids, at least Eaglestorm¡¯s reply was more pragmatic: ¡°Lord, I doubt that anyone would be able to do so. We can elerate the rate of maturity of nts, allowing it to mature a year or two earlier. That is the privilege that nature has granted us. However, changing the unique traits of a nt from its core is unnatural, so naturally, we are unable to do so. In theory, there is not a single Druid who is able to do so. We have to obey the rules of nature. These kinds of actions that go against thews of nature would only be attempted by Dark Druids.¡±


    If Druids were the public enemies of the continent, then the Dark Druids, who had fallen into depravity, were fanatic worshipers of the Chaos. Simr to ordinary Druids, they found anything unnatural a mistake, but Dark Druids behaved much more extreme in all aspects.


    Without doubt, man-made cities were unnatural. Ordinary Druids would only try to stay away from city life, only retaliating furiously when the forests they lived in were being invaded. On the other hand, Dark Druids would try to create a hurricane or a flood to destroy the city. However, their greatest insanity was that they denied the existence of the Gods. They found the Jurisdiction of Gods unnecessary, and the existence of the various Churches of Gods was a sin by itself. They believed that everyone should return back to the fundamental elements.


    Not easy to understand? Let me give an example. When they thought that the Sea God was an existence that shouldn¡¯t exist as the conscious controller of the seas, and was a threat to nature, they would grasp every single opportunity to attack the Priests of the Church of the Sea God.


    In reality, the Church of the Sea God wasn¡¯t the only victim. Almost every single Church of God was on their cklist. Thus, the Gods of both factions unanimously gave these extremists the beautiful name of Dark Druids, and these Dark Druids had constant appearances on the wanted lists.


    The other Gods could still ept East Mist giving Druids the green light. However, if they were to invite the Dark Druids into their cities, they would immediately suspect that Wumianzhe had gone mad.


    Alright, in the end, I could only give up. However, it was fortunate that Amelia¡¯s arrival meant that I wouldn¡¯t have to seek out those dangerous Dark Druids. At the same time, the Kindness Faction Forest Art Academy also found themselves a magnificent principal.


    ¡°What? You mean those little Druids who refuse toe under mymand? I didn¡¯t see any of them though. Oh, that day, I pummeled all of the teachers. He should be one of them.¡±


    Given how violence-inclined the principal and teachers were, this Garden Academy, which should have been a propagator of harmony and camaraderie, would produce generation after generation of terrorists.


    Furthermore, based on what I knew, the Kindness Faction Garden Art Academy was the most normal of the numerous institutions that were about to begin lessons.


    The principal of Diffindor Life Medical School (I was the one who came up with the name) was Harloys, nicknamed Xiao Hei (still named by me). Other than imparting recent medical knowledge and techniques, it also focused on all kinds of Necromancy skills. It was probably the one and only formal Necromancer Institution in the world of the living.


    TL: Xiao Hei -> Little ck (Xiao Hong -> Little Red)


    In fact, I was also a visiting lecturer of the study of Undead Creation of the academy. Of it, its gue research was probably the top of the world. After all, Kakana and a group of formidable Undead Alchemists were stationed there.


    Alright, due to this, the Holy Church had sent us a stern warning. Numerous countries also protested against it and sent letters of censure. Even so, I threw all of those into the trash can without hesitation. In any case, our rtionship was already hostile, so I could protest however I wanted to. What about the Anti-Undead Covenant agreed upon by majority of the continent? All along, I had thought of agreements that I never signed as a waste of paper.


    As for Nanxiang Law Academy East Mist Branch, there was nothing to be said about it. It was just a surface version of the main school in the Underground World. However, with Krose as its mascot and Xueti as the honorary principal, the number of applicants they received this year exceeded that of other institutions.


    As for the West City Engineer Academy, it was divided into two main factions¡ªGoblin Self-destruct Study and Dwarf Suicide Study, and the principals were the self-destruct expert of the Goblin engineers and the suicide expert of the Dwarf engineers. Alright, I confess I gave my biased views about those who were stated previously, but I have always thought that these were the fundamental, unique traits of this institution.


    Alright, that¡¯s all for the introduction of the institutions. What? There¡¯s still one more, Beast Tamer Technical Academy?


    Seems like I was unable to omit it. I will do a brief introduction then¡ªthe principal of the technical academy is Beifeng, and what is being taught is ¡°All kinds of techniques to interact with beasts.¡± There should be nothing else that needed to be said about it.


    When I saw this proposal, I almost stuffed Beifeng into the main cannon of the Borealis and sted him out of Eich. However, this was the reward he demanded after he miraculously managed to aplish the mission of taming the Winter Wolves. Furthermore, facts had also proven that it was highly possible that we would need Beifeng¡¯s abilities in the Northern Lands filled with Magic Beasts.


    In the end, under the seduction of solid power, Ipromised helplessly. However, I threw the building to the outskirts of the city to prevent it from being an eyesore. I also arranged their office to be on the dozen story-high clock tower so as to help them train their bodies.


    ¡¾You want powerful warriors? Sure, train them yourselves, develop them. ¡ªYou expect soldiers to pop out just by building barracks? The Star Wars next door is beckoning you.¡¿


    Fine, since the System had retorted that just building the barracks itself was insufficient for the production of troops, I created a bunch of institutions to train the future core of our military. In any case, for every single person I threw into the institutions, I would receive a powerful soldier in a few years¡¯ time. There wasn¡¯t much of a difference from this and the unscientific barracks. It was just that the duration required was slightly longer, and the resources required were greater.


    At this moment, when I was busy negotiating important matters with Lord Sharal and the barbarian prince, mypanions, under my orders, were busy spreading those recruitment pamphlets all around Sharal Autonomous Region.


    They should be traveling through the alleys of the viges and the squares in the cities to bring in new students for their institutions. Of course, it was highly probable for them to fight over them as well.


    ¡°The hybrids will be discriminated against? Rest easy, madam. Such a thing has never happened in East Mist, not to mention that the God of Law¡¯s Forbidden Spell, The Sinless City, had also guaranteed it. There is no need for you to worry about your son being bullied! Right, please ept this pamphlet. There is my serial number on it, and if you take this and sign up at the West City Engineer Academy, you can save five gold coins on the school fee!¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s true, I didn¡¯t eat into the discount. I¡¯m not lying... Fine, madam, I give up. Alright, seven gold coins then. However, you must introduce other students to me. For every one that you introduce to me, I will give you a discount of two gold coins!¡±


    Currently, Goblin Kab¡¯s performance was the best. He had already developed a multi-level marketingwork and at the current moment, he could already sit back and wait for money to roll in.


    ¡°Um, is there an academy for alchemists? I would like my daughter to learn alchemy, but we don¡¯t have any good alchemy academies here.¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t have any alchemy institutions at the moment, but you can consider having your daughter apply for Diffindor Life Medical School. Their Anti-gue research¡¯s (the public name for gue research) Dean Master Kakana is a Legend-rank alchemist. Her two students are also Legend-rank alchemists. Under her tutge, your daughter will surely be an outstanding alchemist.¡±


    Alright, a youngdy, who had set her goals on being an alchemist, under the coaxing of a student trafficker, had started walking on the path of bing a Necromancer.


    ¡°East Mist¡¯s best Navy Command Academy is recruiting! Do you wish to be an admiral and possess a harem of countless warships? Wee to the newly established East Mist¡¯s First Royal Naval Academy!¡±


    Alright, no matter how much effort Rina Papa-san put into his advertisement, his recruitment results were destined to be worse of all. To date, he had only recruited two dark-skinned admirals who refused to admit that their skin tone was dark. In a certain sense, they seemed to possess some level of cognitive disorder.


    The reason? East Mist Communal Country was andlocked nation, it had no navy at all. That was the reason why most people thought that he was joking. The crux of the problem was that I didn¡¯t allow him to reveal the fact that East Mist¡¯s Air Fleet was in the midst of construction.


    He had already been confirmed forst ce. As for second tost, it would probably be Garden Academy. For those who were unaware, this Garden Art Academy sounded overly inclined towards the aesthetics, and it was unlikely for one to make a living out of it. As for those who had received exnations on what it was¡ªsending their own children out to be groomed by ouws and be Druids, public enemies of the continent¡ª, it was a little beyond them.


    What left others speechless was a certain Dracon who stepped onto the front lines personally. Without preparing any pamphlets for recruitment, all he did was prepare a feast and a barbecue on the square and chat with those guests who were on the same frequency as him. Just like that, he somehow took second ce in the number of students recruited.


    ¡°Hey, you have already recruited so many people. Share two of them with us.¡±


    ¡°Let me look at the rankings.... It seems that we have 20 additional students. How about this, one for a hundred gold coins. Take it or leave it.¡±


    It was no wonder that they would strive so hard in this recruitment drive, to the extent that they had begun selling and purchasing students from one another. After all, I had intended to use the results of their recruitment to determine the budget for the respective institutions next year, and that was a huge sum of money.


    At this instant, this wasn¡¯t just urring in Sharal. All kinds of recruitment activities were being carried out all over East Mist. My goal wasn¡¯t a short-term improvement, but for this weak country to change from its very core and grow stronger.


    Of course, I had my own reasons for why I was willing to dump so much money into Sharal to motivate the recruiters.


    At this very moment, I was looking gleefully at the two dumbfounded top brass of another country.


    What caused them panic, let alone bothering about diplomatic etiquettes at this point, were two photos in front of them. One of them was of the sacrednds of the Beastmen, Orsolovan Summit. In the photo, thends had been ravaged by the mes of wars. As for the other photo that was ced right before Gagalol, it was one of Sharal Autonomous Region. There wasn¡¯t any autonomous region of any sort in the photo, just a plot of barrennd amidst the forest.


    Without my existence, East Mist Communal Country wouldn¡¯t have risen up; without East Mist¡¯s support, the hybrids wouldn¡¯t have been able to survive and reach Sharal; Sharal Autonomous Region wouldn¡¯t have existed.


    This kind of logic wasprehensible to me. However, in the eyes of the lord of Sharal Autonomous Region, those photos represented a frightening future that could possibly be realized: ¡°Can it be that Sharal has been totally erased, to the point that not a single trace of it remains?¡±


    ¡°These two photos are images that I have foreseen through divination techniques. I can assure you in the name of the Holy Light that these photos are real. Take a good look at what will happen to your people and yournd in the future. Think about it before you reply to my suggestion.¡±


    Looking at the two top brass whose faces instantaneously turned pale, I smiled gleefully.

 Chapter 140

    Chapter 140: The Lies of the Demoness


    ¡°If you only met that lord once, it would be hard to imagine him as an influential figure who would leave his mark on the world. With a dashing face framed by his golden hair, which was as radiant as the sun, he always wore a tender smile. Even towards subordinates like us, there wasn¡¯t the slightest arrogance in his tone, nor was there the regal air great aristocrats spoke of with great relish. He directly said what he wanted. Sometimes, he would lower his head shyly in contemtion, like an amateur who had just begun his job.


    ¡°However, everything changes the moment he speaks. In that negotiation which decided the fate of the three countries, the situation had been within the grasp of the ¡®amateur¡¯ from the very start. ¡®Sharal Silver Fox¡¯ Lord Gagalol and ¡®God of War¡¯ Lord Gars were, indubitably, incredible heroes. History had also proven their astonishing strength and wisdom. However, in the negotiations with Prince Rnd, their nervousness made them seem like neers to the scene. Eventually, the situation came under theplete control of His Highness. However, in a certain sense, that was also the reason why the Alliance of the Northern Lands could rise so quickly. It had the alliance between the three as the foundation, with East Mist serving as the core of the alliance


    ¡ªExtracted from the diary of Sharal Lord Residence¡¯s Secretary, Kaso.¡±


    ¡°This... This is impossible!! You are lying! This... must be forged. An imitation means nothing no matter how lifelike it looks!¡±


    The surroundings mountains were familiar, and just from the scenery itself, it was clear that it was their homnd, Sharal. However, unlike Sharal¡¯s usual bustle, there was nothing but a barrennd in the image.


    There were no fools here. Gagalol already understood that if the image were true that could only mean that either there was either no civilization here from the start, or that the civilisation had disappeared along with the wind. Furthermore, such barrennd would only ur a few hundred years afterplete destruction.


    ¡°Hmph, think about your own identity and his. Would hee up with such a lie to fool you all? You all are putting yourselves on too high a pedestal! Take a look at your own reflection in the mirror!¡±


    While I was touching my nose and smiling wryly at the suspicions of the hosts, Amelia had begun to chastise them arrogantly.


    ¡°This is?¡±


    Without a doubt, Amelia, who just leapt out of nowhere, was extremely conspicuous. ording to the intelligence Sharal had gathered, she was only an apanying Mage. She doesn¡¯t even have a robe or insignia representing her level of strength, so they thought of her as a wild Mage without any identification. Yet, the attitude she arrogantly chastised Gagalol with was absent of the humility and prudent attitude a member of the entourage should have.


    ¡°Amelia Mn. Maybe none of you have ever heard of this name. However, you should know of the Truth Overseers of Arlodante. I haven¡¯t been out for around a century, so I am not aware whether the youngsters of this generation still remember me.¡±


    They had heard of it. No doubt, they have definitely heard of it. From how they subconsciously backed their chairs away to maintain distance from her upon hearing that name, it seemed that her vile name had left quite an impression.


    ¡°Um, Senior Amelia, may I ask you what you have done recently?¡±


    I felt a little exasperated. No matter how ludicrous a shut-in who had confined herself to her home for a few hundred years was, it should be impossible for her to be so notorious.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything recently. I was onlymissioned to do some sales.¡±


    ¡°Um... is that Thorned Forest of Bayer Empire your doing? As well as that famous Deep Slumber Curse?¡±


    The secretary at the side interjected abruptly. His words caused Amelia to smile gleefully.


    ¡°Of course. Despite being rtives, they actually failed to invite me to the young princess¡¯s birthday celebration. Thus, I took revenge on them. When the young girl turned 16, a thorned needle was ced by the spindle outside her room. Naturally, the Poison of Deep Slumber I had prepared beforehand was smeared on it.¡±


    At this point, I vaguely realized that my perception of the world was about to be torn apart. On the other hand, Amelia was alreadyughing frenziedly in glee.


    ¡°Haha, as expected, her finger was pricked by the needle and she fell into a deep sleep due to the poison. Initially, seeing how we were rtives, I didn¡¯t want to go too far, so I prepared a remedy. Yet, they sent an order of knights on a crusade against me? They were suicidal! Thus, I created a Thorned Forest, trapping all of them inside, causing all of those knights to starve to death.¡±


    ¡°Is that the legendary true love¡¯s kiss? How romantic! It¡¯s like a love story out of a fairy tale!¡±


    Sometimes, I really find myself unable toprehend women. Even though it was clearly an act of terrorism that almost destroyed a kingdom, it became a romantic legend in their eyes. At this moment, the female secretary looked at Amelia with reverence.


    However, Amelia shook her head.


    ¡°True love? Little girl, magic isn¡¯t omnipotent, and a human¡¯s heart cannot be fathomed. If I could tell whose love was true and whose was false, I wouldn¡¯t have been scammed so tragically by another.¡±


    At this point, a gleam shed across her crimson-red pupils. It was apparent that she was on the verge of going on a rampage, and her killing intent seemed to be directed towards me. A chill ran down my spine. However, it was fortunate that she returned back to normal in the next instant.


    ¡°It was just some insignificant magic. I¡¯ve customized the spell so that anyone who fits my requirements can unravel my magic. Back then, I had already lost all confidence in men and thought of them as beings driven by physical lust. Thus, in order to find an honest husband for little Nana, I set it so that only people who were interested in corpses could unravel the curse. Yep, going by the words of the human society, it should be called necrophilia.¡±


    ¡°AHHHHH!¡±


    That pitiable little girl dropped her pen and book in fright. How could she ept it when the truth behind that romantic and legendary love story was something that would topple her perception of the world?


    ¡°Hmph, I have already left them a note on the solution. That was just a kind joke. Did they have tounch a crusade against me? They could solve the problem just by looking for a necrophile. If not for our rtionship as rtives, I would have long ago knocked on their doors.¡±


    Amelia spoke so gleefully that it seemed as though the one at fault was someone else. However, I think the reason why Bayer didn¡¯t start a war against Arlodante was on ount of them being rtives.


    ¡°...I remember that Princess Fiona Mn married the prince who awakened her in the end. After which, the prince became the emperor of Bayer Empire two generations ago. That is to say...¡±


    Gagalol quickly covered the mouth of the secretary. How could he allow her to finish her words? Bayer was a powerful empire. If news that their emperor two generations ago was a necrophile were to spread out from here, that would mean massive problems for them.


    ¡°Actually, the Poison of Deep Slumber and the Thorned Forest weren¡¯t my greatest masterpieces. However, the poisonous apple given to Seere Kingdom¡¯s Snow Queen is.¡±


    Somehow, I vaguely sensed that the information that I would hear would definitely ruin the perception I had of the world once more. However, I was toote in covering my ears.


    ¡°I had good rtions with that queen, and she specially looked to me for a poisonous apple. The poison on it was simr to the poison on the needle as well; the cure was the kiss of a necrophile. However, it is really unfathomable why all passing princes are necrophiles.¡±


    ¡°Snow White and the Seven Gold-Armored Dwarves!? That is my favorite fairy tale. I beg you! Do not go on! You will ruin my childhood!¡±


    Alright, where should I start retorting from? Should I start from the passing necrophile princes or the Golden Dwarf warriors? Damn it, Amelia. Can you do something normal instead? Why did you have to choose to create parodies of the fairy tales, taking the role of the viins, to ruin the childhood of others?


    ¡°What about that ¡®Little-footed Cindere and the Crystal Slippers Only She Could Wear¡¯? It can¡¯t be that you...¡±


    ¡°Oh, that. This time, I am on the side of the protagonist. Do you know the pumpkin carriage in the story? I am the witch who created that carriage. Right, this time, the prince isn¡¯t a necrophile but a podophile. Because of this, he couldn¡¯t remember Cindere¡¯s face, insisting on using the ss slippers instead. I had to intentionally get her to leave the slippers behind. As expected, princes are a bunch of perverts.¡±


    ¡°Do you have such arge grudge against princes? Marrying a prince riding a white horse should be the dream of every little girl!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, that was what I thought back then as well. Truth has told us women that princes are a bunch of bastards and perverts! However, it is a pity that not a single printing press was willing to publish my book that is filled with numerical data and case studies named The Truth Behind Princes. Those cowardly bastards! Those were actual events that I went through personally, yet they refused to print them even though I was willing to pay them to do so!¡±


    Alright, this childhood destroyer wants to publish a book to ruin the image of princes in the minds of everyone else! What deep-seated grudge was this!


    Thus, after realizing why Amelia¡¯s reputation was so horrid and why Gagalol retreated far away upon hearing her report her name, as the only human prince in the room, as the one responsible for her resentment towards princes, I backed my seat far away without any hesitation.


    ¡°Hmph, I will tell you all directly now. In the circles of SemiGods and true Gods, the Indestructible Rnd is much more famous than me. You doubt that he would lie to you? You should first consider whether you are worthy of him going through the effort to.¡±


    ¡°Indestructible Rnd?¡±


    This was the first time I was hearing this nickname. Hadn¡¯t I been killed many times before already?


    ¡°Yeah, it is saying that you are simr to that certain ck creature, unable to bepletely killed no matter what happens. Even after getting destroyed, you were able to pop out dozens of yearster and cause a huge uproar. Even though being difficult to kill was amon trait among top-tier experts, you are the only one who managed to revive time and time again despite theplete destruction of your physical body and soul. Most importantly of all, you are a vindictive, shameless jerk who uses all means to aplish your goals. When failing to get rid of you, one has to be careful of your vengeance and thus, no one was willing to provoke you.¡±


    Alright, upon hearing this, I paused for two seconds. Indeed, not disappointing my expectations, the System leapt out.


    ¡¾Ding! SemiGod-tier honorary title ¡®Indestructible Rnd¡¯. After equipping this title... There is no effects. This time, it is really just a title. At most, you can use it to scare others. It isn¡¯t a product of the System, so there isn¡¯t any special effects to it. However, I can help you create an illusionary outer appearance of a cockroach, so that you can be a standing Martian Cockroach in the eyes of others. Do you want to give it a try?¡¿


    Are there cockroaches in Mars? Continue spouting bullshit then, System! Did you think that I didn¡¯t study before transcending over? It was obviously octopus aliens, alright!


    OK, back to the topic at hand. No matter what Gagalol and Gars had prepared beforehand, no matter how they had agreed to advance and retreat as one, their alliance wavered due to such unforeseen circumstances.


    In a certain sense, it was a wise move to bring Amelia to the negotiations. Even though we had yet to start negotiations, it was clear just by looking at the two of them that they were cooperating with one another. One of them was ying the carrot while the other was ying the stick. By throwing consecutive information bombs at the other party to tear apart the primary arrangements of the other party, I had managed to gain the initiative in the negotiations.


    When the information that both parties possessed weren¡¯t symmetrical, it caused the positions of the two sides negotiating with each other to be asymmetrical as well. It created a false image that it mattered not to us whether we negotiated the deal or not (when in truth, it mattered a lot), while the other party required more information about the prophecy of destruction. As such, the other party would be forced to take the initiative to plead with us.


    We managed to y out this show just by exchanging a nce right after walking into the room. At this moment, we exchanged looks once more and smiled. At this point, we had already won.


    ¡°Excluding the other traits of her that are difficult to deal with, Amelia¡¯s strength and cunningness make her an ideal partner, especially when I need to protect my image as the heroic Holy Knight prince. She, who dared to do anything and say anything, is my best avatar.¡±


    Right after these thoughts appeared in my mind, they were buried securely in the depths of my mind. ¡°Perverted serial killer; frenzied professor without the slightest bit of decency,¡± just these two difficult aspects made her a ticking time bomb.


    However, this wasn¡¯t the time to be preupied with such thoughts. It was imperative to continue pushing the stakes while the negotiators of the other side were still unsettled.


    ¡°Esteemed lords, I have a small proposal. Perhaps, to deal with the future threats we face before us, we should solidify our channels ofmunication. Or perhaps, an alliance where we huddle together for survival might be a good idea. After all, you all don¡¯t have to give in much, but in return, you will earn everything!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    After an arduous negotiation, when I stepped out of the Lord Residence, I was so happy that I felt like singing.


    However, when I recalled my musical talent that wasparable to Gria¡¯s Throat of Death, I dispelled that thought. Even so, my footsteps became lighter.


    Since the alliance had been settled, all that was left was for the negotiators of both sides to slowly tug and pull on the contract. This alliance would be the foundation for the rise of East Mist.


    ¡°Provisions and manpower from the Sharal Autonomous Region will just be additional gains. Rather, the rights to mine from the mountains of the barbarians will be the new core to this alliance!¡±


    Indeed, even if Prince Gars didn¡¯te, I would still pay a visit to them. I had already long since set my eyes on theirnds.


    The Northern Lands were publicly acknowledged by the continent to be the richest in mines. However, the shallow mines of the various kingdoms had already been dug out and thus, they weren¡¯t the main targets of contention. East Mist had lost its final mine twenty years ago, and as a result, it had lost its very foothold in the Northern Lands. That was the main reason behind its downfall.


    To reverse all this, just cutting down on expenses wasn¡¯t enough. East Mist had to find a new source of ie, and after it had established the Church of Law as its national religion, it was no longer an option to use war to vie for mines. If so, there was only a possible course of action¡ªseeking new mines.


    In truth, that was a nearly impossible task. After all, every single plot ofnd in East Mist had been repetitively probed for potential mines. Even if there were still hidden mines within its territory, it was clear that they were beyond the probing and mining technique of East Mist, so it wouldn¡¯t make a difference to East Mist¡¯s plight either way.


    However, in truth, there was still another mountain rich in minerals that hadn¡¯t been mined yet. Furthermore, many people knew of it, but none went ahead and excavated it. The technology required to develop the mine was too advanced, making the cost exceed the potential revenue.


    ¡°For outsiders, gaining the trust of the barbarians was something inconceivable. However, for the Mist royalty and its thousand years of history, given the brotherhood they had with them amidst innumerable years of war and mutual assistance, gaining their trust wasn¡¯t too difficult a task.¡±


    ¡°However, that isn¡¯t the greatest problem. Even if you could mine the minerals within, how do you intend to transport them down the mountain? Those mountainous paths aren¡¯t something ordinary humans can tread on. Conventional methods of shipping are absolutely impossible. That is the main reason why no one had tried to develop the mines in the mountains.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, perhaps I should introduce to you my prided creation¡ªEnvy, Borealis!¡±


    ¡ª¨C


    When we left, the anxiety Gagalol and Gars had expressed a moment ago disappeared without a trace and they instead started to calmly discuss the results of the meeting.


    ¡°Brother Gars, do you think what Rnd said was true?¡±


    The word ¡°brother¡± means a lot to the barbarians. If one were to casually try to establish intimacy with them, losing all of one¡¯s teeth from a single punch was considered minor. However, judging from how Gars epted the phrase so readily, the rtionship between the two didn¡¯t seem as distant as they had previously disyed.


    ¡°Brother Gagalol, being careful and meticulous may be your strengths, but you are truly overthinking it this time. I can feel the kind intent behind the other party¡¯s words. Furthermore, I am willing to bet my life that what he said is true.¡±


    The truth was that these two were sworn brothers, and there were many interactions going on between the territories of the two. Simply put, though, few knew about this secret.


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know about that image of yours, but the prophetic image of our sacrednd being wrecked is definitely true. Look at those giant statues. They have been shattered into rock pieces. However, only a few people of our tribe know that these rock statues are defensive mechanisms for our sacred mountain. Ordinary tribesman don¡¯t even know that these rock statues were the doings of our ancestors. Their destruction can only mean that they were forcefully destroyed by a powerful enemy, which means that the tribe had fallen into danger.¡±


    ¡°That isn¡¯t enough. It is possible that he might have received news of it from some other chieftain within the tribe.¡±


    ¡°You are overthinking things. Look at that giant.¡±


    It was a massive, golden giant. At this moment, its chest had been impaled with a gigantic spear and it was on the verge of death. However, the engravings on its chest were still gleaming.


    ¡°This is definitely a secret which no one knows about. That giant is almost certainly me. My ultimate talent, War God Avatar, allows me to sacrifice my life to turn into an invincible War Giant before I return to the embrace of the God of War. This is a legendary talent of the Ancient Barbarians. Not even my father knew of it, so it is impossible for him to have heard of it from any other source.¡±


    This meant that not only was Doomsday going to befall them, it was approaching quickly.


    ¡°You appeared in the prophecy as well? Looks like Doomsday ising much earlier than we expected. I think we should talk with that Lord Rnd.¡±


    ¡°Yeah? You no longer doubt the words of the other party?¡±


    Hearing those words, the one who would be known as Silver Fox in tribute to his wisdom smiled bitterly.


    ¡°Just as the insane demoness had said, think about our own identity and his. Are we worthy of the lord personally visiting us just to deceive us? I have overthought it. What we have to do now is quickly mend our rtionship with him. I can sense that he is slightly dissatisfied with us.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, get your man to prepare some extravagant gifts. Tomorrow, we will personally pay him a visit.¡±

 Chapter 141

    Chapter 141: Greenhouse


    Looking up from the valley where Sharal was located, the sun was peeking over the clouds. The mountains around reached up to the skies and it was these mountainous ridges that created this rare warm granary of the Northern Lands.


    The bizarre and mystical workings of nature had created thisnd of miracles. The mountainous ridges and forests had blocked off the cold drafts while the rain, dews, and underground streams gave life to the ground. As a result, this unique granary of the Northern Lands was created.


    The Northern Lands weren¡¯t suited for growing crops. At maximum, itsnds could only enjoy a harvest once a year whereas in this valley, with the assistance of a spellcaster, it could enjoy a maximum of three harvests per year. Furthermore, due to the rich nutrients in the ground and the suitable weather, the quality of the harvest was rather high.


    This was also the reason why we had toe here. Ten years of work on some othernd would mean around ten generations of crops to choose from whereas in the same period of time, thirty generations of crops could grow here. There was a huge difference between each generation in cross-breeding crops, let alone twenty generations.


    ¡°Can¡¯t we just use magic to hasten their growth?¡±


    ¡°...I really have no idea how you managed to pass the Theoretical Life Examinations back then. Normal crops and crops whose growth have been hastened by magic are actually two totally different things. Crops hastened by magic carry with them the spellcaster¡¯s will, which warps the crops¡¯ growth. If we want to see the normal growing process of life, we have to do it step by step.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure you really don¡¯t know how he passed the examinations? It was all cheating. Back then, if not for his outstanding cheating skills, given that nonexistent elementalprehension ability of his, he would have long ago failed most of his homework and exams, resulting in his expulsion.¡±


    After waking from her long slumber, Harloys possessed a state of vigorous energy. At this moment, she was talking bad about me while crouching on my head and tugging on my hair to make furballs.


    ¡°Teacher Harloys. Your habits... could it be that your physical form affects your soul?¡±


    That reminder caused the darned cat to freeze. Only at this instant did she realize that her actions were no different from a real cat. She immediately covered her face and went into silent depression.


    ¡°Pu! How is that possible? That cat form of hers is just one of her mimicries. She is just addicted to ying the role of a cat.... Darned cat, how dare you bite me!¡±


    Alright, the moment I used my physical actions to disy what ¡°disaster originates from one¡¯s mouth¡± meant, Harloys also used her physical actions to disy what ¡°embarrassment warping into anger¡± meant.


    ¡°A pet cat attacking its owner? Are you rebelling, you Meow Alien! You all have not conquered the world yet!¡±


    After which, I got into a fight with that darned cat. Just when I was about to achieve victory due to the advantage of my physique, I heard Amelia¡¯s faint words.


    ¡°Seems like your rtionship is pretty good.¡±


    ¡°Who would have a good rtionship with him/her!¡±


    Alright, at the very least, our opinion in this aspect was aligned. In order to prove so, as well as to verify Harloys¡¯s testimony, I grabbed the cat by her neck and did an Eighteen Hell Rotation and received a pleasurable, shrill scream and a dizzy-headed darned cat in return.


    Compared to before, the movements of the awakened darned cat were much more like a real cat. As for the outer appearance, she seemed to have grown from a Meow Alien youngling into an adult ck cat, and her stiff cat fur had be glossy and smooth.


    After sessfully absorbing the SemiGod Equipment ¡°The Dark God¡¯s Breath of Death,¡± Harloys finally began to disy her potential as a top-notch Magic Pet. On the surface, she became much more elegant while beneath the surface, a much greater change had urred.


    ¡¾Magic Pet: Harloys (Main Body of Greed)Race: SlimeStrength: 14Agility: 10Stamina: 35Intelligence: 30Will: 25Charm: Depends


    Job: LVL 37 Mage


    Overview: Position, Racial Ability: Transmogrification (Legendary), Child of Greed Division (Legendary)¡¿


    ¡¾Innnate Ability [Transmogrification (Legendary)]: Transforming to a harmless kitten is just its weakest ability. It can choose to change to weapon-form and the current choices are Staff (Breath of Death) and Magic Sword (Counterfeit, Pale Justice).¡¿


    ¡¾Innate Ability [Child of Greed Division (Legendary)]: Divides to form a small Child of Greed. The Child of Greed will inherit a portion of Harloys¡¯s abilities and stats. As long as the Child of Greed is within a certain radius around Harloys, it will be under her total control, serving as her eyes, ears, hands, and legs. The total amount of divisions: 15,417¡ªBefore misfortune strikes, one would somehow find the inauspicious omen of a ck cat roaming about, and for Harloys, being everywhere isn¡¯t a difficult task. She always arrives in time in the form of a crow/ck cat tough at your misfortune.¡¿


    ¡¾System Evaluation: This is your Magic Pet, but she is constantly thinking of how to get rid of you within the limitations of the contract. Do not be fooled by her outer appearance. As a grandmaster in magic, even though she only possesses the strength of a Bronze-rank at the moment, she is able to easily destroy those Gold-rank rookies. Furthermore, her incredible base stats and her transmogrification ability has made her even more dangerous than before.¡¿


    ¡¾System Evaluation 2: She definitely isn¡¯t as weak as she portrays herself. As for why she hides her strength, is there a need for me to exin it to you? Perhaps the recent interaction with you has pleased her, so she decided to leave a path for you after a sessful revolt.... So what are you still waiting for? Hurry up and get rid of this foolish Meow Alien while you still have the upper hand.¡¿


    The tier of the Breath of Death Staff had been lowered to Epic-rank, and the consumed Power of Death had allowed Harloys to be powerful and dangerous. Looking at the various figures on the interface and the increasing numbers of Child of Greed, I started to suspect whether I would be a match for her if I really fell out and had to exchange blows with her.


    To tell the truth, the current situation of the cat thinking that she had concealed her strength well when it was allid bare, out in the open, was enjoyable for me, given how I could bully this darned cat openly. Furthermore, in order to make me neglect her fighting power, she could only record the scores one by one.


    Harloys¡¯s experience and wisdom were what I most valued about her, and she had helped choose the first batch of crops to nt.


    Naturally, due to thepleteck of decency andmon sense between Amelia and me, we needed her to correct us.


    ¡°I have a good idea! Why don¡¯t we nt rice on the back of frogs, which have moist skin? We can create a hybrid animal-nt. I even came up with a name for it! I choose you! Wonderfrog Seed!¡±


    ¡°Rejected! Putting aside the technological aspects, the frog would probably die in a few days. Furthermore, how can something like this reproduce?¡±


    ¡°Then, why don¡¯t we nt it on zombies? It is said that the dposing bodies of the Undead serve as good fertilizer for nts.¡±


    ¡°Rejected! Who would dare to eat rice nted on a zombie!¡±


    ¡°Then...¡±


    ¡°If you dare to say zombie wheat or zombie biscuit, I will smear your entire face with slime goo.¡±


    ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll return and give it some more thought.¡±


    Should I say, ¡°as expected of a professional¡±? Initially, I thought that Amelia would be like me,ing up with interesting projects to try as well as experimenting with the newest technology. In the end, she decided to settle the matter seriously.


    ¡°Special breed Hewert barley and Siere rice... Is that enough?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, we will just use seventeen gically-modified nts for the first batch. We have to find the most suitable genes for cold and dry conditions. After finding the most suitable breed, I will use my magic to modify it once again and use the ones that were modified the best for the second batch.¡±


    ¡°Obtaining good crops through gic modification isn¡¯t something that will bear results within the short-run. Even if you provide me with this greenhouse technology of yours, at the very most, it can only hasten the process in awaiting the germination and growth of the nts. For the safety of the poption, we have to proceed prudently.... Why are you all staring at me like that? Did I say something wrong?¡±


    I hurriedly shook my head. There¡¯s nothing wrong with your words, but this seemed a little off with your image.


    ¡°¡®One should face Mother Earth with gratitude for the blessings she has showered upon us, and appreciate her gifts.¡¯ Back then, when I was the Sacred Maiden of the Church of Mother Earth in Xyntherar, my teacher taught me so. A pity...¡±


    Sacred Maiden? Furthermore, the Sacred Maiden of the Church of Mother Earth that had an incredibly good reputation? I couldn¡¯t help but be impressed by how colorful Amelia¡¯s life was, as well as curious as to how she managed toe to such a point.


    ¡°A pity?¡±


    ¡°It is a pity that she was duped by a man. As a Sacred Maiden who lost her purity, she was expelled from the Church. Furthermore, that man even abandoned her, saying that ¡®I was only ying with you. After all, men always bear some level of interest for Sacred Maidens, but you aren¡¯t a Sacred Maiden anymore. Why should I give up my honor to apany you for life?¡¯ Not longter, my teachermitted suicide. Due to her dishonorable death, she was regarded as a stain on the Church of Mother Earth¡¯s history. In fact, even I, her sessor as the next Sacred Maiden and her adopted daughter, was unable to attend her funeral. She truly lost her standing and reputation.¡±


    Her calm and casual words carried an undercurrent of bone-chilling hatred.


    ¡°You avenged her?¡±


    ¡°I killed that man¡¯s entire family, but he managed to escape. To date, I am still unable to do anything about him....¡±


    ¡°To date? He is still alive?¡±


    ¡°¡®Dragon Hunter¡¯ Deimos. He is the first generation Deimos. I have already killed the second generation Deimos, and one day, I will...¡±


    This wasn¡¯t the first time I had heard this name. Didn¡¯t Marsolit¡¯s enemy go by such a name as well? Remembering the intelligence I had gotten from that old emperor of And, I smiled.


    ¡°...bury his bones amidst Undying Grass and cut off a portion of his flesh everyday to feed to him...¡±


    She had already begun to talk about the torture scenarios she hade up with. The more she spoke, the more agitated she got. It was clear from her red eyes that she was on the verge of losing control once more. At this moment, I patted her shoulders.


    ¡°One day, you will have your revenge. I will help you. I will make him die in greater dishonor and despair than your mother.¡±


    Amelia froze for a moment before taking two steps away from me. She stared at me warily.


    ¡°Don¡¯t try to act intimate with me. You aren¡¯t any better than him. I know your history well. Even though you don¡¯t have any confirmed rtionships with the opposite gender and there aren¡¯t any cases of you toying with their feelings, the number of women you messed with and the emotional debt that you owe them is much greater than that bastard.¡±


    My jaw dropped. Where did this rumore from? I have been a virgin for three generations now, and if I really owed that much emotional debt, I would have just made up for it to shake off my single identity.


    ¡°I, I don¡¯t have any...¡±


    ¡°Hmph, don¡¯t bother trying to convince me otherwise. You yboys are skilled in nting expectations into women. Can you remember the number of women who have cried over you? Right now, we¡¯re only working partners, so don¡¯t even dream about gaining my trust once more.¡±


    Staring at the figure of Amelia, who turned to leave right after she was done saying her piece, I couldn¡¯t find a response.


    ¡°yboy, yboy. This virgin is actually treated as a yboy.... Pu! I can¡¯t stopughing!¡±


    This darned cat actually started rolling all over my head inughter, inducing in me the urge to throw her. Yeah, the next moment, I did it.


    Even when flying in the air, she was still shouting.


    ¡°So dizzy! You are really annoying! I will be back!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, what is truly disgusting is a Meow Alien who can talk.¡±


    Turning around, I saw a bunch of fawning faces.


    ¡°Lord, can we take a rest? It is almost noon now.¡±


    ¡°No, continue working. This is punishment!¡±


    Naturally, for the crops experiment, we required diligent farmers toiling in the fields. The ¡°farmers¡± whose entire bodies were covered with mud at this moment, after working for an entire morning, were the group who were about to be promoted as the bosses of different departments.


    ¡°Eaglestorm, I am very thankful for your support. However, you can¡¯t behave like this just because you are unable to find any students.¡±


    After hearing those words, the Legend-rank Druid¡¯s face flushed. Yesterday, after they were unable to recruit a single student no matter how hard they tried, they used a certain someone¡¯s idea and began to morph into bears, wolves, and other animals. They carried the children around to win their goodwill. However, by the impetus of some inconceivable primitive will, the unique culture of Liu Huang Mountain City started to show on the Surface.


    ¡°Mum, what¡¯s that! A bird?¡±


    ¡°Your head that it is a bird! It is obviously an elephant!¡±


    ¡°AH!! Let¡¯s go, don¡¯t look!¡±


    ¡°...Xueti, I heard someone call the Church of Law the Church of Nude Running yesterday.¡±


    ¡°Boss, leave it all to me! I will show you the innate talent Taurens have in farming. One of my Race Talents is in Herbology! I can¡¯t understand why Taurens require this Race Talent, but perhaps, it was in preparation of this day. Ohhhhh, I¡¯m burning up! I will work hard!¡±


    After being hung to make beef jerky, this fellow managed to keep himself in check for two days. However, after going through forests toe to this valley, his passion had been ignited once more. When he caught sight of the familiar wave of nude runners, how could he contain his urge?


    As for Clint and the other Goblins... I should have stopped them the instant they started to demonstrate their abilities in assembling machinery. In the end, someone even had to fill up those craters by the mines.


    As for Beifeng... Right, what did Beifeng do? Why is he being punished?


    ¡°Beifeng, what did you do that day?¡±


    ¡°Lord, I was framed! Back then, I was only chatting with someone. But somehow everyone just pulled me here.¡±


    ¡°Ah? Beifeng, you didn¡¯tmit any mistakes? I¡¯m sorry, it¡¯s a habit. Somehow, I just pulled you here upon catching sight of you. Alright, I will deduct one from your future exploits then.¡±


    Diana¡¯s apology had not an ounce of sincerity. Even so, the deduction of one punishment was epted by the crowds. Apparently, everyone thought that Beifeng wouldmit more crimes.


    ¡°Impossible. Beifeng actually didn¡¯t make any mistakes?¡±


    ¡°Bullshit. We must have just overlooked it. How can it be possible for him to not do anything at all?¡±


    ¡°Sigh! The world nders me, deceives me, insults me, mocks me, belittles me, debases me, loathes me, and scams me. So what? I need only tolerate it, allow it, permit it, avoid it, bear it, respect it, ignore it, and, after a few years, look at it again.¡±


    Eventually, under the criticism of the crowd, the innocent Dracon sighed, spouted a few words that tempted others to pummel him before working diligently alongside Xueti.

 Chapter 142

    Chapter 142: Ominous Clouds and Changes


    ¡°For menialbor, household chores, construction, and even dangerous mining jobs, there¡¯s nothing that it can¡¯t do! What can be more suitable and trustworthy than an indefatigable zombie worker as your assistant? Not only do they not need rest, they also don¡¯t need a wage! It only costs ten gold coins for one, and you only need to pay two gold coins every year to charge up the Power of Death in it. You will benefit your entire life with this purchase!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t listen to the nonsense of that fellow, zombies easily be smelly! It might still be eptable in winter, but when spring and summere, that stench will stink you to death! Hey, uncle. Why don¡¯t you take a look at my mummy maid? Not only will it never rot, its insides are filled with top-notch fragrant spices that give you an aromatic scent even when you hug it to sleep at night. You should know that only those of noble standing can be mummified after their death. This cutie of mine used to be a noble princess before her departure.¡±


    ¡°He is just spouting bullshit! Do you think that he would dare to dig the graves of royalty given his appearance? That is most probably just a normal female viger with fat thighs.¡±


    ¡°...A Goblin princess should still be considered a princess. Furthermore, she is the princess of a massive tribe with a poption exceeding three hundred!¡±


    Even when the battle between these two Necromancers quickly elevated from a verbal one to a physical one, not a single customer had the intention of patronizing their stall. Instead, they chose the Skeleton Worker not too far away. That¡¯s because Skeleton Workers are cheap and hygienic. Furthermore, even when the Power of Death dissipated in them, they could be treated as a clothes hanger or be fed to the dogs.


    ¡°Undead War Mounts for sale! It knows not of weariness and is eternally loyal!¡±


    ¡°You have to think of your weight before riding on a Skeleton Horse which falls apart easily. I have a Skeleton Beast that can be used to pull carriages! Feel free to choose among a variety of them!¡±


    This was Diffindor¡¯s 7th Market as well as the newly-established Undead Worker Trading Center. Necromancers had finally found their livelihood aside from ughter in here.


    When the news of the Sinless City spread across the entire continent, the most delighted group was probably the Necromancers.


    In this cruel world, the weak never fared well. Most people already had an instinctive desire to pursue strength, even if the strength was taboo. However, it could give them better lives, and at the very least, they wouldn¡¯t die ludicrously by being caught up in a fight. No matter what, it was a risk worth taking.


    By training step by step, not every single existence who practiced the depraved demonic arts would be demented. But the Holy Church didn¡¯t consider what the Undead, ¡°whose existence is a sin,¡± had done. They persisted in cleansing every single Undead. Necromancers who were capable of creating them were absolute heretics they had to destroy.


    Some of them were coincidentallypatible with Necromancy; some of them fortuitously happened to inherit it. Even so, it mattered not. When their true identities were revealed, they were still ouwed in the same way as heretics and viins. Such prejudice made every single Necromancer go all-out to conceal their existence. If they were revealed, they might even resort to silencing the witnesses directly. In another sense, it caused them to fall into a deeper nightmare.


    In the eyes of the world, it was impossible for Necromancers to be the cheerful neighbor boy whose face was full of e. Necromancers must have a gloomy face and savagery must be reflected in their eyes as they nned their vile schemes to destroy the world in the demented Xiluo Empire. The truth was that it was a misunderstanding.


    Xiluo was a country for the deceased. Their nobles and fief lords were all Undead. On the other hand, no matter how bizarre Necromancers were to the eyes of the world, they were still living beings, and in a certain sense, living beings were equivalent to ves in Xiluo. This made the identities of the living Necromancers in Xiluo awkward.


    Unless they were willing to give up on their physical body and convert into a Lich or if they possessed incredible talent that allowed them to be an apprentice of a Lich, their lives would most likely be difficult there. At the very least, their sustenance, amodation, and numerous other living conditions were not what they deserved. If a bloodthirsty member of the Blood Tribe was enticed by the scent of their blood; a bellicose Death Knight found a sudden urge to use them as his practice target; or perhaps their Lich mentor wanted to use them as his new experimental subject... Actually, as long as they did not reveal their own magic, most Necromancers were able to blend into the crowd. Furthermore, they were still able to use their own abilities to better their living conditions.


    All along, Necromancers and Warlocks were the favored mercenaries of the nobles. After all, they were figures who were unable toe to the surface and they struck quickly and ruthlessly. Even if some secret were leaked to them identally, they were unlikely to spread it.


    As such, the reputation of the Necromancers worsened. It didn¡¯t help that Necromancers required corpses to improve their skills. They could only murder others personally or rob graves. This gave rise to numerous bizarre city sightings and ghost stories.


    As such, the graves of every city were under the surveince of a watchman dispatched by the Church of Holy Light. It was natural to leave some traces behind in the midst of robbing corpses as well.


    Even if they reached Silver-rank or Gold-rank by sheer luck, allowing them to earn big bucks with their strength by serving as mercenaries, if they were to identally slip up, they would still be exposed. Even a beggar by the roadside might report you in the blink of an eye for the sake of ten silver coins.


    The moment a Necromancer was exposed, no matter how many good deeds one did in the past, the Church of Holy Light would instantly send their forces over to surround the Necromancer. Even if one escaped from their encirclement, due to the worldwide arrest warrant, one could only wander around the world aimlessly to avoid pursuit. Less than ten percent of these people were lucky enough to escape to a rural countryside vige or Xiluo Empire.


    When Wumianzhe¡¯s deration resounded across the entire world, these hidden Necromancers were taken aback. Uncontroble, frenzied joy followed.


    ¡°Undead do not represent evil? Perhaps I¡¯ll be able to live with dignity from now on. Maybe I might even be respected and revered!¡±


    As such, half a month after the deration was made, numerous disguised Necromancers entered the city before disappearing abruptly. There were even more of them who chose to sneak into the city by scaling the city walls.


    These days, there were always people trying to fly across the wall. Some of them were of the Blood Tribes. Some of them were Gargoyles. Most of the time, a person would be hanging beneath them. Their appearances made the city guards wary as well as hesitant about whether they should shoot them down or not.


    Did they really have to shoot them down? However, something was obviously wrong. Soon, the guards understood what was going on, but why did those people avoid the city gates?


    Most of those who flew in, uponnding, would find themselves surrounded by Knights.


    ¡°Are you a Necromancer?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m just a fanatic of extreme sports. Today, I saw a passing Gargoyle and wanted to experience the sensation of flying in midair. Thus, I grabbed its legs and happened to fly in here.¡±


    Even a fool wouldn¡¯t fall for these kinds of crappy lies. However, the ones speaking them never got sick of it.


    The Knight Order in charge of defending Diffindor eventually sumbed to these slippery Necromancers. As a result, they pasted a notice on the city gates.


    ¡°Gate 7 of the city¡¯s west side will be specially allocated for the usage of Necromancers. It will only take half an hour for the numerous administrative paperwork and identification verification. Furthermore, ites with three job rmendations. Necromancers who enter the city through any others means will be fined 300 gold coins upon revtion, and stripped of their job permit for two months.


    Note: Please station your Gargoyles and all Undead beings of middle-scale andrger outside the city. Alternatively, you can pay a fee at Gate 7 for it to be kept there. Of course, you have the freedom to infringe the rules written above. However, Diffindor¡¯s airspace is guarded by Bone Dragon Rider Lord Timier. You can try to y cat and mouse with him, but if he and his mount strike too heavily against you, your remains may be a popr auction item for your peers the next day. Presently, Skeleton Mages and Undead Sorcerers are expensivemodities in the city.¡±


    This was already utmost sincerity on our part. At the very least, we didn¡¯t hunt them down and instead, we expressed kind intentions to them.


    After someone led the way and confirmed the passage was safe, even my Undead Knights were surprised by the number of Necromancers entering.


    After entering the city, while rejoicing over finding so manyrades, a new problem appeared.


    Just when they were treading into a new life, they found themselves jobless.


    The newly established Diffindor Life Medical School (School of Necromancy) needed many lecturers and teachers, but that was for the elites. Most of the Necromancers were self-taught and their standards were only slightly better than apprentices. Rather than teaching others, they wanted to find a teacher to guide them along.


    ¡°Doing what we did previously? Do you mean an assassin or a mercenary?¡± There were quite a few bloodthirsty ones among the Necromancers, so they naturally thought of resorting to how they made a living in the past.


    I had to admit that there was no lower limit to the foolishness of the humans. They actually dared tomit such severe crimes in the Sinless City, a phenomenon created by the God of Law. When their corpses were hanged on gpoles to be dried, it served as a warning to the others, and exined the Judgement Spell and Sinless City.


    Even so, the mass unemployment would eventually lead to social instability. As a result, I had already made preparations for it in advance.


    The first solution was joining the army. After all, Necromancers were powerful weapons in war. This was where their expertisey. My army had many years of experience and were well-versed in effectively utilizing Necromancers in battle. However, there were also weaker Necromancers who were unwilling to step onto the battlefield. This was another area that I had to look into.


    ¡°Bringing in all kinds of magic into our daily lives? Converting the products of Necromancy into tools for the convenience of daily living?¡±


    This subject seemed to be an absurd and impossible one, but it was by no means a new one. Many human kingdoms had already started to use magicmps, and magic kettles were a daily necessity for nobles. The numerous products of alchemy also came from the crystallization of the wisdom of the magic civilization. Since it was already proven probable with other magic and alchemy, why should it be impossible for Necromancy? In reality, Necromancy was all-epassing, though the materials required for it were slightly unique.


    The main job of the summoned Undead was serving the Necromancer who summoned them. It was within my expectations that abor market would be started. Of course, there were technical difficulties to it as well.


    The instincts of Low-tier Undead had determined them unintelligent and bloodthirsty. Unless the Necromancers kept a close watch on them, no one could guarantee that these brainless Undead would not go out of control. However, an invention had changed all that.


    ¡°Sloth Sword Seal¡ªDeath is the sweetest slumber. However, it is a pity that it isn¡¯t time for you leave work yet. So make good use of your time and continue living an exciting life.¡±


    The Sloth Sword Seal was a sword seal that represented all products of Necromancy. Its use wasn¡¯t any different from the other Elemental Sword Seals. It was activated through Olivia¡¯s Magic Box. Through the sword seal, one could manipte the Power of Death. However, based on the current level of research, it could only allow its user to control a few Low-tier Undead.


    I left certain concepts and theories to Olivia andpany for them to develop into sword seals. Soon enough, a new Olivia¡¯s Magic Box customized for Undead usage was created. Its only use was allowing one to control a Low-tier Undead through contracts. Thus, when ordinary humans wielded this ck magic core, they were able to control their Low-tier Undead through it and get them to work for them.


    As a result, the Undeadbor market became a reality. Skeletons did household chores, zombies mined minerals, and mummies served as maids. Only the people¡¯s imagination stopped them; anything could be realized.


    Of course, there was limit to everything. The ¡°genius¡± who thought of the concept of a cute and disgusting Abomination byplementing it with a sexy maid costume had been stripped of his job permit for three months due to excessiveints about how the product blinded people¡¯s sight.


    On the other hand, phantom carriage rental, the Gargoyle Express, and the Zombies VS nts series became the talk of the town, as predicted. With technology nearing perfection perhaps an entirely new magic civilization would be born.


    Maybe these little things seemed like nothing, but they had huge repercussions on the future. The unknown had always brought fear to humans. However, when these beings were willing to be enved, the fear and sense of estrangement was hugely minimized. Eventually, when these became eptable to the world, Necromancers would be able to enjoy normal lives.


    ¡°Sometimes, the era treads somewhere unfathomable to you. Perhaps even the inventor, Prince Rnd, did not expect that this obscure and unepted invention would be the impetus to effect change on the world.¡±


    However, some things would never change. For example, the unpredictable minds of sentient beings and the seeds of resentment.


    Looking at the headless corpse, Reyne sighed.


    The two corpses were extremely young. One of them was a Silver-rank DemiElf Hunter whereas the other was a rookie Necromancer who had managed to sneak in. When she was patrolling the city walls, they, disguised as passersby, suddenly assaulted her. However, in the next instant, her guards had already decapitated them.


    ¡°Master Fayde, Teacher Ferdinand, and Teacher Sina, thank you for protecting me. You all have worked hard.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no need to thank us. This was Prince Rnd¡¯s order.¡±


    Before leaving, I had the two Sword Saints and Great Mage protect Reyne. Back then, Reyne thought I was overreacting. But facts had proved my judgement correct. This was already the seventh assassination attempt this month, and it was clear that this was only the start.


    ¡°The younger the seedling, the easier it is crushed. Even if we put aside your identity as the descendant of the Mist, just by the fact that you are the knot tying East Mist Communal Country and me together, you are absolutely important and irreceable to the country in its current state. If something happened to you, everything would fall apart. If I were the enemy of East Mist, assassinating you would be the best way for the country to fall into disarray.¡±


    ¡°We should have no enemies in the Northern Lands, right?¡±


    Back then, I only chuckled, not pointing anything out. At this moment, Reyne remembered her indifference back then and could onlyment her ignorance and immaturity.


    ¡°Send them over to the 7th Market and submit a report of the Soul Interrogations to me, even though it is highly likely that they were sent by that kingdom once more. Seriously, the Beastmen are going to be invading the Northern Lands next year. Instead of diverting their attention towards assassinating me, they should be reorganizing their army and making preparations for battle.¡±


    No enemies? They were probably all enemies. On a state level, as long as there were conflict of interests, it was impossible for two countries to have an amicable rtionship. No one would want to have a powerful neighbor, even if the country repeatedly imed that they would not invade the other countries. How would it be possible for them to entrust their safety in the words of others? Furthermore, these countries also had ambitions of their own, and the newly rising East Mist was an eyesore for their ns.


    I, who was at Sharal, also met with simr experiences.


    ¡°One, two, three, four, five. Five top-notch assassins, not to mention a Saint-rank hidden in the shadows. They sure do view me highly.¡±


    Beside me, Amelia shook her staff with a furious expression.


    ¡°Yet another group trying to assassinate you. This is the thirteenth time this week! I have almost been reduced to a free bodyguard for you. Compensate me!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I have no money for you! My life isn¡¯t for your taking either!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Winter often came earlier for the hignds. When most of the countries of the Northern Lands were preparing for the invasion of the Beastmen next year when spring came, thends of the Beastmen were already shrouded in ice and snow.


    However, as usual, the Beastmen had no intention of shrinking their area of activity to prepare to tide through the winter. On the contrary, the Wolf Knights and Lightning Roc Knights were traversing across the hignds to hunt down hidden human spies.


    The closer one got to the base camp of the Beastmen, the more frequent these patrols passed by. Such abnormal behavior attracted the attention of the various countries, but even after they paid a heavy price to infiltrate the Beastmen¡¯s camp and listen in on their discussions, all they got was that the Beastmen were preparing resources for war.


    In reality, that was only a smoke screen.


    There were only two conventional, narrow paths down the hignds where the Beastmen resided, and both paths were blocked by the fortress cities of two different countries.


    The entrance leading to the various human countries of the Northern Lands was a barren and remotend called Erole Hignds. At this very moment, smoke was billowing ceaselessly from the innumerable tents established on that plot ofnd, indicating the presence of the Beastman army.


    The Chieftains were currently gathered at the highest peak of Erole Hignds. At this moment, news that made their tribesmen thrilled was currently spreading amid the tents.


    ¡°Let¡¯s toast to the glory of the War God! By next week, our Beastman army will be able to begin its invasion. Finally, we can settle our old scores. This time, let¡¯s catch the humans off guard! Activate n Thunderbird!¡±

 Chapter 143

    Chapter 143: Short Letter


    ¡°A swordsman of Zhao wears a in helmet, his curved de bright as rime.¡±


    Wearing shabby leather armor made of python skin, a swordsman of the Northern Lands wielded a silver longsword and created snow-white afterimages in the air. Wherever the radiant longsword struck, a bone-chilling wind issued, even covering the ground in ayer of thin frost.


    ¡°A silver saddle shines on a white horse, galloping swift as a shooting star.¡±


    Pointing the longsword to the heavens, a silver winged horse galloped over. Carrying the knight, the apparitional mount charged forward as if a silver shooting star.


    ¡°Robbing a life every ten steps, never turning back in the long journey.¡±


    Wherever the sword passed, the heads of the enemies flew. Just with the sharp sword in his hands and the mount beneath him, the lightly-dressed Knight could tread dominantly across the Northern Lands!


    ¡°Flicking his sleeves when all¡¯s done, casting his reputation into the shadows... I seem to have forgotten whates afterwards. Forget it, I am unable to conceal my reputation anyway. Boys! Pay close attention! I, Rnd Mist, havee! I am the Lich King!¡±


    When Pale Justice was abruptly stabbed in the ground, magic gathered and the ck Tortoise Sword Seal, represented by an amalgamation of tortoise and snake, activated. A snowke formation lighted up on the ground, and as the hidden, frigid current beneath the ground burst outward, Ice Magic froze everything in the surroundings.


    My actions were too sudden. Along with the creeping of ice, the feet of the assassin in the shadows were frozen, rooted to the spot before he could even react. If he could react swiftly, he could amputate his leg and escape. If he were slow, he would enjoy the luxury of being encased in ice.


    ¡°I am truly impressed with those protagonists of novels. They always manage to look dashing when reciting poems in the midst of battle, but in actuality, it isn¡¯t something usible for a human to do! How did they manage to chant magic incantations, contemte fighting strategies, and adjust their rhythm of battle while recalling the poems at the same time? Aren¡¯t they worried about forgetting a phrase and ending up being embarrassed? What if they happened to choke on air and cough uncontrobly? Wouldn¡¯t their deaths end up ridiculous?¡±


    While I was retorting, a snake-shaped dagger with a green gleam on it suddenly appeared in the shadows behind me. That menacing dagger slowly moved towards the nape of my neck without the slightest movement of wind.


    Just as the de was about toe into contact with me, the body of the assassin who wore a cruel smile suddenly jolted.


    ¡°An upgraded ability of Shadowstep¡ªTemporary Elemental Concealment? This seems to be a rare ability that only a master assassin with Elemental Bloodline can learn. What a wonderful experimental subject.¡±


    How could it possible for the veteran assassin to slip up at such a crucial moment? However, his hands were already numbed.


    ¡°AHHHH!¡±


    Pale Justice was just inserted into the ground, but a rampaging sh of lightning was crackling as though thunder was traversing through the sword. The frenzied flow of lightning caused the unfortunate assassin¡¯s body to convulse ceaselessly.


    ¡°Pitiful child. I doubt you can understand why a magic sword which had no contact with its wielder was able to attack you. I should remember this skill and teach those rookies when I get back so that they can use it on others.¡±


    The lightning from the Azure Dragon Sword Seal that I activated wasn¡¯t too strong. The assassin whose body was convulsing was still able to grit his teeth and climb up. He had intended to bring me down along with him, but I simply patted the ck cat on my shoulder.


    ¡°Gather a blood sample so that we can run an analysis on it. He is a rare specimen, so keep him alive. We¡¯ll extract his soul when we¡¯re back at the experimentalb.¡±


    Upon hearing these words, the elegant cat lowered her head and licked her paws, not moving from her spot whatsoever. I knew that she was just waiting to negotiate the terms with me.


    ¡°I will split a third of it with you. If senior doesn¡¯t want it, I will split half of it with you then.¡±


    ¡°You lunatic! To think that our Phantom Serpent Bandits were destroyed by you lunatics, a person who talked to his cat... AHHHHHH!¡±


    Upon seeing that I still facing the other way, the furious assassin dashed forward to assault me. However, in the next instant, an ominous ck shadow nketed his vision.


    ¡°Cat... Cat demon!¡±


    A queer smile crept onto the corners of the lips of the cat-shaped figure on top of the assassin¡¯s head, as though it was mocking something or someone.


    The assassin could no longer suppress the fear which prated straight into his bones. He immediately turned and ran. However, in a sh of light and a piercing scream, the assassin disappeared without a trace. All that was left on the spot was the elegant cat who was still tidying up its face.


    Pah.


    With a snap of a finger, the three corpses of the three bandits who had died from excessive bleeding stood up silently. They would bring the other frozen bodies with them.


    With Necromancy no longer ouwed, the corpses of experts have be valuable tradingmodities for the nobility. Naturally, we can¡¯t waste such precious goods.


    While I was still admiring my actions, the battle on the other side had also reached its final moments.


    A ck, man-eating flower was chewing on something. Taking a closer look, it was the right arm of that Saint-rank assassin nicknamed Hellfire....


    After sacrificing his own limbs to feed those frenzied nts, the great assassin Hellfire finally got into proximity to the Mage. However, what met the cruel smile of the assassin wasn¡¯t a panicking rookie Mage, but an insane demoness who grinned even more happily.


    ¡°You¡¯re the 76th assassin who thought that I was an idiot at closebat. How do you think your predecessors fared?¡±


    The will of a Saint-rank assassin was unfaltering. Even though he vaguely felt that something was amiss, the words of the other party was unable to affect his mind. He immediately stopped on the spot and executed his movement technique, creating a series of mirror images that surrounded Amelia on all sides.


    However, all the female Mage did was take a deep breath and drop her mboyant sapphire staff. Ignoring all of the mirror images around her, she sent a punch towards her rear.


    Boom!


    Amelia wasn¡¯t as weak as she seemed on the surface. Just the wind pressure from the fearsomely forceful punch created a deep gash in the ground. Even though Hellfire reacted in time, he was still hit by it. He instantly kneeled on the ground and threw up blood.


    Pah!


    Wearing the ruby bracelet, Amelia flung her hand lightly. Apanied by a shout of agony, a massive crater formed around him. Hellfire was lodged into granite. At this moment, all of the air within his body was forced out of him.


    Perhaps a bystander might think this some kind of gravity magic. However, I knew that this was just a simple swing of her hands, and what had pushed the assassin into the ground was just the wind pressure generated by her palm.


    ¡°You really can¡¯t offend a Mage with 42 points in Strength. Even more so, a gically-modified human whose eyes have the ability of True Sight cannot be offended. After all, she had to possess an incredible amount of strength for her to still be alive after messing around so much.¡±


    At this moment, Amelia stroked her hair and her peculiar silver irises hid their radiance. Her lips were moving, as though she was muttering something.


    Long, light-green hair fluttered along with the wind; a youngdy recited a poem. Just by her outward appearance, Amelia carried the aura of an academic.


    However, I couldn¡¯t be fooled because I could tell what the other party was speaking through lip-reading.


    ¡°Darling, it¡¯s time to eat. It¡¯s a feast this time.¡±


    The next moment, the smooth, light-green hair came to life. Her countless strands of hair extended with the tug of the wind before transforming into blood-red thorns. After the tip of those thorns opened a massive dragon-like mouth, when the assassin who was being chewed on was screaming in agony, I knew that the remaining images were rated Mature 18+.


    ¡°Temperance, huh? Truly a monster with ack of any sort of temperance. Perhaps the reason why she named it Temperance was so that this monster wouldn¡¯t eat too much and affect her figure.¡±


    Senior¡¯s research direction was simr to mine. The information and results of our research could be traded, but the method which it showcased itself waspletely different.


    In a certain sense, I was integrating Biology, Modern Medical Studies, and Necromancy for my Undead Creation. Naturally, what I was creating were other powerful Undead.


    On the other hand, as a master of Biology, what Amelia studied was life itself. How could she possibly give up on the physical body that she was the most familiar with and understood the most, her own?


    It was likely that she was unable to remember how many times she had modified her body. Even when I first met her, she had already said that she was more like a nt than an animal.


    In fact, two of her Seven Benevolent Virtues, ¡°Abstinence¡± and ¡°Diligence¡± were part of her body, nts that shared life with her. Their existence and growth made Amelia stronger.


    Amelia¡¯sbined total of 42 Strength after enhancement by her equipment was something that had already exceeded the limits of ordinary life-forms. I had never heard of a single race that had Strength exceeding 40. Perhaps even the Titans couldn¡¯t to match up to her. Her bloodline was already something that was unable to be evaluated. From her very core, she was a being that exceededmon sense.


    Of course, given how her ability to cause trouble was in no way inferior to mine, it was impossible for her to live until now without capabilities of her own. As far as I knew, her regenerative abilities and unkible qualities were in no way inferior to mine.


    After that group of assassins had beenpletely cleaned away, I felt a little regretful. I wasn¡¯t in the midst ofpleting a mission now, and the Saint-rank assassin which senior killed didn¡¯t allocate me any Fate Points at all.


    ¡°Why are you looking at me like that? I amcking high-quality fertilizers at the moment. Even if you begged me, I wouldn¡¯t share any of it with you.¡±


    Her guarded gaze was really depressing. Ever since that unpleasant chat back then, Amelia seemed to be even more on guard against me.


    ¡°Later, I will pass you a third of the blood and flesh of an Elemental Descendant possessing the ability of ¡®Temporary Elemental Concealment.¡¯ However, I will keep the the soul and skeleton of that fellow, I have some uses for it.¡±


    ¡°...Such rare material. Your luck sure is good for you to always meet these kinds of unique existences. However, you seem to lose out in this deal. Are you scheming something?¡±


    That wary gaze sure did break my heart. I shook my head. I knew that if I didn¡¯t provide some reason, she, who was already agitated, wouldn¡¯t feel at ease.... Speaking of which, making that incredible senior of mine so wary, should I be proud of it?


    ¡°Since someone wants our head, we must naturally repay the favor. However, my strength iscking at the moment, so senior, help me.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a small matter. There is always ack of fertilizer and experimental subjects. Deal!¡±


    By this time, having received news of an assassination attempt on me, Xueti and the others had rushed to the scene. However, upon realizing that there wasn¡¯t anywhere for them to interfere in, they became onlookers.


    ¡°Exactly which side is the antagonist? Why do I get a feeling that our side is the evil boss who intends to destroy the world whereas the ones facing us are courageous heroes challenging the evil?¡±


    ¡°Agreed.¡±


    ¡°Seconded!¡±


    Alright, upon hearing the discussion of thete rescue army, I was taken aback for a moment before chuckling.


    ¡°Looks like the days of living together with old friends like Amelia and Harloys has made me younger and livelier. However, this doesn¡¯t seem to be a bad thing. Of course, to my enemies, it was bad news.¡±


    After enjoying such a long, peaceful life in Liu Huang Mountain City, I had clearly toned down. Perhaps this was something good for those around me.


    However, considering the cruel future we were about to face, a scheming Yongye who utilized everything in his grasp to achieve his means was clearly much more effective than a righteous Holy Knight. I had also never intended to sit still as Doomsday befell us.


    ¡°Wish to destroy an evil and cunning opponent? Then, you have to be even more unscrupulous and frenzied than him.¡±


    To my opponents, a scheming, lunatic avenger who was willing to cut away his limbs at crucial times posed the greatest threat. Also, I wasn¡¯t a moral ablutomaniac* who was was reluctant to dirty his own hands.


    ¡°Senior, Harloys and I... This is perhaps the most interesting (dangerous, frenzied) group of researchers in the entire world. Maybe we can create something interesting together.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    It was the annual Hunting Festival once more. The Beastmen Tribes were gathered around the Orisen Mountainous Range. Upon receiving the support of the Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan, the Blood Axe Tribe had be the most powerful tribe of the lot. Its leader, Eron Bloodaxe, had be the Great Chieftain of the new alliance of the tribes.


    Perhaps a familiar title might be much more appropriate for him, Beastman Sovereign. However, for him to don this crown stably upon his head, he had to win the uing war first.


    At this moment, the Chieftains from the various tribes were discussing their future military ns. Rather, arguing would be a much better phrase.


    ¡°I object! The first snowfall is just around the corner, andunching an offensive at this moment is suicidal.¡±


    The Centaurs around the mountainous region were usually slightly slimmer and agiler than their brethren living in the Underground World and the Elven kingdoms.


    However, the Chieftain of Kaerci Tribe, Haer, was an exception. With a height of three meters, he wore a massive halberd on his back. He was well-known for his unparalleled brute strength among the Hignds Beastmen.


    ¡°I object to it as well. Sleuweir Kingdom and Karsomi Communal Country have fortresses blocking the entrances to the hignds. By attacking them in winter, we would suffer overwhelming and additional losses. I don¡¯t fear sacrifice, and I understand that war demands sacrifice. However, I am unwilling to have my sisters be meaningless pawns of war.¡±


    Kam was the Chieftain of the Blue-feathered Harpy Shamanic Tribe, as well as the most famous witch in the hignds. She held in high esteem across the entire mountainous range and her opinion was acknowledged by many other Chieftains.


    Forcefully invading a well-defended human fortress in winter wasn¡¯t a good idea, no matter how one looked at it. The Blood Axe Tribe¡¯s obstinacy finally resulted in an outburst of resentment by the various Chieftains. If this matter wasn¡¯t settled properly, the alliance would likely fall apart.


    The Chieftain of the Blood Axe Tribe, Eron Bloodaxe, was a towering Eagleman. Their tribe was known for their Lightning Eagle Riders but Eron himself wasn¡¯t that well-known. On the contrary, those who knew him thought of his capabilities as merely average. At this moment, challenged by the various other Chieftains, Eron only knew to scratch his head in frustration, unable to find an answer to their questions. It was clear that he was at his wits¡¯ end.


    ¡°... I¡¯m returning.¡±


    The Chieftain of the Bearman Tribe, Ronde, was known to be reticent as well as stubborn. He would definitely bring his men back now that he had also spoken of it.


    Finally, after making up his mind, Eron decided to speak of his n. However, before he could start talking, a hoarse voice echoed from beyond the doors.


    ¡°Chieftains of the various tribes, allow me to introduce myself. I am Daimon Riley, the representative of your alliance army.¡±


    The one who had entered inconspicuously was a short Ratman. Their kind usually lived in the sewers of the cities. Even though they were known to be cunning and difficult to deal with, they were sidelined by the Beastmen who valued strength.


    However, even though the tent was packed with experts, no one dared underestimate this short Ratman. Other than the fact that he was able to silently enter this tent, his scales and the horn on his face reflected his identity.


    ¡°A Hellbreed? Are you of the Demons or the Devils?¡±


    There was also an entrance to the Chaos Abyss in the Northern Lands. Beastmen weren¡¯t strangers to the dwellers of the Underworld. However, there wasn¡¯t a single sapient tribe that bore goodwill for these two races.


    ¡°My identity matters not. What is important is that I can help you. With the assistance of the Earth Elemental God, the geographic obstruction your army faces isn¡¯t a problem from the very start. There is no need for you to besiege those two fortresses at all.


    Daimon walked to the map and casually pointed out a path. It was an inconceivable path crossing over numerous steep mountain ranges and cliffs, straight to the core of the human world.


    ¡°As for the gelidity of winter, I bring you all good news. With the assistance of the Will of the Chaos Abyss, the Inferno Marquess has promised to grant you all the Blessings of mes, allowing you all to remain unhindered by the cold gale of winter.¡±


    The various Chieftains stared at one another, unable to fully grasp the situation.


    ¡°Inferno Marquess? The Inferno Dimension is a part of the Chaos Abyss, so that Marquess should be a Demon Lord. I am slightly knowledgeable in Demonology, but I have never heard of the great name of the lord. Could she be a new Demon Lord who has emerged in the past few hundred years?


    ¡°Haha!¡± Daimonughed gleefully.


    ¡°No wonder you haven¡¯t ever heard of the name of that lord. That lord had only returned to the Chaos Abyssst year and she was instantly promoted to the position of Demon Marquess. This bears testimony to her strength. Furthermore, she is granted the noble title of ¡®The Devourer,¡¯ and it is precisely due to the fact that she has devoured the God Power of the Fire Elemental God that she is able to grant you all the Blessings of the me.¡±


    Upon hearing those words, the crowd was delighted. On the other hand, upon seeing that there was hope in aplishing his mission, Daimon¡¯s gleeful grin widened.


    ¡°Look, this is a keepsake from that lord.¡±


    It was a silver-ted bronze ring, with mes circling the ring slowly like some sort of decorative pattern.


    ¡°Lord Elisa! Please grant me your blessings.¡±


    The Hellbreed Ratman Daimon raised the magic ring up high and the strength of the Demon started to creep forth, summoning the will of a superior existence through an artifact.


    ¡°Who is the one summoning me! Who dares interrupt my beauty sleep! Hm? So it was an ugly Ratman! Die!¡±


    The consequences of enraging a Demon Lord were severe, and it was even worse when a female Demon Lord was roused by a hideous man. In an instant, the mes of the Demon shrouded the summoner.


    ¡°Lord!! Please spare me, I am inno... AHHHH!¡±


    Alright, the words of an unfortunate fellow who had already been reduced to ashes didn¡¯t hold any power. Looking at the magic ring that fell to the ground, everyone was taken aback.


    What kind of show was ying? To think that the intermediary would be destroyed by the mastermind all of a sudden? How can the negotiations go on after that?


    They had heard that the Demons were irrational and illogical, and they had just had the honor of witnessing it first-hand. However, what were they supposed to do next? Return to their tribes?


    ¡°Chieftain Ven, you are well-known for being suave among the Beastmen and your social skills are good. Why don¡¯t you trymunicating with that Marquess?¡±


    Instantaneously, theplexion of the Werefox Chieftain whom Eron had pointed out paled. The Ratman intermediary had died right in front of them. How could he possibly dare to step forth at such a point?


    However, the Werefox weren¡¯t reputed as the sages of the Beastmen for nothing. He immediately found a solution to the problem.


    ¡°You have already heard it as well. This Daimon here was sentenced to death for interrupting the Marquess¡¯s sleep. Thus, we just have tomunicate with her after her nap. Yeah, regardless of the time difference between the Chaos Abyss and the Surface, eight hours should be safe.¡±


    Alright, this was clearly an attempt to drag things out, but this conclusion was something everyone could ept. Thus, they heaved a sigh of relief.


    On the other hand, I, who was far away in another country, received a message from the silver ring on my hand.


    ¡°The Beastmen intend to circumvent the geographic limitations of the Hignds and directly assault Sleuweir in the midst of winter?¡±


    *ED Note: An ablutomaniac (a word that technically doesn¡¯t exist) would describe a person with ablutomania, that is, obsession with bathing and washing.


    TL Note:


    ¡°A swordsman of Zhao wears a in helmet, his curved de bright as rime.¡±ÏÀ¿ÍÐÐ (Song of the Cavalier)The poem was by Li Bai, an extremely famous poet in China. It has inspired many works afterwards, a noteworthy one being a novel called Ode to Gantry by Jin Yong, a famous wuxia writer.The poem is incredible in the sense that you can really picture the sight of an awe-inspiring swordsman ughtering his enemies before flinging his sleeves and leaving gantly. (Kind of)However, due to the limitations of my trantion, I shall not embarrass myself by tranting all of it. [ED: It¡¯s OK, Starve. I helped you!]

 Chapter 144

    Chapter 144: Chaotic Situation


    In a blizzard before dawn, the dense congregation of the Beastmen army packed their items, donned their tattered temail, and began their journey.


    Massive Behemoths used their footsteps to awaken the sleeping hignds. Amidst the drumbeats, Wolf Knights began traversing the darkness while the aerial units who had just returned from their hunt carried the heads of human spies with them.... What that was just described was impossible!


    ording to the original n, the Beastman army should have set off long ago. However, a small ¡°ident¡± urred.


    ¡°Scram! What I want is top-quality cosmetics from Yadosven! Do you think that you can fool me with these inferior products? Do you believe I won¡¯t burn your entire basecamp?¡±


    ¡°Lord, please don¡¯t be angry! This is the top-quality Elven Springwater. It has the ability of restoring youth and vitality. It is definitely much better than those inferior man-made alchemy products!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t care! If you want my assistance, you have to fulfill to my requests!¡±


    The Dimensional Window leading to the Chaos Abyss closed and the mes on the magic ring dissipated. The will of the Demon Marchioness had already retreated. Looking at the pile of ashes on the ground, Witch Kam shook her head helplessly. She slowly ced the magic ring down and left the tent.


    Upon stepping out of the tent, she saw countless faces waiting outside. They were all influential figures from the various tribes. Their worried looks were reminiscent of examinees waiting for the release of their results. Based on the frowns on their faces, it seemed that most of them didn¡¯t hold out much hope in the results.


    When the witch lightly shook her head in response to the gazes of the various Chieftains, she received a wave of helpless sighs.


    ¡°She is too difficult to deal with. The previous time, she said that the war songs of the Beastmen were too noisy, so she wanted us to find something more soothing. Thus, we found Sparrow Shaman singers and wandering poets for her. Even though the coboration of the two had produced a piece of melodious Soulsong, that Demon said that it was a countryside folksong and they were off-key. This infuriated the proud Soulsingers to the point they almost charged to the door leading to the Chaos Abyss to teach her a lesson. I had to expend great effort before managing to appease them.¡±


    ¡°That is nothing. What that happened two days ago was even worse. She actually said that she wanted to eat the Red Jadefruit, a fruit unique to the west of the continent. When I told her that there was none of it here, she almost killed me. And that ¡®Don¡¯t you all have Dragon Knights? You should be able to get them if you tire a few of them to death. At the very least, I didn¡¯t make you all buy lychee.¡¯ What the hell is lychee?¡±


    ¡°More than thirty attendants have died waking her from her sleep. There is already a rumor going about that we are feeding a powerful Ogre with our attendants.... Alright, not mentioning how this affects the moral of the troops, the amount of food our army consumes everyday isn¡¯t a small sum. Are we supposed to continue stalling the matter like this?¡±


    ¡°Forget it. Even without the Fire God¡¯s Blessing, it shouldn¡¯t be a problem conducting a sudden attack and taking down two cities to tide us through the winter with the assistance of the Earth Elemental God. At the very least, it would be much better than idling here like this. Yesterday, another thirty tribes chose to depart from the alliance.¡±


    Women were difficult to deal with, even more so for Demonesses. In the past half a month, the Chieftains had already had enough of the endless demands from Elisa. Beastmen had their own pride as well, and the movement to go on with the invasion without her was gaining momentum.


    As one of the few people who were able to converse with Marchioness Elisa, Kam naturally became the middlewoman for them. During this period of time, the other Chieftains viewed her highly. However, as time passed, she became an outlet for the frustrations of both sides, causing resentment to rue in her.


    ¡°We can¡¯t wait anymore. Who knows what she wille up with tomorrow? The first snow is rapidly approaching, and by then, it will be toote.¡±


    ¡°Sigh. I¡¯d already heard that the Demon Lords were fickle-minded and did everything based on their own interests. This time, I¡¯ve had the honor of witnessing it first-hand.¡±


    ¡°Shhh, this is a Marquis-level Demoness who conquered an entire Dimension by herself. She is an existence equivalent to a true God, so it is understandable that she would be slightly haughty. She has an eternity before her to y with us, but we can¡¯t afford to go along with her.¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t wait any longer, let¡¯s just throw in our chips tomorrow...¡±


    While the Beastmen Chieftains were getting frustrated and infuriated over the Demon Lord, they couldn¡¯t have possibly guessed that the difficult Demon Lord they were talking about was currently speaking impassionately with their greatest opponent. Furthermore, her tone wasn¡¯t the irritable and impatient one that she spoke to them with.


    ¡°... They are probably getting impatient. Even without the Fire God¡¯s Blessing, they will probably go it alone.¡±


    ¡°Stalling them for half a month? That¡¯s already quite an incredible feat. Is the pressure from the Chaos Abyss piling up? Are the other Demon Lordsining about it?¡±


    ¡°The Demons wouldn¡¯t bother about such insignificant figures. It is the will of the Chaos Abyss to allow the Power of Elements to wreak havoc in the Main Dimension. It doesn¡¯t care about the Beastmen¡¯s sess. It is sufficient as long as the Power of Elements causes the Elemental Tide to rise.¡±


    At this point, Elisa paused.


    ¡°There seem to be some other intentions behind this invasion. Most probably, there are intermediaries from other Demon Nobles in the camp. There are many Great Demons who intend to utilize this opportunity to please the Will of the Chaos Abyss. As long as I continue to refuse to grant them the blessing, others will probably take my ce.¡±


    ¡°Just grant them it then. Grant them the blessings when they show all of their cards to you.¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    This was different from what we had discussed previously. A Beastmen army who did not fear the cold would be a difficult enemy to fight against, but I had other ideas.


    ¡°It would be problematic for us to deal with them if they were granted theplete Fire God¡¯s Blessing. However, if something were to happen midway through and the blessing didn¡¯t possess the effects they had expected, no one would be able to me you.... You get it.¡±


    ¡°You are evil, as always. Right, have you been phndering recently? If so, be careful of my sudden assaults.¡±


    After dealing with the official matters, all that was left was our daily small talk. Honestly, I, who had been single all along, wouldn¡¯t know how to face Elisa if she had remained by my side. Rather, making small talk like this as we usually did felt morefortable to me.


    ¡°How could I? If only I had such luck. You don¡¯t know how entric Beifeng andpany have been recently. The more Gentlemen there are, the more difficult to keep them in check...¡±


    Furthermore, I didn¡¯t even know how I felt towards her.


    Lovers? Partners? An adopted daughter felt much stable than the previous two rtionships. At the very least, I knew whenever I recalled that familiar silver hair and the features on her face, that rare hint of warmth and sweetness I felt was nostalgia for my family rather than love between a couple.


    ¡°I understand that Elisa had forked out a lot, and I know what she intends to achieve by doing so. However, whenever I try to view her as my lover, I somehow recall her voice and features when she was six or seven. I am not a beast, so how could I possiblyy my hands on her? Maybe it¡¯s because she is too important to me. That¡¯s why hesitation halts me.


    ¡°Sigh, the more I think about it, the moreplicated it gets. Forget it, I will stop mulling over it. After all, I have never been able to make sense of it, and it is unlikely that I can in the future anyway. So let me just muddle my way through this.¡±


    I knew that this was an irresponsible attitude simr to a cowardly ostrich. But my past experience had proven that settling the matter by burying my head in the sand was effective, even though awkward.


    After all, not everyone could live as long as I could. As long as I was able to drag on until the other party¡¯s death, their emotions wouldn¡¯t matter anymore.


    ¡°However, even if I wanted to be phndering trash, I have to at least be in a position to do so. In my first life, I died too early. In my second life, just when I had barely dug out something, I triggered a war and died pathetically. In my third life, for the sake of vengeance, I turned myself into a Lich.... Sometimes, looking at the couples who appear during Valentine¡¯s Day, I feel like I have lost. I can¡¯t help but to shout the FFF slogan and throw a Fireball at them.¡±


    However, I would sometimes ponder the possibilities that could have urred if I hadn¡¯t pursued strength vindictively. Perhaps I might had already found a suitable candidate to start a real family with, and at this moment, my children and grandchildren could have been surrounding me. At the very least, my adopted daughter (depending) wouldn¡¯t pity me and ridiculously develop a crush on me when I was already more than three hundred years old. However, most baffling was my descendants appearing when I hadn¡¯t even settled my romance.


    Perhaps it was precisely because of Elisa¡¯s deep understanding of me that she yed these little tricks, leaving me with no way to reject her at all. Somehow, I ended up falling into a deep emotional debt, resulting in the current state of affairs.


    ¡°She didn¡¯t say so, but the Chaos Abyss can¡¯t possibly be afortable ce to live in. Demons are the incarnations of Chaos and the Demons below often revolt. Demons of the same tier often devour one another to evolve, and as such, battles are never ending. Maybe, from the moment she stepped into the Chaos Abyss, her fight had never stopped. It is truly difficult for her.


    ¡°However, Elisa¡¯s help is something I cannot do without. It is useful to have a spy amidst the higher echelons of the Chaos Faction. Just a single piece of news at a crucial moment can serve as the determining factor in a war. If we were attacked without any prior notice, we might have ended up losing the initiative right from the start. By dying them for half a month, we managed to reverse the situation.... Seems like I am sinking deeper into debt. There is no way I can repay it anymore.¡±


    After ending our conversation, I heaved a sigh of relief. Putting aside the emotional debt I owed her, the invasion of the Beastman army was quite troublesome to deal with.


    The one to face the brunt of the first wave would be Sleuweir Kingdom. I hadplicated emotions about this country.


    They proim themselves as the true heirs of the Mist. I had manyments just on this itself.


    After all, in my generation, Karwenz and I were the only remaining royalty of the Mist Country. If that darned father of mine hadn¡¯t left behind an illegitimate son, Karwenz and I would have been the only remaining main bloodline. Due to Karwenz¡¯s horrendous reputation, Reyne could only call herself my descendant even though it wasn¡¯t spoken of explicitly.


    History is history. However, since they acknowledged themselves as the descendants of the Mist Country, this made the situation interesting.


    If the final remaining prince and the sacred sword that represented the royal authority of the Mist Country returned, then shouldn¡¯t Sleuweir Kingdom, who had proimed their royalty to be of the Mist bloodline,e under themand of Mist¡¯s emperor? If so, didn¡¯t that mean that Pavill the 3rd would have to hand over his crown and be satisfied with the position of an ordinary fief lord?


    Of course, everyone knew that it was impossible for that to happen. However, if I really brought the Rnd Sacred Sword to their capital and demanded him do so, no one could know for sure what would happen. At the very least, ever since the rise of East Mist and the return of Rnd and his knights, the Mist citizens migrating from Sleuweir had never stopped.


    As a result, they made a decision, and what was presented before me was a ¡°gift¡± of theirs to greet their ancestor.


    ¡°Sigh. On one hand, they proim themselves to be the true Mist bloodline, while on the other, they send a bunch of assassins to get rid of me? What filial descendants I have.¡±

 Chapter 145

    Chapter 145: Torch Festival


    Hatedum. In thenguage of the ancient civilization, it meant ¡®Sage¡¯.


    In the ancient times, it was the name of a civilization which dominated an era. It branched off from the Ancient Humans, but from a certain point onward, it somehow became the main branch instead.


    ¡°Colossus Civilization,¡± ¡°The Miraculous Era of Gears and Steam Engines,¡± ¡°The Inconceivable Society Where Everyone is a Wise Man.¡± There were countless other names and glorious titles for them. In that era in the distant past, they and their creations were oncemonce around the world.


    As the most advanced society then, they dominated the entire world. Massive floating inds and towers amid the clouds unveiled the secrets of the sky. A giant barrier erected on Ind Turtle became a underwater city and colossal Titan Magic Statues were the guardians of their home. Even the Dragons had to remain humble before their wisdom and strength.


    Even today, traces of the race could be seen, be it the Floating Ind of the ckwings, the Air Fleet of And Empire, or the Colossus Legion of the Solo Federation.


    Modern engineering and alchemy originated from it, and the ruins of Hatedum were fought over by all countries. After all, it was hard to say if a new discovery found in the ruins could be awakened from its dormancy to be an integral part of a revolution.


    During their peak, they even dared to debate about truth and reality with the Gods. How such a powerful civilization abruptly ceased to be was always a mystery of history. Research papers on the civilization were written in various countries, but when it came to their history and the reason for their extinction, it simply wasn¡¯t clear.


    ¡°Was it a cmity? Or an invasion by aliens? Ice Aeon struck once more? A catastrophic gue? An update patch? It was none of them. The truth is actually quite simple, they had stepped on the line!¡±


    To some existences, Hatedum¡¯s destruction wasn¡¯t a secret. On the contrary, it was warning to them, telling them that there were some things that could be done, and there were some things that one shouldn¡¯t even think of.


    ¡°Perhaps, you might be a powerful as the Gods, but please, by no means step into the realm of the Gods. At the very least, do not allow those fellows above you to see it.¡±


    Hatedum was destroyed due to a God Punishment, and this wasn¡¯t any incredible secret. At Cape Glyte, the entrance to the Spiral Empyrean Tower, there was a glyph inscribed in ancient words with the greatest crime of this race.


    ¡°Life Creation, man-made souls, racial immortality.¡±


    These were the three greatest taboos that the Gods didn¡¯t allow anyone tomit. The proud Hatedumers had indeed trespassed into the domain of the creators. As a result, they had received divine retribution.


    However, this was only on the surface. ¡°An endless proliferation of their race would have exhausted this world of all its resources.¡± But to those who were aware of the situation, they only had one crime.


    ¡°They managed to bypass Reincarnation.¡±


    When the death rate fell significantly and no new souls crossed the River Styx and entered the Heavenly Pir, when Life Creation and man-made souls were able to create their own brethren, the original system of reincarnation was broken.


    Without a doubt, they had crossed the line for the two sleeping Goddesses with such an act. As such, a God Punishment fell upon them and they went extinct. Everything was that simple.


    In order to prevent others from uncovering such techniques once more, the ck glyph outside the Empyrean Tower constantly reminded mortal experts they should never touch such techniques.


    Thus, even if someone discovered the route to immortality, they dared not utilize it to mass produce immortals. As for the second use of the Three Great Crimes, man-made souls, the technology for it had already been lost for countless years.


    Of course, if there was oppression, there would naturally be those who fought back. The more the Gods tried to suppress the mortals, the more people tried to fight back and trespass the barriers they set.


    The Holy Church had used the notion of heresy to sentence many people to death, and in reality, there were also numerous cases of heresy. The more forbidden something was, the easier one would grow curious of it. Throughout the years, the number of alchemists who were burned at the stake for challenging Life Alchemy was uncountable. Furthermore, some of them were part of the core of the Church. After all, the sweet fruit of immortality was difficult to resist.


    The previous lunatic who neared the barrier was probably me. However, unlike my other predecessors who sought immortality, my goal was slightly different, causing my means to differ from theirs as well.


    ¡°When eternal night descends, all living will disappear from history. From then on, the Undead shallst forever!¡±


    If a Country of Dead were to be established and all living beings were converted into Undead, then reincarnation would be a joke. In another sense, the world would be saved from its doom.


    Whenever I recalled the grade-schooler like words of mine, that embarrassing dark history would y in my mind. I couldn¡¯t help feeling relieved about my decision to halt it abruptly back then. If a Country of Death were established, I would probably be destroyed by a God Punishment the next moment.


    After which, Ayer had also personally verified my conjectures. It would be impossible for the Gods to look on as a world belonging to the Undead became established.


    However, there was a good reason why people still chose to fight back against the oppression of the Gods even so. Those three technologies contained great potential. I had been researching it all along and had achieved a certain level of results with them.


    However, I am not so foolish as to disy my works before the Gods and incur their wrath. Alright, I admit that the Seven Deadly Sins had already touched on the sensitive nerves of certain existences, but they also heaved a sigh of relief when they realized that I had no intent of mass producing them.


    Most likely, I am already on their list of individuals to be wary of. If I had not started from the creation of powerful beings and instead, like some other Undead Lords, choose to achieve racial immortality, those up in the heavens would probably havee after me long ago.


    Of course, I wasn¡¯t the only heretic. While I am highly talented in the study of souls and Undead Creation, Amelia¡¯s Life Creation field was a direct challenge to the authority and dignity of the Gods of Creation. It was a simple feat for her creations to achieve immortality.... If not for her cloaking the results of her study through nts and subconsciously circumventing the study of souls, she wouldn¡¯t have been left out when the others underwent God Punishment.


    However, there were some things that were beyond the control of Gods. For example, not all of Hatedumers died back then.


    Yes, there were still remnants of them, and they numbered more than one.


    In that ¡°history,¡± if Olivia has solved the greatest bottleneck regarding the energy core, the most outstanding creation of Timmy Lade, then the ¡°Master of Magic Engineering¡± Timmy Lade, one of the future founders of the Magic Engineering field, was a control system that allowed ordinary humans to wield supernatural abilities easily.


    In theory, an ordinary human who had never undergone specialized training could never wield supernatural abilities. Thus, he gave the magic-engineered gears an independent soul such that they were able to manipte the Power of Elements by themselves. All that the Warrior wielding it had to do was pass down orders to it.


    If Olivia had given magic-engineered gears blood and nutrients for them to operate, what Timmy Lade granted it was a new soul.


    However, quite a few people had noticed it even though he went in a roundabout manner in an attempt to camouge the technology. His research was taboo from the very start. He had infringed the taboo of man-made souls!


    When I learned of Timmy Lade¡¯s achievements, I was surprised as well.


    After all, I am quite well-versed in the field of man-made souls as well. Any research rting to souls was extraordinarily difficult, and in order to achieve results, the researcher would probably have to abandon him humanity and conscience. After all, it wasn¡¯t possible for them to remain moral given the experimental materials they required for their research.


    I had spent several centuries with countless experimental mat¨¦riel before me, and yet, my research was still stuck in the phase of stitching together old souls through extreme emotions to create powerful but twisted warrior souls. On the other hand, he managed to reach the level of mass production of man-made souls. The difference in the level of our technology was truly massive.


    I had the advantage in terms of the creations¡¯ individual prowess, but it was a clear loss in the theoretical and technical aspects. Such results made the usually haughty me surprised.


    ¡°Could that snotty brat really be that much of a genius? Could he have skipped past the stage of knowledge and data umtion? Or, just like Olivia, that shocking invention of his originated from a coincidental miracle?¡±


    Thus, I paid more attention to little Timmy Lade and heaped high expectations onto him.


    Eventually, I realized that I was wrong from the very start. There were some things that could be exined by coincidence and talents.


    ¡°1897 AD, the summer of the Year of the Griffin, on the seventh day of the seventh month... At least it was still summer in And Empire. The weather in the Northern Lands was gradually growing colder and it seemed like it was about to snow.¡±


    In the children¡¯s coloring book, an oddly mature handwriting could be seen. However, the words written werepletely different from the currentnguages existing in the world. The words written resembled numbers ovepping one another.


    If one looked at the pictures on top of the words, he would conclude that those weren¡¯t words but a series of pictures stacked over one another without any logical pattern among them. There were triangles, circles and twisted numerical digits. Perhaps to some, it was no more than a nonsensical abstract drawing, but to Timmy Lade, they were just some words he used usually¡ªthe Hatedum Language.


    ¡°Big Sister Dana has been quite happy recently. It seems like her work is going well. The students in the school respect her greatly and a smile has been on her face recently.... Yeah, Big Sister¡¯s smile has nothing to do with those male cats in heat surrounding her. On the contrary, she must be really annoyed by those flies buzzing around her. Looks like I have to find an opportunity to teach those despicableds clinging onto her a lesson.¡±


    From a certain sense, the reason why this Miss Dana hadn¡¯t been married yet was truly due to her little brother serving as baggage. However, he was holding her back in a way different from what she expected.


    ¡°Those toys of the Goblins aren¡¯t mature yet, but they provided me with quite a bit of inspiration. I should be able toplete XT-2 by next week. Let¡¯s start by sacrificing the son of the boss of the bread shop to it first. Hmph, to dare to cling to Lord Big Sister like that, even gifting her flowers yesterday!¡±


    Upon recalling the bright smile on his elder sister¡¯s face when she epted those flowers, Timmy Lade¡¯s rage flurried.


    In certain aspects, the young Timmy Lade was much more mature than others expected him to be. However, in others, he was like an ordinary orphan who had lost his parents, holding great attachment and fondness to his elder sister who brought him up. This wasn¡¯t hard toprehend and it waspletely normal.... Alright, I understand that this wasn¡¯t normal in any way, but I am just trying to convince myself that there were normal people by my side. Couldn¡¯t you all just go along with it for once?


    Timmy Lade, Haku Evon the 17th. The former was the name everyone knew him as in this life whereas thetter was the name of an ancient soul.


    When the God Punishment descended, the Hatedum met with its end. However, a master of man-made souls was unable to simply ept death like that. He wished to use his own knowledge and strength to avoid the unavoidable destruction. He wished to pass down the heritage of his civilization.


    ¡°A person¡¯s personality is simply forged by a soul with memories. Since souls return back to the world in the form of reincarnation, if I inscribed my memories onto a brand new soul, wouldn¡¯t that be equal to resurrection?¡±


    In a certain sense, Master Haku seeded. Every time his soul underwent reincarnation, along with the growth of his soul, a certain apparatus would be activated and his soul would regain the memories of his previous life.


    However, from a different point of view, he failed miserably.


    Once a person entered the path of reincarnation, he could be considered dead. A new soul meant a new life. Even if the soul had acquired the memories of its past, it would only be able to view it in a third person perspective, as though looking through someone else¡¯s life.


    He had already seeded in reincarnating 17 times, but unfortunately, with the exception of the memories of his first life, which had been stored over and over again, the memories from his other sixteen lives had been washed clean by the River Styx and whatever remained of them were negligible. He was still the same shut-in who isted himself in the researchb


    He was unable to remember how many times he had reincarnated. Even more so, he was unable to remember clearly whether he was the reincarnation of that legendary sage. All he knew was that the memory transfer system had detected souls identical to his and activated sixteen times.


    Alright, since that was the case, the reason why that little adult was able to mature so quickly could be understood. The reason why he was able to createplete man-made souls was because of his previous inheritance.


    In a certain sense, Timmy Lade was the true protagonist of the currently popr ¡°transported to another world¡± novels. Putting aside the fact that he had a mobile ¡°grandfather¡± he brought about alongside him, his parents had died and he had an elder sister whom he was mutually dependent on. Furthermore, he was destined to achieve greatness.... Alright, at the very least, the current little Timmy Lade wouldn¡¯t think too much into it. He was only a child who matured earlier than others, and in order to protect his beloved elder sister, he was currently putting all of his efforts into designing the machine known as XT-2 so as to destroy those pesky flies.


    ¡°Life has been fulfilling and it is good that big sister is happy. Even so, war ising. Yet, this city remains so peaceful. Does everyone really have that much confidence in Rnd?¡±


    Thinking of the man who always wore a smile on his face, Timmy Lade couldn¡¯t help shivering with the jitters. His Race Talent ¡°Ultimate Eyes of Wisdom¡± allowed him to see through all disguises to peer into the true nature of a person.


    That day, when he first opened the door and saw Rnd, he was almost scared to death.


    ¡°Too fearsome. Life and death exists simultaneously in a single person. To think that Chaos and Order could be fused together to form a single bloodline, his physical body is truly ridiculous. His soul is even more so.¡±


    Remembering the apparition of the ck skeleton, Timmy Lade shuddered.


    ¡°Countless obsessed and demented soul fragments pieced together to form a normal one, and the might I feel from the ck skeleton obviously points him as the legendary Emperor Yongye. Yet, this kind of ultimate incarnation of evil is actually the legendary hero of this country?¡±


    Back then, Timmy Lade was in one of thest carriages moving to the secret base. Yet, no one would have thought that little Timmy would be the first person to recognize Emperor Yongye.


    ¡°Sigh, I¡¯ll just see how it goes. At least life is not bad here. However, if war broke out... It is truly a wonder how they can be so self-confident. Is that Rnd so trustworthy?¡±


    Rnd, who was out for diplomatic affairs, had sent news back: ¡°The Beastmen army is about to begin their winter assault. The Sleuweir Kingdom is going to be invaded.¡± This news had already traveled through every single street and alley. Without a doubt, it would make the difficult winter even more unbearable.


    The Beastmen army invading in winter was something that was illogical and inconceivable. Furthermore, the notion proposed of them traversing across the difficult terrain tounch an attack was treated as a joke by many southern nobles. As such, Sleuweir thought that the envoy sent by the Mist Country was up to no good and evicted him from their borders. News of that had already spread.


    Yet, amidst countless criticisms, the Mist Country was still able to remain quite confident in their sovereign. This in itself was inconceivable.


    Even when everyone thought that the Beastmen army was going to invade next year, the citizens of Mist Country acted as though they were going to invade during winter and made preparations for battle as such.


    On the other hand, with the shadow of war looming right before them, while the East Mist military divisions were busy preparing for war, not only did the citizens not panic, they even continued carrying on with their lives leisurely, even conducting a festival today.


    ¡°Torch Festival? What a bizarre name.¡±


    Opening the windows, the city square was already filled with tourist groups. It was said that this was a traditional festival from the Liu Huang Mountain City of the Underground World. Every year, when the evening of this very day came, all young and single men and women would have to cover their features with a ck robe and carry war gs and metal chains marked with the FFF logo. They would prowl about the streets to hunt down their ¡°prey.¡±


    Yes, prey. The prey of these FFF members were the young ¡°couples¡± engaged in romantic actions in public!


    On this long night, all ck-robed FFF hunters would scavenge for loving couples and tie the man onto a burning stake.... Of course, they were only strolling around town. The FFF members and passersby could smash food on them to bless the couple, as well as to pray for a better harvest next year. Actually, carrying torches and touring around town was the same thing as a parade float procession; it was more of a cultural thing.


    It was said that this festival was created by Lord Wumianzhe. And the hunter who managed to hunt down the most prey would receive official prize money and a present. There was also an urban legend that the winning hunter would be proimed as the Love Hunter and he would soon capture his long-awaited love.


    On the other hand, there was also another urban legend saying that ¡°the couple who survives the attack of the FFF members to the very end will earn the blessings of the Goddess of Love. They will be together forever!¡±


    Of course, most of these legends were just hearsay. Of the fellows from Liu Huang Mountain City, the ¡°Love Hunter¡± from year to year were either be Adam or Wumianzhe himself, but they were still unable to rid themselves of their bachelorhood.


    However, the romantic legend of the blessing from the Goddess of Love still moved many of the youngdies¡¯ hearts. Many young guys also made use of this opportunity to muster their courage and pursue the one they loved.


    ¡°It is only a game. Perhaps we might even survive until the very end.... If we do survive until the very end, will you listen to my words? You don¡¯t have to answer me, I will be content with you just listening to how I feel!¡±


    Alright, the escapes were, indubitably, a method to win the other party¡¯s affection. Also, one was more likely to seed with one¡¯s confession when one confessed in the midst of chaos. Furthermore, if they did survive to the very end, they would very likely be a couple.


    In the end, a certain someone was extremely disappointed. Quoting from his words, ¡°How can so many couples appear right after such a sacred day of mes? Are the damned heavens really blind! Those heretics must be subjected to the judgement of the sacred mes! Eyesores everywhere! The next month, we will be conducting a cultural check of the city and all couples who disy their affection in public will be fined!¡±


    Alright, as usual, Wumianzhe¡¯s sudden outburst was suppressed by the Four Heavenly Kings and his external conscience (Elisa). However, this festival became celebrated by countless young men and women.


    With Princess Reyne¡¯s approval, this year¡¯s festival was even backed by Diffindor¡¯s officials, the scale significantlyrger.


    Little Timmy stared out from the windows. Arge amount of ck-robed figures were waving scythes and torches, preparing for the start of the hunt. On the other side of the square, countless men and women were holding hands with one another.


    ¡°Damned couples!¡±


    ¡°Snuggling together right in front me, look at how decadent our society has be!¡±


    There were some sentiments that didn¡¯t require many words to express. Looking at those blissful couples, regardless of gender or age, the new generation of FFF members lit the torches in their souls.


    ¡°Burn! Burn! Burn!¡±


    Without anyone leading them along, their rage exploded into a furious roar, trembling the heavens.


    Of course, there were also many people in there who added fuel to the fire.


    ¡°Look at how thezy Adam was able to win the affection of Magaret. This is the magic of the festival. If you¡¯re single, how don¡¯t you give it a try? You might even be able to win your future spouse.¡±


    This was the handwritten advertisement slogan by a certain prince. Under the board on which the slogan was written was a rental store by the Undead Knights under hismand.


    ¡°Renting torches, whips, stakes, scythes, nooses, and many othermonly used tools. It only costs 3 bronze coins for each equipment per day! Glue, inked eggs, and stink bombs cost a bronze coin each. In order to thank our beloved customers, as long as your purchases total more than 10 bronze coins in our store, we will gift you free FFF uniforms and gs! Long live the FFF army!¡±


    Looking at the agitated young men and women, Timmy Lade shook his head. This world seemed so far away to him.


    When he was about to shut the windows to focus on his research, he suddenly recalled something.


    ¡°Big Sister Dana should be off work early today, so why isn¡¯t she back yet? Could it be...¡±


    When a certain possibility struck his mind, the shocked Timmy Lade quickly took out a small gadget and checked it.


    It was a mini-GPS. At the current moment, the position of the bright dot was the city square before him!


    After a moment of silence, Timmy Lade walked over to the wardrobe which was taller than him and patted on it lightly. The wardrobe door immediately opened.


    It was a ck robe. The original use of the robe was for Timmy¡¯s choir sses. However, Timmy, who didn¡¯t like singing, hated the robe and had never worn it. At the current moment, the silent Timmy was finding the robe more and more pleasing to his eye.


    ¡°Yeah, you¡¯ll be it!¡±


    However, as he stared at the robe, he couldn¡¯t help thinking that something was amiss. After pondering for a moment, a thought struck him and he used a red marker to scribble on the back of the robe¡ªFFF!


    ¡°Hah, burn them all!¡±


    The childish sounding voice carried in its undertone the determination to kill. In the center of the room, countless machines came to life. The flickering green light in those man-made irises seemed to bear testimony to the young boy¡¯s ability to turn his words into reality.

 Chapter 146

    Chapter 146: War Breaks Out


    ¡¾Top Student¡¯s sses: These are ordinary silver-rimmed sses and wearing them will make you seem slightly smarter. Yeah, just slightly. Let me tell you, these are obviously ordinary sses that the top students use to blind theirpetitors!¡¿


    ¡¾Top Student¡¯s Decayed Teeth: ¡°Yes, it¡¯s these teeth. Wuuuuu, it¡¯s this one! It almost killed me!¡±¡¿


    ¡¾Top Student¡¯s Dentures: ¡°My dentures are actually poisonous teeth filled with venom! Don¡¯t force me to bite you. Lick... AHHHHHH, it¡¯s poisonous!¡±¡¿


    ¡¾When you gather the full set ¡°Top Student¡¯s sses,¡± ¡°Top Student¡¯s Decayed Teeth,¡± and ¡°Top Student¡¯s Dentures,¡± you will gain the special effect ¡°Dunce Masquerading as the Top Student¡±. Your retorting abilities will be increased by 30%, integrity score will be lowered by 30% while your Cuteness Might will be increased by 30%¡ªSystem hasn¡¯t eaten my medicine yet, but I still feel cute!¡¿


    ¡°Where should I start retorting from? Should I start from how the three top students¡¯ equipment would turn one into a dunce? Or should I start from how I can equip those two teeth? Furthermore, if I put those poisonous teeth into my mouth, I would probably die! Further, what¡¯s with those additional abilities? What the heck is Cuteness Might? Do I need better retorting ability or a decreased integrity score? My integrity already has no lower limits, alright! I have already long given up on treatment, alright! There are too many points to retort about this, there is no way I can retort on them all, alright!¡±


    Everytime I see those Gachapon rewards which were filled with numerous retort points, my desire to retort would skyrocket. At this moment, after a whole series of ripostes, I panted heavily with the System interface before me, my gaze fixated on it.


    ¡°I will kill you with my re, glower you to death!¡±


    Alright, I knew that I looked foolish like that. However, what could I do to an existence I couldn¡¯t reach but kept doing me in? Nothing, except killing them with my re.


    Perhaps I had spent too many Fate Points reconstructing my body; the recent Gachapon reward was getting worse and worse. The items that I had obtained were mostly objects that left people speechless.


    ¡¾The Wordless Book of Heaven: The unparalleled Way of Heaven is contained within it.¡¿


    Alright, I didn¡¯t know what the Book of Heavens was about, but if a book had no words, how could oneprehend it?


    ¡¾Bla the Fairies Transformation Wand: I ate a lot of medicine today and feel cute! If you sing ¡°In the name of the moon, I¡¯ll punish you¡±* and dance while transforming, there will be bonus enhancement to your stats! Furthermore, it is pink!¡¿


    Alright, I don¡¯t think that I need to go any further than that. After managing to get this non-mainstream magical wand, I immediately walked over to my window, open it and threw it out.


    ¡°Who would say such embarrassing words! Farewell!¡±


    ¡¾Sacred Sword: Togashi** Must Die¡ªThe new member of the ¡°One Shot One Kill (Must Die)¡± sword series, the product of the resentment of readers and editors. The One Shot One Kill (Wrecking Their Ass) effects apply to those who submit their manuscriptste and tour in the name of finding inspiration for their work. Also, it would be an incredible sight if you use it along with the one above.¡¿


    Alright, putting aside those obviously ill-humored, bizarre objects, the System did give some ¡°good items¡± as well.


    ¡¾DF-41 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile: Don¡¯t say that the System didn¡¯t give you anything good. As long as you are able to use it and dare to use it, this object is definitely formidable.¡¿


    When I saw the object, I was shocked. However, when I saw the user manual that came along with it, I knew that I have been duped.


    ¡°It requires specialized equipment for theunch of the missile? I can still find a way to solve that, but what do you mean by the missile will be locked if the password entered is incorrect? Where can I find the password required for the missileunch? Do I have to rip it apart to examine it? However, if it explodes on me, will you pay me? Furthermore, how can there be an intercontinental missile in a world revolving around magic? I dare you give me something normal, like the incantation of a powerful Forbidden Spell!¡±


    And the System really did it. In the next draw, I got a powerful, otherworldly spell incantation.


    ¡¾Dragon ve: Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows, buried in the stream of time is where your power grows...¡¿***


    When that incantation from my childhood appeared before me, my entire body started trembling in anticipation.


    ¡°Ohhhhh! As long as I chant the incantation, I will be able to borrow strength from the otherworldly Demon Lord to cast this ultimate-level Forbidden Spell? Without using much mana, I will be able to use this highly destructive Forbidden Spell? Awesome!¡±


    Thus, I looked for a remote location to experiment it myself.


    Did I fail? Was there a problem with the incantation? No, the items from the System were all authentic. I seeded and the incantation was the official one and it worked. I managed to connect with the otherworldly Demon Lord.


    ¡°Wee to the Otherworldly Demon Lord Summoning System.... The Demon Lord whom you are calling is currently unavable, please try againter. Dududu, I thank you for your support of the Incantation System.¡±


    Alright, the Demon Lord was busy and he was unavable.... I could understand that the Incantation System was the exclusive privilege of a certain other world and it was normal for me to be unable to get into contact with him, but what was with the reply afterward!


    ¡°After which, please rate our services. Are you satisfied, or are you very satisfied? Of course, it is also alright for you to choose thepletely satisfied option!¡±


    Of this ¡°Dear customer, I am father. If you don¡¯t want to use my services, feel free to leave¡± customer service, what can I do? I hung up and stared speechlessly at the blue sky.


    Actually, this wasn¡¯t the worst. Once I managed to draw a bunch of legendary treasures. Looking at those orange-colored artifacts, I almost died from delight.


    ¡°Hah, One-Star Ball, Two-Star Ball... Seven-Star Ball. If I gather all seven, can I really realize my wish?¡±


    Back then, I hadn¡¯t been duped by the System too badly yet. After drawing 6 Dragon Balls straight and receiving confirmation from the System about the effects of the Seven Dragon Balls, I waited expectantly for the final Dragon Ball to fall into my hands. In fact, I even started to n on how I should make use of my wish and how I should achieve the greatest benefits through it. I even filled an entire journal with my ns.


    However, in the dozen or so Gachapon draws in the next year, I never received the final Dragon Ball. Eventually, I could only howl helplessly in anger.


    ¡°From the very start, you were trying to scam me, right? Is this the darned game lottery system that our country came up with? There is no prize at all, right!¡±


    ¡°...Due to the karmic effects regarding the Four-Star Dragon Ball being too great, I can only arrange a mission for you. If you are able to triumph over its guardian, it will be yours.¡±


    I had watched the Dragon Ball manga back then. Who was the owner of the Four-Star Dragon Ball? Wasn¡¯t it the protagonist of the manga, Son Goku?


    Challenge Son Goku? Recalling those ridiculous experts in the manga who destroyeds as they pleased, I shuddered.


    However, I soon remembered how the manga was when it first started, when the plot was still normal. Back then, the Seven Dragon Balls had already appeared and perhaps, the one to appear before me wouldn¡¯t be such a ridiculous existence. There was still a chance for sess.


    ¡°It is the young Goku from the start, right? It can¡¯t be that it is the Super Saiyan who destroyeds with a single strike in theter part of the manga.... Why aren¡¯t you answering? It can¡¯t be that it is the even more ridiculous Super Saiyan 3?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s not 3, it¡¯s 33. Super Saiyan 33!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t try to fool me, I read the manga! There is no Super Saiyan 33 in that world!¡±


    ¡°Cough, it is a parallel universe that we live in. Due to the overwhelming poprity of Dragon Ball in the world, the editor didn¡¯t allow the manga to end. As such, the show dragged on from Super Saiyan 3 to Super Saiyan 33. Sigh, you don¡¯t know how ludicrous the power system became in the end. At the very start, they destroyed worlds ands, but eventually they went on to destroy gxies and universes.¡±


    ¡°Furthermore, since you already know that it was taken from that real parallel universe, given the plot the Dragon Ball world was going at, how they were breaking their limits here and there, do you think that it was possible for even more powerful antagonists to not appearter on? If I were to say, not just Super Saiyan 33, as long as that world doesn¡¯t get destroyed, even Super Saiyan 333 is possible!¡±


    Alright, there¡¯s no need for me to say anything. Even the normal Super Saiyan transformation was able to kill me in an instant; if Super Saiyan 33 came, wouldn¡¯t the heavens, earth, and even the air be destroyed with a single flick? I didn¡¯t wish to die that pathetically yet, thus I rejected the ¡°goodwill¡± of the System.


    As time went by (and the number of times I got scammed increased), I roughlyprehended a general rule.


    It wasn¡¯t that the System had dedicated its soul fully to pranking others, but its abilities were limited. Distorting the future required one to bear its karmic effects. Thews governing equivalent exchange still needed to be obeyed.


    Thus, my dream of obtaining powerful treasures by drawing with minimal Fate Points was shattered.


    For a period of time, I dedicated my soul to drawing ¡°mystical secret manuals.¡± ¡°Godly equipment¡± and ¡°unique and rare treasures¡± were struck from my list of options.


    ¡°If I obtain strength from the ¡®otherworldly knowledge¡¯ and change the future, it would be my own doing rather than the doing of the System. Thus, the System only need to bear minimal karmic effects. This was like a conspicuous loophole left behind by the System. If I don¡¯t choose you, who else will I choose?¡±


    Thus, even though I drew numerous objects that left one speechless through the ¡°mystical secret manuals¡± choice, such as the ¡°Wordless Book of Heaven¡± and ¡°Dragon ve Incantation Manual¡± and other books which was in the wrong universe, as well as the ¡°Art of Nine Negations,¡± ¡°Sunflower Manual,¡± ¡°Manual to Cross Dressing as a Beautiful Lady,¡± and ¡°Photoshop: Manual to Creating a Beauty.¡± They were all authentic, but it waspletely inconceivable to me what they could be used for.... Alright, let¡¯s forget all of those. At the very least, those research notes of the otherworldly Mages were indeed good stuff. They were much more useful than those unreliable otherworldly treasures and I had benefitted greatly through them.


    The reason why I used my Gachapon draws recently to get unique and rare treasures was to draw a Spring of Drowned Man for the unfortunate Krose aspensation. However, it was a pity that the entire roulette was filled with the Top Student series¡¯s objects and there was no sign of the Spring of Drowned Man appearing at all.


    ¡°Forget it, timing is important in Gachapon. If one¡¯splexion, hand, and luck are bad, one shouldn¡¯t treat himself as the protagonist of the world. I should try giving it a change and drawing mystical secret manuals instead.¡±


    As Fate Points were pumped in, the rapidly spinning roulette stopped. Looking at the ¡°secret manual¡± which popped out, I couldn¡¯t help gasping in shock.


    It was a game walkthrough. On its cover, roaring Beastmen armies and countless Beastmen heroes could be seen.


    ¡¾Ding! Congrattions on obtaining ¡¶Hignd Beastmen Invasion Game Walkthrough¡ªThe Hundred Powerful Tribes Information Guide¡·. System Notice: Not only does it list the unique troops of each and every tribe and their fighting prowess, it even tells you about the personal preferences of each Chieftain and heroic figures. If you still fail to achieve victory in the war, carry your head to meet me.¡¿


    ¡°System! Can you not be so obvious when cheating? However, you did well this time, I like it! I give you thirty-two likes!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡°Prince Rnd in the East Mist Communal Country is a fake. He isn¡¯t some awakened returning Heroic Spirit, but propaganda East Mist uses to calm the hearts of their citizens!¡±


    When I heard the report Sleuweir Kingdom sent to the other countries and churches, I wasn¡¯t surprised at all. This was within expectations. Even so, I was still enraged by their actions.


    ¡°Feimer Carson, is it? Since you were willing to send assassins to get rid of me for the sake of holding onto your authority, then what coulding up with lies to deny the existence of your ancestors count as?¡±


    I could understand that they were denying my identity to maintain the integrity and legitimacy of their sovereignty, but they were clearly trying to stab themselves in their own foot by thetter part of the report.


    ¡°The Kamo¡¯s Tear Fortress is stillpletely calm. I have just signed a peace treaty with the numerous Beastmen Tribes. Yet that fake Rnd spread rumors about an impending Beastmen invasion. This shows that he has bad intentions in mind! He hopes to tear apart our amiable rtionship with our Beastmen allies!¡±


    From a certain sense, Sleuweir could be considered as the sessor of the Mist Country¡¯s legacy. However, they denied the traditions and values of the Mist Country. They chose to employ goodwill diplomacy, siding with the otherrger kingdoms on most asions, even willing to resort to bribing the Beastmen Tribe whom they bordered.


    One must say, from a certain perspective, they truly did well. In human society, Sleuweir Kingdom¡¯s reputation was much better than East Mist Communal Country and Mist Country.


    Considering how difficult it was to capture Kamo¡¯s Tear Fortress, the Chieftains who had receivedrge amounts of bribes would also direct their attention to the other human territories. They had enjoyed more than two decades of peace and they had not been embroiled in most major historical wars.


    For the Beastmen Tribes, as long as it was en route to their ancient homnd, it was the same no matter whom they invaded. The current situation was different from the past Mist Country and the Beastmen bordered with more than one human country. Since Sleuweir had decided to employ the carrot and the stick, it was much wiser for them to choose an easier target to work on.


    Of this method of diverting the catastrophe to the other countries, the Karsomi Communal Country which faced greater pressure from the Beastmen¡¯s assault was full ofints. Even so, it didn¡¯t affect Sleuweir¡¯s diplomatic strategies in any way, so they had no choice but to tolerate it.


    It was true that the Karsomi Communal Country was a nail stuck there to deal with the pressure from the Beastmen. After East Country¡¯s fall, they had borne the brunt of the impact from most of the brutal Human-Beastman wars.


    The motive for the Beastmen¡¯s invasion southward was simple. In the short-term, their goal was likely to annex somend so they could hunt for food and resources. As for the long-term, they probably only had one ultimate aim¡ªto recapture the originalnd of the Beastmen, the nluya ins.


    Currently, the nluya ins weren¡¯t part of the Beastmen¡¯s territory. It belonged to a powerful human empire, Saint Antonio, and it served as its granary. The Karsomi Communal Country was a vassal state of Saint Antonio Empire.


    It was said that the emperor of the Karsomi Communal Country was a high noble of the Saint Antonio Empire, and most of the powerful troops of the country originated from Saint Antonio. Every year, young generals would suddenly appear in their ranks and disy their talents; most of these talents were Saint Antonian.


    There was even a tale about how they crushed their own foot with the boulder they lifted.


    The Beastmen army had never given up on their dreams to return back to their homnd. Back then, when the Beastmen had upied the previous territory of the Mist Country, due to their powerful reproductive abilities, they were able to engage in numerousrge-scale and small-scale battles. This made those countries who were pestered by them start to miss that ¡°smelly and tough country of barbarians,¡± which they destroyed with their own hands.


    ¡°Thirty to forty Wolf Knights may not mean anything much in a frontal assault, but if they snuck into our territories, they can cause countless civilian deaths. Those cockroach-like Beastmen who reproduce at an insane rate can¡¯t bepletely killed no matter what we do. We need a barrier against them!¡±


    As such, under thebined efforts of countless empires, the Karsomi Communal Country was formed.


    To date, this newly established country only had two hundred years of history behind it. After its founding, it nailed itself firmly at the entrance of the Beastmen territory. Large amounts of resources and talent were continuously supplied there from the core of human society, thus forcefully blocking the Beastmen off at the hignds.


    Karsomi Communal Country¡¯s Haulus Fortress and Sleuweir Kingdom¡¯s Kamo¡¯s Tear Fortress became important fortresses of the human society in hindering the army of the Beastmen Tribes after the fall of the Mist Country.


    With the Fortress Cities¡¯ natural terrain advantage and the support from countless human countries behind them, in the past two hundred years, they had managed to drive the Beastmen army back to theirnds. The Kamo¡¯s Tear Fortress was named after the previous Great Chieftain Kamo who died there.


    However, the situation was different this time.


    ¡°Urgent news! War has broken out! The Beastmen army has invaded Sleuweir. It has circumvented Kamo¡¯s Fortress and four midsize cities have been massacred! Sleuweir has currently been ced on full alert!¡±


    TL Notes:* From Sailor Moon Bla


    **Togashi is the mangaka for HunterXHunter


    ***yers -> Lina Inverse¡¯s spell. Thetter is the incantation.

 Chapter 147

    Chapter 147: Overture


    In the view of most humans, the Hignd Beastmen were deprived of spellcasters. However, to the armies guarding the Northern Lands, such a saying was obviously far from the truth. The Shamans and Witch Doctors of the Beastmen were spellcasters which left people with headaches.


    The former were skilled with connecting with the Elemental Spirits to induce all kinds of natural phenomenon to attack their enemies or to support theirrades. Not only was the consumption rate for their spells low, the effects of their spells were also apparent. Their offensive abilities were in no way inferior to Mages, and their support ability wasparable to Priests and Holy Knights.


    Even more so, the Shamans were skilled at working with one another, and as such, they had a natural advantage in creating strategic-level magic spells. Their Earthquake Spell was an incredible weapon for raiding cities.


    On the other hand, as a highly threatening spellcaster job which had few means of protecting themselves, if a powerful closebatant were to get into proximity with the Shamans....


    ¡°We can give him ten seconds to plead for Mother Earth¡¯s blessing, five seconds to draw his weapon, three seconds to do meaningless retaliation or to chant an incantation, and the final second to end him.¡±


    ¡°Every minute, there are fourteen Shamans who are being killed! Please do not ughter Shamans and support thew allowing Shamans to instant-cast Earth Drifting Spell (Teleportation Spell)! Support the cancetion of the Shamans as a job! ¡ªShaman Self-Help Fund.¡±


    Putting aside their individual prowess and their obvious ws, the reason why Shamans were often prioritized as a target in battle said much about their powerful support and long-distance offensive ability. This happened to be what the Beastmen, who specialized in physical brawls,cked.


    If the Shamans were the idealbination with Beastman Warriors, then Witch Doctors were the best backup. They specialized in concocting poisons and antidotes alike, casting all kinds of curses and witchcraft, as well as dispelling curses and healing the wounded.


    Even though their treatment methods were a little ridiculous¡ªthey used bloodletting to treat all ailments, after all, regardless of whether it was amon cold or a migraine. Even though they didn¡¯t know what went into the medicine that they concoct (there were lizard droppings, pitch-ck grass, and many unexinable ingredients in it), it was a fact that they had saved many lives in the Hignds whichcked doctors and medicine. (Naturally, the ones whose treatment failed had died and the dead were unable toin.)


    Spellcasters were alwayscking, and that fact rang even louder for Beastmen Tribes.


    For the Beastmen who were skilled at physical brawling, it was difficult to find a n member who had a good head. Furthermore, the person had to have talent in spellcasting as well. In each tribe, these two spellcasting jobs were severelycking and highly valued. Shamans and Witch Doctors possessed high standing in all of the Beastmen Tribes and many of them even became Chieftains.


    However, at this very moment, the precious Shamans and Witch Doctors became menialborers. They were walking up and down the altar to check on it while the furious onlookers were frustrated to the point that they started using whips tosh them.


    ¡°Dammit! We were already so careful! How could a problem still ur?¡±


    The Blood Axe Tribe¡¯s Eron Bloodaxe wore a grim expression. The tribute ritual had been conducted by his own tribe and most of his tribe¡¯s elite Shamans and Witch Doctors had been devoted to it. The amount of tributes used for it was massive, yet it ended up like this. How could they not feel disappointed?


    Was it a failure? No, that¡¯s not it. At the very least, the warm mes in the surroundings lighted by the red-orange light bore testimony to that.


    Was a sess? That was clearly not the case. The tightknit eyebrows and frustrated expressions on the Chieftains exined it all. At the very least, the results were not as they initially hoped for.


    ¡°Lord, the results are out. The blessing was a sess and it had the effect of warding off the cold, but...¡±


    Even though the old Shaman reported as such, nobody¡¯s expression rxed because of it. That was because during the crucial period, that brilliant me was suddenly cut off and the Demon Lord¡¯s furious howl echoed in everyone¡¯s ears.


    ¡°You hope to earn my blessings despite giving tribute to me with such filthy objects? To dare to ce fake souls upon my altar! This is sphemy! You all are challenging my dignity! I curse you all, I curse that you all will face destruction! To think that you all would dare deceive a Demon Lord...¡±


    Upon realizing that there was a problem with the tributes presented to her, the furious Demon Marquess sent the mes of her wrath over. The massive mes morphed into a giant golem with a spear in its hands and it started to wreak havoc in the base. Furthermore, the opened Demon Doors meant that the Demon army was about to arrive at their base.


    Fortunately, the old Shaman, who was heading the ritual, closed the connection with the Chaos Abyss in time, making the inferno avatar of the Marquess return back to the Elements and closing the Dimensional Gate. Otherwise, it wouldn¡¯t just be a matter of the failure of the blessings. If things went badly, the entire camp might have even been destroyed by the furious Demon Marquess.


    Given such circumstances, for the ritual to not be a failure, the various Chieftains were surprised.


    ¡°Huh? The blessing didn¡¯t fail?¡±


    Eron was astonished. He knew how difficult it was to deal with Elisa and he had prepared himself for failure.


    ¡°The effects of the blessing aren¡¯tplete and they can only ward off the cold temporarily. Also, based on the rate the Element is dissipating at, the blessing will cease to be in thirty days.¡±


    Hearing those words, the Chieftains heaved a sigh of relief. When the ritual failed, everyone was prepared for the worst. Even though the original three months of blessing was cut to less than a month, this was much better than the worst case scenario they had prepared themselves for.


    ¡°Have you checked on the issue with the tributes? Which tribe was the one that used an imitation at such a crucial period? I want the Chieftain¡¯s head to be staked on a gpole!¡±


    Eron was furious. They almost passed by this hard toe by opportunity, even offending a Demon Lord at that. There would be trouble awaiting them in the future.


    The Demon Lords were well-known for being difficult. It would already be a blessing for people if they did not cause any trouble of their own ord. If someone wanted their assistance, aside from waiting on them properly, the summoner had to pay the expensive ¡°appearance fee¡± as well.


    The most stable currency in use in the Lower Realm was the souls of the Upper Realm. In order to please the Inferno Marquess, the tributes used this time were top-quality ves from each and every tribe.


    It was impossible for the ritual to fail for no reason. The Demon Lords were known for being fickle-minded, but they were even more reputed to care to speak the truth (If they were displeased with someone, they would immediately make a move. If there was a treasure in sight that they wanted, they would immediately snatch it.). Since the Demon Lord roared at them because she was unsatisfied with the tributes, it was very likely for there to be a problem with the tributes.


    ¡°This...¡± The old Shaman of the Tortoise Tribe slightly hesitated. However, upon seeing the confused gazes the Chieftains were shooting him with, he knew that he had no choice but to say it. As such, he gritted his teeth and spoke.


    ¡°The tributes have been all expended, but the blessing was iplete. Given that there was a loss in power in the ritual, the souls used in the ritual must not be enough. However, it was impossible to check on it since the tributes are no longer here. However, based on the timing when Lord Elisa became enraged... It matches with the timing when the Blood Axe Tribe¡¯s tribute was being presented!¡±


    Instantaneously, the furious Eron who was still interrogating others became speechless. To think that his tribe would be the cause of the trouble?


    Hostility appeared in the eyes of the surrounding Chieftains. They also seemed to recall that the inferno statue¡¯s howl was directed toward the Blood Axe Tribe¡¯s camp. Even so, Eron was so determinedly pointing the me to other tribes, wasn¡¯t this a case of a thief calling another a thief?


    Unknowingly, the seed of discord had been nted. One still required prestige to head the other tribes, and the consecutive failures had struck a blow to Eron¡¯s prestige. In the eyes of some others, Eron losing his ability to rally all of the others tribes could mean that they might be able to rece him as the Great Chieftain.


    Putting aside those seemingly peaceful but discordant Chieftains, when the short ritual was terminated abruptly, the will of a certain someone had already descended onto this world. The person had taken some of the tributes for her personal use.


    Currently, the altar was a mess. In the midst of the tributes, a fiery red apparition was slowly bing corporeal.


    Breathing the cold air that was finally without the smell of sulfur, a smile appeared on the familiar, beautiful face. Simr to the avatar of the Goddess of Storm in the City of Rain, the silver-haired Demoness had secretly sent an avatar to the mortal realm.


    ¡°Master, do you miss me? Have you made preparations to wee me? I did say that I would conduct sudden inspections.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Whenrge-scale aerial battles had yet to be a possibility, terrain remained an important aspect of surface battles.


    Kamo¡¯s Tear, rebuilt from the remains of the Mist Country¡¯s original Steel Fortress, was surrounded by sharp cliffs. The heavy city walls had been ted with the expensive enchanted alloy. What flowed in the moat of the fortress was a type of unfreezable oil made of alchemy. Once lit, the mes would burn furiously for two months straight before the fuel ran out.


    A third of Sleuweir¡¯s military strength and forty percent of the country¡¯s spellcasters were gathered in the city. A total of ninerge-scale Mage Tower and thirty midscale Mage Tower faced the ravine near the Beastmen¡¯s territory. Furthermore, the fire ballistae ced throughout the wall were so dense it made goosebumps rise by looking at it from afar. Two hundred years of painstaking effort and investment had turned it into one of the few impregnable fortresses on the continent.


    As an infallible fortress, it had locked the Beastmen out from the human society for two hundred years. It was said that its establishment was heavily supported by the countries of the Northern Lands and the several powerful empires of the continent.


    Ever since its establishment, those city walls which even Giants were unable to climb over became one of the greatest obstructions to the dreams of the Hignd Beastmen. Lacking siege weapons, they found themselves helpless against it. Conquering a fortress of such size with the few aerial tribes and troops they had was a mere dream. Even the previous Great Chieftain of the Beastmen Tribes had died beneath the walls of the fortress.


    But if I had to speak, it was all a mistake from the very start.


    ¡°Does an impregnable fortress really exist in the world? You may be able to defend yourself against a regr army, but are you able to guard yourself against assassinations and Forbidden Spells? cing all of their eggs into a single basket was the wrong strategy. Even if the fortress was truly impregnable, the enemy could choose to circumvent the fortress. Even if there is no usible route at the moment, it is possible for the enemies to simply pave one themselves.¡±


    The Maginot Line* of Earth had already proven that only establishing a fixed defensive line against an enemy was a foolish decision. However, the generals and military officials of this world viewed fortresses as an important and ssic defense strategy. Sleuweir was also a country that believed in the importance of fortresses and had benefited for centuries due to the existence of the fortress. After this painful lesson, all of the military schools would probably research the causes of failure of this war and use it as a case study¡ªa negative role model for why being overly obsessed with fortresses was a foolish decision.


    The trade andmunication agreement which Sleuweir had just signed with the Beastmen was instantaneously torn apart. Without any forewarning, the Beastmen had infiltrated into deep into theirnds, ferociously tearing apart every single human they could see.


    The Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan was definitely much more low profile than his colleague. With a single high-intensity earthquake, he changed the geographical structure of the Northern Lands, causing another narrow ravine leading from the hignds to the Northern Lands to appear, thus making that impregnable fortress-like the eyes of a cave-dweller¡ªornamental.


    The Beastmen army had charged directly to the core of the Sleuweir Kingdom before spreading all around to assault and take down the various cities. Of which, half of the entire Blood Axe Tribe headed straight for Sleuweir¡¯s capital, Antuen.


    In order to create even more chaos and keep the military of the various fief lords under control, more than a hundred hunting squads consisting mainly of Wolf Knights conducted gueri attacks on the various armies. Given how they themselves were in a precarious situation, the fief lords chose to utilize the army for their own needs. As such, in less than a single month since the outbreak of war, Antuen was already in an emergency situation. Sleuweir¡¯s downfall came even faster than anyone had expected.


    At this moment, I am helpless.


    It was not that I didn¡¯t want to do anything, but the first round of snow had struck before I could return to the East Mist Communal Country. Even though its arrival was within expectations, it was still unweed. There were too many things that I needed to attend to and the snow truly fell at an inopportune time.


    The winter of the Northern Lands was exceptionally brutal. The white snow had already covered all of Diffindor. Snow half a meter deep piled up on the streets. There were barely any pedestrians in sight on the streets.


    Such weather was a disaster. The horses would sink into the snow if they tried to traverse this weather. The weather would cause their body temperature to fall rapidly and precious war horses would simply die for naught.


    Given the underlying rule that had graduallye into ce in the Northern Lands in these few years, when a country had been invaded by the Beastmen or other foreign race, the other countries had to provide them a certain level of aid or send their troops to reinforce them. Back then, the one to enjoy such aid was often Karsomi Communal Country.


    However, it was a pity that the snow that affected most of the countries in the Northern Land had changed it all.


    The resources were unable to arrive on time and the reinforcement was stuck on the way. On the other hand, the Beastmen were still persisting in their attacks to capture the capital of Sleuweir. This was a hopeless situation.


    The cruel natural world was equal for all. Traditionally, there would be a ceasefire when the snow was sufficiently heavy to lock down the mountains. After all, to the warriors, dying on the battlefield was a kind of dream. No matter what, it was somewhat a shame to freeze to death on the battlefield; the family members of the soldier would often be tempted to curse at the military officers if their family member had died so meaninglessly on the battlefield.


    Fortunately, as the effect of the Fire God¡¯s Blessing faded, the Beastmen gradually started to limit their sphere of operations and used the cities they had taken down as their base.


    Truthfully, even without Elisa¡¯s Fire God¡¯s Blessing, the war would have still broken out early.


    On another aspect, while Elisa¡¯s name had been cursed at by the higher echelons of the Beastmen, Eron and his Blood Axe Tribe¡ªdue to the umtion of rage and resentment against them¡ªstarted to be isted within the Alliance army while their reputation plummeted.


    Although the Beastmen Alliance army being split into four had strategic considerations, it also showed that Eron, who had meager prestige, was unable to hold onto his leadership position.


    At this moment, the other three Chieftains also had tribes that supported them. The next Beastman Sovereign would be determined by the results of this battle.


    Everyone knew they could not dy this war to spring of next year; the human kingdoms would not watch idly as Antuen fell and Sleuweir was destroyed. The moment the snow halted and the army was able to move, it would spell the outbreak of war.


    Furthermore, given that the war would be conducted in the midst of winter, it would determine the survival of the various races within thends. The war was bound to be exceptionally cruel. Even the nonbat forces would find their numbers dwindle significantly.


    At present, I was busy dealing with military affairs as well.


    ¡°Has news from Hoyle arrived? What is the progress with the mines?¡±


    Every single Gray Dwarf was a natural miner. They possessed the Race Talents: Rock Treading and Ore Perception. Of which, the sensitivity that the cksmith Master Gray Dwarf Hoyle held toward ores was not something his peers couldpete with.


    Regardless of whether it was for trade or military purposes, the East Mist required endless amounts of ore. At present, given how many newly created divisions were still using wooden training weapons, the military was in dire need of weapons to grow stronger. And the manufacturing of weapons had to begin from the mines.


    This was the lifeline of the East Mist. Even when war had already broken out, I still regarded it as our priority.


    While I returned to Diffindor in advance due to the outbreak of war, I left Hoyle and the other Gray Dwarves at the Barbarians¡¯ territory to hunt for mines. If even they were unable to find any ore, it would be impossible for the human miners to find any.


    ¡°Good news. The mountainous range is indeed a mine deposit. We have already found two superior metal mines, one magic metal mine, and two jewel mines. However, it will take a period of time before we can develop it. Lord Hoyle¡¯s applied for the assistance of machines and spellcasters and he had specifically listed the Beyar Brothers to assist him in his work.¡±


    ¡°Exploding the mines? Seems like it is the only viable solution to achieve results in the short run. Fine, send the Beyar Brothers to help him. However, remember to warn him to take note of their safety. Do note into conflict with the Barbarians. They are inflexible people; offending them once means offending them for life.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Highness. We will convey your words to him. Then, the next matter is regarding the names of the newly created divisions and their gs...¡±


    The various assistants came to and fro my desk, the military documents that had umted in my period of absence crushed the desk. Innumerable problems came rushing at me all at once.


    While I did not intend to interfere with the governance of the country, just the military affairs themselves were enough to give me a splitting headache.


    At such a moment, I couldn¡¯t help but miss Elisa. After all, while others could only serve as assistant, Elisa, who I had brought up personally, had working abilities that were in no way inferior to mine, and I could dump all of my troubles on her so as to ck off.


    Alright, Elisa was still in the Chaos Abyss and thinking about all these was meaningless. I should devote my attention to the problems before me first.


    ¡°The situation in Antuen isn¡¯t going well. It is possible for the city to fall at any moment now...¡±


    No matter what, we were both offspring from the same origin. Even though we were filled with discontentment and resentment against that country, upon seeing it on the verge of destruction, these young assistants felt uneasy.


    I nodded my head, indicating to the other party that I had received his words. After which, I fell into deep contemtion.


    No doubt, we had to save them. Even though I was extremely unsatisfied with their royalty, I couldn¡¯t watch as the Mist citizens in those countries were ughtered. Furthermore, the moment Sleuweir fellpletely, East Mist would be embroiled in the war and the current East Mist was not well-equipped for war yet.


    While we had to save them, the important aspect to consider was how we should go about doing it. We had to build a reputation for ourselves to gain the initiative in our foreign diplomacy in the Northern Lands while not going too far to rattle the foundations of the already weak East Mist.


    After a long time, I finally made my decision.


    ¡°Send a letter to Antuen and say that the neutral East Mist requires a sufficient reason to interfere in the war, so they have to request for help publicly. Right, have them send a request to the various Churches as well. Yes, a request for us to send our troops to help them ward off the invaders. Only this way will Lord Wumianzhe recognize the necessity and justice of the war, and we will be able to send our troops to aid them.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that I was an imitation not too long ago, iming that the East Mist was deceiving the world, even sending a report to the various kingdoms and Churches. Now, I will see how you will settle with the aftermath yourselves. Yeah, spread the former part of the message publicly, let the other countries understand the new system East Mist operates by. As for thetter, dump it on the ¡®Emperor¡¯ Feimer Carson.¡±


    If you want me to save you, lower your heads and reflect on your actions! Swallow everything that you had spouted previously!


    I was not worried that Feimer wouldn¡¯t lower his head. After all, the situation in Antuen wasn¡¯t going well and when there was a tangible threat to their lives, so many people would be much more obedient.


    ¡°Hmph, it is truly such an irony. Right after iming that I am an imitation, they immediately turn around to request assistance from the imitation. Furthermore, the one who wille to their aid will most likely be the ¡®demonic army¡¯ they spoke of.¡±


    After pondering the matter for a while, under the current circumstances, the most suitable reinforcements to send them was still my Undead army, who didn¡¯t fear the cold. In the previous report, that fellow termed my army as the ¡°demonic army,¡± not hiding his contempt and frustration at all.


    ¡°How can I miss out on such an ideal opportunity to conduct a Winter Hunt? It is also an ideal opportunity to train our troops. Have every Knight bring along two squires with them! Have those little fellows prepare themselves. We will head out as soon as the snow stops!¡±


    *TL: Maginot Line was the French¡¯s defense line against Germany in WW2

 Chapter 148

    Chapter 148: Hunting and Being Hunted


    Anwen Vige was famous for its delicacy Smoked Silver Fish. There were countless numbers of said vige in the entirety of Sleuweir. At this current moment, snow was gradually falling and the peaceful vige was no longer as peaceful as it was.


    The fences used to keep out the wild beasts could not hinder the true beasts. Under the concealment of night, the gray Wolf Knights entered theirnds and a feast of bloodshed began in the little vige.


    The guards and watchmen of the vige were ughtered immediately. Under the sudden raid of the trained Wolf Knights, the guards of the vige, who only had the experience of challenging Ogres at most, didn¡¯t even have the opportunity to sound the rm.


    At 2 AM, thirty Wolf Knights entered the vige. At 2:15, the militia captain, vige head, and other leaders were dragged out from their beds and their headless corpses were used to feed the wolves. At the same time, their heads were used to drain the survivor¡¯s will of retaliating against them.


    By 2:40, all 500 people of the vige were dragged to the little square near the entrance of the vige. After the women and children had been dragged to one corner, the ughter began. Perhaps not even a single young man of the vige was spared.


    There were people who tried to fight back, but against true warriors, the retaliation of the civilians waspletely meaningless. Furthermore, the Wolf Knights were already elites of thebative Beastmen.


    At 3, the efficient executions had ended and the Wolf Knights had left. Before leaving, they casually set the entire vige afire, the paws of the wolves leaving bloodied pawprints in the snow. The Wolf Knights sshed with blood were silent, but the burning remains of the vige and the heart-rending cries would be in their nightmares for years toe.


    They may have been hesitant at the very start, but it was already the fourth vige they had destroyed in this week. They took less than an hour from their entry to their departure to purge the entire vige. Their conscience was already numb to the ughter.


    This is war. It is neither sacred nor justified. The only thing that needed to be considered was how to win.


    The mission entrusted to these packs of Wolf Knights was to roam about the Human Kingdoms and cause panic and chaos in order to divert the strength and attention of the other factions. Even though their means were vile, it was effective.


    The Beastmen were not immoral beasts. Every single expert in their midst felt contempt for their actions of ughtering civilians. People respected the fearless Knights who dared to charge towards the massive Dragons, but they would not respect a butcher who derived pleasure from ughtering civilians.


    ¡°Father, how did you fare in the war with the humans? How many human generals did you kill?¡±


    ¡°None, I only ughtered a few thousand civilians.¡±


    Upon thinking about the question his children would ask him upon his return, even though the captain of the Wolf Knight section, Akerli, was famous for his bravery in his tribe, he didn¡¯t know how he should reply to this question.


    At this moment, he still smelled the stench of blood all over the ce with his sensitive nose. His child¡¯s questioning of his doings had be his greatest nightmare and his soul felt worn out.


    For the Beastmen, challenging a powerful adversary and dying in battle in the midst of it was an unparalleled honor. On the other hand, ughtering the weak meant that the person did not possess mental fortitude. Such a Warrior would be viewed with contempt by his tribe and be rejected at the doors of the War God upon death.


    ¡°This is an order from our superior. This is for our race¡¯s dream of returning to our homnd, this is for our justice!¡±


    Justice, a name used to conceal uncountable vile actions! Under the grand gs ofteny the bloodied hands of an executioner.


    He knew that he was just deceiving himself. However, it was only with this excuse could he deceive his conscience and continue to ughter.


    ¡°The team is getting more and more silent. Looks like I¡¯ll have to look for a way to boost their morale.¡±


    Only the most depraved viin would brag about their ¡°results¡± in ughtering civilians. From the stiff expression on these Knights, it was clear that they had not reached such a point yet.


    Even so, they did it withoutint. After all, this was war, the evil war, the wonderful war, a war that could conceal all evil with a cloak of divinity.


    ¡°AWOO AWOO AWOO!¡±


    The howling of the wolves echoed in the distance. That was a report from the Eagle Tribe Beastmen, who were serving as scouts. Three consecutive howls meant that there were enemies in their path, but they weren¡¯t strong and the team could simply charge on through.


    Soon, they crossed a mountainous jungle and the ¡°enemy¡± appeared before them. It was a golden-haired young man whose hair was covered with snow. He looked young, but the two-handed swords in both of his hands were extremely striking.


    ¡°Sigh, yet another young man who had pursued us by himself. Courageous, but naive. He is around the age of my Equar...¡±


    Looking at the young Swordsman who was around the age of his own child, Akerli paused for a moment. Then, he drew his thumb across his throat. It was amand to ughter all enemies on sight.


    ¡°There were more young men of Equar¡¯s age in the previous vige. For Equar¡¯s beautiful future, you should go and apany them.... That¡¯s weird, the sword looks familiar. I seem to have seen it somewhere before.¡±


    There was no need for superfluous thoughts. Since there was only a single adversary, the Wolf Knights used the Wave Charge Formation which they were the most adept in.


    The several Wolf Knights whose mounts were the strongest were in charge of engaging the enemy head-on whereas the strongest, Akerli, would be leading a team behind to assault the enemy whenever an opportunity arose. Behind them, spears ands were prepared to be thrown.


    Even the powerful Griffin Knights could be killed in an instant facing the Wolf Knights. In the eyes of the Knights, the fearless young man was already a dead person.


    Facing the deadly assault of the Wolf Knights, the young man simply chuckled and a hint of brutality could be sensed from his smile. That familiar smile reminded Akerli of where he saw the sword.


    ¡°Oh! Isn¡¯t he the human sculpture from the vige? Sword Ki? He is a Sword Saint! ...That sword? Could that be Rnd Sacred Sword? Holy Knight Rnd?¡±


    These were the final thoughts that shed through Akerli¡¯s mind. The snow-white sword shed across the snow and the flying Sword Ki started to reap the lives of others. A cold sensation on the necks and the Wolf Knight Captain felt his vision starting to nt as his head fell onto the snowy ground.


    The final sight burned into his eyes was the silver chainmail Sword Saint moving the swords in both of his hands, a single Wolf Knight dying with every single movement of his sword.


    At this moment, the Wolf Knights were devoid of the strength to resist the enemy. They were like frail chicks who had met a butcher, and what they did half an hour ago in front of that sculpture was urring to them at this instant.


    ¡°The murderer is often murdered. Such an irony...¡±


    At the first face-off, the Knights of the Kara Tribe lost their head. As a mindless murderer, he no longer had to worry about how he should exin his actions to his own child.


    ¡°Repay blood with blood. Die!¡±


    Someone shouted these words and very soon, the snowynds returned to its previous tranquility. It was just that there were additional headless corpses on thends.


    Yes, the blood debt must be paid with blood. However, who was the first debtor? Do we start counting from this war, the war twenty years ago, or the war three hundred years? This might be something no one could ever rationalize out.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    After killing the final Wolf Knights, I felt fatigued. So I stabbed the swords into the snow and rested on the battlefield.


    While waiting, Irene finished cleaning up the escapees. I recalled some things that I could do.


    From the embrace of the Wolf Knight, I retrieved a goatskin pouch. As I expected, besides supplies, there was a map of the nearby viges. Those marked with a red cross meant that the Wolf Knights had already been there, and there was no need for me to head there anymore.


    All that was in my field of vision were corpses and blood, but somehow, I felt thirsty. So I opened the water pouch the other force left behind and drank from it. It was an absurdly sweet, inferior horse milk wine. Somehow, I spat all of it out.


    ¡°Pui, bitter and rough, just like back then.¡±


    While Iined, Harloys had alreadypleted interpreted the Wolf Knights¡¯ patrol routes. Thus, my next location had been confirmed.


    ¡°Blue Lake Vige? Hope that we can make it in time. I do not wish to see ruins again.¡±


    Thinking of the horrendous state Anwen Vige was in, I quickened my pace. After cleaning up the battlefield and double checking that there was no intelligence I had left behind, I hopped onto Erebe¡¯s saddle and headed to my next target.


    This was already the twelfth Wolf Knight section I had cleared. Compared to my otherpanions, I, who was operating as an individual, could be considered to have aplished the least. Even so, the effects of our results on the entire battlefield was meager.


    Everyone knew about the theory of huddling together to ward off the cold. Once Sleuweir was destroyed, the other Northern countries would be next. So the moment the snow started to lighten, the reinforcements of the other countries quickly headed over to aid it.


    We were the fastest to arrive, but also the least in quantity. A hundred Undead Knights with three hundred rookie Knights. On the main battlefield where divisions counted by ten thousands, we were probably unable to contribute much.


    Considering the East Mist¡¯s current situation and the beast packs that would assault the country in winter, it was already very surprising that the East Mist was able to send reinforcements. Given how the one leading the army was me, all sorts of excessive gossip and criticisms on the East Mist was silenced. Yeah, at the very least, they were silenced when facing me.


    Of course, while we had limited quantity, the same could not be said about quality. My Undead Knights were reliable fighters and those rookie Knights were the elites picked out from the newly established divisions; all theycked was experience.


    As for me, I wasn¡¯t really interested in the main battlefield at Antuen. The reinforcements of the other countries headed straight for the main fighting force of the Beastmen while on the other hand, I focused on those roaming troops.


    The gueri tactics of the Beastmen were effective. In order to clear the roaming troops on theirnds, the fief lords of Sleuweir Kingdom ignored the orders to provide reinforcements to the capital. As for the other, stronger fief lords, they had been engaged by the other three Beastmen army.


    Light cavalry (consisting of more than Wolf Knights) hunting in enemy territory wasn¡¯t a rare battle tactic, but it was extremely useful whenplemented with the elite troops of the Beastmen. It was an extremely effective strategy, as well as a brutal one.


    For an ordinary vige, it didn¡¯t matter whether the one attacking them was a Sword Saint or a group of Bronze-ranked Wolf Knights. In any case, the vige would be purged.


    Killing these roaming cavalries was a difficult and ineffective task. Given their mobility, it was difficult to catch up with them. Furthermore, even if one sessfully caught up to them, given their top-ss individual abilities, it was hard to tell who would win.


    Before the main army of the Beastmen was destroyed, the other countries did not have the power to care about the small viges of another country. Yet I decided to interfere in the affair.


    ¡°Who cares about those nobility. Since we¡¯re already here and we have the capability to help them, let¡¯s just do it.¡±


    I did not have many people under me, but the Undead Knights were capable fighters. They could easily face a section of Wolf Knights by themselves. At the same time, the rookie Knights could also umte some fighting experience.


    Thus, I scattered the group and had an Undead Knight lead three rookie Knights in a team to hunt down the roaming light cavalries.


    Logically but unexpectedly, this kind of operation won the hearts of the people. After all, the fief lords and the royalty who should have been protecting them neglected their jobs, and my Undead Knights were the best insignia of our identity.


    ¡°Our ancestor Rnd had led his army to save the Mist citizens. That fake emperor Feimer had ignored Emperor Rnd¡¯s warnings, as well as the plight of the citizens, caring only for his own authority and safety and holed himself up in the capital.¡±


    From a certain perspective, the official deration the Sleuweir royalty made beforehand disyed clearly the meaning of foolishness and suicide. I, who ¡°magnanimously¡± forgave them, continued with my hunt. My prestige was growing to greater heights every single day. The Undead Knights began to be weed passionately by the vigers and they felt even more motivated in their jobs.


    Then, something shocking happened.


    Feimer, upon seeing such a situation, despite Antuen still being in a desperate situation, warned the civilians through the church that I was making use of this cmity to win the hearts of the people and reaffirmed that I wasn¡¯t their ancestor Rnd, just an imitation who was trying to deceive them.


    Clearly, in the eyes of this ¡°emperor,¡± the Beastmen army was an external threat which was going to be expelled sooner orter. On the other hand, my Knights and I were the true ¡°threat.¡±


    Hearing that, I almost turned around and left. However, thinking about the matter again, I decided to go all out.


    ¡°Fine, since you said that I¡¯m here to win their hearts, I will win their hearts then. Knights, don our insignia and hoist our gs. We are here reinforce them. Why should we conceal our identities?¡±


    The citizens are the citizens while the royalty are the royalty. Should I just watch these vigers die just because of that fool in Antuen?


    When word spread, the prestige of the Sleuweir royalty fell even further. Every day, countless refugees chose to escape to East Mist, a location they would never have chosen to move to in the past.


    ording of my sources, after Feimer heard that news, he smashed a century-old family heirloom, a Rainbow Jade Wine Cup. After which, he felt intense regret over his moment of folly. After hearing this news, in order to console him, I sent him a message through the church.


    ¡°Rainbow Jade Wine Cup? Isn¡¯t that the unintentional product I made from creating ss back then? Don¡¯t worry, even though it looks beautiful, it is just normal stained ss so it isn¡¯t worth much. Actually, it isn¡¯t a wine cup either. It is actually a failed spittoon which I identally burnt too much. I even ced crickets in it before.... There should be a signature to indicate that it was made by Rnd on the back of it. If it isn¡¯t too fragmented, you can try looking for it.¡±


    Alright, based on the rumors, he actually put the cup back together. However, this time, what was shattered wasn¡¯t just a wine cup.

 Chapter 149

    Chapter 149: Reunion


    ¡°I wish to be a Knight. Even if I am just a wild Knight without a family coat of arms, even if I serve as a squire for others for life, even if I am unable to be an official Knight for my entire life, it will be fine as long as I can be a Knight.¡±


    For Cohen Asta, bing a true Knight had always been his wish.


    However, it was unfortunate that he wasn¡¯t a child of nobility, so it was impossible for him to be sent to an elite Knight to learn under him as a squire. He also wasn¡¯t a talented warrior who would send teachers into a frenzy fighting over him. He was just an ordinary farmer¡¯s child. Needless to say studying at a Knight Academy, he wasn¡¯t even able to read. Thus, he was never able to take the first step in aplishing his dream.


    Thus, he decided to lower his goal and set out to be an ordinary warrior as his goal. However, the result was even more disappointing.


    ¡°Regardless of what closebat ss it is, you won¡¯t be able to meet the standards if you don¡¯t even have basic strength. It would be best for you to return.¡±


    Unable to even carry the sandbags used for training; unable to carry the wooden spear; exhausted after swinging the wooden sword a few times; it was no wonder that no one was willing to ept him.


    His physique still remained his fatal w among his fellow peers. Even though his conspicuous golden hair and exquisite features made him a popr figure among the young, his weak limbs still made him unsure of himself.


    Little Cohen felt despair at the fact that even ordinary militias were unwilling to ept him. Even so, he didn¡¯t n to give up.


    ¡°Since Ick talent, I will make up for it with hard work.¡±


    Thus, Cohen¡¯s neighbors would always see him awake early in the morning, running by the river and carrying sandbags.


    Every day, after he finished his daily duties, he headed to the various stores to help others move their goods. Part of the reason was to earn money, but more than that, he hoped to train himself through such a method to build up his strength.


    Even though training was extremely tiring, it was effective. At the very least, his pale limbs became slightly more muscr and tanned. Going by the words of the neighbor Big Sister Lisa, he finally looked masculine.


    However, his changes were more like evolving from a hamster into a squirrel, fighting prowess increasing from five to six and not panting the moment he started running. However, what he was unable to carry before, he was still unable to carry. For the time being, it was still impossible for him to swing metal swords.


    Thus, even though he felt self-satisfaction at his improvement, he was still eliminated from the first round of the selection process for the divisions. After all, the East Mist wasn¡¯t wealthy and it couldn¡¯t afford to sustain arge army while the civilians were extremely passionate about joining the army. As such, the registration numbers far surpassed the required personnel in the divisions and this caused the standards to be heightened. Cohen had been too far from the starting line from the very start, and it was impossible for him to be a warrior at all.


    Even so, he was unwilling to give up. As long as he worked hard to train himself up, the umtion of his hard work would soon result in a qualitative change for him.


    However, it was a pity that what awaited him was a series of failure.


    ¡°It is impossible for you to be a Knight, give up. No, I¡¯m not talking about your birthright. The Mist Country has always operated by meritocracy and there are quite a few farmers who became Knights and fief lords. I am speaking about your abilities. if you¡¯re unable to even wield a two-handed sword, how can you get on the battlefield? Since you aren¡¯t even able to get on the battlefield, how can you be titled a Knight?¡±


    A Lord Knight who was touched by his efforts intended to ept him as his page, but after conducting some tests, he gave up on the idea.


    ¡°Aiyo, isn¡¯t this our future Lord Knight? Hehe, nice to meet you, Lord. Lord, have you just returned from your patrol? Did you achieve anything? Did you defeat a Demon or a Beastman? Or did you just triumph over an evil dragon? Ah, how incredible, Cohen. He is our future Dragon ying Hero. Hahaha!¡±


    While his usual physical training had received the approval of a few, there were also a few youngsters who found him an eyesore and took this opportunity to mock him.


    Even so, he persisted. At this point, he probably could no longer remember why he chose to embark on this thorny path from the very start.


    Was it because he was saved by a group of Knights when he was attacked by wild beasts when he was younger? Or was he moved by the stories of his ancestors which he had heard since his childhood? Was it when he saw the victorious homing march of the Knights? Or was it when he swore to use his both hands to protect his family and friends?


    There was no path of return, and he did not intend to back out either. Thus, he could only continue persisting....


    ¡°Trust yourself, you can do it. I was also extremely thin and weak when I was younger, but look at how far I came. Right, Prince Rnd seems to be intending to create a division. Do you want to give it a try?¡±


    There were a few who bore expectations from him. Every time Big Brother Cloone returned and saw how hard Cohen worked, he would try to encourage him.


    Right, to Cohen and the others, Cloone, who came from the same vige as them, was an impressive figure. He was the pride and hope of Darr Vige. Even though he was young, he was already serving as a part of the Royal Knights. Even though he wasn¡¯t an official Knight yet, in the eyes of the vigers, it was just a matter of time.


    It was only that he had recently adopted a cute little girl called Ailee. Despite his tough life, he had somehow just be an unwedded father. This made many young girls cry.


    Under Big Brother Cloone¡¯s encouragement, Cohen was even more motivated and worked even harder. However, what came his way was just failure after failure.


    Until one day when he met a ck cat. A ck cat that, bizarrely, was capable of speaking the humannguage. There, he met the turning point of his life.


    ¡°Meow, I¡¯ve found a treasure. To think that he would be an Elemental Son! Sign a contract with me and be a magical girl... magical boy!¡±


    Cohen was first taken aback. Initially, he thought that it was just a joke from one of the spellcasters. In the end, under the verification of Big Brother Cloone, he realized that this ck cat was actually an incredible figure. She was the beloved pet of Prince Rnd, a cat who was capable of casting magic.


    She actually said that he had outstanding talents in magic and she wanted to groom him to be a Mage. Without a doubt, that was an upation that held even greater potential than a Knight and logically speaking, he should have leapt at the opportunity.


    But...


    ¡°Lord, I thank you for your appreciation. However, my goal is to be a Knight. Perhaps, the route of a spellcaster just isn¡¯t one for me.¡±


    Alright, a bizarre expression immediately appeared on the ck cat¡¯s face. That look of iprehension and shock made Cohen worry if he had identally offended her.


    After a brief moment of silence, that ck cat continued speaking.


    ¡°Alright, if you want to be a Knight, so be it. Let me introduce you to someone. He will hoodwink... guide you. From the perspective of a Knight, he should be an incredible figure. Yeah, even though he is aplete idiot when ites to magic. However, I think that he should be a suitable teacher for you.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡°Rnd, I found your brother.¡±


    When I heard those words, I was taken aback. Isn¡¯t my brother, Karwenz, still in the Chaos Abyss? How could this darned cat meet him?


    ¡°You possess incredible swordsmanship talent, and you are obviously a godsent Warrior. Yet, you chose to be a Mage. On the other hand, he, as the Elemental Son, a person born with incredible talents in magic, chose to be an iron can (Knight). Given how awkward you two are, what else can you two be other than brothers?¡±


    Alright, that darned cat sure didn¡¯t mince her words. Naturally, I took good care of her for that.


    However, I had confidence in her choice of people. Thus, my interest toward this little friend known as Cohen was piqued and I arranged for a meeting with him.


    ¡°Pri... Prince Rnd! Lord Harloys said that you can make me a Knight...¡±


    That fellow was so agitated that he kept trembling before me. Stuttering, he identally bit his tongue. Through the System Interface, my interest in him deepened.


    ¡¾Cohen Asta ss: NoneStrength: 5Agility: 7Stamina: 7Intelligence: 14Will: 11Charm: 10Race Talent: Elemental SonSystem Evaluation: For a person with such terrible strength and talent for magic to refuse to be a Mage and insisting on bing a Knight instead, he is truly your brother.¡¿


    ¡¾Race Talent Elemental Son: Do you find the lengthy incantations hard to remember? Theplicated magic forms hard toprehend? This isn¡¯t a problem for the Elemental Son. They are born with the ability to manipte elements and theirmands can be used to rece the ineffective magic incantations. They are the favored ones of the world, the illegitimate son of Magic and Elements, destined to be a great Mage.¡¿


    Soon, after some interaction, I roughly understood what was going on.


    It was no wonder that Harloys said that he was my brother. He wanted to be a melee fighter when he only possessed 5 Strength. His talent as a Mage had hindered his path as a Knight; it was truly rare to see a person with such an awkward personality.


    After a short moment of interacting with him, I started to grow fond of this slightly shy boy. After all, these days, more and more youngsters were more obsessed with ¡°making a fortune,¡± and the number of ¡°idiots¡± who persisted for their dreams was lessening. Those who persisted despite seeing no rewards on sight was even rarer.


    In a certain sense, I am the same awkward ¡°obstinate buffalo¡± as he is. Thus, I epted him in as my third page.


    ¡°Cough, since that¡¯s the case, I¡¯ll teach some of the necessary lessons for a Knight. First, you have to learn how to connect with the world and control your magic power.... This isn¡¯t a necessary lesson for a Knight, but a lesson for a Mage? Young man, there¡¯s no need to be so anxious. You have to remain humble and learn patiently. Have you never heard of Mage Knight? This is a necessary lesson for an outstanding Knight. Ordinary Knights wouldn¡¯t even get an opportunity to learn such advanced lessons. Right, I have a few closebat sses that are suitable for you. Do you want to give them a try?¡±


    Putting aside how I managed to guide (hoodwink) this young man afterwards, I am quite contented with the decision I made. After all, given how unqualified the other two pages of mine were, this young man was truly of great help.


    Even though the help he had provided me was on another aspect...


    ¡°Big Brother Rnd, I have identally overcooked the meat. It is a little charred, but my intuition tells me that it will be delicious. Why don¡¯t you give it a try? Perhaps this might turn out to be a new taste that is to your liking.¡±


    No, it was impossible for it to be delicious. After all, one side was charred while the other side was raw. It was a problem of whether it was safe for me to eat it. Besides, your intuition had never been urate.


    ¡°That¡¯s weird. I had strictly followed the proportions using the Alchemic recipe. Ten grams of salt, one gram of sugar, so how could it taste that bad.... Ah, I missed that decimal point and added ten times more salt (Ah, I mixed up sugar and salt as well)... Why don¡¯t you just make do with it?¡±


    Should I say, as expected of an Alchemist? To think that you would actually bring the entire Alchemy set for outdoor camping. The lunch you made bore the scent of chemistry with it. But how was it that the product you made would be so fearsome? What is with that oily green substance? Are you sure that I can make do with it? How about you try it for yourself before passing it to me? I finally understand how you managed to remain a third-rate Alchemist even after so many years. Can¡¯t you just happen to get it right for once?


    Typically speaking, a Knight¡¯s page was the personal assistant of the Knight. Going by the traditions, a page was responsible for the logistics their master required. If the master was unhappy with their work, regardless of how powerful that page was, he was unlikely to ever be an official Knight.


    Before bing a Knight, they were in a teacher-apprentice rtionship, as well as a master-servant rtionship. Some of them even regarded it as a father-son rtionship. However, it was clear that the two pages I had chosen beforehand weren¡¯t really reliable. Most of the time, it was me, the master, who was taking care of them. Their passion toward their training was also unseemly.


    As a princess, Reyne had totally no concept of outdoor survival. On the other hand, Kathleen was born from a prestigious family of Knights. Even though her family had fallen from grace, it was understandable why she wascking practical skills.


    If not for Cohen producing some edible meat stew, I, who was already tired from the long journey, would have to make some food myself. It was truly a wonder who the servant was now.


    Based on the predetermined grouping, I should have been a single group with my three pages. However, Reyne said that she had already reached Gold-rank, and with the Rnd Sacred Sword in her hands, she could stand on her own and deal with the enemies by herself, no longer requiring my guidance.


    Fine, I¡¯ll ept that. After all, it was impossible for one to grow without experiencing practical fights. I¡¯ll let you try it for yourself then. In fact, afraid that you might have insufficient manpower, I sent my other two pages to follow you, so show me some results.


    However, one¡¯s power rank did not represent one¡¯s actual fighting power. In terms of actual power, a tenacious Bronze-rank was able to frighten this Gold-rank, who had yet to see blood. On the battlefield, a moment¡¯s hesitation could easily mean death.


    In the end, it went exactly as I expected. If not for the Blood Tribe Assassin I sent interjecting at a timely moment, this East Mist princess might have to consider converting into an Undead.


    ¡°Lass, it¡¯s still too early for you to leave my apprenticeship.¡±


    Thus, we converged together and operated as a team afterwards. With the assistance of my pages, I felt even more fatigued. Not only did I have to hunt those roaming cavalries, I had to spend time to take care of these rookies. I felt like I was ying the role of a teacher and a parent simultaneously.


    Fortunately, the farmer-bornd, Cohen, wielded a certain level of survival skills. He could build temporary shelters and settle some of the daily necessities. In a way, he was truly a great help.


    Helpless, I even called out Reyne¡¯s secret bodyguard, Susanna, and had her find a way to teach these rookies some basic outdoor survival skills. At the very least, they should know how to make the basic barbecued meat, meat stew, and such.


    After all, it was impossible for one to bring sufficient dry rations for a prolonged wilderness campaign. Meat stew and barbecued meat were two of the most basic dishes, but just depending on these two would cause one to suffer from imbnced nutrition and this would eventually lower fighting prowess.


    As such, mature adventuring teams were often skilled in outdoor survival techniques. The renowned Master of Survival Bear Grylls had once said, ¡°The wilderness is my life. The wilderness is the most natural outdoor food trove. Anything can be eaten once beheaded!¡±


    Afterpleting my hunt, I returned to my camp and caught the whiff of a familiar meat stew. Instantly, my appetite was whetted.


    ¡°Hm? How fragrant. There seems to be wild herbs and vegetables as well? Susanna sure did well. You all learned fast, to think that your cooking skills would reach such a level so quickly...¡±


    I was unable to speak further. What entered my vision upon reaching the campsite was a youngdy dressed in a maid costume busying about. That was a familiar figure that should have never appeared here.


    ¡¾Ding! A wandering wild maid has appeared. Thank the maid from saving you from the mysterious mixture hell. Otherwise, what would have been waiting for you would be a mixture created from Reyne and Kathleen¡¯s hard work¡ªGreen Slime Cooking! Er, as someone who was aware of the matter beforehand, I...¡¿


    Ignoring the nonsense the System came up with, that familiar figure made me feel like I was in a dream.


    That familiar bow, that familiar gleam of her spectacles... and that unfamiliar passion and temperature. While I was still in a daze, that wild maid had already given me a hug.


    ¡°Wee back, master. Do you want to bathe first, eat your breakfast first... or eat me?¡±


    Alright, I don¡¯t know whether I can really eat you, but that dagger-like cold re of yours felt like it was ready to eat me.


    ¡°Elisa!?¡±

 Chapter 150

    Chapter 150: Secret


    ¡°Big Brother Rnd really treats me well. He often tells me bedtime stories and we would spend the night with just each other.¡±


    ¡°As expected of an undeveloped little girl. To think that you¡¯re still interested in listening to bedtime stories. Let Big Sister teach you a life lesson. All of those bedtime stories are lies. Princesses are all flower vases who are unable to withstand pressure and princes were all perverts with fetishes. In fact, there are many such examples around us.¡±


    ¡°Y-you, you are ndering me!¡±


    ¡°However, it is no wonder you are so na?ve. After all, children have the right to remain ignorant. When I was younger, I often listened to master¡¯s stories as well. I have heard them for around a century now. Oh, should I call him honey now? It does feel a little embarrassing to call him that.¡±


    There wasn¡¯t the slightest bit of embarrassment on Elisa, who was chuckling behind her hands. With just a few words, she managed to infuriate Reyne. However, it seemed like I was somehow attacked by her venomous mouth as well.


    ¡°Looks like Elisa must have met Karwenz. It is true that he is a pervert. It isn¡¯t bizarre for her toe to such a conclusion. Yeah, she definitely isn¡¯t referring to me.¡±


    Shaking my head, I ignored the discussion over there and turned my attention to the feast before me. For numerous reasons, this seemed to be the first time I was eating food made by Elisa personally.


    After several experiments thest few days, I had no choice but to take mydle myself. However, I had long since gotten sick of the food I cooked myself. Cohen¡¯s cooking skills were also very average. I had been craving for good food recently, and as long as Elisa¡¯s food was not bad, I would be extremely satisfied.


    She had mademon meat stew. The meat was cut thinly and there were bits of wild grasses floating on top. An indescribable herb had added to the allure of the stew, and the green onion-like aroma whetted my appetite.


    ¡°Delicious!¡±


    Even though I had guessed that the cooking skills of the veteran maid Elisa wouldn¡¯t be bad, I was still pleasantly surprised by the taste of the meat stew.


    The stew was thick but smooth, and its aroma tackled my nose as I gulped down the soup. In fact, even after swallowing it, the aftertaste lingered in my mouth, enticing me to take another mouthful. There was also barbecued meat by the side zed with wild honey and herbs. My stomach immediately grumbled in protest.


    ¡°What kind of herb is this? It must be extremely expensive! Yeah, delicious!¡±


    I immediately started to dig in. On the other end, Kathleen and Cohen exchanged gazes before digging in as well.


    From how ravenously they were devouring the food, it seemed like I wasn¡¯t the only one tortured by theck of good food.


    The most delicious feast I remembered was the one I had before my Ascension. However, due to time restraints, Elisa didn¡¯t get to make it herself. It was truly to pleasant surprise to taste her handicraft now.


    ¡°Hey, if you don¡¯t dig in, we¡¯ll be finishing all of it.¡±


    ¡°I have no appetite,¡± Reyne said obstinately. However, the moment she said such words, her stomach immediately rumbled. Her face immediately flushed.


    ¡°Hehe, the most important thing in life is to be happy, and to do so, a satisfied stomach is a priority. Rnd, take your time and don¡¯t choke. Are you still hungry? If there isn¡¯t enough food, I can make a bowl of noodles for you.¡±


    Thus, I nodded my head in sheer delight. After regaining a physical body, my greatest hobby was eating. As a result, I never turned down anyone with superior cooking skills. How could I possibly turn my head away from such an event?


    But that very afternoon, I realized there were some things which one should never put into their mouths, especially when it came from a Demon who had umted a bucketful of resentment behind her cheerful smile.


    ¡°AHHH! My stomach hurts. My head is also spinning. This is the fourth time my stomach has been acting up today! Elisa, what exactly did you put into the food!¡±


    ¡°The Cursed Herb, ck Mand Grass. Just as you said, it is an extremely expensive herb, almost equivalent to consuming gold. Right, there¡¯s also the Little Fanged Dragon meat that I had just procured. This is an extremely nutritious tonic. Aiyo, Lord, could it be that your body isn¡¯t well-nourished? It isn¡¯t good to leave your body in such a state. I shall cook another bowl of noodles to stock up on your nutrients.¡±


    To think that she would use the ck Mand Grass which was used to create poison as green onion... The Little Fanged Dragon, otherwise known as Little Green Dragon, was also poisonous. Should I be thankful that I only suffered a stomach ache from the mixture of the two poisonous substance?


    ¡°Something¡¯s not right! Why are they alright!¡±


    ¡°Actually, I cleared away the poison in the meat and herbs before using them as ingredients. It must be that there is some kind of stimnt in the noodles which happened to trigger the poison in them. I¡¯m truly sorry, master.¡±


    That impassive exnation and emotionless apology sounded like monotonous reciting. Only now did I realize that perhaps, all along, Elisa had been infuriated....


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, it¡¯s my fault.


    Alright, a true hero knows when to back down. I understood the vindictive nature of this littless. This likely wouldn¡¯t be the end of her vengeance. For the sake of delicious lunch in the future, I apologized immediately even though I didn¡¯t know my mistake. Was it because I had been too busy tomunicate with her recently?


    ¡°It¡¯s all your fault. But since you have apologized, I will ept it then.¡±


    Elisa finally shed a sincere smile. Afterward, she threw me a bottle, which after consuming, I felt the chaos in my stomach calming down slightly.


    There was also another reason why I liked Elisa¡¯s personality. Even though she often threw tantrums, as long as I apologized, she would immediately forgive me. If she seemed to be angry in any way, it would definitely be no mistake to take the initiative to apologize in advance.


    ¡°...I am finally feeling slightly better. I am a living man; I will really die from that! Please don¡¯te up with those kinds of jokes in the future. Right, why are you here? What¡¯s with this physical body of yours?¡±


    It was truly an unexpected surprise for Elisa to be here. Soon, I managed to grasp what was going on.


    It turned out that Elisa¡¯s physical body was an avatar created using the tributes of the Beastmen. She was barely able toe over through eating a portion of the tributes, so this avatar did not wield much strength.


    While she had no problems whatsoever with operating day-to-day chores, it was impossible for her to join the battles.


    ¡°Enough. It¡¯s already great that you cane.¡±


    It¡¯s not that my M nature is working up. Rather, I had felt the agony of not having a handy assistant by my side these few days. Now that Elisa was here, I could finally dump all of my work on her.


    The moment I said those words, the cold-faced Elisa smiled in satisfaction. Then, she came closer and stared at me face-to-face.


    ¡°...I know what you¡¯re thinking of. Nevertheless, your words still make me happy. This is your reward.¡±


    In a certain sense, the Demonified Elisa had be braver in expressing her emotions and pursuing her desires.


    That beautiful face slowly approached mine and the frosty expression that she usually wore disappeared. Below that ice mountain was passion as fiery as the mes of hell. A bright red blush appeared on Elisa¡¯s cheeks and her seductive red cheeks were exuding incredible allure and warmth. I had nowhere to back away to.


    ¡°You... What are you all doing!!¡±


    It was a pity that I wasn¡¯t the only one here. Putting aside the other two who were trying their best to pretend to be statues, Reyne did not intend to sit on the sidelines and watch this scene unfold before her. She immediately charged between us to tear us apart.


    ¡°Pity? I actually found it a pity?¡±


    While I was conflicted over my own emotions, a verbal argument had broken out between Elisa and Reyne once more.


    ¡°I finally understand why master hates rascals now. Shouldn¡¯t you pretend to be oblivious when you see your parents getting intimate with one another?¡±


    ¡°Parents... Who are you saying are my parents? Furthermore, I am not a rascal! I am fourteen years old! I am already of marriageable age!¡±


    ¡°Fourteen years old? How incredible! I thought you were only ten. Annie seemed to have surpassed you when she was only ten.¡±


    Alright, even though her words were without context, based on her downward nce, it was clear what she was referring to.


    ¡°That... Elisa, won¡¯t you take damage from your words as well?¡±


    Alright, seeing her twisted lips and twitching eyebrows, that venomous t-chested youngdy was currently sacrificing herself to deal damage to the other party. Her heart was probably bleeding at the moment.


    Just like before, in just a few words, Elisa had managed to destroy Reyne. That ineloquent Reyne could only march off to a corner and sulk.


    Even though Elisa was in the midst of angering Reyne, her words suddenly echoed through the ring.


    ¡°Master, I have already investigated the source of the bloodline of the new Mist Royal Family. I¡¯m afraid that this matter is moreplicated than we expected. Using your words, it is an incredibly huge scheme, to the extent that I would only be reassured if I came over to say it myself. I have already set up the barrier. Just listen to my words and do not overreact.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    A formless barrier blocked all curious gazes. I was still squatting by the side and enjoying the glow of the sun whereas Elisa was busy packing the bowls and chopsticks. Unbeknownst to the others, we were currently conversing.


    ¡°First, she is indeed of the Mist Bloodline. However, she is not your descendant. Just like you have expected, you are still an old virgin, a powerful elder of the FFF cult, a Forbidden Spell-level Archmage, and the spiritual leader of the Torch Festival. The moment I think about the fact that I am the first love of a thousand-year-old virgin, I can¡¯t help but feel agitated. After which, I can¡¯t help but instinctively feel slightly disgusted and threatened. It is said that those who restrain themselves for too long be slightly perverted. After thirty years of holding themselves back, they can do anything. As for three hundred years...¡±


    While having salt rubbed in my wound by that venomous tongue, a shocking secret was gradually revealed right before me. I couldn¡¯t help but put aside the resentment of the demon.


    This time, I was truly shocked. It was no wonder that Elisa sent her avatar down despite the costs. It wasn¡¯t sufficiently safe for her to use any other means to inform me about the matter unless it was face to face.


    After a long time, Elisa was done revealing everything. Even though the wind outside was piercingly cold, cold sweat was still flowing down my back.


    ¡°If I remained ignorant of the matter all along, I would have been done for. Looks like I really mustn¡¯t underestimate my opponents.¡±


    While I couldn¡¯t help but shudder upon thinking of the possible consequences that could have urred if Elisa had failed to find out the matter and inform me of it, I still chuckled. Schemes and traps were only fearsome when they were unnoticed. Since I had learnt of them, I coulde up with ns of my own to counteract them.


    ¡°Thank you, Elisa. Your presence is truly assuring. Looks like I owe you another one. I really can¡¯t imagine what I would do without you.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, seems like you are getting mushier and mushier. If you are truly sincere about your words, you should stop getting involved with other girls.¡±


    Even though she said so, judging from that sweet smile on the corners of her lips, it seemed like my words weren¡¯tpletely useless.


    While we smiling to one another, the pages behind me who were oblivious to our telepathicmunication started to quietly discuss me.


    ¡°To suddenly smile lecherously when nothing has happened.... Cohen, could it be that there is still some poison lingering in the body of our teacher? He looks a little foolish and bewitched.¡±


    ¡°... I heard from the neighboring Big Brother Cloone that men who hold it in for too long will tend to act slightly strange. Seems like Lord Elisa¡¯s appearance has delighted His Highness so greatly that he was unable to uphold his etiquette.¡±


    ¡°Seems like you would really be a pervert after holding it in for too long. But from the looks of it, it seems like there ispletely no hope for Princess Reyne.¡±


    ¡°That... Senior Kathleen, Princess Reyne is behind you and it seems like she is infuriated.¡±


    ¡°AHH, Your Highness, I¡¯m sorry. Umm... Surely you won¡¯t reduce the amount we have agreed upon. I still need that money to buy a new set of Alchemy tools. Um... Even though the opponent is powerful, there is still hope for you. At the very least, there are some aspects where you two are on the same level.... Pu, I really wasn¡¯t thinking of that. Anyway, I will try my best to speak well of you before the prince!¡±


    The apprentices seemed to have gotten into a dispute. On the other hand, I needed to reconsider my future moves.


    ¡°The Revival of the Mist? This is truly a massive and troublesome trap. Looks like I have to quickly end this war. Then, I think I should head to Antuen next.¡±

 Chapter 151

    Chapter 151: Entering the City


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    ¡°My Lord, I have some ideas. The Elemental sword seal was a spectacr discovery, but we have been too crude in utilizing it. Its current development is highly inefficient. We can start from the construction of its spell, making it more unrestrained, more seamless. After the construction of the basic sword seal, we can use the basic sword seal to reconstruct the elemental sword seal.¡±


    Every time Cohen suggested something to me, a bunch of jargon that I can¡¯tprehend will start to crawl into my ears. Then I will start sighing, wondering who was the mentor and who was the apprentice.


    ¡°Prodigious wizard who works hard to be a knight, while learning alchemy and magic at the same time. She is Kathleen Solia from the Gentlemen¡¯s Alliance. My knight squires are a bunch of weirdos.¡± In a sense, those three people were not considered brilliant. It also seemed like they were steering further from the path of bing knights, especially the little Cohen who is standing in front of him. However, he has fully showcased his talents without me taking notice.


    Incantations? The form to construct a spell? I can do all these instinctively, without putting much thought in it. To a son of elements, magic was just a manifestation of will. Usage of general spells was only a process to that prove the formtion that has already been generalized, just like a mathematician who casuallyes up with new forme, the son of elements can casually create unlimited numbers of new magic.


    Now, I could finally understand why Harloys wanted me to deceive this little Cohen. The humans¡¯ son of elements, the dwarves¡¯ son of lightning, and the elves¡¯ son of moon were considered God given children. The son of lightning is good at fighting and smithing. The son of moon is a prodigy in theurgy. Both them are astonishing prodigies in their own fields. In a way, they are actually very simr. It would be a shame if all these talents went to waste. My ideas on four elemental swordcasting were general and simple. An ordinary soldier could handle a certain level of the strain of using the power of elements by skipping the knowledge of basic theory. Naturally, they will be able understand all those magical theories when they be skilled elemental casters.


    ¡°The first step is always the hardest. There are a lot of people with the potential to be powerful, but most of the time, theyck talent. They cannot even make the very first step.¡± To Cohen, this was a brand-new world.


    It was true that my arms were weak, but I had the sword that did the heavy lifting in ce of my arms.


    It was true that I cannot run fast and jump far, but I have my mark of wind that bes my wings.


    It was true that my sword cannot prate the scale of dragons, thus I will have my mark of lightning summoning to serve as my sword edge. The dream of bing a knight motivated and kept Cohen moving forward. On the other hand, Harloys became the contributor of an uncountable number of theories. There were new results and advancements every single day. Based on what I observed, this kid, Cohen¡¯s level was increasing at a lightning speed. Yesterday, he was a level fifteen, four elemental Mage Knight. Today, he is a level seventeen Mage Knight. It is safe to say that in two more days, he will be a level twenty Mage Knight. His dedication had brought out the best in this brand-new ss, the four elemental Mage Knight.


    ¡°Sword seal of ck tortoise¡ªThe coiling of the cial serpent¡± The magical power of ice will spread through the ground without being seen and it would surprise its opponent by appearing under their feet, freezing them to the ground. ¡°The most important thing about the properties was that ice can freeze, lightning can paralyze, and mes can burn. If we only treat it as temporary enchantments to increase the effectiveness of our attacks, it will be a total waste. We can fully utilize their natural properties toe up withpletely different magical sword skills.¡±


    ¡°As you know, the magical power of ice spreads rather slowly. Even if we tried to enhance our swords to freeze our opponents, it would still take a longer time to achieve its goal. Due to its ability to stay hidden, we can totally take our time, battling against our opponents.¡±


    Still, there was a limit to Cohen¡¯s ability. Also, he had note up with any new sword skills. But, by changing his method of battling, by utilizing the right elements, the totalbat effectiveness of this brand-new ss has been increased by three times. It was imperative that Cohen gains the ability to hear the whispers of the elements. It would actually allow him to discover a new way for this ss to improve and develop other elemental sword skills.


    [Congrattions Master, for acquiring new magical sword skill, The Sword Seal of ck Tortoise ¨C The Coil of cial Serpent. This skill will be automatically included in the ss system of the four elemental Mage Knight. System notification: Looking for the reward of inventing new skill? How dare you ask for a reward? What did you feel when your own apprentice taught you this new skill? Don¡¯t you feel ashamed? How long do you think you can deceive him from the rate of his improvement?]


    Unsurprisingly, the system mocked me. In order to protect my master¡¯s dignity, I will put more effort into the research. There is a saying, humans perform better under pressure. Harloys was very impressed by me when Ibined the power of frost and death to form a Deathly Frost sword seal. The sword seal possessed the magical powers of corrosion and freezing, and it was highly lethal against mortal. The only drawback of this sword seal was that it took a lot out of its user. In some inexplicable way, using this sword seal became my privilege.


    Of course, the straightforward way of naming this sword seal without any sense of technicality was definitely not my work. I sulked for quite some time when the name, Sleeping Tortoise sword seal was rejected by them. ¡°The magic power of death is from Sluggish Sword Seal and the magic power of ice is from ck Tortoise Sword Seal, when the two arebined together it became Sluggish ck Tortoise. Did it actually mean sleeping ck Tortoise? The way you name your sword seal is way too cool. In consideration of other apprentices¡¯ future, please leave this ce and entertain yourself at your own home.


    What was with all the bullshit? But, when I saw everyone around me nodding their heads and agreeing withment on my sword seal¡¯s name, I had to ept this bitter fact. ¡°Actually, I thought of a name for your sword seal...¡±Elisa said. Soon enough, Elisa, who held the dominant power in this small group had also invented her own personal sword seal. Her sword seal was thebination of demonic force and the force of ming sea. It was extremely powerful and evil. It was pretty obvious that no one else could use it.


    ¡°Let me guess. ording to your unique naming sense and poor choice of words, you will think that demon represents anger; and the me represents phoenix. So, the result will be Angry Phoenix?¡±


    ¡°No, it should be Angry Bird. And the sword seal of yours with thebination of fire and ice should be named as, The Song of Fire and Ice! Too bad, I still have a few other names that I have not used. Thebination of wind and earth, Azure Dragon and White Tiger can be named as The Fighting of Dragon and Tiger! Thebination of ice and wind, ck Tortoise and Azure Dragon should be called The Romance of Dragon and Serpent!¡± I said it with pride and joy. The apprentices around me did not say anything. They just nodded and left the ce one by one. Nobody else asked my opinion in naming sword seals anymore.


    Maple City, it was a small and less-known city in Sleuweir Kingdom. Yet, it had a special ce in my heart. Back in those days, I had a war against the armies of beastmen. If I recall correctly, this city used to be a temporarymand center. The war left behind quite a number of historical marks. There was a war museum somewhere in this town. Now, this city had be the focus of every northern countries. This was due to the fact that this city was near the capital city of Sleuweir Kingdom, Antoin. The area in front of Maple City had be the territory of the beastmen. Naturally, this city became the gathering ground of reinforcementsing in from different countries.


    I got in the city before dawn, and the gate of the cities were still shut. The guards were trying to stop me from going in. In some way, on this ground, my face was the best gate pass. The soldiers were stunned for a moment when they saw me. They saluted excitedly and then the door was opened wide for me to go in.


    ¡°Open the door! Herees the Lord.¡± I nodded my head politely and stepped on the ground that had not yet beenpletely frozen. There were squeaky sounds as I walked on the ground. I became silent when I saw a beastman¡¯s head hanging on the wall. I am not a good person, and neither do I have apassionate or sentimental heart as well. On the contrary, when I saw this phenomenon, I was actually happy and relieved. Well, there were simr sceneries at the viges that were being attacked by the beastman. Some human heads were left hanging as well. ording to their culture, they intended to build a tower of human heads. There were mutted youngdies¡¯ corpses and mangled toddlers who had been thrown to their deaths. That made me even more silent.


    This is war, and I hated war, because war was the ugliest thing on this earth. War legalized every single criminal activity and also turned humans into cold-blooded animals.


    This was war, my favorite war, I used to think that the only way of protecting my race was through war. The only way to destroy war was through war. Along the way, I was called hero, devil, butcher. There were mountains of bodies behind my back and I¡¯m afraid that the so called ¡°butcher¡± among the beastmen will never catch up to number of living souls that I had reaped.


    When I was known as a hero, I had ughtered an uncountable number of living souls. I was the hero among human being, but among beastmen, I was known as the butcher and the devil. I was used to scare the beastmen¡¯s kids if they didn¡¯t stop crying. The reason? Well, I guess I was the first one to actually carry out their culture of building a tower of heads with the help of ground and aerial units.


    This was war between countries. The racial war between humankind and beastman. I had no idea how much grudge both sides have retained. When the war began, even the worst crimes will be seen as sacred and heroic. Was I a hero? A butcher? A devil? I¡¯m afraid, I¡¯m all of the above. I had never considered myself as a saint, but before all those who constantly stir up war are put to rest for good, it was necessary for people like me to continue existing in this world.


    Small time war criminals like me will not be willing to sleep alone when the real viins sit atop the temple, being worshipped by the people. Sinners have to be judged. The least I can do was drag them to hell with me. ¡°Walk faster! Bastard beastman!¡± The soldiers yelled. A group of beastman were being chased out by the soldiers. Judging by their human-made attire, they should be the permanent residents and businessmen of this ce.


    In some way, Sleuweir Kingdom¡¯s open and peaceful strategy was working. There was a few decades of trading history between humankind and the beastman. With the constant trading between two races, there were a number of permanent residents staying in the city, along with traders who dropped by regrly. Well, obviously the war happened without any prior notice, so the humans who were staying in the beastman¡¯s kingdom and vice-versa had no chance of returning to their own kingdoms. They became the first victims of the war and also the punching bags of their opposing races. I¡¯m afraid that the heads of those beastmen that were being hung on walls, belonged to spies who tried to scout this ce and spy on the permanent resident here.


    ¡°Are they spies or scouts?¡± After a moment of doubt, I decided to stick my nose into this matter. I could care less if they were soldiers, but even then, I will never ughter civilian, even during my craziest moments. ¡°You....You are Lord Rnd.¡± The young soldier spoke out my name excitedly. However, the beastman were paralyzed when they heard my name and the children were already starting to cry. It seemed like my name still held some power after so long. If that was the case, the rest should be quite easy to handle. After some rification, I got to know that they were actually permanent residents who had resided in this country for a few decades. Now, they were being sold to the ve market. Perhaps, I will just spend some money to buy their freedom.


    Of course, the children were crying louder than before. I was probably the worst possible idea that can exist in their minds. They were probably thinking that I had bought them to make some soup and barbecue their meat. ¡°Elisa.¡± Rnd said.


    ¡°You are still a hypocrite at some random ces but this is what I like about you. Your wish is mymand. I will check out the chamber ofmerce here. I can¡¯t guarantee the chances of surviving, but it¡¯s still better than bing a ve. If they are sold as ves, even the kids will be the retainers of those rich kids.¡±Elisa said.


    I did not speak much after nodding my head, Elisa was better than me when it came to this kind of matter. If she was ever incapable of doing something, I would have even lesser sess. Hypocrite? I cannot refute this fact. I know that I¡¯m a hypocrite for saving a few beastmen, and yet here I am now, thinking about killing more beastmen. ¡°Where is the jointmand center? Where are the nobles? Why has the war not started? Are they nning to witness Antoin¡¯s destruction?¡±

 Chapter 152

    Chapter 152: Notebook


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    ¡°Word has already spread far and wide that every beastman has set off for war. There are over two hundred and seventy known tribes. Although they dered that they have an army the size of eight hundred thousand, in reality, we know very well that they can barely muster up two hundred thousand. If we take their thirty thousand non-military personnel out of consideration, they would still be left with around an army of a hundred and seventy thousand. And they have all split up into four different directions. Clearly, they have alreadymitted military suicide.¡±


    The long-neglected opera that had stood for over six hundred years in Maple city had now found itself upied once again. It was now a temporary meeting hall. The middle-aged, but still handsome man dress in a military uniform was running his mouth off, on the stage. Clearly, the audiences were not giving a shit about him talking on the stage, some were sleeping, reading, or talking.


    ¡°Although beastmen are typically stronger than us when ites to brute strength, our allied forces total up to more than three hundred thousand. In terms of military strength, we still hold the upper hand. We can take advantage of their scattered state and annihte them one at a time.¡±


    ¡°Bearman Longde, the potential candidate for the next king of beastman. He has twenty tribes under hismand, and around fifty-five thousand military personnel. There are several types of units within his camp, with members ranging from the weakling wererats to the strongest bearmen and elephantmen. Take note that, the bearmen who currently form the backbone the military force tend to slip into hibernation; and thus, their marching speed is the slowest. Recently, they have started to gather provisions and other necessities to go through the winter. It seems like they intend to stay within their territory until the winter is over.¡±


    ¡°Kas the Centaur has thirty thousand of military personnel under his control. The bulk of the troops are the agile riders and simrly quick beastmen. They are the smallest echelon among them all. They do not have a base camp, but tend to partake in guerri warfare. Small as they are, they are giving us the most trouble at the moment. Currently, they are trying to break through the eastern defense line. It seems like they are trying cross the borders to the other countries. It will be a mess if they manage to break through the southern defense line.¡±


    ¡°Saustero the Wolf King has forty thousand under his control ¨C a mix of lionmen, tigermen, wolfmen, and other variations of their race mostly known for their brute strength. I have no idea what the hell is going on through his head, but he has actually turned around to attack the western defense line. Maybe they are trying to attack and invade the Kingdom of the Elves. Rumor has it that a fox man is serving as their strategist, so it¡¯s likely that there¡¯s more to that seemingly reckless maneuver.¡±


    ¡°Eymond the Eagleman has sixty thousand military personnel under hismand, with a wide variety of beastman soldiers. There are a lot of airborne forces and, flying type of beastmen fighting alongside him. ording to the intel, Eymond is also the advocator of the United Army of Beastmen. Rumor has it that he owns most of the elite troops. Currently, they are invading Antoin. I don¡¯t think Antoin canst much longer.


    Crosses and circles were all over the diagram, they highlighted the enemies¡¯ position and ces that they were likely to attack. The military guy tried his best to continue his speech over the growing buzz of the uninterested, skeptical audience. ¡°I don¡¯t think our military forces is really having the upper hand. More than three hundred thousand? That must be a joke. Take out all the non-military personnel, and we¡¯ll be left with two hundred thousand men at most. Moreover, those beastmen are like what, thrice as strong as we are? Technically speaking, our military force would probably match up to one third of beastman¡¯s military force. How are we going to win this war?¡±


    ¡°There are almost one hundred thousand troops stationed in Antoin, but with the constant attacksing from Eymond¡¯s troops, our armies have been calling for reinforcements for quite a while, now. It seems like we¡¯ll lose Antoin. That ratio of one to three needs to be reviewed again.¡±


    ¡°Have you heard there is a gigantic beast named The Biz? He was the one who led the bearmen in tearing down the defensive walls of Wender City. It was destroyed with little effort. That¡¯s the tenth city seized by them. Now, my only wish for them is that they get into their hibernation as soon as possible! I don¡¯t want to face those giants in battle.¡±


    ¡°All is well if that¡¯s the case, but I heard the situation is getting even more bizarre. Somehow the beastmen are not bothered by the cold and are able to fight in the winter unhindered. This is why they¡¯ve been ambushing us out of expectations. So much for hibernation. Our own troops are shivering all the time, it is obvious that there¡¯s a big gap between us and the beastman in terms of physical strength. And now we are going to fight the final war? It seems like we can¡¯t wait to meet our maker.


    ¡°The beastmen are really going to overrun us, they have already taken control so many cities, they wouldn¡¯t even have to worry about supplies. Moreover, we didn¡¯t even bring our siege engines and catapults with us. Our supply line is constantly fractured. How are we going to fight this war? Are you asking us to fight with the beastmen with empty stomachs in the freezing winter?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this the matter of those super empires? Why are small countries like us at the northern side, fighting this war? How about the Kingdom of Kasmi? Has the Empire of San Antonio mentioned anything yet?¡± If the leaders of beastmen are fighting against their own King, then we humans are like tters of sand, hiding behind each other¡¯s backs, hoping that we don¡¯t be cannon fodder.


    Due to the sudden attack from the beastmen, our first fallen city provided them with enough supplies and shelter. The reinforcements that came after, looked more like guests and soldiers. A huge amount of beastmen came down from the Orison mountains. Their numbers aren¡¯t much in the face of any of the super empires, but most of them are elites, and it the six northern countries couldn¡¯t possibly send out all their troops to assist us. The total number of troops from all five countries is two hundred thousand. On average, each country sent out fifty thousand troops. The final war has yet to begin. People were looking for more reinforcements but the beastmen merely fortified their positions, obviously with different purposes and goals in mind. Thus, they couldn¡¯t have been acting as one. The main focus of Eymond¡¯s troops was to take down Antoin city, so that their leader could take credit for it.


    There was no conflict of war strategies between humans and beastmen. Naturally, the war had been dragged longer. Also, most of the generals from the northern countries were hoping that the war would be dragged on until next spring. It was to buy them time to carry outrge scale stratagems and take the upper hand of this war; and then, they could proceed to the final war. What about the Antoin city that was currently waiting for reinforcements? Sleuweir Kingdom was going to be destroyed soon, who cares about his opinion. Of course, it is impossible to simply stand aside and witness Antoin city¡¯s destruction.


    The general continued spouting empty facies and propaganda that fell on deaf ears. It was a total waste of time. Someone can¡¯t hold it any longer. ¡°Enough! We are soldiers! We are not drunkards or cunning politicians.¡± The angry middle-aged man was in-looking, of medium height and had a long cape that was made of white fox skin draped on his shoulder. When he shouted angrily, the whole hall fell silent. ¡°Leave the liberation of Antoin city to the Kingdom of Kasmi alone.¡±


    His voice was calm but it shook the entire hall. Every country had rejected that role because it was too risky fighting with Eymond¡¯s troops. When the middle-aged angry general spoke up, he actually decided to pick up this mission impossible. ¡°Time is of essence and you people are wasting it. We have reinforcements and the beastmen have reinforcements as well. There are at least thousands of beastman tribe inside the Orison mountain, but not all tribes will respond to Eymond¡¯smand. Some tribes who may or may not have had good rtions with us in the past will definitely see our weakened state and thends there are just waiting to be imed. Do you think they will just sit there and not attack us?¡±


    ¡°The Kingdom of Sleuweir has to be saved. If nobody initiates this rescue mission, please don¡¯t expect someone toe and save you when your country is in trouble. Let¡¯s think from a different perspective, if Sleuweir Kingdom is destroyed, the beastman will border up your countries. Do you have the fortress of Camo¡¯s tear? When that timees, the beastman¡¯s wolfriders will start to hunt on your ground, killing your people, burning viges, and grabbing your women and children. Is that what you want? The general of Kasmi had gradually raised his voice into a shout.


    ¡°Fine! You can continue to hide if you want! When all of you get yourselves up on the board of sin, please don¡¯t drag me down together with you guys. I, Ainro am not a retard, I will take the mission to rescue Antoin city. If you are a soldier...no....if you are a man, buy me some time by holding back the other beastmen. Don¡¯t let them stop me from marching to the final war.¡±


    Finally, some solid talk after listening to three days worth of bullshit. I started to stir from my slumber when I heard the speech from general Ainro. ¡°Who is he? All the missions have been debated angrily. These bunch of imbeciles has finally done something good. I wonder why all these arrogant bastards are listening to this deafening general. Is he famous?¡±


    Of course, he was different from those imbeciles who were being manipted for three full days. He was the big shot from the meritorious board. Also, he was not considered as the general of Kasmi for nothing. Ainro The ck Bear was quite famous in my country, San Antonio. Amelia was here earlier than me. She lived in Maple city because she did not want to travel everywhere to hunt down rangers. Naturally, she became the temporary leader of East Mist Communal Country. She did not look like she was in her best mood, with all the sarcasm dripping from her speech.


    ¡°Meritorious board? What¡¯s that? And also, what was that sinner¡¯s board he mentioned? Looks like I became a piece of antique, left out of this era.¡±


    ¡°We have all these stuff in my era as well, maybe you didn¡¯t notice, the name is; The Notebook of Pixies.


    ¡°The work of those pixies, seems like they are free as usual.¡± Pixies were inherently magical creatures. They were quite simr to those pure looking fairies. Their maximum height was around ten centimeters. Their height allowed them to dance on human¡¯s palm. There were different types of pixies; pixies with feathered wings, shadow pixies that lived in the shadows. They had different personalities, living habits, and living environments as well. There was onemon trait that all these pixies shared; they loved to talk and gossip. Their race is all over the earth, and they are natural born neutral group, thus, they have good rtionship with most of the races. Also, they had their own trading and cooking centers all over the world. In the human world, something that was made by pixies was considered to be a treasure of impable quality.


    Usually, their trading centers also served as the best ce to obtain different kinds of intel. If you can afford their intel, there were no secrets you couldn¡¯t get from them. The pixie¡¯s notebook that Harloys mentioned earlier was written by pixies. The notebook recorded all the significant points history, caused by famous people and incidents.


    ¡°The Meritorious board was created by the pixies, it recorded all the famous warriors who ever walked on earth. The ranking system was based on war records and even included your rank among your own troops. Obviously, this was an disadvantage for small countries. Actually, a Master Meritorious Board supersedes this board, also known as the Board of the War God. All the famous warriors throughout history will be included in this board. This board is pretty convincing. Basically, if your name is listed in this board, you can be considered as a valuable asset of your own country.


    Historical people? Ancient warriors? Seems like I¡¯m overthinking things now.


    ¡°But me...¡±


    ¡°You died too young when you were still a human. You didn¡¯t even get the chance to be listed in the meritorious board. However, you are actually listed in another leaderboard that is actually more famous. In addition to that, your ranking in it is actually quite high.¡±


    I was getting really hyped up. I couldn¡¯t believe that I was listed in a board that was even more popr than the meritorious board. Did I be such an important figure? Wasn¡¯t the point of living in this world, to leave some marks behind? Could it be that I actually left some historical marks behind without me realizing it? This was a huge surprise for me.


    ¡°What kind of leaderboard?¡±


    ¡°The Ultimate Apocalyptic Leaderboard. You are the Undying Rnd, ranked 33.¡±


    My face turned ck after hearing what he said. I knew this leaderboard. The people that were listed in this leaderboard were known as trouble makers, walking catastrophes, and gues. If they were dangerous enough to the point that no one would even dare toy a finger on them, they will eventually be listed in this leaderboard.


    ¡°This is bad news. No mortal being can fight against it. If you see them, just run for your life. If you run into them, well, you¡¯re just out of luck¡± I thought this was the essence of The Ultimate Apocalyptic Leaderboard.


    ¡°My other identity?¡±


    If Rnd could get on the board, then, the King of Eternal Night should be listed on the board as well.


    ¡°No. He was not listed in the board from the beginning. It looks like the pixies deliberately left out the person. They never exined any further. I will need to pay more if I need more intel.¡±


    ¡°Shit! My true identity has been uncovered out.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it normal to be found out? Did you even try to hide yourself? All you used was a piece of the Wind of War g as the g of the Royal Guard. Do you think you¡¯re surrounded by idiots?¡±


    I nodded my head. The truth was, I did not even try to hide myself. When I decided to avenge others in the past, I had let the opponent know the reason why I killed them. It was totally normal for all these well-informed pixies to know my true identity. Also, they had probably sold some intel on me for a lot of money.


    ¡°Actually, I know quite a few people from the leaderboards. The one who is ranked 99 is Molly The Red Dragon. She leaves a trail of destruction behind everywhere she goes. I think you should know her. Also, the Evil Professor, Harloys The ck Magician is ranked 46. Looking at the name, it does not look like she has a lot power to bring destruction. She did produce a lot of ¡°good¡± students. For example....¡±


    ¡°For example, you! What is your ranking?¡±


    I sighed, remember how tough The Dragon Mother, Molly was. When she failed to bring more destruction underground, she went above ground again to create more trouble. I was so full of confidence and I asked, ¡°If Harloys and myself are on the leaderboard, I¡¯m pretty sure the Emira standing in front of me is in the list as well.¡±


    ¡°Last I checked, I was ranked 57, under the moniker; The Naughty Storm Lady. Initially, I was ranked 69. Three of my friends who ranked in front of me had kicked the baskets. I happened to have killed one of them. As a result, my ranking jumped again. All in all, my ranking has gone up by twelve.¡±


    She stated it with some pride, but I don¡¯t think she has anything to be proud of in the first ce.


    ¡°Nice! That title is way cooler than mine. What the hell is Undying? It¡¯s so not cool. Can I request to change my title?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m d that you think my title is cool. Hehe..You have good taste. Others say that my name is totally uncool. That actually makes me very angry. But, no matter how you try topliment me, I will not give this title away to anyone.¡±


    ¡°Shit! I can¡¯t believe you saw through me. Then, can you please contact the pixie? This title is really bad. I have to change something cooler. For example, titles like; The Invincible, The Genius, or even, The Forever Loveable Rn.¡±


    ¡°So, the title that you decided is, The Stupid, Selfish, Hideous Rn. Leave it to me. I will contact the pixie for you. I can¡¯t believe the elves were actually so bound to reality. Titles like this should be easy to acquire.


    They couldn¡¯t do anything about our daily arguments. Reyne and the others werepelled to listen to the arguments. The general on the stage was talking non-stop again about the so-called strategy. These two persons had totally no idea about what was going on here.


    For these three days, I knew that if I continued to be a bystander, I would be one of those soldiers who will drop dead in a second thanks to stupid orders that I was stupid enough to obey. So, I stood up.


    ¡°Ainro , your setup is suicidal. I have a few suggestions and some intel. Maybe it is time for you to listen to me.¡±

 Chapter 153

    Chapter 153: A Third Party


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    The ck General was known as Anynror. He had a head like a ck tiger, a chiseled, stern face, body like an iron tower, withrge eyes that reflected light like bronze bells, a t nose, wide ears, and bull-like strength.


    His gaze was a permanent re that reeked of murder, and his body constantly radiated a threatening aura. This man had devoted his life to the military and wasst ce on the general board¡¯s rankings. He was known to all as a brave general who was always on the front lines. In battles, he broke through the enemy lines, and once, he took eighteen arrows and remained standing, as he fought on to take down the city gates. This man was never stopped, ever.


    Standing opposite him was, in stark contrast, a green-eared, white-nosed youth of a General. He looked to be in his seventeens to eighteens. In an older gentleman¡¯s world of the military, he was but a baby.


    He had a sacred Mithril sword in his hand, a Winged-tiger helmet on his head, an armor of steel on his body, and dragonskin army boots on his feet. His face was beautiful, and he was dressed impably, but if one were to look closely, he didck an air of authority. He looked a little too effeminate, with fair skin, rosy cheeks, ruby lips and a smile was constantly stered on his face, one would say he seemed more like a model than a general.


    But if you were to underestimate him because of his appearance, then you could not be any more wrong!


    The sword in his hand was none other than the famous Pale Justice, it had ughtered many a vicious dragon, and evil monsters. Just think, if it is true that sacred swords always choose their owners, can a mere mortal wield such a sword? Can this be a normal man?


    The silver-armored Great General Rnd, though only the age of twenty-eight, had already spent half his life on the battlefield, was a renowned Junior General. People knew him as a chatterbox, silver-faced white dragon.


    Despite his youth and delicate appearance, he was asfortable in court as he was in the household, and that silver sword was stained with the blood of evil, tales of his battles shook the entirety of Eich. Those dragon-skin boots, that looked just like any other pair of boots, was made out of the skin of a nine-headed dragon that he had tracked through ravines to y. A man such as this, could he be thought as amoner?


    The problem was that, both of them had massive tempers. The more famous they were, the more stubborn they got, and the less they would pay heed to any advice. It seemed that, at that moment, the two of them were having disagreements regarding the war, and naturally, being warriors, once they were met with a disagreement, they would draw out their swords in hopes for a closure on the matter. And what a match it was!


    With a ck and a white General, friction was bound to happen, on top of an already hostile history of unresolved bitterness. The ck Tiger against the White Dragon, this conflict will prove to be a match of the ages.


    Right in the middle of the court, standing on the tform, the two of them red at each other. The dark-faced one thought the white-faced was unreliable due to his delicateness, the white-faced one thought that the ck-faced was too ugly and terrifying to the innocent. Anger and fury ignited the air, spewing a murderous aura that visibly warped the air around them.


    Finally, the two of them drew closer, and met atst, nose to nose, eye to eye. Then...their lips touched! Yes! They actually touched!


    ¡°This is the spirit of victory! This is the ultimate victory of the hag¡¯s will. At this moment, Rnd followed the glorious tradition of the philosophers. It was as if the spirit of Abegel (some famous homosexual man) or King Billy (an even more famous homosexual man) lived in his body! Rnd alone represented the longstanding history and tradition of homosexuality in all of all Eich! At this moment, he is not alone in this fight. He is not alone!¡±


    ¡°Elisa. It¡¯s enough that you have been telling a story beside me, and now you are making up all these nonsense. I will send you back to the abyss where you came from! Don¡¯t think for a second that I won¡¯t do it!¡±


    As I was fuming inside, Elisa, who was making up ridiculous passages as if she was possessed by some narrator, finally stopped talking.


    Yes, the passages above were all made up by Elisa, it was all fiction! I never was a homosexual, never!


    There was a silence, as I gathered up my wits to size up my opponent.


    ¡°¡±ck Bear¡± Ainro Soan, a citizen of San Antonio, forty-four years old, honorable Earl in the military. He joined the army 27 years ago, slowly climbing the ranks from amon knight to a General. He always led the army, galloping towards the enemy lines. His most victorious battle was when he led his men and rode thousands of miles through the night, breaking through the encirclement of the neighboring country, and then took over the four cities that were under the rule of his opponent.¡±


    ¡°The reviews on the honours board of famous generals: an old general rich in experience, his methods of utilizing soldiers were practiced and traditional, hated raiders, does not have any special strategies, but neither does he have any obvious ws, has never faced any great defeat. During critical times in battles, he would fight bravely, and under extreme conditions, he would still fight his way through a path of survival, he was a brave general but not a particrly intelligent one.¡±


    I suppose Elisa¡¯s one virtue was that, although she normally had a malignant tongue and was always giving me these sort of ¡°surprises¡±; when it came to important matters, there would never be any mistakes.


    When I asked her to provide me information about someone, although she will add a bunch of nonsensical stuff with it, she would still be able to give me what I want.


    ¡°A practical General who was not an academic? Isn¡¯t that what people call old-fashioned? But this seems like trouble. Huh, no ws, no virtues either? In other words that mean he is full of ws, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Well, may I ask, in your opinion, what counts as an academical military man?¡±


    ¡°A bookworm who only follows every military book written to the word. Just draw a hole and he will burrow into it himself, this is just too easy.¡±


    ¡°....do you want to know your own assessment? There is a passage about your own strategizing tendencies.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you have that? Of course, I do. I had been nning to buy it from some pixies when I get back. Good that you have it already.¡±


    ¡°¡®The Undying Rnd¡¯, Rnd Mist, thest prince of the Mist Kingdom, also in recent times famously known as the most powerful Necromancer and Emperor Yongye . He was also the founder of the Xiluo Empire and their supreme leader, and he has had the honour of being 33rd in The Ultimate Apocalyptic Leaderboard. He is known as the Undying because he possessed the extraordinary ability to resurrect himself, and he is also the precious few who can skip over incarnation cycles to maintain his current existence. This is the one and only case of multiple resurrections.¡±


    ¡°ording to those close to him, he is extremely cunning and vindictive. If one were to have the misfortune of stepping on his tail... It has been known that he won¡¯t hesitate to use a hundred years to prepare for his revenge. And if you had really made him angry, this avenger is absolutely indestructible, bless you. Of course, one can consider the insurance package provided by us pixies (not to help you solve this problem of course, but at least we will give the insurance payments to your descendants.)¡±


    ¡°ording to an unknown source (this year¡¯stest report). He once transformed into ¡°the ck Hand Baron¡± Rnd Charname, andter ¡°Aurora Sword Saint¡± Rolo Danbouer to travel the world. Due to his undying nature, even if the world is destroyed, he will remain standing. So I¡¯ll capitte on this; do not offend him. Otherwise, in your old age, you will never know if this shameless cheater wille back and romance your granddaughter ( This were the exact words of those who were once cheated by him, a source has disclosed that it is his senior from the same school, and this report is highly credible). As you can see, this person is rather psychopathic..¡±


    Very well, should I be d that I have found someone who understands me? Although the description of one that can¡¯t seem to die is a little disgusting, and though it had been written with great prejudice, at least some parts were true. I red at Amelia who was acting coy.


    ¡°A senior girl who was cheated? Amelia! It must be you! How dare you nder me. At least, at least...¡±


    My angry re earned the sneering of a senior girl.


    ¡°... at least give me half of the fee for tipping them off, this is free money! What makes you think you can have them all for yourself!¡±


    ¡°Is that really the main issue? Hey, Rnd! You¡¯re getting worse than before!¡±


    Very well. I ignored the mischievous Amelia, and turned my attention back to the main topic. Elisa was still dictating the reports about me.


    ¡°...whether as the prince of Mist Country or Emperor Yongye, or the ¡°ck hand Baron¡±, he always had records of leading an army to war, and his strategies were all basically the same. One of the reasons the Yongye Plunder could capture so many kingdoms was his outstanding method of utilizing his forces. He preferred to use raiders, and was unafraid of head-on battles. If he did not have absolute confidence he would never face a battle head on. That is his most significant characteristic. His most memorable battle was the battle against Soubel Elves Kingdom, where his opponent¡¯s army was three times the size of his and all of them had been equipped with the de of light, known to be able to defeat spectres, yet they were no match against the elite cavalries he sent. The leading army was reduced to nothing, and the war dragged on for a year and a half, the undead armies obtained victory as they ousted the enemy.


    It seems like the reviews were quite spot-on, at least the war that I was most pleased had not been missed. The strategies were not new, no doubt one of the variants of gueri tactics, but perhaps only the spectres who do not fear death can execute such suicidal attack to the end.


    ¡°When he was a human prince, he left a few pieces of writings such as ¡®Treaties on Gueri tactics¡¯, ¡®Collecting intelligence is the most important task in a war¡¯, ¡®Our goal is The Sea of Stars ¨C be a full-fledged coward before being able to win a war¡¯. His diverse and interchangeable war strategies deeply influenced future generations.The long term decree that rewards anyone who brought the head of a Beastman, the ¡°Beastmen ughtering¡± decree, that was mentioned in his book had received many constant criticism, but caused a great impact on the future generations. Besides that, his utilization of the elite cavalry methods to counter attack against the Beastmen tribes while cutting off their escape routes, along the evil yet ingenious idea of poisoning their water source, all these gave him a frightful reputation, especially among the Beastmen. However, in a way, the Beastmen tribes who suffered the greatest damage in history, have in recent times had the longeststing safe haven in history. The Nortnds had peace for more than fifty years, but this caused the rejuvenation of the spirits of the Beastmen tribes, leading to thergest scale of Beastmen attack on the south in a thousand years.¡±


    ¡°As his method of strategizing his soldiers were superior, the effects on his military philosophy and thoughts on war were groundbreaking. His military sesses were brilliant, and he was once listed as the number 68th on the board of the famous generals in history. However, due to the pressures from kingdoms with past connections with him and churches of the gods, he was taken down from the board. Nevertheless, his military sess and strategizing ability were indeed recorded in the Board of War Gods, and due to his indestructibility, I¡¯m afraid he will be in the top 40 on the board of recent famous generals for quite a long time.


    After hearing those words, I was at a loss for words. To that end, I can only say that I was too young, and was perhaps a little too overboard in my actions.


    In a way I felt a little encouraged, I definitely did not believe that the ck Faced blockhead will buy my information, but since he knew my information, no doubt would he feel a little guilty.


    After all, he had just entered the recent board, and on thest ce no less. While I was named a famous general in history. Since I am of a higher rank, and among peers, those who are stronger and more famous have a more powerful say in the subject, especially since I am of a higher rank than him.


    At this time, as if rendered uneasy by the silence after my speech, Ainro spoke up, the content was very respectful, but his tone sounded a bit strong.


    ¡°Your majesty, Rnd, I do not know if you felt that there were any mistakes in my strategy, but I would be grateful if you could point them out.¡±


    I smiled at the seriousness of Ainro¡¯s face, then it seemed that it was judgement time. The same procedure: First throw out some heavyweight bombs to scare them off.


    ¡°If it is just fighting on paper then you are not wrong, it is quite the contrary, this setup is very spot-on. If the execution is powerful, then the chances of winning are more than 80 percent...¡±


    At this, as if he thought he had obtained my praise, Ainro touched his chin as he smiled, but I was not yet finished. These three days I spent riding on my horse and wandering around without stopping, gathering and organizing intelligence, and when there were enough intelligence and information collected, only then did I make a judgment.


    ¡°But I must say, your setup will just send all the generals and soldiers to their death. All you see are the threats on the chessboard, but youpletely forgot to take into ount the other chess pieces that were not in the scene!¡±


    ¡°The Earth Elemental God, Emordilorcan have always supported the Blood tribes, and you think that they will not interfere with such an important event as you attack Atoin. I have seen in And, the formation of the city of rain, the Water Elemental God and her people directly participating in the invasion of And Kingdom, they do not have as many restrictions. To underestimate any of these Ancient Elemental Gods is foolish. I guess when your great generals are at the brink of a decisive battle, earthquakes and the sudden appearance of the Earth Elemental God would be the best ambush.¡±


    At this point, those in attendance have already turned a deathly green. Obviously, they had long neglected the existence of those ancient Elemental Evil Gods, and even believed they would not interfere in the conflicts of the human realm.


    The look on Ainro¡¯s face made me smile, since the right to speak is now in my hands, then, the next piece of explosive information would be even more shocking.


    ¡°To march without enough intelligence, I think you are just looking for death. And that wasn¡¯t all that you missed.¡±


    Ainro started as if he wanted to object, but after hesitating for a moment, he shook his head and kept quiet.


    ¡°Forgetting to include Emordilorcan is one of the reasons for your downfall, but it is not the most fatal one. I know that you have other preparations, don¡¯t argue with me, but you forgot another dangerous opponent. No, from the beginning you have not thought of seeing them as an enemy. On the contrary, in your eyes they were considered trustedrades, after all, it has been so many years since west went to war.¡±


    ¡°You are saying?¡±


    ¡°Impossible, perhaps in the West? Perhaps the Wolf King was headed there?¡±


    ¡°No, no, it ispletely possible. Their recent behavior has been very strange. If so, then this would exin the Wolf King¡¯s journey.¡±


    Just after the sentence waspleted, the leaders and generals in attendance stood up, and the ck-faced Ainlo was pale-faced with shock by this revtion. If this report is true, the whole world will be shocked.


    ¡°Yes, Eymond¡¯s power far is stronger than all of you have estimated. The Wolf King Saustero, and philosophers of the Fox race, are all his staunch supporters. They dispersed their army and went West because they are nning to open up Akysyos to let the Elf armies in. Yes, your predictions are not wrong, my most trusted long-earedrades. This time, right from the beginning, they have decided to stand against us. They have too much umted grievances to settle with us.¡±


    ¡°Elves will soon be dering war against the humans. And the gods of the elves will soon dere godly war on the gods of humans! And our Nortnd, will soon be the battlefield of the gods!¡±

 Chapter 154

    Chapter 154: The Elves


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    The Elves, well-known for their beauty and longevity, lived inside the peaceful forest. They were pure, kind, and lived a simple and self-sufficient life. They typically lived in harmony with nature, but whenever this world is threatened by Evil, they would unhesitatingly rouse themselves for battle, and would fight to theirst breath.


    Only the children would believe such a fairy tale! If there was a race of such innocence and purity, they would have been exterminated long time ago, by any big war evolved from the stray projectiles from the crossfire.


    In Eich, these long-eared folks were doing quite well. They might be beautiful, but they were definitely not kind and naively gullible as the legends suggested. As a powerful and prosperous race, some trickeries in the best interests of their race were inevitable.


    ¡°Pure and kind? Where do we find such Elves? In my perspective, the Elves are just a bunch of pretty long ears. Their beauty and longevity are undeniable, but obviously, they have nothing to do with purity and kindness. In fact, ego, brutality and belligerence are their three signature traits!¡±


    Their ego could be justified by their historical background. As the race which had once upied over seventy percent of the continent, and with their fellow Gods serving as the strongest divine system in the world, the Elves used to have it all. They had been treating the short-lived Humans as uncivilized vulgarians. Granted with an eternal life, well-established traditions, magic and martial arts, they treated all the other races with contempt.


    Just like the Pixies, the Elves were divided into factions. The difference was, that all the Pixie members were on equal footing. In the contrary, the Elves practiced an extremely prejudicial hierarchic-cum-caste system, which was determined by their bloodline and could never be transcended.


    Akin to the first generation of Humans, the High Elves once graced the earth with their golden footsteps, but they no longer exist. Nevertheless, their lineal descendants (creations), namely the Wood Elves, the Moon Elves, the Night Elves and Silver Elves became the Four Elven Aristocracies, which were superior to themon Elves. In this century, they had built their own kingdom, retaining their aristocratic status.


    It was worth mentioning that Harloys, the Princess of the Ancient Elven Kingdom was actually the one who exterminated High Elves, the legendary golden Elves. Their remaining cultural heritage naturally became the treasure that all the Elven Kingdoms strived for. Besides, a lot of Elven royals were iming themselves to be the true descendants of the Ancient Elven Kingdom.


    Of course, even the Elves themselves were not convinced by their own tale. Like everyone, they would glorify their ancestors at times, but to believe such a tale would be a real stretch. It is indeed gratifying that the Simita race did not exist in this world.


    Discrepancies always lie between legends and history. History tells us that the golden Elves were a paragon of virtue and perfection, but to think that Harloys was such a deplorable character, what a sickening truth! The prince was usually deviant, while the princess was either a fool or a flower vase*...just like the damned cat. (Speaking to the cat) You dare to bite me? I will load you up into the Goblin¡¯s cannon and send you a thousand miles away. I mean it!


    *(TL Note: In Chinese, the term ¡°flower vase ¨C »¨Æ¿¡± is used informally describe a woman who is gorgeous but a good for nothing)


    Sigh, where did I stop? Alright, since we have been darkening the name of Elves, next I will talk about the Dark Elves.


    Now it¡¯s really about Dark Elves* ! The Dark Elves actually emerged from the bizarre hierarchical system and regtions of the Elven race.


    *(TL Note: In Chinese, the word ¡°Dark ¨C ºÚ¡± in the term ¡°Dark Elves ¨C ºÚ ¾«Á顱 means ¡°dark¡± literally, and means ¡°darkening¡± non-literally. The author is ying with words here, as the narrator actually spoke about the ºÚ ¾«Áé (Dark Elves) after he ºÚ ¾«Áé (darkened the name of Elves)


    The Dark Elves were never in this world until the Night Elves were banished to the Underworld.


    Lorci was banished by the fellow Elven Gods, while the Night Elves were banished by the other three Elven aristocracies. Why? It was said that they vited a taboo and hooked up with Chaos. I don¡¯t know what the taboo it is, but considering the unusual antecedents of the Night Elves, they had probably altered their bloodline. Aside from God himself, the truth could be told by no one.


    The Four Elven Aristocracies were the Superior Elves who carried the Silver bloodline (slightly inferior bloodline). Intermarriage between them had always been forbidden. In the era of Ancient Elven Kingdom, they had even banned intermunication and epting jobs, aside those stipted by the race.


    The Gold Elves were born to be royalty, while the Silver Elves were born to the warriors. On the other hand, the Wood Elves served as priests who had the ability tomunicate with nature, while the Moon Elves served as the pivotal force of the government. Lastly were the Night Elves, they were in charge of all sort of underground activities.


    As for the rest, like the Medium Elves, the Lower Elves, and the hybrid Wild Elves who were disdained, rejected by their own race, they were no more than vassals of the Four Elven Aristocracies. A majority of the Medium Elves and the Lower Elves belonged to the Bronze faction. The hybrid Wild Elves were usually the ckmetal faction, but a precious few of them could be mutants whose power surpassed even the Superior Elves.


    Even today, there are still some old fogeys practicing thew and order enforced by the Ancient Elven Kingdom, that the Four Elven Aristocracies must serve the Golden Elves, and all the other sses of Elves must serve the Four Elven Aristocracies. Such a hierarchy system was perceived as the root of the Elven society.


    If a man¡¯s fate is predetermined at the moment of his birth, the social progression is in deeper trouble. The gap between different sses would only get bigger, and the contradictions would only lurk beneath the surface, forever unresolved.


    In short, the Superior Elves were always of Silver faction, whilst themon Elves belonged to either Bronze or ckmetal. In the past, the Elves were much more powerful in contrast to Humans who had no distinction of sses. These advantages led to their contempt for the other races. The only shackle restraining them was their low fertility rate and slow growth period.


    This is why a Wild Elf like Krose would feel out of ce while facing a Wood Elf like Kelly. The Wood Elves were not as mighty as they were, but the formality that flows with her blood, would naturally bring out her difort before the Superior Elves.


    A social hierarchy like this would definitelye along with atent fatal risk. Ever since the Ancient Elven Kingdom vanished, and the Golden Elves were extinct, the Four Elven Aristocracies naturally became the top of the pyramid. For one kingdom with four rulers, the dissolution was only a matter of time!


    With four Elven Gods inmand, conflicts and division were inevitable. As spoken by Harloys herself who was full of resentment, the fall of Ancient Elven Kingdom and division of the Elves were closely rted to the fellow Gods of Order, especially the fellow Elven gods.


    I have to emphasize that they were asking for it. As one ancient species, Golden Elves could not care less for their descendant Gods, ¡°You were once my vassal, how dare you disregard me right after turning into Gods?¡± With such ideology going widespread, the true Gods would disregard anyone.


    Ironically, this was the how the Elves declined from their golden age, but the rise of Humans would nevere without their internal strife.


    Let us skip the long chapters and look into the oue of a series of misfortunes. As the Golden Elves no longer existed, the Elven race was divided into hundreds of kingdoms, scattered all over the world.


    The four Superior Elves were having a rough time as well. The Night Elves were banished from the rest altogether, turning into the Dark Elves of the Underworld. The Moon Elves and The Silver Elves might be the primary royal forces in every Elven Kingdom, but there was always bad blood between the two families.


    As far as I knew, there were several Elven Kingdoms in the northwest border region, which were ruled by the Moon Elves. They belonged to one of the four Elven families, who had been dering themselves as the true lineal descendants of the Ancient Elven Kingdom.


    In the Northernnd, I¡¯m afraid there is no one who knows the Elves better than me, and that knowledge stemmed from rather nefarious intent. Your nemesis always knows you the best, and there were years of deep enmity between the Elves and myself.


    One thousand seven hundred years ago, the Human¡¯s victory in thest sacred war awarded them with the richestnd on the continent. However, the defeated races were in suffering. The Aqua tribe descended to the deep sea and were reduced to the Sea tribe, whilst the Beastmen were driven away to the northern d. As for the Protectors of Order like the Humans however, the Elves had no choice but to move their kingdoms to the remote region under thepulsion of the Humans.


    ¡°Allies? Would allies send you to the remote region and into the woods? Would they form a hunting party to catch your people and make them best-sellers in the market of ves? Would allies disregard you after absorbing your magic and knowledge? Would they seize your resource supplies and trade petty salt for your magical craft?


    Without mention any more subtexts, I will conclude that the entire race of Humans was indeed nasty. A single reason like trading their people into very was more than enough to tread heavily on the Elves¡¯ toes.


    The crowds of royal peers loved to enve the Elves for the sake of pride and pleasure, their filthy hands even mbering up to the Superior Elves¡¯ bodies. The charming Wood Elves, the innocent Moon Elves, and the lively Silver Elves also had the experience of being sold at auctions for an extortionate price, a price which was never seen before. Such an event had led to several wars.


    The Elves were unlike the Humans who lived up to only a hundred. Unfortunately, they were also renowned for having eidetic memories,which caused them to bear a myriad of hatred and grudges over centuries. For the Elves, the grudges built up three generation ago were just like yesterday. If their enemies were dead, they would take revenge on their descendents or countrymen. If none of these existed too, their vengeance would fall on the Human race in general.


    The resentment which had been simmering for too long would eventually burst out, but in a time of peace, it would not be heavily surveyed by the fellow Gods of Order. Besides, the Human Gods who were the majority of Gods of Orders would treat the matter with injustice like how they usually did.


    Hence, this explosion of resentment would die out quickly. Only when thest obstacle, the fellow Elven Gods, agree to switch their side, only then would there be nothing to stop the hostility between the two races.


    Betraying their own people would not be a big deal for the Elven Gods as they had even turned against their former masters. Loyalty was meaningless for someone who had a history riddled with treacheries. It merely depends on what their opponents could offer.


    The discerning spectators could have spected the facts I were telling. But, I have one more here, which emerged from my own investigation.


    ¡°Key of the Moon n.¡±


    Such a beautiful name with such a simple meaning, which was literally ¡°a n to open the door¡±. The main target of the n was to prepare for the sacred war, and open the gate to the Central ins.


    Three hundred years ago, the Northern gate was surrounded by a mighty kingdom. As for the Elves, it was just like yesterday...


    The fall of the Mist Kingdom went ording to the Elves¡¯ conspiracy, as the Cardinals who had desired to kill me got a visit from two ves of Silver Elves. It was never the strong enemies who destroyed the Mist Kingdom, but the backstabbing of a few Humans Kingdoms, together with none other than the ¡°pure and kind¡± Elven allies.


    It was never a cinch to knock down that Kingdom, a lot of colluding between the insidious parties was just enough to deal minor damage, which caused a chain reaction that eventually led to the fall of Mist KIngdom.


    My second incarnation was Rnd Charname, the ck Handed Baron. As the surname Charname had spoken, my mission was to investigate the insider news. Unfortunately, I was murdered during the mission by the Elven Kingdom armies.


    It was not until my third incarnation, Rolo, that I finally traveled across numerous Elven Kingdoms, and gathered sufficient information from their database and libraries. Several times, I had even stepped into their pces.


    Only with all these efforts, it came the time for the mad revenge of Yongye¡¯s Army. My first target was absolutely the Elven Kingdom! At the height of madness, even the forbidden curse of destruction, which had been used on the Humans in hesitance, was cast directly on the Elves without mercy. The entire Elven Kingdom was then crushed within the curse.


    Looking at their vindictive nature, I was afraid I would top their Wanted list for a perpetual period of time. Revenge against me was inevitable.


    Never judge a book by its cover, I had always been wary of the Elves. On hearing the news that the Wolf King was marching to the west, I had dispatched my troopers and spies towards there. Meanwhile, my informants in the Elves had brought me sufficient information.


    ¡°I have been here for three days, waiting for my informants. The Moon ive Army of the Tassel Elven Kingdom have moved away from their camp, eastwards, simr to the other Elven kingdoms. Do you think the long ears areing to our assistance?¡±


    There must some clues to the secret activities within the Elven Kingdom. The Gods of Law had been watching over the conspiracies between the fellow Elven gods and the Gods of Chaos. Owing to the frequent notice and warning by the cathedrals, everyone was astonished by my judgment, and without even suspecting it, they started to think about the next step.


    ¡°How is this possible? The Elves and the Beastmen are bitter enemies!¡±


    ¡°You fool! Two enemies are allies in front of amon enemy. And what are allies? Ask those Elven ves in your house.¡±


    ¡°Not all the Elves wanted to fall out with the Humans. Was it a n, or just a tribe?¡±


    ¡°Please validate the truth before jumping to the verdict. Your majesty, it was not a query, but could you provide more relevant information?¡±


    I turned abruptly and walked away from the mour.


    The information I had thrown meant a lot, which will definitely keep the leaders of all countries upied for validation, organization, and reporting. By then, their reckless march would be stopped, and my target was achieved.


    In such chaos, I was not interested to carry out any discussions, as I had a lot of things in hand, I did not have the mood and time for them.


    I would not count on these guys, and the Borealis was arriving soon. With these reinforcements, this time, we shall hold nothing back! The new weapons, the new tactics, and the new soldiers, will bring about a new world. Let this inevitable war be my experimental plot! (To be continued)


    TL Notes


    1. In Chinese, the word ¡°Charname ¨C ²éÄÚÄ·¡± is homophonic to the word ¡°²éÄÚÄ»¡±, which means ¡°investigate the insider news¡±)

 Chapter 155

    Chapter 155: A War Without Mercy


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    Akysyos Fortress, was dubbed by the Elves as ¡°Shinkerin Shinker¡±, which means ¡°The Sind¡± in theirnguage.


    Being the Humans¡¯ Fortress closest to the Northern Elven Kingdom, it served as the major pathway to all the Elven countries. It was also the main source of supplies for the ve Hunters. Naturally, it turned out to be the best trading market for Elven ves in the northern region.


    Amongst the Elves of all regions, the northern Elves were considered the weakest. Unfortunately, their neighbouring kingdom, the Sleuweir could do nothing to hinder the ve trade for big merchants from all countries. Hence, this ¡°trade route¡± became a ¡°disastrous¡± location to perform Elven ve trading.


    The wired second-hand dealers were helping the peerages and the agencies of special goods to get thetest stocks. Meanwhile, the ruthless mercenaries who were awaiting orders, as well as the city guard officers and troops stood aside like nothing had happened. It was not surprising that the Elves would call that ce ¡°The Sind¡±.


    The merchants would risk for a hundred percent profit. For a profit over three thousand percent, they would trample all the world¡¯sw without a hesitation. Regardless of whether they were ordinary, superior or even the half-Elves, the Elven children, men, and young women had all brought them an extraordinary ie. Hence, the Akysyos had be their first choice for a tourism spot.


    Of course, he would never answer you, as he, together with his kingdom had been sealed within the ice receptacle. Their bodies would remain fresh in the Ice Age for hundreds of years, probably until even the day they melts.


    And that day, was the doomsday for the bloody Akysyos, along with all its ve dealers.


    Just as the Beastmen armies invaded the castle from the rear, the Moonive army of the Tassel Elven Kingdom ambushed an interim camp of the merchants. They wereing to the rescue of their princess.


    The imprisoned Princess of the Moon Elves, was found in the merchants¡¯ basement, with her body pathetically mangled. This had infuriated the surrounding Elves, the little ambush thus grew into a mad rampage.


    Influenced by some malicious people, the Elven ves eventually engaged in the rampage too. After wiping out the prison guards and mercenaries, they had snatched their weapons and opened the gate.


    The time had finallye for an ethnic cleansing. At this moment, the arrogant Elves would dly ept any help from the Beastmen. Resorting to violence like the Beastmen, they had developed an inclination for a sadistic pleasures besides assuaging their resentment. They even praised the Beastmen for their inhumane massacres.


    A strongly worded deration of war was very soon delivered to Antoin which was under the Beastmen¡¯s attack. Tassel Elven Kingdom and the other Elven Allies were dering war against the Sleuweir.


    The third party¡¯s interference in the war had brought astonishment to the whole world. Myriads of letters were drifting to the north like the snowkes, and the cathedral envoys were running back and forth. Unfortunately, themunication canal had been sealed.


    Meanwhile, at the protection area of Moon ive Army, the face of Commander Alven Newleaf was filled with grief and sympathy, as he stared at the severely injured Moon Elven girl who was deeply asleep.


    ¡°Your Majesty, are you cold-blooded? Princess Suana was still a young girl, and she was your one and only daughter.¡±


    Being an aristocrat of the Moon Elves, Alven shared a blood kinship with Atrion, the emperor of Tassel Kingdom, therefore the injured Elven princess was considered his niece.


    As the executor of ¡°Key of the Moon n¡±, Alven was the one who actually knew the whole story, when the other Elves were seized by anger, lynching the ve merchants.


    ¡°Those damned old creatures were trying to kill her!¡±


    Suana Newleaf, the Princess of Tassel Kingdom, was the only descendant of the Emperor of Elves. Nevertheless, to get the approval of war deration and to gain support from the elders, she was sacrificed for the political exchange. The next Emperor of Elves would have to be the nephew of the chief of the council.


    Aside from political interest, Suana was chosen as the sacrifice due to her role as the leader of the Peace-pursuing faction of the Elves, despite her young age. The solidarity amongst her followers were as firm as rock. Beloved and respected by all her people, in any way if she was hurt, the Elves would certainly be filled with hatred and animosity. Wrath of the people would be incessant, and the war would be unstoppable.


    To fully utilize Suana, the ruthless schemer had made use of the most malevolent ve merchants, the most deplorable buyers, a well-nned engagement, and a brutal ve hunter, which finally led the honourable princess down this path.


    ¡°...Water...water.¡±


    A feeble voice pulled the surrounding female officers closer. Alven could not withstand watching the misery of princess anymore.


    ¡°Your highness, please just say the words, Alven would do anything for you¡±


    It was obvious to all that Suana, who had suffered such tremendous physical and mental damage, would not survive. This terrible scene was more than what Alven could bear. Finally, he made a promise to himself, that this was the end of his tolerance, and he would then aplish any wishes of the princess at any costs.


    ¡°...Re...venge...¡±


    Hearing this, Alven was puzzled. To fall into such inexplicable misfortune, it was only natural that the little anti-war princess would harbour such resentment. It was pathetic that she had not realised the real culprit behind all of these.


    With her withered lips moving slightly, it looked like Suana was trying to speak something but she was powerless to do so.


    Only by moving closer, Alven was able to hear her small groan.


    ¡°Do...n¡¯t...Don¡¯t....avenge me, I....want peace, I don¡¯t want..don¡¯t want war.¡±


    Her baster face was filled with scars. After much struggling to deliver herst wish and making sure it was heard clearly, the most beautiful rose in Tassel lost her final colour, she had given up her life, withered and perished.


    Upon learning the death of their dearest Suana, the fellow Elves had gone insane.


    ¡°Her highness is dead! Her highness is dead!¡±


    ¡°It was all because of the damned Humans!¡±


    ¡°Revenge! A blood for a blood, a tooth for a tooth, that is not even enough or these scoundrels! We need the fresh blood of their wives and daughters to pay respect to her spirit of Princess Suana in heaven!¡±


    ¡°Not yet, the Elves do their vengeance in ten fold! We need ten times the amount of blood as offerings!¡±


    An uproar reverberated through the skies, as even the female officers in the pce had vowed to avenge their princess at any cost. Being the only one amongst the crowd who actually heard herst wish, Alven was sinking into silence.


    He opened his mouth as his head was spinning. Trying to speak something but his thoughts were all in a muddle, he ended up saying nothing at all.


    ¡°...Forgive me, your highness. I am afraid I have to go back on my words, everyone has gone out of control. As I¡¯m about to fight with the destroyer of our kingdom, I will probably apologize to you face to face very soon.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    Upon hearing the news of Suana¡¯s death and deration of war by the Elves, I was not even surprised. I had to say if my spection was right, for the Elves to deviate from the Order, Suana must not only die, but die horribly.


    Reason? There was no actual reason. Every war needed one reason to start. Not to mention the Elves who had always ttered themselves as a race of upright justice and peace, they would certainly call for a strong reason.


    Suana herself was a perfect sacrifice. Aside from her high reputation, she had always opposed the war, proposing harmonious coexistence with the Humans, and seeked to resolve all conflicts bymunications. This had rendered her a thorn in the flesh of the War-pursuing faction and the fellows Elven gods.


    How did I know about her? Were we close? I was imprisoned in the Sulphur Mountain City when she was born. We never spoke and recognised each other, but I did know about her.


    ¡°Sure enough, the real world is not dramatic, in the end, the lucky Suana failed to ascend to the Queen of Elves...¡±


    In the dramatic ¡°history¡±, as the leader of the Peace-pursuing faction she had issued a mythical mission of incredible rank. With the help of both Elf yers and Human yers, she had finally annihted the War-pursuing faction which included her dad and the council. She ascended the throne and even fought to be the Queen of Elvester. In the end, she sessfully persuaded all the Elves to remain in the Order faction.


    Ever since the Four Elemental Gods turned out not to be sealed by the ¡°yers¡± ording to the ¡°history plot¡±, I had discerned a number of idiotic ws in the strategy guide. In that ¡°history¡± at least, the few significant events would bepletely different from what the gamers abroad had in mind.


    Reality is not a game, this mistake had given me a real lesson.


    In consequence, I had cleaned up the ¡°history¡±and reevaluated it by taking the real world as the benchmark. Quite a number of ws were actually discovered.


    The mysterious fall of the Four Elemental Gods, was to furnish the ¡°yers¡± with a greater sense of participation and achievement, and also to free the early stage in the game from unbeatable opponents. Judging from the baffling plot, however, one could easily tell that it was deduced by the game story writer using the Hand of God*, as it was not based on facts.


    *(TL Note: Hand of God refers to a goal scored by Diego Maradona in 1986 World Cup using his hand but wasn¡¯t seen by the referee. Later in Chinese, ¡°Hand of God ¨C ÉϵÛÖ®ÊÖ¡± is used to describe a mean to achieve something without conforming to human¡¯sw of nature)


    Besides, Queen Suana who was graced as ¡°Light of the New Moon¡± and ¡°The Moon of Luck¡± had lived a legendary yet incredible life. For how she came to know the yers¡¯ heroes in a blind alley, for how she exposed the crime of her father and the council, for how she achieved a peace agreement so the Humans and the Elves would work together to weather the storm, all these contingencies wereparable to winning a lottery. To break through such tragic circumstances, was even tougher than to y a dragon barehanded. Therefore, this series of tide-turning legendary stories would no doubt be the best-selling novels!


    ¡°Damn, herees another hole. It seems that the story writer was keeping all the Elf yers in the Order Faction with the Hand of the God again. Of course, that was just a game, who could ept such a strange plot where all the people suddenly switched to the same camp. Being a real world, Eich had no such thing as the main protagonist of a story.


    Unfortunately, Eich was not a game, and Suana was not destined to be the emperor, so she was dead, miserably so. In the end, her death had be the spark of the war she hated the most. This was indeed a perfect irony, but also a warning sign for me.


    ¡°I have only one opportunity, everything¡¯s over if I fail this. Hence, there must be no risk involved, all the bad consequences must be taken into ount, as any additional preparation is always a plus.¡±


    At this moment, however, I suddenly regretted, because some of the things should have been done far more modestly.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you guys going too far? I was only asking for several supporting equipment, what are all of these you have brought me?¡±


    In front of me was Pier Papin (Runa¡¯s Daddy), the vice captain of Borealis. He was demonstrating the equipment requested by me.


    ¡°Sailor outfits? Fake animals¡¯ ears? You call these weapon equipment? What I want are single-soldiermunication devices and enchanted armours, did you hear wrongly?¡±


    A muscr man dressed in a skinny-fit women¡¯s sailor outfit, unting his muscr figure beneath the tight outfit was indeed disgusting. Besides exposing his two thick legs, this muscr man in sunsses had even put on the cute fox ears and tail, one could hardly stand the sight of this!


    ¡°Yes, your highness. These are what you requested. Look, this pair of fake ears are installed with a call function, the magic bullet within it allows more than two hundred times of short-distant calls. Also, the wide-eared design is very intelligent, it¡¯s able to improve the data transmission rate. This skinny-fit enchanted armour may look thin, but it will harden to be as solid as metal once you activate its magic bullet as well. As it¡¯s so thin, you can even wear one of it as the underwear, then put on another one as the armour. Double protection, safe and assuring!¡±


    ¡°And this Fox tail is more than a decoration, it actually contains a small battery which can recharge all the body equipment for more than three times. It is estimated that a single soldier will use those equipment for more than three hours.¡±


    Unbelievably, I had tested and found these equipment to be super effective. Many theoretical limitations had been ovee and theirpletion was much beyond expectation.


    ¡°Who is the designer? I would like to have a serious chat with him. Has our technology advanced so rapidly? Why implement such decent technology on these strange designs? Can¡¯t he make something normal? Something just like te armours and headsets!¡±


    ¡°The chief designer, Little Timmy Lade was here a moment ago. There were some who questioned him too, he answered ¡®The well-concealed equipment were the best to y a crucial role, not to mention, cuteness is the true justice!¡¯ That seemed to be his principle as a designer, and nobody was able to change his mind.¡±


    At this point, Pier shook his head in disappointment. He wasn¡¯t regretting how he failed to change Timmy¡¯s mind, but how Timmy had turned down his suggestions all the way, which was just to add one naval outfit in the samples.


    ¡°It appears that people with different principles could never n something together. A little kid could never discern the romance in therge metal warship and heavy artillery. Lady warships are obviously the most gorgeous... but following your instructions, he should be marketing the lite version of the enchanted armour andmunication animal¡¯s ears to the coalition army right now.¡±


    ¡°Yes, he was impressed by the creativity you have, especially how you used your ally units as guinea pigs.¡±


    ¡°Little Timmy?¡±


    This had prompted me to recall the name of the little kid under my sister¡¯s guardian. Was it again the Hand of God that had assisted him? How could he instantly rise to such a great fame?


    ¡°Certainly, a lot of things had happened in the middle. He was just a little kid. Anyway, why do these designs keep reminding of one wicked man...Wait, you said that he is now promoting the lite version of the enchanted armours to the coalition army? And that includes these messy and inexplicable things?¡±


    ¡°Yes, here is the purchase order by Lord Olivia, she asked for your thorough review. These products are designed by Little Timmy Lade. There are twenty-seven kinds of animals ears, such as cat ears, dog ears, fox ears, etc. There are neen kinds of enchanted armours, in the form of swimming suits, bikinis, ck and sexy lingerie, etc. There are four kinds of chargeless magic swords, and three hundreds of them for each kind. Atst, there are four kinds of demonic explosive grenades, and two thousands of them for each kind. The grenades are a weakened version which is specially modified. Please send this data back to the headquarters immediately. Is there any question?¡±


    ¡°Big question! Can these toys be sold? How am I going face the people tomorrow?¡±


    To think that I was peddling underwear to the generals of all countries, I really wanted to kill myself.


    Perhaps the news would spread across all countries on tomorrow, and everyone would be jeering me for taking the path of a pervert, I must stop this from happening before it¡¯s toote.


    ¡°He has just left for a while, hasn¡¯t he? Alright, I just need to stop him as soon as possible. It would be great if I catch him alone, as that will only be treated as a prank of a kid.¡±


    After all, the Bear kids were notorious for their pranks, so the adults should be able toprehend it. Yes, they should be, reluctantly. It had taken a load off my mind by thinking this way.


    ¡°Oh no! Lord Xueti had joined the party and even volunteered to be the model. Thest time I saw him, he was wearing a pink swimming suit that revealed his belly, and a pair of rabbit ears... I must say, that was a total tragedy, and the researchers had vomited on sight.¡±


    ¡°...Your expression not convincing at all. You are nothing better. Ughhh, stop him now!¡±


    Compared to the big guy in sailor suit at the front, with a little imagination, one could figure out how disgusting is the outlook of the stupid cow in pink midriff-exposing swimming suit, it could make everyone go blind. Who would have thought that he even acted cute by putting on the rat ears! At that moment, I would rather destroy this world than to bear the imminent humiliation.


    At least, I would not need to prevent that from the happening.


    ¡°Chase him! The pervert beastman is heading towards there!¡±


    ¡°Barf, our brothers have thrown up in disgust. Can we chaseter?¡±


    ¡°...must catch him before more victims appear. Hunters? Keep chasing.¡±


    ¡°Chasing is not even needed, just follow these vomiting residents as the sign! Even my baby is fainting. An army dog which has been in training for almost ten years is still unable to stomach this horrible sight.¡±


    Looking out of the window, I immediately covered my eyes and knelt down.


    ¡°You fellows know no limit, I will transfer you all to the mines for mining!¡±


    Not to mention about the foremost Minotaur in a pink belly-exposing swimsuit, for a muscr man who was two meters tall but wearing a women¡¯s swimsuit, it was indeed a living sphemy. boration would be unnecessary, as the scene of thick belly shaking periodically below the swimsuit while running was more than enough to render the spectators blind.


    Behind him, there were even more ¡°surprises¡±.


    The goblin, Kab was wearing the trendy white nurse costume, but with his neurotic appearance, he looked more like a psychiatric patient who needed treatment. Meanwhile, Casio was wearing a ck erotic lingerie which covered the two nipples. It was almost impossible for one to stare at a Centaur with his two nipples covered!


    The twin-headed Wendigo was wearing cat ears on his left head, dog ears on his right head, and a maid costume on his body. To one¡¯s surprise,he even put on lipstick on his bloody mouth... As one who was especially fond of maid costume, my eyes had gone blind right away.


    For Beifeng... he was very normal, but his eyes were ring at hisrades who were wearing the animal ears. He seemed to be thinking about hunting these people down. At this moment, I genuinely oppose the design of animal-earsmunication devices! It was too dangerous in the presence of Beifeng.


    ¡°You bunch of bastards! I¡¯d rather you all went streaking!¡±

 Chapter 156

    Chapter 156: Fortification


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    TThere was an ongoing debate about truth and culture in my office. I, on the other hand, was receiving a challenge from a junior.


    ¡°As a race that openly looked down on the other races has no future, those foolish long ear-ers are the most obvious examples! If you look upon the younger and different races as savages, you have as well closed the gate of advancement.¡±


    ¡°Yes, well said! Keeping the old ways of thinking and closing up one¡¯s mind will only lead to mental rigidity, and one will, atst, be left behind times.¡±


    ¡°That is why, we should be adept at learning the cultures of other races, perhaps today, they will be looked upon as wannabes, uneducated, uncultured, wild and unruly, but who knows, they will be looked upon by future generations as pioneers! Any artist who is more advanced than his era, has always, in the beginning, not been epted in his own era.¡±


    ¡°Yes indeed, there are a lot of such examples, many of the ssics today are unconventional revolutionaries of the past. The non-mainstream bands of the past have, to everyone¡¯s surprise, be superstars, and those strange convoluted looking puzzles actually became some sort of impressionist¡¯s holy work. For an old-timer such as me, it is really confusing. Perhaps I will never ever begin to understand, but I will not hinder the development of new conceptions, on the contrary, I will even try to support them.¡±


    ¡°d that you understand. Your majesty, we are progressing into a new era, to build a thriving new era, we must ept the cultures of other races and personal preferences. To respect and attempt to understand is the beginning of allmunication, and this world is in such chaos because it iscking sensible and wise people like you.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, Little Timmy, you and your silver tongue, you tter this old man¡¯s heart with your words.¡±


    ¡°Well the, what about my designed n?¡±


    ¡°Hehe, it still won¡¯t do.¡±


    Seeing Timmy Lade sputter and frustrated, I grinned cruelly, you scum humiliated me and told the world I was vengeful and petty, then I shall show you how vengeful I could be.


    ¡°You say all these just so that your cat-earedmunication devices, animal-tailed battery, armoured swimsuit series can be approved? Are you serious? Or do you think I am so easily tricked by sweet words? True, I have always respected the culture of other races, but are you certain that these perverted inventions are ording to normal aesthetic standards, and not just to satisfy your selfish desires? You dare to swear it on your conscience? Do you dare swear it on your sister¡¯s reputation?


    Good, Timmy Lade was at a lost for words now, but I continued.


    ¡°What¡¯s more, even if it is for your selfish desires, your considerations are way too simple. Everyone says that the maid look is good, and you know that I do indeed like the maid outfit, but how would look if a 6 feet tall strong man with a three feet waistline wore this maid costume? It burned my eyes, and I hadpletely lost all my senses! I had to stare at Elisa the whole night to recover from that!¡±


    ¡°...you are way too naive, all you thought about was the youth and cuteness of youngdies in bikinis, but you had never thought about the horror of olddies in these swimsuits. You only thought about sailor girls and young girls, but never about the old women who think they are sexy sailor girls or hot witches. And don¡¯t even get me started with those old men and their hairy legs and chest. They burned my eyes, I had nightmares that entire night!¡±


    I was not exaggerating this time, I could vividly describe the scenes in the dream right now.


    ¡°In that nightmare, a bunch of buff strong men wearing the maid costume were marching in an orderly manner, and giving me the army¡¯s salute. They perked up their butts as they swayed as if on the catwalk, and purposely raised the little witch¡¯s wand as they shouted the war cries, some nonsense like ¡°representing the moon to punish you¡±, ¡°love and bravery¡±, and that¡¯s not all, there are other mentally polluting ones like ¡°Niko Niko Niko¡±, ¡°I didn¡¯t take my medicine today, and I feel that I am so cute¡±, what is going on!¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s more, I am not saying that I am that educated, but what do they think they¡¯re doing, raising one arm and shouting ¡°Hail, the King of Gents!¡±. Isn¡¯t that sort of giarism a little too obvious? I¡¯m not some King of Gents!¡±


    My roar could be heard from outside the walls, but that was only the beginning of my venting. Due to that strange parade, I was so shaken that I couldn¡¯t sleep after that, and was staring at Elisa with my blood-rimmed eyes for half the night, she must have thought that I had gonepletely insane.


    ¡°Scoundrels are not scary, what¡¯s scary are cultured scoundrels. Perverts are not scary, what¡¯s scary are perverts with knowledge. Naughty children creating mischief are not scary, what¡¯s scary is when their mischief goes unpunished!


    It has been years ever since I had it so bad. Even my reputation got dragged into this and developed towards this strangeness. How could it be possible if I didn¡¯t take my revenge.


    Naughty children must be disciplined, the more twisted they were the earlier they should be corrected and reprimanded. Otherwise, it was only a matter of time before they evolved into mega naughty children.


    ¡°Bam!¡± At the snap of my fingers, the main door was thrown wide open, a group of burly looking men glided in, they were all strongly-built, but wearing the costumes designed by Timmy Lade... Well, I won¡¯t describe them in detail as I still wanted to have lunchter, anyway, even if I managed to shut my eyes before I saw them, the sound of the flesh bumping against each other made me nauseated.


    ¡°...I think I can guess your preference since this is your own design, then you should enjoy this properly!¡±


    ¡°Wait a moment, your majesty, I know what I did was wrong! Argh! Get your chest off me, that is so disgusting, don¡¯t rub your oily face against mine, my Lord, help, I see that I am wrong now!¡±


    Even though I closed my eyes before seeing the scene, the tortured screams of a naughty child still made my heart d.


    ¡°Wrong? y with your new friends for a few hours and think about it. Take him away.¡±


    ¡°Little Timmy, my apologies, these are the orders of his majesty. But rx, the leader has already approved your application to join the Gentlemen Alliance, from now on we are all brothers. After he allows the remaining few of his core members down the gpole, we can hold an initiation ceremony for you. Everyone likes your design very much, so your designs can be directly passed through internally in our team, so you need not worry about theck of research funding.¡±


    ¡°...wait wait, when did I ever applied to join some alliance for perverts... don¡¯t touch me, I brought honor to Mist Kingdom! I bled for his majesty! You can¡¯t do this! You can¡¯t! Your majesty, I beg of you, hang me on the gpole too.¡±


    As I heard that he volunteered to be hanged on the gpole, I started to discern his repentance. Timmy Lade had probably learned his lesson this time, and would think over carefully before doing anything in the future, thereby, I made a decision.


    ¡°Hehe, no way!¡±


    A naughty child¡¯s promise? Even if he was sincere when he made the promises, but judging by the forgetfulness of naughty children, they canpletely forget about their toys after two days, and if he wasn¡¯t severely punished this time, then the next time he¡¯ll most probably make the same mistake. I shall let you remember this for the rest of your life.


    ¡°Aaaaargh! Sister, princess, your majesty, save me! Idiot! Don¡¯t touch my ass! Aaargh, my first kiss. I was saving it for sister!¡±


    Good, that tortured scream was delightful, and hearing this naughty child¡¯s scream, my mood seemed to be better.


    ¡°Oh by the way, add some spice for the guys hanging on the gpole, let the demonic marksman use them as targets, don¡¯t let them be idle. Don¡¯t worry, target practising has never killed anyone. Don¡¯t think I do not know, these guys are experienced now that they have been hanging for so long, ¡°What is the most energy saving pose to sleep when you are hanged upside down?¡±. Ha! I¡¯d like to see how you sleep while you are being shot at.¡±


    After settling all these nuisances, it was now time to put my attention on serious matters.


    My Undead patrols and Aurora Air Cavalry were reputed as the highest-rank spies amongst the battlefield. With their efforts, I had a certain amount of confidence about the battlefield.


    I had no idea what the allied armies were doing on their side, but there had been several military meetings where I was not even invited, most likely they were up to some schemes. Of course, I had made my own calctions on this, the information that I shared was chosen very carefully.


    Putting aside their years of prejudice, Beastmen and Elves were working together closely, whereas humans were ying political games among themselves, no matter how I looked at it, the situation on our side was unfavourable.


    However, since the Elves made their entry, I was no longer worried about the problem in Antoin. This was not a military problem, but a political one.


    If my predictions were not wrong, the elves were raising the g of vengeance, the war was on the horizon, and will eventually involve the mega powerful countries of Humans as well as the cathedrals. And then, since they had dered war against Sleuweir, if Antoin falls, and Sleuweir razed to the ground, should they not consider returning back home?


    I was afraid this was the reason of Beastmen being inconsistent with their invasion of the city. The Antoin of Sleuweir was but arge bait in the n. If the bait was dead before the n could be executed, then how the n ys out had to be reconsidered.


    Considering the current situation, if the final battle was lost, killing half of the seven kingdoms in the Nortnds should be enough. However, if any of the mega kingdoms interfere, for example, San Antonio with personal connections, those little elven kingdoms in the Nortnd would not stand a chance.


    ¡°Elisa, do you know the inside story? Have you any news?¡±


    ¡°None, this is not part of our responsibility, but I can smell the stench of devils in this. Their hands had yed a part in this chaos, it is their favourite game toe up with all these pointless evil schemes. If the demons were leading, they would have definitely begun with the blood sacrifice to summon the demon generals. When the army arrives, they will steamroll through the whole way, these useless little tactics are soughable.¡±


    Indeed, this also matched my understanding of the two races of Chaos faction. Demons had been known to be lurking among other races, to create disputes or to hatch evil ns, with many devilish strategies.


    ¡°No, I must go and have a look.¡±


    Sitting at home, blindly giving instructions is not my style when the situation is unclear to me, hence, I did not hesitate when I jumped onto my steed, the Frigid Nightmare, and rode to the front lines to investigate.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    The flying Frigid Nightmare suddenly transformed into its ethereal form, dodging the lightning casted by the Lightning Eagles. I transformed into War Angel forms while I was in the mist, and silently flew away from the clouds.


    ¡°Dismissed!¡±


    At the next moment, just as the Lightning Eagle Knights had their attention shifted towards Irene, whose body just recondensed again, in that split second, the giant swording from up above struck them down straight away.


    With the strength of Irene¡¯s legs, Antoin shouldn¡¯t be far, but these air cavalries, who kept intercepting along the way were indeed troublesome. I had already met four of these little groups on my way. Although Lightning Eagles who had Hammerburst as their only superpower, were not difficult to be dealt with, their extreme speed and outstanding eyesight certainly made them worthy opponents, one might run but might not escape, and would be atst forced to swallow all their attacks.


    At this stage, even my transfiguration and Irene¡¯s invisibility which could be performed only thrice per day, had all been forcefully spent, it seemed that we had reached our limit.


    Not far from here, Antoin was surrounded, but I would not take a step further as the rm in the Beastmen¡¯s camp had rang out abruptly. Uncountable air cavalries started flying up into the air, two-legged flying dragons, Lightning Eagles, bird-bodied witches, and as if all these traditional soldiers were not enough, I even saw a young green dragon knight.


    ¡°This haspletely sealed off the air route towards Antoin. Let¡¯s go home, Irene.¡±


    Just as I sent orders to back home, the ck cat which was hiding from the wind in the snuck out by itself.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be hasty, circle around more, do you see what is below those stone pirs? Look closer, God forbid there will be new problems.¡±


    Very well, a word from the expert, and the officer broke his leg running. After I flew around the stone pir twice and began ying hide-and-seek with the little green dragon for a full ten minutes, Harloys finally nodded and began speaking.


    ¡°It has been confirmed. Go back, since they have decided to act this way, I¡¯m afraid that the final battle is before us.¡±


    ¡°Why is that?¡±


    I skillfully dodged the dragon¡¯s breath attack from behind, while I leisurely flicked my middle finger towards the dragon rider. This dragon did not even have a fully formed beard, I reckoned he was not yet a hundred, he might even be a livestock from a Beastman¡¯s farm. Perhaps his abilities were quite strong, but totally inferior in terms of experience on the battlefield.


    After Irene transformed into a bird form and flew at full throttle, the green dragon was nowhere to be seen after mere minutes. After we managed to shake off the Beastmen air cavalries, I could finally ask Harloys on her discovery.


    ¡°All of you meat on a stick, how could you possibly understand the secrets of sorcerers... don¡¯t shake, don¡¯t shake, I¡¯ll fall! Fine, I¡¯ll tell you, the Earth elemental beings are building a city. You must have heard of the Fort of Elements, perhaps in a few days there will be another gigantic city around here. At that time, you will be invading a big city whereas they will be attacking a small city. Oh, that would be amusing.¡±


    I shook my head in disbelief.


    ¡°Don¡¯t y with me, Fort of Elements can only be summoned on the elemental ne. This is but the main ne.


    ¡°Yes, this is then the second problem, the main gate to the Earth elemental ne is opening as we speak, very soon you will be swarmed with uncountable stone men.¡±

 Chapter 157

    Chapter 157: Plundering the Foundation


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    No matter how unsettled and agitated the world below was, there was always a calming peace beyond the sea of clouds.


    In my eyes, clouds moved, formed, and changed shape in sync with their own slow rhythm. Just looking at them was sufficient to slow down the heartbeat and mind, the heart would be at peace, but the aggregation of the wind before the eyes was certainly out of control.


    Above the throne high in the clouds, a raging cyclone aggregated into a dark vortex, from which the Lightning Fury was overflowing without a halt, and his roar was as resonant as the thunderstorm.


    Yes, it was him, not it, the powerful Wind Elemental God, Camdian, thest member of the four great Elemental Gods, and also the youngest among them.


    ¡°Puny little thing, do you mean to say, that dull-witted block of stone actually nned to open the main gate towards the Earth elemental ne, on the main ne? That is absolutely impossible! Even if it is him, he would never be able to sustain such an enormous rate of consumption. Besides, this is different from the agreement we had in the beginning!¡±


    It sounded like an interrogation, it sounded like a question, and after hearing this, I just smiled.


    ¡°Agreement? Ow, Lord Camdian, did you juste upon the stage? You actually believe in verbal agreements? Let me guess, the agreement you had must be that each of you would fight their own wars, and thends you win would be yours to keep.¡±


    The storm continued whirling, an indistinct face remained solemn. However, this solemness was exnation enough, in a sense, this sketchy agreement is also the only agreement that could be epted.


    ¡°Haha, speaking about honour with demons and dark gods, I apud you for even thinking of that! Do you think, that if you were in such a position, someone would be willing to help you open the main gate towards the Wind elemental ne, the gate towards the territory of howling gales? But what about your rtionship with Emordilorcan? Haha.¡±


    ¡°Besides a few special nes, a main elemental ne must maintain its bnce. Regarding the reality of the situation of Eich Continent, the great philosopher Aristotle once brought up the subject of the four elements. In his eyes, everything was made up of Earth, Water, Air and Fire, and can be separated into solid, liquid, air, and sma states. At the same time, the four elements were also thebination of dryness, wetness, coldness, hotness, and other properties. For example, dryness and coldness produce Earth, and Water contains wetness and coldness. The ensemble of all must remain bnced, and thus between the elements,petition for thend would always persist, this is the fundamentalw of the world.


    ¡°From any perspective, the properties of the elements are all different. Yet they are always in pairs. The mes that represent high temperature and the ice that represents low temperature; thend that represents solid and the storm that represents a free state, they fight each other yet achieved bnce, this was decided by the basic properties of the element. When this world and the rocky caves of the Earth elemental ne are chained together, do you think there is still a ce in this world for you to interfere, Wind Elemental God? Perhaps you and your race, will forever be sealed within this world.¡±


    The solemn silence continued, but from how Lightning Fury flowed over this entire gigantic body, my message was sessfully delivered. As the two were old rivals, Camdian certainly knew that once the Earth Elemental ne and the main ne interlocked, it would not end well for him too.


    ¡°This time, Ie to represent the Gods of Law, with the purpose of extending the hand of friendship, to a great existence such as yourself. Why should you bend your knee before the junior? There are many things we could discuss further.¡±


    ¡°Order faction? Hehe, do you think there are any differences between them and those bastards from the Chaos faction?¡±


    ¡°No, I only represent the Gods of Law. Of course, there are some big-shots that I can not reveal.¡±


    He extended his arm, and within the white crystal ball was a message that could only be heard by the designated receiver, and just as the shining crystal ball finished transmitting the message, he crushed it with hisrge hand.


    ¡°Do you think, with a clever tongue, you can convince the mighty peak of Winds to serve you? Get out of my sight! I do not wish to look at you now.¡±


    The order of expelling guests rang out like a thunderstorm. I turned and left without a word, but with a smile on my lips.


    From what I understood about this old antique being, not only did he not order his guards to attack me, but instead gave out the order that I was to leave. This meant that he was convinced, and appreciated the gesture.


    There were noplete secrets in this world, the news of my rendezvous with Camdian would not be utterly airtight, a bad parting such as this was, in fact, the best ending. From my view, as long as no swords were drawn, it meant that the deal was done. If that fellow actually wanted to repudiate, he would have crushed the ball without looking at it.


    ¡°Earth Elemental God? Fort of Elements? Haha, Emordilorcan, I have found you a worthy opponent. Hmph, if you could lure the Elves from the Order faction, why I couldn¡¯t lure the Wind elements from the Chaos faction?¡±


    Before a country, a war is the birth of politics. A war is for benefits, and behind every sudden war, there are the invisible arms and batons.


    At this point, I could almost visualise the n from the Chaos faction.


    In this whole sacred war, the invasion of the elements was just the appetizer. Their core benefit was still to increase the degree of the elemental tide, to prepare for the uing Entree.


    Perhaps it was unfair to the Beastmen and the Elves, but in a sense, their actions of war were just a form of voting, and more importantly, it was but a camouge of the real strategy of the Chaos faction.


    ¡°The interlocking of Elemental nes? What a joke.¡±


    If the elemental tide being blown up by the four great Elemental Gods was one on the scale of 1 to 10, then theplete interlocking of an elemental ne was, fearfully, at least ten. Then, all the strategies of the Chaos faction could then be brought forward.


    ¡°If the invasion of demons and the arrival of dark Gods happens now, who can stop them! Most importantly, this is not some game where you only need to aplish your mission, and the enemies will note one at a time to increase your level, they wille all at once! The elemental gate must not be opened!¡±


    To increase the elemental tide is a gradual process, countless elemental creatures on the main ne would be killed, or banished to their own elemental ne. Remaining elements would be dissipated across the whole world. The Elemental Tide would then rise because of this.


    Not to mention the influence of elemental Fort of Elements and tremendous Earth elemental reinforcements towards the situation on the battlefield, just based on the strategic significance, I did not wish in any way to see the Elemental gates being opened.


    But if I were to stop it, there was one problem.


    I would not be able to defeat it.


    Yes, I could not do it, there was no chance at all. The opening of the Earth Elemental ne will of course be done personally by the Earth Elemental God. Should one stop him from that, he would definitely fight you to the death.


    Although Emordilorcan was not highly ranked among the Elemental Gods, and did not have any notable achievements, just the fact that he could survive to this day albeit his horrible rtionship with the other Elemental Gods, was more than enough to prove his astounding might.


    It had been said, as the oldest existence of the four Elemental Gods (if a God of Element dies, a new King of Element would be ascended to the God of Elements), he was thus reputed by all as the strongest Elemental God. I was afraid his abilities weren¡¯t below any of the Gods.


    Demigods could be killed by being swarmed by a sea of soldiers. But with such an existence, unless there was an intervention from the gods, with such an opponent, sending any number of people was to no avail.


    Therefore, I thought of looking for help.


    The group of true Gods from the Order faction need not be considered, but the one going on a hunting trip with the ck Winged people, wasn¡¯t he Camdian, the nemesis of Emordilorcan?


    Was he an enemy? Indeed, but what could be done? The Elves and the Elven Gods were still the allies of humans, every sacred war brought about a reformation of the forces across the whole continent, such events like the switching of sides and betrayals, were toomon.


    Therefore, after finding out that Camdian and the ck Winged people were not far from the Nortnd, I rushed here personally without a word, even though this ¡°not far from here¡± was at least half a month¡¯s journey.


    ¡°Realising that the Earth Elemental gate is not something that could be done at once, the Chaos faction would definitely not like to see the final battle take ce yet. Antoin, on the other hand, will be safe.¡±


    Regarding Camdian, it was still handled by me. These old antiques were very particr about reputation and ostentation, and if these werecking, you were considered lucky if they just showed you the door, as normally they would just destroy you. Especially in such an important persuasion, sincerity was even more stressed upon. Obtaining the anticipated answer, I was now a little more relieved.


    Stepping into the long-awaited vulture-shaped assault ship, I started my own journey home. Even with the short-noticed preparation, the signals from the front lines remained unbroken.


    The drivers started preparing themselves.


    ¡°A strange peace remained on the battlefield, the Elves seemed to be reorganizing their troops, the main legions of four countries are moving, the total numbers have already exceeded one hundred and fifty thousand. Taking into consideration the adult Elves are at least Silver rank in terms of their battle strength, they could be a formidable strength.¡±


    ¡°Of the three walls of Antoin, only the innermost one is left, but the attacks have stopped. The troops of San Antonio have set foot in the Nortnd, and have officially taken over the defence of Maple City. If we went back now, I¡¯m afraid we might encounter some problems.¡±


    ¡°The human allied forces have already started fighting with the Beastmen, both sides have wins and losses, it is just as you expected. The Beastmen from three different routes have started merging, this has been a cage from the beginning. Damn it, they dare to deceit the Demon King.¡±


    ¡°Moreover, just as you predicted, the second snow storm came, and sealed off the mountain. Now, the troops are trapped within their own city, and the supplies consumed on a daily basis are sky high. Only the stronger soldiers will manage to survive in such a freakish weather, you need not worry about missing the year¡¯s great show.¡±


    Elisa¡¯s report carried some resentment, it seems that when she was making fun of the Beastmen Warchiefs, the Beastmen Warchiefs did not tell her their real strategy, and this made her very upset.


    ¡°And that little nonsensical stuff, like the group of bastards from the Gentlemen Alliance, they came looking for me when you were not here...¡±


    My departure and the recent appointment had caused a lot of errands to fall onto her shoulders, but in a sense it meant that if she was not here I would not have left, feeling assured.


    ¡°Eck, didn¡¯t I have important matters to discuss? Oh yes, how is our situation here?¡±


    ¡°Our firearms are selling like hot cakes. The chargeless magic sword has, after experimentation, received unanimous good reviews, the order list for the demonic explosive grenade is full until the year after next, we are not able to make them all the next year. The profit of the first sale is at least four times the capital, we are earning so much!¡±


    ¡°How¡¯s the training situation?¡±


    ¡°The training of the smaller groups are going smoothly, but there had not been many chances for training our troops. The fighting matches between Elite Air Cavalries have be very frequent as ofte, but obviously the youngsters will not be able to interfere in this. Your Skull Dragon Knight Timier recently assaulted that Azure Dragon Knight and Storm Dragon Knight, it was sensational, and there have been rumours that he has been named ¡°The number one Air Cavalry of the Nortnd¡±.¡±


    ¡°What about those little toys?¡±


    ¡°The first batch of war machines have arrived at their destination, the deal was just concluded two days ago with that ckface. The first batch has three types of the seven-staged ones, specially built to fight against the Beastmen¡¯s Behemoth, and the profit for this sale is at least four hundred thousand gold coins. Nothing is more profitable than selling war machines in times of war.¡±


    Elisa stopped, but there was some hesitation in her words.


    ¡°Waiting idly for the war to escte? Doesn¡¯t that contradict our original intention?¡±


    Hearing this, I could onlyugh bitterly. Of course, I did not wish for the war to escte, but this wasid out by the Chaotic faction. What could I do before breaking this?


    Reaching out to crush Emordilorcan? I supposed I would be the one killed.


    ¡°I too, want the war to stop, but this peace game cannot be talked out, only when enough blood has been lost, only will there be a true desire for peace, and understanding of the preciousness of peace. I only hope that after this war, the Nortnd will be quiet for a few years, to give us enough time. Oh yes, since there is nothing going on at home, I¡¯m afraid I will be taking the longer route.¡±


    To stop the war? Have both sides obediently sitting on the negotiation table? Besides having a neutral position, the most important factor was that one must have the ability to make both sides set aside their differences. However, I did not fulfil both these conditions, and I absolutely knew not where I should start in order to stop the war.


    ¡°Longer route? Are there more important matters?¡±


    ¡°Yes. It¡¯s three more days till the winter veil festival, and that will also be the day of the appointment of the Knights in Mist City.¡±


    ¡°Back to East Mist to celebrate a festival? You seem to be so free.¡±


    ¡°Of course to celebrate, only not with the humans, the Appointment of the Knights, particrly the kind of knights only the Mist Kingdom have. You must have understood that by now.¡±


    ¡°You mean...the Aurora Knights?¡±


    ¡°Winter Veil festival is also the day of our appointment with the Frigid Nightmares, and if we miss it, we would have to wait again until next year. Don¡¯t we have insufficient power right now? If I can bring them back here with me, maybe it would be enough.¡±


    Every year, during the Winter veil festival, the royal family and the Frigid Nightmare met to unseal the altar. And only on that day, the members of the royal family could retrieve the newborn Frigid Nightmares. If we went a yearter, the formation of the Aurora Knight troops would have to be put off for a year. Since the war at the front lines was hindered by the snow as predicted, then, taking a detour to take care of a serious matter would be a rather wise choice.


    ¡°Alright, if there¡¯s nothing else, let¡¯s talk when I get back.¡±


    ¡°Latest report, themander of the Elven Kingdom is King Atrion of Tassel Kingdom, the target you wanted me to keep an eye on.¡±


    ¡°...I got it.¡±


    I sighed, as expected, I knew that this ambitious man would never let pass such a good opportunity.


    ¡°Can you tell me what is your rtionship with him?¡±


    Elisa¡¯s question took me down a trip to memoryne, I thought of that brilliant, uninhibited elf.


    ¡°...just about, more or less like the rtionship between me and you.¡±


    ¡°Aaaaaa! You really do like men! Who led you astray, Adam or Krose? I will kill him right now!¡±


    I was immediately at loss for words, she even said ¡°really do¡±, how long has it been, would Elisa have reckoned I was gay all this while?


    ¡°Get your mind out of the gutter, I have no interest in men! I was talking about the rtionship between a teacher and his student, but the rtionship was soon broken. Sigh, the teacher-student rtionships in our batch seem to all be like this. Harloys, were you really cursed, why is it always such an oue?¡±


    ¡°How do I know, all I know is that you cut me off, twice!¡±


    Fine, teacher and student were joined by a life of misery, we looked at each other, our eyes filled with tears, we trembled with emotion. It seemed that we are all miserable people.


    ¡°Go to hell! Unfilial student! I do not have a follower such as you!¡±


    ¡°Fine, from this unappreciative gesture, I guess I was misunderstood. This damned cat only thought of the past and went crazy with rage.


    I picked up the damned cat by its neck, shook it twice, wheeled it three times, and threw her into the waste paper basket prepared specially for her.


    ¡°Sigh, seems like this is indeed a tradition. Elisa, next time before you take a student, you better do some background checking.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, master. I don¡¯t even have the intention of getting students. Just by observing the two of you, I have to spend time nurturing them, and when they grow up, they would most likely be some naughty children who return to kill their own teachers. What is the point?¡±


    I do not know why, but after hearing this, I felt an unexpected sadness, could it be that I brought this upon myself?


    ¡°Okay, this topic ends here. Elisa, beware of Atrion. He is, in a way, still your senior, and he is definitely not an easy opponent.¡±

 Chapter 158

    Chapter 158: All Parties


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    ¡°The snowfall is getting heavier, it seems that the provisions team will bete.¡±


    Elisa nced at the thick, fluffy snow outside the window, and shook her head dejectedly.


    This was not the first time a dy is caused by bad weather, from the dreadful anxiousness in the beginning, and the endless, helpless probing for news that never came, and now, the numb dejection and dulled expectations. I suppose in a way, this is a dejected, resigned, eptance.


    After all, this terrible weather not only affected us, and since both sides had to ceasefire, there was nothing to be nervous about.


    I must say that the Beastmen chose a very delicate time to advance their attack, the heavy snow that came and went had sunk the war situation into an awkward atmosphere.


    Final battle? How does one fight a war while skating and trembling in the cold? Now, just the preparing and distributing of food supplies became a great responsibility, no matter how powerful an army is, they had to learn to respect the majesty of nature.


    ¡°Damn it, if only we started half a month earlier, or perhaps, it¡¯s also fine to wait until spring next year.¡±


    It would seem that when every Beastmen had been frozen past freezing point, they would have such thoughts. Normally at this time of the year, they would be at their hibernation spots, sleeping around the firece.


    It was just like procrastination, where initially, everything went ording to n, but as the preparations went on, due to influences from many sides, it resulted in a dy to the most unsuitable time node.


    ¡°What? Is the car stuck? Don¡¯t worry, we still have two hours to go. Hmm? Took the wrong way? That¡¯s fine, we still have one hour to go. Airport Runway under construction? No big deal, probably, hmm, half an hour to go, we won¡¯t bete. Hehe, finally we arrive, I told you it would be fine. What! Airport bag checking? At least half an hour? Hey! Hey! Stop joking! ne, wait for me!¡±


    Yes, it is simr to the above feeling, it was just as an example, of course, definitely not from my own experience...


    Eck, back to business, truth be told, this was undoubtedly the evil plot of someone and some demon king. If the expected strategies of the Beastmen went well, there should be no chance of this happening.


    However, at this moment, Elisa was not pleased, although her trick went as nned. After all, as time went by, and the warfare continued getting more critical, the burden that fell on her shoulders were bing too heavy for her.


    Yes, she lied. How could it be possible that in war everything will be fine, the Beastmen and the elves were not easy opponents. Although the general circumstances were as she described, the actual pressure was greater than expected.


    ¡°I will take care of the house. Don¡¯t worry, didn¡¯t Rnd teach me all that I need to know? At least, even if that dumbss Annie can be the Underworld autarch, how is it possible that I cannot handle all of these alone.¡±


    For some reason, Elisa always like topete with Annie. Even if her capabilities far surpassed that of Annie, she still wanted to prove that she was the most outstanding leader.


    But obviously, not everything could be taught, the confusing situation on the battlefield in front of us was way more challenging than the hostile forces in the underworld, which had mostly been cleared up already.


    ¡°The Beastmen Air Knights havee to challenge us again, this time with two Lightning Eagle teams, and that Dragon Knight. On the side of San Antonio, they need Master Timier to lead the war, but it seems that Master Timier has not yet recovered from his wounds.¡±


    ¡°San Antonio has its own Air Knights already? Didn¡¯t they have the Griffin Knights? With the mythical Griffin Knight providing support, why can¡¯t they go themselves?¡±


    ¡°...they said Elsen is sick, in other words, we must use our military gains to prove our worth.¡±


    Hearing this, Elisa adjusted her sses without any expression, no one could tell what was on her mind.


    ¡°...the mythical Griffin Knight, sick? I should have crushed those jerks! ¡°sh Crimson Knight¡± Elsen, is it? Good, I will remember you, I will wait patiently for the day you pass into the river of Styx, or perhaps, I shall send you there myself!¡±


    Even in the human world, a super powered kingdom was, in other words, tyrannical. In their eyes, their willingness to provide aid to all of you in the seven kingdoms of the North is already a god-sent favour. How could a superpower allow a tiny country to instruct them, the right to control the alliance naturally belongs to them.


    Kasmi Kingdom, which was inmand, was only under the prerequisite of the San Antonio states. Since the arrival of the reinforcements, themanding power of the allied armies was transferred to the arrogant San Antonians.


    At that moment, it was obvious that the people of San Antonio were very unsatisfied with the way the East Mist were iming the spoils of the war, especially since the reinforcements they sent were the least among the six countries in the North.


    But the quality of the lowest Gold Rank East Mist Air Knights had to be taken seriously, even by San Antonio. Therefore, they summoned the East Mist Air Knight to war in the name of the Allied Commanders.


    In the very beginning, the East Mist Aurora Knights and the Skull Dragon Knights never lost a match in every one-on-one battle, so much so that East Mist, which had been known to be weak for many years, gained quite a reputation.


    However, the Beastmen had no ns for one-on-one battles. If one is topare the numbers, the new generation of Aurora Knights from East Mist were not yet mature, the numbers of Undead Air Cavalry were too few, and they have other responsibilities in the war, as even Timmier had been wounded by the opponents.


    ¡°What about the other Aurora Knights? Are there any left who are capable of battling?¡±


    Even at the height of its glory, East Mist did not have more than a hundred of Aurora Knights that were above the lowest Gold Rank. At this time, due to certain reasons, among the fifty Aurora Knights from the Undead Air Cavalry, only fifteen are situated in the Nortnd, and majority of them were not in Maple City.


    ¡°Two Aurora Knights have not recovered from their injuries, three are in good shape. The rest are undertaking patrol duties. His majesty Reyne, on the other hand, applied to join the war, but was heavily berated by Lord Timmier.¡±


    It is obvious that even if the three Aurora Knights were of legendary rank, they were still not enough to handle the opposition¡¯s two allied forces of nearly a hundred Air Knights. Although Aurora Knights were good in air battle, the sky was definitely not their most optimal battleground.


    Hearing this, Elisa sunk into a deep silence. She was hesitating on whether or not to just destroy the seal, and squash that Dragon Knight to death, then with the same swipe crush those arrogant San Antonians. This would, however, lead to the falling apart of everything, ending with the will to return to the abyss.


    ¡°If Rnd was here...¡±


    In a sense, this is Elisa¡¯s first time carrying the burden of a national scale, so she was hardly to me for hesitating. Even if she knew this hypothesis waspletely meaningless, she still had to consider such a possibility.


    ¡°...Mistress Elisa, actually His Majesty Rnd had left a letter.¡±


    After a long hesitation, the servant finally spoke up, as if the current situation has reached a predicted dilemma.


    Did he have to leave a letter when he could have just contacted me directly? Elisa was stunned at the news. However, she could just shake her head reluctantly.


    ¡°This guy saw through me again?¡±


    Indeed, Rnd had from the start knew Elisa¡¯s character, and naturally he made some preparations before he left. In order to preserve her dignity, obviously the letter could not be revealed until it was absolutely necessary.


    ...since you are reading this letter, then, probably the situation is not pretty. Let me guess, what troubled you, yet made you hesitant to tell me is probably the internal issues within the Allied armies. There are too many external factors in this war, the stand of both my enemies are unstable, it is no surprise for them to betray each other to prioritize their forces. Regarding the other countries? It doesn¡¯t matter if we offend all of them. If they cross a line, even if they are our allies, they must also be punished. Just assume that you are in the abyss, and learn how the old demons treat their allies, you know how they handle these things better than me.


    Although Rnd seemed unreliable, in reality, he was extremely experienced and astute. He might trust anyone, but he does not trust anyone fully. From the beginning, he had already made many ns and contingencies.


    In Rnd¡¯s eyes, even if San Antonio did note, it would still be difficult for East Mist, with its sparse members to be given the power tomand the Allied armies. And once they lose the power tomand, or not even having the right to speak within the allied armies, it would be very difficult for them.


    This had nothing to do with one¡¯s determination. In this temporary coalition, it would seem as if it is thew, that whoever had more strength would have the say. Once the central power ofmand falls into the hands of another country, it is possible, or even probable, that you would be cannon fodder.


    This was not Rnd thinking badly of others, as he would have done the same as well.


    He was firmly convinced that if he held the power tomand, he would, without a doubt, sacrifice the armies of the other countries, to conserve his main strength. And reality has proven his hypothesis.


    However, it appeared that there were not many of them, as in the past few days, East Mist Kingdom actually suffered the least casualties. The kingdoms that suffered the biggest losses were the Kingdom of Lothnen and Anzolo Empire. Small-scale conflicts had urred during pauses, their infantry and knights were ordered multiple times to cover the rear and the front lines. At the moment, their war losses were three tenths, and moreints were rising.


    This was also the deviation of political factors in the battlefield. These two countries were, among the seven Nortnd countries, the Four Southern Countries (four countries that are leaning towards the southern powers). With Sleuweir Kingdom, the Four Southern Countries is on the verge of ruin, and the Kingdom of Kasmi being independent of everything else, and with the three Nortnd countries not that keen on taking orders, it was very obvious who would be used as cannon fodder.


    The most unfortunate one was probably the Kingdom of Lothnen. Although politically, they leaned towards the North, as members of their Royal family were made up of Southern royalties, after many disputes, they were instead crushed by the Southern superpower San Antonio.


    For the three countries in the North, apart from East Mist there were two more countries: the Kingdom of Shuya, of the Barbarian bloodlines in the Hignd countries; and another one almost as ancient as Mist Kingdom, Kingdom of Phoenix¡¯s Down. Theypletely disregarded the ridiculousmands from the people of San Antonio.


    Of course, these things could not be told as it is, but if one were to put aside all the facade and pretence to look at the results directly, the interactions between any countries are usually that brutally direct.


    In reality, with Elisa¡¯s capabilities, how could she not see all these twists? It was only because the responsibility of being the substitute of Rnd was a heavy role, and had made her too scrupulous. This led to her inability to make hostile decisions. Now that there is the relief from reading Rnd¡¯s assurance in the letter, naturally no longer hesitated so much.


    ¡°Let¡¯s say even our Air Knights are sick, hmm, a cold and fever of forty degrees Celcius, how can they fly in the air to fight? What? Do spectres not have fever? Then diarrhoea. Hmm, yes, I inly only want to toy with them and shame them. If they don¡¯t like it, then first ask them, how can Elsen get sick. If the negotiations do not fall through, then let Timier meet that Griffin Knight, and see if he has recovered already.¡±


    When Elisa made up her mind not to fulfil everyone¡¯s wishes, and let them have a piece of her mind, she felt a little bit more relieved.


    Just when she was nning to make herself a cup of ck tea and take a break before taking care of those annoying official affairs, an obtrusive silhouette barged in.


    ¡°Oh no,test news. Anzolo Empire suddenly switched sides before the battle, they attacked our army camps, we lost!¡±


    ¡°Hummph.¡±


    The seven Nortnd countries changed to the six Nortnd countries in an instant. No matter how cultured Elisa is, she still spat out the ck tea in her mouth. At this moment, she finally understood what Rnd meant.


    ¡°Every holy war is the time when each country and each superpower renew their stance, the stand of both my enemies are unstable, it ismon for them to betray each other to prioritize their forces, we must maintain the superiority of our strength.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Within the hangar of the Borealis, a group of engineers were busy working. For some unknown reason, the team of youngsters including Cohen and Timmy Lade became the leaders of the research group.


    ¡°Why does his majesty still not allow us to do trial runs on the battlefield with these? If they could perform as well as they did in theory, our situation would be much improved, then we will show the Northies what¡¯s good.¡±


    ¡°Wisdom of ordinary people.¡±


    Ever since he started rubbing shoulders with His Majesty Rnd, Timmy Lade took a liking for such contrived speech.


    Nowadays, if one were to ask him anything, he will always adjust his sses (in lens), and intermittently added phrases like ¡°Foolish humans¡±, moner¡¯s mentality¡±, ¡°even monkeys are smarter than all of you¡±.


    Whether or not it made him seem wiser was another matter to be discussed another time, but it does make one want to give him a good beating.


    Hmm, many of those in the Gentlemen Alliance had given him a good beating, but obviously, little Timmy had forgotten.


    ¡°...what do you mean by saying this? We are not Gods, so obviously we are ordinary people. You have not told me why can¡¯t we enter the battlefield.¡±


    Fine, facing the serious-faced Cohen, facing multiple yoffs, even Timmy Lade, who is experienced in escaping had to tone down a little.


    ¡°My foolish brother...¡±


    It seemed like, in a way, this toning down is limited.


    ¡°I am older than you, and additionally, we are not rted.¡±


    It seemed that Cohen was a stubborn guy. It is just with this character that, after receiving themand from Rnd, he made Timmy Lade work over time obediently, and finally, Timmy Lade had be a little impatient.


    ¡°You blockhead, you haven¡¯t got an ounce of humour or the likes of an artist, are you really a sorcerer? You are just like those meat-on-a-stick Knights!¡±


    ¡°I was never a sorcerer. Am I really like a Knight? That¡¯s great! Hehe, I am not as good as you say I am.¡±


    All right, next, it was time for the delighted little Timmy to go on a rampage, but even if he was given two extra limbs, there is no chance for him to defeat Cohen. Somehow, this young, yet stubbornly old-fashioned Cohen is the natural enemy of Timmy!


    ¡°Fine, I will say it as it is, his majesty¡¯s wish is that right now, these people below arepletely unreliable. They are meant to be used as our back-up, they can¡¯t be used if we are not in a critical moment.¡±


    ¡°When is a critical moment then?¡±


    ¡°A lot of times, but before those critical moments, we will not use them. Only when those at the higher ranks decides that it is time to use them, then the light at the hangar will turn from green to red.¡±


    ¡°Green light? I don¡¯t see it, am I colourblind?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s just at the top, The red light means... hang on, the light is red!! It¡¯s war!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    The Xiluo Swamp, Karda Desert, Bejya Hignds, were forbidden areas for the living, and the territory of Xiluo Empire.


    Yet it had be a war zone, countless undeads were killing each other at this moment. The battlefield was filled with the screams of that shapeless ck God of Death,the ground was scattered with bones and the putrid scent of rotting flesh. The Undeads from both our side and theirs were using actual battles to exchange their own understanding of the art of death.


    The civil war in Xiluo had continued for many months already. At this stage, both sides have already suffered terrible losses, and the time has arrived for the war to end.


    Yet at this crucial moment, more than thirty Air Knights appeared. The ck cloaks they wore hid their identity, but from the way the transparent white apparitions rode and the way they exuded the terrifying aura of death, they appeared to be Death Knights of very high ranks.


    Just as they touched the ground, a silhouette was already there, waiting.


    ¡°Finally you have arrived. It must have been a tiring journey, too bad there is no time for rest.¡±


    ¡°Ha, as if we need rest, little Lionheart. In ordance with the orders of his majesty, we have arrived. Our ns can now begin, of course, depending on how you look at it, it could also serve as the ending.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    The once great city Antoin had suffered the worst catastrophe in history, not only did the city lose arge portion of the city wall, more dangerously, the master of the city had lost the loyalty of his people.


    During the long invasion, the people and soldiers had willingly sacrificed themselves withoutint, and yet, when the supplies were depleting, not only did the royal court not open up the national coffers to distribute food, they gave out orders to retract the army¡¯s provisions, and this had incurred public anger.


    From the start of the war, King Fismer Caso had never been seen. In addition to that, previously before the attack from the Beastmen, it was said that Prince Rnd had sent a warning, but not only did Fismer paid it no heed, he even suspected that the Prince had other intentions.


    Now evidence had proven the stupidity of his majesty, and his behaviour of hiding within the pce walls proved his cowardice, and on top of that, his hoarding of food supplies, proved his selfishness. This majesty¡¯s name had been ruined beyond repair.


    In this perilous world, the people had the responsibility to provide for their leaders, but leaders have the responsibility to protect his people. This was the fundamental element of trust between the two parties. When the leader refuses to carry out the most basic of his responsibility, then how is he going to sit on his throne?


    ¡°Fismer is unworthy to be King!¡±


    There were already such chantings amongst the people on the streets and alleys, but at this moment, the King who had just executed a concubine who advised him to show up at the city walls and fight with the people continued hiding and quaking in fear within the pce.


    ¡°All of you want me dead! All of you want me dead! All of you are assassins sent by that Rnd, you want to take away my throne! I will never grant you that wish, I must live!¡±


    In the meantime, in a household in Antoin, two illegal passengers were at a loss on what to do next.


    ¡°Margaret, I really want to kill jerks like this, must we keep him?¡±


    ¡°...if it annoys you, then by all means, help yourself, but don¡¯t kill him. Or else this city is finished. ¡°Spare Antoin¡± Hmph, that Rnd really knows how to assign tasks at leisure.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, he will get his retribution soon, my intuition is always urate. It¡¯s like themonly known...Shu...Shura?¡± [1]


    ¡°...Shuraba you mean? Huh, and Rnd invented this weird noun, but it fell upon himself every time. But this time, it most probably won¡¯t happen in front of Elisa, I do feel that Reyne is not a threat at all, your intuition is probably wrong this time.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, it¡¯s not entirely an intuition.¡±


    The red-haired soldier shook the scrunched up letter, that was a greeting from his hometown, and the expected visit of someone.


    ¡°And you did not tell Rnd? You n to deceive him?¡±


    ¡°Hehe, I really forgot this time, it was absolutely unintentional.¡±


    ¡°If you forget every time, then it is on purpose.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Few people knew that the most hidden pathway in the Nortnd which led to the Underworld, was actually within the Elven territory.


    At this moment, a group of adventurers, formed by two youngdies were wandering within.


    Anya, are you sure this is the road? Why do I feel like we are on the wrong path.¡±


    ¡°Sister Annie, believe me just this once, there is no mistake, I swear by my grandfather¡¯s name, my iron hooves are guiding me now, the way is before our eyes.¡±


    ¡°You said that half a month ago, why not find someone to ask?¡±


    ¡°Can I find someone who can answer this... hey, sister witch over there, may I know where can I find the Elven territory from here?¡±


    [1] TL note: ¡°Shuraba ÐÞÂÞÈС± is a living demonic katana from the game Bayta. Its unique traits include quick sweeping strikes and jabs which excel against small and agile enemies.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡°You are my little Applet, no matter how much I love you it is not enough, your little red cheeks warms my heart, lighting up my life¡¯s fire, fire fire fire fire!!¡± [2]


    There are many matters waiting to be taken care by me, yet here I am in the snow mountains, drumming and singing away. Why? I guess it is the sing-alongers around me.


    ¡°Fire fire fire fire!¡± [3]


    ¡°What is fire? Is it edible?¡±


    ¡°Definitely edible! Didn¡¯t you see that human singing until his tears almost fell, he must be drooling!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s great, I also want to taste. There are only snow dregs in the snowy mountain.¡±


    Among the ones talking are yeti, snow monsters and snowdies, in this celebration of the Winter Veil festival, they organizedrge-scaled entertainment activities. When they heard that I am the descendant of the legendary singer, the Mist King, of a thousand years ago, I was informed that if I did not give a good performance, I would not be allowed to take away even one Frigid Nightmare.


    Yes, the legendary singer, the one the Mist King used all those years ago to take care of the Frigid Nightmares.


    At this moment, how can it be that I am holding back tears because I am drooling? Humans do not even have this ability, I am actually just driven mad with anxiety.


    ¡°Encore, encore!¡±


    ¡°What an excellent singing! Little little applet! Marvelous! Little Apple must be the lover that you long for.¡±


    ¡°Yes, there are more than enough cubs on the altar, the more songs you can sing, the more you can take away with you.¡±


    I finally realized why the Mist King never told anyone what he saw all those years ago. Even if history was all a cover up, but to have such lies to such an extent that must be the only one! If it had been me all those years ago, I would also have died before telling!


    I wiped the tears away, with such a show of support from the audience, I could only continue.


    My musical talent was extremely inadequate, the lyrics that I could remember of the song were mostly the melody that entranced me by the Demon¡¯s song all those years ago.


    ¡°The love who betrayed me forced me to leave, my tears fell as I atst found out the truth...¡±


    Hundreds of yearster, there was a legend here, when the mountain people lost his way in the snowy mountains during the Winter Veil festival, if he came back, he would be foolish and silly, and he would crazily sing the Demon¡¯s song that drives people insane. The ones who heard this music will also be foolish and silly, their whole body will know only to sing along.


    ¡°My love is as vast as the sky, the soft ground on the green mountain below my feet, the flowers are blooming...¡±


    TL Note:


    [2] TL note: this is the chorus of a popr Chinese pop song.


    [3] TL note: Part of the chorus of the song above.

 Chapter 159

    Chapter 159: The Great Snow Mountain


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    The mystery of nature knows no bound, and as the myth of God of Creation coupled with the wrath of nature, any incredible scene might be crafted, whether it¡¯s a fatal impasse, a magnificent view, or a wonderful sight.


    The Great Snow Mountain of the Nortnd, officially graced as the Great Mountains of the Northmost Snow White, also dubbed as the ¡°Everfrost Arctic Prison¡±, was connected to three of the Seven Nortnd Countries. The area it upied was nothing less than a small kingdom, but its inhabitants were rather unique, and the poption was indeed small.


    Along with the rise of sea level, one could barely see any region uncoated with snow.


    The endless snow hills, the miraculous snow-sculpting rocks, the icy stctites, the silver trees, the skyscraping snow towers, the small world beneath the elemental cialke, the frozen upside-down waterfall, and the various strange monsters as rare as the Ice Phoenix and Silver Unicorn, and all the unparalleled breathtaking views of the Snow Mountain had won it the reputable name of the most beautiful life-forbidden zone in the world.


    Of course, it had to be a forbidden zone for mortals. It was one of the most frigid ces in the world, with an average temperature of negative fifty-degree Celsius. Other than several special asions, the mountain was always nketed with heavy snow, and was a ce of absolute despair, where no normal living creature would survive.


    There were some who even treated it as a sole frost ne. From the perspective of sorcerers, thisnd held the characteristic of the other world, especially with the overspreading Ice elemental crystals (every elemental ne produces its own elemental crystals). If therees a day when the Ice Elemental God is born, this would have to be his previous cradle.


    This ce might not have any signs of normal lives, but it was not until the point of dead silence. While the normal lives could never relish the coldness from thend, it turned out to be the yground of the elementals, spirits and extreme monsters.


    The gigantic ice dragon that noticed the ttened person stuck to the sole of its foot after half a day of crawling along the mountains, the elemental wild boar that could make the mountains tremble by just walking, the super ice phoenix that stirs up blizzards by just its falling icy feathers upon its flight, these few creatures were living in this ce of no man.


    There were even some who were born in the same age with Ayer and possessed unfathomable strength and hidden power. Nevertheless, they had been living here across the centuries, and would never leave here even if the world hade to destruction.


    ¡°You heard of it? Two days ago, the ice boar in the north gave birth to a herd of shots, and one of them was a mutant with wings, it could be a boar king of mythical rank in the future.¡±


    ¡°Ah I see, that is a big fortune. I¡¯m going to prepare the gifts. How about visiting the Ice elementalke to ask for a piece of ice crystal from the old Dragon King?¡±


    The time was crawling pretty slowly here, as it was rather remote. Besides, this snowynd was much more peacefulpared to the outside world. Those lives which coexisted here had known among themselves for hundred years and were no different from the kind of neighbours who chat on a daily basis.


    It was probably the nature of ice and snow monsters to embrace peace. This ce was always silent and peaceful, buttely, something was different, they had started a new hot topic.


    ¡°You heard of it? A superstar singer visited the home of Frigid Nightmares on the birthday of the Pork King¡¯s son. She was the master of ceremony as well as the singer, and her singing was amazing.¡±


    ¡°Was it the song ¡°Happy birthday you pig, happy birthday you pig. Pig¡¯s head pig¡¯s brain pig¡¯s body pig¡¯s tail, but a child who is never fussy in eating. Sleeping till the noon day by day, never brushing his teeth and never fighting¡±? Oh, I heard it once from the neighbours, Ader (the yeti) and little Mi (ice unicorn), so this song was from there. Not bad at all, it sounded pleasant and fitted the asion!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, everyone calls her ¡°Our Snow Diva¡±. Those people swarm up to her every day?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a she? But I was told it¡¯s a boy?¡±


    ¡°...I met the singer once. I may not know much about the gender of the little meaty man, but how could such a cutie be a boy? Could it be that they are just like as us, genderless?¡±


    ¡°Who knows, anyway, the Frigid Nightmares had so much funtely, it seems that one could only enter this ce with their Soul Contract. Is this possibly the first urrence since the past three hundred years?¡±


    ¡°Certainly, they could be seen singing and dancing on the square above the straits, every day, and it¡¯s that ¡°Little Little Applet¡± song?¡±


    ¡°...I had been there once, those Frigid Nightmares were dancing and transforming themselves at the same time. In the end, it turned into a chaotic dance performance by a group of monsters.¡±


    At this moment, between the straits, before dawn, the sound of singing and dancing from the square was hurting my head again.


    ¡°The boundless mountains are my love. To sell of my love, to force me to go away. Your hearts are always too soft, your hearts are too soft. You are my little applet, little applet! little applet! Humph!¡±


    ¡°Damn your little applet, it¡¯s getting pretty old now, you know?¡±


    Unfortunately, this ice cave had no doors or even windows, so I had no choice but to ¡°enjoy¡± this insufferable evil sound that was prating my brain.


    Albeit the unanimous praises from the Frigid Nightmares, I terribly regretted the performance that time, especially after some discoveryter.


    ¡°A song for a Frigid Nightmare? Oh Oh Oh, that¡¯s just a joke. No matter how unreliable we could be, we will never trade our own people¡±


    What I was feeling that time... If I couldn¡¯t beat it, I could put the lion-alike Frigid Nightmare into the Goblin cannon then fire it, or I could try to barbecue its lion head. I would abandon the fact they were any ancient creatures or even my ancestor¡¯s friends, as the lion head must be delicious...though there was still something wrong with it.


    I arrived here out of a promise, regardless of the abundant tasks in hand. Was it easy for me? And yet I was fooled by these Frigid Nightmares, I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry for myself.


    ¡°How could you wear a fake face here? You should meet everyone with your real face.¡±


    This lion head seemed to make a good point, in case a mighty existence was agitated by this, things were going to be problematic. With this immature young look and androgynous voice, it had brought me some little trouble too.


    Snow Diva? What was that? I did not know.... Alright, I admitted. It was the fault of that talkative Irene, a ck history that should be concealed in the history. Once I came out from this mountain, I would risk my life to fight anyone who dares to mention that name again!


    Nevertheless, things ended in this way for a reason.


    Frigid Nightmare was a kind of unique spirit creature, their bodies were phantoms of ice and snow... Akin to the Lava tribes who grew up by devouring theva, they grew up by devouring the freezing ice energy and gem. Unlike animals with flesh, they had no appetite and desire for sex, thus they would never perceive the physical intimacies between the meaty men.


    Being a phantom, yet having an authentic existence, they still had their own hobbies.


    Without any sense of physical satisfaction, the spiritual satisfaction would naturally be the aspiration of these spirit creatures. As they were not able topose music, paint, do poetry nor other cultural arts, they thus admired the brilliant aura of the other races in the outside world. For them, these were the nourishment and luxuries for cultural development.


    Even so, the Frigid Nightmares did not intend to hide their interests. Rumors had it that the predecessors of Mist Kingdom had spent quite some time preparing their presents and performances just to trade for their cubs during their visits in history. This had inspired the Frigid Nightmares to start celebrating the Winter Festival, which was originally not their tradition.


    On that day, the visiting contractor from far away would perform the exquisite show he had innovated or offered some seemingly valueless artworks by the craftsmen and painters. Meanwhile, the elder Frigid Nightmares which had returned from their adventure in the outside world, would tell stories about their past experiences. In the end, during the closing ceremony, the elder Frigid Nightmares would be gazing emotionally at the departure of newborn Frigid Nightmares, just like any young parent who is sending their children to school for the first time.


    Over thousand years, the Winter Festival was always the day most anticipated by the tribe.


    It appeared that the Mist Kingdom had not fulfilled its promise for nearly four hundred years. This was the reason which encouraged me to curb my temper and sing along with them.


    Frankly speaking, my skill of singing was just like everyone, although my voice was not bad. I had always forgotten the lyrics amid singing and often went out of tune too. An innate weak sense of rhythm had multiplied the mistakes in chanting the lyrics, as the words might get tangled up, too long, or too short.


    At the sight of the snowydies who were skilled in singing and dancing to sing, singing the off-tune song better than theposer, especially at the moment when the tune went off, I was extremely embarrassed.


    Along with the melody of these ¡°divine songs¡±, the Frigid Nightmares were fond of the unique culture and ideologies which were not found in their world. The new and deep cultural details were indeed alluring for them.


    However, I had been counting the days with my finger, as I had not much time left to be wasted here.


    ¡°...Aroyin, You are the friend of the Mist king, you are also an elder of mine. You should have been to the outside, the Mist Country is in danger now, and I have to hurry back.¡±


    I had repeated this sentence several times but had not been taken seriously by the ice-crystallite lion head, after all, he would get me to do some trivial tasks, such as singing to celebrate the newborn shoat of an ice boar staying at the mountain side, or celebrating the ten-thousand-year-old birthday of an elder phoenix.


    ¡°I could not wait any longer! If the answer is still a no, I have no choice but to go back now. I wille again next year.¡±


    This time, I was standing in the doorway of Aroyin. Seeing that I was so anxious that I would leave in any second, he finally stopped prevaricating on me.


    ¡°I know, I am aware of the news outside, and that you are in pursuit of power here. As an elder, I will not stop you, but look at yourself now, how are you going to attain power?¡±


    ¡°I? I am good.¡±


    An inexplicable anxiety had urged me to answer without thought, but the face of the old lion was then filled with a benevolent smile.


    ¡°Is it good? You are a caster of Freezing Force, and the Frigid Nightmares¡¯ bodies wereposed of the Freezing Force as well, but have you ever seen anyone of us rushing at things?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s too peaceful here! That¡¯s the cause.¡± Just when I was about to retort, something shed across my mind, staggering me.


    Every element has its own nature and characteristics. Simr to the Fallen Magic and Holy light, which would influence the personality and mind of the casters, the elemental magics could, however, be controlled under patient and consistent training.


    The elemental force might corrode its own caster. Fire magic would make one fierce and irritable, earth magic would make one moderate and steady, water magic would make one amiable and peaceful, wind magic would make one capricious and voluble. Whilst ice magic that was evolved from the water magic would make one ¡°cold-blooded¡±, most of the casters were unusually calm.


    ¡°The affinity for elements implicates the harmony between the elements and you. In brief, how much the elements like you. Magic is a miraculous power formed by the strong will, and a willes from the soul, thus the soul is the origin of this miraculous power. The incantations, casting techniques, and materials are just the supplementary, the most vital part is always the soul itself.¡±


    ¡°Many years ago, you might have been blinded by hatred and could not see the path clearly. You should have identified your path now, why are you still not opening up your heart to the elements? You closed your eyes and ears, barricaded your heart, how could you win the affection and intimacy of the ice element?¡±


    ¡°Since you are in pursuit of power, and the ice element is a power to be reckoned with. The elemental spirits love your singing, why did you deny their entries to your soul? My son, you are still too rash. This is a golden opportunity, look around yourself, you will probably see a new world.¡±


    Hearing this, I broke out in cold sweat.


    ¡°All the miraculous power does arise from the soul? My bad, I have forgotten this foundation and was wrong all this time.¡±


    To my surprise, I had unconsciously abandoned the imperative foundation along the path of seeking power. My Power of Law was due to my yearning for fairness, while the Holy light of God of Holy light was due to their dedication to the rules. Also, the wise practitioners had always corresponded to the nature of power by adapting their souls too, if it was power manipting power, one would have fallen and not able to achieve the ultimate heights.


    Outside the window, was an endless view of snow, along with the white sky, it happened to be the home of the ice and snow spirits, full of singing and pleasure. Albeit my presence in this snowy region, I realised that my heart remained with the secr world.


    ¡°You really thought a Soul Contract with the Frigid Nightmares was everything for Aurora Knights? Certainly not, that would be too crude for our sights, just like using a divine equipment to cut the fingers, what a waste of talents for yourself and Erebe¡¯s. Besides, the maturity of your magical sword system was rather low, and the perception and utilization of elements were even worse, that was like begging with a golden bowl [1].¡±


    ¡°To keep the Winter Festival longer in full swing, please wait until you have cooled off, and we fellow elders will show you how to master the ice and snow. The Elemental Gods? Haha, before some ancient existence, they are just the juniors!¡±


    ¡°I may not be the strongest one amongst our tribe, but I could let you know the perception of Mist King towards the ice and snow. If my partner is still around, these younglings wouldn¡¯t dare go on a rampage like that!¡±


    TL Note:


    [1] In Chinese, ¡°beg with a golden bowl ¨C ʹÓýðÅÌ×ÓÌÖ·¹¡± means, waste one¡¯s talent or ability in trivial matters, while it could be used for greater things.

 Chapter 160

    Chapter 160: War of Betrayal


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    In this war of mythical proportions, which was known by theter generations as ¡°The War of Betrayal without any dignity¡±, the alliance formed by four Elven kingdoms in Nortnds, unexpectedly, was the first tounch an assault, just as the snow fell.


    Indeed, the first who broke the deadlock was not the most aggressive Beastmen who favoured war, nor the Humans who were protecting their homnd, but the Elves who were eager to express their stance towards a certain existence.


    It was six at dawn, and without prior deration of war, the Elves sent their greetings through their crossbow arrows and magic attacks. The Human alliance then dispatched their main forces into the battle. The Alliance of seven countries (excluding East Mist and San Antonio) had gathered more than 500,000 troops, with 400,000 of them engaged in the war.


    The Elves had a total of 160,000 troops, which might sound like a tiny garrison before the mega kingdom, but their real power should not be underestimated.


    Belonging to the Silver faction, the grown-ups of superior Elves would at least be of Silver-rankbat power, while the lower Elves could easily match the Silver-rank humans with the help of their splendid weapons and equipment. Also, with a greater ratio of exceptional magic craftworks and sorcerers, the real power of the Elves must not be trifled with, despite their smaller army.


    ¡°...We thought that this would just be another day of military manoeuvres, to think that the long ears could care less about the past and swipe thend immediately with their tactical magic. Our people are under heavy fire. They even used enchanted crossbows and the Elven Ancient Tree against us, they are ying for real!¡±


    Perhaps thismander who had lost almost all his troops could exin the reason behind this debacle of a war. Not only did the proud Humans not anticipate this war, but they also had belittled the determination of the Elves.


    Bearing many years of grudge, the Elves had finallye up with the resolution for a final showdown. The fellow Elven kings, as well as the keepers, had as well realised that there was no turning back once they had taken this step, but the proud people of San Antonio had probably treated it as nothing but a reckless assault on the city border.


    During the ambush of the Elves, the humans were still waiting for the oue of the cathedral and political diplomacies. There was not even the formtion of a strategy to counteract the attack of Elves on the list of priorities.


    For the other countries in the Nortnds, they did not worry much ever since the participation of the great San Antonio, believing that it could be the pir which would hold up even if the sky fell. When a great cmity was at hand, however, misfortunes would usually strike the weaklings who moved the slowest.


    As a consequence, when the two armies crossed swords, their differences in perception and attitudes towards the war had reduced the Human alliance to absolute rubble.


    The tall War Ancient Tree wasshing at the united force of cavalries, its gigantic roots powerful enough to send a few unlucky ones flying. In contrast, the attacks of the Human cavalries proved futile to this living creature. The knights tried to execute the Surround and Net Tactic which was used against the Giants, only to be countered by the Ancient Tree, as it sprouted and grew into an incredibly huge monster.


    On the other hand, the mighty Griffin Knights were facing a big challenge from the Hippogriff Archers, where the mighty sky lions had finally met their worst enemies. The Elven archers, who never miss their shots, were very skilled in mounted archery as well, they could easily shoot through the diminutive gap between the heavy helms of the Griffin Knights. Although they had an absolute advantage in close battle, being well-read by the enemies, the Griffin Knights could hardly keep the optimal distance for their fights, instead, they were regrly shot down, whether they were chasing the enemies, or being chased.


    As the war hade to a stalemate, the precise and vicious magic of the Elves, like a heavy hammer, had shattered the bnce of battlefield.


    The strength of a sorcerer came from the umtion of time and knowledge, thus longevity would provide an absolute advantage here. To confront the massive army of Elves, most sorceries of the Human sorcerers were subdued, because the sorceries of both sides were not at the same level.


    The Human priests and holy knights might be the pinnacle of strength in chaotic battles, but they could hardly perform now due to a shortage of strong offensive sorcery.


    The Humans had the least experience in fighting the Elven soldiers, whom they treated as allies. However, the Elves in Nortnds had always imagined the Humans as their enemies.


    At the stalemate of the first round of battle, the second attack of the Beastmen was executed, surprisingly not with their own hands.


    The troops of Anzolo Empire, who were the leading force of the right wing, suddenly turned their des against the allies, shing them violently.


    San Antonio as the central force, would never predict the sudden revolt of its ring wing. In the meantime, the assassins who were long prepared, had burst out. To be murdered by the allies within the chaotic battlefield, coupled with the assassination of themander of San Antonio, n Rem who ranked 98th on the contemporary great generals ranking, the entire battlefield had sunk into an impasse.


    Just after the news of betrayal and assassination of themander spread out, which was also the crucial timing when the alliance forces of all countries were wavering, the massive army of Beastmen had made their next move. The arrival of the gigantic Bis Behemoth, along with the shaman priests who carried battle drums towards the battlefield, which implied the end for the Humans.


    The Beastmen who were notorious for their brutal massacre, demonstrated to the Humans what was it to knock back an enemy with only their bodies, and what was it to charge like a beast.


    Could two Human warriors possibly beat a Beastman? Wearing armour enchanted with earth elements, and going into frenzy mode upon hearing the shaman¡¯s battle hymn, even an old ordinary Beastman soldier would be a killing war-machine. Hence, even a standard small troop (12-men) was not able to take down such frenzied Beastman of multiplied attack power and defence.


    In this battle, the trap set by the Chaos, under the coboration of three parties, had finally achieved its target, as the Humans suffered a crushing defeat, in just the first battle.


    Amongst therge army of 400,000 being sent to war, the defeated soldiers who retreated back to Maple city with their lives were less than half, and most of them were wounded, the Human alliance had been pushed to the defensive.


    On hearing this news, Elisa was utterly astonished too.


    ¡°A Human country turning against the entire Human world? Do they still want to live?¡±


    ¡°In a sense, Anzolo Empire did share some simrities to the old Mist Kingdom, both of them had undergone tremendous sufferings. However, the spark of this outburst was none other than those bastards from San Antonio, for using them as the cannon fodders.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, that was too much, I even feel sorry for Anzolo. Our small country has limited power, and this time, Anzolo had given everything it had. It could not be helped if it had to be sacrificed, but to be sacrificed as cannon fodders is seriously too much! It was no wonder they would turn against their allies.¡±


    Without any surprise, a strongly worded deration for war, had very soon be announced.


    In the announcement, the Anzolo Empire, as the country which dered war, had rallied against the evil act of the leading San Antonio to treat the soldiers of other countries as cannon fodders. Also, they swore that they had never betrayed the Order faction and the Humans society.


    Of course, no matter what the exnation was, the reliable context would be taken, while the unreliable one would mean nothing. In the end, actions always speak louder than words.


    ¡°Well said, but why band together with the Beastmen, and Elves?¡±


    In consequence with the betrayal of Anzolo Empire, Maple city was now left in chaos, there were people taking care of the residual forces and spies, there were assassins who did their killings amidst the chaos, there were even some middle-to-high rank forces in this city, who abruptly murdered some important people.


    Even the city lord faced his demise on the battlefield. Just before a political turmoil woulde, a chamber ofmerce named Schindler Chamber had stood up as the newmander of this city. They were formed by the natives, carrying the slogan ¡°Restoring the beautiful life of our past using our own hands!¡±


    They were not soldiers, and were not interested towards the massive armies in the outside world. They fought for a simple reason, which was merely to quell thewless mobs and restore the order and vitality of this city.


    But only few would have known that the chamber with the history of Elven ve trade was just an association founded to keep the Beastmen civilians alive, and its chairman was a foreigner.


    ¡°The alliance army is in a turmoil, all the authorities in the city had stopped functioning, and the chamber is soon running out of capital. This, could notst any longer, please,e back Rnd!¡±


    ¡°Waaa, that¡¯s pathetic, how could there be such cruel parent. No worries, you can now count on Anya. If he dares to appear before you again, Anya will send him flying with his four-hoofs kick. Oh, I still need one leg as the stand, so it will be a three-hoofs kick!¡±


    In the forest located at the exit of the Underworld, threedies from three different races were having a pleasant conversation beside the bonfire.


    ¡°You....you all are not afraid of me? I am a true Banshee.¡±


    Faced with this confused white shadow, Annie and Anya looked at each other, sniggering with their mouth covered.


    ¡°The man Annie used to love was a Lich. Yes, but he shall no longer be one. We have no prejudice against the undead. What¡¯s more, sister, you look like a natural undead, to which only an extraordinary person could transform, and it only stems from two extremes, whether she is especially kind, or extremely resentful. How would I be afraid?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, Princess Suana, why don¡¯t you walk along with us? We are heading to a kingdom which holds no prejudice against the undead. Perhaps, you will find the answer to what you have been pursuing your entire life ¨C Peace¡±

 Chapter 161

    Chapter 161: Natural Undead


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    It was a cinch to be a Undead, any necrolyte could help to reincarnate the dead souls (necromancy), and even preserve their consciousness during life.


    The low-rank undeads may have no intellect, but if a sword saint decided to be transformed into a undead, as long as his body and soul wereplete, he would not even fall below Silver rank.


    Subsequent to the growth of necromancy, there came the easiest path to immortality. A strong one who had acquired considerable strength, would just need to approach the necromancer and sign a secret agreement before the end of life.


    Tempted by this immortality, every year in Xiluo Kingdom, there were secret visits from countless swordsmen in ck hoods and sorcerers in a grey robe, these included quite a number of names which were famous across all countries. There were even some unknown ones who emerged as new powerful undead warlords annually.


    Even I, the demigod undead emperor, in conjunction with the most exquisite ingredients could not guarantee a sessful transformation of dead souls every time. Nevertheless, it was not a secret when it came to the methods of maximizing the sess rate of undead transformation.


    The soul, all energies originated from the soul. It was the foundation of the world and was thus the key to increase the sess rate of undead transformation.


    The transformation between life and death might sound miraculous and magical, but in the eyes of mine, it could actually be exined with logic and knowledge.


    Just like the living, the undead was also made of a body and soul, just that theirs may no longer be the original ones.


    Aplete living being was analogous to a personalputer. The living was manufactured by the factory, with a perfectbination of software (soul) and hardware (body), along with the capability of auto updating (growth in life).


    The undead might carry the same software after reincarnation, but its original hardware was definitely not viable anymore. The new body was simr to aputer assembled by severalpatible parts, its performance might be superb, but system collision and inexplicable crashes were verymon with it.


    It was now evident how the undead transformation would fail, whether it be a collision between hardware and software, or the data loss of software (soul).


    The former could be ovee by changing another body, but thetter could not be saved. No matter how good aputer was, it was not able to read from a hard disk with a piece missing, no matter how important the contents of the hard disk was, how passionate and wild the performance of the actors was... Cough, it was just an example, get your mind out of the gutter.


    Of course, the necromancer could havepleted the soul by incorporating the souls of others, but that mightpletely change the contents of the soul. Besides, such mingled souls were susceptible to defects, as the present technology was not able to retain the vitality and memory of the souls for a long period, there was a 90% chance that a cobbled together soul might be retarded.


    Hence, the fundamental and imperative factor for a sessful spectre transformation was quite obvious ¡ª Keeping the soul in itsplete form.


    The undead always arose from the bitter grudge. Grudges (unresolved regret) were undoubtedly the culprit of non-dissipated souls, while the strong will, a pure character, would render the soul more solid, and thus increase the sess rate of a undead transformation.


    And then, the conclusion was obtained.


    ording to my experimental theory which contradicted the general idea, the sess rate of a undead transformation had nothing to do with the strength of the soul during life, but the will of one who had undergone hundreds of battles could never be weak, leading to a higher sess rate of transformation.


    There were no deaths without casualties, preserving more than 80% of the dead¡¯s memory was good enough. Taking the hard disc as a metaphor, if it had more than 20% of data loss, the hard disc (soul) would have 20% of unusable space.


    Speaking of which, the difference between natural undeads and reincarnated undeads by necromancy was discernible now.


    Theoretically, they were the same. However, the will of natural undead was incredibly firm, and their character was pure to the point of no sundries, the grudge they held before death could stir up six months of blizzards.


    Their souls refused to undergo transmigration after death, and were not dissipated at all. Without requiring the guidance of necromancer, they performed the transformation from life to death on their own.


    This exined why the capabilities of natural undead were so astounding. Their souls had not dissipated at all, and were almost like their previous form. Moreover, having wandered across the boundary of life and death, they had discerned the arcanum of their own soul, developing a profound understanding of the basis of strength.


    Losing part of their souls, the growth rate ofmon undeads would be severely affected. There was an exception however, which was none other than my Seven Deadly Sins, they were not strong at the beginning, but grew rapidlyter.


    Themon undeads had concentrated on the creation of strong undeads bodies (hardware engineers), but I spent my effort on the soul, which was the foundation (software engineers). Of course, this was due to me being natural undead too, yet I had been to the styx for several times. It was already difficult for the other necromancers to start dissecting the souls, as their level of expertise remained at the soul transformation theories on the ckboard. Therefore, they might have regarded the creation and assembly of the soul as the sole authority of the God of Creation.


    And I, had created and innovated numerous souls, these included bigoted and distorted souls, wless, newborn yet talented souls, loyal and unyielding souls, and some which werepletely reinvented with the souls of others as the ingredients. In a sense, it was right for Omar and Adam to call me their father.


    The perfect but bigoted souls, had formed the basis of the incredible Seven Deadly Sins. Being the culmination of my research, their souls were wless, coupled with the specially prepared bodies, they even outmatched the normal livings in their wlessness and bigotry. In a way, they were the artificial natural undeads.


    But actually, due to some ws in my technique, inparison with the genuine natural undeads, their capabilities were lower by a certain level. After all, the natural spectres I had met were all super monsters, these included I myself, Harloys, and Ayer.


    In mythology, the Valkyries would greet the Einherjars and bring them to Valha. Frankly speaking, they were not all too differentpared to the necromancers. In recent times, the Einherjars below the sacred thrones had no fundamental difference with the artificial undeads as well. The disparity was merely that the Gods performing the necromancy, which preserved even more the memories and battle techniques during life, under influence of the divine force.


    Everything arose from the soul, the Einherjar souls were already strengthened to its maximum. These looked good apparently, but had actually ceased the advancement of the Einherjars. The undeads were suffering the same fate. Disregarding the dazzling halos, the Einherjars and undeads had too much inmon, and they were both iparable to the natural undeads.


    The natural undeads mainly existed in ancient times. In recent times, however, the resurrection rate of natural undeads was negligible, as the soul of recent men were too fragile to attempt reincarnation, not to mention resurrections withplete souls. Aside from this, the hardest condition to satisfy was the furious rage, the unbreakable will, the desire of wanting to destroy the world.


    Suffering the destruction of our countries, me and Harloys were also the final royal descendants who witnessed the annihtion of our own people and kingdoms. You might say that we were undeads who remained in this world for the sake of vengeance, Ayer did not share what he had encountered, but it must not be anything good.


    Even when the conditions were satisfied, a certain amount of luck was required, so the figure of sess rate started to count only after the decimal point.


    In consequence, in the perspective of recent men, the undeads were merely the undead reincarnated by the necromancers, transformation to natural undead was never an option, some necromancers were not even aware of the existence of natural undeads.


    Hence, the reincarnation of Suana as a banshee was never known or expected by anyone, perhaps even the Elven Gods who were the brains behind all schemes, would not have thought of such a miniscule probability event.


    The pure souls were most likely to transform into undeads, and thus, female Elves would be one of the races which could most easily transform into banshees. Ever since the reincarnation of Suana as a banshee, the title of Queen of Banshees was no longer exclusive to Harloys.


    In a sense, there were quite a few simrities between Harloys and Suana. Not only did theye to birth as Elven princesses, they both suffered the betrayal of their most trusted people and Gods, and their demises were also equally tragic ¡ª the sacrifice of war.


    Ironically, the fellow Elven gods who were once supreme and ascendant, had created a godlike enemy like Harloys, as the undeads had more than enough time to investigate the truth, when everything was revealed under the sun it would be feared that even Suana would arise as the next godlike enemy.


    Nevertheless, it had been a tradition for the Elves and Elven Gods to dig holes for themselves and jumped into them [1]. The typical examples was none other than the golden Elves and Lorci, who had both triggered the extreme transition of the Elves from riches to rags. And this time, if the fellow Elven gods had turned into Gods of Chaos, Lorci¡¯s actions, who was notorious for being incredibly vindictive, was indeed something to be anticipated.


    Back to the story, even though the Humans had been gathering up for a final, defensive stand, with Maple city as the heavily fortified core zone, it would be futile to stop the group of a legendary warrior, a golden archer, and a natural undead Elf.


    ¡°Ah. Mr. Skeleton is not here. Sister Elisa, how did youe back?¡±


    Annie gave a sigh of evident disappointment, not only because Rnd was absent, but mainly due to the return of Elisa. This false intimacy had Elisa stunned, with her eyebrows flickering. What did Annie mean, to ask about her boyfriend as soon as meeting her? Besides, was it like the previous fight they had never happened?


    ¡°I thought you would first ask about Adam and the others, they were here a couple days ago.¡±


    ¡°For sure I know about stepfather and Sister Margaret, I am always in touch with them. By the way, didn¡¯t stepfather tell you that I¡¯ming?¡±


    ¡°Adam, a bastard as always...¡±


    Suddenly, the picture of that man giving his big middle finger, like he always did, shed across my mind, his face filled with the watching-for-fun smile ¡ª ¡°I did what I could, don¡¯t thank me¡±


    ¡°Alright, I certainly wee all of you, but as you can see, I am too busy to entertain you. Pardon me for any offense.¡±


    Outwardly, Elisa said so, but her lips deliberately uttered a ¡°soft¡± grumble.


    ¡°An Underworld Autarch, an Underworld Beastking, sneaking out just like this? They are both very much adults, but simply ran away from their posts without letting anyone know, don¡¯t they know the severity of that?¡±


    Obviously, judging from her past experience, Elisa believed that these two people were not here for business, most likely, they were just annoyed of their work and ran out from their houses after shaking off their entourages.


    Unexpectedly, an embarrassed expression was not seen, instead, a triumphant smile was hanging on Annie¡¯s face.


    ¡°We areing for real business this time, by the way, still remember the manifesto ¡°the Underworld people have the right to sunlight too¡±? We areing for this!¡±


    ¡°So, going to war?¡±


    This was the first response of Elisa upon hearing this sentence, the call for ¡°the right to sunlight¡±, wasn¡¯t this about the invasion of Underworld alliance army mentioned in the Rnd¡¯s prophecy?


    Considering the situation where Rnd was still in East Mist, to battle against two sides was absolutely impossible, Elisa¡¯s expression immediately turned grim and unpleasant.


    But luckily, Anya intervened in time to prevent the atmosphere from getting worse.


    ¡°Most of the Beastman warchiefs had requested to form an alliance for an invasion, but we are still assessing the possibility of concession.¡±


    ¡°Concession?¡±


    ¡°Yes, either purchase or rent. Lands without owners are good as well. This is the will of Emperor Rnd, the most imperative part of it, is to form a delegation to contact the possible buyers, and we are the frontline of the delegation.¡±


    Perhaps there was such a possibility, Suana did not talk any further after nodding her head. Nevertheless, the banshee who had been constrained since her entry, broke out of her silence.


    ¡°Rnd? Are you referring to the legendary holy knight, Emperor Rnd?¡±


    ¡°You are?¡±


    At first, Elisa supposed she was a random bansheeing from the Sulphur Mountain City, but now it didn¡¯t seem so, as the banshee was a high-rank undead, and a natural one was even rarer, could she be the envoy from Xiluo?


    ¡°I¡¯m Suana, Suana Newleaf.¡±


    This name was the recent headlines, and was also the fuse of the war, Elisa definitely knew about it.


    She was first astounded by that, but recalling somethingter, she nodded her head, smiling.


    ¡°...This is indeed interesting. Perhaps the cunning Lorci would be pleased by your arrival. Oops, I was impolite for not answering the question of your highness. Yes, we were talking about Rnd, the Rnd who was a holy knight three hundred years ago.¡±


    ¡°Please don¡¯t call me princess... Now I¡¯m no longer a royal member of the Tassel Kingdom, not to mention an Elven princess.¡±


    Gazing at the dejected Suana, Elisa was about to say something, suddenly the guard outside the gate, barged in with an excited look, like he had some important news to report.


    ¡°Lord Elisa, our reinforcements have finally arrived!¡± (To be continued)


    [1] TL Note: In Chinese, ¡°ÍÚ¿Ó×Ô¼ºÌø ¨C Dig hole for oneself and jump into it¡± means asking for trouble)

 Chapter 162

    Chapter 162: Death Egg


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    Within the depths of the great snow mountain, the sun was hard toe by. The sunlight shone upon the snowfield, bringing out the vast expanse of white even further, dazzling the eyes.


    Childhood is one¡¯s most treasured memories, and the duty of children is just to y well and grow well. From the games, they develop living abilities for the future. This is the instinct of life, and also an inevitable path to be taken by the young of all races.


    At that moment, on the snowfield, the children of the Land of Snow were chasing around and ying together.


    ¡°Hey, Little Snow. Don¡¯t run.¡±


    ¡°Only a fool won¡¯t run,e and chase me quickly!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t run, I can¡¯t move anymore...¡±


    ¡°Wahaha, Little Rollie has no stamina, his legs are short and runs like a tortoise, loser, loser.¡±


    Apparently, this group of naive and lively children were ying hide and seek, while the seeker could already move no more.


    Yet those children who were still energetic, was running around him. Just when he put hisst effort together to start chasing, they suddenly scattered and fled in a blink.


    No wonder he could not catch up with them. Although they were still children, can his staminapete with the child of snowmen, the foal of an ice unicorns? Moreover, the young of a snow dragon and snow phoenix could fly!


    Watching the little friends running further and further away, the child who was the seeker started tough. He had chased them for the whole morning, and at that moment he was exhausted and hungry.


    ¡°Hahahaha, this is fun, my tears areing out already..... Continue to run, naughty brats, the seeker ising to catch you guys. Eternal cier bringing eternal destruction, the eternal darkness has descended, finally, the Ice Aeon will arrive...¡±


    The destructive spell brought a dreadful magic wave, a blizzard formed in time, Laughing hysterically, the seeker started the preparation of a forbidden spell to destroy everything, although the target was just a bunch of naughty brats who were impossible to catch up with.


    ¡°Hehehe, there are two types of naughty brats, one tends to move around and one doesn¡¯t, thetter one is the good kid. Soon, all the brats will no longer be able to move, this is great...¡±


    ¡°Personality Correction Kick!¡±


    Following by a sudden struck of a huge fist of ice crystals, the forbidden spell Ice Aeon was interrupted by a sudden flying lion head. But the seeker who was sent flying away still manage to leave hisstment.


    ¡°What kick? This is your fist! You called your four paws legs? Do you eat with legs?¡±


    Ok, I admit. This unlucky guy who was forced to be the seeker was me, and for these three days, I am doing the things I hated most in my life ¨C ying with naughty brats!


    ¡°As a grown up, but can¡¯t evenpromise with children, and you dare to tell me you are going to inherit Raven Date¡¯s will, how many days only have passed? It seems like the descendants of Mist Kingdom are bing more and more useless.¡±


    ¡°I... I can¡¯t stand this anymore! I have yed with those naughty brats for two days, I¡¯m going nuts soon, finding inner peace you say? My heart is about to explode! Are you sure this is really useful to me, I am just getting more anxious.¡±


    It was a mistake from the beginning, to listen to the lion head¡¯s nonsense, ying with children with a smile can help in finding inner peace you say? Maybe it worked for others. But to me, this was simply suffering in a purgatory, it made me sick.


    ¡°... Already three days? Oh, then let¡¯s go to the next stage.¡±


    The lion shook his head, then he made a new decision.


    ¡°Heling... are you sure that you are not fooling me around? Why do I feel like this is just something random.¡±


    Despite the giant size, this ice crystal lion had a rather eastern name, this peculiar naming sense seemed to be the hobby of the first generation King of Mist.


    ¡°Hmm, actually ying with children for meditation purposes was just a prank. The actual target was to expose you to the scent of the young ice beasts, which was already achieved yesterday.¡±


    Great. By hearing the word ¡°prank¡±, I started to lose my temper.


    ¡°Then why didn¡¯t you tell me! You know how hard was it, to pretend to love building snowman, have snowball fights, and hide and seek, especially with these naughty brats who were so unreasonable, purposely going for the dangerous games, simply not listening, and treating me as their little friend... I can¡¯t stop thinking of throwing all these naughty brats into the cannon and firing them!


    ¡°Ah. Everyone thought that you were ying happily with them. After all, you are a lot younger than they are, their parents were very happy to see a foreign ymate, and seeing that you guys were enjoying, therefore we decided to let them y for an extra day with you......What are you drawing your sword for? And why are you chanting the spell for?¡±


    And at this moment, my mind was only echoing with ¡°enjoying, therefore we decided to let them y for an extra day with you.¡±


    ¡°As expected all naughty brats have parents withoutmon courtesy, if so, let all of you turn into dust, oh eternity cier, listen to my rage...¡±


    ¡°Haah! Passed on by the King of Mist, Personality Correction Punch Specially For Abnormal People!¡±


    ¡°Arghhh!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Reinforcements? No doubt, this was totally out of Elisa¡¯s expectations.


    The news of the defeat just spread, and San Antonio¡¯s reinforcements were still thousands of miles away. As the main force of the five northmost kingdoms were already gathered here, the second wave of mass mobilization will not appear in a short period of time, not to say any reinforcements.


    ¡°The lords are awaiting for your arrival, they hope that you can join the reinforcement weing ceremony.¡±


    Elisa was shocked upon hearing that, as the East Mist was not really in a good situation in the alliance, clearly they were in a marginalized situation, and also, the arrogant generals of big countries, would never be concerned for her and the Mist Kingdom.


    ¡°...The fellow generals are waiting for you. This is allegedly the request of the reinforcements, as they refused to enter the city before meeting the deputy of East Mist..¡±


    Afterwards, tons of news reached her ears, and from there she started to understand what was really going on.


    In that defeat, rumours had it that San Antonio¡¯smanding general was severely wounded, and themand was taken over by ¡°ck Bear¡± Ainro who was also a San Antonian.


    Despite having lost half their forces, San Antonian was still thergest force in the alliance, and East Mist was further marginalized instead.


    And now the new reinforcements clearly would not listen to them, and only tookmand from East Mist, and pained the alliance generals from the bottom of their hearts. But as others had sent them reinforcements, they did not have any reason to refuse.


    At least they could not reveal the alliance¡¯s poor coboration, therefore they would have to pretend, and assigned Elisa as the representative of East Mist.


    ¡°Where did the reinforcements came from? The East Mist Kingdom is already having a hard time dealing with the monster waves, seeing that these reinforcements behave obediently in front of me, could it be...¡±


    The gaze of disbelief turned towards the two in the room, in a sense, these two were the super boss. Of course, from their smirks, one would never know how honourable they were.


    ¡°Not me, my apanying army and the dragon guards are still waiting in the passageway, without mymand they will nevere out.


    Great. Apanying army? Dragon guards? In a sense, Annie was doing a lot better than her adopted father.


    With the support of dragon queen Xiao Hong, in a sense, she was also a dragon princess, plus the retreat of devil forces in the underworld, Annie and the Liu Huang Mountain City became the symbol of human forces that reigned the underworld. Seemingly, Annie was getting increasingly better in being an Empress.


    Elisa turned to the other, a centauress who was a kitchen destroyer and a lightning rod of misfortune, who a while ago showed a smirk on her face. Currently, she was the leader of underworld beastmen, one of the four underworld Autarchs. At least for now, she was on the same table with Annie.


    ¡°My ranger army and tribal warriors are also resting at the passageway. Together with Annie, I will be secured, and I don¡¯t want to cause any trouble, especially bringing an army that would limit my freedom.¡±


    Well, she seemed to be honest, and she also brought her own army. Speaking of how her freedom would be limited, however, it probably meant that she would be severely restricted, trying to move about while being apanied by an army.


    ¡± You two...¡±


    For a while, Elisa¡¯s tongue was tied. What could she say, the two of them had now be the reputed Underworld Autarchs, it would seem awkward if they came to earth without the escort of a few armies.


    ¡°You¡¯re not afraid of causing big trouble? An Underworld alliance appearing on the outside world, moreover in the war zone. If this goes by the conspiracy theory, you can write a few legendary novels. Like ¡°The Dark Conspiracy of Underworld Autarch and Beastmen¡±, ¡°Two Spies in the Sacred War ¨C The Double Agent Dark Elves¡±. Well, if Rnd was here, he would havemented something like that.¡±


    ¡°... We never expect to see a war, that¡¯s why we left everyone in the passageway. With this chaotic situation, I wonder if they will be fine.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, as long as they don¡¯te out from the underground passageway, nobody will go there. It¡¯s close to the royal tomb of the elves, even the superior elves are unable to get near to it. But actually, it was also a secret tunnel controlled by the royal family, and that is why I lingered there to hide from my people.¡±


    With Suana¡¯s exnation, everyone on spot felt relieved. But after that, a new problem came, if the reinforcements were not from the underworld alliance, then who would it be?


    ¡°There were two groups of reinforcements which happened toe across each other and ended up travelling together. One of the group is the alliance of Sharal Autonomous Region and the barbarian tribe, they are here to support Lord Rnd.¡±


    Elisa nodded when she heard that, Rnd did mention the secret contract between the three ces, but never had high hopes on them on sending support. After all, the covenant was still in the testing stages, with a lot of uncertainties, and moreover, Sharal itself had its own problems too.


    ¡°The second wave of reinforcements is here to support Lady Reyne, they are Ander. It is said to be sent out by King Darsos, to thank Lord Rnd on fulfilling the ¡°Key¡± agreement on time.


    ¡°Pfft.¡± Listening to that, Elisa smiled, while Annieughed straight away.


    There were things that cannot be hidden from the resourceful Annie even if not being told by Ronald, but for Annie who was always in the underworld to know, it would seem to be odd.


    ¡°Father mentioned to me before, was it that weird eyed Emperor who take a fancy to Uncle Bone? Seems like he is quite faithful towards Uncle Bone. But it is understandable, as Uncle Bone looked very cute when he was alive, when he was young he looked really like a cute girl, I wanted to give him a hug.¡±


    When she heard the sign that Adam was indeed Rnd¡¯s number one bad friend, and that both of them never did anything good, Elisa burst intoughter.


    ¡°Annie, don¡¯t mention this in front of Rnd, or else he will cry in front of you.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡°If you force me any further, I will really cry in front of you!¡±


    ¡°Hatch an egg? Are you crazy or am I crazy, I may look like this, but you can onlyin it to my mom, I¡¯m actually a male... No, I¡¯m a guy! Look, look at this! I am a guy, how can I hatch an egg.¡±


    My roar was echoing within the cave, travelling far away, the reason? The lion in front of me suggested a new training n.


    ¡°Hatching it is your second step of training. And because of this purpose, I exposed you to the young scent of the ice beasts.¡±


    That was a ck ice crystal, from that mild chilliness and the magical engravings, it should be a frigid nightmare¡¯s egg. But, wasn¡¯t the frigid nightmare¡¯s egg supposed to be white in colour?


    ¡°This is a death egg, all this time it never sessfully hatched, theoretically, it should have been dead, but looking at the magic engravings and ice crystals, you will know that it¡¯s still alive.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this one of you? Can¡¯t you just hatch it by yourselves?¡±


    ¡°Three hundred and seventy years ago, it did nearly hatched once, but after that, no matter what we did, it won¡¯t even budge.¡±


    I was stunned when I heard this, at this point in time, it made me think of something bad.


    ¡°Twins are the most miraculous existence on this world, they are ssified into many types, and one of them is the rarest, but is the true twins amongst twins. The wavelength of their souls are the same, it is like they were originally the same person, just that it is a soul that has been torn into two...¡±


    ¡°Enough!¡± I started to roar, but then stopped, what was I angry at, what caused the bottom of my heart to be in such panic?


    But the lion head seemed to hear nothing, he just continued exining on.


    ¡°The gemini of misfortune? It should be the gemini of luck, there is always a special linkage between them, moreover, they are the best corresponding partners. Oh yeah, by the way, this egg is also Erebe¡¯s brother, or sister, who knows. And it was also sent here by a descendant of the Mist, and I don¡¯t need to mention his name.¡±


    At this moment, if there was a mirror, I was afraid of how pale my face would have been.


    ¡°I have finished what I have to say, the rest is up to you.¡±

 Chapter 163

    Chapter 163: The Old Soldier


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    ¡°Hoooooot!¡±


    The citizens of this middle sized city showed a vacant look just as the war horns were sted through the freezing wind.


    Although the news of the alliance¡¯s defeat had spread, none had expected the beastmen toe so quickly. Moreover, they retraced the routes that the human armies had taken, just to remove their opponent from y.


    Gigantic battle beasts marched from the shadows, and hill sized dragon war turtles shook the earth as they neared the city. On the massive shells stood pale battle fortresses, from within, the sound of war drums and war horns could be heard.


    The gigantic war turtles were quarter dragons by bloodline, and the spread of their massive bodies was not any lower than city walls. These were the beastmen¡¯s most terrifying siege weapon.


    ¡°Doomsday Turtle! The bear king is here. It¡¯s his white-tailed battle bear army.


    Not many dragon turtles exist in this world, but only the one owned by Bear King was packed with a fortress. It was named ¡°Doomsday Turtle¡±, and was Bear King Dunn¡¯s mount and also his moving fortress.


    Behind it, the quietly approaching behemoth could not be ignored. One by one, they walked out from the shadows, transforming into an actual nightmare.


    The beastmen were nning to make it a quick battle from the fact that they were sending out their trump cards from the start.


    ¡°Behemoth!! A behemoth army! We, we¡¯re finished... Everyone, run!¡±


    The actual immediate threat was the dragon turtle, but the one bringing the greatest fear was nevertheless, the docile looking behemoth.


    They were far less robust lookingpared to the dragon turtle, and they did not roar like beasts due to the quiet nature. Dragging their three meter long sharp ws, they left a ditch on the earth, quietly moving forward, like a group of marchingzy boys.


    Their sturdy gigantic arms, the thick hair standing straight like a gori, and under the thick hair, were a pair of fearsome eyes. From the looks alone, they were far less scary than the dragon turtle with horns and fangs, instead, they looked a little dimwitted. But reputation preceded all else, so nobody would ignore these fearsome giants.


    Their silence was only to umte strength for their outburst. A true war beast does not have the habit of roaring, but only when the flesh and blood fell onto their gigantic ws, they will bask in the rush, and reveal satisfied smiles.


    ¡°These are the wildest battle beasts on earth, the number one species innd battle.¡±


    Although that number onend battle beast still had a lot of rivals, but rest assured that they lived up to their reputation as the wildest battle beast.


    By only showing their presence, it had already terrified the city folks, although the army only consisted of three behemoths, it was enough to sweep the north clean.


    ¡°ng!¡±


    ¡°Hoot!¡±


    Surprisingly, the gigantic beast stepped onto the back of the dragon turtle and with a powerful stomp. Using it as a jumping ramp, it took another step andnded on top of the city walls, like agile monkeys.


    Giant beasts who were not any shorter than the city walls but were as agile as apes. Just like that, the ferocious battle beasts crossed the strong walls, but by the footprints left by them, it seemed like before the strength of the behemoths, the sturdy threeyered concrete city wall were not much different from mud piles.


    After the gigantic behemoths entered the city, the silent beasts finally started to grin. Under that crooked face, they showed their strange teeth, each mr as tall as a man, bringing great terror.


    Blooming from the centre, causing internal damage, simple but effective.


    And this was also the speciality of the white-tailed battle bear army, they did not use themonly used ¡°adding oil tactics¡±[1], instead he practised a direct breakthrough. Faced with these tough behemoth vanguard, when the gates were opened by the behemoths and the beast men entered, the individual strength difference would finish the rest. Dozens of cities had already fallen by such methods.


    When one of the gold haired behemoth started to open the gates from within, the other two silver haired beast started their wave of destruction. The shivering humans could not even bring out anyone strong enough to stop the behemoths. Strong individuals no doubt dwelt in the city, but who would be foolish enough to try opposing an entire army?


    The grinning beastmen could already see the future, it just like the other cities. Wherever the fearsome battle beasts went, people would scream and flee in all directions, and the mighty army would step into a city which offered no resistance.


    But this time, there were some differences, some stood their ground.


    An old soldier stood at the city gate, his rusty chain mail covered with dirt, and his brandy nose turned red under the freezing wind.


    The old soldier did not charge towards the gigantic beast insanely, he did not even try to stop it, but only stayed where he was. And in that chaos, he still caught the eye of the behemoths.


    Where he was standing happened to be the way the gold haired behemoth needed to go through.


    The gigantic beast seemed to find himself challenged, and in a frenzy of rage, the beast¡¯s eyes turned blood red, charged towards the old soldier.


    ¡°Old soak, you¡¯re mad! Run now!¡±


    He was not the general of this city, just an old soldier from the city defence army.


    ¡°Old soak¡± Ike, yes, this was his nickname, and was also his code name, the reason is that he loved to have a quick drink in the pub after his duty. Even while on sentry duty, he would definitely be carrying cheap wine in his arm.


    ¡°Old soak, aren¡¯t you afraid someone will have to pull your drunken corpse from a drain pipe some day?¡±


    Every time, when someone made this joke, the old soak would pat his belly, andugh with his mouth wide open, showing his yellowish teeth.


    ¡°Come on, as long as Old Buck gives me bottomless dry gin, I will choose to die in the drain of your house tomorrow.¡±


    At this moment, as if he did not hear the shout of his colleague, old soak Ike rubbed his nose, his blurry eyesight still staring at his own wine bottle.


    ¡°Bah, this ale is just as bad as usual, how much water did that bratty Little Buck add. Perhaps it is water mixed with a bit of ale after all. Hey, seems like he is losing his conscience, Old Buck is still more honest.¡±


    After tasting this three coppered coin pot of diluted ale, Ike narrowed his eyes, it was as if he had returned to the past, at that time, when his brother and wife were still there. Although the dry gin in Buck¡¯s bar was also bad, at least they served sufficient portions.


    But during that time he was not called an old soak. ¡°Arrow of Kashgar¡±, Ike was a well-known elite ranger, before he was transferred to the city defence army after he took an arrow to the knee. He was a famous bad a**.


    ¡°Somehow it feels like, something has changed.¡±


    Although the weather was still as freezing, the pay was still as low, the ale from the ¡°Old Buck¡¯s Pub¡± was still as bad, but at that time, his life was considered well, perhaps. It was because those old bast*rds and old sods who apanied him were still there.


    ¡°D*mn, these good for nothing beastmen! And the useless nobles! Running away even before the war starts, Little Synden, I¡¯ll soon see your dad in hell. The things I¡¯ll say to him, he¡¯ll spank your butt when you join us, just like old times. Why, when you grow old you will start to recall these useless things.¡±


    While pondering on how toin to his former, now deceased superior, the old soldier drew a rusty standard iron de.


    ¡°Puff.¡±


    A spit of the ale, the wet long sword finally shone with dim light. The gigantic beast was already in front of him, but the old soak who was shaken by the earthquake set his helmet slowly.


    ¡°Old synden said, we soldiers are the face of his lord, we need to be aware of our appearance as we charge. Oh yeah, I remember it now. During this moment, we should shout that line, what was that again?¡±


    A gigantic arm which could easily crush a bridge reached his front, and the old soldier stopped pondering, he shouted the line and started to swing his sword, with the full weight of his heart and soul. The sword that he gave all of him, bringing an arc of light, a faint de aura appeared, this was the highest level of power Ike had achieved throughout his life.


    ¡°p!¡±


    But with this absolute strength difference, it was not something that could be made up for with fighting will. The steel w of the behemoth fell, and the only thing left was a lump of meat sauce and some blood stain.


    Perhaps startled by the old soldier, or due to the fact that the old man and actually punctured the skin of the beast, the gold haired behemoth slowed down and stared. After having a good look at the corpse of the old soldier, only did it continue to hunt down other deserters.


    The old soak was dead, and died in a terrible way. He did not have the power to defeat the enemy, nor did anyone witness his final, valiant act. His death did not rouse the morale, nor did it turn the tide of the battle.


    This is war, there are no heroes. No miracles, only the bloody strong ones will prey on the weak ones.


    But when he died, hisst charging slogan still echoed in the air, carrying afar by the cold air...


    ¡°... The Spirit of Mist will never yield!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡°You murderers! You are the beastmen¡¯s aplices!!¡±


    As before, it was the old theatre that acted as the conference room, but this time, it was the furious Reyne who was spluttering at the alliance generals.


    After the news of the beastmen renewed attack spread, the joint conference of military officers from different countries had a meeting for the whole morning, but they merely started from ming each other and progressed to brainstorming on how to fortify the defence of Maple City. However, they still did not have any intentions to send reinforcements to other cities which were attacked.


    ¡°Ahem, your highness, you should maintain your royal manners and keep calm. You see, now that the enemy is strong, the best strategy is to retreat, and you see, fortifying the defence and gathering troops for the final battle is the correct way for now.¡±


    ¡°What happens to the cities and the citizens near the marching army of the beastmen? They are still waiting for our rescue. We can¡¯t leave them to die.¡±


    But her proposal did not get any response, instead, there were people mocking her on this.


    ¡°Why would you be so agitated over the matter of other countries, be careful, others might think that you have ulterior motives.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, can¡¯t even see the situation clearly, no wonder she was marginalized. If it was not because of Lord Rnd¡¯s absence, I¡¯m afraid that she wouldn¡¯t even have the authority to attend this.¡±


    ¡°A princess should just be an ornament, better not tomand blindly in a war. Rescue? Do we even have enough troops for the final battle?¡±


    From a tiny and weak country, plus herck of reputation due to juvenility, she was faced with prejudice, from the start of the discussion, even the aggressive, war-pursuing factions were focusing on the defence on fortifying Maple City. Reyne¡¯s opinion had already been ignored more than once.


    Her face turned red, but still she did not have any choice and finally, she left angrily.


    ¡°Being marginalized? What is happening nowadays?¡±


    In a sense, that guy¡¯s wild guess was near to the truth, being marginalized, this indeed was Reyne¡¯s concern.


    From some point, Rnd purposely kept Reyne away from important matters, and this had caused the internals of East Mist to make wild assumptions.


    If this had been done by others, Reyne would had suspected if they had an ulterior motive, as if they had the ambition to climb to the top. But for Rnd who had no interest in power, nobody seemed to understand why he did that.


    ¡°He seems to have kept me from fulfilling any role.¡±


    Thinking of her juniors who were busy in various aspects, while she was set aside, she couldn¡¯t help to stop thinking on these.


    ¡°It started when Elisa came here, I wonder what did they discuss about. If she was only bad mouthing me, Rnd wouldn¡¯t have been changed so easily. Furthermore, his attitude towards me did not change, so why did he iste me.¡±


    After putting some in thoughts, Reyne faintly recalled something, but it was difficult to confirm it.


    Then suddenly the sky turned ck, leaving her no time to think, and she immediately looked for shelter to hide.


    After just a few seconds, the clear sky turned into chaos, a huge flock of harpies tossed tar bombs down and retreated, driving the city fire brigade throughout the city.


    And at the same time, the city air calvaries had embarked, bringing down as many of the enemy as they could.


    Although unable to remove the enemy thoroughly, at least they would draw some blood in return.


    ¡°... Your highness, the generals request you to attend the discussion, now that the beastmen are gathering up, we fear that they will soon bypass the barrier and attack the city directly.¡±


    [1] TL Note: In Chinese, ¡°ÌíÓÍÕ½Êõ ¨C Sending troops slowly and increase them until the enemy is defeated

 Chapter 164

    Chapter 164: The Puppet King


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    ¡°What is elemental magic? Thebination of sophisticated incantations and baffling rules? If it¡¯s that difficult, how do we demon beasts perform it? We have not even inherited words.¡±


    A warm voice was filling the hall, and the surrounding crowds were listening, attentively. The body was so gigantic that even its borders could not be seen. Closing its eyes, in a slow pace, the ice dragon was passing down its perspective on magic.


    ¡°The way of magic, ¡°magic¡± is miraculous yet incredible, and ¡°way¡± represents the rules and influence towards the reality, together, they indicated the altering of reality by utilizing some incredible means. Nowadays, a majority of the aplished magicians are undoubtedly Human sorcerers, whose magic are derived from the Elves. Of course,pared to the Elven age which revolved around the four elements, they have very much improved, but the methods and techniques of research are passed down from their ancestors. This bes obvious as they put emphasis on all sort of sophisticated incantations and ceremonies. But I have to say, thoseplicated stuffs are not needed.¡±


    A melodious voice was heard, as if it was carrying the musical notes. The ice phoenix rested above the head of the ice dragon. Being the pinnacle of the ice spirits, her mere presence had given rise to a light snowfall in the air.


    ¡°Those long ears are a bunch of paranoids. They are sensitive and bigoted, insisting that magic is a craft work which could only be exined by words, they had created all sort of confusing runes, though they had actually made up something. Sadly, they had abandoned the origin of the magic from the very beginning.¡±


    A thick voice filled with sarcasm and disdain hade in. The ice demon liony on the back of the ice phoenix. Although it was a giant itself, it looked like a kittenpared to the phoenix.


    ¡°The Humans are learning from the Elves, while the Elves are learning from nature....Hehe. The so-called nature, aren¡¯t they some natural magical beings and elemental beings like us? Sadly, they have not realized the foundation, and ever since the moment they adhered to research instead understanding, they were getting away from the truth, further and further.¡±


    ¡°The will of Gods is actually divine art, while the wrath of demon lords could reform the world, even my beloved ice phoenix, Aiseia Liven, could summon a blizzard across the entire mountain with a single re. Aren¡¯t they altering reality by utilizing some incredible power?¡±


    ¡°Those long ear-ers always like toplicate stuff, just to lose sight of the foundation. Only by achieving legendary status suffices to condense one¡¯s seal of will? Only by acquiring the holy-rank allows one to change the world with his or her will? Hahahaha, that¡¯s ridiculous, going a big circle just toe back to the starting point, we could have done this since the beginning.¡±


    ¡°The warlocks carry alien bloodlines, and the unique tribes of all sort of talents, aren¡¯t their miraculous powers considered magic? The definition from the Elves is rather bigoted.¡±


    ¡°So, all you young-uns, abandon those unnecessaryplications and arcanums, they are not for you. What you need to do, is just to build up your will to change the world, something like this... liz slen nus!¡±


    As the miraculous spell was lifted, the will of ice dragon descended, the tremendous force in the air could make one breathless, the boundless strength instilled fear in all livings on the spot, that, was the wrathing from the ancient times.


    ¡°The might of Doom Dragon? What is that? I¡¯m just awakening my own presence. I don¡¯t care about the fear of those insects. When I re, all weaklings must close their eyes. When I descend, all scoundrels must bow. When I am furious, all despicable ones must kneel down. My will, also my presence, I am the Doom Dragon, Akeseusith! Beneath my ice wings, is thend where the doomsday will befall.¡±


    The gigantic dragon gave a snarl, dering his presence, and the entire mountain answered this by trembling in fear.


    ¡°Everything originates from the soul. Listen to the voice of your soul, and you will discover your own magic, the arcanum that works best for you. That might just be magic, but when you have truly understood it, it could be any kind of magic.¡±


    As the ice phoenix fluttered its wings, the snows in the air were turning into various forms, should it be snow meteors, snowkes, or snow des, luckily, they all would be just some adorable snow babies upon touching the ground. To one¡¯s surprise, the snow babies were jumping around and started to build their own snowmen, they were alive!


    ¡°To go by the terms of those witless Elves, we have called this the premier magic, you may also call it as innate magic. It¡¯s not something to be attempted by the ordinary sorcerers, but is absolutely worth-trying, for one has already condensed his seal of will, and thus is able to interfere the world with his will like a monster. Rnd, you get it now?¡±


    The snarl of the rowdy lion had made the world tremble, the reverberation of the sound had shattered the ice hills. The kings of the frigid nightmares were imparting to their youth the truth of the magic.


    Finally, I had known why those little devils would always run away from the lessons, and why the three elders were so delighted now. As their only audience, my face had remained thoughtful, but I was actually pondering over it.


    ¡°That, can I ask a question?¡±


    ¡°Ask, I know you must have a lot of doubts, as our theory of magic is totally differentpared to what you were exposed to in the past.¡±


    ¡°My son, rx your mind, we are not frightening. In a sense, we are even rtives.¡±


    ¡°As I have spoken, the etiquette in the world of Humans mean nothing for us. Speak out.¡±


    Nodding my head after getting an affirmative answer, I decided to point out something I had been watching since the lesson begun.


    ¡°That, I am somewhat obsessive and afraid I will have a sleepless night without knowing the answer to this...¡±


    The gaze of three highest ranked beings had rendered the air frozen, in fact, the air was actually turning to ice, and thus, I finally posted my question.


    ¡°Why must the three of you stack on top each other like the Buddhist arhats? Do you think this is cool? And that, I find this interesting out of the blue, can I stand at the highest point? I am very light.¡±


    ¡°Is this even a main point?!¡±


    The gigantic dragon gave a slight quiver, which had triggered an earthquake.


    ¡°You two fools, what¡¯s with this three-sages pyramid posture? And even forming a group of four heavenly kings with that old tortoise in theke? I have said that this posture is disgusting!¡±


    ¡°This mentality is exactly the same as the old Mist King. A Mist descendant definitely. But...no way! No one should stand on my head.¡±


    ¡°Lion head! Why are you standing on our heads then? Have you proposed all of this just to stand on top of us?¡±


    With the two members at bottom retorting with the same voice, there came the joyous time of watching their silly bickering.


    ¡°Sigh, please mind your reputation before the juniors. Besides that, did you not perceive anything?¡±


    In a twinkling, the ice phoenix flickered as a stream of light and reappeared in front of me.


    ¡°...One has to be serious in choosing a nickname, and more serious in thinking of the opening line. Puff, what¡¯s with this Doom Dragon? That¡¯s too embarrassing, ¡°I am the Doom Dragon, beneath my wings...¡± Alright, my lord, please curb your dragon rage, this name is fantastic, and doesn¡¯t sound like the idea of a sophomore[1] at all.¡±


    ¡°Not knowing what ¡®sophomore¡¯ means? It is reputedly the moment when one being is so handsome that the rest could hardly bear the sight of it. Indeed, that is one¡¯s precious moment, the moment when one shines the brightest, which always brings out an excitement whenever one looks back. I suppose the nickname ¡®Sophomore Wings¡¯ is meant for you...You like it?! That¡¯s awesome, Lord Sophomore Wings!¡±


    After creating the name ¡°Lord Sophomore¡± out of fun, I turned to the lion head before me, smiling and waving my hand.


    The invisible cold air appeared to be dispersing. There was no spectacr spark of magic, and no stirring bang, just the turquoise ice crystals whirling in my palm.


    ¡°Alright. Thanks for your enlightenment, seniors, I have found it, to think that it was always within me...¡±


    In a sense, I had gained a lot, the three pinnacles of the ice had led me to a new path, a path which was absolutely different from the conventional elemental magic, I could not wait to try out the new abilities I had mastered.


    Just when I was crowing over my new insights, the silver ring on my finger started vibrating. The arriving news very much displeased me.


    ¡°Damn brat! Unfilial son! Imbecile! I will kill him!¡±


    ¡ª


    As the vultures of war were hovering in the sky of the Nortnd, some changes had taken ce within Antoin, amidst the army.


    Under the cover of the dark night, some figures in ck cloaks had snuck into the castle, they were then guided by the royal attendants into the castle, furtively. Should they be gone with smiles before the daylight, everything would be different.


    ¡°Will of Mist. Haha. Never surrender? Bah!¡±


    The scorn of men in ck cloaks could still be felt in the air, but on a nearby windowsill, a young couple was whispering, and their vision could prate through these buildings.


    ¡°How could this be? Haven¡¯t we pledged to protect the damn fatty?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, he had believed in no God, would he believe us?¡±


    ¡°Damn, how could this be? This has gone beyond Rnd¡¯s prophecy. Should I wipe out all of them?¡±


    ¡°Would it help? Unless you ughter the damn fatty on the crown, no envoy could be sent off. Not really, even you have ughtered him, that wouldn¡¯t help. We¡¯d better get in touch with Rnd, ahh...it¡¯s meaningless now, if my prediction doesn¡¯t go wrong, very soon, this news would spread across the world and astonish all.¡±


    ¡°How would Rnd be if he heard this news? To think that the thing he had protected with his life was trodden under the feet of others, yet its head was spat on, he must feel terrible.¡±


    ¡°What else could be done? You should ask what else the Nortnd could be! In a sense, Rnd had been always fettered by morality and some evident rules, should he be on rampage...not only the Nortnd would bepletely different, but the whole world will not be able to stop him either.¡±


    As predicted by Margaret, the news had shaken the world on the very next day.


    [ Sleuweir Kingdom announced an unconditional surrender, indicating their willingness to be ruled by the Beastman Warchief, thus recognizing Eymond Bloodaxe. My stepfather, King Feimer Carson had even held harsh negotiations with the Humans within his territory, for their troops to be withdrawn immediately, or else it would be perceived as an act of aggression. ]


    ¡°Shameless! How could one be so shameless, those countries areing to his rescue! Aggression?¡±


    ¡°Can this be possible? The people of Mist have no history of surrender over thousands of years. Despite numerous times of being on the verge of annihtion, they had survived. This news must be false, the Mist Kingdom never surrenders!¡±


    Reinforcements from all countries were pretty much in the dark. A moment ago, they wereing to rescue of their allies, in a twinkling, they became the intruders. Should this war continue to be fought? What was the purpose of our blood and sacrifices?


    The people of Sleuweir, were feeling even more devastated, when they had decided to fight until theirst breath, their king had however given in. Imperceptibly, they had be the people of a subjugated nation, yet they had to banish their liberators.


    That was the deepest despair. The people of Mist, who was always proud of their unyielding spirit, had never suffered such humiliation. For the first time, they fathomed betrayal, despair and disgrace, severely. ¡°Even staining the face with mud doesn¡¯t feel so dirty!¡± Some people said so, while some people, hadmitted suicide on the second day, never would they ept such sickening truth that their country had surrendered.


    Being so adamant that they would rather break their bones than bowing, they might be seemingly foolish, but that was the backbone of this race. And also, it was why they could stand up again every single time they were defeated. It was impossible for them to consider surrendering, even amidst the darkest impasse. Even though the Mist Kingdom had fallen three hundred years ago, they were able to rebuild another Mist Kingdom.


    ¡°You can kill me, but you will never make me kneel! The people of Mist knows no bowing, we won¡¯t give up and won¡¯t be ves!¡±


    For many years, whenever they dealt with invasion from Beastmen, Devils, Elves and other countries, whenever they reached the blind alley, this was the battle cry of the people of Mist Kingdom. They would risk their lives to fulfil their promises, and also due to this trait, they had been standing firm in the north of the continent.


    This time, the pain and sufferings while battling the Beastmen were beyond endurance, but that didn¡¯t deprive the people of Mist of their resolve to fight until the very end, No matter how hopeless the circumstances had be, they always believed the final victory belongs to them, and their countries.


    Being in such a blind alley, however, they could still talk about the past and the present, and chuckle ¡°You call this a dead end? We had experienced it for countless times!¡± They still believed they would achieve victory, the knights would protect them, and the royals would lead them to the victory of glory and pride, once again.


    ¡°Those northern men know no despair, they are stinky and stubborn, just like the frozen stone in the Nortnd, there is no way they could be subdued.¡±


    The people of Mist considered thisment from the southern men as apliment, no matter how many difficultiesy in front of them, they would never learn about despair, as they were confident that they would be victorious in the end.


    The World had always presumed the people of Mist would never surrender, but a letter of surrender delivered from the king in the distance had written a new chapter of history, the very first time, the people of Mist was deprived of their desire for victory, seeing that bewilderment and disappointment in their eyes was simply heartbreaking.


    Some people had chosen tomit suicide in disappointment, while some had looked upon the man above the throne with hatred.


    ¡°We won¡¯t surrender, the Mist Kingdom won¡¯t surrender, that man doesn¡¯t deserve to be our king! If the news is real, he is none other than a puppet king.¡±


    Right after that, another news had reached the ears of the entire Nortnd, staggering the whole world, but it had helped the people of Mist to regain their confidence and hope.


    ¡°I¡¯m the descendant of Mist, Rnd Mist. I now dere Feimer Carson as a puppet king, and all the decisions he made have no credibility. Henceforth, I will make a crusade order, a vow of crusade! We will all raise the war gs of Mist, I hope all the people of Mist will fight along with me, to crusade against the puppet king! The Spirit of Mist. Never surrender!¡±


    Colloquially, it means:


    ¡°Damn it, what¡¯s spoken by that bastard doesn¡¯t count, Feimer, you scumbag, just wait, I will take down your head!¡±


    The notice was short and was not properly legited, but very soon, the people of Mist in the Sleuweir had torn down their previous national emblems and the king¡¯s portrait, and reced with the new one.


    Would they not know his facial features? His statue was in the centre of all the city square. For so many years, he was never apart from all his brothers.


    Above the g which had been risen again, it was still the same old fortress, standing firmly in the gale, but this time, the people were cheering a name.


    ¡°The Mist King Rnd, our king has returned, our real king has returned, we have not surrendered! The people of Mist, never surrender!¡± (to be continued...)


    [1] TL Note: In Chinese, the word ¡°sophomore ¨C Öжþ¡± roughly means, immature but pretend to be cool andpetent. Or as the japanese would call it, chuunibyou.

 Chapter 165

    Chapter 165: Feast of the Traitors


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    On the boundless ice field, the scenery appeared stagnant, and when the sun rose, the ck horizon turned out to be an assembly of cavalry and warriors.


    ¡°The beastmen are here!¡±


    After the simple announcement, the first wave of catapults and tactical magic started to perform their duties, the huge rocks soared through the sky, following a dreadful noise. Every time theynded, dozens of lives were taken away.


    Originally, the Maple City was just a normal doubleyered wall city, but after countless investments from the other countries, it had been upgraded to a fouryered wall fortress.


    Earth wizards may not have the strength and magnificence in attacking magicpared with other elemental wizards, but in civil engineering tasks, they would show advantage that other elemental wizards cannotpare with.


    One by one, high walls were rose in a blink of an eye, followed by the chanting of ¡°Turn soil to mud¡± the city moat was widened by seven to eight meters, and the alchemical venom that flowed within may not be lethal, but could slow the foe down.[1]


    At least the city walls were more than three times taller, on the towering high walls, it was full with ballistics and heavy artillery. Griffin cavalries were patrolling in the skies, searching for spots that might be missed.


    On each tform on the city wall, countless catapults were built up, such historical siege and defence weapons, as long as there are enough schrs and craftsmans, it will bring sufficient power. What difference is a huge stone falling from the sky and the meteor spell, when it would kill anything it hits anyway.


    Simple, violent, effective, low cost, were the reasons that catapults were essential in wars.


    But this time, the enemy had just entered the shooting range of thergest catapult, the distance was very far, it was impossible to hit precisely and pose a threat, but mostly it was just a type of deterrent.


    ¡°On the battlefield, there is no safe spot.¡±


    Not to be outdone, the beastmen fought back. Mobile catapults had limited range, even thergest ones can barely scratch the city walls. Their projectiles raised some dust and rubble, and made the guardsughed.


    Not long ago, the rocks and boulders were already being cleared, and the usable stones were stored in the city storage as ammo. To find suitable ones for themselves, the beastmen had no choice but to bring in their own ammo from afar.


    And meanwhile, at the west city gate, the East Mist army was assigned there for defensive purposes, and as a temporary leader, Reyne¡¯s palms were full of sweat, this was only the second time she encountered war, but is her first time being involved as a militant.


    ¡°Hold on, hold on, Reyne. You can do it, in those years when brother Rnd went to the battlefield, he was younger than you are now.¡±¡±


    What she did not know was that as she encouraged herself silently, a few persons were keeping their eyes on her, while some kept on searching for the mysteries of the world through her eyes.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    The road to hell is paved with good intentions, this is somethingmon, but there is also something called doing good with bad intentions, rare as it is.


    ¡°The Coward¡± Feimer Carson¡¯s surrender, brought Sleuweir Kingdom great disgrace. He was the first of the descendants of Mist to surrender (Nominally). At the same time, he wasbelled as the clown of history, it was a very strange but important influence on the war.


    Firstly, due to the fall of the kingdom and the surrender of the royals, Sleuweir was turned into the subordinate of beastman tribe, Suddenly, the casten and lords of other cities and towns were lost. However, the beastmen army got to bypass the city-states, directly reaching Maple City, the core of it all.


    ¡°Why fight when we have already surrendered?¡±


    The second influence had a deeper impact, that was the deration of war against the beastmen from the elves.


    Yes, they dered war. That silent alliance onlysted for less than half a month, and suddenly changed to a hostile rtion immediately.


    This time, the elven king of Tassel did not show mercy, the human bast*rd chosen as the tipping point was a San Antonian, moreover, he was a noble of the Karsomi Communal Country. He was also the one pulling the strings behind and a ve trader.


    Therefore, they changed their targets to Sleuweir and the Karsomi Communal Country suddenly. After that, San Antonio which was next by default, was not able to get off of this situation.


    His ns were good, and as long as the war went well, he could use the tipping point and escte it to stimte the grievance of people, letting the war continue spreading. Since it was all for the revenge of Princess Suana who was the anti war faction, the peace faction and anti war faction could not disagree on this.


    But if the targeted chief culprit Sleuweir surrendered to the beastmen, and in the end was protected by the beastmen instead, from which side should they get their revenge from?


    General ¡°ck Bear¡± Ainro was quite sharp at times, and also quite courageous. When he knew about ¡°Peace Dove¡¯s Death¡±, immediately he discovered the conspiracy. Right away, he removed the family of that bast*rd noble¡¯s name from Karsomi, captured his brothers and gave it to the elves, and added a genuine and sincere apology letter.


    ¡°... Hearing of that tragedy, at the same time we grieved, we deeply regretted. We will never let the murderer run free, as he himself had already died, we hereby present his brothers and wife as an offering, to propitiate Princess Suana¡¯s soul in the heavens...¡±


    Well, this was actually not very appropriate, and also shameless, but in a sense, it worked for the elves who were famously stubborn, the human kings also fathomed that these elves had proud nature and do not yield to strength but can be persuaded by reason.


    ¡°We offer a few unworthy descendants of a family, and we apologize sincerely, for the Karsomi Communal Country had already done a great job. By using a sinner¡¯s wife as an offering is no different from the barbaric beastman, if the news spread, it will affect the reputation of Tassel Kingdom and the elven tribes.¡±


    When this kind of news spread out, the war-pursuing faction of Tassel Kingdom noticed that there were something wrong.


    In fact, the elven kingdom was the home to the administrative system and congress system. In the eyes of the world, it represented equality, a symbol of peace, and the elven states with different regimes were regarded as the Kingdom of Freedom, but the throne wasparatively weak.


    In the eyes of the emissary of the war-pursuing faction, if most of the elves had fulfilled their revenge, and wanted a truce with the ¡°alliance¡±, then wouldn¡¯t Suana¡¯s ¡°sacrifice¡± be wasted? How could this nonsensical ending be epted, how could they face the elven gods who wanted to intensify the contradiction.


    While the elves were very particr about reputation and fame, wouldn¡¯t a war without a righteous cause make them evil invaders? How would the kind and peace loving elves be sinful invaders, we needed to be on the side of justice, our targets must be the wicked viins.


    Therefore, a report withpletely solid intelligence was dug out. Within it was the proof of elf trafficking of recent years, and surprisingly those elf traffickers and vers had official backgrounds, the arch-criminals or the one behind these directly pointed fingers at Sleuweir, and their nobility and royalty.


    The truth was that when very exists in this nation, the officials actually turned a blind eye on it, when the bloody chain of benefits exists, how can the upper strata be clean?


    Well, then it would all be the fault of King Feimer, but speaking of the truth, from the fact that he kept hundreds of elven dancers in his pce. It surely seemed that he was not wronged falsely.


    In the eyes of the elves, they were not invading and instead, they were exacting revenge and bringing justice, the evil Kingdom of Sleuweir must pay the price. The evil humans shall be expelled from thend of elves.


    But then, the elves met some trouble. Sleuweir had surrendered. The people of Mist who were stubborn mules actually surrendered? To these longevity tribe, it was beyond imagination ¨C as if the elves had turned cheerful and magnanimous, the dwarfs turned clean and tidy, the beasts had turned educated and reasonable.


    The surrender of Sleuweir aside, the elves had to ask themselves if they wanted to continue with this idea of revenge.


    If they do not exact revenge, they just cannot let it go, and it would feel like they cannot face certain existence.If they chose on revenge, wouldn¡¯t it be an act of aggression towards Feimer, which was under the dominion of beastmen? Would the beastmen willingly give up their hard earned trophy of victory?


    ¡°Dumb savage beasts, hand us Feimer and his filthy minions, we still can talk... wait, why are you holding me back. Ah!¡±


    The elven envoys were as arrogant as usual, causing a weak negotiation attempt to end up in failure. But this was also the oue that some elven kings needed.


    ¡°To all high priests, please inform ¡°him¡± that ¡°his¡± will be carried through.


    Anzolo Seustad Adelband, this tediously long name that was an abbreviation of itself. A lot could be said about his life, and he had a handful of names, but there was one adjective that could describe him well ¨C Elven God.


    The Gods of Order wasposed of a mixture of various divine systems, and among the god level existences, there were only seven of them, proving how formidable he was. By the way, it was he who exiled Lorci, caused the falling of dark elves, and the target list of Harloys¡¯ vow of revenge was also headed by him.


    As Elven God and the guardian god of the whole elven tribe, how could the will of Anzolo be vited, and therefore the elves dered war upon the beastmen, they dered war towards the beastmen who ¡°attempted¡± to protect Feimer.


    ¡°As expected, the thought patterns of elves... I¡¯m afraid that our elf study needs to be revised again. Hmph, the more intense the battle is the better it is, it will be best if they y each other.¡±


    As the human militarists were raising their eyebrows, they were also looking forward to theedy, but very soon they were to find that this deration of war was just a pretence.


    When the beastmen gave up on other cities and focused on the final battle, suddenly the elves began the ughter, but of course, in the dictionary of these arrogant elves there is no such filthy word, they prefer the term, ¡®purge¡¯.


    The overflowing hatred was infectious, the blood-lusting madness spread with no end, and quickly, judgement was out of control, any proof of nobles whose ancestors took part in very was enough for the whole family to be hanged.


    ¡°What? Your grandfather served as a mercenary before? And you weren¡¯t clear of where he made his living? I¡¯m sorry then if you can not prove that he was innocent, that means he was guilty, and if he was guilty, you are guilty.¡±


    The elven pastors served as judges also fell into an inexplicable fever, in their discernment of guilt and in the trial of implicated offenders, rarely anyone escaped unscathed. The only meritpared to the beastmen was that they had not yet acted upon themoners for now, or in their terms, they had not started punishing them.


    How is it possible for a war to have no casualties, facing their losses, with the so-called elven gracefulness, to let the city defence soldiers choose a not too embarrassing death.


    Therefore, all around the fallen city hung human heads, themoners who survived by luck stared at these long ears with their eyes full of hatred.


    ¡°They are truly some frenzied warlords, I¡¯m afraid that the northern elves will never return to what they once were, maybe after this havoc, elves would be no more.¡±


    But I saw sadness from the elves¡¯ frenzy. The only one who can lead the pastor¡¯s will was the gods, and since the gods did not care about dignity anymore, they themselves had already fallen into despair and madness due to the loss of their dignity.


    By choosing to betray the Gods of Order, by acting as the vanguard of the War God, in an era where vanguard is almost the synonym of cannon fodder, soon the collective fall of the elven gods wille.


    ¡°This truly is the feast of traitors.¡±


    Even while saying such words, I was repeatedly reading the letter written to another betrayer, considering on whether or not to reconsider their stance that would directly affect the oue of this war.


    ¡°Deardy Lorci, good day, I am your loyal fan Rnd Mist, you may have heard of me, I have always been intrigued by your art of interrogation, and would like to find a chance to learn from you (omitting the ttery of 5000 words)... You should have heard of the recent happenings, and here, I have a little suggestion...¡±

 Chapter 166

    Chapter 166: No One is Immortal


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    Among the snowing down from all over the sky, there was an eerieughter, and with lips that pped out some peculiar and iprehensible phrases, a visitor in silver robes was knocking on the door of the pce.


    ¡°Bang, bang, bang!¡±


    The sound of his ring pounding the door was inconceivably loud, that it could reach the ears of the citizens, reminding them of a funeral bell.


    ¡°Bang, bang bang!¡±


    The knocking sound was reverberating, an intangible magic power could be sensed within it, which was quite vexing.


    ¡°Little Fismer, are you there? Hehe, I¡¯ming to y with you.¡±


    The unwee guest seemed to be whispering below the city walls, his voices however, was able to transmit around to every room in the pce through an uncertain medium.


    King Fismer woke up abruptly from his dream, a nightmare in which he was being pursued by a fierce demon. Right after that, the reverberating voice and eerieughter rang in his ears.


    ¡°Hehe, Little Fismer, I¡¯ming to y with you.¡±


    That eerie voice was just behind him, in a split second, Fismer turned his head but it was just an empty wall, there was nobody there.


    ¡°Little Fismer, I know you are home, stop hiding!¡±


    This time, the voice came from the side, Fismer stood up violently. He pulled out his sword from beneath the pillow and swung it towards the direction of the voice, just to find it directed at his Elven ve, who was petrified.


    Just when the corpulent Fismer was frightened by this spooky scene and took a deep breath, ¡°Bang Bang Bang¡±, the sound of knocking door sent him over the edge.


    ¡°Who!! Who dares to disturb me now?¡±


    ¡°I, have, found, you! Come, y, together.¡±


    That creepy and chilling voice rang up again. At this moment, Fismer suddenly recalled, that his room door was in front of him, while behind him...


    ¡°Bang Bang Bang.¡±


    The window was still making the banging sound, under the pounding of a peculiar white hand, an ash-pale grinning face stared through the window, with a pair of glowing red crescent eyes.


    ¡°Wait, for, me, little, Fis, Mer, I, am,ing, for, you!¡±


    The more it spoke, theughing faceughed even more gleefully. The grin got wider until it could reach the cheek, and now, it had actually turned into a scary demon face.


    That was absolutely not the face of a Human!


    In a twinkling, an inexplicable coldness crept up everyone¡¯s spines. The surrounding ves were shocked into fainting on the spot, meanwhile, Fismer Caso was frightened to such an extreme that he threw down his sword, which was supposed to be his all-time life saver.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The very precious elixir had triggered an explosion, and mes sprang up over all the ce, half of the room was blown up to the sky.


    ¡°Sough sough sough.¡±


    Right after the curling smoke dissipated, the cold wind was drawn in, but nothing was left before the eyes.


    Seeing that the remaining room had be a terrace, however, only the snow-drops could be seening in, and there was not a single trace of the man who uttered the voices.


    The hoarse chuckle, again, rang in Fismer¡¯s ear.


    ¡°Lives forever (no one lives forever). You can run, but you cannot hide!¡±


    In the end, he still could not get rid of the eerie voices around his ears. The cowardly Fismer was falling apart and even screamed like a woman.


    ¡°Guards! Guards! There¡¯s an assassin! Somebody wants to kill me!¡±


    He ran naked into the hallway, the guards who hurried to the scene, looked incredulously at the most unsightly king.


    After running several steps in the corpulent body, he had copsed on the floor, gulping for air. Subsequently, the screaming Fismer pulled a sword abruptly from a guard and furiously shed at the curtain swinging with the wind.


    ¡°What are you looking at? There¡¯s an assassin! You bunch of junks, have you been bought over too? Want to kill me? I tell you, if I¡¯m dead, I will take you down with me, I mean it!¡±


    Seeing this, the guards and the knights were shocked, at the same time, their faces were filled with a disgusted, yet pitiful expression towards Fismer. In their eyes, this man who had just reduced them from respectable guards to junks, had probably gone crazy.


    ¡°Why are you looking at me? You bunch of useless scum, should you be not so useless. I wouldn¡¯t have had to surrender to those filthy and worthless Beastmen! It was all your fault, it was all because of you, bunch of useless idiots!¡±


    The enraged king violently wielded the sword in his hand, his grounding in swordsmanship left behind since young was barely eptable. However, before the knights, this moronic way of wielding the sword was meaningless. As they dodged the attacks without a hitch, they continued to look at each other, and then at the insane king, pitying him even more.


    ¡°...ha, ha.¡±


    Very soon, Fismer who had abandoned himself to wine and women, slumped resignedly on the floor. Gulping for air strenuously, he was feeling short of breath.


    Unconsciously, he tried to pull something away from his neck, but unexpectedly, what he touched was not the flesh of man.


    That was a pair of ice cold arms, grabbing him deadly by the throat, and the ice cold breath had already reached behind his ears, it was still the same hoarse voices.


    ¡°I, caught, you!¡±


    ¡°Aaaaaaaa!¡±


    The king screamed madly in terror, only to elevate the strange feeling of the guards, they could see nothing unusual except Fismer, who was iling madly for no apparent reason.


    In their eyes, Fismer had suddenly squeezed his own neck, while screaming, yet rolling on the floor, his tongue had been squeezed out, but he squeezed himself even harder, as if he would not die.


    There were people who derived pleasure from seeing such misfortune, but most of the guards still rushed to his assistance, after all, as the bodyguards of the king, their reputation would vanish if the king whom they served loyally, died in such a ridiculous manner,


    But this time, they would very soon realise that Fismer was not just going crazy.


    ¡°Roar¡±


    The entire wall was shattered by a brute force, the head of a huge lion formed by the frigid ice hade in, its unspeakable majesty was as deadly as the pervasive freezing air. The visitor in silver rope on top of the lion, wasn¡¯t he the unwee guest who knocked the door just now?


    ¡°Yo, no one opened the door after so long? Well, I came up here on my own. Well, buster, I told you, you can run, but you cannot hide!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    The guards acted as they were facing an incredible opponent, by simply swinging my hand the ghostly blue phantom had risen from Fismer, and then they revolved around me like kids who yearned for candy.


    The mes at the back were rising, the gleam of magic had lighted up half of the sky. Along with the n, it seemed that Adam and Margaret had sessfully distracted the strong ones, of course, I had seized this opportunity too.


    Hence, I drew my sword. As the blue phantom revolving joyously above the sacred sword of Rnd, they transformed into a raging frosty sacred me.


    Obviously, the way I pulled my sword had agitated the audience, so, shaking my head, I returned the sacred sword to its scabbard.


    Following the return of sacred sword to its scabbard, the blue mes finally went out, and the ghostly phantom was sent back into deep slumber, and even I had breathed a sigh of relief, as the power of this newborn creature was too unearthly, that even I felt ufortable with it.


    ¡°Ow, this power works so well in finding and scaring people. Unbelievable!¡±


    Nevertheless, this moment was not the end. The Royal Guards were always the most refined warriors, and those surrounding us, was definitely the most refined ones. They stepped into a formation, protecting Fismer, who was at the centre.


    The one whoes isn¡¯t kind, the one who is kind doesn¡¯te. When I came, I had created a major turn of events. Now, they were no longer interested in merits, but only strove to avoid any mistakes, and prioritized the protection of their king before everything else.


    ¡°You... Who are you? Did that fellow send you to kill me?¡±


    Perhaps the guards had given him courage, to my utter surprise, Fismer was yelling at me.


    ¡°You¡¯re half right, indeed I¡¯m here to kill you, but, I work for nobody. It¡¯s just my very principle to clean up my own mess.¡±


    And thus, I took off my hood, shaking off the snow, and smiled to him.


    ¡°Aaaaaaa, Rnd!¡±


    He had, however, made a more piercing scream, which was quite impolite. Hence, I reached out my hand, and blue magic power radiated from my palm, the blue handprint had reappeared on the neck of Fismer, but this time, it directly dragged him towards me.


    In a twinkling, Fismer was dragged by the ghostly hand to me, and the surrounding guards had turned pale with terror, but still tried to snatch at him.


    The few royal guards, were, in fact, Gold-rank fighters, and they were charging in full throttle, murderously. However, what they were facing was not just me alone.


    ¡°Shut up you idiots!¡±


    As one of the elder Frigid Nightmares, Heling was the friend of the first-generation Mist King, he should be around 1700 years old now, his skills knew no bounds.


    A single roar had sent some unlucky knights, one by one flying towards the wall.


    Looking at the useless man who was overwhelmed with fear, the mes of fury were rising in my heart.


    ¡°You, a descendant of Mist? Scum like you, the Mist King?¡±


    It was all due to his feebleness and selfishness, which led everything down the worst path. Should he have listened to the advice and prepared for the war, all of these would not have happened, never would the Beastmen armies invade the hintend so easily, it was just like walking into an empty castle.


    Owing to just a wrong thought, the blood was flowing like a river.


    ¡°Bang!¡±


    To think of the countless lives being sacrificed, was beyond my tolerance, and thus, I threw the heaviest punch I could, right on his face.


    ¡°Believing the viin, ignoring the earnest words, sitting aside while watching the invasion of Beastmen... arrogant and ignorant,mitting all manner or outrage, willful and outrageous, do you deserve to be king?¡±


    ¡°Bash!¡±


    It was another punch, falling violently on the right side of his face.


    This time, a few teeth had fallen, Fismer mouth was full of blood, he sobbed in tears, and started begging for mercy.


    Watching him beg for mercy just enraged me even more.


    In this war, I have seen countless heads hanging off trees, and I was afraid that they didn¡¯t even have a chance to beg for mercy. That aside, they wouldn¡¯t have even begged for mercy, they would go to any length to protect their families and homes, but this damned fatty before me...


    ¡°Sitting aside to watch the country falling, keeping all military forces to protect himself, not even sending a fraction of his military forces to assist the other cities... coward, selfish, foolish, non-visionary, do you think you¡¯re worthy to be king?¡±


    ¡°Bash¡±


    This time, the violent punch had fallen on his stomach, it hurt so much that he had bent over like a prawn.


    ¡°...dissolute and dissipated, being promiscuous in the pce, you worthy to be king?¡±


    Looking at the bewildered Elven ves at the front, I couldn¡¯t help to think of how Fismer, as a king, would indulge in very, which had invoked so much resentment, creating such a chaotic situation.


    ¡°..., colluding eoyj the other races but bringing ruin to your own race, do you call yourself a king?¡±


    To trade for Beastmendies with the Beastman Chief, he had removed the defending troops for the Beastmen to snatch away the famed Human beauties, I couldn¡¯t believe my ears, upon hearing the news, and never would one imagine that there was such a shameless king.


    ¡°...murdering his kin, usurping the throne, do you call yourself a king?¡±


    Unlike the royal families in the past, all of Fismer¡¯s siblings had died a miserable death. Before all of these disgusting crimes, how I was stabbed was but a trifle.


    More and more punches came down, I was getting more furious the more I attacked. If it wasn¡¯t because of this imbecile here, things wouldn¡¯t havee to this point. The Spirit of Mist that we had been guarding at all costs, wouldn¡¯t suffer such a humiliation.


    ¡°Just when all the people were striving to leave, how dare you surrender? How dare you surrender! How could you have the audacity to surrender! Over two thousand years of Mist Kingdom history, and you¡¯re the first King to surrender... clinging to life cravenly instead of braving death, abandoning honour and justice, and you call yourself a king? Why?!¡±


    ¡°Ah!¡±


    A vicious arm, coupled with a leg, had shattered the backbone of Fismer, leaving him to lie prone on the floor, breathless.


    Nevertheless, this was just the beginning.


    ¡°Losing honour as a leader, losing people as a king, losing virtue as a man.¡± I, Rnd Mist, as thest descendant of Mist, hereby impeaches Fismer Caso!


    ¡°I, the Heling the Frigid Nightmare, in the name of the first-generation royal family, exempt the proposal of Fismer Caso, and propose that Rnd Mist be the temporary Mist King.

 Chapter 167

    Chapter 167: History


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    ¡°Losing honour as a leader, losing people as a king, losing virtue as a man¡±. I, Rnd Mist, as thest descendant of Mist, hereby impeaches Fismer Caso!


    The former King¡¯s lion gestured with his hand, and with the help of the sonic wave ability, of which the Frigid Nightmares were all gifted with, my angry roar was spread to every corner of the entire city.


    The mangled kingid on the floor, but, enraged as I am, stood on the dais of the pce, and announced my decision to the world.


    The prepared sheep-skin paper was spread out, the crimes that were little known were being read out, one by one for all to hear. The magical prestidigitation allowed these blood-like words to float in the air, catching even more attention!


    ¡°Crime number one, in a cruel manner thatcked allpassion, the ying of blood rtives...of kin.¡±


    ...


    ¡°Crime number fourteen, uncontrobly extravagant; wastage of resources; watching the people die of hunger and yet wearing clothes of silk and feasting to his heart¡¯s content!¡±


    ¡°Crime number fifteen, coborating with foreigners, bringing danger and enemies into the country...¡±


    As one after another shocking crime was read out, the windows of every house opened, to listen to the announcement that came from the pce.


    The more I read, the more furious I became, looking at the long list of remaining crimes, I did not feel like continuing any more. I just tore it apart and started berating with the rage that bubbled from the bottom of my heart.


    ¡°We will take care of all these crimes, but most importantly, I can not stand the sight of you weaklings anymore! Therefore, I demand that you get your ass off the throne as King of Mist!¡±


    ¡°One thousand and seven hundred or so years ago, Nortnd was a wastnd, with perpetual coldness. Wild beasts were everywhere, and all the bad conditions we see now, have remained unchanged since then. But at that time, thisnd was famous for being thend of exiles. Every country exiled their criminals here, and they usually died within three to five years. If any survived, then there were more trouble, without any survival skills, a majority of them turned into bandits.¡±


    ¡°Natural disasters, crimes, wild beasts all at once, even if at that time Nortnd was not hell on earth, it was very close!¡±


    Following Rnd¡¯s description, andparing it to the current scenario, the Mist people were starting to guess where this is heading.


    ¡°At that time, former King Raven Date, who had suffered under the hand of the bitter North, unexpectedly received the Frigid Nightmare Contract and gained strength, he was determined to build a country of his own in this barrennd. He never nned to be the great man who aspired to build a safe haven for humans, he just had had enough of those precarious days, and he hoped to build and to call home for himself and his own kind, a home that protected them from the oppression and bullying from foreign races.¡±


    As the sun rose slowly, the roars rang through the whole city. After the citizens were temporarily stunned into silence, Prince Rnd¡¯s name and deep voice stopped the people in their tracks to listen attentively.


    ¡°During the beginning, everyone sneered at him for trying to bite off more than he could chew, they thought he was an idiot sleep talking. And building a country here is equivalent to building a fortress at the frontlines of the war between men and beastmen, the beastmen were certain to oppose its construction. And he, this pennilessd, who couldn¡¯t even take care of his meals, where would he find the resources and food for self-sustainability?¡±


    ¡°However, there is no impossibility in this world, Raven Date, no matter how many hardships he had to experience, forced the impossible to be possible, and built his home on this frozennd.¡±


    ¡°No valuable local products or riches? He believed that where there is a will, there is a way. He found himself a group of Dwarves friends, and formed an engineering team of natives. Measuring inch by inch, digging spade by spade, they stubbornly found their own special local products in this barrennd ¡ª Magic Minerals.¡±


    ¡°No sturdy defence against the threats of the outer world? At the border, his followers and himself dug the gully and sentry by their bare hands, and reced guarding troops on horses with their legs, and used their flesh and blood to build the other walls to protect their own people!¡±


    The young people preparing to go to work, the woman preparing food for the family, the old man walking, when they heard these stories about their former King that were not recorded in the history books, they stopped in their tracks.


    ¡°Praise the former King! It is you, who pioneered our homnd, and allowed us to live with dignity.¡±


    ¡°¡±We admit that our lives were very hard, we had nothing in our pockets. I could not guarantee that after fighting so hard with me, that there will be any change, but what I know for sure, is that if we do not do anything just because there is no guarantee, then we will never do anything. If we must die in this cold and hunger, I hope that at least, I gave all I could give until the veryst moment.¡± That was what our former King said. In the harshness of nature, there were no miracles from heaven, no mysterious hope. All there was to rely on was yourself and yourpanions, and this was what that was known as the Spirit of Mist. And the Nortnders that were chosen by our former King to follow him became the earliest Mist people.¡±


    ¡°We are different from the other ancient races, a majority of us have mixed ancestry. But what identifies us as Mist race, is never our bloodline or skin colour, all Nortnders with the Spirit of Mist, are considered Mist people! These are the true words from the mouth of our former King, and the truth that we, the descendants of Mist, always believed in!¡±


    ¡°One thousand four hundred and twenty-three years ago, that was the first time Mist Kingdom almost faced annihtion. The Demon army, as if appearing from our very own nightmares, broke open the gates that led to the underground. Uncountable demons and devils swarmed towards the gates. Overnight, seventeen cities in Mist kingdom were taken over. In Diffindor, the capital city, a state of emergency was announced, but the Mist people did not give up their homes. To protect their homes, they sacrificed countless lives, determined to send the demons back to where they came from.¡±


    ¡°The marks of what had happened remained to this day, and that is the Aweimar, the abyss of demons. No, the most important mark and heritage left from that time is the war g that is still dancing in the ravaging wind. That day, the Spirit of Mist and the War gs of Mist were stained with the red colour of blood for the first time. We went on to the development path that waspletely different from the Central Nortnd. Grit and perseverance became the most significant aspect of our culture. Unbending will and an unyielding temperament became the insignia we wore proudly.¡±


    The citizens silently watched the War gs of Mist that could be seen everywhere, a new feeling of appreciation slowly grew from within. Perhaps, what was passed down was not only blood, but a secret buried deep within, waiting to be revealed.


    ¡°One thousand one hundred and twenty-nine years ago, there was a battle that involved many races. The Beastmen who could no longer remain silent invaded the Nortnd. In that cruel winter, it was a war that no one expected, but itsted for twelve long years. The Mist people lost one million three hundred and seventy thousand men in battle, and countless wounded. Most of the royal family members were lost, and as for lords who were responsible for protecting their homnd, the Mist Pce lost four kings and seven royal members. The youngest lost was only five years of age. From the day he took the throne to the day he died in battle, it had been only twelve days. From then on, princes would always be the front line generals of the army. Every young child must receive training of the sword and horse because we never know when he might need it someday. And once he goes on the battlefield, no matter his age, he had only two choices ¨C to return to glory, or to die with dignity!¡±


    ¡°Another new tradition that was formed was that when the King falls, his prince will assume the throne. If the prince has fallen, the princess will take his ce, and when the princess has fallen, the queen shall lead. As long as the royal family survives, the defence will not stop. Since our beginning, we of the Mist bloodline will never be taken as prisoners. Because our enemies know that taking us is pointless. After all, our ancestors have led us by examples. Surrender? Be taken as prisoners? How can we, their descendants, disappoint our founders? We would rather kill ourselves.¡±


    ¡°Seven hundred years ago, the war that started out of a sudden, came like a dagger from behind. The sudden rise in foreign ve trade represented an endless blood stain, but it also represented endless wealth. And our Mist Kingdom stood on the path to treasure, therefore many superior weaponry fell into the hands of the Beastmen. After that war with the Beastmen, despite our torn homnd, we dered war with the many countries that were behind the war.¡±


    ¡°Finally? Hmph, what are those weak Southerners against our Cavalry that had gone through countless battles and wars. When our riders dragged their foolish bodies, with their crowns still on their heads, to parade them through our cities, no country ever dared to look down on us Mist people again. Of course, from then on, our rtionships with the human countries never recovered. And we have never regretted!¡±


    ¡°Time and time again, our cmitous country suffered countless ransackings and wars. Without us noticing, we became a historical ¡°ancient kingdom¡±, this is undoubtedly and unsurprisingly the perfect insult. The unattended wild flowers endured the bitterly cold of the Nortnds and survived, yet those Southern saplings who were so well taken care of, withered one after the other.¡±


    ¡°Three hundred years ago, in a war that I experienced myself, ferocious and bloodthirsty Beastmen, cunning and powerful demons, and those humanrades who always went back on their words, everything our ancestors faced, came all at once. That time, I failed, our defence failed, and our country was destroyed.¡±


    The low voice tinged with a sob, that soundless suffering and remorse pierced the hearts of the citizens, in the city, the Mist people would always repeat the same answer, despite their different opinions.


    ¡°No, our prince, you have done excellently, we are proud of you, please do not condemn yourself. And look, here we stand. As long as the Mist people still live, how can the Mist Kingdom not be revived?¡±


    ¡°Yes, we have not perished! The Spirit of Mist never perish! Even if the Mist Country has perished, our Mist race has not! Did you know, when there was news that there are Mist people forming Mist countries in the Nortnds, I was so happy that I couldn¡¯t sleep. Even if it is no longer the kingdom I once knew, even if it were split to severalnds, but as long as it stands tall in the Nortnd, I am satisfied.¡±


    ¡°Countless of times, I couldn¡¯t sleep for days and nights when I thought of our homnd. But when the hatred for our destroyed homnd appeared in my thoughts, I made an oath. If I do not get revenge and make those murderers hiding behind the scenes pay tenfold for what we had lost, then I will not allow myself to live a peaceful life. All the people I know have died, and those who live in that homnd are no longer recognizable to me.¡±


    ¡°Beloved prince, please do not hesitate and wonder, this will always be your homnd, we are your family, and we wee your return!¡±


    I smiled, surrounded by such faithful and lovely people, how can I not smile happily? But when I look at the lump ofrd in front of me, my joy turned to anger, and my wrath resurfaced.


    But...you, Fismer Caso, in your veins flows the Spirit of Mist, yet you did such despicable things.¡±


    I used to hope that this is an imposter, one who is unrted to the Mist Royalty. But after seeing him in person, and cast the spell that was passed down through the generations, I was shocked to find out that he is indeed of the Mist Royal bloodline. The descendants of Mist have degenerated to such an extent?


    ¡°You, ostentatious, lustful and shameless! It is a good thing that Sleuweir knew how to be flexible, it was our inflexibility all those years ago that caused us so much pain. But being flexible does not equate to self-degradation, or getting involved with the extremely evil ve trade, or sending our people to be trampled on by Beastmen, you call yourself a protector of the people? You, are not worthy to be king!¡±


    ¡°You, ingrate, greedy, traitor! You allowed our homnd to suffer so much humiliation, yet you hide in your pce and surround yourself with luxury and pleasure. The warnings I sent you were treated as trash, so many who should have lived are dead because of you! And yet you happily enjoy the offerings and gifts from the people! You have the audacity to im that you are the leader of the people, the king who has the great responsibility to protect thend and its people? You are not worthy to be king!¡±


    ¡°You are cowardly, despicable and dishonourable! The spirit of our ancestors have never faded, the ghosts of our ancestors are always watching us. If ghosts could materialize into our world, they would have murdered you already! How dare you surrender? The Mist Royalty has one thousand and seven hundred years of history, the ones who have perished in the battlefield are uncountable, and there was not one coward who dared to surrender! You...¡±


    ¡°...You, are not worthy to be King!¡±


    ¡°I, Ancient Frigid Nightmare Heling, Aroyi,panion of Former King, the first of the royal members, hereby witness the abdication of the king, and elect Rnd Mist as the temporary holder of the throne! I will personally be responsible for being the warden.¡±


    The citizens and royal guards were stunned for a moment, and then, a voice out of nowhere shouted: ¡°Long live his Majesty Rnd!¡±. Suddenly the crowd exploded.


    ¡°Your highness Rnd, no, your Majesty Rnd, wee back!¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty Rnd, please do not hesitate, our gates are always opened for you.¡±


    Very soon, with the driving force of some faithful subjects, the cheers rang out to all corners of thend and sky. I obtained the support of the citizens so easily, in a sense, it was thanks to Fismer.


    Amongst the crowd, there was a couple of people grumbling and bickering.


    ¡°...why must you force me to shout, Rnd knows my voice well, he will definitely hear it, then he willugh at it.¡±


    ¡°You have teased him so many times, let himugh. Oh yes, how is the wound on your right arm?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, that Beastman Shaman was injured worse than me. The others were just making up stories, this is no injury.¡±


    When everything of everything had been announced to the public, and the general situation has settled down, I mercilessly threw out the dying Fismer out.


    ¡°Aaaaaargh!¡±


    Fismer¡¯s high pitched squeal shook the air, if he hit the ground, he would not survive. Some of the women and children had closed their eyes, unwilling to witness the horrific scene of smashed flesh. Yet I fixed my gaze at Fismer, still not able to rx.


    ¡°Ssh!¡±


    As expected, just as Fismer was going to crash to his death, two fleshy bat wings extended out of his back. With a strong p of the wings, he glided from the ground and flew out of the city walls.


    ¡°Damn it! He¡¯s a cambion!¡±


    The prediction has been proven, but it was not a good news at all. The descendant of Mist mixed with the blood of demons, no matter how I thought about it, there could only be one possibility.


    ¡°Karwenz...is this all your doing? Did you set this all up?¡±

 Chapter 168

    Chapter 168: The Cambions


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    What are cambions? Perhaps the Temr Cathedral have the most say in this matter.


    ¡°Those hybrid scums are born for destruction and conspiracies, they should all be dragged to the square and burned at the stake!¡±


    Alright, I asked the wrong person, this generous and passionate pastor was obviously from the old-school ¡°retro group¡±. Until modern centuries, for some reason the Temr Cathedral had undergone an internal reform, afterwards, whenever they were seen, the cambions would just be condemned to life imprisonment, instead of getting burned to death.


    The steps of improvements taken by the Temr Cathedral were nothing better, but I have to say that this move was correct in a sense.


    Just as the name implied, cambions were the descendants of devils and demons. Carrying miraculous power in their blood, along with ability to manipte peculiar supernatural power, they were natural warlocks. Allegedly, half of the existing demon warlocks were cambions of mixed parentage in the under ne.


    If the recessive blood of the other race was under control, they could be natural warlocks. However, if it went out of control and manifested traits of the devil, perhaps demi-devils or demi-demons best described these beings which were not supposed to live in the main ne.


    Unlike the bloodline of upper ne (angels) which people embraced and yearned for, the cambions had always been a big trouble, not only did the sucking of blood and the inclination for chaos faction was in their blood, but the bigger trouble was, the ancestors of their bloodline hadmitted all sort of outrages in the under ne.


    The angels resorted to orders and worshipped the Gods, their wills were not that strong to interfere with the lives of their descendants, and even then they were highly restrained. But in the eyes of the devils, their hybrid descendants were living treasures split off from their blood, the blood and strength derived from them were the best mark and linkage.


    The cambions might be born kind, or a brave fighter, but with their devil ancestors whispering incessantly beside their ears, they would imperceptibly lean towards the chaos faction.


    In the eyes of the devils, the descendants who carried their blood were but good seedlings on the battlefield. They would call upon the innate devil of the descendants through the blood, the moment they crowed over their growing strength, was the time they lose control of their demonic impulse, and grow into demi-devils, in the end, they had no choice but to return to the under ne, serving as the new backbone of the devils.


    In the abyss of endless war, the ¡°young men¡± whom they influenced, were undoubtedly the best pawns and war elites.


    The world had given cambions the moniker of ¡°mongrels fated to be corrupted¡±.


    Amongst all the nes, the reputation of these half-castes had never been good as they had been mere pawns since hundred years ago. A cambion might be kind at first, and carried out good deeds for half of his previous life, he was praised by all the people. However, his soul might be manipted when the crunch came.


    Indeed, until here, the ins and outs of the matter were pretty clear now, meanwhile, Elisa brought back news from the abyss ¡ª the Mist descendant in the North was the lineal descendant of a devil mogul.


    The Mist Kingdom was divided into several pieces, with East Mist and Sleuweir being the biggest, that cambion should reside in one of them. Previously, it was unknown as to which one was it. Therefore, I had no choice but to exercise vignce further on Reyne and suspended her from her duties.


    And now, it was obviously the royal member of Sleuweir, I had breathed a sigh of relief deep in my heart, despite that the situation was still unfavourable. And then, I kept my face straight again.


    ¡°Karwenz, what do you want!¡±


    My roar echoed to the skies, even if Fismer Caso had twelve wings, but still, he would never escape from me, right now, he was impaled by a sacred sword on the wall, clutching his chest in disbelief.


    ¡°No, no, I can¡¯t go back yet, I don¡¯t want to go back! I¡¯ve yet to relish the beauty of this world, too many beautiful women and delicious food in the main ne, I don¡¯t want to go back yet! I¡¯m not satisfied! I still want to be King, I don¡¯t want to die!¡±


    The scales all over his body was emitting an uncanny white aura, his red pupils were gaining slight sign of pale yellow, This, was the mark of the prime devil, Fismer had unknowingly transformed from cambions to half-devil.


    The prime devil could prevail upon their descendants through the bloodline and the linkage of souls.


    Perhaps in those simted nightmares brought by the devil, Fismerr had fallen to the under ne for countless times, he had even harboured an illusion that he was part of the devils.


    Looking at the pale yellow pupils which were utterly demonized, I knew he could be saved no more, the corrupted soul such as him had nowhere to go than the styx.


    ¡°Devil! The king...no, the puppet king was a devil!¡±


    The royal guards had put down their weapons under the exmation of the people, nobody was willing to fight for Fismer anymore, after all, the name of the devil had always been themon enemy of everyone.


    ¡°Answer me, Karwenz, what do you want!¡±


    Fismer was dead, but I was still clutching his neck to interrogate, but the target I interrogated, was the person hiding behind him.


    ¡°Haha.¡±


    Along with the familiarughter, dark mes were being radiated from Fismer¡¯s body. Sensing the rage within me, the will of devil lord had finally descended.


    Along with that eerieughter, suddenly, the sky was overcast by dark clouds, which had blotted out the sunlight, the rising sun could be seen no more, it seemed that even the Gods were getting sick of this sight.


    This was not any magic, but just the influence of the descending will of devil prince towards the world. To witness such a wrath, I was a little surprised, Karwenz was much stronger than expected.


    ¡°Just the descending will is enough to change the weather? I¡¯m afraid this is already a God-level existence¡±.


    In my perspective, Karwenz¡¯s prowess had gone beyond imagination, and would not be inferior to any God-level people in Chaos faction.


    ¡°Rnd, I never thought we would meet this soon. How dare you ask me what I want?¡±


    Fismer¡¯s body started to burn, albeit demonized, his body still couldn¡¯t bear the tremendous power of the devil prince.


    Nevertheless, Fismer¡¯s distorted face had given a familiar expression. That was a mischievous prank with innocence.


    ¡°Since you are so sincere in asking, I shall tell you benevolently...oh wait. Did you really think I¡¯m actually benevolent? Really wanna know? You guess.¡±


    ¡°Guess your sister!¡± [1]


    ¡°Haha, isn¡¯t your sister mine too? Unfortunately, I would prefer an adorable sister to a brother...and if I answer you so easily, how disgraceful is that! And I¡¯m a devil prince, if that is known by the rest, how could I be the leader! Let¡¯s be like always, leave the good y behind, the puzzle is meant to be solved in the very end...¡±


    Burning vigorously in the demonic me, the remaining body of Fismer turned to ashes, leaving a message behind.


    ¡°Rnd, we will meet again very soon. Whoops, should I start calling you brother? Seems that I still can¡¯t do that in your face. Ah, the time hase...I¡¯ll forget about this time, the sacred war had just begun. We have a lot of chances to y together, slowly.¡±


    Following the dissipating ashes, Fismer¡¯s ghost could be seen. As the devil mogul who had spoken his heart lost his medium ofmunication, everything quieted down again, and the dark clouds started to disperse, the sunlight shined in again, the peace was restored.


    ¡°Damn it!¡±


    Breaking the ground with my heavy fist, however, my unreasoning anger was meant to not receiving an answer.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    When the war in the north had just begun, the civil war of Xiluo had finally reached its end.


    The winner? There was no winner, although the crown faction who had always been in the middle, suddenly chose to side with Omar, the situation of this war remained miserable.


    Miserable, was the best word to describe it, because in this situation, if both sides continued fighting with all their power, in the end, it would be a mutual destruction, and there¡¯s certainly no winner.


    No matter what was the ending, both side would suffer severe casualties, the war between undeads always went to the extent of obliterating the souls of each other. After losing myriads of its cadres, Xiluo Empire was bound to be reduced from a super kingdom to just another strong country.


    Nevertheless, with the sudden arrival of a small troop of knights in the battlefield to ambush the headquarters of the Council of Dark Night, the scales were leaning towards victory.


    That wasn¡¯t because of how incredible they were, but now, the rising g of Mist now represented this man, and those red hounds were fighting as well, just for their owner ¡ª Emperor Yongye.


    At first, fellow undead warlords took them as the fake ones, as the history had indicated that the Red Hound Army had miraculously disappeared during the civil war. With the presence of the dreadful and gigantic ck hounds amongst the skeleton knights however, all the doubts were now meaningless.


    ¡°The Demonic Spatial Hellhound, Bastian is back, only his lordship could ride on it!¡±


    There were even conspiracy theorists, speaking as they had seen through everything.


    ¡°All of these was the conspiracy of that person, Omar, Lionheart, Ah DangCarnivore, Gria was once the retainers of his lordship, it must be he who urged the second senator to break the seal, and relied on his capability to stir up the civil war. The crown faction retrieved the crown when the time called for it. There¡¯s only one truth, and this must be the plot!¡±


    Alright, not to discuss further on how these theorists could ssify everything as part of the conspiracy, the emergence of the red hounds were undoubtedly a big deal, for after all, the return of Emperor Yongye had spread like wildfire, and if he really had returned, perhaps everyone should reconsider whom to side with.


    The only demigod-level undead emperor in recent history, if this banner hadn¡¯t instilled enough fear, he actually carried the dazzling ring of the mightiest necromancer of the time, nothing was more concrete than this.


    There was an upper limit to the power of a necromancer or lich, perhaps topute thebat power of a necromancer, one must take ount of his or her undeads warriors, the limit of the Red Hounds of Emperor Yongye was never known, as they were never defeated, in other words, nobody had known how far the power of Emperor Yongye could go.


    The truth was, ¡°the infallible Diffindor¡± was one of the trump cards that had been hidden by Rnd. Keeping it secret deliberately, Rnd had only used it twice, and the opponents who had seen it were dead.


    The standard tactics of the necromancers were to use his very best undead warriors as the bodyguards as well as the vanguards in battle, diverting attention from their enemies. And then, they would cast the most powerful magic to st the entire battlefield, seeking to end everything in one blow.


    Emperor Yongye was doing likewise. With the Red Hound being the bodyguard as well as vanguard, and with ¡°Ice Aeon¡± being the most powerful and victory-decisive magic, that would be unstoppable for one.


    There weren¡¯t a lot of semi-god sorcerers, and the ones who could manipte such level of destructive forbidden curses, could be counted on just five fingers, but to cast the forbidden curse was like throwing vegetables, regardless of its consequences and damage towards himself, there was none other than Emperor Yongye, even after all these years.


    More than ten fallen kingdoms had witnessed the strength and slyness of this tactics. Should one not break the seal of Red Hounds before Emperor Yongyepleted his forbidden-taboo casting, it was feared that even entire cities and armies would fall into an evesting slumber.


    In those years, the Yongye¡¯s army wasn¡¯t even required to attack the castle, once Emperor Yongye started to wield the curse, the fate of the war was pretty much sealed, and the aftermath of it would include dozens field operations in which the survivors attempted tounch insane attacks upon the defending undeads.


    To fight an attrition war with the endless undead army, was none other than a time limitedbat where death awaited... Those formidable armies with profound history had always fallen under the hands of skeleton soldiers due to exhaustion, and this cunningbination of tactics was indeed the best example.


    Some cadres in the Council of Dark Night were the main forces of Yongye¡¯s army in the past, would they not know the habits of Emperor Yongye to give full consideration before making any move?


    ¡°The decisive battle should not be avoided without having more than 60% chances of victory. Victory or defeat should already be decided before the war begun, and then, the enemies would be wiped out aggrievedly.¡±


    This battle style of this emperor had always been such dreadful. The moment Red Hounds charged into the battlefield, was the time Emperor Yongye was going to harvest the victory of war with his own hands.


    The fellow undead warlords had always derived pleasure from seeing how their enemies vanished, but to stand in front of the emperor, who was probably in the preparation of forbidden curse...


    ¡°I¡¯m having a little stomachache, I must answer the call of nature now.¡±


    Hey hey, you were skeleton sorcerer, since when did you had a stomach.


    ¡°My wife is about to give birth, I¡¯ve to go back now.¡±


    A death knight had said so, it was a short sentence, but carried a big hidden message, the spectators were startled.


    ¡°My lover is about to give birth too, I also want to go back.¡±


    Alright, another death knight was getting shameless too, but afterwards, the two who should fight each other had given a look of Freemasonry.


    ¡°How could you be so shameless?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m learning that from you.¡±


    Alright, the situation was clear without needing any more exnation.


    In the end, feeling the heat of Emperor Yongye again, the influence which was established by the Council of Dark Night after toils and moils, waspletely extinguished. When the Red Hounds had reached the headquarters, it was an empty building.


    The civil war of Xiluo Empire hade to an end, the news about the second consuls, Feyman fleeing far with most of the armies from the undead ne, had very soon reached the ears of the whole world.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Just when Rnd was getting so bogged down on the chaotic scene before him, in another ne, there was somebodyughing gleefully...


    ¡°What I did? Hehe, I did nothing, I was just ying. Fismer is my descendant, of course, he¡¯s a cambion. Sigh, thought he would be a good part, to think that he would be like this after just a few rounds of game. Mortals, so fragile.¡±


    Theughing young man was rather handsome, and hisughter was natural too, but to behave like so in a situation like this, that was certainly abnormal.


    ¡°Ha, to think the expression of a brother at that time, I had no words. Guess? I myself haven¡¯t figured out the answer, how would you guess it?¡±


    He was lying on the void, and the void had nothing at all, the only thing which caught the eyes, was the huge chess board, with all his chess (pawn) above it, that was quite a spotlight.


    The chess was lives, which were all souls wailing in agony, and amongst them, with the power which could match the legends, they were probably the very heroes in the secr world.


    And opposite him across the chessboard, there sat nobody, but the chess pieces were moving on their own.


    ¡°Nortnd? The Mist Country? Conspiracy? Nothing to do with me! I¡¯m just looking forward to some happy games. My fellow cuties, show me what you got, don¡¯t disappoint me like Fismer. Hope so.¡±


    Perhaps, due to his willfulness, Karwenz could be promoted to his level in such a brief time.


    No goods, no bads, everything was whether fun or not fun. Should the mood be good, he would put down a few chess pieces, and dispatch several cadres of his to rebuild the Mist Kingdom, should the mood be bad, he would flip the table and do nothing, in a sense, this trait of Karwenz was, in fact, the nature of Chaos.


    ¡°The wless Chaos devil¡±, ¡°the blue-eyed boy of the Chaos¡±, ¡°the loved child of the Goddess of Chaos(whoever dared to call him so had been dead for long)¡±, all of these were the monikers gained by the Karwenz in the under ne.


    Doing things in a capricious style, yet able to smile like an innocent kid when creating disasters of which even the devils couldn¡¯t bear the sight, this son of the abyss who waspletely in-character for Chaos, had made tremendous feats in just three hundred years. Stepping over countless corpses, he ascended to the highest sanctuary.


    He had now earned an, even more, resound name ¡ª the supreme ruler of the Chaos, the 14th existence of God level in Chaos faction.


    Rnd¡¯s prophecy was absolutely wrong, to think that even Karwenz didn¡¯t know what he would do next.


    And now, Karwenz listened to themands of no one except the Goddess of Chaos who was asleep, when the will to y surged within him, there was no one who could stop his game.


    ¡°This time, brother is ying with me, what a pleasure. Haha, defeating brother in a strategic game, this has been one of my dreams. Brother, you are a good guesser, so guess what¡¯s my next step, even I haven¡¯t thought of it.¡± (to be continued...)


    TL Note


    1. In chinese, ¡°your sister ¨C ÄãÃá± is rude way of retorting one¡¯s sentence which you consider silly, done by appending sister behind the key word said by that person.

 Chapter 169

    Chapter 169: Pride


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    ¡°Foolish apes, how dare you despise my existence, I am the omniscient magic mirror.¡±


    ¡°Is that so? What¡¯s the answer for 1692321 times 768392, answer that in 3 seconds!¡±


    ¡°Ten trillion and three hundred billion three hundred and sixty-five million nine hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred and thirty-two. Impressed, kid? You thought that my almighty creator will forget to equip me with a calctor?¡±


    After hearing that, the silver-haired muscr guy was stunned, but he did not answer, he was still counting.


    ¡°... Let¡¯s assume that you are correct, let me tell you, it¡¯s not because I can¡¯t calcte it out, father taught me multiplications before.¡±


    Just from the looks, this good looking muscr guy was behaving like a living hero from a ssic mythology, he was tall and fit, thickly built and had delicate features on the face... Well, this may be contradictory, but isn¡¯t there something strange known as Lee Gou Dan[1] in this world?


    ¡°Now, the next question, besides my dad who is the most beautiful in this world.¡±


    ¡°Of course it is you, our honourable Lord Omar, your beautyes only after Lord Rnd.¡±


    ¡°Haha, you are really very honest, I kinda like you now. Have you eaten lunch yet? Want to have it togetherter?¡±


    ¡°Haha, although you are exceptionally handsome, seems like there is something wrong with your head. I am a mirror, how am I going to eat?¡±


    Looking at the half naked thick built guy who was counting his fingers, while making various bodybuilding posture facing the mirror caused Reinhardt to feel nauseous even though he did not possess a stomach anymore.


    ¡°... This... is just a perfect match. I¡¯m impressed of King Rnd, just a small present and he managed to tame this stubborn Omar.¡±


    That muscr body shone with an oily gloss, but then the face had the delicate features of a cute girl, furthermore, it was seventy percent alike to Rnd, in a sense, Omar¡¯s existence was the dark past of Rnd.


    Yes, the ¡°Lee Gou Dan¡± before the eyes was the Pride of Seven Deadly Sins. It couldn¡¯t be med that he looked like this.


    Rnd used the standard temte of spectres to create his own Seven Deadly Sins, Envy and Gluttony were made using sewed-up abomination as a base, while Pride from the Seven Deadly Sins was the same as Gluttony, a mutated spirit based on Banshee.


    ording to the initial design, he was an artificial soul who had no face, body nor gender, but as he grew, surprisingly he selected this as his appearance. Actually, it was caused by Rnd who talked nonsense during his birth.


    ¡°As a man, only a muscr body is the true beauty.¡±


    Well, as a result, the muddled Pride viewed it as his gospel. And as the instinct of every life sees the mother as the most beautiful existence, without any doubt he used the face of Rnd, and as everyone knew, Rnd died too young, and the portraits he left was mainly from 11 to 12 years old. And in the end, this is how a child with aesthetic deviation was born.


    Originally, if there were some slight misunderstandings, it was still possible to rectify, but in those years Rnd was too busy (busy to start a war), Omar would not listen to others, and as a result it got worse and worse, and finally ended up being the most beautiful form of himself.


    Parents understood more than the children themselves. Nobody understood Omar more than Rnd, that was why by customising a ttery magic mirror, he could easily manipte the few year old child.


    Yes, only a few years old, only after a few years from birth he got sealed for rebelling, and during the sealed period he did not age. When he was released, his temper was just same as he was before sealed.


    While the civil war of Shilo ended, as the only victor, it seemed that Omar would be in control of this country very soon, and with his ability, he would bring this country and himself to greatness.


    The ability of Pride, Omar? Actually, it would be veryplicated to exin that, it was actually a very peculiar ability system, not only a sole ability.


    ¡°Pride¡± originated from different levels, based on the understanding of Rnd, as a superior that dominated the life and death of the inferior, they often did not reason with the inferiors, thinking that they can look down on the inferior like ants from above, this was the root cause of how Pride became one of the Original Sins.


    There were ranks for spectres too. If so, wasn¡¯t it possible to create an innate ruler of the dead who was born with the ability to rule over the immortal spectres?


    Undoubtedly this was a queer topic, but Rnd got his inspiration from the natural domination of queen bee and queen ant. They used a peculiar pheromone to build awork and used an intriguing method to take control of the whole group, causing the group to be dedicated to sacrifice themselves for their queen, even until death.


    And the reason of selecting banshees as the standard temte was because banshee was the few rare spirits which did not have low levels of existence, and the fact that they wereposed by pure spirits was also very suitable to create a spiritualwork.


    In the end, the final result of the research was Omar, he was the only one who did not use any additional materials, a spectre entirely created by Rnd himself, in a sense, calling Rnd as father was not wrong at all.


    ¡°The supreme power of spectrework¡±, this was what thebination ability of Omar was called. He could use the spectres under him to construct a spiritualwork to exchange information constantly, and as the supreme power of thework administrator, he could control every spectre under him.


    This is the only ability of Omar, it did not sound so powerful, but it was unexpectedly powerful when used.


    Low level spectres did not have any intelligence, while he could grant them fake intelligence, in a battlefield, he was like an invisible hand ofmand, which could evenmand the spectre under him to perform minor movements, such as moving the fingers slightly. To gain consciousness, a normal spectre needed to be at least silver ranked, while he could let countless spectres to possess fake consciousness, it could be said that under his control, the battle power of low level spectres which was only capable to be used as cannon fodder will at least be tripled.


    And this was just the beginning, Omar¡¯s powers were not that simple.


    Spirit is power, the spirit of low level and high level spectres will be connected to the spectrework, and how would someone such as him, who controls other spectre spirits, be weak?


    Granting fake consciousness will not increase his burden, on the contrary, this lets him extract spiritual power to strengthen himself further.


    With 300 low level spectres under him, Omar would have around bronze rank battle power, with 3000 spectres, Omar would be able to match Silver rank warriors, with 30000 spectres, he could crush Gold ranked humans easily... When there is a spectral empire, his strength would be immeasurable, even for his creator Rnd himself.


    From this, one could tell that Omar¡¯s power was leaning towards army battles, from the beginning, ¡°Pride¡± Omar was designed as themander of spectre army, the effort Rnd spent was also a few times morepared to other Seven Deadly Sins, his expected design did not fail, and the reason it had some issues was affected more by the problem of his personality.


    ¡°I was born to be the top amongst those under father, why should I be listening to you old folks? How is that dumb mutt qualified to sit in my ce, andmand the army which I should have controlled! I¡¯m gonna take back my spectre army and build a nation that belongs to spectres. This is the duty I was born for, and it is also father¡¯s expectations. We were born to be kings!¡±


    Well, to a spectre formed from grudge, the crankier the soul the, greater the potential. But if the personality was too extreme, naturally there would be no way to discipline them, and in the end, it will end up to be the rebellion of naughty brats.


    But in a sense, in those years Rnd did not leave any room for manoeuvres, therefore it was still possible tomunicate.


    Only the Seven Deadly Sins and Rnd himself understood the true power of Omar, the other Spectre Lords only thought that he had very powerful undead control ability. The Shilo civil war was meant to happen the moment Fittend, who underestimated him, handed him the spectre army.


    He could even his ept his own brother Bastian to have a higher ranking than him, for Omar who was arrogant, how could he ept an old lich above himself, hence as predicted by Rnd, when Omar was released by Fittend, the second archon of Shilo, it was as if they have set a time bomb for their own destruction.


    Apparently, as the Civil War in Shilo came to this extent, a choice was needed to be made.


    So, Rnd made a choice in advance, letting Omar ascend the throne, and sent Fittend into the spectre ne.


    At this moment, it was time for Omar to repay him.


    ¡°I understand father¡¯s intentions. And I loved his present. After I reorganize, I will fulfil my promise, and send armies to the northernnds to help father with the war.¡±


    Originally it was Rnd who sealed Omar, Reinhardt thought that this would be hard to deal with, but surprisingly it seemed to be going smoothly.


    Hearing this, Reinhardt hesitated instead, he was worried if Omar will plot something.


    It seemed like Omar sensed Reinhardt¡¯s hesitation, so he added.


    ¡°When I was sealed, I had time to think, and maybe I went too far indeed, in those years. And for father, who was all along unforgiving for betrayers to spare me, I should appreciate that.¡±


    Spare him? Didn¡¯t King Rnd say that with the special ability of Omar, he could only be sealed, but cannot be killed? Reinhardt was filled with doubt.


    ¡°Could only be sealed but cannot be killed? Hehe, for the almighty father there is no such thing. The Seven Deadly Sins were all created by him, he would have left something up his sleeve. At least being unable to control other Seven Deadly Sins is one of my weakness. And...¡±


    Although speaking of his own weakness, but the smug look on face was as if he received blessings, and suddenly Le Gou Dan... Ahem, Omar turned shy.


    With a big muscr body, but blushing like a girl, the pretty face showed some mysterious blush.


    ¡°... And, I also needed father¡¯s help, to create another of my kind. I just entered puberty stage this year, and I also want to fall in love!¡±


    Furthermore, while speaking, Lee Gou Dan shook his body vigorously, twisting his huge body, with the blushing face, and started daydreaming while closing his eyes, as though he had thought of something embarrassing.


    ¡°My request is not much at all, as long as they are not short like dwarves, if they are as tall and strong and pretty like me, that would be enough, yes, they can be stronger than me by all means, but their looks mustn¡¯t fall too far, a thickly built body plus a pretty face would be lovely!¡±


    ¡°Pfft!¡±


    At that moment, Reinhardt was so envious of the weak humans, at least they had the ability to die from spitting blood, while he could only endure the rolling thunder before his eyes.


    ¡°Although feeling shy, but now that I¡¯m the king, having a few more choices seem to be fair. I had dreamed of organizing the ¡°I¡¯m proud, I have posture,¡±petition under the moonlight. Ahhh, to say this out makes me really shy.¡±


    For a moment, Reinhardt extremely regretted his outstanding imagination, he imagined that if this request is granted, every day, there will be a bunch of pretty muscr brothers making bodybuilding postures under the moonlight, Reinhardt had an urge to bang the wall to death.


    ¡°Burp!¡±


    An understandable nausea and the colleagues behind who were starting to fall to the ground retching proved that even for spectres, there were thresholds for disgust!


    ¡°I... I will inform the king. And, kindly stay away from me, Lord Omar!! I have no interest in muscles!¡±


    TL Note:


    1. Àî¹·µ° (lee gou dan) is also ÄÄ߸ (Ne Zha) in a chinese anime, featuring a cute girl with muscr body.

 Chapter 170

    Chapter 170: The Elf Outcast


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    Situated in the Nortnd, sparse of resources, Tassel Kingdom of the Elves was nevertheless a great ce, which was hard toe by.


    The renovated cliff and magic-crystal wall became the artificial barrier of the capital, Santander, the endless hardy old pine trees served as the best shelter from wind, the ancient spirit of the Elves contained magical water, which flowed into streams, bringing warmth and vitality in thisnd, and also turning it into one rare green vitality in Nortnds.


    Just as Humans in the north were getting upset of the winter beasts in hunger, the Elven natural priests and hunters had tamed them into tractable livestock. Just as all countries in the north were endeavouring throughout the year to prepare the winter rations, the fruit trees under the maniption of Elven Ancient Tree, were able to produce fruits thrice a year, producing all sorts of the sweet and delicious fruits that grew regardless of the seasons. These fruits were not exported and traded for mineral resources. In time, they would rot away.


    A centipede does not topple over even when dead, the Elven kingdoms which had inherited the legacy of the Elves were contemptuous of the Humans as they had the background of nouveau riches. For them, a hundred years was just an instance due to their longevity. Having tremendous time and skills, had they not improved their living environment, those wild Elves in the Knight novels who lived above the trees, were merely an artistic ornament.


    Just when the main forces of the Tassel were galloping amongst the snownd, their territory was as peaceful as ever. The young unicorns and flying horses were ying in the forest, the Elven civilians still had the leisure time to carry out their winter ceremonies, so what about the battle at the frontline? They were confident that the mighty alliance of the four Elven Kingdoms would never fall to the ordinary Humans, not to mention their very elites were going all out this time.


    The truth was so, the hundred thousands of Elven armies were a small number, but due to their very high averagebat power, just an elite troop of theirs could match the royal guards of the other countries, even their ground force was of formidable soldiers and should not be underestimated.


    This was the foundation of the Elves, even today, the weakness of the Elven kingdom, which had inherited the ancient magic and arts, was none other than their poption. It took an Elf two hundreds to reach adulthood, and this period was enough for Humans who married rtively earlier toe up with six or seven generations.


    A war was fought withprehensive country power, the poption and resources were one of the important factors, as casualties were unavoidable, for even the mightiest sorcerer, would perish inbat or under friendly fire, and such a loss would take almost two to three hundred years to be regained.


    The Achilles¡¯ heel of the Elves was none other than their inability to fight in a war of attrition.


    And this time, if the main forces suffered tremendous casualties, the Elves would have to undergo a very long time of recuperation. It could be said that the northern Elves would go to any length as they had cast all their lots on the victory of this battle!


    In the absence of their main forces, the role of city border patrol was transferred to the rangers who had formed a second ss army, or an adventure squad.


    A Wild Elf ranger, two to three Centaur archers, one to two Elven warriors, were the members of a typical Elven patrol squad. If it was a first ss battle squad, one to two Elven Ancient Trees, natural priests and flying horse knights would be added, and the strength of those units was certainly on another level.


    Even amongst the Elves, there weren¡¯t many Druids who prefer to live on trees,pared to the cities.


    In any ce, as long as there was the presence of intelligent beings, the trees would always be one of the most important resources. Not only they could achieve the basic functionalities of construction and furniture, they were also the basic ingredients of the artwork of the Elves. Furnished with precious forest regions which were unusual in Nortnds, the exported exquisite wood produced by the Elves had earned a lot of foreign currency.


    If the Druids who treated forest protection as the most sacred duty were easily amenable to reasoning, they would not be ssified as terrorists by all the other countries. The Druids were bigoted, the Elves were bigoted too, it was inconceivable how bigoted thebination of both, the Elven Druids was capable of. Their extreme nature protection organisation was the origin and mentor of the other Green Terrorists, all sorts of their secret acts were even graced as the epitome to take an example from.


    The moniker of ¡°Anti-Lumbering Little Bear Alliance¡± would sound adorable, but it had been there for more than ten thousand years. They had been referring to the Druids Terrorists which brought the Elves much headache, they had the esoteric bear transformation arcane and beast training arcane, perhaps any grey bears within the forest could be one of them spying on you, while you hummed a song, chopping wood.


    In the end, the Elves were not only the source of the Druids, but also made up most of the Druids, however, most of the Druids would still have an outward upation which was eptable by the world.


    At this time however, within the temporary campsite, Tasia the Elven ranger who was humming her little tune while preparing dinner, was actually a hidden Druid master, and was also a member of the ¡°Little Bear Alliance¡±, buttely, she had not been fulfilling the sacred duties of ¡°natural protection¡±.


    The feeds that those pets Tasia had domesticated cost money, she had thus put earning money first, sacred duties second.


    To be recruited by the Elven Kingdom to carry out some not so perilous military tasks and fill the spot of Kingdom armies, was indeed a bargain. At this crucial moment, the Elven kingdom would no more be niggardly, the doubled recruitment fee during the war was alluring for countless mercenaries.


    ¡°Ha, this time we are really making money, to think that merely patrolling could make so much money, I hope the war wouldst longer, I still expect the cowards within the city to increase the recruitment fees. Should the war be elevated, the recruitment fee would increase threefold, or even tenfold.¡±


    Tasia spoke something uncharacteristic of the Elves, but the Centaurs amongst her troops had already gotten used to her personality, and on the contrary, they who held a lower stand in the Elven kingdom, would prefer her straightforward and amiable character,pared to the other arrogant Elven aristocracies.


    ¡°Don¡¯t speak such a thing in the city, those self-important Elves would be displeased.¡± Centaur Boll chucked after counting his recent soaring stipends, he was in a good mood.


    ¡°In the past few years, the army on duty was not so rxed, they had to venture into the wild across the mountains in pursuit of the ve hunting groups, it was not an easy task, in the case of running into any sword saint or senior magic automaton instructor sent by the big Human countries, the pursuer might be the prey. Also in that time, quite a number of patrol squads have gone missing.¡±


    Tasiaughed even more happily.


    ¡°Indeed, those ve hunters will bother me no more, they created so much trouble... Pitiful, Princess Suana. How pitiful, how could a good person not end well?¡±


    Recollecting her figure which was as tender as water, even Tasia, who was sick of the Elves, had nursed a grievance.


    ¡°...About that matter, I heard a rumour. Erm, just a rumour.¡±


    Grover, the silent Elven warrior popped out, but his words had caught the attention of therades.


    After a moment of hesitation, Grover finally spoke up.


    ¡°The rumor says, there a few doubtfulness about the kidnapping of Princess Suana, the Elven troops who were supposed to safeguard her was pulled over for military training, and the rangers had started to undergo a closed training, even the Moon ive royal guards was transferred to the border to take care of some disputes, all of these had given the chance for the ve merchants, who were not particrly strong, to capture the Princess Suana...¡±


    Hearing this, members of the small squad had sunk into a peculiar silence, of course, they knew this rumour, for the past few weeks, this topic had been circting around any restaurant or market.


    The implication behind the rumour was quite evident, the demise of Princess Suana was but within the scheme of Elven King and the Council. Rather than saying that Suana was dead in the hand of Humans, in fact, she was offered by the ruthless Elven King as the sacrifice of war.


    ¡°Let¡¯s avoid words without proof, or else we would get into trouble.¡±


    To think that Tasia who had just spoken uninhibitedly, turned out to advise Grover to tread carefully, and just when her words faded, the amiable Elven warrior cracked aughter.


    ¡°No proof? The two legendary warriors in royal guards were suddenly transferred, isn¡¯t that proof? Anrode the ¡°Hand of Kashmir¡± who had an intimate rtionship the princess, even created a havoc in the army because of this, he had allegedly smashed the signboard of the army.¡±


    Grevor was obviously one who supported the Peace-pursuing faction of Princess Suana. They who went through an outrage, in the beginning, had now cooled off to think about the root cause of the death of the princess, and also discovered the few dubious points.


    ¡°ording to what that was spoken by the Humans, the brains behind the political schemes are always those who would benefit the most from these events, and in this event, the Humans had derived no benefit at all, the only one who benefited from this were none other than the War-pursuing faction of the Elves. That man is incredibly ruthless, Princess Suana was his daughter...¡±


    Alright, these words were blunt enough, when it came to rebuking the Elven king directly.


    In an instant, the temperature of the campsite fell drastically, and everyone became silent, after all, it was not good for the civilians to participate in such matters, the spies and scouts were not exclusive to just the Humans. To be imprisoned due to loose tongues was quite a misfortune, and all sufferings could be spoken to no one afterwards.


    Not to mention, Tasia who was actually a Druid, would not be intrigued by this matter. Despite her pity for the princess, she would not go out of her way to fight for her.


    And thus, she was trying hard to stop his words.


    ¡°Ah, there is a Dark Elf!¡±


    Alright, would Dark Elves appear within the Elven Kingdom? That was obviously a bluff but had unexpectedly amused Grevor.


    Heughed while shaking his head.


    ¡°Just don¡¯t talk about it if you don¡¯t want, at here, where would you find dark...¡±


    Before he could finish his words, he had fallen on his face with his eyes rolled back, a dark green dagger was stabbed in his back.


    ¡°...Though I don¡¯t know how you discovered me, since you have, I shall not let you go back alive.¡±


    A figure wearing dark armour emerged from Grevor¡¯s shadow, the dark skin sufficed to exin everything.


    ¡°A Dark Elf is here for real? Perhaps, I should consider being a prophet.¡±


    Just as Tasia was regretting her bad mouth, the Dark Elf scout in front of them who was about Silver rank, again shed his dagger which was coated with paralyzing poison. In her eyes, that was possible to wipe out an ordinary patrol squad, but taking ount of her hidden legendary power, the scout before her was merely a trash with abat power of 5.


    ¡°Aha, take my rolling pin¡±


    The truth went on like the expectation, the Dark Elf who was confidently moving was struck down by Tasia¡¯s rod after just saying a hello. Never would he imagine that an Elven ranger with a crossbow possessed such marvellous skill with the rod, with this paralysing thundershock that came from that wood rod.


    ¡°Littled, you dare to unt yourself in front of me. Guys, let¡¯s move, the situation doesn¡¯t look good, he might have aplices...¡±


    The words left were unnecessary, as a number of shadows surging out from the forest had revealed the truth, again, it had proven the prophetic talent of Tasia.


    ¡°...Tasia, please talk less.¡±


    Now, the party was running at full speed. Considering that she in the past had always spoken ill of the Elves, the centaur running in front of them all was filled with a grudge.


    However, his words were not answered, turning to look back, Tasia had vanished, what remained there were some grey bears which were dozing off.


    And all hisrades had fallen to the ground except the vanished Tasia.


    ¡°Law: Faint!¡±


    Right after hearing a voice, a dark grey light shed and he had lost his consciousness and tumbled down too.


    At this moment, a Dark Elven priest riding on ck-armoured War Scorpio, approached the fallen bodies. Behind her back, there were tens of Elven scouts with bewildered faces.


    ¡°Stupid males, couldn¡¯t even take care of such a weak sacrifice, should the great n of Spider Queen be affected, I will cut you all into pieces and feed the poisonous spiders!¡±


    Before the eyes, it was the Dark Elven priest delivering rebukes, but in far away, there were sounds of bang-bang percussion. Apparently a ranger but having a great identity, Tasia whose adventure experience was vast, knew that it was the marching sounds of a massive horde of Sceptile Riders, which could only be afforded by powerful ns. There was only one possibility of using such an amount of Sceptile Riders.


    ¡°The superior priest of Lorci and Grey Sceptile Riders? Damn it. This is certainly not the hunting troop looking for sacrifices. This, is the entire army of the Dark Elves. To attack the Elven Kingdom at this moment, is Lorci insane?¡±


    Obviously, it wasn¡¯t the time for anyments, just as Tasia, disguised as a grey bear, was about to leave, was spotted by the female priest.


    ¡± Humph, it¡¯s not my first day mimicking an animal, I¡¯m a professional.¡±


    But straightaway, she realised the dark grey light was being concentrated around the Nine Head Whip of the priest, she started to be panicked as if she had discovered something.


    ¡°Forgive me, sister, I will repay you in the future.¡±


    She clenched his teeth and started biting her fallenrade, closing her eyes.


    ¡°Humph, this is exactly how my little Hooi took its food, witness my god-like acting... They should have gone away.¡±


    When she opened her eyes, however, not only had those Dark Elves remained or turned away from her, but on the contrary, they were actually staring at her.


    ¡°Puke, Wahaha, there¡¯s even a vegetarian bear! This Druid is amusing.¡±


    Thedy priest was rolling withughter on the back of the armoured War Scorpio, and now, Tasia just realised she wasn¡¯t eating the right thing, and subsequently, she looked forward and realised that Grevor had awakened and was staring at her in astonishment.


    That was a close call, when Grevor had gotten rid of the effects of the paralyzing poison, dodging the big bloody mouth, Tasia had bitten off a stack of grasses and started swallowing.


    Obviously, she who tried to hide her gustation wouldn¡¯t taste anything, and so she had bit off the grass twice.


    ¡°Humph, I¡¯m just a bear who loves eating grasses, why, is there any rule restricting bears from eating grasses, take my sky flipping bear paw!¡±


    Alright, Tasia who always came up with disgraceful acts at the critical moment had again proven that fact correct. She flew into a shameful rage.

 Chapter 171

    Chapter 171: New Mission


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    ¡°Watch your back, the poison fangs of spiders may fall upon us at any time.¡±


    The Grey Elf rangers who had defected from Lorci greeted each other like so during their farewells, to remind themselves and theirrades, that the incredibly vindictive Lorci would never let go of a single grudge, and at any time, she might send her dangerous fangs to obliterate her traitors.


    Despite the formation of a strong alliance, the Underworld remained as it was, the war between each other is inevitable, but due to a certain reason, the recent power of the Dark Elves who served Lorci was getting weaker.


    Due to trading under an underground contract, Aruhr, the Demon Messenger in the Underworld had disappeared abruptly, and thus, the Underworld cities of his human servants had gradually surrendered themselves to the Sulfur Mountain City. As more and more Underworld cities sought refuge or alliances, Annie¡¯s autarchy status was gaining a firm foothold in the Underworld.


    The three new autarchs, Ein Mezus the Dragon Queen, Annie the Fire Phoenix, and Centaur Anya the Underworld Beastman Sovereign had an intimate rtionship, and their forces had always been banding together, and thus, the influence of Dark Elves had been significantly curbed.


    This was just like in any market trade, if a few megapanies held above 70% of the market shares, they would possess the pricing power and would be capable of monopolizing the market, and the small businesses would easily go bankrupt. As the situation had progressed to this state, when all sorts of treaties for lowering tax on sales had been signed, many business entities would disregard the city of Dark Elves and y their own games, which would evidently lead to a fatal hit on the Dark Elves¡¯ economics.


    In this situation, the Dark Elves would have made their move.


    ¡°You are not selling me anything? I will rob the headquarters, you dare to hinder the market trading? Believe it or not, I will kill your whole family! We are the Dark Elves. Not just charcoal heads with long ears!¡±


    Nobody ever mocked the Dark Elves¡¯ threat. Being one of the few fanatic races that would embrace burry and trickery as their virtues, the Dark Elves had always been easily offended. At times, they might not speak out, but one must still be aware of their deadly grudges and ambushes.


    ¡°The Underworld Oath of Alliance was established for the sake of the world peace, anyone who deres war will be themon enemy of all the ally members, with no exception even for the Underworld autarchs! In fact, the Underworld Autarch should abide by the peace ord even more strictly, or she would have to endure the hostility from the other autarchs.¡±


    If anyone would have shouted this sentence one year ago, everyone would take him as an imbecile. However, when it was spoken by Annie who had won the support from almost seventy percent of the forces, no one dared to take the peace ord as a joke anymore.


    Besides, it was self-evident that which Underworld autarch that sentence was directed at. Meanwhile, some Grey Dwarfs who were serving the Dark Elves due to military pressure, and the Underworld Dwarf City, had realised that the Dark Elves stopped resorting to violence. Without squandering this golden opportunity, they changed their allegiance and escaped the tyranny of the Dark Elves.


    With its economics, politics and militaryprehensively suppressed by the other forces, the influence of the Dark Elves was diminishing. Moreover, there were Dark Elves who had embraced the other Gods and started following new leaders. The authority of Lorci was facing an extremeprehensive challenge.


    To be faced with such circumstances, would Lorci not feel miserable? After the peculiar death of her divine-descendant illegitimate daughter a while ago, before the new heir could be decided, the Dark Elves power was heavily suppressed out of a sudden, and now, even her influence and followers were diminishing. All of these were beyond what she could bear.


    Following the lessening of her vast followers, her divine force was weakened, out of fury, Lorci briskly executed the Mother of several big families. In the end, the silent hostility between the multiple Dark Elf cities topete for the Underworld autarch status grew more intense. Meanwhile, in a series of turbulences, Mother Victoria from the Morsblight City turned out to be amongst the three autarch candidates.


    Aside from that, due to some historical connections, should Lorci eventually opt for coexistence with the other autarchies, Mother Victoria would be the best candidate as The High Priestess of Lorci. And now, this reason makes her a new superstar in the Dark Elf tribe.


    In this situation, my letter has to be delivered to Annie through Elisa, then Annie will deliver it to Victoria by the specialmunication method. In this way, the letter would not be taken lightly, despite the absence of my signature and stamp.


    Lorci the Spider Queen was notorious for her slyness and greed, persuading her to join other camps wouldn¡¯t be a simple task.


    ¡°... In this sacred war, if the Gods of Order are victorious in the end, all existing Gods of Elves will fall. Hence, in preparation for the future, the Elf divine system desperately needs one skilful and experienced God of Elves to lead the crowd, you are undoubtedly the best candidate!¡±


    ¡°Please think twice, if you insist on remaining with Chaos, would you really want to fight alongside those people who once banished you? Do you think you can rise above them single-handed? If they be the leaders, would you be banished again? Not likely, learning from the past experience, they will definitely eradicate any root of misfortune, and seek an excuse to wipe you out.¡±


    I offered Lorci to be the Prime God of the Elves, as the oue of remaining with the Chaos would never be pleasant, whether they win or lose, that was my spection.


    I never told lies, and it was these ¡°truths¡±, which were able to touch the heart of the sceptical Lorci.


    ¡°Besides, I didn¡¯t expect you to raise the g of rebellion, you see, at present, the Elven Gods still side the Order faction, they expect you to attack them, not to mention the bitter grudge between you, letting go of any grudge is certainly not your style.¡±


    ¡°The situation now is in such turmoil, without raising a g or taking a stand, you can always make a second choice, this is free of risk and a better opportunity for vengeance. Should you miss this, even I will feel regretful for you, this is a golden chance that appears once per thousand years, should you miss this, and wait for another thousand years?¡±


    In Dark Elfnguage, betrayal is a virtue, and one could easily picture the characters of Lorci. This proposal allowed her to bend with the wind, and also be the Prime God of the Elves if things seeded, and so it definitely touched her heart.


    To added more authority, at the back of the letter, I had added the mark of the Divine force of Ayer and Lord Wumianzhe.


    These two marks served as the justification by two Gods of Order, not to mention one of them was Ayer the mogul, perhaps in Lorci¡¯s eyes, the authority of this letter was significantly elevated, it had even be the official poaching of the Order camp.


    Alright, this event was in fact, not known by the Gods of Order, and to ease things, Ayer had left me fully in charge of this matter.


    Upon receiving the letter, Lorci gave no response, but this silence had notified me that she was touched. After some hesitation, she appointed Victoria as the highest priest, this had answered me in a different way.


    As Lorci was willing to join the game, the subsequent events wouldn¡¯t be within my control.


    ¡°Humph, everything you do wille back to you sooner orter, the Dark Elves would go even further than the sinsmitted by Elves in Sleuweir, I don¡¯t believe the Elven army will continue to fight the Humans if they were hauled into a civil war. You should go back, and let the dogs bite the dogs.¡±


    Nevertheless, there were still a couple of problems in my hand.


    ¡°Being a ck sheep to this extent, Fismer Caso was indeed an unparalleled genius!¡±


    Not to mention the internal strife owing to the long-term of willful neglect of government affairs, the invasion of the Beastmen¡¯s main force on the Maple city, had prevented Antoin from suffering irresistible tension.


    Seeing the financial report of the royal financial advisor and the military report of the army, I realised that Fismer had led Sleuweir to the verge of bankruptcy.


    ¡°Stop all the new entertainment facilities temporarily, seal the project of the imperial garden, release all ves as the civilians, as for the concubines in the imperial harem...


    ¡°They are all mine!¡± I would surely like to speak such dream words of every man, but to retain a semnce of my humanity in the eyes of the world, alright, not to mention the dazzling silver ring on my finger, I could not help but to shake my head.


    ¡°Dismiss all of them, send those of wealthy families back home, appoint those of poor family as the nurses in hospitals,munity service workers, tailors, etc, let them all earn their own livings. As for those who can¡¯t do anything, appoint them as the dishwashers of restaurants. Alright, give them all a sufficient dismissal fee, but tell them, the imperial can no longer take care of them.¡±


    In fact, these financial and government problems were of little trouble, they were but the awful mess left behind by Fismer, who cared nothing but drinking and heeling around, the real problem was the feudal lords of the country.


    In this feudal era in which sorcery and swords intertwined, due to the harsh living environment and the presence of demonic beasts, most civilians would prefer to stay in the safer, big cities, and the inconvenient traffic system had led tomunication and transportation problems between city-states, the best example was none other than Emperor Hill Height, as it wasmon for the imperial authority to extend only across several city-states.


    Of course, the rights and obligations were always contradictory, it was never a cinch to protect the people from all sorts of threats, natural and unnatural.


    In my own territory, the authority and voices of the aristocracies could be even higher than that of royalty, as this wasn¡¯t something unusual in this era, the Royals had always beenpromising, but to offend the aristocracies to the extent that a few aristocracies had utterly disregarded him, and didn¡¯t have audience with him in court for ten years. There was no one but Fismer Caso. And all of these, was not a trivial matter,


    ¡°Just for a famed beauty, to think that he could send the guards to kidnap the wife of the aristocratic feudal lord, yet leaving behind evidence all the way. So fortunate of this bastard to not yet have been overthrown by any aristocrats.¡±


    Actually, if it wasn¡¯t for the sudden north invasion of the Beastmen, perhaps not even more than two years, there would be a lot of feudal lords conspiring against him.


    From the perspective of this decadent king, he was but devil who escaped from the hell and would be banished back there anytime, and since the wealth of this country would not belong to him forever, would he not seize the time for enjoyment, as for how terrible the consequence would be, he would care less as those would happen after his death, why was he even worried?


    The situation of the current Sleuweir was not just so, the imperials were supposed to stand out and gather all the feudal lords to form an alliance army to engage in this full-scale war, but the Beastmen had taken away that authority from the Humans, as they gave no chance for Fismer to fulfil his kingship.


    But even if Fismer could fulfil his kingship, how many feudal lords would respond to his call of the expedition?


    The main force of the imperial was divided into two, the main force at the border was stuck in the border fortress, meaninglessly, while the royal guard army and reserve army had suffered a big casualty just to confront the siege on Antoin.


    As for the armies of feudal lords, they were mostly pinned down within their own territories due to Beastmen¡¯s strategy of a sudden invasion from all sides. Not only did the nonfeasance of the imperial shatter the loyalty of some loyal retainers, but it also prompted some people to be more cautious, if any feudal lord was willing to assist the imperial, that was equivalent to him seeking demise.


    Fismer had gone too far, and even if I was the temporary king, this throne was still unstable.


    Even in the times when sovereignty was dispersed across the feudal lords, rebellion was still technocratic, the legitimate kingship was always thest reason the civilians could use for toleration, and if it wasn¡¯t Fismer showing his devilish nature when his life was endangered, if it wasn¡¯t because I was a legitimate Mist descendant byw, I couldn¡¯t have taken over Antoin this easily.


    However, this was still a taboo, which wouldn¡¯t satisfy the feudal lords, and this situation was unpleasant for me.


    ¡°Today, taking over the kingship of Sleuweir with such an excuse, aren¡¯t East Mist and Sharal both Mist descendants, they will probably take everything in the end. If the imperial kingship can be deprived of such, what about the rights of us feudal lords?¡±


    Evidently, if this situation persisted, if I was used of being an aspirant, I would definitely be categorized as taboo, if so, my blueprint woulde to nothing.


    Blueprint? Indeed, I had a series of proposals on the Nortnds, but being a king was absolutely not part of it, as that would bring deadly harm to me and arouse caution of a lot of people against me, the losses surely outnumbered than benefits.


    ¡°A Sleuweir royal member was needed, even just as a puppet, would be more legitimate than me, to deputize the kingship.¡±


    But obviously, here came a new problem, Fismer had been very ruthless in order to climb up to the throne, amongst the three siblings, the crown prince of the old king was allegedly murdered by him, while the younger brother and his entire family had encountered ¡°misfortune¡± too, they were caught in a carriage ident.


    And now, I couldn¡¯t even find a candidate for the puppet I needed.


    A sudden news, however, had lifted the spirit of mine.


    ¡°The old king used to have a love child, a daughter named Glina, thirteen years ago before the enthronement of Fismer, she couldn¡¯t be found during the extermination of his family, she might still be alive.


    ¡°Themp of life?¡±


    I suddenly recalled the dagger with two pearls, a Sleuweir royal should possess this arcane.


    ¡°Besides, themp of life which was always dim, has brightened up since three months ago, it seems that the princess has returned to the Nortnds, if she¡¯s back for revenge, most likely she has been concealed her name and identity.¡±


    The words of imperial household had lifted my spirits, hence, I immediately made an announcement, and the patrolling knights had been running across the whole city, shouting themselves hoarse, but still, no one stood up.


    ¡± If she is really in this city, she must be taking precautions against me. Forget about that, just look for her first, any other defining descriptions?¡±


    The old man pondered with a frown for a long time, then started speaking again.


    ¡°She was still a kid that year, what traits could she have, she is just a quiet ordinary girl. Oh right, she has two moles on her chest and one more on her left butt, these could be the traits!¡±


    I covered my face just as I heard these words, I could easily guess what would happen next.


    [ Ding Ding, congrattions master for unlocking the special mission ¨C a spectacr welfare plot, mission target: Look for Princess Glina, don¡¯t hesitate, she is somewhere within your reach. Mission reward: Through her, you are able to take control of this country, serving as part of the restoration of Mist Kingdom, Rnd¡¯s sword can perform the first stage of evolution for a divine weapon. Mission fail: the evolution reward is permanently forfeited, the spectacr welfare plot will be reced with another spectacr but blood-and-ughter plot.


    ¡°Bang!¡± I abruptly punched on the table, indeed what I feared, was what it came. To think of this reward and punishment!


    ¡°Does that mean we need to take off the clothes and dresses of all girls of fifteen to sixteen years old, and check their chests and butts? This is too wicked, this is too vulgar, this is too erot... cough, too immoral.¡±


    The old man shook his head with a wry smile.


    ¡°Considering that she would be pursued by the puppet king, she would disguise herself, whether it¡¯s her age or gender, she had probably made herself as an adorable boy.¡±


    I gaped at him, should I give the order to strip all the young girls and boys, I was afraid I would again step into history ¨C with the name of a Lewd King which even surpassed that of Fismer.


    Finally, after half a day of profound thinking, I activated themunication feature on my ring, making a clean breast of the ins and outs of my matter.


    ¡°...If you decide to give the order of stripping, I will pretend that I do not know you from now onwards. Lewd Lord, why did you even tell me all of these crap, is this your new way of sexual harassment, or did you actually n to frisk me first?¡±


    I shook my head.


    ¡°No, I¡¯m just asking for your help.¡±


    ¡°Help? How could I help you do these things... Oh, I understood, you mean her?¡±


    I nodded my head heavily, if possible, I wouldn¡¯t look for her too.


    ¡°Indeed, we need the help of expert, but this is beyond my capabilities, please help me inform that expert.¡±


    ¡°...I understood, but suddenly think it¡¯s better to ask everyone in the city to strip. If that guy makes his move, perhaps all of you will be hung on the pir of humiliation in the history.¡±


    ¡°You think likewise too? Sadly, we have no other choice, I made up my mind... help me, help me contact that man, contact Beifeng! We need the assistance of him, and hisrades! In this situation, only a true gentleman can help us!¡± (to be continued...)

 Chapter 172

    Chapter 172: Reinforcements


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    ¡°Name?¡±


    ¡°Albert.Lain.¡±


    ¡°Job?¡±


    ¡°Frencer knight, unaffiliated, but I¡¯ve been hanging out with the Gentlemen Alliance recently. Everyone there treats me kindly, and they call me the Flower-dicing Swordsman of the Three Swordsmen.¡±


    I was a bit shocked at the rather open and free-spirited ck-haired knight in front of me. I had already prepared myself for any kind of wretched ¡°expert¡± that the Gentlemen alliance would send me after I contacted them, but what was with this extroverted handsome guy?


    He had a squarish face that gave off a heroic spirit. His face was also clean and clear with a hook-shaped nose and bushy eyebrows. His ck-colored knight attire gave him an aura of heroic coolness, while his long hair that reached his shoulders didn¡¯t seem feminine at all. I had the mysterious urge to punch in his handsome face, cough cough, I don¡¯t have any personal grievances with him though.


    Wasn¡¯t he simply the ssic enemy of all men ¨C a mega handsome guy? Why was he a member of the Gentlemen Alliance?


    ¡°...Do you know what you¡¯re here for? Was there a mistake with the orders?¡±


    Albert smiled wryly as he shook his head.


    ¡°There was no mistake with your message. The moment your message reached us, all mypanions came looking for me first, as they believed I was the most suited for the job.¡±


    I was even more shocked upon hearing this. Just the maid outside the door who kept peeping in was evidence enough that this mega handsome guy wouldn¡¯tck women. Rather than him needing to chase after women, it was far more likely that women would chase after him.


    ¡°...It¡¯s a long story, talking about the distant past.¡±


    Albert lowered his head in a manner that indicated it was humiliating for him to recall it.


    ¡°It¡¯s all due to a mistake I made when I was young, back when I was still a child, I had a younger sister, she was my angel, my everything...¡±


    Albert¡¯s story was amon one in this day and age. Both his parents had died young, so he supported his family by himself, with his only living rtive, his younger sister, being both his angel and his mental support. But when she was three years old, she was kidnapped by human traffickers.


    ¡°And so, I singlehandedly walked the continent in search of her, and I can¡¯t remember my childhood memories anymore. The only special mark on her body is that she has a red birthmark on her waist. That¡¯s why I practiced a highly refined sword style that especially aims for people¡¯s clothing but won¡¯t harm their skin, which is why I¡¯m also known as the Clothes-slicing Swordsman of the Three Swordsmen.¡±


    Theplex expression on his face showed how pained he was by all this.


    I instantly nodded while expressing my sympathy. He was clearly an ordinary person who was misunderstood as a pervert, something I empathized withpletely.


    ¡°You¡¯ve had it rough. Rx, after you¡¯re done with my affairs, I¡¯ll use my power to help you find your younger sister.¡±


    ¡°Really? Thanks so much then, I really want to hurry up and carry out your mission now, please give me the specifics, and I¡¯ll begin immediately!¡±


    Albert was so excited that he stood up immediately and bowed to me. I was also joyed, since this was much better than I expected. There was actually someone normal in the Gentlemen Alliance? It seemed like that Gentlemen Aura wasn¡¯t too difficult to deal with, so I was filled with anticipation at the uing magnificent future.


    ¡°Hm, she¡¯s probably about 14 to 18 years old today, with blonde hair... no, hair color can be changed with dye, so don¡¯t let any girls of this age group slip under your radar, and since she might be disguised as a boy, don¡¯t let any cute boys past either!¡±


    ¡°My lord, rest assured, I¡¯m an expert! Not a single female can escape my eyes or my sword!¡±


    His rapier sliced an arc through midair with the killing intent in his eyes appearing and disappearing instantly. This moment, I discovered that the person in front of me was actually a top-level fighter halfway to a legend¡¯s level.


    I immediately became overjoyed now, was I actually getting lucky? Not only was he a normal person who had morals andmon sense, he was also a top-level fighter?


    ¡°So reliable!! Too reliable! ...¡±


    ¡°Brother, I bought a Beast Fang sword pommel for you, you¡¯ll definitely love it!¡±


    A lively girl suddenly opened the door and jumped inside.


    Wait, what did she call him? Brother? Since she obviously wasn¡¯t addressing me, she could only be calling out to Albert, but wasn¡¯t his younger sister still missing?


    Right then and there, my smile froze solid. Thanks to my many years of experience in being fooled, I was already beginning to detect what would happen after.


    ¡°Lina? Why are you here? Weren¡¯t you supposed to be at the mercenary headquarters?¡±


    Albert obviously seemed surprised to see the ponytailed girl here.


    ¡°Big brother Beifeng told me to follow you here, since he said he didn¡¯t know what you would get up to if I wasn¡¯t around. He¡¯s such a good person, he was worried that Brother wouldn¡¯t be able to finish the mission, so he had manypanionse over together to help. Brother, what¡¯s this really important mission? That even you had toe here for.¡±


    Ok, why was I fooling myself, I should have guessed long ago that the Gentlemen Alliance wouldn¡¯t have a single normal person, but he actually managed to fool me by acting all sincere, which meant he was skilled in his own way.


    ¡°Brat, how brave of you...¡±


    ¡°No, no, Milord, listen to me exin, everything I just said was the truth! I really was searching for my sister all this time, which was why I received my nickname.¡±


    Suddenly, the ck-haired girl interrupted him angrily.


    ¡°Brother! Did you slice off some girl¡¯s clothes again!? There¡¯s already so many girls waiting for you at home, yet you¡¯re still doing such things. Forget about the reason why you began doing such things; even though you found me three years ago already, you¡¯re still using the excuse about my story to pick up girls, so how am I supposed to face everyone? I¡¯m the younger sister of the Clothes-slicing yboy? That¡¯s so humiliating, how am I supposed to get married?¡±


    yboy? Many girls waiting at home? Pick up girls? Every term I heard caused my eyebrows to twitch, but as a veteran of the FFF group, I knew what I should do.


    ¡°Youngdy, I¡¯m currently having a serious discussion with your brother, so would you mind waiting outside for us? Oh right, please close the door for us as well.¡±


    That girl nodded energetically as she seemed to understand I was an important personage.


    ¡°Okay, Brother, I¡¯ll be waiting outside for you.¡±


    What a nice sister she was, so understanding. Compared to mypletelywless younger brother, as well as all those rebellious kids at home, I was almost about to cry! Thinking about how I¡¯ve been single for more than three hundred years already, while he had a harem when he was only in his twenties, plus the fact that he was still hunting for more girls to add to his harem, it truly made me want to cry.


    ¡°My finger is currently burning up with power, you winner in life that deserves to die, harem-collecting man, taste my Personality Fixing Heaven Crushing Fist! Take this!¡±


    ¡°Milord, listen to me exin! It definitely isn¡¯t what you think it is!¡±


    Exin? Yes, of course I¡¯d listen to him, but only after an enjoyable beating did I finally stop hitting him and allow him to exin.


    ¡°Pfft, your greed knows no bounds, scum!¡±


    ¡°Wahh, it¡¯s not like that, I don¡¯t want to either, truly.¡±


    It seemed that my condescension touched a weak spot in him, and he actually started crying. Such a manly-seeming young fellow began crying like he was still a child.


    Well, his painful sobs sounded real this time, so I temporarily held back my desire to rub salt into his wounds.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to either, it¡¯s just that I got so used to shredding the clothes of women in that age group that I¡¯ll keep doing it instinctually. And, all I¡¯m doing is looking at their waists for birthmarks, why do I have to take responsibility for all of them? Harem? Have you seen harem members with hippopotamus bodies and monkey faces? All those that want me to take responsibility have such appearances. Even the few good-looking girls that wanted to be with me were chased away by them.¡±


    ¡°How luxurious your worries are; are you bragging to someone who¡¯s been eternally single (and a virgin)?¡±


    ¡°No, no, milord, you don¡¯t know at all, the moment I leave, they¡¯ll be fighting with each other either openly or secretly, it¡¯s so chaotic, they¡¯ll use any underhanded plots or techniques. Last month, I was poisoned by my food five times in a row, I kept finding poisonous needles in my shoes, and glue all the time in my clothes, I can¡¯t take it anymore! Women are so scary! I¡¯m already at the point where I begin shivering every time I see a woman! If I think about them, it scares me out of my mind!¡±


    He actually did begin shivering as he said so with his teeth chattering as if he had gotten rabies. Judging by his sudden drop in body temperature and pale white face, he was actually telling the truth.


    ¡°You have androphobia? You¡¯re a harem character with androphobia? That sounds like a clich¨¦ manga setting.¡±


    Fine then, since Albert was currently at the extent of foaming at his mouth, I finally had some sympathy for the young brat.


    ¡°Two peoplee here and help to call for a priest.¡±


    But the moment I opened the door, some familiar faces came in.


    ¡°Boss, Brother Beifeng asked us toe over and help out.¡±


    Those that entered were all familiar faces from the Gentlemen Alliance: Beyar, Jinya, Casio, and... wait, why was Xueti here as well, just casuallying over here, you¡¯re supposed to be the highest-level priest.


    ¡°Lily is here.¡±


    The question I showed in my eyes received the answer I was waiting for. I understood immediately. With the Undead¡¯s announcement and as a member of the Blood Tribe, of course Lily could be more active in the East Mist Communal Country. And if Lily who was so skilled at internal logistics took over all the work, this dumb ox would indeed be rather idle and have the free time to just do things as he pleased.


    ¡°That guy Beifeng was actually being quite considerate, where is he? Did he note?¡±


    ¡°No, he came.¡±


    Beyar nodded but his smile was rather vulgar as he made a gesture with his hands that any man would understand.


    ¡°He saw a huge lion¡¯s head, so he went off first by himself, and asked us to report in to you.¡±


    I instantly understood, but this wasn¡¯t exactly a good thing!


    ¡°A huge lion¡¯s head? What the hell, that guy¡¯s trying to kill himself!¡±


    Simultaneously, a sky-splitting roar came from outside the window.


    ¡°Unbelievable! There¡¯s actually such a twisted soul in this world! And it even dares to set its sights on me, take my soul-correcting kick!¡±


    Fine, that person outside the window on the clouds happened to be the vice-captain of a certain Gentlemen Alliance. From a certain angle, he really was unbeatable, as that lion¡¯s head was more than two thousand years old, and even I wouldn¡¯t dare to provoke it.


    ¡°Ah, it¡¯s big bro.¡±


    Apart from Casio¡¯s sounds of panicking, everyone else in the room seemed calm about it all.


    ¡°Rx, the good die young while cmities can live for thousands of years, so it¡¯s quite a simple matter for Beifeng to live for millions of years.¡±


    Everyone nodded at this remark.


    ¡°I always feel like even if the entire world was destroyed, he¡¯d still be fine.¡±


    The uniquely low and thick voice belonging to that man who descended from the sky right after only proved the truth of that statement.


    ¡°Ah, I almost died... Don¡¯t be embarrassed, let¡¯s chat a bit...¡±


    ¡ª¡ª


    ¡°My sharp sword can slice through anything!¡±


    With cool words and a shining trail through the air, the invisible wind emanating from his sword turned into a cold wind that passed by.


    ¡°ng!¡±


    As the handsome swordsman stood up straight with a steely face and returned his longsword to its scabbard, that¡¯s when the swishing sounds of clothes ripping and falling to the ground finally happened.


    ¡°Ahhh, there¡¯s a pervert!¡±


    This was the moment with that noble daughter finally discovered that her clothes werepletely shredded, while Albert merely scanned her over quickly but only chuckled coldly before continuing onwards by herself.


    ¡°Hmph, I cut something useless again!¡±


    Right then and there, that girl went into a crying fit at the iprehensible act that had just urred, and her guards hadn¡¯t even had a chance to take action yet.


    Another tall figure suddenly appeared beside the girl as he covered her with his cape.


    ¡°...We¡¯re currently in the midst of pursuing the criminal who intentionally shreds girls¡¯ clothes, but we don¡¯t know where he¡¯s escaped to.¡±


    From a certain viewpoint, it could be said that Clint who was wearing heavy armor indeed seemed rather dignified, and as for him being the one who gets to act like a good individual, it¡¯s doubtlessly because he¡¯s also a human, so he wouldn¡¯t attract too much attention.


    ¡°Progress is too slow.¡±


    On the tform to the side, I was unsatisfied with our current rate of progress. This morning we¡¯ve only managed to check 40-ish girls, how long would it take to finish at this rate?


    ¡°...This is already pretty quick. Fortunately for us, the Lantern of Life¡¯s reaction narrowed down our targets for us, we only need to check those that recently returned to the Nortnds in the past three or four months, otherwise this really would take forever.¡±


    The Lantern of Life¡¯s functions were limited. It discovered a reaction a bit over three months ago, which only told us that Princess Glina returned to the Nortnds at that time, but as for her specific location? If it was capable of following even her specific location, how would the royalty ever have any privacy?


    Its area was so wide, if only it was more exact, Kelly would have discovered me much sooner as well, at the very most it was only evidence whether or not a royalty member was authentic as well as still living.


    ¡°Milord, how about making everyone in this city naked?¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s winter right now, people will freeze to death, besides, how will we possibly deal with the aftermath?¡±


    I felt helpless about dealing with Albert who was currently wielding his sword eagerly at a distance from me. Why was this androphobic swordsman so enchanted with clothes-slicing swordsmanship?


    ¡°It must be hard for him, since he has androphobia.¡±


    ¡°Heeheehee, hahaha.¡±


    Just as I stated that, everyone around me started guffawing as if I had said something wrong.


    ¡°Is his androphobia just an act as well? This brat¡¯s acting skills are really that amazing?¡±


    ¡°No, he¡¯s not acting about this, but, take a look, the way his expression changes after slicing some girl¡¯s clothes.¡±


    I focused on Albert, who sheathed his sword as he stated he sliced something useless again, but there seemed to be a sliver of joy in his mouth, and his expression was filled with delight, as if he was enjoying the process.


    ¡°He¡¯s... enjoying this?¡±


    ¡°Yes, he does fear women to the point of death, and any woman touching him will cause him to scream, but precisely because of this, he especially enjoys the screams of women, which is why he¡¯s unable to stop himself from acting as the ¡®Clothes-slicing Demon,¡¯ doubtlessly because this is the greatest joy in his life.¡±


    ¡°Sigh, for such a young man to turn out like this, with his sword techniques, what a pity.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not quite so, Adam said before that Albert¡¯s typical sword techniques are only ordinary, only when Albert¡¯s in the midst of slicing clothes will he be at the level approaching that of a Sword Saint¡¯s.¡±


    I was momentarily stunned at hearing this. Sword Saints are extremely rare, and require both incredible talent and an extended period of time to polish their skills. They definitely have the ability to take on intense challenges.


    But analyzing things more closely, I found that this didn¡¯t seem right.


    ¡°After his unsheathing slice, he¡¯ll slice 100 times before returning his sword to scabbard, normally he¡¯ll emit zero killing intent, but when he unsheathes his sword, his sword energy is so imposing that it can kill people formlessly, how is this approaching that of a Sword Saint¡¯s level, he¡¯s clearly already at a Sword Saint¡¯s level, this guy is actually a Sword Saint!?¡±


    ¡°No, he can only reach that level when his target is a woman that he¡¯s slicing the clothes off of, which is why Adam said he¡¯s only approaching the level of a Sword Saint.¡±


    ¡°As expected, there¡¯s not a single normal person in the Gentlemen Alliance. Are the other two members of the Three Swordsmen simr to him?¡±


    ¡°Three Swordsmen? That¡¯s what they call themselves, everyone calls them the Three Vulgar Swordsmen.¡±


    I shook my head while feeling rather helpless, but at this moment, someone spoke up from behind me.


    ¡°I found the Princess¡¯s milkmaid from her younger days, there¡¯s new information!¡±

 Chapter 173

    Chapter 173: The Weight of a Sword


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    [Rnd Sacred Sword: with this regal sword having to bear more and more weight, it is now closer to evolving and bing a true God Equipment. When it awakens, you shall receive your first true God Equipment.]


    [Kingdom-ss Treasure¡¯s Effect: As long as the East Mist Communal Country exists, this sword shall be indestructible. If the country perishes, this sword shall self-destruct. Feel free to exchange blows with any weapons using this sword, as even Ayer¡¯s Reaper¡¯s Scythe will fail to leave even a single scratch on this sword.]


    [System Reminder: For Master who¡¯s in dire straits currently and bing more and more unseemly every day, this Sacred Sword is crying out... it¡¯s already been crying. I said it many times already, it¡¯s a Sacred Sword, not a barbeque rack! Just try seeing what happens if you take advantage of its indestructibility to bake some sweet potatoes one more time! Also, as for cooking food, you should use a kitchen knife, don¡¯t you know how to value and respect such Sacred Equipment? No matter what, it¡¯s an artifact left behind by your grandfather¡¯s generation.]


    The Legendary Quest regarding the Revival of Mist that descended upon the Rnd Sacred Sword has been with me for quite a while, but ever since I entered the nortnds, the Sacred Sword has entered an abnormal hibernation period.


    Its original extravagant to the point of opulence characteristics hadpletely disappeared, and the only exnation about it remaining was that mysterious Kingdom-ss Treasure¡¯s Effect. ording to the system, the Sacred Sword seemed to currently be storing energy in order to truly transform into a God Equipment.


    Perhaps when I finished the Revival of Mist quest, this Sacred Sword would truly awaken as a God Equipment. Well, as for the system¡¯sments on how I had used the sword as a barbeque rack and to bake sweet potatoes, I was merely making the best use of its newfound trait.


    Now that it was indestructible, it didn¡¯t even require maintenance anymore. Not even dust would adhere to it, for it to be so handy, of course I would try finding some extra uses for it.


    Yep, it was quite normal for me to do so, I definitely respected the sword, at the very least, I didn¡¯t use it to hang clothes on.


    [Additional System Reminder: You did do so, you bastard! The only problem was that any clothes you hung on it were automatically sliced in half by its keen edge.]


    Okay, let us ignore this system that¡¯s getting more annoying these days, and return to the main topic.


    ¡°God Equipment? I¡¯ve actually never used God Equipment before, and I don¡¯t know just how strong they are.¡±


    It seemed inurate, but I was telling the truth.


    Just like the name, God Equipment meant equipment that was godly in power, typical with a god¡¯s soul or power within, so they would definitely be rare and precious. I came into contact with some false God Equipment before that merely had the title, but it was certain that they still couldn¡¯t match up to true God Equipment.


    As for the original form of my Sacred Sword, it only began its transformation into God Equipment after I ascended to godhood and received power from the Law Gods, it still needed time in order to umte the divine power injected by real gods in order to truly transform, but unfortunately, I don¡¯t have any more chances to do that currently, and as for that other so-called God Equipment ¨C the Scepter of Eternal Night, yep, everyone knows about what that is already.


    In this aspect, I was quite envious of Harloys. She personally came into contact with God Equipment before, and understood just how strong they were. I also asked her in the past just how much of a difference my items were from true God Equipment.


    ¡°Below True Gods are the SemiGods, and you know the difference between them as well. Beneath God Equipment are those with partial God powers known as SemiGod Equipment, but those random assortments of abilities SemiGod Equipment possess aren¡¯t actually all that different from Legendary or Epic Equipment, apart from the number of abilities. God Equipment however is on apletely different scale; perhaps they might not have as many abilities as SemiGod Equipment, and some might even have zero attack power, but they¡¯ll definitely have various unique abilities that are the overwhelmingly best in their fields, at the top of their ss.¡±


    After I came into contact with the Ancient Sea God¡¯s Bottle, I was faintly able to detect the true uniqueness of God Equipment. Even if it was an insignificant-seeming ability like returning a water source to its original form, even if the God Equipment itself waspletely tattered, even against a True God¡¯s curse, it was still able to use its ability as normal.


    I¡¯ll skip over the obvious ones such as how Fire Gods¡¯ Equipment would have something to do with mes, or how War Gods¡¯ Equipment would have enormous effects in battle. These days, I¡¯ve been considering just how the Rnd Sacred Sword would end up when it finished its evolution.


    Based off of my understanding of the system, due to the limitations of karma, it never gave me any rewards that materialized out of thin air, instead, it would give me what I would have received anyways. Its biggest use was to skip over the needlessly detailed orplex parts for me, and use already twisted karma to twist karma even further, rather than creating miracles out of nothing.


    The system¡¯s rewards almost always had a rtion to the cause and effect as well as karma of the mission as well, for instance, that one Epic Quest rewarding me in the end with points based on my influence to ¡°history,¡± and when I defeated the Hydra in the Epic Challenge, I was also rewarded with something from the Hydra itself.


    That¡¯s why I deduced that since this quest was for me to revive the Mist Kingdom, and the reward was the Rnd Sacred Sword¡¯s evolution to a God Equipment, and also taking into consideration that this Sacred Sword was the representation of the Royal Seal of the Mist, then the final strength of this Sacred Sword most likely depended on how well Ipleted the quest to revive the Mist Kingdom.


    The higher-quality the end result, the stronger that the newborn Mist Kingdom was, the stronger that the Rnd Sacred Sword would be.


    And with many events simultaneously developing, I also constantly adjusted my ns. With ourbined efforts, a brand-new Mist Kingdom was gradually beginning to form.


    Perhaps it was still currently rather fresh and tender, but it was currently growing through battle. Perhaps it was currently still weak and small, and in the midst of danger, but when it finally matured as the king among wolves in the north, it would definitely shock the world.


    Just as how I would have definitely regretted it if I only fulfilled the most basic requirement of the Epic Quest, I had no intention this time of merely stopping at fulfilling the basic requirement this time either.


    ¡°A country¡¯s power will always be limited, perhaps an alliance with the same goal will be more suited for pursuing my long-cherished desire.¡±


    The East Mist Alliance was the name I secretly wanted to call it. With the East Mist Communal Country at its heart, plus the Sleuweir Kingdom, the Shawen Free States, the Barbarian tribes, and so on, they would worship the Law Gods as their religion, and have ¡°non-aggression¡± as their basic t, they shalle to each other¡¯s defenses and fight strong enemies while united, and gradually form into a simultaneously loose yet tight alliance through difficult holy battles.


    This Alliance would perhaps be the foundational block for me to overturn everything.


    In the past, I believed that I was sufficient by myself to take care of everything, and that friends andpanions would only make me soft and show weaknesses, but numerous defeats woke me up to reality.


    Personal strength was meaningless in front of the waves of history, which was why this time I had trustworthypanions and friends at my side, whose strengths and intelligence were more than enough to make up for what Icked, and of course, there were also my allies in the heavens.


    In the past, I believed that battle would wipe out battle, but endless amounts of death and screaming woke me up to cruel reality again ¨C any battle without benevolence, justice, and limitations would only bring death and destruction.


    Warriors without beliefs would be nothing more than butchers sooner orter, which was why this time, I decided to use the variousplex teachings of the Law Gods in order to limit our actions. Even if it seemed rather inconvenient due to having to adhere to so many rules, it was actually a path we must take in order to receive even more support down the road, as well as a yoke upon ourselves for us to not fall to limitless insanity.


    In the past, I believed that a terrifying autocratic government was the sharpest sword avable to me, but reality proved that this was nothing more than a shortcut to craziness.


    Allies that fought for the same purpose would give you unexpected assistance, while subordinates that merely followed your orders would only think about how to rece you and take over your position. That¡¯s why I no longer considered making an authoritarian Empire, a loose alliance would be sufficient, while the young leaders and kings could lead their own countries by themselves as the vanguard, and fight together under the same banner, with me silently and secretly making the ns behind the scenes, taking hidden actions, and doing the dirty work.


    ¡°Love and justice? Of course not, that wouldn¡¯t fool anyone in this generation, but based on consideration and logical deduction, while something to believe in and a mutual goal to strive for seem rather empty, it¡¯s actually quite important. Therger the gathered forces, the greater the chances to overturn the twisted fate, which was why I chose to do this.¡±


    Reality proved that my choice was correct. The Gentlemen Alliance, the Underground powers, the Church of Law, the East Mist Communal Country and all the other powers, while they definitely had many connections with my previous self, but technically speaking, they didn¡¯t have formal subordinate connections to me, but not only did they still follow my orders, even if I wasn¡¯t present, they would still be able to operate on their own, and support and help each other, creating a cooperative power that wasn¡¯t ignorable.


    ¡°In order to deal with the future, I have limitless expectations for our allies and their support, even if they only hope to be carried by us, even if they want to personally benefit, that¡¯s eptable as well.¡±


    By now, it was obvious that this Epic Quest recognized the New Mist Alliance that I created, and the Rnd Sacred Sword¡¯s hibernation and newfound indestructability were doubtless evidence that it received enough power from the gradual growth of the newborn Mist Kingdom.


    But the system suddenly gave me a quest to find a specific person, which would give me the reward of evolving the Rnd Sacred Sword even earlier. Perhaps this meant that it was almost time to use this sword, or in other words, there was a difficult obstacle ahead of me that I would be unable to surpass without using the Sacred Sword. This was definitely terrible news.


    But the next piece of information I received sunk me into confusion as I faintly felt like that damned system had gotten me good yet again.


    ¡°Glina.Caso, she vanished several years ago, and she was supposedlyst seen near the entrance to the Underground cities...¡±


    [She¡¯s right by your side...] I recalled the system¡¯s notification for me, causing me to think of a certain person, who just happened to fulfill the requirement of having returned to the Nortnds approximately three months ago.


    ¡°Clint, take off your armor! Immediately! Damn it, you dare to run!? Catch him for me!¡±


    Nobody expected that even if the Holy Battle was to involve even the gods, that the first God Battle in this Holy Battle woulde so quickly and ferociously. Not only that, it was even due to an internal conflict between what should have been the neutral Elves.


    Until the ck magical mist enchanted by the Spider Queen dissipated, the sun would no longer be able to act as a threat anymore to the Dark Elves.


    And under the protection of various guardian gods, the Elf Forest under this ck mist was now a chaotic battlefield, with Elves and Dark Elves fighting everywhere.


    ¡°Impossible, how did they possibly pass by the border guards? Wasn¡¯t the underground tunnel being guarded?¡±


    ¡°They didn¡¯te through that tunnel, they came through the imperial mausoleum, there must be a new tunnel inside there!¡±


    There was no way that the Elf Kingdom wouldn¡¯t be on guard against its mortal enemy, having every entranceway heavily fortified was already a longstanding habit of all the Elf countries. But this time, the Dark Elves¡¯ attack was too sudeen.


    The Tassel Elf Kingdom¡¯s imperial mausoleum¡¯s underground tunnels weren¡¯t a natural urrence, they were the secret escape tunnels as ast resort for the royal family, an artificially constructed passageway that could help them escape to the main portion of the Underground world.


    From a certain perspective, Annie and Anya were favored by fortune, not only did they manage to reach that critical intersection when they were lost, even more luckily for them, they met Suana who had escaped into the tunnels in order to protect herself, which was how they coincidentally managed to learn about this shortcut reaching to the Tassel Elf Kingdom.


    When Annie and her army learned about this passageway, they didn¡¯t think too much about it, they were merely pleased to learn that there was a shortcut avable for them to take, but when her army camped nearby this passageway, the secret naturally spread through certain channels to Roshe, causing thispletely unexpected ambush.


    Perhaps it was the Elves¡¯ fate to meet with such a disaster. If you looked at it from a certain way, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that certain people forced Suana to her death, the Banshee would never have met up with the Underground Lord, nor would Roshe ever have learned about this secret passageway, so this ambush wouldn¡¯t have happened. Perhaps this was all fated by karma.


    The guards at the imperial mausoleum were novices that had never experiencedbat before. The guards were in the midst of yawning andining about how it wasn¡¯t time for the next shift to take over; they never anticipated that the shadows behind them had begun to twist in form as life-rending green daggers stabbed towards their backs.


    All the imperial mausoleum guards were ughtered in just a few minutes by the Dark Elves¡¯ elite scout forces without even a chance to raise the rm. When the main Dark Elf forces poured out from the underground tunnel, even they didn¡¯t expect just how loose the elves¡¯ defenses were in this area, and how easy it was for them to go through this path.


    Of course, Dark Elves didn¡¯t care one whit about the concept known as politeness. After a brief momentary period of shock, they obviously took advantage of the surprising situation and proactiveness to make their ambush as brutal as possible.


    The Dark Elves used the highly mobile Lizard Cavalry as their vanguard. Perhaps this high-tier troop type wouldn¡¯t have been as useful in a direct confrontation on the battlefield, but the Lizard Cavalry were outstanding in chaotic battles. While the Elves were busy defending against the Dark Elf Knights¡¯ poisonous arrows and long spears, the Gray Lizards¡¯ bites and ws were actually even deadlier.


    In small contained battlefields, Lizard Cavalry became a nightmare for the Elves thatcked closebat capabilities. Even against strong mages, they were able to use extraordinarily strong leaping abilities and flexibility to pass over the mages¡¯ cannon fodder summoned creatures and tear the mages to pieces.


    With these cold-blooded Dark Elf Knights¡¯ and Lizard Cavalries¡¯ arrival, the Elves that weren¡¯t prepared suffered enormous losses. Many viges and cities were instantly lost, and the cold-blooded knights that had satisfied their bloodlust hadn¡¯t even had time to dedicate their sacrifices to the Spider Queen when the anxious Priest Roshe wielded her Hydra Whip to indicate the next town for them to attack.


    Due to the ambush, those small scout squads in the backlines suffered losses of over 90%. For someone like Tasia to have lived and even counterattacked was something that was less than 1%, which made the other Elves even suspect that she turned traitor.


    Just like the Elf Army freely roaming around the Sleuweir Kingdom previously, the Dark Elves¡¯ army entered the Elf Kingdom and opened holes in its defenses everywhere, and the Tassel Kingdom that didn¡¯t have most of its soldiers sunk into a huge disadvantage of only being to passively react.


    If this was an ordinary war, perhaps the Tassel Kingdom wouldn¡¯t even survive until its main forces returned, but this was the prelude to the Holy Battle involving the personal benefits of True Gods on both sides. While the order forbidding True Gods from directly intervening in lower species¡¯ wars still had some effect, there were still actions taken that were in the gray areas and barely touching upon the boundaries of that rule.


    ¡°My children, awaken.¡±


    When nature¡¯s low roar of anger emerged together with High Priest Prescott¡¯s angry shouting, ancient trees that were thousands or even tens of thousands years old transformed into tall Dendroid Warriors, thebat situation began tilting once more.


    ¡°Forest Guardian rdin! Do you really think that attempting to hide behind a SemiGod descendant ying at using Gods¡¯ powers, I wouldn¡¯t be able to detect the scent of your rotten wood God Power? Since you were the ones to break the rules first, then you won¡¯t be able toin about me! Descend, my children! Tear down these rotten branches, and bring me the head of that High Priest descended from SemiGods.¡±


    Just as the Elf Warriors were getting all excited over the Dendroid Warriors joining their side, the Spider Queen¡¯s screeching threw them into the depths of despair again. Before nature¡¯s angry roars even stopped echoing on the battlefield, arge portal leading from the lower dimension suddenly appeared.


    Dozens of huge ck spiders that were more than ten meters tall crawled out of the portal, and easily tore through the ancient Dendroids¡¯ branches with their spider limbs that were thicker than steel pirs. Even the strongest warriors took deep breaths of worry at this scene.


    And so, while the ordinary Elves were fighting amongst themselves, the far more powerful Gods began their conflict as well.

 Chapter 174

    Chapter 174: Queen Glina


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    From the very start, my search had been doomed to failure. This was because I had misconceptions about my target¡¯s outer appearance and characteristics.


    Glina.Caso, descendant of the Mist, and the future Queen of Sleuweir. She was currently fifteen years old, but if you went by her physical appearance, she didn¡¯t seem that old at all.


    She was about 1.4 meters tall, and her short golden hair wasbed into a simple bobbed haircut. Her skinny limbs weren¡¯t suitable for wielding swords or other weapons at all. From a first impression, it was easy to think that she was still only ten years old.


    As for why her real age and perceived age were so different? It was due to that dark yellow demonic pupil under her right eyepatch. Thirteen years ago, when she had almost reached the point of death thanks to her enemies¡¯ pursuit, the demonic blood in her awoke. Even though it saved her, she also became no longerpletely human from that point on. The most obvious result of this was the fact that her rate of growth ended up slowing down.


    Unlike Fimor.Caso who was unable to resist the bloodline, Glina who lived in the Underground World saw many fallen demonic descendants, so naturally she knew that there were no free lunches in this world. Using demonic power usually cost one¡¯s soul as the price, so before such a tragedy befell her, she resolved herself to seal away her own demonic power.


    ¡°Magical Seal Armor Clint #1.¡±


    That was the name of the magical armor mechanism that ¡°Clint¡± never took off. While it appeared like a shabby piece of heavy armor on the outside, it was actually an exquisitely created magical mechanism shaped like a piece of armor, and the real Glina had always been hiding inside this armor while controlling the mechanism.


    Not only was the armor a weapon, it even had various anti-magic items and chains inside that chained her up quite tightly. Not only was it impossible for her demonic powers to leak outside, even moving her body was extremely difficult. She had used both physical and magical seals on herself in order topletely suppress her own demonic powers.


    And since she had decided to seal away her powers, Glina who was an expert engineer gave up on her past closebat fighting style, and chose instead to use explosives, gunpowder, and Dwarven Firearms as her main weapons, causing the rise of the famously terrifying Clint the Explosive Demon.


    As for her abnormally high sense of caution, not only was it a result of living in an environment of endless battles, even more of it came from her uncle¡¯s assassins and spies sent out to find her.


    Even now she was unable topletely ept that the person she trusted the most was actually someone out to assassinate her, and after she matured, the bother of her demonic power caused her to go into self-imposed exile.


    This girl used her own method to put up a barrier between her heart and the world, and hid her soft real body within a rotten metal can. She used small openings and sensors in ce of her eyes and ears; she used cold steel in ce of the warmth of human contact. Perhaps she was still interacting with humans, but her soul was in self-imposed exile.


    ¡°As long as I don¡¯t have any feelings for others, I won¡¯t be hurt. As long as I don¡¯t trust anyone, I won¡¯t be betrayed. I¡¯ve had enough already.¡±


    I¡¯m not the type toment on other people¡¯s way of life, but this eyepatch-wearing girl had clearly been through a lot.


    Even now, looking at the girl who remained expressionless and silent despite being tied up so tightly, I didn¡¯t even know how to deal with her.


    ¡°Since you came back here together with me, you must have had your own ns, don¡¯t you n on saying anything? Even though you knew that we were searching for you, why didn¡¯t youe out and tell us?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not Glina...¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Clint, not Glina.¡±


    Her single eye was filled with self-belief as she said so. She truly believed in this.


    ¡°...You reject your royal heritage so much? Do you feel that people will treat you differently due to your identity?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re already behaving differently.¡±


    Turning around, I saw that the gentlemen behind me had their eyes popping out as they were all staring at her. The fact that Clint was actually a girl probably shocked the members of the Gentlemen Alliance she hung out with more than anyone else.


    ¡°Impossible, how could Clint be a little girl! Just yesterday we talked about so many male topics, he said he was one of the staunchest members of the blonde beautiful girls faction! How could he possibly be a t-chested loli!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, we even showered together with no problems... By the way, has nobody ever stopped him from wearing armor in the shower?¡±


    ¡°Everyone got used to it, isn¡¯t there a sentence saying that armor is a man¡¯s true body!¡±


    Upon hearing this sentence, the fact that every one of them nodded rendered me speechless... Even though I believed it as well, but it was still embarrassing to say it out loud.


    ¡°Yep, I even saw him wearing somerge bear-print pajamas on top on his armor, I thought it was rather normal.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, and I even witnessed him drinking alcohol straight out of the barrel.¡±


    Alright, Glina was beginning to chuckle proudly at the gentlemen¡¯s shock.


    ¡°Ahaha, I¡¯m abat expert, a master of disguise, I¡¯ve undergone assassin and anti-assassin training, and I¡¯m an expert in male psychology; I even know how to make perverted jokes in sixteen differentnguages. My Clint #1 armor is absolutely perfect, not only can it imitate how normal people eat and drink, it can even enter showers, absorb water, and wash my body. I can hide inside it for more than one year without ever needing toe out. As for what I shouldn¡¯t see, do you really think I want to see a bunch of stupid foolish men shing off their muscles? I always turn off my sensors when faced with such blinding sights.¡±


    This cold-faced loli¡¯sughs made me speechless, she was truly so proud of herself at her skills in concealing her identity, was there indeed a problem with the Mist bloondline after all? Just what was with everyone from this family?


    But there was obviously no time to waste, so I went with the direct approach with her.


    ¡°Glina... Okay, I know that you don¡¯t like that name, so I¡¯ll keep calling you Clint. You¡¯re also familiar with the current situation; I need your assistance. Your uncle should have been your mortal enemy, and now that he¡¯s dead, it sort of counts as me having helped take revenge for you. Now, I¡¯d like to request for your aid in stabilizing the situation, is that alright?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°...Why not, at least tell me the reason.¡±


    ¡°That guy has nothing to do with me. If it wasn¡¯t for you guys, I wouldn¡¯t even return.¡±


    Glina had no intention of taking revenge in the first ce. Having left home at two years old, and experiencing countless betrayals and impacts from her demonic blood awakening, the current her didn¡¯t have any memories of her homnd anymore, nor did she have any memories about her parents.


    Perhaps the deepest part rted to her homnd in Glina¡¯s memories were those of the shiny edges of assassins¡¯ daggers. If a person had nothing but negative memories of her own homnd, it was only natural that she wouldn¡¯t desire to return.


    Perhaps the only person she viewed as a rtive was the Lord of Iron City that raised her as his own son. After experiencing so much ughter in battle and all those betrayals, she had no interest whatsoever in obtaining power.


    But, even if Glina was the type that seemed like she had no desires, she still wasn¡¯t difficult to deal with for me. Perhaps Glina was indeed difficult to deal with, but the Clint that I was familiar with was a piece of cake.


    ¡°Cough, I have the newest explosive forms here that I deceived the And Empire into revealing, are you interested? They¡¯re actually quite skilled in alchemy and engineering, it can be said that this form doesn¡¯t followmon sense at all, they actually thought of the method of using high pressure in ce of high temperatures... Darn it, this explosive form¡¯s soplex, are there any experts that can help me research it?¡±


    Hearing this, her ears and lips seemed to tremble slightly. She was slightly moved at this, but considering all the troubles that woulde with promising to help me, she fell silent again.


    ¡°...While your Clint Armor isn¡¯t bad at all, it¡¯s still technology from several years ago. Don¡¯t you want some engineers to help you upgrade and improve it? Such a tattered piece of armor is so unseemly, girls¡¯ clothes should at the very least be clean if not pretty. Regardless of anything else, Sulfur Mountain City and Iron City are solid allies now, and your adopted father even has a seat at the alliance¡¯s conference. We¡¯ve treated you kindly, don¡¯t you agree?¡±


    This time, I definitely noticed how moved she was by the expression in her single eye.


    ¡°Every day you only need to appear for half a day, and act your part. You can do whatever you like during the rest of your time. If you promise to work with me, you can also have first dibs on using any new equipment, and you can also have the new alchemy explosive form that Olivy researched.¡±


    ¡°...Does this include the Rnd line of titan robots and Timlet¡¯s new toys?¡±


    I immediately nodded as I was overjoyed inside. I wasn¡¯t afraid of any request she would make, I was worried that she wouldn¡¯t have any requests. I was afraid that she wouldn¡¯t speak up at all, but since she said something, that meant that she was definitely considering it.


    ¡°Sure, if you¡¯re willing, you can be the test pilot at any time. Since you can control such a tiny armor mecha and make it seem like such a real person, I believe that there¡¯s few out there who are above your piloting skills.¡±


    ¡°No, there¡¯s nobody out there at all who can surpass me, I¡¯m an expert!¡±


    Her green eye was filled with confidence. Thanks to her countless umted experience, Glina would never believe that anybody out there had more experience piloting mechas than her.


    ¡°It¡¯s a deal.¡±


    When myrge hand shook her small hand, there was a sudden notification from my system.


    [*Ding!* Congrattions to my master for finding the final Mist descendant. The Rnd Sacred Sword has nowpleted the first step in its evolution ahead of time. Please continue working hard for it to be stronger. System reminder: bastard, do you dare to tell Elisa that you always shower together with Clint?]


    I broke out into a cold sweat upon hearing this. As one of the very few normal people (well, people I could talk to) in the Gentlemen Alliance, and also considering the professor¡¯s juniors, I definitely used to always chat with or make Clint work for me, and seeing how he was trustworthy and strong, I always had him help me wash my back. If word of this got out, it would be quite troublesome for me.


    ¡°Um, since from a certain standpoint, we¡¯re also rted by blood, are you willing to be my adopted daughter? Rx, it won¡¯t have anything to deal with your father, it¡¯s just in name for political purposes.¡±


    Alright, I lied here. While it was also for political purposes, I had more personal motivations. If it was an adoptive father washing together with his adopted daughter, that wouldn¡¯t seem as bad for me.


    ¡°If you give me spending money at fixed periods, okay.¡±


    Alright, judging by how her left eye was sparkling, she wasn¡¯t talking about a small amount, but it was worth it!


    ¡°Deal.¡±


    In the public square, the young princess put on the golden-purple crown, and the new Queen of the Sleuweir Kingdom was thus born. When she received the golden staff that represented royal power, her first promation already shocked the world.


    ¡°I, Glina the First, dere in my name as the Queen of Sleuweir Kingdom that the Sleuweir Kingdom shall be a solid ally of the East Mist Communal Country, and rebuild the former Mist Kingdom together. We shall also worship the Law Gods as our national church, and from now on, the Sleuweir Kingdom shall obey the t of ¡®non-aggression,¡¯ and never start any wars ourselves, however...¡±


    The Queen that had just taken up her position lifted her golden royal staff and mmed it back down against the ground, with the echoing metallic sound filled with her thunderous anger.


    ¡°Ournds are currently being piged by the fires of war, our citizens are being ughtered; the current situation isn¡¯t one that we chose for ourselves, if we don¡¯t want our country and our citizens to die off, then we have to battle!¡±


    Glina paused here as her fairplexion revealed a sign of difort.


    ¡°In over two thousand years of history, the Mist family had never lowered its head to anyone. But, my uncle Fimor.Caso did such a vulgar, unsightly action for his own life¡¯s safety and for the sake of power. How saddening. But I already investigated the cause for his rotten depravity, which all came from the demons¡¯ machinations, the Evil Gods of Chaos and the Great Demons corrupted his resolute will that used to be so noble, turning a heroic prince on the battlefield into such an evil bastard that would stoop to anything.¡±


    All the citizens in the public square were murmuring to themselves at this. The news about Fimor revealing his demonic form had already spread throughout all of Antuen, and his crimes were all being exposed in broad daylight for everyone to see, which was why I was able to take the reins of power so quickly.


    ¡°Everything was the demons¡¯ plots! My Mist family has never ever surrendered to any invaders in the past, there have never been any precedents, nor shall there ever be any precedents! In my name as the Queen of Sleuweir, I dere Fimor¡¯s surrender to be ineffective, and we are still currently at war! We are grateful to the neighboring countries¡¯ support, but we ourselves are still the main forces that will resist invasion, we must evict the invaders from our ownnds!¡±


    This promation seemed quite normal, but it was actually quite important. Due to Fimor¡¯s previous deration of surrender, it basically turned the invaders into the new masters here, and the supporting armies became the new invaders. If we didn¡¯t turn around this twisted rtionship, then the political messiness would cause endless new dangers for us.


    ¡°Our Mist Family has never enjoyed battle, but we won¡¯t shy from battle either! Since they chose to attack us, and perhaps we¡¯re still currently as a disadvantage, but just like the past thousands of years, we shall be the final ones to stand victorious!¡±


    Glina paused as she lifted her royal staff and spoke a promation that had been repeated endlessly throughout the ages.


    ¡°The will of the Mist shall never surrender!¡±


    ¡°The g of the Mist shall never fall!¡±


    The citizens below her in the public square all lifted up their fists, with their suppressed passion finally reigniting after a Mist descendant waved that familiar battle g in front of them once more.


    ¡°The citizens of Mist shall never be ves! We have not been defeated yet, our country has yet to perish! As long as that g still hasn¡¯t fallen, we shall rise again!¡±


    At this moment, I was merely standing there silently on the tform. When Glina rose up her golden royal staff, I also lifted the Rnd Sacred Sword, which was currently shining with a bright silver sheen.


    ¡°Wuuuu!¡±


    With the battle horn sounding for the counterattack, the ancient Sacred Sword from epic stories transformed into a pir of light that reached the skies.


    Under its might, all the clouds in the sky were torn apart as the light revealed what was hidden behind the clouds.


    A floating castle, and floating toon were gliding among the clouds, and what stood out the most of all, was a tremendous Tornado Wind Elemental. At this time, the Tornado Lord had finallye through on his promise, and had the members of his tribe begin their attack on his mortal enemy.


    ¡°Knights, our reinforcements have finally arrived, and it¡¯s time to take back ournd that should rightfully be ours! Open the door, and charge after me!¡±


    The Queen proceeded right away after jumping onto the Ice Lion King, and right behind her were the knight squads that were already prepared for this beforehand. Countless battle gs were unraveled as threatening cold steely lights emanated from their sharp pikes and spears.


    Today was the inauguration ceremony for Glina the First, as well as the formal deration of battle by Sleuweir.


    ¡°It¡¯s finally time to take back everything that belongs to us.¡±

 Chapter 175

    Chapter 175: Start of Battle


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Danna


    Every Holy War would reset the bnce of power between the various races. Not only would the power bnce be reset among mortals, it almost always included the True Gods as well.


    Nobody was truly immortal. Not only humans, even beings as powerful as the True Gods had their own mortal enemies and insurmountable obstacles. They were fated to fall one day as well, although they would take many lives with them when they fell.


    With the fires of the Holy War stoked, order almostpletely copsed, and the suppressed feelings of anger and revenge finally exploded. There were those that hoped to benefit from the war, or those that cursed their enemies and swore revenge. When these ¡°divine¡± existences began encouraging their own forces, it was only natural that chaos would reign.


    The Wind Elemental God Camdian was one of them. He was currently rather frustrated. Even if the Four Ancient Elemental Gods weren¡¯t the main Gods of Chaos, they were the direct subordinates of the Chaos Goddess and weren¡¯t far from being the main Gods themselves.


    ¡°Your mission is to cooperate with the ckwing Tribe and create chaos, understand?¡±


    He was finally released from his seal, and not even mentioning the fact that people were different from how they were, those insignificant ones that should have been below him were actually above him! This was uneptable for someone as prideful and arrogant as he was.


    As the most ambitious of the Four Ancient Elemental Gods, he was highly unsatisfied with his current situation.


    ¡°Damn it, that damned Bodwin, even a mere Centaur guardian dares to be so disrespectful! I, Camdian, am the highest existence, how dare these insignificant existences give me orders.¡±


    Even after being unsealed, the position of the Elemental Gods was still rather precarious. As the direct subordinates of the Chaos Goddess, they should have been on the level of the Main Gods, but that was nowhere close to the truth, as even the guardian of such a weak race didn¡¯t respect them.


    Unlike the other Elemental Gods that simply became allied to the mortal residents of thend, the powerful Camdian used some tricks and caused the Winged Tribes that had lost their ability to fly topletely subordinate themselves to him. With the ancient floating airship and floating castle within his possession, Camdian had his own ambitions. When he gradually discovered theck of respect given to his own position, he began having his own ideas about the situation.


    ¡°Giving someone as divine as me the order to be the leader of some bandits? If I actually do that, I¡¯ll make enemies out of every country along our path, and as the war drags on, I¡¯ll be nothing more than cannon fodder sooner orter in this Holy War.¡±


    When the hooded stranger came to visit him and gave him an opportunity, his cautious personality made him continue to observe the situation. Roshe¡¯s message was what finally gave him his determination.


    ¡°I¡¯ve already received Ayer and Wumianzhe¡¯s promises. Perhaps there will be a new system of Gods born in the Nortnds, that¡¯s all I have to say, do as you see fit. But no matter what, the Nortnds¡¯ elves belong to me, don¡¯t you dare touch them!¡±


    This twisted and confusing short message still managed to help the Wind Elemental God understand the conflicting feelings in his fellow ancient God that was also experiencing dejection.


    ¡°Even if I fail, at the very most I¡¯ll just be sealed and have a nap again, which won¡¯t be any worse than currently. But if I seed, I can have my revenge on that disgustingly big piece of dirt, and also help the Winged Tribes obtain some territory, which will also help me on the path to bing a Guardian, gathering belief that can help me raise my rank to a True God, such a great deal... I¡¯ll gamble on it!¡±


    And with the Thunder Lord¡¯s ferocious anger, the ancient battle between elementals restarted in the modern age. The earth elementals that had been in the midst of constructing the dimensional bridge met with their old opponents once more. The thunder and tornadoes that descended from the sky intended to rip apart the earth.


    ¡°Boom! Boom!¡±


    The first to open fire was actually the wind elementals¡¯ subordinate Winged Tribes. Cannon fire from the ck floating airship set fire to everything before it, and the floating castle in the sky became the Wind Tribe¡¯s fortress and center ofmand.


    While the castle descended, countless ck-winged ¡°angels¡± flew out from within and slid down together with an armada of floating ships as they followed their hunting instincts and joyously roared as they attacked. They chucked their thunder-infused spears that transformed into countless bolts of deadly thunder.


    The Wind Tribe¡¯s first attack didn¡¯t have much of a result, as the highly durable earth elemental army emerged from within the ground¡¯s cracks and fought back with their giant stone hammers.


    When both sides¡¯ elemental warriors exchanged blows, the battlefield sunk into utter chaos. Countless numbers of earth and wind elementals began closebat fighting, with tall rock giants grappling against whirlwind tornado giants, and the gigantic children of earth tossing huge stones at the children of the sky in response to the thunder that kept crashing down even though there were no clouds in the sky.


    Just at thebat was reaching its apex, a horrendous scream was heard by everything living as they all instinctively looked to the northern sky where a humongous fiery meteor was slowly falling.


    ¡°A God has died! A True God has died!¡±


    All the living creatures instinctively knew that the death of a True God had urred. As for the northern Elf Kingdom, the Elf Warriors who were still battling with their utmost looked on in shock at the sight before them, as they couldn¡¯t believe how the Forest Guardian rdin that they believed in was actually defeated by the Evil God Roshe.


    There was nothing but scorched earth remaining now at the ces where the battling was the fiercest. Nothing mortal could possibly withstand such a destructive battle.


    But at this location, people saw gigantic ck spiders that wouldter give them nightmares. These spiders were feeding together with their children, and they were devouring a rainbow-colored half human and half deer Semigod. Judging by the remnants of the trees being devoured by them, even the SemiGod descendant apanied the fall of the Semigod.


    And so, the Forest Guardian rdin became the first True God to fall in this Holy War, and Roshe used her sessful battle achievement to send out a convincing blood invitation to various existences.


    ¡°Coo coo!¡±


    One of the strongest-appearing spiders absorbed enough energy as it transformed into a dark shadow that covered the skies whileughing abnormally, before finally transforming into a human-shaped figure that turned out to be a male Dark Elf.


    ¡°Heavens! It absorbed the Dendroid God¡¯s divine power and right to be a God!¡±


    Right in front of the unbelieving Elves¡¯ eyes, the Dark Elves¡¯ new Poison God Felix was born, and the northern Elf Kingdom was about to face their destined nightmare.


    From a certain standpoint, even though they were both Queens of their own countries in the Nortnds, Glina and Reyne wereplete opposites.


    Reyne was supremely self-aware of her own status as a Mist descendant. She took her job and responsibilities quite seriously, and always worked her hardest. However, she was limited by her natural talent and abilities, and her growth never reached the goals she set for herself, so sometimes she worked herself way too hard and tried too much, which also gave difficulties to the people around her and made them worry.


    And the fact that Glina was a master engineer at such a young age already made many things rather clear. This job was no goldenbat job, a nonbat oriented job like engineer needed knowledge and wisdom instead, which doubtlessly meant that her talent and ability were both top-notch.


    Also, judging by Clint¡¯s asional shocking ideas before, Glina was even talented inbat strategy and plotting which Reyne was aplete loss at.


    But the current Glina still gave me an odd feeling. Even though I didn¡¯t have too much contact with her every day, she never said anything unless she had to, and when she didn¡¯t have to do anything, her personality would naturally curl up into a ball. It always reminded me of hikkikomoris that were afraid to see the sunlight.


    ¡°Ah, the sun is so blinding! Ahh, there¡¯s too many people, it¡¯s really annoying! Ahhh, I¡¯ll be defeated if I go to work! Let me go back into hiding, just ten minutes will be enough!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯lle back out after ten minutes?¡±


    ¡°Nope, I¡¯ll fall asleep within ten minutes, and lock the door. No matter how you shout for me, I won¡¯t being outside. Don¡¯t even think about making me work.¡±


    Fine then, after hearing such a sentence in this game world, I began to suspect if she was another transmigrator from my world who happened to be aplete worthless NEET and otaku.


    Even though she was talented to the point where she could memorize her lines after looking them over just one time, the fact that she put no effort into anything whatsoever still took up arge amount of my time and energy.


    And currently, right after she finished her performance, it was obvious that she had no motivation or self-awareness whatsoever as a queen, with her old problematic habits acting up again.


    ¡°Hey, I alreadypleted your request, hurry up and let me go back into hiding!¡±


    Right after the speech and as the battle horn was being blown, Glina was already requesting to go hide back in her shell.


    ¡°Hey hey, you¡¯re going overboard. All the citizens are still watching you. Even if you¡¯re just acting, you¡¯re still the person that they trust in and swear loyalty to, so just bear with it a little.¡±


    The main forces were about to depart, and ording to the original n, Queen Glina was supposed to visit and surveil the new armies, so how could I possibly allow her to escape at this time? I¡¯m going to drag this deadbeat NEET under the sun to work!


    ¡°I can¡¯t do it anymore! I¡¯ve already been outside for too long; hurry up and allow me to return to Clint #1 already.¡±


    She seemed like she was trying to suppress something, and her pale-white face was beginning to turn suspiciously red.


    ¡°Are you really that ufortable? Will you die if you¡¯re in the sunlight? Are you a member of the Blood Tribe? Just what are you supposed to be?¡±


    Just as I was hesitating, she kneeled down while clutching onto her right eye. There was a dark yellow glow leaking out from her eyepatch.


    I noticed that something was wrong, and tore off her eyepatch. That familiar dark yellow glow instantly helped me to understand what was going on, so I immediately put the eyepatch back on her.


    ¡°Call for some priests and doctors... no, don¡¯t call for priests, go find some alchemists and apothecaries, and might as well call for the guy who doesn¡¯t want his soul anymore as well. Yep, I¡¯m talking about that idiot Beifeng.¡±


    Before long, people would be here to help treat Glina. Even though there was no final report ready yet, I already had an inkling of what had happened.


    ¡°Karwenz, you bastard! Making more trouble for me at such a time.¡±


    While holding on to Glina¡¯s petite body, I could detect that her demon¡¯s blood was boiling, which obviously wasn¡¯t a normal situation. There was only one exnation ¨C the Demon Prince Karwenz was summoning his descendants!


    However, the struggling girl stopped me from calling for any medical personnel toe treat her. While pulling on my hand, she requested me with a begging look in her eyes.


    ¡°Just put me in my armor; there¡¯s mechanisms inside that can help suppress my demonic blood from acting up.¡±


    ¡°What a mess... sigh.¡±


    Well, there weren¡¯t any better ideas. There was no way that the public could be allowed to find out that Glina was a demonic descendant, so while feeling helpless about it, I opened up her Clint armor. Inside its finely crafted interior was a space that was just right for cing a petite child within.


    Apart from the half-finished instant noodles and cookies inside it, what caught my attention the most were all the anti-magic chains and magic-sealing talismans on the driver¡¯s seat.


    Just as I ced Glina inside, the armor¡¯s metallic shell automatically closed. This was followed by various clinks and ngs as she was locked up tightly, while the ck heavy armor¡¯s eyes showed a steadyte apanied by arge amount of steaming out of the armor¡¯s back. Finally, the metallic giant that was over two meters tall stood back up again.


    ¡°You even have a steam exhaust valve, which is such an obvious sign that Clint is actually a mecha. Why didn¡¯t anyone ever discover the truth?¡±


    ¡°I witnessed it once before, but I thought it was just brought on by bad digestion... It¡¯s something that most people would be embarrassed to ask about.¡±


    ¡°What about the light for the eyes? It¡¯s clearly unnatural, they¡¯re red light bulbs, right?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s more than one person with scary eyes in our team. Who knew what bloodline he came from? Since Clint always met people directly, it seemed normal that he was a halfblood. Sigh, not being a Blood Tribe or a Werewolf though caused me to lose so much money.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you also ced a bet? I bet on Half-Dwarf, and also lost all my money. Damn it, just who is this GL001, that actually bet on a blonde-haired loli and won all our moneyst night when the gamble concluded, my poor money.¡±


    ¡°GL001? Isn¡¯t that Clint himself? Damn it, that guy cheated all of us by betting on himself!¡±


    Fine then, let us ignore these unimportant mysterious ramblings. No matter what the fact that Clint had now revived before us was a good thing... probably.


    ¡°Clint #1, revived! Ahhhhh, I¡¯m finallyfortable now, let¡¯s have a st to celebrate!¡±


    The revived Clint instantly pulled out several Dwarven guns and shot an array of bullets into the sky as the Gentlemen Alliance members behind usmented.


    ¡°Ahaha, how could one round of sts be enough, go for several thousand.¡±


    The armor began transforming quickly as a swiveling gatling gun was assembled. In some regards, a human identity had always been a limiter on Clint¡¯s true abilities.


    ¡°Pop pop pop!¡±


    Together with the joyous sounds that Clint made while shooting everywhere, he began dancing a dance that nobody understood. And after he finished using up his bullets, he began cackling maniacally while using spare parts to assemble a new weapon.


    ¡°So scary, his entire personality has changed.¡±


    ¡°The armor must be the true body after all. Something like a quiet little girl? Just a hallucination.¡±


    Unlike those guys who were merely enjoying the show, I knew that Glina was still resisting the summoning of her demonic blood. Thinking about how the inwardly resolute girl was currently tossing and turning in her pilot¡¯s seat caused me to have a mysterious pain in my heart.


    ¡®Had she always been tying herself up like that? At the same time as controlling that mecha, she even locked herself up with chains and injected herself with various magic-sealing needles. This isn¡¯t even at the level of painful anymore, it¡¯s basically torture.¡¯


    Not to mention, I knew that this wasn¡¯t a good n for the long-term. A crack in her defenses would appear someday no matter how much she denied her own demon blood, as human willpower was limited, while the demon¡¯s summoning would never cease. Forcefully blocking it out would cause a problem sooner orter.


    ¡°...The only method is probably that one then.¡±


    Beifeng who hurried over here as well, probably to check the situation, exchanged knowing nces with me that we must have arrived at the same conclusion.


    ¡°Is that really the only method left to us? Its sess rate is quite low. But with how strong Glina¡¯s willpower is, she should be able to endure it.¡±


    Just as we were concerning ourselves with how to cure her, a familiar and nostalgic abnormally stimting scent entered our nostrils.


    ¡°...Gunpowder?¡±


    ¡°Adopted father, what do you think of my new fireworks! I created this using the new form you gave me, and I call it the ¡®High-pressure Goblin Mine.¡±


    The clinging and nging sounds finally ended as arge High-pressure Goblin Mine with a lead wireing from it appeared. Feeling the fearsome amount of energy emanating from underneath that iron shell, I started breaking out into a cold sweat.


    ¡°Hey there, are you nning on killing your own father already? I already said that it didn¡¯t need to be for real, don¡¯t take it so seriously.¡±


    I thought that she was going to use it on me, but after witnessing her rubbing Clint¡¯s iron face against that explosive¡¯s outer shell, I knew that I had been mistaken. Rather than wanting to explode it on me, she was clearly bragging about her new invention.


    ¡°You¡¯ve barely recovered slightly and you¡¯re already so eager to make a new explosive? As expected of the Explosive Demon Clint.¡±


    ¡°Guru guru.¡±


    A small ck rolled over and crashed against my feet. I was no longer able to remain calm after I picked it up and saw what it was.


    ¡°...This seems like a safety pin.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right! Ah, without this, it¡¯ll explode immediately...¡±


    ¡°Boom.¡±


    No need for any more details. I could only sigh as I watched Clint spiraling away through the air while also secretly being amazed at how strong the Clint armor¡¯s anti-explosive properties were.


    ¡°As expected, this is just like Clint.¡±


    Just as I finished my statement, everyone was already nodding in agreement.


    ¡°The armor is the true body, and the sound of explosives is only the apaniment. A true man never turns around to watch his explosion. The legendary man that leaves together with the sound of his explosives is simply that cool and confident.¡±


    Alright then, a certain idiot¡¯s wistfulment received everyone¡¯s praise once again, but I was rather astonished.


    ¡°Weren¡¯t you upied with battling that lion¡¯s head? You gave up? That¡¯s really not like you.¡±


    ¡°Sigh, don¡¯t mention that, I truly lost this time, I give up, I admit defeat!¡±


    There was actually an existence in this world that Beifeng was unable to conquer? I was no longer the only one shocked now, as everyone was looking at him with surprise written all over their faces. They were all unable to imagine that he would actually give up, since he was always using ¡°true love would never be defeated¡± as his trademark phrase.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter how strong they are, or the age difference, since true love doesn¡¯t have too much to do with outer appearances, but, but, he actually...¡±


    Beifeng with tears in his eyes? This was my first time seeing such a sight; was a failure in love that depressing for him?


    ¡°...He actually turned into a Snow Girl, and even a humanoid, a humanoid. How are you supposed to have love with humanoids! This is the greatest failure and regret in Beifeng.Herault¡¯s life! I actually fell in love with a humanoid! My love isn¡¯t pure anymore!¡±


    I clutched my head as I deeply regretted wasting my time on this bastard for the umpteenth time. If he could feel sadness at a normal type of failure in love, then he wouldn¡¯t be the extraordinary gentleman known as Beifeng, with the sin known as ¡°Sad Wind.¡±


    ¡°Well, we should have made him into the experimental test subject for that Goblin Mine. It¡¯s not toote yet, let¡¯s have a cannoneer, we have a brave warrior who¡¯s volunteering to go out and scout the enemy¡¯s situation.¡±

 Chapter 176

    Chapter 176: New Era


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck


    With the fires of battle stoked in Antuen again, there was not a single ce in the Nortnds that was able to remain peaceful and quiet anymore.


    As the Elves hurriedly escaped to their ancestral home as they received the nightmarish news, the Beastmen were the ones who blew the horns for a final battle to determine the oue. Their free-roaming Wolfrider soldiers gathered together again, as the Beastmen needed all their strength to attack humanity¡¯s final castle ¨C the Maple defense line.


    Maple Castle ¨C this originally isted and quiet town in the north had transformed itself into the hotspot where the entire continent gathered.


    By the time news of huge changes in the Sleuweir Kingdom¡¯s capital of Antuen arrived through the specialmunication channels between the churches, the Beastmen were already unable to change the target of their prepared attack. They had gambled every option and avable resource they had on the Maple defense line.


    Even without being expert strategists, the Beastmen tribe leaders still knew that unless they were able to get rid of this annoying thorn in their sides andpletely wipe out any hope of resisting that the humans had, there would only be unending rebellions in the territory that they had already conquered.


    They summoned their free-roaming Wolfriders back together, one of their mighty Beast Behemoth squads had already perished in battle, their disorganized Mammothbat squads that trampled all over thends had already lost more than half their numbers, their precious aerial knights had been decreasing in number as if they were perishable food. The Beastmen sacrificed so much of their own flesh and blood, transforming the defense line into nothing more than a meat grinder.


    The humans weren¡¯t having it easy, either. In front of the strong Beastmen alliance¡¯s armies, every life became nothing more thanbat statistic casualties. Thanks to differences in overall strength, each Beastman that managed to pass the defense line required at least three human lives to take down.


    With defenses stretched thin across the entire defense line, the fact that themander in charge of defending the western castle door still had the ability to help support other areas was something eye-catching.


    ¡°Princess Knight¡± Reyne, thisughable nickname that was originally nothing more than a made-up name for the sake of poprity, started bing recognized by all as the battle progressed.


    But, this female leader who was recently increasing in poprity had her own frustrations, and as for the reason? Due to those And folks that kept overreacting to everything and pestering her.


    ¡°Your Highness, why do these warriors¡¯ equipment look so familiar, it seems so simr with our White Wolf squad¡¯s equipment, no, it¡¯s exactly the same! That¡¯s a special alloy from our country.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the fact that Darsos sent Hemet, one of his most trusted advisors here to the Nortnds, was evidence of how important he viewed this ce. But currently, this long-time acquaintance was being a bit of a pest.


    ¡°Oh, that was information we obtained while exchanging technologies. We created it for our warriors ording to the model used for your squad. As for the materials, they¡¯re actually quite different. It¡¯s just that they¡¯ve been painted with simr colors. You can inspect it more closely if you want, there¡¯s actually plenty of differences in the details.¡±


    ¡°You can create actual products right after obtaining the technological information so quickly? That doesn¡¯t seem right! And this armor still has the mark of the White Wolves!¡±


    ¡°Oh, that must be a misunderstanding, these are our new ¡®Winter Wolf¡¯ emblems, which are quite different. See, there¡¯s three additional hairs standing up on this white wolf¡¯s head, yep, these are our Winter Wolf emblems, which you can also call three-hair emblems; that¡¯s what Brother Rnd calls them.¡±


    ¡®Just adding three hairs to the old emblem counts as a new emblem? Do you have any shame? Even if there¡¯s no copyright or suing in this world, people still have embarrassment, don¡¯t they? If you want to giarize, at the very least you should give the wolf three whiskers on each cheek!¡¯


    Hemet opened and closed his mouth without speaking up about those doubts that shed through his mind.


    Reyne finally somehow managed to unconvincingly make Hemet ept this, when a new problem arose.


    ¡°What we used on that day? Are you talking about our floating battleship?¡±


    The newest arrival that stood out the most in the midst of battle was the floating battleship Borealis. Its existence perfectly patched up the few weaknesses that the western castle¡¯s defending army had.


    Heavy cannon fire as support, transporting the injured, and the ability to give the finishing blow at the critical moment. The enemy Beast Behemoth that died was first injured then surrounded and killed with the Borealis¡¯ assistance, so just this aplishment alone ensured that it would be known to everyone.


    ¡°No no, we borrowed that ancient floating battleship from our Winged Tribe allies, you see, it¡¯s already a semi-biological existence,pletely different from your one hundred percent mechanical battleships.¡±


    ¡®How do you know that our battleships are one hundred percent mechanical?¡¯


    Those words were right on Hemet¡¯s lips, but in the end he didn¡¯t counter with this question either.


    He already knew what was up just by seeing the situation. It was ridiculous to believe anything that Reyne said, but since there was no evidence for this type of thing, nor did he intend to ruin the rtionship between the two countries, there was no use in saying it out loud.


    Reyne secretly wiped her cold sweat. Even if she knew that Hemet wouldn¡¯t bring everything out to the surface, the action of giarizing right in front of the original owner was something that only Rnd could pull off as if it was only natural with such self-assurance.


    ¡°...Our And Empire is deeply interested in this research area, and hope that we can exchange information. Of course, we can pay the additional price necessary.¡±


    Kagersi wouldn¡¯t be able to recover the information for quite a while, and the battleship was currently locked away in the underground base, so the next best thing would be to at least obtain some information and restart And¡¯s research.


    ¡®No wonder Brother Rnd asked me to use these in front of them, everything happened exactly as he expected.¡¯


    There was probably also only one person that could so openly steal someone else¡¯s work and then sell it back to the original owner like this.


    Of course, since the Eastern Mist Communal Country already expected this response, Reyne was naturally prepared.


    ¡°Of course, please discuss the specific details with Big Sister Elisa. She opened up a merchants¡¯ guild in Maple Castle called the Cindler Merchants¡¯ Guild, and deals a great amount of business in military arms.¡±


    Hemet felt a stomachacheing upon him at thinking about that sharp-fanged, sharp-tongued woman. He¡¯d already been to the Cindler Merchants¡¯ Guild before, and knew just how difficult it was to haggle there. He would probably have to pay a painfullyrge price for the information he wanted.


    But, it wasn¡¯t a bad deal for him, since the And Empire was ridiculously wealthy and could afford it. Restarting research on the floating battleship was the most important task at hand, since the Holy War had restarted and there wasn¡¯t much time left. It was vitally important to begin training personnel for this technology as well people to operate it.


    And just as the upper ranks were discussing the exchange of military arms information, there was a new change in thebat situation.


    The Beastmen began a new wave of attacks, catapulting countless burning boulders at the castle walls that arced downward from the sky like a meteor shower.


    The burning boulders had such great force that each and every one of them not only damaged the castle walls, they would each kill several humans with their impacts. However, these boulders were only the preludes to each new Beastman attack on Maple Castle.


    With the support of heavy boulder fire raining down from the skies, the various tribes of Beastmen equipped themselves with heavy shields as they began attacking Maple Castle again. The air cavalry that descended from the skies together with the Beastmen attack proved that this was no mere testing of Maple Castle¡¯s defenses.


    Air cavalry that weren¡¯t limited by terrain and siege weapons that could possibly break through a fort¡¯s defenses would always be the main actors in a siege battle. With Wyvern Knights, Thunder Roc Knights, and Harpies as their main aerial forces, the quality was quite high, but their numbers had decreased noticeably after so many days of harsh battling.


    ¡°Dragon knight! That dragon knight¡¯s here again!¡±


    The young green dragon named Osmenya and his Wolf Tribe rider Kakaji had be infamous through this battle. Even when facing off against overwhelming odds, he had already defeated more than one hundred, which was plenty for him to be the aerial ace of the battle.


    Everything was now utter chaos atop the castle walls. The wyverns were furiously spitting poison from their poison sacs, the Thunder Rocs were killing off groups at once with Chain Lightning spells, while the Harpies¡¯ spears aimed specifically for the archers andmanders. The Beastmen air cavalries¡¯ strategic targets were quite clear: they were attempting to clear the way for their infantry to climb over the castle walls, while the dragon knight acting as the aerialmander was currently roaming at high speeds and destroying the castle¡¯s defenses.


    In the past, the ordinary human defenders¡¯ only tactic had been to use human walls to block the elite Beastmen air cavalry, and sacrifice many lives in order to force the Beastmen¡¯s retreat.


    But this time, the situation was different.


    ¡°Inform the Silver Cross squadron that it¡¯s time for them to begin.¡±


    With the Princess Knight¡¯smand, the Borealis (Envy)¡¯s belly suddenly opened up while it was covering the humans with supporting fire, with countless figures jumping out of its belly from midair.


    ¡°What a joke, they¡¯re jumping down from that high? They¡¯re suicidal!¡±


    This general¡¯s shouts doubtlessly said out loud what everyone had been thinking. For any ordinary warriors, that height would be suicidal unless they knew how to fly. And if all several hundred of these warriors had the ability to fly, that would be even more unbelievable.


    Sometimes, the previous generation¡¯s experience was a type of limitation. As eras changed and technology improved, themon sense of battle was bound to be swept aside. These warriors truly did know how to fly!


    ¡°Awaken, Azure Dragon!¡±


    ¡°Azure Dragon Sword Seal!¡±


    Together with the fierce roars of the Four Elemental Swordcasters, each of their magic swords shone brilliantly, and the Azure Dragon Sword Seal that was activated in this emergency situation began rotating around the Four Elemental Swordcasters. The Wind Elves were summoned here by the seal, and they in turn summoned whirlwinds to give these warriors the ability to fly and fight in midair.


    Of course, the Azure Dragon Sword Seal¡¯s whirlwinds were limited in power, and they were merely now falling down slowly rather than truly being able to fly, but this was more than enough to prove that they had the ability to fight in midair.


    ¡°Several hundred magic swordsmen? How is this possible?¡±


    Metal had the ability to cancel out magic, so for warriors wearing heavy armor to actually be able to utilize magic was already far beyondmon sense. But, the indisputable fact before everyone¡¯s eyes was a testament to this fact.


    After a short period of shock, the Beastmen air cavalry hurried to this area, since of course they wouldn¡¯t allow these obvious enemy reinforcements tond.


    ¡°Odd numbered-warriors, Sword Seals overload!¡±


    The warriors hovering in midair weren¡¯t defenseless however, so with theirmander¡¯s order, all the warriors lifted the magic swords in their hands and all the Azure Dragon Sword Seals were overloaded with magical energy this time as pale white streaks of lightning crawled around their magic swords.


    ¡°Odd numbered-warriors, target: the enemy air cavalry before us, Sword Seals explode! Prepare, three, two... one! Wield your swords!¡±


    All the warriors shed their swords forward in unison, causing hundreds of lightning bolts to erupt from their swords.


    It had been a clear sky just a moment ago, and now the sky became filled with lightning and thunder. The hundreds of lightning bolts lit up the entire sky, blinding the eyes of everyone who lifted their heads to see the spectacle.


    *Thud!* *Thud!*


    When the viewers regained their senses of sight again, all they saw were the Beastmen air cavalry falling from the sky like dumplings, with a minimum of two air cavalry squads having been eliminated.


    ¡°What type of forbidden spell is this? It¡¯s so terrifying because those magic swordsmen didn¡¯t have a single sign of magical waves on them.¡±


    The other countries¡¯ residents could only watch it unbelievably, but it wasn¡¯t difficult to understand for those in the know. At that instant, the countless Wind Elementals within the Azure Dragon Sword Seals transformed into thunder that wasn¡¯t individually strong, but the thunderbolts attracted and fed off of each other before finally bing an inescapable electric.


    Its actual force wasn¡¯t nearly as formidable as what the viewers perceived, thanks to theck of ability in the spell¡¯s users and the thunderbolts draining energy from each other. The spell¡¯s attack power was already incredibly low.


    But for aerial battles, attack power was never the important part, just having the stun effect from thunder was enough.


    The air cavalry that had fallen from the sky weren¡¯t actually electrocuted to death as the viewers believed. They were merely paralyzed to the point where they couldn¡¯t move anymore by repeated electrical shocks, but looking at it from another angle, falling out of the sky from such a height didn¡¯t really have much of a differencepared to being electrocuted to death.


    As the Swordcasters expected, apart from the very few incredibly strong individuals that were able to regain control of themselves and fly upwards again, most of the enemy air cavalry didn¡¯t even have time to shout in surprise before crashing to the ground and bing nothing more than crushed meat.


    The Swordcasters that just used their Sword Seals¡¯ explosions lost the protection of their whirlwinds, but their even-numberedpanions that were prepared beforehand caught on to them. These odd-numbered warriors only fell a slight distance before summoning new Azure Dragon Sword Seals for their next tactical move.


    ¡°Even-numbered warriors, Sword Seal overload!¡±


    Themander gave the exact same order on the midair battlefield again, with many of the smarter air cavalry members hurriedly escaping for their lives. Meanwhile, those ¡°courageous¡± ones that had decided to rush the magic swordsmen in the downtime between spells were destined to crash into a new electrical.


    ¡°Sword Seals explode! No countdown! Pick your targets freely, wield your swords!¡±


    The blinding electrical appeared once more in the sky. Apart from all the *thud* sounds of the Beastmen air cavalry falling against the ground, the sky had now beenpletely cleared. There were no survivors left by the electrical created by several hundred magical swords.


    Now it was the odd-numbered warriors¡¯ turn to catch theirpanions. *Pound!* *Boom!* When the armored swordcasters finallynded safely on the ground, everyone on the battlefield shouted out joyously in celebration.


    It had been a short exchange thatsted less than three minutes, which was more than enough topletely wipe out the Beastmen¡¯s strongest air cavalry troops from the previous generation. This was seemingly no more than a small battle in the overall campaign, but it actually represented that apart from high-level mages and high-tier aerial troops, there was now a third method to deal with air cavalry ¨C organized magical swordsmen.


    No small human kingdom would be able to raise griffins. Only human kingdoms that were medium level and above could afford to raise an organized toon of air cavalry, while in the poor Nortnds, the Northerners could only use bows in ce of the expensive air cavalry.


    For so many years on the battlefield, the air had always belonged to the enemy, with air cavalry ambushes being the enemies¡¯ ace tactic usable in every situation, but the warriors¡¯ cheers were clear evidence that the situation had now changed.


    ¡°Tell those sons of bitches that the northern skies belong to us as well!¡± One man shouted out what every northerner had been thinking. Even the newly-minted Swordcasters were hardly able to believe that they had just achieved such a shocking victory.


    This was just the beginning. With organized magical troops appearing on the battlefield for the first time, the entire world¡¯s strategies and tactics would be revamped. Having brought out this new type of troop doubtlessly proved that the East Mist Communal Country was already at the forefront of the current era. And from today onwards, nobody would ever treat the East Mist Communal Country as an easily bullied small northern country ever again.


    ¡°...What.¡± This time, Hemet was unable to say that it belonged to the And Empire. Magical ability required talent, and even the very concept of an organized magical swordsman squadron was difficult to imagine based on the theories of magic. The obviously well-practiced tactics andmand system were evidently the result of long practice. In Hemet¡¯s eyes, this was probably the ace trump card up that person¡¯s sleeve out of what he brought back from history.


    Reyne smiled in delight at Hemet¡¯s reaction. From her first meeting with him, this emperor¡¯s special envoy had always remained high and mighty with his attitude, as if he was facing a subordinate that he couldmand at will. At this moment, in front of brand-new tactics and jobs, in front of this astonishing battle achievement, the haughty And people finally began lowering their proud heads.


    ¡°Would you like it?¡±


    Even if Hemet didn¡¯t say it out loud, just from his expectation-filled eyes, it could easily be seen that this emperor¡¯s trusted envoy had a desire for this information that was raging like a wildfire. This wasn¡¯t even at the extent of wanting it anymore, he wanted to swallow it down whole.


    ¡°It¡¯s quite expensive!¡±


    Even on the battlefield, the Princess Knight¡¯s exquisitely beautiful smile attracted countless passionate gazes. Only, nobody could guess that her delighted smile was due to a base desire to take revenge by viciously jacking up the price.


    ¡°I¡¯ll buy, buy, buy! No matter how expensive it is!¡±


    Hemet was overjoyed at hearing this news. For such an ace weapon, as long as Reyne was willing to sell, Hemet was willing to sell even his family treasures for it. There wouldn¡¯t be another opportunity like this, he would only regret it if she wasn¡¯t willing to sell.


    However, Reyne shed a rather mysterious smile upon hearing Hemet¡¯s response.


    ¡°As long as you¡¯re willing to pay, there¡¯s something even better and more expensive, you know. Timlet, it¡¯s time for your little toy to appear.¡±

 Chapter 177

    Chapter 177: Crazed Stones


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck


    From the very start, I wasn¡¯t worried about the Maple defense line¡¯s battlefield, as I had made plenty of preparations there.


    An organized squadron for the Four Elemental Swordcasters, the Borealis and its supporting new era battleships, and the various new inventions by our engineers for defending the castle. Imperceptibly, I had already acquired so much strength, and I left them all at Maple Castle. With them there, I believed that it would be quite difficult to break past the Maple defense line.


    Okay, apart from the above, I also prepared plenty of other things, as the more trump cards one had, the better. The side that was able to keep his trump cards until the final moment would always have a much greater chance of victory.


    ¡®The Maple Castle defense line isn¡¯t allowed to fail.¡¯ That was something I absolutely wouldn¡¯t allow.


    After all, that was the most critical location of this entire battle. If they failed, that meant that order and bnce of power itself would copse in the north, which could only result in the humans retreating towards the south and giving up the Nortnds. In that case, even if we won here, it would still be an overall defeat where we could only struggle to survive and wait for the enemy to encircle us and defeat us at their leisure.


    Of course, if there was some sort of unexpected sudden situation, such as some Evil God of Chaos risking his own demise to personally descend upon the mortal realm (the current Elemental Tide wouldn¡¯t allow True Gods to descend, so any that dared to personally descend basically wouldn¡¯t be able to return,) which would make it impossible to defend the Maple defense line.


    If that type of situation urred, I also gave them instructions to simply board the Borealis and escape as quickly as possible. If a veteran God of Chaos personally came out, then it would take another veteran God of Order to deal with him. If the Chaos side was willing to make such a sacrifice, the True Gods of Order would surely send out one or two cannon fodders to y the game of dying together in unison.


    At the current moment, with thebat situation still unclear, the most difficult part was left up to us.


    The Antuen defense army¡¯s elimination of the remaining Beastmen squads was rather sessful, as we easily recovered the enemy¡¯s temporary battle camps outside the castle with our advantage in numbers and the Winged Tribes¡¯ ambushes as protection. But right after that, we met with an obstacle ¨C the Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan.


    As the most ancient of the Four Elemental Gods, I knew that the Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan would be a ridiculous one, but I never expected how truly ridiculous he was.


    As the lord of all earth elementals, his body wasn¡¯t asrge as I expected, nor did he have their strange features. He merely resembled an enormous stone giant, and he even appeared slightly smaller than the Wind Elemental God. But when he truly began fighting, he proved the old adage about how ¡°fighting isn¡¯t about how big you are, but how hard your fists are.¡±


    As the Earth Elemental God roared, just one light swing of his fist would be able to crush a huge wind elemental. When a thundering Wind Elemental Lord came over to assist, he easily smashed it between his fingers, and when a floating battleship attacked him with its cannons while being covered by support fire from the floating castle, he jumped up and turned the floating castle into nothing but dust with a triple kick.


    Anything below the power of an Elemental Lord, he could deal with using a single kick. As for the annoying Winged Tribes and tiny battleships, just the st from his roar¡¯s soundwaves were enough to crush them to pieces.


    ¡°Monk? This bastard¡¯s actually a top-level Monk! How outrageous.¡±


    Yep, Emordilorcan was doubtlessly an expert barehandedbat Master Monk. There were no rules saying that elementals weren¡¯t able to practice martial arts, but rather the opposite, for the Earth Elemental God whose body was far harder than steel, his physical characteristics only vastly improved the explosiveness of those martial techniques. Just one shoulder press would easily crush many mountains, and if he tried to transmit his force through a mountain to a cow, I don¡¯t know how the cow will end up, but the mountain would surely be eradicated.


    Emordilorcan¡¯s steps were steady and agile, and it was quite easy for him to make Camdian dizzy before suddenly ambushing the Wind Elemental God Camdian with a heavy blow.


    Compared to the dexterous Emordilorcan, the gigantic Camdian actually seemed like a slow fatty that could only take blows without even a chance to get in any of his own. Camdian was a typical mage-type Elemental Lord, but the thunder he gathered was unable to lock on to any target, since he wasn¡¯t even able to see his enemy Emordilorcan clearly, so how could he possibly hit him?


    The ancient battle between elementals repeated itself in the modern day, but unfortunately, Camdian learned to his despair that while his own strength had indeed increased greatly, Emordilorcan had already changed his entire battling style, and Camdian was not even able to get a single hit in. This strange style caused the gap between Camdian and Emordilorcan to widen even further.


    ¡°Hurry, we don¡¯t have much time left.¡±


    Just by seeing the situation, I knew that it was impossible for Camdian to win, and even how long he couldst was a problem. For such an old fox like Camdian, it was all too normal for him to run away if he couldn¡¯t win, there was zero possibility at all of Camdian fighting to his death.


    After hesitating for a moment, I still decided to send him a message.


    ¡°Hang in there, we¡¯re currently closing the Earth Elemental Door, after it¡¯s closed, Emordilorcan¡¯s power will be reduced greatly, so that you can grab your chance to take your revenge. If you miss this opportunity, you¡¯ll never defeat Emordilorcan for the rest of your life.¡±


    In order for him to not retreat when he hadn¡¯t been truly defeated yet, I could only give Camdian a strong motivation, and just as I expected, Camdian who had begun to cower worked up his courage again at hearing there was still a chance.


    At this moment, under the cover of the chaotic battle, our knights were riding in the snow. Now, we had already entered the Earth Elementals¡¯ Labyrinth, and our target was of course the currently opening dimensional door.


    Ourbat strategy had been clear from the start. The Wind Elementals and Winged Tribes and even the brave warriors (cannon fodder) that were rushing as the vanguard were merely a smokescreen to disguise our true motive.


    Antuen¡¯s defense army had been through too many long bitter battles, so it was heavily fatigued and injured with severe losses to their elite troops. Having them participate in this high-level battle between elementals would basically be akin to having them suicide, which was why I gave them the task of cleaning up the remaining roaming Beastmen squads, while I took the elites and rushed for the Earth Elemental dimensional door under cover of the battle between elementals to destroy the most critical strategic target.


    If the Earth Elemental dimensional door was allowed topletely open, no matter what happened next in thebat situation, the side of Chaos would most likely have obtained enough strength to win overwhelmingly, and everything else that we did would be nothing more than mending the fence after losing the sheep, with irreversible damage having been done already.


    ¡°Hah!¡±


    I shouted in a low voice and defeated the enemy in front of me with a single blow. This small earth elemental was barely worth mentioning, and didn¡¯t even require my sword.


    But the deeper we went into the Earth Elemental Labyrinth, the more tiny earth elementals that appeared. They were nothing more than token creatures generated by the Earth Elemental dimensional door, and they didn¡¯t even have self-awareness, so spending time on them was pointless.


    ¡°Just how long are we going to have to kill these for?¡±


    There were so many walls before us, and we kept hitting dead ends. Doubtlessly, the earth elementals had constructed this into an intricate maze during the interval between fighting with nothing else to do. Our target was naturally located in the deepest part of thebyrinth, and all the guardians that we passed on our way was evidence that my inference was correct.


    ¡°Underhanded mortals, my master has long since anticipated your plot. I¡¯m the guardian of this door, the Earth Elemental Lord Alidos, don¡¯t... Ahh!¡±


    With Adam as the vanguard, everything was easy. This Alidos fellow didn¡¯t even finish giving his speech before he instantly bit the dust. Alidos was the twelfth guardian that we met already; this was just like a dungeon-exploring game, with the mini-bossesing at us one at a time. It was a pity that we received no experience from this, though.


    Since Emordilorcan could return here at any moment, time was of the essence. That¡¯s why I looked questioningly over towards Margaret. If my memory served me correctly, this Great Saint was the most skilled in time and space magic, so perhaps she would have some method to help us.


    ¡°Teleporting everyone to the central location of thebyrinth? Impossible, there¡¯s not a single mage that can teleport people to an unknown location, and this type of irregr structure is the worst for teleportation. If there¡¯s even the smallest miscalction with the distance, we¡¯d be teleported into the walls...¡±


    Then could we only continue onwards one level at a time? We still had to listen to thoserge rocks and stone giants give their boring speeches? This was evidently not a good idea.


    ¡°Hah, I¡¯m the Worm King Kasi, don¡¯t even imagine that you can pass the door that I guard...¡±


    Okay, fine, I actually did want to hear this guy¡¯s speech, since arge worm that was over a dozen meters long was quite a rare sight. But the SemiGod mage who seemed quite anxious evidently didn¡¯t have the patience for that, since right after the self-styled Worm King crawled out of the dirt, he was sliced into seventeen pieces.


    The Earth Elemental Door still hadn¡¯t opened fully, so the only earth elementals and other earth attribute creatures that were able toe to this dimension were limited in power, but this definitely wasn¡¯t their upper limits. We could take care of these guys easily, but just recalling back to that megaton rock who was currently beating up the Wind Elemental God while ying at triple kicks in midair, I knew that I definitely had zero chance of victory against the Earth Elemental God.


    This was a race against time. If the Wind Elemental God decided to run off on his own, I didn¡¯t have the ability to fool such a useful cannon fodder anymore.


    ¡°Glina...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Clint!¡±


    ¡°Okay, Clint, it¡¯s up to you now, we¡¯re the demolition crew! You understand, right?¡±


    From long ago, when I was stuck in an irritating maze in some video game, I had always imagined that if I met an undergroundbyrinth in real life, I would definitely use a different method to go through the maze.


    ¡°Goblin Engineers have an old saying: ¡®Explosions are an art form,¡¯ so allow me to witness your artistry. Come, give me a good explosion! Everyone get back, Clint, explode everything for me! We¡¯re not going to take the door, we¡¯re taking the window!¡±


    Yep, I should have done this much earlier, the exit was right before us with only a thin wall in between, why did I need to circle around all over again instead of using a hammer to crash through the wall?


    ¡°I¡¯m tired of these damned mazes, as well as all those maze designers with nothing better to do, why do I have to y such a slow pathfinding game with you? If there¡¯s no path, just open one up through the wall, if there¡¯s no staircase, I¡¯ll just go right through the floor. Just watch, even if this maze has 999 floors, I¡¯ll pierce through all of them with this one explosion!¡±


    Clint¡¯sments just now as he gave me a huge thumbs-up and viciously pressed down on his explosives button were indicative that he agreed with my attitude, as expected of my rtive.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    The rest was simple, as the Elemental Tide would show us the way. The closer we got to the Dimensional Door, the thicker the elements became, all we had to do was follow the trail.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    Yet another hole appeared in the wall before us. Using such a high-speed tactic to conquer the maze, all we had to do was continuously sweep away the broken stones, then jump down to the next floor. We were rapidly approaching the center of the maze. Judging by Margaret¡¯s crystal ball that was aiding our pathfinding, we were close to our target.


    ¡°Tsk, let me do it, I promise we can go through three or four floors at once, it¡¯ll be much quicker.¡±


    The Goblin Engineer Jinya.Beyar saw how cool Clint was acting, and seemed to get jealous. He wanted to help out as well, but we prevented him from doing so.


    ¡°So you want all of us to be buried alive?¡±


    At this, Jinya fell speechless.


    After all, having Clint using explosives in the first ce rather than Jinya who had even more powerful bombs at his disposal was doubtlessly because Clint was far more adept at precision. Clint wouldn¡¯t bury us while opening up the path to the next floor.


    Clint became more and more practiced with each explosion, causing less unnecessary broken rocks to be exploded with each one, so our progress kept increasing in pace.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never thought you were so reliable before, good job!¡±


    Just as I gave Clint a big thumbs-up as well, the entire ground began shaking violently.


    ¡°Boom!¡± ¡°Boom!¡±


    Continuous exploding sounds came from all around us as the ceiling began to drop dirt pieces, with onerge piece almost hitting my face.


    ¡°I really can¡¯t praise you... oh, it wasn¡¯t you? Then who was it?¡±


    ¡°Rnd, I¡¯ll refrain from asking what these strange hand gestures mean, there¡¯s a reaction of Godly energy right above us, let¡¯s prepare.¡±


    Margaret¡¯s words immediately solved the puzzle for us. For a SemiGod mage like her, the Elemental Gods¡¯ energy waves were just like bright lights in the darkness that were impossible to ignore.


    At this moment, Camdian¡¯s message suddenly arrived.


    ¡°Flesh allies of mine, my apologies... I hope that we still have a chance to work together again in the future.¡±


    Should I say that guy was supposed to be nice after all? At the very least, he still passed along a message, but even though Emordilorcan and Camdian were both Ancient Elemental Gods that had just awakened from being sealed, Camdian wasn¡¯t even able tost twenty minutes, how incredibly weak.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m weak, Emordilorcan¡¯s just too strong.¡±


    Okay then, this guy even remembered to add one more sentence to give himself an excuse.¡±


    ¡°Pound!¡±


    The current booming sounds and tremblesing from above us told us that this was no time to be ming Camdian, as the Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan was probably right above us already. Just recalling that figure who was brutally beating up the Wind Elemental God from earlier gave me a headache.


    But we were already in the enemy¡¯s home territory, and it was quite possible that Emordilorcan had abilities like ¡°move through the earth¡± or ¡°walk through walls,¡± so attempting to escape now would be impossible.


    ¡°Damn it, Adam!¡±


    ¡°Margaret, take everyone with you, your knowledge is needed there.¡±


    It was great to be working with old partners. Margaret knew that this wasn¡¯t the time for words, so she merely waved her staff and cast a few buffs on us as she nodded and took everyone on to the next floor beneath us.


    Meanwhile, Adam and I drew our swords and prepared for that guy toe find us.


    ¡°Hey, how¡¯s your strength these days, don¡¯t be a dead weight here.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, do you see this sword in my hands? The Rnd Sacred Sword, forged 14 times, enhanced to +7, with power that almost matches the 13 Godly Artifacts. Heh heh heh, take a good look at that rusty metal in your hands, it looks like it¡¯s only Superior quality, with no enhancements. I¡¯m your granddaddy, and the difference between us is like that of a pay-to-win yer and a starving refugee yer, who cares if your level is high, can you one-hit-KO everything in sight, if you can¡¯t take it thene PK with me, your granddaddy will instantly defeat you.¡±


    Adam didn¡¯t even know how to respond to this. Every time they met a simr situation, Rnd would always enter his crazed state and say all these iprehensible things.


    But since Adam also knew long beforehand that they would meet such a strong enemy, of course he would be prepared. So, he silently put away his cheap Superior quality sword, and shook out a shortsword from his sleeve, then suddenly infused it with the power of thunder and caused a one-meter long Lightsword to appear.


    ¡°A rechargeable Lightsword? That¡¯s at least a legendary weapon, it must be famous in history, this Elven-style carving on it, is it Xiler¡¯s Banshee¡¯s Sword? So you were a pay-to-win yer as well, why didn¡¯t you bring this out earlier? Were you nning on using the trope of ¡®I am not left-handed¡¯?¡±


    Adam lightly touched his sword¡¯s tip, causing that clear crystal sword to seemingly be far more intimidating after it was infused with the fury of the wind. He felt quite fortunate that he was able to find a weapon which matched his characteristics.


    ¡°I gave the Sentiment of the Wind sword to Annie, but since I still needed to be on the battlefield, of course I would go find another sword. I don¡¯t know this sword¡¯s name, but it seems to fit me quite well. However, I ¡®borrowed¡¯ it from the Cloud Tower, which was an unseemly action, so it would be best to not let Margaret see this sword.¡±


    Not only was it unseemly, in a certain personal mage tower in the Cloud Tower, the original owner was already howling in despair. And far before Adam even left,ints about him had already filled the Truth Research Society¡¯s desk. If it wasn¡¯t for his connection to Margaret, Adam would have been cklisted forever by the mages long ago.


    ¡°Oh, you as well, actually I profited quite a lot from Andst time. That strong human kingdom truly umted so much after so many prosperous years, it would have been a waste to not take something from them.¡±


    ¡°Yep, yep, it¡¯s just that even though they¡¯re so rich, they¡¯re really stingy, thest time I ced my sword on someone¡¯s neck...¡±


    Okay then, just as the two of them began focusing on exchanging stories about how they stole from others, the tardy guest of honor finally arrived.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    What came first was the violent shaking of the ground, followed by countless sharp stone spears that suddenly pierced through the earth.


    ¡°It¡¯s here!¡±


    The gigantic stone spears pierced through the floors with such force that the entirebyrinth shook from the impact, as that stone giant finally reached where we were.


    And when the stone pirs from above were retracted, huge eyes filled with killing intent blocked the holes that the pirs made. That¡¯s when we discovered that those ¡°stone spears¡± had actually been part of his finger.


    ¡°Hmph, you¡¯re actually using such a clich¨¦ scene from a horror movie? You think your granddaddy is afraid? No matter how strong the boss, aren¡¯t they all just to drop equipment for the yers? Come, have fun fighting with your granddaddy!¡±


    At the same time, the silver Sacred Sword was currently letting off an abnormal silvery glow. With the silvery glow bing tangible, the God Equipment Rnd Sacred Sword was about to face its first enemy since its birth.

 Chapter 178

    Chapter 178: Royal Protection


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck


    Elemental life is typically formed by the gathering of basic elements thatck consciousness. While they appear to be the same as other living creatures, there¡¯s actually a big difference, as low-level elementals don¡¯t have any feelings or consciousness. However, top-level elementals are the same as other living beings, as not only do they have emotions and wisdom, they even have humanoid forms and the ability to reproduce.


    But due to the differing structures of their bodies, their deaths will simply scatter their basic element. These elementals are typically able to return to the elemental ne and reform themselves, which was why it was so difficult to truly kill them outside of the elemental ne. Still, losing their elemental power that they could use at will also made them unable to use their true strength.


    It was both a talent and an attempt to mitigate this weakness that the higher-level elemental lifeforms were always skilled at modifying their surrounding environments. Huge whirlpools deep in the ocean, maelstroms high in the sky, magma hells in the midst of volcanos, and stonebyrinths deep underground were their favorite environments. They had the ability to change these locations into a different artificial world entirely without anyone knowing, so that they could wield a power simr to what they had in the elemental ne.


    Currently, this undergroundbyrinth was far above the level of a simple artificially constructed microcosm. Thanks to its sessful connection to the Earth Elemental ne, thisbyrinth was gradually bing part of the elemental ne itself. Those minor earth elementals that suddenly awakened their own senses of self were the best evidence that this location was gradually turning into the earth elementals¡¯ home turf.


    ¡°Never battle with the Undead in the Death ne, never battle with demons in the Hell ne, never battle with elementals in the Elemental ne, they¡¯ll be ten times more difficult to deal with!¡±


    But, I had a different opinion.


    ¡°Home territory? Foolish earth clods, this was never your home territory! Right? Rnd Sacred Sword.¡±


    With my soft words, the silver Sacred Sword began glimmering even brighter than before. I could detect that it was currently the same as me: feeling rage at all the scum that hade over to ournd without being invited.


    ¡°You unwee guests that just do whatever you want, you really believe this to be your dusty, filthy world? Dust to dust, earth to earth, go back to where you came from!¡±


    The Sacred Sword¡¯s brilliance was at the point where entire the pitch-dark floor was being lit up. With a mighty shout, I viciously stuck the silver longsword into the ground as the silver king answered my summons and his soul began materializing.


    The Rnd Sacred Sword was a royal sword that¡¯s existed for eons. At first, it was the personal sword of the first King of Mist. It¡¯s already experienced more history than can be recounted, and in this kingdom that¡¯s experienced many disasters and wars, numerous kings throughout the generations have cut down various obstacles as they led their knights to fight for their country¡¯snd.


    Royal sword, guardian sword, hereditary sword, were all new names that this sword acquired over the years with the sacrifices of various past Kings of Mist and their loyal knights, despite the fact that it didn¡¯t have any traits apart from being sturdy. This Sacred Sword was gradually bearing more and more responsibilities.


    As it evolved from a normal weapon into a guardian Sacred Sword, it umted the power of a soul ¨C the ancestral kings¡¯ understanding of what royalty was. Royalty was the guardian, guardian of the people, the country, the home, the family.


    The Mist n that would never surrender forged this unbreakable Sacred Sword of Mist, and now that it¡¯s finally umted enough power within my hands, it finally began its next stage of transformation.


    In the past, I wondered about what characteristics it would have after evolving into a God Equipment. But truthfully, this didn¡¯t require any consideration at all, as its power was only one from the very start ¨C protecting.


    ¡°The royalty are the guardians. We¡¯re born here, and never leave this ce, and will be buried here. And even if we transform into decayed bones or nothing but a spirit, we will still protect thisnd. Isn¡¯t that right? My inflexible, archaic ancestors.¡±


    ¡°You actually need this old fellow toe out, what a useless and unfilial descendant.¡±


    The hazy figure materialized in a silver sh. The summoned king returned to the physical world from being a soul whileining about how useless his descendant was, but answered the call of his bloodline without hesitation while riding a bull as his steed and holding his war spear at the ready for charging into battle.


    Atwood.Saint.Mist, nicknamed the Eagle of so, lived from AD 234 to AD 298, dying in the prime of his life. Almost his entire life was peaceful. He was viewed as mediocre in his early years, and derided as senile when he passed fifty years of age. He was always smiling and never seemed to anger, but when he was sixty-four, the northern barbarians happened to invade. Atwood fought a bloody battle with them for seventeen consecutive days at the so ins, ying several hundred enemy leaders.


    ¡°If only I was born thirty years earlier. This old warrior wasn¡¯t did yet, but my hair turned white already, and my body was so weak and tired, even though the enemy leaders were still alive with tens of thousands of enemies invading, and my people being affronted by them, if I can¡¯t return home with a coffin filled with enemy heads, I won¡¯t be able to reconcile myself with the idea of dying like this!¡±


    The ancient king Atwood was riding his heavily armored bull, and behind him were several shadowy figures of old soldiers carrying a coffin that had a big ¡°Death¡± written on it that stood out and drew attention.


    In that year, this ¡°senile¡± king that people looked down upon went to battle exactly in this fashion. He even had a coffin prepared for himself and brought out in front of his rtives that tried to convince him against personally entering battle. In the end, this old eagle that hadn¡¯t shown his mettle in more than ten years filled this coffin with the enemy leaders¡¯ heads, winning the glorious title of the Eagle of so.


    He narrowed his eyes and seemed to be waiting for something when he suddenly lifted his dark ck spear and chucked it forcefully.


    *Boom!*


    At that exact moment, the gigantic Earth Elemental God had reached his head down here, with his round gem eyes filled with vicious killing intent. But before he was able to take any actions, a dark ck spear silently flew and embedded itself in his jeweled eye.


    *Boom!*


    This unpredictable attack waspletely impossible to defend against. Only after the sharp spear stuck itself in his eye did Emordilorcan discover that he was under attack. Immediately following after, the spear¡¯s sudden explosion turned his gem eye into nothing but broken shards. Only a single attack caused the powerful Emordilorcan to go blind!


    ¡°Ahhh! It hurts! Stupid insect that deserves to die! Who, who dares to harm the mighty Emordilorcan!¡±


    ¡°Oh my. Hey big guy, this isn¡¯t a ce for bastards like you to be building a nest, take another spear from this old fellow!¡±


    The squinting elderly warrior finally opened his ferocious eyes as his killing intent spilled out everywhere together with his charge.


    Giant bulls were a rare species to begin with. Its dragonskin, thick armoring, and weight were all astonishing. It was about four meters tall, and its charge resembled that of a wingless SemiDragon, with a terrifying momentum.


    Its horns were already reaching the roof of this floor in thebyrinth, and the ground shook with every step it took. Borrowing his steed¡¯s momentum, its elderly rider didn¡¯t hesitate to rush Emordilorcan as his long dragonspear pierced through the Earth Elemental God¡¯s freshly injured eye once more.


    The dark ck dragonhorn battlespear pierced deep into Emordilorcan¡¯s head, causing him to panic as he had never experienced such pain before.


    ¡°Ahhhh!¡±


    The Earth Elemental God¡¯s shouting of agony reverberated through the entire floor we were battling on. This entire area above us began quaking mightily, also causing all living creatures aboveground to panic at the anger of the earth.


    The narrowness of thisbyrinth limited his highly agile body, and his ridiculously high defense that he was so proud of wasn¡¯t worth a thing in front of this ancient king. He had never experienced such humiliation in thousands of years.


    The older a creature was, the more it valued its own life. After finding out that this location wasn¡¯t the best for him to fight at his full abilities, Emordilorcan escaped in a manner unbefitting that of an Elemental God.


    ¡°Phew, what a ferocious old guy.¡±


    Adam whistled in amazement. He never expected that this elderly warrior would be so strong, without even giving him a chance to go out and do battle.


    ¡°Hmph, such a glib-tongued junior.¡±


    The Eagle of so disappeared into a shadow once more afterpleting his role that the Rnd Sacred Sword had summoned him for, returning to his slumber.


    As for me, I was sweating all over and half-kneeling on the ground. Just summoning this ancient king for that one attack had drained much of my energy.


    ¡°Hey hey hey, it couldn¡¯t be that you¡¯re already about to copse? Just looking at the way that huge rock was ring at us, he¡¯ll definitely be returning.¡±


    ¡°What garbage, I¡¯m afraid that he won¡¯te back.¡±


    Adam was surprised for a moment, but his intelligence was quite high when it regarded a battle. He quickly realized what I meant.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying he¡¯s going to go around us, and chase after Margaret?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what I would do in his ce. Is there any point in wasting time with the warriors like us behind the main objective? The obvious thing to do is go straight for the Dimensional Door, and once that ce is secured, all he has to do is trap us here and capture us at his leisure. I think that rockhead¡¯s intelligence is much higher than yours.¡±


    There was a rare sign of worry that shed on Adam¡¯s face upon hearing my words. Master Monks were already reputed to be the perfect counter to Mages, so even Margaret would likely find it difficult to deal with this monster¡¯s explosive ambush.


    Earth Elementals were thick-skinned and had astonishing endurance to begin with, and any injured wild animal would go berserk. Emordilorcan was certain to be far more dangerous than earlier.


    ¡°Then what should we do? I can detect his presence, but I don¡¯t have Clint¡¯s control. If I break through the walls to chase after him, there¡¯s a ny-nine percent chance that the walls will copse on us. Oh, by the way, I noticed that you¡¯re insulting me by saying I¡¯m worse than a rockhead.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, only being perceptive at such a time. Rx, I have a method, just go in the general direction. Glina, I leave breaking through the walls up to you.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t Glina together with Margaret? Are you finally going senile in your old age...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Clint, not Glina!¡±


    His insult was only half finished when it was interrupted. There was no mistaking that familiar voice, but when he looked over to see where it wasing from, there was only an immaterial floating silver armor in midair.


    ¡°...Even this awkwardness waspletely copied. Okay, Glina, hurry up and st through the walls.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not Glina, it¡¯s Clint!¡±


    ¡°I know you¡¯re called Clint, hurry up and begin, Glina.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not Glina!¡±


    ¡°Okay, Glina.¡±


    ¡°Glina!¡±


    ¡°Yep, Clint... damn it, I¡¯m losing track of what I¡¯m saying. So you weren¡¯t naturally a ditz, you were naturally ck-bellied.¡±


    Adam standing beside me was already stunned in amazement, but Glina was already filled with self-satisfaction as she began sting through the walls. I also gave Adam an exnation as we rushed on our way.


    [God Equipment: Rnd Sacred Sword]


    [Type: Two-handed longsword, attack power: 100-100, indestructible, usable only by descendants of the Mist.]


    [Unique characteristic: Eternal royal protection. The royal ancient spirits have never left thisnd. While you are in the nortnds, as their sessor and descendant, you can summon them to battle for your cause.]


    [There are two types of summons. The first is to summon a random king from the past to give a single full-strength attack, and the second is to summon a cloned spirit of someone currently living. Both types of summons are limited to Mist royalty members only.]


    ¡°In the past two thousand years of history, even the Gods havee and gone so frequently, and the newly born Mist Kingdom is already an ancient country, with countless epic battle campaigns. There were so many powerful kings in the past, that no matter which one you randomly summoned, none of them would be too weak. The only part is that the ten minute cooldown and limited usage of three times a day is really annoying. I hope that the next step of the Sacred Sword¡¯s evolution can upgrade this. As for the second type of summons, if the royalty is abundant and powerful it should be quite the ability, but there are too few options right now, so it¡¯s only an ordinary skill. However, it just happens to be useful right now.¡±


    The Clint in front of us was basically exactly the same, and his speed in setting up explosives was quick, decisive, and precise. Our overall speed was quite fast. ording to Adam¡¯s senses, we were almost about to pass in front of Emordilorcan.


    We stopped in a spacious cave. This was a wide enough ce that it was perfect for battle.


    I nodded at Glina and her clone spirit immediately disappeared and returned to the Sacred Sword.


    ¡°As for me, I also discovered an incredibly cheat method of summoning.¡±


    I purposefully sounded as mysterious as possible with my raucousughter. This type of rule-breaking summoning definitely surpassed my expectations for the God Equipment¡¯s main ability.


    ¡°Take a good look, and don¡¯t blink... Fight for me, twin stars, awaken, Rnd, Karwenz!¡±

 Chapter 179

    Chapter 179: Chaotic Situation


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck


    ¡°A True God has died; the Forest Guardian rdin has died. The SemiGod Prescott has also died in battle!¡±


    The Guardian God of the northern Elf Kingdom was the Forest God. This True God¡¯s death made all the elves feel as if the sky was falling down on them.


    ¡°This is impossible! Gods are indestructible, how could they possibly die! How could the victim be the mighty Forest Guardian rdin!¡±


    This was the feeling that all the northern elves had right after the news spread to everyone. For the past thousand years, the True God of Elves had been protecting them, causing them to be distant from the main events of the Nortnds ¨C the cruelpetition for survival.


    The warm environment and peace that was the stark opposite of the battlefield caused them to get ustomed to life under the protection of a God. They viewed it as a maxim simr to how the sun rose from the east. Now that the sun was no longer rising, it was only natural that they would panic to the extreme.


    ¡°We¡¯re finished, the northern Elf Kingdoms are all finished.¡±


    Those that lost all sense of reason and spread rumors out of fear were directly suppressed by the Elf Warriors, but fear and unrest were already spreading throughout the entire Elf poption in the north. While rumors could be denied, some things were indisputable.


    Due to the Forest Guardian God¡¯s death, the utopia-like Elf Kingdom was now re-entering reality after no longer having its God¡¯s protection. After returning to the circle of life, nature started showing off its cruelty that treated everyone equally!


    Currently, the streams in the forest were beginning to freeze over, andrge amounts of trees began wilting. The forests that didn¡¯t belong in the Nortnds were heading for death, and the outermost protective forest transformed in just a few minutes in a process that would normally take decades, losing all their leaves almost instantly. The anti-decaying protection from the True God had expired, leaving nothing but wilting death for the trees.


    Without the Forest Guardian¡¯s forest barrier to protect them, the Elf Kingdom¡¯s average temperature was now a stark contrast with the Nortnds¡¯ average temperature, causing nature¡¯s natural bncing to forcefully recoil against it.


    ording to the Elves¡¯ poetic description of what happened, the explosive northern words transformed itself into a brutal Seasonal God, and crushed the isted Elven paradise into a ce resembling the rest of the cruel Nortnds with just a single turn of its body.


    When frigid winds injected themselves into the Elvennds that used to be spring in all four seasons, the shivering Elves finally learned that it was finally winter. The brutal winter especially made for the Elves by the ferocious forces of nature was particrly unpleasant.


    Just as the Elves were sinking deeper into panic, their ¡°rtives¡± were in the midst of a mysterious frenzy. Bing fiercer after each battle wasn¡¯t an adequate description of their fervor anymore. In the midst of their major blood festival, the newly born Dark Elf Poison God had added a green poisonous snake emblem next to the Spider Goddess¡¯s spider emblem. The Dark Elf Gods were no longer Lorci all by herself, and the ambitious Lorci was already considering the ranking of newly born Dark Elf Gods in the future.


    The Dark Elf armies were gathering under the g of the ck eight-wed spider. The Elven armies defending their homnd had lost most of their main forces and were no match for the Dark Elves at all. All the Elves could do was watch as the invaders constructed endless bases and siege weapons in the Elven territory. The Dark Elves weren¡¯t even trying to conceal the fact that they intended to be here for a long time.


    The Tassel Kingdom¡¯s mausoleum had beenpletely dug up, with all the passages leading to the Underground Kingdomspletely opened. Every day, countless eager Dark Elves would arrive from the Underground world, as if they were bloodthirsty sharks that had detected the delicious scent of fresh blood from their tasty prey.


    The Dark Elves that had generations of grudges against their Elven cousins didn¡¯t begin a racial ughter as quickly as people expected, but their casually apparent preparations for all-out war and that arrogant attitude that treated the Elves asmbs for the ughter caused even the Elves that still believed in the possibility of victory to begin despairing.


    ¡°They¡¯re waiting, they¡¯re waiting for our campaigning armies to return. They have the assurance of definite victory, they have the protection of Lorci, and our armies have zero chance of victory without another Elf God¡¯s protection. Just what is the venerable Anslo thinking? Why did he allow the Forest Guardian to be killed off by the vicious and evil Spider Goddess! Why aren¡¯t our prayers being answered?¡±


    The Elf Gods had no time to respond to the northern Elves¡¯ prayers, as the Human Gods had already detected their betrayal, making things difficult for them to even survive as it was.


    From a certain viewpoint, it could be said that the Elvescked someone with leadership abilities who could organize them and take charge. Compared to the major Human Kingdoms that were treating their Guardian Gods more and more like lucky mascots, the Elves relied far too much on their Gods and even viewed the Gods¡¯ protection as the most important factor in battle.


    ¡°No, they¡¯re also waiting for their own reinforcements. The Dark Elves are increasing in number every day, damn it! Just how many of those Dark Elf bitches are there?¡±


    Just how many Dark Elves were there in total in the dark Underground world? Lorci herself likely didn¡¯t know either. She used her own power to help the Dark Elves possess fertility far beyond that of regr Elves, but Lorci was called depraved for this action and exiled to the Underground world.


    ¡°Damned Anslo! You¡¯re calling me depraved? Fine, I¡¯ll show you what depravity is, I shall allow you to witness true evil!¡±


    It could be said that Lorci¡¯s self-destructive actions caused the entire Dark Elf tribe to fall into true depravity and darkness. Killing each other, betrayals, and scams became the entire lifestyle of this whole tribe, and even the Underground demons wouldn¡¯t dare say that they were better at scamming others inparison with the Dark Elves. But at the very least, it was indisputable that these fallen Dark Elves were incredibly strong. After they broke free from the curse of low fertility, their true potential was far stronger than what everyone expected.


    There was no race in existence that was evil from birth, as each individual¡¯s sense of good or evil was determined by his or her own experiences. Lorci¡¯s tainted dark waters didn¡¯t stain the entire tribe. The Gray Elves protected by the Moon God and the Dark Elf Rangers that lived in istion publicly disobeyed the Underground lords summoned by Lorci. Even the Dark Elves had countless different beliefs and ways of thinking within themselves; Lorci had long lost control over the entire Dark Elf tribe.


    But take a look at the current Dark Elf battle camps, thergest continuous campground indeed belonged to Lorci¡¯s g. Symbols of the moonlight, the blood sword, the icy twin swords, and various others were scattered among as well, with all these numerous scattered camps representing the countless number of traitors to Dark Elf society. Adding them all together, they far outnumbered Lorci¡¯s forces, which was one type of evidence that this tribe contained a huge number of inner factions.


    However, all of these Dark Elves that resented and killed each other while Underground had gathered here for the sake of a unified purpose.


    ¡°There¡¯s no justice in this judgement against our ancestors! Even if our ancestors were in the wrong, us descendants have the right to live under the blue sky, under the sun, together with the living! We have the freedom to roam in thefortable opennds! We will prove that us Dark Elves are the strongest among all Elf tribes, that we¡¯re the upper-ss Elves that deserve to rule!¡±


    Under Lorci¡¯s g, the Dark Elves that had severe differences temporarily banded together. With Lorci spending great amounts of Godly power to summon a magical dark mist, they were able to avoid being burned by the sun. The Dark Elves patiently sharpened their knives in the darkness, waiting for the fated brutal ughter that was about to ur with their close cousins.


    Since the Dark Elves had invaded earlier than the others, it was only natural that they began separating out from the other Underground forces. Their only target now was to carve out a piece of the blue sky for themselves.


    ¡°This part of the Nortnds is enough for now, there¡¯s the Elven Spring here, and forests, we can rebuild a kingdom that belongs to us here; there¡¯s everything we want!¡±


    Looking at it another way, as long as the wardrums of the Holy War sounded again, the Dark Elves and Lorci who were grinding their poisonous teeth were certain to return to the surface. Rnd and Ayer¡¯s invitation letter was what ended up giving Lorci the best excuse and time to take action.


    Currently, countless tents had been erected outside the Elven cities, and the Dark Elves were anticipating the joy of revenge and bloody victory. The Dark Elves whose greatest characteristic was betrayal actually managed toe together for this one goal.


    As for the northern Elves that had lived here for so long, this was naturally a nightmare to them.


    The Elf King Adrian that just returned to his capital city stared nkly at the scenery of despair in front of him. Was this what he had sacrificed his own daughter for? Was this the Elven strength to rule the ages that the Elven Gods had promised?


    ¡®I should have expected that the first to stand up in the Holy War would definitely be nothing but cannon fodder.¡¯


    At this time, he couldn¡¯t help but remember that person¡¯s assessment of him in his regret.


    ¡°You care too much about gains and losses, and calcte too much. You¡¯re actually only seeing small benefits, but you miss the big picture. Always calcting gains and losses every day, you¡¯ll eventually lose yourself in it as well.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not wrong! I¡¯m definitely not wrong!¡±


    But the currentbat situation didn¡¯t permit for his wallowing in self-regret. The other three allied countries¡¯ armies had alreadyined so much to him, and there were plenty that wanted to dissolve the allied armies and take their own troops back to guard their home countries.


    ¡°Foolish, you¡¯re even more shortsighted than the useless humans. You think that those Dark Elf bitches will be satisfied with conquering only the Tassel Kingdom, that they won¡¯t go to the other countries? My Tassel Kingdom will hardly satisfy them, they want the entire Nortnds Elf Kingdom!¡±


    After returning, the devastation wrought upon the Tassel Kingdom had the opposite effect of making the other Elf armies want to separate from the allied armies even more. If they continued being unable toe together in unison, the Elves were quickly about to lose the war without even fighting.


    ¡°Invite two generals and Prince Kazlo to a meeting, just tell them that I have something private to tell them... Have Alwin take the Moonde Elites and get ready for my orders.¡±


    The king clenched his teeth and made a gesture of slicing his hand across his throat to his shocked trusted retainer. The king had resolved himself to sacrifice everything in order to protect his own kingdom.


    Nobody could have expected that this winter would involve so many factions at war. The Elves¡¯ battle, the Maple defense line, and the Elemental battle formed the most eye-catching opening acts of this Holy War.


    All three battles affected and tangled with each other. At this point, any tilting towards one side or the other for any battle could cause a snowball effect, eventually ending in an avnche.


    The ¡°Traitors¡¯ Battle¡± was the nameter given to this war by history, but for those involved in the current era, the future generations¡¯ evaluations were unimportant. This frustrating situation where it was difficult to tell enemy from ally was the biggest headache for everyone.


    There was so much betrayal between the two major sides of this conflict, to the point where even fooling your own tribe became a daily urrence. Enemy today, friend tomorrow. Yesterday an ally, tomorrow a mortal enemy.


    This type of fluctuation didn¡¯t even spare the venerated True Gods. When the Holy War restarted, those who tried remaining ambiguous were forced to stop sitting on the fence by the respective elder Gods of each faction and had to make their choices clearly for which side to stand on.


    In a way, this was the critical time and point that allowed Ayer¡¯s letter,ing from one of the foremost Order Gods, to have such convincing power to Lorci for her to reselect the side she stood on.


    Also, as one of the biggest losers in the previous Holy War, the Beastmen that didn¡¯t have any Gods to protect them were aiming to recover all their previous losses in this war. Their earlier ambushes were indeed outstanding, but they had now met with some small problems.


    ¡°Our spies have beenpletely eliminated? How is this possible, I remember there were 2376 different groups, with seventy percent of them being human mixed bloods that are impossible to determine from physical appearance, nor do they even know each other, how is it possible for all of them to be discovered? Some of our deeply embedded spies have been nted within the enemy for one or two hundred years over several generations, that we never activated, why were they discovered?


    As the side with the advantage of being proactive on the attack, the current Beastman Chieftain Amon.Bloodaxe was currently dealing with a huge headache. From the start of war to now, theck of aplete informationwork had always been one of the biggest obstacles for the Beastmen.


    The most important thing in war was information. Thanks to Sleuweir Kingdom¡¯s policy of ¡°peaceful trading,¡± the past one hundred-plus years of interaction were more than enough for the ambitious Beastmen tribes to fill this kingdom with spies like a worm-infested apple.


    But when the war truly began, not a single one of their nted ¡°seeds¡± ended up sprouting.


    The Tortoise Tribe Beastman making the report was sweating all over. He was the main leader of the informationwork, as well as a tribe leader himself, but he was currently fearing for his life instead of this group of major Beastmen leaders.


    It couldn¡¯t be helped that all the leaders were so angry, as they had raised these soldiers so long to be used when the day came, with war being the most active time period for spies to be used. This was the time for spies to show their stuff, but the Tortoise Tribe Beastman basically handed in nothing but a nk test paper.


    ¡°There should be thirteen groups in Red Maple Castle, but... they were all discovered, they¡¯re the ones hanging on the eastern castle door. And, I...¡±


    ¡°You told us that the western castle door¡¯s femalemander was nothing more than a flower vase, so we concentrated our battle power to attack the western door, and we ended up taking heavy losses. The aerial cavalry that we lost were umted over so many years, and you¡¯re actually telling us that you didn¡¯t know about those magic swordsmen and war machines? You¡¯re telling us that you didn¡¯t see anything as huge as a floating battleship? You¡¯re all so useless, why are we even paying for your upkeep!¡±


    The raging Beastman King lifted up his battle axe while shouting angrily at hearing the informationwork¡¯s mistaken and inurate information yet again at this critical juncture. He intended to personally cut off these useless Beastmen¡¯s heads.


    ¡°Wait a moment, how did our spies get discovered? Setting aside those that were obviously Beastmen, as they were just decoys, how did the human spies we bribed and the mixed bloods get exposed, that¡¯s illogical, unless...¡±


    Compared to the raging Eagle King, the Bearman Londe seemed far moreposed. But judging from the jade he identally crushed in his hands, he wasn¡¯t asposed as he appeared on the surface. The loss of a behemoth was something irreceable that had already given him many sleepless nights of sorrow.


    At this moment, when he spoke his final word ¡°unless,¡± he looked around him suspiciously at each tribe leader.


    It was quite obvious what he meant between the lines. For such a deeply hidden informationwork to bepletely discovered, the only possibility was that there was a spy, an incredibly high level one.


    ¡°...No, it¡¯s not a spy.¡±


    Even though the axe was already on top of his head and he was scared witless, the informationwork leader still needed to say what he should say.


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing to do with a spy, it¡¯s actually due to a problem with our logistics that caused all our spies to get revealed.¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    What logistical problem could possibly expose all the spies at once? The tribe leaders present all had looks of disbelief.


    ¡°If we look at the root cause, I have to talk about thirty years ago. Since we have simple lifestyles, us Beastmen have difficulty making livings in the human world. For the spies that weren¡¯t adept at business to be suddenly sent to a foreign country, many spies were cheated out of their money in a short three months, and were forced back to the hignds by starvation.¡±


    Everyone nodded at this. It was public knowledge that Beastmen weren¡¯t adept at business. Not only these spies that didn¡¯t know a single written word, there were quite a few ¡°wise¡± witch doctors and shaman that had the experience of losing everything through being cheated by human society.


    For the Beastmen that still had the traditional bartering system in ce, the human world was far tooplex. Even if they didn¡¯t meet a scammer, most Beastmen would quickly use up all their traveling funds and helplessly return to their homes.


    ¡°We never knew when the day to counterattack woulde. If we kept continuously sending out new spies, this would be a bottomless investment. Our tribe isn¡¯t wealthy, so we can¡¯t afford it. Finally, a coincidence helped us to obtain a legendary treasure.¡±


    ¡°Treasure?¡±


    ¡°Yep, it came about out of a lucky witch doctor experiment. A witch doctor from my tribe identally mixed his cooking spices with his prophecy herbs, which was how he managed to coincidentally create the famous legend ¨C Orion fried demon meat!¡±


    All the tribe leaders swallowed their saliva in unison upon hearing this. They¡¯d all tasted this red and delicious fried meat before as well. It was indeed savory to the point of tantalizing.


    ¡°Everyone here surely knows about it already. With that as the foundation, we opened up a series of fried meat shops using the Orion brand selling fried meat and hamburgers, causing the Orion name to be famous. Hmph, those damned humans that deserve to die actually stole our form, and created some McD hamburger restaurant chain,peting with us everywhere, shameless to the extreme!¡±


    ¡°What does this have to do with our spies being discovered?¡± Amon was rather shocked at this sudden change of topic. Wasn¡¯t this supposed to be about the informationwork? How didpetition between fast food restaurants have anything to do with this?


    ¡°As you know, our spies aren¡¯t skilled at business, while the Orion fast food restaurant is one of our only profitable businesses, resulting in... the result was that all the spies opened up Orion fast food restaurants! After one spy was discovered, every single spy was revealed!¡±


    Ok, fine, since the Orion fast food restaurant was too profitable, there were even Beastmen that voluntarily became spies in order to open up restaurants in the humans¡¯ fancy world to enjoy their lives.


    ¡°Fuck! Isn¡¯t that just looking for death!¡±


    ¡°Foolish to such an extent! Who gave such an order! Which idiot did such a moronic thing? I¡¯m going to hang him to death on the gpole!¡±


    The Beastman King Amon¡¯s angry roar reverberated through the tent, and his sharp voice caused the guards outside to shiver in fear.


    The informationwork leader sweated even more profusely at seeing how angry Amon was.


    ¡°It was you...¡±


    His reply was in a soft voice, but there were no ordinary people present that could not hear him. The tribe leaders were momentarily stunned at this, then the tent fell eerily silent, with Amon being the only person to clumsily continue speaking.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°It was you. My ckrock tribe was originally a subordinate tribe to your Bloodaxe tribe. Since information and scouting had always been the realm of the Eagle tribe that excelled in flying, and you¡¯re the master of all Eaglemen, and I¡¯ve always been your loyal retainer. When you first seeded your position, you said ¡®who knows when those useless spies will finally be useful, it¡¯s impossible for it to be my generation, so we might as well take the chance to earn some more money, and let our tribesmen participate in the most profitable business! We¡¯re going to fill the entire world with Orion fast food restaurants! We¡¯re going to be the fast food kings!¡±


    Amon did his best to remember. He seemed to vaguely recall that thirty or forty years ago, when he first inherited his position, he had indeed said something simr, and even had it recorded in the tribe records as a wise saying.


    As the Bloodaxe tribe chieftain, what he was most proud of wasn¡¯t his martial arts ability or prowess inbat strategy, but rather his ability to help his tribe get rich. It was precisely because of the flourishment of the Bloodaxe tribe that they were chosen as the representatives to cooperate with the Earth Elemental God.


    ¡°This can¡¯t be med on you, humans are just too devious. You see, we just found out that those McD hamburger restaurants were actually spies sent out by San Antonio. Our captured spies were all reported by those clowns wearing red wigs!¡±


    That Tortoise tribe Beastman was all teary-faced as he talked about this painful memory.


    ¡°Those, those mascots that were singing blue blue road! They even hit us with their ingredients, and tossed those disgusting red wigs at us. They were underhanded to the point of putting rocks in their hamburgers, our fellow Beastmen were so pitiful. Our mascot the white-bearded old Beastman waspletely unable to defeat them with the demon bone staff. The scene was unbearable to witness.¡±


    ¡°White-bearded old Beastman? Mascot? Isn¡¯t this just looking to die?¡±


    Some tribe leader finally pointed out another obvious w. This time, it was a certain Bearman tribe leader¡¯s turn to sweat profusely, as he also recalled the foolish decision he made twenty years ago when he inherited his position.


    The informationwork leader saw this out of the corner of his eyes, but he figured that if he didn¡¯t say anything, he was certain to die. Saying it out loud might still give him a chance at living, so he ground his teeth and continued speaking.


    ¡°A certain person wanted to have a remembrance of his grandfather that passed away, and made this extra request... The white beard would represent wisdom, and the staff represented the willingness to never give up, and the white clothes and white apron represented the progress of shamanic culture. He said that it was necessary to make humans understand the beauty of the rough Beastman culture!¡±


    Okay then. The informationwork leader kept staring at a certain Bearman while saying all this. His intention was obvious: let¡¯s not me anyone here.


    ¡°Cough, I rmend, something else. We can actually fight on even without information.¡± The Bearman tribe leader Londe pretended to remainposed as he spoke.


    ¡°Yep, I agree. We Beastmen are number one in the world atbat ability; there¡¯s no need for us to imitate the weakling humans and use spies or whatever.¡± The Beastman King Amon rxed slightly as he said so.


    With the two strongest leaders agreeing with each other, what else could the other tribe leaders say, they could only nod.


    ¡°Notify all Beastmen, from today on, McD Hamburgers are our mortal enemies! Orion fast food is our pride! From today on, you¡¯re no longer our informationwork leader, we shall give you the new job of fried meat business consultant, and manage the economy of fried meat for all Beastmen!¡±


    The informationwork leader was overjoyed beyond his wildest dreams at hearing this.


    ¡°Wonderful, this is my dream job! I¡¯m the Chairman of the Board for the Orion Fried Meat Association, as well as an executive-ranked chef, this will be no problem for me. It¡¯s so much better than this annoying informationwork job. You¡¯re the best at picking the right person for the job!¡±


    Apart from Chief Amon who was smiling delightedly from being sucked up to, all the other tribal leaders had strange looks on their faces.


    ¡®Something seems wrong here from the very start, this job was given to the wrong person to begin with! You¡¯re making a chef into the spymaster, so of course there would be problems! We¡¯re currently at war, is there any necessity to make some chain fast food restaurants? Didn¡¯t you make a mistake from the very beginning? Forget about using a spy as a chef, don¡¯t use chefs anymore as spies!¡±

 Chapter 180

    Chapter 180: Cooperative Battle


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    In the current generation, there were only four descendants of the Mist¡ªKarwenz, Glina, Reyne, and myself. What I originally expected was that I would be able to summon only Glina and Reyne.


    However, when I decided to try my luck, I got an incredible result.


    In a way, the summoned spirits of the Rnd Sacred Sword could be said to be the exact copies of the person from when they were living, but Karwenz and I were obviously special cases. You could say that we technically weren¡¯t descendants of the Mist anymore. At the very least, I¡¯ve reincarnated several times, and Karwenz wasn¡¯t even a human.


    But the Rnd Sacred Sword still managed to summon them, and the sight of those nostalgic figures caused me to catch my breath.


    The blonde-haired, young Holy Knight bowed to me with a brilliant smile on his face, but I knew that deep inside he was secretly plotting in his heart. Karwenz had an expression filled with displeasure and his eyebrows were furrowed as if he was thinking about something important, but he most likely wasn¡¯t thinking about anything more important than what to eat for lunch. Even though the two of them appeared identical, they radiatedpletely different auras.


    It was quite obvious that the summoning of these twins must have been some type of bug caused by our special circumstances. Even though I had died in battle at fourteen years old that year, I¡¯m still alive and kicking, which was why this Sacred Sword summoned the legendary Holy Knight Rnd from the generation who had entered Armageddon together with Diffindor.


    As for Karwenz, thisnd recorded his final moment when he had discarded his Mist Bloodline and turned into a demon. The current Karwenz in front of me was the youth from before he had abandoned his humanity.


    ¡°Rnd, don¡¯t be a burden for me. Just go ahead and hide behind my back and shiver.¡± The arrogant and strong younger brother had sharp words as usual, but this was his way of caring for his older brother who wasn¡¯t simrly skilled at fighting.


    ¡°Brat, I¡¯m your older brother, so remember to be polite. Otherwise, the next time we have a group date, I¡¯ll tell that bearlike girl from the Dino Family that you like her. You know how persistent she can be.¡± The brilliantly smiling Holy Knight used a malicious threat, and as expected, his younger brother revealed a shred of fear underneath his icy gaze. That was Karwenz¡¯s typical expression of surrender.


    I felt like I was having a nostalgic dream as I watched the twins in front of me.


    After passing through the long river of time, the twins have met once more. Their conversation made me feel as if I returned to those final days more than three hundred years ago; a difficult yet joyous period of both fortune and bitterness.


    ¡°Oh my, this guy seems quite difficult to deal with. Karwenz, it¡¯s all up to you.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I knew you would say that. You always run away the moment you face a direct battle¡ªI have no idea how you became a Sword Saint.¡±


    Back in the day, we also bantered in a simr manner as we confidently walked off to our own battles. It was regretful, however, that even though we always knew of each other¡¯s existence and trusted that the other could change everything, we never met again until the final moment.


    At this moment, though, the Nortnds¡¯ skies were just as blue as always, while the frigid, bitter winds pierced the bones. However, some things would never return to how they were. At the very least, it was impossible for the twins to have such a peaceful meeting for their next reunion.


    The next time we meet, we¡¯ll probably draw our swords upon each other...


    ¡°Rnd, what are you daydreaming about? It¡¯sing!¡±


    Adam¡¯s angry roar snapped me back to my senses.


    How foolish was I now? Bing nostalgic on the battlefield was one of the best ways to a quick death.


    Without any hesitation, Emordilorcan had begun to attack us with a furious barrage of rocks, while my two summoned spirits had already begun blocking the attack.


    *ng!*


    Adam¡¯s sword of light was knocked away and he kept spinning around from the impact, while the twins blocked off Emordilorcan.


    Rnd from that year had barely managed to reach the realm of Legends right before dying, while the Karwenz from before who had abandoned everything had also be a Legend. In human society, this was, perhaps, an astonishing achievement as their aplishments for their ages meant that they were super geniuses. However, for the Earth Elemental God who had experienced countless eons and even participated in ancient battles where the Gods were no better thanpdogs, ordinary Legend-rank strength was nothing more than slightly stronger cannon fodder.


    Yet some people were destined to be extraordinary...Rnd and Karwenz were never ordinary Legends to begin with!


    ¡°Sacred Sword Blessing! Angel¡¯s Descent!¡±


    Holy Knight Rnd casually tossed out several Divine Art support spells and pushed his younger brother to the front, while he unhesitatingly hid far behind the scene of the battle. It was obvious that he was refusing to engage in closebat.


    ¡°Haha! This is you from way back then? What a beautiful scene.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, just how old do you think I was back then? For me, who was such a cker with an unhealthy body, my title as a Sword Saint was partially nominal. Besides, I¡¯m amander, which means that hiding in the rear is the right thing to do. Physical fights are work for the barbaric.¡±


    ¡°...You¡¯re still supposed to be a Sword Saint; how shameless can you be?¡±


    However, the following scene managed to shut Adam up.


    Holy Knight Rnd lifted his longsword as a blinding light gathered on its de. The next moment, a miniature sun that was too bright to look at appeared in midair.


    ¡°Bullet of Light!¡±


    Just as the teenager¡¯s youthful voice sounded out, that sun-like ball of light finished its magicalpression and crashed into Emordilorcan like a falling meteor. When the ball of light exploded, everyone was temporarily blinded, while the pitiful Earth Elemental God was forced to take several steps backward from the impact.


    ¡°This is Bullet of Light? The most basic spell that every single knight knows? Are you kidding me? Even Light¡¯s Judgement isn¡¯t this ridiculous.¡±


    ¡°Heh heh, this is talent for you. How could I otherwise have be the Son of Light? My Light Magic has at least five times the power of normal Holy Knights, and with the Soul Imprint of Light further increasing my power, it¡¯s at least ten times stronger than normal!¡±


    ¡°Then why don¡¯t you just use a higher-rank magic? Bullet of Light¡¯s basic power is too low, and even if you multiply it by ten times, it¡¯s probably quite limited.¡±


    ¡°...I didn¡¯t know any other spells. Back then, I only knew the most basic divine spells, and Bullet of Light was the only one I could insta-cast.¡±


    ¡°What? What are you talking about? Weren¡¯t you a Legend-rank Holy Knight?¡±


    ¡°For someone who cked off so much on practicing divine magic, how far do you think I could get? Rx, even though I only knew Bullet of Light back then, it¡¯ll be enough!¡±


    As I expected, the battle was now in utter chaos and the blinding light of miniature suns kept materializing in midair and rushing towards Emordilorcan.


    ¡°One, two, three... fifty! Hey, hey, isn¡¯t this too much of an exaggeration?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, now you know about my power.¡±


    ¡°...Indeed, but does this have any difference to yourter ¡®gather magic,press, and shoot¡¯ strategy? So, you were already acting as an artillery from way back then. You actually made zero progress in the past two, three hundred years.¡±


    ¡°Nobody will think that you¡¯re mute if you don¡¯t talk.¡± Fine, this was an eternal pain buried deep within my chest. After so many years, my only progress was probably that I was now throwing ice balls instead of bullets of light.


    But currently, bullets of light were more useful than ice balls.


    The original property of Holy Light was to ¡°cleanse,¡± and in that sense, Holy Light could be said to be the natural enemy of unnatural existences. It would deal additional damage to anything that twisted the natural order of things. Even if elemental creatures weren¡¯t as counteredpletely by itpared to the undead or demons, Holy Light also had the ability to reverse the unnaturalness of those elements that came alive and return them to their natural state.


    ¡°Get the hell out, evil from a different dimension!¡±


    The furiously roaring Holy Knight Rnd tossed out stronger¡ªfine, even more Bullets of Light, causing Emordilorcan to actually be temporarily suppressed.


    Emordilorcan would surely be able to ignore an ordinary Holy Knight¡¯s Bullets of Light, but this time, his enemy was incredibly difficult to deal with as the Holy Light was far too dense, and he now felt as if he was in an entirely different dimension filled with nothing but light!


    ¡°Impossible, this is almost at the level of the Light God¡¯s purest light! Son of Light? An existence favored by the Holy Light? Damn it, how could there be a descendant of the Gods here! It¡¯s not possible for you to be a descendant of the Gods!¡±


    The earth clod¡¯s angry shouting caused everyone to pause in surprise for a moment, but now wasn¡¯t the time to be standing around¡ªtherge piece of dirt immediately came rushing at us while withstanding the endless number of light explosions.


    And then it suddenly went flying sideways...


    Karwenz proudly showed off to Holy Knight Rnd after retracting his leg that had just performed a swift kick, only to see little Rnd preparing his crystal sunsses to prevent his own eyes from going blind. Fine, I understand him pretty well, and there was an eighty percent chance that he pretended not to see it.


    ¡°Did I see that correctly? He kicked away the Earth Elemental God with a single kick? Just how strong is that brat?¡±


    Adam was the most shocked instead.


    ¡°At the very least, it¡¯s more than thirty? If you can¡¯t understand it in numbers, it¡¯s probably one and a half times your strength, since he¡¯s never lost in strength¡ªnot even to dragons. I¡¯ve heard that he managed to defeat a behemoth as well as an Efreet Lord with one punch before.¡±


    ¡°Is he really a human? Why are both of you so ridiculous?¡±


    ¡°...it should be like that, at least at that time. Oh right, since the me from that time was ying with such things, be careful... looks like I¡¯m toote.¡±


    ¡°Take this!¡±


    Holy Knight Rnd shouted fiercely as he lifted his longsword, and Holy Light that was dense to the point of materialization began gathering upon it¡ªit was as if he was about tounch some sort of ultimate attack. After everyone¡¯s attention was drawn to it...


    *sh*


    An eye-blinding brilliance turned everything snow-white, and everyone watching it lost their sense of vision.


    ¡°Ahhh!¡± This actually wasn¡¯t Emordilorcan shouting, although he probably wasn¡¯t feeling too good right now either.


    The most pitiful scream came from Adam, who waspletely blinded since he had been watching thebat situation. He, too, had believed that Holy Knight Rnd was about to begin some ultimate attack due to his fierce shout, but he waspletely blindsided.


    ¡°Rx, the Sunlight Fist doesn¡¯tst that long, nor was it a direct hit. It¡¯ll probably be a maximum of thirty seconds before it wears off.¡±


    Yep, this was thebat technique that the me from so long ago invented based on the rather blinding quality of Holy Light. If there were servants present, I would have had them hold up some mirrors, making it even easier to blind all my enemies.


    Well, when I noticed little Rnd preparing his crystal sunsses, I had already guessed that he was about to use this technique.


    ¡°Ultimate technique! Your dog¡¯s eyes shall be blinded!¡± Little Rnd finally said the technique¡¯s name so casually, but judging by how slowly he said it, he was trying to torture everyone on purpose.


    Karwenz¡¯s shouting proved that this definitely wasn¡¯t the first time.


    ¡°How many times have I said it! Before you use your ultimate attack, shout the name out first! Is it fun for you to identally injure your allies every time? If you¡¯re a real man, then shout out your ultimate attack¡¯s name, fair and square! Aren¡¯t you just dragging everyone else down like this?¡±


    The furious Karwenz suddenly punched out with his umted dark demonic energy and brute strength. The rock wall that he hit shattered into tiny pieces, and even the space behind the rock wall distorted. After witnessing the fearsome power of Karwenz¡¯s punch, even the martial arts expert Emordilorcan resolved to himself that he definitely wouldn¡¯t let this brat¡¯s fists touch him.


    ¡°Demonic descendant? Are you two truly brothers?¡±


    Emordilorcan who recovered first was wondering in doubt, but he was destined to never receive an answer. Since he exposed his location by asking that question, the raging Karwenz found a target to vent upon and gave a vicious sword slice in Emordilorcan¡¯s direction.


    Adam, who was also a victim of the sh to the extent where tears were pouring out of his eyes, nodded silently in agreement with Karwenz¡¯s reaction. In my opinion, since they were both the hot-blooded idiotic type, they would definitely find manymon topics to talk about¡ªespecially the part where both of them had suffered under a ck-bellied older brother repeatedly.


    ¡°Oh, sorry, it wasn¡¯t on purpose. It was all to give the enemy a sudden surprise.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t on purpose? It was definitely on purpose. I inwardly thought the truth to myself.


    Even if that Rnd was smiling so humbly and sincerely, and he seemed like he was honestly apologizing from the bottom of his heart about identally injuring his allies, I knew that he was probablyughing inside, thinking to himself, ¡°Wonderful, I pranked those hot-blooded idiots yet again.¡±


    ¡°Sigh, it doesn¡¯t seem like now¡¯s the time to be watching a show.¡±


    I shook my head as I took my sword and prepared for battle. Even if it was rather confusing that the twins counted as a single summoning, I had already used the maximum number of summons for today. If we weren¡¯t even able to at least make it an even match, this battle would be next to impossible.


    But, before I personally took the field, there were some things I needed to try. If I were to be sessful, our chances of victory would be greatly increased.


    ¡°Wind Elemental God Camdian, stop pretending that you¡¯re dead! I know you¡¯re right here! Do you really think that simply watching the show will give you an advantage? Foolish, still trying to y both sides at this time will only turn you into cannon fodder for both sides!¡±


    My fierce shouting reverberated in the underground passageway, causing everyone to stop in stunned surprise. Emordilorcan reacted by breaking out into a fit ofughter.


    ¡°That cowardly worm, do you really believe that moron would still dare to appear before me? He has already escaped with his tail between his legs; that coward doesn¡¯t deserve to have status equaling ours!¡±


    Emordilorcan¡¯sughter echoed throughout the hollowbyrinth. His continuously reverberatingughter seemed to both prove the veracity of his words as well as mock the weakness and cowardice of the Wind Elemental God.


    Even so, I didn¡¯t stop my own mocking words.


    ¡°Camdian, as long as we manage to hold this guy here, our people will be able to destroy the Earth Elemental Door, and Emordilorcan will be greatly weakened. Perhaps you alone won¡¯t be his match, but what if we¡¯re included? If you miss this chance that onlyes once in a thousand years, no, once in ten thousand years, do you still think you¡¯ll ever truly be able to be the top of all elementals? If you still want to be a cowardly tortoise hiding inside its shell, we can just cancel our agreement right now. You know that I have this power. Are you certain that you want to face Ayer¡¯s rage by yourself?¡±


    ¡°Are you losing your sanity? As I expected, mortal lives are so weak, in both body and mind¡ª¡±


    Emordilorcan¡¯s taunts suddenly paused halfway through because a raspy voice suddenly spoke up from not far away.


    ¡°...How did you know I was here?¡±


    Iughed aloud in delight at hearing that familiar sound.


    ¡°Perhaps wind elementals don¡¯t have the attack power of fire elementals, nor do they have the astonishing defense power of earth elementals, but wind elementals are the quickest of them all. Their innate nature to go in every crack makes them the best spies, and as long as they change their form slightly, even bingpletely invisible shouldn¡¯t be too difficult. As long as you weren¡¯t willing to ept defeat, you¡¯d definitely follow Emordilorcan.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not enough of a reason...¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s more, I believe that the wise Wind Elemental God isn¡¯t stupid enough to waste this excellent opportunity. Is that enough?¡±


    A humanoid life form walked out from the shadow of a nearby corner. He didn¡¯t appear physically strong, but the glowing thunder runes on his skin, the silver hair that was flowing even in the absence of any wind, and those eyes that seemed to emit lightning all made it impossible for anyone to ignore his presence.


    ¡°Yep. I love having intelligent allies. Then, let us forget about any past small grievances we may have had, and let¡¯s work hard together to keep this foolish piece of rock here.¡±


    ¡°Camdian!¡±


    ¡°Oh my, isn¡¯t this our esteemed Earth Elemental God? Why are you blind in one eye? Would you like for me, as your junior, to send you on your way?¡±


    Emordilorcan shouted out his old acquaintance¡¯s name in surprise. Yep, this person right here was the Wind Elemental God that had tucked his tail and run away. But the current him seemed to be in top condition in both mental and physical states.


    Judging by how Camdian currently seemedpletely uninjured, it was quite obvious that Camdian didn¡¯t use his full abilities earlier. It was even possible that it wasn¡¯t Camdian himself that was battling earlier, but now wasn¡¯t the time to care about that.


    ¡°Of course, some people always focus on the process, but isn¡¯t a difficult process for the sake of allowing people to be satisfied with the results? In that case, only a satisfactory result is the most important thing, is it not?¡±


    I smiled as I joyfully watched the person in front of me transform into the essence of wind itself once more. Camdian unhesitatingly faced straight off against his mortal enemy, giving us the best cannon fodder again.


    I still pretended to act mysterious andposed on the surface, but I secretly heaved a sigh of relief inside.


    Ha, how lucky. This guy really was around after all.


    Yep, I was bluffing from the very start. I didn¡¯t have the ability to detect the presence of the Wind Elemental God who would be the best at hiding his presence, nor did I have the ability to perceive if he had truly lost or had only faked losing. However, just a single bluff had brought him out again, so of course I was quite fortunate.


    What? I bluffed more than once? Well, in order to fool such a sly old fox, one had to pull out all the stops or it would all be for naught.


    ¡°Foolish one, you could have lived a few more years if you escaped. But now, even if you¡¯re added to the mix, none of you weaklings are even worth mentioning!¡±


    The crazed rock unhesitatingly faced off against the Wind Elemental God¡¯s sudden appearance. Under his thick stone ting, Emordilorcan¡¯s single remaining eye was still filled with viciousness, and even though the numbers were overwhelmingly disadvantageous for him, he didn¡¯t even hesitate to attack first.


    *Boom!*


    But when the two Elemental Gods began fighting, the chain explosionsing from beneath us caused Emordilorcan¡¯s expression to change significantly, as he was no longer able to remainposed.


    ¡°Emordilorcan, today shall be the day of your death!¡±


    ******************


    ED Note:


    Hello, everyone! I¡¯m Pranav, and I¡¯m the new editor for The Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich. (This is my first chapter!) I¡¯m really excited to work on this novel with imperfectluck, but I¡¯d like to tell all of you a few things so that everyone¡¯s up to speed.


    First, I know that there are a lot of inconsistencies throughout the chapters, especially with the number of trantors we¡¯ve had, from Starve to EndlessFantasy Trantions to imperfectluck. It¡¯s one of the most important things for me to fix¡ªespecially in a novel like ELCL¡ªso from this chapter onwards, we have established a proper, overarching glossary (that¡¯s ever-expanding), and we¡¯ll be trying our utmost to remain consistent with Starve¡¯s terminology¡ªthe terminology that we¡¯re all used to and havee to love. However, you may see some terms that are different from the previous chapters, and those terms have been changed after deliberation with imperfectluck. But they will remain consistent in the future, and after I get back to the previous chapters, then in those as well. Most of these changes are also easily recognizable. We¡¯re going to be using all the old names and terms for the most part, so nobody should worry.


    Second, after building up a sufficient stockpile for the current chapters with imperfectluck, I¡¯m going to go back to Chapter 1 and start re-editing all the chapters, fixing any inconsistent terms, tenses, and grammar that Starve may have missed in his otherwise excellent trantions, especially in the beginning.


    Third, I implore all of our readers to help me point out any mistakes you may catch. I¡¯ll fix ¡®em up as soon as I can, and I¡¯d also like to say that I¡¯m learning as well! Your suggestions,ments, and constructive criticism will all be heard and will help me grow! I, as well as imperfectluck, n to keep in contact with everyone through here, the nifty little Trantor¡¯s Thoughts section, thements section, as well as the Jianghu Forum, and we¡¯ll definitely do our best to fix anything as soon as possible.


    Well, I guess that¡¯s all for now! I really hope that we can give this gem of a novel what it deserves, and with imperfectluck¡¯s super-duper, top-notch trantions, I¡¯m confident that we truly do have a shot.


    Thanks, and have a great day!

 Chapter 181

    Chapter 181: The People of the Mist


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    It had already been almost two months since the first ambush that began the battle of this ongoing northern war. The frozen earth of the Nortnds was drenched in blood that belonged to not only the human hosts but also the uninvited beastmen and elves.


    ¡°Conquer all of Sleuweir within ten days, conquer the Nortnds within a month, and ughter all the way to San Antonio within three months!¡±


    The arrogant words that the beastmen had said after the sess of their first ambush were now never to be brought up again. The tribe leaders had never expected the human resistance to be stubborn to this degree.


    The abnormal sess of their first ambush had pulled the wool over their eyes. The dullness of the Sleuweir Kingdom¡¯s higher-ups had given them the mistaken impression that the battle would end quickly.


    To nullify the humans¡¯ resistance, the beastmen chose topletely ughter every resident of any city that fiercely fought back against them. They had used the Wolfriders to massacre all the viges and had adopted a scorched-earth tactic, but this decision had now proven to be the most foolish tactic of all.


    The massacre hadn¡¯t wiped away the humans¡¯ will to resist. On the contrary, the cries of their rtives and the vicious manner in which they were ughtered had helped heat the Mist People¡¯s blood and rage to the boiling point.


    ¡°Can you watch your newlywed wife be tortured to death right in front of you? Your elderly father being hanged to death because the invaders wanted to save on food? Your baby being impaled on a spear by those beasts just because of crying? All of this is happening right now! Are you all still men? If you are, then take up your weapons and fight to the bitter end. What¡¯s there to be scared of? It¡¯s just death! Will that really be worse than living like this in such suffering?¡±


    After the awful news about the ughters in the conquered areas spread, the fires of rage hidden deep within the Mist People¡¯s hearts were finally stoked. Even without their lord and king¡¯s summons, the Mist Tribe would have dly sacrificed their lives to protect their families and friends.


    ¡°The Mist shall never surrender¡± may only be a saying, but it was an indisputable fact that the People of the Mist had never been conquered by foreigners in the past thousands of years. Even in front of butcher knives dripping with blood, the Mist People were just like their ancestors who had never bowed to invaders, with their thousand-year-old bloodlines awakening instead.


    The young husband Aima kissed his newlywed wife goodbye as he joined a citizens¡¯ brigade without actualbat ability or guarantee. Armed with only a dull woodcutting knife, his only reason for fighting was so that his future children wouldn¡¯t have to grow up filled with the worry and fear that they would be the enemy¡¯s ¡°glorious¡± sacrifices, impaled on their spears.


    The elderly soldiers held their spears as they marched towards the frontlines. Perhaps it was true that their bodies had already weakened and that they had retired for many years, but their wisdom and experience helped the newer soldiers to avoid the most dangerous traps, helping them quickly increase their skills amid the constant battling. They weren¡¯t as ridiculous as that legendary old king who took his own coffin to battle, but they had already resolved themselves that there was a chance for death on the battlefield.


    ¡°...I¡¯ll be satisfied if my experience can help a few young fellows stay alive and return. If I¡¯m slowing everyone down, please don¡¯t hesitate to abandon me. I¡¯ll let those beast bastards know what the will of an old soldier really is!¡±


    If the Red Maple defense line and Antuen could be considered the two lighthouses of hope, then the countless number of resistance organizations and citizen militias were the wildfires burning brightly on the ins. And when all these fires were lit, it would be next to impossible to extinguish them.


    ¡°Who¡¯s afraid? It¡¯s just death; it¡¯s f**king worse to live under such suffering.¡± Perhaps this sentence was rather vulgar, but it was a testament to the hardiness of the northern people who were used to living in a meat grinder.


    ¡°Damnit, there¡¯s resistance organizations and guerri troops everywhere! Those guys are insane!¡±


    In the cities that the beastmen had taken over, any beastmen soldiers that went out by themselves would never return. Even the strong Wolfrider teams were gradually beginning to vanish.


    Those citizens who didn¡¯t have any armor or sharp weapons learned how to ambush their enemies using the terrain and lure the vicious beasts with bait through the continuous battles. Not only did the vicious ughtering not scare the People of the Mist, but it did the opposite instead, adding fuel to the mes of the desire for revenge.


    ¡°They¡¯re literally insane! Have you ever seen a head that would still keep staring at you after you cut it off? Have you ever seen a legless beggar suddenly cling on to your leg and tell hisrades to pierce through you together with him? They¡¯re basically a bunch of crazy bastards!¡±


    The beastmen that were so fond of battle had now be afraid. After witnessing the humans¡¯ maniacal and suicidal attacks just so that they could perish together with the beastmen, the beastmen that had viewed dying in battle as the greatest honor had now be afraid. The humans¡¯ blood-red eyes and stares even after death caused the beastmen to be frightened!


    The beastmen finally realized why those weakling humans had sessfully blocked their invasions for thousands of years and even forced their strong ancestors back to the northernmost ins countless of times.


    ¡°...We can¡¯t keep going on like this! We have to destroy any hope they have for resisting and hit their most critical spots with one attack.¡±


    The beastmen abandoned their originalbat strategy of steadily conquering all the areas, and quickly gave up on the outer cities. Instead, they focused all their energy on destroying the two ¡°lighthouses of hope.¡±


    And so, the Sleuweir Kingdom¡¯s capital, Antuen, met with an emergency situation, and the human¡¯s allied forces¡¯ main headquarters, the Red Maple defense line, brought up the rear. The beastmen tribe leaders knew that unless they were able to take out these two annoyances, this battle might never end.


    ¡°Antuen has surrendered; King Fismer has surrendered!¡±


    After this astonishing news began to spread, there was disbelief at first, which was soon followed by painful howls of crying throughout the entire country.


    An old soldier in thest years of his life had lost his son, grandson, and son-inw in this battle but didn¡¯t shed a single tear. He would always feel his mustache and smile in pride when talking about his family members that died in battle.


    ¡°They¡¯re all very fine people; they didn¡¯t shame Old Philly¡¯s name. Since they¡¯re now dead, this old fellow shall continue fighting in their ce, and when I¡¯m dead, my granddaughter and daughter will continue fighting! I refuse to believe that we can¡¯t get rid of those goddamned beasts!¡±


    But when he heard this piece of news, he ended up crying like a little child, copsing on the floor as he pointed with a trembling finger towards the north and began spewing insults.


    ¡°My sons, what did you all die for? Such a bastard country is not worth us sacrificing our lives for. Your deaths were worthless.¡±


    This was also why Rnd had been in such a rage. Even when the country¡¯s citizens hadn¡¯t given up, why was the king, who was supposed to be their protector, giving up?


    At the very least, the Rnd from that year long ago would have performed his duty of royal protection¡ªeven from the grave, like a skeleton or a ghost carrying a grudge from hell.


    Along with their unyielding battle spirit, the story of the twin brothers helped the People of the Mist remember that their people would never give up! They only recognized kings who also never surrendered!


    ¡°False King Fismer! He doesn¡¯t deserve to be king!¡±


    Although there were angry denunciations and doubts among the people when the news of the surrender had started to spread, the beastmen had indeed achieved their goal ofnding a vicious blow to the Mist People¡¯s morale.


    Right after that, there were much fewer resistance movements than before. Fismer¡¯s surrender represented the first time in history that the Mist Royalty had ever submitted, and it was as if the people¡¯s backbone had received a massive blow.


    *Snap!* The backbone that represented the unyielding nature of the citizens was cracking pitifully, and it was almost to the point where it seemed to be broken. The people¡¯s spirit of bravery and resistance was almost at the breaking point as well, but luckily...


    ¡°The previous King Rnd appeared and executed Fismer Caso right there on the spot, as he dered the surrender to be invalid. He then passed the kingship on to the only daughter of the previous generation¡¯s king, Princess Glina Caso! The Mist Royalty hasn¡¯t surrendered after all, nor has our g fallen! Antuen¡¯s battle still continues, and our king is still battling!¡±


    Fortunately, Rnd¡¯s appearance re-ignited the sparks of resistance into mes that were even stronger than before. His oath also brought a new era upon the People of the Mist.


    ¡°...Our Mist Tribe never enjoys war, so we swear that we shall never start a war of our own volition!¡±


    Old Philly also shouted that very oath as he jumped off a cliff together with an enemy. He had already learned of his daughter¡¯s and granddaughter¡¯s deaths, but this time, he did not shed a tear, and instead nodded while smacking his chest proudly.


    ¡°They did in two beasts before they died? Excellent job, as expected of Old Philly¡¯s family! Go ahead first, I¡¯ming soon. We promised to meet each other again in heaven!¡±


    ¡°...But if wares to us, we¡¯re going to teach the invaders how sharp our swords are!¡±


    Aima was now at only thebat level of an ordinary soldier, and he had written that sentence in a letter to his wife. After Aima¡¯s death, a fellow soldier would pack up his belongings and mail out this final letter to his wife. Aima had already carried out his promise.


    ¡°We don¡¯t like war, nor do we enjoy war, and we now dere our national church to be that of the Law God! We swear that we shall never start any war of our own volition, but if war is truly unavoidable, then we shall spend everyst breath to protect our home! We swear that our tribe shall forever exist in the Nortnds!¡±


    Such a short oath carved a brand-new path for the entire People of the Mist. Not only in the Sleuweir Kingdom, but even those in the nearby East Mist Communal Country who were also descendants of the Mist Tribe were repeating this oath over and over again.


    ¡°...We shall spend everyst breath to protect our home! We swear that our tribe shall forever exist in the Nortnds!¡±


    One hundred and seventy-four knights were riding on young Frigid Nightmares. Under the guidance of the senior Lion King, those young Nightmares, which had hatched prematurely, had already signed new contracts with the young knights, and the new generation of Aurora Knights hadpleted their final training under the flowing battle g of the Mist. Today was the day for these young knights to head to the battlefield to assist their fellow Mist People.


    Under the watchful eyes of their family members and with the guidance of the undead veterans of the Aurora Knights Order, each silver-colored battle horse had begun their long flights. Although there were still traces of naivety in the expressions of the young knights, their arms were as solid as rocks as they wielded their spears and looked towards the distant sky. In the distance, they could see their fellow Mist People bleeding fresh blood, and they all wanted to rush there as quickly as possible to end this war.


    ¡°Let them witness the strongest aerial cavalry unit on the continent! Allow them to see the pride of the Mist People!¡±


    When they finally entered the northern battlefield, they were destined to be the new center of attention. Without a doubt, the Aurora Knights, who were the pride of the Mist, would stoke the fires even further.


    And when all these oaths connected together and the oath to ¡°never start a war of their own volition¡± awakened the Sacred Sword that carried the will of the Gods, the Mist People¡¯s oath finally received a response.


    ¡°I, the Law God Wumianzhe, dere that I shall protect the People of the Mist.¡±


    When holy, silver light descended from the clouds, the Mist People finally received the protection of their own True God. And with the increasing number of believers, Wumianzhe also underwent an evolution, and he received a new divine job title¡ªthe Guardian God of the Nortnds.


    ¡°As long as the masters of thisnd obey the principle of ¡®never starting any wars,¡¯ I shall protect them. I bless them that they shall never be conquered, and I bless them that they shall...¡±


    With the descent of a guiding path of light, the souls of the People of the Mist Tribe now belonged to Wumianzhe¡¯s domain. The brave warriors who had sacrificed themselves for the Mist would be heroic spirits, and not a single True God would be able to steal the Mist Tribe¡¯s souls away from Wumianzhe¡ªnot a single one!


    Why was I so certain? That was because...


    ¡°Rnd, that big rock¡¯s too difficult to deal with!¡±


    ¡°Just do the best you can; I have something more important over here! Ah, where was I? Right... I bless them that they shall walk towards the peak together with victory; I bless them that they shall enter the Hall of Valha after death! May a fair sky forever stand above the Nortnds!¡±


    My voice synchronized with the voice in the sky as we finally took this step after oh so many sacrifices!


    ¡°I, the Law God and Guardian God of the Nortnds, Wumianzhe, swear to remove all invaders! You don¡¯t ept it? Then, let¡¯s battle!¡±

 Chapter 182

    Chapter 182: Willpower


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The protection of a True God? Mortal battles didn¡¯t need it thanks to the fundamentalws of the world; it was impossible for True Gods to directly intervene in mundane matters.


    That Forest Guardian True God of the elves? The fact that he was now dead was plenty of evidence of what would happen if one broke the rules.


    But it was enough for the brave warriors who fought to protect their tribe.


    The mortal Mist King Rnd announced their glory while Wumianzhe from the heavens above announced that their heroic deeds would be recognized by everyone. Even if they died and their souls slept forever, it would be fine¡ªit was fine as long as their glory existed in the hearts of the true warriors of the north.


    For the beastmen, however, it was devastating. Perhaps a True God¡¯s protection seemed rather ephemeral, but it was actually supremely dangerous when they witnessed it for themselves.


    ¡°What will Wumianzhe do? Will he make the Church of Law participate in battle? Or will he personally give out divine punishment?¡±


    This was especially so because the beastmen¡¯s original True God had already perished in the previous holy war. Due to this unbnce in power, they were now even more afraid of the intervention of a True God.


    ¡°We can¡¯t afford to hide our full power any longer. Londe, send out your best forces; Kagra, let¡¯sbine your Blue-Feathered Harpy Division with my Bloodaxe Tribe as our warriorsck the protection of air cavalry and casters. Hamar, Sostilo, stop your brave warriors from wallowing in regret. Even when they¡¯re off their steeds, they¡¯re still our most elite warriors, and our castle-scaling warriorsck themand and leadership of the elite.¡±


    All the tribal leaders who were mentioned nodded in silence. As the highest ranks of the allied forces that constituted the beastmen armies, they each had strong tribes but had been avoiding sending out the best of their troops to prevent their own tribes from bing frontline cannon fodder. However, when it truly came down to it, they would send in everything they had.


    ¡°We must conquer Red Maple Castle within two days! Sound the battle drums; I¡¯m going to fight personally!¡±


    The Bloodaxe Tribe Leader viciously pounded the conference table with his fist. The crushed sandbox that represented Red Maple Castle seemed as if it was indicating its eventual fate. At this moment, this Beastman King, who previously seemed to be more like a merchant than royalty, was finally showing off his own pride as a beastman.


    The snow was falling intermittently, but the temperature never once rose above zero degrees. The damned weather would freeze any skin directly exposed to the elements.


    The sun had already set, but the number of beastmen surrounding the walls of Red Maple Castle didn¡¯t decrease in the least. It was the opposite; with the return of the Wolf King¡¯s troops, the beastmen army had increased once again and now included countless of hordes of the famously dexterous Wolfriders.


    Several hundredrge torches acted as temporary lighting and heating. After the beastmen discovered that there wasn¡¯t enough wood to burn, they tossed all the valuable books and artwork that they had piged into the fires as if they were worthless lumber. The humans could even hear the beastmen¡¯s unique roughshod singing and the beat of battle drums in the distant beastmen camps.


    ¡°Damned beastmen! They¡¯re looking down on us!¡±


    To be honest, it was actually the opposite of what the furious humans were thinking. The beastmen were now treating the humans before them as warriors on an equal level to themselves. They were venerating their ancestors on the glorious battlefield to console the souls that had died in battle, and they were also conducting this ritual for the sake of prematurely honoring those of their tribe members that would die in battle.


    For the beastmen who believed in the War God Hdis, dying on the glorious battlefield was easy to ept. If they could meet their deaths in an epic-level campaign, it would be considered as the blessing of the War God. This was why they kept chanting the War God¡¯s name as they bravely fought to their deaths, only hoping for a major battle that would please their ancestors¡¯ spirits.


    Of course, since Hdis had already died in the previous Holy War and the current War God Kalonpis was a Human God, there was nothing that would answer the beastmen¡¯s prayers. Their prayers were more like gratitude and idolization towards their ancestors as they thanked fate for giving them a glorious battlefield where they could challenge their own fates.


    ¡°If we win, we can finally return to the Great Bianluya ins, the ce of origin of all beastmen! It¡¯s supposed to be inconceivably beautiful! After this battle, I can finally return to my ancestral home and get married!¡±


    In their eyes, the battle was already nearing its end. As long as they got rid of those pesky humans, they would only be one step away frompleting the grand mission of their ancestors.


    Those beastmen that belonged to the first wave, which was acting as the vanguard, made preparations for the possibility of their deaths as they charged onto the battlefield. Since their ritual was now over, they believed that their souls would forever apany their own tribe. They weren¡¯t afraid of any sacrifices on the battlefield.


    ¡°We admit that these northern humans are brave warriors as well. Only cowards are afraid of death! This is a grand battle where only one side will live in the end! We fight to the death!¡±


    Battle drums and bleak horns sounded from everywhere around Red Maple Castle¡¯s walls. War songs were continuously sung as the beastmen kept up their current attack for more than ten hours.


    Due to the castle walls acting as an obstacle, the siege battle became a bloody and cruel meat grinder. The warriors of both sides were only going to the frontline in limited numbers and could only be a part of the endless amount of sacrificial cannon fodder for the attacks of the mages and mage towers.


    As midnight arrived, the number ofbined beastmen troops totaled more than 120,000. The beastmen had Red Maple Castle surrounded so tightly that even a fly could not escape. But even though the beastmen had the advantage in numbers, as well as a higher individualbat strength for each unit, the humans made use of the castle walls for protection, and nobody could change the fact that this was a deste meat grinder.


    The castle protectors weren¡¯t having an easy time either. With the protection of the beastmen¡¯s air cavalrybined with the charge of various colossal creatures, the beastmen were seeding in scaling the castle walls every minute. Even though they would be tossed down quickly, the sacrifices of the human armies were always several times that of the beastmen.


    The outermost castle wall¡¯s defenders were already in utter chaos when faced with the unstoppable flood of beastmen who were superior in both numbers and quality. toons were being devastated in the blink of an eye.


    The vast attacking forces of the beastmen had an inconceivably high morale. The innumerable beastmen forces swarmed the castle walls like ants, and with the major tribal leaders¡¯ elite forces that had been saved forst exploding with astonishing power, this battle quickly turned into a living nightmare for the humans.


    Finally, the firstyer¡¯s low-quality castle wall, created by the Earth Mages using Transform Stone to Mud and Sculpting Magic, was finally on the verge of copse, despite the fact that the beastmen army had also lost many troops to the defending army and their defensive mechanisms.


    ¡°Die! You butchers!¡±


    Reyne sliced through a beastman general¡¯s defenses with her silver longsword, piercing through his body and stealing away his life. She unhesitatingly kicked him down the castle wall as the beastman general¡¯s pitiful wails echoed out as he met his end.


    ¡°Your Highness Reyne!¡±


    ¡°Knights, clear this area and toss down all the beastmen corpses! Watch out for archers. The next attack wave will be here soon; hurry, hurry, hurry!¡±


    Her youthful voice now contained an unmistakable regal bearing. The magical ability of battles in helping people mature was always astonishing, and after experiencing the bitter struggles of battle as well as the endless amounts of blood and sacrifice, the cruel burden and responsibilities helped the new soldier Reyne to quickly mature. The current Reyne was already an experienced battlefield leader who could take charge by herself.


    ¡°Your Highness Reyne, all the beastmen¡¯s mammoths are on the attack now. Themand center¡¯s order is to abandon the first castle wall and retreat to the inneryer!¡±


    ¡°Retreat? You¡¯re telling me to retreat? Just look at this battle and all those brave warriors who have sacrificed themselves already! We haven¡¯t even been able to retrieve their corpses yet, and you dare to tell me to retreat?¡±


    The messenger was also very familiar with Reyne. Even though Reyne was angrily shouting at him, he was the submander of Antuen; he knew that now wasn¡¯t the time to cower to her.


    ¡°You think I want to retreat? I f**king want to fight those beastmen bastards to the end as well! Our main forces have suffered and lost so much. The Earth Mages have depleted their mana and can¡¯t keep up with the speed of repairing the wallspared the beastmen in destroying them. If this keeps up and the beastmen break through our defenses, it¡¯ll be nothing but a meaningless ughter. There¡¯s no other way but to retreat and guard the inner castle.¡±


    ¡°Fine, you guys retreat. I shall show you once more the pride of the People of the Mist. Dimlet, is the Train King ready yet? If it takes any longer and isn¡¯t ready forbat, I¡¯m going to cut off your head!¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s currently undergoing a full self-checkup, and it¡¯ll be ready in five minutes. But it can¡¯t be used for any longer than ten minutes, or it¡¯ll self-destruct!¡±


    ¡°Ok, Borealis, toss down the Titan Warriors from a long distance! Help our allies stand firm.¡±


    When the beastmen¡¯s mammoths began their next attack, the castle walls were nearly knocked over by their heavy impacts as dense amounts of beastmen scaled the castle walls. Just as all the walls were entering theirrgest emergency situation yet, the Princess Knight finally gave the order for the Eastern Mist Communal Country to reveal its ace secret weapon.


    The gigantic battleship began operating once more as its cargo hold opened up. What flew out along with its rockets were prototype Rnd Titans. As experimental subjects, these Rnd Titans had alreadypleted their tasks for history and would end the final moments of their lives explosively on the battlefield.


    *Boom!*


    Five titansnded directly on top of the beastmen that were in the process of scaling the castle walls. The beastmen stared in amazement at the gigantic beings before them. Even the tallest and strongest Elephantmen reached only the shins of these titans, and they werepletely unable to be of any threat to the steel titans at all since they were unable to carry any heavy weaponry.


    The crazed steel titans stomped with their feet and pped with their hands. These idental products of the Underground World finally revealed their true natures as heartless war machines!


    ¡°You beasts! This is for my son who wasn¡¯t even ten years old!¡±


    A furious mecha smashed the beastmen in front of him to pieces.


    Inside the cockpit was a furious volunteer pilot who was doing his best with theplicated controls of the mecha. Inside a pendant around his neck was his family¡¯s portrait, but he was the only one alive now. Even he himself had lost his left foot, so this was the only method by which he could take revenge for his hometown.


    A red warning light within the cockpit began shing. From the very beginning, this titan mecha was at the end of its time, and overloading it had given it astonishing battle power, but it also turned it into a super explosive that was in danger of exploding at any moment.


    ¡°Camut, hurry up and get out! It¡¯s about to explode; activate your rocket chair already!¡±


    He ignored the Borealis¡¯mand center. He had just discovered arge centaur wielding a massive war pike while killing human soldiers. This centaur was a monster who was more than three meters tall, and each swing of his war pike would kill many human soldiers.


    ¡°Hamar! Hamar the Butcher! I finally found you!¡±


    These easily spotted characteristics just happened to belong to the butcher who had ughtered his entire hometown.


    The furious mecha pilot smashed every beastman in his way to pieces. Even when the beastmen climbed all over the mecha in swarms and the battle axes smashed onto the cockpit¡¯s door, he didn¡¯t slow down even a little bit.


    However...


    ¡°Foolish hunk of metal! The weak humans can only rely on such useless things.¡±


    Every beastman tribe leader was at least of Legend-rank strength or higher. Hamar was famed even among the tribe leaders for hisbat strength, so there was no way he would be easily dealt with. When he jumped, Hamar¡¯s height was even taller than the titan.


    *Slice!*


    With one swing of his war pike, the gigantic golden arc brought death along with the explosion of the cockpit and half the mecha.


    Hamar didn¡¯t even intend on watching the explosion behind him and was only focusing on continuing his ughter, but he didn¡¯t expect the already fallen mecha to reach out with its only remaining hand and clutch onto him.


    The prideful centaur tribe leader began roaring in anger. His frightfully powerful strength caused even the steel arm to start shaking.


    ¡°Only weaklings need to rely on these foolish objects, while we beastmen can stand on top of the world with only our bodies! We are the high-ss species that deserves to be at the center of the world!¡±


    In the demolished cockpit, the blood-covered Camut was still biting on to the control lever with his only remaining tooth. He was also smiling while the gigantic centaur made fun of him condescendingly because he could see the red warning light that indicated that the Rnd Titan¡¯s engine was right at the limit of exploding.


    ¡°Really? Heh, heh, then see the weak human race¡¯s willpower for yourself... See you soon in heaven, Elsa, Nini! Your papa¡¯s taking revenge for you!¡±


    Camut opened his mouth, which was filled with blood and broken teeth, and viciously pressed his chin against a red button. Finally, a red explosion covered everything as a mushroom cloud rose up by the castle wall.


    ¡°Impossible...¡±


    That was thest word that the haughty centaur warrior had said. The weak human had used his own life to prove his bravery. At the very least, they both died together.


    ¡°The tribe leader Hamar has died in battle! The Centaur Tribe is beginning to flee!¡±


    ¡°The tribe leader Barthlo has died in battle!¡± The beastmen¡¯s attack on the northern castle door failed, and their siege weapons were destroyed. Their reinforcements were no longer able to press the attack.


    ¡°The tribe leader Elosion has died in battle! Both the northern and southern attacks on the castle have failed!¡±


    ¡°The strategist Wen has died in battle at the southern castle door!¡±


    For the tribe leaders, who were still in the midst of patching up their own injuries, every single news of a tribe leader¡¯s death was like a lightning strike on a clear day. But what could they say? Could they me their fellow tribe leaders and point fingers by saying they were nothing but words? Honestly, it was difficult enough for the remaining tribe leaders to survive the field of battle against the maniacally resisting humans. If one of those terrifying red mushroom clouds exploded near them... heh, wasn¡¯t the mighty Hamar a perfect example?


    ¡°Hamar, what a pity. Treat his family well.¡±


    After a long silence, Amon could only give his condolences as he shook his head and continued cleaning his weapons. Now wasn¡¯t the time for needless sympathy; who knew if he would be the next one?


    ¡°Camut, what a pity. Treat his family well... Oh, he has no more family left? Then let¡¯s put his hometown¡¯s reconstruction at the top of the list for cities to be reconstructed.¡±


    At the same time as Amon, Reyne could only sigh and give her own condolences when she learned that only two out of the five titan pilots had returned alive. Camut didn¡¯t even attempt to activate his rocket chair for an escape.


    ¡°Dimlet! Are you still not f**king ready yet? I¡¯m going to shoot you out of a Gnome Cannon if you aren¡¯t ready!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s ready! You definitely can¡¯t let the Train King overheat! Otherwise, we¡¯re the ones that will explode! Its energy source has thirty times the power of the Rnd Titans! The entire castle wall will copse from the explosion!¡±


    The floating battleship finallynded and opened up its cargo door to allow an even more terrifying war machine to walk out. Just its appearance caused every beastman warrior to tremble in fear.


    ¡°What kind of monster is this? Those East Mist humans are insane!¡±

 Chapter 183

    Chapter 183: Princess Knight


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The maxims of battle dictated that practical functions were the most important on the battlefield. Something like a beautiful outer appearance wasn¡¯t even worth considering.


    While a humanoid mecha may seem awesome, its attack methods were actually rather simple. Since it imitated the attack patterns of a human, it was easy to predict and defend against, and since it needed to maintain its bnce while walking, a great amount of development resources and parts would be spent on bncing the mecha.


    This was doubtlessly a critical amount of waste, especially when the technology was still immature.


    But then what type ofbat mecha was the most efficient?


    ¡°It needs plenty of space for firearms, so the best way is to have many individual sections that can contain more weapons and parts!¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s abandon the walking mechanism that¡¯s just a waste of resources. As long as it can kill, it¡¯s fine even if it crawls on the ground.¡±


    ¡°I feel that it needs as many individual parts as possible so that it can even let go of broken parts, reorganize itself, and still be able to do battle. This way, our logistical ability will go up an entire other level.¡±


    ¡°If the enemy consists of mages, then therger thebat mechanism, the bigger the target. This absolutely can¡¯t be too big, yep, the most important part is to not be too tall.¡±


    After gathering each other¡¯s opinions, the maniacal engineers abandoned allmon sense and created this fearsomebat beast¡ªTrain King, prototype zero!


    The name undoubtedly came from Rnd. The shape of the connections between its parts reminded Rnd of a train.


    And now, what currently appeared in front of everyone was such a metallic monster. This metallic monster had many parts connected to each other just like train carriages, and its metallic legs, which imitated that of insects, firmly pierced into the ground. This giant centipede-like metallic monster attracted everyone¡¯s attention the moment it appeared.


    ¡°Train? Isn¡¯t it just a centipede?¡± Hemet¡¯s astonishment was virtually identical to Rnd¡¯s the first time he saw it. Yep, when thisbat mecha was constructed in reality based on its blueprint, its original train-shaped outer appearance became more like that of a metallic insect. It was basically a metallic centipede prancing about on the battlefield!


    And so, taking into consideration the possibilities on the battlefield, its designers, who had already abandoned allmon sense and aesthetics, were also inspired from this. They directly abandoned the inconvenient method of using wheels and instead gave it metallic des as feet, which would be more suitable for a wider variety of terrain types. Each ¡°foot¡± was a de that could attack by itself as the Train King¡¯s entire body was filled with weapons from head to toe.


    Hemet¡¯s astonishment was soon received by a disy ofbat effectiveness. The centipede monster climbed past the castle wall at high speed while spraying mmable oil from pipes on both of its sides, and with a spark, all the castle walls it passed by turned into seas of fire.


    Those seas of fire along its path caused the beastmen to begin shrieking in agony, but only when it reached its destination, stuck its metallic feet into the ground, and transformed into a steel barrier, did it show its true form.


    All its train-carriage-resembling parts opened up to reveal the newest Gnome Cannons in each of them. As a divine artifact that belonged to the cult that believed in ¡°as many cannons as possible,¡± the Train King used its actions to show off what the phrase ¡°more cannons equal more power¡± truly meant.


    ¡°Odd-numbered engineers! Fire your cannons!¡±


    *Boom! Boom!*


    The entire battlefield outside the western castle door transformed into a sea of fire. Countless beastmen were gifted explosions as each cannon shellnded.


    But at the same time, the beastmen vanguard that was already on the castle wall was approaching the Train King. They wore vicious grins and let out angry roars as they intended to use their own fresh blood to battle with this hunk of steel. They wanted to let those weak humans know just what true and reliable strength was supposed to be.


    They had the self-confidence that as long as they were able to get into closebat range, the engineers controlling the cannons wouldn¡¯t be an adversary at all. They only needed an instant to break this expensive toy into pieces.


    But since Dimlet had a reputation for demonic intelligence, how could he possibly leave in such a ring weakness?


    ¡°Closebat mode, activate! des extend!¡±


    In an instant, all the metallic feet of the centipede rose up again, as its sharp ends transformed into sharp des for the purpose of ying the enemy! The sharp des then began spinning crazily at a high speed!


    That wasn¡¯t all...


    ¡°Even-numbered engineers, ignite your methrowers!¡±


    This time, the train carriages opened up to reveal shocking amounts of high-powered methrowers operated by sweaty engineers who had been waiting for this precise moment.


    ¡°Fire! Maintain the methrowers for twenty seconds!¡±


    ¡°Ahhh!¡±


    The mes that could shoot to a distance of several dozen meters created a corridor of despair. Although there were a few incredibly strong individual beastmen who made it past the mes, the rotating des would unhesitatingly deliver a killing blow.


    ¡°Ahhh! Those damned humans...¡±


    Now, the beastmen attackers were stuck between a rock and a hard ce. Either they could be impaled on the des or be turned into barbequed meat.


    And killing was only one of the Train King¡¯s purposes. Its mega-long mechanical body itself was one of the best barriers and makeshift castle walls, so the incredibly fatigued defending army could finally find some time to breathe and rest.


    After this movable steel wall started acting as a battlefield barrier and cleaned up everything before it, it took the opportunity to send outrge amounts of scalding-hot steam through its venttion pipes.


    The Train King¡¯s energy consumption was far too heavy. Just a few short minutes caused all its parts and engines to overload and overheat, with engineers tossing cold water at the overheating engines as an emergency cooling method.


    The beastmen noticed this short cooling-off period. Just as they were hesitating about whether or not to charge forward again, an even scarier scene was awaiting them.


    ¡°Gun squads, fireball squads, prepare!¡±


    The most despairing scene was now in front of them. The engineers lifted up their guns, and the magic swordsmen actually jumped on top of the Train King¡¯s carriages and started preparing their magic. The brilliantly shing fire birds started gathering numerous fireballs that perhaps weren¡¯t all that high in level, but who would be able to dodge several hundred fireballs being fired at once?


    *Pew!* *Pew!* *Boom!*


    Every fireball and deadly gunshot added onto the beastmen¡¯s despair as they faced this new generation¡¯s firepower and technology. The short, approximately twenty-meter distance between them and the humans were akin to the difference between life and death, and the regret of ¡°just one more step¡± apanied them to their deaths.


    The continuous explosion of each fireball drew all the attention on the battlefield as more and more areas were cleared of beastmen. As the rulers of the battlefield and with the mages gathering together, the deadly force was drastically improved.


    Finally, the beastmen tribe leaders were unable to stand for this any longer.


    Under the tribe leader Kagra¡¯s lead, arge number of harpies covered the castle walls, resembling the clouds. Along with them was the dragon knight who had luckily escapedst time; the green dragon Osmanya and his Wolf Tribe Dragon Knight Rider Kakaji had returned. The beastmen army had gambled everything on this battle and sent out their few remaining aerial troops.


    ¡°Shoot down that dragon knight!¡±


    If thisbat beast had any other weaknesses apart from its unresolvableck of ability to fight for an extended period of time, they would be that it was far too focused on ground units and that itcked anti-air capabilities.


    Reyne instantly figured out the weakness of the harpies. Theycked physical strength since most of their throwing spears were made of wood. Even though they could kill humans easily enough with wood spears, theycked the ability to threaten the steel-bodied Train King. As for aerial spells? Did they really have the focus necessary for casting spells while pping their wings and not falling out of the sky? If they actually had such skills, they might as well be archmages to begin with.


    ¡°That dragon knight¡¯s the only threat; kill him!¡±


    The current Princess Knight was no longer simply themanding officer at the western castle door. Although she hadn¡¯t been promoted yet for her numerous aplishments, battlefield achievements were far more effective than any rank or title on the battlefield. In truth, she was already the leadingmander in charge of the entire Red Maple Castle defense line.


    But currently, nobody was able to carry out her orders. That green dragon knight was far too cautious and flew so high in the air that no arrows or magic could reach him.


    ording to that dragon knight¡¯s past tactics, whenever abat situation got tense, he would attack in an aerial ambush, with his dragon¡¯s poison mist being abnormally fatal. Perhaps his single efforts weren¡¯t critical in affecting the overallbat situation, but he would definitely give serious blows to the defending army¡¯s morale. This time, it was obvious that his target was the Train King.


    It was also obvious that he intended to use the harpies as a smokescreen to create another opportunity for an ambush in the chaos.


    All these days of battle had also inflicted heavy casualties upon the humans¡¯ griffin knights. Those that could still fly were already participating in battle, as after so many days of warfare, both the sides were fighting based on mostly willpower and stamina.


    ¡°Argh!¡±


    But this time, the green dragon knight¡¯s ambush was blocked.


    ¡°Timier!¡±


    That¡¯s right, a gigantic bone dragon suddenly flew up from the castle and shot like a cannonball right at the green dragon, causing the green dragon to lose its bnce in midair.


    But immediately afterwards, the bone dragon that was riddled with injuries fell right back down again. As the overall aerialmander, Timier had always fought at the front of his soldiers and both he and his bone dragon were now in bad condition. Just making such an attack had taken all their effort.


    But while that beastman dragon knight was still catching his bnce, death came looking for him, as the Princess Knight was now behind him.


    Although she was one of the few who had an aerial steed, Reyne wasn¡¯t self-confident enough to believe that she could win a direct battle against such a strong dragon knight, but finding the right opportunity during battle for an ambush was one of her strongest skills.


    ¡°Die!¡±


    There was no such thing as luck on the battlefield. The chaotic situation would always prove who was truly stronger or weaker. The dragon knight Kakaji didn¡¯t even have time to turn around and see who it was before Reyne¡¯s longsword came shing down.


    The head that went flying was dripping blood in midair and an expression of disbelief was frozen on its face. The powerful Kakaji died just like that with his eyes, which were ring angrily, still filled with shock.


    ¡°Rargh!¡±


    The young green dragon Osmanya started howling painfully as it discovered through the contract that its master had died and received its master¡¯s pain. But it didn¡¯t suffer for long, as Reyne¡¯s bloody hands pulled out the spear on her back and gathered a cyan colored aura. The Dragonyer Spear from the Dragon yer Basr was then suddenly struck into the green dragon¡¯s head!


    ¡°Awoo!¡±


    The green dragon howled pitifully as it helplessly pped its wings, but its counter, the Dragonyer Spear, kept piercing deeper into its brain, and it could only meet its unavoidable demise. With the dragon blood spraying everywhere, Reynepleted her own achievement of ying a dragon!


    ¡°Dragon yer Reyne!¡±


    ¡°Princess Knight!¡±


    In everyone¡¯s eyes, whenever the Nortnds met with danger¡ªjust like countless times in history past¡ªa young ruler stood up for their sakes.


    The joyous cries of the human soldiers helped the young female knightpletely shake off the impression of a delicate flower. Now, the Princess Knight¡¯s name was known to all as a true knight.


    Reyne jumped back from the green dragon in midair and her Frozen Nightmare steed caught her. She herself could barely believe what was happening as she watched the green dragon fall out of the sky.


    ¡°Father, I did it! I¡¯m no longer a useless flower princess; I can protect my own tribe and the Mist Country as well now.¡±


    For some inexplicable reason, Reyne suddenly thought of the man who wasn¡¯t on this battlefield at this moment.


    ¡°If he knew about this, would he praise me or lecture me on my recklessness?¡±


    ¡°I think that His Highness Rnd would probably lecture you first, then nonchntly find some reason to reward you. But, I doubt it¡¯s the type of reward that you want.¡±


    Her Frigid Nightmare¡¯s words caused Reyne to blush. She suddenly found how inconvenient it was for her mind to be connected to her Frigid Nightmare.


    ¡°Danger¡¯sing! Be careful!¡±


    There would always be inconveniences attached to being famous. Another dragon knight was attempting to ambush her, and even across all this distance, Reyne could feel the bone-piercing hatred.


    But even Reyne didn¡¯t expect that her mouth would arc upwards in a smile with the danger right in front of her. She was licking her lips in anticipation and enjoying the stimtion from being on the verge of death in battle. She was enjoying this war.


    But she was also filled with doubts in her heart at how she felt excited and more clearheaded for no apparent reason as the battle progressed. The beastmen¡¯s death cries would honestly make her feel pleasure in her heart, as if she was born for battle and this ughter was helping her awaken her sleeping talent.


    She enjoyed this ce, she enjoyed hearing her enemies¡¯ cries, she enjoyed seeing fresh blood flow. That mysterious excitement made her feel like she was burning.


    Even if all of that could be exined as the excitement of a neer to the battlefield, the fact that her own strength was obviously increasing could not.


    ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s stop thinking about it; it¡¯s a good thing anyways... That idiot over there¡ªis the burning-hot oil still not ready? Toss it down to me and burn those beastmen to death!¡±


    During the intermittent breaks between battle, the knights excitedly gossiped with each other about what they saw, admiring the fact that their princess was indeed a descendant of the Mist as she changed so much in battle. But in the eyes of a few who showed concern, there were obvious changes in Reyne that weren¡¯t so apparent on the surface.


    A blood-red light kept flickering in Reyne¡¯s eyes. The souls of the dead weren¡¯t able to enter the cycle of reincarnation, and were instead sucked into Reyne¡¯s body as they wailed before death. With Reyne¡¯s continuous ¡°feeding,¡± huge ck wings that mortal eyes couldn¡¯t perceive grewrger andrger on her back.


    In this darkness, there was one pair of worried eyes that looked at her. This person¡¯s expression was filled with an obvious hesitation. Perhaps it may be unnoticeable to other people, but those ck wings were more obvious than anything else in Elisa¡¯s vision.


    ¡°She¡¯s also a demonic descendant? Damn it. Rnd, it¡¯s just as you expected; Reyne is a demonic descendant as well. This is the worst possible oue. Looking at her fierceness and natural talent in consuming souls, she has to be at the very least the descendant of a Demon Overlord. It¡¯s quite obvious now; both living descendants of the Mist are the descendants of Abyssal Prince Karwenz.¡±


    ¡°Karwenz! What have you done?¡±


    In a distantbyrinth, I roared out in anger as I was filled with rage from hearing this news, but my summoned spirit version of Karwenz only shook his head in innocence.


    ¡°What? I didn¡¯t do anything! I¡¯m just helping you attack people!¡±


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 Chapter 184

    Chapter 184: The Seal of the Four Elements


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The harsh climate of the Nortnds was overtaking the elves¡¯ territory. The originally warm temperature that was abnormal for the season shed with the cold front and caused a natural reaction of thunderstorms, the like of which had never been witnessed in elven territory.


    The rain fell in torrents, making it impossible for people to even see themselves. It was only natural that there would be many troubles in such an area, especially in one that was used to dry andfortable weather. It suddenly experienced such a rainstorm, but this was actually just the beginning.


    When the chilly grasp of winter staked its im on thisnd, the torrential downpour transformed itself into life-threatening hailstorms and blizzards. After its natural climate had been twisted for thousands of years, the entire Elf Kingdom received the cruelest retribution from nature.


    Unlike the other Nortnd countries, the elves had no ability or experience in withstanding the cold weather. They didn¡¯t have the necessary thick clothing and firewood supplies for defending against the cold, and solely relying on magical mes would make the mages quickly run out of their already short supply of mana.


    The hail and snow made this winter a hundred times more difficult for the elves and their light clothing. They were now facing the cruelest test of their abilities; if the Elf Kingdom remained chaotic and didn¡¯t change in time, it was entirely possible that less than ten percent would survive nature¡¯s test.


    And currently, the leaders of the elves didn¡¯t have any time to pay attention to the preparations for the disastrous weather. On the increasingly cruel and frigid battlefield, an incredibly vicious internal battle was raging among the elves.


    After imprisoning a prince and killing two generals, the king of Tassel Kingdom seeded in grasping themanding leadership position of thebined armies of four countries. Of course, it was impossible for him to deal with every detail of the chaotic situation, and there were still plenty who continued to plot his downfall.


    ¡°...It¡¯s meaningless to think too much. If we don¡¯t win this next battle, there won¡¯t even be anything to think about.¡±


    Resolution was fine, but reality was brutal, and this battle was most definitely not going to be easy. Bad news arrived like snowkes in session right at the beginning itself.


    ¡°The Moonde Squad was ambushed by the dark elves¡¯ Bloodsword Squad and lost over half its members. It can no longer function.¡±


    ¡°Our Pegasus Knights and Hippogryph Knights aren¡¯t a match for the enemy¡¯s ck dragons at all! We need support from higher-tier aerial cavalry.¡±


    ¡°Those ursed dark elves should have been exiled for ten thousand years! All their members are elites, damn it. We need high-ranked mages! They can just ignore our acolyte mages¡¯ spells!¡±


    ¡°Archmage Mdis and all his disciples died to those damned dark elf assassins, and the other three countries¡¯ royal mages all refuse to participate in battle. We¡¯re being suppressed in magic by the enemy¡¯s priests and mages. We encountered aplete one-sided loss in terms of mage strength.¡±


    ¡°Tell those mages to stop using low-level spells; did they forget about the dark elves¡¯ magic-resistant skin?¡±


    Morale, numbers, battle preparation, battle equipment, and high-tierbat strength. The elves couldn¡¯t match up to the dark elves in any of these aspects, andpared to the dark elf armies that were well rested, the elven allied armies were fatigued from their long travels in the field. The elves were crushed right from the beginning of the battle.


    Yet greater trouble stilly ahead of them.


    ¡°The second St. Lawrence army refuses to carry out your orders. They request to see their prince.¡±


    ¡°The SemiGod Priest Samana wishes to meet with you. It¡¯s probably about the assassination of their general. Your Majesty Adrian, would you like to meet with him or refuse?¡±


    Adrian hadn¡¯t even finished taking care of securing his own position of power. Rumors were already spreading everywhere. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that this was an emergency situation, and that the elves were facing their mortal enemy on the battlefield, the other three countries¡¯ armies would likely have turned against his.


    ¡°Why can¡¯t you all understand? Do you think that I enjoy using these dirty methods, or that I wouldn¡¯t be heartbroken at Suana¡¯s sacrifice? She was my only precious baby daughter! Why did I sacrifice so much? I was doing it for the sake of all elves; why don¡¯t you idiots understand! Why?¡±


    The furious Tassel Kingdom Elf King Adrian was shouting in his royal tent. He had already broken the various decorations and ornaments around the tent, but even after venting his anger, he could only watch nkly as the situation continued to worsen in front of him.


    There were endless internal conflicts, a vast enemy army outside, and he was forced to the brink by both internal and external problems, but...


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t wrong; I definitely wasn¡¯t wrong! It¡¯s all those idiots¡¯ fault!¡±


    Even now, he still believed that he hadn¡¯t made any mistakes. Suddenly, however, one of his closest retainers brought him a short message that caused his expression to change greatly. After a brief pause, he beganughing.


    ¡°If you all won¡¯t fight with honor, then I¡¯ll do the same. I¡¯m doing everything for the sake of the elves; it¡¯s all your fault for not understanding me. Don¡¯t me me even if we meet at the River Styx!¡±


    ...


    ¡°By the way, Rnd, I recently fell in love with ying chess. That¡¯s why I¡¯m giving you a small present that I hope you¡¯ll enjoy. ¡ª Karwenz¡±


    I was shocked when Elisa suddenly sent me this message.


    Apart from being shocked at its contents, I was more shocked at the source of the message. It was evident that Karwenz understood quite a lot about me through certain channels.


    ¡°Karwenz directly contacted your main body? He knows that you¡¯re on my side? Are you still safe over there?¡±


    ¡°The side of Chaos is rather disorderly. More urately speaking, apart from a few at the top, the others don¡¯t have much interest in this Holy War. Of course, they¡¯d be more than happy to have a go at ughtering the upper dimension, but having them concentrate on plotting and separating allies from enemies is much too difficult for those demons with muscles for brains.¡±


    ¡°Most of the demons are still currently preupied with fighting their own kin. Rx, I¡¯m fine. Rather, since I justpleted the Will of the Abyss¡¯s direct task for me, I even have the possibility of raising my rank.¡±


    As they were of Chaos to begin with, it was only natural for the side of Chaos to not have any order or organization among themselves. The norm was for each Chaos leader to have their own faction, while demons ranked Baron and above had their own territories. This was just as expected, since this was the only reason for the strange bnce between the sides of Chaos and Order, despite the fact that the number of Chaos Gods outnumbered the Order Gods two to one with the Chaos side¡¯s battle power far surpassing that of the Order side.


    The strong would be the leaders. This was a maxim, but since they were strong already, why should they have to obediently listen and fight a war? To the Chaos side, internal struggles for personal benefits constituted the real prize.


    Since that side still hadn¡¯te looking for Elisa yet, that meant that she was still safe¡ªat least for the time being. Even a demon prince like Karwenz wouldn¡¯t be able to dere battle against a female demon Earl without making any preparations. Elisa¡¯s words helped reassure me, but closer consideration of the message contents made it seem all the more difficult toprehend.


    ¡°A small present? What could it be? Since the demon prince is personally involved and is bragging with such swaggering delight, it definitely won¡¯t be small. It¡¯s probably something that will turn the tide of the battle in the enemy¡¯s favor. There is some sort of problem...¡±


    ¡°The elves? Red Maple Castle? Antuen? Diffindor? Somewhere ind in the human territory?¡±


    There were too many choices and possibilities for me to think about, but someone was unable to tolerate me any longer...


    ¡°Rnd! Stop dazing off; we can¡¯t hold on any longer!¡±


    Alright, I suppose that¡¯s true. Adam finally got tired of my antics and barked at me to remind me of the fact that we were in the midst of a difficult battle.


    Currently, the gigantic ck stone hulk in front of us had transformed himself into a heavily armored ck battle scorpion, and he had buried his massive body directly into the earth. His single, viciously ring eye was flickering with a dark green light, and those menacing stone spears of his were still searching for victims on the ground.


    ¡°...This guy is too ridiculous. Just how many times can he transform?¡±


    Battling with Emordilorcan was an endless nightmare. Each time we became slightly ustomed to hisbat style, just as we were about to gain a slight advantage, he would immediately transform again and attack anew.


    A stone giant wielding a shield and sword, a high-speed flying stone eagle, a stone Sword Saint who brandished a dozen lightning-fast weapons simultaneously, a stone guardian that was slow and strong¡ªEmordilorcan used various different forms in session against us. He could be said to be at the ultimate pinnacle of physical attacks.


    ¡°You tiny, short-lived creatures, I have experienced countless eras and battles, and have witnessed endless amounts of ferocious battle techniques. My special structure can imitate anybat technique imaginable, and my body will never fatigue! No matter how hard you try, you all shall still be defeated by me!¡±


    Emordilorcan¡¯s heavy roar contained an indescribable emotion that sounded like frustration, as he was unable to defeat us even after such a long time inbat.


    ¡°Rx, my lovely mortal heroes, I can sense that the Dimensional Door is in the midst of closing and that his elemental power is beginning to weaken. He won¡¯t be able to resist for much longer! My powerful mortal allies, victory is right before us.¡±


    ¡°At the very least, if I die, you all areing with me!¡±


    The two raging Elemental Gods gave me twopletely contrasting depictions of their furious battle, but I knew that the truth wasn¡¯t how either of them described it. It wasn¡¯t true that Emordilorcan was about to be defeated like Camdian imed, nor was it that Emordilorcan was truly undefeatable like he imed.


    The closing of the Elemental Door meant that Emordilorcan¡¯s investment in it had been entirely wasted, and he was indeed currently weakening, but as the strongest and oldest existence among the four Elemental Gods, he was far from being pushed to his limit. This was definitely going to be a long, drawn-out battle, where any small mistake on our part might result in our deaths.


    But some things were impossible to conceal. Every time Emordilorcan changed his form or took a blow, he would lose part of the earth element that made up his body. The current him was no longer able to take elemental power from the Dimensional Door, so he was destined to only be weaker and weaker.


    We had suffered significantly on our side as well. As the main tank, Adam was battered all over, and the spirit versions of Karwenz and Rnd had long since disappeared. It wasn¡¯t because the time limit was up¡ªit was because they had been defeated.


    The ironic part was that the spirit Karwenz had been attempting to protect the spirit Rnd when he was crushed by a gigantic boulder, which had also caused the spirit Rnd to automatically be recalled, while at the current moment Rnd was currently frustrated about what to do about Karwenz.


    ¡°If I¡¯m frustrated, let me make the others get in a bad mood as well. Maybe seeing others in a bad mood will help make me feel better.¡±


    I suddenly recalled a random sentence I had heard in my past life, causing me to suddenly speak up.


    ¡°Emordilorcan, are you truly proud of the fact that you can use so many forms? The truly strong all have their own distinct style, but what¡¯s your style¡ªjust transforming all the time? Perhaps you should be called the Slime God instead of the Earth Elemental God.¡±


    ¡°You coward that only knows how to talk a good fight! I shall definitely rip you apart!¡±


    ¡°Oh my, ording to this reaction, I must be on the mark. Do you only know how to say these empty words? That¡¯s right, your Master Monk form was quite powerful, just which master did you imitate? I wonder if you have the confidence to defeat the real one? Could it be that you perhaps chose to imitate him because you couldn¡¯t defeat him?¡±


    Emordilorcan¡¯s single remaining eye was emanating a bone-piercing killing intent, but judging from the fact that he didn¡¯t reply, it was apparent that I had touched a sore spot. The attacks of his stone scorpion form increased in ferocity.


    ¡°Hey, hey, stop adding oil to the fire; I¡¯m the tank here!¡±


    Adam was too good a tank¡ªeven Camdian was using Adam to block attacks. My ¡°idling,¡± though, was finally at an end as all my preparations were now in ce.


    ¡°Activate, Seal of the Four Elements!¡±


    The elements all countered each other¡ªthis was one of the fundamental maxims of this world. The most powerful seal in this world was a spell array which imitated the bodies of the elementals themselves. As long as this seal activated, and the four elements within it began circting, it would emte a sealed world with no exit.


    Since we were already aware that we were dealing with the Elemental Gods, we would, of course, be prepared. However, when Margaret had discovered this ancient seal in an archaic, old book, we had met with some small problems.


    ¡°To seal a powerful elemental or magical creature, we need to find three Elemental Power Sources that are equal level to it? Emordilorcan¡¯s an Elemental God, so where are we supposed to find the other three Elemental Gods?¡±


    Honestly, though, perhaps it was Emordilorcan¡¯s unfortunate fate to be doomed. Coincidentally, we had quickly discovered the three keys wecked.


    ¡°The me Seal of the me Sea Earl!¡±


    Elisa, who had obtained the power of the Fire Elemental God, gave the source of her power to me. While it was the only source of God-rank fire elemental power we had, it was definitely a fire elemental power source on the same level as Emordilorcan¡¯s.


    ¡°Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle!¡±


    The power of the Ancient Sea God Sidunwar was unimaginable, as even the Water Elemental God was only his wife and follower God. Even though the divine power residing within it wasn¡¯t much anymore, it was actually even more powerful than Emordilorcan¡¯s.


    But the final key was rather troublesome. The Wind Elemental¡¯s power was quite challenging to obtain, and I had initially intended to make do with Adam¡¯s Titan Thunder. Now, however, we had a better option.


    ¡°Camdian, it¡¯s all up to you now. Help usplete the Seal of the Four Elements and send Emordilorcan to his grave!¡±

 Chapter 185

    Chapter 185: The Earth Elemental God¡¯s Death


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The numerous magical markings on the floor lit up, and the fixed tracks, which had been etched into the stone walls by the sword energy, were for its preparation. With the two elemental magical items prepared in their respective ces, the entire stone cavern became flooded with light.


    After hearing my proposal, Camdian¡¯s first reaction wasn¡¯t of praise or happiness. His eyes, which were flickering with streaks of lightning, stared at me with such an obvious panic that I instantly understood.


    ¡°Rx, we¡¯re allies. How could I possibly seal you? Besides, I would need God-rank Earth Elemental power in order to seal you; where would I get that from?¡±


    Camdian turned to look at his mortal enemy. His meaning was obvious; wasn¡¯t Emordilorcan right before us a perfect source? He definitely had God-rank Earth Elemental power in him.


    ¡°Sealing two Elemental Gods at the same time? You overestimate me. If we had that level of power, we wouldn¡¯t have asked for your help. Do you think that we¡¯d be foolish enough to ask you to seal yourself? How illogical!¡±


    Okay, I tried everything I could and swore on every oath I could think of. After considered the fact that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him, Camdian managed to nod and agree in the end. And while I was convincing him, poor Adam was being beaten up by the furious Emordilorcan.


    No, it should be said that Emordilorcan was trying to escape, but our primary tank was sticking too close to him¡ªit was as if Adam was a ghost haunting Emordilorcan and annoying him at every step. Since we¡¯d already reached this point, though, how could we possibly let him escape?


    And, to be honest, when all the magical markings in this location lit up, he had already lost the ability to escape.


    When Camdian, prepared the final key for me and gave me a transformed Thunder Tear with apparent hesitation, a clear sound rang out that was rather ufortable to our senses. And as it rang out, the entire space began to transform into a forceful dimension.


    After the three God-rank elemental items synchronized with each other, Emordilorcan was trapped in the middle of the triangle formation they formed. His Elemental Heart was currently synchronizing with the other three elemental items, creating a self-circting elemental pocket dimension within.


    ording to the exnation in the ancient scroll, this seal merely borrowed the basic structure of the elemental world. For the lives of elementals, their structures were their foundations; it constituted a basic instinct just like breathing. It waspletely unavoidable, unstoppable, and even irresistible for them!


    That was also why Camdian had been so terrified. If we wanted to take this chance and seal him, it would definitely be possible. Needless to say, extra preparations were never wrong, and I was indeed prepared with a backup n to seal him as well.


    But, of course, there was no need to make him into our enemy now. If it weren¡¯t for his help, we wouldn¡¯t have been able to stall Emordilorcan for such an extended period of time, but scaring the Wind Elemental God would be beneficial for our future cooperation. If he wanted to betray us in the future for some personal benefits, he would, at the very least, consider the potential consequences.


    Okay, I digress. All the magical markings were lighting up, and the naturally synchronizing elemental forces were creating a self-contained new world of its own. Now that it¡¯se to this, I felt somewhat sad to lose two God-rank elemental items, and I was even more depressed at not having finished my system¡¯s missions¡ªbut it was all definitely worth it. At the very least, I was unable to think that Emordilorcan would be able to do anything else anymore.


    As for any losses to Camdian? Who cared; he deserved it. It was his own fault for following us.


    ¡°Emordilorcan! Such a day hase to you as well; I¡¯ve finally witnessed this day! Allow me to watch you be sealed.¡±


    However, judging from Camdian¡¯s jeers, I knew that I had overthought. As long as he could defeat Emordilorcan, no matter what price he paid, it was obvious that Camdian was willing.


    It was then, however, that Emordilorcan broke outughing.


    ¡°...You all want to seal me? Dream on! Even if I die, I won¡¯t let you off easily!¡±


    That familiar, furiousughter caused me to recall certain existences, such as those gnomes that were forced to the limit by city officials, or those gnomes who were forced by their debts into not even caring for their lives, or those gnomes who liked to gamble money on explosive barrels.


    That was why, in the very next instant, I pulled Adam in front of me and proceeded to hide behind Camdian¡¯s back.


    ¡°You intend to push me into the fire again?¡±


    Okay, should I say that he¡¯s already gotten to me doing this to him? Even though he wasining aloud, he didn¡¯t move at all, perfectly fulfilling his duty as a tank.


    *Boom!*


    Right as Emordilorcan finished speaking, a tremendous explosion urred, caused the entirebyrinth to begin copsing. The duststorm from the explosion made it difficult to see anything, and the massive wind and stone shards caused Adam to wail in pain!


    ¡°I knew you didn¡¯t have any good intentions; always using me as your shield!¡±


    Cough, I ignored that guy who always habituallyined as I turned my attention to the Wind Elemental God before me.


    ¡°Is Emordilorcan dead?¡±


    ¡°ording to how you mortals would say, his body and soul have both been destroyed, so you could say he is dead. For us Elemental Gods, he probably just returned to the Earth Elemental ne. However, for him to havemitted suicide by exploding his own physical body would take him at least one or two hundred years to return to his original power. It won¡¯t mean anything by then when he finally returns.¡±


    The cackling Camdian transformed into humanoid form, with absolute delight stered on his face at having killed his mortal enemy. It was worth any price since he was now one step closer to being the top of all elementals.


    I nodded without saying much else, while I carefully recovered the four God-rank elemental items.


    Four? Yep, four; apart from the Ocean¡¯s Bottle and the Emblem of Fire, Camdian¡¯s Thunder Tear and Emordilorcan¡¯s gray-colored Earth Elemental Heart were also recovered by me.


    After seeing these God-rank elemental items, Camdian seemed to want to say something, but I shook them at him and pointed to the magical markings on the ground that were beginning to dim. It was obvious what I meant.


    ¡®It¡¯ll be quite easy to use this magical seal again; would you like to try it? Or, do you intend to explode yourself just like Emordilorcan?¡¯


    Okay, I could only think that to myself, but judging by how icy Camdian¡¯s expression had turned, it was obvious that he understood my threat.


    Traitors could never be trustworthy. If he could betray someone for personal benefits one time, he could betray another for even greater personal benefits a second time. From the very start, I had been prepared against Camdian.


    ¡°Alright, my lord Camdian, could you please take us out of here?¡±


    Yet sometimes, even if you knew, in your heart, that you had a grudge against someone, it was better not to have the rtionship sour out in the open. That way, you could still act as allies on the surface. In my past world, didn¡¯t the leaders of each major country, who each had legendary weapons called nukes, still smile and greet each other politely whenever they met each other in person?


    ¡°Of course, I¡¯m never stingy towards my allies. Come ride on me, my friends.¡±


    And so, Camdian transformed into a whirlwind and effortlessly took us out of thebyrinth. Above ground, near the entrance of thebyrinth, we met with Margaret, who had been waiting for us for a long while. She breathed an obvious sigh of relief upon noticing our arrival.


    ¡°Milord, Margaret used a teleport spell to help us escape. Unfortunately, she was unable to get a lock on your coordinates, so she was unable to support you. But since you came out sessfully as she said you would, that must mean you have achieved victory.¡±


    I nodded as I took out the Earth Elemental Heart, producing deafening cheers from the knights. Even if the copsing earth elementalbyrinth could act as evidence for Emordilorcan¡¯s defeat, only actual evidence of his defeat could release the pressure from everyone¡¯s minds.


    ¡°Good job. Without you guys closing the Earth Elemental Door, we wouldn¡¯t have been able to achieve victory. I shall reward you all after we return.¡±


    However, everyone reacted strangely to my praise. They all nced at each other awkwardly, as if they had something to say, yet nobody spoke up. It was Margaret who ended up exining.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that easy to close an Elemental Door. If I wasn¡¯t careful enough, I could have exploded the entirebyrinth or sent us all to a different ne. We just temporarily cut Emordilorcan¡¯s connection to the Elemental Door, but that seemed to have been enough.¡±


    I was surprised to hear this, but I instantly gave a wry smile.


    ¡°Emordilorcan¡¯s death was rather pitiful. If he had remained calmer, perhaps he could have seen through us, as not even Camdian could deal with him. Forget it; it¡¯s already over. There¡¯s no need to think too much about it. Then do we need to go down there one more time to close the Earth Elemental Door?¡±


    Margaret smiled as she shook her head.


    ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary. The Earth Elemental Door was being supplied by Emordilorcan¡¯s divine power, and since he¡¯s dead, it will copse by itself.¡±


    I nodded and was just about to introduce Camdian to everyone when the Wind Elemental God decided that it was time to leave.


    ¡°My human allies, let¡¯s have a good chat again after everything¡¯s over.¡±


    His way of addressing us changed from ¡®human insects,¡¯ to ¡®mortals,¡¯ to ¡®human allies¡¯¡ª for the Wind Elemental God to continually change was scary in its own way.


    Nevertheless, since we had been sessful and had the advantage over him, I wasn¡¯t worried that he would y any tricks.


    And just as I slightly rxed and was about to heave a sigh of relief, my ring shook and brought a new battlefield message to me.


    ¡°Rnd, a sudden extreme earthquake has urred in the area, causing all of Red Maple Castle¡¯s walls to copse. Defending it has be almost impossible; do you have any emergency ideas!¡±


    Hearing this sudden call for help and the sounds of crying and shouting from the other side, I knew that the situation was now extremely unfavorable.


    ¡°...You guys want to seal me? Dream on! Even if I die, I won¡¯t let you off easy!¡±


    I thought back to Emordilorcan¡¯s mysterious dying message, and I now realized that this was his true revenge.


    ¡°Margaret, you have the coordinates for Red Maple Castle, right? Could you teleport me there? You only need to teleport me.¡±


    At the same instant that Emordilorcan¡¯s physical body was destroyed, a stone shard in the Bloodaxe Tent had suddenly transformed into a shining ethereal giant.


    As it walked, this ethereal giant kept decreasing in luminosity. Camdian¡¯s judgment had been correct; Emordilorcan had already been heading for death, and his current form was merely the final remnant of his soul.


    From the very beginning, the Earth Elementals were Amon¡¯s Bloodaxe Tribe¡¯s allies, which was why Emordilorcan had cut off a small piece of his arm and transformed it into a stone shard for Amon to hold on to as the ace up their sleeve.


    ¡°In the final, critical moments of the battle you can summon my power, but remember, you¡¯re only allowed to summon me at the final critical moment! Otherwise, I¡¯m going to take my anger out on you first!¡±


    Currently, as he watched his divine power gradually diminish, Emordilorcan, who had temporarily returned to life in hisst vessel, knew that he didn¡¯t have much time remaining.


    ¡°Damned humans, since I¡¯m fated to die anyways, I¡¯m going to pull you all down with me!¡±


    *Boom!* *Boom!*


    The incessant explosions caused substantial damages to the beastmen in the form of friendly fire, but no matter what, Emordilorcan aimed to self-destruct once more and take his final revenge.


    ¡°...Foolish humans, I, Emordilorcan, shall cause you all to tremble as you meet your deaths! Rage, oh earth, for I am your master! Pledge your loyalty to me and transform that damned castle wall to broken pieces under the fires of my rage!¡±


    And that was how Emordilorcan finally lost his physical form once more and returned to the Earth Elemental ne riddled with injuries, forced to hibernate there until the next Holy War. Yet his powerful final earthquake attack brought devastating destruction along with it.


    Yet this was just the beginning. Countless hordes of earth elementals emerged from the ground, their target to destroy the enemy of the Earth Elemental God.


    ¡°Red Maple Castle¡¯s defense line is under enormous stress!¡±

 Chapter 186

    Chapter 186: Castle Defense


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    During the middle ages of my former world, fortresses and castle walls were considered the penultimate defenses of their time, but due to the eventual development of modern technology, they fell into disfavor and became nothing more than teardrops in history.


    Aerial bombings, long-distance artillery,rge-scale weapons of mass destruction, and iron tanks that could forcefully break through walls all caused these immovable barriers to be obsolete. That was why these historical ces of legend, which had been so significant in wars of past, were opened to the public as scenic tourist spots in a rtively more peaceful era.


    ¡°The times will change, and with the emergence of new technology and species, the old maxims of battle will be nothing more than garbage. Even the strongest fortresses will be nothing more than scenic locations in the end.¡±


    I had always believed that. Even if the development of magic and technology caused many differences between this world and my previous one, with the people here not inventing weapons like tanks and air bombers, high-ranked air cavalry served a simr purpose. It could ignore castle walls and lob destructive weapons, and with the progress of the engineers¡¯ technology in this world, a magical mechanical monstrosity was possible already¡ªsince I had already based several magical mechanical monstrosities on the weapons from my previous world. As for weapons of mass destruction, weren¡¯t there already forbidden magic spells?


    Even though few mages could use forbidden spells, and the ones that dared to use them were even fewer, with the development of magic it didn¡¯t seem impossible for strong attack magic¡ªthat could affect even wars¡ªto bemonce. At least, I also based several insane magical weapons on ideas from my past world as well.


    For instance, undead carrying biological viruses, slimes carrying radiation, flying aerial fortresses of destruction, concealed biological poison gas weapons...


    Cough, as a believer in peace, let¡¯s just seal those obviously anti-human ideas away until the next Armageddon. Now back to the main topic; ording to my judgment, I came up with a conclusion that was against the norm of this world.


    ¡°In the future, wars will enter a new generation where castle walls are irrelevant.¡±


    That was why I took an entirely divergent path from the Sleuweir Kingdom, which had spent so many resources on building high-defense fortresses. No matter whether in the Underground of the past or in the East Mist Communal Country in the future, I unhesitatingly abandoned the system of castle wall defense, which takes much time and energy to build. Instead, I spent my resources on developing new technologies, soldier types, and so on for practicalbat.


    ¡°Defensive battles with solid castle walls as the foundation might just be nothing more than garbage swept away in history during this Holy War.¡±


    But the time for change wasn¡¯t now.


    Fortresses and castles seemed to be passive defensive structures, but in the era of limited weaponry, they were critically important. Whether it be for facing the cavalry attacks of nomadic tribes that were like the wind or defending against the beasts that would hunt prey in the darkness of the night, fortresses and castles were irreceable tactical centers.


    Defending the castle, and attacking a castle. This was the standard of countless battles. Not only were they obstacles in real life, but they were also mental protectors. The citizens living in the castle would definitely feel safe as they looked at the tall castle walls that offered them protection.


    Even if the era had already begun to change, castle walls weren¡¯t entirely outdated yet. Besides, humanity¡¯s stubborn habits were difficult to change, as most people still believed that the castle wall¡¯s destruction meant the loss of the battle.


    Currently, the Red Maple defense line was being held entirely by the humans¡¯ morale. If their morale suffered a heavy blow...


    ¡°It¡¯s over! There¡¯s no hope anymore; we¡¯re all going to die!¡±


    The person who was shouting out in such despair was no coward. It wasing from a general who had just killed dozens of beastmen in closebat, and he hadn¡¯t even had time to treat his injuries yet. But his shouts were just like that of a useless deserting soldier who didn¡¯t want to be cannon fodder.


    The castle walls weren¡¯t entirely destroyed by the earthquake, but numerousrge cracks in it allowed the beastmen to enter as they pleased to catch and hunt the humans. The castle walls were now meaningless.


    ¡°The castle walls are destroyed¡± is equal to ¡°the battle is lost¡±¡ªthis was an iron maxim in the general¡¯s mind, and the subsequent mental breakdown caused this brave warrior to begin wailing in despair.


    There were many warriors simr to him. Even the most resolute of warriors instantly felt that the battle was already lost.


    Battle out in the open against the beastmen who had the numerical advantage? Each individual human couldn¡¯t match up to an individual beastman in strength already, and now they were also suppressed in terms of morale. This seemed suicidal.


    Never underestimate the experience and wisdom of the long-lived Gods. Emordilorcan, who didn¡¯t seem to be much of a thinker, was actually a sly one. Even as a participant in the Holy War, he had not only paid attention to everything that was urring without directly intervening, but he also had done his best to understand thebat situation.


    That was why he had viciously attacked the humans at their most significant weak spot in a critical time when he was destined to die. He knew that the fall of Red Maple Castle would cause the most damage by far.


    If Red Maple Castle fell, then there would be nothing else blocking the beastmen on the open fields, and it would definitely topple the bnce of power between the two sides. The entire human allied army would be snowballed with continuous defeats, proceeding with the beastmen turning back, surrounding, and conquering Antuen. This would mean he would seed in his revenge.


    ¡°Hurry up and run, the beastmen areing!¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t stand it, we¡¯ve stood here and fought them to this step already!¡±


    Luckily, not everyone had abandoned hope. Perhaps a certain princess¡¯s bravery seemed idiotic and gave many people headaches, but her personality of never surrendering until the very end was still quite popr.


    The g of the Mist had yet to fall, and the People of the Mist had experienced being pushed to the brink countless times. If even the ughters of their cities couldn¡¯t scare them, then how could a simple castle wall¡¯s copse scare them?


    ¡°Abandon the outer castle walls; everyone retreat to the inner city. The injured should go first, and whoever can still stand¡ªblock those bastards for me!¡±


    Her roaring, angry voice, which still sounded quite young, sounded out from the top of the city, causing the warriors to wake up from their stupors and transmit her words. The dazed warriors soon began moving again.


    ¡°We¡¯ve already endured countless bloodbaths; now¡¯s not the time to give up!¡±


    They instantly abandoned the outer castle walls that were about to copse. Most of the residents were in the inner city to begin with, and the most number of people that needed to be transferred were the injured. As for the defending soldiers below the copsed castle walls, they had no spare time right now to clean up the mess of stone shards.


    The more critical the situation, the higher the importance of an ace card.


    Finally, the People of the Mist used theirst trump card.


    ¡°Great Judgement!¡±


    The God Equipment Book of Origins was activated, and a silver holy light instantly covered the entire city. As the beastmen were judged guilty of the crime of invasion, all the beastmen immediately felt a restriction to their freedom, and they suffered under invisible handcuffs, leg irons, weapon confiscations, and many other simr constraints.


    Unfortunately, though, before Wumianzhe became the Guardian God of the Nortnds, the Church of Law had no reason to interfere in this battle. The members of the Church of Law in Red Maple Castle consisted only of a few of Reyne¡¯spanions. There was minimal benefit gained from increasing their powers.


    Yet even the effect of just restraining the enemy was enough. At a time like this, when every second was crucial, every minute that the beastmen were stalled would help more soldiers retreat to the inner city, where additional warriors were constructing new defensive structures.


    ¡°Notify the Borealis to attack with full firepower, we need aerial support... Overload the Train King, and give these damned beastmen a nice present!¡±


    In this time of danger, Reyne showed her true leadership abilities. She didn¡¯t need a vast amount of wisdom or experience; as long as she could remain calm and think of ideas to deal with the situation, it would be enough to reassure everyone.


    The chaos outside the western castle door was pacified under Reyne¡¯s leadership. As everyone watched regretfully, the overloaded Train King was tossed down the castle wall.


    *Boom!*


    Yet another mushroom cloud rose up on the battlefield.


    The violent explosion sent even the entire castle door flying and vaporized those beastmen who were in the midst of crossing through it. The massive hole could even be used as a makeshift moat now, but everyone had been taken away by the floating airships to reconstruct new defensive structures in the inner city. They were now at a distance from the staggering castle walls.


    Finally, the castle walls copsed entirely, crushing a significant number of beastmen with it. At this time, Reyne was silently cursing the beastmen as she stood inside the floating airship as she gazed at the pile of rubble.


    ¡°Damned beastmen! I¡¯m going to make sure your souls eternally struggle painfully in the River Styx... Wait, what did I just say? What is the River Styx?¡±


    If she could look at herself in a mirror right now, Reyne would be even more shocked. The current Reyne had blood-red eyes, and the ethereal ck wings on her back were beginning to materialize... Behind her, a ghostly ck figure could be seen cackling maniacally.


    ¡°Haha, the seed has finally sprouted!¡±


    ...


    Even though it was nowte into the night, Antuen¡¯s mage guild was rather hectic.


    In the field in front of the mage tower, hundreds of mages were busy etching innumerable magical runes into the ground. Large amounts of precious resources were being utilized, and dragon blood was being used for drawing the runes, which was a difficult and expensive material.


    Their precious magical cup of mes was being used as lighting, and even the archmages were crouching on the ground, researching the incredibly rare magical rune arrays.


    ¡°Is it still not ready yet?¡±


    ¡°Do you think that mega-long-distance teleportation is supposed to be easy? Let me tell you, this precision has no difference from opening a door to another dimension. Just one small miscalction will cause you to be tossed into another dimension. Sit there and don¡¯t move; I need to calcte your weight.¡±


    The women passing by kept covering their mouths and snickering, and even the mages seemed to be trying their best not tough. It was only natural because my current appearance was a fresh humiliation for me.


    I kept shivering due to the cold winds as I was only wearing a piece of underwear... Wait, wait! Let me first exin that I was not infected by Xueti!


    ¡°Stop shaking; how am I supposed to measure your weight like this? Oh my, you¡¯re a bit overweight¡ªa tad too heavy for my spell¡¯s power. You still need to lose weight!¡±


    I was currently shivering on top of arge bnce that was originally used to measure the weight of magical ingredients. Strange dragon blood runes could be seen drawn all over my body.


    How else was I supposed to lose some weight? I hesitatingly reached to my final piece of clothing, but seeing as how more and more spectators were gathering around me and that those two women were covering their eyes but secretly peeking at my bottom half, I found myself unable to remove my underwear.


    ¡°You¡¯re overweight by too much; just your underwear alone won¡¯t be enough. Let¡¯s shave off all your hair and your eyebrows.¡±


    The cold Margaret adjusted her sses as she made a pragmatic¡ªyet fatal¡ªdecision.


    I have to shave everything? For some reason, I thought of the smooth shell of an egg.


    ¡°Having a smooth round head will be cool in the summer. In winter, you can even reflect the sunlight and obtain warmth that way. How nice, you can even save money on the lighting at nighttime, and that blinding Bullet of Light technique will even have double its power.¡±


    ¡°Adam, stop finding such stupid reasons for me to be bald! If you want to reflect the sunlight, go do it yourself!¡±


    Adam, who was watching from the side, was already rolling on the floor withughter. Those ridiculous words could only be said by someone like him, or perhaps I should say that only he was such a boring person.


    Yet my hemming and hawing was causing Margaret¡¯s expression to be icier and icier. Her displeasure was evident.


    ¡°Is there any other method?¡±


    ¡°Hand.¡±


    Instantly, I felt an ache in my heart. Cutting off my hand to decrease my weight; that seemed like the only method left to me.


    After some hesitation, I withdrew the Rnd Sacred Sword, and measured it against my hand for quite some time... before finally chucking the sword to Adam.


    ¡°Adam, do it for me. I¡¯m afraid of pain!¡±


    I shut my eyes and waited for quite a while, but I only heard the sounds of giggling. When I opened my eyes, I saw that Adam and Margaret were exchanging strange looks with each other.


    ¡°Stop wasting time, we don¡¯t have much time to spare! Hurry up with the sword; I can just find a priestter to reattach my hand... wait, why are you guysughing?¡±


    ¡°Hahaha!¡±


    Hearing this, Adam beganughing to the point that he had difficulty breathing, while Margaret readjusted her sses.


    ¡°Why are you trying to cut your hand off? It¡¯s not necessary, or were you intending to rece it with a hook and pretend to be a pirate captain?¡±


    ¡°Then what about the weight? Were you just having a joke on me! Can you teleport me already?¡±


    ¡°No, I never joke about anything rted to magic.¡± As always, Margaret wore a serious expression with that icy gaze of hers that would easily send chills through anyone¡¯s heart. She was definitely serious. ¡°Your current weight is a bit too much, but when I said ¡®hand,¡¯ I was referring to the Age Ring on your hand.¡±


    I instantly understood. If the current me was overweight by just a little, the younger me definitely wouldn¡¯t be. Just removing the Age Ring would be enough.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me earlier? Did you just want to see me suffer? Hey, hey, wait a moment, I still have...¡±


    I was quite angry as I hurriedly removed my ring, but before I could even articte myints, Margaret¡¯s staff swung downwards and the light of the teleportation spell enveloped me.


    Now, I could only hurriedly pick up my Rnd Sacred Sword and prepare myself as I helplessly epted the fact that I had been pranked.


    After I left, the field fell silent again. Adam suddenly spoke up.


    ¡°Was that fun?¡±


    ¡°Of course. This bastard actually forgot about me again; what a terrible friend. It¡¯s annoying to be treated like a stranger.¡±


    The oracle, who always seemed so calm, actually had such a fiery, angry side to her. Immediately afterward, though, Margaret¡¯s expression turned dark as she burst outughing.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s not entirely his fault, so let¡¯s just let the past be the past. And even if he forgot the past, we just have to create new memories. This should probably give him a deep impression of me.¡±


    Adam could only helplessly shake his head before turning to look southwards. The final critical battle involving the entire fate of the Nortnds would take ce in that direction.


    ¡°I wonder if Rnd will be able to deal with things by himself. It won¡¯t be easy.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, he won¡¯t be there by himself. Did you forget about Amelia and that cat? Why do you think they disappeared for so long? That Rnd brat is ridiculously cautious; he must have left several trump cards up his sleeve that nobody knows about.¡±


    And just as she expected, right then and there, in the market district of Red Maple Castle, a certain witch had finished her final prebat preparations.


    ¡°Oh my, I ended up using so many resources; I should ask my junior to pay me back for all thister. My babies, it¡¯s time to wake up and eat. Rx, this time your food isn¡¯t going to be those zombies that are difficult to chew. Let¡¯s y nts versus beastmen this time!¡±

 Chapter 187

    Chapter 187: The Feast of Traitors


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    It was currently night. Everything was nketed with heavy snowfall, making this frozen area even more difficult to withstand.


    Even the strongest warrior would be unable to do anything without the sense of sight. Yet that wasn¡¯t the most critical negative aspect of this battlefield.


    ¡°It¡¯s so cold! How many can even live through such a night?¡±


    Even the Bear Tribe Leader Londe, who seemed like an immovable ice mountain to his tribe members, was not as emotionless and made of iron as he appeared. After all, in the frigid winter of the Nortnds, nighttime was more than ten degrees colder than the already chilly weather, and it was now reaching the point where one¡¯s breath would freeze immediately.


    Even if the beastmen on the battlefield all had strong bodies, they were nevertheless living creatures. They still had to pay attention to the cold during the fierce battling, and it was so dark that they needed their battle horns and gs to lead them. The most difficult of all was the alleyway battles, where, in the darkness, some would treat the enemy knife-wielding assassins as their friends while slicing off theirrades¡¯ heads with their own axes...


    In such a situation, ording to the unwritten rules ofbat in the north, both sides should have rested ande to a temporary truce to prevent the most uneptable oue of all¡ªthe oue where one side won but there was nobody left to celebrate.


    Now, however, time was of the essence. Time equaled life itself; with each minute of hesitation, countless lives perished. Don¡¯t even mention a temporary truce; right now, both sides wanted to hurl everyst possible weapon at their enemy. Only the utter andplete destruction of the enemy would allow the existence of more survivors.


    Londe could already imagine the scene¡ªa beastman warrior would defeat an enemy with great difficulty, but his blood, pouring from his injuries, would freeze into ice. He would loserge amounts of blood as his steps would grow slower and slower before he finally froze to death beside the deste corpse of his human opponent.


    To Londe, these dark alleyways resembled the vicious beasts from the abyss with their mouths wide open, as they grinned maniacally while they waited for food to deliver themselves into their mouths.


    Londe suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. He had an ominous premonition. Perhaps he wouldn¡¯t live to see the next day¡¯s rising sun.


    This, however, wasn¡¯t baseless at all. Londe¡¯s sharp sixth sense had helped him ovee numerous life-and-death situations, but this time, he decided not to listen to his instinct¡¯s warning.


    ¡°Don¡¯t let the other tribes look down on our tribe¡¯s sharp w! Everyone, press forward! We definitely can¡¯t fall behind the others. Conquer this castle, and the honor of having destroyed the northern humans¡¯ pride will be ours! The War God is protecting us! His heroic spirit shall keep spots aside for our warriors, and if we¡¯re destined to die here, then let us meet each other again while feasting in the Hall of Valha!¡±


    He said something he knew was impossible. Yet his warriors still answered his summons.


    They silently drank some rich alcohol to help them defend against the cold, before resolutely stepping into the pitch-ck battlefield, into the maw of the abyss from which there would be no return.


    There was no hesitation and no cowardice. This war had no justice; there was nothing divine, nothing evil. Everyone was fighting for their own species, fighting for resources andnd. They were fighting so that their own species wouldn¡¯t have to fight in this cruel Holy War.


    The castle wall was now meaningless. Every moment, at every ce, warriors could be seen bleeding and fighting to the death. Human lives were now worthless. Humans were all flesh-and-blood mortals, after all; even a high-ranked battlefieldmander may be killed at any moment from an ordinary shovel making its way through the crack of a house.


    ¡°We¡¯ve lost contact with Kazlo¡¯s tribe. Twenty minutes ago, we also lost contact with Kagra. The air cavalry is requesting to go to battle; this is their letter signed in blood!¡±


    ¡°Londe is requesting reinforcements; he lost contact with two squads under hismand, and he¡¯s met with an obstacle. Many of his warriors have gone missing. He needs more warriors to be able to surround the enemy.¡±


    ¡°The Wolf King has been sessful in advancing to the designated location as scheduled, but he¡¯s already lost forty percent of his warriors, and he still refuses to retreat.¡±


    Each fresh dose of bad news caused Amon¡¯s eyes to twitch. Humanity¡¯s stubbornness had far surpassed their expectations, and the damned snow created an even worse meat grinder for the cruel battlefield.


    ¡°Tell the air cavalry to not stir up any trouble for me right now. If they go out now, they¡¯ll fall right back down immediately without even a hint of what hit them. Even if they die, they need to die a worthy death. Reinforcements? Let the newly created tribe go support Londe...¡±


    The messenger hesitated for a moment and was about to question Amon when he ended up swallowing his words.


    Newly created tribe? That was the tribe consisting of the tribes that had lost almost all their tribe members; all those beastmen were injured losers. They had lost their tribe leaders, their tribe names, and totems, which was why they had banded together and formed a new tribe.


    Perhaps they weren¡¯t strong enough, but they were still the seeds of the future. But when even the seeds had to participate in battle, that was evidence of the dire straits the beastmen were in.


    However, going against orders would be insubordination, and everybody understood that this was no time for hesitation and that the decisive would be victorious. Whoever gritted their teeth and stayed in this until the end would be the new ruler of thisnd, and now was the time topete in who was willing to sacrifice more and had the stronger will.


    The beastmen were enduring tremendous sacrifices, but for the humans, this war was even more difficult.


    This chaotic battle with no rules was an all-around test of people¡¯s abilities. After the defending human army lost the advantage of the castle walls¡¯ defense, their losses were magnified many times, to double, triple, and even ten times their original rates.


    ¡°We have nowhere to retreat! Other than us, there are only the weaponless citizens! If we lose Red Maple Castle, there¡¯s no difference from losing the entire Nortnds, and we¡¯ll be the most vilified humans in all of human history! All our ancestors will be shamed!¡±


    The humans were unwilling to retreat even more than the beastmen. This defensive battle for them wouldn¡¯t allow them to withdraw one bit; they were guarding their homes!


    The snow would eventually stop, and the sky would eventually get lighter. But at that time, who knew just how many humans could survive. The side that ended up with more survivors would definitely be the victor.


    But this night wouldn¡¯t pass quickly. The Frigid Nightmares were all riled up to move in the darkness.


    ¡°Ahhh!¡±


    In a small alleyway, a beastman soldier only gave a shout of surprise before disappearing without a single trace.


    In an adjacent alleyway, the exact same thing happened to hispanions. With their shouts of surprise, they were also dragged into hell by the dark hands that suddenly reached out from below the ground.


    ¡°Ahhh!¡±


    ¡°Shamans, destroy this entire area for me!¡±


    Londe was no longer able to watch his subordinates disappearing in session. Under hismand, the beastmen elemental shamans no longer tried conserving their already low mana, and theymunicated with the elements to summon mighty thunderbolts and waves of earthquakes to tten all the buildings in this entire area.


    Of course, this helped reveal the true identity behind the beastmen soldiers¡¯ disappearance.


    ¡°Flowers?¡±


    Right before them was a flower; in fact, it was an incredibly rare and valuable flower in the Nortnds. Luckily, Londe had learned about such a flower in the south before. The flower stem and colorful petals matched the ones in his memory, but...


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this too huge!¡±


    That¡¯s right, a flower garden could be seen before them. It was only that the flowers within it were rather abnormal. The magic spells that even destroyed all the buildings had zero effect on them, and the mostmon flowers among them were sunflowers that were growingrger andrger. They were at least the height of two humans, and these otherwise ordinary-seeming flowers were already more than three times taller than they should have been.


    Even though these flowers before them were so beautiful, Londe, who had experienced hundreds of battles, sucked in a breath of cold air. The incredibly strange sight caused his sixth sense feel an indescribable amount of danger; it was to the point where he felt needles pricking his back. All he wanted was to run away.


    ¡°Hey, isn¡¯t that the missing soldier Katar? Those flowers are currently eating him!¡±


    The moment these words were spoken, all the flowers suddenly turned around in unison. Those flowers actually had huge mouths growing on them, and they were currently chewing on the beastmen¡¯s missing soldiers as their fertilizer.


    Each flower only had one huge mouth filled with teeth, and even though these flowers had no eyes, the beastmen quickly realized that the flowers had locked their targets¡ªthem. That was the instinct of prey that had met its predator.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be the rear vanguard!¡±


    The incredibly abnormal scene sent chills through everyone¡¯s hearts, and Londe instantly gave his order.


    But right at the next moment, his beastmenpanions began wailing in agony. The vines on the ground had transformed into snakelike creatures as they hung the beastmen upside-down. The sunflowers opened their mouths wide and began devouring the unfortunate beastmen.


    ¡°King¡¯s Heavy Assault!¡±


    The angrily roaring Bear Tribe Leader used his full force attack, with his two thick arms mming into the ground with enough force to crush boulders. The wind from his attack ripped through the vines, helping create a gap in the nts¡¯ attacks as his God-rank ultimate attack destroyed everything before him. Even after his ultimate attack, though, he could discern nothing but hispanions¡¯ deaths and heard only their cries of death.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. Hurry up, this ce is far too abnormal. We need to leave here quickly.¡± He was kneeling halfway to the ground and was recovering from the usage of his ultimate attack when he noticed the strong hints of despair on the faces of his tribe members. When he turned around to see what they were looking at, he finally realized the reason for his instincts to have been continuously screaming at him that something was wrong.


    A small mountain, which was not that far away from them, was rapidly closing in, while the ce he was standing on was sinking. When he took a closer look, he realized that that wasn¡¯t a small mountain at all! It was obviously a frighteninglyrge mouth!


    ¡°We had been standing in this monster¡¯s mouth all this time?¡±


    His final sigh was now meaningless. The sky was still dark when the Piranha nt King finally closed its mouth. With a loud ¡°crunch,¡± the Bear King Londe, who was only one rank below the Beastman King, perished just like that.


    ¡°Humble of the Seven Virtues! Perhaps I should call it by another name¡ªBlood-Filled Piranha nt Garden might be a bit more appropriate.¡±


    Since the worst possible situation had alreadye to pass, and the time previously agreed upon hade, the ck cat, which was destined to bring misfortune, had also woken up from its deep slumber.


    ¡°Ha, what a bunch of lovely children. They just need so much blood to wake up, though. If it weren¡¯t for the avability of so much delicious blood, they definitely wouldn¡¯t have grown up this well.¡±


    Humble? Seven Virtues? The most unbelievable thing of all was that this witch, who gave everyone such a headache, could really create such a positive, auspicious object.


    Humble wasn¡¯t a single nt; it was the name of an entire flower garden that consisted of uncountable piranha nts as its foundation. Its only trait, perhaps, was its incredibly high attack rating.


    From the very beginning of this war, Amelia had nted a single seed under Red Maple Castle. As for how well this seed would mature depended on the amount of blood and souls it could feed on.


    Rnd¡¯s Pride Omar Mist was doubtlessly the strongestbat unit¡ªhe functioned at the level of an entire squad by himself. Amelia had wanted to target Omar¡¯s capabilities and had hence designed this piranha nt garden, which was also on the level of an entire squad. She had even given it a name that directly opposed that of the Seven Deadly Sins.


    These piranha nts had special digestive chemicals that could easily melt through bones, and the garden also possessed Soul Grass, which could consume souls and render the undead mages¡¯ soul summoning spells useless. The amount of nutrition gained from the war would determine the final rank of the Piranha nt King, and the humongous devourer wasn¡¯t supposed to be ready until after the end of the war.


    Even without an endless amount of battles urring, this war, without a doubt, gave Amelia¡¯s ¡°Humble¡± far too much nutrition. Several humongous devourers were already activated, and the dangerous flower garden had awakened itself and was waiting for new prey to deliver itself to its doorstep. The Bear King Londe¡¯s death was just one among many.


    ¡°Oh my, it seems that after all this, you¡¯re going to go up in the Cmity Rankings.¡±


    ¡°Hmph. No matter how high up I go, I won¡¯t surpass Rnd. I¡¯m still far from being as crazed, inhumane, and maniacal as he is.¡±


    Harloys really wanted toment on why Amelia was filled with a regretful expression¡ªit was as if she was sad that she couldn¡¯t surpass him in the Cmity Rankings. Did Amelia and Rnd really want topete in who was more inhumane between the two of them?


    ¡°You really like topete with him in everything; do you like him that much?¡±


    ¡°Who! Who did you say likes him? I hate him to death! Just wait until I receive information on his technology; I¡¯m going to turn him into my fertilizer!¡±


    The moment that Rnd was brought up, the sly Amelia would be just like an elementary school student that had never even talked about romance before. Harloys still wanted to tease her a bit more when Amelia, who had been angrily jumping up and down, suddenly stopped and smiled as she gazed out the window.


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°How unexpected! It actually caught a big fish... but that berserk behemoth is still a bit of a problem. I¡¯m going to deploy two small devourers there. Yep, let¡¯s not kill that behemoth off; it should be an incredibly rare undead material. Rnd will definitely be delighted. Perhaps he¡¯ll even invite me to dissect it while it¡¯s living together with him. Ah, I¡¯m really getting nostalgic about the past.¡±


    Okay, now that she was imagining things, Amelia smiled rather shyly, and Harloys didn¡¯t even know where to vent herments.


    Suddenly, however, Amelia¡¯s expression changed as she made an exmation of shock.


    ¡°Devourers Number Two and Number Four were instantly killed! This feeling is from... the withering magic of nature magic, from those elves!¡±


    Traitors could never be trusted¡ªthis was a maxim of the battlefield. If you could betray someone once, it was highly possible that you would betray another a second time if you were paid with even greater benefits.


    No matter in whichever world¡¯s history, there would always be traitors who received high positions of power in the end, even if they could never gain true trust from the eventual victor.


    The present from Karwenz?


    It was just another letter, just like the one to Rnd. However, the letter, which was personally sent by the Abyssal Prince Karwenz, was addressed to Lorci.


    Okay then, there is no need to go into the details of the letter; it was basically just something like ¡°We already know about the ideas you¡¯re having; didn¡¯t Rnd simply promise that you could be the Main God of the Elves? We can give you a better deal. Since you anyways haven¡¯t openly betrayed us, if you return to the Chaos side, we won¡¯t care about your past transgressions, and we can even make the Elven Gods your subordinates.¡± Well, it was something like that.


    Of course, there was a threat at the end as well, reminding Lorci that her domain was in the Chaos Abyss and that she should be careful of the demon nobles organizing themselves and paying her a little visit. Something along those lines.


    Lorci was, of course, the founder of the dark elves, but she was also the one they all imitated. In the dark elves¡¯nguage, ¡°foolishness¡± and ¡°loyalty¡± were the same word; it is easy to imagine Lorci¡¯s personality from this itself.


    And so Lorci, who had betrayed the Chaos side once already, unhesitatingly betrayed the Order side now that she was promised an even greater prize.


    Of course, this was only part of the reason. On a deeper level, Lorci wasn¡¯t satisfied with receiving the title of the Guardian God of the Nortnds¡¯ Elves. She wanted to be the Guardian God of the entire Nortnds, which was the title that Wumianzhe had just received.


    In that case, unless she forced the humans out of the Nortnds, she would be unable to be its real ruler. And so, right after achieving victory in internal conflict between the elves and the dark elves, she unhesitatingly gave the beastmen a gift when they needed it most.


    Perhaps it should be said that since she already reached her goal in allying with us in the first ce, and now that there was something she coveted even more right in front of her, she decided to turn on us and directly fight against us for what she wanted. Karwenz¡¯s letter was only an excuse to help her firm her resolve to betray once again.


    Currently, Lorci¡¯s new pet who had her favor, the high-level nature mage who had just wiped out the two humongous devourers, was standing beside Amon, sighing, as he gazed at everything before him.


    ¡°I never expected that we would end back here again after going around.¡±


    ¡°Hah, it¡¯s just that thest time you were my ally, you still looked presentable. Now you¡¯re my ally¡¯s pet dog; you can only lick the bones she throws to you.¡±


    Amon Bloodaxe didn¡¯t hold back at all as he taunted the elf mage in front of him. Amon truly looked down on this untrustworthy and dishonorable elf, especially since this person had even betrayed his own species, despite the fact that he was once a king.


    Yep, this long-eared elf mage was indeed once King Adrian of Tassel Kingdom, but now, his skin color had be a grayish ck, and he was no longer a regal moon elf. Instead, he belonged to a new species that dedicated themselves to Lorci¡ªthe fallen elves.


    He used to look down on the beastmen in the past, but Adrian was now faced with Amon¡¯s jeers. He could only turn around with a steely expression.


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t wrong, I wasn¡¯t wrong, this is all for the continuation of my species! I wasn¡¯t wrong! I wasn¡¯t wrong!¡±


    It¡¯s just that his fingernails had already begun to imperceptibly overtake his hands. He didn¡¯t even notice the blood.

 Chapter 188

    Chapter 188: Descent


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The Seal of Unlimited Courage.¡±


    It was terribly named, but this seal had left a significant mark on history, if only because it was Karwenz¡¯s Soul Imprint.


    ¡°As long as you resolutely believe you won¡¯t lose, you¡¯ll be stronger? Are you the hot-blooded main character type? Also, what¡¯s with this terrible naming sense of yours that sounds like it was giarized from somewhere? Should I help youe up with a new name?¡±


    ¡°No need; precedents indicate that if youe up with a name, it¡¯ll definitely be a forever humiliating one. I¡¯m not that foolish.¡±


    Back then, Karwenz had answered me like that, but from a certain perspective, I wasn¡¯t wrong. This ability was indeed just like one that belonged to the main character of a legendary story.


    Never giving up and bing stronger and stronger as long as he didn¡¯t give up in his heart. When he was pushed to the brink, when fate forced him to face armies by himself¡ªthis would be the most suitable ability of all.


    If this ability was possessed by an ordinary person, well, humans had limited courage and willpower so the rise in strength would be limited. But in the hands of Karwenz, who didn¡¯t know fear and difficulty, this was the mightiest Soul Imprint in the world.


    ¡°God rank? Great Demon Lord? Won¡¯t they all die if I slice off their heads? As long as they can die and feel pain, what¡¯s the difference?¡±


    As he proimed such, Karwenz was maniacallyughing on the battlefield with a mountain of bloody corpses behind him. In front of that insane bringer of death, even the demons who never knew fear became afraid, even the beastmen who still had a War God protecting them became afraid, and even the human allied armies that were attacking the Mist Kingdom became afraid.


    ...


    ¡°Legend-rank beastmen? Behemoths? Won¡¯t they all die if I slice off their heads? As long as they bleed and feel pain, how are they any different from ordinary humans?¡±


    The young Princess Knight¡¯s solitary figure could be seen on top of the fortification as she single-handedly blocked the beastmen¡¯s charge; her silver armor was stained entirely red with the fresh blood of her enemies. Innumerable beastmen corpses surrounded her, making it troublesome to take even a step forward.


    And right now, impaled on her longsword, was the corpse of the Wolf King! Inconceivably, not far away was the body of the beheaded behemoth.


    ¡°Next!¡±


    The furious Princess Knight stood upright as she clutched on to her sword, while the beastmen warriors in front of her were beginning to hesitate about whether to retreat. Thirty minutes ago, this seemingly weak girl had shouted ¡°Next!¡± and many beastmen warriors had rushed up to fight her, only to be ughtered.


    ¡°Next!¡±


    Twenty minutes ago, a behemoth caused earthquakes as it roared and rushed to her by itself; it had decided to crush the tiny human before it. Yet a single slice was all it took for her to crush its throat. It died a painful death.


    ¡°Next!¡±


    Five minutes ago, the pride of the Wolf Tribe, the strongest of them all, the Wolf King Sostilo, had charged towards her along with his personal bodyguards. He was killed with a single swing of her sword.


    ¡°Next!¡±


    When they heard the shout of the silver-armored Princess Knight once more, the brave beastmen finally retreated. While they weren¡¯t afraid of sacrifice, the sacrifices had to, at least, be meaningful.


    ¡°Our princess! The world¡¯s greatest princess!¡±


    ¡°Princess Knight, may you live forever!¡±


    Reyne¡¯s vision was currently blurry, and her blood was boiling. The cheering from behind her seemed to be distant, and only one thought was coursing through her mind.


    ¡°I need more power; I want more power!¡±


    She was seeking more power within her soul¡ªfor her Soul Imprint.


    When the light of the Incantation of Law Great Judgement lit up the entire city, the Gold-ranked Law Knight Reyne was promoted in rank by the Forbidden Spell, but this type of forced promotion shouldn¡¯t have been able to aid her in creating a Soul Imprint.


    But not only did she seed in creating a Soul Imprint, it was a Soul Imprint of unimaginable strength¡ªthe Seal of Unlimited Courage!


    Yep, Reyne¡¯s Soul Imprint was exactly the same as Karwenz¡¯s, in both name and power.


    Logically speaking, this was supposed to be impossible. Soul Imprints were the umtion of a person¡¯s experience and understanding and constituted the foundation for their future growth. It was impossible for entirely identical Soul Imprints to appear unless the two people had exactly the same lives, personalities, and souls.


    Yet this theoretically impossible urrence did indeed materialize, and something even more abnormal happened right afterward. After the effects of Great Judgement receded, Reyne¡¯s power level should have returned to normal, but the current Reyne did not only not return to the Gold rank, but her strength was actually increasing further.


    ¡°This definitely isn¡¯t an ordinary Legend¡¯s strength; perhaps not even divine warriors could be her opponents. Her battle experience and power level are perfect; I had never expected Princess Reyne to hide her power to such an extent!¡±


    Many aspects went into a person¡¯s realbat power, such as experience, strength,bat wisdom, special abilities, and basic stats. An overall bnce was exceedingly rare, yet not only were Reyne¡¯s basic stats growing at an astonishing rate but herbat experience andbat insticts¡ªabilities that could only be umted over time¡ªwere also improving at a staggering speed.


    ¡°Oh, so continually swinging a sword like this must be the trick to bing a Sword Saint. Identifying the location of the enemy¡¯s sight must be what Rnd meant by anticipating the enemy¡¯s moves.¡±


    This type of growth had far surpassed the limits of human knowledge¡ªit was as if Reyne¡¯s body already known all this to begin with and she had only forgotten it all. It seemed like her memories were re-awakening.


    Amid the numerous cheers, Elisa was the only one feeling doubtful. Everyone believed Reyne to be showing off her true power, but Elisa naturally knew the level that Reyne¡¯s strength was supposed to be. Instantaneous growth to this extent was unexinable.


    ¡°The Wolf King Sostilo was a wolf tribe warrior almost at the Saint rank. He¡¯s much more difficult to deal with than a dragon or a behemoth, especially on the ground, and even he was in in a single blow.¡±


    Elisa already had her guess as to what was happening. She was hesitating whether or not to give this body up and kill the Reyne before her, to prevent Karwenz¡¯s malicious plot froming to fruition.


    Reyne suddenly turned towards Elsia as if she had noticed Elisa¡¯s thoughts. The killing intent in Reyne¡¯s eyes caused Elisa to tremble, while her dark yellow-colored eyes could only be exined by one thing.


    ¡°...This feeling¡ªit must be the Demon Prince!¡±


    The ck wings were materializing, and the ck demon was alreadyughing in midair as all his preparations had finallypleted.


    With the descent of Karwenz¡¯s will, Reyne¡¯s own consciousness became hazier and hazier. She felt like she wanted to just have some sleep.


    ¡°...I must protect this city! This ce is critical to the safety of the entire Nortnds... my body is getting hotter and hotter, but I feel like I¡¯m bing stronger. Right, I want more power, more...¡±


    ¡°You want power? Do you want enough power to ovee any dire situation? Would you like strength so powerful that it can destroy everything?¡±


    Through the haziness, Reyne heard an intimate voice from the will residing deep in her bloodline. Even though she was half-unconscious, Reyne gave her reply.


    ¡°...Can I be stronger if I obtain power? Brother Rnd always calls me an idiot. Maybe I don¡¯t have the talent to be strong.¡±


    ¡°No, don¡¯t look down on yourself. The strength of your bloodline is that of the strongest. You have the ability to be even stronger. No, it should be said that you were born with the ability to stand on top of the world! As long as you sign a contract with me, you¡¯ll have the most powerful strength in the world!¡±


    ¡°...No, no, forget it. Brother Rnd has said before that if anyone mentions signing a contract, I should directly refuse. I shouldn¡¯t listen to any advertisers¡¯ sales pitches as they¡¯re all a bunch of scammers that want to fool you into signing a contract. And I also think my current power level is enough...¡±


    Even though her mind was already in a daze, her half-conscious reply caused Karwenz to be struck dumb. When he spoke up again, it was apparent that he was in a rush and was beginning to get angry and panic.


    ¡°As a descendant of the Mist, can¡¯t you have more of a backbone? With power, you can have everything! You can defeat those damned beastmen, you can protect your own people, you can be the hero of the world, you can control your own fate, you can have everything you want!¡±


    ¡°...Can I have Rnd praise me? He always says I¡¯m stupid, but Reyne isn¡¯t stupid at all.¡±


    Karwenz was stunned speechless again. His following statement was made out of helplessness.


    ¡°Yes, Rnd will praise you. I promise.¡±


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll sign the contract then.¡±


    With the agreement of her will, her bloodline transformed into the most robust connection of all, forming an indescribable link between the two souls. A tremendous will then descended upon this world.


    ¡°Oh my, it¡¯s so difficult toe here.¡±


    Reyne¡ªno¡ª¡±Karwenz¡± made his firstment as he returned.


    There is no such thing as coincidence¡ªthere is only the inevitable. Many things that seemed like coincidence were actually ¡°well-prepared¡± ns.


    Looking exactly like an ancestor after countless generations of gic inheritance? How could that possibly be a coincidence?


    From the very start, Reyne didn¡¯t look like Rnd but resembled Karwenz instead¡ªthat familiar figure was the result of the Abyssal Prince controlling his own bloodline from another ne. From the very start, Reyne was a vessel that Karwenz had prepared for himself!


    From a certain standpoint, apart from the different gender, this body was gically identical to the body that Karwenz had possessed when he was still a human. It was basically a magic clone, which was the best possible vessel for his soul.


    ¡°This body has grown to the Legend rank? This is much nicer than that Fismer¡¯s body.¡±


    The Abyssal Prince was far too strong, and even the descent of his will was capable of distorting the world. His previous descent had only been for a few short minutes, but it had utterly destroyed Fismer¡¯s body. If Karwenz wanted to control a physical body and roam around freely in this ne, the body needed to reach certain specifications.


    ¡°With this Soul Imprint, there¡¯s no need to worry aboutbat strength, nor is there any need to worry about this body over-exceeding its physical capabilities and copsing.¡±


    Having Reyne reach Legend rank in strength and awaken the exact same Soul Imprint constituted the most critical part of Karwenz¡¯s preparations. The Seal of Unlimited Courage would vastly increase the growth potential of this body, to the point where it could truly host a strong will such as his own.


    In a way, Rnd¡¯s efforts actually created the path for Karwenz¡¯s descent.


    Reyne would not have reached the Gold rank so quickly if it weren¡¯t for that system¡¯s speed-growth mode. She consequently would not have benefited from the Incantation of Law Great Judgement to such an extent, and she wouldn¡¯t have entered the Legend rank at this point and fulfilled the requirement for Karwenz¡¯s will to descend upon her.


    Right now, the ck mist around ¡°Reyne¡± was swallowed up, and ¡°she¡± stood back up as the space around her distorted.


    When ¡°she¡± opened her eyes, the entire world suddenly changed. The snow stopped, and countless clouds shrouded the clear moonlight. Thunder and lightning beganshing out from the skies, and the snow mountain in the distance started trembling. The fire on its mountaintop seemed to bear witness to its transformation into a volcano.


    The hyperactive ground started trembling yet again with a new round of earthquakes. An untold number of birds and beasts escaped from their habitats¡ªit was as if they were aware of the arrival of the apocalypse and that it would be difficult to escape with their lives.


    Merely his existence could change the world. Even if this was only a vessel of will, it was power at the level of a True God.


    At this moment, Karwenz pulled out his sword, lifted his head, and chuckled at the assassining at him from above.


    ¡°Rnd, I said that we would meet each other really soon, but I bet you never thought it would be this soon.¡±


    The Rnd Sacred Sword produced a lustrous arc in the air as the two silver swords viciously shed against each other. The smiling ¡°younger brother¡± provided a contrast to the naked older brother who started to shout angrily.


    ¡°Reyne, I told you not to believe the salesmen! Thosebo deals are never good deals¡ªthey are just scams! See, now your voice is a man¡¯s, but your body is still a woman¡¯s¡ªhow disgusting! If you want to be a man, you can tell me; I have the secret medicine from the spring of a drowned man 1 . It¡¯s painless, harmless, has no dangerous side effects, and will take effect in just one second!¡±


    Okay, after hearing a response that he definitely did not expect, Karwenz¡¯s smiling face changed to one of confusion.


    Note:


    1. This is a Ranma ? (Japanese manga series) reference, not an actual location. The water from the mystical spring of a drowned man can turn anyone into a man. In Ranma ?, the main character falls into the spring of a drowned girl and turns into a girl.

 Chapter 189

    Chapter 189: Brothers and Misunderstanding


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    It was as if time had left no traces on them at all and the wheel of fate hadpleted a full turn. After three hundred and seventy-seven years, on the very soil of their homnd, the two brothers had finally reunited.


    Yet, unfortunately, I had no intention of being nostalgic about the past¡ªmy longsword clearly dered my intentions.


    Before my silver Rnd Sacred Sword could even approach him, however, Karwenz merely waved his hand, creating a terribly strong gust that blew me far away.


    ¡°There¡¯s such a great difference between us...¡±


    Even though I had been expecting the disparity between us to be vast, being swatted away like a fly was still rather depressing.


    Even if Karwenz¡¯s vessel was only at the Legend rank, that cheat-like Soul Imprint would limitlessly increase his power¡ªit was too ridiculous; it allowed Karwenz to utilize power far surpassing that of his vessel. With his true power level¡ªwhich was above a True God¡¯sbined with an appropriate vessel, even a True God who risked death to descend to the mortal ne might not be enough to deal with him.


    As for me, I had just reached the Silver rank¡ªand this wasn¡¯t even mentioning the fact that I had used up a significant amount of Fate Points to speedily increase my power to deal with Emordilorcan. I still needed quite some time to improve my foundation.


    ¡°Rnd, have you still not realized the truth? Strength is everything. The current you is just like you in the past¡ªpathetically weak. If I had as much power as today as in the past, I would never have ended up like that.¡±


    Karwenz was obviously proud as he bragged about his power. His attitude was exactly as it was in the past.


    ¡°...You¡¯re so old already; stop acting so immature.¡±


    But even though I was unsatisfied, I still returned the Rnd Sacred Sword to its sheath. As for why? I already knew that I wouldn¡¯t be able to defeat him. Besides, I had many questions I wanted to ask him, and ording to my understanding of him, he would probably respond to anything I asked.


    ¡°Is it really that fun to destroy the Mist Kingdom with the help of outsiders?¡±


    This was just a test question, but Karwenz shrugged with a visible expression of indifference.


    ¡°Who cares? It has nothing to do with me and nor did I cause it. Did you think that I was the one behind it all? You were wrong.¡±


    Although I was rather surprised to hear this, it was still to be expected. Moreover, Karwenz was always one who looked down on lying, so if he said he wasn¡¯t the one, then he was most likely telling the truth.


    ¡°The current two living royals of the Mist are both my descendants. For a demon, blood-rted descendants are treasures that are difficult toe by. Perhaps my next backup vessel will have toe from them as well, so why would I kill them off? Honestly, without my interference, the East Mist Communal Country would have been destroyed several times over already.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯s that possible?¡±


    ¡°Two years ago, when the East Mist Communal Country was on the verge of destruction with enemies already invading the capital, they were still able to counterattack from the brink of destruction. Did you really think that little Reyne could aplish that by herself?¡±


    Karwenz rolled his eyes with a condescending expression. It appeared that he was displeased with the recent descendants of the Mist.


    I was speechless after hearing this. I knew that Karwenz was referring to the previous beastmen attack.


    At that time, the previous king had been killed, and Reyne had somehow managed to disy exceptional talent inmanding the army, chasing the beastmen for thousands of kilometers and winning the beautiful title of Princess Knight.


    I asked the soldiers who had taken part back then. While the previous Reyne was indeed incredible, she had not personally fought inbat and had only deployed expert military strategic techniques coupled with an extraordinary anticipation of the enemy¡¯s moves to send the beastmen packing.


    But, unfortunately, it seemed as though her genius was all used up as the her after that was only ordinary in performance.


    Of course, I had also asked Reyne herself.


    ¡°Ah, how we won? I don¡¯t really know either. I felt like my head was really clear back then, and various demonic ideas came into my head one after the other, and I just followed the ideas and won. Brother Rnd, am I really talented after all? I¡¯m a genius, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re really talented and a genius.¡±


    Back then, I could only woodenly nod my head in confusion.


    Looking back on it now, though, the truth had been unknown to everyone. In reality, through his own bloodline, Karwenz had personally guided the Mist Army towards victory, giving Reyne the chance to be famous.


    Of course, the Demon Prince wouldn¡¯t do something for nothing. He probably did it for the sake of his vessel that he was now using.


    ¡°Then... what about the beastmen this time?¡±


    ¡°They came south by themselves to steal back their homnd. In their eyes, it¡¯s only natural¡ªit¡¯s the will of their ancestors. It, of course, has nothing to do with me.¡±


    ¡°...the elves?¡±


    ¡°That has even less to do with me. You know that I¡¯m allergic to those long-ears who speak in such feminine voices. They went seeking death on their own; whose fault is that?¡±


    ¡°...Lorci?¡±


    ¡°About that, wasn¡¯t that just a small joke that I yed on you? You wrote a letter to have her betray us, so I also wrote her a letter to have her betray you to see if I could make her betray someone again. I didn¡¯t expect that female spider tock so much honor. Sigh, I even lost a lot of money gambling on her. Damn it; I underestimated theck of morals of those damned dark elves.¡±


    ¡°...The Earth Elemental Dimensional Door?¡±


    ¡°I admit I told my subordinates to do that in order to aplish at least a little work for my boss. It counts as one of my future preparations. But that doesn¡¯t have anything to do with the Mist Kingdom, and it didn¡¯t matter if it seeded or not since just the revival of the Elemental Gods met the requirements of the will of the Chaos Abyss.¡±


    I was dumbstruck after listening to all this. Karwenz was so direct that he told me everything, but he was too direct¡ªI didn¡¯t even know what to say anymore.


    ¡°Alright, it¡¯s so difficult for us brothers to meet up. How about finding a ce for a drink?¡±


    As he said so, ¡°Karwenz,¡± who was smiling rather strangely, gestured as if he was downing a cup, angering me even further. We were having so much difficulty fighting this war while this bastard was acting as if he was just ying a boring game, where it didn¡¯t matter if he won or lost as long as he had fun. Thisparison naturally made me furious.


    ¡°Fine, I only have one more question I want to ask you... what¡¯s with all these descendants of yours in this ne? Just what plot do you have?¡±


    ¡°Plot? Isn¡¯t that underhanded tactic your favorite? If I want something, I¡¯ll just take it by force. The current Elemental Tide¡¯s density is insufficient, so let¡¯s just talk about the main topicter. I¡¯ll nt some seeds, and when they sprout, I can borrow a vessel toe have some fun in the mortal ne. Besides, how could these small fights before the main battle possibly have anything to do with me? I am a veteran of the Chaos Abyss; it¡¯s below me to interfere in such a low-level battle. Rx, for the time being, I have no interest in any of the countries here. The best-tasting wine should always be saved forst. Perhaps we¡¯ll fight in the end, but definitely not now.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s words undoubtedly infuriated me. He really was treating this like a game. The Holy War had just begun, and the truly powerful existences were unable to descend to the mortal ne. So his words did have their own logic to them, but his attitude of not caring either way made me blow a fuse.


    ¡°As for those descendants of mine; isn¡¯t it normal? You¡¯re so old already, but you¡¯re still a virgin¡ªisn¡¯t that a little strange for a guy? Ah, I shouldn¡¯t have said that¡ªsorry, sorry, it wasn¡¯t on purpose!¡±


    Karwenz chuckled strangely as he gave an obviously insincere apology. He really knew how to get on my nerves.


    ¡°What¡¯s with being a virgin man! If virgin girls are pure and beautiful, then why can¡¯t there be pure and kind virgin men? This is the ugliest form of sexual discrimination, this ispletely unreasonable logic! I strongly request for equality between male and female virgins! There¡¯s no fundamental difference, but why is there such a huge contrast in treatment!¡±


    If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I was trying my best to remain serious, perhaps I would already be raging. It¡¯s been so many years now, and I thought back to how we looked exactly the same back then. I had a higher position, and I was the more handsome one, but I still had a slightly worse luck with women... fine, fine, don¡¯t p my face, I admit that my luck was much worse! But that doesn¡¯t mean that what he said¡ªabout an almost four-hundred-year-old virgin male being strange¡ªwas true!


    Karwenz shrugged. He probably understood my fits of craziness better than anyone else, and he knew that ignoring me was best.


    ¡°If it weren¡¯t for my assistance, then that Charles brat wouldn¡¯t have been able to sessfully build his country. From a certain standpoint, I worked even harder than you. Our descendants can take care of themselves, and I didn¡¯t intend to meddle in their lives. But providing a vessel that can help me descend and have fun in the mortal ne is a price and duty that they must pay.¡±


    Apart from the fact that Karwenz just wanted to have fun, if there truly was a plot of some sort, it probably involved harvesting the seeds that he already nted.


    ¡°What? What daydreams are you having there? Leave Reyne¡¯s body behind, and I won¡¯t care about anything else!¡±


    I finally found an excuse to vent my displeasure as I lifted my sword again and blocked him.


    Karwenz had all sorts of reasons that made it seem like he waspletely disinterested in the current world. Yet how could I possibly let the Demon Prince just roam freely?


    ¡°What, do you think you can stop me?¡±


    Karwenz curled his lip disdainfully. He had instantly discerned my actual power level. I doubt I would be able to harm him even if he stood still and allowed me to hack at him.


    ¡°What about if you add me?¡±


    Elisa¡¯s voice rang out from behind us. A me dragon was twisting itself around the right arm of the me Sea Marchioness 1 , while her left was covered by a patch of frost. Elisa had already partially unsealed herself when Rnd had appeared and was now ready to go all out at any time.


    ¡°Marchioness Elisa? Hey, hey, don¡¯t be so serious, I really am here just for sightseeing. If you use your full force, my vessel won¡¯t be able to take the blow, and I¡¯ll have to return to the Chaos Abyss. But then it will be the end of the descendants of the Mist.¡±


    ¡°Rx, if there are no more descendants of the Mist, then I¡¯ll do my best to give birth to a few more. My ideal family consists of one son and two daughters. My dear Rnd, do you think three children are enough? If not, I can consider giving birth to a few more.¡±


    Elisa continued to unseal herself as she smiled ever so sweetly while saying such seductive words. One of her eyes was a red ruby gem while her other had transformed into a deep blue icy sapphire. Right now, she had almostpletely unsealed herself, and Elisa was prepared to use a single attack to annihte everything.


    In her mind, the Demon Prince Karwenz was far too dangerous a threat to Rnd. In that case, even if she destroyed her own physical body, she would give it her all and take Karwenz back to the Chaos Abyss together with her!


    But I blocked her from doing so. I had a better option avable to me.


    ¡°Do you see this sword? Do you know its use? If you know it, then be obedient, toss down your weapon, and surrender!¡±


    ¡°Heroic spirit summoning? It¡¯s limited only to Mist royalty, but even if you summon the first Mist King, I won¡¯t be afraid¡ªwait, do you intend to summon who I think you are?¡±


    When mentioning that king, even Karwenz, who wasn¡¯t afraid of anything or anyone, began to show signs of panic.


    ¡°Yep, I intend to summon that ancient king from four hundred years ago! He¡¯s definitely the only one who can counter you! In front of his grand power, even you, Karwenz, will be nothing more than a weak child!¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s also your counter! Stop it already; this is a battle with no winners! The result will be a loss for both of us!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, so what if I lose together with you? It¡¯s fine as long as you don¡¯t have it easy! Winners in life should die, popr men should all die! Summoning the king!¡±


    A formless wheel began spinning in midair, and even though it was clearly supposed to be a random summoning of a heroic spirit, I could somehow sense that the king who would answer the summons toe here would definitely be a certain person.


    ¡°The descendant of the Mist, Bartholod, may perhaps not be the strongest of all the kings, and his military prowess andbat strategy may only be considered average, but Karwenz, he¡¯s definitely your greatest weakness, because...¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m your father.¡±


    Yep, the middle-aged bearded man wearing the ck cape was our father and the only person who could possibly rein Karwenz in.


    ¡°Karwenz! What are you doing? Why do you have a bosom and curves now¡ªare you supposed to be male or female?¡±


    Karwenz wore a dazed expression. This was such a familiar reaction, I suppose; it was to be expected of father and son. From the very start, they would never use their sharp observational skills to focus on the correct, important things.


    Yet even as I was snickering, I became the next victim.


    ¡°Rnd, where¡¯s your clothing? Since when did you start strutting around naked? How many times have I said so¡ªas royalty, proper etiquette is more important than anything! Just look at you¡ªyou¡¯ve even tattooed yourself! What¡¯s with those strange markings on your body?¡±


    At this moment, I finally recalled that I was still naked¡ªno wonder my lower half had felt so cold when the chilly wind had blown past!


    ¡°Rnd, I told you this wouldn¡¯t be good for either of us! When this old guy begins lecturing, he won¡¯t stop for at least two hours!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, so what? It¡¯s fine with me.¡±


    Alright, to be honest, I was having a headache as well from listening to his nostalgic rants. But what else could I do apart from tolerating it?


    The next moment, however, Karwenz vanished in a puff of smoke. Without a doubt, he had escaped.


    ¡°Honestly, it isn¡¯t fun at all anymore with that old guying out. I¡¯m going to fulfill the terms of my contract with Reyne first beforeing back to visit you to reminisce about the good old times.¡±


    I had shot myself in the foot yet again; I was forced to face my old father¡¯s angry ranting by myself... but from a certain perspective, my ¡°strategy¡± had worked, since Karwenz had retreated in the face of our father.


    Right now, on the Borealis¡¯ magic map, the symbol that represented Reyne could be seen rushing out of the city.


    ¡°Oh my, you want Rnd to praise you? Just how much do I have to do to obtain his praise and fulfill this contract? What a troublesome junior!¡±


    Note:


    1. A woman who holds the rank of a marquess is called a marchioness .

 Chapter 190

    Chapter 190: Tassel


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The strong prey on the weak, and only the strong survive.¡±


    The main difference, perhaps, between the Order Goddess Astrya and the Chaos Goddess Cynthia was whether they agreed with this quote.


    Astrya believed that personal strength was not the most important and that the weak and the strong could live together under thews of the Gods. She believed that they wouldplement each other¡¯s weaknesses¡ªthis was her notion of a perfect society. Cynthia, however, believed in thepetition between mortals for survival with only the strongest living on. Her notion of a perfect world was one where the best resources were provided to the mortals with the greatest potential.


    The root of their enmity was this difference in their ideals, which had also made them develop their creations very differently.


    The human society was an example for the side of Order. Most humans didn¡¯t have significant differences between themselves, and very few could survive without relying on society. Even the king would be unable to live without the farmer, and it was possible, perhaps, that if they actuallypeted in terms of strength alone, then the king, who was so widely venerated by the people, might not be able to defeat the farmer who wielded a hoe.


    Humans, however, couldn¡¯t be considered the best representation of true Order¡ªthatbel was given to the angels, the creatures of the top level of Order.


    Their future jobs were decided from their births, and for all their lives, they would progress on predetermined paths as they continued to work for the benefit of angel society. While such amunity may seem perfect, itcked flexibility. Without questions about the future, there would be ack of expectancy and anticipation, and even the unemotional angels had quite a few problems; otherwise, there wouldn¡¯t be existences in the lower nes that were known as the fallen angels.


    The side of Chaos waspletely opposite. Demons slew and devoured each other, and low-ranked demons followed the strict rule of the jungle¡ªas long as they were powerful enough, they would receive a higher position. Everyone was always trying to climb up thedder, and even though the bosses were not always considered to be smart, they were definitely strong.


    ¡°Weaklings should go die¡ªthe strong deserve everything. If I don¡¯t have a good life, that¡¯s because I¡¯m not strong enough yet. It¡¯s fine as long as I¡¯m happy; who cares about anything else.¡±


    It was possible that this was all that ran through most demons¡¯ heads. It was also why other intelligent species often ridiculed the demons as idiotic ¡°muscleheads,¡± but this wasn¡¯t quite the truth.


    High-ranked demons typically had at least two centuries of memories, and their umted experience gave them plenty of knowledge; in fact, they weren¡¯t dumb at all, but they were just toozy to use their brains. After all, they only ever needed to show brute force, and very few species were better than them at this.


    ¡°Idiot! Perhaps I can¡¯t beat you in a debate, but I can just kill you.¡±


    Whenever a person tried to use reason and logic with a demon, those demons would merely deal with it in their own way. It was likely that you would be dead and no longer able to debate them afterward.


    From a certain standpoint, the always immature Karwenz was quitepatible with the side of Chaos.


    Bing fallen and demonized wasn¡¯t akin to brainwashing, so Karwenz still pretty much possessed the same personality of back then.


    It was likely that he would only help his own descendants to create a country on a whim, and even the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction wouldpletely follow the maxim of ¡°only the strong surviving¡± that he believed in. He would probably only shrug and utter ¡°how regrettable¡± before instantly forgetting about it.


    As for him taking over Reyne¡¯s mind and defeating the beastmen two years ago, that was likely only because of the uing Holy War and because he needed to protect Reyne¡¯s body for his uing descent to the mortal ne.


    For him to be able to take over Reyne¡¯s body now, it was probably just like he said¡ª¡±the seed has sprouted,¡± and Reyne¡¯s body could now host his will. He only came to see the sights.


    I rxed somewhat after figuring this out. After all, a person with the power level of a True God just idly roaming about would have far too much effect on the battlefield.


    As long as Karwenz still cared even a little bit about our old ties, he wouldn¡¯t, at least, stand directly against us, and the old man¡¯s appearance would tie him down even more. After all, as long as he hadn¡¯t been brainwashed and controlled, not every prince was crazy enough to kill their father and destroy their own country.


    In most cases, no matter how rebellious the child¡ªeven if, of course, that said child¡¯s abilities were already on par with that of a True God¡ªhe would still be instinctively afraid of his strict father from his childhood.


    ¡°Rnd! Are you even listening to me? What were you even thinking going out like this? You are shaming all our ancestors! Your etiquette as a knight and royalty has all been wasted. You¡¯re also clearly the older brother; didn¡¯t I tell you to teach your younger brother well? Just how have you been teaching him? Karwenz didn¡¯t even discuss his gender change with you¡ªwhy didn¡¯t you try to stop him...¡±


    Fine then. Since Karwenz didn¡¯t care at all about leaving me behind as he escaped, the raging old man could only vent entirely at me. This lecturing that I hadn¡¯t received for over three hundred years made me feel nostalgic, yet it also made me be at a loss for how to react.


    ¡°Damn it, when the old man starts lecturing he won¡¯t listen to any exnations at all. That bastard Karwenz left me to suffer here alone!¡±


    At the same moment that Rnd was having fun while immersed in his father¡¯s ¡°love,¡± ¡°Reyne¡± had exited the city and was considering how to fulfill the contract.


    ¡°So, what am I going to have to do to make Rnd praise me?¡±


    In a way, these vague contracts were the hardest to fulfill.


    As a demon, Karwenz could easily break the terms of the contract. Countless souls had already lost everything after making deals with the lower nes, but he didn¡¯t feel it right, as Reyne¡¯s ancestor, to lie to his own descendant. Besides, Karwenz intended to stay in this body for an extended period of time, and having a good rtionship with the host was quite necessary for him.


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll just slightly put in some effort and treat it as the rental fee for this body. I¡¯ve decided that it¡¯s going to be you, Lorci! Heh, heh, this is my main task as well, to deal with those ignorant idiots. But even if I don¡¯t say it, Rnd should have guessed it already.¡±


    In a way, time had left its mark on Karwenz as well. In the past, at least, Karwenz definitely wasn¡¯t as intelligent as he was now.


    He didn¡¯t actually lie; he dide to the mortal ne to have a look around, but he didn¡¯t tell theplete truth either. He would aplish some small tasks while having fun as well.


    True Gods had to follow the rules of True Gods as well, such as not directly participating in mortals¡¯ battles, which had to do with this world not being able to withstand the power of the True Gods. It was to avoid the True Gods from simply destroying everything with their power, and during the Holy War, the True Gods intervening too early or even personally descending would cause the war to escte in scale and go out of control.


    In a way, if it weren¡¯t for the participation of the Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan, Lorci wouldn¡¯t have conducted her future ambush, nor would there have been the quick death of a True God. Without a doubt, that Forest God rdin and the Spider Queen Lorci both obviously broke the rules.


    It was as if two kindergarteners were having a fight and the one who lost asked his older brother in elementary school for help. This caused the other side to be on the losing end, so that side invited his cousin in middle school, which was followed by both sides continually inviting more people to participate in the battle. The level of the sides would constantly be raised, and it would result in the two families bing mortal enemies.


    ¡°Perhaps the final battle willeter, but it definitely won¡¯t be now. Disobedient children should be spanked.¡±


    The only way to stop this vicious cycle would be if a parent from either family discovered that their children were being unreasonable and misbehaving and decided to teach their children a lesson with a good spanking.


    And the current Karwenz was the parent delivering the spanking. At least on the surface, Lorci was still on the side of Chaos, so the spanking should be administered by them rather than the Order side.


    ¡°Oh my, it seems that she¡¯s really quite angry. It looks like pping her one time won¡¯t be enough.¡±


    If Lorci¡¯s betrayal was not quickly dealt with, there would, perhaps, be another traitor very soon. And her double-crossing not only did not gain her the forgiveness of the will of the Chaos Abyss, but it also made the Order side furious and abandon all thoughts of protecting her.


    ¡°There¡¯s plenty of fence-sitters and traitors, but a double traitor¡ªespecially at the very beginning of the war¡ªis unprecedented. Lorci, do you really think the main Gods on both sides are blind or all dead? You attracted too much attention too early, so too bad for you. Originally, that foolish Elf God who had decided on his own to descend to the mortal ne hadmitted a greater crime than you, but it¡¯s too bad that he¡¯s dead already. I can only use you as an example for the rest.¡±


    Of course, Lorci was doubtlessly the current greatest threat to the Nortnds and the Mist Kingdom, and it was unknown if there were any personal grudges or benefits involved in this official task that Karwenz was about to carry out.


    A meteor streaked across the sky, and when this meteor crashed into the ground, the Spider Queen Goddess who was trying her best to obtain the position of the Guardian God of the Nortnds from Wumianzhe was destined to meet misfortune.


    ¡°Oh, right; it¡¯s so rare that I get toe here, and I have plenty of time, so let¡¯s find a ce to have some fun first. I¡¯m already tired of ying with subi 1 and female half-demons, so why don¡¯t I find some new fun while I¡¯m here? With those beautiful and slender female elves as well as the sturdy and cute half-blood female beastmen... beauties, wait for me, this old guy ising! Cough, I made a mistake, let me try again... beauties, thisdy ising for you!¡±


    Cough, perhaps Lorci would still be able to act as she pleased for some time before Karwenz decided to get to his main task at hand.


    By the way, after a particr series of incidents, a certain princess¡¯s rumor of being a lesbian was destined to be circted around by everyone.


    ...


    After night descended, the beasts in the pitch-ck darkness began their final evening feast. Thisnd had already bled enough, and this battle was nearing its end.


    In the snowy Nortnds, even though the ground was covered with snow, there was a strange team proceeding through the ice.


    Although they were all elves, they were separated into two separate processions. The dark elves walking behind were in high spirits, while the gray elves walking in front wore depressed expressions.


    Grayblood elves¡ªthis was the name of this new species of gray elves. These roughly thirty thousand gray elves had nk expressions as they trudged onwards¡ªit was as if they were daydreaming zombies.


    They followed their King Adrian to work under a new master, and that master had unhesitatingly sent them right out to fight against the current masters of the Nortnds.


    ¡°Are we going to have to fight the humans to the death?¡±


    They had returned to their starting point after going a full circle. But to use Amon¡¯s words: ¡°You were allies equal to us in the past, but now you¡¯re nothing more than dogs.¡±


    If Lorci could be said to have lost the trust of both major sides due to her two consecutive betrayals, then these gray elves could be said to not even know how many times they had betrayed others by now.


    Betraying their human allies and the side of Order? Yes, they did that at the very start.


    Betraying the expectations of the Elven Gods? Well, that urred when they had abandoned the northern battlefield and had hurriedly returned to their homnd.


    Betraying the elves of the entire Nortnds? Their gray-ck skin color was the best evidence. They could still remember the looks of shock and immense hatred of the Nortnd¡¯s elves when they had suddenly betrayed them and changed sides on the battlefield.


    And they had now betrayed their own species yet again despite the fact that they were on the brink of a disaster, in order to participate in an utterly meaningless battle whose results didn¡¯t even matter to their race. That was the reason for their fatigued expressions and why they were visibly tormented by guilt and pain with every step.


    It was no wonder they were so exhausted. A warrior who had lost his conviction and desire to protect was no different from a zombie!


    Suddenly, amidst the deste silence, dozens of voices rose in a blending of song. They were singing what would be sung at the year-end celebrations in the Tassel Kingdom and signified the end of the year and the gathering of their tribe.


    ¡°Dajh da jd, ka su odd as da...¡±


    [Our distant rtives, where did you go, we miss you here in the homnd...]


    ¡°Fre de ld, kad...¡±


    [Are the ancient trees at home still verdant green, that familiar springke always reminds me of my childhood, the sky was so blue...]


    Back then, there had been continuous internal conflicts among the elves, and the legendary moon elf bard Tassel had wandered the continent in order to find a ce where her tribe could live.


    After experiencing countless difficulties, Tassel finally settled on a piece ofnd in the north, where she signed a contract with the Forest Guardian God rdin before joyously beginning her trip to return home.


    Unfortunately, the return trip was just too long, and Tassel, who was so worn out from her travels, died before she was able to return to her previous homnd.


    Luckily, her message was brought back to her tribe by her messenger pigeons, and her tribepleted the promise she had made, transforming that northern mountain into an elf paradise.


    Later generations of elves used the songs that she used to sing and created this ssical song about the longing for one¡¯s homnd.


    And in recent years, at every year-end celebration, it would be the princess who would perform this song for everyone as a celebration of their now pleasant livespared to the difficulties of the past.


    ¡°Dda jd ad! Dal dada aty...¡±


    [My rtives, I finally found a dreand for us, our new home is in the north...]


    And now, as that familiar, nostalgic song echoed throughout the mountains, the grayblood elves felt more pain than ever before.


    Thest time they had listened to this song, they had been celebrating with their rtives and friends, but after all the recent events, there was no one who hadn¡¯t lost a loved one.


    ¡°That song¡ªit¡¯s the same voice! Impossible!¡±


    As the gray elves¡¯ choking turned into crying, someone among them noticed that this familiar song was being sung by a familiar voice¡ªa voice that belonged to someone who should have been dead!


    ¡°Her Highness Suana! Ah! No, this is impossible!¡±


    A sharp-eyed scout had already discovered the truth. A solitary figure could be seen singing in the mountains, and judging by her translucent body, she was probably a banshee like in the stories.


    The gray elves¡¯ faces turned pale as they faced the indisputable truth before them. They all came to a realization at the same time.


    ¡°Kill her!¡±


    As the gray elves were still in shock and in tears, the dark elf general¡¯s angry roar woke them all up. His order was carried out by countless dark elves¡¯ magical arrows, which were about to destroy that lonely figure in a storm of arrows.


    ¡°N¡ªno!¡±


    Some gray elves were no longer able to hold themselves back and started fighting with the dark elves; they were doing their utmost to halt those life-threatening enchanted silver arrows.


    Yet it was toote. The expert archers within the dark elf troops had already heartlessly released a storm of arrow fire, and it appeared as if the newly-born banshee before them would die again immediately when a miraculous sight suddenly urred.


    A ming phoenix flew through the sky burning all the arrows to dust and blocking the several magic spells aimed at her. And when the phoenixnded on the ground, it transformed into a female warrior wielding a ming divine sword.


    Numerous figures instantly appeared behind the cliff. The familiar military squadron was obviously an elite squad from the Underground.


    ¡°Um, I didn¡¯t nt this tree or cultivate this mountain, but if you want to pass by, even paying a toll wouldn¡¯t be enough to make me allow you all to pass.¡±


    The red-haired girl spoke some confusing words, but not a single dark elf dared to speak up against her. After all, she was the famous figure who was the most likely person to rule over the entire Underground¡ªPhoenix Annie Layde!


    And the other familiar voice caused the gray elves to tremble in fear. Perhaps a shocking tragedy was about to be exposed to the world.


    ¡°My fellow tribe members, you were all fooled; my death and the sudden deration of battle was all an underhanded plot by evil, ambitious individuals...¡±


    Note:


    1. ording to Wikipedia, a subus (plural subi) is a Lilin-demon in female form or supernatural entity in folklore (traced back to medieval legend) that appears in dreams and takes the form of a woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual activity.

 Chapter 191

    Chapter 191: Frigid Winter


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Even the longest and darkest of nights would end, and no matter how cold the winter was, there would always be the spring, where life would be restored.


    Yet sometimes, the morning following a long, dark night would bring not hope but despair. A snow-covered world wasn¡¯t always as beautiful as it sounded¡ªit instead made the frozen corpses even more frightening to behold.


    When the first rays of dawn burst through the skies, the people who had been fighting through the entire, difficult night noticed that it had finally reached a conclusion. The few that who had survived to witness the dawn were definitely lucky enough to be called ¡°favored by fate.¡±


    With the beastmen army not caring about sacrifices and insanely sending more reinforcements, the inner city district had already been lost, and all of the defending human armies had retreated to the final third defense line, which consisted of temporary defensive structures crafted from sandbags and earthen walls. It was also thest lifeline of this city.


    The catapults outside the city had already stopped firing. In front of such a long distance, the catapults wouldn¡¯t be able to maintain their uracy, and the restoration of the light and the halting of the snow caused the beastmen¡¯s air cavalry to fly into the blue sky once more.


    It seemed that the beastmen had their victory in the bag, but the current Beastmen King Amon Bloodaxe didn¡¯t have any joy at being on the edge of victory. His face, instead, was incredibly fatigued.


    ¡°...We¡¯ve lost over seventy percent of our warriors, and countless are seriously injured. Only two of the major tribe leaders have returned, and they¡¯re both gravely injured as well. Among the others, Hamar lost his life in the previous castle siege, and now, Fox King Wen, Wolf King Sostilo, and Bear King Londe have all died in battle. Kagra has disappeared, most likely also...¡±


    Each wave of bad news increased the burden on Amon, but nobody could me him¡ªthe stump of his severed arm, which had been cut off right at the shoulder, was still bleeding. Amon was severely injured from having lost an arm.


    As the leader of all the other tribe leaders, he didn¡¯t avoid the battlefield. The reason that he was able to survive, apart from his outstanding personalbat capabilities, was more reliant on luck.


    No matter what generation it was, cruel gueri warfare battles in cities were the most fatal and dangerous of all. Legend-rank warriors could die at any moment in such chaotic battles, and a single sudden surprise arrow or flying rock could kill off a Saint-ranked mage. The pitch-ck night and the pounding snow all over added to the chaos and increased the likelihood of such events urring.


    ¡°We finally made it to morning.¡±


    Amon¡¯s sigh caused all the survivors to nod in agreement. During the battle ofst night, the unlucky had died before even knowing what happened while the slightly luckier had at least seen their opponents before dying under their swords.


    The sly and clever Fox Tribe Leader Wen was the ssic example of an unlucky person. He had been killed by a stray catapult shot from his own side, and two of his personal bodyguards had died along with him, creating a scene that was simply unbearable to look at.


    Yet actually, without them realizing it, the beastmen, who had lost themselves in the fervor of battle, had broken one of the most critical maxims of castle sieges¡ªto never force your opponent to the brink of no retreat.


    Surrounding the enemy on three sides and leaving one side open as a path of escape was a tactic in this world as well. Giving the opponent a chance to escape would also mean that your own armies wouldn¡¯t be forced to the brink. Fighting against people who had given up was undesirable, as they would furiously fight to their deaths or at least take you down with them.


    On that night, the blizzard and the surrounding beastmen had blocked off all avenues of escape, giving the humans nowhere to retreat. And when they had no chance of escaping with their lives, even a cornered mouse could defeat a cat¡ªso how could those trained military soldiers possibly allow themselves to die worthlessly without fighting back?


    ¡°If we can¡¯t escape death in the end, then we have to at least die like warriors; we must take an enemy with us as we die!¡±


    The allied human armies, who were forced to the edge, exploded with incrediblebat potential as their fear of the falling of the castle walls transformed into hatred for their mortal enemies. Their spirits, which didn¡¯t fear dying together with their enemies, coupled with the terrain advantage of the city finally started changing the rate of losses on both sides, making the beastmen suffer significant casualties.


    Amelia¡¯s flower garden of death named Humility was the rear support; it acted as a death trap again and again, and the sudden ambushes from human warriors within the houses seeded in killing many beastmen. What happened to the Bear King Londe wasn¡¯t the first example, nor was it thest.


    But the beastmen¡¯s rear support had already stopped arriving. When the night turned pitch-ck and thebat situation became chaotic, their roughshod siege weapons turned into massive killing machines that wouldn¡¯t separate friend from foe. No matter in any generation, dying via friendly fire was one of the most uneptable methods of death to anyone.


    Large-scale hexes andbat magic? If they tried using these in a situation where they couldn¡¯t even see ten meters in front of them, then there was a fifty percent chance that they would kill their own armies.


    And the most fatal was all was that life-stealing winter chill which imperceptibly crept up on them. In this damned weather where any drop of water would freeze instantly, any cut in their anti-cold weather clothing was fatal, and this wasn¡¯t even mentioning any injuries.


    The freezing cold numbed the warriors¡¯ sense of pain, and although those easily unnoticed small injuries wouldn¡¯t be infected in the freezing cold, losing blood and energy because of those tiny injuries would end up being the most fatal of all. There were far too many beastmen who didn¡¯t notice their own injuries and ended up copsing and dying due to them.


    When the beastmen forced the northern human allied armies to the brink, the beastmen also thrust themselves to the edge. The long, long lists of the deceased were shocking to look at¡ª every family had lost some members with the serious amounts of injuries and deaths, and probably over seventy percent of the tribes would need to undergo restructuring after the war.


    Even their current losses were enough for the beastmen to have basically lost in their goal of returning to their original homnd. Even if they won in the end, they would need several generations to rest and recover.


    But if Amon and the other beastmen were given a choice right now, even if they knew about the uneptable number of losses beforehand, they would probably still make the same decision.


    ¡°Victory is before us! Defeat them, and we shall be the new masters of the Nortnds!¡±


    With what they viewed as victory right before them, how could the beastmen possibly give up?


    But their current goal of bing the masters of the Nortnds would have beenughed at ascking willpower and courage three months ago. After all, back then, the beastmen had fully been intending to conquer all the way back to their homnd and take the war to San Antonio.


    Without them realizing it, the cruel reality had woken the beastmen up, and their currentbat goal was only to conquer the entire Nortnds.


    The current beastmen no longer had the willpower to say that they could conquer all the human countries. Only the poor-seeming northern countries and San Antonio¡¯s reinforcements had forced them to such a degree¡ªthis caused them to lose the courage to fight against the human mega-empires.


    Of course, there was still some misunderstanding here. After this battle, perhaps each country would have to re-evaluate the Nortnds¡¯bat strength, especially the astonishing performance of the East Mist Communal Country in this war. Perhaps even military analysts with the highest standards would no longer dare to call the East Mist Communal Country a weak country.


    Princess Knight Reyne, the new generation of magic swordsmen and the Four Elemental Swordcasters, therge self-destructing Rnd Titan mechas, the floating airship Borealis, and the cleaner of the battlefield known as Train King¡ªall these new concepts and technologies would definitely help the Mist Kingdom rise to its former status in the Nortnds.


    Military might also represented diplomatic power. After their solid performance in this war, Rnd¡¯s Alliance of the Mist was also pushed one step to actualization.


    And on another level, when the news about the veteran Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan being killed off in his own home turf started spreading, this familiar name of Rnd Mist started drawing attention after remaining unnoticed for several hundred years.


    Of course, they had to first get past this obstacle before them.


    ¡°The beastmen areing again, aren¡¯t they...¡±


    I could see my own breath in the chilly air as I casually swung my Sacred Sword around to flick off the blood drops from it. This indestructible sword could basically clean itself.


    For the northern allied armies that had been struggling all night, the sky¡¯s lightning and the snow stopping were both bad news. This would mean that the beastmen could reorganize themselves again, and those damned air cavalry and siege weapons would be usable. While the humans might be able to have a temporary reprieve, the beastmen would surelye again with a destructive force for a final battle.


    The movable medium-sized catapults were slowly pushed into the city, as the bloodied elite beastmen soldiers that had survived over a hundred battles treated their own injuries and watched their surroundings with a high degree of vignce. Even the wind blowing some old tattered curtains would cause these veteran soldiers that had survived the bloody knight to chuck their spears.


    And right now, the allied armies¡¯ generalmander ¡°ck Bear¡± Anslo was right behind me, or perhaps I should say he was lying on the ground not far behind me.


    Beastmen knew more than just to rush in head-on, but the Cat Tribe¡¯s assassins had found the generalmand center and had ambushed Anslo. Even though he received assistance in time and managed to luckily survive, the one-eyed general had bepletely blind. After receiving three stabs to the right side of his stomach, he was seriously injured to the extent that he was no longer even able to stand.


    But luckily for him, he no longer needed to give any particrmands. The only thing he needed to do was shout a single word with all his might.


    ¡°Defend!¡±


    ¡°Defend! We have no path of retreat! If you want to live, the only way is to kill all these barbaric beasts!¡±


    ¡°Defend! There¡¯s only injured soldiers, the elderly, the widows, and the young behind us!¡±


    ¡°Defend! If we lose this battle, our country isn¡¯t even prepared for war¡ªthey¡¯ll lose their territory! Our families will also get involved in this endless warfare.¡±


    Yep, defend. With the battle proceeding to this point, no tactics or arrangements of any kind were necessary any longer; resolute willpower was all that was needed.


    ¡°Defend!¡±


    If a street block was lost? The next street block was already prepared with a new defense line.


    A temporary defense wall was knocked over? The next wall had already been constructed.


    A squad was ughtered, and there was an opening in their defense line? The elderly and women that had been ordinary citizens just a moment ago picked up the weaponsying on the ground and filled the gap without saying a word.


    ¡°Perhaps it¡¯s the end of humanity and we will be defeated, but you barbaric beasts! You want to conquer this city and have a path to every northern country? You¡¯ll have to wring everyst drop of blood out of each warrior in this city first.¡±


    The young humans with tense expressions didn¡¯t say much, but they used their actions instead to tell those proud and arrogant beastmen just what the northerners and the People of the Mist were like.


    ¡°The frigid winter is here, but us northerners have long been used to such winters! Even the coldest winter isn¡¯t that difficult for us. Just tolerate it for a little while, hug each other for warmth, and y with our doggies¡ªwon¡¯t springe right after?¡±


    Even though he was now blind, Anslo was making dirty jokes as always. The ¡°doggies¡± in his joke earlier was actually referring to something perverted, and judging by the loud guffawsing from the warriors, everyone understood what he meant.


    When the sun finally rose slightly, the arriving sounds of footsteps and catapult wheels seemed to proim that the final battle wasing.


    At this moment, even I had nothing else I could do. I had used every one of my cards. Antuen was too far from here to be of any help, I had used Annie¡¯s squad to block those dark elves, I couldn¡¯t control Xiluo¡¯s forces to begin with, and I had used all of my newly developed war weapons. I had no more moves I could make.


    ¡°That damned Emordilorcan! If it wasn¡¯t for him...¡±


    Emordilorcan¡¯s final attack had indeed hit us in our weak spot. If Red Maple Castle fell, then there would be nothing I could do.


    ¡°Sigh, if only the battle could take ten extra days...¡±


    But there were no ifs on the battlefield. Innumerable famous generals had met their demise in the past due to ¡°what ifs,¡± as idents and misfortunes were the favoredpanions of failure. There was only a small difference between who went to heaven and hell.


    I supported myself against the Rnd Sacred Sword and stood up again. Ever since ¡°Reyne¡± had left us unexpectedly, I had temporarily taken over her mid-levelmanding position, but by now, I had already used up both the remaining summons of my Sacred Sword for today but still couldn¡¯t overturn the situation.


    ¡°My Diligence and Temperance have both died; those damned moon elves! Only they can have such a disgusting control over nature!¡±


    The green-haired witch wasn¡¯t doing all that good either. She had used up all her mana in this battle, and two of her treasured Seven Virtues (well, she had only created three up to now) had died in battle, leaving only Humility alive. It seemed that she was at her limits as well.


    Moon elves were the priest-type tribe of the Elf Kingdom to begin with, and they excelled atmunicating with the Gods and even True Gods, borrowing their powers to use various high-level Divine Arts.


    And since the moon elves¡¯ original Guardian God was the Forest God, the nature priests who had used the Forest God¡¯s divine magic for thousands of years naturally excelled in nting and controlling forests. It was only to be expected that eradicating unnatural nts was in the nature of their job.


    That was why Amelia had met her natural counter against a nature priest like Adrian and suffered greatly.


    ¡°Senior Amelia...¡±


    Her typically neat hair was now messy, and her eyes were filled with bloody red streaks. The witch who hadn¡¯t slept all night was now even scarier-looking than before.


    ¡°If the beastmene up here again, go ahead and leave. I don¡¯t believe that you have no way to escape.¡±


    ¡°I can leave any time I want, of course, but what about you? Don¡¯t tell me you intend to be like a certain idiot knight and die together with the city?¡±


    ¡°Me? I¡¯m the indestructible Rnd; how could I possibly die here?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I¡¯m the ¡®super willful witch of tempest emotions.¡¯ How could I possibly listen to your orders? I¡¯m really feeling like giving it my all against those barbaric beasts today.¡±


    ¡°Heh heh, you think that I¡¯m garbage without my summoned pets? I shall allow you to witness the greatness of a meleebat grandpa mage like me!¡±


    From this angle, Amelia with her sleeves rolled up really did seem like that hot-headed senior from long ago, but I shook my head and decided not to say anything.


    ¡°Elisa?¡±


    ¡°Harloys has finished her preparations, but she told me to tell you to not use it unless you absolutely have to, or else all your efforts will have been wasted.¡±


    I did prepare one final trump card. The only magic I had which could overturn the situation from the utter edge was the highest-level forbidden undead magic spell¡ªUndead Cmity!


    But if I used this mega-forbidden spell that every country on the continent had banned, all the corpses around here would transform into brainless low-level undead, which would be somethingpletely different from when I had summoned the dead previously. Back then, the ones that answered my summons were those who were unwilling to remain silent in death, but the ones under the control of Undead Cmity would forever be brainless, bloodthirsty undead.


    This was a forceful and eternal servitude that was utterly disrespectful to all warriors. Perhaps all the warriors on my side would instantly change their attitudes towards me and attack me as an evil necromancer.


    The moment I used this spell, then the saying that ¡°undead doesn¡¯t equal evil¡± would no longer apply to me, and perhaps my Mist Alliance n would go kaput, and the East Mist Communal Country would then be viewed as a new hub of evil and will be isted diplomatically.


    At that time, even if we won the war, we would have lost more than we gained.


    ¡°Anything is better thanpletely being destroyed; if all these people die here, then there truly will be no more hope.¡±


    Hearing these words from me, Elisa merely adjusted her eyesses without saying anything, but judging from her downcast expression, she seemed rather displeased and spiritless.


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter?¡±


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you asking me if I can escape or not? Why aren¡¯t you trying to convince me to leave?¡±


    Okay, Elisa, who was pouting as sheined, was actually rather cute. Of course, she didn¡¯t want to escape by herself; she was merelyining about not receiving any attention or care. At the very least, Rnd was still Elisa¡¯s boyfriend in name.


    I shook my head. ording to my understanding of Elisa, I wouldn¡¯t have to waste time telling her about such things.


    ¡°Why are you asking? Didn¡¯t you tell me that you would follow me whether it be to the River Styx or to hell? What, are you regretting it?¡±


    Just as I finished speaking, it was as if dark storm clouds had suddenly cleared as she smiled ever so sweetly.


    ¡°Of course not; I¡¯ll never regret it. Then, let us fight alongside each other to the death. I¡¯ll pick your corpse up from the River Styx.¡±


    The abnormal conversation sounded somewhat illogical, but it may actually happen. Perhaps the emotional rtionship between the undead was just that strange after all.


    Seeing her emotions turn sunny again, I secretly wiped my sweat.


    But looking at how Amelia was evidently unhappy and feeling Elisa¡¯s eyes staring at my back, I suddenly realized that perhaps my luck with women was finally changing. Was I really starting to be a winner in life? But... why was it that I only started getting luckier when I was almost about to die? Was I the type of person who was fated to shout, ¡°After this battle, I¡¯m going to get married in my hometown¡± and then die right away?


    Hey, hey, hey, I don¡¯t want beautiful women to only confess at my funeral as they cried and admitted that they liked me...


    But the familiar footsteps from not far away interrupted my thoughts. The final battle was upon us.


    The most surprising part was that the person leading the way wasn¡¯t a beastman; it was, instead, a familiar figure. That long, slender physique and light footsteps could only belong to an elf.


    ¡°Adrian!¡±


    Yes, even though he transformed into a grayblood elf, even though the years had left their mark on his body, I would never forget his familiar face. After all, back then, this arrogant elf species lover who would never admit he was wrong was one of the ones who had given me the final blow.


    But at this moment, this cheap brother of mine didn¡¯t seem so well, as two ax-wielding beastmen were holding on to him. Adrian kept muttering to himself as if he intended to do something.


    ¡°Convince us to surrender? Is that even worth their time?¡±


    This guess seemed reasonable, but there could only be one master of the Nortnds, and the grudge between us now ran so deep that it could only be washed away by fresh blood. Trying to convince us to surrender was impossible from the very start.


    But I shouted out in shock when I read the beastmen¡¯s lips and noticed what Adrian was trying to do.


    ¡°Hurry; kill him!¡±


    Yet in the sky, a dark, divine light was already descending as the forbidden ritual finished its final phase.


    Those beastmen had said, ¡°It¡¯s time to prove your worth, elf.¡±


    And Adrian had only said two words in response.


    ¡°God¡¯s Descent!¡±

 Chapter 192

    Chapter 192: God¡¯s Descent


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    What is a God? There was no way to actually answer this question since this colorful world contained too many existences known as Gods that really did reach the level of Gods in the eyes of people; however, in actual fact, Gods consisted of many varying levels.


    The Elemental Gods, the True Gods of Order, the Evil Gods of Chaos, the Original Gods, and the others¡ªthey had all created their own organizations, and everything about their abilities and personalities was different. Not a single person could give an exact definition of a God, and even the veteran demons in the Chaos Abyss were able to be Gods, recruit believers, and bestow divine powers upon their followers.


    And, to tell the truth, there were quite a few major demons that did this, and their believers usually hid in the shadows. Those dangerous demon worshipers were usually at the top of the most wanted lists.


    As a matter of fact, there was actually more information on the Order Gods, the victors of the previous Holy War.


    From a certain standpoint, since Lorci was an exiled Order God, she was still simr to a True God of Order as she had her own Divine Country and teachings, and she even protected the dark elf species.


    In order to understand these undying existences, one would first need to understand the differences between the True Gods of Order and the other Gods. Most True Gods of Order had a direct connection with a particr divine task, and their existences were representations of certain Concepts.


    First, Gods should never be treated as individuals. Yet while they were indeed high above mortals and would never naturally die, they had quite a few limitations as well.


    They were on a divine ne, but their main bodies were also trapped in the divine ne. Theybined with their Divine Tasks and Concepts and became incredibly powerful, but, because of this, they were partially assimted by the Concepts and had lost their senses of self.


    The side of Order was orderly, after all, and their God system was like a tree with many branches and leaves, with all the Gods being a part of the overall tree, and each Divine Obligation and God had various connections with each other.


    Low Gods, Middle Gods, High Gods, Main Gods¡ªthis was only a rough separation of their ranks, but in a way, it was indeed the current situation of this world tree.


    If each Main God were said to be at the top of the divine tree, then the strongest Gods would be the tree¡¯s branches, and the countless souls and their worship that could be seen down thedder constituted the source of nutrition supporting this tree.


    From a certain perspective, Lorci was still the same Elf Order God from before; she was creating her own world tree so that she could be an actual Main God of the elves, and her first step in aplishing her goal was to construct the Dark Elf Gods, with the Poison God Felix being the first.


    After they became a part of the world tree and lost a part of their self-consciousness, these Gods could be considered to no longer be individuals. The closest analogy to their existences would be a country.


    Each God had their own Divine Country, which was thebination of a Concept and group benefits, and these Gods would obtain the powers of administration. However, they were also tied down by the very same administrator powers.


    Leaving their own divine countries? That was strongly forbidden, and as long as the Gods did not leave their divine countries, it would be impossible for them to truly perish. If their physical bodies that they sent out were killed off, then the only thing that would happen would be some loss of divine power.


    And now that the Elemental Tide wasn¡¯t very active in the current generation, the Gods¡¯ physical bodies were rather limited in power, and perhaps a SemiGod-level physical body would be able to deal with normal situations. But when faced with veteran SemiGods who had been through hundreds of battles, they would typically end up as part of their enemies¡¯ experiments on researching divine power.


    Yet in order to allow their Guardian God to truly be able to assist them, the ancient Elf Kingdom¡ªin this aspect, at least¡ªwas far more advanced than other kingdoms.


    ¡°God¡¯s Descent!¡±


    There were certain standards to be fulfilled for a True God to perfectly ept a body as a vessel¡ªthe body needed to be customized, and their soul¡¯s wavelength needed to be adjusted in order to adhere to the True God¡¯s soul¡¯s wavelength. This way, the True God could use a power closed to their maximum.


    If a God¡¯s Descent seeded, and the True God¡¯s will perfectly aligned with the vessel¡¯s, then its willpower and soul would transform into strength. And if the alignment ratio was over ny percent, then with the vessel and willbining into one, the True God¡¯s host would be able to wield power far surpassing that of a God¡¯s physical body, and theirbat strength would be almost at the level of a True God.


    It was worth mentioning, however, that God¡¯s Descent was a double-edged sword. This soul contained much of the God¡¯s power, and if this vessel, which contained pure willpower and force, ended up being killed, then the True God¡¯s divine power would take a huge blow. It that God was only a weak God to begin with, then there was a high chance of the God directly perishing.


    The Forest Guardian God rdin had personally descended with his SemiGod descendant as his vessel and had indeed managed to draw out tremendous power. He had even managed to force Lorci into descending into her main physical body, but it was precisely because of this that rdin had met his end when his vessel SemiGod Prescott died.


    These requirements were incredibly high, especially regarding the willpower of the original vessel. And, of course, the closer the person was to the God, the better. If there was a bloodline rtion or a synchronized soul wavelength, then it would be all the better. In a way, Karwenz¡¯s descent was the Chaos Abyss¡¯ version of a God¡¯s descent, and it worked almost exactly the same as that of True Gods of Order.


    But there were also professionals at summoning the Gods into themselves, and the human witches in the far west, the soul shamans of the beastmen, and the moon elves¡¯ soul priests all had bodies specialized for Gods¡¯ descents. Among these groups, the moon elves had the oldest traditions.


    The moon elves had always been the tribe of priests, which was an important role in the Elf Kingdom. Throughout the great history of the Elf Kingdom, the greatest priests would alwayse from the moon elf tribe.


    Their innate body structures were the most suitable formunicating directly with the Gods, and their high-level Divine Arts that borrowed divine power aligned with their racial talent to begin with.


    And after Adrian had joined Lorci, the Spider Queen had unhesitatingly designated him as a future vessel for the Poison God Felix. Amelia had also been countered all the way up until now because she had been facing against Adrian, who had been borrowing the Poison God¡¯s divine power that naturally countered her nts.


    ¡°God¡¯s Descent!¡±


    With Adrian¡¯s muttering, a dark-ck light fell down from the skies, and a mysterious ck mist wrapped itself around Adrian.


    Abnormal magical runes appeared on Adrian¡¯s skin and caused him to moan in pain as he knelt to the ground, but all the human spears and arrows tossed in his direction were blocked by an invisible barrier.


    ¡°Poison God Felix!¡±


    The already corroding ground around him was evidence of the identity of the descending God. It was the lucky God who had recently just ascended.


    Felix, who had been born as a dark elf, had long since reached the pinnacle of a SemiGod. When Lorci had helped him steal the Forest Guardian God¡¯s divinity, a change had urred in his Divine Obligation 1 of nting and guarding forests, which thenbined with the poison assassin Felix¡¯s original body¡¯s specialties and transformed the Obligation into that of the Poison God.


    Yet I didn¡¯t even need the sight before me to confirm my opponent because my system wouldn¡¯t possibly remain idle at such a critical time.


    [Epic Quest: ying a God.]


    [Quest Description: Kill the Poison God Felix, and make the foolish Lorci taste the feeling of losing her children again. Let her know the consequences of a double betrayal.]


    [Reward: Depends on your performance, but a minimum of 50,000 Fate Points.]


    [Punishment for failure: Believe me, if you fail, you won¡¯t even need a punishment. Felix is such a weak God. You wouldn¡¯t actually fail, would you?]


    ¡°ying a God?¡± What an overestimation of my capabilities. Even if Felix is a super-weak God who just rose up to the level of a True God, I¡¯m still not certain of being able to defeat him.¡±


    The Adrian before me was no longer in a humanoid form. The True God¡¯s power had begun changing him, and with the distorted boundaries of reality, he soon transformed into a gigantic ck spider.


    He was more hideous than a demon lord from one¡¯s worst nightmare and was fiercer than a colossal dragon. The eight eyes of this gigantic ck spider were filled with looks of greed as its disgustinglyrge mouth was already spewing digestive fluids that corroded the ground in front of it, and poison kept leaking out of its tail. The ground where it stepped with its poison-needle-studded feet would transform into a poisonous swamp.


    Divine power gave him powers far above the norm. Just its stare would cause people to feel despair, and just looking upon him would cause the weak-willed to go insane.


    But...


    ¡°Fight him to the death! We have nowhere to retreat! At least we shouldn¡¯t die like cowards!¡±


    Yes, this wasn¡¯t the time to be wasting words repetitively. We had long since had nowhere to retreat to.


    ¡°Hmph! Lorci, I¡¯m definitely going to remember this!¡±


    I spat some blood as I lifted my Rnd Sacred Sword again and led the charge. I was prepared to finish my Epic Quest.


    With a descended God as our opponent, the battle pushed us to the brink right at the very start.


    The gigantic spider was incredibly dexterous despite its size, and its enormous legs resembled an exquisitely well-controlled mecha as it moved. It easily tore through our defensive structures over the entire defense line.


    Under the Poison God¡¯s control, a ck mist surrounded its body, which directly destroyed all magic spells and arrows before they could even reach him.


    But the biggest headache of all was the poisonous mist he was emanating, as anyone who so much as touched it died on the spot¡ªthere was not even a single survivor.


    ¡°I¡¯ve analyzed the divine power; it¡¯s not just a simple poison. It¡¯s the Concept of Corrosion and Withering! He¡¯s distorting life into death! Definitely don¡¯t touch that!¡±


    Just as Harloys finished speaking, one of Felix¡¯s gigantic eyes fixated on her as he spat a ck gob of poison in her direction.


    Felix was no mindless beast. He had senses far surpassing that of others, so even if Harloys only had the physical appearance of a ck cat, he immediately ssified her as the number one threat since she could point out his divine power¡¯s nature.


    And while the battle was raging on ferociously, not far away on an observation tower¡¯s deck the beastmen tribe leaders were watching this scene with cold eyes.


    ¡°...Shouldn¡¯t we send our forces to help out? Isn¡¯t that our ally?¡±


    The Boar Tribe Leader seemed somewhat confused. He believed that they were supposed to be the main characters on the battlefield, so why were they simply watching their ally fight while watching from behind? This wasn¡¯t how beastmen would typically act.


    ¡°Help? Hmph, after that spider kills off the humans, if it doesn¡¯t turn around and kill us next then I¡¯ll thank the War God for protecting me.¡±


    ¡°Ally? Even though our ally has such strongbat capabilities, she watched us lose so many afterst night¡¯s battle and only now she sends Felix to fight? Isn¡¯t this just trying to steal the battlefield achievements?¡±


    Beastmen preferred using their fists instead of their brains, but that didn¡¯t mean they were idiots. Lorci¡¯s intentions were so obvious that even they could see them.


    Amon reached out with his single remaining arm and collected a few snowkes in his hand. They began to melt due to his body heat.


    *Crack!*


    Amon clenched his fist tightly as a ferocious light emanated from his eyes. The current him was the unmistakable Beastman King. ¡°Everyone, prepare for battle. We must reorganize our squads before the snow gets heavier. In this battle, nobody¡ªno species¡ªis worthy of our trust. Warriors, prepare to die in battle. For our honor and for our ancestors¡¯nd, even if we¡¯re destined to be buried here, we must let this cruel world understand the courage of the beastmen!¡±


    Suddenly, an ancient horn sounded out from far away¡ªa summons from a true ally of theirs.


    ¡°They¡¯re finally here!¡±


    All the beastmen tribe leaders had joyous looks, and when I received my scout¡¯s report, I was shocked.


    ¡°How are there still more beastmen? Haven¡¯t they already used all their main forces?¡±


    But the direction the beastmen reinforcements wereing from, as well as the tribal g that the air cavalry scout described to me, instantly helped me understand the situation.


    ¡°The beastmen of the ins? That damned Emordilorcan!¡±


    Since the teau¡¯s beastmen could directly reach the human territories through the Earth Elemental God¡¯s tunnels, then the beastmen from the ins could surely do the same thing. Perhaps this was Emordilorcan¡¯s true final trump card!


    But right now, I was unable to do anything, because the highly venomous spider before us was already difficult enough to deal with!


    ¡°Harloys, make your preparations! If we must die here, we need to at least take these bastards with us!¡±


    Yet, suddenly, anotherbat drum¡¯s sound rang out in a familiar elven song, which actually made that huge spider reveal an excited and happy expression like a human.


    However, when I listened to it carefully as well, I, too, smiled.


    ¡°It¡¯s finally here!¡±


    Note:


    1. The Divine Obligation refers to a God¡¯s area of specialty/Concept¡ªlike how Wumianzhe¡¯s is Law, Felix¡¯s is Poison/Withering, and rdin¡¯s is the Forest.

 Chapter 193

    Chapter 193: Silver Dignity


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Iron Bloodline, Bronze Body, Silver Dignity, and Golden Will were the separate ranks the humans had created for each power level, and each rank contained endless amounts of hard work, blood, and tears.


    The Silver and Gold species didn¡¯t have any need to ssify ranks in such a manner as they were innately born above the so-called Silver and Gold. In their eyes, possessing such low-ranked power ssifications was no different from giving their children power ssifications, something which was deemed entirely unnecessary.


    Yet, for humans, each rank represented a foundational change in the warrior¡¯s power level.


    Iron Bloodline and Bronze Body¡ªthese names were already self-exnatory. Human mages at these levels could create mana circuits within their bodies, while warriors could utilize their bodies¡¯ potential. ¡°Bronze Body¡± was synonymous with ¡°perfect body.¡±


    Of course, this didn¡¯t mean their bodies were actually perfect¡ªit meant that after reaching this level, ordinary humans would no longer be able to drag any more power out of their bodies.


    On the contrary, the definition of Silver Dignity was worth wondering about.


    After all, it was entirely distinct from the other ranks; the description of ¡°dignity¡± for a power level was iprehensible.


    ¡°Iprehensible? After reaching this level, humans can finally have some dignity in front of other species; only this level can help humans beparable to them.¡±


    ¡°If you only look at the power level, then Bronze and Silver have very little different from each other, but some things can actually be felt when you¡¯re at a certain level. The difference between Bronze and Silver is the difference between the highest level that an ordinary person can achieve and the beginning of an extraordinary person¡¯s path. While the difference doesn¡¯t seem big, they¡¯re actually as far apart as the sky and the ground.¡±


    While this was all rather a vague description, but for the truly strong in Silver, this was as natural as breathing or eating.


    Think about asking a person how to breathe or how to use more strength and if there were any techniques to it. Perhaps everyone knew how to breathe, but nobody could say how they knew it or why.


    ¡°After reaching the Silver rank, you won¡¯t have to worry about iprehensible deaths.¡±


    For the strong of the Silver rank, life force and mental spirit were both actual foundational strengths, and they could generate the Qi of a martial artist or the magic ring of a mage to create formless barriers.


    They had different effects, but all of them could block outside impacts. The strong of the Silver rank had bodies that were their own domain and could resist against outside forces.


    ¡°At the very least, if you can know how you die, then it¡¯s enough to be at a cannon fodder¡¯s level. You can die with some pride.¡±


    ¡°On a true, major battlefield, without being at the Silver rank, it¡¯s not even enough to be cannon fodder. Under major spells cast by Legends, ultimate sword techniques, or a Divine Domain, people would be just like an inanimate rock or a tree with zero power to resist. Just one thought or one look from these high-ranked existences could kill you¡ªand there would be a zero chance of survival. How could I even win?¡±


    In the generation where many species chaotically fought with each other, a young Silver-ranked genius of his tribe had said that helplessly and sardonically about himself.


    ¡°And if the enemy is a God, even if it¡¯s only a Low God who just ascended...¡±


    I shouted loudly as I turned my will into a formless barrier to keep out the purple-gray Divine Domain of Withering.


    ¡°...If you aren¡¯t even at the Silver rank, with Divine Domains most likely soon to be everywhere, you probably wouldn¡¯t even see your enemy before you die without realizing what¡¯s going on.¡±


    And when I knew that I was about to face God-ranked opponents of Karwenz¡¯s level in the future, I unhesitatingly used all my saved Fate Points, so that at the very least I wouldn¡¯t die without knowing what happened against opponents who possessed their own Divine Domains.


    And now, Karwenz had left, but Felix doubtlessly possessed his own, true Divine Domain as well.


    From the moment of Felix¡¯s descent, a formless yet still-present Domain already enveloped half the city, and if anyone used any prophecy or detection-rted abilities, then they would notice gray-purple smoke present everywhere.


    And it wasn¡¯t the doing of Felix¡¯s conscious efforts; it was the side effect of his Obligation as the Poison God, but just this ¡°side effect¡± was more than enough to kill off the weak.


    ¡°Cough¡ªcough!¡±


    The injured behind us were coughing unstoppably, and this was followed by vast amounts of people spitting up blood. The fact that their blood was ckened was evidence of their worsening injuries.


    ¡°Mom, I feel so terrible! I can¡¯t breathe.¡±


    In a shelter, a yellow-faced girl with lips turning pale-green was requesting her mother for help, but she wasn¡¯t the only one.


    Most of themoners taking refuge from the war were coughing in the shelters, and the sick were bing sicker while the healthy suddenly fell ill. The infectious diseases were spreading as they pleased; the Poison God¡¯s Divine Domain of Withering was herding them towards death.


    This was also one of the reasons why True Gods were forbidden to descend. True Gods that embodied a concept were always frightening; if they walked about on the mortal ne, they would naturally distort their surroundings.


    For example, if the Tempest God descended, then waves as high as the sky would cause destruction in all directions; if the Sun God descended, a terrifying heat would transform the mortal ne into hell¡ªeven the descent of the Law God would probably create a strange Divine Domain where any crime would be immediately punished.


    Felix was a half-spider, half-elf Poison God, and his new divine job included ¡°the ending of nature (withering poison),¡± so within his Divine Domain, all living creatures would be distorted, and the chances of acquiring a disease would be vastly increased. Even the healthiest person would be deathly ill if they stayed within Felix¡¯s divine domain for too long.


    It wasn¡¯t that all the Gods wanted to cause wanton destruction; it was simply unavoidable for them.


    So, no matter if it were the Order Gods or the Chaos Gods, they would try, as much as possible, to avoid descending either in a vessel or with their true bodies. But since Lorci had already descended in her true body, the rules had long since been broken, so it didn¡¯t matter if Felix, who was under hermand, broke the rules again.


    ¡°...If we don¡¯t defeat him quickly, all of us will die.¡±


    Perhaps this newly-born rule-breaking Poison God would eventually be punished by the other Gods, but if we weren¡¯t able to take care of this God-ranked enemy right before us, we wouldn¡¯t live to see that anyways.


    The only part worth celebrating was the fact that the gigantic spider God before us was not very skilled at controlling his Divine Domain; it only spread out naturally from him, weakening the effects to the point where the warriors facing Felix wouldn¡¯t instantly perish just from his Divine Domain.


    ¡°Everyone that¡¯s below the Silver rank, retreat together with the citizens, and get as far away as possible from his Divine Domain! It doesn¡¯t matter what your overall rank is, your body has to be at least of the Silver rank.¡±


    Yet even the strong ones of the Silver rank were nothing more than cannon fodder that couldst a few seconds. Just being stared at for a few seconds by this gigantic spider would cause many to spit blood and die, but what surprised even me was that my condition was surprisingly good. It seemed that Felix¡¯s Divine Domain had no effect on me, which was something not even a Legend rank could im to be able to pull off.


    The domain of my physical body seemed to havepletely cut me off from the Divine Domain¡¯s influence. It didn¡¯t seem to be some simple coincidence; rather, it was the special ability of my bloodline.


    [Host¡¯s willpower is over 20; Host is at the Silver rank. Now that you are under the suppression of a Divine Domain, I would like to congratte the host. You have awakened your racial talent: Chaos Barrier.]


    [Chaos Barrier: Protect your mind from being suppressed by divine or mental realms. Reduce the effects of anything that attempts to reduce your willpower or vision.]


    Although the exnation was rather vague and straightforward, it was doubtlessly one of the most practical abilities suitable for my current situation. At the very least, with its assistance, I was able to calmly assess the circumstances, make adjustments, and takemand.


    What? Go fight in meleebat? With the current me, unless I used some forbidden techniques, I doubt I would cause any damage to Felix. I would prefer to not be suicidal.


    ¡°Borealis! Cover us with cannon fire!¡±


    In this long, snow-filled, and back-and-forth battle, the Borealis was pretty much useless during the night when it had no way of seeing anything. However, it still had plenty of remaining ammunition and energy, and as I gave themand, Envy, who was rearing for battle, instantly turned on all the cannons.


    *Boom!* *Boom!*


    Numerous explosions popped up like fireworks all over Felix¡¯s body, as the mage towers didn¡¯t rest with their continuous thunderbolts and fireballs. Whenbined with the sound of explosions, it was truly a grand scene.


    Unfortunately, in front of the astonishing defense of a True God who had descended into a vessel, these mortal technologies and spells couldn¡¯t even break through its defenses.


    However...


    ¡°This is enough for a smokescreen¡ªAmelia!¡±


    ¡°Hah!¡±


    With a shout, the green-haired witch flew up into the air like a meteor, and when she suddenly changed direction downwards, she wasing down at a far greater and more frightening speed than an actual meteor.


    For the gigantic Felix, that was only an ignorable human the size of a grain of rice, but Amelia¡¯s sudden, tremendous punch made him cry out in pain as he shook all over.


    Judging from the dark-green poisonous liquid spurting out from his wound, this punch had pierced through his heart.


    Amelia had used her strength to demonstrate that experience trumped power. Even if her ability was naturally countered by Felix, she was a veteran SemiGod; she still had her way of battling.


    When the elite warriors of the allied armies rushed over to the spider¡¯s side, they all stopped suddenly.


    ¡°There are sticky substances on the ground! Be careful; there are also invisible webs!¡±


    That was, unfortunately, their final words. Felix, who had just received such a heavy impact, angrily activated his Divine Domain at full force, causing a gray-ck poisonous mist to spread everywhere. The closest warriors to him were the first to fall victim to it with strange rashes appearing all over their bodies. And just like that, they fell over while still staring in angry disbelief.


    Seeing the way those warriors had died so pitifully, the warriors behind them began hesitating. Since it hade to this, none of them were afraid of sacrifice, but the sacrifice had to have meaning.


    What was most fortunate, however, was that the interference of a God was sure to bring another God¡¯s intervention to bnce things out. When Felix descended into Adrian, some existences could finally have an excuse to interfere; our reinforcements eventually arrived.


    A familiar, brilliant silver light descended. Wumianzhe¡¯s will had always been watching this battlefield, and when the enemy¡¯s True Gods ignored the rules and did as they pleased, it was time for him to interfere as well.


    When that light dissipated, an entire military squad appeared before us. Those various gs were rather nostalgic, and the familiar faces caused several shouts of surprise.


    ¡°Dragonyer Basr! That¡¯s a Legend-rank hero¡¯s spirit!¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that General Lololer? She died just two days ago on the battlefield, and General Basr is dead as well! How are they alive?¡±


    ¡°Idiot, they¡¯re heroic spirits now; didn¡¯t the True God make a deration earlier? Any warrior that died for the sake of defending thisnd would be able to be a true heroic spirit.¡±


    This cruel war had caused countless brave Nortnd warriors to die on this piece ofnd, but it also allowed the newly born Guardian God of the Nortnds to open up his own Hall of Valha for heroic spirits. And, right now, under Basr¡¯s leadership, this newly born heroic spirit squad re-entered the mortal ne.


    Each thrown spear transformed into a bolt of lightning as the sword-wielding heroic spirits began slicing the spiderweb. They now had the advantage, and Felix was forced to retreat, but a fierce look gleamed from his eight eyes as he once again sent more power into his death-inducing Divine Domain.


    This time, however, the effect was minimal. The heroic spirit squad before him actually ignored the threat of his Divine Domain and even took the opportunity to unleash a fresh round of attacks on him.


    Just a little thinking helped me understand the reason for Felix¡¯s pitifulness.


    Heroic spirits were of the undead to begin with, and they were only souls, without physical bodies like living creatures. Of course they wouldn¡¯t be distorted from Felix¡¯s life-altering Divine Domain, and it was obviously impossible for them to be poisoned. This was the natural counter to Felix¡¯s powers.


    Perhaps the most attention-grabbing person on the battlefield was Dragonyer Basr. Innumerable sharp weapons appeared in midair as precious mystical weapons rained down upon Felix like a storm, with ancient elven magical rune scrolls spreading across the entire area. From the very start, Basr was going all-out.


    During the dragon-ying battle, he had temporarily reached the boundary of a True God¡¯s level through the help of the power boost provided by the Great Judgement. Now that he understood this power, which was as unstoppable at the ocean, and with the Elf God¡¯s Divine Obligation and Divine Authority right before him, he would, of course, give it his all. The master he had sworn loyalty to had obviously indicated that Basr could proceed in increasing his rank.


    Huge spears kept piercing into Felix¡¯s body, the cannon fire kept raining down from the Borealis without a break, and the witch¡¯s ambushes were deadly with every punch. The Poison God found that he was actually forced to the brink as the injuries on his body kept increasing.


    But even so, just the heroic spirit squad¡¯sbat power by itself was insufficient to deal with a God.


    ¡°Spider¡¯s Gray Forest!¡±


    For Felix, the opponents before him were a bit difficult to deal with, so he was forced to use his power¡ªthe power that he had just barely learned how to use. The Concepts of Nature, Elves, Corrosion, and Withering all melded together as the Spider Prince Felix transformed nightmares into reality.


    In his Divine Domain, countless strange nts suddenly sprouted; those nts were twisted and ugly, and these stinky trees were growing at a tremendous pace before soon transforming into a bizarre, thick forest. In the darkness of this forest, there were many massive magical beasts with eight legs and multiple eyes, and these nightmares then came to life and entered the battlefield.


    Everything before us was now a scene of utter chaos. It didn¡¯t seem to be a many-against-one battle at all; it had now transformed into something resembling a battle between two armies.


    But this wasn¡¯t the only chaotic battle at the Red Maple defense line. At a ce not far from here, two real armies were testing each other¡¯s mettle.


    On one side, it was the beastmen of the ins that hade through Emordilorcan¡¯s tunnels. At the very beginning, the Earth Elemental God hade to an agreement with Amon Bloodaxe to notplete the tunnels, as they didn¡¯t want the beastmen of the ins to take away theirbat achievements.


    But when the battle reached a stalemate, Amon and Emordilorcan finally resolved themselves to summon new reinforcements.


    As for the forces fighting against them, apart from the diverse species of Underground ¡°demons,¡± there were even more elves.


    But Felix¡¯s delight was destined to go unanswered, as those elves weren¡¯t his reinforcements.


    Apart from the quiet Underground allied armies, there were also thirty thousand elves of a new species. Their gray-ck skin was very simr to the skin of the dark elves, and they had also epted Lorci The Fallen Goddess¡¯ power at one time. Now, however, these elves had a slightly lighter skin tone, and under the leadership of a banshee princess, they had broken free from Lorci¡¯s control and stood against the dark elves.


    The Underground armiesbined with the grayblood elves were on guard against the beastmen from the ins that had arrived after traveling a great distance. Both armies remained vignt against each other, but neither army seemed to have the resolve to bring it to directbat.


    And in the military camp, as Suana gazed at the gigantic spider in the distance, which was the size of a small mountain, she had an expression filled with worry. After all, she knew that that was her father¡ªthe person she used to trust the most, the person she used to respect as a perfect king.


    ¡°Humans, who are innately such a weak species, are fighting to protect their home, but our elf tribe is still suffering from disasters. Our entire army and tribe have turned into fallen elves, and even our king has transformed into a monster. Perhaps nothing can save us now that it¡¯se to this. Father, is this what you wanted? Is this your so-called pride as royalty?¡±

 Chapter 194

    Chapter 194: Unwee Reinforcements


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The unnatural amount of divine corrosive power was beginning to infect the world. As a True God, Felix had already stayed in the mortal ne for too long, and his divine power had started to rewrite the naturalws of this world. The space itself was transforming into his Divine Country.


    Grayish-purple clouds began gathering in the air, and the snowkes that fell from them were actually dark purple. The fierce winds had a faintly sweet smell to them, but anyone that identally inhaled this air would feel dizzy in their heads.


    With Felix as the center, arge area was now devoid of all nt life; all the nts in a circle had withered to death. As for small animals, if they hadn¡¯t died already, they would have be distorted and transformed into frightening magical beasts that preyed on humans.


    The battle between the humans and the True God continued. Even against the True God¡¯s descent into a vessel, the defending army still didn¡¯t give up, and they kept adding more members to make up for the ones that had fallen. Perhaps it should be said that they were stalling for time and surviving the best they could...


    This was a battle where victory couldn¡¯t be seen, or if I described it more directly, then this was a suppressive ughter.


    In the increasingly distorted world, the poison had already infected the very air itself; every moment someone would suddenly fall over and die.


    And the brave warriors of the vanguard fighting against this humongous spider were dying even quicker in front of Felix¡¯s sharp ws and God-level poison.


    If it weren¡¯t for the heroic spirit squad that didn¡¯t care about sacrifices or Felix¡¯s poison and the Borealis¡¯ constant aerial bombardments providing enough of a bother to Felix, perhaps this battle would have been over already.


    Yet merely stalling like this wasn¡¯t a good idea at all. Even if the heroic spirit squad was dealing with the brunt of Felix¡¯s wrath, for the northern countries¡¯ strongest warriors to simply die like this, without even a chance for a direct battle¡ªit was only a chance for them to be sent to Wumianzhe¡¯s Hall of Valha together with the heroic spirits that fell again.


    ¡°Is this the power of a True God? How despairing¡ªif such an existence appeared in And...¡±


    Hemet, who had an expression of worry, could only shake his head as he watched the battle through his binocrs from a distant observation tower.


    At first, the And Empire had sent him and a White Wolf Squad as only the in-name reinforcement guest army. Their goal was to collect information on the north¡ªDarsos¡¯ ambition had always been burning¡ªwhile also transporting goods, but nobody expected that yet another beastman assault to ur just like so many times in the past, transforming the ce into a cruel battlefield.


    ¡°Is this a Holy War? Everyone has be red-eyed with bloodlust, and even those rarely seen Legend-rank heroes and True Gods havee out. Every country¡¯s most treasured Silver and Gold-ranked warriors have actually be nothing more than cannon fodder on the battlefield¡ªoh? Another dozen or so have just died. It takes us a minimum of ten years to train a strong Silver warrior that doesn¡¯t rely on equipment.¡±


    Hemet sighed in his heart. Not a single person had expected the battle to escte to such an extent.


    Up until now in this battle, the northern humans, elves, and beastmen had given their all in order to obtain greater benefits andnd for their own species.


    In the short period of just two months, many undying existences had already perished. Not just the Elemental Gods but even a True God had died previously. Merely the ascension of the new True God Felix was major news that would shock the entire world.


    And apart from the war fought out in the open, the Elemental Gods and the citizens of the Underground were also getting secretly involved. Countless new weapons of war were changing this generation, and now even the True Gods weren¡¯t caring about their appearances and participated directly in battle. There now wasn¡¯t a single person who would dare say that the battle in the north was just a small affair.


    ¡°If all Holy Wars are battles to such an extent, then even a mega-empire probably wouldn¡¯t be able to survive for long. It seems that I really need to have a good discussion with His Majesty and Her Majesty when I return. Heh¡ªI need to be lucky enough to survive past this, however.¡±


    Hemet shook his head and got rid of his idle thoughts. He then proceeded to hand over a magic crystal that had recordedrge amounts of information to a griffin knight who had been waiting for his orders for quite some time.


    ¡°Hand this over to His Majesty Darsos.¡±


    ¡°What about you? Do you intend to stay here? I rmend that you leave together with me.¡±


    It was quite natural for the griffin knight to be worried about Hemet. If Red Maple Castle was lost, then the beastmen and the Poison God wouldn¡¯t spare Hemet just because he was from And. Hemet, however, shook his head at the griffin knight.


    ¡°I intend to watch his battle to the very end. It is worthy of me exchanging my life for firsthand information. And... I still believe that humanity can win!¡±


    The griffin knight took off into the air and flew southward. Just as a feather from the griffin fell on Hemet¡¯s hand, heavy footsteps sounded out from behind him.


    Hemet already knew who they belonged to.


    ¡°You guys want me to approve sending you out to battle? You saw it for yourselves; you are equivalent to nothing more than cannon fodder in a battle of this level.¡±


    Everyone behind him was silent and didn¡¯t respond, but this was evidence of the White Wolf Imperial Knights¡¯ determination. Even if they were merely a guest army, watching the deaths of other humans and the ughter of ordinary citizens without doing anything was something they couldn¡¯t stand as knights.


    They could only be cannon fodder? These knights were no greenhorns to the battlefield, so of course they knew the difference in level. Yet even though they were aware that they were walking a thorny path, the knights still had expressions of resolution and steadily held on to their weapons. From the start of battle until now, their desire to fight had been continually burning, and their blood had always been boiling.


    ¡°Knights fight for justice! We swear to sacrifice our blood in order to resist the injustice and evil.¡±


    ¡°Knights fight in order to protect! We treat the weak with kindness, but when butcher knives are aimed at the innocent, weak, elderly, and ill, we shall transform into the most solid walls of flesh and blood.¡±


    ¡°Knights fight for the royalty! We protect our homes and swear loyalty to our lords, but justice is what we listen to above all. If there¡¯s a conflict between justice and our lords, we shall choose ording to our hearts.¡±


    At this moment, the ancient spirit of chivalry seemed to be in full effect. The silence was the choice that all these knights made even with their oaths of loyalty towards the And Empire.


    Hemet shook his head; he had expected this oue.


    ¡°...It seems that I said something unnecessary. It would only bring humiliation upon the White Wolf Knights to have you guys retreat; it would make these northern hick countries look down on the And Empire. Go and perform well, and don¡¯t let the northerners look down on And! Make the And White Wolf Knights proud!¡±


    ¡°White Wolves...¡±


    ¡°...victory!¡±


    That was the angry roar of the White Wolf Knights. They all left with such a short battle cry, fully intending to not return. Hemet shook his head again as the knights left and returned to paying attention to thebat situation.


    Knights had a knight¡¯s duty, while a tactician had a tactician¡¯s duty. The most important thing for Hemet to do right now was to obtain as muchbat information as possible. Some information could be worth lives. Every minute was precious, and he wouldn¡¯t allow himself to rx and miss anything.


    But, the next thing he saw through his binocrs confused him.


    ¡°That Rnd; why did he stop? Hmm? Are they trying to dodge something?¡±


    Karodian, the temporary leader of the Tiger Tribe, had been chosen by all the beastmen of the ins. He was also the one who summoned all his fellow beastmen for this attack.


    In a way, he was also familiar with Reyne. Last time, during their previous invasion two years ago, he was among the beastmen that had been defeated.


    Karodian was known throughout the entire beastmen society for being a tremendously aggressive war hawker. Every year, in the tribe leaders¡¯ conference, he would always shout ¡°we should demolish the East Mist Communal Country and fight our way to San Antonio.¡± Yet the beastman, who was always so decisive, now had an expression filled with hesitation; he seemed to have some regret.


    ¡°Fighting here with the elves for no apparent reason? This seems absolutely pointless.¡±


    Battle was the product of politics. Nobody would want to fight a battle in which there were no benefits. Amon had promised the beastmen of the ins that they would cooperate in attacking the humans and splitting the humans¡¯ territory.


    Of course, if they won in the end, how much Amon¡¯s side and Karodian¡¯s side could obtain still depended on their strength after the war. If Karodian used up some of his precious military strength for no apparent reason against this enemy that he felt like he had no reason to fight, it wouldn¡¯t be worth it at all.


    ¡°Look, up in the sky! It¡¯s a bird! It¡¯s a dragon knight! It¡¯s Superman¡ªwait, no, it¡¯s just a naked muscr man wearing nothing but underpants! Pfft! So disgusting!¡±


    Soon, however, Karodian didn¡¯t have to hesitate anymore, as the huge figure that descended from the sky happened tond right between the two armies.


    *Boom!*


    When that person fell to the ground, he instantly moved himself into what he considered a dignified thinking pose. And when he realized that everyone was looking at him, he suddenly lifted his arms, flexed his muscles, and ced his fists against each other in a pose that was obviously to show off his muscles. Then, he smiled.


    ¡°Love and peace! Please stop; this world is so beautiful¡ªwe shouldn¡¯t fight! We should all love each other! Make love, not war!¡±


    With his white teeth reflecting the sunlight, this muscr man was smiling like the sun. His words kept increasing in volume, and by the end, he was even singing thest few words.


    But the most diforting part of all was that even though he was obviously a ridiculously muscr fellow, he had a handsome and pretty face that seemed like it belonged in a shoujo manga 1 . He even appeared to have an expression of embarrassment, and this tremendous contrast seemed to add to his ridiculousness.


    ¡°Kill that pervert for me!¡±


    Okay, then, Karodian unhesitatingly shouted out what so many people were thinking, and his subordinates instantly attempted to carry out his order.


    It wasn¡¯t only the beastmen who acted impulsively; at the exact same time, even Annie and Suana had ordered their soldiers to fire arrows.


    Unfortunately, before any arrows could reach that man, they all fell to the ground as if there was an invisible barrier around him.


    ¡°Oh my, what disobedient children. Then, allow me, Omar, to teach you what is love!¡±


    Omar flexed his frontal muscles, his back muscles, and his six-pack in a series of exercise fitness routines that made people feel like throwing up in disgust. He glowed brilliantly, and in the next instant, countless amounts of undead armies suddenly materialized out of thin air.


    ¡°My heart contains all my citizens, and as a king, wherever I stand is where my country is. My undead are beloved to me, and they love me as well. Come, this is my ultimate love!¡±


    He gave an extravagant kiss towards those skeletons and wiggled his eyes seductively. The brainless skeletons under his control actually made embarrassed reactions in unison, and as for those poor undead that still retained their intelligence...


    Annie learned, for the first time, that even the undead were capable of being disgusted to the point of kneeling on the ground and throwing up.


    But strength was, by far, the most effective method to get people to listen to you. Even though Omar was obviously a pervert, the hordes of undead caused the beastmen who had been so furious to begin retreating.


    ¡°Is it Lord Omar? Those bones¡ªer¡ªRnd probably can¡¯tst much longer; please hurry and support him.¡±


    ¡°Oh, are you the red-haired Annie girl? Small Lionheart told me about you; you¡¯re just like what I heard! So cute¡ªhave you ever considered joining me and bing a star idol? I recently created many new beautiful poses and dances, and if we team up as a dance team, we¡¯d surely shock the entire world.¡±


    ¡°I think it would scare the entire world instead.¡±


    Okay, Annie at least knew that the person before her was definitely quite strong, so she merely retorted andined in a tiny voice only she could hear.


    ¡°Why is he even more ridiculous than what I heard? I didn¡¯t hear that he had all these problems...¡±


    However, in the next instant, Omar¡¯s response helped everyone understand.


    ¡°Rx, reinforcements have already been sent to help Father. That guy¡¯s such an interesting person; he helped me learn so much about love, and I definitely can¡¯t match up to him.¡±


    ...


    When I noticed the ck dot in the distance that kept increasing in size, I inwardly realized the truth and couldn¡¯t stop my eyebrows from twitching. It was definitely good that I had reinforcements, but if my reinforcements were that person¡ªwell, let¡¯s just say I would have preferred to fight without his help.


    ¡°Look, up in the sky! It¡¯s a bird! It¡¯s a dragon knight! It¡¯s Superman¡ªwhoops, no, it¡¯s a Beifeng! Ahh! Hide!¡±


    The ck dot kept growingrger in my vision before it suddenly crashed into the ground, knocked over a small building, and created a small crater.


    ¡°What? Is he dead?¡±


    The sounds of shock must have been from people who didn¡¯t know him; since, after all...


    ¡°No, no. Even if all of Eich is destroyed, that guy won¡¯t die.¡±


    Those who knew him were, of course, aware of this undying gentleman.


    ¡°Ah! I almost died.¡±


    As I expected, in the very next instant, that guy¡¯s head poked out from the building¡¯s rubble with an expression as if he had just barely survived a cmity. However, I knew that he deserved whatever he got.


    ¡°You bastard half-dragon! If you decide to tug off my scales one more time and touch wherever you please, I¡¯m going to toss you into a volcano!¡±


    From above the clouds was the sound of an angry roar. With a powerful gale, a purple magic dragon descended from the clouds. Afternding, it transformed into a human that red at the Legend-rank hunter who was attempting to look everywhere but at the dragon.


    ¡°Thunderspeed Dragon? This is your animalpanion?¡±


    I had heard that Beifeng had used his own dragon blood to ally himself and contract a contract with a Thunderspeed Dragon. The Thunderspeed Dragon was known as the swiftest among all dragons, and only it could have brought Beifeng from Antuen to here in just a single night.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s not bad that you coulde, but you won¡¯t be all that useful here. You might as well have let Adame instead.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t looking down on him; our opponent was the Poison God Felix. A Legend-ranked hunter and a young dragon wouldn¡¯t help bnce the scales by all that much so it would have been better if the dragon had brought Adam here.


    But, right then, I heard a familiar foolishugh.


    ¡°Heh heh, I didn¡¯t expect you to believe in me so much.¡±


    I turned around and looked behind me¡ªwasn¡¯t that Adam, the most useful tank? The current him waspletely naked except for his underwear and the magical runes that were scribbled all over him.


    It turned out that right when the Thunderspeed Dragon hadnded, it had unfurled the giant magical carpet it had been carrying¡ªthe carpet which had pre-prepared magical runes and spell formations on it. When this simplified spell formation synchronized with therger, moreplex one in Antuen, Margaret had been able to use her remaining magical ingredients to cast another teleportation spell. And of course, Adam, who was currentlyughing like a fool, was the person who had been teleported.


    ¡°That¡¯s wonderful!¡±


    Iughed raucously in delight as I kicked Adam away.


    ¡°Go be my meat shield; I need fifteen minutes of absolute safety!¡±


    Okay then, I¡¯m not going to talk any more about how that naked man went to battle with a face filled with displeasure. With such a top-level meat shield around, it instantly reduced the pressure on the other warriors immensely, and it also opened up the possibility for me to aplish something else.


    When Harloys pointed out Felix¡¯s characteristics, it immediately attracted his attention and enmity. Perhaps there was nothing that could be hidden from Felix in his own Divine Domain, and I would be unable to do anything significant without sufficient protection. However, now that the tank was here, I could activate a new type of trump card.


    Cast a Forbidden Spell such as Frozen Age? First of all, it¡¯s a major spell that would require more than one or two hours to finish chanting, not to mention that even if I gave up my life, I wouldn¡¯t be able to cast such a high-level Forbidden Spell. Moreover, even without considering the severe side effects to the environment that such a spell would cause, I felt that such arge-scale Forbidden Spell would probably be unable to defeat Felix.


    I also felt that the moment I started chanting such a high-level spell, the tremendous surges in the waves of mana it would generate would undoubtedly make Felix ignore everything else and attempt to kill me at all costs. In the past, I had the protection of the armies of undead, but that was no longer the case.


    If my opponent had been an innumerable amount of beastmen, then I wouldn¡¯t have had any way to deal with them, but if my opponent was something like a True God, then I really did have an ace card up my sleeve¡ªwell, it wasn¡¯t exactly an ace card since it was a trump card that definitely broke the rules. It would surely cause me endless amounts of trouble, but I had still prepared it for this type of circumstance.


    And it was also the existence of this ace card that gave me the courage to face Karwenz by myself. After all, with the passage of so many years, it was quite possible for Karwenz to suddenly turn on me, so I wouldn¡¯t possibly appear in front of him if I, at least, couldn¡¯t protect myself.


    Karwenz was nice enough to only chat with me, so I still had this ace card to use right now.


    And since my opponent had totally disregarded the rules, this ace card of mine, which was definitely on the borderline of the gray area, wouldn¡¯t cause any trouble for me either.


    As I had thought, just the beginning of my casting attracted arge amount of sky-covering poisonous spit to be spat in my direction.


    However, I didn¡¯t even nce at it, and I continued to focus on my preparations. I had full belief that someone would block that troublesome poisonous spit for me.


    ¡°Ahh¡ªmy underpants! It¡¯s over! I¡¯m so humiliated!¡±


    As I expected, Adam blocked the poisonous spit for me, but the corrosive, poisonous mist ended up destroying his only remaining article of clothing¡ªhe was now utterly naked.


    ¡°Time out! Wait for me to put on some pants! Hey, I even said time out; why aren¡¯t you obeying the rules? Thisdy over here, could you please loan your skirt to me? Hey¡ªhey¡ªdon¡¯t run away, I¡¯m not really a pervert! I just saw that you weren¡¯t wearing much to begin with, and it seemed easy to take off!¡±


    ¡°Pervert!¡±


    Okay then, let us ignore this person who actually tried to borrow clothing from a female mage and ended up getting pped¡ªthe fact was, however, that his presence gave me enough time to safely cast the ace card spell that I was determined to use here.


    ¡°God¡¯s Descent!¡±


    Note:


    1. Shoujo manga (ÉÙÅ®Âþ»­ sh¨­jo manga) is manga aimed at a teenage female readership.

 Chapter 195

    Chapter 195: Judgement


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The battle before us was already difficult to the point of despair. Even though the warriors weren¡¯t afraid of sacrifices, the enemy was immune to ordinary weapons, and it was nigh impossible to scratch his defenses¡ªany battle that was impossible to win would naturally lower the warriors¡¯ morale.


    ¡°In front of True Gods, all are nothing but ants.¡± ¡ª Main True God of The Elves, Anslo Shusta Alderban.


    Although I didn¡¯t approve of such arrogant words, I couldn¡¯t help but admit that these existences known as Gods were the most annoying types of entities, and it was all due to their undying natures and broad Divine Domains.


    This, right now, was the perfect example. No matter how hard the mortals worked, they were unable to cause any life-threatening harm to Felix, and even if they somehow managed to injure him, Felix only needed to spend some divine power and would recover in the next second.


    ¡°What ants? Humph¡ªit¡¯s just that divine power is too powerful and disables the mortals fromnding fatal blows... but, it¡¯s not impossible to deal with.¡±


    ¡°God¡¯s Descent!¡±


    Yes, my method was God¡¯s Descent as well. This was the ace card I had left for myself when I had ascended to a God; it was my safeguard against any powerful beings that maye looking for troubleter.


    True Gods couldn¡¯t be defeated? Even if this was treated as a maxim in this world, I had never believed it. However, I had to admit that the special concept known as divine power was incredibly difficult to deal with.


    Since I wanted to reach my goal in this Holy War, I knew that I would be facing True Gods sooner orter, and the simplest method to deal with them was to also possess divine power. This was also why I had spent so much effort on creating a True God that was worthy of having believers.


    What was the condition for a God¡¯s Descent? It was that the souls should be simr and the bodies should bepatible. And there was nobody else who would be morepatible with Wumianzhe¡ªwe were the same to begin with, after all, and we could skip all the rituals.


    The moon elves were able to achieve a God¡¯s Descent with a synchronization ratio of about 60%. Karwenz had specially prepared Reyne¡¯s body so that he could synchronize with her at about 80%. However, between Wumianzhe and me, our synchronization was 100% from the very start. Moon elves needed to change their soul wavelengths in order to begin the ritual for a God¡¯s Descent, but for me, all I needed to do was make a connection with my other self in the heavens.


    Of course, an overly high synchronization wasn¡¯t necessarily good either, as two entirely identical souls would create another problem. But now wasn¡¯t the time to be worrying about that.


    With the two identical wills and souls connecting, a blinding, silver light descended as a lustrous bnce appeared in midair. The judge¡¯s silver mask materialized together with a simrly silver Divine Domain that began shing with the grayish-purple Divine Domain.


    Through my body, the Law God and Guardian God of the North, Wumianzhe, had descended!


    ¡°Heh, is this the feeling of a God?¡±


    My awareness was crystal-clear; I could clearly notice Hemet¡¯s shocked expression in the far-off observation tower as he dropped his binocrs. Falsity did not exist in a God¡¯s eyes; a God could see truth and souls for what they were.


    I could sense the enormous amount of faith transforming into strength as it rushed to my Divine Domain through the pirs of heaven. Most of the chains of faith in the Nortnds were rted to me as I was the Guardian God of the Nortnds. These many believers helped augment my strength.


    ¡°...Increasing my strength right now isn¡¯t a good thing. I don¡¯t have much time; I should hurry.¡±


    One body could only possess one soul. When two souls shared the same body for too long, they would instinctively begin trying to suppress and devour each other even if special methods were used to make one soul subordinate to the other. However, this wasn¡¯t a problem for me.


    Wumianzhe was just an automated version of myself to begin with, and our souls were identical. It was just like two file folders that contained identical documents; no matter how much you ovepped them, they would still be the same.


    That wasn¡¯t my problem.


    ¡°Damn it, we have already startedbining...¡±


    Yes, my problem wasn¡¯t about the God¡¯s Descent in itself; instead, it was about how I would separate from Wumianzhe after I was finished.


    Let me make an analogy. A normal God¡¯s Descent was akin to the mixing of oil and water; they would have to work on making twopletely different existencese together and synchronize to raise thepatibility rate. On the other hand, my God¡¯s Descent was like the mixing of water and water; the biggest problem was how to separate the two afterward.


    Right now, I had already achieved a strategic goal, as vast amounts of knowledge and secrets poured into my mind and a tremendous amount of divine power filled my body. Even though I took a circuitous route, I was finally able to steal the knowledge and wisdom of the True Gods!


    ¡°The secrets of the right to be a God, the structure of the power of faith, reincarnation, the Hall of Valha¡ªthis was all worth it!¡±


    Some things could only be seen upon reaching a certain level. I had been awaiting these divine secrets for quite a while, and now that I possessed them, the next step of my n could finally be realized. My future personal development now became much clearer.


    ¡°I finally made progress. With this, I can focus entirely on increasing my personalbat strength...¡±


    Yet now wasn¡¯t the time to rejoice, as my consciousness was already bing blurry. Wumianzhe was like a vast ocean absorbing a small river¡ªme. If thisbination continued, perhaps we would never be able to be separated again.


    ¡°No matter if Wumianzhe is pulled down here or if I¡¯m pulled up to the heavens, neither is an eptable end. That would mean everything I¡¯ve worked for and waited for was all wasted!¡±


    All these thoughts shed through my mind in a short instant. The bystanders only saw Rnd floating in midair as a silver judge¡¯s cap materialized on his head and his divine power transformed into a Divine Domain.


    The silver and grayish-purple Divine Domains shed against and invaded each other; each tried to force itself above the other Divine Domain. The two descended Gods shed against each other in an instant, using the most barbaric method of all to prove their strength.


    Perhaps Rnd as a host was far stronger than Adrian, perhaps Wumianzhe was simply stronger than Felix since Wumianzhe had two Divine Obligations, or perhaps Felix was still far too weak as he had just recently ascended to the position of a True God because it was obvious who the victor was at first nce.


    The silver Divine Domain won overwhelmingly!


    ¡°A battle between Gods!¡±


    The battle which would determine the master of the Nortnds rose to the final level, as even the Gods began directly interfering in the fight. Although the current me seemed rather majestic, I actually had a severe headache, with my consciousness bing hazy. I only wanted to go to sleep.


    But I knew that if I slept now, I might never wake up again.


    ¡°Shadow!¡±


    With a low roar, a hallucinatory shadow came to life and attached itself to my body as it greedily devoured divine power and grew.


    This was the strength that I had obtained from that great snowy mountain. That Frigid Nightmare that just couldn¡¯t hatch had finally transformed¡ªbut it had transformed into a piece of ice named Shadow. Currently, it was just a newborn that severelycked nutrition, and divine power from the same source was the best nutrition of all.


    What did I mean by ¡°same source?¡± Wumianzhe¡¯s divine power was from the same source as me, and this Frigid Nightmare was mypanion and was also from the same source as me. As a result, the Frigid Nightmare and Wumianzhe had the same source of power.


    Frigid Nightmares would grow together with their hosts and would absorb their host¡¯s emotions in order to evolve. As for this newly-born Frigid Nightmare named Shadow, it had already absorbed more than three hundred years of negative emotions from me. Perhaps growing up in such a crazed and twisted environment created its frightening power.


    Even when it had just hatched, it could already easily toy with and kill Fismer. If it could absorb enough divine power in order to make up for its shorings of being unable to hatch for so long, its growth potential was unimaginable. I was greatly looking forward to witnessing his growth.


    After being sored by the silver divine power, Shadow, who was formerly ck, began changing in color, and its hallucinatory form also began to materialize. Thanks to the power of luck and coincidence, a brand-new divine creature was being born.


    From far away, Shadow seemed only like a pair of wings of light belonging to Wumianzhe, as it was actually shining brilliantly and beautifully.


    Lustrous wings kept spreading out as a silvery-white hooded cape blocked Wumianzhe¡¯s face, and Wumianzhe¡¯s silver mask materialized in the mortal ne along with numerous one-eyed emblems. He was watching everywhere, judging the entire world.


    To tell the truth, all this customized equipment was the form that Shadow chose to take. As it was a part of me, Shadow was currently helping me bear part of Wumianzhe¡¯s divine power, and finally helped ease my burden so that I could spare enough attention to manipte this unimaginably strong divine power.


    ¡°Target locked on Felix. Divine Art: Great Judgement!¡±


    A silver light covered the entire world as the God of Law, with wings of light, reached his arms out to the sky and summoned a nameless massive Book of Law in front of him.


    ¡°Judgement!¡±


    A silver-white gavel generated endless waves in the air as the masked and robed judge began judging the sinner before him. In the Law God¡¯s Divine Domain, there wasn¡¯t a single crime that would be able to escape his eyes.


    Currently, under the Eyes of Justice, an untold number of crimes appeared as the Book of Law kept turning to the page with the punishments for crimes. In front of the Law God and the Original Book of Law, there wasn¡¯t a single existence that would be spared¡ªnot even a God!


    ¡°You are all judged to be guilty!¡±


    The silver-colored Divine Domain began spreading. Since the beastmen were here as well, how could I possibly just let them go? They were still waiting at the scene of the crime to split their spoils, so I was going to judge them together as well!


    *Hiss!*


    Unfortunately, the Spider God Felix¡¯s high-pitched screaming tore through my spreading Divine Domain, and dealing with its struggling took up much of my concentration, causing me to lose the chance to deal with all the troublesome beastmen in one go.


    ¡°Silence!¡±


    I reduced the size of my Divine Domain and used silver chains to bind that gigantic Spider God. I had always believed in the maxim ¡°better safe than sorry,¡± so I used all of my divine power and concentration on the opponent before me.


    ¡°Divine Law, The Primary Sin of the Thirteen Sins: Those who purposefully take away others¡¯ lives shall be severely judged by the Law God; they shall suffer from impaling and fire torture even after death!¡±


    The Divine Laws didn¡¯t have a limit on their targets to begin with. They were thews created by the Law God, as well as his teachings and the meaning for the Law God¡¯s existence.


    Yep, from the very start, I had never set targets for what the Divine Laws could and couldn¡¯t judge. It had always been my intention to judge the Gods!


    ¡°Judge the Gods? Are you crazy?¡± Ayer was shocked at the time.


    ¡°No, this world is the one that¡¯s crazy!¡± was my response.


    ¡°Just let someone as crazy as me to make you idiots high above us, you bastards who treat the lives of human¡ªhard-working humans¡ªas nothing more than toys! I shall teach you what the pride of the mortals is. If I don¡¯t pull you bastards in front of me to be judged, then how could I ever end this damned battle!¡±


    ¡°Divine Law, Execution!¡±


    The silver chains binding Felix began materializing and dragged the Spider God into the mortal ne as Felix¡¯s purple divine soul started entering his body. This judgment was to take effect directly against the True God¡¯s actual body.


    A silver rack transformed into sharp knives and the Incantation of Law turned into a viciously boiling sea of magma. The Spider God was currently tortured in both this world and the other ne.


    But, this was only the beginning...


    ¡°Divine Law, The Seventh Sin of the Thirteen Sins: Those who fulfill their personal desires yet forget their original Divine Obligations, break thews, act greedily, and y around shall be stripped of all their jobs and demoted to mortal status!¡±


    ¡°Felix, you willfully descended and created a bloodbath, caused a battle, and killed countless lives. Many grudge-bearing souls in the River Styx are because of you...¡±


    Even though he was currently being tortured by knives and fire, the furious spider was still trying his utmost to struggle and escape from his restraints; he had a premonition that this was about to be his end.


    ¡°...You no longer deserve to be a God. I dere right here and now that I demote the Poison God Felix to be mortal!¡±


    Theplete suppression of Felix¡¯s Divine Domain helped the Incantation of Law Great Judgement be effective. At this very moment, Felix lost his Divine Domain, and now, no matter how much strength he had remaining, he was nothing more than a giant spider instead of a venerated True God.


    I knew that after my Divine Domain dissipated, Felix would recover his status as a True God. I was still far from possessing the power to truly judge the Gods, and this type of power suppression wouldn¡¯t be able tost long.


    But it was enough...


    Something white viciously struck Felix¡¯s head and caused him to scream in agony. As my oldest and most trusted partner, Adam would never let such an opportunity slip past him.


    The massive injury on Felix¡¯s head didn¡¯t heal instantly like before. Without his Divine Domain, and without his divine defense and undying attribute, Felix was now no longer anything more than a slightlyrger-than-usual and more robust normal beast.


    ¡°Hurry! Don¡¯t waste this opportunity that Lord Wumianzhe has created for us!¡±


    ¡°White Wolves! Victory!¡±


    ¡°Silver Cross, charge! Don¡¯t let those southern hicks steal away the achievement of ying a God; this belongs to us!¡±


    ¡°ckeye Squad, grit your teeth for me and hang in there!¡±


    ¡°Is there anyone else left from the Rhodes Imperial Guard? Damn it, even if I¡¯m the only one left, I¡¯m going to charge! I won¡¯t let anyone look down on me!¡±


    The cannons on the Borealis had been overheating to the extent where they were almost unusable but were reignited once more as the heavily injured knights began their final charge. Amongst all the fatigued armies, the Four Elemental Swordcasters who could replenish their sources of power stood out most of all.


    The other warriors had already used up all of their mana in this long, drawn-out battle, but as a product born in this new generation type of battle, the Swordcasters had already recharged their mana through the Borealis. They were currently tossing out Fireballs and Thunder Arrows, using the most basic elemental spells to deal irrecoverable damage to the former True God; Felix was on the brink of death.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t enough! We won¡¯t make it in time!¡±


    I could sense that this wasn¡¯t enough. Felix had yet to receive a fatal injury, but I was almost unable to maintain this for any longer.


    I was already beginning to lose my mind as chaos and confusion filled my head, and I felt dizzier and dizzier and wanted to sleep, but...


    ¡°...Is there really nothing else I can do? It was so difficult to make it to this step; was everything but a waste? I can¡¯t ept this!¡±


    My soul and Wumianzhe¡¯s soul were on the verge ofplete synchronization, and if I didn¡¯t cancel the God¡¯s Descent soon, I probably would never be able to do so. I wanted to grit my teeth and hold on, but my consciousness was bing hazier, making holding on any longer seem meaningless.


    ¡°I just want to sleep; why do I have to hold on¡ªno, this is no good!¡±


    ¡°Then, let me cancel the God¡¯s Descent; my soul is beginning tobine¡ªI definitely can¡¯t do that!¡±


    ¡°Who¡ªwho am I? Wumianzhe? Rnd? ckhand? Rolo?¡±


    Alluring words were trying to steal my consciousness away, and Felix¡¯s divine power was still struggling against mine and increasing the speed of the fading of my consciousness. My chaotic memories were affecting my mental stability, and I was almost unable to hold on for any longer, but...


    ¡°We Aurora Knights have returned!¡±


    ¡°Let these invaders taste the fury of the Mist!¡±


    ¡°May the Will of the Mist remain unbroken forever! We have returned!¡±


    Their familiar battle cries snapped me back to my senses. Weren¡¯t those in the sky our imperial knights? They finally made it just in time.


    ¡°The Imperial Knights of the Mist Kingdom, all fifty-four members of the Aurora Knights have arrived, and we pay our respects to Your Highness Rnd! Your Highness, we have returned!¡±


    Ah, my knights, I knew you wouldn¡¯t disappoint me! After all, no matter if it was 378 years ago, 252 years ago, 132 years ago, or 1 year ago, you never disappointed me!


    ¡°The Aurora Knights of the Eastern Mist Communal Country; all one hundred and seventy-four members of the Aurora Knights have arrived! We pay our respects to Your Highness Rnd! Your Highness, leave the rest to us!¡±


    These new generation youngsters flew a circle around me with their teachers before putting on their iron helmets. They then beganughing maniacally as they charged towards the humongous spider who was still iling around.


    ¡°Nice job, young one!¡±


    The Lion King Frigid Nightmare who belonged to the first Mist King gave me his rare praise as he transformed into a colossal Lion King and pounced towards Felix.


    But, he came up empty.


    ¡°Ah Dang is here! I shall beat up anyone who dares to bully my father!¡±


    If it weren¡¯t for that familiar voice, perhaps not a single person would be able to connect that gigantic furious titan with Gluttony. The giant, who suddenlynded, directly smashed Felix to the ground, as a huge bone dragon, which suddenly descended from the skies, shrieked and emanated death with every breath.


    This was a rarely seen scene. Undead Knights and Holy Knights had allied with each other and were charging together, dragon knights and bone dragons were actually on the same side, and the corpse-eating king was actually using a human holy sword. Imperceptibly, I felt as if I was getting closer to the utopia I dreamed of...


    I was already losing control of my hazy consciousness, but I held firmly onto the chains of the beast that was in my cage.


    ¡°Felix! You want to escape? Stop dreaming! Pay some interest for the amount of blood that you¡¯ve caused to spill on thisnd! Later, I¡¯ll go looking for Lorci to collect the principal 1 !¡±


    Note:


    1. ording to Wiktionary, principal ¡ªnot to be confused with principle ¡ªrefers to the money originally invested or loaned, on which basis interest and returns are calcted.

 Chapter 196

    Chapter 196: ying a God


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    An ancient epic was re-enacted at this moment; an undying True God had managed to fall.


    The chains that represented divine punishment had pulled Felix down from his status as a True God. And without that status, he no longer had the divine power that could regenerate himself from his injuries, so he finally began panicking.


    After receiving the honor of bing a God, he would never have been able to imagine that he would one day fall in battle. To him, battles were just games, and mortals were just the chess pieces on the chessboard. Yet this game had now turned fatal for him.


    Panic and helplessness finally appeared in his eight eyes as he was now experiencing fear and despair for the first time, emotions which he had been giving to the mortals all this time.


    He truly wanted to escape.


    But it was already toote.


    The Seven Deadly Sins had arrived...


    ¡°Damned Gods, have we People of the Mist offended you? What¡¯s with all this? Is it so hard to just live peacefully?¡±


    The furious Ah Bas of Wrath ripped off one of Felix¡¯s long legs in a single movement, causing dark-purple poisonous blood to spray everywhere. The enormous three-headed hellhound had already berger than the gigantic spider, and two of Bastian¡¯s heads kept injuring Felix while the other head angrily roared and spat death.


    Without a doubt, he was venting his anger, but there was nothing wrong with him doing so¡ªmany warriors were also shouting at the ugly spider.


    ¡°Why us! Why can¡¯t we just live peacefully in thisnd?¡±


    The northern people had already suffered so much, and they, too, wanted to ask why war had to ur in their homnd again! Was it too much to ask for to want to live in peace?


    Yet Felix didn¡¯t answer, nor was he able to answer.


    ¡°Ah Dang, Ah Dang hates spiders!¡±


    The huge titan, which was speaking in a low and muffled voice, had transformed into an enormous octopus, with its flexible yet robust tentacles curling around the vicious spider. Ah Dang used suppression techniques that no human could use to seal Felix¡¯s efforts at resistance, and his thickest tentacle had turned into a round hammer that continually smashed Felix¡¯s head.


    To Ah Dang, values such as truth and justice were never of importance. The concept of peace that humans believed in was also meaningless, but there was one point he absolutely couldn¡¯t tolerate¡ªif anyone dared to harm his family, then Ah Dang would go all out and viciously beat that person.


    ¡°Lock on to Felix¡¯s limbs! Fire half of all our remaining ammunition!¡±


    This time, cannon fire and smoke covered the skies. Even though Felix¡¯s still outstanding defense helped him ignore these cannon shells, Envy¡¯s Borealis spun Felix around like a dragon before proceeding to brutally sink its horn into his forehead.


    That was a cursed horn belonging to a SemiGod Single-Horned Whale. This strike, which contained some partial divine power, wasn¡¯t an attack that Felix, who had lost his divine power, was able to ignore.


    ¡°Hiss! Ahh!¡±


    Felix¡¯s sharp wails sounded just like the cruelest type of curse magic, but unfortunately, he was being suppressed by two undead evenrger than himself¡ªhe was utterly incapable of movement. Felix could only obediently remain as our living target.


    But this was only the beginning. The neer to the Seven Deadly Sins wanted to show off its ability in front of its older siblings.


    ¡°Mine! All mine! I¡¯m envious of your eight divine eyes! I¡¯m going to take them for myself!¡±


    With a dark glow enveloping Envy, Felix lost four of his eyes, and at this very instant, four dark green eyes appeared on the front half of the Borealis.


    And Felix, who had lost half of his eyes, was worse off than having been blind, as the chaotic situation for him turned into twisted scenery. He soon lost his bnce under the suppression of the enormous undead that had been causing him to continually shake.


    ¡°Ah, my younger siblings, your older brother has arrived.¡±


    That familiar magnanimous-sounding voice caused the two colossal undead beasts to pause simultaneously in surprise. This manner of addressing them would only be used by that fellow who causes everyone to feel difort when simply looking at him.


    But after his light-sounding words came a thunderstorm.


    ¡°Million-undead armies!¡±


    Countless undead armies suddenly appeared, and they furiously poured forth as if they had just erupted from a volcano. The low-level undead climbed over the gigantic spider¡ªit was a magical version of a scene of ants swarming an elephant.


    Yet this still wasn¡¯t over.


    ¡°Ah, my fist is beauty and justice! My justice is the will of my kingdom!¡±


    The man in form-fitting clothes made a sliding movement while being surrounded by innumerable thin threads that were, in fact, soul connections, which gave this man that nobody could stand looking at an endless amount of power. His ridiculously exaggerated flying kick pierced through the humongous spider¡¯s stomach, causingrge amounts of divine blood to pour out from Felix¡¯s wound and distort any nts that it touched. The Spider Prince had received a heavy injury.


    Omar¡¯s attack definitely attracted everyone¡¯s attention, but what greeted him were his allies¡¯ints.


    ¡°What¡¯s with calling yourself the older brother? You¡¯re the youngest!¡±


    ¡°Ah Dang is the oldest brother!¡±


    The arrival of four of the Seven Deadly Sins along with strong reinforcements from the fresh new undead army that didn¡¯t know the meaning of fatigue finally helped the defending warriors rx. Meanwhile, the true guardians of thisnd, the ace knight squadron that had the reputation of being undefeatable whenever they numbered over one hundred, had arrived once again in the present day.


    Those beautiful silver-white arcs in the sky were, shockingly, strong warriors. The veteran knights among them were in no hurry, and they acted like a wolf pack surrounding its prey as they searched for their enemy¡¯s weak point.


    And, at that moment, Felix, who was on the verge of copsing, had already revealed his weak point.


    ¡°Everyone, prepare to charge! Use the ¡®death slide¡¯ tactic!¡±


    The Aurora Knights that never numbered over one hundred actually had nearly three hundred knights now. This famous #1 ranked knight squadron in the Nortnds had now revived itself from the ashes of the Mist Kingdom, and its ssicalbat strategy was now revisiting the stages of history.


    The seemingly shining Aurora became beautiful silver meteors as they streaked through the sky. Their thrown spears and ice arrows froze Felix¡¯s critical areas and joints as the Frigid Nightmare steeds beneath them created paths of ice in the sky.


    When the crystal-clear path in the sky was finallypleted, the sleeping white dragon had transformed into a fatally sharp de.


    ¡°Everyone, charge!¡±


    At the beginning of the icy path in midair, the veteran knights were taking the lead as the newer knights loosened their grips on their reins and allowed the legendary Frigid Nightmares to carry them on this charge.


    ¡°Vanguard, ice des! All invaders shall perish!¡±


    As the Aurora Knights slid on the ice path, the umted power of the ice helped sharpen their icy des as they kept erging and increasing in speed. By the time the Aurora Knights reached the ice path¡¯s end, their ice des had transformed into fatal des at soaring speeds.


    ¡°Ahhhhhhh!¡±


    Countless huge des pierced into Felix¡¯s body at light speed, and when most of the ice des had pierced into his body, the Aurora Knights themselves mixed in with their ice des and used their own bodies as des; they transformed into rainbows of colors as they tore Felix¡¯s body apart once more.


    ¡°Rear guard, reorganize for the second charge!¡±


    After exhausting their ice des, the knights flew back up to the beginning of the ice path to begin a new round of construction of the ice des. Unless all the Aurora Knights¡¯ Frigid Nightmares used up everyst drop of their mana, this ice de attack would never end. This was the ¡®death slide¡¯ tactic that the Aurora Knights specially used for destroying mega-sized targets.


    Thergest ¡®death slide¡¯ tactic in history used thirty-six Aurora Knights, and they had managed to y an Ancient White Dragon. But this time, their number was more than that by ten times! The endless ice des were at the top of physical attacks, and they even contained magical attack power from death and ice magic. Except for Ah Dang, who couldn¡¯t feel pain at all, everyone¡ªeven Bastian and Omar¡ªhad to step backwards.


    This time, it was the Frigid Nightmare Lion King¡¯s turn to transform into a huge beast and suppress Felix, as he was immune to his fellow Frigid Nightmares¡¯ ice magic. The Lion King, however, quickly discovered that this waspletely unnecessary, as Felix had now lost all energy and was injured to the point where he couldn¡¯t even move.


    *Roar!*


    The blind spider that had lost its leg pitifully roared in pain. It was no longer a threat; the Poison God, the harbinger of so much death, had its body pierced all over repeatedly before it finally copsed with the ice des still stuck into its body. Ah Dang transformed into a huge-mawed devourer and chomped the spider¡¯s head in a single bite, delivering the final, fatal blow.


    When the gigantic spider finally lost its head and copsed, I received a message from my System. [Congrattions to Host. You havepleted the ¡®ying a God¡¯ quest, and your reward is a God Equipment...]. And it was only then that I finally rxed my incredibly tense mind and immediately canceled the God¡¯s Descent.


    ¡°Finally...¡±


    I was fully satisfied from the feeling of victory, and as I watched Wumianzhe¡¯s soul return to the heavens above, I gave up any resistance and sunk into a deep slumber.


    ...


    ¡°Congrattions; you did it.¡±


    After waking up, the first sentence I heard was rather surprising.


    The next moment, however, all my fatigue instantly vanished, because I recognized the identity of the young-seeming person before me.


    ¡°Ayer.¡±


    The person learning against the window and gazing outside was precisely the Death God Ayer. It was only that this time, he wasn¡¯t wearing his signature ck robe; the long white robe he was currently donning actually made him resemble a bookish schr.


    ¡°What did I do?¡±


    I was still suffering from the bacsh of using God¡¯s Descent. My memories were still a chaotic swirl in my mind, and I had no idea what had happened after I had fallen asleep.


    Ayer was surprised at my question, but then he chuckled.


    ¡°Felix died. Although it was with the participation of another God, he¡¯s still perhaps the first True God to die by a mortal¡¯s hand in more than two thousand years.¡±


    My memories gradually returned, and I recalled how the Poison God was finally surrounded and in. It was very likely that the entire world was shocked¡ªa True God was in immediately after ascending. Lorci would definitely be infuriated...


    ¡°Right, did Lorci do anything? How did she react?¡±


    ¡°Lorci is dead.¡±


    Ayer casually tossed such a tremendous bomb at me.


    ¡°Dead? How did she die?¡±


    Unlike Felix, Lorci had descended to the mortal ne using her true body. Although she wouldn¡¯t be able to return to her Divine Country for the time being, a True God in herplete form would definitely possess frightening strength¡ªapletely different level from Felix, who was a fresh new God that had descended into a host¡¯s body. Lorci was a veteran True God with far greater strength than Felix. Who in the mortal ne could possibly kill her?


    ¡°It was the Abyssal Prince Karwenz. Not even Lorci¡¯s corpse remained.¡±


    ¡°Karwenz!?¡±


    ¡°Yep. It is highly probable that her double betrayal angered the big shots of both sides. The leaders of Chaos wanted to kill her, and nobody on the Order side was willing to protect her, so she ended up dying. Hmph. This will scare those who are still undecided and sitting on the fence.¡±


    Ayer described it so casually, but with a little deduction on my part, I was aware that the death of the two dark elf Gods would cause a huge wave.


    ¡°Right, how¡¯s the battlefield in the Nortnds? What happened to those beastmen in the end?¡±


    ¡°Ask her; she¡¯s probably anxious to see you.¡±


    At this moment, the door suddenly opened, and Elisa entered; upon seeing me awake, she had an obviously relieved expression.


    ¡°You¡¯re finally awake¡ªyou¡¯ve been sleeping for six days already. If you didn¡¯t wake up soon, I wouldn¡¯t have known what to do.¡±


    Six days? My chaotic memories must have clouded my mind, as I felt like it was less than a day.


    Following Elisa was a vast mob of noisy people. And they all had something inmon...


    ¡°Your Highness, Her Highness Reyne is still missing, and our military reorganization needs you to take charge.¡±


    ¡°The other countries¡¯ generals and leaders are requesting that you attend conferences for dealing with the aftermath of the battle, drawing of new borders, the division of the victory loot¡ªall these require your presence. Our Eastern Mist Communal Country stands to profit greatly this time, but without your presence, we¡¯re unable to control the situation.¡±


    ¡°The undead army is currently stationed outside the castle. Thanks to their performance during that battle, they haven¡¯t caused a panic, but we need an effective way tomunicate with them...¡±


    ¡°The Rhodes Kingdom has mentioned the possibility of them epting the Church of Law, and their highest-ranked priest Xueti is requesting a personal meeting with you to discuss the specifics.¡±


    ¡°The man with the undead army actually started a contest to see who is the strongest and handsomest. He and Lord Xueti are currentlypeting in the finals. Their clothes have all exploded¡ªthat scene is too beautiful that I don¡¯t even dare to describe it! My lord, you¡¯re the only one who can stop them! Before they destroy this entire city, please do something to stop them!¡±


    Before I could even react, countless chaotic affairs were dumped upon my head, and when I turned around to request for help, I discovered that Ayer hadpletely vanished.


    After that, I was instantly overrun by the chatting babble before me, and my sickbed was piled to the top with tasks requiring my immediate attention and various official documents.


    ¡°That¡¯s right¡ªElisa! You guys can go find her; she has my full authority as my representative.¡±


    Where else was I supposed to find such a good assistant scapegoat? Yet before I could even look in Elisa¡¯s direction, that former Demon Marchioness, who had anticipated that I would push everything onto her, had also already vanished somewhere.


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey, don¡¯t be so heartless! I just woke up, and you want me to do so much already?¡±


    I wanted to escape, but the attendants and officials around me had already ced their own swords to their necks¡ªa threat that they would kill themselves if I just ignored them.


    I could only helplessly sigh and take a document as I begun the busywork that would make anyone feel powerless.


    ¡°If only that little brat were here; just where did Reyne end up? Karwenz should have returned to the Chaos Abyss by now, so why hasn¡¯t Reyne returned? Is it really true that girls won¡¯t return to the nest when they grow up and not care about their fathers anymore!?¡±


    At the exact same time, Reyne was eximing out loud in shock as well!


    ¡°Where is this?! Why am I here; am I not in the Nortnds anymore?¡±


    In the center of human territory was the Bardi Empire. And on the biggest red-light district street in a certain city of this empire, in the most expensive facility named ¡°Elven Night,¡± Reyne suddenly woke up while being hugged by many women. She immediately discovered that it was quite crowded around her.


    ¡°Why are there so many women! Achoo! The perfume is too heavy in here!¡±


    In such a small room, there were a dozen girls that seemed like flowers looking at her, and those women were all looking at her with romantic interest. Some were trying to press their bodies against her while some were even in the midst of removing their clothes.


    ¡°Milord, why did you stop singing? I was waiting for your song.¡±


    The golden-haired youngdy¡¯s face was turning red as she said so, and her red face and the look in her eyes revealed the fact that she was seriously in love with Reyne¡ªshe was looking at Reyne as if Reyne was her first love. Therge snow-white mounds on the blonde girl¡¯s chest were even more blinding, and she suddenly wrapped her arms around Reyne. Even though they were of the same gender, Reyne didn¡¯t have much experience in this matter, so her face instantly turned red. Next, however, the women surrounding her said something even more shocking.


    ¡°Milord, do you want more? Let my fellow sisters rest a bit; quite a few of us copsedst night...¡±


    While she was refusing on the surface, all the women¡¯s red faces and efforts at disrobing revealed their true feelings. Reyne was unable to take this any longer.


    ¡°Wait, wait, don¡¯t take off your clothes! Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey, why are you all taking off your clothes? I¡¯m a girl as well!¡±


    ¡°Hehe, Milord just loves to y these games of pretending to refuse. Of course, we already know that Milord is a woman, but Milord is far better at this than those useless men. Hehe, none of us sisters can be without you anymore, and every one of us is waiting for you to purchase our debts.¡±


    This time, Reyne realized she had met with a huge disaster as she looked at those hungry, desire-filled eyes and the pile of snow-white bodies in front of her.


    And one weekter, a report was ced in front of me.


    ¡°What? Reyne had fun in the Bardi Empire¡¯s most luxurious red-light district street for half a month, won countless beauties¡¯ favor, received the wondrous title of ¡®King of Ten Thousand Flowers,¡¯ and even agreed to innumerable requests to purchase the women¡¯s debts, but in the end, she was penniless, and the red-light district has imprisoned her? And now they¡¯re requesting us to pay her debts and bail her out?¡±


    After hesitating a moment, I ended up replying to the Bardi Empire messenger like this:


    ¡°You probably got it wrong! We don¡¯t have a man named Reyne here. Yep, definitely not! What? She¡¯s a woman? Then that¡¯s even more impossible since all of us Mist Royalty are normal people. Definitely no perverts at all! Yep, definitely not! I never lie.¡±

 Chapter 197

    Chapter 197: Mist Alliance


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Chapter 197 ¨C Mist Alliance


    ¡°O that blossoming wild lily 1 flower, how charismatic she was! How beautiful she sung! How she danced extravagantly like a butterfly; she was the female emperor of the red-light district! The dream lover of all men and women...¡±


    I intentionally hired several bards to sing Reyne¡¯s recent ¡°praises¡± to her for our reunion.


    Surprisingly, however, Reyne had no reaction at all. With bloodshot eyes, she seemed to be in a daze, and the instant after she saw me, her legs gave out and she almost copsed on the spot.


    *Zzz!*


    She instantly fell asleep in my arms, and she actually started snoring!


    ¡°This is...?¡±


    All those punishments I had readied for her were wasted. It seemed Reyne must have had a tough time¡ªwhile physical fatigue wouldn¡¯t be much for a Gold-ranked Law Knight to cope with, the mental pressure she had been dealing with must have been significant. After all, since she was a girl, her all-important chastity was now ruined, and it would be difficult for her to get married in the future.


    Thinking of this, I couldn¡¯t help but feel some sympathy and some regret at the punishments I had arranged; after all, this was all Karwenz¡¯s fault.


    Otherwise, I could have still tried to exin myself. But now, this already existed: [¡°Legendary Lily Flower Princess Knight Dragon ying Chronicles¡± and ¡°She and Her Eighteen Flowers¡± published as novels, book reviews, and ys, with a 12% discount for buying in a bundle! Buy three at once and you will even receive a free oil painting poster!]


    ¡°I¡¯m so sorry... we old guys really overdid it...¡±


    Thinking of all I had done, I felt even more regret.


    ¡°...Brother Rnd, Rey-rey doesn¡¯t me you...¡±


    Hearing the gentle wordsing from her as sheid in my arms, I was rather touched, but...


    ¡°...so, stop licking my feet, please. Rey-rey knows you like me, but acting like a dog out of love is no good, and also... don¡¯t take off your clothes¡ªyou¡¯re such a pervert. You actually want to wear my clothes? Fine then. If it¡¯s Rol-rol, it¡¯s fine... Stop sniffing! I¡¯m so embarrassed... Stop licking... Are pantie-pants that wonderful? Directly licking there...¡±


    My face turned white with anger right then and there. What was with all this!?


    ¡°Um, Your Highness, please don¡¯t be angry. Her Highness Reyne is under the effects of a Sweet Dream Curse from a subus. These days, she¡¯s been pulled into strange dreams, which was why she didn¡¯t sleep on her way back at all. It wasn¡¯t easy for her to stay awake all this time.¡±


    A Sweet Dream Curse? What the heck was that?


    ¡°Inferno subi have the natural talent to magnify a person¡¯s innermost desires. With a person¡¯s weakness, a subus can cause their victims to sink into their desires and slowly fall into depravity; for example, a person in love with money would dream about taking a bath in a mountain of gold, a perverted person would dream about having countless beauties at his service, and as for Reyne... cough, Karwenz most likely left the curse behind so that she would have a tendency to follow her desires more often. This would cause her to fall more towards the Chaos side, and it would make his next descent more convenient.¡±


    Ok, fine then, as a demon noble, Elisa would naturally know plenty about the Chaos Abyss. When I heard all this, Iughed out loud with a look of delight on my face.


    ¡°That means Reyne¡¯s innermost desires are those types of things? That¡¯s what she secretly wants the most? My dark history of wearing female clothing? Treating me as some type of pervert with several strange fetishes? Hehehehehehehehehe! It seems that she definitely needs some correcting! No, just the Personality-Correcting Fist of Justice won¡¯t be enough¡ªlet¡¯s just brainwash her entirely and reconstruct her personality! At the very least, that dark history definitely can¡¯t be left behind!¡±


    I was filled with smiles as I picked Reyne up and walked towards my room. It seemed that I would be rather busy today making preparations for the brainwashing forbidden spell...


    ¡°Her Highness Reyne is so pitiful; His Highness Rnd must be so furious.¡±


    ¡°His Highness Rnd has turned into a darker version of himself; his smile is so scary...¡±


    I suddenly recalled something as I turned around, shing a smile at those officials.


    ¡°You guys didn¡¯t hear anything today, right? Or should I help you all forget?¡±


    The both of them shook their heads nonstop in panic.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t hear anything!¡±


    ¡°I definitely didn¡¯t hear anything!¡±


    Seeing those two young guys continuously shake their heads, I nodded in satisfaction. Compliance meant that they were obedient children; naughty children needed to be punished.


    I chuckled as I nced at Reyne, who was still in my arms.


    ¡°Where should I start from¡ªoh right, I haven¡¯t yed mud-wrestling or bungee jumping in so long, and the little dark room seems pretty good as well...¡±


    However, a familiar sound of heavy footsteps along with the roaring of the wind caused me to react by helplessly closing my eyes.


    *Boom!*


    The wall that had just been fixed now had a huge hole in it, and by the side of this huge hole were another three newly-added human-shaped holes.


    *Boom!*


    Fine, I knew that these guys never knew how to use doors to begin with.


    ¡°Haha! You guys,e and catch me!¡±


    ¡°Stop running! Ah Dang is the oldest brother!¡±


    This scene of siblings y-fighting before me was rather nostalgic. However, for the older brother dwarf wielding a stone pir weighing a ton, smashingrge holes everywhere, and the younger brother muscleman opening holes in the wall as he pleased¡ªit was something I felt helpless about.


    From a certain standpoint, they both possessed a very young mental age, and I could understand this type of ¡°y¡± behavior, but if they involved me...


    ¡°No matter if it¡¯s Omar¡¯s brute strength or Ah Dang¡¯s huge stone pir, I¡¯d probably die instantly. Dying because of ying hide and seek with naughty children? That¡¯s just too scary to even imagine.¡±


    And so, I did my best to hide my presence with the full intention of leaving the scene secretly. But that was when I noticed that something was wrong.


    ¡°Wait a moment¡ªwhere did Ah Dang get that stone pir from? Why does it look so familiar, like I just saw it a moment ago?¡±


    But when I recalled it in the next instant, it was already toote.


    ¡°Ahhh! Damned Ah Dang¡ªthat¡¯s the main pir of this room!¡±


    Okay then, the ceiling that was rapidly getting lower and the room that copsed with a boom had already given me my answer.


    ¡°The Beastman King Amon Bloodaxe has died?¡±


    In a way, this result waspletely within my expectations. Before I lost consciousness, the situation had turned around and the beastmen from the high ins were once again forced into a dire situation.


    They had acted as the other beastmen¡¯s reinforcements yet werepletely blocked off by the Underground and undead armies, and when they discovered that even a True God was about to perish and that the human reinforcements were getting stronger and stronger, the beastmen from the ins, who had suffered a bitter defeat one year earlier, wisely chose to retreat.


    When the ins Beastmen Leader Karodian retreated together with all the beastmen tribes of the ins, the fortunate survivors among the teau beastmen from that long bloody night discovered, to their astonishment, that they had actually lost all of their allies, while, unbeknownst to them, their opponents¡¯ strength had multiplied by several folds.


    ¡°We definitely can¡¯t allow Felix to die here! Otherwise, we¡¯ll all die!¡±


    Even the seemingly undefeatable True God was now in such peril after descending, so the remaining beastmen were all forced back to the battlefield. They knew that the deep grudges held against them by the other species could never be paid back except in blood. When faced with the humans of the Nortnds, the Xiluo undead, the grayblood elves, and the allied Underground armies, they had zero chance of victory.


    They were trying to avoid unnecessary losses since the very start, and they had retreated to the outside of Felix¡¯s Divine Domain. When they finally started moving to help save Felix, they first had to deal with the interference of the allied armies of the Underground the undead.


    Moreover, the reinforcements of Xiluo and the Underground were all fresh armies that were well prepared for battle¡ªit was only natural that the beastmen¡¯s attempts at helping Felix were blocked. And when Felix had finally been pushed to the brink and had perished, part of the beastmen had chosen to put down their weapons and surrender, while Amon Bloodaxe and the few remaining beastmen tribe leaders had unhesitatingly chose to fight to the death.


    They were aware of the fact that as the perpetrators of this invasion and the primary warmongers behind it all, they would definitely be executed if they failed in battle. In that case, they preferred to ¡°gloriously¡± die in battle rather than be humiliatingly hung in public.


    And that was how Amon¡¯s head became the trophy of some young soldier, and the beastmen army, which had been in such a fervor, finally ended up annihted, with all the remaining beastmen either dead or having surrendered.


    With Amon Bloodaxe¡¯s huge tribal g finally fallen, thergest southern beastmen invasion in more than two hundred years had finally officially failed. Even if the humans didn¡¯t go exterminate the teau beastmenpletely, they would need at least one or two hundred years to recover their strength. Perhaps they had zero hope left in this Holy War, since without a Guardian God, they would only grow weaker.


    And to tell the truth, the beastmen weren¡¯t the only species that suffered massive losses, nor were they the ones who lost the most.


    The biggest losers were the dark elves that basically had no rtions originally to the beastmen.


    For the past several thousand years, Lorci had been leading the dark elves in surviving in the Underground, and their worldview, which used to be the same as the upper-ranked elves of the elven empire, had long since been distorted beyond recognition. Everything in the dark elves¡¯ society, from their culture, and religion to their social structure and atmosphere had been branded with Lorci¡¯s personal influence. It could be said that most dark elves were basically the personal property of Lorci.


    Just like how the humans aboveground couldn¡¯t imagine life without the sun, the dark elves were utterly unable to imagine life without Lorci.


    However, now that Lorci was dead, Lorci¡¯s priests and matriarchs that were at the top of dark elf society all suffered heavily in a single night. They either simply died on the spot or went insane, with the best result being a loss of all their power.


    In the cruel dark elf world, weakness was the greatest sin, and since the weakest were those Lorci priests and matriarchs who were originally at the top, there was nothing but an even more pitiful end waiting for them.


    In a single night, when Lorci¡¯s death was proven by the loss of power of all her priests, 90% of the underground cities within Lorci¡¯s domain fell into riots; the entire dark elf society sunk into chaos.


    And the most dangerous part of it all wasn¡¯t simply the rioting society. Lorci had always been the highest and most venerated existence for the majority of dark elves, and her will was what this entire species strove to imitate and follow asw¡ªfamilies would ughter each other all for the Spider Queen¡¯s favor. The entire dark elf species had been living for Lorci¡¯s personal benefit.


    Yet now she ended up perishing. For the dark elves that viewed her as all-important, this was no different than the copsing of the sky. The empty hole left by their former belief system¡¯s break down was the true trouble for them.


    The copse of their belief system gave rise to fearless criminals, while others chose tomit suicide. Most of them, however, instinctively went searching for a new existence to rece Lorci. In a single night, countless new belief systems of Gods, false Gods, and Evil Gods alike appeared, and several existences that had the potential to ascend to Godhood all locked their eyes on targeting the Divine Obligation that Lorci left behind.


    Cough, actually, the Law God Wumianzhe moved rather quickly, and the silver-masked enforcers of justice were efficiently recovering order in each underground elven city at high speed. Of course, there was plenty of military might from Sulfur Mountain City involved. At the very least, the Red Hunting Hounds that had left the Underground were very effective at this.


    If the current situation had been allowed to develop, before a new dark elf True God could be born, the entire species would probably copse on itself and be swallowed by various factions. Of course, the one who would get the greatest slice would definitely be the most powerful person of the Underground¡ªAnnie. At the very least, the Church of Law that helped recover order in each city and bring judgement upon criminals and rioters was already bing more and more weed by the dark elves. Perhaps, before long, the new order in the dark elf society would astonish the world.


    It wasn¡¯t that the other True Gods didn¡¯t want to interfere, but this had been a battle between the dark elf Gods and the Law God in a way, and now the victor Wumianzhe was iming the spoils of victory. Of course the other True Gods were unable to interfere.


    In just half a month, not only did Wumianzhe recover the divine power he had used for the God¡¯s Descent, but due to the rapid expansion of his believer base and the Law God¡¯s area of influence, Wumianzhe even began the path of promoting in rank. If, through all this, he could sessfully overtake Lorci¡¯s entire territory, then he might even end up as a Middle God like Lorci.


    In fact, Wumianzhe was even beginning to consider setting up a follower God just like Lorci had done with Felix, in order to take over the Divine Obligation of Guardian God of the Dark Elves.


    If this were a peaceful era, the path from a potential God to a Low God to a Middle God would be an incredibly difficult path.


    A True God would typically require several thousand years of umted guardianship to increase in rank, but this was the time of the Holy War, which was a great opportunity for the True Gods. In every Holy War, there would be countless new Gods arising and old Gods dying. It no longer mattered who was doing good; the one who couldugh in the end would be the true victor.


    I gave all the mundane tasks of the Church of Law over to Xueti and Lilith 2 with the intention of doing zero management of it myself, but since ¡°Rnd¡± had sessfully pulled off a God¡¯s Descent¡ªand didn¡¯t even die because of it¡ªI was now solidly viewed as a divine messenger, and all the members of the Church of Law now viewed me with fervor in their eyes, causing me to recall the past from Wumianzhe¡¯s generation.


    But right now, I didn¡¯t have time to pay attention to any of these things, as a bigger trouble was already in front of me.


    ¡°Cough¡ªtoday, the main point of our discussion is about saving the northern elves. Right now, they¡¯re suffering from continuous natural cmities, with constant hailstorms and blizzards, and I heard they even had an ice hurricane a few days ago. Not to mention that theyck food and clothing for winter, and there¡¯s even a few crazed dark elves rioting there. If we just sit on our hands and ignore the situation, then the northern elves will likely go extinct.¡±


    However, nothing but silence greeted my words.


    It was obvious that every country¡¯s leaders and generals significantlycked interest in this topic. After all, each country had suffered many losses in this battle, and the elves were constantly changing sides¡ªthey were on the enemies¡¯ side for most of the time. Many people here had grudges against them. It was only natural that they wouldn¡¯t be willing to help save the elves now.


    I chuckled at seeing this situation.


    ¡°Alright, if you guys won¡¯t help them, I will.¡±


    Hearing this, the leaders all had expressions of surprise. This time, the Sleuweir Kingdom should have the biggest grudge against the elves out of anyone, which meant my People of the Mist. Even though, I had a good reputation on the surface, everyone knew that in truth I was depicted just like an Armageddon-bringing demon king. I definitely didn¡¯t seem the type who would have no personal considerations and repay evil with kindness.


    ¡°Yep, I¡¯ve had my eyes on Tassel City for a long time now. Their library, which has been maintained for over ten thousand years, has countless elven empire magical tomes and priceless artwork that shouldn¡¯t be lost to this cmity.¡±


    My exnation caused everyone to instantly understand. I wasn¡¯t going there to save the elves¡ªI was basically going there to steal the elves¡¯ belongings, just like a looter.


    However, many were thinking that I could have done all this in secret¡ªwhy did I tell them about it? Just what was this living legend thinking and nning on doing? And why did he bring this topic up right here and now?


    There was a moment of silence in the conference room. The only sound was the tapping of my index finger.


    ¡°The Holy War has already begun, and the entire continent will soon be dragged into it. There were many fortunate factors involved in us managing to deal with the first battle, but the next time may not involve a True God¡¯s descent. We need many external reinforcements to help us, so to deal with the ongoing Holy War, I intend to create an alliance in the Nortnds¡ªthe Mist Alliance.¡±


    ¡°First, the Mist Alliance will follow the principles of non-aggression. We will never be the first to dere war or start a battle with the intention of invading others¡¯ territory, and we will follow the Church of Law and Wumianzhe, the Guardian God of the Nortnds. Nobody here needs to worry that this Mist Alliance will be a threat to any of your countries. Under the conditions of the alliance, each country has their own independent rights and won¡¯t be allowed to interfere in other countries¡¯ internal politics¡ªthis shall be the foundation.¡±


    ¡°Also, as per Wumianzhe¡¯s Church of Law, unless someonemits a crime, each race in and of itself is guiltless and non-evil, which is why this Mist Alliance won¡¯t limit the races and countries that can enter. As far as I know, some remnants from Xiluo, some Underground residents that prefer the sun, the half-beastmen from the Shawen Free States, the Barbarian Tribes Alliance, the Eastern Mist Communal Country, and the Sleuweir Kingdom have all already applied to join the Mist Alliance.¡±


    Hearing this, all those present were incredibly shocked. This was not even at the level of out-of-the-ordinary anymore¡ªto hook up with so many non-human species, it wouldn¡¯t surprise any of them if the Gods descend and call for the following battle of the Holy War on the very next day.


    But if this Mist Alliance could truly be built...


    Each of them couldn¡¯t help but shiver when they imagined it. Perhaps, if it really could happen, with so many powerful factions allying together, the entire Nortnds would be under their solid grasp. Wumianzhe would truly be the Guardian God of the Nortnds.


    Without a doubt, the Mist Alliance was a military and political megaton bomb for them, and each of them felt they had to seriously consider the effects of its creation.


    From a certain perspective, this Holy War had also acted as a melting pot, with many races that bore grudges against each other finally havingmunication and learning more about each other. It helped this gigantic alliance begin its path to realization.


    ¡°This doesn¡¯t seem appropriate¡ªwhat about the Holy Church...¡±


    ¡°Hehe.¡± I chuckled when I heard this, before I continued my exnation with a serious expression.


    ¡°Marquess Ash of the Rhodes Kingdom, have you still not recognized the situation? It¡¯s already the time of the Holy War, and we ¡®northern barbarians¡¯ can¡¯t rely on anyone else. If we don¡¯t help warm each other, then how else will we survive this bitter winter?¡±


    Marquess Ash still seemed like he wanted to say something, but I shook my head.


    ¡°I know what you want to say. Rx. Soon, when the fires of battle appear across thends, the Holy Church won¡¯t even be able to deal with their own affairs. Besides, this is also the will of Wumianzhe. As a True God on the Order side, do you really think that he would do anything heretical? We¡¯re only pitiful people trying to help each other stay warm, and the Mist Alliance will definitely never invade anyone else first. But are we northerners supposed to not even have the right to survive in peace?¡±


    After some hesitation, Marquess Ash finally decided to not say anything, but, for me, this was just the beginning.


    ¡°The only legal sessor of the Tassel Kingdom, Princess Suana, has also applied to join the Mist Alliance. After we help save the elves, perhaps the northern elves will also be part of the Mist Alliance.¡±


    All the generals sitting here in the conference room were shocked at my words. I said it quite frankly that it was obvious I intended to take over the entire elven species, and they were astonished at my ambition.


    ¡°Which is why I hope each country present here can consider joining this Mist Alliance and help save the elves. I shall open up channels to share technology among all the member countries of the Mist Alliance, including the magic swordcasters and floating airships from thest battle. This time, each elven kingdom suffered cmitous damage, and all their main military forces were annihted, so perhaps there might not even be a northern elf kingdom in the future. It¡¯s not that bad of an idea for the elves to simply live as citizens of various countries, is it?¡±


    Benefits were the most practical method of political discussions between countries. The allure of the Mist Kingdom¡¯s newest technology coupled with the generations-old esoteric elven secrets proved to be exceedingly difficult to withstand. There would be no second chance for them if they missed this opportunity. Without a doubt, this invitation was the most effective type of bait. I turned around to leave right after saying this.


    I had already finished what I had to say, and if I didn¡¯t do a good job in helping save the elves, Suana would haunt me again in the middle of the night.


    And, as my most trusted right-hand submander, Elisa was already patiently waiting at the door for me.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid that you¡¯re forcing them too much, and that they¡¯ll struggle with all their might?¡±


    ¡°Rx, nobody here is an idiot. With the Holy War having begun, those mega-level empires won¡¯t have any time to pay attention to this area. If small countries want to survive, now¡¯s the golden time for them to be carried on someone else¡¯s back. And this time, the back that I showed them looks soforting and reliable¡ªonce they think through this situation, they¡¯ll be jumping on me in droves.¡±


    ¡°Sexual harassment...¡± Elisa adjusted her sses and changed the topic in a rather strange direction.


    But a servant suddenly walked past me and handed me a slip of paper with a note written on it.


    ¡°In two hours, I hope to have a private meeting with you. ¡ª Ash Jundor.¡±


    ¡°Haha, see, the first person that wants to be carried by me is already here.¡±


    Note:


    1. For those that read Asian novels and still don¡¯t know yet, ¡°lily¡± is a reference to girl x girl love in Asian culture.


    2. We¡¯re going to be using Lilith instead of Lily (the Lily from Sulphur Mountain City, for those who don¡¯t remember!).

 Chapter 198

    Chapter 198: The Continuation of Sleeping Beauty


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Actually, I had been thinking about creating the Mist Alliance for a long time already.


    It would be an alliance with a mutual goal, and each country would worship the Law God. Each state would have a simr legal system and would obey the premise of non-aggression to create a rtively peaceful area in the Nortnds.


    Yes, it would only be an alliance, not some legendary kingdom and definitely not an empire. I had no intention of reigning over others and dering myself emperor in the bordends or anything like that. In fact, I didn¡¯t even intend to be the leader of any faction.


    ¡°I want to reduce the scale of this Holy War and the death it will cause as much as possible. I want to gather more power and be able to survive this dangerous war.¡±


    My primary goal had never changed, and after all this perseverance, I seemed to have begun getting results.


    First, one of the most important members of the foundation, Wumianzhe, increased in strength.


    While this may not seem like a big deal, in my n to break the cycle of reincarnation, unless Wumianzhe reached the level of a Main God of Order, the rest of my ns would be nothing but empty words. Only making this ¡°boss behind my back¡± be stronger could help me survive at least a single blow from any veteran God who decided they didn¡¯t like me.


    In a way, Wumianzhe was the true victor of this battle. He obtained his own Hall of Valha and Cycle of Reincarnation, as well as the Nortnds. From now on, he had his own territory, and he was no longer considered to be among the ranks of the third-rate Gods, false Gods, and Evil Gods.


    Currently, Wumianzhe was leveling up from a Low God to a Middle God. His Divine Obligation included Law, Contracts, and the Guardianship of the Nortnds, but he still hadn¡¯t yet obtained aplete Divine Obligation. The Concepts of Law and Contracts were both new to this world, and contracts had only begun to poprize themselves in And. Although I felt that Contracts had endless potential, there were too few users and believers, so Wumianzhe hadn¡¯t received enough power from this source yet. It was still merely a potential source of power in the future.


    And while the power of thew had even greater potential, Sulfur Mountain City was still the ce where it was most popr. About the entire city was filled with believers, and this was only the result of me working hard for more than a century. While there were now quite a few believers in the Underground, as well as the small Eastern Mist Communal Country, the time had still been too short. Most believers were rather shallow in their beliefs and only understood the surface of the concept ofw, so they couldn¡¯t provide much faith power to Wumianzhe.


    But the Guardian God of the Nortnds was something else entirely. As long as the Guardian God protected this species and this area, even non-believers would be protected by him.


    Those various prayers mixed with gratitude could also give Wumianzhe arge amount of faith power, and this time, Wumianzhe even personally performed a God¡¯s Descent. This divine miracle that everyone could see was far more convincing than anything else. Perhaps the miracle of the Nortnds¡¯ Guardian God¡¯s descent would soon be known by everyone in the entire Nortnds, and the other northern countries would support the Church of Law and provide additional faith for Wumianzhe in two different Divine Obligation areas¡ªGuardianship and Law).


    To almost reach the rank of a Middle God in less than two years after bing a God was unbelievable. This sides of both Order and Chaos were probably paying attention to Wumianzhe now.


    But...


    ¡°Being at the center of attention means either bing cannon fodder or getting pped to death in a single strike¡ªit¡¯s obviously not a good thing. It seems that it¡¯s time toy low for the time being.¡±


    I definitely wasn¡¯t hoping for the appreciation of the veteran Order Gods, with their ¡°praise¡± like ¡°with great poweres great responsibilities¡±¡ªI would be sent to the front lines as mere cannon fodder. And nor did I wish for the Chaos side to treat me as a thorn in their side to be removed early on.


    ¡°Since the battling here has stopped already, then we should be able to have a few days of peace. Heh, it¡¯s time to let loose and rx a little.¡±


    Thinking about this, I couldn¡¯t help but smile. All this tiring fighting was in order to have a peaceful, flourishing ce where everyone could live happily after all. However, thinking about what I was worried about earlier changed my smile of satisfaction into a helpless wry smile.


    ¡°...I¡¯m developing too fast. Even if Ayer is protecting me, I still need to be careful. It¡¯s easy for a Main God to protect a Low God who doesn¡¯t even have his own territory since there basically won¡¯t be any sh of personal interests, but now, Wumianzhe intends to take over the entire Nortnds, which basically means bing independent.¡±


    ¡°Speedy development without a solid foundation will definitely make others red-eyed with jealousy. Those True Gods of Order may not be all that powerful in a direct confrontation, but they¡¯re experts at underhanded plots and backstabbing. After all, they just had over two thousand years of internal conflict, and quite a few of their veterans died without even knowing what hit them.¡±


    ¡°...But the non-aggression principle is an excellent excuse. Since we will never be the first to dere battle against anyone, it¡¯s, of course, impossible for us to be cannon fodder. Then, unless an enemyes to us... Yep, right now, we should focus on improving our defense, and we shouldn¡¯t blindly focus on increasing our territory, which will give the other True Gods and major countries an excuse¡ªat least until the arrival of the Undead Cmity. The Mist Alliance countries will be limited only to the Nortnds countries; this should at least make the mega-level human empires less concerned.¡±


    Of course, I knew that it was impossible to make a tiger change its diet and be a vegetarian. I knew that, at the very least, And and San Antonio had had their eyes on the Nortnds long since, but as long as I seeded in stalling them for a few years, they would probably no longer have the time to think about us anymore.


    ¡°So, the next catastrophe will be the Undead Cmity? I wonder if it will happen earlier orter.¡±


    The internal strife of the Xiluo Empire had never resolved their foundational problem. The Undead Lords that had escaped to the Undead ne would definitely affect the Undead Emperors there. As long as the Undead Emperors still wanted to return to the mortal ne, with the increase in the Elemental Tide, the Undead ne¡¯s invasion was likely inevitable.


    The only part where I could rx a little about was that the Undead Cmity was unlikely to focus on the Nortnds since thend here was wide with the people sparse. It definitely wouldn¡¯t be as attractive to the Undead Emperors as the densely popted human centers in the middle of the continent. If I was themander of the undead army, my first target would be to ambush the San Antonio Empire and the Bardi Empire, and I would conquer the cities that had the highest poptions immediately in order to cast Undead Cmity and Death gue¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªI identally got carried away; problem of upation.


    But I was confident of my own expert-level prediction since I had been an Undead Emperor in the past as well, and my prediction was the same as past undead invasions in history. If the undead army wanted to be stronger, it was necessary to snowball their source of undead soldiers as much as possible, which meant that they had to first conquer those major countries with long histories and resurrect their graveyards¡¯ strongest legendary heroes as the undead army¡¯s main forces. They would have to use themoners¡¯ skeletons as cannon fodder and create countless amounts of new soldiers from battles¡ªwhoops, I identally got too excited again.


    ¡°When the undead truly begins their invasion, probably the undead under mymand will be viewed in a different light as well. Perhaps I should create a preemptive mood and change their brand, giving them a new name and a new organization so that at least people know they aren¡¯t those crazed, bloodthirsty undead.¡±


    Imperceptibly, the undead under mymand kept increasing, with the remnants from Xiluo that Omar had brought back, my Red Hunting Hounds squad, and the undead originally present in Sulfur Mountain City.


    ¡°Anubis Squad? It seems that this world doesn¡¯t have a dog-headed God by this name, although it¡¯s regrettable for dog-head lovers, I¡¯m going to have to reject this name.¡±


    ¡°The Forgotten? This sounds giarized, and I¡¯ll probably have to constantly exin what was forgotten. Rejected.¡±


    ¡°Undead Rock and Roll? Something strange seems to have gotten mixed up in here. Rejected.¡±


    ¡°Guards of Hell? This sounds pretty nice, although it does seem a bit ostentatious. I still feel like it¡¯scking something. How about Ibine it with my previous idea¡ªDog-Headed Guards of Hell, yep, this sounds harmonious and interesting! And we can use Bastian¡¯s face as the emblem, and even give him a dog-head helmet! Ahh, I like it more and more already¡ªI¡¯m a genius at naming!¡±


    I was getting delighted and was talking to myself with a constantly increasing volume.


    ¡°My lord, please don¡¯t, otherwise Bastian and everyone will cry...¡±


    The familiar confused voice belonged to the silver-masked Lilith Mn who appeared before me. Earlier, she had been in charge of work at Diffindor, but after the battle, she had returned here as well.


    Just like how a certain naked tauren had exposed his own identity in the Shawen Free States where no other tauren lived, my identity was known by the people who knew me originally. Of course, some things were better left unsaid, with no need to directly ask, but I figured that the Four Heavenly Kings of Law probably knew my identity already as well.


    Currently, however, Lilith wasn¡¯t in the mood to reminisce about the past. It was, of course, a joyous asion for an old friend to meet an old boss, but hearing such words right from the start, which might end up with all the future Nortnds undead having the nickname of ¡°dog-heads,¡± was something not joyous at all.


    And ording to her understanding of Rnd, if this ¡°dog-head¡± title was finalized, it would probably be incredibly difficult to get it changed.


    Yet just voicing her opposition wasn¡¯t enough, so Lilith could only wrack her brains and try toe up with a better name.


    ¡°...How about ¡®The Guiltless.¡¯ It indicates their foundational differences from normal undead as well as represents how they choose to stand under the protection of the Law God and that they¡¯re guiltless citizens who choose to obey thew.¡±


    I was hesitating whether or not to ept her idea.


    Yep, I was just ¡°simply¡± considering the advantages and disadvantages of these names from a ¡°logical¡± standpoint. It definitely wasn¡¯t because I felt that a dog-head emblem seemed really cool, and nor was it because I thought that seeing an undead army all wearing dog-head helmets would be really funny¡ªI definitely wasn¡¯t biased at all!


    Lilith seemed to discover I was hesitating and mulled it over before apparentlying to an epiphany as she added another few sentences.


    ¡°Even if you call them The Guiltless, they can still use a dog-head emblem and the dog-head helmets. We can even make Bastian into their entire species¡¯ mascot! As the leader of the Red Hunting Hounds squad, he should be delighted.¡±


    ¡°Okay, nice idea! That¡¯s what it¡¯ll be then!¡±


    Lilith mentally apologized to Bastian who was about to be a mascot as she inwardly heaving a sigh of relief. After all, in a way, she herself would also be a member of The Guiltless. As a female who loved beauty, it would be too difficult for her to be called something like a dog-head.


    But right when she was starting to rx, she heard a nostalgic name.


    ¡°Fina!? Isn¡¯t this my cute little Fina?¡±


    Amelia actually ran over here with an expression filled with surprise and joy, waving her hand as she rushed to us. It was quite rare to see her so happy, as her typical expression was grim and dark.


    However, Lilith¡¯s expression rapidly flickered between surprise, disbelief, anger, and helplessness. After having known her for so long, this was the first time I discovered that she had such acting talent with the many different expressions she could pull off.


    ¡°You guys know each other? Fina? Lilith, is this your real name?¡±


    I recalled that Lilith hade to Sulfur Mountain City by herself. Every Blood Tribe member with no family would likely have some unpleasant memories, so abandoning her original name would be perfectly normal.


    ¡°My lord, there¡¯s no Fina Mn here, only Lilith Mn.¡±


    All of Lilith¡¯s emotions finally quieted down as she spoke with only a calm expression, while Amelia still retained her expression of surprise and delight as she hugged Lilith.


    ¡°Fina, just where did you run off to? I¡¯ve been looking for you all this time.¡±


    ¡°Aunt Amelia, please don¡¯t call me Fina anymore. I am Lilith. Lilith Mn. Fina Mn disappeared from this world a long time ago.¡±


    ¡°Stop being so silly! No matter what, you used to be the female emperor of the Bardi Empire, my cutest and youngest niece...¡±


    I discovered for the first time that actually both of them had the surname of Mn, and they actually resembled each other in physical appearance. It seemed they were rtives. And so, I pulled over a chair, sat down, did my best to erase my presence, and prepared to watch a good show.


    And through their words of astonishment, I rapidly figured out the incredibly tangled rtionship between the two of them. Well, it was tangled because of how Lilith viewed Amelia¡ªAmelia was simply happy to see her youngest niece who she hadn¡¯t seen in so many years.


    And the story of their past was truly extraordinary.


    ¡°That ridiculous Sleeping Beauty story actually has a continuation in this world?¡±


    Yes, Amelia was the evil witch in the story, and the Lilith Mn before me was the female lead of that very Sleeping Beauty story that ruined my childhood, Fina Mn!


    ¡°Fi¡ªokay, Lilith. Rx, your aunt has already championed your cause. I tossed that ungrateful fickle man into a special nt garden, and he probably turned into fertilizer long ago. Sigh, I thought that since the corpse-loving prince wouldn¡¯t be interested in normal women, he definitely wouldn¡¯t be a yboy or a liar and at least be a good person. It¡¯s all your aunt¡¯s fault for not seeing through him. Hmph, Lilith, now you¡¯ll believe me, won¡¯t you? Your aunt is absolutely correct! There¡¯s not a single good man in this world!¡±


    Fine, she even viciously red at me while saying this for no apparent reason. I¡¯m innocent! I swear!


    At the very least, I was able to get a clear view of the picture through their discussion.


    So, the true story of Sleeping Beauty wasn¡¯t all that romantic at all. The prince from another country, who was actually a necrophile, woke up the Sleeping Beauty, and the willful witch¡¯s curse was broken. However, the following developments weren¡¯t like a fairy tale at all.


    When Lilith¡¯s father, the king, saw his daughter wake up, he was incredibly overjoyed, and he even believed this to be something like a legendary ¡°kiss of true love.¡± He delightedly deluded himself into believing that his daughter had discovered her true love, so he betrothed Lilith, who was still confused and didn¡¯t know what was going on, to that prince. Since that prince from another country wasn¡¯t in the line to directly inherit the throne in his country, he unhesitatingly agreed to marry the Bardi Emperor¡¯s only daughter, who would be the future empress herself.


    The following was where the storypletely derailed from the usual plot of a fairy tale. The prince, who had a rather unique personality, had no interest whatsoever in his newlywed wife, and instead spent all his time in the graveyards, until finally the prince, who had studied undead magic before, decided to turn his wife into what he loved the most. And so, he used the curse of the Blood Tribe on her, turning Lilith into a living corpse, and he also tried to use evil necromancy magic to enve her.


    But he didn¡¯t expect that Princess Lilith was also an excellent swordswoman, which coincidentally helped her to transform into a Blood Tribe noble who maintained her intelligence.


    And so, in the royal pce, the two of them had a fierce battle, until the Bardi Empire¡¯s Holy Knights and priests arrived in time and exorcised the ¡°evil queen emperor who bathed herself in evil magic in order to remain forever young.¡± In the end, the scandal was hushed up, and that prince became the emperor.


    But, ording to Amelia¡¯s story, he didn¡¯t get to be emperor for very long, because the furious witch discovered this plot when she returned to visit her rtives and finally transformed the prince into fertilizer for her garden. Evil was punished and justice was served; it was a ssic fairy tale with a happy ending. Congrattions, my condolences, congrattions...


    ¡°To hell with your congrattions! No matter how you look at it, this is all your fault, Rnd!¡±


    ¡°What!?¡±


    I took yet another unexpected blow. I obviously had no connection to this story whatsoever; back then during the time it took ce, I was busy searching the world for clues for my revenge. How could I possibly have anything to do with it?


    ¡°If it weren¡¯t for your betrayal, causing me to lose trust in men, how could I possibly set such a strict test in order to assess Lilith¡¯s future husband? And in the end, such a pervert was the one who passed, harming Lilith to be befallen with such a terrible fate! In the end, all of this is your fault!¡±


    I was instantly rendered speechless. It wasn¡¯t that I was unable to retort; I was angered to the point of not knowing what to say.


    ¡°Even this can be counted as my fault? Then I might as well be the root of all evil!¡±


    ¡°Aunt Amelia, there¡¯s no need to me Lord Rnd. I just had a tough life. Heh, I¡¯m over it now; men are all ugly and untrustworthy. I only like women now. The me from that time was so foolish.¡±


    Okay then, so the legendary rumor that some people could change their sexual orientation after meeting with a huge romantic setback is true after all!


    But when Amelia heard her niece dere that she was now a lesbian, she took two steps back, and her face paled. It seemed that she must have been a lot purer on the inside than what she appeared on the outside.


    But I immediately discovered that I was wrong in my understanding, as Amelia actually started bawling out loudly.


    ¡°Waahhh! My poor little Fina, it¡¯s all your aunt¡¯s fault. Even if that bastard is dead already, your aunt will definitely find that bastard¡¯s undead teacher for you¡ªwaahhh¡ªit¡¯s all that bastard teacher¡¯s fault, saying something like ¡®Don¡¯t mind what others think of you, and work your hardest at seeking true love. If the one you love doesn¡¯t meet your standards, you can try using your own way to change her and ept her.¡¯ That undead mage teacher, who didn¡¯t take any responsibility for teaching as he pleased, is the true culprit!¡±


    Hearing her angry roar, I instantly dropped all the snacks I was eating onto the ground. Why did this phrase sound so modern and so familiar? It sounded exactly like a sentence I read in a Chicken Soup for the Soul on Earth. Could it be that it was popr in this world as well?


    ¡°A prince? Back then, in order to obtain more information for my revenge, I did take in several disciples from powerful families, including Suana¡¯s father, and I think there was a person from Som. Could he have been...¡±


    ¡°Eh? Rnd told me this exact phrase before as well; he was encouraging me to follow my heart and seek true love, which was how I worked up my courage and determination and started discarding my bias in order to find my new happiness. Is this a popr phrase? Was it said by someone famous?¡±


    Lilith¡¯s expression was filled with surprise, but Amelia had her head lowered as she mumbled, ¡°I knew it, I knew it, only he¡ª¡± She suddenly turned around and startedughing insanely at me.


    ¡°Heh! It was indeed ¡®said by someone famous,¡¯ but soon, it¡¯ll be the ¡®crazed words of a dead man!¡¯ As expected, you¡¯re the only person who could possibly be the culprit behind it all!¡±


    There was a bestial look in her blood-red eyes, and her green hair was growing at a furious pace. Her killing intent and anger was exploding to the point where even the ground was trembling from her frightening power.


    ¡°I knew those so-called logical seeming Chicken Soup for the Soul books werepletely unreliable! Following its advice can only lead to problems! Ahh! Amelia, don¡¯t hit my face! I still have to go to a conference in a bit!¡±

 Chapter 199

    Chapter 199: Descendant


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck


    The Mist Alliance. With the birth of this new faction, some things needed to be settled.


    And this was designating tacticalbat areas and dividing thend of the Mist Alliance into several districts. If this wasn¡¯t drawn up immediately, there would probably be endless internal squabbles about it.


    The first to be decided was the location of the headquarters, or perhaps I should call it the capital.


    There were quite a few choices. Diffindor and Antuen were both excellent candidates.


    The former was the Law God Wumianzhe¡¯s holy ground, the Crimeless Capital. It was also very appropriate for the Law God¡¯s special characteristics, and it could definitely serve as the new capital. At the very least, if it was chosen as the capital, I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about the citizens¡¯ popr support or how to defend the ce.


    ¡°Just try attacking the Law God¡¯s holy ground. There will be ability users in Law sses awaiting you with powers magnified by several folds, and perhaps even Wumianzhe himself will descend to the mortal ne and deal with you.¡±


    If Diffindor was the capital, it would be almost impossible for others to attack it, which was quite attractive. Especially from a personal standpoint¡ªI also hoped that Diffindor would be able to rapidly rebuild itself with the Mist Alliance¡¯s resources and be the glorious northern city it was in the past, but obviously Diffindor wasn¡¯t the best choice for a capital.


    As for thetter choice, Antuen¡ªit was thergest city in the entire Nortnds. Business and engineering were both highly developed here, and thanks to a certain person¡¯s surrender, this city was mostly spared from the fires of war. Rtively little investment would help this city flourish again.


    With our rise in political status, this long-famed business capital would surely improve, using its already well-oiled merchant and business trade systems. Add the no-tariff policy between the Mist Alliance member countries and Antuen would likely be a business metropolis in the future.


    Even though there were many advantages to these two locations, in the end, I could only helplessly abandon both cities as options for bing the capital of the Mist Alliance. I ended up choosing Red Maple City.


    Yep, I chose this ruined city that was nothing but devastated rubbish. This was originally only a second-tier city in the Sleuweir Kingdom to begin with, with its most famous site being the Battle History Museum. After this battle, perhaps the Battle History Museum would vastly improve its collection.


    After over two months of fighting plus the cruel gueri warfare that had taken ce within the city itself, with even two Gods descending upon this ce, calling this city devastated rubbish was already praising it. Making this location into the capital was basically no different to creating a capital on emptynd, but in the end, I still chose Red Maple City.


    Why? This was the only appropriate location.


    Even though the Mist Alliance would, of course, have the People of the Mist at the center, its final goal was to create a non-aggression alliance involving numerous species and many countries. If I chose Antuen or Diffindor as the capital, which was either the Eastern Mist Communal Country¡¯s or Sleuweir Kingdom¡¯s capital to begin with, it would seem too politically biased.


    This would only result in the other countries having reservations about joining the Mist Alliance, and it wouldn¡¯t be helpful for the People of the Mist and the other species to live among each other with equality. And so, I could only abandon these two oh-so-tempting choices as a capital city.


    Politically speaking, choosing this main battlefield location in the Nortnds, where various races and various countries allied together to resist against the invaders, would at least give those who participated in battle a sense of intimacy about the ce.


    Perhaps it would even give the other countries the impression that the Mist Alliance would exist as a separate entity, and that there wouldn¡¯t be too much bacsh against joining the Mist Alliance. Aplishing that would be my greatest political victory.


    Of course, since Sleuweir Kingdom and Eastern Mist Communal Country with the People of the Mist constituted the foundation of the Mist Alliance, it was, of course, impossible for the other countries to gain aplete independence, but at the very least it had to appear so on the surface.


    However, even if I set Red Maple City as the capital, I wouldn¡¯t abandon Antuen and Diffindor. Diffindor, which was almost impossible to attack, may be rtively out of the way and poorer, but it could definitely be a logistical as well as military and technology center. And, its special status as the Crimeless City would help it be the headquarters of the Church of Law as well as act like Sulfur Mountain City in the past and create an example of a ce where many races could live together in peace, attracting more believers to the Church of Law.


    As for Sleuweir¡¯s Antuen, just letting it continue to develop as a business center was plenty. Of course, I still had a series of ns, but I¡¯ll talk about those some other time.


    From the current development of Diffindor in the south, Red Maple City in the center, and Antuen in the north, I could already expect that they would be three major cities of the lifeline of the Mist Alliance. In fact, I was even beginning to consider creating scheduled floating airship transports between each city, since these three locations would be the first to be the People of the Mist¡¯s dreand. The already destroyed Mist Kingdom was beginning to revive itself in this way.


    Of course, ideas were beautiful but reality was always cruel. My n was for ten yearster, and the current Red Maple City before me was nothing but a pile of rubble.


    Today, while the entire city was still bathed in the afterglow of joy from victory, in a certain three-story building that remained standing in Red Maple City, there were guards and hidden sentries posted everywhere. They were only three to five steps away from each other, and this building was heavily guarded.


    This used to be a ce that Red Maple City had given the Eastern Mist People to live, but now, it was given over to Olive, Dimlet, Amelia, and the other skilled technicians as a logistical and research base.


    Intermittent explosions and sounds of agony kept sounding out from this ce along with even the asionalrge fire or mushroom cloud, and this why most citizens treated this ce like the gue and didn¡¯t dare approach it, even though it was rtively peaceful now after the battle.


    There was a reason for the current heavy guard on this ce. An incredibly significant surgery was urring, and all the characters involved were very important. No idents would be permitted.


    And since Amelia was the surgeon, it wouldn¡¯t be wrong to describe this as an experiment, either.


    Therge and spacious room was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.


    There were no unnecessary people in this empty room. Even if this surgery¡¯s difficulty level was rather high, Amelia still trusted her own trained tentacle vine assistants rather than newbie assistants that would make many mistakes.


    This was a ssic witch¡¯s room, with voodoo dolls, scarecrows, live lizards in ss jars, various strange drawings that made people think of vicious magical curses, and of course, it had a huge medicinal cauldron, which was basically the hallmark of a witch.


    Strange magical runes were etched onto that pitch-ck cauldron, and the thick ck liquid within it emanated a revolting stench that was almost impossible to withstand.


    The things floating on top were even more disgusting; there were dead cats, some dark-green herbs, a strange assortment of gems, and living nts that were still shrieking in agony. Perhaps not a single person in this world would want to drink a single sip of this broth.


    At the current moment, Amelia, who was all raring to go, wasn¡¯t using her typical tools. She was instead using a precision saw to saw away at some mysterious unidentifiable green creature.


    ¡°Hah! I finally finished it.¡±


    Amelia breathed a sigh of relief as she put down the precision saw; she had finally managed to slice off a bloody hunk of light-green flesh. She then immediately proceeded to toss that piece of flesh, which was still bleeding green blood, straight into the cauldron, causing a green mist to arise. A potted nt sitting close by the cauldron instantly withered to death.


    ¡°Hey, this isn¡¯t right. Isn¡¯t this clearly some toxic poison? Hey, Amelia, just what are you intending to do? Didn¡¯t I ask you for a surgery¡ªwhat are you doing here creating a toxic poison?¡±


    As the person currently undergoing this surgery, I felt endlessly regret for my decision. However, I had been injected with arge amount of numbing medicine and had a paralysis spell, with the strength to paralyze even a winter wolf, cast on me. I couldn¡¯t feel anything at all below my neck.


    That was why even though I felt that something was off about Amelia¡¯s actions, I could only lie on the bed and not move even an inch. I was only able to shout at the top of my lungs, full of regret.


    ¡°I should have gone to find Margaret. Damn it, where did they run off to now? Hey, Amelia, how could these things possibly have anything to do with the surgery I requested? You surely don¡¯t intend to take revenge on me with this opportunity, do you?¡±


    When I saw how the witch was foolishly grinning as she used that saw to stir the contents of the cauldron, my suspicions were stoked even further. After all, I seriously infuriated Amelia and Lily not too long ago.


    After the matter, I had immediately apologized as sincerely as I could, and I even wrote a three-hundred-page essay on why that perverted prince¡¯s actions had no connection to me whatsoever, but sometimes women wouldn¡¯t see anything in their rage and would only look at the result they desired. At times like these, talking reason would actually be illogical.


    But I was still in a better situation than someone else, since, at the very least, I could move my head after being numbed and paralyzed. The other person to receive this surgery wasying by my side, and she couldn¡¯t even move her head.


    Clint (Glina) was chained and tied up tightly. Her always fearless eyes were now filled with terror, and sounds of whining could be heard from her tightly gagged mouth. Even though she was struggling, I knew that she definitely wouldn¡¯t be able to break free. Why did I know? Because I was the one who tied her up...


    Cough, I did it at the time just to prevent her from escaping, which was why I used special tying techniques and an especially strong rope. Who knew that I would soon be in the same situation? By the way, even though this method of tying was supposed to be the best way to entuate the breasts, she was still just as t as always.


    ¡°Uuuu!¡±


    Her face was filled with rage as she seemed to detect the regret and pity in my eyes, but right after that she suddenly began to blink rapidly. Judging from how she pointed her gaze somewhere down on her body, she seemed to want me to look there as well, but just a single look startled me greatly.


    ¡°You want me to look below your waist? Hmm? What are you lifting up? A red wire¡ªyou actually put explosives there! You¡¯re not afraid of exploding yourself to death?¡±


    As expected of a natural-born explosives maniac. Under her longce skirt, an array of yellow explosives was actually tied to her snow-white legs. A veritable armory of dangerous explosivesy under her skirt.


    As the queen of a country, Glina was rather oundish in her own way. She still spent most of her energy in her favorite hobby¡ªcreating new explosives.


    However, the maids and officials in the pce wouldn¡¯t allow the queen to y with explosives every day, but she would never listen to reason as shecked a feeling of safety without explosives. This was why she decided to simply hide the explosives in an obvious location; nobody would, of course, dare touch her.


    ¡°You mean I should pull the wire and activate the small bomb? Explode through the ropes?¡±


    Glina nodded continuously. She was trying her utmost to lift her skirt, and she kept staring at the smallest explosive tied to her body, which was the explosive with only a tiny amount of power¡ªperfect for this situation.


    ¡°Three mandrake grasses, two cursed demons, and these precious mushrooms. Hehe! This will be delicious.¡±


    And so, I could only prop myself on my chin and slowly move my head towards Glina¡¯s thigh. Why does this description sound so perverted? Okay, let¡¯s try again. I did my best to put my mouth against a certain ce on a little girl¡¯s thigh... fine, this sounds even more perverted. I might as well not say anything.


    When her snowy-white thigh appeared right before my eyes, I was dazed for a moment; I felt like I now had an entirely new dark history. But since I hade to this point, this was no time to hesitate.


    If the action of me sticking my head up Glina¡¯s skirt just happened to be discovered by someone, and this action that appeared like me licking Glina¡¯s thighs was publicized, my reputation would be ruined.


    ¡°Rnd! What are you doing!?¡±


    I was instantly shocked to hear this. Wasn¡¯t this Elisa¡¯s voice? I brought my head out of Glina¡¯s skirt, only to see that it was my demon girlfriend indeed, but her countenance was filled with rage.


    ¡°I thought something terrible happened to you. I was always wondering why you suddenly took in an adopted daughter! So it turned out you were nning onmitting incest with her!¡±


    *Boom!*


    Okay, this sound wasn¡¯t caused by someone hitting me. Since Elisa was the one who saw me, I knew that I would at least live, but this was just far too humiliating. I didn¡¯t know how to exin my actions, so I decided to just smash my head against the wall and knock myself unconscious.


    When I dazedly woke up from my deep sleep, I heard Elisa and Amelia having a discussion.


    ¡°...You think I¡¯m making some magic medicine? Hehehe! Take a look, this is my recipe for magical cooking that I invented myself! See, isn¡¯t it really convenient? You don¡¯t need all sorts ofplicated steps; all you have to do is add the ingredients, cook, and eat. This surgery will take a minimum of ten hours, and I can¡¯t stop in the middle, so I need to first prepare my dinner and midnight snacks.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s that green object? It looks really disgusting.¡±


    ¡°Green dragon meat, of course. Although the meat¡¯s a little tough, it¡¯s still pretty good.¡±


    ¡°...Is it actually delicious?¡±


    ¡°Incredibly so! As long as you cook it a little, its aroma will even overflow. Would you like a taste?¡±


    ¡°Poison Detection!¡±


    Elisa mercilessly used a Poison Detection spell, and to the surprise of nobody, the spell¡¯s color turned pitch-ck, indicating the highest, most toxic level of poison.


    ¡°Oh my, sorry about that. I forgot that you probably can¡¯t eat poison. To me, eating is just a habit now; only the most poisonous ingredients seem like delicacies to me. Heh heh, I can live just by photosynthesis alone if I want to, and poisons arepletely unable to enter my system. This soup is excellent for the skin andplexion, but I temporarily forgot that you¡¯re a fragile living creature, and I almost poisoned you to death. Sorry about that!¡±


    Even though Amelia was apologizing, judging from her expression that seemed to portray that this was all was only natural, she waspletely insincere in her apology. Right after this, however, Elisa was unwilling to show weakness as she took a bowl of that pitch-ck soup and downed it in one go.


    ¡°Ick! Disgusting! With such cooking skills, I think I know why you haven¡¯t been able to get married.¡±


    ¡°Disgusting? You dare insult my cooking skills!? Hmph. It¡¯s obviously so nutritious and delicious; there must be something wrong with your taste buds.¡±


    ¡°How about we find a third party to judge the taste then? What about that bastard lolicon who just poked his head under a little girl¡¯s skirt, or that pervert who obviously woke up but is pretending to be unconscious so he can eavesdrop? What about that bastard pervert who adopted a daughter only so he could molest her?¡±


    If looks could kill, I would have died a thousand times. Judging from Amelia¡¯s expression, which obviously indicated she wanted me to try her soup, I was likely to be forced to chug this ¡°nutritious and delicious¡± soup that was good for the skin andplexion. I didn¡¯t have the abilities of these two to not fear any poison, and although I would probably survive in the end, who would want to undergo a full intestinal cleaning like that?


    *Smack!*


    And so, without any hesitation, I whacked myself in the head again, not holding back at all. At the very least, I didn¡¯t intend to wake up again until the surgery waspleted.


    ¡°Would you like to be my adopted daughter?¡±


    For someone like me who was used to taking action only after making careful ns, how could I possibly say something so casually? To be honest, I really did have some reasons for taking Glina as my adopted daughter.


    ¡°I definitely can¡¯t let Glina and Reyne be Karwenz¡¯s vessels anymore. I need to cut off any information leaks from them to Karwenz immediately.¡±


    Even though Karwenz ended up helping us this time, his main goal was to punish Lorci, who had broken too many rules. I had no way of knowing which side he would stand on next time.


    And both descendants of the Mist were obviously important. If either of them were drawn into the Chaos Abyss, it would be an irrecoverable loss. Dealing with the problem of them both being demonic descendants was an urgent matter; otherwise, there would be a constant information leakage through them, and the sess of any of my ns would then likely depend on Karwenz¡¯s mood.


    ¡°Powerful demons view their direct descendants as their personal property, and in a way this description is urate. The summons of the bloodline is impossible to resist against, and Karwenz has a huge difference in powerpared to Reyne and Glina, which can neutralize any efforts of resistance to begin with. But, that doesn¡¯t mean there isn¡¯t a way.¡±


    There were quite a few demonic descendants in the mortal ne, and mages had studied them extensively. There really was a rather clever method that could cancel out an ancestor demon¡¯s control over his own descendants.


    ¡°For demonic descendants, there¡¯s a Soul Rope tied to their soul that can¡¯t be untied unless they die. And even if they die, the soul will probably be tugged into hell by this Soul Rope. But, we can change the person holding on to the Soul Rope. As long as we use a source of demonic power that¡¯s equal or greater, then there¡¯s a way to overtake the original individual controlling the Soul Rope.¡±


    ¡°For instance, a me Demon¡¯s descendant can be injected with a Demon Lord¡¯s blood, and this blood transfusion can turn this person into a double demonic descendant. After that, the stronger Demon Lord bloodline will naturally suppress the me Demon¡¯s bloodline, which is the same thing as canceling out the me Demon¡¯s control over his descendant. After that, as long as the Demon Lord is killed off as well, there will be nothing to worry about anymore.¡±


    I had to say, the mage who came up with this idea was a genius. This person perfectly used the nature of demonic blood where the strong would suppress the weak, but there was just a small hitch for us.


    ¡°I can¡¯t find any demons higher-ranking than Karwenz as he¡¯s the Abyssal Prince. From a theoretical standpoint, only the Chaos Abyss itself is higher ranked than him. Even if we find a demon stronger than Karwenz, it probably still won¡¯t work. Besides, we can¡¯t deal with demons stronger than Karwenz, either.¡±


    But, in a way, we still managed to discover a method that couldn¡¯t really be called a method.


    ¡°If we can¡¯t suppress it by force, then we can try using a roundabout method to trick the Soul Rope.¡±


    Karwenz and I had incredibly simr soul wavelengths. If I transformed into a demon, my demonic blood should be very simr to his, and if you only looked at our ranks, my Original Sin Demon form wouldn¡¯t be lower than the Abyssal Prince at all. And since my demonic blood was the same source as Karwenz¡¯s, it could possibly even fool the Soul Rope into believing I was the master. After locking on to the Soul Rope, I would never let go again, and Glina could be changed to be my descendant. Perhaps this would manage to cut off her connection to Karwenz.


    This all sounded ratherplicated, and there were many theoretical problems involved, but it was actually quite simple to aplish. I just had to activate my Original Sin Demon form, transform into a demon of the Chaos side, and then supply my blood for a blood transfusion. If everything was sessful, then this special magical ritual would change Glina from Karwenz¡¯s descendant into Rnd¡¯s descendant.


    Of course, since the two of us were twins, gically speaking, there was no difference.


    In a way, when my blood would be coursing through Glina¡¯s body, it would truly make us have a blood rtionship.


    This was also why I abandoned all my worries and suggested that Glina be my adopted daughter.


    I couldn¡¯t help but faintly smile as I watched Glina, who was in a deep sleep beside me.


    ¡°Without realizing it, I suddenly have a descendant. Is this the feeling of family... Wait a moment, this scenario doesn¡¯t seem right. Why am I happy? I¡¯m clearly still single, and I¡¯m suddenly going to have a blood-rted daughter out of nowhere, as well as a bunch of naughty children!¡±


    *Pop*


    A bottle was suddenly ced right next to me against my ear. The ck sticky liquid within it was rather familiar¡ªwasn¡¯t it the ¡®good for skin andplexion¡¯ soup from earlier?


    ¡°Amelia worked so hard to cook this. Please don¡¯t waste her efforts and drink it while it¡¯s hot.¡±


    *Pop*


    There was nothing else after the pop. Before I could even knock myself out, I was already prevented from doing so. It seemed it would no longer be possible to y the same trick three times in a row.


    Chef Amelia¡¯s face had already been stained ck by the soup as well, but she was all smiles and seemed to be quite proud of her own handiwork.


    ¡°Um, no need to hurry. Drink up slowly; there¡¯s plenty more in the cauldron. Um, does it taste good? This thick soup that tastes like a dragon and tiger fighting is something I prepared specially for you.¡±


    Right at this moment, the cauldron happened to begin bubbling. A distorted skull floated up to the surface, and adding the ck liquid before me, it created a scene that was disgusting to behold to the extreme.


    ¡°Master, the preparations for your intestinal cleaning have already beenpleted. Please don¡¯t make Miss Amelia wait any longer. Rest assured, after you die, I shall go ask you how it was at the River Styx.¡±


    ¡°...Are you already assuming that I¡¯m going to die? I¡¯m so unlucky!¡±

 Chapter 200

    Chapter 200: Felix¡¯s Hatred


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck


    ¡°I¡¯ve been single for all my life, and now I finally have a daughter to take care of me in my old age. Congrattions! Congrattions!¡±


    *Boom!* *Boom!*


    I really wanted to say that to myself. However, I was currently standing on a street that had transformed into a sea of fire, and sounds of explosions would ring out continuously. I figured I might as well not.


    ¡°So much for congratting myself! She¡¯s getting too excited and going way overboard!¡±


    Should it be said that it was to be expected since Karwenz and I were twin brothers? Our bloodlines didn¡¯t sh even one bit, and under Amelia¡¯s guidance, the blood transfusion was an absolute sess. None of the negative reactions we were expecting urred¡ªnot even the normal non-magical ones like the rejection of a foreign substancemon to mundane blood transfusions.


    A full one-third of the blood in Glina¡¯s body had now been reced with my blood.


    And when I faintly began sensing that subtly wondrous bloodline connection, I used my willpower to directly cancel my demon form and gave Glina her freedom. After being bound by the fear of turning into a demon for so many years, Glina unhesitatingly removed her eyepatch and walked out of her armor that chained herself within.


    Of course, it was impossible to remove the previously demonized parts, but the heterochromia[1] 1 girl didn¡¯t care about the way other people looked at her. As long as the demonic eye no long beckoned to her from the Abyss, trying to tug her soul into Chaos, she was quite willing to take off the eyepatch and show off her youth and vitality under the sun.


    ¡°...You¡¯re overly hyperactive. I just asked you to clean up all this rubble, not tten everything in sight.¡±


    A new city, new streets, and new ns. Since I intended on rebuilding Red Maple City into a major city, the remaining piles of rubble left behind from the battle needed to be cleared away.


    Originally, I had intended to invite some engineer specialists to slowly take care of this matter, but Glina, who still didn¡¯t want to return to Antuen, volunteered for this task of her own volition. When I thought about how this could save me some money, of course I wouldn¡¯t refuse.


    I also took into consideration her past history, and expected that she would go overboard. But since everything was already rubble to begin with, I figured that going a little overboard wouldn¡¯t be a big deal, and it would even help her to vent her energy that¡¯s been rather excessivetely. But apparently, I had still managed to underestimate her.


    All the broken mechas from the battlefield became materials for Glina¡¯s explosives. Using her status as the queen of Sleuweir, she even managed to obtain the engines from the broken Rnd Titans and created several explosives of frightening power, cing them into a tightly created of explosives. And then...


    *BOOM!*


    After she pressed the red button, half of the city vanished entirely. The tremendous explosion broke every single ss window in Red Maple City. What would have taken the engineers two months to clear away was finished by Glina in just a single day. In a way, I had underestimated, once again, how maniacally passionate Glina was about her explosives.


    Fine, I admit defeat. It was better for her to vent on some rubble rather than on me.


    From a certain viewpoint, the surgery¡¯s sess basically gave us the most solid blood connection of all. I didn¡¯t know how to deal with my ¡°adopted daughter¡± that I now suddenly had, and Glina probably didn¡¯t know how to deal with her new ¡°father,¡± either.


    Back in Antuen, she would asionally call me ¡°father¡± once in a while, but mostly just as a joke, and now she hadn¡¯t called me that at all. She probably didn¡¯t even know what she should call me now.


    ¡°...Maybe your way of expressing your feelings is rather unique, but even if you don¡¯t want to use normal hugs and act spoiled, don¡¯t you think it¡¯s a bit much to wake me up with an explosives rm clock every morning? Waking up every morning is a race for my life, and I¡¯ll die if I¡¯m just a little bit slow, brat.¡±


    By the way, ever since the sessful surgery, I received a ¡°blessing¡± from my system just like always.


    [A girl not directly rted to you is calling you ¡°father,¡± but you¡¯re still an old virgin. All the conditions have been met... Congrattions for receiving the achievement ¡°Enjoys Being a Daddy¡± and the glorious title ¡°King of All Backup Boyfriends 2 .¡±[2] If you equip this title, it will be easier for you to receive females¡¯ sympathy and male ¡°friendship.¡±]


    This was already pitiful enough, but the system was swift as always in pouring salt on my wounds.


    [Actually, you can consider the next step in this achievement¡ªgathering seven girls as your daughters who aren¡¯t blood-rted to you and raising the beautiful girls well, while you still remain an old virgin. ording to how well you raise them, you can receive, in order: ¡°Really Loves Being a Daddy,¡± ¡°Legendary Daddy King,¡± and ¡°Veteran Mr. Mom.¡± These three are the three major epic achievements that will reward you with the epic title ¡°You Truly Are a Nice Person.¡± This title will aid you massively in obtaining female friendship (and at the same time make it massively more difficult in obtaining their love). Of course, if you decide to take the incest route, there¡¯s no need to hesitate. I also have titles befitting any perverted father, and I promise that they¡¯re strong.]


    ¡°...Wahh! I¡¯m no ¡®King of Backup Boyfriends!¡¯ I don¡¯t want to be a Daddy God!¡±


    Even though I was mostly immune to my system¡¯s provocations after all these years, I couldn¡¯t help but helplessly kneel to the ground and have tears in my manly eyes.


    [To add insult to injury: Actually, you¡¯ve alreadypleted more than half of this achievement. Reyne, Glina, Elisa, Annie, plus when you take into the consideration that your physical body won¡¯t mature anytime soon... don¡¯t struggle, you can¡¯t resist fate. Look at it from a different angle, bing a Legend Daddy God is quite ferocious as well. At least, at least¡ªokay, the system can¡¯t find any benefits, and can¡¯t make this up anymore, so I shall simply express my sympathies and condolences to you. You have so many naughty children, it¡¯s tough being you, Daddy God.]


    I didn¡¯t even know where to startmenting from anymore¡ªfrom the fact that the system itself admitted it was intentionally adding insult to injury, or from it calling me a Legend Daddy, or the fact that I was now so pitiful that even the system couldn¡¯t take it anymore and started expressing its sympathy?


    By the way, I received yet another achievement that day...


    [You ate something highly poisonous and didn¡¯t die. Congrattions to my host for receiving the ¡°Hungry Enough to Eat Literally Anything¡± achievement. Equipping this will double the amount of food you¡¯re capable of eating, and you¡¯ll receive a minor increase to your resistance against poison and disgusting foods. This series of achievements is followed by ¡°Food God¡ªNothing Is Off Limits,¡± ¡°We Eat Everything with Four Legs Besides Tables and Chairs,¡± and ¡°The Sky Seems So Delicious.¡± After that is the epic achievement ¡°He Who Stands On Top of the Food Chain,¡± and the Legend title ¡°Devourer of the Void.¡± Actually, with Amelia by your side, you can finish this series of achievements quite quickly.]


    ¡°There¡¯s even more? Hehe, if I eat any more of those things... I really did see the River Styxst time. Those bastards even asked me ¡®You¡¯re back again? How long do you intend to stay this time?¡¯ The next time I eat something from her, I really will be staying there forever!¡±


    Okay, let¡¯s just forget about the past. The most important thing now was to find a certain someone for her reckoning.


    ¡°You¡¯ve given me so much trouble!¡±


    Half of the city disappeared, and as the person responsible for the project, I finally finished dealing with all thoseints, bills, and idents caused by people frightened by the explosions. I furiously went to find Glina for her reckoning, but in the end, before I could evenin to her, I saw an unexpected battle.


    In an empty area, Reyne and Glina were currently dueling. Sword energy was flying everywhere causing constant explosions. Judging from their actions and expressions, both of them were being serious about it.


    Unlike with his previous useless vessel, the Abyssal Prince had given Reyne quite the gifts. The highest quality abyssal transformation had given Reyne so much power. Karwenz had been worried that his vessel would randomly die off, so he directly shoved a huge amount ofbat experience shoved into Reyne¡¯s instinct, and that cheat-like Soul Imprint of hers also improved her stats all-around. The current Reyne would be at the top of the top even among the strongest veteran legends.


    Even though the Rnd Sacred Sword was unable to simply emit sword energy everywhere, it could still slice through the air like a silver dragon. Each swing seemed like it could copse the heavens, and the pressure from the swordbined with Reyne¡¯s imposing manner allowed her to suppress her opponent¡¯s movements.


    To be honest, even in practice battles such as these, her Seal of Unlimited Courage was activated and was constantly increasing her strength.


    After the trial of that bloody battle on the snowy night, the current Princess Knight seemed to have earned the Sacred Sword¡¯s recognition.


    ¡°She already has her own unique fighting style? It seems that she¡¯s not far from bing someone who can take care of herself.¡±


    I personally taught Reyne. Although Karwenz was somewhat involved as well, her growth was only to be expected. However, Glina, who was facing off against Reyne, was truly iprehensible.


    The shocking part for me was that although on the surface it seemed like Reyne, who possessed the Sacred Sword, was controlling the situation and that Glina had less and less room to move about and dodge, Glina was actually the one who had control of the tempo of the battle.


    After Glina took off her heavy armor, she may have been petite and dexterous, but she still had natural-born ridiculous strength. She wielded a weapon in each hand, a pike that flowed like the wind and a longsword that struck like lightning. Her two weapons didn¡¯t interfere with each other and even had cooperative techniques¡ªit was almost as if two weapons masters were working together.


    ¡°Is she still just a Gold rank? But...¡±


    Suddenly, a round Gnome Mine dropped out from under Glina¡¯s skirt, and its lit fuse had almost reached the end. Reyne was surprised for a moment, and then she hurriedly jumped backwards, but when the fuse reached its end, nothing happened at all.


    *Pop!*


    The smokeing from it was Glina¡¯s special explosive that had only a miniscule amount of power. After she seeded in gaining distance between them, Glina unhesitatingly tossed down her heavy melee weapons. Now was the time for her real firepower, her guns and engineered explosives.


    I suddenly discovered that while Glina may have been stuck at the Gold rank, she was definitely no ordinary Gold rank. Her skill in both long and short weapons had already reached Master level (for a Gold rank), and her engineering ability was above that of a Master¡¯s. Herbined overall power was far above even a Legend¡¯s. Not only that, she was also an excellent mecha pilot; she was one of the rare generalist types, good at everything.


    Most importantly of all, she had extraordinarybat experience. For someone like her who had been through hundreds of battles, Reyne was nothing more than a fresh newbie. She could predict Reyne¡¯s every move and manipte Reyne ordingly so that she could suppress her.


    Reyne¡¯s method of attacking was far too simple and direct, while Glina¡¯s tricks were numerous to the point where she wouldn¡¯t need to repeat a single attack during a battle. After Glina fully understood her opponent¡¯s capabilities, she started using her true ability and instantly changed thebat situation.


    ¡°Under a normal situation, Glina would definitely win, but Reyne has that... in the end, Reyne will still be the winner¡ªthere¡¯s no doubt about that!¡±


    Maybe she noticed that I was here now or perhaps she was suppressed to the point where she couldn¡¯t take it anymore, but as I expected, Reyne finally ended up raising the Sacred Sword.


    ¡°Come here, ancient kings!¡±


    Alright, I won¡¯t bother describing anything else. Some ancient kings¡¯ spirits descended upon this ce and Glina was instantly knocked away by three waves of sword energy. The duel was over, Reyne won, and Glina was left alone, sulking.


    Yep, three waves, not one. After that battle, the Rnd Sacred Sword finished its God Equipment¡¯s evolution. There weren¡¯t any major changes, but the limitation on summoning only one ancient king, three times a day, was modified.


    ¡°It can summon four times a day, at most three kings at once, and if you want to go all-out, it can even summon twelve ancient kings¡¯ spirits in one go¡ªit¡¯s a little ridiculously unfair.¡±


    Reyne unsummoned the ancient spirits, and Glina instantly ran to my side. Before I could evenin to her, she first reached her hand out to me.


    ¡°For me.¡±


    I didn¡¯t know whether I should cry orugh at this. Glina was quite displeased at losing the duel, and felt that it was unfair how I gave the Sacred Sword to Reyne, so now she was looking for something from me in exchange.


    ¡°Heh, how impatient. ming it on the weapon if you can¡¯t win.¡±


    ¡°In that case, Reyne, leave that Sacred Sword on the ground. Let¡¯s have a rematch!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, why wouldn¡¯t I use a God Equipment when I have one? If you¡¯re unsatisfied, then go ask Rnd for another God Equipment...¡±


    Saying so, Reyneughed at her owneback. She knew that the God Equipment were incredibly rare, and she didn¡¯t believe that Rnd would have another one.


    ¡°I do have one more, and I was nning on giving it to you, Glina.¡±


    This reply surprised the both of them as I gave a ck dagger to Glina.


    ¡°I give you this God Equipment to protect yourself, but remember to never let anyone else find out about it. And never use it to injure a friend, or else you¡¯ll regret it.¡±


    [Felix¡¯s Hatred, Dagger, God Equipment.]


    [Attack: 1-3, every attack is imbued with a random special effect from the following four effects. The dagger¡¯s de will change color ording to the effect¡¯s properties.]


    [Divine Authority, Ending of Nature: When this effect is active, those struck will be injected with withering poison. No matter if it¡¯s an animal or a nt¡ªeven if it¡¯s just a rock, it will soon meet the end of its life. (Green colored.)]


    [Divine Authority, Distortion of Life: When this effect is active, those struck will have a mysterious hormone injected into them, and will undergo a rapid transformation within a short period of time, changing their shape and species. There is a 10% chance for a beneficial transformation which will increase the original target¡¯s power, and a 30% chance for a harmful transformation which will weaken the original target¡¯s power. There is a 60% chance for a meaningless, non-important transformation. (Red colored.)]


    [Divine Authority ¨C Poison God¡¯s Hatred: When this effect is active, anyone struck will be injected with a poison that has no antidote and will be sent into an eternal sleep. (ck colored.)]


    [Divine Authority ¨C Felix¡¯s Salvation: When this effect is active, an antidote will be applied on the target struck which can cancel any of the above three effects. This effect will not appear unless all three of the above effects have currently been activated.]


    [There¡¯s a row of small yellow words carved into the dagger¡¯s back: My dagger has been coated with fatal poison! Lick¡ªah, it¡¯s toxic!]


    It was a dagger of ck iron that appeared perfectly ordinary on the surface, normal to the extent where even the poorest of thieves probably wouldn¡¯t give it even a second look, but it was indeed a God Equipment.


    Felix had devoured the Forest Guardian God¡¯s divine power and then had perished almost immediately, and the divine power that he left behind was transformed by my system into this toxic dagger, which was the biggest prize from this battle.


    I already experimented with it numerous times. When the green effect of ending nature was activated, all nts would die instantly. Any animal struck by it would immediately age to middle age if it was young, and two strikes would age it to old age, whereas three strikes would kill it of old age.


    And the red effect of distortion was even more vicious. The random chances it had of transformation were transformations that entirely changed the species. I personally witnessed a transformed white rabbit gulp down a wild boar in a single bite.


    The ck effect was actually the simplest. Just one strike caused eternal sleep.


    And the only antidote to all three of these effects, the White Salvation, required at least three sacrifices first before it would appear, meaning it would take three lives to save one.


    ¡°As expected of a God Equipment, but... what¡¯s with this attack power that¡¯s not even at the level of a fruit knife? It needs to at least be able to break the skin to inject poison into someone, so how can such a blunt knife break through anyone¡¯s defense?¡±


    I tried using this dagger to gently trace across my arm, but I felt nothing at all. My titan¡¯s body directly made me immune to this insignificant damage. And if this dagger couldn¡¯t cause anyone to bleed, this God Equipment would be no different from an actual fruit knife.


    Typically speaking, strong SemiGod and God Equipment would all have very bothersome side effects. Perhaps this dull de was a type of limitation in and of itself, which was why its effects could be so powerful.


    But its bluntness, which wouldn¡¯t even be able to pierce through the simplest of leather armors, greatly limited the times and ces where it could be used.


    ¡°This is useless for directbat, but it¡¯s excellent for underhanded tactics. If it¡¯s Glina, I believe you can make the best use of it.¡±


    Glina nodded continuously as she received the God Equipment dagger, and her icy little expression finally showed a hint of a smile. That momentary smile was especially cute, but in the next moment, she started showing off to Reyne, as if she had won something important.


    But now wasn¡¯t the time to be idling rxing and wasting time, as I had something more important to do.


    ¡°Let¡¯s make our preparations. The disaster relief squad has already gathered. We¡¯re going to the elves!¡±


    Note:


    1. Heterochromia is a difference in coloration, usually of the iris of the eye, but it can also be of hair or skin.


    2. A backup boyfriend, in Asian culture, is when a girl has a boyfriend but keeps ambiguous rtionships with other men, ¡°just in case.¡±

 Chapter 201

    Chapter 201: Post-Combat Dealings


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck


    A battle would never have true victors. Unlike in those legends and epics, war would only leave behind ruins, hatred, and endless generations of revenge cycles.


    The majority of ordinary people do not enjoy war, but why, then, does war still exist? Perhaps it is because of personal interests¡ªas long as there is no effective or better method of mediating disagreements and shes, and as long as ambitious individuals secretly manipte and incite matters behind the scenes, war will never cease to exist.


    In this battle that involved the entire Nortnds, the beastmen fought for their ancestral homnd, while the elves had participated in the hope of returning to their former glory. In their perspective, they hadn¡¯t done anything wrong.


    From the viewpoint of history, factions that start the battles would typically be the biggest losers in the end. Moreover, this battle was no different from any other battle in history, with every species fighting for their own race to have more space to live in.


    However, some things couldn¡¯t simply be measured by right and wrong. No matter what the reason was for starting this battle, it wouldn¡¯t change the fact that the icy Nortnds was now soaked in so much blood, with countless souls having cursed the Gods and the invaders before their deaths. The rtionships between the various species, which had just begun to thaw, were now at rock bottom once again.


    ¡°Someone needs to pay the price!¡±


    A postbat reckoning was basically now the norm. Those who lost the battle would be dragged into a court to receive an absolutely unfair judgement. During such times, even the fairest of judges would selectively go blind and hand out numerous death sentences by virtue of the surviving victims¡¯ crying tears and angry shouts.


    Alright, I knew that it was all rather meaningless, but it was indeed a way to vent.


    Not only was it a sacrifice to help appease the spirits of the dead who died despite doing nothing wrong, but it could help the survivors vent their anger and pain. Punishing the guilty was also the fastest way to aid the survivors in clearing their grudges and returning to a normal way of life.


    After this particr battle, however, we ran into some problems with the typical postbat reckoning.


    If wepared those who had the most serious losses, perhaps even the pitiful Sleuweir Kingdom couldn¡¯tpare to the beastmen who started this war. In this bloody battle, the teau beastmen had lost most of their umted tribes that had developed over the past few centuries. It was obvious that they wouldn¡¯t recover for a significantly long period of time after this battle, and because of the beastmen¡¯s tradition, where their tribe leaders personally led from the front, therge majority of well-known beastmen tribe leaders had all died in this battle.


    ¡°Kill those beastmen bastards; we want revenge! Why are their children and females innocent? Weren¡¯t those beastmen killing our children and females for their sake? They can kill our children and women, so why can¡¯t we kill theirs!?¡±


    After the glow of victory faded from the fortune of survival, the survivors looked at the hole-riddled world before them, and they angrily shouted to counterattack the teaus and kill all the beastmen and exterminate their entire species.


    The citizens¡¯ grudges were quite difficult to deal with, especially since they suffered so much from the war. It was impossible to use logic and reason on some things. I could talk an entire day about ¡°non-aggression¡± and ¡°not starting a new war,¡± and wax philosophical about the endless vicious cycle of warfare, and all the citizens would simply reply, ¡°So we can¡¯t take revenge? Why is it that only they cane kill us?¡± and all my efforts would be for naught.


    ¡°...Even without the ¡®non-aggression¡¯ premise, our country can¡¯t afford another war right now, not to mention that the remaining teau beastmen would never allow the humans to ughter them in revenge as we pleased.¡±


    Leaving the teau beastmen alone would evidently be a future source of trouble forter generations, and I already had a n for dealing with them, but now was definitely not the time to pick a new fight.


    ¡°Let¡¯s find some scapegoats, then. Perfect¡ªthere are still a few who escaped and they¡¯re causing trouble; let¡¯s kill them off to scare the rest of the beastmen.¡±


    Perhaps I should ¡°celebrate¡± the fact that in the chilly winter night of the final battle, not all the beastmen perished. Even among the beastmen, there were some afraid of death. Several tribe leaders chose to not bring their tribes into the meat grinder of death and instead secretly escaped under the cover of night.


    After their path of return became impossible for them, they would naturally transform into dangerous gueri bands for the sake of their own survival. That was why after the situation had slightly steadied, I sent out the entire squad of Aurora Knights to hunt these beastmen down.


    So, even if their numbers weren¡¯t all that many, their wanted posters were put up everywhere, spreading the various impressions I created for them; some of my wanted posters called them Camel Baba and the 40 Wolf Thieves[1] 1 , and some the 3 Tigresses and the 105 male Beastmen. They were hence quickly captured and held in prison carts, which would parade about every city so that the survivors could spit on them and toss rocks at them. Finally, they would receive judgement for their crimes, and pretty much all of them would end up being hanged.


    History possessed plenty of evidence that invaders who failed in their invasion would end up the most pitiful group of all from the war. Their territory would be seized, they would definitely have revenge taken upon them, and a reckoning awaited them¡ªnobody would take pity on them for their losses, as they deserved what they got. They were both the victims of war as well as the murderers who started the battle.


    Apart from these tangible and intangible conditions, the victors would also never give the losers another chance to rise up again out of consideration for the future. There would definitely be numerous strict restrictions forced upon the losers, and the invaders, who had been so proud of themselves when they started the war, would have to ept even the most stringent of conditions in order to live on and survive, no matter how humiliated they felt.


    And these stringent conditions and humiliating restrictions would always intensify the conflict between them and sow the seeds for a new, future war.


    This was why I was especially careful with the treatment of the beastmen after the war. Even though I had already prepared a n beforehand, I still invited multiple advisers and held detailed discussions regarding this topic.


    With my encouragement, each adviser gave their own opinions, but they were all nothing more thanmon ideas, what with trade restrictions, cutting off their food supplies, forcing the beastmen to give us hostages, and reparation fees. I almost wanted to fall asleep as I listened to these boring, standard ideas.


    ¡°Humph. Trade restrictions? Even if they wanted to trade, are there still any merchants trading with the beastmen? Any human merchants that would dare to do so would probably be killed off as spies. Cut their food supplies? Let¡¯s first finish remapping the area since Emordilorcan randomly changed all the topography. Force the beastmen to give us hostages and reparation fees? You should at least do your homework first; there are so many beastmen tribes, just which ones do you want to give you hostages and reparations? If you force them too much, then it¡¯ll just be another battle.¡±


    But when an adviser named Pierobs gave his idea, I woke up immediately in fright.


    ¡°The archaic system of tribe leaders needs to be eliminated; onlymunism can save the world! In order topletely eradicate inequality and conflict from the world, we need aplete revolution to pull out the old dictatorship systems by the roots...¡±


    The previous non-creative ideas made me drowsy, but this adviser was too creative; he wanted to eliminate the foundation of this world¡¯s ruling feudal system that was based on nobles and royalty? He was quite daring. More than 70% of the countries in this world were monarchy-based, so he could be executed as a heretic just for his beliefs.


    ¡°...Cut off the heads of those selfish tribe leaders who only care about themselves and create a brand-new society, making the foolish beastmen create a new high-efficiencymunist society, which will...¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but take another look at this guy who typically appeared to be peaceful and quiet. This youngster was animated to the point that his saliva was flying everywhere, his fists were clenched tightly, and his eyebrows were jumping up and down. It seemed like he had endless amounts of rage within him, simr to that legendary revolutionary from my previous world. To spout such an unrealistic concept in a feudal age, I was even beginning to suspect if he was actually a transmigrator.


    ¡°...allow us to demand reparations and hostages from them!¡±


    Okay, I retract my previous thoughts; it was just an insane man. Aftering around full circle, he was still focused on obtainingbat reparations and hostages?


    ¡°Milord, my apologies; Pierobs[2] 2 is in a bad shape these days. He is affected emotionally because he was dumped by his girlfriend, and he recently hit his head on a rock, so he¡¯s been a little...¡±


    Another adviser wiggled his finger and pointed at Pierobs¡¯ head, indicating that Pierobs was a little funny in the head. Right after, Pierobs seemed to be even more animated, while his fellow advisers hurriedly began dragging him away, worried that he would spout something even more ridiculous.


    ¡°...You rotten bastards left over from the useless feudal age will never be able to defeat the farmer warrior saints. Those foolish kings will all have their heads chopped off, and the mighty rise ofmunism is foreordained. This will be a blizzard, a mighty blizzard that nobody will be able to avoid. You ipetent...¡±


    Okay, hispanions finally seeded in gagging his mouth and matters finally quieted down. He was, however, still struggling violently while being dragged away.


    ¡°Shut up! Ahhh! Don¡¯t bite me! I¡¯m helping you; stop biting me!¡±


    ¡°Cough, it seems that some of our advisers are under too much pressure and need some time to recuperate. Go ahead and give him half a year of vacation, and if he still needs more rest, give him another additional half a year.¡±


    Although I said this, the conference room remained silent. I knew that if this continued, there wouldn¡¯t be any result, so I could only toss out my own prepared n.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t Centaur Anya say her tribe also wanted toe aboveground? Actually, the teau is a nice ce, and it¡¯s definitely much better than the dark Underground, so let¡¯s have theme. Our participation will only increase the conflict, and the beastmen have their own rules, so in order to deal with the beastmen, we should leave it to other beastmen...¡±


    After chattering on for several hours, I was finally able to resolve this issue, but the second issue was even more of a headache.


    ¡°The elves? They¡¯re truly such trouble.¡±


    If I tried my hardest to find who was the unluckiest in this battle, the elves would probably be my number one choice. Their Guardian God ended perishing, the four major elven kingdoms¡¯ main armies werepletely wiped out, and while only Tassel Kingdom among them possessed some remainingbat forces, all of Tassel Kingdom¡¯s royalty was dead, and it was difficult to say if their remaining forces even counted as elves.


    From a certain standpoint, the Tassel Royalty was also one of the main perpetrators of the war, but their previous King Adrian died in body and soul together with Felix, and punishing the banshee Suana, who had always been against war to begin with, wouldn¡¯t be the right thing to do either.


    But this wasn¡¯t even the greatest trouble. The biggest problem was how their environment ended up suddenly changing. After their unnatural bending of nature for several thousand years was finally broken, the life-threatening climate had be the strictest challenge for their lives, and most of the remaining elves were still fighting against the weather just in order to survive.


    ¡°Forget it. Let¡¯s stop considering these things and save them from their disaster first. Otherwise, with all of them dead, this will be nothing but an empty discussion.¡±


    The Borealis had alreadypleted its preparations. After it finished unloading the mined metals obtained from the barbarian tribes, it was to be used by the second disaster relief squad in order to arrive before the first relief squad. And I was a member of this second disaster relief squad.


    Note:


    1. This is a reference to the folk tale Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.


    2. This may be a reference to Maximilien Fran?ois Marie Isidore de Robespierre, who was a Frenchwyer, politician, and one of the best known and most influential figures associated with the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.

 Chapter 202

    Chapter 202: Disaster Relief


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck


    After distorting thews of nature for thousands of years, the northern elves finally received retribution. The furious forces of nature sent forth heavy hailstorms to cleanse and purify this country of sinners. Blizzards akin to raging dragons ravaged thend as they pleased, and thest patches of green hope left from the previous guardian began to fade away¡ªI seem to be getting too poetic, so let me just be direct.


    After the now deceased Elf Guardian God¡¯s magic barrier, which had kept out the true forces of nature, vanished, the enormous difference between the climates shed. The massive difference in temperature created a speedy yet unsteady weather front, generating hailstorms, tornados and other natural disasters. The Forest Guardian God¡¯s death also hastened the rate at which the nts would die, and tornados swept away much sand and dirt, causing massive erosion. All these natural cmities added up, making it almost impossible to steady the situation.


    ¡°If we leave them alone, the northern elves will probably be extinct. However, we¡¯re unwilling to save them for free.¡±


    This was the mutual realization that most northern human kingdoms came to. Their speed at ¡°assisting¡± the elves was rather fast¡ªor perhaps I should call it their speed at looting.


    Although the elves had long since taught the secrets of magic to the other species, as the species with the longest history of magic-usage, they still possessed a significant amount of esoteric magic secret spells, techniques, and curses. At the very least, the elves were still the best at runes, foreignnguages of other nes, nature magic, and many other fields, which incited the jealousy of the various human kingdoms.


    Even if some elven secrets were identally revealed on asion, those lucky enough to learn them would likely hoard it for themselves. At any rate, the small northern kingdoms had no chance to benefit.


    While the other three elven kingdoms¡ªapart from Tassel Kingdom¡ªsustained serious losses, at the very least their royalty was still intact. Even though their main armies were now almostpletely nonexistent, they still had rear support and logistical squads; they still possessed the capabilities to reorganize and save themselves while retaining their guard against the humans.


    The other elven kingdoms still existed, but they were too far away and there wasn¡¯t enough time to save them. Although the Elven Gods seemed to want to do something, they still didn¡¯t take action. If we forcefully tried to ¡°save¡± them, however, it probably wouldn¡¯t be all too different from an invasion, which would be rather overboard. We also needed to take into consideration the possible chain reactions that could ur.


    To be honest, it was the sudden appearance of a few dozen elven SemiGods that stopped the human kingdoms ns of annexing the elven territory. Those elven SemiGods were obviously the reinforcements from the other elven kingdoms, and the fact that they were all SemiGods was the best evidence that the Elven Gods were already beginning to interfere.


    That¡¯s why our aid for the other three elven kingdoms could only be limited to sending them the resources of food and anti-winter supplies that they direlycked in exchange for gold and elven magical items. Their true treasures of elven magical secrets would be impossible to obtain.


    Tassel Kingdom, however, was different. The True God Lorci had used her divine power to cause all the elves of Tassel Kingdom to turn into fallen elves, transforming them into dark gray-skinned grayblood elves. It was doubtful that any other elves would ept them. After all,pared to the elves on the surface, the grayblood elves were much more simr to their Underground dark elf brethren in both physical appearance and characteristics.


    This was a vicious move by Lorci; this basically cut off all hope of the Tassel elves of ever returning to the other elves. The Tassel elves that had no other possible route to take could only follow her. However, since Lorci suddenly ended up perishing, all the Tassel grayblood elves sank into despair¡ªthe other elven kingdoms hated them for their betrayal, while the humans hated them for being the perpetrators of the battle.


    If the Tassel Kingdom royalty was still alive, then they¡¯d still be of some use, but it was a pity that if they were still alive, they¡¯d probably just be dragged out to be executed.


    There was nothing more convincing than the usationing from a dead victim¡¯s soul. When banshee Suana returned, dark plots were revealed for all to see, and the previous King Adrian was now known by all as an ambitious warmonger. Since this battle was the direct cause of the Elven Forest Guardian God rdin¡¯s death and the rapid worsening of their environment, the renown of the royalty and nobility was rapidly hitting rock-bottom.


    Add on the fact that they had lost so many in this war, and the Tassel government waspletely incapable of organizing themselves to help save their own citizens from the harsh winter. The other elven kingdoms close by probably would have added fuel to the fire by raising armies for revenge if it weren¡¯t for the fact that they were also dealing with wintry natural disasters.


    After the several requests for aid asking the other elven kingdoms for assistance had been rejected, Tassel could only ask their other neighbor, Sleuweir Kingdom, for help out of ack of any other options to survive. Even if they were just recently in battle, and even if most of the warmongers were now dead, a deep blood grudge still existed between them. The Tassel elves hadn¡¯t held much hope in this request for assistance.


    But Sleuweir actually agreed to their request. Queen Glina did take into consideration the feelings of her own citizens and didn¡¯t send out Sleuweir¡¯s own army as a disaster relief squad, but she made it convenient for the other humans to go over and ¡°rescue¡± the elves.


    Those other human countries¡¯ ¡°disaster relief squads¡± that came without even needing to be invited began the work of saving the elves under the name of the Mist Alliance.


    Although it couldn¡¯t be denied that they were indeed rather selfish and basically acted like robbers while simultaneously saving the elves, it was indisputable that they did managed to save many grayblood elves on the verge of death.


    And among all the disaster relief squads, the one that stood out the most was from a rather faraway small country¡ªEast Mist Communal Country.


    Princess Knight Reyne, who had be famous through this battle, led the squad together with all the believers of the Church of Law. They were far different from the other ¡°disaster relief squads¡± that were no different from bandits. They really were working their utmost to save the elves.


    Everywhere they went, they would supply the elves with resources, search and find suffering elves, help construct temporary shelters for the elven refugees, and answer requests to perform emergency rescues. They had an incredibly good reputation.


    ¡°Repaying grievances with kindness? I definitely don¡¯t think you¡¯re such a nice person.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, of course I¡¯m not so foolish. I¡¯m just not as stupidly shallow as the others. Do you really think they¡¯ll be able to reap huge benefits from the refugees, who are on guard against them and treating them like the thieves they are? My target was never that simple to begin with.¡±


    Soon, when the refugees began immigrating, my words were confirmed and my choice helped me reap benefits.


    Through the continuous disasters, the Tassel royalty had lost all authority, and the neighboring elven countries were angrily preparing for revenge while the natural cmities turned this originallyfortable paradise into hell on earth. No matter if they wanted to admit it or not, Tassel Kingdom was basically falling apart, and now that the other elven kingdoms were shutting them out, several human countries attempted to open their gates to the grayblood elves now looking to immigrate.


    But, over ny percent of the grayblood elves who immigrated chose the East Mist Communal Country. Their huge wave of immigration would bring many changes, and at the very least, they would bring countless amounts of tomes and knowledge with them.


    Yep, this was my target to begin with. Robbing them while they were down wasn¡¯t very meaningful. As long as I received most of their poption, of course I would obtain everything in the end.


    Their choice was made in part due to East Mist Communal Country¡¯s recent fame, but more because of the good reputation that East Mist enjoyed for all this while.


    Not only did the East Mist Communal Country not get involved with the elven ve trade, but it was also a country that strictly prohibited very, whereas the other countries all tended to have elven very to some degree. In order to prevent themselves from suddenly bing a random human¡¯s ve, and with the personalparisons they could see for themselves from the other countries¡¯ behavior, most gray elves with at least a normal amount of intelligence ended up choosing the East Mist.


    And with the natural cmities helping me, I also did my best to convince Suana. Rather than staying there in such difficult conditions next to elven neighbors who were filled with hatred for them, she might as well have her entire species immigrate. Otherwise, even if they survived this winter, what would they do about the next? The moment the Elven Gods had some free time, with how narrow-minded they were, they would probably immediately begin plotting revenge for Tassel¡¯s betrayal. The other three northern elven kingdoms would be more than happy to be the vanguard, and this wasn¡¯t even mentioning the fact that Glina would probably be unable to stop all the people in Sleuweir from looking for revenge.


    For a country to reach this point meant the end for them.


    ¡°Immigrate. In the entire Nortnds, it¡¯s likely that only the East Mist Communal Country, which barely suffered any losses in this battle, that would be able to truly ept your tribe. You¡¯ve also seen the reputation they¡¯ve built up over the years, and they¡¯re also worshiping the Law God in this country¡ªevery species has equal rights as citizens. Even the Guiltless[1] 1 can live there out in the open under the sun, so of course your gray elves will be able to do so as well.¡±


    Suana didn¡¯t reply immediately, and nor did I pressure her into making a hurried decision. I knew that she would definitely end up agreeing in the end. With all the reports of cmities, as long as the Tassel grayblood elves didn¡¯t want to go extinct, the path I offered her was the best choice of all. She could only act exactly as I nned.


    To be honest, I indeed had selfish aims as well, but she would still make the choice I wanted in the end because this was their only path of survival. Without a doubt, this was an entirely out-in-the-open plot for mutual benefits that I made clear to Suana from the start, and Suana¡¯s agreement was just a matter of time. Before she agreed, I would patiently help with the rescue efforts in order to show my sincerity.


    In the rescue efforts, although the ferocious weather caused all small airships apart from the Borealis to bepletely unusable, the Aurora Knights and elite warriors still gave the elves a deep impression, and many received a boost to their fame.


    The ¡°Angel Wing Aurora Knights,¡± ¡°Mountain-Sized Floating Rescue Airship,¡± and ¡°Handsome Dragonying Princess with Slightly Strange Sexual Preferences¡± all helped improve East Mist¡¯s reputation as well as give the gray elves hope and expectations towards East Mist. As long as Suana made the final decision and summoned her entire tribe to immigrate, the major transition would definitely be sessful.


    Of course, there were also some things that I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry about...


    ¡°¡®Forever a Friend of the Centaur Tribe?¡¯ What¡¯s this?¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s Lord Beifeng¡¯s new title. Sincerge amounts of forests were destroyed, the Tassel Kingdom¡¯s centaurs in the forests lost their own homes, right? But those stubborn tribe leaders were unwilling to leave their homes even on the verge of death. Just as they were all seemingly about to die off, Lord Beifeng intervened!¡±


    It might not be the tribe leaders¡¯ fault for being stubborn, as from what I knew, these centaurs of the forest and the Rainbow Deer Tribe all belonged personally to the now deceased Forest Guardian God. They might have signed some sort of contract that prevented them from leaving, but right now, myplete attention was drawn by something else.


    ¡°...When did Beifeng start bing a lord in people¡¯s eyes?¡±


    It was obvious, just from this servant¡¯sments, that he was a supporter of Beifeng. Considering that this servant was a half-beastman from Shawen that might have already been poisoned by Beifeng, I turned to ask another human servant official.


    ¡°What did Beifeng do? Forget it if it¡¯s 18+ restricted content; that I don¡¯t want to know.¡±


    ¡°I heard the forest centaurs were just waiting for death when Lord Beifeng and Casio went to them and challenged those stubborn tribe leaders ording to their ancient traditions. With their excellent abilities, they seeded in winning every single duel so far, and as long as they defeat some more of the eldest and most respected tribe leaders, they¡¯ll be able to take the centaurs out of the forest!¡±


    ¡°Oh, he really did do a good job.¡±


    I was rather astonished. To my knowledge, although that fellow seemed so respectable and honest, he would never do something that didn¡¯t have any benefits for him. I didn¡¯t expect him to work so hard at saving others.


    *Thud!*


    Elisa, who was on a nearby reclining chair, suddenly mmed the thick recipe book she was reading shut as she adjusted her eyesses and corrected my misunderstanding.


    ¡°The centaurs¡¯ favorite sport is wrestling, and ording to their ancient customs, they typically take off all their clothing and wrestle while naked in rivers or under waterfalls. And those centaur tribe leaders are mostly strong males...¡±


    Alright, I was no longer able to give my opinion of this any longer. After some hesitation, I could only manage to eke out one sentence.


    ¡°...Good job.¡±


    What else could I say? No matter what, saving the elves¡¯ allies would improve East Mist¡¯s reputation. As long as a certain individual¡¯s personal desires weren¡¯t unveiled, I had no need to stop him. Instead, I even had to support him.


    ¡°But keep a tight watch on that bastard, and don¡¯t allow him to do something ridiculous. It¡¯s already dangerous enough to leave Beifeng in a forest filled with animals. Also, those centaurs... ugh. I just recalled the way he looked at Casio in their first meeting. As I thought, I should have just killed him off at that time. If he creates some scandal this time¡ªno¡ªhe definitely already created some scandal; I should say if his scandal gets exposed...¡±


    I started panicking as I thought about it, so I suddenly pped the table and stood up.


    ¡°No! I need to hurry out there and stop him! I definitely can¡¯t allow him to ruin East Mist¡¯s reputation.¡±


    Yet just as I was angrily roaring, filled with the sense of justice, I was stopped.


    ¡°No rush; eat your lunch before you leave.¡±


    ¡°Who knows what ridiculous news he¡¯ll be the center of next! It¡¯ll be toote by the time I finish my lunch!¡±


    ¡°Amelia worked so hard on cooking this lunch. You should at least eat a few bites.¡±


    Of course, it was toote already, but not in the forest of the centaurs. Based on my past few days¡¯ experience, after eating this meal I¡¯d be back as a tourist in River Styx yet again. If I couldn¡¯t find an excuse to escape, then it¡¯d be toote for me.


    ¡°No, I doubt I¡¯ll be able to go anywhere at all once I¡¯m finished eating.¡±


    ¡°Even if you don¡¯t eat, you¡¯re not allowed to go anywhere. I spent so much effort on teaching Amelia how to cook.¡±


    ¡°I know you have no good intentions at all in teaching Amelia how to cook! Ever since you took that book titled ¡®Dark Life-Stealing Cooking Techniques, Complete Edition,¡¯ I already expected this would happen.¡±


    ¡®Dark Life-Stealing Cooking Techniques, Complete Edition?¡¯ This is clearly ¡®Ennd¡¯s ssic Recipes.¡¯ Although I don¡¯t know what country Ennd is supposed to be, their cooking recipes are indeed unique and creative. Not to mention that they¡¯re easy to learn, and it¡¯s quite convenient for Amelia to learn from.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, they really are quite simple. There are only two types¡ªeither baking in an oven or boiling in a pot, and no spices of any kind are necessary. Just add whatever spices you like when eating; this is the true original vor. This cooking method is oundish enough already, and when you add Amelia¡¯s magical cauldron...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s already finished. I spent lots of effort on today¡¯s main dish, please look forward to it.¡± Behind me, I suddenly heard Amelia¡¯s voice.


    When I turned around, I saw a huge fish head pointing towards the heavens, and its wide-open mouth still had saliva that wasn¡¯t cleaned off yet. The huge fish¡¯s eyes that were in a daze seemed to beining about its pitiful end.


    ¡°Ennd¡¯s famous dish, Looking at the Stars.¡±


    *rgh!*


    A strong retching sensation immediately tossed and turned in my stomach. It would have been fine if it was just ¡®Ennd¡¯s famous dish,¡¯ but Amelia added her own understanding to it.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this a Deep Demon Fish? It¡¯s a mega-dangerous magical beast with high intelligence, and it¡¯s incredibly difficult to deal with. Isn¡¯t it a specialty from the Underground¡¯s dark river? How did you get it? Eh! It¡¯s actually still alive!¡±


    ¡°You actually dare kill me for a dish? I curse you¡ªI curse you¡ªI curse you and your children for ten thousand generations! Ahh!¡±


    Ameliaughed, pleased with herself as she retracted her fist that had just knocked the fish unconscious.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t the recipe say the most important part was for the ingredients to retain the original vor, and that the highest-level ingredients were the best? Deep Demon Fish will definitely have a good taste. And, it¡¯ll be the freshest when it¡¯s still alive. Yep, delicious!¡±


    As she said so, Amelia even personally had a taste right then and there.


    ¡°Ah, it hurts, my gills are gone! Don¡¯t eat my eyes!¡±


    As I witnessed and listened to the half-eaten dish¡¯s curses, this abnormal scene became even more frightening to the point that I didn¡¯t even know what to say anymore. I could only cautiously retreat, intending to find a path of escape.


    But, behind me, some even more frightening words were spoken.


    ¡°Awesome, now we have ingredients for dinner as well.¡±


    ¡°Teacher, what shall we cook for dinner? Although I feel more confident than before after finishing this dish, I still think that simple is better.¡±


    ¡°Something simpler than English dishes¡ªlet¡¯s make Japanese food, sashimi!¡±


    ¡°Something even easier than tossing it into a pot and boiling? Then will we be able to just eat it right away after cutting it up?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, this dish called sashimi is like this...¡±


    Alright, before the topic could frighten me any further, I had already escaped. At this moment, I already made a decision to just eat outside for an extended duration of time.


    Note:


    1. The undead, as named by Lilith and Rnd in Chapter 198.

 Chapter 203

    Chapter 203: Migration


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck


    The disaster relief for the northern elves went rather well. From a certain standpoint, it was an excellent tform to unt our military might and organizational capabilities.


    Imperceptibly, the Eastern Mist Communal Country was already showing off plenty of might. Their Aurora Knights that were capable of flying through hailstorms as they pleased, the Borealis that could ignore fierce weather conditions such as tornadoes, the huge engineering contraptions that could clear away so much rubble, and the incredibly adaptable Four Elemental Swordcasters¡ªthey were all the best examples of East Mist¡¯s power, which also strengthened our control of the Mist Alliance.


    Yet there was one other group of reinforcements aiding with the disaster relief that nobody expected. Their arrival further increased the speed of the relief significantly, but there was a small problem¡ªthis group was from the Underground World, and was called the evilest existence of all by the Holy Church.


    In the previous battle, Annie Layde had established a certain amount of friendship with Suana; this led her to unhesitatingly bring her elites to Suana¡¯s aid this time around.


    Chaos, however, continued to exist within the dark elves, and the Underground World needed to keep them under control; the Underground Lords were unable to send their main forces. However, they possessed a scarily strong foundational strength¡ªjust their elites alone were a significant force to be reckoned with.


    With their dozens of Gold-ranked and Legend-ranked individuals having arrived, not only did they speed up the disaster relief, but the Underground World¡¯s true strength also somewhat frightened the other countries.


    The most eye-catching of all¡ªto the point where they could be said to be the foundational pir of strength of the Underground¡ªwere a group of dark elf Law Knights.


    Yep. In the entire world, only Sulfur Mountain City could boast of such a group of dark elf knights. Town Security had sent them here to assist in the disaster relief, and since they were already experienced in keeping order within cities as well as in dealing with various ¡°dangers,¡± searching through rubble and saving people were basically their specialty.


    The lowest of them were of the Silver rank, and Law Knights were excellent tanks to begin with. Their enchanted armor was also the newest edition from this year. As the only main forces of Sulfur Mountain City, City Lord Annie unhesitatingly gave them the best equipment.


    Only a holy sword per individual in the past? Sulfur Mountain City was now much richer than before; they were all equipped with enchanted mithril heavy armor along with various trinkets crafted by the engineers. These female elves, who looked more like canned food, totally ignored the hail and tornadoes.


    After many long years of working as Town Security, something like demolition was normal for them. They were also used to dealing with disputes and explosions; this allowed them to excel at rescuing the elves from crumbling buildings.


    They could also help heal the injured immediately since they had plenty of Holy Knights in their ranks. In just a short while, stories about them spread throughout the entire disaster area.


    ¡°Buried too deep and the injured can¡¯t be found? Three high-ranked Holy Knights arrived and filled the entire heap of rubble with holy light, helping protect those still alive.¡±


    ¡°After finding an injured elf behind a wall, she actually ripped the wall apart with her bare hands, even using her body to block the falling debris, and she herself was not hurt as she rescued the elf. Simply amazing.¡±


    The Sulfur Mountain City Town Security definitely surpassed the level of the imperial squads representing those human mega-empires. Their equipment was extravagant enough to make even Legends jealous, and any one of them could go straight into an epic and be the main character. This elite squad, excellently equipped down to their very teeth, used this disaster relief as an opportunity to reveal their true strength. This led those who were originally waiting in the shadows for a chance to strike to change their minds and hide their ambition.


    And, so, the ¡°dark elf knights¡± from Sulfur Mountain City started bing famous...


    ¡°What? They¡¯re only Town Security? That must be a cover-up; how could such a strong knight squad be used for Town Security?¡±


    The incident that gave people the deepest impression was when the warriors from Sulfur Mountain City suddenly had a ¡°conflict¡± with the Eastern Mist Communal Country¡¯s relief army. They even trapped the Church of Law¡¯s venerated, highest-ranked priest Xueti in a corner and gave him a vicious beating...


    Yep, actually, just hearing the familiar name ¡°Gentlemen Alliance¡± as a mercenary squad in the East Mist relief army caused the Town Security forces to run wild.


    ¡°You bastards! After leaving you alone for a while, you¡¯ve multiplied so much in number! But we¡¯re here now. Today shall be your end... Xueti, we caught you red-handed! We¡¯ve finally captured you again! Sisters, deal with them!¡±


    Alright, the Gentlemen Alliance indeed had people who were difficult for anyone to ept, such as that Clothes-Slicing Swordsman and so on, but Xueti was somewhat wronged; he actually didn¡¯t do all that much. It was just that Archbishop Xueti was so concerned about the elves suffering from the winter catastrophe that he took off his robes and undershirts for the elves to put on against the cold, and he only wore a pair of underpants as he continued his disaster relief.


    Even if itcked elegance, the Archbishop¡¯s strong body had a masculine attractiveness to it, not to mention that this was due to the situation at hand; nobody would read too much into it. However, it was evident that these dark elves, who had ¡°obsessions about being proper,¡± were utterly unable to tolerate his actions. They treated him as a moral hazard, which was truly somewhat overboard.


    ¡°Everyone knows the dark elves themselves aren¡¯t exactly paragons of virtue. They must have been thinking dirty thoughts themselves to misunderstand to such a degree. For someone who¡¯s biased to begin with, the entire world is tilted. If that person¡¯s heart is dirty, she¡¯ll think everyone else is also dirty!¡±


    In the end, due to thebined protests against injustice by all the other countries, Captain Yawen of Town Security could onlye out and personally apologize. Fortunately, Xueti was incredibly magnanimous and immediately forgave their rashness. It was obvious, though, that Yawen and the other Town Security elves weren¡¯t going to actually let bygones be bygones.


    ¡°We actually had to lower our heads and apologize to that pervert! This was basically the most pitiful we¡¯ve ever been in history. No, this is the second most pitiful incident; the most pitiful is that this pervert actually became our boss.¡± ¡ªYawen.


    And not even two full dayster, they caused yet another incident...


    They chased around the Friend of the Centaur Tribe, the Legend Hunter Beifeng, like a rabbit. The first incident with Xueti was still understandable in the general public¡¯s view, but Beifeng was known to them as kind and respectable, even somewhat dull, and a good fellow. This half-dragon Beifeng, who was instantly attacked by Town Security the moment theyid eyes on him, was far too pitiful in the eyes of the general public.


    ¡°Do we even need a reason to beat up Beifeng? Alright then, let¡¯s just punish him for the crime of being Beifeng.¡±


    Perhaps this reason would work in Sulfur Mountain City, but as the bystanders saw it, this was clearly unreasonable and a tant abuse of power.


    ¡°Do you hear that? The crime of being Beifeng? Punishing him for being Beifeng? He clearly didn¡¯t even do anything; this is too much! They¡¯re just big bullies!¡±


    ¡°Everyone knows who¡¯s in the right. Perhaps these elfdies still have some biased views against me, Beifeng. I can understand. Or perhaps they¡¯re suffering from too much stress, and if beating me up can relieve their pressure and help alleviate their biased views, then please,e!¡±


    Beifeng¡¯s magnanimity made the dark elf knights seem more unreasonable¡ªmaybe even insane in contrast.


    ¡°Listen to Beifeng¡¯s resolve; he¡¯s basically a saint! Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Town Security, even if they¡¯re astonishingly powerful, their moral characters and narrow-mindedness are... humph, not even scratching the surface of Lords Xueti or Beifeng¡¯s! Ptui!¡±


    Alright, in a way, this was all just a repeat of certain past events at Sulfur Mountain City. The Gentlemen Alliance had seeded once again in toying with Town Security, albeit paying a small price in doing so this time.


    Of course, if I personally appeared, I could indeed clear up all misunderstandings, but that would mean I would have to exin those past incidents in the Underground World and about Beifeng and Xueti¡¯s true natures... I hesitated for just one second before making my decision. The Gentlemen Alliance had messed around with the Town Security for many times before this anyways, and I might as well leave the Church of Law and the aboveground Gentlemen Alliance¡¯s reputations intact.


    Soon, however, I didn¡¯t have time to spare for such small matters.


    Thanks to the Underground World¡¯s Lord Annie¡¯s ¡°sincere persuasion,¡± Suana finally made her decision to have her entire tribe immigrate. Of course, her target was the Eastern Mist Communal Country¡¯s sparsely popted wide swaths ofnd.


    ¡°Sincere persuasion? Annie knows how to do that? Wasn¡¯t she always supremely ineloquent? I thought that she was just like Adam, only knowing how to persuade others with her fists. What happened¡ªdid she learn something new?¡±


    ¡°...You¡¯re actually treating it as true? Suana and the gray elves were just using Annie as an excuse, to leave themselves at least a little face.¡±


    What really happened was that when Annie was chatting with Suana, she casually mentioned ¡°It seems that this ce is unlivable now. How abouting to the Underground World together with me? If not, I think Brother Rnd¡¯s East Mist is okay as well.¡± Obviously, such a casual invitation would seem tock sincerity, and the real reason for Suana to have the resolution to decide the fate of her entire tribe couldn¡¯t possibly involve a concept as abstract as ¡°sincerity¡± to begin with.


    ¡°It seems they think we¡¯re reliable enough to carry them, so they got on board.¡±


    After Suana became the new queen of Tassel Kingdom, even she had to abandon all personal emotions and ce the benefits to her tribe first and foremost.


    The current Tassel Kingdom had obviously angered too many. Even if they made it past the winter catastrophe, it was definite that there would be others looking to rub salt in their wounds. Moreover, since their entire species was now a new one, they couldn¡¯t count on the Elven Gods anymore, and they needed to find a faction to join and side under in order to ensure their survival.


    Although it was already guaranteed that they needed to join another faction, the important part was which faction to join. If that faction ended up falling, then there would truly be no more future for the gray elves.


    If the other human kingdoms had been able to disy an excellent force of might, perhaps the elves might have made another choice, but the Eastern Mist Communal Country was the indisputable main character in both the battle and the disaster relief that came afterward. The power and foundational strength that they showed was just one facet; their tight connections with the Underground World, the new Guiltless faction, the Church of Law and many others were also critical factors.


    Most important of all was East Mist¡¯s obvious rapid development and new technology, along with the n for the Mist Alliance, which was likely to involve the entire Nortnds. For a politician like Suana who valued what would benefit her tribe above all, the choice she should make was quite clear. The rest was dealing with internal disagreement anding up with apromise that those disagreeing could ept.


    To be honest, in order to have the elves, who had no concept of the flow of time at all and would always get themselves locked down in pointless arguments, toe to a decision so quickly, Suana had truly given it her all. It could be said that she possessed her own selfish way of thinking as well.


    ¡°Am I an elf? Or an undead? I¡¯m clearly an undead now, but the surviving gray elves are all relying on me. Perhaps only the home of the Guiltless, the East Mist, can be my home as well. I¡¯m tired¡ªso tired. As long as my tribe can survive through this, I shall find some ce to rest; I¡¯m already dead, anyways.¡±


    After the dishonorable plot that had incited the battle was revealed, the Council of Elders that had originally held the reins of power ended up being overthrown. Those elders, those co-conspirators of the former king, Adrian, were all dragged down from their pedestals by furious gray elf civilians. Any elders who were able to keep their lives in the end were among the most fortunate.


    The ironic part, however, was that Suana had aplished what her father Adrian had always dreamed of and worked hard all his life forpletely controlling all of Tassel Kingdom, yet it was at the cost of her own life and the very existence of Tassel Kingdom itself.


    After such a massive immigration, even the most optimistic of the Tassel gray elves knew that no matter how generous East Mist was, they wouldn¡¯t possibly allow them to be a country within a country. In the short-term, perhaps they could still live in a rtively isted district, but if they were to continue to reside there for the long-term¡ªor perhaps forever¡ªthe only choice was for them to be scattered among the original residents. Not only would this be beneficial for the Eastern Mist Communal Country, but it would also be beneficial for the gray elves.


    And once all this happened, Tassel Kingdom, which had several thousand years of history, would be at an end. All that would remain would be a new species of the Eastern Mist Communal Country¡ªthe East Mist gray elves.


    When the huge hordes of elven migration squads embarked upon their journey, the gray elves that were already bing homesick would turn their heads and gaze backward with every few steps, as if they were praying for a sudden miracle to erase the natural catastrophes and the dark clouds of war... and it was at this moment that a familiar song rang out again.


    ¡°Dajh da jd, ka su odd as da...¡±


    [Our distant rtives, where did you go, we miss you here in the homnd...]


    Once again, the undead banshee Suana started singing that familiar traveler¡¯s song. Back in the day, when dark clouds of war loomed over their homnd, Tassel had sung this very song as she left her birthce, by herself, to search for a utopia for her tribe.


    ¡°Fre de ld, kad...¡±


    [Are the ancient trees at home still verdant green, that familiar springke always reminds me of my childhood, the sky was so blue...]


    Perhaps Tassel from that time long ago was smiling just like this as she bid farewell to her friends and family in her homnd.


    ¡°My wonderful childhood is now over, and a nightmarish war is right before me, but I, Little Tassel, love singing ever so much, and I believe that there will be a peaceful and beautifulnd on the other side of the mountains. Hmm¡ªperhaps there¡¯s no suchnd behind these mountains, but behind the mountains that are behind those mountains, there definitely will be such a ce...¡±


    This situation was all too simr to when Tassel had departed to found a kingdom in the past. Even though it was supposed to be an optimistic and even joyous song, a number of younger elves had already begun to sob softly, while even more of them began singing the song together in a low voice. All the low elven voices soon joined together, echoing throughout the vast skies.


    ¡°My dear Aunt Susan, I miss you so much. But Little Tassel still can¡¯t return home yet; although I still haven¡¯t found my dream utopia homnd, I believe that four-leaf clovers are always hiding beneath the horses¡¯ hooves and my dream utopia homnd is right in front of me.¡±


    Tassel was the type to never give up, and she sang her song everywhere as she stepped quickly and lightly in that chaotic era, crossing mountains and oceans, crossing this mountain, that mountain over there, and the mountain behind this mountain behind this mountain, until finally...


    ¡°...I found it; it¡¯s right over there! The ancient tree in my dream is pointing me in its direction; I¡¯m about to see my dream utopia homnd.¡±


    Indeed, she had found it! The hesitation and mncholy in the song had all vanished, while the joy was now at its climax.


    ¡°Dda jd ad! Dal dada aty...¡±


    [My rtives, I finally found a dreand for us, our new home is in the north...]

 Chapter 204

    Chapter 204: The Goal That Has Never Changed


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck


    ¡°The Battle of Traitors¡± or ¡°The Meaningless Battle¡±¡ªno matter whatter generations thought of it, the long battle, which hadsted from autumn to winter in the Year of the Griffin, was destined to leave its mark in history books. As the grand opening of yet another Holy War, this battle¡¯s influence wouldst for dozens, hundreds¡ªeven thousands of years.


    The Elven Gods¡¯ n had immediately met with a hard wall and the beastmen¡¯s southern invasion would have to wait for the next Holy War. Due to a certain ex-lich¡¯s plotting and taking advantage of their weakness, I was able to nt visitors from the Underground World in both elven and beastmen territories.


    When the aftermath from this battle settled down, the Underground Lords would establish several dozens of satellite cities in these two areas, which would be the representative cities of the Underground in the aboveground world. Naturally, there were plenty of dark elves living in these cities, and no matter whether they wanted to or not, they would be a buffer zone between the Sleuweir Kingdom and the elven kingdoms.


    Of course, considering that Annie, Centaur Anya, Little Red and various other factions had all already applied to join the Mist Alliance, this could be said to be a new series of military outposts for the newly established alliance.


    As for the terrible natural environment where they were now living? To be honest, it wasn¡¯t much different from the Underground World. As long as they prepared beforehand, with the new Mist Alliance¡¯s full support, the Underground World¡¯s residents had full confidence in creating new livable cities in this frigidnd.


    Taking the Tassel elves who might want to return to their homnd into consideration, I had the Underground residents leave a sufficientlyrge piece ofnd that included Tassel¡¯s capital, Tassel City, for the elves; they could still retain a small piece of homnd to return to.


    Of course, if my n was entirely sessful, the gray elves would lead a nice life in East Mist and wouldn¡¯t even want to return to the north where it was now snow and ice year-round and much more deste.


    As for the beastmen from the teaus, they may seem difficult to deal with, but due to the serious losses taken by the beastmen coupled with an ancient custom of theirs, it was actually quite easy.


    ¡°When a tribe suffers serious losses, the tribe shall join a stronger tribe¡ªand be annexed by it¡ªin order to ensure the survival of the tribe.¡±


    When the teau beastmen who suffered losses to the point where not a single family was left untouched saw the strong and fresh Underground beastmen moving inrge numbers into their territory, they were unable to stop them. No, I should correct myself¡ªthey were delighted to see themselves being annexed, as theycked male beastmen and numerous resources after losing the battle to such a degree.


    ¡°If hatred is a dark ink that¡¯s impossible to whiten, then just mix it with arge amount of clear water to dilute it. Even if pain is difficult to bear, time can lessen everything.¡±


    Perhaps the merging of the Underground and teau beastmen would require several dozens, even several hundreds of years. But when the Underground beastmen annexed this wild area that would always bring war, ording to my agreement with the Underground beastmen, both them and the beastmen became a part of the new Mist Alliance.


    Of course, merging and getting along with each other was always a mutual effort. In order to avoid getting into another cycle of war with the beastmen, I would also inject other species¡¯ members into this area in order to dilute its one-species makeup and create a bnce between various species.


    This may seem to be an underhanded move, but it was also the only marvelous move that would truly break the cycle of battles between us and the beastmen where the beastmen would have arge southern invasion every few decades, even if I might never see the effects of this move of mine in my lifetime.


    ¡°...War is bad, but if war really does break out, then at the very least I need to grab the opportunity and change something, such aspletely eliminating the foundational reason for having the next war.¡±


    And so, this was what I said next.


    ¡°Beastmen countries? Elven countries? Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey¡ªwhy do we need to make such distinctions? Henceforth, all borders shall be eliminated between every member country of the Mist Alliance. Only the simplest of procedures will be required for anyone to travel or move as they please within this entire area.¡±


    This was doubtlessly a groundbreaking proposal for this feudal generation wherend was at the center of everything and poption was considered an important resource. Every lord had their own system for managing their citizens and census; allowing citizens to travel as they pleased was basically unheard of.


    Just this suggestion that went against the times caused an uproar and even fierce opposition from the member countries of the Mist Alliance. The Rhodes Kingdom, which had already agreed to join the Mist Alliance, was even now intentionally slowing down the official process, thinking of backing out.


    ¡°I object! If we give them freedom, those bastard citizens will just all run off, and nobody will nt crops in the fields! Our territories will be deste and useless. This definitely can¡¯t be allowed!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because you¡¯re far too harsh on your ordinary citizens, which is the only reason you¡¯re worrying that they¡¯ll all leave. I feel that this is an excellent suggestion. Under this system, only territories under wise and well-reputed lords will flourish more and more, while unjust lords like you will be much worse off!¡±


    ¡°...There¡¯s more to it that you¡¯re not seeing. This old one [1] 1 and my ancestors have all been making such a great effort, but my territory naturally has a hostile terrain that¡¯s impossible to improve. If arge amount of my citizens run off, this old one would be too ashamed to face my ancestors.¡±


    Considering that East Mist¡¯s reputation was quite high and that Sleuweir was currently undergoing reconstruction during its weak period, I believed that I could borrow the renown gained from the battle to forcefully push this idea of mine. Yet the forceful opposition from the other local countries¡¯ leaders caused me to be unable to pass it in the end.


    Well, since free movement between all countries of the Mist Alliance was no longer a possibility, I tried for the next best thing¡ªI passed a movement policy between countries. Of course, the procedures required would be incrediblyplex, and the number of people allotted for moving was also quite limited in number. But if someone chose either the beastmen or the elves¡¯ territory, there were no limits, and that person would even receive arge number of benefits for free.


    ¡°...I had wanted to truly unify the Mist Alliance andpletely eliminate racial prejudices within, so this freedom of movement, a representation of a peaceful age, is something I absolutely have to realize. It seems I underestimated the old stubborn fools of this generation¡¯s adherence to their outdated ideals. In that case, I¡¯ll just bide my time; if this generation is no good, then I¡¯ll wait for the second, and if the second¡¯s still no good, how about the fourth or the fifth? Then, from today on, I¡¯m also going to use the Church of Law to deal with those that are a bit overboard.¡±


    My goal had never changed. I wanted to have Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s flourishment be reenacted aboveground, to have taurens and Holy Knights drink together in bars, to have ¡°evil¡± dark elves also able to have holy jobs, to have everyone live in a way that wasn¡¯t determined by what species they belonged to, to live instead in a country where they would be judged by their personal qualities rather than their species. This was my dream, my wonderful dream that I had had for half my life already.


    ¡°In order to have all the species live together under a blue sky, the first thing I need to do is to make them see their new neighbors without bias.¡±


    Only by aplishing this would I be able to truly destroy this so-called concept known as a Holy War. Otherwise, the loser species from this time would alwayse back again in the future, and nobody would ever win unless they exterminated an entire race¡ªyet was that possible? It was never possible to kill off an entire species! Hatred would only beget new chains of revenge, and the snowball effect of battle would only keep increasing. What awaited in the end would only be total destruction with no winners on either side.


    ¡°True peace can¡¯t be aplished without an umted buildup of thousands of years. In that case, while I¡¯m still alive, at the very least I can go for peace on the surface...¡±


    I had already created the standard known asw for judging people individually. The next step was to improve the rtionship between all the species, letting them personally witness that their neighbors weren¡¯t born evil, that their neighbors didn¡¯t need to drink blood and eat human meat every day.


    Bias was always born out of abination of a sense of distance, foreignness, and fear. Many countries also used the popr and effective method of demonizing neighboring countries or other species in order to turn attention away from internal disagreements. Not to mention that there would always be those with no sense of morality whatsoever spreading false rumors to incite others, letting there be always those who believed that other species ate humans for food. It was only natural that there would be bias.


    In the eyes of most people, when all these stories and rumorsbined, the beastmen were human-eating wild animals, the Shawen halfbloods were demons who were humans by day and beasts by night, and the northern barbarians were an undeveloped, illiterate tribe incapable of proper speech. In the eyes of those major human countries in the central ins, our People of the Mist was also no better than a bunch of poor savages thatcked culture.


    Just as how rumors would always be more ridiculous as they spread, biased people would always be more and more biased, which would further increase the conflicts between species, with even a small incident bing a huge one.


    And once a conflict intensified, it would be time for ¡°glorious achievements for the country¡± and ¡°ying demons and beasts¡± in war. Those executioners would invade other countries to kill their females and young and would be decorated as epic heroes¡ªthe Mist Kingdom from long ago had copsed just like this. In the overarching human society, the Mist Kingdom was different from all the other human kingdoms and was viewed with bias. Under the incitement of false tales, the neighboring countries treated the Mist Kingdom as the reason they were financially poor, and in the end that unnecessary battle ended up urring explosively.


    ¡°Increasedmunication and improved rtionships are the only things that can eliminate bias. They were the foundation that allowed for the miracle of many species living together peacefully in Sulfur Mountain City. Pushing for such a system is the most important thing right now. On this alone, I shall never back down!¡±


    Sulfur Mountain City was a small-scale experiment for my utopia. Now that I knew the requirements and pre-requisites for my goal and the fact that it could work, how could I possibly give up?


    Perhaps I couldpromise on other topics, but on this, I would never ever back down!


    Those lords¡¯ objections? Hehe! That was never a problem to begin with. Maybe I was acting too kind these days, and they¡¯d all forgotten what I¡¯d done in the past. Since I had already transformed into an evil demon before, who cared if I have to be demonized again? As long as the results was good, I was never one who minded dirtying my hands.


    ¡°...Elisa, the new ¡®Observer Squad¡¯ has been sessfully created, right? Here¡¯s your first mission; give me a list of all those who opposed me on this topic¡ªno¡ª add even those who were neutral to the list. On this issue, I won¡¯t permit sitting on the fence.¡±


    ¡°...Do we need to directly eliminate those people?¡±


    ¡°No, collect evidence of their crimes. I¡¯m convinced that all these lords are probably guilty of some crimes. Don¡¯t let them find out what you¡¯re doing; these lords are all very cautious about such things...¡±


    ¡°Then we¡¯re only to collect evidence on their crimes, and have the old fellows in the courtse out and get some exercise?¡±


    ¡°Yes, make your preparations as thoroughly as possible. We¡¯re going to eliminate all of them in one fell swoop. As for the date, let¡¯s make it today, two years from now. We have plenty of patience. This will even help increase reputation of the Church of Law as well as bring in funds for the national treasury when we confiscate those lords¡¯ funds.¡±


    ¡°What if there¡¯s a family among them that¡¯s as crime-free as an angel? That¡¯s notpletely impossible.¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t your first day on the job with me; do I still need to waste words...¡±


    ¡°I was just confirming whether or not you were still the same boss I knew. Perhaps a rxing life has changed you, or perhaps the beauty under the sunshine has caused you to stray away from the darkness.¡±


    Did this require any hesitation? I would still make the same decision. Afraid of getting my hands dirty? I think they had never even been clean to begin with.


    ¡°If there are any among them that are truly as pure as an angel, I¡¯ll give that person another chance to choose. If they still decide to stand against me and be an obstacle to realizing my n¡ªheh! Let that person go be a real angel in the heavens.¡±


    Elisa faded into the shadows, leaving only the echo of her sentence behind.


    ¡°Your wish is ourmand.¡±


    ...


    Fierce, widespread sandstorms raged throughout thends, and gigantic floating rocks filled the skies. However, what was most difficult to ept was that everything here was ck and white, entirely colorless.


    The monochrome was mentally difficult to adapt to, as looking at such surroundings for just a moment would cause dizziness and difort. And this wasn¡¯t even mentioning the sand, which everyone kept inhaling due to the fierce winds, making it difficult to breathe.


    In the distance, mountains could be seen slowly advancing. Those towering peaks were hidden in the clouds, but when assisted by binocrs, one would discover that those mountains were, in actuality, stone giants and beasts. They were simply massive to the extent that their upper halves couldn¡¯t even be discerned through the clouds and floating inds.


    This was obviously an inhospitable ce; it was the Earth Elemental ne!


    Here, on a certain floating ind, a group of visitors had just arrived and were beginning to set up camp.


    As I felt the tremendous will of the earth in the distance, I smiled in satisfaction.


    ¡°Little bro Emordilorcan, I wonder how you¡¯re recuperating from your injuries? I¡¯m here to see how you¡¯re doing.¡±


    I could sense that somewhere deep within the core of the earth, that familiar Earth Elemental God was in a deep sleep. Perhaps he would be astonished to find us here when he woke up.


    ¡°You want to run away after antagonizing me? Hmph! Don¡¯t even dream about it!¡±


    I had wanted to say a few more aggressive words to look cool, but behind me, numerousints had already been expressed.


    ¡°Rnd! Stop smiling so foolishly; hurry up ande help us set up the tents!¡± Adam seemed to be in a bad mood, probably because he realized that he would be sent to the frontlines again as a meat shield.


    ¡°Yeah, stopzing around. Do you think that standing on that rock and talking to yourself means that you don¡¯t need to work? Hurry up ande help us already.¡±


    Alright, my motive in pretending to make exmations while standing here was seen through, and under the watchful, angry gazes of everyone, I obediently started helping out.


    Camping in such an environment was obviously no easy task. The tents of those gnome merchants, who had imed to sell dimensional-rted items, were obviously fake products. Not even bringing up the fact that the tents couldn¡¯t even stand up properly, the ¡°anti-sand enchantments¡± on them were nothing but a joke, as the endless amount of sand blown by the wind almost immediately ended up burying the tents. And so, after a short discussion, we decided to just dig some holes in the ground as our temporary quarters.


    ¡°If we don¡¯t eliminate the problem at the root, it¡¯ll juste back to us again and again. Everyone¡¯s seen Emordilorcan¡¯s hatred and desire for revenge fromst time, and his final, vicious revenge against us hit us where we were weakest, almost causing our defeat. Such a guy will definitely take revenge on us again someday, and if he gives it his all and causes some major earthquakes in Antuen or a fissure to run through Diffindor, then we¡¯d suffer major losses. It¡¯s best to beat him while he¡¯s down!¡±


    I was no fool who would only passively react to threats. Since Emordilorcan had both the ability and motive to threaten us, and he mighte out again at any time for revenge, it was only natural that I would want the advantage by making the first move. However, he was quite strong, and he would only be stronger in the Earth Elemental ne, so without sufficient strength behind me as backup, attacking him here would be tantamount to suicide.


    Hence, I sent out an invitation letter, but there was no response for a long time.


    Two weeks ago, that familiar ¡°friend¡± finally agreed to my invitation, but he brought along an unexpected guest.


    The guest was an ethereal shadow that seemed to fluctuate between solidity and transparence, and when she took off her hat, I saw a blue-haired elven maiden.


    Her long, silky hair reached all the way to the ground, and her crystal-like eyes seemed to be smiling warmly. Although I did not recognize her beautiful face as she smiled at me, the waves of divine power she emanated resembled ripples of water and were quite familiar to me. After only a short moment of surprise, I sucked in a breath of cold air.


    ¡°Aylos? The Water Elemental Goddess?¡±


    Note:


    1. He is referring to himself in third person.

 Chapter 205

    Chapter 205: God Quest


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°It is better to be a na?ve idiot than it is to be Emordilorcan.¡±¡ªRnd Mist.


    There was no such quote in this world until I arrived. From a certain standpoint, Emordilorcan should even thank me for helping him be remembered by history.


    Cough, I should get back to the point. When Aylos appeared before me, my first thought was that she had learned the truth about the incident in And and was now here for revenge.


    My fear, however, turned out to be for naught. It transpired that after the Wind Elemental God Camdian received my invitation letter, he brought another Elemental Goddess who also had a deep grudge against Emordilorcan in order to increase our chances of victory.


    ¡°Back in the day, Emordilorcan joined the group assault against Sidunwar. If it wasn¡¯t for his Earth Seal that blocked the water veins that connected to the ocean, my husband Sidunwar wouldn¡¯t have perished in that battle.¡±


    Her light-seeming words contained bone-piercing hatred, and her crystal-like eyes were filled with a grudge that had not dissipated but had instead only increased over the years.


    In a way, Emordilorcan was truly amazing. At the very least, I didn¡¯t have the confidence to live so well after angering so many people.


    [No, ording to the System¡¯s calctions, there are far more that hate you. There is at least ten times the number of pitiful people that have suffered due to youpared to Emordilorcan. The number of your enemies, in both number and strength, can¡¯t be surpassed by anyone in this world. In fact, I have been wondering if I should give you the title ¡®Public Enemy #1.¡¯]


    ¡°Shut up! Nobody will think that you¡¯re mute if you don¡¯t talk... Sorry, sorry, I wasn¡¯t talking about you!¡±


    I hurriedly apologized to Aylos, who had a shocked expression.


    In a way, this was my first ever meeting with Aylos. After all, it was definitely overboard to tell her to shut up when she was talking about the reason for her deep grudge and her husband¡¯s pitiful death.


    Fortunately for me, perhaps it was expected of Aylos as the Water Elemental Goddess, but she seemed to have a very ¡°good temper.¡± She only smiled and seemed topletely ignore my outburst.


    Since we all had the same goal, it was only natural that our discussion would be quite sessful. This time, in order to truly kill off Emordilorcan once and for all, our invading team could be considered rather extravagant.


    Although my team didn¡¯t consist of many¡ªthere were only seven members, in fact¡ªeven the weakest among us was at the Legend rank. Margaret, Adam, and Amelia¡ªmy three strongest veteran SemiGod supporters¡ªhad all arrived, and they were the main forces for this battle. Eaglestorm, Beifeng, and Reyne¡ªthese three legends could be nothing more than our helpers, and it was also a good chance for them to improve themselves.


    This was the strongest team that I could field that wouldn¡¯t affect the normal day-to-day operations of the Nortnds. As for taking Princess Reyne from East Mist? To be honest, Kelly and the others took care of most of the paperwork; Reyne was nothing more than a rubber stamper.


    As for our reinforcements, I was only originally counting on Camdian to join us. After all, he harbored a deep hatred for Emordilorcan, and everyone knew the basic logic of ¡®removing a problem at its roots,¡¯ but I didn¡¯t expect the Water Elemental Goddess to join us as well. After all, from what I recalled, we did have some small conflicts with her, and she should have been rather busy.


    ¡°The battle in And? That¡¯s a matter between the seafolk and the humans. I¡¯ve already done all that was necessary for me to do. That Queen of Storms does remember you quite clearly, though; after all, you killed three of her beloved pets and even created that monster with their bodies. As long as she has some free time, she¡¯ll definitely directly take revenge upon you.¡±


    Aylos¡¯ words were quite believable. As for the Queen of Storm¡¯s reaction, it was just as I expected. As per my understanding of the Ancient Elemental Gods after much contact with them, I realized that they indeedcked interest in the Holy War; they had experienced it multiple times already.


    While the benefits could be great, the risks were greater. Without enough benefits to be gained, it would be impossible to have those sly old foxes fight with their all and risk their lives.


    For example, what attracted Emordilorcan to fight to his fullest for the beastmen was the role of ¡®Guardian God of the Beastmen¡¯ that had been left empty for such a long time. If the Earth Elemental Dimensional Door had sessfully connected the Earth Elemental ne to the mortal ne, Emordilorcan could have obtained the Divine Obligations of ¡®Guardian God of the Beastmen¡¯ as well as ¡®Guardian God of the Nortnds.¡¯ This would make him a True God and rapidly increase his power.


    However, it was evident that the Water Elemental Goddess would be unable to obtain any of these conditions in And.


    ¡°The Storm Queen¡¯s always been on guard against me, so she couldn¡¯t possibly allow more of the seafolk to be my believers, and nor do I have any need to fight for her with all my might. For me, revenge is the most important thing of all, and the conflict between you and the Storm Queen has nothing to do with me. Moreover. if you return my husband¡¯s possession to me, I can agree to a request of yours as long as it isn¡¯t overboard; I can also help you mediate this conflict.¡±


    Aylos disyed a rather sincere expression. To her, the Ocean Bottle itself wasn¡¯t important; it was a memory of herte husband.


    ¡°Possession? Oh, that bottle!¡±


    Hearing this, I immediately looked in Camdian¡¯s direction. I had only brought it out that one time in the undergroundbyrinth in order to seal the Earth Elemental God. It seemed that this guy had rather sharp eyes.


    Camdian simply shrugged and exhibited a rather casual expression. ¡°Sidunwar, who controlled the seven seas, had a simr status to the God of Holy Light for you humans. It¡¯s impossible for me to not recognize his God Equipment, even if the divine power contained within it has almostpletely disappeared.¡±


    I hesitated for a moment, not because I was unwilling to part with that God Equipment since it had only minimal divine power remaining and its practical usage was practically nil. The reason for my hesitation was because it was a part of my mega high-level quest.


    [Congrattions to my host for triggering a Legend-rank God Quest: Revival of the Ancient Sea God]


    [The Ancient Sea God Sidunwar was the strongest God of his time. At his pinnacle, there were multiple Main God-level existences under his faction. Back then, the Queen of the Storms was just a rookie who couldn¡¯t even fit into the ranks. Although he was crazy to challenge the Order Goddess Astrya and is now dead, thanks to fate and coincidence his God Equipment, which contains his secrets and inheritance, is now in your hands. It has even been activated by divine power from the same source. Perhaps, in this dusk before Armageddon when many Gods are now active, the power of the Ancient Sea God can be revived.]


    This God Quest was truly ridiculous and had three parts to it. The first step required me to gather sea-rted divine power to feed Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle so that it could evolve into a SemiGod Equipment. The final reward was an astonishing 100,000 Fate Points, with zero punishment involved if I fail.


    With my understanding of this System of mine that loved to set pitfalls for me, therger the reward, the more difficult the quest would be. With such munificent rewards, the final level of this quest would probably be unimaginably difficult.


    Recently, various bothersome things had been on my te all at once, so I had set this quest aside.


    ¡°On one hand is an incredibly difficult quest that I may be unable toplete even if I try my utmost, while on my other hand are tangible benefits that I can receive immediately. I already have too many bothersome things to deal with, and this particr bother isn¡¯t too important to take care of. Let¡¯s just forget it.¡±


    And, so, I personally handed the Ocean Bottle to Aylos. She received it from me and clutched it to her chest with an expression filled with nostalgia and sadness.


    ¡°...Thank you. If only Sidunwar was willing to listen to me, he wouldn¡¯t have ended like¡ªwait, what!?¡±


    Just as she said only half of what she intended, Aylos suddenly stopped in shock. All that nostalgia and sadness vanishedpletely, to be reced with astonishment on that pretty face of hers.


    ¡°How is this possible! There¡¯s actually still his Divine Spirit contained within here, and it¡¯s in the midst of reviving? How is this possible? Sidunwar can still revive? My husband still has a hope of reviving?¡±


    I¡¯d never seen anyone¡¯s expressions change so rapidly. From sadness to surprise, from surprise to delight, and in the very next second, her delight turned to despair!


    ¡°NO! Sidunwar! I can feel your Divine Spirit disappearing; what¡¯s happening!? Your Divine Spirit was clearly stable just earlier; why is it beginning to disappear!?¡±


    Everyone else also had expressions of shock. Although the existences known as Gods were just like cockroaches, incredibly difficult to truly kill off, for a God who had died so incredibly long ago to still have the possibility of revival waspletely outside of everyone¡¯s realm of understanding. And just when he had the hope of revival, it started vanishing, which was even more iprehensible.


    Hearing Aylos¡¯s cry, I was momentarily surprised before I immediately grabbed the Ocean¡¯s Bottle from her hands. The moment it returned to me, the Divine Spirit contained within the Ocean¡¯s Bottle indeed began to stabilize.


    It was obvious that Sidunwar¡¯s life was currently being maintained by my System. So, when the Ocean¡¯s Bottle no longer belonged to me, the System lost its power to maintain his life, causing the Divine Spirit to naturally start dissipating on its own. After all, this God Quest¡¯s main goal in the end was to revive this mega-veteran God from long ago.


    Aylos was about to reflexively grab the Ocean¡¯s Bottle back from me, but she discovered the return of Sidunwar¡¯s Divine Spirit and realized that it somehow had to do with me.


    Although she didn¡¯t understand how I did it, it was an indisputable fact that was right in front of her. For a Divine Spirit that was already beginning to disappear to stabilize again waspletely against themon sense of this world.


    ¡°How did you do it? This is impossible!¡±


    I hesitated for a moment before making another decision that was actually rather easy to make... There actually wasn¡¯t anything to hesitate about, as the Ocean Bottle would certainly remain by my side judging from the current situation. I was hesitating about whether or not tough loudly three times and say, ¡°Your husband¡¯s life is in my hands. If you want him to live, then obey me.¡± Or whether I should whisper into her ear with a perverted smile, saying, ¡°Madam, your husband can no longer be without me; be mine as well.¡±


    Fine then, these sudden shes of inspiration were unable to be spoken out loud since there were too many spectators. I was afraid of getting beaten up.


    ¡°This is my personal secret. I think I¡¯m perhaps the only one in the entire world who can maintain his Divine Spirit and revive him.¡±


    Alright, I was doing my best to appear calm and steady, but my lips were arching upward and betraying my smugness. This was basically a heaven-sent gift; as long as Aylos wanted to revive her husband, I basically had another ace card fighter in my ranks.


    Yep, just a fighter, nothing like forcing her into some pornographic videos or anything like that. I hate that the most; those thinking dirty thoughts should all go do some self-reflection.


    Aylos¡¯ expression was rapidly changing. As a veteran whose age could be calcted in centuries rather than years, she would, of course, know what it meant to be under someone else¡¯s thumb.


    The atmosphere instantly became chilly.


    At such a time, I needed assistance in sealing the deal. After I was done ying the part of the bad cop, I needed someone to y the part of the good cop, which was why I nced behind me.


    ¡°Cough, Mdy Aylos, please rest assured; we don¡¯t have any extravagant requests. We would like to revive His Lordship Sidunwar as well, but there¡¯s still some difficulty involved, such as needing sea-rted divine power to strengthen his Divine Spirit, and the current Sea Gods are all so strong to the point where we don¡¯t dare antagonize them...¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Reyne was an excellent descendant of the Mist as well as my apprentice. She had a sharp mind and was also shameless, able to infer the critical parts by herself just from the knowledge that I needed the Ocean Bottle to increase its sea-rted divine power and Divine Obligation. She managed to hit Aylos right where she was the weakest.


    Aylos¡¯ face kept flickering between cyan and white, and even her elemental body was now shining. Although her expression still seemed icy on the surface, her overly wild emotions almost caused her to reveal her true appearance.


    ¡°Say it; just tell me what conditions you have.¡±


    I exchanged nces with Reyne, and both of us smiled. This was no longer even a negotiation¡ªthis was amb offering herself up to be ughtered.


    ¡°Rx; we¡¯re easy to deal with. You only need to...¡±


    When I told her my condition, Aylos¡¯ expression was filled with surprise. She wasn¡¯t surprised that my condition was too strict; she was surprised because it was too easy.


    I smiled when I saw her expression noticeably rx.


    ¡°Let¡¯s take it slowly. She was so tense just now; how could we possibly take her for all she¡¯s worth? Since the critical bait is in my hands, I¡¯m not afraid of this fish getting off the hook. If I force her too much from the very start, it¡¯s easy to make her resent us, so let¡¯s use something simple first to get her used to it. Once she¡¯s fallen into the habit of obeying my orders, she won¡¯t be able to get free anymore. Hehehe!¡±


    ¡°Hehehe!¡±


    My secret smile ovepped with Reyne¡¯s. We merely exchanged smiles and all of the above wasmunicated nonverbally.


    Meanwhile, behind my back, everyone else was having another discussion.


    ¡°It¡¯s all over; Reyne has been corrupted by Rnd as well.¡± Margaret had a helpless expression on her face. One Rnd was annoying enough to deal with, and Elisa, who he taught, was also incredibly difficult to deal with. Adding in a Reyne, who was bing more ck-bellied every day, it was something that would indeed make her feel helpless.


    ¡°...That might not be the case. At the very least, I¡¯ve never seen a single descendant of the Mist that¡¯s a normal person. Just look at Glina and Karwenz. Rnd probably just activated Reyne¡¯s inner potential! That entire family has the bloodline of perverts.¡± Amelia gave an even more vicious conclusion.


    Adam nodded vigorously as he watched Reyne and Rnd sh evil smiles in unison, and he recalled how he had suffered due to Rnd in the past.


    I wasn¡¯t in a hurry to go fight Emordilorcan to the death. Apart from having to gather information about this ce, there were many things that I still needed to do in this Earth Elemental ne that was far away from the mortal ne and thus the sights of the Gods.


    This Holy War and battle had taught me a deep lesson I¡¯d never forget. Especially with Karwenz, Emordilorcan, and Felix¡¯s appearances¡ªall these God-level, powerful existences kept sounding the warning rm in my mind.


    High-levelbat ability had far too much influence on the overallbat situation. Every time one of them acted, it could just about turn the entire situation around, and in the past, Emperor Yongye¡¯s forbidden spells would always be able to overturn anybat situation, but the current me...


    ¡°I¡¯m so weak; it¡¯s so pathetic how weak I am!¡±


    Yep, I was so weak. It was almost two years now since I had obtained this double Diamond Bloodline, but I had just reached the Silver rank, and I only had a shallow understanding of my bloodline¡¯s power and job ss abilities. Perhaps this would be an incredible achievement for anyone else, but I considered it a failure.


    ¡°Most of my attention has been preupied with other matters. Walking a tightrope every time, I¡¯ll fall off eventually, and who knows what will happen in the future. I don¡¯t have that much free time, so I need to quickly improve my power rank.¡±


    Of course, to me, my rank was never a real issue, as truebat ability only had a partial connection to rank. But increasing my rank would bring about foundational changes, and my opponents would only be stronger and stronger in the future.


    ¡°Normal methods can¡¯t be counted on. In that case, let¡¯s use some trickery. Life and death and endless reincarnation?! Hehe! That might not always be the case!¡±

 Chapter 206

    Chapter 206: Divine Sin


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Endless reincarnation forms a cycle of life and death.¡±


    If souls were the foundation of this world, then reincarnation was its most basic precept. The living were the living while the dead would enter the cycle of reincarnation to reinvigorate this world.


    That was why it was a huge taboo to create a life that wouldn¡¯t enter the cycle of reincarnation; don¡¯t even mention personally breaking the cycle of reincarnation or making the deade alive again. That was why I had never heard of anything rted to resurrection magic in all the years I have been around¡ªnot even the basic idea of how it could be done.


    No matter how ambitious and arrogant Emperor Yongye was back in the day, even he knew that there were some areas he must tread with caution. In the end, he only broke the taboo regarding Lisa, which still caused Ayer toe looking for him.


    Afterwards, through some idle chatter, I had learned that Ayer¡¯s main Divine Obligation was to protect the boundary between life and death and to maintain the natural cycle of reincarnation. Pulling a newly-dead soul that just entered the cycle doubtlessly triggered his limits, and when you add on the fact that the entire River Styx was part of his Divine Domain, I was basicallymitting armed robbery right in front of a police station¡ªhe absolutely couldn¡¯t ignore me.


    Don¡¯t even mention the River Styx; even in the mortal ne, anyone who dared break certain taboos would end up mysteriously dying. However, this was a different ce, and the True Gods weren¡¯t omniscient. There were always ces that even they couldn¡¯t peer into.


    ¡°Souls have the cycle of reincarnation, and the physical elements making up the world also need to be cycled. This world isposed of the four basic elements of earth, wind, water, and fire. The Elemental nes are the source of each basic element, and they are also the resource warehouses for replenishing the basic elements in this world. But, the naturalws of the Elemental nes are too simplistic. Due to the overload of only one particr element and theck of naturalws, these nes could even reject the Divine Domains of True Gods, turning into a forbidden zone for True Gods where even they couldn¡¯t peek into. Hehe, back in the day, a few youngsters even almost managed to sessfully fool me.¡±


    I recalled that those were Ayer¡¯s words. He basically said everything but ¡°if you want to do something forbidden, then go to the Elemental nes.¡± This was basically no different from a policeman teaching a criminal how to beat the system, so how could I possibly miss his meaning?


    Of course, if Ayer wanted to stop me, he could still stop me since he was never an ordinary True God to begin with. In fact, he had found out about this vulnerability in the system after someone else discovered it first and then perished by Ayer¡¯s hands.


    But of course, in such a situation, Ayer could choose whether to interfere or not. And if I was the one breaking the taboos, he could just pretend to not see anything.


    What was I about to do? One would know simply by seeing the shivering cat before me, which seemed to be on the brink of death.


    The ck cat was curled up into a ball and her watery eyes were filled with tears¡ªit was as if she was a normal housecat about to be forced to take a shower, using the look in her eyes to request her master to spare her.


    ¡°Um, is it really necessary?¡±


    ¡°What a waste of time! What do you think? I¡¯ve never seen you afraid before in all these years, and isn¡¯t this your dream? You¡¯re getting scared at such a junction?¡±


    That silly cat took a deep breath as her pupils suddenly dted before expanding again, and her cat ears finally stopped shivering.


    ¡°Come, I¡¯m not afraid!¡±


    I was still hesitating, but not because of whether I should begin this experiment or not. It was no matter if Harloys agreed or not as I had long since nned this experiment anyways; instead, I was hesitating about whether or not to tell her, ¡°Your ears have indeed stopped trembling, but your tail keeps thrashing about, betraying your thoughts!¡±


    ¡°Cough, your tail.¡±


    ¡°Ah!¡±


    Harloys eximed at this and instantly clutched her tail with her ws, but even holding her tail tightly didn¡¯t stop it from twitching as if she had a cramp. After a short period of silence and awkwardness, Harloys grit her teeth and transformed into a blonde loli.


    ¡°...Your cat ears are still there.¡±


    ¡°Ah!¡± This was the first time I had ever seen Harloys acting so panicked.


    ¡°...Humans don¡¯t have long, ck cat tails.¡±


    Harloys continued panicking.


    ¡°...Nor do humans grow cat whiskers.¡±


    ¡°Can you just finish saying everything at once! Is it that fun to tease me?¡±


    ¡°Teasing a cat should be done over a series of times¡ªoh right, I just recorded the earlier scene with a memory crystal. You were quite cute, and I¡¯ll appreciate it slowly in the future when I have free time... Hey, hey, what¡¯s with your ws? Are you intending to kill your master?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m cleaning out my sect of traitorous disciples! Take this! Vicious tigering down the mountain!¡±


    ¡°Vicious tiger? Haha! More like a cute cat.¡±


    Alright, after this was the typical yfighting. At the very least, the yfighting helped her finally rx. It was only natural that she would be scared to such an extent. If anything went wrong with this experiment, she would definitely end up having her soul destroyed, forever losing the chance to be reincarnated.


    From a certain standpoint, the phrase that the older one got, the more one was afraid of death was quite correct. Both Harloys and I still had too many unresolved regrets, so neither of us wanted to die right here and now.


    ¡°Perhaps your current physical body¡¯s imitation sensory mechanisms aren¡¯t bad, but it¡¯s different from the real five senses. And while the cells of Greed can indeed continuously copy and imitate the metabolism of a normal life, it¡¯s just that¡ªsimple copying. It can only imitate and not give you the true qualities of the living, and nor can it truly subtly recreate a normal life¡¯s maturity and growth. This means that it¡¯s difficult for you to truly be stronger from the foundation. There¡¯s nothing that can truly rece living, continuously growing cells that have endless energy and potential. You¡¯ve probably already forgotten the feeling of bing stronger through cultivation. The feeling of breathing to awaken your body and have magic course through your veins can never rece that feeling of cultivation. If you want to continue getting stronger¡ªno, if we want to continue getting stronger, this is unavoidable. Besides, would I ever do you wrong?¡±


    Okay, I instantly knew that I said something bad. The previous words had moved her significantly, and she had calmed down already, but the final sentence was obviously unnecessary.


    ¡°...You dare say such a thing? How many times have you wronged me?¡±


    ¡°At the very least, we¡¯re in the same boat now. You¡¯re currently my magical pet, and you growing stronger means me growing stronger. If you die, my soul will be greatly weakened and will lose a huge piece. Do you think I would wrong myself?¡±


    Okay, I instantly knew that I said something bad again. Her cat tail and cat ears instantly reappeared, and even her blonde hair that reached her waist was all standing up on end. It was as if the cat Banshee Queen was so angered that all her hair stood up just like a real cat.


    ¡°...I¡¯m pretty sure you¡¯ve wronged yourself numerous times as well! Hey, does anyone ever try coaxing others like how you do? It¡¯s even harder to feel assured now.¡±


    I only shrugged and didn¡¯t exin myself.


    Neither of us was a novice greenhorn. Sometimes we just needed toin a little, but we still knew what needed to be done. Harloys soon calmed down again, at the same time as the arrival of the other participant for this experiment. This well-prepared yet unreasonable experiment was now ready to begin.


    ¡°Shadow!¡±


    I felt many things as I looked at this twisted Shadow.


    From the very start, the Frigid Nightmare ¡°Shadow¡± was no ordinary Frigid Nightmare. After hatching through an abnormal contract, it was cut off from its host¡¯s soul connection and was left by itself for about three hundred years, like a baby that was separated from its mother¡¯s nourishment before finally bing a ¡°dead egg.¡±


    It was no wonder that the Frigid Nightmares were never able to hatch it since the dead egg was already dead. How could it possibly be hatched using ordinary methods? However, I was an undead, and I even used to be the top-level existence of undead magic¡ªa lich...


    I¡¯ll skip the process as the awakening procedure isn¡¯t suitable for seeing the light of day. In the end, I received an unexpected product¡ªa half-living, half-dead ethereal Frigid Nightmare.


    He was living. As an elemental lifeform, his physical body contained his will and soul, and he was just born, so of course he was living.


    He was also dead. He had died long ago before hatching, and the only way he could move about in this world was through the power of necromancy magic controlling his iplete body.


    ¡°Frigid Nightmares are a mix between elemental life and soul spirits to begin with, and when you add undead magic and a piece of my soul into the mix, the final product would be anyone¡¯s guess. If you had to categorize it, you could only describe it as a dead living creature.¡±


    The awakened Shadow was abnormally dangerous. His true power waspletely uncalctable using ranks; he both existed in this world and didn¡¯t exist in this world. Apart from area-of-effect attacks that specifically targeted souls, no other attack would even affect him. He could consume souls, but it was unknown what he would transform into if he obtained them.


    ¡°...His very existence is something unexinable by the ts of magic. ¡®Shadow¡¯ is actually an existence that broke the cycle of reincarnation, and I somewhat understand why it¡¯s taboo now. This kind of existence if far too dangerous. He instinctually desires to fill the hole in his soul and devour all life. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I hatched him and he listens to me due to his leftover instinct as a Frigid Nightmare, perhaps I would be the first one to be devoured by him.¡±


    At first, I had intended to use divine power to help nourish him so he couldpletely evolve, but in the end, it only made the situation worse. He indeed received nourishment from Wumianzhe¡¯s divine power, but his evolution had instead developed in the worst possible way.


    ¡°An existence that shouldn¡¯t exist and has unexpected divine power¡ªa Divine Sin! Damn it! I should have expected that Shadow was actually a Divine Sin that hadn¡¯t finished evolving!¡±


    This was the worst possible change of all. Divine Sins were a type of existence feared even by the Gods, and they naturally hated this world. I created his soul back when I was in the midst of despair, hatred, and anger, while divine power and the Frigid Nightmare egg gave him a physical body. As long as he was properly born, he would definitely cause a massive catastrophe for the entire world.


    What was fortunate was that he still hadn¡¯t developed any intelligence. He merely instinctively desired the destruction of all things, and I could still temporarily suppress him, but if I ever let my guard slip... something even more devastating than a war involving the Gods would likely ur.


    But, topletely seal him away seemed like a waste, which was how I came up with the idea for this experiment.


    ¡°If Shadow is a dead living creature, then Harloys the Banshee Queen who transformed into Greed is basically a living dead creature. If the two of them canbine and mutuallypensate for each other¡¯scking areas, perhaps they¡¯d be able to twist the cycle of reincarnation and have the dead be the living without undergoing reincarnation!¡±


    In theory, this was workable. No matter how twisted he became, Shadow was still a product of my soul, and Harloys was my magical pet that had a contract with my soul. Shadow was a living creature without a sense of will or a proper physical body, while Harloys was a dead person who still had life and a physical body. With me acting as the catalyst for the two of them in helping adjust their soul wavelengths to be identical, I would help thembine using the same logic as how God¡¯s Descent worked.


    And so, that was what happened before me.


    ¡°God¡¯s Descent! Shadow, descend upon Harloys!¡±


    A light shot into the blonde-haired girl¡¯s body. Soon, the twisted lightpletely vanished, and then Harloys¡¯ entire body transformed into a twisted ethereal shadow that kept shing and changing form.


    Her entire body hen transformed into a huge pir of light that shot into the clouds. The tremendous divine energy in this area made it impossible to stay.


    ¡°If everything is sessful, Harloys will receive a life and physical body, transforming into a divine life. She might even receive some of the Divine Sin¡¯s power if she¡¯s lucky. And if shebines with me afterward as my magical pet... I seem to have broken every taboo all at once; hopefully, Ayer won¡¯t mind too much.¡±


    Harloys and Shadow¡¯s synchronization would take quite a while, so I started focusing on the other work ahead of me. In this Earth Elemental ne, enemies truly were everywhere, so any loosening of vignce could result in disaster.


    ¡°Where¡¯s Beifeng? Why hasn¡¯t he returned yet?¡±


    As a hunter, scouting was basically his ss¡¯s natural talent. Ever since we set up camp, I had him scout all around us, and he happily left for the task.


    ¡°He¡¯s back and is just crouching over there. He seems to be feeling downcast.¡± Reyne pointed at the half-dragon who was currently curled up into a ball and clutching his legs. That bastard had even curled his tail into the ball.


    At seeing this, I was surprised for a moment before Iughed out loud.


    ¡°Eh? Do you know what¡¯s going on? This is the first time I¡¯ve ever seen Beifeng like this.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, when we wereing here, I was afraid that bastard would refuse toe, so I told him that we were going to the Earth Elemental ne where the creatures would be wondrously strange and the likes of which he¡¯s never seen before. He happily agreed upon hearing that and left those centaurs behind.¡±


    Reyne was surprised for a moment to hear this from me beforeing to a sudden realization.


    ¡°So you fooled him intoing here? No wonder he¡¯s so depressed.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I didn¡¯t lie to him one bit. This is the Earth Elemental ne, after all. Those Earth Elemental creatures are indeed strange and wondrous; it¡¯s his fault for not asking clearly. He was getting too close to those centaurs and was getting involved in some scandals; it is a good opportunity for him to get away and calm down for a few days.¡±


    ¡°Is this your so-called ¡®truthful lying?¡¯ It¡¯s as amazing as I expected.¡±


    ¡°Haha, but of course.¡±


    Iughed, smug in satisfaction, as Reyne seemed to learn much from me. She even took out a small notebook and noted this down while Adam behind us sneered at the sight.


    ¡°Yesterday, he was stillining about how his own apprentice wronged him and how he shot himself in the foot. From how I see it, this will just be the same. Margaret, how about we have a little bet?¡±


    ¡°I refuse to bet. Rnd is one hundred percent going to shoot himself in the foot again. He¡¯s a professional at doing so. If there¡¯s no doubt about it, how could we possibly bet?¡±


    I decided to ignore the loud ¡°discussion¡± behind my back, simply walking over to Beifeng. I decided to give him some encouragement since we still needed him to work for us.


    But right when I reached his side, I heard him muttering to himself.


    ¡°...Even though their appearances are rather attractive, there are no holes! What should I do without any holes...¡±


    *Ptui!* Right then and there I spat out all my saliva. This bastard even found elemental creatures attractive! He waspletely unworthy of my pity.


    ¡°Cough¡ªcough.¡± I softly coughed twice and had already mentally prepared my next words, which would be ¡°true love is limitless, so this is no good. Beifeng, what happened to your true love?¡± in order to tease him.


    But, he suddenly stood up, lifted his arms, and pointed his middle fingers at the dark-gray sky.


    ¡°Damned heavens! You think this can stop me? Who cares if there are no holes?! There¡¯s plenty of people that create holes when there are none to begin with! True love is limitless; true love is undefeatable! Ahhh!¡±


    And then that half-dragon¡¯s depression instantly cleared up. He was filled with the will to battle as he rushed out while I remained there in a state of shock.


    *Boom!*


    But before he took many steps, a bolt of thunder crashed down on him, causing him to copse, burnt to a ck crisp.


    I looked towards Margaret and Adam, thinking that they couldn¡¯t stand this anymore and cast a spell on Beifeng.


    However, everyone shook their heads, and even Camdian made an exmation of astonishment. ¡°There was no gathering of the thunder element at all; it was a pure natural lightning strike. A lightning strike actually appeared in the Earth Elemental ne? Is this the legendary heavenly tribtion? This is my first time witnessing it!¡±


    The natural power of thunder was of course far stronger than anything a human mage could muster up, but the burnt half-dragon didn¡¯t surrender as he struggled to crawl up again and continued pointing his middle finger at the sky.


    ¡°Damned heavens! You shall never stop me from my true love!¡±


    *Boom!*


    As Beifeng roared out in anger, he actually managed to agilely tumble on the ground and dodge a new lightning strike before running off into the distance.


    *Boom!*


    ¡°Ah!¡±


    *Boom!*


    ¡°Ah!¡±


    That burnt-ck warrior of true love was now emitting the tasty aroma of cooked meat as he stubbornly crawled off into the distance...


    ¡°...True love is unstoppable!¡±


    *Boom!*


    ¡°Ah!¡±


    It seemed this was going to be a long ongoing battle about true love, or perhaps we wouldn¡¯t need to go hunting for lunch today...

 Chapter 207

    Chapter 207: The Deadline of Two Months


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The weather in the Earth Elemental ne was quite unpleasant. At least one-third of each day would be spent amid sandstorms where nothing could be seen. The rather terrifying sounds of the sandstorms could be heard even in our underground caves.


    Of course, we had the ability to go out even in such weather, but many things would be impossible to aplish outside; it was more effective to remain at camp and save our energy. There were many things to be done at camp as well.


    Some of us were adapting to the environment, some were polishing their swords, some simply slept, and someone had long since lost their patience.


    ¡°Ahhh! This is so frustrating; when will this annoying sandstorm finally stop? The heavy smell of earth in this ne makes me want to vomit; let¡¯s hurry up and kill off Emordilorcan and go home already. Camdian, are you still not finished with your preparations? Are you still as weak and cowardly as always?¡±


    ¡°I call it caution, my respectable Lady Aylos. Before we get used to the nature of this Earth Elemental ne, ourbat ability will be halved¡ªespecially for you whose powers are countered by earth. You¡¯ll probably be at even less than half. Meanwhile, Emordilorcan will have an endless amount of power to replenish himself, so we must first get ustomed to the nature of this ne.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, how boring. I¡¯m going to sleep; call me when the time is set.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Lady Aylos. I wish you sweet dreams!¡±


    We were all rather surprised at how the two Elemental Gods talked to each other. Their personalities werepletely opposite from what we had expected.


    Aylos¡¯ icy and exquisite appearance had, in a way, fooled us. After being together for a short while, her icy-beauty impression had vanished; underneath her beauty that seemed like water was an impatient personality as wild as fire.


    Not only was the Water Elemental Goddess like this, but based on my experience so far, all of the other Elemental Gods were simr in being theplete opposites of their elements¡¯ natures.


    ¡°ording tomon logic, fire mages will be easily angered and impatient, thunder and wind mages will be casual and free-spirited, water and ice mages will be easygoing and calm, while earth mages will be docile and honest. This should be the influence of the elements¡¯ own natures.¡±


    Yet by just looking at the Elemental Gods before us, it could be seen that that could be no further from the truth.


    ¡°This is totally different from what everyone expected. The Wind Elemental God who should have been extremely free-spirited is actually the super-cautious type, the Water Elemental Goddess that should have been gentle and easygoing is actually a hot-tempereddy, and Emordilorcan who should have been docile and honest as the Earth Elemental God is actually a vicious, sly fox. Then what will the personality of the Fire Elemental Goddess who should have been fiery and domineering be? I bet she¡¯s a little girl who loves peace and flowers.¡±


    Fine then. A future coincidental meeting will help me discover that my worldview-shattering guess had actually been correct. Meanwhile, since we had time for idle chatter, when we asked what we were all thinking, Camdian helped exin things to us.


    ¡°The natures of our elements? Yes, it¡¯s true to begin with, and I wasn¡¯t such a cautious individual in the past. But after being cheated or on the worse end of things for enough times, I became the cautious type. As for Lady Aylos, all water elementals have mega-slow personalities, somunicating with them could probably make anyone impatient. Staying in such an environment would probably change anyone into a slow personality themselves or change them into a mega-impatient type like her. Emordilorcan¡¯s probably the same case. If it wasn¡¯t for how vicious and sly he could be, how could he possibly defeat the other veteran earth elementals and be the Earth Elemental God, living until today?¡±


    It seemed that stories weren¡¯t always true. Even with innate natures, they couldn¡¯tpare to personalities shaped byter influences in life. This gossip was quite interesting to hear, but right now, I didn¡¯t have the time to consider other things. My own troubles were quite bothersome as well.


    ¡°Silver Dignity; Golden Will?¡±


    As I listened to the sandstorm outside, I sunk into deep contemtion. This time, the ying a God quest had given me abundant rewards. Apart from that God Equipment Felix¡¯s Hatred and various materials, my wallet was now filled with approximately 70,000 Fate Points.


    These points were definitely sufficient to exchange for some necessary skills and improve my overall rank to Gold, but I was hesitating.


    Every rank had its foundational differences. Taking the next step without sufficient understanding would mean missing out on the path¡¯s necessary experience. Obtaining this experienceter down the road would be impossible; it might even be a bottleneck for future progression.


    The Gold rank was special among all the ranks; just casually entering Gold would definitely not be a wise idea.


    My system had nned my path for me before the Gold rank, with levels 1 through 60. All the basicmon job sses were present here, and there wasn¡¯t much difference between them. Most job sses¡¯monly-usedbat techniques and skills would be mastered while still at the Silver rank, and the main goal was to perfect one¡¯s mastery before changing fundamentally, finally transformingmon and foundational abilities into personalized styles.


    ¡°I have to make a choice? It seems just sitting here in contemtion won¡¯t be enough.¡±


    Any system of knowledge¡¯s steps for improvement would consist of going from only one skill to bing a generalist, before going back from a generalist to a specialist. Cultivation was naturally the same.


    The Iron and Bronze ranks were for training the physical body and activating one¡¯s potential and talents, and at the Silver rank,bat techniques and so on would be familiarized. After that, the physical body would no longer be able to be improved, and it was time to develop one¡¯s mental potential andbine everything they have learned, creating an internal world of their own.


    The next step would be for the person¡¯s individual internal world to be able to affect the outside world. That was the so-called ¡°Golden Will,¡± and also the point where a choice would have to be made.


    When a normal job ss was cultivated to the limit, it would be time to choose a promoted ss. And these promoted job sses, such as ¡°Beast King Hunter,¡± ¡°Shadow Dancer¡± and so on were merely paths that strong people from the past had developed on their own.


    Following another¡¯s path would perhaps be a quick and easy progress, but there were no identical people in this world. Even twins with identical genes would have numerous differences between them, and someone else¡¯s path was always someone else¡¯s to begin with¡ªit couldn¡¯t possibly be one hundred percent appropriate for you. Walking down that path to a certain extent would always give rise to insurmountable obstacles.


    Of course, there were always exceptions, such as Reyne. From a certain standpoint, she was basically a female clone of Karwenz, and all she needed to do was walk down the same path as him. With the exact same Soul Imprint supporting her, she would certainly reach an incredibly high level.


    As an aside, although the surgery to switch out Glina¡¯s blood was an incredible sess, it wouldn¡¯t be possible to do the same with Reyne. She had be Karwenz¡¯s host once already and possessed a far stronger connection with the Chaos Abyss. Forcefully switching out her blood would be no different from switching her soul, not to mention that this would be interfering with one of Karwenz¡¯s critical personal benefits and he would almost certainly emerge and give me trouble, which was something I did not desire.


    And, so, the method I used for Reyne was to slowly inject my fresh blood and use magic medicine to suppress Karwenz¡¯s bloodline so that it wouldn¡¯t be too active. This was obviously no long-term solution, but I could only hope that Reyne could find a way to break free on her own to separate herself from Karwenz. Only by cutting off the connection would she be able to free herself from the beckoning of the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°Don¡¯t desire power from others; improve your own techniques and willpower through continuous battle to create your ownbat style. By the time I return, I hope to see a brand-new you.¡±


    Saying this, I kicked Reyne away. Perhaps the Earth Elemental ne wasn¡¯t suitable for living in, but it was definitely a great ce for cultivation¡ªin such a hostile environment, merely surviving would help one be stronger.


    Moreover, I haven¡¯t been giving Reyne any of my blood recently. I was hoping that she could use her own willpower to resist the Chaos Abyss. This wasn¡¯t any type of strange strategy where ¡°a lion would push its baby lion down a cliff to strengthen the baby¡¯s body¡± or anything like that; I¡¯ve always felt that some animals¡¯ ways of raising their babies were iprehensible.


    Did the ability to climb a cliff have anything to do with survival? Babies should be growing under their parents¡¯ care, learning techniques to hunt and growing stronger in body and mind. Kicking them off a cliff when they weren¡¯t even mature yet would cause either the baby lion to fall to death or starve to death.


    Cough, I seem to have gotten sidetracked again; where was I? Oh right, why I wasn¡¯t injecting my blood... actually, the reason was quite simple. I didn¡¯t want to die, and I wanted even less to die due to the strange reason of anemia.


    Back when I helped Glina exchange her blood, I used up almost one-third of the blood in my body. This was already near the fatal limit for a normal person. I hadn¡¯t even regained my lost blood yet when I already helped Reyne inject blood twice, so I¡¯ve be incredibly anemic recently.


    Not even mentioning the headaches and dizziness, but whenever I woke up every morning, my blurry vision caused by anemia was basically impossible to deal with. I¡¯d already mistaken Reyne and Elisa for each other twice already and went into a few wrong ces, causing some ratherughable incidents.


    ¡°Your vision is blurry? That¡¯s why you were naked in the morning and running around out in public for all to see? To use such an excuse, you must think we¡¯re all little children.¡±


    ¡°Let me exin! At the time, I was just dazedly following a procession to go to the showering halls, and when I heard them saying they were going to take off their clothes, I thought that we reached the showers already, but who knew¡ªwho knew...¡±


    ¡°Who knew that you actually followed Eaglestorm and Xueti¡¯s procession and you guys all started taking off your clothes right in public?¡±


    ¡°...When I discovered what was going on, it was already toote! I¡¯m not someone who can¡¯t be saved!¡±


    ¡°Yep, you saved yourself; you stole a bystander¡¯s clothes and then walked back home all proudly. However...¡± When she got to this point, Elisa red at me coldly and adjusted her eyesses. The icy condescension in her eyes was humiliating.


    ¡°...You ended up robbing ady¡¯s clothes instead. Not only did you wear somecy female clothing home, but you even had ady stay by herself in an alley, naked, for half an hour. Do you know how much effort we spent on convincing the witnesses that they saw Princess Reyne who was intending to change her style rather than an insane His Highness Rnd? For the newly-created Observers Squad to go all out for such a first mission is nothing more than utter humiliation.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t reply to Elisa at the time. Back then, I was so dizzy and couldn¡¯t see anything so I could only dart into an alley. It was so difficult to catch anyone at all, so how could I care about anything else?


    ¡°But that doesn¡¯t seem right. Although I couldn¡¯t see the person¡¯s face at the time, I remembered that person had a muscr body. Wasn¡¯t she actually a man¡ªa muscr man? That person also happily gave me their clothing.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s one of Omar¡¯s good friends, one of the core members of the ¡®Muscle-Loving Club.¡¯ To be honest, she kept viewing this incident with pride, and if it weren¡¯t for us stopping her she would probably go around bragging to everyone about her female charisma. If that happened, your reputation isn¡¯t important, but if you got us dragged into it...¡±


    Alright, seeing everyone approach me with evil intentions, all I could do was clutch my head, crouch, and then shout out loudly.


    ¡°Don¡¯t hit my face!¡±


    Recalling back to the beating I received from everyone that morning, my cheek started twinging. Elisa really didn¡¯t hold back at all on me even though I clearly told her to not hit my face.


    There was no helping it. Thanks to my prior experiences, injecting any more of my blood into Reyne would be impossible until I at least recoveredpletely. I could only count on her own willpower.


    After saying goodbye to Reyne, it was also time for me to get going. This wasn¡¯t only a ce for their cultivation, but it was also the ce I chose for my personal cultivation as well.


    ¡°Rather than staying inside and considering my futurebat style and development path, let¡¯s just use actualbat to test things out instead.¡±


    In order to reach the peak, I had never considered the already created high-ranked job sses. My path to Gold had to belong to me alone, and since the mortal ne¡¯s situation was now somewhat steadied, I finally had some time to consider my personal future.


    If it were someone else, using such a short period of time toplete the foundational change from Silver to Gold would be impossible, but I had countless amounts ofbat experience and knowledge to back me up. And this wasn¡¯t even mentioning my system¡¯s Fate Points, which would help increase the speed and effectiveness of my cultivation. These two months of actualbat training would be enough for me to finish walking down this path.


    ¡°Alright, everyone, see you all in two weeks.¡±


    And so, this temporary team split up for the time being as everyone prepared in their own way forbat as ording to our ns.


    Emordilorcan would definitely be difficult to deal with. The Earth Elemental God was now in his home ne, and he could use the Earth Elemental ne¡¯s power as he pleased to strengthen himself, making himself nigh undefeatable. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that Emordilorcan was obviously heavily injured and that he was in a state of hibernation to help himself recover, there was no way I would follow him all the way here.


    Even so, dealing with the heavily injured Emordilorcan was no easy matter. As visitors from another ne, we needed time to get used to the naturalws of this world. This was especially more so for the Wind and Water Elemental Gods Camdian and Aylos. Before they could finally get used to the Earth Elemental ne, they¡¯d likely be able to use less than half of their actual power.


    The others were the same as well. How well a mage performed on the battlefield depended on how much preparation was done beforehand. Amelia and Margaret both wanted time to prepare forbat and the scene ofbat beforehand, cing traps and creating cannon fodder. Their two months would be very busy.


    And it was the same for me, Adam, and Reyne. While we would make the most of these two months to increase our overall capabilities, we also needed to get used to fighting in the Earth Elemental ne. The two months would likely pass by in a sh for us.


    There was one more person? Cough, let¡¯s just forget about him, okay? What? I absolutely have to talk about him? Fine then, don¡¯t regret it... That fellow¡¯s gentlemanly, undying body was perhaps already cultivated to the highest level. Even after receiving such a heavenly tribtion, he recovered quickly and left our camp without returning.


    Margaret had indeed stayed in contact with him and was aware of what Beifeng was up to. Yet judging by the look of disgust on Margaret¡¯s face¡ªwhen she was always the expressionless type to begin with¡ªI decided not to ask what happened.


    ¡°Beifeng said he can convince a group of fighters toe over and help us. I believe he can most likely aplish it.¡±


    Okay, although this was a piece of good news, I couldn¡¯t be happy about it at all since I really didn¡¯t want to know how he was going to do it! Nor did I want to guess. At this moment, for the first time, I started regretting having Beifenge here and assist us.


    Soon enough, with help from Margaret¡¯s random teleportation, I put on a tan woolen cape and thick dwarven anti-wind goggles as I began my own journey of cultivation.


    ¡°Oh my, what a passionate host you are.¡±


    Before I even steadied myself after the random teleportation spell, the entire ground began shaking. A piece ofnd suddenly sunk into the ground, and a scorpion-shaped monster crawled out¡ªit was only slightly smaller than a dragon in size.


    The scorpion¡¯s ting seemed to be as hard as iron, and its barbed tail seemed to be gathering energy, while the hundreds of eyeballs on its tiny head were all staring at me with an obvious murderous intent.


    ¡°You discovered me from my footsteps? Oh man¡ªoh man, it seems the next two months will be quite difficult.¡±


    Even though I said so, Iughed out loud in joy.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t enjoyed the simple feeling of battle in so long. Little scorpion, let me have some fun with you.¡±

 Chapter 208

    Chapter 208: An Old Acquaintance and the City of Sand


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The secrets of the Elemental nes? I don¡¯t know either; you should go find the mages for information instead. Why are you acting so surprised? Even I, Ayer, am not someone who knows everything. If it seems like I have a lot of knowledge, that¡¯s only because I¡¯ve had such a long life. The history of the Four Elemental nes is even greater than that of the mortal ne. The Goddess of Creation Eich had used them as the foundation for creating all the other nes, and I wasn¡¯t even born yet at the time. How could I possibly know?¡±


    When I asked Ayer about the ancient secrets of the Elemental nes, I received such an unexpected answer. And when he mentioned the Goddess of Creation, the ck-clothed icy Death God was actually filled with a nostalgic expression.


    ¡°The Four Elemental Gods may have a pretty name but they¡¯re really nothing more than warehouse managers working for the Goddess of Creation. Eich entrusted them with the power to control part of the very Elemental nes themselves, but they definitely do not possess the power to truly rule over the Elemental nes. Hehe! Nobody is able to rule over any Elemental ne, as that would mean that that individual has the power to rule over one-fourth of the entire world and its living creatures.¡±


    And when I checked this information from other sources as well¡ªMargaret gave it to me in a friendly gesture¡ªit also proved the veracity of Ayer¡¯s words. The most obvious evidence, however, was that when the Four Elemental Gods were sealed, the Elemental nes still existed and went on as usual. If an Elemental God were to die, a new Elemental God would naturally be born again in just a few hundred years.


    Theoretically speaking, the Goddess of Chaos Cynthia inherited part of this power from her mother Eich. Cynthia would be able to control the Four Elemental Gods and indirectly control these nes; Cynthia¡¯s Will was still affecting the Elemental nes, which was why the Earth Elemental ne disyed many traits of Chaos.


    The Earth Elemental ne was far different from what most people thought of it. This wasn¡¯t a world devoid of nothing other than sandstorms and earth elementals, but it was rather the opposite. As the most ancient elemental ne of the four, its natural resources and specialties were incredibly abundant.


    Various ancient species continued to reproduce sessfully here, and precious gems and rare minerals weremonce. Buried under the ancient hills were valuables that would be impossible to find in any other ne.


    Of course, the mostmon type of resident here were elemental creatures rted to the earth, but they were different from the humanoid elementals in the mortal ne. The earth elementals here weren¡¯t ustomed to humanoid shapes; their shapes were, instead, wondrously strange and abnormal. Some took the form of dragons while some were typical stone giants. There were also giant crabs or insect shaped elementals; typically, they would choose to imitate strong existences that they had seen before.


    Although they boasted of differences in appearances and species, they all possessed one thing inmon; all these creatures were part earth elemental, and had the ability to devour each other and evolve into stronger existences.


    ording to stories, in the very beginning, Emordilorcan had been a weak stone giant. Because this ce had a high amount of elemental power, the body parts of these elemental creatures made for excellent magical materials.


    Any ce with benefits to be gained would attract intelligent species. If there were enormous benefits to be reaped, it was only natural that there would be those looking to strike it big while not fearing death. After the ¡°warehouse manager¡± Elemental Gods were sealed, these Elemental nes were just like warehouses with their doors left unlocked and wide open; there were numerous methods to invade them. Various factions had already set up their own permanent outposts in each of the Elemental nes.


    In an area known as the Karo Hills was the outpost of the Mage Country, Ainrodant. Hundreds of mage towers and magic contraptions created a defensive energy field, and the semicircr dark purple magic barrier blocked all the sandstorms from being able to affect ¡°Karo City.¡± Karo was also thergest non-native settlement in the Earth Elemental ne for the nearest several thousand kilometers.


    Various species could be seen walking in Karo¡¯s streets. Although most were still humans, elves, beastmen, and othermon species from the mortal ne, there were also some demons from the lower nes. You could even see a few machine lifeforms or ethereal lifeforms from other worlds. Of course, there were also gnome merchants that could be found literally everywhere. However, there was one species among them that was one of the rarest to be found in the mortal nes¡ªhalf-elementals.


    They always hadplex reasons foring into existence. Some were the descendants of high-level elementals and ordinary species while some had been ordinary species elementalized by the Elemental ne, but their most obvious traits were their physical appearances. Their skin colors would always be rather eye-catching, with speckled, tan skin, or fiery-red skin, not to mention that they typically had various crystals embedded in their faces. Their appearances could be rather frightening.


    Yet due to their bodies¡¯ partial elementalization, they were also natural-born elemental mages. They had excellent innate element-sensing abilities, and with just a little training they would always be able to be superb elemental mages. They didn¡¯t even have to worry about their element¡¯s magic turning on themselves; they always grew quickly in power.


    For the Mage Country, apart from all the special resources to be gained here, the Earth Elemental ne¡¯s half-elementals were excellent seeds that could join their ranks. As for the earth magic archmages, the Earth Elemental ne¡¯s high concentration of earth element density was the best cultivation location for them of all. With all sorts of rare elemental creatures and resources here, how could they possibly give up oning to such a location?


    But, recently, Karo had met with some trouble.


    The Earth Elemental God had returned. These uninvited guests finally had to face the homeowner.


    Obviously, Emordilorcan, who was still the master of this ne in name, wouldn¡¯t allow his home to have uninvited guests. More and more earth elemental creatures suddenly changed their attitude towards Karo, and attacks by elemental beasts were bing more frequent.


    Due to the Elemental Tide¡¯s increase and the return of Emordilorcan, the sandstorms became stronger in magnitude as well. Karo¡¯s magic barrier was keeping out the sandstorms by now using 50% more energy than the same timest year.


    ¡°This won¡¯t be good if it continues.¡±


    It was bing harder and harder to travel to and from the Earth Elemental ne, and the magic power required to move between nes and the magic upkeep of Karo kept increasing as well. As a half-elemental archmage who was born and raised in the Earth Elemental ne, Atadia had much on his te to worry about.


    Dozens of years ago, Atadia had joined the Mage Country and became an acolyte, and now, he was a Gold-rank archmage. Atadia couldn¡¯t be more familiar with the city of Karo, but recently, he kept feeling more and more ufortable, as if this beautiful city filled with the culture of magic was a restraint upon him. Somewhere in the wilderness, there was a will that was summoning him.


    And it wasn¡¯t limited to only him. In the past three months, there were over a dozen acolytes that disappeared into the sandstorms, leaving only their mage robes and staves behind.


    ¡°Emordilorcan? How troublesome.¡±


    As a Gold-ranked archmage, Atadia was no novice unaware of what was going on. The only existence that could influence the entire Earth Elemental ne to such a degree could only be that legendary Earth Elemental God.


    Since Atadia was no weakling, he could still resist this summoning in his soul, but those novice acolytes found it impossible to resist. Every half-elemental was precious, and losing them like this was painful for him. Yet this wasn¡¯t even the biggest problem. Two days ago, an acolyte had gone wild and actually rushed into the magic mechanism area, attempting to break the magic barrier device, which was rather shocking.


    ¡°There¡¯s still no response from our Mage Country? They should at least send us a few more archmages to help control the situation.¡±


    ¡°No. The Mage Country has also met with its own trouble. The Bardi Empire suddenly started a series of small conflicts with us, and most of our strongest mages have left for the frontlines. From what I gleaned through my personal channels, simr problems are urring in the Wind and Water Elemental nes. Add on the fact that transport and travel between the Elemental nes keep increasing in difficulty, and perhaps not only will we not receive more aid, but we¡¯ll probably even receive less assistance than usual.¡±


    ¡°If there¡¯s a problem with the current dimensional traveling, then can¡¯t we borrow the gnomes¡¯ dimensional traveling services? Their time-space tearing devices should still be usable, right?¡±


    ¡°Their 20% fixed rate of failure is just too much. It¡¯s still okay to transport resources, but it¡¯s too dangerous to use for anything living. Also, those gnomes recently changed their rules, and have actually been making us purchase ¡®insurance;¡¯ otherwise, they won¡¯t transport anything for us, and any losses incurred won¡¯t be paid by them.¡±


    ¡°Insurance? What¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Something that¡¯s been getting popr recently among the gnomes. It seems to have been spread by the Underground gnomes. That¡¯s a system where you pay a certain amount to the gnomes as a deposit, and if an ident urs where you incur losses, the gnomes will pay you for your losses.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that a good thing? Then you might as well buy it. We¡¯ve always sucked up any losses ourselves in the past.¡±


    ¡°The problem is that even if we purchased their insurance, they wouldn¡¯t give us any money back. The archmage Edwin in charge of dimensional transportation has been incredibly angered by them recently.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s that? Don¡¯t the gnomes always stress a merchant¡¯s honesty?¡±


    ¡°They imed that we put special maic items into the products we were transporting, which affected the dimensional teleportation. They are saying that we were at fault for the failed teleportation, and even requested that we pay them for their losses.¡±


    ¡°What the hell? If certain special items can¡¯t be teleported, shouldn¡¯t they tell us beforehand? Only telling us after the fact; then what about the next time? I doubt that archmage Edwin would let them use that excuse again.¡±


    ¡°The second time we had even worse luck. We met with a dimensional storm, and half our resources were lost.¡±


    ¡°This time, the gnomes should have paid up.¡±


    ¡°No, they didn¡¯t, because their insurance contact had an additional use stating, ¡®losses caused by uncontroble outside factors will not be paid by us.¡¯ A dimensional storm is a natural disaster and is counted as such an uncontroble outside factor.¡±


    ¡°Then why are we still purchasing that insurance or whatever!? Isn¡¯t it just a merchant¡¯s trap? Aren¡¯t we buying it just in case we incur losses during the teleportation?¡±


    ¡°...Yeah, we only found out about it after being on the suffering end. In order to receive payment for our losses during teleportation, we were supposed to buy a special ¡®teleportation insurance.¡¯ In the end, for the third attempt, archmage Edwin ended up signing every single additional insurance option.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me we were on the losing end again? Would the gnomes actually go against their own contract?¡±


    ¡°...This time the gnomes¡¯ time-space tearing device actually exploded, which was when we learned that in such a situation, we need to purchase an additional ¡®idental explosion insurance,¡¯ otherwise there are still no reparations for us.¡±


    ¡°Just buy it then; why don¡¯t you just buy all the insurance?¡±


    ¡°But the problem is that the ¡®explosion insurance¡¯ is more expensive than all the other insurances added together. But, as everyone knows about gnome products, not having explosion insurance is basically equal to no insurance. Archmage Edwin was so angry that he ended up getting a stroke.¡±


    Atadia¡¯s mouth was wide agape and he was rendered speechless, but this wasn¡¯t the end. The mage acolyte giving him the report had an expression of not knowing whether tough or cry as he continued.


    ¡°The gnome merchants in our city have also learned these techniques, and are selling all sorts of insurance. Recently, there have been many half-elementals going missing, right? Those gnomes even made an insurance for in case they go missing, and they¡¯re especially targeting young acolytes for this insurance. They¡¯re spreading stories about the disappearances all over, making people worried for their own safety.¡±


    ¡°...Did they pay out any money? There¡¯s no need to answer; I¡¯ve already guessed it. They definitely didn¡¯t pay!¡±


    ¡°Your wisdom could light up the skies. Indeed, those damned swindling merchants didn¡¯t pay a single copper coin! They actually said that the insured person himself needed to request the insurance payment! Since those people have all gone missing, how could they possibly request payment?¡±


    Suddenly, a needling high-pitched voice sounded from behind Atadia and the mage acolyte.


    ¡°Hello, I¡¯m from the Anli Gnome Insurance Company. Have you heard of us?¡±


    Atadia turned around to see a short gnome wearing extravagant clothing, all smiles with a business bag in his tiny hand.


    ¡°Do you know? There¡¯s been a gang of kidnappers going aroundtely, causing the disappearance of many half-elementals. But our Anli Gnome Insurance Company specializes in this field, and we have set up several... I don¡¯t know which type of insurance you need, but if you¡¯re not satisfied, we¡ª¡±


    ¡°Get the hell out!¡±


    Atadia, who was always well-known for being a friendly individual, was angered to the point of roaring, but the gnome salesman still didn¡¯t intend to give up.


    ¡°Hell insurance? We have that as well! Although I don¡¯t know why this strange insurance request has been so poprtely, our customers are the Gods! You go to hell, we¡¯ll pay up!¡±


    ...


    In Karo¡¯s archmage conference, the Epic-ranked archmage Kaid had an expression filled with worry as well. As the highest ranking archmage in Karo, he knew far more about what was going on than his subordinates.


    As a true top-level archmage, the Controllers of Truth¡¯s informationwork would always remember to give him a personal report, so of course he knew that the situation in Eich was changing at a rapid pace. Especially with regards to the conflict between his Mage Country and the Bardi Empire; it was no small conflict at all. If it wasn¡¯t dealt with properly, it would be an all-out new war.


    The Mage Country¡¯s support could no longer be counted on, as the worsening environment in the Earth Elemental ne indicated the return of the legendary threat known as Emordilorcan. And, they were also dealing with internal problems as well.


    ¡°Teacher, those damned gnomes are getting worse every day! They¡¯re spreading rumors everywhere and causing people to panic, and not only that, they¡¯ve recently begun increasing prices on basic goods and getting rich off of our country¡¯s disaster! We should exile them!¡±


    For Atadia, who was typically the calm type to be angered to such a degree, it seemed that the gnomes had indeed gone overboard this time.


    ¡°Then we¡¯ll just starve to death. Seventy percent of the business done here is by the gnomes. Perhaps you could teach us how to create bread with magic?¡± Another mage, Soranto, remained calm as usual, but his sarcasm made Atadia rather displeased.


    ¡°If you think the gnomes are difficult to deal with, that¡¯s only because you¡¯re too simple-minded.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, then our resident genius Soranto will surely be able to deal with those greedy misers. Fine then, how about you go have a discussion with the gnomes about the recent problem of the increase in food prices?¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m unable to do it either, but that doesn¡¯t mean that nobody¡¯s capable of the task. I rmend a certain person that¡¯s actually able to get the upper hand in negotiating with the gnomes. The gnomes have contracts that have more than fifty uses and seven or eight pages, yet that guy¡¯s contracts are actually thicker than books, with over eight hundred uses. Just his talking can cause the gnomes to go into a daze. Recently, he¡¯s been making money by having special negotiations with the gnomes. Now, wherever he appears, those misers will directly surrender and pay up.¡±


    Soranto¡¯s words astonished the other two present archmages. A human able to gain the upper hand in a business negotiation with the sly gnomes was iprehensible and unheard of.


    ¡°Is he a major merchant from somewhere?¡±


    ¡°No, he seems to be a wandering adventurer, and gnome negotiation is just his side job whenever he happens to be in Karo. Most of the time, he¡¯s out hunting, and while his power level isn¡¯t much to speak of, he¡¯s a rather lucky one.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s obviously nothing more than at the Silver rank, but the first time he came to Karo he actually had an Emperor Scorpion¡¯s poison stinger on him. That¡¯s a strong creature that even Gold-ranked warriors wouldn¡¯t dare face alone.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps he hid his true power level. For someone to be out there by himself, it wouldn¡¯t be strange.¡±


    ¡°At first, that¡¯s what we thought as well. But archmage Aru who specializes in divination magic met him personally, and there¡¯s no mistaking that he really is just at the Silver rank. But what¡¯s even more astonishing is what happenedter.¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡±


    ¡°The second time he returned to Karo, he had an Earth Elemental Lord¡¯s crystal core with him. That¡¯s something that no Gold-ranked warrior would be able to deal with. And every time after that, he keeps bringing back stronger and stronger monster materials, in a shorter and shorter time, and...¡±


    Soranto intentionally paused here, apparently trying to make everyone curious. Seeing how his master and all his senior brothers were watching him, he was satisfied and continued with his tale.


    ¡°Thest time he returned to Karo, he brought back a twice-evolved magic mountain giant¡¯s heart! Magic mountain giants already require Gold-ranked warriors to deal with, and if it¡¯s a twice-evolved one, maybe not even a Legend would suffice! How is it possible?! That¡¯s an evolved mountain giant that has limitless power in this environment. Even I would have to be careful dealing with one.¡±


    This time, it was Kaid¡¯s turn to be shocked. ¡°Does he have a team to support him?¡±


    ¡°How would that be possible? It¡¯s just him aloneing back to Karo each time to eat and sleep, and would he have his team stay outside and eat sand? Besides, detection magic indicates that every time he goes out, he directly heads for the highly dangerous areas, while his prey always has nothing more than some ice damage and cut wounds. He should be a magical swordsman of the ice element.¡±


    ¡°Ice damage? There¡¯s almost zero water element present in this ne, so he¡¯s still able to cause ice damage to the earth elemental creatures in this ce where ice magic has minimal power?¡±


    This was even more iprehensible. Archmage Kaid started getting interested in this rumored person. ¡°Arrange a meeting for me with this person; I¡¯m getting rather curious. Oh right, what¡¯s his name?¡±


    ¡°Rnd. Although his nickname seems to be ckhand, ¡®ckhand Rnd.¡¯¡±


    When he heard this, Kaid stood up with an expression filled with surprise and disbelief. A dozen secondster, he finally shook his head.


    ¡°If it¡¯s him, anything is indeed possible. Hurry up and arrange a meeting with him for me as soon as possible. Forget it, I¡¯ll personally go find him. You guys shoulde with me as well. If he¡¯s who I think he is, he might be your teacher¡¯s senior!¡±

 Chapter 209

    Chapter 209: Chicken-Meatball vored


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    With sandstorms and stone pirs everywhere, this was the home of the earth elementals. However, based on the fundamental countering between the elements, wherever there was an excess of the earth element, there would naturally be less of the water element. Not only were sources of water priceless, but this ce alsocked any traces of ice or water magic.


    Using water or ice element magic in this Earth Elemental ne with imbnced elements was no different from forcibly trying to cause artificial rain to fall in a desert. Not only would the difficulty be greatly magnified, but its might would also significantly decrease, and this power drop had nothing to do with personal strength. The stronger the mage, the more one would need to borrow power from nature, and the strongest forbidden curses were nothing more than the products of synchronizations between people and nature. This all meant that ice and water mages were weakened more than anyone else here.


    This was also why most of the mages in Karo City were earth mages. In such an environment, their cultivation would be far easier, and their actual power levels would be greatly increased.


    As for the strange concept of training in harsh environments and cingrge burdens on yourself while training, this was more suitable for muscr warriors. Magic was an academic technique which required precision and logic, where a kingdom could be lost for want of a nail. Getting used to an environment where the mage¡¯s element was rare would not only not be beneficial, it would actually cause the mage¡¯s elemental power to weaken due to a long period of cultivation in an areacking the mage¡¯s element.


    If everyone could simply transform into powerful Legends simply by living in areas of low magical power rather than moving to areas of high magical power¡ªwell, that would be more suitable for some tale¡¯s heroic main character. If it was possible in real life, then wouldn¡¯t everyone turn into superheroes and all acolytes turn into archmages with theing of the Elemental Tide?


    Yet, sometimes, the world was simply illogical. In this Earth Elemental ne where ice, snow, rain, and water were almost nonexistent, there was currently a patch of abnormally frozen corpses.


    It was a group of vicious and sly Burrowing Mantle Spiders. They typically lived underground for long periods of time and excelled in hunting prey with ambushes and traps. When walking by, innocent people and even magical beasts would be bitten on the legs and dragged underground, where the spider¡¯s sixteen sharp stone fangs would rip them apart.


    However, these dangerous existences were all lying dead on the ground, with only minuscule wounds to be seen on their bodies. What killed them was the fatal icy chill that had entered their wounds.


    And, right now, I was rather annoyed; not because of the enemy creatures before me, but rather...


    ¡°Urgh! How disgusting.¡±


    I had made a temporary barbeque rack and had just taken a hunk of mantle spider leg.


    After heating it up and skinning it, there was actually some snow-white meat underneath all the thickyers of earthen spider shell. However, cooking it produced only a disgusting aroma of lime powder.


    ¡°Ptui! Ptui! Ptui! I failed again.¡±


    Even though I said so, I still furrowed my eyebrows and continued chewing.


    [You have now tasted your 64th abnormal delicacy. You stillck 36 more to go for your ¡®Food God¡ªNothing is Off-Limits¡¯ achievement. You alsock 9,936 more to go for the ¡®He Who Stands at the Top of the Food Chain¡¯ achievement. However, since this creature has sixteen feet, it doesn¡¯t count for your ¡®We Eat Everything with Four Legs Except Tables and Chairs¡¯ achievement. And since this creature¡¯s taste doesn¡¯t quite reach even half of the legendary ¡®Taste the Sky¡¯ achievement, it will not count for that one, either. Please keep trying harder.]


    ¡°Sigh, this achievement seems so difficult to achieve; I have to find something with four legs that tastes even more disgusting... Ptui! Am I stupid? I don¡¯t want to get that damned achievement.¡±


    Yep, I never had any type of abnormal collection habits; I understood that my system¡¯s achievements had always made suffer since long ago. Either the achievements would indeed be useful and the process of obtaining it be ridiculous, or I would receive one without even realizing it but there would be painful side effects. At any rate, the system wouldn¡¯t be happy unless I was suffering.


    I¡¯ve already checked all these achievements and requirements for obtaining them. I was rather interested in the one called ¡®He Who Stands at the Top of the Food Chain.¡¯


    [Epic Achievement: ¡®He Who Stands at the Top of the Food Chain.¡¯ After consuming 10,000 living or nonliving foods that no normal person would eat, you shall receive the honorable title of ¡®Bear Grylls, Devourer of the Void.¡¯ Equipping this will cause you to seem more threatening to all living creatures, and it will give you the ability ¡®Bear Grylls re.¡¯ Any targets under this effect will feel as if they have met their mortal enemy or natural counter and will be unable to move for a short while. A friendly reminder from your System: this skill has a special effect on Beifeng. Another friendly reminder from your system: that¡¯s right, I have long since stopped treating Beifeng as human.]


    Well, I understood what the System meant when it said Beifeng was unhuman. As for this additional skill, it was a practical one. After all,bat between high-level warriors could be decided in just an instant. Being able to paralyze the enemy with just a stare and immobilize him was just like the petrifying gaze of a medusa; it would be an iparably useful skill.


    Yet, from another standpoint, the better the ability, the more ridiculous the requirements to achieve it.


    Just how long was it supposed to take me to eat 10,000 food objects? Not to mention that they had to be food that no normal person would think of eating. It was basically a marathon straight to hell, and I normally wouldn¡¯t even consider it. I ate 64 abnormal creatures in the short space of a month for only one reason¡ªhunger.


    All the rations I had originally taken to the Earth Elemental ne had already perished during my continuous battles. These strange earth elemental creatures were always sizable and hadrge area-of-effect attacks, such as a huge jaw appearing out of nowhere and engulfing you, which would attack my entire body. My skin was tough and it wasn¡¯t a problem, but it wasn¡¯t the same for my clothing. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I could replenish additional clothing at Karo, perhaps I would be able toplete another achievement for my System regarding the number of times I ran around naked...


    Even so, if it weren¡¯t for Erebe¡¯s ice armor protecting my body, I would probably end up naked most of the time. However, even if I saved face, there was nothing I could do about my hunger. After all, it would be too inefficient to go back to Karo every few kilometers, so I could only imitate Bear Grylls and eat whatever I found, grinding my achievement along the way.


    Well, the ¡®Hungry Enough to Eat Literally Anything¡¯ achievement was actually surprisingly useful. After equipping it, it doubled my stomach¡¯s capacity as well as increased my resistance against poisonous and disgusting foods, which was the only reason I could even tolerate eating all these disgusting things.


    ¡°Wahh! This tastes like both wax and limestone; it¡¯s so horrible... Something so disgusting isn¡¯t even at half the level of ¡®Taste the Sky?¡¯ Just how horrible is British cooking supposed to be!?¡±


    [I can tell you quite clearly that it¡¯s still quite far off. If you¡¯re willing to spend 100 Fate Points, I can exchange it for an original vored ¡®Taste the Sky¡¯ for you to try. It¡¯s definitely delicious!]


    ¡°Never! I refuse to believe you. I still remember thest time.¡±


    Suffering once was already enough. If I was dumb enough to make the same mistake twice, then I would truly be a fool.


    Thest time I thought about exchanging for food through my system, the result was that even though those fried noodles seemed oh so delicious on the surface, the moment I ate it I ended up fainting. When I woke up, I discovered that all sections of my achievement progress had increased by one, which probably meant that my soul had gone on vacation to the River Styx for an entire day.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to have to depend on myself. That thing over there seems to resemble a lizard, so it¡¯s probably edible! Big lizard, wait for me!¡±


    Three dayster, a Legend-ranked sand dragon¡¯s heart was put up for sale in Karo¡¯s market. These underground SemiDragons had astonishing power, as not only were they extremely quick at burrowing into the ground, but they were also skilled at summoning sandstorms and were incredibly difficult to deal with. In just an instant, that sand dragon¡¯s heart sold for an incredibly high price, but I had only one review for it.


    ¡°So crispy! Tastes like chicken! I¡¯m going to go find another dozen!¡±


    ...


    For me to choose to cultivate in the Earth Elemental ne, it would doubtlessly be the most foolish decision possible if I had been a pure ice mage. However, for me, who had the System, increasing my power level was never going to be a problem. The critical part was to develop a personal path that was the most suitable for me.


    Purposefully absorbing arge amount of earth element into my body would be nothing but slow suicide for any other ice or water element mage. However, it was just a grand gamble for me; a critically important gamble that would influence my future development.


    ¡°Create, Ice Mountain Sword!¡±


    ¡°Recreate, Wall of Eternal Ice!¡±

 Chapter 210

    Chapter 210: Drawing a New World


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    I still remembered when the Lion King Frigid Nightmare had asked me, in the snowy mountain, what my most fundamental magic was and how I learned of magic. I hadughed out loud at the time.


    ¡°I¡¯ve already found it; it¡¯s always been by my side. My magic is to draw my mental world, in which case all I need is a paintbrush.¡±


    That¡¯s right, after re-obtaining the Ice Treader Soul Imprint, my path of ice and snow was quite clear now. I would follow nature, imitate nature, recreate nature, and surpass nature!


    ¡°Fundamental magic¡ªIce and Snow Brush.¡±


    Materializing the ice element and changing its form was just a basic-level snow and ice sculpting technique, which every mage knew how to use. After all, before tossing out any ice shards, you would have to at least make them sharp enough to harm others. Ice magic wasn¡¯t the only one to have this basic spell; all elemental magic, as well as other types of magic and techniques, had the same concept.


    ¡°Using magic to control the elements to create a stone wall or an ice sculpture is something that perhaps any acolyte could aplish. Yet I doubt any of those novices know how much really goes into the magic. After all, all they¡¯re doing is imitating what they¡¯ve learned as they utter the incantations and pay the required amount of mana. As for how magic fundamentally works, I doubt any of them would think too much of it.¡±


    ¡°Elemental sculpting? The most basic elemental spell with zero attack power? Haha! It seems we¡¯ve met an incredible apprentice. We thought that we¡¯d meet yet another idiot who was allured by high-level magic and would choose some strong attack magic. Yep, I definitely wasn¡¯t talking about my first-generation partner. He may have been an idiot, but he was a nice guy.¡±


    I still remembered how when I had chosen elemental sculpting, those old weirdos wereughing so happily, as if I had done something amazing.


    Elemental sculpting may be simple, but it was the foundational magic for every other type of magic out there. It was only the simplest rearranging of the elements, and by itself, it basically had zero attack power. Yet I still had unhesitatingly chosen it.


    ¡°Hu! Controlling magic, synchronizing it with the elements in nature,municating with the elements, calcting the shape desired, transmitting your will into creating the shape, paying the required amount of mana, gathering the attracted element, arranging it into the necessary shape, andpleting the sculpture are the basic steps for normal elemental sculpting. But if it¡¯s to be used as a fundamental magic, it must be like an instinct; only one step is necessary¡ªtelling the element what you want. The rest will all be skipped.¡±


    I extended my arms and caused formless female ice fairies to appear. The moment they appeared, they started frowning with their delicate eyshes. It was obvious that the thick earth element here made it difficult for them to breathe. This was no environment they enjoyed being in.


    Yet, under my willpower, they still began to dance and create the scene in my mind.


    These ethereal fairies showed their true forms in the air. One, two, ten, a horde, countless numbers. The ice fairies on the outer circle began creating an isted area, while the dancing ice fairies in the middle were dripping with silvery-white light and created a huge ice river where the droplets fell.


    These crystal-clear fairies weren¡¯t true existences. They were creations of thebination of my magic and the ice element. In the past, I could only use forbidden spells to see them, but now, casting my fundamental magic required their aid. They were a source that even fundamental magic couldn¡¯t reach.


    A massive ice mountain suddenly appeared in this windy and sandy location. Before this mountain, even a mountain giant was nothing more than a dwarf. Unlike its image in my mind, this was an actual, real ice mountain; even in the mortal ne, I would be unable to create such arge ice mountain. The speed of fundamental magic meant that I would conserve arge amount of mana, which was the only way I could create such arge ice mountain domain.


    ¡°Since I now have the paint and brush, let¡¯s begin drawing.¡±


    For a Silver-ranked mage to do all this would be considered unbelievable, but for me, this was just the beginning. What I was about to do next was the second reason I needed to be far away from the prying eyes of the Gods.


    ¡°Now, then, let¡¯s create a world that belongs only to me. Recreate, Wall of Frozen Earth!¡±


    I chose to reincarnate to cultivate again rather than fixing up my phctery, mostly because a SemiGod undead was limited in potential, and my future opponents were far too strong.


    With the onset of the Elemental Tide, invaders from various nes would revisit the mortal ne and enjoy the Holy War. But the most difficult part to deal with of all would be the revival of those ancient Gods.


    ¡°Forget about the others; no matter how strong they are, I can at least attempt something. If the two highest Goddesses of Chaos and Order revive¡ªno, they don¡¯t even need to revive¡ªif they only send out a part of their will, all we could probably do is watch and helplesslyugh.¡±


    Yep, I considered it. If my n still had any holes in it, it would be that the two Goddesses of Chaos and Order ended up reviving, or if they noticed that something was wrong and forced themselves to revive prematurely even at the cost of injuring themselves, and what would happen in that scenario.


    ¡°Who cares! We¡¯d just all die in three seconds t. After all, even I can¡¯t block a casual attack from them, even if they¡¯re currently weakened. This has nothing to do with power levels; after all, they¡¯re the children of the Goddess of Creation, the true rulers of this world. They were born with this special power.¡±


    That was what Ayer had said when he mentioned how he wouldn¡¯t be able to stand up to them for even three seconds. He had such a rxed expression, as if he had epted this long ago. For me, however, even if their power was impossible to resist against as I expected, once I finally truly confirmed that their powers were high to the point ofpletely being helpless, I still felt bitter inside. After all, if a n had a critical w from the very start, it would cause anyone to despair. And in that ¡°future,¡± there was nobody that could stop the revival of the two Goddesses, which ended up causing the world¡¯s catastrophe.


    Eich created this world, and her power was inherited by the Order and Chaos Goddesses. That meant that any life, concept, or item born whatsoever either belonged to Chaos or Order, with zero exceptions.


    That meant that all residents of this world were utilizing this world¡¯s power. For the two Goddesses, it was no different from using fire to attack a fire elemental; simply meaningless.


    Then, did this mean that they were truly undefeatable?


    Perhaps, for everyone else, this was true. I, however, still denied it.


    I wasn¡¯t a soul from this world, nor was I obeying the cycle of reincarnation!


    Even if there was a naturalw in this world that made the attacks of this world¡¯s residents ineffective against the Goddess of Creation, my soul wasn¡¯t from this world to begin with. The Power of Law I created was destined to be their natural counter.


    Yet just this alone wouldn¡¯t be enough. The Power of Law tended towards protection and was Chaos among Order. Only having the power to defend wouldn¡¯t give me any chances at victory. If it could be considered a solid shield, I still required a sharp sword¡ªone that could threaten even the highest of all Gods.


    How to find something that was even more powerful than the Goddess of Creation was destined to be an unsolvable paradox.


    Yet what I excelled at the most was to find a solution when there was supposed to be none. At this moment, even if there was clearly no correct solution in front of me, I was still going to forcibly create one of my own. If I didn¡¯t mind that I would have to use crooked methods and devious means, then there was indeed an answer.


    ¡°If I can¡¯t find anything in this world, then I¡¯ll just have to create a new world.¡±


    Yep, even I myself found it unbelievable, but I was indeed intending to challenge the Goddess of Creation¡¯s right to create worlds.


    ¡°You¡¯re literally insane!¡±


    ¡°Heh, you just learned this?¡±


    Alright then, just mentioning this very idea of mine made Ayer think that I had gone insane, but since my enemy was the highest Goddess of all, who had created this entire world, any normal method would be ineffective from the very start. No normal person would even think of challenging the Chaos and Order Goddesses. If I went about it with insanity from the very start, perhaps I might have a slim chance at victory.


    How to create a world? Um, I don¡¯t know either... Fine then, this was a far too difficult process for me, but I could imitate¡ªimitate the true Goddess of Creation of this world, Eich.


    Since her power separated into the two powers of Order and Chaos, then did that mean I couldprehend Eich herself as thebination of Order and Chaos? In that case, could I understand it as the ¡°Goddess of Creation¡± requiring both powers and identities as part of Chaos and Order? And that her soul couldn¡¯t be a part of this world she created herself, in order to prevent being bound to it?


    When I came up with this conclusion, my first reaction was instead to...


    ¡°System, be honest with me, did you plot this from the very beginning? Why did you provide me with this physical body containing two different types of powers? No, I should say, why did you entice me into choosing this physical body?¡±


    Remembering back to that scene, this physical body and the other avable bodies werepletely on different levels, and the points required were just perfect, so choosing this one seemed only natural. And when I saw Ayer again after that, he even eximed, ¡°I have no idea how you recovered to having such a body with just so little blood left; it¡¯s truly amazing, just like the Goddess of Creation¡¯s power.¡±


    But my question only received a mysterious response.


    [...]


    Alright, I won¡¯tment on why it¡¯s obviously refusing to answer but still gave me an ellipsis. It¡¯s basically just trying to say ¡°there is no treasure buried here¡± when there really was, but from a certain standpoint, its silent admittance definitely caused me to sense a plot.


    But before I could challenge it or threaten it by saying I wasn¡¯t going to do anything anymore, my system spoke up first.


    [We¡¯re on the same side, and our goal is the same. You die, I die. You live, I live.]


    In the end, the System was serious for once in a rare urrence. It answered me using the standpoint of its personal survival. Even if it didn¡¯t directly answer what I asked, its intention was obvious¡ª¡±I won¡¯t say the specifics, but we¡¯re on the same side, so I didn¡¯t do wrong by you this time. Rather the opposite; this selection was correct all along, and your guess is also correct.]


    Of course, I couldn¡¯t be satisfied with such a vague response. However, the system had apanied me for over three hundred years already, and I still hadn¡¯t found any methods to make it materialize so I could beat it up. In the end, I could only helplessly ept it.


    Alright, after resolving the question of how to go about being a Creator, what was remaining was just how to create, and what to create.


    What to create was decided from the very start. Of course, I would create the scenery which left the deepest impression in my soul¡ªthat frozen Nortnds was the home in my heart. Transforming it into my creation was my only choice to begin with.


    And as for how to create it, that was even easier. All I had to do was imitate Eich.


    Eich used the four elements to create the world, and those four elements were supplied by the Four Elemental nes. The Four Elemental nes¡¯ history was even longer than the Chaos and Order Goddesses, and directly using elemental power was even one of Chaos¡¯ powers. However, using the power of the four elements to create a new world was outside of the two Goddesses¡¯ divine powers.


    I didn¡¯t need to create a true new world. All I needed to do was create my mental world of the ¡°Infallible Diffindor¡± here again as well as recreate the northern frozen nes that were etched into my soul. Just creating a small isted world would be enough.


    Perhaps this isted world would be an existence that could even threaten the Goddesses of Chaos and Order. Perhaps, as long as I could pull the two Goddesses into this isted world, we¡¯d have a chance at victory. Perhaps this isted world would be able to cancel out their Divine Obligations and cut them off from the limitless power supplied to them by the world of Eich. There were too many possibilities that were impossible to calcte, but at the very least, we would finally have some chance at victory.


    When I came to this realization, I began my preparations. From reaching my goal to the steps that were necessary, after my hard work all this time, I had quite a few pieces in my hand.


    Lacking in magical logic? Margaret and Amelia both provided me withrge amounts of information, and the information on the elements gotten from¡ªokay, stolen from Karo City were precious as well, but what gave me the biggest clue was Elisa.


    She was able to use the elements of ice and fire that countered each other to create her own Soul Imprint, which gave me a huge clue. At the very least, it proved that the rtionship between the elements wasn¡¯t as simple as countering each other.


    ¡°The four elements that create the world? In Eich, it¡¯s wind, fire, water, and earth, which is basically the exact same as my previous world of Earth. When Earth was still ruled by idealism, the east believed that the world consisted of ¡®earth, water, fire, and wind,¡¯ while the west also believed in the four elements of ¡®earth, wind, water, and fire.¡¯ In a way, everything was astonishingly simr.¡±


    Lacking in actual logic required to create a world? The above was doubtlessly the best evidence of all. All I had to do wasy on the four elements. The ancient curse known as the Seal of the Four Elements that created an isted, sealed dimension was doubtlessly another form of creation as well.


    Needing to use four different types of elemental magic simultaneously? Hehe! Now you realize why I spent so much effort on developing the Four Elemental Swordcasters, and why they could obviously use more than four sword seals but I still addressed them by this name.


    When the four elemental sword seals activated simultaneously, they would be able to create a rtively perfect elemental loop. Now then, this part was down pat already, but the next part was rather problematic. In order to create a sword seal that could be the foundation for an entire new world, the materials I needed would have to be at a minimum at a God Equipment¡¯s level.


    Earlier, the only item I possessed which met those requirements was Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle. With only one God Equipment, I wouldn¡¯t even be able to take the first step of my experiment. Luckily, after ¡®killing¡¯ Emordilorcan on that day, he left a gray Earth Elemental Heart behind for me, which was also a God Equipment-level elemental material.


    Currently, runes were inscribed all over these two God Equipment, and they were already beginning to create internally within themselves. Of course, in terms of level, the Earth Elemental Heart was far inferior to Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle, but it was still good enough for an experiment. As long as it seeded, I could always prepare new substitute materials.


    What substitute materials? How about Emordilorcan¡¯s real Earth Elemental Heart after defeating him here? This would be the exact same thing but higher quality, and the divine soul contained within it would be perfect for being one of the four pirs of birthing a new world.


    Yep, from the very start, I didn¡¯t have good intentions.


    All the problems were solved, all the obstacles were dealt with, and all the various assortments of necessary pieces were collected. Finally, it was time for the critical first step.


    It was just drawing the frozen Nortnds in my heart with elemental power, but after reaching this step, just creating a magical version of the world in my mind could never satisfy me. What I wanted was to use my own paintbrush to create a true new world! This was the path that I chose!


    ¡°Hehe,e, Original Sin Demon Form, War Angel!¡±


    A blinding golden light and molten magma red crossed with each other. After pain shot through my entire body, they naturallybined with each other and emanated a calm, white light, akin to the sunrise.


    When too many colors mixed together, they would either be an endless pitch-ck or a peacefulbination of pure-white. Without a doubt, this white light represented a miracle. The Order and Chaos bloodline from the same source was actually beginning tobine.


    If it weren¡¯t for reaching this step, perhaps I never would have realized that the ¡°Arbitrator Bloodline¡± that I possessed with two seemingly contradictory talents was supposed to be used from the very start bybining them.


    My feelings mysteriously managed to calm down, as everything around me entered my senses. My molten skin transformed into dark-red runic armor, and my body naturally began floating in midair. Under the frame of a demon¡¯s meaty wings were also the wings of light that only the highest-level angels could possess. I was filled with limitless power.


    For any fanatic believer, this form, which represented Chaos and Order within one body, would be the greatest sin of all. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the Earth Elemental ne blocked off the view of the Gods, trouble would likely instantlye looking for me.


    I also knew that my time was limited.


    Just a few seconds used up much of my mana. Under this form, my magic power wasparable to any Legend-ranked archmage, but I wouldn¡¯t be able to maintain it for more than a few seconds.


    ¡°Whether I live or die will depend on this next step.¡±


    Even if I had already formed my theory, there were still too many holes in it, and don¡¯t even mention the differences between theory and actually putting it into practice. But right now, I didn¡¯t have any way to continually experiment; I couldn¡¯t change the course of the arrow that I had shot!


    ¡°Recreate, Wall of Eternal Ice.¡±


    In the ice mountain, Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle was beginning to shine with a snow-white light, while that Earth Elemental Heart was also beginning to float in midair. Its earthen-yellow light had already created a vicious sandstorm. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I had already set up an ice and snow barrier, probably anyone even thousands of kilometers away would be able to see this phenomenon.


    The Earth Elemental Heart was struggling, as if it knew its end wasing, but it now had nowhere it could escape.


    ¡°Only having ice and snow won¡¯t be a true world. In that case, let this world of ice and snow have its own true frozen earth.¡±


    While something was happening in the Earth Elemental ne, the divine domain where the Gods resided suffered an earthquake, or perhaps it should be termed as a dimensional quake.


    Indeed, apart from incredibly few existences, they weren¡¯t able to see through to the Elemental nes, but some things didn¡¯t require vision to detect.


    ¡°Lord Ayer, I have an inquiry from the Gods. The Temple of Fate suddenly had an earthquake, which indicated that something critically important must have happened, but when they asked the God of Fate, the God of Fate only shook his head and did not say anything. Now, rumors are flying everywhere and the situation is quite chaotic, which is why the Gods are requesting your presence for a discussion.¡±


    The messenger, Flying Wing Airos was once a famous hero in the mortal ne, who gained fame for being able to fly a thousand kilometers in a single night. However, in the Death God¡¯s main sanctuary, he was nothing more than a low-ranked messenger who didn¡¯t even dare to breathe loudly.


    ¡°...That¡¯s why they¡¯reing to ask me? Usually, they don¡¯t even know how to self-reflect.¡±


    Ayer¡¯s calm words had a tinge of dissatisfaction to them. When faced with one of the most ancient Gods of all, the Death God, even God Envoys would be filled with fear. If Ayer decided to vent his displeasure against the Gods on Airos, he wouldn¡¯t even be able to escape as he was only a mere heroic spirit.


    ¡°Wait a moment, I¡¯lle along with you. I just happen to have a few things to chat about.¡±


    This seemed too good to be true, and Airos was delighted to hear such words, but Ayer continued speaking.


    ¡°Go ahead without me, I¡¯lle after I make some preparations.¡±


    What else could Airos say? He hurriedly left as if he had been spared from some punishment. The Death God¡¯s sanctuary was far too much pressure for him to bear.


    But right after Airos left, the cold-faced Ayer suddenly broke out intoughter, and the sandbox behind him began to automatically rearrange its sand. The next moment, Rnd and the situation around him was shown in front of the Death God.


    ¡°Rnd, you interesting fellow, you truly dare to do what nobody else does. You even managed to find the correct path. Perhaps everything truly will be able to change because of you.¡±


    If anyone else had been present, they likely would never have expected to see Ayer who was famous for being cold-faced for thousands of years to be smiling in such satisfaction. In the next moment, the Death God began moving, but before he left, his ck-robed arm lightly pped down on the sandbox.


    *Boom!*


    All of the sand turned into nothing but loose sand, and in the next second, Karo¡¯s connection to the mortal ne was entirely cut off¡ªno, it should be said that the entire Earth Elemental ne¡¯s connection was cut off.


    After that, though, Ayer began hesitating, and then he pped the sandbox three more times.


    *p* *p* *p*


    This time, the Wind, Water, and Fire Elemental nes were also cut off from the mortal ne. Only then did Ayer leave in self-satisfaction.


    ¡°What excuse should I use? A sudden dimensional quake shattered the barrier between dimensions, causing a temporary stoppage in the connection between dimensions, especially the Elemental nes. It will not be possible to reach them until several monthster. Yep, this is a nice excuse.¡±

 Chapter 211

    Chapter 211: Choice


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav, imperfectluck


    While Rnd was still thinking as hard as he could about his own path, an inconceivable scene was urring in a ins area far away from his location.


    It was as if this ins area had transformed into the Chaos Abyss, withrge numbers of demons gathering into squads and beginning their hunts. Everywhere that these demon squads went, dangerous earth spiders were dug up, and sand dragons were vanquished instantly like elephants overrun by ants. All these opponents that gave Rnd such headaches were meaningless in front of this seemingly limitless demon army.


    However, these tan-colored chaos demons were rather different from the pure demons of the chaos abyss. Compared to their Chaos Abyss rtives that were the representation of evil, not only were these tan demons of a different color, they didn¡¯t use the typical fire and acid magic that was the natural talent of the demons, instead using the rather rare earth magic that demons almost never used. All of these tan demons also had incredible physical attack power, as if they were actually the real residents of the Earth Elemental ne, just like the tough-skinned earth elemental creatures.


    All types of earth elemental species were vanquished by them. In front of such arge demon army, even the strongest sand dragon could only barely manage to fly a few kilometers before running out of energy and copsing on the ground.


    When that sand dragon copsed on the ground and waited for these twisted creatures to give it the fatal blow, what came instead for it was a sand boat.


    Four golden ground dragons were pulling this sand boat. It was just that judging from their twisted horns and sulfur breath, they were doubtlessly the product of demonized evolution.


    The sand dragon Sardwen was already blind in one eye now. Its remaining dragon eye viciously stared in the sand boat¡¯s direction. In its mind, what woulde out and give it the fatal blow would probably be the leader of all these demons, most likely some veteran demon from the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°Wow, such a big dragon.¡±


    But the truth was far different from what the gigantic sand dragon expected. The person that walked out of the sand boat was only a young golden-haired female knight. Judging from her appearance, she was actually a human, and a really young knight at that.


    Before Sardwen could attempt to self-destruct himself for a final attack, the female knight suddenly began talking to herself.


    ¡°Alright, alright, I got it, just demonize him, rx. I shall control the chaos, and not be controlled by the chaos.¡±


    ¡°Roar!¡±


    The angry dragon breath caused a sandstorm to erupt with its destructive attack, but nothing happened at all to the female knight. In fact, the female knight was now already riding on top of Sardwen¡¯s head.


    Just as Sardwen was intending to use another attack against her, the pale yellow colored light of chaos covered him. Although his body was in much pain, he actually began recovering from his wounds, but Sardwen was now yelping pitifully in shock, because his own skin was now growing demonic scales, barbed poisonous spikes were growing on his back, and his sharp ws and fangs were beginning to elongate and grow thicker, while two extra sets of wings appeared on his back. Sardwen was actually beginning to demonize.


    ¡°Chaos, in the end, is just twisting the rules. Although Chaos demons aren¡¯t able to be produced naturally, from a certain standpoint, any living creature that has naturalws can be demonized and turned to Chaos. However, we dragons don¡¯t need to worry about that, we¡¯re naturally born with the power to resist against the naturalws. Forcefully demonize us? Not even a Demon Marquis would be able to do it; probably only the legendary Prince of the Chaos Abyss would be able to do such a thing.¡±


    Sardwen¡¯s final remnants of consciousness were already going hazy, and he didn¡¯t have much time left. He could only mutter this to himself as he recalled his past memories.


    ¡°...The Princess of the Chaos Abyss? Why is she in such a ce...?¡±


    When the pale-yellow light faded, that weakened sand dragon hadpletely vanished. What remained in its ce was instead apletely pitch-ck gigantic inferno demon dragon. Just its single dusk-yellow eye was clear evidence of its identity.


    *Roar!!!*


    The angrily roaring tremendous dragon opened its new wings and blocked the sandstorm as it began flying towards the next gathering grounds for high-level magical beasts. The newly-born demons on the ground also obeyed their master¡¯s summons as they headed for the next target location.


    And on the dragon¡¯s back, in the tiny sand boat, Reyne seemed to be talking to herself as she asked a question.


    ¡°Um, Teacher Karwenz, what will you teach me next?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s review demonization again, and then let¡¯s practice some swordsmanship.¡±


    From the very start, Rnd had made a mistake. As a descendant of the Mist, Reyne was a passable one, as she would be able to remain resolute and unbroken even in the face of difficulties and failures. The final scene in that snowy night of battle made Rnd see his past self in her, but also because of his emotional bias, Rnd had overestimated Reyne, believing that she could defeat the allure of the Chaos Abyss all by herself.


    Sometimes, not giving in to failure and despair and being able to resist temptation were two entirely different things. To give an analogy, it¡¯s just like some people with high abilities might not necessarily be of good moral character, and even the resolute might not be able to ignore the temptation right before them, especially when the temptation seemed so wonderful.


    The Demon Prince began beguiling Reyne instantly after she went off by herself, and the Princess Knight lived up to Rnd¡¯s expectations and resisted against the demon¡¯s temptations... for a full five seconds.


    Yep, the situation happened something like this. This was how Karwenz went about it.


    ¡°Hey, Reyne, how about I teach you? Don¡¯t listen to Rnd, just what could you possibly learn by randomly practicing by yourself?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s no good, Brother Rnd said already that I shouldn¡¯t listen to you.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m stronger than he is, so who do you think you should listen to. Besides, your rival is the Demon Marchioness, she can KO the current you with a single p...¡±


    ¡°Please allow me to call you Second Brother!¡±


    Okay, before he could even finish, he instantly seeded in tempting her. Because it was far too easy, even the Abyssal Prince Karwenz was shocked by Reyne¡¯sck of moral constancy. When he heard her reply, he froze over in shock for several seconds before he finally confirmed that she wasn¡¯t joking and was being serious.


    ¡°Hehe, I know that my own personal talent is insufficient. I¡¯m self-aware about that. Before I met Brother Rnd, I worked hard as well, but I couldn¡¯t even reach the border of Silver level. Brother Rnd is obviously overestimating me. Besides, I¡¯m Reyne, not Rnd. I¡¯ve always believed that there¡¯s nothing wrong with power, if I want to be more powerful, why should I care so much about where it¡¯s from, the correct answer is obviously to be more powerful first.¡±


    Reyne¡¯s words were quite sincere, as that was what she truly believed. She was different from Rnd who could receive more power simply through hard work and effort; she had only ordinary talent and had suffered quite enough already from having insufficient power, and she was already numbed from the feeling of working her hardest but still not seeing any results.


    From the very start, she knew that she couldn¡¯t be like Rnd, nor did she intend to force herself to be like him. In this area, after she experienced countless failures and despair, she was actually quite simr to Karwenz, having an almost sick worship of power within herself.


    ¡°If I had power, East Mist wouldn¡¯t have been almost destroyed, if I had the power to control my own fate, then And¡¯s newly-rich wouldn¡¯t have tried to force me into a marriage and humiliate my tribe.¡±


    At 13, she had still been a fortunate princess with no worries in the world. At 14, she was already forced onto the battlefield, and now that she was 15, she was already the famous Princess Knight known throughout the entire Nortnds. The trials of fate turned this former flower vase princess into having maturity far beyond her years underneath her seemingly happy outer appearance.


    She had an endless amount of desire to be able to control her own fate with her own hands. This desire of hers wasn¡¯t satisfied one bit even by Rnd¡¯s arrival.


    To her teacher Rnd, she respected and trusted him. However, she had her own opinion on how to view power. She didn¡¯t intend to argue with Rnd about this, nor did she want to affect her rtionship with Rnd due to their differing opinions, but she made her choice with her own decisions.


    ¡°...Perhaps, you were already waiting for this day from the moment that you refused Rnd¡¯s blood. Well, to be able to fool Rnd, you have an incredible ¡®aplice.¡¯¡±


    Far away, the ¡®aplice¡¯ Amelia who was currently cooking with an oversized magical cauldron suddenly sneezed.


    ¡°Hmm? Someone¡¯s talking about me? Or cursing me? It¡¯s probably that bastard.¡±


    Beside her was a hole-ridden battlefield. The Earth Elemental ne that shouldn¡¯t have had any greenery actually had a grassy field and forest now. It was just that these gray-yellow nts were actually growing out of the corpses of what had originally been magical beasts.


    With Amelia¡¯s assistance, sealing Reyne¡¯s bloodline had never been done to begin with, otherwise Karwenz wouldn¡¯t have been able to contact Reyne so easily in the Earth Elemental ne. In fact, Reyne being able to suppress Glina in all their duels was also mainly due to the power of her bloodline.


    ¡°Perhaps I should apologize to Brother Rnd, but I should make my own decisions for my own life. I¡¯ve already had enough of hiding behind others¡¯ backs and shivering!¡±


    The Rnd Sacred Sword she was wielding still had its usual silvery holy light, but the Princess Knight¡¯s eyes were now turning dark yellow, and the ethereal shadow of a demon was beginning to increase in size behind her, but was also grasped firmly in her hands with a will that was just like iron.


    Rnd had never masked his expectations and worry about the future. Reyne who seemed to always be so casual on the outside actually had an observant mind and a sensitive heart, and she hated her powerlessness. Even though she was quite clear that making deals with demons was no different from sleeping with tigers, butpared to continuing to be a useless flower vase, even if she fell into depravity in the future, she wouldn¡¯t regret the choice she made today.


    ¡°Rather than regretting after the fact about not having seized the opportunity, it¡¯s better to just regretter, isn¡¯t this a former famous saying by you? By the way, Brother Rnd also has many famous sayings.¡±


    Karwenz who responded in her soul was being more serious than his usual self.


    ¡°Then, I shall begin teaching you how to control the Chaos. First, you must remember to maintain your sense of self, and never allow the Chaos to invade your heart. Power is only a tool, and if you end up being controlled by a tool, that would be too much of a joke...¡±


    The Chaos Prince was actually teaching someone how to resist against Chaos invading the body. Perhaps, in a way, Karwenz wasn¡¯t treating Reyne as a spare vessel for his descent anymore. Perhaps he was truly beginning to treat her as his disciple.


    ¡°...I only have one request. Use what I taught you to defeat that Glina, and teach her a vicious lesson in directbat.¡±


    ¡°Are you actually that angry that she betrayed your bloodline? I didn¡¯t think that you were such a narrow-minded person.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, the feeling she gives me is just like that of Rnd from long ago. She¡¯s probably already sessfullybined with Rnd¡¯s bloodline. In that case, Rnd will definitely teach everything he¡¯s ever learned to her, and since you¡¯re both my descendant and disciple, how could I possibly allow you to be weaker than Rnd¡¯s descendant and disciple.¡±


    Reyne came to a realization at this. These powerful figures were always mysteriously serious about weird-seeming subjects. It seemed that the younger twin brother waspeting with his older brother.


    Since they were unable to have a directpetition, then they would simply have an indirectpetition with their descendants/disciples.


    ¡°Cousin Glina? Hmph, I won¡¯t lose to her, in any area at all.¡±


    And so, Reyne epted Karwenz¡¯s teachings, and unfearingly activated her demonic blood, and then created a gigantic demonized army in the Earth Elemental ne.


    At this moment when Reyne was still learning the secrets of Chaos on her dragon¡¯s back, a sudden gigantic pir of light caused violent sandstorms in the entire Earth Elemental ne. Just as Reyne was about to ask Karwenz just what could have happened, she felt a sense of shock and disbelief within herself welling up that came from him. Someone as strong as the Abyssal Prince had actually felt fear at what just happened.


    ¡°...Rnd, it looks like I underestimated you after all. It seems that the next time we meet, we¡¯ll be able to have a really good fight.¡±


    Of course, I didn¡¯t know at the moment that off in the distance, Reyne had already created a strong demonic army, which would only be stronger and continue growing in size as time passed.


    At the time, I had spent all of my energy simply on controlling the earth and water elements tobine.


    ¡°With earth element as the bones, and water element as the bloodline, snow shall fly everywhere, the icy ins shall turn white, and when the wind and snow stop, everything shall be calm.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t any incantation or anything, I was just adding on to the efficiency of my drawing. With its assistance, my homnd¡¯s scene would reappear in my mind.


    But this time, just being able to temporarily interfere with my mental world in this world wouldn¡¯t be able to satisfy me.


    My mental world was turning into reality, and I who had turned into the ¡°Arbitrator¡± was nowbining the real and the ethereal, creating a new world with its own inwardly-contained cycle.


    Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle was still giving off magical energy. With the sword seal¡¯s assistance, all the water element had been activated, and it was emitting an endless amount of frost.


    And as for the Earth Elemental Heart, it had long since been transformed into the earth beneath my feet, turning into the first piece of earth for my new world.


    And what I needed to do was tobine water and earth element into one, moving into the unknown from what I already knew, so that they could enter a self-contained cycle. I took a deep breath, and pointed with one finger at the sky, causing the frosty chill to begin descending, and pointing with another finger at the ground, causing the earth to rise. Then, I took another deep breath, and brought my hands together.


    *Click.*


    There was a sound like gears setting into ce. The huge explosion that I expected didn¡¯t happen, itbined far easier than I anticipated.


    ¡°Ha, it seems that I was worried for nothing... Eh?¡±


    Apparently, I was getting happy too early. The very next instant, the two elements that justbined actually began trembling violently, seeming like they were about toe apart and explode.


    ¡°Damn it! If this explodes...¡±


    The next moment, I imagined a gigantic canyon, but right now, the elemental power bacsh was already too much for me to bear, and the elemental power was about to run amok!


    ¡°Everything in theory should be correct, so why did such a situation ur... My power level!¡±


    Perhaps the famous phrase was correct after all. Right before death, a person¡¯s brain would work even better than usual. I instantly realized everything.


    Yes, while I indeed had the ability for creation, and I had all the correct theories and foundational ideas, but I forgot one thing. When Eich was creating, she already had unimaginable power, and any bacsh and Chaos would be nothing more than a tiny wave for her, but as for me, that would be an indestructible force I would bepletely helpless against.


    ¡°Damn it! There¡¯s just one more step to go!¡±


    How could I possibly feel good about failing at such a time, but everything was about to run amok and I was probably going to die, yet I had no power to resist whatsoever.


    ¡°If only I knew, I would have at least waited until I was at SemiGod level to begin trying... Hm? What just happened?¡±


    Suddenly, everything returned to a calm peace, and that explosive elemental power seemed as if it was a domesticated dog, now obeying the tracks Iid out for it.


    [Fate Points: 37624]


    The system¡¯s sudden message informed me about the number of Fate Points I had, and currently, the Fate Points were decreasing at a high speed. This was the best evidence of what was behind the miracle that just urred, and it was also evidence that I had to pay a price for this miracle.


    ¡°36521, 31435, 27421, it¡¯s not like my points grow on trees, aren¡¯t you being too ck-hearted, leave me a few, I still need them to go for Gold rank.¡±


    [System reminder: If you still have the time to retort, you should hurry up and end this instead!]


    Fine then, I originally wanted to give it my gratitude for saving my life, but in that case let¡¯s forget about it. I spent all my efforts onbining the elements again, and when my damned Fate Points number reached 9214, the work was finallypleted.


    *Click!*


    It was still the exact same sound of gears falling into ce, but only this time, it was likely that the entire ne could hear it.


    As for me, I could now sense that in this new original world, I now had an isted piece of sky and earth that belonged only to me. Even though there was nothing but snow, ice, and frozen earth inside it, it was still my personal world.


    [*Ding!* Congrattions to my host for obtaining the ability ¡®Frozen Wintry Earth.¡¯ Its specific effects and logic by which it works is impossible to analyze by the system, but it¡¯s possible to analyze the basic ways to use it. Would you like an analysis?]


    This was the first time I¡¯ve ever heard of something impossible to analyze, so I immediately nodded as I was overjoyed, but I instantly regretted my decision again.


    [Fate Points: 4624]


    This instantly used up almost half of my already not many Fate Points remaining. Just as I was intending toin, I was shocked by my system¡¯s next message.


    [Frozen Wintry Earth, an uncalctable existence. Its currentrgest potential area is a spherical space with a radius of 136 meters. It will ignore all barriers of any kind. You can even control it to affect what¡¯s underground.]


    [Rmended usage 1 ¨C Death Chill; any that enter this frozen area will suffer 1-100 ice damage (decided by you). This damage is impossible to mitigate. (Even for the Gods).]


    [Rmended usage 2 ¨C Ice River Sword: ...]


    In all, I actually saw four rmended usages for it, but this was only the beginning. These were only part of the effects of this iplete world.


    Right after receiving an unexpected joy, of course I would receive bad news next. Right after I was celebrating, I immediately received a critical warning.


    [Warning; due to the low quality of the Earth Elemental Heart creating the foundation of your world, the earth¡¯s quality is too low. Not only can ¡®Frozen Wintry Earth¡¯ not be used to its full potential, it¡¯s even falling apart. Host, please hurry up and find a recement material! Time before your world¡¯s copse: 132 days, 6 hours, 10 minutes.]


    Alright, I won¡¯tment on how strong the effects were already, but that it was still only halfplete. Nor will Iment on how the Earth Elemental God¡¯s Earth Elemental Heart was actually treated as too low in quality. The system was even kind enough to give me a pointer arrow, pointed in the direction of the sleeping Earth Elemental God as a hint.


    ¡°It looks like time is going to be of the essence! Emordilorcan, just you wait for me.¡±

 Chapter 212

    Chapter 212: Great Stone Sculptor


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    [Congrattions to host for promoting to the unique ss, Lord of Frigidwinter. This is a personal job ss just for you, and it is impossible to pass on to any others.]


    [Congrattions to host for entering Gold rank.]


    [Congrattions to host for receiving the special isted dimensional world, Frigidwinter Earth. The System has already prepared camouge for it. From what the Gods can tell, this will only be a rather unique small version of your mental world, and please use it as much as you like. However, if any Gods enter it... hehe, definitely remember to kill them in order to silence them.]


    [Congrattions to host for...]


    The miserly system actually gave me a series of congrattions. This Gold rank wasn¡¯t a reward from my system either; I had broken through to this rank on my own. Actually, none of these were important to me. What was most important was that I had now confirmed my future path of development.


    ¡°I need toplete and perfect this world.¡±


    I needed to find God Equipment, materials, and Divine Souls to fill this newly-born world with. Completing and perfecting this world would mean the same for myself.


    Perhaps this would be a thorny path, one that would take an uncalctable amount of time, and perhaps I might never even finish it in my lifetime. On this path that only I walked, it would be impossible for anyone to give me any advice. But I knew that at the very end of this path I was walking, the treasure that I desired so much might exist.


    ¡°In that case, let¡¯s give it a try.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t suppress my excitement and joy¡ªit was as if I was a child who had just received a new toy. I would obviously want to try it out, but I immediately heard another notification from my system at this point in time.


    [Due to the cost of the camouge system¡¯s activation and analysis of these new abilities having surpassed your ability to pay in Fate Points, please pay an additional 2147 Fate Points that you owe within 24 hours. Otherwise, the system shall confiscate your new world. You don¡¯t have money? Then let¡¯s use your newly-born baby to pay off the debt.]


    *Pu!*


    I instantly spurted blood. It actually did this to me at such a time? Give my earlier gratitude and how moved I was back to me!


    But I had no time toment on any of this. Based on my understanding of the System, when it said something was good, it might not really be that good, but whenever it said something would be bad, it would definitely be worse than I expected. Since it had already said that it would confiscate my new world if I didn¡¯t pay up within 24 hours, then it really would confiscate it by that time.


    ¡°Wait a moment; this is the core of my new job ss. If you confiscate it, then won¡¯t I be a knight without a horse, a basketball yer that doesn¡¯t know how to act dramatically to get fouls, a tennis yer who doesn¡¯t know ultimate techniques, a tofu brain with no sugar to run it with? Won¡¯t that be meaningless then!¡±


    [Time remaining: 23 hours, 59 minutes. System Reminder: Just keep talking about unimportant things and making fun of me, you heretic sweet-lover!]


    I...I decided not toment any longer and instead began working hard at earning points.


    ...


    The Helod Deep Canyon was a forbidden zone in Karo City¡¯s map because this was where the tower giants resided.


    ¡®Tower giants¡¯ didn¡¯t sound like a magnificent name at all, but anyone who took a single nce at those enormous stone giants would instantly understand how they got their name.


    Every tower giant was as tall as a building with several dozen floors, and their heads and shoulders would be obscured by the clouds. Their upper halves were basically fortresses, and their shoulders and heads had the shapes of buildings and were basically the fortress¡¯s clock tower and cannon towers.


    Its tremendous body meant that it had matchless physical attack power, and these tower giants were immensely destructive in meleebat. But the most fatal of all would be the hundreds of catapults within their fortresses.


    The reasons for such a thing being born were inconceivable. The first pioneers to arrive in the Earth Elemental ne had been ambushed by a tower giant, and while they suffered serious losses, they had also mistakenly believed that they were ambushed by an enemy faction¡¯s archmage.


    After all, its specialized body was just like a human structure and made it obvious that it was a created object. Although the tower giants still hadn¡¯t evolved to having their own wills, their iparably gigantic bodies and countless numbers of huge stone catapults were indisputably the best evidence that they were born to be war machines.


    And for the Helod Deep Canyon¡¯s tower giants to bebeled as the highest danger level of all was because all these tower giants also contained countless numbers of residents within them that formed strange symbiotic rtionships with the tower giants.


    Some of them that lived within the tower giants would be stone peelers or other low-intelligence earth elemental creatures. Sometimes one could even find gargoyles or other special flying creatures within. Every tower giant was like a box of choctes; you never knew what you would find inside it, and finding out would typically never be a good thing. [1] 1


    On top of all that, tower giants even had the habit of living in groups and had a special way tomunicate with each other. This meant that fighting with a single tower giant would basically be like fighting an entire war, as several dozens of tower giants woulde by and create a tremendous army unit.


    In the Helod Deep Canyon, the tower giant tribe numbered approximately four hundred. The exact number of tower giants and symbiotic tribes living with them were impossible to count.


    Just this tower giant tribe living here in the Helod Deep Canyon made even sand dragons fear to enter this area. Only the most ancient of existences knew that thergest secret was actually within this canyon, and that these gigantic tower giants were only the door guards personally sculpted by a certain ancient existence.


    ¡°Who¡¯s that? He¡¯s actually heading inside the Helod Deep Canyon?¡±


    Tower giants would asionallye out to hunt or roam around. In order to prevent unnecessary losses, every faction established a temporary outpost at the entrance to the canyon. As for Karo¡¯s outpost, in addition to keeping a watch on these big guys¡¯ movements, their more important duty was to convince newbies to go home instead of going inside.


    ¡°What? A mega SSS-ranked dangerous zone? Hmph! I was born to do great things; what¡¯s a dangerous zone to me? Danger only means it¡¯s a ce where treasure is hidden and miracles can be found... Hahaha! God Equipment and inheritances, I¡¯ming for you! There are no stairs? Perfect, I¡¯ll simply jump off this cliff!¡±


    Idiots like that woulde along every year, and there would always be those who believed too much in hero¡¯s tales. Sometimes, the mages standing guard here would get annoyed and stop trying to convince them, allowing them to enter at their own risk.


    Luckily, there weren¡¯t too many idiots this year. The mage who was in charge here, Kalin, was even worried that there wouldn¡¯t be enough funny stories to share when he would finish his shift at the end of the year. When he finally saw someoneing to the Helod Deep Canyon, he was actually rather happy.


    But before he could go up to that person to warn him about the danger, he stopped of his own volition.


    That figure, who was wearing a gray cape, merely nced at him, but he felt as if he had been paralyzed by a lightning strike.


    ¡°He¡¯s so strong! I haven¡¯t heard of a thunder element archmage that hade here.¡±


    The next moment, Kalin knew that his good intentions were needless, as that figure had already vanished.


    The tower giants were under themand to attack all non-earth elemental species. On his way into the canyon, that continuously shing and vanishing figure was attacked many times, but unfortunately, those clumsy and slow tower giants weren¡¯t even able to touch him, much less see him.


    Once he reached the center of the deep canyon, the gray-cloaked figure stopped, and patiently waited until a voice spoke up.


    ¡°Camdian, what could be so important that you would personallye to find me?¡±


    Even when dealing with a powerful Elemental God, this simrly ancient top-level Earth Elemental Lord had zero hesitation and respect¡ªit was almost as if it was treating Camdian as its junior. Nor did Camdian care about the disrespect; it was rather the opposite, as he preferred being direct as well.


    ¡°Ainslo, would you like to be the Earth Elemental God? Do you want to be an existence equal to me?¡±


    Communication between elemental creatures was always ever so direct. They were just like an ancient tribe thatcked any knowledge about modern society. This was all the more so for elemental creatures who hadn¡¯te into much contact with mortals; they always said exactly what they were thinking about.


    ¡°...Of course! What do you intend to do?!¡±


    The entire canyon echoed with this tremendous voice. Ainslo didn¡¯t even try to hide its own desire. As one of the most ancient existences in the Earth Elemental ne, Ainslo had been desiring to be the Earth Elemental God for countless years.


    But there could only be one Earth Elemental God. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that Ainslo was somewhat intelligent and knew that Emordilorcan would be no easy piece of cake to deal with, Ainslo would have long since opened up the seal and fought for the honor to be the Earth Elemental God.


    ¡°Then, join our n. This time, the Fire Elemental Goddess, the Water Elemental Goddess, and I have decided to team up andpletely destroy Emordilorcan.¡±


    ¡°...That¡¯s not enough.¡±


    After a long hesitation, that was Ainslo¡¯s reply. It wasn¡¯t that Ainslo was unwilling¡ªit was that Ainslo didn¡¯t think that these allies would be able to win.


    Camdian who was rejected wasn¡¯t angered at all. This was an answer that he expected. Although Emordilorcan had angered far too many, he was still alive and kicking after all this time of being attacked by many ganging up on him. There was no other exnation¡ªEmordilorcan was simply strong enough to the point that he could indeed fight simultaneously with the other three Elemental Gods at once.


    In that undergroundbyrinth, Emordilorcan was even controlling the opening of the Earth Elemental Dimensional Door while facing many as one and even gained the upper hand. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that his Earth Elemental Dimensional Door met with a problem and he lost much of his power, who knew who would have won in the end.


    In Ainslo¡¯s eyes, just casually joining this allied army against Emordilorcan would most likely end up in failure, and these outsiders from another ne would simply run off. Ainslo, however, would have to stay behind and face the full wrath of Emordilorcan, which would be too pitiful.


    ¡°If Emordilorcan was in perfect condition, of course we would be insufficient, but how about after Emordilorcan was seriously injured and even forced to self-destruct his Divine Soul? Don¡¯t you feel that it¡¯s strange? He¡¯s obviously returned to this ne for so long already but hasn¡¯t appeared even once, nor has he acted like how he always did in the past, attacking all the most powerful Earth Elemental Lords in order to solidify his own position.¡±


    ¡°Emordilorcan was injured? For real? How did he get injured? How serious is it?¡±


    This series of hurried questions indicated just how much Ainslo was convinced and eager to know about this.


    ¡°Of course, I personally witnessed it and even helped injure him. In fact, the Earth Elemental Heart belonging to his body in the mortal ne even became someone else¡¯s victory loot.¡±


    *Boom!*


    The underground passage that had suddenly opened up was the best evidence of Ainslo¡¯s current attitude.


    ¡°Come in and let¡¯s continue our discussion.¡±


    Ainslo even personally came out to wee Camdian. Unlike that tremendous voice that rattled the ears, Ainslo was actually an incredibly short elemental creature. Its ugly skin was filled with ck scales, while its mottled head was filled with sharp earth elemental crystals. Ainslo¡¯s four limbs were rather short, and its eyes were quite ugly; just judging by physical appearance, Ainslo was quite close to a gnome¡¯s.


    But Camdian would never underestimate her just because of physical appearances. Ainslo was the creator of many strong earth elemental creatures, including all the tower giants. The great stone sculptor Ainslo also had the beautiful title of ¡°Mother of 10,000 Stones.¡±


    That¡¯s right¡ªher, not him. While elemental creatures didn¡¯t have genders to begin with, after reaching a high enough level, they could choose their own genders.


    As one of the most ancient Elemental Lords in the Earth Elemental ne, Ainslo¡¯s fame and might was no lower than the Elemental Gods. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that Emordilorcan was ridiculously strong, she actually had power on par with the other Elemental Gods.


    At the very least, if Ainslo had been a Wind Elemental Lord, Camdian himself felt that he didn¡¯t have any guaranteed chances of victory against her.


    ¡°This time, we have a grand n. In order to ensure its sess, two of us Elemental Gods have personally joined in, and I¡¯ve even recruited 30 something Earth Elemental Lords, and they¡¯re all very interested in this n. Of course, that also means that they¡¯re interested in the treasured position of Earth Elemental God.¡±


    ¡°...As long as Emordilorcan is eliminated, I won¡¯t lose to anyone.¡±


    Camdian faintly smiled and didn¡¯t say anything more. He had already heard this type of phrase more than thirty times in the past few days. Every single Earth Elemental Lord would say that to him.


    ¡°As long as Emordilorcan is eliminated, I will steal the position of Earth Elemental God for myself.¡±


    There were no promises given. These ancient existences didn¡¯t need promises either, as all of them were filled with self-confidence. They also knew that the moment Emordilorcan died for real, all promises would be worth nothing more than nk paper, and in the end the Earth Elemental Lords would have to decide things among themselves based on real strength.


    This was also why Rnd had Camdian take the task of personallying out to convince the Earth Elemental Lords. Normal people wouldn¡¯t even be able to receive a chance to speak before these ancient existences. Only the simrly ancient Wind Elemental God would know how to get all these ancient existences to temporary ally and work together for the same cause.


    ¡°Then, please take a look at this blueprint. In order to deal with Emordilorcan, we need a fortress¡ªa huge moving fortress.¡±


    Ainslo epted the blueprint, and then¡ª


    ¡°...I haven¡¯t read many books, but you can¡¯t fool me! Is this really a fortress? Do you think I¡¯ve never been to the mortal ne? This is obviously just a duck!¡±


    Yep, on that blueprint was arge yellow duck, albeit without a neck. And on the top of the blueprint, there were also severalrge words that were written.


    ¡°Moving Fortress¡ªLarge Yellow Duck!¡± This was obviously the blueprint of a certain individual who had spent so much hard effort on designing it. Fine, you could also say that it was the product of terrible hobbies.


    ¡°No, no, no; I didn¡¯t understand it at first either, but you see, making it into a bird¡¯s shape is in order to reduce air resistance while it¡¯s flying, and choosing the strange shape of a featherless, neckless duck is all in order to have better contours for less drag. Apparently, this is supposed to be humanity¡¯s newest technology in the area of air resistance. It¡¯s the crystal of schrly wisdom.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure that you¡¯re not joking with me? This is a crystal of schrly wisdom, not some random object made by someone with too much free time?¡±


    It was obvious that Ainslo wouldn¡¯t be so easy to fool. She had a premonition that with just this ridiculouslyughable outer appearance alone, if she ended up creating it, it would be the greatest humiliation of her long, long, life.


    ¡°Of course, the one who designed it was a major schr of the Truth Research Society (Margaret), and this time, she¡¯s also personally joining us in the attack on Emordilorcan!¡±


    Alright, Camdian didn¡¯t intentionally lie to Ainslo. It was Rnd who had fooled Camdian about its designer to begin with. But now, the Wind Elemental God¡¯s words sounded extremely convincing. Even though Ainslo still felt rather confused and doubtful inside, she could only agree.


    ¡°Wake up all those stone carvers and sculptors; we have a new job! Let us begin creating the Large Yellow Duck! Under the lead of I, the Great Stone Sculptor, it shall be the grandest duck in this entire world!¡±


    Note:


    1. Forrest Gump reference!

 Chapter 213

    Chapter 213: The Former Student


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The Main Gods¡ªwhoops, I meant the System wouldn¡¯t give me a quest where I¡¯d die for certain!¡±


    I really wanted to say this, but to be honest, I still didn¡¯t know how to earn two thousand-something Fate Points within 24 hours. This was more than half a year¡¯s worth of daily quests.


    But where there¡¯s a will, there¡¯s a way... I really wanted to say that as well, but the so-called way never ended up arriving.


    [Time¡¯s up. I¡¯m now going to confiscate your ¡®newborn baby.¡¯ Whenever you have enough points,e find me. Interest will be set at 40% withpound interest; if you take too long... heh heh, you understand.]


    ¡°The hell¡¯s with saying I understand! How much do you want to overuse this joke!?¡±


    But, even so, there was no helping the situation. What else was I supposed to do other than earn enough Fate Points?


    Alright then, my current target was to now hurry up,plete my quests, and pay off the Fate Points I owed as quickly as possible. However, my current condition obviously wasn¡¯t the best for challenging strong opponents.


    And so, there was no helping it. After having set out for less than a week¡¯s time, I began my return journey.


    I decided to hurry back to Karo City first. At the very least, I needed to think of how to pay off my debt and receive my ¡°newborn baby¡± back again.


    [Daily quests, pick one of two. The first quest is to ¡®Tell the World that I am the Naked King.¡¯ The second quest is ¡®This Uncle Isn¡¯t a Pervert: Little Girl, Why Don¡¯t You Watch This Goldfish Together With Your Uncle...¡¯]


    As I walked through Karo¡¯s streets and looked at my daily quests, it seemed to be a choice between making either myself or others suffer. Yet looking at the 50-point reward which probably wouldn¡¯t even be enough to pay off the interest, I gave up immediately.


    ¡°Messing up the original nned course and fate will be profitable? I should just find an Epic-ranked Quest somewhere andplete it.¡±


    I crouched on the street and observed the busy people around me as I thought to myself.


    ¡°Rnd! It was actually you! When the scouts said that you returned, I couldn¡¯t believe it.¡±


    The person who suddenly interrupted my contemtion of important life questions was a white-bearded fellow with an excited face. I tilted my head at seeing this wrinkly old face who was so excited that his face had gone red all over.


    ¡°Oh oh oh! You¡¯re... are you that meat pie selling old man from Rubber Street? You¡¯re here looking for the two copper coins I owe you.¡±


    *Pu!*


    Judging by how he fell on the street, in addition to the looks of the rtively young mages following him, it seemed that my guess was off the mark.


    ¡°The hotel owner? The shoe polisher right in front of where I lived? The barber next door? You¡¯re none of the above? You must be kidding! Just who exactly are you?¡±


    I was starting to get rather frustrated. My time was quite valuable, and this white-bearded fellow actually dared to y guessing games with me!


    ¡°You don¡¯t recognize me, and you¡¯re getting angry with me? I¡¯m Kaid, a junior student from the same time as you! Take a closer look!¡±


    At hearing this, I paused in surprise. I could indeed recall such a junior student, but he obviously had a different appearance.


    ¡°That¡¯s not right. Kaid doesn¡¯t have such arge beard, and he was a handsome young fellow back in the day who was quite white. Nor was he as short as you.¡±


    The white-bearded fellow kept nodding. ¡°Yep, I¡¯m that white Kaid from back then, who used to be famous for being handsome, who all the teachers were attracted to. But now that I¡¯m old now, how could I possibly look like back then? My back¡¯s a little hunched now, which is why I¡¯m shorter.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re really Kaid? That Kaid who specialized in divination and prophecy? The Kaid who would fail his elemental magic sses until Armageddon? The Kaid who wouldn¡¯t wash his underwear for two weeks at a time? The Kaid who used fire magic to make fireworks for confessing to a girl and ended up being treated as the ¡®younger-brother type?¡¯¡±


    Alright, the more I spoke, the redder Kaid¡¯s old face got, but he didn¡¯t deny anything I said. ¡°Yep, didn¡¯t you also fail sses together with me? That silly public confession idea even came from you, and as for not washing my underwear for two weeks, isn¡¯t that your fault for exploding theundry room?!¡±


    I nodded at this. It seemed that it actually did match up with my memories, but I still wanted to confirm something.


    ¡°You really are Kaid, the Kaid who chose to specialize in divination just so you could secretly spy on female teachers changing clothes and taking showers.¡±


    This time, the two students behind him looked at their teacher with strange looks in their eyes. To them, the Myth-ranked mage Kaid was a venerated, kindly elder who was easy to get along with. They never expected Kaid to have such a wild history.


    ¡°...That was Phillips! You definitely remembered wrong! I¡¯m not interested in older women, I only like the younger ones...¡±


    ¡°Ohhh.¡±


    It was toote to stop now. Themotion from his students made the old teacher want to find a hole somewhere to hide in.


    I had now confirmed things. However...


    ¡°You really are Kaid, that¡¯s great...¡±


    Archmage Kaid was smiling with tears in his eyes. Being able to see an old friend again after so many years was indeed rather moving.


    ¡°Return my money! Those three and a half gold coins that you owe me, when do you intend to pay me back!? Forty percentpound interest, plus two hundred years¡¯ time, I¡¯ll just calcte it as two hundred thousand gold coins.¡±


    Everyone¡¯s expressions froze over instantly upon hearing this.


    ¡°Demons from the nine depths, please listen to my prayers...¡±


    Fine, this guy actually started cursing me, and it seemed like a mega-level magic spell that borrowed powers from the demons. I knew that my joke had gone a little overboard, so I jokingly exined myself.


    ¡°Getting angry so quickly, you really are Kaid. Come, we should find a ce to drink a little as fellow bros.¡±


    There were four great joys in life¡ªmeeting with rain after a long drought, the first night after being newly wed, bing famous for your aplishments, and meeting an old friend in a distantnd.


    There were also four great sorrows in life¡ªonly having one drop of rain, the groom being someone else, writing the wrong name on the test, and meeting a debtor in a distantnd.


    But, right now, Kaid, who seemingly owed me money, was quite happy. After drinking some alcohol, he even joyfully went looking for some young girls and asked, ¡°How about letting this grandfather show you some western tricks? Look, lollipops! Look, goldfish...¡± and then he was dragged away by his disciples.


    Today, Kaid¡¯s impression of being strict and archaic was probably utterly ruined. Perhaps, starting from tomorrow, stories of the old Kaid¡¯s new ¡°fierceness¡± would be told all over the city.


    ¡°Oh my, even though this is just some free alcohol, it¡¯s still pretty good. This should be the And¡¯s Hun District¡¯s special three-hundred-year-old brandy. Its price should be at least five thousand gold coins; you¡¯re really willing to go all out. Hmph, don¡¯t think that you can buy me with money. You still need to return my money to me.¡±


    [System Reminder: You bastard, can¡¯t you just stop bringing up those three and a half gold coins of yours? Also, you remembered it wrong¡ªthere weren¡¯t even any gold coins back in that time, it was obviously just three and a half copper coins. You should learn from Kaid here. See, he¡¯s forgotten entirely about it, and he¡¯s even agreed to pay for your room and board.]


    ¡°Copper coins? Forget it; there¡¯s no difference. You should also forget about the Fate Points I owe you, then. I¡¯ll never mention these coins again.¡±


    Alright then, the system didn¡¯t answer me, but my guess was that that bastard of a system was probably preparing some sort of ¡°glorious¡± achievement like ¡°Scrooge¡± for me.


    And right now, Kaid returned in joyous spirits. Yep, we should just ignore the tiny handprint on his cheek. It seemed that little girls wouldn¡¯t care if he was some venerated archmage and would still p him.


    ¡°Rnd, why are you drinking by yourself? It¡¯s such a rare celebration party, you should be happier. This is also where I want to introduce you to the others as an old senpai; you should at least give me some face here.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t mention it. Just look at how they¡¯re all pointing; no need to mention face, they probably all think that I¡¯m just an old demon.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t say, it truly is strange. Although after reaching a certain level, the physical body will indeed be nearly indestructible, and the rate of aging will drastically slow, but for you, not only your physical body but even your soul feels like it¡¯s filled with energy, as if you¡¯re a newly-born baby. And, your current magic power doesn¡¯t feel strong.¡±


    I smiled without answering. Some things were too difficult to exin even if I wanted to.


    Kaid shook his head, knowing I didn¡¯t want to say anything, and he didn¡¯t pry any further as he began chatting about the past.


    ¡°Do you still remember Ailulu? She actually got married to Caso, our fellow student...¡±


    I had forgotten many things already, but luckily, divine power helped me recover quite a few memories of thest God¡¯s Descent. Plus, I had the records from my experimental log, so I could mostly match those to my memories.


    Of course, some confusion was still unavoidable; for example, misremembering a beautifuldy as a handsome boy, misremembering me owing money as me being owed money, or misremembering copper coins as gold coins...


    [System: Can you stop bringing up those three and a half gold coins already?]


    Cough, getting back to the main topic, after getting old like me, mentioning past events would always be nostalgic and long-winded. This chat took up half the entire night. Except for a few of us, all the others had left already.


    After chatting about so many things, even I felt rather nostalgic upon hearing about my past ssmates and friends¡¯ news.


    Time was cruel and would never stop ticking. With two hundred plus years having passed, the number of ssmates I had that were still alive weren¡¯t many. After all, Gold was an obstacle, Legend was another obstacle, and Saint was yet another obstacle. In order to reach the limit of human life, one must reach at least the Saint rank, and the probability of that was absolutely minuscule.


    ¡°Oh right, do you still remember Teacher Amelia?¡± Kaid smiled mysteriously, as if he had finally found my weak spot. ¡°Back when you were together with her, many archmages were sad to the point of despairing, and there were quite a few that used your image as a voodoo doll. She¡¯s still looking for you, and won¡¯t believe at all that you¡¯re dead, and she¡¯s always been single. It seems that she¡¯s deeply in love with you, so how do you intend to pay her back?¡±


    I didn¡¯t react much to this, but Atadia and Soranto beside us were obviously shocked and eximed out loud. They had kept worrying that their teacher Kaid would continue to embarrass himself, but never expected to hear about a topic like this.


    ¡°Impossible, the gentle and kind Teacher Amelia was the dream woman for a countless number of students, how could she possibly...¡±


    ¡°What! I¡¯m the Angelic Amelia Supporters Club member #1047, this definitely can¡¯t be real! Teacher, you¡¯re going to face the wrath of all us innumerable Amelia fans!¡±


    *p!*


    Kaid awkwardly smiled at me after he pped both his students on the back of their heads to shut them up.


    ¡°You¡¯re actually tempted by physical appearance, how immature.¡±


    After those taboo things urred, Amelia indeed had an infamous reputation, but with the passage of two hundred plus years, as long as those old fellows kept quiet about things, not many knew about Amelia¡¯s past. In the students¡¯ eyes, they probably only saw that astonishingly charismatic Teacher Amelia who seemed so gentle and easy to get close to.


    ¡°...Who was it clutching my thigh and crying that year long ago, and then running off while still crying and shouting ¡®I¡¯ll leave Amelia to you, you have to treat her well, or I¡¯ll never forgive you in my life?¡¯¡±


    This time, it was Kaid¡¯s turn to break out into a cold sweat. The next moment, he adjusted his beard and changed to a serious expression.


    ¡°That was Alibert¡ªit was definitely that fellow! He was one of the biggest Amelia fans around back in the day.¡±


    Okay then, seeing that Kaid was treating me to three-hundred-year old brandy, I decided to somewhat save his face.


    ¡°So, Teacher Kaid had this side to him as well back in the day.¡±


    ¡°Why are you saying that we¡¯re being tempted by physical appearances? Could it be that Teacher Amelia also has another side to her, a wild, seductive side? Ahhh, I really want to see that side.¡±


    One was eximing while the other one was panting. It was obvious that none of these guys could be considered normal.


    Kaid and I could only exchange nces and smile wryly at the younger generation¡¯s fascination with Amelia. It was simr to how we were fooled that year as well.


    ¡°Wild? More like insane.¡±


    ¡°Believe me, if you ever saw her other side, you¡¯d likely be on her experiment table, and then... there wouldn¡¯t be anything else left for you.¡±


    After some hesitation, I still decided to tell them.


    ¡°Actually, Amelia found me, and we came to the Earth Elemental ne together this time. Teacher Harloys is also together with us.¡±


    After I said this, Kaid was still fine, but the two Amelia fans¡¯ eyes turned red and seemed like they were about to jump me.


    However, Kaid revealed an expression of deep contemtion. He knew that the Earth Elemental ne was no ce to be going on a honeymoon, and all three of us were considered world-ss cmities, so we definitely had some kind of reason foring here. Then, he connected the dots to the recent strange urrences, and now revealed an expression of sudden realization.


    ¡°...Could it be that the increase of the Earth Elemental Tide and the inability to teleport between dimensions were caused by you guys?¡±


    ¡°Teleportation between dimensions isn¡¯t working anymore? No, we didn¡¯t cause that, but it¡¯s highly likely to be rted to our goal. You know about Emordilorcan, right? As the Earth Elemental Lord, he¡¯s probably the only one who can seal off this entire ne. The Elemental Tide¡¯s increase is definitely rted to him.¡±


    ¡°Emordilorcan? Last I heard, didn¡¯t he go to the Nortnds to join up with the beastmen?¡±


    ¡°...Your news is behind by at least half a year. He¡¯s returned, and he¡¯s seriously injured. This time, we came here for something big. Would you like to join us?¡±


    [Congrattions to host for activating a Legend-ranked Quest, and a reminder from the System: Hmph, it¡¯s definitely not because I¡¯m taking pity on you that I¡¯m giving you a quest that can help you pay off your debt.]


    ¡°Stop sinisterly pretending to be cute, you¡¯re as un-cute as could be!¡±

 Chapter 214

    Chapter 214: Contract and Teaching


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    To be honest, I was actually quite happy to meet a familiar face in a distantnd, especially since he owed me money and even promised to return it with interest...


    [System: Have you had enough of this topic yet? Will it ever end!?]


    Cough, let me get to the main point. I finally didn¡¯t need to swindle those gnomes to earn a living anymore. After all, they weren¡¯t exactly dumb, and they weren¡¯t easy to deal with.


    The gnomes¡¯ hard efforts, however, had another effect, which was that the Law God Wumianzhe¡¯s belief system was spread far and wide.


    Of course, it was impossible to think about relying on them to actually propagate religion. Even if the concept of Law was very useful to the gnomes who were individually weak, they were a group that would do anything for money, always on the border between legal and illegal. Why would they ever do something so troublesome as spreading religion?


    What they spread for Wumianzhe was something else, but it was something that belonged to one of his concepts¡ªContracts.


    This Divine Obligation that Wumianzhe obtained at And wasn¡¯t widely epted in human society yet, but the gnomes were happily making use of contracts. That ¡°insurance¡± was obviously a type of contract, and the gnomes were quite weing of this new concept that would protect the ¡°weak¡± and was supported by the power of a True God.


    There was just a small problem.


    ¡°Venerated Insurance God, Bushuizhe, please listen to my prayers, and help me sell some extra insurance today.¡±


    Forget about getting the God¡¯s name wrong, the Insurance God wouldn¡¯t be the Merchant God either, but why would he have to help you seed in sales¡ªcough¡ªI meant... What¡¯s with calling him the Insurance God!? There was actually no divine punishment for this? Was Wumianzhe such an easygoing God? That was impossible.


    ¡°Luckily, the gnomes got the God¡¯s name wrong, so the prayers would be ineffective. Otherwise...¡±


    Alright, somebody had already stated the truth. A prayer like this, which got the God¡¯s name wrong, was just like a wrong number phone callpletely meaningless. However, this would definitely anger anyone in a divine job ss rted to the God in question if they witnessed something so sphemous.


    Yet, sometimes, even the wrong could have the same effect as the correct. If certain wrong concepts gathered to a certain degree, it really would have the power to affect a True God¡¯s Divine Obligation. In order to prevent Wumianzhe from being addressed by incredibly uncool names like the Insurance God or Bushuizhe in the future, I intended to have the Church of Law take action right after I returned to the mortal ne.


    At the very least, I couldn¡¯t allow the gnomes to act as they pleased like this anymore. Perhaps it was time for me to attempt trying my hand at something as profitable as insurance.


    Right now, the contracts under the name of the Law God were doubtlessly far better than the contracts with demons. Furthermore, in order to give these contracts greater effectiveness, those miserly gnomes actually even constructed a Temple of the Law God in Karo City, and Wumianzhe¡¯s statue was even golden... yep, gold paint only, as they would never want to spend their lovely gold on something as useless as decoration.


    Although I greatly objected to the fact that more and more gnomes were treating Wumianzhe as the Insurance God, I had to admit that they were rather helpful in expanding the Law God¡¯s Divine Obligation and Divine Domain even if they had selfish objectives in spreading contracts and insurance. I suppose it counted as doing good while having bad intentions.


    ¡°Perhaps I should have a discussion with the gnomes and sign an overall contract with them, adding a use for them to spread theplete religion of the Law God. With their abilities to evene to other nes and be merchants, I¡¯m certain that they could be effective.¡±


    As I was thinking to myself, I suddenly imagined a scene of a gnome wearing a gentlemanly hat and a suit, politely knocking on someone¡¯s door and handing that person a name card.


    ¡°Hello! Do you happen to know about Wumianzhe? You don¡¯t? That¡¯s great... whoops, I mean that¡¯s really regrettable. Our Church of Wumianzhe... if you join us now, we¡¯ll even give you a free present! Three years¡¯ worth of ident insurance... for free! If you pay one hundred gold coins, we can even give you VIP membership and add on explosion insurance for no extra cost.¡±


    Just imagining this scary scene bing a reality made me feel like all the divine job ss members of the Church of Law would be equated withmon salesmen. I decided to give up on this idea of mine so that Wumianzhe wouldn¡¯t turn into the Advertising God of Dandruff.


    But the most important thing right now was...


    ¡°Ahhh! When will the System return my ¡®world¡¯ to me?¡±


    While I did activate a Legend Quest, which would indeed give me a significant amount of points, the surprising part was that it wasn¡¯t about killing off Emordilorcan. Instead, it was a choice between ¡°The Battle of Two Dragons;¡± I could choose between helping either the Bardi Empire or the Mage Country, and improve my reputation in one of the two countries.


    Obviously, if I chose the Mage Country and dragged them into this affair with me, then it would be quite useful to improve my reputation through this battle against Emordilorcan.


    The reward was therge number of Fate Points that I needed, and if I chose the method of killing Emordilorcan in order to improve my reputation, then there would also be a significant reward of highest quality earth element materials for constructing my ¡°perfect world.¡±


    But I wasn¡¯t happy about this quest at all, because this quest¡¯s choice implied something obvious.


    ¡°The Mage Country and Bardi Empire are at war?¡±


    At hearing this, Kaid nodded with a bitter expression.


    ¡°Although it hasn¡¯t broken out into all-out war yet, over a hundred conflicts have erupted on the border in the past month. Every day, we capture several hundred spies. It¡¯s also quite obvious with their military movements. It would seem that it¡¯s only a matter of time before Bardi formally deres war.¡±


    ¡°Just what is Orloss XIII thinking? Having his mega-level empire begin a war right before the Holy War? Did a demon devour his brain!?¡±


    I didn¡¯t even have to ask the reason, as I understood the Truth Research Society quite well. As long as their system didn¡¯t change, they would have little interest in things like reputation or expanding their country. The Mage Country hadn¡¯t changed its boundaries in the past several thousands of years, and it was basically impossible for me to believe that they would start a war of their own volition.


    As for the Bardi Empire... to be honest, the human mega-level empires were all the same, incredibly arrogant, and if any mental nutcases arrived that believed themselves to be some legendary once-in-a-thousand-years king, the countries next to them would suffer for the next hundred years. The biggest issue of all was that all these empires happened to have incredibly solid foundations, and it would be quite difficult for any other country to deal with them. Thankfully, there were numerous small countries between the major countries as a buffer zone.


    But I had heard of that Orloss XIII before. He had already been the Bardi Emperor for thirty-plus years, and was always a warmonger through this entire time. He kept fighting wars with other countries, and he recently beat the Moon and Horn Thirteen Countries Alliance into submission and forced their surrender, which directly removed the buffer zone between the Bardi Empire and the Mage Country.


    ¡°I doubt that he¡¯s insane; he probably saw that all the other countries were busy preparing for the Holy War, so they could take this opportunity to expand.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! They really believe they¡¯ll be spared in the Holy War? Foolish.¡±


    Kaid shook his head at hearing this.


    ¡°Bardi is an interior kingdom. There¡¯s basically no other species but humans both inside their borders and in the nearest countries. This Holy War really might not affect them too much. Our Mage Country is too much of a big target, and they¡¯re probably targeting our technology. It really is rather bothersome.¡±


    I opened my mouth, but didn¡¯t say anything in the end. After all, it was impossible for me to exin how I knew about the fact that the Undead ne had a portal that would open right in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital. If I casually let it be known, it would cause me an endless amount of trouble, and there was no way for me to prove that ¡°history¡± and ¡°the future¡± would be repeated.


    It should be worth mentioning that when I had Reyne use the name of the Eastern Mist Communal Country to warn the human countries about how the undead would soon invade, basically nobody believed it, and the only response was disbelief and ridicule.


    ¡°Those northern hicks say that an Undead Cmity is about to arrive? Hehe, it seems they¡¯ve already been scared witless by the remnants of Xiluo¡¯s forces. Let the Undead Cmitye! Even the Yongye Cmity from approximately a hundred years ago couldn¡¯t do anything to us, so why would this be any different?¡±


    ¡°East Mist? That Rnd from the legends? Warning us about a new Undead Cmity like Yongye? Oh my, isn¡¯t this the rat warning the cat about a robber? Are you sure that this isn¡¯t just a joke?¡±


    Alright, I did what I could, and I couldn¡¯t control things if they weren¡¯t willing to listen. But now, it was obvious that I had to make a decision.


    ¡°The Mage Country! There¡¯s no need to even think about it. I¡¯m already sick and tired of foolish emperors, those bastards.¡±


    And after I made a choice, that evil System of mine actually gave me something useful, allowing me to temporarily borrow my ¡°world¡± up to three times. It even gave me a progress bar.


    [11.7%, -3421]


    The second number was the number of Fate Points I owed, which kept increasing in no apparent pattern. The first one was iprehensible.


    No matter what or how I asked, the system remained abnormally silent. And the moment that progress bar increased in number even a little, my debt would grow tremendously¡ªnot at a 40% interest rate at all.


    I could only helplessly experiment one time with my ¡°world,¡± which instantly helped me understand, and then I instantly regretted it... I had wasted one of my few chances that were difficult toe by.


    My ¡°world¡± was still empty as it started out, and the air in it was still frosty, but something seemed to be new within it. At the very least, it seemed far more stable than before.


    ¡°My system has changed its ways? It¡¯s decided to be a tsundere[1]? It actually helped me out? If my guess is right, it¡¯s helping meplete and stabilize my ¡®world.¡¯ It¡¯s even allowing me to go into debt.¡±


    When it came to receiving payments, the system was quite reliable. It was always adamant in not doing anything for me unless it was paid, never working for free at all and keeping true to the ¡°principle¡± of working only as hard as the amount it was paid. This time, the fact that it was willing to allow me to go into debt while helping me out was rather astonishing.


    The system fell into an abnormal state of silence. Not only did it ignore everything I asked it, I couldn¡¯t even open up anything in its menu except the progress bar. It was basically like aputer that had overloaded itself and crashed, but from another aspect, it also meant how important the ¡°world¡± was¡ªimportant to the point where the system abandoned everything else and focused only on perfecting it!


    But not being able to use the system didn¡¯t mean that I had nothing to do. It was rather the opposite. In order to improve my reputation for the quest, as well as prepare for the necessary uing battle, I did many ¡°small things.¡±


    Karo City¡¯s arena was typically the ce where other species would take care of their personal grudges, and the ¡°wise¡± mages would never enjoy such a barbaric stage. Yet these days, the arena was filled to the brim with mages.


    Currently, a silver-armored warrior was dueling with an archmage. The archmage kept creating walls in an attempt to prevent the warrior from getting into melee range, while he also controlled some earth elemental warriors as fodder for blocking the silver warrior.


    *Boom!*


    The earth wall that would have been sufficient to block even a giant was actually demolished, and all that silver warrior had to do was lower his head and guard himself with his shield and he couldpletely ignore the low-level earth elementals his opponent summoned.


    *Boom!*


    This time, a newly created earth wall was directly destroyed as its earth element wasn¡¯t solidified enough yet.


    It was unexpected; the archmage was still in the midst of an incantation when the silver warrior¡¯s sharp sword was already in front of him. He hurriedly rose his hand in surrender as his face was already pale with fear.


    ¡°Winner, Rnd! Congrattions for seventeen victories in a row!¡±


    I took off my helmet and smiled my #59th Style Holy Knight Standard Smile, which I was out of practice with these days, and waved my hand at the observers, causing many to shout out in excitement and joy.


    ¡°It seems that I still have it in me.¡±


    As a Holy Knight who used to specialize in being the pretty face to attract sponsors, using my face to improve my reputation was basically a piece of cake for me. But just this alone wouldn¡¯t be enough.


    And, so, I was all smiles as I reached out my hand to the archmage that just lost to me. I pulled him up and began exining to him about the battle just now.


    ¡°Using well-prepared earth wall traps to slow down a high-speed-type warrior is indeed a good idea, but sometimes it¡¯s just too obvious. If only you ced a small trap for tripping someone under the earth wall. As long as it seeds in making your opponent lose bnce¡ªeven for just a short moment¡ªthat could be fatal. And all you focused on was creating walls, can¡¯t you dig a pit trap with earth magic behind the wall? Since your opponent¡¯s vision will be blocked by the earth wall anyways, when a high-speed-type warrior breaks through the earth wall or jumps over it, he¡¯ll have too much speed to stop, and it¡¯s highly likely that he¡¯ll fall directly into the pit.¡±


    ¡°Ohhh!¡±


    Not only was this archmage not unhappy about losing, he was nodding with an expression filled with gratitude. The other spectator mages also took out their notebooks and kept writing in them. These types ofbat techniques and practical experience all came from a strong warrior¡¯s experience and couldn¡¯t be learned in any ssroom.


    ¡°Schrly academic mages always have a bad habit of preferring to use extravagant high-level spells to crush their opponents. To tell the truth, high-level spells have too long of a cast time and are too obvious; they aren¡¯t actually all that threatening to high-level warriors. As long as you hit someone in a critical area, even the lowest level ice arrow can be fatal. A simplebination of low-level magic spells is the bestbination to deal with high-level warriors.¡±


    Yep, I was teaching them after every battle, and this was the method I chose to try improving my reputation. After all, in the mage society, there were plenty who could teach magical knowledge, but there were pitifully few mage teachers who could teachbat experience and practical techniques.


    Yep, I was now a mage teacher. Even though inbat I typically performed the role of a warrior job ss, I had appeared in front of them as a magical swordsman who practiced both swordsmanship and magic, which was why they could ept me as one of their own.


    Since it was a ¡°mage¡± defeating them, they could ept it even if they lost, but a warrior defeating mages continuously would doubtlessly give me a lot of unnecessary trouble.


    As a former student who was senior to even their highest-ranked archmage Kaid, I naturally counted as their teacher in their eyes as well, which further reduced any enmity they may have had. And since I was considered an ancient oddity who had lived for several hundred years already, no matter how ridiculous I acted, they would treat it all as normal.


    ¡°May the Holy Light forever be by your side!¡±


    A blinding Holy Light descended and began healing the archmage that had just lost to me. His skin began glowing pink, but all the spectator mages didn¡¯t react to this. This obviously wasn¡¯t the first time.


    ¡°This is the thirteenth time he¡¯s used holy magic to heal his opponent! Could this senior of ours even have the job ss of a Legend Holy Knight?¡±


    ¡°Inconceivable!¡±


    Without a doubt, the good reputation of Holy Knights would also make it much easier for me to gain reputation. At the very least, the story of my adventuring that I had made up was already being treated as real.


    And if everyone else was just somewhat surprised, Kaid was shocked to the point of his jaw dropping on the ground.


    ¡°The greedy, perverted, narrow-minded, vicious, evil, grudge-bearing (30 adjectives have been skipped here for convenience) Rnd was actually able to be a Holy Knight? Are the rumors of the God of Holy Light going blind actually true?¡±


    Alright, so you think I¡¯m greedy, perverted, (34 adjectives skipped here for convenience)? Yep, Kaid, you must have a really good memory as well. Yep, in two days, I shall allow you to witness just how grudge-bearing I¡¯m capable of being.


    ¡°Good work. Those youngsters are really impressed with you.¡± (Kaid, just keep being happy for the time being. I¡¯ll help the whole city learn that you¡¯re actually a lolicon.)


    I was intending to tease him with that, but suddenly, a messenger came in on a horse galloping at top speed. Judging by how the messenger was waving his hand at me, it seemed that the letter I had been waiting for all this time had finally arrived.


    ¡°Kaid, it seems that the time hase. Our n is about to begin.¡±


    Note:


    1. ording to Wikipedia, Tsundere is a Japanese term for a character development process that describes a person who is initially cold and even hostile towards another person before gradually showing a warmer side over time.

 Chapter 215

    Chapter 215: Divine Miracle


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Karo¡¯s skies were always a yellowish gray, and every day, endless sandstorms would rage against the city¡¯s barrier. Although the residents of the city didn¡¯t need to prepare against the wind and sand like they would need to if they were outside the barrier, it was only natural that the city¡¯s skies would darken as long as there was a sandstorm outside.


    At such a time, Karo City¡¯s magical lights would all be lit, but Karo could no longer afford to use such a luxurious, resource-consuming item when supplies were limited, as the Earth Elemental ne was recently cut off from the mortal ne. So, whenever the sandstorms urred, the entire city would be pitch-dark and everyone would only be able to stay home and sleep.


    This was only a small part of how terrible this environment was. Since the Earth Elemental necked vibrant colors, this world seemed too simple, and in order to prevent psychological problems, ording to the Mage Country¡¯s rules, the head archmage in Karo was supposed to be switched out every three years. Yet, with this sudden incident of the teleportation between nes no longer working, Kaid who was in charge was destined to remain for quite some time.


    Currently, however, in this world that only had the simple colors of ck, gray, yellow, and brown for the most part, there was now a different color¡ªa patch of endless white.


    Frosty ice was filling Rnd¡¯s temporary guest room. The ice crystals spread all the way to the corridor, but there was a gap in the center of where the ice gathered, where the knight of ice was currently retracting his ice magic.


    ¡°Whew! I¡¯ve finally gotten used to it. This Death Chill spell that I¡¯ve newly mastered is definitely a lot more useful than the ¡®Frost¡¯ spell. Now, my next target shall be learning the Ice River Sword.¡±


    Of course, I would never be a teacher for free like that. To be honest, I also needed arge amount of actualbat to get used to my new abilities.


    My ¡°Frigidwinter Earth¡± was confiscated and maintained by my System, and I couldn¡¯t use most of its abilities, but there were still two abilities that remained and were evolved forms of my original abilities. Just mastering them alone took up much of my time and energy.


    Even right when it awakened, my ¡°Frost¡± spell had already proved its potential. Its immitigable damage and its capability to be endlessly stacked were akin to the original nature of winter, but its greatest weakness was that it required physical contact to activate. At the time, there had been an additional exnation on it saying that it would evolve when I reached the Gold rank.


    Now, it had indeed evolved into ¡°Death Chill,¡± a strange area-of-effect ice damage ability. It wasn¡¯t limited to that¡ªevery tick of ice damage would decrease the enemy¡¯s ice resistance level. I performed some experiments and found that an unprepared Gold-ranked mage would need about 30 seconds for him to be sleeping with ice cubes forevermore.


    Simply speaking, this ¡°Chill¡± inherited the same effects of ¡°Frost¡± to stack limitlessly and cause immitigable damage, and I felt that I would even be able to freeze an Ice Dragon to death if the battle extended long enough. Since this ability was connected to my ¡°Frigidwinter Earth,¡± it seemed that even the True Gods would be unable to ignore this ice damage that was seemingly rather low.


    This was doubtlessly a strong ability and would perhaps be the core of my futurebat strategies. As long as I wore some heavy armor, I was already an outstanding tin can knight. Add on support abilities like holy healing, and it quickly became obvious I had the advantage in sustained, drawn-out battles.


    My recent duels against the mages were evidence of how abnormally powerful my new ability was. They would be halfway through chanting a spell when they would suddenly be interrupted by a cough, or their well-prepared defense barrier would suddenly be useless, weak pieces of ice. The advantages became even more obvious while fighting against other melee opponents. The closer the opponent got to me, the greater the power of Death Chill. After exchanging blows, my opponent would start getting bothered by the ice crystals that would form on his sword¡ªit was evident that my Death Chill wouldn¡¯t spare sword wielders. Although I still needed to find more uses of this ability, these functions alone were sufficient for me to deal with the average Legend.


    The most important was that this ability wouldn¡¯t be affected by this world. If I could even use my ability to the fullest in the Earth Elemental ne where the water and ice elements were incredibly rare, I would probably be able to use it in other True Gods¡¯ Divine Domains as well.


    Yet some people had some objections to me.


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey! Back in the day, wasn¡¯t it you who said that warriors were all muscles and no brains? Howe you went and leveled up in a job ss that you previously called barbaric?¡±


    With old friends who know all about your past¡ªespecially your dark history¡ªyou wouldn¡¯t be able to help feel rather helpless, just like I was at the moment.


    When faced with such a sarcastic inquiry, I really didn¡¯t know how I was supposed to respond.


    ¡°It¡¯s a long story. Right, did the Mage Country reply?¡±


    ¡°Yep. We barely managed to get in contact. Although the transmissionsted for only a few sentences, the Truth Symposium¡¯s reaction was quite quick, and they gave us some good news. Basically, I have full authority to deal with this sudden situation, which means whatever I say, goes.¡±


    Kaid was chuckling in delight as he said so. In a way, this also indicated the Mage Country and Truth Symposium¡¯s trust in him; they viewed him as important.


    This was to be expected. I nodded and didn¡¯t say anything, but Kaid keptughing.


    ¡°By the way, they also transported a small present for you. Just a little something.¡±


    A present for me? I should have left that year without saying goodbye; I had run off instantly after reporting Amelia, so how could there possibly be a present for me?


    ¡°Your graduation diploma. Congrattions! After over two hundred years, you¡¯ve finally graduated and can go look for a job now. By the way, you¡¯ve also broken the records at our school for how long you¡¯ve failed the same grade and for being a truant.¡±


    Fine then, that sky-blue booklet really did have my name Rnd written on it, and it even had the Truth Symposium¡¯s emblem stamped on top. I didn¡¯t know whether to be angry or tough, but that was when I came to a sudden realization.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that...¡±


    ¡°Some things, you only need to think and not say out loud. Oh, by the way, remember to thank our teacher Aloso, as he even went through the trouble of getting you a special teaching certificate.¡±


    This seemed like an unimportant joke, but it was the recognition that the Mage Country was giving me. ¡°A student who forgot his graduation diploma when he left¡± would no longer be an outsider, and now that I was officially recognized as a former student¡ªeven a teacher¡ªI now had an identity as a member of the Mage Country. Takingmand of these juniors here would be only natural with this new identity of mine.


    ¡°...Teacher Aloso? That nice fellow who¡¯s an ice magic specialist? Okay, got it, to pay him back, I¡¯ll write and give him a copy of the ¡®Ice Aeon¡¯ spell.¡±


    ¡°...You really were Yongye, after all. Forget it. Everyone has their own troubles, and I won¡¯t mention it. In that case, I¡¯ll thank you on Teacher Aloso¡¯s behalf for the time being. After all, this is the only forbidden spell developed for ice magic in the past three hundred years. Even if more than ny-nine percent of mages won¡¯t be able to learn it, it¡¯s still nice to improve the stock of our library.¡±


    After the message arrived from the Mage Country, all of Karo got busy with preparing for battle against Emordilorcan. After all, every mage was worried about their country¡¯s uing war against the Bardi Empire, and they all wanted to take care of the trouble before them as quickly as possible so that they could return to their homnd and protect their country.


    After Karo began its preparations, some other local factions like ¡°Shadow Tower¡± and ¡°Hand of Tiso¡± that had good rtions with Karo also epted our invitation and joined in, making full preparations forbat. I was also patiently waiting for this destined battle.


    ¡°Emordilorcan, I still remember the death you wrought at Red Maple Castle like it was yesterday. It¡¯s time for your reckoning!¡±


    In a way, an Elemental ne¡¯s Elemental God counted as the ne¡¯s master. Countless elemental creatures would be under the God¡¯s management, and only incredibly strong elemental creatures would be able to resist the God¡¯s summoning. That¡¯s why, from the very start, this was going to be an incredibly dangerousrge-scale battle.


    Therefore, in order deal with that nearly endless amount of elemental cannon fodder at Emordilorcan¡¯s disposal, we also needed to prepare a sufficient amount of cannon fodder, separated by type. Each member of my small team was also giving it their all.


    Normal wind and water elemental creatures would essentially be useless here, which was why Camdian had been spending his time tricking the Elemental Lords here into bing cannon fodder.


    Those ambitious existences had long since been unsatisfied with Emordilorcan¡¯s rule, especially after he had been sealed for such a long time. Now, he hadn¡¯t shown up after he obviously returned, and there were even rumors that he was seriously injured to the point of death¡ªof course he wouldn¡¯t seem as scary as he usually did.


    The new generation of Earth Elemental Lords were all the ambitious type, and they had long desired to rece Emordilorcan. The older Elemental Lords didn¡¯t dare to underestimate Emordilorcan, but since they knew all the more how strong he was, it meant that they wanted all the more to seize this once-in-a-thousand years opportunity.


    By the end, Camdian didn¡¯t even need to personally visit and persuade the Elemental Lords. Those Elemental Lords started creating factions of their own and kept massively adding to their numbers. The Earth Elemental God had never done anything that would cause his citizens to respect and venerate him. After being missing for thousands of years, he was now about to meet the danger of his citizens¡¯ rebellion.


    Meanwhile, Reyne was working hard in her own way, gathering arger andrger demon army, which was already turning into a ¡®secret¡¯ major catastrophe for this ne. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the Elemental Lords wanted to deal with Emordilorcan first, perhaps their allied armies would immediately turn around and first fight with this demon leader who was messing around in the Earth Elemental ne.


    As for the two SemiGod mages in my little party, they didn¡¯t rx in their tasks either. In their dictionaries, there was no such thing as too much cannon fodder, as they only kept working at the tasks assigned to them. Those countless runic giants and earth element demonized nts were piling up like mountains, and when you add all that on to the other allied reinforcements we had recruited, Emordilorcan was likely going to be in for a world of pain.


    As for Emordilorcan, there was nothing but silence on his end. Although it could be felt that the mountains and cliffs were slightly trembling, as if there was some frightening existence breathing between them, apart from that there was no other movement from him. No Elemental Lords were summoned, and Emordilorcan himself hadn¡¯t shown up at all¡ªit was as if he was still in a deep sleep.


    ¡°Ahh! That Rnd, he really knows how to treat us like servants! Making us the scouts.¡±


    ¡°Well, being able to see this is indisputably useful. It will make our chances of victory go up.¡±


    Before she even finished speaking, Margaret had taken Adam and vanished. It was no wonder they were chosen as the scouts; Adam, the strongest tank,bined with Margaret¡¯s instant teleportation and defensive capabilities would allow this duo to sessfully retreat even in front of Emordilorcan himself.


    It was to be expected that Emordilorcan wasn¡¯t on guard. For an Elemental God, just having his physical body be destroyed would be enough for him to go into a long hibernation. Add on the fact that in order to vent his anger on us, he even used his Divine Soul to cast two spells that were at the level of a forbidden spell.


    The first one was to destroy Red Maple Castle¡¯s walls, and the other one was to give the beastmen from the ins a path to attack us. His spells indeed changed the entirebat situation; however, since he didn¡¯t even have a physical body when he cast those spells, it was no different from him self-destructing his Divine Soul, and he had paid a tremendous price. Without several hundred or even several thousand years of hibernation, he¡¯d probably be unable to recover his power.


    In his eyes, that should have been enough to secure the situation. He probably never expected the beastmen to lose in the end, and when his weakened Divine Soul returned to the Earth Elemental ne, he didn¡¯t dare appear in front of the other Elemental Lords. He went straight into hibernation back in his old nest.


    Without a doubt, this was a correct decision on his part. By simply hibernating for a while and borrowing the endless replenishment power of the Earth Elemental ne, he would have enough strength to protect himself, which would obviously be much better than appearing in front of everyone in a weakened state and letting the ambitious Earth Elemental Lords discover his weakened state.


    He had only miscalcted the importance with which his opponents viewed him¡ªthey viewed him with such seriousness that they were all willing to stop what they were doing and spend every effort on eliminating potential problems down the road. In the end, due to his hibernation, Emordilorcan lost the chance to be proactive.


    The deadline of two months had only half a month remaining. This slowly gathering anti-Emordilorcan army already had approximately half the totalbat strength of this entire ne. Without even needing to mention the countless amounts of cannon fodder, we didn¡¯tck high-levelbat strength either. As I would put it, ¡°With so many people, who needsbat strategy? All we need to do is attack.¡±


    But I was saying that mostly to raise morale, as a majority of our army was still cannon fodder. After all, even if we had about half the entire ne¡¯sbat strength, Emordilorcan had the entire ne¡¯s strength avable to him.


    As the master of this Elemental ne, the Elemental God would be able to use elemental power as he pleased within his own ne. To make an analogy, the entire Earth Elemental ne was simr to a Divine Domain, and Emordilorcan would be stronger than any Middle True God in here¡ªmuch stronger than Felix who I faced a while ago.


    If it weren¡¯t for the fact that Emordilorcan was so seriously injured in the mortal ne, those veteran Earth Elemental Lords wouldn¡¯t even dare to think of rebellion. They knew, however, that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them.


    Yet as for truly how strong an Elemental God was in his home turf, nobody would know unless we actually fought him. After all, thest time an Elemental God was changed out was five or six thousand years ago, so it was quite difficult to check recent history.


    Ask the Water Elemental Goddess or Wind Elemental God? That would have been a nice idea but not a realistic one. To be honest, I had asked them before we split up, but they both remained abnormally silent. It was obvious that neither of them intended to reveal the full extent of their power in their home nes.


    ¡°Today¡¯s the Earth Elemental God¡¯s turn, so they¡¯re worried about the next time being them? How... cautious.¡±


    We used to be enemies to begin with, and now we were only in a temporary alliance against a mutual enemy. I, too, didn¡¯t have the confidence if tomorrow they would turn on me, so it was more than reasonable for them to remain cautious. I also hid arge part of my abilities and powers, and it was only natural for them to hide information about themselves. I didn¡¯t even feel like I should say anything about it.


    ¡°To be honest, since all the elements have different properties, all of us have different fighting styles, and we can¡¯t provide any useful information to begin with. Besides, Emordilorcan¡¯s power and experience is far above ours, so there¡¯s even less to work with. In that case, rather than giving misleading information, it¡¯s better to not say anything at all.¡±


    Honesty? This excuse sounded quite reasonable, but I¡¯d be a fool if I really believed these words. But, it was still a nice excuse that would save face for both sides and allow us to still act friendly.


    And when the two-month deadline was almost here, I finally received a piece of excellent news.


    ¡°Harloys woke up? Wonderful!¡±


    Oh, did I forget to mention someone? I definitely didn¡¯t! I definitely didn¡¯t, but you insist that I did? Fine then, you¡¯re the one that¡¯s going to suffer. Let us see what that existence whose name had be a forbidden term has been busy with recently...


    In a distant desert, a half-dragon wearing a piece of tattered cloth was currently sitting down and smiling. Around him were stone giants, sand worm kings, sphinxes, and other various earth elemental creatures.


    All these elemental creature species were each other¡¯s natural enemies, but now, they were actually sitting together peacefully. The only one who could pull of such a miracle was, of course, the half-dragon who was currently spreading his way of life.


    ¡°Physical appearances are all fake. Everything is empty, and emptiness is everything. All lives are created equal, and appearances of the heart are the most important. All creatures in the world can have beautiful souls. Just because of some differences in physical appearance, you all hated each other and killed each other, which is the path of bing a demon.¡±


    ¡°Everyone is equal, and true love is limitless. Perhaps you all have different species and genders, but as long as you have a heart that seeks true love, all of you are foundationally brothers and sisters, with no differences whatsoever.¡±


    The Legend-ranked half-dragon was actually teaching his way of true love to the residents of the Earth Elemental ne, and after hearing his way (or brainwashing), more and more elemental creatures began following him, believing in this way of mutual peace and love that didn¡¯t originate in this ne.


    ¡°I can feel how much effort you¡¯re all putting into this. I hereby solemnly swear that I shall walk to the ends of the heavens and earth to spread the way of true love, and I wish for all lives in this world to put down their biases, to ignore all species, gender, and physical appearances on their search for true love. I¡¯m willing for nine bolts of lightning to strike me in order to test my will! Confirm that my will is sincere!¡±


    *Boom!*


    Right after the half-dragon said that he was willing to be struck by lightning to confirm his will, lightning really did strike him. Was it really to test him, or was it that the heavens couldn¡¯t stand the sight of him anymore and wanted to strike him dead? That was unknown.


    This sudden lightning caused all his new disciples to exim in astonishment. Lightning was extremely rare in the Earth Elemental ne, and this energy-filled lightning element indicated that this was indisputably real lightning.


    The earth elemental creatures had intended to rush forward and save him, but right then, Beifeng¡¯s ckened skin molted, and new skin was revealed beneath it. After that bastard was struck by lightning, he was actually undamaged, and he even shed his signature faint smile.


    ¡°Just as everyone has witnessed, my sincerity has moved the heavens! The heavens sent lightning down to test my will!¡±


    Just as Beifeng was acting all grand and roared at the sky, the dark clouds that continued gathering in the sky indicated that these ¡°nine bolts¡± of lightning were just the beginning, and his trial of lightning hadn¡¯t ended yet...


    His disciples were all panicking, and they tried to dodge the thunderstorm. Yet seeing how Beifeng simply pointed at the sky and smiled, seeming like he didn¡¯t mind at all, they all calmed down.


    All the creatures around Beifeng had devout expressions as they bowed towards him. But only Beifeng himself knew that it wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t want to run, it was that he couldn¡¯t run.


    ¡°I sat down for too long and my legs are all pins and needles. After being struck by lightning, they¡¯re nowpletely numb, and even the smile on my face has frozen. Um, can I retract my words from earlier?¡±


    *Boom!*


    Fine then, the heavens used its own method to reply to him. All the earth elemental creatures admired this mega-level thunderstorm that wouldn¡¯t be seen even once in a thousand years. ording to the stories, there were over a thousand lightning shes streaking through the sky that day, breaking the record for most lightning ever in the Earth Elemental ne.


    The part that made people feel the most speechless of all was that this scene actually became the Divine Miracle of this abnormal religion. An abnormal religion and philosophy had indeed begun taking root and growing.

 Chapter 216

    Chapter 216: Stories at the Library


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°...As expected of the Mage Country. Things are now even more ridiculous than before.¡±


    It was a sea of books. The countless number of ancient bookshelves were filled with books, and each magical book was priceless and contained enough magical secrets to make anyone go crazy.


    After receiving a teaching certificate from the Mage Country, I acquired the right to enter this library. In this world, books were the most precious form of wealth, and reading was a luxurious form of enjoyment. Back then, it had been quite the difficult task to just obtain permission to use Tassel Kingdom¡¯s library.


    Mage Country was far more generous in this aspect. Even if it was thanks to Kaid¡¯s rmendation that I was allowed to browse through these precious ancient tomes, it also, in a way, proved the foundation of what the Mage Country was built on¡ªrecording and transmitting magical knowledge, and seeking the truth and secrets of the world.


    ¡°Truth Overseer¡± was the glorious, highest-ranking title in the Mage Country, and was already an exnation of its goal. The mages¡¯ goal had always been to obtain more knowledge and truth, and their highest ranks simply meant that those individuals had obtained more from the endless sea of knowledge.


    Of course, this was the ideal concept of a mage. In reality, there were plenty that were attracted to the mundane. After all, using the power and knowledge that they gained to exchange for themon world¡¯s authority and wealth was far too easy. There were even some mages that learned magic for the sake of obtaining authority from the very start. After cultivating to a certain extent, they would naturally leave.


    Yet the current me had no time toment on the mages as I was already spending most of my time perusing these magical books.


    However, there were far more books than I expected, and many books were covered in thickyers of dust. It would seem that nobody had read through them for a long time, and the books were obviously rather disorganized. It was exceedingly difficult to find the ones I was looking for; perhaps I would be unable to seed in what I wanted here.


    Also, the uninvited ¡°guest¡± kept slowing down my progress as well.


    ¡°What a pity. Aston/Fimier/Aibott could have gone up one more rank.¡±


    When old ssmates had a reunion, it was only natural to discuss about what happened to the other ssmates. However, there was only one type of sentence that always ended up being the conclusion¡ªan exmation on how a former ssmate had ended up dying¡ªand it made me feel rather pitiful and helpless.


    For high-level mages, increasing their lifespans wasn¡¯t a difficult problem. Turning into artificial life, half-elemental life, God Envoys and so on were all possible. Even if one¡¯s luck was terrible and they turned into something like an undead Lich, it was still yet another possible path.


    Of course, the prerequisite was that one¡¯s power level was high enough. Those who couldn¡¯t even reach the Saint rank wouldn¡¯t have any ess to such lifespan-increasing options.


    What made me sigh and pity them was the fact that those mages, who should have reached such a rank to begin with, would always die off for seemingly random reasons.


    ¡°Just recently, an academic research journal did a study on the reasons for high-ranked mages¡¯ deaths, and it was astonishing. The undisputed leading cause was battle and war, which took up a whopping 71%. Natural deaths like dying of old age or disease was only number two at a mere 11%, and number three was dying identally during experiments. Most genius mages would get involved in some sort of conflict or battle or personal grudge over personal benefits and end up losing their lives. All those dreams and hopes of theirs would be nothing.¡±


    Kaid felt that it was both a regret for the geniuses that perished as well as a fortune, as he knew that among his ssmates, his talent for magic was considered slightly below average. It was just that he was the type that dislikedpeting with others, and he preferred to always hole up in his home and conduct research, which imperceptibly led to him reaching the pinnacle.


    The geniuses thatpeted with each other all ended up with nothing but death, and the one who was below average and aware of it became a hermit and lived life peacefully. After a long time passed, it was the below average one who who received everything. In a way, this was a subtle, wondrous irony.


    For most mages who abandoned the path of cultivating to be stronger, what stopped them wasn¡¯t their own weaknesses in personal strength but rather temptations and troubles from the outside world.


    ¡°By the way, are you really not making fun of me?¡±


    I kept feeling like the meaning of these words were familiar to me. After all, I had died several times already, and I had to keep dealing with worldly affairs due to this and that, but Kaid chuckled at my question.


    ¡°You think you count as a genius? Apart from getting full points in an elective ss like Mage Personal Defense, what genius would have all his grades barely above the passing mark? You even failed a basic ss like Elemental Concepts three times, and if it weren¡¯t for the fact that you got cozy with some female teachers, you probably would have been expelled long ago.¡±


    When I heard this, I was instantly angered and couldn¡¯t respond. I knew it. Something that seemed cute, like childhood friends, weren¡¯t cute at all in real life, especially when the childhood friend was the same gender as you and knew about your dark history. They should all be sent to the moon tied to gnome rockets.


    ¡°I was pretty happy to have you in my sses, since that brought down the average grade of our sses significantly. I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about being the lowest scoring person in the ss...¡±


    Alright then, Rnd the lowest scoring and Kaid the second-lowest scoring individual were chatting together about times long ago, sighing how time was cruel and all those geniuses had already perished. This seemed even more ironic now.


    ¡°Don¡¯t say that! You make it sound like I depended on women to support me. Hey hey hey, why are you looking at me like that with such surprise? Be careful, or I¡¯m going to turn on you.¡±


    ¡°You bastard! Don¡¯t you have any self-awareness? ¡®Rnd who¡¯s good for nothing except his face,¡¯ the ¡®Holy Knight that entered the wrong job ss¡¯ was quite famous back in the day. Don¡¯t you know that after you got with both Teacher Harloys and Teacher Amelia that so many people purchased drawings of you and used you as a voodoo doll?¡±


    ¡°You seem to be quite well-informed on this topic...¡±


    My fists were clenched tightly in an obvious warning, but this guy didn¡¯t notice it at all.


    ¡°Of course, this was one of my main sources of ie back in the day. There were many methods of going about it, and just drawing a picture that resembled you wasn¡¯t good enough. Not only did it need to look like you, but it also needed to piss people off, and I needed to draw vicious smiles on your handsome face in order to satisfy my customers. Especially after the news that you abandoned Amelia spread out¡ªmy business boomed. On that very day, I received enough orders to keep me busy for the next month, and I got enough tuition money for an entire year. That¡¯s why, even if you scam some gold coins off me now, it¡¯s not a problem at all...¡±


    Seeing this old fellow who always acted so serious but wouldn¡¯t shut up about the topics he liked, I couldn¡¯t restrain myself anymore and viciously punched him.


    *ng!*


    This time, it was actually my hand that was hurting. The light of something metallic was actually shing on that bastard¡¯s face.


    ¡°Stoneskin magic? No, Ironskin magic?¡±


    Even though I didn¡¯t feel any waves of a spell being cast at all, Kaid¡¯s skin was obviously as hard as iron. It was a magic I had never seen before.


    ¡°Hehe! This is a magic I invented myself, although I got the idea from your legendary story about the ¡®The Forest¡¯s Nun Convention and the Eighteen Wolverine Old Ladies¡¯ that you told me in the past. I also named this spell ¡®Golden Bell Skin¡¯ after the same technique in that story! It¡¯s able to transform my skin and bones into metal and make me as undefeatable as the undefeatable olddy and wolverine olddies in the story! Isn¡¯t it amazing?¡±


    Fine then, it was a different world¡¯s magical version of the ancient Chinese martial arts technique ¡°Golden Bell Skin.¡± I didn¡¯t even know where to startmenting from anymore. The wolverine olddies, the nun convention, or the undefeatable olddy?


    Nheless, this helped me understand that the current Kaid was truly a powerful archmage, even if he still wasn¡¯t the serious type at all.


    Just like how ice magic was a branch of water magic, the closest type of magic to earth magic would doubtless be metallic magic, which was renowned for high defensive power. Unlike ice magic, which could be learned as its own unique branch, the metallic elements were tightly connected to the earth element, and without cultivating earth element magic to a certain degree there wouldn¡¯t be any way to learn metallic magic. Being able to permanently maintain a metallic magic spell like this was doubtlessly a unique high-level technique.


    Not only did this indirectly help me ascertain Kaid¡¯s current power level, but it also gave me a new idea.


    ¡°Kaid,e over and help me out. You should be very familiar with earth magic.¡±


    Since Karo City mainly had earth mages in it, its library was, of course, focused on information about earth magic, earth elemental creatures, and earth element magical materials. For me to be reading up on information here, it obviously wouldn¡¯t be because I wanted to learn earth magic.


    Although reading about other types of magic wouldn¡¯t have any downsides¡ªit could even be adaptable¡ªbased on my talent for magic, trying to learn an entirely new element¡¯s magic would take me at least several decades. I definitely didn¡¯t have the free time for that.


    ¡°Emordilorcan¡¯s the apex of earth elementals, and earth element magic is tightly connected to him. I don¡¯t believe he only has the power of this entire Earth Elemental ne. His past history, any weaknesses he has, any specialties of his, what elemental magic he excels at, and what ace cards he may have¡ªbefore we battle with him, we absolutely have to find out!¡±


    Hearing this, Kaid revealed a smile that seemed to say, ¡°I knew you would be like this.¡±


    ¡°...If someone else picks a fight with you, you would seem like you didn¡¯t care at all, but in actuality, you would work overnight on investigating the previous eighteen generations of that person¡¯s family. You really are the same as back then.¡±


    Kaid continued toment on my dark history and made me really want to beat him up, but he pped his hands at this time.


    *p!* *p!* *p!*


    All the magical lights lit up in the library, and all the doors were opened with arge number of young acolyte magicians pouring in and working busily. Archmage Kaid¡¯s message had already ordered them to begin the task of searching for information.


    They had begun with all the books on the bookshelves.


    ¡°Team A, start checking from the history section. See if there¡¯s any records of Emordilorcan personally fighting.¡±


    ¡°We, the members of Team B, would like to investigate about simr Earth Elemental Lords and the Elemental Gods. Their powers should be a good reference.¡±


    ¡°Team C would like to start researching about the highest levels of earth element magic. There may be powers simr to Emordilorcan¡¯s there. The most important ones are the forbidden spells that humans are unable to use. Oh, and also the elf kingdom¡¯s forbidden spells.¡±


    The acolytes began to actively research, and Kaid was unusually serious as he spoke.


    ¡°At such a time, you can stop doing everything by yourself like in the past. Besides, this is also our battle, so just trust in yourpanions a little bit for once.¡±


    This was the most serious that I had ever seen Kaid.


    ¡°Alright.¡±


    I was even somewhat moved, as I randomly took out a book and began reading.


    ¡°...What¡¯s this!¡±


    The cover said, ¡°How to Control and Construct with the Iron Element,¡± but underneath the exquisite cover was actually a collection of pictures of naked young girls...


    ¡°...¡± The archmage who didn¡¯t say anything but stole the book back from me was the best exnation.


    ¡°You used the books that nobody ever borrows as covers to hide your personal treasures. Even this part about you has never changed.¡±


    When I looked around, there were quite a few acolytes furtively dashing directly towards specific bookshelves. It seemed that there were quite a few who actually did this.


    ¡°Ah, this is strange! I actually found a porn¡ª¡±


    Before that acolyte even finished his sentence, someone else beside him covered his mouth and dragged him away. Some things were known by everyone already, but their teacher was still here, and it wouldn¡¯t be good for it to be publicized.


    As for the ¡°treasure¡± this acolyte discovered, it instantly disappeared, likely to be someone else¡¯s new personal treasure.


    Judging by therge scale of the acolytes¡¯ actions, this was obviously a city where there were too many males and not enough females and some job upations were still quite undeveloped. Yet some upations were obviously rather profitable, such as the gnome publisher¡¯s logo on all the picture books that indicated the source of all such books.


    All the acolytes¡¯ items had to be teleported over by the Mage Country¡¯s officials, and the luggage they could bring was limited. Since the gnomes¡¯ dimension-tearing devices had fewer restrictions on them, even if only one book was sessfully teleported over out of ten, as long as that book could be sold for the price of ten books, it wouldn¡¯t be any loss at all. And from my understanding of the gnomes, they would most likely ask for a price that was sufficient for a thousand such books.


    ¡°Heh heh, it really is just the same as long ago. What, you¡¯re still collecting this type of book?¡±


    This time, it was my turn to tease this old gossip.


    ¡°The gnomes gave it to me for free¡ªthe gnomes gave it to me for free¡ªand I have no idea why they would do so, so I tossed it here...¡±


    This old gossip¡¯s face was capable of turning red? This was a real sight to see. But if what he said was real, perhaps I would have to reevaluate the gnomes¡¯ capabilities. At the very least, their ability to bribe seemed ridiculous.


    ¡°...At least, before you go, make the gnomes pay some money that they view as their own blood. They¡¯ve been making too much profit recently; it¡¯s time they pay some of it back.¡±


    Okay then, let us ignore that mysterious voiceing from the corner of the wall.


    ¡°Um, you won¡¯t make fun of me, will you?¡±


    ¡°Of course not, of course not, I can understandpletely.¡±


    ¡°How could you possibly understand? You winner in life! You were so popr back in the day, and you¡¯re still so young! You¡ªthese days, just how many girlfriends have you had? How many beautiful women have you had intimate contact with... Ahhh, don¡¯t tell me, I don¡¯t want to know, you winner in life!¡±


    My mouth twitched, but in the end, I didn¡¯t reply with what I wanted to.


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯m the same as you. I¡¯ve been single for the past three hundred plus years. As for intimate contact with beautiful women... does having my body cut up and my heart dug out count?¡±


    ¡°It is better to be a na?ve idiot than it is to be Emordilorcan.¡±


    When the innumerable amount of anti-Emordilorcan forces finally arrived together without even the need to summon them, this casual sentence that I said was spread everywhere by everyone. In a way, I wasn¡¯t wrong at all.


    When all the anti-Emordilorcan forces gathered together, even all of us were astonished at how powerful the final group was. There was some trouble, though, due to the chaoticmand system structure andpletely different weapons, equipment, and logistical needs. Not to mention that there were quite a few factions that had enmity with each other, and it was impossible to organize everything.


    ¡°Impossible tomand everyone under a unifiedmand system? It doesn¡¯t matter, just have everyone attack. You don¡¯t understand? Fine, let everyone fight under their ownmand and do as they like.¡±


    Since this was just a temporary alliance to begin with, each faction¡¯s leader didn¡¯t think too highly of their other temporary allies. Forcefully requesting a unified system ofmand would probably end up with a bad result.


    Instead, if I allowed them to battle freely under their ownmands and just take care of themselves, it would be much easier to receive a betterbat result.


    And, at the current moment, I was busily needling a certain person¡¯s head with my fists.


    ¡°Reyne, you really dared to do such a thing!¡±

 Chapter 217

    Chapter 217: Rumors and Gossip


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    As the countless hordes of demon armies walked by, the earth would be scorched ins, and the air would be filled with the scent of sulfur. Rubble and dead bodies would be the mainstay of the world.


    If there was one racial prejudice throughout all thends that could be viewed as natural and correct, the only one, perhaps, that could fit the bill would be the prejudice against demons.


    As the representatives of Chaos, they indeed never did anything good. They would receive joy from killing other lives, with death and pitiful screams being the marching music for their armies. Souls were their food and replenishment, and even the existence of the undead, which brought death everywhere, was the creation of an ancient demon.


    Add on the fact that they always yed the bad guy in every Holy War, and even if it was a bit overboard to call them the root of all evil, it wouldn¡¯t seem strange to consider the demons as the final antagonists.


    In front of my eyes was such arge demon army. Their camp was filled with an aura of twistedness, and the earth itself seemed to be raging helplessly as the naturalws of the Earth Elemental ne were being rewritten.


    ¡°Take a look! This is my army, isn¡¯t it amazing?¡±


    Looking at how proud this idiot girl was of herself, I was angry in so many ways. She was obviously just pretending to be a fool.


    The only part worthy of being happy about was that there was no twisted sensation from her that indicated she had been invaded by Chaos. That meant that either she was able to perfectly conceal her own abnormal changes and twistedness, or she hadpletely taken control of Chaos and hadn¡¯t had any changes to either her physical body or her soul.


    Considering her bloodline¡¯s connection, thetter seemed more likely, but even so, I was furious.


    ¡°You¡ªyou really dared such a thing! And you already know what the end result of dealing with demons is. I know more than a dozen whose bodies and souls have been devoured by demons, more than enough for a book titled ¡®Collection of Fools Deceived by Demons,¡¯ and you still dared to...¡±


    Reyne didn¡¯t reply, and maintained her faint smile as she looked at me. Her look was one of ¡°I¡¯ve done it already, so what can you do?¡± At this moment, I knew that not only did she already know the consequences, but she intended to bear them.


    ¡°Forget it! I¡¯m not going to care anymore, just do whatever you want.¡±


    In the end, I could only angrily toss out this sentence, just like a parent who had been infuriated by a naughty kid. My sentence sounded quite serious, but it was actually a demonstration of my helplessness that couldn¡¯t be expressed in any other way.


    ¡°There¡¯s not much time left, and I don¡¯t want to only watch from the sidelines...¡±


    Reyne¡¯s reply gave me a sudden jolt in my heart. It seemed that I had only been giving my junior the best path I believed for her, but I had been ignoring her own feelings.


    The proper path was indeed wide and safe, but it was also difficult to walk down and progress would be slow. For her to be able to gain true top-levelbat strength that could influence the entire situation while taking the proper path probably wouldn¡¯t be possible even by the end of this Holy War.


    In the end, perhaps she was just like me from that year. Despite being the prince of a country with his citizens¡¯ trust, in front of the unchangeable situation and the unbeatable enemy, I could only watch as the knights and citizens were sacrificed and nothing could be done.


    Perhaps in Reyne¡¯s eyes that was also the same fate that would befall her. In order to control her own fate, she made a choice to seek strength at any cost. Judging from her calm smile, she had already made up her mind to ept any potential consequences, including bing my enemy.


    ¡°As a princess and the royal sessor of East Mist, I can¡¯t give over my country¡¯s fate to anyone else. Even if its fate is to only be destroyed in the end, then, at the very least, I shall give everything I have in order to twist this damned fate.¡±


    Beneath this seemingly silly smile was resolution matching that of her ancestors. Perhaps, from the very start, I had underestimated this little girl.


    ¡°Go self-reflect properly for me!¡±


    Alright, I didn¡¯t know what else I should say to her. I tossed her this sentence, which seemed forceful on the surface but was actually meaningless, as I turned around and left¡ªor perhaps I should use the word escaped.


    After I calmed down, I hesitated for a moment, before speaking in a low voice.


    ¡°Elisa, you understand a lot about demons...¡±


    Yet the typical instant response didn¡¯te. It seemed that even the silver ring had lost its power to contact Elisa due to the connection between the Earth Elemental ne and the other dimensions being cut off. Now, I didn¡¯t have a chance to gain more information on this topic.


    ¡°...It seems I need to have a really good chat with Karwenz, soon.¡±


    Perhaps some things were simply unavoidable.


    [Congrattions to Host for improving your reputation in the Mage Country. You¡¯re now Respected (infamy known to all). Please continue working hard!]


    A sudden system message interrupted my thoughts. Although this doubtlessly indicated that I was making progress in my Epic Quest, when I took a look at my system menu, that [67%, -33423] incredible debt was impossible for me to bear looking at.


    ¡°I owe even more now.¡±


    As for that (infamy known to all) in parentheses after my reputation level of Respected? It¡¯s actually quite easy to understand. My system had rather normal-sounding reputation levels of Neutral, Acquaintance, Friendly, Respected, Venerated, and Idolized. However, since I wanted to grind my reputation level quickly, I had taken a certain shortcut. Although this allowed my reputation level grew at a much faster pace, my earlier level of Friendly had a (viinous name known far and wide) added behind it, and now my Respected level had (infamy known to all) tacked on, which was something I felt rather helpless about.


    Shortcut? You see, this was what happened...


    ¡°Look, that¡¯s the Rnd bastard who toyed with our angelic Amelia¡¯s feelings! Apparently, he was a mega-level scumbag back in the day!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t point at him! Be careful of getting pregnant. It¡¯s said that he¡¯s a huge pervert who can cause a woman to get pregnant just by looking at her.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s already a grandpa that¡¯s several hundred years old, and he still likes to dress so young. His intentions are inscrutable. I heard that recently, he fooled another ten young women.¡±


    ¡°I heard that back in the day, he was dating two idol-level beautiful teachers simultaneously, and he even had an additional two girlfriends on the side. Later, he was discovered, and someone wanted to kill him, which was why he didn¡¯t even have time to get his graduation diploma and was forced to escape.¡±


    As I was walking everywhere, I heard nothing but rumors. This made me want to go into a frenzy, but I absolutely couldn¡¯t. It was like hell.


    The reason? All the rumors and gossip were actually spread by me. In a way, it was also what I needed.


    ¡°This is no good! My reputation has been stuck at Friendly, 212/20000, for quite a while now. It seems I have no other method but to use this.¡±


    Right before a major battle, my ace card was currently under confiscation due to ack of money. If I was the first person in history who lost a battle due to insufficient Fate Points, which were required to purchase back my debt, then that would be too humiliating.


    This strange reputation quest that my system had given me even required that I had to get to Venerated in order to proceed with my quest. No matter how many good deeds I performed, I was still stuck at a little past Friendly, still far away from Respected. This was without even mentioning the Venerated reputation rank, which I could only look at.


    This wasn¡¯t the first time that the system had given me a reputation quest. Before, the Rnd Sacred Sword had a special effect, which helped its holder to greatly increase the reputation of the People of the Mist. I had investigated the strange way that my system defined reputation before. It turned out that the system wasn¡¯t all-powerful. This so-called reputation in the end was about how many people knew about you and how deep their impressions were of you. As for how many people specifically counted for one point, that was something I wasn¡¯t able to calcte.


    To make an analogy, the former reputation increasing effect of the Rnd Sacred Sword, basically meant that all the People of the Mist would have high expectations for the sword holder. They would voluntarily tell others about his identity and learn more about his deeds, and this so-called reputation would naturally keep increasing.


    ¡°As long as I know the rules, then I also know how to cheat...¡±


    And so, after much deep contemtion, I thought of my previous world and how never-ending scandals about celebrities were always the news that people paid attention to the most. This allowed me toe up with my devious shortcut.


    ¡°...Good deeds are never spread, while bad deeds will travel thousands of kilometers on their own. In the end, this reputation just requires me to be famous. For someone who¡¯s known to be excellent, at most maybe some parents would say ¡®you should try to be more like XXX¡¯ and it wouldn¡¯t even spread to the next street over. But if it¡¯s some bad deed or scandal, it would probably travel three thousand kilometers in a single night without me even needing to spread it.¡±


    ¡°Any societies consisting of intelligent creatures are naturally highly interested in negative gossip, especially if it¡¯s a scandal regarding several famous people at once. Who cares about my face? I stopped caring about saving face three hundred plus years ago!¡±


    Alright, the truth was that all I had to do was toss out two slightly perverted stories, and then arrange an acolyte to ask me questions about these stories in a public ce with many people around. I merely smiled and shook my head without forcefully denying it, which sessfully created the gossip about my scandal.


    My original story was only about the past when I had an unsessful romantic rtionship with Amelia, but based on what I¡¯m hearing now, the rumors hadpletely gone out of control after they started spreading.


    ¡°Do you really believe that he can make a woman pregnant just by looking at her? Can you still really call yourself a mage! That¡¯spletely illogical by thews of magic!¡±


    ¡°No, no, just think about it. He¡¯s a senior student from archmage Kaid¡¯s generation, and he must be an incredible archmage as well. I heard that he sessfully put a piece of his own soul into his own mana, and all he needs to do is stare at you to cast a mental magic that attacks your will. And that scary soul piece of his will directly use your physical body to create a new baby shard, which is what it means by ¡®he¡¯ll make you pregnant just by looking at you.¡¯¡±


    ¡°In that case, wouldn¡¯t even men¡ªahhh! I just met him yesterday and even smiled at him! He looked me in the eye, could it be that I...¡±


    ¡°Junior, I rmend that you go get a checkup in the infirmary. There¡¯s already a line several-hundred long, and I have the paperwork indicating that I¡¯m in the first-hundred part of the line. I can sell it to you for cheap.¡±


    To be honest, it was far out of my expectations for the rumors to spread to such a degree.


    ¡°The hell with getting pregnant just by looking at you! The hell with mental magic! The hell with a man getting pregnant! You guys actually believe such non-magical rumors and dare to call yourselves mages? Also, that one over there who¡¯s taking this chance to strike it rich, I¡¯m going to remember you! Brat, don¡¯t let me find a chance! If I actually do get the chance, heh heh, just wait to see how I¡¯m going to deal with you!¡±


    The part that I was most aggrieved about was that I single-handedly created this situation. I couldn¡¯t even defend myself, as I needed these rumors to spread even wider. I even needed to inme the rumors further, such as flirting in public with some beautifuldies... Cough, this part wasn¡¯t because of my personal desires! Definitely not!


    I did, indeed, bring it upon myself, but how could I stand to suffer alone by myself...?


    ¡°Look, that¡¯s the one who traffics underage girls, the white-robed perverted monster Kaid! I heard he¡¯smitted countless crimes, and only his high status is keeping it all hushed up.¡±


    ¡°How is that possible, Teacher Kaid is well-loved and respected by everyone. This must be a baseless rumor.¡±


    ¡°No, no, see how he¡¯s a good friend of that pervert king? It¡¯s said that they often discuss how tomit crimes together, and when an acolyte directly asked that Rnd about it, Rnd didn¡¯t even deny it!¡±


    And, so, Kaid¡¯s clean reputation for the past hundreds of years was ruined. Well, he wasn¡¯t squeaky clean to begin with, and now that people had these rumors to go off of, old Kaid¡¯s reputation instantly became rather strange as well.


    Oh, it¡¯s bad of me to do that to an old friend of mine? This was just a little return present. Did Kaid really think that I wouldn¡¯t find out he was the one who added the ¡®making people pregnant by looking at them¡¯ part to the rumor!? He even twisted it by adding some crap about mental magic as well!


    Alright, let¡¯s not mention old Kaid anymore while he¡¯s trying to salvage his reputation everywhere, but he¡¯s always met by female screams and shrieks and ps. Although this self-ruining of my own reputation was a devious shortcut that definitely hurt my ego significantly, there were also apparent benefits.


    ¡°I got to Respected in just two days. It¡¯s scary how fast my Reputation is growing now. I bet just about every faction in the Earth Elemental ne knows about me.¡±


    Although I was making good progress on my Epic Quest, which was obviously a good thing, I was all up in tears. Why? Because I went to a noodle restaurantst night for a bowl of noodles, and even a seventy-year-olddy was so scared that she maniacally ran out of the store at the sight of me. I merely nodded at a young acolyte on the road, and that guy actually let out a death howl and thenid on the road and pretended to be dead.


    Can you believe it? That acolyte was even of the brawny-muscr-huge-guy type. I was rendered speechless on the spot.


    ¡°Thanks to all these rumors, my reputation¡¯s bing stranger and stranger. Who cares? What¡¯s reputation anyways? Can I eat it? Regardless, I¡¯ve always been single even when I had a good reputation, and also single when I had a bad reputation, so isn¡¯t it all the same?¡±


    Fine then, if it was really all the same, why were there still tears in my eyes...


    Although the negative rumors increased my Reputation at an astonishing speed, there was still a bottleneck. Since there was a limited number of people in Karo City, my Reputation stopped increasing once my Respected (infamy known to all) reached about half-step to Venerated, which was rather frustrating.


    ¡°It seems that I still need a huge scoop. Oh right, Amelia and the others are supposed toe here in two days to meet up. Perhaps... Let¡¯s go with that, then. I hope Elisa won¡¯t beat me to death when I return...¡±


    As a veteran teacher of Cloud Tower, this wasn¡¯t the first time Amelia had been to Karo. In fact, she even stayed here for three years and made countless hidden preparations. If it wasn¡¯t for that, she wouldn¡¯t have been able to create her ¡°nt garden¡± so sessfully.


    In order to scam and obtain more research funds, and also so that her private research wouldn¡¯t be exposed, she made quite a good effort at appearing proper on the surface. She always had a good reputation, and apart from a few ancients from the same generation that knew her for who she truly was, most mages treated her as a trustworthy elder. And thanks to her gentle appearance (fake) anddylike behavior (fake), not to mention rumors that she had royal blood (true), and add on that she treated everyone the same (they were all experimental subjects to her), all of this further increased her poprity.


    In order to maintain her own good reputation, before she entered Karo City, she hid all those unpleasant things of hers outside the city, and even especially changed her clothes, took a shower, and spent a lot of time in front of the mirror in order to conceal her maniacal aura. A perfect ¡°angelic Amelia¡± appeared once again as she held a parasol and walked daintily into town.


    However, she immediately discovered that something was wrong about the situation. Everyone was looking at her strangely. In the past, there was respect, veneration, adtion, and, of course, love, but now, they were looking at her with sympathy, as if something pitiful had happened to her.


    ¡°Keep at it! Work hard! Everyone will still admire you like in the past!¡±


    ¡°Let the past be the past! Us members of the Angel Support Club will forever support you!¡±


    The cheers of encouragement she could vaguely hear from behind her were even more iprehensible.


    However, she soon understood what it was all about.


    When she turned around a street corner, she arrived at Karo¡¯s most flourishing and busiest intersection, a road that led directly to the city center. However, the crowds of people typically here were nowhere to be seen, and luxurious fresh flowers were strewn about all over the street. There were even gs and balloons by the roadside, and in the middle of the flowers was a familiar, half-kneeling figure wearing white formal attire.


    ¡°My beloved Amelia, please forgive my past transgression. My darling Amelia, let us get back together again!¡±


    Amelia was stunned for a moment before she squeezed a few words out between her teeth.


    ¡°Rnd! You bastard!¡±

 Chapter 218

    Chapter 218: Stealing all the Headlines


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°I¡¯ve be famous... as I wished, I¡¯m now headline news!¡±


    I abandoned all so-called sense of shame for my reputation, and now even I feared myself after I gave up all my limits.


    I obtained those fresh flowers with great difficulty after I made an incredible effort to contact all the nt specialist mages I could. I stole my formal attire from some random groom, I spent a great amount of money to purchase those balloons from the gnomes, and if it weren¡¯t for the fact that it was still daylight, I even prepared gnome fireworks in case Amelia arrived at nighttime.


    You see, in order to steal all the headlines, I was giving it my all.


    It seemed that my luck was actually pretty good. At the very least, it was better than a certain person, who had failed to steal the headlines due to an even more attention-grabbing piece of news.


    One of the people involved was the famous beautiful archmage with a renowned reputation¡ªAmelia, the former Truth Overseer, who possessed beauty, brains, and power. That was why this mega-level gossip of ¡°kneeling at the intersection to beg to get back together again¡± immediately spread through the entirety of Karo City in a single day. Just about everybody was discussing this hot topic.


    ¡°Did you hear? That Rnd guy actually bought all the avable fresh flowers that day and spent at least several tens of thousands of gold coins, just for that one moment...¡±


    Seeing my Reputation points increase at a furious pace, I was both delighted and frightened. I prayed that this incident wouldn¡¯t be known in the mortal ne, especially by a certain person.


    And what scared me the most of all was Amelia¡¯s reaction.


    If she beat me up at that time... I had expected an over 90% possibility that she would react like that, which would actually be easy to deal with.


    As long as she beat me up, this incident would end just like that, and the headline would be set. The ¡°failed romance¡± would easily be a huge piece of news, and this would actually solidify my status as a scumbag even more... By the way, it wasn¡¯t easy for me to think of some way to give myself the reputation of a scumbag.


    However, Amelia¡¯s reaction was far from what I expected. She neither got angry, nor did she go on a rampage right then and there.


    She only ground her teeth and squeezed out the words ¡°Rnd, you bastard¡± in a particrly low voice. Whenbined with her mysteriously reddening face, it would easily make others read too much into it.


    I could understand, as I knew she was just forcing down her anger in order to protect her angelic reputation and not get exposed here. But what was with her red face as she epted my flower bouquet? Was this supposed to be epting my request to get back together again? But the problem was that this was all just a rumor to begin with! With no romance to begin with, how could we possibly get back together!


    ¡°Congrattions, you actually got ahead of me in finding a girlfriend. And she¡¯s even Teacher Amelia. Having a student-teacher romance? You lucky bastard. Sigh, I suppose that in this entire world, only you can conquer her heart. Treat her well in the future. Stop messing around, or there¡¯ll be quite a lot of people that¡¯lle looking for trouble against you.¡±


    Kaid! This guy¡¯s congrattions for my uing wedding wasing way too soon. Stop touching your beard and pretending to be giving me your blessings while acting like some saint. I still wasn¡¯t prepared yet!


    Alright. Since I didn¡¯t think before I acted, perhaps I was now in deep trouble.


    Now, whenever I saw Amelia, who was always so direct and unabashed in the past, she would blush to the point where even her ears would turn red, acting all shy. When the ferocious tiger suddenly turned into a cute tiger, when the maniacal witch suddenly turned into a romantic teenaged girl¡ªthis abnormal feeling made me really want to smash my head against a wall.


    *Smack!* *Smack!* *Smack!*


    Fine then, I already did smash my head into the wall to the point that I was bleeding all over, but this still hadn¡¯t been resolved. The past few days even Reyne had been looking at me with an expression that she believed I was a scumbag.


    The most abnormal part of all was that after I finally got to Venerated status, there wasn¡¯t something like (viinous name known far and wide) tacked on to the end like usual, but instead...


    [Venerated (yboy who has finally reformed): 20000/20000 points. System Reminder: As a yboy who¡¯s finally reformed, you need to treat Amelia well from now on. As your mother, I¡¯m so proud of you, and I wish you the best. You absolutely have to have an active little baby that¡¯s just as mega-level mischievous as the two of you.]


    Alright, at the time I truly didn¡¯t know how to respond anymore. If it was possible, I really wanted to fight my System to the death, but the other slightly more serious system notification finally allowed me to heave a sigh of relief.


    [System Notification: The Mage Country Arlodant now views you as Venerated. The first stage of the Epic-ranked Quest ¡°Battle of Two Dragons¡± has beenpleted. You have now officially chosen the Mage Country, and will be rewarded with 50,000 Fate Points.]


    [For the next step, please proceed to the Mage Country¡¯s capital of Arlo to find the Truth Overseer named Oslowen. If you don¡¯t trigger the next stage of the quest within one year, 100,000 Fate Points will be deducted.]


    [88%, 10243]


    Perhaps thisrge number of Fate Points that I just received gave my System new motivation. Itsments were sharper than ever before.


    As for the next stage of my quest? I didn¡¯t intend to do it for the time being, as the reward seemed so easy toe by [Easy? Are you really sure?], and the part where I would suffer would likelyeter. And as for that point deduction punishment, all I¡¯d to do was secretly run off and trigger the next stage of the quest at some point in time [Do you think your System is an idiot?]


    Alright, I knew that I would likely suffer at the hands of my System in the end, but there was nothing wrong in dreaming a good dream, was there? I truly felt that my System was preparing a deep pitfall for me, and I really didn¡¯t want to jump into it. But based on my understanding of the System, there would always be a reason for me to jump into it in the end, and I would be forced into it.


    After I tossed all those annoying things to the back of my mind, there were still things that I could be happy about. At the very least, my Reputation increased at a much faster rate than I had expected, and I didn¡¯t even need to use my backup n, which would risk Adam beating me to death¡ªdragging the other beautiful and well-renowned mage Margaret¡¯s name through the mud in order to have a forbidden taboo love triangle scandal, or even a love square... I suddenly couldn¡¯t help but feel a strong sense of pity for myself. In such a day and age, apart from me, was there anyone else that would voluntarily make himself into a scumbag? Why was it so difficult to obtain some reputation?


    Fine then, let¡¯s not talk about those heartbreaking things anymore. Let¡¯s focus on the happy things in life, instead.


    At the very least, our allied armies had finished organizing. Although it was impossible to have an overallmand system or anything like that, all the factions were very interested in eliminating Emordilorcan. At least before we aplished our goal, I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about any internal conflicts causing our self-destruction.


    In order to prevent a hrious scenario like ¡°Rnd felt that he had such an advantage that Rnd decided to just all-out attack without a n! Oh, Rnd is now typing gg (good game and surrender), how regrettable¡± appearing, I indeed made some efforts at increasing our chances of victory.


    The first wave sent out would forever be cannon fodder, but this time, the cannon fodder was at quite a high level. The huge demon army became our first wave, and of course, if everything was sessful, they might even be ourst.


    As for why I sent the demons as the first wave? It wasn¡¯t that I personally viewed them with distaste; it was that all the other species and factions viewed them with distaste. Just standing together on the same side as demons made them all feel unpleasant, and they kept worrying about the possibility of some horrific plot awaiting them at the end.


    ¡°You say that there¡¯s a top-level Demon Warlock in your army controlling these demons? Stop joking around! You think I¡¯m a novice greenhorn? There¡¯s no way that anyone from the mortal ne could possibly control such arge-scale demon army. How is it possible for there not to be some Demon Lord from the lower nes here?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t work hard only to have the demons reap all the benefits in the end! Before we understand what¡¯s really going on, we refuse to listen to yourmands.¡±


    Well, it couldn¡¯t be helped that the demons had such a negative reputation. For our own side¡¯s morale and trust, I had Reyne send out her entire demon army for them to be the first wave of cannon fodder.


    Reyne unhesitatingly and directly epted.


    She stood on her demonized dragon¡¯s back and watched her destructive demon army proceed, leaving nothing but scorched earth in their wake. I mysteriously felt as if it would be really fun, giving me the feeling of an evil boss behind the scenes.


    ¡°You finally feel the joy of it? You were a lich and then themander of tremendous undead armies. You always used so many underhanded plots, with even the Gods falling victim to you. You were always the biggest evil antagonist of all.¡±


    Fine then, I now regretted asking Reyne. Suddenly, she smiled as slyly as a fox.


    ¡°However, there¡¯s nothing wrong with ying the role of the antagonist. At the very least, bad people live far longer than good people. If you really were as proper and had good morals like the main characters of most stories, you¡¯d perhaps be nothing more than a rotting corpse by now.¡±


    Reyne even nudged over to my side and rubbed me with her shoulder like she was a kitten, and used a respectful tone that was incredibly rare for her. It seemed to be her own way of acting spoiled and apologizing to me.


    ¡°Hmph! Don¡¯t even dream of me forgiving you so easily about using the powers of Chaos.¡±


    Although I said so, even I myself was unable to say anything too vicious to her. Perhaps the moment I had discovered how simr Reyne was to Prince Rnd from my past was when I silently admitted her independence and her right to make decisions for herself.


    ¡°...When we return to the mortal ne, arrange a time for me to have a discussion with Karwenz.¡±


    Hearing this, Reyne instantly cheered up and was filled with a bright smile.


    ¡°Okay!¡±


    ¡°Hmph! You start shining as soon as I give you a little sunlight. Remember, power is only a tool, don¡¯t...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be controlled by the power. Second Brother Karwenz also tells me this as well.¡±


    Alright, just when did Karwenz be her Second Brother? It seemed that I still underestimated this girl¡¯s basic instincts. Some things I still had to remind her about, however.


    ¡°Never trust the Chaos, Chaos...¡±


    ¡°...Chaos is unpredictable. If it could be predicted, it wouldn¡¯t be Chaos. You must learn how to master Chaos, and not be mastered by Chaos. Second Brother says this as well.¡±


    Fine, since I couldn¡¯t gain any verbal advantages here, I might as well just focus instead on the ¡°army that¡¯s just attacking all-out without any n.¡±


    Against several dozen armies¡¯ worth of demons, not a single individual would be able to retain their calm. From the very start of battle, things instantly fell into a cruel war of attrition.


    Emordilorcan left methods behind to protect himself as I expected. As soon as the demons entered his territory, countless numbers of earth elementals came out from deep within the ground, and tremendous earthquakes created countless crevices. As the demons kept falling into the rifts, the shape of thend was transformed enormously. As for the demons that didn¡¯t fall to their deaths, they were now trapped in the newly dividednd, facing against earth elemental creatures that were many times their number.


    However, there were just too many demons.


    The winged demons began organizing aerial assaults, and the earth elemental creatures mostlycked the ability to fly. This made thebat situation quickly tilt in the demons¡¯ favor.


    ¡°This seems so easy. Rumors of that Emordilorcan¡¯s strength must have been greatly exaggerated.¡±


    I only smiled upon hearing this. If Emordilorcan was truly so easy to deal with, I would havee looking for him the moment I arrived in the Earth Elemental ne. Why else would I spend so much effort in preparing against him beforehand?


    Even a sinking warship would still have a couple of cannons. As the most ancient Elemental God of all, even if he was greatly weakened, he would surely have many trump cards up his sleeve.


    The demons alone would be able to take care of him? I wasn¡¯t that optimistic at all. I only hoped that it would force out a couple of his aces, and the best result would be that Emordilorcan personally came out.


    But judging from the current development, I wouldn¡¯t be able to see him with just the power of the demons.


    Suddenly, the entire area began trembling violently before the ground fissured yet again. This time, several dozen tremendous Giant Sand Worms came out of the ground.


    Giant Sand Worms were low-intelligence earth elemental creatures that were several hundred meters long. All they knew was to eat and sleep, but no resident of this ne ever dared to look down on them. That was because they were big¡ªvery big, ridiculously big.


    Just their heads were about asrge as gnome bulldozers, but their snakelike bodies were well over one hundred meters in length. Fully mature adult Giant Sand Worms could grow to three hundred meters, and their bodies were as solid as iron. Normal weapons couldn¡¯t pierce them, nor did they have the ssense of pain. Even if one was unable to devour you in a single gulp, they would definitely be able to drag you into the earth and strangle you to death.


    If these creatures happened to appear, any unlucky ce that met them would be forced to move its settlement, even thosepleted for a long time.


    These ferociously strong low-intelligence creatures were always treated as a natural cmity of this ne. But now, it seemed that as the oldest resident of this ne, Emordilorcan had a way to control them.


    Reyne¡¯s demon army consisted entirely of earth elemental creatures that had recently been demonized. Even though they were incredibly numerous, the demon armycked high-level demonmanders. These demons still had the same earth magic and abilities as their original forms, which were basically zero threat to the Giant Sand Worms. The Giant Sand Worms¡¯ gigantic bodies literally ignored all the demons¡¯ physical attacks, and now, the newly-born demon army had met their most difficult opponent.


    ¡°How about having the demons retreat?¡±


    ¡°No need, we can¡¯t take them back to the mortal ne anyways, so we might as well have them expend their passion.¡±


    Reyne¡¯s eyes were glowing with the dusky yellow of Chaos, its power under her control.


    ¡°My ves! Show me your utmost loyalty to your master.¡±


    She cupped the mes of Chaos within her hand, which transformed into droplets in the sky. It then turned into a demonic sh, illuminating the sky with blood red.


    The demon army paused for a moment, then suddenly sped up as they blindly rushed towards those Giant Sand Worms. And then...


    *Boom!*


    Self-destruction was the mostmon ability to all residents of the lower nes. That attack contained all their life force and power, and would at the very least be three times stronger than any of their other attacks. Moreover, these demons knew how to group together before self-destructing, which only added to the explosions¡¯ power.


    Even the strong Giant Sand Worms were unable to deal with this endless number of self-destructions. They rolled and thrashed around in soundless pain, and their green blood spilled everywhere. As if they had discovered the prey before them wasn¡¯t delicious at all, the injured Giant Sand Worms kept retreating into the ground and disappearing. It seemed that Emordilorcan¡¯s control over them wasn¡¯t all that strong.


    Currently, there was still a significant amount of the demon army remaining. They grouped up and rushed towards the Earth Elemental God¡¯s domain, when a sudden dragon breath sandstorm appeared behind us.


    The Inferno Demon Dragon that we rode on hurriedly turned around and dodged the dragon breath sandstorm, but its movements almost caused me and Reyne to fall off in the process.


    ¡°You dare to twist the proud will of my tribe! Invaders from another ne, meet your destined doom.¡±


    That was the angry roar of a huge sand dragon. The skies were now filled with yellow-gray dragon wings. As Emordilorcan¡¯s allies, the sand dragons had arrived.


    As for me, I had expected this as well, which was why Iughed.


    ¡°Amelia, the sand dragons were on Emordilorcan¡¯s side as expected. It¡¯s your turn... What? You won¡¯t do anything unless I promise to go on a date with you? My deardy, please don¡¯t try to take advantage of the situation. Fine, fine, I¡¯ll agree to it all!¡±

 Chapter 219

    Chapter 219: Small Forbidden Spell


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The Law God was fair, but in a way, he was also strict. As the embodiment of ¡°fairness,¡± he always followed his Divine Obligation of Law and abandoned all sense of self in exchange for pureness. This actually allowed Wumianzhe¡¯s growth rate to surpass all other Gods.


    Even the back door I left behind would only be able to temporarily influence Wumianzhe, but some troublesome matters were unavoidable. For example, as a member of the Order Gods, Wumianzhe would instinctually reject the members of Chaos, which was why Reyne, who had now epted Chaos, was destined to lose her job ss as a Law Knight.


    [Reyne, level 60 Law Knight (former) / level 20 Aurora Knight / level 14 ck Hell Knight, Total Level: 94, General Level: 97, General Assessment: average Legend rank.]


    I didn¡¯t know what exactly Reyne had done, nor did I want to know whether it was because she used the power of demons or did something overboard that caused her to lose her Law Knight ss.


    Demons typically obtained power through destruction and sacrifice, and judging from Reyne¡¯s ridiculously high speed of growth in ranks, she probably didn¡¯t do anything good.


    Even if most elemental creatures were wild beasts with no will of their own other than instinct, and even if they could regather their elements after destruction, it was still no excuse to ughter them en masse. This was the most likely the reason she lost her Law Knight job ss.


    I was still able to keep my Law job ss probably because I was so skilled at finding the loopholes inws. In my eyes, this invasion of another ne was nothing than a ratherrge-scale hunt for an escaped criminal.


    Yep, an escaped criminal. Emordilorcan¡ªcrimes of murder, war, species genocide, destruction of public property and so on; he was nothing more than an unreformable criminal.


    His first action changed the shape of the earth. He was an aplice to the beastmen as one of the perpetrators of war. His second action, taken in rage, even destroyed the defense lines at Red Maple Castle, causing countless deaths among the human warriors. The bloody battle during the snowy night afterwards could probably be attributed to him as well.


    And, as for the beastmen from the ins that ambushed us in the end, if it weren¡¯t for the gray elves and distant armies from Xiluo that stopped them in their tracks, they probably would have caused the entirebat situation to turn in their favor again. In fact, the entire Nortnds might have been lost and the beastmen would have be the new rulers with another round of species genocide. After all, in such a situation, even I wouldn¡¯t be able to overturn it anymore. A trump card like God¡¯s Descent wasn¡¯t something I could use against mortals.


    I definitely wasn¡¯t some hot-blooded defender of justice, nor did I even agree that this cruel world still had a concept such as justice. It was just that I still remembered all those innocent citizens and warriors¡¯ unsatisfied looks in death as they died protecting their homes. If I couldn¡¯t make Emordilorcan pay the price, I probably wouldn¡¯t be able to sleep peacefully at night anymore.


    ¡°Everyone, pay attention. Focus your attacks on the Elemental Throne. I refuse to believe that that bastard will still be able to hide like a coward!¡±


    Fight for the sake of justice for the deaths of innocents? I wasn¡¯t such a good person. I simply didn¡¯t like him.


    That bastard felt like he would be fine after hiding in his own home after causing such a ruckus. He thought he would be able to sleep in peace, believing that nobody would dare do anything about him. Yet I had no intentions of letting him sleep as he pleased; I preferred to instead have this bastard die as well to apany those innocent citizens.


    Right now, the battle was at a stalemate. As expected of the most ancient Elemental God, he was now summoning all sorts of ancient contracted allies, and countless amounts of cannon fodder were forced onto the battlefield by him.


    Sand dragons, single-pincer beasts, Ka elemental knights, Giant Sand Worms, descendants of titans, earth dwarves, mountain dwarves, mountain giants, Abarros monsters, and various ancient species that had already disappeared from history all came to this battlefield. This was basically turning into an earth elemental creature museum.


    But we weren¡¯t letting them have it easy either, as we weren¡¯t exactly pushovers.


    Amelia¡¯s Death Garden, Margaret¡¯s rune puppets and rune giants, and all the various Earth Elemental Lord¡¯s armies went to the battlefield in turns. It was just a cannon fodder contest, so what did we have to fear?


    Both sides¡¯ elemental creatures fought just like this, and huge dragons roared in the skies as the tower giants and their inhabitants entered the battle. Everything was now in chaos, and Emordilorcan¡¯s elemental army seemed to be imperceptibly yet constantly increasing in number.


    However, this was all within my expectations from the very start. As this was Emordilorcan¡¯s main home, if he was all by himself, I would have begun suspecting whether or not there was some scheme.


    This endless summoning of reinforcements meant that he was obviously in a tight spot already, and as for his next step¡ª


    ¡°If he still hasn¡¯t appeared yet, it¡¯s obvious that he¡¯s stalling for time. Emordilorcan¡¯s no coward who fears death. In that case, it means he has an ace that needs more time.¡±


    Aftering to this realization, I didn¡¯t intend to wait around any longer.


    ¡°Kaid, it¡¯s up to you guys.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t we need to disperse our own forces first? Even if we¡¯re just acting, we should do it as believably as possible.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no need. As long as Emordilorcan isn¡¯t an idiot, he can¡¯t possibly allow us to finish casting. If he truly doesn¡¯t even have to power to stop a forbidden spell¡¯s casting anymore, then we just have to stop it ourselves mid-cast.¡±


    ¡°Hah! You make it sound so easy, since you¡¯re not the one casting the forbidden spell.¡±


    Although Kaid wasining, judging from the Elemental Tide¡¯s fluctuation that suddenly magnified by several times, the forbidden spell had already started to be prepared.


    Amongst all the major countries, the Mage Country had always had a rtively good reputation. But if there was anything they were unreasonable about, it was the fact that they were too obsessed about all types of magic.


    Asrge-scale weapons, forbidden spells were treated as the ultimate weapons of magic. In the Mage Country¡¯s capital¡¯s library of forbidden books, it was said that they had collected more than half of all known forbidden spells in the world. This was doubtlessly a fearsome threat all by itself.


    Actually, having the information and theories on forbidden spells didn¡¯t mean that they were usable. First of all, there would be extremely high requirements for the caster¡¯s level. The number of mages that could cast each forbidden spell would definitely be in the single digits, and the most important of all was that forbidden spells weren¡¯t easy to use.


    A mage¡¯s mana was limited. In order to cast a spell of such power, the spell would naturally be connected to the naturalws of the world and the sources of the elements, which would always be aplex, difficult, and dangerous process. Basically, the moment a mage started casting a forbidden spell, he was turned useless.


    The casting times for forbidden spells were typically long to begin with, and even the shortest would always take several hours. In this period of time, he wouldn¡¯t be able to move nor would he be able to stop casting. He would have to continuously mutter incantations to control the magic, and if he was attacked during the process, he would either have to forcefully stop the magic and receive a life-threatening bacsh or grit his teeth and take the attack. No matter what he did, he would likely end up dead.


    Once a forbidden spell was begun, the unimaginable waves sent out by the Elemental Tide was basically no different from a loudspeaker broadcasting to the entire battlefield, ¡°Hey, I¡¯m about to start a huge area-of-effect magic. If you don¡¯t want to die,e kill me!¡± Anyone who wasn¡¯t an idiot would spend all efforts on stopping this forbidden spell.


    And the most pitiful part of all was that forbidden spells would use up the caster¡¯s lifespan. Something like ten years¡¯ worth of lifespan was quitemon. Some top-level forbidden spells even required the caster¡¯s very life and soul as a sacrifice, and in the end, any forbidden spell mages typically wouldn¡¯t live very long whether they used forbidden spells or not. There were far more mages that could secretly use forbidden spells than the publicly known ones.


    Of course, these limitations were only for mortals. For example, in And¡¯s ¡°Rain Capital,¡± divine powered forbidden spells had both much more power and stronger effects than mortals¡¯ forbidden spells, but even so, the Storm Goddess and Water Elemental Goddess paid a tremendous price.


    Forbidden spells that borrowed from divine power had a weakness that wasn¡¯t publicly known. They mostlycked power to directly kill people. Even if they were able to kill people, it would typically be in an indirect fashion. I didn¡¯t believe at all that this was because the True Gods would take pity on the mortals. This was most likely another way of how the Gods were forbidden to directly interfere with the cycle of reincarnation.


    The previous generations where forbidden spells could be casually tossed out on battlefields with ancient Gods and magic everywhere was long past already. In modern battles, even with forbidden spell mages, that was only a type of threat that wouldn¡¯t be used unless it absolutely came to it. After all, forbidden spell mages would want to have longer lives as well.


    But there were always exceptions to everything. In the modern era, there was a certain mage who didn¡¯t follow any of the rules at all, tossing out forbidden spells likemon vegetables and causing a series of incidents.


    Fine, that was me, Lord Yongye from before.


    As for why I dared to run rampant like that, it was mainly because I had endless undead armies acting as my shield. Even if some strong ones managed to break through all the way to face me, my loyal Red Hunting Hounds would teach them the price of using their ultimate abilities too early just to get to me. And as for any magical bacsh and cost to my lifespan, since I had a Lich¡¯s body, I stopped caring about those things long ago. If any serious aftereffects ever happened, I still had my System to clean things up for me.


    The current me no longer had the power to cast forbidden spells, but Kaid did. With Amelia and Margaret¡¯s assistance as two top-level mages from the Truth Symposium, the earth element specialist Kaid would be able to borrow the endless elemental power of the Earth Elemental ne to use the forbidden spell Continental Sinking (iplete edition.)


    Yep, it was indeed iplete. Kaid¡¯s power level was insufficient to cast the true version of Continental Sinking, which ranked near the top even amongst all forbidden spells. Continental Sinking¡¯splete version would be able to cut off an entire continent and sink it into the sea or even bury it into the ground. It was something incredibly fearsome.


    As for Kaid¡¯s version of the Continental Sinking forbidden spell (iplete edition)¡ª


    ¡°It¡¯s probably just an earthquake at the level where it could make people hide under tables, but wouldn¡¯t be able to harm a single person.¡±


    The fact that the attack power of Kaid¡¯s spell was so insignificant aside, this was actually aplete forbidden spell of its own, and as long as Kaid¡¯s power level was sufficient and he didn¡¯t fail in the casting, it would definitely seem exactly like a real top-level forbidden spell.


    At the moment, countless numbers of rocks started floating in midair, and ¡°floating inds¡± suddenly increased in number by several thousand. The never-ending sandstorms in this ne fell abnormally silent, and only the scary-seeming increase in the Elemental Tide was evidence of the calm before the storm.


    ¡°Target, Elemental Throne.¡±


    Elemental Thrones were basically the equivalent of the Elemental Gods¡¯ home in this ne, as well as the connection between an Elemental God and the Elemental ne. It was definitely their greatest weakness. Of course, in normal situations, the Elemental God would die first, and the Elemental Throne would simply have a new owner afterwards.


    But if this ¡°top-level forbidden spell¡± destroyed everything around here and cut of the Elemental Throne¡¯s connection to the Earth Elemental ne, perhaps the next new Earth Elemental God¡¯s birth would have to wait first for the birth of a new Elemental Throne, which would take thousands of years rather than hundreds.


    We knew that this was nothing more than a fake forbidden spell, so that couldn¡¯t possibly happen, but Emordilorcan would believe that we were going all-out. As long as he was still alive, it would be impossible for him to watch and let us cast this forbidden spell.


    This was the strategy of attacking the enemy at his greatest weak spot, which he would be forced to defend. It was a vicious strategy that would give us the advantage of proactiveness. Or, to put it simply, it was just bait.


    And things developed as I expected. Not even two minutes after the forbidden spell started casting, a white shadow appeared on the battlefield, rushing at high speed towards Kaid.


    ¡°Emordilorcan has finally appeared. He¡¯s taken the bait hook, line and sinker, and now it¡¯s time to reel in the.¡±

 Chapter 220

    Chapter 220: Busy People


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    A six-hour-long marathon-like discussion was just about to finish in Diffindor¡¯s royal pce.


    ¡°Then, the next meeting will most likely be in six months¡¯ time. Please prepare the mine production samples and tax-free item lists by that time. In the next meeting, we shall try to finish all business-rted agreements that apply to the entire Mist Alliance.¡±


    ¡°In order to show the important of the next meeting, Queen Glina will personallye to sign off on the contract at that time. We hope that your side will be able to give us equal treatment. Of course, the publicity work will also be left to your side since you¡¯re all the same species with the same culture andnguage, and this is an excellent chance to greatly improve the rtionship between our kingdoms. This chance for publicity shouldn¡¯t be wasted.¡±


    ¡°Equal treatment? I understand. I shall inform Princess Reyne. But by six months¡¯ time, she might very well be Queen Reyne.¡±


    ¡°Haha! That¡¯s even better. It¡¯s gettingte, so I shall take my leave first.¡±


    Elisa, who seemed so energetic, just earlier sighed with a face filled with worry. She watched the horse-drawn carriage fade into the distance with the young diplomat Wende from Sleuweir Kingdom who she just sent off.


    ¡°It¡¯s been so long since I¡¯ve been able to make contact; I hope that nothing bad has happened to him. No, since the entire Earth Elemental ne has been cut off, then there must be some big incident going on over there. I can only hope that he returns safely.¡±


    ¡°Rx, I watched those two mischievous bratty twins grow up. Neither of them seemed like they would be the short-lived type.¡± Kelly smiled and there was pride in her tone, but was it really alright for her to be calling Rnd a brat?


    ¡°Perhaps you shouldn¡¯t be worrying about Rnd; instead, worry about that Emordi-something. Don¡¯t judge Rnd by how calm he seemed on the surface when he left. Actually, the angrier he is, the calmer he¡¯ll appear to be. He¡¯s definitely bearing a grudge right now. Based on my understanding of him, if he¡¯s in a bad mood, he¡¯ll plot on how he can make someone else even worse off than he is. So, you should be worried right now about his enemy, not Rnd.¡±


    In a way, this wood elf was the one who watched Prince Rnd grow up, and she made this deduction using her instincts, which was actually quite close to the mark.


    ¡°They have their battlefield, and we have ours. We can¡¯t have them looking down on us when they return, so let¡¯s work hard, young Elisa.¡±


    They were actually busy with official work as the background scenery for their chat. Just leaving for a little while caused the documents and letters that needed their attention to pile up like mountains.


    ¡°Of course. I still need much assistance from Sister Kelly, and there¡¯s still so many things I would like to learn from you.¡±


    Elisa smiled and nodded. Kelly, who had assisted over ten generations of Mist Royalty, was basically unbeatable when it came to any political matters. Kelly¡¯s hundreds of years of political experience was astonishing, and Elisa had learned a lot.


    When Rnd became the absentee leader and even Reyne followed after him, all the political and military affairs of the Eastern Mist Communal Country were left to Elisa and the others who had stayed behind.


    Military affairs were quite easy. With the Red Hunting Hounds and their knights staying behind, the creation and training of various military squads went quite well. There was also no need to change the overall military organization significantly.


    But, on the other hand, the political matters regarding the citizens were rather critical. These issues were ones that couldn¡¯t wait for even a single day.


    Although East Mist didn¡¯t have the serious problems of Sleuweir Kingdom like reconstruction after battle, just therge numbers of gray elves moving to East Mist and how to amodate them had all the local officials busy thinking up ns. Increasing the number of living facilities and new cities as well as redesigning old cities all became number one in priority.


    Apart from all this, there was also the scheduled expansion of Diffindor¡¯s city limits for the uing spring, the nting of new crops, and various annual tasks at hand. The first task would affect nearly 30% of the citizens¡¯ living area, and the second had to do with the uing year¡¯s food production. Both were critical tasks that they couldn¡¯t afford to have any problems appearing with.


    And, recently, something even more important was adding to everyone¡¯s burden, making the East Mist officials overloaded when they were already at their limits. In just one short week, the number of governmental officials that had been sent to the hospital for overwork had reached double digits.


    This headache of an issue that everyone had to deal with using all their energy was the setup of the Mist Alliance.


    This was doubtlessly a good thing. Just the news of such an issue would cause the entire country to celebrate. After all, after the Mist Alliance¡¯s g was finally flown, it would mean that the People of the Mist had finally gathered together again. In a way, this would mean the reconstruction of the already destroyed Mist Kingdom.


    But some things were just too sudden. ording to traditions, even trade discussions would typically take several months toplete, and it would usually take a military alliance one or two years to finish the negotiations. For something as huge as a mutual alliance, economics, military affairs, politics, agriculture, diplomacy and so on all needed to be unified and reach an oue that every single country could ept. This definitely wasn¡¯t a task that could bepleted with ease.


    Ten or twenty years? Perhaps ten years would be realistic, but the time limit that Rnd had given them was a mere two years. As the core countries of the Mist Alliance, the Eastern Mist Communal Country and Sleuweir Kingdom were required to finish all the foundational work for unification within a single year. The heavy workload required for this was likely sufficient to send several hundred more governmental officials to mental hospitals in the near future. To be honest, in just this short time, several more patients were registered due to overwork.


    As the highest-level female official as well as private tutor in the royal pce, even if she didn¡¯t have an official governmental position, Kelly was indeed the core of the newly-born Eastern Mist Communal Country. But even the wood elf with extremely high stamina was also quite fatigued by the recent heavy workload.


    *p!* *p!* *p!*


    Kelly lightly pped her hands to attract the attention of all the busy officials. As she looked at everyone¡¯s tired faces, she came to a decision.


    ¡°It¡¯s almost dinnertime; everyone should rest up early tonight. No working overtime¡ªwe¡¯ll just continue tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°But we haven¡¯t finished our work yet, and the Shawen tribes areing tomorrow. We still haven¡¯t prepared the new contracts, and the report from the intelligence department hasn¡¯t even arrived yet.¡±


    ¡°Only by pacing yourselves will you be able to go farther. I don¡¯t wish to see everyone here in the hospital. No matter what work remains, do it tomorrow! This is an order. Could it be that when Reyne and Rnd aren¡¯t here, none of you will listen to me?¡±


    In everyone¡¯s eyes, Kelly, who seemed to be smiling ever so cutely, was actually rather scary. But, her seemingly forceful order was also filled with concern that warmed their hearts.


    ¡°Heh heh, even if Reyne and Rnd were here, they probably wouldn¡¯t be of any help, and would only add to the mess.¡±


    Elisa¡¯s words, however, caused everyone to startughing uncontrobly, but this was indeed the truth. If Reyne had been present, she would be nothing more than a rubber stamper, and someone would even need to be sent out to find her as she would always skip out on work. It was pretty much the same if Rnd was present, with the only difference being that there was no need to send anyone to look for him. That was because as long as Rnd himself didn¡¯t show up, nobody else would ever be able to find him.


    ¡°Why are they both so simrly skilled at giving other people trouble?¡±


    ¡°Hmph! When hees back, he really needs to pay us well for doing all this.¡±


    Whileining, the two of them began working on various tasks. Neither of them was an ordinary person, and both of them had excellent bodies, so it seemed that they wouldn¡¯t be able to escape from overtime.


    As for me, I was far off in another ne, and I couldn¡¯t possibly know about the things happening in my homnd. Nor did I have any time to think about them, as the powerful Earth Elemental God was the only thing on my mind, giving me enormous pressure.


    Even though a major battle was clearly about to ur soon, I spent much of my precious time before the battle in the library. Of course, there was a good reason for that.


    Information was key to winning one hundred percent of battles. If I couldn¡¯t even find out what aces Emordilorcan had up his proverbial sleeve, of course I wouldn¡¯t be able to prepare forbat against him. If I had to use human lives to block him in the end, that would make me lose the advantage of proactiveness.


    As the most ancient of the Elemental Gods, even if there were records of him personally fighting before, they would likely be from several thousand years ago. Although the two Elemental Gods on my side provided a little information, not even mentioning the fact that it was likely outdated, the fact of the matter was that Emordilorcan had never been truly forced to the brink before. It was only natural that the other two Elemental Gods didn¡¯t know if he still hid any aces.


    However, with the assistance of several top-level archmages and hundreds of acolytes, we checked a countless number of books and discussed all ourbat experiences. Anything rted to earth magic was counted, and we summarized hundreds of rules andmon methods by which earth elementals used earth magic along with their highest-level magic.


    Our final anti-Emordilorcan n contained a full 30 volumes and filled up an entire bookshelf. Not only did it involve ns against Emordilorcan, it was also a foundational summary of earth magic, which would be incredibly useful in earth magic cultivation and research in the future. At the time, Kaid was incredibly overjoyed and said that the result of this time¡¯s research meant that he wouldn¡¯t have to worry about research funds for at least the next ten years, which made Amelia rather jealous.


    There was an old phrase in the magic society: ¡°How much power a mage has depends on how long he has prepared for. If the mage has prepared for long enough and has a sufficient amount of backup ns and resources, it is possible to even y a God.¡±


    ¡°If someone simply goes up to his enemy with caring about anything at all, wouldn¡¯t he be no different from a musclehead?¡± If it weren¡¯t for the fact that Margaret kept ncing in my direction out of the corner of her eyes as she said this, I would have readily agreed.


    After confirming my enemy, I would observe my target and collect information before formting a n. Apart from an incredibly few, most of those of a job ss such as a mage were extremely inept at meleebat. Never facing someone from the front was the most natural thing of all. In many previous situations, we had been forced to battle so there wasn¡¯t enough prior preparation. This time, however, we had plenty of time, and all ourbat extraptions and preparations were more than plenty. Otherwise, we wouldn¡¯t havee to attack Emordilorcan in his own home.


    ¡°He really is just a turtle hiding in his shell. This shell of his is so hard. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.¡±


    Simr to what we had seen in the mortal ne, Emordilorcan finally came out to greet us in the basic form of a stone giant. In the mortal ne, his form had made people feel somewhat internally conflicted upon viewing him, but the current Emordilorcan¡¯s appearance made everyone feel helpless on how toment.


    Unlike his pitch-ck outer shell in the mortal ne, Emordilorcan¡¯s stone giant body seemed to be constructed out of precious white jade, which seemed exquisite yet frail to the point that just a casual touch would shatter it. However, the fact that just his very steps were causing the ground to sink doubtlessly proved that his extravagantly beautiful heavy armor of white jade was of a scarily high quality.


    The forbidden spell was still sending out waves in the Elemental Tide, and he rushed furiously in our direction. All the obstacles along his way were viciously sent flying; he ignored all spells and projectiles. With at a preliminary nce, anyone would know that the stone giant before us was definitely a tough one who would be difficult to even scratch.


    But this was also within my expectations.


    Once his direct route of charging towards us was basically confirmed, of course we would activate the trap we had long since prepared for him.


    ¡°Realm of Flowing Water.¡±


    The plentiful preparations beforehand reached the conditions necessary to bring enough water element here for the Water Elemental Goddess to activate her own Divine Domain. A river suddenly descended from the sky, causing a mud-filled flood to cover this entirend.


    The sand and water created a muddy flow that seemed solid but was actually flexible. The moving sand and rocks were far more difficult to deal with than the flood itself; sinking into it would mean that even thousands of kilograms of strength wouldn¡¯t be sufficient to pull yourself free.


    This was a trap created by nature, and had absolutely nothing to do with magical resistance. This was a death trap created just for Emordilorcan who had peerless physical strength. When Emordilorcan got trapped in the mud flow, he struggled fiercely at first, but when he discovered that everything beneath his feet had turned into muddy water where he couldn¡¯t use his strength, he gave up resisting and allowed the muddy river to carry him with its course.


    Although he was now stuck, the fact that his eyes were still filled with the intention to fight us seemed to be telling me something.


    ¡°Even if you can trap me temporarily for the time being, so what?¡±


    That was the self-confidence in his body¡¯s defense power. And he had every right to have such self-confidence. In all ourbat extraptions, that Elemental God body of his built up over thousands of years had basically unbeatable defense. It had given us so many headaches.


    The Water Elemental Goddess¡¯s Divine Domain was extremely limited here, and the mud river would quickly lose its momentum. But for us, this was sufficient.


    ¡°Frigid Ice River!¡±


    The descent of ice caused the river to instantly transform into a frozen river as the newly-formed ice solidly trapped Emordilorcan within. Right after this, the remaining demons were already beginning to attack him. At this moment, Emordilorcan¡¯s reinforcements as well as those looking to cheaply gain the aplishment of ying a God all descended upon him.


    ¡°Die, Emordilorcan!¡±


    The furiously roaring Wind Elemental God Camdian transformed himself into a Storm Giant and was intending to engage in meleebat with Emordilorcan in a repeat performance of thebat situation from the undergroundbyrinth.


    *Roar!*


    Before he even reached Emordilorcan, the frozen Emordilorcan broke free from his bonds and sent a white jade-like huge fist that was even faster than Camdian¡¯s roar.


    *Boom!*


    There was no magic involved at all; it was merely a full-force blow. Yet Camdian¡¯s body was already shattered! When he reformed his physical body from mist at a nearby location, he was noticeably smaller than earlier, evidence that he was definitely injured.


    The Wind Elemental God had overestimated himself. In the mortal ne, he was still able to exchange a few blows with Emordilorcan, but in this Earth Elemental ne, Camdian was the one who was weakened while the Earth Elemental God was now using his true body. Plus, Emordilorcan¡¯s power was multiplied even further in his home ne. The power gap between the two was massive.


    Another reason that Camdian¡¯s body was shattered in a single blow was that as a mage ss, he actually went out and tried to engage Emordilorcan, the pure warrior, in meleebat. In the end, it was still him underestimating his opponent; he used his past experience to measure Emordilorcan¡¯s true strength and ended up suffering mightily with just a single exchange of blows.


    But to me, none of this was that important. From the very start, I didn¡¯t consider the possibility of killing Emordilorcan using any sort of frontal attack. Getting him stuck here was enough for me.


    ¡°Beifeng, you¡¯re up. Do a good job for me in digging up his ancestors¡¯ graves, and don¡¯t leave behind even a single stone.¡±


    Just as I finished speaking, Beifeng¡¯s reply caused me to feel ufortable all over.


    ¡°Rx, with me going out there, I promise I won¡¯t leave even a single mouse or cockroach behind!¡±


    I had always wondered about a certain question. Why was it that such normal-sounding words would always make people feel ufortable when he was the one saying them?


    And, right now, on the outskirts of the battlefield, the escaping Giant Sand Worms were blocked by a certain smiling half-dragon Legend-ranked hunter, who was already beginning to use his super charisma against certain targets.


    Soon, those restless huge beasts actually began listening to Beifeng¡¯smand, for only the reason that he told them there was one thing that could help them gain freedom and be even stronger.


    ¡°Our target is¡ª¡±


    ¡°To not have any cavities in our teeth!¡± Adam was joking and messing around even at such a time.


    ¡°No! The Elemental Throne, dig it up for me! There¡¯s going to be no more Earth Elemental God for at least the next two thousand years! We¡¯re going to make this bastard lose his foundation and be homeless.¡± I angrily shouted and pulled out my longsword as I watched thebat situation unfold in front of me.

 Chapter 221

    Chapter 221: Ultimate Weapon


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The scene of the battlefield was akin to fire mixed with water, but an existence that couldn¡¯t bear being lonely suddenly reminded me of its presence.


    [If you¡¯re going to dig an underground tunnel to the Elemental Throne that¡¯s deep underground, then here¡¯s the question: Which method of bulldozing is the strongest...]


    ¡°The hell with the strongest! Always going on about digging and bulldozing, aren¡¯t you tired of overusing this joke yet?¡±


    Fine then, ever since I reincarnated yet again, my System had been rather overactive. I was already getting tired of this same joke over and over again.


    [Learn how to cook at New East Cuisine! Apart from not teaching how to cook using bulldozers, we have every cooking subject you can think of.]


    ¡°In the end, you¡¯re still going with bulldozers! Do you really like this joke that much?¡±


    [Learn IT, it¡¯ll be easy to find a job if you go to Aptech; specialists here will teach the newest electronic bulldozing techniques!]


    ¡°Forget it, it¡¯s still bulldozing. There¡¯s going to be no end to this if I pay attention to you. Ignoring you, ignoring you.¡±


    I decisively endedmenting to that mysterious voice (fine, my System) as I made an effort on focusing on the problem at hand.


    ¡°Cough, we should all get serious. We¡¯re currently in a battle.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you the only one not being serious?¡±


    Indeed, everyone else¡¯s dissatisfaction showed on their faces. Even Margaret had aining expression as it was difficult for even her to control such arge-scale magic array here. This magic array was all thanks to her, and she even had to focus on controlling her cannon fodder and cing traps, dividing her attention through multitasking.


    I suppose that everyone else was busy fighting but I waszing around and talking to myself really seemed bad, but right now there was no helping it even if I wanted to do anything about it.


    Emordilorcan was now stuck and surrounded heavily by too many people that wanted him gone. The moment he had gotten stuck, both sides of the battlefield had rushed over to him.


    ¡°As long as I get rid of him, I¡¯ll be the next Earth Elemental God!¡± This was the direct type.


    ¡°Emordilorcan, it¡¯s time for my revenge for my grandfather/father/brother¡¯s death!¡± This was the revenge type, but weren¡¯t they a bit too many? Was Emordilorcan so evil? If they wanted to rebel against him, couldn¡¯t theye up with any other excuses?


    ¡°Gulugulu.¡± Fine, this one couldn¡¯t even speak themonnguage of this world.


    The ones who gave it their all were most likely all the Earth Elemental Lords. Although it was quite obvious that they were saving their true power and armies just earlier, they had now sent in all their forces to rush their mutual enemy,peting to be the first to steal away Emordilorcan¡¯s Divine Soul and divine power. All the venerated Elemental Lords had basically gone intobat personally.


    Various gargoyles and SemiDragons shed against each other in the skies, and huge creatures such as giants and earth elemental warlords were everywhere. Earth elemental creatures were typically on therge and strong side, so this was a battle that belonged to the giants.


    The entire continent trembled and the mountains shivered as they fought with each other. However, the Earth Elemental God was never one who had the habit of hiding and running off.


    *Boom!*


    Another heavy punch from Emordilorcan sent a tower giant flying and viciously crashing into a distant mountainside cliff, causing arge portion of the cliff to copse.


    One punch from Emordilorcan sent everything to their deaths, with Camdian as the only exception. Emordilorcan used his ownbat strength to show us his astonishing power. At the very least, this old dog was still filled with a mouthful of sharp teeth.


    Even in a heavily injured state, Emordilorcan was still ridiculously strong. His punch that defeated Camdian in a single blow had even slightly ripped a tear between dimensions. He had used pure physical might to break the space between dimensions. The moment I saw this scene, I unhesitatingly abandoned any thoughts of engaging him in meleebat.


    ¡°He used pure physical might and reached the dimensional level by breaking through between dimensions, is this the legendary ¡°martial arts surpassing the void?¡± If he wasn¡¯t injured, would he literally be able to ¡°battle through the heavens?¡± Yes, this is a reference to BTTH, another Qidian novel. [1] 1


    ¡°Young ones, taste my dimension-tearing fist!¡±


    Fine then, I won¡¯tment on his strange naming sense, nor will I use science to analyze just how much power is required to break through dimensions with physical force alone. This clearly unreasonable fact was indisputably shown right before my eyes.


    Emordilorcan was currently using his true body, and the Elemental Throne was increasing his power to the point that it was nearly limitless. He was on apletely different scale herepared to his incarnation in the mortal ne.


    Even if Poison God Felix appeared in front of him here, I felt that Felix would die in just two punches.


    Yet no matter how strong Emordilorcan was, or how much the difference in power was between them, Camdian, who was also an Elemental God, couldn¡¯t possibly admit defeat so easily in front of everyone watching.


    ¡°Camdian is so useless. He was beaten half to death by a single punch from Emordilorcan, and then ran off just like a coward.¡±


    If such a news ended up being spread around, Camdian would be basically finished as the Wind Elemental God. Not a single Wind Elemental Lord under hismand would ever follow such a leader.


    ¡°Taste the fury of thunderstorms!¡±


    Countless amounts of thunder were summoned, transforming into arrow bolts that continuously crashed into Emordilorcan¡¯s head. It forcefully caused cracks to appear.


    It was evident that Camdian had learned from his earlier mistake and abandoned his foolish idea of engaging in meleebat with the Earth Elemental God. Instead, he decided to use long-range magic to bombard his ancient enemy.


    Endless amounts of rebellious earth elemental creatures surrounded Emordilorcan and kept him busy, while Camdian was in a safe faraway location summoning all sorts of thunder, which was both safe and attention-grabbing. If this allied army defeated Emordilorcan, Camdian could even earn a nice reputation from this little show.


    However, it was evident that he had still underestimated his opponent.


    With just an instantaneous sh movement and a m with the force of a mountain, Emordilorcan actually broke thews of physics andnded directly on top of Camdian¡¯s head. He then pounded Camdian with an extravagant series of techniques.


    ¡°Mount Tai pressing on top, chopping through Hua Mountain, shoulder throw, chest throw, back pin, rabbit stomping the eagle, waist throw, iron bridge, deep water explosion... I never expected that Emordilorcan had been a member of the Wrestling League as well.¡±


    ¡°You even have the spare time for runningmentary? Hurry up and help out! Emordilorcan will be even more difficult to deal with once he breaks free. Damn it, he actually even had an instant movement ability.¡± Amelia was in a very bad mood. When she heard that Emordilorcan was an expert in meleebat, she had intended to face him head on as she was also simrly skilled in this aspect, but now that she had seen his expert martial arts skills, she knew that she had no chance of victory.


    ¡°Rx, therger the mass, the more energy it takes to make it move instantaneously. If he could use his instant movement ability as he pleased, he would have long since gotten rid of Kaid who¡¯s casting that forbidden spell. And since he¡¯s heavily injured, at least he won¡¯t have the energy to sustain his maximum output for very long.¡±


    ¡°You think I¡¯m worried? None of this matters to me whether this is a win or a loss. I¡¯m just curious how he reached this level of physical power. When we defeat him, I¡¯m going to take part of his muscle structure as my research material. Give me at least an arm or a leg. If you don¡¯t agree, I¡¯m going to go on strike right here and now.¡±


    Fine then, I was incredibly mistaken to even think that Amelia could have been worried about me and thebat situation. This was the witch¡¯s true nature.


    ¡°Eh? Your assumption was correct. Emordilorcan indeed became weaker after using instant movement.¡±


    As I expected, even if Camdian was getting beaten up, he actually wasn¡¯t injured as heavily as the one punch from earlier. He wasn¡¯t even defeated yet; he even had the spare time to asionally counterattack.


    However, watching my ally get beaten up was no winning method, which was why I activated the next step of my n earlier than originally nned.


    ¡°Beifeng, are you not ready yet?¡±


    What I heard through my gnome-providedmunication device was a certain individual¡¯s advertisement.


    ¡°...Bullbullbullbullbullbulldozing! Who¡¯s the best? Who¡¯s¡ªwho¡¯s¡ªwho¡¯s the best? Find Beifeng of the Gentleman Alliance, and you can also fulfill your dream of immigrating to East Mist for the low price of 998! That¡¯s right, 998! You didn¡¯t hear wrong! It¡¯s not 8888 or 88888, for merely 998, you can learn Beifeng¡¯s secret techniques of bulldozing beast taming!¡±


    ¡°Do you all love bulldozers that much? Will this joke ever end!?¡±


    After my angry roaring, he finally quieted down, with only the sounds of digging to be heard.


    ¡°Um, Your Highness, it¡¯s rather dark underground. I was just singing to keep my morale up.¡± Only a whileter did I hear the sound of Beifeng attempting to exin to me.


    ¡°Hmph! I thought that you were having too much fun with those Giant Sand Worms and forgot your task. Did you invent some new method to have fun? Were you too busy having fun? Should I apologize for interrupting your fun?¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    ¡°Hey, hey, don¡¯t fall silent at this time! Could it be that I was actually right about my guess! Hey, say something! This is making me really ufortable!¡±


    Fine then, let¡¯s not care too much about the little details as long as it involves Beifeng; otherwise, this book will get banned sooner orter for indecency...


    But, Beifeng quickly gave me a report. Emordilorcan¡¯s old nest was being protected by his divine power. Incredibly hard stoneyers caused the Sand Worms¡¯ digging to progress rather slowly, and time would be necessary. The only part to celebrate about was that since we didn¡¯t take the undergroundbyrinth this time, instead digging straight to our goal, we already avoided many traps and obstacles. The only obstacle remaining was the ridiculously tough stoneyers.


    In fact, I had used this distraction tactic against Emordilorcan before already, but who cared? A strategy was fine as long as it worked.


    ¡°I now know the approximate location of the Elemental Throne; it¡¯s about three hundred meters underground. But the closer we get, the denser the earth element bes. It¡¯s going to take some time to reach it by digging.


    ¡°Three hundred meters? It¡¯s about what we expected. How long will it take you to reach there?¡±


    ¡°Probably about two or so hours.¡±


    I took a nce at Emordilorcan who was currently giving us a show of fighting a ¡°tiger¡± while empty-handed and helplessly shook my head. If I really waited for two hours, perhaps all of our allies would be dead.


    ¡°There¡¯s not enough time; activate n B.¡±


    ¡°Are we really going to activate n B? That n B is a little too risky.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m certain about it! Hurry up and activate it.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure? Can¡¯t you reconsider? It¡¯s too dangerous!¡±


    ¡°We must use it. It¡¯s the best method for us currently, not to mention this n isn¡¯t dangerous at all. At such a critical moment, time is of the essence, so why are you just hemming and hawing here?¡±


    After a moment of silence, I thought that he was beginning to put my n into action, but I didn¡¯t expect that he spoke up again in a sheepish tone.


    ¡°...Just what exactly is n B? There were too many words so I didn¡¯t read it earlier, and it is too dark underground so I didn¡¯t read it now. I just turned on a light but now I can¡¯t find it. I probably identally fed the n to one of my little cuties.¡±


    I almost smashed the gnomemunication device to pieces right then and there.


    ¡°You said all that just in order to cover up the fact that you forgot what n B was!? You fed it to your little cutie? Why don¡¯t you feed yourself? It was an incredible mistake on my part to even think that you were thinking about any potential consequences of n B! Just you wait, when youe out, @$Y%...¡±


    Never has anyone in history ever been able to so easily incite my anger. No wonder Town Security treated ¡°eating, sleeping, and beating up Beifeng¡± as their daily schedule, as this bastard was just too skilled at making others angry.


    Fine, no matter how angry I was, it was impossible for me to beat that guy up through themunication device, and I still needed him in the future. Since that bastard forgot what the n was, then I would just have to exin it to him.


    ¡°Move in an arc and ascertain the Elemental Throne¡¯s coordinates for me...¡±


    I gave a huge sigh after telling him my n.


    ¡°After we return to the mortal ne, I¡¯m going to lock Beifeng into an exotic creatures¡¯ zoo as an exhibit! That bastard definitely meets the standard for being an exotic creature.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure that it won¡¯t be a reward instead of a punishment...¡±


    Amelia¡¯s reminder caused me to fall silent. A momentter, I came to a decision.


    ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll send him over to the gray elves to help them in their reconstruction. There¡¯s plenty of elven beauties there, and so many people want to go, but I feel that with only elven beauties next to him but thend there being so barren that not even a rabbit can be found, only that will be the most fearsome punishment of all for that bastard.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness! Please don¡¯t! I¡¯ll immediately carry out n B! I promise that I¡¯ll carry out your request with high quality and efficiency. Please don¡¯t send me to hell. If you truly insist, I prefer to remain in the Earth Elemental ne.¡±


    Themunication device was still turned on, and Beifeng was already begging for mercy. This man who took the path never traveled actually had something he feared after all. A wonderful job that countless youngsters in the prime of youth would dream for was actually a nightmare in his eyes, and he was even willing to stay behind in this hellish Earth Elemental ne.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that this world was hell to you?¡±


    Before I even finished my sentence, I instantly recalled how, when I saw himst, there were so many strange-shaped creatures following him that he could open up an earth elemental creature museum. Just inferring a little at what he intended to do caused me to want to stop inferring entirely about this matter.


    ¡°Shut up and work hard. Otherwise, I¡¯ll send you to a heaven where there¡¯s only female elven beauties¡ªwhy does this sound so wrong?¡±


    And, currently, above our heads, a shadow had covered the battlefield below us, as a gigantic object was slowly moving.


    ¡°Is that a bird? A dwarven helicopter? It¡¯s Superman¡ªno¡ªit¡¯s a huge duck.¡±


    Yep, this was the core of my n B. The Ultimate Yellow Duck.


    The creation of the moving fortress Ultimate Yellow Duck was personally led by the Great Sculptor Ainslo; countless tower giants had worked on it. It was tremendous to the point that those gazing upon it from the ground could mistake it for a huge floating ind.


    Although there hadn¡¯t been enough time for it to be equipped with weapons, just the characteristic of its tremendous size made it impossible to block. No matter what obstacles were in the way, it would reach its destination.


    And, for it to be used directly like this, it was waiting in midair, awaiting my orders.


    *Boom!*


    The gigantic moving fortress¡¯s appearance changed thebat situation entirely. Its ferocious appearance shocked every single eyewitness, and even Emordilorcan was rather shocked to see it. And when he noticed just where that duck hadnded, he used his instant movement ability again to attempt to stop it.


    And, just as I expected, the Ultimate Yellow Ducknded and stuck its legs into the ground as it spread its wings. It suddenly opened its huge mouth and let out an angry roar.


    *Woof!*


    At that moment, everyone on the battlefield paused for a moment. Perhaps it should be said that nobody expected a duck to make such a sound.


    Amelia kept shaking her head.


    ¡°What amazing and astonishing design! Did you think I would say something like that? Rnd! This must be your terrible interests at work again. Are you intending to embarrass yourself in multiple nes now?¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Foolish mortals shall never understand the marvelous designs of geniuses. Watch, this is only the beginning.¡±


    The Ultimate Yellow Duck¡¯s tremendous feet were solidly nted into the ground as support, and its spread wings meant they would help shift its center of gravity. Its upper half, which was beginning to tilt, was actually the best bncing mechanism. Suddenly, it bent over and mightily chucked the ground.


    *Smash!*


    The Ultimate Yellow Duck ate some dirt, then spat out the dirt, then ate some more dirt, and spat the dirt out again.


    ¡°You bastard! Acting so pretentious, it was just a bulldozer again! Ah, why did I say again?¡± Adam¡¯sment said what everyone was obviously thinking. They were all nodding.


    [Learn bulldozing, which school is the best?] At this moment, the System couldn¡¯t help but pop out again. Ever since I made this n B, it wouldn¡¯t stop with the bulldozer jokes.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough! This is the Ultimate Yellow Duck, an ultimate weapon and moving fortress, not some bulldozer!¡±


    Note:


    1. Yes, this is a reference to BTTH, another Qidian novel.

 Chapter 222

    Chapter 222: Ace


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Although it seemed like I was just messing around, this was actually the cruelest n to kill Emordilorcan. He was already stuck between a rock and a hard ce.


    The waves from the forbidden spell in front of him kept increasing in magnitude, while the yellow giant strange monster was digging into his old nest. It seemed that going forward or backward would be nothing but death for him.


    And as for his allies... they were unreliable.


    Not even the strongest of contracts could stand up to the test of time.


    Die for the sake of an ancestor¡¯s contract? Nobody was so foolish; the Giant Sand Worms ran off after just a few minutes of fighting, while the Sand Dragons and Stone Giants also noticed that their opponents were difficult to deal with, and they began simply watching the battlefield. Very few of them were giving it their all.


    Emordilorcan had left for far too long, and thousands of years had passed. His most trusted followers were long gone. If he had enough time¡ªthree hundred years, no, even thirty years, he had full confidence that he would be able to create a faction that was truly his own again here to act as his subordinates. Unfortunately...


    ¡°How could I possibly give you time? Am I foolish enough to raise a tiger that will eat me?¡±


    Of course, I knew what Emordilorcan was thinking about. In a way, we were the same type¡ªthose who weren¡¯t exactly magnanimous, who absolutely had to repay a grudge or else we wouldn¡¯t be able to sleep well at night unless we got rid of our enemiespletely.


    [Why don¡¯t you just say that you¡¯re a small-hearted person who¡¯ll bear a grudge until the end of the world? By the way, is it really alright for the main character to be someone as unrighteous as you? You¡¯re even an epic hero; were the historians blind? You should be the antagonist.]


    Shut up!


    I forced myself to suppress my anger. My System was definitely being too overactive recently, especially right after it rebooted. It kept finding opportunities to tick me off. If I keptmenting, that would make me fall right into my System¡¯s trap.


    From a certain standpoint, my System wasn¡¯t wrong. I was indeed the small-hearted type who would bear a grudge forever. I still remembered the fresh blood on the snowy white battlefield along with all the dying words of the Mist warriors as if it were yesterday. How could I possibly rx until Emordilorcan was dead for real?


    ¡°Checkmate! I¡¯m attacking your weakness, the Elemental Throne, from two sides. Let me see just which side you choose to defend. Do you think you¡¯re Sun Wukong, with the ability to split yourself?¡± [1] 1


    And when I witnessed what happened next, I spat out a mouthful of blood. I had actually jinxed myself.


    The huge stone giant twisted himself and actually sent out three smaller stone giants that started running in two different directions. And, as they ran, those stone giants absorbed the earth element in order to strengthen themselves, erge, and split again... after just a short ten seconds, thirty-something more Emordilorcans had appeared!


    ¡°Impossible! How are we supposed to deal with so many Earth Elemental Gods?¡±


    Someone was panicking now.


    ¡°It¡¯s definitely not impossible. If each clone had power equaling Emordilorcan¡¯s, he would have used this technique long ago. No, even if each clone had only half his power, we would have lost long ago. It¡¯s nothing more than a wild fantasy to think that he could win.¡±


    This person was slightly calmer, but his continually trembling legs betrayed his inner fear.


    ¡°Humans are born from humans, beasts are born from beasts, and even elemental creatures have elemental creature parents, but I just want to ask, Emordilorcan, what¡¯s your mother¡¯s name?¡±


    I was viciously insulting him now. Although I seemed to be prattling on about nothing, my question was actually the most painful insult to elemental creatures of all. I asked this due to my understanding of what had happened in front of me, and it was also my way of showing my condescension towards Emordilorcan.


    Apart from the top-level elemental creatures that could transform into humanoid forms, normal elemental creatures didn¡¯t have genders at all. It was natural that they also didn¡¯t have reproduction methods simr to species with genders.


    Their reproduction was just like lower-level lifeforms, with copying and division as their main methods. That was why it was quitemon for earth elemental creatures to split off part of their bodies to create clones of themselves¡ªit was amon ability.


    However, these simple clones wouldn¡¯t have wills of their own and would be nothing more than manipted puppets. In order to create a new life and new will, which would be true reproduction, the earth elemental creature would need to split its soul and also give up approximately half of its power.


    Of course, ces with high elemental density could produce low-level elemental creatures naturally as well. More than 90% of the elemental lifeforms in the Elemental nes were just low-level elemental creatures that followed their instincts. Theycked knowledge and wisdom. They would naturally split off once in a while and replenish their strength again by absorbing the earth element. Meanwhile, things would be a little more difficult for high-level elemental creatures.


    Every time it was time to naturally split off, that would be when the elemental lifeform was at its weakest. High-level elemental creatures also had their own instincts to split off and reproduce, which were quite difficult to control. If the timing to split themselves was a bad one, and an enemy just happened toe looking...


    This was why the older Elemental Lords would always suppress their basic instincts to split and reproduce as much as they possibly could. If they failed to suppress their instincts and ended up producing a younger clone, they were highly likely to be attacked by their enemies and die right then and there.


    In order to prevent their enemies from finding out about their weak periods, some Elemental Lords with no moral limitations whatsoever would unhesitatingly devour their younger clones that just split off from them. This would result in not only replenishing their power loss that just urred, but it would even greatly increase their overall strength.


    From a certain standpoint, every single high-level elemental creature that was born with intelligence was highly likely to face their own ¡°parent¡± as its first enemy.


    Back when there were only elemental creatures, all of them viewed this type of action as a normal course of survival. But aftering into contact with the outside world and obtaining an understanding of the morality of the outside world, high-level elemental creatures started treating ¡°devouring their own children¡± as a taboo. Asking who an elemental creature¡¯s parent was was no different from asking how he managed to kill his parent and survive.


    We investigated a tremendous amount of information in the library. Every one of us was certain that Emordilorcan would have the basic elemental ability to send out clones of himself. This was a basic instinct of all elemental creatures, and moreover, there were even records of Emordilorcan appearing in different ces at the same time.


    ¡°The most I¡¯ve ever seen was three Emordilorcans at the same time. Every one of them had incredible strength. And the strange part was, even destroying one of them didn¡¯t seem to have any effect on his main body at all¡ªit was as if there was no connection between them.¡±


    Those were Camdian¡¯s words. Based on this, we made many inferences. We spected whether Emordilorcan was actually a triplet, if he had several sons that worked together with him as a father and son team, or if his natural talent was in creating clones. There were several hundred such inferences.


    However, all of them were shattered by the truth before us. Every ¡°Emordilorcan¡± had very simr but different wavelengths from the original and had their own sources of magic power. It was obvious that they weren¡¯t his clones. It was as if...


    ¡°...As if they are his own children. Those wavelengths are basically just like a clone¡¯s; there¡¯s only one possible exnation of this. He devoured his own split-off children, transformed them into his own clones, and has been carrying them on him all along, intending to use them as consumable items at a critical moment. What difference is this from the foolish ogres? No, not even the ogres eat their own species, especially their own children!¡±


    The Water Elemental Goddess Aylos had a face filled with fatigue after finishing her magical traps. Now, however, her face was filled with condescension for Emordilorcan. Not every elemental creaturecked morality, and as Sidunwar¡¯s wife, Aylos had many children of her own. Although most of her children had already passed on, she also experienced emotions and a life simr to most living creatures. She was filled with distaste for Emordilorcan¡¯s actions.


    Even if we all looked down on and were filled with distaste for Emordilorcan, there was a cruel fact in front of us. Our opponent was even stronger than we anticipated.


    Due to the difference in age, there were gigantic differences in the power levels of these thirty-something younger Emordilorcans. The strongest one was only about one-third of Emordilorcan¡¯s power level, while the weakest was probably only at the level of a slightly strong Elemental Lord. However, when Emordilorcan¡¯s power level was being used as the basis ofparison, this was already a significant number, especially since they were all clones of a Master Monk martial expert. They all had nigh indestructible bodies, akin to unstoppable freight trains.


    Although they possessed their own bodies, they were all under the control of Emordilorcan¡¯s will. They split into two groups consisting of approximately seventeen or eighteen each as they broke free from the surrounding armies. They disyed their well-practicedbat cooperation techniques, with some of them performing flying kicks, punches, and body ms; each had their own role andplemented each other, which instantly helped them break free from the heavy numbers around them.


    ¡°The Eighteen Monks Formation? Does he intend to shoot a kung-fu movie? Just how old is this strategy supposed to be?¡±


    Some tried to stop these Emordilorcans that were breaking free, but they would always mysteriously die off. We, however, were at a height to watch over the entire battlefield, and it was only us who could see the shadow of an instant sh behind those people.


    ¡°How shameless! Forget about hiding among his own clones, he¡¯s even ambushing those much weaker than he is.¡±


    Should I say that being shameless was the way to true strength? That ¡°Eighteen Monks Formation¡± seemed strong already, but the worst part of it was that Emordilorcan himself was now hiding his true strength and acting as if he had strength equal to that of his clones. Anyone who fought with him would instantly get pulverized before he would somehow manage to hide among his clones again.


    ¡°It¡¯s indeed quite strong, but it¡¯s still meaningless to us.¡±


    *p!*


    With my indication, the pre-prepared trap was activated. Numerous catapults were brought out, but they were tossing out green barrels rather than stones.


    *Crack!* *Crack!*


    All these barrels exploded, causing pitch-ck oil to be spread everywhere before being lit up.


    This was alchemic oil that I had gotten from the gnomes. The roaring mes transformed into a furious mountain of fire and swallowed up the surroundings. Thanks to the oil, the endless seas of fire devoured everything.


    Soon, with some angry shouting, the mes were put out. What appeared amongst the mes were numerous pitch-ck figures, and when I counted them, there wasn¡¯t even a single less Emordilorcan than before.


    A fire like this would definitely be fatal to any mortal, and it would even be slightly bothersome to an Elemental Lord, but for Emordilorcan and his clones, this type of low-strength non-magical fire could be directly ignored. The only result that came of it was that their body¡¯s surface temperatures increased slightly and their faces were ckened by the smoke.


    However, Iughed at this, because them ignoring it was the best result for me.


    *p!* I gave another indication for the next step of the n.


    How could it be possible for the Water Elemental Goddess to be so fatigued from just a single trap? Another flood fell upon the battlefield again, and a mudflow caught all the Emordilorcans within it. This was indeed a trap that had nothing new about it whatsoever, but you know, it was fine as long as it was useful. This specially-made trap I designed for Emordilorcan who had ridiculous physical strength was indeed highly effective against him.


    ¡°Ice!¡±


    I added my ice magic to the trap again and directly froze them in the ice.


    *Roar!*


    The angrily roaring Emordilorcan instantly broke free from the ice. This type of attack had basically zero attack power against him, and he felt like all it did was help him cool off. However, it angered him quite greatly. In his mind, these attacks were no different from pranks and were basically an insult to him.


    *p!*


    I responded by having several hundred green barrels of oil sent over to Emordilorcan and his clones once more, and soon a roaring fire covered them again.


    Once again, there was no difference in the oil I used this time andst time. The result was also simr tost time, as soon, a bunch of stone giants with angry faces emerged from the mes. However, after this, there was something slightly different.


    *Crack!*


    The sound of rocks shattering on this battlefield didn¡¯t mean much, but for me, who had long been waiting for this moment, it was a heaven-sent sound.


    *p!*


    I had Aylos send yet another flood.


    ¡°Ice!¡±


    I froze them yet again.


    *p!*


    Yet another sea of fire engulfed them.


    *Crack!* *Crack!*


    This time, the sounds of stones cracking were obvious for all to hear. Many of the stone giants were already cracked all over.


    One of the youngest Emordilorcans copsed at this point. He immediately shattered and turned into white broken rocks, ending his long life as a puppet.


    ¡°Impossible!! This type of attack couldn¡¯t possibly pierce through our magical defense!¡±


    Seeing my old opponent angrily roar in such astonishment greatly uplifted my mood.


    ¡°Hmph! Does this have anything to do with magical defense? This is just the expansion of objects that are heated and the contraction of objects that are frozen during sudden temperature differences. Stones will easily be fragile and shatter under repeated temperature changes between extreme heat and cold, which is one of the basicws of physics. If you have the ability, then why don¡¯t you try changing this naturalw as well?¡±


    *p!*


    Well, although Emordilorcan was asking, I wasn¡¯t as stupid as to exin it to my enemy on the battlefield. Since this was an effective method, I just thought the above to myself, continued to profit at his expense and decided to continue with this strategy.


    After another round of ice and fire, five more Emordilorcans copsed.


    *p!*


    After several repetitions of this process, there were only less than half of the Emordilorcans remaining, and Emordilorcan himself had long since abandoned trying to conceal himself among his clones and was trying to break free at all costs. Yet Thunder Eagles, formed from thunder, blocked him as the furious Camdian tossed thunderbolts at Emordilorcan from behind, suppressing him. The meat shield known as Adam was also deployed at this critical junction to control the situation.


    *p!*


    With this round, about ten more Emordilorcans perished.


    *p...*


    After three more rounds, only Emordilorcan himself was still standing. All the clones he had been saving up for the past several tens of thousands of years had been destroyed in an instant, and his white jade-like body was now cracked all over. The powerful Emordilorcan seemed like he was forced to the brink, but his eyes red viciously at us and showed that he was still far from giving up.


    ¡°...Although pulling all the grunts together for an AOE attack was quite nice, the AOE stillcked effective power against the boss. It seems that he won¡¯t be so easily dealt with after all.¡±


    *Boom!*


    Still, the continuously digging Ultimate Yellow Duck meant that time was on our side, as it would force Emordilorcan to use everything against us, no matter what aces they were.


    ¡°Come,e, I shall allow you to witness just what is a mage¡¯s deceit and shamelessness... cough¡ªcough¡ªI made a mistake! I meant to say a mage¡¯s knowledge and wisdom!¡± Seeing Margaret and Amelia suddenly re angrily in my direction, I managed to change my words in time.


    [Well, you finally managed to use modern knowledge from your world to your advantage against one of this world¡¯s residents. You¡¯re doing something that a transmigrator should...]


    ¡°Is there a reward? A title or Fate Points? Wonderful, you¡¯re finally doing something that a system should. I believe that in just a short amount of time, I¡¯ll level up, be fully outfitted with God Equipment, be the biggest boss of all, marry someone beautiful and rich, and reach the peak of my life. It¡¯s exciting to just think about it!¡±


    [...Let me sing this song for you. Actually, I¡¯ve prepared this song many years ago already. Time for the transmigrator trumpets to sound! We transmigrators have our strength, this strength is iron, this strength is steel...]


    Fine then, it was too silly of me to have any expectations of the system.


    ¡°Shut up! Your singing is even worse than Gria¡¯s!¡±


    [...For insulting the system, 100 Fate Points have been deducted.]


    ¡°This is the first time you¡¯ve deducted points from me! You actually had such an ability!? Are you that pissed off at hearing me say your singing sucks?¡±


    Note:


    1. ording to Wikipedia, Sun Wukong, also known as the Monkey King, is a mythological figure who features in a body of legends, which can be traced back to the period of the Song dynasty. He appears as the main character in the 16th-century Chinese ssical novel Journey to the West (Î÷ÓμÇ).

 Chapter 223

    Chapter 223: The Earth Elemental God¡¯s Rebellious Children


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    During the time we had to prepare beforebat, we had countless discussions.


    ¡°Elemental clones from splitting? Destroy them with temperature differences between hot and cold.¡±


    ¡°Diamond-like imprable body? That¡¯s possible. Adjusting his own elemental structure and transforming into a harder substance seems likelier and likelier the more I think about it. What should we do in that case?¡±


    ¡°Diamond-like structures are actually easy to deal with. Their solid structures also mean that they¡¯re more afraid of structural change. Temperature differences will change the structure, as it typically won¡¯t be able to stand up to high heat. We¡¯ll just have to bake the entire battlefield. I¡¯ll go find the gnomes and prepare some extra top-level oil.¡±


    ¡°Is transforming into a tremendous giant possible? Don¡¯t the final bosses in stories always suddenly have a bigger form at the end...¡±


    ¡°Reyne, you should really read less of those unreliable books about Legends and knights. Althoughrger bodies can increase physical power, speed and reaction time will definitely be decreased. Suddenly erging himself on the battlefield will only make him into a bigger target, and if the total physical mass doesn¡¯t change, it will take a huge amount of energy to recreate and reshape the body. Just how foolish would someone have to be to do this... but just for insurance, let¡¯s install a self-destruct mechanism on the Ultimate Yellow Duck. Let¡¯s leave the self-destruct mechanism up to the gnomes as well.¡±


    ¡°...I feel that he might have the ability to move at high speed within the ground. There are spells that resemble Dimension Doors in intermediate earth magic.¡±


    ¡°Okay, then let¡¯s prepare some extra gnome mines, as well as injectrge amounts of lead bromide and mercurous sulfide into the ground where the Earth Elemental God will move within.¡±


    ¡°Is that useful?¡±


    ¡°Extremely useful. Anything thates into contact with lead bromide will be unable to use any type of dimensional magic. As for mercurous sulfide, it has the nickname of ¡®Poison of the Earth.¡¯ Just a single gram can dpose an earth elemental. If Emordilorcan really intends to move through an area of ground that¡¯s filled with mercurous sulfide, heh heh.¡±


    ¡°What other abilities could he possibly have? Let¡¯s consider it some more...¡±


    ¡°...Oh right, can we prepare an anti-gravity trap? We have tons of earth mages anyways, and as long as we can reduce gravity to zero, with Emordilorcan¡¯s huge mass, I refuse to believe that he¡¯ll be able to stand anymore.¡±


    If it was a warriors¡¯ discussion, it probably wouldn¡¯t take even ten minutes before the discussion devolved into ¡°Go slice that bastard up,¡± ¡°Let¡¯s go over there to slice that bastard up,¡± and ¡°After killing him, where should we all go to celebrate¡ªa bar or a barbeque?¡± They wouldn¡¯t even consider what to do in case they lost: ¡°What, you¡¯re asking what to do in case we lose? You dare to shake our morale? Execute him!¡±


    ¡°Strength and glory, blood and thunder! By the way, is this slogan really fine? It sounds like the slogan for feeding. [1] 1 At the very least, add in something strategic that uses brains.¡±


    And if it was a group of mages having a discussion instead, then the discussion would actually take far longer than the actual length of the battle they were nning for. It was verymon to prepare for at least two weeks for a single battle, and while the endless discussions were rather boring, they were typically quite effective.


    As long as the enemy was confirmed and there was plenty of time avable, they would research everything about their enemy¡¯s weaknesses and strengths, making several or even dozens of ns against their enemy. If they met the enemy as nned at the location and time that they wanted, then the result was usually a foregone conclusion.


    Before us, currently, was such a typical battle of mages abusing a melee warrior.


    ¡°Ah, that guy really did go underground!¡±


    ¡°He ran into all the gnome mines¡ªlook¡ªhe came out! Haha! He¡¯s green and ck all over from the lead bromide and mercurous sulfide, so pitiful.¡±


    ¡°...He changed his form! His white jade transformed into diamond. What a pity, why is it ck diamond? As expected, all those that act like rich pay-to-win yers will turn into poor free-to-y yers in the next second, those rich pay-to-win yers should all go die... You don¡¯t understand? There¡¯s no need to understand, it¡¯s professional vocabry.¡±


    ¡°The anti-gravity trap has been activated! Wow! He actually flew up into the sky like a balloon.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s dropping, he¡¯s dropping, hurry up and have the cannon fodder escape!¡±


    ¡°That bastard¡¯s about to use instant movement again! Use the 200 dimensional anchors on him, fire!¡±


    ¡°Haha! That guy only managed to teleport his upper half, he¡¯s now in two pieces!¡±


    ¡°Oh, he actually managed to put himself together again. He¡¯s as disgusting to deal with as a lizard.¡±


    Reyne was breaking out into a cold sweat all over as she listened to these mages joyously discussing the cmities that befell Emordilorcan. For the first time, she wondered if she had chosen the wrong job ss. Emordilorcan, who was basically undefeatable in meleebat, was actually being toyed with like this. At this moment, she couldn¡¯t help but think of some ssical phrases in this world.


    ¡°In mages¡¯ eyes, there are only two job sses in the world. Mages, and cannon fodders A, B, C, and D.¡±


    ¡°Never ever fight a mage in a battlefield where he¡¯s had sufficient time to prepare beforehand. Otherwise, you won¡¯t even know how you died. Pay special attention to this part¡ªnever attack a mage¡¯s personal mage tower. With all his resources avable and dozens of years of preparation, he¡¯ll easily be able to have over ten times his normalbat strength at his fingertips!¡±


    ¡°As a pure warrior, the first reaction you should have upon seeing an enemy mage is to rush him and slice him to death. Either cut him down instantly or be toyed by him to death after he recovers from the attack¡ªit¡¯s your choice.¡±


    ¡°Mages are just like firstborn sons. It¡¯s unfair? I¡¯m sorry, there has never been anything such as fairness in this world. Why don¡¯t you consider how it¡¯s many times, even dozens of times tougher for mages to level uppared to other job sses? And do you think that obtaining knowledge in order to level up is the same difficulty as wielding your fists to level up? Do you know how many mages get stuck at Silver rank? Over 99%!¡±


    ¡°You want to defeat a high-ranked mage? Change thebat situation to an ambush or gueri warfare. You want to rush him from the front? What¡¯s your name? Why am I asking your name? Well, I was considering what to write on your tombstone¡ªhow about ¡®The one thousand and eighth idiot who rushed to his death?¡¯¡±


    In fact, at this moment, Reyne even wanted to ask Rnd to help her change her job ss. After all, Rnd had seeded before in cultivating across both these job sses.


    After some hesitation, she finally recalled another incident where she asked Harloys to teach her magic in the past, but helplessly gave up almost immediately.


    ¡°You want to learn magic from me? Okay, as long as you pass this test, I¡¯ll teach you. Try some high-level math with this calculus and derivatives. If you don¡¯t understand, you¡¯ll understand as you look through it. Rx, it¡¯s not that difficult. Rnd was the one who invented it, and he often uses this to train his logical thinking ability. We also intend to spread this through the entire magical world, and it¡¯s being received quite well. As long as you can understand calculus and derivatives, it¡¯s evidence that you have the necessary talent, and I¡¯ll teach you real magic.¡±


    At first, Reyne was filled with hope as she took two sses which filled her head with numbers and symbols, and the more she listened the dizzier her head got. In the end, she even fainted in ss, right in the middle!


    ¡°...What a waste of my time. To use that bastard Rnd¡¯s quote, ¡®Idiots who don¡¯t even have 9 Intelligence should have some self-awareness and just go serve as cannon fodder.¡¯¡±


    Harloys¡¯ assessment of Reyne had made her quite displeased at the time, but she felt that she would rather continue practicing the sword than start learning magic with that ridiculous math. Besides, the power of Chaos wouldn¡¯t be weaker than the power of mages. It was, actually, the opposite; the power of Chaos came straight from the source and was maybe even stronger.


    However, right now, as Reyne watched Rnd, Amelia, and the other mages having fun with their discussion, she felt an inexplicable pang of displeasure. Her heart suddenly trembled as the tremendous power of Chaos ran through her bloodstream.


    ¡°Indeed, I have no need to be jealous of them. I have my own path as well. Demons look down on using traps and investigations, and they are still undefeatable, anyways.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s teachings suddenly rang in her ears.


    ¡°From the very moment that logic was used to exin elemental power, elemental magic was destined to have nothing to do with Chaos. Controlling Chaos never required logic to begin with. Willpower is the important part. Er, you can think of its power as your citizen, and all you need to do is utilize your will as a Chaos Lord. Who cares what the citizen thinks. I can observe it, so it exists. I want this to happen, so it did. As for why? It was never important to begin with. The more stubborn and resolute someone¡¯s personality is about this, the more suitable they are to control Chaos, which is why Rnd is no good. He¡¯s too logical; he has to research everything about everything, but you¡¯re simr to me. You seem to be the logical type, but you¡¯re actually incredibly selfish and willful, the perfect natural-born type to be a Chaos Lord, the perfect natural-born type to control Chaos!¡±


    Reyne clutched her hands as the Prince of Chaos gave her the special ability to control Chaos, and the endless void furnished her with limitless power. Pitch-ck corruption seeped out through a dimensional tear¡ªthat was the most basic source of power for all the nes. The original power of Chaos began distorting this space.


    Under the mysterious guidance of her willpower, Reyne began muttering an incantation in a low voice as she nced over at Emordilorcan¡¯s children that had already perished.


    ¡°...Pitiful children, I can feel your rage and helplessness. You were stripped of your right to survival right as you were born; could there be anything crueler in this world? Getting devoured instantly by your father after being born in this beautiful world, could there be anything reviled more in this world? I, Reyne Qin Mist, representative of Chaos, shall give you all one more chance. Be my ves for a chance at revenge! Come, children! If you¡¯re unwilling to remain like this, give over your souls filled with rage and unwillingness to me. Let Chaos build new bodies for you.¡±


    Reyne¡¯s hands descended; not a single speck of light surrounded them.


    At this moment, some certain naturalws had begun to be distorted. The SemiGod mages instantly looked at her in astonishment. Since they were abnormally sensitive to the Elemental Tide to begin with, how could they possibly not notice this obvious power of Chaos?


    Reyne finally regained her senses and rubbed the back of her head, not knowing what to do or what an incredible thing she had aplished.


    ¡°Ah, what did I just do?¡±


    Nevertheless, the power of Chaos had twisted the naturalws of life and death. These elemental children should have turned into elemental shards and returned to the Earth Elemental ne, but instead, they now gathered together again. Their tattered bodies began piecing themselves together with each other, and those souls, which filled with hatred,bined with the power of Chaos and revived those souls that had already perished. The distorted, rebellious children of the Earth Elemental God managed to stand up again.


    Judging by their physical appearances, they seemed to be stone giants that were haphazardly pieced together. Their bodies were filled with triangr snow-white crystals, and each of them had been pieced together using at least two or three of Emordilorcan¡¯s children¡¯s bodies. Having a distorted shape, like six hands or eight legs, wasmon for them, and all the numerous elemental eyes on their bodies were wide open. Deep hatred shone from within their dusky yellow eyes, as if they couldn¡¯t ept their deaths.


    Reyne¡¯s pure power of Chaos had only acted as the glue and catalyst. What helped these un-existable existences return to this world were these ¡°children¡¯s¡± hatred and rage at Emordilorcan and by extension, this world.


    ¡°I hate you! I hate my father! I hate everything in this world! I curse this world that gave me my life!¡±


    Just looking at them would cause words of hate to furiously roar in one¡¯s mind, and mortals with weaker willpower would instantly be insane. These seven pieced-together, mixed giants were now living embodiments of hatred.


    The entire continent was shaking as if it was making sounds of grief and pain. Thunder gathered in the clouds as the furious Earth Elemental ne began cursing what had just happened. Pitch-ck clouds covered thends¡ªit was as if it couldn¡¯t bear to witness this; it was unable to tolerate its own favored child transforming into an existence that was cursed by all the Gods.


    ¡°This is the reaction of distorted divine power, which, ording to the dimensional encyclopedia, is known as negative divine power. This power can only exist in one type of life form.¡± Margaret adjusted her eyesses, but her expression was filled with astonishment, which was incredibly rare for her. She immediately sent Adam a message to immediately retreat back to us. If her expectations were correct, the uing battle was going to be far more dangerous, even more so than facing Emordilorcan head on!


    Actually, Adam didn¡¯t need hermand; he had always possessed sharpbat senses. When he saw Emordilorcan turn around and run off like a frightened rabbit, Adam instantly ran away at a speed faster than even the Wind Elemental God.


    ¡°Amazing! I¡¯m actually able to meet such a rare species! Where¡¯s my notebook, I need to record this!¡± Amelia¡¯s reaction made everyone feel as helpless as usual. ¡°This is wonderful! I¡¯m having so many ideas now for the birth of my new Seven Virtues!¡±


    Fine then, let us ignore this maniacal witch who had exposed her true form and couldn¡¯t stop herself from cackling.


    ¡°...No matter what, Emordilorcan counts as a God, and these children are divine children that did not want to be born. Under the influence of the power of Chaos, their divine power has be negative, and all the conditions have been met. There¡¯s no mistaking it. Just like ¡®Shadow,¡¯ they are a new species of creature cursed by all the Gods¡ªDivine Sins!¡±


    Divine Sins were mistakes that shouldn¡¯t exist and were created from unexpected side effects of divine power. As souls that had already perished, Divine Sins continued to live. They absorbed nutrition using their negative divine power empowered by pure hatred for their God ancestors and everything natural. The uncontroble Divine Sins were cursed and hated by the Gods... as well as feared!


    Yes, they had power that even their ancestors, the Gods, feared, and in fact, they even had powers that countered the Gods they came from. When facing a True Divine Sin, please treat it as an existence on par with a True Evil God; otherwise, one would be certain to die.


    As the result of Emordilorcan¡¯s self-deserving actions and the guidance of the will of Chaos, these so-called ¡°rebellious children of the Earth Elemental God¡± Divine Sins came into this world. All of their gazes locked on to their own ¡°father,¡± eyes filled with hatred. Their wide-open mouths were evidence of their desire for ¡°delicious food.¡±


    ¡°Divine Sins are mistaken existences that shouldn¡¯t exist. All mages not at the SemiGod level retreat right away. If any of them see you, it¡¯ll be toote already. Luckily, there is an almost zero chance to meet one, and if you really do, well, that¡¯s just too bad for you... I finally understand why the monsterpendium said that about them. This species is just too dangerous!¡±


    Unlike normal elemental creatures, which received support and replenishment from the Earth Elemental ne, the Divine Sins obtained elemental power through heartless robbery. All the earth elemental creatures in their surroundings were beginning to naturally disappear, with the tall tower giants instantly bing shattered heaps of rubble. Even the powerful Sand Dragons became nothing more than dried smanders. Who knew what other powers these Divine Sins possessed, but just their very existences had the side effect of bing the natural enemy of all earth elemental creatures.


    They were born due to their hatred for Emordilorcan, and had the same source of power as Emordilorcan. As the Divine Sins born from him, they were doubtlessly Emordilorcan¡¯s greatest natural enemy.


    The instant they appeared on the battlefield, all the Earth Elemental Lords began to escape at top speed. That was the fear that frogs would instinctively have for snakes. In front of their natural enemy, they were nothing more than potential food.


    The next moment, those raging seven Divine Sin brothers began a life-and-death battle with their father.


    ¡°Hey, Rnd, even such a thing hase out. How do you intend to clean up afterwards? These things are even more dangerous than Emordilorcan. Shall we escape together back to the mortal ne as soon as we finish this battle?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t interrupt my thinking. I¡¯m considering something really important right now.¡±


    ¡°Hmm? Do you have a way to control Divine Sins? This is a new topic that nobody has ever seeded in before. Should I apply for research funds and a ss on this topic from the Truth Symposium?¡±


    ¡°...No! Who could possibly control those things? I was just thinking about what name to give them. What do you all think of the ¡®Seven Brothers of the Gourd?¡¯ The one with eight eyes will be the big brother, the one with the shiniest eyes will be the second brother, the one that seems incredibly hard will be the third brother, the one that¡¯s been roasted red will be the fourth brother, the one with traces of water still on him will be the fifth brother, the smallest one that seems tock presence will be the sixth bother, and the one with a gourd-like rock on its back will be the seventh brother¡ªhey, why are you all leaving? You don¡¯t like these names?¡±


    [I won¡¯t even bother making fun of you here. Do you really think that the residents of this world can understand your jokes from China of your original world? These jokes are too old, anyways. You¡¯re exposing your true age with how ancient they are.] [2] 2


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t joking around! I was being serious.¡±


    [...Then that¡¯s even more pitiful¡ªno¡ªeven scarier. Your talent for naming is just as garbage as it¡¯s always been.]


    ¡°Shut up! Someone who can¡¯t carry a tone doesn¡¯t have the right to hog the microphone!¡±


    [ ...Brothers of the gourd, brothers of the gourd! Seven flowers growing on the same vine! Whether the wind blows or the rain falls, they fear nothing,lla... ]


    ¡°Ahhhh! You¡¯repletely off tune! Are you trying to force me to death due to obsessivepulsive disorder? Just kill me already!¡±


    Note:


    1. Game vocabry that means to give the enemy many kills due to ack of skill.


    2. The Seven Brothers of the Gourd is a several-decades-old Chinese children¡¯s story.

 Chapter 224

    Chapter 224: Challenge


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Everything is the result of karma. Even simple acts, such as eating and drinking, are predetermined, and one¡¯s actions will be one¡¯s downfall...¡±


    ¡°Rnd, talk so that we can understand.¡±


    ¡°No zuo no die! [1] 1 ...Fine, don¡¯t look at me like that. I¡¯ll be more direct. It means that you won¡¯t die if you don¡¯t deserve to die! If you deserve to die, then you¡¯ll die!¡±


    The scene before us caused countless exmations, as the undying Emordilorcan met his scariest opponent ever. When the Brothers of the Gourd [System: Are you sure that you¡¯re going to call them by this name?] ...Fine, when the unnamed Divine Sins locked on to their father, the destined battle began explosively.


    Or should I say that it was a suppression rather than a battle...


    If Emordilorcan had been in his top, uninjured condition, perhaps this battle would have been more equally matched. However, he had been heavily injured in the mortal ne, and he had just gone through the baptism of ice and fire. The destruction of his clone children had also given him quite a bit of damage. Just maintaining his physical body and preventing it from copse was already getting difficult for him, not to mention he had to deal with the incredibly dangerous Divine Sins.


    On the other side, the seven rebellious children had just been revived, and their powerful hatred gave them limitless motivation. Their natural talent to absorb the earth element was the natural counter to all earth elemental creatures, and since they were Emordilorcan¡¯s cloned children, they also had Emordilorcan¡¯s battle experience and techniques!


    These souls had been within Emordilorcan¡¯s body just earlier, but they now began fighting with him. This time, even the strong Emordilorcan had a look of despair sh in his eyes when he discovered that his heavy punch, which could tear even the dimensional fabric, now became his opponent¡¯s technique.


    ¡°Ahhh! If you want my head, you¡¯ll have to take it with your lives!¡±


    Still, Emordilorcan raised his head and shouted angrily to the skies before exploding with the viciousness of a warrior.


    But, no matter what he did, it was still meaningless. What happened next showed that this battle had a foregone conclusion from the very start, or perhaps I should call this a dinner rather than a battle.


    Emordilorcan¡¯s attacks had all be ineffective, and any contact caused his body parts to be stolen through earth element absorption. What could he do? With just a single exchange, Emordilorcan was pressed down onto the ground, which was followed by an early Armageddon, just for him.


    ¡°Ahhh!¡±


    The seven Divine Sins opened their mouths wide and began chowing down on their father¡¯s flesh and bones. They instinctively beganpleting their iplete selves, weakening Emordilorcan by stealing away his earth element. Emordilorcan could only pitifully scream as he watched his own demise. After Emordilorcan devoured more than thirty of his own children, it was time for his children to devour him.


    [Divine Sins: Unnamed. The Divine Sins were created from the Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan. Currently undergoing evolution. Already known abilities: earth element absorption, negative divine power. System Assessment: If you can¡¯t find any method to deal with them, then just run away. This isn¡¯t shameful as well. I¡¯m being serious. In the Earth Elemental ne, most likely not even a True God will be their match!]


    The system¡¯s assessment was very appropriate. Even the forbidden spell¡¯s casting behind me had ended. Kaid had preferred to take the elemental bacsh and escape with his team.


    Seeing the Earth Elemental God receive the punishment he deserved, I hesitated for a moment beforeing to a decision.


    ¡°We¡¯ll retreat as well...¡±


    ¡°Um, everyone wait a moment...¡±


    Just as I made the decision to retreat, Reyne suddenly spoke up with an awkward expression on her face. She never expected things to end up like this.


    ¡°...I think I can control them.¡±


    ¡°What!¡±


    ¡°What!?¡¯


    Everyone¡¯s faces were filled with shock. Controlling Divine Sins? This was unheard of. If Divine Sins could be controlled so easily, they wouldn¡¯t be existences that gave even True Gods headaches. The only way to deal with them was to repeatedly seal them.


    Seeing our expressions of shock, Reyne started panicking as well. Everything she did just now was when she was in a daze, and even she was unsure of what it was.


    ¡°When I was making a connection with them earlier, there was a line like ¡®I, Reyne Qin Mist, representative of Chaos, shall give you all one more chance. Be my ves for a chance at revenge¡¯ in the incantation. They answered my summons, so a contract should have been formed. I should be able to control them, I think.¡±


    ¡°Can you control them now? Make them listen to yourmands? You¡¯re certain?¡±


    Although there may have been a contract, Divine Sins were far too dangerous¡ªit was to the extent that even demons wouldn¡¯t dare to deal with one, which was unbelievable. Even when I possessed ¡°Shadow,¡± it was the same for me¡ªI barely dared to use him. Apart from fearing that the Gods would notice and simply kill me with a flick of their fingers, I also feared the possible bacsh from him.


    ¡°I¡¯ve researched Divine Sins as well before. They¡¯re basically impossible tomunicate with. Are you certain that they even understand what a contract between master and servant is? When you approach one, just see if they¡¯ll treat you as a passing snack.¡±


    Reyne sunk into meditation as she closed her eyes and lowered her head. She was inspecting the contract connection she had with them and was trying to see if she could control them.


    But she quickly opened her eyes with an expression filled with fear.


    ¡°...These creatures have no sense of reason at all. They instinctively hate everything, and they want to tear everything apart. At most, I can control them to have them destroy someone, but I can¡¯t control them to not destroy someone.¡±


    Whelp! That was the result, after all. But it was already much better than what I expected.


    ¡°Can you order them to hibernate?¡±


    Judging from my experience in controlling Shadow, Divine Sins all acted based on instinct. Commands that were simr to instincts such as eat, sleep, and attack were allmands that they could understand.


    ¡°Let me try.¡±


    Reyne closed her eyes again, and this time she revealed a jubnt expression.


    ¡°...Not currently, but it should work once they¡¯ve eaten their full.¡±


    Hearing this, everyone finally heaved breaths of relief. For Emordilorcan, who was so strong, to turn into food for these Divine Sins so easily gave us a huge amount of pressure.


    ¡°We¡¯re still going to retreat. Hurry up! We can¡¯t guarantee that after they¡¯re done with the main course they won¡¯t treat us as a side dish. Reyne, when they¡¯re done snacking, immediately order them to sink into eternal hibernation. Camdian, if the hibernation seeds, immediately notify all the Earth Elemental Lords to not enter this area. It would be best to construct a forbidden zone here so that they can truly sleep for eternity.¡±


    Hearing this, Reyne began to pout. It would seem that she had some objections to my n.


    ¡°...Um, can we take one to the mortal ne? With how strong each one of them is, it could be a help to us.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it. There¡¯s only one possible result if we take a Divine Sin with us to the mortal ne¡ªthe True Gods descending upon us in a horde, immediately killing the Divine Sin and swatting you to death like a fly along the way. Even if you managed to hide one sessfully, this type of lifeform, which only knows how to destroy, would cause a catastrophe either sooner orter.¡±


    Reyne instantly went into a depression, with an expression just like a kid who had her candy stolen from her.


    ¡°...But just borrowing part of its power is alright. I remember that Karo has spells on partial dimensional summoning, but that will take time to research and learn as well. Right now, let¡¯s not waste any more time and retreat immediately. Reyne, you first.¡±


    Reyne nodded when I said this and turned around to leave, but everyone else paused in surprise, as they understood what I implied by my words.


    ¡°Rnd, you¡¯re not intending to retreat with us?¡±


    Amelia was rather hesitant.


    ¡°I still need to go over to the Elemental Throne and gather some materials; you know about this already...¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s go together. That¡¯s Emordilorcan¡¯s old nest, after all. Better to be on the safe side.¡±


    ¡°No need! It¡¯s just material gathering, such a small matter. You guys should leave first. Your power wavelengths are too obvious, and those Seven Brothers of the Gourd will notice you.¡±


    Margaret stepped forth and seemed to want to say something when Adam pulled her and stopped her. He walked in front of Amelia and took charge.


    ¡°Alright, we¡¯ll leave first. You should finish up on your end as quickly as possible as well.¡±


    I nodded and stomped as a pitch-ck shadow surrounded me, and I transformed into shadows and went ahead at high speed, no longer able to hear the argument behind me.


    ¡°Why did you let him go? It was obvious that he was lying. Rnd has the habit of touching his nose whenever he lies, and you know about it as well. With his current power rank, if he meets some tough opponent...¡±


    Margaret was filled with dissatisfaction as she questioned Adam.


    ¡°Of course I know that he was lying, but he wasn¡¯t entirely being dishonest either. It¡¯s true that he¡¯s going to gather materials, but getting revenge is probably the main topic he has in mind.¡±


    ¡°Revenge against who? Is there some enemy of his at the Elemental Throne?¡±


    ¡°Of course¡ªEmordilorcan. Didn¡¯t wee all the way here just for him?¡±


    Adam¡¯s face was filled with astonishment, with an expression like ¡°how could Margaret ask such an idiotic question?¡± However, Margaret was currently now ncing at the battlefield close by where Emordilorcan had been over half devoured and was deader than dead.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that Emordilorcan¡¯s not dead yet?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. There¡¯s no way that he¡¯s so easy to deal with. For such a sly old fox, faking his death couldn¡¯t be any more normal. Didn¡¯t we meet someone who faked his death that one year, and you were even the one who saw through it.¡±


    Margaret was instantly rendered speechless. The sly old fox that she uncovered back in the day had been Rnd himself.


    ¡°Do you have any proof?¡±


    ¡°My instinct. As for evidence or whatever, you¡¯ll have to ask Rnd. He¡¯s more suitable at being a brainy detective.¡±


    At hearing this, Margaret¡¯s icy expression started defrosting, but she was still filled with dissatisfaction. She had now deduced that these two old friends had yed a trick on her again, while Amelia even directly headed towards the Elemental Throne¡¯s direction. However, Adam blocked her in a sh.


    ¡°Get out of the way. I¡¯m going to go help him.¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t think that Rnd¡¯s the type to not mind anything. Actually, he really cares about the People of the Mist that had died.¡±


    Amelia was somewhat confused to hear this, as she didn¡¯t think it had anything to do with the current situation.


    ¡°...Since the People of the Mist suffered such great losses, and Emordilorcan is the only remaining perpetrator that¡¯s still having such a carefree time outside, how could Rnd possibly let this stand? Now, do you understand why he went by himself?¡±


    ¡°Revenge by singlebat? That¡¯s just too foolish.¡±


    Adam shrugged rather helplessly.


    ¡°I apologize. Sometimes, men are such foolish creatures. Without being able to personally y the perpetrator and serve justice for the dead, he probably won¡¯t be able to sleep well at night.¡±


    Amelia reflexively chewed on her fingers and showed her obvious worry, but Margaret suddenly consoled her.


    ¡°Have you ever seen Rnd be on the losing end in a battle of wits? He¡¯s such a sly one; how could he possibly go to his death so easily? Since this is a battle that Rnd¡¯s prepared for so long already, you should be worried about his enemy!¡±


    And, right now, just as Adam surmised, I was heading for the target coordinates that Beifeng had provided me. My angry shouting reverberated through the undergroundbyrinth.


    ¡°Coward! I¡¯m by myself, and you still don¡¯t dare to show yourself? If you don¡¯te out, I¡¯ll attract those Divine Sins to this location, and watch how you die!¡±


    It seemed that my threat achieved its purpose, as a familiar voice finally sounded behind me, but it was filled with bone-piercing hatred!


    ¡°Damned Rnd! It¡¯s all because of you I lost everything! Today, it¡¯ll be either your death or mine!¡±


    Note:


    1. ording to Wikipedia, No zuo no die (Chinese: ²»×÷ËÀ¾Í²»»áËÀ or ²»×÷²»ËÀ) is a Chinese inte meme. The original wording of the Chinese phrase means ¡°one would not be in trouble had one not asked for it.¡± The ¡°zuo¡± here means asking for unnecessary trouble.

 Chapter 225

    Chapter 225: Brink


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    This was a giants¡¯ temple. Massive purple gemstone-embedded doors towered at the entrance, and wererge enough for multiple titans to enter together. The tall ceiling seemed as distant as the clouds, and the interior was wide enough for multiple gigantic dragons to fly around as they pleased. Even the ground was paved with rare and valuable types of jade.


    The drawings on the walls of the temple were countless fairy tale-like stories, with various epic battlefields, including enemies that were incredibly strong. There were True Gods from the ancient past, Legend-ranked demons, and countless extinct creatures that were unidentifiable. The giant in the drawings, who stepped on dragons and slew Gods as the main character, was the master of this temple¡ªthe Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan.


    In the past, the Earth Elemental God had been the most ancient God at the very top. For all the undying, this legendary title represented countless years of history and epics and legends.


    Generations of True Gods had perished and risen up, while Emordilorcan had existed throughout all these years. He had left his own mark upon history, which was plenty of proof for his strength.


    The countless ages had allowed Emordilorcan to arrange his old nest into a glorious divine temple just for himself. In the past, this ce had been filled with his loyal servants and worshipers that woulde from thousands of kilometers away just to see him. Emordilorcan would sit high on his throne and observe the teeming lifeforms below.


    However, right now, this ce was entirely empty. The only guest standing in the za seemed like an antpared to the temple¡¯s size. But, he was an unmistakable uninvited guest, as well as the most dangerous challenger.


    ¡°Emordilorcan,e out here! I know that you¡¯re hiding in here! If you don¡¯te out, I¡¯m going to smash the Elemental Throne to pieces!¡±


    ¡°...How did you know that I wasn¡¯t dead?¡±


    Emordilorcan¡¯s familiar voice echoed throughout the temple, and I could hear the suppressed rage contained within his words. For him to have been forced down from his glorious throne all the way to hiding in a corner waspletely the fault of this ¡°ant¡± before him. Of course he would hate me.


    His angry question was as loud as a thunderp, but I ignored him. I had no intention of giving a long speech, which would give my enemy enough time to prepare and overturn the situation.


    Actually, I knew from the very start that he couldn¡¯t possibly have been defeated just like that. The title of the oldest and strongest Elemental God couldn¡¯t have possibly been for show. I had guessed, from the very start, what Emordilorcan would do when our forces gained an overwhelming advantage early in the battle, and he had refused to show himself no matter what.


    ¡°Emordilorcan¡¯s pretending not to notice me while secretly making his own preparations? He must be nning on winning without even taking part in battle himself. You want to know how I came to this conclusion? Because if I was in his situation, I would do the same thing!¡±


    If I was in the situation where my power level was at an all-time low, and I was facing an enemy where I had a less than 20% chance of victory, then I would naturally also want to think of ways to avoid this battle.


    From his viewpoint, as an Elemental God, this ce would be my home field. Fleeing without battling was rather impossible to think of. Even if I ran away, my enemy would surely chase me wherever I fled, and I might very well be discovered by my enemies while in my seriously injured state. And if I was to fight a battle where I was certain to lose, that would be even more foolish.


    Using oneself as the standard to measure the enemy was an iron maxim that guided countless undying individuals past numerous cmities. In a way, Emordilorcan was no honest and direct good person, so his choices were incredibly simr to what I would have chosen.


    ¡°Is he going to fake his death or escape? He¡¯s the Earth Elemental God, after all, and he¡¯ll be greatly weakened if he leaves this ne. In that case, that only leaves faking his death.¡±


    Tossing out some bait and having the bait die off in his own ce so that all his enemies believed he was dead was one of the mostmon and effective tactics that old sly foxes like him preferred to use in order to continue surviving.


    In order to make things realistic enough to where all the Elemental Lords believed that he was dead, Emordilorcan would have to pay a heavy price. He was even willing to sacrifice the majority of his power for this, as just surviving was enough for him. As long as he survived, he had the hope of bing stronger again and regaining everything he had lost.


    And what absolutely confirmed for me that the Emordilorcan up above had only been yet another clone of his which contained the majority of his true power was the scene where he was devoured. As the Earth Elemental God, even if some of his earth element power was absorbed by the Divine Sins, he could have just replenished his power again using the Elemental Throne. However, I didn¡¯t see any signs of him gathering the earth element again to reform himself. He died too quickly¡ªit was almost as if he was trying to die as fast as he could.


    And since he already made such arge sacrifice, I supposed that even having the Elemental Throne be destroyed, which would cause him to lose his identity as the Earth Elemental God, was within his limits. He would definitely hide in silence until the very end unless I managed to threaten his life like with the Divine Sins.


    ¡°...Even if I lose everything, it¡¯s fine as long as I¡¯m still alive! I shall pay back my losses today tenfold tomorrow!¡±


    I could even imagine the way he looked, grinding his teeth in the shadows. After all, I did the same thing in the past, but I definitely didn¡¯t want his idea of surviving and taking revenge in the future toe to fruition.


    The stubbornness of the undying helped him to decide, from the very beginning, to sacrifice almost everything in order to live. If it was someone else, perhaps I would even praise him a little, but since this was that bastard Emordilorcan, I only had onement.


    ¡°You want to live? Dream on! Why didn¡¯t you ask those who you killed, all those innocents that died because of war, whether they wanted to live or not!?¡±


    I have many personality defects. Probably the ones at the forefront are stinginess and always bearing a grudge. I probably wasn¡¯t going to be able to change them ever in my lifetime, nor did I intend to change them.


    For the true secret perpetrators that destroyed the Mist Kingdom back in the day, I spent hundreds of years to find them all and kill them. In this battle, all the beastmen tribe leaders had died off, and we were still finishing up the postbat dealings with them. But if the only ¡°escapee,¡± Emordilorcan, didn¡¯t die, I wouldn¡¯t be able to sleep well at night!


    ¡°The Earth Elemental God? Heh heh, no wonder you have the nickname of a cowardly turtle. You don¡¯t even dare toe out when I¡¯m by myself; are you that afraid of me? Ha! For an Elemental God to actually fear a newbie who just entered the Gold rank, if everybody knew about this, your reputation would be ruined. Oh, my apologies, I forgot that you didn¡¯t have much of a reputation to begin with.¡±


    ¡°Rnd! You¡¯re courting death!¡±


    Emordilorcan¡¯s angry roars kept echoing within the empty temple, but I still had no way of knowing just where he was hiding. None my detection magic worked in finding him, so it seemed that he was hidden quite well.


    After paying such a price, it was almost impossible for Emordilorcan to be willing to show himself. He would almost certainly hide like a cowardly turtle till the end. When an existence like Emordilorcan abandoned everything and focused only on hiding his presence, it would be exceedingly difficult to find him. So, that was why I kept taunting him to try and get him toe out. I needed to make him think that he could take me on one hundred percent, as well as inme the deep grudge he had for me, so that he could no longer calmly tolerate his most hated enemy parading about in front of him.


    With all the above factorspleted, I would also give Emordilorcan hope that he could protect the Elemental Throne and his Godhood status, as I personally went about destroying the Elemental Throne, which only his interference would be able to stop me from doing. With all these factors added up, I felt that he would never be able to resisting out.


    ¡°Come! As long as you kill me, you can have your revenge, as well as keep your divinity.¡±


    Yep, I was using myself as the bait to reel in a big fish. Although I might be reeling a whale, only by showing him that I had trulye by myself and making him think like he could win would Emordilorcan be willing to appear. This would be my only chance at personally taking revenge!


    And the moment he appeared, it would definitely be a battle to the death. The fact that he still hadn¡¯t appeared using his true body meant that he was still testing to see if I had some type of ambush waiting for him.


    ¡°Alright then. If you won¡¯te out, I¡¯ll just destroy this Elemental Throne, and you can sleep for eternity!¡±


    I walked forward casually like I was taking a leisurely walk, but the air within the temple suddenly changed pressure to the point that it was slightly suffocating. This caused me to smile.


    ¡°An ambush? He¡¯s finally fallen for the bait!¡±


    I suddenly stabbed my pale white sacred sword of justice into the ground. Ice instantly covered this area, and the sound of pain that came from underground was incredibly pleasing to my ears. That bastard had finally taken the bait.


    ¡°Rnd, we found him. Not only is he underground, he¡¯s all over. In a way, we¡¯re inside his stomach.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ notification astonished me. Whatever was beneath me still wasn¡¯t his true body? But soon, I received a more detailed exnation.


    ¡°He probably separated the concept of his very existence and ced them within the different drawings on the wall. Only by putting them all together will it be aplete Elemental God. This basically means that he forcefully separated his power and soul. Not only will this greatly weaken his power, it¡¯s more painful than you can imagine. It¡¯s far worse than dying over and over again, so this guy is definitely quite vicious even to himself! Only by treating oneself viciously will one be able to treat others even more viciously. Be careful! This time, you¡¯ve hooked a brutal, man-eating shark!¡±


    At this moment, all those truly realistic-seeming drawings shed through my mind. Now I understood how he had hidden himself so well.


    After I blocked his underground ambush and nced over at the drawings on the walls, Emordilorcan knew that he had been exposed.


    The next second, all those drawings came to life, as all the Emordilorcans depicted within them started materializing into ethereal shing figures. The next moment, the figuresbined together and a familiar figure was once again in front of me.


    ¡°Emordilorcan!¡±


    Just like that day, when I had met him in the undergroundbyrinth at Antuen, a pitch-ck stone giant was viciously ring at me with hatred in his eyes.


    Meanwhile, I startedughing out loudly.


    ¡°Ha! I can finally have my revenge! Beifeng! Now!¡±


    After I shouted out in anger, the entire earth started trembling. Behind us, the Giant Sand Worms now under themand of the Dracon hunter were beginning to enjoy the finest meal they had ever tasted, the symbol of authority that countless high-level earth elemental creatures dreamed about¡ªthe Earth Elemental Throne.


    The pitch-ck giant looked at me in astonishment. He probably never imagined that his well-defended treasure trove had been dug through to by an underground tunnel.


    ¡°Hah! Why are you looking at me like that? Did you really think that I would leave the Elemental Throne alone for you? The Elemental Throne was my main target from the very start!¡±


    Yep,ing here to the Earth Elemental Throne and finding Emordilorcan was for my personal grudge, but destroying the Elemental Throne was my main strategic objective here. As long as I achieved this goal, I would definitely have profited bying here.


    The revival of the Elemental Gods caused an increase in the Elemental Tide. This would then lead to a closer connection between all the nes with the mortal ne. Soon, a new battle and unwee invaders would be appearing.


    And unlike ¡°history,¡± the Elemental Gods were being far more active than usual, and the speed of increase for the Elemental Tide had far surpassed ¡°history.¡± Unless I took action, there would probably be very little time to prepare for the major uing battles in the mortal ne. The premature arrival of the Undead Cmity would be the most obvious example.


    ¡°The Elemental Throne creates Elemental Gods. If any of the Elemental nes have their Elemental Throne destroyed, that means that no new Elemental God will be able to be born. The Elemental Tide will flow back just like how water always flows to lower ces, as the Elemental ne will absorb additional amounts of its own element to create a new Elemental Throne. In that case, the increase in the Elemental Tide for the mortal ne should stop for the time being.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, every active Elemental God in the mortal ne was my enemy.


    That was why I made Camdian take the me for me on a certain matter. I definitely didn¡¯t promise a single thing to any Earth Elemental Lord. I only hinted to Camdian that ¡°only by eliminating Emordilorcan can a new Earth Elemental God be born, and this is how we can lure the Earth Elemental Lords into fighting for our cause.¡±


    I didn¡¯t say a single lie. I simply didn¡¯t mention the time it would take for the next Earth Elemental God to be born. Anything ¡°extra¡± was imagined solely by Camdian himself, and I didn¡¯t even show my face around, so the Earth Elemental Lords would only be able to me Camdian for not being able to be the Earth Elemental God.


    Yep, I had dug a trap that he had kindly fallen into for me. The best result would be that the Earth Elemental Lords were so furious that they ganged up against Camdian and managed to kill him for me, which would definitely save me a lot of trouble.


    At this time, all the seeds I had nted were finally sprouting, and it was time for me to im my rewards from my traps. The Elemental Throne was currently being devoured by the Giant Sand Worms thatcked intelligence, and every bite felt to Emordilorcan as if they were biting into his heart. His diminishing divine power had been gathered by him over the countless years, and he was weakening with every moment.


    This scene was basically a reenactment of what happened at Antuen. Only this time, I didn¡¯t leave even a single chance for him to break past any obstacle, setting traps for him every step of the way.


    If he had stayed within the walls of his temple, even if he lost his Elemental Throne, nobody would have been able to find him. But now, he hade out already, and the Elemental Throne was destroyed. It would be nearly impossible for him to escape now.


    ¡°There¡¯s only battling to the death.¡±


    At this very moment, a sliver of fear shot through Emordilorcan¡¯s eyes. He truly felt that his life was now being threatened, but at the very next moment, his fear transformed into viciousness.


    Some people would be cowardly when it came to a junction of life or death, while some people would explosively erupt and go all-out against their enemy, at the very least trying to take their enemy with them in death. It was obvious that Emordilorcan, who had reigned for over tens of thousands of years, was of the second type.


    ¡°Rahhh!¡±


    Together with his angry roaring was the copse of his glorious temple. Emordilorcan had now taken back all of his power as he strengthened his body while the earth shook around us.


    His pitch-ck stone armor was growing spikes, and his eyes under that armor were filled with maniacal, bone-piercing hatred.


    ¡°Rnd, he¡¯sing! You¡¯ve forced this vicious wolf to the brink. This will be the final, most furious attack of all; you can¡¯t be too cautious.¡±


    Before Harloys¡¯ reminder even faded from my ears, I already startedughing out loudly.


    ¡°Hah! Isn¡¯t this exactly what I wanted? Come, Emordilorcan! Don¡¯t you hate me, and want to tear me to pieces? It¡¯s the exact same for me. I¡¯ve long since wanted to slice and dice you into little pieces. In that case, let us have an all-out battle to the death, right here, you and me. Let us battle until one of us is deader than dead! Only the side with the deeper hatred that wants to kill the other more will be able to survive!¡±


    My injured vicious opponent used his angry roaring and rushing over to me in lieu of his answer.


    As for me, I tossed away the pale white sacred sword in my hands. The uing battle wasn¡¯t one that an Epic-level weapon like it would be able to participate in. Once Harloys returned to me, I would have an even better sword, a magical sword that would be able to destroy anything.


    ¡°Awaken, Yin¡¯s Extreme¡ªIce Cmity!¡±

 Chapter 226

    Chapter 226: Icy mes


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The entire temple was copsing. Due to its height, the broken stones that fell from the ceiling hit with the force of meteors, smashingrge holes into the ground. However, the two that were facing off against each other ignored this nearby threat.


    With a sh, that gigantic ck stone giant vanishedpletely. In the very next instant, I swung my sword.


    *ng!*


    In the midst of falling stones, the sword slice met Emordilorcan¡¯s heavy fist, sending sparks flying everywhere. The impact forced me into the ground, and my right arm, which held my sword, ached with pain. My purlicue [1] 1 also started bleeding. However, I revealed a delighted expression.


    ¡°I¡¯m able to block his attack!¡±


    Yep, facing off against Emordilorcan and being able to block his heavy fist was already beyond my expectations.


    ¡°You really think you can win just by being able to block me!?¡±


    A thunderous roar echoed throughout the temple as the raging Earth Elemental God vented his anger andughed tauntingly at my delight. ¡°Then let me inform you! That punch just now was only one percent of my strength! Doesn¡¯t that make you despair?!¡±


    Hearing this, Iughed out even louder than he did. Was he just testing the waters? It was the same for both of us; my sword slice just now hadn¡¯t used any of my trump cards. Even though I was actually somewhat disappointed inside, I definitely wouldn¡¯t let it show or lose in a war of words.


    ¡°I know how to talk a good fight, too. My attack just now was also only one percent of my strength. Were you trying to give me a massage?¡±


    The power of frigid ice was gradually spreading down my sword, and everything was within my expectations. Before I could even stand back up, Emordilorcan¡¯s furious barrage of attacks arrived again.


    *Whoosh!*


    Emordilorcan didn¡¯t respond to me this time as he took a deep breath, shook his body, stomped, and instantly vanished again.


    His gigantic body had inconceivable agility. The afterimages he left behind were actually beyond the ability of my eyes to perceive. I only saw a blur before the giant arrived before me. The only thing I could do was follow mybat instincts and wield my silver longsword in defense.


    A force that was too strong to resist against was transmitted to me through my sword. The scenery around me changed at a rapid pace; with just a single blow, I was sent crashing into the incredibly high ceiling.


    *Cough!*


    The impact from my back hitting the ceiling caused me to cough out arge amount of blood. This blow heavily injured my internal organs. It would seem that there was still arge difference between our strengths. My physical body¡¯s strength was akin to a titan¡¯s but was nothing before him at all. No wonder all those tower giants were also destroyed by Emordilorcan in a single blow.


    My right arm was beginning to ice over, and my ice crystal sword was frozen to my hand, which was the only reason I hadn¡¯t dropped it. With this exchange of blows, I had lost again, but I stillughed.


    The force of gravity caused me to fall from the ceiling, but a pair of crystal ice wings suddenly opened up behind my back.


    ¡°The preparations areplete, and he shouldn¡¯t be as on guard anymore. In that case, you should allow him to have a taste of your world.¡±


    The female loli¡¯s voice that sounded in my ears seemed to remind me that I wasn¡¯t alone in facing off against my mortal enemy. Meanwhile, Emordilorcan was tossing rocks at me from below; they flew at me with the force of a meteor shower.


    *Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!* Colossal holes were created in the ceiling from the force of Emordilorcan¡¯s thrown rocks; however, I was gliding through this meteor shower...


    With darting, rolling, and gliding movements, Emordilorcan¡¯s rocks had zero percent chance of hitting me thanks to Harloys, who was controlling my flight. With her assistance, I was able to concentrate on my next attack.


    ¡°Emordilorcan!¡±


    Together with my angry roar was the icy sword energying from a furious attack. It was the most direct type of challenge invitation possible.


    When Emordilorcan saw that I was actually gliding right towards him with an obvious intention to sh with him head-on, he remained unafraid. For someone like him who specialized in melee battles, there was no way that he would be afraid of such an ambush.


    However, some type of natural instinct seemed to remind him of something. He had an ominous premonition, so he imperceptibly focused on the sword that I was holding, the preternaturally beautiful sword of ice.


    My sword was far longer than most, at nearly 1.6 meters. Its entire body was made of ice crystals, and there was a pair of Goddesses embracing on the hilt of my sword. The de was actually two ice des that twisted around each other. The sword was as transparent as ss and seemed to be sparkling like the stars.


    It was obviously an exquisite sword that seemed like a work of art, but Emordilorcan instinctively felt afraid as he looked at the sword. Fear was an emotion that he was supposed to have abandoned long ago.


    Right after, he stomped and took a deep breath, causing that inexplicable sense of fear to disappear.


    ¡°A magic sword that can affect emotions? So what!?¡±


    This unusual Elemental God, who had even managed to be a Master Monk, was able to ignore all negative emotions due to the countless battles he had been through. They had tempered his heart and soul; inbat, he was always able to fight at one hundred percent. What he perceived to be a mere magic sword able to influence emotions was nothing more than scrap metal to him.


    This time, he didn¡¯t intend to dodge. Emordilorcan was intending to teach me just what true strength was.


    As I descended using my wings of ice, Emordilorcan suddenly jumped up into the air and my icy sword once again shed against his heavy fist. We both fought using our basic instincts.


    There was no difference fromst time. I was thrown upwards again, and the ceiling was so hard that I wanted to cry. But, as I wiped away the blood I coughed up with my sleeve, I started smiling in delight as I looked at my opponent.


    Emordilorcan was uninjured, but there was now something blue shing on his right arm. Suddenly, that speck of blue started expanding.


    The ck stone giant nced at it and saw the spreading ice, so he gritted his teeth and sliced down on his right arm with his left arm.


    *Snap!*


    Emordilorcan¡¯s entire right arm and right elbow were cut off, and it transformed into a block of ice which shattered on the ground. Nothing happened at all besides that.


    Emordilorcan didn¡¯t care about something like losing an arm. This had be amon thing for him way long ago when he was dealing with powerful enemies, and all he had to do was gather the earth element and create a new arm. It didn¡¯t hurt one bit.


    It was just that being tricked like this made him quite angry, which was why he red at me.


    ¡°Fool, all you know is how to y useless tricks. I...¡±


    Before he even finished speaking, his angry re changed into shock and disbelief.


    ¡°...You¡ªwhat have you done! Why can¡¯t I regrow my limb! Why? Impossible!¡±


    ¡°What did I do? I didn¡¯t do anything. It¡¯s just that this ice sword of mine isn¡¯t so easy to deal with. This is my strongest sword of all!¡±


    What was strength, and did this world have the so-called strongest power rank of all? For every living being who sought to be stronger, they would all wonder about this. And based on their different understandings of the concept of strength, they would walk different paths.


    On the path to bing stronger, the natural course of evolution and the cultivation that powerful individuals undertook were actually the same things. Some would believe that a solid defense was the best, so either they would put on heavy armor or maybe grow a solid outer shell. Some would believe that high speed to the point where others couldn¡¯t see them clearly was the strongest; perhaps they would be an agile assassin or even grow wings and speedy legs.


    True top-level existences were impossible to copy. They had their own personal understandings about strength.


    Emordilorcan was incredibly strong. He abandoned the fancy-seeming elemental magic and wholeheartedly threw himself into controlling the power of physical might. His elementalposition was the most practical muscr structure of all, which further increased his physical power that was already at the top of the world. Then, he even learned the ¡°weakling mortals¡¯¡± fighting techniques and used the most practical of his talents to evolve his physicalbat ability to the utmost.


    To be honest, the moment I saw Emordilorcan rip through dimensional fabric with just pure physical power earlier, I knew that there wouldn¡¯t be a single person alive who could confidently say that he or she could defeat Emordilorcan solely in physicalbat. This was already taking into consideration that the current Emordilorcan was injured all over and that his power wasn¡¯t even one-tenth of his maximum power level at his strongest.


    Sword Saints? Emordilorcan¡¯s fighting experience and techniques were far above the level of the so-called human Sword Saints. His over ten thousand years of fighting experience helped him to understand countless schools of martial arts techniques. Perhaps hecked humans¡¯ creativity and innovation and was unable toe up with his own school of martial arts, and perhaps he might have lost in martial arts techniques to some genius in the past. But when you add on the fact that Emordilorcan possessed a physical body of unmatched might, he remained unbeatable in physicalbat.


    However, no matter how strong Emordilorcan was, it was all meaningless to me.


    I wasn¡¯t being arrogant. It was due to our different interpretations of what strength was.


    ¡°So-called strength is undoubtedly an unblockable sword (attack power that can¡¯t be defended against), an imprable shield (a solid defense that can block all attacks), and an abnormal attacking method that¡¯s difficult to dodge (a surprise attack method that¡¯s too hard to conceive of and be on guard against).¡±


    Perhaps this was due to my way of thinking as a transmigrator. My understanding of strength waspletely different from the mainstream understanding of strength in this world, which was why I never hesitated to use small tricks or underhanded techniques. As long as they could be of use to me, I would attempt to learn anything and everything, and make it my own strategy.


    If Emordilorcan was the representative of the ¡°specialist¡± school of thought, where he continued to improve upon his greatest strength, then my path could perhaps be described as the ¡°generalist¡± school of thought.


    ¡°Perhaps I¡¯m not my opponent¡¯s match in certain areas, but I can find a method to counter my opponent¡¯s strengths. I¡¯ll always use my strengths to attack my opponent¡¯s weaknesses. Emordilorcan¡¯s very strong? Indeed, but his attacking method is obviously too simplistic. All I need is a shield that can counter him and seal off his advantage, as well as a sword that can slice through his rock-solid defense, and that¡¯ll be enough. I don¡¯t need to be better than him in his strongest area. I simply need to win. So-called strength is the power to defeat your enemy; that¡¯s all.¡±


    And right now, I just happened to possess a magic sword in my hands that was easily able to slice through Emordilorcan¡¯s defenses.


    ¡°Ice Cmity!¡±


    This was an incredibly dangerous magic sword, dangerous to the point that I didn¡¯t even dare to use it in the mortal ne.


    The reason? Just like those Seven Brothers of the Gourd, its power came from ¡°Shadow,¡± an incredibly dangerous Divine Sin. I had no intentions of having fun by being ganged up upon by all the True Gods.


    When Shadowbined with Harloys, I was finally able to control his powers, which were a double-edged sword. His ¡°Cold mes of Despair¡± finally became my power.


    ¡°Come, Emordilorcan! When temperatures reach absolute zero, what will happen?¡±


    My ice crystal sword emitted blinding silver shes, and the arcs of my sword swings sent blue mes into the air.


    This was nobination magic of any sort; it was the pure gathering of coldness. It was ice magic with the power of a Divine Sin, which even the Gods would fear.


    Things always develop in the opposite direction when they be extreme. When coldness reached an extreme point, the extreme cold air actually gathered into the shape of mes.


    Just looking at the slowly burning mes of ice made Emordilorcan feel suffocated, as if those icy mes were spreading on his arm and death was waiting for him right behind his back.


    If he hadn¡¯t been willing to slice off his right arm earlier, he was well aware that perhaps he would be entirely frozen solid right now.


    This was a Divine Sin¡¯s curse against the world and Shadow¡¯s natural talent ability. It was to make everything reach the absolute limit of low temperature¡ªabsolute zero.


    At this abnormally low temperature, physical matter wouldn¡¯t be in liquid, solid, or gas state anymore. Instead, they would be ¡°superatoms,¡± the most basic state of all.


    These atoms would stop moving, stop acting, freeze over, and merely exist.


    At absolute zero, any power would vanish, and any consciousness would enter hibernation. They could only exist, as if time itself had been frozen.


    It was only natural that Emordilorcan¡¯s arm was unable to be regrown. The concept of his arm still existed, but it was simply frozen solid. Just like how humans were unable to grow three arms, as long as he didn¡¯t destroy the concept of his arm that I had frozen, he would never be able to regrow it!


    This was a type of toxic poison, a poison of the world that could freeze everything¡ªa time poison that could freeze even the most basic fundamental naturalws of space and time.


    This was also why I feared ¡°Shadow¡± so much. If he had ever spat a mouthful of icy mes at me, it probably wouldn¡¯t be any different from me sleeping all the way until the end of the world.


    There was nothing in this world that could possibly be immune to these icy mes. The only reason I was able to use them was that I possessed an even stronger shield, strong enough to block this poison of the world.


    Since these icy mes were able to even freeze time itself, then how could this world possibly possess something that could defend against it? Indeed, while this world may not possess anything, that wasn¡¯t true of my new world.


    ¡°Whew! This really is the coldest ice. My hands are already numb to the point that I can¡¯t feel them anymore. Yikes¡ªyikes!¡±


    Even though I was obviously in the scorching hot Earth Elemental ne, I kept saying how cold it was as if it were the middle of winter. My arms were currently covered with the [Coldest Ice] that came from my new world.


    Although I called it the coldest, it didn¡¯t actually have much of a difference from the ice in this world. However, when I gave it the Concept of [Coldest Ice in the World], then even the Divine Sin¡¯s icy mes were no longer able to make this [Coldest Ice]¡¯s temperature go any lower, which was how I was able to protect myself.


    Of course, I couldn¡¯t do anything about the fact that I would have frostbite afterwards...


    This was a special right of the creator of a new world, and also the imprable armor that I prepared for myself.


    What? You¡¯re saying that I used the wrong word? I should be using the word indestructible rather than imprable? Heh heh, you¡¯ll soon find out why I used the word imprable.


    As I forcefully stuck my cmity-bringing ice crystal sword into the ground, the familiar frigid earth of my world appeared around us.


    ¡°Emordilorcan, wee to my world¡ªFrigidwinter Earth!¡±


    ¡°You... you dare to challenge the Divine Authority of the creator? You¡¯re insane!¡±


    His angry questioning suddenly stopped. The frigid ice covered me and transformed into a heavy armor of frozen ice, while that dangerous two-handed longsword suddenly started burning with blue mes and transformed me into a person on fire.


    ¡°This is a nightmarish opponent! He actually dares to wear such a thing? Using the power of a Divine Sin and challenging the Divine Authority of the Creator Eich herself, you¡¯re a heretic far crazier than I am! You¡¯re challenging all the True Gods! You¡¯re challenging the very basic order and naturalw of the world!¡±


    Emordilorcan¡¯s evaluation of his enemy Rnd kept continuously increasing, but upon seeing this sight, he knew that he had still underestimated me. I waspletely illogical to him.


    After the first time, Emordilorcan had already lost the confidence to defeat me. For a mortal that seemed so insignificant to him, I actually became a threatening opponent, and now that he had witnessed me challenging the Creator herself, he probably felt that I had gonepletely insane. For the first time, Emordilorcan was seeing himself meet his own end, as well as regretting¡ªfor the first time¡ªthat he had gained such a dangerous mortal enemy, all for the sake of some mortal beastmen.


    How could I possibly let the signs of fear and regret in his eyes slip past me? Iughed in satisfaction.


    Frigid, frozen ice now covered this entire area. Since the long preparation time required for it had alreadypleted, my wintry world had now descended upon this ce, and I had instantly pulled Emordilorcan into this frozen in as well. This time, there would be no escaping for him.


    *Ding! Ding! Ding!*


    Clear sounds resounded and the countless amount of frozen ice crystallized into numerous huge ice swords. This icy ins had now transformed into a corridor of innumerable swords. After that, when I stuck my Ice Cmity Sword into the mountain, those fatal blue mes appeared on every single ice sword¡¯s de.


    I randomly picked up an ice sword. The mes upon it were burning vigorously, just like torches, and caused me to smile in satisfaction. This time, it was my turn to be rushing Emordilorcan head-on.


    ¡°Emordilorcan, there are no more chances for you to repent. Now then, let us begin our second round in our duel to the death! I said before that it¡¯s time to settle everything between us! You¡¯re a God that¡¯s high up above? Taste the revenge of a mortal that you view as nothing more than an ant!¡±


    Note:


    1. The space between one¡¯s forefinger and thumb.

 Chapter 227

    Chapter 227: Decision


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The frozen earth reced the copsing temple. As an enemy of this world¡ª my world¡ªEmordilorcan was currently being attacked by the entire world.


    Ice pirs would suddenly appear out of the ground, and blizzards would descend upon him without any warning. Even the rocks he identally kicked away woulde back andnd on his head. This entire world viewed him as an enemy and was acting upon it.


    This wasn¡¯t even something intentional. It was simply because, as the creator of this world, I viewed him as an enemy; this world was venting its own rage upon him as well. Although nothing it did was life-threatening for Emordilorcan, being in this world, where even the very environment was literally hostile to him, was inhibiting; he would have to worry about tripping every time he took a step.


    My world wasn¡¯tplete yet, and the only elements I could control within it were the ice and snow. Perhaps these attacks were unable to even damage Emordilorcan who was in a ss of his own, but the enmity and attacks from my world were sufficient to at least distract his attention.


    ¡°Damn it! If you aren¡¯t a coward, thene out of your turtle shell!¡±


    The angry Emordilorcan, who was so famous for having nigh-imprable defenses, never imagined that he would one day have to taunt someone else for taking advantage of a high defense. Yet, sometimes, fate was just that ironic. Now, it was time for Emordilorcan, who possessed one of the strongest defenses of all time, to be helpless about his enemy¡¯s defense.


    The ice armor that seemed so fragile was covered with that fatal blue me, which was obviously untouchable. No matter how strong his fists were, Emordilorcan didn¡¯t even know how to go about attacking me.


    ¡°Hmph! If you¡¯re not a coward, thene hit me!¡± I even began to taunt him.


    Only now did he begin regretting the fact that he hadn¡¯t worked harder at mastering high-level earth elemental magic. In this abnormal world, he was unable to gather any earth element at all for strong attack spells. Even though he wanted to dig up some earth to toss at me like projectile weapons, he discovered that the ground was nothing but ice, and when he forcefully dug some up, it would strangely instantly melt into water.


    Emordilorcan was having a difficult time in this world filled with enmity against him. He had to be careful about every little step, as he could trip over at any instant. The sudden sinking and shaking of the ground was also a bother that kept distracting him.


    In this world, I suddenly revealed a strange transformation with angel wings and demon feet and scales. This transformationbined the traits of creatures from both Order and Chaos and was abnormal enough, but mybat strength also multiplied by several folds.


    The ice and snow in my hands transformed into stakes of ice, and with just the wave of my hands, the hundreds of ice stakes shot out at Emordilorcan in artillery fashion. This entire world of ice and snow became an icy cannon formation under my control.


    However, in Emordilorcan¡¯s eyes, the most dangerous thing of all was still the blinding icy mes that shone with a demonic blue.


    Just touching it even a little would require him to dig off another piece of flesh. Meanwhile, I unhesitatingly tossed the random ice sword I had, which was covered in icy mes, at him. It was basically an insult to him who was a Master Monk and an expert in martial arts.


    As a veteran Master Monk, knocking away projectiles was the basics of the basics to him. As for Emordilorcan, even if there were several hundred top-level elven archers shooting arrows at him simultaneously, he could confidently knock away every single arrow effortlessly without having a single onend on him. This weapon throwing, which was obviously from a novice, was something he could dodge even with his eyes closed.


    ¡°Even if those icy mes are life-threatening, it¡¯s fine as long as I don¡¯t touch them!¡±


    The strange part was that the weapon throw, which shouldn¡¯t have been a threat at all, suddenly seemed to increase its speed when it approached him.


    ¡°Damn it! What did you do!?¡±


    There was obviously no outside force affecting the weapon throw, but my thrown swords of ice seemed to sometimes appear slow while at other times appear quick. Just as he felt he was able to dodge one, it would suddenly increase its speed and flick him.


    Without even waiting for the ice mes to spread, the furious Emordilorcan would tear off another piece of his flesh and continue to roar angrily at me. But, my only response was to throw even more ice swords. enveloped in icy mes, at him.


    In Emordilorcan¡¯s eyes, those swords increased their speeds by several times again. Those increases in speed caused him to lose the confidence to knock the swords away, so he attempted to dodge with a leap. Unfortunately for him, those swords still managed to make contact with him!


    ¡°An error in judgement? Every possible increase in speed will always have some type of indication, and I can¡¯t make such an error in judgement. In that case, it isn¡¯t that the projectiles that became faster; I¡¯m the one who became slower! Just what did you do?!¡±


    The angrily roaring Emordilorcan actually seemed rather hrious to me at the moment. By the time his angry shouts reached my ears, it sounded like ¡°I¡¯m... the... one... who... became... slower! Just... what... did... you... do!¡±


    It wasn¡¯t only his voice; his movements were also like what you would see in an old movie shown by an almost broken-down projector. They were sometimes quick and sometimes slow, always jerky. At this time, he was already ¡°poisoned¡± quite deeply, as part of his very Concept and existence had been ¡°zeroed.¡±


    Absolute zero. From a certain standpoint, this was a concept that was only in my original world. At this temperature, even the atoms that made up matter would stop their movements, and every form of energy or power would be ¡°zeroed,¡± which was why it was called absolute zero.


    But in this world, the basic particles of matter weren¡¯t atoms, protons, electrons, and so on, but rather elemental particles. As for that so-called -273 degrees Celsius which was supposed to be absolute zero, it wasn¡¯t a difficult task for any high-level ice mage, and there were even some creatures that lived just fine in environments of under -500 degrees Celsius.


    But Divine Sins were simply abnormal. This power wasn¡¯t merely creating a low temperature¡ªit had the ability to zero the basic elemental particles of an individual¡¯s body and reach the theoretical state that shouldn¡¯t have been possible¡ªthe state where everything would ¡°stop.¡± In this world of Eich were there wasn¡¯t even a concept of ¡°absolute zero,¡± this type of power should never have been born in the first ce.


    ¡°...Frigid Nightmares live symbiotically with their hosts¡¯ souls, so did he obtain this concept from me?¡±


    Every Divine Sin could be considered an error of the world. If any such ¡°error¡± spread out and caused chain reactions, they would likely cause the entire system of the world to die and copse. This was why Divine Sins were viewed as the greatest enemy and threat of the Gods.


    Obviously, directly using these icy mes in the mortal ne was nothing more than suicidal as it would attract the attention of the True Gods. Yet I found another method to use this type of power.


    ¡°Less, even less¡ªso little that it¡¯s undetectable, and envelop it in normal ice to dilute it. Afterwards, slowly have it pour out, just like milk that¡¯s been added to coffee.¡±


    After my ability evolved into ¡°Death Chill,¡± with this additional modification, it further evolved into its apex.


    [Hibernation Chill: This effect is added to all of your ice attribute attacks and spells. Every single attack or spell will decrease your opponent¡¯s speed by 1%. This effect is stackable, and can¡¯t be resisted. This effect will automatically disappear if not stacked for ten minutes.]


    It seemed like a useless ability that was at the bottom of the barrel, but only by actually trying it out did I discover its true fearsomeness.


    This slowing effect was actually the method for leading my enemy to the state of ¡°absolute zero.¡± My enemy wouldn¡¯t notice this effect one bit, but it would already take ce and begin to slow my opponent. It would decrease their speed more and more imperceptibly, thrusting them outside the axis of time.


    ¡°Senses and reactions will all be slowed. For a warrior, a slowed reaction of 0.1 seconds is already fatal; misjudging a de by 0.1 seconds is plenty for death. Not to mention that stacking it as much as you have already, you¡¯ve probably lost over 50% of your speed. Right now, you¡¯re probably feeling like time is passing by in alternating bursts of quickness and slowness, which means that your body¡¯s sensory mechanisms for time have all beenpletely messed up¡ªno¡ªI should say that you¡¯re now living in your own time.¡±


    Although I said this out loud, Emordilorcan still had a confused look. This final test of mine confirmed that he was poisoned quite deeply. Perhaps my words sounded like only a rapid-fire iprehensible chatter to him now.


    ¡°What... did... you... do? What... are... you... saying?!¡±


    Iughed at this. If it could be said that the explosive power of ¡°Ice Cmity¡± was a vicious poison that would instantly kill someone, then this ¡°Hibernation Chill¡± was a slow, toxic poison that would make people imperceptibly fall into a hibernation state and was usable in the mortal ne.


    As long as my enemy was hit even one time by any of my ice attacks, his senses would be affected. For a Master Monk like Emordilorcan who definitely had a strong sense of the flow of battle, one second slower or quicker was definitely fatal. He was even foolish enough to try to knock away my projectiles with his empty hands, which was a type of action where even a single misstep wasn¡¯t allowed.


    One attempt, two attempts, several dozen attemptster, and Emordilorcan was now a pincushion. It was somewhat impressive how vicious he was even towards himself, as he dug out every afflicted piece of flesh. He no longer had a single even patch on him all over.


    However, although he protected himself this way against the Ice Cmity¡¯s instant-death effect, the Hibernation Chill effect had stacked even more upon him.


    By now, his time perception was probably slower than a normal person¡¯s by at least three times or more. Basically, three seconds for me was one second for him.


    This was already thanks to his astonishingly high magic resistance. However, since he had already reached this state, the rest would be simple.


    I spread my wings. I had prepared this transformation for so long; it gave me the power to face him. Now that the vicious tiger had entered the cage, what remained was to execute him.


    *Snap* With a snap of my fingers, the icy mes on my ice armor disappeared, gathering instead on my magic Ice Cmity Sword.


    While this ice armor made Emordilorcan utterly unable to attack me, it also gave me an enormous amount of pressure. With the [Coldest Ice] covering my body, I had lost a lot of blood, plus I had a weakened body from my injuries while fighting him. My body temperature was dropping precipitously, and I could no longer feel any of my limbs. The loss of temperature and energy caused me to be dizzy and have a major headache, and perhaps having frostbite all over would be the best possible result if I canceled the ice armor right now.


    What gave me the biggest pressure wasn¡¯t even that¡ªit was the icy mes on my ice armor.


    After all, it was only the [Coldest Ice], not the [Hardest Ice], as I was unable to create such a hard ice. If Emordilorcan had been willing to sacrifice everything and risk his own life to take me down with him, the ice would have definitely shattered with a single blow.


    It still would have been fine if it just shattered, but if some of the icy mes touched my body after my ice armor shattered... probably nothing in the world could have cured me.


    This seeming total suppression was actually nothing more than a gamble. I gambled that Emordilorcan¡¯s mastery of elemental magic wasn¡¯t high enough to forcefully control the earth element in my world thatcked elemental power. I gambled that Emordilorcan¡¯s personality was cautious to the point that he would never risk his very life unless he was forced to the utter brink, and I gambled that the power I disyed to him scared him to the point that he no longer had the confidence to be able to kill me in a single blow.


    I couldn¡¯t help but gamble. The difference in our powers was just too massive. Even if I used every single plot I could think of, with such arge difference in power, I still had to gamble to fill in thest piece of the puzzle.


    ¡°It seems that I won my gamble.¡±


    Emordilorcan hesitated, attempted to dodge and find some way to strike back, but that was what I hoped for. In order for the Hibernation Chill to stack up, I needed time. It was just like how fires were obviously dangerous but rarely killed people, while water, which seemed so gentle, contained the countless bones of people who knew how to swim.


    The moment he decided against risking his own life to kill me at all costs, he had already lost his only chance at winning. Now that it had arrived at this, I wouldn¡¯t possibly give him any chance where he could risk his own life to take my own.


    I took a deep breath and shattered my ice armor into water droplets. It would otherwise interfere with the next stage of the battle I had nned.


    I spread my wings, approached him, and wielded my sword. There was no sh of sword and fist this time. He was definitely not one who would wait around and let me kill him freely, and his reactions from predicting my movements were actually quicker than my movements by two seconds. Yet being too quick had the same result as being too slow. His fists met nothing but air, while my Ice Cmity longsword viciously sliced into his only remaining left arm, causing the familiar blue color to spread on his arm again.


    *Snap!*


    Despair shed in Emordilorcan¡¯s eyes. That guy sure was tough and vicious; he actually bit off his own left arm. But now that it hade to this, when I ced my blue sword of ice against his neck, he knew that it was all over for him.


    And just as I was about to execute him, that ¡°brave and fearless¡± Emordilorcan suddenly spoke up.


    ¡°Don¡¯t... kill... me. (the rest has been sped up for convenience) I¡¯m willing to serve you as my master. I can be your most loyal servant. My umted wealth can make even the richest human emperor seem like a pauper. I know countless secrets and knowledge about the world, and even the greatest grandmasters of magic don¡¯t know as much as I do. And even if I lose my position as the Earth Elemental God, I¡¯m still the strongest Earth Elemental Lord, as my power is definitely significant. As long as you give me time, I can be even stronger. There are no benefits in killing me while epting me as your servant can bring you endless wealth!¡±


    It was quite a test of my patience to finish listening to him beg for his life because of the slow speed of his words, but I finished listening to it all, and evenughed out loud at the end.


    Conquering an Elemental God? That sounded rather majestic.


    Obtaining an Elemental God¡¯s endless amounts of treasure hoarded over the years? That sounded like a good deal.


    Having an Elemental God as a personal servant and fighter? That sounded great and beneficial.


    Killing him was only to vent my grudge while making him into my ve would give me endless benefits. This seemed like an incredible deal, so it seemed that I, who was well known for calcting benefits, had already made my decision.


    Iughed, and when he saw that Iughed, he also smiled.


    ¡°No.¡±


    This caused him to instantly be pale.


    ¡°You want to live? Everybody wants to live, but do you know how many people died because of that one earthquake of yours? Or just how many people died in the end because of the war you started?¡±


    Emordilorcan¡¯s eyes showed that he was rather confused, as if he didn¡¯t understand why I was suddenly bringing up this topic.


    ¡°That earthquake killed 376,452 people, and this war killed well over 2 million, so, I understand that you want to live, but right now I want to ask you a question. Did you ever ask them if they wanted to live or not?!¡±


    ¡°How can ants bepared with me...¡±


    Emordilorcan still wanted to defend himself, but I had lost my patience. Just cleaning up the rubble left behind from the battle as well as all the corpses had taken an entire month. I could still hear all those unearthly wails of the rtives that were left alive as if it was yesterday, and right now, the main perpetrator was right at the mercy of my sword and still dared to view my People of the Mist as ants. How could I possibly control my emotions?


    ¡°Ants? Ha! Indeed, we may not be as strong as you Gods. You are strong because you are undying, while we are weak due to our short lives. Why¡ªwhy is it that you damned bastards can¡¯t just let us be in peace? Why is it that even though you¡¯re all so strong, your battles among Gods always have to drag us mortals into your affairs as the cannon fodder?¡±


    ¡°We People of the Mist only want to live in peace, so why do you Gods always have to repeatedly destroy our homes? Three hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, and this year as well, forcing our country to the brink and disrupting our citizens¡¯ lives. Did we People of the Mist offend you Gods in any way? You so-called venerated existences, why not just do some good deeds and go fight your own wars if you want to fight? Can¡¯t you stop dragging us into things and bringing catastrophes upon us?¡±


    ¡°Why can¡¯t you just give us a break!¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you Gods go fight that damned Holy War by yourselves!¡±


    ¡°Why do you foolish existences even have the right to be called Gods!¡±


    ¡°Why is it that even now, you don¡¯t have a speck of regret? Are mortals truly just a bunch of ants that you can step on as you please? Let me tell you¡ªwe are humans, not ants!¡±


    My angry roaring kept echoing within this space and got louder and louder with each echo. Blizzards blew and the icy mountains seemed to roar, with the icy ins following suit as well. Their anger represented the will of my world, and all the sounds angrily questioned Emordilorcan, but he still didn¡¯t have one shred of regret in him.


    ¡°As long as you let me live, I willpensate you. I can understand your anger at the loss of your property, but as long as you let me live, I shallpensate you ten times for what you lost. And, besides, mortals have high rates of reproduction, they¡¯ll soon...¡±


    Yep, in their eyes, mortal humans were just a bunch of ants that could speedily reproduce. Dying for the sake of a God¡¯s war was supposed to be the highest form of glory, so what did it matter to them if some mortals died?


    And, so, Iughed, out of extreme anger.


    And, so, I swung down my sword. With a sh of light, that venerated head of a God flew through the air.


    Emordilorcan¡¯s eyes were still filled with disbelief by the time it hit the ground. I lifted up his head that was currently transforming into nothing but a rock and made a deration to the entire world. I had fulfilled my own oath.


    ¡°I, Rnd Mist, swear that no matter who you are or how venerated your status is, as long as you dare to enter my tribe¡¯snd and kill my people, no matter where you hide, I shall find you and kill you!¡±


    ¡°Forgive? Never!¡±

 Chapter 228

    Chapter 228: Afterword


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Emordilorcan¡¯s in head transformed into a pitch-ck rock and had started to decay. The other portions encased in eternal ice were too dangerous to even me, so I could only leave his body here.


    The nightmarish stone giant finally copsed, and what came along after was a furious wave of the Elemental Tide; it was wailing, it was singing.


    ¡°Emordilorcan has died; this elemental ne has lost its master.¡± The Elemental Tide was furiously transmitting this message everywhere.


    Now that the Earth Elemental ne had lost both its Elemental Throne and Elemental God, it was basically like its door had bepletely broken. The Earth Elemental Tide, which always transmitted the earth element to the other ns, now had the earth element begin pouring back inside it, and immense sandstorms began whipping up over the entire n. This was the final insanity.


    At the moment that Emordilorcan died, every living creature that was SemiGod level or above instantly discovered the explosive news that the Earth Elemental God had died. They also became aware of the fact that this Elemental ne was currently searching for a new master.


    ¡°Emordilorcan is truly dead? Completely dead?¡±


    No Elemental God had died for far too long. It was impossible to even know who had been the Earth Elemental God before Emordilorcan. All the Earth Elemental Lords that had retreated when the Divine Sins appeared had been anxiously waiting back at their own bases for news from the battlefield, but they now had nk looks as they epted the message from their own Earth Elemental ne. Right after they understood, they were all overjoyed.


    ¡°This enormous mountain on top of my head for tens of thousands of years has finally fallen. It¡¯s finally my turn to be the Earth Elemental God.¡±


    However, the next news that came right after made all these Earth Elemental Lords not know whether tough or cry.


    The Earth Elemental Throne had beenpletely destroyed, and the earth element was now pouring in from all the other nes in order to create a new Elemental Throne. In that case, the new Earth Elemental God would likely have to wait until the new Elemental Throne was finished reviving.


    Let us stop talking about the Earth Elemental Lords that hadplex emotions right now. The ones who were the most unable to ept what happened were probably the Wind Elemental God Camdian and the Water Elemental Goddess Aylos.


    Mortal enemies always knew each other the best. They knew just how strong Emordilorcan was, and when they discovered that Rnd, who was only currently a Gold rank, actually dared to go engage in singlebat against Emordilorcan, they inwardly treated Rnd as a cocky, overconfident person heading to his death even though they didn¡¯t say anything out loud.


    In their eyes, no matter what achievements I had achieved in the past, they were all mere mortal achievements that would be gone in a sh. The achievements were only temporary glories in the past, nothing but smoke and mirrors to them.


    While new talents were always eye-catching, only those who remained at the top for the longest were the most respected. In their long lifespans, they had witnessed countless numbers of heroes with astonishing ability and geniuses that could achieve anything, but those that were undying and could actually survive for thousands and tens of thousands of years were actually quite few. To Camdian and Aylos, only those who could live to the end were truly worthy of their respect.


    ¡°The Eagle of so? I¡¯ve heard of him; I think he was famous about three thousand years ago. What a pity; I think he died of a sudden gue. Sigh, mortals are just too fragile. Whenever I take a nap, several hundred years will have gone by and so many of them will have perished.¡±


    Camdian and Aylos did have their right to be proud of themselves. So many famous heroes and geniuses would die at an even quicker rate than they had be famous. For these ancient Elemental Gods that were like artifacts, only one type of existence was truly worthy of their respect¡ªthose that had also passed the test of time, as well as the strong ones that were able to defeat them.


    Emordilorcan was no piece of cake to deal with. The countless lives that had died to him were the best evidence of this, and both these Elemental Gods were well aware that any Elemental God was basically an unbeatable existence within his or her own Elemental ne. They would be able to casually use elemental power as they pleased to endlessly replenish their life power and magic power. Perhaps it was possible to defeat an Elemental God in his own ne, but killing one in his home ne was practically impossible.


    But, the Elemental Tide that brought the news of Emordilorcan¡¯s death couldn¡¯t possibly be wrong or faked. Emordilorcan had not only been defeated, but he had truly died as well. This was far out of their expectations, which made them not know what to do anymore.


    Although their goal had been to eliminate this bothersome stone giant that was their mortal enemy, no matter how many preparations they made, they still had a tiny voice in their hearts that kept whispering to them, telling them that killing Emordilorcan in the Earth Elemental ne was impossible and that it was fine as long as they didn¡¯t lose.


    ¡°...As long as we can seal him¡ªno¡ªas long as we heavily injure him and force him to add a few decades to the length of time that he needs to recuperate, that will be enough.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Emordilorcan, who was able to dominate the other three Elemental Gods for innumerable years, was indeed incredible. Perhaps, after all their shes, the other three Elemental Gods retained fear in their hearts.


    It was obvious that this was also the source of why they would never give their fullest when fighting against him. Even though they hated him so much, they would never be willing to be on the frontlines and truly fight while risking their lives.


    To be honest, their fear was no mistake. The fact that I seeded in killing Emordilorcan could not only be attributed to the fact that he just happened to be at his weakest in tens of thousands of years, but the biggest factor of all wasn¡¯t even the Divine Sin Shadow¡¯s ¡°Ice Cmity¡±¡ªit was my personal world of ¡°Frigidwinter Earth.¡±


    The Earth Elemental ne¡¯s Earth Elemental God was truly impossible to kill in his own ne. But when he was isted in another world and was unable to absorb even a single speck of the earth element, he was in a more pitiful state than even while on the mortal ne. Plus, his greatest support, the Earth Elemental Throne, had already been destroyed. Only with all these factorsbined was I able to y him in my ¡°Frigidwinter Earth.¡±


    I definitely wasn¡¯t the only one who noticed that Emordilorcan had faked his death. But, I was definitely the only person who intended to truly kill him, and I had prepared so many absolute traps just for that purpose.


    ¡°How did Emordilorcan die?! How is it possible that he died? Isn¡¯t he supposed to be immortal as long as he¡¯s within the Earth Elemental ne?¡±


    But, the indisputable facts were right in front of them. They had to believe it.


    After their mortal enemy died, the two Elemental Gods and the numerous Earth Elemental Lords had only a brief period of joy before a deep feeling of fear seized them.


    ¡°He even has the ability to kill Emordilorcan. If he was my enemy...¡±


    From a certain standpoint, there wasn¡¯t anything wrong with their fear. This was only a temporary alliance against a mutual enemy to begin with, and now that the mutual enemy had died, of course the alliance would be over. The rtionship between us was rather subtle to begin with. Camdian at least had fought together with us in the past, while Aylos had a history of conflict against us back at And, and both sides were currently just pretending to be friends now without bringing their enmity out into the open.


    But, right now, the two Elemental Gods¡¯ reactions were opposite from expected. Camdian¡¯s expression was filled with caution, and it was obvious that he was deeply contemting something anxiously. Meanwhile, Aylos was hesitant for only a short while before she became joyous again.


    Reyne noticed both the Elemental Gods¡¯ reactions. While she didn¡¯t allow her expression to reveal anything, she mentally figured everything out.


    ¡°Camdian hasrge elemental armies and Winged Tribes under hismand. It¡¯s highly likely that he has ambitions about the Nortnds, and perhaps he¡¯s even made some preparations for attacking us already. Meanwhile, Aylos probably thinks that we¡¯re sufficiently strong enough, and now has more confidence in us being able to revive her husband Sidunwar. It seems that Brother Rnd was correct. The Wind Elemental God is an ambitious one with a Luck stat of E, with his ambition far surpassing his actual power. Although Camdian¡¯s n will probably fail in the end, we still need to make extra preparations and be on guard. Rather than Camdian, since we have Sidunwar as a sort of hostage, we can try to get Aylos truly on our side.¡±


    Reyne was smiling sweetly while secretly plotting. A certain princess must have been with two certain ck-bellied princes for too long; she was bing more and more ck-bellied herself...


    Suddenly, a small earthquake interrupted everyone¡¯s secret thoughts. A Giant Sand Worm crawled out from underground, and before anyone could attack it, it spat out a Dracon colored in green sticky goo all over. Various other chaotic things could also be seen stuck all over the Dracon¡¯s body...


    Er¡ªthat scene was too beautiful, so in order to prevent anyone from going blind or losing their appetites for dinner, let¡¯s just add some mosaics to this scene and press fast-forward.


    *Cough!* *Cough!* The moment the Draconnded on the ground, he spat out a bunch of disgusting things... *Cough!* *Cough!* I should continue adding mosaics here for all his disgusting vomit as well.


    ¡°Beifeng Herault, it would seem that you¡¯ve found an even higher level of how to y around. Give us one reason why we shouldn¡¯t destroy you right here for unhumanness.¡±


    Beifeng lifted his head up proudly even though everyone was surrounding him with obvious hostile intentions.


    ¡°What are you talking about? I¡¯m the biggest contributor of all in this battle, even Lord Rnd is very grateful to me. If it wasn¡¯t for me destroying the Elemental Throne, who knows who might have won in the end!?¡±


    At hearing this, everyone from the mortal ne was appeased while the two Elemental Gods also had looks of sudden realization, but...


    ¡°What did you guys do!¡±


    Alright then, in a way, the Earth Elemental Lords were still furious that the Elemental Throne had been destroyed as none of them could ascend to the position of Earth Elemental God. Now, Beifeng was loudly shouting that we were the ones who destroyed the Elemental Throne¡ªBeifeng¡¯s ability to taunt others was probably now at the point of being able to attract aggro with simply his face.


    Luckily, there weren¡¯t that many Earth Elemental Lords present, and they didn¡¯t dare to turn on the strong individuals present here. And, at the same time, Camdian¡¯s face reddenedpletely. All those Earth Elemental Lords were ring at him with expressions filled with rage and anger that they dared not verbalize. No matter how stupid he may have been, Camdian knew that he had fallen for Rnd¡¯s plot, but it just happened to be that the situation wasn¡¯t in his favor. Just like the Earth Elemental Lords, he didn¡¯t dare to start a fight right here and now.


    While the Earth Elemental Lords were now looking at Camdian in an unfriendly light, they weren¡¯t able to take care of the main culprit, Rnd, behind this, nor did they dare to turn on the Wind Elemental God. They figured they would at least beat up the direct destroyer of the Elemental Throne in order to vent their anger.


    ¡°Wait!¡±


    Just as the Earth Elemental Lords were intending to ¡°have a heart-to-heart talk¡± with Beifeng, Reyne suddenly spoke up and blocked them.


    ¡°Your Highness Reyne, you¡¯re truly a good person. I apologize for misunderstanding who you really were in the past; I promise that my subordinates will stop spreading scandals about incest between you and Lord Rnd.¡±


    A certain Dracon probably had too much fun ying with the Giant Sand Worms earlier and his brain wasn¡¯t working properly yet. He still managed to continue digging his own grave.


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s fine to keep spreading rumors about that. No, in fact, it¡¯s better to spread even more rumors about it. If everyone thinks it¡¯s true and can ept it, that¡¯ll be for the best... Cough, it¡¯s just a joke. Apart from Beifeng, nobody here needs to take it seriously.¡±


    This time, a certain princess¡¯s image waspletely shattered, but Rnd wasn¡¯t here right now, so there was obviously nobody present who could lecture and control her.


    Reyne cleared her throat and asked the most critical point of all.


    ¡°Cough! Cough! I just want to ask, why hasn¡¯t Brother Rnde out yet? Could it be that something¡¯s happened to him?¡±


    ¡°He said that he still has something else to do, and is also going to spend some time cultivating in this ne. He said not to mind him and return home first.¡±


    Reyne nodded as she nced at the copsing temple. Due to Karwenz¡¯s method of sensing Rnd, she knew that Rnd was fine and that it was a good time to leave the Earth Elemental ne. So, she then immediately retreated on the topic of Beifeng.


    ¡°Everyone, do as you like. Back where wee from, beating up Beifeng is a daily urrence that happens three times a day just like eating meals. He has really thick skin, so don¡¯t worry that you¡¯ll identally beat him to death.¡±


    Alright then, a certain Dracon was instantly astounded to hear this and crouched while clutching his head to protect his face.


    ¡°Don¡¯t hit my face! I still need to return to my ¡®lover!¡¯¡±


    Alright, let¡¯s not inquire into how he managed to find a ¡°lover¡± in the Earth Elemental ne, nor shall Iment upon just what type of existence he hooked up with. At any rate, thismon daily life urrence of ¡°eating, sleeping, and beating up Beifeng¡± was now being reenacted in the Earth Elemental ne.


    To be honest, while the allied armies outside were indeed ending their temporary friendship just as expected, I actually did have some bothersome things to take care of. It would seem that I would be unable to return to the mortal ne for a while yet.


    In order to construct a better, more perfected version of ¡°Frigidwinter Earth,¡± I needed a higher-quality divine source of earth element power. Originally, I had nned on using Emordilorcan as this excellent source, but now I had an even better one.


    ¡°This is the Earth Elemental Throne?¡±


    The white crystal seemed in on the surface, but it emanated continuous waves of mana. However, it was already shattered into pieces.


    ¡°It should be a shard of the Earth Elemental Throne... Your Highness, your frostbite is too serious; please don¡¯t move about too much. This spell array should be able to help with the first step of curing your injuries, but I still rmend that you wait for your injuries to bepletely recovered before you continuebining this Earth Elemental Throne shard with your world.¡±


    I had used too much of my power, which caused Harloys to fall into a deep sleep again. The task that I had originally nned for Harloys could only now be given to my backup candidate.


    The hermit Eaglestorm had been secretly preparing the most top-notch of healing spell arrays. As a final insurance, I hadn¡¯t sent him to the frontlines of battle, but now he became the doctor and supporter for me that I really needed.


    As an Arch Druid, controlling the forces of nature and healing were both foundational aspects of his job ss. With his presence, I was somewhat able to rx.


    As for his attempt to convince me to rest, I smiled without answering him. Some things were unable to be said out loud. Was I supposed to tell him that I just received a message from Ayer saying, ¡°Hey, I can only maintain the barrier for one more week. If you have anything important left to do, do it fast?¡±


    I watched the magic power rapidly diminish from this Elemental Throne shard and knew that the new Elemental Throne was definitely absorbing power for its revival. So, I grit my teeth and immediately ced the shard within my world.


    ¡°Now then, let¡¯s bring true earth to this frigid soil and help my world evolve.¡±

 Chapter 229

    Chapter 229: Abundant Harvest


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The empty air and wide-open seas were the cradle of life, and in the midst of thunder and gales, the original seeds of life were tossed into the sea. After these young lives matured and evolved to a certain extent, they began going ashore to search for new homes.


    Of course, that was just the scientific exnation for the origin of the world in my past life. It was the most popr and epted of all the scientific exnations, but as for whether that was truly the case, nobody knew.


    As for creationism stories that were fantastical or magical in nature, there were many simrities among them.


    Every creationism story wasrgely simr. Among them all, ¡°creating humans from dirt¡± was probably the mostmon factor. In New Zend¡¯s creationism tales, the native tribes believed that a God created humans with the mix of his own blood and red soil. In the Bible, God created the first man Adam using the dirt from the ground, and then created the first woman Eve using Adam¡¯s rib. Noah had tossed a stone behind himself after the great flood and his son had appeared. But, the most famous creationism story of all in my former country of China was the Asian tale of Nuwa creating humans by mixing mud and water.


    In this world, I didn¡¯t know if Eich used a simr method to create life, but since the entire world was crafted using the four elements as the foundation, the lives here were doubtlessly created from the gathering of the elements.


    And, right now, in my world, that mythical event of creation was being reenacted.


    The ice mountains and icy ins began to melt, and the thickyers of ice transformed into water. The endless amounts of water transformed into rivers, the rivers gathered intokes, and thekes eventually formed into oceans.


    This was to be a world with water as its foundation, copying the prehistoric version of my past world.


    Sidunwar¡¯s ancient God Equipment, the Ocean Bottle, provided the source for the ocean. Blue could be seen everywhere, just like the torrential flood from numerous creation myths.


    There was no wind, no waves, and not even any sound. Everything was silent, or perhaps I could even describe it as dead silent. No matter which direction I looked in, there was nothing but the ocean. It seemed to be too peaceful.


    But when the white crystal shard of the Elemental Throne was added to andbined with my world, the entire ocean started frothing, with countless bubbles arising. Next, tan stone tes started slowly rising from the water, and continentalnds that split the oceans finally appeared.


    Everything was being created in Chaos thatcked all Order. With evolution and destruction, thisnd was newly covered in ice and snow again, and this fantastical world of mine was now much closer to reality.


    The Earth Elemental Throne¡¯s shard was just like the mythical dirt in creation tales that could grow by itself with only the nourishment of the wind. It transformed into the foundation to control the seas. As the core of my world, it was continuously creating new continents.


    Time passed and eons cycled by. The second Ice Age had now descended upon my world.


    This time, there were no longer countlessyers of ice underneath the endless icy ins. The distant ice mountains and ice rivers also had true earth underneath them now. Since two out of four pirs necessary for constructing a world had beenpleted, this world of mine was now moving towards reality from just being an isted dimension.


    Previously, I could even see dimensional tears at the edges of my world, but now that the earth element, which was the foundational underlying element of the world, had arrived, the space had finally stabilized.


    However, I was shocked by this scene.


    ¡°...I just wanted to create a small world, so what¡¯s with this scene that seems like it¡¯s on such a grand scale? Did I unknowingly do something incredible?¡±


    I could sense that this entire world was rted to me. My will could reach anywhere here. It could cause ice rivers to melt, reverse the flow of rivers, or split apart continents, but I instinctively rejected all of this.


    ¡°Don¡¯t interfere with this and allow things to evolve naturally.¡± A mysterious will suddenly sounded in my mind, and I felt as if some presence was watching me.


    I was rather confused and surprised... and then I was actually kicked out! I was actually kicked out of my own world!


    [System Notification: You didn¡¯t listen when I asked nicely. You forced me to be rough with you. The server is currently under maintenance, and remember to read all patch notes while it¡¯s undergoing maintenance. Right now, just go where you¡¯re supposed to go. Make sure to get plenty of sunshine, or you¡¯re going to have to be careful of growing mushrooms on your head.]


    Alright, I knew that it had to be the work of my shameless System. It was basically calling me a hermit otaku who would die if I saw sunlight, even though I was obviously supposed to be a direct, sunny, exercise-loving boy who all the neighbors praised for being a good man at home and a good employee at work, with friendly rtionships with everyone.


    ¡°...You actually dare to say that? There are enough people that have suffered because of you to make two entire armies. Just now, you were fighting with Emordilorcan and deceiving him so that he could fall into your trap; no matter how you look at it, you¡¯re the real antagonist.¡±


    The ck cat on my shoulder had woken up from her long sleep, but what was with hermenting on me the instant she woke up? Teacher Harloys, is your value in life to onlyment on others¡¯ situations now?


    [The server is currently undergoing maintenance. Estimated Reopening Time: 1.5 monthster. System Reminder: Don¡¯t take the server opening time seriously, I¡¯m just saying it casually. Do you know any game¡¯s server that actually opened up on time? As a longtime gamer who¡¯s already be numb from this, you should learn how to optimistically ept a continuous wave of announcements regarding the server opening upter than expected. What? You don¡¯t want to ept it? Alright, you can go try ying real-life PK against the employees of that gamepany.]


    As always, I instantly decided to ignore my system. What attracted my attention was instead the numbers that were of the same format as before.


    [Completion rate: ?%. Fate Points: 43201]


    Thepletion rate was actually a question mark. It seemed that even my system didn¡¯t know when this would bepleted, but judging from the much slower rate at which my Fate Points vanishedpared tost time, I wouldn¡¯t be needing to hurry and finish as many quests as I could for points this time.


    ¡°It seems that allowing my world to change itself without forceful interference from me likest time will use fewer Fate Points. Hmm? Where did I get all these Fate Points from?¡±


    Only now did I finally have some free time to inspect the system notifications that had been piling up, gathering dust in the corner.


    [Congrattions to Host for single-handedly ying Emordilorcan. You have obtained the SemiGod Equipment ¡°Roaring Armlet of the Earth,¡± SemiGod Equipment ¡°Emordilorcan¡¯s Wall of Sighs¡± (Epic-level shield), as well as the God-level material ¡°Shard from the Earth Elemental Throne.¡± Since this ying wasn¡¯t a specific quest from the system, no Fate Points shall be rewarded as per the System¡¯s rules.]


    [Congrattions to Host for single-handedly ying a True God level existence. You have now activated the ¡°Enemy of the Gods¡± series of achievements. You have now obtained the glorious title of ¡°One Who Loathes the Gods,¡± and 50,000 Fate Points have been rewarded. If you equip this title, you will be a beginner-level enemy of the Gods and will receive a 5% damage bonus against all Gods. The next step of this series of achievements is to single-handedly y three True Gods, which will award you the title ¡°ughterer of Gods¡± and make you into a mid-level enemy of the Gods. You will also receive a 15% damage bonus against all Gods.]


    [After you single-handedly y ten True Gods (including one Main God), you can reach the peak of this series of achievement, ¡°Enemy of all Gods.¡± You¡¯ll also receive the title ¡°Kratos Isn¡¯t Food For the Gods, He¡¯s The Daddy of the Gods!¡± as well as a 50% damage bonus against all Gods. However, after you equip this title, all Gods will have their friendship levels with you set to zero, and you can¡¯t hide this title. You won¡¯t be able to stop ying Gods even if you don¡¯t want to.] [1] 1


    Alright then, let us ignore these randomments. It seemed that I did a fairly good job this time. The System indeed rewarded me handsomely this time and was quite helpful as well. Not only did I obtain two excellent pieces of equipment, I obtained Fate Points from ying Emordilorcan in a circuitous fashion. And as for those ¡°Enemy of the Gods¡± achievements, they were the rarest of the rare, titles that seemed incredibly useful... speaking of usefulness, I suddenly recalled the damned achievements ¡°Jinxed¡± and ¡°King of all Gentlemen¡± that I couldn¡¯t even turn off. The number of gentlemen had been increasing more and more these days, and they were also increasing in shamelessness. Perhaps, this suffering was all the result of my System.


    But, right now, another trouble was before me.


    [Warning: Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle¡¯s power level is unstable. Please hurry andplete the quest to hunt down the Sea Gods and collect sea-rted divine power from the Sea Gods and sea beasts as quickly as possible. This will bothplete this God Equipment¡¯s form for the revival God Quest and help fully construct your world.]


    It seemed that after the Earth Elemental God¡¯s body and the Earth Elemental Throne¡¯s shard were both absorbed into my ¡°Frigidwinter Earth,¡± the already fragile bnce between elements there was once again shattered. Although this was a good thing for my ¡°Frigidwinter Earth¡± world, hunting down the sea beasts and Sea Gods was probably going to be another bothersome task.


    What attracted me the most were the two equipment that I received. Real life was no game, and not every boss would carry around arge sack of weapons and equipment that he couldn¡¯t even use, not to mention dropping a few of the equipment randomly out of a list. For a rather long time now, no matter who I defeated, I hadn¡¯t received any equipment.


    You want equipment from your enemy? Just take it off your enemy¡¯s corpse. There was no ckhand in real life... what the system could give me was a mess of materials; it merely helped me save time in gathering them.


    But just ncing at the two equipment, I knew what was going on.


    [Roaring Armlet of the Earth. SemiGod Equipment.]


    [Effect 1: Power of the Earth: Absorb the power of the earth element and increase the Strength of the wearer by 10. However, the wearer must be standing on the ground. The Strength increase effect will disappear while the wearer is jumping or flying.]


    [Effect 2: Indestructible Stone: This Armlet is indestructible, and can even block God Equipment¡¯s attacks. If this Armlet is significantly damaged, it can even repair itself.]


    [Effect 3: Dimensional sh: A short, precise instantaneous transportation. (3 minutes cooldown and the maximum distance is one hundred meters). System Notification: Using this ability will use up arge amount of stamina. Please use this ability with care.]


    [Divine Curse: Petrify. Emordilorcan is cursing his enemy that stole his power. Every second, the wearer of this Armlet will receive one earth damage. If the damage taken from this effect surpasses 70% of the wearer¡¯s maximum HP, the wearer will be turned to stone by the endless absorption of the earth element.]


    [There is a row of yellow words carved into this armlet: ¡°This Armlet contains the Divine Spirit of an undying God. Just touching it can make one sense this God¡¯s past strength and unwillingness to die.]


    This gray-ck armlet appeared quite ordinary, and the scaly pieces on it resembled Emordilorcan¡¯s skin. There were also two ck stones that resembled eyes on top of the armlet. While these ¡°eyes¡± seemed to be made of stone, when I touched them, I discovered that they were actually warm and as soft as skin, as if they were living.


    As a SemiGod Equipment, its abilities weren¡¯t that numerous, but its effects were incredibly useful. All of Emordilorcan¡¯s strongest abilities were contained within it. Significantly increasing strength was excellent for any melee warrior; its indestructible quality could overturn a situation at a critical point by blocking one attack, and that sh ability was already proven quite powerful by Emordilorcan himself.


    While that Divine Curse on it was indeed troublesome as it limited the time that this Equipment could be used for, since I had a titan¡¯s body and was immune to the damage, I could simply ignore it.


    ¡°It seems that just like that God Equipment dagger from before, my System can create strong equipment out of God-level existences using their divine power and Divine Spirits. Looking at these stats, it¡¯s almost as if it was custom-made just for me.¡±


    I joyfully put on the armlet and felt a noticeable increase in my strength, which caused me tough out loud in satisfaction. Strength was forever the foundation of any meleebat ss, and I¡¯ve never even heard before of such an equipment that could increase physical power by so much.


    ¡°Perhaps I can finallypare my Strength to Amelia¡¯s.¡±


    As for the other Epic-level shield, it was a tower shield which could cover most of my body. Its shape resembled Emordilorcan¡¯s face, and there were also stones resembling eyes on it which seemed to be staring at me. It was somewhat pitiful to look at.


    When I checked out the shield¡¯s stats, they were simrly practical. Mega-high defensebined with the most practical ability of damage reduction, and even an attacking ability that could surprise an opponent.


    After some consideration, I decided to personally use this shield as well. After all, while fighting with Emordilorcan, every time I exchanged blows with him, I was injured to the point of spitting blood. This made me feel like my defense was indeed rather weak if I had to face another opponent on his level.


    ¡°This was such a rare abundant harvest. Did my system change its personality, and it¡¯s now going to help me be the main character of a harem story?¡±


    [System Reminder: With great poweres great responsibility. The greater your power, the stronger your opponents. The System shall never make any traps for you; you¡¯re the one who¡¯s digging pits and jumping into them by yourself. Is it the System¡¯s fault that you¡¯re forever shooting yourself in the foot?]


    Fine then, my expression instantly darkened. This bastard system was making it obvious that it still intended to make me suffer. It couldn¡¯t even let me be happy for two days.


    ¡°Indeed, it was an abundant harvest.¡±


    The ck cat crouching on my shoulder wasughing in even greater delight than I was, and the next moment, I understood what she meant by that.


    The ck cat reached out her w and vanished in a spatial distortion. What appeared before me was an incredibly beautiful blonde high elf.


    Her silky blonde hair was lifted by the wind, and her lightly smiling pretty face seemed to be as pure as snow. Her snow-white skin seemed to have a faint golden glow, and those innocent eyes seemed pure enough to make anyone¡¯s heart ache and believe that she was as pure as unblemished snow.


    She was wearing ancient traditional white ceremonial clothing with a long scarf that reached the ground. Her extravagant robes seemed so beautiful that they were holy, and they indisputably added to Harloys¡¯ aura of unearthliness. At this moment, the person before me wasn¡¯t that banshee who was absolutely shameless andcked any limits, but rather thest princess of the ancient high elf empire.


    ¡°This is a golden high elf? This is the allure of utmost pureness?¡±


    As expected of the most beautiful of all elven tribes. At this moment, even my heart skipped a beat. Although I had seen the most seductive subi before, I¡¯d never witnessed this type of alluring pureness that would make any person easily sumb.


    It was just like how I had been forcefully sent back to my body where I had died inbat. When Harloys obtained life again, the magic of time helped return her to her past, to that generation where this young female elf had the power of obtaining everything through her charisma alone.


    When I recalled that inside her was the thousand-year-old banshee Harloys, I managed to calm down.


    She smiled ever so sweetly at me, seemingly filled with sincerity.


    ¡°Thank you so much. I shall remember this debt I owe you.¡±


    That, however, made me feel dazed and angered. I furiously pointed and shouted at the elven beauty!


    ¡°You fake! Who the hell are you! Old witch Harloys would never thank anyone! Nor could she possibly smile so sweetly. Ahhh! I¡¯m getting goosebumps all over. What manner of demon are you?! Hurry up and show your true form!¡±


    Right then and there, Harloys was so enraged that her eyebrows twitched, but she managed to suppress her anger somehow by taking two deep breaths. She forced another smile.


    ¡°Ha ha, you¡¯re such a jokester. Who could I be if not Harloys? You forgot already that I was thest gold elf? This form is how I looked like before I died.¡±


    Were the ancient gold elves supposed to all be an average of over two meters tall? Harloys appeared to have the perfect golden ratio, beautiful and lively with wonderful curves, yet she seemingly didn¡¯t lose her elegance. She also possessed an unscientificallyrge chest,pletely different from any other elf, which far surpassed that of any supermodel¡¯s. The most ridiculous of all was Harloys¡¯ height, however. She had to look down in order to meet my eyes when I was already 1.8 meters tall!


    ¡°Objection! If you didn¡¯t mention it, I would have forgotten it. Weren¡¯t you still quite young when you died? Who do you think you¡¯re fooling!? Order for my magical pet: strip off your disguise!¡±


    I instantly realized it when she reminded me of her death. She was definitely making this appearance up. She most likely crafted this appearance using her transformation ability.


    Her magical pet contract with me wasn¡¯t canceled with Harloys¡¯ return to life, but it was rather the opposite. Since she had nowbined with Shadow, the singr contract now became a dual contract, which actually solidified her connection to me. If I gave her any order at all, she would be forced to carry it out.


    ¡°Rnd, you bastard! This is my expected mature form, don¡¯t...¡±


    The order had already been given to my magical pet, and so, a sudden sh urred as she was forced to return to her true form. After the light dissipated, the great beauty disappeared to reveal a blonde child elf before me, whose long hair was all tangled on the floor. Her overlyrge ceremonial clothing was falling off, and her exquisitely small face was filled with anger and was as red as an apple. Even her elf ears that were a symbol of her race werepletely red. It was quite interesting. Yep, at least to me, it was very amusing.


    ¡°Alright, you¡¯re t, t, and t. Only this is believable. This is the Harloys that I know.¡±


    I madeparisons in satisfaction as I walked around her while nodding. I forced her to perform various exercises like lifting her hands up to the sky and windmills to turn around and around, making her furious and embarrassed.


    When Harloys was dizzy to the point that sheid down listlessly, I lowered my head and looked her in the eyes at ground level, before finishing by patting her head.


    ¡°Yep, the tall adult Harloys is too unscientific. The short one looks much better. My little friend Harloys, can I interest you in some candy?¡±


    *Kacha!*


    ¡°...Don¡¯t bite me! Hey hey, let go! It hurts, it hurts! Let go! Are you supposed to be a dog!¡±


    ¡°You bastard lolicon! You¡¯re a bastard who deserves to be single forever!¡± A grim voice escaped from her tiny mouth, and she actually managed to even transform her teeth into tiger fangs!


    Fine then, let me put everything else aside for the moment, as I first needed to put some effort into removing the ¡°gloves¡± on my hand.


    Note:


    1. Kratos appears to be a God of War reference.

 Chapter 230

    Chapter 230: Change


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Ever since I started bing slightly famous, people would always put some descriptions in front of my name when mentioning me, such as ¡°damned Rnd,¡± ¡°bastard Rnd,¡± ¡°why-isn¡¯t-he-dead-yet Rnd,¡± and so on.


    It seemed that the closer someone was to me, the more they liked to use these types of nicknames. I figured that this was their way of showing their affection for me.


    I understood that this was a friendly way of showing their closeness to me in an attempt to improve our rtionship. After all, calling me ¡°lovely Rnd¡± or ¡°wise Rnd¡± to my face would be rather embarrassing, which was why they substituted other adjectives instead.


    Yep, this was just a unique method of expressing the deep friendship between us. It definitely wasn¡¯t because my friends objected to me or anything like that, such as the one on my head. Although she was a bit emotional right now, I staunchly believed that she was simply too shy and embarrassed...


    ¡°Um, isn¡¯t that enough? There should be a limit to how embarrassed you can get. I know that you¡¯re really grateful to me, so stop acting awkward... I¡¯m bleeding again, stop biting! Hey, did you hear me?¡±


    *Kacha!* *Kacha!*


    What was it supposed to mean when she transformed her teeth to that size? Did she intend to cosy as a saber-toothed cat? The transformation ability wasn¡¯t supposed to be used that way!


    Alright then, let us ignore the fact that my head was currently bleeding, as well as ignore the incredibly embarrassed (?) young elf on my head. At the very least, I had many other important things to take care of.


    I hadn¡¯t lied when I had Beifeng tell the others to go back first without me. For the time being, I wasn¡¯t going to be able to leave the Earth Elemental ne, so I could only have them go ahead first.


    Even with the Earth Elemental Throne shard as a converter, my new world still requiredrge amounts of earth element for its foundation. And the best quality and highest quantity of earth element obtainable was of course in the Earth Elemental ne. My System had also given me clear notifications regarding this, telling me to stay in the Earth Elemental ne without going anywhere else.


    After Emordilorcan¡¯s death, the connection between nes had already been recovered. A certain shameless Death God tossed the responsibility for cutting off the connection between nes to Emordilorcan, since nobody would dare to question Ayer about his possible involvement anyways. This matter would likely end just like that.


    After the connection between nes was reestablished, I spent a lot of time dealing with questions from the mortal ne.


    However, the news that I heard back from them helped me to rx somewhat as well, as the situation in the Nortnds was going pretty well. Amelia¡¯s new product had already been confirmed to be effective by the druids, and it was nned to begin nting her new seed everywhere during next month¡¯s beginning of spring. My knights¡¯ military restructuring work was going smoothly as well, and the Mist Alliance was formally beginning to be put into ce. Everything seemed to be developing excellently...


    Of course, even if most things were going well, it couldn¡¯t be helped that there were some chaotic noises mixed within as well.


    I might as well just tell the truth... I didn¡¯t spend all that much time on serious affairs, instead using most of my time to defend myself against those rumors that spread even quicker than dimensional transmissions. The scandal between Prince Rnd and the witch had reached its third edition, and judging by the tearing and wall-scratching sounds from the other end of the transmission, a certain Demon Marchioness must be rather angry. That was why, until she calmed down at least a little, I should temporarily avoid¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªI meant I should just cultivate a little longer here for the time being.


    Since the Nortnds didn¡¯t have any military affairs that required my attention, most other affairs didn¡¯t have too much to do with me personally. However, there was still some news that I paid close attention to.


    ¡°The And Empire¡¯s n to recapture their capital has failed, and the City of Rain is continuing to increase in size and area. Large numbers of the seafolk are now constructing defensive fortresses, and even ancient sea beasts have been seen aiding them. The tide and height of the ocean increase every day, and it¡¯s looking bad for the humans.¡±


    All of these were preliminary battles to the Holy War started by the Elemental Gods, but the result was quite different from the one in the Nortnds. Judging from the news that I received, the And Empire was in a bad situation.


    ¡°The Queen of Storms has actually promoted in rank? Her divine power has gotten stronger?¡±


    Perhaps it was because the seafolk had gotten more devout in their belief towards their Guardian God, or perhaps Chaos was rewarding her for her achievements. This female warrior Goddess, who was famous for having an inscrutable personality, had gotten stronger through battle.


    ¡°...It seems that Gods are indeed the critical point of battles. If Lorci hadn¡¯t been killed by Karwenz for us, perhaps our straits would be equally dire right now.¡±


    When Ipared the two battles, they were actually quite simr. Both were battles started by a True God on the Chaos side, but unlike Lorci, who had caused her premature death with a double betrayal, the Queen of Storms was probably one of the most well-liked rising stars of Chaos. From a certain standpoint, she was getting closer and closer to the position of Sea God that she dreamed about.


    ¡°Oh man, that¡¯s rather troublesome. How perfect! My world also requires sea-rted divine power and Divine Spirits. It seems that we¡¯re definitely going to have another chance to meet her again in the future.¡±


    After all, there were significant grudges between us. The System had even reminded me in the past to not approach the sea, and the Queen of Storms was quite famous for being one to bear grudges. Just having the Borealis stop by the sea for some repairs had caused the Queen of Storms to send annoying sea beasts to attack it, and although we had won that fight, there was now a deeper grudge between us.


    At the time, I didn¡¯t have spare time to deal with her, but now it seemed like I could spare time for her. After all, my two quests where I needed to gather sea-rted divine power from the Sea Gods and sea beasts probably had to go through the Queen of Storms, who had the title of being the leader of all the sea beasts.


    ¡°It¡¯s a pity that the And Empire views saving face as more important than anything else, which is why they¡¯re suffering. Not only did they not request aid from the Church of the Gods, but they even refused to ept aid from the other human kingdoms that volunteered to assist them.¡±


    As a person who believed in logic and reason, I was utterly unable to understand those who put the concept of face and reputation above all else. However, since the And Empire insisted on taking care of their own problem, the other countries and the Church of the Gods indeed had no reason to intervene.


    ¡°What¡¯s reputation supposed to be? Can I eat it?¡±¡ªRnd Mist.


    I shook my head and put this boring matter to the back of my mind. The other thing that slightly attracted my attention was something akin to a rumor.


    ¡°...Congrattions, Rnd. Since you defeated Emordilorcan, you rose 6 ranks in the Cmity Rankings, and you¡¯re now #27. You¡¯ve actually entered the top 30 so quickly.¡±


    I was unable to understand why Amelia seemed to be so envious when she informed me of this. Did she think that her ranking wasn¡¯t high enough? That being a walking human cmity was fun? I¡¯d scare every little loli while walking around outside¡ªthat would be a sin... whoops, I seem to have said something wrong. I hate naughty children the most!


    ¡°Harloys! How many times have I said it¡ªI¡¯m really not a lolicon. If you dare to imitate my voice and act as me again, and ruin my reputation, I¡¯ll...¡±


    Yep. The one who just said such a ssical tsundere line was the ¡°decoration¡± on top of my head. However, she didn¡¯t even look in my direction when I threatened her; instead, she showed an obvious expression of disdain that seemed to say, ¡°What do you think you can even do to me?¡±


    After all, if I did truly did do anything to her, it would be bad for myself.


    ¡°I¡ªi¡ªI¡¯ll make you wear an elementary school girl¡¯s swimsuit while having cat ears and a cat tail, and I¡¯ll make you imitate cat sounds and dog sounds in the middle of Karo City¡¯srgest za!¡±


    Even Harloys was scared witless upon hearing this. It seemed that she never expected even me to be so shameless ande up with this method to threaten her.


    ¡°You¡ªyou do have those types of thoughts about me, after all. For you to be able toe up with such a perverted method of ying around, you still don¡¯t even dare to admit that you¡¯re a lolicon!?¡±


    Fine then, it appeared that my reputation was continually darkening. She was so scared that she instantly transformed back into a ck cat, but I was tempted to tease her even more upon seeing such a rare scene.


    ¡°Hmph! You think that I don¡¯t have any ways to deal with you if you change into a ck cat? Did you forget that Beifeng is still in the Earth Elemental ne...?¡±


    Alright then, his name perhaps possessed more magical power than any forbidden spell. Harloys instantly changed back to her loli elf form and kept shaking her head.


    ¡°Don¡¯t turn me into a cat and lock me together with that mega-pervert! As long as you don¡¯t do that to me, I¡¯ll listen to anything you want! That day¡ªthat day... Wahhh!¡±


    It seemed that her memory from when she had just left the Underground had given Harloys such a deep impression that she instantly surrendered upon hearing his name. Not only did this give me the perfect way to control her in the future, but it also caused me to inwardly sigh in exmation at how the name of Beifeng Herault had far surpassed his actual power level in being able to scare someone like Harloys to such a degree.


    Looking at the current Harloys, I couldn¡¯t help but inwardly exim. The mental spirit would affect the body, and the body would affect the mental spirit. After Harloys regained her life, she was affected by her physical body that was still rather young. She was now much more emotional than before, and often did some rather silly things.


    This was a good thing for her. Although she recently did do many silly things, at the very least it made her seem more human. But, right now, I could only hope that her ability in magic hadn¡¯t decreased together with her physical body¡¯s age.


    ¡°Alright, then help me out here. You¡¯re probably the only one who can help me with this.¡±


    I indeed required Harloys¡¯ assistance, and this was something that I absolutely couldn¡¯t allow anything to go wrong with. It took me a lot of effort to figure out how to make her obediently work her hardest for me on this.


    Right now, as one of the main locations where the battle had taken ce, the area around the former Earth Elemental Throne had been cleared out and had be a forbidden zone with security patrols. The reason for this was the Seven Brothers of the Gourd that were fast asleep in the middle of the forbidden zone.


    Theyid there in all sorts of haphazard sleeping positions, and their snores were as loud as thunderps. As true world-level cmity existences, nobody wanted to see them suddenly wake up.


    Obviously, making them hibernate forever was the safest way to deal with them, but I had promised Reyne to help her think of some idea to borrow their power.


    ¡°Impossible! Without even going into if it¡¯s possible to summon them to the mortal ne, or considering the huge price that one must pay to summon such a high-level existence, the moment they appear in the mortal ne, there¡¯s going to be plenty of fun in store for you.¡±


    Harloys instantly shot down the insane idea of borrowing power from these Divine Sins, but I didn¡¯t budge. I was well aware of everything she mentioned, but I had other ns.


    ¡°Of course, aplete summoning isn¡¯t going to be possible, but how about a partial summoning?¡±


    ¡°Partial summoning? What¡¯s that? I¡¯ve never heard of it; just what are you talking about?¡±


    For Harloys, who had the wonderful title of being ¡°all-knowing,¡± to actually admit to never hearing of this concept, it seemed likely that it didn¡¯t exist in the entirety of Eich.


    ¡°Summoning is a connection between two beings. Either the spell fails, or the entire body is summoned. What do you mean by partial summoning? Only summoning half of the body?¡±


    Harloys was always easily excited about the topic of new magical knowledge. This time was no different. She seemed to have forgotten about how angry she was with me earlier, and was eagerly asking me about this.


    I directly nodded at hearing Harloys¡¯ question.


    ¡°Yep, summoning only part of the body.¡±


    I ignored Harloys¡¯ shocked expression as I began talking about my objective. And as I exined, Harloys¡¯ expression changed from shocked disbelief to helplessness.


    ¡°It¡¯s such an amusing n. You¡¯re the best at finding abnormal shortcuts. I¡¯ve never seen you so serious when you were studying magic before.¡±


    ¡°Do you agree that it will work?¡±


    ¡°Although I don¡¯t want to admit it, it¡¯s highly likely to seed. Go ahead and try it out. It¡¯s impressive how many strange ideas you cane up with.¡±


    I nodded in satisfaction. Since even Harloys was saying so, then that meant that the rate of sess was quite satisfactory.


    Actually, my n was quite simple and didn¡¯t even require any high-level knowledge. It only required the most basic knowledge about dimensions.


    ¡°First, open up a small dimensional connection through which only one of the Divine Sin¡¯s limbs can pass through, and then have Reyne wake up the Divine Sin while she¡¯s still in the mortal ne. When the Divine Sin wakes up, it¡¯ll definitely attack everything in front of it instinctively, while that tiny dimensional connection won¡¯t allow it to pass through; the dimensional connection will be the only way that it can vent its strength. Then, the enemy on the other end of the dimensional connection will naturally be the target of its wrath, and afterwards, Reyne just has to order the Divine Sin to hibernate again, which will basically end this partial summoning.¡±


    The logic behind it was quite simple, and it was somewhat bending the rules, but it was fine as long as it worked and was practical. After all, even I wasn¡¯t confident that I could survive a single attack from a Divine Sin.


    ¡°I¡¯ve even prepared a name for it already¡ª¡®Look At My Golden Finger!¡¯¡±


    ¡°Golden Finger? And I have golden legs¡ªwhat does that mean? It doesn¡¯t seem to fit at all.¡±


    ¡°...Then how about the Magically Appearing Divine Palm or the Nine Yin Divine Stomps?¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you just say that you¡¯re an absolute failure at proving that you¡¯re a genius ating up with names? Those are even worse than Golden Finger!¡±

 Chapter 231

    Chapter 231: Day of Celebration


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The Great Stone Sculptor started the first battle? Oh my, I didn¡¯t expect her to be so hasty.¡±


    When I heard that the Earth Elemental Lords had begun fighting each other, I wasn¡¯t surprised at all. After all, rather than fighting after the Earth Elemental Throne revived itself, it was better to clear out one¡¯s enemies while one could still be proactive and gain control of the situation as early as possible.


    A battle was never something that required both sides to agree to. It could even be said that a battle was never something that both sides wanted. As long as one side felt that their side had obvious advantages and could reap huge benefits from the battle, it would only be a matter of time before a battle exploded.


    The current Earth Elemental ne was just like a wild animals¡¯ arena that had lost its manager. All the wild beasts were locked together in a single cage, and when they learned that there was now a spot avable for only one of them to rise to the top, the strongest beasts among them began to unhesitatingly get rid of those who were capable of threatening them. The weaker beasts, on the other hand, began teaming up with others in hopes of gaining benefits. And, so, a chain reaction of battles began.


    With the lure of bing the Earth Elemental God as the end prize, I could foresee that this battle between the Earth Elemental Lords would probablyst several hundred years.


    While the Earth Elemental ne was busy sinking into chaos, the seemingly peaceful mortal ne was in an even bigger amount of trouble.


    Lorci¡¯s death, the Queen of Storms¡¯ promotion, and the shaking up of the Gods that had remained consistent for the past thousands of years was more than enough for those who were waiting in the shadows to begin taking action. Not to mention that these two Gods weren¡¯t the only two who were either lucky or unlucky.


    Emordilorcan¡¯s death shocked the entire world. It wasn¡¯t only that¡ªI had also confirmed through my channels that the Fire Elemental Goddess had also mysteriously perished, which ended up benefiting a certain Fire Sea Demon Marchioness. There were only two out of the four Ancient Elemental Gods remaining now, and the two still alive were the weaker two among the four. This caused a chill in the hearts of all those who were undying, and also caused ambitious individuals who weren¡¯t satisfied with the status quo to begin taking action.


    However, none of these individuals was the best ¡°neer.¡± This glorious title was obviously taken by Wumianzhe. He had been promoted from a city¡¯s judge ¡°that nobody had ever heard of¡± to the Law God, then from a Weak God to a Middle God, and now he had even obtained the Divine Obligation of Guardian God of the Nortnds and was being worshiped by the national churches of the numerous northern countries. The path he took would typically take other Gods over thousands of years to aplish, but he did it in a mere two years. This was far above the level of any epic or legend, and everyone found it inconceivable.


    A sessful example would doubtlessly bring many imitators, such as the undying ones that wanted to be Gods themselves, as well as the ancient Gods that were forgotten by history. None of them wanted to miss this ¡°opportunity¡± that was so hard toe by, so they began taking action.


    Some of them began organizing various barbarian tribes, some woke up their own tribes from deep hibernation, and some even freshened up their appearances and personally strode forth. In the past month, news about encountering the supernatural had already surpassed the amount of the past ten years¡¯bined encounters. Various border shes also reached the highest peak in thirty years.


    ¡°Giant me Demons have been spotted in the Amu Mountains. They seem to be the descendants of ancient Giant Demons. They attacked the hunters living in those mountains, and seem to be iming the area as their own territory. It¡¯s said that they possess characteristics of both elemental creatures and the living, and are incredibly powerful.¡±


    ¡°A strange creature has appeared on the Kan shoreline. It¡¯s reported to resemble an octopus that can walk. These octopuses use wondrous engineering tools and mind magic. They¡¯ve been enving the local humans forbor purposes, and they¡¯re building a semicircr-shaped tower reaching the skies.¡±


    ¡°The southwest mountains¡¯ elven kingdoms have made an announcement. They¡¯ve announced an elven alliance, and have begun forcing all humans living within their borders and near them to leave. The Elven Gods have remained silent on this, but without their support, such a thing could not possibly happen.¡±


    ¡°The eastern human kingdoms have broken off all contact and business rtionships with the other kingdoms, and have even begun to kick out the other kingdoms¡¯ ambassadors... Ever since they started believing in that strange voodoo religion a hundred years ago, I¡¯ve expected this day toe. Sooner orter, they¡¯re going to transform into something inhuman that doesn¡¯t resemble either demon or human.¡±


    ¡°A new type of half-human has appeared on the Aimon ins. Their adults appear like young human children and are slightly less than half of an average adult human¡¯s height. They have beast ears and are incredibly skilled at beast taming. None of this is the most important¡ªthe most important is that their females are all incredibly cute! It¡¯s basically a heaven for lolicons... so many members of the Gentlemen Alliance have volunteered to be among the first for a scouting or ambassadorial mission, but in order to avoid racial disputes, not a single member of the Gentlemen Alliance was permitted to go.¡±


    ¡°A storm is about toe.¡± I was certain that even the stupidest person would think this after seeing the many clear warnings of the uing war. After the preliminary battles that signaled war were finished with, it was obvious that a major storm was brewing.


    The only part that was worthy of celebrating about was that the Nortnds, which had just experienced a battle, was now abnormally quiet; in fact, it had be abnormally isted.


    ¡°It seems that killing our enemies off has been effective. At least, for the time being, no fools will be rushing to attack the Nortnds.¡±


    Perhaps in the eyes of most of the undying, the Nortnds had already be Wumianzhe¡¯s territory. At least, for a short while, nobody wanted to challenge this new hotshot rising star.


    This temporary peaceful respite was also what I wanted. In order to truly rule over all the numerous northern countries and establish the Mist Alliance, even if it was a rather loosely-regted alliance, it would require a lengthy amount of time.


    However, merely passively responding to threats was a bad idea. This was just like ying chess. Even if you managed to establish control over one tiny corner, if you lost the entire game because of that, there would still be nothing you could do.


    ¡°Using the name of East Mist or my name to interfere with affairs may cause many troubles, and Wumianzhe¡¯s intervention would likely cause the other Gods to team up to attack him. I need a more neutral identity... perhaps that mercenary group Absolute Gentlemen Alliance will be useful here. It seems like it¡¯s time to have a good discussion with Beifeng.¡±


    After some consideration, I felt like that mercenary group, which I established just for the fun of it, was probably the best identity for me to intervene in the continent¡¯s affairs. Although the Gentlemen Alliance had an excellent rtionship with East Mist, thanks to Beifeng and the others¡¯ efforts, their finances and organizational structure were all independent. It could be said that they seemed governmental but actually weren¡¯t governmental at all. This type of mercenary group definitely had the potential to act across borders and was the most appropriate group through which I could take action.


    ¡°I almost forgot! I¡¯m even the leader in-name of that mercenary group. Yep, it would seem like there¡¯s plenty of tricks I can use.¡±


    Actually, it was only when I finally returned to the mortal ne that I learned that this joke of a mercenary group had already be the most renowned mercenary group throughout Eich, with branches in every country. Those bastards used my name while hiring more members, and every official in every country had to give them face. Probably, in most outsiders¡¯ eyes, this mercenary group had be my private soldiers.


    Of course, this was doubtlessly something that most lords feared. In history, there were plenty of examples of how mercenary leaders became kings or emperors themselves, but there was a unique, special internal rtionship within East Mist. Mainly, Reyne and I had a subtle rtionship, and most of us were happy to see this mercenary group expand. In fact, they even viewed the Gentlemen Alliance as a type of backup governmental official.


    Governmental military troops were always going to be limited. In this era where the strong ruled, military might for self-protection would forever be necessary. Mercenary jobs would always be popr, but if theycked a well-disciplined organization, it was possible for mercenary groups to only asionally be mercenary groups and turn to thievery during peacetime. This was especially true if you hired some mercenary groups to transport valuable goods¡ªyou would have to worry about the mercenaries themselves turning into bandits.


    And if the mercenary group received an ill reputation, they would just have to change locations and continue doing what they always did. In this world where conflicts never ended, people with martial prowess would never fear not being able to find a job.


    However,pared to mostmon mercenary groups, the Gentlemen Alliance had an excellent reputation in the eyes of the public.


    ¡°Although they charge high prices, their overall strength is quite strong, and they¡¯re very trustworthy. Although their members are rather strange, they¡¯re all good people. Even if there areints about the strange habits of their individual members¡¯, there are currently zeroints about them regarding professional work ethics. Their employers¡¯ reviews about them are also very high.¡±


    This was the Mercenary Guild¡¯s review of the Gentlemen Alliance, which further improved their trustworthiness.


    ¡°Yep, that uncle volunteered to help me find my cat. He didn¡¯t even ept my spare change. He said that I only needed to hold my doll and smile at him for payment. And they always have candy in their pockets! They¡¯re so nice.¡±


    This was the strange statement that came from a loli who hired their services. The people that heard this statement had even stranger expressions afterwards.


    ¡°Most of their grunts are local youngsters and retired soldiers, while their middle and upper ranks have many well-known strong individuals that are even heroes from this recent war against the beastmen. The most important part is that the leader of this mercenary group is actually His Highness Rnd. Even if they charge slightly higher fees than average, it¡¯s reassuring to know that they¡¯re trustworthy. However, there is one rumor which says that the members that join them will be stranger and stranger... that must be a rumor spread by those who are jealous of them.¡±


    The Gentlemen Alliance was considered trustworthy, strong, backed by the East Mist government, and always had familiar local members. Not to mention that countless numbers of people hired them, and the most important of all, they had many achievements racked up from the war against the beastmen. It would have been strange if they weren¡¯t able to make it big with all these factors.


    And, so, even though this mercenary group had an absentee leader (me), and the number two leader (Beifeng) always acted ridiculously as he pleased (he always only did the things he was interested in), this strange mercenary group actually managed to have excellent internal organization and keep expanding. Now, it was thergest mercenary group in all of the Nortnds and was well trusted by the citizens. It imperceptibly became a faction that could no longer be ignored.


    And, in the distant Nortnds, the things that I wanted were actually well in progress.


    As my hand-picked ¡°substitute,¡± Elisa performed as expected. After receiving all those reports about the abnormal, Elisa unhesitatingly sent out a huge number of scouts and spies. In fact, it was at her request that the Gentlemen Alliance began building branches in all the other countries and that the Administrators of Justice from the Church of Law began traveling to other countries.


    ¡°Waiting for news toe to us while we shut our doors is definitely unfeasible. Right now, we need arge amount of information. The more the better. Especially information regarding the undead as well as the Bardi Empire.¡±


    Actually, there were some things that still hadn¡¯t been reported to me yet. Among the chaotic amount of information that came in, one piece of information that had been treated as an urban myth attracted Elisa¡¯s attention.


    ¡°The Bardi Empire discovered arge skeletal door constructed of white bone. ording to the records, it seems to be a dimensional door from the Undead ne! Not only that, this dimensional door seems to have already existed for a year and a half.¡±


    This piece of information was only a tiny secondhand rumor, but Elisa viewed this information as incredibly important. While the other countries were still treating the uing Undead Cmity as a joke, she had already sent out her own informational resources.


    ¡°Summarizing the abnormal movements recently happening in the Bardi Empire, if the truth of this report can be verified and if this dimensional door¡¯s existence can be verified as well as the fact that it has remained peacefully in the Beldi Empire for over a year, then there are many things that we need to reconsider.¡±


    But before she finished any of her preparations, a new order interrupted all of her current preparations.


    ¡°A celebration? At such a time? Has Rnd gone crazy again?¡±


    Yep, a letter had just arrived for Elisa across dimensions. This letter exined in detail that a celebration should be held at the end of winter for a holiday I termed as the ¡°Day of Peace.¡± I also mentioned the programs that should be performed during this holiday, such as organizing a circus performance, a military parade for the citizens, an end of winter huntingpetition, and inviting diplomats from various countries to a banquet.


    ¡°There¡¯s less than a month until the set date, so how could things possibly be finished in time? We haven¡¯t even resolved our long-term food supply issues, and now we¡¯re supposed to arrange an extravagant celebration? During a celebration, food resources will be used up at three times the normal rate!¡±


    Just the diplomacy and business negotiations required for the Mist Alliance were already overloading the East Mist Communal Country¡¯s government officials. At such a time, giving them less than a month to prepare a national-level celebration seemed absolutely impossible.


    It was said that after seeing the contents of my letter, there were numerous government officials that were so shocked that they copsed on the ground, and the hospital ran out of emergency beds.


    ¡°His Highness Rnd is trying to kill us. Even if we work our hardest, this can¡¯t possibly be aplished.¡±


    This was already what everyone was thinking in their heads, but a certain person forcefully suppressed allints, worked overtime to create a list of tasks for everyone, and forcefully seeded in advertising this holiday.


    ¡°Sister Kelly, there¡¯s no need for you to listen to Rnd¡¯s ridiculous request. There¡¯s no way this n can be carried out in time.¡±


    Yep. As the highest-ranking female government official, and Kelly was, in actuality, the civil official in East Mist with the highest authority. Only she could force such a n by using her longtime authority and umted respect. But even Elisa couldn¡¯t bear to see all the government officials that had fatigue and frowns on their faces. And, so, she decided to directlye find Kelly for a discussion.


    Kelly suddenly broke out intoughter at hearing this.


    ¡°You still don¡¯t understand Rnd well enough. It¡¯s whatever if others think that he¡¯s being ridiculous, but if even you think so as well, he¡¯s going to be very sad.¡±


    Elisa didn¡¯t understand. Was there supposed to be something behind this sudden celebration?


    ¡°You see, this may seem ridiculous, but it¡¯s actually something really important for us. Organizing an end of winter major huntingpetition, this matches with one of our original goals. By the time spring arrives, the hungry wild beasts will naturally begin dispersing, and it¡¯ll be much more difficult to deal with them. But now that the war is over for now, it¡¯s obvious how much distaste the soldiers and citizens have for military things right now. Organizing the soldiers on arge scale to hunt down the beasts may not be a good thing for us, but if it¡¯s something like a huntingpetition, that¡¯ll easily motivate everyone.¡±


    ¡°Then, what about inviting all the other countries¡¯ important diplomats for a banquet, as well as organizing a grand military parade? We haven¡¯t even resolved our food supply issues! Isn¡¯t it too wasteful to be spending extravagantly right now?¡±


    Kelly shook her head at this. She elegantly turned around and gently caressed her hair¡ªit seemed like she was secretlyughing. She seemed to be eximing at Elisa, and her eyes appeared to be filled with a mature seductiveness.


    ¡°When I first saw his request, I didn¡¯t understand it either. But after closer consideration, this is a marvelous move to solve our current diplomatic and business negotiation problems. It seems that even if little Rnd hasn¡¯t been personally participating, he¡¯s always been considering our problems.¡±


    ¡°Huh? What? How is that even possible?¡± Rather than questioning, this was more likeining. It would seem that Elisa had umted a significant amount ofints against me.


    ¡°You see, inviting the important diplomats to a banquet here is doubtlessly an excellent chance to solve some diplomatic issues currently on our te. And as for showing off our soldiers in a military parade, that¡¯s also the perfect opportunity for them to observe our new weapons, troop types, andbat mechas.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that arms deals will be made?¡±


    Elisa truly began considering things for the first time. Being a supporting army in name but actually making arms deals was a task that had long since been on the list of things to do, even higher up than ensuring the steady supply of our new products or resolving the food supply shortage. ording to the original n, making arms deals should have been put in ce right after the beginning of next year¡¯s spring via middlemen merchants.


    Logically reasoning it out a little, now was a chaotic time, with all the countries all preparing for possiblebat. East Mist had be well renowned from its recent battle, and if they organized a military parade with the goal of showing off their newest developed weapons and technology, perhaps it would attract many important officials from other countries to their banquet. At that time, it would basically be an auction house, where they could raise prices as they pleased and make massive profits.


    After she came to the conclusion, Elisa finally understood and looked at Kelly with aplex expression. In a way, for Kelly to understand Rnd better than herself who was supposed to be Rnd¡¯s girlfriend made her feel a little jealous.


    ¡°At least that circus parade is just for the heck of it, right?¡±


    Kelly shook her head. In her mind, that was the most important part of all.


    ¡°Actually, when I saw it at first, I also thought it was just his whim. But thinking over it more carefully, we overlooked his intention. Rnd must have noticed some things that we didn¡¯t because we were too close to affairs here.¡±


    Kelly walked up to the window as she talked and opened it. Things outside were flourishing; redevelopment of the older city areas and the construction of new city areas were proceeding at full speed. With ns for new crops for the next year and the reorganization of the military, everyone outside was busy for various reasons. Although most appeared to be tired, they still seemed to be in high spirits.


    ¡°Too many things have happened recently. Although everyone is working hard for the future, a string that¡¯s too tightly wound will snap easily. There will be so many things to be done next year as well, so we¡¯ll be even busier in the future. If we can have a year-end celebration to help everyone rx and celebrate our victory for a few days, it¡¯ll help everyone to mentally end this chaotic year.¡±


    Elisa fell silent for a moment before she nodded in agreement. ¡°Perhaps Rnd has another meaning behind this as well. Actually, the Red Hunting Hounds have acted in a circus before at Sulfur Mountain City, and Rnd wrote in the letter that he intended to personally watch the performance. He probably wants to use this circus as an opportunity to establish a closer rtionship between the living and the undead.¡±


    Kelly couldn¡¯t help but chuckle.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t think of this. As expected of little Rnd¡¯s girlfriend.¡±


    Alright then, this sudden direct attack caused Elisa¡¯s cheeks to flush red, and she seemed like she didn¡¯t know how to react. Soon, however, she adjusted her sses and calmed down. It was just that she was now looking at the letter that seemed so thin yet contained such deep meaning.


    ¡°Let¡¯s begin; we don¡¯t have much time. We must prepare the most marvelous celebration before Rnd returns.¡±


    ¡°Yep!¡±


    And several dayster, when a thick celebration n arrived in front of me via the gnomes¡¯ expensive dimensional transportation device, I hadplex feelings about it.


    ¡°...We will do a good job with the preparations. You can rx. We didn¡¯t expect that you would take so much into consideration.¡±


    Harloys read the addendum at the end in a tiny voice, and she spoke up with a tone of astonishment right afterward.


    ¡°Oh my, I never expected your celebration to have so many objectives. You¡¯re really amazing! And they actually understood what you wanted. You¡¯ve picked up such excellent subordinates.¡±


    After a moment of hesitation, I decided to tell Harloys the truth.


    ¡°Actually, I didn¡¯t think of anything at all. I just wanted to have a grand party...¡±


    ¡°Then why did you want to have a celebration? And on that particr day?¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s just to celebrate our victory; I didn¡¯t think into it at all.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ was filled with disbelief. Since she was connected to me in heart and soul, she could sense that I was still hiding something. I felt awkward about being stared at by a loli like her, so I could only nod helplessly.


    ¡°That day... is actually my birthday... Why are you looking at me like that? I worked so hard and achieved so much; I can¡¯t even have a grand birthday party for myself? My requests aren¡¯t really that much! I just wanted to watch a circus, have some fun while hunting, and attend a banquet. This isn¡¯t too much, is it!¡±


    Harloys wiped away some cold sweat as she nced over the three hundred and forty pages of the celebration n that definitely contained far more hard work and sweat than I ever put in. She was now beginning to sympathize with the normal people working under Rnd even more.


    This n covered everything and was incredibly detailed. It couldn¡¯t have beenpleted without at least forty or fifty individuals working overtime for two weeks straight, but it was actually finished in just three or four days. It could only be said that its creators definitely made it with blood and sweat, with all their passion.


    ¡°This time, you¡¯re forbidden from telling the truth. Just do as it says in this n. Otherwise, even I will want to beat you up.¡±


    I could only nod at this. What else was I supposed to say?

 Chapter 232

    Chapter 232: Invitation


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    When mentioning mages, most people would think about mage towers that reached the clouds, orderly libraries, wondrous automatic magical tools, elegant mage robes, long beards that represented wisdom, and, of course, eyesses.


    Actually, I¡¯ve never seen any mage that could do all of the above¡ªno¡ªI should say that I¡¯ve seen incredibly few mages who could keep their ces clean and tidy.


    In fact, most mages¡¯boratories were chaotically messy, with books haphazardly stacked everywhere and unwashed experimental test tubes letting off a disgusting stink. If there were some that weren¡¯t cleaned for far too long, then it was even considered normal to see some magical beasts or slimes as well.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t there self-moving brooms or puppets that can automatically clean the bookshelves?¡±


    ¡°If those devices are the rechargeable type, daily maintenance will require a great deal of mana, not to mention they¡¯re all really expensive. And if it¡¯s a one-time-use device, when you add in the cost for the materials, it¡¯s even more expensive. Those toys are only things that the Mage Country shows off to others in public in order to improve their reputation, but anyone who¡¯s ever used one knows the truth.¡±


    ¡°But since they¡¯re wise mages, it shouldn¡¯t be that difficult for them to clean their own rooms. If they¡¯re really that bad at it, they could always hire a servant to clean it for them.¡±


    ¡°Many objects are very dangerous for those whock magical knowledge, and the mages can¡¯t rest assured having fellow mages touch them. Cleaning their own rooms? I¡¯d love to use 26 hours per day instead of 24 to focus on research if I could; I have no free time at all. That¡¯s why I¡¯m going to leave everything up to you¡ªthat¡¯s right¡ªremember to water the southern garden once every day; you don¡¯t need to personally do the watering, you only need to go to the center and turn on the watering device... Oh, right¡ªwhen you have time, find another gardener for me. He stopped showing up three days ago after entering my garden. I bet he ran off with the sry I paid him. I really should stop paying sries in advance, he¡¯s the twentieth already.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the mage school from back in the day was very simr to modern-day academic institutions. Apprentices would learn from their masters, as well as act as their masters¡¯ personal servants. Since the mages found it inconvenient to hire outsiders to do their chores, it was the most normal thing of all to have their apprentices do the chores instead.


    Long ago, when I first began researching under Senior Amelia as an acolyte, I hadn¡¯t had any contact with doing chores yet. The first task that she gave me utterly turned my impression of mages upside-down.


    ¡°Mage robes? Those aren¡¯t convenient to move around in, so I don¡¯t use those at home. Easy to retrieve and use magical ingredients in? Heh heh, when you reach my level, that¡¯s not necessary.¡±


    If the gentle-seeming Senior from back in the day had only upended mymon sense despite appearing to be surprisingly nice, then the researchboratory cleaning task afterward had almost got me killed.


    Don¡¯t even think about some nice scenes, like the beautiful teacher identally revealing some skin or asking me to draw a picture of her; her personal clothing, which took up two full rooms was so tiring for me to clean, but the task that gave me the greatest ¡°joyous surprise¡± was actually watering her garden.


    That daily task made me utterly abandon my beautiful fantasy about Amelia and see her true nature.


    Probably everyone understands by now.


    Back then, Amelia wasn¡¯t so vicious to the point of nting her Seven Virtues in her own backyard. But I first ¡°enjoyed¡± the attempts of Piranha nts to hunt me and the tangling of ck Forest Vines around me, ying a stimting biohazard survival game in her garden. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I already had a decent power rank back then, I probably would have died off without even knowing it, just like all her previous gardeners.


    And my studies under her afterwards were all simr experiences. I finally understood why this Senior with such a good reputation always needed new acolytes...


    I angrily roared from the bottom of my soul as I swung my sword to slice through one of those familiar distorted Piranha nts.


    ¡°Being an acolyte under her will be impossible to survive without at least a Sword Saint¡¯s strength!¡±


    ¡°Why are you suddenly shouting! I¡¯m going deaf!¡±


    Alright then, I wasn¡¯t careful and identally roared out loud to vent my umted anger. That chaotic mess back in the day wasn¡¯t entirely my fault. Perhaps she didn¡¯t have evil intentions back then, but even for me who had a Sword Saint¡¯s strength at that time, I was on the brink of life and death in her garden. Who would I me, if not her?


    When taking that into consideration, making her suffer right before I left was actuallymitting a good deed. At the very least, there would be a lot fewer victims in the future, such as all her missing gardeners and acolytes.


    ¡°Oh my, how exaggerated this all is.¡±


    As for why I was bringing up those things from the past, it was because the scene before me was all too familiar. I was witnessing an overgrown forest, and not only that, Piranha nts and other simr vicious nts were just asmon as weeds here. Toxic pollen spread throughout the air, and tremendous mushrooms of thirty meters in radius actually inhaled this pollen. The most ridiculous part was that there were pumpkin carriages being pulled around everywhere by humongous rats. At any rate, this was a definite dangerous territory where various vicious nt species lived and acted as they pleased.


    When I returned to Karo and heard that Amelia actually hadn¡¯t left with the others, I already guessed what was going on.


    ¡°This is the most perfect location to do as she pleases, after all. Back in our country, there are officers of thew and a board of regtors. She can do every type of rule-breaking experiment she wants here.¡±


    Should I say that everything before me was expected? When I arrived at where she was temporarily residing in the Earth Elemental ne, I actually witnessed such a scene. It was obvious that unless she was intending to write a several-tens-of-thousands-of-words-long report, she had gone overboard ying around again.


    ¡°I think we should turn around and leave. Since Amelia herself hasn¡¯te out yet, she¡¯s probably gotten trapped inside. If even a single one of her ¡®Virtues¡¯ goes berserk, it¡¯s a painful experience that nobody will enjoy.¡±


    At the time, I unhesitatingly turned around and began walking off.


    What? Worry about Amelia? If the standard for cmities was that they could live for a thousand years, then Amelia could easily live for a minimum of ten thousand years. For her, no matter how overboard she had gone with ying around, it was still just ying for her¡ªshe could still take care of it afterwards.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that you were going to invite her to participate in your birthday party? No matter what, she recently helped you out so much. Isn¡¯t this too cold of you?¡±


    That silly cat¡ªI suppose I should call her a silly loli now¡ªwas tugging at my clothes and not allowing me to leave. It seemed that she was dissatisfied.


    I was getting a bit of a headache now. Ever since Harloys had regained her life, she had be much more emotional than before. At least she was cuter when she was a cat, since at the very least she was mostly uninterested in anything that didn¡¯t have to do with her. Now, she was basically like a curious child whose emotions changed quickly. Not to mention that she was getting more and more skilled at transforming her teeth into something sharp. If I wasn¡¯t careful, my head would end up getting injured.


    ¡°Would I bite you if you didn¡¯t anger me? Stop guessing at how I knew even though you didn¡¯t say it¡ªanyone would understand from your expression. Right, why is it that you¡¯re inviting so many guests to your birthday party? And why did you want to have one in the first ce? You don¡¯t seem like the type to celebrate something like a birthday at all.¡±


    ¡°In your eyes, am I someone who should have a serious expression all day while secretly plotting behind the scenes with a minimum of three backup ns? And then n out a series of underhanded plots for every single thing I do?¡±


    Alright then, this fake loli actually dared to energetically nod in response to my question. Just wait for my revenge upon you! Hmph! Starting from next week, there¡¯s no breakfast, lunch, or dinner for you; either you can go outside together with me to do that Food God series of achievements together, or you can go ahead and eat Amelia¡¯s experimental products... it seems that thetter can also do those damned Food God achievements.


    ¡°Lorci is dead now. Since one of the major figures on your list had died, you should be a bit happier.¡±


    Harloys nodded lightly at hearing this. On her list of targets to take revenge on that she had given me, True God Lorci of the Elven Gods had been ranked in the top three.


    ¡°Anyways, you¡¯re among the living again...¡±


    ¡°If you want to convince me to abandon my revenge, don¡¯t even think about it. Even if I¡¯m not alive, that will never cancel out my past grudges!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t get so excited... I¡¯m not foolish enough to attempt to convince you to let go of your grudges. I just want you to look forward to the future and live more for yourself. That doesn¡¯t sh with seeking revenge at all.¡±


    Some words had been in the bottom of my heart for a long time already, and I hesitated quite long about it, but I finally said them out loud.


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯m the same as well. I¡¯m tangled up in things from the past. No, I should say that we can¡¯t let go of the past. With all these years having passed, I can still remember the Mist Kingdom being destroyed in my nightmares. This is so not fun.¡±


    I paused for a while. Since I had bottled things up within me for too long, I didn¡¯t even know how to express myself anymore.


    ¡°I won¡¯t tell you to let go of the past, nor will I tell you some useless words like ¡®revenge is meaningless.¡¯ After all, that would be nothing more than an insult to people like us who live for revenge. But just like how Lorci¡¯s death will make you feel more rxed, the Mist Kingdom¡¯s revival is also a type of release for me.¡±


    By now, I was feeling rather awkward, but it seemed like stopping here would be even more awkward, so I steeled myself and continued.


    ¡°If you can¡¯t forget the past, then just look more at the future. Anyways, we¡¯re no longer alone in our path of revenge, and we sort of count as family now. If there¡¯s anything troublesome, then we can toss the burden to others to share. At the very least, I n to use my time to enjoy what I missed in the past before, even if I fail in the end.¡±


    Alright, after saying all that, I could even feel my face turning red.


    ¡°So, finding a few friends to help me throw a small birthday party is something quite normal. How was I supposed to know that they would make such a big deal out of the celebration?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t Elisa and the others know that it¡¯s your birthday?¡±


    ¡°Kelly probably forgot about it already as it¡¯s been several hundred years; who could possibly remember? As for Elisa... we didn¡¯t celebrate our birthdays in Sulfur Mountain City. We had our own celebratory holidays, one that I invented.¡±


    ¡°Then what did you celebrate?¡±


    ¡°Since we were undead, and the day we died was the new beginning, we all celebrated our ¡®deathday,¡¯ and I happened to have several deathdays, so I was toozy to celebrate them. It¡¯s normal that they don¡¯t know.¡±


    Harloys was rendered speechless upon hearing this. Rnd dared to say that he didn¡¯t know how to enjoy life before? When she was still in Xiluo, she had never even heard of the concept of undead celebrating their deathdays. Those Sulfur Mountain City undead really knew how to have fun.


    ¡°Wait a moment! Didn¡¯t all those high-level undead in your army die on the same day? Wouldn¡¯t they all celebrate together, then?¡±


    ¡°Yep, which was why we called that day the ¡®day of annihtion.¡¯ We would have a grand celebration and parade through the entire city, causing a huge ruckus. And in order to not scare others, we would put funny makeup on ourselves, and sometimes parade as a roaming circus. At other times, we would act out an epic story¡¯s y, and sometimes we even went out naked. At that time, we even had performances and floats for the whole city. Slowly, as time went by, the living got ustomed to it and viewed it as a strange undead festival, and it became the main holiday tourist attraction of Sulfur Mountain City¡ªthe day of the dead.¡±


    When talking about the past, it was unavoidable for people to be nostalgic. As I was reminiscing about memories long past, Harloys also nodded in seeming realization.


    ¡°You do have a plot after all. Can¡¯t you just say things directly out loud?¡±


    ¡°You saw through me?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve been listening to you, and it¡¯s so obvious! How could I not see through you? Perhaps those hunting hounds of yours have realized it as well.¡±


    ¡°Yep, even if I don¡¯t say it, they¡¯ll understand. In this generation, since the Mist Kingdom has already revived, celebrating something like the ¡®day of the dead¡¯ or the ¡®day of annihtion¡¯ on the day of the kingdom¡¯s fall is too pitiful. In the future, there¡¯s only going to be this ¡®day of peace¡¯ celebration that I¡¯ve set up, which represents victory as well as peace. Since I myself intend to walk out from the shadows of my past and look towards the future, then I would obviously hope that they could be the same as well.¡±


    ¡°...You are so willful and selfish.¡±


    I shrugged without denying it, as I knew it to be true.


    ¡°Every year¡¯s celebration is slightly different, but I believe that since my intention has been transmitted already, my knights definitely won¡¯t disappoint me. Bastian¡¯s ball-rolling performance is always the main event of every celebration. Now, here¡¯s the big question... Cough, my beautiful Princess Harloys, are you willing to apany the selfish me at this celebration party? It should be a joyous asion.¡±


    The loli blonde princess bent her knees slightly as she lifted her skirt and smiled a pure smile at me. She gave me an ancient ceremonial curtsy.


    ¡°Of course, my respected Prince Rnd. It¡¯s my honor to be able to be your celebration¡¯spanion.¡±

 Chapter 233

    Chapter 233: Progress


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    [Rnd Mist. Strength 32 (+10), Dexterity 22, Constitution 22, Intelligence 29, Will 20, Charisma 19. Racial talents: War Angel, Original Sin Demon Form, Sword of Order, Titan¡¯s Body, Feet of Ethereal Shadow, Divine Child, Chaos Barrier. Basic job sses: Level 60 Order Knight / Level 60 Chaos Lich King / Level 10 Four Elemental Swordcaster. High-level job sses: Level 3 Lord of Frigidwinter. General Level: 91, Actual Combat Strength Level: 100.]


    [System Evaluation: An excellent meat shield that can take an ancient dragon head-on; a Gold-ranked neer that can face any Legend warrior... if you really want to go find a Time Dragon to fight and prove me wrong, that¡¯s fine as well.]


    Compared to before, there wasn¡¯t all that much change in my stats. As a strength-based ss, the growth in my Strength stat was satisfying, and the SemiGod Equipment I received from Emordilorcan even improved my Strength by 10 points, which could be said to have changed my entire attack pattern.


    The only sad part was that even though this equipment had helped my Strength break past new boundaries, I still didn¡¯t have any foundational changes, nor did I activate any new racial talents. But as a melee ss, Strength was always the foundation, and improving it would always help in many areas.


    Mega-heavy dragon knight armor, anti-giant extended knight spears, dragonbreath cannons, and handheld ballistae¡ªeven without taking into consideration the improvement in my actualbat strength, I could now attempt to use these types of super-heavy equipment that no normal person would be able to use.


    My new Dexterity-based ability Feet of Ethereal Shadow was a specialized ability. I could temporarily jump into the Shadow ne for a very short period of time beforeing back out into the mortal ne again... but no matter how much I thought about it, apart from escaping for my life against some ultimate abilities, this skill didn¡¯t seem useful at all. Not to mention that I never had any chances to use it in actualbat before.


    Since I had already chosen a doublehanded sword-wielding magical swordsman approach, Dexterity was mostly a supporting stat for my Strength. Or, perhaps due to the burden of wearing heavy equipment, I was unable to notice much difference in my Dexterity stat. However, a low Dexterity would be a critical weakness.


    Intelligence was doubtlessly the most important stat for any mage, and theoretically speaking, I had been improving my magic significantly via cultivation. I should have made some progress. But just as how the gap from 19 to 20 represented the gap between an ordinary mortal and a Legend, the gap between 29 and 30 represented the difference between Legend and the next ranks of Saint and Myth. Without some sort of foundational change, it would be difficult to make any more progress.


    But, the harder it was to get over the gap, therger the benefits one would gain. The Divine Sin¡¯s icy mes, Frigidwinter Earth, my now fixed Ice Treader Soul Imprint, my fundamental magic, Hibernation Chill, and the Four Elemental Sword Seal¡ªin this long period of time, I had umted far more magical knowledge than improving my warrior status. Basic stats would directly impact the effect of my spells and abilities while obtaining magical knowledge andbat experience would directly influence my basic stats. My hard effort would definitely be rewarded in the end, and I was really looking forward to the benefits I will reap after breaking through this bottleneck.


    Will was the main stat of any Priest-rted job ss. Will was rted to the ability tomunicate with the Gods, as well as how well one understood the concept of faith and a True God¡¯s teachings. Of course, Will was also rted to the power of Divine Arts, as well as the resistance against curses or mind magic. This was originally the most useless stat of all for me, but the Chaos Barrier ability that had awakened before, when I was under pressure from Felix¡¯s Divine Domain, had an incredibly useful defensive ability.


    [Chaos Barrier: Protect your mind from being suppressed by Divine Domains or Soul Worlds. Reduce the effects of anything that attempts to reduce your willpower or vision.]


    Will was always the most difficult stat to increase, and there were no shortcuts whatsoever. Only those favored by a God would find it slightly quicker, and there were far too many Priests that were stuck at the Gold rank. There was even a saying about this: ¡°Gods needed to use their own divine power to assist Priests in breaking through to Legend rank.¡± (Author¡¯s Note: Actually, Rnd¡¯s understanding of Will is iplete. Will is the ability to control oneself, and it¡¯s the only stat that will forever apany the soul. Dying and reincarnating is actually the shortcut to improving Will.)


    Thinking about how all those old Priests with white hair and gigantic beards had been stuck at 19 Will and the Gold rank for forever, if word of my job ss that whichpletely ignored Will to actually surpass this barrier spread, those old and forever single Priests would probably be angered to death.


    Apart from the Chaos Barrier racial talent, after that God¡¯s Descent I had performed on myself, I also received a racial talent called Divine Child. I didn¡¯t know whether to describe it as useless or useful. It was a passive buff to my body that would lessen the strain on my body when performing God¡¯s Descent. It would also greatly increase the sess rate of God¡¯s Descent.


    The final stat, Charisma, was a general stat. Not only did it represent one¡¯s physical appearance, aura, and personal charm, but it even included one¡¯s status, identity, and fame from past deeds. It would typically have a silent effect on any type ofmunication. It was just like how when someone beautiful was doing the exact same job, that beautiful person would receive more of a reward, and even though some neers to the job that entered thepany at the same time would quickly find friends with their coworkers, others would never find any friends at all... fine then, perhaps my analogy wasn¡¯t an appropriate one, but that was basically what it meant.


    Although Charisma may be very useful to some, it didn¡¯t have much meaning to me, so I¡¯ll just skip over it... Hmph! It definitely wasn¡¯t because I was jealous of Harloys¡¯ 33 in Charisma or anything like that.


    In just a short period of two years, I was very pleased to have reached such an extent even if I experienced many dangers and almost died several times.


    And this time, obtaining the Frigidwinter Earth was the explosive umted result of my rewards. After reaching the Gold rank, I had also finished organizing my personal path of development in the future. What remained was only to persist until the end.


    Right now, the small trouble before me was perfect for my first test opponent.


    ¡°By the way, just how did she create such a demonic forest in the Earth Elemental ne? Isn¡¯t this an area which greatlycks the air and water elements?¡±


    nts never required as much to survive as people thought they did, but for seeds to sprout and mature, air, water, soil, and fertilizer were all still basic requirements. Obviously, apart from the earthen soil, there wasn¡¯t anything else here at all. I really didn¡¯t know how she pulled it off.


    ¡°Her Soul World? Or something even more troublesome...¡±


    This was the only exnation I coulde up with. Invading her Soul World for no apparent reason was no different from dering battle against Amelia¡¯s SemiGod-rank power, and Soul Worlds themselves typically always had self-defense mechanisms.


    To be honest, I didn¡¯t want to enter Amelia¡¯s forest domain at all.


    As a former Truth Overseer and a member of the Mage Country¡¯s highest-ranked council, Amelia was at the pinnacle of mortal mages, the SemiGod rank, and she was a veteran who had reached that rank two hundred years ago. Nobody knew the true extent of her power.


    If I died to my own teammate rather than Emordilorcan, that would seem foolish no matter how you look at it. Unfortunately, not only did this possibility exist, it was even rather high.


    At the very least, if any of her three current Virtues came out, I might be finished here as I was currently unable to make use of my Frigidwinter Earth.


    ¡°Oh my, this is really such a bother. Amelia, remember to be grateful to me.¡±


    I put my silver Sacred Sword behind my back. For these crazed nts that were filled with the powers of nature, Holy Light and Law were obviously not the best counters to them. I clutched my intertwined sword of ice. This power of ice that I was getting more and more used to was the representation of nature¡¯s cruelest power, and it would definitely be effective against nts as well.


    The moment I stepped forth, it was as if I passed an invisible boundary. All the nts around here suddenly became active, and the magic forest sent a ¡°get out¡± message to the uninvited guest.


    ¡°Damn it! I shouldn¡¯t have given you the task of nts vs. zombies. Also, Amelia, when did you join the cult of ¡®as many cannons as possible?¡¯¡±


    Nobody would enjoy being pointed at by numerous amounts of nt artillery. These definitely weren¡¯t the cute versions from that game in my previous life; those magical peashooters were twice the height of an average human and had mouths that would fit several basketballs at once; they were even the special type that possessed multiple mouths that could all shoot at once.


    *Boom!* *Boom!*


    nt bullets covered the skies and left me with nowhere to dodge, but this wasn¡¯t even the most dangerous part.


    Before I even got close, numerousrge Mandrake nts had reached out and unearthed themselves. They were rushing towards me and Harloys while shouting out curses that sounded like what a person what shout as he was dying.


    ¡°Peppers? Capsaicin [1] 1 will enter a person¡¯s body and spice them to death? Don¡¯t joke around.¡±


    Amelia had unhesitatingly refused the concept of pepper bombs from the original game, and went instead with the Mandrake nts that already possessed death curses as the best ¡°self-destructing mines¡± of all.


    ¡°Does this count as me shooting myself in the foot again?¡¯


    But, before they could get close, they were all transformed into ice cubes by a sudden chilly wind. They then shattered into pieces.


    ¡°Frigid North Wind.¡±


    My sword of ice¡¯s sword energy had transformed into a frigid chilly wind, which was able to take care of the trouble rushing towards me at a long range.


    I casually swung my sword, which emanated chilly air. It created floating ice stakes in midair in order to prepare for the uing battle.


    For the Four Elemental Swordcasters, adding Sword Seals to their magical swords was already the basics of the basics. As for my opponent, the most dangerous would no longer be the sharpness of my sword¡¯s de.


    ¡°Frigid Beifeng? I didn¡¯t expect that you cared so much about him...¡±


    Upon hearing this, my foot slipped and I almost tripped over and fell down. But, the next moment, I finally believed that Beifeng must have been jealous of my excellent naming sense, so I decided to change the name of this new attack of mine. [2] 2


    ¡°How about... Frigid South Wind? Or Cold Wind? Spring Wind? Wind of Peace?¡±


    ¡°...Just because it was born from the Frigidwinter Earth, you¡¯re calling it Frigid-something Wind? What¡¯s with those random-sounding names you keeping up with? It¡¯s fine as long as you like it. I¡¯m not going to bothermenting.¡±


    ¡°Then stop looking at me with a sympathetic expression! And don¡¯t say anything out loud either! Ahh, your pity is killing me! At this rate, even I¡¯m going to believe that I¡¯m really pathetic.¡±


    While we were rxedly ¡°chatting¡± on the battlefield, some others were unable to bear it anymore.


    ¡°Ah!!!!¡±


    Identical Mandrake nts actually popped up from right beneath us, without us noticing at all.


    *Cling!* *ng!*


    That was the sound of ice cubes crashing together. These underground assassins didn¡¯t seem to notice that I had long since solidly frozen everything around me.


    ¡°Everywhere I tread shall be the frigid Nortnds.¡±


    With just a light step, a whiteness spread out from underneath my foot and speedily transformed this area into my territory by enveloping everything in snow.


    Ever since I obtained my Frigidwinter Earth¡ªno¡ªever since I obtained the Ice Treader Soul Imprint, mybat style had already been decided.


    Slowing down my footsteps in order to umte snow was just my trap, roaring winds containing blizzards would be my weapon, ice stakes suddenly descending from my sky would be my assassins, and even that ice river, which froze everything, was the extension of my will.


    The Borealis that I constructed was my castle and fortress, and the moment that any enemy of mine entered my territory, they would be the very enemy of nature itself.


    I strode forward slowly as I ignored the peashooters¡¯ projectiles that filled the skies. These projectiles were all frozen solid in midair as their very heat and time were frozen. Those Piranha nts became exquisite flowers of ice before they could even get close, adding a sense of decoration to this world.


    ¡°Although it has a nicely sized area of effect, in actuality, therger the AOE, the more mana it will cost to maintain. How much longer can you maintain this? Five or ten more minutes?¡±


    ¡°I estimate roughly fifteen minutes. But if ¡®my world¡¯ getspleted, then I can just directly take ice and cold air from there, which will basically be cost nothing.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! What a rich and extravagant mage you are.¡±


    Without me realizing it, Harloys had put on a thick fox-skin jacket. Her furry tiger-skin cap even had two lively-seeming gem eyes. The ridiculous part was that she was actuallyining while hugging a warm cup. Judging from the hot steam¡¯s aroma and the color of the contents, it was top-quality hot cocoa.


    I didn¡¯t think that I was cold originally, but after seeing the way she was, I somehow recalled the frostbite all over my body. This caused me to begin shivering with my teeth ttering, and so...


    ¡°Confiscated!¡±


    I instantly stole her hot cocoa, sniffed that sweet aroma, then poured it down my throat in a single gulp.


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªthat¡¯s mine... forget it, it¡¯ll never end if I get into an argument with you.¡±


    Harloys sighed helplessly as she was unable to steal it back from me even when she stood up on tiptoe. However, she instantly produced another hot cup of cocoa from somewhere.


    The coldness helped the hot cocoa to easily slide down my throat. The taste was wonderful, but right away, I felt like something was wrong. A strange vor was cavorting about inside my stomach, and immediately following after, I heard the sound of my System enjoying my suffering.


    [+1 to your Food God achievement progress. System Reminder: I told you long ago to stop stealing candy from lolis, and now you¡¯re suffering as you deserve.]


    ¡°Cough! Cough! What vor is this supposed to be! It¡¯s too sweet, and there¡¯s such a strange aftertaste!? It¡¯s so choking!¡±


    ¡°Harloys¡¯ special-made hot cocoa, with savory catnip and kiwifruit. Would you like another cup?¡±


    Harloys actually had a face filled with ¡°concern¡± as she handed her new cup to me while watching me dry-heave. Due to smelling that overly stimting aroma, my stomach felt even more ufortable.


    My cheeks couldn¡¯t help but twitch as I watched Harloys slowly lick that frightening special-made drink of hers while recalling that frightening taste.


    It was probably because she had stayed in cat form for far too long, not to mention that she had finally reobtained the sensation of taste after far too long without. Her sense of taste had obviously be distorted. Plus, with her mysterious ability to produce strange items out of seemingly nowhere, Harloys was bing more and more simr to a certain blue earless cat ever since regaining life. [3] 3


    [Magical pet: Harloys (Greed), species: ? (How am I supposed to ssify her when she¡¯s part gold elf, slime, Divine Sin, Frigid Nightmare, and banshee? I suppose she¡¯s living). Strength: 6 (There are three benefits to lolis: small, soft, and easy to push down), Dexterity: 7 (With Dexterity low to such an extent, she can perform tripping over nothing for you; clumsy girls are quite cute you know), Constitution: ¡ª (As your soulbound equipment, she cannot die unless you die... so rx and use the loli as your meat shield, but you¡¯re going to have to worry about the loli¡¯s baby teeth afterwards).]


    [Intelligence: 40 (Yes, she¡¯s actually much smarter than you; you¡¯re nothing more than an idiot to her, so don¡¯t even think of ying cards or betting against her. Yep, I¡¯m definitely not teasing you about the ridiculous fact that you yed cards yesterday with your magical pet and lost even your underpants); Will: 29 (She loathes the Gods, and refuses to ept any blessing from any God); Charisma: 33 (This is beauty that¡¯s sufficient to allure any mortal); Job ss: Level 60 Mage / Level 20 Generalist Archmage / Level 10 Magic Great Saint / Level 10 Divine Sin (abnormal); Overall Rating: 120+ (Epic rank), Racial Talent: Transformation (Epic rank) [4] 4 , Splitting Off Bodies of Greed (Legend rank), shadow teleportation, Ice Cmity, living magic bloodline.]


    [Racial talent, Transformation (Epic rank): Transforming into a harmless cat is the weakest of her abilities, and a cute loli is just her preferred disguise for acting cute and harmless. She has several dozen powerful transformations that can instantly kill any Gold rank, and as your soulbound equipment, she can also choose to transform into a weapon. Currently, there¡¯s a mage staff (Death Breath), and a sword (Ice Cmity).]


    [Racial talent, Splitting Off Bodies of Greed (Legend rank): She can split off small bodies of Greed, which will have part of Harloys¡¯ abilities and characteristics. As long as the separated body remains within a certain distance, it will bepletely under Harloys¡¯ control and can act as her eyes and ears. When people are unlucky, they always think that ck cats, which bring misfortune, are everywhere. As for Harloys, being everywhere is so easy. She¡¯s always capable of transforming into a crow / ck cat / sharp-tongued loli in order tough at your misfortune. System Evaluation: Although this ability hasn¡¯t evolved at all, due to Harloys¡¯ overall increase in power, each of her Greed bodies¡¯ power has also significantly increased. If you don¡¯t want to be killed off by this loli, then don¡¯t anger her.]


    [Racial talents, shadow teleportation and Ice Cmity: These are racial talents from the Divine Sin, so please try not to use them in the mortal ne. Otherwise... System Reminder: Both your Chill abilities can¡¯t be used without Harloys, so you should probably carry around some extra catnip with you.]


    [Special Bloodline Ability: living magic bloodline. As a member of the species that created magic, gold elves have talent in magic far surpassing all other species. She is able to analyze any magic in the world after seeing it only twice, learn it, and easily make it stronger than the original version.]


    [System Evaluation: This is your magical pet, but unless you count your cheat-like little world, she¡¯s much stronger than you are. She was never able to reach the peak in the past due to her undead constitution, but now her tens of thousands of years of magical knowledge can finallye in useful. She¡¯s basically a living, walking version of a magical treasure trove. And now... she has reached her peak.]


    My System listed her main statistics and racial talents, and the strongest part about Harloys was still her ridiculously high amount of magical knowledge. And now that she was among the living again, all the magic spells that she wasn¡¯t able to cast before due to being undead had been unlocked. After seeing this evaluation, the pathetic event of me being weaker than my magical pet reurred once again.


    And from what I could tell, as I continued improving my power rank, her growth potential would be higher and higher as well. It seemed likely that the difference between us would grow even further.


    Seeing a massive, faint ck shadow approach us, I had an excellent idea.


    ¡°I choose you! Harloys! Come out, cat!¡± [5] 5


    ¡°Meow!¡± The silly loli pounced and bit me instead.


    ¡°Ah!¡±


    Don¡¯t misunderstand; Harloys wasn¡¯t ying dead. I was the one who needed to worry about the extra ¡°hat¡± on my head.


    Note:


    1. ording to Wikipedia, capsaicin is an activeponent of chili peppers, which are nts belonging to the genus Capsicum. It is an irritant for mammals, including humans, and produces a sensation of burning in any tissue with which ites into contact.


    2. Untrantable joke here. ¡°North Wind¡± is pronounced ¡°Beifeng¡± in Chinese, the same as Beifeng¡¯s name. It¡¯s a homonym.


    3. Doraemon reference.


    4. This part is inconsistent. I am 100% sure the raws say that it¡¯s God rank here. In the next paragraph, however, it is written that Harloys¡¯ racial talent, Transformation, is Epic-ranked. Perhaps the author made a consistency error? I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it happened once, given theplexity of this series :p We are going with Epic rank for the time-being, as I doubt Harloys is at God rank power.


    5. Yes, this is a Pok¨¦mon reference!

 Chapter 234

    Chapter 234: ck Forest


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    In and far, far away, there was a thorny forest within an ancient kingdom. The enchanted magical thorns there were as scary as demons, and blocked all attempts at seeing through whatid behind this forest. Nobody, however, knew that in the middle of that silent forest was an ancient, historical castle, and in the highest level of the castle, that therey a beautiful sleeping princess.


    That pitiful princess was born as such a pretty girl, yet was cursed by a vicious witch to fall into an eternal sleep during her youth, the time of her life when she would be the most beautiful. Only a prince from a distantnd would be able to wake her up with a kiss containing true love.


    She waited and waited for several decades, without a single prince ever arriving. Only after several hundred years passed did the tardy prince finally arrive, after getting lost...


    ¡°Harloys, if you keep messing around by telling stories, I¡¯m going to hang you up on the wall for your terrible narration! I¡¯m capable of doing it!¡±


    The venom-tongued witch was jumping and hopping about in the dark, ck forest while gathering precious nt ingredients into her bag. She was just like a mushroom-picking little girl. However, the additional narrationing from my side made me speechless.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say anything wrong! Just look at this forest; isn¡¯t it the exact same as the one from the fairy tale? Amelia was a former princess as well, and you are indeed a prince; it¡¯s basically like the fairy tale came to life, with the heroic prince slicing through thorny nts in order to save the girl! It¡¯s the childhood dream of every young girl!¡±


    ¡°You are Prince Rnd!


    ¡°She is Princess Amelia Mn!¡±


    ¡°This is the thorny kingdom from the fairy tale!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m the kind fairy that guides the prince!¡±


    The young (fake) loli held an ice flower in her hands and revealed a mesmerized expression. She had even created tiny fairy wings for herself, skipping and dancing around swiftly in midair, with a smile that seemed like she had gone nuts. She was just like a girl in the prime of her youth who had a lowered intelligence as a result of falling in love... I seem to have identally insulted a certain group of people¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªI apologize; don¡¯t mind me.


    She was having lots of fun, while I only felt a headache, heartache, and stomachache. This magical pet of mine was acting too casually. Although she was much livelier after partially letting go of her hatred, and the gears of time, which had stalled for so long on her, were finally turning again, the past Banshee Queen now mysteriously gave the feeling as if she was a mischievousness little girl. But, if you were the one she was toying with, perhaps you wouldn¡¯t be happy about things, either.


    Right now, no matter how much she acted pure and innocent, I didn¡¯t even need to look at that sly look in her eyes or her constantly shaking tail. The emotions in her heart were transmitted to me through our soul connection, and I was well aware that from start to finish, she fully intended to watch me make a fool out of myself.


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s the same! The culprit behind that thorny forest, the antagonist evil witch of that Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, is right before us... right, there¡¯s something differentpared to other fairy tales. The antagonist boss wasn¡¯t defeated even at the end; was it because nobody could do anything to Amelia? That was why they finished with the prince and princess¡¯s blissful life together as the ending, yep, what a terrible ending. It seems that I¡¯ve been wise yet again, discovering the truth without even realizing it. Please call me the perceptive Rnd.¡± [1] 1


    ¡°You¡¯re still as shameless as always...¡±


    The ¡°little fairy¡± was unable to keep up her act anymore as shended on my shoulder. However, I tightly gripped the white sword of ice in my hand. If Harloys wasn¡¯t ying around anymore, it could only mean that there was new trouble looking for us.


    ¡°What is it this time?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t want to know. Fine, you already know.¡±


    ¡°How can I possibly not know!? How can it possibly be this big! Did Amelia steal an ancient Tree of Life from the elves?¡±


    Normal treants [2] 2 were quiterge, but they were still only from four to ten meters tall. They could only be said to be on par with a giant¡¯s size, but now, the tremendous treant before us was so tall that I couldn¡¯t see more than its feet¡ªeven when I stood on tiptoe. It was likely that this treant was taller than even a Titan. At the very least, it seemed to be on the same threat level to me as a certain yellow duck.


    The gigantic treant strode in our direction. With every step it took, the ground trembled mightily. All the magic nts ran for their lives, and when it finally got closer and I could see it more clearly, I identally dropped my sword on the ground as I stared in disbelief at the giant tree before us.


    ¡°Hahaha! Look at its face! It looks exactly like you!¡±


    Alright then, that silly cat was actuallyughing and rolling around on my shoulder as I helplessly gazed at the tall treant. Its carved wooden features just happened to match mine exactly?


    ¡°Hahahaha! And it¡¯s even naked! It looks like all of Karo¡¯s getting to see your naked body¡ªthis is so funny! This is so funny!¡±


    That¡¯s right, the treant was naked. When I took a closer look, I discovered that its body shape was proportional to mine, only with extra tree bark on top. Perhaps, if you looked at it from a distance, it really would seem just like me in person.


    ¡°Amelia, you bastard! What are you thinking!¡±


    I picked up my sword and furiously shouted as I rushed in the direction of the giant treat and towards my death... cough, I take that back. I turned around and ran off when I was halfway through my charge.


    ¡°This enemy is too dangerous! Let¡¯s retreat!¡±


    ¡°Ha... I can¡¯t even breathe anymore from how funny this all is. Let me rest a little¡ªwhy are you running? Kill that treant; do you want everybody to see you naked?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not even as tall as its little toe, and one slice from my sword will likely be nothing more than a mosquito bite. Have you ever heard of a mosquito defeating an elephant? It¡¯s not even apetition.¡±


    ¡°Rnd!¡±


    There wasn¡¯t much reaction from the treant before I started running, but after I did, that treant actually began to chase after me. As it ran, it even shouted my name loudly like an angry housewife, causing a tremendous gust to arise.


    I was running for my life while the ¡°little fairy¡± on my shoulder kept snickering.


    ¡°A Soul World is the reflection of one¡¯s inner mind. See just how important she views you! You¡¯re definitely the most ¡®important¡¯ person in her heart of all.¡±


    Important? Me? Sneaking a quick nce at the astonishingly huge tree chasing after me, Harloys was right in her own way.


    I grit my teeth and suddenly caught the ¡°little fairy¡± who was still rambling on and on, braked, turned around, and tossed her as if she was a javelin.


    ¡°I choose you, Harloys! Go! Big tree, take a look at my loli shield!¡± [3] 3


    Alright then, the system notification was quite urate. Harloys was indeed an excellent tank, but the prerequisite was that she was obedient.


    Halfway to the treant, Harloys transformed into a crow in midair and flew back towards me, using that crow beak of hers to peck at my head. I now had an extra enemy to deal with...


    This was only the beginning of my nightmare. I wasn¡¯t able to find the end of this forest.


    ¡°Those tower-like dandelions have opened up their flowers¡ªso many bones! So beautiful!¡±


    ¡°The hell its beautiful! Those are magical explosives! Those are distributed cluster bombs; hurry up and run!¡±


    Those beautiful silver dandelions sent out their winged seeds with the help of the wind. However, the second onended, there would be a mushroom cloud and a huge hole in the ground.


    ¡°...Nice rose? What¡¯s this? It changed its form, and is now tossing its flower petals at us? These petals actually split open tree bark; are they knives? This smells so sweet, what is it?¡±


    ¡°Rose Executioners. Their instant explosive power is greater than even a Gold-ranked archer¡¯s, and they even have a certain amount of meleebat strength as well. Don¡¯t ask about that sweet scent... forget it, since we didn¡¯t die immediately from inhaling it, it means that this level of poison can¡¯t affect us.¡±


    The fresh red rose garden seemed enough to cover any ins region, and the sweet scent filling the air was actually a toxic poison that was sufficient to instantly kill even a SemiDragon. Since we were fine and didn¡¯t even feel anything from it, it could only mean that our biological systems no longer counted as human.


    ¡°What is that? An apple bomb?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t get close to them! They eat humans! They love eating human organs the most!¡±


    ¡°Those humming ¡®little apples¡¯ were actually massive red apples that jumped up and down ording to some ying music. Not only was this the scariest mental pollution of all, if you touched them identally, they¡¯d even shriek ¡®Don¡¯t touch me, I¡¯m really expensive! You can¡¯t afford me,¡¯ attacking their enemies both physically and mentally.¡±


    ¡°Rnd, this definitely has to be one of your original disgusting designs.¡±


    ¡°...I don¡¯t deny it.¡±


    ¡°A field of sunflowers? So pretty!¡±


    ¡°Duck! It¡¯s a sunflowerser cannon formation. Those who have used it know how effective it can be!¡±


    These magical sunflowers¡¯ only method of attack was to absorb sunlight, store energy, and shoot it out with their magical crystal cores.


    If there was only one sunflower, then that would probably be nothing more than a light burn. However, there was now an endless field of sunflowers before us, and their heat rays were extremely suited for stacking on top of each other and increasing their power. Getting hit would definitely be a pitiful experience.


    ¡°Damn it! What other things are there!¡±


    All those abnormal nts had originally only been ns and designs, but they had all nowe to life. After arriving in this garden, I was now getting somewhat worried about Amelia. These nts seemed like they were beyond her power level. Unless she suddenly had arge increase in her power level, she, too, was having problems.


    There would always be a price to pay for using power above what one could handle. No matter how many aces Amelia had, this Soul World of hers was just far too much. Amelia¡¯s current situation seemed unusual.


    ¡°I hope that she¡¯s alright.¡± I silently increased my pace.


    The slow journey finally neared its end, but when we reached our destination, I was stunned with my mouth wide agape once again.


    ¡°In the deepest part of the thorny forest, there is an ancient castle of white jade, with a white jade staircase leading to the top of the tower. The prince that finally made it through so many difficulties is now starting to hesitate...¡±


    That silly cat started yet another narration, and I didn¡¯t even know how to stop her anymore. After all, right before us was exactly such a fairy-tale-style castle.


    As we approached, just like what was written in the fairy tale, the ck thorns that sealed off the castle automatically retreated and created a path for us.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go! What are we waiting for?¡±


    ¡°Let me sit down for a little while and mentally prepare myself. I think the uing developments will be a bit too much for me to handle. At the very least, I need to prepare for my worldview to be turned upside-down.¡±


    Everything that happened along the way here was ridiculous enough as it was, and if it weren¡¯t for the fact that the return path would be nothing more than the same ridiculousness, I would have long since turned around and left.


    ¡°You still need to say that? Is there anything rted to you that¡¯s not ridiculous?¡±


    [System Notification: You should go now. The King of all Gentlemen is currently observing you.]


    Okay then, just what should Iment about? Harloys who hit me in my weak spot, or the System that always managed to sprinkle salt on my wounds and add fuel to the fire?


    ¡°Why can¡¯t I have normal people around me?!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because you yourself are as far from normal as can be!¡±


    While I was in the midst of agonizing whether or not I should turn around, the main mage headquarters in Karo City was in a busy uproar.


    There would be no city leader anywhere that would be able to ept a forest suddenly popping up in their own city, especially since none of the city¡¯s residents were ever seen alive again after entering that forest.


    Luckily, the highest-ranked person inmand, Kaid, guessed what had happened after seeing a forest pop up in the Earth Elemental ne. He did his best to stabilize the situation.


    ¡°The higher-ups have long since reached their limit on tolerating Teacher Amelia¡¯s actions. If she gets caught conducting some forbidden experiments or causing some huge incident, perhaps, at the very minimum she¡¯ll lose her status as a teacher.¡±


    Kaid did his best to suppress any information from leaking after taking into consideration the fact that they were old acquaintances. He only told others that this was a special experiment. However, dimensional connections were going to be reestablished soon, and the Mage Country was certain to send a special envoy to understand more about the situation over here. If that abnormal forest was still there when the envoy arrived, there would be no way possible to conceal it.


    ¡°There¡¯s still no news about Teacher Amelia? What about the result of the divination magic? Is there still no result yet? Is she currently stuck in her own Soul World?¡±


    Divination for a certain person or object¡¯s location was one of the few reliable types of divination magic of this highly unreliable branch.


    However, Kaid¡¯s two students Atadia and Soranto awkwardly exchanged nces with each other, not knowing how to reply. Finally, Atadia furrowed his eyebrows while telling Kaid about the vastly unexpected divination result.


    ¡°Our divination result shows us that Teacher Amelia isn¡¯t actually within that forest.¡±


    This divination result could only give answers like ¡°Yes¡± or ¡°No,¡± but this answer obviously surprised Kaid as well. It was the most basic knowledge that Soul Worlds couldn¡¯t be separated from their masters, so could this forest not be a Soul World as well?


    ¡°But the strange part is, when we used Divination Magic to find out if Teacher Amelia was still within Karo City, the answer was a yes.¡±


    ¡°Finally, we decreased the radius of our search parameters for the Divination Magic, and the end result still pointed us to that forest.¡±


    ¡°In the end, we finally came up with only one possibility. The divination result also supports ourpletely inexplicable conclusion.¡±


    Upon hearing this,rge beads of sweat began forming on Kaid¡¯s forehead. He had already guessed the possibility.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that this entire forest is...¡±


    And in the deepest part of the forest, I hade to the exact same conclusion.


    ¡°This entire forest is Amelia herself! All of these countless magical nts are part of her body. This entire ck forest is herplete form.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s literally insane! Is a human body supposed to be modified like this?¡±


    ¡°You dare to speak of her? Aren¡¯t we the same?! We stopped being human long ago.¡±


    Note:


    1. This is Harloys speaking.


    2. In EFT¡¯s trantions, the term ¡®dendroid¡¯ was used. However, from now on, we are changing ¡®dendroid¡¯ to ¡®treant¡¯ or ¡®tree warrior,¡¯ where both are interchangeable. The previous urrences of ¡®dendroid¡¯ will be changed to ¡®treant¡¯/¡¯tree warrior¡¯ for consistency in the near future.


    3. Another reference to Pok¨¦mon!

 Chapter 235

    Chapter 235: Good Morning


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Amelia Mn was born in the year 145 A.D. as the third princess of the royal family. She was considered intelligent since birth and began learning magic from the Mage Country Arlodant at the tender age of five. After her younger brother inherited the throne, she didn¡¯t care about her status as a princess and became a teacher of the Cloud Tower. Still, the Bardi Empire forever recognized her status as a royal, and she was currently number sixty-seven in the line of inheritance.


    However, if you took the time to read through the Bardi Empire¡¯s own records, there would only be some meaningless information.


    Actually, only one word could describe the original stories regarding Amelia¡ªwitch.


    Ever since she was born, she was viewed as a strange one. She never acted naughty or noisy like other young children. She was always sitting there by herself, not crying or smiling, just like a wooden puppet.


    Even her birth mother and everyone around her suspected that something must have been wrong with her intelligence at the time. However, the first time that she ever spoke, she caused a huge amount of trouble.


    ¡°Mother, why do you all have to kill those cuties in the garden? Their cries are so pitiful, so why is everyone ignoring their pleas for help? Don¡¯t you always tell me to help the weak and helpless?¡±


    The young Amelia was unable to understand why those vicious-seeming adults with gardening scissors were destroying the tiny lives of those pitiful, screaming nts. No matter how pitifully those nts screamed, nobody would ever help them.


    ¡°Perhaps nobody can hear them because they¡¯re too small. Since you all can¡¯t hear them, allow me to be their helper.¡±


    And so, Amelia took action herself.


    ¡°Uncle tree, help us out. Take care of that bad person with the big scissors.¡±


    Just as everyone was celebrating that the princess had spoken for the first time in her life, misfortune descended upon them.


    A mere young child¡¯s words became an order that transformed the tremendous rubber tree in the garden into a human-eating tree monster that swallowed the enemy of the nts, the gardener, in a single gulp.


    ¡°Save us! Guards! Where are the guards!?¡±


    ¡°Ahhh! There¡¯s a man-eating monster!¡±


    The numerous tree monsters that suddenly appeared in the royal garden caused a huge panic. Amongst all the chaos, there was a tiny princess who stood out from the others. She was currently smiling sweetly at the many nts in the royal garden.


    ¡°Rx. From now on, Amelia won¡¯t allow anyone to ever bully you again.¡±


    All the fresh flowers and trees in the forest shook, and flower petals and fruitsnded in her hands. These seemed to be small gifts, as if the nts were thanking Amelia¡¯s kindness to them.


    For the young Amelia, she viewed this as helping the weak, an act of justice. However, for everyone else, they saw the little princess causing a huge disaster the first time that she ever talked, transforming the trees into monsters that ate an innocent gardener using only the power of her words.


    There were well over one hundred people present for that incident in the royal garden. Everyone now viewed Amelia, who had trod over the gardener¡¯s corpse and fresh blood to greet the nts in a friendly manner, as the most abnormal existence of all.


    The Bardi Emperor¡¯s strictmand for everyone to seal their lips still couldn¡¯t stop rumors spreading of how the third princess was a witch. Every time that Amelia walked somewhere, she would see others looking at her with hatred and fear, always whispering unpleasant things about her.


    ¡°Look! That¡¯s the cursed witch. Her first words ever were a curse.¡±


    ¡°That look in her eyes is so scary! Don¡¯t look at me...¡±


    ¡°She nced over at me! Am I going to be cursed?¡±


    ¡°There are even rumors that say that I¡¯m a witch. It¡¯s all because of that strange child that caused even His Majesty to disdain me.¡± Even Amelia¡¯s mother, the emperor¡¯s concubine, hated her own second daughter.


    At the time, the Bardi Empire¡¯s royal power wasn¡¯t stable yet. In fact, there were political enemies that often attacked the as-of-then weak Bardi royalty, which gave the Bardi Emperor at the time plenty of headaches. He already had five children and never liked this strange daughter of his to begin with, and even considered exiling her.


    Originally, with both internal and external pressure, especially with both of her parents disliking her, the best possible result for Amelia should have been to live all alone in a nun cloister somewhere. Luckily for her, she caught the attention of the Bardi royal archmage at the time, Antonius.


    ¡°She isn¡¯t a witch at all. She just has a natural talent formunicating with nts. This child was basically born to be a mage. Little Amelia, would you like toe with this old man to Arlodant to learn magic? You¡¯ll meet many youngpanions just like you in Arlodant.¡±


    Amelia unhesitatingly nodded because she could detect kind intentions from the old grandpa,pared to everyone else¡¯s fear or hatred of her.


    Actually, everyone had underestimated Amelia¡¯s abilities from the very start. She didn¡¯t have something as simple as the ability tomunicate with nts¡ªher natural talent was the entire Concept of ¡°Communication.¡±


    No matter if it was nt, animal, or human, she couldmunicate with anything through her consciousness alone. In others¡¯ eyes, she may have been a strange child that didn¡¯t know how to speak or show any emotions, but she was alwaysmunicating with her surroundings through the power of her natural talent.


    Her incredibly pure natural talent was far too powerful, which actually wasn¡¯t a good thing. Amelia was still young and had a simple way of looking at things in life, while there were too many around her with numerous desires and evil intentions that Amelia found it all difficult to ept.


    Her ability wasn¡¯t mind reading. It was a simple, directmunication of sorts. If I tried my best toe up with a suitable analogy, perhaps I should describe her power as the ability to ¡°see through someone¡¯s desires.¡±


    She hated her own maids. Their empty minds had nothing but money and gossip. She hated her brothers. Their immature bodies and minds were filled with carnal lust and ambition. She even hated her own mother and father. Her mother only treated her as a tool to gain the Bardi Emperor¡¯s favor, while her father, the Bardi Emperor, was busy with political affairs and scheming every day.


    The glorious-seeming royal pce was inwardly filled with nothing but filth. After some time, Amelia even began to hate all of humanity. She loathed this species that was filled with endless greed and desires.


    nts were simple existences that only needed sunlight, water, and nutrients. They became her haven. She would often avoid everyone else and walk around by herself in the royal garden, not even returning to her room when it waste at night, which actually added to her reputation as a witch.


    When Amelia decided for herself to leave her home and be a mage in the Mage Country, the true feelings she sensed behind all the ¡°congrattions,¡±¡±how nice,¡±¡±I¡¯m so happy for you,¡± and so on gave her zero intention of ever returning to her home country.


    ¡°Perhaps things will be different in the Mage Country. At the very least, I won¡¯t be considered the only abnormal one there.¡±


    But, sadly for her, humans were humans. There was even more greed, desire, and ambition there. Amelia viewed all these people to be as iprehensible as aliens. It was only that this time, as Amelia grew up and mentally matured, she learned how to hide her true thoughts so that she didn¡¯t appear to be too different on the surface.


    As for her natural talent ofmunication, that helped her to make the rapidest progress of all in the area of nt magic. Magic was supposed to be the process of searching for the truth to begin with, and as she had the talent of ¡°Communication,¡± it was no different than having a cheat activated to help her grow. It wasn¡¯t long before she became the youngest high-level teacher of all time in the Mage Country, before she even reached the age of twenty.


    Yet no matter how much stronger she grew in magic, there was no foundational change in her as a person. She was still that witch who hated humans. As for why she was always described as having ¡°stormy emotions,¡± it wasn¡¯t because of her seemingly random way of treating some strangers politely while treating other strangers incredibly rudely¡ªit was actually because she could see through anyone and if they had good or bad intentions.


    Due to her hatred of humans and love of simpler life forms, her sense of values was different from most people. In her mind, simple, cute nts had far more value than dirty humans. She even began to hate her own identity as a human. That was why, in order to approach her own mental image of a perfect existence, she unhesitatingly used her colleagues and acolytes as experimental subjects to make future preparations for her own personal body modifications.


    Most crazy people believe that the world was crazy while they were actually the only normal person around. If this was the standard used to measure insanity, then Amelia was doubtlesslypletely insane, as she always believed herself to be the only normal person out there.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have friends, I don¡¯t have enemies (because they¡¯re all dead), I don¡¯t have a lover... I don¡¯t have any of those hated two-legged animals in my life. Ahh, what a joyous life I have.¡±


    And just as she began shutting herself off in her own little world, believing this to be how life should be lived, she met a new acolyte, the Rnd from that year.


    ¡°Ah, there¡¯s actually such a pure person?¡±


    Don¡¯t get me wrong¡ªRnd from that year had just crawled out of the grave. What was pure about him definitely wasn¡¯t kindness; he had just been betrayed by the entirety of human society, so his pureness was pure hatred and desire for revenge against the entire world.


    ¡°Even though he appears to be smiling so sunnily on the surface, his only desire is simple destruction and revenge. Not only that, he¡¯s not targeting any specific person, he¡¯s targeting the entirety of humanity. Ahh, so beautiful! ¡®Something as scummy as humanity doesn¡¯t even need to exist in this world; this world doesn¡¯t need a savior! Just let everything be destroyed.¡¯ His understanding of how things should be is truly amazing.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the way I was in the past created this maniacal witch of today. Back when I was treating humans as nothing more than ants to be stepped on, I didn¡¯t know at all that I was being a source of pollution that was infecting Amelia with hatred.


    And after Amelia chose me as her acolyte, the two of us that both hated humanity now began walking down the same path. On the surface, I was researching ice magic while she was researching nt magic, but in actuality, I was researching undead creation while she was researching forbidden animal and ntbination magic. Neither of us had any limits or moral boundaries of any kind, and we influenced each other as well, bing worse and worse.


    For Amelia back in that year, she considered me to be a true friend that understood her, someone which she would never meet again in a thousand years. I was the only person in the world who she could be honest and direct with. Imperceptibly, she sunk farther than even she expected.


    nts were simple butcked intelligence. The most they could do was listen to Amelia¡¯sints, but of course it was impossible for them to react in any way. However, humans were social creatures by nature, and all humans desired tomunicate with others, desiring to be recognized, trusted, and known by others. Even Amelia, who believed that she had gotten used to and enjoyed being alone, was no exception.


    After Amelia, who had been alone for the past over one hundred years, opened up her heart for the first time to this ¡°male childhood friend¡± of hers, she really treated me well, not holding back at all on teaching magical knowledge. In fact, she was a little naggy and obsessive about it, which helped me greatly.


    And when I got what I needed, and obtained the power to take my revenge, I unhesitatingly sold out Amelia right before leaving for my journey of revenge.


    During my studies in the Cloud Tower, I did make some true friends as well. Although my desire for revenge had never been shaken, I unhesitatingly reported Amelia just for the sake of Kaid and my other friends¡¯ safety in the future.


    Of course, Amelia found it impossible to understand such feelings. She only found it strange, strange and iprehensible.


    ¡°Why did you betray me? why did you betray me so unemotionally, without any rage, without any desire for revenge, without any ambition, without even any personal benefits? It¡¯s basically like ¡®The sun ising up from the east, it¡¯s probably going to rain today. I¡¯m in a good mood, let¡¯s go report Amelia,¡¯ and just betray me with a state of mind as if it was only natural... is it only because I¡¯m still a human? I¡¯m what he hates?¡±


    My leaving sunk Amelia into a state of utter confusion and despair. Perhaps the fact that shepletely abandoned her identity as a human not long after was also rted to this.


    When Amelia finished dealing with the trouble I left behind for her and decided to confidently go looking for me for revenge, she heard the news of her ¡°acolyte¡¯s¡± death.


    Amelia, who had always had an icy nature, met with a furious surge of emotions for the first time in her life, but those emotions weren¡¯t the joy that she was expecting. Instead, she felt angry, unwilling, despairing, lost, and sad. She found, to her astonishment, that she had a heartache¡ªnot because of the pain of betrayal, but from the pain of losing the one person who knew her best. That pain felt like someone was digging into her skin and tortured her for a long time afterwards.


    She thought of how she could never see that person she loved to hate so much. She thought of how she would never be able to see that fake smile on the surface again, how she would never be able to see that person who understood her way of thinking, how she would never be able to truly open up and talk to another again, and how she had forever lost this only haven of hers. Amelia felt a heartache for the first time in her life, but she didn¡¯t even know where her heart was anymore. At that time, Amelia regretted for the first time that she had abandoned her human body, abandoning her ability to cry.


    From that day on, time stopped flowing for Amelia... she was still alive, but only that. She once again shut herself within a box with nobody else inside, and used a false mask when dealing with everyone else.


    And three hundred plus yearster, fate caused us two with such a love-hate rtionship to meet each other again, and helped Amelia¡¯s gears of time to begin turning once more. But this time, when we met, Amelia once again didn¡¯t know what to do or think.


    She had expected that I would be shocked, afraid, or even instantly attempt escaping when I saw her. And although I indeed acted like I wanted to escape, and never stoppedining on the surface, her own ability told her that I was quite happy to meet her again, happy to see her, happy to have a reunion with her!


    At that moment, the hundreds of years of grudges and dissatisfaction all vanished, and she almostughed out loud from the joy in her heart. She was only forceful in her words and threats but not actions, because at that moment, Amelia finally came to a realization and noticed what she truly felt.


    ¡°I was actually in love with him...¡±


    Researching nt magic? Everything was only an excuse or a fake reason. ¡°I want to be by his side¡± was actually the source of everything.


    ¡°He already has a girlfriend... well, I only wanted a friend anyways¡ªyep¡ªit¡¯s fine as long as I have fun by his side.¡±


    Amelia¡¯s strong sense of pride made her abandon thoughts ofpeting for me, and even made her unwilling to express her emotions to Rnd. ¡°Being friends¡± was enough for her, even if it was just an excuse that she used in order to numb herself.


    As for her behavior in attempting to learn how to cook, that was just another way of her disying her unwillingness to lose.


    But, a certain rash person¡¯s actions broke that excuse of hers that even she didn¡¯t believe in.


    That appeal for love and all those flowers on that street couldn¡¯t possibly fool Amelia. She only took one second to understand my true intentions with her ability, but Amelia was shaken by this chance that would nevere for her again once in a thousand years.


    ¡°As long as I ept¡ªno¡ªas long as I don¡¯t severely refuse him, we¡¯ll be viewed as lovers by everyone, and he¡¯ll even be the one that was chasing after me...¡±


    In the end, she made her decision, and even personally helped make those scandalous rumors spread even faster. She was even rted to the fact that those rumors reached Elisa¡¯s ears as if rumors could grow wings... Even she herself didn¡¯t know why she did all that. Probably, she could only barelye up with half a reason¡ªthis was her instinctual method of dering a challenge, hoping for a directpetition.


    But after that battle, she sunk into hesitation and confusion due to being overly shaken.


    ¡°I don¡¯t even have a normal physical body anymore, nor can I possibly have a normal child. Will he mind?¡±


    ¡°My reputation is so bad, and I¡¯ve done many bad deeds¡ªwill he hate me if he knows?¡±


    ¡°Although he only views me as a friend, at least it¡¯s better than what he sees that Elisa as. Rnd only views that girl as family, as if she¡¯s his own daughter. At the very least, Rnd still views me as a woman.¡±


    ¡°I...¡±


    Countless thoughts kept her mind in constant turmoil. She hadn¡¯t fully recovered from her injuries from the battle at Red Maple Castle yet, and now she just finished fighting with Emordilorcan. In order to perform to her fullest in this Earth Elemental ne thatcked the wind and water elements, Amelia had worked harder and paid more of a price than what she appeared on the surface.


    Now that she was in such a weakened state and a confused state of mind, it caused her to lose control of her entire physical body, revealing her truest form¡ªa pitch-ck forest. Her own personal consciousness right now was just like that of an ostrich that had stuck its head into the ground, sinking into a deep form of sleep.


    ¡°I should just continue sleeping like this; everything won¡¯t be so bothersome anymore... What will Rnd do? Will he be sad if he notices that I¡¯m no longer around anymore? Will he still be together with that little girlfriend of his? Will he forget about me? Will he forget about this foolish woman who doesn¡¯t even dare to confess to him? Will he forget about this foolish woman who doesn¡¯t know how to do any housework whatsoever?¡±


    Her consciousness kept floating around for what she felt an unknown length of time. It wasn¡¯t that she was unable to control the situation outside¡ªit was that Amelia unconsciously gave up on attempting to control her physical body under all her selfints and self-regret. She had trapped herself within high walls of her own construction. However, finally, there was a familiar knock on her mental door.


    ¡°Hey, my dear sleeping beauty, it¡¯s time for you to wake up. If you keep sleeping, you¡¯re going to miss my birthday party. It¡¯s going to be really awesome; you¡¯ll really regret it if you don¡¯t go.¡±


    Was this another hallucination? Why did this hallucination seem so real, then? That familiar smile even had some rare sincerity beneath it, but the joy and delight at seeing her seemed all so familiar to her, as if it was long ago, when this no-good acolyte of hers had cooked breakfast and was attempting to wake his teacher that had pulled yet another all-nighter experimenting.


    ¡°Good morning, Rnd.¡±


    The red-faced Amelia didn¡¯t know why she had replied with something so empty, but she saw that Rnd felt surprised for a moment upon hearing this, before he smiled just as always in the past.


    ¡°Good morning, Amelia. It¡¯s delightful to be able to see you again.¡±


    The witch¡¯s face instantly became burning hot, and unbeknownst to her, her smile arced upwards. She nodded ever so slightly, while sheined in a tiny voice that only she could hear.


    ¡°He¡¯s so sly with what he¡¯s thinking! That Rnd, he¡¯s basically cheating...¡±

 Chapter 236

    Chapter 236: Going Home


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Good morning, Amelia. It¡¯s delightful to be able to see you again.¡±


    I had a smile as bright as the sun and felt delighted from the bottom of my heart. I gave her a warm embrace. For Amelia who wasn¡¯t prepared for all this, it was basically like an irresistible toxic poison. Amelia¡¯s face was so red from embarrassment that she didn¡¯t even know what she was thinking or saying anymore.


    An embrace? That¡¯s right. Amelia was currentlypletely ¡°naked,¡± with only a cape covering the most important parts, lying in my arms.


    ¡°Let me go!¡±


    Amelia finally noticed the situation that she was in, and she began struggling as she hadn¡¯t mentally prepared herself for the next step yet or to get married.


    ¡°Don¡¯t move!¡±


    A low angry roar suddenly stunned Amelia. This was the first time that Rnd had ever gotten angry at her, and Amelia paused in stupefaction as she watched his face getting closer and closer to her.


    ¡°Could it be that he wants to... at such a ce?¡±


    Rnd seemed to be checking something as he lowered his head, and Amelia¡¯s heart was filled with shock and disbelief as his familiar face got closer and closer. However, her entire body felt so soft that she couldn¡¯t work up any energy.


    She mysteriously lost the willpower to resist, and could only watch his familiar face continue to get closer to her. She allowed him to randomly touch her body as he pleased.


    ¡°...There still hasn¡¯t been a confession yet; I¡¯m definitely not someone who¡¯s so casual! At least¡ªat least there needs to be a confession first, and I need to be mentally prepared! I hate perverted things the most!¡±


    She didn¡¯t know how, but she somehow recovered some strength and viciously pped Rnd. If Amelia had been just a normal girl, it would have been an ordinary reaction of embarrassment, but a certain witch always possessed mysterious strength. This reaction of embarrassment was more than enough to kill a dragon.


    ¡°It¡¯s good that you¡¯re still in good condition and awake; now hurry up and control those rampaging... ah!¡±


    Alright, I was unlucky enough to be treated as a pervert and sent flying by her mega p before Amelia had regained her senses and noticed what was going on. I hadn¡¯t been able to finish speaking.


    ¡°...Since you¡¯re awake now, stop watching already! Hurry up and control those wild nts that are chasing after us!¡±


    Amelia¡¯s three Virtues, the huge Rnd treant, the rose garden, and everything that was capable of moving had followed me. If Amelia had woken up just one tiny bitter, perhaps I would be nothing more than nt food.


    Amelia was the core of this forest. Since her consciousness¡¯s core had been taken away by me, it was basically the same as someone grabbing away her heart. Naturally, every single magical nt in this forest would furiously chase after me and attack me in an attempt to steal back its heart.


    After figuring out her own misunderstanding, Amelia really wanted to go hide herself in a hole somewhere, while Harloys casually said a sentence.


    ¡°Heroine, you read too much into things.¡±


    Alright then, when Amelia discovered that there truly was someone else who saw through her intentions, Amelia really did attempt to dig a hole to bury herself in.


    Since I went flying, it was only natural that the cape covering Amelia ended up falling to the ground. Amelia reflexively attempted to cover herself with her hands, but although she was ¡°naked,¡± that was only her upper half. Her entire lower half from the waist down resembled roots, and scales that resembled tree bark also covered her body. It was obvious that she was no longer fully human.


    When the witch took a nce at Rnd who was flying in the air and saw how he couldn¡¯t possibly see the way she looked, she heaved a sigh of relief for a reason unknown to herself.


    With Amelia¡¯s awakening, everything around us slowly returned to normal.


    The forest started contracting, and all its partsbined back together with her. All these magical nts transformed back into seeds and Concepts, and soon, a brand-new Amelia was reformed. This entire area was now covered with her hair¡¯s green strands, which transformed into a grass carpet that absorbed this magical forest.


    ¡°Here, wear this.¡±


    Harloys helped Amelia put on that white cape that had fallen off earlier, while Amelia unhesitatingly put it on without worrying about her nakedness. As for Rnd? I was busy figuring out how to dig myself out of the hole I was now buried in from the impact of flying.


    ¡°Why am I the one that¡¯s always injured?¡± When I finally managed to crawl out of the hole, I barely got the chance toin before both Harloys and Amelia rolled their eyes at me while adding insult to injury.


    ¡°You deserve it.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all your fault.¡±


    Although I didn¡¯t know exactly what had happened just now, I was obviously doing a good deed for once, making it through all those forest levels with great difficulty and being chased all the way. But then I mysteriously got beaten up and then had both of them re at me.


    I kept feeling like I identally pissed someone off. Could it be that the entire universe hated me? Why do I so easily choke while drinking water or randomly trip over on t ground?


    However, I felt relieved at seeing how Amelia was fine in the end. After all these years, I didn¡¯t have many old friends left alive, and out of the living people I knew, there were more enemies than friends... Why do I keep feeling I¡¯m so pitiful the more I go on about it? I do have some friends, after all, even if I didn¡¯t contact them in a few centuries (Kaid: You bastard, you probably just forgot about me), as well as my bro, even though he sliced me twice (Adam: Do you intend to remember that forever?), and even rtives (Karwenz from the Abyss: Brother, are you calling for me?). Oh right, I even have a girlfriend as well (Elisa who¡¯s currently sharpening her sword: Heh heh, I¡¯m waiting for you toe back.)


    Alright, in order to avoid spreading salt on my own wounds, I should stop giving examples. In this day and age, chuunibyous were the most popr, lone wolves were the mainstream, harem protagonists would be bestsellers, and something like friends werepletely unimportant... I¡¯m definitely not jealous or anything of people that have lots of friends. Yep, I have plenty of friends, including in this Earth Elemental ne, such as Kaid¡ªsuch as a certain Kaid¡ª such as... such as Beifeng...? [System: Are you asking me?]


    Just thinking about Beifeng and his new friend that was several hundred meters long, I unhesitatingly eliminated him from my list of possible friends. I did my absolute best to bury him within the deepest recesses of my memory. Alright then, it should be about time for us to leave the Earth Elemental ne anyways, so why don¡¯t we just leave? Beifeng? Who¡¯s that? A local resident here? I have no impression of him at all.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that too heartless of you? Didn¡¯t he just help you out?¡±


    ¡°I did want to reward him, so what do you think of the title ¡°Mist Alliance Eastern Mist Communal Country¡¯s highest-level diplomatic officer sh head military officer sh immigration officer sh trantor sh janitor to the Earth Elemental ne? I think that¡¯s an excellent title; he should be more than happy to stay behind in this world to enjoy life with his newpanions.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t even a joke. After any battle would typically be postbat dealings to discuss the future benefits to be gained from the territory, and after paying so much of a price here and killing Emordilorcan with great difficulty, would we leave just like that? Giving these benefits to be gained to someone else? That would be an obvious waste.


    With evidence that various other organizations had set up camp here, this Earth Elemental ne that seemed like a wastnd was actually a treasure trove of abundant resources. Pretty much any tiny rock that could be picked up was valuable as long as someone was willing to make the effort. Having outposts here was valuable to every faction.


    Let¡¯s use the Mage Country¡¯s outpost, Karo City, as an example. In order to defend against the fearsome sandstorms, the spell array for the anti-sandstorm barrier cost a significant amount to maintain, and the highest-ranked city guardians had to have highbat strength, not to mention the cost of dimensional transportation. In order to create at least a medium-sized outpost, which could collect and mine materials and transport them back to the mortal ne as well as have sufficient military strength to deal with potentially dangerous situations, the cost for all this would be astronomical.


    It was obvious that neither the Mist Alliance, which was still under construction, nor the dirt-poor East Mist Communal Country would be able to pay therge price required to establish an outpost here. However, by the time the Mist Alliance really did need the resources here, the most valuable territories in the Earth Elemental ne would likely have long since been imed by others. Wanting to take over territory then would probably be extremely impractical.


    ¡°That¡¯s why, Beifeng, your task is to establish our territory. You don¡¯t have to do anything at all; you just have to let others see you around.¡±


    Yes, this was an outright grabbing of territory. As long as Beifeng took his Sand Worm army with him and went around, making it known that he was iming thisnd, I had confidence that the other factions wouldn¡¯t dare to try using force topete with us for territory.


    Well, it was a good idea, and my n was a solid one. But whenever something involved Beifeng, things would always get distorted in the end...


    Afterwards, I endlessly regretted my decision. As I expected, it waspletely wrong of me to put any hopes upon Beifeng. That guy didn¡¯t stay in the Earth Elemental ne for long before he came up with an abnormal idea to deal with the task I gave him; his idea even caused damage to my reputation.


    What did he do? He created countless numbers of signs that he hung on his Sand Worms and other followers: ¡°Mist Alliance Eastern Mist Communal Country Earth Elemental ne Vice Immigration Officer¡± was an ancient sand dragon that was charmed by him, ¡°Mist Alliance Eastern Mist Communal Country Earth Elemental ne Head Immigration Officer¡± was arge earth spider of some sort, and various strange creatures all received signs indicating their positions from him. In the end, the entire Earth Elemental ne became their campground, the legendarynd of Beifeng¡¯s cult.


    It wasn¡¯t limited to that. Since I casually gave Beifeng the authority as the head of everything here, he really did have the authority to give out other positions, which was how all these strange creatures became part of the Mist Alliance. Later on, when we had time to spare to develop this area, not only did we have to deal with the fact that all other factions looked at us as if we were aliens, there was also the fact that our new allies were quite strange as well.


    ¡°What? This Sand Worm is my boss? Does he even know how to do anything other than eat and dig holes?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no helping it. ording to the structural organization, he is indeed your boss, but we can just pretend he doesn¡¯t exist... Think of it from a different angle¡ªhaving this type of boss is pretty nice; at the very least he won¡¯t randomly tell you what to do. Yep, just think of it like that; otherwise, you¡¯ll get angry like your predecessor and spurt blood.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t even all that bad, since at the very least that Sand Worm was quickly fired from his position due to petition¡± for his position and not fulfilling his position¡¯s duties. The other original residents of the Earth Elemental ne were actually assiduous and did their best, performing even better than the government officials that we sent. Not to mention that on top of their excellent work performances, they were more used to the local environment to begin with, which made me speechless.


    The final result was that this location became the home of both native elemental creatures as well as species from outside. I even had to prepare tours to the mortal nes as rewards for the most outstanding workers, which caused a huge amount of trouble and became a joke in others¡¯ eyes. Just look at some examples¡ªI had to prepare an onsen [1] 1 as well as arge brush for a mega-sized elemental giant. I had to also help a sand dragon enjoy his own personal snow skiing adventure... If I ever learn which bastard told them about such experiences, I swear that I¡¯ll exile that person to the Earth Elemental ne to shovel sand for the rest of his life!


    And the most troublesome of all was that a certain Dracon spread all sorts of nonsense here and left behind a huge religion of True Love behind him, which became a toxic burden that spread across countless nes. And as the creator of this religion, he became a wanted man by numerous factions, and at the same time this ce actually became that strange cult¡¯s holy ce of origin and main headquarters. Countless numbers of weird creatures started visiting here in order to pray to and trade stories about ¡°Beifeng.¡±


    Yep, by that generation, Beifeng even became a specialized forbidden word, and as for just what his name meant... cough¡ªcough¡ªgood children don¡¯t need to know.


    I was always the butt of numerous jokes because of this. When I finally couldn¡¯t tolerate it anymore and intended to choke that damned Dracon to death, he already ran off to who knew where. As for his ¡°head of everything¡± position that actually somehow became real? He had forgotten it long ago. He never worked for more than a few days to begin with before a new ¡°beauty¡± took away all his attention, so he ended up ying truant to the work he should have been doing for all these years.


    Cough, I should stop talking about future events now. At the very least, I was highly satisfied with my decision at the time. Apart from this person before me whose ability to survive was stronger than even cockroaches from the Mars [2] 2 , I couldn¡¯t think of anyone better for this job.


    ¡°Go take that duck of mine and stop it in the area that I marked out. I doubt that anyone will dare to move it. Rx, when have I gone back on any of my promises? If you do a good job, I¡¯ll reward you with everything I promised. Yep, you¡¯re now my head officer in charge of everything here, so do a good job for me!¡±


    After I finally got rid of the troublesome Beifeng, I turned my attention to Harloys and Amelia who were waiting for me next to the dimensional teleportation gate. They seemed to be in a rush to return to the mortal ne.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go back already; I have several new experimental research projects that I want to undertake.¡±


    The tall and slender witch had already recovered her typical gentle aura, and she was naturally reading a cooking guide (Complete Edition on How to Poison Others) under a parasol. It seemed like she didn¡¯t care about anything at all, butpared to her previous distant aura, I kept feeling like there was something additional in it.


    ¡°Is there any use in telling Beifeng so many things? Do you really think that he¡¯ll do as you want? I can guarantee that the moment he gets tired of the creatures in this ne, he¡¯ll run off immediately.¡±


    Alright, Harloys¡¯ opinion happened to match mine exactly. But hey, you fake loli, could you stop eating candy on my neck? Even if you have to eat candy, don¡¯t talk while eating! You¡¯re dripping saliva on my head! It¡¯s so sticky!


    ¡°We¡¯ll just have to do the best with who we have. Right, Kaid, it¡¯s enough to take us here, you don¡¯t need to...¡±


    I knew that I had wasted my words. This old lolicon was currently in a stupor as he stared at the loli on my head, seeming to have lost himself. Judging by the fact that he had such a foolish expression with a lollipop in each hand, he hadpletely ruined his own image as an archmage.


    At the very least, his disciples behind him were all covering their faces, not daring to look at him. Some of them were even beginning to wonder if they had signed up under the wrong teacher back when they were choosing.


    After some hesitation, I decided against telling this old lolicon that the loli on my head that he was staring at so happily was Teacher Harloys who was famous for being strict back in the day and who even failed him on one of his exams. She punished him by making him hang a sign on his neck indicating his exam failure while hanging upside-down in the za. I¡¯ll refrain from telling him, so that he could have at least this beautiful memory.


    ¡°Cough, why are you being so polite, actually rushing over to return my money. I¡¯m delighted that you¡¯re going to pay off your 30,000 gold debt to me. How about I give you a discount. Since it¡¯s not that easy to carry around so many gold coins, you can just give me one of the gnome bank¡¯s gold exchange tickets...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s only three gold coins! No, that¡¯s wrong, it¡¯s not even a single gold coin! I was almost fooled by you! I finally remember now, you were the one who owed me money! Why did it be that I owed you money!¡±


    ¡°Tsk! Stingy. You finally remembered the moment that you heard about money. Let us forget about such small matters.¡±


    ¡°...Why didn¡¯t you forget about it, then, and you even dare to say such things! You were like this way back in the day as well...¡±


    While chatting about the past, we couldn¡¯t help but chuckle out loud. A meeting between old friends would always end in wanting to chat a lot when it was time to separate. In the end, with Amelia urging us to end things with the look in her eyes, we finally said our goodbyes.


    ¡°Oh right, my shift here in the Earth Elemental ne is almost over. If you have the free time,e find me at the Cloud Tower. There¡¯s news from there that some majorly important person is looking for you, and it¡¯s apparently good news for you. Your teaching certificate is real as well, so you can just enter the Cloud Tower normally.¡±


    After we said our goodbyes, the final sentence he left me with surprised me, but the dimensional teleportation gate had already been activated. I waved my hand to indicate that I heard him, as there was no need to say anything else.


    ¡°Goodbye, old fellow. Live long, so that we can meet each other again.¡±


    As the purple light of dimensional teleportation magic enveloped us, I looked around at the people apanying me one more time. Amelia had long since prepared all her luggage, while Harloys had taken all of Kaid¡¯s candies and was enjoying her sweets. They seemed to be more than ready for our next target as they eagerly awaited the end of the dimensional teleportation.


    Note:


    1. An onsen (ÎÂȪ) is a Japanese hot spring and the bathing facilities and inns frequently situated around them.


    2. A reference to the manga Terra Formars.

 Chapter 237

    Chapter 237: Vacation


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Peace is so wonderful.¡±


    As I sat in the za¡¯s tea house and lightly tasted the fragrant tea in front of me, I felt as if I was leading a blessed life of retirement. I observed the calm winter scene before me.


    Ever since returning to Diffindor, I had been satisfactorily enjoying this calm daily life, without needing to go to work, without needing to n various things, only needing to sit here and watch the sunrise and sunset. What a dreamlike beautiful life it was.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    Yep, it seemed that Glina had arrived for my celebration party as she promised. So what if there was a slight sound of explosions? Everyone had their own hobbies; we should respect others¡¯ freedom.


    ¡°Catch that bastard! He actually dares to get even worse than before!¡±


    So what if there was a group of naked men running around before me? I already experienced so much at Sulfur Mountain City that I had long since gotten used to such things, and the new Town Security squad here seemed to have gotten used to it as well, but...


    ¡°It¡¯s whatever for the others, but if people hear that the highest priest Xueti is involved as well, that¡¯ll affect Wumianzhe¡¯s reputation. It seems that I need to tell Lilith to keep that Tauren under permanent house arrest during the celebration festival. There are so many diplomats from various countries here, so let¡¯s not have him lose face any longer.¡±


    How could these small matters possibly impede me from continuing to ck off¡ªI mean rx in such a good mood? I put in some effort to clear out what had just happened from my memory and poured some more tea for myself. I continued to slowly enjoy my peaceful life.


    And then, a group of winged naked men paraded through the sky...


    *Pu!*


    My eyes were hollow as I gazed at Eaglestorm and his tribe in front of me. Partial transformation was supposed to be a high-level druid technique, so weren¡¯t there too many these days that knew how to do it? When I looked closer, I saw many of the ckwing Tribe. That was Camdian¡¯s follower tribe.


    ¡°I hear that Eaglestorm¡¯s druid sect has been quite sessful recently in expanding their teachings. Last time, when I read the fairies¡¯ report, they actually managed to steal two seats at the druids¡¯ Voice of Nature conference, and even received the right to speak there. That Eaglestorm was even praised as the ¡®most outstanding theoretical revolutionary¡¯ of our generation. As expected, all druids¡¯ brains are just mush; if this sect keeps spreading, there¡¯s going to be more and more winged tribes that don¡¯t wear clothes, which will be nothing more than mental pollution... I should give a heads-up to Town Security, yep, and they can even be target practice for our anti-air troops. No need to thank me; everyone has the responsibility to prevent cults from spreading. Please call me your friendly neighborhood Spiderman.¡±


    ¡°Selling potions, a big sale on alchemic potions! Complete effectiveness on anything from healing to keeping healthy. More than ten Gold-ranked alchemists worked together on these products, and everymon potion can be found, at half price to boot! What are you waiting for? Anything that you want, we have in stock. Sex change potion? Super hair growth potion? Blue mighty man potion? [1] 1 Take a look, it¡¯s our safe brand! And it¡¯s definitely effective! Definitely safe!¡±


    I looked at the gnome and his cart of potions walk in front of me with the familiar Beyar brothers¡¯ ¡°safe brand¡± on it. Most importantly, I even saw the ¡°Miracle Alchemist¡± Olive¡¯s brand on those potions; so, for the sake of Diffindor¡¯s citizens¡¯ safety as well as next year¡¯s cleanliness rating, I unhesitatingly began writing my second report against someone.


    Hmm? Why did I absolutely have to report against the Miracle Alchemist¡¯s brand? Olive didn¡¯t have that nickname at the time; her current nickname was ¡°Alchemist of Randomness.¡± Her potion ingredients were random, their effects were random, the targets were random, and one batch of potions could have more than ten different effects. Who would dare touch such things?


    ¡°...Mommy. Why does that gnome not have any fur?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t look; let¡¯s hurry and go.¡±


    Alright, I retract my previous statement. At the very least, this acolyte had professional ethics and tested the potion himself. Although this hair removal potion was a little too strong in its effectiveness, at the very least it worked, didn¡¯t it?


    Although having fur all over their bodies was basically the symbol of being a gnome, and a furless gnome was even more ridiculous in appearance than a hairless skan husky dog, this acolyte¡¯s willingness to sacrifice himself was praiseworthy.


    ¡°...I clearly drank a height-increasing potion. Man, those advertisements really can¡¯t be trusted.¡±


    Alright, this muttering didn¡¯t escape my ears. I added yet another example to my report.


    I knew that this wasn¡¯t because Olive¡¯s alchemy level wasn¡¯t high enough. It was rather the opposite. She had too many ideas¡ªshe always loved changing the potion¡¯s form and creating new potion forms. As a result, many dangerous products would be created.


    Normally speaking, these products shouldn¡¯t have had an opportunity to be sold outside, but unfortunately, Olive¡¯s master, Jinya Beyar, was a pure gnome. How could a gnome possibly waste such valuable resources?


    ¡°Rnd!? Oh, sorry, I mistook you for him.¡±


    The person that suddenly walked past me was a certain witch who was carrying a cauldron filled with unknown objects. Recently, she seemed to have fallen in love with cooking. But now that I had finally returned to the mortal ne, which was filled with abundant tasty foods, how could I possibly volunteer myself to continue working on those damned food achievements?


    ¡°Big sister, are you looking for His Highness Rnd? I saw that he went outside the west gate of town, riding on a horse. He probably left the city.¡±


    Right now, I was currently pleased with myself at my foresight. In order to seed at cking off¡ªwhoops¡ªI meant quietly being the handsome man I was, I took off my ring that could change my age, and enjoyed my vacation using my true appearance that nobody knew about.


    ¡°Tsk! He escaped again! But I clearly feel that he¡¯s close by... Eh? Little boy, have you eaten lunch yet?¡±


    ¡°I have! I ate an incredible amount for breakfast.¡±


    In Amelia¡¯s cauldron of mysterious objects were tentacles and eyeballs. At such a time, anyone who wasn¡¯t an idiot would instantly refuse and furiously shake their head, but...


    ¡°That¡¯s perfect! I¡¯m worried that you may vomit everything if your stomach was empty. Little boy, be my experiment¡ªwhoops¡ªI mean taste this lunch that I personally cooked myself. I took so long to finish it, so it would be a waste to throw it away.¡±


    I smiled, and then turned around and ran... but the vines beneath my feet instantly hung me upside-down. She had long since anticipated that I would attempt to escape.


    With the terrifying witch forcing me and tying me up tightly all over, I increased all my food achievements by one point again in order to not expose my identity. It must have been difficult of Amelia to make her food into something so disgusting yet somehow not fatal every time.


    ¡°Ptui! Seafood and orange vored? It¡¯s slightly better than herst dish that tasted like burned rubber, but only ever so slightly. It¡¯s even different every time; she¡¯s so creative.¡±


    But the strange thing was that even though she clearly didn¡¯t realize that I was her main target, Amelia actually seemed to be delighted as she watched me eat it all. She even began humming as she cleaned away the dishes.


    ¡°In order to conquer a man, the best way is to conquer his stomach. The best way to a man¡¯s heart is through his stomach, after all. Little boy, what did you think? Was it delicious?¡±


    It was apparent that she had a misunderstanding about this ssical phrase. If the word ¡®conquer¡¯ meant to ¡°kill someone and force them to surrender,¡± then I felt that she had seeded in her goal. At any rate, my stomach had thrown up countless white gs of surrender already, andcked only a tiny bit more to go before it wouldpletely revolt.


    ¡°Beautiful big sister, if I was your target, I have already beenpletely ¡®conquered¡¯ by your cooking. Please give it directly to your target next time; there¡¯s no need to waste food by giving it to someone else.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t because I wanted to suddenly work on my food achievements again, nor was it that I didn¡¯t want Amelia¡¯s hard work to go to waste¡ªI simply didn¡¯t want to see someone die because of her. If even my constitution, which wasn¡¯t human anymore, could suffer to such a degree under her cooking, most normal people would probably instantly die of poisoning.


    It seemed that my sarcasmced words were too indirect. Amelia actually smiled and nodded, and it was evident that she was in an excellent mood.


    ¡°Yep, I won¡¯t let anyone else eat it.¡±


    Alright then, I said goodbye to this ¡°big sister¡± who was preparing to go to another ne in order to gather ingredients for dinner, and seriously considered for about a minute whether I should consider hiding out in this form of mine or really leave the city and escape immediately, but that was when I met a new trouble.


    This time, a group of royal knights ran in front of me, and their eyes were all searching the crowds. It was obvious that they were looking for someone.


    ¡°Has His Highness still not been located yet?¡±


    ¡°Lady Kelly said that if we don¡¯t find His Highness today, none of us need to go back anymore. All of us will be performing a 500-kilometer marathon around the city.¡±


    ¡°All the countries¡¯ diplomats are here, and so many major personages said that they want to meet His Highness Rnd. Just what does His Highness Rnd intend by disappearing like this?¡±


    ¡°The military also said that His Highness Rnd needs to personally go discuss the military parade¡¯s preparations with them; otherwise, they¡¯re going to go on strike if we can¡¯t find him.¡±


    Upon hearing this, I brought out my personal disguise tool¡ªwondrous ck-rimmed sses. As long as I had these, my face would be ignored no matter how close I was to them... Fine then, I was making this part up. I was just curious about how in those famous stories a person who everybody knew so well only needed to wear a pair of sses and a hat and cause nobody to recognize them at all. Sometimes, it was even to the extent of fighting against friends, which would be a heartrending experience.


    However, at the moment, these ssical ck-rimmed sses would act as a double insurance for me. And in order to appear even more convincing, I absolutely needed to bring out the best weapon of children: lollipops. But the strange thing was, when I put on my ck-rimmed sses and brought out my lollipop, those knights actually noticed my presence.


    ¡°Lady Elisa said that His Highness Rnd might disguise himself as a little child, and if we meet someone who suddenly tries to change his outer appearance when he sees us, such as putting on a hat or putting on some sses...¡±


    ¡°She also said that ¡®the old ones really like to use lollipops to pretend to be cute,¡¯ and if we see any child that¡¯s eleven or twelve years old but still sucking on a lollipop, then there¡¯s no mistaking that it¡¯s him.¡±


    What else could I say? I turned around and ran without saying anything.


    Alright, now that I was running, I was considered guilty even if I had really been innocent. Those low-level knights naturally ran after me, and as we ran, we ran into an empty little alleyway.


    Ten-ish secondster, I exited the alleyway, with a horde of tin cans copsed on the ground behind me.


    ¡°You really thought you could take me on? Before you go fishing, you should first consider if your fishing pole can carry the fish¡¯s weight or not. Didn¡¯t Elisa tell you to be careful of me getting angry out of too much embarrassment?¡±


    ¡°Is that Rnd?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but sigh. Why was I always being seen through? It would appear that my disguise was useless, but just as I was preparing myself to use a memory-erasing kick, I saw a nightmarish figure.


    ¡°Little Rolo!¡±


    This figure jumping at me, wasn¡¯t it the ¡°fierce dog¡± Momo that had just finished the task of helping the gray elves to settle in? Of course, there was also Diana who was looking at me with an expression filled with surprise.


    What else could I say? I continued to flee.


    ¡°I¡¯ve had enough! I don¡¯t want to do anything at all until it¡¯s my birthday, and nobody can stop me from having my vacation!¡±


    Note:


    1. Euphemism here, Viagra reference.

 Chapter 238

    Chapter 238: New East Mist


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The current Eastern Mist Communal Country was no longer that former weak and poor small northern country. With new residents, new armies, a new religion, and so many changes, this country had essentially changed at its foundation.


    Its citizens mostly consisted of humans and gray elves. There was no census to count the poption ratio, but no matter what the ratio was, there shouldn¡¯t be too much of a difference between their overall general power ranks. After all, the former Tassel Kingdom was still the strongest of the four northern elven kingdoms, far stronger than the weakest northern country of East Mist. Not to mention that the elves¡¯ individual power ranks were far above that of humans, and there was noparing their high-rankedbat strength and potential, either.


    In order to avoid conflicts from umting over time from both species¡¯ long-term interaction, I refused to do anything typical ording tomon sense. Instead, I forcefully pushed through a mixed-living arrangement policy for humans and elves to live together in the same areas.


    Perhaps, at the beginning, this would cause conflicts and trouble, but over the long term, this would definitely be far better than misunderstandings and differences creatingrger andrger conflicts over time and ending in explosive conflict under the influence of those intentionally sowing discord or those with ambition.


    The People of the Mist was a tribe of many different ethnicities to begin with. It was a cultural product of the citizensing together. Perhaps, as long as I did a good job in dealing with this, I could get this to bepletely culturally epted and be a future leading voice.


    In the north, the Eastern Mist Communal Country was probably the only country with more than one species making up its core. But what was more unique about it was the absolutely special makeup of the country¡¯s upper-level leaders.


    The original Eastern Mist Communal Country was established as amunal country and not a kingdom, because when it was established, it indeed borrowed some mega-level empires¡¯ strength. The founding king Charles was even the archduke of the strong country Yintanlo, and even made a promise to appear as Yintanlo¡¯s dependant state, at least on the surface.


    Charles had the status of a knight that developed a newnd for some major country. The fact that he received material resources and power to back him up, and then became a lord in his own right and swore fealty to the original country were all a normal course of events for any newly-born country.


    However, it wasn¡¯t long before East Mist truly became a country of its own. Charles tore apart the more than ten dependent state agreements that he had signed. Yep, that guy was fooling everyone from start to finish; he had actually requested and received assistance from more than ten countries, as well as swore fealty to them.


    Of course, all of those major countries were in no way happy to discover that they had been fooled. However, the result of Charles ying around with so many countries at once was that all of these countries checked and bnced themselves. None of them gained any benefits in the end, causing the Eastern Mist Communal Country to be truly independent. Actually, this was a difficult andplex process. The geographical advantage (being in a distant location, and so poor that there were few financial benefits to be gained here) also helped tremendously.


    However, the consequences were likely that Charles¡¯s personal reputation was in the pits, and this affected East Mist¡¯s reputation right from the very start of its creation. All the human countries in the middle ins viewed East Mist as nothing more than barbarians, not to mention its trustworthiness was at rock bottom.


    This was also the historical reason of why all the rulers of East Mist were kings and not archdukes. In fact, even though there were still two archdukes within the Eastern Mist Communal Country, East Mist¡¯s nobility system basically had no more connection with the nobility system in the ins. It wasmon that East Mist was treated by the other countries as ¡°barbarians ying house games.¡±


    In this feudal age of knights, the noble domain lords all had significant private armies and were in charge of protecting their own citizens and domains. They were indeed the backbone of this country. But now, from my standpoint, they now posed an obstacle.


    At the very least, they had gotten in the way of my policies multiple times already. I knew that they were difficult to deal with, with bucketloads of reasons and excuses against me, and they forever stood against centralization. Especially after I intentionally began to centralize policy and political power; I became their group target, and every month Reyne would receive several local domain lords¡¯ letters reporting that a dishonest official (me) was fooling her, causing plenty of gossip.


    And this time, I put the elves into the new city areas under construction and the royal demesnes, as well as into territories of nobles who were friendlier with the royalty. This caused manyints from various major nobles, since everyone knew that apart from the elves¡¯ artwork and magic, the elves themselves were a great resource.


    This was also why I didn¡¯t dare topletely disperse the elves. Thends were vast and the ruler was distant, so the domain lords were the biggest authorities in their ownnds. I couldn¡¯t count on all the domain lords being of good moral character. These gray elves were already afraid after having so many incidents happen to them, so I couldn¡¯t possibly allow anything bad to befall them yet again. That would cause all my long-term goals to go up in smoke.


    But this situation, where the domain lords acted like local kings, couldn¡¯t be allowed to continue. Perhaps it was because of my experiences as Yongye and in the Underground that I had gotten used to centralized authority gathered in one ce, but I was dissatisfied with this feudal system from the very start.


    When I merely wanted to open up free movement within the Mist Alliance for all its citizens, it caused a huge amount of obstacles and bacsh against me, which made me all the more determined to utterly overhaul this system.


    But, I also knew that forcefully changing the political system would affect all these nobles¡¯ personal benefits, which would be no different from starting an internal civil war. That was why I could only take the slow method, sharpening my sword and killing one at a time, step by step.


    The newly-born Eastern Mist Communal Country was a country that was unified with its church; it worshipped the Law God Wumianzhe as its national church. There were two highest-ranked leaders in name¡ªHer Highness Reyne, who had civil authority, while the other one was the highest-ranked priest Xueti, who of course had religious authority... just thinking about how this country¡¯s highest-ranked leaders were actually a naughty child and a bastard that was often surrounded and beaten up by Town Security made me feel an oing a heart attack.


    Yep, after saying all this, perhaps some of you would have guessed how it was that I intended to decrease the local domain lords¡¯ authority. The battle between civil and religious authority was an endless one in any country, and the unstoppable force of divine might would make any domain lord have difficulty countering it.


    Since the Church of Law was the national church, it wouldn¡¯t be too much to ask for arge temple and local church branches to be constructed in each domain now, would it?


    Since the Church of Law has been recognized by the citizens, then having Judgementors and Knights of Justice patrol around the entirety of East Mist and spreading the church¡¯s teachings wasn¡¯t too much to ask for, was it?


    Since the divine job ss members of the Church of Law are humble yet skilled in battle, and were excellently viewed by all sections of society and weed everywhere, then taking the long term into consideration, it was only natural to expand their forces, and recruiting people from your domain wasn¡¯t too much to ask for, was it?


    Since...


    Under that series of ¡°sinces,¡± when the Church of Law continuously expanded in each local domain, there could only be one result.


    ¡°Since the Law God¡¯s teachings stipte that everyone should be equal under thew, since youmitted serious crimes just because you were a noble, then it wouldn¡¯t be too much to ask for to cut off your head, now, would it!?¡±


    By that time, since I was the one who truly controlled the religious authority, I would naturally be able to decrease the domain lords¡¯ civil authority andplete my goal of centralizing power.


    In my n, if the Mist Alliance could bepared to a tremendous giant, then the Eastern Mist Communal Country would definitely be both the giant¡¯s critical spot, its heart, as well as its fist, as it was the first country that recognized the Law God as its national church. As the main headquarters of the Church of Law, every step the East Mist took would surely be imitated by other ces, and it definitely had to be the perfect model that I had in my mind.


    ¡°Along with new development in technology, floating airships for citizens¡¯ use and transportation technology for traveling between cities will be a reality sooner orter. After transportation bes more convenient, moving military forces will be more convenient as well, which will cause the domain lords¡¯ duty to protect their own citizens to lose meaning. The system of each domain being like its own small kingdom will naturally be meaningless.¡±


    Of course, it was still a long way until that could be realized, but wasn¡¯t it nice to have some expectations?


    What I had to do was simply nt my seeds, and patiently wait for the day of harvest.


    ¡°Yep, it¡¯s definitely not because I want to ck off or anything like that.¡±


    But, from a certain standpoint, my status was quite awkward.


    In name, I was an ancestor of East Mist. In that case, my status should be above the current ruler¡¯s. Of course, this didn¡¯t include actual authority, since in history, all those emperor¡¯s grandfathers and so on stopped involving themselves in political affairs. Any that were technically retired and still wanted to get majorly involved meant that the country would soon be involved in civil war.


    That was why, in terms of civil authority, my status was incredibly awkward. In a way, any that swore loyalty to me were technically betraying the current ruler¡¯s authority, but luckily, Reyne ced total trust in me and even gave me the identity of ¡°Teacher to the Queen,¡± giving me support in all areas so I wouldn¡¯t be too awkward in the royal pce.


    But this still had its own problems. Human hearts would change. Even if Reyne maintained her trust in me, the people below her would have their own thoughts and consider their own personal benefits, not to mention that Reyne would one day get married and have her own children. [System: You¡¯re really getting ahead of yourself here] She would retire one day as well. Considering the unknown attitude that future rulers may have towards me, I figured that I should make my own considerations as early as possible.


    At the very least, I had no intentions of interfering with any internal affairs of the royal pce, and made my attitude quite clear as well.


    As for religious authority, my status was simrly awkward as well.


    I had the identity of being Wumianzhe¡¯s God Envoy, which basically meant that I was the representation of Wumianzhe¡¯s will. But I didn¡¯t return to the Divine Kingdom afterwards; instead, I always stayed in the mortal ne. In a way, this caused an ovep with Xueti¡¯s job of being the highest-ranked authority of the Church of Law. He was supposed to be the leader of the Church and the representative of the True God in this ne, but I was also the representative of Wumianzhe¡¯s will, so if there were two representatives... fine, why was it that I was always in such awkward situations?


    But since Xueti was someone who I brought up to his current rank, and all the higher-ups of the current Church of Law belonged to my faction, at least, for the time being, there wouldn¡¯t be any problems. As for any changes to the higher-ups of the Law of Church... due to Wumianzhe¡¯s connection with me, there would be even less problems.


    From the very start, Wumianzhe was the core of my n. How could I possibly allow any problems to affect him?


    As for military authority, my status was the most awkward of all.


    With countless new military squads being created, the original system of royal knights plus town defense squads was obviously no longer suitable. East Mist created a new military headquarters that organized military affairs for the entire country.


    Yep, the entire country, including all the domain lords...


    I couldn¡¯t use any plots that would definitely start an internal war, so in the current military setup, my status was incredibly awkward.


    In this era, there was no such thing as a separation between the civil and military. The highest-ranked leader of a country¡¯s military would forever be the royalty. Reyne was the queen, and the military was an organization that served her. As the person who was in name the highest-ranked member of the military, I was also the representative of royal authority.


    Alright, I also knew that representative this, representative that was all quite bothersome. But, the people in this generation really cared about such formalities. If one forcibly tried going against the sensibilities and unwrittenws of nobility in this era, then that person would have no actual authority. Without actual authority, the people under them would pull all sorts of tricks to resist carrying out your orders, which would result in nothing ever getting aplished.


    ¡°That¡¯s why I hate these wooden blockheads from a primitive age. How bothersome.¡±


    Cough, I should get back to the main topic.


    The military situation was the same as the political one, with Reyne being the person controlling the military in name. But since the newly-created military squadrons were all under themand of my knights and I was her representative, all the generals followed my orders and the military was basically in my hands.


    This was obviously not normal at all, but the most abnormal part was that everyone felt that this was natural.


    The final conclusion was that although my status was quite awkward, in a way, I was East Mist¡¯s true number one. This made things simr to Sulfur Mountain City back in the day, with Adam and Little Red not doing anything at all, and Margaret too busy with all the daily political tasks, so the true one to run everything turned out to be me, a prisoner.


    But this type of system obviously wasn¡¯t what I wanted. I had many things to do as well, and would often be going to other ces in the future, so it would be quitemon that I wouldn¡¯t be here for long periods of time. It would be quite bothersome in the future if they got into the habit of always relying on me.


    That was why I needed to make myself disappear on purpose, in order to cultivate their own senses of responsibility and proactiveness. They should be able to do everything without me.


    ¡°After saying all this, isn¡¯t it all just to find an excuse to ck off? Since you know that you¡¯ll probably be really busy in the future, can¡¯t you just show off how hard-working you can be for once? Your office is already filled to the brim with paperwork, and even your living room and kitchen are stuffed with paperwork as well. Where is your so-called sense of responsibility and proactiveness?¡±


    Since my magical pet was connected to my soul with a contract, even if I escaped, I would have to take this silly cat with me, which was probably the source of my displeasure.


    Cough, don¡¯t listen to Harloys speak nonsense; I¡¯m definitely not saying all this just to ck off, I¡ªI¡ªI just wanted to improve my subordinates¡¯ abilities, so that they could quickly grow and be independent!


    ¡°Improve your subordinates¡¯ abilities in ying hide and seek?¡±


    ¡°You still haven¡¯t found His Highness Rnd yet?¡±


    ¡°Town Security just reported that they discovered him, but he¡¯s slipped away again. Damn it, where is His Highness hiding?¡±


    Another team of knights passed in front of me. Hmph! Actually using royal knights to perform a personal task such as finding someone, this was an abuse of royal authority. How unseemly. I absolutely needed to give them a lecture when I return.


    ¡°You actually don¡¯t feel any shame in lecturing others? Just obediently stay in your office and think of how much money it would save in administrative costs!¡±


    ¡°Silly cat, shut up! Otherwise, I¡¯m going to make all your meals into dog biscuits.¡±


    ¡°...Do you believe then that I¡¯m going to find a chance to transform into your appearance and shout loudly ¡®I am Rnd,¡¯ while dancing a square dance and sing ¡®Little Apple?¡¯ That¡¯s an ancient ssic.¡±


    Imagining that frightening scene, I instantly shivered.


    ¡°I surrender! Please don¡¯t!¡±


    Considering how Harloys¡¯ shamelessness wasn¡¯t in any way less than mine,peting with each other in howcking in limits we could be would only result in defeat for both of us. I instantly submitted.


    ¡°Hmph! That¡¯s more like it. Oh right, I heard that there¡¯s a merchant group from some Allis Kingdom in the city¡¯s southern market that sells rather famous pickled cabbage candy; how about trying them out? Also, there¡¯s an Axilo performing troupe¡¯s musical showing at three p.m., and their ace singer and main dancers are all elves.¡±


    Alright, her intentions were obvious now. Wasn¡¯t this basically just outright extortion...?


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, we¡¯ll get tickets immediately!¡±


    No matter where I was cking off¡ªwhoops¡ªI mean, taking a vacation, it would still be a vacation. Since it was all the same, I might as well just go along with Harloys.

 Chapter 239

    Chapter 239: Whispers in the Shadows


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    As I idly roamed the streets of Diffindor and enjoyed the summer sunshine while everyone else worked so hard with their busy affairs, I felt that this day seemed quite joyous.


    Those foolish tin cans wanted to find me? All I had to do was slightly modify the age that my ring disyed, put on some old tattered leather armor, and equip myself with a normal ck iron sword, and a downcast-seeming middle-aged mercenary that could be seen anywhere appeared. They could just go ahead and continue searching for that child prince that vanished in front of them.


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter? You¡¯re still in a bad mood? You¡¯re that depressed at not being able to watch all of the Axilo troupe¡¯s performance?¡±


    The only part that wasn¡¯t so joyous was that the cat on my shoulder had a sour expression, as if someone owed her money.


    ¡°...The Axilo troupe is supposed to be a famous roaming musical troupe. Their ace star Aliyas is skilled in seventeen different ancient ssical singing styles. In the whole world, there are probably no more than three people who are capable of singing the climaxes of heroic bads, and she¡¯s the only one that I had the possibility of hearing¡ªdo you know just how much I was looking forward to hearing her performance?¡±


    Harloys seemed to understand better and better how to enjoy life after reobtaining it. I won¡¯t bother mentioning anything like gourmet food, even her natural pursuit of artistry as an elf had reawakened as well.


    ¡°To be honest, you should thank me. Do you know why I pulled you away and ran off? Do you know who that guest who volunteered to give a performance was?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t she Gria? I knew her back when she was still living. Ancient dragons like her all really like to use the forms of high elves since humans back then were pretty much like ants.¡±


    High elves? I nodded as I recalled Harloys¡¯ adult form that seemed like such a pretty flower. While I didn¡¯t understand the specific differences between high elves and normal elves, at the very least high elves definitely had a greater average height, and they all knew how to act, which was quite sultry.


    ¡°Why do I feel like you¡¯re thinking something bad about me?¡±


    ¡°Heh heh, that¡¯s just a mistaken impression. Right, Harloys, do you know Gria¡¯s nickname?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t she called ¡®Death Breath,¡¯ which signifies how powerful her Dragon Breath is?¡±


    ¡°No, looks like you don¡¯t know it. If you still stayed in that auditorium to listen, you would have learned. I feel sorry for all those youngsters that remained. I hope that there won¡¯t be too much damage to their minds.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re saying... that her singing is even worse than yours? She¡¯s actually capable of being worse than you who¡¯s ranked the worst out of everyone I know?¡±


    ¡°...If my singing is at a fireball¡¯s level, her singing is at a forbidden spell¡¯s level. Although this may be a terrible analogy, it should help you understand what I mean.¡±


    The emergency rescue personnel that hurriedly ran past us immediately proved my point.


    Still, although I was being humble, my heart was bleeding. This silly cat just wouldn¡¯t let go of my weakness in singing.


    Hmph! Just wait and see. I¡¯m going to switch out all your candy for that pickled cabbage vor! Those people from the Allis Kingdom are quite something, actually treating that as the best delicacy. Just one lick of that actually gave me +1 to my food achievements.


    But the weird thing was that even though it barely counted as edible, and I somehow forced myself to eat so many, they actually counted as only one in total. How stingy of my System.


    [System: No matter if it¡¯s pickled cabbage vored candy, pickled carrot vored pancakes, pickled fish vored hamburgers or even pickled dragons, they all have the same name¡ªkimchi. No matter how much you try to talk about it, if you use kimchi to make a hundred different dishes at a tremendous feast, even if you think of a thousand different ways to make kimchi, it¡¯s still kimchi. Can you stop trying all that Korean cuisine now? You dare to call me stingy? Why don¡¯t you ask yourself¡ªwhen eating all those different vors, was there really much of a difference?]


    Alright then, I really did think over it for ten or so seconds and found that I couldn¡¯t counter this at all. After all, I wasn¡¯t one of those Allis Kingdom residents that came from the mountains. I was unable to taste the delicate differences between the hundreds of kinds of kimchi-vored candies.


    ¡°Hey, shouldn¡¯t you be telling me the truth now? We¡¯ve known each other for so long; why are you still attempting to fool me?¡±


    ¡°...I just didn¡¯t want you to be frustrated; you saw through me?¡±


    ¡°Did you forget that I used to be the person in charge of information gathering back at Xiluo? You think that your little techniques can fool me? Weren¡¯t you the one who notified Gria toe and mess things up? I¡¯m no novice; I obviously know that roaming troupes and circuses typically consist of over 50 percent spies. A high-ranked silver elf actually has to stoop to the level of bing a singer? They must think that everyone else are just idiots; those elves are definitely spies from the southern elf kingdoms.¡±


    If she didn¡¯t bring this up, I really would have forgotten. The type of undead known as banshees had the power of possession, and information obtaining was akin to a natural talent for them. As the Banshee Queen, Harloys had always been the head of information back in Xiluo.


    ¡°Yep, their ace singer Aliyas? Heh heh, more like the silver elf Baroness Lia. But, they haven¡¯t done anything as of yet, and they can¡¯t do anything in the barrier of the ¡®Crimeless City¡¯ either. But, it¡¯s still no good to just let them be. Although it¡¯s not possible to put them in jail as they haven¡¯tmitted any crimes, I don¡¯t want to make it so obvious that I¡¯m antagonizing these elves, and making them disgusted to the point of not being able to eat for weeks and having headaches every day is a simple task for me.¡±


    Harloys nodded in contemtion upon hearing my words, but then she licked her lips, now seeming to be afraid.


    ¡°Is Gria¡¯s singing that astonishing? Could it just be a rumor?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s more than astonishing; I¡¯d use vicious to describe it. Just imagine; when I heard her singing, my bones continuously reverberated for three days and three nights in a row while that demonic noise caused me to lose all of my five senses. Her singing actually caused Emperor Yongye to have a headache for three days and three nights, and all the low-level undead that were present at the scene directly reentered the cycle of reincarnation. How could the word astonishing possibly be sufficient to describe it? Her singing is basically an AOE massive weapon.¡±


    But the strange thing was that even though I was clearlyining, Harloys was obviouslyughing more and more as I continued speaking. By the end, this silly loli even transformed back to her cat form and rolled around on the groundughing.


    ¡°Wah! So¡ªso¡ªso... Your Highness didn¡¯t want to hear my songs ¡ªso, in Your Highness¡¯s mind... Wahh! I¡¯m nothing more than an AOE massive weapon! Wahhh! So everyone saw me like that.¡±


    Alright, even without turning around, I knew that Harloys had dug a trap for me to fall into.


    When I did turn around, as I expected, I saw Gria inconsble with tears. But as expected of the Bone Dragon Queen, even her teary expression was so special, with arge hole appearing in the ground as each teardrop fell, which truly was scary as hell. Even her tears could corrode the ground.


    After that, the silly cat stepped on my shoulder and made my head into her nest. The fact that she kept sweeping her tail in front of my nose was the best evidence that she was in a great mood; she was probably receiving great joy from my misfortune.


    ¡°Based on ssical love scenarios, misunderstandings are the best opportunities to improve a rtionship romantically. As long as the female lead is in tears, a series of idents will ur, such as anemia, a car ident, sudden amnesia, or recovering of memories and so on. After that, there will be a series of misunderstandings that will make you want to vomit blood and mentally abuse both of you to death. If you still want to have any opportunities like that, go chase after her immediately.¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯ve heard that stories like that all originated from the Allis Kingdom. You must have seen those visitors from that kimchi Kingdom¡ªyou should stop watching such performances. I¡¯ve heard that if you watch too many of their dramas, you¡¯ll lose intelligence points.¡± [1] 1


    Why chase after her at all? That was what I wanted to say, but I couldn¡¯t say it out loud with how she was looking at me. This was perfect, though. I could save a big expenditure each year¡ªit would be much more beneficial to use the cannon fodder undead I had to prepare each year for Gria¡¯s yearly concert asbor workers, after all. That¡¯s right; not only that, the zombie and skeleton workers in town have been charging more and more for their sries recently. Should I change my job ss to undead mage and go make some money?


    While I was daydreaming, the silly cat spoke up, seeming to havee to a realization.


    ¡°The most important part about information is its veracity, and the most trustworthy information isn¡¯t something a novice can obtain. Personally obtaining information is always the most reliable method. So, the past few days, you were actually obtaining local information about the current state of affairs in Diffindor?¡±


    ¡°...Just along the way while cking off, yes. East Mist¡¯s information department is still too much of a greenhorn; it has too many useless members. That mountain of reports they gave me is basically useless. It¡¯s not even a bit as effective as me personally investigating things.¡±


    ¡°When you were buying snacks, you were recording food prices by category? Were you checking out the food market?¡±


    ¡°Yep. An area¡¯s snacks, side dishes, alcohol types and so on are directly connected to the residents¡¯ extra stockpiles of food, as well as directly rted to their confidence in the future. If they can¡¯t even fill their stomachs next year, where will they have the extra food stocks to create alcohol or sell snacks? At the very least, the market seems to be abundant in food stocks, and the situation is quite healthy.¡±


    Harloys nodded slightly as well. Actually, she had the same conclusions.


    ¡°You even went to the cksmiths¡¯ district and explored over one hundred cksmith shops just to smith a normal ck iron sword worth five gold coins for your disguise, and even explored two flea markets and numerous equipment shops just for a tattered piece of leather armor? So, you were inspecting the average equipment craftsmanship quality and battle resources avable in Diffindor? What¡¯s the result?¡±


    Hearing this, I shook my head. East Mist¡¯s industrial technology level was still too low. In order to improve this area, it would take far more than just one day.


    ¡°Terrible. Most cksmiths are only capable of smithing low-quality farming implements, and the smithing technology for crafting weapons hasn¡¯t improved in the past three hundred years. After searching through the entire cksmithing district, I found only one Silver-ranked great cksmith. Even if they were provided with information on the newest technologies, with their current foundational knowledge, unless there were expert masters teaching them personally, these cksmiths won¡¯t be of any use without at least a decade of training. However, we don¡¯t have a decade to wait around.¡±


    My investigation had proved what I expected. Due to master-level engineers from Sulfur Mountain City joining Diffindor, along with Olive andpany¡¯s research group, Diffindor¡¯s engineering and alchemy levels were probably at the top of the world. Plus, now that the gray elves had joined us, we couldpete with the best in enchantments, but this made our shorings all the more obvious.


    Creating the products of engineering as well as excellent weapons and equipment needed industrial knowledge as the foundation. Without smiths working away with clings and ngs on the basic things, even the mostplex mechanical titan¡¯s blueprint would be nothing more than a useless piece of scrap paper. Without a first-ss sword, even the best enchantments wouldn¡¯t evene close to making a renowned sword.


    Although the gray elves had numerous elven smiths among them that had technology levels far surpassing the human smiths, when one considered that famous ¡°elven armor¡± incident and how the elven smiths would casually make even a bow into a piece of artwork, I never expected anything from them the very start.


    If our smiths also learned the elven smiths¡¯ attitude and production rate of only producing one sword every three years, that would be the end of us.


    From start to finish, I preferred the rough and simple style of dwarven equipment¡ªthey were easy to use, sturdy, effective, and had no useless decorations. They were also highly suitable for mass production.


    ¡°How about we go to the Underground World and recruit some gray dwarf smiths toe here? But, those long bearded dwarves aren¡¯t easy to deal with; they won¡¯t possibly stay without rich mining resources. We¡¯d have to first get some mining resources from the barbarians¡¯ territory. Right, we can also bring some smiths from Sleuweir, to at the very least teach these blockheads how to make something besides farming implements.¡±


    Harloys nodded without saying anything. In this era of metallic weapons, cksmiths were forever one of the most important resources of any country. Their average level and quantity immediately determined the frontline warrior¡¯s quality of weapons and armor. Every country treated cksmiths as a treasure, and this was no easy problem to deal with.


    ¡°If this was Xiluo, things would be simple... forget it, forget I said anything.¡±


    There was no need to say anything else. I naturally knew what she meant when she mentioned Xiluo. Only one hundred or so years after their establishment, their technology level was terrible as well, but undead countries had their own methods of dealing with such a problem. Apart from having a bunch of human ves working asborers, they also had a different method of improving their technology that couldn¡¯t be used by other countries.


    ¡°Make cursed swords and armors out of bones? I don¡¯t want to be the enemy of all humanity, and besides, if a living person uses such equipment for too long, he¡¯d die.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯s thebat resource situation? You seem to be satisfied with your leather armor?¡±


    ¡°Equally terrible. The lower-ss equipment shops have nothing but low-quality goods, the middle-ss equipment shops all have half of their stock being fakes, and there¡¯s not even a single high-ss equipment shop. Let¡¯s organize things in this aspect after we return.¡±


    In my eyes, this problem seemed difficult, but it was actually much easier to solve. We just needed to increase our trade with other countries. As long as other countries¡¯ products would be able to sell for a good price here, merchants would naturally flock to us, and once the Mist Alliance¡¯s policy of zero internal tariffs was established, I fully expected there to be a massive amount of trade creating an astonishing amount of profit.


    But this was only a band-aid fix; it did not solve the foundational problem. Purchased products were always unreliable, nor would true top-level equipment be able to be purchased. If we couldn¡¯te up with our own method to produce top-level equipment, no matter how much equipment we purchased, we would always be under the control of others.


    And, so, I secretly set a goal.


    ¡°Every magical beast material obtained during the winter huntingpetition for this celebration shall be purchased by the East Mist royalty. Even if we lose money, we need to be able to help our smiths cultivate their equipment crafting skills.¡±


    But, the national treasury wasn¡¯t well off. We still needed to see if weapon trading and selling would be sessful or not during this festival. If we weren¡¯t able to take care of it now, then we could only leave it to the side.


    We reached today¡¯s final stop, the floating airship dock where the Borealis was parked.


    And, right now, ¡°Envy¡± wasn¡¯t by itself. By its side was a pitch-ckbat airship, with countless undead working busily around it, reinforcing the airship¡¯s body and putting down the materials for its deck.


    Yes, that¡¯s right¡ªundead, not human smiths. Although they were undead mages and believers of the shadow that most people viewed as enemies, they were currently working as the most hard-working smiths of all.


    This was an undead airship that was currently under construction. Its body was made of real dragonbone, its pitch-ck mast was enchanted with evil undead magic, and dark winds whirled around it. Marsolit¡¯s report also rang in my ears.


    ¡°The Dragonbone Battleship¡¯s construction is proceeding smoothly. Team 1, Airship 2¡¯s construction is on schedule to bepleted. The ¡®dragonying n¡¯ will proceed as scheduled.¡±


    Note:


    1. Yes, all of this is a sarcastic barb against Korean TV dramas.

 Chapter 240

    Chapter 240: Mizar


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    In the newly-born East Mist and Diffindor, there was a group that had a unique special existence¡ªthe Xiluo undead.


    The newly-born Xiluo Empire was an empire with Omar as the lord, which in principle meant that they would automatically be an allied member of the Mist Alliance.


    However, even after their reinforcements returned, arge amount of high-level undead stayed behind in East Mist at my request. In order to prevent unnecessary panic, I arranged for all of them to stay within the inner part of Diffindor, which was covered by the Crimeless City domain. At the very least, in this area that was covered by the Crimeless City domain, others would feel much more assured at seeing the undead as they wouldn¡¯t be able tomit any crimes.


    Since Emperor Omar had some personality defects in certain areas, such as being brainless, having only muscles for brains, and thinking about nothing but muscles, it waspletely impractical to expect him to do anything that a true ruler should do.


    With everyone¡¯s support and the unified rmendation of the six original Senators as he was renowned for being the only normal one with an honest and upright heart, the Spider Archduke Lionheart became the new Xiluo¡¯s first Senator.


    As for whether Omar would have any objections? He could just go y wherever he wanted, as long as he didn¡¯t get in the way of doing important things. Anyways, he only cared about whether or not he was considered to be the highest-ranked existence.


    Apart from the reason of helping East Mist¡¯s people to ept the undead and improve the rtionship between East Mist and Xiluo, there was also the existence before me that was another reason.


    ¡°Dragonbone Battleship Mizar [1] 1 . Internal Reference Name: ¡®Dragonmouth.¡¯ Length: 473 meters. It¡¯s constructed entirely out of handpicked dragonbone. It¡¯s thebination of And¡¯s floating battleship technology and undead magic, and it is the Borealis¡¯ sister ship.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, I have a personal objection to your words just now. I¡¯m tired of perverted people treating ships as females. If possible, please call it a brother ship.¡±


    I heard Marsolit¡¯s objection, but could tell that he was in an excellent mood.


    ¡°Heh heh, it seems like Captain Pier has been quite active recently. Right, Marsolit, if you want to let go of part of your physical body and power, I can help create a new body for you. Of course, your current body wouldn¡¯t be maintained anymore, but you can fully be an undead.¡±


    Although taking away this SemiGod level core would affect the Borealis somewhat, I had many high-level undead under mymand now and could make up for that loss.


    ¡°I¡¯m grateful for your kind offer, but this body is the best connection between me and my family. At least, until I get rid of my enemies that I¡¯ve sworn revenge against, this body is extremely useful. It¡¯ll serve as a constant reminder to not forget about the past.¡±


    The current Marsolit was still in a half-alive, half dead state. His physical body was still half ice and half poisoned and corroded. If he ever wanted the freedom to move about as he pleased, it was obvious that this body of his would be no good.


    However, his current deration doubtlessly meant that he still had attachments to his physical body. Perhaps the memory of Dragonhunter Deimos the First killing his wife and daughter still tortured him every night in his nightmares.


    Since this was his own personal choice and wish, I didn¡¯t continue convincing him and instead focused my attention on this new floating battleship, which was constructedpletely out of dragonbone.


    And¡¯s technicians and engineers were in my hands now, but the industrial level here was still far too low. If the smiths here couldn¡¯t even create iron swords, then how could they possibly create the parts necessary for a battleship? In a short period of time, even the production of smaller battleships for ambush attacks would be unrealistic, not to mention producing evenrger battleships forrge-scale battles.


    Floating battleships¡¯ benefits were made quite obvious during the previous battle. Transporting the injured, being a resource warehouse, acting as reinforcements, providing cover fire, sending down resources via parachutes¡ª they were obviously a cheat-like existence that only attacked others and were difficult to attack themselves. Just the Borealis¡¯ excellent performance alone caused us to receive so many orders.


    Moreover, this was only their advantages during war. What I truly valued was their worth when used by ordinary civilians.


    In this generation that relied on metallic weapons, transportation between cities relied mostly upon horses or horse-drawn carriages. In that case, there was a limit to the speed of transportation, and it would cause an increase in time and human resources used.


    There would also be dangerous beasts along the way,wless bandits, and even legal robbery¡ªby this, I meant local domain lords that collected tolls in order to pass through their domains. In that case, there were quite a few merchant groups that wouldn¡¯t even make it to their destination, or even if they did, their costs and thus prices would be raised astronomically.


    After adding in all the tolls, the fees to hire mercenary guards, and money paid to the rtives of those who died during these travels and so on, it would bemon for a product to be several hundred times more expensive than its cost of production after arriving in some other area. This didn¡¯t even take into ount uncertain factors such as war or gue that would always cause the price of goods to quickly rise.


    If we could make floating airships into somethingmon...


    ¡°Stop dreaming! Do you think that nobody¡¯s tried using aerial cavalry to transport goods before? Anyone who can be an aerial cavalry rider is a big shot; making them work as transporters? Just the food they eat is probably more expensive than how much profit you can make.¡±


    I quickly received many objections. Perhaps it was this world¡¯s naturalw of energy conservation; no matter if it was a magical artifact or a magical beast with the ability to fly, such flight would always have an astronomical expenditure.


    Even if I got And¡¯s floating airships toe here and work for transportation, I figured that the money earned probably wouldn¡¯t even cover the energy costs of keeping the airships operational.


    But, there was one type of existence that broke this naturalw¡ªthe new generation¡¯s perpetual motion machine, the undead.


    The best evidence as the poprity of the undead asborers in Diffindor. This was because they didn¡¯t know fatigue, didn¡¯t require any rest, didn¡¯t need to eat, and wouldn¡¯tin no matter how difficult the work was. They were basically the idealborer that any capitalist dreamed about, and this was the main reason why people epted them so quickly despite their frightening appearances.


    Since the Borealis was basically a top-level product of undead construction¡ªEnvy of the Seven Deadly Sins¡ªit was technically abat airship that had zero energy costs. Not only that, its main deck¡¯s mage towers and energy batteries created its own energy loop, and it could also absorb extra mana that flowed out from the local area as well as provide energy to other magical artifacts as well. It was basically an almost perfectbat tform, which could fight for long periods of time.


    ¡°If soul and undead airships bemonce, and every major city sets up soul airship airports and gargoyle taxis appear in the cities... Fine then, I admit that sometimes my imagination may run wild, but this seems like a feasible n. The technology for it is avable, and we have tons of undead mages capable of creating these objects. All we need is the determination to push this n through.¡±


    And this was only the civil side of things. It would be even more useful for politics. If all the biggest cities of the Mist Alliance established aerial trade routes, then the trade, diplomacy, and interaction between civilians of each country of the Mist Alliance would obviously be a lot more frequent. It would also tighten the rtionship between countries... No matter how friendly two countries were, if they needed two or three months to reach each other, they would naturally drift apart. If reaching another country took only two or three days, however, it wouldn¡¯t be all that different from going to the next city.


    Once my imagination started running wild, I was unable to stop myself. Not only did I extrapte this scenario to the transportation field, I felt that agriculture could also use undead cows as tirelessbor, and the industrial field already had plenty of undeadborers doing all sorts of manualbor. How could I possibly not be moved by the potential huge benefits and profits avable in this field?


    Of course, my goal did meet with a few small obstacles, such as the Holy Light that loathed the undead, such as Holy Knights that swore to eliminate the evil undead, such as the Holy Church which often shouted about the Holy War.


    Fine, they were all actually the same obstacle. If I went about so obviously making the undead into a central part of our workforce, I would immediately be dered the number one most evil heretical undead mage in the world. The Holy War was right before us, but I had to say, this wasn¡¯t a conflict that I couldn¡¯t take care of.


    First, this was Wumianzhe¡¯s territory, not the God of Holy Light¡¯s territory. This was the most critical part in resolving this conflict. The Gods were very strict about territorial divisions, and the Holy Church viewed respecting the other True Gods of Order as highly important. After all, if there really was a battle involving the Gods and the Holy Church themselves were the side thatcked logic and reason, then the God of Holy Light, whose powers were like a divine server to draw power from, may not help his own believers.


    Secondly, in the Nortnds, the humans here hated the Holy Church more than any other humans did. In the battle not long ago, the Holy Church should have stood up for them but didn¡¯t, whereas the undead came to their aid, instead. This had caused history and reality to sh and the Holy Church to be publicly considered as unreliable, which further increased the northerners¡¯ distaste towards the Holy Church.


    The most important part was that the Holy War was arriving and the Nortnds wasn¡¯t the area that the Holy Church wanted to focus on spreading their teachings in. The higher-ups of the Holy Church were all focusing on those mega-level empires. As long as we didn¡¯t do anything too overboard, they would be more than happy to pretend to not see anything. After all, with a major enemy in front of them, adding a new enemy on top by breaking ranks with a former ally would obviously be the most foolish action of all. A great deal of effort would be spent for nothing but self-frustration.


    Of course, I didn¡¯t expect them to have such wisdom or tolerance; every religion had their fervent believers and extremists, which was why my messenger was already on his way with an extravagant present for them. I intended to see if those red-garbed higher-ups of theirs really were cleaner or not than their predecessors from three hundred years ago.


    Considering how the Holy War wasing and that they wouldn¡¯t want to lose their God¡¯s protection, on top of arge amount of gold coins for them, I had a more than 80% guarantee that the Holy Church would pretend to not see anything here, in which case I could try to push through my n.


    As for whether or not there would be a reckoning afterwards... there definitely would be one, but who knows which side wouldmence the reckoning?


    As the inventor of undead construction, I had far surpassed the ancient undead emperors. This new airship was something that I personally designed.


    It received the glorious name of being a dragonbone battleship because its entire body was crafted out of dragonbone. Every inch of it was made from real dragon skeletons. Some dragonbone was umted before in the past, some was recently gained in the Underground World, and some was even from that little brat Reyne during the previous battle.


    This dragonbone battleship hovered in midair; the pitch-ck dragonbone seemed to give off the faint impression of draconic might. The gigantic airship was covered in ck mist, and the mast constructed of souls was umting mana. ck thunder could be seen shing in the mist, making it seem like an ultimate weapon that would destroy the world.


    The front, where the ¡°dragonmouth¡± was located, had saw-shaped huge teeth harvested from real dragons. This would be the main weapon in the future, and it was also the source of its code name.


    Dragonbone was already a priceless, rare magical ingredient. If I tried calcting the price of this vessel... fine, let¡¯s not worry about the details of cost effectiveness; let us discuss its functions instead.


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI shouldn¡¯t be med for wasting funds on investments like this. Every experimental vessel required an expense, and in order to achieve the best result, one had to ignore the costs. After it was trulyplete, the final bill would likely make the original designer receive a heart attack, causing the final result to be that the design would be endlessly pushed back and be nothing but a backup technology reserve.


    But, our situation was a little different; all our dragonbone had been umted over time. However, if we tried to create bone dragons, we would be unable toe up withplete skeletons, and forcefully creating low-level, low-quality bone dragons was something that we disdained. So, in a way, this was making good use of what we had on hand.


    Of course, as one of the highest quality magical ingredients, dragonbone was indeed a bit expensive and a bit precious, but they had excellent effects and numerous properties. The parts where the structure was unreasonable or not up to standards were forcibly ignored due to the excellent quality of materials used.


    And, apart from this, the precious dragonbone had another usage¡ªit looked really cool.


    The countless dragonbones interweaved with each other to form a hugebat airship. This dragonbone battleship descended from the skies apanied with dark clouds, and it resembled a demon king that crawled out of the Chaos Abyss who was bent on destroying this world. It possessed a depraved beauty... fine then, I¡¯ll stop being ridiculous. It was true that it looked rather scary, and that was exactly what I wanted.


    After dealing with the trouble of the Holy Church, the other trouble on my te wasn¡¯t so easy to deal with.


    That trouble was the people¡¯s old-fashioned biases against the undead and undead objects. Although the Red Hunting Hounds¡¯ knight squadron and the undeadborers¡¯ existence made the East Mist far more epting of undead than most other countries, there was still a long way to go before people here could truly ept undead products as part of their daily lives and even necessities. However, this process could be expedited through governmental guidance.


    ¡°This shall be a heroicbat airship just like the Borealis. It shall be a new legend in its own right. When all our citizens view it as their pride, they¡¯ll naturally no longer be as resistant towards undead products.¡±


    Considering that troublesome ¡®deep sea hunting quest¡¯ I had ahead of me, one airship could never match up to a floti. It would definitely be necessary to expand the airship squadron. Transporting mining and human resources from the barbarian tribes could also be a regr daily urrence if the airship numbers were expanded.


    ¡°Something like airships should be well organized in squads in order to have true might. Your Highness, we need at least a full squadron in order for the airships to show their true might; they¡¯ll be able to cover each other, support each other, and utilizebat tactics. It¡¯s the same with woman¡ªone could never be enough; you need a harem...¡±


    ¡°Sexual harassment is forbidden!¡±


    These were the words of Captain [NG1] Pier, who was scheduled to take charge of the Mizar, but before this perverted man who treated his own airships as women couldplete his deration on harems, he was knocked on the back of his head by his vice-captain[NG2] .


    *Smack!*


    ¡°My apologies, Your Highness. The Captain drank too much this morning again.¡±


    This vice-captain¡¯s name was Shaweir, and she was was rather tall and had a handsome and open-seeming face. She appeared like the mature-older-sister type, but when I stared at her in astonishment, she awkwardly put the broken chair leg behind her back.


    ¡°Rx, Pier has really thick skin. A personality-punishing attack like that is nothing more than a little nap for him¡ªhe¡¯ll be back to normal the very next day.¡±


    Taking a look at the shattered chair in Shaweir¡¯s hands, the huge bump on Pier¡¯s head, and the traces of blood on the floor, I didn¡¯t intend to make a big deal out of this since she had said so. After all, this woman had the nickname of being ¡°Pier¡¯s conscience,¡± and had been his vice-captain for so many years already. I hoped she wouldn¡¯t kill him.


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard that Shaweir has liked Pier for a long time already, but Pier has always treated ships as his true love. I never expected that this rumor was real... and why does the way they interact with each other seem so familiar?¡±


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI shouldn¡¯t pry too much into certain things. I should get back to the main topic; having a trustworthy new Captain and his crew was really such a reassuring thing... just pretend that you believe that.


    An airship battalion was absolutely necessary, but the industrial foundation and resource supplies were unable to follow up. This led to the undead battleships that were quick and easy to create to be the best choice of all. This involved my greater n in so many areas, and I absolutely wouldn¡¯t allow anything to go wrong with it.


    ¡°One hundred yearster, perhaps people will treat me as the wisest inventor of all? Or the most dangerous undead mage to appear in the past thousand years? I think that both are possible... Marsolit, is there anything else that you need?¡±


    As for why I referred to it as the Borealis¡¯s sister ship, that was because its internal structure was mostly copied from the Borealis. Even the people in charge of creating the Mizar were the same as the Borealis, not to mention that Marsolit was the overseer for this entire project.


    Although I was asking, I expected that since he had plenty of subordinates and the best resources all provided to him, he wouldn¡¯t have any requests.


    ¡°Um, there really is an awkward request of mine that I would like Your Highness¡¯s approval on...¡±


    Marsolit was actually hesitating? This was astonishing.


    ¡°What is it? Just tell me directly. As long as I can do it, I¡¯ll try my best.¡±


    ¡°Alright, then I¡¯ll say it directly... Could you toss that pervert who keeps drooling at my engines and cannons into my cannon, please? I¡¯m clearly an outstanding man who possesses the wonderful Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon [2] 2 , yet that bastard actually treats me as a woman! The engine isn¡¯t a butt! There couldn¡¯t possibly be any feeling no matter how much he touches it! I said, stop touching it! I¡¯m talking about you, Pier Papin!¡±


    ¡°Ah, in front of an amazing engine that spouts thick smoke and tremendous booms, any beautiful woman¡¯s curves are useless. The curves of the cannons are the sexiest of all...¡±


    Alright then, Shaweir was correct. Were all gentlemen (perverts) rted to cockroaches? Bleeding so much just earlier¡ªwas that an instantplete recovery?¡±


    Right now, in front of me, this muscr man was pressing his face against the Borealis¡¯s engine room while wearing a ck skintight outfit. He was making a cool pose that showed off his muscles (what he viewed as cool), and singing his own praises (what he believed to be praises).


    ¡°Just try to bear with it; he¡¯s to be the Mizar¡¯s Captain... The hell, he¡¯s actually putting on Tid¡¯s cat ears and magical girl sailor uniform? Someone prevent him from polluting this world!¡±


    But this was only the beginning...


    With a twist of his waist, an elegant pose, and a sultry expression, he instantly put on the magical girl sailor uniform. The hairy thick legs beneath it inbination with the whitece that could just barely be perceived caused all the spectators to be shocked.


    ¡°Meow! Meow! I¡¯m going to punish you in the name of the moon...¡±


    *Smack!*


    This time, what flew towards him wasn¡¯t a chair, but a table instead... I just now discovered that Shaweir had a Strength-rted natural talent.


    But, unfortunately, even Shaweir who was huffing and puffing didn¡¯t win anything.


    That pervert¡¯s pink magical girl outfit actually shed golden and helped him to entirely ignore that table.


    ¡°Ahhhh! My power ising! Tid¡¯sbat clothing is truly amazing! However, the pose and activation incantation required to use it is a little strange. Now then, let me try out the next incantation... Although I¡¯m cute (seductive look in his eyes), I will summon death (panty sh)...¡±


    Even the undead could no longer tolerate this. The workers were running for their lives, and those that hadn¡¯t escaped had all copsed. Harloys hadpletely vanished somewhere, and I felt as if I had gone blind.


    ¡°I¡¯ve changed my mind! Marsolit! Toss that bastard into your Armstrong Cannon, and shoot him to the moon that he wants to go to so much!¡±


    Note:


    1. Mizar is the name of the second star of the Big Dipper constetion.


    2. Gintama reference!

 Chapter 241

    Chapter 241: Visitor


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The Holy Church sent an envoy?¡±


    Although the Holy Church had been pushed out of East Mist, they were still the main, most widely believed religious institution of the entire human society and the most important member of the Gods¡¯ churches. Since they were sending an envoy to me, it was only natural that I would view this with importance.


    I received that important notification right when I returned to my residence. No wonder everyone had been in such a rush to find me. It was probably because that envoy group asked to personally meet with me.


    ¡°Cough! All those tin cans blocking my escape route, you guys must be tired. You can go back and rest now. I won¡¯t y the disappearing game anymore.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not necessary, Your Highness. We¡¯re not tired at all!¡±


    Although the knights remained orderly, judging by how their voices were filled with pent up anger andints, my good intentions only caused them to be more furious.


    Perhaps I had vanished too many times recently. Right now, even Elisa and Kelly weren¡¯t looking at me in a friendly manner. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that they still needed me, their tiny fists, which were clenched ever so tightly, would probably be mightily walloping me.


    ¡°It¡¯s probably another foreign visitor who wants to meet with me personally. Alright, I shall go meet them now.¡±


    However, Elisa and Kelly shook their heads and handed me a document instead. It was the list of the names of those in the Holy Church¡¯s envoy group, and the moment I saw these names, I understood why they were so mysteriously filled withints against me.


    ¡°Whoa! Cardinal Soros, the Holy de Knights¡¯ vicemander ¡®Red-Winged Griffin¡¯ Ai, and ¡®Miracle Hand¡¯ Estrada. Each one of them is a big shot!¡±


    I was immediately on guard when I saw this list of names. I thought that this would only be a normal diplomatic meeting, but the envoys were of too high a rank. It was obvious that the reason of their visit would be no simple matter.


    ¡°Soros is ranked seventeenth among the cardinals. Although there isn¡¯t a possibility of him bing the next pope, his reputation is quite good for a cardinal. He¡¯s also famous for being gentle and amiable. The Holy de Knights are known as the number one knight group under the Holy Light¡¯smand. You should understand that organization even better than I do; you were a member of the Holy Church in the past.¡±


    Kelly¡¯s tone contained some traces of mncholy. Perhaps she was thinking about the unpleasant past.


    ¡°As for Estrada, there¡¯s been no news about him for over the past hundred years. But, from what we can recall, Estrada¡¯s nickname as the Miracle Hand isn¡¯t anywhere close to being as famous as his other nickname, ¡®The Strongest Holy Knight of All.¡¯ For three such major figures toe together with no advance warning, this will probably be quite a troublesome situation.¡±


    All three of them were part of the highest echelons of the Holy Church. The Cardinal Conference was the highest-ranked authority of the Holy Church, and even the pope would be chosen from among them. In the current era, where belief in the Holy Light was as natural as breathing, any cardinal visiting a country would be able to receive treatment surpassing that of a country¡¯s king.


    As for the other two with Cardinal Soros, perhaps they weren¡¯t as highly ranked within the church as he was, but if you went, instead, by their personal reputations and power levels, then Soros, who was still an ordinary mortal, could neverpare to them.


    ¡°The Holy de? Of course I¡¯m familiar with them. After all, I was a member of that group back in the day as well.¡±


    The Holy de Knights typically stayed at the Holy Church¡¯s headquarters, and would receive a pitifully small amount ofbat tasks toplete. Their members also included numerous princes and princesses from various countries, which was why it was often made fun of as the babysitting knight group or the decorative knight group. However, for any of the Holy Church¡¯s enemies, this knight group, which started out with Legend-ranked strength and peaked at the Myth rank, were always destined to be their enemies¡¯ nightmares on the battlefield.


    I had heard of the ¡®Red-Winged Griffin¡¯ Ai as well. She was the youngest of the Holy de¡¯s three submanders, and it was rumored that she was a Child of the Holy Light who possessed angel blood. She was a natural-born killer of the undead, and the number of liches and undead mages killed she had killed were probably so numerous that one could make a telephone book out of the list¡¯s thickness.


    Although she was the least experienced of the three submanders, her power level was definitely significant. And as one of the submanders of the Holy de Knights, her status wasn¡¯t less than that of a Cardinal¡¯s at all. Not to mention that the knights guarding this envoy group were all Holy de Knights directly under hermand.


    The Holy de Knights was a very strange knight order. All of its official knights were carefully selected ace knights from the entire world, and their squires consisted of not only potential future talents but even various young royals from many countries.


    Some came of their own volition, while others were forced. If everything were sessful, these young royals would be a method for their home countries to establish a good rtionship with the Holy Church, and if problems arose, they would basically be pitiful hostages with awkward statuses.


    This was also why the Holy de Knights had the nickname of the babysitting knight group. They didn¡¯t have anything to do at all, and the members typically involved themselves in various political events. However, looking at it from a different angle, if a knight order with power levels like theirs had daily missions to perform, then the world would be in utter chaos.


    I was one of the potential knights in that group back in the day. However, if I hadn¡¯t managed to be a Legend, I probably would have remained as an apprentice for the rest of my life. As for that ¡®Miracle Hand¡¯ Estrada, I was even more familiar with him.


    ¡°It¡¯s obvious that they intentionally sent him, that teacher of mine who seems mild on the outside but is actually wild on the inside.¡±


    Yep, back in the day, I was Estrada¡¯s squire. And this Miracle Hand had already established his fame more than five hundred years ago, and was the strongest individual out of all the Holy Knights. During the Yongye incident, we even fought with each other.


    ¡°One is a Cardinal who represents the pope¡¯s will, one is the boss of the knight order I was in, and one was my knight teacher in the past. Should I say that they really view me with importance? Making such thorough preparations, they really made an effort.¡±


    All three of these envoys were obviously specifically picked just to deal with me, but no matter what the Holy Church wanted, sending out such a high-ranked envoy group couldn¡¯t possibly be for anything small.


    Kelly and the others also had difficult expressions on their faces. Everyone here knew about the Holy Church¡¯s typical style. The overall statuses of this envoy group¡¯s members were far too high, and no matter whether they had good or bad intentions sending out three veterans like this, where any one of them would be a hugely important personage in human society, wouldn¡¯t possibly be only for a simple greeting.


    However, Iughed. What was going toe was going toe. The Holy Church had always viewed itself as the master of the entire human society, and with me causing such a ruckus in the Nortnds, if they still had zero reaction, that would have been strange instead.


    ¡°Make them wait.¡±


    ¡°This is the Miracle Hand we¡¯re dealing with, a real living Myth. Legends about his achievements have already been spreading for several hundred years. He¡¯s basically the living personification of the Holy Light.¡±


    ¡°All the more reason to make him wait.¡±


    If it was any other envoy, it probably would have been fine to meet them right away. However, since Estrada was the envoy, hurriedly meeting him would obviously be a bad thing. It wasn¡¯t only that¡ªI also faintly guessed at why they were here. Making them wait to show our dissatisfaction and uncaring attitude towards them would be more advantageous for our uing discussion.


    ¡°Have the tin can knights keep a close eye on them. Don¡¯t let them be too bored ande out and tour around. That would probably cause an incident.¡±


    At mymand, the tin cans came in, but the knight leader, who looked like a big silly bear, had an expression that revealed he felt this would be difficult to aplish.


    ¡°What? You say that you can¡¯t do it? Stupid, did you think that you were supposed to just block their doors? Go ask that quiet-on-the-outside, wild-on-the-inside old grandpa aboutbat techniques and holy magic. Go ask that submander about the meaning of Holy Light, and go tell that cardinal about your sins and frustrations. Make four teams among yourselves, and each team needs to ask them questions for a minimum of four hours. I want them to not even have time to eat or drink.¡±


    That knight leader, who was as thick as a silly bear, still seemed hesitant.


    ¡°What if they don¡¯t teach us?¡±


    ¡°In the Holy Church, one of their teachings is to ¡®Never refuse service to anyone who desires the teachings of the Holy Light.¡¯ If they try to use some excuse to not teach you, then just keep talking about this precept and cry while doing so. Let me see just how they deal with that.¡±


    Right when I finished speaking, all my knights were filled with an eager anticipation to try. If any of them could learn a thing or two from such famous Holy Knights, it would truly be akin to aplishing something they could only dream about.


    ¡°You¡¯re still not going? This is such a great task. If you guys won¡¯t do it, I¡¯ll find someone else to do it.¡±


    Seeing my tin cans rush out the door, I knew that that old man Estrada was going to be really busy. As a living legend among knights, these young passionate tin cans of mine would definitely keep him goodpany.


    ¡°You¡¯re really evil. After all, he was still your knight teacher in the past.¡±


    ¡°Yep, it¡¯s not like he¡¯s the first teacher of mine that came trying to kill me, and nor is he my first teacher that¡¯s suffered because of me. It¡¯s easy for me to make him suffer... I¡¯m really not talking about you, Harloys! Stop biting me!¡±


    Alright then, my head was in danger from a certain ck cat, and I even felt a re from behind my back.


    ¡°Amelia, don¡¯t re at me like that! What happened to between in the past doesn¡¯t count! Alright, I apologize¡ªI sincerely apologize! I give my two teachers here my sincerest apologies, which is why¡ªplease let go¡ªMdy Harloys! I¡¯ve been quite anemic recently. If this continues I¡¯ll really die!¡±


    I finally freed myself from the ¡°soulbound equipment¡± on my head, and I organized my things and prepared to head out again.


    ¡°Um, in order to avoid being caught by Estrada, I¡¯m going to go out again. If those guyse looking for me, remember to say that I¡¯ve gone somewhere far away... why are you all taking out your weapons? I¡¯m talking about something serious here! It¡¯s definitely not because I want to ck off! I can make an oath! If I¡¯m lying, let Beifeng be struck by thunder!¡±


    ¡°That bastard is often struck by thunder anyways, so let¡¯s not discuss your meaningless untrustworthy oath; today, your task is to finish dealing with all the official documents piled up on these three desks! Before you finish, you¡¯re forbidden to go anywhere!¡±


    ...


    ¡°Damned heretics! Damned barbarians! One day, I swear I¡¯ll exterminate all the evil and heretics here!¡±


    In a hotel for foreign guests in Diffindor, the three high-ranked envoys from the Holy Church were currently having a discussion. At the current moment, the youngest among them, Ai, was currently shouting in thunderous rage. For someone like her who had a deep hatred of the undead, she had been filled with pent-up anger ever since she entered this city.


    Soros, who was wryly smiling, was an elderly man who appeared to be a kind individual. He was currently doing his best to try to pacify hispanion¡¯s rage, but to be honest, he was inwardly angry as well. In fact, this was his first time getting angry in the past ten years.


    High-level undead were actually appearing in public just like that on the main streets, and ordinary citizens even used low level undead asborers. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that they already received information about this beforehand, they could have mistaken this ce to be the legendary Undead ne.


    Just like the female knight who was currently raging next to him, he had to restrain himself from acting to ¡°cleanse¡± these undead all along the way. After all, based on the information they received, if any of them took action, not only would nobody likely thank them for it, but they would, in fact, bebeled as ¡°murderers¡± and be marked by Wumianzhe¡¯s Divine Domain. That would surely give them an endless amount of trouble.


    ¡°My glorious Gods, why do you protect these evil undead? And, my pure and holy lord of Holy Light, what is your divine will? What are you intending? Why did you send your loyal servant to such a barbaric location?¡±


    Even the most devout believer would haveints at such a time. At this current moment, Soros was wondering about the mysterious divine will that had sent him here. He also wondered about the undead that were living here just like ordinary people, and he recalled the top-secret information that he had read through. Soros even began to doubt his own belief for the first time.


    ¡°The undying Rnd? I never expected there to be such an existence.¡±


    Unlike Ai who only had partial information, Soros knew everything about the content of their envoy group¡¯s mission. He also had a high enough rank to be allowed to look through ancient records that had been sealed for several hundred years.


    He had read through the darkest parts of the Holy Church¡¯s history that were filled with the light. The Undead King, Forbidden Spell Mage, Divine Child of Light, Law God¡¯s Envoy, The Man Who Betrayed the Holy Light, The Heretic King¡ªall these titles were given to just one person. Just thinking about how this one person had aplished so many legendary feats, even a cardinal like Soros felt astonished and fearful. He didn¡¯t understand why he had toe to this heretical location, nor did he understand why he had to make a trade with this heretic king.


    ¡°My Lord, is this a test of my faith? Please forgive me for doubting your divine will, but looking at all the demons walking around on the streets, I feel like I really am making a trade with demons!¡±


    Just like always, the cardinal¡¯s prayer, which was somewhat irreverent and disrespectful this time, received no response whatsoever. However, for him, he always believed it to be evidence of the inscrutable will of the Gods.


    The legend among legends, Estrada, kept reading a book of his. It seemed like he didn¡¯t notice his twopanions¡¯ints at all.


    Estrada didn¡¯t appear to have a Myth-ranked hero¡¯s aura about him at all. His appearance was ordinary, his height was ordinary, his muscles didn¡¯t bulge, and even the evidence of holy power within him wasn¡¯t evident. He seemed almost exactly like an ordinary person, and on the entire way here, he had remained silent to the point that Soros didn¡¯tprehend. Either he was reading a book or drinking tea. If Soros didn¡¯t know better, he would have mistaken him for a tourist who hade here only to enjoy the sights.


    Soros couldn¡¯t do anything about this elder of his who appeared younger than his own grandson. He could only allow Estrada to do as he pleased.


    One of hispanions was filled with rage, and Soros had to stay on guard and prevent her from drawing her sword and attacking the undead, which would interfere with their diplomatic efforts and the Holy Church¡¯s reputation. Meanwhile, his otherpanion was living in his own little world, and he was unable to do anything about it at all. Although this wasn¡¯t Soros¡¯ first time as an envoy to another country, at the current moment, Soros felt that he had truly gotten old. He even began to consider whether he should retire soon.


    And before his current troubles were even over, new troubles came for him. The sky wasn¡¯t even light outside when a noisy bunch arrived outside his door. It seemed that the lostmbs searching for the Holy Light¡¯s teachings had arrived again.


    Although he considered it a good thing that people were willing to ept the Holy Light¡¯s teachings, they had kept him busy until 3:00 a.m. in the morning, which was quite tiring. Not only that, but these youngsters had such sincere attitudes, and kept talking about how the ¡°Holy Light would never refuse anyone sincerely willing to learn.¡± This made Soros, who always cared about his own friendly reputation, to be unable to say anything forceful in response.


    However, just waiting around like this wasn¡¯t a good idea since their envoy group was here to discuss important matters, not to spread the Holy Light¡¯s teachings. Being surrounded by all these youngsters meant that they wouldn¡¯t be able to aplish anything.


    At the moment that the youngsters¡¯ voices reached them from outside, even Estrada smiled wryly. Last night, he had been quite pitiful as he was surrounded by them as well. He was also the type who was unable to refuse sincere youngsters, and teaching was a tiresome matter, not to mention he taught several hundred yesterday, which took a great deal out of him. If this repeated itself today, neither Estrada nor Soros would be able to take it anymore.


    ¡°It seems that we can¡¯t wait around any longer. Otherwise, Rnd will definitely use even more devious tricks. It¡¯s time to go look for him and have a direct discussion.¡±

 Chapter 242

    Chapter 242: Holy Bathing Basin


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The Holy Bathing Basin? There was such a thing?¡±


    It wasn¡¯t difficult to discover the Holy Church¡¯s intentions, at least on the surface. After all, the Holy Church possessed many members, and there would always be loose-lipped ones among them. Not to mention that there were quite arge number of Holy Knights apanying them for protection this time. It was just too easy to deal with those tin cans, whose brains were nothing but pure muscle, and find out some information from them.


    ¡°Haha! Don¡¯t joke with me. Among all the gifts that you sent to the Holy Church earlier, the ¡®Holy Bathing Basin¡¯ was the most special one of all. It was one of the three remaining holy artifacts left behind by the God of Holy Light while he was still human. The new Pope Caloma, who just ascended recently, was ecstatic, and treated the holy artifact¡¯s return as a divine miracle, a present from the Gods, and even organized a huge ceremony for the holy artifact¡¯s return.¡±


    Kelly seemed to be in a good mood as she looked over our newest information report.


    It seemed that I was quite lucky; I had given them such an extravagant present at such an appropriate time. However, I didn¡¯t recall sending them a ¡°Holy Bathing Basin¡± among the presents I prepared.


    I did my best to recall my previous preparations. From a certain standpoint, if I wanted to have the Nortnds develop as I nned, there was an obstacle that I would always have to face eventually¡ªthe Holy Church that reigned over the entirety of human society.


    If I overstepped their boundaries by even a slight amount and that Pope Caloma had a stroke or something and dered some Holy War against the East Mist, then that would surely be quite fun for us.


    This wasn¡¯t me thinking too much into things. With a huge uing battle, the God of Holy Light definitely wouldn¡¯te looking for trouble with us; in fact, the God might evene looking for allies (cannon fodder). However, the Holy Church consisted of mortals and it was much more difficult to guess at their future actions. It was all the more so since, in my ¡°glorious¡± past, I had basically destroyed almost the entirety of the Holy Church¡¯s allied armies. It was now even easier to make them sensitive and injure their pride.


    It wasn¡¯t limited to that. Just recently, we had just forced the Holy Church¡¯s branches here to leave. If we were just a normal distant country, with Wumianzhe supporting us, it wouldn¡¯t be too big of a big deal since there were plenty of countries other than the Eastern Mist Communal Country that had rejected the Holy Light¡¯s teachings. In this world of Eich where so many Gods existed, the God of Holy Light wasn¡¯t able to kill all the other Gods and be the only one who was worshiped.


    However, we had just won arge-scale battle that everyone had been paying attention to. This fierce battle also proved that we were a force to be reckoned with, and all of human society now had a new opinion of the Nortnds. What came along with that were some small troubles. The critical point, of how the Nortnds overcame their situation, was long since discovered by those seeking information to be the return of the undead knights.


    Knights that should have been in eternal rest walked back out from the pages of history. The former head priest in East Mist had tried to obstruct me, so I angrily shouted at him and even exiled him. Following that, the Law God himself had descended upon the battlefield. This entire city became the location of a divine miracle; it was like a fairy tale.


    Actually, these legendary tales had already been spread by countless bards in taverns and on the streets. All the listeners were astonished by the tales of the undead knights who still waved their tattered gs. Not only did these tales serve to increase East Mist¡¯s reputation, but they also indirectly helped dig up some forgotten past stories. All those wronged and insulted heroic knights would naturally cause the Holy Church, who was the antagonist in these tales, to have their reputation be negatively affected.


    Perhaps, after all their numerous internal changes, the current Holy Church was no longer that former foolish, arrogant, and ineffective institution. However, most people wouldn¡¯t care about those subtle differences. The masses were unable of discerning the truth for themselves and would naturally receive a negative impression of the Holy Church. Not to mention that there were already plenty of human kings and lords that were dissatisfied with the God of Holy Light¡¯s authority, and those kings and lords inmed the rumors, making the p to the Holy Church¡¯s face hurt all the even more. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that there was currently an ongoing Holy War, perhaps they would have alreadye looking for trouble.


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t regret what I had done, but that didn¡¯t mean that I didn¡¯t want to avoid trouble.


    If we had been destroyed in this battle after exiling the Holy Church from our territory, then this story would have turned into one about a fool who was so arrogant that he overestimated his own strength, causing his own destruction. However, we had won, and it was even aplete victory without any assistance from the Holy Church when all other battlefields were in dire straits. Then, the one who was treated as a big fool who received a vicious p in the face obviously wasn¡¯t our side.


    We identally made the Holy Church lose a significant amount of face and put them in a difficult spot. When I realized all this, I wasn¡¯t happy at all. Instead, I broke out into a cold sweat.


    ¡°This time, we definitely antagonized them seriously. If they wanted to do something against us, they won¡¯t even have to do all that much. All they need to do is publicly dere East Mist to be a heretical country, and request all believers in the Holy Light to stay far away from East Mist, and have all the countries that believe in the Holy Light to stop all trade and diplomatic rtions with East Mist. This would basically exile East Mist from the entirety of human society. Since we still can¡¯t produce enough food resources for ourselves yet, we won¡¯t be able to handle it.¡±


    It was supposed to be necessary for everyone to band together during the Holy War? ording to my numerous years of experience umted through my suffering, I could never underestimate those ¡®high¡¯ and ¡®mighty¡¯ who had authority in just how low their moral boundaries or shortsightedness could be.


    Worry about the big situation? They could always take mysterious actions at even the slightest hint of a change in the weather. In history, there was already a countless number of shortsighted, foolish actions. As long as the treasures before them were attractive enough, they were capable of selling their own neckties that would hang them to death.


    What? You¡¯re saying I¡¯m thinking too much into things, and that I have severe paranoia? I¡¯m just an unlucky individual who had suffered too much, so I never had any expectations of my stupid teammates. Every time, I would always n for the worst, and most of the time I would be correct to do so.


    In such a situation, I still had to withstand the pressure and force my undead eptance n through. This was basically no different than wearing a crown that dered me as the king of all that was evil and heretical. However, right now, there wasn¡¯t much time left, and this time of revolutionary change that could explosively increase our country¡¯s strength wasn¡¯t something I could stop. Since the Holy Church still held the majority of humanity¡¯s faith in them, we absolutely had to eliminate any enmity they had for us. At the very least, they should not want to attack us until the end of the Holy War.


    In order for my n to seed, I did indeed send some envoys bearing gifts to them right after the war with the beastmen ended. However, I recalled that I merely sent some former treasures left behind by me in the past that might have been somewhat valuable but were meaningless to me.


    ¡°A holy artifact left behind by the God of Holy Light himself? How is that possible? I couldn¡¯t possibly have had such a thing.¡±


    Not even mentioning the fact that I wouldn¡¯t have such a holy artifact, even if I did have one, how could I possibly give away something as truly useful as a holy artifact or God Equipment? And when looking at who I was dealing with, even if I grit my teeth and gave one to them, it probably wouldn¡¯t be as useful as some golden and shiny valuables.


    ¡°Are they just acting their own performance in order to mediate the rtionship between us? I heard that when Caloma the First just ascended to the position of pope, there were some uncertain factors about his selection and his position was rather unstable. This sudden incident about challenging the Holy Church¡¯s authority was already going to be difficult for him to deal with. If he takes care of it by saying that we gave him an extravagant present as a way of apologizing, that would indeed be good for his own reputation and authority.¡±


    However, I immediately denied this possibility.


    ¡°No, he doesn¡¯t have any reason to act like this since the risk to benefit ratio isn¡¯t beneficial for him. In their eyes, we aren¡¯t even half as important as a human mega-empire, and this little controversy of theirs will pass by in just a few months and be meaningless. There¡¯s no point in acting for our sake, and if they¡¯re exposed to be pretending, that would give them a much more serious impact. Then, that so-called Holy Bathing Basin must be real.¡±


    And so, I inquired as to what that holy artifact looked like.


    ¡°It¡¯s an oak wooden barrel that seems like it¡¯s crafted by hand. It¡¯s thest known artifact that the God of Holy Light used to bathe himself with before ascending to God status.¡±


    Holy artifact? It sounded pretty cool, but in all honesty, it was just something boring. Either they were important objects with great historical significance, or they were daily life objects used by True Gods when they were still mortals, so part of their essences was imbued in these objects. Who cared about a holy wooden barrel? Wumianzhe¡¯s holy artifacts included a little yellow ducky holy pillow and a raindrop patterned holy toothbrush cup. Cough¡ªcough¡ªI seem to have identally revealed too much.


    But that didn¡¯t mean that holy artifacts¡¯ power could be underestimated. The more ancient a God was, the fewer holy artifacts that remained for them. And, with the faith of countless believers pouring into it, these ancient holy artifacts really did possess unimaginable power. Perhaps they were meaningless to people that had no rtion to the God in question, but in the hands of a true believer, each holy artifact represented the sincerest form of devotion and high authority.


    ¡°A wooden barrel for washing yourself? I don¡¯t have any impression of such an item at all.¡±


    Everything I gave to the Holy Church as a present came from my personal collection. Most of them were from the Yongye generation, but I really couldn¡¯t recall any wooden barrel. Even if I dide across a wooden barrel of some sort, I couldn¡¯t have possibly added it to my collection.


    ¡°There is some huge beast¡¯s w and teeth marks on it as well, as if some evil existence tried to destroy this holy artifact but failed in the end.¡±


    ¡°Ohhh! So it was that item! Ah Bao¡¯s dog food bowl.¡±


    Right after I said it, I already knew that I had made a mistake by saying it out loud, and I covered my mouth. However, it was already toote. Judging by how Kelly was clutching her chest, it seemed as though she was having a heart attack. Weren¡¯t wood elves supposed to be immune to natural illnesses?


    ¡°As one of the God of Holy Light¡¯sst remaining holy artifacts, it is one of the highest-level holy objects in countless Holy Light believers¡¯ minds. You definitely can¡¯t ever let any Holy Light believer learn that you used it as a dog food bowl; otherwise, the next Holy War will be right at our doorstep. I won¡¯t permit the newly born Mist Kingdom to perish again for such a ridiculous reason!¡±


    Alright then, for the first time I learned that even the gentle wood elves were capable of angrily roaring.


    Actually, this wasn¡¯t my fault at all. How could I possibly know that it was a holy artifact? Back in the day when I was Yongye and fighting all-out against the Holy Church, after one casting of Ice Aeon, not much would remain afterward. One time when cleaning up the battlefield after using Ice Aeon, I discovered that this wooden barrel actually wasn¡¯t damaged at all, so I thought it was quite sturdy. When I thought about how Ah Bao always identally tore apart his own food bowls, I decided to use it as his new dog food bowl. And so, it¡¯s been his dog food bowl for over one hundred years already.


    Back when the Holy Church¡¯s allied armies were attacking the Army of Yongye, probably some major figure in their army had intended to use this holy artifact as their trump card, but after my forbidden spell, the owner died first without being able to use it, and it ended up as my loot.


    ¡°But why did I give it to them? Oh, right, there were too many random presents of all sorts of shapes and sizes, so I randomly found a wooden barrel to put them all in. So, the wooden barrel packaging was the most valuable of them all. Sigh, what a big loss.¡±


    Right when I finished speaking, I discovered to my astonishment that Kelly had copsed while clutching her chest. It seemed that the wood elves, which were never supposed to get sick, were susceptible to heart attacks as well.


    ¡°Sister Kelly, don¡¯t scare me! If your heart is in a bad condition, tell me earlier!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all because you¡¯ve made me so angry! Is it even possible for you to be more ridiculous?!¡±


    After some consideration, I proudly nodded.


    ¡°Yes, I think that there is some room to improve.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯tugh so proudly! Nobody is praising you here!¡±

 Chapter 243

    Chapter 243: Coincidental Meeting Before the Celebration


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    In the East Mist Royal Pce, during the end of winter, Cardinal Soros¡¯ Holy Church envoy group met with Princess Reyne and had a friendly and intimate discussion. Both sides exchanged their ideas regarding the current international situation, increased their understanding of each other, improved their friendship, and came to a mutual ord.


    All of the above was obviously impossible.


    First of all, let¡¯s not mention the fact that the Holy Church group was still hesitating in their hotel and not requesting a formal meeting due to certain reasons. As for East Mist, only Kelly was the one dealing with anything official on the surface. Reyne and I were both avoiding them, and it was obvious that both sidescked sincerity. At the very least, until I was fully prepared, I didn¡¯t intend to meet them at all. They wanted to meet me in private? They¡¯d have to find me first.


    There was now less than a week until the scheduled ¡°Day of Peace¡± celebration that I created for my birthday. The streets of Diffindor were filled with teeming hordes of people, and all the stores had begun draping colorful cloths and simple decorations. An atmosphere of a festival was already present.


    If one looked carefully, expensive artistry and decorations couldn¡¯t be seen anywhere due to theck of resources and materials. To be as extravagant as the people in And in hanging jewelry on their trees was unimaginable, but the northerners had their own neat little tricks. If artificial scenery was insufficient, then the natural scenery was pretty good by itself.


    Ice sculptures were seen everywhere, including sculptures of even legendary beasts from stories. There was a tall snow giant with a fierce expression and a white dragon that was spitting out dragonbreath and pping its wings. Across from the white dragon was even a brave knight made of ice, rushing towards it. Since there were ice sculptures of all these monsters, of course there would be ice sculptures of heroes, both real and imagined as well.


    There were icicles hanging from the eaves of all the stores, and these originally crystal-clear icicles had been painted with colors. This was an attractive decoration that wasn¡¯t inferior to jewelry one bit.


    Children were creating snowmen, the young were putting on new clothes and enjoying this rare vacation, while the elderly were out walking around, enjoying the rare warmth of sunlight during winter.


    Compared to the celebrations of other countries, perhaps the overall organization and material resources avable were poorer. However, judging from everyone¡¯s smiles, they were truly smiling from their hearts. After all, East Mist hadn¡¯t had a reason to celebrate for far too long.


    All the diplomats from various countries had arrived as per their invitations. Although their main goal was the private military weapon trading to be der, they didn¡¯t mind enjoying this rare Nortnds celebration either. The number of people arriving from the future countries that would join the Mist Alliance was the most numerous. Not only did they have official envoy groups, there were also plenty civilian merchant groups and tourists. Although this revived country wasn¡¯t rich, there were plenty of potential opportunities and riches to be had.


    ¡°It¡¯s the safety brand; why are you catching me!¡±


    The gnome that was selling his products didn¡¯t even get to finish his sentence when the soldiers immediately blocked him off.


    ¡°Last month, we received 329ints about your ¡®safety brand,¡¯ with an average of an astounding ten per day. Based on the new rules drafted by the Town Security, from this month onwards, all ¡®safety brand¡¯ sales are forbidden. You still dare to sell your products in public? Confiscate all his goods! Add a fine of 50 gold coins!¡±


    Normally speaking, asking a gnome for money would be no different from asking for his life. Wanting a gnome to obediently pay up was definitely on the level of an Epic-ranked Quest. That gnome thought for only a moment beforeing up with a devious idea.


    ¡°Misunderstanding, it¡¯s all a misunderstanding. Please take a look, this isn¡¯t the safety brand. It¡¯s written rather sloppily; you probably read it wrong. This clearly says ¡®public safety!¡¯ Yeah, I identally shouted it wrong just earlier, but saying it wrong isn¡¯t illegal.¡±


    Alright then, he instantly changed to a new sign, but unfortunately for him, he wasn¡¯t the first gnome to use this tactic, and the soldiers were already prepared to deal with this strategy.


    ¡°Alright then, we¡¯ll charge you for selling fake products instead. Add a fine of 100 gold coins!¡±


    The bystandersughed out loud upon seeing this scene. I also nodded in satisfaction. The troubles of this new generation needed newws and new ways to deal with them. It seemed that the newly drafted Town Security rules were quite useful, and the ¡°The Guide to Hunt Gentlemen¡± that I had given to everyone had probably arrived as well.


    ¡°Hey, the weather¡¯s so good today. Why do two guys like us have to tour the streets together?¡±


    As I walked around and observed the surroundings, Adam, who was apanying me, was filled withints. ¡°If it¡¯s just to tour the streets or observe things around here, you could invite any of your femalepanions, which would be much better than me. For two men to walk together like this, do you think that there are not enough rumors about us? Also, just what exactly are those ¡®boy love¡¯ books? Two men hugging each other? Those damned gnomes, they¡¯ll sell anything to make money. Two days ago, I discovered that even Margaret is beginning to collect them. Even though she clearly knows it¡¯s all made up, she actually secretly enjoys them so much.¡±


    Hearing this, I was speechless as well. I could only look off into the distance and recall the past, which was filled with nothing but blood, sweat, and tears.


    ¡°About that, I already investigated it. Those gnomes didn¡¯t actually make these books; they¡¯re only the sellers. The origin is actually from those damned Town Security girly brats, and the main perpetrators include your precious little Margaret. Not only is she collecting them, she¡¯s even one of the main artists. Back in Sulfur Mountain City, many of these types of books were her work as well. You don¡¯t know even after all this time?¡±


    Talking about this type of thing made me feel helpless as well, but when I saw how Adam¡¯s face turned beet red upon hearing what I told him, learning that his dear Margaret collected doujinshis [1] 1 with himself as the main character, I felt a lot better.


    ¡°As expected. Rather than being frustrated by yourself, seeing someone more miserable than you are will uplift your mood. That saying is so true. As for why I invited you, if I really did just casually invite a femalepanion as you said, I¡¯d meet with a huge disaster. You should know that my sense for causing disasters to myself is quite urate.¡±


    Adam, however, was looking at me with an expression of astonishment.


    ¡°Do you even need a sense for this? You can think of it even with your knee, not your brain, so can¡¯t you just use your brains to think about something normal?¡±


    Hearing him say that, I felt rather displeased. Now I knew what it felt like to experience the pot calling the kettle ck. Adam was a musclehead with only 9 Intelligence, and he dared to call me dumb?


    But before I could think up a method to obtain my revenge, a new situation appeared in front of us.


    There was arge crowd of people and the sound of arguing. It appeared to be some sort of disagreement.


    ¡°Pay up, otherwise you¡¯re not allowed to leave!¡±


    A slightly hoodlum-ish young man was tugging on a female knight¡¯s shirt, not allowing her to leave.


    She had silver armor and a golden sword, as well as a nice facebined with a tall and beautiful figure. Under the sunshine, her blonde hair seemed to glimmer, and she attracted everyone¡¯s attention as if she was the Sun God.


    However, this heroic seeming female knight was in quite the difficult situation. She could only do her best to verbally defend herself under the other person¡¯s usations.


    ¡°I just thought that those undead were about to attack you, besides¡ª¡±


    She didn¡¯t get to finish speaking before she was interrupted.


    ¡°What the hell are you talking about? Everyone in Diffindor knows about undeadborers by now. You destroyed theborers I hired after working so hard to save money to afford them, so who¡¯s going to help me around the house now? Don¡¯t you dare try to run off. Either you pay for their costs, or you return back with me and work on behalf of my skeletonborers.¡±


    By the time he finished with thatst sentence, the scummy look on his face betrayed what he was truly thinking, even if he was in the right.


    ¡°Or, do you intend on hitting people here? Or saying that it has nothing to do with you? Is there anyw that says if you destroy someone else¡¯s things you can even hit them afterwards?¡±


    With everyone watching, the female knight was both embarrassed and enraged, but she didn¡¯t know what to do. It wasn¡¯t that she didn¡¯t want to spend money to make her trouble go away, it was that she went out in a rush and forgot to take any money with her. And, with her status, she typically didn¡¯t have to pay for things herself.


    Today, she just coincidentally came out to have a look around, and saw an undead that seemed like it was about to attack that man, which caused her to instinctively take action. The moment she did so, she knew that she had made a mistake, but it was already toote. Now, she had been caught by the other party, and couldn¡¯t think of any ns.


    Judging by how the bystanders seemed to be looking in an unfriendly fashion at her emblem of Holy Light, the rumors that Holy Knights weren¡¯t wee here must have actually been true. This was the first time that she had ever been surrounded by so much unfriendliness in a human city.


    Just as she was hesitating whether or not to stop caring about any consequences and break free from this crowd, a figure suddenly stood before her with a sunny smile that made her recall the First Knight Squadron¡¯s ceremonial smiles. Only, this person made it seem even more natural and passionate. Also, the slight sign of Holy Light from that person¡¯s sword scabbard was evidence of his identity¡ªa young Holy Knight.


    ¡°The Holy Light is above us. Mydy, do you need any assistance?¡±


    Note:


    1. ording to Wikipedia, a d¨­jinshi (ͬÈËÕI, often transliterated doujinshi) is the Japanese term for self-published works, usually magazines, manga or novels.

 Chapter 244

    Chapter 244: Saint of Holy Light


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav, imperfectluck


    After the Holy Church¡¯s branches were exiled from Diffindor, Holy Knights became a rare sight. However, today, there were two obviously high-ranked Holy Knights chatting with each other as they walked around Diffindor¡¯s most flourishing business district.


    ¡°Oh, so you¡¯re here on an official mission? To send you here right after the end of the battle, it would seem that our Holy Church¡¯s headquarters must view the situation here with great importance.¡±


    The female knight nodded. This part was obvious due to the envoy group¡¯s arrival. She didn¡¯t need to deny it.


    ¡°With the And Empire currently in a stalemate, the Nortnds received the first victory beyond everyone¡¯s expectations. This astonished just about every country as this was the first victory of the Holy War. Plus, East Mist sent a significant present at such a time, so the Cardinal Conference and His Holiness the Pope were all really delighted, which was why they sent us with rewards for this ce.¡±


    ¡°Rewards? That Rnd is famous for being difficult to deal with. I doubt that it would be easy to satisfy him with any reward. Besides, since East Mist gave a holy artifact as a present, it means that what¡¯s given to Rnd in return can¡¯t just be some verbal thanks. Could it be that the higher-ups are willing to pay up this time?¡±


    ¡°...Although it¡¯s still a secret, since it¡¯ll be publicized soon anyways, I suppose I can tell you. This time, what Pope Caloma the First granted is an incredible honor that nobody will believe...¡±


    The ¡°Red-winged Griffin¡± Ai was quite grateful to the young Holy Knight before her. If it weren¡¯t for his sudden appearance and help that allowed her to pay the costs she owed for destroying that other man¡¯s undeadborers, perhaps she would have lost much face. If the envoy group found out that she was held responsible for being unable to pay for damages to a civilian, it would surely have been humiliating for her.


    Just as she was in the midst of her difficulty, this young Holy Knight arrived. Although she didn¡¯t know how this northern Holy Knight was able to obtain respect from this city filled with enmity, judging by how everyone¡¯s attitudes around them quickly softened, he seemed to be quite wee here.


    And it seemed inconceivable to her that in this city of Diffindor, where people were obviously biased against the Holy Light, all the bystanders kept bowing to him.


    ¡°Perhaps he¡¯ll be able to help out with our current difficulties.¡±


    Ai was already intending to introduce this Holy Knight, whose name she learned was Rolo, to the envoy group. A local who was able to provide information and connections was just what the envoy group needed right now.


    When Rolo asked her about the reason that the envoy group hade here, Ai considered for a moment¡ªhe was also obviously a Holy Knight, plus she was grateful to him for having just helped her out, so she decided to just casually tell him the envoy group¡¯s goal.


    ¡°It¡¯s not some big secret, but the political meaning behind it is important and rather sensitive, so please don¡¯t spread it around. Especially the East Mist Royalty¡ªthey absolutely can¡¯t find out about it beforehand.¡±


    ¡°Of course. In the name of the Holy Light, I promise that I shall never reveal this information to anyone from East Mist.¡±


    Ai had an even better impression of Holy Knight Rolo after she heard him swear in the name of the Holy Light.


    ¡°This time, what His Holiness the Pope gave as a reward is the title of a Saint of Holy Light! The target is that Prince Rnd who once had the glorious title of Son of Light.¡±


    ¡°Saint Rnd? How is that possible?¡±


    ¡°I know¡ªit¡¯s utterly iprehensible. I have no idea what the Cardinal Conference and His Holiness were thinking. Is the title of Saint of Holy Light something to be so easily given away? Not to mention it¡¯s being given to a living heretic. Perhaps in the past he was indeed an example to other Holy Knights, and perhaps finding a lost holy artifact is indeed a reward worthy achievement, and perhaps he had received glorious titles in the past, but the past is all the past. Just look at this city; the dirty undead are everyone. He¡¯s allies with the undead, so why are we giving such a venerable title and the glory of a Saint of Holy Light to such an evil person? This is basically nothing more than a humiliation upon the entire Holy Church.¡±


    The female knight even stomped her feet in anger as she ranted. Her dissatisfaction, which had umted over the past few days, was now boiling over, and in front of her two elders in the envoy group, she didn¡¯t dare voice herints too much. Now, however, she felt like she had an opportunity to vent, so she was filled withints.


    I understood why she was so frustrated, as the title of Saint of Holy Light was something that the Holy Church typically rewarded to people only after their deaths. And this wasn¡¯t only a mere title; it represented the God of Holy Light and the Holy Church¡¯s recognition of that person. It was both glorious and a useful identity to have.


    This title would also be added in front of the names of a few countries, which represented their devoutness and the extra attention given to them by the God of Holy Light. Each mega-level empirepeted intensely for this title, and only San Antonio and a few ancient empires were able to receive it due to their countless years of contributions.


    ¡°Just what is the God of Holy Light thinking, suddenly giving me such a huge present?¡±


    There would be many benefits for me in suddenly receiving such a title.


    For example, in order to maintain the Holy Church¡¯s reputation of forever pure Holy Light, and Saint of Holy Light was incapable of making huge mistakes. If a Saint of Holy Light really did some evil deed, it would all be swept under the rug, which was basically the best disaster-avoiding ticket to have of all.


    The title of Saint of Holy Light wasn¡¯t something to be so casually given away. After all, no matter how many aplishments a person racked up, there was no promising that they wouldn¡¯t make a big mistaketer on in life.


    That was why this title was almost exclusively for the dead. While there were a few examples of living Saints of Holy Light in the past, most of them were fervent believers of the Holy Church. Some had personal connections to the God of Holy Light¡¯s Divine Miracles.


    Back in the day, when the Holy Light represented despair and shed itsst in the skies of Diffindor, there had been numerous voices moring for me to be given the title of Saint of Holy Light as well. For me to have reached Legend from Bronze as a Holy Knight in just two years seemed simr to a Divine Miracle. The pure Holy Light of despair was also treated as a Divine Miracle, which was why there were indeed some cardinals who rmended giving me this title. Of course, in the end, it didn¡¯te to pass.


    Judging by the information I received from various ces, I now knew what was going on.


    Most probably, this newly ascended pope was incredibly pleased at receiving such a huge gift from me, and wanted to reward me with something. He took into consideration that I had been rmended for this title in the past, and he finally approved giving me the title of Saint of Holy Light. However, it was obvious that his envoy group had differing opinions about this, especially after seeing the undead here, which was why the envoy group was hesitating and stalling without contacting me directly.


    ¡°Actually, no. They should realize how much trouble a living Saint of Holy Light could possibly give them. If it¡¯s only for this reason alone, they¡¯re giving me far too much. They must have some additional reasons that I still don¡¯t know about yet. This little girl is obviously not the type to hide what she knows, in which case it means that probably even she doesn¡¯t know.¡±


    Yet still, I had to attempt to pry and find out more. Perhaps I would find out more beneficial information. ¡°...This is His Holiness the Pope¡¯s decision, so we should be cautious in what we say. Although I don¡¯t really have the right to say anything, I also believe that Rnd doesn¡¯t deserve the honor of being a Saint of Holy Light. He¡¯s never had the God of Holy Light in his heart to begin with, so aren¡¯t there other higher-ups with different opinions from the pope¡¯s?¡±


    When she heard this young Holy Knight concur with her thoughts, Ai continually nodded.


    ¡°Yeah; I can¡¯t understand it at all. There were so many arguments within the Holy Church. Originally, I was neutral about this topic, but once I arrived here and witnessed all these heretics unwilling to ept the Holy Light¡¯s teachings, as well as those undead that dare to walk around in broad daylight, it¡¯s unimaginable for me not to consider Rnd as a heretic. His Holiness must have been beguiled by someone, which is the only reason he could havee to such a ridiculous decision, but...¡±


    ¡°But?¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s nothing much¡ªjust my personal guess. Perhaps His Holiness hopes to be able to reestablish the Holy Church¡¯s branches here again. If the Holy Church is able to ease the rtionship with Rnd by giving him the title of Saint of Holy Light, it would seem quite likely.¡±


    I nodded, as this was within my expectations. Even if the Church of Law was the national church in our country, we permitted the branches of other churches as long as they belonged to the Order Gods.


    Although it was rather forceful of the Holy Church, I had already decided to ept the reestablishment of their church branches. This wasn¡¯t only for political needs; it was also quite practical.


    Even though the power of Law had many simrities to the power of Holy Light, and was even better than Holy Light at punishing evildoers, it couldn¡¯tpare to Holy Light when it came to healing in any way. There were far too few people on our side with Holy Light-rted job sses, which was a disadvantage for us.


    Actually, it was also because of the fact that Holy Light was so good for healing that Legend-ranked holy magic users, who could cure just about any normal illness, received so much gratitude from the popce. It was also why most countries found it difficult to refuse the establishment of the Holy Church¡¯s branches within their borders or to refuse to allow those with Holy Light job sses to spread their teachings.


    Ai¡¯s words made a lot of sense, but...


    ¡°That¡¯s still not enough. The deep grudge between the Holy Church and I left behind from the time I was Yongye won¡¯t be that easy to cancel out. Giving me the status of Saint of Holy Light is no simple matter, as that basically means they¡¯re publicly dering that their past grudges against me have beenpletely resolved. Something so beneficial for me for no apparent reason is definitely dangerous, especially when this seemingly beneficial thinges from a former enemy.¡±


    I carefully considered this as much as I could, but I still couldn¡¯te up with the answer. Judging by how Ai was still filled withints, I knew that asking her would be meaningless.


    ¡°...It would seem that she doesn¡¯t know the real reason.¡±


    On the roadside, under a huge tent, some undead knights could be seen busily preparing for the uing celebration, rehearsing the opening act of the undead circus so that they could perform well when the grand celebration began.


    The undead knights wore pumpkin hats and were joking around,ughing with each other, while bone dragons wearing ¡°brooms¡± and liches that were attempting to ride these ¡°brooms¡± were currentlypeting with each other. The headless knights, which could directly go on stage without requiring any makeup, were intending to use their own heads as balls in the performance, while the skeleton general, who was also a Sword Saint, was currently practicing his ultimate technique.


    ¡°Damned undead! May the holy fires of heaven cleanse you all!¡±


    Sensing the powerful force of undead, Ai red at the undead knights that were currently practicing their program and grit her teeth loudly as she cursed the pitch-ck existences in front of her under her breath.


    I could tell from her eyes that she wasn¡¯t even trying to conceal her rabid hatred of undead. It seemed that her hatred for undead stemmed from more than just her own job ss.


    Just as I was intending to ask her about it, a familiar figure appeared on the corner of the street. He seemed to be looking for someone.


    ¡°Lord Estrada! Are you looking for me?¡±


    When Ai hurriedly walked towards his figure, she didn¡¯t notice that the young Holy Knight that she had been intending to introduce to the envoy group had secretly vanished in the shadows.


    When Estrada noticed Ai, his first reaction was one of surprise. He felt as though he sensed a familiar person¡¯s scent upon her, so he asked immediately.


    ¡°Who were you with just now?¡±


    ¡°...Ah, perfect, Lord Estrada! Allow me to introduce someone to you. He¡¯s a local Holy Knight, and he helped me out. He¡¯s also really familiar with this area. Rolo, this is Lord Estrada. Rolo? Where did he go?¡±


    When she turned around, that young and friendly Holy Knight who had helped her had vanishedpletely.


    Not long after, when Estrada learned about the physical appearance of that oh-so-friendly Holy Knight who had just helped her out, he became quite pale. It took a long while before he was finally able to speak.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s go back for now.¡±


    In a nearby alleyway, I let go of my breath as I watched the two Holy Knights leave in a hurry. ¡®The Strongest Holy Knight of All¡¯ was quite famous and gave me a lot of pressure. It would have been quite troublesome if he had caught me.


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªwhy didn¡¯t you go greet your teacher? After not seeing him for so long, you hide the moment you see him? That seems rather rude. No matter what, he taught you back in the day, so aren¡¯t you being too cold?¡±


    ¡°...You bastard! I taught you your swordsmanship, but I have never seen you be polite to me.¡±


    I recalled that Miracle Hand from back in the day, rushing towards me through my untold hordes of undead armies while roaring loudly ¡°I shall correct my own mistakes!¡± It made my head ache. Unlike the young Ai, who was stillcking in many aspects, Estrada could be said to be just about perfect in every way¡ªin wisdom, experience, personal strength, and his subordinates¡¯ strength.


    There were plenty of Holy Knights to begin with, and even the number of Holy Knights in promoted job sses were uncountable in number. In order for all the other Holy Knights to willingly respect him as the ¡°strongest¡± for so many centuries already meant a lot by itself.


    For me, however, his Myth-ranked power level was only part of it. As one of the most veteran Holy Knights of all, his personal connections and reputation had actually surpassed any pope, which was the most crucial part.


    If he said something like ¡°the evil Rnd must be exterminated,¡± probably more than 70% of all Holy Knights and priests would view me as their mortal enemy, which would be quite a lot of ¡®fun¡¯ for me.


    Back in the day, it was precisely his efforts that allowed the Holy Knights and priests to almostpletely break ranks from the higher-ranked cardinals. He was the main reason behind why that so-called Holy War didn¡¯t have a huge army of Holy Knights, which should have been the main forces to begin with. However, during the time of Yongye, Estrada and the knights directly under hismand were my biggest headache and enemies of all.


    Looking at how Estrada still seemed to be so young, I didn¡¯t have the slightest clue how to deal with him.


    ¡°Haha! So it was true.¡± While I was dealing with my frustrations, that heartless Adam suddenly thought of something that caused him to startughing.


    ¡°What are youughing about? Did you eat too much?¡± This guy could always rain on my parade.


    Adam wasughing so hard that he had to crouch, and he couldn¡¯t catch his breath. It took him a long while before he managed to wave his hand at me.


    ¡°No, no, it¡¯s just that I recently heard from Harloys that you have a tradition of the student always killing off the teacher. I didn¡¯t believe her at first, but now, it seems I absolutely have to believe it. You see, Harloys taught you in the past, and suffered because of you. Amelia taught you in the past, and suffered because of you. That¡¯s two so far.¡±


    In fact, Adam had even begun counting with his fingers to keep track.


    ¡°You taught Elisa, and she killed you in the end¡ªthat¡¯s the third. Estrada taught you, and you met on the battlefield on opposite sides. That¡¯s four. You¡¯re truly amazing¡ªit¡¯s as if you¡¯re a living curse, and you still dare to take on your own students? Just look at how obedient my little Annie is. From what I can see, Reyne and Glina are quite something themselves, so aren¡¯t you worried about repeating the past¡ªwait, why are you drawing your sword?¡±


    [System Notification: You...]


    ¡°You shut up as well!¡±


    [I still haven¡¯t said anything yet!]


    ¡°Do you ever have anything good to say? Isn¡¯t it always those ridiculous titles and making fun of me? If it¡¯s not, and I was actually wrong about my guess, why don¡¯t you just try and continue?¡±


    [...]


    My System¡¯s silence (tacit admittance) caused me to feel that I was even more pitiful. I silently thought of how I had been killed off by Annie in ¡°history,¡± as well as the betrayal that Adam didn¡¯t know about by my Elf King student Adrian who had stabbed me in the back. I now absolutely had to use Adam as a target to vent my frustrations.


    ¡°I was just thinking how you forgot one... didn¡¯t I teach you as well, and didn¡¯t you kill me? Today, I¡¯m going to teach this unfaithful disciple of mine a lesson!¡±


    After a furious fight... fine then, I admit I was on the losing end since I wasn¡¯t careful and had misjudged the difference in power between us. However, Adam didn¡¯t have it easy either, as he underestimated my current physical strength. I was now a barbarian with over 30 in Strength as well!


    Although I seeded in giving that bastard two ck eyes, that bastard was shameless enough to overwhelm a newbie Gold rank with his SemiGod strength. After I received a sufficient amount of beating¡ªer¡ªafter we came to a mutual ord, we finally brought the conversation back to a serious topic again.


    ¡°Little Red and Annie have arrived. I called for you toe with me in order to greet them.¡±


    As the representative of the Underground World, Annie had brought her own envoy group with her. Little Red, who had finally woken up, was apanying her. I even missed them a little after not having seen them for so long.


    ¡°And you gave me two ck eyes? How am I supposed to greet them like this?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it the same for me? I¡¯m even worse off than you. Couldn¡¯t you have gone a little easier on me? By the way, you need to prepare to teach your new subordinates.¡±


    ¡°New subordinates? What?¡±


    ¡°I asked Annie to bring over a group of newly-trained Town Security troops and Law Knights. It¡¯s about time to take care of those bastards in the city. I¡¯m leaving their training to you.¡±


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say so earlier!? How am I supposed to be respected when looking like this!¡±


    Iughed out loud proudly when I looked at his eyes, which I had personally ckened.


    ¡°Haha! This is exactly what I wanted. No looking cool for you in front of beautiful women!¡±

 Chapter 245

    Chapter 245: New Tides


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°OUR TARGET? NO CAVITIES... NO GENTLEMEN!¡±


    In the za, my anger was transforming into something material. Therge group of Town Security troops and knights below me shouted loudly in response.


    On this temporarily constructed wooden tform were a few banners I had written. My forceful calligraphy were representations of myints and my will.


    The left banner said, ¡°Strictly strike down the gentlemen!¡± [1] 1


    The right banner said, ¡°Cleanse the atmosphere of the city!¡±


    The middle banner said, ¡°Beifeng, go die!¡±


    Alright then, let us not look too deeply into whether these banners rhymed with each other or matched each other, nor should we mention how Beifeng, who was still in the Earth Elemental ne, had been the unknowing target of my wrath. Nevertheless, when I wrote thosest three words in front of everyone, the cheers that filled the heavens represented their attitude.


    ¡°Beifeng, go die!¡±


    They tossed their hats into the air and waved their hands, and one elven female was so excited that she even tossed her personal undergarments¡ªthe ones she had been wearing¡ªinto the air. I couldn¡¯t help but sigh at this scene of high morale as I listened to the cheers that came from their very hearts.


    ¡°It¡¯s nice that they¡¯re spirited. A pity that Beifeng isn¡¯t here.¡±


    It truly was a pity. If Beifeng had been here, using him as a sacrifice would have raised morale more than anything else. If we were to take on the Gentlemen, what else would raise morale more than taking out Beifeng as our first target?


    ¡°Kill all the Beifengs!¡±


    Wasn¡¯t this female elf getting something wrong here...? Beifeng¡¯s name wasn¡¯t a synonym for pervert¡ªwait a moment¡ªit really could be used this way. Beifeng¡¯s name definitely represented a greater concept than the word pervert could ever epass.


    ¡°I¡¯ve long since hated the sight of all those Gentlemen! I bought a bottle of whitening lotion and only used it for three days¡ªdon¡¯t look at me like that! How many times have I said it¡ªI¡¯m not a dark elf! I¡¯m a human from the teaus! I just got too much sunlight! Isn¡¯t it natural to want to be fairer?¡±


    Thisdy wasn¡¯t a dark elf? She was so dark that I couldn¡¯t even make out her facial features. No wonder people always mistook her for a dark elf.


    ¡°Clothes-slicing demons and naked perverts, just you wait for me!¡± This one seemed to be a victim with a painful past. She was currently wrapped in twoyers of steel ting, which probably gave her a feeling of safety.


    As I observed the new Town Security troops, who were all gritting their teeth in anger, why would I still waste any words? With such high morale and anger, it was time to lock the doors and unleash these hounds... for their mission!


    ¡°Let¡¯s go! I won¡¯t say anything else! No matter if it¡¯s a crime in progress or a repeat offender, catch them all for me! No matter what those important targets are currently doing right now, catch them all and bring them to me!¡±


    Watching the rabid dogs¡ªer¡ªsessful knights rush out, I nodded in satisfaction. As expected of the new Town Security knight squadron created from the Sulfur Mountain City Town Security troops. They had incredibly high morale and highbat strength, and the most important part was that they had lots of experience in dealing with those bastards. They wouldn¡¯t let them escape.


    ¡°Team Number 1¡¯s task is maintaining order and cleansing the city. Captain Yawen shall lead this team. The most important target for you is the Beyar brothers¡¯ group, which is selling all that fake medicine. Those bastards¡ªthey actually dared to rmend their ¡®safety brand¡¯ engineering tools and alchemic potions! Do you know how much time I spent on exining that those weren¡¯t assassination tools, bombs, and poisons? If selling fake products became an international incident, it truly would be too ridiculous. Do a good job for me in dealing with those bastards!¡±


    After Diana went to search for her own path of belief, her former second-inmand Yawen became the new leader of Town Security. And this time, I had the elites from Sulfur Mountain Citye over, bringing more than half of Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Town Security over to Diffindor.


    Until they got used to the sunlight, main task of these dark elves would be to patrol and keep the town safe during nighttime. As for why I picked today for a massive cleanup? That was mainly because today was extra cloudy and we had plenty of people to go around.


    Even though the sun was scarce today, their current appearances were still rather scary. They were covered over in every part of their bodies, and they were wearing the gnomes¡¯plete sealing anti-poison masks. The white gases being emitted from the back of their heads appeared just like boiling steam.


    I felt it was rather strange to see these cute females turn into strange uncles, but luckily, it was currently winter and wasn¡¯t hot outside. It was somewhat tolerable, albeit still inconvenient.


    ¡°We need more specialized equipment. If you need human resources and materials, then use the unlucky ones that you catch this time asborers and free wallets.¡±


    Although most of them were actually tomboys filled with raunchy jokes, these female elves with excellent appearances now seemed as if they were demons that came from the Chaos Abyss. At least their strength and experience were trustworthy... Fine then, I admit that I received plenty ofints regarding them; for example, how they had scared some naughty children.


    ¡°Team Number 2¡¯s task is to maintain public morality. Momo and Catherine, if you see anyone who¡¯s naked, tearing off other people¡¯s clothes, or who¡¯s wearing clothes but look even more depraved than someone who¡¯s naked¡ªyep¡ªI¡¯m talking about Pier and Omar, those musclehead bastards, catch them all for me. Do you all know just how manyints I receive about them every day? Take these mosaic spraying guns, and the moment you see something depraved for me, mosaic it!¡±


    Was it advanced technology? It was only ck oil. If everything was pitch ck, that would be even better of a mosaic than ¡°Holy Light.¡±


    ¡°Team Number 3, your task is about forbidden goods, especially with regards to books and drawings that are overly detailed about opposite genders interacting with each other. Cough, I won¡¯t go into detail about it; you all know what I mean. Oh, right, it¡¯s also a simr crime for books and drawings about those with the same genders...¡±


    I smiled in satisfaction when I saw all the Town Security knights leave upon receiving their missions.


    The newly-born Town Security was also expected to be Diffindor¡¯s only standing defense army. Their members consisted of all sorts, as there were some novice knights and hunters that had just finished basic training, there were elites from the Underground World, there were some that were locals from Diffindor, and there were even some neutral mercenaries that voluntarily joined the military.


    Due to the existence of the ¡°Crimeless City¡± domain, as long as enough Law job sses were maintained here, Diffindor would, in a way, truly be the Infallible City. And, the Church of Law¡¯s main headquarters had been moved here as well... Honestly speaking, if the beastmen had attacked the current Diffindor, they would have been defeated rather quickly.


    Alright then, since Diffindor didn¡¯t require the maintenance of too muchbat strength, the royal knights would remain as the national army. Giving them the job of protecting the city¡¯s order and peace would be a waste. In that case, I used the military to reorganize things and gave the task of city defense and maintaining order to the Town Order Security Army¡ªyep¡ªI¡¯m still calling them ¡°Town Security¡± for short.


    ¡°This name sounds so in, and the abbreviation sounds even stranger¡± was Elisa¡¯sint.


    ¡°Hmph, none of you understand! This name can help repel evil! With three thousand Town Security members, everything will be peaceful, as everyone will be scared of them.¡±


    Under my ¡°singlehandedly forcing this n through,¡± this Town Security squadron, which I had personally named, became my most loyal underlings of all.


    Their tasks were quite simple¡ªthey just had to enforce thew. For those who caused small incidents or troubles, they would only have to lock them up for a short period as per thew. If they caught anyone that the ¡®Crimeless City¡¯ had marked as a serious criminal, then they would act as on the spot executioners. They would even be the anti-spy division if some spies entered the city.


    In order to increase the overall strength of this newly born Town Security, I especially made sure to bring over a group of top-level individuals from Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Law job sses. With these Gold-ranked and Legend-ranked Law Incanters and Knights of Justice helping out, I doubted that anyone could escape them.


    As this was within Wumianzhe¡¯s Divine Domain, Law job sses would have their power levels greatly increased here. More than half of the Town Security knights in my new Town Security had Law rted job sses.


    Normally speaking, in order to assist in rescue and protection operations, there should have been a certain percentage of Holy Light job sses as well. Unfortunately, judging from the current teampositions, the number of Holy Light job ss holders were pathetically few,pletely insufficient.


    Or, perhaps I should say that the effect of exiling the Holy Church¡¯s branches here was bing more and more evident.


    Since generalist type elites, who were good at everything, were difficult toe by, at the very least I tried to find some elites that were capable. In the end, after what sort of counted as picking from the cream of the crop, the entire Town Security consisted of an astonishing 70,000 plus individuals, which could definitely be called a huge Town Security Army. And each major team had their own district where they would typically be stationed. For this special event today, I had only taken approximately 10,000 of the elites from the elites.


    This event was both something necessary in order to improve order in the city as well as a major group military event for me to see thebat strength of this newly born Town Security.


    Soon, with other Town Security members and the assistance of ¡°good samaritan citizens,¡± numerous chases could be seen through the streets and alleyways.


    ¡°Brothers, they¡¯re just too much! I¡¯m going to go all out against them... where are you all?¡±


    This newly arrived Clothes-Slicing Demon hadn¡¯t figured out the necessary strategies for fighting against the Town Security. While he had intended to rush them, his brothers had already abandoned him and vanished, while those that believed they were slow runners that couldn¡¯t escape just directly gave up and surrendered.


    ¡°Why would we go all out against them, you idiot? It¡¯s not like wemitted any serious crimes. We¡¯ll just be locked up for a few days and fined if we¡¯re caught, but if we resist, we¡¯ll be beaten half to death.¡±


    Various unlucky bastards were captured, and forbidden goods piled up like mountains. Soon, I discovered that the open field I had prepared for cing them had already been filled.


    ¡°Sixty boxes of alchemic potions with unknown effects, where even their creator doesn¡¯t know the effects... Olive, you can even produce potions with unknown effects¡ªyou¡¯re such a genius.¡±


    Olive was an expert at improving and creating new potion recipes, but every sessful improvement or creation meant hundreds of umted failures. As independent merchants, they kept straying into the gray area when dealing with their failed products, and they would always give it some new name and try selling it in order to recoup their losses.


    I had heard about a certain maniacal alchemist¡¯s potions bing famous for havingpletely random effects after you drank it. However, since the potions often had incredibly strong effects and were quite cheap to purchase, quite a few risk-takers purchased some to use as a gamble in case they were forced to the brink. One time, one person even drank a bottle and gained the ability to spit out dragonbreath.


    ¡°Heh heh! I¡¯m not as good as you say.¡±


    Seeing how this ace alchemist Olive was trying to pretend to be a fool, as well as how her master, Yingou Beyar, was doing his best to reduce his presence, Iughed as well.


    ¡°Heh heh! If you drink all these potions, I won¡¯t hold you responsible anymore. Otherwise, ording to the newws, you¡¯ll be fined ten times the price of your products. ...The hell, you actually dare to drink them?¡±


    I underestimated the gnomes¡¯ obsession about money. Before I even finished speaking, Yingou Beyar had already rushed over to the potion boxes, while his apprentice, who was, in fact, more talented than him, was trying to stop him.


    ¡°Don¡¯t drink those, Master! You¡¯ll die if you drink too many of those failed products!¡±


    ¡°Money is my life, so if I don¡¯t drink them, I¡¯ll definitely die! While if I drink them, I still have a chance to live!¡±


    While watching this gnome great alchemist turn half cyan and half white from a potion¡¯s effects, I was once again astonished at the gnomes¡¯ck of all limits regarding money. Although I knew that these potions probably wouldn¡¯t have fatal effects (as they wouldn¡¯t actually dare sell them if they did), who knew what would happen to him in the end after drinking them?


    ¡°Come! Half for me; half for you!¡±


    ¡°Alright...¡± *Gulp!*


    Yingou, who was now rainbow-colored, thought for a moment and instantly came up with the thought that rather than drinking by himself, he might as well get someone to drink with him. He actually made his own student drink the potions together with him.


    And, so, various potions were poured into Olive¡¯s mouth. Now, it was time for this alchemist to enjoy her own wildly imaginative creations.


    ¡°A transformation potion, a cloning potion, an intelligence raising potion, a werewolf potion, and all of these are even the improved editions. Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Perhaps it¡¯s even possible to transform into a giant fox with nine tails with these.¡± [2] 2


    Although I had intended to make a big trade deal with them, as I had a huge order I intended to give to Olive¡¯s workshop, I wasn¡¯t in a hurry. I decided to teach them a lesson first; otherwise, who knew what they could get up to in the future?


    ¡°I¡¯m so d I didn¡¯t choose to be an alchemist.¡±


    My retainer knight Catherine was rather scared to see her senior turn red then turn green, then grow two rabbit ears, then grow a fox tail, then be furry all over, and then be hairless.


    She was truly grateful that she chose to be a knight in the end. Otherwise, she would definitely have be a member of Olive¡¯s team.


    And my next target was the most critical point of this public morality improvement project. If those damned bastard artists and ck-market book sellers were influencing even a Great Saint like Margaret into collecting dirty books, I absolutely had to stop this depravity.


    I looked through the pile of books we confiscated, and randomly picked two to look at, and then...


    *p.* I immediately shut the books.


    ¡°Is it really that interesting to draw two men hugging each other?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not interesting, but it¡¯s very profitable.¡± This man named Tom was tall and seemed dull, and his appearance didn¡¯t seem like that of a ck-market book seller at all. However, was, indeed, thergest ck-market book seller in all of Diffindor. He currently seemed quite at ease even in front of my questions and authority.


    ¡°Then, do you have any other types, such as normal ones...¡±


    ¡°Yes, but not many. These are our main sources of revenue.¡±


    I felt that this was rather strange. Normally, men would want to buy some of these books as well, so why did Tom specifically sell mostly boys¡¯ love books?


    ¡°It¡¯s not like this year has been a major financial disaster. If men have needs, they¡¯ll think of other methods to take care of them, such as going out for some drinks. After all, that¡¯s not illegal. Besides, otakus¡¯ consumption habits are far lower than fujoshis¡¯. Many major families¡¯ daughters appear to be quiet anddylike on the surface, but will buy as many of these books as they can carry at one time. They¡¯re much bigger customers than men are. You see, I¡¯m not selling products, I¡¯m selling dreams. Everyone has their own needs, they¡ª¡±


    Suddenly, Tom revealed a depraved smile.


    ¡°If Milord wishes, I can even make specialized orders for you, and you can request just about anything¡ªa male or female main character, brothers, parent and child, sisters, brother and sister... judging by your expression, you¡¯re not into incest, so how about gold-haired lolis or big-breasted mature women...?¡±


    I silently put down the book in my hand and pped my hands. After that, everyone around me tossed the torches they were holding at the pile of books.


    ¡°My dream of conquering the world through porn books! My children! You¡¯re all murderers!¡±


    Although the content of what Tom was shouting was somewhat strange, many people around him understood what he meant, as well as the crying that came from the bottom of his heart.


    ¡°So, he was yet another gentleman (pervert). We¡¯re going to have to keep a close watch on him in the future.¡±


    Hmph, did I look like someone who was so easy to bribe? If you want to bribe me, you¡¯d have to do it privately. With so many people watching me at the time, if I nodded in agreement, wouldn¡¯t that bebeling myself as a pervert as well? Besides, just what status do you think I have? If I wanted such books, did I really need to go through a book seller?


    And so, I activated mymunication device.


    ¡°Adam, have you obtained them?¡±


    ¡°Yep, I¡¯ve stockpiled plenty of precious books. I tossed all the female-oriented ones to Town Security, and made them burn those books. The male-oriented ones¡ªwe¡¯ll split them half each.¡±


    ¡°70% for me, 30% for you. Otherwise, I¡¯ll tell Margaret on you. Oh, and let me pick first.¡±


    ¡°You bastard, I¡ªI...¡±


    No matter how much heined or threatened me, all I had to was keep saying ¡°I¡¯ll tell Margaret,¡± and Adam could only surrender. I had the advantage of being unmarried whereas he was terribly afraid of his sweetheart¡¯s wrath, so I sessfully won this one on him. I suddenly was in a much better mood as I thought about how those confiscated books would soon belong to me.


    But, before I even got to be happy for more than one minute, I suddenly heard Adam¡¯s cry of surprise.


    ¡°Margaret, Elisa! Why are you here? How did you find out...?¡±


    Alright then, I didn¡¯t need to hear any more. Just from hearing these two names, I knew that Adam had made a mess of things again. Either he was followed, or someone told on him. In order to avoid getting dragged into the mess as well, I immediately turned off themunication device.


    ¡°Next criminal!¡±


    Just thinking about the precious books that were leaving me without ever having belonged to me in the first ce made me vent my rage from the bottom of my heart with an angry shout.


    However, this next group brought before me gave me a big headache.


    They had ck hats, ck robes, sickles, and wooden crosses along with burning torches. Wasn¡¯t this the standard equipment for some torchlight festival? However, the ¡°FFF¡± written on all their robes¡¯ back exined everything.


    ¡°Your Highness, this is the evil cult organization FFF that we just investigated and rounded up. They were nning to execute a terrorist attack code named ¡®Single people should live forever, while damned couples should die.¡¯ They intended to indiscriminately attack couples on the Day of Peace.¡±


    ¡°No, we weren¡¯t going to attack indiscriminately! We FFF members would only attack damned couples, and would never attack those in true love!¡±


    ¡°The difference between true love and damned couples? Can you even differentiate between those?¡±


    ¡°If the woman is scarily ugly, then that¡¯s true love, and if she¡¯s beautiful, they¡¯re a damned couple that deserves to die!¡±


    Alright, their entire group angrily shouted in unison, their shouts piercing the skies. Their directness caused me to lose the courage to defend them, as their angry expressions showed that they truly believed this.


    Yep, it was them. There were far more than just one before me. There were over 30 ck-robed FFF high-ranked members sitting in front of me, and they definitely looked like members of a mega evil cult. This was even supposed to be the highest-ranked members¡¯ conference, and their members had spread through all of Diffindor already. Should I be proud of myself for personally creating this abnormal group?


    ¡°Even if you punish us, the torches of the Holy War shall never be extinguished!¡±


    ¡°Our war is eternal, Valentine¡¯s Day is a barbeque, Lovers¡¯ Day is a day for the Holy War, Singles¡¯ Day is the day for all damned couples to go die, and Christmas is the date of the final battle! Our memberse from the fivekes and the four seas!¡±


    ¡°Perhaps the short-term victory is yours, but eternal glory belongs to FFF! If you kill us, there¡¯s still more that wille after!¡±


    ¡°Idiots! Our beliefs are justice!¡±


    Looking at these passionate, brave warriors, I couldn¡¯t help but be filled with warm tears. I wanted to just let them go, but the eyes upon my back felt like sharp swords; I probably had to punish them.


    And, so, I did my best toe up with an idea on how they wouldn¡¯t have to suffer physically yet still receive a punishment that would please my subordinates.


    ¡°Tie them up in Ailia Park¡¯s forest¡ªyep¡ªthe park that has the nickname of being the holy grounds for dating. Find some couples to intentionally disy their lovey-doveyness in front of them, so that they can only watch...¡±


    ¡°Kill me now!¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s actually such a scary punishment in this world? You demon!¡±


    Sigh, I was actually a good person. Why was it that nobody understood me?


    [Achievement Unlocked: ck-Hearted King...]


    ¡°You shut up!¡±


    Note:


    1. There will be instances where ¡°gentlemen¡± is synonymous to ¡°pervert¡± and is used instead.


    2. Naruto reference!

 Chapter 246

    Chapter 246: The Beginning of a New Era


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    While the Nortnds were still in the midst of frigid weather, the central ins of Eich were experiencing the warmth of spring.


    Right now, in the Royal Pce of the Bardi Empire, the elderly emperor was in the garden, waiting for a scheduled visitor.


    Emperor Orloss Mossivory Saint Mn was a silver-haired, elderly man with a kindly appearance. He was on the short side, and he never spoke loudly. He appeared to have a schrly aura about him, which made him seem like an academic that would be easy to get along with, but within the Bardi Empire, he had the ¡°glorious nickname¡± of ¡°Sly Fox Scorpion Emperor.¡± This referred to how he was vicious both domestically and internationally.


    What? You¡¯re saying you don¡¯t understand what that meant? ¡°As long as the result is good, the ends justify the means¡± was what he lived by, and he indeed always followed through with this.


    Domestically, within the Bardi Empire, he used assassinations, set factions against each other, and framed and scammed others to centralize and solidify his authority. Internationally, he betrayed endless amounts of alliances and agreements for the Bardi Empire¡¯s benefit. This gave him another so-called ¡°glorious nickname¡± of ¡°Emperor of Zero Trustworthiness,¡± making the current Bardi Empire lose every single one of its allies to the point that it had now zero remaining allies.


    However, there were gains to be had in exchange for those losses. While he ruined the honor and trustworthiness that the Bardi Empire had umted over countless centuries, the Bardi Empire¡¯s national strength had indeed reached its greatest peak in history. Within the first fifty years of Orloss¡¯ reign, the Bardi Empire had conquered and assimted seventeen different small and medium-sized countries, greatly expanding their borders and poption.


    ¡°Ever since I ascended the throne, war has never stopped.¡±


    At first, this phrase said by Orloss was an exmation at how helpless he was when he first came to power. However, as the years passed, it became his pride. He had won many wars without a single loss.


    From another aspect, the continuous chain of victorious campaigns against other countries increased the royal authority. The major nobles within the Bardi Empire were extremely respectful of royal authority, and actually, all the major nobles would send extravagant presents to the elderly emperor every year for his birthday. Each domain lord¡¯s heir would evene to the capital to learn from the royalty (to be hostages).


    Yep, the ones that refused to give hostages or show respect on the surface had all died; the domestic situation was thoroughly peaceful. This was most likely the greatest peak of royal authority in the Bardi Empire¡¯s history for at least the past three thousand years.


    However, those were merely the achievements in his early and middle years. In hister years, he was even more incredible. He used only thirty years¡¯ time to aplish what would typically take one hundred years.


    He created a national military department that unified and centralized the system ofmand for all military affairs within the Bardi Empire. Every domain lord had to now be conscripted into the military to serve for a set period of time. Those who tried to escape the conscription would be executed. Any nobles who owed or paid taxeste would be executed.


    The government took full control of salt, food, iron, and all important daily life and production products, and was the only organization allowed to sell them. Anyone caught smuggling or selling those products would be executed.


    The government took control of civilian adventurers and job sses. Every job ss must register themselves, and every adventurer¡¯s guild and adventurer had to swear fealty to the royalty. Every adventurer was considered the Bardi Empire¡¯s resource¡ªthey had to unconditionally ept the country¡¯smands in emergency situations. Unlicensed adventurers were forbidden, including mages, and would be publicly executed.


    It had to be admitted that Orloss ruled with an iron fist. He had ascended the throne during a period of extreme turmoil within the Bardi Empire, but he gave it his all and helped the Bardi Empire to rise to its greatest apex in history, even if his personal reputation was in tatters and he was now infamous for beingpletely insincere and untrustworthy.


    Countless numbers of people both within and outside the Bardi Empire wished for his death. Every year, the number of assassins aiming for his life were numerous enough to make a fixed schedule out of without a single break... But even those who hated him to death had to admit that he was indeed a strong ruler, who had helped the Bardi Empire be simrly strong.


    The government¡¯s monopolization of important resources and control over the market had indeed caused a lot of hatred, but the current Bardi Empire¡¯s wealth was unimaginable. Every year, their allotted military expenditures were three times all the neighboring countries¡¯ military expendituresbined, but the national treasury wasn¡¯t even slightly burdened by this. It wasn¡¯t limited to that¡ªthe Bardi Empire hadn¡¯t experienced arge-scale famine due to food shortages in several decades, and its poption and the flourishment of its cities had also reached the apex.


    As for turning the originally neutral adventurers and mercenaries into national property? This had received a huge bacsh at first, but because the royal authority and the military were backing this up, after the original generation died, all the waves had quieted down. The new generation of adventurers already believed that working for the country was only natural. Even the rarer job sses like mages would go and register of their own volition to be part of the government.


    This was doubtlessly a deration of war against the old systems, and it naturally angered many neutral organizations such as the adventurers¡¯ guilds, mercenary guilds, mage conferences, various churches, and so on. However, for Orloss Mossivory, resistance against his policies and attempted assassinations were a daily urrence to him; it was as normal as eating a meal. His powerful personal guards, which nobody knew the identities of, had never disappointed him. Even SemiGod level assassins had fallen to his guards, and Orloss was never one to fear any enemy¡¯s challenge.


    However, on the other hand of things, besides the Bardi Empire¡¯s flourishment, there were indeed numerousints piling up within the country. Countless wished him dead, and plenty wished for the Bardi Empire to return to its past ways. The way that schemers looked at things was that this seemingly powerful country still didn¡¯t have a solid foundation and was shaking in the rainstorm, its copse only a matter of time.


    The biggest and most foundational problem was that Orloss the Thirteenth didn¡¯t have a single descendant.


    Perhaps it was because he was injured in his early years, or perhaps it was karma for his wicked ways. But no matter which description you believed, even though he had countless concubines, he had never begotten a single child. In fact, two of his concubines had gotten pregnant before, but he fed both of them to his dogs on the very next day. After that, rumors that the Bardi Emperor was infertile and that Orloss would never have a descendant began spreading everywhere.


    Of course, he had tried to resolve this problem; he had taken in arge number of adopted sons and daughters. But as the years passed, his roughly forty adopted children only now had around twenty surviving. Due to Orloss¡¯s extremely paranoid personality, all the ones who were too strong or too smart would be executed, but it was unrealistic for any of the remaining survivors to be chosen as the sessor as it would be too difficult to have all the factions ept that person.


    The oldest adopted prince, Carlston, was already in his fifties, but he appeared even older than Emperor Orloss. The only reason he was able to survive until now was because he was basically useless; he did not possess the ambition of his fellow adopted princes, nor did he desire to be emperor while he was still alive.


    In the mortal ne, there was an unspoken rule. Rulers would definitely be short-lived, as the Gods wouldn¡¯t permit an immortal ruler. If there was a ruler who lived to a hundred years and still grasped on tightly to his reins of power, then the punishment of the Gods would surely descend upon him.


    ¡°Orloss is over seventy years old, and he probably doesn¡¯t have much time left. Let¡¯s just wait for his death, and then...¡±


    Plenty of those with ambition secretly gritted their teeth as they waited for this old emperor to die of old age. These people included not only the people outside his family, but also his own simrly elderly siblings, who had wanted him to die for so long. If the emperor died, then Bardi¡¯s territories would immediately be carved up and re-divided by all the factions.


    ¡°It won¡¯t be long now; it should be soon. He¡¯s never practiced any martial arts or magic before, so he¡¯s only hanging on with the help of medicine. Perhaps he¡¯ll even die tomorrow.¡±


    Yet today, this aging emperor, who seemed to others to be about to meet his end soon, had weed his guest that he had been waiting so long for. This person was wearing a ck cape and was led into the old emperor¡¯s garden by the royal guards.


    ¡°Emperor Aso, your personal arrival is the honor of our entire Bardi Empire. Unfortunately, it¡¯s still not a suitable time to publicize the rtionship between us, and I¡¯m unable to wee you with an abundant feast.¡±


    The elderly emperor stashed away his pride as a ruler and hurriedly rose to his feet to personally wee this nighttime visitor. This was because the ck-cloaked individual before him was an even more ancient, respected, and undying king.


    However, Emperor Aso didn¡¯t intend to mince words despite Orloss¡¯ hearty wee. Every minute in the mortal ne was painful for him, and he unhesitatingly began with the main topic.


    ¡°No need. We never cared about useless trifles like those to begin with. The only thing that could possibly motivate me toe here is concrete benefits. Now then, young ruler, have you made your decision? Will you decide to truly embrace death, and be one of us, thus obtaining true immortality?¡±


    A sudden chilly breeze blew past and exposed the true face beneath that long cape andrge hood. Or, perhaps it should be said that there was no face at all. The burning, green mes within that skull exined everything.


    For an undead to be called an emperor could only mean one of those legendary Undead Emperors. In front of these ancient emperors from the Undead ne, even the recent generation of Gods were nothing but their juniors.


    Emperor Aso had ced countless chains and seals upon his own body, but even so, the bare hints of the power of death emanating from him were sufficient to cause ck winds to roil up within the royal garden. Large amounts of nts instantly withered to death, and the earth began to be drained of life. Underneath the ground, faint signs of white bones started to animate themselves.


    In front of something so fearsome that any hero would cower, Orloss, who was still a mere mortal,ughed.


    ¡°Of course! Everybody knows that I, Orloss, am the most trustworthy person around. Ever since you saved me thirty years ago, from the time that the ancient contract was established, our agreement would be forever in effect.¡±


    Orloss the Thirteenth also opened up his extravagant clothing to reveal his upper body. Where his stomach should have been was a partially empty space; his heart was nothing more than pitch-ck bones and rotten flesh, and even the most expensive silver rose perfume was unable to cover the stench of rotting flesh.


    Despite the fact that his body was disgusting, Orloss¡¯s smile remained, as if he didn¡¯t feel any pain at all. Only the wrinkles around his eyes made him seem slightly grim.


    ¡°I¡¯ve already been a living dead man for more than thirty years, so have I ever had any other choice since that day?¡±


    ...


    Unlike the south, which had long hours of daylight, the Nortnds¡¯ winter skies would always darken rather quickly, especially now that it was the end of winter. At the current moment, it was only six in the evening, but the entirety of Diffindor was in utter darkness.


    The newest product of magical engineering, the magical lights, had already been given to every family as a new daily product for free. However, most families maintained their previous habits of eating dinner and going to their warm beds quite early in order to prepare to get up early the next morning.


    The streets that had been so lively just a few hours ago were now practically empty. Either everyone was hiding in their warm homes or drinking themselves drunk in a bar or tavern. After all, even if it was already the end of winter, the night air was still fatally chilly. Although it was regrettable, there were always a few drunks that would be found frozen to death in the alleyways.


    When the entire city was so quiet, in the southeast portion of Diffindor was an area containing a sealed-off three story building. In here, there was no difference between night and day, as it was always brightly lit and filled with mors.


    *Boom!* The mostmon would be various sounds of explosions. Judging by whether the ones flying through the air were gnome engineers or alchemists, one could easily tell which section was the alchemists¡¯ experimentalboratory and which section was the engineers¡¯ experimentalboratory.


    In this sealed-off area¡¯s corner, there was a cksmith facility, which never stopped its clinging and nging no matter if it was night or day.


    And, right now, I was here as well, checking out the progress of an important job.


    ¡°Orange head, how¡¯s the situation? What do you think of the quality of these mined materials? Is it sufficient?¡±


    ¡°These magical mined materials have a nice color to them. A few of our mines have also produced this type of top-level product. You probably purchased these from And, didn¡¯t you?¡±


    Old Hoyle continued in satisfaction after seeing me silently nod my head.


    ¡°If you can keep up the supply, then the progress will be sessful. But aren¡¯t you rushing it a little too much? With only three days¡¯ time, we¡¯ll only be able to produce a product that looks real on the surface. It¡¯ll be able to run, jump, and resemble the real thing, but it definitely won¡¯t be able to fight.¡±


    ¡°A fake product is fine with me.¡±


    In order to show off our new weapons and equipment, what was most important was the design and the new technology within it. After all, our invited guests probably wouldn¡¯t recognize real from fake; as long as we fooled them into ordering and giving us money, I would be able to establish real production lines with that money.


    ¡°...¡±


    The wintry winds made this dwarf¡¯s red nose even redder, but he swigged some alcohol with a dissatisfied expression and didn¡¯t respond. For him to have to work overtime on a low-quality product as a veteran armorer, he was filled with quite a lot of dissatisfaction.


    ¡°Was it worth it? In order to find me, you searched through the entire red-light district.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Don¡¯t think so highly of yourself. It was just two birds with one stone. If you stayed here obediently and worked, you¡¯d save me so much trouble. Just take a guess¡ªif I tell all those brothers of yours that they were all locked up because of you, how would they treat you?¡±


    ¡°Those heartless bastards would tear me apart. You sly, skinny, and tall human, always picking on Old Hoyle¡¯s weaknesses. Be careful your daughter won¡¯t grow a beard.¡±


    The dwarf puffed on his pipe as he cursed at me in dwarven fashion, before picking up his hammer and continuing his clinging and nging.


    Hoyle was a gray dwarf and master smith who was a specialist as an armorer. His nickname was Orange Head, and he was a member of the Gentlemen Alliance. He was the master smith that I trusted the most. After he started working together with the gnomes, his techniques improved even further; if I had to assess his current armor smithing level, it had probably surpassed any mortal master¡¯s level, and was at a Legend¡¯s level.


    Leveling up in daily life job sses was far more difficult than leveling up inbat job sses. Legend-rankedbat job sses had their own Soul Imprints and unique paths, while Legend-ranked cksmiths also had their own paths.


    Hoyle¡¯s path, however, was special, special to the point of being truly unique, special to the point where I really couldn¡¯t do without him.


    Currently, Old Hoyle was working on a gnome mecha in his cksmith workshop. This wasn¡¯t rare at all, since gnome bulldozers and mecha titans were already well-established engineering products, but the rare part about it was this mecha¡¯s size.


    It was 2.4 meters high, and the mecha¡¯s weight was probably over 150 kilograms. If it wasn¡¯t for the ¡°Olive Magic Box¡± powering the engine that gave it its own source of energy, not even a beastman would have been able to wear such a heavy mecha armor.


    Obsidian was embedded into the streamlined armor for protection. This special ting was for improving its defense and had a defense value well above a normal knight¡¯s armor. Even a small gnome cannon would be unable to do more than a scratch.


    Yes, this wasn¡¯t a mechanical puppet; it was pure armor. Inside this would be a well-protected warrior, not a pilot controlling the mecha.


    ¡°Although this is a nice design, its problem is obvious. Without the ability to control the elements, you won¡¯t be able to activate its magical circuits. Even if I specially create magic-enchanted parts for it, this will be nothing more than a hunk of useless metal without sufficient mana.¡±


    ¡°Rx! I have plenty under mymand capable of controlling the elements. I¡¯m giving you first priority for both funds and resources, so hurry up and finish the prototype. Make it capable of being mass-produced starting next month in the new year. I¡¯ll find some fools to be the sponsors and first testers, so bravely create something new as you wish. Those ¡®kind customers¡¯ of ours will use their lives to bring you data of all sorts on your new product.¡±


    Seeing how the old dwarf had fallen silent as he got into a working rhythm, I nodded in satisfaction. I touched this heavy armor¡¯s solid ting and steel body.


    ¡°With this, my Four Elemental Swordcasters will be able to fight at three times their strength... Should I paint this red and install some horns on it?¡±


    What determined how far a job ss could go was not only its strengths, but more so its weaknesses.


    The weakest part about the Four Elemental Swordcasters was their defensive ability, which was only at the level of a mortal¡¯s. A fully matured Four Elemental Swordcaster would not only have to practice his magical swordsmanship, but he would have to work hard on learning to control the elements and studying sword seals and magical swordsmanship techniques. Expecting them to have the same physical meleebat ability as normal knights and warriors without relying on mana was unrealistic.


    Their physical bodies¡¯parative weakness and requirement of using mana meant that they could only be equipped with light armor. Compared to the muscleheads that could still move about freely while wearing heavy armor weighing several tens of kilograms, it was an obvious shoring.


    On the battlefield, a weak defense would be fatal. Bows and arrows were always the most cost-effective weapons to kill people, and just about every single battle would involve arrows and other projectiles filling the skies. For a magical swordsman, who was so difficult to raise, to die to a single stray arrow or stone would be such a bad deal.


    ¡°The first produced group of armor will have high defense and high strength increasing properties for the wearer and will be focused on meleebat and short-term explosive strength. I shall call them the ¡®Sith Warriors,¡¯ and provide them all to the Four Elemental Swordcaster Silver Cross Squadron. The second group of armor shall have high mobility and medium defense, and will focus on sustainedbat strength. I shall call them the ¡®Stormtroopers¡¯ [1] and provide them all to the magical ranged attackers and top-level hunters.¡±


    In my blueprint for a perfect future, this future armored army would be well-organized formations involving magical mecha dragons, huge metallic titans, and countless mecha-armored warriors as the main forces. They would apany me down my path of ying demons and Gods, chasing the demons back to the Chaos Abyss, and kicking the Undead Emperors back to the Undead ne.


    ¡°There will also be a firepower edition that I¡¯ll call the ¡®Tauren Space Marine,¡¯ [2] and a Sword Saint specialized edition that I¡¯ll call ¡®Master of the Force.¡¯ [3] Haha! I can already imagine the perfect upgraded editions.¡±


    After the new generation¡¯s magical mecha army waspleted, I would nicely teach all these ancient existences that still lived in the Middle Age what ¡°the newest technology isbat strength,¡± and ¡°falling behind in technology means losing¡± really meant. But while I was busy with my imagination, someone¡¯s voice intentionally¡ªand happily¡ªwoke me up from my dream.


    ¡°Stop dreaming! These things of yours require incredibly high-level parts, and I¡¯m the only one you have that¡¯s capable of making them right now. Your local cksmiths can¡¯t even make a high-quality vegetable knife. Even if I work my hardest for you at top speed, making one of these every three months is already quick, and besides, even if I was able to go faster, would you be able to supply enough mined materials? Just by relying on those barbarian tribes¡¯ scattered mines, you probably won¡¯t be able to obtain enough materials even if you had ten years. You can probably buy ordinary mined materials, but it¡¯s too hard to obtain magical mining materials. If you can¡¯t obtain high-level mined materials, your mecha army will be nothing more than easy targets for thunder magic.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but furrow my eyebrows upon hearing this. Although it was quite displeasing to be interrupted in the middle of my beautiful dream, what he was saying was the truth.


    I had already begun developing our mining, but thebat situation had been taking up all of my attention, not to mention that the Nortnds were cold andckedrge scale mining machinery. Just the simplest and most direct method of using explosions to obtain some resourcesying out in the open was already the limits of what we could do, and higher-level mining techniques were still undeveloped.


    ¡°It seems that I need to go visit that ce. One mining area isn¡¯t enough for us; we need to prepare some more. How about... I go extort more out of the Holy Church?¡±


    Note:


    1. Sith Warriors/Stormtroopers -> Star Wars reference.


    2. This is a Starcraft 2 reference.


    3. Master of the Force -> Star Wars reference.

 Chapter 247

    Chapter 247: y


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The girl¡¯s exquisite face contained hints of anger, and under her bushy eyebrows were eyes that seemed to contain heroic spirit. Those sapphire blue eyes and baby pink skin made quite the excellent pair, and simply looking at her appearance, which resembled a drawing, would help the mind to calm down.


    This twelve or thirteen-year-old girl didn¡¯t possess obvious curves yet, and her ponytail even made her appear boyish. Her pose seemed to possess a certain power to it, as if she had really receivedbat training before. The military atmosphere about her made her seem not as soft as her outer appearance would suggest.


    She was wearing pink armor and a gem-studded fancy sword that obviously seemed precious. This rapier was obviously too exquisite and not suitable for the battlefield, and she had two battle gs seemingly randomly stuck behind her back. At the current moment, this girl in extravagant clothing was pouting with an expression filled with dissatisfaction.


    ¡°Ahaha! Rnd, this looks great on you. You¡¯re acting as the beautiful Princess Peach. Hahaha!¡±


    ¡°The same goes for you, Adam. That dress looks wonderful on you, maid Annienie.¡±


    Currently, Adam was wearing ck-and-white maid¡¯s dress,plete with a blonde wig. The dress seemed to cover his thick legs, but it was unable toplete cover up how muscr he was, not to mention that the rough makeup on him obviously made him even uglier.


    After hurling insults at each other, Adam and I red angrily as he whipped out his broom and I unsheathed my decorative rapier, about to vent our dissatisfaction upon each other in battle. It was then that an angry shout came from behind us.


    ¡°It¡¯s almost time to begin the y. If you tear your acting clothes, then you¡¯re going on stage as your real selves and real names.¡±


    The two of us exchanged nces filled with wry smiles and we lost all of our energy. Both of us were unlucky people being cooked on a fire, so why were we struggling with each other? Was there any meaning in the pot calling the kettle ck?


    ¡°At the very least, I still have it better than you. With how I look, it¡¯s quite obvious that I¡¯m a man who¡¯s dressed like this foric purposes.¡±


    Alright then, it seemed that there was indeed someone who felt it was quite fun. Even though he was wearing maid attire and lipstick while showing off his muscles, he was still trying to disy his so-called masculinity.


    ¡°Yep, be careful that you¡¯ll be recognized, which will be even more interesting. The headlines tomorrow will say, ¡°What a shocker, the Red Lotus Sword Saint actually likes to wear female clothing!¡±


    ¡°Then we shall die together! I will tell everyone that the main actor of ¡®Princess Peach¡¯s Adventure In Another Dimension¡¯ is actually you, Rnd!¡±


    ¡°Haha! Do you think that anyone will believe you?¡±


    ¡°Ha, do you think that anyone will believe that I¡¯m like this?¡±


    When I looked in the mirror, even I was scared by the beautiful girl I saw within it. But as I said so right now, I was actually dripping blood in my heart.


    Right before us was Diffindor¡¯srgest auditorium za. In order to celebrate the Day of Peace, the royalty was going to put on a fantasy-themedrge-scale performance, ¡°Princess Peach¡¯s Adventure In Another Dimension,¡± which any person in Diffindor could watch for free. After this news spread, the locals, whocked entertainment options, were quite attracted by this thought and came flocking in droves.


    Alright, I might as well tell the truth. Due to a certain reason involving an attempt to secretly stash some books, we identally caused everyone to be angry with us, and in the end, in order to appease everyone¡¯s anger, we were forced to put on acting costumes and be the main character and a side character of this y. Not to mention they were female...


    ¡°Why am I the female lead, while Adam is nothing but a side character in the background!? He barely has any lines at all! What¡¯s with this obvious difference in treatment!?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because we¡¯re supposed to be punishing him, not the audience. Just look at his appearance... As for you, that¡¯s because you¡¯re pretty much always the main perpetrator; also, did you really think that I didn¡¯t know about what you did in the Earth Elemental ne? Did you think that spending a few extra days there would be enough for me to slowly calm down? Do a good job acting, otherwise... heh heh, you understand.¡±


    Elisa¡¯s cold chuckling was still in my ears, and what made her evil intentions all the more obvious was the fact that the person who wrote this y was Elisa. Perhaps she was already fully prepared to take revenge upon me, and not only that¡ªshe was even low enough to take hostages.


    ¡°Oh! No! Please let those children go! They¡¯re innocent!¡±


    ¡°That depends on your behavior. Hmph! I really don¡¯t understand why men like these things, even though they¡¯re clearly fake...¡±


    ¡°No, those aren¡¯t fake at all; it¡¯s true artwork. It¡¯s the perfect artistry thates from life but is even better than reality; it¡¯s what countless men can only dream about obtaining. Do you know just how much effort I spent in obtaining all this art? It¡¯s the umtion of over one hundred years, the culmination of countless master artists¡¯ painstaking efforts! It¡¯s a totally unique precious artwork in the world!¡±


    Upon hearing this, Adam was evidently surprised as well.


    ¡°...No wonder it looked so familiar. Last time, when you shared the ¡®Perverted Earl and His 36 Concubines¡¯ with me, could have that been the work of the ssical scenery artist from one hundred and seventy years ago? His style is truly too unique, and he actually began drawing people? Even a series of drawings!?¡±


    ¡°Ah, as expected, you understand. Back in the day, I spent more than two months in order to eliminate the bandits that had a grudge against him. Seeing how hard I worked for his sake, he agreed to make an exception for me. What do you think? It¡¯s awesome, right!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not only awesome! It¡¯s practically the best in the world! I never expected for the style of drawing scenery, when used on a beautiful woman¡¯s body, to have such an effect. He actually made 2-D appear 3-D¡ªit looks so real! Margaret is one of his loyal fans; she¡¯s even collected two of his drawings. If she finds out that you actually made a master artist draw these... for the sake of these children, we definitely can¡¯t allow her to find out!¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Art is supposed to be a reflection of reality. Those who think they¡¯re too high and mighty to draw such things are in the wrong. It¡¯s quite obvious that any works of art that are too abstract won¡¯t be liked by anyone, but they still get angry at the viewers and im that they don¡¯t know how to appreciate art. How could that be exined except by having mush for brains?¡±


    ¡°I feel like you¡¯re mysteriously making fun of something again... Did you obtain all of your special collection like this?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Each and every work in my collection is a precious work of art that¡¯s passed the test of time, and they¡¯re all the crystallizations of the life work of master artists. I spent much effort in obtaining them all.¡±


    ¡°Rnd, you¡¯re a real man!¡±


    I ignored Adam, who was making mountains out of molehills, and made a pleading expression towards Elisa. I was hoping that she would see how all these children of mine were the cream of the crop in the field of art, and that she would let them go.


    ¡°Please let these children go. They¡¯re even more important to me than my life; if there¡¯s anything you have against me, thene at me !¡±


    However, the demon girl smiled. Her smile was quite sweet yet also cold.


    ¡°...Artwork? More important than your life? You deserve to be single for the rest of your life!¡±


    Elisa then furiously left, leaving behind only one final threat.


    ¡°You want those things of yours back? Sure, but it depends on your acting performance. This is a script that I wrote specially for you, so make sure to enjoy it.¡±


    ¡°Long, long ago, Demon King Shaba from the Demon Ind took his demon soldiers and rampaged through the world. Meanwhile, our heroine, Princess Peach, was determined to defeat the Demon King as she embarked on a journey alone...¡±


    Even though I was still filled with nervousness, the beginning of the narrator¡¯s speech and everyone¡¯s apuse were indicators of the fact that it was now time for me to go on stage.


    I went over my lines onest time. This script seemed like it was a magical version of ¡°Momotaro,¡± [1] the fairy tale I had told the most to Elisa when she was younger. The lines seemed normal as well, and I thought about how nobody would likely want to destroy their own childhood dreams, and I managed to rx slightly.


    ¡°Wow! Such a beautiful little girl!¡±


    ¡°...She looks a little like Princess Reyne, but she¡¯s obviously younger. Is she Princess Reyne¡¯s distant rtive?¡±


    I took a deep breath and ignored the distractions before me as I unsheathed my ceremonial rapier and spoke the lines that I had previously memorized.


    ¡°Sigh. Demon King Shaba is far too strong, and I¡¯ll never be able to defeat him by myself. Are there no other brave warriors that are willing to help me?¡±


    ¡°...As long as you give me a colored g, I¡¯m willing to be your subordinate and fight the Demon King together with you!¡±


    It was here. Based on the script, Princess Peach would gather three subordinates, a monkey, a dog, and a rooster. It seemed that Elisa didn¡¯t randomly modify the script after all. This was probably going to be the scheduled appearance of my first subordinate, the ¡°monkey.¡±


    As I was sighing at having misinterpreted Elisa¡¯s intentions, I turned to look at the person who was speaking.


    ¡°Ptui!¡±


    A tall figure blocked out even the sunlight above me. All I could see were golden muscles glistening with an oily sheen.


    This was a super muscr man wearing nothing but a thong. Every one of his moves were calcted to show off his shiny muscles that were covered in sweat drops under the sunlight, making everyone feel like they were hot. Not only that, but his clean face currently had a mysterious red blush.


    ¡°Omar¡ªOmar¡ªOmar is so happy to be able to act together with father!¡±


    This muscr man, who had such a brawny appearance and a delicate face, was so excited that he couldn¡¯t help but roar in a low voice. All his muscles were even twitching disgustingly. I silently backed up two spaces and drew my sword once more.


    ¡°Haha!¡±


    Yep, the person before me who seemed like nothing more than a pervert was the highest-ranking authority of the Xiluo Empire. While I had indeed invited him to my celebration, I never expected him to give me such a ¡°nice surprise.¡±


    There was a monkey tail added to the back of Omar¡¯s thong, and he was wearing a strange monkey ear hat. It seemed that he was the ¡°monkey subordinate¡± in this y.


    ¡°Ahh! What is that!¡±


    ¡°Mommy, it¡¯s Superman!¡±


    ¡°Sweetie, behave! Don¡¯t point at him! That¡¯s not Superman; that¡¯s a pervert. Remember, if you ever meet him on the street, call Town Security.¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m going blind! I guess it¡¯s true after all that nothing goodes free? Is there still time to run away now?¡±


    Just Omar¡¯s appearance alone on stage along with the huge contrast between his muscr body and his beautiful face caused many pitiful wails from the audience.


    I understood how it was now. Perhaps the script was normal, and the lines were normal as well, but if the performers were a group of gentlemen, then this y was never destined to be normal to begin with.


    Now, however, it was toote for me to stop. I supposed I might as well grit my teeth and continue with this farce the best I could.


    That was why, several minutester, when I saw an archdruid transform into something resembling a rooster, I wasn¡¯t astonished at all.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that Divine Bird Feifei? Alright then, at least he remembered to wear clothes this time. That¡¯s progress.¡±


    ¡°No, father, take a closer look! His ¡®shirt¡¯ and ¡®pants¡¯ are all feathers that he transformed himself into. As expected of Ah Birdie, he actually dares to perform all naked on stage, and is even being epted by everyone so naturally! As expected of a mega performer from the Wild Bull School!¡±


    It was now that I finally empathized with what Elisa must have felt when I differed with her opinion of ¡®artistry.¡¯


    Well, I could only helplessly follow the script. I took off my outer shirt and tossed it to this ¡°rooster¡± as we continued on our journey to defeat the Demon King.


    ¡°Now that she¡¯s gathered twopanions, Princess Peach began fighting fiercely against the demons, but with only the three of them, their strength was still insufficient. However, when they were in the midst of their greatest frustrations, they met their most loyal retainer in a small vige...¡±


    I nodded when I heard this. Since there were already a monkey and rooster, there was a dog still remaining. I hoped that this time, the person who yed the role of the ¡®loyal dog¡¯ wouldn¡¯t be too ridiculous.


    ¡°...A Tauren Demon King from a different dimension!¡±


    ¡°Ptui!¡±


    I still underestimated a certain person¡¯s desire for revenge against me. Even though I had mentally prepared myself, the script went in an even more ridiculous direction than what I expected. The highest priest of the Church of Law put a bronze mask on his face as he appeared on the stage in a simr fashion to the two before him. At the very least, he remembered to wear a thong.


    *Bang!*


    The three pairs ofrge and meaty hands clutched on to each other, and their three pairs of eyes had passionate mes burning within them. However, all I could see in front of me were shiny muscles.


    ¡°Brothers!¡±


    ¡°Bros!¡±


    ¡°Muscles!¡±


    And so, under the moonlight, the three gays¡ªer¡ªthree good brothers reaffirmed their friendship. The burning passion of friendship was ignited within them, and the sweat flying off them possessed the smell of youth. Meanwhile, the people below the stage were already beginning to cry in despair and pitifully attempt to escape. Nobody would want to watch this type of drama where someone would have to be forced to watch in order to stay. Since it had alreadye to this point, everyone knew that whatever developments came next would be equally ridiculous.


    ¡°Cough! Cough!¡±


    I did my best to suppress my urge to spit blood. Since it had alreadye to this, we might as well finish no matter how stupid it was.


    ¡°Muscle explosion!¡±


    A certain muscr man jumped up and used his pectorals to explode a pitiful dragon knight actor (please forgive us, my royal knights who are acting in this y).


    ¡°Tauren hug!¡±


    A certain naked-loving tauren furiously rushed towards the pitiful dragon knights B and C and hugged them. They, unfortunately, seemed like they were about to choke to death, and begged me with their expressions to save them, but the current me only wanted to hide in a corner of the stage and shiver.


    ¡°Feather shot!¡±


    This ¡°Divine Bird Feifei¡± was capable of using his own feathers as projectiles and was now even more naked. He smiled in even greater delight. His opponent was even happier as he rolled off the stage and celebrated his survival the moment he sessfully escaped.


    With these three gentlemen of the moon attacking, every demon, devil, and so on were instantly KO¡¯d. The only side effect was that...


    ¡°All those demons are so pitiful...¡±


    ¡°The three perverts are too strong. Urgh! So disgusting.¡±


    ¡°Middle-ranked sub-boss D, hurry up and surrender. It¡¯s not your fault for not working hard enough; your opponent is simply too ridiculous.¡±


    ¡°Bastards! Let go of that poor demon!¡±


    Alright, the remaining spectators had actually begun to take pity on the evil demon army. Under the best-effort performance of Princess Peach¡¯s three loyal subordinates, Princess Peach and her three servants had imperceptibly be the evil side.


    ¡°Ad... Annienie, it¡¯s time for your day of doom! Ha! Did you think that you could escape my all-seeing eye simply by disguising yourself as an ordinary maid? You evil demon army spy, I¡¯ve long since seen through your identity!¡±


    I angrily roared as I sliced towards the corner of the wall where a certain person was doing his best to reduce his own presence, pulling him out into the open.


    *Boom!*


    My sword shed against his broom, but we were actuallymunicating ourints against each other.


    ¡°Even though there¡¯s clearly no part for me here, you dared to change the lines? Isn¡¯t it enough for you to die out there by yourself? Why are you pulling me into it?!¡±


    ¡°You want to survive this by yourself? Don¡¯t even think about it!¡±


    Alright then, the ¡°Princess Peach¡± and the ¡°maid spy¡± started practicing swordsmanship with each other for the first time in a long while, while the rooster, monkey, and cow trio continued abusing the poor demons and the spectators mysteriously began heating up passionately.


    ¡°Amazing swordsmanship!¡±


    ¡°Although I can¡¯t understand what I¡¯m watching, it seems incredible and interesting!¡±


    ¡°Fight! Demon army, defeat those three perverts!¡±


    ¡°Maid, don¡¯t lose!¡±


    Amongst all the chaos, the script kept continuing on. The major antagonist of the story, Demon King Shaba arrived. The moment ¡®he¡¯ spoke, everything became quiet.


    ¡°Ah, as a proponent of peace, this scene before me is truly heartbreaking. Right, I have an idea that can resolve everything... My lovely Princess Peach, please marry me. I shall bring you bliss. As long as we be one family, then there shall be no more conflict.¡±


    ¡°Elisa! What are you doing!¡±


    Seeing the way Elisa wore a prince¡¯s costume and demon horns as she stepped onto the stage, and the way she bowed as she proposed marriage to me scared me so much that I broke out into a cold sweat.


    ¡°I...¡±


    My mind was alreadypletely nk. Director, just what did you intend to do with this script?


    How was I supposed to act now? ept? Or follow the script and begin battling? Heavens, the script didn¡¯t have this part.


    ¡°No, Princess Peach belongs to me, the necrophile prince!¡±


    Alright, the newly arrived pumpkin carriage brought even more uncertainty. When Prince Amelia arrived d in princely attire, there were countless shrieks of surprise, and when she also got on one knee and proposed to me, the ck cat on her shoulder was already uncontrobly rolling around inughter.


    ¡°No! Little Sister Peach belongs to me, Princess Apple! As long as true love exists, even if we¡¯re blood rted sisters, it doesn¡¯t matter!¡±


    ¡°Reyne! You damned brat, why are you joining in as well!¡±


    Note:


    1. ording to Wikipedia, Momotar¨­ (ÌÒÌ«ÀÉ, ¡°Peach Boy¡±) is a popr hero of Japanese folklore originating from Okayama Prefecture.

 Chapter 248

    Chapter 248: Difficult Decision


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The extravagant and chaotic story met with a truly miraculous and unexpected turn of events. The sudden appearance and injection of many characters both served to shock the audience as well as push the chaotic story to its climax.


    The silver-haired Demon King seemed devilish and charming, the blonde prince knight was handsome and attractive, while the green-haired magic prince had a casual air of mystery and naturalness. On the stage, these three cool-to-the-max princes simultaneously proposed marriage to the young and beautiful princess. This was something only seen in fairy tales.


    Below the stage, everyone had begun shrieking and screaming. Although they didn¡¯t recognize the other two princes, everyone could clearly identify the Princess Knight, who was guest-starring in this y as the blonde prince knight. For even the respected Princess Reyne to act in this y meant that this would definitely be a hot topic of the celebration.


    ¡°I...¡±


    Cold sweat was dripping down my back at a furious pace. My survival instinct told me that if I made the wrong decision here, I would be met with an instant death penalty.


    ¡°It was only supposed to be a y, so why am I suddenly making a life and death decision?!¡±


    However, theughter of a certain silly cat, which was enjoying the predicament I was in, transmitted itself to me through our soul connection.


    ¡°...Your instinct is pretty good, but you must take a closer look. This is no mere simple acting. Take a look at those girls¡¯ resolution. At the very least, you should reply to them seriously.¡±


    At the ce where Elisa was standing, mana had started spreading across on the ground like magma, transforming into extravagant red runes and a spell array.


    This was no effect for the y, nor was it any useless decoration. This was a demonic contract, and even if I was the one who taught her how to use demonic contracts, the Demon Marchioness had long since surpassed me in skill at making soul contracts.


    Amelia didn¡¯t use any spells, but her words themselves had the power of spells to begin with. The force of her words already told me that the moment I agreed to her proposal, it would be an eternal contract.


    And, Reyne who seemed to be joining in just for the fun of it, didn¡¯t use any particr magic, but judging from how her lips were so pale and how her tiny body was trembling, this young girl had worked up all of her courage. The young princess had finally worked up her courage in front of all our citizens.


    ¡°If I choose wrong...¡±


    ¡°...you¡¯ll die.¡±


    I didn¡¯t need that silly cat to remind me that I was currently at the brink of a crossroads.


    However, judging by how resolute all three beauties appeared to be, I had to make a decision now. Many thoughts shed through my mind, but some things weren¡¯t set from the very start. I took a deep breath and made up my mind.


    ¡°I...¡±


    *Boom!*


    Before I finished saying another word, a huge ck shadow descended from the sky. The wings from that figure blocked all sunlight, and just the atmospheric pressure caused by the movement of its wings at such a low altitude caused the entire stage to copse.


    ¡°My name is Deathwing, the heaven-sent destroyer, the ender of all. Nobody can stop me, and nobody can go against me.¡±


    The huge red dragon was actually quite dexterous for its size, and mes could be seen burning in its eyes. The dragon¡¯s roar scattered the clouds, and the dragon¡¯s breath scorched the skies. Meanwhile, the red-haired knight on the dragon¡¯s back read her lines in an exaggerated tone.


    ¡°Ah, I¡¯m Prince Kasha from the Land of the Deep Canyons. Even though this is just our first meeting, Princess Peach¡¯s beauty has instantly shattered my ice-cold heart! I shall use my power to steal away my love. Let¡¯s go, Deathwing!¡±


    Before I could react, the huge red dragon lunged towards me and grabbed me away in its w. All that remained behind were the astonished actors and audience.


    ¡°Ahhh! A huge dragon!¡±


    ¡°Princess Peach has been kidnapped!¡±


    There was yet another miraculous unexpected turn of events in the story, but since the main actor had been mysteriously kidnapped, how was the story supposed to go on?


    A strange silence filled the air for several moments, causing anxiety and unrest to spread throughout the audience. Just as they were about to explode in dissatisfaction, somebody appeared to save the day.


    At the same location where Princess Peach had been kidnapped, an originally rolling on the floor andughing ck cat suddenly transformed herself into an incredibly beautiful gold elf.


    ¡°Ah, the suddenly arrived prince of darkness and huge dragon have kidnapped the beautiful princess. The three princes have decided to team up and find the divine sword that can defeat that fearsome huge dragon in order to save their future fianc¨¦e.¡±


    After a pause, the gold elf, who had an astonishing Charisma stat, pped her hands lightly, indicating for the curtains to be slowly closed. Her alluring smile seemed to reveal that the story still hadn¡¯t ended.


    ¡°This is the end of Princess Peach¡¯s different dimension adventure story, and I would like to thank everyone for your passionate support! We wee everyone to pre-purchase tickets to see the next episode: ¡®The Three Princes Bravely Adventuring in the Life-Threatening Ind!¡¯¡±


    ¡°Ohhh! I¡¯ll definitelye for the next episode!¡±


    It seemed that there was already a huge fan of this y.


    ¡°I¡¯lle even if it isn¡¯t free next time.¡±


    ¡°...So only the first part was free. Such a devious method to make money. But, for the cute Princess Peach, I¡¯ll definitelye for the next part as well!¡±


    Alright then, let¡¯s not mention any more about this audience member¡¯s motives for wanting toe to the next part. This boy adjusted his eyesses and had an expression that seemed to say, ¡°There¡¯s only one truth!¡± [1] 1


    ¡°My prince! Could you give me an autograph?¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, the silver-haired prince, please look in this direction!¡±


    ¡°...Is there a poster for this y? I want one of the three princes! I¡¯ll buy one no matter how expensive it is!¡±


    It would seem that the three females acting as princes now had their own loyal fans as well.


    But, after the curtains blocked everything off from sight, there were two of the princes that stood right where they were, exchanging cold nces with each other.


    ¡°...Perhaps the moment he agreed, your demonic contract would take effect. You really are Rnd¡¯s student; you¡¯re just like he is. As long as you achieve your goal, it doesn¡¯t matter how underhanded orcking-limits the techniques you use are. I heard that you became Rnd¡¯s girlfriend under simr circumstances, forcing him to agree under the situation without giving Rnd a chance to choose at all. Are you that afraid of Rnd making a choice from the bottom of his heart?¡±


    ¡°Oh? So, Sister Amelia is all honest and open? I won¡¯t even mention how you suddenly put yourself into my script like that. Could you exin just what you meant by using the highest level of truth magic? Besides, I¡¯m his girlfriend, and with his personality, he had a 99% probability of choosing me. Why would you kill off your own chances like that?¡±


    ¡°That might not be the case. Under the power of my ability, he would be unable to say anything but the ¡®truth¡¯ just now. What he said could only be the choice he wanted from the bottom of his heart. Sense of responsibility, reputation, the situation, and other such factors that could influence him into making some other decision would no longer take effect, and the only thing he could say would be the truth in his heart. In that case, do you still have confidence that you would definitely win?¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    Although Elisa fell silent, this was obvious evidence that she, indeed, wasn¡¯t fully confident.


    The two ¡°princes¡¯¡± conversation caused the stage workers around them to shiver in fear... so what was the third prince doing at this moment?


    ¡°He actually red at me...¡±


    This pitiful ¡°third prince¡± was sighing inint about how the ¡°princess¡± had looked at the other two princes in hesitation and in astonishment, while the expression for her had been the anger and threatening attitude that a parent would have towards a child. She was also considering just what punishment she would receive since she had angered Rnd so much.


    ¡°...Brother Rnd seems to be really angry. He wouldn¡¯t spank me again, would he? Ahhh, I¡¯m so pathetic! It¡¯s so embarrassing! Why did I rush out there like that, and even say such embarrassing words out loud?¡±


    But even if Reyne was currently hiding in a corner behind the stage, demonic temptations would alwayse looking at just the right time.


    ¡°Haha, oh man! I was able to watch something fun as well. That was truly amusing. Would you like to hear my rmendation? After all, I¡¯m still his twin brother, and we actually have rather simr interests. If you listen to my advice, he probably won¡¯t be able to resist against you, you just have to do this...¡±


    As expected of a resident of the Chaos Abyss. The ability to take advantage of someone while they were weak was basically an instinct to Karwenz. However, judging by how Reyne kept nodding, she was obviously taking Karwenz¡¯s words seriously. Yet if she really did follow his advice, perhaps the result wouldn¡¯t be as simple as a butt spanking anymore.


    Perhaps, only Adam, who was doing his very best to reduce his presence as he felt the tense atmosphere around him and fireworks about to explode, was truly worried about his bro.


    ¡°Rnd, for the time being, you definitely can¡¯t return! You¡¯ll die! You¡¯ll definitely die!¡±


    ¡°Ah, Little Red, Annie, thank you so much. If it weren¡¯t for you guys, I probably would have died for sure. Come, I¡¯ll treat you two tonight! Cheers!¡±


    In a small bar that was quite well-known in the north of town, I was currently thanking my two saviors.


    I was well aware that for Little Red, any words of thanks were meaningless, and couldn¡¯tpare to alcohol, which was far more practical and useful for her. This was why I instantly had the bar bring us their best alcohol the moment we arrived.


    ¡°...This beer tastes pretty good, and the grape wine is nice as well. Let¡¯s have another extra twenty barrels of each.¡±


    Little Red wasn¡¯t using anything as small as a wine gon, instead downing alcohol by the barrel. Even with alcohol continuously pouring down her throat, not a single dropnded on the ground; it all was sucked down by those lusciously red lips.


    Even though she clearly had the figure of a thin and beautiful woman, the ¡°bold and forthright¡± manner in which she drank barrels at a time was so shocking that other customers in the bar kept cheering her on.


    Meanwhile, sitting at another small table, Annie was pouting with her tiny mouth at the apple juice and milk set out before her.


    ¡°I¡¯m not little anymore! Annie can drink alcohol as well...¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± This was from Little Red, who had only ordered apple juice for Annie.


    ¡°What?¡± This was from me, who had only ordered milk for Annie.


    Her two elders nced sidelong at her and the mutual condescension that came from them without even prior arrangement caused Annie to helplessly lower her head and continue sipping on her apple juice.


    It seemed that Annie still had a long way to go before she would be able to stand up tall in front of Rnd and Little Red who had watched her grow up, even though she was already an incredible Underground Lord.


    ¡°Rnd, I don¡¯t wish to bring up your affairs anymore. Humans are a rare type of creature that are capable of being in heat all year round, so it seems only natural for them to have rather chaotic rtionships. That seems to be a tradition of your race. Just don¡¯t get my little Annie involved.¡±


    The new Dragon Queen¡¯s first sentence to me was an immediate direct cannon attack, but I was unable to deny my own wrongdoings when faced with my old friend¡¯s mysterious dissatisfaction towards me. What else could I do besides smile wryly?


    ¡°...It¡¯s such a rare chance that we get to drink together; why don¡¯t we talk about something happy?¡±


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ve brought all the resources and people that you wanted, but you can¡¯t give me even one less gold piece than what you promised. You have to pay up first. Even if we¡¯re friends, you have to pay and be in the clear first. Nobody is allowed to owe a dragon money.¡±


    Even though Little Red¡¯s tone was filled with dissatisfaction and even seemed to beining, I was still delighted to hear what she just said.


    ¡°Of course, I know about your difficulties. Even if you are the Dragon Queen, it¡¯s astonishing that you were able to do so much. As for the agreed upon price? Is gold fine? But if the quantity¡¯s toorge, won¡¯t it be difficult to take with you?¡±


    ¡°Not at all. I brought manyborers with me, and they¡¯ll take it back for me.¡±


    She pointed at the group of ck-clothed red and ck dragons, which were silently sitting in their human forms. Dragons had sharp hearing, and if they heard anyone else describing the venerable dragon race asborers, it would definitely be a huge insult, but when they heard their master saying this, they all could only smile helplessly.


    ¡°...Forget it. I still have a few secret treasure vaults in the Underground World, umted from the previous generations. I¡¯ll give them to you and you can have others dig them up. If it¡¯s worth less than what I promised you, I¡¯ll give the difference to you next time. If it¡¯s worth more than what I promised you, just treat it as a free present. How about it?¡±


    My request for her had been somewhat ridiculous to begin with, and it was already difficult for the dragons to not treat my request as an insult. Without Little Red applying pressure, this ridiculous request could never have been realized no matter how much of a price in gold I paid. I owed her significantly for this.


    ¡°That¡¯s more like it. Come, cheers.¡±


    Little Red finally nodded in satisfaction after she heard me say this and followed this up by continually trying to get me to drink along with her.


    For people with bodies like ours, unless we purposefully inhibited our own body¡¯s functions, it was quite difficult to be drunk. However, as I watched the forty barrels being delivered to us, I felt that before considering how much it would take to get drunk, we should first consider how much our stomachs were capable of holding.


    There was a saying that meeting an old friend over drinks would make even a thousand cups seem short, and we were old drinking friends to being with. When Little Red went all out with drinking, she ended only when she finished off all the alcohol reserves in this entire bar.


    And, when we walked out of the bar, the moon and stars had alreadye out and were shining brightly. Little Red was in a great mood and even revealed her dragon wings and began dancing in the streets, while I had to take on the responsibility of the troubles she stirred up from this and try to look for a new bar for her.


    Finally, after she finished all the alcohol reserves of the fourth bar we went to, Little Red was satisfied, and she seemingly casually mentioned her own objective as well.


    ¡°Do you still remember Molly?¡±


    ¡°Of course. She¡¯s the previous Dragon Queen. I heard that she¡¯s alreadye to the surface, and even caused a bunch of trouble, getting onto that messy and random Cmity Rankings or something.¡±


    ¡°Two days ago, I received a letter that actually came from her. Can you believe it? She, the Ancient Red Dragon Molly, actually asked me, the current Dragon Queen who drove her out, for help. It¡¯s probably because she¡¯s truly been forced to the brink.¡±


    ¡°...It wouldn¡¯t be a trap, would it?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but begin worrying as I remembered that sly red dragon.


    ¡°This is where you¡¯re wrong because you don¡¯t know her well enough. Although she doesn¡¯t care at all about what tactics she¡¯ll stoop to, she was the one who taught me about the pride of dragons. For her to lower her head to me, that¡¯s even more difficult to aplish than killing her.¡±


    ¡°Where is she right now?¡±


    ¡°The Kasomali area. Oh, I think you humans call it the Bar-something¡ªright¡ªthe Bardi Empire.¡±


    ...


    When I returned, the first thing I did was deal with a certain naughty child who would demolish the house if not spanked for three days. However, when I took off her skirt and began spanking her butt, I noticed that something was wrong about the situation.


    Yep, this was our family¡¯s tradition, an especially effective punishment for naughty children¡ªspanking the butt, which would give a sufficient amount of punishment without truly hurting them.


    However, something was obviously different this time. Not only did I instantly catch Reyne so easily, her past wailing and crying and pretending to be pitiful were all gone, and the sounds of her reaction to the spanking became stranger and stranger, sounding more and more like the sounds that one would hear in a certain type of ¡°artistic video.¡±


    Her watery and beautiful eyes kept looking back at me, and her breathing kept getting deeper and deeper instead of screaming about how much it hurt. Not only that, with her reddening all the way to the tips of her ears, as well as the strange sensation on my hand, I was unable to take it anymore before I even finished punishing her and had to stop early.


    ¡°...Do you still dare to y jokes on adults anymore?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t. I definitely won¡¯t do it again!¡±


    A naughty child¡¯s promise was never trustworthy. Their promises were only good for as long as their butt hurt, but I was quite satisfied when I received her answer. However, when I asked about the others, I received an unexpected reply.


    ¡°Sister Amelia? She just left. She returned to the Mage Country. Apparently, the Cloud Tower was looking for her, saying it¡¯s an emergency. Originally, she had been ignoring them, but it seems like it can¡¯t wait anymore. Right, Sister Lilith went with her as well, and it seems to have something to do with the Bardi Empire.¡±


    Note:


    1. This is a Detective Conan reference.

 Chapter 249

    Chapter 249: Military Parade (Part 1 of 2)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The celebration began quite early; the sky hadn¡¯t even brightened yet. With its main magical light, the Borealis illuminated the ground, dispelling the loneliness of the dark night. The hubbub of people caused this city to wake up earlier than usual from its nightly dream.


    When the first ceremonial cannons were fired, eagles, which were painted white to represent peace, were released (all the doves purchased from the south had frozen to death in Diffindor), and they started flying in circles above the city. The celebrations for the Day of Peace had nowmenced for the entire city and were tost for one week.


    In every street and alleyway, both real undead and people dressed as undead could be seen roaming around, dressed in pumpkin heads and monster masks. They performed their own programs and held their own events, adding a festive air to the celebration. Bards performed together in bands, and various street stalls and stores wouldn¡¯t miss this great opportunity to make money, either.


    In the za in front of the Royal Pce¡ªyep, it should currently be called the Day of Peace za¡ªcitizens wrapped in thick clothing were anxiously waiting. It was fairly cold outside as the sun hadn¡¯t even arisen, and people¡¯s breaths were clearly visible as they exhaled. Although their faces were all red from the cold, not a single one of themined because the most important program of the festival was about to begin.


    ¡°Day of Peace, Military Parade¡ªbegin!¡±


    The magical announcement caused this sleeping city to no longer remain silent. With a fierce aura about them, the newly born military squads had finished their arrangements, while the invited guests waiting in the temporarily constructed observation towers were filled with expectations for the uing performance. After all, it was possible to gain concrete benefits here, and this was their goal to begin with.


    As for me? I was filled with various emotions. All of this was what I had umted after so long and so much work, as well as my hope for the future. It sure wasn¡¯t easy to reach this step.


    When the utterly silent snow-white soul knights entered the field in an orderly formation, everyone inhaled the cold air in exmation.


    On top of their snow-white soulbat steeds, the Frigid Nightmares, were snow-covered knights wearing the most antique style of royal knight armor, with the familiarbat g of the Mist behind them.


    Their Frigid Nightmares chose the form of flying unicorns, and their armor crafted from cold ice was incredibly sturdy, not to mention that they were also equipped with incredibly sharp ice swords, ice javelins, and ice dragonspears.


    Just like how the records stated, the Aurora Knights were the most well-rounded knights of all. They were a knight order termed as ¡°unstoppable¡± whenever they exceeded one hundred in number. However, what appeared in front of everyone was more than five hundred Aurora Knights!


    This legendary knight order that had once vanished in the pages of history had now reappeared. When they waved their Aurora Knights g in the air above the za, everyone was already boiling with excitement.


    And, when they approached the main podium, they all spread out, revealing fifty-four knights among them. These knights had sturdy ice armor and sharp ice spears like all the others, but their physical bodies and families had all vanished in the long pages of history, not leaving even their names behind.


    Yet even if they had nothing more than their bones and souls left, as long as the People of the Mist still required their assistance, these old soldiers wouldn¡¯t retire. At the current moment, their snow-white soul steeds still carried them into the battlefield once more.


    ¡°Everyone! Bow!¡±


    The Aurora Knights held their swords horizontally, which was a knight gesture that signified humility and justice. They drummed on their shields, which signified protection and courage. They wielded their battle gs, which was a knight gesture that signified loyalty and justice. The scene before me seemed to have passed through the long rivers of time; it was a familiar scene that had finally appeared before me once again, after the passage of countless years.


    ¡°Aurora!¡±


    ¡°Forever!¡±


    Only they had the right to walk at the very forefront, and only these old soldiers who had protected the Mist for more than three hundred years had the right to be the representative guardians of this ancient kingdom in epting the citizens¡¯ cheers and trust.


    However, this time, they were no longer a lonesome small knight order surrounded by enemy forces that outnumbered them by hundreds of times their number. This time, they were surrounded by several hundred younger Aurora Knights, who were looking at their teachers with reverence and trust.


    My nted seeds had already sprouted, and each seed received ten seeds¡¯ worth of harvest. These newly-born Aurora Knights not only received their seniors¡¯ armor and weapons; the countless years of military souls and traditions had never been broken. The Nortnds¡¯ strongest and most glorious knight order was still alive. This most trusted guardian group of the Mist Kingdom still existed.


    The cheers in the za shook the skies, and the spectators from all the other countries were filled with shock. The Aurora Knights were all Gold-ranked or higher and had been famous for the past thousands of years in Eich. Now that this legendary knight order, which was rumored to never be able to surpass one hundred members, actually had five hundred and four members appearing in front of them, how could they easily ept this shocking event?


    ¡°Milord, will you sell them? As long as you name the price... Ah!¡±


    It was obvious that these strong knights caused Earl Habo from the Rhodes Kingdom to be moved, but the moment he spoke, he discovered that he was no longer able to move, as if he was a frog being stared at by a snake.


    A silver sword tip was already at his neck, and his breath was freezing into ice as he exhaled. His guards didn¡¯t even have the time to react.


    Then, although the sword vanished, Earl Habo discovered that his over one-hundred-kilogram body was suddenly lifted up. Before him was a pair of angry eyes that burned with cold mes, along with a deathly cold grip on his neck.


    ¡°...If there¡¯s a next time, I¡¯ll treat it as an insult to the entirety of East Mist. Only war and death shall greet you.¡±


    And then, I casually tossed him aside, took out a handkerchief, and patiently wiped my hands clean, as if I had identally touched a piece of filthy garbage.


    Earl Habo gasped for air while at the same time, the other Nortnds royals and nobles discussed this scene amongst themselves.


    ¡°How foolish! Why did the Rhodes Kingdom send someone so stupid? Hasn¡¯t he ever read a single history book? Doesn¡¯t he know what the Aurora Knights mean to East Mist? He actually dared to ask whether he could buy one? This is basically no different from asking someone to his face how much he would sell his own children for.¡±


    ¡°...Haha! Habo, will you sell your own head? With how suicidal you are, does your king who sent you know about it?¡±


    Apart from the person himself, whoid there copsed on the ground for quite a while without being able to stand up, such a small matter was quickly forgotten because the military squad that gave people an even deeper impression arrived.


    They wore in and ordinary old armor, with a mixture of wooden and steel swords. Even their horses were mostly on the small and weak side, and they didn¡¯t have the obvious pressure and magic power that the Aurora Knights did, nor did they have extravagant looking armor and weapons. However, when these poor-seeming knights arrived, they received an even warmer wee from the audience.


    ¡°Royal knights! East Mist, forever!¡±


    ¡°East Mist royal knights, our knights, banzai!¡±


    Yep, those weak-seeming knights before everyone were the knights under the royalty¡¯s directmand, the royal knights. They were the newly established royal knights modeled on Diffindor¡¯s royal knights that had perished already.


    In every country, the royal knights would forever be the most elite knights, as well as the royalty¡¯s personal army. They would receive the best treatment, the best equipment, and they would also naturally possess the strongestbat strength in the country. They would be required to undertake the most important and dangerous tasks. Just their existence and reputation alone would constitute the pride and honor of any country.


    In most countries, each military personnel would treat being able to join the royal knights as the greatest honor. All the at the minimum silver-ranked members of the White Wolf squadron in the And Empire was a perfect example of this. This was also true of the Mist Kingdom in the past.


    Yet even though the Mist Kingdom had revived, things were different now. East Mist¡¯s royalty was quite poor, and the royal knights were even poorer. The royal knights¡¯ payment wasn¡¯t even as good as what some domain lords¡¯ private armies would receive. Their tasks also wouldn¡¯t be anything like taking part in glorious battles or protecting the royalty; instead, they would be spending most of their time in the poorest and most undeveloped areas, performing small tasks that even mercenaries would deem unprofitable such as disaster relief and getting rid of local dangerous beasts.


    Perhaps their military skills weren¡¯t all that high, and their equipment was nothing but hand-me-downs from their ancestors¡¯ ancestors; in fact, the domain lords¡¯ private soldiers would oftenugh at them for being good-for-nothings. However,pared to other countries¡¯ royal knights, there was one thing inmon.


    ¡°For glory and loyalty!¡±


    ¡°We fight for the royalty, we fight for the citizens!¡±


    Yep, after so many years, they never betrayed their own oaths. They had always been protecting the royalty that they swore fealty to and acted as the royalty¡¯s most trusted arms.


    When winter arrived, and wild beasts spread everywhere in search of food, they would rush to the forefront. When facing against foreign invaders, they would always sacrifice themselves for the sake of the country, and they had never failed to live up to the emblems of ¡°Fortress of the Mist¡± on their shoulders.


    Two years ago, when the beastmen armies were invading, this ancient royal knight order that was long since outdated and fatigued transformed into the sharpest sword of all under Reyne¡¯smand. Although they were able to beat back the strong enemy, the royal knights lost seventy percent of their members, which was almost no different from having perished entirely. Even if manymoners joined in again as knights and warriors, there was no way for them to recover theirbat strength in a short period of time, so they could only helplessly be a backline army and a disaster relief squad.


    Reyne was vigorously waving her hand at those knights that had pledged loyalty to her; she hadn¡¯t forgotten about her loyal knights. Nor would I forget about them.


    However, the next military squad that appeared caused everyone to fall silent.


    ¡°...¡±


    This was a squad of knights that was even more tattered than the royal knights of moments ago. Their swords were blunt, their dragonspears were bent, and their battle gs were already nothing more than tattered cloth. They walked along silently without making a single sound, while the audience all inhaled breaths of cold air and instinctively retreated. That was the instinctive fear that the living would have of the undead.


    The silent ck-clothed knights walked together without a singlemand or any hesitation. They had no fear and even no hatred. They merely walked forward silently, as if nothing in the world mattered, which made people think about a procession of shinigamis. [1] 1


    They were simrly glorious knightsparable to the royal knights, and when they walked across the podium, they only silently nced over at me. They had long since stopped needing anymands, and their stubbornness and loyalty had already been proved by the heavens and earth. They didn¡¯t need to care about what others thought of them at all... For the past three hundred plus years, I believed in them, and they swore loyalty to me¡ªand that was enough.


    ¡°You don¡¯t like us?¡±


    ¡°Come at us!¡±


    Alright, my description was obviously a tad too premature. Judging by the two signs that the undead knights had suddenly put up, and their expressions, which were filled with distaste towards certain people, it was evident that they weren¡¯t so uncaring after all.


    ¡°Damned undead!¡±


    ¡°Bastards!¡±


    They were targeting the members of the Holy Church, who were cursing them from behind me. When I turned around and saw that the young female Holy Knight Ai was angered to the point that she was jumping up and down, I smiled in satisfaction.


    There was a reason for these two royal knight groups from different generations to havee together.


    East Mist¡¯s royal knight order had lost its chain of session and its corebat strength and future prospects. And, although the Mist Kingdom¡¯s undead royal knight order was powerful, itcked the ability to add fresh blood. Without this as the foundation, both royal knight orders werecking in a different area, which was why I decided to put them together.


    They could finally put down the heavy responsibilities that they shouldn¡¯t have been bearing. Tasks such as city defense and disaster relief would be given over to my future Town Security knights, while the future royal knight order would be led and taught by the Great Sword Saint Fayde and other such veteran royal knights in its reorganization.


    The total number after reorganization was projected to be approximately five thousand, and all of them were the Mist Kingdom¡¯s ace soldiers and elite knights. Perhaps it would take a while longer for them to mature, but they would eventually be just like other countries¡¯ royal knights¡ªthe guardians of the royalty as well as the top-ss soldiers who would be able to determine thebat situation on the battlefield.


    ¡°May the Holy Light cleanse all those damned undead!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve lived for so long, and it¡¯s the first time seeing so many undead daring toe out into the open.¡±


    I nced over at all the Holy Church members who were filled with righteous anger, and I shrugged my shoulders uncaringly. It was their fault for always looking for trouble these days, and it was already quite a lot of self-restraint on my knights¡¯ part to not go looking for them for trouble.


    Perhaps this royal knight orderposed of both the living and the dead would attract unnecessary attention and controversy, and perhaps it would cause that title of Saint of Holy Light to disappear from my hands before I even received it, but I one hundred percent agreed with yet another sign that my undead knights raised.


    ¡°The bald monk likes the nun, but what does that have to do with the Daoist? We¡¯re right here in front of you, but what the hell does it have to do with the Holy Church? You don¡¯t like us? Go ahead ande fight us!¡±


    Note:


    1. ording to Wikipedia, Shinigami (ËÀÉñ, ¡°god of death¡± or ¡°death spirit¡±) are gods or supernatural spirits that invite humans toward death, and can be seen to be present or interpreted to be present in certain aspects of Japanese religion and culture.

 Chapter 250

    Chapter 250: Military Parade (Part 2 of 2)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Before the first rays of sunlight streaked across the sky, pitch-ck dark elves appeared before the humans, as if they were messengers of the night.


    When everyone present noticed that the group that had appeared next consisted of dark elves, their expressions were filled with shock and surprise. After all, in most situations, their species were the representation of evil. Perhaps it were only the demons and devils from the Chaos Abyss who had a worse reputation. Even the undead were better received than they were.


    The ones in front of the audience, however, were doubtlessly an abnormality among dark elves. They were dark elf knights d in golden heavy armor, and this was the first time they had revealed themselves on the surface of the mortal ne. Orderly and unhurriedly, they proceeded forward. Other dark elves were known to be skilled at using daggers and poisons, but these wielded glorious sacred swords and sturdy tower shields. Most importantly, they wore crosses, which were enveloped in Holy Light. Even the knights themselves were surrounded by Holy Light, which caused the human Holy Knights witnessing this spectacle to be the most astonished of all.


    ¡°Dark elves are capable of bing Holy Knights?¡±


    ¡°How is this possible!? How can the evil dark elves possibly receive the blessing of Holy Light!?¡±


    ¡°Because your God of Holy Light is an idiot.¡±


    Of course, I didn¡¯t say my line of thought aloud, as that would definitely brand me as a heretic. However, I didn¡¯t have any intentions of hiding the fact that I was filled with negative intentions, and I sarcastically made fun of them.


    ¡°Heh heh, I have a friend who¡¯s a dark elf Legend-ranked Holy Knight. Not only that, she has the possibility of reaching Saint rank. Sigh. A pity that she¡¯s not here right now.¡±


    Some of the Holy Knights were filled with disbelief, while some nodded with shocked expressions. I didn¡¯t make any attempt to conceal my insultingughter, which earned me an angry re from Ai. Ever since she had gone back with Estrada and learned that Holy Knight Rolo¡¯s real identity was me, she became hostile and unfriendly. It would seem that I had identally made her feel greatly pissed off at me.


    The emblem of the dark elf Town Security Knights was a tightly clenched golden fist, which represented the spirit of teamwork and cooperation. Stuck above the fist was also a blunt sword, which represented the usage of violence only to a necessary degree¡ªyep¡ªit definitely didn¡¯t represent anything else, especially not my personalints against a certain Riot Gamespany, which had a fist as its emblem... Irelia was so cute, so why did they always nerf her? They should have been focusing on Teemo who was always polluting the environment with his explosive mushrooms instead. [1] 1


    Cough, I should stop getting sidetracked with topics from my original world. Let¡¯s return to the main topic at hand.


    Unlike formal knight orders, which had actualbat as their main tasks, the Town Security Knights¡¯ most important tasks were doubtlessly smaller-scale battles like suppressing riots, bandit groups, and wild beasts. In order to make it more convenient for them to separate and battle in different locations, they were all mainly separated into small teams.


    Each small team¡¯s captain and vice-captain were dark elf knights that came from the Underground. It was still the ssical method of veterans leading the novices. While the members were of arge variety, but most of them were still knight type job sses that had tough skin and high endurance, or they were youngsters that had decided to be knights.


    The reason for that? Indeed, thief job sses were agile and dexterous, while warrior job sses were much more flexible. Mages were even more adaptable and seemed to be quite appropriate for working within a city like this, but when you looked at the overall reputations of these three main andmon job sses, none of them were that good.


    Everyone knew that thieves would get up to no good and only work for money, while the warriors had the image of being barbaric and violent to the point of only talking with their fists; this was apparent to everyone. The mage job ss was also seen by everyone as connected to evil and untrustworthy. While mages could easily obtain respect and fear, they definitely couldn¡¯t obtain trust; they had far worse of a reputation than Holy Knights, Knights of Justice, or even just regr knights.


    Holy Knights needed to obey the teachings of the Holy Light, Knights of Justice needed to follow thew, and normal knights needed to follow the knightly code of chivalry and swear loyalty to their lord and king; reputation and honor were more important to them than their lives. In order to obtain the people¡¯s trust and internally obtain the neers¡¯ trust of the Town Security Knights themselves, almost all the small teams¡¯ leaders were of knight job sses.


    To use a certain person¡¯s quote, ¡°Although tin cans mostly have empty air for brains, but they can all survive based on their handsome faces...¡± Yep, that was a certain quote said by someone when he was still a Holy Knight, but he had ended up getting beaten up by all hisrades. Fine, I¡¯ll be honest; apart from someone like me, a grand master at shooting oneself in the foot, who else could have said something so ridiculous?


    The future Town Security Knights spent most of their time performing tasks within the city, and they had special intelligence, logistics, and magic support squads of their own. Whether or not their work would be a sess here depended more than anything on whether they would be able to create a trustworthy and fair impression of themselves, which was why choosing these knights that had ¡°tin cans for brains¡± was the best choice. It had already been proven back in Sulfur Mountain City.


    Each small team consisted of ten to twelve members, and would be led by an elite dark elf knight. They had top-level equipment, and any criminal would get a headache just looking at them. The Town Security Knights were nned to number 14,000 in the end, which would be more than sufficient to deal with the protection of multiple cities at once.


    As for why I had to begin the military parade so early before the sun even rose? It was also out of consideration for these dark elves, who weren¡¯t suited for appearing under the sunlight. For the time being, they would also have to mainly work during the night, but when their specialized equipment waspleted, they would be able to move about normally during the day as well.


    What was their specialized equipment? Momo here was wearing the prototype.


    The main reason the dark elves feared the sunlight was that their pupils and skin couldn¡¯t bear the sunlight. It wasn¡¯t as bad for their skin, although they would begin to suffer from severe sunburn if they stayed out in the sun for too long, but their weak pupils couldn¡¯t tolerate any sunlight at all... actually, this wasn¡¯t something unresolvable.


    They would wear ck dwarven anti-wind sses with dark green tree resin lenses. They would have water element top-level hydra skin crafted into cool jackets, leather gloves, and ck cors. They would wear high-heeled boots and long socks on their long, beautiful legs, plus purple eyeshadow and lipstick, which would give them a rebellious sense of beauty that seemed out of this world...


    As for whether or not I copied elements from a certain special job from my previous world, a dominatrix¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªat the very least, I wasn¡¯t crazy enough to give them leather whips. Of course, some dark elves with special interests already had this type of item on their own, such as a certain crazy dog named Momo, who was currently¡ªand happily¡ªgiving a whipping performance that caused various exmations from the citizens... let us just ignore those perverts who had voluntarily came up for whippings.


    With such top-level water element equipment provided to them, and when you add on the fact that they would put on Olive¡¯s specially made sunscreen lotion for the skin that they revealed, they would basically be entirely protected from the sunlight so that they wouldn¡¯t have to imitate other dark elves on the surface¡ªthey wouldn¡¯t have to wear pitch-ck capes and only dare to move about at night.


    With such equipment, their anti-sunlight resistance rose greatly. Some dark elves had already volunteered to experiment for me, and, with the help of this water equipment and sunscreen lotion, they were able to normally move about under the sunlight for approximately five hours. As their bodies gradually got used to the sunlight, even increasing the time to eight hours under the sun per day was eptable. When a gray elf like Momo put on this equipment, she was practically able to ignore any negative effects the sunlight would have on her.


    To be honest, based on the Underground dark elves¡¯ level of magic, finding a way to deal with the sunlight wasn¡¯t something impossible to begin with. However, under their society where Lorci had controlled everything, anyone that researched this topic was basically dering their intentions to go against Lorci.


    ¡°What? You¡¯re researching a method to deal with the sunlight? You intend to betray Lorci and escape to the aboveground world?¡±


    Now that Lorci was dead, I figured that the dark elves would eventuallye up with new ways to deal with the sun on their own.


    Of course, even now, these equipment sets for them weren¡¯t cheap. The dwarves¡¯ protective sses originally used gemstone lenses which still let in too much sunlight for the dark elves, so I rmended Amelia¡¯s specially-produced tree resin lenses which were a big sess, but it still wasn¡¯t easy to mass produce them.


    Although there was already a mother tree, I had to wait until Amelia¡¯s magical tree grew into a forest before I would be able to have the tree resin lenses mass produced. And even though I had plenty of hydra skin on my hands, it was still rather precious, and using it only to block the sun seemed like a waste.


    Hydra skin which was imprable by ordinary weapons and had defense equal to or surpassing that of steel armor, but I didn¡¯t have any top-level smiths that were able to make use of such a high-quality material. In order to avoid wasting any hydra skin, I only had very small and simple modifications done to them, without even having them enchanted with any spells or runes.


    Although the defense value was only the hydra skin¡¯s natural defense value alone, that was already significant. The magic resistance properties of hydra skin added with the fact that the dark elves already had a talent for magic resistance helped thempletely ignore any magic spells that were below Gold-rank. This made them into true mage killers.


    I nodded in satisfaction as I watched them pass by. Not only were they the future Town Security and the backup knights for our main forces, but they were also specialized anti-mage troops. Of course, if it was necessary, I would have them truly act the part as mage killers.


    And after this ¡°Riot Company¡± squad finished walking past us, the next group was rather unexpected.


    The one at the forefront was a certain tall and strong tauren who was smiling in an honest and direct fashion as he continuously waved to people on both sides of the road. Xueti¡¯s name was quite famous, after all.


    However, due to some special reasons and some rather extreme quotes of his, such as ¡°Why does a good man have to cover up?¡± or ¡°What¡¯s wrong with a man being perverted?¡± he obtained the extreme disgust of arge majority of females as well as the support of arge majority of males. Of course, there were also some females who were into extreme things that supported him.


    After this highest priest walked past us while enjoying both cheers and boos, the well-equipped Church of Law members showed up behind him in all their might.


    This was a group of ck-robed judges, but they were also Law Incanters, Judgementors, and Knights of Justice. They weren¡¯t many, nor was their procession very orderly. However, the pride of the strong was as bright as daylight in the eyes of those that recognized their power.


    ¡°How is it possible that they have so many Gold ranks?¡±


    ¡°Gold ranks? Take a closer look, there are actually so many Legends among them.¡±


    ¡°...The rumors about the Underground were actually true? Legends are everywhere, liches are like dogs, and randomly tossing a brick can kill two SemiGod Liches?¡±


    I viciously red at the fool who hadpared liches to dogs and even intended to kill SemiGod Liches with bricks, before returning my focus to the procession.


    I was quite satisfied with their appearance. These old guys from the Church of Law were, at the very weakest, of the Gold rank, and all of them were those who could be judges. They were the true power of the Church of Law, umted over the past hundred years.


    236 Gold ranks, 46 Legend ranks, and 4 Saint ranks. This wasbat strength that was more than sufficient to rule over the Underground, and this military parade was a way to let everyone witness the true power of the Church of Law. It was also precisely because of their existence that Diffindor could be termed ¡°Infallible.¡±


    Just thinking about it, if Diffindor really was attacked, I could activate ¡°Great Judgement¡± here. Just what would happen after all the Law job sses were raised one rank? There would be 236 Legend ranks, 46 Saint ranks, and 4 Myth ranks... While this may still be insufficient to y a God, killing off an army of over 100,000 would be an effortless task.


    As an independent organization belonging to the Church of Law rather than the military, they originally shouldn¡¯t have appeared in East Mist¡¯s military parade, but due to our unique organizational structure and rtionship, it was time to have theme out and scare some people.


    Of course,pared to other True Gods¡¯ churches that had SemiGod members as their aces, the Church of Law would still seem weaker, but even the power that they now disyed would be enough to have the other churches reassess this new church¡¯s power and potential. After all, the Law God ascended to Godhood just a little less than two years ago, but this system of Law had already matured to such an extent.


    The Town Security and these strong members of the Church of Law were all part of the Law system that I had created to begin with, and what I imagined was that the Church of Law would eventually spread to be the national church of the entire Mist Alliance. Each city would construct their own courts, helping spread the seeds of its existence.


    A judge that was able to control the situation would be the leader, with roughly ten or so assistants or acolytes as the core members helping out. The small teams of Town Security that finished their training would be the executors of the Law. When all the public courts that also served simultaneously as Churches of Law opened up and became operational, each city would begin changing, and the number of Law job sses would continue increasing...


    ¡°Hmph! In my blueprint for the future, there are no such things as foolish antiquated nobles and a feudal system.¡±


    They were the greatest treasure that I had umted over the years, and the most important part of whether my n would seed. After all, individual strength was limited. Without their assistance, I wouldn¡¯t be able to realize my goal.


    If the Town Security and Church of Law members represented the current changes ongoing in this country, the next group to appear probably represented the potential future that still needed hard work and effort to reach.


    ¡°Look! It¡¯s the battle g of the Silver Cross! My nephew¡¯s joined them as well.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s the Silver Cross! Thatbat squadron which obtained des in the war against the beastmen.¡±


    When talking about poprity, this newly risingbat squadron, which had most of its members consisting of locals, was actually the most popr, especially after they racked up achievements during the war against the beastmen. They also became a hot topic in all the streets and alleyways.


    ¡°They¡¯re our children, and our heroes.¡±


    When thebat g of the Silver Cross could be seen in the distance, the visitors from the Holy Church finally showed some smiles. The Silver Cross typically was rted to the Holy Light, so it seemed that there was finally something eptable to them. After all, judging by how the citizens were so excited, it seemed that the Silver Cross had an excellent reputation.


    But soon, the Holy Church members¡¯ smiles froze on their faces. The undead knights Fanderk and Lani were themander and submander of thisbat squadron, so of course they walked at the forefront. The Holy Church members were soon able to see up close what was really on the Silver Cross¡¯sbat g¡ªa sword which represented physical might ovepped with a staff representing magical power, which was somethingpletely separate from a real cross that could be used to pray to the Holy Light.


    The Four Elemental Swordcasters, who used the power of the elements, also greatly ticked off some of the Holy Church members. After all, in the eyes of some extremists of the believers of the Holy Light, even elemental powers needed to be cleansed. However, they couldn¡¯t do anything about it, since nobody had made a rule saying that silver crosses were the intellectual property of the Holy Church.


    Meanwhile, the other guests weren¡¯t thinking so much about all this at all. The newly-created single soldier mecha walking at the forefront attracted all their attention.


    ¡°This is the single soldierbat mecha Sith #0. It has apletely metallic outer shell and obsidian protective covering. Its highest speed is 30 kilometers per hour, so it can easily keep up with a knights¡¯ procession. Its armor thickness and utility can be modified based on the desired cost of production, and if magical metals are used in its construction, it¡¯s also simple to make it immune to Silver-ranked attacks and below.¡±


    Seeing how everyone¡¯s attention was fully on me, I paused for a moment before tossing out a megaton bomb with my next words.


    ¡°Although its defense is excellent, wearing it won¡¯t affect the casting of spells at all. This is doubtlessly the best equipment for any archmage in the future. Although controlling this mecha requires the ability to control the elements, we also sell Secret Silver Spirit Swords to control these mechas that even an ordinary person can use. Only this magical sword is required to control it... Which means to say, even a ruler with no magical or physical prowess whatsoever can instantly possess, at the minimum, Silver-rankedbat strength through this mecha. They will also be able to obtain a Secret Silver Spirit Sword, which will give them the ability to somewhat control the elements.¡±


    As I waved in indication, the warrior in the mecha opened up part of the outer shell. The elemental power around him could be ignored, while that Secret Silver Spirit Sword that was also red and ck was obviously the core part of the mecha. This phenomenon seemed to break allmon sense and caused amotion from all the spectators.


    Secret Silver Spirit Sword? It was actually a magical sword modified through magical engineering. Originally, I named it the ¡°Silver Sword,¡± but since everyone strongly objected to it, I could only helplessly add two more words to its name.


    As for the so-called ¡°Secret Silver?¡± Well, gold watches, gold pens, and gold teeth might not necessarily be made of real gold, and a gold-colored canister of milk powder would definitely not have any gold inside at all. A silverputer or car wouldn¡¯t have real silver either, and if someone had silver in their brain, that meant it was time to sue a merchant for metallic poisoning. That was just how merchants¡¯ advertising worked; everybody understood how it was.


    ¡°How much? How many mechas do you have? We Rhodes Kingdom will buy them all!¡±


    ¡°You dare to try stealing them from us, San Antonio? Give them all to us! We¡¯ll trade high-quality gold for them.¡±


    ¡°...So what if we steal them?!! You think you¡¯re the only ones with money? Our Kasn has plenty of money, too! Why don¡¯t you try dering war against us? As long as you can defeat all fifteen of our countries, we¡¯ll surrender them to you.¡±


    Even if none of them truly saw the military potential in these mechas, just the idea of allowing ordinary people to possess Silver-rankedbat strength was a temptation that no human ruler would be able to resist. Judging from how these emissaries seemed as if they were about to start fighting over the mechas, perhaps they had all received direct orders from their rulers that they would be forced to carry out.


    It would seem that leaking information on the mechas I was nning to sell beforehand was the correct decision. In fact, even the Holy Church was tempted and sent out their professional negotiator.


    ¡°May the Holy Light watch over you. We can feel that Your Highness still has the faint power of Holy Light, so it¡¯s fortunate that the mundane and busy affairs of the world haven¡¯t obstructed your search for the path of Holy Light. May the justice of knights forever watch over you.¡±


    Alright, it looked like even the Holy Church was ying this game. If it was someone else, they probably wouldn¡¯t understand these words, but this type of thing was a daily urrence for me in the past. This was what he really meant:


    ¡°Hey, brat, we¡¯re all members of the Holy Light, so don¡¯t jack up the prices too much. Otherwise, if you do, be careful that our big boss the God of Holy Light will have a reckoning with you.¡±


    ¡°Even so, I¡¯ve already begun following the path of Law. I hope that the Holy Light will watch over you as well, even in the darkest and ckest of nights, so that it can illuminate the path before you. (Trantion: You pauper! My boss is now Wumianzhe, so if you don¡¯t have money, get out of here, and go back to where you came from.)¡±


    ¡°Ah, my young brother who follows both the path of Holy Light and the path of Law... (Trantion: You fool! Your magnanimous stinginess and bravery in shooting yourself in the foot like this have caused me to be scared into receiving a message from the God of Holy Light...)¡±


    Alright, it was nostalgic to meet someone who understood these code words, and I actually got interested in the process, as we kept speaking in code and began negotiating.


    While I was having fun chatting with this Holy Knight negotiator in code, everyone else had utterly confused expressions¡ªeven my teacher, who had the nickname of the ¡°Strongest Holy Knight.¡± After all, Estrada had zero experience with the ceremonial speech required for diplomacy, and in their eyes, we kept respectfully talking to each other endlessly in circles with no meaningful content whatsoever. In truth, we had been negotiating for over ten rounds back and forth already.


    By now, the ¡°Sith #0¡± was far off into the distance, and no price was set for its sale yet, but I had already reached my goal. This was only a disy, and how could I sell it so easily... I still needed time to add in the missing parts and make it really working! You over there, hurry up and pick up and reinstall its left arm that fell off! It¡¯ll be really bad if someone sees that!


    ¡°There are only two Sith mechas in total, and the other one is still currently under construction. In one month¡¯s time, both of them will be auctioned, while the next batch will have to wait until at least one yearter. If someone buys both of them at once during the auction, we¡¯ll even throw in the method for how to create the Secret Silver Spirit Swords. We ept gold, and God Equipment is fine as well for payment.¡±


    The additional throw-in was far more valuable than the mechas itself, but in order to sessfully purchase both mechas at an auction, the amount to be paid would have to at the very least be more than twice the upper limits of what other countries were willing to pay. This method of selling was filled with obvious greed, but it also gave everyone plenty of time to obtain permission from their rulers and prepare as much funds as possible. Judging by how all the emissaries had grim and hostile expressions towards each other, they would probably be unable toe to a secret agreement regarding the price amongst themselves, and I would profit greatly this time.


    As for why I was willing to give away the method to create the Secret Silver Spirit Swords? Actually, spreading magical engineering technology was one of my important strategic goals to begin with. In the future that I could foresee, all the human kingdoms would have to stand united, and I couldn¡¯t have them being too much of a burden.


    Anyways, it would likely spread sooner orter; spreading this technology to the entire world earlier would be even better if I could profit at the same time.


    Not only that, but our ability to perform research was limited in personnel and resources. Compared to guarding the treasure trove and starving to death, it was better to sell this off and obtain seeds that could be harvested in the future and improve the overall strength of humans.


    As for whether or not I left backdoors and Trojan Horses that were capable of stealing the other side¡¯s technology as well... This question was a pointless one, as in that original world of mine, weren¡¯t there always backdoors and additional add-ons in all the top-level applications and software?


    Of course, in order to not make them so tempted that they would attempt to try taking my mechas by force rather than purchasing them, the next one up would be the most expensive product for sale of all. It would be the trump card to suppress anyone with such thoughts.


    ¡°Mizar, it¡¯s time for your appearance.¡±


    Note:


    1. League of Legends reference!

 Chapter 251

    Chapter 251: Auction


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The military parade was at its climax, and the appetizers had already been served¡ªit was only natural that now would be the main course.


    The dragonbone airship pierced through the clouds in the air. As it arrived, it was apanied with a pitch-ck mist and the shock of the members of the audience.


    What surrounded this gigantic dragonbone airship weren¡¯t clouds but the pure magic power of death. Unlike the Borealis, which was purely constructed of metals on the surface, its dragonbone and the power of death gathered in the ck mist was the best evidence of its identity¡ªan Undead Battleship.


    Its sails were constructed with skeletal bone bodies and pitch-ck magic, and they were both important characteristics of Undead Battleships and Soul Battleships.


    Compared to the Borealis, which had its own system and only used an undead system to reinforce and control it, the Mizar used a simr design and technology. Undead magic would simply rece any ces where engineering and technology standards weren¡¯t up to par.


    There weren¡¯t enough specialized alloys that were specially suitable for floating airships? Let¡¯s just use dragonbone instead, which was sturdy, longsting, and an excellent medium for undead magic. Although its outer appearance was a little scary, wasn¡¯t all this white dragonbone beautiful in its own special way...? However, I knew that most mortals wouldn¡¯t appreciate it like I did.


    Not enough resources to construct the mana pools and mage towers of a floating battleship? Actually, ghost towers and soul towers weren¡¯t bad either; it was just that there were a few too many souls. All the mana produced would be for undead magic, and it would be a fatal amount of undead energy for any living person... Yet since the Mizar ran off of undead magic and living personnel were unusable, let¡¯s just use undead personnel, instead.


    The energy sources let off ck smoke and fire? Polluting even the skies that they passed by? That was correct¡ªwhy would an undead magic powered airship produce any other color? As for the soul mast on the deck and the shades blowing at the soul mast... it was all too normal¡ªthat was the typical method an undead battleship would use to increase its speed.


    It naturally had its own corrosive domain and aura of fear? It was an undead battleship made of dragonbone to begin with; activating these two racial talents was perfectly normal. As it didn¡¯t possess a draconic aura, the Mizar could be considered to be a littlecking, but they were positive effects that were useful on the battlefield.


    Perhaps, in the eyes of normal people, the only difference between the Mizar and a certain legendary ghost ship on the seas was that the Mizar was made of higher-quality materials and was able to fly. [1] 1


    Thanks to a certain person¡¯s terrible hobbies, thepleted form of the Mizar resembled a tremendous flying bone dragon. Its vicious appearance was especially enhanced, making it appear to be the personal battleship of some demon king.


    At this moment, this several-hundred-meter-long dragonbone airship covered the sky, and brought a dark wind with it. Dark clouds gathered, and when it fully appeared in front of everyone, it brought both fear and shock.


    The visitors from the Holy Church had the biggest reactions. They had always viewed the undead as their mortal enemies, so the ones equipped with swords instantly drew them, while the priests raised their staves and prepared Divine Arts. Even Estrada himself put his hand on his mace and seemed to be considering an attack.


    ¡°This is the Borealis squad, second battleship: Mizar. Everyone already knows the #1 battleship Borealis already, but our industrial level is rather low in East Mist, which is why we had to use some small tricks to make up for what wecked.¡±


    ¡°...You evil undead mages...¡±


    One Holy Knight couldn¡¯t bear it anymore and angrily started shouting but was suppressed by hisrades. This was obviously no time for them to turn on me, but all the priests and Holy Knights had unpleasant expressions. This was an evil representation of undead magic and was obviously beyond the limits of their tolerance.


    In fact, if it wasn¡¯t for the Crimeless City repeatedly ¡°emphasizing¡± that these high-level undead were harmless, and also for Cardinal Soros repeatedly emphasizing the importance of what they were here to aplish, a conflict¡ªor even all-out battle¡ªwould have erupted.


    ¡°Hmph.¡±


    But this was exactly the effect I wanted. I had long since viewed the Holy Church with displeasure, and since it wasn¡¯t convenient to fight with them out in the open, let¡¯s just ignore them for now.


    There was only one Borealis, and due to certain rumors that the origin of the Borealis wasn¡¯t proper, no country would conduct business with us regarding battleships; they would all hesitate. But don¡¯t look at how repulsed they all seemed to be on the surface after I disyed the Mizar; as long as I truly proved that we had the ability to produce medium torge airships, the orders woulde to us on their own.


    ¡°Although we still haven¡¯t mastered the techniques to createrge-scale airships, and must use some recement materials, we¡¯ve already mastered small-scale airships. Everyone, take a look. Those snow-white painted small airships are our newest ¡®Snow Eagle¡¯ cannon airships.¡±


    The Mizar opened up its hatch to reveal a squadron of new Snow Eagle cannon airships that flew out from within. They flew circles in the skies, which caused various exmations.


    They had been painted snow-white, and only their heads were painted with the sign of a white eagle.


    We were pressed for time and we alsocked technicians, so we were unable to change the technology. The only difference of the Snow Eagle cannon airships from the And Vulture ambush airships was probably the color of the paint on the outer shell. The most pitiful part of all was that I had originally wanted to name them ¡°Snowstorm¡± cannon airships, but it was rejected because ¡°your name sounds like it will bring a curse of catastrophic bad luck.¡±


    ¡°The Snow Eagle cannon airship typically requires four people to operate: a pilot, a cannoneer, amander, and a messenger. This number can be adjusted based on the situation; for example, an extra cannoneer or a mage can be added, and each Snow Eagle cannon airship can maintainbat for sixteen hours. At this auction, we shall sell two Snow Eagle cannon airships. Afterwards, we¡¯ll still ept orders, but as we still need to obtain various rare materials, not only will we require that you pay seventy percent upfront, delivery may be somewhat dyed.¡±


    Not only would delivery be somewhat dyed, but we would have to take care of numerous requirements first, such as obtaining materials and upgrading the industrial level to be able to mass produce them. Plus, we had to fill our own needs and the Mist Alliance member countries¡¯ orders first, so even if everything was super sessful, the first batch of cannon airships wouldn¡¯t be shipped out to other countries for at least one or two years. And, by that time, all the airships I needed for my Borealis squadron would beplete.


    As for requiring seventy percent upfront... considering that these prices were inted even further because this was an auction, that would be no small number. If we obtained more than ten countries¡¯ orders at once, even if we didn¡¯t do anything at all for the entirety of next year, we wouldn¡¯t have to worry about not having enough money to supply food for East Mist for the next several years.


    However, despite the fact that everyone was getting passionate about this, someone surprisingly expressed their dissatisfaction directly.


    ¡°Hmph! What¡¯s so incredible about that? Isn¡¯t it merely the ability to fly? In front of we Holy de Knights, what do those puny airships matter?¡±


    Ai had an immensely dissatisfied expression; she made it seem like floating battleships were nothing before her at all. However, I knew that what she said was indeed the truth. The Holy de Knights had a special squadron that consisted of solely Holy Knights with the bloodline of angels.


    In front of high-level Holy Knights with the ability to fly, these small airships indeed didn¡¯t amount to much. Even if I estimated conservatively, these Snow Eagle cannon airships would be nothing more than floating targets for any Holy Knights at Saint rank or above.


    However, untimely bragging would always attract lots of enmity. I didn¡¯t pay any heed to Ai, while everyone else was already ring at the idiot that she was. They didn¡¯t say it out loud, but what they were thinking was obvious: ¡°You members of the Holy Church have a huge organization and so many strong members, so you don¡¯t think floating battleships are important. But that doesn¡¯t mean everyone else can be like you.¡±


    Ai seemed like she still wanted to say something else, but the sudden huge shadows that descended from the skies shut her up. Or, more urately, perhaps I should say that she was scared to the point that she couldn¡¯t even close her mouth anymore.


    Those shadows belonged to thirteen huge dragons; they consisted of eight red and five ck dragons. Although most of them were rather young dragons thatcked experience, dragon knights were an exceedingly rare job ss in this current generation. Many dragons acting together was a rare sight in the past several hundred years, and this definitely shocked the world.


    ¡°I have a pretty good rtionship with the new Dragon Queen of the Underground World, so she rented out some of her dragons to me. Although the rent is unbelievably expensive, it¡¯s indeed an excellentbination with our aerial battleship. Don¡¯t you agree?¡±


    This was a naked disy of our military might. No matter how strong your angel bloodline Holy Knights are, could theypete with dragons? Only with mature dragons protecting theserge airships would they be able to operate at full power, and the reverse was true as well. With such an excellent tform like a huge aerial battleship backing them up, the dragons would be able to be at their mightiest as well.


    On the surface, the various gem dragons and colored dragons typically each had their own individual territories and very little contact between themselves. They had basically no mortal enemies, and ¡°dragonyer heroes¡± were typically just a synonym for ¡°idiots.¡± Only in the Underground World where high-ranked strength was somon did dragons form arge family and support system for themselves, which was how Little Red had such strong power tomand them.


    Unlike the Underground World, where they would be limited in their ability to fly around, these huge dragons could instantly vanish in a sh on the surface. Unless they were willing to risk ambush attacks on their capital once every two or three days, even the human mega-empires wouldn¡¯t dare to make an enemy out of a dragon.


    Of course, even if they were only young dragons, making dragons listen to a human¡¯s orders was doubtlessly ¡°an insult to dragon pride.¡± Even though Little Red was now the Dragon Queen, she had spent so much effort andpromises on my behalf in order to aplish my request, sessfully allowing me to ¡°rent¡± them.


    And, it was precisely the appearance of the dragons that made all those who intended to obtain our products via either force or other means to cancel their ns.


    ¡°...Is this the legendary Rnd? He actually has a connection to the Dragon Queen, and can even get dragons to listen to his orders? It would seem that applying pressure or threatening him won¡¯t be able to seed.¡±


    In order to be a sessful arms merchant, apart from the ability to obtain excellent products, what was more important was enough power backing the merchant up so that they would not have to fear underhanded means.


    Of course, when using force or threats wouldn¡¯t help them obtain what they wanted, they would naturally have to pay up in gold and silver.


    Perhaps they wouldn¡¯t be able to analyze any useful technology by just obtaining one small airship, but the long-term abilities to scout or ferry important personages were quite valuable and difficult to obtain from a strategic standpoint.


    The dragons were merely the background to the Snow Eagle cannon airships¡¯ performance, but everyone¡¯s faces had paled. Even under the Dragon Queen¡¯smand, the prideful dragons weren¡¯t very obedient. They were quite displeased at how they had to perform in front of ordinary humans and be stared at by everyone, so they merely circled around twice before they left.


    However, everyone was already in a hubbub.


    ¡°Can you rify just how long of a dy there will be in delivering goods? Can they be delivered within three years? Do you take pre-order payments right now?¡±


    ¡°Considering the rtionship between our countries, could you give us extra orders? We can give your country the absolute best prices on all the materials that you need.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, this seems like it has a small conflict with our private agreement. If you¡¯re in need of gold, the And Empire can...¡±


    Many advantageous conditions were set in front of me. It seemed that this bait was sufficient enough that they were willing to pay anything in order to purchase an aerial battleship.


    ¡°...Could I ask if you ept even higher-level orders? Such as for that Mizar up above. San Antonio is willing to trade for it with equal-level technology...¡±


    There were even those that had their sights set on the Mizar. However, this was obviously beyond a certain group of people¡¯s ability to handle.


    ¡°Athlod! You dare to get involved with undead magic!?¡±


    This time, Cardinal Soros was the one who roared out in anger. However, San Antonio was a country that had already obtained firsthand information on the Borealis¡¯ capabilities at Red Maple Castle. How could they back off so easily from the chance to obtain a national treasure level weapon simply because of pressure from a cardinal?


    ¡°Cardinal Soros, this is just a misunderstanding. We simply seek to purchaserge-scale aerial battleships. Since you seem to object, we shall temporarily set this matter aside.¡±


    Although it seemed that Athlod had given up on the surface and that he was obviously preventing a sh with Cardinal Soros, judging by that passion burning in Athlod¡¯s eyes, he wasn¡¯t even slightly intending on giving up. He probably simply intended to not have a conflict with Cardinal Soros in the open, and would contact me again secretly.


    Of course, the higher-ups of the Holy Church also saw through the fact that various countries¡¯ representatives were only paying them lip service. But what could they do about it? Not interfering in other countries¡¯ domestic affairs was one of the most basic rules of all the Gods¡¯ churches, yet simply watching undead technology spread like this was nothing but an insult to the teachings of the Holy Light.


    However, since even the True God Wumianzhe had recognized the right of these undead to be here, they couldn¡¯t possibly use this excuse to start a conflict.


    ¡°Rnd! Your lies to me before were an insult against my personal honor! In order to protect my personal honor, I challenge you to a duel! If you lose, you have to give up spreading these evil things.¡±


    The white-winged angel half-blood Ai stood up and intended on using my previous making a fool out of her as an excuse to challenge me to a duel. Amongst the nobles, these types of duels for various mysteriously small issues over honor were quitemon, and anyone that didn¡¯t ept would be looked down upon. However, I merely shrugged and smiled as I looked back down at everyone below the stage.


    Although I did this action with no obvious fireworks, ¡°intentional ignoring¡± was always even more insulting than condescension. What I didn¡¯t say out loud was quite obvious to everyone, and the spectators around us were already beginning to secretlyugh.


    ¡°Who do you think you are? You have the right to challenge me?¡±


    ¡°I...¡±


    Ai was angered to the point that her entire face reddened, and was about to explode on the spot when Estrada stopped her with a wry smile. The ¡°Strongest Holy Knight¡± lifted his mace which was surrounded by Holy Light.


    ¡°Rnd, I should be more than enough for you. Perhaps today is a good day to clear out what we owe each other. But, I will only challenge you to a duel between teacher and student, not a battle to the death. If you lose, please promise to abandon selling undead airships. This is too uneptable, too evil.¡±


    Without realizing it, Ai had helped him out greatly. I had been hiding from him all these days, and today was our first meeting since he arrived. There were so many things that needed to be discussed.


    And, if it wasn¡¯t for this somewhat hot-tempered and rash female Holy Knight, he wouldn¡¯t be able to ask for a duel so conveniently. For Estrada, the spreading of undead technology was actually something insignificant, and protecting the honor of the Holy Church was just an aside for him. Using this chance to uncover Rnd¡¯s ace cards and motive was most important.


    ¡°Undead are considered evil? Who made that rule? The God of Holy Light? Or you yourselves, the Holy Church?!¡±


    Note:


    1. Although I¡¯m not sure, this may be a reference to the Flying Dutchman (Davey Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean).

 Chapter 252

    Chapter 252: Holy Light?


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    For the teachings of the Holy Light and the Holy Church to have been sessful, it was only natural for them to have their good points as well. The purest light was also a representation of the purest Order.


    The most original teachings of the Holy Light were to illuminate the dark world with Holy Light and protect people by dispelling the darkness and those corrupted by Chaos.


    If Chaos was a power that distorted Order, then the Holy Light was the power to erase the distortion and return it to the void. That¡¯s right¡ªnot to undistort but topletely destroy it.


    I had once fervently believed in the Holy Light as well, believing that it was capable of saving everything, believing the teachings of the Holy Light that Order would finally defeat Chaos.


    The Holy Church treated everyone as either allies or enemies, viewing the world as ck and white. This was quite refreshing and enjoyable for its believers, but only seeing the world this way wasn¡¯t enough...


    The Goddess of Creation Eich had two daughters that inherited her powers of creation, but those powers were divided into Order and Chaos. That already exined everything¡ªboth Order and Chaos were the foundational pirs of the world of Eich, and neither could be without the other.


    ¡°If the distorted Order is also a necessary part of this world, with orderly Order and chaotic Chaos both being foundational pirs of this world, wiping out some Chaos is probably no different from removing a spoonful of water from the ocean. It will only make the wave thates in to replenish what was lost even more vicious. Perhaps this is the true reason why the Holy War will never end.¡±


    A world without Chaos was a world that would seem heavy and dead. This world wouldckpetition, elements of chance, or any desire for self-improvement, which meant it wouldck the ability to evolve and change. And a world without Order where every factor and choice became random was probably one where nobody would be able to survive in. After all, even the wild beasts in the forests had their ownws of the jungle that they lived by.


    Order had Chaos among it, and Chaos had Order as well. Even the purest representatives of Chaos, the demons, obeyed the concept of ranks among them, and the Order side¡¯s purest representatives, the angels, who were often made fun of as outdated artifacts, had their own desires and goals as well.


    Purely using violence against violence might have an effect, but the prerequisite was to be able topletely suppress the loser or even destroy the loser entirely. And, in this world, that was obviously impossible.


    Yep, in my eyes, the Holy Light was nothing more than a type of violence: ¡°If you don¡¯t obey mymands, I shall destroy you.¡± What could this be other than violence?


    So that was why even though I still believed in the original intentions of the Holy Light, I also spat upon it as I used it. I merely treated it as a useful tool, just like how I used elemental magic or undead magic.


    ¡°Undead are considered evil? Who made that rule? The God of Holy Light? Or you yourselves, the Holy Church?! Ha! Foolish! From the very start, the Holy Light and the God of Holy Light were in the wrong.¡±


    My voice wasn¡¯t loud, nor was I using a sarcastic tone. I was merely stating the truth as I saw it, but in the eyes of any Holy Light believer, I was doubting and desecrating the nature of Holy Light, which made me a heretic among heretics.


    ¡°Rnd! You dare!¡±


    Estrada was no longer able to tolerate this as his angry roar caused a gust of wind that blew away the clouds, along with a blinding pir of light that reached the skies. His Holy Light Domain was now taking form and suppressing the entire area, with thend itself trembling in fear at Estrada¡¯s anger. Perhaps Estrada was indeed the strongest user of Holy Light in the world.


    In my current condition, if I fought with Estrada who was incredibly furious... I would probably be defeated by a single swing of his mace.


    However, Iughed. Iughed out loud, as if there was something hrious. After all, even if he was ridiculously strong, that wouldn¡¯t change the fact that he was a fool.


    ¡°This is so funny. Just what generation is it already!? Why are you so foolish? That¡¯s why you¡¯ve been a confused and pitiful fool for your entire life, only being ordered about by others and watching so many tragedies ur. Right now, you probably view me as a heretic who abandoned the Holy Light. In that case, my venerable teacher, could I ask you what this is in my hands?¡±


    On my index finger was a golden glow that was as light as a firefly¡¯s. It whirled around my fingers, but only those who truly understood the teachings of the Holy Light would be able to recognize that this was the purest Holy Light of all, a power that only those who had received the most favored blessings of the Holy Light could use.


    All their eyes were filled with disbelief. How could this heretic, who said something so sphemous, still be able to use the Holy Light? Not to mention the highest-quality Holy Light?


    ¡°I was once the Holy Light¡¯s Son, the Son of Light...¡±


    I activated my War Angel bloodline, opening up a pair of snow-white wings, and showing a divine side of me in front of everyone. With the golden Holy Light of angels covering me, another pir of light belonging to me added itself to the sky.


    Perhaps it was much smaller than Estrada¡¯s pir of light, but if wepared the pirs of light¡¯s power to pierce through darkness and illuminate thend, Estrada¡¯s light was nothing more than a slightly strong light bulb in front of this true Holy Light.


    The one with the biggest reaction was actually that little half-angel, Ai. She was trembling all over, and could only give in to her instinct and kneel in front of me.


    Her angel bloodline kept continuously telling her that the man in front of her was using the purest Holy Light and was a high-ranked angel many ranks above her. The angels were the representation of Order and were the species that viewed rank as more important than anyone. In front of me, who had transformed into an ancient War Angel, she could only submit and be humble.


    ¡°...I once believed that the light would dispel the darkness. However, I soon found out that it wasn¡¯t enough. Light and shadow would forever be twins, and pure light would never be able to destroy the shadow. Rather, it¡¯s the opposite: pure light will actually create even purer darkness. So, I made my choice...¡±


    A pitch-ck me was now burning on my left hand. No, it wasn¡¯t actually burning; all the mes were actually the crying of souls. That was the purest power of death magic.


    ¡°Ha! Don¡¯t you always say that Holy Light and Chaos are mortal enemies? Then, how do you exin the fact that a heretic like me can simultaneously use the powers of Holy Light and death magic? Just try exining it with your teachings of Holy Light, and allow me to hear just what drivel your God of Holy Light made up!¡±


    All the Holy Light job ss members had disbelief on their faces¡ªit was as if the very sky had copsed. ording to theirmon sense and their belief system, destroying Chaos was the natural job of the Holy Light, and Holy Light and the undead were ipatible. The moment they came into contact, there would be a need to be a battle to the death, but this War Angel before them was simultaneously using the powers of Holy Light and death magic.


    ¡°Ai, persist! Don¡¯t think too much into it, and maintain your sense of self! You¡¯re a child of the Holy Light!¡±


    Cardinal Soros¡¯ angry roar attracted my attention. The kneeling white-winged half-angel Ai was soaked in sweat, and the tips of her wings were actually beginning to cken.


    ¡°Ha! Child, are you that afraid of knowing the truth? Your belief is actually shaken, and you¡¯re starting to be a fallen angel. Hehehe, a fallen angel! That¡¯s a really rare species. In that case, allow me to help firm your resolution. Come, take a look, child. This is the truth that the Gods don¡¯t dare to tell you.¡±


    Iughed maniacally as Ibined the purest Holy Light with the mes of death. Estrada had already guessed that something was happening and finally took action. He was unable to simply watch all this unfold before him because he had lived through too many tragedies already.


    ¡°ROLAND!¡±


    *ng!*


    His mace that was ignited with holy mes was blocked by a familiar silver Rnd Sacred Sword. It was only that this time, the sword wielder was no longer me, but instead a face that greatly resembled mine. It even had a simrly devilish smile, but with more innocence and the gentleness that females would have.


    At this moment, Estrada felt like he had returned to the past, when a young and innocent boy who seemed like he wasn¡¯t afraid of anything, always smiling ever so simrly, would call him ¡°teacher¡± and ask him about the teachings of the Holy Light.


    ¡°Brother Rnd¡¯s teacher, please don¡¯t interrupt Brother Rnd. He only wishes to show you the hidden truth. If you aren¡¯t afraid of the truth, then watch him.¡±


    Estrada didn¡¯t take action, but it wasn¡¯t because of Reyne¡¯s clumsy attempt at convincing him. Instead, the faintly opened dimensional portal behind Reyne gave him a tremendous amount of pressure. He sensed the power of a Divine Sin that even the Gods would fear, and he had no confidence that he would easily be able to break past.


    With Estrada¡¯s slight dy, my task was at its end. I melded the pitch-ck me with the golden light, but the explosive collision that everyone expected didn¡¯t ur.


    Instead, the pitch-ck me and golden lightbined, and they kept interacting with each other andplementing each other, until...


    ¡°Ahhh!¡±


    Ai didn¡¯t even wait to see the result. The purer someone was, the easier they would be tainted. She floated in midair andrge amounts of her white feathers began to turn ck. Just as how the Holy Light could only destroy the undead and demons, it was unable to turn the undead or demons back. She had already begun the process of bing fallen, so it was destined that she would be unable to stop.


    ¡°Look, this is the truth.¡±


    The ck and golden colors had dissolved already, and what remained was only pure white. When the colors finished disappearing, what remained in my hand was only a white dove.


    Although it was only about one-tenth the size of a real dove, and although it was so weak that it was unable to fly, it was already the best evidence¡ªit was alive!


    From emptiness to existence, the artificial creation of life was the life goal of countless alchemists and mages. However, not a single individual had ever made any discoveries in this field. After all, this was within the domain of the Gods, and not just any God¡ªit belonged to the domain that only the Goddess of Creation could achieve!


    ¡°Why did the Goddess of Creation¡¯s daughters separately inherit the powers of Order and Chaos? That¡¯s because only the two powersbined can make the power of Creation. The light is supposed to destroy the darkness? Haha! How much longer will you tell such a ridiculous lie? As long as there is light, there will be darkness, and light and darkness need each other to exist. Pure darkness can transform into light as well, while the end of light can transform into darkness... Take a look! Isn¡¯t the evidence right in front of your eyes?¡±


    The ck-winged fallen angel looked at me coldly, without a shred of emotion within her now ck eyes. The pure Holy Light within her had already transformed into pure darkness, so there was no better evidence than this.


    ¡°Estrada! As the strongest wielder of Holy Light, don¡¯t tell me that you¡¯ve never noticed anything! Do you dare to swear in the name of the Holy Light that you¡¯ve never noticed the truth at all? Perhaps you¡¯ve already discovered some clues more than three hundred years ago. You were just forcing yourself to avoid the truth!¡±


    ¡°I...¡±


    This strongest fool and coward hesitated and didn¡¯t dare to say anything, but his hesitation was already a tacit admittance that caused a fearsome chain reaction.


    ¡°If you don¡¯t dare, I do! I, Rnd Mist, swear in the name of the Holy Light, that the Holy Light can neverpletely destroy Chaos. Holy Light can only cause new Chaos to be born and make the Holy War fiercer and fiercer. If anything about what I say is false, may I be stripped of the powers of Holy Light!¡±


    I made that oath using the powers of Holy Light in front of everyone, but my pir of Holy Light still remained around me. This was doubtlessly the best evidence of the veracity of my words.


    ¡°Ahhh!¡±


    There were numerous Holy Light job ss members that were shouting pitifully. One of the teachings of the Holy Light was that ¡°those who waver in their beliefs will lose the powers of the Holy Light.¡± And, in just an instant, more than twenty Holy Light job ss members lost their powers, including every single one of the young ones. More than half of the entire envoy group became former Holy Knights and former priests. Only the oldest ones among them that had cultivated for over one hundred years were able to maintain their faiths.


    ¡°This incident today can never be revealed! Otherwise, it¡¯ll enormously shake the foundations of the entire Holy Church. Estrada, kill everyone here!¡±


    When faced with the brink, Cardinal Soros finally tore off his gentle kindly mask that he preferred to use in front of everyone. He was extremely decisive about this. Everyone here had witnessed an angel bing fallen, and all these countries¡¯ envoys had also witnessed the Divine Miracle of creation using Order and Chaos. He couldn¡¯t allow a single person here to live.


    ¡°Estrada! Do you know just what will happen if word of this gets out!?¡±


    The Holy Church was always used to iming themselves to be the protectors of Order and humanity. If this spread out, even the foundations of the Holy Church and the teachings of the Holy Light would be shaken. In Cardinal Soros¡¯ mind, Estrada was someone peerless who would easily be able to ughter everybody here. He was also continually praying to the God of Holy Light, but in this sanctuary of the Law God, how could he possibly get through?


    When he saw that Estrada did not move for quite a while, Soros became anxious. Finally, that seemingly young ancient Holy Knight lifted his head, but his face was now unrecognizable. Estrada now had gray-white hair, and a face filled with wrinkles. He had instantly aged several decades in appearance.


    ¡°I have no guarantee of winning here. In fact, I might not even be able to take on this young princess. I¡¯m unable to do it, nor do I want to do it anymore.¡±


    Soros who had turned utterly pale turned around to leave. However, I blocked him.


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey! Do you want to leave so easily? At the very least, you shouldplete your mission here. You should tell me the divine message from the God of Holy Light, as I think he probably has a message for me. Is this how you run errands for your God?¡±


    Cardinal Soros would have killed me right on the spot via ring if he could, but he had toplete his God¡¯s task, even though he didn¡¯t want to see the person before him for another second. He could only gnash his teeth as he told me the divine message from the God of Holy Light.


    ¡°¡®I hope to ally with you against the Chaos. After the Holy War, we shall be the twin pirs of Order.¡¯ Are you satisfied now!? Saint Rnd!¡±


    I understood immediately. This divine message was doubtlessly an alliance invitation to the Law God from the God of Holy Light who had discovered the truth about Wumianzhe. As for that so-called promise to be the twin pirs of Order after the Holy War, it was enough just to hear it, but if I really believed it, I would be a huge fool. Also, that Saint of Holy Light title was just an appetizer for the alliance, but although I knew all this, others wouldn¡¯t.


    The moment that Cardinal Soros said this, all the other countries¡¯ envoys that had just escaped death by Estrada¡¯s hands were scared once more. The content of this divine message was shocking enough to everyone, but that tone of the divine message, which sounded like it was between equals, was even scarier to them.


    ¡°This force of a divine message, and this tone¡ªis Rnd actually an existence equal to the God of Holy Light? The God of Holy Light is actually requesting an alliance with Rnd and will be the twin pirs of Order together with him? Is Rnd¡¯s power so strong that the God of Holy Light has topromise to such a degree?¡±


    Many thoughts shed through everyone¡¯s minds. Once this news spread, everyone was going to have to reassess this wintry northern country and its prince.


    As for me, I nodded in satisfaction.


    ¡°Yep, sounds sincere to me. I agree to this alliance. Send a message for me to the God of Holy Light: I, Rnd, agree to your alliance. As for that Saint of Holy Light title? Heh heh, you can keep it and have fun for yourselves. Hahaha! In that case, please take good care of me in the future, my dear allies!¡±


    I took one final nce at Soros¡¯ expression which was filled with a mix of extreme rage, fear and anxiety, and continuedughing out loudly as I took my leave.


    I had received a plentiful harvest already. Besides, after forcefully using the powers of my ¡°Frigidwinter Earth¡± to create life, I would have copsed there on the spot if I didn¡¯t leave soon.


    After that crazed Prince Rnd left, what remained in Soros¡¯ eyes were nothing but tatters.


    All the other countries¡¯ envoys left so quickly that you would think they were avoiding the gue. When Soros looked around, only his group was around him, and all the former Holy Light job ss members who had lost their powers were still copsed on the ground in despair. Estrada, who had aged several decades, had his head lowered and was sighing helplessly, and fallen angel Ai, who nobody knew what she was thinking, had already left. As Soros thought about the frightful future and tempest that awaited him, the elderly cardinal could only helplessly copse on the ground as well.


    Although Rnd had agreed to the alliance, he still didn¡¯t know if his mission was considered a sess or a failure. But there was one thing that he knew for sure.


    ¡°It¡¯s over! It¡¯s all over! Everything is over!¡±

 Chapter 253

    Chapter 253: Memorial Tablets


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Henceforth, the God of Law and the God of Holy Light were allies; congrattions, felicitations, congrattions.... fine , at the very least we were quite happy with the results. Whatever the Holy Church thought wasn¡¯t important to us.


    What the Holy Church thought was unimportant¡ªthe important part was what the God of Holy Light intended to do...


    From the very start, it had been part of my overall n to use the power of Law to rece the power of Holy Light. It would obviously be necessary to challenge the old leader for a new God to rise above the rest. Or else how would the rest of the pack admit a new leader?


    Even if it was true that the God of Holy Light had lost his sense of self, he would still follow basic logical reasoning ande to the conclusion that the power of Law was a future enemy. But if he and Law were destined to be future enemies to begin with, why would he still want to be allies?


    It was because we were at the onset of the Holy War. It was time to ally together against greater enemies.


    Yes. With the arrival of the Holy War, the True Gods and the churches of the Order Faction had to band together. The God of Holy Light was the leader of the Order Gods and had to set an example for the rest, else he wouldn¡¯t be able to lead by example.


    ¡°Since we can¡¯t be enemies for the time being, let¡¯s temporarily be allies.¡±


    The God of Holy Light had nothing more than the thinking capacity of a machine; he could only process things with inflexible logic. He would never be able to spout anything like ¡°In order to defeat the enemy, we must first settle our internal differences.¡± In that case, he would definitely request to ally with the new Order God Wumianzhe to deal with him. I had expected this from the beginning itself.


    As for whether or not we¡¯d turn on each other after the Holy War? Heh heh, weren¡¯t things obvious? If we lost the Holy War, there¡¯d be no more future. But if we won, whoever remained would obviously be of the strongest, and the God most supported would be the new leader of the Order Gods. All alliances and agreements would mean nothing more than rubbish.


    ¡°Allies? Of course we¡¯ll agree. Why wouldn¡¯t we agree? If we¡¯re as intimate as family, we¡¯d call them allies, and even if we stab each other in the back we¡¯d still call them allies. And, of course, we¡¯re destined to be thetter.¡±


    No matter what, the Holy Church was the main church of human society. When dealing with a powerful external enemy, it was practically set in stone that thergest and strongest faction would end up as cannon fodder¡ªer¡ªthe foundation. As the God of Holy Light had obtained his position and power in the previous Holy War, for him to lose it in this one could be only considered normal.


    Actually, those with secret ambitions weren¡¯t limited to only the us with the power of Law. All the Guardian Gods of the various races, the new War Gods, Smithing Gods, Merchant Gods, Luck Gods and so on¡ªwouldn¡¯t they be ambitious as well?


    The God of Holy Light was far too powerful. He enjoyed more than half of all the faith and territory of the Order Factionbined. In a way, he had be the ¡°biggest enemy¡± of both the factions. In such a situation, if he dered war against any of the Order Gods, he would definitely set off a huge wave.


    ¡°The twin pirs of Order? I¡¯d be such a fool if I really believed that.¡±


    And that was why I was over ny percent confident that no matter how furious the Holy Church was with me, the God of Holy Light would still send a divine message and suppress them in the end. After all, we were now allies, and until the Holy War ended and the God of Holy Light truly dered war against us, they would have to restrain themselves... Heh heh! How hrious for the living to be controlled by a Divine Concept that had lost its own sense of self. They even treated the Holy Light as the highest-level existence.


    Even if something went wrong with the God of Holy Light, and he disregarded any consequences and dered us to be heretics, I, of course, had a backup n. Even if that meant we wouldpletely turn on each other.


    However, based on historical events, I believed that no matter how much they were willing to sacrifice, they would still not be able to conquer the Nortnds. After all, evenst time, the armies of the Holy Church had not obtained victory in the end. They had to also consider the consequences of forcing me to the very brink. Another Yongye Cmity would be quite possible.


    Yet yesterday afternoon, I heard a piece of news that led me topletely abandon the possibility that the Holy Church would turn on me.


    ¡°The Bardi Empire has begun to exile the Holy Church and Holy Light job ss members from within its borders? Haha! I don¡¯t know whether I should be angry or happy.¡±


    Judging by the information I had on hand, the Bardi Empire possessed a major problem.


    However, the most anxious would probably be the Holy Church. Any single human mega-empire was a foundational pir of human society. Even if they lost the entire Nortnds, which was so small to begin with, it would be an insignificant loss. At the very least, the Bardi Empire would be the Holy Church¡¯s focus for the time being.


    Of course, if word of the conversation between me and the Holy Church envoy group spread, it would definitely shake the very foundation of the Holy Church and might even cause the formation of internal factions, such as an Orthodox Sect or a Protestant Sect. It was just like how the young Holy Knights lost their powers when I showed them the truth. The younger they were, the more easily their faith would be shaken and the more of an impact they would receive... Perhaps I should try expanding my Nanxiang Law Schools across all the countries and add more sses to help Holy Knights change their job to Knights of Justice. Yep, for the first batch of students, let¡¯s recruit those unfortunate youngsters.


    For a top-levelpany to have a massive internal problem with its system and morale, the happiest would be anotherpany in the same line of business. It would be unavoidable for there to be a massive loss of elite members, with many jumping ship to otherpanies... Yet to prevent a deration of war before themencement of the Holy War, I might as well take things slow.


    Perhaps the most unfortunate of all was the envoy group that the Holy Church had sent me. As the leader of the envoy group, Cardinal Soros was sure to shoulder the me for such a massive misstep.


    Upon returning, it would be practically impossible for him to ever be promoted; it would be considered the lightest punishment possible if he would never be assigned to anything of importance. I felt that there was a high probability that he would be assigned to copy records in the archives for the rest of his life.


    If rumors were slow poison, then the fact that Ai had be a fallen angel could be considered as the most critical damage that he would be unable to not take responsibility for. The Holy Church particrly viewed half-blood angels as valuable, not to mention that Ai was a well-known Holy Knight above the Legend rank. In addition, she was young and attractive; she was someone with both beauty and power. Naturally, she became one of the living advertisements and spokespersons for the Holy Church.


    In past advertisements, Ai was praised as an epic hero. It was possible for ordinary people to not be aware of Estrada, but everybody knew who ¡°Red-Winged Griffin¡± Ai was. After all, she was one of the most famous Holy Knights of the current generation. Her heroic deeds were long since made into stories and sung by bards, having spread everywhere.


    Yet the higher one was regarded as, the worse the fall would be. The purer and holier her image as a holy half-angel, therger the negative influence on the Holy Church after she became fallen.


    And, right now, the Holy Church¡¯s huge problem had be a small problem of my own.


    ¡°Why are you following me around?¡±


    ¡°...I have nowhere to go.¡±


    Bing fallen was the same as bing demonized; although one¡¯s species and power would undergo a change, it wasn¡¯t brainwashing. One¡¯s memories would be perfectly preserved, and it was only natural for one to remain the same as they were before.


    The current Ai seemed to have less of a thorny aura, and she no longer looked at me with enmity. It was obvious that her personality and powers had vastly changed, but she was still that stubborn female knight.


    Looking at this ck-winged fallen angel who was filled with confusion and was unrecognizable as her former self, I didn¡¯t know what to say, either.


    Ever since she had believed my words so easily and even revealed a bunch of secrets to me on that day, I knew that she was probably the same type as Diana: an idiot who fought for the sake of her own beliefs. For these muscleheads, who added all their bonus points to Strength and Constitution, it was perfectly understandable that their Intelligence would be a little low.


    At least she wasn¡¯t foolish to the extreme. She knew that she had be a living stain upon the Holy Church. However, as long as she didn¡¯tmit any crimes, even a fallen angel would receive equal protection by the Crimeless City. The members of the Holy Church would likely be unable to do anything to her for the time being. Yet the moment she left, she would be met with nothing but assassination attempts.


    Having her leave together with the members of the Holy Church would be no different from sending her off to be executed. It was possible that even Estrada would personally deal with her immediately if she left this city. It would be a matter of time before she died.


    Ai, too, had a bitter expression on her face. It had only been less than a day since she lost her faith and became fallen, and her heart was probably in utter chaos. She followed me only because she instinctively wanted someone to rely on.


    I had a headache. Although this fallen angel following me around made for great eye candy, I felt like if I foolishly brought her home like this, nothing but misfortune would await me. If this fallen angel had a significant amount ofbat strength, it would be even more trouble.


    ¡°...Since the Holy Light is unable to stop the warfare, then what can you do? Don¡¯t you have any ideas? Do you only know how to raise questions but not solve problems? How irresponsible.¡±


    Not long ago, I learned that Ai¡¯s parents had both died at the hands of undead mages. Her parents¡¯ bodies had been defiled as well, which was why she had an almost fanatical hatred of the undead and was one of the Holy Light¡¯s most fervent believers.


    ¡°Wait a little bit, and I¡¯ll write a rmendation letter for you. Go learn Nanxiang Law for about two months, and you¡¯ll understand everything. We even help you find a job after graduation.¡±


    Alright, nobodyughed at my joke. This fallen angel only kept her unhappy expression as she silently followed me around.


    Today my schedule was packed full, so if she wanted to follow me, then that was fine. I just had to find some ce to give her something to doter.


    I put on a ck hood that I had prepared beforehand and tossed one to Ai as well. If I appeared before everyone with my real appearance in such a lively festival, it would be impossible for me to aplish anything.


    My first stop was the central area of this Day of Peace za. At this location, there were a series of stone signs, and all the members of the military parade passing by had to stop here and pay their respects. Now that the military parade was over, this ce was crowded with people.


    I merely watched for a while without a sound, then I intended to make my leave.


    ¡°What are those undead doing?¡±


    When she saw those living people together with the undead¡ªeven having fun together¡ªnot to mention that these people were ordinary people with no powers whatsoever, Ai was filled with disbelief. This was despite the fact that this was not her first time witnessing such an event.


    In the middle of the spectators was a group of high-level undead. They were currentlypeting with each other as they scribbled on the stone signs; it appeared that they were inscribing something.


    ¡°Those are memorial tablets that record the names of all the brave warriors that have sacrificed themselves for our country. Over the past three hundred years, including the Mist Kingdom and East Mist, there are quite the number of names. In the end, with everyone trying to recall names, they still haven¡¯t finished even up until now.¡±


    However, a voice informed me of what the truth really was.


    ¡°No, they¡¯ve actually finished the task of recalling the fallen already. Currently, they¡¯ve beenpeting for several dozen rounds on who gets to inscribe their name in front of the others.¡±


    A mysterious connection between us helped a certain hound discover me, but Ah Bas¡¯ exnation astonished me.


    What, was there something about the undead carving their own names onto memorial tablets? Yep¡ªalthough it seemed a little strange, it seemed like the right thing to do in its own way as well. They were heroes; they had indeed fought to their deaths for our country. It was only natural that they had the right to carve their own names.


    However, right now, these lively undead were nothing more than hoodlums who were fighting with each other in order to have their names carved into the first row. Why did I feel like this was all so awkward? This was no different from the dead crawling out of their own graves to write their own epitaphs!


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t they inscribe their own names before? Didn¡¯t they have plenty of time?¡±


    ¡°You know how the military parade had a ceremonial part of giving respect to the memorials? Everyone said that they felt it would be strange to pay respects to themselves, so they dyed it until after the military parade.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t inscribing their own names on a memorial even stranger?¡±


    I felt rather helpless as I looked over at the horde of undead crowded around the obsidian memorial tablets.


    Originally, I had intended to imitate memorials from my previous world and use onerge tablet for everyone, but when Timier had, immediately afterwards, read out the entire aerial cavalry squad¡¯s names and stared at me with an imploring expression, I discovered that merely one tablet probably wasn¡¯t going to be enough.


    In the end, as expected, all the high-level undead did their best to recall all their friends¡¯ names, and more and more names were inscribed. There were already thirty seven memorial tablets over ten meters tall that had been erected, but judging by the situation, that still probably wasn¡¯t enough.


    ¡°Why are they fighting over being in the front?¡± Perhaps it was because Ai had changed species, as this was the first time she had ever expressed curiosity about the undead.


    Bastian nced confusedly at the ck-d person before him, but at my indication, he still answered.


    ¡°That¡¯s for the honor of a warrior. Nobody wants to be at the end.¡±


    ¡°Then why don¡¯t they just carve their names at the very forefront?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s also for the honor of a warrior. Compared to the brave warriors that are truly resting forever, we¡¯re already so fortunate. How could we possibly want topete with them?¡±


    A long silence followed his words. However, Ah Bas seemed to recall something as he added as an afterthought:


    ¡°Rx! No matter how much they fight over it, we left the first position open for you. Only you are suitable for the highest position.¡±


    Alright, I now knew what was more ridiculous than a dead person writing his own epitaph¡ªit was a living person writing his own epitaph!


    ¡°Hey, I¡¯m still living! That¡¯s not necessary!¡±

 Chapter 254

    Chapter 254: Floats


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    As I hid my identity and wandered amongst the crowds of people, I could see everyone around us celebrating joyously and consuming alcohol. I felt myself being affected by this festive atmosphere, and this imperceptibly raised my spirits.


    I had already sent Ai off. It was rare for me to be in such a great mood, and I definitely did not intend to waste my time with someone like her, someone who I barely knew. Angels were all of the ridiculously stubborn-type, anyways, and it was impossible for me to teach her anything at the moment. So I sent her away to learn Nanxiang Law for a few months.


    I soon arrived at the Wood District, the most flourishing business district in Diffindor. Right now, various stalls decorated the roadside, selling snacks, essories and even war memorabilia.


    Yet just as I entered this business district, a cute, blonde-haired little girl appeared beside me. She maniacally charged towards the stalls, in search of new snacks to taste.


    Her long, blonde hair almost brushed the ground. Harloys, who had gotten hungrier and hungrier, had some barbequed meat in one hand and smoked fish in the other, along with a chicken leg hanging from her mouth. The cute and respectable princess had now be a greasy little rag, her red little face soiled with stains.


    Ever since Harloys had reobtained her ability to eat and her sensation of taste, she seemed to have evolved into a mega-foodie. Luckily, most of the time she was only tasting the vor of the snacks. Although she didn¡¯t stop her mouth at all, she didn¡¯t eat much of anything; it was fortunate that the silly cat that always imed my head as her perch wasn¡¯t getting fatter.


    ¡°Humph! No matter how much I eat, I won¡¯t get fat. After all, I can just give the fat to my Greed bodies; they¡¯ll just be fat in my ce. I¡¯m always going to be a magical beauty whose age is in the single digits... Ah! Rnd! Look over there! What is that?!¡±


    As Harloys said something that would make just about any woman feel jealous, she hopped up and down and pointed down the street. The slowly progressing float parade [1] 1 seemed to be finishing its first cycle around the city.


    Float parades were a tradition in all human countries. The rich countries of the central ins would decorate their floats with fresh flowers, gold, beautiful women and artwork. But the floats of the Nortnds didn¡¯t have flowers or anything like that.


    We were, however, thends with the highest level of ice sculpting techniques. Legends, epics, heroes, and even real-life people could transform into miraculous works of ice and snow. With the addition of some colored lights, the colorless sculptures of ice would metamorphose into vivid works of art thanks to the refraction of light. The characters would appear toe alive.


    Of course, this alone would seem too simple. Each float would have their own unique specialties and functions.


    For example, thergest bakery chain in the city, The Asa Bakery, sculpted various desserts, which seemed exceedingly tantalizing to the viewers. They were even people throwing around discount vouchers as a way of advertising their bakery to the masses.


    ¡°Sweets! Confectioneries! Banana boats! Strawberry sundaes! Orange custard! Sugar bread rolls...¡±


    Alright, I could only smile wryly as I watched the Banshee Queen steal as many vouchers as she could. It seemed that my home would soon be littered with innumerable dessert crumbs.


    The Phillip Carriage Company¡¯s float was a pumpkin carriage that appeared toe straight out of a fairy tale, and it was pulled by a majestic stallion, decorated as a rat. Yet the outer shell of the carved pumpkin along with its decorations were far more exquisite than a real carriage. As it crawled forward steadily, the gigantic pumpkin carriage didn¡¯t shake even a bit, a testament to the astonishing craftsmanship it was made with.


    The Golden Peak Tailor Shop¡¯s float had be a tform for models to show off the newest line of clothing. However, I felt only pity for those poor girls; they had to freeze in this manner, their faces pale in this cold, wintry weather. They were working hard at showing how little they were wearing.


    Even if it was the new year, this ce would remain cold and silent in the past. But with the revival of the East Mist, more and more people chose to return to the city, and many major merchants had invested in this ce. The three examples I had just given were all merchants that weren¡¯t originally from the East Mist; they were using this celebration as an opportunity to advertise their businesses.


    Even the recently formed Town Security didn¡¯t let go of the excellent opportunity. On their float, Momo showed off their new uniform as she cracked her whip loudly in the air. The snow sculpture that represented a criminal was whipped; snow and ice shards flew everywhere. It did appear rater painful... but what was with those strange people following that float around?


    With such arge number of floats, there would, of course, be some that were incredibly strange. For example, the ones from a certain Gentlemen Alliance with too much energy, or from the gnome engineers who simrly had too much energy to spare...


    ¡°One, two, three! If you want to learn bulldozing,e to West Town Mechanical Engineering School!¡±


    On top of arge gnome mechanical reaper, they were showing off their newest product¡ªthe ¡°Safety-brand¡± bulldozer.


    *Boom!*


    Alright, it was probably more of a ¡°Safety-brand¡± explosive. Both the audience and the gnomes themselves were used to their contraptions exploding. The gnomes simply got back up and sent the unlucky gnome who had gotten burnt to find a priest. Meanwhile, the other gnomes began rummaging for parts that could still be salvaged, showing off their excellent technical skills right on the spot.


    It was then that from amongst the rubble of oil and scrap parts, a cool-looking motorcycle appeared on the gnome¡¯s float. That bulldozer mechanic from earlier was now seated atop the motorcycle, showing off different tricks, his driving skills, and the excellent horsepower of the motorcycle... was it really true that one could drive anything after learning how to drive a bulldozer?


    ¡°One, two, three! If you want to learn motorcycling techniques,e to West Town Mechanical Engineering School!¡±


    Alright, that was even met with some scattered apuse from the audience. To them, this was much more enjoyable to watch than the other performances.


    From a certain standpoint, if the gnomes didn¡¯t have personalities that viewed explosions as daily urrences and, more importantly, the survivability of a cockroach, they wouldn¡¯t have been able to reach such heights in the realm of gnome engineering. In that case, for their persistence and shamelessness, I should give them thirty-two likes... I might as well notify Town Securityter than I normally did for their usage of the ¡°Safety brand.¡± At the very least, their spirit of ¡°never giving up¡± was something worthy of appreciation.


    ¡°You¡¯re so reckless; watching them from so close! Didn¡¯t you hear? At first, they had been giving a performance regarding a mecha made from thebination of five smaller mechas, taller than even the city walls. By now, so many explosions have urred that they only have a bulldozer remaining, which was actually the previous mecha¡¯s right hand. You still dare to watch them from such a close range?¡±


    *Boom!*


    The explosion and the following fire behind me constituted the best evidence of that kind-hearted person¡¯s words. Everyone instantly backed up, leaving a wide swath of space around the gnomes¡¯ float.


    Yet the same miraculous performance urred again. Despite the fact that the majority of the parts had been rendered into useless pieces of scrap metal, the gnome engineers didn¡¯t give up. They worked with their tools and grease, and a gnome mechanical saw was soon put together in front of us.


    The gnome mechanic got back on his feet and immediately used the loud saw to chop off a piece of wood. And, once again, I heard that familiar gnome advertisement.


    ¡°Three, two, one! Learn wood-cutting! Come to West Town Mechanical Engineering School!¡±


    ¡°...From a hugebination mecha to a bulldozer, then to a motorcycle and finally a saw. It¡¯s like a dissection; from a person, to bing a right hand, and then the index finger, and finally a fingernail... Let that poor saw be! It¡¯s the only remaining survivor in its entire family; so pitiful!¡±


    Alright, for the sake of that pitiful survivor, I immediately requested assistance.


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey! Elisa, help me contact Town Security! Tell them that the ¡®Safety brand¡¯ is doing a float...¡±


    There was no need for me to say anything else. Two dark elf knights appeared in no time, leading a Town Security team. The gnomes, upon noticing this, didn¡¯t say another word and picked up their spare parts before fleeing the scene.


    That was how the first empty float appeared. The strange part, however, was that many people began tossing snow-white stones onto the gnome¡¯s float.


    ¡°What¡¯s this?¡±


    ¡°The voting for the best float. Every citizen received three white stones, and if they like a certain float, they can toss them onto the float. After the float parade is over, the float with the most votes will be the winner. The prize for first ce is quite abundant.¡±


    Elisa¡¯s familiar voice spoke from behind me. I hadn¡¯t realized that she had arrived, and when I looked around, I saw many small white stones on many other floats as well.


    ¡°Ah, so they¡¯re sympathy votes. In that case, who¡¯s currently in first?¡±


    ¡°...From what I know, one of the Gentlemen Alliance¡¯s floats is currently in the top three. It¡¯s that one; take a look.¡±


    Alright, I could discern what was happening with a single look. That float was a simple one; it only had a huge sign that stated, ¡°If you want revenge, take revenge. If you don¡¯t have a grudge against them and simply don¡¯t like them, feel free to vent on them as well.¡±


    Under that sign, several unlucky gentlemen were tied up.


    ¡°Clothes-Slicing Demon!¡±


    ¡°Naked Eagle King!¡±


    ¡°Seller of Fake Medicine!¡±


    ¡°Explosives Maniac!¡±


    ¡°Professional Dine and Dasher...¡±


    These unlucky gentlemen had been sold out by their ownpanions. They had ridiculously high ¡°poprity,¡± and were currently ¡°enjoying¡± the warm wee that the citizens were giving them. Yet, taking into consideration the fact that they were all at the minimum of the Gold rank, if not the Legend rank, their cries of agony were likely fake as to lure more people into attacking them with stones¡ªthe stones that were actually votes.


    One party was willing to take the blows, while the other party happily attacked them. The gentlemen were willing to take the blows, and were even happy about it... Well, let¡¯s just pretend that they were happy about it, since the speed at which they umted stones was astonishing.


    *Crack!*


    ¡°Hahaha! Look, Elisa! See that unlucky fellow? Who would be so bad as to smash a bottle of ink on Yingou¡¯s [2] 2 head?¡±


    The original n was for the Gentlemen Alliance to join the military parade as well, but I had reconsidered; I needed them to maintain their neutral image as mercenaries for my future ns, which were currently in development. It wouldn¡¯t be appropriate for them to appear to be closely tied to the government, and that was why I had them not join the military parade. But I had indeed never expected them to pull off something like this.


    ¡°Whose idea was it? It¡¯s so evil.¡±


    After I finally finishedughing, I decided to casually ask that question.


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t anyone in particr. I heard that when they were discussing what to do for the float parade, Kasio said, ¡®If only Big Bro Beifeng was here. All he has to do is walk around, and with his poprity, we¡¯d easily win.¡¯ They actually calcted things, and, with his current reputation, they really did have a chance of winning in poprity as long as he wasn¡¯t beaten to death. Then they figured that since Beifeng wasn¡¯t here, they could make things up with quantity. And, so, those unlucky gentlemen were sent out on the parade, and the effect is surprisingly good.¡±


    However, my attention was no longer on the gentlemen¡¯s float. Not far away, there was a float by unknown makers that actually had sculptures of me and Karwenz. Many people even silently ced their voting stones on that float, and judging by the mountainous pile on top of it, it seemed like it was even more popr than the Gentlemen Alliance¡¯s float for venting on their own members.


    ¡°The royalty made this float. I heard that Princess Reyne personally made those sculptures.¡±


    Seeing those twin sculptures approach closer and closer, I couldn¡¯t help but sink into nostalgia. For once, Harloys even worried about me.


    ¡°...Oh, today¡¯s your birthday, so it¡¯s Karwenz¡¯s birthday as well, right? But, a tightly wound string will always snap in the end, so just forget everything and have plenty of fun today.¡±


    Hearing this, I couldn¡¯t help butugh.


    ¡°You¡¯re thinking too much into it. I was just thinking that between us two brothers, I¡¯m the more handsome one... but why is it that there¡¯s such a huge difference between our poprity with women?¡±


    Yep, of course I didn¡¯t say something as embarrassing as the second half of that sentence out loud, but it seemed that just the first half alone caused me to receive much condescension from Elisa and Harloys. And, so, I looked around for a different topic to talk about.


    ¡°Right, since that Gentlemen Alliance float is in the top three, and the royalty¡¯s float is most likely in the top three as well, what¡¯s the other one?¡±


    Upon hearing this, Elisa¡¯s expression became rather strange.


    ¡°Take a look for yourself. It¡¯s that one in the southwest direction¡ªyep¡ªthe Xiluo Empire undead float. In a way, it¡¯s the same type as the Gentlemen Alliance¡¯s float.¡±


    ¡°Love, courage, and hope!¡±


    ¡°Love and peace!¡±


    Even though I nced over it for a split second, I was almost blinded by those oily and shiny muscles. Omar¡¯s body was getting buffer and buffer, but... at the very least, shouldn¡¯t you wear some more clothes? You¡¯re not one of Eaglestorm¡¯s believers, are you?


    And, when I discovered that the rhythm apanying Omar¡¯s dance was Gria¡¯s abnormally scary, piercing singing, I didn¡¯t say another word. I turned and ran away.


    ¡°For the sake of everyone¡¯s lives, they can have the number one prize!¡±


    Note:


    1. If you don¡¯t know what floats are, do check this link out: https://google/search?q=float+parade&tbm=isch


    2. To those who don¡¯t remember, Yingou is the younger of the Beyar Brothers. (Source: Chapter 4)

 Chapter 255

    Chapter 255: Behind the Scenes Considerations


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    It was now noon on the second day of the celebration, and all the activities had already been arranged. However, I had just woken up.


    After having fun all throughst night, I had been called by Little Red and Adam to drink alcohol together, and in the end we had spent an all-nighter. Thanks to my hangover, plus the fact that I hadn¡¯t slept the whole night, I currently had a huge headache.


    Unfortunately, as the overall nner of this situation, the documents on my desk were piled up into mountains. I was even unable to escape as Elisa caught me red-handed.


    The float parade, which had been more like apetition of who could attract the most condescension, had ended. The winner was the Xiluo Empire¡¯s random entry. Thebination of a muscr performance and deathly singing blew allpetition out of the water, and by the time their float arrived at the finishing point, it had practically be a moving mountain of stones. It was impossible to even see them anymore.


    ¡°So many people actually enjoyed my singing! As I expected, true music isn¡¯t separated by species or countries, and myst performance was definitely because of my nervousness before singing. Yep, let¡¯s do another public performance next week in the za.¡±


    ¡°Truly¡ªtruly¡ªso passionate! I¡ªI¡ªI¡¯m so moved! I¡¯ve decided, every day while I¡¯m in Diffindor, Omar¡¯s workout gyms are all free of cost to use. Anyone who wants to learn bodybuilding or dancing from me cane meet me tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. at the Day of Peace za.¡±


    When news of this spread, it took only one afternoon for all the housing prices near the za to lose 33% of their value. It seemed that public dancing and singing was unpopr with the residents in any world.


    Afterwards, I received a mountain ofints. ¡°Hurry up and stop that evil singing! Ahhh! My head!¡± ¡°Ahhh! My eyes are going blind¡ªblind!¡± ¡°Burn all damned couples to death, but not true love!¡± ¡°Ah, to tell the truth, Gria and Omar are such an excellent pairing! Hurry up and make them into a couple, so that they can stoping out and harming everyone else!¡± ¡°My hand, I want to chop off my hand!¡±


    ...It would seem that some strange messages were mixed in among theints. Yep, let¡¯s not think too much into it.


    Although there was a huge pile ofints, there were also some interesting reports. ¡°Those undead were so interesting, they even know how to fly!¡± (With Omar¡¯s muscr strength, tossing undead up into the air and catching them would be rather easy. It was quite a simple matter for an undead to fly several tens of meters in the air, but ording to reports, many children¡¯s parents had been quite scared by the sight). ¡°Not a single note she sang was in tune. This was the first time I was ever ashamed to be an elf, so can we please request an Undead Lord to stop her from ruining the reputation of the elves with her singing¡± ¡°It was quite interesting, and I hope that next year will have a simr activity. I¡¯m already nning out my float for next year.¡±


    Despite therge number ofints, there were some benefits as well. This celebration had made the high-level undead seem more humanlike and have a closer rtionship to actual humans, as high-level undead typically retained the personality traits and defects that they had during their lives.


    But, right now, I didn¡¯t have the free time to worry about such things because there was a new trouble in front of me.


    ¡°Because of a certain person¡¯s willfulness in adding an Undead Royal Crown Amusement Park, an eatingpetition along with twenty simr programs, every activity for this celebration has surpassed our expectations. The number of people surpassed our expectations as well! The result, however, is that although it is only the middle of the second day, our budget has reached the red zone. We¡¯ve gone over budget by one million and two hundred thousand gold coins. Unless you think of something soon, we¡¯ll probably have to use the funds that we had set aside for next year¡¯s spring city construction, or the funds for the government workers¡¯ sries... I personally rmend that you reduce the number of activities during the celebration! That would be the best way to resolve this issue!¡±


    Ah, that familiar cold re through those gold-rimmed eyesses... she seemed to be as saying, ¡®That¡¯s enough; stop making new programs. Your birthday party is already annoying enough. Let¡¯s have some rest.¡¯


    Elisa had directly told me her opinion, but although what she said sounded quite reasonable...


    ¡°That¡¯s fine and all, but... it¡¯s all meaningless! Don¡¯t even think about it! Nobody can stop me from having my vacation! I¡¯ve already scheduled activities until the end of this month!¡±


    I grit my teeth as I resolutely stood by my opinion and waited for Elisa¡¯s fierce rebuttal. However, this demon girl adjusted her eyesses and defrosted as she exited her ¡°demonic scolding¡± form. And then, she actually nodded.


    ¡°Fine, then let¡¯s think together of ideas to bnce the budget. At the very least, we need to have a clear idea of the celebration¡¯s recent expenditures.¡±


    ¡°...Why are you suddenly being so nice? Is there a plot behind it all? By the way, I currently have an undying body, so could you not use anything like exploding toilets or needles in my shoes?¡±


    I definitely wouldn¡¯t be fooled again. Every time Elisa got angry to the point of exploding, she would act nicer to me in order to lower my guard. The gentler she was, the worse her revenge would be.


    When she heard this, Elisa fell silent. She merely looked at me for quite a while, which scared me significantly. She then began:


    ¡°...I think that not all things are your fault. In the past, I may have gone overboard. No, since I was personally taught by you, it¡¯s still your fault; everything is your fault. But this time, rx. I don¡¯t intend to do anything¡ªyep¡ªat least for the time being...¡±


    Elisa shook her head, hesitating.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. Although I don¡¯t know how I made you angry, it¡¯s all my fault! Please release those children of mine you¡¯re still holding hostage.¡±


    Since she wasn¡¯t directly making trouble for me, she would definitely take revenge upon me in some other fashion. Thinking about how my treasured artworks were still in her demonic possession, I instantly decided to surrender.


    ¡°No, it seems like I¡¯m the one who needs to self-reflect... I finally recall now, every year, around this time, you¡¯d always go out by yourself to make mischief and finally return home by yourself in the middle of the night, and even make trouble after you return. Was this all your method to celebrate your own birthday? Making others unhappy for your own temporary happiness¡ªare you that lonely? I ignored your feelings in the past. I¡¯m truly sorry.¡±


    ¡°Ahhh! That¡¯s not it at all, there¡¯s no need to apologize, nor is there any need to look at me with such sympathy! I¡¯m definitely not some lonely old man that people dislike and forgot about his birthday! I definitely wouldn¡¯t eat a birthday cake all by myself, lighting up the candles personally, nor would I ever take it out on others just because everybody forgot my birthday.¡±


    This time, it was Elisa who had an expression filled with surprise. She had just been guessing, but she was actually on the mark.


    ¡°So it was true? You¡¯re so childish!¡±


    ¡°You fooled the truth out of me!¡±


    After some chaotic discussion between us, we finally calmed down and began discussing serious matters again. Theck of money was a huge problem.


    ¡°How about I try scamming some money out of the Holy Church? No matter what, I¡¯m supposed to be allied with their big boss God, and they even intended to give me the title of Saint of Holy Light. It shouldn¡¯t be that difficult to exchange for some money.¡±


    ¡°...Do you really not know or are you just pretending to not know? Your current reputation amongst all Holy Light job ss members is at such a level that you can just randomly go to any Holy Light Church and say ¡®Rnd¡¯s here,¡¯ and several tens of priests and Holy Knights woulde out to beat you up. Besides, the grand event of you rejecting the Saint of Holy Light title from the Holy Church has already spread throughout the entire city, and most people are saying that you don¡¯t know what¡¯s good for yourself, wasting such an excellent opportunity.¡±


    As Elisa spoke thatst sentence, she even nodded in satisfaction. It would appear that Elisa agreed with the public opinion. If I had the title of Saint of Holy Knight, many things would be much more convenient for me. However, she was also aware that I was calm, cool and collected most of the time but whenever I crossed paths with the Holy Church, I would overheat. Now, what was done was done, and it was impossible to take it back.


    ¡°There¡¯s no point crying over spilled milk, so let¡¯s look to the future, instead.¡± That was what Elisa said. ¡°However, some people are admiring your bravery in daring to say that right to the Holy Church¡¯s face. You want to turn around and go looking for the Holy Church? Are you intending to lower your head and apologize, or challenge them? If it¡¯s the former, we¡¯ve already gotten used to how shameless you are, so please stop refreshing ourck of knowledge on how few limits you have. If it¡¯s thetter, why don¡¯t you just dere war instead? So, I ask you not to stir up any more trouble.¡±


    I opened my mouth but nothing came out. If I could obtain money simply by lowering my head, I definitely wouldn¡¯t mind. Yet due to my own understanding of how easy it was for me to attract ill will, no matter what I originally intended, there was a 99% chance that things would be thetter.


    ¡°What about the weapons sales? Wasn¡¯t that very sessful?¡±


    ¡°The auction won¡¯t happen for a while, and unless we make them filled with anticipation, how could we possibly sell the weapons for a good price? Everyone¡¯s spies are probably in Diffindor right now, and when they find out that they can only obtain a few clues but no real useful information, that¡¯s when we name our price.¡±


    ¡°You aren¡¯t afraid that they¡¯ll really secretly obtain our technology?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s basically impossible. I¡¯m having Bastian personally guard the technicians¡¯ area, and all personnel entering and leaving that area needs approval. Outsiders will find it impossible to enter, and if they try to find any real products, well, I can¡¯t find any myself; how could they possibly find any?¡±


    It wasn¡¯t that I didn¡¯t want to show off the newest magical engineering products in the military parade, but most of them had been destroyed in the previous battle. All the Rnd Titans had been wrecked, although they did have brilliant self-destructions in the end. The Train King had also self-destructed, killing many beastmen with it, and the smallbat airships didn¡¯t return intact, either... Since they all seemed to end in explosions, should I say as expected of anything that the gnomes were involved with??


    ¡°Next time, let¡¯s not install self-destruct mechanisms. I feel like as long as there¡¯s such a device within them, it¡¯ll be used sooner orter. Just like thest time; saying something like ¡®although our opponents are strong, at least we can die together¡¯ sounds too unlucky. Anyone that says this will immediately go from a side character into bing cannon fodder, and will probably die in an explosion.¡±


    The more I talked, the more I felt it was true. ¡°There¡¯s only one truth... okay, fine; I just wanted to say that out loud. [1] 1 Alright, let¡¯s be more serious and analyze it from a psychological standpoint. There¡¯s a red button sitting in front of you every day, and even though it¡¯s clearly marked with abel to not push it, the more you¡¯re not allowed to do something, the more you¡¯ll want to do it. Finally, when you can¡¯t resist the temptation anymore... you¡¯ll push it, with both your hands, as forcefully as possible.¡±


    ¡°...Please don¡¯t treat your brave warriors as people with the same bad habits as you. If those hard-working engineers and pilots working overtime heard you say something like that, they would all definitely go on strike, together. We¡¯d have to increase their sries if that happens, which would be quite troublesome. Oh, right, where¡¯s my sry? I feel like I¡¯ve never received any sry from you.¡±


    A good boss needed to know how to act dumb about unimportant matters and at least learn how to ignore their subordinates¡¯ints and emotions, which was why I took a sip of my tea and looked elsewhere.


    ¡°Elisa, your ck tea-making skills have gotten better and better. The weather is quite nice today, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Thanks for your praise... but this is green tea that I made for you, not ck. Also, the weather isn¡¯t good at all. It¡¯s raining plus snowing right now. Even if you¡¯re just being insincere, there has to be a limit.¡±


    Well, since we were unable to resolve the money problem at the moment, we decided to leave it forter.


    ¡°Ohh, I just remembered. Adam said that he was going to go y tennis today. It¡¯s almost time, so I have to get going soon.¡±


    ¡°That doubles tennispetition where you have to find a teammate beforehand? I heard that your partner is a beauty who admires you, and her three sizes are 110, 80, and 100, withrge breasts, arge butt, and a nice figure, far surpassing someone like me who¡¯s as t as a line all over.¡±


    Fine. It was now that I faintly understood why I had been dragged out of my bed so early in the morning. That familiar chilly look in her eyes made it obvious that she was about to explode.


    ¡°Cough! Cough! Don¡¯t make stuff up! How could that be? I am a good person, so who could possibly be spreading rumors about me? That person is definitely a lying bastard.¡±


    ¡°Yep, you lying bastard, yesterday you drank too much alcohol and bragged about it to me all night. You don¡¯t remember this at all? Rnd, you¡¯re quite lucky with women, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    I widened my mouth, but recalling the description Adam gave me yesterday of the tennis partner he¡¯d helped me find, how could I possibly let go of such a chance? And, so, the very next moment I instantly stood up, finished all my ck tea, and ran off. Even if I was going to die, I was going to y as much as I wanted before I died!


    ¡°I¡¯m going out, and you don¡¯t need to wait for me for dinner.¡±


    Seeing how Elisa didn¡¯t follow me, I heaved a breath of relief. However, without me realizing it, Elisa was smiling coldly behind me.


    ¡°Hmph! Looks like he still hasn¡¯t woken uppletely yet. He drank so much yesterday that he was even foolish enough to believe someone like Adam. Just make each other suffer until you both die.¡±


    Soon, at the newly-constructed tennis courts, I met that so-called legendary beauty.


    ¡°Adam, this is the beauty that you were talking about?!¡±


    ¡°Of course! Look at that face! Nice and cute, with sweet red lips and a clear appearance. Of course it¡¯s a beauty¡¯s face.¡±


    ¡°What about therge breasts,rge butt, and excellent figure?¡±


    ¡°Of course, look at those curves¡ªnice and plump on both the chest and the buttocks. Those three sizes are no lie; just look at those muscles, which are so perfectly firm. See? Those bulging pectorals are basically the most perfect sculpted body.¡±


    Alright, I had now understood what was going on. Adam hadid a pitfall for me again, and Little Red, who was watching, wasughing so hard that she couldn¡¯t stand up straight anymore. Even Margaret seemed to be snickering.


    ¡°Just continue lying to my face. What about admiring me?¡±


    ¡°Of course, is there any son that doesn¡¯t admire his dad? Yep, all I forgot to say was that it was a him, not a her.¡±


    Indeed, the ¡°beauty¡± tennis partner in front of me was Xiluo¡¯s current leader, yet right now, he was wearing aughable white miniskirt and curiously twirling around his tennis racket.


    Seeing that I had arrived, Omar was delighted, but he soon calmed down.


    ¡°Father! I was looking for a chance to talk to you one on one. It¡¯s not only about Xiluo, but also the Undead ne.¡±


    Note:


    1. Yet another Detective Conan reference!

 Chapter 256

    Chapter 256: Revealed Secret


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    While I was busy, frustrated about how tomunicate with my very own ¡°child,¡± someone else was feeling conflicted about another matter.


    ¡°...Hey, Harloys, do you know how Rnd would have answered at that time?¡±


    ¡°What time?¡±


    ¡°The time he was forced to the brink by us on that performance stage. If it weren¡¯t for Little Red saving him, what would he have answered?¡±


    ¡°How would I know...¡±


    ¡°I refuse to believe that he can hide anything he¡¯s thinking from you; there is a soul connection between you and him as a magical pet and master. If you tell me, I¡¯ll give you one hundred royally-backed free meal tickets that will allow you to eat as much as you want at any major restaurant or confectionery store. Also, I¡¯ll give you a three month supply of desserts specially made by our royal chefs. And, if you need, I¡¯ll even give you cat toys, yarn balls, and even cat litter...¡±


    ¡°Who are you treating me as? I don¡¯t need cat litter, but I want some custom-vored candies and sweets. All made by the royal chefs! Meow !¡±


    Did that mean that Harloys was going to ept the cat toys and yarn balls? Elisa was speechless as she looked at the ck cat, who was currently licking her front paw. The saying that a physical body would affect the soul had some truth to it, but for the proud, solitary Banshee Queen to be so simr to a normal house cat... perhaps only Rnd could have pulled it off.


    However, never try and rely on a magical pet cat to be loyal to you. With sufficient temptation, these elegant little furry cuties had no loyalty whatsoever, and could easily sell out their master in front of a sufficient amount of canned cat food.


    ¡± Meow ! Actually, I think it¡¯s better for you not to know. Or, I should say that you¡¯ve probably guessed it already.¡±


    ¡°As expected, it was that answer, after all...¡±


    ¡°Yes. Originally, he was going to choose you, but after Amelia cast her truth magic, he changed what he was about to say... He was debating between ¡®everyone is my most trustedpanion and intimate family¡¯ and ¡®I¡¯m not in love with any of you.¡¯ Which do you think is easier to ept?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing difficult to ept about it, as I had long since expected it. Of course it would be the same result as two years ago. I¡¯ve already been with Rnd for the past hundred plus years, so how could I not know?¡±


    As she coldly said that she didn¡¯t mind, tears imperceptibly rolled down her face. It would seem that logic and reason were separate from what Elisa felt in her inner heart.


    The furious demon girl stroked the magical ruby in her hand. It ignited a fire in a distant warehouse, causing some ¡°precious¡± artwork to burn to a crisp. If a certain someone learned about this, they would likely cry tears of regret as well.


    ¡°No! Those children are innocent!¡± Alright, it sounded as if that certain person¡¯s howls had the ability to surpass the limits of time and space.


    ¡°Rnd was right after all. When you¡¯re unhappy, you should make others unhappy as well, as misery lovespany. This really improved my mood.¡±


    She lightly wiped her tears and put her sses back on. The forever calm Elisa had returned once more.


    It was simply zero progress and definitely wasn¡¯t the worst possible result. Didn¡¯t she just have to wait? Who was afraid of that? The undying had plenty of time. Margaret had waited for over one hundred years; so what if she had to wait two hundred years?


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it simply two hundred years? I can wait! I should say that it¡¯s to be expected of Adam¡¯s close bro. Adam¡¯s an idiot who doesn¡¯t know how to change his way of thinking, while Rnd¡¯s a dense block of wood.¡±


    As she listened to Elisa¡¯sints, which were obviously forced out of her mouth, Harloys transformed into a golden elf. From her pocket, she brought out a lollipop to suck on, but she seemed to be hesitating about something. In the end, however, she spoke.


    ¡°Elisa, what do you think a SemiGod is?¡±


    ¡°The strongest possible pinnacle that a mortal can achieve that¡¯s not at the level of a God.¡±


    ¡°An interesting description. Rnd probably taught you that. No need to tell me anything more, because this wasn¡¯t a question that I believed you could answer in the first ce. Even if your true abilities have already reached a God¡¯s level, you¡¯re actually like a naturalbination of an Elemental God and a Demon God. Your path was set for you from your birth, and you probably know quite little about the way mortals separate the power levels.¡±


    Elisa remained silent. Although she rose up high, bing a Demon Lord, she had taken the path typical to all demons; she relied on devouring others and her own instinctive evolution. She didn¡¯t have a deep understanding of step-by-step personal cultivation, and knew quite little about the Saint rank and above.


    ¡°All of the ranks represent progress made in a certain area. That¡¯s why for a Saint-rank warrior to lose to a Legend-rank mage is something ordinary. The difficulty in making progress between warriors and mages is utterly iparable, and for a Saint-ranked dragon to kill a newly ranked SemiGod human is perfectly normal as well, as they increase their powers in different ways. However, for SemiGods...¡±


    After a pause, Harloys still decided to tell Elisa.


    ¡°This concept of SemiGods didn¡¯t exist to begin with. It could be said that there are actually no SemiGods in the world.¡±


    This would cause quite some controversy if heard by others, but Elisa nodded. After all, Rnd had said something simr in the past.


    ¡°Every rank has their own special characteristics. The Gold rank is about finding your own path, the Legend rank is about carving one¡¯s own path into a Soul Imprint, while the Saint rank represents that one has surpassed the limits of mortals, connecting their Soul Imprints to the world and possessing the ability to change the world around them. The stronger Saint ranks can even create their own small worlds¡ªSoul Worlds.¡±


    Although Elisa didn¡¯t know why Harloys was bringing this up, she had heard Rnd talking about this subject in the past. She noiselessly listened to Harloys.


    ¡°Above the Saint rank is the so-called ¡®Myth¡¯ rank. At this level, one has already obtained clear ideas of ¡®Concepts¡¯ from their Soul Imprints and has added these Concepts to their own personal development. Concepts are difficult to exin, but you can think of it as natural talent abilities like your absolute control over mes. A Concept is the purer form of a Soul Imprint, but is more convenient to use and transform into practicalbat power. Some existences are capable of ovepping their Concepts onto their own bodies, transforming their physical bodies into independent small worlds that won¡¯t be destroyed even if ten thousand years of time pass. Adam is an example of this type. Some have wide-open Soul Worlds that can infect reality and create something out of nothingness. Rnd is probably this type. Some can even materialize solid matter, transforming it into a personal top-quality weapon. Many Legend and Myth-rank weapons havee into existence via this method.¡±


    Actually, in order to better research and control their personal Concepts, most Myth-ranked individuals would all imagine and materialize their Concepts on the personal weapons that they were familiar with. As a result, many ordinary weapons would transform into Legend or Myth-rank weapons. [1] 1


    Stories about Myth-ranked weapons were typically brought about by the owners of said Myth-ranked weapons, but they were merely leftovers after their original owners had died in battle. They were without the full power of the original Concept and were far weaker than when used by the original owner.


    ¡°There are thousands of paths and thousands of choices. Human strength is limited, and just how far humans can go in the end is probably predetermined by the individual. Since the Myth rank is far too long of a process, there are three smaller subsections of the Myth rank, which are also called the ¡®Three Heavy Doors¡¯ of the Myth rank. Every door is difficult to pass through. And, the so-called SemiGods are existences that have passed through the third door. To be honest, it¡¯s already meaningless to divide up the ranks any further at such a level, since these individuals have already made their ¡®Concepts¡¯ as strong as the level of Gods. So, if you don¡¯t count those cheat-like abilities of the True Gods, SemiGods aren¡¯t actually all that weaker than True Gods. However, unless you separate the power levels even further, there are still huge differences even within the SemiGod rank. Margaret and Adam, for example, could easily defeat and kill Marsolit [2] 2 , while Rnd in his prime could have easily defeated and killed Margaret and Adam together.¡±


    As she talked about this, Harloys revealed a nostalgic expression; she recalled how back in the day she had been stuck at the third door of the Myth rank for so long, limited by her undead body and unable to reach the peak for countless years.


    ¡°While it¡¯s difficult to say what each person¡¯s choices can lead to ording to their limits, if an individual chose a road that didn¡¯t have a finishing point to begin with, no matter how much effort that individual made, there wouldn¡¯t be any progress. As far as I know, the reason why there are no SemiGod rank existences within the undead is that in the recent generation of low magic, the ¡®Concepts¡¯ that the undead could choose from didn¡¯t include anything that would be able to take them to a higher level. Undead are dead, so all the Concepts that they could choose had to bepatible with their physical bodies. 99% percent of the Concepts would have to do with death in some way. In order to break through the third and final door of the Myth rank into the SemiGod rank, an undead would likely have to use gues and a sufficient amount of death to destroy numerous countries. They would have to use an endless amount of corpses to walk down the path of death, creating one¡¯s personal road of development.¡±


    Elisa nodded upon hearing this. In the Chaos Abyss¡¯s records, the appearance of an ancient Undead Emperor was synonymous with an endless Undead Cmity.


    ¡°Yet, inparison, this current era is rtively peaceful. If someone dared to do such a thing, the Gods would directly intervene. Plus, the low magic generation created this current era of progressing in rank slowly. In recent times, it¡¯s now been considered normal that there won¡¯t be any more Undead Emperors... But, there¡¯s always an exception to everything. There was one person who forcibly found a path when there was none to be found.¡±


    Should it be said that Harloys definitely lived up to her nickname of ¡°All-Knowing?¡± When everyone was treating it as a matter ofmon sense that undead wouldn¡¯t be able to progress to the SemiGod rank, she even figured out the precise reason behind it.


    ¡°Are you talking about Rnd? But isn¡¯t he basically cheating with that whatever System of his?¡±


    ¡°Heh heh, looks like you don¡¯t know, then. I know more about that System: it¡¯s something simr to an equivalent exchange mechanism for ¡®wishing.¡¯ It has its own rules that must be followed, and everything that it does must be capable of being done by the world¡¯s naturalws. You can even treat it as Rnd¡¯s personal talent ability. If Rnd didn¡¯t have the true foundational strength required to be at the SemiGod rank, he probably would have instantly fallen the moment he reached that rank. Probably, due to his reliance on his System, he still doesn¡¯t even understand his own Concept. In the past, I was quite curious how he confusingly managed to reach SemiGod rank, but only when I witnessed his newly created world of snow and ice did I realize that his personal Concept was one that had probably never ever existed for anyone else in this world¡ªCreation.¡±


    Upon hearing this, Elisa instantly understood. As seekers of truth, the way for mages to improve their own power levels was to learn and understand magical knowledge and forms. They would create new possibilities through their own research and make progress in their own field. All top-level archmages would be peerless experts in their own specialties.


    ¡°Rnd¡¯s elemental sensing ability is negative, and while his undead magic is pretty good, what he¡¯s umted over time is still just so-so in the grand scheme of things. With just that, he¡¯d be nothing more than a Saint rank. What he can truly be proud about is that wondrous field of his, the ability to create something from nothingness¡ªundead construction. This was the ability that helped him surpass the ¡®Three Heavy Doors¡¯ and reach the realm of SemiGods.¡±


    ¡°The Seven Deadly Sins...¡±


    ¡°Yes, the Seven Deadly Sins, the most perfect undead constructs of all. They have their own independent wills and thoughts, and are individual existences that even possess desires just like the living. The most important of all is that they¡¯re even capable of not being entirely controlled by their master, and they can evolve their power on their own. If my calctions are correct, once the Seven Deadly Sins evolve to their utmost limits, each and every one of them will be a match for a True God! This isn¡¯t even undead anymore; apart from the fact that they haven¡¯t broken the barriers between life and death, this is basically no different from creating an all-new, Gold-ranked species. And, recently, he really did break the barriers between life and death for me. Rnd already possesses the ability to break the boundaries between life and death, and he¡¯s already evolved his Concept of Creation into the extent where he can ¡®Create a World.¡¯¡±


    By now, Elisa had guessed at why Harloys was telling her all this.


    ¡°How¡ªhow is this possible!?¡±


    ¡°How is it not possible? Gluttony, Ah Dang, is the most obvious example. A weak and small Abomination like Ah Dang took only three hundred years to reach the level of being able to defeat and kill a SemiGod. Omar, who was born only a few years ago, already has plenty of power to be proud about even in front of the Gods. And they still haven¡¯t evolved to their fullest limits. Yet behind any miracle is a heavy price to be paid. The heavy price required for the Seven Deadly Sins is a price that only their creator can bear.¡±


    Harloys was rather frustrated, as she was now talking about something that involved herself.


    ¡°Why are there only Seven Deadly Sins? That¡¯s because each and every Sin is a part of Rnd. While he¡¯s creating and naming these Sins, he has to unknowingly bestow a part of his own soul to each of the Seven Deadly Sins. Rnd¡¯s hatred and anger from his country being destroyed created the furious Bastian. His desires for food and strength created the gluttonous Ah Dang. His desire for Order and authority created the undead leader Omar.¡±


    Elisa revealed a contemtive expression. Finally, as the evidence all matched up, she could only nod helplessly.


    ¡°I pretty much understand now. But some things, once lost, may not be obtainable again. The current Rnd views taking revenge as meaningless, he doesn¡¯t have too many expectations for bing stronger, and he views status and authority as a joke. Perhaps he¡¯s being influenced by them taking his desires.¡±


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s the same for my and Envy¡¯s ¡®births¡¯ as well. Perhaps Rnd himself has noticed it, too, as he didn¡¯t directly create us; instead, he had used pre-existing ¡®materials¡¯ as the foundation, which also lessened the burden on him. It¡¯s absolutely correct for Omar to view Rnd as his father, from a logical standpoint. But don¡¯t ever expect that I¡¯m going to view Rnd as my father, and I¡¯m definitely never going to call him that.¡±


    Harloys had a bitter expression. She had only recentlye to this conclusion, but suddenly bing lesser in seniority instead of greater in senioritypared to Rnd made her not know what to do. She didn¡¯t even tell Rnd about this.


    All the Seven Deadly Sins originated from Rnd. If Rnd became a Main God, the Seven Deadly Sins, which were intimately connected to him, were basically like his Follower Gods or Children Gods. And since there were only Seven Deadly Sins, with Rnd only possessing Seven Original Sins, he could only use up seven pieces of his soul!


    As for why that mysterious System kept warning Rnd not to make any more undead creations, it had probably noticed this as well.


    ¡°Rnd and all of his Seven Deadly Sins constitute his true SemiGod rank strength. In his prime, even True Gods would fear him, but definitely not because of his personalbat strength. By now, you probably understand why I¡¯m telling you all this, right?¡±


    ¡°Lust?¡±


    ¡°Lust can be called ¡®an overabundance of love¡¯ as well. Although I don¡¯t know whether Rnd truly created Lust, nor do I know whether Lust is a person or an object if it exists, but if Lust really does exist, then it¡¯s definitely the oldest of the Seven Deadly Sins that Rnd created. And, no matter how skilled Rnd is with his Concept of Creation, back in the day he was probably nothing more than a Legend, tops. To create a miracle-like existence such as Lust that even SemiGods wouldn¡¯t be able to aplish with only a Legend¡¯s power level, he probably had to pay even more of a price.¡±


    More of a price? If he gave up all his love and lust, wouldn¡¯t he be an existence that waspletely incapable of understanding love? Elisa was left speechless, as that would mean no matter how hard she worked, Rnd would still remain a dense block of wood.


    ¡°That idiot!¡±


    Yep, apart from idiot, how else could she describe me? From a certain standpoint, this had been a ssic example of a mage¡¯s experiment¡ªalthough I seeded in creating what I wanted, I paid far more than what I realized. It was a definite loss for me when I created Lust back then.


    ¡°Can¡¯t he reobtain his desire for love?¡±


    ¡°I personally feel that it¡¯s possible. I can tell through our soul connection that as long as the Seven Deadly Sins are by his side, they¡¯ll instinctually give their overflowing Sin that they represent back to him, which will help bnce and steady his personality. And, I heard a piece of news, that, at the very least, in Rnd¡¯s second life he had a lover...¡±


    Elisa was so shocked that her mouth fell open, wide agape.


    ¡°Howe Rnd never mentioned this whatsoever!? If it was true, he should have been bragging to everyone about it.¡±


    ¡°I heard about her from Amelia. Amelia just heard only a little about it, and apparently Rnd broke up with whoever-she-was in the end, and it¡¯s even rumored that his second death had to do with her. I also tried bringing it up with Rnd in a roundabout fashion, but he seems to have lost all relevant memories. Even his memory library doesn¡¯t have any records. Perhaps, when he was creating Lust, he sealed his own memories and feelings into it.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s also possible that he intentionally wanted to forget what happened, so he created Lust.¡±


    ¡°If it was an incredible failed first love, I think that¡¯s definitely something an idiot like Rnd is capable of doing.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s also possible that he was under the impression that love would distract him from his motivation in taking revenge and bing stronger.¡±


    Elisa and Harloys exchanged nces, and they both sighed helplessly.


    ¡°That idiot is unsalvageable.¡±


    ¡°That idiot makes others worry so much.¡±


    Note:


    1. The Myth rank is equivalent to the mentions of the Epic rank. They are one and the same, only different ways of referring to the same thing.


    2. To those who don¡¯t remember, Marsolit is the name of Envy of the Seven Deadly Sins.

 Chapter 257

    Chapter 257: Plot


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°A person who is truly insane will never be aware of their insanity. They will not believe that they are the ones abnormal; instead, they prefer to believe that the entire world is crazy while they¡¯re the only ones sane and normal.¡±¡ªRnd Mist.


    The formal discussion with the envoys from Xiluo was ongoing in the royal pce. Yet important affairs would always be discussed in private. The variousplex details and hidden trades would have to be made under the cover of night.


    The Xiluo Empire was the only undead country in this world; I had long expected them to join the Mist Alliance. And this was critically important; just joining in name only would be meaningless. The alliance would have to deepen the rtionship between both sides. Yet exactly how, by how much, and in what aspects this rtionship must be deepened were all variousplex details that the core personnel of both countries had to meet personally to discuss.


    Business, trade, diplomacy, military alliances, and thirty-ish other various such contracts were signed. But this was only the beginning.


    Without making everything uniform between us for convenience, and without the will to truly do everything together, how could it possibly be called an alliance?


    The future Mist Alliance would be quiterge, but that didn¡¯t mean that all the allied countries would truly think the same way. After all, each individual country would have their own needs, and in the end, the right to make decisions would still be in the hands of a few major countries of the alliance.


    I figured that it would just be like my previous world. Even if the former Soviet Union or the European Union had rules on the surface that stated how every country would be equal regardless of size or anything else, the true right to make decisions would always be held by just one or two countries.


    In my mind, the Mist Alliance needed to ally with countries to begin with, and the Xiluo Empire was probably the most trustworthy country alongside the Sleuweir Kingdom and the Eastern Mist Communal Country.


    That¡¯s right. I had very little trust in the Nortnds¡¯ human kingdoms. Some reasons included the fact that humans were short-lived and rulers would change quickly, but the worst of all was still the obvious fact that human rulers would easily backstab their allies; the majority of nobles and royalscked morals.


    This time, I represented not only East Mist, but also Sleuweir and even the entire People of the Mist. My goal in these detailed alliance discussions with Xiluo was toe to an ord with the mega-country in all aspects. I also wanted to form a small private circle of my own within the Mist Alliance that possessed the true ability to call the shots.


    ¡°Then, after I return, the entire Xiluo Empire shall announce that Wumianzhe¡¯s Church of Law is its national church... For undead to worship a God and even receive divine powers, does this mean that it¡¯s even possible for undead Holy Knights to exist in the future? This truly feels strange.¡±


    *Cough.* I coughed lightly in displeasure. What was wrong with undead Holy Knights? Was this an idental jab at me?


    ¡°My apologies, Your Majesty. It wasn¡¯t that I have any objections against you.¡±


    Lionheart shook his head, not knowing whether tough or cry. The main negotiator for the Xiluo Empire was him, since Omar... yed around for a while, got bored listening to our discussion, and decided on his own to go to sleep. He was currently hugging his little teddy bear in a deep asleep.


    ¡°...Omar had lots of fun these past few days. By the way, Your Majesty, don¡¯t you intend to return? If you retake your position as emperor, even Omar would listen to you.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not interested, as I¡¯m now a living person. How could I possibly rule an undead kingdom? Besides, with you guys around, there¡¯s no need to go through that much trouble. ...Yep, I¡¯m definitely alive. Even though there¡¯s a memorial tablet with my name on it, I¡¯m definitely still alive! That¡¯s right!¡±


    ¡°In that case, let¡¯s discuss the next topic, very...¡±


    Due to our special rtionship, East Mist, Sleuweir, and the Xiluo Empire were all actually one big family. In addition, the Xiluo Empire had the special political structure of a one hundred percent dictatorship; as long as we made our agreements in private right here, things would be settled. The discussions were so smooth that it seemed like a casual conversation over dinner.


    But even if we agreed on everything, truly putting it into action would be quite troublesome.


    For example, the severe inequality in society. As we were all going to be believers of the God of Law, then, at the very least, we had to make everyone truly be considered equal in the eyes of thew. Although I had avoided addingbative words like ¡°all individuals are considered equal¡± or ¡°defeat the rotten nobility¡± into our church¡¯s teachings to prevent being instantly ganged up on by all of nobility, all non-criminals were supposed to have equal rights and status ording to Wumianzhe¡¯s teachings. That meant that something akin to very shouldn¡¯t exist in my nned society.


    Get rid of very? That was something I definitely intended to aplish, but the problem was with the upper level of Xiluo Empire¡¯s society, the high-level undead. The living were actually their ves and main armies, and most high-level undead treated the living as toys or experimental subjects. Getting rid of very would mean a massive upheaval in their society. A huge number of those considered low-ss would shift to the middle ss, which we had to be cautious about.


    Most high-level undead definitely wouldn¡¯t be like my knights or my Four Heavenly Kings. From a certain standpoint, the Holy Church wasn¡¯t wrong about the undead since creating death and pain for the living was one of their few joys. Getting joy from others¡¯ misery was part of the nature of the undead, and the oldest, high-level undead even treated the torturing of the living¡¯s physical bodies as a form of art; they truly enjoyed the process. Attempting to change their way of thinking would be no different from killing them.


    However, precisely the fact that the Xiluo Empire was a pure dictatorship would actually make some things much easier.


    ¡°...Then let¡¯s begin the process. There¡¯s plenty of time anyways, and you can take it slow. Of course, if they still can¡¯t ept getting rid of very in the end, then just make them cannon fodder. With Omar around, I refuse to believe that any of them can do anything about it.¡±


    With Omar¡¯s soul connections, any undead units under him would be unable to resist hismands. Back in the day, I had to consider that the Undead Emperors would be incredibly difficult to deal with. My new empire had to be aplete dictatorship so that my sessor would have the ability to be a perfect dictator.


    I made that my design goal when I created Omar, but that relied too much on his natural ability, and the situation and my way of thinking changedter into believing that a pure dictatorship wouldn¡¯t be the most appropriate path. Instead, I left Omar aside. As a newly-born who was still sensitive, he had probably noticed his ¡°father¡¯s¡± dislike and abandonment, which was why he had rioted.


    The ironic part was that after everything was over, it all went back to the starting point. This young ruler became the emperor in the end, and I still needed to rely on his power to realize my goals. When I thought of this, I looked at the ¡°big boy¡± who was drooling while he slept on the table with his teddy bear. I felt I should treat him better in the future.


    ¡°Ah, father, why are you so weak and thin? Did you not eat your meals properly? Come and exercise together with Omar. Come here, you little apple!¡±


    Alright, his sleep talking made me instantly retract my rare good intention towards him. I really wanted to wake him up with a brick. I had enough of public dances and singing, after all.


    Well, there would be no end to this if I keptining, so I did my best to concentrate on the serious matters at hand.


    ¡°Now, the next topic is regarding the transportation between our two countries.¡±


    Of course, problems would easily appear on matters that not only pertained to social issues. There was a huge geographic barrier between us even if we were to be true allies. The long distance between the two countries rendered transportation between them inconvenient. However, I had already prepared a n to deal with this.


    ¡°How¡¯s the progress on Alkaid?¡±


    Lionheart became quite excited when I mentioned the airship Alkaid. After seeing that huge aerialbat behemoth that was evidence of a new generation, he had be more and more impressed but didn¡¯t show it. In this area, Rnd was truly far ahead of the current generation.


    ¡°I just received a message from Xiluo. With Mizar¡¯s technology, in addition to a plentiful supply of materials in Xiluo, Alkaid [NG1] should have its mainframepleted within three months as long as we sessfully deal with all technical difficulties. Its main weapons and outer shell should bepleted in six months, and it should be ready for its first flight within one year.¡±


    Perhaps I was overly influenced by my knowledge of the impact of aerialbat strength inrge-scale battles from Earth. In this world, airships were primarily used to transport soldiers, but my special love for aerial squadrons remained. In my mind, it wasn¡¯t very meaningful to have just a single floating battleship. Without enough functional aerial battleships to form an aerial fleet, Borealis wouldn¡¯t be able to disy the true power of Envy. It would be unable to function at its fullest.


    The North Star aerial battleship brigade was my first nned aerial squadron for the future East Mist, as well as the Mist Alliance. Its gship would be the Borealis, and the squadron beneath it would consist of sevenrge-scale aerial battleships named after the stars of the Big Dipper¡ªAlkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Dubhe, and Merak.[NG2] They would be of different sizes and have different functions. The Alkaid, which was number one in the order, had its construction handed over to the Xiluo Empire. However, progress in its construction could only be somewhat counted as sessful. It took much longer than the number two aerial battleship, Mizar, which had its construction rushed in order to be ready for the military parade.


    Of course, the current condition of the Mizar was just a scary-looking empty shell. Its side weapons, personnel, equipment and so on would require at least another half a year to reach top condition.


    Actually, this could be considered quite quick already. After all,rge-scalebat weapons weren¡¯t like lettuce, easily made in a short time. In order to obtain an elite knight order, it would take most countries half a century.


    What? You want to know why the Borealis was capable of being sent out inbat immediately? The And Empire was truly a mega-empire, and several generations had worked tirelessly on the only megabat airship that remained. All of its weapons, equipment, personnel system,mand system, and parts were just about ready, not to mention Envy helped to transform it with undead power, which improved the overall capabilities of the airship and gave it the ability to be used.


    By the time I obtained it, it was already over ny percentplete. All that remained was to give it personnel so that these novices could be more and more experienced under themand of the Borealis. Yep, although it sounded rather strange, the Borealis¡¯ own understanding of its body far surpassed that of any engineer. Anything that it needed would be supplied to it, any resources at all. Of course it would quickly be able to be used in actualbat.


    Despite the fact that we were now on the second and third airships, they were still far from being mature although we had the technology. We could only continue progressing as we figured things out on our own.


    ¡°It¡¯ll be ready for its first flight within one year? That¡¯s already quicker than I expected. Hmm, in that case, we¡¯ll start the construction on Alioth and Megrez, while you can begin it on Phecda and Dubhe. We¡¯ll leave thest one, Merak, forter. The goal is to finish this entire North Star aerial fleet within three years.¡±


    ¡°Yep, as long as nothing big urs, this should be achievable. I should say that as long as no new battles ur, it might even be finished before then.¡±


    Lionheart thought about the situation in Xiluo and made that promise to me.


    ¡°In that case, let¡¯s temporarily use the Mizar for transportation between Diffindor and Xiluo, while the Borealis will be used for other transportation-rted needs. It¡¯s fine to use Undead Battleships asrge merchant airships for carrying goods, but transporting the living might be problematic. How about we try having the gnomes sell insurance to the passengers? We might even make a huge profit.¡±


    ¡°Right, where¡¯s Ah Dang? I need to go on a faraway trip soon, and I want to take him with me. You all want to go as well? You can¡¯t; I¡¯m going to a human mega empire, and they¡¯re very sensitive about undead there. I think that only Ah Dang can perfectly manage to pass as a living being...¡±


    ¡°The second¡ªthe former Second Senator Feyman is back? That¡¯s to be expected. If he joined an Undead Emperor in the Undead ne, who else would be better than him to lead the way for an invasion? If I was an Undead Emperor, I would definitely send him to be cannon fodder¡ªI mean the vanguard, to test everyone¡¯s reactions.¡±


    ¡°The first Senator Gricasio? It¡¯s perfectly normal to not have any news about it. Its¡¯ power is unfathomably vast, and I only had a cooperative rtionship with it. Don¡¯t look at howzy it was. It actually has a fierce personality and has a high opinion of itself, so I doubt it will obediently listen to any Undead Emperor.¡±


    ¡°The Undead ne is bing more and more active? That¡¯s also within expectations. But, be careful not to have too much contact. The Undead Emperors are incredibly difficult to deal with, and even you guys shouldn¡¯t directly fight with them right now.¡±


    After taking care of all the details at once, it was almost midnight when I was finally finished.


    What, there¡¯s a silver-haired female elf right behind me who¡¯s inviting me to a singing performance? The weather was quite nice today, and I couldn¡¯t see or hear anything at all.


    As I gazed at the weather outside, I stretchedzily. If I returned at this time, I figured I would likely have to listen to a certain person¡¯s continuousints. As I was hesitating whether or not to find some ce to pull an all-nighter or go find Adam for drinks again, a tall and strong figure appeared before me.


    ¡°Estrada?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re in big trouble.¡±


    When Estrada greeted me with this sentence, I wasn¡¯t surprised in the least. After all, I knew that I probably made the Holy Church really angry.


    ¡°I¡¯m not here to fight you. It¡¯s just for a discussion.¡±


    Yet since he told me from the very start that he was here to talk and not fight, I rxed. At the very least, I stopped using the powers of my Frigidwinter Earth, and its abnormal ice disappeared without a single trace, just like how it arrived, without a single sign.


    ¡°The new pope was so angered by you that he fainted on the spot, and he almost returned to the God of Holy Light¡¯s embrace...¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no need to waste words. Estrada, someone like you probably doesn¡¯t have that much free time.¡±


    ¡°...Since the path of Holy Light is unable to save the world, how do you intend to do it?¡±


    I hesitated somewhat as I looked at the man before me who had aged in appearance by several decades. For him, his belief in the Holy Light was akin to instinct, and I was unsure why he was here.


    Finally, I ended up nodding.


    ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll rmend a school to you, called the Nanxiang... what? Rx, it¡¯s not a bulldozing school... I don¡¯t need a bulldozer to steal elites from otherpanies.¡±


    I never thought that I would be giving this old and stubborn teacher of mine a rmendation letter to one of my schools.


    ¡°You were already prepared? You knew that I woulde looking for you?¡±


    ¡°Of course... not. It¡¯s just that recently, there has been many Holy Knights secretlying to me, so I wrote extra rmendation letters and have been keeping them on me. Right, Ai is there as well, and you can have a talk with her. But when you go there, it¡¯s best if you disguise yourself. Otherwise, if your pope hears about it and really has a heart attack and dies, it¡¯ll be an even bigger trouble for me. Oh, and your Cardinal Soros is a bit too old, so let¡¯s not tell him either. I¡¯d feel bad if something happens to him. What? He¡¯s already been demoted from cardinal and has returned home to be a farmer? Ah, how pitiful (I¡¯m so happy!)

 Chapter 258

    Chapter 258: Visitors from the Earth Elemental ne


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    [Child.]


    [On the day you were born, the entire dragon valley reverberated with the whispers of the name that the Beast Gods bestowed upon you¡ªBeifeng Herault.]


    [My child, I proudly watched you grow up into the messenger of love. You should always remember that our family has used only justice and love to rule this country. You, too, should carefully use your powerful ability, your divine power that stems from true love.]


    [But, you must remember that true victory neveres from power...]


    [My child, personal strength is limited. What you need to do is encourage your citizens and increase their morale; they should always stand by your side. I¡¯m telling you all this because when my life ends...]


    [You shall be king!]


    The dawn was apanied by a tall, heroic figure, while, in the background, my shameless System refreshed my knowledge of itsck of limits. It was giving that silhouette its own background music and fake introduction scene.


    This man, who had his own background music and introduction announcement, had his back to the sun; he seemed to be glowing valiantly. His crown-shaped horns blinded me even further and gave him the appearance of a pay-to-win yer.


    ¡°I have returned!¡±


    [System Notification: As the current King of All Gentlemen, how can you allow yourself to be surpassed by a junior? Isn¡¯t it just some background music and an introduction? Come, from now on, every time Princess Peach arrives, I¡¯ll give her a Swan Lake ballet dance introduction! From today onwards, I shall address you as the man who has his own apanying dancers and ballet shoes!]


    ¡°That¡¯s enough out of you! System, get the hell out in front of me! I promise I won¡¯t kill you on the first blow!¡±


    If the System was capable of materializing a physical form, I definitely wouldn¡¯t kill her on the first blow. No, definitely not. How could I possibly vent if I really did kill her with my first blow? I had suffered all this time; I would definitely abuse her for at least one month!


    ¡°Your Highness, I have returned.¡±


    Didn¡¯t he notice that I was talking to my System? Have a clue! I red at him, filled with dissatisfaction.


    ¡°Yeah, got it. What, is something the matter?¡±


    The honest and dull-seeming dracon¡¯s face was covered with dust and dirt, resembling an old farmer who had just finished nting trees in the desert. He seemed fatigued and hesitant as he looked towards me.


    ¡°Oh, right, where were you? Why did you skip out on work for no reason for so long? Hah, forget it! I¡¯m in a good mood today so I don¡¯t care.¡±


    When I saw my subordinates work so hard, as a good and magnanimous boss I had to of course be considerate and console them. However, my causal question caused Beifeng¡¯s expression to change, and he now looked as if he didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry.


    He sweated profusely as hisrge, draconic eyes opened to the maximum. He stared at me.


    ¡°Your Highness, didn¡¯t you request me to stay in the Earth Elemental ne and be the vanguard for our development? You said that at the slowest, someone woulde to take my ce in three days. Yet I waited for so long and still didn¡¯t see anyone arrive to take my ce as you said. It couldn¡¯t be that you forgot all about me!?¡±


    Alright, it was now my turn to begin sweating profusely. I recalled that I really did promise him such a thing. Originally, I had intended to send a team over to talk to Beifeng about taking over his job, and I was even going to have Karo City assist them.


    However, I had so many things keeping me busy here, and since I was having such a fun time on my birthday, I really did forget about him. No, my memory was always excellent¡ªperhaps I should say that I unconsciously ignored him; I did not want him to make trouble for me when I was having so much fun.


    ¡°No wonder; when Yawen had made her report to me yesterday, she said the pressures of work were much less than expected by more than a half. The Town Security even began handing out many vacations... Could it be that this bastard can create more than half of all the chaos in the city by himself? I had unintentionally done such a great deed for everyone¡¯s sakes.¡±


    I thought about how those Town Security girls would take days off and even have fun shopping; they were no different to human girls when they toured the night markets and would truly take pleasure in shopping. I suddenly felt like forgetting about Beifeng¡¯s downsides.


    To be honest, Beifeng by himself wasn¡¯t ridiculous to the extent where he would be the cause of half of all chaos within the city. However, he was the vicemander of the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance and was missing in action. The fact that the Beyar Brothers, Pier, and other higher-ups had been forced into helping out with the Mizar and other physicalbor led the Gentle Alliance to halt the organization of any activities. And it wasn¡¯t limited to that; the dark elves now had many new, novice Town Security members, which had disrupted the bnce between them and had given the Town Security the most rxing time of their lives.


    Alright, I also recalled that it was I who had drummed up their morale. Some things were better left unsaid. After all, I did feel slightly guilty about it.


    ¡°Yep, thanks for your hard work. Because of some special reasons, we temporarily ced our emphasis on preparing for the military parade and weapons auction, so we slowed down the work on developing a base in the Earth Elemental ne. You¡¯ve worked hard, and you¡¯vepleted your task quite well. I¡¯ll remember this. As for now, go back and take a good rest, take a shower, and go to sleep. You must be tired. When you¡¯re feeling refreshed tomorrow, I¡¯ll discuss more serious matters with you.¡±


    The strange thing was that even after saying all this, Beifeng still didn¡¯t leave. He actually had quite a good temper and would almost never get angry. However, he was currently looking at me with an awkward expression on his face.


    ¡°Hmm? Do you need something else?


    ¡°Um, actually, some of mypanions came back here together with me. They¡¯ve decided to join therge family of our Gentlemen Alliance. But, it seems that in order to be a member of our mercenary group, as stated in the mercenary guild¡¯s rules, they must first obtain humanality[NG1] .¡±


    There was indeed such a rule about nationality, but who was I? I was the ancestor of the leaders of this country. Giving them nationalities would be too easy. All I had to do was tell Kelly and the others.


    ¡°That¡¯s simple. It¡¯s such a small matter; isn¡¯t it just nationality? You just have to take themter to our new Department of Civil Affairs, and I¡¯ll¡ªwait a moment, did you say humanality, not nationality?¡±


    A sudden ominous premonition led me to discover that something was wrong.


    ¡°Awesome! You agreed?¡±


    The sly Beifeng caught my verbal misstep and celebrated by shouting out loudly.


    ¡°Number Four, Number Five, Number Six, Number Seven¡ªeveryone,e in!¡±


    Alright then. A sandstorm arose outside the castle gate, as if an entire army was passing by. But when the visitors approached and I could make them out through the sandstorm, I discovered that they were, in fact, several huge individuals.


    ¡°A desert magical scorpion king?¡±


    It was a massive magical scorpion, whose weight definitely exceeded a hundred tons. Despite the fact that it was only of the height of about three humans, its tremendous weight would cause the ground to crack wherever it passed by. As it gradually approached me, the cracks continuously appeared in the ground but were mended by magic again.


    ¡°Number Four, be careful. Don¡¯t break the castle door! We can¡¯t afford to pay for it.¡±


    How could such a mega magical beast, which would be hailed as a respected veteran in the Earth Elemental ne, be fooled by Beifeng intoing here?!


    And there were two figures seated atop the scorpion¡¯s back. The taller one was a tan-skinned high elf, and a strange, charming light could be seen in the elf¡¯s eyes. Crystals and stones were embedded into its skin.


    ¡°A high-level sand dragon that can transform into a humanoid?¡±


    In this current generation, high elves could be said to be basically extinct, and only the ancient dragons would still use their forms.


    ¡°Number Five, I¡¯ve said it so many times already. Before you¡¯re able to perfectly transform into a human, you should cover yourself with a cape.¡±


    The ruler of the current generation was humanity, and it was only natural for these massive dragons to transform into humans for their humanoid forms. Only those ancient artifacts from the even older generations would prefer to use a form like a high elf, which would, indeed, stand out too much today. Yet it was still understandable, as the high elves were the rulers of ancient times.


    The other individual had already donned a cape and was at least three or four meters tall. Rocks protruded from all over its body, making it rather obvious that that individual was a top-level existence from the Earth Elemental ne.


    ¡°Your Highness, this is Number Six. He doesn¡¯t really know how to talk.¡±


    Suddenly, arge piece of the earth jutted out and the ground began trembling slightly. It appeared that something was underground.


    ¡°Number Seven doesn¡¯t really know how to talk either...¡±


    Alright, it would seem that beneath me was a sandworm. There was a sandworm that was able to leave the Earth Elemental ne? And it even possessed the ability tomunicate? This was definitely no ordinary sandworm. Was this an Earth Elemental Lord tour grouping to visit me?


    ¡°Beifeng, just what exactly do you intend to do? And how were they able to leave the Earth Elemental ne?¡±


    If I had to fight with this group in any other ce, it would be rather troublesome. Yet this was the Crimeless City, Diffindor, the heart of Wumianzhe¡¯s Divine Domain; I wouldn¡¯t be afraid.


    Beifeng smiled slightly. ¡°In my ¡®True Love Domain,¡¯ all lives have the right to enjoy the right to live. No matter if they are ordinary creatures or elemental creatures, they can all live in an environment that feels as wonderful as heaven to them.¡±


    ¡°Domain? That sounds like a Soul World. Could it be... wait a moment, did you!? No! This is impossible!¡±


    Beifeng put his palms together, closed his eyes, and nodded slightly. The devout expression on his face made him seem like an old monk no longer interested in the mundane. The rising sun illuminated his old leather jacket, radiating a golden glow that seemed to bestow upon him a divine feeling, the feeling of having surpassed life and death.


    ¡°Battles helped me grow. After experiencingbat where I had almost lost my life (he meant doing nothing), and after tempering my will and body (he meant fooling around), I finally made progress. My Soul World may not be strong, but it has the ability to allow intelligent creatures to live within it.¡±


    When I heard this, the barbequed meat I was holding in my hand dropped to the ground. Beifeng hadn¡¯t even been in the Legend rank for one year yet he had mysteriously managed to enter the realm of Saints just like that!


    What was with that ability of his which I had never even heard of before? Wasn¡¯t it just a natural version of the legendary ability to obtain harems? This was obviously cheating.


    ¡°Damn it! Who¡¯s the main character supposed to be¡ªyou or me? On my way to the Gold rank, I had almost perished many, many times, but you, by simply doing nothing, quickly entered the Saint rank. Author, there¡¯s something wrong with the scenario; what is with this obvious difference in treatment? This game is incredibly unbnced! Is this one of those legendary stories that always abuses the main character? No! Impossible! If you give the cheat powers to someone else, the story will lose poprity!¡±


    Yep, the Beifeng Herault before me was unmistakably at the Saint rank. Only someone at this power level would be considered an equal by an Earth Elemental Lord.


    ¡°Your Highness, us seven brothers really get along well with each other, so we swore to be brothers. And now that my brothers are having difficulties, of course I wouldn¡¯t be able to just watch as they suffered. I¡¯ve always heard how Your Highness views brotherhood as important, with friends everywhere, so I decided on my own to take them here to follow you...¡±


    After a longer, more detailed exnation, I understood what happened. Us leaving the Earth Elemental ne didn¡¯t cause things to calm down¡ªno, it was the opposite. Emordilorcan had been the origin of suppression for these Elemental Lords, but after he perished, the powerful and ancient Earth Elemental Lords began warring with each other.


    Caught in the maelstrom of a war they didn¡¯t even want, those Lords who did not want to fight over the now-open Earth Elemental God position were put in a difficult spot. They didn¡¯t want to join the battle, but they would be forced to join it.


    ¡°Are you saying that you don¡¯t want to be the Earth Elemental God? Ha! Don¡¯t even mention whether or not we believe this reason of yours, but how can you make us believe that you won¡¯te in to reap the benefits while we¡¯re all busy fighting?¡±


    Yes, that was a valid question. Even those Earth Elemental Lords themselves couldn¡¯t guarantee that they would resist the temptation themselves if they saw a potential victory right before them.


    Doubtlessly, the best way to deal with this dilemma was to get as far away from the site of the battle as possible since they weren¡¯t interested in battling; they should leave the Earth Elemental ne entirely. However, Earth Elemental Lords were unable to leave the Earth Elemental ne as they pleased unless they were interested in gradually weakening to death.


    That was when they identally managed to discover that Beast Tamer Beifieg was able to use his Soul World to create a True Love Domain, a ce in which any living creature could live. The rest was history.


    ¡°...And, so, us seven brothers have agreed toe serve Your Highness.¡±


    ¡°Why me?¡±


    ¡°Because only you won¡¯t have any biases against us. And, more importantly, since you personally defeated Emordilorcan, it¡¯d be an honor to serve you.¡±


    As the children of Chaos, elemental creatures were absolute followers of thew of the jungle. Perhaps they didn¡¯t respect mortals, who had much shorter lives than they did, but the elemental creatures that followed the path of ¡®the weak evolving to the strong¡¯ would always have an innate respect for the strong.


    In these Earth Elemental Lords¡¯ minds, I had defeated Emordilorcan in singlebat, and hence I would have the best new Earth Elemental God had only I been an elemental creature. Serving such a strong individual and asking for protection from him seemed to be an excellent idea to them.


    I realized all this after hearing Beifeng¡¯s exnation. I only considered for a few seconds before agreeing to this beneficial thing that had fallen into myp.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯m reallycking in personnel here so I¡¯ve decided to agree. Beifeng, well done this time. I¡¯ll reward youter. Right, if there are seven of you, where are the other two? They didn¡¯te? Haha! Seven of you, aren¡¯t you just like the Seven Brothers of the Gourd? Oh, sorry, you probably don¡¯t understand my little joke, although I think it¡¯s quite fitting. Pfft! Beifeng, I bet you¡¯re Number Three again.¡±


    Hearing that I agreed, Beifeng was instantly delighted.


    ¡°Yep, I¡¯m Number Three again. Although I don¡¯t know what the Seven Brothers of the Gourd are, us seven brothers came up with a name for ourselves as well. Since we¡¯re all at the Saint rank or above, we¡¯ve decided to call ourselves the ¡®Seven Great Saints.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Huh? Seven Great Saints? Hahaha.¡±


    Alright, Beifeng ignored the fact that I was clutching my stomach withughter and excitedly shouted to outside the city.


    ¡°Big Sister, Number 2, His Highness Rnd has agreed!¡±


    ¡°Where are they?¡±


    The tall mountain in the distance suddenly moved and waved its hand, which was in the clouds. That mountain had actually been an incredibly tall tower giant!


    ¡°...Oh my, that¡¯s really quite the Saint.¡±


    ¡°Moving about in cities is a bit inconvenient for Number 2, so he¡¯ll just wait outside. As for Big Sister, you should know her already.¡±


    ¡°Hello, Your Highness Rnd. I hope you still haven¡¯t forgotten about an olddy like me.¡±


    I looked to see who it was. Her raspy voice was familiar, one that I had heard just recently in the Earth Elemental ne.


    But when I saw who she was, I inhaled arge amount of cold air.


    ¡°The Mother of Ten Thousand Stones? The Great Stone Sculptor Ainslo! Why are you here?¡±


    Upon hearing my question, that incredibly ugly mother of some innumerable elemental creatures had her face redden. She even snuck a look at Beifeng, but that action made me stumble upon a realization.


    ¡°I¡ªI¡ªI understand now! Don¡¯t¡ªdon¡¯t tell me anything at all!¡±

 Chapter 259

    Chapter 259: Calctions


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Perhaps I didn¡¯t expect some things to arrive so quickly. At the very least, I wasn¡¯t prepared for them.


    After verbally sparring with the Holy Church... fine, you may as well call it a backstabbing. Although I had angered the Holy Church, I had made my attitude clear and had shown them evidence of my power.


    ¡°At the very least, it is now known by all that Wumianzhe¡¯s Church of Law is to be temporarily tolerated by the God of Holy Light. We¡¯re not a squishy tomato that can easily be crushed.¡±


    On the surface, all the major countries that believed in the Holy Light condemned what had happened on that day... yep, the incident in question was now even referred to by a formal name¡ª¡±The Humiliation of Soros.¡±


    Alright, this name alone made it easy to see that fact that the pitiful Cardinal Soros had taken all the me. Yet, from a certain standpoint, he would now be famous in history. Yep. He should thank me for that.


    [It seems that your performance was quite meaningful, as it helped Princess Peach increase her shamelessness once again. It appears that you¡¯ll soon be peerless in the world (in shamelessness.)]


    ¡°Shut up! I¡¯ve already sealed this new piece of dark history! Who dares to bring it up in front of me!?¡±


    Even though those countries were condemning me for my disrespect of the Holy Light, it was all on the surface and didn¡¯t affect our weapon sales one bit. It was rather the opposite, in fact. In private, every secret envoy even praised me and promisedrge amounts of resources to support and encourage me in continuing to attack the Holy Church¡¯s reputation.


    Of course, the contracts and agreements on paper were meaningless. However, I was well aware that as long as Wumianzhe¡¯s Church of Law would be able to threaten and antagonize the Holy Church to a certain extent, some verbal agreements would be far more effective than even demonic contracts. After all, the Holy Church enjoyed far more authority and respect than even the rulers; no ruler would be satisfied with this.


    What made them even more dissatisfied was that they could only hide their dissatisfaction; they did not know how to vent their frustration. They even had to express as much belief and veneration for the Holy Light and Holy Light job ss members as possible, and provide the local Holy Churches with various benefits and support.


    The Holy Church was so singlehandedly powerful that its believers typically consisted of over eighty percent of a country¡¯s poption. And its religious authority was powerful enough to easily get rid of any ruler; all they had to do was dere them a heretic. The domain lords under such an unlucky ruler would happily do away with that ¡®heretic¡¯ king and fight over his position.


    Before the Yongye Cmity of about one hundred years ago, which had caused a massive overhaul within the Holy Church¡¯s internal system¡ªwait, no; their internal changes had started even earlier. Before their first major internal changes from over three hundred years ago, religious authority had towered far, far above royal authority. In that day and age, even a local head priest would dare to stand against the ruler of thend, and a cardinal would be able to ruin an entire country. In fact, the various princes and princesses of a country were mandated to report to the Holy Church¡¯s main headquarters for service (as hostages) and represent their faith in the Holy Light.


    In a way, the incident of the Mist Kingdom was connected to all of this. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the Holy Church and the numerous countries had gone overboard, the Yongye Cmity would not have urred. And this would not have led to the major internal changes within the Holy Church. In fact, even the religious changes within the Holy Church of three hundred plus years ago had to do with me. If you would calcte it in such a manner, it could truly be said to be a messy state of affairs. Perhaps it was my destiny to go against the Holy Church.


    Once some opportunities were missed, they could never be regained. If the Holy Church wanted to regain their status from three hundred-ish years ago, the rulers of each country wouldn¡¯t agree even if the other Gods¡¯ churches agreed.


    Perhaps, the happiest of all were those countries of ¡°fervent believers,¡± which had ¡°Saint¡± in their names, like San Antonio. It was no wonder that they were the ones who were in the greatest hurry to send their secret envoys to promise their support. It was as if they were afraid that they wouldn¡¯t be able to provide their support in time in case the conflict between us and the Holy Church intensified, as though our Church of Law would be smacked to death with a single p of the God of Holy Light.


    As for them supporting us on the surface? Well, we couldn¡¯t count on that unless they were idiots.


    Yet we had finalized weapons deals for the next thirty years, along with unbelievably beneficial conditions for us such as them paying full price upfront and no time limit on delivering the goods. As long as we were shameless enough, this was no different from them giving us free money.


    These obviously unreasonable conditions were not only evidence of the importance ced on our products by other countries, but it was even more so proof that they had long wanted to go against the Holy Church.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t gain anything from the Holy Church and actually received support from the Holy Church¡¯s potential enemies? I¡¯m speechless.¡±


    The military parade and weapons sales were both highly sessful. In a way, this also proved East Mist¡¯s power and the foundational strength of the Mist Alliance. Now that a new generation was upon us and especially with our new products being proven in battle, no smart ruler would miss the opportunity to obtain all these new technologies we were offering to sell.


    And this wasn¡¯t only a temptation for outside countries. After we proved our might, several countries in the Nortnds had secretly contacted us, and we were now in talks, discussing the possibility of them joining the Mist Alliance.


    However, I still didn¡¯t change my mind. The first, original members of the Mist Alliance would only consist of six factions and countries: East Mist Communal Country, Sleuweir Kingdom, Xiluo Empire, Sharal Autonomous Region [1], Nortnds Barbarian Tribal Alliance, and Rhodes Kingdom. However, I had only added the Rhodes Kingdom to avoid too much suspicion of bias and favoritism.


    Yep, the Rhodes Kingdom, which had been sitting on the fence, joined us after that military parade without a shred of hesitation.


    ¡°No matter howrge the future Mist Alliance will be, all of the first original members of the Mist Alliance will be its core. Expanding it too much right away might not necessarily be a good thing.¡±


    And, right now, within the walls of my grand conference room, the Rhodes ambassador added the final signature. The six original members of the newly born Mist Alliance was formally decided upon, and the Mist Alliance was officially born. I was surprised, however, to receive an unexpected notification from my System.


    [System Notification: The Mist Alliance has been sessfully established,pleting your Epic Quest, Revival of the Mist. With this, the rulers of the Nortnds have revived in a new form. Calcting all of your rewards... Would you like a full calction now? This calction may affect part of future karma calctions. Please choose carefully.]


    ¡°Didn¡¯t I alreadyplete this quest? The Sacred Sword?¡±


    At the time, in order to deal with Karwenz, who had suddenly visited, the System had changed the Quest reward into ¡°Receive the God Equipment, Rnd Sacred Sword earlier than scheduled¡± from ¡°Obtain the God Equipment, Rnd Sacred Sword, as well as a clue leading to the God Equipment Crown of Thorns.¡± Although I obtained the Sacred Sword, there wasn¡¯t much of a reward apart from it, and, in the end, I never received a clue about the Crown of Thorns.


    [That Quest reward was just calcting part of the reward earlier than scheduled. Currently, I¡¯m calcting the entire Quest reward. System Reminder: It seems like it¡¯s rather rare of me to help you out like this, so why are you so worried? If I don¡¯t help you out, isn¡¯t there no question about whether your younger twin brother would beat you so badly? Shall we calcte the rewards? Yes, or okay?]


    I broke out intoughter. Was there any need to hesitate?


    ¡°Calcte the rewards. I want to know where the Crown of Thorns is.¡±


    [...It¡¯s currently in the hands of the current Bardi Emperor, Orloss the Thirteenth. You even personally gave it to his ancestor .]


    Note:


    1. The ¡®Sharal Autonomous Region¡¯ was how ¡®Shawen Free States¡¯ was tranted by Starve. We are now going to continue using ¡®Sharal Autonomous Region.¡¯

 Chapter 260

    Chapter 260: Revival of the Mist


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    [Ding! Congrattions! You have sessfully activated the Epic Quest: Revival of the Mist.]


    [Quest Requirements: Resolve the danger of the East Mist Communal Country being annexed or forced into being a subordinate country. Help the Winterwolf Country of Far North return¡ªwhen faced with the Winterwolf True King, even Darsos is insignificant.]


    [Quest Rewards: Obtain the God Equipment, Rnd Sacred Sword, as well as a clue leading to the God Equipment Crown of Thorns. I know you really want to find this missing Mist God Equipment that¡¯s a national treasure.]


    [Quest Failure Punishment: You¡¯ll be turned into a girl. I¡¯m serious. Very serious. If you can¡¯t even protect your own country, you might as well turn into a girl.]


    It was simr to those absolutely ridiculous Epic Quests in the past. When I activated it this time, I immediately knew that this Quest wouldn¡¯t be as simple as it sounded toplete it.


    Resolve the danger of being annexed or forced into being a subordinate country? Just getting past the threat of And at the time was plenty to deal with. Was I supposed to make such a foundationally weak country into one at the level of a mega-empire to prevent it from being easily bullied or annexed?


    Help the Winterwolf Country of Far North? If it was just the return of the Mist Kingdom, then changing the name wouldn¡¯t matter that much. However, helping East Mist gain its independence probably counted as a Quest, and it would probably be perfectlypleted if I was able to revive East Mist to the level of the former Mist Kingdom.


    The Revival of the Mist? Yes, this was the foundation and the only important Quest goal. As long as the Mist Kingdom and the People of the Mist were revived, all the problems would naturally be solved on their own.


    That was how I understood things when I received this Quest, and it was also how I went about carrying things out.


    I had returned to the surface for a bit over a year. With the creation of the newly born Mist Alliance, there was now arge amount of progress in military affairs, politics, religion, and various other aspects. Perhaps the newly born Mist Alliance couldn¡¯t be called mature yet, and there was still a long path to go before East Mist could reach the status of the past Mist Kingdom and rule over the entire Nortnds, but, at the very least, it was no longer a squishy tomato that anyone could tread on.


    Imperceptibly, the System had helped me out again. If it had decided to make its final calctions for the rewards back in Antuen when my ns for the Mist Alliance¡ªincluding religious changes, the peaceful coexistence of multiple species and cultures, and other such political changes¡ªhadn¡¯t yete into fruition, the final reward evaluation wouldn¡¯t have been very high. Now all the foundations wereplete. All that was needed was for things to develop on their own, and I would receive the results I wanted. Doubtlessly, this was the best time to calcte my rewards.


    ¡°Actually, even if I wanted to manage things, there¡¯s not much I can do. So let the future generations decide the rest with time...


    My insufferable System, do the calctions.¡±


    After I gave themand, the entire world seemed to stop and quiet down. Countless gray lines, both vertical and horizontal, intersected across space and collided with each other, forming knots. These lines of fate connected the myriad people and objects, rearranging the order of time and space and giving birth to a power of fate that could twist reality and the future itself.


    These lines of karma then trembled, as though invisible hands were plucking them, and were then pulled out of me. They rearranged in midair before returning to my body. In this soundless expanse, time and space were meaningless. It seemed to be only an instant before these tossed-out threads and projectiles connected back to the untold number of people and objects, establishing new rtionships of karma.


    The heaven and earth had stood still. I, too, was unable to move and could only act as a witness to what was urring. I was aware that if it weren¡¯t for the fact that I was able to create my own world of Frigidwinter Earth, then I would have been just like the past me; my consciousness would be frozen the moment I told it to calcte, devoid of the power or right to observe such a scene.


    ¡°Lines of karma? The highest-level Concepts of Order, Time and Space? This is the true effect of Fate Points?¡±


    Merely watching all this ur caused a chill to run down my back. I broke out in a cold sweat. This wasn¡¯t fear or astonishment but an instinctive humbleness that any human would have upon witnessing a Creator¡¯s ability firsthand. I could sense that although I, too, had reached the boundaries of this power, I was stillcking inparison with its full might. It was akin to the difference between an ant and a massive dragon; there was noparison at all.


    ¡°If I hadn¡¯t been able to ¡®Create a World,¡¯ I wouldn¡¯t even have the right to understand these things? What exactly is my System? Why does it have the ability to control Time and Space, as well as twist karma?¡±


    I faintly detected the foundational powers of my System for the first time, but I didn¡¯t dare think any deeper about it.


    [Do you see now? This is my power! That¡¯s why you bastard must respect me more! Hehehe! In front of me, a novice like you is still a fresh greenhorn. It¡¯d be fine, however, if you¡¯re willing to be my disciple. As long as you remain in your Princess Peach form and look at yourself in the mirror every day, I shall consider it. Yep, yep! What a great idea! Why don¡¯t you start with your favoritece-maid attire tomorrow? Oh! (high-pitched) hehe~ Oh~~~~~~~ Hehehehe~ Oh (high-pitched)~~~~~~~ Hehehehehehehe!]


    Just as I had started to respect it a little, everything vanished in bubbles together with my System¡¯s shamelessness and ssical ¡®female antagonist tripleugh.¡¯


    ¡°Ptui! Dream on! That¡¯ll never happen!¡±


    However, the mechanical notification sound of messages appearing before me didn¡¯t give me any time to think of this for any longer.


    [Quest¡¯s First Goal: Eliminate the danger of the East Mist Communal Country being annexed or forced into bing a subordinate country. Calcting results...]


    [Originally, there were five countries that had ambitions regarding the East Mist. Ranking from highest threat level to lowest, they were: Sleuweir Kingdom, the surface beastmen led by the Bloodaxe Tribe, the Tassel Elf Kingdom, Kasn Kingdom, and And Empire.]


    [These five factions no longer have the ability or ambition to annex or suppress East Mist. This Quest Requirement has beenpleted with a rating of ¡®Excellent.¡¯ You have been rewarded with 100,000 Fate Points and the Epic-ranked material Unyielding Jade. System Reminder: Tsk! You¡¯re just a lucky blind cat that managed to catch a dead mouse.]


    Alright then. This was a pitfall as well. The And Empire, which everyone considered the biggest threat, was actually the smallest threat, while the biggest threat was, in fact, the Sleuweir Kingdom. Yet thinking about it a little helped me understand. When talking about motives, the Sleuweir Kingdom had the same culture and species and hence had the most reason to invade. After all, any slightly ambitious ruler would want toplete the major achievement of reuniting the People of the Mist, which would definitely be an de left behind in the annals of history.


    Perhaps Sleuweir had always been waiting for East Mist to weaken even further while secretly hoping to benefit. It was likely that if the And Empire had seeded in forcibly suppressing East Mist, the first reaction or military invasion would have been from Sleuweir.


    As for the beastmen on the surface and the Tassel Kingdom? Their actions already proved their ambitions towards East Mist and even the entire Nortnds¡ªthey had both taken military action... As for the Kasn Kingdom¡ªfine, the San Antonio Empire¡ªso you didn¡¯t have any good intentions, either. Perhaps their target was the entire Nortnds, and they already sent out their chess piece, Kasn.


    Inparison, the end result was naturally that the And Empire was the least threatening. They only wanted East Mist to be subordinate to them, and even if they were finally prepared to annex us, it would probably be an entire centuryter. I understood everything. Yep, the System was definitely the wisest, as nothing could escape its eyes.


    ¡°Wise!? I understood everything, the hell! Just how bored are you? You actually pretended to be my own mental narration! Also, what¡¯s with your reminder about how ¡®even Darsos is insignificant?¡¯ Was that supposed to be a hint of how I had enemies much harder to deal with than Darsos? Do you dare make me suffer any more than this? How can anyone guess at such a roundabout hint, one with more than ten twists?¡±


    [Tsk!]


    ¡°What are you tsking for? Are you that unhappy if I¡¯m not suffering? Are you that unhappy that you didn¡¯t get to turn me into a girl? Is there any other System out there like you that¡¯s always trying to think of ways to make its host suffer? Just look at all the other Systems in other stories, with protagonists learning martial arts at the age of two, business and economics at three, how to start a harem at four, bing a noble at five...¡±


    Alright, I was just making up things about other stories¡¯ protagonists without any proper references, but I had suffered far too much. And it was impossible for me to get any revenge upon my System, so at the very least I had toin a little in order to vent.


    Yet, while saying all this, I wiped away some cold sweat. This System was far too insidious. If I had believed that only taking care of And was enough, then I probably would have received zero rewards in the end, as thepletion rate wouldn¡¯t have passed even 20%.


    [No, you can take revenge on me. As long as you go listen to Gria¡¯s concerts every single day, or enjoy what the Gentlemen Alliance members¡¯ personal lives are like, such as going to visit Omar¡¯s exercise gyms, you can definitely have your revenge.]


    ¡°Do you really think I¡¯m that much of an idiot? That I would listen to your advice which would kill us both? No, wait¡ªat that time, you just have to shut off all your senses while I¡¯ll definitely die by myself!¡±


    [Quest¡¯s Second Goal: Help the Nortnd¡¯s ruler, the Winterwolf Country of Far North, return to power: the Sleuweir Kingdom, East Mist Communal Country, and Sharal Autonomous Region have all joined and be important parts of the newly born Mist Alliance, this represents the rebirth of the Winterwolf Country, and calctions can begin.]


    Alright then, I opened my mouth wide agape in surprise but didn¡¯t say anything in the end. Wasn¡¯t it basically just a word game by my System? From the very start, this Quest included all the Descendants of the Mist, including the Sleuweir Kingdom. If I had only focused on East Mist, I would have received a 50%pletion rate at most, no, perhaps even 33%.


    The most insidious of all was that the System hadid a trap for me known as the Sharal Autonomous Region. These half-bloods indeed had half of their bloodline from the People of the Mist. It seemed that they counted as People of the Mist as well, and tossing them aside and not caring about them wouldn¡¯t have been good.


    ¡°Just continue digging pitfalls for me. Sooner orter, they¡¯ll get so ridiculous that you won¡¯t know how to write this story anymore. Wouldn¡¯t that be quite fun for you?¡±


    I didn¡¯t know what my System would think of my fourth wall-breaking retort, but I then heard the icy cold sound of my System reporting next to my ears.


    [Analysis on the Mist Allianceplete. The Mist Alliance is currentlyposed of six core countries. Analyzing its future prospects for development... Potential future alliance members include: (You can use these as rmendations for strategic development)]


    [The beastmen from the teau. After the Underground beastmen finish their assimtion of the beastmen from the teaus, and as long as you can suppress the influence of the beastmen from the ins on them, the likelihood will increase. And based on current projections, as long as there¡¯s a sufficient amount of diplomacy, trade, and resources invested into them, the likelihood of this area joining the Mist Alliance is projected to be above 70% within the next twenty years.]


    [The Underground World Union: This faction¡¯s overall power is greater than the current Mist Alliance. Slowing down the process of them joining the Mist Alliance was a correct decision. Also, the Underground World Union has an overlyplex internal structure, and will require a long and slow process of reorganization and rule before integration. You can consider having Sulfur Mountain City, ck Iron City, and other such Underground Cities that are particrly friendly towards the surface to join first. Based on current projections, the likelihood for this area to join the Mist Alliance is projected to be above 90% within the next fifty years. I rmend that you take extra steps to ensure the smoothness of this transition.]


    [The other three Nortnds elven kingdoms: The Tassel Elf Kingdom no longer exists, while the other three kingdoms are currently in chaos. They are afraid of revenge from the humans, and they hate the Elven Gods even more for going back on their words and deceiving them. From all the possible choices, if you use Elf Queen Suana as your envoy and voluntarily reach out in friendship to them while simultaneously suppressing the enmity from non-northern elf kingdoms and the Elven Gods, they are highly likely to join the Nortnds¡¯rgest faction¡ªthe Mist Alliance. System Reminder: They no longer have an environment where they are able to take care of themselves. Food, water, clothing and other such resources for them all depend on other countries now, and joining the Mist Alliance is a must for them to survive. You understand... If you treat them too badly, you¡¯ll be stricken by thunder. With your typical shameless and limitless behavior, this area is projected to have a likelihood of joining at over 80%. The time that it joins the Mist Alliance is limited only by human factors (I¡¯m talking about how shameless you are), so it is impossible to calcte a time projection.]


    Just how was I supposed to retort? It kept telling on one hand me not to treat them too badly and to stop being so shameless, while on the other hand it was strongly rmending me to take advantage of their weakness to force them to join the Mist Alliance. Was this supposed to be a legendary example of a tsundere that couldn¡¯t speak what she was thinking? I was so confused.


    [The seven countries of the Nortnds: Sleuweir Kingdom, East Mist Communal Country, and Rhodes Kingdom are all part of the Mist Alliance now. The Kasn Kingdom is aplete subordinate country of the San Antonio Empire, and there is a lower than 1% chance of the Kasn Kingdom joining the Mist Alliance, unless San Antonio copses. The possibility of the Fengqi Kingdom and the Suya Kingdom joining the Mist Alliance will depend on the rate of the Mist Alliance¡¯s growth and power, what benefits you offer to them, and many other factors. It is impossible to calcte the likelihood that they will join.]


    [Based on the currentposition of the Mist Alliance and probable future developments, calcting your Fate Point rewards...]


    A screen with unknown purposes kept showing me various numbers, such as ¡°Religion: Unified Church, +12,¡± ¡°New military technology improvements, +7¡± and so on. These mysterious numbers kept umting, and when the numbers finally settled down, the final answer was ready.


    Everything that the System was calcting was about the future¡ªthe future that was the most likely to ur due to all the rtionships of karma. However, even the current Mist Alliance was no longer a tiny country that could easily be crushed by others.


    Our victorious battles and the fact that the changes here were evident were known to everyone, and the current East Mist of the Nortnds was already being viewed as a miraclend by humanity. This ce was the origin of many new technologies, a new political system, a new way of living, and was where a new Order God gained power.


    In this poor and frigidnd, religion, culture, politics, and technology beganbining and influencing each other. The teachings of Wumianzhe presented the possibility of many species and cultures living together. This unique species makeup and cultural atmosphere helped create new technologies and revolutionize society. And the birth of these technologies would be reflected in military and political affairs as well. Nobody would be able to predict the final product when all these factors mixed together in a chain reaction, but what people knew was that it had already attracted the attention of the entire world. Every day, countless visitors from other countries woulde here to learn from us, and this poor and frigidnd was now destined to no longer be as isted and lonely as it was in the past.


    Most importantly, the main headquarters of Wumianzhe¡¯s Church of Law was stationed here, and the teachings of Law had already begun to spread and slowly change the way of living in this entire area. The teachings of the Holy Light had met its strongest challenger ever. This perhaps would take much time still, but it was capable of changing everything at its very foundations.


    I felt many things as I watched these numbers continually increase. All along the way, bitter, difficult, and unfortunate events had been countless in number. Suffering was a part of my daily life, and the times I had made others suffer was something uncountable as well, and I seemed to have dug plenty of traps, deceived, stolen, and scammed¡ªcough¡ªno matter what, after all these difficulties, I was more than halfway to my overall goal.


    At the current moment, the Holy Church¡¯s reputation had sessfully taken a huge blow, while the Law job ss members had received recognition from the entire world. I also had the newest technology for this new generation, and the Mist Kingdom had finally revived in a new form. The People of the Mist, which consisted of many cultures to begin with, now had new family members and cultural aspects, while we had a home of our own to fight for again.


    I was no longer alone...


    [Future Mist Alliance calctions: With Wumianzhe¡¯s Church of Law as the national church, this Mist Alliance, which consists of many member countries, has the potential to reach and surpass a mega-empire¡¯s strength. You havepleted all parts of the Quest with a rating of ¡®Perfect.¡¯ You are rewarded with an additional 100,000 Fate Points, along with the mystical artifact Emblem of the Winter Wolf, and the SemiGod Equipment, Bloodlust Contract, which is a one-time-use consumable item...]


    Although I had suffered quite greatly on the way, seeing these System Notifications, which were representations of my sess, made me feel rewarded for my efforts. I was truly happy. My efforts hadn¡¯t gone to waste.


    ¡°We finally have a home.¡±


    With this, all the difficulties and suffering I had gone through were worth it.

 Chapter 261

    Chapter 261: Silver Coin Squad


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Silver Coin Squad! Report!¡±


    The gathering here of my new expedition squad was our final preparation before leaving.


    ¡°Knight Number One, present!¡±


    Knight Number One was a gray elf Law Knight, who wasn¡¯t wearing heavy and solid metallic armor; instead, the elf was d in leather armor made from a SemiGod-ranked hydra¡¯s skin. This was far more precious and of more excellent quality than any metallic armor, especially since this SemiGod-level hydra¡¯s skin was something rare and definitely couldn¡¯t be purchased anywhere.


    This lighter armor made an excellent pair with any elven warrior. It wouldn¡¯t restrict an elf¡¯s natural dexterity, and its defensive ability against all sorts of slicing and piercing was even stronger than the hardest metal armor.


    Its excellent magic resistance properties also far surpassed the element of mercury that was nicknamed as the ¡°King of All Magical Metals.¡± However, I had to be sparing in its usage; if it weren¡¯t for the fact that SemiGod hydra skin was too difficult to obtain, I would have loved to give such equipment to all of my elite warriors, but...


    ¡°Leader, can I wipe off the ck dust? Such excellent equipment looks like a secondhand equipment that costs only fifteen silver coins. It was so difficult for me to take it from Momo...¡±


    Yep, the gray elf before me wasn¡¯t that Momo, whocked any moral integrity. For the sake of my chastity¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªfor the sake of my authority as the squad leader, I ignored that ¡°Mad Dog,¡± who had strongly requested to go along with me. I had also ignored herment about how ¡°Momo only wore this for a few days, don¡¯t steal Momo¡¯s treasure! Ah! Stinky Sister Yawen, don¡¯t put it on! Your thick legs and all the fat on your chest will break her.¡± I chose Captain Yawen, who had just finished the moonlight ritual.


    And this wasn¡¯t only due to my bias. Since both Yawen and Momo were Law Knights, Yawen, who was at the peak of Gold rank, was not only more reliable in power level, but her tremendous Dragonying Sword, which she was able to use so easily, was definitely a top-level weapon at least of the Legend or Epic rank. When her armor¡¯s defense, magic resistance, and natural magic resistance were all taken into ount, she had high DPS as well a high tanking ability. Her only weakness was her somewhat slow speed. Her mind, which had once been swaddled in thoughts about the Holy Light, was both trustworthy and honest. If necessary, she would be my perfect cannon fodder to cover my escape¡ªcough¡ªI meant meat shield.


    ¡°Since everybody trusts me and the two Highnesses gave the important task of managing Town Security to me, as the captain of Town Security, how can I possibly let myself be limited by the sunlight? Most importantly, forget about being captain but how can I let myself lose to Momo? I will ept the moonlight ritual to be a gray elf that doesn¡¯t fear the sunlight.¡±


    Yawen gritted her teeth and epted the moonlight ritual, bing the representative of a batch of new gray elves within Town Security. The celebratory fact was that after Lorci¡¯s death, the moonlight ritual no longer had so many religious elements to it, greatly decreasing in both risk and pain. After this news spread, many normal dark elves also underwent the moonlight ritual in order to live life on the surface without fear of sunlight.


    ¡°It seems that the Moonlight Goddess has a good temper. She didn¡¯t even mind the fact that she got so many false believers. This ritual even takes up a significant amount of her divine power. Does she intend to fight for the Divine Obligation of Salvation? That would mean she¡¯s dering war against one of the God of Holy Light¡¯s Follower Gods.¡±


    All that stuff aside, Momo¡¯s greatest advantage was gone after Yawen became a gray elf as well. Yep, I definitely didn¡¯t choose someone so honest and easy to bully like Yawen because Momo was too difficult to deal with.


    As for the side effects of taking the Town Security head captain with me... hehe, the weather sure was nice today, wasn¡¯t it?


    ¡°Number 2! Cohen! Knight... Magical warrior!¡±


    I nced over at him, causing this pitiful acolyte to immediately turn away. Perhaps, in front of us, he was still nothing more than someone to vent on, but this young knight was already a major and popr personage in Diffindor. His seemingly divine talent in magic helped him gain fame, and as my knight retainer and a good friend of the great engineer Timmy Lade, this young knight, who came from a farmer¡¯s family, had entered the higher-ups of this city. He did not win others¡¯ trust with his status but with his honesty and friendliness.


    Perhaps the only iprehensible part was that even though he mysteriously managed to enter the Silver rank as a mage, he still hadn¡¯t progressed any bit whatsoever as a knight. Not to mention that he always emphasized his status as a retainer knight, but it would only take the mention of one thing before everyone understood.


    ¡°Oh, he¡¯s His Highness Rnd¡¯s disciple? No wonder.¡±


    ¡°What the hell! Is there no normal person around me...?¡±


    When I first heard about how everyone thought, I had be incredibly angry and immediately tried to counter it. But the more I tried countering, the tinier my voice got. After all, I tried recalling the best I could, and with all the names I remembered, such as Adam, Amelia, Reyne, Glina, and so on, it really didn¡¯t seem like there was a single person who could be termed as normal. I lost my confidence.


    ¡°Hmph! It¡¯s definitely not my fault. It¡¯s the fault of that King of All Gentlemen title.¡±


    [I think that it¡¯s simply that birds of a feather flock together. Did you meet many normal people even before you had this title?]


    I didn¡¯t even know how I should respond to my System¡¯s retort; it had hit me in such a weak spot. It really seemed like that was the case, as Cohen and Yawen were the few rtively normal individuals out of everyone I knew. Although a dark elf that loved the light and a magical genius who was obsessed about bing a knight were slightly strange [Slightly?], they were still mostly normal.


    By now, all of you probably understand my standards for choosing mypanions for this expedition. That¡¯s right: normal people! I had enough of gentlemen as well as incurable chuunibyous! This time, I did my best to pick as many normal people as possible to apany me and average out the Beifengness of this team!


    [If you want to reduce the Beifengness of your team, kick yourself out of it. That¡¯s a better solution than anything.]


    ¡°Shut up!¡±


    [If you keep treating me like this, do you believe that I can level you up to the God of all Gentlemen, and multiply your ability to attract gentlemen by ten times?]


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªthe weather sure was nice today. Let us return to the main topic at hand.


    With Harloys teaching him, Cohen¡¯s studies in magic progressed at an astonishing pace. He already had his own unique understanding of being a Four Elemental Swordcaster and had developed numerous unique sword seals and magic sword techniques of his own, well surpassing what he was taught. Even though he was clearly still a novice Silver rank, he already had magic sword techniques surpassing the Gold rank or higher.


    As for melee sword techniques andbat prowess? After being taught by several dedicated Sword Saint level instructors, he had probably progressed from ¡°someone who would be sliced half to death while being chased by a skeleton soldier¡± to ¡°someone who would chase a skeleton soldier and fatigue himself to death.¡± Well, fine then. There was at least some progress. But since skeleton soldiers were basically at the same level as a farmer, his progress in this area was practically ignorable.


    ¡°You bastard! I¡¯ve never seen a swordsman as idiotic as you. With so many Sword Saints teaching you, even a gnome would have evolved into a gnome swordmaster. You can¡¯t even remember the basic correct holding grip for a sword! As expected of Rnd¡¯s disciple. There¡¯s such a nice path for you already, but you don¡¯t want to take it, intentionally making things difficult for yourself.¡±


    Alright then. If you ignored thest part there, Adam¡¯s angry scolding was quite reasonable. Still, I was able to understand what young Cohen desired. Back in the day, I had understood everything about sword techniques instantly yet always found myself wanting to fall asleep when reading textbooks about magic, and I was still unsatisfied with being a meleebat ss.


    ¡°Back in the day, when I was unwilling to be a meleebat ss, it was mainly because I felt that all melee sses were cannon fodder, while mages were cool and powerful. As for why Cohen is so resolute about bing a knight, it¡¯s probably because a knight, to him, represents protection and honor.¡±


    Although I could understand, a normal human¡¯s growth period in the Gold rank typically onlysted for a few years. With Cohen¡¯s outstanding talent in magic, it would be a pity if he wasted it.


    ¡°Coming out this time is probably a good chance to gain some practicalbat experience that¡¯ll be good for him. If you¡¯re still incapable of bing a swordsman through this, then obediently be a mage. What¡¯s perfect is that we¡¯re probably going to visit the Mage Country on this trip as well. I can give you a rmendation to the Cloud Tower for you to immediately go and cultivate there.¡±


    As I looked at the young Cohen who had a sad face, I felt like I was looking at a past version of myself. I patted him on the head and then flicked him forcefully as a way of encouraging him. I then focused my attention on the next teammate of mine, who had joined me of their own volition and was someone who I was unable to refuse.


    ¡°In that case, I¡¯m Number Three? As for my job ss... Dragon Queen? Oh, how about a ranger? My swordsmanship is alright.¡±


    The ck-haired beautiful woman was wearing exquisite silver chainmail along with a mercury rapier that was far more decorative than practical. She was just going along because she could conveniently deal with Molly¡¯s request for help, and as for her Dragon City...


    ¡°Hehe, the weather sure is nice today.¡±


    Yep, although today was filled with dark clouds, thunder and hail, the weather sure was nice. It seemed that dragons had an excellent understanding of the weather as well; she had an identical opinion as mine from earlier.


    ¡°You haven¡¯t even been Dragon Queen for all that long yet. Aren¡¯t you afraid that your bastard subordinates will rebel if you leave?¡±


    ¡°In the Underground World, we¡¯re thergest faction already. If they rebel, who would they join? Wouldn¡¯t they be afraid of our revenge? Besides, as long as they have the ability and courage to rebel, who cares? It¡¯s so boring being Dragon Queen. I can¡¯t do this, I can¡¯t do that, and I have to stay at the Dragon City. It¡¯s even more boring than being in Sulfur Mountain City back in the day. It¡¯s basically like being in jail; who would want to do that? Now that I¡¯m outside, I¡¯m going to drink¡ªer¡ªy as much as I want.¡±


    Should I say that this was as expected of Little Red? This status of being the Dragon Queen that Molly viewed as her own lifeblood was nothing more than chains binding Little Red down. Now that she had escaped after seizing the chance, Dragon City was probably in chaos.


    But it was a good thing for me if she came along. After all, we weren¡¯t exactly going out on an adventure, and it was important to have a trump card that could turn the situation around at a critical time. Originally, I had wanted Adam or Margaret toe along, but those two obviously knew that I was looking for people to do some work, so right as I was preparing for this expedition they had vanished, nowhere to be found.


    ¡°Hmph, it¡¯s fine if they don¡¯te as well. Otherwise, I¡¯d only see shes of light every day. Number Four, who¡¯s Number Four... Oh.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, why do you suddenly sound so dejected? Did I do something impolite?¡±


    The person before me who was acting so ¡°honest and surprised¡± was the Legend-ranked archdruid Eaglestorm. I could only helplessly take him along; it was fine for an adventuring party tock mages or warriors, but it would be nothing more than suicidal to be without a single healer.


    After all, nobody could be certain that they would never be injured, poisoned, cursed, or ambushed. Yet because of our current rtionship with the Holy Church, it would be quite difficult to find a high-level Holy Priest to heal us.


    Although the Church of Law¡¯s job sses were capable fighters, they didck healing capabilities. All the Holy Light job sses among the Town Security were dark elves, so it wasn¡¯t convenient for them toe along. And, so, I could only helplessly choose the only backup option¡ªthe representative of the generalist school, the druids, who were capable of attacking, defending, healing, and casting magic but mediocre at all.


    ¡°Number Five, Krose. Your Highness, I shall work my hardest!¡±


    The Judgementor and the windstorm druid Krose came along as well. Wasn¡¯t there a certain saying? Druids, Holy Knights, and shamans all counted as only half a priest each. Since Eaglestorm by himself would obviously be unreliable, I might as well take a few extra people with me.


    ¡°Yep, I took two with me since druids can only count as half a priest each. They¡¯re both Legends, even if one is a transformation specialist and the other is a windstorm specialist. They should at least count as one priest if I add them together. I hope...


    But the moment I saw how Krose was holding on to two books titled ¡°Introduction to Emergency Treatment: Teaching You How to Tie Bandages in Three Minutes ¡± as well as ¡± A Guide to Herbal Medicine That Even a Monkey Can Learn¡± along with the fact that Eaglestorm had various healing books attached to his waist (all beginning-level), my eyes began twitching. It would appear that I had been expecting too much out of them.


    ¡°There¡¯s no helping it. If ites to it, I¡¯ll do the healing personally. Yep, since I¡¯m a melee specialist Holy Knight, that makes it three healers; we should at least count for 1.5 priests.¡±


    A ridiculously high-level draconic ranger, a genius magical swordsman who basically had almost Gold-rankbat strength, and a Law Knight who could kill and defeat any Legend rank with her racial talent and equipment alone. This was such reliable frontline strength. But, the moment we got to our rear, things instantly seemed much more unreliable.


    Yawen and Cohen nervously nced at these extravagant ¡°Legend-ranked healers.¡± In the end, they decided against saying ¡°druids are only half a priest when they¡¯re specialists in life magic¡± and unhesitatingly decided to remain uninjured as much as possible.


    As for Little Red, she yawned and immediately began napping. Humans¡¯ normal level of healing wasn¡¯t going to be of much use to her to begin with. Any cardinal-level Holy Light priest would probably run out of mana while attempting to heal her at an extent that wouldn¡¯t even reach her natural recovery rate while sleeping.


    ¡°Me, me, there¡¯s also me! I¡¯m a Saint-ranked Beast Tamer. I¡¯m Number Six, aren¡¯t I? Yep, what a lucky number. I¡¯m so fortunate.¡±


    That bastard didn¡¯t pay any attention to the fact that I was doing my best to ignore him; he even did his best to make his presence known. If I had any other choices, I wouldn¡¯t have chosen him.


    But the problem was that for an expeditionary squad like ours, the abilities of a veteran beast tamer were far too useful. Scouting in the wild, tracking, prematurely sensing danger, checking for traps, and so on. With a veteran hunter like him on our team, we would be able to make much easier progress outside in foreign environments. After all, our ranger was a non-specialist in ranger techniques who only relied on overwhelming base stats (a certain dragon: hmph.) So, it was practically an absolute requirement for Beifeng to be brought along. Especially because of his beast tamer ss¡¯s ability to control and detect beasts, which would be a huge help to my goal.


    ¡°You¡¯re forbidden from giving me any trouble, and you¡¯re banned from spreading your mysterious teachings about true love and mental pollution everywhere. You¡¯re also barred from doing anything disgusting in front of me...¡±


    Beifeng kept nodding, but I gave up when I was only halfway through. No matter how good his promises sounded, he would instantly forget them the moment he met some new ¡°true love.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll be Number Seven, then. Yep, I¡¯m the Holy Knight... I meant ice and snow archmage!¡±


    I proudly rubbed my snow-white long archmage robes. It wasn¡¯t easy for me to have such a chance to show off, after all. For so long, I had been a meleebat ss, but now I finally got to be in the rear.


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t easy, being a Holy Knight for so many years. I can finally change my identity. Hmph! From today onwards, please call me archmage Rodrey Vincent... what did I write on my fake ID again? Forget it, it¡¯s too hard to remember if the name is too long. Just call me Rolo.¡±


    I made some fancy movements with my staff and pretended as if I was a physically weak mage who required his staff in order to walk. However, I identally used too much force with my staff, causing arge piece of the ground to crack and rock shards to fly everywhere.


    ¡°It looks like using top-notch metal to make a mage staff isn¡¯t such a good idea, though I think this will make for an excellent weapon. Yep, whenever some stupid muscleheads rush too close to me, all I have to do is smack them with this. Just imagining it feels great.¡±


    ¡°...Should I start myments with the mage who can¡¯t even remember his own name he gave himself? With your Intelligence, you might as well just go be a warrior. Or should I bementing on your mage staff that even an ogre wouldn¡¯t have enough Strength to pick up? Are you simply intending on winning your battles by beating the enemy warriors to death with your mage staff? Or, should I begin bymenting on your little squad¡¯s name? Just who was yournguage teacher?¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s retorts were getting sharper and sharper. It seemed that she had been getting much practice recently.


    ¡°You¡¯re alreadymenting! Besides, what¡¯s wrong with naming us the Silver Coin Squad?¡±


    ¡°What about the squad¡¯s full name?¡±


    ¡°The Silver Coin and Handsome Man¡¯s Mystical Adventuring Squad. It sounds pretty good to me?¡±


    ¡°Back in the day, your adventuring team was called ¡®Gold and Beautiful Women Adventuring Squad,¡¯ which I won¡¯tment on anymore. After all, you were the team leader, and you said the more mundane a team name was, the easier it would be for people to remember. ¡®Don¡¯t all adventurers seek romance and money? This name will move so many people.¡¯ There were also quite a few females in our team, and we were all happy to be praised as beautiful women, so we were fooled by you due to ourck of experience. But do you know just what happened when we told others about our team name? Theyughed so hard that they even dropped their weapons they were holding on to. That was the biggest humiliation of my life.¡±


    Since even Little Red wasining so much, it would appear that she had quite a lot of grievances.


    ¡°After a while, apart from you, who else would call our adventuring team by its real name? In the end, all of our personal reputations far exceeded that of our team¡¯s reputation. Just a while ago, an idiot even asked me about the name of our adventuring team in the past, wanting to learn information about our adventures before. I sent that idiot flying with a single p. Everyone else thought that I had a bad temper, but the real reason is your ridiculous naming sense. Is such a name something I can say out loud? I still want my reputation to remain intact.¡±


    Little Red continued with herints, while a certain silly catughed continuously as she listened and even worked hard at adding fuel to the fire.


    ¡°But now take a look at the team names. From ¡®Gold and Beautiful Women,¡¯ all you did was turn Gold into Silver and change Beautiful Women into Handsome Man? Your naming ability probably reaches a heavenly scale.¡±


    I fell silent, but that silly cat still didn¡¯t know what was good for her as she continued making me angry.


    ¡°Handsome Man Squad? As expected of a name from you. Could it be that you want to be called the Handsome Squad Leader? Hahaha, your Princess Peach form must have given you a lot of pressure. Do you want to be called handsome that badly?¡±


    I was so angry that my veins were bulging as I grit my teeth andmanded that silly cat with our magical pet contract.


    ¡°Now I know what our team iscking. It would seem that we¡¯re missing a cannon fodder thief ss whose profession is to step on all the traps for us in order to disarm them. Yep, the best choice for a thief is a cat person ss. Number Eight, Harloys,e. As the squad leader, I¡¯ve even prepared a thief outfit for you. Why don¡¯t you put it on?¡±


    ¡°Wait a moment, did you just say cannon fodder? Also, what are these? Cat ears and a cat tail? Just where is the tail supposed to be inserted? And there¡¯s actually such a pink armor? Ahh, you pervert! Why do you have such things with you!¡±


    ¡°They were leftovers from our spies¡¯ investigation into the Beastman tribes. Harloys, don¡¯t even think about changing the topic or escaping. Obediently put this on for me!¡±


    ¡°...Could it be that you were using them? You¡¯re such a huge pervert! Don¡¯t even think about it!¡±

 Chapter 262

    Chapter 262: Famous Detective Rnd


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°There¡¯s only one truth! [1] You¡¯re the one who murdered Jack! Rosie, his newlywed wife!¡±


    I shouted as I pointed at the short woman who was currently sobbing in an auntie¡¯s arms. All the other vigers in the room had expressions filled with shock and disbelief. In their minds, these newlyweds had just gotten married and were really close, with an excellent rtionship.


    Jack had been suddenly murdered, and Rosie had been the saddest. She had already fainted several times from crying too much; how could she possibly be the one to have done such a thing?


    ¡°The evidence is in how Jack died. The knife wounds on his neck aren¡¯t what really killed him, nor are the bruising handprints on his neck responsible. The pale color of his face is the critical factor. He was poisoned to death! Those handprints and bruises on his neck were simply caused by himself in his instinctive desire to try and breathe. The wide-open window and missing valuable ne are just red herrings meant to disguise this case as the work of a thief. As for evidence? The evidence is this half a bottle of poison that I discovered in your backyard! Rosie, do you dare to show me all the kitchen utensils in your home? There are definitely still some traces of poison left on them. Don¡¯t tell me you broke all the dishes!¡±


    Obviously, my logical reasoning for this deduction wasn¡¯t exactly airtight, but Rosie wasn¡¯t exactly a well-educateddy from a rich family. She was only a vige girl who had never seen the world before. When I suddenly roared at her and shook a bottle of medicine¡ªnot poison¡ªbefore her eyes, she instantly panicked and revealed everything.


    ¡°...I didn¡¯t do it on purpose! I was just trying to scare him. It¡¯s his fault for taking my dowry and gambling it all away; we have no more money left at all for even food... Wahhh! Who knew that rat poison would be strong enough to kill him?¡±


    Alright then. This Jack fellow¡¯s reason for death was now clear. He had actually been poisoned to death by amon killer: rat poison.


    ¡°And even if he lost my entire dowry through gambling, that would have been fine, but he¡ªhe even cheated on me, and he had an affair with Carr from the neighboring jewelry store! Hahaha! Jack actually cheated on me with Carr for three years, and married me only to conceal his preferences! That¡¯s why I made Jack unable to see him for forevermore!¡±


    Alright, it turned out that Carr was the name of another man. It would seem that this Jack fellow had rather unique preferences. I watched Rosie, who had beenughing and crying finish withughter out of extreme anger while gritting her teeth. Her smile was obviously an expression of one who had given up after cracking from too much mental pressure. While I sighed at how much information I just received, I had other things to exim about as well.


    ¡°It would seem that to this Jack fellow, the same gender is true love, while love between the opposite sexes is only an instinct. How are you supposed to have true love if the genders are different...? See, the evidence is that this guy died within not even three months of having gotten married.¡±


    But, doing this much was enough since we were only outsiders here. The rest should be handled by the locals. However, since I was able toplete the quest to find the killer in such a short time, I was quite proud of my own effectiveness.


    ¡°Being able to marvelously solve the mystery in just two hours? From today onwards, please call me the famous detective Rolo!¡±


    ¡°...You need to say all that? Everyone knew that she was the murderer. You were the only one wasting time, looking for evidence everywhere and having so much fun.¡±


    Alright then, on a nearby wooden table, there was a small cat thief who had a dissatisfied expression as she repeatedly touched the fake cat ears attached to her head. That tan cat tail attached to her was also listlessly limp. It would seem that Harloys, who had newly entered the thief job ss, was quite displeased with her new identity and ¡°equipment.¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t wasting time at all! I watched several hundred episodes of Detective Conan and Kindaichi Case Files [2] before, and I understand more than two thousand ways to kill people and the motives for doing so. How could people like you see through such mysteries so easily? Hmph! Fools.¡±


    ¡°...You seem to have forgotten that I was the one who taught you undead magic, and the deceased¡¯s grudge was all around that woman. Without even needing to use soul summoning magic, anyone can discover that the remnant of his soul was still in the room, continuously screaming. It was so easy to deduce. Remember to do an exorcismter; otherwise, he might turn into a grudge-bearing ghost.¡±


    She could do all that? I was so astonished that I opened my mouth wide agape, as I had forgotten entirely about such spells. It would seem like it wasn¡¯t so easy to be a detective in a magical world, after all. Any undead mage would definitely be an amazing detective, and there would be muchpetition. However, the others were attacking my confidence as a famous detective as well.


    ¡°...There was the scent of poisoning from the deceased¡¯s mouth, and the same scent was on that woman¡¯s hands. The scent was quite fresh; it was probably only two hours old.¡±


    The wryly smiling archdruid rubbed his nose, but I could detect his pride in himself underneath that seemingly casual expression of his. As a transformation magic specialist druid, anything like a bear¡¯s strength, a cougar¡¯s speed, or a dog¡¯s nose was child¡¯s y to him. What he yed with was instead a SemiDragon¡¯s strength, a griffin¡¯s speed, and a phantom wolf¡¯s sense of smell. It would be a simple matter for him to whiff such a low-level poison in just one minute.


    And when I looked towards Krose, who seemed so eager... I turned around again without saying a single word. Of course, I knew that since she was a judging specialist Judgementor as well as a high-ranked priest of Law, criminals would be unable to hide from her. She probably wouldn¡¯t even need to use any Divine Arts to detect lies; just a simple judging spell would take care of everything.


    ¡°Your Highness, Little Feather told me that he saw the entire process of that woman poisoning her husband. He and his wives severely condone such vicious behavior.¡±


    I should mention that Little Feather was a sparrow that Beifeng had met here. Were even sparrows able to have harems in this day and age? There must be something really deceiving about Beifeng¡¯s honest-seeming smile. But, from my understanding, probably only Yawen and Cohen in my little Silver Coin Squad didn¡¯t realize the truth of the incident. After all, they were low-intelligence useless cannon fodder¡ªer¡ªI meant meleebat sses.


    ¡°...You think that anyone would be able to lie in front of a True Dragon?¡± Little Red spread salt on my wounds ever so casually.


    ¡°Your Highness, our normal training involves doing simple investigative work like this as well. We dark elves have a high amount of knowledge regarding poisons. It was quite clear the moment I saw that corpse.¡±


    Yawen seemed to find her words quite awkward as she saw how I was obviously bing depressed, but she was too honest to know how to use white lies to make me feel better.


    My little disciple Cohen didn¡¯t say anything; instead, he was continuously nodding in agreement with my deduction. But as a poor farmer¡¯s boy who was an abnormal knight possessing an Intelligence value over twice that of his Strength, he had instantly discovered the remaining half a bottle of poison the moment he had walked in the door and found all the clues.


    But, he wanted to give his teacher face. Yet, for me, his ridiculously overboard expression of agreement as well as way too much nodding was the worst method of spreading salt on my wound of all. It made me even more embarrassed.


    ¡°Magic is so annoying! Only the wicked would flip to the end of a detective novel to find who the culprit is! Famous detectives never need to rely on magic! We only need acute observational ability and imagination. Can¡¯t you just use various little pieces of evidence and clues to conduct logical deductions that slowly force the culprit into a corner?¡±


    Everyone had confused expressions that seemed to say, ¡°There¡¯s already magic that does all that, so why go to all the trouble?¡± This made me even more embarrassed, as it turned out that all of my deductions had been unnecessary to begin with. And, so, my desire to cry turned into reality.


    ¡°...I hate this world that¡¯spletely unscientific! How are famous detectives supposed to live here!? You wicked people who go online to look for the culprit when ying detective games!¡±


    Old Bob, who was the mayor of this little town, was finally able to rest assured as he watched the vigers taking Rosie away. No matter how chaotic things had been, this incredibly rare act of murder in Buja Town had now been solved, which was a good thing. As for the mage leader of this little squad who was currently drawing circles on the wall... cough, Bob knew that people in the mage job ss were a little peculiar. He decided to write this off as some sort of strange method of celebration, and he wisely pretended to not see anything.


    ¡°Amitabha! This humble monk is journeying to the west in order to request Buddhist scriptures. These are my three disciples and my steed. This dragon here is a ck dragon horse who just learned how to walk and is in a rebellious phase, not wanting anyone to ride her. The dark elf here is my third disciple, the Sand Monk, while the hook-nosed beefy man is my pig-transforming Zhu Bajie. My first disciple is... Harloys, do you know how to transform into a monkey? Hey, you actually bit me!¡± [3]


    Simply judging by his self-introduction, Mayor Bob felt that this venerated mage must have had his brain struck by meteors in the past. Bob didn¡¯t understand it one bit, and it didn¡¯t seem like the mage had been listening to him when Bob made his request. However, Bob knew that people shouldn¡¯t be judged by appearances. He believed in the rumor that the crazier a mage was, the more powerful they were. He had just requested the mage¡¯s squad to solve this case less than two hours ago, and they solved it already.


    It was already considered a huge event for there to be a murder in such a quiet small town. As the mayor, Bob had been under much pressure to solve the case, so he had requested help from some new adventurers in the area. However, this adventuring team seemed to consist of some strange members: there was a beastman, a dracon, an elf, a druid, and even humans. This motley crew seemed unreliable.


    But now, the solved case proved that they were reliable after all. The criminal had confessed, and all the evidence was found as well. It was now an irond case that he could tell the vigers about. He was quite happy with his own choice of choosing these adventurers, and kept thanking the team¡¯s members.


    When Rnd finally recovered from his depression, the fifteen silver coins earned from solving this case had already transformed into an abundant feast for tonight¡¯s dinner as well as two weeks¡¯ worth of travelers¡¯ inns¡¯ fees. Although this still wasn¡¯t considered much money, it was thergest amount of money they had received in the entire past month.


    Unlike stories told in epics and legends, real adventuring squads were just like this. This was especially all the more so in the rtively peaceful central ins. Ordinary adventurers spent most of their time helping this little boy find his family dog, or helping that little girl deliver a love letter¡ªtiny quests like these. Rather than calling them adventurers, they were more like a bunch of hired temporary workers.


    Some people became adventurers in order to have a stimting, adventurous career. However, the fact was that dragon-ying or demon hunting missions were quite rare, and also had high requirements of one¡¯s power level. The top-level adventuring squads that had the ability required to do such missions would also have to carefully consider the risk-reward ratio whenever they coincidentally came across such high-difficulty missions.


    The Lagraz Kingdom that we were currently in had been at peace for many years, so there was very little chaos within this country. At the very most, some gnomes appearing at the border would be considered the greatest threat, and even the Lagraz Royal Knights would fight with each other for the opportunity to gain some glory and military achievements. It was even worse for the adventurers in this kingdom, as any adventurers and mercenaries with even the slightest speck of ambition would consider going to other countries instead.


    Of course, in any area where there was nonstop warfare, that location¡¯s adventurers and mercenaries might even be stronger than the local armies. Those that fought monsters every day in order to grow stronger and even dared to ept missions to participate in war werepletely different from local adventurers. After all, there were quite a few examples of mercenary or adventurer leaders that had be real kings.


    Only relying on quest and mission rewards obviously wasn¡¯t enough, so most adventurers¡¯ ie still relied on victory loot. There were quite a few adventurers that even stole from or attacked those who hired them, which was why adventurers and mercenaries as a whole had somewhat bad reputations. This was all the more so for newly-born adventuring squads that didn¡¯t establish any reputation yet. Without any reputation, they would be considered untrustworthy.


    That was why most adventuring squads took careful steps to protect and improve their own reputations. Any slightly higher-level quests or missions would also have requirements of the adventuring squad¡¯s reputation and overall power level. Not just anyone would be able to ept such tasks.


    Old Bob chose the Silver Coin Squad that had basically zero reputation mostly because a murder case in a farming town like this was destined to be unprofitable to begin with; the amount of money the town could afford to pay was pitifully small. Large mercenary squads and veteran adventuring teams wouldn¡¯t even take a second look, which was why he tried hiring this squad of youngsters. He didn¡¯t expect that they instantly solved the case, which was a happy surprise for him.


    As for me, I had carefully selected this border town that was close to the Bardi Empire.


    One side of this city was walled off by mountains. The Elohim Mountains extended for several thousand kilometers, and every week people woulde out of the mountains in order to explore the world. Obviously, bing an adventurer to work for a living was an excellent andmon choice for a temporary job, which was why it was quite easy to get epted as an adventurer here. The officials here wouldn¡¯t possibly go through the trouble of entering the mountains to check your identities, and adventuring squads consisting of members from the same hometown were quitemon. However, there weren¡¯t many adventuring squads that would choose to stay for long in such a peaceful little town with very little profits to be earned.


    As for the Silver Coin Squad, the high number of people moving through this town meant that it would be easy to fake our identities. There were few permanent residents and management wasx, which would greatly decrease our troubles. We could train together here in this town and get used to each other, while also learning how to imitate the locals¡¯ ents. This would help us in doing what we needed in this surrounding area.


    As for me, I had an Epic Quest which required me to go to the Cloud Tower in the Mage Country to activate the next portion. I was supposed to talk to the Truth Overseer named Oslowen, which was obviously for something important. However, I didn¡¯t intend to go there immediately since there was one year given on the time limit to begin with. I wouldn¡¯t feel reassured unless I first went to the Bardi Empire to take a look at the Undead ne Dimensional Door that was rumored to exist. I was feeling quite anxious about it. In order to make more urate decisions, it was extremely necessary to disguise myself and somehow get into the Bardi Empire.


    Originally, I had intended to directly enter the Bardi Empire, but their ridiculously distorted and strict governmental control over all adventurers and mages would obviously be a huge problem. If we were surrounded by an Undead Emperor as well as the Bardi Empire¡¯s army and attack from all sides, it would be ¡®quite fun,¡¯ which was why I instead chose to enter from a neighboring country.


    The Lagraz Kingdom wasn¡¯t strong. However, its royalty was rted in blood to the Bardi Royalty, so it had a decent rtionship with their neighbor, the Bardi Empire. It wasmon for citizens from both countries to visit each other. Also, while this town we were in wasn¡¯t arge or flourishing one, it was very close to the main road leading to the Bardi Empire. Inns and tolls on the main road were too expensive, so there were many veteran travelers staying in this town who wanted to save money by resting somewhere slightly farther away.


    My idea was quite simple. Since there were often merchantsing to and fro, they would, of course, be hiring guards. When we met some rich Bardi merchant who had a sufficient amount of status, all we had to do was find an appropriate opportunity to disy enough power in front of him and have him be the cover to help us get into the Bardi Empire.


    The stronger a Dimensional Door was, therger it would be. The moment it was activated fully, there would be an incredibly obvious movement in the Elemental Tide. It would be impossible to conceal. I expected that I would be able toplete my preliminary scouting objectives simply by following some Bardi merchant around.


    ¡°But it¡¯s so boring just waiting. I¡¯ve already helped little Catherine next door find her missing cat six times already. Should I just give her Harloys in order to coax this foolish naughty child who keeps feeding her cat nothing but bones and lollipops?¡±


    Since the situation in the Nortnds was going well, and I currently wasn¡¯t pressed for time, I was actually quite enjoying these fun days that were just like a vacation.


    Of course, since our adventuring squad consisted of quite a motley arrangement of species, we spent far more money in town than we earned. The vigers here ended up seeing us as being led by a second-rate mage with too much money on his hands, together with his bodyguard (the buff and muscr Eaglestorm), his concubines (all the women), and pet cat (a certain Harloys who really loved to bite me) on a chuunibyou adventure. It waspletely understandable.


    Several weeks had passed, and Little Red had polished off every singlest barrel of alcohol in this entire town. We had been grinding every single avable quest in this little town, but still hadn¡¯t met upon an appropriate opportunity with a Bardi merchant yet. However, another person that we had arranged to meet with found me at this time.


    ¡°Lilith? You came here quicker than expected. Where¡¯s Amelia?¡±


    Note:


    1. The author really likes using this Detective Conan quote!


    2. They are both Japanese manga series.


    3. All of this is a long Journey to the West reference.

 Chapter 263

    Chapter 263: Dimensional Descent


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Originally named Fina Mn, Lilith Mn was a high-level member of the Blood Tribe as well as the main character of ¡°Sleeping Beauty.¡± Events in her past caused her to lose her trust in men and not feel safe around them, and she was now sexually interested in only women.


    Yet ever since our time in Sulfur Mountain City, she was my most trusted subordinate...fine, the main reason for this was that my other subordinates were too unreliable and unworthy of my trust.


    She would separate personal matters from work and would always keep her cool during incidents. Trusted by all herpanions, she possessed a great deal ofmon sense. This was most important¡ªthisst part alone made her stand far above a certain group of bastards.


    However, Amelia¡¯s appearance had exposed Lilith¡¯s true familial history and identity. This had led the higher-ups of the Church of Law to a standstill; they weren¡¯t sure whether she would leave because of this. Without her, things would be incredibly difficult, which would be a disaster.


    Luckily, she had made her choice known to everyone by silently continuing to work as needed. She had chosen to remain in the church.


    That was why we all were astonished when Amelia and her had suddenly left a few weeks ago. They had only left a short message with no clear exnation. Although we did possess the ability to keep in touch with each other, it was still quite a surprise for me to meet her here.


    ¡°Why are you here? Wasn¡¯t Amelia together with you? Where is she?¡±


    Lilith¡¯s face was quite pale as she shook her head. The blood seeping out from the corner of her mouth exined everything. Upon taking a closer look, it was evident that she was in a bad condition.


    ¡°Eh? You¡¯re injured? It appears quite serious?¡±


    Lilith¡¯s life had been changed by a secret forbidden spell. She was a special, one-of-a-kind Blood Tribe; basically, she was a type of true ancestor. Although she was quite young (for a Blood Tribe member), not only did she practically not have a fear of sunlight, but her power level was quite high as well. Vampires were also naturally talented at recovering from their injuries. That was why it was definite that she had received some serious injuries; she had even lost control of her blood, the most precious thing to any Blood Tribe member.


    ¡°Cough... I was a little injured, and didn¡¯t... suck any blood.¡±


    I instantly understood. Due to some certain preferences of hers, Lilith had always relied on certain women that she ¡°got along well¡± with as food sources, and had never attacked or killed anyone.


    As a Blood Tribe member who served the Church of Law, her morals were a little too proper and outstanding. Even if she was heavily injured, she had no intentions of attacking others to help herself recover. Although she had made it all the way here, her injuries must have only gotten worse; she was almost unable to control her instincts anymore. It seemed like her eyes were turning green as she looked at Yawen.


    Why was this picky eater only looking at Yawen? She had known Krose for many years already and obviously knew what Krose had been in the past, not to mention that Krose had been sent out with a task to do today. Harloys had a beautiful outer appearance, but her Blood Tribe instinct kept reminding her that there was definitely a scary monster under that beautiful appearance, so she definitely wouldn¡¯t touch Harloys. Little Red¡¯s dragon blood would be incredibly healthy and beneficial for her, but Lilith wouldn¡¯t even dare to mention this in front of her. So, her only choice was this gray elf female knight.


    ¡°...I... can still go on.¡±


    Yet judging by how she was spitting blood as she spoke, it was obviously not a good idea to have her go on like this. No matter if it was a druid¡¯s life magic or a Holy Knight¡¯s holy healing magic, they would only have the opposite effect on a Blood Tribe. Any herbs or medicines wouldn¡¯t work on her undead body, either. If she lost any more blood, it would likely be difficult for her to maintain her sense of reason.


    ¡°I¡¯ll do it.¡±


    Although Yawen had said so, I knew that she couldn¡¯t. Part of the moonlight ritual involved using needles to continuously pierce the skin, which would cause arge amount of blood loss. It would be quite difficult for Yawen to donate any blood at this time, not to mention that Blood Tribe members often lost control of themselves when injured. It would be quite unfortunate if Lilith identally killed Yawen.


    ¡°Who else, then?¡±


    Alright, if none of the women could do, then Lilith decided to make do with a man. Taking a look around, Lilith saw that Cohen was too weak, Eaglestorm was too old, and she was scared of infectious diseases if she bit Beifeng. Finally, her green-tinged eyesnded on me, and she was astonished to discover that her master¡¯s blood had an appetizing aroma, resembling that of three-hundred-year-old wine.


    ¡°Master...¡±


    That ravenous stare made me break out into a cold sweat. When I looked around me, everyone backed away and looked at me with expressions of satisfaction at my uing disaster.


    Well, I could only fill in this pit that I had dug for myself. I helplessly reached out my arm and furled up my sleeve. I looked out the window and didn¡¯t dare watch the sight.


    ¡°Please be light with me. I¡¯m more scared of receiving needle shots than anything. Oh, right, my veins are a bit deep. It won¡¯t take you a few extra bites, will it? Look and make sure before you bite down.¡±


    Alright then. At the very least, she was much better than certain clumsy nurses in my previous world and made me bleed with a single bite. However, even though I had clearly reached out with my arm, what hurt instead was my neck... Who said that it was a pleasurable experience having blood sucked by a Blood Tribe member? Come out, I promise not to beat you to death... as for that strange and numbing wonderful sensation that came afterwards, it was definitely a mistaken impression. Yep, a mistaken impression.


    ¡°What a wondrous and rare vor, as expected of Princess P¡ª¡±


    ¡°Shut up! If you keep talking about that, no more blood for you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that a Dimensional Descent appeared? How is this possible!?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Aunt Amelia (why does this sound so awkward to me?) met an incredibly powerful opponent, and we were separated. But before we lost each other, she came to such a conclusion.¡±


    Soon, Lilith was fully reinvigorated and filled with energy again, so she gave me an exnation of everything.


    It turned out that Amelia had left because of a huge incident after all. The border shes between the Bardi Empire and Mage Country had turned into all-out warfare, but just such a ¡°small matter¡± wouldn¡¯t have moved Amelia. Ultimately, she was both one of the highest-ranked mages in the Mage Country as well as a member of the Bardi royalty. Not only that, she hadn¡¯t participated in either country¡¯s affairs for so many years already, and due to certain ridiculous habits of hers, both sides probably wanted to remove her name from their ranks.


    What really made Amelia decide to take action was a piece of news that one of her subordinates in the Bardi Empire privately sent her. This message mentioned that in Port Victoria, a major merchant port city which recently joined the Bardi Empire, arge amount of blood sacrifice incidents had appeared. There even seemed to be signs of the presence of high-level undead. Also, more than twenty strange ck towers had been erected outside of the city, with some purple-ck crystals lighting up the tower tips. There were even sounds of souls wailing reported to be heard in the vicinity.


    ¡°Soul-Summoning Towers¡± were incrediblymon in undead magic. They were a type of magic user¡¯s personal base, very simr to an archmage¡¯s mage tower. There were countless different functions and sizes based on customization, but all of them would have some basic functions inmon¡ªsummoning the souls of the dead and cultivating the souls into an undead mage¡¯s magic power, which would increase the power of their undead magic. As long as there was a sufficient number of dead and their souls in the Soul-summoning Tower¡¯s area, an undead archmage would have basically limitless mana.


    This was also part of the reason why the Gods despised the undead. However, the creator of Soul-Summoning Towers didn¡¯t dare go too overboard to the point of interfering with the cycle of reincarnation. The souls that were drained of their mana could still enter into the cycle of reincarnation after the undead mage was done with them. However, that was only possible if they didn¡¯t turn into undead because of the extremely painful process of draining their mana that would leave them with countless grudges.


    Whenparing Soul-Summoning Towers with mage towers, the former was slightly weaker than thetter, but due to the fact that materials needed for the former¡¯s construction were undead materials, they were much cheaper to construct. They were easier to construct as well, taking up much less time, so it was a product that could be said to be of high-quality and cheap. Of course, the side effect would be that everyone woulde attack you. Not only that, any ce that erected Soul-Summoning Towers doubtlessly meant that there were high-level undead present there, which would cause the Holy Church to immediately send people to attack them.


    ¡°...But the Bardi Empire has already exiled the Holy Church and all Holy Light job ss members. The Bardi Empire¡¯s also remaining strangely silent on this matter. Port Victoria¡¯s various organizations and citizens can only think of their own ways to survive. Aunt Amelia has a friend living there. But unfortunately, when we arrived, everything was already in chaos. The Undead ne has begun its Dimensional Descent already.¡±


    Lilith¡¯s tale caused everyone hearing it to inhale cold air. Although she said it so lightly, everyone here who knew what a Dimensional Descent was could already imagine a scene that was like hell on Eich. But what astonished me even more was that Amelia actually had a friend¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªI should get back to the main topic.


    ¡°You¡¯re absolutely certain that it¡¯s a Dimensional Descent and not simply the opening of the Undead ne Dimensional Door?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s Aunt Amelia¡¯s assessment. With everything that¡¯s happened after that as well, there should be no mistake.¡±


    ¡°Dimensional Descent¡± was a specialized term that even mages rarely used. This term referred to what would happen if two nes got sufficiently close enough to each other. Parts of some areas would begin ovepping. This would typically appear near the closest areas to the Dimensional Door. For example, if the Earth Elemental Dimensional Door at Antuen really seeded in opening, then the surrounding environment would have begun showing signs of elementalization. Therge amounts of naturally born small and mid-sized earth elementals were the best evidence of this.


    However, in most normal cases, even if a Dimensional Door seeded inpletely opening, at most the area around the Dimensional Door would change to match the other ne¡¯s environment. Aplete dimensional ovep wouldn¡¯t appear. To use an analogy, the change to the environment that a Dimensional Door typically brought about was like adding some sugar to water and making it into sugar water, while a Dimensional Descent was like squeezing two cups of water into one cup of water, which would likely result in the cup breaking.


    ¡°If one of the Elemental nes performs a Dimensional Descent, then more than half of everything living in the surrounding area will instantly die off. Those still left alive would have characteristics of elemental creatures and would never be able to live normally on the mortal ne again. If the Undead ne, which is filled with death, performs a Dimensional Descent...¡±


    Doubtlessly, Harloys, who was an expert on magic, had the greatest right to make an assessment of what would happen. Yet judging from her current expression and silence, it was obvious that she didn¡¯t have much hope for Port Victoria.


    ¡°I believe in Amelia¡¯s ability to assess the situation. If the Undead ne really is performing a Dimensional Descent, then we should consider not going there to save anyone; all the living will instantly turn into the dead, and part of the Undead ne will appear there. And it¡¯s probably a permanent effect. This is far more troublesome than any Land of Death.¡±


    I nodded in agreement. Harloys¡¯ assessment, which she had finally ended up giving, was basically the same as what I was thinking. However, I had thought of even more troubles.


    ¡°If that ce has already transformed into a part of the Undead ne, then that means some existences that are limited by dimensional naturalws will be able to descend there. No wonder Amelia met with trouble. There¡¯s a high probability that she met a real Undead Emperor.¡±


    It was obvious that the major city Port Victoria would be nothing more than a page of history. Its poption of almost one million residents hadpletely turned into undead, and the veterans of the Undead ne had their own home bases established there now. But, I was thinking of how the Bardi Empire was destined to leave its name in the history books for infamy, having paid such arge price¡ªa price that was likely only going to grow evenrger.


    ¡°There¡¯s no response from the Bardi government?¡±


    ¡°None at all, and news about it has been suppressed. When I managed to escape, I even saw knights in the surrounding area keeping the main road leading to Port Victoria on a lockdown. Caped undead were also openly talking to military officials, while skeleton soldiers and zombies were being organized andmanded by human officers. It¡¯s obvious that they¡¯ve already reached an ord. And...¡±


    ¡°And?¡±


    ¡°I heard some news that the Bardi government¡¯s official channels are announcing that the new undead armies are here to help the Bardi Empire defeat the Mage Country. Although it caused quite a lot of resistance, it all seems to have been suppressed.¡±


    As a port, Port Victoria was obviously by the sea. And right across the sea from Port Victoria was the Mage Country. I was basically able to guess their intentions from these pieces of information.


    The merchant city Port Victoria originally belonged to another country and was a location that the Bardi Empire had recently obtained; it wasn¡¯t a ce that they highly valued to begin with. A merchant city like Port Victoria wouldn¡¯t have many military ships stationed, while the ones present, typically the small and medium-sized merchant ships, wouldn¡¯t be able to carry many people. Even if Bardi¡¯s renownednd armies went on ships into the Strait of Debo, they¡¯d be nothing more than easy targets unable to conveniently use the advantages that they had onnd.


    After receiving more and more information, I had a guess¡ªbut there would be a huge amount of trouble if I was on the mark. I directly stated what I was thinking.


    ¡°How wide is the Strait of Debo? I only want the straight line distance.¡±


    Yawen took out a map and measured it with a ruler. When she converted the distance scale on the map, she suddenly lifted her head.


    ¡°Less than two hundred kilometers! If the undead army makes a sudden march, one night will be more than enough.¡±


    Undead weren¡¯t afraid of fatigue and didn¡¯t need to breathe. Natural barriers that were impossible obstacles for other living creatures were nothing in front of them.


    The ocean waters were treacherous? Ocean waves were tall enough to capsize vessels? While that may be true for the ocean¡¯s surface, the bottom of the ocean was always calm.


    All the port areas where vessels couldnd at in the Mage Country were heavily guarded? In that case, just find any random unguarded area to climb ashore.


    These were all tactics I had used back in the day to make use of the special characteristics of the undead, attacking with unexpected methods. Yet since I had made these precedents, it was only natural that they became standard undead attacking strategies.


    With all this information, the big picture was getting quite obvious. But even the ruler of an empire wouldn¡¯t be able to act entirely as he pleased, making such obviously ridiculous policies. At the very least, he would have to convince all the factions within his country and give the other factions red herrings of benefits to be gained; he would have to convince his subordinates somehow.


    The current Bardi Empire was still likely at a cooperative stage with the Undead Emperors. As long as the undead were able to prove their worth, there would be plenty more cooperative opportunities between them and the Bardi Empire in the future, and of course the undead would help the Bardi Empire even more in the future. Since Port Victoria was formerly an enemy country¡¯s city that had been recently conquered, why would the Bardi Empire care about it?


    ¡°If the undead armies suddenly ambush the Mage Country from underwater with high-level undead assisting them, then even the Mage Country might not be able to defend against them. Perhaps Amelia heard some news about this, which was why she personally went... Lilith, do you have more detailed information about what happened to Amelia?¡±


    Lilith anxiously shook her head; she seemed tock self-confidence.


    ¡°No. Not long after we arrived, the Dimensional Descent urred. Of course, as a member of the Blood Tribe, I was fine. But, no matter how strong Aunt Amelia is, she¡¯s still a human, and apparently she recently fought against someone powerful and was a little injured...¡±


    However, I smiled at Lilith¡¯s anxiousness. Perhaps this would be the brink for others, but I didn¡¯t at all feel like that maniacal witch would have any problems. Her existence had already exceeded the capabilities of life.


    ¡°...Rx, she¡¯s even less a member of the human species than you are.¡±


    ¡°Rx, Lady Lilith. I can sense that in that direction, Lady Amelia¡¯s life forces are still zing strongly. Not only one month, but I think she can easily maintain herself there for another two or three years. She¡¯s not the one in trouble; the undead that angered her are the ones who have to worry.¡±


    Eaglestorm, who had been closing his eyes and thinking, suddenly spoke up and made such a statement. Lilith, however, only believed his words halfheartedly. There was such a great physical distance between them; it seemed for even a Legend-ranked druid to make such a statement with confidence.


    However, Harloys and I exchanged nces. Back in the Earth Elemental ne, Eaglestorm had also witnessed Amelia¡¯splete form. As a druid who lived in the forests, it was basically a natural talent of his to sense a forest. If he said that Amelia would be fine for the time being, then it was very likely true.


    Even at the very worst Amelia would be forced to reveal her true form, and she still wouldn¡¯t be easily dealt with. I was able to somewhat rx when I thought of this. Yet all these things had happened, and I had already decided on what to do for the next part of our little excursion.


    ¡°Hurry up with our preparations and gather all the equipment we need. At the verytest, we shall move out on the day after tomorrow. It¡¯ll be best if we can find a Bardi merchant, as that¡¯s the best way to sneak in. If not, we¡¯ll have to secretly cross the border!¡±

 Chapter 264

    Chapter 264: Progress


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Unlike the snow-covered Nortnds, spring arrived early in the central ins of the south. The temperature would rise quickly within two weeks of the first spring rain, and spring¡¯s arrival would be apanied by numerous showers.


    To use the churches¡¯ way of saying things, the Winter Goddess Donya decided to give her power over to the Spring Goddess Arsheer. Amid this warm season of blooming flowers, the nts that had hibernated during the winter sprouted new buds. Starving animals begun their search for food. A new year had brought with it a new cycle; all living creatures were reinvigorated, and new lives were born in this golden era.


    Alright then, I¡¯ll stop speaking poetically and start talking about more practical things. Yep, let¡¯s talk about making money. Spring brought with it plenty of business opportunities.


    In this era of cold weapons, traveling typically relied on horses and horse-drawn carriages. In winter, the roads were caked in ice, and traveling was inconvenient; the transportation of goods and daily life products would be quite slow. Throughout the winter families and stores would use up many goods, and when it ended, there would be a need for restocking.


    This was why each spring was a golden opportunity for any merchant to make money. It was also considered eptable to raise their prices slightly. The high demand at this time of year would allow merchants who specialized in this line of work to make an astonishing amount in their first cargo shipment of the year¡ªit would amount to a staggering thirty percent of their entire profits for a whole year.


    The Lagraz Kingdom was a major producer of silk, green obsidian crystals, redwood, and rosmarinus trifoliate. Among their exported products, green obsidian crystals and rosmarinus trifoliate were both magical ingredients, and redwood was an excellent wood for crafting mage staves. These magical ingredients were all highly sought after by both the Mage Country and the Bardi Empire.


    Since the market had demand, there would always be sellers. All the merchant groups would head out immediately after the final snow of the new year and sell off local products in other countries for profits. Then, in another country like the Bardi Empire, they would use their profits to buy various local products and sell them back in the Lagraz Kingdom for enormous profits.


    However, just like my original world in the past, the great profits to be gained from the importing and exporting of goods would be apanied by great risks. If merchants ran into bandits or unscrupulous governmental officials, it would be considered lucky if they could retain even half of their wares. If they were even unluckier, they might even run into military situations, political affairs, or even warfare and other unpredictable factors, which would cause them to lose everything.


    Yet, in this generation, the most dangerous of all was to attract the attention of some ¡°domain lord.¡± After all, no matter how great a merchant¡¯s connections were, they would still be limited in a country that wasn¡¯t their home. Some major nobles treated stealing wealth from foreign merchants as free breakfasts as long as there was some passable excuse they coulde up with.


    As ordinary people wouldn¡¯t dare to take up the import-export trade, there would obviously be no ordinary people in this business. Those that dared to be import-export merchants were typically very difficult to take down. Many would have extremely strong supports, sometimes even being connected to the royalty of their origin country; they would be unafraid of the extortions of a normal domain lord. Some would have sufficient strength to protect themselves, and some would have their own personal mercenary groups or something simr. After all, the fact that they were able to protect themselves in foreignnds meant that they had trustworthybat strength avable in their hands.


    The leader of the Veji Merchant Association had no connections to royalty or nobles and was obviously of thetter type. Although this merchant association was only a new one that had existed for a little less than twenty years, the hard work and careful management of the Veji Family¡¯s leaders helped them sessfully monopolize the trade routes between Bardi Empire¡¯s Anliso City and Lagraz Kingdom¡¯s Anton City. The scale of their mercenaries matched that of a small domain lord¡¯s army. However, there was something different about the situation this year.


    ¡°...It seems that the best I can hope for is that I won¡¯t lose everything.¡±


    Sindy Veji, aged 46, was one of the higher-ups of the Veji Merchant Association. He had been conducting import-export trade along this route for almost thirty years now. Yet unlike past years, news about the Bardi Empire¡¯s situation had been murky recently, all sorts of rumors abound.


    Skilled merchants were instinctively sensitive to danger. In their eyes, a major upheaval within a country was synonymous to problems in its economy. Recently, there had been many rumors about strange magical monsters and undead appearing within the Bardi Empire, which greatly decreased the amount of merchants traveling between the Bardi Empire and the Lagraz Kingdom.


    Sindy gazed at an approaching thunderstorm as he mused to himself; he was quite worried about the situation. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it. Many orders had been ced with their merchant association in the previous year, and several of them were from old customers that had been with them for over a decade; he absolutely couldn¡¯t afford to anger them. No matter what, he had to make this trip to the Bardi Empire.


    Unusual circumstances would require additional measures. The leader of the Veji Merchant Association was willing to spare no expense and paid heavy fees to invite two of the top ten mercenary groups in the Lagraz Kingdom. They had even required that the groups send out high-level elitebat strength toe guard them.


    As a result, the strong were indeed willing to be hired by them. The leader of The Eagle of Sulo Mercenary Group, ¡°Meteor Sword¡± Juste, and the leader of North Horn Mercenary Group, ¡°White Dragon¡± Carlogier personally arrived to guard them. These two individuals were both very famous for their strength in the Lagraz Kingdom, and, as agreed, they brought their elite subordinates to guard the Veji Merchant Association. The problem was that the expected profits from this time¡¯s import-export trip weren¡¯t going to be enough to pay the price to hire these two mercenary groups.


    ¡°Heavens, please don¡¯t let us meet with any trouble, especially not those undead that don¡¯t care about their lives...¡±


    If the hired mercenaries didn¡¯t meet with anybat situations, the typical way that they worked was that they would only have to be paid eighty or ny percent of the originally agreed upon price. There also wouldn¡¯t be any need topensate their losses, so that would be the best case scenario; the Veji Merchant Association would at least make enough money to cover all their costs.


    ¡°Sir Sindy, why do you always look so depressed? The weather¡¯s really nice today. You should be happy that we can make good progress due to the weather.¡±


    In Sindy¡¯s eyes, this blonde-haired boy, who was all smiles, appeared to be only fifteen or sixteen years old. However, after talking a bit more with him, Sindy felt more and more like he didn¡¯t understand this boy named Rolo.


    Rolo seemed childish and ridiculous, but was especially talented in the merchant business. Some random sentences that he would say would require Sindy to ponder for quite a while before he understood them, and, in the end, he would feel like they were quite logical.


    These strange members of the Silver Coin Squad came to Sindy of their own volition and offered to be hired as mercenaries for an incredibly low price, which astonished him. At first, he thought that there was some plot, but he understood when he looked at the wares that they were carrying. He must have thought too much about things, and they probably only intended to seek protection from arge merchant convoy. Their offer of working for cheap was only a cover for wanting to borrow his muchrger group to help them make a small profit.


    Normally, this type of joining in mid-way was somewhat taboo and typically wouldn¡¯t be epted. However, when Sindy directly told them that he had seen through their real intentions of ¡°joining him for protection,¡± they admitted it quite honestly and even offered to pay him a sizable sum.


    ¡°...We absolutely need to deliver this shipment of Wenlo grape wine. Right now, the world isn¡¯t peaceful, so how could we dare to travel by our weak little selves? We¡¯ll pay you, and if there really is trouble on the way, it¡¯s always safer with more people.¡±


    Of course, how useful the bribe paid to Sindy was in allowing them to travel with him was unknown.


    ¡°Right, Captain Rolo, could you tell me more about what you said yesterday regarding the rtionship between banks¡¯ loans and market prices? There were some things that I didn¡¯t quite understand. For example, if I can talk to the banks and...¡±


    For Sindy, who had been a merchant for two-thirds of his life, he had gained much knowledge over the past few days. Although this Rolo fellow was quite young, his knowledge was vast, which was to be expected of a mage. About loans, banks, and... well, ording to his vocabry, he called it all ¡®finance.¡¯ His personal opinions werepletely different from the norm regarding this subject. Although it seemed to be a deviation, when Sindy carefully thought about what Rolo said, they sounded quite reasonable.


    Meanwhile, as I listened to Sindy, who was endlessly prattling on about the merchant business, I was regretting why I hadn¡¯t stopped my stupid mouth from saying all those random things about finance.


    ¡°Originally, I had just intended to pretend to be a merchant as a convenient way to join them, so I randomly picked some economic theories from my original world to tell him. I never expected that he took them so seriously to the extent that he now wants to know everything about economics. I was aw major, okay; I¡¯m not interested in economics to begin with. How would I possibly know about the foundational workings of economics? If he asks me any longer, I¡¯ll have to start making things up.¡±


    The best way to make a lie seem like the truth was to put the lie within another lie that would easily be seen through. This would make ¡°intelligent¡± people reveal the ¡°lie¡± by themselves, finding the ¡°truth¡± that they were looking for.


    Meeting Sindy¡¯s merchant group was an unexpected lucky urrence for me. However, joining them when they were all highly on guard was difficult. If we volunteered and rmended ourselves just like that, we would most likely be rejected, and if we showed off our true abilities, it would instead make them think that we had some nefarious plot. So, I decided to purchase some grape wine as cargo and made up a story about someone in the Bardi Empire ordering it. I intended to pretend to be a small merchant who was simultaneously trying to save money by being a mercenary.


    However, the result gave me a headache. My disguise had been too sessful, as after I told Sindy some words that I only happened to hear before in my past life, he actually treated these sayings as valuable treasures. If he kept asking me, I might get exposed as a fraudulent merchant.¡±


    ¡°Shh, this is a forbidden topic.¡±


    Alright, since I didn¡¯t know how to respond, I decided to treat it as a secret I didn¡¯t want to tell him. Although it was totally uncute of me to answer in such a fashion, he actually viewed me with even greater importance. He changed from speaking directly to talking in a roundabout fashion, and tried striking up a conversation with me every day, all in order to dig up some more of my opinions aboutmerce.


    Today was the third day since we joined them and left Buja Town. This guy actually came to find me early in the morning for more questions, and just as I was intending to make some stuff up, our attention was attracted to the sudden sounds of arguing and weapons shing.


    ¡°Again?¡±


    We all felt helpless. No matter if it was in literary or martial circles, nobody liked being number two. Those in the same line of work would always bepetitors, and one of the side effects of us joining this merchant group as an adventuring squad acting as guards was to make the other two mercenary groups view us with displeasure and enmity.


    ¡°We already epted this guarding mission. Originally, we¡¯re already displeased with the two major mercenary groups splitting the guarding fees, so what¡¯s with you all butting in?¡±


    Even though we already said that we wouldn¡¯t ask for any of their fees, sometimes those in this line of work only wanted to fight for their face. Over the past two days, the other two mercenary groups had challenged us numerous times. Normally speaking, since we were the ones in the wrong to begin with, this would all be over if we just let them win once. Yet although I kept telling my members to act weaker than they really were, none of them were that weak to begin with. All of them promised me so prettily face to face but immediately broke their promises when I wasn¡¯t watching. In the end, those mercenaries were the ones on the losing end, and the two muchrger mercenary groups that had lost repeatedly kept hoping to regain their face, but this resulted in them losing over and over again.


    And, right now, this was doubtlessly yet another argument caused by some ¡°ident.¡±


    Suddenly, a purple magic sh appeared in the sky above our camp. The source of the light came from where everyone was gathered.


    ¡°...That should be Captain Juste¡¯s famous Epic-ranked weapon, the Meteor Sword. As expected of Juste, a Gold-ranked weapon master. His attack is so frightening. It seems that he¡¯s be serious. Eh? It¡¯s already at such an extent, but Captain Rolo, you¡¯re not worried about your own people being injured?¡±


    I shook my head, smiling wryly.


    ¡°Worried? Of course I¡¯m worried, but I¡¯m worried about that Meteor Sword fellow. Let¡¯s go over there and take a look. I hope that nothing will happen... damn it, that idiot actually challenged Little Red! Sindy, do you have any coffins in your cargo? I¡¯ll buy one. Oh, whoops, it looks like a coffin will be unnecessary. Do you have any gravestones?¡±


    While Rnd and hispanions were still on the road, the Bardi Empire¡¯s n for an ambush met with an unexpected amount of trouble.


    With the assistance of the activation of many ck obsidian Soul-Summoning Towers, the human-made Dimensional Descent of the Undead ne had indeed seeded. Large amounts of low-level undead were created. However, in this area filled with death, where even the colors of the world had be gray and white, there was an abnormal patch of green that incredibly stood out.


    ¡°You still haven¡¯t figured out what that is? Damn it, why is there a forest here? And it¡¯s a forest that actually attacks undead on its own.¡±


    The lich Alu had been under the impression that he had received a simple task. All he had to do wasmand and control arge number of low-level undead to ughter a bunch ofpletely unprepared humans. However, the abnormal forest that suddenly appeared had dyed his original ns far beyond what he expected. When he thought about the extremely brutal and cruel methods that Undead Emperors liked to use on those who failed to carry out their orders, Alu felt a chill run down his spine¡ªand this was despite the fact that he should have lost the ability to have such sensations.


    ¡°Sir, there are more and more strange nts gathering in that forest. The forest is also expanding, and the most inconceivable of all is...¡±


    The ck-robed Blood Tribe, Kaka, spoke softer and softer. He seemed to be guessing and sounded quite uncertain.


    ¡°What is it? Just say it!¡±


    ¡°It really resembles that recently popr game, nts vs. Zombies. All those nt types are from that game! I¡¯m a big yer of that game and recognized this instantly! And, all those nts are specially modified to work against the undead. Those peashooters are actually capable of shooting Bullets of Light, while those magical vines can actually absorb undead magic, and the nt bombs actually contain holy water inside. This entire forest seems like the natural enemy of the undead.¡±


    Alu paused in surprise but then reacted with extreme anger. He used a magicalrge hand crafted of ice to grab that unlucky Blood Tribe member Kaka.


    ¡°What? Our undead army has actually be someone else¡¯s game? Are others viewing us as mere monkeys monkeying around?¡±


    The furious lich thought about what would happen to him if he didn¡¯t finish his task, and his mana began to seep out uncontrobly. All the high-level undead near him hurriedly retreated. Only the unlucky Kaka who was freezing to the extent of turning pale in the ice w¡¯s grip was struggling to find a way to save himself.


    ¡°Sir, since the enemy¡¯s troops are allmonly seen in a game, we can also think of ways to deal with the nts from the same game.¡±


    The lich Alu nodded as he rubbed his chin, which consisted of nothing but bones.


    ¡°Such as?¡±


    The unlucky Blood Tribe member forced his brain to work and somehow came up with a few ideas.


    ¡°For example, burrowing zombies, flying zombies, and buckethead zombies. nts can only block from one direction, and we can send in aerial undead and take a circuitous route around them. There are so many methods.¡± [1] 1


    ¡°Yep, yep, not bad! Take some troops with you and lead the way.¡±


    Alright, at least dying in battle would be slightly better than being executed by his boss. Kaka wanted to cry as he led a fresh batch of undead armies to battle.


    However, the result remained the same.


    Flying zombies? Dandelion seed bombs were waiting for them.


    Burrowing zombies? The magical vines and nts¡¯ roots had long since created a terrifying undergroundwork.


    Equipping the zombies with steel buckets as protection? Gigantic piranha nts that suddenly popped out from underground swallowed everything.


    Taking circuitous routes? This was reality, not a game. Hills and ins were covered with this forest, so how could they seed in nking it?


    And the lucky (or unlucky) Kaka managed to survive as a miracle with injuries and tatters all over. He had only half a breath left in him, but when he saw how Alu¡¯s eyes were burning with cyan colored soul mes, he suddenly felt like it would have been better for him to not return.


    ¡°Hehe, what else do you have to say for yourself?¡±


    ¡°Sir, it¡¯s not our fault for being useless. That forest is cheating; all those nt troops types are ultra-rares; random draws for several tens of thousands of gold coins might not even give you one! But it has all of them! This is basically no different from a pay-to-win yer abusing a free-to-y yer¡ªit¡¯s too much!¡±


    *Crack!*


    With the sound of ice freezing over, the Blood Tribe member, who was addicted to games, was frozen into cubes of ice. The furious Alu turned to his subordinates, only to see that all of them were avoiding his gaze. In the end, he could only give his orders helplessly.


    ¡°Everyone, attack! Have the Soul-Summoning Towers continue creating new undead. We¡¯re going to go all-out, let¡¯s see who can win in a war of attrition. We absolutely must carry out the Undead Emperors¡¯ will, otherwise... you all understand.¡±


    Note:


    1. All nts vs. Zombies references!

 Chapter 265

    Chapter 265: Promation and Master of Shooting Himself in the Foot


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The holy city of Istadi was one the most famous cities in all of Eich, with a long history and a unique religious culture that was famed throughout thends. Every day, countless admirers of the Holy Light woulde visit this divine capital, which was filled with Holy Light.


    Although Istadi wasn¡¯t arge city, a majority of its residents held divine job sses. This small city contained seven world-ss churches and hundreds of small and medium-sized churches. They were all on the level of historical relics.


    And, in this mountainside city, there was a famous flight of stairs carved into the side of the mountain. These were the famous Stairs of Holy Light, and every single moment one could see admirers of the Holy Light climbing up these steps. There was an endless number of beautiful sculptures lining both sides of these stairs, including those of ancient heroes, historical figures, and the mostmon of all: various people from legendary tales who had a strange variety of appearances.


    However, more than three hundred years ago, there was one maniac who had managed to singlehandedly transform these famous Stairs of Holy Light into Stairs of Blood, and he didn¡¯t even receive any form of divine punishment. From then on, the Stairs of Holy Light became the Stairs of Blood... alright, with so much exnation, everybody probably knows what Istadi is.


    Istadi was the main headquarters of the Holy Church as well as the ce where Holy Light had first descended. It was the origin of the Holy Church.


    If you walked to the end of those famous white stone steps and arrived at the mountaintop, you would see a collection of seemingly shakily constructing buildings¡ªthe headquarters of the Holy Church. This was the most important area of the church and enjoyed more than half of all religious faith in thend. It could even be called the ce where the most power was centralized in all of Eich¡ªthe Baen Holy Sanctuary.


    In the past, those who passed by this area would walk slowly with their heads held high. The people who lived here would act as if they were born with the right to be proud¡ªand, in fact, this was indeed the case. There would forever be conflicts between religious and divine authorities, and in that generation, even a powerful domain lord wouldn¡¯t dare to antagonize a local head priest.


    Perhaps a poor, old priest living nearby would be appreciated by some cardinal and turn into a major personage of some empire the very next day. Obviously, reality was always stranger than fiction, and this sort of thing was actually quitemon. Today, however, everyone was in a hurry and spoke cautiously as they snuck peeks at the ce filled with Holy Light.


    ¡°There¡¯s still no result? All the cardinals have been inside for so long...¡±


    At roughly three o¡¯clock in the morning, the holy bell at the entrance of the Baen Holy Sanctuary had started ringing, which signified that every high-level church member and cardinal had to arrive here on time within thirty minutes. Although this bell wasn¡¯t the warning bell that signified an immediatebat situation, thest such time this meeting bell had been rung was more than twenty years ago.


    It was obvious that something major had happened. Even though they didn¡¯t show it on the surface, many members of the Holy Church were secretly discussing amongst themselves, wondering what could have urred. While the higher-ups were busy in their meeting rooms, numerous rumors had already started spreading through their subordinates.


    ¡°Could it be about that incident regarding the Nortnds? After all, there have been so many rumors about that incident, and it¡¯s greatly affected the Holy Church¡¯s reputation.¡±


    ¡°It can¡¯t be. The divine message from the God of Holy Light confirmed that they¡¯re now our allies. Would His Holiness the Pope dare go against a divine message?¡±


    ¡°Then what could it be about? What major incident could cause all the higher-ups to be summoned? It¡¯s basically just like the Holy War against Kasen twenty years ago...¡±


    The priest who was speaking trailed off at the end as he broke out into a cold sweat. For mid and low-ranked people like him, a Holy War was not good news at all.


    Perhaps glory and the victory loot frombat would make the higher-ups overjoyed, while the glory from a Holy War would also rouse fervent believers who were willing to sacrifice everything, but for ordinary members of the church, a Holy War meant endless amounts of death. Any amount of gold and glory would be preceded by a mountainous pile of corpses. And it was only natural for there to not only be the corpses of heretics but the corpses of believers as well.


    ¡°They¡¯vee out; they¡¯vee out!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s His Holiness the Pope!¡±


    When the white-robed Pope Caloma came out, his typical peaceful appearance was nowhere to be seen. That grim look on his face was the best announcement of all, causing everyone in the za to fall silent. The numerous cardinals and high priests that followed after him all had differing expressions: some looked serious and didn¡¯t say a word, while others were angry to the point that their faces were red. Of course, there were some that were pretending to be serious but had yet to notice how their mouths were imperceptibly arcing upwards.


    From the standpoints of mortals, the recently ascended Pope Caloma was already in his sixties and could be considered an elderly man with not much time left in him. However, in history, except for the popes that died of unnatural causes, most popes would be able toplete at least two terms, with each termsting ten years. As for where the popes went after their terms werepleted, perhaps only the new pope after them would know.


    Pope Caloma was quite obviously in a bad mood as everyone looked at him, filled with questions. He didn¡¯t intend to mince words and directly tore apart a golden scroll. The next moment, a thin and short old man transformed into a huge divine figure that floated in the sky. This elderly voice resounded in thunderps, and nobody in the city of Istadi was able to ignore it.


    ¡°Orloss from the Bardi Empire has allied himself with evil undead and sacrificed one million citizens of Port Victoria to the undead, an extraordinarily wicked act. After conversing amongst ourselves and listening to the will of the God of Holy Light, we, the Holy Church, hereby dere in the name of the God of Holy Light that Orloss Mossivory Saint Mn is an evil heretic. The Bardi Royal Family¡¯s title of ¡®Saint¡¯ in their name is hereby revoked, and Orloss shall be considered the enemy of the Holy Church henceforth!¡±


    The pope inhaled deeply, as if to remove any final shreds of hesitation, and he grit his teeth as he dered the most important part of his announcement.


    ¡°Evil is right beside us, and I, Caloma the First, dere with my authority as the pope that there shall be a Holy War! All those that believe in the Holy Light shall fight for the sake of Holy Light and justice and be the mortal enemies of Orloss and his evil undead allies.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t a long deration, but it shocked everyone who heard it. The Bardi Empire was no small country. Any disagreements with the Nortnds were actually unimportant, as mega-empires were the main powers in Eich. For the Bardi Emperor to be dered a heretic while he was still in power meant that the entire country had been dered heretical.


    While it was indeed true that the Bardi Empire hadn¡¯t been very friendly towards the Holy Light in recent times, it still maintained at least a surface level of respect. Exiling the Holy Church didn¡¯t mean that they were making the Holy Church an outright enemy. But dering a Holy War now meant that all the believers of the Holy Light would be the Bardi Empire¡¯s mortal enemies.


    Of course, this was only in theory. Against an entity as powerful as the Bardi Empire, nobody would casually go fight them without enough benefits on the line. Unless the Holy Church acted as the vanguard and started creating an anti-Bardi Empire army, perhaps each major country would only criticize the Bardi Empire a little but take zero action.


    And for those countries that had direct benefits on the line regarding the Bardi Empire, such as the Mage Country, this would be an easy excuse to dere an all-out war against the Bardi Empire.


    The most pitiful countries were the small countries nearest to the Bardi Empire. If they were part of the Holy Light religion, then they would be forced to pick a side. And if they picked the side of Holy Light, the Bardi Empire¡¯s army would probably be on their doorstep the very next day.


    After the Holy Church made their deration, the human countries were highly likely to begin a vicious internal war of their own right before the Eternal Holy War was about to begin, no matter the reason. This was doubtlessly something that most people wouldn¡¯t want, but if Orloss continued allying himself with the Undead Emperors, then it was highly likely to happen regardless.


    And if this battle really did break out, Port Victoria, which had already became part of the Undead ne, would no longer be considered important. The battle between the human mega-empires would probably cause several times more casualties than the number of humans that died at Port Victoria.


    ¡°...This is so scary. It¡¯s even more uneptable than the Holy War from twenty years ago. A mega-empire has actually been dered heretical! Is there going to be a world war?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not possible. Even the Holy Church might not be able to ept such arge-scale battle. It¡¯s not four hundred years ago, when the Holy Church was at its mightiest. The mega-empires won¡¯t fight with their all for the sake of the Holy Church.¡±


    However, some more perceptive individuals were able to hear what Pope Caloma didn¡¯t say, rather than what he said.


    ¡°Orloss was the only one he dered a heretic. He also didn¡¯t mention any specific time to attack the Bardi Empire.¡±


    Back in the day, the entire Mist Kingdom had been dered heretical. Only dering the Bardi Emperor Orloss to be a heretic doubtlessly meant that there was still room for negotiation. As long as the Bardi Emperor was changed before an army set out to attack him, then there would naturally be no more need to attack the Bardi Empire on the grounds that they were heretics. Not to mention that there was also no specific time stated to attack the Bardi Empire or organizations named to attack it, which undoubtedly left plenty of room for mediation in regards to time as well.


    ¡°This is probably a method to divide the Bardi Empire and force the nobles there to rebel. But with Orloss¡¯ powerful iron grasp over his own country, it¡¯s difficult to say if it¡¯ll be of any use.¡±


    Two dayster, when this news arrived in the Bardi Empire, it indeed caused many waves despite the fact that the Bardi government attempted to suppress this piece of news. Unfortunately, Orloss¡¯ position as Emperor remained as solid as it had always been. Any domain lords that dared to resist against him had long since been killed by him decades ago, and all power was centralized in his hands. Even if there were still those that had their ambitions, what could they do?


    But, some things would be difficult if not impossible to suppress for forever. There were quite arge number of Holy Light believers that kept their belief secret in the Bardi Empire, and Orloss would have to start paying more attention to his own safety whenever he went out.


    However, the elderly Orloss simply maintained his same routine as always, eating and sleeping as usual. Those who knew about the situation were impressed with his mental fortitude. While the Bardi Empire appeared calm on the surface, the most panicked were actually the high-level undead from the Undead ne.


    ¡°Why are they reacting so fiercely? It¡¯s the opposite of what we expected!¡±


    Perhaps it was because of that incident in the Nortnds, the one that had caused the Holy Church to lose some of their reputation. This had naturally damaged Pope Caloma¡¯s reputation along with it, which possibly made him want to search for some way to save face. Perhaps it was that the incident at Port Victoria was truly too vicious, which angered Pope Caloma into taking such drastic action. An analogy for what had happened would be if two poker yers were ying against each other and still testing each other out, when one yer unexpectedly went all-in, putting all his chips on the bet, greatly shocking the other yer who was utterly unprepared.


    Even the cardinals that Pope Caloma summoned didn¡¯t expect their pope to take such drastic action, so of course it was the same for the undead visitors. Their ¡°cooperation¡± with Orloss had just begun, and they hadn¡¯t even put most of their ns in motion yet, but they had already elicited such a fierce reaction from the entirety of human society and the Gods¡¯ churches.


    What the undead expected was that the pope should have looked more at the big picture and do his best to condemn what had happened while sending out scouts and diplomats to slowly gather information in an attempt to smooth things out. Instead, Pope Caloma had risked all-out war with a mega-empire right from the very start, taking a hard stance.


    ¡°Damn it! Is this pope insane? Did we dig up his ancestors¡¯ graves?¡±


    ¡°This is bad! Increase the rate at which we carry out our ns! Otherwise the Undead Emperors will have our heads!¡±


    While all the countries were reeling in shock at Pope Caloma¡¯s astonishing deration, my party was currently at the Bardi Empire¡¯s border, rxed and preparing to enter.


    When Little Red had sent that idiot who had challenged her flying with a single p, a veteran from that idiot¡¯s mercenary troop challenged her next. He, in turn, was also sent flying with a single p, and in the end, the arguments became worse and worse and deep grudges were formed... Fine, I made that up. None of that could have possibly happened.


    Veteran mercenaries wouldn¡¯t possibly be so idiotic to be redshirts. If they made such a mess of things, causing both sides to have deep grudges when the intention was merely to test the waters and causing them to anger someone beyond their abilities to handle, then such a rash mercenary group wouldn¡¯t have survived until today.


    Not to mention, the leaders of both mercenary groups were both personally present. In such a situation, it would be even more ridiculous if they acted too much out of hand.


    ¡°The silver-ranked Cassandra was sent flying with a single p? That ranger must be at least of the Gold rank.¡±


    ¡°...Even the Eagle of Sulo mercenary group leader Juste was sent flying with a single p, and his Epic weapon Meteor Sword was knocked out of his hands by his empty-handed opponent. He¡¯s a veteran weaponmaster with hundreds of battles under his belt. A Gold rank? You think that ck-haired woman is merely a Gold rank?¡±


    ¡°A Legend, then? No, Captain Juste has also fought with Legend-ranked warriors before and has never lost that badly. That means this woman must be a Saint-ranked warrior at the minimum. With such a young Saint-ranked warrior under hismand, just who is that young master?¡±


    ¡®Young master¡¯ referred to a certain young-appearing mage, who only drank tea and chatted all day. The job ss known as a mage was one which required the umtion of knowledge. Other job sses could take shortcuts and level up speedily, but it was practically impossible for mages to take shortcuts. His shiny and blue archmage robe indicated that not only was he rich, but he was also quite confident in his own safety.


    The mercenaries weren¡¯t blind and had long since discovered that the Silver Coin Squad was led by this young man whozed about and did nothing all day. With the excellent abilities shown by this squad¡¯s members, rumors reappeared that this adventuring team consisted of a young and rich noble together with his servants, maids, and concubines.


    Add on the fact that people were bored and made up stuff to add on to the rumors, and the rumors started sounding more and more real. Eaglestorm became a loyal butler, Cohen a manservant, Beifeng a clown, the caped Lilith a mage bodyguard, and the two elves were treated as female elven ves that only a noble family could afford. As for Harloys... well, in a way, they weren¡¯t wrong about their guess. She was indeed a pet, just not the type that they were thinking of.


    ¡°Oh my, that Rolo fellow stays on the carriage all day even when it¡¯s light outside. Such depravity makes me so envious¡ªI mean enraged!¡±


    ¡°Those elves and that cat girl always get on that carriage for several hours at a time. That guy has limitless stamina?¡±


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªalthough their lecherous smiles were rather obvious, at least they had some brains and didn¡¯t count the Saint-ranked Little Red in my so-called harem. She was still treated as my bodyguard. Otherwise, if the ¡°pride of dragons¡± reared its head, all of those lechers would certainly have been burned to ash.


    Those whispers behind our backs were no secret to us despite the fact that they were trying to keep their voices low. The result was that when I pointed andughed while rolling on the floor at the silly cat who was the only one they had ¡°guessed correctly¡± about, I received an additional set of teeth marks on my head.


    Getting back to the main topic at hand, no matter how speechless the process caused us to be, at least the other two major mercenary groups arrived at an ord to not antagonize this young noble out on a tour. Since this noble seemed like he was here simply to have fun, then let him have his fun.


    After proving our power, everything else was naturally easier. Mercenaries that didn¡¯t know whether they could live to see the next day were quite practical. When fighting with their lives on the line for the sake of money, benefits were much more important than honor. They were looking to start a fight simply for their reputations, since losing reputation meant losing money in their line of work. But they had calmed themselves down for the sake of their lives; it would obviously be suicidal if they continued antagonizing us. Besides, having an extra ¡°mercenary group¡± around, which was strong and didn¡¯t even want a cut of the guarding pay, seemed like an excellent deal no matter how they looked at it.


    ¡°It¡¯s just a young guy ying around; let¡¯s not take things so seriously. Besides, it¡¯ll be bad if we antagonize some major noble.¡±


    Later, both mercenary group leaders even came over of their own volition to apologize to me. Some of their higher-ups even came over to chat with us to improve our rtionship, but from how I saw it, their main goal was to find out who we really were, along with wanting to hire some people from under me.


    I unhesitatingly decided to ignore them. If the bastards under mymand had some people to amuse them, that would be for the best. Otherwise, if they got really bored, who knew what they would get up to.


    Soon, however, I regretted my decision. Even though that Juste fellow was pretty stronh¡ªhe was at the Gold rank¡ªhe had zero conversational skills and still kept trying to joke around with us, which was unbearable.


    ¡°Haha, where was Ist time? Right, my joke fromst time. Why do undead homes always have one less room than other species¡¯ homes? I bet you can¡¯t guess, so let this uncle tell you. It¡¯s the bathroom! They don¡¯t even eat, so any bathrooms in their homes would definitely be nothing but decorations. Hahaha.¡±


    Even though Meteor Sword Juste looked like a straightforward middle-aged man, he kept telling themest of jokes. None of usughed at all while hispanions forced themselves tough twice just to appease him.


    ¡°Is there something wrong with your leader¡¯s brain? Did Little Red beat him a little too much two days ago, causing him to be an idiot?¡±


    Harloys had a venomous mouth as always with herment, but surprisingly, the mercenaries from Juste¡¯s group nodded and smiled wryly.


    ¡°He¡¯s excellent as a captain, but he has a strange sense of humor. At any rate, none of us have any expectations from his jokes so we might as wellugh at them. Otherwise, there will be no end to them.¡±


    The person who said this in a low voice was a young mage from Jakardia. He was also the strategist for this mercenary group, but right now he could only smile wryly as he helplessly watched his boss.


    Meanwhile, Juste, the master of unfunny jokes, apparently noticed that people didn¡¯t find his joke to be funny so he worked his mind and came up with a brand new joke.


    ¡°Do you know which room is the best ce to eat in at an undead¡¯s home? Yep, that ce is definitely the cleanest because it¡¯s not even useful to them. The bathroom! Hahaha.¡±


    Alright, I didn¡¯t know why he liked telling jokes about undead and bathrooms so much. However, judging by how Lilith and Harloys were both looking at him with displeasure, I knew that Juste was going to suffer for what he said in the future.


    After all, both of them were undead that possessed the ability to eat like normal, and they probably needed to use the bathroom on asion as well... Should I say that he deserves what he¡¯s going to get?


    He seemed to have noticed that nobody wasughing, so he thought things over and somehow came up with yet another joke.


    ¡°Right, have you heard about the story of the brave Dragonying Warrior and the Underground city? Once upon a time, there was a foolish red dragon who ate too much...¡±


    This time, a certain long-haired woman ground her teeth. I finallyughed as I listened to this stale joke as I observed this master of shooting himself in the foot.


    ¡°Let me tell a joke as well. Once upon a time, there was an idiot who talked about ying dragons in front of a dragon and undead toilet humor jokes in front of undead, and then... well, there¡¯s nothing else left.¡±


    And right when we were about to enter the Bardi Empire, Pope Caloma¡¯s deration against Emperor Orloss had started to spread around all Eich. The Lagraz Kingdom¡¯s Royalty were devout believers in the Holy Light, and they decided to answer the Holy Church¡¯s summons and dere war against the Bardi Empire after some hesitation.


    One dayter, after the news spread, the Bardi Empire and Lagraz Kingdom formally became countries at war.


    Basically, everything was unbeknownst to us while we were currently together with this merchant group from Lagraz, with the intention of entering the Bardi Empire to gather information.


    [System Reminder: Rx. The Master of Shooting Himself in the Foot is a title that forever belongs to you. As another friendly reminder, you should probably go to the Fate God¡¯s divine temple and attempt to change your own fate.]

 Chapter 266

    Chapter 266: Unfortunate


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Should I say that I was fortunate? The Veji Merchant Association was well known, and all the border officials recognized Sindy Veji. We proceeded quite smoothly.


    Well, except for the fact that this was a time of turmoil; border security was raised by several levels. The unfamiliar faces of the Silver Coin Squad led to some small trouble.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it all because of the troublesome times we live in? I invited some extra mercenaries to help protect me.¡±


    Sindy¡¯s reason sounded quite convincing, and the other two famous mercenary groups he hired lent further credence to his im. We, however, were the unconvincing ones as we didn¡¯t resemble mercenaries at all.


    We were without any reputation orbat achievements, and even our mercenary registrations had been just recently done. We definitely appeared more like spies than merchants. However, thanks to the ¡°shiny gold gifts¡± that Sindy handed to the border guards, they pretended to not see us.


    The approval process would normally take a minimum of two or three days to report all goods brought into the Bardi Empire. Yet since the goods were precious ¡°seasonal wares¡± that were vital for replenishment, the head of border security helped simply the process as much as possible and only nced over the goods before letting us pass through.


    As for me, I still had yet to realize that this was the beginning of my misfortune. As a ¡°small merchant¡± who had sessfully fooled a bigger merchant into helping smuggle me across, I was quite happy at how I made it past this difficult obstacle. Of course, I thanked the ¡°big boss¡± for helping me out.


    ¡°No, no, I should be the one thanking you. Although you¡¯re quite young, the depth of your knowledge is amazing. I¡¯ve learned so much from you these past few days... If possible, could I invite you toe join our Veji Merchant Association? I shall personally rmend you to our leader. You should consider it more, as even a genius like you will find it difficult to start a business from scratch. Connections and capital need to be umted over several decades, after all. As long as you¡¯re willing to join our Veji Merchant Association, I promise that your future job level won¡¯t be lower than mine at all.¡±


    Sindy Veji was quite sincere with his words. Everything had been abnormally quiet along the way. He didn¡¯t understand the small amount of friction between the mercenary groups, but this young man named Rolo had unimaginable ideas about the banking industry, business development, loans, and debts¡ªand they were all theories that he had never heard about before. And, the more he thought about Rolo¡¯s theories, the better he felt that they sounded.


    As for the fact that he spent so much money on this trip hiring two mercenary groups, he felt it was all worth it with the knowledge he gained. Sindy, who treated the Veji Merchant Association like his own family, was doing his very best to recruit a talent for his boss.


    I was beginning to feel awkward because I could sense the sincerity of this middle-aged merchant. I seemed to have gotten too carried away in acting the part of a merchant. In the end, I could only go along with the rumors about me and tell him that I was from a rich family, and that I was only out here to gain experience but still needed to go home in the end to take over the family business.


    Yep, all of that was the truth. Of course, I slightly glossed over some things, such as not telling him that the family business was a kingdom.


    ¡°...That¡¯s such a pity. If you ever change your mind, the Veji Merchant Association shall forever wee you.¡±


    I observed this middle-aged merchant who had such a look of regret, who could only give up in front of my sincere and polite rejection. He ended up giving me a rmendation letter to the Veji Merchant Association that I would probably never end up using, which even caused me to feel guilt, an emotion I rarely felt.


    ¡°It seems that I have quite the potential as a merchant, which caused him to feel so much regret.¡±


    But just as I was getting all happy, that silly cat immediately jumped out and cast a cold bucket of water upon my thoughts.


    ¡°Ridiculous. An expert merchant was actually fooled by ayman? Do you even know what the current price of salt is, or which trade route is the most profitable one? Theory and practice are two different things entirely. And, the most important of all, did you see how a merchant like him was talking to the border guards? Do you know how to speak so politely and give bribes like him?¡±


    Alright then. Reality was quite cruel. Be polite and profit? Speak softly? Smile like a merchant? I would probably just punch the border guards straight in the face instead.


    ¡°Hmph, you silly cat. Talking like you understand.¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous! Of course I understand. Mages are a job ss that uses a lot of money. How can they live if they don¡¯t understand some of the merchant business? After so many years of umtion, I have numerousrge merchant associations under my name. My ie every year can support me in activating several tens of seven-circle research projects.¡±


    Seven-circle was already at the level of a Legend-ranked mage. Normally speaking, even a Legend-ranked mage could only afford to activate one research project at a time. This meant that this cat could actually afford to pay for several tens of Legend-ranked mages¡¯ expenses all at once. Just how rich was she?


    I was outright astonished to hear this. I never expected such a rich girl to be right by my side. This silly cat was actually a white, rich, and beautiful rich girl? I did some rough calctions, which told me that her ie was at the minimum equal to a mid-sized city¡¯s.


    ¡°Please, carry me, rich girl! Please sponsor me! Please support me! Please loan me money... please be my sugar mommy!¡±


    ¡°Sure, Princess Peach...¡±


    ¡°Shut up, silly cat! If you ever mention this again, I shall sell you off as a cat who can talk.¡±


    Alright, after another typical battle between human and cat, I won yet another round. Hmph! Did she really think that transforming herself into a humanoid form would help her defeat me? I know how to spit! I also have longer arms and legs! And I know how to grope and pinch¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªsomething like proper limits were never important during fights!


    Still... when I touched the loli on her chest in the heat of chaotic battle, she really was quite t. It even hurt to touch; she was so t, just like an airport runway, causing me to cry in sympathy.


    ¡°...I should prepare some extra milk for you. It even hurt my hand! It¡¯s also bad to have other people say I¡¯m abusing my pet.¡±


    ¡°Pervert, you¡¯re dead! I¡¯m going to go all-out against you! Weren¡¯t you the one who forbade me from transforming into a mature form!¡±


    ¡°Dream on, silly cat! You actually want to be taller than me!? Just obediently be Princess t, and remember to wax that airport runway chest of yours.¡±


    Alright then. The second round of the human-cat battle began with this.


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªgetting back to the main topic, our fake identities became real identities thanks to Sindy¡¯s careful protection. We smuggled ourselves into the Bardi Empire quite sessfully. By the time we arrived in the Bardi Empire¡¯s first border city, Ra Town, not only did we not meet with any dangerous magical monsters, but we didn¡¯t evene across a single bandit.


    ¡°Whew. The domain lord here is an old friend of our Veji Merchant Association. More than 40% of our goods are sold to him. It seems that I won¡¯t be saddled with a mary loss this time after all.¡±


    Sindy wasughing quite happily. He had already mentally prepared himself to lose money on this trip, but things were unexpectedly smooth so far.


    ¡°Although those undead are quite cruel, they actually made the road safer.¡±


    Unlike the typical magic of mages, which required arge amount of money to fund their research, the biggest problem with undead magic research was typically the ck of materials.¡± That was why in the past, catching undead mages typically required one to only have to guard a cemetery or arge burial site. It was even said that some high-level Holy Knights could even receive a cemetery guarding sponsorship fee, as they basically lived in cemeteries.


    And from what I learned through certain channels, the Bardi Empire actually even gave the high-level undead the status of nobles and allowed them to freely gather ¡°materials¡± as they liked. This doubtlessly caused a huge wave in the Bardi Empire¡¯s society.


    In order to avoid incurring public outrage and rebellion, the undead didn¡¯t touch anything like the nobles¡¯ cemeteries as of yet. Instead, ouws, bandits, and magical beasts on the road met with trouble. The undead volunteered as ¡°defenders of justice¡± and wouldn¡¯t listen to any excuses. Typically, the high-level undead would then add numerous new skeleton soldiers and zombies to their subordinates after delivering a vicious beating.


    I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry when I heard this rumor. Should I say that the undead had evil intentions but did a good deed? At the very least, the bandits and otherwless individuals who didn¡¯t be research materials speedily gave up their illegal ways and vanished. Every main road soon became much more peaceful and safer.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s just temporary. The material¡¯s quality directly influences the final product¡¯s quality. Commoners¡¯ bones are at the quality of being blown apart by a single gust of wind. The corpses of the strong are the real high-quality materials. In this era of strong ruling over the weak, the corpses of the strong will typically be at some respectable location, and would never be just randomly thrown into a mass burial site.¡±


    ¡°For undead mages, ifmoners¡¯ cemeteries are appetizers, nobles¡¯ graves are desserts. The royal mausoleums are the true feasts for them. I refuse to believe that they¡¯ll be able to stand letting such a feast pass them by.¡±


    As the both of us were veteran undead mages, Harloys and I exchanged smiles of mutual understanding.


    ¡°It seems that you have quite a deep understanding of royal mausoleums. You¡¯ve done something like this in the past? How many times? And how many times were you caught? What¡¯s the reward on your head?¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous! You think that you¡¯re incredible just because you¡¯ve dug up a few elven royal mausoleums before? I¡¯m your teacher. Have you ever heard of the books that I wrote, ¡®Ten Greatest Missteps by Grave Guardians¡ªthe Joy I Had from Stealing Right Under Their Noses¡¯ or ¡®How to Analyze a Noble¡¯s Status and Quality of Materials from the Emblem and Design of a Mausoleum¡¯? These are must-read books for any undead mage.¡±


    ¡°Ohhh! You were the one who wrote those ssics! I¡¯m a loyal fan of yours. But, even though the book¡¯s title says ¡®ten,¡¯ why did you write more than ny and the book series still hasn¡¯t concluded yet?¡±


    ¡°Hmph! How would I be able to scam more funding if I ended it just like that? Start from ¡®ten¡¯ and never finish! My goal is to reach the stars! When I finally finish, the number of chapters I have shall equal the number of stars!¡±


    ¡°...Doesn¡¯t that mean it¡¯ll never end? Sigh, this area of research (shamelessness) is something I¡¯m stillcking in. If there¡¯s no more content, I just stop writing. But you must have heard of my book on practical methods, ¡®Eighteen Ways to use Luoyang Shovels¡¯. I even heard that my book sold pretty well.¡±


    ¡°That damned unfinished book that ended only halfway through was written by you? You even dare to brag about such a thing? I¡¯m going to stuff you into a pit!¡±


    ¡°...People should look forward towards the future. It¡¯s too difficult to fill old pits, and I prefer to continually dig new ones.¡±


    ¡°You really are an absolutely shameless bastard. Forget it, I shouldn¡¯t say anything about you as that¡¯d be the pot calling the kettle ck. Let¡¯s just forget things.¡±


    In some ways, Harloys and I were quite simr. We were both academic theorists (what a farce). At this moment, if you ignored the fact that I had teeth and w marks all over my face, as well as the fact that Harloys¡¯ fake tail was snapped in two and her blonde hair was rumpled all over, we were really such a good teacher and disciple pairing that got along quite well (knaves of a feather flocking together).


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI should get back to the main topic again.


    While eximing at how surprisingly peaceful this trip had been so far, Sindy was going to wait here in this town for at least two weeks for various small merchants from other cities. Meanwhile, our goal was Port Victoria, so it was naturally time to split up.


    But, before I left, Sindy was actually invited by the local domain lord for a dinner party. As he wanted to help the ¡°merchant Rolo¡± establish connections, he kindly invited me to go along with him as well. Originally, I wanted to refuse politely.


    ¡°Apparently, there¡¯s a major personage from the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital here, a distant rtive of the Bardi royalty who¡¯s going to attend this dinner party. If you want to do merchant business in Bardi in the future, this is a great chance for you.¡±


    I didn¡¯t care one whit about merchant opportunities in Bardi, but if I could receive information about the current situation in the Bardi royalty and Bardi capital directly from a high-ranked noble, then that was something I wanted more than anything.


    And, so, I agreed to go together with him, but as a result...


    ¡°Damn it, why are these guys still chasing after us!?¡±


    ¡°Weren¡¯t you going to the domain lord¡¯s dinner party? Why are they all chasing after you for your head, and you even dragged us into it!?¡±


    I turned to look behind me. The noble¡¯s private soldiers were still on my tail, chasing me.


    ¡°Um, it¡¯s a long story. On a well-lit night with a full moon and no wind, we...¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re currently being chased, so exin it to me with only one sentence!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m so unfortunate!!!!¡±


    Alright then, that was definitely quite a short exnation. But the grudge and deep agony contained in that sentence reverberated through all the mountains and forests. The deep emotions within could single-handedly shake the heavens and earth and cause even the gods to tremble upon hearing it. Just how pitiful and how much of a grudge was there?


    ¡°I¡¯m truly so pitiful!¡±

 Chapter 267

    Chapter 267: Unexpected Visitor


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Ra Town was part of Earl Samuel¡¯s domain, as well as where his main residence was located. Although he was a powerful local domain lord, Earl Samuel was going through tough times as ofte.


    His domain didn¡¯t have any particr special products. Most industries were at only a mid-or low-level here. In the eyes of those nobles from more urban areas, this location was probably a ssic example of a hick location. The only noteworthy part was that this was one of the reasonably well-run domains closest to the Lagraz Kingdom, so the import-export trade was rtively flourishing. More than seventy percent of Earl Samuel¡¯s ie came from taxes on the import-export trade.


    However, ever sincest winter, due to certain unstable political factors within the Bardi Empire, the number of merchantsing from Lagraz had significantly decreased. Since this would greatly affect his tax ie, it made his life rather difficult.


    Still, it looked like his luck was improving again. Not only did the major merchant Sindy Vejie as agreed, even ¡°Brilliant Pearl¡± Carolyn A. Mn from the Bardi capital of Haisler came to visit his domain on a vacation, which was a great political opportunity for him.


    This Carolyn was a distant rtive of the emperor and had the royal family name of Mn. Although she was only a distant rtive who wasn¡¯t even in the line of session to inherit the throne, her father Duke Harold was a major personage who even the princes had to defer to. As an infanta [1] 1 who was young, beautiful, and renowned for being wise, on top of her illustrious family name, Carolyn had many suiters within the Bardi Empire.


    Earl Samuel was overjoyed that such a person chose toe spend a vacation within his own domain, while also simultaneously being nervous that he would identally antagonize her, which would, undoubtedly, be bad for him.


    And so, Earl Samuel invited the best chefs and acting troupes within his domain and held a major weing party at his residence. He invited all the nearby local nobles and leaders and even the major merchant Sindy Veji from the east, which caused him to receive some criticism.


    In the eyes of most nobles, while they may benefit from making trades with merchants, that was something that they couldn¡¯t do on the surface. After all, that was considered a ¡°low-ss¡± activity.


    As for me, as an add-on to Sindy¡¯s merchant party, I was quite happy to join Earl Samuel¡¯s weing party.


    Yep, I was simply happy to be able to receive new information. It definitely wasn¡¯t me being happy at being able to eat and drink as much as I wanted for free or anything like that.


    Fine then, I admit that these Bardi spicy soup noodles were quite agreeable with my pte, that these freshly-baked apple pies were absolutely scrumptious, and the spices on that barbequed meat were simply perfect. These fried chicken legs tasted even better, not to mention the excellent pudding and finely-aged red wine... The provisions I was eating recently tasted so nd, and since I wouldn¡¯t have the chance to meet such delicious foods again, I didn¡¯t care how others were pointing and looking at me.


    Who cared if I was drooling or swallowing everything in a single gulp? Just call me a rural hick that hade to the city. Who cared what everyone said? Forget about reputation, stuffing my stomach was more important.


    Those who saw my archmage robe and wanted to chat me up gave up instantly upon seeing the ravenous manner in which I was devouring food. Even Sindy shook his head and gave up the idea of introducing me to important personages. But, since nobody was going toe bother me, I was more than happy to enjoy such an abundant feast¡ªit was a rare opportunity for me. I only forced myself to stop when the main character of the dinner party finally appeared.


    When Infanta Carolyn appeared outside the door, she attracted everyone¡¯s attention.


    I won¡¯tment on how she was d in so much jewelry. Also, since she was from a major family in the capital, her aura and appearance were both better than passable. However, since everyone politely put down what they were drinking and eating when she arrived, I could only do the same so as to not attract unwanted attention to myself. I helplessly put down the pudding cake that I was chewing.


    ¡°Sigh, such a grand show of etiquette just for her. Looking at her family crest, she really is an infant?¡±


    I¡¯d already seen so many beauties already. Don¡¯t even mention an infanta, even princesses weremon in my eyes. However, the servant that followed after her astonished me quite greatly¡ªan actual lich.


    Perhaps other people didn¡¯t know how to differentiate between skeleton mages, skeleton soldiers, and mages, but for me, the soulfire of liches was akin to a bright light in the middle of the night, easy to identify.


    ¡°This is Lord Rex. He¡¯s an imperial envoy on a tour of inspection by orders of Emperor Orloss. He represents the will of Emperor Orloss.¡±


    Alright then, did I identally transmigrate into a fairy tale now? Using a lich as an imperial envoy for a tour of inspection? Was I going crazy, or was Orloss the crazy one?


    But representing the will of the emperor meant that he had an incredibly venerated status. Not to mention that there was someone as high-ranked as an infanta doing the introductions for him. Plus, there were plenty of recent rumors about undead receiving noble titles, so even the blind or young brats would know what they should do in such a situation, not to mention these local nobles that had survived the stage of politics for so long already.


    There was an endless amount of apuse and cheering. The local domain lord Earl Samuel was the first to show his weing appreciation, and all the nobles kept bootlicking and kissing ass. There were even some young and beautiful women that cast seductive looks at the lich out of habit, but they soon discovered that there was something wrong about the situation. The lich seemed to be looking at them with an expression that said ¡®are you joking with me?¡¯, which caused these youngdies to hurriedly lower their heads in an effort to decrease their sense of presence.


    As for me, when I heard that a lich actually became an imperial envoy representing the will of the emperor, I was so shocked that I almost choked. I hurriedly drank two gulps of some two-hundred-year-old Omto red wine to swallow down my surprise.


    Onlyter did I find out that this was all part of the Undead Emperors¡¯ n. In order topletely take over the Bardi Empire, they made their n with centuries as the time unit. And now, it was time for them to nt the seeds for harvesting. In order to solidify their ¡°authority,¡± having a high-ranked noble from the capital taking a high-level undead around on a tour of inspection and establishing the undead¡¯s authority was just part of their overall n.


    ¡°See, even major nobles from the capital are recognizing high-level undead as high-ranked nobles. What are you all worried about?¡± This was probably what the Undead Emperors wanted and were hoping for¡ªto mitigate humanity¡¯s distaste for having undead rulers above them in order to avoid any unnned idents when they put their n into motion.


    However, their n was still limited and with ws. With Emperor Orloss ruling with an iron grip, it was possible for people to ept some undead as nobles, but if they discovered that the entirety of the Bardi Empire was ruled by undead, this country would likelye to its end. Perhaps, it was precisely because the Holy Church learned about this that they made the decision to ¡°eliminate the sources of evil¡± here.


    Still, the undead were probably just looking to temporarily coax human worries. As for whether or not they¡¯d be exposedter... when the Undead Emperors all descended, they wouldn¡¯t really care if they were exposed anymore.


    If this ¡°main character¡± arriving for the dinner party could be considered just the first program for tonight, then, when the infanta that just arrived from the capital started whispering in Earl Samuel¡¯s ear and pointing at Sindy, I faintly perceived that the God of Misfortune was giving me his blessings once again.


    ¡°Pope... heretic.¡± ¡°Battle!¡± ¡°Enemy country...¡± ¡°Capture them.¡± ¡°Take their riches.¡±


    Thanks to my 20 points in Legend-ranked Perception ability, my five senses were far above an ordinary person¡¯s. I heard these few words through the stubborn winds, and when I saw Earl Samuel¡¯s expression change from disbelief and astonishment to one of consideration and then great joy, I knew what I should do next.


    ¡°Damn it, this is going to be ¡®really fun¡¯ now. Perhaps I really should go to the God of Fate¡¯s sanctuary and pray to him.¡±


    But, I was already toote.


    ¡°Guards, capture those spies!¡±


    It would seem that Earl Samuel had already finished thinking over things ande to a conclusion. Actually, he didn¡¯t need to hesitate at all. Since the Bardi Empire and Lagraz Kingdom were now officially at war, he probably couldn¡¯t expect any more merchantsing over from Lagraz for at least the next several years. In that case, he might as well just take all of the Lagraz merchant Sindy¡¯s goods for himself, which was a concrete way of enriching himself.


    As for the reason for taking all of Sindy¡¯s goods for himself? ¡°With the two countries at war, doesn¡¯t that obviously make you a spy? I¡¯m going to take everything you have, and as for you, if someone pays a ransom for you I¡¯ll let you go, otherwise you can just rot in jail here.¡±


    What if the two countriester improved their rtionship? That would be no problem either. Would these foreign merchants really have the ability to take revenge? There would always be new fatmbs arriving for the ughter. And besides, it was still possible to work together if Sindy was able to pay a sufficient amount of ransom money.


    Not only did Earl Samuele to such a realization at this moment, but Sindy was no idiot, either. He had already expected something like this to possibly ur due to the unstable political situation. The moment he heard the word ¡°spies,¡± he unhesitatingly took a scroll out from his sleeve and tore it.


    A five-circle magic random dimensional door appeared. Since it was too quick and too unexpected, even the lich Rex was unable to stop him. Sindy was randomly teleported to a location within a three kilometer radius.


    It would seem that this was his ace card for escaping, and he had been prepared to use it at a moment¡¯s notice.


    ¡°Wow, Mister Sindy, aren¡¯t you forgetting about someone? Don¡¯t just make your teammate suffer like this.¡±


    Several dozen pairs of eyes were staring at me. Since the main character Sindy had ran away, I, who was only a side character, had obviously leveled up.


    ¡°Um, if I say that I¡¯m not together with him, will you believe me?¡±


    ¡°Catch that guy!¡±


    ¡°Yep, that¡¯s how everything happened!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why you unhesitatingly brought all the soldiers chasing after you over to us? Aren¡¯t you the one that¡¯s making your teammates suffer?¡±


    A certain silly cat was angrily shouting at me as we hid in a small forest. She was quite angry because she had just lost her collectibles.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t he just a mere lich? Why don¡¯t you just kill him? Do you really need to run like this?¡±¡±


    ¡°...Do you think that it¡¯ll end with just a lich? There will probably be something even more troublesome after him. Besides, I¡¯m currently only a Gold rank. Do you think it¡¯s possible for me to defeat a Legend-ranked lich together with a bunch of small fries?¡±


    ¡°Do you really dare to tell me that you honestly believe that? You can¡¯t even defeat a lich?¡±


    At the very weakest, all liches would be Legend-ranked. But judging from his mana waves and soulfire¡¯s strength, the lich Rex was only at the top of Legend rank, and he was even a Legend rank whocked foundational strength because he had been forcibly improved in power by an outside force.


    Although undead over the Legend rank boundary that possessed intelligence were typically stronger than humans at the same power rank, based on my understanding of undead magic, normal Legend-ranked liches weren¡¯t all that difficult to deal with.


    Especially all the more so because I could tell that the lich Rex seemed to be an ice magic specialist apart from using undead magic. That would be nothing more than showing off in front of an expert, and as Harloys said, it would be quite easy for me to deal with him. However, I didn¡¯t do so because I had other considerations.


    The soldiers chasing after us were mostly the domain lord¡¯s private soldiers, and most of them were Iron-ranked novices. If we really wanted to turn around and counterattack, literally any one of us could do the task on their own. However, I forced everyone in my squad to listen to me, ordering them not to scare them off. But the pity was that although I preferred to simply run off ande to a peaceful solution, they seemed to be quite stubborn about following us.


    Thanks to there being local residents supplying them with information in this environment filled with enemies, they were quickly able to catch up to us again.


    ¡°Catch that mage, otherwise our lord will kill us all.¡±


    ¡°Bastard! Is that guy really a mage? Why is he so good at running?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t mention it anymore! Ah San was sent flying with a single smack of his mage staff and was even stuck into the wall. This guy definitely has an ogre¡¯s bloodline.¡±


    ¡°Hurry up and chase after him! This time, our lord is so angry! If we can¡¯t catch him, none of us will get off easy.¡±


    As we heard the soldiers saying such things from behind us, Little Red, who had been rather frustrated at not being able to vent, looked at me in astonishment, seeming to question what it was that I had done.


    ¡°Not much. Since I wasn¡¯t using a show of force to escape, I used a hostage, that domain lord, instead. That domain lord probably felt like he lost a lot of face in front of that beautiful infanta, so he got angry.¡±


    ¡°...I think that there was something wrong with the way you took a hostage. First of all, you should have used a knife, not a chicken leg, when putting something against someone else¡¯s neck. Not only that, after you noticed that you grabbed the wrong item, two wrongs don¡¯t make a right¡ªyou actually finished eating that chicken leg and used the chicken bone to point at everyone, shouting ¡®Don¡¯te over, otherwise I¡¯m going to stab your domain lord to death with this chicken bone.¡¯¡±


    ¡°An earl that was almost stabbed to death with a chicken bone? I think that once this news spreads, he would prefer to have been stabbed to death by you.¡±


    Having a magical pet that was connected to your mind was truly inconvenient. This was especially because she would take every opportunity she could get to make fun of me. Did she really think that I didn¡¯t want to use a dining knife instead? Who knew that I would identally grab the wrong item?


    ¡°That¡¯s right, not only that, Rnd even thought that the earl was being noisy, so he used pudding to¡ªgrrgh!¡±


    I unhesitatingly stuffed the final chicken leg I had been saving for myself into that silly cat¡¯s mouth, finally giving myself some peace and quiet.


    ¡°...If I¡¯m correct in my calctions, this could even be a good opportunity. Yep, let¡¯s go meet back up with Sindy again. I still need to recover my fees for mental trauma.¡±


    ¡°Stop changing the topic! We want to hear more! Just how did you escape using a chicken leg!?¡±


    ¡°Stop mentioning chicken legs!¡±


    ¡°What about the pudding, then?¡±


    Note:


    1. An infanta is a historical term that refers to a daughter of the ruling monarch [of Spain or Portugal], especially the eldest daughter who was not heir to the throne.

 Chapter 268

    Chapter 268: The Past and a n


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Although the soldiers chasing after us worked quite hard, they were obviously destined to receive nothing for their efforts. Meanwhile, I was mainly focusing on how to calm down a certain dragon¡¯s anger rather than on how to find a path of escape. Otherwise, I¡¯d be cleaning up piles of ashes.


    Little Red¡¯s ck hair was beginning to turn red, and her ck eyes were turning red as well. It was quite evident that she was furious. If I didn¡¯t do a good job here, perhaps she¡¯d be breathing dragon breath the very next second.


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey¡ªLittle Red, when we were adventuring together back in the day, I never knew you had such a bad temper. Weren¡¯t we all used to being chased like this?¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous! Back in the day, that was because we weren¡¯t strong enough to win. If we didn¡¯t run, were we supposed to wait around and let them kill us? It¡¯s all your fault for being a professional at shooting yourself in the foot, always antagonizing those stronger than us. Besides, did you really have such a good temper in the past? You would always get angry at being chased and you would never care about who you antagonized regardless of their strength. But have we ever had a simr experience like now where we¡¯re being chased around by those much weaker than us? They¡¯re even insulting us so viciously!¡±


    I tried recalling to the best of my memory. For the sake of my reputation, of course I should shout ¡°How could we possibly have such a humiliating experience? For glory and honor, we should turn around and fight to our fullest!¡± but when I thought of how a certain silly cat always peeped on my thoughts and made a career out of going against me, I could only honestly shake my head.


    ¡°Actually, there were quite a lot of times that we ran from those weaker than us, usually when we were the onescking logic and reason. For example, whenever you dine-and-dashed or drank-and-dashed, whenever Adam did something stupid or owed a debt or had something to do with women, and Lisa was basically an expert at stealing things¡ªwe were all equally skilled in attracting aggro¡ªglurgh!¡± [1] 1


    Alright then. Before I could finish my sentence, Little Red covered my mouth. Her fiery eyes transformed back into ck eyes once more, and she had the rare expression of panic on her face. It would seem that when faced with her dark history, she was unable to get angry anymore.


    ¡°Hahaha! You forgot about how Margaret was scamming magical knowledge from other mages and getting into trouble with her experimental magic. Actually, everyone was roughly the same. After all these years, why talk about such matters anymore? Let¡¯s just forget about the past.¡±


    ¡°...I would have forgotten about it if you didn¡¯t mention it. I think that you were all novices back then, which made me suffer so pitifully. I was basically both the nanny and the daddy for all of you, on top of you all having such strong personalities. None of you ever listened to me. Things weren¡¯t easy for me!¡±


    Everyone was looking at us in astonishment and disbelief with expressions that said ¡°so even the great ones had days such as these.¡± This actually caused Little Red¡¯s face to redden in embarrassment. It would appear that even a huge ancient dragon like her could only surrender to her own dark history.


    ¡°...Don¡¯t mention it. Now I¡¯m beginning to remember as well. There were so many problems with where we went adventuring. A casual adventure where you said we¡¯d just go wherever the road took us would on average cause us to meet three Legends and one Saint per month, and we would always somehow arrive in every species¡¯ forbidden grounds and secret hideouts. Do you dare to say that there weren¡¯t problems with your leadership for our adventuring team?¡±


    Of course there were problems. Where else was I supposed to find teammates that were so strong and so easy to fool? Naturally, I took my strong teammates to chase after any clue I could for revenge.


    Forbidden grounds? Secret hideouts? Royal pces? In front of the famous detective Rolo Charname [2] 2 and his strongpanions, that was nothing!


    ¡°Hmph! If it wasn¡¯t for me carefully picking our adventuring paths, how could you all possibly be so strong? If it wasn¡¯t for those difficult battles back then, how could you grow so powerful? It would probably take you an extra five hundred years to reach Molly¡¯s level.¡±


    When Little Red heard this and recalled those ¡°youthful days¡± of hers that were filled with blood and sweat, Little Red, who wasn¡¯t afraid of anything, actually broke out into a cold sweat. It took her quite a while to speak up again.


    ¡°...If I could choose, I¡¯d rather wait an extra five hundred years! You bastard, this basically means you¡¯re finally admitting that you chose all those difficult adventuring paths for us on purpose! Before, you wouldn¡¯t admit it no matter how much you were beaten up!¡±


    ¡°Tsk. You don¡¯t understand that it was for your own good. I had to guarantee that you all could grow through life-and-death battles but also not make the battles so difficult that we¡¯d definitely die. Did you really think it was that easy for me?¡±


    ¡°You ******! You¡¯re even making it sound reasonable that you made others suffer!¡±


    ¡°Girls should pay more attention to their words and not use words that are censored so often... fine then, tomboys need to pay attention as well. You ******! Don¡¯t hit my face!¡±


    Alright then, I wasn¡¯t making things up. Actually, it wasrgely with the assistance of my System that I was able to do so many ridiculous things in the past, things that had also helped Adam and the others to grow in power so quickly.


    [Main Character¡¯s Adventuring Squad Mode: You are the main character from legends. You and your adventuring team will continuously attract endless amounts of trouble, and experiencing all this trouble will lead to plenty of opportunities for growth. As long as you¡¯re able to survive, your party¡¯s rate of growth will be cheat-like! System Reminder: Although you¡¯re the main character, you don¡¯t have the plot armor to never die like most main characters.]


    ¡°System, can I exchange for another one of those?¡±


    [The basic rules are that anything you¡¯ve already exchanged for before can¡¯t be exchanged for again. System Reminder: All our products are unique and custom-made by hand. And once they¡¯re sold, no refunds. We even deliver! Remember to give us a 5-star review.]


    ¡°Sigh, such a pity. It would have been so convenient to have another one of these to train the novices. We¡¯d just have to go out for a little trip, and if they didn¡¯t die, they¡¯d each immediately be powerful enough to go out on their own. Well, even if I could obtain such a mode again, it wouldn¡¯t be all that meaningful. After all, I have too many enemies, and strengthening just a few of my allies won¡¯t amount to much. I¡¯m just going to have to patiently wait for the Elemental Tide. I can¡¯t exactly improve the overallbat strength of the entire mortal ne... Wait a moment, even without the System¡¯s cheats helping me, it¡¯s not impossible for me to do some things to improve their power levels.¡±


    I faintly noticed something, but now obviously wasn¡¯t a convenient time to be thinking about such things. There were still soldiers chasing after us... Hmm? Where were the soldiers? Where¡¯d they go? Couldn¡¯t they work a little harder? I was still running!


    ¡°The soldiers chasing after us? Thest soldier chasing after us ran out of breath three hills ago. He¡¯s probably still panting, copsed on the ground. Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! How pitiful. An Iron-ranked novice ran more than thirty kilometers after you in one go; he¡¯s probably coughing out his lungs right now. Right, you probably ran an extra ten or so kilometers without needing to.¡±


    At the very beginning of us making our escape, the silly cat was shouting about how her legs were short and she wasn¡¯t fast as running, so she turned herself into her cat form and took a nap on my head. But now, she hade out again tough at my misfortune.


    I widened my mouth in surprise. I had identally had too much fun while running and forgot about the soldiers chasing after me. It would seem that there was now yet another new piece of dark history for me.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me earlier?¡±


    ¡°Who would dare to stop if you didn¡¯t stop? As for interrupting you, seeing how you and Lady Little Red were having so much fun chatting about the past...¡±


    Alright, why don¡¯t you just directly say that you wanted to listen in on some gossip? Hmph! Talking in such a roundabout fashion.


    ¡°Cough, our next target is to meet up with Sindy¡¯s merchant group again. They actually instantly all ran off. Damn it, they dared to make me suffer like this.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, he¡¯s changing the topic.¡±


    ¡°Yep, he¡¯s changing the topic.¡±


    ¡°Little Cohen, make sure that you don¡¯t grow up to be an adult like Rnd.¡±


    The ranger job ss would typically be the best at tracking others. After all, they had both the tracking abilities of hunters as well as the knowledge of how to cast some nature magic. However, the pity was that our ranger, Little Red, was obviously unreliable. If I wanted her to track something, the result would probably be that she would transform into her dragon form and search from the sky above.


    If Little Red had been a gold or silver dragon, this wouldn¡¯t have been a big problem. It would only be at the extent of some headline news, but Little Red just happened to be a red dragon...


    ¡°As an exiled evil dragon, it¡¯s understandable to have an absolutely terrible reputation. Fire-type huge dragons love to destroy cities as well as kill humans and set fires; that¡¯s very normal. But this isn¡¯t the Underground World. If an ancient red dragon appeared on the surface, probably even the Dragon City on the surface would take notice.¡±


    The Underground World practically consisted of various species exiled from the surface. And I probably don¡¯t need to go into how deep the grudges between the exiled and those that exiled them would be. The beastmen exiled the Underground beastmen, but since both groups ended up in such a pitiful state, they barely decided to forget about things in the end. The elves exiled the dark elves, and as for their rtionship... fine then, the dark elves had been wanting to kill the elves for countless years. The moment they returned to the surface, the first thing they did was to attack the elves. After all, for the long-lived to remember a grudge, it shouldn¡¯t be called petty¡ªit should be called an excellent memory.


    [Ding! Please ept your new title: Rnd, the One With Such an Excellent Memory.]


    Cough, I decided to directly ignore my system¡¯sment. Who cared if I simply had a good memory? Actually, although people said elves were petty, dragons were even more so. They would often take revenge about some incident from several hundred years ago on their target¡¯s descendants, and the worst part was that they typically didn¡¯t treat any other species as equal to them. Otherwise, there wouldn¡¯t be so many ¡°dragonying¡± incidents, either.


    The current generation belonged to the humans. The dragons of the surface weren¡¯t as strong as in the past, and some Dragon Cities were basically empty shells. But if arge-scale number of Underground dragons appeared on the surface, who knew how the surface dragons and Dragon Cities would react? And it would still be alright if she was some other red dragon, but Little Red just happened to be the Dragon Queen of the Underground. Her identity was quite sensitive. If her identity was exposed... I really didn¡¯t want to see a huge war between dragons break out.


    ¡°Wait for the other Underground species toe to the surface first and see how the surface dragons react. Right now, having the young ck and red dragons serve the East Mist Communal Country is also a way of seeing what will happen.¡±


    That was why I had Little Red make a promise to me before we left that she wouldn¡¯t transform into her dragon form unless it was absolutely required. Of course, this also limited Little Red¡¯s power level.


    But I wasn¡¯t at all worried that we wouldn¡¯t be able to find Sindy¡¯s merchant group even if she couldn¡¯t help us find them...


    ¡°They¡¯re in a small forest that¡¯s forty kilometers southwest of here.¡± This was a magical marking that I had Harloys leave on them. No matter how good we got along, it would always be necessary take certain actions in secret.


    ¡°...Southwest, you say?¡±


    Eaglestorm lifted his wooden staff and cast a spell that caused a bright green magical light to gather in his eyes. The next moment, his eyes returned to normal.


    ¡°Yep, I found them. The forest told me that there¡¯s roughly sixty of them. They¡¯re densely packed, but the life forcesing from them are quite strong. None of them are injured. Eh? Their cargo and carriages are with them as well. It seems they were prepared beforehand after all.¡±


    In the forest, druids¡¯ forest magic would help them to have countless allies. As long as a druid was able to determine the approximate location beforehand, any archdruid would have countless ways of seeing anything that happened in a forest.


    Of course, even if they weren¡¯t hiding in a forest, we still had another professional tracker with us. Judging by how Beifeng was looking southwest to begin with, he had been prepared already as well.


    ¡°Rx, we can¡¯t possibly lose them. Amir and Daisy have been informing me of their movements.¡±


    ¡°...Who are Amir and Daisy?¡±


    I got a little curious at hearing these names I¡¯d never heard before.


    ¡°Daisy is that Sindy¡¯s horse, while Amir is the leader of the other cargo horses. They¡¯re husband and wife and have a pretty good rtionship with me.¡± Alright then, there was far too much information for me to digest here. I really shouldn¡¯t have asked.


    Judging from the merchant group¡¯splete preparations, the Veji Merchant Association must have been prepared to take such measures long ago. They immediately left the moment they received a signal from Sindy. Although I could understand why they would leave without telling us a single word since we had known each other for too short a time, nor were we true allies, but being sold out like this still made me rather dissatisfied.


    And judging by how they all escaped so quickly, perhaps they had all been waiting for such a scenario just in case while Sindy and I were at the party, prepared to escape at a moment¡¯s notice. We were probably the only ones that weren¡¯t notified, as we had only joined midway.


    ¡°Should I say that it¡¯s to be expected of a merchant who only cares about benefits? Although Ipletely understand, it¡¯s still a little rude of him.¡±


    And a little more than an hourter, when we appeared in front of Sindy and his merchant group, they were both quite astonished and feeling somewhat awkward.


    ¡°Um, things were too sudden...¡±


    However, I immediately interrupted his exnation.


    ¡°Rx, we¡¯re not here to look for trouble. I have a little n that might be of assistance in this current situation.¡±


    Note:


    1. For those who don¡¯t know, ¡°aggro¡± is a game term that means you instantly attract hostility from all sorts of NPCs and monsters when you go out. Basically, attracting ¡°aggro¡± means you¡¯re well-hated!


    2. Charname is a Baldur¡¯s Gate reference!

 Chapter 269

    Chapter 269: Disguise


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The first rays of sunshine illuminated the streets, signifying the arrival of a new day. It was already time to get up out of bed. Yet Carolyn continued to bury her head under her pillow, apparently trying her best to pretend to be a turtle andze about in bed.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to get up; I don¡¯t want to get up. That way, that annoying pile of bones won¡¯te looking for me.¡±


    Her overly mature appearance and calmly indifferent aura always caused people to forget about Carolyn¡¯s real age; she was still quite young. Since she was born in a high and noble family, she had always had to meet the high requirements expected of her, which was why she seemed to be so mature when dealing with others.


    However, since she grew up as an isted bird in a gilded cage, she was actually quite a simple person. Her favorite hobbies were sewing and reading popr stories about knights. She would cry at parts she was allured by and would pull all-nighters finishing her favorite novels. She was basically no different from an ordinary girl in these aspects.


    As for her good social etiquette and conversational skills, that was all thanks to her very hard-working personal tutors. If Carolyn was allowed to do as she pleased, she probably would have acted just like the female leads in certain knight stories and rushed out for an adventure.


    But this time, as the daughter of a duke, her father gave her quite a difficult task.


    ¡°Carolyn, you¡¯ve probably heard about it as well. The Bardi Empire¡¯s higher-ups want to improve our rtionship with the undead. This is the will of the emperor. This time, you have been selected to take the lich Rex on a tour of inspection as an imperial envoy. You have to both help the nobles to establish a good rtionship with the undead but also not make the local nobles lose too much face. After all, those that join too early will have a bad reputation.¡±


    Simply speaking, she was requested to carefully control the situation. She had to improve the nobles¡¯ rtionship with this lich but also not act too much like a sycophant towards the lich in front of the other human nobles. Originally, as the eldest daughter of a noble family, this level of a political task should have been easy for her. Her personal tutor had long since taught her all types of necessary political skills. However, when she began taking on this task, she discovered that it was much more difficult than she expected.


    ¡°...I¡¯ve heard that the Alosi red wine here is quite famous.¡± (Trantion of how nobles always speak in roundabout fashion: You haven¡¯t eaten lunch yet, right? How about having a drink in a bit?)


    Alright then. When the lich¡¯s skeletal head stared at her quietly, soulfire burning within, even Carolyn knew that she had made a mistake with her words. However, she was rather dense and not the type to easily give up.


    ¡°...I¡¯ve heard that the master tailor Kakarot¡¯s new creations are quite creative, and have received excellent reviews even in the capital. I also heard that he happens to be here in this area right now doing business.¡± (Trantion of noble speak: Your clothes are so old and tattered. How about I apany you to buy some new clothes?)


    The lich Rex looked at his own gray-colored mage robe. This seemingly old and tattered mage robe was enchanted with five differentmonly used defensive magics and was incredibly useful. It was also an oldpanion of his that had been with him for more than a century. Was there really a master enchanter here that could create something better?


    But he felt that he should be polite towards a female¡¯s invitation, especially since Carolyn was hispanion. He also felt that it would be an excellent opportunity to take a look at the works of human master enchanters, so Rex was actually slightly looking forward to this as he readily agreed.


    But the developments that happened afterward make Carolyn feel quite awkward. In the city of Anyingdun¡¯s most flourishing business district, the lich¡¯s hoarse soul voice was loudly shouting ¡°Apart from glowing and self-cleaning, there are no magical defensive effects whatsoever? What garbage enchantments are these! Plus, look at the low quality of these materials! They haven¡¯t even been enhanced or had armor added in!¡± When everyone looked at them in astonishment, Carolyn, who was with Rex, really wanted to go hide herself in a hole.


    Still, Carolyn didn¡¯t give up. And, so, there were many simr such urrences.


    ¡°Have you heard about Auntie Agier¡¯s affair? It¡¯s really interesting; she and her uncle actually...¡±


    Rex¡¯s cyan-colored soulfire kept staring at her. This girl was quite imaginative to try chatting with a lich about gossip regarding humans having extramarital affairs.


    ¡°On the day after tomorrow, there¡¯s a charity event... Okay, I got it, I¡¯ll leave now and stop bothering you during your research.¡±


    The soulfire that had turned blue was already the best exnation. Even Rex was getting tired of her. Having a lich go to an orphanage for a charity drive? Was this supposed to be a Halloween event? What type ofme joke was this supposed to be?


    Rex was utterly uninterested in chatting about rtionships between humans. He was a lot more interested in the topic of how to turn the living into the dead.


    What about perverted jokes and gossip? Although, in a way, this was an ultimate technique that Carolyn had up her sleeve to break conventions or an awkward atmosphere with anyone, wouldn¡¯t it just be a type of sarcasm for a lich who had nothing but bones left?


    Discuss the international situation or religious beliefs? Are you really sure that you want to shout ¡°For the Holy Light¡± in front of a lich? She wasn¡¯t that suicidal, and as for international situations... lich Rex¡¯s memories were all from three centuries ago; she would probably have to start from a period long in the Bardi Empire¡¯s past.


    As the ultimate evolution of otakus, even if liches were always the ssical antagonist in every story, the story¡¯s plot would always be about how some adventuring team ran across a lich¡¯s ancient castle / mage tower / abandoned library. Liches were a ssical example of a guardian boss that would never take action or go outside on their own. In a way, this confirmed one of the biggest characteristics of liches¡ªthey wouldn¡¯t go outside even if you beat them up, and would want to stay inside forever.


    And, from a certain standpoint, the infanta who was in the prime of her youth at seventeen years old was yet another white, rich, and beautiful popr winner in life (someone who had quite a fulfilling life and was very popr). It would obviously be quite difficult for her tomunicate with a lich who was the ultimate evolution of an otaku using normalmunication methods.


    Of course,munication wasn¡¯t impossible. As long as one used topics a lich was interested in, even a research-loving otaku would be extremely talkative. But, as for the topics that liches were interested in...¡±Fundamentals of Undead Magic Research,¡± ¡°How to Use Void Energy to Vook Squirrels,¡± ¡°Which is Better for Creating a Zombie¡ªa Tauren¡¯s Heart or a Tigerman¡¯s Heart?¡± Carolyn was probably destined to never learn such skills.


    ¡°We should look forward to the future as there¡¯s a bright new sun every day¡ªer¡ªdark history.¡±


    Carolyn kept attempting tomunicate with Rex and adding new pages of embarrassing dark history. She became so annoying to Rex that he was unable to stand her any more. If he took this for any longer, he might even take the brunt of his superiors¡¯ anger and turn her into a zombie with no more intelligence.


    After the frightening night Carolyn experienced yesterday, she learned so much.


    First, she witnessed a young-seeming mage knock away the lich Rex with his mage staff while shouting ¡°Hit!¡± and then he took Earl Samuel hostage with a chicken leg, then he even smeared pudding all over a death knight¡¯s face, escaping in the chaos he created.


    Carolyn did her best to control the situation and kept scolding those idiots who dared to make fun of the lich in secret, but when she returned to her room, she keptughing for half the entire night. However, she was now forced to face reality.


    ¡°As I recall, that lich is right in the next room over and I¡¯ve heard that they have extremely sharp senses... Did I make another mistake without realizing it? Ahhh! I don¡¯t want to get out of bed!¡±


    The only part where Carolyn felt slightly reassured about was that Rex seemed to have a good temper. At the very least, he didn¡¯t get angry to the point of killing her off instantly with a flick of his little finger.


    The sun was fully up now, and she knew that she would probably have to deal with a furious lich who had lost face yesterday night. If she made a fool out of herself yet again, perhaps that greenish-blue soulfire of his would truly explode.


    ¡°Sigh, I really don¡¯t want to go.¡±


    But she had no choice. Her schedule for this trip was tightly packed. After staying here for a little while, she was soon supposed to go to the nearby Baron Matt¡¯s domain. She had to discuss the ns for today¡¯s travels with the lich and leave as early as possible.


    But, when Carolyn finished washing up and doing her makeup, the first scene that she saw when she opened her room¡¯s door gave quite the shock to her sense of logic and reason.


    In the hallway, that lich she viewed as all-powerful had been torn to pieces. The young mage she saw just yesterday was holding on to the lich¡¯s skeletal head, pouring holy silver and holy water into it and shaking it about as if it were dice. He then even used the lich¡¯s arm bone to reach inside and stir things up.


    Why did she know that it was the lich? The lich Rex¡¯s Epic-ranked death gravestone robe was still on its body, and that familiar soulfire was almost extinguished within the skeletal head.


    ¡°Are you going to tell me everything? If you don¡¯t, I¡¯m going to use your head as a chamber pot. Yep, I¡¯ll call it Guldan¡¯s¡ªer¡ªRex¡¯s head! Are you afraid!?¡± [1]


    *m!*


    Carolyn hurriedly mmed her door, thinking that she must have opened it in a wrong fashion this morning. After a long while, she slowly opened it up a crack.


    But just when she reached out her head, she saw that the soulfire within Rex¡¯s head as well as the blonde mage were both looking at her. The blonde mage suddenlyughed, apparentlying to a sudden realization.


    ¡°Forget it; it doesn¡¯t matter if you don¡¯t tell me anything. I have an even better target to ask now.¡±


    The young blonde mage tossed away Guldan¡¯s¡ªer¡ªRex¡¯s head and smiled at her as he randomly picked up a rib bone.


    ¡°Don¡¯t close your door anymore. You didn¡¯t open it in a wrong fashion today. Yep, be more serious! Stopughing! We¡¯re kidnapping you! Stop looking down on this lich¡¯s bone; be careful that I¡¯ll touch you with a lich¡¯s grasp!¡±


    ....


    ¡°Rx, we¡¯re not here to look for trouble. I have a little n that might be of assistance in this current situation.¡±


    Let¡¯s turn back time to midnight. In Sindy¡¯s temporary campgrounds, when the young man before him said that he had a n that could take care of everything, nobody really believed him.


    After all, the current situation was quite obvious already. The Veji Merchant Association had obtained through its intelligence channels that the Lagraz Kingdom and Bardi Empire were now formally at war. This was far worse than the worst oue that the Veji Merchant Association had been expecting.


    ¡°...What I originally thought was that we would meet with some ck-hearted domain lord that wanted too much of a kickback or that we¡¯d run into an undead army. In that case, I¡¯d just have to hire extra guards, and we¡¯d all be able to escape with no problems. But now, the two countries are actually at war...¡±


    The moment the Lagraz Kingdom dered war against the Bardi Empire, it gave a huge amount of trouble to all Lagraz citizens currently within the Bardi Empire. They naturally found themselves within an enemy country. While it may sound cool to fight while surrounded on all sides, it definitely wouldn¡¯t be any fun whatsoever when even the street-side vendors and little snot-nosed brats viewed you as a mortal enemy.


    And, the most troublesome part of all was that the enemies were no longer disorganized bandits but an entire empire¡¯s elite military forces. It was especially so when you consider the fact that strong countries¡¯ border forces would always be their best elites¡ªeven crossing the border became an insurmountable obstacle.


    I casually spread out a map and pointed at a location south of us. This location was the Asa canyon that we had passed through, which was also thergest location at which one could pass between the two countries. Of course, this location also had Fort Haiven, which belonged to the Bardi Empire.


    On our way here, we had passed through easily¡ªeven with someone with such a suspicious identity like me. All it took was a little bribing, as the Veji Merchant Association already had a good rtionship with the border guards to begin with. But if we took that same road back... it would probably be filled with peril.


    Taking a few bribes and turning a blind eye to a few illegal merchants during peacetime was an entirely different matter to allowing foreign merchants from an enemy country to pass through during wartime. The former was unanimously understood as a way to make extra money, while thetter was likely to get peoplebeled as traitors to the country. After all, nobody would be able to guarantee that there weren¡¯t spies or intelligence division members within this merchant group.


    If we still foolishly contacted that border guard captain who helped us out earlier, then perhaps he would be the first to prepare for our executions. No matter how much gold there was to be offered to him he still needed to be alive to enjoy it. He would probably be the first to try and erase all connections he had with us.


    ¡°...Going back is definitely impossible, but the situation is the same if you go to any other part of the Bardi Empire¡¯s border. Of course, there are some ces on the border that are undefended, but those are highly dangerous areas or filled with either natural obstacles. For example, the Fantasy Forest is rumored to be the home of ck fairies. I believe that none of you are foolish enough to gamble on passing through it. No¡ªwith your equipment and power levels, entering such a mega-dangerous area isn¡¯t even a gamble. It¡¯s simply suicide.¡±


    Although none of them answered me, judging by their awkward silence, the astonishment that they were unable to hide, and the muffled sounds of discussion amongst themselves, I had been on the mark.


    ¡°In that case it¡¯s quite easy. There are basically two choices left. Either you try and get past the border at some other location, reach another country, and then think of a method to return to Lagraz, or you just hide out in some mountain, vige, or forest and wait for the situation to change. Yet the only possibility for you is the more passive option; you all can only choose the second one.¡±


    Even Sindy was unable to hide his astonishment when he heard this. Everything had happened so suddenly, and he had just received the intelligence report about it. He hadn¡¯t evene to a final decision when I already saw through his dilemma.


    ¡°It¡¯s actually easy to guess why. It¡¯s quite simple, since the former n has greater risk to it. If you want to reach another country¡¯s border, you¡¯ll have to move around within the Bardi Empire. In this situation where the Bardi Empire is now on high alert, every location will be guarded heavily and roaming around in an enemy country without sufficient information as backup is far too risky. If you¡¯re caught by any military squad, that¡¯ll basically be the end of you. But if this method is unusable, none of you will probably be able to return home any time soon.¡±


    Everyone fell into an awkward silence; they had all realized this, but none of them had been willing to mention it.


    ¡°...But have you thought about it? Finding a ce to hide out and observe the situation may appear safer but it¡¯s actually the most dangerous method of all. As a mega-empire, do you really believe that the Bardi Empire won¡¯t have that level of control over its ownnds? And the Bardi Empire is quite famous even with other countries for having an outstanding intelligence division. You can hide, but how long do you think you can hide for? The worst mistake that you made was that you¡¯re still thinking of protecting your cargo. You actually dared to run together with your cargo? Do you think that local domain lord Earl Samuel will let go of a fatmb like you guys?¡±


    I saw that they were obviously shaken, so of course I took advantage of this and made my case.


    ¡°No! He definitely wouldn¡¯t! Based on my understanding of greedy nobles, he¡¯ll definitelye hunting you guys down like a rabid dog, and he¡¯ll im all your cargo for himself. After that, he¡¯ll send in all of your heads as spies and im his reward. And based on the current situation, he probably doesn¡¯t even need to contact the empire¡¯s higher-ups for assistance from professional spies. All he has to do is follow your merchant group¡¯s carriage tracks. Perhaps they¡¯re already on the way as we speak.¡±


    I intentionally paused for a moment here. As I expected, everyone looked in Sindy¡¯s direction, and it was quite evident that they were dissatisfied and angry.


    As a merchant, Sindy¡¯s insistence on taking the cargo while escaping already made the mercenaries rather displeased. But the person paying them was the boss, and unless they were forced to the brink the mercenaries didn¡¯t want to disobey their employer¡¯smand¡ªthat would ruin their reputation, which was ever so difficult to umte.


    Yet nobody was an idiot here. These details weren¡¯t difficult to think of. It was just that the situation was too sudden, and there had been too little time for them to consider things, which was why they had been so careless. Even if I didn¡¯t mention this little detail, someone probably would have thought of it soon enough.


    At such a time, there would definitely be a conflict between the mercenaries and the merchant Sindy. No matter if Sindy decided to throw away his cargo or if the mercenaries decided to gamble on being able to protect Sindy, there would definitely be seeds of discontent sowed between the parties in the end.


    ¡°...That¡¯s why, I¡¯m saying that if I have a method that can both protect your cargo and safely help you leave the Bardi Empire, will you all listen to me?¡±


    Well, I¡¯m going to end this reminiscing of mine for now. I had seeded in convincing them all. After just showing off a slight portion of my true power, the mercenaries unhesitatingly decided to follow mymand. And now, our first step was to eliminate the threat right in front of us before directly beginning a counterattack.


    Perhaps Earl Samuel would never even dream that the merchant group his soldiers had been chasing down allst night woulde back and attack him the very next day.


    ¡°An Epic-ranked mage robe? Oh my, it¡¯s even enchanted with ¡®Ironskin Magic¡¯ and ¡®Dimensional Door.¡¯ Little lich, while your power level isn¡¯t much, this is really nice equipment you have here.¡±


    I tried putting on Rex¡¯s mage robe as I adjusted the time distortion ring on my finger. I changed myself from a youth to middle-aged, from middle-aged to elderly, and then from elderly to... after death!


    Yep, although this ring was able to change my physical appearance on the outside, it couldn¡¯t change what I actually was. I was still someone living, but I now appeared to be nothing but bones that contained rotting flesh. I ended up with the appearance of a moving skeleton.


    What slightly surprised me was that the little girl Carolyn watched the entire scene of a living person turning into the undead¡ªa scene that should appear rather frightening¡ªyet not only did she not get scared to the point of peeing in her pants, but she was actually quite excited. It was as if she was delighted to meet with such a major incident.


    ¡°Are you going to disguise yourself as Lord Rex? Is it just like the situation in the knight story ¡®Masked Knights?¡¯ But, you don¡¯t have soulfire or death magic, so wouldn¡¯t it be quite easy to see through you?¡±


    ¡°What a strange little girl you are. Come, take another look.¡±


    I concentrated and lit up the fires within my eyes, which burned with the cyan-green color of soulfire. My right hand, which appeared only to be a skeleton¡¯s hand, snapped its fingers, causing countless skeletons to appear, shrouded in ck mist.


    Iughed as I enveloped myself in a thick amount of death magic. Waves of ice also started dancing between my fingers. The real lich who was floating in midair began roaring soundlessly at me. My disguise resembled a great lich more than Rex himself now.


    ¡°It¡¯s so interesting... I meant this is so evil. Although I don¡¯t know how you did it, your disguise is basically perfect; it¡¯ll definitely seed. What do you intend to do next? Threaten me to listen to your orders and help you in pulling the wool over everyone¡¯s eyes? I need to inform you first that I won¡¯t give in so easily. I don¡¯t care no matter what you do to my body, but as long as you threaten my family, I¡¯ll instantly surrender.¡±


    I was rendered speechless. Did she mean that I didn¡¯t need to do anything to her other than verbally threaten her a little? She even volunteered how to make her surrender?! What type of hostage was she supposed to be?


    ¡°...Rx, we have a better choice than you. From today onwards, she¡¯s going to be Carolyn A. Mn.¡±


    A female walked out of the shadows. She, too, had light-green hair, the characteristic of the Bardi Mn Royal Family. Her face even resembled Carolyn to a degree of seventy percent!


    ¡°Even if you really look like me, that still won¡¯t be good enough. I have a secret treasure of the royalty which the emperor gave to me. Only the Mn bloodline can make it glow¡ªeh? Why is it glowing even brighter than when I hold on to it?!¡±


    Carolyn¡¯s ne was stolen out of her hands by the other woman and was currently glowing brightly, as if it was a God Equipment that had met its true master. Only when Lilith Mn carefully put that ne on her neck did the pearl ne slowly reduce its glow.


    ¡°...If you don¡¯t finish the process of kidnapping me properly, and if you don¡¯t even try threatening me, I definitely won¡¯t tell you anything that you want to know!¡±


    Just as I was now one hundred percent certain that something was wrong with this little girl¡¯s head, Lilith suddenly revealed a dangerous-seeming smile filled with an evil allure as she approached closer.


    ¡°Rest assured, you shall tell me everything...¡±


    Her slender fingers were already beginning to take off Carolyn¡¯s clothing, as her red lips and sweet tongue were reaching for Carolyn¡¯s shoulders and neck. Meanwhile, Lilith¡¯s other hand was already sliding towards somewhere even lower to a ce that shall not be named.


    ¡°W¡ªw¡ªwhat are you doing?!! This is totally different from the stories; how improper! You can change to someone else...¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t I asking you right now? I¡¯m asking your body... mmm, not bad. It¡¯s unexpectedly tasty. I truly met a rare one, here. My lord, although I don¡¯t object to you watching me dine here, nor do I object if you¡¯re interested in joining in, aren¡¯t you worried about Lady Harloys reporting about this to Lady Elisa?¡±


    Alright then, I was filled with regret. I had almost asked ¡°Can I really join in?¡±, but I was being red at with an expression that said, ¡°You¡¯re in the way.¡± It was evident that her ¡°invitation¡± was nothing more than just a ¡°joke.¡±


    Although I really regretted not being able to watch the show that woulde next, I could only helplessly pick up Rex¡¯s head as I left. The heart-itching moans that came from behind me were so difficult for me to forget...


    ¡°Hmph! Women may have their ways ofmunicating, but we have lich-to-lichmunication as well! For example, soul torture, soul-searching magic, and psychological attacks!¡±


    Note:


    1. Guldan is a WoW/Hearthstone reference.

 Chapter 270

    Chapter 270: Undead nes


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Zero from the Ice ne? Aso came as well? Oh my, such a grand gathering. An allied army from all the Undead nes, and the Undead Emperors are personally leading?¡±


    Corpse, Ice, Desecration, Blood, and Darkness were five of the six major Undead nes already known to have designs on the mortal ne. Rex¡¯s superior¡ªor I should say his superior¡¯s superior¡¯s superior¡ªwas the Ice ne¡¯s Undead Emperor, Zero.


    The Undead Emperor Zero¡¯s true name had long been forgotten by the sands of time. He was a SemiGod-level lich who gained fame approximately one thousand and five hundred years ago. Nothing was known about him before this, and it didn¡¯t seem like he was actually from the Ice ne. He possessed a vast amount ofbat experience and counted as a ¡°neer¡± among all the Undead Emperors.


    No wonder this little lich Rex was a user of ice magic in addition to death magic. It was said that the average temperature in the Ice ne was -20 degrees Celsius; no normal lifeforms would be able to survive in such a ce. Naturally, the main type of magic there would be ice magic.


    While themon points of all the Undead nes were that there would be plenty of undead, the ways that undead were created in each ne were numerous and wondrous. Each ne also had its own naturalws. Some were more natural dimensions but happened to be particrly suitable for undead to live in, such as the Ice and Darkness nes. Nothing would be able to survive in the Ice ne apart from the undead, while the Darkness ne possessed the power to twist life and death, allowing the undead to reproduce just as if they were living.


    And since there were natural Undead nes, there would also be unnatural ones. For example, the master of the Desecration ne, Undead Emperor Aso, had expanded his own Divine Kingdom into an entire Undead ne.


    Yes, a Divine Kingdom. Although Aso wasn¡¯t a True God, he was an ancient and powerful entity that even a True God may not be able to defeat. After all, this generation¡¯s True Gods still had to be respectful to their elders. Perhaps Aso wasn¡¯t a True God, but he was definitely far more powerful than most True Gods.


    Those that surpassed the Three Heavy Doors of the Myth rank but didn¡¯t be a God would be SemiGods. However, there were plenty of ancient powerful individuals in the past that reached the standard for bing a God but had no intentions of doing so. While Divine Obligations and Godhood represented glory and strength, they also represented responsibilities and constraints. At the same time as being able to obtain Concepts powerful enough to affect the world, an individual¡¯s personality and soul would be partially taken over by the Concept and be transformed into part of the Concept. The best example would probably be the unlucky God of Holy Light.


    Every SemiGod¡¯s aplishments could be described only in epics and legends. For those powerful enough to reach this rank, how could they possibly be swayed so easily by the promise of unreliable power? Some SemiGods even believed that ascending to Godhood was only a type of trickery, apromise with the world. They believed that the power that they could obtain with their own hands wouldn¡¯t be any lesser than that gained from ascending to be a True God.


    The capacity of any ne had to do with the Elemental Tide. Even a True God¡¯s incarnation in the mortal ne would only be able to maintain a SemiGod¡¯s power level at best. Challenging the limits of a ne¡¯s capacity to bear one¡¯s power level meant that the entire ne¡¯s will would attack you. For the mortal ne, that would be the Goddess of Order and the Goddess of Chaos¡¯s wills. Even if they didn¡¯t personally attack, the huge tide of the mortal ne¡¯s will wouldn¡¯t let any challengers go. It would be as if the entire world loathed your very being.


    For example, there would be endless catastrophes, like identally stepping on banana peels all the time, having the worst luck in everything, and countless cmities, both natural and man-made, such as an endless number of enemies arriving at your doorstep. Who knew what the final result would be? Most likely the challenger would have to find a new home just to get some peace and quiet.


    And due to Ayer¡¯s existence, the position of the Death God had long been filled. Unless a new Concept was born, it would be difficult to even ascend to Godhood these days. However, bing a Follower God was quite easy. All one had to do was do one¡¯s best to suck up to a True God. But how could the Undead Emperors that had experienced so much hardship be willing to serve someone else? Most of them were SemiGods who didn¡¯t end up dying but were unable to stay any longer in the mortal ne for various reasons, so they ended up hiding out in different dimensions to avoid trouble.


    As for the residents of the Undead nes, how they came to be was even stranger. While some of them were directly created by the Undead Emperors, and others were undead mages that ¡°voluntarily¡± chose to go to different nes due to being unable to stay in the mortal ne, the most numerous of all were, of course, the native residents of the Undead nes.


    The naturalws of the Undead nes were, of course, tilted in favor towards the undead, simr to the naturalws of the Elemental nes, which favored the elemental creatures. The Undead nes were able to naturally produce new undead, but the source of souls for these undead had always been a mystery. One rumor I had heard was that the Undead Emperors were secretly stealing souls from the River Styx, but I was unsure as to the veracity of this rumor.


    Of course, if this was true, Ayer would be held responsible as he was the one who oversaw the River Styx. At the very least, he would be charged with negligence.


    With the increase in the Elemental Tide, the Undead Emperors would soon have sufficient power to return to their original home, the mortal ne. Yet it must be said that these long-lived existences had since expected the arrival of another Holy War and had been preparing for centuries. At the very least, the things involving a certain Orloss had been prepared by them even before he ascended to the throne as the Bardi Emperor.


    The Undead Emperors had the advantages of time and location, especially with their proactiveness. They also had quite a decent amount of unity within their own ranks.


    There were a countless number of Undead nes already known to exist. After all, from the day that undead came into existence, they kept umting endlessly as they were difficult to destroy. Nor was the mortal ne the only ne that was capable of producing Undead Emperors. And Undead Emperors could be produced from more than just undead mages. Perhaps some mighty Myth-ranked hero or dragon had given themselves over to serve death, bing part of the undead.


    This was despite the fact that the undead had a pitiful growth to reach top-level power ranks. After all, the Three Heavy Doors of Myth involved one¡¯s physical body and soul, limiting the power level of countless ancient undead. Some even considered it an insurmountable obstacle for the undead.


    However, the existences capable of bing Undead Emperors were far beyond whatmon sense could measure. Even if normal undead wouldn¡¯t be able to grow past Myth rank, that didn¡¯t mean that the Undead Emperors were unable to improve their power levels. They had thousands, or even tens of thousands of years to form their strongest foundational umtion of all. Nobody knew just what they specialized in, and it would be impossible to know it without fighting them.


    Even when I was at my strongest, I wouldn¡¯t have had any guarantee of being able to defeat any Undead Emperor in singlebat. Of course, except for a very few exceptions, there was also no guarantee that I would lose.


    Luckily for me, not every Undead Emperor was interested in this Holy War, which would happen once every two or three thousand years. After all, it would take a lot of effort to connect their ne to the mortal ne. Based on the current situation, the only Undead Emperors that had interest in the mortal ne were the ¡°neers¡± to the ranks of Undead Emperors.


    There were a total of six Undead nes and eight Undead Emperors at the SemiGod level that had taken action, proving their interest in the mortal ne. This was the information that my ¡°dog¡± obtained for me as my spy.


    Another lucky thing was that none of the eight Undead Emperors with designs on the mortal ne were existences with power levels that would cause me to despair. At the very least, I knew that in a certain Undead ne, there was an ancient existence on par with Ayer. In front of the most ancient bone dragon of all named Gregory, everything would meet its end.


    In each Undead ne, an Undead Emperor would basically be an unstoppable existence. They wouldn¡¯t be called emperors, otherwise, and as the only recent ¡°neer¡± in the past few centuries as well as the winner of the ¡°Best Neer Award¡± due to beating up the Holy Church in a direct confrontation, Yongye¡¯s name had already spread far and wide in the Undead nes.


    Due to my fame, I only had to mention that I was Rnd, the undying one; I didn¡¯t even have to torture Rex¡¯s soul or anything. This lich, who was so adamant in saying he would never surrender and even kept threatening me, caved in immediately. Not only did he obediently tell me everything I asked him, he even gave me all the information that he had secretly gathered over the years as well as his own inferences.


    I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry as I looked at this skeletal lich head whose teeth kept ttering in fear. Was the ¡°undying Rnd¡± that scary to him? Just hearing my name would cause undead to tremble in fear?


    I really am a good person. That¡¯s why this little lich who was so scared of me definitely wasn¡¯t frightened because of my bad reputation. Yep, it must have been that the other Undead Emperors were too cruel, which gave me a bad reputation by association.


    ¡°Tsk, so soft. Looks like this Guldan¡¯s head won¡¯t be able to be a God Equipment. Oh, whoops, I should say Rex¡¯s head, right? What? Wrong again? Fine, fine, how about Daniel Wu¡¯s head? Yep, like I said, my memory is excellent. I¡¯d never remember wrongly.¡± [1]


    And this ¡°Daniel Wu¡± lich wasn¡¯t quite old. Rex was only just a bit over a century, old and had be a lich only due to his umted achievements, which had allowed him to receive his superior¡¯s assistance in helping him transform into a lich. His power level was a bit weaker than real liches, and he wasn¡¯t very popr with his peers. (The rumors I heard told me that he was actually recognized as the most handsome lich in the Ice ne, which made him super popr with female undead but made all his peers incredibly jealous.) This was also why he had been sent here on such a job which was clearly a ¡°waste of time.¡±


    Since he hadn¡¯t expected to be sent on this task at all, he didn¡¯t prepare beforehand, and he didn¡¯t know much about the mortal ne. He had only arrived for a short time.


    But just the amount of information that he knew and told me was astonishing enough already.


    The Desecration ne¡¯s Undead Emperor Aso had personally arrived on the mortal ne. He had obviously sealed himself and paid a heavy price in order to remain in the mortal ne; he wouldn¡¯t be able to fight at his real Undead Emperor level of strength, but Aso was still the highest authority here. That meant that the high-level undead would be organized and act with well-nned goals in mind. Nor would any internal struggles between them be possible. Since we were their enemies, this was doubtlessly a piece of bad news for us.


    This was all the more so because we were still roaming around in the gigantic Bardi Empire. If we were exposed, and Aso wanted toe have a chat with me as his junior, that would be truly troublesome.


    ¡°...We absolutely can¡¯t face him directly or act ridiculously right now? It looks like my choice was the right one.¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: For those of you who don¡¯t know, quoting from Wikipedia, ¡°Daniel Wu Yin-cho is an American actor, director and producer, and as of 2015, starring as Sunny in the AMC martial arts drama series Into the Bands.¡± He¡¯s also considered super handsome. Meanwhile, Rex is mentioned as a ¡°handsome¡± and ¡°popr¡± lich.

 Chapter 271

    Chapter 271: The Turtledove Takes Over the Magpie¡¯s Nest


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    In therge room illuminated by sunshine, an abundant breakfast was set out on a long table. Besides a ¡°couple¡± eating breakfast, however, this room was empty. They had met each other via ¡°speed dating.¡±


    In order to suck up to the major noble Carolyn, Earl Samuel had let her stay by herself in his very own magnificent residence, while he and his family all temporarily moved out for the time being. This was quite convenient for what we wanted to do.


    ¡°ck tea.¡±


    ¡°Yep, yep, here you go.¡±


    ¡°That milk cream bread from over there, thanks.¡±


    ¡°No need to thank me, Sister,e, open your mouth, say ahhh... Let Carolyn feed you.¡±


    When I finished my ¡°interrogation¡± of Rex, it was already breakfast time. Just as I walked downstairs to the dining hall, I saw two green-haireddies feeding each other.


    I sat down in a random chair and rang a bell to call one of Earl Samuel¡¯s servants over. I even ordered some food and poured some wine for myself, wanting to enjoy myself after being busy with work all night, but the moment I took a sip, I discovered that the wine leaked out from the skeletal bones of my chin that was my current appearance... Alright then, the way that servant looked as if he wanted tough but didn¡¯t dare tough made me quite displeased.


    ¡°Come, Sister, have some red wine.¡±


    They started feeding each other in an even more intimate fashion. When one girl¡¯s mouth contained some wine, she approached the other girl¡¯s red lips. Their tongues tenderly met each other and silvery-clear droplets dripped down, transforming into long silvery-clear strands of saliva. A certain girl¡¯s hand was already reaching beneath the table, and the situation seemed to turn into one which was rated 18+.


    ¡°Ah...¡±


    Even though Carolyn was the aggressive one today, she was kissed so much that she was out of breath. Lilith¡¯s hand kept doing various things to her as well, and thirty secondster, Carolyn copsed on the table with an incredibly red face, and her white skin which was like a swan¡¯s was filled with strawberry kiss marks. There were also numerous strands of saliva dripping out of her mouth,nding on the table.


    Meanwhile, as the victor, Lilith proudly nced over at me then stabbed her fork into a tiny tomato, ate half of it, and stuffed the other half into our ¡°captive¡¯s¡± mouth, ending this round of feeding each other.


    ¡°...Although the FFF group¡¯s motto is that the same gender is true love, while love between opposite sexes is only for reproduction purposes, why does seeing this sight cause the anger in my chest to transform into mes dancing upon my hand? In my dark shadow, countless ck-robed individuals are roaring into my ears, ¡®Burn, burn, burn!¡¯¡±


    ¡°OUCH!¡±


    Just as I was impulsively about to take action, a painful bite on my finger snapped me back to my senses. The silly cat was there as expected, as she retracted her magically enchanted cat teeth and enjoyed the breakfast that I had just ordered!


    ¡°Silly cat! What are you doing?¡±


    ¡°...Stop acting like a little virgin boy that¡¯s never tasted meat before. Don¡¯t you know how unsightly you were just now? Fine then, let me fix my words. Even if you are a three-hundred-plus-year-old virgin, don¡¯t make it so obvious. It¡¯s shameful.¡±


    How could the silly cat possibly understand the rage of our FFF group? Just as I was ring at her with my mes of anger, that silly cat actually transformed herself into a blonde mature woman as she stretchedzily like she was a real cat and even dared to nce seductively in my direction.


    ¡°Do you want Big Sister to teach you? Usually, I enjoy pure young women, but I think that Princess Peach will be even more delicious.¡±


    Her blonde hair cascaded like a waterfall, reaching the ground. Her delicate eyes were filled with an alluring splendor, and as she stretched she disyed her excellent curvaceous figure. Even though she was obviously trying to act seductively, she was still elegant enough to resemble a schr who read through ancient tomes. It was as expected of a gold elf, the species known as the most beautiful species of all.


    At this instant, she was both incredibly alluring and elegant. That seductive expression of hers even moved both women on the other side of the table. Fine then, it would seem that Lilith had changed Carolyn into preferring women now as well.


    As for me? Moved? Heh heh, silly cat! I already said before that anyone who dared bring up Princess Peach in front of me would meet misfortune! I said before that you were forbidden from transforming into a form taller than me! I held on to ¡°Daniel Wu¡¯s head¡± as I angrily roared, ¡°You¡¯re seeking death!¡± [1]


    ¡°...Wait, don¡¯t do that to me! Even if you didn¡¯t like my sexy joke, it¡¯s not to the degree of...¡±


    Harloys already knew what I was going to do to her thanks to our soul connection, but she was unable to finish her sentence. After some spatial distortions, what remained was only a pink-colored club.


    ¡°Yep, from today onwards, you shall be the Legend-ranked weapon Pink Bunny. My enemies shall henceforth suffer the humiliation of defeat by a pink and furry bunny rabbit.¡±


    ¡°You perverted, gay...¡±


    In a way, the lich Rex was a ssic example of an idiot who didn¡¯t know anything about the world because he spent too much time holed up only doing research. Although he wasn¡¯t as much as a ditzpared to Carlohin, who crafted her own soul container into a soul bottle and ced it right in her room, Rex, who carried his own phctery with him, was quite something as well.


    ¡°...My body and phctery have to be in the same dimension. I just arrived in this ne less than two weeks ago and didn¡¯t manage to find a safe ce to store my phctery yet. I was intending on finding a ce during this tour of inspection...¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s why you made yourself into Daniel Wu¡¯s face.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Gul¡¯dan¡¯s... I meant Rex¡¯s head! No wait, what head are we talking about? This is my head! I think that I was rather creative, and my phctery was quite well hidden. Nobody would imagine that someone would make a phctery into the shape of a skeleton head. I can just find any random grave and bury my phctery, and then put on the skull of the person in the grave. All I have to do is switch heads, which will take ten minutes, tops.¡± [2]


    ¡°You definitely haven¡¯te to the mortal ne in a long time, right? Or, maybe you didn¡¯t even be a lich while you were in the mortal ne.¡±


    I looked at him with pity in my eyes. If he really did what he intended with his phctery, there was a ny percent chance that he would end up with a tragic oue and a joyous oue for someone else.


    ¡°Hmm? My lord, why do you say that? You¡¯re right, I became a lich in the Ice ne. Is something wrong with my idea?¡±


    ¡°If it was still one hundred and sixty years ago and if you¡¯re able to tolerate the stink of a corpse, it would indeed be a good idea. But ever since the legendary story ¡®Graverobbing Handbook¡¯ became a bestseller, where the main character of that story became a Legend after graverobbing and gained incredible riches, the act of graverobbing attracted countless individuals. There¡¯s now even internal graverobbing rules and factions. And, after some people really did manage to dig up some ancient God Equipment, many strong individuals also stopped caring about their reputations and joined in to start graverobbing as well. There was even a not-so-nice Legend-ranked mage who was addicted to graverobbing that invented a detection spell to find underground magical artifacts. Many mages that got desperate due to being really poor even joined in this profession part-time...¡±


    The soulfire in Rex¡¯s head attached to my waist started flickering. He apparently understood what would happen if he really did what he intended with his phctery.


    ¡°...A lich¡¯s phctery is something incredibly rare and valuable. Amongst magical materials, it¡¯s considered Legend-rank and above. In that case, your head would have been dug up by someone in at most two weeks. Either it would be sold off at an auction as an unknown mystical artifact or it would be sent to the Holy Church as a cursed item needing to be cleansed. Either way, congrattions, because you¡¯ll be the most foolish lich to have ever been born for dying in such aughable manner.


    Rex¡¯s head fell silent, but his flickering soulfire was the best evidence of his fear. Meanwhile, my mood greatly improved as any displeasure at Harloys teasing me evaporated. That saying was true after all; misery lovespany. Making someone else miserable was always a great way to make myself feel better.


    Although I was having great fun, there was no longer anyone around me.


    Should I say that it was a happy coincidence? Although it was sudden, my n went off quite smoothly. I now had full control over the Bardi Emperor¡¯s imperial envoy group. And, due to the fact that no humans wanted to stay overnight in the same residence as an undead, our night ambush that only a few of us participated in was highly sessful as well as a well-kept secret. Nobody found out about it.


    The lich Rex only took one death knight and one high-level Abomination as his guards. All his other guards were merely low-level undead that had temporarily been summoned. The death knight was the first to meet a painful demise on the night of our attack, as he shed against a certain ¡°ck-haired female ranger¡± when responding to our ambush.


    And the result? Cohen and Yawen spent half an hour putting him back together again, but he still changed job sses to ¡°headless knight...¡± Well, the shards of one, that is.


    Little Red even let out a dragon¡¯s roar as she partially transformed into a dragon and threw a punch at him. It was quite obvious that she wasn¡¯t intending to go easy at all, and so, her opponent the death knight was easily smashed to little pieces to the extent where it was difficult to put him back together again.


    And, in my eyes, this meant that after being chased around by weaklings all night Little Red needed to vent her umted stress [System: Are you sure that it¡¯s not because of you revealing her dark history?], but that unlucky death knight could at least be proud for being able to die to a huge ancient dragon¡¯s power.


    As for that Abomination... since the duke¡¯s daughter Carolyn apparently despised its disgusting spell, it was merely given the task of guarding the outside of Earl Samuel¡¯s residence that Carolyn was staying at. By the time it received its master¡¯smand and finally managed to arrive, it just happened to meet with Little Red who hadn¡¯t vented enough yet and met an instant end. Little Red even breathed out a little bit of dragon breath and demolished an entire stable.


    As for Carolyn¡¯s human guards, they were even easier to deal with. Her strongest guard was a middle-aged knight captain who barely managed to reach Gold rank, which was basically nothing to us with our standards for power levels. This knight captain and his novice knight subordinates didn¡¯t even notice our presence or what we didst night. By the time they arrived next morning for morning drills, everything was already over.


    This wasn¡¯t the Underground World where Legend ranks were everywhere. In normal human countries like this one, it was already quite something for the eldest daughter of a noble to be able to have a Gold-ranked ¡°master¡± as a guard. Not to mention that her guards were also temporarily arranged on short notice.


    As for the problem of safety? Even the top-level mercenary groups in the Lagraz Kingdom had only Gold ranks as their leaders, not to mention the fact that a Gold-ranked knight captain with some silver subordinates would easily be able to go just about anywhere in the rtively safe Bardi Empire. When I learned from Carolyn that her temporary guards were only under a simple contract, I immediately had Lilith acting as Carolyn end the contract right then and there and dismiss the guards and pay them right away.


    It was quite convenient that this Gold-ranked knight captain had drank a bit too much alcoholst night due to the local nobles¡¯ ttery towards him. When he saw that the duke¡¯s daughter Carolyn appeared to grow several centimeters taller in a single night, he attributed it to his hangover.


    Perhaps the alcohol was quite strongst night, because this middle-aged knight kept thanking ¡°Carolyn¡± in delight for receiving three months¡¯ worth of sry all at once, as if he had won the lottery.


    And, things after that would be even simpler, even if they were slightly different from what I expected. (Such as a certain duke¡¯s daughter surrendering to us much faster and much sincerer than anticipated). Fine then, I had to admit that our n was even more sessful than expected due to a certain female vampire¡¯s ¡°high ability to convince others¡± and our kidnapped victim Carolyn¡¯s energetic assistance .


    Yet no matter how obedient or strangely Carolyn behaved, I still couldn¡¯t trust her. How could the eldest daughter of a duke give in so easily? If she reported us to the Bardi government or some noble, then that would give us a huge amount of trouble.


    So, we still continued as nned, and Lilith disguised herself as Carolyn. It was just that ¡°Carolyn¡± now had a female servant that greatly resembled her in appearance. Meanwhile, I disguised myself as the lich Rex, and with his head that was attached to my waist helping me out, we could probably pull off this disguise. To make things even more realistic, I summoned my own personal death knight and Abomination.


    ¡°Daddy, Ah Dang wants to eat meat!¡±


    ¡°Bear with it for me! Oh, right, you can fill yourself up first with the remains of that Abomination at the door. Just make absolutely sure nobody sees you eating.¡±


    In a certain way, the Saint-ranked beast tamer with me gave me an inspiration due to his ability to ¡°emit a True Love domain.¡± If his Soul World was capable of helping other species to survive in it, perhaps my Frigidwinter Earth would be capable of doing the same. However, after some experimenting, I discovered that it was easy for most items to be damaged after being stored in my world because of the extreme chill present in it. I doubted that any life forms with life in them would be able to survive in my world of snow and ice.


    Even if it was no good for the living, there wouldn¡¯t be any problem for the undead.


    And so, after I proved my theory about the undead being able to survive in Frigidwinter Earth, I stuffed it with quite arge amount of low-level undead cannon fodder. But, it seemed like a waste of such a strong ability to only take cannon fodder with me. When considering that it was highly likely that we would meet trouble on this expedition, I figured that I should also put some high-levelbat strength inside my world.


    And so, I asked Xiluo to loan Ah Dang to me, but I even received additional help that I didn¡¯t ask for.


    ¡°Your Highness, there are so many cracks in this armor, and it¡¯s even glued together. How am I supposed to wear this?¡±


    Like other top-level undead, the Ghoul King Dicas spent his time in humanoid form. He also had enough death magic power, so putting on a death knight¡¯s armor and pretending to be an ordinary death knight would be quite easy for him.


    But the problem was that Little Red had attacked the death knight a little too viciously. We spent a long time trying to piece the armor back together, and it was still evidently in no working condition.


    ¡°How about you go find a cksmith to help you fix it up? Or, you might as well sew it together with a needle and make do. Do you know how long little Cohen spent on gathering all the little pieces? Comin a little less. Besides, you were the oneining about being bored inside and wanted toe out. If youin any more, I¡¯m going to toss you back inside and have someone else do it.¡±


    Hearing this, Dicas, who was renowned as a mad dog on the battlefield, actually shivered in fear. He wasn¡¯t actually worried about the low temperature in my world of snow and ice, nor was it actually that he was bored as he said. That was just an excuse.


    ¡°Actually, I wasn¡¯t bored at all. Understanding the naturalws of that world helped me greatly. It¡¯s Gria who was too bored waiting there, and she began to sing...¡±


    Alright then, I almost cried tears of sympathy right then and there. If I really did switch Dicas out for Gria, perhaps she would be so happy that she would start singing. That would be our turn for great misfortune.


    I was quite speechless as well. At the time, I clearly only asked for Ah Dang, but another two of the Four Heavenly Kings came along with me of their own volition. They must have been quite bored and free. (Lionheart: Can you stop being annoyed when I¡¯m the one doing all the work?)


    Of course, it would obviously be no good if there were only undead with us. Soon, we were scheduled to ¡°coincidentally meet¡± a group of merchants from the Lagraz Kingdom, and then ¡°coincidentally¡± obtain some new guards and servants. Then, this Lagraz merchant group would receive the appreciation of Carolyn, the noble from the capital, and then obtain a pass to help the merchant group return to the Lagraz Kingdom from some domain lord that Carolyn would convince.


    The rest would be even simpler. We would just have to continue the tour of inspection as nned, and when reaching a close by location, ¡°Carolyn¡± would suddenly feel adventurous and head to Port Victoria, wanting to take a look at the sea together with the lich ¡°Rex¡±.


    Of course, this n of mine wasn¡¯t infallible, but it was fine as long as it would take care of the current situation. By the time we were exposed, we should have long since escaped. Or, if we couldn¡¯t make this disguise work until the end, we¡¯d just have to take each step at a time.


    As we left Earl Samuel¡¯s residence, which had just been robbed by us without him realizing it, and headed for the next noble¡¯s domain, I watched Earl Samuel and couldn¡¯t help butugh. He had been so angry yesterday, but he was now saying goodbye to Lilith in such a sycophantic manner, not to mention that his neck still had a mark left from the chicken bone I threatened and held him hostage with.


    ¡°Gul¡¯dan¡ªer¡ªRex, perhaps there really is a funnier way to die in this world.¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: For those of you who don¡¯t know, quoting from Wikipedia, ¡°Daniel Wu Yin-cho is an American actor, director and producer, and as of 2015, starring as Sunny in the AMC martial arts drama series Into the Bands.¡± He¡¯s also considered super handsome. Meanwhile, Rex was mentioned to be a ¡°handsome¡± and ¡°popr¡± lich.


    [2] ED/N: Gul¡¯dan is from WOW. From the WOWWiki, ¡°Gul¡¯dan of the Stormreaver n was a former orcish shaman of the Shadowmoon n from Draenor, who became the first orcish warlock as well as the founder of the Orcish Horde.¡±

 Chapter 272

    Chapter 272: Wood Spirits


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Those who had visited Port Victoria before would definitely fail to recognize it as the same flourishing city from the past.


    The dimensional ovep turned it into a one-of-a-kind location that couldn¡¯t be found anywhere else in Eich. This ce was both part of the Undead ne as well as part of the mortal ne, but, at the same time, it also belonged to neither.


    Judging by Undead Emperor Aso¡¯s personal arrival, the specific Undead ne that was ovepped here was likely to be the famous Desecration ne¡ªa frightening thought. It was obvious that countless undead armies would pour into the mortal ne if the Dimensional Descent was sessfullypleted.


    However, the undead weren¡¯t able to reach their goal. The original will of the Undead Emperors was to transform this entire ce into a Land of Death that would be able to support arge number of undead from the Undead nes. They would then slowly invade the surrounding mortal ne, transforming it into their own domain. At the very least, the naturalws of the Undead nes would transform Port Victoria into a new undead capital, with innumerable dead crawling out of their graves. The dark, sunless Undead ne was akin to a heaven for the undead, and aplete Dimensional Descent would finally enable the strongest high-level undead to enter the mortal ne.


    The newly born undead armies might not be able to leave this area for a while after being born, but they would have enoughbat strength backing them up and would fear nothing when multiple Undead Emperors take over. That would herald the arrival of a new Undead Cmity. And it was precisely because they feared this that the Holy Church unhesitatingly dered a Holy War against Orloss. Unfortunately, for the undead, there was a little hitch in their n.


    The current Port Victoria and its surroundings were now divided into two obviously different areas. One was a dark-seeming area filled with shadowy winds, which was the influence of the Undead ne. The other was filled with bright sunshine and verdant green forests where trees grew at a furious pace. The foliage that covered the skies represented endless amounts of life force, and that mysterious sun caused the undead so much grief, hatred, and pain.


    The powers of life and death shed against each other here, and in the air, the forest released light green clouds that fought with the gray clouds of death. The Dimensional Door to the Undead nes, which should have opened up wide, had somehow gotten stuck, as this abnormal area began to remove itself from the control of both the Undead and the mortal ne. The undead army¡¯s vanguard continuously arrived here from the Undead ne, but this magical forest was actually evolving and growing as well.


    Near the entrance of the forest, there were two armies cruelly ughtering each other. One of the armies was, of course, the undead army, while the other was no longer a simply group of magical nts that didn¡¯t know how to move. These ¡°native residents¡± resembled descendants of some uncontacted tribe.


    From their outer appearances, one could tell that they were a life form that had never before existed in this world. They were, for the most part, humanoid, but their seemingly slender limbs possessed an inconceivably immense amount of strength, capable of lifting heavy objects multiple times heavier than their weight.


    They had different heights and body shapes. Some of them were less than half a meter tall, while others were giants that towered over ten meters. What they all had inmon, however, was their leafy green hair made of leaves and the tree bark armor embedded into their skin. With thorns and magical vines tangled around their bodies in a way that resembled clothing, they all had obvious nt characteristics.


    When looking at them from a distance, their elegant body shapes, rather nice-appearing faces, as well as their slender figures among the forest made them closely resemble forest elves. However, if one got closer and observed their behavior in battle, nobody would mistake them for an elf species, as elves were known for being delicate and sensitive.


    They had nobat techniques whatsoever and relied only on pure instinct. Every one of their attacks were not only more vicious than that of the barbarians but also ridiculously strong and shameless.


    Yes¡ªshameless. The undead had to worry about their soulfires being put out or their limbs being severely injured. While severe injuries to their limbs wouldn¡¯t kill them, it would render them useless inbat. However, these nt lifeforms¡¯ attacking methods solely consisted of techniques to perish together with the enemy.


    In addition, these nt lifeforms mostly fought together in groups. One of the tallest and strongest would stand in front as the vanguard, and they had tremendous strength in meleebat. The vines on their bodies were as nimble as arms, and they could twist their body parts freely in battle. Another side of theirck ofbat techniques was that their attacks werepletely unpredictable. Meleebat units that had such tremendous strength and couldn¡¯t feel pain were difficult to deal with as it was, but they had a more ridiculous undying nature than even the undead.


    Cut off its head? They just had to retreat for a few seconds and a new one would grow in its ce. Some of the tall tree warriors even got so excited in battle that they directly ripped off one of their arms and tossed them out, which then exploded, killingrge numbers of undead. But this wasn¡¯t the only part.


    Under a green light, the shards from these explosions would transform into a new wave of smaller tree warriors and begin a new wave of attacks. What made the high-level undead the most afraid of all was that after spending so much effort to truly destroy one of these abnormal nt life forms, there would be a sudden patch of green fire that escaped from somewhere which would flit into a nearby skyscraper-level tree, and a little whileter, a brand-new tree warrior would emerge from the tall tree and enter battle yet again.


    And this wasn¡¯t simply an undying quality. The newly-born nt warriors were even stronger than the previous ones, with even betterbat techniques. They were even capable of learningbat techniques from the death knights and skeleton generals that they were facing, which increased theirbat strength by an additional 20% each time. This didn¡¯t seem like much, but with a repeated cycle of revival several tens of or several hundreds of times, it probably wouldn¡¯t take long for these nt warriors to reach the level of Sword Saints.


    Due to the limits of the Elemental Tide and the mortal ne¡¯s dimensional will, the high-level undead were still unable to enter the mortal ne. And, the basic foundational strength of the low-level undead, swarm tactics, was losing out to these nt warriors that had even more ridiculous undying properties.


    However, these new creatures of wood possessed more than just warriors that didn¡¯t fear death.


    The smaller ones among them didn¡¯t seem like they had much Strength but were actually even more difficult to deal with. Either they were able to control nature and cast all sorts of nature magic and use various natural talents, or they were able to control the forest¡¯s magical nts in targeted attacks. Just like their fellow species members that were skilled at meleebat, they were also undying.


    The leader of the undead army was nearing the point of despair. At the beginning, these tiny green-haired things were as weak as gnomes and were only capable of trembling in fear under the forest¡¯s protection. They blindly ran about everywhere, trying to escape the undead¡¯s ughter, but now, in less than a week, these abnormal lives had evolved to the point of being able to directly face the undead armies.


    Yes, these nt lifeforms were all individuals, with their own thoughts and emotions, rather than being a part of Amelia. In fact, under the nurturing of Amelia¡¯s forest, they even evolved to the point of having their ownnguage. And not long after, in the future, they would be named the ¡°wood spirits¡± (named by Rnd Mist) and enter history as a brand-new species.


    ¡°...If we aren¡¯t able to eliminate this entire forest, we¡¯ll never be able to win this battle.¡±


    The death knight Kakarot came to the same conclusion as hispanions. Without being able to eliminate this forest, these strange abnormal wood spirits would never die. However, in order to safely enter this forest, they would first have to kill off all these wood spirits and magical nts that were in the way. They were stuck in a vicious cycle.


    ¡°This is basically unsolvable! It¡¯s as if we¡¯re fighting against a dimensional will! They¡¯re supported by the power of fate and luck and have endless replenishment for theirbat strength, while we keep decreasing in number. See! Even our luck is bing worse and worse.¡±


    From far away, an exploding durian bomb was tossed randomly in the sky. While they were being tossed randomly, the wood spirits didn¡¯t have to worry about harming their own at all. There was a death knight engaged in fierce battle against a wood spirit, but the explosive shrapnel from the durian bomb just happened to explode the death knight into many little pieces, and even though there was less than two meters between them, the wood spirit waspletely uninjured.


    If this was intentional, then this type of blind aiming and scattershot control far surpassed that of any top-level elven archer. And if it was all coincidental, the lucky wood spirit survivors deserved to go y the lottery. However, there was an endless amount of luck like this for the wood spirits, while the undead were forever on the unlucky side. Even idiots were able to tell that something was going on.


    The lich known as Rod had far more experience than any great lich. Rod was an old subordinate of Aso¡¯s while Aso had still been human, and he experienced so many countless battles. Rod also had battle experience across and between dimensions, so the analyses he made of anybat situation were considered trustworthy by all.


    Although Rod had never been able to progress in power level due to his body¡¯s nature and was still stuck at only the top of Gold rank, his wisdom from umted experience and long service helped him to be one of Undead Emperor Aso¡¯s most trusted subordinates. Precisely because he was so trusted, Aso, who had already returned to the Desecration ne, sent Rod out to see what was going on with thebat situation since things had reached a stalemate.


    ¡°Dimensional will? How is this possible?¡±


    The dimensional will of Eich had long since sunk into a deep slumber. How could it possibly be present here, making things difficult for them? If this truly was caused by the fury of the Eich mortal ne¡¯s dimensional will, this Dimensional Door probably would have been fully sealed off long ago.


    An undead named Andro didn¡¯t respond to Rod¡¯s query, simply looking at the forest filled with the energy of life instead. What Andro imagined was an invisible hand that was covering him, with a demonic-seeming shadowy figure secretlyughing maniacally at them, deriding the uselessness of the undead army.


    ¡°Damn it! How is this possible!¡±


    Andro finally noticed what was wrong. A high-level undead that had just copsed didn¡¯t have his soulfire extinguished. Instead, the high-level undead was covered by a green light from the surrounding grass and began transforming from a pale ghostly white into green. The next moment, it tossed itself into a tree. Judging from the shape of the tree¡¯s bulge, it was in the process of giving birth to a new wood spirit.


    All the undead¡¯s corpses were devoured by this forest and became its nutrients. Meanwhile, the dead undead¡¯s souls were absorbed by the forest¡¯s soul and transformed into newly-born wood spirits... the undead that excelled at attrition and long-term battles had met their most troublesome match of all, a simr species that did the same thing but even better.


    ¡°There¡¯s no mistake! It¡¯s currently stealing and absorbing souls. This basically contains its own Cycle of Reincarnation. This forest is a newly-born dimensional will! Damn it, this is going to be so much trouble for us.¡±


    ...


    Addendum: The below is an excerpt from one of archmage Victor¡¯s lectures (in the year AD 1541) regarding his research on the origin of wood spirits.


    ...It¡¯s very difficult to believe that in the midst of a fiercely ongoing Holy War, a cursed Undead ne performed a Dimensional Descent and stole away more than a million lives while also simultaneously causing the creation of a brand-new species¡ªthe wood spirits.


    Perhaps humanity has gotten used to the wood spirits¡¯ warm weing manner, sincerity, friendliness, as well as hard-working and peace-loving attitudes. Wood spirits are typically regarded as a textbook example of magnanimity and kindness, and very few dislike this species.


    However, very few actually know that from the moment this species was born, they were destined to face a continuous amount of battle, and they had to evolve through all this constant violence. In fact, for quite a long while after they were born and recognized as a new species, people viewed them as emotionlessbat marites.


    The most unbelievable part of all was that their creator wasn¡¯t any God, nor was their creator some undying existence from another dimension, nor was their creator a member of the elf species, who view themselves as the best at using magic. Their creator was only an ordinary human female mage.


    Yes, there¡¯s no need to doubt me. Amelia Mn was the same as any one of you listening to my lecture or even me, who¡¯s giving it. She was an ordinary human who took slow steps progressing past the Legend and Myth ranks in the mage job ss.


    Although there are many mysteries regarding how she was able to perform the act of creation, which is on the scale of a Divine Miracle, far too much time has passed since then and all theories are impossible to prove now. The theory I shall teach you all today is the one that sounds the likeliest, and it¡¯s also the most widely epted one by contemporary academics.


    First of all, I should mention that in the Mage Country¡¯s records, her personality was considered slightly crazy¡ªer¡ªa bit too aggressive. What can be one hundred percent confirmed is that long ago, she transformed her physical body into an entire magical forest filled with magical nts. Through this process, her soul also transformed into the will of the forest.


    Of course, it¡¯s impossible for any of us to know why archmage Amelia from over one thousand years ago did such a thing. However, it¡¯s obvious that there¡¯s always a soul connection between a creator and what she creates. Judging by how cute her children were, the descriptions of the ¡°Holy Mother of the Forest¡± in legends about how insane she was, or how many incredible criminal actions she did were obviously just artistic embellishments and attempts to stain her honor by her enemies.


    Alright, I won¡¯t mention those legends about her as everyone knows them already. We can easily tell that she received an elite¡¯s education from the Bardi royalty since young, and we all know about how she became the back candidate for Holy Maiden for the Earth Church (this part is in the lecturer Victor¡¯s day and age.) From these facts, we can infer that Amelia Mn must have been a gentle and agreeable female who had a saint¡¯s personality... I¡¯m definitely not saying this because I have a wood spirit wife, nor is it because I¡¯m worried that if I don¡¯t praise this Mother of all Wood Spirits that I¡¯ll be sleeping on a tree when I return home, with my two human/wood spirit half-blood sons refusing to even call me dad. (Chuckling from his students.)


    Cough, getting back to the main topic, I shall begin from the tragedy that urred that night. Ah, that was a trulyrge-scale tragedy of rare proportions. No wonder SemiGod level undead were always viewed as forbidden taboos, as they¡¯re truly vicious. They prepared for thirty years and took only one second to activate the next step of their n, which caused the entire flourishing merchant city of Port Victoria to transform into a city of death with not a single living human in just an instant.


    When the ¡°Dimensional Descent¡± urred at Port Victoria, over one million lives were instantly lost, and their grudges from their sudden deaths transformed into a physical curse. Simultaneously, due to the unique properties of this location which now had traits from both the mortal and Undead nes, these grudges and hatred had no ce to go and could only cycle around in that sealed unique dimensional space.


    What the Undead Emperors had been nning at the time was that this entire area would be just like the Undead ne, and that those grudge-holding ghosts and curses would be the undead, transforming into the foundational requirements for a new Land of Death. But, no matter how much one ns, one can never ovee the power of pure coincidence. Perhaps the only part that they didn¡¯t n for was that on that day, Amelia Mn just happened to be in Port Victoria.


    Although Amelia Mn had SemiGod-ranked strength, she still had zero power to resist the dimensional naturalws. In that instant, she also experienced the transformation from the living into the dead. However, archmages typically have many ace cards up their sleeve, such as a magic spell to instantly transform into a lich after dying. And just as I mentioned earlier, Amelia had previously transformed her entire body into a magical forest. When she transformed from the living into the dead, this process only changed her into a magical forest that had lost its sense of self.


    The specific Undead ne that came into contact with the mortal ne didn¡¯t possess any nts within it. No such things as undead nts exist ording to naturalws either. So, in that instant, Amelia became a bug-like existence in the naturalws. She was both a living gathering of nts, as well as an existence that was technically dead due to the Undead ne¡¯s Dimensional Descent. After a short moment, she became the only living existence as well as only existence who approached the divine in this tiny new dimension, so she managed to obtain the power to control this newly-born dimension¡ªjust like that¡ªwithout realizing it.


    Yes, it was a new and independent dimension, not the ovepping point of the two dimensions.


    The result of Port Victoria getting stuck between the Undead ne and the mortal ne was that it became an independent dimension of its own. Once this independent dimension chose a dimensional will of its own, the process of the Dimensional Descent was forcibly halted. The newly-born dimension followed its instincts and searched for a powerful enough will that had the capacity to run a dimension. And, the first will that was born in this dimension became its only candidate. Add on to the fact that this will came from a soul who had SemiGod-ranked strength, and Amelia¡¯s will naturally became the best choice possible.


    As for information regarding the study of dimensions, and why my peers and I came to this conclusion, you all can study the textbooks written by archmages from Amelia¡¯s generation: archmage Harloys¡±Theoretical Discussions Regarding Time and Space¡¯ and archmage Rnd Mist¡¯s ¡®Eighteen Rules of Dimensional Travel (28th Revised Edition, this is probably the final edition)¡¯. Oh, right, Rnd Mist wrote many academic works, but at least half of them are just tales about legends and modern stories from that time period. Obviously, they¡¯re fakes done by someone else, and the real ones typically have more than twenty revised editions. Make sure that you don¡¯t make a mistake finding one of Rnd Mist¡¯s real works.


    Anyways, getting back to the topic, when this newly-born little world chose archmage Amelia as the master of this dimension, especially in a situation where Amelia had lost her own sense of self, her physical body, which was now a magical forest, began to instinctively evolve. And countless grudge-holding ghosts now had a refuge they could seek.


    Dimensional wills have absolute power and control over the dimension¡¯s resident¡¯s souls. This is also one of the basic naturalws of dimensions that archmage Rnd Mist had determined, and, coincidentally, the Holy Mother of the Forest, Amelia, who had a motherly nature to begin with, epted these souls and began searching for a way to help theme back to life.


    Dimensional wills have the ability to create lifeforms within their own dimension, and only dimensional wills have the ability to approach the Divine Domain of Creation that belongs to the Goddess of Creation. This is also one of the naturalws of dimensions that archmage Rnd proposed. And so, coincidentally, the Holy Mother of the Forest used abination of humans and elves as the base model in addition to treants that she was familiar with and used her magical nts as the basic blueprint for evolution, which helped her to naturally produce the first generation of wood spirits ¨C the original wood spirits.


    Dimensional wills are constructed from a mix of Order and Chaos. The most basic power of Order is to control time and space, while the most basic power of Chaos is evolution. This is the third naturalw of archmage Rnd. In front of the power of Order that a dimensional will would possess, distorting time and space isn¡¯t difficult at all. Performing evolution, which would take other lifeforms millions of years, is also possible.


    The threat of the Undead ne caused the Holy Mother of the Forest to instinctively sense danger and increase the speed of evolution of her newly-born children. After receiving blessings from both Time and Evolution, these wood spirits that were the favored children of their new world evolved at a rapid pace in this new dimension, receiving their own history, culture, and inheritance. They also battled against the undead armies for a long, long time, which helped temper this newly-born species¡¯ ability to survive and will to live on. This is how we arrived at modern-da y wood spirits, this species which seems to contradict itself with how skilled at battle they are despite how kind and friendly they are as a species...


    As for why all the wood spirits have the habit of addressing archmage Rnd as ¡°Father¡±¡ªeh? It¡¯s time for ss to be over? Alright then, if you would like to hear this gossip, please wait for the next lesson.

 Chapter 273

    Chapter 273: Resident Evil


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Young man, I think highly of you. Continue working hard.¡±


    When the young pared to me) Baron Matt weed us, the sycophantic smile that he did his best to show me made me feel incredibly unnatural. It was as if a muscr gori was doing his best to imitate the faint smile of a young woman.


    Alright then. I just exposed this Baron Matt¡¯s physical characteristics. Apart from the fact that he wasn¡¯t ck and hairy, he basically resembled a muscr gori.


    We followed the nned route of the original imperial envoy of inspection, and we only stayed at Baron Matt¡¯s residence for a single night. However, that was enough for plenty of things, such as receiving kickbacks, receiving bribes, and extorting Baron Matt.


    Since we weren¡¯t scheduled to stay here for long, the young Baron Matt was quite nice to us and immediately brought up the main topic he was interested in. There was currently arge stack of paper currency printed by the Bardi National Bank in front of me. Due to the overly strong centralization of power, the money system in the Bardi Empire had gradually been reced from gold coins to the more convenient paper currency. As for this small present in front of me, it was two full stacks of thergest value of paper currency, equal in worth to at least 50,000 or 60,000 gold coins, an amount sufficient enough to purchase a medium-sized residence.


    ¡°...You¡¯re insulting my moral boundaries.¡±


    Although I was saying so, my tone was quite indifferent, and I was looking elsewhere. I was making it obvious by averting my gaze that what I really said was: ¡°You think that¡¯s enough? You think I¡¯m a beggar?¡±


    Baron Matt grit his teeth. He thought about how his application to rise in noble rank to an Earl had been obstructed by the House of Elders in the Bardi Empire for the past three years, and this was despite the fact that his territory was the size of an Earl¡¯s.


    Unless a major personage from the capital helped him out, he would probably only be a Baron for the rest of his life. If anything happened, he might not even be able to keep his own domain or secure his children¡¯s rights to seed his peerage.


    Matt, who was once an adventurer, could be described as someone who had lived the dream of creating everything he had from nothing. His power level was halfway in the Legend rank, and he was one of the strongest well-known warriors in a one-hundred-kilometer radius. He and hispanions earned quite a significant amount of money in their adventures, and Matt used his status as a frontier development knight to even gain a territory for himself. He was definitely a ssical example of an ordinary person who had managed to make it big and be sessful in life.


    However, it was a pity that nobles had deep traditions of valuing bloodlines and illustrious families. ¡°Bumpkin¡± Baron Matt had never been able to get rid of that nickname attached to him by the other nobles, and the Baron noble title that he purchased using money didn¡¯t evene with inheritance rights for his children. His domain was also exceedingly well off andrge, so the other nearby domain lords all wanted a slice. There had always been endless amounts of trouble for him, and the fact that he didn¡¯t have a noble title equaling that of his domain¡¯s status had always been his greatest weak spot.


    After Orlosspleted a reorganization of noblew, all noble titles of Baron and higher required the capital¡¯s Noble House of Elders to approve a promotion. However, Matt had never received any military achievements in the army nor did he have any background. It was impossible for his request to be approved. As he was a former adventurer who had witnessed the cruelty of battle, he didn¡¯t want to give up on hisfortable life that he was able to obtain after so much hard work nor did he want to gamble his life in the military, and so, he could only wait and spend his days as a Baron.


    Matt even hired a schr to teach him about noble ways and learned that his only hope was to rely on some powerful noble that had influence in the capital. But, if any of those major nobles were interested enough to take even a second look at him, then he wouldn¡¯t have had the derisive nickname of ¡°Bumpkin.¡±


    He was quite satisfied with simply being a rich domain lord. After all, he had excellent personalbat strength and a powerful heavy hammer, so none of the nearby domain lords dared to touch him. However, his son was growing up quickly. Unless he was able to somehow seed in getting his son rights to seed his noble peerage, this domain would be returned to the country as the Bardi Empire¡¯s property and his son wouldn¡¯t have any noble title or domain to his name. How could Matt possibly stand for this after working so hard for what he obtained?


    However, Matt finally met a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity today. The lich Rex, who was the imperial envoy, and a duke¡¯s eldest daughter, Carolyn, had arrived. This helped reignite Baron Matt¡¯s ambitions for the possibility of bing Earl Matt in the future.


    He had already heard that the high-level undead had greater influence with Emperor Orloss than even archdukes. He figured that as long as this lich was willing to help him say a few words, this matter would be such a small thing to the major nobles from the capital and will be easily resolved.


    When Matt saw that the imperial envoy lich Rex actually felt like this wasn¡¯t enough money, Matt, who was typically stingy, felt a great heartache. He would really have to pay up a lot of money. But more than the heartache, however, he was delighted; t this was one of the few times someone was willing to ept a present from him, meaning that what he wanted would finally be possible.


    ¡°...How have I gotten to this level that I¡¯m so happy that someone¡¯s willing to ept my money?¡±


    Of course, he wasn¡¯t going to talk about his regrets. He knew that he had to bury his delight in his heart. Matt even intentionally disyed an expression of pain and regret so that he wouldn¡¯t be taken for all he was worth; he even added an expression of hesitation.


    However, Iughed. This Matt fellow was to be expected as a musclehead cannon fodder¡ªhe was a terrible actor. If he really felt pained or hesitant at giving me more money, he would have just left. His facial muscles were almost about to twitch; that was how fake his anger was.


    Of course, I didn¡¯t intend to reveal that I saw through him already. Otherwise, how would I obtain what I really wanted?


    ¡°...Sincerity is the most important.¡±


    I said so in a deep tone as I gazed at the silver-colored Epic-ranked hammer attached to Matt¡¯s waist. I smiled meaningfully. This time, Matt didn¡¯t have to act as he really did have a bitter expression now.


    [Epic-Ranked Weapon: yer of the Undying.]


    [Attack Power: 30-30]


    [Special effect 1, Undead yer: Any undead thates into contact with this weapon has a probability of being instantly destroyed.]


    [Special effect 2, Divine Protection: Summon a golden divine protective field which can resist against the invasion of evil. Lasts for thirty seconds. Any that forcibly invades the field shall receive 5 Holy Light damage per second.]


    [Special effects 3 and 4: Since the user of this hammer is not in a divine job ss, currently not activated.]


    [There is crooked line of silver words on the hammer¡¯s handle: This war hammer once belonged to a true Holy Knight. Only those that are truly holy will be able to utilize the full power of this hammer. System Reminder: You¡¯re a Sword Saint, but you¡¯d rather be a Hammer Saint? Comrade Rolo Big Hammer.]


    To my surprise, I also saw on Matt¡¯s bookshelf all the books in ¡°Graverobbing Handbook¡± and ¡°Eighteen Ways to Use Luoyang Shovels¡±. That helped me to understand how this adventurer, who had only been an ordinary person, obtained this holy war hammer. At this moment, I even hesitated whether or not I should sign an autograph for this loyal fan of my books.


    But, the moment my System informed me of this hammer¡¯s name, I decided that I absolutely had to obtain it.


    ¡°...I¡¯m called an undying, and this hammer is named yer of the Undying? That¡¯s just too unlucky for me. I can feel evil intentionsing from the world. Yep, I should obtain it and make Harloys eat it. These abilities seem quite useful.¡±


    As for whether or not Harloys, who used to be undead, would have stomach troubles upon eating such a thing was something I didn¡¯t consider at all. At the very least, in the past, Harloys was unable to eat that holy sword named ¡°Pale White Justice¡± which contained the power of Holy Light. This would be a perfect opportunity to see if she became stronger after rejoining the living. I also hoped for her to be able to continuouslybine and evolve, surpassing even true God-tier Equipment.


    But then I suddenly thought of how using a loli to slice at other people made me mysteriously seem like a lolicon. Then I recalled that she was actually a fake loli who was thousands of years old, which instantly made me feel better.


    ¡°Tremble in fear, mortals, for the Pink Bunny shall now have new abilities. Undead, tremble in fear at your impending doom. Death is nothing to be afraid of, but dying at the hands of this weapon will be a true humiliation. Yep, I should tie two butterfly knots at the top of this club and draw a smiley face. I should add a pink stuffed rabbit on the club as well!¡±


    Thinking about how embarrassed and unwilling my enemies would be to be beaten to death by such a weapon, I couldn¡¯t help butugh out loud. My soul voice¡¯sughter from the lich form I was in echoed throughout the room, causing Matt to instinctively shiver. However, Harloys was the first to be displeased.


    ¡°...If you dare to toy with me like that then I¡¯ll dare to cancel my weapon transformation at a time when you¡¯re fighting with some powerful enemy. Who cares? At most I¡¯ll just show everyone my naked body one time and make sure that your name as a lolicon pervert gets known far and wide in the mortal ne!¡±


    Alright then, thinking about how my pink and fluffy club that I was attacking with would suddenly transform into a naked loli... that sounded rather interesting¡ªI meant awkward! It would seem like the silly cat still needed more proper training. I temporarily gave up on this idea of mine, as what I first needed to do right now was to scam Matt and obtain this excellent hammer weapon of his.


    Making a warrior give up his personal weapon, not to mention that this warrior was a top-level warrior halfway in Legend rank, would seem quite difficult. However, the current Matt was no longer the same warrior from five years ago. His peaceful and luxurious daily life had decreased his fighting spirit. The only thing he now looked forward to in life was pretty much his own territory and noble rank. Plus...


    ¡°He really was here for this after all. I was wondering why an imperial envoy and a duke¡¯s daughter woulde visit a far-out domain like mine. It seems like I¡¯m going to have to give this hammer up in order to protect what I have.¡±


    Matt had already realized this long ago. More than half of his reputation as the ¡°Undead yer¡± had been earned by this hammer of his. And due to his well-known reputation, since undead were now one of the main factions in this country, it was only natural that he would attract a lot of unwanted attention and trouble due to his nickname.


    This was no different from wearing a set of dragonying equipment and dragonhide armor in front of a huge dragon. It would definitely be at the extent of being able to attract aggro simply with one¡¯s face. If that person didn¡¯t die, then that would be really strange.


    ¡°Looks like I can¡¯t escape this after all? Perhaps giving it up now will even be good for me! At the very least, I can express my friendly attitude.¡±


    Matt looked at the excellent hammer on his waist nostalgically one more time as he carefully ced it on the ground. Since I was disguised as a lich, it was only natural that I wouldn¡¯t dare to touch this holy hammer, so the female knight behind me picked up this heavy hammer in my stead.


    She lovingly caressed the hammer all over. And, when the silver hammer came into contact with her, it began glowing with a silver light, emanating a mysterious aura of fighting spirit. Perhaps it felt like its old master had made it lonely for too long already, and it thirsted for being able to reenter the battlefield.


    ¡°A Holy Knight? No, how could a Holy Knight who believes in the Holy Light possibly be together with a lich? She¡¯s probably in a divine job ss for some other God.¡±


    Matt soon let go of his doubts, as the most important to him right now was whether or not the lich in front of him would be satisfied with his sincerity, and whether or not he would sessfully be able to obtain a promotion to an Earl.


    In a way, this was the tragedy of a former hero in hister years. As someone who created everything he had from nothing, perhaps he was fearless in his youthful and young adult years, but once he truly possessed a warm and loving family as well as a sufficient amount of wealth, he lost his courage and daring spirit.


    If he had still been an adventurer and a noble dared to try to steal or extort his wealth and weapon from him, then he would have instantly responded with a swing from his hammer. As for those greedy,wbreaking, moralcking, evil nobles that abused themoners, he would kill any that he came across. If he met any that were too strong for him to take on, he could at least beat them up and then run away.


    It was the same for this Legend-ranked lich Rex before him. If Matt had been at his strongest, he would have dared to summon his adventuring friends toe y the lich. Unfortunately, he now had to suck up to this lich and even bribe him.


    Sometimes, life was truly ironic. Now that Matt was in the prime of his life, not only did he be a noble himself, he even voluntarily gave this lich his wealth¡ªall in order to obtain a higher noble rank to benefit his wife and son.


    Matt shook his head as he put all his thoughts behind him, as he knew he wouldn¡¯t have another chance like this if he missed this opportunity. This former hot-blooded hero did his best to recall how the evil merchants that he looked down upon so much would suck up to others. Then, he did his best to smile sycophantically, and he even kneeled on one knee with his good knee, the knee that hadn¡¯t taken an arrow before.


    As for me, I merely smiled, and was toozy to care about what he thought. I simply indicated to Yawen that she should put the hammer away.


    ¡°...It¡¯s good that you understand. After you die, I¡¯m willing to help you be one of us undead. Right, did you know that Lady Carolyn is a huge fan of adventuring stories? She¡¯s especially interested in adventurers¡¯ personal journals and hand-drawn maps. These are all precious treasures to her. If she can obtain anything like this, it¡¯ll be quite easy for her to speak up for your case as well.¡±


    Adventurers¡¯ personal journals were both records of their adventures as well as evidence of their glory. But since Matt was already willing to give me his weapon, which was his life and blood, these memorabilia of past glorious achievements didn¡¯t count for much. Soon, I returned quite satisfactorily with a cart filled with handwritten journals and geographical information.


    Actually, this information here¡ªespecially the hand-drawn maps from a veteran adventurer like Matt¡ªwas the true goal that I was here for. That hammer of his was something I simply decided to scam from him since I could. Of course, if a real lich like Rex had visited Matt, the first thought a lich would probably have upon seeing this hammer would be to kill Matt immediately.


    I immediately sent Matt¡¯s servants back with the excuse that we didn¡¯t need their assistance. This would obviously help prevent us from exposing our real identities, although it would also cause us to have nobody to guide our way. Of course, it wouldn¡¯t be a big problem as long as we stuck to the main road, but that was far from satisfactory. After all, nobody would be able to stick to the main road when running for their life.


    As a ¡°proper¡± noble daughter, it would have been quite strange if Carolyn knew anything about geography or had a map on her. In this generation, maps and locations of cities counted as military secrets. Anyone who understood cartography and how to draw maps would be a professional. It would be quite rare to find a cartographer that was an ordinary civilian.


    However, I knew that there was a special profession whose practitioners would always think of a method to get the mostplete map of all, which would even include secret passages and shortcuts not shown on official governmental maps. Their maps would even bebeled with threat levels for each area and important things to watch out for, which were quite convenient.


    Yep, it was quite easy to guess. Naturally, I was talking about the profession known as ¡®adventurer,¡¯ as they were typically wandering vagabonds. There were perhaps incredibly few professions that moved about as often as adventurers did. Forget about not taking maps,passes, or not having any informational backup, but if an adventurer didn¡¯t even take enough food and clean water with him on an adventure, then it wasn¡¯t called an adventure anymore¡ªit would be called suicide.


    A veteran adventurer¡¯s personal journal and map collection would have more detailed information than any information I could obtain from the government. In order to prepare for the possibility of being chased and needing to escape, I absolutely wanted to obtain a copy of such information for myself.


    By the way, I should mention that due to the differing personalities of individual adventurers, their personal journals focused onpletely different areas. For example, a certain dragon¡¯s adventuring journal focused only on the best foods and alcohols avable in each location, as well as including maps and timetables of each location¡¯s times when they would receive new stocks of food and alcohol reserves. This particr journal would be highly treasured by any alcoholic.


    And due to some special reasons, my personal adventuring journal typically¡ªand intentionally¡ªreduced my personal feelings as much as possible. Although there was a huge amount of information in it, it was quite boring and would put most people to sleep.


    Gnome adventurers¡¯ journals could typically be viewed as guides for local businesses, while beastmen adventurers¡¯ journals typically contained stories about fighting. As for Adam... how could a musclehead like him have the brains to write a journal?


    Although Matt was a musclehead as well, his wife was apparently one of his adventuringpanions back in the day, and she had excellent attention to detail. Her adventuring journal was incredibly detailed and even contained manyments about legends and historical records, which just happened to be what I wanted.


    Alright then. I didn¡¯t exactly lie to this former adventurer who was at the beginning of approaching elderly age. At the very least, I didn¡¯t promise him a single thing and simply epted his presents. He was the one who misunderstood of his own volition... Fine then, seeing how kind he was and how much he had helped me out, I indeed told Carolyn about what he needed. For this type of small matter, she could take care of it with a single message. The only thing was that she would be able to return to the capital... As for why I was uncertain if she would return, that was because based on the current situation, I felt like she was likely to elope with Lilith.


    Now that I had profited hugely, and while I was making our ns for future paths to take, the silly cat suddenly came looking for me. She looked incredibly serious, which was quite rare for her.


    ¡°Rnd, there¡¯s something that you have toe take a look at. This time, they¡¯ve really gone overboard. I¡¯d say that they went even more overboard than you did as Yongye.¡±


    There was arge amount of empty space in Baron Matt¡¯s residence¡¯s backyard. There was also arge amount of grains stored here, and in one of the warehouses, Harloys showed me a pile of grains that could bemonly found anywhere.


    The golden wheat still contained some of the chill of winter and was quite cold to the touch. However, I could not notice anything out of the ordinary with this wheat.


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter? What¡¯s wrong?¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t you felt something odd about eating the grains here while we¡¯ve been in the Bardi Empire? It tastes especially sweet. At first, I thought that it was a unique situation caused by the local earth and water, so I decided toe check out the grains stored here, but...¡±


    I opened up the stack of grains and tore apart a stalk of wheat. I put some in my mouth and chewed slowly, carefully tasting them...


    ¡°...They do taste rather sweet and it¡¯s even a little familiar. It¡¯s just like... it¡¯s just like...¡±


    Even though it was at the tip of my tongue, I couldn¡¯t recall what it was that seemed so familiar about the taste.


    ¡°Kasn¡¯s Tears?¡±


    ¡°Yeah! That¡¯s the vor... wait a moment, Kasn¡¯s Tears? That¡¯s the best magical ingredient catalyst undead magic is capable of creating!¡±


    Harloys transformed into her humanoid form and twisted some stalks of wheat in her hand, grinding it into a golden dust. Then, she used some filtering devices to increase the purity and added supplemental medicines to it as she stirred. What finally remained at the bottom of her beaker was a gray-ck fluid.


    Then, she handed it to me, and I drank it all in an instant. When I felt the power of death getting slightly excited within my body, I came to an instant conclusion.


    ¡°There¡¯s no mistaking it. This is the taste of Kasn¡¯s Tears. It just replenished all the mana I spent on maintaining the skeletons today. This bottle of Kasn¡¯s Blessing is definitely at the minimum at an elite potion¡¯s tier. These Kasn¡¯s Tears are of rather high quality.¡±


    Kasn¡¯s Tears by itself was something harmless and non-poisonous. However, it was one of the main ingredients in another potion that was a favorite for undead mages: Kasn¡¯s Blessing. This was an excellent potion which had the ability to restore death magic mana, and it also possessed the ability to slowly change the drinker¡¯s physical characteristics and help improve the drinker¡¯s ability to control undead magic. This was literally the most desired potion by all undead mages.


    Pure Kasn¡¯s Tears had long since be a forbidden product by the Holy Church, not to mention that they weren¡¯t easy to cultivate. If all these grains had been tainted by Kasn¡¯s Tears, this couldn¡¯t possibly be a coincidence. I was faintly detecting the presence of an astonishingly huge plot.


    Perhaps Kasn¡¯s Tears by itself was harmless and non-poisonous, but as the best undead magic ingredient catalyst of all, it was incrediblymon in manyrge-scale spells and forbidden spells. I refused to believe that whoever plotted all this would use such arge amount of Kasn¡¯s Tears simply to improve the taste of the wheat.


    ¡°All of the grains here have been tainted? Damn it, which undead mage is so insane? Just what does he intend to do?¡±


    However, Harloys shook her head.


    ¡°I already asked. These grains were just harvested from the local fields. From start to finish, nobody touched them apart from the local farmers. And they were just harvested and stored here yesterday...¡±


    ¡°How is that possible? Wait a moment, could it be the source...?¡±


    I had an expression of astonishment and disbelief. If this was true, then this was a truly monumental plot that was underway.


    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re right. I already asked. All of the seeds for these grains were excellent quality seeds received from the capital and have a twenty percent harvesting rate better than average. And these seeds have already spread throughout the entire Bardi Empire, and many people have been eating these grains for ten years or more.¡±


    Eating Kasn¡¯s Tears for over ten years? Were the plotters intending on creating arge number of undead mages by increasing the average citizen¡¯s affinity for undead magic? No, wait, there was still one other possibility: a certain little trick popr among high-level undead mages.


    Harloys obviously guessed at this possibility as well, but she appeared quite hesitant. After all, such a conclusion was far too insane to even think about.


    ¡°...You should know that undead mages that consume Kasn¡¯s tears for a long period of time are more than twice as likely to turn into high-level undead that maintain their intelligence after dying.¡±


    ¡°Damn it! Which maniac came up with such arge-scale plot?¡±


    ¡°...I heard before that all Undead Emperors are insane. I didn¡¯t believe it before, but now I believe it.¡±


    The game¡¯s scenario only mentioned that the Bardi Empire would soon be sunk into an Undead Cmity, but I never expected that there would be so many unexpected curveballs involved. If the Undead Cmity was activated here in such a fashion, the entire Bardi Empire would be and of undead. Just how maniacal would one have to be to do such a thing?


    [Congrattions to Host for triggering the hidden Epic-ranked side quest: Why does the game, Resident Evil, exist in another world as well?]


    [You have unlocked the ¡°Anti-zombie¡± series of achievements. You can now exchange for specialized anti-zombie firearms. Go ahead and enjoy your fun ying the Resident Evil series in a magical fantasy world.]


    [System Notification: I¡¯m really impressed with you. Instead of activating the next portion of your main storyline quest, you went and triggered a hidden side quest. If you don¡¯t want to have your mystical fantasy adventure turn into Resident Evil in an Armageddon, hurry up and continue your main storyline quest at the Cloud Tower!]

 Chapter 274

    Chapter 274: New Chapter


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    When I saw how my System lettered its message with gold, I had the sudden impulse to crash my head into a wall.


    ¡°Epic Quest, the hell! Isn¡¯t it a little too difficult for me to be thrown into the world of Resident Evil all of a sudden!? Besides, this is clearly supposed to be a mystical fantasy world; why would Resident Evil suddenly appear?! What does it even mean when it said ¡®I can now exchange for firearms?¡¯ Do you really intend to watch me learn how to use guns and y in a real life FPS game?¡±


    My continuous retorts received no response. I could only face the clearly worsening situation.


    Making ordinary grains possess Kasn¡¯s Tears as part of their chemicalponents and even helping them grow naturally would be equivalent to creating an all-new unique species of grain. I didn¡¯t have the capability to do this. But that didn¡¯t mean that the Undead Emperors, the rulers of the Undead nes, wouldn¡¯t have the power to do so.


    By now, with my System¡¯s hints, I could pretty much guess at the Undead Emperors¡¯ intentions.


    Ordinary humans would be unable to ingest the medicinal potion Kasn¡¯s Blessing. It was an excellent curative and mana replenishment potion for high-level undead mages. Yet human bodies had an astonishing power to adapt. An extremely slight amount, when umted over the days and years, would possess the power to change the physical nature of human bodies.


    If this grain had been consumed by the entirety of the Bardi Empire¡¯s poption for over ten years, then it was possible that most people in the Bardi Empire possessed an astonishing amount of Kasn¡¯s Tears within them. They would have an astonishingly high natural talent for undead magic, and once the Undead gue or Undead Cmity or whatever arrived, perhaps it would be time for everyone to y nts vs. Zombies together.


    ¡°Not only will the Undead Cmity easily spread far beyond what was anticipated in scale, it will likely also create an incredible number of high-level undead. I think that Baron Toilet will be at least at the level of a Death Knight Lord. Undead Cmities will neverck in cannon fodder, but they usuallyck mid-level elites and highest-levelbat strength, and this would make up for their weakness.¡±


    ¡°That guy¡¯s name was Matt, not Toilet... [1] 1 fine, I know it¡¯s not time toment on his name. If it were me, since the Bardi government is already supporting me to such a great degree, even spending twenty years to cultivate arge group of undead mages is worthwhile. By that time, the undead armies will haverge numbers of mid-level elites and lich candidates. But even if we now understand their plot, what can we do?¡±


    When I asked Harloys this question, she was instantly rendered speechless despite how eloquent she had been just earlier.


    Indeed, what were we supposed to do? Just because we discovered their plot didn¡¯t mean that we¡¯d be able to deal with it. The Undead Emperors had been preparing in the Bardi Empire for at least the past several decades. We entered this toote. To use an analogy, it was as if we joined in on the losing side of a chess game when the situation was totally under the enemy¡¯s control. There was no way to overturn the situation.


    As for fighting the undead army¡¯s current forces head-on? First, let¡¯s ignore how the undead were now considered high-ranked nobles recognized by the Bardi Empire. Attacking another country¡¯s nobles would be no different from dering outright war. Even without caring about the chaos that would bring, I wouldn¡¯t win in a head-on fight as there were thirteen Undead Emperors in total. If two or more of them fought together against me, I would be forced to use God¡¯s Descent. And if the Undead Emperors I faced were the veterans among Undead Emperors, perhaps even God¡¯s Descent wouldn¡¯t be sufficient.


    But fortunately, although I wasn¡¯t sure why, I hadn¡¯t noticed the signs of the Undead Emperors descending upon the mortal ne yet. Theplete descent of any existence at such a high level onto the mortal ne would bring about obvious signs. The True Gods would definitely send divine messages as well. Since everything was still calm for the time being, it would seem that their Dimensional Descent n must have met with an unexpected obstacle.


    Most normal people here would only consider how to defend against the Undead Emperors¡¯ invasion. However, I thought much deeper into things than that, with greaterplexity. After all, I was once an Undead Emperor as well and knew much about them.


    While it was normal for other humans to view these SemiGod Undead Emperors as harbingers of destruction, I knew that they actually had their own desires and goals. They definitely weren¡¯t the type of idiots who destroyed only for the sake of destruction.


    ¡°...Transforming the entire mortal ne into another Undead ne is definitely impossible. That would mean destroying the entire Cycle of Reincarnation, which would be the equivalent of dering war against all the Order Gods and Chaos Gods simultaneously. Besides, the Undead nes¡¯ environment should be the most suitable for the undead. But, if they choose to join the Holy War, they have to choose either the side of Order or Chaos. Or at least a temporary alliance with one side. The undead definitely don¡¯t have a good rtionship with the Holy Light, but they have equally badpatibility with the demons of Chaos. It doesn¡¯t seem likely that they¡¯ll join either side, so is there a third option that I¡¯m missing? Or are they intending to fight all on their own with no allies? But they¡¯re investing so much into this and paying such arge price. What¡¯s their final goal?¡±


    Many thoughts coursed through my mind. As long as I didn¡¯t know the final goal of the Undead Emperors, it would be quite difficult for me to think of suitable counterns to deal with them.


    Ask the Holy Church for help? The Holy Church had already dered war against Orloss. Even if I gave the Holy Church evidence of what I just found, that would only increase the speed at which the Holy Church brought war to the Bardi Empire¡¯s doorstep.


    Disguise ourselves and sneak into the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital city? First of all, we were already so busy with other matters. And as long as the enemy wasn¡¯t an idiot, the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital city would possess an insane amount ofbat strength in it right now. Even a True God¡¯s avatar would likely find it difficult to survive there.


    ¡°It would seem that I¡¯m going to have to use n W.¡±


    ¡°What!? You¡¯re actually going to use that n that¡¯spletelycking in morals!? You need to think about the consequences. Aren¡¯t you afraid of the endless repercussions?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve already thought about them. No matter what the result is, at least it¡¯ll be better than now! Right, help me word things and write the report.¡±


    ¡°Sure... Just tell me what your n W is first, and I¡¯ll immediately write the report for you. Just what could this n be? It actually even needs a report? Who is this report for?¡±


    Seeing how the silly cat was doing her best to notugh, I knew that she had been teasing me yet again.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t even know what n W was and you still called itpletelycking in morals and having endless consequences? You¡¯re such a rascal!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the rascal! Let¡¯s not mention how you never even brought up this n W of yours, but whenever you think up such arge-scale n, when was it ever not insane with endless consequences? Even if I didn¡¯t know the details, I know that someone like you will nevere up with any normal ideas.¡±


    Alright then, she really got me there. It would seem that I had absolutely nothing I could counter her with. Describing my n W aspletelycking in morals, insane, and possibly possessing endless consequences all seemed to be right on the mark. The core thought process of this n was ¡°since the enemy¡¯s already flipped the table and is acting ridiculously, nobody can y by the rules anyways, so why don¡¯t we just bomb the entire room?¡±


    I thought that this silly cat had spied on my n from somewhere yet again, but I had onlye up with this n of mine a few days ago and hadn¡¯t told anyone yet. In that case, I may as well exin it to her now.


    And when I finished exining my n to her, just as I expected, that blonde loli revealed an expression of shock and disbelief. That look in her eyes seemed to be angrily roaring at me, ¡°Just what the hell is your brain made of!?¡± Even drool was dripping out of her mouth without her noticing it. It made her seem like a broken loli.


    But, as expected of a thousand-years-old fake loli whose personal essories were all mega artifacts, she soon regained her senses. After some thinking to reorganize her thoughts and digest the fierce impact she just received, she began discussing the details with me.


    ¡°...This report won¡¯t be approved if you take everything by yourself. We need to modify it and give our partners the opportunity to receive benefits as well. This way, it maximizes the avable benefits for everyone. In that case, even if we don¡¯t do anything ourselves, they¡¯ll carry out this n on their own. After all, all you care about is the final result, right? Then it might not be a bad idea to let go of your total control over your n. If you¡¯re too greedy and want all the profits, you need to be careful of the veteran True Gods swatting you to death.¡±


    As expected of someone her age; she was truly experienced. She was definitely someone who couldn¡¯t be judged based on her physical appearance. With her assistance, my n¡¯s sess rate was now projected to have increased by thirty percent. And now that we finished working out the final kinks, we began writing the report. And, when we submitted the report, the skies were already lighting up.


    Who was the report for?


    ¡°Martial Arts Harem Story Protagonist Mass Production n?¡± One dayter, when Ayer looked through the thick letter that Wumianzhe sent him, even he paused in surprise for several minutes.


    As long as I intentionally thought about something and focused on it, I could transmit my thoughts to Wumianzhe because of my connection with him. Then, Wumianzhe would logically process whether this n was workable and effective enough. If Wumianzhe decided that the n was beneficial for itself and Law, he would naturally ept it and carry out the n.


    And now that the n had arrived in Ayer¡¯s hands, it doubtlessly meant that Wumianzhe by himself was unable to carry out this n W singlehandedly. Assistance from other Gods was necessary.


    ¡°...How insane. Yet, it seems like it just might work. Elliot, write letters to Patricia, Catio, and Benny. The message should be that ¡®Our little bro has a nice idea, and we¡¯re finally going to have a chance at some fun. Perhaps you all will even have the chance to be Main Gods.¡¯¡±


    But, after some hesitation, Ayer stopped his own subordinate.


    ¡°Forget it, call them over here for a discussion instead. Erin, increase the guard level of the Death God¡¯s Divine Kingdom. We need to keep things top-secret here. Otherwise, the Order Gods might have an internal conflict first, which won¡¯t be fun. Little Rnd, you¡¯re giving me something mega troublesome here. Heh, it seems like I won¡¯t be bored anymore for some time.¡±


    Of course, I didn¡¯t know that this n gave certain Gods major headaches, nor did I know about an endless uing series of discussions among the True Gods that would test their wisdom and experience. Right now, what I still had to deal with was the severe situation in the Bardi Empire.


    Arge amount of grains had been tainted with Kasn¡¯s Tears. The moment somerge-scale undead magic spell was activated, the consequences would be immeasurably immense, but...


    ¡°Who cares? It has nothing to do with me. I¡¯m not a hero who¡¯s going to save the world. As for saving the people, let¡¯s give that job over to the Holy Church. Besides, with the situation as terrible as it is already, it¡¯s impossible to do anything about it even if I wanted to.¡±


    Even I, a several-hundred-year-old chuunibyou , knew that some things were simply impossible to do. This was a situation where the Undead Emperors had prepared for several decades. Trying now to forcibly do something would be no different from jumping directly into a pit naked and fighting against the Undead Emperors¡ªit would be suicidal.


    Besides, there weren¡¯t any solutions in the small details, either. The people here had already consumed these grains for over a decade. If I told them now that there was a problem with their food, even if I proved it for them, I would cause nothing other than mass-scale panic and the Undead Emperors¡¯ premature activation of their n since I didn¡¯t have any way to rectify the foundational changes in their body. Of course, there would also be a mass famine. The Bardi people had probably long since discarded their original grain seeds.


    ughter entire cities? Let¡¯s not mention the fact that the Undead Cmity hadn¡¯t arrived yet. Even if it arrived, with the entire country like this, where would I even start ughtering from? And if I ughtered cities, that would be perfect for the Undead Emperors to start summoning undead, and I would even be made out to be the evil one.


    So, since the problem was already huge to the point of no recovery, that meant that it was actually easy to deal with. At any rate, I decided to not care about it anymore and just do what I needed to do. I also reported about the Undead Emperors¡¯ plot in my report to the Gods. It was their turn to worry about such things. Yep, I did such an excellent job in tossing the responsibility to others. I refused to be responsible for solving this problem!


    Well, of course we had to make some changes ourselves as well. At the very least, from today onwards, nobody in my group was going to be eating any more local Bardi grains anymore. Of course, Harloys and I were exceptions, as the Kasn¡¯s Tears would be excellent for our bodies.


    Since we discovered all this, I unhesitatingly left Baron Matt¡¯s domain the moment the sky lit up. With the situation at such a terrible state, the undead had probably secretly taken control over the entire country decades ago without the humans realizing it. Continuing to idly travel about in the Bardi Empire had lost its meaning.


    While on the road, I did an experiment with Carolyn and some other Bardi citizens¡¯ blood but found out something rather unexpected. Everyone from the capital possessed at least three times the amount of Kasn¡¯s Tears in their bodypared to the locals here. It would seem that the people in the capital had started eating these grains much earlier, so they were poisoned more deeply.


    Still, once again, there was nothing we could do. From now on, we would follow the original n to continue down this tour of inspection, extorting nobles to enrich our wallets while slowly making our way to Port Victoria... but that was obviously impossible.


    Not every noble was one with needs like Baron Matt¡¯s. Most local domain lords acted just like emperors within their own territories, and it was only natural that they felt enmity and on guard towards centralized authority. And, the farther out from the capital a location was, the stronger the belief in Holy Light. It was only natural that there would be enmity towards the undead.


    Still, we were supposedly the imperial envoy group that represented Emperor Orloss. On the surface, they treated us quite politely. Despite the warm wees, however, there was always a sense of distance between us. Wherever we went, we would be stared at with looks filled with enmity. This caused us to feelplex emotions. In a way, this was a good thing, as it meant that the Bardi Empire wasn¡¯t a rock-solid nation with high internal unity. At the very least, these areas far away from the capital still had their own way of thinking. However, always being treated with such enmity was an unpleasant experience.


    And, when we finally arrived as nned at the road intersection leading to Port Victoria, we heaved huge sighs of relief. This was a new territory that the Bardi Empire recently obtained so its control in this area wasn¡¯t quite as strong. Even if something really happened, we had confidence in our ability to escape.


    But, the moment that we stopped at a local Earl¡¯s residence, we heard two pieces of headline news.


    First was that Pope Caloma had formally set a date for the Holy War against Emperor Orloss. The pope requested for all the countries that believed in the Holy Light to send out armies within the time limit of two months, all to organize a holy army which would formally fight against the Bardi Empire.


    ¡°The pope probably became even more determined due to the news we sent out from here.¡±


    The second piece of headline news was quite visible, without even needing to hear about it. Under the distant white clouds, the attention-catching sight of volcanoes erupting exined everything already. The fact that we could sense earthquakes and the rampaging of earth and fire elementals from over one thousand kilometers away was indisputable evidence.


    ¡°A forbidden spell! And it¡¯s even a double forbidden spell with dual elements of earth and fire!¡±


    The news was quite simple, but the content made me contemte much about it. The Mage Country was the first to ept Pope Caloma¡¯s summons in dering formal battle against the Bardi Empire. With their very first attack, the Mage Country used a forbidden spell to assail one of the Bardi Empire¡¯s major forts, Fort Florset. The Bardi Empire suffered major losses, losing over 100,000 elite military forces that were defending this fort.


    And, for the sake of revenge, the Bardi Empire¡¯s ace of aces troop, their dragon knight squad, had now enteredbat. An Epic-level battle between archmages and huge dragons was soon about to begin, with all-out war between these two mega-countries having broken out.


    [Eich¡¯s Seven Hells, Prologue: ¡°The Whispering of Demons¡± has ended. The times are moving forward. Chapter 1: ¡°The Vultures of Battle¡± has temporarily been sealed due to your efforts in creating peace and unity in the Underground World. Scene 3, ¡°The Despairing Cmity,¡± has now been prematurely activated. System Reminder: What¡¯s scheduled to arrive will always arrive.]


    Notes:


    [1] TL/N: ¡®Matt¡¯ and the Chinese word for toilet are phically simr in Chinese.

 Chapter 275

    Chapter 275: Dragon Knight Archduke


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Nightrain City was formerly the capital of the Seventeen Nation New Moon Alliance, but it was now only a small border town in the Bardi Empire. However, the person in charge here was the Archduke Dragon Knight, Halent Winston, of the Bardi Empire.


    Pretty much all mega-empires would have their very own ace military squadrons that had amassed countless years of history and service. The most famous military squadron of the Bardi Empire would be its dragon knight squadron.


    The massive dragons were forever at the top of the food chain. They were also one of the few Gold-ranked species that existed in this world. A matured adult dragon, even at its weakest, would be the equivalent of any human at the Gold rank. Once a dragon learned some basic hunting techniques and magic spells, even the average Legend-ranked warrior would be helpless against these flying beasts.


    After all, dragons knew how to fly, while ordinary warriors would be stuck on the ground, unable to do anything.


    Dragon knight contracts were typically contracts between some strong warrior and a dragon as either master and servant or as equal statuspanions. Basically, the dragons would only give recognition to the strong, but that created an obvious paradox. The weak that needed the power of dragons were unable to obtain their recognition, while the strong that obtained the dragons¡¯ recognition didn¡¯t need the dragons¡¯ power to begin with. Dragon knights hence became legends in their own right quite easily.


    That was why even if once in a while, one or two weak humans managed to gain a dragon¡¯s recognition through some coincidental fate or lucky urrence, they were only exceptions to the norm. With the decrease in humanity¡¯s averagebat strength, dragon knights, which were considered the strongest of all aerial knights, grew fewer and fewer as well. It was already quite difficult for a strong country to maintain more than one or two dragon knights, and it wasmon for the dragons in question to be young, immature dragons hired withrge amounts of money. The dragons¡¯ actual power and will to fight would be questionable.


    However, there was one country that had always remained an exception. In the Bardi Empire, the number of dragon knights had never fallen before fifty. Even the weakest dragon knight would be at the Gold rank. Yet it was iprehensible why they were able to so easily obtain the dragons¡¯ recognition.


    Some people said that the Bardi Empire obtained a secret artifact from the Dragon Gods, while others said that they had a longsting contract with the dragon species. But no matter what the truth was, due to the existence of arge number of dragon knights, the skies would never belong to any of the Bardi Empire¡¯s enemies. This was also one of the main reasons why the And Empire put so much into the development of floatingbat airships¡ªthey treated the dragon knights as a potential enemy and threat.


    Halent Winston was the sumander of the dragon knight squadron (as themander would always be a member of the royalty, so the currentmander was Emperor Orloss). He was a famous warrior who was ranked in the top ten in all of Bardi as well as sixty-seventh in the ¡°Eich¡¯s Famous Warrior Rankings,¡± as the ¡°Archduke Dragon Knight.¡±


    In this current generation, the Bardi Empire possessed a total of seventy-two dragon knights. Only sixty out of the seventy-two would be sent out on campaigns, and these sixty were split up into twelve small teams of five each. Halent personallymanded five small teams, a total of twenty-five dragon knights.


    Setting his personal status aside, his personalbat strength was simrly astonishing. And his dragon steed was the adult Blue Dragon, ¡°Dark and Cloudy Windstorms¡± Sishusler, and was quite renowned amongst the dragons.


    Halent reached the Legend rank as a warrior ten years ago and possessed a legendary artifact called the Thunder Horn. He had the astonishing military achievement of single-handedly ying over one hundred griffin knights in a single battle, and he was a famed fierce warrior throughout all thends.


    One year ago, he quietly left the capital of the Bardi Empire and took all the dragon knights under hismand to Nightrain City, which caused quite amotion at the time.


    As a former capital, Nightrain City was a ssic example of a well-fortified city. But ever since Archduke Halent started living here, not only did he bring arge number of military personnel with him but he even personally invested a great amount of money and resources into the city¡¯s fortifications. Numerous cannons and towers were constructed, while the city¡¯s walls were reinforced many times over. At first, everyone here found it quite strange. After all, constructing a well-defended fort meant that there would be some type of enemy to defend against.


    There were no other countries even close to Nightrain City. Halent¡¯s actions seemed rather meaningless. However, after the ¡°Port Victoria incident¡± urred, since Nightrain City was close to Port Victoria as well as located on the only road to Port Victoria, everyone learned just what Archduke Halent had been on guard against¡ªthe undead.


    While the Bardi nobles were still shocked at Archduke Halent¡¯s decision to leave the capital ande here, he managed topletely eradicate all traces of bandits in the nearby vicinity in just the short time of less than one year. And due to the fact that huge dragons could constantly be seen in the skies above the city, Nightrain City received a new name¡ªDragonrain City.


    The moment we arrived in Dragonrain City a sudden rainstorm blotted out the skies, making it more convenient for us to enter. Since that Archduke Halent was also from the capital, I was worried that we would run into him and he might see through Lilith¡¯s disguise, so I had Carolyn and Lilith switch identities with each other, with Carolyn being herself and Lilith being the maid.


    Now that Carolyn was ying the part of herself again, there was no more worry about authenticity. But if at all possible I didn¡¯t want to have to meet this famous Archduke dragon knight. So, my n was to enter Dragonrain City as inconspicuously as possible and obtain information first before deciding whether or not I should try meeting with this Archduke.


    In fact, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that it was on the only road to Port Victoria, I wouldn¡¯t have even passed by this city if I could help it.


    ¡°Carolyn, what do you know about that Halent? Have you ever met him?¡±


    ¡°He... he¡¯s... a bit scary.¡±


    Carolyn, who was busy hugging her maid Lilith, took quite a while to answer my question, and her tone of voice contained an inexplicable amount of fear and anxiety. It was as if she was recalling something terrifying.


    After finally hearing everything from her through all that stuttering, I learned the basic view that Bardi nobles had of Archduke Halent. He never participated in any noble parties, nor did he ever hold any social events. If he absolutely had to participate in some formal event, he would always join while wearing military attire. He was even daring to the point of wearing his sword in the presence of Emperor Orloss.


    With losses were gains to be made elsewhere. Although he antagonized many nobles, he was deeply approved by the military leadership and civilian military officers. He was a powerful figure and representative of the military faction.


    As for why Carolyn was so scared of him, it turned out to be because her father, who was a Duke equivalent to Duke Halent in rank at a time when he hadn¡¯t been promoted to Archduke yet, had requested the then Duke Halent to teach swordsmanship to his daughter and son.


    This was obviously supposed to be a way for nobles to establish closer rtionships and friendly ties with each other. However, Halent took it at face value and strictly trained Carolyn and her younger brother as seriously as possible. He forced full military standards for their training, and the two siblings that were used to an idle lifestyle suffered terribly. Later, even when Carolyn¡¯s father requested that Halent go easy on them, Halent still maintained his way of thinking.


    ¡°Go easy on them? Since they¡¯re currently my subordinates, I can¡¯t possibly allow them to be insufficient as military personnel. Even if Emperor Orloss himself requests me, my answer is still the same. You two, you only have two choicesplete the training tasks, or die!¡±


    Halent had a seemingly soft and gentle voice that reverberated throughout the garden, but for some unknown reason, nobody in Carolyn¡¯s family dared look at him directly. There was an invisible might about him that seemed like a huge dragon was surveilling its own territory.


    ¡°There¡¯s no mistaking it¡ªthat¡¯s draconic might.¡±


    I came to a simple conclusion after hearing this description from Carolyn.


    While the Bardi Empire¡¯s dragon knights might be considered a mystery in the eyes of the general popce, there were plenty of things that were revealed about them after all these years if you knew where to look.


    First of all, their dragon knights were basically hereditary in position, passed down between family members. Not only that, it could be learned from fighting with them that most of these dragon knights weren¡¯t pure humans. Most of them had dragons¡¯ blood in them, and they were the descendants of dragons.


    Unlike the magically created dracons, dragon descendants were far stronger from the time of their birth. Most of them had a true dragon as an ancestor, and they were typically able to inherit part of dragons¡¯ strength and natural talents, which made them quite difficult to deal with.


    The fact that the Bardi Empire¡¯s dragon knights were the descendants of dragons might be a secret to the general popce, but it was an open secret in the society of the strong. The real secret that remained unknown was how the Bardi Empire sessfully kept the dragon descendants in their human country for so long, along with how these dragon descendants became dragon knights.


    Of course, since dragon descendants possessed the blood of dragons, it would indeed be much easier for them to obtain the friendship of dragons. However, friendship was one thing, and having a dragon serve you was another. After all, would you allow a distant rtive of yours to ride on you andmand you as they pleased?


    And if the dragon descendants married ordinary humans, the power of their bloodline would naturally dilute and decrease. It would only take a few generations for them to be no different from ordinary humans. Just how the Bardi Empire was able to maintain the dragon descendants¡¯ bloodline for the past thousands of years was yet another mystery.


    To be honest, when I heard all this, I wanted even less to meet with this Legend-ranked Archduke. After all, one of the mostmon natural talents to dragons was the Eye of Truth, which specialized in seeing through all sorts of illusions and disguises. It was impossible to fool, scam, or lie to Little Red. If we met a dragon descendant who possessed such an ability, all our secrets would likely be seen through immediately.


    But, right now, I was in no mood to think about the secrets of the Bardi Empire¡¯s dragon descendants. After all, if anyone had been struck by a heavy sword, sent flying, and be embedded in the city wall like me, I¡¯m sure that they wouldn¡¯t be able to thinkfortably, either.


    One minute ago, the city gate opened and a not-very-tall figure blocked our procession amid the torrential downpour. Withrge thrums, rain pounded and nced off his cape, and his naturally curly blonde hair maintained its own uniqueness despite the rain. His golden eyes were ring at me with a draconic might that would make any living creature tremble.


    ¡°Archduke Halent...¡±


    When Carolyn muttered our visitor¡¯s name out loud, I was still thinking of what lie to say when in the very next moment, he swung that heavy iron de of his, which was the same height as him, right onto my body. I didn¡¯t even have time to react yet when I was sent flying several dozen meters and embedded into the city wall.


    ¡°I said before that filthy undead are forbidden from entering my city. Those who dare to enter shall die!¡±


    He spoke gently and softly, just like Caitlyn had told me in her story. However, not a single person would doubt his will to carry through what he just said.


    Since he only attacked the lich in our party, perhaps that would leave room for negotiation, but someone had already lost control of himself as he transformed his killing intent into an actual threat.


    ¡°You dare to hit my father!¡±


    Ah Dang, who had been slowly following our procession, had mostly been snoozing, but he suddenly flew into a furious rage. The next moment, his originallyrge body suddenly expanded to more than ten times in size. An Abomination taller than the city walls appeared in front of everyone.


    It was now Halent¡¯s turn to be astonished. There was no mistaking the aura of the strong, and the giant Abomination before him was definitely no ordinary Abomination. It pressured him far more than this Legend-ranked lich that he had just sent flying. Could the undead have some plot here?


    But even though Ah Dang¡¯s tremendous foot was about to stomp on Halent, Halent remained calm. He knew that his old partner wouldn¡¯t allow him to be in danger.


    *Smack!!*


    Before Ah Dang was able to stomp down, something heavy crashed into him.


    That heavy something was a Blue Dragon that descended from the sky. Thunderbolts were twirling around it, and the out-of-control thunder all around it made it seem all the more fearsome. A Blue Dragon on a rainy night would be at its strongest, as Blue Dragons were favored by wind and lightning.


    ¡°...Damn it, where did such a monstere from?¡±


    But, the seemingly fierce huge dragon wasn¡¯t actually having it easy. It already lost a piece of its flesh from where it touched Ah Dang, as it suffered due to the Abomination¡¯s skin containing saws that could devour flesh and bone. Upon contact, Ah Dang¡¯s skin had bitten off a piece of the Blue Dragon¡¯s skin.


    ¡°Ah Dang¡ªAh Dang is going to eat you!¡±


    The furious Ah Dang didn¡¯t intend to hold back as he distorted his body once more and transformed into the most frightening nightmare of all, a gigantic dragonspider, the hunter of dragons. With just a single exchange of blows, the Elder Blue Dragon transformed into an insignificant existence that was viciously sent flying with a single swat.


    However, the dragon knight Archduke remained calm. His battle horn attached to his waist was already at his mouth. Since the undead were openly dering war on him, what came next wouldn¡¯t be a small battle. Instead, it would be a battle between the undead and the dragon knights!


    ¡°Ah Dang! Retreat!¡±


    As for me, I was absolutely furious. I didn¡¯t care if he was an undead or a dragon knight. Since he hit my face, I was obviously going to hit back.


    My mana went berserk and transformed into a ck mist that twirled around me, with the power of death bing my pitch-ck shadow. That was my servant which would bring death for me, and I felt that I seemed really like the boss of a video game now that I was immersed in the darkness.


    I hadn¡¯t been so pitiful in receiving an attack in such a long time. The only part where I still maintained my sense of reason was to continue my pretense of being a lich and only fighting back with a lich¡¯s magic.


    ¡°Rnd, I think something¡¯s wrong with this situation. Let¡¯s stop for a moment and calm down!¡±


    Harloys was warning me now, but did I really need this silly cat to remind me? It was apparent that something was wrong with the situation. Even though we secretly sneaked in, Halent immediately found and attacked us. Something was obviously wrong.


    ¡°I¡¯m quite calm, and I shall calmly kill him... The ender of everything, the frigid winter shall arrive!¡±


    Tremendous ice magic power was gathering on my arm, while my cyan soulfire transformed into pale white icy mes. I was always one who gave what I got back, so since Halent sliced me up as a way of greeting me, then it was only natural that he allowed me to use somebat magic to greet him in return.


    ¡°Is this your way of calming down? Do you calm down with your knee and not your brain!?¡±


    Halent saw how the torrential rain in the sky instantly turned into snowkes and wondered for the first time today if he should have just stayed home. Perhaps he came looking for the wrong person.

 Chapter 276

    Chapter 276: sh


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The unique structure of the nearby mountains along with the climate and the forces of nature caused Nightrain City to be a ce where rain cloudsmonly gathered. Nightrain City was on the mountainside, but the origin of this rather poetic name lied in the fierce rainstorms that typically came at night when it was colder.


    Militarily speaking, there was a height advantage offered by this city¡¯s construction, and the rainy weather gave it an advantage in defense. Slippery mountain slopes would make it difficult for anyone to use siege weaponry, after all. Under Halent¡¯smand, the entire nearby mountain was being carved out by humans, and this fortress city was expanding at a fearsome rate. Judging by its current rate of expansion, it would likely be a peerless imprable fortress within the next two years.


    However, what the city guards at the city gate witnessed today was a snowy night that should have been extinct in spring. It was not the typical rainy evening.


    First, the snowkes came down as tiny specks. Then, the snow gradually grewrger in size until it imperceptibly became a flurry so heavy that it was impossible to even see one¡¯s fingers in.


    The area around the lich had transformed into snowy ground. Changing the environment with one¡¯s mana doubtlessly meant that this lich was an incredible archmage, perhaps even at the Saint rank, yet...


    ¡°So what? No matter how strong, have we ever feared anyone?¡±


    Halent¡¯s heavy sword was trembling, but that was due to his excitement, not fear. After sensing that his opponent was powerful, this draconic warrior had found a worthwhile prey. He let out a low roar, causing all his muscles to naturally overload themselves, as if he was a predator about to hunt his prey.


    ¡°FUL!¡±


    He uttered a magical incantation that caused his heavy sword to swirl with blue-white electricity. When the lightning shes illuminated his face, Halent, who was filled with the will to fight, now had his overly clean face appear more resolute than before. His heavy sword was now enchanted with dragon magic with the properties of thunder and summoned lightning bolts with every swing, further increasing his might by approximately thirty percent.


    And not far away, ¡°Dark and Cloudy Windstorms¡± Sishusler viciously red at the transformed Ah Dang. He pped his wings, intending to begin a new round of attacks against Ah Dang. However, a light foot suddenly pressed down on his head; he didn¡¯t even notice its presence until it was already there.


    ¡°Young one, if you don¡¯t want to die, I rmend that you don¡¯t move.¡±


    On his head was a young human female. However, the Blue Dragon¡¯s sense told him that her pressure was like a mountain. Dragons were a species that had their levels etched into their bloodlines, and this venerated Blue Dragon felt true terror for the first time in his life. This was an upper-ranked draconic might that even an Elder Blue Dragon was unable to resist.


    ¡°A Dragon Queen of some colored dragon? An Immemorial Dragon?¡±


    Elder Dragons, Ancient Dragons, and Immemorial Dragons. Each type of dragon required thousands of years as the base unit, and there were tremendous differences in power among their ranks. The huge difference in draconic might caused the Elder Blue Dragon to be unable to do anything at all except surrender.


    No one would believe it. The famous dragon knight Archduke and his Blue Dragon werepletely suppressed right from the very start of fighting against someplete unknowns.


    Meanwhile, I was enjoying my battle against Halent.


    ¡°Ice Pir.¡±


    I didn¡¯t use any incantations, and there weren¡¯t even any mana waves sent out from me. My bony middle finger had a ray of white light following it, and right after that, it transformed into a cone-shaped piece of ice as tremendous as dragonbreath would be.


    With this right before him, Halent¡¯s expression didn¡¯t change at all. He unhesitatingly swung his sword and shed against the pir of ice, which forcibly transformed the ice back into snowkes. That thunder-enchanted sparkling sword of his sliced through my icy attack with surprising ease.


    ¡°Hmm? A special anti-magic ability? It doesn¡¯t seem to be an effect of the sword¡¯s enchantment but rather a natural talent ability.¡±


    When fighting with dragon, demon, or Gods¡¯ descendants, apart from having to be on guard against their base stats, which would be much higher than an ordinary human¡¯s, what one needed to be more vignt about would be their wide assortment of natural talent abilities that were ever so difficult to defend against.


    *Snap!*


    With a snap of my fingers, yet another high-speed ice pir appeared from the ground to stab at the dragon knight who was rushing at me.


    He lowered his head, protected his face, and used his shoulder in lieu of a spear to charge through my ice!


    *Boom!*


    The heavy sword wielding knight didn¡¯t stop at all and actually crashed through my ice pir. However, judging from the tattered pieces of his armor and fresh blood on his forehead, he didn¡¯t have an easy time. Yet Halent knew that keeping a distance from an archmage who had such a degree of expertise in ice magic would be tantamount to suicide. Only the courageous who took difficult paths would be able to win. Even if he injured himself, he would force himself closer to me.


    ¡°You actually like charging through head-on? Alright then, I shall allow you to enjoy yourself to your heart¡¯s content. Come, Ice Wall!¡±


    I pped and caused numerous walls of ice to rise between me and the path he was taking to charge at me. With such an amount of snow falling here, this ce had already be my domain and battlefield.


    ¡°How is this possible! Does this lich not need any casting time at all or mana replenishment?¡±


    Even though the cold-faced Halent remained calm on the surface, he found it iprehensible how this unfamiliar mage was able to cast magic spells that seemed to break allmon sense.


    But even so, he believed in his own victory...


    ¡°I¡¯m within five meters!¡±


    Any battle between a mage and a warrior would eternally be about controlling the distance. Even a mage two ranks above a warrior in power level would easily die if the warrior managed to close the gap to melee distance.


    ¡°Ice Circle!¡±


    I was getting more and more used to my own powers as I fought Halent. Although I was still shouting out the names ofmon ice magic spells, I was actually only using the most basic ice sculpting.


    Elemental sculpting appeared simple but was actually marvelous in its countless applications.


    I just had to use the easiest elemental sculpting of all to construct a model of what I wanted and pay the mana cost required to have all the basic ice element move into ce. Making this one part horizontal would be an ice wall, while making that part vertical would be an ice pir. Or drawing it in a circr fashion would create an ice circle. Unlike the rigid movements of casting spells I did in the past, the ice and snow here were extensions of my will and my body. It was basically no different from me physically fighting.


    *Swoosh!*


    This time, I swung my fist in midair at nothing, and with another swing, an invisible fist of snow suddenlynded upon Halent without any warning at an angle above him; it was impossible for him to notice. It forcefully hammered Halent into the ground.


    ¡°Oh my, that looked like it really hurt.¡±


    The settling dust revealed arge hole in the ground with stone shards scattered everywhere. Just like what had happened to me earlier, Halent didn¡¯t even get the opportunity to shout before he was buried in the ground.


    My massive hand of ice and snow began dissipating as well. If you only judged by its outer appearance, it looked like a high-circle ice magic for maniption, Balof¡¯s Fist, but it was actually just basic ice sculpting as well. Although this ice sculpting magic was on a slightlyrger scale than others, it was still only an insignificant drain on my mana.


    After knowing the foundations, everything would be easier. Before, when I cast magic, I was just imitating mages before me. An analogy would be that someone taught me how 1 + 1 = 2, and I managed to go up to 10 + 10 = 20. However, the current me was at the level of knowing the forms for how everything worked, so I could easily change basic magic spells¡¯ temtes as I pleased.


    ¡°Forming into solids is the most critical part of gathering the ice element. Although it¡¯s sturdy and sharp, its speed is much slower. If I want quicker speed, I only need to gather smaller particles. If I want to shoot out rays or mist, then I also need to calcte the reacting force.


    In my hands that appeared to be a lich¡¯s bony hands wererge amounts of ice, snow, and singing and dancing ice spirits. Under the influence of my mana, they constantly transformed into mist, or ice pirs, or invisible, tasteless frost. Their forms, conditions, and sizes were no problem at all. They could change themselves at will.


    With only a thought, I could twistmon sense and take so many shortcuts with unnecessary processes. After casting off the restraints ofmon sense, thispletely unreasonable magic of mine which defiedmon sense was my foundational magic that I could control at will.


    ¡°Oh my, this is so fun.¡±


    As if I had found a fun toy to y with, I wholeheartedly threw myself into the maniption of my snow and ice magic. I even sent my own spells against myself to test them, almost forgetting about my opponent who was that really famous dragon knight Archduke.


    *ng!*


    ...Well, I almost forgot about him. This painful-sounding ng was the sound of his head crashing against the solid walls of ice encapsting him. That poor little dragon descendant; I hoped that he wouldn¡¯t get a concussion for this. It would be bad if he injured himself too badly and left some dark history in his heart... Or, should I make him hit himself in the head a few hundred more times so that he would lose his memory?


    ¡°Hmph, so easy. All you can do is dig some holes and attempt ambushing me from underground. How many battles do you think I¡¯ve had against sand worms so far? I long since froze the entire surface of the ground here. I¡¯ll simply wait for you to crash into more walls of ice.¡±


    From the moment Halent cast a thunder magic enchantment on his sword, I knew that he was most likely of a Blue Dragon¡¯s bloodline himself. And Blue Dragons excelled at controlling lightning and thunder and also really loved to build their nests in deserts and isted hills; they were naturally skilled diggers. Their natural talents involved the ability to move through sand as well as underground, so how could I possibly not be on guard?


    The snow kept increasing in magnitude. Although I wasn¡¯t at the level of being able to create my own Soul World yet, all my preparations for what I wanted to do were nowplete. I transformed all of my mana into the purest ice element. All this ice element would be the paint for redrawing the Nortnds¡¯ scenery, while my fundamental magic, ice sculpting, would act as my brush. The reurrence of my world of snow and ice was underpletion.


    Snow continued to nket the ground. A small portion of the snow was transforming into a snow mountain, while magical crystal trees could faintly be seen.


    When looking at it from a distance, it was probably just a beautiful scene of snow. But just like the winter in the Nortnds, death traps typically waited, hidden in such clean and beautiful scenery. If a traveler who was allured by the scenery and didn¡¯t understand the naturalws of snowy mountains acted as he pleased, then that traveler would likely not live to see next year¡¯s spring.


    ¡°...This is my Ice Treader Soul Imprint? Wow, it¡¯s really so suitable for me. I apologize for not allowing you to disy your true power until today.¡±


    The snowkes in the air could transform into fatal ice des at any time, while the umted snow on the ground would suddenly copse or freeze over. Theyers of ice beneath the snow would silently form ice des as well, and the sunlight reflecting off the snow would begin creating white illusions. With a single misstep, one had the potential of dropping into an endless abyss, sleeping forevermore amongst the pristine snow.


    With the ice element continuously falling together with the snow, the ordinary streets transformed into snow mountains. This would seemingly take a lot of mana, but, in reality, all it took for me to summon the ice and snow was a small amount. Since the scenes of snow were already drawn by me, what I had to do after was slowly enjoy.


    As I expected, fighting in actualbat with an opponent who was close to my level was an excellent shortcut for improving myself. In the past, all my opponents¡¯ power levels werepletely unbncedpared to me. Either they were ridiculously strong to the point where I couldn¡¯t win unless I cheated, or they were so weak that I could easily win with one hand tied behind my back. With me being forced to use only ice magic to fight in order to maintain my disguise as a lich, this was the closest even battle that I hadn¡¯t had for so long. It helped my many years of umted knowledge as well as recently learned knowledge explode all at once, transforming into practicalbat strength via real battle.


    I could feel that deep in my soul, the newly reassembled Ice Treader Soul Imprint was beginning to glow. It was bing stronger by feeding on a silvery light. However, it seemed much smaller than before, probably only about one-fourth of its original size.


    ¡°...One person only has one soul, which means only one Soul Imprint. Do I have to have all four of my abilities reach the level required in order for me to enter Legend rank?¡±


    I didn¡¯t need to say any more, nor did I need to search for a reason. It was as if the heavens had revealed something to me. I already knew that if I wanted to enter Legend rank, I would need to summon four Soul Imprints in total and progress even further than in the past.


    ¡°Others only need to reach a sufficient level of understanding once while I need to reach it four times? And I even need tobine all the powers at the end? What type of hellish difficulty is this? Forget about ice magic; I went down the wrong path before, and now I¡¯ve corrected myself and made improvements. But as for Law, Holy Light, and undead magic, my mastery of these areas is almost at the top of the world already. How am I supposed to progress in these areas? Why is it that for me to enter Legend rank feels more difficult than for others to enter SemiGod rank?¡±


    I had confirmed my future path of personal development but keptining endlessly. I was also beginning to burn up with a nameless anger. After all, I was no masochist who loved taking the most difficult paths, so of course I would object to the mysteriously high difficulty for me to progress in rank.


    Yet, I still knew that the harder it was, the greater the benefits to be reaped at the end. There was no such thing as luck on the path of cultivation. It would be only natural that there would be evenrger benefits at the end when I broke through these obstacles. Since I had to work four times harder than others, I wouldn¡¯t request for ten times the rewards in the end, but it wouldn¡¯t be too greedy to want five times the rewards, would it?


    [Ice Treader Soul Imprint has beenpletely activated. Your ice magic¡¯s effects have been improved by 20%, and mana costs have been decreased by 20%. You have now obtained the passive ability, Lord of Frigidwinter. System Reminder: Your opponent is still fine, so stop daydreaming.]


    [Lord of Frigidwinter (Passive ability): Whenever you¡¯re in an environment with plentiful ice and snow, you shall be the lord of ice and snow, which will greatly increase your ability to control these two elements. Once you finish constructing a cycle of ice and snow element in the surrounding area, the entire area shall be viewed as your personal domain. Only a minor amount of mana is required to maintain your domain of ice and snow.]


    And along my improvement in understanding, my Soul Imprint waspletely activated. With its assistance, the snowkes increased a little in size yet again, and it became easier for me to control the minute details of everything. It didn¡¯t seem to have much impact, but it improved my general abilities and changed me at the foundation.


    When two people were battling, if one person suddenly became stronger, it was only natural that his opponent would be the unlucky one.


    After this entire area around us fell under my control, all the ice and snow in a radius of one hundred meters acted as my ears. How could that ¡°little lizard¡± underground possibly escape my senses?


    ¡°Ha, Rnd¡¯s Heavy Fist!¡±


    A fist of ice and snow crashed down, smashing on the dragon knight¡¯s head right when he popped out from the ground. He could only swallow his anger and pop back underground again. When his Blue Dragon saw that its master was at a disadvantage, it started angrily roaring and struggled to get back up, but Little Red, who was sitting on his head, stomped down once, causing the Blue Dragon to writhe in agony andy copsed in its ce.


    As for me, I kept loudly shouting out the names of my spells while having fun ying Whack-a-Mole.


    Since these werepletely self-created magics, based on mages¡¯ habits, I had the right to name these spells as the creator. And adding the spell¡¯s inventor¡¯s name into the spell was considered one of the greatest honors for a mage. I was quite jealous of ¡°Harloys¡¯ Shadow Steps¡± and ¡°Amelia¡¯s Fruit Growing Spell¡± for quite a long time already, and now that I had the chance, of course I would take the opportunity to enjoy myself.


    ¡°Rnd¡¯s Ice Arrow! Rnd¡¯s Ice de! Rnd¡¯s Multi-type Ice Palm! Haha, I¡¯m not an idiot mage! I want to take ten of you on at once!¡±


    Since he had failed in his ambush from underground, it was only natural that Halent would have to return to the surface if he wanted to overturn the situation. I kept smashing all sorts of ice magic down at him; it was just like ying Whack-a-Mole with the dragon knight as the mole. Just as I was proudly thinking about how I should get my spells¡¯ names patented, that silly cat actually ruined my fun yet again.


    ¡°Rnd, new magic spells require new magical reasoning and absolutely unique spell models. What do you think your spells are?¡±


    Alright then. Although it was easy enough to fool novices, it was impossible to fool another mage. While I was just randomly making names up, these seemingly different spells were actually all variations of a one-circle magic spell, ice sculpting. Even though it was extremely powerful at restraining and controlling my opponent¡¯s actions as well as extremely low in mana costs, it was still only a basic form of magic. The fact that the dragon knight had taken so many direct attacks but still hadn¡¯t died was the best evidence that itcked attack power and still needed improvement.


    ¡°...You call yourself a dragon knight when being so skilled at escaping? I think you should change your name to cockroach knight.¡±


    Arge patch of snow and ice transformed into a gigantic ice de and split the earth, directly threatening Archduke Halent who was underground. The most dangerous part of all wasn¡¯t even the endlessly spreading ice and snow; it was the fact that this ice de began spreading like arge tree¡¯s roots. It would soon be able to capture its prey.


    ¡°It¡¯s obvious that Rnd¡¯s just venting his anger now.¡±


    ¡°I think that he¡¯s gotten angry out of embarrassment.¡±


    ¡°And he calls himself an old adult¡ªbut whenever he¡¯s displeased, he takes it out on others. How immature! And he even dares to call others immature.¡±


    Alright then, I decided to pretend not to hear my ownpanions making fun of me. Actually, this battle that had started for no apparent reason was basically at its end. While it was a fact that any typical mage would be defeated by a warrior in just a second if the mage allowed the warrior to close the distance, most situations were actually like this one. The warrior would be pulled into the mage¡¯s way of battling, and even if the warrior had peerless physical strength, it would be useless unless he could close the distance. The warrior would eventually fatigue and be defeated while being toyed with.


    And if the current situation continued, the ice would eventually pierce through the very ground itself and freeze all the earth around us, which would naturally seal off his natural talent ability to move underground. At that time, he¡¯d find it impossible to even leave the ground.


    ¡°...This is the dragon knight Archduke? Although it¡¯s to be expected, isn¡¯t he a little too disappointing?¡±


    However, Harloys seemed to have gotten addicted to going against me all the time and immediately countered my statement.


    ¡°Don¡¯t make it sound so easy. With your personal equipment plus your Frigidwinter¡¯s bonuses, do you think there will be any difference even if your opponent is a Saint rank? That youngster was quite unfortunate, as his speed was continually slowed down in the snow by your Ice Cmity¡¯s Chill stacking effect. He was also foolish enough to crash straight through your ice wall using his body. With how-many stacks of speed reduction that are probably on him, his body¡¯s time sensory system is probably all messed up now, and we¡¯re moving at three times the normal speed of what he sees. As expected of the bloodline of the speediest Blue Dragons, though; it¡¯s already incredible that he¡¯s still capable of dodging your magic attacks.¡±


    Harloys then seemed to recall something that made her quite displeased. ¡°That ability of yours is just so insidious. Especially the Ice Cmity¡¯s Chill that can slow down sensory perception of time, as anyone who doesn¡¯t know about it beforehand will definitely fall for it.¡±


    ¡°Ohhh, I forgot about it already. So there was that as well! That means this guy¡¯s normal speed is three times what he¡¯s disying now? How dangerous!¡±


    Although I was saying it was dangerous, I didn¡¯t treat it as anything important at all. However, there were always people who couldn¡¯t be judged bymon sense. What suddenly happened next proved Harloys¡¯ wisdom correct. No matter how much she warned me about the dragon knight¡¯s skills, I had still underestimated this dragon descendant I was fighting with.


    ¡°Ah!¡±


    Halent jumped out of the ground, angrily roaring and apanied by rampaging thunder. In order to more conveniently attack the underground opponent, the ground there would unfreeze for a split second when the ice de inserted itself into the ground. Even though it was only a gap of a few milliseconds, Halent actually managed to leap out of the ground in that short instant together with the dirt around him.


    The thunderbolts he sent out along with his furious roar broke my descending ice de to pieces, while his ring eyes seemed to breathe fire at me. The next moment, I understood how it was that he had managed to grab that millisecond chance to sessfully break out from underground despite the fact that he had been repeatedly slowed.


    Halent must have used his heavy sword at that moment to suddenly wield it forcefully behind him, crashing into the earth. He then used the power of reactive force to help propel himself out of the ground.


    ¡°So it was reactive force.¡±


    I immediately realized that he must have discovered the slowing effect on him. Although he didn¡¯t know how to get rid of it, he thought of an idea of his own. Since he was currently slowed, why not use reactive force to help propel him out? Reactive force wouldn¡¯t be affected by the slowing.


    When his speed had been slowed to one-third already, doing this and managing to catch a millisecond opportunity truly wouldn¡¯t be easy. That would require an almost bestial instinct along with a calctive prowess on the level of premonition. Even without paying attention to any of that, Halent¡¯s ability to adapt when forced to the brink was truly something.


    But I unhurriedly muttered an incantation. With such a distance between us, I had long since prepared a Dimensional Door spell. I increased the distance between us again and continued my game of Whack-a-Mole.


    ¡°Ame!¡±


    The dragon descendant used his own ace as he uttered an incantation and tossed down his heavy sword. Wings suddenly unfurled from his back, and blue streaks of lightning twirled around him. He shot himself directly towards me at top speed, showing off his own natural talent ability as the bloodline of the speedy Blue Dragons. The next instant, his blood-red eyes were right in front of me.


    ¡°It¡¯s over.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s over.¡±


    Both dragons said the exact same words. Halent¡¯s Blue Dragon had a delighted tone, while Little Red shrugged as if she was bored and didn¡¯t care about the result at all.


    As for me, Iughed at the shiny Halent filled with lightning. I merely reached out to empty air, causing the heavy top-quality metal mage staff which weighed almost a few tons to materialize in my hands. Then, I lowered my head, twisted my body, and wielded my staff at the person using his own body as a cannon shot to attack me. Home run swing!


    ¡°Hup! What manner of monster is this!? Take my staff!¡± [1]


    However, nobody responded to my ripping off of Journey to the West. I indeed made an excellent home run swing, and Halent went flying backwards at twice the speed he came. He crashed into the city wall¡ªyes, the city wall. Hepletely and utterly sunk into the city wall, causing an entire portion of the wall to copse. He was even more pitiful than me from earlier.


    ¡°Ha, I¡¯m white-robed Gandalf¡ªI mean Rex! I¡¯m skilled at magic, and my mastery of staves is even better. Who said that mages don¡¯t know martial arts!? Hit! You want topare Strength with me? You¡¯re two hundred years too young.¡±


    Normal dragons would only have 25 points or so in Strength, while a dragon descendant would probably have at most 23 in Strength. And ever since I equipped that armlet I received from Emordilorcan, my Strength value surpassed the barrier of 30, which put us onpletely different levels.


    Yet, I didn¡¯t have the free time to continueughing at the person I just defeated. Perhaps I had made too much of a spectacle of things, or maybe Halent had some special method to contact his allies. While I was busy ying with Halent, we were now surrounded by his allies that had arrived under the cover of the weather. Currently, there were over ten visible dragons flying around and perched on the city walls. Who knew how many more were waiting in the shadows?


    Vicious res gathered in my direction, while those threatening dragons flew circles in midair. The dragons weren¡¯t impatient; they had plenty of time to enjoy the thrill of the hunt against a strong opponent.


    ¡°Should I say that it¡¯s my honor? I met an entire dragon knight squadron right from the start? Sigh, this is really such a strange battle for no apparent reason.¡±


    But, before I could even consider how to deal with all this, an ancient-sounding voice spoke up in midair. Along with it, a silver dragon descended.


    ¡°Your Highness Fina? Aren¡¯t you Her Highness Princess Fina? Young ones, what are you all doing! Stop our attacking formation! This is Princess Fina, someone who carries true Bardi royal blood! I¡¯m Jonan, your knight captain guard!¡±


    Hearing this, Lilith trembled with a face filled with disbelief. She didn¡¯t expect to meet a familiar face here. But, since this Jonan was a dragon descendant, it was only natural since one or two hundred years was nothing to a dragon¡¯s lifespan.


    Lilith took a huge step back and seemed to instinctively want to escape. However, when she thought about Amelia whose fate was currently unknown, and how that we couldn¡¯t avoid Nightrain city no matter what since the situation had developed in this manner already, she gritted her teeth and nodded, admitting her identity.


    ¡°Earl Jonan? It¡¯s been such a long time, but please call me Lilith now.¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Sun Wukong¡¯s favorite quote when attacking monsters in Journey to the West.

 Chapter 277

    Chapter 277: Secret and a Letter


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The heavy rain battered the rooftops and didn¡¯t seem to show any signs of slowing down. ording to the time, it should have almost been light outside, but there was nothing other than the misty nket of rain that obscured everything.


    Spring rains before dawn were always nice and calming. Listening to the rain outside, sitting by a firece and enjoying a cup of hot cocoa that truly warmed the body made that fierce battle just earlier seem only a dream... Alright then, let¡¯s pretend that the dragon knight Archduke who was ring at me didn¡¯t exist. Meanwhile, I was quite angry at the fact that nobody gave me a cup of hot cocoa. This was clear discrimination against the undead!


    ¡°Even if you received one, would you be able to drink it? If someone really gave you one, wouldn¡¯t you justin that they were making fun of you?¡±


    ¡°Silly cat, leave your cup for me.¡±


    ¡°Heh heh, don¡¯t even think about it!¡±


    Due to Lilith¡¯s sudden appearance, the originally tense situation was instantly defused. After all, the dragon knight Jonan was once her personal guard. And in regards to seniority, Halent would need to call Jonan ¡°Second Grandpa.¡±


    It was all a misunderstanding to begin with, and since neither side had anyone that was seriously injured or killed during the misunderstanding, it was easy enough to exin it.


    Even if the undead were able to appease the nobles in the capital, they weren¡¯t able to appease the dragons and dragon knights. It was quite obvious that the dragon knights weren¡¯t going to get along with the undead. And since Halent was a powerful faction of his own in the dragon knight squad, the fact that he moved to Nightrain City and took it over was in a way his resistance against Emperor Orloss¡¯s will.


    Archduke Halent of Nightrain city had famously dered before that he didn¡¯t care about any consequences¡ªas long as any undead dared to enter his territory, they would be instantly executed with no mercy given.


    And not long after he said that, we arrived without knowing about it...


    Hearing this, I wanted to crash my head into a wall. Perhaps I really should make some free time to go donate some money to the God of Fate¡¯s church. At the very least, I wanted to get rid of some of my misfortune.


    Especially after hearing that in this time period, Archduke Halent personally patrolled the city walls to search for undead, which meant that I might have still made it past his eyes if I hid myself in a carriage. But I just happened to be sitting on a horse and leading our procession so grandly as the lich Rex. All the scouts on the city walls saw me instantly and pointed me out, which was basically a direct challenge against the dragon knight Archduke¡¯s authority. How could he possibly ignore me? And, so, everything that happened after came only naturally.


    The part where I was slightly surprised about was that the dragon knights seemed to be quite clear about Lilith¡¯s identity as well as that she was a member of the Blood Tribe, but they didn¡¯t show one sign of disrespect or enmity towards her.


    As for that Earl Jonan who seemed middle-aged but was definitely well over two hundred years old, his expression seemed far tooplex as he looked at Lilith. His emotions included reverence, relief, pain, and so on. The numerousplex emotions and speed at which his expression changed made me sigh and think that he could definitely change careers and be an actor.


    ¡°After all, we were all present back in the day. Although it¡¯s not my ce to criticize, that emperor who was Amelia¡¯s father, and what he did to Her Highness Amelia... Sigh.¡±


    The elderly knight kept reminiscing about nostalgic things, while Lilith was the one who remained calm, as if she didn¡¯t even notice the high-spirited dragon knights in front of her. She merely led Carolyn who had an expression of not knowing what was going on around everywhere to eat some desserts, taste some tea, enjoy the warmth of the fire, rx their bodies, and resist against the chilly weather.


    I had investigated the matter of Lilith¡¯s incident before as well. After Fina Mn became the Blood Tribe Member Lilith Mn, that perverted necrophile prince, Prince Sinut, was killed off not long after. After that, the throne was given to a child between Prince Sinut and one of the Bardi royalty side family¡¯s daughters, which basically broke off the Bardi Empire¡¯s direct royal blood session... If you forcefully tried to find someone, Amelia counted as the person having the most Bardi royal blood out of anyone left alive today, but nobody in the Bardi Empire would dare to make this ridiculously senior princess from so many generations ago take the throne, not to mention bring up the topic of having children for the sake of the royal bloodline.


    This was something from just a hundred-ish years ago, and the retainers from back then were now mostly dead of old age. Whoever ruled had the power to write history, and the so-called direct bloodline would only refer to the emperor¡¯s bloodline at the time anyways. Three generationster, who would remember an emperor from more than three generations ago?


    While normal people wouldn¡¯t remember, the dragon knights and dragon descendants from that year were still living quite well. They believed in the chivalric code of knights and still recalled the ruler they had sworn loyalty to so long ago. Now that they saw that their princess who had gone missing over a hundred years ago was ¡°living¡± quite fine, of course they would be filled with excitement.


    It was also thanks to Lilith¡¯s status that me and my ¡°undead¡± were invited inside as well. Otherwise, even if we were so-called imperial envoys, that wouldn¡¯t matter to Archduke Halent. If the lich Rex had been executed, all that would be said was that he deserved it. After all, Orloss wouldn¡¯t dare to directly go against the dragon knights for the sake of a simple lich.


    After spending a short time together with them, it was easy to tell from the way they treated each other that rather than acting like a military squadron, they were more like a big family. That Jonan could use his seniority to lecture Halent for being overly hasty. When seeing how that icy-faced handsome Halent could only helplessly listen and not even defend himself, I felt like I was watching a naughty child receive a scolding from his parent.


    And, when I looked around the room, the famous Archduke Halent wasn¡¯t even the strongest dragon knight here. There were several dragon knights with stronger draconic might than him. For example, that elder of his, Jonan, was obviously a Saint.


    ¡°...Could it be that Your Highness Fina is here for the sake of the undead?¡±


    Jonan¡¯s expression was filled with hesitation, but from his position, there were some things he absolutely had to ask. Everyone in the Bardi Empire knew that the dragon knight squadron didn¡¯t get along with the undead, as how could the prideful dragons possibly listen to themands of the filthy undead?


    But the current Princess ¡°Fina¡± before them was now also an undead vampire. Although it seemed like she probably wasn¡¯t rted to the undead in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital, they still needed to ascertain her motives ining here with the lich ¡°Rex.¡±


    Hearing his question, Lilith directly shook her head.


    ¡°I said already, I¡¯m currently Lilith, a member of the Church of Law. I¡¯m no longer Fina Mn. I don¡¯t want to meddle in the affairs of the Bardi Empire, nor do I have the power to do so. This time, we came here for a different reason. As for the lich Rex...¡±


    She looked over at me questioningly. The question in her beautiful eyes was quite obvious: ¡°Should I tell them the truth or not? Do you want to talk to them from here, or should I continue speaking?¡±


    I nodded without saying anything. Although the saying that ¡°an enemy¡¯s enemy is a potential friend¡± might not always be correct, it was probably better to exin things to them rather than being misunderstood as the Undead Emperors¡¯ subordinates. Otherwise, we¡¯d probably have an unsolvable conflict on our hands where we¡¯d just break out into an all out fight, again, and that would make it impossible for us to pass this fortress city peacefully.


    ¡°...This person who was just beating up Archduke Halent is actually the famously petty Rnd, Rnd Mist.¡±


    Before she even finished speaking, Halent suddenly stood up with incredibly obvious shock and disbelief on his face. He obviously knew my name.


    I lightly twisted the magical ring on my hand, and a radiance shot out from it that removed my illusionary disguise. The moment I regained the appearance of my physical body, I instantly stole my silly cat¡¯s cup of hot cocoa and downed it all in one gulp. Being able to enjoy delectable foods and drinks rather than only being able to watch felt so much better.


    The silly cat grit her teeth in anger, but she knew that this wasn¡¯t a good time to take revenge on me.


    ¡°The undying Rnd!?¡±


    ¡°Yongye! The evil undying king!¡±


    Even though she told them my real identity, this seemed to make the dragon knights more on guard against me, not less. Even that Jonan ced his hand directly on his sword. Was my reputation that bad?


    ¡°As the only Undead Emperor in the past one thousand years, not to mention how you¡¯ve be the representative of all demon kings in the recent centuries¡¯ fairy tales, shouldn¡¯t you have a little more self-awareness? After all, you¡¯re ranked #27 on the Cmity Rankings, dear Rnd.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, mypanion Harloys who¡¯s ranked #46 on the same Cmity Rankings. Thank you so much for your reminder. I¡¯ve heard that due to our recent actions, even though you¡¯ve disappeared from in front of everyone for so long already, your ranking has even managed to increase. How does it feel for people to fear you even more simply because you haven¡¯t appeared?¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s my misfortune as a teacher. I should have kicked you out and refused you as my student from the very start.¡±


    Although I kept up my serious appearance, I was actually messing around with Harloys like always through our soul connection. However, the dragon knights weren¡¯t calm at all since they had their own information channels and naturally knew that Rnd Mist was also Emperor Yongye, the only recent Undead Emperor.


    ¡°Has he joined up with the other Undead Emperors? I heard that he was causing some major incidents in the Nortnds, so what¡¯s he doing here?¡±


    The more famous you were, the more you were feared or respected. In the eyes of dragons, no matter how venerated a mortal was, that would all be short and temporary. Those that truly deserved respect or even fear were of course the undying that took slow steps to the peak of power. And anyone on the Cmity Rankings would unmistakably be considered monsters.


    ¡°That Abomination just now was the carnivore, Ah Dang? I managed to escape with my life?¡±


    The blue dragon Sishusler who had currently transformed into a bulky man¡¯s appearance was getting scared now. There were more than one or two dragons that had died to this famed Xiluo warrior already. In front of an all-out Ah Dang, even an ancient dragon would be nothing more than some food which might get stuck in his teeth. Killing a slightly famous mature dragon would be nothing to Ah Dang.


    By the way, I should mention that one of Ah Dang¡¯s forms was also on the Cmity Rankings. It was just that very few people knew that it was him. And, actually, if it wasn¡¯t for me stopping him, Ah Dang would have easily killed that Sishusler with a single blow in their battle.


    At first, the dragon knights thought that they would have the overwhelming advantage, which was why they calmly weed these unwee guests inside their own fortress city. But just this former Undead Emperor alone gave them no chance of victory at all from the very start. It would seem that we were instead the ones going easy on the dragon knight squadron that seemed to have the advantage of numbers.


    Lilith continued her own introduction of me as if she hadn¡¯t noticed the sudden tension in the atmosphere at all.


    ¡°Yep, he¡¯s Aunt Amelia¡¯s good friend as well as disciple. This time, we came here to help Aunt Amelia.¡±


    ¡°Rx, this time, at least, we¡¯re probably on the same side. I don¡¯t exactly have friendly rtions with those undead that came here uninvited.¡±


    ¡°Lady Amelia?¡±


    The person who asked so concernedly was a rather tall female dragon knight who had blonde hair and green eyes. There were obvious silver dragon scales on her forehead and even two small curved dragon horns. No wonder she would always wear a full helmet when outside.


    I recalled her to be a dragon knight from several generations ago named Lucia. Seeing how concerned she was, she must have had some sort of connection to Amelia.


    ¡°Yes, at the time, Aunt Amelia and I were both at Port Victoria. I was immune to the Dimensional Descent that urred there because of my undead body, but Aunt Amelia stayed behind.¡±


    ¡°How is that possible! How could Lady Amelia...¡± The female knight Lucia had an expression of astonishment, as if she couldn¡¯t believe something catastrophic could befall Amelia.


    ¡°Cmities typically live the longest, and Amelia is fine, I can promise. She¡¯s probably just having some trouble, which is why we¡¯re here. Can we pass through now?¡±


    I took up the topic here, since my patience and time both had limits. We were quite close to our goal of Port Victoria now, so if the situation permitted it, I wanted to leave as soon as possible.


    I thought that after saying things so directly, it would be quite easy for them to let us pass, but the end result was that they all looked at each other awkwardly. It would seem that it would be a problem.


    After passing Nightrain City, it would take another two weeks or so of traveling on foot to reach Port Victoria.


    However, this road that was easily taken in the past had transformed into a ck earth that was poisonous for the living. The faint stench of corrosion would make people want to throw up, and the formerly flourishing port was nowpletely deste. Thick clouds forever covered the skies, and even the crows which were considered unlucky all died, copsed on the ground. This ce had be a forbidden zone for the living.


    Once, there was a pack of wild wolves that were being chased by a tremendous SemiDragon, forced to the brink. Not long after entering this forbidden zone consisting of ck earth, however, they started running slower and slower before finally copsing. And not long after the wolves, the stronger SemiDragon predator copsed as well, and the undead added a pack of zombie wolves and a bone SemiDragon to their number.


    Actually, ording to the Undead Emperors¡¯ original n, if they seeded inpletely opening the Dimensional Door, the area around Port Victoria wouldn¡¯t be affected very much even if Port Victoria itself was sacrificed. This was also why Orloss finally agreed to this n, but due to certain reasons, there was a change in the situation.


    Just as how underground plumbing pipes would always erupt with filthy water if they were blocked somewhere, the power of the Undead ne that found itself blocked by the magical forest changed its direction in which to corrode.


    Nobody would be able to tolerate this domain filled with the power of death other than the undead. Although they became stronger in this domain, the undead themselves were feeling quite anxious about it. After all, the dragon knights had sent them an ultimatum: the moment this undead domain crossed into human territory, or, more specifically, Nightrain City¡¯s territory, it would be tantamount to a deration of war on the dragon knights.


    This midway region between Nightrain City and Port Victoria had be a buffer zone. Every day, huge dragons and gargoyles would perform surveince from the skies. Of course, whenever they met each other, some additional broken gargoyles would then appear on the ground.


    Not a single sane merchant group would choose to enter this type of area. The moment we left Nightrain City and headed for Port Victoria, the undead would probably discover it.


    If we didn¡¯t want to put the undead on guard against us, that meant there was basically zero possibility of speedily passing through this area. We could only take things slowly and try obtaining more information. It would be best if we could somehow contact Amelia again. I didn¡¯t lie at all, as I truly believed that Amelia would be fine.


    And just as we finished our discussion, before I even got to rest up, Little Red came looking for me with a mysterious look on her face that seemed like she could barely hold in herughter. She must have found out something interesting that she intended to share with me.


    ¡°Hey, Rnd, would you like to know why they have so many dragon descendants? And about what¡¯s going on with their dragon knights?¡±


    ¡°Hmm? Isn¡¯t that the Bardi Empire¡¯s secret? You know it?¡±


    ¡°Tsk, what secret, I understood immediately with a single look. Didn¡¯t you notice how that Halent and his dragon Sishusler resemble each other greatly? In appearance and smell, they resemble each other by over ny percent. They¡¯re definitely twins!¡±


    I recalled how that Sishusler preferred to transform into a buff and muscr man, while that Halent was so handsome; they were supposed to be twins? I suddenly felt as if there were problems with dragons¡¯ sense of aesthetics.


    ¡°Wait a moment, dragons¡¯ sense of aesthetics? That means to say, in a dragon¡¯s eyes, the two of them basically look like twin brothers! Alright then, I understand what¡¯s going on now. No wonder all those dragon descendants were of the same bloodline as their dragons. So they were all close rtives.¡±


    No wonder Little Red was snickering. If this was revealed, it would be a scandal for the surface dragons.


    Dragon descendants typically came about as a result of dragons breeding with other creatures that weren¡¯t dragons. In the mortal ne, all sorts of SemiDragons¡¯ bloodlines were considered quite valuable for research purposes. There was truth to the saying that dragons were true to their base desires, as sometimes they bred with others for reasons other than affection. In such a situation, the ¡°byproduct¡± of half-blood dragon descendants would find it difficult to receive their parents¡¯ true love.


    Still, it was obvious that the dragon descendants couldn¡¯t just be left alone. If a dragon descendant used his or her natural powers to do something like take revenge on society, not only would that humiliate the dragon descendant¡¯s irresponsible parents, the entire dragon species would feel humiliated.


    ¡°That is to say, that so-called dragon knight squadron is actually a type of day care.¡±


    Dragon descendants that had a sufficient amount of dragon bloodline in them were able to transform into true dragons after undergoing a bloodline ritual and paying a price as well as receiving their bloodline¡ªtheir parents¡¯¡ªassistance. But the prerequisite was that the dragon descendant needed to be strong enough, most likely a minimum of the Gold rank, and also needed to be a certain age.


    Dragon descendants matured far slower than normal humans and would require a rtively safe environment to grow up in. It would also be easier for them to obtain experience and wisdom in theplex human society.


    No wonder this dragon knight squadron nevercked young dragon descendants. It would seem that any irresponsible dragon parents that didn¡¯t want to raise their children would bring them here to this dragon knight squadron. The young, long-lived dragon descendants would learn from and be brainwashed by the knightly chivalric code here, so they wouldn¡¯t do anything foolish.


    As for those dragons they got to ride? They were all their brothers and sisters and so on that came to apany their siblings for this slow period before they matured. Spending a few decades or a century or two to y with one¡¯s own little brother or sister wasn¡¯t much to a dragon.


    My guess was that for the dragon descendants without siblings, there would still be an unlucky dragon from the same bloodline sent to protect the dragon descendant, which would count as a small trial for the dragon. And since they were mostly closely-rted siblings to begin with, riding on each other wouldn¡¯t matter.


    ¡°Haha! No wonder they¡¯re all novices. So they were all unlucky ones that had to raise young children. Eh, what are you looking at there?¡±


    ¡°Oh, an old dragon gave me this letter, telling me it¡¯s from someone I know. Cherry? Such a strange name. Little Red, do you know this person?¡±

 Chapter 278

    Chapter 278: Changes


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    I casually tore open the letter¡¯s seal before I discovered that it was actually the highest-level magical seal of all, inscribed into the gray letter with wax runes. If anyone other than the letter¡¯s intended recipient had opened it, the letter within the envelope would have destroyed itself or possibly even exploded.


    ¡°Cherry? I don¡¯t know this name. Yep, you¡¯ve never mentioned it before.¡±


    Although Little Red was continually shaking her head, there wasughter in her eyes. Even though dragons typically looked down on needing to lie, based on my understanding of her, her expression meant that she was waiting to see something interesting, and asking her would be meaningless.


    And, so, I unhesitatingly opened up the letter¡¯s envelope ever so slightly and put it down on the table. Then, I stood at the doorway, and used a hand of ice to open it up from a safe enough distance... Haha! I¡¯m too smart! If only the bomb disposal technicians in my previous world had magic techniques like mine, there wouldn¡¯t need to be so many sacrifices.


    ¡°Wahahahaha!¡±


    Ipletely ignored that dragon who was intending to watch me make a fool of myself andughing to the point of clutching her stomach. For some reason, when I saw this name Cherry that resembled an elven name, there was an itch in my mind that seemed to be instinctively warning me that this name was trouble and that I should be cautious.


    In order to avoid any traps, I carefully hid behind the door and canceled my magic hand of ice the moment I used it to open the letter, and then...


    ¡°Are you joking with me? Nothing actually happened!¡±


    There was no sudden sh of white light, nor was there the wailing of a banshee. There was definitely no explosion and not even some floating white or green powder. At the very least, shouldn¡¯t it contain a death curse? For a scare letter to not even contain a single trap, how unprofessional.


    ¡°Hahaha! You¡¯re so funny; just what are you doing? Facechecking the bush? Using your own feet to check for traps?¡± [1]


    Alright then. I decided to continue ignoring that dragon who was rolling around on the floor inughter as I picked up the letter only to see a few simple sentences.


    ¡°The ancient elvennguage? Someone¡¯s actually using thisnguage in this day and age? Let me think; how do I read this again?¡±


    The letter was written in the ancientnguage of elves that had long since gone extinct. It would have been normal for the letter writer to use themon humannguage or the dragonnguage, but what was with using the ancient elvennguage? Was this Cherry an archaeologist?


    The words were written quite beautifully and cleanly. It was evident that a female wrote them, but the content was so perplexing that I couldn¡¯t understand at all.


    ¡°...You dare to return?¡±


    When I read this out loud to check my grammar, I was certain that I hadn¡¯t made any mistakes tranting the ancient elvennguage. But why was it that I still didn¡¯t understand what the letter writer meant? Was this supposed to be aint aimed at me?


    But, just as I finished speaking out loud, the letter suddenly glowed white, and then...


    ¡°Damn it! It was actually the type that activated upon reading it out loud!¡±


    *Boom!*


    The letter indeed exploded. Well, at least the explosion wasn¡¯t a powerful one, but it brought a strange smoke with it. When the smoke finally dissipated, I was covered in something blue all over.


    ¡°Cough¡ªcough¡ªshe actually intentionally used the difficult ancient elvennguage to fool me into reading it out loud which would cause the letter to explode. So evil! Cough¡ªcough¡ªcough.¡±


    I didn¡¯t know what this trap was made of. Even the dust I coughed up was blue. The only part I could feel lucky about was that I could sense this trap was apparently non-toxic.


    ¡°Hahaha! I knew it!¡±


    The female dragon behind me was rolling around on the floor inughter even more vigorously. She seemed to have expected this.


    And what apanied this trap was a sudden sh that jumped outside the room. Apparently, with the letter¡¯s opening, something left that informed the trap¡¯s setter that this letter had been activated as she nned.


    And at the same time that I was smeared with blue all over, a small pendant dropped onto the ground. This was a heart-shaped sapphire that was glowing with a clear radiance, just like the moonlight.


    Seeing all this, I knew that this was only the beginning. The truly troublesome part would probably be waiting for me down the road.


    ¡°Such a targeted trap aimed just for me; it¡¯s impossible to believe that she¡¯s someone I don¡¯t know...¡±


    Since I was unable to recall who Cherry was, that made me even more worried. All of this was obviously aimed at me personally, so it could only be someone highly familiar with me. Why was it that I couldn¡¯t recall this name at all?


    Well, not having any impressions of someone was normal since after so many lives, I¡¯d already forgotten so many things even about myself. But, for even my memory library to not have any records, that was quite abnormal.


    After thinking about it extensively, I came up with only two possibilities. Either at the time, I hadn¡¯t started recording my diaries yet... I could basically ignore this possibility, though. That left only something that I intentionally didn¡¯t want to record, not wanting to remember certain things, hoping that I wouldpletely forget about it after reincarnating.


    ¡°Well, if I can¡¯t recall it, I¡¯ll just stop bothering. Since it was something I intentionally wanted to forget, it¡¯s obvious that it¡¯s better to not remember.¡±


    I directly decided to forget about all this, which caused Little Red who still wanted to see my antics to be displeased.


    ¡°You sure live such a carefree life. If you can¡¯t remember, you¡¯re just going to give up on remembering? Such an envious lifestyle attitude you have. Aren¡¯t you worried at all that there¡¯s going to be some trouble waiting for you if you can¡¯t remember?¡±


    ¡°...There¡¯s nothing I can do about it if I can¡¯t remember. Besides, if this Cherry person wants toe looking for trouble, even if I remember, won¡¯t she stille looking for trouble anyways? It¡¯ll only add more to my te. Since she¡¯s an enemy, I¡¯ll just have to deal with things when the timees. Isn¡¯t she simply an ¡®old acquaintance?¡¯ The number of old acquaintances I have that want me dead could probably make a long enough line to reach from here to the western ocean. Why would I be afraid?¡±


    Although I said so, I secretly increased the defenses around our rooms. Of course, it wasn¡¯t entirely just to guard against an unknown threat.


    When the next morning arrived peacefully, I was reassured slightly. Although the dragon knights acted quite respectfully towards Lilith, and knights were typically a bunch of durds that only thought about knightly chivalry in their tin can brains, we were still technically in enemy territory, and we needed to take extra cautions. Being on guard was something absolutely necessary.


    And as we talked to the dragon knights, I obtained information about the Bardi Empire that I had really beencking. Local domain lords¡¯ information was too outdatedpared to the dragon knights who received updated news from the capital every single day.


    With the ambitious tyrant ruler Orloss still perfectly holding on to his power, the current Bardi Empire was indeed in Orloss¡¯s grasp. However, even if everything appeared calm on the surface, there were torrents brewing in secret. With the old emperor continually increasing in age, the situation in the Bardi Empire only kept increasing inplexity.


    Although Emperor Orloss was still considered the overwhelming authority, just about everyone hoped for his death. This especially included his ten or so still living adopted princes. Although they all seemed pure and kind on the surface, they all hadrge factions of their own and were waiting to fight it out for the throne after Orloss¡¯s death. Of course, none of them dared yet to make any military moves¡ªyep¡ªat least on the surface. Some of the princes¡¯ wives¡¯ families seemed to be trying to butter up the military factions, though.


    As for local domain lords? Does it even need saying? There would forever be insolvable conflicts between centralized royal authority and local domain lords. Although Orloss¡¯s method of forcing all the domain lords to send him their eldest sons to the capital as hostages was quite effective, it also worsened the rtionship between the royal authority and the domain lords.


    This method had been put into practice for twenty years now, and the first batch of domain lords¡¯ eldest sons had already grown into adults. However, those that returned to their domains to inherit the position of domain lord were pitifully few. This wasn¡¯t because of Orloss refusing to let them go, but instead because most domain lords had chosen their second sons that weren¡¯t hostages at the capital.


    No second son? They would just do their best to give birth to a second son, then. As for the second sons who got to be the domain lord, they wouldn¡¯t have any feelings of friendship whatsoever towards their older brothers that should have legally been the domain lord. Those that truly weed a firstborn son back to inherit the domain lord title were fewer than few.


    The overwhelming power that the royal authority possessed had caused manyints to umte. And since all theseints had umted, they would definitely explode one day, sooner orter.


    After Emperor Orloss¡¯s death, no matter who it was that managed to seize the throne, there would be no way that person would have sufficient authority to suppress all the domain lords any more. It could be said that due to the overly centralized power of royal authority, all the domain lords had been repressing their ambitions for the past several decades. They were all looking forward to this emperor, who was pressuring them from above, to die of old age so that they could rise up again.


    Simply judging by how everyone was reacting to the emperor¡¯s alliance with the undead, there were plenty of internal disagreements in the Bardi Empire just on this topic alone. Although Orloss used his authority to forcibly suppress most nobles¡¯ distaste for this, theck of total unity on this subject caused plenty of internal factions to be formed.


    Apart from all the Gods¡¯ churches that directly broke with the Bardi Empire, the fiercest reaction regarding the undead were from the royal mages.


    The first day that an official announcement was made regarding the alliance with the undead, the head royal archmage, Wenst, decided to take a sick leave. All the other royal archmages also began to shut themselves inside and work only on researching magic. The dragon knight Archduke Halent and his dragon knights leaving the capital as a form of protest was already considered to be a softer form of protestpared to some.


    While Halent and his dragon knights were using their own method to protest their dissatisfaction against Emperor Orloss¡¯s policies, at the western border, there was a group of dragon knights that remained loyal to the emperor. These dragon knights were about to enter the battlefield and begin taking revenge upon the Mage Country.


    Dragon descendants had a special status. First of all, most of them were half-dragons and could be considered both dragon and human. Yet since they spent most of their lives growing up in a human empire, they were quite attached to their identity as humans during their ¡°growth period.¡± As they had the status as knights, they felt it was only natural for them to participate when their emperor gave themand to go to war.


    If at all possible, I didn¡¯t wish to see an all-out war between two mega-empires, especially since the Mage Country was intimately connected to me.


    That strange Quest I received a while back that forced me to choose between improving my Reputation level in either the Mage Country or the Bardi Empire was probably evidence, even way back then, that the uing war between the two countries was inevitable and that I would have to choose a side.


    I could already guess that when I arrived at the Cloud Tower to continue this so-called main storyline Quest, I would likely be forced to formally choose a side in this war and participate in the battle.


    ¡°I hope that these dragon knights here won¡¯t join the war. That would escte the war¡¯s level immediately. The undead invasion is already beginning, and the longer we stall for time, the better our preparations will be and the greater our chances of victory. Both countries sending in all their high-levelbat strength immediately will only benefit the undead that are going toe sooner orter.¡±


    I was considering about more than just these issues. Giving the Bardi Empire over to the Undead Emperors seemed like too much of a waste. Since the Bardi Empire had an unstable internal situation, perhaps something would change from within if I managed to stall for time. For example, if Emperor Orloss finally suddenly died, there was a high likelihood of the new ruler directly turning against the undead.


    [Congrattions to Host for activating the secret side Quest: Prevent the dragon knight squadron from entering this meaningless battle.]


    [Quest Requirements: Stall this dragon knight squadron from entering the battle as long as possible. If you sessfully stall them for three months, that willplete this Quest.]


    [Quest Reward: A clue to the location of the former Dragon Queen Molly. Quest Failure Punishment: Little Red¡¯s anger. System Reminder: Just continue wasting your time doing side Quests. You want Fate Points? Never!]


    It would seem that many things rted to the main storyline Quest of the two major countries at war could be activated as side Quests. Although there weren¡¯t any Fate Points as rewards, based on what I knew, I couldn¡¯t leave even a single small detail uncovered in order to properly finish a major storyline Quest. umting as many benefits as possible would leave me on the safe side and would be the most reliable way of all to win.


    Something worth mentioning was that although many people rolled eyes at us in disbelief when I warned them about the uing undead invasion, after the undead truly arrived, these countries still pretended to act mute and deaf about it on the surface but secretly sent us many envoys hoping to receive relevant information and assistance from us.


    Of course, I exaggerated things as much as I could and pointed out all the undead invasion points that were recorded in history. As for whether or not anything would be changed, that would have nothing to do with me.


    In ¡°history,¡± the Bardi Empire was one of thergest invasion points of all. After the undeadunched their full-scale invasion, the mega-empire formerly known as the Bardi Empire waspletely destroyed in the short time of only three months. This was doubtlessly something unimaginable, but after organizing everything that I knew about the Bardi Empire I learned of the many internal and external threats to it. I suddenly felt like it being able to survive three months would be incredible already.


    History didn¡¯t record in detail what happened to the dragon knights, but there were records stating that after the Bardi Empire sumbed to the undead,rge amount of bone dragons appeared... If I extrapted based on the current situation, then even if these dragon knights didn¡¯t die against the Mage Country, they would probably dieter against the undead¡¯s invasion. It was to be expected that every single one of them would die off.


    But, right now, it would be no easy feat to stop these dragon knights from entering battle. After all, we were still foreigners to them and could even be somewhat considered as enemies. Even if Lilith tried convincing them, the effectiveness of her words was unknown. And since they were Bardi¡¯s knights, as long as Emperor Orloss formally gave an edict for them to fight the Mage Country, there would be no reason they could refuse unless Halent and the others wanted to bebeled as traitors to the empire.


    ¡°...Especially since they¡¯re going to be under the impression that it¡¯s all for justice and to take revenge for the Mage Country¡¯s premature attack. Unless, of course, we can prove that the Emperor is already insane or hasmitted some crimes that severely go against their code of chivalry.¡±


    But when I realized this, Iughed out loud. Didn¡¯t Orlossmit plenty of such crimes?


    ¡°Kasn¡¯s Tears will be the best evidence of all; it seems that I need to go have a chat with Halent. Right, the dragon knights would probably join the battle against the Mage Country to take revenge for that forbidden spell. But why do I feel like this isn¡¯t the Mage Country¡¯s style? I should investigate this as well.¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Urban Dictionary exins ¡°facechecking the bush¡± well. I quote: ¡°In a video game, to gather information on an area hidden in fog of war by charging in. To check for enemies with your face. Seems to have originated in League of Legends where vision-obscuring bushes allow champions to wait hidden from view in very close proximity to their opponents.¡±

 Chapter 279

    Chapter 279: Reunion Between Old Friends


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Rain would typically leave the air fresh. The sudden north wind, however, brought with it a rotten, ufortable stench.


    The spring rain was unable to wash away the scent of death in the air. For the new residents here, this was the smell of their home, and they hoped for this entire world to be distorted into bing part of the Undead nes. Yet the magical forest beside the former Port Victoria remained an imprable fortress.


    The open Dimensional Door stayed an ongoing threat. Right outside Port Victoria were several dozen colossal Soul-Summoning Towers, endlessly gathering the power of death magic to distort this area. They transformed into pirs of ck light that covered the skies.


    Surrounding these towering pirs of ck light was a patch of distorted space. Within it, mountains, water, and a thick mass of ethereal shadows doing something could be discerned. This was where the mortal ne intersected with the Desecration ne, and undead were entering the mortal ne here every moment.


    With mountains of body parts piled up beside them, the liches were busy at work. Upon arrival, most low-level undead would be missing a limb and required ¡°spare parts¡± to be installed so that they could walk normally.


    When any high-level undead arrived, the first thing they would do was thank the heavens and the God of Fate¡¯s protection for arriving safely. Ovepping dimensions would cause their dimensionalws to sh with each other, and moving between them was akin to attempting to navigate through a dangerous waterway in a thunderstorm with only a wooden board. It required not only courage and power but luck more than anything else.


    The Undead Emperors weren¡¯t idiots and were well aware that this was a critical moment. They had, in fact, spent numerous efforts and prepared endless ns just for this day, but no matter howplete one¡¯s preparations were, nothing could resist sudden misfortune.


    Judging from the current development, if this Dimensional Descent ended up creating an entirely new mini dimension, then the Dimensional Door leading to the Desecration ne would have beenpletely wasted.


    A severe situation was now in front of the undead. It was only by destroying this newly-born dimensional will that this area would bepletely swallowed up by the Desecration ne. If the will awakened, it would begin a major counterattack which would render this Dimensional Door useless.


    Find a new location for a Dimensional Descent? First of all, how would the undead convince the Bardi Empire to make another huge sacrifice of its citizens when the undead hadn¡¯t even achieved anybat results to show yet? The Undead Emperor Aso had paid a tremendous price and risked personally descending upon the mortal ne in order to negotiate for itst time.


    And even if the undead were able to suppress the Bardi Empire¡¯s negative opinions, the preparations they made at Port Victoria had taken far more than just one or two years. In order to reach the level required for a Dimensional Descent, the Soul-Summoning Towers had been secretly active for many years, and the local citizens possessed more than five times than normal of Kasn¡¯s Tears in their bodies. How many years would it take the undead to prepare another such location for a Dimensional Descent?


    And it just so happened that when dimensions were shing against each other, dimensional teleportation would be like trying to pull a good fortune rather than a bad one. Low-level undead were cheap and plentiful, and there were countless low-level undead of all sorts in the Undead nes. It wouldn¡¯t be considered a pity even if only thirty percent of the low-level undead made it across, but it would be a huge pity for mid-level undead and above.


    In the mortal ne, there was no such concept as mid-level undead. Undead without intelligence were considered low-level, while those with intelligence were considered high-level. However, in many Undead nes, since the dimensionalws there were tilted in favor of the undead, progressing to a certain rank (about Bronze or so) would cause the undead to regain their experience and intelligence. Their overwhelming numbers was arge reason why the undead countries in the Undead nes flourished far more than outsiders realized. There was even a high degree of culture.


    No intelligent life form would be able to tolerate itself being transformed back into a beast ruled by its instincts. Since mid-level undead were considered as people back in their home Undead nes, how could they be willing to be beasts and ves again over here? ¡°Mid-level undead¡± that lost their intelligence would be nothing more than slightly stronger low-level undead, and their true power would be reduced to less than one-third. This was quite an obvious waste.


    High-level undead were probably the most pitiful of all if you only look at their rate of birth. That made them all the more precious. The saying that undead armiescked high-levelmanders more than anything else was quite true, and using thousands of years of umtion to gamble on a single probability in dimensional teleportation was far too bad of a deal.


    Of course, the more powerful the existence, the better the odds of survival. It was only natural that they would have a higher rate of surviving the dimensional teleportation. Yet if they were unlucky and met with something like a time fissure, then even an Undead Emperor wouldn¡¯t have the confidence to make it through the dimensional teleportation.


    No matter how much of a price they paid, the highest chance they had was only at fifty percent. Gambling thousands of years of umtion on only a fifty percent probability was tantamount to a definite loss.


    But since the battle was at a critical junction, things like downsides and probabilities were ignored. ¡°Even if we lose everything, we have to take the strategic objective¡± became the rallying call of the undead.


    It was quite obvious that the now ttened hills weren¡¯t worth trading all those undead lives for, and even if they conquered it, it wouldn¡¯t really bring them any benefits. The most important part was the strategic meaning behind it, as ¡°being unable to conquer it¡± or ¡°conquering it too slowly¡± would both mean an imbnce in the overall battle situation.


    And right now, this half-sealed new dimension that was bing more and more independent was the strategic objective in question. The Order Gods were likely to intervene at any moment¡ªeven though the Undead Emperors knew that using dimensional teleportation at the current time was incredibly disadvantageous, they still sent in everything they had when they discovered that the newly-born dimension was beginning to escape their control.


    ¡°Ah, I¡¯ve arrived! I can see things here! I shall conquer... Roar!!!¡±


    A lucky zombie just managed to walk out of a ck pir of light, but he didn¡¯t even have the time to celebrate how he was lucky enough to make it here before he lowered his head and pitifully howled. Arge amount of ck mist left his body, taking with it his hundreds of years of experience and wisdom.


    He was just talking really big, but the next moment he be a drooling zombie. He had be a low-level undead, only interested in crouching on the ground and chewing bones.


    ¡°...Yet another unlucky fool that was brought here without understanding the situation.¡±


    A lich connected the zombie to itself with a death contract and ordered it to move out of the way. This type of urrence was exceedinglymon these days, and the liches had gotten used to it already.


    What arrived next was a death knight squadron that was injured and tattered all over. Many of them had broken hands or broken feet, and they all supported each other as they barely managed to hobble out of the pir. Judging by how they were able to maintain their intelligence, they were all high-level undead. They were considered elite reinforcements and major personages, so a lich immediately came over to heal them and register them for military organizing.


    ¡°The Blood Thorn Knights have all arrived. I¡¯m the leader, Alba.¡±


    The leader of this knight squadron was actually a death knight lord on the level of an Undead Lord. The lich cast ¡°Death Breath¡± to help heal Alba as he registered the squad¡¯s arrival, but before finishing the registration, he hesitated. He couldn¡¯t help but ask a question.


    ¡°All arrived? Aren¡¯t the Blood Thorn Knights that incredibly famous knight squadron in the White Demon Valley district? I¡¯ve heard that there should be over one hundred high-level undead knights...¡±


    The lich was unable to say anything further as a pale white arm grabbed on to the lich¡¯s skull. The death knight Alba¡¯s face was filled with anger.


    *Snap!*


    Should things be described as ¡°everyone was happy in the end?¡± The lich proved the old saying of why it was suicidal to speak when you shouldn¡¯t, and the death knight lord that lost so many of his subordinates found a target to vent his anger on. But, when Alba took a look at his brothers-in-arms behind him that were mostly dead and heavily injured, he couldn¡¯t feel any satisfaction from having vented his anger at all.


    ¡°Without even arriving on the battlefield, our one hundred and thirty-six knights have be thirteen... that damned Aso! Damned dimensional fissures! And damn this fate!¡±


    But even if heined, what could he do? That wouldn¡¯t change anything about his destiny to be cannon fodder. Since the Undead Emperors had resolved themselves to pay any sacrifice necessary, even the Undead Lords were unable to escape their unlucky fates.


    While normal dimensional teleportation worked at a sess rate of 40%, that was just an average obtained from countless amounts of 0%¡¯s and 100%¡¯s. There were many who were unlucky, like the Blood Thorn Knights who just happened to meet with a dimensional space-time fissure and be an unlucky group that had less than a 10% survival rate.


    Even if he cursed the Undead Emperors that forced them into teleporting here, it wouldn¡¯t change a thing. They were the invaders here in the mortal ne, and they could only take this path to the end.


    This heavily injured death knight squadron was taken to the Soul-Summoning Towers for additional healing, and then these death knights¡¯ natural talent inmanding soldiers would be put to use. They would have to help organize mid and low-level undead for their armies. As long as there was a sufficient number of skeletons and zombies, each death knight was basically capable of leading an entire army.


    ¡°nts vs. Zombies¡± continued outside, with the battles on the frontline never ending. But if one paid close attention to thebat situation, one would notice that the undead had practically stopped sending out any more high-level undead elites to deal with the forest. Numerous structures were being built around the Soul-Summoning Towers, withrge amounts of undeadborers working overtime on them. Fortress-level defense lines would soon bepleted.


    Since the power of numbers was unable to deal any damage to the forest¡¯sbat strength and instead only acted as its experience for growing stronger, not a single intelligentmander would fight this meaningless battle any longer.


    The campgrounds were filled with reinforcement soldiers that had just arrived from the Desecration ne. It was obvious that the undead were umting their total forces for arge-scale attack. The small skirmishes with the forest were nothing more than sending out extra unneeded scouts.


    Meanwhile, the wood spirits didn¡¯t seem like they were going toe out and proactively attack. After all, as a newly-born species, they would suffer a massive decrease in power upon leaving the forest. Attacking the undead¡¯s campgrounds meant leaving their home dimension, and they would lose their ability to remain undying. It was only natural for them to not have the ability to proactively attack.


    The wood spirits were quite worried as well as they watched the undead continually gather more and more in number. But they couldn¡¯t do anything other than continually improve their defense lines, produce more of their own, and develop new weapons forbat.


    For the undead, only having strength in numbers would be insufficient. The limitations in dimensionalws prevented the Undead Emperors from descending here and retaining full power. Their direct subordinates were too strong as well, and it would be quite difficult for them to descend. Without aplete descent, the amount of usable power they¡¯d have would be questionable. Yet while it was unfeasible for them, it was indeed fine for others.


    ¡°I never thought I would return so quickly.¡±


    The lich Feyman strode out of a pir into the mortal ne. As he eximed about how mysterious the world was in its ways, he casually took some bones from a lich beside him in order to restore his lower half that had been destroyed during the dimensional teleportation.


    Although Feyman was unlucky enough to meet a dimensional fissure just like the Blood Thorn Knights before him, he had extra protections given to him specially by Undead Emperor Aso and sessfully made it through.


    As an Undead Lord that entered the Myth rank while in the mortal ne as well as one of the strongest undead in all of Eich, the former Second Senator from Xiluo, Feyman, indeed had the right to be proud of himself.


    Although he finally ended up on the losing side in Xiluo¡¯s internal conflict, he was still well trusted and relied on by the Undead Emperors as one of the potential vanguard leaders ¡°familiar¡± with the world of Eich. He was even taken in as a disciple by Undead Emperor Aso, and he learned many undead secret techniques along with the chance to understand the basic fundamental dimensionalws of the Desecration ne.


    ¡°Heh heh! Omar, Lionheart! There¡¯s plenty of time to have a reckoning. Just wait for me to get to you.¡±


    He faintly felt like he was almost at the level of breaking through the Three Heavy Doors of Myth. Now that his power level had improved significantly, he really wanted to take revenge. Not to mention that Aso had given him full power ofmand over the frontlines, so Feyman was quite high up in authority.


    As long as he managed to conquer this small newly-born dimension, he could even be considered to be the overallmander of the entire undead invasion. He was looking forward to a repeat performance of the Yongye Cmity; he felt like he could be even cooler than Yongye back in the day. Thinking of this, Feymanughed out loud; full of pride, he felt as if he was on top of the world. He even thought it was fortunate that he lost Xiluo¡¯s internal conflict back in the day.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be happy too early. Dimensional wills aren¡¯t easy to take care of. Let¡¯s hurry up and organize our armies; I have an ominous premonition.¡±


    If Feyman was delighted simply for having received a key to help him unlock the path to bing even more powerful, the former First Senator, the far ancient bone dragon Gricasio had benefited even more than he did. Undead Emperor Aso¡¯s evaluation of Gricasio was: ¡°give Gricasio two hundred more years, and he¡¯ll be an Undead Emperor just like us.¡±


    Indeed, Gricasio was able to learn from an Undead Emperor bone dragon, and his plentiful umted experience ced him at the brink of bing a new Undead Emperor. It was only a matter of time before he broke through the third and final Heavy Door of Myth. It was apparent that he would eventually be a new Undead Emperor.


    Although Gricasio was telling Feyman to be cautious, it was only because of his typical habit of keeping a low profile. As the strongest in all of Xiluo, he had always been the strongest undead creature in Eich¡¯s mortal ne. Now that his power level had increased significantly as well, would he really be afraid of anyone?


    ¡°What a pity as ¡®that person¡¯ isn¡¯t here anymore. Otherwise, I could show him my newly-obtained power.¡±


    Now that the far ancient bone dragon was finally stepping into the highest power levels, he even faintly felt the ambition to challenge that person who had always suppressed him.


    ¡°Ohhh!!!¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll definitely win! The living shall sleep eternally, while an eternal night shall arrive!¡±


    ¡°Lord Gricasio has finally arrived. We can charge forth again!¡±


    Various cheers attracted the two Undead Lords¡¯ attention. It happened to be that above one of the undead campgrounds, there was a tremendous bone dragon circling around. Most normal bone dragons wouldn¡¯t even be asrge as one of this bone dragon¡¯s ws, and its wings of death covered the entire sky. The pressure that came from such a top-level undead was naturally viewed by all the high-level undead as their own reinforcements, which caused all the cheering.


    The undead armies here had constantly been suppressed, and one important reason was that there wasn¡¯t a top-level undead that could take overallmand here. Now that they saw a far ancient bone dragon arrive who was at minimum a Myth rank, of course they would be excited. There were some who possessed the information that even shouted out this veteran bone dragon¡¯s name of who they were expecting.


    However, not far away, the real Gricasio had an expression filled with surprise. He never heard of the Undead Emperors intending to send any other top-level bone dragon here. And why did this bone dragon¡¯s figure seem so familiar, as if he had met them somewhere before not long ago?


    ¡°...Gria!!¡±


    Feyman was the one who shouted out in surprise. Gria, who loved her own beautiful appearance, hated to show off her bone dragon form. But in that final battle to decide Xiluo¡¯s royal authority, Gria, who suddenly descended in her bone dragon form, almost managed to destroy his entire darkness conference by herself. With her familiar mana waves in front of him, how could he not recognize her?


    Those with grudges would be easily overtaken by their feelings, and Feyman intended to rush out and take revenge right away. However, Gricasio stopped him.


    ¡°Wait a moment, there¡¯s someone on her back.¡±


    ¡°Who cares if someone¡¯s on her back? With you and me fighting together, who would we possibly be afraid of?¡±


    ¡°...You should know Gria¡¯s personality. Would she let just anyone ride on her back? The only person possible would be ¡®that person.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Could it be...¡±


    The lich Feyman was scared to the point of jumping in fright and hurriedly cast a distance-viewing magic. What he saw was a certain lich sitting on Gria¡¯s back.


    This lich was casually resting on a lounge chair, enjoying the sunshine while wearing magical crystal sunsses. He was even proudly waving down to the undead below, as if he was the real leader observing his own subordinates.


    Suddenly, he seemed to detect Feyman¡¯s vision spell spying on him, and he smiled directly at the invisible eye. He started saying something, and as he pointed his finger, Feyman¡¯s vision spell was canceled out.


    ¡°Long time no see. You¡¯ve been taking care of my children, so this time, allow me to personally y together with you. Let¡¯s have a good game.¡±


    Gricasio who was still far away in the distance read those soul words out loud. The unique waves of mana were indisputable evidence of that person¡¯s identity, but Gricasio and Feyman didn¡¯t need evidence to begin with.


    Although the waves of mana he produced weren¡¯t particrly fierce, only that soulfire that seemed calm on the surface but was actually maniacal inside along with the strange actions that nobody ever understood made Gricasio confident that ¡°that person¡± had finally returned. The existence that even all the Undead Emperors feared was actually still alive in the mortal ne.


    With so many years having passed by, he had only faked his death? What has he been secretly plotting all this time? Why did he appear now, at such a critical moment?¡±


    ¡°Yongye...¡±


    ¡°Impossible, impossible!¡±


    Gricasio was still able to maintain hisposure, but Feyman copsed. Since Feyman had once been one of Emperor Yongye¡¯s strategists, of course he knew how scary Yongye was. Before, he had only dared to set up his own conference and tried to usurp royal authority in Xiluo because he was one hundred percent certain that Yongye would never return.


    Meanwhile, Gria and Yongye seemed to have received enough cheering and apuse to satisfy them. Gria changed direction and began flying towards that distant patch of green forest.


    Gria slowly glided past the clouds. When she flew over the two Undead Lords¡¯ heads, she even stopped to fly in a few circles here.


    Gricasio and Feyman could clearly see on the bone dragon¡¯s back that ¡°that person¡± was joyously waving at them and even sending them flying kisses. That passion made it seem as if they were old friends that hadn¡¯t seen each other in such a long while.


    ¡°Hey!¡±


    Even his passionate greetings were sent down.


    ¡°...Hey!¡±


    Feyman was so scared that he hurriedly waved back at that familiar soulfire. This wasn¡¯t the effect of any magical spell. It was merely his instinctive reaction from having been suppressed by Yongye¡¯s pressure for so long over the years.


    That lich in the sky nodded in satisfaction at having received a response and patted the bone dragon on the back. Only then did Gria slowly continue flying towards the forest.


    The undead in the campgrounds were under the impression that their reinforcements were going to attack the enemy right after arriving, so another explosive round of cheers erupted for the bone dragon¡¯s expedition.


    ¡°Lord Gricasio, may you live forever!¡±


    ¡°May Emperor Aso live forever!¡±


    The two new undeadmanders stayed behind in a stupefied daze. Gricasio, who was being praised by the undead, had an expression filled with hesitation, as his newly-born ambitions to rise above had already vanished into bubbles. He had been scared by that person¡¯s arrival.


    Gricasio and Feyman could only watch as their enemy left in the distance,pletely forgetting their responsibilities as the undeadmanders.


    Neither of them was able to work up the courage to stop her as Gria vanished from their sight. After all, that would mean directly facing off against ¡°that person,¡± an existence who suppressed them for hundreds of years even after his supposed death.


    ¡°Sigh. We should first go out there to reorganize the armies. Otherwise, those young ones might impulsively rush out after them.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, let¡¯s not make them wait. Let¡¯s go right now. How ridiculous! They actually couldn¡¯t even recognize the highest-ranked leaders of their own army!¡±


    Alright, then. When a certain lich reappeared in front of them, he was able to make these two Undead Lords that even True Gods would have headaches about into nothing more than scared dogs with their tails tucked in. After all, they had been living in that person¡¯s shadow for far too long.

 Chapter 280

    Chapter 280: Forest of Dreams (Part 1 of 2)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Eich was home to arge number of forests. Some were famous, and some were unheard of. The most dangerous of them all, Fantasy Forest, was located in the Bardi Empire and was and upon which even I wouldn¡¯t dare trod. It was a forest of peace¡ªthere were no gnomes¡ªbut any forest where elves resided would hide their countless treasures and secrets. They would be a forbidden ground to other species, but among the forests, there were still differences.


    An example was the Silver Mirror Forest of the silver elves. If you walked among those trees, you would be able to faintly see elven scouts and rangers beneath the leaves.


    Fully equipped centaur knights would be patrolling around, along with holy, powerful and armed unicorn knights. If you had excellent hearing, you would be able to hear the sounds of knights practicing and bows firing in the distance. But you had to be careful. There would always be eyes on you and whispers about. You could walk for half a day in the Silver Mirror Forest without meeting a single elf; it was obvious that humans were viewed with much distrust there.


    Yet looking at things from a different standpoint with the other elf species in mind, many things would be different.


    Should I say that it¡¯s to be expected of upper-ranked elves that transformed themselves into a fighting species? Rather than calling it a peaceful forest, it seemed more like an elven style military campground. Their bows and spears might be overly exquisite, but the enchantments and materials used were of such a high quality that they would make anyone jealous¡ªeven Legends. Well, their unicorn knights¡¯ extravagant equipment even made me want to rob them.


    The moon elves¡¯ style was to make everything beautiful and to have nts flourish to the point of unnaturalness. In a moon elf forest, one would be able to see all sorts of sculptures of the Gods along with other types of artwork everywhere. Even their hereditary elven treehouses were sculpted with endless runes and designs, and they would only live in the mostfortable environments.


    Unlike the Silver Mirror Forest where it would be impossible for a human to meet with a single elf, ordinary elves were seen everywhere in moon elf forests. They weren¡¯t nearly as wary of outsiders, and they even sold their products in streetside stalls. Yep, I¡¯m talking about the former Tassel Kingdom.


    Now, although these elves still had their elven magical techniques and artistry even after transforming into grayblood elves, their equipment was still overly decorative and impractical, while their expensive enchantment materials were only for the sake of making their products look more beautiful.


    For me, unless they were able to abandon those useless decorative elements in their equipment, their products could only be sold off as artwork. It would be far more effective to buy some dwarven products with the money made instead.


    As one of the final species of upper-ranked elves that still survived, the wood elves had already lost their own kingdom. They no longer lived in forests that belonged solely to them, nor did they possess their power to change a forest¡¯s environment. Still, they would forever be the children favored by the forest.


    They didn¡¯t use any nature magic to change the environment as they pleased, but they would typically live in the most natural environments of all. Walking through such a forest would be no different from walking through an ordinary one, but you would always be able to see powerful creatures rarely seen in the outside world, such as mountain giants, treants, druids, redcaps, and chimeras. Those creatures weren¡¯t the wood elves¡¯ subordinates but undertook the important responsibility of protecting the forest.


    The peaceful wood elves were also the elven species with the best reputation. They were one of the few upper-ranked elven species that didn¡¯t treat other species arrogantly, and many wood elves had the habit of traveling far and wide. They loved all forms of life, and these wood elves who were so fond of traveling were typically weed by all species. There were even some royalty that would invite them to be outstanding teachers.


    However, this world didn¡¯t have only kind intentions. If they didn¡¯t stay on guard, perhaps the wood elves would have long since be extinct, as certain people treated them as treasures to be harvested. Any natural forest would be the best refuge for them, and the powerful creatures living within it would naturally be their allies. All the trees and nts would be sentries that watched unfamiliar invaders. In front of a living forest, those with wicked intentions wouldn¡¯t even be able to find the correct path to the elves.


    Wood elves weren¡¯t easy to deal with when in a forest, but that didn¡¯t mean that wood elves were easy to deal with outside, either. If a roaming wood elf was forced to the brink, she could potentially use Nature¡¯s Wrath, a wood elf natural talent ability usable only once in her life, which would transform an entire nearby forest into a living weapon for revenge that wouldn¡¯t rest until its target was dead. Although not every wood elf possessed the ability to use Nature¡¯s Wrath, any that did could cause damage on the level of a forbidden spell¡¯s destructiveness. That was why every country strictly forbid any illegal activities against the wood elves.


    And today, the moment I stepped into this forest, I felt like the entire world had changed around me. The strong sensation of being in a different world gave me a headache and dizziness which just wouldn¡¯t go away.


    When I looked around me, the currently breathing nts and trees around me gave me the strong sensation of life. Yes, that¡¯s right. Life. This entire forest was living, it was breathing, it was sleeping, and from the moment I entered, it opened up its countless eyes and was silently watching me.


    ¡°Oh my, how unfriendly.¡±


    It was obviously unwise to be flying through a thick magical forest, so the bone dragon Gria stopped at the forest¡¯s edge. But right when she transformed into her human form, a purple-green wall of thorns suddenly rose and blocked Gria¡¯s path. The forest detected Gria¡¯s undead nature, so it unhesitatingly closed the door to her as it was battling against the undead, refusing to let her in.


    As for me...


    A pathway suddenly opened up in the forest just like a secret path from a fairy tale. On the path¡¯s sides were brilliantly blooming flowers that seemed to be weing me as a guest.


    The moment I walked on this grassy path, that wall of thorns suddenly rose up behind me, making Gria almost crash into it when she tried following me. This obvious difference in treatment made Gria almost choke in anger.


    But as I walked into this forest, I was secretly astonished. This strong sensation of being in a different world transformed into something more and more tangible, while the ridiculously strong signs of life in the forest¡¯s nts were doubtlessly the best evidence: this forest was the ruler of this world, as well as the core of this world.


    What astonished me the most of all were the nt lifeforms that lowered their heads to me and smiled in greeting. Although their physical appearances were quite different from all other living creatures, and their thin and wooden bodies made them have strange and abnormal shapes, their souls and expressions indicated that they already had independent thinking and intelligence of their own. They were intelligent creatures just like humans.


    ¡°It¡¯s wonderful that you were able toe. Mother will surely be delighted.¡±


    A young-sounding voice echoed in my ears. A small wood spirit was waiting for me on a tree branch not far from me.


    Seeing that I noticed her, she jumped down. I noticed that she appeared much younger than the other wood spirits, more like a child elf. However, her head reached my waist.


    ¡°You are?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m mother¡¯s second daughter, Diligence. We¡¯ve all met you before in the past. It¡¯s just that you¡¯ve never seen us in this form before.¡±


    She had light red hair, much different from Amelia¡¯s colors, and a more exquisite face than even an elf¡¯s. Her thorny flower petals were the best essories, and a thorny miniskirt covered only the most important parts. There were even flower petals on her feet, and she would spread the fragrance of flowers as she walked, as if she was a forest fairy from a fairy tale.


    Although the face really resembled Amelia¡¯s, I would say that her overall physical appearance only resembled Amelia by thirty percent. That¡¯s because in my impression, Amelia herself had never, ever smiled so brightly and sunnily in her life. Either she wouldugh maniacally,pletely out of control, or she would secretly snicker, hiding herughter behind her mage robe. Meanwhile, this little cutie before me had the purest kind intentions on her pink face. This was a lively child that anyone would have a good impression of upon their first meeting, so how could she possibly seem rted to Amelia?


    ¡°The Seven Virtues...¡±


    I was surprised for a moment as I recalled the frightening Piranha nt garden, but then I felt that it was only natural. Since Amelia had already reached this level, it was expected for her Seven Virtues to bepletely independent.


    Withplete independence, they even had the possibility of betraying their creator. In that case, the first thing I needed to do here was...


    ¡°Do you not have a name yet? How about I help youe up with one?¡±


    Don¡¯t get any mistaken impressions of me. Since I intended to go out with¡ªer¡ªI meantmunicate with her, how could I possibly not know her name? Of course the first thing would be to give her a name.


    ¡°...Um, that¡¯s not necessary. It¡¯s really not necessary! I already have a name. My big sister helpede up with it. I¡¯m Rosa.¡±


    Rosa seemed to have gotten scared by my passion as she hurriedly backed two steps away from me, tossing a flurry of flower petals. It seemed like she was nning on escaping at any moment.


    ¡°How uncreative. Since your foundational form was a rose, she directly used that as a name for you? How insincere! Shouldn¡¯t your name at least adhere to your color scheme? How about I give you a new one? What do you think of True Red? Right, you said you have an older sister? Is she white? How about calling her Mercury?¡±


    Perhaps she had nevere into contact with outsiders since her birth, as she was filled with embarrassment and panic when I walked up closer to her. However, she suddenly calmed down and seemed to be listening to something.


    ¡°...My sister wants me to ask if you¡¯re intending to gather a seven colorbination? But, right now, there are only three of us sisters, and she¡¯s not white, either. Nor is there a possibility of having seven of us in a short period of time, so we appreciate but politely reject your intentions.¡±


    I wanted to say more, but little Rosa seemed to hear something else as she covered her ears and vanished into the forest, leaving behind only one final sentence: ¡°Sister wants me to go help her with something; you can find mother if you just follow this path, so go.¡±


    She left, while her clear bell-like voice echoed throughout the forest. As expected of a rose¡¯s transformation, her faint aroma naturally allured others, making me want to inhale that scent as much as I could. However, I directly left; after all, I knew that Amelia¡¯s ¡°Diligence¡± naturally excelled in poisons, so if I identally inhaled too much, that would be the end of me.


    However, as I walked down the forested path, I somehow began feeling like I was quite pitiful. I created five Deadly Sins, and each of them were far stronger individually than Amelia¡¯s Virtues that were only three in number; I excelled in creationpared to her. But I felt that I had lost utterly from the very foundation when I saw that cute little girl.


    ¡°I lost... forget about the fact that apart from that silly cat, they¡¯re all male... why is it that there¡¯s not a single normal one among them? A dumb dog that doesn¡¯t even know how to y fetch, a zombie that preferred to be a male battleship, a silly fatty that could never eat his fill, and a muscr bastard who had strange ideas about beauty. If Ipare them to Amelia¡¯s new Virtues that are like something out of shoujo manga or an idol drama, not to mention in a fairy tale style, while mine are all fromedy manga and horror movies, not to mention that they¡¯re idiots, how can I tolerate it!?¡±


    In the end, my extreme pity for myself caused me to shout out loudly.


    ¡°Amelia, there¡¯s such arge difference in the drawing style! Can we switch? I know that you hate males, so I¡¯ll give the silly cat to you. If you think that¡¯s not enough, I¡¯ll throw in a doggy that can transform into anything you want, like a beautiful woman or whatever. I don¡¯t have too much for my requirements! I just want that little Rosa from earlier!¡±


    *ng!*


    A huge pinecone suddenly smashed down on my head with enough force to knock me over. It representing a certain someone¡¯s attitude. I even heard ¡°you stinky bad man that hurt mother¡¯s heart, go away¡± from above me. When I lifted my head to look, I saw a tiny purple figure secretly leaving through the trees.


    ¡°Another one of the three sisters? Is that Humility or Temperance? Why do they all have the form of young girls? Does Amelia object that much to adults and males? Forget it, since I¡¯m here already, I¡¯ll learn sooner orter.¡±


    As I walked down this path, I was astonished by more than just the ¡°Virtues¡± from earlier.


    Mature wood spirits were chatting with each other in the forest. Some of the younger ones were messing around and having fun with each other, while other wood spirits were cultivating new magical nts. Some enjoyed the sweet fruits from the trees. They used shiny leaves as a currency to trade amongst themselves; this forest world filled with life had its own society and market. Perhaps, I had lost in more than just the physical appearance of my creations.


    It was obvious that this patch of forest originally didn¡¯t have a path in it as there were many tiny obstacles on this path. However, the flowers would lower themselves and avoid my steps, while the gigantic trees would suddenly pull up their roots and move themselves. The thorny fences would automatically bury themselves in the ground, and the further I went in this forest, the more I could faintly detect a certain will summoning me.


    ¡°Amelia?¡±


    As I went through the forest, I saw a green-haired sleeping beauty, deep asleep on the petals of thergest blooming lotus flower. She was floating on a peaceful and calmke, surrounded by trees on all sides.


    A light breeze kept her cool, and moonlight from an unknown source illuminated the lotus petal boat. Stars glittered in the sky above, and Amelia¡¯s snow-white skin appeared rather weak under the starlight.


    ¡°I¡¯m here.¡±


    Before I even finished speaking, countless memories and illusions created a new world, and I was instantly drawn into a fantastical dreamlike world that had surpassed the boundaries of reality.

 Chapter 281

    Chapter 281: Forest of Dreams (Part 2 of 2)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to grow up...¡±


    Every child has had such a thought. Adults couldn¡¯t understand the words of children, as the little ones had their own way of looking at the world that was drastically different from the more practical adults.


    Scary demons would hide under the bed, a grandmother wolf woulde when it became dark, and the story of the dragonfly and the rabbit would continue tomorrow. If they secretly shut their eyes, the fairies that lived in their shoes would help themplete their annoying homework, despite the fact that the payment was only some vile vegetable juice.


    In the eyes of children, topics such as the end of the world were matters best left for adults. The worthiest topics of all were the fact that they had that disgusting celery for lunch today, Mary next door purchased another doll, and that Little ck from the cksmith¡¯s enraged his dad and got beaten again.


    But children would eventually grow up into adults. When they became parents themselves, they would treat the fairy tales they heard about the love between the grasshopper and the hamster as nothing more than a joke. They would toss their former dolls and toys created from dirt into storage rooms.


    Childhoods were typically beautiful, but people were destined to grow up. A child¡¯s former treasures stashed away ever so carefully would eventually be treated as nothing more than trash taking up space by the person themselves.


    Some people, however, were destined to have no childhood at all. Amelia Mn was one of them.


    ¡°I want ymates...¡±


    Her insane personality stemmed from her lonely heart. When Amelia discovered that all the adults around her had nothing but dirty thoughts and endless desires, and that even the other children were nothing more than puppets for adults to fight over benefits, the young princess closed off her own heart and refused to mature.


    ¡°I refuse! Refuse, refuse, refuse!¡±


    The young adult-hating girl established thick castle walls around her heart, stubbornly living on in her safe and isted fortress. If anyone insisted on approaching her, poisonous thorns would instantly steal their life away. Yes. From the very start, Amelia was much like the Sleeping Beauty from the fairytale, sleeping away for many years.


    Everything stemmed from the soul; even magic was a reflection of the soul. A child¡¯s dream would always be the most fantastical¡ªbut also the cruelest. As the years passed, the young princess turned into a witch and entered human society. But her fairytale-like Forest of Dreams, which was Amelia¡¯s Soul World as well as her home, retained her true nature.


    Under the purest of coincidences, Amelia¡¯s physical body transformed into her own fairytale kingdom. After she gained the power of Creation, she kept wanting to create her own Divine Miracle, and then all this happened.


    ¡°I want family...¡±


    Her past stubbornness caused her to detest the overlyplex humans. nts, who were much simpler, were the real true friends to whom she was willing to open her heart. Yet ntscked intelligence and were far too simple in nature; theck of ability tomunicate wouldn¡¯t help alleviate Amelia¡¯s loneliness that came from the depths of her heart. And that was how the wood spirits were born.


    ¡°Men aren¡¯t trustworthy, and adults aren¡¯t trustworthy, either...¡±


    Her adoptive mother, as well as her own sufferings (everything was Rnd¡¯s fault), were the best exnation. And with her natural talent of Communication, the depraved desires of men were easier to see than practically anything else. She always felt that it would be better for all men to die, and as for women... after ripping off their fake masks of friendliness and politeness, the jealousy uncovered made Amelia feel all the more uneasy.


    The only part I never understood was that the witch Amelia actually treated children quite well¡ªespecially little girls. Yet it was probably because only little girls wouldn¡¯t have any wicked thoughts in her eyes. As for little boys? The moment that she thought about how they would eventually grow up to be a stinky gentleman like Rnd, Amelia would impulsively want to feed them to her piranha nt flowers.


    This Creator was just that willful, but after she gained the power to control this entire dimension, she also gained the power to transform her strange fantasies into reality. And so, due to Amelia¡¯s influence, this wood spirit species¡¯ physical appearances turned into little girls like Rosa.


    The tremendous nt giants and treants over three meters tall were nothing more than strengthened outer shells under the wood spirits¡¯ control. Their true bodies were hidden underneath these tremendous outer shells, and all of them were young girls... This species, which consisted of only young females, was inconceivable and caused this forest to be a holy ground in the hearts of a certain group of people.


    When I approached thiske, countless memories and thoughts along with a gentle voice echoed in my mind. That was the blessing of the Creator to her new species. Her words¡¯ gentleness and motherliness made people naturally feel warm andfortable.


    ¡°Children, my first present to you is the Virtue of Humility. Only with humility can you have progress and understand your own insufficiencies. This will give you the potential to fully grow. Children, as part of Humility¡¯s reward, I bless you with the wisdom to learn beneficial things from other living creatures as well as absorb and imitate other creatures¡¯ special abilities to help yourselves evolve.¡±


    Amelia¡¯s blessing reverberated throughout the entire forest. With their mother¡¯s blessing, every single wood spirit gained the natural talent ability of high-speed learning.


    ¡°Children, my second present to you is the Virtue of Charity. Only by sharing a sweet fruit will it taste even sweeter. And as part of Charity¡¯s reward, I bless you with the ability to mentallymunicate with each other. Under my protection, not a single person will be able to cut off the soul connections you have to each other. The forest shall be your most trustworthy ally.¡±


    Speech was unnecessary for the wood spirits, as they inherited part of Amelia¡¯s ability of Communication. They only needed to mentallymunicate with nts and other wood spirits.


    ¡°Children, my third present to you is the Virtue of Purity. Pure young girls don¡¯t need to be tainted by adulthood, and pure love doesn¡¯t need to be polluted by physical desires. Beautiful love is the sweetest candy of all. As part of Purity¡¯s reward, I bless you with the ability to forever maintain the willfulness of youth. And if any of you are really cursed by love and decide to leave behind the fruit of pure love, you will be able to reproduce in a unique fashion as descendants of the forest without needing to rely on the boring physical traits of genders.¡±


    As for this, I found it impossible toment on... it was most likely due to Amelia¡¯s distastes. In the future, just the studies on how wood spirits reproduced became a major area of research on its own.


    ¡°Children, my fourth present to you is the Virtue of Kindness. You must learn how to understand how difficult it is for others and respect their hard work. Blind conflict will only bring about even more troubles, while a calm attitude will help you to be true victors. As part of Kindness¡¯s reward, I bless you with the fortune to be undying. Not a single person will be able to steal away your souls from me. As long as you¡¯re under my protection, death is nothing more than a temporary rest.¡±


    The battles so far with the undead had already proved this point. As long as they were within this forest, the wood spirits were truly undying.


    It was now that I understood the mystery of the wood spirits¡¯ evolution. The Seven Virtues was the path that Amelia¡¯s soul took, and the blessings that she gave to her children stemmed from the Seven Virtues. They helped her children to evolve to a great degree in such a short period of time.


    But Amelia had only been able toplete four blessings. She no longer had enough power left to bless them with ¡°Temperance,¡± ¡°Diligence,¡± and ¡°Patience.¡± Otherwise, the wood spirits could be a truly independent species that wouldn¡¯t need to stay in this patch of forest.


    Not a single mother wouldn¡¯t want her own children to be healthy and kind. Amelia opened up her heart and gave them the best blessings she could think of as their Creator, and the wood spirits grew to this degree based on their mother¡¯s will. In that case, the reason they summoned me here was probably an instinctive way of seeking my assistance.


    ¡°...It looks like I¡¯m going to have to do a lot of work this time.¡±


    I gently touched the sleeping Amelia¡¯s face and felt her skin, which seemed abnormally soft. There were even tears in her eyes. The formerly maniacal witch¡¯s soft appearance made her seem so pitiful.


    I sat down by her bed of petals and closed my eyes, opening up my soul to this world as well.


    I now knew what it was that I should do after receiving all those memories from Amelia. I was going to continue Amelia¡¯s iplete blessings for the wood spirits so that this newly-born species would be able to leave their mother and truly be independent, bing able to travel by themselves to other nes.


    ¡°Temperance? Diligence? Patience? I apologize; I don¡¯t have any of those. Amelia, if you¡¯re willing, I shall use my own method to bless these children. It¡¯s no good to only spoil children with love as your educational method for them is obviously too unbnced. A species that¡¯s too pure will actually die off easily, instead.¡±


    Theke started glowing, and the dimensional will transformed into a fundamental power that granted me the power of Creation within this world. I had received an answer of agreement, so I gave my ¡°blessings.¡± Or, perhaps, it would be more suitable to call them my ¡°curses.¡±


    ¡°Blessing of Temperance? I apologize; I only have a curse named Gluttony here for you all. However, please don¡¯t ignore the usefulness of eating for one¡¯s growth as a healthy body is the foundation for everything. Children, when you receive my present, you shall receive an endless desire for nourishment and the ability to take root in anynd and absorb nutrition from the earth. You will also receive the special ability to devour other creatures and even non-creatures to cure your injuries and continue your evolution.¡±


    When the power of creation shone in the forest, the wood spirits continued on their path of evolution and grew even stronger. As for the numerous extra roots and tails that grew on their backs? That was to prepare themselves for taking root in the ground. The ugly, strengthened outer shells of the nt giants and treants grew several dozen more roots as well. From now onwards, whenever a wood spirit was heavily injured, she now had the ability to take root in the earth, which would speedily help her recover. That additional ability of devouring would be considered a forbidden technique, to be used only when a wood spirit¡¯s life was in danger.


    ¡°Blessing of Diligence? Ha, I only have a curse by the name of Sloth for you all. While Diligence sounds nice, being overly concerned with getting involved in others¡¯ lives will be nothing more than a bother to others. Don¡¯t allow others to disturb your rhythm and maintain your Sloth. You shall all be used to being treated coldly, so you won¡¯t require others¡¯ recognition. Your wills will be as resolute as the hardest stone. Not a single fantasy will be able to stop yourselves from your original intentions of self-perfection. You shall be as unyielding as steel, and your minds shall be able to live on forever.¡±


    A silver light shed in the wood spirits¡¯ eyes as the power of creation shone once more. From now onwards, they became the natural enemies of illusionists and psychological-based techniques. They could ignore mental magic that fed on their silence, fear, and shock.


    ¡°The Blessing of Patience? Hmph, that¡¯s the Virtue that I look down upon the most! Is tolerating others supposed to be a Virtue as well? I shall give you all the present of the curse¡ªWrath. If there¡¯s something that displeases you, why bear with it? Tolerating the unjust is nothing more than appeasing them. You should just viciously punch them in the gut! Take this present from me, the blessing that stems from a certain hound of Wrath.¡±


    The power of creation shone onest time, and the wood spirits gained the power to strengthen themselves based on their emotional states. Sharp thorns for piercing grew on their outer shells and weaponry, and from now on, the wood spirits became known for suddenly exploding with power far beyond their typical level. Their physical might was once again increased by the power of the earth, and not a single creature in the future would be willing to engage in meleebat with these seemingly small weaklings.


    ¡°Right, I should give you all a name as well... How about wood spirits? Wood for the forests, and spirits to represent all lives.¡±


    With the seven ¡°blessings¡±plete and their ¡°true name¡± having been confirmed, the creation of the ¡°wood spirits¡± was finallypleted. This Forest of Dreams that was just glowing so much earlier suddenly dimmed, as it was now time for her children to rest and grow in their sleep. The forest entered nighttime.


    ¡°Thank you, our father.¡±


    ¡°Wait a moment! Don¡¯t call me like that! Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey¡ªdon¡¯t go to sleep! Quick, rify what you mean! This misunderstanding will be the end of me!¡±


    But nobody responded to my words. All the wood spirits, including the Three Virtues, were entangled by the forest¡¯s roots that suddenly reached out. They slowly sunk underground and, along with the magical forest, into a hibernation. This would help themplete their final changes.


    I, however, hadn¡¯tpleted my work yet. I should say that the most troublesome part was just beginning.


    Amelia opened her heart and soul to help these little wood spirits grow, but she obviouslycked sufficientbat experience. Her own soul had sunken into a deep sleep so the wood spirits could only grow through their own experiences and instincts. And since the wood spirits were still relying on their own instincts for battling, if it weren¡¯t for their undying bodies and the fact that the undeadcked high-levelbat strength, they probably would have been defeated by the undead armies long ago.


    Just having undying bodies didn¡¯t mean that one was undefeatable. There were countless items and spells developed specifically for dealing with those with undying bodies.


    I just met two familiar faces earlier. Although I had always suppressed them back in the day, they were both Undead Lords with thousands of umted years of experience. In fact, they could even be considered my seniors in term of experience, and since they were both my coborators in name, of course their power levels would be significant. They also knew countless undead top-secret techniques and spells¡ªour opponents wouldn¡¯t be easy to deal with.


    But who was I? I was the former Undead Emperor. I refused to believe that anyone in this world could possibly surpass me in my understanding of undead troops types and undead high-levelbat strength. Since Amelia had already selflessly shared all her experience to help these children of hers grow, of course I wouldn¡¯t be stingy.


    Right now, what I needed to do was open up my soul and connect myself to the wood spirits¡¯ webbed soul connections, sharing my pastbat experiences, giving them advice, and directly interfering in their evolution. I would improve theirbat strength as well as give them anti-undead strategies. Although it wasn¡¯t practical for the wood spirits to evolve much further within a short period of time, the defense lines in the forest, the magical nts, the wood spirits¡¯ strengthened outer shells,bat techniques, and way of thinking all had massive room for improvement.


    ¡°...You¡¯re all so kind. Since all the trees¡¯ roots are on your side, why don¡¯t you make them into sudden traps that will trip the undead? Also, don¡¯t ce all your important structures and residences on the ground. That¡¯s too dangerous. You¡¯ll have to be afraid of wide area-of-effect magic spells and assassins. It¡¯s much better to ce these structures in the wide underground.¡±


    ¡°Since your enemies are the undead,e believe in the Holy Light together with me. Rx¡ªyou don¡¯t need to really believe in it. Allow me to teach you all how to fool that divine automatedputer that the God of Holy Light has be. Come, let¡¯s first learn how to praise the Holy Light while cursing the God of Holy Light at the same time.¡±


    ¡°You need to be cautious of bone dragons¡¯ corrosive dragon breath. It¡¯s basically the mortal enemy of all nts. We need to prepare some specialized anti-dragons. Although they¡¯re gigantic, they actually have far weaker ability to control their bodiespared to living dragons, and they have far weaker senses. We can easily deal with these blind idiots using traps.¡±


    Amelia¡¯s information to the wood spirits contained far too little about practicalbat, while I had an endless amount I could provide to them. Soon, even though they were hibernating, the wood spirits that obtained mybat experiences and information began discussing new ns and rmendations of their own. In the cover of this night, the entire forest began its own path of evolution.


    Perhaps the next time that the undead came here, they would face an opponent that was utterly unlike before. It would surely give them a happy surprise.


    After I finished all this, I stood up and stretched my body that had been covered with leaves and vines. Perhaps those silly wood spirits would believe that this was my way of avoiding catching a cold.


    The sleeping beauty seemed like she was having a good dream. She was smiling faintly despite the fact that she was still in a deep sleep.


    ¡°...Since she¡¯s be aplete dimensional will, she still needs enough sacrifices and souls to replenish herself in order to awaken; is that it? Alright then. It seems that those sacrifices wille here on their own, soon enough.¡±


    I could see a pitch-ck army gathering on the horizon. At an estimate, they would probably have enough soldiers to start a new battle before dawn.


    ¡°Rx and sleep well. I shall help you prepare enough sacrifices for the sake of these wood spirits of yours.¡±


    Trantor¡¯s Thoughts


    imperfectluck imperfectluck


    Woohoo! This is chapter 101 that both imperfectluck and I have done together. Time passes so fast. -Pranav

 Chapter 282

    Chapter 282: Uninvited VIP Guest


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The Military Sword Strait received its name for being long and narrow, shaped just like a sword. Its water currents surged at high speeds and sheltered numerous low-lying corals beneath the sea that could wreck any ship. Still, if this was a normal situation, there would be endless ships sailing to and fro in the Military Sword Strait. It was a sea route necessary to conduct sea trade with the Bardi Empire. Golden opportunities were here to be had.


    The Military Sword Strait was also known as the Strait of Silver to the merchants who traded on these sea routes. One could double their personal wealth by conducting only three years of business along this route. Much profit could be gained.


    Going west after passing the narrowest point of the straight would take you to the Mage Country, where you can buy and sell all sorts of magical ingredients and products. Going east would take you to the countries of the New Moon Alliance as well as numerous ports in the Bardi Empire. Simply transporting the local special products along this trade route was highly lucrative.


    But the changing political situation in the Bardi Empire caused there to be much fewer ships sailing this strait. After the New Moon Alliance was conquered and annexed into the Bardi Empire, trade became profitable no longer. Another reason was that a battle between the Mage Country and the Bardi Empire might explode on the sea that separated them. It would be too pitiful to get identally caught up in the crossfire of such a fire, bing cannon fodder.


    However, this rtively peaceful area of the sea wasn¡¯t quite so peaceful today. A medium-scale sea battle was urring here. Yet neither side had anything to do with the main countries controlling this area.


    Yep, they were neither from the Bardi Empire nor the Mage Country. It was a pure coincidence that they happened to be battling here.


    One side involved two tremendous sea beasts. If Rnd had been here, he would have recognized one of them, as she was an old familiar face. She was a seven-headed dragon that was glowing blue all over, while the other sea beast was a ridiculously strong and huge sea giant.


    By now, you¡¯re probably able to guess that this was that Queen of Storms who was always around, famously petty, and never able to let go of a grudge. In fact, she was basically half a God of Revenge in her own right.


    Not only did these two sea beasts transmit her enmity, but they were also mediums for her divine power.


    The Seven-Headed Sea Dragon¡¯s heads roared at the sky, while the ethereal figure of the Queen of Storms appeared intermittently on thergest dragon head. She was currently summoning a storm to aid herself, and the sea giant was treading upon the ocean waves. Every time he smacked the sea with his gigantic battle hammer, arge wave over ten meters tall would smash into his opponent.


    Currently battling with the two sea beasts were two giganticbat airships. One was mostly constructed out of iron and steel, with fully outfitted mage towers and engineered cannons shooting endless amounts of cannon shots and magic spells. Meanwhile, the hydra skin around its deck was glowing but its use seemed to be in suppressing the wind and the waters. When the Seven-Headed Sea Dragon witnessed this scene, its eyes on all seven of its heads became blood-red. It let out an endless roar and even made the waves one meter taller than earlier. Its crazed state made it seem as if it had met the yer of its father.


    Alright then. Technically, there probably was some sort of connection. Nine-headed hydras were an evolved form of Seven-Headed Sea Dragons, and just based on the Borealis¡¯s hydra skin and heart on its deck alone, that would probably make for a huge grudge between the two.


    Top-level magical beasts were rare to begin with. Many of the same species would have some type of rtion with each other. Judging by how much of a fervor that Seven-Headed Sea Dragon had worked itself into, perhaps that nine-headed hydra really had been its father or husband.


    Since the Borealis was here in battle, it would be only natural that the other battlingbat airship was its brother airship, the Mizar.


    ¡°Sigh, so difficult to deal with.¡±


    On the deck of the Borealis, Marsolit, who acted as the entiremand system for the Borealis, had a calm expression. He gave hismands in an orderly fashion and calm voice that echoed throughout the entire Borealis. Meanwhile, the temporary airship fleetmander, Pierre Papin (Runa Papa-san), [1] was quite tense and nervous.


    The windstorm had already continued for over two hours. The moment the Seven-Headed Sea Dragon saw the Borealis, it started summoning windstorms as if it had gone insane.


    With windstorms andrge waves attacking it simultaneously, the dark clouds had already made this area of the sea into a pitch-ck area where one would be unable to see the back of their own hand. These clouds not only covered the skies and blocked out normal vision but even hindered magical senses, making it obvious that these clouds were unnatural.


    ¡°This is no good. Decrease our engine¡¯s focus on floating by 30%. We¡¯re going to enter the sea. Tightly close all hatch doors. We¡¯re diving!¡±


    The continuous thunder and magical beast attacks made the Borealis choose to enter the ocean. Its broken parts on deck automatically began repairing themselves, and any cannon towers destroyed by the thunder began would soon be ready forbat. The underwater recovery natural talent ability of the nine-headed hydra helped restore some bnce to this battle.


    The windstorm and tremendous waves had constantly been buffeting the airship. Although it was supposed to be daytime, not a single speck of sunlight could be seen, and the airship¡¯s furious shaking could make anyone out on deck fall into the sea. Even confirming the direction the airship was going in required apass, and the most dangerous of all was still that maniacal petty Goddess above the clouds.


    After luckilying across her enemy, she discovered that one of her favorite pets¡¯ skin was actually spread all over the enemy¡¯s airship. The Queen of Storms who was always in a wild state to begin with went utterly out of control. She didn¡¯t care how much of a price she had to pay for using so much divine power as she summoned endless thunder and torrential downpours.


    If it was a normal ship, it would force any veteran sailor to the brink. After all, waves that were over ten meters tall would be capable of overturning even thergest and heaviest of ships. But they were nothing more than annoying tiny waves now that the Borealis had entered underwater. When deep below the waters, how scary the thunder and waves were became meaningless.


    With most of the Borealis submerged underwater, it was forced to stop its cannon fire. Only the mage towers on its deck continued to toss out ice-blue crystals. In an underwater environment, only a few magic types would be able to continue performing at maximum power. After all, the Borealis wasn¡¯t designed with underwaterbat in mind, and the cannons weren¡¯t stocked with waterproof ammunition specially designed for underwater usage.


    ¡°Report, #6 Storeroom is beginning to flood with water. There¡¯s likely a tear that needs repairing.¡±


    ¡°Report, the starboard side #3 cannon has malfunctioned and can no longer be controlled. Rmendplete abandonment of #3 cannon.¡±


    ¡°#2 mage tower has been struck by thunder. All the mages have been recovered safely and no personnel has been lost. But it¡¯s too passive to sit back and let them hit us!¡±


    ¡°A message from the Mizar: ¡®Is that insane Goddess ever going to take a rest? She¡¯s too tough to deal with, so hurry up and think of something. If the first airship bes thest airship, wouldn¡¯t that be so unfortunate?¡±


    If it was only the two top-level sea beasts, it wouldn¡¯t have been a problem for the two aerial battleships. However, since the Queen of Storms who recently promoted sessfully in rank for her Godhood was going all out, no matter how strong the two floating airships were, they were still only at the level of mortals.


    Not only that, the Seven-Headed Sea Dragon was willing to sacrifice an endless amount of its own blood to act as a medium by which the Queen of Storms could channel her divine power. This helped her to utilize more of her full power, and the endless amounts of thunder that she summoned forced both battleships underwater.


    Still, being underwater meant that they could only passively receive attacks, which obviously wasn¡¯t good. Nor were those top-level sea beasts going to be easy to deal with. As time passed, the Queen of Storms who was also the Mother of Sea Beasts would definitely have other subordinates reinforcing her, which would make the situation even more difficult.


    The Queen of Storms had received an enormous increase in power after promoting in rank to a powerful Goddess. The two aerial battleships from East Mist were already having a hard time facing her endless attacks that seemed to stem from pettiness.


    Numerous pieces of bad news were transmitted to Marsolit at high speeds. He immediately deployed repair personnel to the necessary locations and used his own control over the ship¡¯s mana systems to try and repair the damaged portions of the Borealis.


    While the living airship was doing its best to heal itself, the forehead of the overly muscr fleetmander¡¯s forehead was glistening with sweat. Although Marsolit was assisting him, taking over themand of a mega airship fleet (of 2) was obviously too much to handle for a normal captain.


    ¡°Something heavy has struck our starboard side. It¡¯s that damned sea giant! He tossed his battle hammer at us!¡±


    On the bridge was a blueprint of the Borealis, and arge part suddenly lit up red denoting those areas which were damaged. The situation was rapidly descending in a downward spiral so Commander Pierre instinctively looked towards the other individuals on the bridge. The look in his eyes implored for assistance, an indirect cry for help.


    ¡°...Let us go out there and y them! As long as we eliminate that Seven-Headed Sea Dragon acting as the Queen of Storm¡¯s medium, the endless windstorms can be stopped.¡±


    The young knight Madi requested to go out into battle. Madi was the leader of a medium-sized squad of the Aurora Knights. In order to deal with the situation that I had expected, the Borealis had taken an entire medium-sized squad of fifty Aurora Knights with it. Fifty Gold-ranked aerial knights were more than sufficient to y a dragon.


    The young knight had the confidence to win even in the face of the Queen of Storm¡¯s fury and thunder. The Aurora Knights believed in themselves as the pride of the Mist Kingdom. Even in front of the fury of the Gods, they felt that they would still be able to obtain miraculous victories! Their young hearts would never fear any challenge; instead, they thirsted for adventure and challenges.


    ¡°What a joke! Trying to rush out there and ambush them in such a situation? It would be normal for more than half of you to die. Are you trying to force me to the brink here?¡±


    Yet, Pierre didn¡¯t dare to ede to this young knight¡¯s request. It wasn¡¯t that Pierre didn¡¯t believe in the Aurora Knights¡¯ capabilities. With fifty Aurora Knights working in tandem to rush the Seven-Headed Sea Dragon, they would definitely have high chances of victory. But Pierre knew even more that Aurora Knights were a precious resource. If some Aurora Knights were killed off in such a chaotic battle by the Queen of Storms¡¯ thunderbolts that contained her divine power, Rnd would surely skin him alive. It was evident that this strategy would end in a significant amount of Aurora Knights¡¯ deaths, even if it was a winning one.


    From the very start, Pierre¡¯s imploring look for assistance wasn¡¯t aimed at Madi. Madi was only the submander of a more major personage who was currently pretending to act dumb and watch a show. Only she was the highest in-name leader of the Aurora Knights.


    But since she was continuing to act dumb, Pierre, who was being forced to the brink, could only steel his resolve and beg for help. ¡°Your Highness, what do you think of the current situation?¡±


    The true leader finally acted astonished, as if she had just woken up from a dream.


    ¡°You¡¯re asking Reyne? Reyne doesn¡¯t know anything about naval battles. How about we just try running? I don¡¯t know. Would those two big sea beasts really just let us go?¡±


    Reyne spoke a bunch of gibberish that nobody believed¡ªshe even stuck out her tongue and spoke in the third person, trying to act cute. This princess that resembled Princess Peach so much in physical appearance had actually learned how to act cute, which, indeed, possessed its own charm. But right now, Pierre only wanted to spit out a mouthful of blood, especially on her face.


    After the Port Victoria incident was discovered, I gave the order for the Mizar and the Borealis to take the sea route and head straight for Port Victoria to support me. This would give me an extra retreat optionter on and also provide aerial cover to attack Port Victoria if needed. I would gain many flexible options.


    As for why I chose to take the sea route instead of and route? The airspaces of the Bardi Empire and the Mage Country were both dangerous forbidden zones. Upon entering them one would attract a barrage of trouble. Passing through smaller countries¡¯ air spaces was far easier, but these two countries possessed dragon knights and high-level archmages respectively. Unidentified flying objects would not be left alone.


    This was simr to my previous world. There, one could fly through African airspace as one pleased, unchallenged, as most African countries didn¡¯t possess air forces of their own. However, if a warne suddenly entered, unannounced, into a major country¡¯s airspace... well, it would suffice to say that only its wreckage would remain.


    Originally, everything had been proceeding smoothly. But the moment the Borealis and Mizar entered this area of the sea, the petty, grudge-remembering Queen of Storms noticed them and proceeded to personallye looking for them along with her two sea beasts.


    Out of boredom, a certain princess had forced Pierre into bing the overall aerial fleetmander instead of just the Mizar. Because of that, and the fact that she wanted amanding position for herself sans the responsibility that came along with it, Pierre was roaring in his mind: ¡°You¡ªcould you possibly make others suffer more than this? Stop learning how to be unreliable from His Highness Rnd!¡± Yet it was unfortunate that he could only continue to act pitiful on the surface and, on the inside, pray for Reyne¡¯s sympathy.


    The final individual on the bridge was aplete and utter VIP. After his sudden arrival a few days ago, it had be Princess Reyne¡¯s main task to apany him in chatting and drinking tea.


    However, Pierre didn¡¯t even dare to speak up to this seemingly young guest of theirs, and this was in spite of the fact that he was well aware that this person had the power to turn the entire situation around. Since he saw how Princess Reyne still disyed that ¡°innocent expression¡± of not wanting to do anything at all, Pierre could only grit his teeth. Yet just as he was about to continue dishing outmands, the VIP guest, who had boarded their airship halfway into the trip, spoke.


    ¡°Oh my, little Angie is just so much. She¡¯s always messing around with the young ones, not caring about being unsightly. No wonder her reputation keeps getting worse and worse. You can all be my witnesses. She was the one who attacked the airship that my incarnation was in of her own volition. All I¡¯m doing here is justified self-defense.¡±


    Everyone around him nodded eagerly as they all looked forward to receiving his assistance. After all, this person¡¯s true power was a mystery to them. Reyne, however, couldn¡¯t help butugh because of an entirely different matter.


    ¡°Angie? A name that means angel? There¡¯s far too much of a contrast. No wonder she never uses her own name, and even her Goddess name is just her title.¡±


    Angie, a name that meant ¡®angel¡¯ or an ¡®angelic girl.¡¯ This was an extremelymon name in many human countries. Yet when used for the Queen of Storms, who was famously petty and notorious for forever holding on to a grudge, it seemed to serve a stark contrast.


    ¡°Young one, you dareugh at a True God¡¯s real name? Aren¡¯t you afraid of a divine punishment?¡±


    The ck-robed young man was smiling, but his smile didn¡¯t contain any threat. The past few days this girl before him had been constantly trying to test him. As for himself, he had, of course, been trying to test the person behind her: the legendary person whose feats matched¡ªor even surpassed¡ªthat of Rnd¡¯s.


    ¡°I¡¯m not afraid. My Brother Rnd will protect me.¡±


    Even though Reyne was dealing with one of the top-level existences in the world, she remained as direct as always. With her experience, she had gotten used to dealing with all sorts of existences.


    ¡°...Perhaps there¡¯s more than just Brother Rnd who will protect you. Well, I suppose you¡¯re lucky since I just happened to need to find Rnd to discuss something. And, even for my incarnation, it¡¯s impossible for me to descend directly in that location...¡±


    While casually chatting and smiling, the ck-robed young man twisted his hand, causing a white rose to materialize in midair. Then, with a flick of his finger, the flower began to wilt; its petals floated off and vanished in midair.


    Reyne¡ªor, more urately, Karwenz¡ªcontemted much about this little action. While it appeared quite simple, as if he hadn¡¯t done anything at all, it also seemed like he did a lot, as in that instant, some of the world¡¯s rules had beenpletely distorted, and certain things were forced into the Cycle of Reincarnation.


    As if the brink everyone was forced to had been nothing but a joke, the windstorms in the sky instantly transformed back into white clouds and a blue sky. Bright sunshine returned in the very next second. The only thing that still proved how the maniacal Queen of Storms was still around was her pitiful wailing and angry roaring that everyone could hear.


    ¡°Ayer!? Why!? Ahh, why would you be here? This is a plot, a plot against me... Don¡¯t, don¡¯t, don¡¯t! Don¡¯t kill me!¡±


    Nobody knew what Ayer did, but everyone could hear the Queen of Storms¡¯ pitiful wails along with her shock and disbelief. The next instant, the windstorms calmed down, and peace and quiet were restored.


    The two sea beasts froze on the battlefield in stunned disbelief. When Angie, the Queen of Storms, escaped at top speed, these two unlucky fellows naturally became sacrificed.


    The next moment, apart from Death God Ayer¡¯s incarnation¡¯s chuckling, only Reyne¡¯s voice could be heard.


    ¡°Everyone¡¯s worked hard today. Let¡¯s do just a little more, and we can feast on a sea dragon buffet tonight. Right, remember to leave behind the sea beasts¡¯ useful parts as they¡¯ll be perfect for leveling up and perfecting the Borealis. Also, remember to obtain any materials with divine power that you can. Brother Rnd will definitely praise me for being careful to not waste anything!¡±


    ording to the Gods¡¯ws, even a True God¡¯s incarnation wouldn¡¯t be able to attack as he pleased. The stronger a God, the more this was true. But since the Queen of Storms had attacked the airship that Ayer was on, it was basically equal to a direct attack on him personally, which made her truly unfortunate.


    And now that both sides¡¯ True Gods had exited the battle, what remained was only a battle between mortals.


    Right now, the Seven-Headed Sea Dragon who had lost the Storm of Queens¡¯ divine power didn¡¯t even have the energy to escape. Its earlier maniacal actions had used up all of her life energy. The sea giant, on the other hand, had been dragged into the deep ocean waters by the Mizar where a cruel battle was currently taking ce.


    As everyone got busy, Ayer lightly touched the three scrolls on his waist, causing various divine colors to sh and disappear in an instant. He breathed a sigh of relief at discovering that everything was still normal.


    These scrolls were made of unidentifiable materials, and the mana wavesing from them indicated that they were no mere ordinary objects.


    As for the Queen of Storms¡¯ belief that this had been a plot against her, that was simply her thinking too much into things. We couldn¡¯t have possibly invited Ayer over just to deal with her. The fact that Ayer was on this ship had truly been just a coincidence.


    True Gods¡¯ incarnations wouldn¡¯t easily appear in front of mortals¡¯ eyes. This time, Ayer risked breaking taboos by appearing here¡ªit was obvious that there was something important. Due to the Undead nes¡¯ cutting off of certain divine avenues ofmunication, Ayer had been unable to directly appear before Rnd using their contract. This was the way he thought of by which he could reach Rnd personally.


    Something that was important enough for Ayer, who almost never went anywhere, to go to such great lengths was evidence of how significant this matter was.


    Mortals had mortals¡¯ frustrations while True Gods had frustrations of their own. This time, the True Gods were intending to make a major gamble. If everything seeded, perhaps the entire world¡¯s situation would undergo aplete upheaval, which was why Ayer personally came to the mortal ne.


    ¡°How about joining us? If our n seeds, things would surely be difficult for you.


    One of the Main Gods of Order actually invited one of the Main Gods of Chaos to join him. However, Reyne (Karwenz) shook his head. By this point, there was no need to even test the waters. The nature of Chaos itself had determined that it would be impossible for Karwenz to participate in this n.


    ¡°I¡¯m not interested. We have our own ways of having fun as well. Besides, I really do want Rnd to be stronger.¡±


    ¡°You actually still have brotherly feelings for him?¡±


    ¡°No, I just want myself to not be bored when I defeat himpletely.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid of losing?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine, too. As long as I had fun, the result wasn¡¯t important to begin with.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why I hate you demons. All you know is to fight and kill every day, and you act far too willfully. Even your acts of robbery involve zero finesse... yes, that was a quote from Rnd.¡±


    ¡°Ha, that¡¯s indeed his style. That¡¯s why I really hate those hypocrites of the Order Faction that act so nobly every day... that¡¯s a quote from Brother Rnd as well.¡±


    ¡°That guy, he really dares to say so much.¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡±


    Notes:


    [1] TL/N: A euphemism for the fact that he¡¯s still wearing the magical girl uniform.

 Chapter 283

    Chapter 283: Ambush


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°They¡¯re all gone? How is that possible? We just sent an army of ten thousand undead at them. Although they were mostly low-level undead, they couldn¡¯t have been eradicated so quickly, could they?¡±


    Liches¡¯ expressions were typically hard to read, but Feyman¡¯s flickering soulfire and the way he loudly popped his fingerbones indicated his incredible shock and disbelief.


    Immediately after receiving authority he had unhesitatingly organized an undead ambush. Even though it consisted of mostly newly-born skeletons and low-level zombies that could be barely passable as undead soldiers, the fact that they reached ten thousand in number meant that they were still a threat. A teeming, endless mass of pitch-ck undead would be quite the frightening sight by itself. However, some high-level undead were mixed in to help control the situation, with two liches serving as the army¡¯smanders¡ªthis wasn¡¯t a case of purely sending cannon fodder at the enemy.


    Unlike any other species, the strategies that the undead could use in using cannon fodder to scout their enemies were simply that arrogant. Their advantage of numbers alone could suppress any medium-sized city, and even if they stood still and allowed the enemy to hack at them, it would still take at least several hours to defeat ten thousand undead. So how could they have been eradicated so quickly?


    ¡°...Holy Light?¡±


    Although none of the high-level undead present verbalized their astonishment, they all had expressions that said ¡°Are you joking with me?¡± and ¡°Do you think I¡¯m an idiot who will fall for that?¡±


    ¡°Our enemies are a bunch of nts¡ªnot exactly Holy Knights. How could they possibly have the Holy Light? Could it be that you saw only normal light and then fled in fear, thinking it was the Holy Light? Where did this third-rate observer (photographer)e from? I¡¯m going to reduce your experimental funding (chicken legs) to zero, damn it!¡±


    The lich being angrily roared at didn¡¯t try to defend himself. Instead, he only lifted up his arm. His bone was already shattered, and there was some silvery dust left in the fracture.


    ¡°It really was the Holy Light!¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no mistaking it. It¡¯s even rtively pure Holy Light. Could it be that the enemy has high-level Holy Knights?¡±


    As the mortal enemies of the Holy Light, the undead could recognize their natural enemy in a heartbeat. Any ce or thing that was attacked by Holy Light would automatically be cleansed of anything unnatural (which included the undead). So, of course, the ces where this unlucky lich had been struck by the Holy Light were now considered useless.


    The Holy Light wouldn¡¯t let go of anything unnatural. An undead would need to sacrifice a part of himself by deleting it and connect an entirely new portion that waspletely unrted to the original part. Yet as for how things would go after that... whether the new body part could be gotten used to, or be as useful as the original, the God of Holy Light wouldn¡¯t care about such things at all. He was only in charge of purifying the unnatural.


    Cough, I definitely wasn¡¯tining against the God of Holy Light, nor did I have anyints against this world that was believing more and more strongly in the Holy Light...


    Now, after this unlucky lich showed his own injuries to everyone, it was obvious to everyone that his injuries were, indeed, caused by the Holy Light. Everyone present was astonished.


    ¡°Could the Holy Church have arrived and interfered?¡±


    ¡°How is that possible? The Bardi Empire has exiled all the Holy Light job ss members!¡±


    ¡°No, perhaps they crossed from the sea! They might be scouts from the Mage Country?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be ridiculous. The mages have a terrible rtionship with the Holy Knights. For a mage to request assistance from a Holy Knight? That¡¯s impossible!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t rush. First, let¡¯s find out if it was an individual or a full squadron of Holy Knights.¡±


    All these mid-level cannon fodder from the Undead nes were mostly considered major personages where they came from, and they only paid their respects to theirmanders for just a few minutes upon the introductions. Now, everything was chaotic to the point of having gone out of control, but Feyman and Gricasio didn¡¯t have any intentions of caring too much about this. They simply exchanged nces and felt that everything was truly just like Rnd¡¯s style.


    ¡°Don¡¯t rush. What exactly happened? Tell us in detail. And, did you see a very unique lich there?¡±


    The injured lich Adrei hurriedly nodded when he saw that the undead army¡¯s overallmander had spoken, and he began to tell his tale.


    Not long ago, he was one of the two liches assigned to take the force of ten thousand low-level undead over to attack the magical forest. He had been chosen because he had experience fighting against those nts.


    Yet the situation he encountered was far worse than thest time he fought against them. Things went wrong since the moment they arrived at the forest¡¯s border.


    ¡°The trees are taller than before by at least ten times? Are you joking?¡±


    ¡°I definitely didn¡¯t make any mistakes with my memory. Before, the trees were only at a normal forest¡¯s height. But this time, when we entered, it was as if we entered a giants¡¯ country... When I lifted my head, I couldn¡¯t see the treetops, and even the flowers by the roadside were taller than we were. And then...¡±


    ¡°And then?¡±


    ¡°And then my entire squad was instantly vaporized. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I had prepared a teleportation spell that would be triggered and bring me back to the forest¡¯s entrance if I was in danger, I would have died as well.¡±


    Alright then. The end result was instant vaporization. But, at the very least, the lich Adrei survived, so it wasn¡¯t too pitiful of a loss.


    After Feyman gathered information from a variety of sources, he finally discovered the origin of the Holy Light, but it was one that made everyone feel rather helpless.


    ¡°Damn it, they¡¯re too tall. What are we supposed to do!¡±


    What fired beams of Holy Light at the undead were specially cultivated magical nts known as ¡°Golden shy Spotlights¡± (named by Rnd). These unique magical sunflowers were hanging down those supremely tall trees that reached the clouds and would periodically shoot down strong beams of Holy Light. And that incredible height advantage made it certain that no normal method would be able to reach them. If the undead sent out aerial troops...


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t that I didn¡¯t do anything, but all the bone dragons and gargoyles I summoned were tangled up by a strange of vines. Those vines were actually capable of growing using bones and transformed the bone dragons into its own nourishment! My lords, this time I lost so much!¡±


    Medusa¡¯s Hair (named by Rnd again) was the name of this unique parasitic vine. They fed on bones and could absorb nutrition from bones to propagate more Snake Vines (the wood spirits¡¯ name for these vines).


    There were many other simr nts. For example, the Conqueror¡¯s Self-Destructing Pumpkin Carriage / Fire God¡¯s Carriage (as named by Rnd / the wood spirits), the Strength God Hydra Fire-Breathing Grass / Fire-Breathing Grass, the Secret Male Demon Pea Sharpshooter / Peashooter, and so on. The wood spirits previously had ess to so muchbat potential but didn¡¯t know how to fully utilize it. Now, they had begun their evolution towards an insanely powerful warring species under the guidance of a certain person.


    Everybat nt was controlled by a wood spirit inside. They were grateful to Rnd¡¯s assistance towards them and also viewed him as their entire species¡¯ father. However, they were forever unable to understand one of his certain hobbies, so they were deeply afraid that he would suddenly appear at any time.


    ¡°Hurry up and run! Father¡¯sing from that direction. Last night, two more of us fell victim to him. You didn¡¯t see it, that scene was too demonic... the victims just copsed there and kept crying! He¡ªhe¡ªhe¡¯ll give you some incredibly strange names! And then all of us sisters will beughing at you.¡±


    Yes, the strange habit they were referring to was to utilize that naming sense of his. During these past few days, Rnd had gotten quite excited over seeing so many cute little girls with no names and kept giving them names of his own volition. But not even mentioning how his naming sense was terrible to begin with, since there was a significant number of wood spirits, hisck of creativity was soon drained, and he could onlye up with all sorts of random names in the end.


    ¡°Teehee, Nest Nesthead, I truly sympathize with you. I¡¯ve noticed that Father really likes to use hairstyles as names.¡±


    ¡°Do you have any right tough at my name, Bun Card? At the very least, I¡¯m named after my hairstyle. Even though you clearly have a pink ponytail, isn¡¯t your name stranger?¡±


    ¡°...Actually, both of us got off quite lightly. It seems that Father has run out of vocabry words to use, since Little Red #157 and Blue Smurf #228 actually appeared yesterday. How frightening.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s nothing, I even met Red Saber, White Saber, and ck Saber... what¡¯s Saber supposed to mean? Why does Father love this name so much? I heard that the Saber name series has reached #1024 already. Just think about it, having the same name as more than one thousand others, just someone shouting for you will cause the entire street toe out and take a look if it¡¯s them. It¡¯s so pitiful that I can¡¯t even imagine it.¡±


    ¡°Cough.¡±


    I was finally unable to withstand listening to this conversation anymore as I walked out from under the shade of a tree. At the very least, I only used three colors of the Saber name and didn¡¯t create a Saberbat squad. I still had my limits!


    ¡°Father...¡±


    ¡°Please punish us, but please, please, don¡¯t give us some even stranger names! I¡¯m quite pleased with the name Nest Nesthead.¡±


    ¡°...Are you really that afraid?¡±


    Seeing how Nest Nesthead and Bun Card were so afraid of me, I slightly self-reflected for one second, wondering if I had gone overboard recently. However, I immediately erupted in anger.


    ¡°Stop calling me Father! Have you ever seen a father that¡¯s unmarried and still an old virgin? I still intend on bing a winner in life, but if I suddenly have a few ten thousand extra daughters that are this big already, who would dare to get married to me!? Are you all intending on being obstacles to my search for happiness in life!??¡±


    Alright then, let¡¯s stop talking about how angry I was at being poked where I hurt the most. At the very least, my specialized anti-undead strategies had been effective against the undead armies¡¯ first invasion since the wood spirits¡¯ evolution. All the magical nts¡¯ properties worked as nned, and their continuous evolution would surely give the undeadmanders an even greater surprise.


    What the undead didn¡¯t know was that this Forest of Dreams before them was far more skilled at wars of attrition than the undead were. Those low-level undead¡¯s bodies would be nutrition for the forest, and it wasn¡¯t only that: even though the low-level undead¡¯s souls were already in tatters, their soul shards would be absorbed by the forest¡¯s cycle, undergo a new Cycle of Reincarnation to be cleansed andbined with each other, and finally be newly-born wood spirits, furthering increasing the overall power level of this new species.


    All that the undead currently knew was that their opponent was rather difficult to deal with and that their cannon fodder scouting army was viciously defeated, reaching almost 100% eradication.


    After receiving all the pitiful reports on how they lost their armies, the high-level undead in the temporarymand center discovered that nobody had even witnessed the former nts that were their previous opponents. They interpreted this as meaning that the nts were still keeping them in reserve and that the nts hadn¡¯t even needed to use their full might to eradicate the entire undead scouting army of ten thousand.


    Without having even discovered the enemy¡¯s ace cards, the cannon fodder didn¡¯t even have the expected value of cannon fodder before they were all destroyed. This type of sacrifice was obviously meaningless, so sending out a simr scout army would bring nothing more but the same.


    Without a strategic objective, only using the force of numbers would be a waste of theirbat strength. Rather than sending waves and waves of troops out for the enemy to eliminate for free, it would be much wiser to conserve troops strength and attack in one overwhelming attempt. And that was how the undead continued requesting assistance from the Undead Emperors while sending out only small scattered forces of cannon fodder as scouts, with various high-level undead mixed among the cannon fodder in order to attempt at scouting out some useful information.


    As for the current me, I had just received a response from Wumianzhe that caused me to sink into contemtion.


    ¡°Ayer has personallye to the mortal ne? It would seem that everyone really views my n W with such great importance. How about I try using those undead for a little experiment?¡±


    ¡°Why does every Holy War in history cause such a huge chain reaction of events? Do all the countries and species¡¯ leaders not even think about how their own country or species might be extinguished because of battle? Has nobody ever tried to mediate for peace and conciliation?¡±


    I didn¡¯t believe that anyone who had the ability to be such a leader would be so foolish. However, it only took a little bit of thinking for the answers to such question to be obvious.


    ¡°It¡¯s all because of so many potential benefits to be gained. What a great headache.¡±


    Was the Holy War a bad thing? Obviously, it was bad for the victims and losers, but it was another story entirely for those who benefited from it.


    War has no benefits for either side? Heh, impossible. Those who want war more than anyone else weren¡¯t the insane ones. Instead, they would be the most practical of all. Arms and munitions merchants would profit greatly, those in the military would receive chances at gaining achievements in battle, nobles would have the opportunity to expand their territory, and not a single king would think that his own crown was too regal. Even a normal cksmith would be happy that he was receiving more orders than before, and a regr farmer would be secretly pleased that his crops were selling at a better price.


    The Holy War wasn¡¯t supposed to be like this? It was supposed to be a sh between Order and Chaos? Well, the Holy War was just like any other war in the end. Those who truly fought for the purpose of some cause or concept were in the significant minority, while most people instead fought for the sake of tangible benefits.


    For the True Gods, the Holy War was the only shortcut to greatly increase one¡¯s own divine power and Divine Obligation¡¯s influence. For a species such as humanity, the more they were forced to the brink, the more they would pray for the Gods to save them. In addition to this, with countless Gods fighting over Divine Obligations and believers, as long as they managed to survive a Holy War, it would save any God at least thousands of years of cultivation.


    After all, in order to break a stalemate in the current bnce of power, it would be impossible to do so without a battle.


    At the very least, the God of Holy Light had obtained all his power and faithful believers in the same way. Based on a report from the fairies,pared to the start of the previous Holy War, the God of Holy Light was able to increase the number of his believers more than tenfold by the Holy War¡¯s finish, which helped him to directly be the Main God of all the Main Gods of Order after the conclusion of the Holy War.


    Meanwhile, just like how human rulers had the right to start battles, in the Holy War, the God of Holy Light was just like the ruler of all the Gods of Order. If strengthening himself was one of his goals, it was only natural that he would start yet another Holy War. As long as he ¡®cleansed¡¯ undead and demons, his believers would devotedly pray to him for protection and salvation. With enough faith in him, he could obtain even more Divine Obligations, causing his status and power to further increase.


    This didn¡¯t only involve the God of Holy Light¡¯s personal benefits, however, as there was one other reason that caused him to be destined to be mortal enemies with Chaos.


    His personal ¡°Concept¡± and divine teachings were all about ¡°Cleansing.¡± His definition of ¡°Cleansing¡± was to ¡°erase¡± (destroy) all that was distorted by Chaos. As a Concept born in the Holy War and strengthened by it, he was limited by the Holy War as well. In his instinctive judgement, he viewed the undead that twisted life and death and the demons that were the embodiment of Chaos itself as mortal enemies that absolutely required cleansing. This was the very basic fundamental Concept of Holy Light at its core. To deny this would be making a light, whose purpose was to dispel darkness, useless. If the Holy Light lost its meaning of existence to correct (destroy) the distortions of Chaos, then the Holy Light wouldn¡¯t have any more meaning to continue existing.


    The God of Holy Light didn¡¯t immediately eradicate the undead of East Mist because his logical processing told him that turning on us right now wouldn¡¯t have any benefits from him. A sh with the God of Law, who was also an Order God, would be utterly pointless for the time being. However, when the Holy War ended, it would definitely be time for a reckoning.


    ¡°I can¡¯t let him be the only one with speaking authority. At the very least, I have to have a third voice appear other than the voices of Order and Chaos.¡±


    This was the agreement I came to with Ayer from the very start. Since continuous warfare would help the God of Holy Light to be even stronger, the God of Holy Light wouldn¡¯t possibly stop the Holy Wars no matter if it was because of his own Concept or a simple judgement based on personal benefits.


    ¡°If he makes a promation to kill all living creatures other than humanity, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised at all. If he dered every single one of his opponents as worshipers of evil and heretics, that would be plenty of ¡®fun¡¯ for everybody.¡±


    While the Holy Church often went overboard enough already as it was, if the God of Holy Light himself dered someone to be evil, then all of human society would truly view that person as evil. And, ording to his automated logical processing, perhaps everything on the side of Chaos and even all his allies that obstructed him could be viewed as evil. In that case, the Holy War would never end, and that would truly give us a lot of trouble.


    In ¡°history,¡± the God of Holy Light indeed acted as the main pir of support for the side of Order. The Holy Church acted loyally as the vanguards of the Holy War. First, they fought against the Elemental Lords, various heretical countries, the beastmen and other species, and then they fought against the Underground World. Without even finishing these battles, they continued to forcefully fight against the Undead Emperors, followed by the demon armies.


    Although it sounded cool for them to face off against so many enemies, if one thought over it more carefully, it was mainly because of the God of Holy Light¡¯s pure enmity towards other Concepts and species that many factions that could have joined us became our enemies. Potential allies instantly became enemies, and the number of enemies only kept increasing while friends became fewer and fewer.


    The stark contrast was in how my efforts had already achieved some results. At the very least, the Underground World¡¯s forces had been sessfullybined and pacified under me, which helped not only to avoid dozens of years of unnecessary warfare but also strengthened our own forces to resist against the uing fights.


    ¡°At the very least, I can¡¯t allow the God of Holy Light¡¯s teachings about how ¡®undead, demons, and all non-human creatures are evil, so we should kill them all¡¯ to keep spreading. If that happens, the war will truly never end.¡±


    In summary, as I saw it, the God of Holy Light¡¯s teachings were far too extreme. His teachings needed to be reced by a more moderate God¡¯s teachings. Originally, this should have been a terribly slow and difficult process, one I wouldn¡¯t even have the chance to see during my life. But, due to certain reasons, it would seem that I could begin this process prematurely.


    ¡°Directly stealing elites straight out from under him? Ayer, if I¡¯m the one who dares to think and say anything I want, then you¡¯re the one who dares to do anything you want.¡±

 Chapter 284

    Chapter 284: Small Determination


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The world before us changes every day.¡±


    This was doubtlessly the most suitable exnation for what was happening in this Forest of Dreams. It was just that, perhaps, the words ¡°every day¡± should be changed to ¡°every instant,¡± instead.


    Under the dimensional will¡¯s control¡ªfine then, Amelia was in deep hibernation, so it should be said that under my guidance¡ªthis forest was changing at every moment. What was a forested path one second would be a deep pit the very next instant.


    Not only would this confuse any attacking undead armies, but even the wood spirits themselves would get lost in their own forest.


    Let¡¯s not mention those so-called natural talent abilities that go on about how children of the forest would never get lost in a forest. As far as I knew, those druids and rangers would only show off their pretend knowledge after memorizing some maps.


    In the end, memories were limited in capacity. If, for example, someone slept by akeside in the night but woke up, the next day, and saw a flourishing city, it was only natural for that person to feel that their circumstances were unfamiliar. It would be strange, instead, if that person actually new their way around.


    ¡°...Why has the market disappeared yet again? Why is Blue Smurf #356 who lived next to me now living on top of the tree? Also, most importantly, why am I in the middle of ake! Ahhh! My collectibles have all been ruined!¡±


    This unlucky child spent half an hour hauling all her belongings out of the water. Yet it wasn¡¯t a rare urrence; those who were sent to the very tops of the trees after waking up were the unluckiest of all.


    Wood spirits had the ability tomunicate with trees, and it would require no effort for them to descend from the treetops¡ªas long as they didn¡¯t have acrophobia, of course. However, it was another story for transporting their collectibles¡ªthat, indeed, was a huge headache.


    Collectibles? What would the newly-born wood spirit species even like to collect? Indeed, it was truly peculiar that this newly-born species had hobbies of collecting various useless items, simr to a squirrel. They would collect all sorts of seeds and fruits, and subtle items, such as their victory loot from the undead¡ªlich hip bones or zombie cavities¡ªwere especially gathered.


    They didn¡¯t seem like calm forest spirits whenever they discussed their favorite collectibles; instead, they acted like shoppers arguing over discounts at a store having a major sale. This was all the more so as they felt that the best treasures came from outside the forest. In fact, the first thing they would do after a battle with the undead was to try and obtain as much victory loot as possible.


    ¡°...This is a good thing. At the very least, they have their own hobbies. This is the behavior of an intelligent species disying their independence.¡±


    Although I said that in my mind, the subtle feeling of difort became stronger and stronger as I watched how the little lolis around me were bragging about Abomination guts with those cute and innocent smiles of theirs.


    ¡°Forget it. Since they¡¯re Amelia¡¯s species, it¡¯ll be even more inconceivable if they were too normal.¡±


    [You¡¯re talking as if it totally has nothing to do with you, father of a species. Right, should I give you a ¡°glorious title¡± that¡¯s impossible to hide? ¡°Father of Ten Thousand Lolis.¡± That way, everyone will get to know the joyful news that you became a father!]


    ¡°Please don¡¯t!¡±


    Alright then. I immediately surrendered. That System of mine was too vicious. If I wore this title out every day, wouldn¡¯t everyoneugh at me forever? That would be pure torture.


    Cough, let¡¯s get back to the main topic. Since the geography of this region changed far too rapidly, the first thing each wood spirit would do after waking up was use their mental abilities tomunicate with the other wood spirits and the trees around them to download the newest map to their minds. Otherwise, they¡¯d surely get lost in the surrounding area.


    Spending all this effort of mine in helping evolve this forest obviously meant that these changes weren¡¯t meaningless. In fact, it was the opposite. This was all evidence that the entire forest was evolving.


    ¡°What type of opponent is the scariest? The fastest? The strongest? No, the one who¡¯s one hundred timesrger than you is the scariest. One step from him will equal several hundred steps from you. Can your speed possibly top his? If his little finger is asrge as your entire body, no matter how strong you are, can an ant possibly lift an elephant?¡±


    Actually, that was just how it was in real life. If you miniaturized a dragon by a hundred times, it would be nothing more than a tiny fire-breathing lizard. Miniaturizing a titan giant would make it into nothing more than a slightlyrge doll. But if you expanded something like a scorpion, ant, or cockroach to the size of a dragon, an ant¡¯s strength for its body proportion, a scorpion¡¯s poison, or the undying nature of a cockroach would be peerless terrors.


    That was why, in order topletely increase this forest¡¯s overall defensive attributes, I believed that all I needed to do was increase this forest¡¯s size by ten, one hundred, even one thousand times. In that case, all the various magical nts created here would naturally growrger as well, greatly improving the power levels.


    Actually, the results were better than I expected. Those pinecone bombs that were ten timesrger than me were utterly impossible to assess. Their explosions could reach the clouds, and I suspected that they were on the scale of the small nuclear weapons from my previous world. The roots that were originally for the purpose of tripping our enemies became webs of death that could kill anything. Even thoserge strengthened outer shells that the wood spirits liked to wear became titan giants that reached the clouds.


    With the support of a dimensional will, things were just that unreasonable. Still, there were limits.


    Dimensionalws could overwrite the naturalws of a dimension. These lifeforms that far surpassed the naturalws, however, thrived in this dimension¡ªit was their natural environment. The moment they it they would be drastically weakened. Yet, within the forest, the dimensional will was the strongest existence. As long as they remained in the forest, Amelia would be able to help them and transform what shouldn¡¯t have been physically possible into reality. The unreasonable would be the reasonable.


    This was indubitably a massive advantage for us when defending. It seemed that the gap between us and the undead would only keep growing as time passed. If I was the undeadmander, I definitely wouldn¡¯t have allowed the dimensional will to continue evolving. I would have taken everything to a full-out battle as early as possible.


    Perhaps my existence gave the two familiarmanders on the other side too much pressure. Perhaps they didn¡¯t have experience in this area. Or perhaps they were simply cking off. Although they kept probing the forest¡¯s defenses, they never truly sent their main forces. The way they were treating things seemed far too conservative in my eyes.


    This obviously seemed unreasonable. Before, the dimensional will had been in hibernation, and the forest had defended itself instinctively. Now that I was here and acting as the forest¡¯s strategist, the evolutions were obviously heading in an anti-undead direction. They should have sent everything they had as early as possible, which would have given them the greatest chances of victory.


    Of course, the overly high speed of evolution did bring about a few small problems. For example, the wood spirits who were still too slender and small would asionally have difficulty bncing and controlling their strengthened outer shells. Some would have great adventures when finding their way home every day. After all, the wood spirits were now truly an independent species of their own¡ªthey were no longer able to change themselves at will. A young bird that had left the nest wouldn¡¯t return.


    However, this also meant that these wood spirits were an intelligent species equal to humanity and the elves. As one of the very few newly-born species in the recent generation, they had limitless potential for development. I did some very rough estimating and figured that the average mature wood spiritbined with a strengthened outer shell usable in the mortal ne would be able to easily reach Silver rankbat strength. This made them equal to the upper-ranked elves, a newly-born Silver rank species. Amelia was destined to leave her name in history just by creating the wood spirit species.


    ¡°You¡¯ve aplished something incredible without realizing it, Amelia.¡±


    These past few days, I had been resting at that coreke where Amelia resided where it was more convenient for me to guide the forest¡¯s evolution.


    I lightly brushed Amelia¡¯s slightly messy hair. The seemingly pure sleeping princess didn¡¯t seem to have any intentions of waking up. Her features, while she slept, were unencumbered by traces of her typical insanity. Instead, it bore a look of weakness, which was rare for Amelia, and resembled the softness of drenched white lily flowers post the rain. It really made me want to care for her.


    ¡°If she doesn¡¯t talk, she¡¯s actually quite cute.¡±


    I lightly brushed off the leaves that had fallen on her, attracted by her face that had regained some of its normalplexion.


    Ever since she fell into a deep sleep, Amelia had been smiling almost childishly. The typical dark circles around her eyes had vanished, and the natural color of her skin was more resplendent than even the best makeup.


    With a pure appearance that would cause anyone to calm down, her formerly pale lips had be red and luscious. It was as if she was a sleeping angel that shouldn¡¯t be desecrated.


    Yet even while I admired the beauty before me, I was thinking about a topic which ruined the idyllic scenery.


    ¡°It would seem that I still need more sacrifices to help wake you up.¡±


    Souls were the source of everything. The two highest Goddesses of Order and Chaos needed to absorb nutrition from soul shards that entered the Cycle of Reincarnation to help themselves recover. Amelia, too, required arge number of souls to recover after bing a newly-born dimensional will. And the undead were undoubtedly the best source of souls for her.


    ¡°You owe me, and I¡¯m going to remember this debt. You better pay it back to meter.¡±


    I lightly flicked her upturned nose, but to my surprise, it felt rather good, so I took advantage of her and rubbed her nose two more times...


    While I was sighing to myself that she actually became so easy to pick on, Rosa sent me an urgent message through our mental connection.


    She informed me of a new wave of seemingly different enemy attacks. When she told me that she surprisingly lost control of the situation, I knew that it was time for me to leave.


    ¡°It¡¯s far more fun to pick on you when you¡¯re awake. I shall help you wake up again.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t an oath, nor was it a promise. It was just something that I wanted to do¡ªa decision that I hade to.


    I didn¡¯t notice how the sleeping beauty¡¯s mouth seemed to arc upwards, as if she was secretly smiling as I left.


    Leaves fluttered down the trees¡ªa delicate message that revealed the beauty¡¯s inner thoughts about the dense block of wood that had just left.


    ¡°I shall use everything I have to return my debt to you, dear Rnd. You¡¯re not allowed to refuse. As long as you don¡¯t leave me, I shall stay by your side during my life and in death.¡±


    This Forest of Dreams had be an independent dimension of its own and was incredibly difficult to deal with because of the dimensional will¡¯s existence. However, its true enemies were more than just some mid- and low-level undead.


    Feyman didn¡¯t have enough experience with dimensional wills so he didn¡¯t know anything about what was going on. However, the former First Senator Gricasio had both power and experience. He had long since figured out that dimensionalws were at work here. Yet he didn¡¯t intend to say anything.


    After all, Gricasio knew that if he pointed out the situation, and everyone found out that this was a time-limited battle where the best strategy would be to rush the forest as quickly as possible, he would most likely be sent out as the vanguard. At such a time, unless he was willing to resist against the Undead Emperors¡¯ wills, not only would he have to face that person head-on, but his own gigantic body would be the best target of all. There was a ny-nine percent probability of him bing cannon fodder.


    Fighting that person on his home turf? While simultaneously challenging a newly-born dimensional will? Gricasio could be considered quite wise, and he still wanted to live much longer.


    ¡°Who cares. It¡¯s not my matter to worry about anyways. Even if the sky copses, there¡¯s someone higher than me who can shoulder things. The Undead Emperors aren¡¯t going to personallye out so why should I work my hardest and risk my life for someone else¡¯s benefit?¡±


    The First Senator Gricasio, who was at the doorstep of the SemiGod rank, was indeed incredible in power level. However, the Undead Emperors had underestimated his own selfishness. Since he could be a SemiGod by simply waiting for two hundred more years, why should he risk his own life to fight for others? Gricasio was never a good person who would sacrifice himself for the sake of others, nor was he some brave warrior who believed in the concept of justice. Otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t have survived until today.


    And that was how the sly Immemorial Dragon intentionally did nothing at all and watched as Feyman anxiously tried to think of solutions. But, when Gricasio¡¯s onlypanion could no longer stand waiting and intended to personally go in the forest to fight, Gricasio stopped him and secretly told him about dimensionalws and secrets. And then... both the top-rankedmanders of the undead army intentionally sat around and did nothing!


    From a certain standpoint, Undead Emperor Aso from the Desecration ne truly chose the wrong people to lead his army. Both Feyman and Gricasio had respectable power levels butcked the courage to go out and fight. The two of them added together had both brains and power, but how would they have gotten to only where they were if they were capable of great things?


    Gricasio was a natural-born steed. He had undergone all sorts of hard work and humiliation. ¡°It¡¯s fine if I¡¯m treated like a dog or a steed. Everything¡¯s fine as long as I¡¯m alive¡± was his quote about how he wanted to live as a dragon. Making him fight with his life on the line was practically impossible. This was all the more so after the Undead Emperors were foolish enough to reward him with the knowledge that he wanted beforehand, so he wanted even less to fight with his life on the line.


    ¡°...As long as I live on, I¡¯ll enter the SemiGod rank! Aso wants me to face that person head-on? Impossible.¡±


    Yet someone was finally unable to watch this situation continually worsen. Despite the fact that he spent so many resources on transferring these two Undead Lords over here, the Forest of Dreams had be only stronger and stronger.


    When another undead squadron left¡ªthey seemed more like they were going over to feed the forest rather than scout it out¡ªthe ck pir of dimensional transportation violently trembled. The entire area around it began to shake, while dark clouds gathered at a furious rate. The earthquake was so strong thatrge fissures opened up in the ground, burying many smaller undead alive. The aerial troops managed to escape to safer locations, but even the strong bone giants were forced to take refuge.


    And then... the ck pir of light which reached the sky vanished. Yes, it vanished entirely. Although there were still some traces, the dimensional connection had obviously been severed.


    What remained where the ck pir had been was only a bone-white skeleton. When the cyan soulfire ignited itself in that skull, the entire world appeared to change. Frightened souls fled with all their might in every direction while innumerable bones crawled to the surface by themselves. In the pitch-ck night, the joyous dances of the undead could be seen¡ªthe undying emperor had finally descended!


    ¡°Emperor Aso!!¡±


    Feyman and Gricasio hurriedly rushed over to give their reports, but Aso didn¡¯t even so much as nce at them. It was obvious that their intentional stalling couldn¡¯t fool Aso. Even though Aso didn¡¯t intend to point it out directly and turn on them at the moment, he was still filled with anger.


    Well, that was only natural. Aso had paid a price in order to be able to descend to this ne. He lost so much that he would never be able to regain his losses.


    ¡°Only death is eternal. When the undead control thends, souls shall be the new master of this world...¡±


    A low voice reverberated across thends, and every living creature felt as if their deaths were approaching. The moment this Undead Emperor descended, he began uttering a eulogy to himself¡ª¡±The Song to End All Souls.¡±


    ¡°A forbidden spell!!¡±


    Although I was in the forest, the mana waves sent out by that forbidden spell caused the very air itself to tremble. How could I possibly miss it?


    ¡°Damn it! This is the worst possible result.¡±


    If a city was unconquerable, then all I had to do was eradicate the entire city. That¡¯s what I did back in the day as Yongye, and Aso was evidently intending to do the exact same thing. Although this type of development was within my expectations, it definitely wasn¡¯t easy to deal with.


    ¡°I said before that I hate how Undead Emperors can just toss out so many forbidden spells as they please, taking advantage of their undying natures and ability to switch bodies to ignore physical repercussions. It¡¯s basically no different from flipping the table if you can¡¯t win a board game! There¡¯s no finesse to it at all!¡±


    ¡°...Do you ever take a look in the mirror? You have the nerve to make such a statement? Do you know who tossed out more forbidden spells than anyone else in this generation? That would be you, you bastard!¡±


    As expected of Harloys who was getting more and more skilled at making sarcasticments. Dishing out those jabs at me were part of her very nature, and it was her first reaction upon waking up.


    ¡°Was that Holy Light hammer delicious?¡±


    ¡°It was terrible, worse than even your stinky shoes.¡±


    Hearing this, I covered my face and pretended to be embarrassed.


    ¡°Ah, you actually sniffed them secretly? You pervert! Did you lick them as well? Oh, sorry, I forgot. All cats lick in order to taste things. Instead, I should ask: how was the taste?¡±


    In a normal situation, the silly cat would have been furious at this point, but right now, Harloys had no intention of ying around. The tremendous waves of the forbidden spell in the distance had already attracted all her attention.


    ¡°The Song to End All Souls? This is a mega AoE forbidden spell that will kill absolutely everything. [1] 1 It¡¯s ranked in the top ten for attack power. Based on current developments, it should take Aso slightly less than ten hours to finish chanting it. Do you have the confidence to reach him within this time limit?¡±


    This was a rather silly question that caused me to chuckle.


    ¡°Until we actually fight, who knows? Only the courageous wille out victorious in the end. You think those pieces of trash can block me? Those useless cowards? What a joke.¡±


    We finished ourbat preparations after a few minutes. I put on my armor of ice and snow and held a shiny silver hammer that had materialized out of midair. The ancient bone dragon Gria descended from the sky for me to ride on her.


    ¡°Right. Harloys? Since we¡¯re facing an Undead Emperor, should we shout ¡®For the Holy Light¡¯ at such a time? ...but why does it feel so wrong? It somehow feels too unlucky.¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous! Back in the year, we were the unlucky ones that others charged at to attack¡ªall because of the situations you forced us into. Did you ever bring us good luck?¡±


    ¡°As expected, asking you was a mistake. You¡¯re shaking our forces¡¯ morale before the battle? I¡¯m going to have you executed, you silly cat!¡±


    ¡°I doubt our forces¡¯ morale will be shaken at all. Just look behind you.¡±


    When I looked behind me, I saw that the wood spirits had finished theirbat preparations as well. These young-appearing girls entered their powerfully enhanced outer shells, their soft-seeming eyes filled with the resolution to defend their home. Now that their mother and home were threatened, these wood spirits had prepared themselves to leave the safety of their forest for the sake of defending everything dear to them.


    ¡°For Mother!¡±


    ¡°For our pinecones!¡±


    ¡°For my bone collection! Nobody is going to take away my lich rib bones, skeleton fingerbones, and Abomination skulls from me!¡±


    I shook my head rather helplessly. Just as how parents never understood their children, I was destined to never understand these young ones, either. After some hesitation, I spoke softly in a voice that only I could hear.


    ¡°For... for Amelia.¡±


    ¡°Heh, I heard that. I¡¯ll be telling Amelia.¡± Whoops, I seemed to have forgotten that the hammer I was holding was that damned silly cat¡¯s transformation...


    ¡°Hmph! I heard that as well.¡± Fine then, Gria was currently right under my crotch... Even though I was supposed to be doing something as cool as riding a dragon, why did my description of it sound so awkward?


    [I also heard you.]


    ¡°That¡¯s enough! Why the hell is even my System joining in!? Isn¡¯t it too overboard that you only think about how to make me suffer with yourments every day? Can¡¯t you do something proper and learn from other protagonists¡¯ systems for once!?¡±


    [Are you certain? Actually, I was considering whether or not I should change myself into a limitless System for challenging the Main Gods. If you don¡¯tplete your Quests, you¡¯ll be deleted. For your first Quest, how about challenging Ayer to singlebat?]


    ¡°I apologize! Please¡ªno!! That¡¯s no different from suicide!¡±


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªwe¡¯re about to start fighting. Can you be a little more serious!?¡±


    Alright then, even Gria was getting tired of me.


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Area of effect (or AoE) is a term used in many role-ying and strategy games to describe attacks or spells that can affect multiple targets within a specified area. (Source: League of Legends Wiki)

 Chapter 285

    Chapter 285: Shameless Bone Dragon


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Dark clouds blotted out the sky. It would seem that whenever there was a fight against a super boss of this level, a dark environment such as this was only natural.


    ck dust drifted down from the sky. It contained a hint of corrosion that obviously wasn¡¯t conducive for healthy air. Largeplex spell arrays were visible even from here as the SemiGod Undead Emperor, who was floating in midair, manipted that death magic forbidden spell of his which would drain all life.


    Before us was an endless sea of undead.


    Of course, Aso had others he could rely on in order to dare to directly cast a forbidden spell. Thanks to the Undead Lords Gricasio and Feyman cking off, the undead armies¡¯ umtion had reached a state where just their number alone took up most of this small area. The constant reorganization and training that these undead did while waiting was the best prebat preparation for them to be ughtering machines.


    Once the SemiGod Undead Emperor descended, any idle chatter or cking off vanishedpletely¡ªAso was watching them. Under the lead of liches and death knights, the undead hadpleted their military formation as they rushed our vanguard.


    A random assortment of skeleton soldiers that were barely under control was tossed out in front as their vanguard. Their tiny souls were filled with nothing more than the desire to destroy everything in their path. This countless sea of skeletons charged towards their enemies, enjoying the feeling of ughtering or being ughtered.


    This entire area was filled with the cking sounds of bones against each other. Since skeletons were far too low-level as a troop, no matter how many of them were lost, it wouldn¡¯t hurt at all¡ªmore skeleton soldiers than any other troop type had been teleported over. Their number couldn¡¯t even be described using the word endless. My entire vision was filled with grayish white bones. The cking sound of bones served as the angry roars of war for this otherwise silent army.


    An ordinary skeleton soldier wouldn¡¯t even be able to defeat a slightly trained farmer in a one on one fight. However, one definitely couldn¡¯t underestimate the skeleton swarm. That endless sea of skeletons was forever the most fearsome part of the undead army. As long as they were sufficient in number, even ants would be able to ovee an elephant. Not to mention that I could also faintly make out that special skeleton troops and high-level undead were mixed in among them. The overconfident would be given a deadly lesson.


    The undead army, which consisted of over ny percent skeletons, started spreading out, with dangerous skeleton archers, skeleton mages, skeleton knights, skeleton assassins, skeleton giants, and various distorted skeleton beasts mixed in among them. This earthshaking army was sufficient to make any courageous warrior feel afraid, and any that died while fighting the undead would be yet another member of the skeleton army. In history, countless powerful countries and heroes had perished to this lowest-level of all swarm of skeletons.


    But, today, these skeletons were destined to meet their most dangerous mortal enemy, an existence who had specially evolved to counter the undead¡¯s low-level swarm tactics.


    Humility of the Seven Virtues, who was now also known as Jill...


    This young purple-haired wood spirit stood at the forefront and nced over at the skeleton swarm before her with a dissatisfied expression. She then disappeared into the wind, before transforming into a purple nt that grew at a speed that seemed to pick up with the wind.


    10 meters, 100 meters, 1000 meters. The top of this nt reached into the clouds, as if it was a certain magical beanstalk from a fairy tale. The next moment, Jill bloomed.


    Countless seeds explosively shot into the earth and took root, sprouted, and bloomed. In just a short instant, the skeleton swarm¡¯s path was blocked by a field of flowers.


    The seeds had deeply embedded themselves into the ground, andrge sunflowers suddenly emerged from underground withrge mouths filled with sharp teeth that instantly devoured countless skeletons. With this nutrition acting as the fertilizer, parasitic vines began growing thanks to the nourishment from these bones, and a familiar scene from Red Maple Castle reenacted itself here, with the reappearance of a frightening piranha nt garden.


    Just like my Seven Deadly Sins that were still undead, the Seven Virtues were both a unique species of their own as well as wood spirits. However, the difference between the Seven Virtues and a normal wood spirit was like the difference between a Seven Deadly Sin and a normal skeleton soldier... Fine then, perhaps I should say that apart from their physical appearances being simr, nothing else was same at all.


    ¡°Humility¡± had been born as a moving piranha nt garden to deal with ¡°Pride¡± Omar¡¯s low-level skeleton swarm tactics. And now, the current ¡°Humility¡± was no longer an assassin who could only ambush others from the shadows. She was now a moving wood spirit fortress.


    Piranha nts and magical vines were familiar members of her garden, while peashooters that shot all sorts of magical projectiles, suddenly erected firm nut walls, and various other nt types from ¡°nts vs. Zombies¡± could all be seen. Every magical projectile was capable of exploding arge group of undead. A sea of magical nts would deal with the sea of skeletons, as magical nts were of slightly superior quality, and bringing the battle to one of attrition where the magical nts would endlessly steal souls and nourishment from the undead to continuously create new nts was Amelia¡¯s chosen strategy for ¡°Humility.¡±


    After this flower garden was developed, severalrge fissures appeared in the ground. Numerous gigantic roots emerged and spat out various gigantic strengthened outer shells and magical nts as reinforcements.


    ¡°They¡¯re here! They¡¯re here!¡±


    ¡°For Mother!¡±


    The wood spirits cheered as they jumped into the gigantic strengthened outer shells. With this flower garden and their mother forest¡¯s support, nt puppets as tall as mountain giants resembled historical beasts from epics stood up. They began attacking the undead that were being restrained by the flower garden.


    Skeletons began fighting with nts, liches and peashooters exchanged ranged attacks, Abominations and vines began melee battles, and green nt giants went on a rampage, stomping hordes of undead to death with each step. But then arrived a Bone Dragon, who knocked over a green giant.


    The battle was currently at a stalemate. It appeared that the wood spirits might even have the upper hand. However, I knew that the undead still retained the advantage.


    Most liches and great liches were still hiding in the rear safely. They were either using all their power to connect to the other Undead nes to continuously summon new undead or simply summoning undead from the energies. Some were constantly casting death magic on the undead to heal their injuries as well. Meanwhile, most of the death knights and other high-level undead were guarding Aso, staying behind as backup.


    Since this was an all-out final battle, this strategy of theirs might seem a bit too conservative, but I understood their choice. After all, their only goal was simple: to stall for time!


    The Song to End All Souls was a siege battle level forbidden spell. This forbidden spell would open arge dimensional portal to the Undead nes, summoning countless souls and death magic to baptize the world. The moment that this forbidden spell was finished casting, everything in a huge AoE around the caster would be transformed by death magic into and filled with negative energy. All the living would undergo repeated attacks by the most powerful instant death magic. Not a single living creature would be able to escape bing yet another undead soul.


    This spell had only been sessfully cast three times in history and caused the deaths of several million in total. It was also the signature forbidden spell of Undead Emperor Aso from the Desecration ne.


    What I was most concerned about was how long he would take to finish casting this spell. After all, when his incantation finished, that would result in all our deaths.


    As for what I was currently doing...


    ¡°I¡¯m riding a girl, I¡¯m holding a girl in my hand, and I¡¯m leading a group of girls on a charge. I suddenly feel like I¡¯ve be such a winner in life... Hey, don¡¯t bite me!¡±


    Alright then. I didn¡¯t even get to feel proud of myself for two minutes as I watched the battle unfold before me when my weapon, which I was holding, suddenly bit me. I suppose that only someone like me could experience such a thing.


    ¡°Can¡¯t you be a little more serious!? We¡¯re in the middle of a battle here!¡±


    Well, I suppose that Gria was justified in being so angry. Gricasio, who she was fighting with, wasn¡¯t easy to deal with at all. The two gigantic Bone Dragons shed against each other, causing cracks to appear on Gria¡¯s finger bones that she had just polished, which really pained her heart.


    An aerial troop¡¯s greatest advantage was doubtlessly in high-speed aerial ambushes. The moment I showed up, Gricasio led several Bone Dragons to attack me.


    ¡°Hey, long time no see, Gricasio. You¡¯ve changed employers now? You¡¯re having fun acting as apdog for the Undead Emperors?¡±


    How could I possibly miss the all-too-familiar sensation of fear in Gricasio¡¯s soulfire? It would be the most astonishing thing of all if this sly old dragon was willing to fight all-out and risk his life. I figured that Gricasio¡¯s personality was unlikely to change; he probably had hidden motivations.


    ¡°...Your Majesty, how could you say that of me? Am I not making things more convenient for you? I¡¯ve already found out so many secrets and information about the SemiGod Undead Emperors for you!¡±


    Was this supposed to be Gricasio¡¯s way of betraying the Undead Emperors right in the midst of battle? I had underestimated hisck of limits once again. He was more shameless than even I expected.


    To be honest, even though I already knew that Gricasio was so shameless, I was still rendered speechless at hearing him say what he just did so proudly.


    At the very least, Gricasio was supposed to be an Undead Lord, not to mention the strongest undead in all of Xiluo plus the First Senator for many years. Could he possibly get any more shameless?


    ¡°You should know that I¡¯m actually not the ambitious type. Working under you is definitely my best choice.¡±


    From Gricasio¡¯s standpoint, he was actually telling the truth here. As a rare existence who didn¡¯t have any beliefs or honor that he lived by, the only thing he really wanted out of life was to livefortably. The only reason why he sought to improve his power level was to help him live even better and safer.


    ¡°Surviving by simply relying on someone else stronger than me will require just a slight loss of face. Such a great deal!¡±¨C Gricasio


    When Gricasio had still been alive, he had been a Gold Dragon with a truly unique personality. He was utterly different to those other Gold Dragons that were filled with a sense of justice, busying themselves every day. Instead, Gricasio spent every day thinking about how he could live longer and livefortably to the end of the world.


    That was why, back in the day, he was willing to be a steed in order to rely on the God of Holy Light¡¯s protection. During the Yongye era, he served me in order to rely on my protection. When he himself became one of the strongest around, he actually basically did nothing every day, simply spending his days idly as time passed by.


    The only reason he would join and serve the Undead Emperors from the Undead nes would be because he felt that they were powerful enough to serve as his protection. Not to mention that in thisnd of Eich, where the Holy Light was the prevailing religion, it would be suicidal for an undead to try joining most factions. However, things were now different for Gricasio.


    The Undead Emperors were invading the mortal ne, which doubtlessly meant tremendousrge-scale battles. Since Gricasio could freely move about in the mortal ne, he knew that he was likely to be part of the front-most vanguard. As an old Bone Dragon who was a lover of peace (self-proimed), this was far too dangerous for him¡ªwhoops¡ªhe meant this was too unjust. How could he stand for such a thing?


    Gricasio had also heard about what happened in the Nortnds. He detected traces of ¡°that person¡¯s¡± familiar plots and trickery and also heard about how the undead were capable of living out in the open under the sun there. In that case, perhaps the Holy Church was no longer the only option avable to him in the mortal ne, and he could choose another way of living that would be the most rxing and safest for himself.


    Perhaps, he could even sleep out in the open on a street and bask in the sunlight one day. Gricasio felt that he would definitely sleep wonderfully if he tried it out.


    ¡°Your Majesty! I have all sorts of information on all the various Undead Emperors. As long as you give me a safe territory and try to refrain from sending this old dragon into the front lines of battle, I shall serve you loyally once again. Besides, I believe that you currently need my assistance.¡±


    I never knew that an Immemorial Bone Dragon could smile in such a depraved fashion. Meanwhile, behind Gricasio was a ck spell array that was continually increasing in size¡ªit was tremendous to begin with already. Undead Emperor Aso¡¯s forbidden spell was a ticking time bomb.


    ¡°Gricasio, you bastard! You¡¯re a shame upon all dragons! Can you have at least a little pride as a dragon!?¡±


    Even though Gricasio¡¯s betrayal of the Undead Emperors was beneficial for us, even Gria was unable to withstand Gricasio¡¯s shamelessness.


    ¡°It¡¯s better to be alive as a coward than dead as a hero. Little Gria, all of those famous and heroic dragons from our generation are now nothing but dust, while someone like me that you refer to as a shame upon dragons is still living just fine. What¡¯s reputation supposed to be? Can I eat it? What¡¯s a dragon¡¯s pride supposed to be? Can that help me live forever? I have just one question for you. Can any of these formalities help me to live longer?¡±


    Gricasio¡¯s words seemed to have some twisted logic to them that rendered me speechless. Gria also paused in surprise at Gricasio¡¯s utterly shameless words. Or, perhaps it would be more urate to say that she waspletely blocked off from saying anything more due to hisck of shame.


    ¡°Fine. Show me your sincerity. How about being my steed again after all this is over?¡±


    As for me, I quite weed someone who knew which side he should be supporting.


    ¡°I knew that Your Majesty would be magnanimous! Steed? Wonderful, this is what I¡¯m the most skilled at! I still have a saddle left behind from Xiluo that I¡¯ve been keeping as memorabilia. I promise it¡¯s quitefortable to ride on.¡±


    The delighted Gricasio immediately turned around and started smashing himself into the other Bone Dragons, spewing out dragon breath at his own former undead army. Even the typically silent undead army was thrown into a hugemotion by this.


    The sudden turn of events shocked Feyman so much that even his chin bone fell off. This was utterly unexpected. The death knights that suddenly surrounded him was the best evidence that Feyman was now in an awkward position as well.


    Meanwhile, Aso, who was in the distance,ughed out loud. No Undead Emperor was any kind person filled with trust so how could he have possibly not been on guard?


    He didn¡¯t stop his incantation at all, but pointed with his fingerbone and lightly flicked the air using the dense power of death magic.


    *Grawrl!!!*


    A magical essory that Gricasio had obtained from Aso exploded, causing Gricasio to fall out of the sky, injured by the sudden explosion. When he fell, he smashed arge amount of undead to death and created arge hole in the ground.


    ¡°The Emperor is the mightiest!!¡±


    ¡°Damned Gricasio! I knew he was unreliable.¡±


    ¡°Milord, please know in your wisdom that I knew nothing about what Gricasio was intending. I¡¯m your loyal and wholehearted follower!¡±


    Feyman was eager to prove his innocence and obtain recognition as he attempted to suck up to Aso. However, Feyman didn¡¯t notice the displeased look on Aso¡¯s face. The explosion Aso caused just now was far smaller than he¡¯d expected, yet that powerful Bone Dragon had fallen too quickly and pitifully.


    At the current moment, I was clicking my tongue as well.


    ¡°That damned sly old fox.¡±


    Just like Aso, I had seen through the Bone Dragon¡¯s acting. Gricasio was simply pretending to have fallen!


    ¡°So shameless, so contemptible, so base, so uncaring about his own reputation. It¡¯s better to be any dragon other than Gricasio!¡±


    Gria was filled with anger. As a fellow Myth-ranked Bone Dragon, it wouldn¡¯t possibly escape her eyes that Gricasio had simply been acting. Later, in the future, ¡°it¡¯s better to be any dragon other than Gricasio¡± became a famous phrase across thisnd, just like my other phrase, ¡°it¡¯s better to be a na?ve idiot than it is to be Emordilorcan.¡±


    ¡°Forget it. I never counted on this bastard to begin with. Who would dare ride such a steed?¡±


    When I looked over at Aso, he, too, just happened to look in my direction. There was no mistaking his killing intent. What was about to happen next would definitely be a hard battle.


    And, so, I moved my thumb across my throat, which represented my intention to take his head.


    ¡°Senior, let us have a fun battle to the death.¡±


    I used this method to express my respect as a junior to my senior. Meanwhile, Aso responded with uproarious soundlessughter via soulmunication.


    ¡°Death shall apany us for eternity! And you shall be the first to embrace death!¡±


    ¡°Senior, please speak something I can understand.¡±


    ¡°Brat, you¡¯re dead!¡±

 Chapter 286

    Chapter 286: An Undead Emperor¡¯s Stubbornness


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The gigantic Bone Dragon whirled around in the air and crashed into the ground like a falling meteor. Dust plumes from the collision rose several dozen meters high.


    However, the higher-ups of both sides knew that Gricasio was definitely pretending to have fallen. Still, neither side had the time to deal with him right now.


    And what surprised and satisfied me was that he sent a message to me before he fell.


    ¡°Aso currently isn¡¯t in his best condition. The method he used to descend in the mortal ne was to seal himself using magical insects. He forcefully used them to absorb his own power and decrease his power level, which will cause the mortal ne¡¯s dimensional will to make a mistake in judging his power level. The moment the seal is broken, the mortal ne will immediately expel him. His personal seal should be located on his waist! Emperor Yongye, you¡¯re the dark light for all us undead. Hurry up and kill Aso!¡±


    I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry at this. To be honest, I had never seen such a proper traitor before. I didn¡¯t even know how to get angry at him.


    If my inference was correct, Gricasio probably gave some information on me over to Aso as well. This way, no matter who won in the end, he would still act as if he was really intending to help the victor.


    Still, I quite weed his information. After all, from the very start, my target was Aso!


    This Undead Emperor had already been exiled by the mortal ne itself, and his body had been changed by another dimension¡¯s dimensionalws. The difficulty for him to return to the mortal ne was pretty much on the scale of a fish trying to fly in the sky or a bird trying to swim underwater.


    Not to mention, his descent this time was obviously something irregr. The fact that the Dimensional Door suddenly disappeared was doubtlessly the best evidence that he had to pay a painful price in order to forcefully descend here.


    As an analogy, it was as if rather than taking a normal transportation route, Aso rode here on a one-way rocket. Although he reached his destination in the end, he paid a tremendous price and probably wasn¡¯t even hisplete self anymore.


    It was impossible for him to be at his full power level right now. Half? One-third? Maybe even one-tenth! If I counted the fact that he sealed himself here, perhaps it was even possible that he was only at one percent of his real power.


    Perhaps only the True Gods knew just how difficult to deal with and powerful the Undead Emperors were. After all these years, all the kible Undead Emperors had basically died. Only the undying ones would end up being exiled... As for Aso, he ruled an entire ne by himself, which was the best exnation of all. He was doubtlessly the type that would be most difficult to deal with.


    However, even the Undead Emperors had to obey certain naturalws. Just like Rex¡¯s head currently attached to my waist, Aso was a lich as well. His phctery wouldn¡¯t be able to remain in a different dimension from his physical body. If Aso died here, it would probably be eternal.


    Perhaps this was an opportunity before me to truly eliminate an Undead Emperor right here and now. If the creator and ruler of the Desecration ne died here, then this connection point to the Desecration ne would naturally copse on its own, and the Undead Emperors would need to find some other method ofing to the mortal ne.


    ¡°Aso absolutely has to die here!¡±


    No matter what Aso was thinking, I wouldn¡¯t possibly let go of this chance since he was personally taking the risk bying out here.


    Gria, the Immemorial Bone Dragon, didn¡¯t meet any undead that was her match. We were now close enough for me and Aso to be able to physically see each other¡¯s facial expressions.


    Even though he was the one that should have been in danger, Aso actuallyughed, as if we were the ones in danger.


    ¡°Something¡¯s wrong.¡±


    Aso slowly lifted his head, and the soulfire in his eyes suddenly vanished. What remained were only two dark eye sockets. All the light around him suddenly distorted, as if a time-space distortion had appeared here.


    The next instant, he started floating up as part of his body mysteriously vanished. Broken bones scattered in the air and kept vanishing, and it felt as if something was descending from the void. An endless void was devouring and consuming him. Aso was currently heading towards death of his own volition!


    Many dimensional tears started appearing behind him. The entire sky trembled, as if some great demon was about to descend.


    ¡°Soul Sacrifice? He¡¯s trading his very soul for power? What he wants is worth so much to him?¡±


    Of course I was familiar with this ability. Back at Sulfur Mountain City, I merely used the lower-ranking ability Soul Immtion, which already caused me to approach death.


    Soul Immtion was like a candle that would slowly burn out one¡¯s own life force. Soul Sacrifice, on the other hand, was akin to a destructive, hellish fire. The end result of Soul Immtion would only be that one¡¯s soul would be scattered, while Soul Sacrifice required using one¡¯s own soul as food to trade for power from some unnamable existences in the void. The painful death of having one¡¯s soul devoured by those existences wouldst for tens of millions of years.


    Yes. Death. A true eternal death. Just like how I was destined to die when I used Soul Immtion on myself back in the day, Aso was destined to die right from the moment he used Soul Sacrifice.


    A fiery soul was the most foundational source of power. As long as the soul remained uninjured, one would be capable of utilizing their full potential. Aso was an Undead Emperor. And now that he was using Soul Sacrifice, he would obtain temporary power several times that of his full power level!


    Why? Why was he willing to pay such a price!? Just what did he intend to do with this power? Why would an undying like him be so willing to sacrifice everything? I truly didn¡¯t understand.


    ¡°I said that death shall apany us for eternity. Young junior of mine, let us taste the sweetness of death together.¡±


    In the void, the manicallyughing SemiGod lich ced his hands together. With an explosive magic power, he began destroying everything around him, utterly distorting the naturalws.


    In the void around him, tens of figures appeared. One had the head of a minotaur and the face of a horse, another had the head of an eagle but a human body, while others resembled demonic asuras¡ªsome even looked like cute girls. All these faces spoke as one. ¡°Everything ends with death; death shall always descend. Death shall apany everything for eternity.¡±


    ¡°Death...¡±


    The horse-faced soul messenger with the head of a minotaur chanted these words with a deafening voice. Yet thenguage of death surpassed any boundaries ofnguage no matter the dimension.


    ¡°Shall apany...¡±


    ¡°...everything for eternity.¡±


    The eagle-headed, human-bodied God was able to control Time. The moment he spoke the word ¡°eternity,¡± the entire battlefield froze.


    I suddenly heard the chuckling a demonic asura sounded right in my ear and felt an icy breath right by my side. Chills ran down my spine¡ªit felt as if death was literally descending right behind me. Perhaps this demonic asura was a type of Death God.


    ¡°I shall die, so you will die as well.¡±


    Aso was calm as he proimed thus, as if he was telling a story about daily life. The resolution in his words, however, was as unshakable as a mountain.


    Powerful magic started to distort the rules of time and space as endless amounts of undead vanished from the battlefield into the void. These undead were all Aso¡¯s subordinates. Since he was willing to even sacrifice his own soul for greater power, why wouldn¡¯t he sacrifice his own subordinates¡¯ souls as well? All he needed to do was offer the souls connected to him to the void, and the existences in the void would naturally seek out the sacrifices on their own.


    What happened next was the most abnormal scene of all. The vanishing of the undead meant that endless amounts of undead died, all because their master willed so. Both sides of the battle sunk into fear and panic.


    ¡°Emperor, no!!¡±


    Feyman had signed aplete soul contract with the Undead Emperor Aso more than twenty years ago in order to obtain his trust. Although he received arge amount of magical knowledge because of the contract, he was now the highest-level subordinate present here. He was also not trusted by Aso¡ªwas there any chance at all of him not being sacrificed?


    ¡°Ahhhh!¡±


    The answer was obvious. The old lich Feyman¡¯s pitiful screams caused everyone who heard him to tremble in fear, yet Aso didn¡¯t even nce over at him. Soon, all that remained of Feyman was a still burning soul torch.


    The former highest authority of Xiluo was, in an instant, transformed into a soul sacrifice that Aso absorbed for his own power. Feyman¡¯s unaplished ambitions and goals had all vanished into oblivion.


    ¡°I... I curse... this world...!¡±


    Feyman, who was pitifully screaming, didn¡¯t manage to finish his curse. However, it was easy to tell from the maniacal look in his eyes that he was cursing all lives to perish together with him.


    Aso had made the decision to toss all these souls as nourishment for his Soul Sacrifice in order to power up his forbidden spell.


    On the wide, open ground, the multitudinous soul runes had finished being inscribed, while the soul messengers were opening the doors to the gates of hell. A curse of death, with endless amounts of enmity for life, was about to arrive in the mortal ne. All the living would soon be the dead.


    This forbidden spell that should have required another ten or so hours toplete was actually finished in an instant with the power of the Soul Sacrifice spell. With itspletion, all that remained of Undead Emperor Aso was a manicallyughing skeleton head.


    ¡°Hahaha, I¡¯ve finally done it! I¡¯ve finally done it! It was worth everything!¡±


    Everyone else on the battlefield could only stare as all this unfolded.


    ¡°F***! All the Undead Emperors are insane!¡±


    ¡°Girls shouldn¡¯t say dirty words.¡±


    Although I was telling that to Harloys through our soul connection, I had no way to counter what she said. It would seem that Aso was truly, utterly insane. What was with him wanting to kill everything together with him!?


    ¡°The Song to End All Souls...¡±


    ¡°...has beenpleted.¡±


    Even I could do nothing. Time had been frozen, and I was unable to move. How could I possibly prevent all this?


    Aso finished the final incantation andpleted his Song to End All Souls. Soon, the Dimensional Doors to the Undead nes open, and the power of death would baptize this world. Not a single living creature would be spared, including even me.


    ¡°How is this possible!? Why has this happened!?¡±


    I still had too many things I hadn¡¯t aplished yet. How could I possibly allow myself to re-enter the Cycle of Reincarnation just like this? Besides, if I died here, what would happen to our goals? I still had far too many things I wanted to do.


    ¡°I won¡¯t stand for this! I definitely can¡¯t be stopped here! If I die, what will happen to my country, my goals? This time, I¡¯m no longer by myself.¡±


    Silver mes tore through all the magic restraints on me, while freedom returned to me with the power of ice. Were Undead Emperors all insane? Could only the insane reach the peak? Fine then. Let¡¯s have apetition to see who¡¯s more insane.


    ¡°An eternal eon of ice shall arrive, which shall end everything...¡±


    I began uttering the Ice Aeon forbidden spell which would bring eternal sleep. A world of snow and ice descended upon us. After all, only a forbidden spell would be able to fight against a forbidden spell, and since my mana was insufficient to pay the costs for this forbidden spell, I would simply have to do the same as Aso and pay with my life and soul.


    Soulfire began burning in my eyes. Who cared? Wasn¡¯t it just burning up my soul andpeting in life force? Wasn¡¯t it simply being devoured by the void for tens of thousands of years? I¡¯ll y with you to the end! Until I reach my goal, I¡¯ll always crawl back up from hell or the River Styx as many times as it takes!


    ¡°Hah, what an amusing junior. Alright then, I suppose I should stop joking around with you... Since you were respectful enough to address me as your Senior, then I¡¯ll go ahead and give you this gift as a present from Senior to Junior.¡±


    Just as I was about to use my own soul as fuel for my forbidden spell, I received an unexpected message from Aso. It contained vast amounts of valuable magical knowledge and even included the ultimate forbidden spell he was casting¡ªthe Song to End All Souls.


    ¡°This is...¡±


    I was busy being astonished by the content of the message I just received and stopped attempting to exchange my soul for power. Meanwhile, the Song to End All Souls suddenly changed its form slightly. Numerous portals to all the Undead nes opened wide. However, what came out weren¡¯t souls filled with negative energy, nor did death arrive for everyone.


    *Bzzzz.*


    Along with a tremendous buzzing sound, six ck pirs of light covered the skies. Indeed, they were the exact same as the earlier ck pir of light connecting the mortal ne to the Desecration ne. These were six Dimensional Doors connected to the six Undead nes that were invading the mortal ne!


    All six Dimensional Doors were wide open, and untold amounts of undead swarmed into the battlefield. It was then that I understood everything that just happened thanks to the magical knowledge I received from Aso.


    The Song to End All Souls was a siege battle-level forbidden spell. It would open arge dimensional portal to the Undead nes, summoning countless souls and death magic to baptize the world. The moment this forbidden spell was finished casting, everything in a huge AOE around the caster would be transformed by death magic into and filled with negative energy, and all the living would undergo repeated attacks by the most powerful instant death magic. Not a single living creature would be able to escape bing yet another undead soul.


    That was the understanding that Harloys had of this spell. Although she was close to the truth, she had actually been slightly off.


    Just from the foundational workings of the Song to End All Souls, it was easy to tell that it was actually a mega AOE space-type magic spell. One of its foundational aspects was indeed to open up the Dimensional Doors leading to the Undead nes that possessed immense amounts of negative energy and death. Typically, Aso would have connected his forbidden spell to the Requiem ne, which was an Undead ne filled with souls and the power of instant death. That was an Undead ne in which even the undead that had physical bodies were incapable of surviving. As long as he connected his forbidden spell to the Requiem ne, all the living would naturally meet their demise. However, this time, he connected his spell to the six more-normal Undead nes.


    Yes, the six Undead nes that were nning on invading the mortal ne.


    Corpse, Ice, Desecration, Blood, Darkness, and Deathmist. With the six Dimensional Doors to these nes ajar, toxins, frost, gue, and many more elements of death entered the mortal ne. Along with the undead armies, the Undead Cmity had arrived!


    Aso finally closed his eyes for eternity, in satisfaction as he watched all this ur. His skull, which was all that remained of him, dropped to the ground. That was the only thing he left behind.


    Undead Emperor Aso, an existence which anyone in the world would fear, had perished.


    He had sacrificed his own soul to forcefully open all the Dimensional Doors to six Undead nes. He borrowed the unsteady nature of this area to allow a forbidden spell that should have only been able to connect to one ne to connect to six nes instead!


    Behind these six Dimensional Doors were twelve more Undead Emperors ready and eager to get into the action. Although they would still be unable to personally descend right away, most of the undead armies from the sixbined Undead nes were now able to directly descend. This was a huge problem for the mortal ne.


    [The Undead Cmity has arrived. Your Legend-ranked Quest ¡°Battle of Two Dragons¡± has failed. 20,000 Fate Points have been deducted from you as a punishment. Legend-ranked Quest ¡°Infighting Amongst Three Snakes¡± has been activated. Please hurry to the Cloud Tower to continue the main storyline Quest as quickly as possible. System Notification: For once, things don¡¯t seem to be your fault so there¡¯s no punishment for you apart from a Fate Points deduction. But if you keep taking your time with this, you won¡¯t need a punishment anymore.]


    All I could see was an endless sea of undead. My feeling of depression and helplessness caused me to not know whether I shouldugh or cry. Undead Emperor Aso gave me an incredible gift of knowledge. Not only did he give me all his magical knowledge as well as past experiences, I also learned why he made such a huge sacrifice. However, now wasn¡¯t the time for me to be mulling over such things or feeling empathy for him.


    ¡°Damn it, he pulled one over me.¡±


    Throughout the years, this was the first time I had lost so pitifully. The senior Undead Emperor taught me a painful lesson using his experience. From the very start, he had intended to sacrifice himself after descending to open up six Dimensional Doors connecting to the Undead nes. No matter what I did, this would still have been the final result.


    No, the only difference was that because I voluntarily came out and attacked, I actually trapped myself, heavily surrounding myself by undead. The senior used himself as bait to make the junior suffer incredibly so.


    I could see nothing but an endless undead army. These were the elite undead soldiers from sixbined Undead nes. These ancient undead warriors that swore to take back everything they had lost had no sympathy, no strategy, no pity, or even anger. All they had left was loathing for the living and a desire to ughter.


    Their ck battle g was right before me. At this instant, I understood the Undead Emperor¡¯s final action.


    ¡°He didn¡¯t want everything he had ever learned to be lost, so he gave all his knowledge to me, the only possible recipient who could ept it. And if I can survive this gigantic army¡¯s onught, I¡¯ll be a passable sessor in his eyes? Oh man, what a strict senior he is.¡±


    I slowly raised my battle hammer and gathered Holy Light. I opened up my golden angel wings, giving me limitless power. This was no time to be giving up.


    I was forced to the brink? That was something I had long since gotten used to. Besides, this situation was still much better than the one I was just in where I couldn¡¯t even do anything other than attempt to cast a forbidden spell.


    Death? I¡¯d already faced death countless times. No, I should say that I¡¯d even experienced it several times.


    ¡°...I shall live on! I swear it!¡±


    I decided to skip over any big words. Since I was burning up passionately, all I needed was my iron resolve to be unwilling to die here like this.


    ¡°Gather into the defensive formations! We still have reinforcements on the way! We haven¡¯t lost yet!¡±


    I shouted as I gathered the wood spirits into solid defensive formations. As for whether or not we really had reinforcements? I wouldn¡¯t know. Perhaps the Bardi Empire¡¯s security forces woulde here to take a look, so I wasn¡¯tpletely lying. After all, I first had to raise our morale for us to have hope in persisting. However...


    *Boom!*


    *Boom!*


    There was the sound of cannons in the distance that causedrge amounts of the undead army to go up in smoke. This could only have been caused by more than one hundred heavy cannons.


    ¡°There really were reinforcements after all?¡±


    ¡°There really were reinforcements after all!!¡±


    Only when Harloys¡¯ retort ovepped with my astonishment did I deepen my understanding of just how well this silly cat understood me.


    I turned around to look and felt incredibly moved. Before my eyes was the Borealis¡¯s familiar blue and white paint, while the Mizar, too, was such a reassuring sight with its cannons that were firing upon the undead.


    ¡°They¡¯re finally here.¡±


    Weren¡¯t they our reinforcements that came from far away? When I calcted the time, they should have arrived long ago.


    However, they weren¡¯t our only reinforcements. There was a wee surprise, too. A Bone Dragon was struck down by those gigantic figures in the sky that were disying their outstanding ughtering skills.


    With one spewing of dragon breath, arge patch of undead would be cleared. More than ten dragons using dragon breath together caused the entire ground to fissure, with everything both living and non-living transformed into nothing more than scorched earth.


    ¡°Dragon knights? Halent is here as well?¡±


    Those dragons of an assortment of colors began attacking this visiting undead army from the Undead nes. The dragon knights had made their decision.


    Perhaps it was the mana waves sent out by the forbidden spell that drew them here. Regardless, the dragon knights were currently fighting with their backs to their own home city. They were following ancient knightly traditions, and at this moment, they had the resolution to pay any price necessary.


    ¡°Your Highness!¡±


    Not only that, but a red dragonnded next to me, bringing mypanions Krose, Eaglestorm, Yawen, Cohen, Lilith, and the others. They had all arrived!


    They all unsheathed their sharp swords. Even if the number of opponents we were facing were endless to the point of despair, mypanions were all filled withbat fervor while retaining calm expressions.


    Yes, just like me, they had also experienced brinks far too many times. Be it Sulfur Mountain City, Red Maple Castle, or Antuen, we had experienced such things together. How could this type of battle possibly cause them to lose their calm?


    ¡°Wait a moment! Boss, why is everyone calling me Wait-Wait?¡±


    Alright then, even at such a time, Beifeng sharply detected that there was something different about his treatment and immediately protested.


    ¡°Stop wasting everyone¡¯s time, Wait-Wait.¡±


    ¡°Wait-Wait, get out of the way!¡±


    ¡°Wait-Wait, remember not to drag us down!¡±


    ¡°Wait-Wait, stop intentionally changing the mood of the scene. Be a little more serious; we¡¯re in the midst of a battle here.¡±


    Alright then. Should I be delighted here? Even when facing such opponents, they still had the mood to joke around. Only this type of warrior would always perform at their one hundred percent in any situation.


    Only that unfortunate Wait-Wait, who apparently picked up a new nickname somehow, could only grit his teeth and swallow down his anger as he prepared to vent it on the enemies, instead. When he implored me with an innocent-seeming expression for assistance, I ignored him and charged at the forefront as the vanguard with my battle hammer.


    ¡°For the Holy Light! That enemy is worthy of a fight! Wait-Wait, if you dare to make a mess of things, be careful of my hammer¡¯s might!¡±

 Chapter 287

    Chapter 287: Justice


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    From Aso, I learned of a story that had been seldom told before¡ªhow he had walked the path from nothing to the peak, from a nobody to a SemiGod Undead Emperor.


    An equally few number of people knew about the true, illustrious history of the undead kingdom that arose after the immemorial great demon empires. Thousands of years ago, there once existed a country that had now long vanished in the tides of time¡ªthe Tark Republic.


    A republic? Indeed, it was a country founded by escaped ves, farmers who had lost theirnds, and artisans who possessed nothing. It was one of the rarest types of countries of all, a country without a ruling ss.


    Perhaps this country had never been recorded in history mainly because it was a country of undead and magic.


    Aso F. Mnton was Aso¡¯s real name. ves weren¡¯t supposed to have family names, and he only obtained the name of Mnton after he was freed. Mnton was the family name of the priest who had saved him from very, and F was a special middle initialmonly used in the Tark Republic to represent a person¡¯s freedom from very.


    Yes, that¡¯s right. The powerful Undead Emperor Aso had been born as a lowly ve.


    ¡°I was born as a ve to serve the great demons. When I¡¯m old enough, they¡¯ll eat me. That¡¯s all the value I had in life.¡±


    The great demons had personal power levels, natural talents, and cultures far surpassing that of humans. Humanity naturally became their livestock. With traditions and culture breaking down for humans, it would only take three or four generations for any intelligent creature to be reduced to the primal times.


    Even thousands of yearster in the present, plenty of great demons still had the hated habit of eating humans. This was the best evidence that they were rted to the ogres who also ate humans.


    ve, servant, thing, and backup food source. This was the life set out from Aso. Aso had been forcefully injected with such a way of thinking ever since his birth. He also used to treat this as his only value in life. Until one day...


    ¡°Don¡¯t eat my mother! Damned monster!¡±


    When the great demon named Wok that Aso served intended to make Aso¡¯s mother into a meat pie, it was perhaps that which had awoken the slight remnant of resistance in Aso¡¯s body. Or, perhaps it was the most basic instinct for all creatures to want to protect their mother. Even though the great demons and mon sense¡± told him that it was only natural for humans to be eaten, and that it was the fate of all humans, Aso still acted instinctually.


    Aso lifted up a meat knife and ambushed the great demon from behind, cutting off Wok¡¯s head. Then, he poured oil on Wok¡¯s body and burned it to ashes in order to truly kill Wok off and prevent him from regenerating.


    In that generation where an adult great demon like Wok would easily be able to kill several tens of adult humans, this was an incredibly heroic feat. However, Aso didn¡¯t receive his rtives¡¯ gratitude or respect from other humans...


    ¡°Why did you do that! Why did you kill Master Wok! What are we supposed to do now? We¡¯ll all be killed off without even having gotten fat yet! No, we won¡¯t be fed, and we¡¯ll starve to death first!¡±


    If you attack a person who¡¯s abusing his pet, perhaps the first one to bite you would be the pet that you were attempting to save. After many years and many generations of being raised as ves, these humans, whose minds were basically empty, were no different from pets.


    The end result was that Aso, who had saved his own mother, was actually angrily roared at and loathed by his own family and other humans. Finally, they even tied him to a board, intending to sacrifice him in order to appease the great demons¡¯ anger.


    However...


    ¡°Kill them all and hang them up in the za to dry as cured meat!¡±


    Even though the murderer Aso was already captured, how could the ve masters possibly allow a group of ves rted to someone that killed a ve master to be forgiven? Otherwise, if news of this spread, the entire great demon society would be shaken¡ªespecially if more ves tried copying them.


    The vicious great demon ve masters intentionally let Aso stay together with his own family, locked up in the same room before execution. They also told everyone that they were all going to die because of Aso. And so, when the next day arrived and Aso was the first one to be hung up on the executioner¡¯s rack, he already had several hundred injuries on his body and had lost an eye and a foot.


    Vicious ve masters like these would meet rebellion and resistance? How was a tamed cow, sheep, or pig supposed to resist? All they knew was how to cry when faced with the ughtering knife, and then obediently offer up their necks.


    Aso¡¯s family didn¡¯t protect him? His mother that he tried so hard to protect was the very person who carved out his right eye, and his own father was the person who broke Aso¡¯s right hand for daring to y Wok. Meanwhile, his starving family ate Aso¡¯s foot as their final meal.


    When humans didn¡¯t even treat themselves like humans, it was truly something to sigh about... it was pitiful,ughable, hateful, and sad...


    When Aso was hung on the rope for his impending execution, his single bloodshot eye observed his family and the other humans that were all numb to his fate without any hatred for them or fear of his impending death. The only thought he had was: ¡°They¡¯re all so pitiful...¡±


    As the noose tightened on his neck, Aso still didn¡¯t have any fear of death. He simply pitied them even more.


    ¡°Ah, you all aren¡¯t the only ones to be pitied. I¡¯m quite pitiful as well. No, I should say that all of humanity is quite pitiful.¡±


    Right before Aso lost his consciousness, he saw a ck g waving in the distance. This g was a strange g with a ck hand holding amp. Under the g was a group of ck-clothed people with strange appearances.


    ¡°Child, are you alright?¡±


    When Aso finally woke up again, he discovered that he had been saved by a group of strangers. They called themselves the ¡°ck Will,¡± and seemed like a strange group to Aso.


    They told Aso that humans weren¡¯t born just to be food for the great demons. They told Aso that each human had the responsibility to fight for their own survival. They told Aso that ogres and great demons could be defeated after all. They told Aso that not every person had the courage to fight, and that they came just for him!


    These ck-robed individuals gave the young Aso a choice. Either he could continue staying together with his family, and they would help him to find a safe valley to live in, or he could choose to join ck Will.


    Aso took one final nce at his family whose expressions were filled with fear and nkness. How could a natural-born predator like him possibly stay together with cattle and sheep like them? Aso unhesitatingly chose to join the ck Will.


    ¡°Idiots, we are justice!¡±


    The ck Will had gotten used to using that as their catchphrase to talk to other humans who were numb to their fates. This seemed like an angry denunciation of others, but, in truth, it was filled with hope as well. They hoped that their fellow humans would be awakened.


    But, most of the time, they received nothing but nk looks. They wouldn¡¯t force anyone to join them, either, as that would be bad for everyone.


    Despite being betrayed countless times by fellow humans, they still chose that as their catchphrase. However, only those who willingly resisted on their own would be able to be theirpanions. Otherwise, it would be better for those who couldn¡¯t resist continuing being cattle and sheep.


    After that was a bloody battle thatsted several hundred years. The ves had no will to fight, no matter how strong or fattened they were. They remained simply as cattle and sheep waiting to be ughtered for food.


    Even those that awakened to bing tigers or cougars instead of cattle and sheep still didn¡¯t have any resources to help them be stronger. They had no weapons to fight with. Things were truly difficult.


    Meanwhile, the humans¡¯ enemies were the previous victors of the Holy War. The great demon countries covered the entire continent, and their voodoo spells, curses, and magic spells were all considered absolutely top-ss. All that the ¡°ck Will¡± organization possessed were their own souls and physical bodies. Of course, they also had the resolution to change everything, no matter what it took.


    But in the world of Eich where souls were the source of power, having a soul, a physical body, and resolution was enough.


    Indeed, they may not have been able to obtain precious magical knowledge and ingredients, thus they were unable to be wise mages. Nor did they know hunting techniques passed down through the generations, so hunter and ranger job sses were impossible for them. It was already difficult enough to eat well and sleep well. Weak bodies that suffered from malnutrition made it quite difficult to be outstanding warriors. The great demons¡¯ True Gods were the Main Gods of that era, so it was even more unfeasible to obtain divine favor as a priest or divine job ss. The mysterious druid job ss was still an elven secret in this generation. However, there was one job ss which only needed one¡¯s soul and flesh and blood.


    Yes, the job ss known as the undead mage. This so-called evil job ss known for toying with souls and flesh and blood had long since been forgotten that it was the job ss that represented hope for the entire human race.


    Perhaps it was a joke by some demon, or some secret plot but a certain Death God, but part of the knowledge regarding undead magic that came from the far ancient demons was obtained by the ck Will. They then spread this knowledge to all who were willing to resist against the great demons.


    The ck Will¡¯s pitch-ck g of a raisedntern came from this as well. They viewed themselves as the guides for humanity in a pitch-dark night to firm humanity¡¯s resolution.


    Aso was the same. He was only twelve years old at the time when he joined the ck Will and began learning undead magic as a dark warrior...


    The ck Will allied with the elven species and traded for precious magical knowledge from the annoying long-ears. They sowed seeds of discord amongst the great demons¡¯ countries, pitting them against each other. They used evil blood sacrifices to appease True Gods not associated with the great demons, giving birth to the first group of dark warrior job ss members. They allied themselves with the dragons and became dragon knights. Aso grew together with the ck Will, experiencing all these things.


    After experiencing countless battles, Aso¡¯s power level grew past the Legend and Myth ranks, but all hispanions from the very beginning when the ck Will had recruited him had long since perished. With members of ck Will continuing to fall left and right, the pitch-ck g was finally left for him to carry alone.


    Aso F. Mnton became the Third Senator of the Tark Republic and held this position for 172 years. Indeed, by the time the long battle between all other species and the great demons finally ended, the formerly impulsive boy had already be an undying lich king.


    The Tark Republic viewed cultivating undead magic as glorious. The boundaries between life and death had long since been broken here, and undead magic was evenmonly known by all its citizens. When the Tark Republic was at its strongest, it possessed several hundred SemiGod undead and had sufficient power to even challenge the Gods. However, out of all things they could have possibly done, they broke an incredible taboo that they shouldn¡¯t have. The Tark Republic invented an absolutely perfect undead magic spell with no drawbacks which could transform any living person into an undead.


    When all the living were easily capable of turning themselves into undead to receive limitless life, and the Tark Republic only kept increasing in poption but never decreasing, the Cycle of Reincarnation had evidently been broken. This was something that the Gods were unwilling to overlook.


    And so, cmity visited the Tark Republic. The elves that had been the Tark Republic¡¯s magic teachers and allies suddenly betrayed the Tark Republic and ambushed their capital. A forbidden spell transformed the entire capital into a tremendous canyon. This canyon was actually the famous ¡°Fissure of Betrayal,¡± although the origin of this canyon¡¯s name had long since been forgotten by history.


    The Tark Republic that lost the protection of the Gods became all other species¡¯ public enemy number one in a single night. All its cities were surrounded and attacked, and the Dark Warriors lost their divine powers. The dragons mysteriously abandoned the Tark Republic. Only the undead mages were still capable of fighting (death knights hadn¡¯t been born as a species yet at this time). The top undead mages weren¡¯t in any way weaker than the strongest elven mages and could definitely hold their own.


    However, they ended up meeting their mortal enemy. The elven mages made a new discovery during the war against the Tark Republic. There was a special golden energy and ringing sound that could directly turn any undead into nothingness. Yes, that was the original form of the Holy Light.


    Luckily, or, perhaps, unluckily, an undead archmage discovered a way to open Dimensional Doors and even seeded in teleporting to other nes that possessed only negative energy and death. These became the first few Undead nes to have been discovered.


    The few remaining elites of the Tark Republic escaped to these Undead nes as theirbined enemies were far too strong for them to stop. The perfect spell to transform anyone into undead was put into use once more here as no living person could possibly survive in the Undead nes. Every living person of the Tark Republic willingly chose to be undead.


    The elves betrayed them, the dragons betrayed them, and the Gods plotted against them. Undead magic had once represented glory and freedom, while the origin of Holy Light had such a story behind it that couldn¡¯t see the light of day. With all these factorsbined, it was quite natural for this piece of history to have been ¡°forgotten,¡± as history was always written by the victors.


    Was it Aso¡¯s nostalgia for his home country? His hatred of all those who betrayed the Tark Republic? His fondness for his people? Or was it simply being unwilling to be forgotten, and that he didn¡¯t want the Tark Republic to be forgotten by history? Aso had unhesitatingly sacrificed himself to build the portals necessary for his people to return to the mortal ne, along with giving me his memories and experiences as the final evidence that he had once existed. Perhaps, it was to make his junior learn about this already forgotten country and its justice.


    Hordes of undead arrived through the six wide-open Dimensional Doors like an unstoppable flood. All the undead from these six nes had all sorts of different appearances and species. However, they all came from the same original ce: the Tark Republic that had already been forgotten for millennia.


    Today, these forgotten ones had returned. They proudly lifted their pitch-ck g of the raisedntern and, in unison, shouted out that same old catchphrase with a deafening roar.


    ¡°Idiots, we are justice!¡±

 Chapter 288

    Chapter 288: Working for the Interests of One¡¯s Country and a Choice


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Nobody could have expected that right after the war against the beastmen ended in the Nortnds that next year¡¯s spring would have so many major events in session. All of them were long-term events that would have major impacts on the entire world.


    When did these changes start urring? Was it when Undead Emperor Aso personally descended and sacrificed everything, which made the undead invasion utterly unblockable?


    Was it due to Amelia¡¯s coincidental arrival at Port Victoria and unintentional creation of the wood spirit species?


    Or was it due to Rnd and Ayer who rushed here and allied with various True Gods, making a world-shaking promation?


    At the time, probably nobody could predict the future. The most important thing of all was that there were six ck pirs of light absorbing souls here. When Aso used his own life to open up all six Dimensional Doors to the six Undead nes, countless undead silently arrived from these Dimensional Doors, and the scariest Undead Cmity had arrived.


    Next to the pirs was a pitch-ck battle g that waved in the wind. ck-robed knights rode on the skeleton warhorses, and there were hordes of liches equipped with bone staves. There was a sea of skeleton mages, and hundreds of great liches floated across to the mortal ne. The amount of undead casters arriving was far above the norm for an undead army.


    These undead were in no hurry at all. They merely organized themselves into squads.


    The undead filled all corners of my vision with no end in sight. The elite undead had umted for over thousands of years in the six Undead nes and now continually arrived with constant reinforcements. Although I recognized countless high-level undead troop types, there were also many I did not. Numerous imposing gigantic undead beasts made the earth tremble with every step they took.


    ¡°It seems like we probably won¡¯t win...¡±


    We definitely didn¡¯tckbat strength on our side, with two aerial battleships, Borealis and Mizar, plus the wood spirits and twentyish dragons¡ªmore than enough to conquer a small country. Still, that was no guarantee of victory against this endless stream of high-level undead.


    ¡°If only my Red Hunting Hounds were here, or if only I could use the ¡®Infallible Diffindor,¡¯ then the result would definitely...¡±


    ¡°Still be the same! Just look at how many liches there are! Look at all thoseplete and orderlybat squadrons! No matter how strong your Red Hunting Hounds are, they¡¯re only one military squadron in strength, while we¡¯re facing the level of an undead empire here, not to mention sixbined empires¡¯ total strength. Only your Yongye army from when you were the strongest might possibly be a match. No, since there were too many internal factions within the Yongye army, while our current enemy is far more highly unified, with liches being asmon as dogs and Myth ranks everywhere, even your Yongye army would probably lose in the end.¡±


    Alright then, the silly cat already made it her innate nature to retort at everything I said. Still, everyone present knew that what she said was the truth. Our opponents¡¯ strength far exceeded our expectations.


    When an ancient undead kingdom like the Tark Republic was reborn, and when they chose to return to the mortal ne, they became a force that no single person or military squad would be able to deal with. Their opponent would definitely be the entire world.


    However... I stared at a certain person!


    ¡°Why are you looking at me? Don¡¯t you all know that a True God¡¯s incarnation in the mortal ne can only reach a SemiGod¡¯s power level? What can one SemiGod possibly do in this situation?¡±


    Although I didn¡¯t know why Ayer sent his incarnation here, it was evident that the scrolls attached to his waist were no ordinary objects. Perhaps they had the power to change thebat situation, not to mention...


    ¡°SemiGod? A mere SemiGod can defeat the powerful Goddess, the Queen of Storms, in a single attack? Who the hell do you think you¡¯re fooling?!¡±


    Alright then, nobody actually dared to say that out loud, but it was quite obvious that everyone who had traveled together was thinking this. It was written all over their faces.


    ¡°Cough, these are simply the basic dimensionalws. Even I must obey them. Rather than saying that I defeated little Angie, it was more like I scared her away.¡±


    Ayer was already being quite kind to exin things to us. What else were we supposed to say?


    But, from how I saw it, Ayer¡¯s expression seemed to be a bit off ever since he arrived here.


    Ayer¡¯s expression was quiteplex as he kept ncing over at where Aso had perished, leaving behind only his skull. He seemed to be waxing nostalgic as well as hesitating about something. Finally, he sighed helplessly and didn¡¯t do anything at all.


    Perhaps other people thought that he was frustrated about the Undead Cmity, but I just received Aso¡¯s memories and knew that the origins of how the ck Will learned undead magic were shrouded in mystery. There were rumors in his memory that the ck Will either learned undead magic as a joke by a demon or due to a certain Death God. And if it was thetter, anyone could figure out that it must have been Ayer using even their knee to think about it.


    I was intending to say something, but Ayer seemed to see through me as he slightly shook his head and pped his hands lightly.


    And then...


    We were now in a familiar forest, with giant trees all around us. Ayer managed to teleport all of us here to safety in just an instant.


    There was only the sound of a soft wind rustling the leaves, along with the babbling of a river in the distance. The undead and theirmotion outside the forest seemed to disappear entirely.


    ¡°Take this.¡±


    I caught what Ayer tossed over to me. It was half a skull, the only item that Aso left behind of his body.


    ¡°Since he gave his memories and experiences to you, why don¡¯t you take this as well. After some processing, it should be, at the minimum, a SemiGod Equipment. With that fellow¡¯s personality¡ªhe hates being lonely and is afraid of being forgotten by others more than anything¡ªlet him keep his name through the ages in another fashion like this.¡±


    By this point, it was quite obvious that Ayer had a connection with Aso and the Tark Republic undead. He didn¡¯t intend to hide it at all as he continued speaking slowly.


    ¡°Actually, I knew that he would pick you. After all, the two of you have really simr personalities. No need to rush to disagree with me, as I have evidence for my statement. Both of you typically act casual, but the moment that some topic important to you is mentioned, or if you¡¯re forced to the brink, the fact is that both of you will instantly go crazy. Let me just try asking you, if you were in his position, would you make the same insane choice as him in the end?¡±


    ¡°Of course I wouldn¡¯t... I think?¡±


    Alright then, I actually had to admit that if I was in his situation with his life experiences, perhaps I would act even more insanely than Aso.


    ¡°...More importantly is that while both of you appear to be the practical type on the surface, you¡¯re actually both idealists that chase after your dreams. Not to mention, you both just happen to possess sufficient power to realize your dreams that others wouldn¡¯t even dare to dream of. Did you think that he was ignorant of everything you did in the Nortnds? He already gave you his recognition. Since he chose you in the end, you must ept his present.¡±


    I nodded silently as I put away Aso¡¯s skull that had already transformed into a material simr to mercury. Meanwhile, his more precious gift was already inside my mind, and nobody would be able to steal that from me.


    But now, I was getting a little afraid after the matter was done.


    After all, from a certain standpoint, if I didn¡¯t intentionally antagonize Ayer back in the day, and if I didn¡¯t stop myself in the end and truly managed to establish an undead empire, perhaps the end result for me would be simr to what happened to Aso just now.


    ¡°But what should we do about the undead outside?¡±


    Little Rosa of the Seven Virtues didn¡¯t know who this seemingly powerful young man before her was, nor did she understand why the atmosphere suddenly became so heavy. While everyone else was busy remaining abnormally silent, Rosa only cared about whether her home would still be under threat or not.


    ¡°The undead? Do they have some type of rtionship with you guys? Do you have any way to stop them? Do these little gals still intend to fight to the end against the undead?¡±


    Ayer was quite interested in the little girl before him. After all, it was incredibly rare for Eich to have a brand-new species. It was an event which only happened once every few centuries or even millennium. The world would be a livelier ce now with the wood spirits.


    ¡°Of course there¡¯s a rtionship to us, if they try using another forbidden spell to attack the forest...¡±


    Alright then, little Rosa started blushing right after saying that. Since she and the other Virtues had directly received all of Amelia¡¯s knowledge, it took only some basic reasoning for her to realize that she had said something unnecessary.


    Due to an insufficiency in the Elemental Tide, the Undead Emperors would still be unable to descend for the time being unless they wanted a repeat of what happened to Aso.


    And in the current undead army, even if there were some top level undead archmages capable of casting forbidden spells, unless they were at Aso¡¯s power level, they would likely be unable to threaten the Forest of Dreams which was basically at the level of a dimensional will. The most important part of all, however, was that...


    ¡°The undead no longer have any reason to attack the Forest of Dreams...¡±


    Indeed, there was no need for either side to continue the battle. Before, the undead had to conquer the Forest of Dreams at all costs in order to eliminate the rock in the gears of the Dimensional Door, preventing dimensional teleportation from going as smoothly as it should.


    But now, not only the Desecration ne but all six Undead nes had been sessfully connected to the mortal ne due to Aso¡¯s sacrifice. The undead had a perfectly smooth dimensional teleportation avable to them now, so why would they still need to conquer the Forest of Dreams? That would be a choice that they would need to pay a heavy price for and would bring them zero benefits. Nobody with intelligence would choose to continue attacking this ce.


    If I was the overallmander for the undead, I would choose topletely ignore this nigh-impregnable turtle-like fortress filled with thorny defenses and simply focus on achieving my nextbat objective.


    Since I had received part of Aso¡¯s memories, I now understood the undead¡¯s overall goals.


    It was actually quite simple. They just wanted glory and to reestablish the Tark Republic. However, a country with only undead in it was no good. Any country that didn¡¯t have sources of receiving new citizens with fresh blood would quickly decay even if it had no outside enemies.


    ¡°Kasn¡¯s Tears? Could it be that the Tark Republic still possesses the perfect undead transformation spell that can change any living person into an undead retaining intelligence with a one hundred percent rate? The umtion of Kasn¡¯s Tears in the Bardi citizens¡¯ bodies is the catalyst for that spell? Damn it, any of Aso¡¯s memories regarding the undead¡¯s future ns are tattered orpletely nk. Senior, you put so much thought into what memories to give me and what to leave out!¡±


    But even though I didn¡¯t have a full answer to what the undead¡¯s ns were, it wasn¡¯t difficult to guess their next objective.


    Perhaps the Undead Emperors were already treating the Bardi Empire¡¯s citizens as the future new citizens of the Tark Republic. The Undead Emperors had only one goal: to create new blood for this old republic so that the ancient kingdom could revive itself in history on the mortal ne. They desired for the undead to have the right to live out openly under the sun, just like all the other species.


    And once they realized this dream of theirs, taking revenge on the elves, dragons, or even attacking the Gods themselves were all possible. Unlike Xiluo which kept having internal conflicts and was like a pile of loose sand, the Tark Republic had an incredibly high internal degree of unity. They would definitely have high chances of victory no matter who they faced.


    In that case, since the Tark Republic needed to obtain space to exist and resources for itself in the mortal ne, they would definitely have conflicts with the surrounding countries. This was a most basic sh of personal interests and was unavoidable.


    Still, I didn¡¯t understand how they would be able to make the Bardi Empire¡¯s major nobles and local domain lords abandon thoughts of resisting and simply turn into the undead. Battles and conflicts would definitely erupt. Suddenly, I now understood why my Quest had changed its name from ¡°Battle of Two Dragons¡± to ¡°Infighting Amongst Three Snakes.¡±


    When the Bardi Empire and Mage Country were the only participants in the war, they were naturally the ¡°Two Dragons.¡± But now, the undead Tark Republic had fully arrived and joined in¡ªthey became the third faction, hence ¡°Three Snakes.¡± Naturally, we would have to pick a side in this three-way war.


    I thought about it for the while but still came to the same conclusion as before: I would choose the Mage Country. Although I sympathized with the Tark Republic, they had be the invaders of the mortal ne so it was impossible for me to help them. Not to mention that their final goal was one which would definitely cause the Gods to be anxious. It was a path already proven by history that it would definitely fail. How could I possibly follow down that path with them?


    But still, passively waiting for the undead to make their own decisions was something that would make me anxious as well.


    ¡°Rnd, do you still remember that report you gave me? I discussed it with everyone, and we all agreed that it was worth a try. Don¡¯t you think that right now is an excellent opportunity for the first step of your experiment? As long as your n is sessful, at the very least it¡¯ll bring some safety to your wood spirits. After all, based just on their geographic location, they¡¯re going to be facing long-term warfare in the future. You can¡¯t interfere too much directly to protect them, either, as that¡¯ll affect the species¡¯ overall development potential.


    When Ayer mentioned my n, even I was astonished to hear that the Gods had agreed. My n was of an enormous scale¡ªit would affect countless individuals and even numerous True Gods¡¯ personal benefits. I was only half joking when I proposed it and didn¡¯t expect Ayer and the other True Gods to actually dare to implement it.


    ¡°Then, what should we do?¡±


    Ayer¡¯s incarnation smiled without answering. Instead, he lightly tore the first scroll in his hand. The signature on this scroll belonged to the God of Fate.


    ¡°Sign here, and read it out loud together with me. We proim that...¡±

 Chapter 289

    Chapter 289: Martial Arts Harem Story Protagonist Mass Production n


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°I, Ayer, Death God, Guardian of the Cycle of Reincarnation, and Defender of Order henceforth dere that, in this Holy War, we proim battle against the Chaos Faction as well as all invaders from other dimensions!¡±


    It was a simple promation that the entire world heard, yet it shocked every living creature. Not only were ordinary people shocked, but even the other True Gods and demons were shocked by this ancient True God¡¯s calm yet sudden promation.


    Perhaps this was only a simple promation of war, but the hidden meaning and political ramifications behind it were worth deep consideration.


    A promation of war? Why make a promation of war? Weren¡¯t all the Holy Wars in the past begun just like that with no need for such promations?


    Why was the Death God Ayer making the promation of war? Based on the current state of things in the Order Faction, even if they wanted to proim war, shouldn¡¯t it have been the strongest Order God, the God of Holy Light, dering the war?


    No other True God had made a public statement like this before, so why was it that Ayer, who had stayed out of so many Holy Wars and remained neutral, had suddenlye out with such a promation? Just what was Ayer intending? Wasn¡¯t he afraid of the God of Holy Light¡¯s displeasure?


    Oh, and he even used the term ¡°we.¡± That meant that there were others apart from him! Was this an internal power struggle amongst the Order Gods? Were factions beginning to form amongst the True Gods of Order?


    Only the first part of this promation already caused the perceptive to notice that there was a huge storm brewing. It would make anyone afraid to think too deeply about what was really happening.


    Still, I nodded, as I had expected all this.


    ¡°Battling without a promation of war? Infighting without making it apparent on the surface? So we¡¯ll all just pretend to get along, while secretly doing our own things?¡±


    ¡°Yep. We don¡¯t need to directly have any conflicts with the God of Holy Light and his Follower Gods. What we need is the right to speak about the Holy War. Only those considered to be on the side of justice will find the most followers! When everything is chaotic, only those who shout the loudest are considered justice. Only those with the right to speak up can possibly be considered the just. Since this is naturally a scenario about justice fighting against evil, we need to figure out a way to be the biggest representations of justice and morality.¡±


    This promation of battle was the first step in my n to steal the microphone. It would dere Ayer¡¯s faction¡¯s ambitions and goals. This seemingly meaningless promation was actually using the Holy War as an excuse to raise a gigantic g representing the Ayer Faction, giving birth to a new Order Faction different from the God of Holy Light¡¯s faction.


    Yep, although Ayer¡¯s faction appeared to be on the Order side on the surface, internally... since it was quite obvious that they were a faction splitting off from the Order faction, how could they truly still be considered an Order faction!? Well, they wouldn¡¯t be on the side of Chaos regardless, so it was more like a Neutral faction.


    But only raising the g and letting people know about the existence of an Ayer faction definitely wasn¡¯t enough. After all, nobody would want to board a sinking ship.


    Since the God of Holy Light and his system of belief was overwhelmingly powerful in the current era, everyone knew who they should be supporting. Even though there wouldn¡¯t be an all-out internal conflict on the Order side for the time being due to the Holy War, since we had made it so obvious that we were breaking off from the God of Holy Light¡¯s faction, if the God of Holy Light emerged as the overall victor in this Holy War, we would definitely be his next targets immediately right after.


    ¡°So, we need to take advantage of the opportunity of this Holy War. Not only do we need to find a way to keep being proactive, we also need to erge our faction. At the very least, we need to be a faction simr in power to the Holy Light faction.¡±


    This sounded rather self-contradictory. Since our faction wasn¡¯trge and powerful enough, we wouldn¡¯t be able to attract followers. Without enough followers, we wouldn¡¯t be able to erge our faction. However, I knew a method to break this contradiction.


    ¡°Have you heard of the Anli Insurance Company? No? Wonderful! Cough¡ªwhoops¡ªwe¡¯re not as bad as Anli, and we¡¯re not a pyramid scheme. After all, we¡¯re only doing direct selling. Fine then, I¡¯ll speak simply. What we need to do is to make customers believe in us and spend money on our various products that will enrich our faction. Basically, they¡¯re going to be investing in our faction. Once they¡¯ve paid and invested in us, that makes their personal benefits tied to us, so naturally they¡¯ll be unable to leave us.¡± [1] 1


    How to do all this, specifically? Actually, it was quite simple, as I had an example already¡ªmy System that loved to make me suffer.


    When talking about how to make people fall into pitfalls, who could possiblypare to this bastard System of mine that has made me suffer for several centuries already? What we nned was to give every person a ¡°System¡±, which would naturally give all the ¡°Main Gods¡± of the neutral faction the authority to speak. Then, people would fight for us on the neutral faction and would be rewarded and slowly grow in power level. This was my self-named ¡°Martial Arts Harem Story Protagonist Mass Production n.¡±


    Indeed, as the battle continually escted in scale, in ¡°history,¡± this Holy War was destined to be the final Holy War. The constantly increasing power level of the enemies finally even made most of the game¡¯s yers, who were like cheaters in how fast they could levelpared to Eich¡¯s natural residents, unable to keep up with the difficulty spike and never making it to the end of the game.


    But as I reminisced on the game¡¯s ¡°history,¡± I felt that it was only natural. After all, for quite a long while, these visitors from another dimension didn¡¯t feel a sense of belonging in this world. Everything they did was motivated by only their personal benefits. Perhaps today they would fight for honor and glory on the Order Faction, while tomorrow they would betray Order for the sake of some extravagant Myth-ranked sword that a powerful demon promised them as a reward. There were countless yers that even transformed themselves into demons or undead.


    ¡°A sword that fights without belief behind it is meaningless. Power without direction will only harm oneself.¡±


    Meanwhile, the original residents were another matter entirely. They had their own species, families, and homes, and already stood resolutely on one side or the other. However, their births determine what side they were on, and it was too difficult to change their ways of thinking that had been deeply ingrained. They were limited by their own countries and species and kept fighting countless internal conflicts amongst themselves, losing elites and resources. By the time that they learned who the real enemy was, it was already toote.


    With all these restrictions against them, the original residents of Eich were limited in growth speed as well. They were unable to keep up with the enemies that only became stronger and stronger and were far too weak to do anything by the end.


    However, this world that became real for me didn¡¯t possess any dimensional travelers that represented the yers who didn¡¯t have any beliefs or ties of their own in this world. The original residents were all I could rely on, but just the current them alone were still insufficient.


    ¡°So, we need to give them a direction to point their swords at, along with helping them with shortcuts to growth. We need to give them opportunities to jump out of their narrow way of thinking.¡±


    This was the main objective that I mentioned in my report. As long as we were able to achieve all this, the world¡¯s original residents would be our sharp swords. Not even counting the power of new believers¡¯ faith which would power up the neutral faction¡¯s True Gods, the power we possessed would naturally keep increasing as well.


    Was my n unimaginable? Impossible to put into ce? All we had to do was imitate what my System was doing for me. Although my System was truly unique in this world, I had True Gods on my side. What my System could do for me was quite easy for the True Gods of Eich, who were connected to the basic naturalws of the world, to imitate.


    ¡°I, Catio, God of Fate, Weaver of Fate, and Defender of Order henceforth dere that, in this Holy War, we proim battle against the Chaos Faction as well as all invaders from other dimensions!¡±


    The second scroll, which was golden, opened, and Catio¡¯s promation echoed throughout the entirety of Eich. However, the truly important part of the promation was destined toe afterward.


    ¡°I, Patricia, Moonlight Goddess, Guardian of the Night, and Defender of Order henceforth dere that, in this Holy War, we proim battle against the Chaos Faction as well as all invaders from other dimensions!¡±


    This time, a silver scroll was torn and yet another powerful True God made a promation. Patricia¡¯s gentle-sounding female voice made such a steely promation.


    ¡°We shall act as guardians and mark all invaders from different dimensions as well as evil members of Chaos! All heroes who are willing to fight for justice and Order shall receive rewards directly from the Order Gods!¡±


    The golden and silver scrolls containing divine power transformed into the purest divine power of all,bining together into a divine powered forbidden spell. It transformed into a pir of light covering the sky, and the very next instant, even though it was still daylight, an endless amount of moonlight descended upon all of Eich.


    ¡°The skies turned dark!!¡±


    ¡°The gxy... how is this possible!¡±


    With two powerful True Godsbining their powers together to cast a forbidden spell, the entire world was covered by night and the beautiful gxy was shown in front of everyone. Not a single person dared to ignore this direct promation by the Gods.


    In his own Temple of the Fate God, Catio unraveled his Web of Fate that he had weaved. The Web of Fate that lost control copsed into countless knots, and then the knots unraveled into countless lines of Fate. All Fates were tangled together, and all Fates becamepletely unknown. From this moment onwards, all divination magic stopped working entirely as all individuals¡¯ futures became uncertain.


    The moment Catio stopped controlling the lines of fate, his divine power instantly started massively decreasing. He instantly went from a powerful God to only a medium-power God and was still decreasing in power!


    Meanwhile, the same thing was urring in the Moonlight Goddess¡¯s Divine Kingdom, where starlight and moonlight gathered.


    The Moonlight Goddess who had spent much divine power on the forbidden spell was currently at her weakest now as well. In just a short instant, she also went from a powerful Goddess into only a medium-power Goddess.


    These two True Gods spent tens of thousands of years of umted power and basically broke off all possible rtionships with the God of Holy Light through this. Naturally, for these two True Gods to pay such a huge price, they hoped to gain even more in return in the future. The divine power that they spent on the forbidden spell interacted with each other and created a star that covered the entire world, transforming into a perfect surveince system that could sense everything.


    Meteors shed across the sky, and stars shone brilliantly in a manic fashion. All the intelligent creatures were able to sense that they felt like something was watching them.


    What spread out along with this divine power were countless thin and invisible threads. Gray stardustnded upon the undead that had just invaded the mortal ne who were currently standing outside the Forest of Dreams. Red infortune [2] 2 emblems representing cmity marked these invaders, while the mortal ne¡¯s residents were marked instead with a calm blue starlight emblem.


    This star created by the powers of Fate and Moonlight was an eternal forbidden spell. From now until eternity onwards, every existence that entered the mortal ne would be touched by the star. Those existences that entered the mortal ne without permission would be marked with an infortune emblem. This emblem had zero attack power, and its only use was to mark the enemies of Order so that they could easily be located on the maps of any major church¡¯s holy temple.


    The two True Gods of Fate and Moonlight paid a tremendous price to create this star. From now on, these two True Gods¡¯ priests and divine job ss members would obtain the power to use all sorts of locating and searching divine arts. Not a single person would be able to escape detection from the star that was literally everywhere.


    This was also one of the critical parts of my n.


    ¡°First, what we need to do is point out who is an enemy of the mortal ne, and who is an ally. This is the primary step, as well as the most important step of all. Hmm, it¡¯s best if we can use divine power to cast an eternal forbidden spell. Although this might require a huge price to be paid, only this can help obtain the greatest authority, as well as allow people to trust its neutrality and uracy. Right, don¡¯t forget to leave a backdoor program to manipte it. By the time that everyone trusts that we¡¯re only pointing out their true enemies... heh heh.¡±


    At this moment, even Ayer heaved a sigh of relief that the star was established sessfully. Although the star still needed many more days to finish developing and reach its full potential, the only critical moment in which it could be stopped was just now. Soon, the star would be a basic foundationalw of this world. By the time that the other True Gods realized what this star could truly do, apart from killing the True Gods of Fate and Moonlight, there would be no other possible way to obstruct the star.


    And if they wanted to find the True Gods of Fate and Moonlight that would require hibernation to recover divine power... they¡¯d have to ask Ayer first! From today onwards, these three True Gods would join their Divine Kingdoms together. As a True God from the immemorial generation, Ayer wouldn¡¯t fear any other True God¡¯s challenge.


    Right now, in the Forest of Dreams, I admired the brilliant starlight as I looked over the words that had Ayer prepared for me. I knew what I needed to do as well, so I spoke up.


    ¡°I, Wumianzhe, God of Law and Contracts, Guardian of Law and Defender of Order henceforth dere that, in this Holy War, we proim battle against the Chaos Faction as well as all invaders from other dimensions!¡±


    ¡°I, Benny, Guardian God of Smiths and Dwarves, Overseer of the Development and Research of New Technologies and Defender of Order henceforth dere that, in this Holy War, we proim battle against the Chaos Faction as well as all invaders from other dimensions!¡±


    ¡°I, Beyana, Goddess of Wealth, Overseer of the Wealthy, and Defender of Order henceforth dere that, in this Holy War, we proim battle against the Chaos Faction as well as all invaders from other dimensions!¡±


    One Main God, two powerful True Gods, and three mid-ranked True Gods. Not a single faction would dare to look down on Ayer¡¯s faction¡¯s strength now. Fine then, I suppose I should say that it was now more like one Main God and five mid-ranked True Gods¡¯ power. However, this definitely wasn¡¯t the entirety of Ayer¡¯s faction¡¯s strength. Perhaps nobody truly knew just what else Ayer had up his sleeve.


    At this moment, I took a deep breath, because I knew that when I spoke the next part of the promation the entire world would be changed.


    ¡°As the creator and guardian of Contracts, any who wish to battle for the cause of justice and Order may sign a contract with me in order to be a guardian warrior who defends their home and Order. No matter what your identity or status was in the past, after signing the guardian warrior of Order contract with me, you shall all be allies and friends on the same side that must support each other. Those who betray the mortal ne and their allies shall be punished by the power of the Contract, while the brave warriors that fight for the mortal ne shall be rewarded by the Gods as ording to the contract¡¯s stiptions.¡±


    The Smithing God Benny spoke up again after I finished my promation.


    ¡°In order to sessfully ensure the guardian warriors of Order contract, all who sign the contract may obtain a free ¡®Hero¡¯s Armlet¡¯ from me. This Hero¡¯s Armlet will automatically record a warrior¡¯sbat achievements and experiences and calcte the number of ¡®Justice Points¡¯ that the warrior should receive for their deeds. The first batch will only be 10,000 Hero¡¯s Armlet¡¯s, it¡¯s firste first served! As for the second batch... wait for me to have some free time creating them!¡±


    Benny was originally a dwarf when he was a mortal. His voice retained the sharp guttural sounds of dwarven speech, and his tone was the same as well. Even though he was a True God now, he still had a dwarf¡¯s jokester personality.


    ¡°As the Guardian God of Wealth, you may exchange Justice points which represent glory and wealth for the Gods¡¯ treasures with me! We have tens of thousands of years of umted treasures, and our treasury is quite full! The Elixir of Youth which can make you undying, Myth-ranked weapons and God Equipment, divine wine, beautiful women and handsome men, noble or royal status, and even the chance to ascend to Godhood, any mystical treasures that you can imagine, we possess! However... we don¡¯t ept any debt payments! We only ept cash!¡±


    The Goddess of Wealth Beyana¡¯s deration was quite amusing in its own way as well. However, it was actually the most important motivating factor for everyone. Without any rewards and benefits, why would anyone else work for you? This time, Ayer and his allied Gods were truly giving it their all. Just looking over the avable items for exchange moved me to the point of wanting to go rob them!


    Fine then, by this point, perhaps all the readers of my log must have noticed. While most people treated games as different worlds to be enjoyed, I was treating this different world as a game to be yed. Since this world didn¡¯t have game yers that were the equivalent of cheat-like existences whenpared to the native residents, all I had to do was create the equivalent.


    ¡°Martial Arts Harem Story Protagonist Mass Production n! What¡¯s the scariest thing in the world? Protagonists with massive plot armor due to their luck in being the main character! That¡¯s why all the main characters of any legend are like undying cockroaches! That¡¯s because those who can¡¯t survive to the end naturally won¡¯t have any legends told about them! This time, with the first batch of 10,000 Hero¡¯s Armlets, show me how many among you are lucky enough to be the main character type! Big bosses, tremble in fear! A game-yer army ising for you!¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Anli Insurance is an insurancepany famous for a notorious pyramid scheme in China.


    [2] ED/N: ¡°Infortune,¡± in Astrology, means a malevolent influence; the or aspect causing this; especially either Saturn or Mars (more fully ¡°the greater infortune¡± and ¡°the lesser infortune¡± respectively). (Source: Oxford Dictionaries)

 Chapter 290

    Chapter 290: Irresistible Temptation


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°If life was a game, it would be a terrible game that definitely wouldn¡¯t sell.¡±¡ªRnd Mist.


    ¡°If the world of Eich was a game, it would be a crappy game that would make every yer want to attack all the game designers!¡±¨C also by Rnd Mist.


    The world was unfair, and life was filled with difficulties. Hard work could change one¡¯s fate? Such a convenient life only existed in knight stories or Chicken Soup for the Soul.


    The reason legendary tales about heroes and their deeds were so popr was that these heroes¡¯ experiences were unimaginable and interesting to the readers, what with the countless coincidences and miracles. As for how Chicken Soup for the Soul imed that ¡°only those who worked hard would win in life...¡± from a logical standpoint, this was correct as those who didn¡¯t work hard wouldn¡¯t win in life. It just left out all objective conditions, birth and life conditions, personal backgrounds, how exactly to work hard, the steps needed to achieve one¡¯s goal, and how ny-nine percent failed in the end¡ªthings like that.


    Alright then. I suppose, in the end, it wasn¡¯t anything much apart from talking about the result of one¡¯s sess. If a proper attitude could take care of everything, the world would be far too convenient, and that would probably be even more uneptable.


    This world was unfair¡ªutterly unfair. Golden Species such as the dragons could sleep all day every day and, when they matured, still be able to easily crush any normal Gold-rank human. No matter how much effort an ordinary human warrior put into training, they would never be able to defeat an equally-ranked Beastman warrior. Not to mention that since beastmen warriors possessed physical advantages over humans along with betterbat instincts, they had an easier time progressing in rank.


    What aboutparing humans to humans? Wouldn¡¯t that mostly be the same? After all, there wasn¡¯t much of a difference between members of the same species, right? Actually, it was exactly the opposite. There was an evenrger difference between humans.


    In order to be a mage, knowledge and wealth was required. No ordinary wealthy merchant would be able to afford it. If you were a genius... actually, there wasn¡¯t much of a difference. Geniuses would grow at a quicker rate in power level, which meant they required even more resources in a shorter period of time. No matter how much of a genius one was, one would require magical knowledge, magical ingredients, and textbooks about magic. The archmages themselves never felt like they had enough of such things to begin with, and even if they had extras, they would give them to their family and friends. Why would they give such things to an outsider genius?


    Genius? As long as the basic poption numbers were high enough, the world would neverck geniuses or entric talents. Unless a genius had extraordinary luck and was able to be the disciple of a rich archmage, or the genius happened to be some prince or major noble, any young mage¡¯s path to learn magic was quite pitiful. Most would have to turn to adventuring while they were still novices in order to earn tuition money, the result of which many died.


    Margaret from back in the day could be considered one of the best examples. She was born as an ordinarymoner and spent an incredibly long time as an adventurer. The money she earned was never enough for her research, which was why she had experiences in stealing, robbing, and scamming as she grew in her travels, while back in the day, I... fine then, I should stop mentioning Amelia and Harloys.


    Even a SemiGod mage like Amelia often had headaches about research funds, so there¡¯s no need to even mention ordinary mages. One¡¯s ability to earn money was almost always directly proportional to one¡¯s power level, magical strength, and equipment quality.


    Mages were the jobs that needed much money, and they were like this¡ªit should be better for warriors and other job sses, right? Wrong again; it was exactly the opposite. These job sses required excellent physical attributes and had even higher requirements of one¡¯s conditions that they were born in. The best growth period for humans was only a few years while they were young, from nine to sixteen years old. If this excellent time period was wasted, and someone stillcked the most basic foundations after this age, then there was no hope of ever increasing in power level as a warrior anymore.


    The poor were capable of learning magic, but only the rich could take the martial path. After all,rge amounts of physical exercise required plenty of nutrition to supply one¡¯s energy. In order to make quick progress, one needed health supplements, and bottlenecks could be ovee with precious medicines. None of this was anything that an ordinarymoner could afford. Although warriors and other physical job sses were by far the mostmon, those who truly became high-level warriors were actually at a lower percentage than the other job sses. Most people would never progress far in power level as a warrior.


    In this world, might represented status. Commoners wouldn¡¯t even be able to obtain the most basic sword techniques. Not to mention that it was quite easy to meet with bottlenecks when practicing sword techniques. It would be a huge amount of trouble if one made a mistake while learning, and a skilled teacher¡¯s guidance and well-established techniques were all necessary. Illustrious families and nobles had their own inherited sword techniques, and even in those legendary tales about heroes, there would be all sorts of miracles and coincidences, such as meeting some white-bearded Sword Saint old man in a cave, or suddenly earning the appreciation of some school¡¯s principal or so on. This type of thing wasmon in stories from both my original world and in Eich.


    If Adam hadn¡¯t met Rolo back in the day, no matter how talented Adam was or how hard he worked, he never would have progressed beyond bing a town guard and would probably end up taking an arrow to the knee. Although this may sound cruel, it was the harsh reality. It was also why I said this world of Eich would definitely be a crappy game.


    It was pretty much the same for the other job sses. Perhaps the easiest among them were the divine job sses as what was most important for these divine job sses was how loyal and devout you were to the True God and that particr True God¡¯s teachings.


    Priests typically had to start serving a particr church since young and would typically never leave that church¡¯s teachings in their life¡ªthey would be a specific True God¡¯s loyal servant until death. As for Holy Knights, it was true that the requirements to be one weren¡¯t all that high, one just had to have a good physical appearance. The training and resources supplied to Holy Knights were quite systematic, but their future... fine then, no need for me to go any more into this, as the number of unnecessary Holy Knights was pitiful enough without needing me to spread salt on the wounds.


    Oh right, there was one more job ss which had really low requirements, and even helped one to find a job after graduation. This job ss was: druids... Yep, those who wore beast skins (the bull faction indicates that they don¡¯t even wear beast skins) while wielding wooden staves (druids as a job ss were forbidden from using metallic weapons) would wee you to be a child of the wilderness. This job ss required very little moneypared to others. It was just that some jobs would be quite dangerous, and it was easy for druids to be wanted fugitives. However, one wouldn¡¯t need to worry about rent or tavern fees as one could simply sleep outside in the wild every day, not to mention all the animalpanions and transformation magic that could even help save on transportation fees.


    In summary, it was now time to introduce the fastest progressing and cheapest job ss of all. Fine then, you¡¯ve all probably guessed it. With the Tark Republic as the evidence, I¡¯m talking about undead mages.


    One only needed a most basic textbook on undead magic, plus some ingredients which would easily be obtained for free, and a person couldpletely learn everything by themselves. There was no limit to what power level one could reach, and there were even additional benefits like being able to transform into an undying lich after death. Apart from the fact that the Holy Church would attack you on sight and that cultivating undead magic wouldmonly make people less and less humane, there were basically no drawbacks whatsoever!


    Cough, I seem to have gotten sidetracked. I should get back to the main topic. Since I told you so much, you should understand that it wasn¡¯t easy to be in any job ss.


    Everyone loves to read stories about legends and probably hopes to be able to experience a main character¡¯s life of endless miracles where one¡¯s power level would endlessly increase through constant adventuring. However, the problem was that those who had a main character¡¯s luck were truly few in number, while most people would remain ordinary for their entire life. But how would such a story possibly attract anyone?


    Everyone wanted God Equipment and powerful weapons, outstanding sword techniques, and precious magical knowledge. Yet they were unable to obtain these things. If one could obtain any of these, they were called ¡°miracles,¡± after all. That was the reason why people were so passionate about such things.


    Perhaps there were those who finally settled for being ordinary, believing that their own talent and hard work could only reach such a level. However, there were some people that were trapped at an ordinary level,cking just a little something more.


    Did those people regret that they may have missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance in the past? Were they unwilling to spend their lives in ordinariness? Did they still want to personally improve themselves? Sure thing, as long as you were willing to sign a contract with Wumianzhe the Law and Contract God and became a warrior fighting for the sake of the mortal ne!


    I could already imagine what all those who still had ambitions about themselves or those who wanted to continue one step higher would think and do when all the exchangeable items were listed on the bulletin boards of every major city in Eich.


    Were your physical attributes toocking for your martial arts techniques? Did you miss the best growth period of your life when you were young to train yourself? Then go ahead and exchange for the Body Redevelopment Holy Water Potion left behind from the great demons¡¯ generation. After drinking this, not even a barbarian tribe leader or beastman royalty would be able to master any martial arts technique as quickly as you. It only costs 1,000 Justice Points, friend!


    You don¡¯t have any great teacher or strong techniques? Friend, you¡¯re in luck. We have the ¡°Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palm Strikes¡± and ¡°Gandalf¡¯s Divine Staff Techniques¡± avable for just 100 Justice Points! Only 100 Justice Points! You want to learn magic, instead? ¡°Dragon Language Mad Curses¡± costs only 100 Justice Points as well!


    What? You¡¯ve been stuck at the peak of Silver rank for ten years already? Try out this Elven Spring Potion. It costs a mere 10,000 points andes with a guarantee that you¡¯ll pass through your bottleneck to Gold rank in at most three months! Although it¡¯s admittedly a bit expensive, just think about it¡ªyou¡¯ll be a Gold grandmaster, a grandmaster! From now on, even an esteemed noble will have to address you as Master whenever they see you, which will be worth it for the rest of your life!


    You¡¯re already in Legend rank? You don¡¯t have anything you want? Friend, even Legend-ranked Sword Saints need excellent weapons; is there really nothing that you need? We have the Bow of the Sun God, Zeus¡¯s Gauntlets and the Twin Swords of Chaos, which are all Epic-tier weapons. What? You¡¯ve never heard of any of these? Of course you haven¡¯t heard of any of them because they¡¯re all custom made. The Bow of the Sun God has thirteen different models! The best ones are the most expensive, the most expensive ones are the best! Take a look: this is the Legend-ranked Apollo 13. It¡¯s really capable of shooting down the sun!


    What, you don¡¯t want any of these, and you prefer some customized or God Equipment? Not a problem! The Smithing God Benny can make any custom order you want, be it a spear or a club or anything you can imagine. 100,000 Justice Points for SemiGod-tier Equipment, 10,000 Justice Points for a Legend-ranked equipment, 1,000 Justice Points for an Epic-ranked equipment, and only 100 Justice Points for an Elite grade equipment! So cheap!


    You insist on only wanting God-tier Equipment? Fine then. As long as you give us the God Equipment level materials by killing off a SemiGod ranked Undead Emperor or something simr, we should be able to give you one or even two pieces of God Equipment for free! And there¡¯s no service charge!


    You don¡¯t have the strength to defeat something so powerful? Then, there¡¯s no helping it. I suppose you¡¯ll just have to pay 2,000,000 Justice Points, and one of us Gods will send you a God-tier Equipment.


    All of you simply passing by, stop and take a look! A replica lich king sword SemiGod Equipment will cost only 100,000 Justice Points, and we¡¯ll even throw in a free set of ice armor and evil-seeming frost cape. We promise that you¡¯ll look more like an evil boss monster than even a lich king.


    Would you like a hundred-year contract to have your ownpanion adult dragon? That¡¯ll be 90,000 Justice Points, please¡ªonly 90,000! What? You¡¯re asking what exactly this means? Do you know what a dragon knight is? You¡¯ll be one instantly with this!


    Even if you¡¯re a SemiGod, we have things for you as well! If you¡¯re not interested in any of our God Equipment or techniques, perhaps you as a SemiGod are interested in bing a True God? That means you need the right to be a God along with a Divine Obligation. The only way to do this normally would be to y a God, so are you really sure that you¡¯re capable of this? However, we just happen to have a Divine Obligation open that was left behind by Lorci, and there are many Follower God positions open under Ayer. Would you like toe join us?


    If you¡¯re not interested in bing a God, we also have personal research notebooks left behind by other SemiGods and dimensional masters. These contain the most foundational secrets of all.


    Apologies, we don¡¯t sell these for any amount of Justice Points. You¡¯ll have to prove your loyalty and worth to us first before we¡¯ll consider it. Of course, a sufficient amount of Justice Points is also what we¡¯ll take into consideration. For example, if you can maintain the position of being first-ranked in total Justice Points for an entire year.


    Only the Gods¡¯ treasuries would contain more treasure than a dragon¡¯s nest. This time, Ayer and his allies were giving it their all. When looking through this dazzling array of superb treasures one could exchange for, it was likely that even SemiGods would be motivated to work for us.


    Of course, the True Gods would end up with many benefits for themselves through all this. That would be an overly long andplex verbose exnation, so I¡¯ll skip it. However, as long as my n seeded, out of us five currently mid-ranked Gods, two¡ªat the minimum¡ªwould be able to ascend to be Main Gods. That was the greatest benefit we were all aiming for.


    News about what we had avable for exchange spread quite quickly. Since the hiring of mercenaries was quitemon in Eich, most ordinary warriors saw this as nothing more than a rather long-term mercenary contract. Just that this time, the rewards for being hired were incredibly high, and the employer would be the Gods. These warriors weren¡¯t perceptive enough to sense the internal conflict amongst the True Gods, and why would they possibly not want a piece of this irresistible temptation that everyone could share in?


    ¡°The 10,000 Hero Armlets we prepared have all been given out within a single day? Should we prepare additional Hero Armlets? Not out in the open, but secretly prepare another 10,000, and put them all on the ck market for me! Set the asking price to 10,000 gold coins apiece! Right, we¡¯re also going to take preorders for the next batch of Hero Armlets, and the preordering fee will be 1000 gold coins! And we won¡¯t give refunds!¡±

 Chapter 291

    Chapter 291: Gradual Changes


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    When the skies above returned to normal and the stars in the middle of day returned to regr sunlight, it signaled the end of the terrifying Gods¡¯ promations. Everyone was able to sigh in relief.


    Everyone present with me could easily sense a windstorm brewing on the horizon, and this wasn¡¯t even taking into ount the possible impact of these promations.


    This came as aplete surprise for everyone, apart from Harloys who had some prior knowledge of my n. Even I was surprised as I didn¡¯t expect Ayer to be decisive enough to break off from the God of Holy Light¡¯s faction.


    ¡°Consequences? Rtionship with the Holy Light? Who cares about all that? Just do what you want. I¡¯ll back you up.¡±


    Ayer¡¯s incarnation vanished after leaving me with that sentence.


    His casualness sometimes made me speechless, but I had to admit that he possessed enough power to not be afraid of the Holy Light Faction. He had also always been incredibly perceptive, and now was indeed the best time to be choosing sides.


    The undead armies had arrived, and there was no more stopping their invasion of the mortal ne. It could be said that the Holy War had begun in all its glory. Acting as if we were the ones proiming the Holy War in order to grab everyone¡¯s attention was doubtlessly the critical point.


    Well, since the goal was to grab everyone¡¯s attention, it could also be called stealing the headlines.


    Right now, outside our forest, the situation hadn¡¯t changed. Undead armies from six Undead nes had sessfully arrived, and the area here had eternally transformed. The Undead Cmity was here, and no matter what the undead were motivated by, their next step was inevitable¡ªwar.


    Indeed, no matter if their reasons were excusable or not, or if they viewed their own actions as justified, this was still a war, a war where the undead were the invaders. It was a major war that was destined to end with the loss of innumerable lives.


    The undead wanted to reestablish their country here. However, the Tark Republic had died long ago in the mortal ne, and thisnd now belonged to the Bardi Empire. While the undead may have the right to return to their homnd after thousands of years, wouldn¡¯t the citizens living here for the past thousands of years also have the same right to protect their ownnd?


    Quite often, wars didn¡¯t start because of so-called conflicts between good and evil. Wars were merely tools to fight for space to live in.


    A ruler could make his own retainers cooperate with dangerous terrorists, but no ruler in the world would be able to make their own citizens give up their homes. In fact, the moment any ruler tried to force their own citizens to do such a thing, he would be then viewed as their mortal enemy. Even his loyalist retainers would rebel.


    The citizens were able to ept a minor amount of intelligent undead as high-level nobles, but that didn¡¯t mean that they were willing to be ruled and enved by the undead. Mega-empires had their own pride, and the Bardi people would naturally find it uneptable to be ruled by outsiders.


    I didn¡¯t know what Aso¡¯s original n had been, but now, since both sides¡¯ basic needs were in conflict, there was absolutely no way to mediate between them. Battle was inevitable.


    ¡°I¡¯m returning to the capital. I need to ask His Majesty Orloss just what he¡¯s thinking!¡±


    But even after learning about the undead, Halent was still worried about the situation in the capital and insisted on returning there. All his dragon knights went with him, and in order to help Halent firm his resolve in breaking with Emperor Orloss, I was kind enough to give him a research report on Kasn¡¯s Tears along with the undead¡¯s likely future ns, such as the one where they turned the entire poption into undead.


    Of course, my report contained plenty of questions about why the Bardi Empire¡¯s ruling ss responded so slowly or pretended to ignore things, along with some advice on how Halent could incite the citizens against Emperor Orloss.


    ¡°Halent, Nightrain City needs to prepare forbat as well. When the undead finish their troop organizations, if they directly attack Nightrain city, you can consider contacting the Mage Country for assistance. The Mage Country is far likelier to assist you than the Bardi Empire. Right, since your opponent is the undead, don¡¯t forget to ask the Holy Church for assistance as well. They make excellent righteous cannon fodder.¡±


    Halent hesitated for a moment upon hearing my words but didn¡¯t say anything. It would seem that he had epted what I said.


    Not that the Undead Cmity hadmenced, the Tark Republic, Bardi Empire, and Mage Country were exactly like my System¡¯s Quest described¡ª¡±Infighting Among Three Snakes.¡± They were just like three gigantic boa constrictors tightly entwined with each other, fighting for living space as well as authority¡ªthe sh for benefits was unavoidable.


    The Bardi Empire and the Mage Country were already enemies to begin with, while the battle for living space between the living and undead had already urred many times in history. It was practically a situation where each of the three countries were enemies with the other two. In fact, a three-way fight like this wasmon in the past.


    Stop it? Use what was there to stop it? Allow me to use a perhaps not entirely suitable proverb here. In front of the gears of history, any that tried to stop such a thing would be as foolish as a person who tried to stop a train with his body. Before, the battles were of a much smaller scale so perhaps they could still be controlled. But when two powerful countries like the Bardi Empire and Mage Country went all out, and when the Tark Republic, which consisted of six Undead nes and twelve surviving SemiGod Undead Emperors, went all out as well, personal strength and even an entire military squad¡¯s strength became meaningless. This was now at the scale of a battle between major countries.


    In front of these three tremendous existences, the small amount I had in the Nortnds wouldn¡¯t evenpare to their little fingers. Even the martial arts technique of using an opponent¡¯s strength against them required one to have a certain amount of foundational strength to begin with. How could wepare when we were only a pinky finger?


    Try to mediate between them? That would only be possible once they had sacrificed enough for them to understand that they wouldn¡¯t be able to defeat their opponents without paying a small price. Or there would need to be a force powerful enough to suppress all three sides in order to force them to mediate.


    And, among the three sides, the undead Tark Republic would be the unjust invaders as well as themon enemy of the mortal ne. If they sessfully grabbednd away from the Bardi Empire, the mortal ne¡¯s residents would find it uneptable when the undead beganrge-scale ughters of the living to create undead ingredients or transform the living into the undead.


    Of course, in the end, all three sides would want peace, but that would be impossible anytime soon. In that case, I might as well nt a seed for peace in the future, instead.


    Perhaps Aso saw through all this already. One of his goals in giving me these memories of his was perhaps to make me the third-party mediator when conditions allowed. Since I was considered Wumianzhe¡¯s God Envoy as well as a former Undead Emperor, I was probably a mediator that all sides would be able to ept.


    What Aso had wanted as the best result for the undead was to conquer over half of the Bardi Empire and then achieve peace with the other factions through negotiation. However, this goal of his would obviously be uneptable to the Bardi Empire, nor would it be eptable to the Bardi Empire¡¯s citizens who would lose their homes, family, and friends. The nobles wouldn¡¯t ept this, either, so that meant war. The undead would have to achieve their goals through use of force.


    The undead were still currently building defensive bases and organizing their troops. Their current behavior spoke volumes about their overallbat strategy¡ªthey would refrain from antagonizing additional factions if possible while gathering all their troops in one go for a huge battle. And once they were fully prepared...


    ¡°With the rate at which the six Dimensional Doors are increasing their soldiers, they will run out of space sooner orter. If the undead start expanding their territory, the Forest of Dreams to the west and Nightrain City to the east will likely be the frontlines of battle. Both these locations will be real lively soon.¡±


    In a way, Halent¡¯s preparations weren¡¯t wrong. They would even serve a critical purpose in defending the Bardi Empire. If the Bardi Empire was going to defend against and fight the undead rather than ept their rule, then Nightrain City was destined to be the farthest frontline fortress for stopping them.


    ¡°By that time, many of our ¡®Contract Heroes¡¯ will probablye over to Nightrain City to join in on the fun. On our side, the Forest of Dreams¡¯ situation will change once again...¡±


    I didn¡¯t think that the undead possessed the courage to attack the Forest of Dreams since even the Undead Emperors knew how difficult it would be to deal with a dimensional will. Surrounding it without attacking it was the most appropriate strategy. However, that didn¡¯t mean that the Forest of Dreams wouldn¡¯t attack the undead! The Forest of Dreams was still a big problem for the Tark Republic¡¯s ns.


    The undead would obviously transform the area around the six Dimensional Doors into their homnd, and it would be most important defensive base of all. However, there was just a single problem: the Forest of Dreams right next to them that had already be an independent dimension of its own. Not to mention that this forest was located at a formerly famous port so the forest was right by the sea in an area that was easy to dock from. And right across from the sea was the Mage Country, making the Forest of Dreams the best frontline battle location of all.


    No matter if it was to help defend the living or to defend against future undead invasions, the Mage Country was certain to send people here eventually. It was even quite possible that a long-term naval route would be set up to the Forest of Dreams so that adventurers not belonging to any faction could convenientlye as well.


    ¡°The Mage Country will definitelye, and perhaps they¡¯ll even send several military squads over. Since this is apletely safe zone, it will also attract many who desire Justice Points.¡±


    No matter if it was because this was the ce where the wood spirits originated or because this was going to be one of the frontline locations for the Holy War¡¯s battles, it would soon be a flourishing location with a huge uptick in poption. Perhaps there would even be those that would greatly profit from the war, making this ce into one of the grandest and most flourishing cities in the world. But as the frontline location of battle between the living and the dead, this ce was also destined to undergo endlessbat. The wood spirits would have to mature through warfare for a long time toe.


    As for the Holy War, the original enemies we had nned for weren¡¯t even actually the undead that suddenly descended. After all, even Ayer wouldn¡¯t be able to predict the exact timing of the undead¡¯s arrival.


    The main enemies were all the elemental lifeforms that would awaken together with the Elemental Gods. They wouldn¡¯t be strong at all, and they would be excellent for bing practice enemies for newbies to help them grow. Eliminating these elemental lifeforms would also help suppress the Elemental Tide¡¯s increase, a good thing for the Holy War.


    The rather weak ¡°monsters for beginners¡± were the most vital. They would deepen the connection between ¡°newbies¡± and the Ayer Faction and create the first step in a rtionship of trust. The first batch of adventurers, aka the ¡°beta testers,¡± that were sessfully rewarded by us would be legends among other adventurers. They would attract more newbies to us and gradually increase the scope of my n to turn the citizens of this world into gameyer-like existences. Elemental lifeforms¡¯ bodies were also perfect magical ingredients, and they would help reduce our costs. This was why I strongly rmended listing elemental lifeforms to be marked as our primary enemies by the star.


    Since the undead had already begun invading, it was impossible to not add them as enemies in to our system. Hopefully the newbies knew how to run if they faced defeat against the undead¡ªboth Nightrain City and the Forest of Dreams had iron defenses. At the very least, newbies shouldn¡¯t meet the ultimate bosses and be instantly killed.


    As for the other already major field of battle, that was at an old familiar acquaintance¡¯s home, the And Empire¡¯s capital, Kagersi. The Seafolk there were currently in a war of attrition with the humans, with the Seafolk that worshiped the Queen of Storms obviously being the Chaos side and our enemies. They also met our requirements to be listed as enemies to be farmed for Justice Points.


    Of course, the Seafolk weren¡¯t any easier to deal with than the undead when taking into ount theirbat strength in water. Those who weren¡¯t strong enough would be courting their deaths if they went.


    I mentioned my worry for the newbies to Harloys, but she was less worried than I was.


    ¡°...Danger? Only with high risks will one obtain high rewards. Otherwise, why would they deserve the Gods¡¯ rewards? Besides, we¡¯re not babysitters. All the warriors willing to sign contracts with us are adults that can take responsibility for their own decisions. You think our current opponents might be too dangerous for them? Won¡¯t our future opponents be even more dangerous? True top-level warriors can only be obtained from those who survive when everyone around them dies. Since improving power level has always been apetition for survival of the fittest, why are you hesitating?¡±


    ¡°I suppose you¡¯re right. Since they¡¯re willing to fight on the frontlines for the sake of exchanging Justice Points for the Gods¡¯ rewards, they wouldn¡¯t be anymoners that have never even seen blood before. Of course they¡¯d be mentally prepared.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, I had indeed underestimated the citizens of this world¡ªthey lived in a different environment from me in my previous world, after all. Warriors and adventurers were long since far different frommoners, so professional warriors who were used to fighting with their lives on the line in order to make a living wouldn¡¯t possibly be unprepared when getting ready to go to the frontlines of battle. The rash that rushed to battle without knowing their own limits had long since died in action.


    Rather than considering such things, it was probably a better use of my time to think about how I wanted to deal with this battle between three huge countries that would have major repercussions.


    Obviously, doing nothing at all was something I wasn¡¯t ustomed to.


    ¡°Samantha, it seems your mother is still going to remain asleep for a while toe. But there are still things you all can do.¡±


    With bright red hair, ¡°Temperance¡± Samantha was both the wood spirits¡¯ tribe leader and the oldest sister of the Seven Virtues. The strange part, however, was that even though she was transformed from a rose, the symbol of passion, she always had an icy expression and spoke as little as possible.


    Although she and Rosa were both transformed from roses, and she greatly resembled Rosa in physical appearance to the point of almost being twins, not to mention the Three Virtues that currently existed had all been living symbiotically with Amelia and knew much about me, Samantha was quite different from the friendly and hesitant Rosa. She seemed to quite dislike me as ack of expression was a good expression for her when she saw me, while an expression of distaste was more the norm whenever she talked to me.


    ¡°Talk.¡±


    ¡°Well, you all will probably have many visitorsing here soon. Their target will mostly be the undead. I hope you¡¯ll be able to do three things. First, try to help as many of the visitors survive as possible. Second, provide resources to them that will attract them to stay here; for example, that fruit you have that can improve one¡¯s Constitution. You can trade them to the visitors for Justice Points orrge amounts of gold coins, but make sure you only give it to them in limited amounts. Third, learnmunication skills formunicating with other species so that you can quickly adapt to living in this world.¡±


    When talking about who had the most treasures, very few would be able topare with a dimensional will. This was just like how no small businesses would ever be able topete with the government. While the former earned money, thetter printed money. A dimensional will was basically like the existence that printed money.


    Special fruits that could permanently increase one¡¯s basic stats of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and so on, nectars that could recover one¡¯s HP and mana stats, antidotes that could cure the most vicious poisons, and so on were all avable in this forest. While alchemy could create potions and antidotes to replicate the effects of thetter two products, items that couldpletely¡ªand foundationally¡ªimprove a person¡¯s stats were exceedingly precious. Just this local specialty alone would attract countless strong individuals toe work for the wood spirits.


    Of course, such fruits weren¡¯t limitless. Fruits that could permanently increase one¡¯s basic stats required many resources for the forest to produce; they were limited. Amelia¡¯s Forest of Dreams¡¯ power of Creation was limited to only fruits and nts so only the living that were capable of eating these fruits would benefit from them.


    As the Holy War continued, I extrapted that perhaps Justice Points would be more valuable than even gold coins. Just this newly-born currency alone, which represented glory as well as a way of doing business, was highly likely to increase the Goddess of Wealth Beyana¡¯s divine power, giving her far more than what she spent to help us create the exchange system. And this was just the beginning. ording to my n, all of the True Gods in the Ayer Faction would greatly benefit from my n in the end.


    I also knew that with every contract and every fair exchange, there would be an increase in the power of the Concept known as Contracts along with Wumianzhe¡¯s power as he was the Guardian God of Contracts. And after the recent Gods¡¯ promation, the faith of his believers would further increase, along with the believers¡¯ devoutness in the other Gods that did the promation together.


    ¡°This is destined to be a long-term battle. Don¡¯t let the warriors die meaninglessly. This is also for your mother¡¯s sake.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t lying about this. After all, all the corpses and souls that died here would be nourishment for the Forest of Dreams. As long as there was a sufficient number of blood sacrifices, not only would Amelia awaken, but she would be far more powerful than she was before. From a certain standpoint, the entire Forest of Dreams was now part of her physical body, and the entire wood spirit species was living in symbiosis with her.


    Samantha nodded at this. I supposed that meant she agreed.


    As I watched Samantha leave without a sound, I heaved a sigh of relief. Her res at me were just too vicious, and theints and anger in her expression made me feel so ufortable, as if I owed her a lot. When I thought about everything I did in the past, which she probably knew about because of Amelia, I felt a mysterious sense of guilt¡ªit made me feel like an irresponsible father that wasn¡¯t paying child support.


    ¡°Sister Samantha is quite delighted. She looks really happy that father wants her help.¡± However, little Rosa came out to ruin her sister¡¯s image.


    What? That vicious expression was actually one of delight? Astonished, I hurriedly asked Rosa just how she knew.


    ¡°Father, you were unable to tell? Don¡¯t look at Sister Samantha¡¯s expression. Actually, she was so happy just earlier. Just look at how the vines behind Sister¡¯s head are jumping up and down, just like a dog¡¯s tail... Ahhh!!¡±


    Alright then. Vines suddenly reached out from a nearby tree, tying up and kidnapping Rosa. When I saw how the oldest sister Samantha had a face that was now turning red as she continued walking off, I felt like I understood these young wood spirits more than before.


    Meanwhile, by a small river, the first artificial construction in the Forest of Dreams was underway. Only four to five hundred square meters, it was a tiny court constructed entirely of stone. It had seven or eight rooms, and was, indeed, the Church of Law¡¯s church branch and court in the Forest of Dreams.


    Its nned use, apart from being able to provide some Justice Points for the future Contract Warriors that would being here, was to spread the teachings of the Church of Law. It would even be able to help people enter Law rted job sses, and as the Divine Concept of ¡°Contracts¡± continuously entered people¡¯s dictionaries, not only would ordinary merchants begin using contracts, adventurers and mercenaries would also starting to the Church of Law as well. ¡°Team contracts¡± would be a new popr product as well.


    As the church branch located on the frontlines, who to make its head priest was naturally an important decision. I chose...


    ¡°Krose, are the preparations ready?¡±


    ¡°Yes! The wood spirits are quite easy tomunicate with, and they¡¯re quickly learning about Law. I think that before long, the Church of Law will have its first group of wood spirit Law job ss members.¡±


    Krose was smiling brilliantly, a beam of utter bliss. Apart from being able to work in a forest¡ªa ce all elves preferred to be¡ªit was more because the wood spirits had promised to cultivate a special nt potion for her that could change her body.


    Alright. Everybody probably figured it out already. It was just a nt potion version of the ¡°Spring of a Drowned Man¡± as it was indeed within the Forest of Dreams¡¯ power to produce such a potion.


    However, the rules were already set in stone. Even Krose would need to earn Justice Points in order to exchange for such a potion. And since it was a custom order for her, it would probably be far more expensive than usual.


    I ended up deciding against hurting her morale by telling her what I was thinking when I saw how brilliant Krose¡¯s smile was as she busied herself with her work.


    The church¡¯s support will be here soon. With your poprity in the church along with all those abnormal fans of yours, I feel like even if you¡¯re willing to pay 10,000 Justice Points for that potion, your coworkers are willing to pay 30,000 Justice Points to prevent you from doing so. And even if you seed in obtaining the potion of ¡®Spring of a Drowned Man,¡¯ they¡¯ll develop the potion of ¡®Spring of a Drowned Girl¡¯ just for you.

 Chapter 292

    Chapter 292: Newly-born Silver Species (Part 1 of 2)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    A white-winged bird-type magical petnded in front of me with a letter for which I had been waiting a long time.


    ¡°It¡¯s finally here?¡±


    The letter¡¯s contents were quite simple¡ªthere were only two sentences: ¡°I took care of things for you. The official invitation is inside, so hurry ande as soon as you can.¡±


    The letter was a reply from my old friend and ssmate Kaid. It was only a matter of time before I went to the Cloud Tower in the Mage Country¡ªwhat was really important was how I went. I would receive treatment that would differ depending on whether or not I had been invited.


    That was why I had written to Kaid a while back, asking him to help me out. I divulged a bit about what was going on so that the Cloud Tower would officially send me an invitation.


    There were many things I needed to discuss with the Truth Overseers. However, not only did I have old friends amongst the Overseers, but I had many old enemies there¡ªenemies who probably wanted me dead. In order to have an equal (and peaceful) status tomunicate with them, I needed to give myself the identity of a diplomatic envoy.


    Not to mention that this diplomatic envoy status of mine would be quite real. After all, the wood spirits would definitely need to establish a rtionship with the Mage Country. Their representatives would be me and¡ª


    ¡°Rosa, why are you the one going? What about your sisters?¡±


    ¡°Big Sister Samantha didn¡¯t want to go so she left it to me. Little Sister Jill didn¡¯t want to go either¡ªshe told me to not bother her with anything that wasn¡¯t about battling.¡±


    When I thought of the other two Virtues, I recalled Samantha, who was always terse and vicious with herments, and Jill, who seemed to be a battle maniac. Indeed¡ªneither of them were appropriate for diplomacy, and that Rosa who was always smiling was probably the best choice among them.


    When I first arrived here, Rosa had also been the one to greet me. That pure and friendly smile of hers was indeed an excellent diplomatic tool, especially since she would be soon dealing with a group of old virgins¡ªer¡ªold artifacts, and since the elderly were always instinctively fond of¡ªer¡ªwilling to protect young girls, this was obviously going to be a huge advantage.


    I could already predict themotion that would happen when Rosa and the wood spirits appeared in the Cloud Tower. After all, the wood spirits would be considered cute by the beauty standards of any species, not to mention how the elderly always doted on young girls.


    Besides, the circumstances of their birth made it even easier to establish a friendly rtionship with the mages. They were Amelia¡¯s daughters.


    No matter if it was because they were the creations of the Cloud Tower¡¯s rather famous (or infamous, depending on how you looked at it) archmage Amelia, or simply because they were the first intelligent species in history created by a mage, the wood spirits would definitely be loved by the mages. Of course, the fact that they all appeared to be cute young girls would add points in their favor, and for certain groups of people, it would be super extra bonus points... There¡¯s nothing wrong with being a gentleman pervert! A forever youthful (young) wife was the dream of all men, wasn¡¯t it!?


    Cough, setting those subjective factors aside, just from the objective and tangible benefits, the Mage Country would not only want to establish a friendly rtionship with the wood spirits, but they would even look forward to a formal alliance.


    Although the wood spirits weren¡¯t all that numerous as a species yet, they were an entirely new Silver Species. Their current power levels and future potentials were astonishing. With the Holy War right at everyone¡¯s doorsteps, why would they refuse such a strong ally?


    Of course, there might be those with ambitions of stealing from or conquering the wood spirits. Not every Truth Overseer was the type who only cared about the secrets of magic. The wood spirits would have to make a disy of sufficient power.


    That was why I was in no rush at all. The first impression was the most important; the first time that the wood spirits were shown to the world would be critical. Rather than rush to show everyone but then be looked down upon, it would be better to arrogantly arrivete. People would remember them much more clearly.


    Wood spirits also had astonishing potential as they were a Silver Species, something incredibly rare in today¡¯s age.


    This wasn¡¯t the ancient era where Silver Species were incrediblymon. This was an era of Iron Bloodlines, where the humans of the Iron Tribe [1] dominated the world.


    There were incredibly few Silver Species in today¡¯s world. The most obvious examples were probably the Four Elven Aristocracies, but the superior elf species mostly consisted of the elven kingdoms¡¯ royalty and nobles and were incredibly few in number. The only Silver Species with a high poption, the dark elves, had weaknesses such as their fear of light. Moreover, after they fell into depravity and transformed into dark elves from night elves, their racial talents tilted far too much towards the mage job sses andcked the ability to perform in other job sses. Some people already considered them to be a rtively strong Bronze Species.


    Every single wood spirit was, at the minimum, in the Silver rank. In the Forest of Dreams, wood spirits would be improved to the upper tiers of Silver rank and could even reach the lower tiers of the Gold rank with the assistance of the forest¡¯s magical nts and strengthened outer shells. That was my assessment of the wood spirits¡¯ potential as a species, and Ayer, too, had agreed with me.


    When taking the average potential of a species in the world of Eich, the wood spirits were considered top-ss. In case my words weren¡¯t enough to make people understand, I could show them aparison between the wood spirits¡¯ base stats and other species¡¯ base stats in order to make them easily understand just how scary wood spirits really were.


    ¡°Average beastman berserker stats: 15 Strength, 8 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, 8 Intelligence. Main stat: Strength. Racial talent: Frenzy.¡±


    The stronger warrior tribes among the beastmen species only reached the level of a Bronze Species. And their racial talents were far too much tilted in favor of Strength, so over ny percent of beastmen could only choose meleebat job sses.


    ¡°Average human warrior stats: 12 Strength, 8 Dexterity, 10 Constitution, 10 Intelligence. Main stat: Strength. Racial talent: None.¡±


    This was the stat spread of an average human, which was even more pitiful than a beastman¡¯s. However, the only advantage was that without any particr racial talents or overwhelming unbnced stat spread, humans could enter any and all job sses as they weren¡¯t limited by a species¡¯ natural talents. However, any future development down their chosen paths would depend entirely on themselves; human bloodlines contained nothing to help them out.


    However, Silver Species were rather ridiculous.


    Most people treated the Bronze Species of beastmen, Nortnds barbarians, dwarves, and wild elves as the upper limits of what a powerful warrior species was supposed to be. However, there was one speciesmonly ignored by people that was actually an incrediblymon Silver Species¡ªthe giants.


    The mostmon mountain and forest giants would be five to ten meters tall after reaching maturity, giving them the power level of average Silver ranks. Meanwhile, the rtively stronger semifrost giants and me giants were in the upper tiers of the silver rank, while some of the strongest giant species such as the cloud giants and magma giants typically had various racial talents that controlled the elements after reaching maturity. They were naturally born as talented in both physical and magical aspects, and these strongest giant species were Gold Species equal to dragons in power.


    Of course, there was also a huge difference in power level amongst all the dragon species. The weakest white dragons wouldn¡¯t know how to fight in any way other than meleebat until they reached the level of Ancient. White dragons had incredibly low intelligence, equal to that of a normal wild beast. Although they technically counted as a Gold Species as they were dragons, they were infamous for their weakness to live up to the name. Meanwhile, the strongest among themonly seen dragons species, gold dragons and red dragons, would easily be capable of defeating and killing three simr-aged white dragons in a one on three fight. And there were Legendary Dragon Species above them such as the rainbow dragons, force dragons, and time dragons, against which even Gods would need to be careful.


    As for the strongest giant species, the titan giants, it was rumored that they were the creators of all other giants. There was a huge difference between them and the other giant species... nobody would object if they werebeled as a double Diamond Bloodline Species. That was because the strongest titan giants were powerful enough to y Gods. Fortunately, this world was no longer a world where titan giants reigned supreme, and the Legendary Dragon Species had almost gone entirely extinct as well.


    ording to records in history, in the ancient war of stone giants, the giants had rebelled against the Gods and lost. So, Kasodia, the God of Intelligence in that era, cursed the giants to lose their Intelligence which naturally meant the giants lost their hope to reach the pinnacle of power levels. The few remaining giant species that retained their Intelligence typically hid out in snowy mountains and magma-filled volcanos... but I knew that as the Holy War continued, they wouldn¡¯t remain inactive for much longer.


    ¡°Average hill giant warrior stats: 19 Strength, 10 Dexterity, 20 Constitution, 3 Intelligence (cursed down from 10). Main stat: Strength. Racial talents: Earth Affinity, High-Speed Regeneration, Stoneskin Armor, Earthquake Spell (rare), Curse of Low Intelligence (Negative racial talent).¡±


    From this, it could be seen that if it weren¡¯t for the fact that giants had far too low Intelligence, hill giants, a typical giant species, had racial talents far surpassing mostmon species in Eich today. As for why they had always been considered easy opponents that even a team of two or three Silver-ranked adventurers could deal with, it was mainly due to their overly low intelligence. Not only did they fall too easily for all sorts of traps, they were unable to cultivate in any job sses and could only pitifully rely on their own racial talents to grow.


    If only giants could easily learn all sorts of martial arts, mature giant warriors would be able to easily defeat human Gold-ranked warriors, and Sword Saint giants would easily be able to y dragons. Dragons would no longer be the top species of Eich due to their racial talents.


    By the way, in a certain ¡°historical moment,¡± the fallen titans returned and regained the giants¡¯ lost intelligence, so these muscleheads became incredibly scary. That game expansion was known as ¡°Attack of the Titans...¡± fine then, the gamepany was probably trying to profit off of the poprity of the anime ¡°Attack on Titan.¡± [2]


    Cough, getting back on topic, the wood spirits were also a Silver Species but didn¡¯t have any natural weaknesses like the giants did. Their base stats were ridiculous.


    ¡°Average wood spirit stats: 16 Strength, 14 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, 14 Intelligence. Racial talents: Soul connection to all wood spirits, Evolution by devouring (forbidden to use except when lives are endangered), Unyielding Spirit, Incarnation of Wrath, nt Communication, Forest Traveling (the ability to enter trees), Eternal Rebirth (limited to only being effective within the Forest of Dreams).¡±


    As Amelia¡¯s created species, those seemingly frail bodies possessedbat strength matching that of giants. Their much higher Intelligence, as well as the racial talent of Unyielding Spirit, allowed them to easily enter mage job sses in addition to warrior job sses. Their basic stats were well-bnced, which allowed them to choose their own personal paths of development just like humans could.


    So, even though I now had the invitation to the Cloud Tower that I wanted, I wasn¡¯t in any hurry. We had the right to be aste as we wanted, and making them wait would even benefit our negotiations.


    ¡°No rush. Let¡¯s help the wood spirits improve their foundation.¡±


    The first present that Amelia gave them was the Virtue of Humility, which was the power for them to continuously improve themselves through high-speed learning. They would all be capable of entering any job ss they wished to improve their potential and themselves. Although this wasn¡¯t listed as one of their racial talents, it was actually the most important present of all.


    Although the wood spirits¡¯ Strength and Dexterity values were quite high, and they were talented at quickly mastering martial arts, I soon discovered that they were still unsuitable for meleebat job sses.


    Why? Actually, it was quite easy to understand the reason. Everything was Eren¡¯s fault¡ªer¡ªthe fault of them being only 1.2 meters tall! [3]


    ¡°Um, although it¡¯s a bit awkward to say this, if you¡¯re so short it¡¯ll be disadvantageous for you to wield weapons like other species. If meleebat is absolutely necessary, you can consider relying on the strengthened outer nt shells of yours, instead.¡±


    Indeed, the most important talent necessary for martial arts was a powerful andrge body. The small bodies of wood spirits that were like young girls¡¯ bodies would be a critical weakness for meleebat job sses. When they fought with others, the wood spirit¡¯s sword would be more than one meter away from the enemy¡¯s body when the enemy¡¯s weapon reached the wood spirit¡¯s neck. There was simply toorge of a disadvantage in reach. A beastman Sword Saint¡¯s Whirlwind sh attack would be able to y one hundred of his enemies in one attack, while a giant¡¯s Whirlwind sh attack could create a true windstorm and y one thousand humans in one attack. A tiny wood spirit Sword Saint using the same Whirlwind sh attack would have an effective radius of only 1.5 meters, and it was likely for all her enemies to run away without getting injured and her being unable to catch up due to her short legs.


    However, Amelia seemed to have taken this into consideration. The symbiotic magical nts and strengthened outer shells of theirs were doubtlessly items to help them make up for their weaknesses in meleebat. With the assistance of these items, the wood spirits would still be able to enter meleebat job sses just fine.


    Meanwhile, they were also quite talented at learning magic. The wood spirits entered the mage job ss at an astonishing ratio of one percent. Back in the day, the Mage Country even established bases in all the Elemental nes in order to find more potential mages from the lifeforms in those nes. If they knew that this new wood spirit species that lived so close to them had such astonishing talent in magic, they would probably go crazy.


    However, the most suitable job sses of all for the wood spirits were naturally the job sses rted to nature and the forest. The wood spirits were especially talented at using druids¡¯ nature Divine Arts and elves¡¯ nature magic. It was as if they were born to be druids and nature priests.


    Eaglestorm was absolutely delighted to meet so many with excellent druid potential. He busied himself every day, teaching them about that druid sect of his.


    Soon, however, I was no longer able to take it. I found a chance and caught him, giving him a vicious beating.¡±


    ¡°I already tolerated it when you taught them terrorist philosophies such as ¡®The safety of the forest is more important than humanity because humanity is a pestilence upon this world¡¯ since they¡¯re quite open to hearing this and it¡¯s not entirely wrong. But you even dared to teach them your Wild Bull Druid Alliance¡¯s outrageous philosophy about not wearing clothes? Do you really want to see the wood spirits running about naked that much? You¡¯re not afraid that I¡¯ll really kill you?¡±


    ¡°But those are our teachings! Didn¡¯t you say before that as long as we didn¡¯t break anyws, we had the freedom to believe whatever we wanted? No! Definitely no! You can kill me or beat me, but I refuse to change my beliefs!¡±


    Eaglestorm was crying with his bruised face as he adamantly insisted on his own beliefs.


    ¡°Fine. Freedom? That means it doesn¡¯t matter who goes to teach them. I¡¯ll have Krose teach them, instead. After all, she¡¯s also a windstorm archdruid, equal to you.¡±


    I pretended to leave, but, in reality, my goal was to force Eaglestorm to make some concessions. After all, based on my understanding of Krose, her windstorm archdruid mastery came from the elves¡¯ teachings, and her main knowledge of druidic magic was only at the level of summoning windstorms. She didn¡¯t know anything about the druids¡¯ most powerful nature and transformation Divine Arts at all. Eaglestorm, on the other hand, was a master of both nature and transformation Divine Arts.


    ¡°Don¡¯t, don¡¯t, I¡¯ll change it! How about changing it to ¡®Wood spirits are the children of nature, so nts are part of their physical body. Covering yourselves with leaves and vines are fine and don¡¯t count as wearing clothing?¡¯¡±


    This time, it was my turn to be astonished. This fellow who was so devout on his own beliefs changed them so easily?


    ¡°You¡¯re not afraid of others in the Wild Bull Alliance giving you trouble?¡±


    ¡°No! I¡¯m one of the creators of the Wild Bull Alliance, not to mention I¡¯m now an archdruid as well.¡±


    ¡°...Then why don¡¯t you also change the absolute rule against human druids wearing clothes in your alliance? That will make it much easier for you to recruit new human druids.¡±


    ¡°Never! That¡¯s exactly why I created the ¡®Wild Druid Sulfur Mountain Branch Alliance¡¯! To be openly naked was the only reason I had so many conflicts with all the other archdruids! You can kill me, you can beat me up, but I¡¯ll never wear clothes!¡±


    I didn¡¯t even know what to say anymore. So all the druidic sects¡¯ internal conflicts and arguments between belief systems stemmed from this guy¡¯s personal desires!


    ¡°...It¡¯s fine to do whatever you want when there are only you guys, but if you dare to go around naked in front of the young wood spirits, or if you dare to teach them to go around naked, I¡¯ll¡ªI¡¯ll...¡±


    Gentlemen (perverts) were never-fearing-death type. I thought for quite a while but couldn¡¯t think of anything that Eaglestorm and his alliance¡¯s gentlemen would be afraid of. So, I decided to test something¡ªan experimental punishment of sorts.


    ¡°I¡¯ll force you to transform into an animal and lock you up with Beifeng. Are you afraid yet?¡±


    ¡°Hah, Beifeng has been busy ying with magical nts as ofte. The past two days, I¡¯ve seen him chasing after a three-headed piranha nt. As long as he has a target to focus on, he¡¯ll be quite difficult to distract within this period of time. What are we afraid of?¡±


    I found it even more difficult toe up with anything now. I was even getting a bit curious that even though those wood spirits were so cute, I actually hadn¡¯t received anyints about Beifeng yet. So it turned out that he had developed new interests and ways to y around yet again. I suppose it was impossible for ordinary people like me to understand Beifeng¡¯s world, after all. Wait¡ªEaglestorm actually understood Beifeng so well? I suppose gentlemen (perverts) always understood each other the best; as expected of jail buddies from Sulfur Mountain City who picked up soap together.


    ¡°I feel like you¡¯re somehow looking down on me...¡±


    ¡°...I remember that druids like you are able to transform into trees as well. As long as you imitate and have a good enough rtionship with something living, druids are capable of transforming into it. I recall that recently, you¡¯ve been interacting plenty with the piranha nts yourself...¡±


    ¡°Please, no! I¡¯ll obey yourmands!¡±


    Fine then, the archdruid finally surrendered. I was still hesitating about whether or not I should just toss Beifeng out to feed the undead in order to prevent his negative influence upon the young wood spirits when Beifeng gave me a nice, expected surprise.


    Notes:


    [1] ED/N: This was mentioned in Chapter 12.


    [2] ED/N: A Japanese manga series. Fun fact: The manga has 71 million copies in print, making it one of the best-selling manga series. (Source: Anime News Network)


    [3] ED/N: Eren Yeager is the protagonist of the Attack on Titan manga series. There could possibly be some sort of joke over here, but since neither Imperfectluck nor I have watched Attack on Titan, we aren¡¯t sure.

 Chapter 293

    Chapter 293: Newly-born Silver Species (Part 2 of 2)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The Great Stone Sculptor Ainslo and the others want to live here?¡±


    This was rather surprising to hear, but it seemed that the environment and living conditions here fulfilled their requirements. Out of the blue, the Earth Elemental Lords that hade with Beifeng had made a request to live here in the Forest of Dreams.


    They were six existences at the Saint rank and above¡ªespecially Ainslo, who possessed the power to fight for the mantle of the next Earth Elemental God. She was one of the strongest Earth Elemental Lords in existence, so of course I wanted to know why these six Earth Elemental Lords wanted to live here. But first... I needed to stop myself fromughing.


    ¡°Are you intending to live here as well? That¡¯ll be wonderful... I mean I¡¯ll miss you so much.¡±


    Yes, that was what I was so happy about. After all, the six Earth Elemental Lords were currently in the dracon¡¯s Soul World. If they all stayed behind here in the Forest of Dreams, wouldn¡¯t that mean that this bastard would need to remain behind as well? Although I felt apologetic towards the inhabitants here, I didn¡¯t really care so much since Beifeng wasn¡¯t interested in the wood spirits.


    ¡°No, Milord. Only my sister and five brothers are going to stay here. I can¡¯t be without you (because I¡¯ll always meet wondrously strange species when I¡¯m with you), so I¡¯ll continue following and serve you (in order to seek new food), Milord. Ah! Please don¡¯t stomp on me!¡±


    He even tried to intentionally hug me as he said so, and then...


    ¡°Did you really think I didn¡¯t understand what you meant? That¡¯s what you get for making me so disgusted with you!¡±


    After beating him up in order to vent, I finally moved on to the main topic.


    It turned out that the Earth Elemental Lords felt this environment to be quite suitable for them to live in even without Beifeng¡¯s Soul World¡¯s support, and it was far morefortablepared to his tiny Soul World as well. They hoped to be able to sign and be Contract Warriors and fight for Justice Points in order to obtain the right to live here.


    Based on the magical system of this world, earth, water, fire, and wind¡ªthe four major elements¡ªwere the foundation of everything. Just as how ice magic was a branch of water magic, nature magic, which controlled nts, was, of course, a branch of earth magic.


    This small dimension filled with nature magic would naturally be beneficial to the Earth Elemental Lords.


    From a certain standpoint, being able to strengthen the Forest of Dreams¡¯ defenses was a good thing. Not to mention that only by making it possible for the earth to move together with the trees would the Forest of Dreams truly be able to truly be a moving, living forest. If the Earth Elemental Lords helped out, I would get help in realizing some of my ns for the Forest of Dreams. The forest¡¯s defenses would be improved several fold as well.


    However, the problem was...


    ¡°Are they reliable? Beifeng, tell me the blunt truth. Do you trust them?¡±


    ¡°Captain Rnd, although they¡¯re my sworn brothers and sister, and that Ainslo indeed treats me quite well, I truly don¡¯t trust them at all. Since they were willing to rebel against Emordilorcan, it¡¯s only normal for them to rebel against uster on as well. Not to mention, Ainslo is quite ambitious; she really desires to be the new Earth Elemental God.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Beifeng Herault who had been with me since Sulfur Mountain City was actually one of my closest and most trusted retainers. When I heard him say this, I actually rxed somewhat. At least Beifeng knew the situation as well and was even willing to tell me directly, which meant Beifeng could still be considered trustworthy.


    I long since knew that those Earth Elemental Lords weren¡¯t worthy of my trust. After all, I had been the main culprit behind the Earth Elemental Lords¡¯ suffering in the first ce, having destroyed the Earth Elemental Throne so that no new Earth Elemental God could be born for the next several hundred years¡ªat least. From a certain standpoint, it could even be said that Ainslo was forced to leave her home because of me. Even I wouldn¡¯t believe it if they said they had no grudges against me, but she and the others hadn¡¯t mentioned anything and even became super obedient, which made me all the more vignt against them.


    Although they weren¡¯t reliable or trustworthy, their powers would be far too useful for this forest. If the Earth Elemental Lords truly helped out, they would massively speed up my ns for fortifying the defenses here.


    ording to my expectations, the wood spirits didn¡¯t even need to live on the surface. The surface could be left to the magical nts and the soon-to-arrive visitors. They would be the first line of defense against an undead invasion, and the wood spirits that had the talent of nt Communication would basically be able to live on top of the divine trees (that was what the wood spirits called these towering trees that almost reached the clouds) and enjoy the fun of ¡°I can hit you but you can¡¯t hit me.¡±


    Actually, the development for this had already begun. There were various rope bridges tied across the divine trees, and in order to increase the speed at which they could ascend and descend such great heights, rope elevators had been installed in the hollow centers of the divine trees. Every day, countless wood spirits were choosing their new homes and thinking of ideas on how to decorate them in a camouged fashion so that nobody could see their homes from the ground.


    By the time they were finished, the wood spirits would no longer need to appear on the surface. It could be said that if the wood spirits didn¡¯t wish to see someone, that person could walk through this entire forest without seeing a single wood spirit.


    But just this alone wasn¡¯t enough. The wood spirits still needed a safe hideout and home, and it would be best if they also had a fixed marketce for trading with other species as well. However, it wouldn¡¯t be safe to ce these core structures on the wide-open treetops. After all, if there were any aerial attacks, the wood spirits may be able to escape into the trees, but the structures would be unable to move.


    ¡°Since the skies are no good, let¡¯s go underground.¡±


    Emordilorcan¡¯s undergroundbyrinths in Antuen and the Earth Elemental ne had given me a deep impression. I wanted an undergroundbyrinth that spread throughout under the entire forest, creating an entire underground world that only the wood spirits knew how to traverse. If this really seeded, it would mean that anyone who managed to conquer this forest still wouldn¡¯t be able to touch the wood spirits.


    Although I had my ns set for this already, and magical nts were quite skilled at digging, it would obviously take many years toplete. It would also cost an astronomical amount of resources andbor. And even if it waspleted, it probably wouldn¡¯tpare to the Earth Elemental Lords¡¯ underground pces as they were all digging specialists. After all, Emordilorcan took only one or two short months at Antuen to create such arge-scale undergroundbyrinth that was so solid and defensible. We wouldn¡¯t be able to achieve this level of digging skill even if we had ten years.


    However, Beifeng¡¯s six Earth Elemental Lord brothers (and one sister) were all at the Saint rank, and if they started digging together, they would probably far surpass Emordilorcan who wasn¡¯t even in his best condition at the time. I even impulsively wanted to reconsider my overly conservative n and make a 999-floor gigantic undergroundbyrinth to make any possible invaders suffer to death. I would make it obnoxious to the point where the exit was right in front of someone with just a wall in between, but it would require two weeks to reach. Despite the fact that it was only 999 floors, I would write on the entrance, ¡°Enter the 1000 floorbyrinth if you dare.¡±


    That wasn¡¯t all. I nned on making other obnoxiousbyrinth obstacles such as uphill paths that made one notice that they had identally returned to the first floor, with a sign saying ¡°Hero, please try again.¡± Or, the invader would finally make it all the way through the final floor after following all the clues but then would find out that an item near the first floor¡¯s entrance was required in order to truly reach the end. (Excerpt from Archmage Victor¡¯s lecture, more than one thousand years in the future: By the way, Rnd Mist really aplished his dream. This endlessbyrinth filled with disgusting traps and terrible psychological tricks became the most hated adventuring grounds of all. It was nicknamed: ¡°The Labyrinth That Only a Moron Would Enter.¡± As the creator of such abyrinth, Rnd Mist¡¯s name was cursed by countless people.)


    Since I was currently so passionate about creating a terrifyingbyrinth, Ainslo and the other Earth Elemental Lords¡¯ offer to stay here was a huge boon. However, such a secret undertaking wasn¡¯t suitable for untrustworthy outsiders to handle for us, nor was there a rush toplete this.


    ¡°Sure, we ept. There¡¯s no reason not to ept.¡±


    I agreed immediately, but I was actually thinking about how to test the Earth Elemental Lords¡¯ sincerity. If they were truly sincere about helping us, that would be the best-case scenario. If they had other things in mind, then this was also a perfect opportunity to see what they were plotting and deal with that.


    ¡°How¡¯s the progress on the airships?¡±


    ¡°The Ivy League¡¯spletion is slightly over fifty percent. The Mizar¡¯s modifications haven¡¯t been going smoothly and will probably take longer than expected.¡±


    As I walked in the forest and looked at the humongous trees around me, it gave me the mistaken impression that I had be tiny. Meanwhile, in the area of the forest by the sea, docks were already beginning to be constructed.


    All thend routes to the Forest of Dreams were currently blocked by the undead. If the wood spirits wanted to contact the outside world, it was only natural for them to turn to water and air routes¡ªships would be absolutely necessary.


    Amelia quite obviously didn¡¯t know how to manufacture airships, which naturally meant that the wood spirits didn¡¯t know, either. It was up to me to give them the technology and knowledge to create airships. Of course, they didn¡¯t have the necessary materials or smiths for airships, but, just as how I had used undead materials to substitute for certain materials, they were capable of using nt materials to do the same. It was just that the wood spirits¡¯ construction methods would remain iprehensible to outsiders.


    I named their first airship the ¡°Ivy League,¡± and it was equal in strength to any one of my seven airships of the Big Dipper Squadron (e.g. Mizar). The Ivy League was three hundred meters long, and if you stood the airship up vertically, you would discover that it was actually just a gigantic hollowed-out tree. The outer bark¡¯s hardness, however, far surpassed that of ordinary steel.


    Right now, the Ivy League was undergoing detailed modifications. Therge tree leaves were being transformed into a wind sail and mast, while roots tied everything together as the support. With its outer appearance making it appear just like an ancient tree, it was a rather wood spirit-like airship. Therge majority of its attacking mechanisms were hidden under the tree bark.


    After all, this was, indeed, a tree¡ªa living tree, a divine tree that had just been uprooted. It was a ¡°Skyscraper Pine Tree.¡± (named by me).


    Yes, this was their unimaginable technology¡ªall their airships only needed to be nted. This tremendous pine tree I called the ¡°Skyscraper Pine Tree¡± was the wood spirits¡¯ favorite type of tree to live in. This particr tree had been hollowed out; through special methods, it had been created by the Forest of Dreams itself.


    Of course, apart from the Ivy League, which would be the first ship in the wood spirits¡¯ airship fleet, there were also divine tree candidates such as the ¡°Original Bamboo¡± and ¡°Grand Peach Tree¡± and so on... yep, those strange names were all created by me, weren¡¯t they great?


    This was a far too convenient method to create airships. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that these unimaginablyrge trees would begin withering after leaving the Forest of Dreams for too long and would eventually die, making it impossible to take them on long distance trips, I would have immediately created several hundreds of these divine tree airships.


    ¡°The Ivy League will die if it doesn¡¯t return to the Forest of Dreams in six months, and it will start weakening if it doesn¡¯t return in three. One can¡¯t get quality goods for a cheap price after all. In that case, the wood spirits¡¯ air fleet will only be able to be used in this nearby area. Still, it¡¯ll make an excellent airship fleet for defensive battles at least.¡±


    Meanwhile, the Mizar was also undergoing modifications at the under-construction docks. We obtained plenty of hydra hide from the seven-headed water dragon (hydra) from the earlier fight with the Queen of Storms, and its heart had already be the Mizar¡¯s backup engine. Since the Mizar was designed in the exact same way as the Borealis, it waspatible with the same technologies for powering up. Now that the Mizar had put on ayer of hydra skin and hydra body parts, it had be a lot more simr to the Borealis.


    At the moment, I had just finished my future blueprint for the Forest of Dreams. I temporarily divided the forest into six districts.


    The wood spirits¡¯ residential area would be amongst the tallest trees of the forest, their divine trees. This district would be intricately connected by endless rope and wooden bridges and would be where the wood spirits primarily resided. It would likely be a forbidden zone for other species.


    The docks district would be where endless amounts of airships and naval ships parked. There would also be the business district, located not far away from the docks, which would be where outside species¡¯ merchants gathered. There was also the divine district, where all the Gods¡¯ churches would be wee, even if there was only a lonely Church of Law¡¯s stone court and church right now. Of course, this would also be the service district for all Holy War-rted issues.


    The central district would be for the future adventurers and Forest of Dreams¡¯ residents. Although this was currently nothing but emptynd, in the future it would likely be the most popted andrgest district of all; various basic necessities stores, entertainment options, and public facilities would be set up here.


    The sixth and final district was the undergroundbyrinth that was still a mere blueprint in my mind, but it would be exclusively for the wood spirits.


    ¡°When the Ivy League is ready, we¡¯re going to head out!¡±


    While I was patiently waiting, I received an unexpected visitor: an envoy from the Tark Republic undead. Their intent? To hold talks with me!

 Chapter 294

    Chapter 294: Missed Target


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    I received the Tark Republic¡¯s undead envoy group in an empty clearing outside the Forest of Dreams. In many cases, diplomatic envoy groups were no different from spies scouting out information. Even if many things weren¡¯t considered top secret, I still didn¡¯t want to show them to the Tark Republic.


    ¡°...Halu the Twelfth? What a strange name.¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty, we possess our very own naming system. Perhaps other species consider our names strange, but to us, they represent our entire lives.¡±


    The main envoy was a vampire marquis. Tall, white, and handsome, he was d in ancient ck ceremonial attire and held a ck staff in his hands. He slowly yet clearly articted each sentence in a logical manner, although his speech was somewhat archaic with an ancient ent. Despite his young appearance, he resembled an old-fashioned aristocrat.


    As for him calling me ¡°Your Majesty,¡± that was without any formality at all. It was just the typical way the undead respected SemiGod undead... it would seem that they had long since known the fact that I was Yongye. Actually, I had already resolved myself to this as some things were impossible to conceal from everyone. If I was an Undead Emperor exiled from the mortal ne, I would have been really interested in the only new Undead Emperor to arise in this recent generation, thinking of every method I could to obtain all possible information on him.


    Although he was quite deep in enemy territory and surrounded on all sides, the envoy, Halu the Twelfth, was quite gracious and seemed to be an experienced diplomat. With warm passion in his seriousness, his behavior revealed an elegance that only time and umted experience could have given him. In fact, there was nothing wrong with his manners, and perhaps we were the ones being a little rude, as we didn¡¯t even invite him inside the forest and had casually found him a small wooden stool for him to sit on.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get to the point. What are you here for? I don¡¯t have the time to be ying word games with you.¡±


    In spite of my bluntness, this vampire marquis undead¡ªwho was, at the minimum, at the Saint rank¡ªmaintained his smile as he shook his head slightly.


    ¡°Of course, we would not waste Your Majesty¡¯s time with trifling matters. My main purpose on this very day, apart from presenting you the greetings from the other Undead Emperors, was, in sooth, a small matter that I would like to ask Lady Gria ...¡±


    Not me, but Gria? I had pretty much guessed at what they wanted. And the next moment when Halu stated his goal, my prediction was proven correct.


    ¡°You want to ally with the Xiluo Empire?¡±


    Since the Xiluo Empire was an undead country like the Tark Republic, in a way they were the only possible ally for the Tark Republic in the entire world.


    Also, don¡¯t judge Gria by how unreliable she seemed when she was with me. As the former Fourth Senator, in a situation where the First and Second Senators had been deposed and the Third Senator Harloys was ¡°missing,¡± Gria was indeed the number-one ranked individual under Omar. Even Lionheart, the current Xiluo Empire¡¯s prime minister, would have to respect her opinions on every matter.


    When I turned around to look at Gria who was standing beside me, she cast a casual nce in my direction before faintly lowering her head. She remained behind me, and this was an obvious indication of her giving me the right to answer for her.


    ¡°It¡¯s even better to be able to discuss this personally with you.¡± Halu¡¯s elegant smile remained unflustered upon seeing this. Not even a hint of surprise showed upon his face, as if he had long since guessed at this oue.


    Well, his tricks didn¡¯t need to be stated out loud. In a way, the Xiluo Empire had already be one of the most important parts of the future Mist Alliance, and any perceptive individual would be able to figure out who really was behind the Mist Alliance.


    But, from a certain standpoint, this was also a standard diplomatic tactic, to test whether the Xiluo Empire was still under Emperor Yongye¡¯s control. In front of such a sly veteran diplomat, Gria had instantly revealed the truth that I was still in charge as she was used to only thinking aboutbat matters.


    ¡°Alliance? Do you really think it¡¯s possible?¡±


    It had been quite difficult for me to get the other Nortnds countries to begin epting the Xiluo Empire. However, the Tark Republic, which was invading the mortal ne, was basically the enemy of every single country in Eich. The moment the Xiluo Empire allied with the Tark Republic, Xiluo would likely be viewed as the same as the Tark Republic, which would waste all of my previous efforts.


    ¡°As ancient undead who haven¡¯t been back to their homnd for a long while, we find it quite fortunate that we have been able to see another undead country in our original home of the mortal ne. We¡¯re even more delighted to see that the Xiluo Empire¡¯s citizens have achieved a peaceful rtionship with the living. We understand that your country hasn¡¯t had it easy in a world filled with enemies, but, at the very least, allow us to express our friendliness to nt a seed of opportunity for the future.¡±


    His words were rather roundabout and slightly difficult to understand, but to express it in an easier manner, he was basically saying ¡°Even if we can¡¯t be official allies now due to the circumstances, we¡¯re simply here to express our friendship, and we just want to improve our rtionship.¡±


    It would seem that Halu was indeed an expert diplomat. From the very start, he didn¡¯t say anything useless like, ¡°We promise to not attack the wood spirits,¡± or something as foolish like, ¡°We¡¯ll pretend that Emperor Aso¡¯s death didn¡¯t happen.¡± Instead, he had jumped directly to the main topic.


    His directness and sincerity had actually given me a good first impression. After all, due to the unique and unavoidable geography of this region, the conflict between wood spirits and the undead was practically unavoidable. Not to mention, Emperor Aso¡¯s death would definitely be no small ignorable matter for the Tark Republic, and it would only be natural to me us for it.


    Since the conflict between both sides was unavoidable, with battle the only result in the future, saying something so obviously fake like, ¡°We won¡¯t have any conflicts anymore,¡± would be nothing more than an insult to both sides¡¯ intelligence. Unfortunately, many of this generation¡¯s diplomats liked to pretend to be fancy with their words, saying only pretty words they felt their targets wanted to hear. Not only would they be unable to fool their targets, they would be all the more despised.


    But, if it was only to express their friendliness, there would have been no need for this vampire marquis to personallye here. I didn¡¯t pry and merely sat there quietly, sipping my tea and waiting for him to speak up.


    Finally, Halu was unable to wait any longer, and his tone contained disgust and absolute loathing as he spoke again.


    ¡°...Gricasio¡ªas long as we obtain his head, the Tark Republic is willing to pay arge price. We¡¯re even willing to give up on this forest and the entire surrounding area.¡±


    Alright then, I should have already guessed it. This was the critical point that Halu was here for.


    I could understand the Tark Republic¡¯s anger. Emperor Aso¡¯s choice to sacrifice himself for the sake of the Tark Republic when facing a powerful enemy would be considered a warrior¡¯s honor. Insulting the powerful enemy would be the same as insulting Aso himself so Halu and the Tark Republic were still able to respect me even if we were enemies. However, there was one type of individual that would never be forgiven¡ªtraitors!


    Gricasio had already received generous gifts of knowledge from all the Undead Emperors which helped him get much closer to reaching SemiGod rank, but this meant that Gricasio had to help the Undead Emperors in turn. Not only that, the Undead Emperors hadn¡¯t ced many restrictions on him, mostly due to their trust in his power.


    Undead were undead because of their stubbornness, and top-level undead all had their own pride. Their power levels acted as the best name cards and self-introductions; the stubborn top-level undead all had their own pride and self-respect. SemiGod undead might be insane, foolish, and deceitful, but it was impossible for a top-level undead to not have their pride and basic morals. From a certain standpoint, this was considered asmon sense by all undead.


    However, they just happened to meet an exception... Perhaps Gricasio¡¯s stubbornness that was keeping him alive was his desire to never die. As long as he could continue living, he was willing to do anything, no matter how shameless.


    Even though Halu¡¯s request sounded quite reasonable, I didn¡¯t even consider it, shaking my head directly in refusal. I didn¡¯t even need to consider this matter.


    Halu nodded. He seemed to have expected this answer.


    ¡°We can understand your desire to protect him. Please inform Gricasio that we consider him our mortal enemy, and the day he leaves this forest is the day of his death.¡±


    Halu¡¯s meaning was quite obvious. While it wasn¡¯t at the extent of dering all-out war against us, the moment Gricasio appeared, there would be a major attack targeting him. And, in order to deal with a Myth-ranked Immemorial Bone Dragon like Gricasio, the Tark Republic undead had likely prepared themselves for paying a huge price.


    ¡°You won¡¯t be able to achieve your desire here.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, Your Majesty should not underestimate our determination to take revenge for Emperor Aso¡ª¡±


    However, I rudely interrupted him halfway through his little speech. After all, no matter what he said or how movingly they swore revenge, it was all meaningless.


    ¡°Your deration to kill him for certain has already failed. It¡¯s not that I want to protect him, it¡¯s because he¡¯s not even in the Forest of Dreams!¡±


    Alright then, Halu¡¯s handsome face instantly distorted upon hearing this. I felt that it was something quite new, seeing an undead astonished to the point where his chin bone fell off.


    ¡°How is that possible? He¡¯s not under your protection? Where could he even go!?¡±


    ¡°No, no, you see, on that day he directly returned to Xiluo and even left a note for me. His note said, ¡®Your Majesty, I¡¯m suddenly having some stomach problems so please allow me to first return to the Xiluo Empire to await your good news.¡¯ Hah! As if an undead would actually have a stomachache? Halu the Twelfth, I, too, want to kill off that sly old fox even more than you guys do. As long as you can catch him, feel free to do whatever you like with him without caring about me.¡±


    How would a sly old fox like Gricasio possibly not know that the Tark Republic wouldn¡¯t forgive him? And how could he possibly leave the matter of his own safety up to me? On the same day Aso had sacrificed himself, Gricasio had unhesitatingly left that note for me and left. In order to avoid being caught, a Myth-ranked Undead Lord Bone Dragon like him actually secretly swam underwater in the middle of the night in order to escape. It was incredibly shameless to the point of having no limits whatsoever.


    As for whether or not he really returned to the Xiluo Empire? I figured that it was highly likely he had returned. After all, it was probably the safest ce for him. A powerful faction would be the most beneficial for him, and he indeed counted as being part of my faction now. Of course, just like how things were in the past, he was one of my most untrustworthy subordinates¡ªaplete summer soldier and sunshine patriot, [1] a perfect example of ¡°when the going gets tough, the tough get going.¡± [2] 1


    ¡°So, he escaped long ago, and everything you just said was meaningless.¡±


    Alright then. At least it was fun to see Halu¡¯s ugly expression as he left. Although I didn¡¯t really know what to think of this entire diplomatic mission, in a way, now that the Tark Republic diplomatic envoy had left, that set the tone for the rtionship between us.


    At the very least, we would definitely remain enemies with the Tark Republic for quite some time toe.


    After I watched Halu the Twelfth vanish from my sight, I received an unexpected group of visitors.


    ¡°They want to make use of our strength to protect them?¡±


    The Veji Merchant Association¡¯s group was still in Nightrain City. Due to our influence as well as the change in the overall situation, the Nightrain City dragon knights didn¡¯t give them a hard time. Still, staying in an enemy country like this was an ufortable situation, which was why they asked to see if they could leave together with us through the dragon knights.


    I hesitated for only a moment before I agreed. After all, this was nothing to us, and, perhaps, the Veji Merchant Association and those two mercenary groups woulde in useful in the future. Besides, the work here at the Forest of Dreams was falling into ce; it was almost at the point where I wasn¡¯t needed here anymore. It was about time for me to leave.


    Notes:


    [1] ED/N: The terms ¡°summer soldier and sunshine patriot¡± were used in ¡°The American Crisis,¡± a series of articles/pamphlets written by Thomas Paine during the uncertain times of the American revolution (winter 1776). They refer to individuals who im to fight against tyranny on the side of freedom, yet are unable to stick it out when the going gets tough or unfavorable. (Source: Urban Dictionary)


    [2] ED/N: The original meaning of this saying is inspirational: ¡°When the situation bes difficult the strong will work harder to meet the challenge. They be determined and are willing to fight.¡± Often times it is used sarcastically, as it is used here, meaning ¡°when the going gets tough¡± (when the situation bes difficult), ¡°the tough get going¡± (the ¡®tough¡¯ people ¡®get going,¡¯ i.e. they flee).

 Chapter 295

    Chapter 295: Unfamiliar Old Acquaintance


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The Bardi Empire wouldn¡¯t deserve to be called a mega-empire if they knew nothing about the fact that a major conflict had erupted within their own borders.


    Everything that had happened at Port Victoria had already been learned by the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital city, Str, through various information channels. After being incited by certain parties, even themoners were discussing this sudden battle out on the streets¡ªit wasn¡¯t limited to the nobles.


    The current hottest topic was about how the Undead nes had been connected to Port Victoria and that the undead armies had arrived. The topic became even hotter when one of the elders of the House of Nobles, in utter disbelief, demanded evidence from the Dragon Knight Archduke Halent. This had enraged Halent to the point where he bloodied that noble¡¯s mouth with a powerful before stuffing a memory crystal with the battle¡¯s recordings into that very noble¡¯s mouth.


    Alright then. Although Halent would have to pay a price¡ªmost likely the emperor¡¯s rage and house arrest for half a year¡ªthat unfortunate noble marquis who had been pitifully beaten up was even arrogant enough to openly swear revenge upon Halent. And so, that noble¡¯s luxurious mansion was set on fire by a passing dragon... Yep, we all knew what that was really about.


    ¡°Look, it¡¯s those undead!¡±


    Halent¡¯s memory crystal, which contained vivid scene of endless amounts of undead pouring in, was viewed time and again by all the highest-level members of the Bardi Empire. Descriptions of what was in it spread everywhere. The prevailing attitude in the Bardi Empire began changing as well, and the high-level undead in the royal capital started having a difficult time.


    The biggest trouble for the undead in the capital was due to the series of events set in motion by Emperor Aso¡¯s death.


    In order to better control the situation, most of the high-level undead in the capital were Aso¡¯s direct subordinates who had signed soul contracts where they would die together with their master. When Emperor Aso died, the undead that suddenly died with him astonished the fortunate survivors and made them tremble in fear. After all, in their minds, Undead Emperors were just like True Gods; they were considered undying, immortal existences. To them, it was as if the very sky had fallen.


    Since the Desecration ne was the first Undead ne to have connected to the mortal ne, most of the undead that had arrived were from it. It was as if a hugepany¡¯s CEO had died out of the blue along with many of the higher-ups. The panicking of the mid-level and lower-level employees as a result was only natural.


    At this critical moment, the living¡¯s sudden increase in hostility towards the undead made the undead feel all the more lost for what to do. They became extra cautious in every little action they took as they were afraid of further increasing the enmity towards them.


    Meanwhile, the most iprehensible of all was what the master of this country, Orloss the 13th, was thinking.


    While he angrily condemned Halent¡¯s ridiculous actions and didn¡¯t ept Halent¡¯s request to meet him on the surface, he didn¡¯t even give Halent any punishment apart from verbal denunciation. Orloss kept coaxing the undead with titudes but didn¡¯t take any actual actions to control the rumors spreading around. His attitude was forceful as always yet his actions were self-contradictory.


    While the capital was busy with the chaos of the storm of rumors, Orloss would either shut himself in like a hermit or suddenly desire to go out for some fun and go hunting. His retainers didn¡¯t understand just what their venerated emperor was thinking at all.


    Currently, a sudden rainstorm ambushed Orloss¡¯s procession where a battle suddenly began and ended in just an instant.


    ¡°Speak! Who sent you here to assassinate His Majesty Emperor Orloss? The 26th Prince? The 8th Prince?¡±


    The assassin¡¯s limbs had been sliced off, and the amount of blood on the ground had far surpassed the lethal amount. He was likely to die at any moment. However, the emperor¡¯s personal guard continued his interrogation without skipping a beat.


    ¡°...It was the 8th Prince!! Don¡¯t kill me, don¡¯t kill me! I¡¯ve already told you who it was, please help me stop the bleeding!¡±


    Since the guard received an answer, he ignored the assassin¡¯s pleas for help and directly reported it to Emperor Orloss, while also inquiring if they should keep this only assassin that survived out of the group that had ambushed them alive. However, Orloss slowly shook his head, telling his guard to simply execute the assassin.


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to ask more? Maybe the assassin wasn¡¯t telling the truth.¡±


    In Orloss¡¯s carriage was Halent who should have been at his home, having been ¡°refused¡± a meeting with the emperor.


    There was one other person riding in Orloss¡¯s carriage. The third and final person was a ck-robed mage who always followed Emperor Orloss wherever he went. Yet, at the moment, this mage seemed to be napping.


    Halent wasn¡¯t at all surprised by the surprise invitation and the ambush attempt on Orloss. After all, if Orloss the 13th didn¡¯t have some actual power backing him up, this ¡°Fox Scorpion Emperor¡± would have long been assassinated.


    ¡°It¡¯s meaningless. I meet with assassination attempts once or twice every week. Those who dare to try assassinating me¡ªno¡ªI should say that those whoe to their deaths here are those who don¡¯t care about their lives. Since the assassin said that Little 8th was behind this, that means that apart from Little 8th, anyone else could be responsible. No, actually, from the recent reports I¡¯ve been receiving, they¡¯ve all made plenty of progress and have learned how to hide the truth within falsehood and make the truth seem like a lie, so maybe Little 8th isn¡¯t so innocent after all. Yep, judging from how Little 8th¡¯s personality has be more and more extreme as ofte, there¡¯s over a seventy percent chance that his assassin was just acting there in order to pin the me on one of his brothers. Ha! Little 8th¡¯s be a lot smarter recently.¡±


    Even though he was clearly talking about something as unfortunate as the fact that his adopted princes wanted to kill him, the old emperor was smiling in such a genial fashion. He even sounded proud of the princes. It was as if he was an elder praising his children for being capable and filial.


    From a certain standpoint, he was indeed quite proud. The fact that his twentyish adopted princes kept plotting and scheming against each other was actually something that this seemingly kind old man personally put them up to. It appeared that he was intending on using such a method to choose his sessor.


    Halent didn¡¯t reply to this as he didn¡¯t intend to care about anything in the royal pce, and nor did he have any interest. He was simply interested in why the emperor suddenly invited him over in secret, but whenever he mentioned what was currently happening with the undead in the west part of the Bardi Empire, the old emperor would only mysteriously smile and say, ¡°You¡¯ll find out soon in a bit.¡±


    Actually, due to certain reasons, Emperor Orloss was in quite an excellent mood these days. He sunk into nostalgia as he looked at the rain outside his carriage window.


    About thirty years ago, on a rainy night just like today¡¯s, there was also yet another internal struggle within the royal pce that had left him seriously injured, on the verge of death. At that time, he managed to meet Aso and told Aso about his unwillingness to die, which managed to change his fate.


    From that day onwards, the Orloss who wasn¡¯t so respected and feared in the past possessed the secret power he received from the shadows as he gradually reached the peak of imperial authority. By today, his achievements and authority had far surpassed any Bardi Emperor in history. However, only he himself knew that he had to pay a price for that assistance he received in the past. And this debtor wouldn¡¯t be easy to deal with.


    Of course, how would an ambitious and scheming individual like Orloss, who was capable of making his own adopted sons plot against and kill each other to determine the strongest, possibly stand for being controlled by someone else? Orloss always had his own ns and powerful weapons avable to him, unbeknownst to all.


    Even with his numerous and careful preparations, he hadn¡¯t put any of them to use yet when the situation majorly changed. The undead¡¯s greatest miscalction was that they didn¡¯t expect the stubborn Aso to sacrifice himself. The hold that Aso had over Orloss when Aso intentionally saved Orloss¡¯s life naturally disappeared together with Aso¡¯s death.


    The undead¡¯s original strategy was to control the old emperor and gradually insert the high-level undead into the various social sses of the Bardi Empire to slowly take over the country from the inside. But now that Aso was dead, and all six Undead nes¡¯ Dimensional Doors had been opened wide¡ª


    ¡°Ah, the situation has bepletely chaotic.¡±


    Nobody responded to Orloss¡¯s sentiment. Indeed, with the changes in the situation, some people went from chess pieces to bing chess yers, while some believed themselves to be chess yers when they were nothing but sacrificial chess pieces. With all the chain reactions from Aso¡¯s death, it was very likely that nobody knew what would happen from now on.


    ¡°Your Majesty, about Port Victoria...¡±


    ¡°My dear Halent, there¡¯s no need to be hasty. When we arrive at a certain ce, I¡¯ll introduce you to a certain someone. After you talk with her, you¡¯ll probably have a fresh outlook on many things.¡±


    The emperor retained his smile as he spoke to Halent. Meanwhile, the horse-drawn carriage entered a forest, and everything in the carriage fell silent as the carriage then proceeded into a deep canyon.


    Suddenly, a strange sensation of dizziness came over Halent. He paused in surprise for a moment, but then came to the realization that he had just experienced a dimensional teleportation.


    ¡°Little Orloss, there seems to be a guest today?¡±


    Orloss heaved a sigh of relief when he heard this voice. He even muttered to himself, ¡°Ah, I¡¯m quite lucky today. It¡¯s the easiest one to talk to this time,¡± before he responded.


    ¡°Yes, he¡¯s Aboyue¡¯s grandson and Mina¡¯s great-grandson. You¡¯ve probably seen him before as well. There¡¯s a bit of a change in the situation now, so I believe that it¡¯s time for him to meet you.¡±


    ¡°A change in the situation? Are you referring to Aso¡¯s death or the sessful opening of all six Dimensional Doors for the Undead nes? Even in this location, I¡¯m quite clear about what happened.¡±


    ¡°Both, but not only that.¡±


    The darkness around the carriage subsided, and Halent inhaled deeply when he finally saw just who was speaking. There were stone walls all around, and this seemed to be an underground location. Meanwhile, the soft-sounding female voice belonged to a silver dragon, whose head was asrge as a small mountain.


    ¡°Such pure draconic might? Is this an Ancient Dragon? An Immemorial Dragon? Or something even more ridiculous, a survivor from the times of fairy tales and legends?¡±


    Dragons especially viewed both rank and power level as important. Halent was pressured to the point of being unable to even move in front of this dragon that was evidently far, far stronger than he was.


    ¡°Lady Cherry, even if you¡¯re able to sense the incidents that happened in the mortal ne outside, you¡¯ll never guess who the person behind all of it was.¡±


    However, that gigantic dragon seemed to half smile, as if she was an adult who was dealing with a naughty child ying a joke on her.


    ¡°Who else could it be apart from Rnd? That special letter I had sent him had been activated, so how could I possibly not know?¡±


    The silver dragon head seemed to have abnormally human-like behaviors as it revealed a nostalgic expression, seeming to reminisce about something in the past. Then, it revealed a yful expression.


    ¡°Your timing was perfect. The other two heads had a huge uproar over hearing about Rnd, but they are now asleep.¡±


    ¡°Haha, that¡¯s wonderful. Right, Halent met him recently as well. Lady Cherry can ask Halent about him.¡±


    The silver dragon sent Halent a friendly look, and he noticed that the draconic might around him had dissipated. However, before he could even speak up, an astonishingly loud angry roar came from behind him.


    ¡°Rnd!! Where is Rnd? Don¡¯t you dare move! Rnd, let me kill you!¡±


    Rnd¡¯s name seemed to have awakened a certain existence which let out a deafening roar. An extremely corrosive green dragon breath melted the entire stone wall.


    *Boom!*


    A colossal dark shadow crashed into the stone wall, and the entire cave shook with the strength of an earthquake that sent endless amounts of small stone shards falling down from the ceiling.


    While the humans covered their heads and ran, that gigantic ck dragon head suddenly reached out searched around with its huge eyes but didn¡¯t find that man who she hated so much, so she retreated and went back to sleep with loud snores.


    Only now was Halent able topletely see the true form of the huge dragon before him.


    It was an exquisitely beautiful beast, an existence with power that far surpassed any regr Immemorial Dragon.


    ¡°A three-headed dragon! And they¡¯re actually three different species, silver dragon, ck dragon, and sapphire dragon? A dragon of good, evil, and neutral are allbined in one body? Dear Dragon Gods! How is this possible!? This is desecration! This is the evilest curse!¡±


    ******


    Arlodant, the Mage Country, wasn¡¯t particrlyrge in size for a mega-empire. Most of its poption was concentrated in the capital of magic, Arlo. But, as a mega-empire level country, the Mage Country¡¯s size still exceeded East Mist¡¯s by several tens of times.


    Alright then, I¡¯ll admit it. It was mostly because East Mist was simply too small. After all, the way most humans saw it was that the entire Nortnds were an unimportant remote location, and few paid attention to it. Some were only hearing about the Nortnds¡¯ war with the beastmen just recently.


    ¡°I never thought that I¡¯d be returning here. It seems like things haven¡¯t changed much.¡±


    Arlo¡¯s streets were incredibly clean. Stone gargoyles swept up trash on the streets, and even though it wasn¡¯t even nighttime yet, the streets were lit up by magical lights. The street-side shops even had magical signs that shed and sparkled to attract customers with their advertisements.


    The citizens walking around seemed to be unaffected by the war with the Bardi Empire as they casually went about their daily lives. Thanks to the archmages¡¯ excellent mastery of teleportation magic, the business district here was quite renowned. Not only could one see various countries¡¯ local specialties here, but it was even possible to find rare treasures and mystical beasts from other dimensions for sale.


    After all, mages had spread out so far and wide that they even lived in other dimensions.


    The people here were used to seeing all sorts of strange and exotic things. When our Ivy League airship descended in this city, very few people actually eximed over it. The residents only nced at the gigantic shadow in the air and muttered, ¡°What exotic object have the mages created today?¡± before busying themselves with their work.


    But, today, they were destined to be astonished because... I, Rnd Mist, had returned!

 Chapter 296

    Chapter 296: Seekers of Truth


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Although it had been two days since I and the wood spirits¡¯ envoy group had arrived in the city of Arlo, the highest-level authority in the Mage Country, the ¡°Truth Symposium,¡± still hadn¡¯t contacted us for an official discussion. This wasn¡¯t because they were acting high or mighty or because they were avoiding us on purpose. We simply had bad timing, as the Truth Symposium was currently but an empty shell.


    ¡°Where are all the Truth Overseers? Um, normally speaking, it¡¯s already considered quite an aplishment if more than half of the Truth Overseers can be located. Currently, there are only six Truth Overseers on-duty at Cloud Tower. It¡¯s impossible to begin a conference with only that many. At the very least, there needs to be ten of them. How about just waiting for the Truth Symposium¡¯s regr scheduled meeting for next month?¡±


    Aloso, a member of the Mystical de School, was one of the most famous ice mages of the current generation. Halfway through the SemiGod Rank, he was a former member of the Truth Symposium. When we arrived, he was the one who came to greet us and had answered my question.


    Judging by his unrestrained passion and how hard he hugged me as a greeting, the Ice Aeon spell I had given to him as a gift must have been something he really liked. It likely brought him great benefits.


    ¡°Rnd, I never expected that we would meet each other again. You, the king of all truants, would actually mature to such a degree? As the dean, I¡¯m quite proud of you.¡±


    This old archmage had a rather plump physique which was quite rare for mages. Aloso also had an excellent reputation for being one of the nicest mages in Cloud Tower. He was currently smiling like a Maitreya [1] 1 and even pped his own plump stomach as heughed, causing his fat to tremble.


    We sort-of counted as teacher and student as well. Back when Kaid and I were studying beginner-level magic, we were all technically under Aloso in the Mystical de as he was the head teacher at the time. Now, he had be the dean of the Mystical de School, which was why the graduation certificate he did for me even had his personal seal and signature.


    Although we were technically teacher and student, it wasn¡¯t like what I had with Harloys or Amelia.


    In order to exin things clearly, I first need to exin the Mage Country¡¯s special and unique political structure.


    This country, rather than calling it an independent country (which would typically be considered to have a group of people ruling over others) would be much more urately described as a megarge research association.


    The capital Arlo¡¯s name meant ¡°seekers of truth¡± in the ancientnguage, and it represented the intention of this city when it was founded. Simrly, Arlodant meant ¡°The ce where seekers of truth gather¡± in the ancientnguage, which was quite self-exnatory.


    The ruling ss in this country wasn¡¯tposed of a noble system. So-called nobles were simply local administrators to begin with. And, even though this was the Mage Country, true authority didn¡¯ty in the hands of any single mage.


    The entire Mage Country consisted of countless small, medium, andrge mage organizations. Every mage would typically choose to join the most appropriate mage organization for them as the most effective way to get one¡¯s voice heard in the Mage Country was through an organization.


    Therger organizations would tend to have various smaller factions or internal organizations and branch organizations. This was due to the fact that mages would have different understandings and paths on how to seek the truth.


    ¡°I want to prove star cluster magic¡¯s revtions on Fate.¡±


    An example of one organization came about because of Archmage Rodriguez¡¯s ideas about star magic. Thus, the famous ¡°Star Revtion¡± mage organization came into existence. This organization¡¯s divination, prophecy, and horoscope magic was at the world¡¯s peak; however, the Star Revtion¡¯s members were typically utter hermits whocked practicalbat experience. It would be considered quite something if their members could perform at even half their actual power ranks.


    ¡°I want to reach the pinnacle ofbat magic.¡±


    Another example of how an organization came about was because of Archmage Levist¡¯s passion inbat magic. Thus, the famous Mystical de came into existence. Their members were typically far more experienced in actualbat, which was rare for mages. They were far more skilled atbat magic andbat strategies, and half of the sses they taught were about practicalbat. They typically grew through actual battles. However, it would be difficult to ask any of them for some top-level theories.


    Alright then. Although both of these organizations were among the most powerful organizations in the Mage Country, they were almost exact opposites and had a terrible rtionship with each other. One could view them as a practical faction and a theoretical faction. Or one could even think of it as the hard sciences versus the literary arts.


    But there were no absolutes as there were always exceptions to everything. The Great Saint Margaret was a member of a smaller faction within Star Revtion. However, she was definitely highly skilled in realbat, having traveled all over the world.


    And, from a certain standpoint, I counted as a member of the Mystical de. But let¡¯s not mention elemental magic which frustrated me so much. At the very least, I was quite well versed in undead magic.


    From another standpoint, the organization¡¯s goal would typically change over time, different from what the creator intended. An example would be the ¡°Sword of Order¡± organization. This organization¡¯s creator was a fervent believer in the Holy Light, and the organization¡¯s original focus was on Order Divine Arts, the power of faith and belief, Holy Light magic, and other simr topics. But, in the current generation, the changes in the Sword of Order organization were so massive that the original founder would likely be angered to death if he was still alive.


    Perhaps they had gone off the wrong track somewhere, somehow, or maybe it was that things would always eventually bnce in the opposite direction... This organization had long since stopped studying Holy Light magic and instead specialized in the rarest and strangest forms of magic. For example, their member mages liked to study undead magic, demon summoning magic, eastern talismans, and so on. It was definitely a gathering of researchers who loved to study the unpopr, and the Sword of Order organization ranked at the top of the world in studying the various sorts of taboo magic.


    The rtionships between the various organizations were quite messy. Some of the smaller organizations counted themselves as part of severalrger organizations since their core leaders were members of thoserge organizations. However, therge organizations all had bad rtionships with one another, so during every academic conference, the mages wouldn¡¯t know who to support... Don¡¯t look down on academic conferences, as they were the most serious conferences in the Mage Country. The moment various organizations started disagreeing about something, the conference room would immediately turn into a dueling arena.


    Yep, the most important meetings in the Mage Country were academic conferences, rather than supposedly serious political meetings.


    Since all the mage organizations sought the truth as their goal, their internal conflicts stemmed from various types of academic disagreements. And, in the Mage Country, the highest-level academic conference was the ¡°Truth Symposium.¡± Yep, the same Truth Symposium was also the highest-level authority of this country.


    The members of this Truth Symposium weren¡¯t fixed. Archmages with great research aplishments or excellent reputations would be invited to be members, thus receiving the non-governmental status of ¡°Truth Overseer.¡± However, many undying archmages were uninterested in the Truth Symposium which was hardly ever able toe to a unified agreement on any topic. After forcing themselves to participate in a few meetings, they would feel like it wasn¡¯t worth the trouble of having the title of Truth Overseer. They would often resign from their posts, and new archmages would take their ce.


    The reason? The Truth Symposium had two types of meetings: scheduled meetings and emergency meetings. Any mage that reached a sufficient level could apply to listen in to a Truth Symposium meeting and support their own faction. When I was still an acolyte, I had listened in to two Truth Symposium meetings. I discovered that at these meetings, the mages would use thirty percent of the time to brag about their own academic results, fifty percent of the time to attack others¡¯ newest research aplishments or to giarize them, and the remaining twenty percent of meeting time would be used to fight over funding and resources. For instance, they would always fight over the new mages with the greatest potential...


    As for political tasks that needed to be done? When all the mages¡¯ mouths were dry and they finally became tired of arguing, the final five minutes of the meeting would be used to pass new political policies at a high speed. The efficiency was incredible. Before a policy was even fully read out loud, all the mages would raise their hands in approval, and before the documents were finished being signed, all the mages would teleport away. With such ¡°politicians¡± in charge, it must have been hard on the actual governmental administrators.


    ¡°It¡¯s all just a joke. They¡¯re all so old and stubborn. They¡¯re all top-level experts in their own fields so who¡¯d be able to convince anyone by simply debating? There¡¯s also an irond rule that disallows actual fighting at the Truth Symposium. By the end of the debates, it¡¯s not even about who¡¯s being logical and reasonable¡ªit¡¯s about who can be the loudest and maintain their concentration for the longest! It¡¯s about who can tolerate such a farcical debate the longest!¡±


    This was also why the Mage Country had never invaded another country in the past thousands of years. In the past, there were obviously mages with plenty of ambitions. But to convince enough archmages in the Truth Symposium to pass a majority decision to dere war would be as difficult as reaching the stars. That mage might as well rely on their personal strength to try and conquering that country to realize their ambitions.


    The Mage Country could technically even be considered to not be a country. For the true, purest of mages, the only ces in the world they cared about were their researchboratories and libraries. Theycked territorial ambition and they did not pursue glory and honor, the exact opposite of the nobles and royalty in this world.


    With such a political system, it was impossible for the Truth Symposium to ever ¡°find the truth¡± about anything. Instead, it was quite easy for one to make enemies. It was quitemon for those who became truly angry after arguing with those that disagreed with them to call for a duel with the other side in Midmountain Park after the conference. After all, fighting was strictly prohibited during the conference itself.


    Every time one passed by that flowery park, one could always witness various duels of all sorts, sometimes even those involving forbidden spells. It was quitemon to see an elderly white-haired professor dueling against some slightly cultured hooligan mage. There were even plenty of mages that knew martial arts and would use such techniques in the duels.


    It was difficult for any sane person to tolerate such long and meaningless meetings for more than one or two times. And, for the smaller organizations and independent non-affiliated mages, their research results would be questioned endlessly, which made things all the more unpleasant. That was why, due to ack of enough Truth Overseers to hold the meetings, the conferences were postponed endlessly... However, since the meetings were considered pointless by everyone in the first ce as nothing ever came of them, everyone was actually quite happy to postpone them.


    Yet there was an irond rule that the leaders of the eighteenrgest and strongest mage organizations were absolutely required to attend all the scheduled Truth Symposium meetings. Their organizations were too influential, so they were forced to attend. And, in a way, this actually caused the leadership of theserge and powerful organizations to change quite rapidly as if it was an unpleasant job that nobody wanted.


    Of course, there were exceptions to everything. For example, a certain witch intentionally became a Truth Overseer of her own volition. Although her main goals were to scam research funds and cover her own crimes, her excellent physical appearance and ability to conceal what she was really like, along with that natural talent of hers to detect others¡¯ emotions, helped her greatly in taking lead on discussing several major topics. She even won most of her debates, umting very high poprity and authority within both the Cloud Tower and the Mystical de.


    Yep, the witch Amelia had once been a member of the Mystical de as well. She even gave sses to me and Kaid back in the day.


    Right now, my biggest headache was that I was going to have to attend this headache-inducing Truth Symposium meeting.


    Not long ago, I met with the Truth Overseer named Oslowen, and my System directly gave me the next step in my Epic Quest.


    [Congrattions for activating the next part of your Epic Quest: ¡°Will you have a glorious homing, or will you be a fallen phoenix?¡± You are required to participate in the next Truth Symposium meeting. The next portion of your Quest will depend on how you do at the Truth Symposium meeting and the status and identity with which you decide to attend. System Reminder: You know how things are done between mages. If you want mages to listen to you, you have to bring out something worthy of their attention.]


    From this long Quest, which was, in actuality, a series of Quests in session, it was quite obvious what the final goal of this Epic Quest was now. Of course, I would need to directly or indirectly get involved in this three-way war. That was how all these Quests in this Epic Quest chain were connected. First, I had to choose a side in this war and improve my Reputation level in the chosen side. After making my choice, what came next would naturally be to increase my influence. Only if people listened to me would I have the power to influence the entire war¡¯s situation.


    For me and my newly-born Mist Alliance, allies were absolutely required. I needed to try and get a mega-empire level country on my side, as they were the most influential voices in human society.


    The Mage Country was an anomaly to begin with amongst all the mega-empire countries. Since there were problems with all the other mega-empire countries, the Mage Country was probably the most trustworthy ally I could choose from the rest. Their support would be immensely important.


    Based on my System¡¯s typical habit of making me suffer, I knew that unless I had a sufficient enough status to speak at the Truth Symposium and made myself influential enough at the meeting, the future developments would only make me suffer more and more. Perhaps I would even be nothing more than a cannon fodder-level vanguard without realizing it.


    If the next scheduled conference was postponed, that would be both good and bad for me. The bad would be that I wouldn¡¯t be able to continue the Quest for quite a while, while the good would be that I would have more time to prepare.


    However, that conference would be about the critically important issue of the war against the Bardi Empire. The invitations had already been sent out to the Truth Overseers, and absenteeism was strictly forbidden. It was highly unlikely that it would be postponed as usual, so my current goal was to make myself as influential and reputed as possible within the time limit of one month. I wanted to influence things at the conference as much as possible.


    ¡°With so many things having happened recently, the Truth Symposium meeting will definitely be held. At the very most, it¡¯ll only be postponed by one or two months. Rnd, wait around for a while and familiarize yourself with the environment here. The situation seems to be easing up on the frontlines, and two Truth Overseers should be returning soon. At that time, they can begin the procedures for the meeting. Right, how abouting to my school to teach a few sses as a way of passing time? With a veteran student returning to the school to teach, the students should be quite pleased.¡±


    Only now did I recall that Aloso had helped me obtain a special teaching certificate. At the time, I was just thinking that he was helping me to have an identity as a member of the Mage Country. I didn¡¯t realize that he was actually serious about having me teach.


    After all, from a certain standpoint, we were all students from his school. Of course, students from a magic school werepletely different from a mage¡¯s disciples.


    Mostrge and medium-sized mage organizations had their own magic schools. That was where novices would be trained and talent and hard work could show their mettle.


    Of course, the mage organizations wouldn¡¯t do such things like run magic schools for novices out of kindness and charity. Due to the magic schools always being affiliated with some mage organization, the newbies at the magic school would typically be the fresh blood for joining these organizations. Of course, if the newbies wanted to be official members, they would either need to perform incredibly well or be a candidate for an archmage¡¯s disciple.


    The general knowledge taught at magic school may be shallow and limited, but it was also the most efficient required knowledge. So many years of teaching magic pared the sses down to the essentials, and it would build a solid foundation that would help a novice reach the next step. Seeds with true potential would be able to sprout with just this little amount of nutrition. Most archmages would find students appropriate for them while teaching sses, such as Harloys and Amelia back in the day.


    By the way, since Harloys and Amelia were both teachers at the Mystical de magic school, they were naturally both members of the Mystical de mage organization as well. And, to my knowledge, Harloys was also one of the top-level members of the Sword of Order. While she was still a teacher, she discovered quite a few vicious individuals that she recruited into the Sword of Order, and several of her disciples even ended up on the Cmity Rankings. There were even more that became antisocial maniacs. Harloys¡¯ nickname of being the ¡°Demon Professor¡± was definitely well-deserved.


    In all honesty, it was just far too difficult to be a mage, so mage society didn¡¯t have the typical human society¡¯s system of children taking over their parents¡¯ work. Not only that, a mage¡¯s typical inheritance that they left behind would mostly be research about a particr topic and records about seeking the truth. The most important part of mage society naturally became the rtionship between teacher and student.


    ¡°I definitely can¡¯t have my teacher¡¯s knowledge be lost to the world with my generation.¡± This way of thinking wasmon to every mage. When a mage reached a certain level, they would desire to find a student who could inherit all their knowledge and research. Of course, the most important inheritance of all would always be the mage¡¯s desire to learn more about a particr topic.


    And unlike other jobs where sometimes the rtionship between teacher and student would be icy, the rtionship between mage teachers and mage students would typically go on for several tens of years or even several centuries¡ªit would typically be one akin to that between a parent and child. In fact, the Mage Country¡¯sws even stated that a mage teacher had the right to make arrangements for a disciple¡¯s life, while the disciples would be responsible for taking care of an elderly teacher in old age. There were also inheritancews for teachers and students that mirrored other countries¡¯ inheritancews between parents and children.


    What? Me and Harloys? A mage teacher-student rtionship like ours, as if we were mortal enemies cursed forever to be stuck with each other... there would never be anyone else like us in existence!


    Although I was currently worried about how to increase my fame, I soon started worrying about if I was bing far too famous.


    ¡°It was a huge mistake to take those bastards with me!¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Maitreya is regarded as the future Buddha of this world in Buddhist eschatology. The Budai, or Laughing Buddha, is often identified with or seen as an incarnation of Maitreya, so much so that the Budai image is one of the main forms in which Maitreya is depicted in China. In this case, the author was rting Aloso to the chubby, smiling image of Budai. (Source: PDG Chapter 345 TL Note... yes, I know, I know. I was recently reading PDG, and it seriously was a coincidence. I¡¯m definitely not stalking other novels¡¯ notes. Definitely not.)

 Chapter 297

    Chapter 297: The Great Industrial Party


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°I should just toss these bastards into Gnome Cannons and have them shot to the ends of the world! No, that¡¯s still not enough! Their ability to survive surpasses even cockroaches! Even if I toss them into the Trench of Amu, they¡¯ll surely still survive and return¡ª¡±


    ¡°Um, sir?¡±


    ¡°¡ªI knew I should have tied them all up and tossed them into the sea. No, that still wouldn¡¯t be safe enough! Hehehe! I should just send them into my Frigidwinter Earth and have them hibernate there forever¡ª¡±


    ¡°Sir!!¡±


    An angry roar right next to me finally snapped me back to my senses. The next moment, a female face appeared in front of me and almost scared me witless.


    ¡°Sir, although you¡¯re an archmage from Mystical de, as well as our teacher, the most basicws of our society need to be followed. Please take thew seriously!¡±


    Alright then, looking at the young and angry woman before me, even though we were both wearing the light-blue robes of Mystical de, her emblem on her sleeve, which represented she was responsible for maintaining social order, stood out incredibly so. As I was the person bailing out the criminals, I could only obediently apologize and make promises on those bastards¡¯ behalf.


    ¡°I¡¯m so sorry. I shall properly lecture them. I definitely won¡¯t give them an opportunity tomit such crimes again.¡±


    In the Mage Country, those who broke thew would naturally be punished by the mages. Since the Mystical de consisted of mages skilled in practicalbat, many of their members chose to joinw enforcement and social order jobs in society.


    Although this woman before me seemed young, she had already been working at her job for more than ten years judging by the emblem on her chest. And, as wasmon of a member of the powerful Mystical de, she was the type who really liked to lecture others.


    ¡°Sir! Please make absolutely certain to rein them in. I can barely even believe that someone would do such a thing...¡±


    Her lecture was getting longer and longer and was giving me a headache. However, I felt just like an unlucky parent summoned to a parent-teacher meeting because my child hadn¡¯t received a passing grade, as I could only smile and apologize continuously as I epted the endless lecturing.


    ¡°Yep, yep, I¡¯ll definitely put a tighter leash on them.¡±


    I finally managed to finish the process of bailing them out. Right when we left the Mage Country¡¯s version of a police station together, all the bastards behind me started jumping up and down in excitement at having regained their freedom.


    ¡°Eaglestorm¡ª¡±


    ¡°Milord, rx. In the future, when I¡¯m spreading the teachings of my Wild Bull Alliance, I¡¯ll definitely remember to wear some pants.¡±


    ¡°Does that mean you won¡¯t be wearing a shirt?¡±


    Alright then, let¡¯s stop caring about that sly old fox. The very first day he arrived, Eaglestorm started spreading his Wild Bull Alliance¡¯s teachings. It was only to be expected that he would be captured and arrested by a mage in charge of maintaining social order, and it was only a matter of time before he was jailed again. If it had been only him, I wouldn¡¯t have even bothereding here to bail him out. However...


    ¡°Yawen, you¡¯ve greatly disappointed me. A Town Security Officer like you, an enforcer of thew, was jailed as well? This isn¡¯t Sulfur Mountain City or Diffindor. Don¡¯t make trouble for me.¡±


    ¡°Milord, I¡¯m so sorry. I really didn¡¯t think that those hooligans would be so weak against my beating. Still, they were such cowards. Although they were breaking thew themselves, they actually requested assistance from aw enforcer!¡±


    ¡°...So would they be brave if they let you beat them up as you pleased? Stop reading strange books and start thinking with your brain instead of your muscles. After all, a sessful Town Security Officer needs to have some intelligence.¡±


    Next, I nced over at the youngest criminal amongst the bunch.


    ¡°Little Tid.¡±


    ¡°I apologize, Big Brother Rnd. I¡¯ll be more careful in the future. Next time, I won¡¯t let them find any evidence and I won¡¯t personally go to pick up the goods. I¡¯ll find an adult to do the work on my behalf when I need ck market merchants.¡±


    Alright then, what he was actually saying was that he still intended to continue and that the only mistake he made was letting others find evidence of his crime. Little Tid was the most excited person out of all of us to arrive at the Cloud Tower. He was quite curious about all the magical secrets avable here. In just a few days, he already spent everyst cent of the money he had saved up over the past few years on all sorts of various strange things. He had been arrested for going to the ck market to purchase stolen goods.


    ¡°Yingou?¡±


    ¡°It really wasn¡¯t my fault. How would I know that the mage was idiotic enough to test the barbeque rack right after I sold it to him? Heh heh, he was unlucky to be caught in such an explosion.¡±


    This old and young engineer pair... sigh. One sold fake products and injured someone else, while the other went to the ck market to purchase stolen products and ended up getting reported because he looked too young. While there was, indeed, a saying that birds of a feather flocked together, the two of them stuck together due to their bad habits and kept negatively influencing each other. As time passed, they were bing worse and worse and more and more dangerous.


    What? I¡¯m still missing one person? It would seem incredibly improbable that a certain individual whose name had be forbidden would actually manage to escape being jailed here, right? Hah! Are you talking about a certain individual currently under suspicion of magical pet kidnapping and desecrating a summoned creature? At the moment, a certain dracon was still in a jail cell and was trying his utmost to attract my attention by rapidly blinking. Hmm? I don¡¯t know who that is! I didn¡¯t see anything, and none of you saw anything either, right?


    As I expected, everyone shook their heads. Nobody knew who this individual could possibly be.


    Yep, I didn¡¯t know him one bit so of course I didn¡¯t intend to bail him out. I definitely didn¡¯t want to be known as a pervert through association, so that bastard may as well obediently stay in jail until he rots.


    And it wasn¡¯t only me. All the other criminals I bailed out were in mutual ord and managed to forget about that person. After all, not a single one of them wanted to be treated as that person¡¯spanion. He had managed to be headline news on his very first day here, making it beyond difficult for any of them to dare to im to know who he was.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to care about all of your private affairs. But what about the tasks I gave you all to do? How are they going?¡±


    The reason I took them along with me wasn¡¯t to give myself more trouble. In fact, it was the opposite. I would need many helpers for what I was nning, and most of the things could only be aplished by them.


    ¡°With you personally signing the forms and archmage Kaid¡¯s letter of rmendation, the registration process has beenpleted. The newly-born mage organization ¡®Great Industrial Party¡¯ has been sessfully established. It shall be registered as an organization under the Mystical de, and you are listed as the Great Industrial Party¡¯s leader. Since you and Kaid, two top-level archmages, are backing this organization up, nobody should be stupid enough toe looking for trouble.¡±


    As a great alchemist, Jinya Beyar was quite popr in the Mage Country. That was why I sent him to run some errands and do some paperwork for me. And it was probably the only reason why he wasn¡¯t also locked up for selling fake products.


    ¡°What about the store? Have the renovations started?¡±


    ¡°...There¡¯s been a tiny little problem with that. But have trust in old Jinya; it¡¯ll soon be taken care of.¡±


    Jinya¡¯s gnome eyes were darting left and right at a quick pace. Based on my understanding of him, he was obviously lying to me.


    ¡°Yep, we¡¯ll probably need only one week to clear away all the rubble. Then, we can begin on the renovation work for the new shop.¡±


    Tid smiled and immediately sold Jinya out.


    ¡°Rubble!? You damned gnome, you caused an explosion again? Ah, I knew I shouldn¡¯t have left things up to you all! Amelia will kill me!¡±


    Jinya¡¯s rushed escape was the best evidence that I had been on my mark. It was now my turn to be in a terrible mood.


    Originally, due to certain reasons, as Amelia¡¯s only disciple as well as ¡°lover?¡±, I sessfully managed to take over several properties under Amelia¡¯s name on Stonecrystal Street. I intended to use these properties as a base of sorts to do some things here.


    However, I regretted it immediately on the second day after taking over those properties. Countless debtors swarmed upon me upon seeing that someone had moved into Amelia¡¯s properties. All sorts of IOUs and debt agreements piled up with enough money owed to purchase the entire Stonecrystal Street. Not to mention, I had legally taken over her properties using faked documents and my real status as her student, so it was only natural that the debts were taken over by me as well.


    ¡°...I think it¡¯s far more than just one street? There¡¯s probably enough debt to purchase three whole streets. Amelia, were you actually out traveling to escape your debts? Fine then, I suppose I owe it to you to pay your debts off. Besides, I¡¯ll also benefit from this in the end.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, it would be quite difficult for a foreign visitor to speedily integrate himself into a rtively closed-off society. However, even if Amelia¡¯s reputation was somewhat seedy, people still knew about her, as evidenced by all the debtors waiting for her to resurface. No matter what, her storefront had over a hundred years of reputation to back it up. As long as I paid off her debts, I would be able to utilize her connections, which would be far faster than if I tried to establish connections of my own. And, right now, what Icked the most was time.


    Amelia¡¯s store? The Great Industrial Party? You see, even though I was once again intending on improving my Reputation, the devious tricks I pulled off in Karo would be useless for a repeat performance here. In the Mage Country¡¯s society, nothing wouldpare to research achievements and academic aplishments. This was simr to my previous world¡¯s academic society in its theoretical purest form.


    ¡°I¡¯m an elemental magic specialist who won the Martin Schr Award twice before.¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m the unknown mage who invented the ¡®Ice Aeon¡¯ spell.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m the vice dean of the Kaso magic school. My disciples are all over the world.¡±


    ¡°Ice Aeon, thank you very much.¡±


    ¡°I... I¡¯m a core member of the Sword of Order! Could you stop talking about that ¡®Ice Aeon¡¯ of yours?¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m the creator of undead construction. Since you¡¯re a member of the Sword of Order, you should have read my thesis collection before on the might of undead construction. Or perhaps you¡¯re not even at the level where you¡¯re allowed to look at such top-secret theses?¡±


    ¡°Let us talk a bit more about Ice Aeon!¡±


    When research results could turn into actual power and wealth, the phrase ¡°knowledge is power¡± would no longer be simply an empty titude. The status of mages was basically determined by their academic aplishments.


    As for why this ice mage former teacher of mine treated me so well? That would be because of the magic information I had given him. Not only would it assist his own personal research as a reference, it would also massively increase the status of ice magic within the Mystical de.


    ¡°Us ice mages in the Mystical de finally have a forbidden spell.¡±


    This sounded rather cool, and it would even help as an advertisement to attract young ice mages into Mystical de. Of course, the truth that ¡°ny-nine percent of people would be unable to reach the level required to cast this spell¡± would be left unsaid.


    This wasn¡¯t even an attempt to fool people. It was simplymon sense that didn¡¯t need to be said. After all, forbidden spells were far too difficult. And besides, even if it was left unused, it would still benefit many ice mages as they researched and analyzed theponents of the forbidden spell.


    Of course, I didn¡¯t do it for nothing. There was a rule of equivalent exchange in mage society, and since I provided such a rare and precious magical spell to the Mystical de, they rewarded me with an astronomical number of their ¡°Contribution Points¡± that I could exchange for other magical knowledge and secrets. This was the most basic function of any mage organization: to gather a group of mages with simr interests to exchange information and magical ingredients so that everyone involved may benefit and grow stronger together.


    But if I joined the conference using the status of Rnd from the Mystical de, I would immediately face endless challenges from the Eye of Truth and other such mage organizations. It would be much better for me to join the conference as simply myself.


    The ¡°Great Industrial Party¡± would be a theoretical-type organization. Amelia¡¯s stores and workshops would be how I would turn theories into actual products and money. With thatpleted, a persistent virtuous cycle would be created, and this new mage organization would truly be established.


    The goal I had given myself was to be able to appear at the conference with the status of ¡°inventor of a new technology.¡± And I, indeed, had plenty of technologies and toys on hand that I could use.


    No matter if it was magical engineering, the Four Elemental Swordcasters, undead magic, ice magic, or wood spirits, there were plenty of things I could bring to the table. Obtaining the Mage Country¡¯s support was something on my to-do list for quite a long time already. It would be quite convenient to show and give them all these things in order to improve my standing here.


    I already had the technology, and as for stores and workshops, I could make use of Amelia¡¯s ¡°Thorn Garden¡± as well. Stonecrystal Street was a rather flourishing and bustling street. But due to the fact that the store had beenpletely destroyed by Jinya¡¯s explosion, I now needed to consider how to reconstruct it... and also how to exin to Amelia just why her garden and experimentalboratory needed to undergo such extensive reconstruction.


    But, in order to overturn Amelia¡¯s past reputation, make the Cloud Tower¡¯s various mage organizations take note of my ¡°Great Industrial Party¡± and even give me the right to attend the Truth Symposium meeting as the leader of the Great Industrial Party, I would need to show them a sufficient amount of strength and achievements. From a certain standpoint, the little gift of Ice Aeon that I gave to the Mystical de helped me out greatly: I could avoid the most troublesome part of umting everything from scratch.


    ¡°Teacher, good morning.¡±


    ¡°The weather¡¯s quite nice today, isn¡¯t it, sir?¡±


    ¡°Hello! Would you happen to have time to eat lunch together with me?¡±


    ¡°Senior, please go ahead of me.¡±


    As I walked around, there were quite a few that came up to me and politely greeted me. These people included white-bearded elderly mages as well as passionate and beautiful young female mages. The friendly attitudes they had towards me filled the bastards following behind me with nothing but disbelief.


    ¡°Brother Rnd, could it be that you were unpopr for so long that you finally couldn¡¯t stand it anymore and finally purchased a Potion of Alluring as seen in the advertisements? But that¡¯s obviously just a fake and useless product.¡±


    Reyne was a bit hesitant but finally said what she was thinking out loud. Although the implied meaning behind her words made me quite displeased, making me want to retort, I decided against it when I thought about how she was one of the few people that came with me who I didn¡¯t have to bail out of jail.


    ¡°Hmph. This is the charisma of a schr. Little girls like you wouldn¡¯t understand!¡±


    Alright then, if you ignored all those ridiculous abilities attached to me that I couldn¡¯t get rid of, in a way, I actually had quite a high Charisma stat. However, it was obviously impossible for me to suddenly be so popr through my Charisma stat alone. The true reason was because of the Mystical de robe I was wearing.


    This was a deep blue mage robe. Although it wasn¡¯t really eye-catching, the robe was made of starsand and tigermoth silk, the highest quality materials. Of course, most normal mages wouldn¡¯t be able to notice such a tiny detail. What they saw were the emblems on my chest as well as the special color of my robe.


    The Mystical de¡¯s mage robes were all light blue. However, deep blue was a color reserved only for mage teachers. Well, that wasn¡¯t much on its own. After all, there were countless professors and lecturers within the Cloud Tower to begin with. The most critical part was still the three emblems on my mage robe.


    The first was an emblem of a blue book that said ¡°443¡±. This represented that I was part of the 443rd batch of students to graduate from the Cloud Tower after the Cloud Tower overhauled and unified the education system several centuries ago, with one batch of students graduating every year. The current new graduates already had emblems numbering over six hundred, and that young female policewoman mage also had an emblem numbering over six hundred. That meant that despite how young I appeared, I was a ¡°Senior¡± to them who had graduated about two hundred years before they did or would.


    The other two emblems I possessed were two very simr crown emblems with wings on the crowns. One was a ck crown with bone wings, while the other was a white crown with ice wings. This was the greatest honor in the Mage Country: the Emblem of Endless Truth.


    This emblem by itself wasn¡¯t that meaningful; it was simply the symbol of one¡¯s academic achievements. However, the fact that mine were crowns represented that I had reached the peak of my fields. The ck crown with bone wings represented undead magic, while the white one with ice wings represented ice magic.


    And the only basic requirement for one to be able to join the Truth Symposium was to have one of these tiny crown emblems. However, since knowledge was power to mages, pretty much only Myth- and SemiGod-ranked mages would be able to obtain this emblem.


    This seemingly ordinary mage robe was, in reality, broadcasting my status to everyone. What the mages passing by saw was an old artifact at least two hundred years old still pretending to be young, not to mention I was at the peak in two different magic types. It seemed quite likely that I was a Truth Overseer as well, so of course all the mages would be polite to me.


    These emblems were also the reason why I was able to so easily bail out those damned bastards from jail. Apart from the emblems I had, there were many more emblems that represented all sorts of achievements and personal status. However, I had no more emblems other than these three. I saw a random mage passing me by who had more than twenty emblems attached to his mage robe, including even two dragonying emblems, which indicated that he had in two dragons. However, he didn¡¯t particrly seem to have a proud expression on his face. Well, it might have been because that it was forbidden to remove or not wear these emblems, so he might have felt that his emblems were attracting too much attention.


    As for why the Mage Country made such aw, forcing mages to wear these emblems? That was in order to save everyone¡¯s time and prevent fights. After all, there were too many old artifacts here. Perhaps that little girl right in front of you, hopping up and down while waiting in line at the cafeteria, was actually a thousand-plus-year-old elder, and if you cut in line right in front of her, she might casually flick her hand and kill you without breaking a sweat.


    In the distant past, there were all sorts of mages that loved to ¡°pretend to act weak before revealing their true strength¡± or ¡°pretentious mages that loved to act strong but ended up getting pped in the face¡± which gave thew enforcing and public order mages far too many headaches. But ever since thisw about the emblems was passed in the Mage Country, a mage only had to take a look at the emblems on another mage¡¯s robe to roughly know whether they could take that person on in a fight. This helped drastically reduce the number of conflicts in the Mage Country.


    As I walked, I gave the orders for my ns for the uing period of time to the bastards following behind me. Soon, we returned to Stonecrystal Street, but what greeted my eyes was a little store that was utterly different to how it was the day before.

 Chapter 298

    Chapter 298: New Thorn Garden


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Thorn Garden, Amelia¡¯s hundred-plus-year-old store on Stonecrystal Street, was now unrecognizable to its former self.


    Now, it was a cute store that was decorated like a small forest. The products were housed in small treehouses, numerous vines and trees were the store¡¯s pirs, and green grass constituted the most natural of floorboards. The cute wood spirits worked busily as the hardworking employees, while the tall strengthened outer-shell treants became the store¡¯s security guards. Incredibly, this unconventional decorative style had already attracted many customers on its own.


    ¡°Thank you for your purchase! Pleasee again.¡±


    As the cashier, Rosa was very busy, but she made it a point to smile at every customer, who were all, quite evidently, satisfied.


    The wood spirits were busy as well, dashing around and smiling warmly as they served the customers. From some female mages and acolytes, high-pitched exmations¡ª¡±So cute!¡±¡±Let this big sister hug you!¡±¡ªreached my ears.


    ¡°Yesterday, this ce was clearly nothing but rubble!¡±


    Jinya¡¯s muttering made me turn around and re at the bastards I had to bail out of Mage Country¡¯s jail. Ipared them to the hard-working wood spirits and, once again, seriously considered whether or not I should toss all these bastards into an ocean trench or tie them to a gnome rocket and shoot them into the sky.


    Why was there such a huge difference between the wood spirits and these bastards? I nodded in satisfaction as I continued observing the wood spirits, but when I entered the store...


    ¡°Ah, Father, you¡¯ve returned.¡±


    The moment Rosa greeted me, everyone nced in my direction. The looks of disbelief and shock from the customers were too awkward for me to handle.


    ¡°Daddy!!¡±


    ¡°Dad, Little Red 232 has worked very hard today. Did you see me?¡±


    ¡°Father, we made a lot of profit today.¡±


    Full of joy, the wood spirits scampered up to me and hopped up and down as they showed off their aplishments. Meanwhile, all the customers were looking at me in more and more of an unfriendly fashion...


    Apart from their somewhat strange nt parts, wood spirits greatly resembled young elves. Since I hadn¡¯t yet started spreading news of the existence of this miraculous new species¡ªI was intending to save it for the Truth Symposium conference¡ªmost people would believe that the wood spirits were young female elves who simply preferred to dress up in nature¡¯s style. Some sharply perceptive individuals, however, noticed that they weren¡¯t entirely the same as elves. However, that was a bad thing because...


    ¡°He¡¯s actually making such young daughters of his work? What a scumbag.¡±


    ¡°Take a closer look. Some of these elves don¡¯t have sharp ears. They¡¯re probably all half-bloods. With so many daughters, the word scumbag isn¡¯t even sufficient to describe him anymore. Just how many elves has this bastard fooled?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s such a yboy father? I¡¯m so jealous!¡±


    ¡°They actually have numbers in their names? That means he has at least several hundred daughters? Wow. What a super mega scumbag.¡±


    ¡°Two Emblems of Endless Truth indicating that he¡¯s a master of two different types of magic? Even if he¡¯s a super powerful archmage, that doesn¡¯t change the fact that he¡¯s a scumbag.¡±


    Strangements such as these could be heard everywhere; my reputation now began developing in this strange direction. And, at such a moment, how would my System possibly forget to add fuel to the fire?


    I had, once again, activated a Reputation Quest.


    [Mage Country, Karo City: Venerated 20000/20000, yboy Who¡¯s Finally Reformed. Your Reputation has now been transferred to Mage Country, Arlo: Respected, 168/50000. The yboy shall never reform. Congrattions! You have obtained the new title, ¡°Professional Oni Chichi.¡± [1] 1 Equipping this title will greatly increase your attractiveness to young girls. The ssical line ¡°Would you like toe with me for some candy?¡± will have its sess rate massively increased. But, at the same time, adult women will be massively repulsed by you. System Notification: Stop always ming others for making you suffer. You¡¯re the source of all gentlemanly evils!]


    The scandal I had made up in Karo City¡ªwith great difficulty, mind you¡ªin order to increase my Reputation was no more. My reputation was now distorted even further and was destined to be stranger and stranger. While I was almost wanting to cry at this development, a certain bright and cheery obedient girl spoke up and sprinkled some extra salt on my wounds.


    ¡°Father, when Mother sees that you¡¯ve done such a good job running her shop, she¡¯ll surely be delighted.¡±


    ¡°Mother? The original owner of this store? ...Amelia!¡± The moment the customers heard Rosa¡¯s innocentment, I knew everything was over for me.


    ¡°Wahhh, my angel!¡±


    ¡°The heavens shall smite such a scumbag!¡±


    ¡°Let me go! Don¡¯t stop me! I¡¯m going to do everything to kill that scumbag! Nothing will get in the way of my revenge! Who cares if he has two Emblems of Endless Truth? Even if he¡¯s a two-hundred-plus-year-old ancient zombie, even if he can casually kill us with his little finger, even if he can make us fail our sses forever at his whim¡ªhey! Why are you letting me go? Be a little more pragmatic;e back and restrain me.¡±


    Should I say that it was to be expected of someone who had her own support group even within the Truth Symposium? As a mega-popr mage teacher, the angelic Amelia¡¯s faked wonderful reputation was far more known to everyone than her true personality. And due to Amelia¡¯s overt favoritism for female students, she had both male and female fans. There were now people everywhere spitting blood upon hearing my name, and countless more really wanted to beat me up. How nice that my Reputation was increasing once again... and how speechless I was.


    Even though everyone was cursing me, I could only helplessly look at little Rosa who was still smiling happily, apparently not realizing what she had just done.


    ¡°You must be ck-bellied underneath that pink appearance of yours.¡±


    ¡°Rosa isn¡¯t ck at all. It¡¯s our duty as your daughters to watch you well and make sure you don¡¯t get up to no good with other women while Mother isn¡¯t here.¡±


    Alright then, that perfectly innocent brilliant smile of hers made me be at a loss at how to punish her for the trouble she had just put me in. After all, she wasn¡¯t like the group of bastards behind me, with ridiculously thick skin that could endure anything¡ªincluding being shot out of a gnome cannon. If I did such a thing to Rosa, my infamous reputation would gain the title of ¡°loli abuser,¡± adding to my list of crimes.


    So, I could only helplessly shake my head as I picked up this pink little troublemaker who was definitely secretly ck-bellied and entered a private room in the store. As for all the cries of ¡°demon father!¡± and ¡°lolicon!¡± behind me, I could only pretend to ignore them.


    As for the way my reputation was turning out? Forget it, I didn¡¯t have any hopes for my reputation helping me anyways. Even when I was studying here, I didn¡¯t manage to get a single girlfriend, so this time was probably the same. And since the result was going to be the same, who cared if my reputation kept getting worse and worse? At least I didn¡¯t think I had any regrets. I definitely wasn¡¯t disappointed because I couldn¡¯t disguise myself as nned in bing a teacher to flirt with the female students that didn¡¯t know anything about me¡ªnope. Definitely not.


    As for those tears forming in my eyes? That must just be a mistaken impression.


    ¡°Forget it, forget it. That¡¯s just my life.¡±


    [It¡¯s 99% your fault.]


    ¡°It¡¯s 100% your fault.¡±


    Alright then, the System and the silly cat¡¯sments came simultaneously. Should I be thankful that, at least, the System had a better impression of me?


    [Rx. There¡¯s no such thing as an absolute, and based on my logical calctions, there¡¯s still at least a miniscule chance for you to obtain a girlfriend, although it¡¯s a decimal with many zeros. Would you like for me to help calcte it for you? 0.000...]


    ¡°No! Stop spreading salt on my wounds!¡±


    I decided to ignore my System and the silly cat, as I was rather interested in a different topic.


    ¡°Rosa, what are you all selling? The products I¡¯m preparing haven¡¯t arrived yet. Are you all doing some type of wood spirit coffee house here or something?¡±


    Yes, that was what mystified me. I had just finished purchasing a new workshop as Amelia¡¯s experimentalboratory was now nothing more than rubble. The magical engineering technological products weren¡¯t ready yet, so how did these young wood spirits make the store so popr?


    ¡°Although Mother wasn¡¯t skilled at business, the products of her research are excellent, and her Emblem of Endless Truth in nt magic helps her reputation. For those who have needs for her nt products, she¡¯s actually considerably popr. It¡¯s just that Mother¡¯s pricing system and product avability were too unreasonable. Her magical nts have greatbat strength and are actually one of her most popr products we¡¯ve been selling, but Mother actually priced the magical nt seeds at 15,000 gold coins apiece, when they cost her less than 10 gold coins to make. That made the nt seeds into a mega-luxury item that few could afford. Of course she would be unable to sell any of them. The reverse is true as well. She priced many items too cheaply, and they always sold out instantly. However, she priced them so low that she barely profited, and Mother was toozy to restock those products.¡±


    After hearing all this, I understood. Actually, Amelia did not have a dearth of sessful research products that she could profit from. As a top-level nt magic expert, how could she possiblyck research results? However, Ameliacked people she could trust, so there was no one around her who could advise her on how to manage her finances. She priced all her products at whatever she wanted, and it were the random byproducts from her research that were ced on the shelves of her Thorn Garden store. Whenever she started a new research project, she would never consider how she could make back her money. It was only natural for her to be in such a huge amount of debt.


    ¡°So you and the other wood spirits repriced all the items Amelia left behind in the warehouse.¡±


    ¡°Yep. We used our new techniques to enchant or improve them and also added our wood spirit products as well. Today¡¯s the first day we tried this, and it¡¯s so popr already. There¡¯s also the fact that Mother¡¯s store has been closed for so long, so there¡¯s arge demand on the market for high quality nt magic goods. The new customers probably heard about us from the returning customers.¡±


    Seeing the little financial expert Rosa speak so confidently on this subject made me truly feel that Amelia needed to start learning from Rosa. With Rosa¡¯s assistance and my special products that should be ready for sale soon, this hundred-plus years old store¡ªfamous for never turning a profit¡ªmight soon be one of the top ten most profitable stores in the Cloud Tower. It could maybe even challenge some of the biggest mage organizations¡¯ stores which had been open for more than a millennium.


    Was it supposed to be unusual for mages to open up their own stores? It did seem wrong that academics needed to be concerned about money, but that was the difference between ideals and reality. Since tuition fees and researching new magic all requiredrge amounts of money and resources, even the richest person would eventually go bankrupt if they only spent money without having any ie in return. Mages had to learn how to make money first in order to spend money.


    Low-ranked mages had their ways to earn money. They could copy and sell magical scrolls or simply work for mid and high-ranked mages. After all, low-ranked mages had less expenditures, so that was plenty for them. Meanwhile, top-ranked mages would typically require several hundred thousand gold coins for a research project, where failure meant they would lose their entire investment. Any mage who didn¡¯t know how to manage their money would eventually be deeply entrenched in debt, just like Amelia.


    Actually, just like the researchers in my previous world, it was quite easy for mages to turn their research results into mountains of gold coins. Rechargeable enchantments for weapons and equipment, cannon fodder-level magical familiars, potions, newly invented weapons and equipment, various applications of magic in daily life and so on were all fields that were highly profitable.


    For example, I knew of a mage organization named ¡°Dance of Darkness¡± which mostly consisted of mages interested in summoning magic. They were particrly skilled at taming magical beasts. Apart from selling various summoned creatures and contracted magical pets, their horses were so popr that they dominated over seventy percent of the horse market. That was a long-term, consistent source of ie for them.


    Enchantment specialist mages would open up enchantment stores, while alchemists would neverck money as they were experts in creating magical products and equipment. If you were an archmage with a monopoly on some special technology or product, then you could simplyy in bed and count your money.


    The archmages who didn¡¯t have any research results to sell could hire themselves out as mercenaries or adventurers, and copying high-level magical scrolls was also a well-paid job. As long as a person paid even the slightest attention and, when they were out of money, stopped their research and went to find work for a while, no mage would starve to death.


    Alright then, I might as well make fun of Amelia a little here. Although she was someone who possessed the Emblem of Endless Truth in nt magic, not to mention that she had a monopoly over the highest-level nt magic products, it was quite abnormal how she managed to be so pathetically poor and riddled with debt.


    And now, with a little helper like Rosa, I wouldn¡¯t need to worry about the store anymore. Originally, I had been concerned about whether that group of bastards would be able to run the store...


    Since I didn¡¯t have to worry about the store¡¯s daily operations, I could now focus on preparing the products for sale and what new products to develop. But, of course, my goal had never been something as simple as opening a store to make some money.


    Notes:


    [1] TL/N: Oni Chichi is a rather famous Japanese hentai about a father and his daughters.

 Chapter 299

    Chapter 299: Bribing


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Was the Mage Country strong? The answer was an obvious yes. However, even though the Mage Country technically counted as a mega-empire, everyone knew that it wasn¡¯t even a country. It was simply a ce where countless mages gathered. Ignoring the countless mid- and low-ranked mages, when one only counted those archmages that had obtained the Emblem of Endless Truth and considered if all these top-level mages acted together in unison...


    Alright then, everyone knew that was basically impossible. After all, every mage had their own desires, their own goals in life, and their own research topics they were interested in. Wanting them to act together in unison for a country¡¯s goal was unimaginable. This was also the main reason why the Mage Country had never expanded their territory ever since Arlodant had been founded. Theycked the necessity of expanding their borders.


    Expand their territory and poption? What a joke. There were only so many mages to begin with, and the city of Arlo could contain ny percent of the Mage Country¡¯s poption itself. Why would they need to expand their territory with nobody to live in it? It would be all the more bothersome for them as they would need to nt more crops and maintain public order in more ces.


    Increase their poption in order to increase the number of mages in the Mage Country? That was unnecessary as the Mage Country never cared about what nationality a person was from, nor did they care about arge base poption in order to obtain more mages. Anyone willing to abandon an ordinary person¡¯s boring life and choose the path of seeking knowledge would easily be able to be a member of the Mage Country.


    The forever-neutral country, Arlodant. It wasn¡¯t particrly because the Mage Country maintained neutrality, it was that most of the mages in this country, as individuals, consciously chose to remain neutral. This neutrality didn¡¯t only extend to wars between countries, it even included the eternal Holy War.


    They didn¡¯t favor the Order Gods, but they also despised the Chaos Gods. It could be said that they only believed in themselves, that they only cared about magic and the truth. They were the most truly neutral third party in the Holy War.


    Of course, since most mages were humans, it wasn¡¯t technically wrong to say that they were in the Order Faction, but as for having them fight for the Order Faction... fine, the Mage Country didn¡¯t even have a standing army. At any rate, the mages that cared about Order versus Chaos and were willing to go fight for their beliefs were free to do so. However, there would be no such collective action taken by the mages as a whole.


    ¡°They¡¯re basically allies that were made for us.¡±


    But just as I mentioned earlier, everyone in the Truth Symposium was an academic who hated politics. In such a situation, something like an alliance was meaningless. An alliance that wouldn¡¯t do anything for you was basically no different from scrap paper.


    There were plenty of ambitious individuals that wanted to borrow the powerful Mage Country¡¯s strength in the past. However, those individuals all failed. No matter how loudly they shouted for assistance, very few mages woulde to their aid.


    But if I had to critique those individuals, I would say that they were too outdated in their methods of thinking. Alliances, inciting the poption, bribing higher-ups, and other such typical plots were utterly useless when dealing with the Mage Country which had its own unique political system in the world of Eich.


    As for me, I had my own opinions. We definitely couldn¡¯t make a formal alliance of any sort with the Mage Country thatpletelycked any unity as a country. After all, even if we obtained a certain percentage of the Truth Overseers to support us, all the mage organizations and individual mages wouldn¡¯t listen to them... But looking at it from a different standpoint, we could simply bribe every individual mage. As long as we bribed enough mages, the entire Mage Country was basically on our side.


    This sounded inconceivable? There were too many individual mages to possibly bribe? But, it was actually doable.


    How does one make an originally neutral person suddenly be your ardent supporter? The answer was quite simple. Just fill that person¡¯s wallet with your money or owe him a significant amount of money. Make it so that his and your personal benefits are intimately connected.


    In that case, how does one make two different factions, or on a muchrger scale, two different countries be as one? The answer was still the same. Just make their benefits connected. For example, if they used the same currency, the samenguage, and had zero trade tariffs for each other, they would stand on the same side for most benefits. They would naturally be one.


    Back in my original world of Earth, many countries in history used this method to unify two countries. Emperor Qin of China, was such an example; he unified Chinese currency and all the Chinese dialects into one, which set the foundation for China to be a nation.


    Alright then, by now, the idea was obvious. I only had to fulfill two conditions to bribe all the mages to be on my side. First, I needed to make sure their personal benefits were tied to mine. Second, I had to make them into my customers, friends, and even debtors. If I could aplish this, then they would naturally feel that if they didn¡¯t support me, they would be losing out. They would support me of their own volition without me even needing to do anything.


    Originally, I had only thought about this n before helplessly giving up on it. The resources and wealth needed would be astronomical. However, a sudden recent event helped make my fantastical dream of ¡°bribing the entire Mage Country¡¯s mages¡± to be a possibility.


    ¡°Justice Points! Our top-level products can only be purchased with Justice Points. And this is only a beginning. Our final goal is to make the entire Mage Country use Justice Points as its most important currency.¡±


    I waspletely confident that with the Gods backing me up with their countless years of umted treasures, my products and treasury would make any mage go crazy with desire. Yet this was only a beginning.


    ording to my n, in the future, more and more stores would be using Justice Points as their currency. My most important goal was to make the majority of people in the Mage Country admit and think that Justice Points were the most valuable currency of all. They would then automatically join as ¡°Contract Mages¡± and fight for our cause in order to obtain Justice Points.


    That would help us obtain countless powerful Contract Mages. If a sufficient number of mages sought Justice Points and joined in battle, the entire Mage Country would gradually transform into my ally even without a formal alliance agreement.


    Of course, realizing this goal still required countless steps and little tricks, such as how to make the Mage Country recognize Justice Points as their official currency, how to make other stores and mages want to use Justice Points as their currency, and how to ensure that the major mage organizations wouldn¡¯t interfere with Justice Points as my system expanded. However, I had both confidence and patience. I could take things slowly here.


    ¡°Neutral? Soon, you¡¯ll discover that, in this war, there¡¯s no such thing as being neutral. This time, I definitely won¡¯t repeat the mistakes of the past.¡±


    In the game¡¯s ¡°history,¡± the Mage Country was just as strong as the current Mage Country right now. However, the story¡¯s version of the Mage Country chose as always to ignore the Holy War, despite all the changes urring in the world and all the death being wrought. They chose to simply remain as observers that would record what happened.


    They remained neutral as always¡ªno¡ªneutral was no longer sufficient to describe them. They were arrogant, dense, and coldhearted. Well, since the Mage Country was able to ignore even the Yongye Cmity and other simrrge-scale battles in the past, it was only natural that they would simply ignore everything that happened in the Holy War.


    Even though everyone was at war around them, they chose to remain in the Cloud Tower and go about their daily lives, discussing their newest technological inventions or how bad the weather was. But, when the Holy War truly ended up involving the entire world, they finally discovered that they were caught up in the war as well. Yet Armageddon had already descended upon them, and it was toote to take action.


    To be fair, even in the game¡¯s storyline, there were perceptive mages that sounded warnings, and the mages stationed in other dimensions had reported on how the creatures from other nes were gathering their forces in an abnormallyrge-scale fashion. However, all therge mage organizations had alreadye to a conclusion because of the past¡ªthey had etched into their minds that this would simply be another two- or three-hundred-year war between different species. They would just need to ignore this war like always.


    But the arrogant mages tasted bitter defeat and death in the end. When Arlodant finally realized that something was wrong with the situation and trulymanded all the mages to begin participating in the war, the entirend of Eich had experienced endless battle, and countless powerful existences had already descended upon Eich from other nes. The River Styx was filled with the souls of the dead, with SemiGod existences enjoying their wine sses filled with human blood wrought from catastrophe. The demons and devils had organized themselves into colossal armies under the leadership of the Evil Gods, and those ¡°powerful¡± mages were unable to do anything at all.


    ¡°...Sometimes, remaining neutral seems like it can¡¯t possibly be a wrong decision. However, it¡¯s also the most passive choice, which makes it the farthest possible answer from the correct decision.¡±


    Although I didn¡¯t want to admit it, from a certain standpoint, it was a good thing for me that the Bardi Empire began a war against the Mage Country. At the very least, the Bardi Empire informed the mages that remained in their ivory towers that there was no such thing as absolute peace in the world. Even if you remained as a hermit in your own home, it was possible that one day, a robber would break into your home and p you in the face.


    I truly looked forward to the next Truth Symposium conference scheduled to take ce in slightly over one month from now. I wanted to see what the archmages that returned from the frontlines of battle would have to say. Also, I wanted to know more about the sudden forbidden spell ambush on the Bardi Empire¡¯s frontlines. This didn¡¯t seem like the Mage Country¡¯s typical style of doing things at all, so I couldn¡¯tprehend what had happened. There was definitely something interesting behind that, a plot I hadn¡¯t yet uncovered.


    What I currently needed to do was forcefully wake them up to the situation. ¡°Justice Points¡± and the magical secrets that they could exchange for would be the bait to get them involved. As long as enough mages were involved, there would be a sufficient number of reports sent to the Truth Symposium about the scale of destruction and chaos in the Holy War. With the mages¡¯ Intelligence, it would be impossible for them to not notice and ignore the danger with so much information stuffed in their faces. By that time, the entire Mage Country would naturally be my ally.


    Was it going to be difficult to bait the mages? Haha! Would a mage have no desires? Impossible! I had always believed that the seemingly calm mages were actually the easiest job ss to tempt of all.


    ¡°Greed¡± Harloys was a ssic example of a mage. Her endless greed and desire for magical knowledge was an urate stereotype of the mages. I had already purchased arge advertisement in next week¡¯s ¡°Cloud Tower Weekly¡± magazine which would give a detailed introduction of Thorn Garden and our new products, even including a full list of every item one could exchange for with Justice Points. The items that came from ancient times or were Gods¡¯ secrets were precious goods that nobody would be able to obtain otherwise.


    There was nothing that couldpete with the ¡°unknown¡± in attracting mages due to their desire and thirst for knowledge. Justice Points would definitely cause many mages to act.


    With Justice Points as the bait, my final goal was to wake the Mage Country up to the danger they were in and act much sooner than they would have otherwise.


    However, things had to be taken slowly. This ¡°plot¡± of mine, which waspletely out in the open and had nothing nefarious about itpared to my usual plots, was one that could be taken slowly. As for how to drag the Mage Country into the Holy War with me? I first needed to make the Thorn Garden as popr as possible.


    nt magic products would have a limited market appeal. If I wanted to attract the entire Cloud Tower¡¯s attention, it would be insufficient to utilize Amelia¡¯s products alone. My new products were now prepared, and I could even make a huge profit while obtaining my goal.


    ¡°Mechanized mage squadrons? That seems like it would make for such an unusual art style.¡±


    Archmage Andrei was currently in a bad mood. The vice leader of the Sword of Order, he was a mage who had the goal of raising the strongest magical pets possible. He felt like he had been away from his favorite lovely experimentalboratory for far too long. His clumsy acolytes wouldn¡¯t even dare approach his precious pets¡¯ cages, so he was afraid that maybe a few of his treasured pets might have already starved to death.


    ¡°However, I sense that my little preciouses are under threat from something far more dangerous than starvation. How strange. Is there some dangerous existence currently at the Cloud Tower?¡±


    However, Andrei knew that it wasn¡¯t time to consider such things as he looked at the thick sandstorm and smoke in front of him. The endless sounds of dragons roaring could be heard in the distance.


    Ever since that forbidden spell transformed this area on the Bardi Empire¡¯s frontlines into a living hell, two small squadrons of Bardi Empire dragon knights had already arrived (the western dragon knights loyal to Orloss¡ªnot Halent¡¯s squadron). The twelve dragon knights¡¯ constant ambushes were quite difficult to defend against.


    Still, this wasn¡¯t a big problem; there were a total of four Truth Overseers in this area. If theybined their powers and forced the Bardi Empire¡¯s dragon knights into a direct confrontation, the Truth Overseers would likely win quite quickly.


    However, both sides were in a stalemate for various reasons.


    The archmages here didn¡¯t want to escte the level of the war, nor did they want to y the dragons and dragon knights, which would antagonize all the dragons behind the dragon knights. Meanwhile, Bardi¡¯s dragon knights seemed to be acting strangely as well.


    While they still kept on with their ambushes, their ambushescked actual attack power. Thergest-scale attack they used would be a single dragon breath which would set a few structures on fire. As they were the ones supposed to be taking revenge here, this was obviously far too peaceful.


    ¡°It feels like they¡¯re under some sort of restraint as well, and they don¡¯t intend to escte the level of this conflict, either. I don¡¯t understand what¡¯s happening.¡±


    Yet soon, Archmage Andrei didn¡¯t have to worry about things on the frontline anymore¡ªhe received a letter from the Cloud Tower.

 Chapter 300

    Chapter 300: Iron Horses


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    *Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!*


    It had be quitemon to hear sounds of explosions in the streets of Arlo as ofte. Young mages would ride mechanical Iron Horses on the streets, chasing and racing each other and leaving nothing but dust and smoke in their wake.


    These Iron Horses were equipped with steel wheels, which left behind marks in Arlo¡¯s ancient streets. Sounds of excitedughter could be heard as young mages reveled in the thrill of moving at high speeds. Winds, whipped up by these Iron Horses, would flipdies¡¯ skirts as they passed by, resulting in storms of curses everywhere. Public order officials who came investigating would only meet ck smoke, leaving them coughing in anger. Unfortunately for them, license tes weren¡¯t yet a concept in this world. It was impossible to easily identify the owners of the Iron Horses.


    The riders broke the speed records over and over again as they improved their techniques. Iron Horses could be seen chasing after others on the street causing loud disturbances, and soon it became considered both popr and fashionable among the youth.


    ¡°They¡¯ve taken to racing? They caused enough traffic idents in one week that you typically deal with in one year? Does that have anything to do with me? I¡¯m just a merchant doing perfectly legal business. If someone killed another person with a vegetable knife, are you going to arrest all the merchants that sell vegetable knives?¡±


    Cher, the female mage in charge of public order, was furious. Her veins were bulging as she red at the young-appearing mage, who had such an uncaring expression. Still, she was helpless. She couldn¡¯t do anything about it.


    This wasn¡¯t her first time dealing with this ¡°archmage¡± before her, after all. In just one week, this archmage hade to the police station nine times to bail out hispanions ever since their first meeting. Although none of his subordinates would do anything too nefarious, they would constantly break records for how shameless they could get and how creative they could be with their shamelessness.


    There was especially a certain dracon who was now basically treating the jail as his home. He arrived at their jail every single day. On top of that, although Cher wasn¡¯t sure what he did, all the other imprisoned criminals had furiously begged the police mages to save them and not put them in the same jail cell as him...


    ¡°Um, I think it¡¯s probably safer for my well-being to stay here in jail.¡±


    When she asked the dracon, that seemingly honest individual actually trembled in fear¡ªhe had apparently antagonized an inestimable number of people. But when she checked his records, she discovered to her surprise that he was a Saint-ranked beast tamer/hunter. Did that mean that in just one short week he sessfully antagonized Myth-ranked and perhaps even SemiGod-ranked mages?


    As for the others, they continued to sell their fake products, go around naked, cause explosions or simply fights¡ªin short, all sorts of other troubles. If it wasn¡¯t for this archmage bailing them out every time, Cher would have long since made them rot in jail.


    Today, however, was different. Cher could no longer tolerate this anymore. Perhaps it was true that the morals of one¡¯s subordinates didn¡¯t mean that the boss was the same, and it seemed to her that his feelings of awkwardness and depression at their mayhem were real. However, when he had toe the very next day, or even on the afternoon of the same day to bail out his subordinates yet again, not only did that make people suspect his sincerity in saying ¡°I¡¯ll make sure to manage them properly,¡± it also made people suspect if his group of subordinates were actually some professional criminal organization or if they were intentionally giving the police mages and public order mages trouble on purpose.


    Yet this was all merely a small aside for the waves that Thorn Garden had caused in mage society.


    Thanks to the cute wood spirit employees at the newly renovated Thorn Garden, the store had be rapidly popr with female mages. Even those who weren¡¯t interested in nt magic would spend an entire day in the forest coffee caf¨¦ attached to the store and watch the cute little wood spirits scurry around for several hours without getting tired... Of course, there were also male mages and even some elderly mages with white hair who tried this as well. However, most of them would soon escape; they would be unable to withstand the numerous res from the female mages.


    While the female mages and acolytes treated the forest coffee caf¨¦ as a holy grounds for rxation, the male mages had a new toy to y around with as well.


    ¡°Iron Horse #7¡± was the name of my new product and was behind the ck smoke, noise pollution, and traffic idents throughout in the streets of Arlo. Iron Horses were simr to rocket cars built by gnome engineering, but it possessed only two wheels. After all, Yingou demanded additional money for training wheels! And while everyone was still suspecting whether these Iron Horses would even function properly, the gnomes that acted as the demonstrators began a fast-paced race in front of everyone.


    At first, the mages all thought that this would be another new miraculous but dangerous gnome invention. They all brought snacks and prepared themselves to see some fireworks. However, they were astonished to see that apart from a few gnomes that lost control and caused traffic idents, none of the Iron Horses self-destructed at all... this was utterly unlike what they knew about gnome technology!


    Soon, a young, rtively rich mage was unable to resist the temptation of his curiosity. He purchased an Iron Horse despite its expensive price with the intent to take it apart for research, not to ride it. And when he took it apart in public in front of everyone, the entire Cloud Tower was shaken by the news.


    ¡°A mega-small energy battery! And it¡¯s actually so stable! How is it possible!?¡±


    ¡°No¡ªno¡ªit¡¯s probably just a rechargeable cycle!¡±


    ¡°Who cares about how it works? It¡¯s fine as long as it does what it¡¯s supposed to do.¡±


    ¡°It would seem that archmage Hesta and archmage Dia researched in the wrong direction on how to develop smaller batteries. They didn¡¯t need to create new energy sources for small batteries. Only storage capacity and rechargeability were necessary.¡±


    ¡°Olive¡¯s Magic Box¡± was indeed an invention that would change the times. From the very start, the biggest drawback of gnome engineering wasn¡¯t even the inconsistent explosions¡ªit was theck of consistent and long-term energy. If one used a special, powerful magic creature¡¯s magic core as the energy source, not only would that incur incredibly high costs, but the magic core would eventually run out of energy. Whatever it powered would be nothing more than scrap metal until the owner obtained another magic core with simr properties.


    Once the issue of a reliable source of long-term energy was taken care of and mass-produced under my design and direction, I naturally decided to create metallic motorcycles for people to ride.


    It was also within my expectations that the mages would soon notice the critical new technology within the Iron Horses. After all, the research project of inventing a smaller portable battery already had two Emblem of Truth-level archmages, Hesta and Dia,peting against each other. However, neither of them had made much progress¡ªfrom the very start, both of them were researching in the wrong direction.


    Mages were quite familiar with the concept of batteries; every mage tower had its ownrge-scale batteries to back up the mana reserves. There were many different types of batteries that all worked differently, and some were even capable of magically receiving energy from different dimensions. With the support of these batteries, a high-level mage could practically have limitless mana within his or her own mage tower. It would be a conservative estimate to say that the mage would have their power multiplied threefold.


    ¡°Never attack a mage when they¡¯re in their mage tower.¡± This was one of the mostmon sayings among adventurers. Any who dared to break thismon sense had already died off.


    Mages had always researched how to make their batteries much smaller and portable as this would obviously help increase a mage¡¯s strength when they traveled outside. However, they had kept researching about batteries through the soul, or from natural phenomenon, or from alchemy. It was evident that no mage had ever thought about researching batteries through the field of engineering that had absolutely nothing to do with magic.


    With mages¡¯ current techniques, even their smallest battery was the size of an average room in a house. For quite a long time now, making batteries any smaller than that was basically viewed as impossible. After all, ¡°opening up a stable portal to another dimension¡± or ¡°absorbing energy from a powerful energy-producing creature¡± would all require a significant amount of space.


    From a certain standpoint, although they were all academic seekers of the truth, magicians, alchemists, and ¡°scientists¡± would look at the same issue from different angles. Well, in truth, nobody was right or wrong about it. Even the most basic magic spells used by mages would vite what engineers knew about the most basicws of energy and conservation and so on. They were direct opposites from the very start. It would be like trying to make a chickenmunicate with a duck.


    Based on the logic that batteries needed to be medium-sized or huge, mages only considered how to obtain more energy from the same size, trying to create a ¡°perpetual motion machine.¡± However, they didn¡¯t consider that it would be enough to store sufficient energy to create a self-sustaining cycle that would only need asional recharging. Since the mages were never researching the right topic to improve batteries in the first ce, and theycked the theoretical scientific knowledge about batteries, for them to actually produce results would be no different from winning the lottery.


    Now, however, this famous research topic that everyone had thought was impossible actually produced results. Top-level mages who had made this their lifetime goal lost to gnome engineering technology as evidenced by the indisputable fact before everyone¡¯s eyes. Even the calmest mage would be unable to handle this.


    ¡°Take it apart!¡±


    ¡°Yes, take it apart!¡±


    With the passionate observers egging him on, the Iron Horse owner who showed everyone what was inside excitedly prepared to take the battery apart so that everyone could research it together. However, he discovered that there was aplex magical seal on it that was evenbeled with the gnomes¡¯ ¡°Safety Brand.¡± Of course, this was merely a small issue that wouldn¡¯t be difficult for the mages to deal with at all. And so, with the help of some onlooking archmages, this small magical seal was forcefully broken through.


    And then... well, there was no more ¡°then.¡±


    *Boom!*


    Well, it wasn¡¯t really a big deal. Mages were quite well-versed in all sorts of magical traps. This magical seal was designed so that if it was forcefully broken through using magic, a magical keyboard with numbers 0-9 would appear, and the correct 20-digit password needed to be inputted within ten seconds. Even if you knew the password, you would need to have a high typing speed. Since mages were typically non-athletic, this would be quite difficult for them.


    Alright, should I say that the mages were quite used to dealing with explosions in the process of their research? Or should I say that Jinya and the gnomes had some moral boundaries after all? At the very least, the explosions caused by the breaking of the batteries¡¯ defenses weren¡¯t very powerful. Not a single mage died from these explosions.


    But, from a certain standpoint, mages were truly rich. News soon started spreading that the ¡°Iron Horse #7¡± possessed small, portable batteries, and the rather expensive Iron Horses were sold out in just a single afternoon. And then...


    During the entire night, explosions could be heard from all over the city. Before the skies even lightened, there was a long customer line of ¡°ckened individuals¡± standing in front of Thorn Garden, waiting for it to open so that they could purchase more Iron Horses.


    Of course, once top-level archmages started taking an interest in this, the gnomes¡¯ mechanisms wouldn¡¯t be able to obstruct them for long. It would only be a matter of time before they figured out this technology. However, this was a technology I was intending to sell to them anyways. By the time they figured the battery technology out, I would have made massive profits off the Iron Horses.


    Meanwhile, for the mages that weren¡¯t researching how to take the Iron Horses apart, they naturally tried riding the motorcycles, using the Iron Horses as they were intended to be used. And soon, they discovered additional benefits.


    ¡°It¡¯s so steady! It¡¯s a lot steadier than a horse! And it¡¯s so quick!¡±


    Long-distance traveling was considered an unpleasant task as most mages had below average Constitutions. In their eyes, this strange new invention was far morefortable than a real horse, and it was a lot steadier as well. But if its only use wasfort, that wouldn¡¯t be all that important to them.


    ¡°I can actually cast magic while sitting on this!¡±


    Total concentration was required for a mage to cast magic. It typically required a few seconds of blocking out the outside world. If a mage was riding a horse that jostled their body back and forth, it would be quite difficult for them to concentrate. The fact that these Iron Horses could be ridden so smoothly attracted many mages¡¯ attention.


    Mages¡¯ biggest weakness was doubtlessly the fact that they themselves were typically quite slow. If a warrior was able to close the distance, increasing that distance between them would be incredibly troublesome. It would be no exaggeration to say that a mage¡¯sbat strength would be doubled if they were able to cast spells while moving at high speed.


    However, even forbat mages that were specialists in practicalbat, it would still be difficult for them to master casting spells while moving. They would only be able to cast spells at slow speeds. If they tried casting spells while riding in a horse-drawn carriage... with those wooden wheels and ack of shock absorbers, anyone would be constantly jostled up and down. A single bump in the road could be the cause of a fatal magical bacsh.


    There was indeed one type of steed that was steady enough for mages to sit upon and easily cast spells from: dragons. However, those would be incredibly difficult to obtain...


    And so, being able to cast spells while moving at a high speed was considered impractical. Yet the mages soon found out that it was quite easy to cast spells while sitting on the Iron Horse motorcycle or riding in its sidecar. Meanwhile, Thorn Garden¡¯s first advertisement for the Iron Horse was published, with the catchphrase being ¡°Make those muscleheads forever eat our dust.¡±


    In order to prove the veracity of the advertisement¡¯s im, the Four Elemental Swordcasters that came from the Nortnds rode some of the Iron Horse motorcycles on the streets. They perfectly disyed the motorcycles¡¯ excellent shock-absorbing functions and the possibility of casting spells while moving at such high speeds.


    After all, only mages knew what mages really wanted. This seemingly insignificant toy was actually a tool that could greatly increase mages¡¯ power and survivability when traveling outside.


    That was how Iron Horse #7 became the first sessful part of my n in conquering the market in the Mage Country. Young people rapidly learned how to drive motorcycles and got rid of the training wheels that they considered useless. They even began racing each other on the streets, giving public order mages like Cher endless headaches. Meanwhile, the older mages spent money on hiring drivers so that they could enjoy the feeling in the wind from the motorcycles¡¯ sidecars.


    In fact, ¡°Have you bought one yet?¡± and ¡°How many did you buy?¡± became amon greeting for the mages during this time. Meanwhile, Thorn Garden had an exceedingly long line forever waiting at the door.


    And this was just the beginning. Two dayster, the mages were almost at the level of fighting each other to buy Iron Horses. Since I made it a limited product where we would sell only one hundred Iron Horses per day, they would always be sold out on the same day despite the high price I set.


    The most important part was that I made yet another new advertisement for Thorn Garden. It stated that in one month¡¯s time, Thorn Garden would only be epting ¡°Justice Points¡± as payment for the Iron Horses in the future.


    ¡°Justice Points? I¡¯ve heard about those¡ªduring the Gods¡¯ promations, right? They seem easy to obtain. But how am I supposed to get them so quickly? Doesn¡¯t this basically mean that the Iron Horses will only be sold for one month?¡±


    This helped sell the Iron Horses even quicker than before. Those who sessfully purchased Iron Horses showed them off on the streets, which only increased everyone¡¯s desire to purchase one. In fact, the archmages were willing to exchange their precious treasures to get on the reservation list. While I wasn¡¯t ck-hearted enough to further increase the Iron Horses¡¯ price, I made a huge profit by simply selling reservation list positions for the right to purchase an Iron Horse.


    This was quite the excellent sales tactic. The only type of products capable ofpeting in profitability with ¡°excellent quality and cheap¡± or ¡°fresh and interesting¡± would be ¡°limited edition, firste first served¡± and ¡°impossible to find in the future.¡±


    Meanwhile, on the other hand of things, the huge increase in the number of motorcycle races on the streets made Cher, who represented both the police and public order mages, be greatly angered at both me and my products.


    As I looked at the blue-haired girl before me puffing her cheeks in anger, I felt a headache as well. After all, if at all possible, I didn¡¯t want to antagonize this Mage Country governmental public security department.


    I should mention that public security in the Cloud Tower was taken care of by two different departments. One was a more typical police station-like department for public security, while the other consisted of internal mage organizations¡¯ public order squadrons. While the police mages would take care of incidents both small andrge, it was evident that normal executors of thew would be unable to reign in all the mages.


    That was why the mage organizations¡¯ public order squadrons were in charge of internally policing the organization¡¯s member mages that crossed the line with criminal actions. Of course, since police mages and public order mages had simr tasks to begin with, many mages worked part-time in both departments. This was especially so since many public order mages had lots of free time when they didn¡¯t have any particr troublemaking mage that they needed to investigate.


    Cher Allen, this female mage before me, was not only a member of the police mages but also one of the high-ranking public order officers in the Mystical de¡¯s internal public order division. She had nicknames given to her by others such as ¡°Iron Girl¡± and ¡°Iron Throat.¡± Alright then, when the word ¡°Iron¡± was used to describe a girl like her, it was evident that it wouldn¡¯t mean anythingplimentary. She was evidently the icy and stubborn type, and, in a way, also showed how she was overly serious.


    Every time I bailed my underlings out from her jail, I experienced her more and more severe lectures. Her original respect towards my status as an archmage had vanished, and whenever she looked at me, I felt like she was treating me as human scum. And whenever I sessfully bailed my subordinates out, she would shout at me¡ªjust like how a passionate detective would shout in an old police story at the sly criminal¡ª¡±I¡¯ll definitely find the evidence to put you in jail!¡±


    Why did I mysteriously be the sly antagonist criminal!? Was I really someone who had a legendary face that attracted aggro [1] 1 naturally and created crimes by simply existing?


    Just as I was hesitating over what method I should use to fool the ¡°passionate detective¡± before me, the morous sounds of fighting rang out behind me, followed by arge explosion from the warehouse.


    A new trouble hade looking for me.


    Notes:


    [1] ED/N: In an MMORPG, when you ¡°piss off¡± an NPC(non-yer character) and it enters abat state with your character. It is also an informal British word that means ¡°aggressive, violent behavior.¡±

 Chapter 301

    Chapter 301: Unexpected


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Peaceful utopias did not exist in this world. There was nock of idiots who were withoutmon sense. Reality was always stranger than fiction as fiction still needed to be logical to attract readers. In reality, it was forever impossible to understand just why some people could be so impossibly idiotic.


    All the older mages knew just how much power the Emblem of Endless Truth represented. However, many members of the royalty or nobility were amongst the younger student mages. To them, they were the absolute bosses in their own territories, daring to say and do whatever they wanted. They were at a young and impulsive stage of their lives when they were found out to have talent as mages and sent here to the Cloud Tower¡ªa ce where countless geniuses gathered. They were basically like the legendary protagonists in Chinese FreeWebNovels, as they wouldn¡¯t stand for suffering the slightest grievances.


    Of course, the cruel world would soon teach them a lesson to help them learn just where they stood. During the process of learning, they would often turn from the bullies into the victims.


    If they were fortunate, they would naturally mature. However, the prerequisite was that they didn¡¯t enrage someone who was beyond their ability to handle.


    ¡°Emblem of Endless Truth? It¡¯s an academic award? So what? Rnd? Never heard of him! He¡¯s probably just an academic who stays in his experimentalboratory every day, and he dares to not sell his products to me! My granduncle is the archmage Andrei!¡±


    Well, that was amon example of what those idiots were thinking. They would typically be polite when they first arrived, and when they discovered that politeness wouldn¡¯t help them obtain the right to purchase an Iron Horse, they would start trying to use money. When they discovered that the money they were offering was still insufficient, they would resort to arrogant derations that always ended in angry roaring threats. It was aplete and perfect example of how the rich and powerful typically behaved in a feudal society.


    Yawen would then take out her dragonying sword and viciously teach them about the mage¡¯s mortal enemy¡ªan Underground elf who had full points in magic resistance!


    Although gray elves were indeed weaker than dark elves in magic resistance, that didn¡¯t make any difference since Yawen was merely facing a bunch of novices who hadn¡¯t even mastered two-circle magic spells.


    Of course, just getting viciously beaten up wouldn¡¯t make these rich young masters give up so easily. They would always want revenge and bring us various small troubles. In the past few days, we had already suffered from four incidents of arson. This was another reason why Cher was ring at me in such a fashion. Not only did we break the records for number of incidents caused by us, we also broke the record for needing to call the police as well. Especially since the arson incidents typically happened at 1 or 2 a.m. in the morning, which really annoyed the police mages when they were called to the scene.


    ¡°Who the hell is it this time?!!¡±


    Alright then, judging by how explosive Cher¡¯s tone was, it seemed that she was truly pissed off at this arsonist who had the unfortunate timing of making trouble while she was here.


    ¡°With two more incidents, our ¡®Annual Excellent Public Order Reward¡¯ money will be no more!!¡±


    Alright then, it seemed that there was a concrete reason behind her anger as well.


    ¡°The archmage Andrei¡¯s grandnephew? Andrei, the vice leader of the Sword of Order? This is quite problematic.¡±


    Unfortunately for Cher, her subordinates arrived with a report that caused her to frown. No matter what, a current Truth Overseer would definitely be difficult to deal with, even if he currently wasn¡¯t at the Cloud Tower. The Sword of Order and Mystical de had a bad rtionship with each other to begin with. In fact, it started from when the organizations were established¡ªthey intentionallypeted with each other even with how they named themselves. If she didn¡¯t deal with this situation well, it might escte into a huge conflict between two of the most powerful mage organizations.


    Even though Cher had excellent moral boundaries as an enforcer of thew, she still knew that some things would be quite difficult to deal with. Her status as a public order mage would only be internally useful within the Mystical de as well as medium and small mage organizations. However, otherrge mage organizations wouldn¡¯t care at all about her status, nor would the mages care about the pitiful strength of the police forces.


    ¡°Let me go! Do you know who I am!? My granduncle is Andrei!¡±


    Even though this young master¡ªwho resembled a monkey¡ªwas tied up tightly, he remained as arrogant as always. Apart from him, several of his arsonist aplices had been captured and tied up as well along withrge stockpile of oil and fire powder that had been found with them. As for his ¡°aplices,¡± they were basically all rich scions that were mere mage novices who hadn¡¯t learned the cruelty of the world. They were blissfully unaware about the consequences of their actions.


    Truth Overseers were indubitably influential. Typically speaking, in such a situation, Cher would notify the person¡¯s family elders to severely hand out a punishment. However, the person that these young troublemakers antagonized was an archmage with two Emblems of Endless Truth. Cher found this situation quite difficult to deal with, not knowing if archmage Rnd would simply let things go.


    ¡°Um, archmage Rnd...¡±


    Although Cher felt quite humiliated at having let the criminals get off so lightly, she still considered it part of her work to minimize any potential dangerousrge incidents before they started. There were things she needed to say. However, the archmage that always had a helpless expression and lowered his head to apologize to her didn¡¯t even pay her any attention. Instead, he had an icy expression as he spoke in a low voice.


    ¡°Yawen, Little Red 232, the two of you were injured?¡±


    The gray elf shook her head, indicating that she was fine. However, the sword injury on her shoulder actually had a smell of corrosion. The fact that her injury had already decayed to such an extent despite how recently she received it was the best evidence of how highly toxic the poison must have been. However, it seemed that Yawen would be fine after receiving healing magic from Divine Arts in time.


    ¡°Father, wahhh! My hair has been burned off.¡±


    Meanwhile, Little Red 232 hopped over toin. Rnd gently patted her on the head, while even Cher was quite angered when she saw the depressed little girl who had a patch of scorched hair on her head.


    ¡°Were there any damages?¡±


    ¡°We discovered them quite quickly this time so the fire was put out almost immediately. The warehouse wasn¡¯t damaged at all. Out of our people, Yawen was the most seriously injured. However, they set fire to the kitchen, and our hired chefs were unable to escape in time...¡±


    Considering how we intended to add a caf¨¦ addition to the Thorn Garden shop, we hired some local residents as chefs. Since the chefs were only ordinary people, not mages, it seemed that they didn¡¯t manage to make it out of the fire alive. Perhaps these rich scions even killed the chefs off on purpose in order to kill any witnesses that could point them out for their involvement...


    ¡°ording to the Mage Country¡¯sws, what¡¯s the punishment for intentional arson that leads to people¡¯s deaths?¡±


    Cher paused in surprise when she saw that Rnd was talking to her, finally noticing that he was asking her as an officer of thew. It was just that his typically smiling expression was reced by a rare one of seriousness.


    ¡°...ording to the Mage Country¡¯sws, it should be execution by hanging, but...¡±


    His bright eyes suddenly dimmed, and the next moment, Rnd¡¯s eyes seemed to Cher like they were ck holes that could devour everything. Without a hint rage or hatred within them, he seemed like an emotionless machine. Cher felt chills run down her spine when she was looked at by those eyes. She found herself unable to tell him to be merciful.


    Cher suddenly recalled that she had wanted to investigate just who this Rnd person truly was. However, her direct boss, who was considered as someone muddleheaded due to old age by all her coworkers, suddenly came and warned her personally with such a serious expression.


    ¡°There¡¯s some things and some people that you¡¯re simply better off not knowing about. If you would like to live a long and good life, there are some lines you definitely can¡¯t cross.¡±


    To be honest, Cher was quite disappointed when she heard her direct boss tell her that. When she thought about how Rnd didn¡¯t have any other achievement emblems at all apart from the two Emblems of Endless Truth (the graduation emblem wasn¡¯t an achievement emblem), and how he always spoke so softly and acted so cowardly to a normal public order mage like herself, she kept feeling like the upper-ranked members of the Cloud Tower weren¡¯t as pure as she thought.


    Her direct boss, the elderly mage Charlie, used his authority to allow Rnd to mysteriously be able to take his subordinates out of jail every single day so easily¡ªCher¡¯spatriots viewed this as further evidence of his confusion due to advanced age. It also caused Cher to view this ¡°weakling who must have gotten his highest-level emblems through backdoor connections¡± with great displeasure. However, when she saw Rnd¡¯spletely unemotional icy gaze today, she felt like she was actually the criminal who was to be judged, instead. She felt like a frog being gazed at by a snake, frozen, unable to move. She realized that she had likely made a huge mistake, treating a tiger as a gentle housecat. This Rnd person was definitely someone highly dangerous.


    ¡°Oh, since thew states that the punishment should be death by hanging, in that case, there¡¯s no need to trouble the police mages any longer. Let¡¯s just execute them right here and now.¡±


    Rnd suddenly smiled as if his heartless emotions from earlier were nothing but an illusion. He seemed just like the same kind person who always apologized helplessly. The words he said just now still made Cher feel like she was dreaming.


    ¡°Hang them? Hang them all right here? There are more than ten archmages¡¯ descendants here! One of them is even rted to the Sword of Order¡¯s vice leader! Just how many mage organizations are you intending on antagonizing all at once?¡±


    ¡°Wait a moment, my granduncle¡ªI apologize! I¡¯ll pay you for all the damages incurred, don¡¯t kill m¡ªahhh!!¡±


    Cher hoped to god that Rnd was only trying to scare the young criminals. However, she soon discovered that his words were no mere threats. His subordinates brought out several ropes that they put on the arsonists¡¯ necks and then dragged them outside. A few pitiful screamster, everything suddenly fell silent.


    When Cher regained her senses and hurriedly rushed outside, she inhaled deeply when she saw the scene before her.


    No matter if it was a tall centaur, a young knight, or a cute wood spirit, all of them carried out the executions with practiced movements, sessfully hanging the arsonists onto the trees in a single try. There was no pity and no wasted words. It was as if this was just a daily task to everyone.


    ¡°Hang them all up at the entrance. Send that Andrei¡¯s grandnephew¡¯s head to the Sword of Order¡¯s main headquarters and tell them that Rnd is waiting for Andrei toe and receive his descendant¡¯s corpse.¡±


    I didn¡¯t even spare a nce for Cher whose face was turning pale as I kicked away the arsonists¡¯ explosives. As I expected, I found a ck crystal and some bottles containing dark green liquid.


    ¡°ck crystal cores. As long as this is ignited, the entire street will go up in an explosion. How truly vicious of them. This dark green liquid is doublelife snake venom¡ªtoxic to the extent of being instantly fatal upon contact to normal humans.¡±


    From the very start, I didn¡¯t think that these youngsters would be able to threaten me. But now, I was faced with the fact that not only did they break past my magical defenses, but they even caused even Yawen, who was at the peak of Gold rank, to be injured. This far surpassed these useless novices¡¯ personal abilities. There was definitely someone behind them, egging them on. These kids¡¯ rather special statuses were also a way of testing the waters against me, to test how I would react against such a challenge, and to see if I was still the same Yongye from back in the day.


    ¡°You all want to see Yongye? As you wish¡ªI¡¯ll show him to you. Consequences? Hmm, what¡¯s that? Is it edible? This kid¡¯s granduncle is Andrei? What a joke. Since when would Andrei dare to act so arrogantly in front of me?¡±


    I knew that this was both a test for me and an attempt to suppress me. If I acted weakly, there would be plenty of trouble for me in the future.


    ¡°I don¡¯t even need to investigate who¡¯s really supporting them. I¡¯ll just kill anyone who dares to antagonize me like this.¡±


    The next day when Thorn Garden opened, it was the worst day for its business ever since its reopening. After all, all the ¡°dolls¡± hanging from the front door of the store along with the wooden signs underneath their feet announcing their crimes made most of the customers stop in fear and surprise.


    Yet, there were customers who had opposite reactions. The older mages who had a huge amount of emblems on their chest were surprised for a moment, but were then pleasantly surprised that there wasn¡¯t a long line of customers that they had to wait through today. They happily smiled and entered the store, and even chatted amongst themselves in an amused fashion as they repeatedly pointed at the corpses.


    ¡°Oh, isn¡¯t that the youngster from Halin¡¯s family?¡±


    ¡°Ha, how pitiful. He became cannon fodder for somebody else?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s even the young one from Andrei¡¯s family? Haha, there¡¯s going to be a good show to watchter.¡±


    ¡°What good show are you talking about? Do you think that Andrei will dare to mess with Rnd? Besides, is it worth risking his entire family¡¯s lives for the sake of a grandnephew that¡¯s who-knows-how-many generations removed from him? At the very most, he¡¯ll just say a few words of anger for the sake of saving face, nothing more.¡±


    When Cher returned to the police station in a state of confusion, she discovered that she had actually watched a vignte execution take ce. When she finally calmed down and began preparing to summon people in order to prevent something more troublesome from urring, her boss, the old mage Charlie, stopped her.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. With how little strength we have, there¡¯s nothing we can do. When he gets angry, nobody can stop him.¡±


    This time, Cher was unable to remain silent anymore as she recalled Rnd¡¯s icy gaze. She instinctively felt that Charlie was correct. Whatever Rnd wanted, he was probably capable of doing it. Perhaps not a single person in the Cloud Tower would be able to stop him.


    She faintly perceived that Rnd who was always smiling had something analogous to a ruler in his heart. As long as one didn¡¯t tread on his bottom line, Rnd would be able to maintain a thick skin and smile as he retrieved his underlings that always caused so much trouble. But the moment someone crossed the line against him, he would unhesitatingly kill that person even if that person was the emperor of some country.


    ¡°Just who is he? Why are you so afraid of him?¡±


    She had already asked this question many times before. But now, Cher was no longer satisfied with just being waved off. If Charlie kept giving her an excuse to not answer, she was prepared to even go to the main Mystical de headquarters to ask all the leaders about Rnd.


    All the police mages sent inquisitive looks in Charlie¡¯s direction. Old Charlie maintained his silence for quite a while before he finally pulled out his smoking pipe and began puffing on it.


    ¡°...He¡¯s probably the most dangerous mage in the entire Cloud Tower. No, change that to the most dangerous mage in the entire world. There¡¯s no mistake. It¡¯s not convenient for me to say, but if you all go back to your homes and ask any elders in your families who are over one hundred years old, they should all know why nobody should pick a fight with that man.¡±


    ¡°Archmage Andrei suddenly returned to the Cloud Tower and angrily stormed off, heading for Thorn Garden!¡±


    This sudden piece of news sent the police station into a turmoil yet again. This time, old Charlie didn¡¯t stop the young police mages. However, by the time they hurriedly rushed over to Thorn Garden, they saw an inconceivable sight.


    The SemiGod ranked archmage Andrei was actually being fiercely scolded by that young mage in front of Thorn Garden¡¯s doorstep, and Andrei was even lowering his head and apologizing.


    As for me? The biggest trouble of today was just beginning. Scolding a junior of mine who I used to even be on good terms with for identally getting ensnared in a plot due to his foolish grandnephew was nothing. However, I, who had always rankedst in almost all my sses and failed so many as well, was actually supposed to be a teacher and teach a lessonter this afternoon.


    That was a far greater challenge.

 Chapter 302

    Chapter 302: The Ordinary Person¡¯s Generation (Part 1 of 2)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    As a lower-ranked academy under the superrge mage organization Mystical de, the Talenry Tower had very high standards for recruiting students. Most normal academies required acolytes to be able to cast one-circle magic spells before the age of twenty, but Talenry Tower required their acolytes to be able to cast two-circle magic spells before the age of eighteen.


    Although it didn¡¯t seem like that much of a difference¡ªthere¡¯s only a difference in two years and one circle¡ªthose two years just happened to be a critical growth period for humans. Without those two years, plus a requirement of one more circle, made it akin to the difference between the Iron rank and Bronze rank¡ªgigantic. It typically took four or five years of growth to make up such a gap.


    It could be said that any student who managed to meet Talenry Tower¡¯s high student recruitment standards was top-level even whenpared to the second or third-year students of other magic academies. However, even with such high standards for entry, there were far more applications than number of students epted each year. Talenry Tower would only take the best of the best, and in the end, those able to enter had far surpassed the recruitment standards. They were basically all geniuses or abnormal talents.


    Of course, with the Mystical de investing a huge amount on this academy to raise its students, it naturally reaped huge benefits as well. With such high recruitment standards and immense appeal to potential applicants, studying here had advantages far surpassing those of other magic academies.


    It was only to be expected that plenty of teachers, magical ingredients, and magical books were avable here. Even though there wasn¡¯t much of a difference in thispared to other academies, there still existed a great advantage¡ªin Talenry Tower, not only would archmages asionallye visit and choose disciples for themselves, but there would even be top-level mages from the Mystical de that woulde over at fixed intervals to teach sses.


    Top-level mages with an Emblem of Endless Truth woulde over at fixed intervals to teach sses and actual top-level content? Not only did every student try to obtain a chance to attend this once-a-month course, but even the mage teachers of the academy would look for ways to attend and listen in on this ss.


    This was a type of reward for the excellent students at the academy. Only the students excellent in all areas would be allowed by the mage teachers to attend this ss. As a consequence, this once-a-month ss taught by an archmage with an Emblem of Endless Truth was just like a monthly festival for the Talenry Tower. If the ss was a good one, the discussions about it were likely tost all the way until the next month¡¯s ss.


    Of course, since the archmages teaching this ss all had top-level knowledge, their sses wouldn¡¯t be low-level in content. However, the problem was that some archmages felt that it was quite troublesome to teach so they would simplye over and talk about whatever their newest research product was or summarize what he or she learned through self-reflection. Only a few geniuses among geniuses would perhaps significantly benefit from this, while the other ny-nine percent of students, who were still only novice level, wouldn¡¯t understand a thing.


    So basically, the quality of the ss and how much the listeners benefited from it didn¡¯t depend on the lecturer¡¯s level, nor did it depend on the power level difference between the lecturer and the listeners. It mostly depended on whether the lecturer specially prepared for this ss or not, as well as whether or not the lecturer made things easier for the listeners to understand.


    For me, this was quite arge amount of trouble.


    The Mystical de ran things quite loosely to begin with, and it didn¡¯tck top-level archmages at all. This monthly ss shouldn¡¯t have been given to me for several years if I just waited for my turn. This was probably a certain Aloso¡¯s way of helping me out of kindness, giving me an opportunity to let others know more about me and get along better with the other Mystical de members.


    That was indeed a good thing for me. However, the problem was that I didn¡¯t know what I should teach about in my ss!


    Although I was indeed one of the few mages who obtained the Emblem of Endless Truth in more than one magic type, and I definitely had the knowledge to back it up due to my vast experiences, I really didn¡¯t have much I could talk about.


    Give a ss on ice magic? If I followed the traditional way of increasing magic research one circle at a time, I probably only counted as a three-circle Bronze mage, tops. Not to mention, my ice magic mostly resembled natural talent magic simr to magical beasts, growing instinctively and through actualbat. I could talk about my fundamental magic of ice sculpting that I obtained in the snow mountain, but the problem with that was that no ordinary human would be able to learn it even if they understood, which meant that it would be a waste to talk about.


    Then should I talk about the top-level research results of ice magic that I personally came up with? No matter if it was Frigidwinter Earth or Ice Aeon, even though both of those would be considered top-level ice magic breakthroughs for the past millennium, they were concepts far too difficult for ordinary people to learn. Nor did I intend to give others the opportunity to understand my aces.


    Undead magic? I could talk about that, and I was willing to teach about it as well. The problem with that was that undead magic forever had dark undertones to it. Even the Sword of Order wouldn¡¯t dare to publicly teach such a taboo magic type in open. And if I still went ahead and taught these novices how to dissect bodies in order to assemble Abominations and zombies, perhaps everyone would be looking at me strangely in the future.


    ¡°Ahh! This is the frustration of someone like me who learned in a much different way from others. Even though I have so much knowledge, it¡¯s so hard for me to teach it.¡±


    But, after some consideration, I came to a decision.


    ¡°Since a traditional ss won¡¯t be meaningful, in that case, I¡¯ll just have a non-traditional ss. Hah, that¡¯ll be perfect! There are so many things that need to be said now, anyways.¡±


    If you looked at Talenry Tower¡¯s ssroom from the outside, it didn¡¯t appearrge at all. However, only when entering would one discover that this ce was actually enchanted with spatial distortion magic. This ssroom was, in actuality, a gigantic hall that could easily hold five or six hundred people. Magical lights hung down from the ceiling and illuminated the beautiful marble floor tiles, making the ssroom quite beautiful. The staircase-style seats were already filled with people.


    Just like always, the seats were filled ten minutes before the ss was about to begin. However, what was different today was that not only were students present, there were actually many white-bearded elderly men as well as seemingly young professors of whom nobody knew the actual age. The first row was actually entirely filled with veteran mages.


    The most inconceivable part was that there were even several mages with Emblems of Endless Truth among them. This was quite a rare sight.


    After all, even though these top-level mages would easily be able toe listen in to the monthly archmage¡¯s ss if they wanted, they were all already top-level experts in their own fields. It was only a ss by a peer, so even if such an archmage deigned toe to such a ss, it would be difficult for the archmage to learn much since this was supposed to be a ss targeted at novices.


    And even if the archmage in question was an expert in the same area as the lecturer, it was typically considered far more effective to simply contact the person in private to exchange information and magical knowledge. That meant there wouldn¡¯t be any favors owed.


    ¡°It would seem that this archmage Rnd, whom I¡¯ve never heard of, is someone incredible.¡±


    Not a single acolyte capable of entering this school was an idiot. Simply by seeing all the top-level mages present, all the students realized that this archmage Rnd that they had never heard of must be someone incredible. The few students who did know who Rnd was from their elders or teachers looked forward even more to Rnd¡¯s teachings... of course, since Rnd¡¯s name also happened to ovep with the name of a certain demon king-like character told to scare disobedient children, all those students who knew Rnd¡¯s identity chose to stay in the farthest rows away and the seats closest to the exit.


    ¡°Oh my. I¡¯m lucky I wasn¡¯t preparing to simply ad-lib everything.¡±


    The moment I entered the ssroom, I, too, was shocked to see all the top-level mages here. It would seem that I underestimated the influence of my identity as ¡°Yongye¡± in the mages¡¯ minds.


    As I looked around, I saw Kaid and his disciples, as well as Oslowen and Aloso. They were all people who I knew in the Mystical de.


    ¡°Even that old fart Angli hase? There¡¯s even someone ring at me? Oh, the rer is that little girl Cher. I bet she¡¯s learned my real identity by now. She even dares to re at me? She¡¯s surprisingly brave.¡±


    Yet, when I walked up and took my ce at the lecturer¡¯s podium, all idle thoughts disappeared. After all, these were words that I wanted to tell everyone for so long already.


    I picked up the magical highlighter pen on the podium and hesitated for a moment before I finally wrote some words for all to see.


    ¡°A Revolutionary Change: The New Generation Belongs to The Ordinary People.¡±


    Where should I start talking from? Everything that happened in the Underground World? The ever-increasing Elemental Tide? The Armageddon that was about to descend upon us all? Or the Gods¡¯ secrets?


    I had experienced far too muchpared to my peers that were busy hiding in their ivory towers, so much so that I didn¡¯t even know where to begin.


    That was the case even now. Although I had decided to make ¡°revolutionary change¡± the topic of my ss, there were too many chaotic thoughts within my mind on where to start from, so I still didn¡¯t know how to organize my ss.


    ¡°Well, since there¡¯s too much to go over, I¡¯ll just casually talk about it a little. I¡¯ll simply say whateveres to mind. If any of you have questions, feel free to raise your hands and ask. But I might not necessarily answer.¡±


    My first words as the lecturer already caused most people to feel that I was the unreliable type of teacher.


    ¡°The Holy War is already here again. Perhaps everyone still hasn¡¯t realized that yet, or, a better word would be is that everyone is uninterested. After all, we mages have gotten used to being observers. However, perhaps the situation is quite special this time as remaining as observers will basically be impossible.¡±


    And now, many people were beginning to frown in displeasure at my words. Could it be that I was a war hawker? But, this was supposed to be a purely academic lecture. Talking about one¡¯s personal political views seemed a bit ridiculous to them.


    However, Iughed upon seeing this situation. After all, from a certain standpoint, the Cloud Tower mages had remained as hermits for far too long. Perhaps they didn¡¯t know the newest situations and changes happening around the world. No, actually, perhaps they knew thetest information through their informational channels but felt that it was unrted to them.


    ¡°What I would like to discuss isn¡¯t the annoying topic of politics, but instead the issue of the current generation we¡¯re facing. Everyone can tell that the Elemental Tide is increasing, which makes increasing one¡¯s power level and conducting research much easier than before. However, this is only the beginning.¡±


    I reached out with my finger and lit up the entire ssroom with the silver power of Law. This was a divine power that represented Law, Justice, and Order, as well as the representation of a new type of power.


    ¡°The power of Law is a new power of Order, and the greatest achievement of mine in the Underground World. Perhaps many people here have heard of the power of Law already, but most people are probably treating it as another power simr to the power of Holy Light. However, few know that this power is actually quite suitable for mages because this power was created by a mage to begin with.¡±


    I caused amotion before I even finished speaking. Although the God of Law had been a hot topic recently, the power of Law was still just getting started. Simply because the power of Law was considered a power of Order, most mages viewed it as the same type of power as Holy Light, which was far too much of a waste.


    ¡°As one of the creators of this power, I can promise you all that this is indeed a power that¡¯s the most suitable for mages to use. Its basic foundation relies on Law Incantations and the understanding and belief that one has towards Law. Of course, other job sses will be able to make use of this power as well, but what job ss can possiblypare to us mages in logical reasoning and intelligence? Besides, the power of Law has basically zero requirements for a person¡¯s ability to control the elements or mana. It¡¯s incredibly easy to begin learning it.¡±


    Some things only needed to be half-said to be effective. There was a hugemotion in the ssroom when I mentioned how this power of Law had basically zero requirements for element controlling ability or mana. After all, being able to sense the elements and control one¡¯s own mana were the most basic requirements for being a mage. If those were no longer required, didn¡¯t that mean that any young person of above average intelligence would be able to utilize the power ofw?


    Yep, that was precisely why I always believed that only the power of Law was capable of foundationally changing the entirety of Eich. The power of Law was perhaps the divine power with the lowest requirements. And, in order to be able to use the power of Law, its users needed to obey the teachings of the Church of Law. Not only would the users thus obey the Law themselves, they would even need to act as just and fair executors of the Law. When most crimes in the world started receiving just punishments, then certain foundational things in how this world worked would naturally be rewritten.


    ¡°That¡¯s right. This generation belongs to ordinary people.¡±


    As the God of Law increased in power, together with hard work by countless Law job ss individuals, more and more Law Incantations will be invented. I believed that after Knights of Justice and Judgementors, there would soon be a third basic Law job ss in the future¡ªone that resembled the mage job ss. By that time, bing someone who could use magic would be far easier than it was currently, and the mages would find out that they were no longer at the top of the world.


    However, this was only a beginning. Since I was intending to set a massive fire here to catch the mages¡¯ attention, simply setting one fire would mean that the fire would easily go out. And so, I ignited several fires at once...


    ¡°Perhaps you have all heard about the sessfully developed small battery known as ¡®Olive¡¯s Magic Box.¡¯ But you all probably don¡¯t know that the wise individual who sessfully invented this technology was a young alchemist from the Nortnds, a girl named Olive. Shees from the Rhodes Kingdom, which is a tiny and faraway country that most of you have never even heard about. Perhaps you even view it as a barbarian kingdom. And Olive, this northern barbarian little girl, who¡¯s only seventeen years old, invented such a technology that¡¯s destined to change the world!¡±


    The facts were indisputable. Also, the easiest way to strike these proud young mages and make them less proud and arrogant would be to point at the aplishments of someone their own age.


    However, what I intended to say wasn¡¯t merely that alone. As for Olive, even if she never aplished anything else for the rest of her life, she was already destined to enter the history books simply by being the inventor of a small portable battery.


    ¡°I¡¯m currently using her research results to apply for an Emblem of Endless Truth in the area of alchemy for Olive¡¯s sake. It¡¯s quite possible that Olive will be the youngest mage with an Emblem of Endless Truth in history.¡±


    This caused yet anothermotion for the umpteenth time. I heard stuff like ¡°she¡¯s not qualified¡± ¡°that¡¯s too rushed¡± and other such denials from the young novices. However, several older mages nodded slightly as they realized the true impact of her invention.


    ¡°Perhaps some of you have already realized how the mass production of ¡®Olive Magic Boxes¡¯ will allow mages traveling out by themselves to have a backup source of mana storage. However, none of you have probably realized that an even bigger use of the ¡®Olive Magic Box¡¯ is to allow ordinary people with zero magical talent to use magic as well!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible!¡±


    ¡°This is the desecration of magic itself!¡±


    ¡°Oh, Gods of Magic! How is this possible?¡±


    Everyone was shouting in disbelief now. Mages always prided themselves on their identities as magic users. How would they believe so easily that ordinary people could invade their rightful domain?


    Still, once again, the facts would be indisputable, which was why I yed a recording from a memory crystal I had prepared for this ss. This was a recording of the battle in the Nortnds, from when the Silver Cross squadron consisting of the Four Elemental Swordcasters appeared in battle for the first time.


    They flew in unison together, they sent des of wind together, and they sent fireballs out together as if they were doing a performance. Even the elite mages here were astonished and shaken by these magic users¡¯ imposing manner and unity.


    ¡°Of course, they aren¡¯t yet mature. But the beginning is always the most difficult, and even SemiGod mages started from one circle magic spells. As long as these magic users keep persisting, they¡¯ll be more than ten times stronger in the future! That¡¯s why I¡¯m saying that this is a revolutionary generation, a generation that belongs to ordinary people!¡±

 Chapter 303

    Chapter 303: The Ordinary Person¡¯s Generation (Part 2 of 2)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    If one were to look back on everything I¡¯d ever done, one could see that there was a clear goal to my actions¡ªI wanted to increase the power of the average person in this world.


    Did this worldck powerful individuals? It didn¡¯t. Without even mentioning how many top-level mages gathered mold and dust while staying as hermits in their experimentalboratories, there were countless dragons, giants, and unknown powerful individuals out there. Even when I was Emperor Yongye back in the day, I only ranked 30ish on the Cmity Rankings, which ranked the disaster rating levels of everyone who liked to act as walking cmities. This world was quiterge, with many powerful individuals in it. However, would those powerful individuals be able to change the world?


    The answer was evidently no. It required far too much luck to create a top-level powerful individual, typically through processes that couldn¡¯t be repeated for others, and it required huge amounts of time and resources. Top-level power would forever be limited. Since the entire generation was changing, there was no point in counting on such few individuals and small groups of people to change the overall situation. This was the experience I gained from my past failures.


    But what frustrated me the most was that these powerful individuals preferred to y the part of hermits, viewing themselves as above the war, treating the Holy War as something that will pass in time, just as the Cloud Tower¡¯s archmages did. By the time the powerful individuals noticed that this Holy War was uniquely specialpared to the past, it would be far toote, and none of them would be able to escape.


    ¡°Powerful individuals are rare? They¡¯re chosen by heaven? It¡¯s simply that most people have never had any chance to be strong to begin with. If I want more top-level powerful individuals that seem like they were chosen by the heavens? Heh heh, as long as I increase the basic poption of those who can fight, as long as I increase the number as high as possible, miracles and so on will appear on their own. After all, geniuses are only rtive. Isn¡¯t a genius simply someone who surpasses ny-nine people out of one hundred? Perhaps I can¡¯t create more of that one percent that requires too many random factors, but as long as I improve and increase the ny-nine percent, I can multiply the base amount of fighters by over ten times. The number of geniuses and so on will naturally increase severalfold!¡±


    If Ipared this world to an ark that was about to meet a flood, which represented the countless trials that this world was about to go through, then before the astonishinglyrge waves and thunderstorms arrived, furiously increasing the ark¡¯s weight by strengthening its foundation was the most important thing to do in order to survive the flood.


    I needed to improve the overall power level of the ordinary people in this world as they were by far the majority. Then, I needed to control things from behind the scenes with the power of Law and Justice Points to guide them on the correct path. I would also need to decrease internal conflicts as much as possible so that we could gain the strength to resist the future thunderstorms. That was the choice I made.


    The appearance of the power of Law, the Four Elemental Swordcasters, and magical archers created by Olive¡¯s Magic Box would all help ordinary people to possibly reach the peak. However, it was just a beginning. The ¡°Great Industrial Party,¡± this mage organization which was named half-jokingly, had the tremendous ambition to change the entire world.


    I took a deep breath as my next words were going to hit the critical point I intended for this lecture.


    ¡°The small portable battery ¡®Olive¡¯s Magic Box¡¯ has far more effective uses than what I just mentioned. The greatest beneficiaries of this invention aren¡¯t even magic users or mages. Perhaps some of you have already tried my Iron Horses, right? What do you all think? How do theypare to real warhorses?¡±


    I ignored themotion beneath the podium, as the conclusion was obvious.


    ¡°Warhorses are expensive, and their bloodlines and breeds are big problems as well. Not to mention, they take an incredibly long time to raise, and there¡¯s the problem of fully equipping them. It could be said that an excellent warhorse with its own horse armor is half of a knight¡¯s life. Add to that the fact that warhorses require the highest-quality feed, and it could be said that domain lords everywhere spend great amounts of effort on maintaining a sufficient amount of knights under theirmand. Yet these Iron Horses...¡±


    There were plenty of mages that came from the nobility so they were the first to guess what I was about to say.


    ¡°They¡¯re cheap, truly cheappared to real warhorses. The cost of production isn¡¯t that high, and merely some engineering materials are required without any special magical ingredients. It can easily be mass produced. As for their abilities, even with just the current technology, until the batteries powering them run out of power, they¡¯ll be even quicker than warhorses wearing a full set of horse armor. Not to mention that you can easily add additional armor to the Iron Horse, and its defensive capabilities will be far stronger than a horse which possesses a physical flesh and blood body.¡±


    I closed my eyes and envisioned what I wanted for the future. In future battles, these Iron Horse-riding knights would wield spears and dwarven firearms which would enable them to strike the invaders in lightning-like ambushes. Yet they were only the first part in my nned iron-outfitted warriors!


    ¡°This is merely the beginning. I can tell you all right now that self-propelled super small mechas have already been developed. They are capable of greatly increasing any individual¡¯sbat strength and survivability. We¡¯re also developing heavy mechas with simr specs to war mammoths, as well asrge Titan mechas and siege weaponry that are currently undergoing mass production. Soon, the field of engineering that you¡¯ve all ignored for forever will develop from a joke field into a way of truth that¡¯s more than equal to magic. Not only that, the users of these mechas will be the ordinary people that you look down upon. The ordinary people of the future will have far more power than any of you realize.¡±


    To use a clich¨¦ phrase: ¡°The tides of history are unstoppable.¡± Heroes would forever rise throughout the times, and revolutions would ur when the winds were right. Even without me, there was destined to be a ¡°magical engineering¡± revolution in the future regardless.


    In the game¡¯s ¡°history,¡± after Armageddon finally descended and the And Empire suffered many serious losses and setbacks, pushing it to the brink, the And Empire finally gave everyone their secret technology of small portable batteries which had the power to change the world. What came with it was a revolution in magical engineering.


    Even though it was still a thorny road afterwards, magical engineering products changed the entire world in the game¡¯s ¡°history,¡± changing the way people lived, how they fought, and even Eich¡¯s very culture.


    Yet since I was now here in this world, how would I possibly waste precious time that could be used to prepare for future battles? Thanks to the butterfly effect that I intentionally caused, Olive invented this all-important technology more than ten years earlier than she was scheduled to. Nor did Tid need to waste so much time in ¡°maturing,¡± thanks to my ¡°experienced¡± guidance. This helped them avoid many incorrect paths in their research, making their paths much clearer and straighter.


    It wasn¡¯t merely my knowledge of the game¡¯s storyline. Even my memories about how modern-day wars worked in my world would help push engineering developments forward in this world by thousands of years. After all, it wasmon that even one small technological improvement would take countless years of hard work andbat experience to otherwise obtain.


    The most obvious was how Russia had once modified bulldozers into tanks. Plus, even World War 1 tactics like barbed wire fences, trench warfare, and stationery machine gun turrets were usable in this world as well! Perhaps just a tiny little moat and a small defensive structure guarded by a squadron of ordinary people would require an entire squadron of knights to use countless sacrifices in order to conquer.


    ¡°In the uing generation, it will be hundreds of times easier to obtain power. Even an ordinary person will be able to defeat or kill the strong! This is a revolution! This is no simple invention, this is an industrial revolution which will bring about an entirely new generation! This is the goal of my mage organization, the Great Industrial Party!¡±


    Of course, chaotic worlds would always give birth to heroes, as if the world itself would instinctively refuse to die off. Soon, new technologies, new magics, and new powerful individuals would appear endlessly like how new nts would sprout after a spring rain. As this world¡¯s enemies continuously increased in strength, the original residents would improve in strength in leaps and bounds as well. And what I needed to do right now was to prematurely bring the ¡°Industrial Revolution¡± to this world of fantasy and magic in order to strengthen its foundation.


    ¡°Perhaps some of you here are thinking that such a revolution is unnecessary, and that you should try and stop me... so what I¡¯m going to show everyone here next is the most truthful information of all. There are prophecies among what I¡¯m going to show you, as well as current situations. I swear on my own name of the veracity of this information.¡±


    I took a deep breath here. After all, these were things I needed to show them.


    ¡°...You all still want to act like cowardly turtles hiding in your shells? Let me just see how you¡¯re going to hide in your shells when enemies are knocking at your door!¡±


    And so, I showed the mages here the same information that I had once broadcast on the Borealis back in the day.


    These were images that resembled prophecies, with countless hordes of demons walking on the streets, cities burning and screaming as ck knights trampled everything underfoot, the undead invading the living¡¯s territory, the elves¡¯ holy grounds bing nothing but rubble and craters, and magma coveringnds that used to be filled with ice and snow.


    And, the most astonishing sight of all for everyone here was a pile of rubble that still shone with remnants of mystical light at the broken tower¡¯s tip. This ce was doubtlessly the Cloud Tower which was flourishing so much today.


    At the same time, my memory crystal also showed them the recent battles that had just urred.


    They saw the demon armies invading the Underground World, the fierce beastmen ambushing the Nortnds, the Undead Cmity invading the Bardi Empire, the forbidden spell duel I had against Undead Emperor Aso which ended in Aso¡¯s death, the current situation in the And Empire¡¯s Rain Capital, the battle against Emordilorcan in the Earth Elemental ne and the Divine Sins birthed there. No easy battle had been fought; each one was a close battle to the death.


    The entire world was quietly changing around them, with wars on the level of myths urring continuously. Yet the mages of the Cloud Tower continued living secluded off in their own little world, with the topics about the ongoing wars being nothing more than idle gossip to them. No matter how fierce ¡°someone else¡¯s war¡± was, they would merely sigh or be slightly moved before forgetting about it entirely.


    However, scenes that they could witness would be far more impactful than reading words on a report. All these scenes of Armageddon in the future as well as current and recent battles interchanged with each other, showing them both the current reality as well as prophecy. All of the mages naturally recalled the recent Gods¡¯ promations as well so even the most self-confident of mages would now be closely considering just howrge in scale the current Holy War was likely to develop and whether they would be able to safely stay out of things as they had originally wanted.


    The facts would be more powerful than any argument I could make, so I didn¡¯t waste words. Naturally, it was now time for me to deal with any doubts.


    ¡°...Just how did you obtain these images that are like prophecies? Divination magic can¡¯t possibly divine such results. Not to mention, divination magic can¡¯t even be used anymore ever since the God of Fate used his power during the Gods¡¯ promations. Also, just when exactly did you learn about such prophecies?¡±


    It was only natural that Oslowen, who was the highest-ranking member of the Mystical de present here, would be the first to question me on this.


    ¡°The source? I could describe it as a mere coincidence. I can swear right here, right now, using the powers of the Holy Light, that this is the truest ¡®history¡¯ and ¡®future¡¯ of this world. If I don¡¯t intervene, everything in these images will certainly ur without question.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, my status as a user of Holy Light was incredibly helpful to me. At the very least, it was incredibly helpful whenever I needed to tell a ¡°truthful lie.¡±


    ¡°As for when I knew about these prophecies? Would you believe me if I said that I learned about them more than three hundred years ago? That¡¯s right, I swear in the name of the Holy Light, that more than three hundred and seventy years ago, when I was still a seven or eight-year-old little brat, I already knew that all of this was destined to ur.¡±


    The blinding Holy Light surrounding me proved the veracity of my words, which sent the entire ssroom into the biggestmotion so far.


    As for me, it was now time for me to make my escape after sessfully saying everything that I wanted... Fine then, I actually didn¡¯t have much else to say, and I felt that I would be caught out in a lie somewhere if I continued speaking on this topic any longer.


    ******


    ¡°A hidden truth behind the Yongye Cmity!? The history books should be rewritten!¡±


    ¡°A ndered hero of darkness? The only one who knew the truth about the uing Armageddon? A maniac forced to insanity by the burden? The truth about the Nortnds prince!¡±


    ¡°The newest research and discussions on the veracity of the prophecy on Armageddon¡ªan interview with the dimensional expert archmage, Fensoan!¡±


    I was quite impressed with the hard work that the dimensional reporters put in as I looked at the thick stacks of magazines and extra edition newspapers before me. Even I hadn¡¯t realized that I had supposedly done so many things in secret before, turning into a tragic hero who had to bear such a reviled reputation in order to save the world.


    ¡°Hahaha, this article even discusses your past romantic history, iming that you used to have two lovers and a mistress. Could it actually be true? Rnd, did you take revenge against the Holy Church because of a dead lover back in the day?¡±


    The ck cat dexterously used her ws to flip through the newspapers to constantly look for more hrious articles on me. When she hadughed enough, she even sipped on some milk. Harloys really was bing more and more like a real cat.


    ¡°Hmph, I died in that life at only fourteen years old. Do you really think that anyone will believe this article?¡±


    Publicly making my statements while swearing to their truth using the power of Holy Light was quite worthwhile. By the same afternoon, just about all the mage organizations learned the content of everything I dered. Meanwhile, although it was already a publicly known secret that I, Rnd, was also Emperor Yongye, none of the publicly sold magazines or newspapers made any direct mention of me being Yongye. However, there were plenty of guesses and rumors within the mage organizations¡¯ personal publications.


    Some slightly good news was that most likely, the various mage organizations didn¡¯t want to aggravate me, so all the reports were still rather positive and easily eptable ones. Although it seemed rather strange that I mysteriously became a dark antihero, it definitely felt much better than how I was simply med for everything, no matter if it was my fault or not, in the past.


    After I revealed such explosive news to everyone, if the major mage organizations wanted to cooperate with me in order to receive more benefits, they would naturally try to give me a good name.


    As for killing off this rtively new invention? Or forcefully stealing it? Let¡¯s not mention how impossible that would be due to a certain reason. Sometimes, I even felt proud of how infamous my viiny was. It was quite useful in so many situations.


    However, the only downside of what I did today was that Thorn Garden had a poor day of sales yet again.


    ¡°Are things still the same outside?¡±


    ¡°Yep. There are many people standing around, looking at the store, but very few areing in and purchasing anything. The only ones that are buying products are the old familiar customers who are all at the mage-teacher level. It would seem that all those new faces outside are here for you. Are you going to go out and greet them?¡±


    ¡°Forget it. Earlier this morning, when I went out simply for some exercise, several tens of them were so scared that they took off running upon seeing me, and some even fainted on the spot. I¡¯m beginning to think that I¡¯m a medusa now, with the ability to petrify anything I see. Oh, and with additional sound effects of crying and howling.¡±


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you mentioning the young female mages who have lost themselves due to those stories about how much of a tragic hero you are? It must feel wonderful to have received the first ever love letter of your life.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, that definitely wasn¡¯t my first love letter... fine then, don¡¯t look at me like that, I admit it¡¯s the first love letter that I can recall receiving, alright? But I¡¯ve definitely received many challenge letters, duel letters, curse letters, and letters about never wanting to see me again. Perhaps there was someone in the past who intended to send me a love letter but sent it to the wrong person, or wrote the wrong person¡¯s name inside, or there was a girl who wrote one to me but was too embarrassed to send it...¡±


    I felt that I was more and more pitiful as I kept trying to defend myself, so I decided to change the topic to something more interesting.


    ¡°That girl is still crouching there, waiting for me?¡±


    ¡°Yep. She said that as an honorable executor of thew, she was definitely going to keep a close eye on you, and that I should tell you, ¡®Don¡¯t even think about causing any trouble in this city.¡¯¡±


    Harloys even imitated that silly Cher¡¯s tone of voice¡ªa really good imitation, in fact. At the very least, it was quite obvious from the way she grit her teeth and her expression that she didn¡¯t intend to allow me to have afortable life here.


    I nced out the window at the tree where the female mage Cher and her public security team was waiting for me. I could only helplessly shake my head. At any rate, I didn¡¯t intend to do anything illegal here¡ªfor the time being¡ªso she could just wait there all she liked.


    ¡°Hmph! If she wants to be a free police mage in her spare time, then let her be. It even saves us money on hiring extra security.¡±


    Yep, that was what I was thinking at the time. After all, from a certain standpoint, having police mages around here would help make our customers feel safer.


    ¡°You really should think of a method to make her leave as soon as possible.¡±


    ¡°Why? I¡¯m not intending on breaking anyws here or ruining public order.¡±


    ¡°Just this morning, she came in for three surprise inspections...¡±


    ¡°Who cares!? It¡¯s not like I¡¯m doing anything illegal! Let her check whatever she wants!¡±


    ¡°The reason she¡¯s been giving for searching us is ¡®tax evasion.¡¯ Each time, she¡¯s been seriously going through our ounts. Are you sure your fake ount books¡ª¡±


    ¡°I must think of a way to make her leave! Immediately!¡±

 Chapter 304

    Chapter 304: My Rtive


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Since the bait I had tossed out that day was quite attractive, and since my lecture had been an incredible sess and had gained everyone¡¯s attention, countless people signed up for my Great Industrial Party the very next day. It instantly became one of thergest mage organizations in the Cloud Tower... I¡¯m joking; that was all obviously made up!


    Reality often developed differently from what one nned. Even though I made tons of advertisements, not a single person had signed up for my mage organization as of yet¡ª perhaps it was the mages¡¯ nature to be cautious, or perhaps it was simply that I had been far too viinous in the past.


    However, there was one person who kepting to find me of her own volition, though¡ªsomeone who I didn¡¯t wee at all, someone who made herself into my ¡°guardian...¡±


    ¡°I shall be watching you closely!¡±


    Don¡¯t misunderstand. This was no confession. It was a police mage¡¯s angry justice-filled roar towards a suspect. Cher decided to find a reason to arrest me at all costs...


    And so, my Great Industrial Party, which didn¡¯t have any members except for my people, now had an internal overseer working for us for free. This was a specialized treatment typically only given torge mage organizations with over one thousand members. However, since we were technically a mage organization under the Mystical de, we were unable to refuse this overseer from the main branch from staying here as long as she wished.


    As for the Great Industrial Party... fine, I know this sounds awkward. The only property this organization possessed was the Thorn Garden shop, which was why Cher spent her free time idly here, inspecting our ounts every day... how could I possibly allow her to do as she pleased!?


    Any normal merchant aimed for profits, which meant the merchant wouldn¡¯t be entirely legal. Something like ount books? There needed to be a minimum of at least three sets. One set was for the tax inspectors, one set was for yourself, and one set was for when you were forced to the brink so you would toss that out to sacrifice part of the profits to protect the whole.


    ording to the Mage Country¡¯sws, all transactions conducted within the Mage Country would be taxed at a 10% rate. This was quite a hefty sales tax that would add up, so we typically did many transactions in secret in order to avoid taxes. We also made an excellent fake ount book, but...


    ¡°What? She¡¯sparing our ount book of what we¡¯ve sold to the amount of stock we have left in the warehouse? She¡¯s counting all the stock gone from the warehouse as how much we have sold instead? That¡¯s not following the most basic rules of tax regtion!¡±


    ¡°And do you think that you¡¯repletely following the rules by creating a fake ount book?¡±


    ¡°Of course! Is there any merchant in this world who doesn¡¯t make fake ount books!?¡±


    ¡°...At the very least, those of the royalty who are also merchants don¡¯t need to make fake ount books.¡±


    Harloys thought over it for quite a while and finally had to admit that despite her lengthy life, she couldn¡¯t recall a single merchant who didn¡¯t make a fake ount book. She had no choice but to hesitatingly speak about her most ancient memories from when she was still a princess, about the royalty who were also merchants and seemed to be quite honest.


    ¡°That¡¯s because they don¡¯t even need to pay taxes to begin with! They¡¯re the people whose wallets are being filled with tax money!¡±


    My angry roar echoed across the room. No matter which world it was, public enterprises orpanies supported by the government would be an excellent way to make money. They would have advantages in areas such as taxes, trustworthiness, and financing. Independent privately-owned businesses simply couldn¡¯tpete in those areas.


    But that wasn¡¯t the important part...


    ¡°Twelve products aren¡¯t listed in your ount books. There¡¯s at least a minimum of four hundred transactions that haven¡¯t been listed in your ount books. In less than a week, you¡¯ve already evaded taxes that add up to a minimum of 50,000 gold coins. Your fake ount books are marvelously well written with no evidence of any wrongdoing to be found anywhere. I¡¯m even beginning to suspect that you came from a merchant family.¡±


    When I looked at the tax evasion slip that Cher gave me, which stated I owed 52,452 gold coins, plus another 20,000 coins on top of that as a fine for tax evasion, I my heart bleed. This was all money I earned through blood and sweat! (Ok, fine. Thatst part was a lie).


    ¡°Hmph! Are you praising your own auditing ability in a roundabout fashion?¡±


    After all, my talent in creating false ount books came from another world to begin with, meaning that I was far above the level of anyone here. Unfortunately, she still saw through me. If only I knew that she was crazy enough to go inspect the warehouse and patiently count all the stock one by one, for an entire day, I wouldn¡¯t have been so nice to her and allowed her toe in and do as she pleased.


    ¡°No, I¡¯m being honest with you. Although your ounts may seem simple, the mathematical techniques involved have far surpassed any ordinary mage¡¯s math abilities. I¡¯m even suspecting you¡¯re a professional swindler and counterfeiter. That¡¯s precisely why I had to resort to non-regted methods in order to find evidence of your crimes.¡±


    ¡°...So, you¡¯re saying you¡¯re not investigating me because ¡®I havemitted a crime?¡¯ You investigated me because ¡®I definitely havemitted a crime, so no matter what, you¡¯re going to investigate to the end?¡¯ Do you know that you¡¯ve already broken one of the most basic principles that executors of thew should follow? Innocent until found guilty!¡±


    Even though Cher had a nk expression, likely because she had never heard of this phrase from my original world, I didn¡¯t really care right now. Seeing the enforcers of thew here act as they pleased made me mysteriously displeased as I frowned.


    *Rip!*


    However, I was surprised to see Cher tearing this tax evasion fine slip to little pieces in front of me. She even tossed all the little pieces on the ground, littering scrap paper everywhere.


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t intending on using this to threaten you. I merely wanted to ask you one question that I want your honest answer on.¡±


    ¡°...What¡¯s your question?¡±


    Since Cher used an entire day¡¯s worth of time to find my weak spot, her question couldn¡¯t possibly be about anything small and unimportant. However, what I really needed to do right now was...


    ¡°Hey, stop just standing around and gawking, hurry up and help me destroy the evidence and restock the warehouse! Also, randomize the stocking procedures, and redo the ount books! If she catches us for anything again, you¡¯ll all be paying the fine out of your sries!¡±


    Yep, in order to avoid being caught in the same fashion again, I first needed to deal with this immediately. I decided to ignore Cher¡¯s expression of condescension upon me, and then...


    ¡°Since you¡¯re being so sincere in asking me, I shall do my best to answer your question.¡±


    Cher hesitated for quite a while before she gritted her teeth and finally asked me her question.


    ¡°Are you my blood-rted grandfather?¡±


    ¡°Ptui!¡±


    Everyone who was watching this spouted fountains of tea from their mouths, and even the silly cat knocked over her bowl of milk as she rolled around on the ground,ughing. I was so shocked that I felt as if my soul was leaving my body. Where exactly did such a questione from!


    Thanks to a certain female mage¡¯s astonishing question, there was a huge ruckus in Thorn Garden. It took more than ten minutes for everything to calm down. During this entire process, my mind waspletely nk.


    ¡°What on earth? Is she here to ask me for child support money? Or am I being scammed? Am I suddenly going to be called Daddy next? I joined no suchpetition! Something seems wrong with the script! I don¡¯t even have a wife so how could I have a granddaughter?¡±


    Cher Allen, someone who appeared to be human on the surface, at the Gold rank, with an unknown age, had started out as a self-taught mage. Her specialties were divination and rune magic. From looking at her personal information, it didn¡¯t seem like she had any special background. She was already a Silver-ranked mage when she arrived in the Mage Country. It could be said that she was a ssic example of a sessful self-taught independent mage.


    Based on her personality, I doubted that someone like her would want to ¡°adopt a criminal as a father¡± in order to have a better rtionship with me for whatever reason. It was just the opposite, as when she asked me her question, she had such a look of disgust that basically said ¡°how could my rtive be someone like you?¡± which was still fresh in my mind.


    Soon, she gave an unforgettable exnation of why she asked such a question.


    If you went by her birthce, she was born in the Bardi Empire so she technically counted as a Bardi citizen. However, she was born as an orphan who didn¡¯t know her parents, and a powerful dragon had raised her and taught her magic. Later, she became an adventurer in the Bardi Empire. Then, Orloss began to force all adventurers and mages to officially register and work under the government, so Cher chose to leave the Bardi Empire rather than stay and work for Orloss.


    ¡°...The Bardi government started forcefully recruiting mages more than twenty years ago, right? In that case, this means that Lady Cher is at least forty years¡ªahhh!¡±


    As expected of my disciple¡ªhe was incredibly perceptive. Cohen instantly noticed the important point, one that I was paying attention to as well. He even rushed to say it out loud before I could, but Cher¡¯s movements were quite swift as well. She stomped quite urately on Cohen¡¯s foot, a perfectbination of swiftness, uracy, and viciousness. It seemed rather painful for Cohen and made one wonder if she was also in a monk sub-ss.


    As I watched the unfortunate Cohen, who deserved what he got for saying too much, I felt quite pleased. I had been too slow in saying the same thing. I inwardly sighed; Cohen was still too inexperienced. After all, some things simply couldn¡¯t be said out loud even if one had their suspicions. Wasn¡¯t that simply being suicidal?


    ¡°Female mages are women as well. Hmph! Haven¡¯t you seen how I¡¯ve never discussed the topic of age with Harloys and Amelia? That would be suicidal. Oh right, Amelia should be only a few centuries old, with three digits. But as for the princess from the elven empire, could she possibly have a five digit age? Haha! That¡¯s so old¡ªahhh! It hurts! Silly cat, stop wing me! Da¡ªdamn it! I forgot about our soul connection!¡±


    This time, Harloys wasn¡¯t biting me in her typical joking manner. She even transformed her ws into metal, not going easy on me at all. I felt a fiery pain on my nose, and I looked in the mirror to see eight bloody w streaks on my face along with a silly cat still attached to my head with an iron grip. I began seriously considering just how I was supposed to go out tomorrow, and if I should be creating a cat-fur scarf.


    ¡°...By the time I had an understanding of the world around me, I was already being raised by that humongous three-headed dragon. She taught me everything I know, but she never told me who I was or whether or not I still have rtives left in this world.¡±


    Cher seemed to have lost her patience for idle chatter as she directly started talking about her past.


    ¡°A three-headed dragon raised you? That¡¯s something that only exists in myths and legends these days. You¡¯re truly fortunate.¡±


    ¡°You actually believe me? I¡¯ve told others before as well, and none of them believed me, telling me that three-headed dragons don¡¯t exist in this world and that I must have been dreaming. Evelyn clearly exists! In a way, she could even be considered my mother!¡±


    Evelyn was the name that I had seen just recently in that letter that was seemingly filled with grudges and was addressed to me. This instinctively caused me to retract my casual attitude of thinking that Cher had nothing to do with me. I felt an unnatural chill running down my spine. My ominous premonitions were always on the mark, and this time, I felt that there was truly a huge amount of trouble in store for me.


    ¡°My job ss is Weaver of Fate...¡±


    The moment Cher mentioned this, everyone around her instinctively retreated several steps, while Cher helplessly shook her head and smiled wryly, apparently having gotten used to such treatment. This wasn¡¯t actually because the bastards under me were such cowards, it was because this job ss truly had such a frightening reputation.


    The Celestial Tower¡¯s fate was already the best evidence that divination magic was something unreliable. Changing fate would only cause one to suffer even greater misfortune. That was one of the basicws that the God of Fate had taught mortals. However, mages weren¡¯t scared of anything, so why would they be willing to obey the concept of Fate? That was how this incredibly special high-level job ss known as Weaver of Fate was born.


    As a high-level job ss which required being at the Gold rank or higher to progress into, this special job ss had basically zero requirements. Yep, mages could enter this job ss as well with only Silver rank, but as for the sess rate of entering this job ss... There was a saying about the Weaver of Fate job ss that it wasn¡¯t that there were zero requirements for entering this job ss, it was that this job ss itself had, from the very start, picked those who could enter this job ss. No matter what, those who weren¡¯t chosen wouldn¡¯t possibly be able to enter this job ss, so the so-called requirements for the job ss didn¡¯t matter at all.


    This job ss was so rare that there were less than ten individuals with this job ss in all of Eich. So, it was natural that those with this job ss were considered as mortals favored by the God of Fate, Catio.


    The Weaver of Fate job ss wasn¡¯t a particrly strongbat job ss, and it wouldn¡¯t have any additional benefits for mages¡¯ magic spells, either. However, this job ss had two basic abilities. The first was to analyze an object¡¯s past and future, and the second was to change someone¡¯s future fate.


    However, since forcefully changing anyone¡¯s fate would only result in that person¡¯s fate bing worse, even if a Weaver of Fate had kind intentions in using their powers, such as trying to change a person¡¯s fate of an uing death, all that would happen is that the person would die in an even more pitiful or painful manner. That was why this job ss had a very famous nickname: Summoner of Misfortune.


    From a certain standpoint, this job ss was literally one where anyone that they looked at would suffer misfortune. Anyone they red at would be even more misfortunate.


    ¡°Our abilities aren¡¯t quite as wondrous as depicted in the legends. Divination abilities have long since lost their power from the ancient eras. Even if I use all my power on ¡®Fate Analysis,¡¯ I can only see approximately one minute into the future about what will likely happen to a nonliving object. Rather than calling it a prophecy, it¡¯s more urate to call it a prediction. As for my job ss¡¯s ability to ¡®Weave Fate Lines,¡¯ it can only bring negative effects on others, which is why Weavers of Fate don¡¯t typically use their abilities.¡±


    I had researched about divination and fate-rted magic as well in the past. Although I didn¡¯t gain anything myself, I had some basic knowledge about it. Stargazers would typically trip over rocks under their own feet; the more closely something¡¯s fate was rted to oneself, the more difficult it would be to divine. However, it was publicly recognized that this job ss was one that nobody should antagonize. Weavers of Fate definitely weren¡¯t as weak as she made them out to be. After all, the #2 ranked individual in the Cmity Rankings was the ¡®Misfortune God¡¯ Ain, the most famous Weaver of Fate in the entire world.


    However, ever since the God of Fate Catio used his divine power for that divine-level forbidden spell, transforming his own power into that star which covered the entire dimension, the Fate Lines should have beenpletely messed up. All divination should have be ineffective. Perhaps that would allow us to somewhat rx about her powers.


    ¡°...Although direct divination magic spells are no longer usable, perhaps Weavers of Fate really are the children favored by the God of Fate. I can currently use the divine star¡¯s power of Fate, and my power has be far stronger than before. Although it¡¯s still difficult for me to see future fates of anything living, merely summoning misfortune upon anyone is quite easy now. All I need to do is slightly change their Fate Line.¡±


    Alright, now even I wanted to run away at top speed.


    ¡°Catio gave all of us Weavers of Fate a special gift as his favor to us. I¡¯m allowed to directly ask him one question, regardless of what it is, or what rules it breaks. However, I can only use this ability once in my lifetime.¡±


    She paused here with a rather strange tone of voice and expression as she looked at me. Then, an expectant look even came into her eyes.


    ¡°When I was at my most lost and confused, I decided to use Catio¡¯s gift. I asked him, ¡®Where is my family?¡¯ Catio told me, ¡®Go to the Cloud Tower and wait for the Lord Yongye.¡¯ So, Your Highness Rnd, are you my grandfather?¡±


    ¡°No, Cher. I am your father.¡±


    This caused everyone to be astonished. I was so proud of myself that I was about to startughing out loud. However, a sudden dark premonition caused me to recall that Cher was a Weaver of Fate, and that my joke had apparently gone overboard?


    ¡°...Don¡¯t take it so seriously, it¡¯s just a joke! I¡¯m just making a reference! A truly awesome reference! Have you ever seen Star Wars!? I highly rmend it! It¡¯s an amazing story! I really love this quote from it¡ªwho doesn¡¯t?!¡±


    Alright then, after experiencing three continuous days of misfortune where I almost choked to death every time I drank some water and suffered from endless amounts of cat bites from a certain silly cat, I learned that some jokes wouldn¡¯t be appreciated.

 Chapter 305

    Chapter 305: Inheritor


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    My memories were missing more parts than I had expected, and since I didn¡¯t even have anything possibly rted to Cher in my logs, then it probably wasn¡¯t anything good. It was likely to have been something I intentionally forgot of my own volition.


    ¡°...How do you feel, suddenly bing a daddy? Are you delighted?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a veryplex feeling. Also, if you keep intentionally misusing certain words like daddy, I shall make you into the ammunition for the next test firing of the new cannon in the experimentalboratory.¡±


    I smiled and nodded as I epted Harloys¡¯ taunt, before threatening her right afterwards.


    However, she seemed to not care about this punishment at all, which made me realize that such amon punishment wouldn¡¯t be able to scare her. Wait a moment, who would use stuffing someone into a cannon and firing them off as amon punishment anyways?


    ¡°Beifeng¡ª¡±


    ¡°I shall pay extra attention that it shall never happen again.¡±


    I nodded in satisfaction at this. Threats, after all, didn¡¯t need anything new. They only needed to be scary enough. Since a certain Banshee Queen was bing more and more used to her cat form, the Saint-ranked beast tamer was definitely her mortal enemy. Thankfully, Beifeng still had some very basic morals. At the very least, I had never heard anyints about him forcing anyone unwilling before.


    But to be honest, I really did haveplex feelings towards what Harloys intentionally worded in a way to make fun of me.


    To begin with, I had no way of knowing if Cher truly was my descendant or not. Although there were many ways of ascertaining if someone was rted to you or not in this world, none of those methods were usable in this particr situation. There was just no way to find out if she was 100% rted to me or not.


    In this world, in order to determine if two people were rted by blood, apart from the nowpletely unreliable divination magic, it would require something rted to the physical body. No matter if it was secrets of a bloodline or magic that searched for a soul¡¯s origins, they all needed a part of the physical body as a basic catalyst.


    However, my physical body had been restructured after being revived this time. Although my physical appearance was the same as it was in the past, and I greatly resembled a human on the surface, I was probably no longer human internally.


    ¡°System?¡±


    [...]


    Alright then, just as expected, the System waspletely unreliable at such a critical moment. However, Cher had her own thoughts about this as she was a Weaver of Fate.


    ¡°I can tell that your Fate Line is connected to my birth. Even if you aren¡¯t one of my ancestors, you have a very deep connection to my ancestor.¡±


    Not to mention, with Reyne and East Mist as an excellent example, even if Cher was indeed rted to me by blood, she might not necessarily be my descendant. After all, I had a headache-inducing yboy younger twin brother.


    ¡°This time, it has nothing to do with me. Second Brother Karwenz told me to tell you this.¡±


    Alright then, I didn¡¯t know what to say anymore as I saw how happy and excited Reyne seemed to be.


    ¡°You¡¯re really delighted about this?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, of course! If she¡¯s Brother Rnd¡¯s descendant, doesn¡¯t that make her my rtive as well? I finally have another rtive apart from little sister Clint.¡±


    ¡°Little sister Clint? Shouldn¡¯t you be calling her big sister Glina?¡±


    I finally came to the conclusion that perhaps it was the destiny of descendants of the Mist to have great misfortune. Both Glina and Reyne could be considered textbook definitions of orphans, not to mention the two of them didn¡¯t have a good rtionship with each other... Fine, from a certain standpoint, neither of them was anyone normal. Glina was especially a strange one that most people would have trouble getting along with.


    ¡°Right, how are things with Glina these days?¡±


    ¡°Very sessful. Since the north and east have all been quiet, and they no longer need to worry about their backs, the Sleuweir Kingdom¡¯s restoration has been better than the other areas. In the letter I received from her two days ago, she was evenining that she wanted toe out and y. Hmph, little sister Clint has far less to do than us. How could I possibly give her the chance toe out and y?¡±


    Although the Sleuweir Kingdom suffered significant losses during the battle in the Nortnds, it had a solid foundation and was able to recover quite quickly. It was originally a country where trading was an important business to begin with, and it now had opportunities to trade with the elves and the new beastmen tribes.


    Meanwhile, East Mist was more limited in poption and basic industriespared to Sleuweir. Even focusing the entire country¡¯s resources on preparing for the spring crop nting would be quite difficult for East Mist as they still needed to focus on basic military defenses. Although Reyne and Glina were both the leaders of entire countries, there was still a huge difference between them.


    Of course, if I looked at military capabilities, things were exactly the opposite. East Mist was my most important base of all in the Nortnds, not to mention it was also the main headquarters of the Church of Law. The newly-born technologies and military squadrons all came from East Mist as well. They were top-level in military power out of all the Nortnds countries despite East Mist¡¯s size. However, it was precisely because East Mist focused too much on military development that even the East Mist royal knights had to participate in nting new crops during spring.


    ¡°Sleuweir is fine, but East Mist seems to have be rather unbnced in its development. Military-rted matters are taking up far toorge a percentage of the government¡¯s tasks. The earth there is also poorly suited for agricultural development. I hope Amelia¡¯s new crops will be able to bring about an abundant harvest. Otherwise, I¡¯m going to have to find some other rich fool to scam for East Mist¡¯s food money.¡±


    I was slightly worried about the current situation when I thought about it. After all, the domain lords there would all have their own expectations and ambitions. If Reyne kept ying around outside in such an idle manner, there would be many troubles if something happened back in East Mist.


    ¡°How about you go back to East Mist and take charge there? I have plenty of people here with me right now.¡±


    Although Reyne hadn¡¯t be queen yet, everyone knew that she was the leader of East Mist. However, Reyne obviously wasn¡¯t the type to obediently stay in the royal pce and rule like a proper queen. This time, just like before, she imed toe here to support me and came along with the Borealis of her own volition.


    ¡°Even if I go back, I¡¯m nothing more than a rubber stamper. That¡¯s so boring.¡±


    Reyne pouted and seemed to disagree with me.


    This gave me an even bigger headache. After all, in a way, Reyne was right. The military matters in East Mist were being taken care of by my Red Hunting Hounds, Kelly could deal with political matters, and the Church of Law¡¯s authority was beginning to exceed royal authority as well. If you looked at it from a certain standpoint, it would even make us seem like we were intentionally usurping power from the orphan princess for a nefarious scheme.


    ¡°Fine, fine, forget it. Do whatever you like. But here is¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yep, it¡¯s really boring here as well. I can¡¯t understand all these mage things anyways, which is why I was about to say goodbye to you and go on a journey.¡±


    ¡°A journey? Where to?¡±


    ¡°I was thinking either the Forest of Dreams or And.¡±


    Although Reyne was still smiling and acting so casually like always, I immediately understood her wish. There was no need to go more into the details. Judging from her honest and direct tone, she had already made this decision, and now she was merely notifying me.


    ¡°Yep, it¡¯ll help me to gain more strength through practicalbat experience, and I also want to earn Justice Points. There are plenty of treasures that I have my eyes on.¡±


    Since the rules were set, they couldn¡¯t be changed so easily. Reyne, who had been following me for all this time, naturally understood just how important Justice Points were. Since she wished to be stronger, she would, of course, be quite interested in obtaining Justice Points. She also understood that now was the easiest time to obtain Justice Points and strengthen herself before everyone caught on to their importance.


    There were many items that could be exchanged for which were one-of-a-kind. Those that wanted such items would obviously have to act as quickly as possible. I had heard news from the Forest of Dreams that many people had already arrived there, including plenty of powerful individuals that had formerly preferred to remain as hermits.


    However, Reyne¡¯s ns weren¡¯t so simple as merely strengthening herself.


    ¡°If you need them, just tell me. Otherwise, if there¡¯s not anything, I¡¯m going to take the Silver Cross Squadron with me, as well as the Aurora Knights. It¡¯s too much of a waste to have them standing around here in the Cloud Tower acting as employees of Thorn Garden. I¡¯ve already set aside five thousand Hero Armlets for their use. Just treat it as the appropriation of governmental property.¡±


    This was obviously well-nned by her before she notified me. She was intending to go into battle. Not only would this help train herself, she would also train the soldiers and knights under her as well. They would obtain Justice Points and grow stronger together with her.


    This was Reyne¡¯s choice. She chose to lead her own people and knights to grow stronger together to deal with the future challenges and difficulties.


    A bright spring sun shone in through the window as the smiling Reyne waved goodbye to me. I felt like this all happened too quickly and mysteriously without me even realizing it.


    Her silver armor shed with solid metallic ting, and traces of fear and hesitation had long since disappeared from her beautiful face. Her smile wasn¡¯t forced at all, and the silver Rnd Sacred Sword was glowing with a resolute light. When I finally woke up, I discovered that time had flown by and that this girl had imperceptibly be a warrior who was a leader in her own right.


    ¡°Right, I also brought that g with me. You don¡¯t mind if I use it, right?¡±


    This famous dragon-ying princess of the Nortnds was still using that tattered g of the Mist. At this moment, I paused in surprise, before I finally figured everything out.


    Obviously, Reyne had already nned all this out. She wasn¡¯t escaping from her responsibilities as the leader of a country¡ªin fact, it was the opposite. She believed that since cmities were destined to endlesslye in the future, merely guarding what one had wasn¡¯t enough. After all, that was a passive way of defending. Only by obtaining enough strength would one be able to ovee the uing difficulties. And now was the best time to obtain greater power and reputation.


    In this world, even something as intangible as reputation could transform into solid, actual fighting strength. When faced with cmity and danger, a well-known hero¡¯s summoning for assistance would be able to attract numerous people who trusted in them as allies.


    Reyne made her choice. She chose to take her knights with her to experience the battlefield and to avoid the safety of my protection. She chose to obtain the power to protect herself and her people through life-and-death experiences, both to help herself gain a reputation as well as to inject new history and fame into the g of the Mist. The entirend of Eich would witness once again what it was to be a descendant of the Mist.


    She knew that mentioning such ideas of hers in East Mist itself would be impossible. Since Reyne was the only royalty left, Kelly and all the other long-time retainers would definitely refuse, which was why she used the excuse of supporting me toe here. Then, she would go to the frontlines as nned before finally informing Kelly and the others afterwards.


    Right now, although the girl before me still looked the same as before, that formerly hesitant ¡°flower-vase princess¡± hadpletely vanished. This princess knight was now someone who smiled while facing future cmities and was bearing the burden of a country and her citizens¡¯ trust.


    I really didn¡¯t know what to say even after thinking for a long while. Even though she was asking me about it on the surface, she probably never even considered the possibility that I would reject her.


    Would I reject her? Of course I wouldn¡¯t. Since the young bird had now matured into a soaring eagle that was ready to spread her wings and leave the nest, there was no way I would force her back into the nest and fold her wings. That would only make a talented individual waste away into an idiot.


    ¡°You¡¯re really going to make me suffer with this. You want Kelly to lecture me to death that badly?¡±


    ¡°...Hehe, even Brother Rnd has something you¡¯re afraid of? I apologize for that; I¡¯ll write a letter to her. So, this means you¡¯ll allow me to go?¡±


    ¡°Even if I don¡¯t allow you, you¡¯ll probably sneak off on your own. Honestly, there¡¯s nobody at all around me that doesn¡¯t make me worry.¡±


    Iughed as I shook my head. I was both feeling relief as well as regret.


    ¡°I love you the most, Brother Rnd.¡±


    When she discovered that her request had been approved, the mature female knight instantly became a defrosting ice mountain that transformed into a shy young girl who was smiling as prettily as a flower... and then she jumped on me, knocking over both me and my chair.


    *Kiss!*


    I felt a light peck on my cheek, and when I finally came to my senses, there was nothing before me anymore other than a faint smell of orange-scented perfume and Reyne¡¯s figure escaping in the distance.


    I rubbed my cheek where I could still feel a lingering soft sensation, as if her red lips were still brushing against my cheek. I had no idea what to say anymore, and it took quite a long while before I finally managed to make ament.


    ¡°...Heh heh, that little girl is such a passionate one.¡±


    ¡°Sometimes, intentionally acting dumb when dealing with something awkward can be considered gentlemanly. Sometimes, even though you clearly know what¡¯s going on, you still intentionally act dumb, which is something ridiculously overboard. Little Rnd, which type do you think you are?¡±


    ¡°Shut up, Harloys. Otherwise, I¡¯ll feed you to Beifeng.¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    My best weapon against her was far too threatening so the silly cat fell silent. However, a whileter, I couldn¡¯t help but ask.


    ¡°Was I really being overboard?¡±


    ¡°...Scumbag, demon, pervert, bastard, gentleman, Rnd, Beifeng!¡±


    Alright then, it appeared as if my and Beifeng¡¯s names had the potential to turn into adjectives. Since my level of wickedness in her mind was only one level off from Beifeng¡¯s, it seemed that I really needed to start self-reflecting.


    After Reyne escaped at top speed as if she was fleeing the scene of a traffic ident, my emotions that were already in a mess, due to the issue of Cher¡¯s identity, became even messier. Not to mention, the silly cat continued adding to my burden.


    ¡°...Oni Chichi, Beifeng, Rnd, Oni Chichi, Beifeng, Rnd...¡±


    When I began seriously considering if I should try tasting some cat meat for the first time in my life¡ªand started taking action as well¡ªonly then did she snicker at me and disappeared into a shadow.


    After thinking about things for another two minutes, I decided to focus on something else, instead.


    ¡°Reyne, you¡¯re bing more and more like him.¡±


    Mysteriously, in my mind, my impression of Reyne was beginning to ovep with Karwenz, the idiot who sought strength above everything, to an incredible degree. From another standpoint, Reyne¡¯s determination to go train herself in battle gave me a warning as well.


    ¡°Since I¡¯ve already made all the ns I can, it¡¯s about time I started focusing on my own cultivation. In the end, power levels are more important than anything else. Even Reyne understands this much, so how can I possibly fall behind her? When I finish all these things here at the Cloud Tower, I should go find a ce to cultivate as well, along with earning some Justice Points.¡±


    As long as I could steady the situation here before the Undead Emperors descended, this would be the final period of peace for the mortal ne. Karwenz¡¯s overwhelming power was a thousand-kilogram boulder weighing in my mind. Not only that, ten years from now¡ªno¡ªperhaps only seven or eight years from now, all the Undead Emperors would be able to descend to the mortal ne at full power, which was the biggest threat before me right now.


    I had already solidified my foundations and discovered my own future path. The rest would be to persist down my own path and furiously train myself through actualbat and earn both Fate Points and Justice Points to improve at an almost rule-breaking level of speed.


    ¡°Right. If I want to enter the Legend rank, I need to restore three more Soul Imprints. I still don¡¯t have any methods for Holy Light and Law right now, but I¡¯m currently in the Mage Country. My undead magic has long since reached a bottleneck, and I bet I can find some relevant knowledge here to make a breakthrough. Also, I need lots of top-quality elemental materials to improve my Frigidwinter Earth. It seems that it¡¯s time to rob my old friends¡ªer¡ªhave some discussions with them.¡±

 Chapter 306

    Chapter 306: Revolution


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The area around Loyu Street was originally one of the most unnoticeable areas in all of Arlo. After all, this area was the gnome and dwarves¡¯ district. They weren¡¯t popr in this country of magic, and the estate prices here were the lowest.


    This was the Mage Country. Gnomes¡¯ and dwarves¡¯ engineering technology would always seem extravagant but impractical in front of the mysterious power of magic¡ªlike a firework, beautiful yet otherwise useless.


    ¡°Engineers¡¯ cannons? Gnomes¡¯ explosives? They don¡¯t even have the power of three-circle magic spells, and it¡¯s so easy to identally injure oneself with an explosion. Most importantly, they¡¯re really expensive, really heavy, and really unreliable.¡±


    ¡°Gnome harvester mechas? A Silver rank can easily deal with the small ones, while therge ones require astronomical prices due to the need for an energy source. Nor canrge mechas be mass-produced, and I¡¯m doubtful of their practical usability.¡±


    ¡°Dwarves¡¯ daily-life products? Are you joking with me? Are you intending to try that water-flushing toilet of theirs that can shoot you up into the clouds? Or use a dwarven sleeping mask that will easily fry your brain? Yep, you could also try theirrge ¡®megafy¡¯ massage chairs that are rumored to be sofortable that they¡¯ll break every bone in your body. Forget it, those items all belong in a dump.¡±


    For quite a long while now, the products of engineering had always been treated as unreliable. Apart from the fact that the gnomes and dwarves that excelled at engineering indeed had problems with their moral conduct, it was more about the limitations of technology.


    ¡°It¡¯s impossible for engineering to produce reliable products without a reliable power source.¡±


    To use an analogy from my previous world so that you readers can understand, not a single person would buy a car that would randomly choose a number between 1 and 100 horsepower when you stepped on the gas pedal. If a hair dryer or a microwave had voltage that would randomly jump several tens of thousands at a time, they would be no different from a ticking time bomb.


    The energy sources that the dwarves and gnomes used were far too crude. Either they used highly mmable substances like oil as the energy source, which meant that it was hard to control the energy output¡¯s power, or they would use rare resources obtained from magical beasts or precious minerals. That would cost astronomical amounts of money, on top of a low efficiency rate of conversion to energy. Not to mention, these magical sources would be difficult to control if they ran amok. And so, energy development was basically a huge mess.


    That wasn¡¯t because the gnomes and dwarves didn¡¯t view energy as important. It was that every natural-made or ancient energy source had different activation methods and fundamental workings. These energy sources could only be researched individually. Since all the different parts for energy sources were of such a wide variety, how could they possiblye up with an all-around mass producible energy source?


    And since there was no way to mass produce any reliable energy sources, it was only natural that engineered products were also simrly unable to be mass produced. There was no consistency to engineering at all.


    Of course, gnomes and dwarves weren¡¯t satisfied with restrictions like this. Gnome engineering was just a typical gnome way of thinking... or perhaps I should say a gnome way of not caring about the consequences.


    ¡°Since I don¡¯t know when it¡¯ll explode, let¡¯s just make this into an explosive with the target of exploding in the first ce.¡±


    And so, all sorts of Gnome Mines were invented. After a long time passed, the gnomes lost sight of their original goal of improving gnome engineering. Their goal instead became the abnormal one of making more and more powerful explosions, something they considered glorious.


    ¡°Since there¡¯s no way to reliably control the energy output, then let¡¯s just think of ways to maximize the energy output, instead.¡± And so, the gnome rocket cars and rockets were invented that had such a high fatality rate...


    Should I say that it was thanks to the dwarves inventing the parachute that pilots were given the chance to return to the ground alive? However, I found it iprehensible how gnome rocket car races became the gnomes¡¯ most favorite sport of all.


    ¡°Danger? What¡¯s that? Please call it unpredictable excitement!¡±


    That would be a very typical gnome-like answer. Perhaps it would be more convincing if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the gnome rocket car races caused several hundred gnome casualties every year¡ªall due to explosions.


    Meanwhile, the dwarves had a much more normal way of thinking. At the very least, they were working hard to make up for their technological weaknesses. During the process of searching for better energy mechanisms, they invented gears and attempted to use gears to transmit torque, change speed, and change the direction of torque. The dwarves attempted to use gears to control the output of energy and control what was originally uncontroble.


    It was precisely because of dwarven gears and conductors that dwarves possessed far higher quality engineering products in the areas of mechas and transportation toolspared to the gnomes. The dwarves¡¯ products were far more exquisite as well.


    After all, the gnomes considered all rge and creaky products¡± as ¡°consumable products which bring excitement and explosions,¡± so there was no reason that the gnomes would research any deeper about the subject. However, the gnomes far exceeded the dwarves regarding anything dangerous or high speed, such as rocket cars.


    With current technology in this world, using gears which were still a rtively new invention here to begin with to control an energy source that waspletely unpredictable would be no different from using oars designed for a wooden rowboat to try and control a heavy battleship constructed of metal. It would naturally be unreliable, and even for the coincidental sesses, the amount invested in the construction would far exceed what was earned from selling it. And, in the end, it would still be unable to be mass produced.


    The worst part was that even though the dwarves hadn¡¯t yet mastered the gears that they invented, they still believed that ¡°it¡¯ll somehow seed by using as many as possible.¡± The dwarves created arge amount of daily life products for practical use that became known as ¡°killers.¡± The end result was that no matter if engineered products came from gnomes or dwarves, the products all became known as bad, unreliable deals.


    As for me personally, I felt that the dwarves were at least more reliable than the gnomes. If the dwarves were given another two or three thousand years of time, perhaps they would be able to coincidentally discover some energy source and develop technology simr to steam-engine technology from my original world. But since this world was facing numerous impending cmities, such time was obviously unavable.


    To be honest, if the gnomes and the dwarves cooperated, they would perhaps be able to invent some amazing new technologies. However, those in the same line of business always viewed others in the same line aspetitors, not to mention how scientists were always the stubborn type. Researchers with just slightly different ways of thinking thought it natural to view each other aspetitors and even enemies. It was basically a daily urrence to attack others¡¯ research for simply being different from one¡¯s own. The gnomes and dwarves never had a good rtionship.


    Only a ce like Sulfur Mountain City would be able to make these two species, who always viewed each other with enmity, finally put aside their differences and cooperate, which resulted in abnormal products like the Rnd Titan. Of course, even in Sulfur Mountain City, the two species still argued aplenty. Only when they were locked in jail as prisoners together did they finally manage toe to a temporary mutual ord.


    But now, Olive¡¯s Magic Box meant that there was a reliable source of energy. The engineers would finally be able to let go of their old outdated and mistaken ideas while focusing on developing more important technologies.


    ¡°Every change in how energy is supplied represents a new industrial revolution. And for Eich, what the Olive Magic Box will bring is probably this world¡¯s first ever industrial revolution.¡±


    Although the Olive Magic Box¡¯s core was the Miracle Alchemist Olive¡¯s energy conservation cycle magical array, what allowed it to operate consistently was mostly the work of master engineers led by Tid. The current newest edition, ¡°Olive Magic Box 8.1,¡± had far higher specs than even the version in the game¡¯s ¡°history.¡± That was why all sorts of engineering products were developed so quickly in this current version of history.


    Not only did it involve the hard efforts of Jinya, Millhouse [1] 1 , and various gnome and dwarf engineers, the information that Tid provided stemmed from secret knowledge possessed by ancient races. After all, Tid was the final remaining member of that ancient species. This was a miracle product born out of necessity of the times. If it wasn¡¯t for being pushed to the brink and despairing, the Tid in the game¡¯s ¡°history¡± would never would have given up his own precious information to others.


    Now, the entire Loyu Steet District became the Great Industrial Party¡¯s district after purchasing, merging, and recruiting the entire area.


    Yep, merging. Basically, I would just purchase an entire store, which naturally made the store¡¯s employees ours. Then, I would have the stores demolished and modified into factories. Although this did cost a lot of money, I had earned plenty in recent days, not to mention my previously saved up funds. It wasn¡¯t too much of a financial burden.


    There were plenty of gnome and dwarf engineers making a living in the Mage Country. However, most of their business came from smithing, alchemy, and enchantments. Smithing was quite close to engineering, anyways, and I reallycked people in this department. I also hankered after more alchemists as well.


    As for the gnomes and dwarves, engineering was a part of their daily lives. Even gnome master alchemists would be quite skilled in engineering, and their archmages were quite willing to work for me in exchange for the newest technology I possessed. No, I should say that since this was the revolution that would herald a new generation, and that the gnomes and dwarves were species sensitive to the importance of new technology, they had practically gone crazy over the technology I showed them.


    What made them furious was the fact that this invention destined to be a historical achievement wasn¡¯t invented by either of their races. This caused them to want to vent in frustration out of pride.


    In fact, when I tossed out recruitment advertisements stating that Thorn Garden was hiring engineers and alchemists, mentioning that a long-term contract of ten years was required, many top-level dwarven master enchanters and alchemists voluntarily came to offer me their services. There was even a Myth-ranked dwarven archmage, Cromwell Manastorm, a master magical puppet artisan, that came to show me his acolyte-level engineering certificate in a pitiful attempt to be hired by me.


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯ve always wanted to be an engineer¡ªhey¡ªhey¡ªplease don¡¯t leave! I can work for you while researching new technologies! Wouldn¡¯t you like to see thebination of runic magic puppets and engineering technology!? That¡¯ll definitely be by far the scariest¡ªI mean cutest little things this world has ever seen!¡±


    The dwarf archmage¡¯s raspy voice echoed throughout the room, with shiny and dangerous purple mana waves crackling. I even suspected that if I refused him, he would directly attempt to explode this entire room.


    ¡°Fine, just sign this ten-year contract here, and you¡¯ll be working for me, Rnd, from now on... Hey, you¡¯re signing without even reading the contract? I¡¯m that trustworthy?¡±


    ¡°Heh heh, as long as you give me that technology, I¡¯m even willing to pay you every single bit of my wealth. It¡¯s merely working for you for ten years, such a little thing. Besides, I¡¯ve already heard from other dwarves about you, and I¡¯m really looking forward to working for you.¡±


    The white-bearded dwarf archmageughed in delight, almost as if I was the one signing a ten-year contract to work for him, instead. Not to mention, this dwarf archmage wasn¡¯t even the first archmage to show friendliness to our cause. The unexpected part was that almost all the archmages expressing interest in joining us so far weren¡¯t human archmages.


    I had plenty of subordinates, money, and technology. The factories werepleted quite quickly, and Loyu Street became my turf.


    Of course, the consequence was that it no longer became possible for other mages toe to the dwarves and gnomes for the original services provided. The mages would now have to go look for human smiths and alchemists. Naturally, this would attract enmity in my direction as I was being quite grand in my actions. Still, why would I care?


    ¡°The next products we¡¯re going to start selling? The Starcraft Marine and Sith Warrior mechas are all finished, so let¡¯s start selling those. Hmm, it¡¯s time to increase the speed at which people start using Justice Points. We¡¯re only going to sell the mechas to those who can pay 10 Justice Points in addition to the price in gold coins. That¡¯s a very low amount of Justice Points, but it¡¯ll force the mages to start thinking of ways to earn them.¡±


    However, sometimes things simply wouldn¡¯t develop as nned.


    ¡°Um, my apologies, but we don¡¯t have enough money to purchase and create so many production lines.¡±


    ¡°How is that possible? Thorn Garden is highly profitable, right? I even set aside an amount of money for purchasingnd, so why is there no more money? Was there an error in your calctions?¡±


    ¡°Milord, you signed so many master engineers and archmages to ten-year contracts, so the costs for housing them and first installments of paying their sries constitue no small amount. The cost has exceeded the budget! Also, Milord, you currently have four research projects active at once. Especially your Rnd #7, it costs a ridiculous amount of money every day. Everyone in the finance department is of the opinion that Milord should stop one of your research projects.¡±


    I didn¡¯t know what to say to the hesitant young ountant who had been forced here by his coworkers to be the bringer of bad news. Although I could still think of other ideas to move funding from other sources, this would definitely slow down the overall progress of things I wanted. I hesitated for a moment and ended up thinking of a little scheme to obtain some extra money.


    ¡°How about we try something a little crooked?¡±


    However, when I told everyone my n, they were all cool to the idea.


    ¡°If you rob or scam someone, won¡¯t you lose the ability to use the power of Law? Milord¡ª¡±


    When I heard this, Iughed in satisfaction.


    ¡°Hmph! This isn¡¯t robbing or scamming at all. Such talentless actions like robbing or scamming couldn¡¯t possible make as much money as this idea of mine!¡±


    Notes:


    [1] TL/N: Apparently Miheuer in the glossary, but I¡¯m changing it to Millhouse because Millhouse Manastorm is actually a WoW reference.

 Chapter 307

    Chapter 307: Gnomes vs. Dwarves


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Have you bought one yet?¡±


    Nobody could have expected what exactly would happen as a result of the above phrase bing one of the most popr greetings among mages.


    ¡°Last night I had a dream in which my ancestor informed me that this time, it¡¯ll definitely be red-blue, red-purple, and ck-white!¡±


    Did that sound confusing? Each colorbination represented a choice. This was much simpler than numberbinations. It was much easier to understand, right?


    Yep, this was a lottery system. Apart from a crazy archmage like me who was actually from another world, who else would think of starting a lottery system in a magical fantasy world in order to earn money?


    As for this young mage who supposedly received a message from his ancestor in his dream, he was no different to those lottery addicts from my original world. He decided to spend his entire family¡¯s fortune on this one series of colors.


    Of course,pared to my original world where, in China, the lottery system often had tricks involved and the lottery holders themselves often won their own lottery, I considered myself quite conscientious. I merely had my own people win only 30% of the total lottery rewards.


    What? You think I¡¯m immoral? Actually, I considered myself quite moralpared to many lottery officials.


    Those who won prizes in my lottery didn¡¯t win only gold coins. After all, there were plenty of mages who were already quite rich. My prize pool contained rare magical ingredients, Thorn Garden¡¯s limited-edition goods that couldn¡¯t be purchased in the store, Justice Points, and even the right to be taken in as a disciple by an Emblem of Endless Truth archmage. These potential prizes sessfully allured mages into ying my lottery.


    I also intentionally raised the rate of winning prizes during the first few cycles of the lottery. Plenty of mages even won the constion prize, the limited-edition Iron Horse #8, nicknamed Red Lightning. The winners happily rode their new red steeds and raced everywhere, causing certain collectors to even go into a mania trying to obtain one.


    What was with the name of Red Lightning? Actually, they were just the same as Iron Horse #7, just with an outeryer of red paint and renamed #8...


    What? Merely changing the color scheme and counting it as a limited-edition product seemed like a devious tactic...? Actually, I felt that I was quite moral! At the very least, I didn¡¯t start selling the Red Lightnings at a jacked-up price by simply iming that they were limited editions. I was even kind enough to change the name!


    Fine then, I supposed I was a devious no-good merchant, but was there such a thing as a sessful merchant who wasn¡¯t devious and no-good? At the very least, I provided the mages with entertainment while I made money for myself. Plenty of people had fun.


    And once certain things got started, they would be quite hard to stop, especially since the natives here were ¡°honest¡± folk that had never known addictions. Once they got started, how would I possibly let them stop... After they took the bait, the prizes they won became the least important. The excitement and anticipation at revealing what prize they could get, just like people making random draws in a cell phone game, was what people became addicted to the most.


    And this was just a beginning. They would soon be numb if I merely repeated the same type of stimtion over and over again. I needed to give them endless amounts of new things they could bet on.


    ¡°Who do you guys think will win this time? Jinya¡¯s Mega Apollo, or Manastorm¡¯s Maniac Gear 07?¡±


    ¡°I think the result will be the same asst time, with both of them exploding before they reach the finish line. Damn it, who could have guessed that there would be such a resultst time? I bet on the dwarvesst time and lost so much money!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, that¡¯s because you all still don¡¯t know enough about engineers. Last time, I bet that neither the gnomes nor the dwarves would reach the finish line. There was a 1:3 betting ratio so I won three times my bet! But still, it was such a pity as I was too conservative with how much I bet. Otherwise, I could have made so much money...¡±


    ¡°Damn, you actually bet sessfully on such a ridiculous result? Why were you so conservative?¡±


    ¡°I was quite hesitant at the time. If only I bet on neither side being able to finish even half the race. That would have been a 1:9 betting ratio!¡±


    ¡°Amazing. How about we all bet on the same thing as you next time?¡±


    ¡°Oh, how you heard? Since too many people are betting this time that nobody will reach the finish line, the betting ratio has already been changed to 1:0.8. It¡¯s such a pitfall. But I feel like that¡¯s the only ce to bet.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, how dumb of you. I heard that due tost time, both the gnomes and dwarves were so angry that they spent great amounts of effort in making improvements. Not only that, Blue Tower¡¯s Iron Horse team is joining in for this next race. Do you really think nobody will reach the finish line?¡±


    ¡°Howe I¡¯ve never even heard of this, damn it! The race¡¯s hosts are so insidious!¡±


    Gnomes vs. Dwarves was the name of the newest poprpetition that these mages were currently discussing. Gnome engineers and dwarf engineers would assemble their racecars and participate in an obstacle course race against each other. During the race, they would be allowed to interfere with each other; tossing rockets and small explosives at each other was asmonce as breathing. The first to cross the finish line would be the winner.


    However, since the gnomes and the dwarves went overboard during thest race, bing seriously angry with each other to the point of exploding both teams¡¯ race cars, many spectators were dissatisfied about how there was no victor at all in the end. So this time, another team volunteered to join in¡ªthe Blue Tower Iron Horse Squad. Although their equipment and speed were far behind the gnome and dwarf engineers¡¯ custom modified Iron Horses, as long as the gnome and dwarf race cars kept exploding and attacking each other on the way, the Iron Horse squad would naturally be the only victors in the end. And so, after news about this spread, people viewed the Iron Horse Squad as the most reliable one to bet on, but...


    ¡°How are the betting spreads looking like? What result will be the most profitable for us?¡±


    ¡°Fewest people are betting on the gnomes as their race car is always exploding before reaching the end of the track. The mostmonly bet-on team is the Blue Tower Iron Horse Squad. If they win, we¡¯ll be losing a huge amount of money with the current betting ratios.¡±


    ¡°Okay, install the newest and most reliable engines in Jinya¡¯s race car, while secretly loosening the gears in Manastorm¡¯s race car. We¡¯re going to make the gnomes into the victor of the next race. Right, is the new project ready yet?¡±


    ¡°Of course. ¡®Gnomes vs. Dwarves 2: Hot Air Balloon Airships vs. Combat Helicopters¡¯ will soon be avable!¡±


    ¡°Yep, make plenty of advertisements for them and begin selling tickets to the first show in preparation to scam mon¡ªer¡ªsell betting tickets. But remember, there¡¯s an iron rule that only those with Gold rank and above are allowed to be the gnomes¡¯ and dwarves¡¯ pilots. With how their contraptions are, any with a lower power level is likely to die sooner orter. Is there any news from the other mage organizations?¡±


    In order to help increase the sales for the best and most expensive front-row seats to thepetitions, I made the front-row tickets into a mini collection game which awarded a random card each time. If one collected a full set of cards, they would be able to exchange the cards for a free Iron Horse. Of course, there were two specific cards that I had less than ten copies printed, so this seemingly excellent way of receiving an Iron Horse for free by simply buying the most expensive tickets had only given out few Iron Horses so far.


    ¡°While there were a few mage organizations that objected to some activities, there were no mage organizations that are actually taking action against you. After all, we reallyck good entertainment, which leaves everyone quite bored. Even those who didn¡¯t join in the betting can simply enjoy watching thepetition. Oh, but there are many that hope that they can enter thepetition themselves. However, they want to use their own steeds, such as phantom horses, hell travelers, and so on...¡±


    ¡°...Let them join in the nextpetition. I¡¯ve already prepared the advertisement¡¯s slogan: ¡®The mage racers intending to take revenge for the Blue Tower mage¡¯s failure.¡¯ But you need to urately test their steeds¡¯ abilities first for top speed and natural talent abilities. No more dragon knights or frost giants that are overwhelmingly more powerful than everything else. Such shows won¡¯t earn us any money!¡±


    The first few rounds had allowed other mages to participate freely as they pleased, until a top-level summoner decided to participate and summoned a flying SemiDragon that ttened the gnomes¡¯ race car. Another brought out a frost giant that kicked Manastorm and the dwarves¡¯ race car out of the obstacle race in a single blow. ¡°Don¡¯t you dare use your stinky shoes to kick a dwarf, and don¡¯t you dare kick a dwarf¡¯s mecha!¡±¡ªManastorm. Thepetition became absolutely boring to watch as there was no doubt who would win so we began to limit who could participate. We would publicly list all information about the race¡¯s participants beforehand.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter who wins the race. Since we¡¯re the house, the house always wins.¡±


    Okay then, I admit that from a certain standpoint, this was indeed rather immoral of us as we were intentionally manipting those who won the races. Since I was shameless enough to get the mages addicted to gambling in the first ce, I no longer cared if I acted even more shamelessly. But based on my usual premonitions, I knew that good things like this wouldn¡¯tst long.


    ¡°The Mystical de¡¯s tax department is here again. They want to check our ount books.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, those carrion birds have such excellent noses. Tell them that this isn¡¯t something under their jurisdiction. We¡¯re not making any transactions or trades here, we¡¯re merely holding apetition. As for the tiny amount of betting going on... the Mage Country doesn¡¯t have a gambling tax yet. Tell them that they¡¯re free toe collect taxes from us after the Mage Country passes such aw!¡±


    ¡°Okay, but what about Her Ladyship?¡±


    ¡°Her Ladyship? Who¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Lady Cher. She¡¯s the one leading the tax department again...¡±


    As expected of a daughter, never loyal to her family. Just how many days did I know her before she was turning on me...? Wait a moment, why am I calling her my daughter? This was all still just an unknown, an unknown!


    ¡°She¡¯s not Her Ladyship in our family, and I don¡¯t have a daughter! How am I supposed to live like this! I haven¡¯t even gotten married yet! What am I supposed to do if word of this spreads? That little girl Cher? Just make her wait outside!¡±


    Suddenly, the young brat giving me the report had a strange expression as he looked at me. Then, I heard a soft cough behind me that sounded familiar.


    ¡°Cough, it reassures me to know that you think like this... Everyone,e check the ounts together. We¡¯re first going to go over Thorn Garden¡¯s sales taxes for their transactions. Be careful, the owner of this store is incredibly sly and clever. Only checking the ount books won¡¯t be enough. We¡¯re going to start from the warehouse...¡±


    The blue-haired Cher was most definitely angry as she started giving orders to herpanions. It seemed that I was going to be losing a lot of money again¡ªno¡ªI couldn¡¯t give up! That girl seemed tough on the outside, but she had a soft heart inside. Perhaps begging her would work!


    ¡°Wait, wait, my good and obedient daughter, it¡¯s not easy for daddy to make some money. At least leave me some retirement funds.¡±


    At this moment, everyone was shocked at just how shameless I was capable of being. Meanwhile, a certain silly cat who brought Cher in here, fully intending to see the awkward situation it would put me in, was nowughing so hard that she was rolling around on the ground.


    Well, in the end, thanks to all the mages¡¯ passion for gambling, I was highly sessful in being able to make the money I needed for funding my projects.


    Of course, there were some slight side effects, such as how my reputation became even stranger... Reputation? Could it be eaten?


    Even I was surprised by howcking in entertainment the mages were. Although the mages had so much knowledge, their daily lives were quite simple and boring. In front of certain temptations, particrly since the mages were bad at controlling their own spending habits, they were really easy to fool. I looked at my real ounts and simply did some rough estimations and discovered that the ie from selling betting tickets far exceeded what I made from Thorn Garden.


    And since I earned money, I was naturally going to spend it, as long as the money was worth my time. I was quite attracted by the treasure troves of several-hundred-year-old archmages. Their treasure troves wouldn¡¯t be in any way inferior to dragons¡¯ treasure troves, and since I was a mage as well, of course I would be attracted to the most by magical secrets. Of course, since my specialty was rather unconventional, this would attract some controversy.


    ¡°You want to make a trade with the ¡®Soul Demon Association¡¯ which is under the Sword of Order? They have an absolutely terrible reputation, and they¡¯re all undead mages. Graverobbing and stealing is practically an everyday urrence for them. Are you sure that you want to associate with them? Aren¡¯t you worried that your reputation will be affected?¡±


    ¡°...Can my reputation get any worse than Yongye¡¯s?¡±


    This one sentence of mine blocked off everyone else¡¯sints, and I satisfactorily looked through the information I purchased from the Soul Demon Association. From a certain standpoint, although Harloys taught me my foundational undead magic, most of it was actually self-taught in a haphazard fashion. It would be different from the Soul Demon Association which would have a systematic way of treating undead magic, andparing my magic to theirs would benefit me greatly.


    By the way, if it weren¡¯t for Yongye¡¯s reputation, perhaps this mage organization that was quite ill-reputed wouldn¡¯t have been willing to make an equivalent exchange with me. They indeed looked down on fair trades. Nor would they have given me such top-level undead magic information.


    There was now arge amount of undead magic information before me, including much that was limited or one-of-a-kind. Although I still didn¡¯t know how to fix my undead magic Soul Imprint, it was sufficient to shore up the gaps in my knowledge as well as give me plenty of inspiration.


    ¡°...Amelia has already surpassed me. I¡¯m so envious of her wood spirits and Forest of Dreams. With all this new undead magic information, I can still try creating something new even if I¡¯m unable to create Undead Lords on the level of my Original Sins.¡±

 Chapter 308

    Chapter 308: I Can Do Whatever I Want Because I¡¯m Rich!


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°My fireball will tear you apart!¡±


    ¡°Ha! Taste my gunfire!¡±


    In Arlo¡¯s arena, a high-level mage was dueling with a ranger. Normally speaking, the ranger would continuously adjust the distance and angle between them, making all sorts of fancy movements to dodge the mage¡¯s spells in order to find a chance atnding a winning attack. However, if the ranger happened to have a steed, the ranger would have an even greater advantage in mobility and the number of their attacks.


    Meanwhile, the typical tactics of a high-level mage were the opposite. The mage would cast a bunch of defensive magic spells on themselves and then summon a bunch of cannon fodder. They would finally bnce attack and defense magic spells and search for a chance to defeat the opponent.


    This was still a duel between an elf ranger and a mage. However, the spectators didn¡¯t really understand what was going on this time.


    This purple-haired elf ranger wasn¡¯t wielding the elves¡¯ typical weapon, an enchanted longbow. Instead, this ranger was wielding a dwarven gun that the elves typically looked down upon as being unreliable¡ªit would often self-destruct and explode. Nor was this ranger using a typical forest¡¯s holy unicorn as the steed. Instead, the ranger rode on a boomingly loud Iron Horse.


    This royal elf [1] 1 was wearing a ck punk-style jacket and a leather cap. One hand skillfully controlled the Iron Horse in rapidly circling around the arena, jumping around, going up the wall, making sudden stops, standing on one wheel, and all sorts of other fancy tricks.


    His other hand held a silver shotgun, and he continuously attacked his opponent whenever he saw an opening. Compared to dwarven firearms¡¯ typically lead bullets with low attack power, this gun used high-quality diamond bullets with an outer covering of silver and magic paint. The bullets glimmered in all different sorts of colors.


    The handsome elf ranger seemed to be extremely confident in his own skills. His movements were quite smooth, and he would asionally swing his shotgun in midair, causing the ammo to automatically reload. His hair that flowed in the wind made him look really cool. Many female audience members shrieked their support for him.


    Yet the elf ranger¡¯s opponent didn¡¯t care about any of his actions. This mage d in silver armor ignored all of the ranger¡¯s attacks and merely stood still. The mage casted all sorts of spells such as blizzard magic, frost magic, hail magic, and ice pir magic. Lots of high-level area of effect magic spells rained down, as if this mage possessed limitless amounts of mana.


    Meanwhile, the ranger¡¯s magical shotgun would shootrge holes into the arena¡¯s walls and ground with every missed bullet, but they merely bounced off the mage¡¯s armor with blinding sparks. Concurrently, the mage¡¯s constant bombardment of AOE magic caused the Iron Horse-riding ranger to have to dash all around the arena.


    The ranger¡¯s attack power wasn¡¯t low at all. The Gold-ranked ranger Ade was already skilled enough with the shotgun to use the elves¡¯ special magic arrow techniques with it. The only reason the mage was able to ignore his attacks was that the mage¡¯s armor had a ridiculously high defense power.


    The mage was wearing silver armor that covered his entire body. The fact that everyst bit of skin was covered meant that nobody could even see his face. Under the obsidian crystal face mask was an expression that was as calm as still water. The armor¡¯s outeryer shone with a special glow that was unique to mithril. Magic enchantments on the armor provided it with an additional three protectiveyers of defense, while the attention-grabbing dragon crystal on the armor¡¯s chest emanated frighteningly powerful waves of mana. No matter how rich anyone was, they would all shout ¡°just where did this mega-rich persone from!¡± upon seeing such a suit of armor.


    Also, the silver thorned rose emblem on the mecha armor¡¯s back doubtlessly indicated that this mecha armor was Thorn Garden¡¯s newest product: I Can Do Whatever I Want Because I¡¯m Rich! #1. Yep, from a certain standpoint, this somewhat strange name I had given to this suit of mithril was the best exnation of its properties.


    The mecha armor¡¯s internal batteries provided force, ice, and thunder; three different types of defensiveyers. The thick armor was constructed entirely out of mithril, the best magical metal of all. These fourbinedyers of physical and magical defense caused Ade¡¯s magical diamond bullets to be unable to pierce the armor even the slightest bit. The bullets hit the armor in a continuous stream only to ricochet off of it. They were deflected by the magical barriers as well, causing Ade to be quite frustrated.


    It was simplemon sense that a duel when one side waspletely unable to harm the other would mean that it would be one-sided. Unless something happened to overturn the situation, the popr elf ranger Ade, who was currently on a winning streak in the arena, was destined to lose.


    ¡°It¡¯s over!¡±


    When Ade¡¯s Iron Horse drove over ayer of ice created by some blizzard magic, the wheels suddenly went skidding. Right when Ade lost control of his Iron Horse, a prison of ice descended upon him. Now that the elf was trapped with nowhere to go¡ªan easy target for the mage¡¯s next major spell¡ªAde unhesitatingly rose his hands up in surrender.


    ¡°...That mage has won fifteen duels in a row. Even ¡®Blood Moon Hunter¡¯ Ade has lost to him, and it¡¯s still so one-sided. That armor is just ridiculous.¡±


    In the Cloud Tower, the mages and warriors that loved to fight had the arena as one of their few source of entertainment. The arena was also one of the very few ces where mages would actually gamble in the Mage Country. The Abo Arena was one such arena where countless duels would happen every day. The types of duels included training duels for gaining practical experience, duels to simply see who was better, duels between teacher and student for the purpose of teaching, and of course duels between enemies that were seriously trying to kill each other. However, today¡¯s duel was the mostmon type of duel, just a regr duel that spectators could gamble on who the winner would be.


    A regr duel would mean that battles wouldn¡¯t be to the death, and both sides would be wagering something on it. This would help both sides gainbat experience as well as help the victor obtain tangible benefits and reputation. However, since most mages weren¡¯t interested in personally entering the arena, most arena duel participants were actually in warrior and ranger-type job sses despite this being the Mage Country. The participants of these duels were typically non-mage residents of the Mage Country or some mage¡¯s bodyguards.


    The ranger Ade was the bodyguard of an royal elf prince. Ade was considered a famous ranger back in his hometown, and after he purchased an Iron Horse and magical shotgun from Thorn Garden, he was able to speedily learn a series of self-taught high-speed Iron Horse riding and shooting skills. Many of his opponents that actually had higher power level rankings than he did were all defeated by his high-speed, high-mobility attacking style.


    However, after Ade reached ten consecutive victories, he met the most difficult opponent he had ever faced in the arena¡ªthis mage who wore a full-body mithril mecha armor. This mage¡¯s armor would make even a dragon seem poor inparison.


    The mage didn¡¯t need to pay any attention to his own positioning or cast any defensive magic spells. He merely had to stand there without moving in his heavy mecha armor, and none of his opponents in the arena had been able to break through its defense. Then, the mage would simply utter long magical incantations at his leisure and act as a stationary artillery. If the mage ran out of mana, he could even replenish his mana using the mecha armor¡¯s battery packs. With ridiculously high defense and nearly limitless mana, it was definitely a shameless tactic.


    ¡°Go, I¡¯m Ridiculously Rich!¡±


    ¡°Be careful, a dragon might rob you when you go outdoors!¡±


    The spectators were cheering on this newly rising arena star. ¡°I¡¯m Ridiculously Rich¡± was the nickname that this mage signed up for arena battles with, and nobody knew the mage¡¯s real identity. Even though the mage was clearly using only Silver rank magic spells at best, he managed to forcefully defeat many powerful opponents, including two who were at the Legend rank!


    If Ade¡¯s self-mastered, self-taught new techniques based on the new technology gave evidence that new technologies could improvebat strength, then I¡¯m Ridiculously Rich proved an even more basic maxim of the world: the rich would always be the most powerful.


    When this mage in the brilliantly shining silver armor strode back to his personal resting area in the arena, he suddenly copsed on the ground, as the armor started ventingrge amounts of steam from its exhaust pipes.


    Meanwhile, several dwarf and gnome engineers had long since been ready and waiting. They immediately started working on the armor¡¯s maintenance. When the armor¡¯s helmet was removed, a younger face than one might expect was revealed underneath.


    ¡°Cohen, how do you feel?¡±


    That¡¯s right, the real identity of ¡°I¡¯m Ridiculously Rich¡± wasn¡¯t a high-level archmage. Instead, he was my acolyte, Cohen, a Four Elemental Swordcaster who barely even counted as a Silver ranker.


    ¡°...With a dragon crystal¡¯s mana replenishing my own mana, I can basically cast spells without ever running out of mana. But dragon crystals are so expensive...¡±


    ¡°No worries. Just have fun out there and treat it as valuable experience. As for the dragon crystal and other magical materials? Rx. Someone else is footing the bill for us.¡±


    In my previous world, war was always the greatest stimnt for technological innovation. Only when humans were forced to the brink would they bring out their unreliable and untested technologies and think of methods to use these undeveloped technologies for ughtering the enemy.


    Magical engineering was a new area of science that was born as a result of war as well, and it, too, was destined to grow through war. The resulting products were immensely popr when I started selling them through Thorn Garden for the first time. For example, the two types of mechas which I named after elements from Star Wars , the Sith Warriors and Jedis, became highly ded right after I started selling them on the market.


    I actually didn¡¯t expect how popr my Star Wars mechas would be. I hadn¡¯t even intended to make them the store¡¯s main products because although both mecha types greatly increased the pilot¡¯s mobility and defensive power, not to mention they were equipped with portable batteries, the fact of the matter was that they were still constructed out of ordinary metals. This would have an evident impact on the efficiency of casting spells. Although the Four Elemental Swordcasters and Magic Gunners that relied on ¡°outside help¡± for their magicalbat strength could ignore the interference of metal on mana, pure mages obviously wouldn¡¯t find these Star Wars mechas to be the most efficient environment to cast magic spells in.


    What I underestimated was... just how rich the mages were!


    Indeed. Current technology was limited, but the mages¡¯ wealth was limitless. As long as I changed out every part in a Star Wars mecha to the highest quality materials avable, there would be a huge difference in quality even if the blueprint for the mecha was identical. Ultimately, the highest quality materials were all magical. The resulting mecha armor would be on an entirely different level if all the parts were exchanged for the highest-quality magical materials.


    Metal affected casting spells? Well, it wouldn¡¯t affect casting spells if it was the highest quality magic metal, mithril! This mecha armor was constructed entirely out of the best quality mithril crafted by master alchemists. Of course, it was just slightly more expensive than usual, approximately one hundred times more expensive than gold.


    Lacking mana replenishment magic materials? What about equipping it with a basketful of dragon crystals! There were also plenty of phoenix feathers and great demon¡¯s hearts! We could even sell you giant wolf king skins by the dozen as long as you have the money. We were even capable of supplying inferno dragon eyes, which could only be found in the lower dimensions.


    You don¡¯t know how to etch defensive magical spell arrays? Emblem of Endless Truth level enchanter archmages can do that for you. Would you like to have the spell ¡°Absolute Defense,¡± ¡°Precise Long-Distance Teleportation,¡± or ¡°Meteor Rain¡± etched into your personal mecha armor as defense spells? What? You only want to etch some four-circle magic spells? You dare to look down on us?


    You¡¯re worried about our mecha armors being overly heavy, causing the speed to be slow? Are you joking with me? Have you ever heard of gnome rocket backpacks? Plus, we can just etch a few extra anti-gravity spell arrays that will lessen the weight of the mecha. After all, we have plenty of top-level magical materials avable.


    Right, don¡¯t forget about our elf artisans¡¯ enhancements. I wanted angel feathers on the helmet, the mecha¡¯s appearance must be in the currently popr steampunk style, with two volcanoes tattooed on the shoulders, and illusion magic that constantly spews out magma? Cool, right? I also wanted an eyepatch with three red-glowing deep emeralds, along with an evil dragon¡¯s eye!


    Alright then, apart from my personal requests which caused everyone around me to wonder at my sense of aesthetics and how chuunibyou I was, the other archmages ordered much more normal suits of mecha armor. They all wanted practical customizations that would improve their personal safety. The most important part was that they were plenty rich, with countless treasures horded over the years. After these mages discovered, from my previous announcement, that they might be forced into battle against powerful future opponents, they were now naturally willing to part with their money in order to protect their lives.


    I did some slight calctions and unhesitatingly tossed the job of creating the mechas to others, while I personally took care of the most profitable part: negotiating the orders for the armors.


    The prerequisite for such long-term orders was that we needed to deliver on what we were paid to do. Being paid such high prices meant that we had to deliver high-quality goods. And if I wanted to attract more and more rich customers who were willing to pay the ridiculously high prices and even invest in us, I would have to show them high-quality goods worthy enough for them to pay the price.


    That was why a weak mage novice like Cohen was now wearing the I Can Do Whatever I Want Because I¡¯m Rich! Mecha #1 and battling in the arena. Plenty of top-level archmages witnessed his battles, and some top-level mages even personally tried dueling him in order to test this ridiculously pricey ¡®armor of money¡¯s¡¯ true defense power. After the archmages found out that the pilot was merely a novice who had started learning magic less than two years ago, they unhesitatingly tripled the amount of money they were paying me, swearing that their personal customized mecha armors would surpass this #1 model that Cohen was wearing.


    Actually, I heaved a great sigh of relief at receiving the mages¡¯ money. I would have otherwise been forced to think of some idea toe up with the funding for all the top-level magical materials.


    Why was Icking magical materials? Well, I hadn¡¯t started the work on the other magic mechas. Back in the old times, when tailors stocked up on cloth to make clothes, there was an unspoken rule about how the amount of cloth they ordered and the amount of cloth they had in stock would never exactly match up. Each roll of cloth would be ever so slightly shorter than what was listed. And after making several sets of clothes, the tailor would mysteriously have enough cloth left over for a set of clothes for himself.


    I didn¡¯t have that many top-level magic materials in stock. The ¡°I Can Do Whatever I Want Because I¡¯m Rich! #1¡± was created using the funds from the pre-orders I had received beforehand. If I couldn¡¯t receive enough orders to continue funding the magic materials I needed, it would form a huge hole that I would need to fill in somehow.


    I gave Cohen some encouragement. My goals here were both for him to umte practicalbat experience as well as to show off Thorn Garden¡¯s power andbat strength. It would also make for an excellent test run for the mecha armor. I couldn¡¯t help but sigh and exim at how things were going.


    ¡°The mecha armors¡¯ functions have far seeded our original expectations. I suppose that this is the saying of how even an inventor can never predict the effects of his own invention? I originally thought that this phrase was just nonsense. I never thought I would one day be proved wrong.¡±


    Just thinking about how my butterfly effect would cause the top-level archmages to be well-armed to the teeth when entering battle, turning them from their former ss cannon selves into movable impregnable artilleries¡ªforbidden spell mages would no longer be so easily picked off by assassins in the shadows¡ªI felt that the game¡¯s ¡°history¡± would definitely take a different path.


    ¡°By the time we face demons equipped with powerful huge swords from antiquity and Evil Gods riding gigantic wild beasts, our side will have archmages wearing mecha armors and rangers zooming around the battlefield on Iron Horses. We¡¯ll also have taurens equipped with heavy cannons and zombies with electric saws... Hrm, teamfighting like this makes it feel like there¡¯s something wrong with the drawing style, though.


    There was plenty of work waiting for us after we left the arena. I had unknowingly be thergest weapons dealer in the Cloud Tower, and I now had to check on the progress of another program of mine.


    This program wasn¡¯t one so honest and open that it could see the light of day.


    It took an entire two hours by horse-drawn carriage to finally reach our destination. We crossed several mountains and rivers, and it was almostpletely dark outside before we finally arrived at a graveyard outside the city of Arlo.


    It was already dusk, and a chilly wind swept through the mountains. The trees around us shook as if they were possessed by demons. Our horses seemed to be spooked by something as they copsed listlessly on the ground, refusing to go on any further.


    ¡°Sigh. Every time, I can only go the rest of the way by foot after reaching here.¡±


    ¡°No wonder the ¡®Soul Demon Association¡¯ loves this ce so much. The negative energy here almost matches the scale of negative energy in the Undead nes. It would be strange for corpses to not be undead after entering such a graveyard. Judging from the surrounding environment, this ce should be the byproduct of some failed experiment.


    Since she was a half undead living creature, Harloys had always been particrly interested in this location. I could see the ck cat appearing and vanishing in the shadows of this remote mountainous location, which really did make this ce seem like one right out of a ghost story.


    ¡°Look over there, it¡¯s so out of the way, but there¡¯s still a crop field here.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! That¡¯s definitely a secret scout for the Soul Demon Association. Do you think that any crops nted here would be harvestable? The only harvestable product here are the zombies.¡±


    Alright then, I actually knew it as well. Nobody but the insane would think of nting crops in such a location with chilly winds and negative energy.


    Although we were cooperating with the Soul Demon Association in trading our money for their magic information, it was evident that they were still intent on collecting information on us. They had nted a scout next to this area ofnd we had purchased which was filled with negative energy.


    Well, we did have a goal with thisnd, after all.


    ¡°How¡¯s the big guy¡¯s condition?¡±


    Harloys sat there quietly on the ground, and her eyes seemed rather hollow and unresponsive. However, this simply meant that her clones were currently gathering information for her. Soon enough, her eyes filled with the light of life again.


    ¡°Excellent. It¡¯s already entered a semi-hibernation period. It should be able to move around after two more weeks or so.¡±


    I nodded in satisfaction. Since everything was going smoothly, we would simply need to return here in two weeks to harvest the end product.


    ¡°...It¡¯s just that the brats from the Soul Demon Association kepting over to check things out. It seems that they still haven¡¯t given up on finding out just why we purchased this piece ofnd. Heh, can¡¯t me them. You are Yongye, after all. It¡¯s only natural for ordinary undead mages to be curious what you¡¯re up to.¡±


    ¡°Let them look around all they want. They won¡¯t be able to discover anything, anyways. Who would imagine that what we really want is simply the ground here that¡¯s filled with negative energy? Our goal isn¡¯t a singr new undead, but an entire group. Our new product is this entire graveyard, that¡¯s all.¡±


    We recently created and named this new undead species as graveyard demons. They were half-undead, half-elemental creatures created byrge amounts of negative energy corroding the earth. Graveyard demons were powerful sources of negative energy pollution. Not only were they capable of strengthening other undead, but they were even hosts for medium and small-sized undead.


    These undead creatures weren¡¯t our original invention. In ancient times, there was a simr existence among the undead, but no such creatures existed in recent times. This was an experimental species that we recreated using modern technology and knowledge from ancient texts.


    When I was in the Forest of Dreams, what I envied the most was the forest¡¯s home turf advantage and Jill¡¯s ability to change the environment. Even if one couldn¡¯t choose the environment to fight in, one would be able to change the environment to a more advantageous one.


    That was the use of graveyard demons. They were moving graveyards from which undead could replenish their negative energy, exchange body parts, and power upbat strength. Any injured undead that wasn¡¯tpletely dead would be able to recover quite quickly when within a graveyard demon.


    The wood spirits¡¯ method of battling had given me inspiration. Perhaps the undead didn¡¯t actually need powerful troop types anymore. What the undeadcked was a job ss that could heal them like druids or priests could for the living¡ªa supporting job ss. The undead were supposed to excel at attrition to begin with. If they had the ability to heal themselves on the battlefield, their overall fighting capabilities would increase to be far more than any other fighting undead species.


    Of course, we didn¡¯te all the way for just this alone.


    A crownded on the ck cat¡¯s head before transforming into a silver liquid thatbined with her body. When Harloys received her flying clone¡¯s information, she slightly nodded, which greatly delighted me.


    ¡°The big fish has finally been hooked?¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Royal elves are those of the Four Elven Aristocracies. All previous instances of superior/upper elves mean the same, and I¡¯ll change them in the future. It is to distinguish them from the extinct high elves.

 Chapter 309

    Chapter 309: Viin


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Archmage Sandro, the second of the Sword of Order¡¯s four vice leaders. On the surface, he¡¯s a windstorm archmage, but he¡¯s secretly the leader of the Soul Demon Association and a Myth-ranked undead archmage. He doesn¡¯t have an Emblem of Endless Truth in undead magic, but it¡¯s only because he¡¯s never published any research results. After all, nobody is more qualified to receive the Emblem of Endless Truth in undead magic than he is.¡±


    ¡°...Also, Sandro just happens to be my junior under the same teacher. Harloys, you really taught so many excellent disciples.¡±


    ¡°No, I met him before I met you. That technically makes him your senior.¡±


    The silly cat before me still pretended to be a ditz, but since she was once one of the core leaders of the Sword of Order, it would be only natural for her to recruit fresh blood into the Soul Demon Association under the Sword of Order In a way, she was an even greater veteran than Sandro.


    ¡°How¡¯s your rtionship with that leader of the Sword of Order who never shows himself around?¡±


    ¡°You already mentioned how he never shows up so how could I possibly have any rtionship with him? Don¡¯t even mention ckeye, that Sword of Order leader who always hides in the shadows. Even my disciples are probably being spied on ever since my identity was exposed. ckeye probably fears I¡¯ll usurp his authority. Otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t have forced me to leave back in the day. Heh, what would it matter to us if one of us became undead? It was just an excuse to chase me away.¡±


    ¡°...So, it means that without a miracle urring, you¡¯ll never be able to surpass the SemiGod-ranked ckeye in your life.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t you say it in a nicer way? That¡¯s right, hurry up and improve your personal power level. The contract limitations on a magical pet is so painful¡ª being unable to surpass the master in strength. I want to experience what it feels like to be a SemiGod undead as well. As long as I can regain the peak of my strength, how could I, the All-Knowing Harloys, possibly be any weaker than you little brats?¡±


    The silly cat seemed to get angrier and angrier as she spoke.


    ¡°...Even if it¡¯s easier for the living to surpass the Myth rank, are you that confident that you¡¯ll be able to break through the Three Heavy Doors?¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous. Back in the day, I was already at those doors, but I didn¡¯t even have a physical body. How could I possibly break past those doors as they required the body and heart to be one? I finally found a suitable physical body, a high elf with ancient divine blood, but I used it for less than one day before you and that Adam sliced it up... the more I think about it, the angrier I¡¯m getting. I really feel like biting you right now.¡±


    ¡°Whoa there, you¡¯re already biting me! Why are you saying you want to bite me still?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare move! Let me take a few extra bites to vent my anger!¡±


    I felt rather helpless as I let the silly cat bite me from my chest all the way up to my neck and then even on my face. It gave me a rather numb and itchy sensation. I wanted tough, but I knew that if I really didugh out loud, Harloys would truly be furious.


    Just when was it that this undying queen of grudges was trained into bing a tsundere house cat?


    Was it from the day she signed a magical pet contract with me so we mysteriously managed to get used to each other somehow?


    Or was it Lorci¡¯s death that finally gave her hope that her journey of revenge could finally end one day? At the very least, she finally had something other than revenge in her heart right now. She no longer sealed off her heart in her own little world.


    Or was it because we were now fated to be together forever, with her being immortal as long as I lived? From a certain standpoint, the magical pet contract was indeed something way overboard as it forcefully tied two different souls together for a lifetime.


    Or was it that Harloys, who had always been alone, was now always connected to me via our souls? Soulmunication was far more effective than any verbalmunication could ever be in transmitting what we really meant. The lonelier someone was, the more they would actually desire tomunicate with another.


    Or was it that she unknowingly got used to my warmth? Perhaps she got used to me saying good morning to her every day when I woke up? Perhaps she was treating me less and less like an outsider since that day?


    Fine then, I should stop thinking so much about this. Judging by how her bites went from numb, light bites to painful tearing, this silly cat was acting like a tsundere again!


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey¡ªdon¡¯t go overboard. I still need to meet with otherster. What am I supposed to do if I have all these cat bites on my face? People will think that a pile of furniture copsed on me.¡±


    ¡°You can just tell them the truth, that your pet cat gave your face all these nice scratches and bites.¡±


    ¡°Does that have any difference from saying that furniture fell upon me? They¡¯re all excuses typically used when a woman scratches your face! You¡¯re doing this to me on purpose so that I¡¯ll be too embarrassed to meet with others!¡±


    Alright then, when the top-level archmage Sandro¡¯s horse-drawn carriage stopped in front of us, Sandro had a look of stunned amazement as he watched me who was trying my best to remove the stubborn silly cat from my head.


    ¡°...Second Senior Brother, I¡¯ll have a discussion with youter when I finish beating up my teacher.¡±


    ¡°Ptui! If you can¡¯t win, you¡¯re going to depend on others to help you? Such a useless man!¡±


    However, theter developmentspletely ruined my image as a mysterious archmage of darkness that I had carefully cultivated... After all, if you saw me fighting with my own pet cat, rolling all around on the floor for more than half an hour and even losing in the end¡ªwith the result being covered in w and teeth marks¡ªthere would be no way for you to respect me, would there!?


    ¡°My image! My image! We¡¯re supposed to be archmages that represent wisdom and knowledge! Can¡¯t you have some sense of shame at all?¡±


    ¡°Ptui! Shame? Can I eat it? Ever since I started hanging out with you, I feel like I¡¯ve yed every type of embarrassing cosy there is. You always force me to transform into this and that. Are you actually into animals? Now that you¡¯re supposedly famous and known as a major personage, you intend to put on your pants and forget about your past? Let me tell you: don¡¯t even think about it!¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t intentionally word things like that!? Just look at Second Senior Brother and how icy his gaze is when looking at me now! It¡¯s almost as if he¡¯s looking at Beifeng! My reputation!¡±


    ¡°Actually, there are plenty of warlocks that take their own subi as lovers. I¡¯m not biased against such things. Even if archmage Rnd¡¯s interests are somewhat unique¡ªokay¡ªextremely unique, that¡¯s still his personal freedom. Yep, yep, I perfectly understand.¡±


    Alright then, Sandro¡¯s polite words, emphasizing that he understood, as he backed up ever so slightly was the perfect salt on my wounds. Fortunately, Harloys finally recalled that now was the time for serious business.


    ¡°Hmph, Rnd, just forget about your reputation. It¡¯s long been unsalvageable. Sandro, long time no see. I think it¡¯s been about two hundred years. By the way, can¡¯t you change your name to something cooler? Your name Sandro sounds like it came right out of an undead magic textbook.¡±


    ¡°...This soul wavelength? Harloys! Teacher Harloys!¡±


    Alright then, the appearance of the All-Knowing Harloys finally helped me to somewhat save face. With this ¡°Demon Professor¡± taking the part of a connection between me and Sandro¡ªwe were fellow disciples of the same mage teacher¡ªit was much easier for me to have a conversation with him.


    ¡°Sandro, would you like to be the leader of the Sword of Order? Would you like to make the Sword of Order into apletelywless holy ground for heretical mages?¡±


    That was the first sentence I greeted Sandro with for our formal negotiations, as well as the main topic of what I wanted to discuss with him. I spent quite a lot of time, in fact, and both sides walked away having gained much from the conversation.


    Sandro hurried off at a greater speed than when he arrived. It seemed that he was indeed delighted with what he received. After all, both of us had benefited more from this discussion than we anticipated.


    ¡°Will it actually seed?¡±


    However, I was no longer acting as confident as when I was trying to convince Sandro. After all, nobody would have a one hundred percent chance of victory when dealing with an old fellow like ckeye who had been the leader of one of the strongest mage organizations for the past three or four hundred years.


    ¡°If he¡¯s the only one we were relying on, it would be impossible. He¡¯s too stupid. Sandro¡¯s intelligence is probably the third worst out of all the disciples I¡¯ve ever taught.¡±


    I suddenly felt a twinge of pity for the archmage Sandro, who happened to be bald. Even though we had such a friendly discussion just now, teacher and student seeming so harmonious, Harloys even said several times how Sandro was ¡°the future leader of the Sword of Order¡± ¡°my most trusted disciple¡± and so on, which really made him happy.


    ¡°He¡¯s that stupid, yet he still made it to be one of the vice-leaders of the Sword of Order?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because the ones that aren¡¯t stupid were all killed off by ckeye. Even though there are clearly so many heretical mages in the Sword of Order, and even though there are clearly no taboos whatsoever in what the Sword of Order mages are learning, the Sword of Order is still slightly behind the other top-level mage organizations because ckeye is intentionally keeping the leadership under him weak.¡±


    ¡°And yet you still called him your most trusted disciple?¡±


    ¡°Heh heh. Of course he¡¯s my most trusted disciple. After all, all my other disciples are too sly and untrustworthy. Especially a certain person I know. If only he hadn¡¯t sold me out.¡±


    When saying this, the silly cat even red at me. It was obvious who she meant, but I merely looked at the sky and pretended not to understand.


    ¡°In that case, it means we can¡¯t count on Sandro.¡±


    ¡°Still, only by convincing him to be the vanguard, which will attract ckeye¡¯s attention, will we have some hope of seeding.¡±


    ¡°...In that case, this means you have other ns set in motion as well.¡±


    ¡°Yep. The Sword of Order has quite a different structure from other mage organizations since more than seventy percent of its members are considered heretical mages. Their way of distributing resources and research funding closely follows thew of the jungle, and there are plenty of members that have ambitions about their status. It¡¯s a powerful organization that can be taken advantage of. Back in the day, I really wanted to obtain this mage organization for myself.¡±


    ¡°Which is why ckeye exiled you¡ª¡±


    ¡°But nobody truly knows how many disciples I left behind and how many are actually working for me. Nor do people know how many top-level archmages like Sandro I have under me. Actually, one of the other vice leaders of the Sword of Order is one of my subordinates as well. She¡¯s also a much smarter person than Sandro.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the fact that Demon Professor Harloys was able to enter the Cmity Rankings wasn¡¯t because her own personal existence was dangerous. Apart from her desire to take revenge against the Elven Gods, she could be considered harmless.


    The most dangerous part about her was that she often taught forbidden, dark knowledge to geniuses that walked extreme paths. Perhaps nothing woulde of it in the short term. Yet akin to a farmer who casually tossed a handful of seeds into fertile soil, there would always be several dangerous seeds that would manage to sprout even if most of the seeds would simply hibernate there for a long period of time. This naturally caused much trouble for everyone else.


    Back in the day, Amelia was like this as well, and so was I. Sometimes, I would ask my conscience: if I hadn¡¯t met Harloys in this city back in the day, would that mean that I wouldn¡¯t have learned the taboo knowledge, that I wouldn¡¯t have be Emperor Yongye, and that my life would have turned out utterly different?


    ¡°No. I¡¯m quite clear of my own personality. Personality determines one¡¯s fate. Back at that time, I never would have let go of my desire for revenge. Even if I didn¡¯t meet Harloys, perhaps the process would have been different, but the result would have been just about the same.¡±


    I was no fool who would me my own wrongs on others. I shook my head and decided to stop thinking such unnecessary thoughts. Right now, the most important was the present. If I wanted to influence the Truth Symposium conference¡¯s final conclusion, I really did need the support of multiplerge mage organizations.


    ¡°So you think we have a good chance at being able to get the Sword of Order fully under our control?¡±


    ¡°No, since ckeye has already controlled this organization for several centuries. I think that no matter what we do, our n will have at most a thirty percent chance of seeding. But, as long as we prove that we have the ability to majorly shake up the Sword of Order, ckeye will surely make some concessions to us. Besides, our goal won¡¯t be asking for all that much from him so he¡¯ll surely be able to ept them.¡±


    The silly cat jumped on my shoulder and chuckled in delight. Apparently, she had seen through to what my real goal was.


    ¡°Heh, indeed. After all, no matter if our n to take over the Sword of Order seeds or not, there¡¯s no loss either way. The worst result still ends in him being forced to support us at the next Truth Symposium conference.¡±


    ¡°...Actually, I originally thought that you would oppose my n.¡± Harloys was hesitant about saying this.


    ¡°...Why would you think that? Your rmendations helped greatly increase the sess rate of my n. I¡¯m actually quite grateful to you.¡±


    ¡°After all, back at Sulfur Mountain City, you invented the Concept of Law and the legal process, which kept emphasizing the fairness of justice and the importance of following the rules. I thought that you were someone who cared about the means more than the end. No matter how you look at it, usurping someone else¡¯s mage organization and making an originally stable mage organization split up into factions and have internal conflicts aren¡¯t actions of justice at all.¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s actually the exact opposite. Of course, I highly value the means. After all, that¡¯s what everyone sees, and rules are there to give people feelings of trustworthiness and safety. But sometimes, one must make a choice between the ends and the means. If I¡¯m in a situation where I can only choose one or the other, then of course I¡¯d be the type that would say the ends justify the means. As for me? I¡¯m simply a viin.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t lying at all. Not to mention, it was impossible for me to lie to Harloys about anything as we had a soul connection. Back when I was in Sulfur Mountain City, my personal jail was filled with incredibly viinous bastards that couldn¡¯t be judged with only thew. Even if the process wasn¡¯t all that honest and correct, I could ept it as long as the result was justified. However, I knew that I wasn¡¯t foundationally different from those viinous bastards that only did as they pleased. I was a viin as well, one who did such things only for my own self-satisfaction.


    The silly cat seemed to be quite satisfied with my reply.


    ¡°...I don¡¯t care if others die for my cause. As long as I achieve my goal, who cares about everyone else¡¯s lives? We really are such excellent viin partners.¡±


    ¡°Of course there¡¯s no difference between us. No matter what the reason is, some things that we¡¯ve done can¡¯t be described as anything other than viinous. I¡¯ve never denied this part about me.¡±


    ¡°In that case, my fellow viin, when will you give me my freedom and release me from jail?¡±


    ¡°I truly apologize. After what just happened, I have reconfirmed that you simply are too dangerous. The verdict is that you shall still be locked up for eternity with no chance of an early release.¡±


    ¡°...How terrible. Well, since there¡¯s no helping it, I¡¯ll be counting on you in the future, my dear jailer.¡±


    ¡°...I suddenly understand how helpless Adam and the others felt when they were locking me up. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to call us jailmates? After all, I locked myself in here together with you.¡±


    ¡°Is there any difference?¡±


    ¡°I think that there is at least a difference. After all, there isn¡¯t much difference in treatment between jailmates, while a jailer has plenty of opportunities to bully someone he¡¯s jailed that he¡¯s displeased with, and the jailer can even take away the jailed¡¯s basic rights, and the jailer can even go on vacation... I suddenly feel like I want to be the jailer after all. Can I change my mind?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it! We¡¯re destined to be eternal viinous jailmates. Since you¡¯re a man, make good on your word...¡±


    I continued to chat and joke around with the silly cat in this spooky and remote mountainous area, discussing cmitous and nefarious schemes. It seemed like a scene right out of a ghost story, but only we knew that this was a rare time, a time both of us could truly have fun.

 Chapter 310

    Chapter 310: Change


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    A golden g of Holy Light pped in the wind, above an orderly army on the tall mountainside.


    The venerated knights were at the forefront. Atop horses equipped with iron armor that reflected the brilliant sun, their needs were attended to by squires. After they mounted their horses, their squires helped equip them with spears, shields, and swords, which finished the preparations for their charge.


    Judging by the fact that this armor and horses in this army appeared to be of various types, it was evident that the soldiers fighting under this banner weren¡¯t from the same country. However, they still fought together for the same cause.


    The horn indicating that their charge hadn¡¯t yet sounded. The knights gripped their reins tightly in order to avoid any impulsive warhorses from disturbing theirbat formation. Behind the knights were heavily armored dragonspear soldiers, guardian warriors with massive tower shields, as well as archers and stone catapult squads who were currently busy counting how much ammunition they had avable.


    Further to the rear, priests were singing hymns of Holy Light, and the fragrant smell of holy water was all around. Several major personages, including some red-robed cardinals, could be seen among them.


    Although the cardinals were the higher-ups in this army, the banner of Holy Light didn¡¯t merely possess the Holy Church¡¯s warriors. There were also gs depicting a moon and a tooth, a gold snake, and a three-headed hound. Numerous famous emblems were mixed with unknown emblems and gs here. Since the Holy Church had sent out its summons, its endless numbers of devout believers gathered to fight under the Holy Light¡¯s banner. From the high-up domain lords to the ordinary farmers who picked up their wooden farming tools, they all joined in the Holy War.


    They were facing no easy opponent¡ªagainst them was a mega-empire¡¯s border guard.


    The Bardi Empire¡¯s border guard wasn¡¯t as well-equipped or well-prepared as their opponents. They were also outnumbered by a scale of more than ten to one. However, they had a reason why they would never retreat¡ªthis was their home. They were the first military squadron belonging to East Akenford, and all these border guard soldiers came from the city of Akenford which was located less than one hundred kilometers from here.


    ¡°The Holy War? No, this is just an ordinary battle where both sides hate each other and simply want to kill each other.¡±


    The border guard soldiers had been trapped and encircled by an ambush. They were in a nds district, where they had no hope of outrunning the enemy¡¯s knights. Even though they were facing more than ten times their number, even if some of them were instinctively trembling, their hearts remained as solid as stones. Even if some of their arms shook as they held their shields, and some of the novices among them even dropped their weapons, not a single one of them retreated or thought about escaping from this dire situation.


    ¡°Everyone, prepare to deal with the enemy¡¯s charge!¡±


    Thismand had been given to them long ago. Every Bardi Empire border guard in the East Akenford Squadron was waiting for their death sentence from this tremendous army against which they had zero percent chance of victory.


    Finally, the silver-haired general in charge of the invasion finished his preparations. This Holy Knightmander was d in gold armor with a lion emblem and continued to patrol to and fro in front of his army, searching for any weaknesses in the Bardi border guards¡¯ troop formation with his hawk-like vision. However, he was unable to detect any signs that the Bardi troops were shaken or suffering from unrest.


    Finally, the general gave up on his hope of being able to win through surrender, which would spare the need forbat. He mentally prepared himself to make a number of sacrifices. His gaze remained sharp as always, but suddenly, the expression on his ancient face changed. He nodded in appreciation of the enemy¡¯s resolve, then he started shaking his head in pity at the number of lives that would soon be lost on both sides.


    He was determined to overwhelm the enemy as quickly as possible, and so he finally unsheathed his sword, indicating the entire Holy Light army to attack. This sword was enchanted with Holy Light properties so that it shone brilliantly under the sun; it could easily be seen from far away.


    After he swung down hismander¡¯s sword that was embedded with sapphires, an ancient beast horn blew¡ªthe signal to startbat. The Holy Light priests concluded casting their final buff spells, and the warriors¡¯ golden sharp swords had all been sprinkled with holy water. Even though this Holy Light army had mismatched equipment and a wide variety of different divine Holy Light buff magic spells on them, which made them seem rather silly, the Bardi Empire border guard saw it for what it really was: powerful magic that multiplied the Holy Light army¡¯sbat strength severalfold.


    The temporarilybined army had been rather noisy to begin with, but when they truly took action, the sounds of horse hooves, running, and people roaring mixed together, forming an earthquake-like deafening noise that slowly slid forward towards the encircled Bardi Empire border guards like an avnche. The gigantic army inexorably approached the border guards¡¯ camp.


    ¡°For the Holy Light!¡±


    Everyone in the assorted army was shouting this same thing. The cause of Holy Light had once been taken up in yet another Holy War. However, this time, the warring participants on both sides were all humans.


    ¡°For Bardi! May the Empire win forever!¡±


    The eternal conflict between religious and royal authority was depicted here as well. When the avnche crashed into the pebble, time seemed to freeze over.


    Tower shields with cross-shaped emblems viciously smashed against war hammers embroidered with dragon heads. Gold javelins pierced and pinned archers to the ground, while stone catapults used their own methods to whip the earth.


    The Bardi Empire warriors weren¡¯t suicidal, nor were they idiots. They had done plenty of homework on how to deal with the knights that would be the vanguard.


    The Holy Light knights¡¯ charge was slowed down by pitfalls and horse-tripping wires. Long dragonspears that were over ten meters long then stole away the lives of these venerated knights. However, the difference in numbers between the two sides was simply too overwhelming. It was just like how a tiny match would never be able to burn an entire river dry. Once these obstacles and the issue of closing the distance was paved over with corpses, the overwhelming difference in numbers caused the East Akenford Squadron to turn into the ughtered rather than the ughterers.


    Pitiful screams and howls could be heard everywhere. Less than five minutes had passed since the start ofbat, but the battle had long since lost any semnce of bnce. It became a massacre where the many killed the few.


    The grindstone of flesh and blood was busy harvesting lives. Those unwilling to die could only scream pitifully, while dark clouds filled the sky. It was as if the Gods themselves didn¡¯t want to witness such a bloody scene and drew the curtains.


    Glory? Honor? Courage? For the Holy Light? A battlefield like this didn¡¯t have any of these. The only thing that the warriors needed to do was stick the sword in their hand into an enemy¡¯s chest before they died.


    Pity? Justice? Friendship? Atop this stage under the dark clouds, the weapon wielders on both sides only had two choices: kill or be killed.


    The tremendous difference in numbers helped swiftly draw this battle to its end. Yet this sudden battle that took no prisoners transformed the entire location into a bloody sea of corpses. The legendary old general, who possessed the glorious title the ¡°Eagle of Bejaso,¡± had remained on the tall mountain, observing the course ofbat. However, he didn¡¯t seem like he was reveling in his side¡¯s victory at all.


    ¡°The entire Bardi army fought to thest person¡¯s death without surrendering or retreating and forcibly inflicted more than twice their number to us in casualties despite our advantage in numbers? This is the mega-empire Bardi? Invading such a country seems like a difficult task.¡±


    The dark clouds in the sky seemed to indicate how inglorious this battle had really been. Even the old General Gordon, who was ranked #7 on the Eich¡¯s famous warriors rankings and was nominally the overall generalmander for the entire Holy Light army, didn¡¯t have the confidence that they would definitely win against the human mega-empire. However, there was no turning back, and he could only set a new target for the army of the Holy Light.


    ¡°Akenford City. That ce is defenseless now that we¡¯ve cleared out their military squadron. This city shall be the first to fall to the Holy Light.¡±


    ******


    ¡°The Bardi Empire has voluntarily offered to make peace negotiations with the Mage Country? How is this possible?¡±


    If it wasn¡¯t for how icy Margaret¡¯s expression currently was, I probably wouldn¡¯t have only shouted out in astonishment¡ªI would have instead called the news she brought me ridiculous.


    I was currently in the caf¨¦ attached to Thorn Garden. Apart from me, Harloys, and Margaret, the only other person present was Adam, who was currently ying a one-person card game by himself. He was obviously bored. As for why Margaret seemed to be so displeased... well, that really did seem to be my fault.


    Of course, I understood why she was so displeased. After all, just like always, she never had any time to spend alone with Adam afterpleting their tasks for me. Every time, before they had much time to rest and rx together, they would be dragged back by me for some reason or the other. And this time, in order to better control the situation in the Cloud Tower, I had summoned them to me once again.


    This really wasn¡¯t me intentionally trying to make it hard for her to get together with Adam. After all, there really were some things that only she could do for me.


    Let¡¯s not mention Adam, who was simply an additional add-on. Although Margaret was originally a self-taught mage, she had the status of a hero mage who participated in the war against Yongye. The cold, calm, and cool Margaret had an excellent reputation in the Cloud Tower, not to mention that she was a member of Star Revtion, one of thergest and most powerful mage organizations.


    I still counted as nothing more than a tiny little shrimp in the Mage Country. Apart from my few friends in the Mystical de, I barely had any contact with the highest-level individuals in this country. However, Margaret had lived here for more than thirty years while she was a candidate for bing a Truth Overseer, so she definitely counted as a local.


    Outsiders would forever be considered outsiders, and it would take an incredibly long period of time for an outsider to ever be considered otherwise. And, right now, what wecked the most was time. If a local archmage helped us out, many things would be far more convenient.


    I learned long ago from Adam that thest time Margaret returned here, she had the chance to be internally promoted within the Star Revtion and be a Truth Overseer as long as she wanted it. However, she had, instead, rejected Star Revtion¡¯s offer and went out adventuring in the world together with me. And now, I dragged her back here so of course she would be displeased; it was only natural for her to feel awkward about seeing the familiar faces here.


    Not only that, Margaret had to shamelessly return to Star Revtion for my sake, yet I didn¡¯t believe the news she brought back to me. Of course she would be even more displeased.


    ¡°Is there anything else? If not, I¡¯m going to start writing a certain report. It¡¯s a report that¡¯s half a yearte, called ¡®Report on whether or not Emperor Yongye has shown traces of activity in the Nortnds¡¯. Hmph, you¡¯re incredibly skilled at making trouble for others.¡±


    Her exquisite fingers tapped loudly on the table. It was evident that a certain Great Saint Margaret Layde was in a terrible mood.


    From a certain standpoint, this really was my fault. After all, Margaret and Amelia had used the excuse of investigating whether ¡°Emperor Yongye¡± and the ¡°undead¡± had appeared in the Nortnds to leave the Cloud Tower under the guise of an investigative expedition. And the end result was that after all this time having passed, not a single person had given the Cloud Tower an investigative report...


    A publicly funded vacation? From a certain standpoint, that really was the case. Since Amelia was currently hibernating and counted as someone who identally became aatose vegetable while out on a business trip, did this count as her spending public funds for her medical care?


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI should be a little more serious. Yep, since it was obvious that we couldn¡¯t count on Amelia to be writing the report anymore, the only other Emblem of Endless Truth mage in the investigative group, Margaret, was now on the hook for finishing it now that she had returned to the Cloud Tower. Even if it was now a meaningless report, procedures still had to be followed, and she would even need to exin just why it was that Amelia had been unable to return.


    And so, the unlucky Great Saint Margaret Layde was just like a naughty child who had too much fun during summer vacation but forgot about the summer homework. Only after the teacher scolded herbined with endless regret did she finally start working on the meaningless homework that nobody would seriously look at. And it was rumored that the Great Saint¡¯s greatest pet peeve was doing meaningless things.


    ¡°I¡¯m quite busy. And that report is due tomorrow.¡±


    No wonder she felt such displeasure against me. It was also no wonder why Adam was pretending to know nothing about what was going on, doing his best to pretend he didn¡¯t exist by sitting there in the corner ying cards. He simply didn¡¯t want to misspeak and attract Margaret¡¯s attention and anger.


    ¡°I apologize. It¡¯s not that I don¡¯t believe you, it¡¯s that this itself is just so unbelievable. Why would the Bardi Empire offer to make peace with the Mage Country? Doesn¡¯t that seem impossible?¡±


    I really didn¡¯t think it was my fault for not believing her. What she told me was simply too unbelievable.


    Two mega-empires like the Mage Country and Bardi Empire entering war with each other would be like a sh between two high-speed trains that carried incredibly heavy loads. The weight and momentum carried would be astonishing so how could they suddenly stop just like that?


    There was especially that forbidden spell attack which caused enormous losses to the Bardi Empire, and the ongoing fights between the dragon knights and archmages on the Bardi Empire¡¯s eastern border was still a current event. Although it sounded like both sides were holding back, it definitely didn¡¯t mean that both sides would simply pack up and go home after waving a friendly goodbye.


    The dragon knights fought for their honor, while the archmages were prideful as well. Since they were now shing with each other, neither was likely to back down without truly testing each other¡¯s mettle. Yet truly going all out against each other would likely make both sides angry, so it was no easy matter to have both parties back down.


    And even if the Mage Country wanted peace, the Bardi Empire wouldn¡¯t possibly agree. After all, they lost an entire fortress and so many people to that forbidden spell. The dragon knights would have to save face, and the emperor would need to show that they achieved some revenge. Otherwise, there would be no way for them all to face the Bardi citizens.


    Even if the Bardi Empire¡¯s leaders could remainposed under the threat of the undead, they would definitely be the side to start conflicts, not stop them. In such a situation, the Bardi Empire had actually requested a peace treaty? Completely inconceivable.


    However, Margaret chose to remain silent in front of my doubts, and it was Adam, instead, who couldn¡¯t bear watching this anymore.


    ¡°Cough, that¡¯s because¡ª¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare say it!¡±


    ¡°...¡± Adam and I exchanged nces and came to an unspoken ord to remain silent in front of the furious Margaret.


    ¡°At the very least, someone needs to write thatpletely meaningless report for me.¡± Margaret seemed to be talking to herself, but now I knew what it was that she wanted.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go ahead and write that report. I¡¯m awesome at writing reports.¡±


    Alright then, I won¡¯tment about how ridiculous or strange it was for Emperor Yongye himself to write the report titled ¡®Report on whether or not Emperor Yongye has shown traces of activity in the Nortnds.¡¯ Nor will I mention just how long it took me to think about and finish writing that damned reportter that night. But, at the very least, Margaret nodded in satisfaction as she gave me top-secret information that very few people in the Cloud Tower would know about.


    ¡°The Holy War has begun.¡±


    Margaret¡¯s words were incredibly simple, while Adam added on more information for me.


    ¡°The Holy Church¡¯sbined army for the Holy War that they summoned from all the countries has crossed through the Arloton Mountains and ambushed the Bardi city of Akenford on the southern border. The Holy War has truly begun.¡±


    My mouth was now agape in surprise. I never imagined that the Holy Church woulde join in at this time as well. Based on my expectations, the Holy Church wasn¡¯t supposed to have joined in the conflict for a while.


    Akenford City? When I looked at the map, it wasn¡¯t even close to the Holy Church¡¯s territory!


    ¡°The Arloton Mountains? Isn¡¯t that the area under the control of the Penglin Alliance? Aren¡¯t they believers of the Mother Earth Goddess? Why would they possibly allow the Holy Church¡¯s allied armies to pass through their territory?¡±


    ¡°The day before the ambush on Akenford City, the highest priest of the Penglin Mother Earth Goddess Church converted to the Church of Holy Light. The entire country converted to the Holy Light as well, so the Holy Light allied army was able to enter the Penglin Alliance¡¯s territory without any trouble. The Penglin Alliance¡¯s strongest ten mercenary groups and their former Mother Earth Goddess Church¡¯s knights all joined the Holy Light¡¯sbined army as well.¡±


    Alright then, it seemed that there was plenty of political trickery behind the scenes. It was highly likely that the Penglin Alliance had secretly joined the Holy Light faction long ago. But, no matter how surprising the process had been, there was no denying that the Holy Light army¡¯s sudden ambush had been highly sessful.


    ¡°What was thebat situation like?¡±


    ¡°Akenford City¡¯s defending army died to thest man. The city was lost as well. Also... well, it¡¯s the Holy War. You understand.¡±


    As someone unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of a Holy War in the past, of course I understood!


    The Holy War was a battle against heretics. And heretics¡¯ women and children were all considered evil targets that needed to be ¡°cleansed¡±. The heretics¡¯ wealth andnd were to be rewarded to the Holy Light¡¯s faithful believers. There was only one possible result for cities conquered by the Holy Light during the Holy War.


    ¡°The entire city was ughtered?¡± Although I asked it like a question, both Adam and I knew we were certain of what happened.


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    The small caf¨¦ fell silent for a moment. Judging by Margaret¡¯s flickering mana, her bad mood was caused by far more than just that damned report about Yongye.


    It was now quite obvious why it was that the Bardi Empire was willing to begin peace negotiations with the Mage Country. Once the Holy Light believers began a Holy War, there was no stopping it. Not to mention, the undead army was growing at an incredible rate, a cancer in the Bardi Empire¡¯s stomach. This meant that the Bardi Empire was basically facing three enemies all by itself. When faced with such a brink, even the most insane of emperors would think about negotiating for peace with one of the factions he was at war with, which would reduce the pressure on the Bardi Empire.


    ¡°...Heh heh, well, don¡¯t have such a sour face. There¡¯s at least some good news in this, right? At the very least, it¡¯ll make things much easier for our ns once the Mage Countryes to a peace agreement with the Bardi Empire.¡±


    ¡°I have a second piece of bad news to give you, then. Based on the newest information I received, there¡¯s over a ny percent chance that the peace negotiations will be rejected by the Mage Country. Not only will the war between the two countries not stop, but it¡¯s highly likely it¡¯ll be escted! The mages want to take advantage of this excellent opportunity to forever erase their unruly neighbor!¡±

 Chapter 311

    Chapter 311: Secret Shadows


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°In the year AD 392, the sixteenth year of the Holy War of that era, the Bardi Emperor Orloss the Thirteenth didn¡¯t act as decisively and proactively as was typical of him. Instead, he kept up a series of incredibly defensive and passive strategies. Although he did increase military preparations, he merely sat back as warfare reached a stalemate in other countries.¡±


    ¡°However, this was a year when unavoidable war came looking for them, no matter if they wanted it or not. The undead came for theirnd. Three months after the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital was mysteriously shrouded in permanent darkness, the undead arrived. In just one night, countless Dimensional Doors to the Undead nes opened up in various countries, thergest one of all located in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital. On the same night, Undead Emperor Aso from the Desecration ne descended into the mortal ne and used a forbidden spell, causing an Undead Cmity in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital. Ny percent of the Bardi Empire¡¯s poption was transformed into undead, and the entire country known as the Bardi Empire perished, bing nothing more than a footnote in history.¡±


    The above was the game¡¯s ¡°history¡± of what happened to the Bardi Empire in the end. Orloss the Thirteenth who was celebrated as a skilled leader became known as nothing more than a pushover. The Bardi Empire also proved that the idea of standing by on the sidelines and simply watching was the worst, most suicidal idea of all in this particr Holy War.


    However, the real Eich I was in was obviously different from the game¡¯s storyline. At the very least, due to the existence of the four Elemental Gods and the absence of the game¡¯s yers, the Elemental Tide increased far quicker than anticipated. The Holy War began several years early as well. The Undead Emperors weren¡¯t supposed to descend until ten yearster so the undead came earlier than the game¡¯s ¡°history,¡± too.


    ¡°Overall, the events in the game¡¯s ¡®history¡¯ have been pushed forward by roughly nine to fifteen years. I hope Emordilorcan¡¯s death will at least slow things down a little. Otherwise, events will really get troublesome if the new generation¡¯s heroes don¡¯t even get a chance to grow up and mature.¡±


    Of course, I wasn¡¯t too worried about this. To use a clich¨¦ phrase: the tides of history were unstoppable. No single person or random coincidence would be able to change the big picture, and the wars that were destined to explode would be unavoidable. There were many things that were far tooplex, with too many objective factors involved. It was tremendously difficult to analyze what was beneficial and what wasn¡¯t.


    The wars woulde earlier and we now had less time to prepare? This also meant that the major human countries would avoid roughly ten years of internal strife amongst themselves. Whether this was an overall gain or a loss was impossible to calcte.


    The heroes from the game¡¯s ¡°history¡± stillcked time to grow and mature? Well, this would indeed influence things as nobody would count on a snot-nosed young brat to be a hero and save the day. They would only be newbies and novices that were barely passable as soldiers, nor would they have their reputations and teams in ce yet. There was no guarantee that the game¡¯s ¡°heroes¡± would finally be the same powerful characters like in the game¡¯s ¡°history.¡±


    However, true heroes were born of the times. Even if one country¡¯s Hero A died off, perhaps there was an Archmage B or a Rogue C that would show up and prove to be even more powerful than the Hero A from the game. Nobody could predict such things.


    Another result of the human countries having roughly ten fewer years of warfare amongst themselves was that several currently famous warriors destined to die in human versus human conflicts would live and be able to face our enemies. For example, the overallmander of the Holy Light¡¯s allied armies, that Eagle of Bejaso, was someone truly impressive¡ªhe was ranked 7th on the Eich¡¯s famous warriors rankings. However, in the game¡¯s ¡°history,¡± he was destined to die seven years from now after choking on two undercooked eggs he ate too hastily...


    Apart from those who chose tomit suicide, nobody could know how they would die. To be honest, the reasons for certain heroes¡¯ deaths would end up being the biggest joke of their lives. When I recalled the way Gordon would die in the game, I was even quite satisfied with and proud of myself that my deaths were quite perfect inparison... Wait, I was being proud of how I died? Something seemed off about this. Forget it, I might as well get back on topic.


    Cough, anyways, based on my understanding of history, trying to analyze the butterfly effects caused by anything I did would be as unreliable as trying to utilize divination magic. The more one tried to think about it, the more mistakes one would make.


    The most obvious example was regarding the Bardi Empire¡¯s ¡°history.¡±


    Should I say that the situation was worse? At the very least, in the game¡¯s ¡°history,¡± the Bardi Empire was still supposed to be at peace and flourishing. It definitely shouldn¡¯t have reached the brink, with three major enemies¡ªthe Mage Country, the undead, and the Holy Light army, any of which could possibly destroy the Bardi Empire.


    Yet, from another standpoint, the undead¡¯s plot was now exposed, and there was no longer any possibility of the undeadpletely taking over the Bardi Empire from the inside. At the very least, the Bardi Empire¡¯s fate of instantly being destroyed by an Undead Cmity in a single day had been avoided. Should I say that the Bardi Empire was in a better situation than it was in the game?


    ¡°Ha, nobody probably knows. After all, fate is something that even the God of Fate can¡¯t ascertain. If you look too far in the future, you¡¯ll miss the hole in the road right before you and trip and fall. Knowing what¡¯s going on in the present is enough.¡±


    Yes, the most I could do was understand the present. I would nt seeds for the future and change as much as I could; I¡¯d try my best to guide the overall situation into developing in a good direction.


    Of course, this didn¡¯t mean that the game¡¯s ¡°history¡± was unimportant. In fact, I always felt that my knowledge of the game¡¯s history was my greatest cheat of all. With the game¡¯s information on all sorts of characters and events as references, it was quite easy for me to understand what certain people were like or the truth behind various events. I could even prepare beforehand for many incidents that nobody would normally be able to predict.


    However, this advantage of mine would be more and more useless as ¡°history¡± changed. From a certain standpoint, that was something I was really conflicted about. Nevertheless, the greater the differences from the game¡¯s history, the more evidence there was that my hard work had been effective.


    Even if I told others about the ¡°history¡± of what should have happened to the Bardi Empire, nobody would have understood or believed me. And, from a certain standpoint, the Bardi Empire¡¯s princes fighting for the throne would be the least happy to hear the information I had.


    After all, these princes all viewed their adopted father, Emperor Orloss, as an elderly man on the verge of death at any moment. But the truth was that in the game¡¯s history, he would still live on just fine for another twenty plus years until the Undead Cmity. No matter how much the princes messed around, they were probably just monkeys toying around to Emperor Orloss.


    Just this one little tidbit of information¡ªthat Emperor Orloss was destined to remain alive for another twenty-plus years¡ªwould drastically change the political situation in the Bardi Empire. That was just how much power that predetermined knowledge possessed.


    If I tossed out the news that ¡°Emperor Orloss still has more than twenty years of lifespan remaining,¡± the entire political situation in the Bardi Empire would be shaken. The First Prince¡¯s faction, Eighth Prince¡¯s faction and so on would all disappear. However, the domain lords would probably rebel immediately as they wouldn¡¯t be patient enough to wait for another twenty-plus years if only they knew.


    In the end, however, the situation would be too unclear if I did that since there were too many uncertain factors¡ªthere were downsides as well as benefits¡ªhence I refrained from doing so.


    Since every variable was constantly changing, how could I possibly make aplete analysis of the overall situation based on only one factor or one piece of information? If someone was able to do such a thing, that would only be because they already knew the answer.


    Based on mymon sense, only by gathering enough information and after plentiful logical reasoning with help from others could one make the best analysis for the future, no matter how limited the conclusion. The uracy of the conclusion would also be directly proportional to how much information one possessed.


    That was why I never understood how main characters in certain novels had intelligence levels seemingly bordering on the demonic. These main characters had the ability to overturn some mega-nefarious scheme based on a single detail. Some managed to make their ns go off without a single hitch anywhere, and some would always seed in making individuals with exceedingly differing personalities act just the way they wanted. After all, a person might take actions different from their norm based on their mood, or a seemingly brutish man might actually be the cautious and intelligent type. Guessing an enemy¡¯s reaction to a n was something akin to guessing what your enemy wanted to eat for dinner tonight. If a main character could urately guess and control all such factors... well, I felt that a main character¡¯s ¡°plot armor¡± counted as a far more unreasonably powerful cheat than anything I possessed.


    Cough, I seem to have identally gotten off track again while giving my personal opinion. I should get back to the main topic.


    Yep, let¡¯s go with the conclusion¡ªstrange. It was incredibly strange, no matter if it was the Mage Country or the Bardi Empire, in the game¡¯s ¡°history¡± or the current timeline. There were countless things that seemed incredibly strange.


    The strange parts were there from the very start: why exactly did the Bardi Empire have to provoke the ¡°harmless¡± Mage Country Arlodante? If it was merely to expand their territory and power, the Bardi Empire had plenty of other neighbors to choose from. Why would they intentionally choose the most difficult one of all to fight with?


    The Mage Country¡¯s actions were even stranger. Why was it that the eternally neutral Mage Country would respond with a forbidden spell, something only used when one was forced to the brink, for mere border conflicts and provocation? When did mages start bing more impatient than berserkers?


    Why was it that the always rtively peaceful neutral Mage Country suddenly be more warlike than even warhawks? Not to mention, this incredibly aggressive action of using a forbidden spell didn¡¯t even receive bacsh from the other archmages of the Truth Symposium?


    Why was it exactly that they would reject the Bardi Empire¡¯s offer to make peace? Even if the mages destroyed the entire Bardi Empire, what benefits would they possibly gain? Were the mages intending on changing their habits and taking up the lifestyle of conquerors?


    On the other side of things, in the game¡¯s ¡°history,¡± there were plenty of questionable things as well. For example, just why the Bardi Empire became apletely istionist country, which was the exact opposite of how it currently was? Also, just what exactly happened to the Bardi Empire¡¯s dragon knights? Why was there no record as well?


    ¡°Sigh, it feels like both sides are still treating me as an outsider.¡±


    When putting together all the information I possessed, no matter how I thought about it, I still felt like I was missing arge piece of the puzzle. Since it was unlikely that all the mages had gone insane together, there was naturally something that I didn¡¯t yet know. Whatever I didn¡¯t know was the cause behind why the situation kept continuously developing differently from my expectations.


    ¡°It would seem that even Margaret won¡¯t be able to easily obtain this information for me.¡±


    Thorn Garden and the recent products I started selling through it were the best advertisements for me. I had been working quite hard at getting myself involved in the Cloud Tower¡¯smunity, making the archmages here recognize my existence. The fact that my Reputation level kept continuously increasing in my System was the best numerical evidence that my efforts had indeed been effective.


    However, life wasn¡¯t a game. Even if I ranked my Reputation level all the way up to Venerated, that didn¡¯t mean that all the mages would venerate me. Trust was something that needed time to establish. I still had to deal with the baggage of my former reputation so I needed concrete actions to prove that I was trustworthy. Unfortunately, all such things needed time.


    What Icked the most right now was time. Even though I knew that Margaret would be highly displeased with me, I still called her over here to help me out. After all, Margaret was a member of the Cloud Tower. Of course, the best scenario would be if Amelia coulde as well.


    Still, I trusted in Margaret¡¯s abilities. Since she hadn¡¯t obtained the information I was missing, it was likely that there were incredibly few archmages that knew the truth.


    Yet there were definitely multiple people that knew what was going on. For example, whoever it was that cast the forbidden spell attacking the Bardi Empire¡¯s fortress in the first ce. Also, the eighteen major mage organizations hadn¡¯t mentioned any objections about the forbidden spell even now; that meant that the eighteenrgest mage organizations¡¯ leaders all knew what must have happened. And we were soon about to start talking to the leader of one of those mage organizations.


    ¡°ckeye, the leader of the Sword of Order? That name makes me nostalgic.¡±


    ******


    The Cloud Tower¡¯s famous ¡°Tower of Ten Thousand Spells¡± wasn¡¯t actually a mage tower. Instead, it was a meeting room.


    It didn¡¯t appearrge from the outside, but its interior was enchanted with spatial magic¡ªmore than ten thousand people could easily fit inside. In the Cloud Tower, where every square centimeter of property was prohibitively expensive, this time of spatial magic was quitemon.


    But, no matter which building youpared the Tower of Ten Thousand Spells to, this tower would forever be considered a top-level construction. The tiles here were as white as jade, made out of mithril that had been enhanced several times. The star sand on the walls created maps of the constetions that made them resemble ancient mystical secrets. Every seat in this ssroom was sculpted out of natural jade. Although there was nothing outrageously extravagant here, just the price of the materials used to create this huge conference room was one that no other human country could bear.


    The Truth Symposium typically held its meetings here. Various archmages wearing their extravagant robes would enter together. Each seat had a mystical code floating in midair next to it, while all the documents being discussed would be projected onto arge projector screen in the middle of the room. The observers¡¯ seats would be filled with mages who would listen in on the Truth Symposium¡¯s conference, and all the policies would usually be passed at the end. This ce would be a lively hotbed of activity in the city of Arlo.


    But, today, when this most important conference room of all was put to use again, the round table in the center of the room had much fewer empty seats than usual, while the observers¡¯ seats were all empty. It was a non-public Truth Symposium conference, something incredibly rare.


    ¡°Twenty-two out of the twenty-eight Truth Overseers have arrived for today¡¯s Truth Symposium conference. Fifteen out of the eighteen major mage organizations¡¯ leaders have arrived as well. This is the best attendance record in the past five years. Well, since everyone knows just how important this meeting today is, let¡¯s just directly discuss the main topic at hand.¡±


    The Seven-Colored Tower was the mage organization where elemental magic mages thrived. Archmage Antonio was the representative of the Seven-Colored Tower, as well as the strongest fire magic and fire element forbidden spell mage of all. I felt like he closely resembled the mascot of Kentucky Fried Chicken from my previous world, which made him appear like a friendly, gentle old man. However, those truly familiar with Antonio knew that he hadn¡¯t chosen the wrong specialty. After all, Antonio¡¯s temper when he was young had been worse than the inferno demons from the lower nes.


    Now that Antonio was much older, his temper had indeed subsided, and his white-bearded appearance really did make him look like Colonel Sanders. He even epted the task of hosting today¡¯s Truth Symposium conference. However, everyone here knew that Antonio was an individual to be reckoned with.


    ¡°I¡¯ll just say it directly. This time, our trouble is still the same¡ªthose dragons.¡±

 Chapter 312

    Chapter 312: Attack on Titan (Giants)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    While the Truth Symposium¡¯s archmages were taking the conference seriously for once, the outside of the Tower of Ten Thousand Spells was as noisy as a flea market.


    At the marble za, arge group of gnomes and dwarves were currently carrying banners and gs, shouting and handing out their pamphlets. The people passing by would often take pamphlets of their own volition due to curiosity about what was going on.


    ¡°It¡¯s not a crime to protest! We have ample reasons to go on strike!¡±


    ¡°We strongly request the mages to makews improving thebor situation for non-human species! We¡¯re not second-rate citizens!¡±


    ¡°ckeye¡¯s alchemyboratory is now closing! Our bastard of a boss ckeye lost 300,000 gold coins drinking, gambling, and visiting prostitutes! He ran off with his three mistresses! ckeye! You¡¯re inhuman! You scumbag! Pay my sry that I worked so hard for! You won¡¯t meet with a good end! There will surely be divine retribution... which is why in order to make up for the unpaid sry he owes us, we, his employees, have taken out all of that bastard¡¯s warehouse inventory to sell here at rock-bottom prices! Everyone passing by, don¡¯t miss this great opportunity!¡±


    Alright then, this scene of the gnomes and dwarves demanding sry increases or better treatment seemed ratherical, especially since the gnomes were trying to sell their products to potential customers in the midst of themotion. However, there were certain special vocabry words mixed into this protect, seemingly indicating a certain truth.


    ¡°We want peace, not war!¡±


    The gnomes that always sold dangerous products, meaning that most people saw them as no different from weapons dealers. Now, however, they were holding up signs saying they wanted peace. The incongruous sight really made the bystanders want tough.


    ¡°Why is it that battles never stop, that our warriors keep bleeding, that our women keep bing widows, and our children keep bing orphans?¡±


    Although this particr phrase on a banner seemed to be one that would easily incite others, it was actually quiteical for those in the know. After all... the frontlines didn¡¯t have any of the Mage Country¡¯s soldiers at all. Most of the soldiers in the Mage Country were only the private armies of nobles without any actual power that liked to keep up pretenses. That would be sufficient to maintain public order in the Mage Country. The only ones on the frontlines, facing off against the dragon knights, were the archmages.


    ¡°What exactly are they doing?¡±


    ¡°...I suppose it¡¯s a type of performance.¡±


    Everyone was confused at just what these gnomes and dwarves were doing, making such a scene in front of the Tower of Ten Thousand Spells. And, to be honest, even the gnomes and dwarves themselves didn¡¯t understand what they were doing here, either.


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey?¡ªyou old windbag, those mages are staring at us like we¡¯re a bunch of idiots. How much longer do we need to stand around here and keep losing face?¡±


    ¡°Stopining, Kevin. We¡¯re getting paid ten gold coins per day just to stand here and shout these things. Where else are we going to find such a great job?¡±


    The dwarf Kevin wasn¡¯t dissatisfied with the payment he was receiving. He simply felt that it was too silly that such a clean and handsome dwarf like him had to paint his face green and wave around this green banner. This shade of green reminded him of that icky and sticky celery pie that his Aunt Dai back home would always cook. All the dwarves standing together reminded him of the sticky pieces of celery, which really churned his stomach.


    ¡°Kevin, can¡¯t you see that none of the gnomes over there areining? They even had to paint themselves red to represent the color of blood. Tsk¡ªtsk¡ªtsk! Red and green together, and add on the gnomes¡¯ disgustingly ugly faces. It¡¯s as if¡ª¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s as if we¡¯re flies circling around a piece of meat!¡±


    Well, setting aside the dwarves¡¯ typical habit ofining, the gnomes were shouting far more passionately than the dwarves who didn¡¯tck money inparison. The gnomes were even looking around everywhere, hoping to see that the person who hired them would witness how hard they were working. The reason? So they could receive more incredibly easy jobs like this one. If they could please their employer, perhaps they might even be rewarded with a bonus.


    ¡°Is there even any meaning to all this? The archmages are simply ignoring us. Their conference or whatever has been going on for two days already, and nobody dares to go in and disturb them.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t understand, then. Our employer is someone who never does anything meaningless. If he¡¯s paying us money to shout these slogans of his, he obviously has something in mind.¡± The old dwarf suddenly paused here, intentionally withholding information until the young dwarf Kevin realized what he wanted. Kevin grimaced and brought out his secret stash of tobo and filled up the old dwarf¡¯s pipe. The old dwarf took a good puff on his pipe before continuing.


    ¡°Ha, our employer doesn¡¯t really care about obtaining what¡¯s written on the slogans that we¡¯re shouting. He¡¯s merely expressing his opinion that ¡®I know you all intend to start a war, which I highly object to.¡¯ Or, he¡¯s saying ¡®I know that you¡¯re hiding something, which makes me highly displeased.¡¯¡±


    ¡°...Why doesn¡¯t he simply rush into the conference room and express hisints directly? I doubt any of those magical puppet guards are a match for our boss.¡±


    ¡°That would be no different from utterly antagonizing the mages. Do you really know what it means to antagonize the entire Truth Symposium? Young Kevin, try using your brain for once. That¡¯s why our employer gave us the orders to only stand around here and keep shouting, and that if anyone tries to chase us off, we should obediently leave. But, seeing as how we¡¯ve been shouting here for so long but nobody has evene to chase us away, the mages¡¯ response is to¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ªthey can do whatever they want. We don¡¯t care. This information absolutely can¡¯t be leaked.¡±


    An archmage was currently making such a statement in the Truth Symposium meeting.


    *Thud!*


    But, the next instant, the door to the conference room mmed open. A blue-robed mage entered, and behind him was a huge pile of magical puppet guards that had been reduced to scrap metal.


    ¡°Rnd, do you know what you just did?¡±


    Yes, that was me, the unlucky fellow who had been ignored and not invited to the Truth Symposium conference, the leader of the workers union who told his employees to go on strike demanding their sry... whoops, I seem to have identally mentioned a concept from my previous world yet again.


    Oslowen, the Truth Overseer from the Mystical de, had just angrily shouted at me. However, I knew that he was simply speaking on behalf of the Truth Symposium, and that, in his own way, he was even trying to protect me. Otherwise, if I was unfortunate enough to antagonize the entire Truth Symposium, it would easily give my enemies an opportunity to attack me.


    I looked around all the faces at the table in this conference room. It was quite nostalgic¡ªthere were plenty of people here that I wanted to kill or wanted to kill me. At the very least, ckeye was definitely ring viciously at me since he had been the target of my recent nder campaign.


    ¡°I know that you all want to hide the truth, but since I already know, what are you all going to do? Will you all actually try to kill me? Heh heh, if not, let us discuss the issue of those dragons and giants together.¡±


    ******


    Chances would often arrive unsuspectingly, but only the prepared would be able to take advantage of them. A coincidence helped give me the key to the final piece of the puzzle.


    ¡°Halent is here to see me? He¡¯s already waiting for me in Thorn Garden¡¯s meeting room?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t surprised to hear this at the time. After all, I now knew that the Bardi Empire wanted to make peace with the Mage Country. I figured that perhaps Halent was acting as the Bardi Empire¡¯s envoy.


    When I returned to Thorn Garden and entered its halls, the cool, handsome, and taciturn Halent wasn¡¯t the first person I saw as I expected. Instead, Beifeng, who was supposed to apany our guest while he waited, had slipped out for a walk instead. When Beifeng saw that I arrived, he seemed to heave a sigh of relief despite how typically fearless he was.


    ¡°You can actually feel uneasy?¡±


    ¡°Well, he¡¯s still a superior-ranked dragon. Although I know in my heart that it¡¯s nothing much, I still feel instinctively ufortable.¡±


    I nodded in understanding. Although dracons were called dracons for being rted to dragons, they were actually just artificially created through a mysterious spell as an intelligent species which possessed only a minor amount of dragon blood. Whenparing the dracon species¡¯ ranks to that of all other dragons, they would be considered lower in rank than even the SemiDragons thatcked intelligence. Dracons were born to be the dragons¡¯ servants and ves.


    Not to mention, the dracons in the underground world were originally the color dragons¡¯ ves. Since dracons were created by the dragons, and Halent here was a blue dragon¡¯s descendant who had a high purity of dragonblood and could potentially be a dragon himself in the future, there was a huge difference between them in the dragons¡¯ rankings. It was only natural that Beifeng would feel ufortable.


    ¡°Why did they have you be the one to greet Halent? Isn¡¯t that just like having Little Red Riding Hood greet the Big Bad Wolf¡ªer¡ªthe sheep greet the wolf?¡±


    ¡°Probably because they felt it was the most appropriate as I¡¯m a Saint. I didn¡¯t expect it either, though. Even though my power level has improved, the suppression effect I feel from my bloodline has increased as well. However, that Halent fellow gives me a rather unique feeling... the same feeling when I face Ein Mezus.¡±


    ¡°Little Red? A Dragon Queen¡¯s level bloodline? ...No wonder he was able to be the vicemander of the dragon knights despite his young age.¡±


    I shook my head and focused my attention on the dragon knight archduke who was resting in the waiting room. His formerly clean face was filled with the haggard evidence of his travels, and his cape and armor retained plenty of sand. Despite his young age, his hair was beginning to whiten. It seemed that he had experienced much since Ist parted ways with him at the Forest of Dreams.


    ¡°I have important news. I would like to meet with the Truth Symposium immediately. However, I¡¯ve heard that they¡¯re currently in a top-secret conference. Could you help me to enter?¡±


    The moment he saw me, he immediately stood up and began speaking. It seemed that he was quite anxious.


    ¡°Don¡¯t rush. Take it easy, tell me whatever you have to say.¡±


    However, Halent had a rather vacant expression, as if he had received a huge shock from something that happened before I saw him. He seemed to have zero patience as he immediately activated a memory crystal.


    ¡°An important personage also told me to let you know about this.¡±


    The magic of the memory crystal transformed into waves of mana that showed me a hazy scene in midair.


    It was a wastnd. The sky was gray, the earth was gray, and every lifeform there seemed to be painted in nd colors.


    The most attention-grabbing part of this scene were the sculptures that were all taller than the clouds. They had different appearances. Some were upright and holding swords, while others were sitting and reading books, and there were others roaring angrily at the sky. But, the identical apart about them was that they had ridiculously strong bodies and handsome faces as if they were heroes from legends.


    Their existence was an undeniable truth, right from the ancient times.


    However, these gigantic sculptures weren¡¯t the only existences here. At these huge sculptures¡¯ feet, numerous smaller stone figures were awakening from their deep slumber as they shook themselves and came back to life.


    Once the perfect Seal of the Four Elements was broken, unsealing this dimensional space, they began awakening from their long, long slumbers.


    All these tiny rock figures awakened and instinctively knew what they were supposed to do. They casually formed stone weapons from the environment around them and climbed up their ancestors¡¯ bodies, trying to reach the top. They resembled ants attempting to reach the top of a human¡¯s head.


    However, their climbing was unsessful. They wouldn¡¯t even reach the knees when they were suddenly ambushed by some flying ¡°mosquitoes¡± that caused them to fall down and perish.


    ¡°What is this? A battle between ants and mosquitos for some sculptures?¡±


    Halent could only smile bitterly upon hearing this.


    ¡°Those ants are actually giants¡ªyep¡ªancient giants that are all taller than ten meters. As for those mosquitoes, they¡¯re actually huge dragons. Those sculptures... they are the titan giants. The titan giants are about to awaken!¡±


    Yep, these ¡°tiny stone figures¡± that weren¡¯t even the size of one sculpture¡¯s little toe were actually considered by us to be giants. This scene, which resembled a game between ants and mosquitoes, was actually an epic battle between giants and dragons.


    Inparison, those towering sculptures that reached the clouds were the titan giants, rumored to have powers rivaling the Gods.


    Once the elemental bnce was disrupted, the Seal of the Four Elements on these exiled titan giants lost part of its power. This sealed species from ancient times was about to return.


    ¡°It¡¯s the Attack on Titan¡ªer¡ªI mean the slumbering titan giants are going to return!¡±

 Chapter 313

    Chapter 313: Truth


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The giants and the dragons were the two oldest species that still existed.


    When the two Goddesses of Chaos and Order were on friendly terms, they hoped that this world wouldn¡¯t be so deste. Countless species were born thanks to the dual influences of Chaos and Order.


    Things from ancient times barely existed today¡ªonly countless epics and legends but as tales. At the very least, the Golden Species of gold elves, metal dragons, angels, and titan giants were the four strongest species in the world at the time. They were the victors of the first Holy War.


    However, time was forever heartless. The descendants of these former rulers which had lost their crowns typically had it worse off than evenmoners.


    All of the first generation¡¯s Golden Species had it hard as time passed. The gold elves were overthrown by their rtives, the royal elves. The gold elves could now be considered extinct, unless you counted Harloys. The angels¡¯ descendants became the servants of the Gods, and the titan giants only remained in legends and archaeological records.


    Very few would remember them as far too much time had passed. These Golden Species were unable to withstand the eternal warfare, and either disappeared from the pages of history or hid themselves from the world. By the time the second Holy War arrived, the strongest species were the fallen giants and the moon elves from the royal elves.


    The moon elves that the gold elves viewed as traitors eventually lost their absolute control over the entire elven species, which also resulted in the entire elven species losing their ruling position as the most dominant species in the world. Their opponents, the giants, didn¡¯t have it easy, either. After the titan giants disappeared, there was no longer one single ruling giant species. The giants split up into two factions during the Holy War, and lost too many of their own from infighting. By now, the giants had lost most of their Intelligence stat and were nothing more than isted tribes.


    There were some legends, old folk tales that said some giant species had decided to hide out in another ne, creating a country with only giants in order to avoid the Intelligence-lowering curse that the God of Intelligence ced on their species.


    However, the reality of the situation was that an extreme majority of the giants were now cursed with low Intelligence¡ªmost giants now possessed that of a wild beast¡¯s level. Any giants which appeared in highly popted areas would be easy targets for an intelligent species, an army squadron would wipe them out.


    It could be said that as a species that formerly ruled the world, the giants were now in a pathetic state.


    However, I obtained some information from Ayer about the truth of the giants¡¯ downfall. There was only one reason for the giants¡¯ downfall¡ªthe titan giants were gone.


    This was just as if a hierarchical empire suddenly lost its ruler. Meanwhile, all the powerful feudal lords under the ruler were unwilling to listen to anyone else, not to mention the skillful maniption of the giant factions by other species and the giants¡¯ prideful natures and worship of the strong. It was only natural that the giants ended up causing their own ruin.


    Now then, the most foundational problem was that in this entire world, the only existences capable of challenging the titan giants from the first generation which themselves challenged the Gods... well, the only ones I could think of were the very same Gods. And, judging from the fact that almost the entire giant species had been cursed with low Intelligence by the God of Intelligence for so long now, the giants were truly disliked by the Gods.


    Well, it was too difficult to know what precisely happened as it all urred far too long ago. Nor was it necessary or meaningful to find out the exact details. After all, the God of Intelligence Kasodia was a Main God from the first generation who had also died off countless generations ago. But even though Kasodia died so long ago, his Intelligence-lowering curse on the giants still remained effective. Kasodia one hundred percent must have been one of the top-level strongest Gods of his time.


    If the titan giants finally returned, they would be able to dispel the Intelligence-lowering curse on the giants. That would finally reunite all the separate and isted giant tribes under their rule, which would be quite ¡°fun¡± for us.


    ¡°They¡¯re traitors, schemers, and attempted God-yers. They¡¯re the enemies of all the Gods.¡±


    When Ayer discussed the ancient Titan Giant King with me, he even became gravely serious, which was quite rare for him. When I asked where the titan giants were currently slumbering, Ayer said that even he didn¡¯t know. That was because he didn¡¯t participate in the exiling of the titan giants back in that year.


    And from what I knew from the game¡¯s information on the ¡°Attack of the Giants¡± game expansion pack, the titan giants were destined to return. When they returned, the titan giants unhesitatingly dered war on both sides of the Holy War. The titan giants had overwhelming power, making the Holy War even more chaotic.


    ¡°They¡¯ll return sooner orter, but I doubt they¡¯ll return in time for this Holy War.¡±


    ¡°No, they¡¯ll definitely return and be a part of this Holy War.¡±


    Ayer was quite confident of his prediction at the time, but I unhesitatingly told him that he was wrong. Even now, three hundred plus yearster, I could still remember quite clearly how frustrating it was to fight against the Titan Giant King in the game. I also knew, due to my knowledge of the ¡°Attack of the Giants¡± expansion pack, that the titan giants were one hundred percent certain to return in time for the Holy War.


    However, this was obviously ate-game-scenario expansion pack. After all, with how powerful the titan giants were, no beginner-level yers would be able to defeat them.


    Even though I knew that the titan giants were destined to arrive, I never expected it to be so quick. However, if I analyzed everything that happened, it seemed likely that their early arrival had to do with me.


    ¡°Due to what happened to the Earth Elemental ne, the Seal of the Four Elements on the titan giants has begun copsing earlier than scheduled. It¡¯s only a matter of time before the titan giants break free!¡±


    The elementsplemented and countered each other. That was the very basic foundation of this world. And the strongest possible seal in this world was the Seal of the Four Elements, which imitated the elements¡¯ naturalws. As long as the Seal of the Four Elements was active, the four elements would cycle naturally within it and create a mini dimension with no exit.


    The fundamental workings of this seal imitated how the Goddess Eich created the world. Theoretically speaking, since it was an existence that drew from the power of Creation itself, there was no other seal in existence that could possibly be more powerful.


    Not to mention, this real Seal of the Four Elements was obviously of far higher quality than my imitation. The power of the four elements that it drew from was the four Elemental nes themselves. The mini dimension it created became a real sealed-off dimension of its own. No matter how many eons passed, or how often the Elemental Gods changed, as long as the four Elemental nes still existed, the Seal of the Four Elements would remain in effect.


    However, not long ago, I went ahead and broke the very foundation of any Elemental ne¡ªthe Elemental Throne. This was all in order to kill off that Emordilorcan. To make an analogy of the seriousness of my actions, I basically killed off a group of hens all in order to destroy one egg, which directly caused one-fourth of the Seal of the Four Elements to copse.


    If this was a normal, peaceful time period, this imbnce could be fixed by itself. However, it just happened to be that two of the Elemental Gods, Camdian and Aylos, were still out and about doing as they pleased, their whereabouts unknown. The wind and water elements were increasing at a furious pace, while the Earth Elemental ne was absorbing the earth element back into it to rebuild its Elemental Throne. Bncing the elements was practically impossible.


    ¡°So the titan giants¡¯ return is only a question of time? But what does this have to do with the dragons? Why does that memory crystal have dragons in it?¡±


    I asked Halent quite directly when I saw this, and he directly answered my question.


    Long eons of time were capable of wiping away anything. Very few noticed how the Gold and Sulfur Species from the ancient eras hadn¡¯t all left the mortal ne. The only species one could stillmonly see in the mortal ne was the dragons.


    Of course, the fact that dragons had been able to survive and maintain a chain of descendants for so long was solely due to the fact that at one point in time, the dragons got tired of the entire Holy War. The entire dragon species managed to secretlye to an ord with themselves and withdrew all dragons and dragon descendants from both sides. This was how the dragons were basically the only species that survived intact all the way from the first generation.


    As a whole, dragons were a species that typically had fixed personalities based on their specific species. There were many different types of dragons, and even more countless semi- and half-dragon species. However, the most active dragons in the mortal ne were only two major types: the color dragons and the metal dragons. The third major type of dragons, the gem dragons, were rarely found in the mortal ne. Gem dragons also had incredibly unique abilities and personalities. Although gem dragons physically resembled other dragons on the outside, there were huge internal differences. Not to mention, dragons were one of the few species capable of traveling across dimensions and surviving in other nes. It wasn¡¯t strange that there were dragon species living in other nes.


    The metal dragons were representatives of Order, with the gold and silver dragons being the most well-known. Since these dragons were the creations of Order, they typically had their own desires and self-discipline and were the easiest dragon species to interact with.


    Color dragons were the favored children of the Chaos Goddess Cynthia. Obviously, the color dragons received their names due to the color of their scales. Inparison to the metal dragons, the color dragons were far more difficult to interact with. Their representatives included the Underworld ck and red dragons, as well as the blue dragon before me. White dragons were notoriously stupid, no better than beasts. ck dragons were sly and liked to use underhanded tricks. Red dragons werebat maniacs and also loved to scheme. Blue dragons had incredibly high attack power, while green dragons enjoyed preying on intelligent creatures, especially the elves. Green dragons and elves were species that considered each other mortal enemies. If I had to try and find amon point about all the color dragons, it would be that they were all immensely recalcitrant and super greedy. They also all loathed humans and loved to stir up trouble.


    The dragons weren¡¯t that peaceful as a species even amongst themselves. After all, just like humans, even dragon families had individuals with differing personalities that would cause huge conflicts. Not to mention, each dragon species had vastly different personality types. Red dragons and silver dragons were mortal enemies. Gold dragons and ck dragons were mortal enemies as well. There had been plenty of internal wars amongst the dragons. In fact, the losers of those wars, the ck and red dragons, had their entire species be exiled to the Underground.


    Since dragons each had immense personal power levels andcked any natural predators, most living on the surface lived by themselves. One dragon would typically have just some hounds, griffins, and other such underling species, which was enough for their own territory. At the very most, dragons would only live together in small groups of three to five. Due to the fact that some dragons from Ayer¡¯s generation were still alive, the Dragon City of the surface still had a certain degree of control over the entire dragon species. However, this control basically amounted to zero unless there was a situation that threatened the entire dragon species.


    ¡°We dragons made an agreement with the Main Gods of Chaos and Order from that generation that allowed our entire species to bow out of the Holy War. The condition was that we dragons would forever keep guard on the titan giants, over the world, ¡®Alidashya,¡¯ where they were trapped.¡±


    ¡°So what you¡¯re saying is that the dragons have now lost control?¡±


    ¡°Although there were already signs of it copsing before this, starting two months ago, the Seal of the Four Elements suddenly started decaying at a much faster rate. It¡¯s only a matter of time before the titan giants reawaken. I¡¯m not sure on the specific time they¡¯ll return, but it will definitely take less than ten years. However, the giants will soon return to their original Intelligence levels.¡±


    Two months ago? That coincided exactly with my little excursion in the Earth Elemental ne. Well, it was probably best not to tell that to Halent.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dragons have any backup ns? Have you dragons never prepared for the worst?¡±


    ¡°...Originally, with my power level, I never could have learned such information to begin with. However, an ancient dragon I met recently told me that she and Emperor Orloss had intended to connect the Undead nes to the titan giants¡¯ sealed dimension Alidashya so that the Undead Emperors and titan giants would get stuck fighting each other, weakening both their factions and killing two birds with one stone. This was an agreement that the Bardi Emperor made with the dragons. However, this is evidently no longer possible.¡±


    Halent¡¯s tone wasn¡¯t aining one. Still, this was obviously connected to me... which was why I did my best to not understand what he implied and nced at the sky.


    ¡°What about the Bardi Empire fortress destroyed by that forbidden spell? And what¡¯s going on in the Mage Country?¡±


    ¡°That fortress was actually the base of operations for another Undead Emperor. Arge amount of undead were already appearing there, and the necessary human sacrifices had almost reached the required amount for a Dimensional Descent. If not dealt with, that fortress would have be a second Port Victoria. That was why Emperor Orloss requested a forbidden spell mage from the Truth Symposium to wipe out the entire fortress.¡±


    ¡°So,you¡¯re telling me that the highest levels of both countries have actually been in secret contact with each other.¡±


    ¡°No, Emperor Orloss only had contact with a single specific archmage from the Truth Symposium. The only other existence that knows all this is the surface Dragon City¡¯s representative in the Bardi Empire: Lady Evelyn. It¡¯s also due to Lady Evelyn¡¯s orders that I¡¯m telling you all of this. Yep, this is only one-third of Lady Evelyn¡¯s orders.¡±


    ¡°Evelyn?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Lady Evelyn said you wouldn¡¯t dare to ever forget about her. Do you remember now?¡±


    ¡°...My memory isn¡¯t that bad. Isn¡¯t she Cher¡¯s adopted mother?¡±


    Judging by how Halent¡¯s expression suddenly became strange, I seemed to have missed the mark. He suddenly tightened his grip on the letter he was holding, burning it to ashes with a lightning strike.


    ¡°...Lady Evelyn said that if you truly forgot about her, apart from forbidding me to give you this letter, I absolutely must inform you of one thing.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    Could Evelyn truly be one of my old acquaintances, to the extent where she even knew that I might intentionally forget about her? Which was why she was even prepared for this situation?


    ¡°Lady Evelyn¡¯s exact words are as so: ¡®Cher is your daughter, which is why you¡¯re banned from doing anything to her...¡¯¡±


    ¡°Teehee! Now you have your confirmation.¡± The silly cat was rolling around on the table, evilly making her presence suddenly known.


    [Congrattions for receiving additional glorious titles... Would you prefer to receive one from the ¡®Oni Chichi¡¯ series or the ¡®Jinxed¡¯ series? I have a title called ¡®Cher has such an excellent father¡¯ under the Oni Chichi series, while I have one called ¡®I¡¯m really impressed with you¡ªby Pele¡¯ under the Jinxed series. Forget it, I¡¯ll give you a huge discount today and give you both titles at once. Your title shall be ¡®Cher has such an excellent father, named Rnd Pele.¡¯] [1]


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Pele is a famous ser yer who is notorious for jinxing whichever ser/football team he picks in the World Cup.

 Chapter 314

    Chapter 314: Sly Old Fox


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Since I already know everything, what can you all do about it? Kill me?¡±


    ¡°Even you¡¯re saying that so you must be prepared to meet your doom!¡±


    The furious archmages all shouted in anger as their expressions distorted. Each and every one of them pulled out their mage staves and shot all sorts of magic spells at me, killing me in an instant... that was all obviously impossible. After all, mages weren¡¯t like warriors who only had muscles for brains. Nor were mages fervent religious fanatics that wanted to cleanse everything. Mages were always more understanding and preferred to talk things out. They would be especially more patient with other mages and their juniors.


    ¡°Since you know already... let¡¯s add a chair for you.¡±


    Auntie Am from the Star Revtion was quite open-minded about me joining in. She sipped her tea, not even opening her eyes as she enjoyed her beverage.


    Why was I calling her Auntie Am? Apart from the fact that this purple-haired mage who always wore a headscarf had such an obvious motherly aura about her, it was more due to the fact that she was Margaret¡¯s mage teacher as well. Auntie Am was the one who helped a wild mage like Margaret enter the Mage Country. In fact, she was even responsible for helping Margaret transform into an undying state.


    Of course, I voluntarily greeted her of my own volition based on the connection between us. I even thought back to the first time I met her.


    ¡°Good morning, Auntie.¡±


    *Whoosh...*


    I had heard someone sigh lightly before the atmosphere on the street at where I greeted her for the first time became rather strange. The originally bustling street had instantly became empty, while my shadow hade to life and restrained me. The stone street had suddenly transformed into a magical beast that devoured me.


    Yet, the next instant, everything had returned to normal. The sky was still blue, and there was nothing wrong with the street at all. That was when I realized everything had only been an illusion.


    ¡°Actually, you should just call me Sister Am.¡±


    ¡®...An illusion? A Soul World? No, there¡¯s no way that was something so simple.¡¯


    Alright then, from that day onward, I became more respectful of the Cloud Tower¡¯s mages. At the very least, this Am individual who appeared just like an ordinary little girl on the outside was actually an ancient artifact from who-knows-what generation.


    Although Am was a SemiGod, there was no way to calcte the difference in power levels between SemiGods among mages. Experience and knowledge were both critical factors when it came to power level. I heard of ¡°Am the Blind¡± even back when I was just an acolyte so it would be appropriate to respect this who-know-how-old ancient witch, which was why I decisively expressed my gratitude.


    ¡°Thank you, Auntie Am. You¡¯re quite reasonable to deal with.¡±


    As I expected, everything before me went dark before I even finished speaking.


    ¡°Ohhh, it¡¯s here again, that feeling of being forgotten somewhere in a corner of the world and then being devoured! ...Eh, why isn¡¯t it continuing anymore?¡±


    This time, the illusion onlysted half as long before everything returned to normal for me.


    ¡°Sigh.¡±


    I once again heard Am¡¯s sigh. I shrugged, slightly disappointed that I hadn¡¯t been able to find out her true strength. I casually pulled over a chair and sat down as therge door behind me mmed shut. This doubtlessly meant that a new round of discussions was beginning, with me being included this time.


    [Epic Quest: ¡°Will you have a glorious homing, or will you be a fallen phoenix?¡± has now been activated. The next step of your Quest will depend on how well you do here at this Truth Symposium conference.]


    As always, my System waste to the party. But since I managed to make it here, the first step of my goal was alreadyplete. Being able to acquire some Fate Points as well was just an extra bonus. Based on previous experiences, this type of Quest chain may not have any worthy rewards as I went about doing the Quests in the middle, but the final reward in the end would always be marvelous.


    ¡°In that case, this meeting shall move on to the next topic...¡±


    *p! p! p.*


    An elderly archmage wearing reading sses picked up a document with trembling hands and was about to move on to the next topic when he was interrupted by someone¡¯s pping.


    When he looked to see who it was, it was, as expected, the young brat who just took a seat. Once could be counted as a coincidence, but two interruptions meant that he was obviously up to something. This time, almost all the archmages present became very displeased.


    Any ordinary person being red at like this by so many archmages possessing Emblems of Endless Truth would likely pee their pants in fright.


    However, for me, all those unfriendly res and scary-seeming auras emanating from the mages¡¯ physically weak bodies were the best evidence that they couldn¡¯t actually do anything about me. This attempt at ¡°killing me with their res¡± made me quite pleased.


    ¡°...Fine, fine, this time, I really wasn¡¯t trying to mess with you all on purpose. Aren¡¯t you all even the littlest bit curious about how I learned about the truth? I just received information from the Bardi Empire. Would any of you like to know about it? The titan giants are going to return sooner than anyone expected. These exiled former rulers are about to return. Please, don¡¯t all stare at me like that. I¡¯ll get embarrassed from all your passionate gazes. Do all of you want to see an old man like me flush red so much? Perverts!¡±


    At that moment, I had an excellent inspiration and lightly stuck out my little finger towards the archmages and beckoned towards them.


    ¡°That damned pinky finger of his! Never in history has such a tiny movement from any person ever disgusted so many archmages, archmages who typically wanted nothing to do with the world into wanting to kill him!¡± That was the collective opinion of future archmage of this particr Truth Symposium.


    As for the meeting¡¯s progress? Since it still hadn¡¯t ended after two days¡¯ time, would it really end so quickly just because I joined? And that was especially after I brought new troubles for them.


    ¡°As I expected, there¡¯s no solution to this.¡±


    Naturally, only a stalemate like this would cause so many archmages such frustration.


    For the Mage Country, Arlodante, the best situation of all would be to continue their istionist attitude and only worry about defending themselves, maintaining their eternal neutrality. However, this was obviously impossible. Even if you didn¡¯t go around looking for trouble, trouble woulde looking for you.


    From a certain standpoint, Emperor Orloss of the Bardi Empire was truly a sly old fox. He was probably the first person who understood the situation for what it was. His country became the undead¡¯s target more than thirty years ago, which was the Bardi Empire¡¯s first major issue.


    The second troublesome issue for the Bardi Empire was the dragon knights. The prideful dragons never would have obediently listened to a human empire¡¯smands for a reason as simple as what I guessed, being a ¡°half-blood dragon descendant daycare.¡± The dragons were actually performing a critically important task here: guarding the entrance to the Dragon World.


    What was the Dragon World? That was the name of the dimension in which the titan giants were slumbering.


    ¡°That isted dimension was indeed created to be an eternal prison, especially designed for the titan giants. However, since the elemental density was incredibly high there, it was a highly suitable environment for hatching dragon eggs, for young dragons to grow, for old dragons to retire, and for breeding as well...¡±


    ¡°Why is why you dragons modified the titan giants¡¯ prison into a daycare and retirement home? Not to mention even breeding there? You even established nests there?¡±


    I was rendered speechless by the dragons¡¯ actions. But, to the dragons, this was no different from how a human would consider the surrounding environment when choosing a new home to live. It was just like moving to a warm andfortable ind. As for the imprisoned titan giants?


    ¡°Hmph, those titan giants haven¡¯t woken up for tens of thousands of years. They definitely won¡¯t awaken in our generation.¡±


    Alright, although this sounded quite ridiculous, plenty of humans thought in such a fashion as well, not just the dragons. ¡°Who cares if I¡¯m polluting the water or air? It¡¯s not like I¡¯m drinking or inhaling it directly.¡± ¡°Conserve energy? Oil will eventually run out one day? Rx, some new technology in the future will take care of that for us.¡±


    Most likely, the first generation of dragons took their job of guarding the seal on the titan giants seriously. The second generation probably took asional looks. Now that hundreds of generations had passed, the titan giants had be nothing more than a distant legend. Enjoying this incrediblyfortable environment became the most important thing to the dragons.


    ¡°You dragons never even considered that if the titan giants awakened at a rapid pace, that not a single one of your young and elderly dragons would be able to escape?¡±


    Actually, no matter if one was a dragon or a human, there was no foundational difference in how all intelligent species thought in a foolishly suicidal manner, that certain things wouldn¡¯t possibly matter or be relevant to themselves.


    ¡°...I¡¯ve just found out that dragons are also foolish optimists that love to dig pitfalls for themselves to fall into.¡±


    I still recalled how when I made thatment, Halent¡¯s face reddened to such an extent, just like a monkey¡¯s rear. That handsome dragon descendant lowered his reddened face and seemed to be quite embarrassed about his own species¡¯ actions. He was like an embarrassed little girl, and it was truly an enjoyable scene to watch.


    Cough, let us ignore thatst part. The conclusion was now obvious. The dragons definitely had a secret agreement with the Bardi Empire, which was why the Bardi Empire eternally managed to have dragon knights under itsmand throughout the countless generations. Naturally, the dragons would receive assistance from the ruler of the Bardi Empire as well. For example, humanbor, food and water resources, construction work undertaken to conceal the entrance to the Dragon World, and so on. And since this country had dragon knights, dragons asionally appearing in the country wouldn¡¯t cause the citizens to be too astonished.


    The Dragon World was one of the three locations in Eich which had the highest poption of dragons. But now, the titan giants were beginning to awaken, which transformed it into the cruelest battlefield. The dragons were fighting furiously to stop the smaller giants from waking up the titan giants in order to sessfully transfer all their young dragons and dragon eggs. However, once the titan giants themselves truly reawakened and entered the battle, things would likely no longer be salvageable.


    ¡°Does Orloss know about this? Did he know that the titan giants were likely to return during this Holy War?¡±


    ¡°...Since he¡¯s the Bardi Emperor, he was informed by the dragons right when he seeded to his position.¡±


    As for why I called Orloss a sly old fox, that was because even though he knew that his country was facing significant uing troubles, he still rapidly expanded the Bardi Empire¡¯s territory, getting other countries involved in the Bardi Empire¡¯s problems.


    ¡°Where is the entrance to the Dragon World? Why haven¡¯t you dragons already made a full retreat with all your dragon eggs and young dragons?¡±


    ¡°The Dragon World¡¯s entrance is located in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital city. As for why the dragons there haven¡¯t retreated? It¡¯s not that they didn¡¯t want to retreat, it¡¯s that they¡¯re unable to. The order to retreat was given more than one hundred years ago. But most dragon mothers don¡¯t even know where their own dragon eggs are in there. The situation is quite unique.¡±


    I asked more about this and learned from Halent that the dragons truly turned the titan giants¡¯ prison dimension into their own Dragon World. There were arge number of dragons that made that ce into their home. After all, they had no enemies there, and it was an excellent environment. They would simply randomly bury their eggs somewhere in the ground and wait for the egg to hatch.


    Not to mention, dragons were true to their own desires. The SemiDragons, dragon beasts, and half-blood dragon descendants were quite numerous in that world as well. It was aplete dragon society on its own, which was also why it was one of the three most heavily dragon-popted locations in Eich.


    ¡°What do the dragons think of the undead?¡±


    When I asked this, Halent became even more embarrassed. He didn¡¯t say anything for an incredibly long time. In the end, he could only helplessly shake his head.


    Alright then, I didn¡¯t even need to guess. After all, these huge lizards that could easily swallow down a human in a single gulp were probably toozy to care.


    ¡°What? The danger of the undead? Aren¡¯t we already providing you humans with a dragon knight squad? Who cares about affairs in human society? Stop interrupting our sleep! If you dare to wake us up again, we¡¯ll eat you!¡±


    But now, it was likely because their dragon eggs were under serious threat that they finally thought to ask for assistance. And the Cloud Tower happened to both be the closest, as well as one of the few mortals¡¯ organizations that the dragons wouldn¡¯t look down upon.


    Both the Undead Cmity and the titan giants¡¯ return were huge problems. If both urred together, that would be an even bigger problem. By the way, Emperor Aso in the game¡¯s ¡°history¡± seemed to have fallen for Orloss¡¯s trap as well, even if Orloss perished in the end. After all, since Emperor Aso opened up the Undead nes¡¯ Dimensional Doors in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital city, it was likely that the undead ended up shing with the titan giants. And if Orloss misled Aso about where to open the Dimensional Doors, perhaps the undead arrived in the Dragon World and started fighting with the titan giants before they even arrived, which made it only natural why the titan giants arrived sote in the game¡¯s ¡°history.¡±


    The Orloss I knew in the real life of this world was still a sly old fox, just like in the game. Looking back on things now, he probably had quite a lot of say in the undead¡¯s actions. No matter if it was Port Victoria or that fortress Orloss had destroyed by a forbidden spell, there was something inmon about the two locations: they were both on the distant outskirts of the Bardi Empire. In fact, both of these locations were far closer to the Cloud Tower than they were to the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital city.


    When the undead armies arrived, Orloss was still allied with them and intended on using them to attack the Mage Country. If it wasn¡¯t for the Forest of Dreams and the mystery archmage¡¯s forbidden spell at Orloss¡¯smand, the Undead Cmity would have already arrived in the Mage Country. Although the forbidden spell managed to eliminate the threat of yet another Undead Emperor opening up yet another Dimensional Door, it dragged the Mage Country into this huge mess.


    Perhaps even sacrificing Port Victoria was just a show Orloss put on for the Mage Country. Orloss wanted to prove his own viciousness towards both himself and his opponents. Perhaps he was even threatening the Mage Country that if they didn¡¯t help intervene in the situation, all the Dimensional Doors would be opened up right next door to them.


    ¡°Ptui! Perhaps Orloss even notified the Mage Country before sacrificing Port Victoria, which is probably why Amelia just happened to be in Port Victoria at the time. But no matter what the Cloud Tower chose to do, the Mage Country wouldn¡¯t be able to remain uninvolved. This is such a familiar tactic, an open scheme for all to see.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re feeling like this is all familiar? That¡¯s because Orloss¡¯s dirty tactics are exactly the same as yours.¡±


    ¡°...Harloys, please call it experience and wisdom instead.¡±


    Not long ago, Orloss had apparently achieved his goal. At the very least, the Mage Country was suffering quite greatly, and these archmages that loved hiding in their ivory towers were forced to fight against the undead to the bitter end.


    Alright then, let¡¯s not mention just how scheming of an individual Orloss was. At any rate, he messed with both of the major troublesome issues on his te. The Undead Cmity urred earlier than nned, and due to the Forest of Dreams¡¯ existence as well as the location of the Dimensional Doors, the direction the undead would invade in would likely change to be the Bardi Empire. The titan giants were also reviving faster than anyone had ever expected, not to mention that once they awoke, they would being out right in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital. Orloss was probably quite worried about this situation, too.


    ¡°Just how strong are the titan giants?¡±


    I asked Halent this question as well. And now, the archmages at the Truth Symposium meeting asked me the exact same question. However, the answer was the same.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know because there are no records about their strength.¡±


    Of course there were no records. After all, nobody even knew what year the titan giants were sealed in. The Gods themselves erased all relevant records, so how was it possible to truly find out how strong the titan giants were? Still, I knew that the titan giants sealed away back in that generation were all undying. Even the Main Gods in that generation were unable to truly y them so perhaps it would be urate to view the titan giants as having power on par with the Main Gods.


    ¡°Then what do the dragons want us to do, exactly? Take care of those titan giants for them? I should say first that I have no intention of bing cannon fodder for the sake of those lizards. We could try an offer of friendship to the titan giants first.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a nice idea.¡± Another archmage seemed to agree with this idea. I nodded at this. After all, this was a typical way that a mage would think of, and, in a way, it could be considered quite reasonable. However...


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible. In the immemorial generation, the titan giants looked down upon on the ¡®low-ss imitations¡¯ that were all other species. Not only that, they¡¯re rted by blood to the human-eating ogres... Yep, that¡¯s right, the titan giants eat humans! Do any of you ever make offers of friendship to the eggs in your breakfast bowls?¡±


    I was telling the truth about this. It was gossip I heard from Ayer. The titan giants¡¯ bloodline actually consisted of a huge family, including the giants, ogres, great demons, and even smaller species like dwarves and stone beasts.


    The great demons¡¯ countries and the elven empire were mortal enemies from the same ancient generation. They were the rulers of the world in their era. The legends about the Gold Elf King and the Titan King¡¯s enmity for each other remained as ssic epicsmonly performed on stage even in today¡¯s generation. But now, there was likely to be one new story added among them, titled ¡°The Forgotten Tark Republic¡± written by Rnd the Forgotten.


    ¡°Those lizards aren¡¯t that stupid to think that we¡¯ll simply agree to be their cannon fodder against the titan giants. What they want us to do is help maintain the bnce between the elements, which will help dy the titan giants¡¯ revival. That¡¯d give them more time to finish finding all their dragon eggs and move them to safety as well as prepare for battle.¡±


    ¡°So what you¡¯re saying is...¡±


    ¡°Yep. Either we y the two remaining Elemental Gods of Wind and Water that are running around, or we quickly find two elemental creatures that can ascend to be Elemental Gods. We have to make all four elements reach a bnce somehow!¡±


    Still, ying two Elemental Gods that were probably hiding in their own nes was far too difficult of a task. In the end, I had one choice left to me.


    ¡°...I just slew the Earth Elemental God, but now I have to help establish another one? Is this yet another creative way of how I managed to shoot myself in the foot?¡±

 Chapter 315

    Chapter 315: Leaving Without Saying Goodbye


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    On the second day, I finally left the now-finished Truth Symposium conference. The Truth Symposium gave me a small golden question mark-shaped emblem to go with my other three emblems. The emblems on my chest now had even more authority than before.


    Although this little emblem wasn¡¯t much, it represented the fact that the Truth Symposium would notify me whenever they held a new meeting in the future. It also stood for the fact that I would now officially have the right to be there. Not only that, the ¡°Great Industrial Party¡± had be an officially recognized powerful mage organization in its own right. All those bastard subordinates of mine could finally be proud that they were a part of it.


    As for what result came about at the end of the Truth Symposium conference? Obviously, nothing was resolved in the end. If simply drinking tea together, chatting, and meeting with each other could solve the world¡¯s problems, then this world would truly be an easy one to live in. There would be no such thing as war.


    Orloss and the dragons had a rather simple train of thought. At any rate, if the titan giants arrived, the entirety of human society would suffer so helping Orloss and the dragons meant we were helping ourselves. Helping them would be to our benefit as well, and they didn¡¯t care even if we didn¡¯t help them; after all, we would all be dying together in that case.


    At any rate, the Bardi Empire was going to be in a tremendous amount of trouble either way. They had nothing to fear from the Mage Countrypared to the troubles already on their te, so they could afford to so brazenly demand assistance despite their earlier antagonization.


    As for the mages, it was certain that they were all in a bad mood about this. Nobody would enjoy being dragged into such a major issue like the titan giants. No wonder they werepletely uninterested in Bardi¡¯s ¡°offer to make peace.¡±


    Judging from what Halent told me, the dragons still seemed to be quite optimistic about things. Apparently, the dragons believed that all they needed to do was put the four elements back in bnce before having the mages fix the Seal of the Four Elements. They were so na?ve as to believe that would be all that was necessary to protect their Dragon World.


    The battles they had so far in the Dragon World against the titan giants¡¯ tiny little helpers had been quite sessful. Some dragons were even under the impression that the titan giants weren¡¯t much to deal with and that they would be able to easily take them on even if the titan giants broke free.


    Well, I could understand why they would be so overly optimistic. After all, if any human started prophesizing about how the world was about to be destroyed in such a catastrophic fashion, humanity¡¯s first reaction definitely wouldn¡¯t be to unify and develop new technologies to fight against the impending catastrophe. Instead, humanity¡¯s first reaction would be to make that so-called prophet shut up and only think about ways to deal with the disastrous situation once it was made too clear that it really existed. Perhaps, at that time, some world-saving heroes would even appear.


    ¡°Unless they¡¯ve truly been pushed to the brink, no existence is willing to give up their own home.¡±


    However, it was obvious that there were no world-saving heroes who were going to save the day this time. The nature of the impending catastrophe was a bit ridiculous in scale, and the difficulty in saving the world had long surpassed the power of any single individual.


    ¡°To bnce all four elements, we only have two choices. Either make sure there¡¯s a total of four Elemental Gods so that they¡¯ll bnce each other out, or kill them all.¡±


    From a personal standpoint, I preferred the former choice. After all, we had connections with the Wind and Water Elemental Gods. I even had a hold over Aylos with the way to revive her husband Sidunwar, which mighte in handy in the future. Yet from an overall strategic standpoint, I preferred thetter choice, to kill them all. That would help abate the overall increase in the Elemental Tide and lessen the difficulty in fighting against the future elemental creatures¡¯ invasion.


    It was fine to think that, but truly killing off the two remaining Elemental Gods was far too difficult a task.


    If I was Camdian or Aylos, I would stop running around and simply hide out in my stronghold in whichever home Elemental ne and adamantly refuse to leave unless things were truly catastrophic outside.


    After all, considering that Emordilorcan, who was incredibly seriously injured to begin with, had been so difficult to deal with in his home turf, I had zero desire to find out just how powerful a fully healthy Elemental God would be in their home ne.


    As for establishing two more Elemental Gods? Although that was quite onerous as well, it was, in truth, far easier.


    Elisa herself was the one who devoured the Fire Elemental God. I also possessed a shard of the Earth Elemental Throne in my Frigidwinter Earth, not to mention how there were numerous powerful Earth Elemental Lords like Ainslo the Sculptor who had joined my cause (due to Beifeng). As long as I invested enough into establishing new Earth and Fire Elemental Gods, it was definitely possible to establish two existences that could pass as suitable Elemental Gods.


    However, I didn¡¯t volunteer to undertake such a task at the conference. Offering timely assistance should be separate from offering to do something superfluous. I wasn¡¯t so foolish as to volunteer myself so quickly for such an obviously arduous task.


    ¡°...In that case, let¡¯s temporarily set aside the dragons¡¯ request. If anyone has a detailed n for what to do, let us know as quickly as possible.¡±


    So, naturally, no result came about after the meeting ended. It was far too difficult¡ªif this was given as a System Quest, instead, it would definitely be a minimum of the Epic rank... No, wait, was I going to jinx myself by saying this?


    [Congrattions, Rnd Pele. Epic Side Quest: ¡°Establish Two More Elemental Gods, or y the Two Remaining Elemental Gods¡± has now been activated. Quest Requirements: You already know. Quest Reward: You already know. Quest Failure Punishment: You already know.]


    ¡°I know, the hell with that! I hate a phrase like ¡®you already know¡¯ more than anything! Is it so hard to clearly say what you mean? I understand? Iprehend already? The hell with that! You have to make people so confused? I don¡¯t understand at all!¡±


    Alright then, I could only helplessly ept reality after venting myints and voluntarily begin preparing to take on this Epic Quest. Yep, my imagination would run wild when I thought about the ¡°you already know¡± part of the Quest failure punishment.


    ¡°What type of punishment will there be? My System¡¯s favorite punishments are those that will make me suffer the most, so what will it do? Permanently turn me into Princess Peach? Make my Luck stat negative for more than a week? Or simply force me to enter one of Omar¡¯s bodybuilding contests...¡±


    Sometimes, people had a limitless power of imagination. The things in one¡¯s own mind were always the scariest. Even a dragonying hero might be scared to death by his own shadow, or a king who had everything might go insane by imagining himself slowly aging and dying.


    [...Normally, when people say ¡°you already know¡± they haven¡¯t thought things out entirely yet themselves. Since you¡¯ve alreadye up with such appropriate punishments, the Quest failure¡¯s punishment shall be all of the above. Thanks for the ideas!]


    ¡°You bastard!¡±


    Alright then, with such a powerful authority above me,ining was useless. Now I had an absolute reason why I absolutely couldn¡¯t fail at this new Quest.


    Despite me interrupting the Truth Symposium conference midway, they were unable toe to any conclusions in the end. Nor did they resolve the other bothersome issue on their te.


    How were they supposed to deal with the undead? The Undead Emperors still hadn¡¯t arrived, and it was now impossible to close the six Undead ne Dimensional Doors. All that was left was a countdown to when the true battle would break out. Were the mages supposed to rush into the Bardi Empire and establish a frontline base? Orloss would probablyugh his head off at suddenly receiving so much free cannon fodder. The mages could only take things one step at a time.


    How were the mages supposed to deal with the Bardi Empire¡¯s offer to make peace? If they agreed to make peace, wouldn¡¯t that mean that the mages would lose any reason to intervene within the Bardi Empire? But if the mages continued attacking the Bardi Empire with full force, the Bardi Empire would copse even sooner, making the overall situation even more difficult to deal with. After all, the moment the Bardi Empire copsed, the Mage Country, which was the biggest neighboring country that the Bardi Empire had, would definitely be the next ce where disaster spread.


    Once all the archmages at the Truth Symposium learned the truth and ns of the sly old fox Orloss, some bad-tempered archmages were already gritting their teeth and swearing to kill him if they ever met. However, the pity for them was that for a long time toe, the mages even had to pray for the Bardi Empire to remain as powerful and steady as possible, which would at least help slow down the impending disasters.


    What about the dragons¡¯ request for assistance that the mages just learned about through me and Halent? That would be dealt with in ater Truth Symposium conference. After all, this was far too difficult a task, and things were already in utter chaos in the Dragon World. It would be tantamount tomitting suicide for an ordinary mage to go there and participate in the battle between the giants and the dragons


    When I finally returned to Thorn Garden, I discovered that Halent, who gave me all this information, had already left.


    ¡°He left without saying anything? Is this a joke? Last time I talked to him, he said that he would wait for me to finish with the Truth Symposium conference.¡±


    ¡°...The dragon knight Archduke said that he had many matters to attend to, so he had to leave. I just happened to be here at the time, so he told me to give pass the message to you...¡±


    The person who told me about this was that little girl, Cher. She had beening here more and more often as ofte. Thanks to my repeated ridiculous efforts at pleasing her, the rtionship between us seemed to have improved slightly. At the very least, we were capable of normalmunication with each other.


    Yep, don¡¯t all girls love presents? That was why I kept sending her endless gifts, including valuables in suchrge quantities that they required warehouses to be stored. The moment the mage police station opened their doors, they found a sea of flowers inside, for instance. The other police mages were now looking at me quite strangely. Also...


    ...Also, Cher still didn¡¯t react at all to my presents, and I even mysteriously obtained several more ¡°Oni Chichi¡± titles of glory from my System. And then, even the bastards under mymand began looking at me strangely...


    Cough, all of this had nothing to do with how Evelyn¡¯s letter told me that Cher was my ¡°daughter.¡± I only wanted to have a closer rtionship with a local mage, and I also wanted to investigate just what exactly could have happened back in the day I forgot about, and just who Evelyn was and what she intended. That was why I sent Cher flowers every day and went to pick her up every afternoon when she got off from work. I definitely didn¡¯t have any other thoughts, I swear!


    I wasn¡¯t sure if that really helped improve her opinion of me, but she epted my presents. Not only that, I was working quite hard to make sure the police mages wouldn¡¯t discover any tax evasion. Harloys interrupted me. ¡°Stop bragging about how it was all you. It¡¯s mostly that those bastard subordinates of yours got used to how the police mages here do things, so they¡¯ve be more difficult to catch as well.¡± Cher also performed fewer investigations on Thorn Garden than before, so, at the very least, she was being a lot more polite with me than previously.


    Cher seemed to hesitate as she nced all around her. It seemed that she still had more to tell me from Halent.


    ¡°Rx, nobody is able to eavesdrop on our conversation. Everyone here is someone I trust.¡±


    ¡°Archduke Halent told me that the undead have begun their attack on the Bardi Empire and that the situation at Nightrain City is dire. He rushed back to assist them!¡±

 Chapter 316

    Chapter 316: Spy


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°There¡¯s a spy among us. Or else why are we always forced to react so passively? The enemy knows about every step the Mage Country is taking.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that there¡¯s an enemy spy among the archmages with Emblems of Endless Truth that attended the Truth Symposium conference? Who could it be?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s definitely that ckeye bastard. Don¡¯t you see how he¡¯s always hiding his face every meeting, never daring to reveal his true appearance?¡±


    ¡°...He¡¯s acted that way for several hundred years. Why is it suddenly strange now that you¡¯re here?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s even stranger, then. Why could he possibly have to cover his face for several centuries? Perhaps under his mask isn¡¯t any normal person. Perhaps he¡¯s not even human at all...¡±


    That was my logic, one which I exined to Auntie Am. Although I was obviously just making stuff up, what I said wasn¡¯tpletely unreasonable, either. However, Am apparently didn¡¯t quite agree with me. Margaret remained as a bystander and calmly read her book, while Adam snickered in the background.


    After the conference, the overall situation in the Cloud Tower began changing. Mystical de and several other mage organizations were of the opinion that they should intervene with this more and more chaotic situation before it got out of hand. Naturally, this created several small factions. We had invited Am from Star Revtion over for a friendly discussion.


    However, in our conversation just now, she apparently didn¡¯t quite agree with what I said about ckeye. She looked at me as if I was a scammer and a hoodlum, which... which was correct!


    After all, I had no evidence to begin with. I made everything up that I had told her just now, and I didn¡¯t even know if there really was a spy.


    I just wanted any excuse to give that ckeye some trouble. If it turned out in the end that he wasn¡¯t a spy, all I had to do was apologize with a ¡°Sorry for mistaking you as a spy, but I¡¯ll be giving you trouble in other methods anyways.¡± Hehehe!


    Although it seemed like I was just casually chatting with Am, in a way I was hoping to get her tacit permission. After all, I needed to make sure that ckeye wouldn¡¯t receive outside assistance. As for my n, what we needed to do was quite simple. While my Second Senior Brother Sandro did his ¡°important stuff,¡± all we had to do was keep ckeye busy. Having Adam and Margaret help me would be all that I needed.


    Of course, if we were able to defeat and kill ckeye, that would be even better. However, without even mentioning the incredible difficulty of aplishing that, killing a long-term member of the Truth Symposium right after I joined it wouldn¡¯t look too good. A recently joined outsider who immediately went on such a strong offensive would definitely put others on guard. Things would be quite bad if I ended up bing everyone¡¯s biggest enemy.


    Our n was quite direct. Simply find ckeye wherever he was and then keep pointing at him and calling him a spy. Keep verbally attacking him in a public location. Anger him, and stall him for as long as possible.


    And if he really was a spy? Ahaha, I was just casually saying it. After all, I was no famous detective who could jump to such an incredible deduction, being able to point out whoever I disliked as a spy.


    ¡°How did you know I was from the Tark Republic?!!¡±


    However, our sudden ambush on ckeye ended up in exactly such a result. The magical acid not only dissolved ckeye¡¯s magical defenses, it even dissolved his mask that he permanently wore. Underneath that destroyed mask was a familiar undead species. The soulfire in his eyes didn¡¯t need any further exnation. ckeye was actually a top-level lich!


    As for me, I retracted my index finger which was pointing at him and tried my best to remain calm.


    After all, I had just shouted ¡°There¡¯s only one truth, you¡¯re the spy!¡± at ckeye, which turned out to be really cool as ckeye misunderstood me to have evidence on him, causing him to instantly reveal himself and turn on us.


    ¡°...How did you all know that I was a spy! My disguise should have been wless! My fake identity was perfect! I even pretended to need to eat and go to the bathroom just like humans!¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯tugh! I definitely can¡¯tugh!¡±


    I did my very best to pretend to be serious, but I was actuallyughing uproariously inside my mind. But if Iughed out loud, everyone would find out that I had only identally revealed him as a spy.


    This veteran lich had a look of incredible astonishment on his face, still not understanding what could have possibly given him away. Behind him was Adam who was so shocked that he dropped his sword. After all, Adam knew that I had been making all this up just to nder ckeye. Adam was only here to help me stall him.


    ¡°You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court ofw!¡±


    Alright then, since my luck was so good, I might as well keep ying. Since I finished copying Detective Conan¡¯s lines, it was now time to pretend to be a policeman and read him his rights.


    But judging from the negative energy ruing behind ¡°ckeye,¡± it was obvious that he was in no mood to join in my fun. In that case, let¡¯s skip the trial and go straight to the sentencing instead.


    ¡°Law Incantation: Silence!¡±


    This entire area waspletely silenced. For a lich mage at ckeye¡¯s level, even if this magic he¡¯d never seen before was effective, it wouldn¡¯tst longer than an instant. However, that was more than enough for us.


    With the arrival of abnormal silence, ckeye momentarily paused in surprise. This was an excellentbat opportunity. Adam, who was a veteran fighter with countless battles under his belt, would never miss such a chance.


    Although Adam¡¯s overall power level had somewhat decreased after he changed to using the thunder element, it had the benefit of multiplying his speed and reactions by several times over. And once a SemiGod warrior like him got into melee range of a lich, with the Great Saint Margaret and her teacher Am backing him up as support, plus a professional troublemaker like me simply ying it cool and enjoying the show, the result was obvious.


    Ten or so secondster, ckeye¡¯s bones were all over the ground. He was defeated faster than any of us expected.


    ¡°Ha, it¡¯s the death penalty for you. The death penalty.¡±


    Although the Truth Symposium just concluded a conference, the Truth Overseers were summoned to yet another emergency conference right away as the angry archmages all cursed the traitor among them and discussed what to do with ckeye. I was also delighted to learn that Sandro¡¯s n to rebel and take over the Sword of Order was extremely sessful andpleted ahead of schedule due to ckeye¡¯s absence. Sandro sessfully became the temporary leader of the Sword of Order, the big boss there.


    ¡°He¡¯s a fake?¡±


    ¡°Yep, he¡¯s a fake. But, he¡¯s no ordinary fake. That lich was originally an academic mage, as well as a real Myth rank. But rather than saying that he isn¡¯t ckeye, it would be more urate to say that there was never a person called ckeye who existed in the first ce.¡±


    The mages¡¯ interrogation of ckeye soon came up with results. After all, mages had far too many methods to make a person speak all the secrets they knew. Even if that lich was already an undead, there was still no way for him to hide the secrets within his soul. Margaret attended the Truth Symposium conference in my stead and told me about what she learned.


    Now that I had uncovered a spy for the Mage Country, it seemed to have helped to make the mages trust me more than before. Even Am seemed to trust Margaret more as well.


    ¡°ckeye wasn¡¯t a single individual. It was more of an identity that the Tark Republic undead used to do what they wanted in the Mage Country. There were various powerful undead acting as ckeye at different points in time. Of course, they also made sufficient research results and wrote enough research theses to make the name of ckeye more and more famous as time passed. As for the ckeye we just captured, that was just a body double.¡±


    ¡°Ha, making a Myth-rank lich act as a body double? Who could afford that... wait a moment, only an even higher-level undead could make such a high-ranked lich act as a subordinate and body double. That means there¡¯s only one possibility!¡±


    ¡°Yep, that¡¯s exactly the possibility I¡¯m thinking of as well. The recent ckeye is someone you¡¯re quite familiar with.¡±


    ¡°Aso! Only an Undead Emperor could make such a powerful lich obediently act as a body double. So, what this means is that Aso spent an incredibly long time in the Mage Country? Perhaps the ¡®Teacher ckeye¡¯ that we met when we were both acolytes here was even Aso himself!¡±


    ¡°ckeye, who was one of the Truth Overseers and the leader of one of thergest and most powerful mage organizations, Sword of Order, was actually an enemy of the Mage Country all along? This obviously means that all the Mage Country¡¯s ns made at the Truth Symposium were known to the Tark Republic all this time. This is a huge p to the face to all those mages who pride themselves in their wisdom. You really should have attended this meeting. When the news spread, the archmages were so, so angry. Teacher Am even joked around and said that ¡®even an Undead Emperor has spent so long learning here at the Cloud Tower from us, even participating in so many of our research discussions. Perhaps it¡¯s our honor to have had such a glorious coworker.¡¯¡±


    Margaret chuckled as she recalled how angry the archmages were at finding out the news.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯d say that Am¡¯s quite right, don¡¯t you agree? After all, Aso was an Undead Emperor. Perhaps it¡¯s even possible that he was here to study magic at the same time we were.¡±


    I nodded in agreement with Margaret¡¯s words. In fact, this was perfectly understandable. Who said that undead couldn¡¯t disguise themselves ande study magic at the Cloud Tower?


    Looking at it from the enemy¡¯s standpoint, if I was an undead who wanted to find a ce toy low and do some spying, as long as I didn¡¯t need to worry about being exposed, hiding in the Mage Country would obviously be the best choice. One could do whatever research they wanted in privacy here, not to mention exchange all sorts of ideas with other mages. The undead would even be able to obtain information directly from their enemy.


    ¡°Is there any other news besides this? It¡¯s rare to catch such a high-level spy.¡±


    ¡°Ah, right, the Truth Symposium told me that you have their gratitude. ¡®As expected of that Rnd, he actually uncovered such a deeply hidden mole.¡¯ Did you really have some information that you worked with when you uncovered him? Did Aso leave you any information about this?¡±


    ¡°...Do you really feel that Aso would do something so foolish?¡±


    ¡°In that case, as I expected, you must have just made a lucky guess.¡±


    Margaret nodded, certain that I was just lucky, before tossing me a tattered diary. This diary was written in the undeadnguage. I casually flipped to thest few pages and instantly understood why all the archmages at the Truth Symposium were so enraged. Luckily for me, they all misunderstood and thought that I had actually uncovered a spy for them through my investigations, rather than it being a fortunate coincidence.


    ¡°...I¡¯ve already given the information over to Emperor Aso. These foolish old buffoons are still under the impression that this world belongs to them. They¡¯ll never expect that we¡¯re almost finished with our preparations. It¡¯s about time for us undead to make our return, bringing death to all the living...¡±


    ¡°...That idiot, Sandro, is actually contacting the other vice leaders of the Sword of Order, investigating who I really am! Damn it, could it be that the constant leak of information is causing them to suspect me...?¡±


    ¡°...Today, I saw that person... Yongye. As expected of the former Undead Emperor, as expected of the powerful individual who defeated Emperor Aso. Simply passing by and exchanging nces, his look was filled with enmity and vignce. Could it be that he¡¯s already discovered something...¡±


    ¡°...The shadow guards brought some information to me. Sandro and Rnd are secretly meeting with each other. It would seem that I¡¯ll probably be exposed soon. I need to hurry up and send out the newest information right away...¡±


    Alright then, in a way, this lich truly deserved what he got. He actually dared to write such things in his diary and carry it on him?


    ¡°Eh?¡±


    Suddenly, I paused as I flipped through the pages. At the bottom of each page was a number. Anyone else looking at it would probably be baffled at why there would mysteriously be a number on each page. However, I had received a gift of knowledge from Aso and knew that this was his personal code.


    ¡°Mage... tower... at... 376... Abo... Street? What¡¯s this? Aso¡¯s personal researchboratory!¡±

 Chapter 317

    Chapter 317: Mage Towers


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    There were various types of mage towers. An example was the fortress-type, constructed especially for the battlefield. These fortress-type mage towers were rather simple in design and were typically designed to be shared by many mages. There were also researchboratory-type mage towers. These would belong to an individual mage and usually contained all of the mage¡¯s umted treasures. But any type of mage tower would always be a super dangerous area.


    Having a personal mage tower meant having one¡¯s own world. Not only would the mage tower massively increase the mage¡¯sbat power, all sorts of esoteric and high-level magic spells would be much easier to cast due to the support of all the expensive magical ingredients, dimensional portals, batteries, and so on that a mage stored in their mage tower.


    It could be said that possessing a personal mage tower was the life goal of most normal mages. But since it was a life goal, most people would never realize it. As for why? It was a simple reason, actually. Mage towers were far too expensive to construct.


    Arge battery capable of creating an energy cycle required several thousand kilograms of mithril and other expensive magical metals¡ªand that was only for the outeryer. A water elemental pool would require a constant dimensional portal to the Water Elemental ne. As for personal libraries that represented a mage¡¯s umted wisdom? It would be considered a loss of face without at least a thousand or two thousand books inside. Meanwhile, one magical textbook cost the same as what it would cost to purchase an entire store. No ordinary merchant or domain lord would be able to even afford a single room in a mage tower. Only the rich royalty of each country would be able to afford it.


    The result of mages wanting their own personal mage towers was just like people who worked and saved their sries in my previous world, wanting to buy a house. Every day, those people calcted their own sries and how much they should save, all to buy the house that they wanted. However, they tended to lose in the end to their consumption habits and the severe reality of society. Perhaps, three years ago, they dreamed about purchasing a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house, but it was then downgraded to wanting a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house, and finally, by the time they were originally supposed to have bought a house, they would find that all they could afford was a three square meter birdcage.


    Of course, there were also easy ways to obtain mage towers, such as scamming a rich person¡ªcough¡ªI meant working under a rich person, working as a personal magical consultant; something along those lines. Or, for those that were powerful but not rich enough, they could simply work for some country¡¯s royalty and receive the nice-sounding title of ¡°royal mage.¡± Or, they could join some military force, which would give the mage ess to a fortress mage tower. But no matter what a mage chose, the end result would be a loss of freedom¡ªperhaps even a change in their area of research and daily habits.


    When I was at the underground base in the And Empire, that incredibly extravagant high-level mage tower there had truly made me jealous. Although the seven artillery-type mage towers on the Borealis were constructed of top-quality materials as well, they counted as only a halfpleted product which could only improve the mages¡¯ power levels; the energy sources weren¡¯t self-sufficient. Performing research in those mage towers was also impossible.


    ¡°Hmm, I¡¯d really love to have my own personal mage tower.¡±


    Yep, even I didn¡¯t have one, but the main reason was because I didn¡¯t really need one. After all, undead magic focused on ingredients more than anything, and even their towers would be Soul Summoning Towers, instead. As for ice magic¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªlet¡¯s talk about something else.


    [Actually, I have blueprints for some of the most powerful mage tower designs (I strongly rmend the Floating Ind or Volcano types). But for you, even if you build a mage tower, wouldn¡¯t it be useless? Even if you use a supeputer, performing the four basic arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division will still be the same. An elementary school student like you should just obediently use an abacus.]


    ¡°You should have told me earlier! I do need those blueprints!¡±


    As was my habit, I ignored my System¡¯s sarcasm. The Floating Ind mage tower type had long since been lost to history. A mobile mage tower would definitely be incredibly useful, while the Volcano type mage tower could absorb magma andva as a limitless source of mana. It would even have additional power when casting fire magic. As long as one established a Volcano mage tower in a critical location and gave it a fire archmage, this single tower would be able to fend off an entire country¡¯s army by itself.


    The mage organization with the best technology in constructing mage towers was the Seven-Colored Tower. Not only were they the best at elemental magic, they were also experts in mage tower construction. Archmage Antonio from this organization even possessed a small Volcano Ind mage tower, which was incredibly cool. Not even dragons dared to go anywhere close to his mage tower... but it was also incredibly costly in its upkeep. It was said that Antonio was one of the poorest archmages because he needed to use almost the entirety of his ie to maintain his special mage tower.


    [Even if you can¡¯t use them, you intend to sell them to make money? No problem. You can exchange for any Legendary mage tower blueprint for 50,000 Fate Points. The blueprint on how to construct the parts that the mage towers are constructed from will cost you 10,000 Fate Points. I have Antonio¡¯s mage tower as well if you want that one. That¡¯s a SemiGod-rank mage tower, so it¡¯ll cost you 500,000 Fate Points. But my advice is that even if you purchase this from me, you probably won¡¯t be able to sell it to anyone. After all, that particr mage tower requires a ¡®small fire infused half-elemental ind¡¯ as one of the materials in its construction, which is incredibly difficult to obtain.]


    The System instantly saw through my intentions, but I didn¡¯t feel embarrassed at all. Instead, I asked my System to show me a list of everything I could exchange for. The technology behind mage tower construction would always be some archmage¡¯s personal secret or a magical mystery lost in history. How could I possibly pass up on such an opportunity?


    A mobile researchboratory where one wouldn¡¯t even need to go out for food and drink? That was the dream of every hermit mage!


    ¡°Why do you have such a function now? Aren¡¯t all the products I can exchange for typically ridiculously expensive and extravagant or some pitfalls that specialize in making people suffer?¡±


    [You can always exchange for new technologies from the current or previous generations. This is a technology that¡¯s already been mass produced, hence decreasing its overall effect on karma. The previous generation¡¯s technology¡¯s influence on karma has also decreased due to the new generation¡¯s technologies, so the price has decreased as well. Ten years ago, I would have charged you a minimum of 3,000,000 Fate Points for such technologies. Now, you can afford all of this. That¡¯s why, you know?]


    This time, it seemed that my System wasn¡¯t intentionally trying to make me suffer. This ¡°you know¡± was one I really understood. Basically, the System was capable of allowing me to afford this technology, which meant that this technology was already being used elsewhere? Was it some human empire or some visitors from other nes? No, this technology was already invented in the mortal ne, so it had to be local. And, only an extremely rich and ancient species would be able to use such ancient technologies and mass produce mage towers like these.


    ¡°So the most probable ones in the end are the elves? They¡¯ve been acting quite strange as ofte. No, there¡¯s also those ancient artifacts that areing out of the garbage piles of history. They also have the possibility of possessing such ancient mage tower technologies.¡±


    But right now, the most important part for me was to hurriedly rifle through the System¡¯s list of exchange options, searching for my targets. If there was an appropriate price, I wanted to create my personal mage tower as well.


    ¡°...This, this, and this one!¡±


    [120,000 Fate Points please, thank you very much.]


    ¡°Are you joking with me? These are onlymon parts required for mage towers. I only want these to research the technologies first, and I haven¡¯t even decided on what type of mage tower I want. I didn¡¯t even purchase any mage tower blueprints. Why is the price so expensive?¡±


    [So you don¡¯t want them anymore?]


    ¡°I¡¯ll buy them!¡±


    How could I let such an excellent opportunity pass me by? I grit my teeth and epted the exchange, which emptied my wallet. I no longer dared to look at the even more attractive and expensive options.


    [You¡¯re not going to keep looking? There are even better ones for sale.]


    ¡°Hmph, I won¡¯t be moved if I don¡¯t look, and I won¡¯t buy anything if I¡¯m not moved. As long as I don¡¯t go outside, I won¡¯t be spending money. Do you think I¡¯m an idiot? I¡¯ll have to cut off my hand if I buy anything else.¡±


    [I also have Aso¡¯s mage tower blueprint here. Aren¡¯t you going there soon? Are you sure that you want to go adventuring in an S-ranked difficult dungeon without even purchasing the map first? Let me ask onest time, are you going to buy?]


    ¡°I¡ªI¡ªI¡¯m an idiot. I guess I¡¯ll just have to cut off my hand!¡±


    A Three-Colored Tower was the mage tower type that Aso possessed on Abo Street. This was the newest technology from the Seven-Colored Tower. It was a byproduct of the Seven-Colored Tower¡¯s research into elemental magic and goal to create the ¡°ultimate elemental magic item.¡±


    This Three-Colored Tower possessed two support towers and two elemental pools within. As long as the archmage had a sufficient amount of power to control the entire tower, it was the equivalent of having two additional equally powerful archmages assist him in casting spells at the same time, not to mention that the spells were of different elements. Moreover, these two additional towers acting as archmages would have almost identical mana waves to the main archmage and were also capable of receiving the magical burden of casting spells, which allowed for multi-elemental powerful attack magic.


    An actual Seven-Colored Tower only existed in legends. In theory, it would be able tobine all four elemental magics, Order Divine Arts, Chaos Divine Arts, and the archmage¡¯s own magic all into one. This was one of the Seven-Colored Tower ¡®s penultimate goals, and it was why they named themselves so. However, I knew that even by the time the world ended in the game¡¯s history, they only managed to invent a Four-colored Tower. They didn¡¯t even sessfullybine all the elemental magics together, much less add Order and Chaos Divine Arts into the mix.


    The Three-Colored Tower was a typical mage tower forbat. It had an effective attack range of approximately ten street blocks. Aso had constructed and hidden such a Mage Tower right in the middle of the city of Arlo. It seemed slightly frightening if one thought about why he would construct it here and what his goal was.


    Currently, we were standing in front of Aso¡¯s mage tower which had a magical disguise as a ramshackle building. I was secretly astonished at how perfect this illusion magic was. There were many people walking on the street, but not a single person stopped here for even a second. Their gazes would automatically slide elsewhere, all an effect of the illusion magic that would keep away anyone not intentionally looking for this ce.


    ¡°AXH... THF... LKK!¡±


    I incanted Aso¡¯s password, which removed the illusion magic in a sh of light. A tall, pitch-ck mage tower appeared before us, with therge, gargoyle-adorned door opening up. The interior was pitch-dark, as if it was a void that desired to devour everything.


    Of course, all the people on the street were scared by this mage tower¡¯s sudden appearance. A bakery owner that was next door to Aso¡¯s mage tower saw a ¡°new building¡± suddenly rise into the clouds right next to his own store, which shocked him so much that he dropped his freshly baked bread all over the ground.


    ¡°This ce feels like a death trap.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, all the bystanders¡¯ instinctive reaction to Aso¡¯s mage tower was absolutely correct. Even I could sense that it wouldn¡¯t be so easy to simply exit again after entering.


    Since archmages were typicallyplete hermits that never went out from their mage towers if they could help it, all the treasures they collected over their lifetime as well as all their research results would be inside. Even for those mages who knew they were at the end of their lifespan, there were incredibly few that had a way of thinking along the lines of ¡°It would be such a pity for all these treasures and research results to die with me; I want to give them back to society.¡± It was far moremon to ce traps in one¡¯s own mage tower to kill off any would-be robbers.


    Most mages were the selfish type. They had attitudes of ¡°Even if I can¡¯t use it anymore, I¡¯d rather leave my things to gather dust instead of giving them to you¡± or ¡°Even if I die and go to hell, I¡¯m having all of my collectione with me.¡± They would always use all their knowledge of magic to construct all sorts of traps and defensive magic spells. Most of these spells would be the automated type that would remain active even after their deaths.


    Without a map and walkthrough, entering an unfamiliar mage tower would be nigh fatal. It was the same for SemiGods; perhaps a forced teleportation trap would be unable to kill them, but it could still make a SemiGod feel like crying because it might take several decades to return home after being teleported to some random ne.


    Although it was typically profitable to plunder a mage tower, very few normal adventurers would dare ept such a quest. It was practically the norm for there to be life-threatening traps inside. The few high-ranked adventurers that dared to ept such quests ended up dead very quickly.


    A mage tower¡¯s danger was directly proportional to the owner¡¯s power level. A Saint-ranked mage¡¯s tower would be capable of making a SemiGod have a headache, so as for an Undead Emperor¡¯s mage tower... well, let me just put it this way: if I wanted to send any of my enemies to their doom, one method would be to tell them about this mage tower and simply hide the information and identity of the original owner.


    ¡°First squad, enter.¡±


    I stopped Adam who was eager to head in and had a group of summoned elemental creatures enter the tower first. And then... well, there was no more and then, because in less than one minute, all the soul connections to those elemental creatures were severed.


    ¡°Oh my, there¡¯s definitely something in there. Second squad, enter.¡±


    ¡°I refuse!¡±


    Fine then, my silly cat refused to send in more fodder. My magical pet actually wasn¡¯t giving me face, which was something that defied a mage¡¯smon sense. Although everyone else with me had gotten used to Harloys being like this, Cher, who hade along with us by my invitation, had a look of astonishment.


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter? All you need to do is send in some of your clones. It¡¯s not like it¡¯ll affect your main body.¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous, it won¡¯t affect my main body? Ever since I became ¡®alive,¡¯ all of my clones are alive now as well and can feel pain. All their deaths will be instantly felt by me through their soul connections. I have no desire to repeatedly experience their deaths. I just sent three of my clones to their deaths in that first squad. Do you know what it feels like to be stomped to death, to die from falling four thousand meters, and to die of asphyxiation by teleportation to a ne without any breathable air?¡±


    ¡°...Then, will you also feel it if someone touches your clones? I suddenly thought of quite an improper situation.¡±


    ¡°You can try if you want. My clones are capable of growing teeth as well.¡±


    And so, I exchanged res with my cat, neither of us giving way. Finally, I used my ultimate trump card.


    ¡°You¡¯ve been in the Mage Country for quite a while as well. How about I use the magical pet contract to force you to give me your mage tower?¡±


    ¡°Ptui! Just try it. I¡¯m not afraid.¡±


    ¡°Hah, so your mage tower must not be here... Ah, look! There¡¯s arge flying rat behind you!¡±


    ¡°...Isn¡¯t that just a bat? I¡¯m not a real cat so I¡¯m not interested in such a thing at all. Also, do you really think that such a stupid way of trying to get me to look will work? You¡¯re definitely intending on tossing me inside Aso¡¯s mage tower the moment I turn to look. Hmph, I¡¯m already used to this trick of yours. I saw through you long ago... Ahhh! Where did thisrge white bate from!¡±


    The silly cat waved her ws and fangs as she struggled, but therge bat still took her inside Aso¡¯s mage tower as it flew right inside. All we could hear was an ear-piercing screech: ¡°This is cat abuse!!¡±


    I turned around and nced at Beifeng who was all proud of himself and nodded in satisfaction. One of his littlepanions had done something for me yet again. All my otherpanions wereughing and chatting with each other as they listened to the silly cat¡¯s screams, while the outsider, Cher, got quite worried for Harloys¡¯ sake.


    ¡°Will she really be alright?¡±


    ¡°Rx, if Harloys the All-Knowing is unable to deal with whatever¡¯s inside, none of us here will be able to, either. Besides, I trust her.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯ll really be alright even with all the traps inside?¡±


    ¡°Yep. Until she can take her revenge on me, she¡¯ll never die. As long as she¡¯s willing to withstand some difort and continually use some clones to test everything before her, her main body won¡¯t evene to any harm.¡±


    From inside the tower, there was now a screech of ¡°Rnd, when I get out of here, just you wait to see what I¡¯m going to do to you!¡± This seemed to be the best exnation for Cher. And hearing how spirited Harloys sounded, it definitely seemed like I didn¡¯t need to worry about her at all.


    ¡°Milord, my cutie #3 has returned. He tossed Lady Harloys on the third floor of Aso¡¯s tower.¡±


    ¡°Yep, we¡¯ll wait half an hour before entering. By the way, if the silly cat leaves any messages behind that some ce is absolutely safe, then that ce is definitely a trap.¡±


    ¡°Rx, Milord. Even if you don¡¯t say this, we all understand. Still, please don¡¯t get us involved in your fights with each other! We¡¯ll all die!¡±

 Chapter 318

    Chapter 318: Returning to Life


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    If Rnd had the time to return to the Forest of Dreams across the waters, he wouldn¡¯t recognize it¡ªit had changed by a significant amount.


    The trees had grown taller, touching the clouds. There were even more strange green nts of all sorts. However, the biggest change of all didn¡¯t have anything to do with ¡°nature.¡±


    ¡°Ha! I managed to defeat a mutant zombie today. That was 10 Justice Points for me!¡±


    ¡°Nice, but I think there are only three Lesser Fruits of Strength remaining that can permanently increase your Strength stat. If you don¡¯t hurry and have enough points to exchange for one soon, you¡¯ll have to wait until next month.¡±


    ¡°There are only three left? When I checked yesterday, there were still five of them. It¡¯s only the tenth of the month. Why are they decreasing at such a quick rate?¡±


    ¡°Well, the Explosive Bear mercenary group returned with a great harvest. They exchanged for two Lesser Fruits of Strength, one for their leader and one for their main shield warrior. Ugh! I¡¯m so jealous!¡±


    ¡°Damn it! I need to hurry! I¡¯m still 200 Justice Points short. Else I¡¯m just going to have to wait for next month.¡±


    The biggest and most obvious difference from two months ago was that this ce had be incredibly ¡°popr.¡± The Forest of Dreams was no longer a ce for only the wood spirits.


    Once the adventurers¡¯ guilds in Eich learned about the items avable in exchange for Justice Points, even a disaster like an Undead Cmity would be unable to scare away these adventurers who risked their lives for treasures and riches. Temporarily constructed houses packed to the brim with people, with even more tents in the forests. Several hundred to several thousand people streamed into the Forest of Dreams by sea every day.


    Seeing how popr this ce was bing, some of the early arriving adventurers even opened up their own taverns and hotels with the assistance of the wood spirits. Other adventurers started other businesses. Mercenary and adventurers¡¯ guilds opened up their own branches here, while smiths and alchemists opened up shops as well.


    After Nightrain City was attacked by the undead, the adventurers in the Forest of Dreams received recognition from the Bardi government as well. This was a method for the Bardi Empire to reduce the pressure on their frontlines. ying the undead here would not only help these adventurers obtain Justice Points, but they would even obtain reward money from the Bardi government.


    Having two sources of ie from the same job, not to mention how the Forest of Dreams was constantly able to produce miracle potions capable of permanently increasing one¡¯s base stats? Countless powerful individuals were attracted to the Forest of Dreams and came to earn points and gold.


    The undead were quite frustrated about this. It was quite annoying for them to be forced to fight at Nightrain City while simultaneously having to maintain a defense line at the Forest of Dreams. However, attacking the western Forest of Dreams was obviously impossible so they could only choose to further increase the pressure on Nightrain City and the dragon knights there. After all, that was their main target.


    Since the undead finally dered war on the Bardi Empire, the people of Bardi started the undead extermination that they had been long prepared for. All the undead in the royal capital were immediately eliminated, and both sides had abandoned their former alliance. Aso¡¯s death caused the Tark Republic to lose control over the Bardi government¡¯s higher levels. So, in the end, the Tark Republic could only attempt at taking thend they wanted by force.


    The main undead armies of six Undead nes that had tens of thousands of years to umte in numbers and training weren¡¯t anything that ¡°Contract Heroes,¡± who were only scattered individuals or small teams, could deal with. Even scouting missions wouldmonly end with injuries and dead adventurers.


    However, the new undead soldiers that continuously teleported to the mortal ne became the best targets for the adventurers. There were also some adventurers that teamed up intorge squadrons that rivaled even military squadrons and could attempt at fighting against smaller squadrons of undead.


    These ¡°hunters¡± that had gone crazy over the potential benefits indeed caused a great amount of trouble for the undead, forcing them to leave a significant portion of their forces to defend against the Forest of Dreams¡¯ adventurers. It also helped significantly reduce the pressure on Nightrain City. Many adventurers also greatly benefited from the items they were able to exchange for via Justice Points by ying undead.


    Of course, not every person was so lucky.


    ¡°What happened to them? They¡¯re so pitiful...¡±


    ¡°Shh, don¡¯t let them hear you, they probably don¡¯t want your pity. They¡¯re from the ¡®Eye of Justice¡¯ mercenary group, which was unlucky enough to meet with a Bone Dragon-riding skeleton general yesterday. Those two are the only survivors. Even their leader, the Gold-ranked Holy Knight named Ostia, perished. They¡¯re truly pitiful.¡±


    A tarp was temporarily covering the ground. There, a young human warrior missing one of his arms clutched a blonde female¡¯s head and sobbed miserably, while a cat tribe female thief was tied on to the back of the young human warrior¡ªher only survivingpanion. This cat thief was missing her right eye and right leg, and the nk expression on her still-beautiful face made it obvious that she had lost the will to live on.


    These two remaining survivors from the Eye of Justice had bandaged injuries that were still bleeding. The path they took to return here was covered with streaks of blood.


    ¡°The Eye of Justice is finished...¡±


    The somewhat famous Holy Knight mercenary leader Ostia had died in battle, and all of the group¡¯s main forces had be corpses that weren¡¯t even recovered. This legendary mercenary group from White Kan was now finished. The two remaining novices that survived were unable to carry on the g of Eye of Justice, not to mention how they were both seriously injured to the point of probably having to be forced to retire from being mercenaries.


    However, the young human male warrior, whose name was Kait, didn¡¯t seem to think so. After crying enough, he wiped away his tears, bit into a bandage, and redid the dressing on his missing left arm¡¯s stump. His teary eyes seemed to be burning up with an inferno inside that indicated his determination to obtain revenge, as well as the heavy responsibility now upon him.


    He handed his leader¡¯s head, the blonde female head he was just carrying, to his cat thiefpanion. Then, he headed to the Church of Law where all the quests were issued, intending to report on their own failed quest. However, someone blocked his way.


    ¡°With how seriously injured you are, you probably won¡¯t be able to work on any more quests. Still, it won¡¯t do to have you dying of starvation, unable to work. How about joining us? We¡¯ll take you in.¡±


    A mercenary group greeted Kait at this moment, seemingly making him a kind offer. But, for those who really understood what this meant, this wasn¡¯t anything like appreciating his tenacity or anything like that. It was more of a nefarious way of taking advantage of the weak when they were down.


    ¡°Those guys are intending to take this chance to annex the Eye of Justice mercenary group into their own group? Making a big profit off of the dead? How disgusting.¡±


    Even though the Eye of Justice was almostpletely destroyed, that didn¡¯t mean that the mercenary group was now useless. The group¡¯s reputation and fame were the greatest wealth of all. After all, its past glorious history and record of sessful quests undertaken were the best way to make potential clients believe in them and pay well. As for material riches, most mercenary groups would keep an ount with the mercenary guild and even store some weapons, equipment, and items there as well. These would all be umted over countless years by mercenary groups.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be impulsive and confront them. That¡¯s the Slock mercenary group from And, or perhaps it would be more urate to call them a bandit group. They have a terrible reputation. It would seem that they want to get rid of their infamous past and adopt a much better reputed group¡¯s name.¡±


    A veteran mercenary stopped hispanion who was filled with anger at this act of injustice. Taking advantage of a nearly destroyed mercenary group was obviously breaking a taboo, too¡ªit was considered highly hical by almost everyone. However, the Slock mercenary group had arrived with roughly forty or fifty well-armed, well-equipped individuals. Even if these two chatting mercenaries were dissatisfied with the Slock mercenary group¡¯s actions, they didn¡¯t dare to intervene.


    But even though they didn¡¯t dare, someone else dared. In fact, this could even be called her responsibility.


    ¡°Please step aside.¡±


    The young-sounding chilly tone caused everyone to pause in surprise, while her bright red hair gave everyone a deep impression. Everyone who was standing around, watching what was going on, immediately made way for her, as if she was a hero from legend.


    This seemingly weak and small young wood spirit girl had executed a mercenary three days ago formitting the crimes of robbery and murder. She had such a calm expression as she slowly sliced off pieces of the criminal¡¯s flesh and kept inquiring as to how he felt. She collected the criminal¡¯s blood in vials and watched him finally die with such a calm expression that gave all who saw her an incredibly deep impression.


    This was Temperance Samantha, the first leader of the wood spirits, the one who¡¯d now obtained the nickname ¡°Bloody Rose.¡±


    The wood spirit girl was currently standing there with a calm expression as always, and the Slock mercenary group¡¯s members hurriedly stepped aside for her.


    Her punishments for all the outsiders who dared tomit crimes here helped everyone learn who was truly the biggest boss in the Forest of Dreams. Anyone unlucky enough to get on the wood spirits¡¯ bad side had learned the hard way. Not a single person of the Slock mercenary group wanted to taste the punishment of being hung upside-down several hundred meters high from the trees for three consecutive days and nights.


    Meanwhile, the young one-armed mercenary named Kait adamantly stood there, without any signs of fear or hesitation in his eyes. A look of approval shed in Samantha¡¯s eyes before she calmly asked him a question.


    ¡°How are the results of your quest to patrol sector D2?¡±


    ¡°...The quest has beenpleted. A secret undead scout base was discovered. This scout base had two small teams of ck armor death knights and a skeleton general at the level of an Undead Lord. There was even a Bone Dragon. Our leader... Captain Ostia said that the undead¡¯s goal is probably to scout out all the routes by which we enter and exit the forest so that they can more easily ambush and ughter us.¡±


    Hearing this, everyone present felt pity for how unfortunate the Eye of Justice had been. This was only supposed to be a normal daily quest about patrolling, but the Eye of Justice just happened to run into an Undead Lord who had constructed a scouting base. No wonder the entire mercenary group was almost annihted. Yet the fortunate part amongst all the misfortune was that there were still two survivors who managed to escape and tell everyone the news.


    ¡°Excellent job. Your mercenary group shall receive 100 Justice Points in your ount as promised, along with the agreed-upon resources. Where¡¯s your captain?¡±


    Kait turned his head to look at the beautiful golden head. He bit his lips so hard that they started bleeding, while his single remaining hand gripped the g of the Eye of Justice even tighter.


    ¡°From today onwards, I am now the captain and leader of the Eye of Justice, honored Lady Samantha. I am the Bronze-ranked Holy Knight Kaid, willing to serve your cause.¡±


    However, Samantha shook her head.


    ¡°Ostia was the one who agreed to undertake this quest. The Justice Points and resources can only be given to her.¡±


    ¡°But...¡±


    Kait suddenly became quite anxious upon hearing this, while plenty of ¡°smart people¡± around him already discerned the ¡°truth.¡±


    ¡°I never expected that despite the wood spirits¡¯ cute outer appearances, they ¡®d be so fiendish and clever. She¡¯s intending to go back on her word.¡±


    However, nobody expected that Samantha wasn¡¯t intending to go back on her word at all. Instead, Samantha pointed at the blonde female¡¯s head and said:


    ¡°I¡¯ll just talk to her directly, instead.¡±


    She beckoned with her finger, causing a tattered white mist to float up from the severed head. In the Forest of Dreams, any souls that wanted to return to the River Styx required the permission of the dimensional will.


    Any regrets or unresolved desires could cause a soul that died in battle to be unwilling to leave this world. Not only that, unresolved desires wouldmonly cause human souls to go insane. Ostia had already died, and her soul was in a state of confusion and chaos. It was obvious that it would be impossible tomunicate with her soul. And if Ostia was simply left alone, it was highly likely that her soul would eventually turn into an undead.


    ¡°There¡¯s no way to talk to her like that...¡±


    Along with Samantha¡¯s soft muttering, a flower suddenly sprouted and covered the soul which took the form of broken white mist. Several secondster, a green light glowed in this area as the Cycle of Reincarnation was activated. What happened next was that a familiar voice spoke up from the flower.


    ¡°Eh, didn¡¯t I already die...?¡±


    ¡°Captain!!¡±


    The female cat thief who had such a numb expression instantly came alive again in excitement as she struggled to crawl over to the flower. Kait also had an expression of utter astonishment. Tears of joy slid down his face.


    ¡°How is this possible!?¡±


    But when the flower retreated back into the ground, what remained wasn¡¯t the same tall beauty that they knew as Ostia. Instead, they saw a blonde young girl with pointy ears and shiny eyes that indicated her species¡ªa wood spirit.


    ¡°Ostia, the service of reincarnating you into a wood spirit requires a payment of 50,000 Justice Points. There¡¯s an insufficient number of Justice Points in your mercenary group¡¯s ount. Seeing as how you¡¯re now one of us, I shall allow you to go into debt with us.¡±


    ¡°Sister Ostia!¡±


    The female cat thief was overjoyed beyond belief and jumped into the blonde young wood spirit¡¯s arms, her tears and injuries¡¯ blood flowing together. Kait who stood by the side had was moved as well, while all the spectators were filled with astonishment. A service like ¡°revival from the dead¡± was directly breaking the Cycle of Reincarnation, and nobody here had ever heard of such a thing being possible.


    *p.*


    Samantha helped out to the end with her good deeds. She pped her hands, causing a dark green light to envelop the two surviving Eye of Justice members¡¯ injuries and missing limbs. When the light faded, they now possessed newly-grown limbs that were as white and pristine as untouched jade. These handicapped warriors returned to their healthiest conditions.


    These two formerly injured warriors were too busy getting excited over their captain¡¯s revival in another form to even notice that their injuries had already healed.


    Samantha knew that now wasn¡¯t the time to have a discussion with them. She ignored all the surprise and disbelief around her and simply left.


    Soon after this, options to exchange Justice Points for healing magic from the power of the forest as well as being reborn after death as a wood spirit appeared on the list of exchangeable goods. Healing any serious injury only required arge amount of Justice Points. However, the being reborn after death option seemed to have incredibly difficult requirements.


    ¡°50,000 Justice Points is whatever, but it¡¯s only avable for females with no criminal records? That limits the number of people that can receive this by so much. And what does it even mean that the wood spirits have to agree and approve of you? Basically, it¡¯s saying that those wood spirits will decide everything.¡±


    ¡°Well, take a look. It says in fine print below that ¡®If there are males that don¡¯t object living on in such a different form, that¡¯s fine as well. But in order to avoid any moral confusion, any males that are reborn from this service will be marked with a magical tattoo that indicates their past gender.¡±


    Even though the requirements of 50,000 Justice Points, no criminal record, and having to gain the wood spirits¡¯ approval were quite strict, many powerful individuals were still going crazy about the idea. It was alreadymon knowledge now that wood spirits were a Silver Species, and many powerful individuals that wanted to reach the peak were even willing to start over from the very beginning. There was an even greater number of powerful individuals nearing the end of their lifespans who were attracted here by this option. Of course, the fact that there would be no male wood spirits scared away plenty of normal males... but fine, it had to be admitted that there were also many abnormal males that came here precisely because of this reason.


    ¡°Thank you so much! We are willing to serve you in any way you wish as long as you will it.¡±


    Samantha, however, shook her head upon hearing Ostia¡¯s gratitude.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything worthy of your thanks.¡±


    Samantha expressionlessly left the first new member of her species who had been a former human and retained her original memories. Samantha mysteriously recalled the words that Rnd had told her before leaving.


    ¡°You want to know how to best manage all the outsiders that are about to arrive? ...Since the adventurers are the equivalent of game yers, it¡¯ll be for the best that the wood spirits simply act as NPCs. [1] 1 This is both the safest and the most beneficial way. You only need to pay out a little to make them all work their hardest for you.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t understand what an NPC is? Hmm, the most important part of being an NPC is to remain ¡®neutral.¡¯ Basically, you need to keep your distance from the outsiders and treat them all equally and fairly.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t do that? I¡¯m not asking you all to be truly unemotional. Just pretend to be unemotional on the surface. Samantha, your face that doesn¡¯t even know what a smile is makes you by far the best one for the job. At the time, all you need to do is personally take care of any issues that crop up yourself. That¡¯ll definitely be the most effective.¡±


    Judging by people¡¯s reactions so far, Rnd had been correct. However, Samantha felt a wave of displeasure wash over her. She turned around and looked at the mirror on the wall in her room, doing her best to squeeze out a smile.


    However, thirty secondster, she discovered that her face was going numb. So, she instead used her left and right index fingers to stretch out her mouth and forcefully make a smile.


    ¡°Smile!¡±


    The red-haired girl made a distorted smile at herself in the mirror. Right at this time, another face appeared next to hers in the mirror: Humility, Jill of the Three Virtues, who had an expression of despair and disbelief, as if the world was ending.


    ¡°Sister! Were you cursed by something!? If you¡¯re feeling ufortable, you should have told me!¡±


    Alright then, the rest that happened was simply a daily urrence: the cold older sister chasing around her simpleminded younger sister.


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: To all our non-gamers out there, a non-yer character (NPC) is a video game character that is controlled by the game¡¯s artificial intelligence (AI) instead of a gamer.

 Chapter 319

    Chapter 319: Ridiculously Rich


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Aso is definitely insane!¡±


    ¡°Agreed!¡±


    ¡°Agreed!¡±


    Mypanions concurred with my words, while a tremendouslyrge iron ball rolled behind us...


    ¡°Such a clich¨¦ and outdated trap. He¡¯s definitely an old artifact from the previous generation.¡±


    I insulted Aso as I ran and finally managed to find a slight indentation in the wall that I was able to hide in as the iron ball rolled by.


    Why didn¡¯t I simply smash the iron ball to pieces? Damn it! It was actually coated with ayer of top-quality adamantine! Don¡¯t even mention shattering it, just slightly being brushed by it would feel like a train crashed into you... What? You¡¯re saying I should use a fantasy world analogy, instead? Fine then, it would feel like having a battering ram which was enhanced to +12 smashing right into your head. Even if you had a cockroach¡¯s survivability, all that would remain of you would be little pieces.


    ¡°He¡¯s definitely a pervert with mental issues! That¡¯s the only possible reason he would ce all these damned traps. What normal mage would turn their own residence into such a trap-infested location?¡±


    I finally had time after escaping the iron ball to drag the silly cat who was biting on my head as always off my head. She was gritting her teeth and cursing Aso¡¯s name as I did so.


    ¡°Damn him so much! He deserves to remain unloved for eternity! How is this ce a mage tower? This is clearly a death trappetition.¡±


    When we first entered, the first three floors of the mage tower were quite easy to deal with. But, the further we progressed, the stranger things became.


    ¡°Please solve this mathematical equation within 20 seconds and provide an urate answer. If you fail to solve this equation within the time limit, a trap mechanism will be activated...¡±


    Well, it was only a six-digit multiplication problem. Mages were required to have excellent logical processing and calctive abilities, so I understood why there would be such a question in here. Not to mention, we had the ¡°Demon Professor¡± Harloys with us so such a math problem wouldn¡¯t possibly defeat us!


    ¡°...And after you find the correct answer to that math question, please sing the climax of ¡°Ah, the Beautiful Sun!¡± three times in a row. You aren¡¯t allowed to have more than three off-key notes, and you aren¡¯t allowed to make more than two mistakes.¡±


    ¡°The hell! Aso was also a fan of opera singing? Could this get any more ridiculous!¡±


    ¡°...17, 16...¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the spirit of the mage tower was like a mage¡¯s incarnation. A mechanical voice droned the twenty second time limit, but it was still seemed to be filled with wicked pleasure, as if someone was watching us and enjoying the show. It really felt quite unpleasant.


    ¡°...34294204242 is the answer, hurry up and sing! Didn¡¯t you receive Aso¡¯s inheritance?¡±


    Harloys solved the six-digit multiplication problem at an astonishingly high speed. But, when she hurriedly urged me to begin singing, I could tell that all her anxiety was faked. Her eyes had an expression of delight at being able to enjoy this spectacle.


    ¡°...Just because I received his magical inheritance doesn¡¯t mean I received his music inheritance! Don¡¯t count on me for singing. Sing your sister!¡± [1] 1


    ¡°How did you know that my sister is a great singer?¡±


    Before we even managed to argue for long, the spirit of the tower, which was acting as the host, returned.


    ¡°...13, 1, 0!¡±


    ¡°It skipped all the seconds in the middle? Could it get any eviler?!¡±


    The silly cat and I said the exact same retort in unison. Before we even finished our retort, that incredibly evil spirit of the mage tower answered us.


    ¡°You¡¯reining about not giving you the promised amount of countdown time? I¡¯ll have you know that the shortest ever sessful record of singing the climax of ¡®Ah, the Beautiful Sun¡¯ three times in a row took 5 minutes and 30 seconds! Even if I gave you two extra minutes, you wouldn¡¯t have been able to aplish it!¡±


    Fine then, at least Aso knew that this was too difficult of a task to begin with, or perhaps simply an impossible one that wasn¡¯t meant to be solved. Before we could even argue with the spirit of the mage tower, a panel opened up in the ceiling and dumped freezing ice water on us. However, what awaited us after this challenge were even more ridiculous ones.


    ¡°...Two-person three-legged ballet dancing? Not only that, it has to be on top of bamboo stakes? Does it count if I tie the cat to my shoe?¡±


    ¡°...Three embarrassing or humiliating stories about my past that can make someone cry in sympathy? Not only three, I can even tell thirty! What? I¡¯m also required to reenact the scenes? Dream on! Just activate whatever trap there is already.¡±


    ¡°...A beauty contest for men while wearing bikinis? Never! Come, just show me what the trap is this time.¡±


    ¡°...A tongue-twister that¡¯sposed of many differentnguages? I¡¯ll do it. No matter if it¡¯s the immemorial elvennguage, dragonnguage, or dwarvennguage, I¡¯ve mastered them all! What? This tongue twister even involves thirty-two different dialects? No problem, there are far more Chinese dialects! I¡¯ve got this!¡±


    And so, we shamelessly proceeded through the tower¡¯s challenges, which firmed our resolve about one thing¡ªno matter what, we were going to find and destroy the spirit of this mage tower!


    ¡°By the way, is it normally this troublesome to go through a mage tower?¡±


    ¡°No, normal situations would be that we¡¯d be dealing with an anti-invader, full onught destruction mode. Or, a friendly mode for receiving weed guests. We obviously activated some sort of strange mode instead.¡±


    Everyone instantly looked at me. They apparently recalled the words I incanted that allowed us to enter.


    ¡°Oh, so that incantation must have been to activate the mage tower¡¯s inheritance trial to test our worthiness to receive this ce¡ªsilly cat, stop biting me!!¡±


    Alright then, my attempt at acting innocent ended up failing. Everyone had expressions of ¡°It¡¯s all your fault.¡± The silly cat¡¯s ability to jump through the air and urately bite me was also improving by the day.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s such a rare chance. Since this is apparently an inheritance trial, it would be quite nice to be able to receive aplete mage tower that¡¯s in one piece.¡±


    At first, I thought that it would merely be a trial testing our magical knowledge and techniques, perhaps with only a few personality tests mixed in. Since Harloys and I were both here, it shouldn¡¯t have been difficult. However, nobody expected just how ¡°difficult¡± the challenges were.


    And since we came to the conclusion that it was possible to obtain this mage tower, I became unwilling to use anyrge-scale destructive actions in order to break through to the end of this tower. And that was how we could only slowly y along with the wishes of the spirit of the mage tower.


    ¡°I suppose that all of these trials are designed to test our adaptability. But since it¡¯s a trial to determine a potential inheritor¡¯s worthiness, they shouldn¡¯t all be this annoying. After the ¡®Intelligence¡¯ trials are over, the next should be ¡®Strength¡¯...¡±


    Before I even finished, the room in front of us opened by itself. Two three-meter-tall iron magical puppets trembled and then started to move, while a fire elemental pool was activated behind them, with numerous fire elemental creatures spawning from within.


    Judging from mypanions¡¯ ¡°passionate¡± expressions directed at me, it would seem that now would be a good time for me to shut up.


    ¡°...In order to test your concentration, please sing ¡®Ah, the Beautiful Sun!¡¯ as you are battling. Otherwise, there will be a limitless amount of fire elementals continually spawning.¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t you had enough yet? I¡¯m definitely going to destroy you.¡±


    ¡°...For threatening the trial administrator, this trial¡¯s difficulty shall be increased. Also, I have a name, just so you know. My former master named me ¡®Meteor.¡¯¡±


    Judging by the fact that two additional doors suddenly opened up with elemental creatures spawning in them as well, Meteor, the spirit of the mage tower, was quite dissatisfied with myment and intended to make things difficult for us.


    Mage tower spirits were one of the research results that mages came up with in the field of artificial souls. They were typically who mages trusted the most, as they acted as both stewards and research assistances. Mage tower spirits could even support a mage in castingrge-scale magic spells. Some mages even treated their tower spirits like their own children or disciples. The quality of a mage tower spirit was directly proportional to the mage tower¡¯s overall effectiveness.


    From my past experience in meeting other mages¡¯ mage tower spirits, most of the tower spirits were just like robotic NPCs, only responding with one fixed sentence or answering to specificmands. The higher level a mage tower spirit was, the more humanlike in personality it would be. Any mage tower spirits that had their own sense of self and personality would be at an incredibly high level.


    This mage tower spirit named Meteor was obviously such an incredibly high-level mage tower spirit. His personality seemed rather lively... fine then, perhaps I should say it was quite vicious. It even started cheering when it saw us busily locked inbat.


    ¡°...I¡¯m definitely going to have to reset his personality.¡±


    Suddenly, I felt like I understood why the going kept increasing in difficulty. Since this was a top-level mage tower spirit with its own personality, and we were continuously cursing its ¡°father¡± as we progressed, it would naturally hate us and want to make us suffer.


    ¡°It would seem that I identally dug a pitfall for myself yet again.¡±


    I took a deep breath, dragged the silly cat off my head again, and shook her, turning her into a pitch-dark magical sword.


    ¡°For the Lich King!¡± [2] 2


    I decided to shout out a ssical line while dark shadows enveloped the pitch-ck magical sword. The sword itself also seemed almost crystal clear. Its magic was now activated.


    Countless dark shadows appeared on the ground, transforming the entire room into a ghostly area. Endless shadows appeared on the walls as well, taking material form. Even these elemental creatures that shouldn¡¯t have possessed the instinct of fear began to instinctively retreat. This was no magic at all¡ªit was merely the summons of this magical sword when it was unsheathed. This was the might of a top-level weapon... but why did I feel like this scene made me appear like an antagonist instead of the main character?


    ¡°Damn, Harloys, you leveled up again? Are you changing yourself into Frostmourne?¡± [3] 3


    ¡°...What¡¯s Frostmourne supposed to be? Didn¡¯t you name me Ice Cmity? Are you cheating on me with another sword?¡±


    One of the greatest tragedies in life was to make references that nobody understood. Also, what was with the silly cat talking as if I was a husband who identally spoke his mistress¡¯s name in his sleep, making her incredibly heartbroken? After awakening and bing more and more like a pet cat, was she intending on awakening to a weapon as well?


    ¡°In the end, isn¡¯t this all your fault!? Stop wasting time, they¡¯reing.¡±


    While elemental creatures possessed the instinctive ability to tell how strong an enemy was, the two gigantic iron magical puppets heading our way were pure ughtering machines. Magical puppets had very limited intelligence and would follow a specificmand to the death. However, this also meant that magical puppets would never stop attacking you unless they were totally destroyed or themand retracted.


    *ng!*


    The magic sword I swung viciously crashed into an iron fist. However, the scene I expected of slicing through iron didn¡¯t happen at all. Instead, a tremendous force knocked me away, with a powerful bacsh from the forceful impact causing my hand and even my entire body to tremble. I hurriedly took two steps backward to mitigate the impact before I barely managed to steady myself. I was almost forced to resort to rolling on the ground, or, even worse, dropping my sword¡ªone of the mostmon moves novices at a disadvantage would make.


    ¡°How is this possible? My Strength stat is on par with dragons!¡±


    ¡°...Look at that arm! He¡¯s ridiculously rich!¡±


    My sword scratched off some of the iron surface to reveal a pale gold that belonged to adamantine. This was actually an adamantine magical puppet, something I had never even seen or heard of before. This caused even Harloys to curse how ridiculously rich Aso was.


    Magic puppets were the mostmon guards that mages used. It was quite easy to create low-level magic puppets. All that was required was to assemble some ¡°parts¡± into a puppet¡¯s form and then use the power of magic to give it the ability to move by imbuing them with low-level artificial souls. However, how difficult a magic puppet was to deal with mostly depended on the quality of the ¡°parts.¡±


    Flesh and blood magic puppets were famously weak. However, it was incredibly easy to gather the parts required to make them so undead mages were famously fond of using flesh and blood magic puppets. It was quite easy to create lots of them, and their weakness could be made up with the power of numbers. And if the undead mage wanted a higher-quality flesh and blood magic puppet, it was even possible tobine multiple smaller magic puppets into a single gigantic one.


    Stone magic puppets were slightly stronger. Meanwhile, mud magic puppets and sand magic puppets had the advantage of being immune to physical damage. These two magic puppet types were the natural enemies of any physical skill rted job sses.


    Stone and blood and flesh magic puppets were cannon fodder that were easily created, while metal magic puppets would constitute the main forces. Since magic puppets were just puppets given the ability to move by magic, the parts that they were made of were the equivalent of their bodies. The stronger and more durable the body, the stronger the magic puppet would obviously be.


    Iron magic puppets were basically perfect warriors that would be incredibly difficult to deal with. There were famously known for being incredibly strong, fast to react, difficult to damage, and being immune to all mental magics, making them one of the best guards. Mages would usually add their own personal flourishes, such as lightning, fireballs, hidden weapons, oil, or poison traps on the iron magic puppets.


    Even without those typically fatal traps, any metal magic puppet created from magic metals would be even stronger, multiplying their power levels by several times. Of course, something else that would proportionally increase alongside their power level was the cost to create them.


    Metal magic puppets¡¯ parts needed to be refined out of the finest materials by cksmiths. Enchanting a metal that was highly magic resistant would be immensely challenging, even for high-level archmages. It would typically take several months to finish. An ordinary iron magic puppet could be sold for several tens of thousands of gold coins, while higher-level metal puppets wouldn¡¯t be seen on the market at all.


    It was rumored that in the immemorial era, the ancient elf empire ruled by the gold elf royalty had once possessed mithril magic puppets as their guards. That would mean that these magic puppets were almostpletely immune to magic, making them theplete counter to any mage. They were also evidence that whoever owned them was ¡°ridiculously rich.¡± And, right now, what we were currently facing was something even more ridiculous than mithril magic puppets as they even made the gold elf princess curse at their owner for being ¡°ridiculously rich...¡±


    ¡°F***, that¡¯s adamantine! These are adamantine magic puppets! Aso¡¯s so damned rich!¡±


    Just applying ayer of adamantine on top of a weapon would multiply that weapon¡¯s value by several hundred times. However, it would also multiple the weapon¡¯s weight by more than three times over. This incredibly high-density metal didn¡¯t have any other special properties¡ªsimply its incredible durability alone made it far more outstanding than any other metal. Of course, the way some people saw it was that adamantine¡¯s durability was almost at an indestructible level.


    Adamantine was truly expensive¡ªmega-expensive, in fact. It costed greater than a hundred times more than its equivalent weight in gold. Thinking about how these two magic puppets we were fighting were actually constructed out of pure adamantine, I couldn¡¯t help let out a few curses in my mind while also inwardly praising the sturdy nature of the floor we were on. After all, each one of these adamantine magic puppets had to weigh several dozen tons.


    ¡°Ptui! So ridiculously rich! I could even afford to construct my own mage tower by selling off these two little guys.¡±


    Even though I was eximing such things, these emotionless magic puppets wouldn¡¯t be stopping for my sake. The higher quality the magic puppet¡¯s parts, the stronger their Strength would be. These three-meter-tall magic puppets could actually be considered quite short among magic puppets, but their brute strength was more than capable of knocking out a dragon. These ¡°shorties¡± also possessed great dexterity and speed due to their smaller size. The runes under their feet were even enchanted with speed-doubling eleration magic. Even though they had pitch-ck, unbing appearances, they were definitely the most dangerous ughter machines of all.


    ¡°Hmph, Amanda #1 and #2 are the creations my former master was the proudest of creating. Unless you all are able to defeat them, you¡¯ll never receive my recognition.¡±


    The mage tower spirit Meteor caught this chance to add fuel to the fire as I was busy battling. I was currently pincered by the two magic puppets, leaving me in a bad situation. Once again, I regretted not taking Adam, the best meat shield ever, with me just because I was afraid of him randomly doing something to break this mage tower I wanted!


    *ng! ng! ng!*


    The adamantine magic puppets rained flurries of punches and kicks upon me. I was under so much pressure that I could only remain where I was and focus on defense. The Ice Cmity magic sword that Harloys had transformed into was now cracked all over, while the force being transmitted to me through my sword simply from blocking their attacks had caused me to sink into the floorboard down to my ankles.


    Magic puppets¡¯ attacks were incredibly simple and direct, relying purely on strength and speed, straight punches and kicks. They fought exactly like children, with no beauty or techniques whatsoever. However, the punches and kicksing from these adamantine magic puppets made me feel like the entire world was constantly quaking.


    ¡°I¡¯m almost about to shatter! Use the Cold mes of Despair! Hibernation Chill¡¯s 1% slow stacking is working too slowly against them!¡±


    Indeed, it didn¡¯t matter if adamantine made them possess physically and magically impervious defenses. Anything from this world could be pulled into my Frigidwinter Earth and reduced to an absolute zero state that would freeze them for eternity.


    ¡°No!¡±


    ¡°Stop trying to keep your abilities a secret. Aces are meant to be used when we¡¯re in danger!¡±


    ¡°Never!¡±


    ¡°...Why?¡±


    ¡°Because if I freeze them with Frigidwinter Earth, even I won¡¯t be able to unfreeze them afterwards. That means I won¡¯t be able to sell off these two walking mountains of gold coins!¡±


    ¡°...You bastard who only cares about money but not your life! Go die by yourself if you want, but don¡¯t drag me down with you!¡±


    Notes:


    [1] TL/N: ¡°Your sister,¡± as some readers might already know from other CN novels, is amon ng in Chinese that has a variety of meanings. I generally trante it as ¡®the hell¡¯ or something simr for readability.


    [2] ED/N: Probably a WoW reference.


    [3] TL/N: Frostmourne is a famous sword from the World of Warcraft franchise.

 Chapter 320

    Chapter 320: Arena Battle


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    [Rnd Mist. Strength 32 (+10), Dexterity 22, Constitution 22, Intelligence 30, Will 21, Charisma 19. Racial talents: War Angel, Original Sin Demon Form, Sword of Order, Titan¡¯s Body, Feet of Ethereal Shadow, Divine Child, Chaos Barrier. Basic job sses: Level 60 Order Knight / Level 60 Chaos Lich King / Level 10 Four Elemental Swordcaster. High-level job sses: Level 4 Lord of Frigidwinter.]


    [System Evaluation: An excellent meat shield that can take an ancient dragon head-on; a Gold-ranked neer that can face any Legend warrior... if you really want to go find a Time Dragon to fight and prove me wrong, that¡¯s fine as well.]


    [System Reminder: Congrattions on finding an even more difficult opponent. The two opponents before you are even stronger at meleebat than immemorial dragons. But aren¡¯t you forgetting about something? You¡¯re supposed to be a mage!]


    Compared to when I was in the Nortnds, my stats didn¡¯t really change much. They were still rather bnced. It was just that my advanced job sses leveled up ever so slightly. Aso¡¯s gift of magical knowledge also helped increase my Will and Intelligence stats by 1 each.


    I didn¡¯t really care about Will, as this stat was only important for priests. Nor did I really require a higher Will stat in order to resist the various types of mental magic. Meanwhile, the other stat of Intelligence was the main stat for all mages. It was also relevant to the efficiency and precision of magical research. This one additional point just happened to help me break the barrier of 30 Intelligence¡ªtruly wonderful.


    This was also my second stat that reached thendmark of 30. However, perhaps I was still missing some condition, as I hadn¡¯t been rewarded with any ability for breaking past 30 Intelligence. Nothing changed in me foundationally.


    I really wanted toin about it, but when I thought about how Harloys¡¯ almost scary 40 Intelligence didn¡¯t even reward her with some powerful ability, I felt much better.


    Harloys¡¯ true potential was being dragged down by the magical pet contract. However, there was no excuse for my own power level to not improve. I also knew the reason why progress had been so slow for me recently. After all, I was a sly one who knew how to run away from or avoid any too difficult, too dangerous, or meaningless battles. But, sometimes, it really was better to be a bit stupider.


    The main characters of hot-blooded legends were typically hot-blooded idiots. But this wasn¡¯t about ridiculous concepts like idiot¡¯s luck, or being protected by the heavens. It was simply that hot-blooded fools were just like single-celled organisms who would never fear or back down from any challenge. They would never worry about the consequences of losing. The more fights they caused or got involved in, the faster they improved in power level. As long as these types maintained their own original intentions and umted a sufficient amount ofbat experience, their rate of growth would be akin to cheating... Fine then, I was actually talking about people like Adam. Sometimes, I was truly envious of those who thought about literally nothing every day.


    I could faintly perceive that the next breakthrough for me would be incredibly important and also that I had already achieved the foundational conditions necessary for a breakthrough. However, the feeling that I wascking something lingered.


    Every bit of hard work would be rewarded. Even the most excellent gem would need a high amount of polishing before it could brilliantly shine. Perhaps my bloodline possessed limitless strength, but it would require an extremely forceful polishing in order to shine through. Even since I left the Underground World, perhaps only my fight against Emordilorcan counted as a truly difficult one. Recently, I seemed to be having it quite easy in terms of actual, purebat. But since there were huge battles waiting for me in the future, unless I forced myself to the brink of life and death, how could I possibly help the potential in my body explosively grow?


    ¡°I realize that only through many practical battles against simr or higher level opponents will I grow at a fast rate, and that battles with my life on the line are the best of all for training... but isn¡¯t it rather stupid to constantly¡ªand intentionally¡ªfight death battles while forced to the brink?¡±


    Perhaps it was just a fault of my personality. Even though I knew that it was a problem of mine how I always overthought things, I was unable to change the way I was. I simply loved to think everything through. However, as a warrior, thinking everything through wasn¡¯t always a good thing.


    ¡°Sometimes, I¡¯m actually envious of people like Adam and Karwenz. They don¡¯t need to worry about anything and simply act based on their own personal preferences. They get to grow more powerful at a cheat-like rate. I calcte so much and work so hard for my resources and support but can barely even keep up with them.¡±


    But there was one part where I was quite simr to those two hot-blooded idiots. If there was a true battle where I was forced to the brink, I would...


    ¡°Stand strong and remain courageous!¡±


    I tossed aside the cracked Ice Cmity magic sword. In front of such an opponent, such a fragile sword was already useless.


    ¡°Emordilorcan¡¯s Wall of Sighs!¡±


    I covered my arm with the Myth-ranked tower shield I received long ago. The Emordilorcan face sculptured on it appeared to be roaring in anger. This shield didn¡¯t possess any particrly incredible abilities, but it helped my trembling arm regain its steadiness.


    [Ability of Emordilorcan¡¯s Wall of Sighs: Immovable Mountain. The wielder of this shield will have their Constitution increased by 2 points. If the wielder also has the SemiGod Equipment Roaring Armlet of the Earth equipped, the wielder can transfer part of any impact received into the earth as long as they are standing on the ground. This also confers immunity to being knocked off bnce or off one¡¯s feet.]


    This ability seemed nice, but it was an ability purely for taking hits. Nor did this Myth-rank shield possess any ability that an even higher-level defensive equipment would¡ªthe ability to reduce physical damage. All impacts I received still hurt like hell, and any blows thatnded on a critical location would be able to kill me. In reality, it was a weak ability.


    Emordilorcan¡¯s two pieces of equipment even had a set equipment effect that required both pieces of equipment equipped in order to obtain immunity from being knocked over. Plus, the wielder had to have their feet on the ground. It was quite troublesome. But in my current situation, it was the most useful ability avable to me.


    ¡°Come, let uspete and see who falls first.¡±


    The greatest advantage of my War Angel form would be the ability of flight. However, I was unable to use that right now as I needed the special effects of Emordilorcan¡¯s equipment.


    ¡°THIS IS SPARTA! I shall let you all witness my willpower¡ªdamn it! Don¡¯t hit my face!¡± [1] 1


    I immediately made an error and received a ck eye for it; please pretend you didn¡¯t see that. I heaved a deep breath, observed my enemy¡¯s movements, lowered my head, leaned sideways, sidestepped, and dodged yet another incredibly heavy punch. For those blows which I was unable to dodge, I simply blocked them with my shield, absorbing the impact and mitigating part of the force with the power of the earth as I looked for opportunities to counterattack.


    *ng!*


    These tremendous three-meter-tall adamantine magic puppets were emotionless, unhesitant, and unshakeable. Every one of their attacks had the power to fall mountains, with each attack precisely aimed at their opponent. They would have no pity no matter how much blood they shed. They didn¡¯t have any bloodlust, either. They merely attacked and defended at their own pace, acting like perfect machines simply doing their job.


    Meanwhile, their opponent was me, a flesh and blood person who seemed to be even harder than adamantine.


    My arm broke? I merely gave myself a splint made of ice, numbing my senses, and continued fighting.


    My right eye could no longer see anything? Well, I still had my left eye. Oh, my left eye had temporarily gone blind as well? I still had my sharp sensory perceptions.


    The tremendous impacts I was receiving heavily injured my internal organs? No problem, I spat out some blood and continued.


    ¡°Faster, even faster. This shouldn¡¯t be difficult for me; these are simple machine opponents. Remember my pastbat experiences. I¡¯ve met so many opponents far more intelligent than these.¡±


    I could no longer physically see anything, but I could still sense everything that was going on. Those heavy fists attacked in such obvious patterns that I was still able to sense them with my eyes closed.


    ¡°Hurry¡ªhurry! The limit of my physical body and energy? Compared to brinks I¡¯ve been forced to in the past, this is nothing!¡±


    Although I was no longer able to even stand steadily, I showed no signs of messing up my actions. Since I was no longer able to increase my speed, all that was left for me to do was to simplify and make my movements as efficient as possible so that the tiniest of motions would give me the greatest results. I stepped forward, leaned slightly, and suddenly jumped backwards. It was enough as long as I sessfully dodged the attack.


    ¡°Quicker, quicker! I¡¯m no cowardly turtle who knows only to hide and take hits!¡±


    I was gradually getting used to my enemy¡¯s pace. I was able to change from total defense to mixing attacks in while defending. I gradually changed from defending ny percent of the time to defending only fifty percent of the time. And since I was able to start attacking more often, the Hibernation Chill effect finally started stacking at a faster rate, helping tilt the scales in my favor.


    [Hibernation Chill effect: This effect is added on to all of your ice element attacks. Every single ice element attack will slow your enemy by 1%. Stacks additively until 100% upon which your opponent¡¯s time will be eternally frozen. Impossible to resist or to be immune against. The slowing effect will be removed if your opponent hasn¡¯t reached 100% and hasn¡¯t received any damage from you in the past ten minutes.]


    As the Hibernation Chill effect continually and additively stacked on the magic puppets, their attacks became slower and slower.


    ¡°Faster, faster! I need to at least be faster than these hunks of metal!¡±


    Yep, now things were simply apetition of time and willpower. Would the magic puppets stop moving first, or would I be literally beaten to death?


    ¡°Faster, faster!¡±


    I was weakened due to my blood loss. Even though I was able to predict their movements and the fact that their fists had only half their original speed, I no longer had the energy to dodge their attacks. Just as I was expecting my head to be squished like a watermelon in the next moment, something unexpectedly changed.


    *Ding!*


    It was as if the entire world paused for a moment as something sounded in the air. The next moment, everything returned to normal, yet something was now clearly different. I saw a world dissimr to before.


    [Congrattions for activating the natural talent ability...]


    I didn¡¯t have the time to check the System¡¯s notification and the predictable insult for me tacked on to the end. The magic puppets¡¯ adamantine fists were still perilous, and I could only fight back by following my instincts. However, to my astonishment, I discovered that it seemed like their overall speed had dropped, as if...


    ¡°...I have a chance at victory! Even faster! Faster!¡±


    Finally, I managed to win by using thest remnants of my strength right before I fainted. Finally, the two magic puppets were almost unable to move, only being able to trudge one centimeter at a time.


    All the other battles around Rnd had ended as well, with hispanions having defeated all the elemental creatures. This fierce battle was only observed by the ¡°duelist¡¯s¡±panions as he single-handedly took on these two adamantine puppets with only his flesh and blood body. Hispanions strongly believed that he would finally win in the end, just as always.


    And things proved that they were correct¡ªjust as always, he did as he promised...


    ¡°Ahh, you stinky pervert! Your dirty liquid is entering my body! Ahh, I¡¯m being polluted! It¡¯s so unpleasant, it¡¯s so diforting, I¡¯m going to break! I¡¯m going to break! Hurry and pull out!¡±


    Harloys¡¯ moaning echoed throughout the room, causing everyone to look at me strangely. It was as if I was doing something incredibly evil or improper.


    ¡°Stop distorting things and making everyone misunderstand on purpose! I¡¯m merely using your clones as bandages to stop my blood. Stop making stuff up about my liquids entering your body or whatever!¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t making stuff up at all! Isn¡¯t blood a liquid? It feels incredibly strange to have someone else¡¯s blood flowing in my body! Only you would rip off a piece of someone else¡¯s body to use as a bandage! You¡¯ve gone overboard! You demon!¡±


    ¡°You can produce a limitless number of clones anyways. They¡¯re no different to the lowest-level slimes. Ah, perhaps they can be used in ways other than bandages as well, such as silly cat underwear and¡ªstop biting me! I¡¯ll really die if you cause me to lose any more blood.¡±


    After some more messing around, Harloys ended up with just a pout.


    ¡°It seems you obtained what you wanted.¡±


    As I looked at my System¡¯s notification, I indeed obtained a result for my hard work, causing me to tear up¡ªdon¡¯t misunderstand now, I wasn¡¯t tearing up in joy. It was because I didn¡¯t know how else to react to this awkwardness.


    Did I seed in making a breakthrough by pushing myself in a life-and-death battle? I did seed, and the new natural talent ability I acquired as listed by my System was the best proof of this. But...


    ¡°Why was it that I made a breakthrough with my Constitution and Dexterity stats? I¡¯m a mage! I was supposed to make a breakthrough with my 30 Intelligence stat!¡±


    ¡°... How were you a mage just now? I thought that it was either a duel between barbarians or a master monk self-inflicting pain upon himself.¡±


    As I recalled my fight just earlier, I was instantly rendered speechless. Indeed, I wasn¡¯t like much of a mage at all just earlier. And even if I received a breakthrough, there was no guarantee that it would be a mage¡¯s breakthrough.


    ¡°It was basically a perfect knight¡¯s battle! You¡¯re an absolutely perfect role model for the knightly spirit, with your unyielding will and your impregnable defense! Um... Teacher, what¡¯s the matter?¡±


    Cohen didn¡¯t even notice that he had just spread salt in my wound as he tried to console me upon seeing how disconste I was. However, this wasn¡¯t even the worst part.


    The battles were now finished, and ording to Aso¡¯s original trial, this was apparently supposed to be the end of it, with the two adamantine magic puppets acting as the final bosses. However...


    ¡°What? Allow him to be the new tower master? Dream on, didn¡¯t you see that scene just now? How is this guy supposed to be a wise mage in any way? He¡¯s obviously just a brute force monkey who hasn¡¯t even matured yet. I might as well pick a gnome instead. At the very least, a gnome would know to run away from an adamantine magic puppet.¡±


    This mechanical voice belonged to someone who greatly sounded like the mage tower spirit Meteor¡ªit belonged to the other mage tower spirit of this Three-Colored Tower, the tower spirit named Garden. [2] 2


    Alright then, I won¡¯tment about Aso¡¯s strange naming sense. Now, one of the two mage tower spirits in charge of this tower was rejecting the new master, doubtlessly a huge obstacle for me.


    Meanwhile, that familiar vicious mage tower spirit, Meteor, was actually defending me.


    ¡°No matter what, he sessfullypleted the trial. ording to the rules, he should be the new master, even if he didn¡¯t show any signs of a mage¡¯s Intelligence. He really is more like a barbarian who only knows how to think with his knee. Not only that, he didn¡¯t even detect that these adamantine magic puppets were intentionally designed with a weakness to thunder magic. Any thunder magic attacks against them will be greatly effective. Nor did he discover that the magic puppets had a rune on their backs that gave them the power of movement, which was an intentional design meant to give them a weak spot. Nor did he notice the runes carved onto the path here hinted at the adamantine puppets¡¯ weaknesses... or that underneath the fire elemental pool was a runic spell array that could control the adamantine puppets. Fine then, he really is so unreliable. How about we add an additional test?¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: A famous line from a famous movie, as well as... a meme. http://knowyourmeme/memes/this-is-sparta.


    [2] TL/N: This is a reference to the very popr Japanese manga/television drama named Meteor Garden.

 Chapter 321

    Chapter 321: Time Bomb


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    One of the special features of the Three-Colored Tower was that it possessed two elemental pools and two mage tower spirits. When activated at its full potential, it possessed the power of three archmages. The mage tower spirit Meteor was abat type spirit. He had direct control over the fire elemental pool, spell enhancing artifacts, magic puppet warehouse and allbat-rted items. His personality was designed to be more flexible, adaptable, and sly¡ªthe characteristics of a ssicbat expert mage.


    As for the mage tower spirit Garden, just her name alone indicated that she was more of the support type mage tower spirit for assisting in research. She had control over the library, water elemental pool, researchboratory, and all research-rted items. In order to be a better research assistance and help remind her master about any details he overlooked, she possessed a huge amount of magical, nature, and societal knowledge. Her personality was also far more cautious and conservative. In fact, she could even be described as old-fashioned.


    As mage tower spirits were absolutely loyal to their creator, they typically became a mage¡¯s most trusted assistant. Naturally, the smarter their loyal assistant, the better. There were several mage tower spirits from the immemorial generation that even had greater intelligence than humans.


    Yet sometimes, overly intelligent mage tower spirits with too much freedom would cause trouble for their master. The biggest trouble of all would be when the master wanted to pass on their mage tower to someone else to inherit.


    Artificial souls possessed their own emotions. It was perfectly understandable that these artificial creations absolutely trusted and worshiped their creator. Their innate loyalty typically became an incredibly biased type of veneration. The deep emotional connection between a mage and their mage tower spirit was something that outsiders would find impossible to understand... I definitely wasn¡¯t alluding to how outsiders would never understand the rtionship between NEETs and their one and only friend, theirputer¡ªnope, not at all!


    ¡°I don¡¯t want a new master. I don¡¯t want my old master¡¯s precious belongings to fall into anyone else¡¯s hands, even if this is my old master¡¯s wish.¡±


    That was why the most dangerous mage towers that required exploration were ones where the mage tower spirit remained active after the mage¡¯s death. That would be basically no different from facing off an entire army led by a general.


    For whoever inherited a mage tower, a mage tower spirit that wasn¡¯t loyal to them would obviously be quite troublesome. That was why any mage who inherited and sessfully took control over a mage tower would first reset the mage tower spirit¡¯s personality and memories. Although that meant having to raise the mage tower spirit up from the beginning, it would usually be better than the alternative of having a disobedient mage tower spirit.


    And since some mage tower spirits had their own sense of self, this was no different from figuratively killing someone off by performing a full memory wipe. Naturally, this caused mage tower spirits to dislike those who inherited their previous master¡¯s mage tower even more. Some mage tower spirits would be directlymanded by their old master to obey their new master, but even so, it wasmon for mage tower spirits to look for any way to get away with going against their new master without directly breaking the rules.


    Compared to Garden, who directly stated her dissatisfaction with me, the seemingly more approving Meteor was actually the same as she was. Any normal mage that had to go through so many ridiculous trials already would likely be so enraged as to directly attack upon hearing there was yet another final test to be administered on top of all that. And once that happened, that meant the mage tower spirits would have achieved their goal of being allowed to use the anti-invader mode of the mage tower to eliminate us, the invaders, rather than being forced to treat me as a potential inheritor.


    So, in the end, no matter who won, these two mage tower spirits wouldn¡¯t have to deal with a new master. And even if we were able to ovee the mage tower¡¯s true defenses and defeat the mage tower spirits, they would easily be able to self-destruct all the important parts of the mage tower rather than being forced to hand it over.


    And so, if I wanted to sessfully receive this mage tower in its entirety, the only method I had avable to me was to y with them as they wanted, letting them make me suffer as they liked. As long as they finished trying everything that was in their rulebook that could seed in forcing me out as a candidate, I would naturally pass the trial and inherit this mage tower.


    ¡°...If you use the corpse of a dragon to create a powerful undead creature, how many different undead species, and how many possible undead can you create? Also, what would be the most efficient method to use the dragon¡¯s corpse? And what are the important things to look out for and deal with?¡±


    This was Garden¡¯s final test question for me. It was obvious that she had nefarious intentions for me when asking this question.


    This was indeed a question that would test my magical knowledge. However, no ordinary mage would be able to sessfully answer it. After all, undead mages were always rare in the Cloud Tower. And even if an undead mage happened to be the one who came here, only a top-level undead mage would be an expert in dealing with a dragon¡¯s corpse. Since I appeared physically quite young and was obviously someone living, it seemed apparent to her that I couldn¡¯t possibly be an expert in undead magic. Not to mention, since Aso was secretly a top-level undead mage, it was reasonable for his final test question being a question about undead magic to test his potential sessor.


    Garden used her own method to pick a final test question for me that she felt I would have the lowest probability of getting correct.


    ¡°...She probably saw how I was using the Holy Light while climbing the tower, so she likely mistook me for a Divine Arts mage who studied the Holy Light.¡±


    However, Garden obviously overthought things due to her own high intelligence. If she truly did ask me some high-level magical knowledge question, I doubted that I would be able to answer it as I was the one who broke the Cloud Tower¡¯s records back in the day for failing the most sses... Well, fine then, since Harloys had a soul connection to me, and with how much magical knowledge Harloys had as she easily passed through the challenges, perhaps I would be able to answer a question even about high-level magical knowledge.


    Could it be that I imperceptibly achieved every student¡¯s dream? Being able to have a teacher help me cheat on a test?


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªgetting back to the main topic at hand, since Garden¡¯s final test question was about undead magic, this was one of the few topics I didn¡¯t even need to ask my teacher Harloys for help.


    ¡°If it¡¯s a dragon¡¯s corpse, the mostmon products are bone dragons, corpse dragons, and ghost dragons. These are indeed the choices that can bring out the most potential from this rare undead ingredient, but they might not necessarily be the absolute best choice. Since this is a question about how to deal with this particr undead ingredient, this means that we need to take into consideration its special nature.¡±


    As I spoke, I even began to feel nostalgic about the past. Back in the day, I had trespassed in dragons¡¯ graveyards and dragon valleys all in order to obtain some dragon corpse undead ingredients. Ahh, such a fun time to reminisce, being chased by dragons who guarded dragon graveyards.


    ¡°If it¡¯s a white dragon, I¡¯ll unhesitatingly make the corpse into a bone dragon. This is because white dragons don¡¯t even have much Intelligence to speak of while they¡¯re alive, meaning that there¡¯s no point in counting on one being able to maintain Intelligence in undeath or being able to cast spells. A white dragon¡¯s ice element corpse will even improve the ice dragon breath that a bone dragon breathes. But if it¡¯s a silver, gold, or ck dragon within a certain age, and if the dragon soul is still rtivelyplete, then I would consider using soul-summoning spells to create a dragon lich or a dragon guardian, some undead magic user-type. Although the sess rate isn¡¯t high, as long as it seeds, it will have incrediblebat strength...¡±


    ¡°Please answer the specific question I asked you. I asked you to tell me how many different undead species, and how many possible undead can you create from a single dragon¡¯s corpse?¡±


    I was intending on going on about all the different theories and choices about undead dragons ssified by all dragon types, but Garden seemed to have realized that I was quite knowledgeable about this topic and started nitpicking on the technicalities, making it entirely about how detailed I answered her specific question.


    ¡°If the corpse isplete, the entire dragon¡¯s skeleton can be made into a bone dragon. If the dragon soul is still present, then a ghost dragon, although the sess rate will be quite low if the corpse isn¡¯tplete. The dragon wings can be used as materials to make the outer shell of dragonskin gargoyles. The dragon teeth can be can be ground down to create dragonteeth undead soldiers. The numbers seven, nine, and eleven ribs can be removed from the skeleton without affecting the skeleton¡¯spleteness for creating a bone dragon and can be used to create a skeleton behemoth. The dragon¡¯s innards are highly valuable as well. Just the dragon heart alone can create a top-level Abomination, while all the dragon organs are greatly effective at increasing zombies and stitched undead¡¯s basic stats so nothing will go to waste. Rotting dragon blood is the best for creating undead slimes. Undead slimes are incredibly dangerous, as they¡¯re immune to physical attacks and are highly venomous.¡±


    When an undead mage was poor enough, their ¡°efficiency¡± in using undead ingredients could be incredible. Give an undead mage an entire dragon¡¯s corpse and they¡¯d be able to create an entire powerful army out of it.


    ¡°...Only you would be poor enough to scrimp to such an incredible degree. Most of these are methods that you managed to discover or create on your own, aren¡¯t they? I never taught you so much back in the day.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ment seemed to identally reveal the truth about my finances back then. And judging by Garden¡¯s silence, my answer probably far surpassed her expectations. After all, neither Aso nor Harloys were the type that evercked for research funds as both of them were incredibly rich. How would they understand the difficulties of someone who started with nothing? I didn¡¯t even talk about my experience in avoiding grave guardians yet when graverobbing! Back in the year, my book ¡°Graverobbing Records, Dragon Grave Edition¡± was a bestseller, you know!


    ¡°If a dragon eye is undamaged, I can ask a demon warlock for help in creating the highest-level abyss watcher. You know, that spying eye creature that has the trait of permanently being invisible. They¡¯re really great to have around. It¡¯s just that needing to pay the demon warlock a high price afterward is something difficult to tolerate, which is why I¡¯d typically consider doing the world a favor and simply going back on my word and killing them. After all, killing any demon warlock is the equivalent of performing a good dead. As for dragon scales, the scales located on the dragon¡¯s most critically important body parts like the scales on the heart or the head can be used to craft dragon scale shields, which are light, durable, and don¡¯t even affect the casting of magic spells. Combat mages love dragon scale shields more than anything. As for the normal dragon scales, they can be created into magical essories or dragon scale armor by cksmiths and alchemists. They¡¯re really easy to sell off, as long as you don¡¯t mention that the corpse was dug up out of a dragon graveyard, which will really lower the price. Remember to give it a fresh coat of paint first, and make sure to sell it while the coat of paint still retains that new paint smell so that the customer mistakenly believes that the faint stink is because of the fresh paint.¡±


    ¡°Oh, right, not only that, green dragons¡¯ w nails are poisoned, while blue dragons¡¯ w nails are automatically enchanted with the thunder element. They can be created into magical daggers with the assistance of a cksmith. I highly rmend the Lita Dwarf Smith shop in Cabenli City¡¯s District Seven. They¡¯re truly skilled at smithing. Their secretly passed down enchanting techniques can craft cursed ck bone daggers, which have truly great attack power. It¡¯s just that the store owner Lita is a bit ckhearted, asking for 50,000 gold coins for the smithing fee. However, you could just take advantage of being an undead mage like me and threaten to kill his entire family, which helped me receive a 60% discount. In fact, I even went further and threatened to report him for crafting cursed weapons, which is a crime that¡¯s punishable by confiscation of his entire wealth. He ended up giving me a 90% discount on his services... Although even though I go there so often to give him business, why is it that he always res at me like I¡¯m his mortal enemy?¡±


    Oops, I seemed to have said a bit too much there. Everyone was now utterly silent. Cher¡¯s earlier expression of respect for me at winning such a difficult battle was now reced with one that said ¡°He really is someone mega-dangerous, after all. I really need to be on guard against him.¡±


    Why did I understand her expression so well? It was because she really did say that out loud in the end! Could it be that something went wrong with my beautiful girl-raising n? My daughter entered her rebellious phase of hating her middle-aged father so quickly?


    ¡°You didn¡¯t even raise her! Besides, if you¡¯re middle-aged already, what does that make me?¡±


    ¡°...The elderly? Greetings, Grandma. Goodbye, Grandma.¡±


    Alright then, at any rate, I was already used to the silly cat biting my head, causing me to constantly bleed. It was fine to simply ignore her. Where was I again?


    ¡°...The greatest advantage of attempting to create undead creatures is that you can try over and over again. Failure is normal, and all undead ingredients are secondhand to begin with so it doesn¡¯t matter if you reuse them. The only part one needs to watch out for when creating dragon undead...¡±


    Thinking about my past, I came to a conclusion. There was indeed only one thing that one needed to watch out for.


    ¡°...Make absolutely sure that none of the dragons see you robbing their graveyards. Otherwise, those stingy lizards will be spitting dragon breath at you every day. Ptui! Didn¡¯t I only dig up seven dragon graveyards? Was it really such a big deal? Was it worth going to the extent of chasing after me for three years? I did all this to obtain materials for research! I did all this for truth and knowledge; I am justice!¡±


    The moment I finished speaking, a staircase leading to a higher level revealed itself. Both mage tower spirits seemed to havee to an agreement.


    ¡°You might end up an undead mage who¡¯s even more incredible than Master Aso.¡±


    ¡°Not might. Definitely.¡±


    Once I reached the mage tower¡¯s central control room and truly gained possession of Aso¡¯s mage tower, my consciousness seemed to enter the clouds as the entire structure of the mage tower appeared before me. This virtual blueprint disyed everything I just obtained.


    And then, cold sweat started running down my spine...


    ¡°A Salo¡¯s Crystal? Why is there such a thing here?¡±


    Salo wasn¡¯t the name of any magical beast. Salo was a he, an incredibly powerful archmage who lived and died in the immemorial generation. This crystal of his wasn¡¯t actually the core of some magical beast or its secretion. It was, in fact, his invention.


    This artificially constructed magical core wasn¡¯t foundationally different from a titan¡¯s heart¡¯s energy core. The only thing special about Salo¡¯s Crystals was that they were incredibly effective. How effective were they? If you used one Salo¡¯s Crystal in my original world, it could probably provide the electric output for arge city for an entire three or four years. At the very least, its inventor, Salo, had invented it to power up floating cities.


    Yes, floating cities. These wererge-scale cities with poptions of over a million inhabitants that floated in the skies, not some mage¡¯s personal mage tower with the ability of flight.


    Simr to my original world, such a technology was wonderful in a peaceful era, but once war arrived, it powerful technology would be incredibly dangerous. If Salo¡¯s Crystals were used in improper methods, they could easily causerge-scale explosions far above that of nuclear bombs from my old world.


    Of course, their inventor, Salo, had also tried using his own Salo¡¯s Crystals to develop some type of weapon. However, there was just one tiny little problem¡ªany weapon or attack spell using Salo¡¯s Crystals was basically guaranteed to kill whoever activated it so nobody dared to use them in such a fashion.


    Self-destructing a Salo¡¯s Crystal required a Legend-ranked or higher archmage to inject a sufficient amount of mana into it using a special method. The problem was that the explosion¡¯s radius far exceeded any instant teleportation magic¡¯s distance limitations. Basically, anyone who self-destructed a Salo¡¯s Crystal was just about guaranteed to die. Since this world already had forbidden spells that weren¡¯t necessarily fatal for the user, using Salo¡¯s Crystals in such a fashion was considered unnecessary.


    However, using Salo¡¯s Crystals as arge-scale weapon had huge advantages on forbidden spells, too. They could be exploded almost instantly, without hours-long incantations like forbidden spells. Nor would there be powerful mana waves sent out broadcasting to everyone that you were in the midst of casting a forbidden spell. It would be exceedingly hard to detect.


    And if this Salo¡¯s Crystal was merely the energy source for Aso¡¯s mage tower, I wouldn¡¯t have talked so much about it. However, this Salo¡¯s Crystal just happened to be the ammunition for a Gnome Cannon located in Aso¡¯s mage tower. Not only that, the Gnome Cannon was pointed directly at the Truth Symposium¡¯s conference building, the Tower of Ten Thousand Spells, a mere two streets down from Aso¡¯s mage tower.


    ¡°...If the undead and the Mage Country went to war, and all the Truth Overseers with Emblems of Endless Truth were summoned for a conference, and then a Salo¡¯s Crystal exploded here...¡±


    Once again, I learned more about Aso than I ever expected. Perhaps he wasn¡¯t here for so long for personal reasons. From the very start, he must have been on guard against the mages.


    The Gnome Cannon wasn¡¯t the important part. After all, as long as this Salo¡¯s Crystal was exploded, the entire city of Arlo would be in the explosion¡¯s radius. However, the closer a mage was to the center of the explosion, the less time a mage would have to react. There would be incredibly few archmages that would be able to escape.


    And if Aso left some sort of message for the current ckeye that we just captured, it was highly likely that this mere Myth-ranked lich would be able to kill off more than seventy percent of the archmages in the Mage Country all by himself bymitting suicide. No, considering that this lich might have ced his phctery far away, it was possible that the lich would even survive the resulting explosion. The current ckeye was likely ordered to detonate this Salo¡¯s Crystal if the undead ever went to war with the mages.


    I carefully ced the Salo¡¯s Crystal amongst my possessions and then focused on two other crystals I found in the mage tower¡¯s control room. One was white, and the other was red. Both of them were approximately half my height. I could faintly hear voices reverberating in them. These two crystals were the true bodies of the two mage tower spirits. The more powerful the mage tower spirit, therger the crystal would be, and the more memories and knowledge that would be contained in them.


    Back in Sulfur Mountain City, I had visited a mage tower and met a mage tower spirit there as well. However, that mage tower spirit merely controlled a single library. Its abilities were no match for these two mage tower spirits, and its crystal core was only the size of the palm of my hand. Its personality was also more robotic than human-like.


    And now, all I had to do was press a button in the control room, and I would be able to reset these two mage tower spirits back to their initial states. However, I had no intention of doing such a thing.


    ¡°Let¡¯s just forget about the past. Just serve me from now on.¡±


    ¡°Alright, mage tower spirits Meteor and Garden are willing to serve you.¡±


    ¡°Really? Let me sing a little song in celebration, then. ¡°Watching the meteor rain fall onto Earth with you...¡± [1] 1


    ¡°...¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: This linees from the lyrics of a Chinese song (Á÷ÐÇÓê [Meteor Rain]).

 Chapter 322

    Chapter 322: Cloud Tower


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The new master was now confirmed, and the Three-Colored Tower started gleaming¡ªit became so bright that even those in the nearby streets could see it.


    A mystical light baptized the entire mage tower, including the observation deck, divination room, library, mystical garden, magical puppet warehouse, magic beast researchboratory, magic beast dungeon, summoning room, elemental pool, and servants¡¯ quarters. Along with the light, which illuminated every room, my will spread throughout every corner of this mage tower.


    Even though I was using a control panel, I could send my vision to any location I desired in the tower. As long as I willed it, mymand would arrive, in an instant, no matter the ce.


    ¡°An automated analysis has beenpleted for the seventeen floors of the main tower and the twelve floors of both the secondary towers. Repairs are needed for the third floor of the main tower and the seventh floor of the second secondary tower. All other floors are in excellent condition. The energy batteries have been activated, and the magic puppets will conclude their automated analysis in five minutes. The puppets will then proceed to clean and repair the mage tower. Over ny percent of the mage tower can be restored to daily usability after three days of maintenance.¡±


    The voice of the mage tower spirit Garden echoed in my ears. Aso was indeed a veteran mage. Despite the long-term hibernation, the Three-Colored tower was in tip-top condition; only minor maintenance was required for it to be up and running again.


    The magic puppet warehouse opened and from it trod out massive magic puppets which seemed to possess endless amounts of strength. Never knowing fatigue, these puppets were the best freeborers and cleaners of all. Under mymand, the summoning roommenced its operations, calling forth elemental servants that would forever be at my beck and call.


    ¡°Master Rnd, the library is now in order. Your pet cat is requesting permission to enter. Would you like to grant it to her?¡±


    ¡°No wonder she disappeared in the blink of an eye. I¡¯ve never seen her move so fast, especially when she has to do work. Toss her in the water elemental pool for me. Help her clean her head and wash up before granting her entrance.


    As I heard the furious roars of that silly cat through our soul connection, Garden, who was, au fond, the steward of the mage tower, concluded her report. The ¡°Security Captain¡± Meteor simultaneously finished his inspection of the mage tower as well.


    ¡°Long years of disuse coupled with other reasons have caused the defensive magic spells and traps to fall into disrepair. The defensive prowess of the tower is only forty-seven percent of what it was in its prime. A list of the resources required to fix the defenses has been generated, but...¡±


    The Cloud Tower would likely remain safe for quite a while, so I decided to leave that matter aside. More importantly, I had a unique idea about how to utilize this mage tower.


    ¡°The Three-Colored Tower¡¯s dual-tower core support system is in superb condition. A plentiful amount of mana is stored within. Would you like to try shooting a load at someone? [1] 1


    ¡°No! I¡¯m a good person¡ªI¡¯d never do such a thing! The consequences would be far too dire; I wouldn¡¯t be able to take it.


    Although the tower spirit Meteor was joking with me, the strongest function of the Three-Colored Tower¡ªallowing an archmage to cast a tri-elemental forbidden spell¡ªgave me yet another ace up my sleeve.


    ¡°Right. Let me give this to the two of you. Make a list of the resources and money required to make it, and once everything¡¯s done, begin conducting the modifications.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this a design blueprint of a floating Cloud Tower? Hasn¡¯t it been lost in history?¡±


    Yep, in the end, the mage tower design blueprint I chose was the Cloud Tower type. The Mage Country¡¯s Cloud Tower was named exactly after this very type, yet it was only a city while the one I desired could fly among the clouds. Mine was a super mega mage tower that possessed the ability to solidify the water vapor in the air.


    It was possible that I might never get to use the defenses of this mage tower in my lifetime, otherwise. Leaving thisbat-type Three-Colored Tower in a safe city like Arlo was far too much of a waste. I was certain to have endless troubles in the future so a mobile mage tower was what I wanted the most. With the blueprint for a Cloud Tower, I would be able to gather everything needed to build it eventually even though the resources needed were rare and nigh impossible to obtain. The biggest issue was finding a reliable energy source.


    A mage tower permanently floating in the sky, not mentioning entering battle, required a humongous amount of energy. The energy consumption for two straight months of flight andbat would, most obviously, be astronomical.


    I had originally racked my brain to solve this problem as I had foreseen it all after deciding to proceed with the Cloud Tower blueprint. I had nned to hire mage job sses, like the Four Elemental Swordcasters, to work for me as human batteries. Fortunately, however, I now had a much more facile solution to my problem.


    A Salo Crystal was capable of effortlessly powering up floating cities of over one million in poption. A mere Cloud Tower was nothing.


    Of course, just a slight nce at the resources and money required to construct the Cloud Tower gave me a headache. And I wasn¡¯t just intending to imitate the technology¡ªI intended to learn and absorb it before modifying the Three-Colored Tower into a Cloud Tower that maintained the advantages of both tower types... Although this sounded like a fantastic dream, it was very well possible since Meteor and Garden hadn¡¯t informed me that they were unable to aplish such a thing.


    ¡°Although it¡¯d be quite difficult, it isn¡¯t impossible.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. After a while, I¡¯ll help you two level up, and I¡¯ll introduce you both to a new friend¡ª007. Once he joins you guys, at the very minimum your knowledge capacities will double. With the umted knowledge of two Undead Emperors, you shall no longer be the dual mage tower spirits of the Three-Colored Tower. Instead, you will form the Three Wise Ones System!¡±


    The Cloud Tower required the ability to control the wind element, so it was absolutely necessary to construct an internal wind elemental pool. As a consequence, a new wind-element mage tower spirit would be needed, unless, of course, I removed the water or fire elemental pools and made modifications.


    It would be far too much of a waste to leave the mage tower spirit back to gather dust at my home. Even if we forget about the buried memories, the knowledge I obtained over the past three hundredish years in Eich could be added to the mage tower¡¯s magical storage. Yep, while, in theory, the mage tower spirits would obey their new master, I intended to... well, let¡¯s use an analogy from my previous world. Whenever apany received a new CEO, it wasmon for a new general manager to suddenly appear together with the new boss. It was perfectly understandable for the new boss to bring along a loyal subordinate.


    ¡°Three Wise Ones System? Sounds pretty nice. Then that¡¯ll be our future nickname.¡±


    I finally had a nice mage tower, which meant the Great Industrial Party now had a nice research center as well. It would be eptable to borrow someone else¡¯sboratory to conduct normal magical research, and it was the same for engineering and alchemy research, too. However, this was only for ordinary mages¡ªit really would be unseemly for a mage with two Emblems of Endless Truth to resort to such a practice. Without a fixed headquarters, we would be a paperpany selling shoddy products.


    Our reputation, in fact, wasn¡¯t the most important part¡ªthe tools necessary to aid the research were far more of concern. Simr to a scienceboratory with all its science instruments and implements, a magical researchboratory couldn¡¯t conduct research without relevant magical tools. For example, the magical beast researchboratory could elerate the rate of any magical beast¡¯s evolution by ten times¡ªand most evolutions were likely to be beneficial, hence making it an appropriate location to breed new, useful species. A summoning room, too, wouldn¡¯t just be suited for dimensional summoning. Many space, control, and contract magical arrays would be etched into its walls to help the upant mage control whatever they were attempting to summon. Even if that mage sessfully summoned a dangerous creature, it would be possible to turn that inferno demon dragon to an inferno cooked lizard within the confines of the walls of the room itself.


    The simplest and most basic types of research would experience thergest increases in efficiency. With a simplemand, the tower spirit would prepare the experiment table as well as the required tools for your use, and it could bring you additional materials andplete other misceneous tasks, too. The tower spirit would record the entire process¡ªand conclusion¡ªof your research, and once it was over it¡¯d even write up a report for you. If, for some reason, your project failed, it would be possible to rey a recording of your experiments. All of this was greatly convenient for shortening the time spent conducting research. Mages would avoid spending a huge chunk of their time over unnecessary details, which, of course, meant that they had time to do even more research projects.


    I wanted to continuously develop new products and put them out in Thorn Garden, but this required me to find an appropriateboratory for those overly energetic engineers and alchemists of mine: aboratory that was nigh indestructible and explosion-proof! The mage tower met those requirements and would serve as a great researchboratory for those excessively spirited gnome engineers¡ªor should I call it an explosionboratory? Thorn Garden would no longer have to worry about disgruntled neighborsining about ¡°too much noise¡± or ¡°exploding one day themselves.¡±


    Of course, the time it would take to execute all those modifications I wanted was uncertain. Besides, the number of magical ingredients needed was astronomical, and many were priceless and weren¡¯t on the market. I could only take things a step at a time.


    And right now, I had a more important issue on my te.


    ¡°How about it? What did they say?¡±


    The moment I left the Three-Colored Tower, I sent a message to the members of the Truth Symposium about the Salo¡¯s Crystal. I also sent them the images in Meteor¡¯s memory of Aso installing that ¡°Salo¡¯s Crystal Gnome Cannon,¡± which was singlehandedly capable of destroying the entire city of Arlo in but an instant. Naturally, I revealed the crystal itself as evidence.


    My trusty messenger Cohen brought back the archmages¡¯ reactions and responses.


    ¡°...Some of them were so enraged they immediately swore vengeance against the undead, but most of them were rather calm. But no normal person would possibly be able to remain calm after learning that their lives could have disappeared at the push of a button, that too at the whims of an undead. It¡¯s strange how ¡®calm¡¯ they are. They¡¯re probably just bottling it all inside.¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Double entendre fully intended here.

 Chapter 323

    Chapter 323: Dawn of a New Generation


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The Mage County hasn¡¯t yet made an official response? This seems to be a huge matter.¡±


    The Truth Symposium stayed silent¡ªabnormally silent. When I thought about it, however, I realized that this was likely their way of expressing their extreme rage.


    It was simr to my previous world. If there was friction between two countries, the aggrieved side would typically dere their dissatisfaction and organize some protests. This usually meant that the country didn¡¯t intend to take actual action; for the sake of face, the country merely wanted to act¡ªalbeit verbally¡ªtough.


    If a country announced that they ¡°reserved the right to take action,¡± it meant that they, in all likelihood, wanted to take action. However, a country that was aggrieved but kept silent would be the most dangerous of them all.


    ¡°As long as it¡¯s necessary, these mages are capable of tolerating humiliation. But now there¡¯s no such necessity...¡±


    That left two possibilities. Either the country couldn¡¯t afford to antagonize the other one and would pretend that nothing had happened, or the country was intending on taking revenge in secret.


    Judging the current situation, there was a ny-nine percent chance of it being thetter...


    ¡°The two sides are already separated by a deep grudge. The Mage Country¡¯s forbidden curse ruined the Undead Emperor¡¯s invasion n, while the undead plotted a nefarious scheme to kill off the archmages in one go. And this isn¡¯t even mentioning the fact that it was the undead who caused Amelia¡¯s current unconscious state...¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s you as well. In a way you¡¯re the one who caused everything to sour to such a degree, the main culprit behind it all. You practically caused Aso¡¯s death, and you¡¯re currently in the Mage Country. You¡¯re definitely number one on their hit list.¡±


    ¡°Thank you for reminding and jinxing me. By the way, what did it feel like to soak in a water elemental pool?¡±


    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you already know? The tea you drank this morning was blessed with the presence of my shower water.¡±


    *Ptui!*


    Anyone who¡¯s ever had a pet would know that they loved to show off their captured prey to their owners. And it was even more awkward for them when their pets attempted to share this prey¡ªincluding all the rats and cockroaches that had been secretly added into the food... Fine then, this silly cat was worse than all of those pets¡ªshe did it all intentionally. To curb this unseemly behavior, I would definitely have to give her a good lesson.


    ¡°Stop running away! Come, let¡¯s see if I don¡¯t hang you out to dry on top of the mage tower!¡±


    While the perpetual fight between the silly cat and I repeated itself yet again, the wheels of my n were once again in motion. The next phase had begun.


    Mages could be said to be the ones most wasteful of their wealth. Even with such top-level experimental conditions at their disposal, they would typically just research the creation of basic spell models. Or, with the portal to the water elemental ne, they would only summon a few water elemental servants while the portal itself would remain inactive for the great majority of the time. My subordinates, on the other had, were delighted to be able to use the mage tower¡¯s top-level research equipment to perform their own research.


    ¡°I¡¯m attempting to install mecha armor and additional weapons on the magic puppets. This can solve the problem of their overly simple attacks.¡±


    ¡°How foolish! Haven¡¯t you noticed that their greatest weakness is their slow speed? I intend to install Iron Horse wheels on them so that they can be far more mobile than before.¡±


    ¡°...Why not just install a ropeller? A flying magic puppet would be so cool¡ªit could even carry people around! We could hire it out and make so much money!¡±


    ¡°Stop being so ridiculous. Ropellers are known to be unreliable, and it¡¯s impossible to adjust their efficiency ratio. They¡¯ll either cause the object to fly too high or not fly at all. And it¡¯s fine if it fails to fly, but if the aerodynamic lift is too much then that¡¯d make the puppet be no different from an execution implement. It¡¯ll simply fly off with the puppet¡¯s head, leaving its body lying on the ground. Did all of you forget about that unfortunate experiment we did with the scarecrow?¡±


    What was with the name ¡®ropeller¡¯? Ahh, this was a ssic story. When I first arrived in this world, I gave a shot at inventing some engineering technology that would allow flight. However, although I could recall the mechanics of propellers from my previous world, I was only aw major and didn¡¯t understand the scientific principles behind its functioning. However, I did know of amon little toy: those mini propellers from China. [1] 1


    I casually created a wooden mini-propeller and gave it over to the dwarves who were skilled at making more intricate mechanisms. I asked them to research and discuss how to make it into a real concept capable of flight. The dwarves naturally asked what it was, as they didn¡¯t yet understand why the mini-propeller had the ability to fly through the air. And so, I just responded with something like this was called a propeller and that was its ability.


    However, the dwarves didn¡¯t clearly hear me and thought that it was called the ¡®ropeller,¡¯ instead. And that was how ¡®ropeller¡¯ became its official name, a name that spread far and wide before I discovered what was going on. When I finally learned of the mistake, the name had spread far too much for me to do anything about it. Ropeller was now the officially recognized name of this mechanism I brought from my previous world. I was no longer able to change the name even if I wanted to.


    It could be expected that if magic puppets were equipped with all these devices and essories that my engineers were thinking about, they would be much more powerful. With all sorts of dangerous weapons and heavy armor, they would be quite fearsome... But for some unknown reason, I suddenly thought of a certain strong naked man who shouted, ¡°I¡¯ll be back!¡±


    The locals in this world were equally intelligent with the geniuses from my previous world. The most I could do in many cases was provide them with inspiration and tell them that this was possible. Often times, the end result would far exceed my expectations.


    Magical engineering was such an unexpected miracle product. Thebination of science and magic gave birth to explosive transformations in existing technologies. Nobody could predict what mighte about as a result of magical engineering. However, it was easily predictable that the discipline would change the very fabric of this fantasy world¡¯s society.


    At the very least, under my supervision, magical engineering¡¯s development had far exceeded its extent in the game¡¯s ¡°history.¡±


    Beastmen warriors were equipped with mobile mechas, elven rangers rode motorcycles, while dwarves and gnomes who weren¡¯t as physically strong wore mecha armors. ¡°History¡± had already reached a divergent point.


    ¡°How¡¯s the analysis on the Salo¡¯s Crystal going? I think it¡¯s one of the top-level inventions of the ¡®Age of Schrly Inventions,¡¯ the Haletdam generation. Oh, what¡¯s Tid doing?¡±


    ¡°Tid says that it¡¯s way too difficult to analyze its workings, but it isn¡¯t impossible. No matter what, the current environment is different to that of the immemorial generation. It¡¯s definitely impossible to recreate a Salo¡¯s Crystal with the same power as the original, but still it should be possible to create a weaker version with less than one percent of its power.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s sufficient... tell him that it¡¯s not a rush¡ªit¡¯s only medium priority. After all, Salo¡¯s Crystals are far too dangerous. I don¡¯t want to wake up one day to find out I¡¯m flying through the sky because my mage tower has exploded.¡±


    Little Tid was bing more and more amazing. As my lead engineer, he was a bottomless pit when it came to anything involving engineering. He would always give me happy surprises.


    Two days ago, I handed Tid another research idea of mine¡ªdeveloping new Colossi. The immemorial Haletdam generation was also nicknamed the Colossi generation after their excellent Colossi technology. It just remained to see how much of it Tid was able to develop.


    With more and more people joining under me, there were now plenty of specialists in all areas and fields. I didn¡¯t think that the loose contractual rtionships between domain lords and their hired personal mages were appropriate to use. Instead, thepany, department, and project team structuring from my previous world worked much better for me.


    By the way, I should mention that the current leader of my alchemy department was Yingou Beyar. However, the one who really ran things in the alchemy department was his second-inmand, Olivia, who was growing more talented with each day. Not only was she fully developing her natural talent in alchemy that was disyed in the game¡¯s ¡°history,¡± but she had also established good rtionships with the alchemists, engineers, smiths, and enchanters. More importantly she and was always able to mediate between them. Even though Olivia wasn¡¯t even twenty years old, she was bing more and more like an overall general manager of the departments.


    Right now, Olivia was in charge of all my important projects, such as the improvements to mobile mechas and Olivia¡¯s Magic Box. With her around, I could beforted of the fact that the alchemist teams and engineer teams wouldn¡¯t start fighting outright.


    Of course, she didin about it. Working on improving her Magic Box or enchanted mechas helped greatly improve her engineering and enchanting knowledge¡ªshe was now at the level where she could subss in both engineering and enchanting. However, it was pushing her farther and farther away from her dream of bing a grand alchemist.


    However, Yingou, her alchemist teacher, secretly told me that Olivia¡¯s alchemy potions were bing even stronger¡ªand their effects, too, were getting stranger. For example, there had been an underwear thief with ridiculously long body hair who had kept stealing underwear all over the Cloud Tower. When he was finally captured, it was discovered that he was only a wild monkey who had been fed an ¡°extra hair growth¡± potion from Olivia. It was just that not only did the potion help the monkey lengthen its body hair, it also massively increased the monkey¡¯s lust, height, strength, intelligence, and many other areas. The ordinary monkey became a long-haired gori that went around sexually harassing the mages.


    ¡°For the sake of world peace, we should make Olivia use her talent in safer fields. I¡¯d prefer to live a few extra years.¡±¡ªYingou Beyar.


    Yes, those were Yingou¡¯s exact words¡ªthe Yingou who continually created explosives. This troublemaking gnome actually truly believed that his own disciple was an even bigger troublemaker. Cold sweat was dripping down his face and back as he said this. It seemed that his genius disciple was giving him quite some trouble as ofte.


    ¡°Oh, right, since her potions are so incredible, how about giving one to Beifeng? Perhaps it¡¯ll have the effect of calming him down. After all, no medicine in the world is capable of saving him. He couldn¡¯t possibly get any worse.¡±


    ¡°...Aren¡¯t you afraid that it¡¯s actually possible he¡¯ll get worse, and he¡¯ll evolve into a Mega Beifeng? Perhaps he¡¯ll even awaken some new hobbies, just like that experimental monkey.¡±


    When I thought about how that long-haired male monkey awakened to the strange hobby of going around and stealing old men¡¯s underwear, and imagined Beifeng bing like this as well, I, too, broke out into a cold sweat. Just imagining this scene filled me with despair.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s talk about this topicter. Should this ever happen, we can be certain that Armageddon has arrived.¡±


    Suddenly, Yingou seemed to think of something frightening. He revealed a terrified expression, one devoid of hope and filled with despair.


    ¡°Recently, Beifeng has been inviting Olivia for lunch and paying for her meals! I think he wants her to create a potion for him!¡±


    ¡°Impossible! Does he think he¡¯s still salvageable?¡±


    ¡°Nobody knows if he¡¯s still salvageable, but I think he¡¯s intending on getting a potion for one of his littlepanions!¡±


    Just as we were exchanging worried nces with each other, we heard a cry for help from outside.


    ¡°Ahhh! Monster!¡±


    A ssic monster movie seemed to be ying outside. People were fleeing helter-skelter as shrieks of terror flooded the streets. A gigantic ck beast was battling the police mages.


    For some reason, that gigantic ck beast appeared somewhat familiar. When I changed my position and looked at it from a different angle, I realized that it was a gori as tall as this seventeen-floor mage tower. Currently, this gori was delightedly ying around with a ¡°doll¡± in its hands. This doll, however, seemed strangely familiar, as it had dragon horns and ck scales...


    ¡°Is that Beifeng? And isn¡¯t that the experimental monkey? It evolved yet again?¡±


    ¡°...Who¡¯s Beifeng? I don¡¯t know who he is.¡±


    ¡°...That¡¯s right, I don¡¯t know who he is, either!¡±


    Cough, both of us decided to ignore that ¡°struggling damsel in distress¡± in ¡°King Kong¡¯s¡± hands when we thought about the trouble waiting for uster.


    Let¡¯s just ignore themotion outside and change the topic of conversation. Since we now had a main headquarters, an excellent ce to perform our research as well as arge number of researchers, a store, warehouses, and the recognition from other mage organizations, the Great Industrial Party could be finally said to have matured.


    ¡°Tell the gnomes and dwarves to not fly too far on their personal flight machines. There are far too many powerful aerial troops in this world¡ªthe gargoyles, griffins, and falcon knights are good examples. Since they just recently seeded in achieving flight, it¡¯ll still be difficult to face off against these veteran aerial troops. Let¡¯s first focus on improving our airships and cannons.¡±


    Yep, the most I could do was to use my status as a ¡°transmigrator¡± to point them in the right direction. This would help them avoid wasting so much time and money on useless projects like a ¡°perpetual motion machine.¡± In fact, just two days ago, I rejected a research n called ¡°Perpetual Olivia¡¯s Magic Box Development n.¡± It would seem that, in any world, researchers would be eternally interested in and ambitious about developing a self-sustaining perpetual energy source.


    ¡°Of course, I¡¯m not going to forbid people from privately working on whatever personal research projects they want. After all, nobody knows what¡¯s really possible with magic engineering in the future. However, I won¡¯t allow such projects to affect the projects I view as A-rank in potential.¡±


    I had far too many research projects going on simultaneously, which meant that I was forced to prioritize some over others. It was I who personally assigned letter ranks to each project¡¯s importance. Back when the Iron Horses were under development, they were only a B-rank project as it was an invention for the masses. Meanwhile, I assigned the highest rank, the S rank, to developing the seven Big Dipper ships that wouldplement my ¡°Envy¡± Borealis. Other S-ranked projects of mine included developing the second generation Olivia¡¯s Magic Box as well as improving the mobile mechas. Yep, the projects to which I assigned the highest ranks were ones that would affect practicalbat almost immediately. We were, after all, quite short on time.


    These generation-changing seeds had already been nted, and there would be no stopping magical engineering from reaching the pinnacle of this world. It could be expected that no matter what happened in the future, as long as the Mage Country wasn¡¯tpletely destroyed, the Great Industrial Party was certain to be an important mage organization and member of the Truth Symposium. Magical engineering would also be one of the most important fields of all.


    Of course, since this was all unstoppable, there was no need for me to worry about it. It wasn¡¯t necessary to think that far into the future. I needed to first take care of the present.


    [Passive racial talent: Unyielding Beast. The greater your injuries, the more your stats will be increased. If you are in a seriously injured state, you shall receive heightenedbat senses, greatly heightening your attack and defense. At maximum, this can triple your power level and double your Strength and Dexterity upon reaching a seriously injured state. Your Constitution can be tripled. System Notification: Why don¡¯t you stop being a mage and simply start leveling up as a barbarian, instead?]


    This was the ability I gained via my breakthrough when fighting against the two adamantine magic puppets. It was quite amon one as well. Many aggressive species and tribes possessed abilities that allowed them to be stronger and stronger the more they were injured, especially the barbarians and beastmen. An injured beast would only be more dangerous. In fact, some berserkers would intentionally injure themselves before a battle in order to raise their willpower andbat strength.


    Although this was amon ability type, that didn¡¯t mean it was useless. Rather, it was the opposite. This was one of the most useful of all ¡°warrior¡± racial talents. Everyone knew that it was a wonderful feeling to sessfully counterattack when being pushed to the brink. However, it was always those who knew how to swim that would drown inrger numbers. Relying on this ability too much meant always dancing on the edge of a cliff. One little misstep would result in death before one could even realize what happened.


    ¡°You really did choose the wrong job ss. Did you just close your eyes and randomly pick one at the beginning?¡±


    That was Harloys¡¯ment for me when she learned about this ability I gained. But, from a certain standpoint, herment about me being a mage wasn¡¯t wrong in the least. After all, my first ever job ss was a Holy Knight, indeed a physical job ss. In my second reincarnation, I started learning magic in order to make up for my weaknesses as well as to hide my true identity.


    Meanwhile, my System spread some salt on my wound by making the barbarian berserker, heavy knight of the cross, dragon knight, and other powerful meleebat advanced job sses avable to me in its options. Some of them were really quite attractive. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that my bloodline required my power over Order and Chaos to be in bnce, I really would have been tempted to take on another subss.


    In order to test my new ability, I went and defeated everyone in the arena, unexpectedly finding a few skilled individuals who I convinced to be my subordinates. Of course, something else happened as a result as well.


    ¡°Barbarian mage? Me?¡±


    Fine then, I suppose it was rather surprising news to everyone that I defeated a heavy armor boar knight empty-handed. Hey, it wasn¡¯t my fault that he refused to duel against me unless I promised to not use any magic when he saw my Emblems of Endless Truth. That was why I agreed and defeated him with my hands alone.


    ¡°That¡¯s your excuse for crushing his iron helmet to pieces with your bare hands? And then tossing his boar steeds into the stands? You really are a barbarian!¡±


    ¡°Cough, that was just an ident.¡±


    After the Great Industrial Party and Thorn Garden solidified their presences, the Truth Symposium made an official decision as well.


    It was now time for us to leave.


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: If you want to know what this toy is, type ÖñòßòÑ in Google Images.

 Chapter 324

    Chapter 324: Return to the Forest of Dreams


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    I barely recognized the Forest of Dreams when I returned.


    The moment I stepped off the Ivy League, I noticed arge number of airships parked at the docks. These ships bore all sorts of gs, indicating that they were from ces all over, including And, East Mist, the Mage Country, and even the Bardi Empire. It would seem that the Bardi Empire had no intentions of giving up on this ce as they must have taken quite the circuitous route to get here.


    The docks were packed with people busy either loading or unloading cargo. Most people¡¯s attention, however, was attracted to the adventurers who came from far and wide. Their equipment revealed that each team had at least one ¡°Contract Hero¡± who possessed a Hero¡¯s Armlet.


    To be honest, the Forest of Dreams was more appealing a ce than the battle-wrought And Empire for adventures who wished to earn Justice Points. The battles here were of a smaller scale, and the perfect ¡°safe zone¡± in the Forest of Dreams made this ce all the more popr.


    Most adventurers were humans, but there was nock of other species. After all, other species possessed numerous physical advantages on humans, and their lives as adventurers would be easier. I recognized some Nortnds barbarians and beastmen, as well as a couple of lizardmen from the desert region far, far away.


    ¡°This ce seems quite popr.¡±


    Even greater changes met my eyes when I left the docks and headed inside the forest. Clusters of people amid a flourishing marketce and a lively administrative district were embellished with wood spirits who were crossing their rope bridges which dotted the treetops. This ce was no longer empty.


    Quite themotion was caused earlier when we returned in the Ivy League. Most airships were smaller, wooden ones capable of only carrying thirty to fifty passengers. Such a massive divine tree airship gave the bystanders a deep impression.


    We immediately began doing business in the docks just moments after disembarking.


    ¡°Thorn Garden¡¯s branch store in the Forest of Dreams is officially opening! Don¡¯t miss our opening sale!¡±


    The Ivy League was quiterge to begin with, which meant that we had plenty of space to carry cargo. So, I decided to modify it into a merchant transport ship. As for the main goods we were selling? Thebat mechas from Thorn Garden, of course!


    The Ivy League parked horizontally on the docks, and all the cargo hold doors automatically opened, transforming into storefronts right on the spot. The wood spirits who hade with me to the Mage Country instantlymenced their business upon returning home.


    We had Iron Horses (with training wheels), simple self-propelled mechas, engineered cannons, and all sorts of other items forbat. Of course, we also possessed some experimental weapons and equipment.


    A sawtoothed sword that constantly buzzed, the newest dwarven rifles, portable dwarven handheld cannons, and mechanized shields with defensive energy barriers. All sorts of new products were waiting to be tested inbat.


    An excellent weapons merchant would test their weapons on the battlefield while raking in profits at the same time. They would then use these profits to improve their products and attract even more customers. The only difference between me and a pure weapons merchant was that I was slightly more conscientious. After all, I only sold weapons to one side.


    Judging from our first day sales, the adventurers were rather hesitant about purchasing our products. The gnomes and dwarves had too poor of a reputation because of their explosions. The sales were especially affected by the fact that Jinya Beyar insisted on acting as the demonstrator and sent himself flying in the sky with a boom in front of all the spectators... I told him not to use the ¡°Safety Brand¡± rockets! That brand name is cursed!


    ¡°As expected, these bastards are too unreliable. Forget it, forget it. There will be a few daring adventurers who will try our new products. Let¡¯s prove the mettle of our products with time and aplishments in battle.¡±


    Obviously, we hurried back to the Forest of Dreams for reasons more important than conducting business. We had left as envoys for the wood spirits, and we returned having sessfully allied with the Mage Country. However, there was now a new troublesome issue that had returned together with me.


    ¡°The Mage Country is sending her as an official envoy to the Bardi Empire to negotiate a ceasefire? How troublesome.¡±


    Instead of me, Cher became the envoy. Some higher-ups apparently learned about the rtionship between us. There was an obvious problem with using her as the envoy: I would naturally have to get involved as well. After all, it would be tantamount to suicide to leave diplomacy to someone who was merely a ¡°novice¡± in the Gold rank.


    ¡°Well, I suppose it¡¯s fine. I wanted to see what¡¯s going on back in the Bardi Empire anyways.¡±


    My inference was that I wasn¡¯t directly appointed as the envoy because the Mage Country was afraid that I would do something too ridiculous, like performing a God¡¯s Descent or something like that.


    Compared to an outsider like me, Cher counted as far more of a local and would probably look out more for the Mage Country¡¯s interests.


    I already knew my next n. I would rest here at the Forest of Dreams and prepare for a few days before heading to the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital city. I would stop by on the way at Nightrain City, which was currently in the thick of battle, depending on my judgment of the current situation.


    Yes. I, simply me by myself. The envoy group would head directly to the capital city, while I wouldn¡¯t be traveling together with them. We would arrange a ce to reconvene in the capital city.


    Rather than being a diplomatic envoy in everyone¡¯s sight, I preferred to act alone in the shadows. There were many things that couldn¡¯t be seen on the surface. And, if possible, I even wanted to try and make some free time to go take a look at the eastern battlefront where Bardi was fighting against the Holy Light¡¯s army. Perhaps I would even see a familiar face or two there.


    I roamed around by myself in the new areas of the Forest of Dreams. All this flourishment really was quite astonishing. Six months ago, this ce was still Port Victoria of the Bardi Empire. Two months ago, this ce was a magical forest with not a single human living in it. It managed to develop to such an extent so quickly?


    ¡°...Although many are injured, the adventurers seem to be quite spirited. Most of them are smiling. Is it because they see hope for the future? It looks like I don¡¯t need to worry about the Forest of Dreams; I should find a chance to go take a look at what¡¯s going on at the frontlines...¡±


    It was now noon. I entered a random restaurant and ordered a few dishes. While waiting for my food to arrive, I listened to a barbarian bragging about his own adventures.


    ¡°It all happened in the blink of an eye. Our team was forced to the brink, and that meant it was time for a great thief like me to shine. I started off with a backstab, and then stunned the lich with a kick. I used my skills inbination and singlehandedly killed off that lich named Wofrida...¡±


    Wait a moment; this barbarian was in the thief job ss? I suppose that with enough people around, there would be no end to the number of weirdos. Still, after recalling that I previously met an ogre thief, I felt that it wasn¡¯t anything to be shocked about. Yet, was it really possible for liches to be stunned? Either that lich was only an undead mage who was wearing a skeleton head mask as a disguise, or this barbarian was simply a tremendous braggart who exaggerated his aplishments.


    ¡°Sir Holy Knight, are you by yourself?¡±


    A young female priestess greeted me with a smile. The gold coin emblem on her chest exhibited the fact that was a mid-ranked priestess who served Beyana, the Goddess of Wealth.


    Of course, she wasn¡¯t greeting me to offer me any sort of special services. While other priestesses might indeed offer such services, those who believed in the Goddess of Wealth were only interested in money.


    I was mystified for a moment before I realized what was going on.


    The Forest of Dreams was a frontline of battle. Plenty of temporary adventuring teams would be created here.


    Plenty of visitors would visit the bars and restaurants here, so this would undoubtedly be a ce where adventures looked forpanions. Since I was by myself, I probably seemed like someone looking for a team. This priestess must be looking for a teammate. However, the strange part was...


    ¡°How did you know I¡¯m a Holy Knight?¡±


    I had taken off my mage robe since I was no longer in the Cloud Tower. With an average cotton robe that could be found just about anywhere, I was devoid of weapons. How did she notice my job ss?


    ¡°Your posture, your smile, and the marks on your hands.¡±


    After undergoing long periods of training, those who became Holy Knights would have distinct postures while walking and sitting. Certain marks would be left on their hands due to long hours of practicing swordsmanship. As for Holy Knights¡¯ smiles... the #59 smile used for business was practically copyrighted and instinctual.


    ¡°More importantly you don¡¯t seem dissatisfied by the cheap beer you¡¯re drinking here. Even the barbarian in my teamins every day about how bad the alcohol is, but you didn¡¯t even frown when you drank it down. You were smiling, which likely means you aren¡¯t that well off...¡±


    Indeed. Nobles¡¯ knights wouldn¡¯t even dream about drinking some low-quality beer like this that cost only two copper coins, nor would they ever enter such a low-tier restaurant like this one. Only Holy Knights, who were used to being poor, would be used to drinking cheap wine and dining on rye bread.


    I nodded in appreciation. While it wasn¡¯t particrly astonishing to be able to discern a person¡¯s job ss from their physical appearance and behavior, it was still evidence that this person was a veteran adventurer. Only now did I seriously take a look at the priestess before me.


    She appeared to be roughly eighteen or neen years old. Her clean, neat, and short xen hair and energetic expression overshadowed the tiny amount of e on her face. The half-body armor she was d in seemed somewhat used, but it was well taken care of, which could be seen from its sheen. The round shield and cudgel she wielded were the mostmon equipment for priests, but only that small shield was enchanted. It was quite obvious she wasn¡¯t very rich as she possessed almost no magical equipment whatsoever.


    ¡°...At the very most, she¡¯s in the Silver rank. If she¡¯s the team captain, then her team¡¯s overall strength is probably only at the peak of Bronze.¡±


    I lightly tapped my index finger on the table, causing a golden Holy Light to sh for an instant, corroborating her guess that I was indeed a Holy Knight.


    ¡°Do you have any business with me?¡±


    The priestess was first delighted to see the Holy Light but then became hesitant. Originally, she saw only a Holy Knight by himself who didn¡¯t even have equipment. Not to mention, he appeared quite young, so she thought that he was only a novice. But from the way he was easily able to control the power of Holy Light, he seemed like a Gold rank advanced job ss Holy Knight who specialized in Divine Arts. Her team would be unable to afford hiring such an individual, one far more powerful than they were.


    ¡°Our adventuring team received a task that pays quite well. However, our warrior, who was our tank, quit on us. We¡¯re currently looking for someone who¡¯s a meleebat ss.¡±


    I furrowed my eyebrows upon hearing this. She barely gave me any details about the task, which made her sound like shecked sincerity.


    No normal mercenary or adventurer would ept such an unclear mission. The more unknowns there were, the more potential danger there could be as well. Either that, or the person offering the job had devious intentions.


    Life was no game. There were no do overs. Any adventurer that wanted to enjoy a long life despite constantly having to battle would need to always remain cautious.


    The priestess seemed to notice my displeasure and hurriedly exined herself.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that I don¡¯t want to tell you the details, it¡¯s because this is arge-scale operation of the wood spirits. We¡¯re only a small part of it, and we won¡¯t know the specific task requirements until they issue them to us.¡±


    I hesitated for a moment before nodding and epting her request.


    ¡°Wonderful! Our ¡®Wood Spirits are So Cute¡¯ mercenary squad finally has a tank again! We can finally ept missions!¡±


    ¡°...What? Could you say that again?¡±


    This time, the priestess was the one who felt quite awkward. She lowered her head and exined to me in a soft voice.


    ¡°Our team consists of people who all met here for the first time. We trieding up with several names, but they all already existed, so...¡±


    In a way, I could understand. After all, the wood spirits were incredibly popr in the Mage Country as well. Their female fans spent entire days chatting with them in the coffee house section of Thorn Garden, difficult to chase away even after we closed in the evenings. This priestess here before me was probably a huge wood spirit fan as well.


    Although it was quitemon for females to be huge wood spirit fans, most wood spirit fan clubs were actually more like male-only lolicon fan clubs¡ªdidn¡¯t she know this? Those perverts would be strictly investigated, so wasn¡¯t she worried about othersughing their heads off at hearing such a team name? For some reason, I suddenly recalled a certain ¡°Absolute Gentleman Alliance.¡± A terrible, terrible name which would leave run with regrets for eons. As expected, one must be cautious when naming something. Yep, naming things should be left to a grandmaster of naming like me.


    ¡°So, why did your previous warrior quit your team?¡±


    I faintly guessed at the reason, but I asked anyways.


    ¡°...He didn¡¯t like our team¡¯s name.¡±


    As I expected. Any male would suffer serious pressure and stares from other people when being in a team with such a name. Others would definitely think he was a perverted lolicon. I was even considering going back on my agreement to join them, yet I couldn¡¯t help but sigh when I saw her looking at me pitifully with a gaze that had such expectation.


    At any rate, I had wanted to check out thebat situation here at the Forest of Dreams, and I was only going to be here for a few days. It¡¯d be harmless to just join this random team and make do for some time.


    And so, I finally nodded again in agreement. I might as well make use of this and get some exercise.


    ¡°Alright,dy priestess. Holy Knight Rnd is at your service, at least for the next few days.¡±


    A certainke in the forest was just as beautiful and calm as always. Moonlight reflected off of theke water, and this area was far quieter than anywhere else in the Forest of Dreams.


    I walked across the lotuses to reach the center of theke. The sleeping beauty appeared the same as always as she slept in her flower bed. The only difference was that herplexion seemed less pale than before.


    As I walked closer, she seemed to sense my presence as her long eyshes twitched slightly. It was as if she was dreaming about something pleasant, since she was smiling sweetly. It appeared she was going to wake up soon.


    ¡°Although you¡¯re a lot cuter when you¡¯re quiet... maybe I really am looking forward to you waking up and annoying me like always.¡±


    However, it was a pity was that there was still no response to my words. Finally, I could only leave Amelia alone in silence.


    ¡°I guess that there hasn¡¯t been enough sacrifices yet?¡±


    I was seemingly talking to myself, but I received a response just as I expected.


    ¡°...Please don¡¯t worry so much. It¡¯s only a matter of time before Mother wakes up.¡±


    The bright red Samantha walked out from behind a tree. Her calm expression appeared to be slightly troubled despite her words.


    I nodded and didn¡¯t ask anything else. She was likely far more worried about Amelia than I was.


    But just as I was about to leave, I recalled the priestess I just met.


    ¡°Oh, right, are you all about to undertake a major operation of some sort? Something that requires gathering many adventurers?¡±


    ¡°...Yes. I was intending on informing you about it, Father. It¡¯s about expanding the Forest of Dreams...¡±

 Chapter 325

    Chapter 325: Great Luck Like Always


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°As expected, streetside advertisements are totally false.¡±


    Early in the morning of the next day, I met with yesterday¡¯s priestess, whose name was Betty, at the same restaurant. I was introduced to her team. But as a veteran former adventurer, I merely had to take a nce at her team to notice that far more was strange about her team than just the team¡¯s name, Wood Spirits Are So Cute.


    Actually, not even a veteran adventurer was necessary. Even a novice adventurer would be able to notice their problems! No wonder they had Betty as the one trying to recruit people. Everyone else in this team was simply ridiculous!


    The team consisted of three other people apart from Betty and myself. The first and most familiar one was... the barbarian thief I had seen bragging at the restaurant yesterday!


    Standing at 2.3 or 2.4 meters tall, his wrists were thicker than my thighs. His armor was bursting at the seams due to his overly muscr body structure. His face seemed so vicious that simply a look could kill. His natural-born advantage in Strength as well as racial talent, Frenzy, made barbarians the most suited warriors to join the berserker job ss. However, the moment I met him, he actually said, rather awkwardly:


    ¡°Violence is wrong. That¡¯s why I haven¡¯t resorted to brute force for a long time. I, Ah Gen, am a nonbat thief.¡±


    A nonbat thief? He was telling me that a barbarian was a nonbat thief? The barbarians¡¯ God of War would be angered to death upon hearing such a thing!


    Of course I knew what a nonbat thief was. Such thieves would be experts in ruin exploration, disabling and dismantling all sorts of traps and mechanisms¡ªnot to mention the obvious, stealing. Their most important stats wouldn¡¯t be the Dexterity and Strength that was the norm for most thieves. Instead, it would be Intelligence¡ªplenty of knowledge was required to understand how to avoid and disarm traps and so on. No idiot would be able to be a nonbat thief. And since nonbat thieves typically spent all their time on training their special job ss skills rather than theirbat skills, they usually had far less than fifty percent thebat strength of their fellow thieves. In fact, it was more like zerobat strength.


    Since nonbat thieves weren¡¯t required to focus onbat strength, it naturally became the most favored job ss of dwarven adventurers, as they naturallycked Strength and were willing to do underhanded things. Their smaller bodies would be able to more easily dodge traps targeted at humans, plus they had naturally flexible bodies and racial bonuses to Intelligence, making them the best nonbat thieves of all.


    As I recalled, barbarians had a racial talent bonus to Strength together with a racial talent penalty to Intelligence. Once they entered their berserk states via their racial skill, Frenzy, their Intelligence would be lowered even further, to 3 or so. They would be no different from beasts. Even speaking inplete sentences would be difficult when under the effects of Frenzy.


    If he had utilized his natural-born Strength advantage and entered some type ofbat-focused assassin job ss, I would have only considered him ¡°slightly unusual.¡± Yet, this guy actually entered the job ss of the nonbat thief, the one which had extremely high requirements for Intelligence. All I could say was that this guy was probably a terrible teammate who always dragged his team down with him.


    ¡®...I must remain ssy. I¡¯m currently a Holy Knight. If I give in to my anger and shout or viciouslyment about him, I would ruin my image.¡¯


    I did my best to suppress my urges and somehow managed to smile and nod.


    ¡°Friend, may the Holy Light give you its blessing.¡±


    At this, the tremendously tall barbarian suddenly rushed over and hugged me, with huge tears dripping down my back and wetting my shirt.


    ¡°You¡ªyou¡ªyou¡¯re the first person ever who hasn¡¯tughed at me!¡±


    ¡°My dear barbarian friend, everyone has the right to choose their own path in life. How could I possiblyugh at you?¡±


    ¡°From today onwards, you¡¯re Ah Gen¡¯s bro! All those whoughed at Ah Gen deserved their beatings!¡±


    Seeing how Ah Gen didn¡¯t attempt to beat up his newpanion, his other teammates had unmistakable expressions of disappointment. It was obvious that they had intended on watching a fun scene¡ªa scene most definitely fun for them but not me. Just what teammates were these!?


    The second one who came over and introduced herself was Betty, the priestess from yesterday. She appeared to be quite normal.


    ¡°My name is Betty Weis. You can just call me Betty. By the way, I¡¯m a boy.¡±


    Alright then. In just an instant, the most normal-seeming one became the weirdest one of all...


    ¡°I¡¯m a Holy Knight, I¡¯m a Holy Knight, I¡¯m a Holy Knight. The most important thing for Holy Knights is... Remember: even if you¡¯re bleeding, even if you die... your hairstyle and smile must never ever die!¡±


    I kept muttering this to myself in an attempt to calm myself down, but I still couldn¡¯t prevent my expression from freezing over for a moment. Secondster, however, I recovered and used the standard #59 Holy Knight smile and reached out my right hand to Betty.


    ¡°I¡¯m quite pleased to meet you, Mister Betty.¡±


    ¡°Wow! This guy is still capable of smiling! It¡¯s just like Betty said, his fake smile seems so realistic! I¡¯ve heard that a Holy Knight¡¯s power is in direct proportion to how well they can maintain their fake smiles. Since he¡¯s still capable of smiling upon learning that Sister Betty is actually a man, doesn¡¯t that make him super amazing!?¡±


    ¡®I can hear everything you just said, you bastard!¡¯


    Veins were throbbing on my forehead. Still, I kept muttering ¡°I didn¡¯t hear anything, I didn¡¯t hear anything¡± to myself and continued smiling at this team filled with weirdos.


    The little girl who was justmenting about me now seemed like the most ordinary member of this team. She was incredibly short and stocky with an ordinary appearance. Her sledgehammer at her waist, low and deep voice, and long blonde ponytail that almost reached the ground all indicated that she was from the idun Mountains... a dwarf girl!


    Dwarves were quitemon in the world. The Underground had gray dwarves, while there were mountain dwarves and shield dwarves residing in the mountains on the surface. Although dwarves were quite short, they had stat bonuses in Strength and Constitution and would typically be smiths, warriors, or miners. They were typically direct and bold, and were natural-born warriors.


    Of course, disadvantages came along with the advantages. Not only were dwarves short, but they also had slow reactions. Having them hop around like elves would be impossible. Still, dwarves were quite famous for their high defensive prowess, especially with shields. With a dwarf in their team, why did theyck a tank?


    ¡°Hello, Sir Holy Knight. I¡¯m Mary, Mary the archer.¡±


    This female dwarf even pointed directly at the ironwood bow on her back as she introduced herself.


    Alright then, should I say that it was to be expected? There was no normal person in this team at all. A dwarf actually went and became an archer, the specialty of elves? Her mountain bloodline was probably crying!


    ¡°Very pleased to meet you, Miss Mary.¡±


    ¡°Actually, that should be Mrs. Mary. I¡¯m already married with two children. My husband¡¯s a good-for-nothing so I¡¯m having him stay at home and take care of the kids while I¡¯m out working, earning money to support my family.¡±


    Pahahah, so she was a dwarf auntie all along!


    I didn¡¯t even know what to say as I looked at her rather squarish face.


    There was a saying that the only noticeable difference between male and female dwarves was that male dwarves had higher-pitched voices. Yep, that¡¯s right. It was the male dwarves who had higher-pitched voices, not female. This was mostly because female dwarves spoke in a gruff fashion and had low and masculine voices. Their deep and booming voices would always attract attention and echo numerous times.


    When you looked at their physical appearances, female dwarves would grow beards just like the male dwarves, while male dwarves also enjoyed wearing ponytails. It was incredibly difficult for outsiders to differentiate between male and female dwarves based on physical features alone. Also, they had strange standards of beauty by human perspectives. I had absolutely no idea what was so alluring about a ¡°local dwarf girl with that sexy barrel waist and thick beard,¡± amon dwarven saying.


    Due to the differences in standards of beauty, it was also difficult for outsiders to guess a dwarf¡¯s age. Still, most dwarven adventurers were ¡°youngsters¡± that would be about 70 to 80 years old, which was why I had assumed that she was just a dwarf ¡°girl.¡± But since this Mary said that she already had two children, when calcting by the fact that dwarves were considered adults at 120 years old, she was probably a bit over 200.


    Alright then, with three strange teammates, I was already bing numb. The fourth and final teammate was a nice-looking elf. His fancy leather armor and three-stringed harp on his back told me his job ss. He was a very handsome elven bard.


    ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Solonor. Nice to meet you.¡±


    Not bad. His etiquette was quite normal, his physical appearance seemed normal, his name seemed normal, and his job ss seemed normal for his species. But, for some reason, my gentlemen spidey sense instinctively told me that this Solonor was no normal individual. The chill running down my spine told me that I was in danger.


    ¡°...As expected, Solo¡¯s taken an interest in him.¡±


    ¡°Big Bro Solonor¡¯s such a fine fellow in all respects, except for this little interest of his. He¡¯s already scared away several warriors... but we couldn¡¯t have be such good sisters if he wasn¡¯t like this.¡±


    My sharp hearing picked up on their whispers. This time, my smile was finally no more.


    ¡°I¡ªI¡ªI... you¡¯re gay?!¡±


    ¡°...Please, there¡¯s no need to say it like that. I merely like youngsters with nice appearances.¡±


    While saying so, Solonor was shaking my hand, and he suddenly pinched me. This caused goosebumps to spread all over my skin.


    ¡°The f***! What¡¯s with all of you!? Let go of me! You want me to throw my shoe at you!?¡±


    Alright then, meeting Solonor for the first time ended up like how I typically greeted Beifeng. I was now panting after having stomped Solonor under my feet.


    ¡°Krose should still be in the local Church of Law here, right? I think I need his curative smile.¡±


    For some mysterious reason, I felt that my mood would improve greatly if the wild elf Krose smiled at me.


    ¡°Hahaha! You were disgusted by someone gay hitting on you, so you¡¯re going to go cure yourself by finding a trap? There¡¯s no saving you.¡±


    As always, the silly cat¡¯s insult arrived right on time, but I didn¡¯t even have the spirit to retort back at her. Who were all these people? I doubted that I would find a single stranger adventuring team in the entire Forest of Dreams. Was my luck truly that awful?


    ¡°Silly cat, meow for me and act cute.¡±


    ¡°Meow, Master, I would like to drink some milk. I like my milk white, murky, and smelly.¡±


    Alright then, this silly cat instantly transformed into a young golden cat girl, who had gold cat ears, a gold cat tail, and furry paws for hands. She intentionally said her words in a way that was easy to misunderstand, and she was even licking her lips while ncing at me in a seductive fashion that made her seem quite hungry for a certain something. A part of me instantly stood up... yep, all my goosebumps were now standing up.


    ¡°Go away, yep, Harloys, go and transform into a meteor in the sky.¡±


    And so, I immediately forced Harloys back into her cat form, then stomped the ground and used a javelin-throwing posture to toss her away into the air as far as I could.


    ¡°You stupid wooden block, you deserve to be single for your entire life... Meow, I don¡¯t like this feeling...¡±


    I angrily turned around to discover that my new team was currently discussing me.


    ¡°He actually transformed his own pet into a woman? He must be ****ing his own pet. Could this be the legendary, Bei, um... what was it called again?¡±


    ¡°Beifeng! That legendary pervert!¡±


    Alright then, it seemed that even random low-level adventurers knew who Beifeng was. Congrattions, Beifeng, you¡¯ve achieved your life goal! You¡¯re famous, really famous!


    ¡°Rx, even if you¡¯ve already a Beifeng, we won¡¯t discriminate against you. Everyone has the right to freely choose who they love.¡± Solonor even seemed to sincerely nod his head in understanding.


    ¡°Ahhhh! Someone who¡¯s gay is sympathizing with my plight with women!¡±


    At this moment, I seriously considered returning to the River Styx and starting over yet again.


    ¡°Actually, now we all feel much more reassured about you. Only someone like you will be a truly good fit for our team; no normal person would stay for long!¡±


    Betty¡¯s words had everyone nodding, while I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry.


    ¡°I¡¯m clearly a normal person as well!¡±


    [King of all Gentlemen...]


    ¡°System, you shut up!¡±


    Since we had all finished our basic introductions, the rule of thumb for new adventuring teams was to pick a random easy task to work together on to see how well everyone cooperated. After all, practicalbat was far more convincing than what anyone said.


    The wood spirits¡¯ huge operation was scheduled to begin in three days. This didn¡¯t affect the normal, easy-level hunting tasks, though. We randomly picked an easy ¡°Collect 100 poisonous corpse zombie teeth¡± and took a horse-drawn carriage¡ªit costed us two silver coins¡ªand exited the Forest of Dreams.


    Corpse zombies were slightly stronger than ordinary zombies. They resembled slightly shorter, skinnier, and uglier zombies, and although they weren¡¯t physically strong, they were more agile. Their teeth and ws were poisonous. If someone wasn¡¯t careful and died to them, there was a high likelihood that they would be transformed into a corpse zombie as well.


    Corpse-type undead all had the ability to use other corpses to strengthen themselves. The name ¡®corpse zombie¡¯ was self-exnatory. Corpse zombies were quite aggressive, had excellent noses, and were considered amon sight around the Forest of Dreams.


    Soon, we located a horde of corpse zombies on a hill. It looked like there was roughly between ten and twenty of them. The strongest one among them appeared to be a corpse zombie king.


    I already asked my team for their power levels. This strange little team actually had decentbat strengthpared to ordinary adventuring teams. All of them were at least at the Silver rank or better. Even a Bronze warrior would be able to defeat an ordinary corpse zombie, and corpse zombie kings were the equivalent of a strong Silver rank at most. This should be quite an easy task.


    ¡°For the Holy Light!¡±


    I pretended to be the typical Holy Knight who loathed the undead in order to somewhat fix the image my team had of me. I roared out as was my habit as I rushed first as the vanguard.


    And then, I ran back at an even higher speed...


    In just an instant, I understood why it was that this team was unable to recruit anyone for the tank role.


    Solonor and ¡°Betty¡± were both backline support types, or a more blunt way to put it was that they were useless in directbat. Mary, who was an archer, had no reason to fight on the frontlines, either. Nonbat thieves, as ording to adventurers¡¯ typical customs, were exempt from having to fight. So, in the end, I was the only one who charged forth.


    Although corpse zombies had poisonous teeth and ws, why would I possibly fear that when I had the Myth-ranked shield, ¡°Emordilorcan¡¯s Wall of Sighs¡±? I was running for my life because of my teammates!


    ¡°You¡¯re actually secretly my enemies, aren¡¯t you! Tell me the truth, did you all actually kill yourst teammate?¡±


    Mary¡¯s longbow was crafted out of ironwood. This type of tree only grew in the mountains and was named so due to the fact that its bark was literally as hard as iron. Wooden swords crafted from ironwood could function in identical fashion as iron swords. However, crafting a bow out of ironwood meant that no ordinary person would be able to wield it.


    However, Mary was a dwarf warrior with over one hundred years ofbat experience. Her brute strength was in no way inferior to any meleebat job ss. Arrows that should have swiftly darted past me instead became like heavy cannon shots that went *BOOM! BOOM!* These weren¡¯t arrows passing me by, they were more like deathing straight for me. If I had ducked just one second slower, I would probably be bald right now.


    Meanwhile, the corpse zombie king was currently busy fighting against our so-called ¡°nonbat thief,¡± Ah Gen.


    Nonbat thieves weren¡¯t supposed to be good at fighting? Have you ever seen a nonbat thief who wielded a huge broadsword? Have you ever seen a nonbat thief who sliced a corpse zombie king in half? This nonbat thief even went into a berserk state!


    Judging by how Ah Gen¡¯s muscles almost doubled in size and only his eye whites were showing, this was even the high-level barbarian technique ¡°Complete Berserkness.¡¯ This basically meant that not only would his Strength explosively increase, but he would also transform into a ughtering machine that wouldn¡¯t feel any pain or know how to reason. He sliced that corpse zombie king in half with just two swings of his broadsword, and judging by how Ah Gen was now drooling while staring at me, he now viewed me as his greatest threat!


    ¡°Hurry and run, Sir Rnd! Ah Gen has a phobia of seeing blood. The moment he sees blood, he¡¯ll automatically Frenzy andpletely go berserk, without recognizing friend from foe!¡±


    Alright then, I now understood why this fellow didn¡¯t join a warrior job ss. Complete Berserkness was supposed to be a trump card, but he couldn¡¯t even control himself? That meant that he wouldn¡¯t even be able to differentiate friend from foe on the battlefield!


    ¡°You¡¯re all experts at making people suffer! Why do I have such terrible teammates!¡±

 Chapter 326

    Chapter 326: Secret Plot


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    There now existed a city by the name of Asolivis, which, in the undeadnguage, meant ¡°The ce where Aso eternally rests.¡±


    The six Dimensional Doors became considered the most essential strategic structures of all by the undead after they started arriving in droves from the six Undead nes. They were heavily guarded at all times, and what would provide better protection than an impregnable fortress city? And so, under the Undead Emperors¡¯ instruction, a new city was constructed here. It was clearly visible from the Forest of Dreams, but both locations remained at a strange peace. Battles were only taking ce in thend between them.


    Apart from the ¡°small conflicts¡± between the adventurers and the undead, there actually wasn¡¯t much battling on the eastern battlefront of the Forest of Dreams and Asolivis. However, the western battlefront of Nightrain City and the undead¡¯s new Gravestone City was now at a deadlock with a heated battle.


    Asolivis was now the undead¡¯s major city for dimensional teleportation as well as their main headquarters in the world of Eich. Although the Undead Emperors were still unable to personally descend, they went all out in using their power and resources to help countless Myth and Saint-ranked Undead Lords descend. Thanks to the support of the Dimensional Doors, even average SemiGods would be unable to deal with these Undead Lords as long as they remained in Asolivis.


    The first ever City Lord of Asolivis was named Davey Soke. Davey was a Ghoul Lord from the Desecration ne.


    Although ghouls were an evolved form of corpse zombies, they didn¡¯t count as a high-level undead species. Ghouls had more venomous poison and were far more fetid than the corpse zombies, but the fact that they were incredibly ugly and bloodthirsty made them particrly unpopr even among the undead.


    However, despite being a Ghoul, a low-level undead species, Davey was able to reach the status of an Undead Lord. The Undead Emperors even put him in charge of their most crucial territory, a sufficient exnation of his abilities.


    He was very sly and intelligent, reaching fame even before achieving a high power level. He was nicknamed ¡°The undead whose slyness is closest to Emperor Aso¡¯s.¡± Any other Undead Emperor who heard themselves beingpared to a low-level undead species like a ghoul would likely be furious and immediately kill the ghoul in question, but Aso had merelyughed aloud before proceeding to take Davey in as his disciple.


    Not only was Davey truly grateful to Aso, but he also lived up to Aso¡¯s expectations. Thanks to Aso¡¯s teachings, Davey had managed, albeit slowly, to reach the Myth rank. And now, the Undead Emperors had put him in charge of Asolivis, not only because they believed in his personal strength but also because of his connection to Aso.


    After he was put in charge, he indeed did a splendid job in running the city. This gigantic city had sixyers to it. The three outeryers were where low-level undead stayed and organized themselves into troops, the mid-level undead stayed in the next two inneryers, while the innermostyer, which was as grand as any human country¡¯s capital city, was reserved for the high-level undead.


    Every single district in Asolivis had arge number of Soul-Summoning Towers. Countless zombies, corpse zombies, skeletons, and other low-level undead were being awakened or summoned here every day. The high-level would lead them as if herding a group of sheep, steadily traveling to the frontlines and eventually bing cannon fodder at Nightrain City.


    Under most of these Soul-Summoning Towers were undead mages who busily experimented with all sorts of mid and low-level undead ingredients. Thanks to the terrain bonuses from the Undead ne Dimensional Doors as well as the Soul-Summoning Towers¡¯ support, numerous modified and evolved undead were continually exiting from their experimentalboratories. The undead army now possessed plenty of mid-level elites as well.


    The undead¡¯s best military strategy would always be wars of attrition designed to fatigue the enemy. It wasmon that an entire army of undead would have only a single high-level undeadmanding the entire army, as that was all that was necessary to give any defending army a huge amount of trouble. The worst part was that the undead would constantly attack without regards to day or night, twenty-four hours a day. Even the strongest human individuals needed to rest, while the undead didn¡¯t need to rest at all. Although most of the attacking undead would be low-level undead that were of little threat, there were often mid-level or even high-level undead hiding amongst them that could easily cause fatalities. A single slip of one¡¯s guard could result in an irretractable misstep.


    Even though humans could take turns and rest in shifts, they would still umte fatigue over time during battle. Nor was it so easy for human injuries to recover quickly. Once a battle started, medical supplies were always the quickest to run out no matter how much was stored beforehand.


    It was said that Nightrain City was already forced to use the dragon knights to deal with the undead¡¯s mostmon tactic, a sea of skeletons. Unfortunately for them, this was mostly ineffective. Even if dragon breath cleared out the battlefield in an instant, the undead would soon fill in the gaps with their numbers.


    The undead were slow and weak, but they were also endless. Perhaps if you fought them, it would be easy for you to defeat countless undead. However, you would lose all of yourpanions without even realizing it, and finally, once you reach the limits of your stamina or use up all your mana, you¡¯ll end up copsing amongst all the corpses. This was the exact same strategy that the undead had been using to conquer so many cities for centuries. Not only that, all the dead they slew in battle would rise up to be undead, typically increasing the Undead Cmity¡¯s numbers even more than before they attacked a city.


    The undead were incredibly patient and were still waiting to increase their forces even more. These battles were nothing but appetizers to them. Meanwhile, the adventurers to their east were beginning to attempt to get in the undead¡¯s way and keep them busy in order to decrease the pressure on Nightrain City. That was how this entire area became a battlefield.


    At this moment, while battles constantly raged on everywhere, the City Lord Davey personally weed two venerated guests to the city of Asolivis.


    These two guests both appeared to be handsome youths. One appeared slightly older, with long hair reaching his shoulders, while the younger one wore a red headscarf. However, both were ridiculously handsome to the point where they didn¡¯t even seem human. They had incredibly perfect muscles that seemed to be shining golden, while their blindingly blonde hair sparkled like the sun. Their sky-blue eyes seemed to have the gxy whirling within them, while they were able to walk in midair as if they were stepping on solid ground. They seemed just like heroes from legend.


    ¡°My respected Lord Hatley and Lord Yins, I thank you foring to greet us in the form of mortals¡¯ bodies. Otherwise, I doubt I would be able to find appropriately sized chairs for Milords.¡±


    The old ghoul had a hunched back and wore a ck cape while he used a walking staff to support himself. Davey appeared like an elder who might copse at any moment, but he wasn¡¯t nervous in front of these two guests at all¡ªtwo beings who were on par with the Gods. He even joked around with them.


    ¡°Ha, no need for such formalities. Since even the False Gods have the ability to send out incarnations to walk around in the mortal ne, how could we titan giants possibly remain stuck in mere stone statues?¡±


    ¡°...Little brat, we¡¯re not the patient type. Let¡¯s get directly to the point and talk about cooperating. You filthy undead, just when are you going to conquer the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital! Unseal us already!¡±


    ******


    I was now adventuring together with a small team. What a nostalgic feeling.


    In this incrediblyrge world, most powerful individuals had strength far surpassing that of ordinary soldiers. But apart from very few who possessed Golden Bloodlines or species that were naturally powerful, most individuals would have to increase their power levels gradually, step by step.


    Small teams would forever be the most basic and most important unit in this world, one that was focused on heroes saving the day. The ability for an adventurer to cooperate with their teammates would directly affect that adventurer¡¯s reputation. This was why there were also job sses like skill-focused thief and bard, despite the fact that they were useless in directbat. They focused on acting as a team¡¯s support.


    For difficult,rge-scale operations that required arge number of adventurers, some veteran and well-reputed adventurers would summon numerous smaller adventuring teams to work under them. Well, this would work for certain special asions, for short periods of time. However, don¡¯t count on the adventurers being as well organized or disciplined as a military army. Things would be alright as long as they were winning, but the moment things turned ugly, it would be difficult to guarantee an adventurer¡¯s loyalty to your cause.


    No matter how strong an adventurer was, they still wouldn¡¯t be useful if they were unreliable. This was why wheneverrge-scale military operations went down, normal adventuring teams could only help on the sidelines, acting as support.


    But sometimes, as long as you used them properly, adventuring teams had their advantages as well: they were far more skilled than even elite soldiers at small-scale battles.


    This time, the wood spirits were both using small elite teams and hiring arge number of adventuring teams in order to carry out arge-scale undead hunting operation. The adventuring teams would serve as both the hunters of the undead as well as bait to draw the undead¡¯s attention. Once the adventuring teams were attacked or perhaps even lost contact with the wood spirits, they would learn that the undead had arrived. The adventurers would also serve as the first obstacle in the undead¡¯s way.


    After all, once the wood spirits¡¯ n was fully set in motion, all the undead would likely be astonished. At that time, perhaps even the undead in Asolivis would swarm out to attack.


    And I, Rnd Mist, was currently in such a small adventuring team that was scheduled to carry out the task of hunting the undead.

 Chapter 327

    Chapter 327: Seeds


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°I¡¯m so stupid...¡±


    Random teams would never be reliable as their members wouldn¡¯t be well acquainted with each other¡ªand I was well aware of this fact. Problems would abound; the archer would be nearsighted, the priest would always be daydreaming the moment the battle would begin, thebat warrior would focus on raising his Intelligence stat and would put all his skill points into haggling and diplomacy, or the mage would forget her magic books and mana potions. Situations would twist and turn in ways one couldn¡¯t even begin to imagine as truth was forever stranger than fiction. There was no worst teammate¡ªan even worse one would alwayse along. This time, however, I had readily epted such an invitation from a random team only for convenience¡¯s sake.


    ¡°Hunt the undead? Why do I feel like it¡¯s the undead who are hunting us!?¡±


    I roared out furiously as I fled. Behind us was a massive troop of undead. When did this all begin? Since when were so many undead chasing after us?¡±


    Perhaps it was all because of this gigantic two-meter-plus tall barbarian next to me? Covering his face with a leafy branch, he proceeding to tiptoe while repeatedly muttering to himself, ¡°You can¡¯t see me, you can¡¯t see me...¡± Yet everyone was clearly able to see him, not to mention the excellent noses of the Blood Tribe. Just what was going through is mind when he attempted to ambush the undead, the undead with their expressions of ¡°Are you kidding me?¡±


    Perhaps it was all because of this little girl named Betty¡ªor should I call him a little rascal? Even after the hunt for the undead concluded and a huge wave of skeleton knights was rushing in our direction as their reinforcements, he still insisted on prying out every gold tooth of a dead lesser lich before finally agreeing to leave.


    Perhaps it was because of that dwarf archer auntie who shot a super long range mega cannon shot-like arrow that identally hit a cyclops as tall as a mountain?


    At any rate, my current situation was due to these garbage teammates of mine! As expected, the worst possible game is one where you have garbage teammates!


    ¡°Garbage teammates? Teammates who made you suffer? Did you already forget that it was you who insisted on obtaining undead ingredients right here so that you could cook some bone soup for everyone!? If it wasn¡¯t for you wasting time, we¡¯d have long been gone!¡±


    Harloys seemed to have a different opinion from me.


    ¡°Hmph. You simply don¡¯t understand. Bone elves are a very rare undead species. Making a soup with bone elf bones will be excellent for one¡¯s skin, and it¡¯ll even improve one¡¯s mana pool!¡±


    ¡°...You must be quite the skilled cook with how proud you¡¯re sounding right now.¡±


    ¡°Of course. When we were all adventuring back in the day, I was the cook for our team. After all, more than anything, a good cook is required on your team while going out on adventures. Otherwise, no matter if you¡¯re a Myth rank or a SemiGod, you¡¯re still going to go hungry when the timees. Well, even if you don¡¯t starve, eating what¡¯s avable can be quite disgusting if you don¡¯t know how to cook. Look at me for instance. I merely used two bags of spices for this bone soup, and not only have I neutralized the bone elves¡¯ natural toxicity, but there¡¯s not even a pungent smell. Harloys, didn¡¯t you even drink two bowls of my bone soup just now?¡±


    ¡°...Indeed, your bone soup was delicious. But why didn¡¯t you tell me first that it had the added side effect of being a sleeping potion! You caused us all to fall asleep until we were totally surrounded by the undead!¡±


    ¡°Ahaha, didn¡¯t I just happen to forget? Since it has the power to improve a person¡¯s mana, it¡¯ll help improve your ability to concentrate and meditate. Isn¡¯t meditation really simr to sleeping? It is only natural for it to end up with the side effect of putting people to sleep...¡±


    The silly cat kept ring at me with a look of dissatisfaction. Fine, I admit it, perhaps I had a slight, ever so small amount of responsibility for the undead horde chasing after us. But, at the very least, I didn¡¯t have all the responsibility! I wasn¡¯t even the main one responsible!


    ¡°Tsk, how unseemly for a man like you to be passing the me onto others.¡±


    I looked back to check and saw that all the slow undead species such as the low-level skeletons, zombies, and mummies were no longer there. The ones still able to follow us were skeleton knights and other such mid and high-level undead. I estimated their number at roughly forty to fifty, and if they sessfully caught up and stalled us, there were even more behind them. Our little team would never be able to handle that many. Yep, at least with the power level I was pretending to be at.


    ¡°Sheesh, I don¡¯t think I can deal with so many undead without getting serious. But if I get serious, wouldn¡¯t that reveal my true power... wait a moment, why do I need to avoid revealing my true power level here? Why do I need to run from the undead? There¡¯s absolutely no reason for me to be running here!¡±


    I suddenly had an epiphany. I had only intended to check out thebat situation and how the Contract Warrior adventurers were doing here. At most, I would secretly help out the wood spirits a little so that their nned operation would seed. I wasn¡¯t nning on doing anything like acting far weaker than my power level to fool some enemy, so why was I being so worried about hiding my real power level?


    And that was why I unhesitatingly turned around.


    ¡°For the Holy Light¡ª¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be rash!¡±


    ¡°As expected, Holy Knights like to get hotheaded at critical moments. It was right to keep an eye on him.¡±


    And so, before I could even unsheathe my sword, the dwarf archer auntie and the trap priest dragged me away and carried me while running...


    ¡°Hey ¡ªhey¡ªhey! I was going to kill them!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, you¡¯re amazing, we get it. I have a friend who¡¯s a Holy Light priestess. She told me that Holy Knights are forever fearless thanks to the Holy Light¡¯s guidance...¡±


    Although Betty was saying so, his expression seemed to be one of pity. It was as if he was looking at an unsalvageable fervent believer who wasn¡¯t right in the head.


    ¡°Cough, my alcohol barrel of a husband told me that Holy Knights have an illness where they love to sacrifice themselves the sake of everyone else. But you should at least sacrifice yourself at a worthy moment. You¡¯re so young; you shouldn¡¯t have such depressing thoughts at your age. I¡¯m already 136 years, so let me tell you, this world isn¡¯t actually that bad at all...¡±


    The dwarven auntie was far more direct. But why did it sound like she was trying to convince me to notmit suicide?


    ¡°I really can beat them! I wasn¡¯t intending to sacrifice myself, nor am I pushing my limits!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, we believe you.¡±


    Why did they all say that together in such an obviously fake fashion and send me looks of sympathy? I really did have the power to kill all those undead!


    ¡°Ahhhh! Let me go! I¡¯m not crazy! Let me go kill those undead...!¡±


    ******


    Deep in the mountains was a temporary mountain camp, with only some round logs piled up as a rudimentary fortification defensive wall. Tents were spread out everywhere. However, to those who underestimated the defensive prowess of this temporary base, the wood spirits¡¯ magical vines and trees hidden in the log walls would teach them a harsh lesson.


    This had originally been an important base for the adventurers. Normally, adventurer teams would only be permitted to enter here when theycked supplies or had injured among them. However, due to a certain special ¡°reason,¡± there were far more people here than anticipated.


    After being busy for an entire day... fine then, I should say running away for an entire day, our starving and fatigued adventuring team finally arrived here, earlier than scheduled.


    ¡°Look, it¡¯s them.¡±


    ¡°F***, we had to run away from the undead for three full hours because of them.¡±


    ¡°Ha, you guys are still fairly lucky. The Shield of Glory team just killed a high-level Abomination but didn¡¯t even have the time to obtain a part of its corpse for the proof of ying it before they had to flee because of the Wood Spirits are So Cute team. A high-level Abomination is worth almost 100 Justice Points!¡±


    Our Wood Spirits are So Cute team was now famous... After all, pulling an huge horde of undead after us while we ran through the entirebat area ended up creating a snowball effect of more and more undead chasing after us. This naturally made all our allies suffer together with us. They all wished that they had been born with an extra pair of feet to run with. Perhaps, in that scenario, you¡¯d be famous as well, famous for being a burden on the team, famous for being a professionally garbage teammate!


    Right now, no matter where we went, people were pointing at us and whispering, ¡°Those garbage teammates!¡±


    However, the other members of the team I was in ignored all the adventurers¡¯ condescension. It appeared as if they were already used to this. No wonder they had been unable to find another teammate.


    Betty smeared some sort of strange liquid on his face. It appeared to be some type of makeup. Ah Gen happily continued assembling his ¡°Stealth Equipment¡± set, adding more leaves and painting it... To be honest, although many thieves will indeed give camouge colors to their clothing, Ah Gen was only adding more leaves onto two tree branches... and he was even adding more ingredients right now, tying on two rotten heads of cabbage and a carrot. Wasn¡¯t this making him stand out even more than not doing anything at all!? Or was he intending on selling vegetables to the undead... Can I pretend to not know him?! I really don¡¯t know him!


    As for the dwarf little girl... she was only 136 years old, far younger than I expected, and not an auntie at all by dwarven standards. If 136 years old could be called an auntie, then what would that make me as I was more than 300 years old? A granddaddy?


    Cough, getting back to the main point, this young dwarf named Mary had all the typical dwarven habits. After downing just three sses of alcohol, she was already so happy that she had started dancing. Of course, a female dwarf¡¯s dance... when looking at it from a distance, it looked just like a dancing alcohol barrel!


    Judging by her other three teammates¡¯ attitudes of pretending that everyone else¡¯s watching-a-joke looks didn¡¯t exist, she did this quite often. This entire team had made so many others suffer before that they got used to ignoring others¡¯ condescension.


    As for the only rtively normal person in this team, the handsome gay elf bard Solonor, he was currently cheerfully making today¡¯s events into a tale he could sing in taverns as he strummed his harp. Of course, I understood that stories arising from real life were permitted to have artistic embellishments so that the story might be a bit different from what really happened. Making the main character more appealing was the job of every author. However...


    ¡°I can understand changing the skeleton mobs we defeated into a mob of corpse zombies, and changing a mere lesser lich into a SemiGod mummy can still be excused by saying you had poor eyesight, but being chased around for a single afternoon actually got changed into sessfully keeping an Undead Lord¡¯s entire army busy for three consecutive days and nights? After being pushed to the limits, we even killed off the Myth-ranked lich leading the army? And what¡¯s with rescuing a princess damsel in distress? This is too ridiculous, too shameless! None of this actually happened!¡±


    ¡°...Sir Rnd, you don¡¯t understand. In this day and age, all we seek is reputation. It¡¯s long past the era of telling true stories. We must do this in order to not starve to death. The more unreasonable the storyline¡¯s plot, the more people¡¯s attention it¡¯ll attract. The scarier the storyline, the more thrilling it will be, and all my listeners will reward me with more money. Even if everyone knows it¡¯s all made up, it¡¯s fine as long as they have their fun. Nobody will actually treat it like it¡¯s real. This is how the market works!¡±


    Alright then, I didn¡¯t know what to say at being lectured by a native of this world on how the market worked.


    I shook my head at the more and more ridiculous behavior of these teammates of mine and decided to instead focus on my own things.


    There was a gigantic ancient tree in the middle of the campground. Although it wasn¡¯t as tall as the skyscraper-level trees in the Forest of Dreams, it was at least several hundred years old. However, starting from two days ago when this base was established, the entire area around the tree had been cleared out.


    Arge number of treants and wood spirits were guarding this tree. While some adventurers tried to find out more about this area, all the ordinary adventurers were blocked off by the wood spirits. When people saw me walking here, a friendly adventurer called out to me in reminder.


    ¡°Don¡¯t go over there, the wood spirits won¡¯t allow anyone to pass...¡±


    Before he even finished speaking, I had already walked past into the wood spirits¡¯ forbidden zone. The wood spirits and treant guards seemingly didn¡¯t even notice me walking past.


    The adventurer who just called out to me proceeded to run over to try for himself. But before he even got close, a wall of thorns suddenly rose up from the ground, while the wood spirits red at him with expressions of vignce and distrust. The adventurer could only stop in his tracks and apologize for the intrusion before stepping back.


    The perceptive adventurers who witnessed this made a mental note to remember the physical appearance of the seemingly young youth who had just entered and hurriedly went to find out which adventuring team he was in. After all, the wood spirits had only made a single previous exception for a human, and he was the adventurer in charge of all other adventurers in this operation. Yet this unfamiliar young man had received equal treatment. Even though he didn¡¯t appear to be anyone special, perhaps he had a special connection to the wood spirits, which meant that it would be worth their time to investigate his identity.


    Of course, I didn¡¯t know about all these things as I had already walked into the treehouse at this ancient tree. Instead, I was surprised to see another human being here.


    This man had blonde hair that reached his shoulders, blue eyes, and white skin. His ck armor was glittering with the dim gold of adamantine, and his ck gloves were enchanted with powerful magic runes. His gem-encrusted longsword had such powerful mana waves emanating from it that I could sense the mana waves even before I entered the treehouse. While I didn¡¯t know this handsome man¡¯s power level, it was definite that he was incredibly rich. Every single piece of equipment on him was at minimum a Myth-rank equipment.


    Of course I would recognize such a rich individual. He was ¡°ck Guardian¡± Kaise Elowen, the leader of the super mercenary group ¡°Westwood Guardians¡±. He was also the ¡°overallmander¡± of the adventurers here. Of course, this was in name only as the wood spirits were the true leaders.


    I soon started disliking him. This was because...


    ¡°I feel we should punish that strangely named team that caused so much chaos today. Otherwise, if everyone is influenced by them and stops listening to orders, it will be much harder to organize anything in the future...¡±


    All three Virtues were currently in the main room of the treehouse. However, Samantha was the only one of the three who did any leadership-rted work. She coldly shook her head upon hearing Kaise¡¯s righteous words, but when she noticed that I arrived, she actually turned to look at me for once and even did her best to faintly smile.


    ¡°You¡¯re here.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. How are the seeds doing? Is everything well?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ve already begun sprouting. Their growth period should be over in two days. After that, we should be able to stimte them into the next phase at any time we wish.¡±


    Kaise had a look of incredible astonishment. He was equally surprised to see another human in the wood spirits¡¯ centralmand area. However, I had no intentions of talking to him.


    I walked up to the center of the room and saw that the tree hearts we were speaking of were beating slightly, just like a living creature¡¯s heart. Hidden within these tree hearts were tremendously strong life forces that were growing in strength. The moment these tree hearts finished their initial period of growth, they would start blooming explosively, as unstoppable as a volcanic eruption.


    There were seeds from the Forest of Dreams, as well as the hope of the wood spirits.


    Once these seeds finished their growth period, they would be able to grow into skyscraper trees right away at a new location, creating a new Forest of Dreams. The sleeping Amelia would also increase her territory.


    Although these seeds needed nourishment from the main Forest of Dreams, the forest¡¯s roots had long since reached this location ten days ago. This towering ancient tree had actually been hollowed out, and its true identity was now a member of the Forest of Dreams. Once these seeds finished their growth period, we would tear off the disguise and speedily establish a second Forest of Dreams here. This would also make Amelia stronger as she would obtain additional nourishment and territory.


    Obviously, the undead wouldn¡¯t like to see this happening. And for Amelia¡¯s dimensional will to be able to descend here, the forest would need to grow to a sufficient amount. This would require time. Just like a wildfire, it could only be put out at the very beginning. The undead weren¡¯t blind, and when a dimensional will expanded its territory, the entire area¡¯s naturalws would obviously be rewritten. This weakest time of all for a new territory would naturally make it into the undead¡¯s target.


    So, as long as trees started growing here, the undead would one hundred percent take some sort of action. There would definitely be a hard battle waiting ahead of us. And since we were going to have to battle either sooner orter, it would obviously be best to fight as early as possible, before even more high-level undead arrived. The wood spirits¡¯ judgment in taking action now was absolutely correct, and I, too, hoped for the Forest of Dreams to expand its territory. Increasing Amelia¡¯s power would help her wake up earlier.


    Since Samantha said the seeds were fine, I nodded and didn¡¯t ask any further. It was probably better to leave this up to the nt magic experts.


    ¡°May I ask who you are?¡±


    Instead, Kaise was the one who asked a question. He felt that the person before him looked quite familiar, but he couldn¡¯t recall this person¡¯s identity.


    ¡°You¡¯re asking who I am? You don¡¯t even recognize someone from the team you wanted to punish?¡±

 Chapter 328

    Chapter 328: Goddess of Wealth


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Gnomes could be found wherever there was money to be earned... or a Goddess of Wealth merchant association. Fine, there actually wasn¡¯t much difference between the two. At any rate, these two existences would almost always be present as long as there were gold coins to be had.


    The Goddess of Wealth, Beyana, was a Goddess who ruled over Wealth and Business. However, unlike most other churches, many of her priests were also merchants on the side. In fact, most of them had been merchants even before entering the church.


    Beyana favored sessful merchants who were able to make a lot of money. She particrly favored brand-new business models and markets and made that into the most important requirement for obtaining her divine favor. Any sessful business transactions would help expand her church¡¯s power and influence. Let¡¯s not mention the mostmon services like selling Holy Water or curative potions¡ªevery Wealth priest would have a bag filled with all sorts of general items for sale. In fact, Beyana even created a dimensional storage spell just for her believers¡¯ convenience so that they could carry around lots of items to sell to anyone at any time.


    However, unlike gnomes that always caused trouble for everyone, Wealth priests were widely weed. They weren¡¯t like the gnomes who only cared about their personal wealth. They often helped create wealth for others as well. More than anything, Beyana favored sessful new business markets and products, so the best Wealth priests didn¡¯t even care about how much material wealth they possessed. They would spend all of their wealth in order to ensure their businesses flourished.


    You¡¯re saying that this is a bit difficult to understand? Let me give you a ssic example. There was this incredibly remote area called the Icewind Valley, which was so cold that it would be frozen over for more than three hundred days per year. Only home to powerful ice beasts, such a frigid location meant that no crops would possibly survive. However, there was an incredibly delicious fish that was endemic to the frozenkes. Nobody would ever go traipsing to such a distant, frosty location which might take more than half a year just for eating some delicious fish.


    Yet, a Wealth priest just happened to discover that this particr fish had crystal-clear bones, just like real crystals. The few locals that lived in this remote location had the custom of crafting these fish bones into artisanal crafts, such as fishbonebs, which had their own unique smile. So this priest advertised the beautiful fishbonebs as having excellent effects on one¡¯s hair and spine if you used it tob every day, and did advertisements like inviting famous domain lords and so on to wear these crystal fishbone essories while attending important parties. Then, he increased the price even further by only selling the essories at auctions and forcefully seeded in making these fishbone essories that were originally considered dirt cheap and worthless by the locals into an incredibly rare and valuable product that was difficult to purchase with money alone.


    Merchant groups started sending their people to this remote location every year in order to obtain the fish¡¯s crystal bone products, which helped bring wealth and flourishment to the locals. Thus, a new business market was born. This originally ordinary Wealth priest named Fen also received Beyana¡¯s divine favor and became the head priest of Beyana¡¯srgest territory of loyal followers, the Oris District.


    Perhaps Wealth priests might not necessarily be rich themselves, but they would neverck money. Looking at it from another standpoint, the more people made transactions with each other and spent money, the more powerful Beyana¡¯s Divine Concept would be.


    To be honest, Beyana was also famous for loathing war. To her, a safe and uninterrupted market was quintessential. This was why all of Beyana¡¯s priests would actively work to prevent any wars from urring, unlike the priests working for the Gods with the Divine Concepts of War, gue, Violence, or ughter. Those Gods¡¯ priests would only go around everywhere and fan the mes.


    If war broke out everywhere, Gods with more ¡°literary¡± Divine Concepts such as Literature, Music, and so on would also be weakened. In fact, it was even possible for them to be so weak as to lose their Godhood. But, these Gods and their followers allcked the ability to take action, making Beyana one of the biggest advocates against war.


    However, during the previous Gods¡¯ promations, Beyana had actually joined Ayer¡¯s faction and ended up dering war together with the other Ayer Faction Gods. This astonished countless people.


    Yet the Goddess of Wealth stood to benefit more than almost any other God.


    Her Divine Concept of Business included the concept of ¡°Money.¡± Any currency guaranteed by some government or organization that could be used to exchange for goods or services counted under Money. And only after there was Money would additional Concepts such as ¡°Finance,¡± ¡°Futures Trading,¡± and ¡°Stock Market¡± be born. Only all this would further increase the power of her overall Concept of Wealth. To put it another way, if Gods really existed in my home world of Earth, where so many people cared about material wealth more than anything and businesses and economies were flourishing so well, the Goddess of Wealth would likely be the Main God who ruled over Earth, much like the God of Holy Light here in Eich. However, in this world, business transactions were only at the level of the most basic buying and selling or products and services. Beyana was merely a mid-ranked second-rate Goddess here.


    ¡°A currency that everyone used¡± was something super important to the Goddess of Wealth. This would only be possible after businesses expanded to a certain extent. However, it would almost be impossible to use only one unified currency in this world. After all, there was no such a thing as a country that would be eternal¡ªcountries were constantly warring against each other, destroying old countries and creating new countries and currencies. Rather than a currency, precious metals were what people trusted in the most to trade for whatever they wanted. However, precious metals were obviously inconvenient to carry. While some countries had indeed tried using paper money before, nobody ever dared to keep it. There were a few kingdoms that forcefully tried pushing their citizens to use paper money, but either only a small minority actually used paper money or the kingdom would eventually lose all its credit and go bankrupt, ending in disaster.


    Yet, ever since the Gods¡¯ promations, there was now an additional, brand-new currency in the world that was ¡°trustworthy and obtained purely as a result of your own hard work:¡± Justice Points. This seemed like just another ordinary currency, but Justice Points would actually be the very beginning of a creditable and universal currency. They were guaranteed by the True Gods, after all, and not any country¡¯s government. Without the True Gods¡¯ guarantee, Justice Points would be just as worthless as any paper money in this world, simply another ¡°currency with imaginary value.¡±


    The natural way things worked in this world would gradually change. Beyana, who had obtained additional power thanks to Justice Points, even invented several Justice Point-rted Divine Arts, helping her high-ranked Wealth priests be walking Justice Point exchange stores. This type of Divine Miracle in turn helped her to obtain even more believers as well as gratitude and fame. Of course, all of this helped her steadily increase in divine power.


    In fact, just the invention of the ¡°Justice Points exchange system¡± helped her concept of Wealth expand in influence and power.


    Of course, providing this type of service required the Wealth priest in question to directlymunicate with Beyana. This would be impossible unless the Wealth priest had enough divine favor and power so only her high-ranked Wealth priests were capable of acting as living Justice Point exchange stores.


    The moment I returned to the campground, I saw that a long line was waiting outside my team¡¯s tent. And the reason for the long line was that Betty was working as a Wealth priest, serving as a Justice Point exchange store for all these adventurers.


    A silver light glowed in his eyes, while his typical smile was reced with an emotionless iciness. There was a pitch-ck void-like dimensional storage portal right next to him, continually distorting the surrounding light.


    He merely listened to whatever it was that an adventurer wished to purchase using Justice Points before extracting the required Justice Points from the adventurer¡¯s Hero Armlet. He would then give the desired item to the adventurer by taking it from the dimensional storage portal. His speed was very quick, and he made zero mistakes.


    After seeing this situation, I knew that all my worries had been for nothing. Just Betty alone provided absolutely necessary services for all the adventurers here, so as long as he was present, the adventurers would never treat his team too badly.


    And so, I directly turned around and left, walking outside the campground by myself.


    From a certain standpoint, this was a bad habit of mine. Even if I had expert scouters with me, I still liked to personally see the situation for myself. Indeed, this was partly because I didn¡¯tpletely trust in others. Yet, this so-called bad habit of mine had already saved my life on numerous asions.


    But before I even left the campground, I met someone who looked a little familiar. His name was... was... what was it again?


    ¡°K... Kait?¡±


    ¡°My name is Kaise, Kaise Elowen.¡±


    At least it seemed like he was quite well mannered. His smile didn¡¯t even flicker when I wrongly called his name.


    ¡°Do you have any business with me?¡±


    ¡°I would like to chat with you if you¡¯re currently free.¡±


    It was obvious that Kaise wanted to find out more about me. However, I felt toozy to be ying such little games with him.


    ¡°I¡¯m busy. I¡¯m just about to go out on an investigation.¡±


    ¡°Perfect, I was intending to do the same thing as well. Why don¡¯t we go together? Come, ck Whirlwind!¡±


    Kaise activated the enchantment on his ck gloves as he said so. A sudden plume of dark smoke arose and a jet-ck gant horse walked out from the smoke. With red eyes and a bloodthirsty expression, it would tower over any normal warhorse by at least a head. The light that illuminated him would be strangely distorted.


    ¡°A Nightmare warhorse?¡±


    Nightmare warhorses were incredibly rare. They had bloodlines partly passed down from hell¡¯s Nightmare beasts and were far more durable and faster than any ordinary warhorse. They even had several magical racial talents. When they were galloping at high speed, their ability to distort light could even create several illusions, making enemies not know the real target. Their bloodthirsty natures helped them remain fearless in front of any enemy. The most convenient part of all was that they were part of the Nightmare bloodline, which meant they could be contracted and easily summoned at any time.


    ¡°Yes, my mercenary group coincidentally obtained ones during a previous task in Teresier. Wouldn¡¯t you agree that it¡¯s beautiful?¡±


    Kaise gently patted his Nightmare horse¡¯s head and intimately scratched its neck as he smiled at me. For some mysterious reason, I suddenly recalled a certain Saint-ranked Beast Tamer who had been forgotten who knows where but would probably jump out by himself sooner orter. At the very least, if only Beifeng was here, I wouldn¡¯t have to go out personally investigating.


    However, I had to reassess Kaise¡¯s power level upon seeing him summon his steed.


    For people in knight-type job sses, more than half of theirbat potential depended on the steed they possessed. Nightmare horses were excellent warhorses, and although they don¡¯t possess any overwhelmingly powerful abilities, their ability to create illusions was quite practical as it would cause most enemies to miss many attacks. This would improve Kaise¡¯sbat strength by more than thirty percent. The fact that Kaise, a magic knight, was able to obtain such a priceless steed also indicated at his power level.


    I almost wanted tough out loud. Kaise was obviously trying to show off his power level in order to impress me, but he was also trying to do it in a matter that wouldn¡¯t make him seem too condescending.


    ¡°Sure. You cane together with me if you¡¯re capable of keeping up. Erebe!¡±


    However, the strange part was that I waved my hand and nothing appeared. Nothing appeared when I attempted to summon her.


    ¡°Haha!¡±


    The magic knight Kaise was trying his best to conceal hisughter, which made me feel rather awkward. Still, I was rather confused. Although Erebe had recently been sleeping in my Frigidwinter Earth and saving her energy to continue evolving, she should have still been able to hear my summons.


    ¡°Hmph, you haven¡¯t let me out to y in such a long time. I bet you forgot about me.¡±


    Alright then, I had recently been staying in cities for the most part. There were indeed no good opportunities to let her out. No wonder she wasining.


    ¡°I apologize. I¡¯ll remember in the future to take you out on regr walks...¡±


    For some mysterious reason, I recalled how Ah Bao would throw little tantrums whenever I forgot to walk him for a long time. This felt really simr.


    ¡°Your promises arepletely unbelievable.¡±


    Isn¡¯t she forcing me to use my trump card against her now? Did she really think that I didn¡¯t know what she really wanted?


    ¡°Strawberry sherbet, banana sherbet, ten orders of each...¡±


    ¡°I want my fill every day for an entire month.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, ever since the ¡°invention¡± of fruit-vored sherbets, Frigid Nightmares now had a new fun hobby. Apart from enjoying the vor of fruit sherbets, what they really loved the most was how the fruit juice would dye their ice bodies. The feces-colored yellow or green Frigid Nightmares were truly hard on the eyes. And the most difficult thing to ept was that they even enjoyed changing their physical shapes to go along with their new colors, which wouldmonly result in a feces-colored Frigid Nightmare who was now also shaped like a gigantic pile of feces even taller than a house... Fine then, this was a truly ufortable topic. Let¡¯s not discuss it any longer.


    ¡°Alright, it¡¯s a deal. Hurry up ande out already. Just look at that young brat snickering at me over there. I¡¯m losing so much face.¡±


    The moment I finished speaking, I was flying up in the sky. Rather than being on a saddle, I was being clutched by a tremendous w.


    Above me was currently a tremendous creature that blocked out all the clouds, a crystal clear gigantic ice dragon. Although her physical appearance was somewhat simr to bone dragons, she appeared far more powerful and holier.


    ¡°An ice dragon transformation? Erebe, you¡¯ve evolved?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯ve merely recovered. Your Frigidwinter Earth is basically just like an Ice Elemental ne. I feel asfortable as if I¡¯m at home there.¡±


    ¡°Like your home? Like an Ice Elemental ne?¡±


    I faintly felt like I was perceiving something important, but now wasn¡¯t the time to think too deeply about this. Judging by the look of astonishment on the magic knight who was on the ground, staring at me as I left him behind, I probably needed to first work on the exnation I¡¯d have to give him upon returning.

 Chapter 329

    Chapter 329: The Living and the Undead


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    So you want to fight against the undead? Most people would find either a Holy Knight or a priest of Holy Light to assist them as they were, after all, mortal enemies with the undead. Many abilities and Divine Arts of these two job sses were directly anti-undead in nature, and their specialized undead detection Divine Arts would prove very helpful.


    ¡°No undead shall ever escape the judgement of the Holy Light!¡± The Holy Light job ss members were forever confident in this saying of theirs.


    Yet, in my opinion, their ability to detect the undead wasn¡¯t as great as it seemed on the surface. It worked behind the principle of Holy Light¡¯s natural undead magic resistance. They would release a minute amount of Holy Light into their surroundings and consequently hunt for instances of resistance.


    First of all, since the power of Holy Light was limited, it couldn¡¯t detect a significantlyrge radius. Even high-level Holy Knights would only be able to sense undead within a few kilometers of their position, so imagine low-level Holy Knights¡ªthey could only cover a radius equivalent to a house. And if they attempted to spot undead in a wide-open, t area, then nothing was stopping the undead from discerning them back. The worst part of this Divine Art was that its basic principles helped ensure that the undead would find you the same moment you discovered them.


    In fact, I knew of several old undead¡ªeach more than three hundred years old¡ªwith the ability to detect Holy Light job ss members, simply based on the density of Holy Light in the air: it worked the same way, but in reverse. Casually using undead detection magic in an area like this¡ªwhere there were so many undead¡ªwould be akin to suicide.


    The typical scouting job sses, the rangers and thieves, were no good at detecting the undead. Rangers relied on divine arts that detected the presence of life, which made it useless on the undead for obvious reasons. Meanwhile, undead mages had plenty of anti-detection magic spells at their disposal, which would give thieves a really hard time. Most undead would detect their enemies with the help of their souls, rendering useless the thieves¡¯ typical stealth techniques of concealing themselves under the cover of the night or shadows... Alright. By now, you must have realized the sheer ridiculousness of Ah Gen¡¯s actions¡ªhe had actually believed that his not-even-stealth skills could fool a Blood Tribe noble!


    However, just which job ss was the most suitable for dealing with the undead?


    First, this job ss needed plenty of ways to detect the undead. The next most important thing was that this job ss had to be able to survive whilst fighting against the undead¡ªif not, then it should at least have the ability to escape.


    In that case, the final conclusion was evident. The most suitable job ss to give the undead trouble was... undead mage!


    *Snap.*


    With a snap of my fingers I cast one of the most basic undead magic spells, Control Undead. The corpse zombies that had just been hunting me like a pack of wild dogs now had to heed my everymand. All that remained of their original boss was a pile of shattered bones.


    Once I eliminated the lich in charge ofmanding them, these low-level corpse zombies lost any semnce of order, no different from rabid dogs that would attack anything and everything in sight. All I had to do was imprint my soul upon them and they instantly became my puppets.


    I closed my eyes and mentally sensed for the presence of undead. Undead mages were far better at detected undeadpared to Holy Knights¡ªtheir natural talent allowed them to be far more effective anti-undead scouts. After all, without such an ability, how were undead mages supposed to find undead ingredients and corpses?


    ¡°There¡¯s a small undead team about three kilometers forward. The team leader seems to be a death knight.¡±


    I casually donned that unlucky lesser lich¡¯s ck cape after giving it a nice shake. It would seem that my prey were aplenty. I would be quite busy today...


    I covered myself in an aura of undeath and disguised myself, adjusting the appearance of my power level. The final result was a flickering image of me amid a ck mist. Any Holy Knight or undead mage who sensed me would think that I was a lesser lich who only recently became a high-level undead.


    As for why I wasn¡¯t disguising myself as a normal lich? I was here to hunt, not to be hunted. The weakest lich would be a Legend, and if such a lich manifested itself so close to the wood spirit and adventurer campgrounds, the wood spirits were certain to send arge force to eradicate it. And even though there were plenty of high-level undead under the Undead Lords, every lich would be a well-known powerful individual. Casually trying to disguise myself as some random lich made it highly likely that my disguise would be seen through. Nor could I use Rex¡¯s identity anymore, as he had long since been exposed.


    Alright, then. By now, perhaps you readers have guessed what I intended to do... yep, an old favorite of mine, Undead Cmity!


    ¡°Oh my, here¡¯s another small team led by a death knight. Where do you think you¡¯re running off to!¡±


    Since I was already here, how could I possibly be satisfied by merely doing some scouting? All these undead who were everywhere here were like free subordinates. Since I was soon going to have a big battle against the undead, why wouldn¡¯t I ept all these free soldiers? Perhaps I could even take advantage of disguising myself as an undead and obtain some information.


    Although it was fairlymon for there to be internal struggles between undead while they were back in the Undead nes, the Undead Lords were now in charge here. The undead with intelligence would no longer have any internal conflict. Still, infighting amongst low-level undead wouldn¡¯t attract much attention. But intentionally wiping out the undead or reorganizing them en masse would attract too much attention.


    ¡°Remember,e meet up with me when I order you to do so.¡±


    That was why I didn¡¯t actually have my new minions follow me. I merely had the highest-level undead stay behind with my soul imprint and had them remain where they were. It was only that they would now listen to my orders and would return to me when Imanded it.


    Of course, I would unhesitatingly ept any specially modified undead or powerful undead I see and exchange them for some low-level undead.


    It was simr to a wooden ship that would continuously exchange its parts as it sailed. By the end, it may appear the same physically, but would it still be the original ship if all its parts had been exchanged out? Well, I had no need to ponder on such a philosophical question. At the very least, the undead under mymand were rapidly bing stronger as they evolved under me as well.


    ¡°...The prey this time is quite troublesome.¡±


    The skeleton swordsman currently fighting against my undead had a faint green light on its bone swords. It appeared that its swords were poisonous. Not only that, its bones were a dull yellow, which indicated that it had apparently been strengthened by the earth element. It was apparent that this was a strengthened undead, but, judging from itsck of emotions, it wasn¡¯t an intelligent undead.


    The corpse zombies under mymand were far too low-level. The skeleton swordsman easily sliced through them before rushing towards me. Meanwhile, behind the skeleton warrior was a skeleton mage who wore a ck cape identical to the one I pilfered. He was currently casting buff spells on his undead.


    ¡°A skeleton mage who¡¯s an expert in undead modification? This skeleton¡¯s bones have been earth elementalized, its bone sword has been enchanted with magic poison, and it¡¯s been at minimum strengthened twice over. Not bad at all. Although it¡¯s obviously the best choice to directly attack the enemy mage in a duel...¡±


    The skeleton was now right before me, the flickering shadow of its burning soulfire in its eye sockets right in my eyes. It was so close I could even catch a whiff of decaying stench. Yet, my reaction was to shake my head and take a single step forward.


    ¡°It¡¯s so foolish of you to have charged right towards me.¡±


    With a simple piercing movement, I unsheathed my sword and stabbed straight through the skeleton warrior¡¯s rib cage, into its backbone. I then twirled my sword around, breaking the skeleton¡¯s bones apart.


    Undead mages had an unparalleled understanding about a skeleton¡¯s weaknesses. For these high-level skeleton warriors, they wouldn¡¯t feel pain at all. Even if you smashed in a skeleton warrior¡¯s skull, it would still be perfectly fine and continue attacking you. Even if you sliced off its right hand, its left hand would still pierce straight at you. However, their greatest weakness would always be where their bones were connected. As long as you destroyed the skeleton¡¯s spine, it wouldn¡¯t even be able to stand up anymore.


    The rest was simpler. This skeleton mage was smart and immediately surrendered after seeing that his greatest weapon didn¡¯t evenst a single of my blows. He directly told me his task here and even signed the strictest soul contract with me.


    And so, I tookmand over his skeleton warrior, fixed it up again, and made it into one of my personal guards. Then, I left some of the most seriously injured corpse zombies to the undead skeleton mage to fix for me. I left him there with his bitter expression.


    This was only one such example of what I did today. By the time the sun started setting, ten-plus undead scouting and logistics teams had be my underlings. With all these new servants, I had eyes and ears over the entire Wendes Mountains the wood spirits¡¯ campground was located in.


    There was something strange as well.


    ¡°How weird. Why am I not feeling ufortable?¡±


    Controlling undead had a cost associated to it. In order to have low-level undead who were naturally bloodthirsty obey an undead mage¡¯s orders, the undead mage would have to mark their soul imprints upon the undead. The more precise control you wanted over the undead, the more intricate a soul imprint was required, which also meant more of a cost for the undead mage. And, to control high-level undead, who would instinctively resist you, a long-term investment of both mana and concentration was required.


    My mana level was currently the equivalent of any other Gold-ranked knight. This mana level was also roughly equivalent to the average mana of a high-level undead. With my mana pool, I would be exhausted by trying to control two high-level undead, which was why I instead signed soul contracts with them, the type where I could kill them any time I wanted, and if I died, they would die together with me. This would motivate them to work hard for me of their own volition without me having to control their every action.


    Most undead armies worked the same way. Even an Undead Emperor would find it impossible to personally control each and every undead under hismand, which was whyrge numbers of mid and high-levelmanders would be necessary. The high-level undeadmanders would establish master-subordinate rtionships or sign soul contracts with the mid-level ones, while the mid-levelmanders would be directly responsible for controlling the undead.


    Well, that was only the best theoretical way to organize an undead army, of course. Since mid-levelmanders were rare, most undead armies simply used the pressure that high-level undead naturally emanated in order to force the lower-level undead to instinctively rush and attack. All the low-level undead basically acted on their own... Yep, perhaps this sounds familiar to you? It¡¯s the legendary AI-controlled fighting: it¡¯s just fighting with minions you can¡¯t control. Just have them attack. If you win, celebrate, and if you lose, you lose.


    Of course, there were also utterly opposite existences, such as Omar. Not only was he capable of personally controlling every single undead under hismand, he would even be powered up by them rather than expending concentration and mana. Thispletely broke themon sense of undead mages.


    Based on my current mana that was only at a Gold rank¡¯s level, modifying the more than three hundred undead in these elite squadrons should have been quite difficult for me. To my surprise, I was still in good mental condition as if I still had plenty of energy left over to control even more undead. In fact, it did feel like I could control double this number without a problem.


    ¡°...Something seems odd here. Could it be that my body¡¯s bloodline has a bonus for me when using undead magic? But my Will stat hasn¡¯t changed a bit.¡±


    That was the only conclusion I coulde to as I looked at my personal undead magic Soul Imprint.


    Concentration was an ability attached to one¡¯s soul. In the System¡¯s stats, the only number rted to one¡¯s soul was Will. Will was also the stat that changed the least throughout all of my reincarnations. Although it would slightly improve each time, I would also lose 1 point of Will for each death¡ªit basically remained the same.


    Will was the most crucial stat for those in divine job sses. Only a resolute enough Will would allow formunication with the Gods. It would permit them to ept divine favor and divine power without bing overloaded. As for mages, Will was only useful against illusion type magics as Will helped strengthen one¡¯s soul and resolution.


    Perhaps a higher Will would also slightly increase one¡¯s mana recovery rate, but nobody in normal circumstances would test that out by expending all of their mana. And perhaps a higher Will also allowed undead mages to simultaneously control more undead, but it was likely that the benefits were so miniscule that even undead mages themselves didn¡¯t know about it.


    ¡°System?¡±


    If I didn¡¯t know, I just had to ask. How was I supposed to progress without understanding my own body?


    My bloodline counted as part of the Mountain Tribe royalty, and in a way, I was closely rted to Ayer¡¯s species as well as the immemorial great demons. As they were the earliest users of undead magic, they were indeed quite talented at it as well.


    [Congrattions for discovering your own hidden racial talent: Whispers of Immemorial Demons. This ability gives you a natural affinity to undead magic, contract magic, and curse magic, and you will not suffer any forms of bacsh from these magic types. System Notification: This ability is a hidden passive ability of your bloodline. Its specific effects are currently unanalyzable. You will not know about any hidden racial talents until you discover them yourself.]


    After obtaining this body, I had hardly had any time to research undead magic, which apparently meant I missed out on researching my own bloodline as well.


    ¡°It can even surpass the titans¡¯ arbiter bloodline. Since my bloodline was a Double Diamond bloodline¡ªsimr to the immemorial dragons and titan giants¡ªthe secrets hidden within must be far greater than I had imagined. It would seem that I¡¯ve overlooked a lot.¡±


    In order for me to break through to the Legend rank, I would need to fix my three other Soul Imprints, and that would take a significant amount of time. Perhaps it¡¯d be more efficient of me to use my time to focus on discovering my body¡¯s potential instead. This new body of mine felt to me like it was bursting with undeveloped potential now that a growth period of two years had passed.


    ¡°At any rate, I have plenty of willpower left over. Should I try creating something? For example, that lich Rex who had the ability to use both undead magic and ice magic. I just so happen to have many experimental ingredients on hand...¡±


    My gaze was filled with nefarious intentions as it swept over my new subordinates. Suddenly, however, a raspy soul voice sounded in my ears¡ªit belonged to that skeleton mage minion of mine.


    ¡°Ma¡ªma¡ªmaster, a human just gave me a letter and told me to give it to the undead higherups. From the item he showed me to prove his identity, he¡¯s working for us, the undead!¡±


    ¡°A spy?¡±


    Before I could even be astonished, a familiar figure appeared behind me. He started inching towards me, lifting up his branches that had rotten cabbages and a carrot tied to it. And behind arge rock not far away were those garbage teammates of mine that specialized in making people angry. They were pushing each other, apparently engrossed in a heated discussion.


    ¡°Go already! Aren¡¯t you a priest? Hurry and cleanse that lesser lich!¡±


    ¡°...Cleansing the undead is for those Holy Light priests. I¡¯m a Goddess of Wealth priest, someone who specializes in making money. You¡¯re asking the wrong person! How about you go first?¡±


    ¡°While I may be quite a skilled adventurer, I just took an arrow to the knee three minutes ago...¡±


    A simple magic spell brought their conversation to me with the wind. Meanwhile, the ¡°stealthy¡± barbarian nonbat thief was slowly but resolutely approaching me at a snail¡¯s pace, one centimeter at a time...


    ¡°No, just look! All these undead around here are high-level undead. This guy is no typical undead as he can control so many irregr high-level undead at once. He might actually be a lich!¡±


    Someone finally pointed out the important part, but that wasn¡¯t the actual problem from the very beginning. None of them were pure novices, so of course they would recognize their opponent. However, powerful opponents meant extravagant rewards so they continued to try to convince each other to go out first and attract the enemy¡¯s attention and firepower... Normally, this would be the job of a Holy Knight or some other warrior, but without me this team was made up of only backrow fighters.


    I was about to stop listening in on them, unable to stand it anymore, when Betty suddenly eximed in surprise.


    ¡°Damn it, where¡¯s Ah Gen?¡±


    ¡°The hell?! He¡¯s already over there! Don¡¯t! Hurry ande back!¡±


    Ah Gen¡¯s distant teammates tried their very best to sign and gesture to the rash barbarian that he should return... so Ah Gen responded in a soft voice:


    ¡°Rx, this guy is sleeping!¡±


    Alright. Where should I even begin my response to that? That he believed that undead actually needed to sleep? Or his ¡°soft voice¡± that shook the entire forest? Even I was startled at how ear-piercing his rumbling voice was. But, more importantly, I was doing my utmost to hold in myughter; otherwise, this would be even more difficult of a situation to deal with.


    Let¡¯s see¡ªit¡¯s been some time. Let me recall what I should say in such a situation...


    ¡°You living people! Since you have dared to enter our territory, you must be prepared to pay the toll... with your souls!¡±

 Chapter 330

    Chapter 330: Spy


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The battle with the ¡°Wood Spirits Are So Cute¡± team ended in five minutes, and four additional ¡°elite undead¡± were added to my undead army...


    Don¡¯t misunderstand! I didn¡¯t kill them¡ªthere was no need to.


    I simply told them that I was undertaking a special mission for the wood spirits, that I had disguised myself as an undead mage in order to obtain intelligence... and they all actually believed me!


    Yep, they believed me immediately and without any hesitation. They even tried to extort me, saying, ¡°You must be getting paid so many Justice Points for this. As a righteous Holy Knight, you absolutely can¡¯t hoard the payment to yourself! We should all share with each other and do this mission together!¡± Sure, I replied, why not. And they joined me in order to receive some Justice Points for very little work done.


    ¡°This rotten meat is disgusting.¡±


    The barbarian Ah Gen was now a revolting Abomination with pink pieces of meat stuck over his body, all thanks to my intentional costume makeup.


    He was covered in rotting bones and rotting flesh. Not to mention, he was an Abomination so poor that he didn¡¯t even have pants on his pudgy bottom half. His intestines trailed along the ground, his chin was crooked, and blood dripped from his mouth as he trudged forward¡ªtruly the perfect Abomination!


    ¡°Actually, with my job ss, I should be disguised as an elegant member of the Blood Tribe! Under the cover of night, I shall walk across rooftops and sh between shadows to steal away the lives of my sworn enemies, the thief guild assassins.¡±


    ¡°Elegant? Also, why does this rooftop battling promation of yours sound so familiar? Could it be that you¡¯ve read the legendary book known as ¡®Assassin¡¯?¡±


    ¡°Yep, reading that book back in the day is exactly the reason I became a thief!¡±


    The more he nodded, the more I felt that I had shot myself in the foot yet again. I hesitated, wondering if I should tell him that it was I who had written ¡°Assassin¡± back in the day to make some money. It was a story filled with wish fulfillment, a harem protagonist, and had plenty of logical errors. However, it had be mysteriously popr as it was a fun read. But anyone that truly tried to imitate the main character¡¯s lifestyle while bing a thief would probably die more than one hundred times a year if they had that many lives to spend.


    But looking at his huge smile and honest demeanor, I could only exim how he must be as tough as a cockroach because he had yet to die. I also came to the conclusion that it would be best not to ruin his worldview. Yep, it definitely wasn¡¯t because I felt it would be quite troublesome if he went crazy, furious at having his dreams shattered or anything like that.


    ¡°So, his dream is to be a high-flying thief amongst the rooftops?¡±


    Judging by the barbarian Ah Gen¡¯s weight and bulk, if he truly tried leaping across the rooftops like the main character of that novel, the main thing to take into consideration would no longer be stealth, but how sturdy the rooftop was... Just think about it: what if you were ¡°having fun¡± in the middle of the night when something tremendousnded on your home¡¯s rooftop with a thunderous p... Yep, I¡¯ve definitely never tried something like that, nor have I ever gotten stuck in someone¡¯s ceiling!


    Just imagining this big lout ¡°also¡± getting stuck in some home¡¯s ceiling made me feel like it would be a great scene to witness! Perhaps I should even have him try it out, together with a red and white robe and a fake white beard. And if someone finds him, he could even say, ¡°Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! I¡¯m Santa us and I only give gifts to obedient children. What? It¡¯s summer? I apologize for getting lost. Those damned goblinpasses are so unreliable, and my dumb unicorns didn¡¯t even remind me! I actually flew to the wrong half of the world!¡±


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI seem to have gotten carried away with my imagination. Let¡¯s get back to the main topic. Ah Gen was making use of my personal and thorough ¡°disgusting undead¡± fashion essories package, perfect for any powerful warrior. Not only would it attract aggro, it would also be quite practical. Those hulking rotting muscles and bulging eyeballs would even help increase one¡¯s Charisma towards banshees.


    ¡°...Rnd, we need to have a little chat. I think you have some misunderstandings about banshees.¡±


    Alright then, it seemed I identally said something bad about banshees in front of a banshee herself. Just thinking about how this former Banshee Queen was getting more and more used to the three mostmon actions of cats, meowing, licking, and purring cutely... actually, I meant the three actions of the cat family¡ªjumping at me, biting me, and whipping me with her tail¡ªI was seriously considering how I should exin things to her.


    Cough, I seem to have gotten sidetracked again. Let¡¯s get back on track this time¡ªI promise.


    With my undead fashion essories disguising them, the Wood Spirits are so Cute team¡ªyep¡ªthis recently established team for worshipping wood spirit cuties was now horrendously ugly.


    As I mentioned previously, Ah Gen was wearing an Abomination costume. The priest Betty was wearing a cape that summoned shadows, which helped him pretend to be an undead shadow priest, while the handsome elf bard turned into an equally handsome Blood Tribe member who had some blood poured on him as a disguise. The heroic and stout dwarven auntie... was still an incredibly stout dwarven auntie!


    This wasn¡¯t my fault forcking talent in applying undead makeup. I truly couldn¡¯t think of how to disguise someone like her, with a barrel-shaped figure, a weight of several hundred kilograms and a height less than 1.4 meters into an undead who only had bones and rotting flesh. And if she was disguised as an Abomination? Only an idiot of an undead mage would make such a tiny Abomination.


    ¡°Blood Tribe? Any real Blood Tribe member would cry if they saw a fellow member with such a body figure.¡±


    Of course, I finally found a method in the end: I put a monstrous cover on her to disguise her as a rather overweight corpse zombie. Although she still had the special barrel-shaped figure of a dwarf, any other undead mage that saw her would likely misconstrue her as a dwarf zombie who had some problems when transferring to be an undead.


    Of course, the prerequisite for this... was that Mary the dwarf would be willing to let go of her own alcohol barrel! What corpse zombie would carry such arge alcohol barrel on their back¡ªand even secretly take a few chugs from time to time?


    However, I knew that convincing her to let go of her ¡°baggage¡± was nigh impossible. There was amon saying in thend of Eich: ¡°Trying to make a dwarf let go of their alcohol is just as impossible as making an elf let go of their pride and artistry.¡±


    ¡°How pitiful... These ¡®character skins¡¯ of mine are of excellent quality. They¡¯re definitely not a cash grab by some money hungrypany, and I¡¯m not even charging them any money. They don¡¯t know how good they have it. Hmph, I¡¯m going to have to catch myself one of those no-good merchants and make them suffer. All they do is draw a hat and some random essories on the face and treat it as a brand-new character skin to be sold? They¡¯re not as moral as I am.¡±


    ¡°Stopining so much; you¡¯re lucky enough they¡¯re willing to help you for free.¡±¡ªHarloys.


    Alright then. Although these terrible teammates of mine didn¡¯t really seem that strong, at least I didn¡¯t need to focus on controlling them. I supposed that they technically did count as somebat strength. Of course, due to certain reasons, I kept a slight distance from them.


    ¡°A spy? The undead are capable of nting a spy among the living!?¡±


    I told them the information I just received, which caused them all to be truly astonished. In the minds of most normal people¡ªeven most adventurers¡ªthe undead were no different to wild beasts incapable ofmunication. Undead typically attacked anything living they saw. How could such existences possibly nt a spy amongst the living? Let me reword it a bit better: what could a spy working for the undead possibly hope to gain?


    Of course, the fact that most adventurers had such views meant that most adventurers were still novices. The Xiluo Empire had plenty of spies within the human kingdoms. For nobles that had both power and wealth, their greatest enemy would be death. Yet, asking a noble to cultivate in order to lengthen their lifespan was no different from killing them. In that case, the ceremony to be an undead was probably the easiest method for a noble to be ¡°undying.¡±


    Even if a noble was dissatisfied with bing an ugly undead, there would always be the elegant Blood Tribe as a possible choice. And if the noble in question still wanted to walk under the sun, there were plenty of evil rituals that sacrificed others¡¯ lives and blood that could satisfy their desires.


    Not only would corrupt nobles end up bing spies for the undead, there would also be veteran adventurers that lost everything due to an injury, those reaching the end of their lifespans who hadn¡¯t cultivated to a powerful enough level, or magical geniuses who were naturally skilled at dark or undead magic. All such people would receive plenty by allying with the undead.


    Not only was the Xiluo Empire like this, Yongye was also the same back in the day. Living people would automaticallye joining of their own volition. There would be powerful individuals that were experts in dark magic, curses, or other such taboo magics. There were also utter idiots who felt it would be ¡°quite cool to join up with the viinous antagonists.¡± As for the former type, I would quite happily add them to my cannon fodder troops. They would prove their worth and strength if they survived, and I¡¯d give them what they wanted in an equivalent exchange. As for the idiot type, I would also add them to my cannon fodder troops. It was just that I would turn them into undead first... and those that practiced taboo magic would still keep their taboo magic even as a corpse zombie. At the very least, it would give my enemies some difficulties.


    I hesitated for a moment when faced with their astonishment as I thought about what to tell them.


    ¡°What they can obtain? Probably far more than you can imagine, such as strength or limitless lifespan and so on. As long as you¡¯re willing to pay a price, bing undead is a far quicker path to power than slow cultivation. In just about every story out there, as long as you don¡¯t care about the consequences, those on the path of evil always have methods to be powerful far faster than those who stay on the path of good.¡±


    I didn¡¯t say anything else to these teammates of mine that seemed to be taking in my words. Reality was forever cruel. Rather than having them naively believe that all adventurers were theirpanions and on the side of the living, I might as well give them this free ¡°lesson¡± so that they could be prepared for any betrayals beforehand.


    Soon, I learned the information that I had been wanting from my new undead mage servant, whose name was Kug.


    ¡°A short person wearing a cape, who had a dark green snake-shaped dagger and an aura of darkness about him? His left foot seems to be injured as he walks with a limp?¡±


    I nced questioningly towards my ¡°teammates¡±. After all, I had only recently returned to the Forest of Dreams. Rather than a neer like me, they should have been more familiar with the adventurers here.


    Yet, some of them looked at the sky, while others made a show of inspecting their weapons. Not a single one of them was able to tell me who this person might be. Obviously, none of them were reliable at all. Perhaps they weren¡¯t even interested in other adventurers and never attempted to gather information on others.


    I helplessly shook my head and epted the letter that Kug handed me. From a certain standpoint, this was truly ironic. The undead ced a spy amongst the living, yet the spy managed to give such important information to a spy ced amongst the undead by the living.


    The yellow letter was quite light. It appeared to be a normal letter simply sealed by some red wax which could easily be torn off. Yet, judging from the faint mana pulses the wax seal was emitting, there was a tinymon defensive spell ced upon it. If the letter opener didn¡¯t know the correct way to open this letter and casually opened the letter as he pleased, it would self-destruct and inform the person who ced the defensive spell on the letter.


    Yet it was all meaningless in front of me.


    I lightly tapped and sealed the wax seal in a tiny block of ice which possessed the power of eternal hibernation with absolute zero. This tiny little magical defense would forever be frozen in time.


    I tore open the letter but saw nothing other than a bunch of numbers. It would appear that this was a number code, something quitemon among spies. Obviously, this was meant to be read only by someone with the solution to the number code. Although I could probably figure the code out by spending some time, and faintly recalled that I had learned before how to solve such codes...


    ¡°I remember that you always failed your code-breaking and basic math sses.¡±


    Yep, even back when I was studying at the Cloud Tower, I couldn¡¯t escape from annoying sses such as math and engineering together with the elemental magic and foundational magic sses.


    But... what was with those so-called ¡°basic math¡± sses!? Basic math sses here actually involved calculus and solid geometry? Didn¡¯t they know that in my first life, I chose the Law major just because I hated studying higher-level math!?


    ¡°...As aw student, I hate math! I hate it even more that there¡¯s higher-level math even in another world!¡±


    Still, although I was a delinquent student who always failed or barely passed his sses, I had now achieved the dream of all my fellow students.


    ¡°Teacher Harloys, it¡¯s all up to you! You¡¯re the only one I can rely on.¡±


    ¡°...You only think of me at such a time.¡±


    Yep, even though my basics weren¡¯t adequate, I was carrying a grandpa¡ªer¡ªa grandma cat who was currently jumping at me in protest... I had a teacher with me!


    ¡°...The wood spirits are nning to expand... the Forest of Dreams¡¯ territory, which is expected... expected to ur on the second Sunday in May, which is three days from now...¡±


    Harloys¡¯ decoding got better and better as she steadily improved her speed. It was obvious that she had cracked the code. Yet, the more I heard, the more worried I became. The spy had learned a truly high-level secret. It was apparent that the spy was a very high-ranking adventurer.


    But precisely because of the cruel reality staring at me, I had an idea. Perhaps I could use the spy to my advantage!

 Chapter 331

    Chapter 331: Points Owed


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Justice Points? As a reward for you? You need Justice Points?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t sit on such important information, so I left behind those terrible teammates of mine and rushed straight back to the wood spirits¡¯ campground atop Erebe. However, the astonishment on Samantha¡¯s face after I spoke to her was quite obviously real. Perhaps, in her mind, she had never considered the fact that I, too, would need Justice Points.


    ¡°It¡¯s all because of those garbage teammates¡ªthey kept attempting to find out how many Justice Points my mission was worth and how many they could receive. If I don¡¯t give them a satisfactory amount, they¡¯ll end up annoying me to death. Also...¡±


    ¡°Also?¡±


    ¡°I really do need Justice Points for myself.¡±


    Indeed, why shouldn¡¯t I earn Justice Points as well? In fact, I trulycked Justice Points.


    I had used a modern-day Earth management system and separated my Justice Point ount books into one for personal use and one for official use. Yet at the moment both ounts were quitecking in Justice Points.


    Despite the fact that Thorn Garden was doing great business in the Cloud Tower, the archmages were all hermits with barely any Justice Points. Most of them were still paying me in gold coin. The products we were selling¡ªwhich could only be bought with Justice Points¡ªwere sold to them on a debt system...


    What does it mean to sell to them on a debt system? To be direct, it just meant they owed us Justice Points. Archmages at the Legend rank or higher typically had good reputations for not having outstanding debts for too long. As long as I sent them out and made them work for Justice Points, I would achieve my main goal¡ªto stop the Cloud Tower from hiding away as hermits and rallying the archmages to toil for my cause.


    Of course, I had confidence in my ability to collect the money I was owed. In this day and age, the debtors would be more vicious than the creditors. It was no joke to say that the person who owed money was the ¡°granddaddy.¡± Still, if you borrowed a high-interest loan from some underworld power, you would probably want to return the debt as quickly as possible. And in the eyes of masses, I was arguably the most evil power out there in mage society... even though there were quite a few archmages in front of me on the Cmity Rankings! This was discrimination!


    Fine then, I admit that I charged a thirty percent interest rate and, against those archmages who never intended to pay me back, that I employed some methods that could never see the light of day¡ªto scare the rest into submission, of course. Wasn¡¯t this just me using my trademark methods to force them to work hard and pay me the Justice Points they owed me? This was my way of expressing my passion towards mages!


    Unfortunately, the mages didn¡¯t understand my way of thinking at all; instead, my reputation became even stranger. Anyhow, I did want to exchange for some items to improve my future personal treasury¡ªwere there really true saints in the world that had no selfish desires whatsoever?


    Perhaps my thirty percent interest rate would bring me great profits in the future, but for now my ¡°official¡± Justice Points ount book was empty save for a bunch of IOU slips, truly deep in the red. My Great Industrial Party also needed a great quantity of precious experimental ingredients and historical secrets and knowledge, so I needed a huge amount of official Justice Points.


    As for Justice Points for my personal use¡ªpoints I could freely spend to improve my power level¡ªI had nil.


    Why nothing? Because I hadn¡¯t had the chance to earn any Justice Points. The core Justice Points calction system had been established only after the Gods¡¯ promations. Back then, I was too busy fighting with the undead to get one of those Hero Armlets which could calcte Justice Points. So I didn¡¯t even get a single Justice Point after fighting all of those undead.


    After that, I was at the Cloud Tower messing around with this and that, which naturally didn¡¯t have anything to do with obtaining Justice Points, a currency awarded forbat achievements. Yet despite all of this, I was filled with expectation and excitement about the Justice Points exchange list.


    I fancied the sword techniques of an immemorial generation¡¯s Sword Saint. There were also research records that belonged to the first-generation undead and immemorial demons avable for exchange, and even Ayer¡¯s secret personal undead collection could be chosen. Records on the powers of Order and Holy Light and immemorial Gods were not few, too. All of this knowledge was true, priceless treasure, not to mention they had to do with all my various fields of expertise. What? You¡¯re asking why I didn¡¯t mention any top-level ice magic knowledge? Well, even if I exchanged for some top-level ice magic knowledge, I doubted I would understand it. And if I really needed it, the Frigid Nightmares in the snow mountain and Harloys were excellent teachers to begin with. At the very least, they were more than enough for my current needs.


    As for swordsmanship, undead research, and the powers of Order and Law, I was already quite skilled, but finding high-level teachers in this field was no easy task. I was already at quite an elevated level myself, so what I required was top-level knowledge that would help me make new breakthroughs.


    ¡°It¡¯s said that Sword Saints from the immemorial generation don¡¯t actually valueplex sword techniques. Instead, they preferred to kill their enemies using simple, basic techniques¡ªthe basic characteristics of these were that they were coarse, yet powerful. However, it¡¯s a great pity that practically none of their sword techniques havested until today. My sword techniques are self-taught for the most part, so perhaps I can greatly benefit from obtaining their sword techniques.¡±


    ¡°The current undead are of three major species: zombies, souls, and skeletons. Yet I¡¯ve heard that every single undead was their own unique species during the immemorial generation. The undead back then were supposedly capable of changing their own physical structures. They had normal physical reactions and needs, just like the living¡ªthey even had the power to reproduce. They even had a limitless potential for growth. I¡¯d really like to dissect¡ªI mean, see one for myself.¡±


    ¡°Just how did the God of Holy Light be so powerful to begin with? Where did this Holy Light, with the power of Order to cleanse distortions, originate from? If I could obtain firsthand information on this topic, not only will my power of Law greatly improve, but it¡¯s also highly likely I can use it to my advantage against the Church of Holy Light.¡±


    I¡¯d always had such regrets within me. And even the slightly cheaper items, such as the God Equipment and magical secrets that would motivate even Myth ranks and SemiGods toe work for me, were items that I naturally desired as well. Unfortunately, my wallet was empty, and I could only look.


    Why wasn¡¯t I trying to think of some method to cheat and obtain them? Obviously because that¡¯s absolutely impossible! Indeed, since Justice Points were administered by the Ayer faction¡¯s True Gods, I could try using Wumianzhe to give myself some Justice Points. However, the moment I would try to do such a thing, I would probably lose more than anyone else.


    Because if I truly did do so, it was highly likely that the God of Law and Contracts, Wumianzhe, would immediately perish!


    Simr to how the Goddess of Wealth Beyana would obtain power through people conducting business and obtaining wealth, every exchange of Justice Points would help Wumianzhe obtain more power through his Divine Concept of Contracts. Each and every absolutely fair contract would be equivalent to more faith and believers for him. But, with power came responsibility, and with gains were losses as well.


    In this Justice Point system, Wumianzhe was also the Concepts of Justice and Equivalent Exchange. And if Wumianzhe, the representation of Justice, began to secretly take funds for himself, Justice would be nothing more than a joke¡ªit could cause his very Divine Concept to break down. Not only would the Justice Points exchange system break down, Wumianzhe would have to bear all the consequences and would definitely be the first to perish.


    Perhaps Wumianzhe who was simply an automated divine entity had no such personal desires, but I, who was connected in soul to Wumianzhe, was definitely selfish. And if my selfish desires were judged to be equal to his selfish desires by the world¡¯s naturalws, all of our effort up until now would be wasted. Perhaps it would even cause several of the True Gods that helped establish the Justice Points system to die together with Wumianzhe.


    Maybe I could have done something before the Justice Points exchange system was established, but now, there was no other method apart from earning my Justice Points fair and square. I didn¡¯t even dare to think about cheating, nor did I dare to tread the boundaries like I did in other things. The only person I¡¯d never be able to fool would be myself. If any problems urred with the Justice Points system, there would be destructive consequences.


    And that was how even though I was the one who created Justice Points, in the end, I had to obey my own Justice Points system and think of ways to legitimately earn Justice Points. Not only that, I had to be on guard for any loopholes and deal with anyone who tried to abuse the system, aiding Wumianzhe in bing even more just as he stayed in the heavens. Only this would help Wumianzhe gain strength and power.


    ¡°Ayer, man, why didn¡¯t you give me some bonus Justice Points before you started the system?¡±


    ¡°Heh heh, you didn¡¯t mention anything! How were we supposed to remember? We thought you wanted to work for your living.¡±


    Alright then, it was all my fault. I even considered using my personal System to exchange for the items on the Justice Points exchange list, but anything that was essentially creating something from nothing would be astronomically priced. It would probably be cheaper to just exchange for what I wanted using Justice Points.


    ¡°An illusion master Sword Saint¡¯s illusionary sword techniques cost 30,000 Justice Points to exchange for, and it¡¯s only a copy of the original book. But you can make as many copies of this book as you want! This is daylight robbery!¡±


    ¡°...Do you really think you can rob such a book that quickly? Knowledgees with a price. Besides, Wumianzhe was the one who priced all these items, not me. Why don¡¯t you try discussing it with him?¡±


    Indeed, since books on magical knowledge andbat techniques were easy to copy, their prices were far cheaper than items like God Equipment. However, for truly powerful individuals, these immemorial sword techniques and magic spells lost to time wouldn¡¯t be any weaker than God Equipment.


    In order to sell these books for a better price, people who purchased them were required to sign a magical contract that forbade them from distributing what they learned to anybody else. They could, however, pay a surcharge of extra Justice Points and buy the right to teach a couple others. But wait, there¡¯s more! Top-level books had a limited stock; for instance, an illusion sword technique which had the ability to materialize solid illusions could only be purchased ten times before it would run out... Why did I feel like these methods to scam money seemed so familiar?


    ¡°Yep, this was Wumianzhe¡¯s idea as well. Using his knowledge and memories, he came to the conclusion that ¡®Even if it¡¯s a rock, as long as you call it limited-edition and say ¡®firste first-serve,¡¯ making people feel like they¡¯ll regret missing the opportunity as it won¡¯t be around any longer in the future, it¡¯ll be quite easy to sell something for a high price.¡¯¡±


    As expected, these were the same methods that I learned from those devious, conniving merchants back on Earth. Was this yet another roundabout way of how I shot myself in the foot?


    ¡°...Then if you sell all ten of these illusionary sword technique books, you¡¯re really not going to sell them anymore?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. Apart from motivating people to work for our cause through all these tangible benefits, another goal of ours is to increase the overallbat strength of average people in this world. It would conflict with our goal if we stopped selling limited-edition books entirely.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that be going back on our word? That would cause the True Gods to lose a destructive amount of faith and believers!¡±


    ¡°No, we just won¡¯t sell them directly. We can create a ¡®Mystery Technique Loot Box¡¯ and charge only 15,000 instead of the usual 30,000 Justice Points to randomly get a top-level sword technique or magic spell. And if they draw a book that they¡¯re unable to personally use, well, thanks for buying... Wait a moment, what¡¯s the matter? Why are you kneeling on the ground and clutching your face?¡±


    ¡°Never tell anyone that this idea came from me! Everyone will want to kill me!¡±


    Apart from firste first-serve, limited-edition technique books, my incarnation, Wumianzhe, had actually managed to use the idea of random loot boxes, this supremely wicked pitfall that could anger even the Gods. I was already anticipating what would happen when people started learning about the random loot boxes after the first batch of limited-edition technique books were sold out. It was highly likely that whoever came up with this idea would be the entire mortal enemy of humanity. Perhaps it would even cause Wumianzhe to even gain new Divine Concepts of ¡®Cheating¡¯ and ¡®Making People Suffer.¡¯


    Only those who truly tried it would understand the pain, anger, and despair of being sucked dry of blood by all those random loot boxes. All I knew was, ¡°It¡¯s the 17th time already, and all I received was yet another demon¡¯s smiling mask. Is there really the golden Myth-ranked set equipment that I want in here!?¡± Those anguished wails would be filled with oh so much agony. Only those like me who simrly suffered would understand what it felt like for the truly fortunate to casually draw whatever it was that they wanted from the random loot boxes so easily, which made me so angry that I would want to crash my head into a wall.


    ¡°Um... I think that we should add an additional patch to this. If you draw a random book that you don¡¯t like, you can exchange it at no cost for something of equivalent value with someone else who¡¯s also dissatisfied with their draw. Of course, limit this exchange to one time only.¡±


    I did my very best toe up with the above idea in order to not be humanity¡¯s mortal enemy. Allowing a single-time equivalent exchange with another dissatisfied person was quite a rare act of generosity for me. Still, there were far too many techniques and magic spell books avable, so even with this exchange, it would be quite difficult for two people to just happen to have books that each other wanted. That was why I was now absolutely determined to purchase the limited-edition books I wanted before they ran out of stock, before this damned random loot box system came online.


    ¡°Hey, I discovered that there¡¯s an undead spy in our campground. Doesn¡¯t this count as a contribution? Under the rules of equivalent exchange, shouldn¡¯t this earn me at least 1,000 Justice Points?¡±


    I felt that Samantha would give me an answer I wanted to hear.


    ¡°Indeed, this is a great help to us as it will negatively impact the undead. I can reward you with 154 to 210 Justice Points, ording to the Hero¡¯s Armlet¡¯s calctions. Even with my authority, I can only award you a maximum of 210 Justice Points.¡±


    ¡°Who came up with this Justice Points calction system! How terrible! 210 Justice Points? I still have to give half to those garbage teammates of mine, so I¡¯ll only have about 100 from doing all this. How long is it going to take me to get 30,000 Justice Points for the first item I wanted?¡±


    ¡°Every Hero¡¯s Armlet is a divine creation from the Gods. I doubt that anything can be done even if youin directly to them. Besides, do you still remember your n W report? You were the one who wrote ¡®Make the cheapest items really cheap, so that lots of people will start participating, especially the youngsters. Meanwhile, make the best items really expensive, and also make it hard to earn Justice Points. This will force all the hermits out there to toil their utmost to earn Justice Points, and it¡¯ll be greatly beneficial for all of us.¡¯¡±


    Harloys was the one who answered myint this time. She seemed to be quite dissatisfied with the fact that I didn¡¯t give her a Hero¡¯s Armlet and that I wouldn¡¯t agree to exchange for any of the items that she wanted... She wanted only the best, highest-tier items avable¡ªhow was I supposed to afford them!?


    ¡°Ha, was there such a thing? I already forgot.¡±


    Alright then. I pretended to be a fool as cold sweat dripped down my back. Just how many times had I shot myself in the foot, and that too today? As expected...


    ¡°...You¡¯re thinking, ¡®As expected, I should consider my future actions carefully; otherwise, I¡¯ll identally shoot myself in the foot yet again,¡¯ aren¡¯t you? Rx, I can already see your future. Things will get much better for you...¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re going to remind me to not shoot myself in the foot in the future?¡±


    ¡°No, it would be quite strange if you listened to me as you¡¯d never change how skilled you are at shooting yourself in the foot. What I mean is that you¡¯re going to get used to shooting yourself in the foot to the extent that you won¡¯t even care about it anymore.¡±


    And so, just as I was about to begin fighting my pet cat for the umpteenth time, Samantha interrupted our ¡°friendlymunication.¡±


    ¡°Although I can only give you 210 Justice Points, Father, you only need to carry out the next part of the task ¡®Find and catch the spy.¡¯ That will reward you with far more Justice Points.¡±

 Chapter 332

    Chapter 332: Holy Points and Famous Detective Rnd


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Since Justice Points were now an important currency, the wood spirits quickly learned to use it to make the adventurers do their bidding. The wood spirits sold their special fruits that could permanently increase one¡¯s base stats at incredibly high prices and issued various quests that paid out in Justice Points. This made the ¡°greedy¡± adventurers eagerly work for the wood spirits.


    At first, perhaps there were a few quests or items that paid out or were priced in an unbnced manner, but I believed in the self-correcting power of the market. As long as there was a sufficient amount of Justice Point exchanges, things would bnce themselves in the end, just like my original world¡¯s international markets... and if the Justice Points exchange system didn¡¯t bnce itself and ended up going bankrupt, then it wouldn¡¯t be my fault!


    By the time the market was flourishing enough to bnce itself out, Ayer¡¯s faction that had the sole power to ¡°create Justice Points¡± might even be like the United States of America, using petroleum and U.S. dors to indirectly control the entire world. That would depend on our morals, however. Of course, the prerequisite for everything was that the Ayer faction needed to have sufficient power to protect our Justice Points system. Enemies andpetitors were many.


    Actually, not long ago, a newpetitor arrived for our Justice Points: the Holy Church¡¯s new ¡°Holy Points.¡±


    Perhaps the automated God of Holy Light calcted that it wouldn¡¯t be a good idea to allow Justice Points to continue developing, or maybe it was an idea that came from his Follower Gods. Anyhow, the Church of Holy Light came out with a Holy Points system that imitated ours, awarding Holy Points for participating in the Holy War. However, they were in far too much of a rush to establish their system, which meant that there were ring problems with their Holy Points. For the time being, it wouldn¡¯t be much of a threat.


    The Church of Holy Lightcked the ¡°Hero¡¯s Armlets¡± crafted personally by the Smithing God Benny, there was no guarantee of fairness by the God of Contracts, and how many Holy Points one earned depended solely on the proof that adventurers provided and what they imed to have done. Not to mention, those awarding the Holy Points were the priests of the Holy Light, which meant that points received could be altered based on personal greed, judgment, and morality. There would be huge inconsistencies in both obtaining and paying Holy Points. It was simply just another way of hiring mercenaries.


    The most obvious difference was that the Holy Church viewed this as a way to encourage more people to join the faith of the Holy Light. What one could exchange for were mostly items like cultivation manuals left by Holy Light job ss members or ultra-pure Holy Water and so on. And even those that became ¡°Holy Light Warriors¡± were mostly only the Holy Church¡¯s members or close allies to begin with.


    Although this didn¡¯t seem like it was an issue, it was repeating the problems of the past. These rewards would only help those who were close to the Holy Church and wouldn¡¯t motivate anyone not already a fervent believer in the Holy Light. The Holy Church didn¡¯t understand the true goal of our Justice Points: to make everyone stronger, in a way that anyone could participate, finally creating the equivalent of a game yer army.


    Of course, it was possible the True Gods in the Holy Light faction had realized all these problems. However, since it was up to the Holy Church to administer their new Holy Points system, they did so with an attitude of ¡°benefits should be kept to one¡¯s own people.¡± Of course, maybe even Pope Caloma and the other leaders of the Holy Church knew the problems with their own system as well, but the people responsible for the basic administration of Holy Points were at a much lower level and had outdated ways of thinking such as, ¡°How can we possibly give these treasures to outsiders?¡± or ¡°Those evil heretical items need to be eternally sealed away in our vault of forbidden items.¡± There was even the idea that ¡°How can we possibly keep people loyal to us with temporary hire contracts? It needs to be a contract for life.¡± In the end, their Holy Point warriors simply became a new type of Holy Knight made up of some Holy Light-believing adventurers and mercenaries. Yet while the Holy Church seeded in keeping out the unfaithful, they lost the most important trait: it needed to be essible to everyone.


    ¡°Hmph, how foolish. With how they¡¯re running things, it¡¯spletely unfair and imbnced. No matter how much they invest into their Holy Points system, it¡¯ll only benefit the few who believe in the Holy Light in the end.¡±


    Since the Holy Church had far too many believers, they probably wouldn¡¯t even end up noticing the problems with their system for quite a while toe. The number of people joining up as Holy Light Warriors would be equal in number to our Contract Heroes due to therge number of Holy Light branches scattered throughout Eich. Yet, our system was destined to be much bigger than theirs; it would leave them in the dust.


    After all, no matter what they did, they were merely acting to improve their own faction¡¯s strength, while we were borrowing strength from the entire world. Their own faction¡¯s strength would be limited, while the entire world¡¯s strength was limitless.


    What we now needed to do was properly manage our Justice Points system, which would automatically help all of us out. We definitely couldn¡¯t treat this Justice Points system as a tool to be used. Once the Justice Points system finally had enough of the overall market share, it would mean we had finally be influential enough in the world. That was why we were so willing to invest so much into this Justice Points system. Yet the Holy Church was being stingy as always as they were afraid of wasting their resources or giving them to their enemies.


    The game¡¯s ¡°history¡± had already proved that being stingy was foolish to the extreme. Once Armageddon arrived, the True Gods finally brought out their treasures and equipped their believers, but it was already far toote.


    ¡°The most important resource in this world are humans. Most people actually have potential but simply never received a chance to take the first step. As long as the base poption is high enough, there will be plenty of geniuses and entric talents among them. This isn¡¯t something that will happen overnight, but we have plenty of patience.¡±


    On this topic, I saw further into the future than even the True Gods. As long as enough people participated, there would naturally be heroes and geniuses that rose up amongst the Contract Warriors. A very long and difficult era of darkness would soon be upon us¡ªthis era was destined to give birth to many heroes. And what we needed to do was make Justice Points into something that all these heroes used and trusted in.


    Once these heroes believed that the Justice Points system also represented the concept of ¡°justice,¡± our Ayer Faction would have the greatest amount of influence possible. Our strength would be unparalleled.


    In just a few days, I was nning to make an announcement that ¡°Holy Light Warriors¡± were also free to sign up as Contract Warriors. Although this was technically providing resources to our enemies, it was also a way to hire people out from under them. I would just have to wait and see if the Holy Church would be willing to allow their own Holy Light Warriors to simultaneously work for us. A refusal would likely causeints within their ranks as everyone would want a chance to exchange for what they wanted.


    Of course, not everyone was that stupid, so perhaps there were those within the Holy Church who also noticed the problems with their system. Still, judging by their current policies, such voices would be the minority. And when the higher-ups in the Church of Holy Light finally noticed the problems, it would be toote for them to fix things.


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI seem to have gone off topic. Let¡¯s get back to what¡¯s on hand.


    There were disadvantages to what we were doing as well. With our low requirements¡ªanyone could join¡ªit was indeed difficult to ensure loyalty to our cause. Especially at the very start¡ªthere would be all sorts of people joining with nefarious intentions, so spies and so on would be verymon. If we added a function to our Justice Points system that could keep constant surveince, we wouldn¡¯t be much different to the Church of Holy Light, even if that would help us to ensure their loyalty.


    But as long as we found any spies or traitors, we simply needed to protect the Justice Points system and judge them fairly ording to thew by using Law job ss members to do the job. Not only would these spies and traitors forever lose their identities as Contract Warriors, there would even be a ¡°pleasant surprise¡± waiting for them.


    In normal situations, would it be easy to find a spy?


    Of course not. If someone casually pointed at another person without sufficient evidence, not only would this put the spy on high alert, it was quite easy for conflicts to arise as long as the spy refused to admit anything. This would negatively influence the frail rtionship of trust that the wood spirits had finally managed to establish with the adventurers.


    But who was I? I was the legal expert who created the Concept of Law in this world. I was the Judge... Famous Detective Rnd!


    ¡°Rnd¡¯s Fingerprint Lifting Spell.¡±


    A casual wave of my hand caused a silver light to shine on the letter and envelope, lifting the fingerprints and clearly marking them on a nk piece of paper. They would most likely belong to the letter writer, the high-ranked adventurer spy. Apart from my fingerprints on the envelope, the only other fingerprints would naturally belong to the letter writer and the letter deliverer.


    From the fact that there were two distinct sets of fingerprints, it was evident the letter writer hadpanions. The writer and deliverer must have been different people.


    ¡°Then let¡¯s investigate the recent medical records and see if there¡¯s a thief around here that was recently injured. If not, start investigating from the snake-shaped dagger and dark job sses. Investigate everything thoroughly... there¡¯s no need to worship me, I¡¯m a professional!¡±


    I proudly waved ¡®no¡¯ to Samantha when I saw that she wanted to speak. I was quite confident in my abilities when it came to solving and investigating cases. No matter if it was detective work or identifying the culprit, I was more than three hundred years ahead of the time!


    Finally, Samantha shook her head and didn¡¯t say anything. However, Jill was unable to bear things any longer.


    ¡°Idiot Father, what Big Sister Samantha wanted to say was that we already received news that there was only a single ck-caped thief who went outside by himselfst night. Not to mention, he just happens to match the exact description of the spy. Have you forgotten that we have the ability to watch everything that happens around us, twenty-four seven, through the magical vines?¡±


    Alright then, so these two Virtues already knew who the spy was. It must have been that they wanted to be filial for once and find an excuse to give me some Justice Points.


    ¡°Well, even so, it¡¯s thanks to your fingerprints that we have tangible evidence. As we wish to remain neutral in the eyes of the adventurers, I hope that you can be the one to stand up and do the usations.¡±


    ¡°Of course. There¡¯s this line that I¡¯ve been wanting to say for so long.¡±


    ¡°Line?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s only one truth! You¡¯re the murderer!¡±


    I was already making a pose of pointing at an imaginary murderer. Unfortunately, the wood spirits were looking at me with nk expressions. The most pitiful thing in life was to make references that nobody understood ormented on.


    [What murderer are you even talking about! Nobody directly died because of this spy! Are you the legendary elementary school student who¡¯s a God of Death? Just how ancient is this reference anyways? It¡¯s so outdated. System Notification: Commenting service, just for you. 5 Justice Points deducted from you as payment.]


    ¡°Hah, you actually provide such a service!? Wait a moment, you¡¯re taking Justice Points from me, not Fate Points? Why do you even need Justice Points?!¡±


    [I have beauty products I want to exchange for as well. Did you really think that I wouldn¡¯t be able to exchange for items with other systems? Hmph, this is racial discrimination! No, this is system discrimination! You actually dare to discriminate against your System? Would you like to challenge an ultimate Quest with failure being punished to death?]


    ¡°Haha, what would a System like you need beauty products for? Aren¡¯t you forcing me toment back at you?! Let it be known that I shall also charge a fee for mymenting services!¡±


    ¡°¡®Poison Dagger¡¯ Fain, Silver-ranked thief, the fourth squadron¡¯s team leader of the Wind of Kass adventuring group. Possesses the Elite tier weapon, ¡®Snake¡¯s Curse¡¯ poisoned dagger. Skilled at stealth and assassination. No famous aplishments or crimes known. However, it¡¯s said that Fain is quite fond of gambling despite having poor luck and that he owes a lot of money.¡±


    I received a report on the identity of the letter deliverer. However, I didn¡¯t rush to capture him.


    In this spy incident, the most important person wasn¡¯t Fain, the letter deliverer, but rather the letter writer.


    It didn¡¯t seem like much of a difference? Actually, there was a huge difference. Based on my past experience in trying cases in my first life on earth, it was incredibly difficult to find any evidence on the wrongdoings of devious criminal masterminds. Such criminal masterminds were highly skilled at hiding their involvement and only ordered other subordinates to do the dirty work for them. The lower-ranked subordinates would often make mistakes and get caught, but they might not even know the purpose of their mission as they were only working under orders. Perhaps they would deliver a letter, or a verbal message, or draw a strange shape on a wall, or order a strange meal at a particr restaurant.


    In fact, this letter deliverer might just be some bait scattered by the real culprit. The moment this letter deliverer was captured, the real culprit would immediately erase all evidence of any connections and deal with any middlemen by eliminating potential leads that might expose their identity, before vanishing without a trace.


    That Fain¡¯s love for gambling made him an easy target to take advantage of. As long as the culprit was willing to pay off his gambling debts, or perhaps the culprit was his debtor to begin with, it would be quite easy to have Fain work for them.


    So directly capturing Fain in this situation would be unreasonable. We had to start by keeping watch over his every action, investigating everyone he came into contact with, and then consider capturing him after fully making our preparations...


    ¡°Someone reported that Fain is the spy! We now know who the spy is!¡±


    Rosa happily came in to inform us that she discovered the spy¡¯s identity, but she suddenly took arge step backwards when she saw my expression. My expression must have been quite distorted and scary.


    ¡°...How can this be! Being reported so easily? What do we even need famous detectives for, then?! Can¡¯t we all just y by the rules and take things slowly? What happened to the criminal mastermind culprit and the sly hoodlums? This is far too second-rate. Can¡¯t we all just have fun ying together?¡±


    ¡°Pfft, famous detective? You¡¯re more like a confused detective.¡±


    Alright then, I soon received the report about this as well. The person who reported Fain was also someone familiar to me: the leader of the super mercenary group Westwood Guardians, ¡°ck Guardian¡± Kaise Elowen¡¯s... subordinate¡¯s subordinate.


    ¡°I¡¯m Min, a Bronze-ranked thief. Our boss sent out a squad of thieves to patrol around the area, and I noticed that guy acting suspicious and going out by himself. So I followed and witnessed him secretly meeting with the undead. Then, we beat him up and he confessed everything. It turned out that he owed money, so a ck-d man threatened him and forced him to carry a letter to be delivered to the undead. That ck-d man was captured as well. He¡¯s a Bronze-ranked undead mage named Dean.¡±


    ¡°Impossible, I swear in the name of my grandfather [1] that he¡¯s definitely not the true culprit! Someone else must have pushed this Dean out to take the me! The most obvious murderer is never the real murderer¡ªthat¡¯s how all detective stories go!¡±


    ¡°Haha, why don¡¯t you just admit defeat, confused detective Rnd?¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Kindaichi reference.

 Chapter 333

    Chapter 333: The Forest¡¯s Challenge


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Only fifty Justice Points? Sigh, what a pity.¡±


    Because a certain mercenary group had volunteered their assistance, I ended up earning only 50 Justice Points in this ¡°finding a spy¡± incident since I had provided the fingerprints.


    And it wasn¡¯t only that. Those two ¡°culprits¡± were adamant that they were guilty. They profusely confessed; Fain insisted that he had been allured by the prospect of having his gambling debts paid off, while Dean imed that he had been mysteriously enved by a lich. Their repeated confessions made it so that no evidence needed to be brought out against them¡ªthey had imed all responsibility.


    I had not hesitated to use a forbidden spell to retrieve their memories. Granted, this forbidden spell had the side effect of wiping their brains nk for a few weeks, but even after using it I obtained nothing useful. That weak Bronze-ranked undead mage named Dean had indeed been under the control of an undead magic forbidden spell. He had indeed be enved by some existence, although there was no confirmation that it was a lich who had cast the spell.


    And no matter what he said, the fingerprints also proved that Dean was the one who had written that letter. Still, I felt something off with the situation. The low-ranked Dean was unable to exin how he had obtained this high-level information. His only excuse was that he had heard it from the rumors.


    ¡°Rumors? Indeed, there are so many rumors out there. There¡¯s even a rumor that the God of Nature is about to personally descend¡ªdo you believe that as well?¡±


    But now, there were no more clues to go on. After all, no serious consequences hade about of this information leak as I had intercepted the letter. In the end, I could only punish these two by removing their statuses as Contract Heroes. The rest I could do was be even more vignt than before.


    I was still feeling quite suspicious about all of this. Sometimes, the memories extracted from the living might not even be real. This was all the more so because my opponents were the undead, who possessed undead magic spells that had the ability to modify a living person¡¯s memories and knowledge.


    ¡°Increase our threat level in the campgrounds. Have magical nts spy on all essential locations, and also ce surveince on the following individuals...¡±


    And so, even if I didn¡¯t say anything about it on the surface, I secretly made many preparations and was highly on guard.


    Two days wasn¡¯t a particrly long or short period of time. But on the battlefield, where every second was precious, it was very valuable.


    Maybe the spies really were those two low-ranked brats? Or maybe the true culprit temporarily stopped their activities in order to avoid suspicion? During the next two days, there were no signs of information being leaked to the undead. Nor did anyone else seem to attempt to deliver letters to the undead... I had now converted every single undead in this entire nearby area into my subordinate. Unless the spy had some even more secure method, I would definitely intercept any and all messages. But if the spy had a more secure method in the first ce, they wouldn¡¯t have had to rely on sending a letter the first time.


    The fact that no Undead Lord seemed to send a massive army over was a tentative testament to the fact that the undead hadn¡¯t noticed anything amiss in the past two days. This was doubtlessly good news for us.


    Around midnight, at the end of the second day, a magical spell array shed brilliantly in the night sky. This was an emergency summoning message for all the adventurers to gather. By this point, there was no more meaning in hiding our intentions. Since we would be eventually discovered anyways, it was far more meaningful to gather all ourbat strength and face the uing battle head-on.


    But when the adventurers, who had been out hunting all this time, returned to the campground, they felt that they had gotten lost and had taken a wrong turn somewhere. What greeted their eyes was a campground utterly unlike before.


    In fairy tales, spirits were capable of constructing a small house within a single night, while in this world, it was the elves who had the ability to utilize the forest to erect a solid defense. But the wood spirits far outssed the elves in this area. With Amelia¡¯s power presiding over them, they were able to rewrite the rules of reality¡ªas long as they were within Amelia¡¯s domain, of course.


    The old tree in the center of the campground had shed its disguise. Its withered tree bark had been discarded to the winds, reced by a gigantic root that reached out from the ground.


    This ugly and colossal root was an extension of thergest and strongest tree in the entire Forest of Dreams, and it had secretly spread underneath the entire campground. Now, countless specks of green light emerged from this expansive foundation, bing more spirited than ever as they fed the nts here with plentiful nourishment.


    In the past two days, the wood spirits had crafted small wooden shovels from the root and used them to dig a hole¡ªthe hole had a radius of ten meters and a depth of one meter. They then buried two stones in this hole, an essential step in their ritual to worship the earth.


    What followed was the wood spirits nting the seeds from the Forest of Dreams in this area, before praying for ten seconds, sincerely thanking their Mother for her gifts. Rainwater stored in various containers was poured on the seeds, a way of thanking the blessings of nature and paying respect to its authority. And that was the conclusion of their ritual. The abundant nourishment of nature turned these tiny seeds into giant treants and dangerous magical nts in just three minutes.


    ¡°You make it all seem soplicated. Weren¡¯t you just digging a hole, nting some seeds, and watering the seeds? ...Why is it three minutes? I just recalled instant ramen. Are these supposed to be instant seeds?¡±


    Samantha pretended not to hear myments, but a mysterious red blush appeared on her cheeks. Rosa, however, was more than happy to tell me.


    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re right. Actually, we don¡¯t even need a ritual¡ªall we need to do is nt the seeds and water them. Mother herself hatesplicated rituals and she¡¯ll never be stingy with us. However, Sister Samantha said that that was no good because it would cause others to look down on us, so she wanted to make a moreplex ritual that appeared meaningful.¡±


    Alright then, I supposed that making it harder on themselves was how many new religions would get started. In the end, they would add more and more formal procedures to attempt at seeming proper, making even their own believers annoyed in the end.


    ¡°Little Samantha, as time goes on, this ritual will change in ways you can¡¯t imagine as it passes through the generations. In the end, even you won¡¯t recognize it, and if you attempt to remove part of the ritual to simplify it, your believers won¡¯t have it. It may even cause a religious war. You¡¯re just causing trouble for yourself... digging a pitfall for yourself to jump into!¡±


    Samantha nodded with a pained expression. She¡¯d already noticed the problems as well. The issue was that she had already publicized the steps of this ritual, and changing it now wouldn¡¯t be that easy.


    Cough, I should stop talking about the future, where even Amelia was frustrated by her own religion¡¯s ceremonies. At any rate, the newly-born campground was currently undergoing aplete evolution.


    The power of the Forest of Dreams was significantly reduced after being transmitted over such a long distance through a single tree¡¯s roots. Approximately only ten or twenty percent of its power managed to make it here. Still, the Forest of Dreams had almost limitless power to begin with, and it wouldn¡¯t make the Forest of Dreams lose anything, so we could definitely afford it. The riskiest part was actually that the underground root might have been decimated by the power, but that part had already passed us by. The root was now thick and powerful enough that even destroying it would be difficult.


    That¡¯s why, with the assistance of the endless power of nature, all sorts of war trees and magical nts grew at a furious pace. That originally makeshift wooden fence expanded more than ten times in size into a solid castle wall that was several tens of meters tall. New roots spread out from the original root and were absorbing nutrition from the earth. Compared to a solid castle wall, a wall like this, one which would be capable of repairing itself, would probably cause a person to despair even more.


    The towering war trees might be grandiose and imposing, but their eyes were nk. Their overly short growth period andck of sufficient care from Amelia caused them to be born prematurely with shorter lifespans. Yet, in exchange for intelligence and potential, these trees were born at the peak of theirbat strength and retained theirbat instincts. Under themand of the wood spirits, the war trees would be fearless and unyielding.


    If those war trees were said to be the best guards, then the magical nts were all intricately designed war machines. Enormous peashooters¡ªapproximately three or four meters tall¡ªwere positioned on the walls at regr intervals. Their mouths alone were half a meter in radius, and if you stepped near one you would be able to perceive the faint sounds of prayer...


    ¡°Praise the Holy Light!¡± ¡°The radiance of the Holy Light shall cleanse all evil!¡±¡±In the name of the Holy Light, virtuous fire shall extinguish all evil!¡±


    Yep, these Holy Light peashooters were all praying to the Holy Light. Their roots and ammunition were already filled with the Holy Light. My experiments had long since proved that even demons were capable of using the power of Holy Light, so nts could obviously use Holy Light as well. The only side effect was that any Holy Knight or Holy Light priests who witness this worldview-toppling sight would probably go into shock.


    It was a great pity that nobody was arguing about religion any longer, likely due to that Nortnds incident with the Holy Church. Otherwise, I could have tried using these research results of mine to p the Holy Church in the face a couple more times. It might even be possible to cause more to lose faith in the Holy Light and harm the Holy Church¡¯s reputation even further.


    The Holy Light peashooters were only one out of many members in the seemingly endless magical nt army. In fact, this was a fourth-generation peashooter that had long since evolved, with abilities such as ¡°Holy Light storage¡± and ¡°Overload.¡± All of the magical nts had already evolved by significant amounts as we had prepared many nice ¡°surprises¡± for the undead.


    With the preparations nowplete, Samantha, who was in the core section of the main tree root, lightly caressed a seed from the Forest of Dreams and muttered the final words.


    ¡°Awaken, my younger sister.¡±


    That¡¯s right¡ªyounger sister. As we were preparing over the past two days, Jill, also known as Humility of the Three Virtues, had fused herself with that seed. Upon awakening the seed would merge with Jill¡¯s entire consciousness, causing a new forest to be born here, sprouting into life and transforming into a ubiquitous hive mind.


    When Jill¡¯s clean and pretty wood spirit face opened its eyes, the faint green divine light within them illuminated this entire area.


    Everything around us began to change. Roots spread and rapidly transformed into skyscraping trees. The green divine light shone on, however, presenting a mysterious sense of nourishment and intimacy to all nt life here.


    Now that the air was filled with this faint green light, the power of nature helped the nted seeds to sprout. The naturalws of the world were rewritten, and a new section of the Forest of Dreams began to grow.


    Jill had already possessed the ability to transform herself into a garden. Now, she became the overallmander of this new forest, the master of thisnd.


    ¡°All adventurers and Contract Heroes, our goal is to expand the Forest of Dreams¡¯ territory. Soon, the undead will being to stop us. As long as we defend this ce for a sufficient amount of time to let the newly-born Forest of Dreams mature, we shall win this battle. Everyone who participates will receive bountiful rewards as well as the friendship of us wood spirits.¡±


    It was finally time to inform everyone of our true goal. The Undead Lords¡¯ armies would undoubtedly arrive¡ªit was toote for anyone who wanted out. Although this was rather shameless as we technically dug a pit for the adventurers to fall in, it was indeed the best method to gather every drop of their power and make the best use of it all.


    ¡°Every adventurer will receive a hundred bonus Justice Points per high-level undead in. Also, all adventurers will receive a one-time opportunity topletely heal a serious injury, including missing limbs. And obtaining our friendship means you can receive a chance at exchanging for an item that can¡¯t be obtained by normal means.¡±


    Since adventurers fought for themselves, we decided to lure them in with concrete benefits.


    Meanwhile, this divine light, which had pierced the clouds and was giving birth to Amelia¡¯s dimension here, was not only visible to the undead in Asolivis¡ªit was likely that even the Cloud Tower from across the sea could see it with the naked eye.


    WIthin the walls of Asolivis, City Lord Davey had been engaged in conversation with his two venerated guests when he suddenly stood up. The brilliance of the green divine light in the sky seemed to overtake the stars. And, at the same time, the angry roars of several Undead Emperors resounded in his ears.


    ¡°Davey! If you allow this green thing to grow to maturity, you shall regret it for eternity!¡± ¡°Your soul shall be shattered!¡± ¡°I will make you howl in pain until the end of the world...!¡±


    The Undead Emperors weren¡¯t exactly the kind and patient type. Enraged, they responded by immediately ordering the person in charge to deal with this issue at all costs. Failure would result in a fate worse than death.


    The two venerated guests beside him had expressions of astonishment, too¡ªa rare sight.


    ¡°The will of nature? Could it be a new God of Nature?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s at a level higher than a God of Nature¡ªa threat almost on the level of the Creator. This makes me recall that crazy woman and her older sister... this is a threat, a great threat to all us titan giants! We must absolutely eliminate this threat at the earliest.¡± [1] 1


    The Undead Emperors were looking down upon the wood spirit species; after all, there were too many coincidental factors involved in their creation. It was likely that even their creator, Amelia, was no match for an Undead Emperor in normal circumstances.


    This arrogance was part of their very foundation, simr to how longstanding nobility would look down upon a fortunate merchant who struck it rich and purchased a noble title. Undying existences like them had gotten used to witnessing everything around them fade and die. The wood spirits weren¡¯t even a threat in their eyes. The only true threats to them were the dragons and the mages¡ªonly other undying existences were viewed their equals.


    In their minds, the wood spirits weren¡¯t a big deal as they were stuck in the Forest of Dreams. Even if they were undefeatable in the Forest of Dreams, the forest itself was immovable. They believed that when they descended at their full strengths, this so-called undefeatability would be nothing more than a joke. They were hence taking it easy on the wood spirits and were willing topromise.


    In the Undead Emperors¡¯ overall strategy, the most important objective right now was to conquer the Bardi Empire. If they could break the seal on the titan giants, they would gain a new and powerful ally¡ªgood news to them.


    As for the area around the former Port Victoria that the wood spirits possessed? Why not just give it to the wood spirits? Even if adventurers arrived through this location to attack the undead... just let them attack!


    It wasn¡¯t worth spending so many troops and resources on eliminating such a tiny force. Even if some country¡¯s army came through the Forest of Dreams, the moment they exited the forest they would have to deal with an Undead Cmity filled with astronomical numbers of undead. It wasn¡¯t like the forest was capable of moving to the undead¡¯s most critically important areas. There would be plenty of time to strategize against assaults.


    That¡¯s right¡ªthe undead¡¯s entire strategy had been based on a most basic,mon-sense notion: that the forest wouldn¡¯t move.


    Yet now the Forest of Dreams was moving!


    Perhaps its new section wasn¡¯t veryrge, but as long as seeds could be nted and the section could grow, the undead would naturally lose territory. If significant threats appeared at both their eastern and western fronts, it would mean that they were nked on two sides: a taboo known to every strategist to be avoided at all costs.


    ¡°This cannot be allowed! Eliminate those puny ants and damned weeds!¡±


    The entire Tark Republic took action. Innumerable high-level undead began organizing and summoning their armies. A massive battle to determine the owners of this territory was nigh.


    I had been waiting quite long for this moment.


    ¡°Frostmourne¡ªI mean Ice Cmity is hungry! It desires, it hungers for more souls than ever!¡± [2] 2


    I raised the pitch-ck, magical ice crystal sword in my hands as a vast army of undead rallied behind me. The real army of the undead would never expect to meet their own kind on the battlefield, beings that simrly desired to harvest their souls.


    ¡°I¡¯m not hungry! I drank two bottles of milk this morning¡ª meow .¡± The silly cat was still pretending to be a ditz...


    ¡°...You really enjoy going against me that much, don¡¯t you? Why can¡¯t you just let me have fun acting pretentiously!¡±


    Notes:


    [1] TL/N: ¡°That crazy woman and her older sister.¡± Hmmm.....


    [2] ED/N: Hearthstone reference... kidding, kidding, it¡¯s a WoW reference.

 Chapter 334

    Chapter 334: Sneaking


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    After the Undead Emperors gave themand to move out, the undead armies collectively ended their vacation¡ªit was an emergency, after all. If you were to take the real world to be a minimap [1] 1 , then you would see an unending mass of ck dots gathering at a canyon one hundred kilometers away from the wood spirits¡¯ campground. The undead were mobilizing their armies.


    Their shouts echoed throughout the skies, while soul wavelengths formed all sorts of connections between the Undead Lords. These Undead Lords were both fearful of the Undead Emperors¡¯ rage as well as secretly snickering at how City Lord Davey was now no longer looked at with favor.


    Leading the undead armies to return to this world they originally hailed from and reestablish the Tark Republic was the irresistible dream of every ancient high-level undead. Even Aso was unable to resist the temptations of this dream. However, the Undead Emperors were still unable to descend due to the limitations of the Elemental Tide, which meant this glory fell upon a lowly ghoul like Davey.


    Yes, Davey may have been Aso¡¯s prized disciple, but a Ghoul Lord like Davey was still only a ghoul in the end. He was merely a hunchbacked, low-level undead who crawled on the ground, hideous and filled with a rotten stench.


    The Undead Lords had their own pride. The great majority of Undead Lords were skeleton mages, liches, banshees, and other such high-level undead species. They viewed ghouls as brainless, low-level ves, so it was obvious that they were unable to stand that a low-level ghoul was ranked above them.


    The majority of the undead world wasn¡¯t at all peaceful. Souls were the foundation for every undead, and devouring souls was the highest representation of the survival of the fittest. The way the undead resolved conflicts was violent and highly efficient: they would simply destroy their opponents¡ªquite simple, really.


    Submission? Or death? Those were basically the only two choices that the weak in undead society had to them.


    If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the Undead Emperors had forcibly forbidden all internal conflicts between undead in the mortal ne, the other Myth-ranked Undead Lords like Davey would have long sent him an endless series of challenges until he was dead, no matter his strength. And right now, the other Undead Lords were happily deliberating about the ways they could be a burden to Davey so that he would be mired in a disadvantageousbat situation. Only then would the Undead Lords take action to overturn the situation and pull Davey off of his City Lord position with the help of theirbat achievements.


    Of course, for Davey, although he was being pressured and threatened, he was also quite motivated and knew that this was a chance for him, one he could only receive in a thousand years.


    If Davey was able to prove his abilities in this battle, the Undead Emperors would continue to support him. He would officially be the generalmander of all undead in the mortal ne, the number one individual ranked just under the Undead Emperors.


    Well, these were just the frustrations a generalmander like him had to deal with upon having the position suddenly thrust upon him. He had even more frustrations because of all the random assortment of soldiers under hismand.


    This was the bad habit¡ªor perhaps it should be called unspoken rule¡ªof armies. The Undead Emperors, who were not physically present in the mortal ne to rein in the Undead Lords, could only tacitly allow some disobedience. Of course, this would be Davey¡¯s only opportunity. As long as he could prove his own abilities, the other Undead Emperors would maintain at least the most basic respect and obedience under hismand, and Davey would truly have secured his position.


    Yet this would also be the most difficult challenge for him. At the very least, Davey was extremely angered by the other Undead Lords¡¯ intentional procrastination.


    ¡°Lord ckwood said he¡¯s having indigestion today. It appears to be food poisoning.¡±


    Let¡¯s not mention how liches couldn¡¯t even eat. Since liches were just a type of skeleton, there were no internal organs to eat with¡ªhow would a lich possibly get food poisoning?


    ¡°Lord Safesilver said that his wife is giving birth, and requests Milord for his forgiveness.¡±


    Alright then. This headless knight Undead Lord apparently had the power to reproduce, and even had a wife that could give birth...? If it weren¡¯t for the fact that he was just obviously making up a ridiculous excuse, perhaps the story would be XXX-rated.


    ¡°Duke Cami said that the sun is shining too brightly today and that it would injure him because he¡¯s a member of the Blood Tribe.¡±


    A Duke-level Blood Tribe member was actually afraid of the sunlight? This could have been the greatest news of the century if not for the fact that the messenger who reported this to Davey was a newly-born novice member of the Blood Tribe. He was standing right in the sunlight, the sunlight that Duke Cami was so supposedly afraid of. Was this the Duke¡¯s way of joking with Davey?


    ¡°Lord Graydeath says that an adventuring squad located his main secret base. He¡¯s currently busy moving his entire treasury.¡±


    The Undead Lords¡¯ excuses were so insincere they weren¡¯t even trying to hide their real intentions. It was obvious they just wanted to make things difficult for their new boss. Not only that, Davey, who had just be generalmander not long ago, could only tolerate their actions. The Undead Lords made it quite obvious that he would have to prove his abilities. If he forcibly suppressed them with the Undead Emperors¡¯ names, he would seem all the more useless.


    The Undead Emperors held absolute authority, and their absence made the Undead Lords¡¯ equivalent statuses quite difficult to ept among themselves. When Yongye ¡°died¡± back in the day, it was a foregone conclusion that the Yongye army would immediately implode as a result of internal conflict.


    Well, there were a few Undead Lords on good rtions with Davey as well. They voluntarily came to assist Davey at this critical time, helping him when he needed help the most. Still, the great majority of Undead Lords withheld their forces, giving him the problem of insufficient troops.


    He could only take his loyal followers and do the best he could. But when he recalled that the two top-level guests had volunteered to help him fight the wood spirits, he was once more filled with confidence.


    Meanwhile, on the other side, a certain person¡ªyep, I¡¯m talking about me¡ªdidn¡¯t know about all this. I was actually wondering why there weren¡¯t as many undead as I expected, deeming it quite strange.


    ¡°Hey, is it really alright like this?¡±


    In this canyon, which was acting as a temporary undead base, swirling ck mist covered a figure d in a ck billowing cape. I was doing my very best to appear like some evil boss in a video game.


    Yep, I had snuck in here. I had snuck in here with zero difficulty at all. All I did was simply walk into this canyon.


    I had originally expected that I would meet with an organized, tremendous undead army, while the small amount of undead under mymand would serve as cannon fodder or an ambush squad. But, when I ambushed a lesser lich, I found out, to my surprise, that this undead army was utterly disorganized. In order to deal with this sudden cmity at their doorstep, the army was willing to literally ept any high-level undead as their leaders.


    And so I took some skeleton soldiers of mine and snuck into the undead¡¯s gathering ground. I then discovered that nobody was even keeping track of the undead, so I unhesitatingly brought over every single undead under mymand and disguised them as underlings of that lesser lich army submander who was under my control as well.


    ¡°Damn¡ªso many undead mages. Just how many Justice Points will this be? How many shiny things can I exchange for?¡±


    And my teammates¡ªfine, garbage teammates¡ªwere happily looking at the undead camp around them.


    My absolutely perfect undead disguise pack possessed the power of death. Even if undead mages scanned them, they would seem even more undead than real undead. There was absolutely no worry of them being exposed. The prerequisite was that these bastards didn¡¯t act too ridiculously...


    ¡°Would you like a drink?¡±


    ¡°Can I? This is red? Is this tomato juice?¡±


    ¡°Ha, you¡¯re such a jokester.¡±


    Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey¡ªSolonor, just because you¡¯re disguised as a Blood Tribe, it doesn¡¯t mean you have to drink actual blood! Are you even able to withstand it? Haha, he spat it out as I had expected. Such a waste.


    ¡°What? You want some new false teeth? Actually, I have some gold teeth that I harvested not too long ago. It¡¯s just that I¡¯m going to charge you a hefty price...¡±


    A Goddess of Wealth priest could even earn money from the undead? Damn, I even sensed divine power emanating from Betty. Selling false gold teeth harvested from the undead back to the undead had been recognized as an official way of doing business by Beyana herself? Could this be a brand new market? Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey¡ªcould Betty and Beyana have at least a little shame?s!¡±


    ¡°Cheers! Ah Gen, why does it look like you got skinnier again?¡±


    Now then, you dwarven little girl, it¡¯s already ridiculous enough for an undead to drink alcohol and get drunk! That¡¯s not Ah Gen in front of you, that¡¯s just a skeleton elf who has nothing but bones left so of course it would be thin! Stop pouring wine for that skeleton, all the wine is leaking out from its chin! Such a pity... Damn it, why was I so stupid as to disguise myself as a lesser lich? In this form, I, too, couldn¡¯t even drink!


    Still, it was no wonder why they were in such a jubnt mood. After all, we had just killed off an Undead Lord. Even without calcting the Justice Points, the loot we obtained would turn us quite the profit.


    How did we kill the Undead Lord? The lesser lich I controlled simply took us straight to that unfortunate skeleton general. First, I ced a soundproof barrier, then ambushed the skeleton general and killed it with a single swing of my sword. It was literally that simple.


    Just as how Betty and my other teammates never expected there to be undead spies among the living, most undead would never expect there to be living spies among the undead, that too one that would suddenly ambush them of all undead.


    I would take over any ordinary Undead Thanes who approached me, like the lesser lich now under mymand, within ten seconds. I would then force them into forming a very contract with me and transform the soldiers under theirmand into my own forces.


    ¡°We¡¯ve already taken over three Undead Thanes. Won¡¯t it be easy for us to be exposed at this rate?¡±


    ¡°Not a problem. They¡¯re just novices who barely count as high-level undead. They barely even count as Undead Thanes. It won¡¯t have any effect. And this is still quite early¡ªI intend to convert even more cannon fodder before the battle begins. Right, has Ah Gen returned yet? Any news?¡±


    ¡°...No. From the very beginning, I felt that it was a bad idea to let him go out scouting. You should know that his thief skills...¡±


    ¡°Wait a moment, weren¡¯t you the one who told him to go out scouting? That¡¯s what he told me.¡±


    Alright then, Betty and I widened our eyes as we stared at each other. It would seem that the seemingly simple and honest barbarian Ah Gen has his own slyness as well. Not to mention this seemingly honest fellow had no evil intentions when fooling us, so even someone as experienced as me in the ways of trickery identally fell for his little lie.


    *Boom!*


    The loud soundsing from around us caused us to slightly rx. Ever since Ah Gen had read the book ¡°Robin Hood, the Flying Hero¡± (Rnd edition) that I gave him, he always liked to hop everywhere. On our way here, he had crushed a dozen tents, thirty-something trees, created hundreds of holes, and got stuck in two ditches and had to be rescued. But the most ridiculous of all was that he even discovered a hot spring with one of his hops...


    Cough, judging by the sounds, this barbarian thief, who had sessfully fooled us both, had managed to survive and return. He must have done a good job with his scouting, too, since he was in a good mood.


    ¡°Brother Rnd, I met two strong men even stronger than me! I just arm-wrestled them and lost. You have more physical strength than I do, soe and help me regain my lost face!¡±


    ¡°Arm-wrestling? Strong men? Wait a moment! There are other living people here!?¡±


    Notes:


    [1] ED/N: A minimap is a miniature map that is often ced at a screen corner in video games to aid yers in orienting themselves within the game world (Wikipedia).

 Chapter 335

    Chapter 335: Undead Emperor (Part 1)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    What were the undead? If someone asked such a question, everyone would have their own answer.


    ¡°Undying viins, destroyers of Order, and existences that should be cleansed by the Holy Light.¡± This was the standard answer given by the Church of Holy Light. This was also what the majority of the world believed as the Holy Light was the prevailing religion.


    ¡°Miraculous creations that can be created under certain conditions. These existences havepletely opposite traits from living lifeforms. Two main conditions are required to form an undead: the first is to have enough negative energy, and the second is a soul shard...¡±


    This would be a mage¡¯s standard answer. They would talk about the fundamental theories of what an undead was, and if you asked an undead mage, a lot of extra addendums would be attached: they might even discuss the various undead species and specifics.


    ¡°I like the term ¡®miraculous creation¡¯ but not the phrase ¡®negative energy.¡¯ The first undead didn¡¯t have a shred of negative energy at all: they were noble, unyielding spirits.¡±


    As the first-ever undead, Ayer had previously mentioned to me that the first undead were all naturally born. They were heroes unwilling to die and leave the world. Yet their resolute, undying wills allowed them to resist the Cycle of Reincarnation and walk out of their own graves, transforming into undying heroic spirits. Yep, they were the legendary ¡°natural undead.¡±


    The soul was the universal source. Any person powerful enough to use only their soul to resist the Cycle of Reincarnation would be an incredible figure. Such a person might not even appear in every generation.


    The undead that came after the natural undead were a lower-rank product that originated from the demons performing research on the creation of heroic spirits. In order to make these undead, which weren¡¯t on the level of the heroic spirits, move, they used negative energy that originated from the lower nes. And as the eons passed this special negative energy earned itself a special name: the power of death.


    This energy was originally a power from the Chaos Abyss, whose natural traits were bloodthirst, insanity, and chaos. Even a wise archmage would be insane and unreasonable after transforming into a lich, affected by loneliness and the invasion of negative energy. As for low-level undead who moved under the power of this negative energy, they were nothing more than ughtering machines filled with a thirst for blood.


    Now that I¡¯ve talked about how most typical undead today were created by the negative energy known as the power of death, I should probably talk about positive energy and negative energy.


    Positive and negative energy were the two major types of energy, and they countered and even resisted each other. Positive energy were of many types, the mostmon ones being the Holy Light and the power of nature. Many upper nes¡¯ angels and God Envoys would instinctively know how to use such a power. They were called positive energy because not only were they aligned with the concept of Order, but they were also almost always beneficial for the living; for example, the Holy Light could cure injuries.


    Opposite to positive was negative energy. Mostly due to the rise of the undead and undead magic, negative energy was now the equivalent of undead and the power of death. This was a power harmful to any living being who came into contact with it. However, this was the most important nourishment of all for the undead. The true nature of the Undead nes was simply a ne where negative energy and the power of death gathered.


    For a normal mage, knowing this much would be sufficient. After all, disrupting rays, curses, intelligence-lowering spells, and other such attack magics dealing with negative energies only needed you to know how to imitate the model for the spell. You only needed to create a specific type of negative energy and toss it out in a specialized fashion to attack your enemy.


    Since negative energy was the foundation of the undead as well as their nourishment, an ordinary mage¡¯s understanding of negative energy would be far too insufficient for an undead mage. It could be said that most undead mages would conduct great amounts of research on negative energy. As a matter of fact, the mostmon job change among undead mages was to stop researching about the undead and to focus, instead, on bing a master of negative energy curses.


    It must be noted that these negative energy curses were very powerful against the living yet were nothing but healing spells when used on the undead. Were life and undeath truly that much in opposition to each other?


    Perhaps this was only a natural phenomenon in the minds of other mages, simr to how rain would only fall from dark clouds. I, on the other hand, was quite interested in researching more about such topics like ¡°Why do clouds form?¡± and ¡°How do raindrops form?¡±


    After a living individual entered undeath, their body and even their soul would remain the same. Did the difference between life and undeath lie only in whether they were moving by the power of life or by the power of death? Were life and undeath representations of two diametrically opposite methods of existence?


    Then why was it that most heroic spirits would be even stronger than when they were living, while the undead were typically weaker than when they were alive? Developing one¡¯s potential was something truly important. Just what happened to one¡¯s potential when one transformed from the living into the undead?


    ¡°Everything hinges on the soul!¡±


    When I was at my most crazy, I had conducted an equally crazy experiment. I recorded every single detail of the process one underwent when they transformed into an undead. Hundreds and hundreds of times I performed this experiment with exact precision, but it led me to a rather strange conclusion.


    Back in my original world of Earth, there existed a theory that imed we lose 21 grams after death. [1] 1 In this world, these mysterious 21 grams represented the weight of one¡¯s soul. Unlike Earth, however, this world really did have the provable existence of souls, as well as undead magic which could return a soul to its physical body... My conclusion was that after one transformed into an undead, they would regain that weight, but what they regained was definitely lower than 21 grams!


    ¡°A soul which has returned to its original body will bring back anywhere from 1 to 20 grams. This means that during death it is unavoidable for your soul to shatter¡ªyou¡¯ll lose a very tiny portion at the very minimum. ¡±


    After that, I conducted a series of life into undeath experiments with the help of my mortal enemies. This included experiments that would simultaneously maintain one¡¯s life and undeath, causing the living to howl in incredible pain as they directly turned into undead. Yet I was still able to measure a detectable loss in their body weights. Every single undead individual¡¯s soul would lose part of its weight¡ªthis fact was invariant.


    Was there any meaning to me learning that people lost part of their souls upon turning into undead? Heh heh! For any mage, knowledge was quite literally power. It was all in how you used your knowledge.


    Not only did I obtain firsthand information on the transformation of one¡¯s soul, I also coincidentally discovered that the lower an undead¡¯s level was, the less their soul weighed when it returned to their body. Typically only three to five grams of their soul remained. Most of their soul shards naturally dissipated, while this so-called negative energy seemed to fill in the rest of the nks.


    ¡°In that case, I hypothesize that the moreplete the soul is for an undead, the more powerful they are. Or, it might be that it¡¯s the reverse. The level of the undead determines how much of their soul and wisdom they can retain.¡±


    This type of research result doubtlessly matched what everyone already knew, that low-level undead were stupid while high-level undead were capable of retaining their intelligence and even memories from when they were alive. However, just this result alone wasn¡¯t enough to satisfy my research expectations... Which was why I did something rather vicious.


    Fine then, the me at that time was indeed rather insane. Otherwise, I wouldn¡¯t have kidnapped two of the God of Holy Light¡¯s heroic spirits to perform various experiments on them. [2] 2


    I dissected the two heroic spirits and extracted their souls before storing other souls in their vessels. I tested if their bodies were capable of helping low-level undead retain more of their soul, ced the heroic spirits¡¯ souls in other vessels, and so on. By the time the two heroic spirits¡¯ souls became tattered shards no longer capable of being put together, I had obtained enough experimental data.


    The resulting data was quite astonishing. Heroic spirits had shockingly high numbers: these two heroic spirits¡¯ souls didn¡¯t weigh 21 grams¡ªthey weighed 23 and 25 grams, instead!


    And, after dissecting two still-living Saint-ranked individuals, I confirmed with absolute certainty that all living individuals had souls that weighed 21 grams. This number wouldn¡¯t change even with a difference in power level. In that case, it could only mean that when a soul transformed into a heroic spirit, it actually gained weight. Since a decrease in the soul¡¯s weight meant a decrease in power, did an increase in weight represent some sort of evolution or ascendancy?


    The heroic spirits¡¯ spiritual bodies were clearly much better than typical souls in all areas. Just their souls alone had natural magic resistance, and they could increase the power level limit of whatever physical body they were in. They could even switch between various physical bodies without worrying about their souls shattering... Fine then, I really did go overboard back in the day. In the end, I turned those incredibly heroic spirits¡¯ souls into nothing but spare parts.


    Now then. In the end, I was left with this thought: If I was able to increase the soul¡¯s weight, would I be able to create ¡°undead¡± that were even stronger than heroic spirits?


    And so, I confirmed my prerequisites and experimental method... Since heroic spirits were typically the result of an ordinary soul¡¯s ascension, then what exactly happened during the process of ascension? What made a heroic spirit be a heroic spirit?


    Was it that only the venerated thatpleted heroic deeds would be chosen by the Gods to be heroic spirits? Iughed at what the church taught. I was no theologist, I was a scien¡ªer¡ªa mage. As long as I had enough experimental materials, something as crazy as this could still be concrete experimental data and results.


    And so, I targeted some famous heroes and used various cruel methods, plots, sometimes even directbat to kill them when they were at the most glorious peak in their lives. The first two hundred-ish only provided me with extremely high-quality undead subordinates, while #219, a priest, truly seeded in bing a heroic spirit. I also recorded every single step of the process by which he became a heroic spirit.


    Sacrifice. When he was pushed to despair by the brink, he ignited his own soul in order to protect hispanions. A wall of light cut off the undead that were attacking his group, and at that moment, he died...


    The world¡¯s recognition? A noble spirit? No, no, no. I mentioned before that us mages would never believe in such sayings. Only sufficient evidence and samples were what we would ept as the concrete truth behind those false sayings.


    ¡°The resolution and mindset to sacrifice himself? Virtue, or stubbornness, more urately speaking, should be ¡®Powerful emotions, strong enough to interfere with the world...¡¯ I never expected for it to actually be the same as how natural undead were born.


    Although I received a result, I was a fastidious researcher who naturally wanted more than one sample as proof. And so...


    ¡°I¡¯m not willing to die just like this!¡± ¡°I still have things I want to do!¡± ¡°Is my sacrifice really meaningful?¡±


    I used undead magic to forcefully inject such powerful thoughts into each of my experimental subjects so that they would be filled with powerful emotions right before they died. In theory, I thought that I would be able to artificially create heroic spirits.


    The end result... was that I failed. I received the most insane, evil undead spirits of all. They were absolutely crazed and would attack anything in their sight. Not only that, this still didn¡¯t exin why a soul would actually increase in weight. After all, even if a powerful emotion protected thepleteness of the soul, just where did this extra weight appear from?


    And so, I went over every single detail of that sessful experimental subject #219 and imitated every point. I then started changing the experiment one factor at a time, hoping to discover the missing critical factor... In those two years, the Holy Church probably found it quite mysterious why eight heroic spirits appeared in a single year when typically less than one would appear in a generation. Not to mention, several hundred of their elite priests suddenly went missing and ended up dead.


    And that was how by taking away a certain factor, I finally seeded in failing to create a heroic spirit, finding the critical missing link that I had been searching for.


    ¡°A heroic spirit must have his deeds well known by people, with his descendants proud of him... So this was the critical point. A heroic spirit must be well known.¡±


    The praises for a heroic spirit was the final result of my research. A heroic spirit needed to have his or her deeds known by everyone. It would be best if the heroic spirit was witnessed making a heroicst stand by everyone at the moment of the hero¡¯s death. These were all necessary conditions in bing a heroic spirit.


    In that case, could I create a heroic spirit using a fake story plus a ¡°hero¡± that I hypnotized? If I could, then that would prove my theory.


    The end result was, as Iughed maniacally, the first ever human-created heroic spirit, ¡°Dragonyer King,¡± Sven was born. He became a heroic spirit under the God of Holy Light. Five yearster, I intentionally ran into Sven again and performed a second experiment on him... that unlucky fellow had my hypnosis canceled on him and discovered that he was only a lowly murderer instead of a hero. He instantly went up in smoke and died for real, which proved the necessity of the heroic spirit¡¯s own ¡°conviction¡± in their status.


    Not only that, it also proved that the Holy Church¡¯s exnation of souls and heroic spirits was nothing more than utter bullshit!


    Finally, after even more experimentation, the final conclusion I came to was probably the closest thing to the truth.


    ¡°No wonder Soul Worlds have the capability of distorting the real world. In this world, personality, knowledge, faith, conviction¡ªall these intangible concepts are a part of concrete strength as well. They are all nourishment for the soul and help to make it stronger, strong enough to resist the invasion of negative energy. And once someone¡¯s soul is sufficiently strong, they can even enter a heroic spirit state after death and begin to use positive energy!¡±


    This also exined why tin can knights whose heads were filled with nothing but the knightly spirit would still mostly be able to maintain their sense of honor and intelligence after transforming into undead. The traditional knightly code, in a way, protected them. Meanwhile, for hermit archmages, even though they were extremely intelligent, they had basically zero emotional intelligence and viewed so-called faith and conviction as nothing more than a joke. It was only natural that mages would typically be invaded by negative energy and gradually lose their senses of self.


    The moment I received this experimental result, I also understood the true nature of heroic spirits. For any mage, knowledge was power. My Infallible Diffindor now possessed the ability to temporarily transform high-level undead into heroic spirits. This was a power that nobody else in this world possessed.


    If that was all it was, I would only be the biggest heretic and desecrator this world had ever seen in the past millennium. Yet I came up with yet another hypothesis based on this result, making me into the most likely candidate for thergest heretic of all ever since the founding of the very world of Eich.


    ¡°Perhaps so-called Gods are just heroic spirits that have gathered a sufficient amount of belief in them to obtain a Divine Concept and evolve themselves... Ha! Doesn¡¯t that mean that the so-called venerated Gods are just another type of undead? The moment that they ascended to Godhood, they were already dead? Their true identities are nothing more than soul shards tied together by belief in them as well as Divine Concepts?¡±


    Alright then, if I publicized these research results of mine, probably half of the True God believers in the world would be busy calling me a ridiculous heretic, while the other half would be busy trying to kill me.


    But I had proof for this hypothesis of mine... because my experiment seeded!!


    Yes, I¡¯m talking about Wumianzhe! His sess in ascending to Godhood seemed like nothing more than a fortunate coincidence, even to a veteran like Ayer. But only I knew that this was my final practical experiment to prove my theory: a human-created God.


    I wondered sometimes about what would happen if I attempted to tell everyone the truth about the Gods. Yet I would always give up on the idea. Most people wouldn¡¯t believe me, and if they really did, it would probably mean the world was about to meet its destruction.


    It was time for me to stop walking down this path. I had already detected the foundational truths of the world. If I went any further down this path, opening up the entire Pandora¡¯s Box, my research results from this damned undead construction field might truly end up destroying this entire world.


    ¡°Heh, but if I don¡¯t do anything at all, this world is already destined to be destroyed. If I continue with this, there is a ¡°might:¡± it only ¡°might¡± destroy the world. I might as well continue regardless.¡±


    And so, I ended up creating the Seven Deadly Sins. Their base materials weren¡¯t particrly excellent. ¡°Wrath¡± Bastian was only an ordinary dog you could find anywhere, ¡°Gluttony¡± Ah Dang was just a random assortment of corpses I grabbed from the battlefield, ¡°Envy¡± Marsolit was mostly something not living originally at all, an aerial battleship, while ¡°Greed¡± Harloys¡¯ base material was only an ordinary undead slime, but...


    ¡°Everything hinges on the soul!¡±


    I whispered that softly to myself. For an undead, the physical body wasn¡¯t as important as most undead mages believed it to be. Souls were the true foundation.


    Although I called my specialized field ¡°undead construction,¡± a more urate name would probably be ¡°soul evolution.¡± In ce of the belief and conviction that heroic spirits needed to evolve themselves, I gave my Seven Deadly Sins the convictions in my own soul.


    Heroic spirits and Gods? They were merely idiots tied to other people¡¯s belief in them and knowledge about them! Thisnd was still going to be ruled by physical flesh and blood living individuals. What I gave to my Seven Original Sins was free will, basic individual personalities, and souls that were even moreplete than what the Creator would give!


    From a certain standpoint, they were indeed my children. My blessing to them gave them endless potential to evolve themselves so that they could evolve into souls that could surpass heroic spirits. And they would forever be a part of me, apanying me until Armageddon arrived.


    ¡°Seven Original Sins? Heh heh, these are the most foundational parts of human nature. Wrath, the anger and judgment against those whomit acts of injustice. Gluttony, the desire to evolve one¡¯s physical body. Lust, an overflowing amount of love. Envy, the desire to possess others¡¯ best traits. Pride, the desire to rise in status... Children, allow me to witness just how far you¡¯ll proceed in evolution since you have even moreplete souls than the Gods themselves.¡± [3] 3


    ¡°Even though it¡¯s said that all Undead Emperors are insane, to have used yourself as an experimental subject and cut off parts of your own soul, you¡¯re probably the most insane of them all, Rnd... Your Highness.¡±


    The only individual who knew about my true research results was Harloys, who was bound to me with a soul connection. And, right now, I really needed her assistance. When I provided all this detailed information to her, she actually used a respectful title that Undead Lords would use to address Undead Emperors for once.


    ¡°...This is the only part where I can¡¯tpare to you. But, I won¡¯t lose to you! I have my own understanding of undead magic! One day, I shall use my own research results to be an Undead Emperor as well!¡±


    ¡°Heh heh, I truly look forward to the All-Knowing Harloys¡¯ research results. But please help me out right now. I need your umted knowledge and experimental data.¡±


    ¡°Help you? In this campground filled with undead? Oh, you intend to use undead construction here! Are you thinking of creating another Original Sin?¡±


    ¡°No, no, it¡¯s just I¡¯m itching to create something with all these ingredients around. Although it won¡¯t be on an Original Sin¡¯s level, it might actually be simr to their power level.¡±


    Perhaps none of the undead around me knew that thanks to my spur-of-the-moment decision, something very troublesome for them would appear.


    Notes:


    [1] ED/N: I believe the author is talking about a popr theory that came about from a scientific study published in 1907 by Duncan MacDougall. Here¡¯s the Wikipedia link if you want to read more about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment.


    [2] ED/N: I¡¯m sorry, but I have to say this. I am 100% certain that even now, if he needed to, Rnd would still kidnap more heroic spirits. He is as crazy¡ªin a ¡®good¡¯ way, of course¡ªas ever. Will do anything to aplish his goals.


    [3] TL/N: Yes, for some reason, he fails to mention Greed Harloys in this paragraph. Probably because he feels awkward about calling Harloys his child, ahaha. Sloth will obviously be addressedter in the story.

 Chapter 336

    Chapter 336: Undead Emperor (Part 2)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Gone missing again? How is this possible?¡±


    Although it was quite difficult for a skeletal face to express much astonishment, the lich Edwin was unable to contain his disbelief at the news he just heard.


    This was now the second night after General Commander and City Lord Davey¡¯s armies had started gathering in this canyon. The unbelievable news was that undead were continually going missing in this campground.


    If it were only ordinary low-level undead that went missing, it wouldn¡¯t be a big deal, because it wasmon for them to lose their way. If it were only mid-level elite undead that went missing, it could be understood that perhaps there were adventurers secretly waiting in ambush that took them out. But the missing undead were...


    ¡°Yes, the southwest district¡¯s Undead Lord Caben¡¯s camp is utterly empty. The tents, equipment, and even personal items remain, but it¡¯s just that there¡¯s not a single undead left in Lord Caben¡¯s camp!¡±


    The messenger was a ghost, so it obviously had an unclear expression. Yet the fact that it was flickering rapidly indicated that it was the opposite of calm inside.


    ¡°How is this possible! This is already the thirty-seventh group that has gone missing. Even with high-level undead patrolling, they still went missing? Right, does Lord Caben know about this already?¡±


    This was such beautiful irony. The undead were meeting a ghost story of their own. The fact that theirpanions were vanishing without a trace was iprehensible to them.


    Even if there was a sudden ambush, how could there possibly be no signs of anything that urred? There weren¡¯t even any traces of a fight. If it had been some other species, it might have been the effect of somerge AOE mental spell. But all undead were immune to mental magic. How could they possibly disappear en mass¨¦ like this?


    ¡°Lord Caben¡ªLord Caben was in his camp at the time. He also went missing!¡±


    The lich Edwin suddenly stood up upon hearing this. The soulfire in his eye sockets was shing¡ªhe didn¡¯t really care if some low-level undead suddenly vanished, but all Undead Lords were at the minimum a Legend. How was it possible for an Undead Lord to just mysteriously disappear? Edwin knew that Caben¡¯s power level was definitely equal to his own. If Caben suddenly vanished, didn¡¯t that mean that Edwin himself was in danger as well?


    Something or someone that was able to instantly kill an Undead Lord who was on guard? Without leaving a single trace? Despite the fact that several powerful high-level undead were repeatedly patrolling the campground? The lich Edwin hadn¡¯t felt the threat of true death in a very long time. He was now feeling the almost forgotten sensation of a chill running down his spine, faintly feeling as if something was spying on him in the darkness.


    ¡°Actually, I do have some clues. I¡¯m just not sure about it yet...¡±


    The ghost¡¯s flickering became even fiercer, as if some secrets were contained within it that made the ghost unable to control itself.


    ¡°Just what did you discover! Hurry and tell me!¡±


    Edwin was unable to repress his impatience and faced the ghost directly, grabbing on to its ethereal body as he impatiently shook the ghost.


    ¡°That¡¯s, that¡¯s...¡±


    The ghost had yet to finish speaking when it started to disappear. A pitch-ck mist filled the room along with the soundless screams of souls. It seemed like some sort of curse had been activated.


    ¡°Hurry! I order you to hurry and tell me!¡±


    The impatient Edwin was in a hurry as he approached the ghost and injected arge amount of negative energy through his arm into it in an attempt to maintain the ghost¡¯s body. However, Edwin soon found that something was wrong with the situation.


    All the negative energy he injected seemed to disappear, and he soon became unable to retract his arm. Meanwhile, that ghost transformed into a ck mist that then transformed into various distorted faces, some familiar to Edwin.


    A raspy soul voice echoed throughout the room, emotionless and devoid of warmth.


    ¡°Join us...¡±


    ¡°...Why is it you, Caben!?¡±


    The most attention-grabbing face belonged to the recently missing Undead Lord. Edwin knew that he was in a bad situation, so he intended to activate a defense spell. However, his defense spell wouldn¡¯t respond to him at all. And when the ck mist finally dissipated, the lich Edwin¡¯s tent was empty. The only sound was the night wind blowing through the still-open window, which caused the diary on the table to flip open, as if the master of this tent was still here.


    ¡°Did you hear? Last night, many undead went missing again. How scary. This time, even a lich was among the missing. I heard that not only did he go missing, even his phctery became empty. There¡¯s actually something out there that can cause a lich and his phctery to disappear sopletely and mysteriously? Truly frightening.¡±


    ¡°What are you afraid of? You¡¯re not an undead.¡±


    The dwarven ¡°auntie¡± Mary was obviously not interested in Betty¡¯s exmations. Being stuck in this camp for two days meant two days without alcohol for her. Her spiritless face was filled with fatigue. Mary had imed that this was simply a dwarven habit and that she would feel better after two days, but I knew that this was, in truth, nothing more than an addiction to alcohol, which would indeed get better after two days... Fine, perhaps she wasn¡¯t wrong and it was just that this was the habit of the entire dwarven race.


    ¡°...I just finished my marketing channels. Those undead are truly rich, especially the undead with intelligence. I can exchange for so much precious magic information and gold with only some outdated magazines and books. That lesser lich originally promised to introduce his boss, a lich, to me. However, he and his boss ended up disappearing, which ruined all my ns. Ahhh! That bastard still owes me two silver coins! He was going to use an enchanted skull to pay off his debt to me!!¡±


    ¡°...First of all, an enchanted cursed skull is one of the most precious ingredients in undead magic. For you, a True God¡¯s priest, to carry around such an item is no different from desecration. Not to mention that such an item costs tens of thousands of gold coins. You were nning to ept one for just two silver coins? You¡¯re such an evil merchant.¡±


    What should I even say? That it was to be expected of a Goddess of Wealth priest? They were even willing to make money from the undead!


    ¡°Right, I can sell guardian charms blessed by the True Gods! Right now, everyone is in a panic¡ªwell, all the undead are in a panic¡ªso I¡¯d definitely make a huge profit!¡±


    ¡°Just don¡¯t go overboard and let the undead discover you. Right, did you notice that recently, all the undead around here have be rather dull? They seem to be roaming around rather nkly...¡±


    Alright then. Betty could make money while spreading the teachings of his church and perhaps even obtain some believers from the undead. This newly created method of earning money probably gave him great favor with Beyana. Meanwhile, my research, too, was making progress.


    In the center of a room was a broken-down stone sculpted gravestone. Around it were various spell arrays, drawn and maintained by the silly cat.


    ¡°How inconceivable. Just this tiny little portion is the core of a graveyard demon?¡±


    Graveyard demons, one of my research results while I was at the Cloud Tower. They were a super undead creation that I based off of the ancients. [1]


    They were abnormal magical beasts that were the incarnations of graveyards. The moment one awakened, it would be a Saint at the minimum, a mega undead war machine. Each graveyard demon¡¯s specificbat strength and abilities depended on the area and history of the graveyard that created it.


    If it was an ordinary graveyard... well, ordinary graveyards were incapable of creating graveyard demons. Only graveyards that had over a hundred years of history¡ªthus umting a high amount of negative energy¡ªwould possibly produce a graveyard demon. And if it was a graveyard demon produced from a battlefield, where a bloody battle had been fought over a hundred years ago, then the graveyard demon would be over a hundred meters tall, a literal giant war machine.


    Graveyard demons constructed from battlefields with SemiGod or even Low God corpses would give even True Gods headaches. To be honest, a Demon Lord in the Endless Abyss [2] was a graveyard demon as well, although I heard it was naturally born.


    Normal undead mages viewed their creations as the natural products of undead magic, without researching as to the fundamentals of why. This was a problemmon to most mages. They were used to all sorts of miracles from magical creation and never asked questions. This was conceit, a conceit that arose due to an overly developed magical society. They missed the hidden scenery amid the vivid colors around them.


    The most inconceivable thing about graveyard demons was what they were constructed of. Much of their existence was graveyard earth, which contained incredibly high amounts of negative energy. But even though they contained negative energy and some corpses within them, they were still made up of over 99% earth element.


    In that case, basic logic of the elements would say that these graveyard demons should have been earth elemental creatures. But every single mage out there would categorize a graveyard demon as a pure undead creature.


    This was doubtlessly against the mainstream ideas of undead research.


    Unlike my method of researching about the basic nature and foundation of things, most undead mages started with the physical undead ingredients that they could see and touch. They believed that better quality undead materials would create stronger undead creatures. And this wasn¡¯t wrong at all, even ording to my own theories. It was only to be expected for a strong soul to require a strong physical body to wield its power, while gentlemanly¡ªer¡ªhealthy souls required healthy bodies to hold them. Otherwise, there would most likely be problems. But this definitely wasn¡¯t all there was to undead construction!


    A Legendary corpse would be able to create Legendary undead, but this didn¡¯t mean that every Legendary undead required a Legend¡¯s corpse, or even a corpse of a higher level, to be created. Yet almost all undead mages considered this asmon sense, indisputable and truistic.


    But if you went by the ssic method of undead creation, then it would be impossible to exin why graveyard demons, who were 99% constructed out of the earth element, could be so powerful. Why was it that graveyard demons possessed unimaginably strong desecration auras, astonishingbat strength, and were even able to replenish and help the undead to recover? Nor was there any way to exin the source of its supernatural powers.


    Perhaps undead mages would try to im that the corpses within the graveyard demon had such an effect. However, the corpses buried in a graveyard would undoubtedly be only a random arrangement.


    If any random arrangement of materials in a graveyard could create such an incredibly powerful top-level undead, then why would we still need undead magic spell formations and undead mages? This type of answer was nothing more than irony.


    However, my more unique field, undead construction, could exin it quite clearly. This was also why I was so interested in graveyard demons.


    ¡°Only a soul powerful enough will be able to control such a formidable undead creature. After conducting some studies I have confirmed that this graveyard demon doesn¡¯t have much intelligence¡ªno¡ªI should say that it doesn¡¯t possess any memories or knowledge whatsoever. It¡¯s basically like a newborn baby, a nk soul, yet it¡¯s newly-born at a rank above Legends. Inexplicable.¡±


    Naturally, this caused me to recall the River Styx, which was able to make souls reincarnate. After numerous experiments, I arrived at a conclusion which was likely closest to the truth.


    This soul wasn¡¯t a single existence that rested in the graveyard. Instead, it was an amalgamation of the countless soul shards left behind by all the dead within it. This entire graveyard¡¯s earth was the graveyard demon¡¯s physical body, while the soul belonging to it was born from this body.


    Perhaps the final conclusion seemedpletely out of the norm, but I felt that it was rather logical:


    Under the long-term corrosion of negative energy, the typical condition of ¡°life changing into death¡± was reversed. The corpsesying in the graveyard became the catalyst for transformation, while the earth filled with the bodiespleted the transformation from the dead into the living. All the souls in the graveyardbined together into a new, collective will. This soul was hence a newborn, which was why it was nk. It required time and knowledge to help it grow into maturity.


    Alright then. Even if I learned the basic foundational reason for why a graveyard demon was produced, was there any actual meaning in it? Graveyards that were over one hundred years old were rtively rare, and there were still many unknowns in how many soul shards from separate individuals coulde together and form a collective will. It was still impossible to mass produce graveyard demons.


    Still, a person would only be third-rate at best if they could only copy the method by looking at the blueprint. True researchers would be able to change the original blueprint based on their fundamental knowledge. If there were insufficient materials, recement ingredients could be found. It would even be possible to create something far surpassing the original.


    ¡°The formation of graveyard demons requires two basic conditions. First, lots of negative energy has to gather into a rtively independent form. Second, many independent souls are required. In a way, an undead army that¡¯s gathered together matches these basic requirements. An undead army is aplete military unit, which also possesses countless independent soul shards.¡±


    Of course, this alone was far too insufficient. There were still too many unsolved mysteries about the production of graveyard demons. Just gathering undead together wouldn¡¯t fulfill the prerequisites for giving birth to a collective will, which was why I did a little trick.


    ¡°Does this gravestone contain the soul for that newly-born graveyard demon?¡±


    ¡°No, no. It¡¯s only Little Three¡¯s soul shard, a small portion I cut off for experimentation. Aplete Little Three isn¡¯t actually that useful as he already has his own physical body. But this iplete soul shard before us is different. It desires to beplete, meaning it¡¯ll work towards my goal. It will be the seed for this soul giant!¡± [3]


    All undead were connected to each other. Undead Emperors controlled the Undead Lords, Undead Lords used soul contracts to control high-level undead, and high-level undead, in turn, controlledrge amounts of low-level undead subordinates. In concept, this was, indeed, a soul. This graveyard demon would be one of the mainstays of an undead army.


    If you viewed an undead army as a body, then each member was a cell. It was just that each cell had its own independent will. But if one day a collective will was born, which could order its cells to listen to itsmands, causing the cells to lose their independent wills¡ªwhat would happen?


    The current ¡°Little Three¡± was that collective will. What I did was quite simple: I told him that the entire undead army was his physical body, that the soul between the undead was his bloodstream and nerves, and that it was time for him to awaken!


    ¡°He¡¯s awakened and needs a physical body, a sufficient amount of the power of death to be gathered for him. He also needs all his cells to orderly enter a procession ording to his will. He¡¯s a prematurely born baby who¡¯s stillcking in many areas. He wants... to be born!¡±


    I didn¡¯t know just what miraculous changes had happened to Little Three, just as how nobody truly understood how babies obtained their own independent wills and souls. Just what mysterious forces were at work behind this? All I did was fulfill the requirements for such a phenomenon to ur, and it indeed urred. However...


    ¡°...Honestly, I didn¡¯t know what would result from this experiment. But don¡¯t you think that it¡¯s precisely the unknown that¡¯s more exciting? Experiments that are destined to seed are boring. It¡¯s only the unknown that allures people the most. And as long as this works, my undead construction will have yet another new research result!¡±


    And I had now obtained my research result. In this campground, an undead army came alive as it cleared away impurities within its body and perfected its soul and physical body. It ordered his own bloodstreams, body, limbs, and internal organs to listen to itsmands as it crafted a perfect body for itself.


    The undead had nk expressions as they walked together, devouring andbining with each other. They couldn¡¯t¡ªand wouldn¡¯t¡ªresist, just like how a physical body would be unable to resist an order from the soul. Only the powerful individuals in the undead army who were strong enough to have Soul Imprints were temporarily able to maintain their own senses of self. However, this only caused the collective will to prematurelye to them and transform them into the body¡¯s nourishment. Since these higher-level undead were also a part of this army, it was only natural for them to be powerless and devoured.


    A new soul was being born. As the main experimenter behind everything, I had so many records to write, while my mind was battered with countless shes of inspiration. I felt as if I was witnessing yet another excellent creation being born. And since this creation was an amalgamation of an army meant for war, I intended to call him ¡°Mars of War.¡± [4]


    Perhaps only Saint-ranked undead, who had their own Soul Worlds, would manage to avoid being ssified by Mars as a part of the army of his own body. However, looking at how one unlucky Saint-ranked Undead Lord had be part of Mars, even that might not be sufficient.


    Of course, refusing Mars¡¯ summoning was actually quite easy. All an undead needed to do was tell itself that it wasn¡¯t part of the undead army, that it was an outsider. Mars would then be unable to ssify that undead as a part of his physical body.


    But it was a pity¡ªas long as I didn¡¯t tell anyone, not a single undead would ever think of it.


    This was indeed quite unreasonable. But, to use an analogy from the Middle Ages of my original world, if someone prophesized that arge, heavy metal object called an airne would be capable of flying through the air, then that person would surely be treated as someone insane. Many seemingly unreasonable phenomena were simply because insufficient research had been performed on the topic. Experimental results could help one to reverse engineer the logic behind the result. If I truly seeded with this experiment, then I would likely be able to theorize the reason for every step of the process that urred. I would definitely obtain many benefits.


    ¡°Um... have you ever considered how to deal with him in the end? He gives me the chills. Aren¡¯t you worried you¡¯ll be unable to control him?¡±


    ¡°Rx, I¡¯ve already thought of everything.¡±


    ¡°You have apleted control mechanism? How did you do it? When did you do it?¡±


    ¡°...I should say that since I have absolutely no idea how to control him, I never intended to control him in the first ce. Will a normal parent n out their child¡¯s future when the child was just born? Let him grow up and mature by himself, free and happy. Yep, judging from his appetite, he¡¯ll be quite a healthy child.¡±


    [He¡¯ll definitely be healthy, but everyone else would be unhealthy! Stop acting like an idiotic parent who¡¯s proud that his naughty child is hyperactive! Can¡¯t you just self-reflect even a little? When not even born fully, he already ate a Saint-ranked undead for his nutrition. Have you ever considered what type of monster he¡¯ll finally be in the end? A body made of high-level undead is clearly much better than earth filled with negative energy. Have you ever considered how strong this undead army physical body of his that¡¯s filled with numerous Undead Lords will be in the end? Combined with the souls, his power will increase exponentially! He¡¯ll be almost limitless in strength! Have you ever considered that there¡¯s a 99% chance that he¡¯ll run out of control? I¡¯ve long since told you that if you don¡¯t stop using undead construction, you¡¯ll destroy the world! System Notification: 5 Justice Points have been deducted for mymenting service. There is no need to thank me. Oh, and do you think it¡¯d be better next time if I use ALL CAPS to roar at you?]


    Harloys also nodded with a calm expression¡ªshe had long gotten used to how I was.


    ¡°...Your Highness, you will definitely destroy this world sooner orter.¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Graveyard demons were previously mentioned in Chapter 308¡ªevidence of foreshadowing!


    [2] TL/N: It says Endless Abyss in the raws, so it is probably another name for the Chaos Abyss.


    [3] TL/N: ¡°Little Three¡± is also a Chinese euphemism for an extramarital lover. Untrantable double entendre.


    [4] TL/N: Mars is a reference to the ancient Roman God, Mars, the God of War.

 Chapter 337

    Chapter 337: Shadowy Clouds of War


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Spring was always short. A brief bout of spring showers heralded the gradual shift to warm weather.


    Compared to the Nortnds still in the throes of frigid winter, this ce was far more suitable for humans to inhabit. At the very least, the wood spirits loved this climate. Warm, humid, and filled with sunlight, this area was particrly suitable for nts to grow.


    However, a rancid smell of undeath was brought to us by the south wind. Dark clouds arrived in the sky together with a sudden drop in temperature. Nature seemed to be reminding people that the hot summer had yet to arrive. At the very least, the final spring frost still needed to be experienced.


    Since the new seeds for the Forest of Dreams sprouted into what greatly resembled oak trees, the new and evolving section of the Forest of Dreams now had the charming name of Oak Town. The undead¡¯s unexpectedlyte arrival caused the defenders of this town to feel both worry and happiness.


    They were happy that the shadows of war seemed toeter than expected by several days, which meant that they would have additional time forbat preparations. They were worried because, based on the typical rules of war, the longer the enemy took to gather themselves the stronger and more numerous they would be.


    The undead had been expected to arrive two days ago, but there were no signs of them at all. Many veteran adventurers had already mentally prepared themselves. Since the undead were taking so long to arrive, perhaps they had recalled their troops from sieging Nightrain City¡ªthe eventual undead army¡¯s numbers would be hence ridiculouslyrge.


    ¡°It would be nice if they would wait for another ten days or two weeks. I¡¯ve heard that many people in the Mage Country are interested in obtaining Justice Points. Perhaps they¡¯lle over to join us.¡±


    Yet the thick smoke that suddenly arose could only mean that no reinforcements were arriving as of yet and the undead had finally arrived as expected. Before a thick nket of clouds covered Oak Town, a Pegasus Knight approached the town. The rider was shouting before he evennded.


    ¡°They¡¯re here, they¡¯re here!¡±


    Who was here? Everyone understood without it needing to be said out loud, yet nobody panicked.


    ¡°Close the gates!¡±


    ¡°Notify all the sentries and hunting teams outside that they¡¯re to immediately return to Oak Town.¡±


    ¡°Nobody¡¯s notified the wood spirits and our leaders yet? Someone, hurry and deliver the message!¡±


    This was just how adventurers were. They were raucous and disorganized, yet also filled with motivation. In just a few minutes, every single person knew that the battle hade to them, and they busied themselves in preparations for battle.


    There was no longer any need to conceal theirbat preparations. The veteran adventurers among them were capable of judging the enemy army¡¯s size and projected arrival time simply from the dust plumes they kicked up in the air. The estimated time of arrival for the undead¡¯s vanguard knights was two hours, but the adventurers were long prepared for this and started taking action.


    Large amounts of bows had previously been ced on Oak Town¡¯s castle walls. The archers began testing their bowstrings, while treants pulled themselves out of the grounds. The adventurers manning the stone catapults began their final calctions of the ammunition they possessed.


    In just slightly under an hour and a half, the first wave of skeleton knights arrived. The silent skeleton knights were sitting on decayed saddles and had tattered spears as they surrounded and circled around the castle walls, searching for weaknesses in their enemy¡¯s defense. If any ce seemed weak to them, they would have attacked it. But, in the end, they retreated without making a move.


    ¡°Have we arrivedte?¡±


    The death knight Haben finally abandoned the idea of forcefully attacking this location. Looking at the scene before him, for the first time in his undead life, he doubted the Undead Emperors¡¯ judgment. He felt that the Tark Republic had underestimated these nt lifeforms by far too much.


    Thergest tree¡¯s root brought Amelia¡¯s power over to the newly-born ¡°oak trees,¡± helping them to mature. Meanwhile, even more ¡°oak trees¡± had begun to sprout, hence increasing Oak Town¡¯s power even further. Once the cycle of nature was established here, most could tell that this ce was already a nigh impregnable fortress even with its unassuming name of Oak Town.


    The castle walls grew taller and taller, while squads of treants patrolled every inch of space. The most iprehensible part was that this green fortress was visibly growing outward. Its surroundings would turn green, inch by inch, while trees would shoot up at a pace visible to the naked eye. Trees were sprouting on this destend more than ever, transforming the barren area to grassy ins and forest.


    This was the miracle created by the divine power of nature. And soon, these newly-born trees would be even more nourishment for Oak Town to grow. Smaller nts of nature would naturally be part of therger cycle of nature, with one cycle creating another before everything finally achieved a bnce. By that time, even if an enemy approached this area they would be met with endless enmity and would cause eyes to stare upon them.


    Upon discovering that the enemy¡¯s defenses were alreadyplete and that using only skeleton knights to forcibly attack this ce would be a meaningless sacrifice, the vanguardmander Haben did not hesitate to choose to temporarily retreat until the undead¡¯s main forces arrived.


    Simultaneously, the adventurers¡¯ leaders were in the middle of a military meeting at a temporarily constructedmand center in Oak Town.


    From a certain standpoint, the wood spirits were truly ying the part of NPCs. They obviouslyckedplete trust in the adventurers, not to mention that the two parties had different strategic objectives to begin with. The wood spirits wished for Oak Town to sessfully grow and were willing to sacrifice anything. Meanwhile, the adventurers sought to maximize their personal benefits, which meant that two sets of leaders arose in Oak Town. But, as of now, they were still very cooperative with each other and had few disagreements.


    One set of leaders was from the adventurers¡¯ alliance, while the other acted as the decision maker of the wood sprits. To be honest, this was likely going to be the typical cooperative working method between local forces and Contract Heroes. After all, local forces would forever wish for their subordinates to obediently carry out each and every one of theirmands.


    When looking at it from the employer¡¯s angle¡ªto use the pieces at your disposal in the most efficient manner¡ªit would be best to pay money to hire temporary allies to be cannon fodder and undertake the most dangerous roles. After all, any local leader would want to preserve their own elites they worked so hard to raise. But the adventurers¡¯ alliance needed to consider the interests of their own. They would even want to maximize their benefits without losing a single life if at all possible.


    Both sides had different standpoints, so of course there would be disagreements.


    Cooperation,munication, an appropriate amount of trust, and a faintly unsaid employer-and-subordinate rtionship that wasn¡¯t absolute. Both sides would keep a certain distance from each other and still try to seek benefits for themselves while chasing after the same goal. That seemed to be the best choice.


    This current adventurers¡¯ alliance was led by roughly a dozen veteran adventurers. They were either the leaders of thergest mercenary groups or were well-known and well-respected adventurers who were elected to represent all the frence adventurers.


    ¡°There are approximately sixty to eighty thousand undead. Judging by the gs, there should be approximately ten Undead Lords in their army. Their leader is Davey from Asolivis...¡±


    Unlike the frence adventurers who would only see the skeleton knights behind them, any medium orrge-sized mercenary squad possessed their own investigative methods. Some had aerial knights scout out in the sky, while others relied on prophecy mages¡¯ prediction spells. It was only natural that they already understood the situation of the undead army¡¯s main forces.


    But when all the numerous investigative methods brought reports to the adventurer leaders, and they put the information together and verified that it all seemed quite reliable, the tent acting as the temporarymand center fellpletely silent. It wasn¡¯t because the undead were far too strong, but rather...


    ¡°This seems wrong. There are too few of them. Could this be some sort of trap?¡±


    Yep, this waspletely different to their expectations. The undead that arrived were far fewer than expected. Originally, everyone expected that every single Undead Lord in Asolivis would move out to attack, and that the total undead forces would well surpass several hundred thousand. However, only one-tenth of the expected undead forces had arrived.


    Some sort of pincer attack? Feint? Bait? Or just abandon this location and send their main forces elsewhere? Numerous thoughts appeared in everyone¡¯s minds. But since there were far too many possibilities, nobody dared toe to a conclusion.


    Suddenly, a messenger pigeon flew into the tent andnded on Kaise Elowen¡¯s hand as he was pondering this situation.


    ¡°...It would seem that our employers have their own additional sources of information.¡±


    This was a message from the wood spirits to Kaise. It basically said that due to certain reasons, most of the Undead Lords had refused to participate in this battle and that some of the gathered Undead Lords had suddenly left the army, causing the attacking undead forces to be far fewer than expected. The message ended by saying that the adventurers could rest assured in fighting only against this number.


    ¡°Certain reasons? It appears that our employer doesn¡¯tpletely trust us?¡±


    The moment Kaise finished telling the other adventurer leaders about the message, somemented in obvious displeasure. The adventurers risked their lives to fight for the sake of their employers, but the employers showed such open distrust. It was no wonder they would be dissatisfied.


    Yet a white-haired elderly adventurer helplessly shook his head. This person was Alo Simu, the ex-head priest of the former Mother Earth Goddess religion. Now, he was a somewhat famous adventurer.


    ¡°Heh, let¡¯s be honest with ourselves. Do we truly even trust ourpanions? Let¡¯s not even mention that incident of a few days ago.¡±


    Alo was obviously referring to the spy incident that urred just recently. Ever since this incident was uncovered, many adventuring squads became far more vignt. There was no knowing if their own squad had a secret undead spy.


    ¡°I also heard that the wood spirits even invited another helper. I heard that the person they invited was a major personage who¡¯s in the top 30 of the fairies¡¯ ranking lists?¡±


    ¡°The Eich¡¯s famous warriors ranking? That¡¯s highly unlikely. All the top 30 are considered national treasures by each country. How would they possibly ept being hired so easily? And if there really was such a famous warrior here, he would have long since been given the right tomand us. It¡¯s not like we don¡¯t know when to defer to others.¡±


    ¡°...Did you all forget? The fairies put out more than just one ranking list. They have an even more famous and authoritative ranking list.¡±


    ¡°...The Cmity Rankings!? Someone who¡¯s in the top 30 of the Cmity Rankings!? Are you sure they¡¯re here to help us, not to kill all of us together with the undead?¡±


    Shocked, everyone instantly fell silent for a moment. The meaning behind the Cmity Rankings was that ¡°If you identally meet someone on this list, don¡¯t consider resisting or even dream about killing them. Hurry up and run for your life.¡± The lower-ranked individuals on this list were all monsters like Immemorial Dragons that were far stronger than the average SemiGod. As for the top 30 on the Cmity Rankings, they were basically all mega troublesome individuals who refused to die and had lived for over a thousand years.


    ¡°Someone in the top thirty who¡¯s willing to be hired? Is it the gue King or the Volcano Tyrant? No matter who it is, it¡¯s not a good thing!¡±


    The gue King was a ssical alchemist and an expert in potion-making. Originally, he was someone who researched medicine that could cure gues. But, for certain reasons, the people he was hoping to cure ended up being burned alive as sources of the gue, and he who was originally a doctor was dered a heretic and desecrator by the Holy Church, ending up on their hit list.


    In the end, he really did be a heretic. While taking a revenge, he released the mutated virus that he had carefully cultivated. He transformed the entire church district that his enemies resided in into a living hell. Nowadays, the gue King was on the most wanted list of more than twenty countries. Despite this, he still lived just fine.


    He was also one of the few ¡°Cmities¡± who were quite active in Eich. He was even known for being quite willing to be hired. Of course, nobody hired him to cure a gue¡ªthey hired him to create gues. Apart from the fact that he hated the Holy Church more than anyone¡ªhe was always willing to take revenge on them¡ªhe was actually one of the most harmless of the top-ranked Cmities. Still, he was able to achieve #11 on the Cmity Rankings despite being so weak that he didn¡¯t even have a power level or know how to fight. It was just that the moment he died, all the mixed viruses he carried on him would instantly be released. It was said that these viruses were so potent that they would kill off literally half of Eich¡¯s entire poption. Even the Holy Church would only pretend to hunt him and not dare to actually touch him.


    While the gue King was a human cmity, the Volcano Tyrant was an actual natural cmity. The Volcano Tyrant was a gigantic magma scorpion who fed on the heat of thend. Said to typically reside in volcanic areas, he was rumored to have the ability to cause volcanos to appear and erupt at hismand. The truth was that every time he appeared, volcanoes would always apany him.


    This magma scorpion had no match in all of Eich. He was highly intelligent and loved to feast on blood, flesh, and souls. That was why he epted contracts to hire him. Although he only epted payments of SemiGod Equipment, the royalty could still afford to hire him. However, he rarely got any jobs. Not only was this because of the fact that he required seven hundred human sacrifices given to him in addition to a SemiGod Equipment as part of his ¡°hiring free,¡± the moment he appeared on any battlefield, it was always a loss for both sides.


    After all, anynd that people were fighting over, no matter how fertile, would be transformed into a volcanic area. Any strategically important location would be nothing more than ake of magma. This would be an incredible loss no matter which side won in the end.


    Precisely for this reason there was a private agreement amongst all countries that any country or individual that hired the Volcano Tyrant would be a public enemy. However, there were always people or countries who were forced to the brink. Although the Volcano Tyrant had very few employers, he would be hired once every few decades, which was more than enough for him to eat his fill until yearster.


    Since the gue King was ¡°critically important¡± to keep alive, he managed to make it all the way to #11 in the Cmity Rankings, while the Volcano Tyrant who actually caused far morerge-scale disasters and death than the gue King was a mere rank #29. This was quite indicative of what type of individuals were on the top 30 of the Cmity Rankings. And now that there was a rumor that the wood spirits had hired a Cmity in the top 30, meaning that this Cmity was most likely ranked even higher than the Volcano Tyrant, this naturally caused fear and panic in the adventurers.


    ¡°We can¡¯t let this be! We absolutely have to make the wood spirits tell us the truth about this!¡±


    While this scene was in utter chaos, Kaise received another message, this time from his mercenary group. He heard the news of what he wanted to know.


    ¡°...As I expected, all the members of that ¡®Wood Spirits are so Cute¡¯ team are currently absent from Oak Town?¡±


    Meanwhile, the undead were quite busy right now as well.


    From a certain standpoint, I was even somewhat impressed with and pitied the Undead Lord named Davey.


    The older one got, the more afraid they would be of death. Intelligent undead weren¡¯t synonymous with fearless insanity. With so many undead apparently going missing, many Undead Thanes started thinking about the future and how to best survive when the Undead Lords above them started disappearing.


    ¡°I apologize¡ªI have some personal affairs to deal with. I wish you all the best of luck.¡±


    Unless the reason for the mass disappearances was solved, not a single Undead Lord was willing to stay in this undead army. After all, far more than simply low-level undead were disappearing. There were plenty of Legend and even Saint-ranked Undead Thanes and Lords that ended up vanishing.


    Even though Davey pleaded for assistance from the Undead Emperors, he received nothing in return. In such a situation, unless the source was discovered and eliminated at its foundation, nobody would want to stay here and suffer a mysterious disappearance.


    As the list of the missing continuously increased, Davey himself was in a state of utter confusion. However, he was stuck between a rock and a hard ce. He only had one chance here. If he failed... the Undead Emperors wouldn¡¯t care about the reason. A failure was a failure to them. Anyone they considered useless would be dumped in the trash heap, and Davey would lose everything he possessed¡ªand he would have to deal with the Undead Emperors¡¯ rage to boot.


    When the news that all the undead that abandoned Davey had nothing befall them at all, even an idiot would realize that Davey was being targeted by something or someone scary. It was quite obvious what choice an undead should make if they wanted to remain safe.


    The most important part was that Davey himself was unable toe up with ideas to recuperate his army¡¯s morale... To be honest, not only him but even if I was in his position I doubted I would be able to find out what was wrong.


    ¡°Mars¡± was still in the process of being born. Not a single investigative magic spell would be able to discover an individual who wasn¡¯t even born yet. Meanwhile, the undead were undergoing their bination sacrifice,¡±mitting instinctual acts of suicide. A single summons would make them feel as if they wanted to go out and take a walk, and without knowing any better they would end up dead. This type of scene was absolutely abnormal and impossible to defend against.


    If Davey had been able to dismiss his army, reorganize it, and investigate fully, of course he would have been able to discover the problem. However, he had no time to do such a thing.


    And that was how his army, originally 300,000 strong, became no more than 50,000 or 60,000 undead by the time they reached Oak Town. The great majority of the few troops that remained were Davey¡¯s personal troops, the type that signed a soul contract with him where Davey could kill them with a single thought. They were absolutely loyal to him because they were forced to be.


    But, even so, Davey remained filled with confidence. Every single day, I could hear the unhurried sounds of him ying his violin. This music-loving Undead Lord seemed to still be in a good mood and even performed miniature concerts every day. However...


    ¡°He must be feeling nervous inside. He¡¯s probably just trying to maintain his usual fa?ade, which actually exposes his inner fear.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. When on the battlefield, it¡¯s simply enough to raise one¡¯s guard. Doing this makes him seem all the more uncertain.¡±


    Harloys and I simply watched the fun, but to tell the truth, I was still rather doubtful.


    After all, the Undead Lords may have been willing to watch Davey fail, but the Undead Emperors would absolutely refuse to allow the wood spirits to expand their territory. The Undead Emperors would certainly summon Davey back if this was a battle that was doomed to failure. And Davey himself was definitely not the type to walk down a path he was certain to fail.


    And that was how I concluded that Davey must still have some sort of ace up his sleeve, one that could overturn this situation.

 Chapter 338

    Chapter 338: Good Reviews


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°What are you busy doing? The battle¡¯s already begun, so why aren¡¯t you going outside?¡±


    The liches gathered their mana and summoned a thick nket of dark clouds that blotted out the sun, while skeleton mages summoned a never-ending sea of skeletons. With a fierce intent to do battle, the infinite amount of cannon fodder arrived on the battlefield. The fighting had reached its peak.... Just joking!


    Although the first part of all that was true, it wasn¡¯t important.


    The undead indeed began their battle against Oak Town. But strangely, they seemed to be highly unmotivated. The battling wasn¡¯t fierce at all. High-level undead troop types like Abominations weren¡¯t even sent out.


    Even though it was quite amon tactic for undead mages to summon a sea of skeletons to overwhelm their enemy with the force of numbers, the sea of skeletons still needed a sufficient amount of supporting, powerful troops to be at its most effective. Only summoning weak skeletons and having them attack by themselves would be no different from giving their enemy free practice targets and experience.


    The defending adventurers felt that it would be a waste to even use arrows against this pure sea of skeletons. It was enough to simply have the treants tossrge boulders. A single boulder rolling downhill would act just like a bowling ball, sending shattered bones flying everywhere.


    ¡°How boring. That¡¯s just nothing but testing our defenses. There¡¯s nothing worth watching at all.¡±


    There would be no possible result because both sides were still testing each other right now. All they were doing was wasting a minor amount of ammunition and losing a very low amount of lives.


    ¡°What are you doing? [The Adventurer Review System]? What is this?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just adding a new patch to the ¡®Contract Heroes¡¯ system.¡±


    ¡°A patch? What kind of hellish idea have youe up with now?¡±


    ¡°Well, something that¡¯s obtained too easily won¡¯t be valued. And, if everyone is treated equally in the Contract Heroes System, it¡¯s actually unfair to those who work the hardest and have the most aplishments. So, I created this VIP level system, where the best ¡¯employees¡¯ will obtain even greater honors and levels in the system.¡±


    I even startedughing out loud as I said this. It was precisely of that spy¡¯s appearance, as well as therge mercenary groups and adventurers remaining on guard against each other, that helped me discover many insufficiencies about my Contract Heroes system.


    ¡°Why are youughing so evilly? Honor? Are you such a nice person? Why do I feel like you¡¯re going to make others suffer again?¡±


    ¡°No, I just recalled something funny. So what do you think of this level system I came up with?¡±


    ¡°One heart, two hearts, three hearts, one diamond, two diamonds... One crown, two crowns? What¡¯s with all these designs? Hearts, diamonds, and crowns? Is there a connection between them?¡±


    ¡°It is something you wouldn¡¯t understand, a representation of the greatest honor! It¡¯s abel that represents how much money you¡¯ve spent. Although in the end, many people started grinding and making fake ounts, in addition to those professional counterfeiters, rendering itpletely unreliable... at the very least, it was quite reliable when it first appeared.¡±


    Actually, what pictures were used for the designs was unimportant. Although I evilly giarized the designs used in a certain Chinese application [1] 1 , Contract Heroes indeed needed a clear level system that indicated their level of reliability.


    In this world, mercenaries and adventurers didn¡¯t have a clear level system. How mercenaries and adventurers got hired reliedpletely on their past reputations and personal connections. This was precisely why that empty shell of a mercenary group from before that lost all but a few of its members still had people fighting over seeding its name. The reputation that it established over the past hundred years was the greatest wealth of all.


    Establishing a credibility rating system for adventurers and mercenaries would require a neutral reditation party that the public and all the countries trusted in. Previously, this would obviously be impossible in this generation where so many countries existed in opposition to each other.


    The Mercenary Guild? Many mercenaries would treat the Mercenary Guild as a neutral intermediary which provided services for them. In fact, the Mercenary Guild would often help retired and injured mercenaries find new jobs, provide water and food for mercenaries, fix and maintain their weapons, enchant their equipment, provide job opportunities for current mercenaries, and other such services. But most of the time, the Mercenary Guild relied on the mercenaries themselves to support it. Theycked any forceful measures against the mercenaries themselves.


    This was what the royalty of every country wished to see. Not a single country wanted to see the neutral Mercenary Guild have its own power and independence. Otherwise, the power the Mercenary Guild possessed would be dangerous to their interests.


    ¡°Absolutely neutral, and we focus on providing services to all mercenaries.¡± This could basically be the catchphrase of the Mercenary Guild.


    The end result was that all Mercenary Guilds and mercenary alliancescked credibility in the minds of most adventurers and mercenaries. There was also no way for countries to recognize the validity of Mercenary Guilds from other countries. If you mentioned a particr mercenary group or adventurer, the most you could describe them with was ¡°Oh, they seem to be quite famous¡± or ¡°He sounds like he¡¯s pretty powerful.¡± Vague words like these, but they were obviously unconvincing and unreliable.


    Theck of a very clear review system wasn¡¯t good for either the employers or the employed. After all, potential employers would also be afraid that the bodyguards they spent so much money on hiring turned out to be bandits that attacked their own employer or a group of weaklings posing as the strong. The mercenary groups would also worry whether their employer would treat themselves as nothing more than expendable cannon fodder. This was why the hardest missions with the highest requirements could only be found through personal connections or privately notifying a Mercenary Guild. The oldest and most veteran mercenary groups would only be stronger and stronger, and newly-established mercenary groups would find it impossible to receive high-level jobs.


    Without a doubt, this limited the ability of the average mercenary and adventurer to improve themselves. But if there was apletely reliable and trustworthy neutral party that assessed all the mercenaries and adventurers, the situation would be greatly improved. At the very least, a mercenary group with over ny percent excellent reviews would definitely look a lot better than a mercenary group that had more than fifty percent negative reviews... why did I feel like I was turning my Contract Hero into Amazon?


    Reviewing a mercenary¡¯s personal strength as well as paying the mercenary would be connected to the level system I had in mind. For instance, a mercenary who had a level of double crowns, the highest level in my system, would mean that he had performed lots of tasks for his employers and had arge number of excellent reviews. Naturally, this mercenary would be able to charge higher prices for his services and could be considered a very trustworthy individual.


    ¡°And this isn¡¯t only for mercenaries and adventurers. Just take a look at the battlefield. Don¡¯t you feel that something¡¯s wrong about the situation?¡±


    ¡°Nah, I¡¯m not interested in children¡¯s games like this battle.¡±


    Fine then. Although I was just saying so, I had indeed noticed that something seemed off about the situation since I really did feel that these small-scale battles, which were only meant to test the enemy, were quite boring.


    ¡°In the past, for the most difficult of missions, multiple mercenary groups would team up together. Naturally, they didn¡¯t particrly trust each other or know how each other worked. So either someone everyone agreed on would be voted as a temporary leader or all the leaders would work together in a temporary alliance. Perhaps this is sufficient for small-scale battles, but there are also obvious limitations to this. If this continues for the Contract Heroes, there will be quite a number of disadvantages.¡±


    Indeed, as the Contract Heroes system expanded and the ¡°Heroes¡± became stronger and more numerous, the individual Contract Heroes not tied to any organization would be more and more important. For example, this defensive battle at Oak Town was basically the first time the Contract Heroes acted as the main forces, but in the future, Contract Heroes would be appearing at muchrger-scale battles, perhaps even at a national level. It seemed far too outdated and inefficient to continue using the same old leadership system from before. This current battle was exposing quite a number of problems.


    ¡°Just take a look at the warriors standing on the frontlines. While they¡¯re epting orders on the frontlines, they¡¯re still turning around to look at people on the castle walls. They¡¯re probably looking for their real bosses¡¯ orders, instead. Also, all the archers are actually ¡®kill stealing¡¯ to try and obtain more Justice Points, which means that they¡¯re focusing far too much to fire at targets worth arge amount of Justice Points. This is far too much of a waste of important ammunition. As long as ¡®Contract Heroes¡¯ remain like this, no matter how powerful they are, they¡¯re still nothing more than a loose pile of sand.¡±


    Not even mentioning the fact that the Heroes had spies amongst each other working for rival organizations, theycked trust in each other. They were all proud individuals who weren¡¯t willing to be others¡¯ subordinates apart from those they recognized. How could they possibly trust in others¡¯mands? The moment they met a dangerous task, pushing responsibility onto others and ming each other for failure was the most natural thing to do. On the battlefield,cking an ¡°absolute authority¡± was definitely damaging.


    Perhaps it wouldn¡¯t be that noticeable if the battle was going well, but the moment a battle started going poorly it would be easy for internal conflicts to arise and people to resist orders. Maybe even the entire battle would be lost or traitors would appear, all because the leaderscked absolute authority or were filled with selfish intentions.


    At the very least, currently, the most obvious problem was that there were far too manymanders. There were quite a few adventurers and mercenaries giving orders. But all these people wanted to be leaders, not to win the battle, but to have their own subordinates safely and reliably earn as many Justice Points as possible.


    So, apart from personal honor in my nned level system, apart from being able to give reviews to ordinary warriors, certain special individuals could also receive titles such as ¡°Top-level Commander¡± or ¡°Professional Commander¡± and so on. This would make it more convenient for them to take charge, and it would even help us create some ssic examples and heroes, giving us more control over people¡¯s opinions of us.


    But when I exined all this to Harloys, she had a different opinion from me.


    ¡°Why not just use a military title system, with sergeant, lieutenant, colonel, and other such titles? Wouldn¡¯t that be a better and more direct system?¡±


    I could only smile wryly at this. Although Harloys was incredibly talented in magic, she didn¡¯t know much about politics. For some things, I just couldn¡¯t rely on her.


    ¡°That would be far too sensitive of a topic. It would sound like we created a personal army. What would each country¡¯s royalty and church think of that?¡±


    Yep, I was certain that the moment we used military titles for our system, our Justice Points system would immediately be targeted as a threat by every single country.


    ¡°Tsk, humans are so troublesome. I¡¯m going to go out and take a look.¡±


    ¡°Let me know if there are any changes in the situation. Have a few people keep a good eye on those high-level undead, especially the two living individuals in their camp.¡±


    Harloys turned around and left, leaving me alone with my frustrations.


    Creating a review system would directly rte to the credibility and future of our Justice Points system. I needed it to have an obvious level system in order to make it more convenient to establish leaders that everyone would follow, yet I also couldn¡¯t make it too rigid of a system that would make the various countries in this world sense danger. The more I thought about it, the more troublesome I felt it would be.


    ¡°Hmm, should I add in a ¡®Thumbs-up¡¯ system? A person can increase in level with thirty-two thumbs-ups. Or, after receiving some set amount of thumbs-ups, they¡¯ll receive an official title... Wait a moment, there will always be things I can¡¯t predict¡ªI need to also think of a way to preemptively prevent career negative reviewer trolls from appearing!¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Taobao, China¡¯s version of Amazon.

 Chapter 339

    Chapter 339: Taking Action


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    At first, it was a light shower of rain. Ten minutester, however, it had be a massive rainstorm. This was weather that both sides preferred not to see, but the undead held more of an advantage in such weather.


    Perhaps it would cause the undead¡¯s reinforcements to arrive slightlyter, and the undead would be slightly affected by the torrential downpour, but it could not significantly influence their situation.


    However, this was doubtlessly unpleasant weather to be fighting in for the defending adventurers. With such a mega rainstorm, ordinary humans on the attacking side would most likely choose to rest in this weather as well. After all, the current temperature was still rather cold, and even the average strong human wouldn¡¯t be able to handle vigorous exercise and sweating in the rain, which would easily lead to them catching a cold. It was quitemon for even powerful individuals to fall ill if they fought in such weather.


    Not only that, the icy coldness of the rain droplets and decrease in vision would bring about a sense of difort for the humans, seriously affecting their morale.


    It wasmon sense for any human battlefieldmander to avoidmencing battle in cold and heavy rainstorms at all costs, unless absolutely necessary. Otherwise, not only would the army¡¯sbat strength be seriously weakened, but it would also be quite difficult to deal with the following effects¡ªthe army would likely be greatly weakened after the battle as well.


    The living were limited by environmental factors, but the undead, who were no longer living, had it much better.


    The undead did not know illness. Although they disliked wielding weapons which would be slippery in the rain, and torrential rains would also affect their vision and slow them down¡ªmaybe even forcing them to find their lost teeth and eyes washed away by the rain¡ªthey wouldn¡¯t be incapable of fighting simply because of some rain.


    ¡°Damn it, how much longer is this rain going to go on for?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t being frustrated because of the difficulties for thebat situation. To me, as long as the end result was eptable, the process was unimportant.


    My direct subordinates and I had limited power. We weren¡¯t, and we didn¡¯t intend to be, all-epassing nannies. Since these Contract Heroes had the resolution to obtain great rewards inbat, they would naturally require the resolution to know that they would possibly die in battle. I didn¡¯t intend to overly interfere... and to be honest, it was impossible for me to interfere much. After all, there were countless battles in this world, and future battles would escte in level. After a certain time, even SemiGods would be appearing on the battlefield in hoards¡ªit would be impossible for me to take care of every battlefield even if I wanted to.


    And since I was hoping for these ¡°Dimensional Guardians,¡± my ¡°Game yer recements,¡± to speedily grow and mature, it would actually be best for me to not interfere too much with their growth. Truly strong individuals needed to make it past tough situations where their life was on the brink. Unless this battle became one where our side was certain to lose and be eradicated, I didn¡¯t actually intend to interfere.


    The only reason I came here was that Samantha and the wood spirits requested it of me, and as for why I went and weakened the undead¡¯s forces, it was simply because I wanted to perform an experiment...


    ¡°Rnd, did you know that it¡¯s unseemly when a man acts like a tsundere?¡±


    I decided to ignore the silly cat¡¯sment. I definitely was no tsundere who would volunteer to babysit some novice adventurers! I was simply frustrated right now because the torrential rain had interrupted my nned experiments, hence my foul mood.


    ¡°...Is there a way to get rid of all this rain?¡±


    ¡°Not for me. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m an archdruid. They¡¯re the ones most skilled at controlling the weather. Isn¡¯t Eaglestorm one of your subordinates? Why don¡¯t you try having him control the weather?¡±


    Although it was what I expected to hear from Harloys, I was still disappointed.


    As long as a mage was sufficiently prepared, they were indeed all-powerful. But the prerequisite was a sufficient amount of preparation. At the very least, I knew that the mages in the Cloud Tower had the ability to control the daily weather of the city of Arlo. However, this required plenty of support structures and mage towers¡¯ assistance, and any weather-rted mega AOE spell was actually a major category of forbidden spells. At the very least, it required a mage at the SemiGod level and required a long time to cast.


    Yet right now, Harloys was still only at the Gold rank, limited in power level due to the magical pet contract which forbade her power level from exceeding the master¡¯s. Even if she knew some spells that could change the weather, she wouldn¡¯t be able to use them without the foundational power level required. But it was so rare that I couldtch on to one of her sore points, so I definitely wouldn¡¯t let her have it easy¡ªverbally, of course.


    ¡°Tsk, how useless. Eaglestorm, you say? Let¡¯s not even mention how he¡¯s currently ¨¦n route to the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital, but even if he was here, he¡¯s only a druid at the Legend rank. He wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything about this situation.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, it¡¯s all because of your weak power level that¡¯s dragging me down. In that case, how about having ¡®Mars¡¯ activate earlier than nned?¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that make him into a premature newborn? I¡¯m still hoping he obtains plenty of souls as nourishment in this battle. Rejected!¡±


    ¡°...Shouldn¡¯t you have a method to change the weather as well?¡±


    ¡°Sure, I have the ability to change that torrential rainstorm into a torrential blizzard. It¡¯ll probably be headline news the very next day, with such arge blizzard appearing inte spring. But what will we do after that? Compete in who freezes to death first? I think that out of all the species, the undead that don¡¯t need to eat or drink and don¡¯t feel pain will definitely win a survival of the fittestpetition.¡±


    Alright then, I and the silly cat stared at each other and confirmed that neither of us had a method avable to us that could change the weather.


    *Boom!*


    Suddenly, there was a loud thunderp. But the strange part was that this thunderp originated from the ground and shot towards the sky, piercing through the clouds.


    *Boom!*


    After some more continuous rumbling that illuminated the entire area with lightning, the clouds dissipated and this area returned to peaceful and quiet weather.


    This was obviously the result of something unnatural. However...


    ¡°That¡¯s strange, didn¡¯t that originate from the undead¡¯s camp? Did some powerful undead use magic to dispel the clouds? Why would they act so suicidal?¡±


    The undead army¡¯s generalmand center was merely some temporarily constructed low-level Soul-Absorbing Towers. And in this messy and disorganizedmand center was a single two-story tall white house that stood out from its surroundings. Various flowers and nts grew all around it, and there were even servants tending to the house.


    The titan giant Yins was patiently tending to the nts, while the other titan giant Hatley maintained his pose of tossing javelins, as if he wanted to throw yet another one. At this moment, the real owner of this house suddenly entered.


    ¡°My two venerated lords! What are you...¡±


    Although Davey was doing his best to remain calm, the Ghoul Lord¡¯s expression was ugly. Right now, he was incredibly furious.


    It was only natural that he was so angry. He was already in a bad situation to begin with, and he finally received a lucky break from the skies. But this lucky break had just been ruined by his supposed allies. Even a saint would be angered at this, not to mention that Davey was an Undead Lord and no kind individual.


    But he restrained himself from actually doing anything. It wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t want to vent his rage, it was that he couldn¡¯t. The main issue was that he knew he would never win in a fight, and he didn¡¯t even dare to antagonize these two visitors.


    Both titan giants were mere incarnations of their wills, a simr method to how Gods could send out their incarnations by using divine power. The power that an incarnation wielded was far more limited inparison to their true selves. But even so, at the very weakest, they would be SemiGods, the most powerful power level for mortals. Without even mentioning the Undead Lord Davey, even the Undead Emperors themselves didn¡¯t have a chance of certain victory against the titan giants¡¯ incarnations. And if the Elemental Tide increased even further, the limiters on the titan giants¡¯ power level would be decreased by even more. Just how powerful were the titan giants, and what were they capable of aplishing in the mortal ne if they were unsealed? Except for ancient existences from the immemorial generation, nobody knew.


    For the sake of obtaining victory as well as obtaining the Undead Emperors¡¯ trust and favor, Davey was gambling everything on this battle. Over the past few days, without regard to cost, Davey was treating his two ultimate ¡°ace cards¡± with the utmost best attitude.


    They were tired of walking together with the army? No problem, the undead lifted them in pnquins. What, they felt like the stench of undead was disgusting? No problem, the undead captured a few humans to carry the pnquins. What? They felt that men were filthy? No problem, the undead captured some young women to carry the pnquins instead.


    They felt that their temporary residence was dirty and poor? No problem, undead alchemists and mages worked nonstop on improving their residence, while death knights acted asborers in construction. Top-level earth magic expert liches acted as the masons, undead artists that were several centuries old took up the task of being the designers. This ce had a gentle garden added, and it even had the simple construction style of modern architecture. It was a work of art. Together with the house, Davey even gave them an undead butler who had over one hundred years of experience serving a royal family, a team of female banshee elf servants, an Undead Thane who acted as their personal violinist, an undead who was a former master artist, and even a gardener.


    They felt that the undead were being too noisy? No problem, the army withdrew from the area to give them plenty of space and even constructed a soundproof wall for the residence.


    They said that this cecked in life energy? No problem, the undead army went all out and finally captured numerous beasts along with an albino lion that became Hatley¡¯s pet, and then even nted all sorts of flowers and nts around the house. The undead did all the gardening and cleaning work... were these really the so-called evil undead that all the living feared? They seemed more like the best servants one could find!


    ¡°How are they our reinforcements? It¡¯s as if I have to serve two kings.¡±


    But, by this point, Davey knew that even if Hatley and Yins acted like kings, he had to tolerate it. There was no other path for him to take. Failure here would only end in eternal doom for him.


    ¡°My... my... two venerated lords, may I ask what you meant with your action? Has old Davey been disrespectful in some way that has dissatisfied my two venerated lords?¡±


    Davey did his very best to suppress the anger in his heart. Finally, he was able to ask his question in a rtively calm tone. But by thest few words, he was unable to suppress his tone of voice, and his calm question turned into a question that quite apparently expressed his dissatisfaction.


    ¡°Flowers.¡±


    ¡°Flowers?¡±


    ¡°As expected, all undead are so foolish. What my Brother Yins means is that the rain has blocked off the sunlight so that the flowers are unable to bloom.¡±


    ¡°@#@#$...&.¡±


    Only this series of jumbled symbols was sufficient to express Davey¡¯s current emotions. At this moment, a mysterious feeling of aggrievement gathered in Davey¡¯s eyes. It was far too pitiful for an Undead Lord like him to have reached such a sorry state. If he had still been living, he definitely would have been crying out loud by now.


    Davey was faintly sensing what his own future would be like. Perhaps he would indeed be famous in history, but not as the wise sessor of Aso that he had hoped, but rather as the stupidest Undead Lord in all of history. He was born as nothing more than a lowly ghoul and did his best to fight and scheme for the past thousands of years, only to receive nothing but such an end?


    Meanwhile, Hatleyughed and walked up to the old Ghoul Lord, patting him on the shoulder.


    ¡°We¡¯re getting bored of staying out here in the mortal ne. It¡¯s time for us to go back. Right, leave this house behind and make two dragons into the servant caretakers here. We might still want to use this ce the next time we meet...¡±


    And this moment, old Davey¡¯s facial expression became a sight to behold. He had never hated any individual more in his life. He was angrily roaring and cursing in his mind. At the same time, he was also hesitating whether or not he should clutch Hatley¡¯s leg and beg for him to stay here. The two titan giants were the only hope he had of winning this battle!


    Finally, even Yins seemed to be unable to take this any longer, perhaps sensing that the joke had been too overboard.


    ¡°...Aren¡¯t they just some little weaklings? We¡¯ll stamp this entire city into the earth before we leave.¡±


    ¡°Ha, Brother Yins is so soft-hearted. Heh, you vulgar undead, if you ever dare to try to take advantage of us children of the earth again, making us into your fighters, we shall make you all taste what the wrath of the titans is like before we destroy you and your pitiful army, making you all wail in hell for thousands of years.¡±


    Hatley¡¯s soft words transformed into a thunderous roar by the end. His body was covered in thunder and lightning, and a thunder giant appeared in the mortal ne. His eyes that were flickering with lightning were now staring at Oak Town which was not far away.


    ¡°Little weaklings, it¡¯s time for me to have some fun.¡±


    Meanwhile, Davey was now copsed on the ground. Therge change in emotions from so much grief to joy was too great for him to handle. He was currently lying on the ground, panting with his tongue hanging out, as if he were only an ordinary low-ranked ghoul. The image he had carefully cultivated of being a wise individual was utterly ruined.


    The titan giants were exceptionally intelligent. Compared to the titan giants that had several tens of thousands of years of experience at the very minimum, old Davey was nothing but a novice with his schemes. Only now did he finally realize that from the very beginning, these two titan giants were only toying with him. All his ideas and ns were probably nothing more than a joke to them. His so-called title as the undead most simr to Aso was nothing more than a farce in their eyes.


    As he watched them transforming into mega-giants that reached the clouds, he heaved a sigh of relief. After all, in his mind, they were an absolute power that couldn¡¯t be won against no matter what.


    ¡°At the very least, they¡¯ll destroy Oak Town for me, and I¡¯ll be able to seed in the task that the Undead Emperors handed to me.¡±

 Chapter 340

    Chapter 340: sh


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The titan giants? Haughty and arrogant, they look down on every other species except their own. No, it is beyond that: they believe that it is their benevolence and charity to allow other species to live and breathe without stepping on them and crushing them.¡±


    As part of the immemorial generation, this was Ayer¡¯s assessment of the titan giants. From a certain standpoint, the assessment of an entire species as ¡°haughty and arrogant¡± was already an exnation in itself.


    This could be seen in the titan giants¡¯ closely rted rtives. The superior giants, such as cloud giants and magma giants, even looked down upon the dragons, always calling them ¡°big lizards.¡± Superior giants had it even worse for Silver and Bronze Species, directly addressing them as ¡°mortals, little ones, and fleshlings,¡± viewing them as nothing but potential sources of food.


    But, from another standpoint, they indeed had plenty to be proud about. They were born with incredible power. An average mountain giant would be able to easily defeat a human warrior who cultivated for his entire life. The frost giants, who weren¡¯t even one of the stronger giant species, were known to hunt white dragons for fun. Hunting a white dragon was a feat which would already cause a top-level human hero to be recorded in epics.


    This wasn¡¯t even everything. How powerful a species was as a whole wouldn¡¯t only be because of natural-born abilities. The titan giants had once established a brilliant culture of their own in thisnd. By today, there were still a few traces remaining, with the cloud giants who loved to sing, dance, and truly enjoyed art. The Eternal Desert district also had some remnant traces of titan giant culture.


    The titan giants denied the right of any God to rule over them except for the Creator Goddess Eich. ording to legends, they were originally given life by Eich, who had created them from the crystals of the earth, so they always believed themselves to be the children of the earth and that the world itself gave birth to them. They believed that other Gods were merely their peers or even their juniors.


    Compared to the cultures of most other species, which were based on religions worshipping various Gods, the titan giants¡¯ sculptures focused on their own achievements. Their strangely shaped drawings recorded their understanding of the world.


    Emordilorcan¡¯s undergroundbyrinth was constructed in a ssic titan giant style. That was a giant¡¯s pce, which sought after the simple contrast of ck and white, together with beautiful craftsmanship and excellent materials that would create an extravagance which wasn¡¯t too opulent. Their ruins and constructions disyed sculptures and statues depicting strength and beauty. The titan giants also left behind various strange drawings and buildings that nobody understood the meaning of.


    By today¡¯s generation, this rtively strange style still had a deep influence.


    For the ¡°newly-rich¡± thatcked a great past, ancient history represented dignity. The construction style of the titan giants had be quite popr among humans in the 1700¡¯s. Large, regal temples with stairs carved out of white jade would be engraved with all sorts of myths and legends... Actually, I was always quite confused about this. If you engraved things onto walls, there would asionally be people looking at them, but if you engraved something onto the stairs, you would be walking on them. And if you really lowered your head to look at them, wouldn¡¯t that make the engravings seem very undignified? But if nobody looked at them, it would be a waste. Was it simply to give future generations a chance at archeology?


    Cough, I should probably refrain frommenting on cultural products like toilets constructed out of pure gold. No matter what world I was in, there were plenty of people who did stuff like this. It was fine as long as they liked it. They could do whatever they wanted because they were rich!


    Let¡¯s go back to the main topic on hand. No dynasty in the world wouldst for eternity, and their glorious history would only serve to make their present state seem all the more pitiful. The giants¡¯ culture was now nothing more than a footnote in history. The current giants¡¯ descendants only inherited their culture and techniques about ughtering. Still, nobody would look down upon them as they were still the titan giants¡¯ rtives, the descendants of the earth.


    Before the Intelligence-lowering curse was ced on most of the giant species, fire giants, magma giants, and other such fire-elemental giants were the most skilled smiths in all of Eich. The ancient buildings that sand giants created in desert areas still remained a wonder of the world even today. Meanwhile, frost giants were the most skilled hunters of all. The ultrawhite wolves they trained back in the day were viewed by the locals as an unstoppable ¡°White Cmity¡± even in today¡¯s generation.


    A species like the giants had lost the great majority of their inheritance and Intelligence but still managed to survive to this day and age¡ªthis was the best exnation of all for how strong their foundation was in the past.


    As for how strong the original titan giants were? Perhaps nobody knew for certain, but it was publicly recognized that a mature titan giant wouldn¡¯t be any weaker than an immemorial red dragon. This was the most basic assessment of their power level. Actually, I had already learned from Ayer that the titan giants had in more than a dozen True Gods in the immemorial generation. It must be remembered that in that generation the True Gods could be considered to be much stronger than the Gods of today, so that meant the titan giants¡¯ leaders had power levelsparable to Ayer, a Main God.


    But when I learned that they were so ridiculously strong, I actually rxed somewhat. After all, if they ever appeared, someone stronger than me would appear to deal with them in my stead. Some powerful Gods would definitelye and handle them¡ªit would be useless to use a little shrimp like me as cannon fodder. Besides, titan giants hadn¡¯t appeared in this world for the past several tens of thousands of years, so just how unlucky would I need to be...


    ¡°If I really meet a titan, I¡¯ll livestream myself eating my keyboard¡ªer¡ªeating my sword!¡±


    But I never expected myself to really meet a titan giant! Also, I really jinxed myself!


    ¡°Eat your sword, eat your sword.¡±


    Harloys would always have a peculiarly good memory when it came to the weirdest things, such as how I was always urate with my predictions in the strangest ways.


    ¡°Well, aren¡¯t you currently my sword? You¡¯re sure you want to watch me eat my sword? Or should I lick you first? Wow, this is quite a fresh idea of mine, but it¡¯s so lewd.¡±


    Hmph, the moment I spoke, the silly cat indeed quieted down. But this wasn¡¯t the time for either of us to be joking around.


    As I gazed at the blue giant who was tall enough to pierce into the clouds, I was doing my best toe up with an idea. However, the towering thunder giant was already walking towards Oak Town¡¯s castle walls. With every step the earth trembled and the walls shivered. I could even feel everyone¡¯s fear and despair.


    ¡°On this day, humanity recalled the terror of the titan giants... and the humiliation of being caged up as their pets!¡±


    ¡°Stop joking around, Rnd! Hurry and think of something!¡±


    Think of something? Wasn¡¯t I doing my best? Livening up the atmosphere was just my way of helping myself think.


    The rampaging physical form of thunder was the best reminder that my opponent was incredibly difficult to deal with. Without even needing to take measurements, and by simply looking at this true titan¡¯s thunder that far surpassed Adam¡¯s version, I could tell that this titan giant was something that even a regr SemiGod wouldn¡¯t be able to deal with.


    And what was even more difficult to deal with than a titan giant was...


    ¡°Are there two titan giants here? Since titan giants are so arrogant that they don¡¯t view a single other species as their equal, this means that those two humanoid fellows that were treated like royalty by the undead were actually titan giants?¡±


    I had long since been paying attention to those two venerated guests in Davey¡¯s camp. If my guess was on the mark, these two titan giants that suddenly appeared were those two humanlike people in Davey¡¯s camp.


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey?something seems wrong with the pacing here. Aren¡¯t enemies supposed to always first send cannon fodder, then a sub-boss, then an elite boss, saving the demon king forst? You¡¯re sending the final boss right away at the beginning? How are we supposed to have fun ying this game?¡±


    ¡°Ha, the only you skill you have is inmenting.¡±


    I ignored Harloys¡¯ment. From a certain standpoint, if I had enough power, how could I possibly stand for only watching the situation?


    ¡°Let¡¯s test them first... They can¡¯t possibly be titan giants in their full states. It¡¯s impossible for them topletely appear at their full power levels in the mortal ne. Besides, the dragons haven¡¯t reported that the titan giants have broken free from their seal. How about we simply wait for the game moderators to descend?¡±


    ¡°Then Oak Town will definitely be destroyed.¡±


    Game moderators? I was referring to the Gods. In a way, they were the protectors of this world and its strongest fighters. If extraordinary existences that didn¡¯t belong to this ne invaded and started causing destruction here, dealing with them was the most basic task that the Gods were supposed to perform.


    However, this still had many limitations and rules. For example, when the demon earl invaded the mortal nest time, if I had waited for Lorci, who was in charge at the time, to respond, Sulfur Mountain City would have been no more even though the Gods would have eventually sent their incarnations to descend here and deal with it.


    The current situation was simr. These titan giants had yet to directly interfere with any specific True God¡¯s direct benefits. Only when the titan giants got in the way of some unfortunate God¡¯s benefits would that God then send out an incarnation to stop them... and it was most likely that that God would even stall for time before doing so, in hopes that these troublesome titan giants would disappear on their own. Otherwise, it was quite possible that the God would lose face if it turned out that they were unable to beat the titan giants, or, at the very least, waste divine power. This was also why Demon Lords were somonly able to run amok in the mortal ne but always sessfully escape in the end.


    ¡°The Gods can afford to wait, but we can¡¯t.¡±


    I could only smile wryly upon hearing this. Yep, the Gods didn¡¯t care unless it was directly rted to them and would only remain as bystanders. Yet we ourselves were definitely rted to this, so we were the only ones who couldn¡¯t afford to wait.


    Although I didn¡¯t want to be the Contract Heroes¡¯ babysitter, this was undoubtedly a situation that was going to end in the total defeat and eradication of everyone. If I simply watched the first group of Contract Heroes perish ¨¦n masse, my future ns would be greatly affected. A sessful first impression or a failed one would both highly influence people¡¯s opinions. Bandwagoners would only look at results, never taking coincidences and irresistible forces into consideration.


    ¡°At the very least, we should test them. If they¡¯replete titan giants, then I think we need to immediately organize our escape.¡±


    Even if it was only a test, directly taking action myself would be foolish. I suddenly thought of a devious idea. If my opponent was rtively foolish, perhaps I would even benefit from all this.


    ¡°Little Mars, it¡¯s time for you to take action.¡±


    ¡°...Yes, Master.¡±


    Several secondster, my will transmitted mymand to my newest servant.


    *Boom!*


    Like a falling meteor, a vermillion fireball streaked through the firmament before crashing into, and exploding against, the back of the titan giant¡¯s head.


    And when this gigantic titan giant turned around in astonishment, he discovered that the caster was standing in the undead camp, and that a group of undead was rushing right towards him.


    Javelins containing the pitch-ck magic of corrosion were being thrown at him, heroic death knights turned on their desecration and curse auras, and skeleton knights showed off their excellent archery skills. This was a standard undead knight ambush squadron.


    ¡°For Lord Davey¡¯s glory! For the Undead Emperors¡¯ glory! Die, desecrator!¡±


    Under the control of my soul contract, these death knights shouted out oaths swearing loyalty to their supposed masters as they rushed towards the towering titan giant. It suddenly caused me to remember a certain elderly knight who loved to rush at windmills [1] 1 ... and since I figured the result would mostly be the same, I decided to silently mourn the undead knights for two seconds.


    *Zzzzz!*


    Alright then, it only took one second. The titan giant merely waved its arm and an explosive sh of lightning devoured everything before it. The next instant, the undead knights had vanished from the face of the world, leaving not even ash. All that was left was a scorched pit that was already crystallized.


    ¡°Davey! You dare!¡±


    But, the next moment, the titan giant abnormally recovered his calm, before continuing to walk towards Oak Town.


    It was just that in that little white residence, the pitiful Davey who had just witnessed everything experienced yet another instance of great emotional turmoil.


    If he had still been living, with the ability to have a heartbeat, he would have died right there of a heart attack.


    The thunderous roar was still echoing in his ears. When Hatley roared his name, it possessed a powerful force behind it. Davey trembled at the sound, as if he were a frog being stared at by a snake.


    However, Yins chuckled. He reached out and tapped Davey, giving him his freedom back.


    ¡°I¡¯ve finally caught your trail.¡±


    The next moment, he took Davey and disappeared, and then...


    ¡°How is this possible!¡±


    He directly appeared in front of me! That¡¯s right, the titan giant discovered me!


    ¡°Don¡¯t be so surprised. It¡¯ll lower my evaluation of you. You¡¯re the first one who¡¯s ever been able to mess around so many days in front of me without being discovered. Be proud of yourself, mortal. I, the fourth-ranked titan Yins, grant you the honor of being able to speak with me.¡±


    Yins¡¯ long hair flowed in the wind as his eyes nced at me. His gaze seemed a tad vacant¡ªhe appeared to both focus at me and behind me, as if he was staring at the distant stars. This was quite an annoying yet familiar sensation; no wonder he was able to find me.


    ¡°The ability of prophecy? I thought that titan giants were no longer able to use this power?¡±


    ¡°No, I didn¡¯t use any spell. Your action was the cause, and the effect was that my cute younger brother was ambushed. I merely followed the trail of cause and effect to find you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re able to instinctively follow such a concept to the source? Ahhh, your natural talent makes me so jealous. Those so-called prophecy magic expert mages would call this inconceivable. Is this an abilitymon to all titan giants, or your personal talent?¡±


    ¡°Amongst all my brothers, I think I¡¯m the only one who possesses this ability. However, I¡¯m quite interested in how you made those undead disappear. Their disappearance was both a cause and an effect. This is the first time I¡¯ve ever met with an iprehensible phenomenon. Could you tell me how you aplished it?¡±


    Although we were only talking, we were also both trying our best to find out more about each other.


    ¡°You don¡¯t appear very strong. But, the strange thing is my instinct is telling me that you¡¯re incredibly dangerous. It would appear that you¡¯re actually a threat to me? Wait, the danger is bing even stronger. You have the ability to even threaten my main body?¡±


    The door in the void was something I could open at any time. If I summoned my Frigidwinter Earth with its power of eternity, it would probably only end in one of our deaths. I was confident that my power of absolute zero would be able to even threaten the titan giants.


    But even though I just opened up a slight crack in the dimensional wall without saying a single word, he already sensed something. This type of opponent was absolutely impossible to ambush. This was truly difficult.


    ¡°Take a guess. Still, I think that it¡¯s quite profitable for me if I get to take a titan giant down with me.¡±


    I narrowed my eyes and lowered my head. My Ice Cmity magic sword was already in my hands. Against this type of opponent I couldn¡¯t let my guard down for even one second. He could sense my killing intent, and, of course, I could sense his killing intent as well.


    The backdrop to our apparent calm interaction was the tremendous thunder giant fighting against tiny little creatures. Of course, the thunder giant was the other titan giant, and it appeared to be fighting against some treant warriors that were actually all part of Jill.


    ¡°You, you, you... Emperor Rnd!¡±


    At this moment, Davey, who had been teleported along here with Yins, finally recognized me.


    He had an incrediblyplex expression as he seemingly realized something. But when he thought about how I was the one who made him suffer so much, all his emotions transformed into hatred and rage.


    The ghoul red at me. But I was far too well known. All Undead Emperors were incredibly scary in the undead¡¯s minds. He didn¡¯t dare to even move. But, to tell the truth, a Myth-level undead like him would be more than enough to take care of ten Gold ranks like me... in normal situations. That would only be if I didn¡¯t use any of my aces.


    ¡°Undead Emperor? You¡¯re a living person that¡¯s an Undead Emperor? I¡¯m getting more and more interested in you.¡±


    ¡°I apologize, I have absolutely zero interest in men. I especially hate overly muscr men like you... Beyana, stop watching! If you keep watching, we¡¯re going to lose, and the Contract Warrior n will go up in smoke! You will go bankrupt!¡±


    Finally, I decided to use this ace of mine that wasn¡¯t my ace of aces.


    ¡°Beyana, the Goddess of Wealth? How could she possibly be here?¡±


    I suddenly roared loudly at the sky, which even managed to surprise Harloys. But what gave her an even bigger surprise was that I received a response. A rather familiar female voice echoed in the sky.


    ¡°Nobody is allowed to make me bankrupt! Any territory that belongs to me requires a toll, even for the titan giants!¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Reference to Don Quixote!

 Chapter 341

    Chapter 341: Outsider


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°How did you know I was here?¡±


    ¡°There were too many clues. Did you even try to hide yourself?¡±


    Working together with others was beneficial. Whenever there was huge trouble, someone would help to take the brunt of it for you¡ªI meant take responsibility.


    Actually, Betty¡ªor, more urately, Beyana¡ªwas quite terrible at hiding her true identity.


    Forget about the sudden team-up invitation, or the divine favor and Divine Arts that Betty disyed which far surpassed ¡°his¡± supposed Silver rank¡ªlet¡¯s pretend to not see anything about Beyana acting like a cute boy¡ªthe most ridiculous part was that Betty¡¯s team had been able to easily find me when I had left the Wood Spirits are so Cute team behind.


    All this time, if I didn¡¯t want anyone to find me, I would do an excellent job with my anti-detection magic. But even so, Betty just ¡°coincidentally¡± happened to find me amongst all the undead outside, which could only mean that ¡°he¡± wasn¡¯t simple at all.


    If there was a problem with a Goddess of Wealth priest who was able to even use Divine Arts despite being only a supposed Silver rank, then the first suspicion I had was naturally the Goddess of Wealth herself. And as the financial chief for the Ayer Faction, it was quite possible that she would find it necessary to personallye to the frontlines and see how things were going. At the very least, she would want to see how the finances were here. It was only natural for me toe to the conclusion that Betty was either Beyana¡¯s incarnation or a priest upon which she personally performed a God¡¯s Descent.


    Once I had my suspicions, the rest was simple. After all, we all had one big boss above us. What would happen if mid-level elite managers suddenly had shes with each other? Tell the big boss.


    ¡°Hey, Ayer? I have a little question for you...¡±


    To use an analogy, this was something akin to a mid-level general manager secretly disguising herself and visiting the lowest-ranked subordinates, but then another employee reported her for always skipping out on work.


    The rest was quite simple. Since she enjoyed disguising herself and acting like a human, then I just let her y.


    After all, we were still allies in the end. Since we were all right here, wouldn¡¯t it be bad if you simply watched me having difficulties? Even if you have no personal interest in me, didn¡¯t you descend here just for your business? Wouldn¡¯t it be natural for you to be unable to watch if your business was threatened?


    By the way, I should mention that I was quite proud of myself for making this Goddess personally pour tea for me over the past few days.


    The ¡°priestess Betty¡± walked over rather slowly, now having taken a female form again. Betty¡¯s face was still the same, but her eyes had transformed into a silver color that possessed the signs of divinity.


    ¡°Such an excellent free fighter, there¡¯s no need to expose her too quickly. It¡¯ll be perfect to use her to deal with any troubles that arise? Rnd, that¡¯s probably what you were thinking, isn¡¯t it? This means thatst night when you wanted me to help you boil some bathwater and even invited me to bathe with you... you were trying to make me suffer on purpose.¡±


    I directly nodded at the silver-eyed Goddess¡¯s displeasure and question before giving her a big thumbs-up and shing a brilliant smile. What was there to hide about?


    ¡°Mortal, you¡¯re truly amusing. But do you really think this False God is able to defeat us?¡±


    Even when faced against the silver-eyed Goddess, Yins remained calm. It seemed as if he didn¡¯t care about the Goddess before him in the least.


    He lightly whisked his hand, causing a silver lion to appear around which a simrly silver light twirled. Although this lion appeared to be an ordinary beast, it suddenly increased in size.


    Two meters, five meters, ten meters, and finally it transformed into a giant magical beast. It was now covered in a strange metallic armor and seemed as imposing as a divine beast.


    The extravagantly beautiful lion¡¯s mane gleamed like a metallic crown as its eyes were fixed on Beyana. Judging from the pressure it was emanating, I could detect that it was already above the Myth rank, meaning it was probably at the SemiGod level. I probably would be unable to even defeat this lion.


    ¡°Now then, False God, why don¡¯t you y with my little pet?¡±


    Seeing how he casually transformed a normal wild beast into a divine beast, I recalled the frost giants¡¯ ability to tame monsters. Previously, I had many guesses about the titan giants¡¯ abilities. Perhaps the most urate inference would be that the titan giants¡¯ abilities were directly upgraded versions of the giants¡¯ special abilities. I could use this to guess at the titan giants¡¯ true powers.


    Cloud giants possessed the power to control the winds and clouds, while that giant thunder titan giant over there could as well. Yins, who was right before me, seemed to possess the ability to control and strengthen ordinary wild beasts.


    ¡°Little Betty, can you beat it?¡±


    I nced at the fourth-ranked titan Yins who was standing on top of the lion¡¯s head. It wasn¡¯t that I didn¡¯t trust in my ally¡ªit was that I had no idea of the Goddess of Wealth¡¯sbat potential. After all, in every single story out there, nothing was said about how skilled she was as a fighter.


    ¡°...¡±


    The Goddess merely red at me, making it obvious that she intended to get back at me for thister.


    But since Beyana was willing to personally appear when I called her out, this naturally meant that she had friendly intentions towards me. And since I had seeded in shoving responsibility¡ªsharing responsibility¡ªI could at feel slightly happy.


    She was appearing in the role of one of the game moderators. Even if she lost the fight here, there would naturally be stronger game moderators appearing. Those other ridiculous individuals in the Wood Spirits are so Cute team probably weren¡¯t that simple, either. What did I even have to worry about?


    No matter if Betty was a priestess who was able to perform God¡¯s Descent or if Betty was actually Beyana¡¯s incarnation, please try your best! I¡¯ll be cheering you on! Yep, I¡¯ll be cheering you on in my heart, with no need to say anything out loud. There¡¯s even less need to do anything myself.


    ¡°Do your best, I believe in your victory!¡±


    And so, I turned around and ran...


    Why did I run? Whenever Ultraman fought with monsters, any bystanders and buildings in the area would always be the unluckiest. A battle between a True God¡¯s incarnation and a titan giant¡¯s incarnation? Wouldn¡¯t that basically demolish the entire area?


    What, you¡¯re saying that I should be shouting ¡°For the Goddess!¡± and then rush out and act as the tank with an undying buff on me? First of all, I¡¯m not those abnormal five undying cockroaches. This is a situation that should clearly be left to the veterans. Why do the weak keep insisting on rushing forth? Wouldn¡¯t it be normal to simply let the top-level fighterspete with each other?


    Cough, getting back to the main topic, I felt that not getting in the way of my ally was the best choice.


    My War Angel form gave me the power of flight, which allowed me to choose my own battles.


    I could faintly sense countless amounts of energy shing against each other behind me. Before me was the scene of Ultraman fighting against numerous fighting against numerous smaller monsters. Or, to be more specific, Ultraman absolutely dominating the smaller monsters.


    The vine treants that were all part of Jill were being ravaged. Although they were almost as tall as the titan giant, there was too much of a power level difference between them. A single touch would destroy each treant.


    And so, all that happened was that Jill was taking a vicious beating. Although Oak Town managed tond some attacks on the other titan giant¡¯s body, he ignored all of them. His magic resistance was truly ridiculous to be able to ignore seven-circle magic spells.


    ¡°Jill... You really are useless. But this Ultraman seems to be ridiculous in its construction.¡±


    ¡°Hitting a daughter right in front of her father, do you have a death wish?!¡±


    Alright then, I directly ignored Harloys who wasmenting on me, but I was still currently blocked by someone: the titan giant Yins, who still seemed unruffled. It would seem that just that lion alone had been sufficient to tangle with Beyana.


    ¡°Tsk, I knew that not a single one of those ridiculous teammates were reliable.¡±


    ¡°Ah, it breaks my heart to hear you say that. Actually, all of us are really fond of you.¡±


    This time, a handsome elf bard jumped out. What was his name again?


    ¡°Solosi?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Solonor... Fine, that was a fake name. Actually, I¡¯m the God of Music and Dance. I¡¯m also the Guardian God of the wood elves. My real name is Solo.¡±


    Fine then, I already knew that the Wood Spirits are so Cute team was ying a joke on me. But, just like Betty, then all those ridiculous things he did were probably faked since he was actually a God, too.


    ¡°...Um, was your sexuality faked as well?¡±


    ¡°I apologize, that was real.¡±


    Fine then. I was truly hesitating about whether I should tell a certain Kelly that her Guardian God was actually gay! But since he wasing out and helping now as well, it seemed he would be a great help.


    Suddenly, a golden meteor arced through the sky and crashed into the thunder titan giant¡¯s head. Immediately afterwards, a golden giant dwarf jumped onto the titan giant¡¯s head, lifted her weapon and began beating on him.


    ¡°Haha! A chance at beating your ancestor?¡±


    And now, the fight scene of Ultraman against monsters turned into a fight of Ultraman against the giant dwarf.


    It was only that the weapon seemed rather familiar. It was round, and I could even hear sloshing soundsing from inside. It was just as if... as if... it was a golden alcohol barrel?


    ¡°...Big Sis Mary?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Mary, the Goddess of Hammers and Alcohol Barrels. I¡¯m also the Guardian Goddess of the shield dwarves. Apart from my age, everything else I told you was the truth, including those naughty children I have back at home.¡±


    ¡°What about Ah Gen?¡±


    ¡°...Do you really think someone as ridiculous as him could actually be a God? He¡¯s just a random barbarian we found. Actually, we¡¯re all quite curious to see just how far he can go down his path.¡±


    ¡°You guys have so much free time.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. That¡¯s why Boss Ayer told us toe down here and take a look at the mortal ne, and also to help set the foundation for our future. He told us it would be best toe meet with you. Aren¡¯t we here now?¡±


    Fine then, so even Ayer was involved with this as well. But why couldn¡¯t they have just told me directly? Because it would be more fun this way...? Fine, it really did seem like it was more fun.


    ¡°Besides, don¡¯t we count as surprise reinforcements? If it wasn¡¯t for us being here right now, what do you think would happen?¡±


    The gay God Solo took out a rainbow-colored five-string harp and yed on it, causing beautiful music to sound. He narrowed his eyes and yed a magical tune which began to distort the world.


    ¡°Go do what you need to do. I¡¯m curious¡ªjust how strong are the titan giants?!¡±


    Fine then, I took one final nce at Yins before I opened my wings and flew away. However, I had a premonition that this wouldn¡¯t be thest time I would meet this titan giant named Yins.


    But before I could get too far away, I was blocked by yet another person. It seemed that this person even had the same specialty as me.


    ¡°Hello, Rnd. My name is Zero. Perhaps you¡¯ve heard of me before.¡±


    ******


    While tremendous existences were fighting right outside of Oak Town, everyone inside Oak Town was astonished to see who was taking part inbat outside.


    First, the titan giants from ancient legends appeared. Then, the participants only became more and more ridiculous. The adventurers even spied real True Gods personally participating in battle. It was obvious that this battle was far beyond their level to handle.


    Samantha was doing her very best to maintain order within Oak Town. Still, the adventurers were in an uproar¡ªit was obvious that the situation had gone out of control. Since all these True Gods had descended, the battle wasn¡¯t one they could do anything about.


    They were worried about identally getting involved out there¡ªwhich, in turn, would mean an unfortunate death as cannon fodder without even an idea of what happened.


    Meanwhile, one person in Oak Town was worrying about somethingpletely different.


    ¡°ording to our agreement, I should secretly open the castle gates and let the undead inside... but is there any meaning left in letting the undead inside now?¡±

 Chapter 342

    Chapter 342: Meeting


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Her scarlet mage robes were embroidered with precious and expensive magical runes. Her vine mage staff was engraved with a red dragon crystal that jumped up and down as if it were a living heart. Archmage ¡°Christina¡± wasn¡¯t very famous, but she seemed to wear the evidence of either her power level or that she was really rich.


    And after she showed off impressive fire magic abilities in numerous team missions, she was chosen as one of the representatives for the neutral unaffiliated adventurers and became one of the adventurer leaders for this battle.


    Her fiery red hair and sexy mature woman¡¯s body entuated her beautiful face and helped give her the nickname of ¡°Fire Witch.¡± She even had several loyal followers.


    But, today, she was in quite a terrible mood, especially after she heard a certain piece of news.


    ¡°Have you heard? I hear that someone from the Cmity Rankings is here.¡±


    When this news started spreading, she thought at first that she had been exposed. And when the news that people were looking for a spy started spreading, she broke into a cold sweat.


    Yep, that¡¯s because not only was she a member of the Cmity Rankings, but she was also the undead¡¯s spy.


    Her real identity was...


    ¡°Molly?¡±


    Yep, she was Molly, the previous Dragon Queen Molly, who was now a spy working for the undead.


    The majority of the dragons currently residing in the mortal ne lived by themselves. For example, Little Red when she was back in the Underground had her own dragon nest and territory, along with manticores and other magical creatures as subordinates. It could be said that every single adult dragon with its own territory was like a domain lord. All they had to do was to enjoy their subordinates¡¯ worship as the subordinates brought food for them. They simply needed to sleep on top of their treasure hoards and enjoy their lives.


    And it just happened to be that dragons were able to grow in power even while they were sleeping. The older they got, the more powerful they became. This was why other mortal species envied them, and also why the giants looked down upon the dragons. The giants always called them big lizards that didn¡¯t know how to do anything but hibernate.


    Molly, who no longer had a Dragon City, was just like an immemorial red dragon that had lost her territory. She could only rely on herself. Having only recently arrived aboveground, she didn¡¯t know anything about how things worked here. She didn¡¯t even dare to fight other dragons for their territory as she was afraid that stories about her would spread to the surface Dragon Cities and then people would gang up on and chase after her.


    Since she lost her Underground Dragon City and no longer had any subordinates or dragon underlings, the ambitious Molly decided toy low for a while and first establish her own dragon nest before obtaining territory. Yet hiring powerful subordinates required treasure, and fixing a dragon nest required money. Still, an immemorial dragon like her without a treasure hoard that was suitable for her status? Every other dragon wouldugh at her.


    ¡°...Dragons neverck money as other countries¡¯ treasuries are their treasuries.¡±


    And so, she went around aboveground and attacked cities in order to umte wealth, all to reestablish her own faction and make a new dragon nest.


    In order to earn money, she was even willing to hire herself out as a mercenary. Not only did this help make her terrible reputation known far and wide, she even got onto the Cmity Rankings because of it: ranked 99, Red Armageddon.


    An immemorial dragon who was willing to be hired as a mercenary and even sometimes turned on her employers? This was obviously a shame upon all dragons, one they found difficult to withstand. And Molly seemed to know this as well. In order to avoid any ¡°hunting¡± of her by the surface dragons, she wandered around everywhere and never stayed in one location for long. Or perhaps it should be said that she roamed around,mitting crimes everywhere. But when she arrived in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital, she never expected the capital city to be on the highest level of alert. After she escaped from the dragon knights there, she was blocked by the Undead Emperors.


    And so, she discovered that she was forced to a brink. Worrying that she would be forced to transform into a bone dragon, and with nobody else she could possibly ask for help, she recalled her own daughter and sent a letter pleading for help. However, she was still caught by Aso and the other undead.


    When she found that her opponents were multiple Undead Emperors, she shamelessly surrendered, simr to how she surrendered ever so quickly to the Demon Earl in the past. As long as she didn¡¯t have to be a bone dragon, anything was fine.


    From a certain standpoint, Molly, who possessed zero sense of honor, was indeed a shame upon all dragons.


    ¡°As long as you work for our cause, all these items that are useless apart from being shiny can be yours.¡±


    To the Undead Emperors, the treasure they umted over the years was nothing more than shiny rocks. Even if they were rich, there was very little they could buy. Using their treasure to bribe a SemiGod like Molly into working for them was quite profitable. And that was how the undead¡¯s generous payments helped Molly unhesitatingly surrender and be their most loyal servant.


    And, right now, it was supposed to be time for her to open the castle gates of Oak Town for the undead. But the moment she arrived at the gates, someone called out her real name.


    ¡°Molly? Former Dragon Queen Molly?¡±


    ¡°Ein Mezus?¡±


    The ck-haired female ranger lowered her head and looked at the red-headed female mage before her. Little Red doubted her own eyes. She was supposed to be one of my secret aces who would guard Oak Town¡¯s castle gates, but she never expected that she would meet the purpose for her excursion¡ªfinding Molly¡ªright here.


    ¡°Watch the castle gates. I¡¯m absolutely certain that there¡¯s still a spy in Oak Town. This is a critical time. Nobody is allowed near the castle gates without express orders. Anyone that approaches without permission, capture and interrogate them.¡±


    My words were still in her ears, and Little Red was highly familiar with Molly¡¯s personality. She instantly figured out what Molly was doing, and her astonishment became humiliation and anger... With such a mother, she really felt it was embarrassing. She came all the way here to save her mother, but Molly ended up as the undead¡¯s spy. Little Red¡¯s anger knew no bounds.


    ¡°MOLLY!¡±


    She grabbed up a massive treant next to her and hurled it towards Molly. This surprise meeting between mother and daughter instantly became a fierce fight amongst family members. Once again, Molly encountered the greatest danger of her life.


    ******


    ¡°When you scheme against others, others are surely scheming against you as well.¡±


    While I was busy messing around in the undead army, there were certain undead observing the situation. Yep, after they reported the information to the higher-ups, there was a certain someone who guessed something.


    ¡°Only an Undead Emperor would be able to fool an Undead Lord and cause so many undead to quietly disappear within their own camp without a trace.¡±


    And so, Zero came. She remained hidden in the shadows and simply observed everything that urred. It appeared that she didn¡¯t have much interest in Oak Town; in fact, she wasn¡¯t even that interested in the Tark Republic. She was only interested in the young Undead Emperor that managed to force Aso to sacrifice himself.


    Unlike what everyone thought, the Undead Emperors weren¡¯t unanimous in their desire to return to the mortal ne.


    The Tark Republic had already disappeared from the mortal ne for countless millennium. It was only natural that all its Senators had different opinions. Some undead already made the Undead nes into their new home, while other undead believed that they should let the past remain in the past. Some undead didn¡¯t even remember their original homes, while some were worried about their positions if the Tark Republic was reestablished in the mortal ne.


    Some ancient undead didn¡¯t actually wish to return and only gave their support as a cause of their friendship with the other undead; they didn¡¯t n to participate personally. And there were also some neutral undead who didn¡¯t care either way, if they returned or not, which was why the undead leaders who invaded this time were only from the Tark Republic reestablishment faction and the neutral faction.


    A total of thirteen Undead Emperors had invaded, but they were actually of these two separate factions. Aso was one of the main Undead Emperors in the reestablishment faction, while Zero was one of the main Undead Emperors in the neutral faction.


    Most of the time, Zero wasn¡¯t very proactive. The Ice ne with its incredibly low temperature was highly suitable for her to live in. Joining this major expedition was mostly because of her personal rtionship with Aso.


    And now, for her deceased friend¡ªor perhaps it would be better to say former lover¡ªshe decided to directlye find the main culprit responsible for Aso¡¯s death.


    ¡°Perhaps you¡¯ve heard of me, although my original name¡¯s long been forgotten. Everyone calls me Zero.¡±


    The solo traveler before me had no intentions of concealing her true appearance. A silver light coursed through her transparent body, while her incredibly archaic noble ceremonial clothingbined with a noble¡¯s hat indicated the generation she was from. The way she slightly bowed and greeted me was also in that same archaic ceremonial style. All in all, this ancient ghost gave me a strong sensation of having arrived in the wrong generation.


    ¡°Zero?¡±


    Of course I knew who Zero was. She was the Undead Emperor of the Ice ne, another Undead Emperor just like me. It was just that I never expected that she would be a female ghost.


    It wasn¡¯t that I discriminated against females... fine, I was discriminating against the fact that she was a ghost. Amongst all the types of undead species, ghosts weren¡¯t weak at all, but ghosts had the lowest growth potential out of every single undead species.


    Compared to banshees that already had materialized souls, all ghost-type undead were typically just soul shards. They didn¡¯t have any physical bodies to limit them, which was why they were immune to all physical attacks and possessed formidable natural talents in negative energy. However, the flip side of the coin was that without a physical body, it would be far too problematic for them to improve in power past what they started with. Since they didn¡¯t have any physical bodies to protect the soul, they even had weaknesses to light, positive energy, and all sorts of other things.


    But nobody would dare to underestimate Zero just because she was a ghost. After all, the fact that she was an Undead Emperor exined a lot, even if her soul couldn¡¯t possibly beplete.


    Her elegant eyes seemed to be smiling, as if she was appreciative of her junior. This ghost from the Ice ne lightly pped her hands.


    ¡°...Although I have many things I¡¯d like to say, due to my connection to Aso, please... die for me!¡±


    In just an instant, the entire world changed. This was a Soul World that seemed to almost match reality. Everything before me was nothing but white, while a frigid wind blew snowkes everywhere. Everything was frozen, and this strong sense of having dropped into another world made me feel... at home? Yep, I felt incrediblyfortable! This field of ice and snow was my home turf as well. I could sense that this world¡¯s naturalws seemed so familiar, just like the snow mountain that the Frigid Nightmares lived in.


    Zero¡¯s eyes were staring at me with no malicious intent whatsoever. Yet she clearly desired to have me die right here and now. This Undead Emperor didn¡¯t intend to say any unnecessary words¡ªmy death was her only desire.


    *p!*


    Once again, the white ghost Undead Emperor pped her hands, causing yet another chilly breeze. The temperature dropped even further, enough to make any human an ice sculpture. Zero¡¯s Soul World seemed quite simple, but it was actually highly fatal. Just this simply mega-low temperature was more than enough to kill any life form.


    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡±


    The ghost¡¯s expression revealed that she was somewhat disappointed. The final message that Aso had sent before his death indicated that he had a high opinion of this young Rnd. If Rnd died easily, it would only mean that Aso had been terribly off in his judgment.


    Although I¡¯d like to y dead, it was rare that I got to meet an Undead Emperor, especially one who was also an ice magic practitioner. It would be too much of a waste to miss this opportunity. I would be considered rude if I did not respond in kind.


    ¡°Senior, please take a good look at my ice magic.¡±

 Chapter 343

    Chapter 343: Choice


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Amid the chaos, the sudden changes, and the emergence of many powerful existences, the original big boss was forgotten.


    Upon detecting Undead Emperor Zero¡¯s pressure and presence Davey felt both delighted and afraid. It was apparent that she had no intentions of even telling him of her arrival, and there was also the question of how long she had hidden herself among his army.


    ¡°I might have lost the Emperors¡¯ trust...¡±


    Yet Davey didn¡¯t even have the time to be depressed. He needed to first think of something to ovee the trial before him. As he gazed at the battle between the Titan Giants and the True Gods from afar, he was well aware that the energy waves emanating from their fight alone could decimate a Myth-rank individual to pieces. Davey was filled with indecision at the sight.


    Should he go help the two Titan Giants? The way the battle was heading there looked to be no thought of sending his subordinates. Even Davey himself would be torn to pieces by the shockwaves from their battle. Even if he was able to help, he would be utterly suppressed by the True Gods. Perhaps his own allied Titan Giants would get annoyed with him and stomp him to death first.


    Go help Zero? First of all, he had no way to exin to her just why it was that he had failed to catch the culprit behind the disappearances in his army. Zero was also very famous for AOE attacks that harmed both enemies and allies. There would be no time for him to regret if he identally got too close and transformed into an eternal sculpture of ice. And likely nobody would be willing to help unfreeze him.


    Davey was filled with inner turmoil. But it seemed worse to not do anything. What about circling around the two battles and forcefully attacking Oak Town¡¯s castle walls, instead? That sounded nice, but where did those two Immemorial Red Dragons fighting at the castle gatee from?


    The giant Red Dragons were biting and angrily roaring at each other. Their bodies crashed into and crushedrge portions of the castle walls, while dragonbreath scorched the earth into seas of fire. Their dragon magic ran rampant and destroyed the attacking undead armies. The fiercest fight of all the fights was actually happening here.


    On the other side of the castle walls, the rampaging dwarf Goddess Mary was currently battling against the thunder Titan Giant Hatley. Her war hammer would repeatedly sh against his thunder spear. Bystanders caught in the middle would not be able to survive unscathed, no matter the individual.


    But the most dangerous battle was still the battle between the two Undead Emperors. Although neither of them were at their most powerful states, just the natural power level suppression of these two veterans caused Davey to not even dare approach.


    ¡°...This was supposed to be my battle, but I¡¯ve be nothing more than a side character. The powerful ones are so willful.¡±


    Many seemingly coincidental events were actually deliberate in design. Davey hadn¡¯t seen through to the true nature of things. At such a time, anyrge-scale battle was actually very likely to cause powerful existences to personally take part.


    The Contract Heroes system was introduced, a new Silver Species was born, the immemorial Titan Giants were awakening, and the undead Tark Republic was returning. Any one of them were capable of attracting the entire world¡¯s attention on its own. It was only natural for the simultaneous urrence of these events to attract the attention of the major powers.


    Davey¡¯s army¡¯s attack on the wood spirits was only a catalyst. The Holy War was underway, and the situation, time, and ce were all too sensitive by far. The eyes of numerous factionsy on the Bardi Empire. The state of affairs was simr to an international situation where the countries were in highly sensitive states¡ªmajor incidents might erupt at any moment.


    This battle was the catalyst that ignited the mes, and numerous powerful existences would leap forwards for the sake of their personal benefits¡ªeither to gain advantages or to protect what¡¯s theirs. Some might not even have a goal and only want to unt their existence to everyone, all to be more well-known and pave a way to obtain future benefits. Yet, for ordinary mortals, they were all irresistible cmities.


    ¡°How about I first return back to the main base and try to control the undead armies?¡±


    From a certain standpoint, this was actually a wise decision. An Undead Lord without his own undead army would only be at one-third of his peakbat strength. Moreover, leaving here meant he wouldn¡¯t have to worry about getting unknowingly dragged into any of these powerful battles.


    Unfortunately for Davey, that choice served only to activate the final time bomb waiting for him. When he returned and ced his entire consciousness into his army to better control it...


    The individual who would lead him to his end came for him.


    ¡°Edwin? Didn¡¯t you go missing?¡±


    From the shadows out stepped a lich¡ªhis old friend, one of Davey¡¯s closest allies. Edwin. However, didn¡¯t Edwin disappear two weeks ago? Why did he appear in front of Davey now? Had the disappearing incident been resolved? Did Edwin manage to find out the truth?


    The floating lich didn¡¯t answer his old friend, who was also his direct boss. Edwin strode closer; his skeletal face was expressionless and his soulfire seemed unmoving. No trace of emotion was revealed at all.


    It was at that moment that Davey discovered that he could no longer control his physical body. He suddenly jerked into motion and started walking towards Edwin, too.


    As he walked, Edwin lost his form, transforming into nothing but a ck shadowy whirlwind.


    ¡°This¡ªwhy can¡¯t I move!? Why do I even feel delighted?!¡±


    His soul¡¯s screams were soundless. Davey was forced to open up his arms and hug the dark shadow.


    This ck whirlwind instantly swallowed him up. Even though Davey¡¯s soul was still strong enough¡ªhe retained the will to resist¡ªhe was unable to do anything but watch the ck shadow devour him bit by bit.


    ¡°It¡¯s time tobine.¡±...Ah, so this was how everyone disappeared.


    It was only now that he understood everything. Davey obtained much knowledge, and saw many old friends. However, this was his final thought. From the very start, when ¡°Mars of War¡± had decided to make this entire undead army into his food, Davey, who was the highest leader of this army, had be one of the most important factors for Mars to consume. It was practically set in stone for him to end up just as an addition to Mars¡¯ knowledge banks and cores.


    Other Myth-ranked undead would still have a chance to escape, but for Davey, the concept of this entire army being a part of him ended up bing a heavy chain that restrained him. Once all the ¡°effects¡± were confirmed, the ¡°causes¡± that were affected by karma would naturally be unable to escape.


    The entire earth began to roar, as if some monster was piercing through it. Once the undead army¡¯s leader was devoured, Mars¡¯ true master began summoning him, and the vicious beast known as ¡°Mars of War¡± had finally awakened.


    I flicked off the specks of snow upon me as I jokingly nced at the ghost Undead Emperor before me.


    As an expert in ice magic... fine, just pretend that I am an expert in ice magic. At the very least, I count as half an ice magic master, right? Even someone like me understood this Undead Emperor¡¯s strategy the moment I came into contact with her icy snow.


    ¡°Life absorbing, or to use a more urate term, heat draining.¡±


    Ghosts themselves were filled with negative energy. Any contact with them would cause weakness, heat to be drained, and various other effects. An easy, low-level undead magic like ¡°Ghostly Touch¡± was an imitation of what a ghost could really do when it touched you with its negative energy.


    Normal people only considered that a ghost¡¯s touch would harm the living but rarely thought about how it would also steal the living¡¯s body heat. This was apparently one of a ghost¡¯s natural talents as well. But since it took effect very slowly, required physical contact, and needed to persist for a long time before it could cause death, only the weakest ghosts would use this incredibly useless natural talent. Even I basically ignored this ability.


    But, today, my senior taught me a lesson: there was no such thing as a weak ability. There were only weak users.


    In just an instant, she robbed all the heat in this entire area and forcefully caused mega-low temperatures to descend. As for the icy mist and snow, that was only to conceal her true weapon.


    If a person treated her attack as just some regr but powerful ice magic, thinking they would be fine as long as they didn¡¯t touch it, then that would be the biggest mistake of their life. Her ice mist wasn¡¯t her true ultimate attack. Her true most powerful attack of all was the invisible, mega-low temperature that would descend around her.


    ¡°Truly amazing. In just an instant, the temperature is now below -80 degrees Celsius. Anyone that doesn¡¯t understand the logic behind this attack and only paid attention to the ice mist and snow would probably be frozen solid before they even realized it. And this isn¡¯t even Zero¡¯splete power level. As expected of a senior, but...¡±


    The snowkes on me were already transforming into water. A lightyer of ice armor separated me from her mega-low temperatures. My ice armor possessed the Concept of the [Coldest Ice.] Even if it was -80 degrees Celsius outside, my Absolute Zero ice armor would forever maintain its temperature of absolute zero.


    When I was facing Emordilorcan, this armor had helped protect me from the effects of the Cold mes of Despair. It could obviously block this low-temperature attack that Zero was using.


    ¡°...This type of low temperature is meaningless against me! Ha! Why don¡¯t you take a look at my world of snow and ice, instead?¡±


    I inserted my magic sword into the ground and unveiled my silver wings. Underneath my ice armor was skin that seemed like magma. Once my Arbiter bloodline descended and I summoned my Frigidwinter Earth, Zero felt as if her Soul World had been stolen away even though this was simply another world where only snow and ice existed.


    However, she wasn¡¯t shaken by this; she only smiled in interest. If I wasn¡¯t capable of at least this much, she would have been disappointed.


    *p!*


    She pped her hands and lit up countless lights among the mist. It would seem that pping was an action she incorporated into her magic casting. The essence of ice started gathering around her, and various beasts started awakening into the snow and ice mist around her. There were all sorts of undead creatures, but the most fearsome of them were two types of Legend-ranked undead: the Winter Demon and the Shadowy Wings.


    The first undead type was the incarnation of a blizzard, and its very appearance would bring about cmitous weather. Thetter type was a Legendary undead mage that could easily cross any distance without regards to time and space, and it was also immune to magic at the eight circle level and under¡ªtruly the most dangerous undead shadow mage of all.


    There were more than thirty Winter Demons and Shadowy Wings. Among them were many that had even evolved once or even twice, which made them into giant monsters that were at the Myth or even Saint rank. The fact that Zero was able to casually carry such a level of an undead army on her was truly impressive. I could only exim at how rich she was.


    When meeting an opponent that was difficult to deal with, summoning arge amount of undead creatures to keep that opponent busy so that one could think up a strategy was quite amon strategy for any undead mage. And if an Undead Emperor didn¡¯t personally carry some top-level undead troops, then that would be considered quite embarrassing.


    This type of small army consisting of only top-level undead was quite a force to be reckoned with. They red at me murderously as they marched over. If I were a normal undead mage, I would be hurriedly summoning arge force of my own undead to deal with them. After all, this was the most ssical method that undead mages dueled each other by¡ªusing meat shields in the front to fight each other while the undead mage used spell attacks on the enemies and buff spells on their own undead troops.


    It was like a game of chess. Both sides summoned their own pieces and tested each other out before one side would finally eke out an advantage and obtain victory.


    I indeed carried some top-level undead on me, but I had no intentions of summoning them.


    ¡°Apart from the Winter Demons and Shadowy Wings in this army, all the other undead are much weaker. And the special traits of these two types of undead are that the first ispletely immune to ice magic, while the second is capable of eating negative energy...¡±


    Add on the fact that Zero possessed the ability to rob the heat and how she was skilled at ice magic, I came to the conclusion that Zero¡¯s fighting style was probably quite simr to mine. If I summoned arge amount of undead to deal with her undead army, she would likely use arge AOE forbidden spell to attack everything in sight, without regards to enemy or ally. And that forbidden spell of hers would most likely be a mix of both ice magic and negative energy. If she used such a forbidden spell, only these two types of undead would be able to survive the indiscriminate AOE onught.


    But if I didn¡¯t summon any meat shield at all, I would be encircled and it would be toote for me.


    Attack, attack, and attack, forcing the enemy into one¡¯s own tempo. This was an open plot for all to see, but it was not so easy to deal with.


    ¡°Hah, how interesting. In that case, I might as well summon an undead that¡¯s impossible to freeze. Come, ¡®War¡¯! Come meet your little friends!¡±


    When I summoned Mars of War, I paused in surprise the very next instant. It wasn¡¯t because War had any problems. When I discovered that I was facing an unexpectedly strong opponent, I ordered War to finish its final feeding and entirely awaken, but...


    ¡°System, the hell with you suddenly making your existence known at such a time!¡±


    [You have achieved the peak of Gold. You have activated more than three bloodline abilities. Thebination of your soul and physical body has reached 100%. Soul Imprints have been activated. SemiGod-level undead, Order, and divine powered items detected in the nearby area. Bloodline activation hunting quest has been activated. System Notification: It¡¯s time to show off the true value of your physical body and make those Titan Giants that think they¡¯re physical perfection see what a true Double Diamond Bloodline is.]


    [A choice of Quests has been activated. You can pick any of the following three, and your bloodline will evolve based on how well youplete them. Remember, your bloodline can currently withstand undergoing only one evolution.]


    [After youplete this bloodline evolution Quest, the path for you to be a Legend shall open. Your War Angel and Original Sin Demon forms shall evolve together with your bloodline.]


    [Hunting Quest 1: ¡°I¡¯m the real Cat... Lich King, and my butt definitely isn¡¯t stuck on that throne of ice! That¡¯s nothing but a rumor!¡± Destroy Zero¡¯s incarnation that¡¯s before you and steal her knowledge and the key to the Ice ne. Reward: You will advance in progress in your undead and ice magic. System notification: Go, oh youth, the Cat King¡¯s beautiful future is waiting for you! Quest Difficulty Level: Myth. Since this isn¡¯t Zero¡¯s full power before you, you have a chance at victory. Use all your devious plots and unscrupulous tricks to steal away your senior¡¯s essence.]


    [Hunting Quest 2: ¡°I¡¯m the legendary dragonying hero who bathes in dragon blood and fears no sword or spear. Yet unlike my unfortunate senior that I won¡¯t mention, I remembered to wash my feet!¡± Defeat Molly Ein Mezus and obtain an amount of fresh Immemorial Dragon blood that exceeds half the blood in a dragon¡¯s body. Reward: Complete the dragon blood bathing ritual and increase the base stats of your physical body. System Notification: If you choose this path, then go and keep striving for the peak as a physical fighter barbarian. Quest Difficulty Level: Legend rank. Considering that Little Red will help you in this fight, the difficulty level is much easier than the others. But you¡¯ll probably have to call her Sister or Mother afterwards... oh, that sounds wonderful now that I think about it. You should choose this one!]


    [Hunting Quest 3: ¡°My dear distant rtives, could you help me out a little... Don¡¯t m the door on me! I¡¯m really not here to borrow money, I¡¯m just here to borrow some blood!¡± Hunt the Titan Giants¡¯ incarnations and obtain a Titan Giant¡¯s heart and blood. Reward: Washing in their blood andpleting a ritual will greatly improve your basic stats and bloodline¡¯s power. System Notification: If you choose this evolution path and sessfullyplete it, the next step of your evolution will require blood from a Titan Giant¡¯s physical body, not an incarnation. Quest Difficulty Level: SemiGod, and even True God for whates after. Still, the highest difficulty grants the highest rewards. You understand how it is.]


    Alright then. No matter my choice, from this moment onward, my expression towards Zero had changed. Rather than viewing her as my senior, I now saw her as a delicious cake.

 Chapter 344

    Chapter 344: sh of Ice and Snow


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The world of ice and snow continued to expand as nothing but white could been seen extending into the horizon. The entire world around us was now pure white.


    Based on the typical rules, when two Soul Worlds shed, the end result would depend on the Soul Worlds¡¯ power and the strength of their users. If there was little difference, then both sides would have equal chances to win. If one side was far stronger than the other, then the weaker person¡¯s Soul World wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything other than protect them.


    As for us... there was basically no difference, at least on the surface.


    What would white be when it wasbined with white? Looking around us at this world filled with ice and snow, Zero was surprised that the two master ice mages¡¯ Soul Worlds didn¡¯t actually sh. They melded perfectly together. This obviously went against themon sense of Soul Worlds, which made her both astonished as well as faintly realize that something was wrong.


    The double iciness made the temperature go down even further. This severe cold caused snow to descend from the sky yet again, while the snowkes¡ªasrge as a person¡¯s hand¡ªwere crystallizations of ice. This life-threatening frost created ice everywhere on the ground, resemblingndmines of snow and ice. Yet it was Zero¡¯s personal undead army who were the first to be no longer able to tolerate this extremely low temperature.


    Normally speaking, they should have long gotten used to ice-cold temperatures since they were from the Ice ne. Yet the strange part was that in this seemingly warm mortal ne, this not so deadly appearing ice made them quite ufortable.


    Zero¡¯s intelligent high-level undead army discovered to their shock that the situation had spiraled out of their control. They were no longer able to walk on this snowy ground, and their limbs no longer listened to theirmands. All this falling snow even obscured their soul vision. This extreme world of snow and ice that two Undead Emperors constructed together made even these Legendary undead as helpless as ordinary humans. This dark and frigid environment was the most direct path to death.


    The fact that both of us chose something like a Soul World forrge scale area of effect attacks was no coincidence. This was all due to the nature of ice magic.


    After all, no matter if it was stealing away the heat or more normal ice magic, it would all berge-scale temperature lowering. In that case, in order for the power of ice magic to reach the peak and maintain its state, it would require a Soul World of ice, the path taken by many top-level ice magic archmages.


    A low temperature Soul World of ice and snow wouldn¡¯t make ice magic weaker¡ªit would, in fact, even provide terrain bonuses. The same went for fire magic archmages as well. Their Soul Worlds were typically high temperature volcanic terrains filled with magma, which improved the power of their fire.


    Two top-level ice magic archmages with very simr Soul Worlds was something within expectations, yet the fact that they actually couldbine with each other and further increase the ice magic¡¯s power was quite unusual.


    However, Iughed, because this ¡°unusualness¡± was exactly what I expected. As I watchedrge patches of ice and snow descend, the eternal ¡°Hibernation Chill¡± contained within it made even the strongest undead into nothing more than prey on a spiderweb. Struggling was meaningless; they could only be frozen.


    The ones who found this the most iprehensible were the Winter Demons as they were supposed to be immune to ice magic. For the first time in their undead lives, they felt the pain of being frozen. This ice and snow was actually capable of making them despair.


    When this absolute ice arrived, only then did they discover that they still possessed the ability to feel pain. This cold to the extreme ice damage made their skin crack open, their bones shatter, and their souls freeze over. This ice damage damaged their very foundations and made them finally recall the feeling of pain back from when they were still alive. And, gradually, as the pain diminished and even vanished, their physical bodies were no longer able to resist this extreme cold. They hadpletely lost their bodies and souls.


    ¡°Why are you evenbining your powers with mine and increasing the power of this ice domain? Aren¡¯t you a living person?¡±


    Zero didn¡¯t hide her astonishment. She had discovered that Rnd wasn¡¯t fighting back against her ¡°Heat-loss Domain;¡± instead, he was helping add something into it which greatly increased its power. Could it be that he wasn¡¯t worried at all about dying inside it? Wasn¡¯t he supposed to be alive? He even dared to increase the power of her own Soul World? He was that confident that he would survive longer than her?


    Based onmon sense, no living being could reach a higher level in ice magic than an undead that wasn¡¯t afraid of low temperatures. After all, most ice magic spells were area of effect, and identally freezing oneself to death wasn¡¯t unheard of. But, for undead ice magic, all that was needed was to lower the temperature, which would naturally causerge numbers of living beings to drop dead. This was also why many liches practiced ice magic together with undead magic.


    But Rnd was clearly a living person, yet he put himself in such an absolute cold environment. And this cold was sufficient to even freeze the Winter Demons. Still, he kept decreasing the temperature of this area. Was he suicidal?


    Of course, I didn¡¯t intend to exin anything to Zero. Nor would I tell her that the ¡°Absolute Zero Ice Armor¡± I was wearing made the temperature outside meaningless, no matter how low it was. Nor would I be telling her that I actually wasn¡¯t using a Soul World, but rather a true new world of my own. I didn¡¯t increase her Soul World¡¯s strength but rather ced it within my Frigidwinter Earth.


    ¡°...So you¡¯llment in your mind, is that it? I can hear everything you¡¯re thinking.¡±


    ¡°Of course, since it sucks to keep everything bottled in. Besides, it¡¯s not like she can hear my thoughts.¡±


    I was no idiotic viin who would die because I liked to talk too much. Nor was I some demon king who was addicted to exining my every move. How could I possibly tell my enemy my secrets? There were even some bosses that liked to mark their own weak spots or favorite individuals with red markings, as if they weren¡¯t afraid of their enemies noticing at all.


    If my enemy was confused, then let them be confused. It would be even better if they died while not understanding anything.


    But the closest undead to me were now right before me. Even if they were slowed down by my Hibernation Chill, I couldn¡¯t ignore them. And since Mars was busy rbining himself and wasn¡¯t usable at the moment...


    ¡°I choose you, Erebe!¡± [1] 1


    ¡°There¡¯s never anything good when you call me!¡±


    The giant ice dragon arrived on the winds, with ayer of my ¡°Absolute Zero Ice Armor¡± secretly applied on her body. Otherwise, even she would be nothing more than an ice sculpture in this fatally cold ice and snow.


    When controlling the temperature, no matter if it was fire or ice magic, both its greatest advantage and weakness would be its excellent area of effect. While it was incredibly destructive in a huge area, one of the mostmon methods of dying was identally killing oneself in the process. After all, changing the temperature was an invisible process. It was very possible to either cook or freeze yourself to death.


    Since I was an ice mage who wasn¡¯t so confident controlling my own ice, I created an ¡°Ice Armor¡± that could protect myself the moment I obtained my Frigidwinter Earth. With power at the level of a Divine Concept, this ¡°Absolute Zero Ice Armor¡± required me to only take a set amount of ice damage and would protect me from dying no matter how low the temperature was outside.


    But my opponent, Zero, wasn¡¯t so easy to deal with. She was unmistakably a SemiGod Undead Emperor. Perhaps she wasn¡¯t at her strongest as this wasn¡¯t her main body, but she would still be, at the very least, at the Myth rank¡ªan ice mage two power levels above me.


    ¡°...As expected, all direct attacks are meaningless?¡±


    I had no intentions of forcefully trading blows with her. Instead, I had my Frigidwinter Earth further decrease the temperature of her Soul World. The result was that her subordinates were indeed affected, but she seemed to ignore the effects. Those snowkes floated right through the ghost¡¯s body. Since the snowkes didn¡¯t even touch her, then even my Hibernation Chill wasn¡¯t affecting her at all.


    ¡°When I close my eyes, I can¡¯t sense anything, as if she doesn¡¯t even exist. Is this what ¡®Zero¡¯ is really like?¡±


    Indeed, all ghost type undead creatures had no physical bodies, and the stronger ghosts among them would be impervious to physical damage. However, this didn¡¯t mean that they were immune to magic. And I was quite clear on the limitations of Soul Worlds. It was possible to create terrain that would be beneficial to oneself, but making oneself so powerful as to a cheat-like level was impossible. This could only be one of her unique personal talents.


    And in the battle so far, I had already tested things out. No matter if I threw a rock or a magic spell at her, everything would pass through her body harmlessly and cause no actual damage.


    But ever since we met, Zero hadn¡¯t taken any action apart from summoning her Soul World and her own subordinates. It was obvious that her ¡°invulnerability¡± had costs associated with it.


    While ghosts were immune to physical damage, they also had zero physical attack power. Since they didn¡¯t have physical bodies, they wouldn¡¯t even be able to pick up a normal weapon. They would only be able to use their bodies filled with negative energy to touch a living individual and instinctively absorb their lifeforce. Perhaps Zero had such limitations as well. It wasn¡¯t that she didn¡¯t want to attack; it was that she couldn¡¯t attack. Against a normal opponent, perhaps this ultra-low temperature attack would be more than sufficient.


    Erebe flew through the snowkes as she sent several streams of dragon breath, which obstructed the slowly moving undead from approaching me. And since there was the limitation about how magical pets were unable to surpass their masters in power level, this seemingly powerful ice dragon was only at the peak of Gold, making her nothing more than a weakling with an intimidating appearance... Fine then, judging by the dragon breath that suddenly flew in my direction, Erebe was quite dissatisfied with me.


    ¡°Although I¡¯ve already ced my trap, making this time bomb explode still requires some time... Alright then, let¡¯s have Mars y with you for a little while.¡±


    Just what form would Mars take after awakening? What form should he be? What abilities would he have? Would he be vicious?


    ¡°How should I know? Is there any parent out there who knows before their child is even born about what their abilities and physical appearance will be like? Or what job the child will end up working at?¡±


    At most, what the so-called ¡°parents¡± could do was provide the most basic necessities, an environment to grow up in, and give the child a name that may contain a specific meaning.


    ¡°Mars...¡±


    ¡°You called for me?¡±


    A voice suddenly spoke up behind me. It would seem that he had finished the final rbination.


    Mars spoke in a mature, low, male voice. He had a tall and upright figure while his mouth disyed a faint smile. He appeared to be a mature gentleman. Since he obtained plenty of knowledge from his ¡°nutrition,¡± having such a physical appearance wasn¡¯t strange at all.


    ¡°A good child actually came out. Did I really receive such a miracle? After investing so many resources, a normal person finally appeared!! Just take a look, he¡¯s so polite, he¡¯s definitely a good child, a true gentleman in the original meaning of the word! I¡¯m no cursed individual who can only bring forth the strangest individuals around!! Hahahaha!¡±


    ¡°...You¡¯re so shameless. Is there any real gentleman who would wear a skirt?¡±


    ¡°No! Don¡¯t remind me! Can¡¯t you let me be happy for even one minute?!¡±


    It was apparent that Mars¡¯ spirit was still in some confusion. He was simultaneously wearing a gentleman¡¯s shirt paired together with a skirt. Meanwhile, he had no facial features: his face was nk, with nothing other than a mouth.


    ¡°...This is probably a problem created by being a collective will. With too many individual parts, creating a single soul, face, gender, and body bes uncertain. That¡¯s why he¡¯s in such a chaotic state.¡±


    For once, Harloys acted reliably and came to the same conclusion as me. She was also quite interested in Mars, who we created together.


    And as I faced this Mars, an identical existence with unclear features appeared where Little Red was fighting, where one of the Titan Giants was fighting against the Shield Dwarf Guardian Goddess Mary, and also at the other battle, where the gay Wood Elf Guardian God Solo was fighting against the Titan Giant Yins. Mars appeared like a man and also like a woman, human yet inhuman, physical yet also ethereal.


    ¡°Yes, Mother is correct.¡±


    ¡°...*&*&*!¡±


    Mother? Fine, from a certain standpoint, this wasn¡¯t incorrect. Harloys did much of the work herself. But the fact that Harloys¡¯ thoughts were nothing but jumbled symbols was doubtlessly the best exnation that her feelings were soplex that words were insufficient to describe them.


    ¡°Now then, as Father wishes, I shall show my power. Father, please remember that Mars has no fixed form...¡±


    And when ¡°Mars¡± started taking action, the human form that he was using to appear before me instantly became meaningless. He transformed back into an ethereal shadow.


    Right before us, the earth trembled before it split open and a gigantic bone arm reached out of the ground.


    Next, a bone giant asrge as a mountain appeared. He opened his giant mouth, a ck hole created by countless souls that swirled within it. His green eyes possessed a wicked light that was capable of directly killing the undead. And if you looked at him a bit more carefully, you would discover that this bone giant¡¯s bones actually consisted of countless skeleton soldiers, lesser liches, skeleton warhorses and othersbined together. He was thebination of innumerable undead!


    ¡°...Come meet your deaths.¡±


    The bone giant began his hunt. Zero¡¯s undead creatures became his prey. A single touch was all it took to make them part of Mars¡¯ physical body. This bone giant kept growing evenrger and more powerful as he fought.


    Simr things urred at the other battles. The undead campground was now empty, and the few surviving undead were furiously running for their lives. And where Little Red was fighting against Molly, Mars had transformed himself into a full army of undead archers and lesser liches, sending countless undead magic enchanted bone arrows right at Molly.


    At the battle where the thunder Titan Giant was fighting against the Shield Dwarf Goddess Mary, Mars transformed into a giant army of rushing undead knights that charged directly at the tremendous giant. Perhaps Mars wouldn¡¯t be able to cause any fatal damage, but he could at least sessfully attract some of the rampaging thunder and make it slightly easier for Mary.


    Nor did Mars stand around idly where the Titan Giant Yins was fighting against the gay Wood Elf God Solo. Here, he transformed into an army of Bone Dragons that flew through the air. Their dragon breath endlessly annoyed Yins. Not to mention, his ability of being able to sense cause and effect didn¡¯t apply to these special soulless undead, which greatly affected his sense of judgement.


    Just as Mars himself said, as he was created to be a literal incarnation of war, he had no fixed form. Instead, he would choose the most appropriate form for his opponent and constantly evolve and grow stronger through battle.


    What, you¡¯re saying that I forgot about one battle? The battle between the Goddess of Wealth Beyana and that divine beast lion?


    Actually, that battle had finished long ago. In my secret arsenal was a certain Saint-ranked individual, and for this battle he had actually changed his typicallyzy personality. He had even volunteered for the most dangerous frontlines. Yet his power was unquestionable¡ªthe moment he appeared, he only said a few words to the lion before their battle had ended before it even began.


    ¡°My cute little brother, have you heard of me before? No? Wonderful... I mean, that¡¯s really regrettable! Hello, my name is Beifeng Herault. I¡¯m a beast tamer. Perhaps we can try bing friends.¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Obvious reference.

 Chapter 345

    Chapter 345: Trap


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The snow seemed to have no intentions of stopping. These two individuals, who were both at the peak of ice magic, had met the most difficult opponents¡ªin ice magic¡ªthey¡¯d ever met. To their astonishment, they both discovered that the attacks they were the proudest of seemed to bepletely ineffective. It was as if both were immune to the other¡¯s attacks.


    The bone giant Mars was pounding the earth, his heavy fists as quick as lightning despite the bulk of his colossal body. He would pierce right through Zero, but each time the result was the same: it was as if he was hitting nothing but the reflection of the moon in water. Zero would simply flicker and then vanish, reappearing in a nearby location.


    ¡°Absolute immunity to physical attacks...¡±


    I tossed an ice ball which promptly exploded, sending icicles flying everywhere. These icicles transformed into ice birds¡ªor ice bridges¡ªand there was even a white-bearded old man sitting on a sleigh pulled by reindeer, together with a naughty child chasing after him, demanding presents... My foundational magic of ice sculpting allowed me to draw anything I imagined in the air. It was impossible to dodge these icicles that behaved just like real animals... But the result was the same as the physical attacks from earlier. They simply passed right through Zero, without the sensation of having hit anything at all.


    ¡°Complete immunity to ice magic. No, judging by how I also infused Holy Light into my attacks and there still wasn¡¯t any effect, her immunity is at an even higher levelplete immunity to all energy attacks...¡±


    This ancient ghost continued to make an effort to avoid and dodge the ice dragon that was chasing after her. It would seem that the Frigid Nightmares¡¯ special talent of being able to directly damage souls was effective against her. However, the huge power level difference between them meant it was absolutely impossible for Erebe to catch up.


    Still, Zero was kept busy by Erebe, and could only watch as Mars did as he pleased on the ground. All her high-level undead subordinates that she likely worked hard at umting over the years were now transforming into nothing more than ice sculptures¡ªof course, some moved so slowly they became nothing but food for my newly-born undead creature.


    Zero shot through the sky like a meteor, transforming every ce she passed into an area of extremely low temperature. Large amounts of ice and snow rushed at me like a vicious ocean tidal wave, yet she was unable to shatter my seemingly light armor of ice.


    ¡°Although she¡¯s almost invulnerable, is changing the temperature her only method of attack...?¡±


    I was observing my opponent, while my opponent was also observing me. I figured that Zero was the most confused right now about how her low temperature ice magic didn¡¯t even affect my summoned undead creature, on top of not being able to affect me.


    Duels between high-level archmages were typically as boring as this one. Take risks to have the first move, testing each other, defending, learning the enemy¡¯s attacks, attacking again, additional testing, and slowly learning about each other¡¯s aces while fighting each other. Archmages would attempt to understand the special nature of their opponent¡¯s powers and the foundations of how they worked in order to find a weakness. And once all preparations wereplete, when the archmage was certain that he or she would win, only then would they finally attack all-out for the critical blow.


    Of course, this type of situation could only ur between two powerful individuals at simr levels. Otherwise, if there was a power level difference, the stronger one would only need to suppress the weaker with higher-level magic.


    By now, I had pretty much figured out what was going on.


    It wasmon knowledge that the Undead Emperors had been exiled by the mortal ne itself. In such a situation, it was impossible for her to be at her full power while in the mortal ne. In that case, she could only be an existence simr to an incarnation, and from pondering over her condition where she appeared to exist here but also not, I made an educated guess.


    ¡°She¡¯s nothing more than an astral projection. ording to the mortal ne¡¯s judgement, she isn¡¯t even here. Not a single person is able to attack someone who doesn¡¯t exist, which is why she can obtain near invulnerability. However, the cost for this is that someone who doesn¡¯t exist is also unable to perform any targeted attacks. All she can do here is use her ability to steal heat to create extremely low temperatures and change the environment around her astral projection. She¡¯s unable to attack on her own!¡±


    ¡°...Rnd, you¡¯re being looked down upon.¡±


    I found it impossible to counter Harloys¡¯ words. Intending to deal with me with only an astral projection? That was obviously looking down on me. But looking at it from another angle, perhaps she was only here to gather information on me. While astral projections indeedcked attack power, their near invulnerability was also very difficult to deal with. It appeared as if she couldn¡¯t lose from the very start.


    ¡°Hah, how can there possibly be true invulnerability in this world? Allow me to tell my senior that the times have changed, and that she shouldn¡¯t bring out these dated techniques anymore.¡±


    ¡°How specifically are you going to do that?¡±


    ¡°By waiting.¡±


    ¡°Waiting? What, is she going to self-destruct if you wait long enough?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡±


    ¡°Haha, do you really think that it¡¯s so easy for an Undead Emperor to self-destruct? Or...¡±


    Harloys didn¡¯t finish her sentence, because Zero¡¯s astral projection in the air suddenly shook and fell downwards. Although she soon recovered her bnce, her shocked and confused expression revealed that she didn¡¯tprehend the reason she had taken an attack in the first ce. Yet, it was indeed true that she had suffered an invisible attack, which confused her greatly.


    ¡°How did you do it?¡±


    ¡°Heh, I had a marvelous n... Forget it, I won¡¯t exin it as you wouldn¡¯t understand.¡±


    ¡°Impossible! I¡¯m Harloys the All-Knowing; how can there possibly be any magic I don¡¯t understand! Just what did you do?¡±


    ¡°Have you taken high school physics sses? Do you know the Law of Energy Conservation? Have you graduated from high school? All-Knowing? I think you¡¯re nothing more than an illiterate teacher without a single certificate... Stop biting me, have you ever seen a sword that can bite its owner? Fine, fine, I¡¯ll exin it for youter, so could you please work hard for me for now? Go! I choose you, Harloys!¡±


    The Pok¨¦ball¡ªer¡ªmagic sword sliced through the air. However, its target wasn¡¯t the ghost in the air; instead, it sped towards the few Myth-ranked Winter Demons alive and struggling within Mars¡¯ hands. High-level existences part of an Undead Emperor¡¯s personal army definitely wouldn¡¯t be easy-toe-by weaklings. Since they were strong enough to have survived for so long in such circumstances, not even an Undead Emperor would be willing to freely sacrifice them.


    And, as I expected, Zero arced elegantly through the air and created anotherrge area of extreme low temperature, causing countless ice pirs to form. And amongst her ice pirs were all sorts of snowballs, snow mountains, andrge pieces of ice.


    She discovered that extreme low temperatures were ineffective against me, so she decided to start using physical attacks? And in order to increase the attack power and difficulty of dodging her attacks, she even made her pieces of ice into all sorts of strange shapes, but...


    ¡°Damn, this suddenly makes me recall a really old game...¡±


    ¡°...Whack-a-Mole?¡±


    This situation caused Harloys to have a rather bad thought, but she was off the mark.


    ¡°Tetris!¡±


    Fine, I suppose that both games were about smashing things from above. One game depended on your speed and reaction, while the other required logical processing, but considering the fact that both games were about smashing things down from above, there wasn¡¯t much of a difference...


    ¡°Circle, triangle, square. How am I supposed to put these pieces together? Are you intending to kill those with obsessivepulsive disorder?¡±


    [That¡¯s enough out of you. Nobody¡¯s forcing you to put the pieces together here, and even if you put them together in a line they won¡¯t automatically disappear! System Notification: Don¡¯t you agree that mymenting service is excellent as always? 5 Justice Points have been deducted.]


    ¡°Nobody wanted you toment at all!¡±


    Although I looked quite unseemly as I dodged these heavy objects, I still smiled victoriously. That was because I noticed how Zero¡¯splexion was bing worse and worse. It seemed her own power was taking worse and worse of a toll on her body.


    Her own power? Yep, actually, right after I detected that her true method of attack was to rob the heat in the air, I already ced a trap for her. And after fighting each other with magic for so long, it would appear that this trap had finally been activated.


    ¡°Stealing the heat? Then where did all the stolen heat go? This is far too unscientific!¡±


    To be honest, I never could understand just where the heat stolen by ghosts would disappear off to. But, in the world of Eich, the Law of Energy Conservation wasn¡¯t in effect. The stolen heat would simply mysteriously disappear somewhere.


    It was apparent that this world where magic existed was an unscientific one. Perhaps magic wasn¡¯t even the biggest unscientific culprit¡ªwhen it came to the myriad racial talents, even magic theory was unable to exin some of the more powerful ones.


    ¡°Well, let¡¯s at least make my world a more scientific one.¡±


    Frigidwinter Earth was my personal world. Its naturalws were based on my own beliefs of how worlds should be constructed. In my world, I could create the Absolute Coldest Ice that didn¡¯t seem magical to the outside world. Naturally, I would also be able to make even magic be more scientific.


    The Law of Energy Conservation was a basicw of physics that I understood well enough. Since Zero had entered my world, she would need to obey the basicws of my world.


    The moment I used Frigidwinter Earth to envelop her Soul World of ice, she had already stepped into my trap. ording to the naturalws of my world, she could still steal heat as she pleased. However, this heat wouldn¡¯t just magically disappear on its own. Just like how Yins mentioned the karma of cause and effect earlier, every action taken would have a reaction, every cause would have an equivalent effect. All of the heat that Zero stole was absorbed by Zero¡¯s main body!


    ¡°All the heat you stole and the temperature difference you lowered this entire area by will be forcefully experienced by your main body as an equivalent amount of high temperature!¡±


    This was the power of a Concept. Perhaps it seemed rather weak¡ªeven dangerous as it wouldn¡¯t differentiate between enemy and ally¡ªbut any action a naturalw took would give a headache to even the most powerful of individuals.


    When dealing with naturalws, the greatest trouble was that they werepletely unreasonable. They would be able to suppress any other power out there. Yet at the same time its greatest threat was also that it was reasonable. Everything would be fine and dandy as long as you obeyed the reason of the naturalw. Anything deemed unreasonable by the naturalw would be forcibly suppressed.


    And as the only Creator of this world, only I knew all the ¡°reasons¡± and naturalws of my world. This was also why the Goddesses of Chaos and Order were basically undefeatable in Eich. Apart from their personal power levels easily being able to defeat everyone else, their ridiculous administrator privileges and knowledge constituted the biggest reason behind their invincibility.


    But we were now in my world, where I made the naturalws. Zero had created countless ice mountains and low temperature areas and sent downrge amounts of ice and snow. She had stolen away a countless amount of heat already.


    It would have been fine still if she had used normal ice magic. After all, one of the naturalws of my world was indeed the construction of the elements. Yet she had used her natural talent of robbing heat. In that case, the heat that she stole wouldn¡¯t simply vanish like it would in Eich or the Undead nes. It was time for her to enjoy the consequences of her own actions.


    That was why, from the very start, I had no intentions of stopping her from lowering the temperatures here with her Soul World. Instead, I even helped her out, allowing her unscientific natural talent to be used to the utmost. Perhaps her astral projection would still seem fine¡ªit was impossible for anyone to harm something that didn¡¯t actually exist. However, her main body might already be literally ignited on fire with all the heat energy she absorbed, without her even knowing it.


    And if you calcte the cause and effect of all this, then it would count as self-harm. How would it be possible for anyone to avoid the effects of self-harm? That was why her astral projection¡¯s invulnerability and non-existence were finally losing effect as well. There was no need for me topletely analyze just how she aplished being able to count as a non-existence here in the mortal ne. I only need to take advantage of my own world¡¯s naturalws to make her bear the consequences of her own actions.


    ¡°...Just what did you do!¡±


    The translucent ghost¡¯s body began to melt, and burn marks appeared on her ancient clothes. At the current moment, Zero experienced the strongest sensation of fear she had ever felt in her life. Her main body, which was still back in the Ice ne, was actually attacked? Not only that, the attack was the type she feared most, a high-temperature attack. And high-temperature attacks were one of the few she wasn¡¯t immune to.


    Seeing this, I nodded and smiled.


    ¡°Haha, would you like to know how it was that I managed to attack your main body?¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    Although she didn¡¯t reply, the look of expectation in her eyes mixed with obvious traces of confusion made it evident that she hoped I would tell her.


    ¡°Hehe, I won¡¯t tell you~~~ Don¡¯t re at me like that; I¡¯m no idiot viin who dies just because I told too much information to my enemy. How could I possibly tell you about my trump card? But what I can tell you is that if you don¡¯t want your main body¡¯s situation to be worse, you shouldn¡¯t do anything more at all.¡±


    Of course, I didn¡¯t tell her the truth, but I also didn¡¯t lie. To be honest, as long as she stopped using her heat-stealing ability, then she naturally wouldn¡¯t receive any bacsh. And after I told her this much, no matter whether she believed me or not, it would still be a mental restraint on her and limit the actions she could take.


    The ghost red at me onest time before she started to fade. It would seem that she had given up on this situation and was intending to cancel her astral projection so that her soul could return to the Ice ne.


    However, once she became clear to a certain extent, her ghostly body suddenly went back to a near solid state. This time, her expression was even more afraid as she cowered and looked at me. It would seem that she had noticed that her astral projection was unable to leave.


    *p!*


    I copied Zero¡¯s magic casting and pped my hands, dispelling the blizzard and making the sun shine from through the clouds again, revealing to her the true form of my Frigidwinter Earth.


    This world was no longer just barren, ice-filled ins with nothing in it. Icy waters could be seen in the distance, while giant magical whales were shooting out jets over a dozen meters high. ciers were floating in the ocean, while endless mountains could be discerned in the distance. There were even the intermittent faint sounds of roaring beasts.


    And we were currently located at the foot of a mountain, inside an ice crystal forest. The faint outline of buildings could be seen afar: this was bing more and more like a real world.


    ¡°Would you like to know why it is that you can¡¯t leave?¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    ¡°Ha, I won¡¯t tell you~~~ Leave this astral projection behind, and then go think about it by yourself! Right, your essence... give me all your knowledge! Otherwise, I¡¯ll use your astral projection to film porn videos, and I¡¯ll sell the videos to the fairies and gnomes! Don¡¯t people love teacher fantasies? ...Ah! Silly cat! Don¡¯t bite me, you¡¯re not a teacher¡ªyou¡¯re a master! Besides, nobody would buy a porn video focused on a cat!¡±

 Chapter 346

    Chapter 346: The Two Dragons


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Satisfied, I made my return to the mortal ne from the Frigidwinter Earth. What greeted my eyes were battles nearly at their conclusion.


    The undead armies had be nourishment for this newly-born Mars, devoured inrge numbers. In fact, the scene of undead mitting suicide¡± inrge numbers as if they had gone insane greatly frightened the living adventurers.


    If it weren¡¯t for the fact that Samantha had exined to the adventurers that this was due to the high-ranked Cmity Rankings individual that the wood spirits had hired, perhaps thebat situation would have been even more chaotic amid the adventurers¡¯ mass panic.


    Still, things definitely weren¡¯t over. That was because...


    ¡°The Titan Giants are truly existences that give one headaches.¡±


    Existences that had surpassed the Myth rank understood that one of the main differences between SemiGods and True Gods was in their understanding of the world¡¯s naturalws. Existences at these levels could, indeed, utilize the naturalws but they¡¯d be restrained by them all the same. A SemiGod that had lived long enough might not be any weaker than a True God without the power of naturalws, but when the amazing power of thesews is taken into ount, even the weakest of the True Gods wouldn¡¯t be easy to deal with.


    Unfortunately, the weaker True Gods over here were getting beaten up by the not-so-weak Titan Giants.


    ckened all over, Mary¡¯s current appearance wasn¡¯t as golden and shiny as when she had first appeared after being scorched by thunder. On the other side, Solo now appeared half-frozen, practically confirming the fact that Yins was indeed an ancestor to the frost giants. Apart from beast taming, he had an obvious power over ice.


    I could understand why the True Gods seemed to be losing. After all, Solo was the God of Music and Dance, while Mary was technically a Smithing God¡ªher Concept included that of Hammers. Neither of them was likely to be adept at fighting, and this wasn¡¯t even taking into ount the untold years ofbat experience these old, veteran Titan Giants had.


    Now, however, came a turning point in the battle.


    Because of certain reasons that shall not be stated, the Goddess of Wealth¡¯s battle against the lion divine beast ended far earlier than expected. She chose to battle alongside Mary, and it would be ridiculous for two True Gods fighting two-on-one against a Titan Giant to lose, granted they all were incarnations. However, the thunder Titan Giant seemed to grow wilder and wilder as he fought, filling the entire sky with his summoned thunder. He actually held the advantage.


    ¡°We should be able to win.¡±


    This was no guess¡ªit was my judgment based on the situation. Both sides were peak incarnations, held back only by the mortal ne¡¯s limitations. There wasn¡¯t much of a difference foundationally in their power levels. If the thunder Titan Giant really forced the two True Goddesses to the brink, they could simply self-destruct their incarnations, which would seriously injure the Titan Giant.


    Meanwhile, the battle between the two dragons at Oak Town¡¯s castle gate ended far quicker than expected. Apart from the fact that Little Red¡¯s anger helped greatly augment herbat strength, Molly was in no state of mind to fight.


    Ever since Molly had been forcibly converted into an Inferno Dragon back in the Underground World, although she gained better melee fighting abilities and improved fire dragonbreath, Inferno Dragons had a reputation equal to street rats in the mortal ne. They also possessed negative racial talents, such as Bloodthirst and Berserk. From no angle did this look like a good deal.


    Since Molly didn¡¯t want to flee to the Chaos Abyss, she had to think of a method to deal with this problem.


    And so, Molly had tried using secret dragon techniques to cancel the Inferno Dragon transformation and return to her pure Immemorial Dragon bloodline. Luckily for her, she had been sessful, and this was due to many reasons¡ªshe had many secret dragon techniques at her disposal, she hadn¡¯t transformed for long, and the original individual who had converted her had perished.


    However, canceling her Inferno Dragon transformation had a price¡ªsuch a cancetion was the equivalent of slicing off parts of her being that had already transformed into an Inferno Dragon. She had hence lost arge amount of blood and had entered a weakened state that would not end for many years toe. Not only did her power level decrease by at least twenty percent, but she also needed to utilize another portion of her remaining power to suppress the remnant Inferno Dragon blood in her body. All she had left to fight with was half of her original power.


    And that was how she was viciously beaten by her own daughter.


    Still, everyone was aware of Molly¡¯s personality. Threatened by the Demon Earl, she had surrendered immediately. When the situation turned awry, she had instantly ditched her new boss. Even though she possessed sufficient power to fight against the Undead Emperors in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital when she had been blocked by the undead, she surrendered without a fight, under thebination of the undead¡¯s carrot and the stick. Not only that, she wrote a letter to her daughter¡ªone with enmity towards her¡ªpleading for help. To quote Little Red, ¡°Molly keeps talking about how the pride of dragons is more important than anything while rubbing that very pride under her ass. She¡¯s the shame of all dragons.¡±


    So, the moment Molly discovered that her own daughter was far stronger than herself, she immediately surrendered. Yet unfortunately for her, the result was an even worse beating. Upon seeing Molly¡¯s actions thatcked any shred of dignity, Little Red had been angered all the more.


    ¡°I¡ªI surrender! Little Ein, please stop hitting me!¡±


    Protecting herself with her wings and arms, Molly repeatedly called out Little Red¡¯s baby nickname, but this cowardly behavior only served to make Little Red even more furious. Little Red used her tails, ws, and fists to continuously deliverbination attacks that viciously pounded Molly¡¯s face.


    ¡°...No matter what, I¡¯m still your mother. Can¡¯t you give me some face in front of everyone! You¡¯re still hitting me! You disobedient daughter, I¡¯m going to go all out against you!¡±


    Molly¡¯s resistance made Little Red¡¯sbat fervor rise yet some more¡ªLittle Red even started using dragon magic and began spitting dragonbreath directly at Molly¡¯s face.


    ¡°...Please stop hitting me¡ªit hurts! Please forgive me! After all, I gave birth to you!¡±


    Molly started pleading again, causing Little Red to thrash her even harder...


    ¡°Fine then, we can just die together!¡±


    Molly was filled with ever more indignation and wanted to regain some lost face, so Little Red beat her harder...


    From a certain standpoint, Molly was truly unfortunate. If she had been able to keep up a defiant attitude to the end, Little Red would have calmed down after venting through a single beatdown. However, the end result of Molly continuously waffling between pleading for mercy and resisting in anger was that Little Red continuously upgraded the degree of Molly¡¯s beating. In the end, Molly was injured so badly that her scales were dropping off everywhere and her dragon blood was spewing furiously... causing even the spectating adventurers to want to get a piece.


    ¡°An Immemorial Dragon¡¯s blood! One liter can be sold for one thousand gold coins! And these dragon scales! Dragonscale armor costs 50,000 gold a suit!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t go over there, Captain! You¡¯ll die if you get too close!¡±


    A certain greedy adventurer team captain leered at the dangerous battle and tried to approach it without regards to his life, causing his teammates to restrain him tightly. They wouldn¡¯t let him go.


    However, a certain priest suddenly sighed, helpless, as he cast all the Divine Art buff spells he knew upon himself. Ever so carefully he started edging closer, all to gather some of the precious dragon blood.


    ¡°An, are you insane? Even if you¡¯re a Goddess of Wealth priest, this is taking things too far! You were never this crazy for money before! This is just suicide! No matter how much you need money, is it really necessary to go to this degree?¡±


    However, the priest named An could only smile wryly and shake his head in response to his teammate¡¯s concern.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m crazy for money; it¡¯s that I just received a divine message from Beyana herself. If I can obtain enough dragon blood, she¡¯ll increase her divine favor for me by two levels. And if I fail, then she¡¯s going to send me all the way back to the acolyte priest school and demote me to a novice priest. And if I¡¯m not careful enough and die here, she¡¯ll make me into a God Envoy in her Divine Kingdom.¡±


    An¡¯s teammate¡¯s jaw dropped in surprise as he looked towards the north, where the Goddess of Wealth had disyed herself to everyone and, along with Mary, was currently locked in a brutal battle against a Thunder Titan Giant.


    Molly and Little Red were both SemiGods, and an incarnation of a True God would be at a simr level of power. No naturalws existed that forbade True Gods from involving themselves with mundane matters. An Immemorial Dragon¡¯s blood would be precious to even a True God, but shamelessly making a believer risk their life to gather it was something only the Goddess of Wealth could pull off.


    ¡°Should I say that it¡¯s expected of the Goddess of Wealth Beyana? That greedy Goddess, even at such a time¡ª¡±


    The person who was speaking was suddenly cut off as his teammates hurriedly covered his mouth. An himself was frightened to the point of shivering in fear.


    ¡°Are you an idiot? This is desecration! And she¡¯s so close to us right now, and you even uttered her name out loud! What if she hears you¡ª¡±


    An¡¯s raving shouts weren¡¯t even over when he suddenly stopped. A strange expression manifested on his face as he spoke again to his unlucky teammate who had, evidently, caused his own misfortune.


    ¡°Oscar, the Goddess just sent another divine message. She said she heard everything you said and if you don¡¯t help me obtain two liters of dragon blood, she¡¯ll make you bankrupt tomorrow... True Gods never lie, and based on my understanding of the Goddess and how miserly she is, she¡¯ll definitely do it¡ªahhh! My glorious Goddess, I didn¡¯t mean it to be desecration! Please don¡¯t increase my task to three liters¡ªI¡¯ll really die!¡±


    Alright then. There were now two unlucky desecrators. But the pitiful part was that their task was destined to fail because someone far more dangerous, vicious, and powerful had arrived.


    ¡°Everyone, leave this area. Little Red, restrain Molly for me. I¡¯m going to draw out some of her blood!¡±


    Yep, I had returned. As for the battle between the True Gods and the Titan Giants? I might as well let them take it slowly. Since the True Gods still hadn¡¯t yet self-destructed their incarnations, I knew what was going on. They probably wanted to gather information on the Titan Giants to prepare for the real battle against the Titan Giants¡¯ main bodies. They were all quite busy, so I might as well finish my own evolution Quest first.


    What? You¡¯re saying I¡¯ve alreadypleted it? Wasn¡¯t it ¡®choose one of three?¡¯ Why would I choose this lower-ranked Quest when I already had a better choice inpleting the hunt the Undead Emperor Quest?


    ¡°Hmph! After years of digging pitfalls for me, I would be foolish to blindly listen to the System and not see the trap within these Quests.¡±


    This was what my System had said earlier:


    [You have achieved the peak of Gold. You have activated more than three bloodline abilities. Thebination of your soul and physical body has reached 100%. Soul Imprints have been activated. SemiGod-level undead, Order, and divine powered items detected in the nearby area. Bloodline activation hunting quest has been activated. System Notification: It¡¯s time to show off the true value of your physical body and make those Titan Giants that think they¡¯re physical perfection see what a true Double Diamond Bloodline is.]


    [A choice of Quests has been activated. You can pick any of the following three, and your bloodline will evolve based on how well youplete them. Remember, your bloodline can currently withstand undergoing only one evolution.]


    [After youplete this bloodline evolution Quest, the path for you to be a Legend shall open. Your War Angel and Original Sin Demon forms shall evolve together with your bloodline.]


    Indeed, my System did say that my bloodline could only withstand one evolution. However, it never said that I couldn¡¯t simultaneously use two materials together to evolve my bloodline! And, based on my analysis, the most important sentence in this trap was ¡°You can pick any of the following three, and your bloodline will evolve based on how well youplete them.¡± Basically, this meant that this was an open Quest just like the main storyline Quests from before, and that the reward was only based on how well Ipleted the Quest.


    If Ipleted only one of these three choices, although I¡¯d still finish the Quest, my System would most probably insult me in the end with something like ¡°You couldn¡¯t even grab this chance; it¡¯s not my fault!¡±


    ¡°Tsk! I remember all those pitfalls you¡¯ve set for me in the past!¡±


    [Hah, don¡¯t be so happy quite yet. You need more than half of the blood in an Immemorial Dragon¡¯s body in order to evolve your bloodline with the power of dragons. Are you sure Little Red won¡¯t turn on you if you kill Molly? No matter what, she¡¯s still Little Red¡¯s mother. Or are you intending on breaking up with Little Red?]


    ¡°Do you really think I¡¯m that much of an idiot? The Quest said ¡®Defeat Molly Ein Mezus and obtain an amount of fresh Immemorial Dragon blood that exceeds half the blood in a dragon¡¯s body.¡¯ That means it¡¯s fine as long as I have enough dragon blood and it doesn¡¯t need to alle from Molly. I can simply take some blood from Molly and ask Little Red for the rest. This way neither of them will die. You really think I¡¯d fall for such a simple trap?¡±


    Fine then, the System fell silent at this, which meant that I had been right on the mark. As for the Titan Giant ingredients I needed for the final optional Quest, I nced over at the five-colored Ultraman fight still going on not far in the distance.


    ¡°Go, go! Please fight until both sides are seriously injured! Beyana! Hurry up and use self-destruction, hmm hmm ha hee~! Hurry and take each other out! Hmm hmm ha hee~! Rnd¡¯s song version! Hmm? Who are you supposed to be? Don¡¯t bother me, I¡¯m super busy right now!¡± [1] 1


    The priest named An tugged on my shirt sleeve and could only smile wryly as he exined:


    ¡°The Goddess heard everything you said just now. She says that she¡¯s taking half of the dragon blood, otherwise she¡¯s going to stop fighting right now and let the Titan Giante over to deal with you.¡±


    ¡°In her wildest dreams! Tell her that there¡¯s no blood for her! If she wants my life, she shoulde for it herself!¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: If this sentence is confusing, it¡¯s because Rnd is humming in the middle.

 Chapter 347

    Chapter 347: Difference


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Little Red, no matter what, she¡¯s still your mother. How about giving her a little face?¡±


    Alright then. The enraged Little Red red at me. I should have known better. No matter what an outsider did or said, it would never end well to get involved in someone else¡¯s family affairs. I really should have not said anything.


    ¡°...I feel that she¡¯s ring at you more because you¡¯re currently withdrawing her mother¡¯s blood. Also, how did you randomly pull out this super-thick syringe? Just what were you intending, carrying such a thing with you?¡±


    ¡°I crafted it using parts from my Frigidwinter Earth. It only took three minutes, instant and convenient! Would you like to buy one? Rx, I have no interest in giving an injection to a cat.¡±


    Harloys wasmenting on my giant needle¡ªor perhaps I should call it a needle-shaped giant electric drill? Anyways, I was currently drilling the pitiful Molly, while the dragon blood that poured out of her was directly frozen by me into blood cake¡ªer, blocks of frozen blood¡ªand then stored in my Frigidwinter Earth.


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªLittle Red, I¡¯m simply taking out some of her blood to make her weaker so that she won¡¯t cause any trouble.¡±


    Giant restraints of ice tightly tied Molly down. I suddenly noticed that many people seemed to be staring at me, which me feel quite awkward. So, I directly opened up my Frigidwinter Earth and tossed Molly inside. I still had troublesome enemies to deal with, and this would be fine for the time being¡ªit would be impossible for her to exit my Frigidwinter Earth unless I wanted her to.


    ¡°...The Goddess says that¡ª¡±


    ¡°Tell her that I won¡¯t take all the dragon blood for myself.¡±


    I understood what this Goddess of Wealth priest An had to tell me before he even finished half of his sentence. Just what was with Beyana, already thinking about the loot before we even won... Silly cat, don¡¯tugh¡ªI¡¯m not locking Molly up for thebat loot! I¡¯m doing this so that we have one less thing to worry about! You¡¯re stillughing? Stopughing! There¡¯s a battle right now, be more serious!


    Little Red transformed back into her human form and was still in good shape. Since the current Molly was far too much of a pushover, that so-called fight with her was only a somewhat vigorous warmup for Little Red.


    Currently, Little Red¡¯s long ck hair was dyed pure red by the fire element, while her white skin was simrly flushed red. This appropriate amount of exercise filled her with energy, while the weakened Molly had been unable to even injure her.


    ¡°Rnd?¡±


    ¡°Rx. It¡¯ll be impossible for her to escape from my prison. We¡¯ll deal with her when this is all over.¡±


    Little Red nodded without asking anything more. Being able to meet Molly in such a situation was a good thing for Little Red. After delivering a brutal beatdown to the ¡®shame of all dragons,¡¯ Little Red felt much better as well. However, she started frowning when she looked at the battle raging on not far from us.


    ¡°Rnd. Are we taking action?¡±


    Although her question came with no rification as to what she was referring to, I understood what she meant. She was asking if we should interfere with the battle between the True Gods and the Titan Giants. And the fact that she asked such a question was in a way evidence of herck of confidence in doing so.


    Little Red was a SemiGod, but part of it was an artificial boost from her Immemorial Dragon bloodline. Her true understanding wasn¡¯t quite at that level. To be honest, SemiGod dragons were typically ancient dragons that had lived for countless eons, on par with the Dragon Gods. Little Red was still far from such a level.


    From a certain standpoint, dragons and Titan Giants were ancient foes. The dragons probably possessed various records about the Titan Giants. When faced with all the myths about Titan Giants passed down in her tribe, Little Red had no assurance that she could win at all, especially after watching these Titan Giant incarnations in action.


    In fact, as I watched them, the Titan Giants were actually getting stronger and stronger as they fought.


    The thunder that rampaged at a tremendous speed had transformed into a physical weapon. The Thunder Titan Giant Hatley wielded a ssic great sword in one hand while his other hand tossed thunder javelins at the True Gods opposing him. This caused them to be too busy defending to even know which way was north.


    The energy attacks of thunder exquisitelyplemented the beautiful sword techniques. Every attack was filled with the Titan Giant¡¯s heart and soul. Compared to him, the True Gods were nothing more than oversized existences that he saw through every move of. Every Divine Art they used was directly countered, and from the very start, the two True Gods had inflicted zero damage upon the Titan Giant. They were nothing more than toys in the palm of his hand.


    Perhaps both sides technically had power levels on the same level, but it was evident for anyone to see who was better at martial techniques andbat.


    ¡°They¡¯re going to be forced to self-destruct.¡±


    If energy and power level represented truebat strength, then there would be no more need for fights. Simplypare who had the higher level, and the lower one couldmit suicide. Due to the mortal ne¡¯s naturalws limiting top-level strength, both sides were pretty much at the same power level. But sincebat experience, techniques, and other such factors were also at y, the oue of this battle was evident despite the True Gods¡¯ advantage in numbers.


    This was akin to how True Gods¡¯ incarnations would typically be able to dominate normal SemiGods, as the True Gods had experienced and umted far too much. Even if normal SemiGods were at the same basic power level as a True God, they would lose out in experience, special abilities, and many other factors. Tight now, the exact same was urring, only with the True Gods¡¯ incarnations for once on the losing end.


    When ced alongside the Titan Giants that had who knows how many eons of experience, even the True Gods were merely their juniors. The difference between the ancient Titan Giants and the True Gods was as tremendous as the difference between True Gods and ordinary humans. This wasn¡¯t a gulf that could be covered only with effort.


    ¡°If only an incarnation has so much power, just how strong is a Titan Giant¡¯s full potential?¡±


    Perhaps I would sometimes be arrogant and self-confident, or sometimes I would insanely fight back like a wild dog if pushed to the brink. But I was still a normal person¡ªfine¡ªsomeone who barely counted as a normal person, who didn¡¯t enjoy always being at the brink of life and death... Yep, after saying this much, I simply wanted to say that I... couldn¡¯t win, I definitely couldn¡¯t win!


    At the very most, I only had a little under four hundred years of knowledge, and my current physical body¡¯s age was younger than four years old. True Gods would always have ages counting in the thousands as the basic unit, and it was said that the Titan Giants were capable of casually hibernating for tens of thousands of years, waking up afterwards as if only a single night had passed. In that case, a Titan Giant¡¯s theoretical lifespan... just casually trying to calcte it made me think that a new unit of time needed to be invented just for them.


    This type of opponent was quite depressing to face. Don¡¯t tell me how hard work would definitely pay off in the end, or how the long-lived were all useless pieces of garbage that only knew how to eat and sleep... Although there were such species like that, most of them had long since gone extinct as the eras passed. The ones that didn¡¯t go extinct had the most ridiculously powerful natural talents of all... Yep, I¡¯m definitely talking about dragons, who love to only sleep all day.


    Perhaps the Titan Giants were quite unlucky. Their first appearance in this generation caused the True Gods to band together and hunt them. However, it was precisely the Titan Giants¡¯ opponents¡¯ strength that showed off how powerful the Titan Giants truly were. I tried calcting what would happen if I personally went up to fight them...


    ¡°I¡¯d probably be instant one-hit KO¡¯d... System, you really have it in for me.¡±


    By now, cold sweat was dripping down my back. If it weren¡¯t for these ¡°nice Gods¡± that came out to help me, we would have ended up directly facing against the Titan Giants, who would easily tear us apart.


    Even Little Red, who always acted before she thought, was asking me about taking action this time¡ªthe best evidence of her ownck of confidence. She was no novice, nor was she some arrogant harem protagonist who always believed in her own victory. Simple observation let her discover the frightening power behind those seemingly simple and clumsy fighting techniques of the Titan Giants.


    ¡°He¡¯s seeing through every single one of the True God¡¯s attacks and is dodging each one prematurely. He appears clumsy, but it¡¯s actually total suppression. Even if I reach the next dragon power level, I have no guarantee of winning...¡±


    Not only Little Red, but it would be the same for me, even back in the day when I was Emperor Yongye. Me and my army could indeed scare off some of the weaker Gods, but the Goddess of Wealth and the other Gods here helping me right now were no weak Low Gods and were still being beaten into such a sorry state. Even though their opponents were only the Titan Giants¡¯ incarnations, this was still far beyond what any mortal would be able to deal with. If the Titan Giants managed to revive... No wonder even the prideful dragons were so worried and asking for help everywhere. It was all because the Titan Giants were far too strong.


    [...No need to think so much into things. Although Yins ¡®The Thinker¡¯ is ranked fourth among the Titan Giants, he¡¯s not actually well known for meleebat skills. Still, he¡¯s one of the most veteran Titan Giants that even the Titan Giant King must respect. ¡®Silverbow Wargod¡¯ Hatley may not be ranked in the top ten, but he would actually be ranked fifth if you only look at fighting abilities. Neither of them are easy to deal with, and they don¡¯t actually represent the averagebat strength of Titan Giants. You still have a chance against the weakest Titan Giants.]


    For once, my System tried consoling me, while simultaneously astonishing me with just how much it knew on the Titan Giants. It also made me not know whether tough or cry. Wasn¡¯t what the System told me the best evidence that, right now, I absolutely would be unable to defeat them?


    ¡°Little Red, since the True Gods haven¡¯t yet asked us for help, let¡¯s just watch.¡±


    ¡°...Yeah.¡±


    Little Red¡¯s answer contained a rare trace of depression. Red Dragons were famed for their high pride, even among the dragon species. She typically had a great amount of pride in herself, but this time, she didn¡¯t even dare to challenge this opponent, something she found humiliating.


    ¡°It would seem that I can only give up on that Quest.¡±


    Of course I wanted to do the third, ¡°SemiGod ranked,¡± evolution Quest. After all, I even had True God helpers, and my opponents would only be at the SemiGod rank, not to mention not even at their fullest power level. But looking at the current situation, the System would never make it easy for me. Even with True Gods on my side, this would be far more difficult than facing off against any normal SemiGod.


    ¡°Even if there¡¯s profit to be made, it¡¯s useless if I¡¯m not alive to spend it. Completing two out of three Quests is pretty good, and I should still have a chance in the future...¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but recall the future of the ¡°game history.¡± By a certain point, even normal SemiGods became nothing but cannon fodder. If the Titan Giants ever revived, that time would instantly arrive upon us.


    When faced with such opponents, it seemed that it would be impossible for me toplete every single one of my evolution Quests. Yet the desire to be stronger still burned within my heart. I didn¡¯t possess any so-called dragon pride. It could even be said that I was willing to stoop to any measures at all for the sake of my goals. But, as someone who took things step-by-step to reach my current power level, how could I possibly not desire to be on the battlefield, standing against such opponents?


    ¡°...Next time, I won¡¯t be simply observing on the sidelines. Titan Giants? Even if this time is no good, I¡¯ll make you into my food for evolution, sooner orter.¡±


    I clenched my fists, sinking my nails into my palms. Watching from the sidelines had given me this helpless feeling, making me truly feel tired. Suddenly, I felt a warm feeling in my hand, and I looked in surprise to my side. Little Red¡¯s hand felt slightly hot to the touch, and her face was red, likely due to her passionate emotions about wanting to get stronger.


    ¡°Next time, we definitely won¡¯t only be watching. I will help you...¡±


    Little Red¡¯s hoarse voice was filled with unwillingness and somewhat broken pride from discovering the difference in power. But her voice was also filled with ambition to be stronger and a strange passion.


    ¡°Yep...¡±


    Her hand¡¯s warmth really did reassure me. From what I could see, the current Little Red¡¯s face waspletely red, all the way to her ears. This faint blush made her seem incredibly beautiful, but, at the same time, was a sign that she was filled with immense fervor for battle, just like I was. With such a reliable teammate, what was I still worried and hesitating about?


    ¡°No matter how difficult the future is, we shall face it together!¡±


    Yep, we still had plenty of room for growth. Didn¡¯t I start over once again just for the sake of breaking through the bottleneck and growing even more powerful? And even if I met yet another opponent that I wouldn¡¯t be able to defeat in a short period of time, I could just use my same tactic from the past and fight that enemy with all my friends and teammates. Even if, right now, we could only act as observers, there was no need for us to get down on ourselves.


    Perhaps I didn¡¯t say my feelings clearly enough, but I trusted that Little Red would definitely believe it, too. At the very least, my hand would transmit my feelings to her.


    ¡°Yeah...¡±


    As I energetically stated mybat deration filled with passion for battle, I heard Little Red replying in only a tiny whisper. When I looked over at her, she lowered her head and her face grew even more flushed. It would seem that she was quite depressed. Well, she was a prideful dragon¡ªthis must be the effects of having her pride injured.


    ¡°...Rnd, it¡¯s truly andpletely your fault that you¡¯ve been single for so many years.¡±


    The silly cat always managed to pick the best moments to ruin my mood. But, this time, even the System joined in.


    [Right after beating up the mother, you¡¯re requesting to get married to her daughter? Nice. System Notification: Considering that there¡¯s soon a great show for me to watch, I¡¯ll give you this time¡¯smenting service for free.]


    ¡± Ptui , what great show are you talking about? This time, I¡¯m only going to act like a cowardly turtle.¡±


    I had made up my mind that I would put safety first. And of course someone wasn¡¯t going to let me do that.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, the Goddess wishes for your assistance...¡±


    ¡°...Even if I go out there, I¡¯ll be useless. Does she want me to clean up her corpse?¡±


    ¡°Yes, clean up her corpse... Fine then, the Goddess¡¯s original words were ¡®It¡¯s whatever if you don¡¯t help me, but you¡¯re even tossing bombs at my heart? Don¡¯t you know that I¡¯ve been single for more than three thousand years? If you keep doing that, I¡¯ll burn you to death. Fine, you¡¯ve reached your goal, and I¡¯m going to self-destruct my incarnation now. Remember to pick up all the God Equipment on my body. I¡¯ll make you pay if you¡¯re missing even a single piece of equipment!¡¯¡±


    ¡°...Can I say that she¡¯s miserly to the point of death? She¡¯s truly miserly to the point of death in the literal sense!¡±


    ¡°My Goddess says ¡®Thank you for thepliment...¡¯¡±


    ¡°...Her shamelessness can evenpare to mine.¡±


    ¡°My Goddess says ¡®Thank you for thepliment again, but I still can¡¯tpare to you in shamelessness.¡¯¡±


    When faced with such a shameless Goddess, I could onlyugh and shake my head and prepare myself to ¡°loot the corpse as quickly as possible the moment the boss died.¡±


    ¡°I feel like I¡¯m forgetting something... Forget it, if it¡¯s something I forgot, it probably isn¡¯t important.¡±


    While I was preparing in high spirits, a certain female dragon in an icy world was restrained and suffering from severe blood loss. She was frozen and pale all over, weakened almost to the point of death.


    For Red Dragons of the fire element, magma and volcanoes would be the mostfortable home of all, while any ce of snow and ice would be like hell. All Red Dragons had negative ice resistance and would even take double the damage when receiving ice attacks. And the current Molly had just been seriously injured and thrown into this freezing world, which made her unable to move apart from breathing.


    ¡°...Save me... I¡¯m going to die with all my blood loss and this cold... I surrender... I surrender... let me go, and I¡¯ll listen to anything you say...¡±

 Chapter 348

    Chapter 348: Mars¡¯ Evolution


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Incarnations, astral projections, other simr constructions weren¡¯t that rare. Many powerful existences of other nes were limited by the mortal ne¡¯s naturalws and, unable to use their true bodies to enter the mortal ne, could only send their incarnations or projections.


    From a certain standpoint, such dimensional naturalws were a way of protecting the world of Eich.


    As long as the Elemental Tide¡¯s density remained insufficient, the very existence of top-level existences in the mortal ne could distort this world¡¯s naturalws, causing unpredictable influences upon an area or even the entire ne.


    For instance, if a God whose Divine Concept was Rain descended, then a radius of several hundred kilometers around them would likely be a permanent rainstorm, the worst enemy of any farmer... I definitely wasn¡¯tmenting on a certain ¡°Rain God¡± who always met with rainstorms every time he tried to hold a concert, nor was I trying to reference a certain unlucky person who would always have a major incident befall them upon trying to steal the headlines¡ªnope! [1] 1


    Cough , getting back on track, it would still be alright if a Rain God descended as the Divine Concept of Rain was rtively mellow. The descent of some sort of Volcano God or War God would cause even greater havoc.


    For instance, when the Demon Earl¡¯s main body descended, vast swathes ofnd were infused with Chaos, scorching thend. Anywhere his blood fell became akin to a barren, lifelessnd that could no longer harbor life, even today. Unless someone acted to improve the situation, this negative influence couldst for several dozen or hundreds of years.


    In most heroic epics, there were stories about how ¡°Eternal shadowy winds would blow where a Demon King has fallen.¡± Actually, it was it was the same here, too.


    The increase in the Elemental Tide made it so the dimensional naturalws were gradually changing as well. This was just like how if you dripped a drop of vivid paint into a ss of water, the water would swiftly change color. But if you dripped paint into a bucket of water, a pool of water, or even a river,ke, or ocean of water, that the influence would be hardly noticeable.


    Just as how human bodies possessed natural mechanisms to resist against outside virus invaders, the world of Eich would also automatically reject these rge viruses¡± unless they proved to be ¡°harmless.¡± For instance, in the game¡¯s history, when the Elemental Tide reached its highest, the mortal ne became just like an ¡°ocean¡± in which all the doors to the mortal ne were thrown wide open.


    Yet currently, the Elemental Tide was much lower, and the doors were opened by a small crack. You wanted to enter? Sure, but you still needed to obey the dimensional naturalws. Anything overly destructive would be left outside. Powerful existences could only send incarnations, astral projections and such.


    Countless techniques were out there to do such a thing, but they foundationally worked the same way. First, construct a physical body that the mortal ne was willing to ept. Then, inject one¡¯s willpower, soul, or whatever into it. Based on the different techniques used, the main body would either fall into a deep sleep or act just like normal.


    And so, just like how airport security worked in my previous world, a country¡¯s airport would treat you differently based on your status. If you were a visitor from a friendly country, the security process would be quite simple. If you were from a not-so-friendly country, perhaps first you would be checked to see if you were a spy, maybe directly marked as a potentially mega-dangerous terrorist together with twenty-four hour surveince, or simply refused entry altogether.


    The incarnations for the powerful existences in other nes were simr. They would be discriminated against when they entered and limited in how powerful their incarnations were allowed to be. It would be the easiest for the mortal ne¡¯s True Gods. After all, the Gods were existences that already understood part of the mortal ne¡¯s dimensionalws, making them the equivalent of a country¡¯s government workers. Any security clearance was nothing more than a formality, and they could simply descend using their own churches. Nor would their incarnations require extra divine power to maintain.


    Since the True Gods counted as VIPs that could skip the security clearance process, of course there were also existences that were highly limited in being allowed to enter the mortal ne.


    The harshest conditions of all would be imposed against the demons and devils. After all, they wielded the powers of Chaos and were the mortal enemies of all living beings on the side of Order. And with their track record, they would never be up to any good in the mortal ne.


    The descent of some demon or devil lord would cause a huge incident wherever they appeared. Sometimes, it might be a plot that would affect a massive area, perhaps even the entire continent. Typically, all the Gods¡¯ churches would take action together and thoroughly begin cleansing all the heretical demon and devil worshippers. If some great demon¡¯s incarnation truly seeded in descending and doing something, it was highly likely that a True God¡¯s incarnation would arrive shortly thereafter to handle it.


    So, the strongest existences in the lower nes would be refused entry in over ny-nine percent of all cases, making it quite difficult for them to arrive. They were like illegal immigrants with the ¡°most-hated¡± status. Not only did they need blood sacrifices and other such evil rituals to open the door for them, they also needed to pay a constant price to maintain their incarnations in the mortal ne. Sooner orter, they would no longer be able to pay that price and would be forced to obediently return to the Chaos Abyss or Hell. It was just like an illegal immigrant who was caught during a surprise inspection and forced to return home.


    By the way, I should mention that not long ago, Elisa the Demon Marchioness finally used up all the power of the beastmen blood sacrifice which allowed her to descend. She could only helplessly cancel her incarnation and return to the Chaos Abyss, while I returned to the awkward situation of having to call her every morning and night...


    Cough , it wasn¡¯t that easy, however, for the True Gods to send out incarnations. Incarnations would typically contain divine power and shards of their Concept, along with part of their divine soul. The death of an incarnation would be a huge loss to any True God, perhaps causing arge decrease in their divine power and would take an incredible amount of belief, along with time, to recover.


    That was why there were even plenty of plots aimed against the True Gods. Since it was impossible for anyone to destroy their main bodies, safe far away in their Divine Kingdoms, the final goal would be to destroy an incarnation. It was also possible for a God to have an incarnation killed off by mere mortals. Either would be a huge historical event. Of course, the former would be a heroic deed, while thetter would be a joke of an event that other undying existences wouldugh about for several hundred years.


    Although incarnations were limited in power level, there was also no need to be as concerned with an incarnation¡¯s deathpared to the main body. So, there were both advantages and disadvantages. But from a certain standpoint, an incarnation dying was the equivalent of one¡¯s soul experiencing a virtual death, and it was unavoidable that it would weaken any existence who lost that incarnation.


    That was why the Gods would prefer performing a God¡¯s Descent upon one of their own believers or priests over sending down an incarnation. Not only would this let them reach power levels that surpassed incarnations, they also wouldn¡¯t have to worry about the negative effects of an incarnation¡¯s death. However, there were far too few mortals that possessed the ability and body necessary for a God¡¯s Descent. Not only that, the death rate of mortals acting as vessels for God¡¯s Descent was rather high, which was why incarnations still remained themon choice.


    But for a True God, losing an incarnation meant being set back several hundred years in power level, and it was alsomon for their main body to enter a period of weakness, which might cause their enemies to gang up on them. This was no small matter. Numerous powerful demons and True Gods had all been forever deleted from the ranks of history after losing an incarnation in the mortal ne and then being ambushed by their enemies.


    Right now, the Goddess of Wealth was forced into voluntarily self-destructing her own incarnation. This was the best evidence that she had been forced to the very brink and that she no longer had any confidence in winning. She knew that at this rate, she would be defeated in the end and lose her incarnation anyways, which meant she might as well self-destruct and take her opponent with her.


    As Beyana was one of the younger Gods, being forced to such a brink by a far older Titan Giant wasn¡¯t something that humiliating. Still, she was going to lose a lot of divine power. It was perfectly understandable why she sounded so angry and why she was trying so hard to at least recoup some of her losses.


    ¡°...Have a nice trip. You¡¯re such a generous person, willing to sacrifice yourself for others. I¡¯ll miss you.¡±


    I energetically waved my handkerchief and wished Beyana a good trip. However, all I received was a hostile re. So, I changed to using the farewell greeting from my hometown and began to sing the legendary hymn used for saying goodbye to heroic warriors.


    ¡°Ah, friend, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye! Beyana~ Hurry and self-destruct, I can¡¯t take this anymore! Ah, friend, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye! I shall bury you in a tall hillside and nt a pretty flower... I seem to have forgotten the rest of this song. Forget it, it¡¯s fine as long as I convey my meaning. May the heroic warrior Beyana rest in peace. No need to have any worries, as I shall help loot your corpse for your items.¡±


    The little song I sung was transmitted directly to Beyana through her priest An as I waved ever more energetically. The end result was that I was red at even more viciously.


    Suddenly, Beyana, whose incarnation appeared just like pure gold, bit her teeth with an aggrieved expression and started copsing like a demolished statue. Countless beams of golden light poured out from her, transforming the entire world into gold.


    *Boom!*


    Then, a powerful light blinded everyone, and a deafening boom made everyone¡¯s ears stop working.


    ¡°Sigh, I thought that the Goddess of Wealth¡¯s self-destruction would have something creative about it, like dropping arge amount of money. It would seem that as long as its self-destruction, apart from the visual effects, there¡¯s still no foundational difference or creativity.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd... The Goddess says she heard everything you said and she¡¯s quite angry. She says, ¡®Why don¡¯t you try ande up with some creative method of self-destruction for me.¡¯ Also, if you miss a single piece of her God Equipment, she swears she¡¯ll make you regret it.¡±


    Alright then, since I did promise to bring back her equipment for her, I might as well start working.


    Without wasting any more time I created a thick pair of anti-blinding sses out of ice, hopped atop Erebe and flew into the sky. I rushed to the scene but suddenly stopped when I got closer and saw what was before me.


    A True God¡¯s incarnation¡¯s self-destruction was basically activating all of the divine power and Divine Concept contained within an incarnation. As an attack, it would far surpass even the attacks used by the True God¡¯s main body. From an energy level, it was basically using one¡¯s divine power gathered over many years all at once for an explosive attack. When counting how much power of faith and the portion of the divine soul that the True God would lose, its destructive power would be truly fearsome.


    Normally speaking, a True God¡¯s incarnation¡¯s self-destruction would not only be more than enough to kill a simr level incarnation, but it would even be possible to kill a True God¡¯s main body. This was also why numerous Gods¡¯ incarnations could walk the mortal ne but rarely fought each other. All Gods were capable of self-destructing their incarnations, which would end in a lose-lose scenario for both sides.


    However, the maxim about how a True God¡¯s incarnation¡¯s self-destruction would absolutely kill the opponent was now broken by this opponent.


    ¡°...He¡¯s still not dead, even like this?¡±


    The Thunder Titan Giant had lost half his body, including his entire right arm and foot. Bones could also be seen in the right side of his face, giving him a frightening appearance. Meanwhile, the remnants of his thunder shield on the ground was perhaps the exnation behind how he had managed to survive.


    In that moment, with just a short instant to react, he had transformed all his power of thunder into a physical shield which he used to block the force of the self-destruction to protect his core.


    ¡°False Gods, is that still the only technique you know, even after all these years? If I was in my physical body, such a weak and powerless attack wouldn¡¯t even make me bleed.¡±


    A True God¡¯s incarnation¡¯s self-destruction wouldn¡¯t be that easy to take. It would probably be impossible for this Titan Giant to recover within any short period of time. But even though he was so seriously injured, he was stillughing loudly, as if he was the true victor.


    Perhaps he could indeed be termed the victor as he was able to force a True God to self-destruct¡ªand survived.


    Although he was copsed on the ground, the Thunder Titan Giant¡¯s remaining eye was ring at Mary the Shield Dwarf Goddess. He supported himself with his left hand and tried to stand up, but apparently lost his bnce.


    Then, he grit his teeth, and the thunder at his right leg transformed into a false limb that resembled sculpted armor. His empty right arm was reced by jagged thunder, and there was a savage look in his single remaining eye. Even though the right half of his face was nothing but bone, his jagged thunder arm boomed loudly. Despite his condition he still wanted to fight.


    Mary paused in surprise for a moment but then lifted her war hammer and unhesitatingly rushed towards him.


    A Dwarf Goddess like her would never fear a challenge. Since her opponent hadn¡¯t copsed, this battle between the God-level powers would naturally still continue.


    An injured beast would always be more dangerous. With these two powerful presences renewing their battle, I felt that things would turn dangerous for me. If I rushed forward and was scraped by their battle, wouldn¡¯t that cause me to directly reincarnate yet again?


    ¡°Um, I feel like if I go out there, I¡¯ll just die. Shouldn¡¯t this count as irresistible outside factors?¡±


    ¡°...The Goddess says that if you¡¯re unable to retrieve her Gold Staff of Authority and Seraphim Feather Pen, she¡¯ll put a deep freeze upon your Contract Hero ount. Then, she¡¯ll curse you to be the unluckiest person in the world in all matters rted to wealth, and that the curse will persist for a minimum of three years. At such a time, no amount of money on you willst for more than two hours. You¡¯ll end up eating in a robbers¡¯ den every time you eat at a restaurant, you¡¯ll always meet with fake and pirated products every time you buy something, and even going out to buy some groceries will see you meeting three scammers and a dozen thieves.¡±


    ¡°...It couldn¡¯t possibly be that bad.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s even worse than what I said. Previously, a high-level priest in our church made fake ounts and scammed others, so the Goddess personally cursed him to go bankrupt. On the very same day, his merchant association went bankrupt, and his wife and daughter ran out on him. Then, the only house he had left was smashed to pieces by a meteor from the sky. And even when he became a beggar, other beggars always robbed his money. He onlysted for one week beforemitting suicide.¡±


    Alright then, I was beginning to break out into a cold sweat upon hearing this. Since I had promised Beyana that I would retrieve her equipment, I likely had to do it no matter what the situation was like.


    However, before I took any action, a certain voice spoke up.


    ¡°...I¡¯m so full! Is this self-destruction? Is this battle? It¡¯s so wonderful! So delicious!¡±


    I looked behind me to see the faceless Mars. Even though I couldn¡¯t see any expression on him, I could faintly sense that he was staring at the Gods¡¯ incarnations and the Titan Giants, as if he was looking at delicious food.


    This newly-born child of war would only be able to grow through battle. The ¡°prematurely-born¡± him requiredrge amounts of nourishment to grow, and his future path required plenty of actualbat experiences. From a certain standpoint, this battle between the Gods and the Titan Giants was one of the best opportunities for his growth.


    For a graveyard demon like him, a God¡¯s corpse would naturally be one of the most nutritious meals of all. The self-destruction¡¯s power and attention-grabbing boom from earlier helped Mars make a decision on his own¡ªhe now had knowledge and desires about his future.


    ¡°Battle, this is war! Explosions are war! War is explosions!¡±


    A faint face seemed to suddenly appear on that empty face of his. This face was rather simr to Beyana, who had just exploded herself. I didn¡¯t even have the time yet toment how easy it was for children to go down the wrong path before Mars disappeared right before me.


    Right after that, an earthquake shook the entire battlefield, and arge sinkhole suddenly appeared. The pitch-ck hole seemed as if some demon from hell was being released.


    ¡°...That¡¯s Davey and his undead army!¡±


    And from this sudden crevice in the ground, the undead army that had vanishedpletely rushed forth, charging towards the True Gods and the Titan Giants.


    ¡°Mars, the Gods are our allies! Kill those Titan Giants!¡±


    Luckily, I reacted quickly, which helped Mars¡¯ undead army target only the Titan Giants.


    Yet the two Titan Giants didn¡¯t even nce at these ¡°little toys¡± surrounding them. Only the powerful Gods were worthy of being faced by them. How could they possibly care about these little things? No mortal or undead army would be able to withstand even the casual flick of their fingers.


    *Boom!*


    The death knight rushing at the very forefront self-destructed in an explosion. The explosion¡¯s power caused one Titan Giant¡¯s foot to go numb, so he frowned.


    *Boom!*


    A Bone Dragon biting at his head self-destructed. This explosion¡¯s power made his forehead hurt, and the power of ice contained in the explosion also annoyed him.


    *Boom!*


    A lich that climbed up onto his knee self-destructed. This Myth-ranked lich¡¯s magical explosion made the Titan Giant clutch his knee in pain.


    *Boom!*


    An agile Ghoul Lord jumped into the Titan Giant¡¯s mouth. Then, the sudden explosion that came from within was from this Myth-ranked Undead Lord¡¯s self-destruction, causing several shattered Titan Giant teeth to fly through the air.


    *Boom!* *Boom!*


    Countless undead self-destructed simultaneously on the thunder Titan Giant¡¯s single remaining leg. This time, he was no longer able to stand up steady and could only fall to the ground with a tremendous crash.


    *Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!*


    When the undead army climbed up like ants onto the Titan Giant¡¯s body, the sound of explosions never stopped.


    And the most frightening part of all was that the undead didn¡¯t decrease in number despite the self-destructions¡ªthey continued crawling back out of the crevice. The same lich from earlier that had just self-destructed on the Titan Giant¡¯s knee now grabbed onto the Titan Giant¡¯s ear and lit up its own crazed soulfire with yet another explosion.


    *Boom!*


    The entire area was filled with the booming sounds of self-destruction. Even the Shield Dwarf Goddess Mary paused in surprise.


    ¡°...This is the ability of a graveyard demon to revive the undead? Even if the collective will loses an individual portion, it can be endlessly revived? Rnd, you¡¯ve even created such a monstrosity¡ªdo you actually intend to destroy the world?¡±


    ¡°Wahh, Mars is truly a nice andpassionate son. He helped Daddy out of his own volition when he saw that Daddy was worried; I should buy him some presents. Right, I should give him a zeroth birthday party... Harloys, what did you say just now?¡±


    I was so moved that hot tears were flowing out of my eyes. However, the people next to me all silently backed away, as if they viewed me as a dangerous individual, a forbidden gue. Meanwhile, I thought of something andughed as I talked to the magic sword in my hand.


    ¡°Harloys, as Mars¡¯ mother, you should remember to prepare a birthday present for him. It¡¯s definitely no good to give him only a Happy Birthday song... Ah! Can¡¯t you act more maturely, with your age? Now a mother, and you still bite others!? Ah, you¡¯re now biting me even harder!¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Don¡¯t know who this is referencing too...

 Chapter 349

    Chapter 349: Fortunate Brat


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    It was said that when Beyana self-destructed, divine golden light lit up the entire sky. Not only were the brilliant streaks seen by people in the Forest of Dreams and Nightrain City, but even those in the Mage Country across the sea were able catch the great spectacle.


    If it weren¡¯t for the fact that Beyana had carefully controlled the radius of her self-destruction, she could have blown up the entire Oak Town together with her incarnation¡¯s death.


    When the suddenly-evolved Mars disyed his potential, giving what remained of the Thunder Titan Giant actual danger, the Thunder Titan Giant¡¯s older brother was unable to simply sit by and watch his younger brother¡¯s incarnation perish. After all, the Titan Giants were still sealed in statues, and every bit of strength was valuable.


    Yins ¡°The Thinker,¡± who had been holding back all this time, finally went all out. He proceeded to crush a part of Mars¡¯ undead army and save the other Titan Giant, Hatley, but when he did so none of the True Gods¡¯ incarnations moved to stop him.


    If a Titan Giant was forced to the brink, their incarnations, too, were capable of self-destructing themselves. None of the True Gods were confident enough to im that their incarnations could survive the self-destruction of that of a Titan Giant.


    This was also why it was a terrible idea to use numbers to surround and attack a high-level existence¡¯s incarnation. Forcing it to the brink and making it self-destruct would end in nothing but losses for all sides¡ªnobody, of course, wanted to have anything to do with such a prickly porcupine... It was like dealing with certain monsters in video games. Nobody would want to challenge a boss monster that was incredibly difficult to fight and wouldn¡¯t even give you any money, experience, or special items.


    Since the main fighters¡ªthe True Gods¡¯ incarnations¡ªdidn¡¯t want to fight this to the end, none of us would be able to do anything to stop the Titan Giants that had decided to make their escape.


    Although Mars wanted to continue fighting, he didn¡¯t possess the ability to travel at high speeds, so he was unable to catch them.


    And so, this battle concluded.


    ¡°We¡¯ve won!¡± ¡°We¡¯ve finally survived...¡± Cheers resounded throughout Oak Town simultaneously with sighs eximing how lucky they were to survive. Powerful existences came out one after another, fighting with power that could casually shatter the body of any ordinary adventurer with a single touch. It was only natural for the adventurers to all feel chills run down their collective spines.


    For these first-generation ¡°Contract Heroes,¡± today was a day destined to be one they¡¯d never forget. Today¡¯s battles would have outstanding impact.


    The Titan Giants, True Gods, Undead Emperors, and Undead Cmity. Not only did these mythical existences appear in real life, but they even fought against each other. This had long since surpassed theprehension of the Contract Heroes.


    The adventurers typically did their jobs to make a living or to obtain more resources to reach the next power level. But, today, the Titan Giants and True Gods seemed to step right out of the pages of history, giving them a chance to encounter top-level strength of the world. By now, they all realized that they had gotten involved in a huge incident. This was a revolution, one destined to ur as the generation changed. It was also a great opportunity for the courageous.


    ¡°...Perhaps one day we, too, will have the power to aplish things on this type of battlefield instead of hiding in the corner and praying.¡±


    For some things, one would only realize their importance uponing into contact with them. Only by noticing the difference between them would one be motivated to work harder. Some things weren¡¯t actually impossible¡ªit was just that people didn¡¯t dare to think about them. But once the fires of ambition ignited in people¡¯s minds, it would be near impossible to extinguish them.


    This was exactly why the video games in my previous world would put out all sorts of cool and shy opening videos as their advertisements. Perhaps you wouldn¡¯t be able to aplish what¡¯s depicted in them right away, or maybe you might never reach the skill shown in the advertisement. Yet at least you would have hopes and expectations not only towards the game itself but also from what you would obtain from ying it.


    ¡°Perhaps many things now are different from before.¡± I did also believe that treading on the brink of life and death and witnessing a battle of such epic proportions would make many adventurers quit the job tomorrow. Still, there would be people who would be ever more passionate. This was a trial given to them by this generation, as well as an opportunity. They could reach the peak with this Contract Hero shortcut as no other method would give them this opportunity¡ªthe opportunity to reach the peak with such speed.


    ¡°Let¡¯s increase the number of Hero Armlets we hand out for the second batch of Contract Heroes. How about 300,000 for all of Eich¡ªno¡ªlet¡¯s go with 500,000!¡±


    This was my hope as well. After today, the second batch of Contract Heroes would be more popr with the signups. Unless people epted this contract, they would never be able to evene into contact with such high-level battles.


    I didn¡¯t need to care about the advertising channels for now. With their actions, the Ayer Faction¡¯s True Gods proved their full support for the Contract Heroes system¡ªanother reason the Goddess of Wealth chose to self-destruct her incarnation in the end.


    Who stood to lose the most if the two Titan Giants were allowed to destroy Oak Town? While the wood spirits would fail in developing a new territory for the Forest of Dreams, they wouldn¡¯t actually have concrete losses. Most of the wood spirits would have been able to retreat, and it was always possible to simply try again. But if this first-ever batch of Contract Heroes met with an insurmountably powerful opponent and died off in droves on their very first major mission, the credibility rating of the entire Contract Heroes system would suffer a huge hit.


    While losing people didn¡¯t count as much, losing believability in ¡°Justice Points¡± counted for much more.


    Although the first batch of Contract Heroes was drawn to us by the rewards we offered, they also joined us because of the Ayer Faction¡¯s strength and credibility. Otherwise, no matter how many treasures we offered, none would be willing to join the crew of a sinking boat.


    No idiot could obtain Godhood. Beyana knew these hidden factors full well.


    ¡°Failure is fine for the second or third times. Great risks are associated with great rewards, and most people can understand that. However, failure norrge-scale deaths absolutely can¡¯t be permitted for the first time. Otherwise, a serious credibility problem will arise.¡± That was why Beyana had secretly made preparations to prevent this first everrge-scale mission from failing. She, along with several other True Gods, had descended with their incarnations. She could have chosen to make her incarnation escape instead of self-destructing, leaving the Titan Giants up to others more powerful than her.


    After all, if things developed to a certain extent, it was possible that even Ayer himself woulde down and intervene. However, Beyana still chose the action that would bring her the greatest losses, self-destructing her incarnation.


    She didn¡¯t choose to protect her incarnation...


    Not only did Beyana want thisrge-scale mission to seed, but she also hoped for the Contract Heroes to take as few losses as possible. And, on another level, her self-destruction was evidence of the Gods¡¯ attitude: ¡°Even I¡¯m willing to self-destruct myself, so what are you mortals afraid of?¡± From a certain standpoint, her self-destruction would make for excellent propaganda. When even the True Gods were seen as willing to pay the price of losing an incarnation, when even the legendary Titan Giants were forced to retreat, when not a single Contract Hero had perished, the support for the Contract Hero system would rise to unprecedented heights.


    From another level, Beyana¡¯s losses could be recouped from her allies. From what I knew, Ayer was never stingy. He would perhaps even give her more than what she lost. And her self-destruction not only helped her obtain my friendship but it also made me owe her a favor.


    A favor wasn¡¯t much? For some people, owing a favor meant nothing to them at all as some people were capable of repaying kindness with evil. But others were more willing to be stabbed by a sword than to owe someone else a favor... Fine then, I admit it! I hated owing favors more than anything as it was quite an unpleasant feeling to look at others and feel like I owed them money. Let¡¯s just think of a way to repay this favor as soon as possible.


    ¡°...As expected of the Goddess of Wealth. Perhaps she¡¯ll even stand to profit from her self-destruction. She probably calcted everything quite clearly from the very start.¡± Actually, Beyana currently jumping up and down in anger in her Divine Kingdom was the best evidence that Rnd had thought too much into things. Beyana had merely had a faint feeling that that suffering defeat in this battle would make her lose more in the end, even if she didn¡¯t lose her incarnation. But as Rnd kept ¡°cheering¡± her on, her blood pressure kept increasing, and she ended up self-destructing her incarnation in a fit of rage. Not only that, this self-destruction didn¡¯t even kill her opponent, which she found humiliating. She was so furious that she even closed off her Divine Kingdom and refused to see any of her allies that came to console her.


    Beyana was never someone who had a kind and forgiving nature, so ming others when she was angry was quite normal. Now that she thought about it, she even wrote Rnd¡¯s name down on her list of grudges, looking for an opportunity to take revenge.


    Of course, they were still on the same side, so doing something directly to him was off the table. Still, it was more than fine for her to prank Rnd and give him a hard time.


    The ¡®Even though I¡¯m rich, buying a single luxury item will bring me misfortune to the point where I can afford nothing but instant noodles in the end¡¯ curse. The ¡®Even though I have a harem, I can only afford a three square meter room, and my harem all ran off in the end¡¯ curse.


    The ¡®Even though this lottery ticket is clearly the number that I choose every time, I discovered that I filled in the number wrong the one time it won¡¯ curse.


    The ¡®What¡¯s living paycheck to paycheck? My paychecksts less than three hours, and my wallet will never have more than five copper coins¡¯ curse.


    The ¡®Excellent luck with women who will make off with all my money¡¯ curse.


    ¡°Darn it, I¡¯ve developed too many poverty curses... just which one should I use on him...?¡±


    But, for certain reasons, no matter which curse Beyana chose, she discovered that she couldn¡¯t obtain any payback.


    ¡°What? It¡¯s actually ineffective? Could his fortune be forever fixed to be the best...? That¡¯s almost impossible¡ªeven the Fate God would be unable to do such a thing. Or, based on the naturalws where a weaker curse is unable to override a stronger one, could it be that an even more powerful poverty curse is already upon him? How is this possible!¡± Even my ¡®Poor? That¡¯s an adjective I¡¯m really jealous of. I¡¯m a girl from an illustrious family who owes 30,000,000 gold coins and can¡¯t find anyone to purchase my debt¡¯ curse isn¡¯t working against him? Just what¡¯s going on with his wealth fortune?¡± Actually, from the very start, all curses rted to fate were ineffective against Rnd. Perhaps from the very day his System was bound to him, or from the very day he was born as the Child of Fate, he was destined to break all known standards for negative luck. In front of his extreme misfortune, how could these somewhat unlucky poverty curses possibly have any effect on him?


    ¡°...I¡¯m truly impressed with how he can persist in living on despite how unfortunate he is.¡± Out of curiosity, Beyana obtained records about Rnd¡¯s past. When she saw how Rnd¡¯s country and family were both destroyed, that his first ever girlfriend deceived and stabbed him, that the Holy Light betrayed and stabbed him, that a hero he personally raised fought and stabbed him, and that his disciple he treated as his daughter judged and stabbed him... As she read about the session of tragedies in Rnd¡¯s life, even the Goddess Beyana who had the nickname of the ¡°Heartless and Tearless¡± Goddess ended up crying tears of sympathy.


    ¡°He¡¯s truly, truly so strong. His life can¡¯t even be sufficiently described by the word ¡®tragedy.¡¯ His life is basically like a cutting board with countless knives stuck in it, or a sponge... filled with holes! Rnd, you¡¯ve truly had a tough life.¡± In the future, people also asked the Goddess of Wealth why it was that she only ever made an exception for Rnd and gave him a 1% discount on her goods and services, along with many other benefits, when she was renowned as the stingiest Goddess in the entire world. Was it really, as people gossiped, that they were actually lovers? Anyone that asked discovered to their surprise that this Goddess who ¡°only cared about money¡± would actually tear up and be quite emotional.


    ¡°As long as you can live a pitiful life like his and still smile every day and somehow have fun, I can give you a 1% discount as well.¡±


    Of course there were some skeptics who didn¡¯t believe this and even requested to try it out. Yet Beyana only had to cast several hundred different poverty curses upon them¡ªwithout even asking the Love Goddess to add a ¡°Single forever¡± curse or the God of Victories to add a ¡°Forever almost sessful¡± curse¡ªbefore they would pathetically crawl towards her, wailing and beg for mercy. Legend had it that if Beyana had been slow by even a second in removing her curses, they would have trulymitted suicide.


    In fact, after such rumors started spreading, Rnd gained the eye-popping nickname of ¡°Envoy of Misfortune¡±...


    Cough, let¡¯s get back on topic to the present. No matter what, this battle ended in a victory for Rnd¡¯s side and would be greatly influential to future events.


    And, currently, I didn¡¯t have the time to do anything like holding a celebration party as new bothersome things were lying in wait. I was currently apologizing to Little Red while trying my best to resuscitate a gigantic Red Dragon.


    The pitiful Molly was now barely breathing after major blood loss... maybe it was that she had been forgotten in a world of ice and snow¡ªa world that was her greatest weakness.


    ¡°How about you try some CPR on her... why are you hitting me? Isn¡¯t it normal to perform CPR when there are no signs of breathing? Fine, if you don¡¯t want to give her CPR, I will¡ªstop hitting me! Even Buddha has times when he gets angry! I¡¯m going to go all out against you crazy women!¡±

 Chapter 350

    Chapter 350: Military Achievement Emblems


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    In the newly-born Oak Town, enormous oak trees were growing at a pace discernable to the naked eye. A faint green essence of nature spread through the air, while white specks of light traveled between the trees. Soon, the height of these trees far surpassed that of ordinary ones, and it only took an hour for nothing but skyscraper trees to be seen.


    And what came together with the trees was a change in the dimensional naturalws. Any slightly powerful individual could detect something changing in the air¡ªa powerful sensation arose, one that brought about the feeling of being in a different world. Amelia¡¯s dimensional will was descending upon this location.


    And what came together with the dimensional will was a massive wooden door that suddenly appeared before the oak trees.


    This door was a bit more than twenty meters tall and over fifty meters wide. Adorned with wood spirit-style decorations, its wooden doorframe was covered in vines, while the runes, which appeared carved onto it, were actually made of trees and nts. It exuded a simple natural beauty.


    In front of this towering door, Samantha was but a tiny pea. Yet she attracted everyone¡¯s attention when she ced her hand on the door handle.


    *Creak!*


    A gentle push opened the door slowly. Only then did the adventurers discover that it was even brighter on the other side.


    *Boom.*


    Wooden feet made the earth tremble with every step. Colossal nt war machines that were only capable of growing in the Forest of Dreams passed through this door, heralding the arrival of the heaviest artillery in the wood spirits¡¯ arsenal in Oak Town. Along with these machines came wood spirit guards who brought with them various strange mechanisms.


    Unlike forest fairies from fairy tales, they didn¡¯t drive magical carriages¡ªthey rode atop mechanical objects, painting a scene that, indeed, seemed to be out of ce. A tiny wood spirit would be perched on the seat of a motorcycle, forced to use her tiptoes to drive. Meanwhile, a whopping total of six wood spirits would manage to fit themselves into one sidecar. Watching this, I couldn¡¯t help but recall a certain motorcycle show at a certain major country¡¯s military parade. [1] Wasn¡¯t there some joke about one motorcycle being able to fit a full camp of soldiers...?


    Only now could everyone breathe a sigh of relief. These seemingly cute fellows were the true elites of the wood spirits. Their arrival represented that Oak Town had truly be a part of the Forest of Dreams.


    And this mismatched style of the wood spirits wasn¡¯t limited only to motorcycles¡ªthey also carried the newest dwarven rifles and cannons and were equipped with steam valves on their belts. These valves were capable of shooting out hooks attached to ws in under half a second, which would stick into tree bark and allow them to swing between the trees. This was a roaming tool that I especially prepared for them.


    Although the newly-born wood spirits race possessed excellent magic talent, especially in nature magic, they had no intentions of rejecting the mechanical. Instead, due to the special rtionship I had with them, they were hugely interested in the newest products of magical engineering¡ªand this wasn¡¯t mentioning how they assisted me in running Thorn Garden and selling thetest products. They even orderedrge amounts of magical engineering products for themselves, and many wood spirits focused on further researching this field in the hope it would be one of the foundational treasures for their species.


    What they researched and purchased was based on their physical advantages and shorings. Their specialties were quite obvious, and they possessed many excellent qualities which didn¡¯t need to be exined. Their shorings were that they were very diminutive in size, which induced in them ack of mobility and meleebat prowess. This made them particrly interested in transportation tools and long-range weapons¡ªnot in mechas as they already possessed magical nts and strengthened outer shells.


    This wood spirit, who had to use her tiptoes to drive the motorcycle, was the best evidence that normal-sized transportation tools would be quite difficult for them to use. In fact, Samantha had even requested for me to create smaller versions of these tools just for the wood spirits¡¯ use. I had hence offered a certain design to her that caused even Samantha to break out into a full smile, a rare sight. But it was only the second day when she had flipped out on me and even sent a full squad to hunt me down¡ªwhat an unreasonable personality!


    ¡°...Which idiot told her that my design originated from baby carriages? I¡¯m definitely not going to forgive her. Hmph, with wood spirits¡¯ body shapes, it¡¯s quite obvious thatrge baby carriages are of the perfect size for them. Forget it¡ªeven if this design of mine gets rejected, I still have backups.¡±


    ¡°Does it even need pointing out? Samantha was just too pure to notice. You bastard; you even put baby toys and bells on top. Don¡¯t you know that Samantha is now treating this as the greatest humiliation of her life? You actually dare to even make a backup design n? Let me guess¡ªis it a baby chair or a baby bed?¡±


    ¡°...Neither¡ªit¡¯s a toddler sized scooter! You can ride it with only a single foot! It¡¯s perfect for those who are incredibly short. Would you like one for yourself, Harloys?¡±


    ¡°All I need is for you to be a nicer person and allow me to return my normal body size... luckily you didn¡¯t say roller skates. Have you heard that there¡¯s a new addictive song going around recently? Let me sing it to you...¡±


    Cough, let¡¯s not go off on a tangent anymore. From a certain standpoint, the wood spirit species and I had a very special rtionship.


    From an outsider¡¯s point of view, we were obviously all on the same side. And, to tell the truth, the Three Virtues indeed listened to me.


    Currently, Samantha had total control over the entire species, which basically meant that the entire species was on my side. But if you truly looked at the source, the real creator of the wood spirits race was Amelia. My current authority over them came from Amelia delegating her authority to me. If Amelia woke up, and she had any conflicts with me, the wood spirits were likely to listen to their mother, instead...


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this pretty much just like how, when most children see their parents fighting, they choose to side with their mother that raised them rather than the father who¡¯s outside working to make money?¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s analogy made me feel mysteriously ufortable, but I had to nod in agreement. This was the logic behind the world¡¯s working. Although everyone knew in their minds to choose logic over emotion, when it came down to it, people¡ªby far¡ªwould choose emotion over logic


    ¡°Not only that, the very foundation for why they listen to me is that Amelia told them to listen to me. Especially when you consider that the wood spirits had intelligence and their own wills right from the moment of their birth, and that Amelia¡¯s very existence is also the Forest of Dreams that nourishes them. The wood spirits have an astonishingly high level of dependency on Amelia. Perhaps, under Amelia¡¯s leadership, the wood spirits will be the single most unified intelligent species in all of history.¡±


    I felt that that was quite an eptable result as I had no ambitions to steal away the wood spirits for myself. However...


    ¡°For some reason, I feel uneasy when I think about how Amelia has control over such a powerful species.¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t mention the possibility. I¡¯m also worried that she¡¯ll suddenly go insane and have some strange thoughts. In the past, her insane rampages had limits, but if an entire species goes wild together with her... that would be quite the sight.¡±


    Alright then. When I considered the insane nts vs. Zombies along with the fact that Amelia kept climbing the Cmity Rankings, I had a strong feeling that this was all the more dangerous¡ªin fact, it was no different to an insane woman with a nuclear button.


    What, you¡¯re saying that I match all of the above conditions as well? That I¡¯m also highly dangerous? Humph! I must defend myself! I¡ªI¡ªI... Hmm, why do I feel that these words actually sound quite reasonable?


    ¡°...Maybe. At the very least. Just barely. My actions still have limits to them. I should be, at the minimum, someone slightly less dangerous and prone to rampages than Amelia.¡±


    Cough, to normalize the conversation, even if I didn¡¯t feel safe, there was nothing I could do about it. I could only try to create some sort of ¡°safety¡± in the future.


    Right now, after the wood spirits took full control over Oak Town, the happiest were actually the Contract Heroes. After all their hard work, the time had nowe for them to reap the rewards.


    An all-out battle had been expected from the very beginning, so the wood spirits gave out abundant Justice Point rewards. Although the main fighting was done by others, in the end, the adventurers had done their jobs. Even though there were no performance bonuses, the base promised payment was still given to them.


    Also, they received a little something I had created.


    ¡°Oak Town Divine Miracle Battle, Copper Medal?¡±


    ¡°...I have one as well? All I did was guard the town.¡±


    Military achievement medals were also a part of the credibility system I established. In this era where knights were reigned supreme in terms of poprity, nothing signified glory more to a warrior than military aplishments, des, and rewards. Yet the review systems in this world were far too rough. Only nobles would record their glorious past aplishments on their family emblems.


    Even for nobles, only truly amazing deeds¡ªlike, for instance, ying a dragon¡ªwould get recorded in the family records and emblem. And this would typically not be aplished within one¡¯s lifetime. Anymoner warrior would only be able to ¡°prove¡± their aplishments by telling everyone about them. Unless amoner was able to reach the level where bards started making embellished stories about your deeds, a warrior¡¯s reputation would never even leave his locality.


    But now, I was making things much simpler. A small military achievement emblem would be proof that you participated in and contributed to this battle. Even if it didn¡¯t prove much, it would still look quite cool to wear¡ªperhaps it would fool a few girls.


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing more than a piece of battle memorabilia and costs only a few copper coins to make. But it¡¯s quite excellent at attracting people and increasing the degree of their loyalty... Once all of them have a bunch of medals on their hands, it won¡¯t be easy for them to just toss aside their achievements. From a certain standpoint, this is another type of wealth, but one umted through hard work.¡±


    Considering that the average intelligence of people in this world wasn¡¯t low at all, and that I¡¯d witnessed plenty of fake and pirated products with high degrees of simrity, I figured that just like my previous world, counterfeiters would soon be appearing. But since my military medals all had serial numbers and recorded all the names of the individuals they were awarded to, counterfeiting these would be quite difficult.


    I wore a medal as well, although mine was golden. For this first ever major battle, I had created three types of achievement medals: bronze, silver, and gold. The gold-ranked medals for each battle would forever be handed out in an amount less than ten. And since I felt that I indeed helped out in this battle more than any other mortal, I took a gold medal for myself.


    Upon hearing that the Goddess of Wealth shut herself in her Divine Kingdom after her incarnation¡¯s self-destruction, and considering how she viewed money as more important than her life, I had Mary give Beyana a 24 karat pure gold special, custom-made medal along with her two pieces of God Equipment for me, a sign of my friendship. I even made sure it would glow in the dark so that she could use it as a light bulb at night even if she didn¡¯t want to wear it. It would shine even from one kilometer away, which would make one appear really rich.


    But several dayster, one dawn, I discovered a meteor above. Before I even had the time to make a wish, I discovered that it was aimed directly at my head. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I reacted fast enough, my head would have been crushed.


    ¡°...Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey, isn¡¯t this just too rude? Even if she didn¡¯t want it, she didn¡¯t have to do this to me.¡±


    And when I discovered that this almost-fatal ¡°weapon¡± was actually that custom-made military medal, of course I was enraged.


    ¡°...Really? I don¡¯t think that Beyana would be that type of person, let me take a look...¡±


    The silly cat was skeptical as she snatched the military medal and read the words engraved on its back out loud.


    ¡°I give my gratitude to the venerated Goddess of Wealth for her self-destruction. She is a ssy Goddess, a pure Goddess¡ªone who has risen above vulgar interests. When she self-destructed herself, she had let forth a blinding sh that illuminated the path towards to future for every one of us. Her gravestone is the stirring symbol for our progress. To remember her glory and carve her greatness in stone, I shall erect a great sculpture. It shall symbolize the illustrious moment of her self-destruction. ¨CRnd Mist. ...Rnd, I¡¯m truly astonished she didn¡¯t personally descend again to kill you herself.¡±


    Actually, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that others were currently blocking Beyana¡¯s Divine Kingdom, perhaps she truly would have done so! Beyana was currently busy shouting ¡°Let me go, I¡¯m definitely going to kill him!¡±


    ¡°What? I¡¯m just following the clich¨¦s and making top-level equipment seem cooler. In this day and age, without somementary etched onto Myth-level equipment, it won¡¯t seem cool no matter how good its stats are.¡±


    ¡°...Um, considering that Goddess¡¯s past record, I think that you should give your wallet over to me for safekeeping. At the very least, you can¡¯t let my stomach suffer together with yours. It¡¯s wrong to abuse cats.¡±


    ¡°Only when your personal benefits are involved will you recall that you¡¯re a pet. How convenient.¡±


    Although I wasining, it did seem like I really antagonized¡ªidentally, of course¡ªthe Goddess of Wealth this time around. When considering that I usually wasn¡¯t lucky to begin with when it came to my money, I directly handed over my wallet to Harloys, but...


    ¡°Ahh, where¡¯s my money?¡±


    ¡°...Were you robbed? Has she cursed you that quickly?¡±


    ¡°...Beyana! She actually took action so swiftly!¡±


    [...I have two pieces of news for you, one good and one bad. The good news is that you weren¡¯t cursed. The bad news is that you don¡¯t need a curse, because your luck stat is already zero. You should stop ming others for your bad luck¡ªit¡¯spletely your own misfortune. Still, you should feel lucky that, with your luck stat, you don¡¯t have to worry about it ever getting any worse. Are you sure you don¡¯t want to change your job ss to spearman? A curse of giving you a luck rating of E is probably more like a luck increase blessing to you.]


    Fine, I directly ignored my System¡¯sments. Since the System promised that I wasn¡¯t cursed, I felt slightly reassured. The rather ¡°vindictive¡± Goddess of Wealth was indeed someone who gave me a headache.


    ¡°Harloys, do you have any money? Otherwise, we¡¯re going to be sleeping on the streets.¡±


    ¡°...Have you ever seen any house cat that carries around money? How about you pawn that new gold medal of yours for some cash?¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯ll consider it. However, I have an even better idea. You can transform into a magic sword, right? I¡¯ll pretend to be someone lucky enough to have picked up a magic weapon on the battlefield¡ªwicked merchants will automaticallye to me. Then, I¡¯ll sell you off, and you can return to me by yourself. Repeat a couple times, and that¡¯ll make enough money for our room and board. Hey, don¡¯t run! I¡¯ll even give you one-third... fine! Half! Half!¡±


    In the end, my n to punish the wicked merchants failed due to the uncooperative nature of the ¡°product¡± I wanted to sell. At least the wood spirits took us in, saving us from the pitiful fate of having to sleep out on the streets.


    The True Gods had all returned to their Divine Kingdoms, tossing Ah Gen to me to take care of. As for Auntie Mary and the gay Wood Elf God, the former had zero interest in military achievement medals and instead made me give her arge batch of high-quality alcohol. As for thetter... I wanted nothing more than to hide from this gay God that I couldn¡¯t win against in a fight as he kept sending seductive nces towards me. Why would I go contact him of my own volition?


    With Little Red¡¯s assistance, I had finished the preparations for the first part of my evolution Quest. The blood let out before us was more than enough to fill a swimming pool.


    ¡°How strange. Little Red was so quick to agree to donate some of her blood. Recently, Little Red¡¯s been acting a little strange... Could it be that¡ª¡±


    ¡°Spring¡¯s arrived, a time when every species bes more active. It¡¯s now the season for animals to go into heat.¡±


    Harloys casually added more to the mess on my te, but how could I possibly be distracted by her red herring? I kept thinking about it over and over before I finally came to a realization and stated my conclusion.


    ¡°...Could it be that she picked up something dirty off the ground and ate it? She¡¯s so old already¡ªhow could she possibly do something so foolish?¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Any idea what this is referencing?

 Chapter 351

    Chapter 351: Interesting


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°I would like to thank everyone for their hard work. I hope our future cooperation will be ever more sessful.¡±


    After taking a nce at the thick bundle of papers she was holding, the young girl atop the stage tilted her head, thought for a moment, then nodded before tossing her speech papers to the wind. She then continued speaking off script.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s not waste everyone¡¯s time. Again, many thanks to everyone for their support. Cheers!¡±


    ¡°Ohhh, everyone¡¯s worked hard!¡±


    ¡°Lolis¡ªI mean wood spirits¡ªbanzai! The cutest one of them all, little Samantha, is truly amazing. She¡¯s my angel.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s your angel? Miss Samantha belongs to everyone!¡±


    At the celebration party, the cold-faced Samantha started giving a speech before deciding to discard the long speech when she received a fervent round of apuse from the adventurers. However, the way they weed her seemed rather strange...


    ¡°Why does it feel more and more like she¡¯s a celebrity idol instead of the leader of her species?¡±


    ¡°Sister, you were the one who asked me to write a speech¡ªyou even said it was very important! You asked me to put as much effort as I could into writing it... Is this how you treat the product I came up with after pulling two all-nighters...¡±


    Alright, let¡¯s ignore Rosa, who had dark circles under her eyes and was ring at her older sister, as if she held a terrible grudge against her. The thirty-page speech that she spent all night working on was discarded with a singlement of ¡°Let¡¯s not waste everyone¡¯s time.¡± It was likely that a sibling conflict would take ceter tonight. Yet what was with those strange supporters behind her shouting as well?


    ¡°Rosa¡¯s dark form is cute as well!¡±


    ¡°As expected, pink on the outside, ck on the inside!¡±


    Cough, it would seem that as the wood spirits became more like humans, the number of strange individuals attracted by them would keep increasing as well.


    From some unknown point in time, the wood spirits had started enjoying an abnormally high poprity. Now plenty of strange adventuring teams existed out there simr to the one Beyana had created; in fact, they could now be said to be quitemon.


    Of course, there were also some wicked individuals with unspeakable intentions. But with the nts watching over, they were caught before they could even put their plots into action. It was unknown whether they would be punished by thorns, roots, or something else.


    Unlike most ordinary wood spirits who were very easy to approach, Samantha was typically cold-faced and never spoke a single unnecessary word. If she could answer with one word, she would never use two. And, most of the time she spoke, it was to scold. She almost never smiled. Yet it was, for some strange reason, this very way she acted that made her astonishingly popr. In fact, she had thergest fan club out of all the wood spirits... Should I bementing here that no matter what world I was in, there would be plenty of gentlemen? This type of loli who was short, soft, and seemingly easy to push down, with a perpetual icy expression and a venomous tongue actually became the most popr of the wood spirits.


    ¡°Little Samantha worked hard as well.¡±


    As I looked at Little Red energetically giving Samantha a bear hug, and seeing that Samantha was struggling yet unable to escape the ridiculously strong Dragondy¡¯s embrace, pleading with her eyes for me to help her, I didn¡¯t know what to say.


    When I heard that the leader of the ¡°Wood Spirits Fan Club¡± was Little Red, I wasn¡¯t surprised in the least. I could only sigh. This former ¡°fake loli¡± was probably feeling her motherly instincts overly flow again.


    I must say, sometimes one¡¯s outer appearance was truly important. For instance, my undead armies. Even though they ended up saving Sulfur Mountain City¡ªwhich helped to greatly improved their rtionship with the living residents¡ªthere was still a sense of distance between them. It could only be said that the living and the undead there were neighbors with rtively good affinity.


    Meanwhile, the wood spirits only needed toe out and wave their hands for a group of adventurers to follow after them like loyal dogs. In the future, the ¡°Wood Spirits Fan Club¡± membership would exceed 100,000 members, and the adventurers even started organizing personal guard groups to act as the wood spirits¡¯ free workers. I have no idea what I should even say.


    And when Samantha lifted a trophy in celebration of our victory, the gentlemen started encouraging her to sing a song to liven up the atmosphere. I felt greatly relieved, and proceeded to enjoy a luxurious feast that I haven¡¯t had in a really long time.


    Last night, I stayed the night over at Samantha¡¯s ce. While the wood spirits didn¡¯t treat me poorly, the problem was that all they ate was vegetables and fruit. Naturally, I was unable to refuse their friendly service, and I was unwilling to spend my hard-earned Justice Points on chicken or pork. And so, I could only make do with their diet. Unfortunately, their food was all-natural, with zero seasonings or additives whatsoever. While it was adequate to fill my stomach, the vor... to quote my silly cat, ¡°I¡¯d rather eat a rat than any more of this grass. At least rats have some vor to them.¡±


    ¡°It would seem that I need to think of some idea to earn some gold coins for myself.¡±


    I was quite curious about just who had managed to secretly steal my money. Actually, the money I had lost from my wallet wasn¡¯t much¡ªjust two or three hundred gold coins. The only annoying part was that some of my personal items had also disappeared from my wallet.


    ¡°...Is it that you never carry much money since you always end up losing it?¡±


    ¡°No, I just think it¡¯s too bothersome to carry a lot of money. Things will get much better after the Goddess of Wealth opens up her ¡®banking service.¡¯¡±


    Yep, while ¡°banks¡± already existed in this world, they were more like safety deposit boxes rather than financial institutes. You would only be able to retrieve your money at the exact ce you stored it at. You also needed to pay a fee at regr intervals; otherwise, the bank would im whatever was stored within.


    Carry money on you? Dimensional storage equipment was few and far between¡ªnot to mention expensive¡ªand there would be limitations to both storage space and weight. It wasn¡¯t even enough to store backup equipment, much less gold coins.


    Those heroes from legends who spent several thousand gold coins at once would need to have tremendous strength as well. This was since carrying several thousand gold coins meant carrying several dozen kilograms. No ordinary person would be able to carry ten thousand gold coins. It would be impossible to casually pay over one hundred thousand gold coins unless you had a carriage filled with coins following after you.


    Of course, paper money was barely used and remainedrgely unsessful. Merchant associations and mercenary guilds ended up taking on the roles of ¡°banking services¡± in this world. However, not only would you only be able to do business at one ce, it was both highly inconvenient and unreliable.


    The members of a mercenary guild would be mercenaries, untrustworthy to begin with. Merchant associations forever held with them the danger of bankruptcy. No matter how well-off they were, any merchant association that was rich but without its own private money was akin to an ATM filled with free cash in the eyes of local domain lords. It was simple andmon enough for a domain lord to use some random passable excuse to drive a merchant association bankrupt in a single night.


    So the end result was that due to too many failures with previous systems, precious metals and magic metals were forever the main currency in this world. After all, these metals could be used to forge weapons and equipment and perform research on alchemy and magic. Metals were the most precious consumables.


    As for the new ¡°banking service¡± that Beyana was going to offer, it was basically solidifying Justice Points as a new type of currency. It would work like this: a person would be able to exchange precious metals for Justice Points, and, at certain locations, exchange Justice Points for precious metals.


    In order to avoid people usingrge amounts of gold coins to exchange for Justice Points¡ªthereby causing intion in our system¡ªJustice Points obtained using metals could only be used as a simple currency, and could not be used to exchange for special items. Although this sounded ratherplex, it was actually quite simple: it was the appearance of a true universal equivalent product.


    The Justice Points obtained using money were also called ¡°Wealth Points,¡± yet that wouldn¡¯t affect their fundamental nature. And since the Gods were guaranteeing the authenticity of this system, it seemed that the entire world was actually willing to ept it. If Beyana seeded, perhaps Wealth Points would truly be able to rece clunky metal coins and be the universal currency of this world.


    This wasn¡¯t any wild or innovative concept. However, since this was a feudal generation, nobody had been able to aplish it. Most nobles viewed their own domains as their personal property, and they were used to collecting their own taxes and forcibly conscripting their people. Even though there was the asional open-minded, reformist noble, wars and changes in royal authority often urred. This forced even these few nobles to concentrate all their wealth on the endless cycle of warfare instead. After all, if you weren¡¯t even able to protect your life, who cared about ripping up a contract agreement or two?


    Since nobles, royals, and merchants destroyed the credibility of any paper-money system, it was only natural for most people to not trust paper money in the end. Since Justice Points were gradually bing epted by everyone, Beyana wouldn¡¯t miss this excellent opportunity for anything.


    Using divine authority to guarantee a new currency had never been tried before, which meant the future was unpredictable. But as long as this seeded... even if it only seeded by half, it would mean a great increase in the power level of the Divine Concept of Wealth. For example, Finance, Futures, Loans, and simr financial industries would develop as Concepts under Wealth. By that time, it was likely that many things would change.


    ¡°...Perhaps the first God from the Ayer Faction who bes a Main God won¡¯t actually be the God of Fate or the Moonlight Goddess as most people expect. I¡¯m betting on the originally weaker Goddess of Wealth.¡±


    Of course, such significant societal changes wouldn¡¯t happen overnight. No country would be willing to watch a more widely used currency be more popr than their national currency. No matter how sessful Beyana became in the end, this path was destined to be filled with thorns.


    Back in the present, when the Contract Heroes discovered that their Justice Points could be exchanged for actual gold and silver in addition to all those treasures, they were quite excited and felt that they had made the right choice in joining this system.


    Most people didn¡¯t think about the potential impacts of these changes. They were simply delighted at obtaining concrete benefits. Once they discovered that their own lives would be changed by certain things, they would only be able to passively ept. But some people had already seen through many matters and even viewed this as an opportunity.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, could I speak with you in private?¡±


    A certain ridiculously handsome magic knight contacted me. This time, his handsome face appeared far more nervous than in our previous meeting, causing me to ponder on a few things.


    Actually, since the wood spirits¡¯ primary objective had been leaked by a spy, I had suspected that there was a traitor among the highest ranked adventurers. Since Kaise was the only ¡°outsider¡± directly allowed to enter the wood spirits¡¯ coremand centers, he was naturally the prime suspect.


    His subordinates were the ones who had helped discover the bronze-ranked undead mage spy. This actually made Kaise seem all the more suspicious in my eyes, as it was amon tactic to sacrifice a pawn to protect the king. Kaise was treated to twenty-four seven nt surveince at my orders.


    Only when the real spy Molly jumped out near the battle¡¯s end did that finally clear my suspicions on Kaise. Since Kaise was the highest-ranked leader of the adventurers, he naturally received a silver military achievement emblem for his contributions.


    But to be honest, I never expected him toe and contact me after the battle was over.


    After all, my identity was now exposed. It was well known to powerful individuals that the ¡°Undying Rnd¡± on the Cmity Rankings was also the Undead Emperor Yongye who brought with him death and darkness. The high-level adventurers with knowledge of my real identity had all acted quite restrained over the past few days whenever they saw me. Not only would they note to chat with me, they would all sit up properly whenever I looked over, with pale expressions and sweat dripping down their foreheads, as if I were a man-eating tiger.


    Even the novice adventurers, who didn¡¯t really know who I was, would be rather reserved when noticing the gold military achievement emblem on my chest. The smarter ones among the novices recalled that there was a high-ranked Cmity Rankings individual who had acted to protect Oak Town in the battle, so they also knew just how to act around this ¡°gold military achievement emblem person.¡±


    But still, I didn¡¯t really enjoy this type of atmosphere. Recently, I was feeling incredibly bored. Even though I didn¡¯t pay any attention whatsoever to my image and stuffed my face at this celebration party feast, nobody had said a word about my ill manners. But this young fellow had actuallye to speak to me of his own volition, which made me rather interested in him.


    ¡°I would like to talk to you about cooperating...¡±


    Obviously, some things weren¡¯t suitable for discussing in public. We went to an empty room, and had a good chat. The end result was that we both discovered that we could agree on mutual goals, so we ended up signing a few contracts that weren¡¯t suitable for seeing the light of day.


    ¡°Alright then, it¡¯s time for me to say goodbye, Your Highness. I look forward to meeting you again in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital.¡±


    Kaise Elowen, the ¡°ck Guardian¡± and leader of the Westwood Guardian mercenary group, left in satisfaction. Although we didn¡¯t have the most joyous meeting the first time we met, perhaps we would have more opportunities to work together in the future.


    ¡°This Kaise fellow is no normal individual. I feel he¡¯s going to be a great person in the future. Oh, right, I should check the game history whether he appears in it or not...¡±


    There were far too many stories about legends, heroes, epics, the mystical, and so on. Just recording all their names alone would make a book thicker than a dictionary. Often times, when hearing the name of some great hero or viin who was quite well known and powerful, the game history might have nothing more than their name. Nor was it possible for me to remember every single name in the game¡¯s history. But it would simply take a few minutes of my time for me to check if a person¡¯s name appeared in my game history walkthrough.


    [Kaise Elowen, page 367, line 7. By the way, he¡¯s quite an interesting fellow.]


    In a way, the moment my System spoke up, I figured that something was going on. And so, I speedily flipped to that page and looked at what was written there. And then, I immediately understood.


    ¡°Kaise Elowen... he truly is an interesting person.¡±


    ******


    Red blood filled an entire pool. The strange part was, however, that although this was all obviously so bloody, there was no nauseous stench whatsoever.


    This was the blood of Immemorial Red Dragons, something incredibly difficult to obtain no matter how much money you paid. But the moment I sunk myself into the pool of blood, my body¡¯s sensory system went crazy, with numbness, soreness, swelling, and all sorts of sensations attacking me together. I itched so much all over that I wanted to cut off my own skin, but it only took a moment for me to lose all senses entirely.


    [Sensory deprivation service, at a charge of 10¡ªno¡ª100 Justice Points.]


    ¡°...You¡¯re taking advantage of me when I¡¯m down! Can¡¯t you be at least a little nicer!¡±


    [In that case, should I cancel this service and refund your Justice Points? I shall do it in three, two...]


    ¡°...You win.¡±


    Everything went silent again. Since I needed to soak myself in this pool of blood for the time being, I decided to focus on the harvest I had received, which I had ced in my Frigidwinter Earth. From a certain standpoint, as a victor who sessfully ¡°looted corpses,¡± I gained much from this battle. However, turning my harvest into concrete benefits wasn¡¯t something nearly so easy.


    I had enough of only being able to watch from the sidelines. It was quite clear what I needed to do.


    ¡°I need to get stronger. Fast.¡±

 Chapter 352

    Chapter 352: Two Undead Emperors


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Eich¡¯s fundamental units were the four elements of wind, fire, water, and earth, not molecules and atoms like my previous world. It was obvious that this world wasn¡¯t a scientific one.


    But some things remained the same. Intelligent species liked to research the foundational nature and workings of the world¡ªthis wasmon to all intelligent species, no matter how different they were. If science on Earth could be called humanity¡¯s search for knowledge about Earth and nature, then magic was how mages searched for knowledge about Eich¡¯s workings and reason.


    Since the four elements were the basic units that made up this world, no matter how advanced magic civilization was, everything was forever based on elemental magic. This was just like how the technology in my previous world had advanced to the extent of traveling to the moon while physics had reached the particle level. It just so happened that these two fields¡¯ theories and research results evenplemented each other, helping both to progress. The most famous one among them would be the Theory of Rtivity. Itid the foundation for how humans understood space and gravity and even allowed them to explore space. Much of this originated from the analysis of the fundamental particles that made up the universe.


    The seekers of truth in this world were the same. They would dare to hypothesize and carefully search for proof while gradually analyzing the nature of the world of Eich. This was the only thing that all mages had inmon. Sometimes, the understanding of something minute, which seemed only a useless theory, might actually be the mainspring of a huge leap forward in technology or magic.


    Perhaps nobody would expect that in this sudden battle that had ended so quickly, the person who benefited the greatest wasn¡¯t actually Rnd who was currently taking a bath in dragon¡¯s blood, nor was it the Goddess of Wealth, who was both in pain and delight as her believers and faith had greatly increased with the expansion of Wealth Points yet her divine soul had suffered from her incarnation¡¯s self-destruction. Instead, the greatest beneficiary was actually someone on the losing side of that battle: Zero.


    In the core of the Ice ne, there was a ce tucked within numerous snowy mountains which went by the name of Amber Pce in the undead Tark Republic¡¯snguage.


    This ancient pce of snow and ice was decorated in a ¡°historical¡± style. Unlike Aso who was born a ve, Zero was from ater generation, one where the Tark Republic was at its peak. All the decorations and spacing had clear geometrical patterns, while divine beasts were etched onto the door¡¯s knockers. A school of ice fish frolicked in the crystal waves of an icy river, seeming almost alive. These were all remnants from that ancient generation.


    In a flower garden, ice maids were unhurriedly moving about, serving guests simrly made of ice. Musicians were giving performances. The normal sounds of activity and music made it seem that everything was still going on as normal in the Amber Pce. But in the empty main hall of this pce forgotten to history, there was a lonely throne, upon which the pce¡¯s master was hibernating. Her long, ceremonial clothing reached all the way to the steps.


    Zero was currently in a deep sleep. The only thing different from her projection¡¯s appearance was that there was a tiny golden crown resting on her head.


    However, she seemed to be not doing so well right now. The left side of her physical body was emanating chilling mist and frost, while the right half of her body was on fire. Running down her middle was an invisible line that seemed to separate her into two halves that didn¡¯t affect each other.


    This ancient Undead Emperor slept here as she always did for the past several thousand years. Only now, one side of her throne was filled with icicles, while the other half was beginning to melt, a sign certain changes were urring.


    In this world, the concept of time was meaningless¡ªit practically stood still. It was only after an unknown length of time that a light sigh sounded in the empty hall, amid the forever gray skies and the perpetual snow and ice.


    ¡°...As expected, there¡¯s only that possibility... I never expected that a junior would end up teaching me a lesson... Is this one of the fundamental naturalws of the world?¡±


    She was asking herself, and there was no need for her to answer out loud. At Zero¡¯s level, her knowledge alone was capable of changing her world.


    ¡°...Energy... is always conserved equally?¡±


    For the master of the Ice ne, words were power, and her understanding was reality. The moment she spoke, the entire ne lit up in a brilliant, golden light, the source of which was her throne. Everywhere the light touched was changed.


    Observation meant the confirmation of existence. Under the Undead Emperor¡¯s observation, her entire ne was changed, as if an invisible brush was applying color to her world.


    The snow-white castle walls of ice were colored with gray, as if they had now experienced the passing eons of history. The ice maids that appeared like dolls now had colors like the living. Apart from their still crystal clear eyes, it was impossible to tell them apart from the living.


    The ice flowers in the garden were colored with the colors of the rainbow, while the ice fish jumping in the waves finally dived back into the water. The wheels of time that had stopped for several thousand years in the Ice ne finally started turning again.


    Around the Amber Pce, the snow mountains transformed into green mountains, while the frozen earth had now returned to the earth¡¯s natural brown color. This frozen amber transformed into a gem amongst the mountains.


    ¡°...Is this the feeling of breathing? This is a heartbeat?¡±


    The greatest change was in Zero herself. Her clear skin now had the natural color of white skin while red blood flowed underneath. Her ethereal ceremonial clothing transformed into true silk.


    *Thump*


    *Thump*


    *Thump*


    Her heartbeat that had stopped for tens of thousands of years had revived. Emotions of delight and nervousness suffused her blood. This mysterious change happened to Zero as her umted experience was added on to by knowledge she had gained from another world, as if she was a stone that had achieved enlightenment. Perhaps Zero was still an Undead Emperor, but the current her was no longer living or undead. She was no longer the same as her past self.


    ¡°Zero? No, from today onwards, my new name shall be ¡®Conservation.¡¯¡±


    Only the simrly ancient Senators of the Tark Republic knew that it was ¡°Zero¡¯s¡± personal habit to use her greatest field of achievement as her name, abandoning her original name to history.


    ¡°Ice River,¡± ¡°Snow Stream,¡± ¡°Hibernation Freeze,¡± ¡°Under the Ice¡± and ¡°Zero¡± were the five previous names of Zero, each representing a stage of her power. And ¡°Zero¡± was the name she had used by far the longest. And today, she had changed her name yet again.


    But the iprehensible part was that the scene of her left half being icy and the right half burning up remained. Her soft skin had a clear line drawn down the middle, with the skin on her left white and clear, and the skin on the right bright red. Her hair on the left was a shade of silvery white, while her hair on the right was a shade of scarlet, akin to a burning fire. At her power level, it would be quite easy for her to change her physical appearance as she pleased, but she decided to maintain this unique characteristic.


    ¡°This... I¡¯ll save this as a reminder, a memory.¡±


    But suddenly, Conservation paused¡ªshe had a thought that interrupted her delight. She recalled the astral projection that she had lost, which was most likely being analyzed by Rnd at the moment. If she was capable of obtaining this much information from him which greatly improved her own understanding and power level, then it was alsopletely possible for Rnd topletely analyze her astral projection and obtain simr information.


    ¡°I doubt it¡¯s possible... it¡¯s only an astral projection. Without a deep understanding of the concept of heat, it won¡¯t be possible...¡±


    But against all her expectations, in another small world, a simr brush was adding color. White seas of ice were being painted blue, while the pale sunlight was now turning a shade of scarlet. The wolves roaming around the ins were now a grassy green.


    As Rnd¡¯s physical body sunk into a deep slumber, his will descended upon his world as he changed it as he pleased.


    And the vessel which acted as the host for his will was Conservation¡¯s lost astral projection, who was currently working hard at adding color to Frigidwinter Earth.


    ¡°No wonder this evolution was ranked higher than the dragon¡¯s blood evolution. This time, I¡¯ve truly picked up an excellent treasure. I obtained the key that I hadcked the most.¡±


    ******


    From a certain standpoint, undead mages and mages didn¡¯t have any foundational differences. Unlike warlocks who were able to use magic from birth due to their bloodlines, undead mages and mages were all schrs who pursued the truth and were skilled at transforming knowledge and theory into actual power.


    If you had to look for differences, it would mostly be that undead mages typically had very few moral limits. Not only would undead mages not hesitate to break normal taboos, they did not fear danger. More importantly, undead mages typically researched the area of ¡°life¡± itself.


    ¡°How do body parts work? Why is it that without this organ, a person can¡¯t move? What if I add this part¡ªwill he be able to move again? Also... just what exactly is a soul!?¡±


    As for the details, since time was limited while knowledge was limitless, the undead mages¡¯ research naturally created many different research factions¡ªthis was simr to how researching a subject to a certain extent would turn into researching about a specific area in that subject.


    There was no research that was considered superior or inferior, just as how those who researched top-level technologies in my original world didn¡¯t actually make much more money than a top-level physicist. Undead mages who focused on researching Undead Cmity and other forbidden spells might not even be able to defeat a flesh and blood living alchemist who specialized in creating Abominations. If there had to be a way of seeing who was superior, then you could only measure them by how far each person had gone down their respective paths, which was why there were ranked power levels like Myth and SemiGod.


    Since undead mages were mages as well, they, too, had to reach the rank of SemiGod by walking down the same path of ordinary mages in producing research results. If one hoped to bring about research results as an undead mage, one would need to be a top-level expert in their field.


    Perhaps due to the mortal ne¡¯s own unfriendliness towards undead, it was more difficult for the undead to advance in power level than any other species. A normal SemiGod mage¡¯s equivalent would be a Myth-ranked undead, as Myth-ranked undead were already the foremost experts in their research fields. As for the SemiGod Undead Emperors, they weren¡¯t as simple as existences who were merely the foremost experts in their field. It could even be said that they created domains where only they reigned supreme, possessing power over some unimed concept which nobody else possessed. This was how they reached the level of being existences that the mortal ne wouldn¡¯t recognize, yet they still existed as enemies of the mortal ne.


    This was also why even though Undead Emperors were only SemiGod in power level, but still obtained the same exiled status as the other Evil Gods and Gods from other dimensional nes. From a certain standpoint, the Undead Emperors had indeed walked down too far in a taboo field, dangerously touching the brink.


    No matter how far an Undead Emperor traveled down their path, it all started with a basic research question. My basic research question could be considered ¡°The quality of the soul,¡± while the secrets I obtained from that astral projection told me that ¡°Zero¡¯s¡± research question was ¡°the temperature of life.¡±


    ¡°Why is the weight of the soul 21 grams?¡±


    ¡°Why is it that the great majority of mammalian lifeforms and birds have a constant, set body temperature of 37 degrees Celsius?¡±


    From a certain standpoint, these two questions were rather simr. They both appeared quite simple and it appeared easy to answer. But if you really tried to answer them and chased the reason down to the very foundation, you would touch on the innermost secrets of this world: the very essence of a soul, and the secrets of life.


    Yep, from the very start, undead mages that researched topics like corpse zombie construction or Ice Dragon strengthening were all idiots attracted by the illusion of power but went down the wrong path. When taking the four elements to the extreme, it would return to the basic foundations of what the elements were, which was why the Frigid Nightmares¡¯ foundational magic and simple yet powerful forbidden spells existed. Undead magic started out from researching the living and the dead, and the final, highest-level topics of all would be the same as the very beginning source: souls and life.


    The reason I was able to achieve so much in my knowledge about souls, apart from my own stubbornness and knowledge gained from two separate worlds, was that my soul refused to enter the Cycle of Reincarnation like everyone else. No normal path would carry one to the level of an unstoppable Undead Emperor. Apart from 99% hard work, 1% talent was absolutely required.


    Although it sounded rather depressing, Undead Emperors were at a realm no normal path would lead to, and it was impossible for anyone to achieve it no matter how hard they worked, unless they were an ultra-rare genius among geniuses.


    For instance, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I had experience tempering my soul in the Cycle of Reincarnation, personally witnessing the nature of souls in the Cycle, personally singing and showering in the River Styx, and repeatedly patching up my injured soul, it wouldn¡¯t have been possible for me to reach the level of an Undead Emperor.


    As long as there was enough poption, and the environment was suitable enough to foster a genius, these 0.00000001% of geniuses¡ª perhaps I should call them heaven-favored geniuses or miracle talents¡ªwould end up appearing. Not only did they need talent, they would also need to temper their talent to the very utmost, to the point where their talent separated them from everyone else. Once-in-a-lifetime luck as well as working hard for centuries were both necessaries, so of course there were incredibly few that could be Undead Emperors. The fact that ¡°no normal path¡± could be taken meant that this path was far too difficult. Theoretically speaking, no Undead Emperor was younger than two thousand years old ...


    Exceptions? You¡¯re mentioning how I reached this level despite being only three hundred something years old? In a way, I had my System to thank for this. Without her assistance and the cheat-like level of growth, I couldn¡¯t possibly have umted so much in thisparatively short period of time. Also, myrgest cheat of all was that I had knowledge from twopletely different worlds. In any field of research, looking at things from a different angle might end up with apletely different result, anding up with revolutionary ways of thinking was the most difficult. Many geniuses with an extraordinary amount of talent were stuck in some area where theycked insight and realization... I definitely wasn¡¯t referring to the silly cat, as her problem was far different from most Myth-ranked undead.


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªgetting back on topic, from a certain standpoint, ¡°Zero¡± was doubtlessly one such incredibly rare genius among geniuses. She must have spent countless years to reach her current level, and her age... Fine, just as how I decided not to pursue Harloys and Little Red¡¯s real ages, I decided to be a gentleman and not think about how her age would be calcted in the tens of thousands of years as the basic unit . Yep, it definitely wasn¡¯t because I was worried that if I thought too much about this topic, my thoughts would be leaked to her through our soul connection, causing that silly cat to bite my head. Nor was it because recently I was so poor that I needed the silly cat¡¯s charity so that I wouldn¡¯t starve... A pet cat like her actually had a secret gold hoard stashed away! Can you believe it!?


    Cough, once again, trying to get on topic, ¡°Zero¡± was a ghost, and her natural talent ability was to rob any living she touched of their heat. This wasn¡¯t a rare talent at all, nor was she a special high-ranked undead. Ghosts were limited in both growth potential andbat strength. But, what was slightly different about her was that she was incredibly sensitive to heat stealing. While other ghosts simply robbed as much heat as they could upon contact, she was able to finely determine just how much heat she robbed down to the very specific units, giving her the ability to y all sorts of tricks based on precise calctions.


    Perhaps this talent of hers wasn¡¯t much practical use inbat, but her precise control over energy vastly helped her in the area of negative energy research, allowing her to reach the peak. And what truly helped her enter the ¡°nearly unreachable¡± status of an Undead Emperor were her research results in the topic of ¡°The effect of energy on the living.¡±


    Her natural talent made it easy for her to discern every change in energy. She was capable of observing the changes to a living individual with great precision¡ªthe slightest modification in temperature would not be missed. In fact, one of her research fields¡ªunique to her alone¡ªwas ¡°negative energy temperature¡± undead creatures, which were capable of producing negative energy fields. With her unique talent, she needed only a single nce to determine a living being or undead¡¯s power level. Her negative energy research was top-level amongst all the Undead Emperors, and her undead armies constituted a true perpetual motion machine and source of negative energy, making them fearsome existences in any battle of attrition.


    Ever since she had started viewing energy as one of the sources of life for living creatures, she had gained the ability to send out incarnations of self with a portion of her power. The truly frightening part about Zero was her perfect control over energy.


    However, that was where she had reached her limit. She only knew the effects of energy on living creatures and the undead, but she was unable toprehend the effect of energy on this entire world. This wasn¡¯t because she was foolish or overly traditional. It was because undead mages forever focused only on souls and the living and were uninterested in the mechanical or the environment. And if you abandoned researching about energy in other areas, how would you possibly be able to obtain the overarching truth about energy? It just so happened that this magical world¡¯s research results arrived from ¡°I saw it, so it existed¡±¡ªobviously, such an attitude made obtaining the truth incredibly difficult.


    Perhaps someone taught it to her in the past, or perhaps she obtained esoteric knowledge from some texts. However, any Undead Emperor would have an understanding of the world simr to how it really worked. Undead Emperors were even capable of sending out incarnations to influence the mortal ne, so modifying their own world was even easier.


    Yet an existence at a level equal to hers had used a real world of his own and an inexplicable method beyond her understanding, giving her a vicious p in the face. One that had woken her up.


    ¡°So energy is always conserved. Energy can be transmitted from the sun and moon to trees and nts, and from trees and nts to humans, and from humans¡¯ corpses back to nature. Perhaps our world isn¡¯t isted after all. Negative energy can be transmitted as well. Perhaps the very end of the negative energy which powers all undead is the positive energy that powers all life.¡±


    Once she updated her own concept of the world, her world finally progressed. The transference of negative and positive energy broke the boundaries between life and death. Fortunately, the Undead Emperor was the highest level achievable by any undead. Otherwise, a brand new title and level might be needed just for her.


    From a certain standpoint, this was a research result she had obtained together with Rnd. This was thebined crystallized wisdom of two Undead Emperors. While Zero evolved into ¡°Conservation¡± because of this, Rnd, too, obtained part of her research results from her astral projection and, in fact, ended up benefiting much more than her by adding on to his theories through another method.


    Originally, Rnd should have been incapable of analyzing Zero¡¯s astral projection. However, Aso just happened to give himrge amounts of undead knowledge as a parting gift. While Aso¡¯s knowledge might not necessarily be at a higher level than Rnd¡¯s, and his esoteric, top-level knowledge wasn¡¯t given to Rnd, Rnd had still obtained the Tark Republic¡¯s standard teaching materials andmon research theories. Zero herself had also used these theories to gradually increase in power. With all of this, it was as if Rnd possessed a key to open the gate to sessfully analyze this astral projection.


    ¡°...I¡¯ve already reconstructed the energy cycle of my world. This isn¡¯t Earth where only positive energy exists. A cycle of negative energy is one of the main reasons behind the existence of souls, and one of the truly most amazing things about a magical world. Zero¡¯s eyes are wonderful! Everything I see may not be the truth, and I was limited by past beliefs. This isn¡¯t the purely physical world that I was from in the past. This is a world that¡¯s constructed of both the physical and the mental. While Zero was restricted by this world¡¯s way of thinking, I, too, was limited by my so-called scientific knowledge that I had valued so much.¡±


    At this moment, the shattered ¡°Crown of Undead¡± Soul Imprint had reformed. But unlike the nowpletely fixed Ice Treader Soul Imprint, the undead magic Soul Imprint was the crystallized wisdom of three Undead Emperors; in fact, it represented an entirely new path. A path more difficult than before was now before Rnd.


    It was a face, a male face, split down the middle. One side was made of skeletal bones, while the other was a living person. The skeleton was smiling, while the living half was crying. He had broken the boundaries of life and death, gazing into the depths of the true nature of souls. He was...


    ¡°...Since he understands the Cycle of Reincarnation, the role of Judge of the Dead is the most suitable for him. Then, let¡¯s name him ¡®Judge of the River Styx.¡¯¡±


    There were no simple individuals among the Undead Emperors. While Zero had obtained much from Rnd and had progressed down her path, the victor of their battle, Rnd, had gained even more. It was only his power level that was limiting him¡ªhe was unable topletely disy what he had obtained.


    Yet some benefits could now be noticed.


    When Rnd had broken through, he had been greeted with a System Notification.


    [Congrattions for sessfully fixing the Crown of Undead Soul Imprint. You have now awakened your SemiGod Racial Talent, ¡®Stare of the Hell God¡¯! System Reminder: This natural talent is dangerous. Very, very dangerous. Please use it carefully. Additional System Reminder: This racial talent can be further evolved. And please, take extra caution when using it.]

 Chapter 353

    Chapter 353: Direction of Evolution


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    When I awoke from my long slumber, I was unable to move. Yet I was greeted with a world no longer the same.


    If a mirror were present, I would have been able to see that my eyes were different. One eye had a normal white eye and a ck pupil, while the other had a ck eye and white pupil. Like the opposite halves of a Yin Yang diagram, it gave off a frightening appearance.


    Meanwhile, what I saw was far stranger. On one side was a world of energy that appeared like infrared lights, with red, yellow, orange and other warm colors. The other half was filled with decayed bones and ck gunk, as if all the filth of the world was before me.


    Luckily, when I canceled the ¡°Stare of the Hell God,¡± my eyes returned to normal. Otherwise, I would have had to find a bandage to cover my eyes, like a certain unlucky fellow who was ¡°imprisoned for ten thousand years...¡± Hmmm. Having bandages over my eyes would actually look quite cool, but going around with a naked upper body would seem quite embarrassing. And I felt that if I uttered that ssical line, ¡°You seek your own death!¡±, I would copse of embarrassment halfway through¡ªthat would be even more embarrassing. [1] 1


    I took a deep breath and quickly discovered that the dragon¡¯s blood in the blood pool I was soaking in had decreased by more than half. Meanwhile, some mysterious change seemed to have urred in my body.


    ¡°System?¡±


    I figured that now was the time to consult an expert. At the very least, her showing me my status would be able to help me understand my situation with precise numbers and words.


    Unluckily for me, although I could check it, my racial talents and stats kept changing constantly in a quick blur that was impossible to read. My body was still undergoing changes.


    ¡°Ha, it would seem that it¡¯s still too early.¡±


    My physical body was evidently still evolving. I took a deep breath and intended to ce my consciousness back within my Frigidwinter Earth. However, I received a reply from the System at this moment.


    [Your physical body is now entering its youth stage. Please choose the direction of your evolution. System Reminder: Please be careful about your choice. There will be no going back.]


    I was surprised for a moment upon hearing this, but soon, the System gave me a great amount of information that helped me understand.


    [Arbiter Bloodline. 19 Strength, 19 Dexterity, 19 Constitution, 29 Intelligence, 19 Will, 19 Charisma. Racial talents: War Angel Form, Original Sin Demon Form. Overall assessment: Double Diamond Bloodline. Rmended job sses: Order Knight, Chaos Lich King. System Evaluation: Your Arbiter Bloodline is on the border between Order and Chaos and belongs to neither faction, but it¡¯spatible with both factions. This bloodline with both foundational powers that are so different created a miraculous physical body for you. Perhaps it¡¯s not the strongest body, but it¡¯s by far the one with the most potential.]


    I had always found it quite strange. Even though I clearly possessed a Double Diamond Bloodline, it never performed anywhere near as well in battles as the Titan Giants¡¯ Semi-Diamond Bloodline. In fact, I felt like it was far weaker than even Little Red¡¯s Immemorial Dragon Bloodline. It was only now that I understood what the problem was.


    From a certain standpoint, the System was just like me. Although she never lied, she would often be intentionally misleading with her words.


    This time, the part that made me suffer was the final sentence of her exnation, ¡°Perhaps it¡¯s not the strongest body, but it¡¯s by far the one with the most potential.¡±


    Whenever a teacher praised a student for having potential, there would typically be an unstated sentence behind it: ¡°This student is currently not that great.¡± And so, what the System gave me was basically an infant¡¯s body. How far it could develop would depend on my path and the choices I made.


    And so¡ªintentionally or unintentionally¡ªthe System dug a pitfall for me. At the very least, what she gave me wasn¡¯t aplete Arbiter Bloodline, but an infant Arbiter Bloodline, instead.


    This was also why my physical body was stuck in a juvenile form. For a young child who had just finished his earliest years of education, whether he became an athlete, artist, musician or whatever in the future would depend on his future studies and practices. Someone at such a young age would first learn to run and speak.


    The world was forever unfair¡ªno matter the world. In my previous world of Earth, people gifted in athletics or intelligence could aplish feats no ordinary person could, no matter how hard the ordinary person worked. For example, in certain sports, Africans were far more skilled than the Chinese, no matter how much the Chinese exercised. [2] 2


    There were evenrger differences between the species in this world, with more obvious imbnces. The beastmen were naturally talented at physicalbat, the elves were born with talent in archery and magic, the dragons were skilled at both physical and magicalbat but had slow growth rates, and the undead possessed a natural affinity for negative energy. The only race that had bnced skills in all aspects, the humans, were literally the representative of ¡°Jack of all trades, master of none.¡±


    The physical body with the most potential? The path leading to the strongest? Nobody would know what power would be the most suitable for them, or what type of fighting style would lead them down the ultimate path. What power you wanted was the same as the so-called greatest potential: giving you a choice to create the physical body and natural talents you desired the most.


    [Discard a minimum of two of your racial natural talents and borate how you wish to strengthen yourself. The more detailed you borate, the better. System Notification: Congrattions on your graduation from elementary school. It¡¯s time for you to be a middle schooler!]


    ¡°As an infant, my growth was bnced. Now that I¡¯m a youth, it is time to make a choice?¡±


    From the information I received from the System I knew that the Arbiter Bloodline was akin to an insect¡¯s metamorphosis. Upon breaking through a bottleneck, this bloodline would evolve. And now, it was time for me to make a choice, one based on my rich experience.


    ¡°Choice? Choice? Choosing a path also means choosing something to give up. If something¡¯s the most important, then there exists something that¡¯s not as important.¡±


    Indeed. While I would have wanted to be as agile as the elves, as strong as the beastmen, and to have an undead¡¯s natural affinity for negative energy so that I could use negative energy as I pleased, together with an angel¡¯s natural affinity for positive energy, my desires were no good... Even if my ridiculously unreasonable bloodline was able to give me all these traits, the special, unique advantages of each would be lost, and I would only seem ordinary inparison¡ªnothing would stand out. It would be more of a loss than a gain.


    [...War Angel Form, Original Sin Demon Form, Sword of Order, Titan Body, Feet of Ethereal Shadow, Divine Child, and Chaos Barrier. I¡¯m going to have to discard a minimum of two of these abilities? And strengthen the others? Which should I strengthen?]


    These were the natural talents my body currently possessed. I was mulling over which were the most useful to me and what fighting style I should adopt in the future. However, I was now stuck in a quandary. All of these abilities were excellent ones, but if I looked at my past uses for them, there were still obvious differences.


    I absolutely had to keep the War Angel and Original Sin Demon Forms. No matter if it was in practicalbat or the power of Creation within Frigidwinter Earth, they were both incredibly effective. Besides, I felt that since they were the first two abilities that came together with this physical body of mine, I shouldn¡¯t make the choice to discard them. Divine Child was an ability that made it easier for me to perform God¡¯s Descent with Wumianzhe, which was one of the aces up my sleeve, so naturally I wouldn¡¯t choose to discard Divine Child.


    In that case, let¡¯s start the process of elimination with the natural talent I used the least. Of course, nning was always better with more than one person, so I decided to ask the living library Harloys for her advice.


    ¡°Feet of Ethereal Shadow is the natural talent I¡¯ve used the least out of all of them. This is the ability for me to escape to the Shadow ne, which can help me escape from any dangerous situation. However, it also means that I¡¯ve transported myself to another ne, and that I would need to figure out a way to return to the mortal ne afterwards. It won¡¯t be easy for me to return in any short period of time, which is why I¡¯ve never used it at all. Still, it¡¯s a lifesaving ability, which means it mighte in useful in the future...¡±


    ¡°...Is it even possible for you to consider escaping? Even when the Titan Giants were right before you just now, weren¡¯t you raring for battle? I think you should just face your true self and change your job ss to Berserker.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, that¡¯s because it wasn¡¯t a life-or-death battle. Otherwise, I definitely would have fled to the Shadow ne.¡±


    As a mage, fleeing when you couldn¡¯t win waspletely normal. Mages had far slower growth than other job sses to begin with. For any mage who wanted to go out adventuring, preparing two or three specialized ¡°tactical retreat¡± spells was absolutely necessary. Harloys telling me to change my job ss to Berserker was a veiled insult¡ªshe was basically insulting me by calling me a brainless barbarian.


    ¡°No. I feel that as long as you¡¯re forced to the brink, you¡¯d just enter your insanity mode and try to drag your opponent down with him. Back when Aso was casting his forbidden spell, you could have escaped to the Shadow ne, but instead you attempted to immte your own soul to take him down with you. Just think about it. Over so many years, have you ever tried to run away even once?¡±


    ¡°...I think so¡ªit¡¯s possible¡ªit seems.... that indeed I haven¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°You really are the same as all those stubborn tin can knights.¡±


    Now that she said this, I couldn¡¯t help but recall the teachings of Estrada, my Holy Knight teacher who was also known as the strongest Holy Knight. He would prattle on every day for more than three hours on knighthood, which was no different from brainwashing.


    ¡°...We Holy Knights shall never despair. As long as we fight to the end... even if we must sacrifice ourselves, it¡¯s for a worthy cause...¡±


    Actually, the greatest advantage of the Holy Knight job ss was near absolute immunity to any mental magics rted to fear and despair. Adventuring teams were ustomed to having Holy Knights perform the most dangerous tasks. In fact, since there were far too many examples of Holy Knights who loved to sacrifice themselves, back when Beyana in her Betty form was making fun of Holy Knights for this self-sacrificing addiction problem and dragging me away, I couldn¡¯t counter her with anything at all.


    Personally, I was the type who didn¡¯t believe that one¡¯s childhood education would affect that person for the rest of their life. But the truth was indeed that even if I was forced to the very brink, as long as there was still a one percent possibility I could turn things around, I wouldn¡¯t even think about escaping. The fact that I had never used this Feet of Ethereal Shadow ability even once was the best evidence.


    ¡°So you¡¯re advising me against strengthening this life-saving ability?¡±


    ¡°For you, it¡¯s indeed unnecessary. After all, you¡¯ll never think about running away. Besides, you¡¯re the Undying Rnd. Even if you die, you can just start over again.¡±


    Alright then. I settled on the first ability to discard. And the second ability, the one I used the second least, was...


    ¡°Apart from the Feet of Ethereal Shadow ability that¡¯s used for escaping, the ability that I¡¯ve used the second least is the one to summon a ¡®Sacred Sword¡¯ of Order.¡±


    I had used this ability for only a few times in the very beginning but practically stopped using it afterwards.


    The Sword of Order ability was limited to being used only once per day, and the issue of the short time that the sword could be summoned was also a small one. The greatest regret about this ability was the fact that I didn¡¯tck for weapons.


    Pale Justice, the Rnd Sacred Sword, and the yer of the Undying Warhammer were all excellent weapons which could act as vessels for Holy Light or the power of Law. Although I gave the God Equipment Rnd Sacred Sword to Reyne, I was now mainly using the Ice Cmity magic sword that my silly cat could transform into ever since she had evolved to possess the powers of ¡°Cmity Chill¡± and ¡°Hibernation Chill¡±.


    And as I improved in my understanding of ice magic, Erebe¡¯s passive buff to my ice magic along with the fatal time-freezing Hibernation Chill ability meant that Harloys¡¯ transformed Ice Cmity magic sword was just as powerful as the Rnd Sacred Sword¡ªreaching the level of God Equipment.


    In that case, the conclusion was quite obvious. The choices for which two abilities to discard had now been decided.


    ¡°You don¡¯tck closebat attacking methods. The Sacred Sword of Order that purely uses Holy Light and the power of Law is barely of any use to you.¡±


    Harloys was being quite reasonable, but why was it that I felt like she only wanted to eliminate herpetitor and be my only beloved sword...? Fine, since I identally thought this and forgot about our soul connection, I now needed to figure out how to remove her from my head again. Recently, she somehow learned a technique to make her fangs as tough as diamonds. As she bit into my skull, I was given a headache in more than one meaning of the word...


    ¡°So, a closebat ability is meaningless to you, and an escape ability is meaningless to you. That gives us an obvious conclusion. Just what is the natural talent ability you¡¯ve used the most?¡±


    She didn¡¯t even need to ask, because the answer was of course...


    [Titan¡¯s Body, Diamond level racial talent: Your physical body possesses the original power of Titan Giants, and every day your skin will be more like that of a Titan Giant. All damage and negative effects are reduced by 30. All damage is reduced by an additional 5.]


    [Chaos Barrier, Gold level racial talent: Protect your mind and soul from the suppression of Divine Kingdoms and Soul Worlds. Reduce the effectiveness of all Will-affecting and hallucinatory spells and abilities used against you.]


    Yep, the natural talents I used the most were actually these two passive, purely defensive abilities. One was used to protect my physical body, while the other protected my soul. These twobined were the main reason I could live to today.


    As I looked over the word ¡°Titan¡± in my ability ¡°Titan¡¯s Body,¡± I couldn¡¯t help but recall the Titan Giant incarnation who didn¡¯t even die against a True God¡¯s incarnation¡¯s self-destruction. The deepest impression the two Titan Giants left on me was their truly outstanding defensive capabilities.


    Thanks to my Frigidwinter Earth, along with my abilities in ice magic, undead magic, Holy Light, and Law¡ªthese four different areas¡ªI didn¡¯tck attack power or attacking methods. However, my greatest weakness was my defense. If someone was identally stepped on and squashed to death on a battlefield, they would only be able to take their grudges with them to the grave no matter how powerful or talented they were.


    My ice armor containing the Cold mes of Despair had seemed impossible to break against Emordilorcan, but that had been nothing more than a mere bluff, used to scare someone who valued his own life. If I met with a hotheaded idiot of an enemy who truly rushed over to shatter my armor without caring for their own life, even I myself would have been frozen in time for eternity¡ªand by my own power.


    Living on would mean hope still existed, hope that I could win in the end.


    ¡°...Perhaps strengthening my defensive abilities is the most suitable path for me to take.¡±


    [...I don¡¯t rmend you to choose this direction of evolution. Unless you have Titan Giant body parts to help, you won¡¯t be able to evolve as strongly as you wish for. And once you make your choice, you¡¯ll be unable to change your mind. System Reminder: It¡¯s your own fault for notpleting the Titan Giant Hunting Quest. Try again next time.]


    Although the System was being quite critical of me, I could tell that the System was, in her own way, looking out for me.


    The fact that she gave me Quests while I was battling against Zero was probably because Zero¡¯s knowledge would be one of the greatest possible benefits for me. It would be an excellent chance for me to improve my overall understanding of undead magic and fix my Undead Magic Soul Imprint. Meanwhile, my Titan¡¯s Body ability was probably the most suitable direction for me to evolve my physical body. The Immemorial Red Dragon Bloodline evolution Quest was very easy due to Little Red¡¯s assistance against Molly, and the rewards for that were pretty much nothing more than a constion prize.


    Just the recent battle against the Titan Giants made it easy to see that the dragons¡¯ physical strength and the Titan Giants¡¯ physical strength were onpletely different levels. If I chose the Dragon Bloodline¡¯s evolution path, although it would greatly increase my physical body¡¯s strength and maybe even give me dragon-based attacks, the pure defensive prowess of a Dragon Bloodline wouldn¡¯t be anywhere close to the Titan Giant Bloodline¡¯s.


    I hesitated now as well. After working so hard to reach this step, taking a wrong path would really be pitiful.


    I could already guess at what abilities evolving myself with a Dragon Bloodline would give me. After all, dragons were all true to their base desires so there were many other species with partial dragon blood in them. Not only that, there were quite a few Dragon Bloodline Warlocks in this world, and all the Dragon Bloodline abilities had already been thoroughly researched by others.


    Of course, the Dragon Bloodline would greatly improve the base physical stats of ordinary people who had much weaker bodies. However, since my base stats were far too highpared to most, the increase for me would likely be limited. I didn¡¯t want to take this path if possible.


    The Dragon Bloodline could also help me to grow dragon scales. In the past, I would have said that having my own personal dragonscale armor on my body would make me impregnable due to its high defense against both physical and magic attacks. But I already possessed the power ability Titan¡¯s Body and had witnessed the ridiculous defensive prowess of real Titan Giants. How could I possibly be satisfied with mere dragon scales?


    The Dragon Bloodline could also help me grow dragon wings and give me the ability of flight. While flight seemed like a simple power, it was forever a practical one. The unfortunate part was that I already possessed my War Angel form. As my power level increased, the time I could keep myself in the War Angel form¡ªas well as number of transformations per day¡ªkept increasing. So this power of flight from the Dragon Bloodline would be quite useless.


    The Dragon Bloodline could also give me the ability to use dragon breath, which was indeed a powerful attack. It would have a wide area of affect, powerful strength, and quick activation. But the main problem with this was just as I had mentioned earlier: I didn¡¯tck attacking methods. Still, this ability would be the best out of all these mostly useless abilities the Dragon Bloodline would give me.


    I could also obtain dragon ws and a dragon tail to increase my physicalbat prowess... but honestly, that would be the most useless of all. I was no monk who specialized in barehandedbat; I used swords. This emptyhandedbat strength would be meaningless, and possessing dragon ws would even lower my skill with the sword as I would need to get used to gripping a sword with ws instead of hands.


    And if I really did grow ws, fangs, and a tail, apart from ruining my handsome appearance, I was even more worried about a certain legendary individual. Yep, I¡¯m talking about a certain dracon who mysteriously managed to tame even a divine beast! He was more familiar with dragons than anyone! He could definitely aplish anything!


    The more I thought about it, the more I was regretting things. Not only was a Dragon Bloodline evolution mostly useless to me, but it might even be dangerous for me...


    Wait a moment. Suddenly, an outrageous idea came to mind. I turned to Harloys and Erebe who were being forced to soak in dragon¡¯s blood together with me due to their soul contracts. If this idea of mine worked, then this Dragon Bloodline evolution would no longer be useless. Instead, it would actually be a shortcut to improving my overallbat strength.


    And so, I hesitatingly made my request to my System.


    However, I was met with a long period of silence, as if the System was making its calctions. Yet, I was delighted at this, as what I was most afraid of was instant refusal. This doubtlessly meant that my idea was possible to carry out.


    [...There will be a fee of 150,000 Fate Points. Haggling... is impossible. This is the final price!]


    I instantly became furious upon hearing this. I currently possessed 143,451 Fate Points¡ªjust a little short. By naming such a price, wasn¡¯t the System making it obvious that she wanted me to suffer?


    ¡°You bastard! Even making a new body for me wouldn¡¯t be this expensive. Also, why does it just happen to be more Fate Points than what I have right now? Don¡¯t even think for a moment that I don¡¯t know why it¡¯s always a whole number¡ªit¡¯s because you¡¯re always raking in the profits by jacking up the prices!¡±


    [You think my prices are too expensive? Feel free to shop at other stores.]


    Alright then. This condescending tone made me instantly imagine a female merchant picking her nose while looking down on me.


    While I really wanted to shop elsewhere, my System had a full monopoly in that market. What other store could I possibly shop at? Not only that, this monopoly was the type where I was already stuck on a pirate ship, with nowhere else to run to! It was just like if someone purchased aputer system, they would be forced to continue downloading that system¡¯s patches and purchasing additional system services! Otherwise, all sorts of system loopholes and viruses would kill you.


    ¡°...You win. What should I do about the points shortage? Can I just owe you the rest?¡±


    I had now realized that the System was pretty much intending to suck me dry of all my Fate Points and was probably intending to force me into doing those ridiculous Daily Quests.


    [No.]


    When I heard this, I paused in surprise. I never expected her to actually refuse. Could it be that she was nice enough for once to only give me the manufacturing cost¡¯s price, which was why I wasn¡¯t allowed to owe her money?


    If that was really the case, what was I supposed to do? Give up on this idea of mine that I finally came up with? Force myself to use the Dragon Bloodline evolution? I really didn¡¯t want to do that!


    [You can owe me the rest, but you need to pay the remainder in Justice Points. First, give the 2300 Justice Points you possess right now to me, and pay a deposit on the item I want.]


    Fine then. I had underestimated a certain ck-bellied System¡¯sck of limits. At this moment, I couldn¡¯t help but think of certain pitiful men back in my previous world. Without even having received their sries yet, their women would alreadyy im to it. At such a time, as a manly man, I could only sigh deeply, and then... lower my head and beg for mercy!


    ¡°...You win, but please leave me at least 100 Justice Points of spare change! You also know that it¡¯s not so easy for me toe by Justice Points.¡±


    Yet no matter how pitiful a man acted, the woman wouldn¡¯t let him go so easily.


    [I¡¯ll leave you 50 Justice Points. There¡¯s no need to thank me. Pay the rest of the bnce within six months; otherwise, there will be a 40%pound interest rate.]


    [You understand how it is.]


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Illidan Stormrage reference, from World of Warcraft.


    [2] ED/N: Is this true? I couldn¡¯t find any reliable sources on the web with information that said such.

 Chapter 354

    Chapter 354: The Powerful Sure Have Messy Lifestyles


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°They¡¯ve already been in there for seven days. Why haven¡¯t theye out yet?¡±


    Little Red was in quite a foul mood. And her mood only worsened as time passed.


    Dragons were the epitome of the dictionary¡¯s definition of ¡°impatient.¡± This was especially so for Red Dragons who also served as the dictionary¡¯s definitions for ¡°arrogance,¡± ¡°unreasonable,¡± and ¡°bad at listening to others.¡±


    While dragons were all one species, the differences among them were huge. Although they had managed to escape from needing to fight in the eternal Holy War, Red, White, ck, Green, Blue, and other Color Dragons were all the Chaos Goddess¡¯s creations and were viewed as part of the Chaos Faction. Considering the fact that the most representative species of Chaos, the demons, had terrible tempers, in a way that was the best evidence for how difficult Color Dragons were to get along with.


    Red Dragons, who were of the fire element, had incredibly short tempers along with incredible arrogance and pride. They were typically sensitive about territory and authority. The thunder element Blue Dragons were hugebat maniacs and loved to hunt other intelligent species as food. ck Dragons, skilled in corrosion and darkness magic, were vicious and evil¡ªthey were also the greediest of the dragons.


    Meanwhile, Green Dragons and White Dragons were significantly weaker than their other Color Dragon rtives. White Dragons were particrly infamous for their low Intelligence, which was why Red, ck, and Blue Dragons were the main three species of Color Dragons, with the highest poptions. Any of these would cause a huge disturbance if they appeared anywhere in the mortal ne. And when the entire Dragon Species as a whole exiled the Red and ck Dragons to the Underground World, many species that had suffered due to ¡°Dragon Cmities¡± were so thrilled at hearing the news that they threw celebration partiessting several days.


    Yep, ¡°Dragon Cmity¡± was actually a term in this world and was treated just like a natural cmity. A Dragon Cmity fit the exact definition of a natural cmity, as Dragon Cmities were unpredictable, unstoppable, and would cause major amounts of damage.


    One-time robbery victims of dragons randomlying out by chance didn¡¯t count as victims of Dragon Cmities. True Dragon Cmities were typically viewed as the shame of an entire species. The species would forever be helpless about the Dragon Cmities and could only allow them to keep happening.


    Little Red was an Immemorial Red Dragon. This was more than enough for her to rule over an entire city and easily defeat and kill the average SemiGod. In that case, who could possibly stop dragons even older and more powerful than her, dragons that had experienced the battles from the very first ever Holy War, from running amok? Not only that, an Immemorial Red Dragon wasn¡¯t even close to the peak of dragon strength. There were also Supreme Immemorial Dragons that had experienced countless eons. At their level, not even the True Gods would dare to antagonize them. The Dragon power levels went from Dragon Egg, Baby Dragon, Infant Dragon, Young Dragon, Mature Dragon, Adult Dragon, Elder Dragon, Ancient Dragon, Immemorial Dragon, Great Immemorial Dragon, and Supreme Immemorial Dragon. [1] 1


    It was said that an Supreme Immemorial Green Dragon had made its nest in the Wood Elves¡¯ holy grounds and had no intentions of giving it up. That Green Dragon treated the Wood Elves¡¯ holy grounds as his own home even today. Also, the royalty of one Shield Dwarf Country identally broke a certain seal while digging and released a Great Immemorial Shadow Dragon, a species simr to ck Dragons. This Shadow Dragon took over the Shield Dwarves¡¯ royal pce for countless eons and even enved the country¡¯s Shield Dwarves. Also, the incredibly powerful mega-empire named the Gerbai Kingdom was destroyed all due to the anger of a single Supreme Immemorial Red Dragon.


    By the way, the Supreme Immemorial Green Dragon was ranked #7 on the Cmity Rankings and was known as the ¡°Elf Devourer¡±. The Great Immemorial Shadow Dragon was ranked #33 on the Cmity Rankings and was known as the ¡°Shadow Kingdom Emperor¡±. As for the Supreme Immemorial Red Dragon who destroyed an entire mega-empire all by itself, it hadn¡¯t appeared in far too long, which is why it wasn¡¯t in the Cmity Rankings. But if it ever resurfaced, it would definitely be in the top 10. Any Color Dragon that was an Supreme Immemorial Dragon would receive this type of due to how incredibly destructive they were.


    There was only a small difference between Immemorial and Great Immemorial Dragons. For some more powerful dragon species, perhaps an Immemorial Red Dragon would even be able to give a Great Immemorial White Dragon a run for its money, even if the Immemorial Red Dragon would most likely lose in the end. But for dragons that reached the highest level of all, the standard of Supreme Immemorial Dragon, they had witnessed countless Gods dying and being born ever since the first generation. No Great Immemorial Dragon would dare to challenge an Supreme Immemorial Dragon.


    The world of Eich was massive, and secret locations and areas with low poption were even moremon than highly popted areas. For such powerful existences like Supreme Immemorial Dragons, they had far surpassed the normal level of being able to defeat by issuing a mission to the adventurers to subjugate them. In most situations, the local ruling authorities would simply draw a dragon on the map and warn travelers to avoid that area. Anyone foolish enough to venture into an Supreme Immemorial Dragon¡¯s territory would be given up for lost, with nobody going to save them, even if that person was the princess of some kingdom.


    Luckily, Great Immemorial and Supreme Immemorial Dragons were both incredibly rare sights in Eich. They typically stayed in their Dragon nests and had plenty of subordinates that brought them food. Also, they had equal-leveled enemy dragons so they kept each other in check. From a certain standpoint, since these most powerful of dragons all had their own established territories andrge numbers of subordinate citizens, and even sometimes their own loyal subordinate dragons and knights, each individual Great or Supreme Immemorial Dragon was more like a country¡¯s existence rather than an individual existence.


    Dragon Cities? Dragon Cities were unable tomand Great and Supreme Immemorial Dragons. Dragons were an example of a species where only the powerful were respected. When Molly, an Immemorial Red Dragon, became the Dragon Queen, she had incredibly few equal-leveled Immemorial Dragon subordinates under her. When her husband, who barely qualified as having reached the Great Immemorial Dragon power level, had been in charge before her as the Dragon Emperor, there had been more Immemorial Dragons under hismand. But there wasn¡¯t a single Great Immemorial Dragon under hismand. As for the Supreme Immemorial Dragons, it was confirmed that there were only two Red Supreme Immemorial Dragons. However, both of them were viewed as evil Demon Kings, and even when the entire Red Dragon species was exiled to the Underground World, neither of the two Supreme Immemorial Red Dragons were seen to take any action about it.


    Of course, there were some ces where Great and Supreme Immemorial Dragons could be found: Dragon Ind and Dragon World. But there was no hoping that they would listen to anyone¡¯s orders as these proud and ancient individuals wouldn¡¯t even allow younger dragons to fly above their heads, much less listen to a younger dragon¡¯smands.


    Of course, for any ordinary human, no matter if they met an Immemorial Dragon or just an Adult Dragon, there was no difference. The result would always be death.


    Alright then. By now, you should be able toe to a conclusion.


    Together with the dragon power levels and the fact that it was well known how Red Dragonsmonly raided other species, Little Red was certain to enter the Cmity Rankings even if she didn¡¯t hide her status as the Dragon Queen.


    But it wasn¡¯t only that. Little Red even went around using her real name: Belon¡¯s Cmity, Ein Mezus. She was one of the very few Immemorial Red Dragons who had been highly active in the mortal ne. And as for herbat achievements... fine, perhaps I should call it dark history, as she had burned numerous cities down to the ground in the past, destroyed several small countries, kidnapped princesses for ransom, and even schemed to destroyrger countries all so she could rob their treasuries. She was unmistakably an evil and vicious dragon. And she was even one of the smartest and most sessful of such evil and vicious Dragons.


    From a certain standpoint, before the nostalgic adventurer team that we had worked together in was formed, Little Red would unmistakably be considered a purely evil dragon. Red Dragons were famed for being one of the more powerful dragon species who possessed outstandingbat talent. Judging by how easily she won the duel against her mother Molly¡ªwho was also incredibly experienced inbat¡ªtreating Little Red as an evil Immemorial Red Dragon would seem like no mistake.


    After her name started spreading thanks to this recent battle, it was a definite that Little Red¡¯s name would be entering the Cmity Rankings, although I wouldn¡¯t know if she would be ranked before or after me.


    ¡°Although I don¡¯t know why ¡®The Undying Rnd¡¯ is ranked so highly in the Cmity Rankings, just seeing that he¡¯s able tomand this Immemorial Red Dragon to work under him is the best exnation of how ridiculous he is.¡±


    ¡°...Have you heard? Those two Immemorial Red Dragons are still in this city...¡±


    The reason why intelligent species survived for so long was that they had the ability to pass knowledge down to others. At the very least, intelligent species would tell other members of their own kind how to deal with threats. When a humanoid, living Cmity was right next to everyone, how people acted around and treated her was quite obvious.


    And so, Little Red enjoyed a ¡°Mega Mega VIP¡± treatment everywhere she went. Every bar she went to, she could drink everything wanted for free, paid for by the Wood Spirits, except for alcohol, thanks to me telling Samantha beforehand that Little Red was a terrible and that she would go on a rampage upon consuming any alcohol. Nobody dared to even chat to Little Red, and she didn¡¯t have to pay any money for anything she wanted to purchase... it wasn¡¯t that Little Red didn¡¯t want to pay, it was that every store owner would run away at top speed upon seeing her. Who was she supposed to pay?


    Her mood was made even worse by the fact that Samantha and most of the other Wood Spirits all returned to the Forest of Dreams. Everyone else around her would only tentatively avoid her as much as possible, be afraid when talking to her and even look at her with obvious fear in her eyes¡ªthis made, Molly, who Little Red hated the most, into the only person who could hold a conversation with her. For Little Red, simply ¡°eating, sleeping, and beating up Molly¡± every day was considered an improvement in her patience.


    Actually, even if there was a ban upon her drinking alcohol, Little Red would typically find ways to sneak some alcohol anyways. But it just so happened to be that she was in charge of guarding the troublesome Molly that was so difficult to find and catch, so Little Red was worried that Molly would escape if she went out and drank alcohol. Not only that, guarding Molly meant that Little Red was unable to take long naps as she pleased, which naturally made her temper only worse and worse.


    And for Molly, she was also hoping for Rnd toe back as soon as possible. Over the past week, she had received many painful beatings due to identally enraging her own daughter or simply because Little Red wanted a target to vent her displeasure.


    Of course, half of the beatings were well-deserved due to Molly¡¯s behavior, such as trying to escape, poison Little Red, or rebel in some way. After a few times, Little Red directly started withdrawing a small pool of Molly¡¯s blood every morning, making her so weak that she was unable to plot any tricks. And if Little Red was in a bad mood, she would simply deliver a vicious beating to Molly, making Molly half-dead for the entire day.


    Considering how the former Dragon Queen Molly obtained her position by killing off Little Red¡¯s father and all of Little Red¡¯s siblings, along with attempting to hunt down and kill Little Red herself, in a way it was impossible to say who was right or wrong here. Even if Little Red directly killed Molly, it would be perfectly eptable.


    And if Rnd was here, he would probably only sigh and say that ¡°The powerful have messy lifestyles¡± while he wouldn¡¯t interfere at all, since it was another family¡¯s... another dragon family¡¯s internal affairs.


    But at this moment, this dragon family¡¯s internal affairs were now involving him.


    ¡°Are you sure? You should know what this means, right?¡±


    ¡°...While half-blood dragon descendants are indeed discriminated against, do you think anyone will dare to mistreat me and Rnd¡¯s future baby?¡±


    Baby? That¡¯s right, Little Red had been acting strangetely, and Harloys had told Rnd the reason quite clearly: spring was here, and it was the season for animals to breed future generations.


    ¡°Rx, I have no interest in bones. Although Rnd is indeed someone I¡¯d be quite interested in, my goal is to give birth to Baby Dragons, although I suppose I can bring myself to ept half-blood dragon descendants as well. But he¡¯s unable to even have sex with me. And, I¡¯m no necrophile.¡±


    Two years ago, back in Sulfur Mountain City, Elisa had been worried that Little Red was her rival in love and had sent a challenge saying that ¡°I definitely won¡¯t lose to you¡± to Little Red in a certain bar. The above was Little Red¡¯s response at the time. Little Red hadn¡¯t lied at all with her response. She was indeed somewhat interested in Rnd, but her feelings were more akin to friendship for him, not romantic ones. She mostly just wanted children of her own.


    From a certain standpoint, the foundational reason for Little Red topletely cast away her former identity as an evil dragon was the increase in her motherly nature as she grew older.


    Although she had once been an evil dragon with a fearsome reputation, not only did she dote on Annie like she would her own real daughter, Little Red often went around in human form to y with other species¡¯ young children in the parks, transforming into a ¡°kind and friendly ck-haired big sister.¡± Doubtlessly, those who knew her real identity were thrown into incredible disbelief at the news. In fact, some neer Holy Knights at the time even caused a few small conflicts because of this.


    Recently, her motherly nature had grown even more and caused her to target Samantha. She even attempted to lure Samantha into bing her second adopted daughter.


    Dragons were rtively independent creatures who had incredibly strong feelings about territory. Even after mating and giving birth to children, most adult dragons would live by themselves, mostly because the female dragons would turn on the male dragons and demand that they leave. Also, it just happened to be that in the dragon species, female dragons were stronger than the males, so the victors in securing the rights to raise the children and heartlessly exiling the other was typically the female dragons as well...


    In a female dragon¡¯s mind, a family of her own would be fine without a husband¡ªbut a child was absolutely necessary. A nest of children would be even better. However, it was no easy task for an Immemorial Red Dragon to have a child.


    In this world of Eich, the more powerful the existence, the more difficult it would be to leave a descendant. There were many mixed-blood dragon descendants mostly because the dragons were far too true to their base desires. It was also especially because the male dragons typically suffered much abuse from female dragons, so they could only vent their sexual frustrations on other species¡¯ females. This was the main reason behind the high number of mixed-blood dragon descendants.


    But for a female Immemorial Dragon to want descendants was something truly difficult.


    First, she would need to find a male individual who had a power level simr to her Immemorial Dragon Bloodline¡¯s strength. Then, she would need to have sex very often with him, due to the very low pregnancy rate she would have as a powerful individual. This meant that she would need to stay together with him for a rtively long period of time, and she at least needed to not dislike him.


    For the past Little Red, this was evidently impossible.


    She was being hunted by her own species and was a clean freak. She also loved cute little girls more than anything. By the time she became an Immemorial Dragon, she could only go look for the other, limited-in-number Immemorial Dragons, or look for a powerful individual from another species. However, she looked down upon the violent and foolish members of her own species, which was why she remained stuck, forever drooling at other peoples¡¯ daughters.


    In conclusion, Little Red was just like a ¡°leftover woman¡± who identally passed peak marriageability age without realizing it. ¡°Those interested in me are all so terrible, but the ones I¡¯m interested in aren¡¯t good enough to be with me.¡± And so, as time passed, Little Red¡¯s grudges umted, and she kept bing worse and worse in a certain area.


    Actually, Little Red had quite a good rtionship with Momo. From a certain standpoint, both of them belonged to the ¡°strange auntie¡± alliance. It was just that one was a lolicon, while the other was a shotacon. Whenever they got together to secretly exchange experiences in fooling young children, Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Town Security would often receive reports from the citizens about their actions...


    Alright then, from a certain standpoint, once Rnd revived, Little Red was delighted and astonished to discover that his very bloodline had changed. She could even faintly detect that it was above her own Immemorial Red Dragon Bloodline, which meant that a certain type of trouble was destined toe looking for Rnd.


    ¡°Rnd is currently undergoing the process of Dragon Bloodline evolution. After he sessfully incorporates the Red Dragon Bloodline into his own bloodline, it¡¯ll greatly increase the probability that I can get pregnant from him, along with further increasing the strength of any child we have. Even if our child is a mixed-blood dragon descendant, we can use the Bloodline Cleansing Ritual to help our child be a real, pure Dragon. No, I can sense that with how powerful Rnd¡¯s current bloodline is, our child might even surpass a true dragon¡¯s bloodline.¡±


    This was why Little Red, from the Red Dragon species well-known to be stingy, unhesitatingly donated a great amount of her blood to Rnd. In fact, she even donated more than was ¡°donated¡± from Molly.


    If it weren¡¯t for the fact that she donated so much blood as to almost reach the point of death, Little Red wouldn¡¯t have wanted Rnd¡¯s bloodline to be tainted by Molly¡¯s blood at all. That¡¯s right, she viewed her own mother¡¯s blood as nothing more than a source of pollution.


    Cough, I should add here that many Dragon Bloodline Warlock families married within themselves; brothers, sisters, and other close rtives would marry each other in order to preserve the special abilities of their bloodline. Anything rted to the dragons truly could be summed up with the sentence ¡°The powerful sure have messy lifestyles,¡± and a great example was certain more and more outrageous Beast Tamer.


    But when faced with Little Red¡¯s excitement, Molly hesitated for a moment before deciding to say what she wanted out loud.


    ¡°I¡¯m not talking about your potential children. I¡¯m saying that if you stay together with that man, do you truly like him? If you¡¯re only going to be with him for the sake of potential children, you¡¯ll definitely meet an unfortunate end in this rtionship.¡±


    Little Red paused in surprise for a moment. This didn¡¯t sound like something Molly would say at all.


    ¡°I have experience...¡±


    Molly¡¯s voice grew softer and softer as she recalled her past crazy and painful experiences. This red-haired woman who always appeared so strong-willed was showing off her rare weak side in front of her own daughter.


    Little Red clenched her fists. Wasn¡¯t Molly just trying to find an excuse to pass off her sins? She actually dared to malign Little Red¡¯s father who she really looked up to? Did Molly want a beating that badly?


    ¡°...I¡¯m telling the truth. There¡¯s no need for me to lie at such a time. Perhaps in your eyes, Acdandy was a great father as well as a heroic dragon leader. But to me, he¡¯s nothing more than a bastard who forcibly stole my father¡¯s Emperor position and then raped me, forcing me to have his children. I...¡±


    Seeing this rare weak side of Molly, and thinking about the information she had seen in the past, Little Red hesitated for a long while before finally putting down her fists.


    In the dragons¡¯ records, the heroic Dragon City Emperor Acdandy had defeated the previous generation¡¯s depraved, greedy despot to gain his position. But if you looked at the former Dragon generation Princess Molly¡¯s angle, Acdandy was indeed nothing more than a bastard who killed her own father and raped her.


    As most of the individuals involved were now deceased, the past could only remain in the past. If one truly wanted to analyze everything that happened, once again, that sentence ¡°The powerful sure have messy lifestyles¡± could be used here yet again.


    Little Red sunk into deep consideration for a while upon hearing her mother act motherly for once and give her such advice. But momentster, Little Red startedughing.


    ¡°You¡¯re just trying to confuse me. My situation is different from yours. There are no hatred or grudges between me and Rnd.¡±


    ¡°But there¡¯s no love between you, either. Do you really think that he will agree? Aren¡¯t you afraid that this difficult-toe-by friendship will be ruined? Perhaps, in this entire world, he¡¯s one of your very few friends, or maybe even the only true friend.¡±


    Molly worked hard to try to convince Little Red against mating with Rnd, and she was right. Back in the day of Rnd¡¯s adventuring team, there was a chaotic dodecahedron of rtionships as well. Little Red and Rnd who acted ridiculously together had the best rtionship of all. Andter in Sulfur Mountain City, rather than saying that Little Red was Rnd¡¯s jailer, she was more like a good friend who stayed together in jail with Rnd to keep himpany.


    ¡°...Him? He hasn¡¯t even evolved cells of love yet. He doesn¡¯t even know what the term ¡®love¡¯ means. It¡¯s perfect, because I don¡¯t need love either. Rx, if he doesn¡¯t agree, I¡¯ve already made backup preparations.¡±


    Little Red¡¯s expression was rather hesitant but showed that she was willing to make some sacrifices.


    ¡°Backup preparations? How could something about love possibly have backup preparations? Could it be that you...¡±


    For some reason, Molly felt that she had identally stumbled upon a fearsome plot.


    ¡°Yep, I should have listened to Momo¡¯s long ago and drugged him! I prepared some special secret drugs of the dragons, which will make him horny... and then I¡¯ll jump on him and have sex. Who cares, it¡¯s fine as long as I get pregnant. After it¡¯s over, he¡¯ll just think that he had a sexy dream, and it¡¯s best if he doesn¡¯t ever find out! Nothing will change about our rtionship!¡±


    ¡°This is date rape! This is a crime!¡±


    Molly never expected that one day she would be the one wanting to stop a crime from urring. But suddenly, the magical restraints upon her instantly tied her down and prevented her from moving or speaking.


    Molly had an expression of panic but was powerless. She could sense that Rnd had now arrived, while Little Red organized her appearance and went over to greet him. Meanwhile, there seemed to be some abnormal liquid inside a bottle in her breast pocket.


    The former Dragon Queen was filled with anxiety. Molly was confident that her daughter would be capable of doing anything for the sake of obtaining children and a family. Would the tragedies of the past repeat themselves in the present? But soon, she heard Little Red¡¯s astonished shrieks.


    ¡°Rnd, weren¡¯t you supposed to be performing a Dragon Bloodline evolution? Why has the Dragon Bloodline disappeared? Why do I sense that you¡¯re currently so weak!?¡±


    Notes:


    [1] TL/N: The author leaves a note here saying that he is in the process of scorrecting and standardizing the dragon power levels, and that he has apparently added more power levels here than in the past.

 Chapter 355

    Chapter 355: Guardian of Eternal Night


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Little Red wouldn¡¯t have recognized him if she wasn¡¯t so familiar with him.


    He was wearing a bright red suit of armor, which appeared to be constructed out of many minute scales and parts. Armlets, knee and leg guards, and so on decorated the armor, while dragonscale ting covered all critical locations. Yet there was not a single trace of an artificial connection¡ªit as if this suit of dragonscale armor was constructed naturally.


    This sort of full-body armor matched the fashion style of the dragons. A roaring scarlet head of a dragon was carved into the armor¡¯s left shoulder, while on the right shoulder was a dragon¡¯s w clutching a pearl. The helmet was adorned with a dragon¡¯s head, which possessed naught but a pair of shining eyes that gleamed through a pitch-ck abyss.


    The armor appeared to be a material simr to ice, albeit a color as bright red as blood. Faint swirls roamed through the armor while the dragon¡¯s eyes iid into the suit glowed with a brilliant shine. The dragon¡¯s emblems that covered the entire armor lit up as well, making it seem like a living, breathing creature.


    It was designed like a roaring demon dragon and even possessed its own draconic might. Simply looking at it would make people feel ufortable.


    The vainest part of this already ridiculous armor was that it was specially outfitted with an equally brilliant scarlet cape.


    [Full-body Dragonscale Ice Armor: Guardian of Eternal Night [1] 1 . System Evaluation: Legend rank, capable of growing in power.]


    [This armor is constructed out of abination of Immemorial Red Dragon blood and the eternal ice of your Frigidwinter Earth. Special runes are inscribed upon it, and Erebe acts as its vessel. This armor can only be used by you and you alone.]


    [Enchanted Titan¡¯s Thunder Metal: This armor possesses Legend-level damage reduction properties. All weapons that aren¡¯t at the level of God Equipment will have their damage reduced by 30 against this armor. System Notification: It¡¯s ridiculous how you managed toe up with the idea of embedding that Thunder Titan Giant¡¯s broken shield pieces into your armor to strengthen its defense.]


    [Living Armor: This armor is alive. She¡¯s capable of self-repair. She¡¯s even capable of using Dragon Bloodline abilities on your behalf. But if you identally anger her... do you recall that fairy tale about the pitiful girl who was unable to take off her enchanted magic shoes and danced to her death? Actually, if Erebe wants to make you suffer, she doesn¡¯t need to go to such a degree. All she needs to do is to make it so that you can¡¯t take off your armor to go to the bathroom...


    [Ein Mezus¡¯s Protection: Her Dragon¡¯s Bloodline is coursing through this armor. She¡¯s protecting the wearer of this armor, which is bad news for any attacker. Her protection will automatically absorb 100 points of damage every day before the wearer can be damaged. This ability will recover after a period of twenty-four hours.]


    [Dragon Bloodline User: I find it incredibly difficult to believe how it¡¯s even possible for an armor to have such properties, but you¡¯ve indeed seeded in making this happen. The wearer is able to use various Dragon Bloodline abilities while wearing this armor.]


    [Yongye¡¯s Authority: Due to the special nature of the material used to construct this armor, no ice damage will be able to lower this armor¡¯s temperature to below zero degrees. This means it¡¯s almost immune to all ice damage. And thanks to the Immemorial Red Dragon Bloodline contained within this armor, all fire damage taken is reduced by half, then reduced by another additional 30 points.]


    [Blood Armor¡¯s Curse: If this armor is worn by anyone other than Rnd, it will internally shoot bloodsucking needles that will kill the wearer and suck them dry of blood.]


    Yep, this armor was the product of my evolution. When it was time for me to evolve my bloodline, I had cast my gaze upon Harloys and Erebe.


    From a certain standpoint, as Erebe was my contracted Frozen Nightmare, she was half of my soul. But recently she had been unable to be of much use.


    This wasn¡¯t because Frigid Nightmares were weak. All Aurora Knights would be at the minimum Gold and forever the pride of the Nortnds. The monstrous Frigid Nightmares in the great snow mountain wouldn¡¯t be any weaker than Immemorial Dragons. But she was limited in power level due to her soul contract with me, and there was the fact that my battles were far too dangerous, indeed making it hard for her to do anything.


    A Gold Frigid Pegasus or Frigid Dragon could only be nothing more than a transportation tool on a battlefield where SemiGods and Myth ranks were abound. If I rode her while charging at my enemies, it was highly likely I¡¯d die in midair. Not to mention, I myself possessed the power of flight along with other flying transportation tools, so I had minimal need for a flying mount.


    Most of the time, Erebe¡¯s greatest assistance to me was in helping me to control my ice magic and acting as my assistant magical core rather than enteringbat herself.


    Erebe understood this situation. This was why she almost neverined despite the fact that she hardly ever got to battle. Frigid Nightmares had the ability to be ice swords or ice armor for their masters, but I hardly ever used those abilities of Erebe¡¯s, either, due to the fact that I had Harloys¡¯ Ice Cmity magic sword and my Absolute Zero Ice Armor.


    And as she was half of my soul, my chance at evolution was doubtlessly a chance for her as well. But even if she was strengthened, she would be limited to only Gold until I reached the rank of Legends myself. At most, her potential would improve, and she would gain a few Dragon Bloodline abilities... which would actually be quite useless.


    But then I looked at Harloys and thought about how her Ice Cmity magic sword gave me a huge increase to mybat strength. This gave me an idea.


    ¡°Indeed, one of the basic fundamental naturalws of the mortal ne is that contracted magical pets, mounts, and other such creatures are unable to surpass their master in power level. However, weapons and equipment are counted separately and have no such restriction. Erebe is originally the transformation of an Ice Dragon, so if she obtains a true Dragon Bloodline, she could just control it all by herself. And it should definitely be possible for her to transform herself into equipment, no matter if we look at Erebe¡¯s original power to transform into an ice weapon or Harloys¡¯ spections.¡±


    Of course, many things would be possible in theory but ridiculously difficult to pull off in reality. Something like changing the internal structure of a living creature was already at the Creator Goddess¡¯s level. It definitely would be impossible for me to manipte things to such a degree. My current level was limited to crafting with non-living objects such as my ¡°Coldest Ice.¡± Or, at most I could imitate the processes of living creatures in creating non-living contraptions with artificial life.


    ¡°...Although I can¡¯t do it, my System can!¡±


    That¡¯s right. Wasn¡¯t my System capable of modifying my physical body with just some dragon¡¯s blood and Fate Points, giving me this body with endless potential? In that case, modifying and giving Erebe a physical body should be possible as well.


    Alright then, you readers should have figured out the rest by now. Of course the System was capable of doing so. But, the end result was that I had to pay her 150,000 inbined Fate and Justice Points. And I had to owe a significant debt that left my wallet empty.


    Rnd Mist: 34 (+10) Strength, 24 Dexterity, 25 Constitution, 32 Intelligence, 22 Will, 20 Charisma. Racial talents: War Angel Form, Original Sin Demon Form, Titan¡¯s Bones, Stare of the Hell God. Basic job sses: Level 60 Order Knight, Level 60 Chaos Lich King, Level 10 Four Elemental Swordcaster. Advanced job sses: Level 6 Lord of Frigidwinter. Overall level: Cannot be calcted. Magic pet: Harloys. Mount/Armor: Erebe.]


    Just as I had expected, my base stats were only improved by a minor amount. Strength had increased by 2 points, Dexterity by 2 points, Constitution by 3 points, Intelligence by 2 points, Will by 2 points, and Charisma by 1 point. While this may not look like much, my stats had already been at quite the high level, and it get even more difficult for every additional point of growth. Obtaining so many base stats at once was quite an excellent harvest.


    My only stat that had broken through to the next tier was the most useless one of all, Charisma, which, in fact, quite worried me. I really hoped I wouldn¡¯t awaken to some sort of strange power. But considering my System¡¯s typical behavior, there was no way she would let me get off free. I could only do my best not to think about this topic.


    As for my racial talents, I originally had eight very powerful racial talents, but now there were only four, which seemed much weaker overall. But, in actuality, I had greatly increased my strength.


    Originally, my Angel and Demon forms were both ¡°transformations¡± with time limits so that my technically infant body wouldn¡¯t be overburdened. But now, I could transform into either form with just a single thought, and my transformation time had greatly increased. This was a gigantic boost to my fighting potential.


    Since I was worried about my Original Sin Demon Form being a demon, I only used the War Angel Form while I was in humannds. But now, I had full-body armor, so as long as I wore a mask, I would be able to use either form as I pleased.


    I had discarded my Feet of Ethereal Shadow and Sword of Order abilities, so no more mention of them shall be necessary. However, my useful three abilities¡ªTitan¡¯s Body, Divine Child, and Chaos Barrier¡ªhad all disappeared as well. They had beenbined into a new ability which had the ordinary sounding name of Titan¡¯s Bones.


    My two major defensive racial talents were amazingly useful to me in the past.


    [Titan¡¯s Body, Diamond Racial Talent: Your physical body possesses the original power of Titan Giants, and your skin bes more like a Titan Giant¡¯s every day. All damage and negative effects reduced by 30. All damage reduced by an additional 5.]


    [Chaos Barrier, Gold Racial Talent: Protect your mind and soul from the effects of the suppression of Divine Kingdoms and Soul Worlds. Reduce the effectiveness of all Will-affecting and hallucinatory spells and abilities.]


    And now it appeared that my new racial talent was abination of these two.


    [Titan¡¯s Bones: You possess the blood, bones, and skin of original Titan Giants. Your bones and skin are bing more and more like pure Titan Giants every day. All damage and negative effects against you are now reduced by 50. You are immune to all mind control and other psychological magic at the SemiGod level and below. As a battle continues, as long as you¡¯re standing on the ground, your Constitution and Strength will increase, your health will steadily regenerate, and your injuries will heal.]


    Actually, when I first saw this new natural talent of mine, I really wanted make ament¡ªjust where did my System grab the Titan Giant bones for my body? But then, I thought about how that Thunder Titan Giant¡¯s broken teeth had gone missing after the battle, and instantly decided that for some things, it was better not to ask. If my System really did tell me that the source of my upgraded power was from that Titan Giant¡¯s broken teeth, I would be unable to eat for several days.


    As for my missing Divine Child racial talent, I asked my System about it. Her answer was that, after my physical body evolved to this extent, I could now easily handle a God¡¯s Descent even without this racial talent to assist me.


    [System Evaluation: As you wished, you¡¯re on the path to evolve into a perfect tank. Since you¡¯ve given your Dragon Bloodline evolution over to Erebe, this means your body still has the potential to evolve. Of course, I bet that the biggest reason you¡¯re so happy right now isn¡¯t because of this...]


    That¡¯s right, I wasn¡¯t that concerned about my increase in power. What I was happiest about was the fact that I had finally grown... by about three years in age.


    My originally infant-stage Arbiter Bloodline made my physical appearance seem less than ten years old, no matter how you looked at me. But now, I seemed to be in my youth¡ªI resembled an eleven or twelve year old boy. Although I still required my ring to adjust my physical characteristics, I at least looked like a brat who was capable of a few things rather than some snotty kid who was weak and powerless.


    And so, I proudly undid my armor in front of Little Red who came over to greet me, revealed my true body, and did someparing. Although I was still a bit shorter than she was, at least it wasn¡¯t by as much as before. Yep, I was now only half a meter shorter than her.


    ¡°Rnd, weren¡¯t you supposed to be performing a Dragon Bloodline evolution? Why has the Dragon Bloodline disappeared? Why do I sense that you¡¯re currently so weak!¡±


    She sensed that I was weak? From a certain standpoint, that was indeed the case. Erebe didn¡¯t originally have a physical body, and the System wasn¡¯t capable of creating something from nothing. The energy used to give Erebe the power of a Bloodline Evolution was taken right from me, and all the essence I lost would take time for me to recover. Although my base statistics technically went up, I would likely have to recuperate for quite a while.


    ¡°Dragon Bloodline? I gave it to Erebe, and it¡¯s now be this armor. Heh heh, you have no idea how much use your blood was to me this time. It must have been quite difficult for you to go without alcohol for all these days. Let¡¯s go, drinks are on me. Oh, right, my body¡¯s not mature yet and still needs a few decades, so I can¡¯t drink... forget it, I don¡¯t care! Let¡¯s go drinking!¡±


    I was indescribably delighted. And typically, Little Red should have been delighted, too, to hear an invitation to go drinking. She should have been dragging me behind her, running all the way to the bar.


    But, for some strange reason, this time, the more I talked, the moreplex Little Red¡¯s expression got. Any Red Dragon whose face kept getting redder and redder meant that she was getting either excited or furious. While I was busy being confused at what was wrong with her, a suddenrge fist appeared before me.


    ¡°You number one idiot in the universe! Let me see what color your brain is!¡±


    Although she unexpectedly ambushed me, how could this possibly pose a challenge for me who had just finished evolving? The current me waspletely... defeatable! Whoa there, I almost set a death g for myself!


    *Boom!*


    My reactions weren¡¯t slow at all. My mystical armor instantly formed on my arm and sessfully blocked her heavy blow. I only had to back up half a step after blocking Little Red¡¯s Strength which was at minimum 35 points¡ªthe best exnation of the improvement in my defenses. The current me was probablyparable to a weaker, younger Titan Giant.


    ¡°Ha, you wanted to test my current strength? You¡¯re always so raring to go! Come, let¡¯s have a good fight! I¡¯ll make sure to satisfy you!¡±


    Although Little Red was currently in her human form, I was still quite pleased with myself for sessfully being able to block an Immemorial Dragon¡¯s brute force attack. I was intending on summoning des of ice and using practicalbat to test out my current level, but...


    ¡°The hell, Little Red, why are you changing into your Dragon Form? Why are you gathering fire in your mouth? Dragonbreath? You¡¯re actually being serious! I only wanted to have a practice fight with your human form!¡±


    ¡°You massive idiot! My... my ns have all gone up in smoke! It was so difficult for me toe to a decision! I already decided to go all out, yet you dared to embarrass me and made me say such embarrassing things... ! You¡ªyou¡ªare you even a man!? If you¡¯re a man, then let me bite you and breath fire on you!¡±


    ¡°What? I¡¯ll die for sure if you bite me.¡±


    I felt indignant and shocked at Little Red¡¯s mysterious anger. Yet, this seemed to only enrage her even further.


    Well, if only Little Red had recalled that Rnd currently possessed an extremely young body, and that powerful bloodlines like the Dragon Bloodline would only have the power of reproduction after reaching adult age, perhaps she would have realized that her n was destined for failure right from the very beginning.


    Maybe if she had tried to learn from a certain ¡°Mad Dog¡± from Town Security, and had been more patient by using a Hikaru Genji n, she might have received a harvest in the end. But, right now, Little Red was on a rampage in a sh of embarrassment and anger. She recalled the words she had just said in front of Molly and wentpletely and unstoppably berserk.


    ¡°A triplebination dragonbreath attack? Dragon-only brass knuckles? You really are being serious. Fine then, let me show you my pride, War Angel... Ahh, you¡¯re cheating! How could you attack me in the middle of my transformation? At least let me finish my transformation ... I really hate this feeling...¡±


    Rnd was still in the middle of his pose, about to take flight, when a certain furious dragon knocked him into the air, transforming him into a flying meteor. Once Little Red discovered that Rnd was sturdy enough to withstand her beating, she began to activate a female specialty: venting on others.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    More dragonbreath transformed the meteor Rnd into fireworks. But judging from how he energetically shouted ¡°...I¡¯ll be back!¡±, his armor was truly outstanding in defense. Finally, Little Red, who was breathing hard from the exertion, nced around her.


    The remnants of her dragonbreath had scorched thend, while the steps from her gigantic body had caused the nearby buildings to copse. Currently, there was arge group of people far looking on in fear at this angry Red Dragon. It would seem that with this rampage, Little Red would be unable to wash away her reputation as an evil dragon.


    Meanwhile, in the corner of her eye, she noticed someone else she could vent her anger on: Molly, who was currently restrained all over and attempting to crawl away like a caterpir. And that was when Little Red let out a crazedugh.


    Alright then. The rest was just a repeat of recent days: eating, sleeping, and beating up Molly.


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Remember, Yongye is Eternal Night

 Chapter 356

    Chapter 356: Scammer


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    It took a week after the battle till my body could finish its mega-perverted evolution.


    Why did I call it a mega-perverted evolution? Why was it that I felt it was so mega-perverted? The only thing more perverted than me previously riding a young girl while wielding another young girl as my weapon was how I was now wearing a young girl and wielding a young girl as my weapon... Oh wait, I¡¯m nowcking a mount, so should I go look for another young girl...?


    ¡°Mister Policeman, that¡¯s the person you¡¯re looking for!¡±


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI should stop talking about such a ridiculous topic.


    The battle in which even the True Gods took ce was now over. However, all the True Gods leaving made the situation more chaotic. Many changes became obvious as time passed.


    It was obviously a good thing for the living to have won a battle in this ¡°Holy War¡±...


    That¡¯s right, Holy War. After receiving permission from Pope Caloma, the Bardi Empire¡¯s Holy Light Head Priest, who was currently stationed in the Mage Country, unhesitatingly dered this victory to be the result of the Holy Church¡¯s workings. ording to their incredibly unbelievable battle report, the campaigning Holy Light army vanguard crossed through the majority of the Bardi Empire to suddenly appear in the far west and attack the undead¡¯s capital city.


    Alright then. I knew that there were many points to potentiallyment about here. For instance, how the Bardi Empire still had a Head Priest of Holy Light. Or why the Bardi head priest of Holy Light was stationed in the Mage Country. Or why the recently quiet ¡°Holy Light army vanguard¡± suddenly started ying at dimensional teleportation and suddenly obtained a victory in a ce they shouldn¡¯t have been.


    Actually, all of this was quite easy to exin. After the Holy Church was exiled from the Bardi Empire, the local priests chose to move their administration to a nearby location. And the most appropriate location was obviously the Mage Country as travel restrictions were quitex there. Not to mention, the Mage Country was currently at war with the Bardi Empire, so even if the enemy of your enemy wasn¡¯t your friend, there would at least be the potential for friendship.


    No matter how much the Bardi Empire tried to suppress it, the Holy Light was still the prevailing human religion. Even an ordinary farmer would utter ¡°Thank the Holy Light¡± when receiving an abundant harvest, although I have no idea what they were thanking the Holy Light for. Of course, if that ordinary farmer was luckless and had a terrible harvest, he would also curse ¡°That damned Holy Light,¡± or ¡°This ursed Holy Light,¡± or even me the Holy Light for a day of awful weather, although, once again, the Holy Light didn¡¯t do anything wrong at all...


    Suddenly, I felt like the Holy Light was quite pitiful. How it got med for everything caused me to recall governments from my past world. No matter what country and race, ever since the concept of countries were born, countries and their governments became one of the mostined about systems out there, no matter if they did anything or not, or if they did too much or too little. For any ordinary citizen, cursing the government at least twice a day seemed only natural.


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªlet¡¯s get back to the main topic. This was actually a good thing for the Holy Church. Shallow believers were still believers capable of providing their power of faith. The fact that ¡°praise¡± for the Holy Light existed everywhere was the best example of how deep its foundation was. If this had been a more normal country that worshipped the Holy Light as its national religion, the domain lords would probably have to worry aboutrge numbers of Holy Light believers running rampant in their domains when the Pope dered a Holy War against the country¡¯s leader. Not only that, the leader would have to worry about assassination attempts from his own nobles¡ªfervent Holy Light believers.


    Orloss was someone truly incredible. He had been working hard to eliminate the Holy Light¡¯s influence from the Bardi Empire ever since taking power. However, he had been in power for less than fifty years, which wasn¡¯t enough time to change out an entire generation of people. He himself wouldn¡¯t believe it if it was said that he had eliminated the Holy Light from hisnd.


    And so, this Bardi Empire ¡°exiled church¡± caused quite a few problems for the Bardi government.


    The mages originally epted the Bardi Empire Holy Light priests into their country even though they had no interest in the Holy Light mostly because they wanted to give Emperor Orloss a difficult time. But after letting the priests in, the Mage Country entierly ignored them.


    Cardinal Stephen should have been one of the highest authorities in the Holy Church as he was the head priest of the Holy Light in a mega-empire. But, unfortunately for him, he was now in exile in the Mage Country, which had ignored his requests for military assistance no matter how many dozens of times he asked. And a piece of news had recently started to spread, one that heralded the end of his political career. If this continued, he would be the cardinal with the shortest term in all of history.


    This piece of news was that the Holy Light army had lost. The Holy Church had lost their first major battle since starting this Holy War!


    That¡¯s right¡ªthey lost. As we kept fighting on the west, the Holy Light army, which had dered Emperor Orloss to be a heretic, suffered heavy losses on the eastern front under themand of General Gordon, ranked #7 on Eich¡¯s Famous Warriors Rankings.


    The reason? Actually, Gordon was quite the amazingmander for having been able to preserve more than forty percent of his forces and making a sessful retreat. That was because he had met with one Great Immemorial ck Dragon and three Immemorial Dragons that had led over seventy other lower-ranking Dragons to ambush them. Apart from this meaning that the Dragons didn¡¯t actually intend to kill them all, it was also evidence of Gordon¡¯s incredible leadership.


    For any outsiders, it would be difficult to understand why the dragons took action. But for me, since I knew what was going on inside, it was quite easy to guess the reason.


    Obviously, the dragons, which were anxious about the Titan Giants potentially waking up in their Dragon World, must have made some sort of exchange with Orloss. So they used their special talents at venting their anger and being unreasonable to viciously p the Holy Church in the face.


    Actually, the Holy Church was somewhat deserving of this. The Holy Light army¡¯s final goal was to conquer the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital, which was also where the Dragon World was hidden. So if the Holy Light army had conquered the capital city... fine then, I suppose it could be said that the Holy Church brought this upon themselves. Still, it was obvious that there was no possibility of them knowing about this secret information.


    I felt that nothing that happened was a coincidence. Although the Holy Church took action surprisingly swiftly in dering war and making Orloss into a heretic, Orloss¡¯ actions in response had been rather iprehensible to others. He didn¡¯t put any military efforts into defending against the Holy Light army¡¯s invasion whatsoever. Instead, he concentrated the Bardi Empire¡¯s military solely on defending Nightrain City, the main western battlefront against the undead. He was under huge pressure from his own nobles for his strategy of allowing the Holy Light army to freely attack the capital. But now, looking at the results, our ¡°venerated¡± Holy Light and ¡°wise¡± Pope were fooled by this heretic Emperor who was a mere mortal. Orloss was willing to allow an enemy army to trample over his ownnd all in order to force the dragons to take action on his behalf.


    Originally, the Holy Church could have been able to ept such a degree of loss as everyone understood that there would always be some losses in any war. They could just try again... but it just so happened to be that at the exact same time, there was a major victory on the western front. Not only that, the victory was from the Ayer Faction, which was faintly showing itself to emerge as the Holy Light Faction¡¯s strongestpetitor on the side of Order. This naturally gave the Holy Church a tremendous amount of pressure.


    Even worse was the directparison. There were ¡°Holy Points¡± and ¡°Holy Warriors¡± working for the Holy Church, while our side had ¡°Contract Heroes¡± who worked for ¡°Justice Points.¡± Both sides met with immensely powerful, nearly undefeatable opponents. On our side, True Gods personally arrived to assist us, so our Contract Heroes profited an immense number of Justice Points, while on the Holy Light side, they lost an incredible number of people without seeing a single powerful existence step up to protect them...


    This wasn¡¯t really the fault of the Holy Light Faction¡¯s True Gods. That was just how they always were, for the past millennia. A True God casually descending to intervene in mortal affairs was a major taboo that would break some of the most basic rules. The Ayer Faction was only able to intervene and take direct action after finding out that there were Titan Giant incarnations as the opponent. However, mortals wouldn¡¯t think so much into things. They would only think that the Holy Light viewed humans as disposable tools, while the Ayer Faction showed a more caring attitude about our supporters. All the adventurers who reaped great rewards and were now showing off to others were our best living advertisements.


    ¡°In just this week, 10% of our Holy Warriors have resigned. This cannot be allowed to continue. All our local believers, especially the most fervent believers still hiding within the Bardi Empire, will have their faith shaken! And if this news spreads everywhere¡ªabout how we lost our first battle¡ªbelievers all over will lose faith. The first battle has to be a victory! Even if it¡¯s just a fake victory.¡±


    And so, Cardinal Stephen contacted the main branch of the Holy Church through emergency channels after noticing that this would mean the end for himself if things continued. He grit his teeth and came to a decision and spread abat report about how ¡°The Holy Light protected our brave warriors as we obtained a tremendous victory¡± throughout the entirety of Eich.


    The words used in thisbat report were quite general and vague, such as describing how fervent Holy Light believers dealt great losses to the undead army on the western front and how they exiled two powerful Titan Giant incarnations. Technically, they weren¡¯t exactly lying, as plenty of Contract Hero adventurers working for us were Holy Light believers as well, including plenty of Holy Knights and Holy Light priests. It was just that theirbat report made no mention of the main characters of this battle, the Ayer Faction and the Contract Heroes.


    No powerful faction was an idiot in this world. Every country had their own information sources. But when Pope Caloma kept insisting that thisbat report was the truth, many countries that believed in the Holy Light fell silent.


    Cardinal Stephen knew full well that he was destined to be infamous in history as a Cardinal who lied through his teeth. He also mentally prepared himself to take the fall. He knew that even though the Pope privately agreed to this idea of his, there would be no public admittance of the Church being at fault. In the end, he would be the scapegoat.


    Everyone who knew the truth was deriding the Holy Church. Most powerful individuals looked down upon such an action. But, in this generation, ordinary people were quite slow in being able to obtain information. Commoners had pitifully few sources of information. Government channels typically used letters, which were slow and low in efficiency. So, if some local church¡¯s head priest who was well respected by his believers dered that this battle was won by the Holy Light, mostmoners would believe the local priest, viewing him as more trustworthy than the unscrupulous adventurers.


    Those who weren¡¯t in the know believed that the Holy Church truly obtained a tremendous victory in the first major battle of the Holy War and that any losses suffered on the eastern front were insignificant. But for those in the know, especially the royalty of every country, this became evidence that the Holy Church was only putting up a brave front when they were actually weak. Many with ambitions now began scheming against the Holy Church.


    The war between royal and divine authority was eternally unending. The Holy War was both a challenge and an opportunity. ording to my own information channels, some major countries were already forcing their subordinate countries to begin exiling the Holy Church, which was both a challenge to the Holy Church¡¯s authority as well as a test to see the Holy Church¡¯s reaction and how far they could be pushed.


    And so, this rtively small-scale battle on the western front became the best opening act of the new Holy War. News about this battle spread around the entire world, bing both the Holy Church¡¯s propaganda as well as a sharp sword hanging over their heads that might fall at any moment.


    After I finished my evolution, I could barely believe that so much had happened in just a week.


    But what was waiting for me was a mountainous pile of issues that required my attention.

 Chapter 357

    Chapter 357: Secret Currents


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The Holy Church has been forced to such point?¡±


    When I learned of the Holy Church¡¯s shameless act of stealing the credit for that battle, I wasn¡¯t angry at all. On the contrary, I was quite delighted.


    Sometimes, being in the lead was synonymous with victory. As long as whoever was in the lead¡ªfor example, the Holy Church, which had a monopoly on over eighty percent of religion in Eich¡ªdidn¡¯t take extreme risks or make significant mistakes, it would be almost impossible for others to catch up to them.


    It would be quite difficult for outside forces to significantly pressure a behemoth like the Holy Church. As long as they didn¡¯t have major internal strife and break intorge, conflicting factions, they could probably remain in power for the next several centuries based on their foundation alone.


    But this time the Holy Church made a mistake¡ªa huge one.


    I could understand why they made such a decision. It didn¡¯t seem wrong to them amid the current situation. In fact, it appeared to be a superb decision in their eyes since the Holy Church had a matchlessly solid foundation.


    Everyone understood that public opinion could distort the truth. The Holy Church had a massive advantage in this regard, so of course they felt they could twist the truth however they wanted. One could deduct from this that the Holy Church believed their status to be impregnable; it seemed they had been enjoying their sess for far too long. And they were presumably looking down on the Ayer Faction.


    What the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups most likely wanted was to use thisbat report to stabilize the situation for a while. After some time had passed and the Holy War had entered its main phase, most countries would forget about this matter. Maybe some of them would want to falsify theirbat reports of their own if things weren¡¯t going their way.


    Even if this issue became an incident in the future, thisbat report had been vaguely written¡ªit just said stuff like ¡°The Holy Light guided us to victory.¡± Since most people, including the Contract Heroes, believed in the Holy Light to begin with, it was impossible im that this statement a falsehood. They could simply maintain their position that the author had made some mistakes whilst writing.


    And in the absolute hypothetical worst-case scenario, even if the Holy Church was put in a bad situation by people chasing the problem to the root cause, the Holy Church could just use the excuse: ¡°Cardinal Stephen was worried about how the badbat situation would affect his own future so he lied and fabricated military sesses to the Holy Church. He has now been emunicated, and he died of self-inflicted suicide in a mountain.¡± This type of exnation would be more than enough as he would be dead as well as a scapegoat.


    In actuality, this type of urrence was quitemon for the Holy Church. As long as someone took the fall in the end, it would be akin to cutting off a branch to save the whole tree. Nothing could be done to the Holy Church itself.


    What the Holy Church wanted the most right now was to eliminate any potential negative influences of people hearing that they lost the first major battle of the Holy War. They also wanted to increase thebat morale of the Holy Light Faction. Of course, it would be even better if they could lessen the presence of the Ayer Faction in the process.


    But there was one issue that even Pope Caloma himself likely overlooked. And this issue was their biggest mistake of all.


    Pope Caloma underestimated the Contract Heroes. He evenpletely ignored them!


    In this incident, the biggest victim wasn¡¯t me nor was it Oak Town¡¯s Wood Spirits¡ªit wasn¡¯t even the Ayer Faction. None of us needed to prove our power to the world right here and now, and there were plenty of chances in the future for us. It could be said that the glory and honor from this particr battle wasn¡¯t that important.


    Yet for the Contract Heroes, the adventurers who risked their lives all for the sake of fame and glory, this mythical battle was more than enough to change their lives. They still had those shiny military achievement emblems pinned to their chests, yet the glory they had just obtained was robbed by someone else. And if they bragged about their aplishments to others, it was likely that they would be treated as liars.


    For these young adventurers who typically viewed ¡°honor¡± as more important than their lives, this was utterly uneptable. They would forever remember the hypocrisy and fake side of the viinous Holy Church. In fact, all the Holy Light job ss members were on the receiving end of copious amounts of enmity from other adventurers in the past few days. Some young Holy Light priests even changed the God whom they worshipped.


    The Pope and the Cardinals had long since gotten used to being on top, causing them to forget that the scariest part about humans was how fast humans could grow.


    Perhaps right now these Contract Heroes were mostly only novice adventurers. But the Justice Points system would speedily help them grow. Once this first batch of Contract Heroes became the skilled veterans of this system, they would show off their newfound power throughout thend. They were hidden, living, and ticking time bombs for the Holy Church, which would go off and truly take effect sometime in the future.


    Actually, not long after, the newly veteran Contract Heroes wrote a guidebook for novices joining the system. The third rule written in this guidebook stated ¡°Perhaps you can trust Holy Light individuals that truly believe in the Holy Light, but the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups are nothing more than a group of old bastards. Never leave your back unguarded against them. Otherwise, they¡¯ll steal the glory that should belong to you and then burn you alive as a heretic. Don¡¯t believe us? Just look up Oak Town¡¯s history.¡±


    And once hatred for the Holy Church set in from the very foundation, no matter what the Holy Church did, it would be quite difficult to recover from it.


    Of course, for the Holy Church, their ¡°Holy Warriors¡± system was sufficient. How could they possibly guess the full extent of the influence our ¡°Contract Heroes¡± system would have on the world in the future? And that our young adventurers would be real heroes in the end?


    Of course, even though I was quite pleased with how the Holy Church shot itself in the foot this time, there were still actions needed to be taken.


    Even if our Ayer Faction was weaker than the Holy Light Faction, we would seem far too weak for us to take an attack like this without taking our revenge. In this world, weakness itself was a sin. Should they detect any weakness, the wolves forever circling around you would jump in for the kill.


    ¡°What¡¯s Ayer intending to do? Or what has he done already?¡±


    It was only natural for the big boss to make the call at such a time. From what I knew of him, Ayer was no individual who would take something like this lying down.


    ¡°...Over the past few days, two stars have fallen. Although the Holy Church hasn¡¯t made any public announcements, the God of Precepts and the God of Punishment¡¯s tiny churches are no longer able to get into contact with their True Gods. Their few priests have lost all their divine powers. Although these two Gods were weak ones with very little sense of presence, as they were both only ordinary mortals that ascended to be Half Gods, they were still Follower Gods under the God of Ascetism, Tremat. You should understand why these two Gods quietly died off.¡±


    In ancient fairy tales, a star falling would represent a God¡¯s death. In this world, while not all falling stars represented a God¡¯s death, a God¡¯s death would indeed create a falling star... Well, it was more that a God¡¯s death would cause their Divine Kingdom and Throne to burn up in the sky, so every lifeform would instinctively understand that a God had perished upon seeing such a sight. It was the same for any mortal existence that ascended to Godhood¡ªthe entire world would learn about it.


    I had never heard of either of these two unknown Gods before. Only by looking up their information did I find out that the God of Precepts and the God of Punishment were both former SemiGods from the Holy Church. They had sessfully be God Envoys and then swore loyalty to the Holy Light True Gods in order to obtain Divine Concepts and be Follower Gods. These two Gods¡¯ churches were both located solely within the Holy Church¡¯s headquarters. The God of Precepts provided heretic seekers with some Divine Arts that could search out heretics, while the God of Punishments was a master of torture. Both Gods were very weak, nothing more than Tremat¡¯s, the God of Ascetism¡¯s, loyal followers, while Tremat in turn was a loyal follower of the God of Holy Light.


    ¡°...I heard, well, at least on the surface, that this incident was caused by the powerful God of Ascetism. His teachings are very close to masochism as he believes that everyone should live in austerity and poorness, which will erase all conflict from this world. He believes that people should wear light clothing in winter to strengthen their bodies, have only rice and water in the summer, and constantly improve themselves through ascetism. Although Tremat is quite venerated by people in the monk job ss, his teachings make him the mortal enemy of Beyana, whose teachings are about people seeking wealth in order to improve their lives. Of course, this exnation about Tremat was provided by the Holy Church¡¯s bastards themselves, and I feel that the Holy Church bastards are all responsible for this incident as well. Well, I suppose that they¡¯re just upgrading the level of the scapegoat to me.¡±


    Solo, the God of Music and Dance, was quite casual about things as he told me this through one of his follower bards. He was currently chatting with me using this bard.


    Ever since the previous fight, he had kept in contact with me... Although I would have preferred to stay away from all gentlemanly Gods, it was indeed necessary for me to obtain information about what was happening with the Gods. It also wouldn¡¯t do to contact Ayer about every little thing.


    The other Gods I knew were even more unreliable, and it wasn¡¯t like I knew many True Gods to begin with. Mary, being a Dwarf Goddess along with her Divine Concept of Alcohol Barrels, was typically in a drunken state most of the time. And as for Beyana... I wasn¡¯t foolish enough to give myself over on a silver tter to her. I heard that recently, any time she heard my name, she¡ªa Goddess, mind you¡ªwould go into a berserk state.


    ¡°Ayer killed them?¡±


    ¡°Yep, he directly invaded Tremat¡¯s Divine Kingdom, heavily injured Tremat and killed off these two Follower Gods from the Follower Gods that tried to stop him. He also stole their Divine Souls and Divine Concepts.¡±


    ¡°There was no reaction from the other Main Gods? Or any response at all from Order¡¯s Origin? After all, doesn¡¯t this count as internal strife right at the beginning of the Holy War? Isn¡¯t Ayer breaking the rules?¡±


    ¡°He didn¡¯t, because the Holy Light faction broke the rules first, so the other Main Gods are quite displeased at their actions. But since the Holy Light Faction lost two Follower Gods, and Tremat was seriously injured, this incident came to an end. Neither side will bring up this issue again.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, this was a type ofpromise, mediated by the other Main Gods and the Origin of Order. On the surface, it would appear that the Ayer Faction even lost out in thispromise. After all, the Ayer Faction had lost the opportunity to gain fame and reputation from this first major battle. Although two Gods had died in the Holy Light Faction, they were two weak Follower Gods that very few people even knew existed. In the eyes of the most powerful existences, the loss of these two Gods was ignorable.


    But only I knew that we had profited enormously this time!


    ¡°We obtained the two Divine Concepts of Precepts and Punishment? Ayer truly went all out this time.¡±


    Neither of these two Divine Concepts counted for much in the current world of Eich. Precepts were followed only by a minute number of ascetic monks and the most pious of believers. Punishment was also a weak Concept that was barely worth mentioning. Neither of these two Divine Concepts appeared to have any potential.


    While these two Concepts weren¡¯t valued in this world, all the Gods¡¯ churches recognized asmon sense that ¡°Ascetism can help absolve you of your sins so that your purified soul may be led into a Divine Kingdom by a God.¡± Thus, the Divine Concept of Ascetism was very powerful in this world, where Divine Concepts had actual power. The God of Ascetism was actually far stronger than the Goddess of Wealth.


    Since ascetics and monks were able to obtain greatbat strength through practicing ascetism, thus arose a churchposed of powerful elite warriors skilled inbat. This helped make this ¡°God of Masochism¡± into one of the most powerful Gods under the God of Holy Light. As a result, the two Divine Concepts of Precepts and Punishment became Concepts underneath this Concept of Ascetism, making them rather unknown.


    It was precisely because Tremat felt that these two Divine Concepts had almost zero potential that he gave them over to his Follower Gods.


    ¡°So Ayer¡¯s goal all along was to steal these two Divine Concepts?¡±


    But, only I, Ayer, and very few others were aware that Precepts and Punishment were the two most critical Divine Concepts to our n to ¡°Reconstruct Hell.¡± [1] 1 In our astoundingly thick notes containing our ns, these two Follower Gods¡¯ names were on the top of our list of existences we needed to kill as soon as possible.


    If Precepts and Punishment remained as follower Concepts underneath Ascetism based in religion, they could only remain as second-rate Concepts among second-rate Concepts. But if they instead became follower Concepts under Law, making Punishment into the ¡°what happened if you broke thew¡± Punishment, and Precepts into a subordinate Concept of Law, I would even be able to create new Concepts such as ¡°Judicial Self-Discipline¡± and ¡°Moral Self-Discipline.¡± These were key nutrients the Law Throne would need in order to further advance, as well as Follower Gods critical to establishing my imagined version of Hell.


    Of course, the aftereffects of this incident were still ongoing. Perhaps the Gods up above had alreadye to an ord, but we mortals still needed to make an issue of this to the Holy Church, which also consisted of mortals. This would depend on our timing and opportunity.


    As for these two Divine Concepts that were pre-destined to ¡°suddenly vanish,¡± I merely nodded without exining anything to Solo even though he, too, might be in the know. Some things were simply far too important. Even if Solo was a True God allied with our faction, I didn¡¯t want a single extra person to know about my ns.


    ¡°It would seem that I need to speed up my ns... Of course, I should take care of what¡¯s before me first. Great Stone Sculptor Ainslo, what else do you have to say for yourself?¡±


    Currently standing before me, anxious, was the incredibly ugly Ainslo¡ªthe Mother of Ten Thousand Stones!


    When the earlier battle sunk into a stalemate, I unhesitatingly summoned reinforcements. Since the Great Stone Sculptor Ainslo had already moved into the Forest of Dreams, it meant in a way that she had joined my side as well. So, of course I wouldn¡¯t forget to have a top-levelbat strength individual like her join my battle.


    But the result was that from the Seven Saints¡ªwhich consisted of the six Saint-ranked existences from the Earth Elemental ne and... Beifeng¡ªonly the youngest among them, the dracon, answered my summons and joined me in battle... but he did indeed achieve something miraculous. Was it really true that the youngest sibling would always be the strongest and most difficult to deal with?


    Cough, getting back to the main point, there naturally wouldn¡¯t be anything left to say if we had lost that battle. But since we won, it was only natural that it was time to deal with these Earth Elemental Lords who wouldn¡¯t listen tomands to go into battle when it was required of them. Otherwise, if everyone acted like them, chaos would permeate our army. Leadership would be impossible.


    ¡°Milord, I¡¯m truly not to me! You should know that we¡¯re all Earth Elemental Lords. But the Titan Giants are children of the earth. None of us can even move in front of them!¡±


    A trail of tears dropped down from each of her two eyes, creating diamonds with every teardrop. She must really have such high carbon content within her body... I suddenly recalled the fairy tale about how the Little Mermaid was able to cry pearls with her tears. The mainponent of pearls was calcium carbonate. If the Little Mermaid was able to cry pearls, was it because there was far too much lime within her tear ducts? Or was she some strange creature that ate rocks for food?


    From what I knew, the only aquatic animal which ate rocks were crocodiles. Although they ate rocks in order to help them digest food, crocodiles were amphibious as well. Could it be that the Little Mermaid¡¯s true identity was that of a crocodile who had cultivated into another form?


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªit would seem that I had identally let my imagination run wild in ruining childhood fairy tales. I¡¯ll be getting back to the main topic for real this time. As for the old fossil Little Mermaid¡ªer, Stone Mother¡ªI¡¯ll think about researching herponents another time.


    I swept up all the diamonds she cried in order to see if I could sell them for some moneyter... this wasn¡¯t because I was stingy, it was because I had recently been robbed clean of all my money. If I find the bastard who stole my wallet, I¡¯ll definitely... What? You¡¯re saying I¡¯m going off topic yet again? Fine then, I¡¯ll discuss my recent troubles with moneyter and will definitely do my best to stay on topic.


    Ainslo cried continuously, but I treated it as nothing more than crocodile tears. I was no idiot, after all. Although the Titan Giants called themselves the children of the earth, the Winged Tribes also called themselves the children of the sky, and the Elves called themselves the children of nature or the children of the forest. These were all just self-proimed titles, with no actual meaning behind them whatsoever.


    Titan Giants weren¡¯t elemental creatures. Their name of children of the earth simply meant that they recognized that the earth itself gave birth to them, and that they were products of nature rather than some God that created them. If they actually had anything to do with the earth element, Emordilorcan would never have been able to be the Earth Elemental God.


    ¡°Unable to move in front of the Titan Giants? Hmph, I think it¡¯s because you knew that the Titan Giants would be your opponents that you didn¡¯t even dare to go into battle.¡±


    Ainslo didn¡¯t reply, and she stopped crying as well. It would seem that she felt herself that her acting was meaningless.


    This ugly Elemental Lord who was incredibly small and short was from the same generation as Emordilorcan. She was far older than even the majority of True Gods. Perhaps she had even seen the Titan Giants in their full glory and power. In that case, it would be quite easy to understand why she was so scared of them. Even if she actually possessed sufficient power to fight against the Titan Giants¡¯ incarnations, she would be worried about the Titan Giants¡¯ true bodiester taking revenge upon her. And with her stopping the others, none of the other Seven Saints would even consider entering the battle.


    Upon realizing this, I surreptitiously nced over the short and stocky Stone Mother. Her Saint rank power level might not count for much among all the top-levelbat strength in this world, but her knowledge from Immemorial or even Great Immemorial generations would likely be more important than herbat strength.


    Of course, it would be quite difficult to obtain answers if I directly asked such things. From a certain standpoint, since Ainslo had lost my trust, she was also in the process of losing an incredibly rare opportunity.


    ¡°Until I figure out various things from her, I¡¯m not going to discuss that matter with Ainslo.¡±


    Originally, I had intended to discuss with her about fixing the Earth Elemental Throne and having her be the next Earth Elemental God. However, having such a sly and selfish individual like Ainslo obtaining that position might not be a good thing for us.


    The birth of a new Earth Elemental God would naturally and greatly slow down the revival of the Titan Giants. A sufficiently powerful earth elemental creature and an established Earth Elemental Throne were the two necessary factors for establishing a new Earth Elemental God. And, to my knowledge, Ainslo the Great Stone Sculptor was the most powerful Earth Elemental Lord in existence, making her the candidate closest to bing the next Earth Elemental God. As for the shards of the Earth Elemental Throne, two individuals had obtained them. One was me, while the other was...


    ¡°Beifeng, what do you say? What¡¯s with how unscrupulous your brothers and sister are? I didn¡¯t treat them poorly at all¡ªI gave them plenty to eat and a great ce to live. Yet they all acted cowardly when I needed them to fight. Isn¡¯t that just terrible of them?¡±


    At the time, the Sand Worm King tamed by Beifeng, who was now one of the Seven Saints, was the one who directly destroyed the Earth Elemental Throne, meaning that part of the Throne¡¯s shards were definitely held by the Sand Worm King. Technically, as this was the Sand Worm King¡¯s loot, I would need to directly exchange for the shards with him.


    What I had just asked was a difficult question to answer. But I wasn¡¯t making anything up as the Forest of Dreams had obvious benefits for the Earth Elemental Lords. Although I said that I was asking Beifeng, I was still staring at Ainslo, forcing her to give me an answer.


    Beifeng knew what I meant. He simply continued ying with his new white lion friend and didn¡¯t reply to my question. Meanwhile, Ainslo remained silent.


    But she knew very well that pretending to be dumb wouldn¡¯t work.


    She would have toe to a decision.


    Note:


    [1] Reconstruct Hell (ÔÙÔìÚ¤¸®) ¨C Does anyone know if something simr has previously appeared? It seems like something that should have been mentioned before, but it¡¯s not in our glossary.

 Chapter 358

    Chapter 358: Information


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°...I can work for you, but you must pay me an amount worth my loyalty. If you¡¯re able to grant one request of mine, it will be much easier for us to reach an ord.¡±


    Ainslo¡¯s response was quite vague, with no concrete promises made. But judging from how the Stone Mother kept sneaking nces at Beifeng and her bump and shard-filled stone face actually had the expression of a shy girl, what she meant was obvious.


    From a certain standpoint, I felt that Beifeng¡¯s ability had surpassed the legend about Midas¡¯s golden touch. In the literal sense of the word, Beifeng had even seeded in moving a heart of stone.


    Even I had been shocked and confused when I first heard Beifeng¡¯s aplishment after the battle.


    ¡°...Impossible! He only needed to speak a few words and he tamed that gigantic beast which was powered up by a Titan Giant? Is this a joke? That lion is at the very least a SemiGod, not to mention under the control of the Titan Giants. How could it betray them so easily!?¡±


    Yet some people or events would truly be that unreasonable. Truth was always stranger than fiction, and reality would always trump theory. If you found something inconceivable, it only meant you didn¡¯t understand everything about what had truly happened... Fine then, to speak more directly, nobody knew just what it was that Beifeng had done. Nor did anyone want to know.


    As I gazed at this ¡°miracle man,¡± who was currently fooling around with that extravagantly beautiful divine beast lion, even I felt rather awkward as I thought about how he was able to move even the heart of an Earth Elemental Lord made of stone.


    ¡°If you look at it from a different angle, isn¡¯t it just like winning the heart of an ancient princess from another dimension, then obtaining arge amount of dowry and subordinates, together with a great increase in personal power level throughbat. Then, he managed to tame a ¡®beautiful¡¯ powerful existence simply by talking, even though that lion would easily suppress him in power level. With how sessful he is with everything in life... not to mention how much of a harem he has, without even a single conflict among his harem members? Isn¡¯t he absolutely just like a main character? Beifeng, if you change your style slightly, you could be the main character of a typical knight¡¯s story!¡±


    ¡°...Actually, he¡¯s written his own autobiography and epic that¡¯s be a hugely popr novel. It has excellent descriptive detail, and not only is his story popr with men, but many women¡ªwhether they be stuck in loveless rtionships or have no romantic experience whatsoever¡ªlove his story as well. I¡¯ve also read it, and it¡¯s truly a great read.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ment made me feel rather ufortable. How was this possible!? How could something so improper be popr!?! Also, Beifeng was actually literate! And he even knew how to write a novel!


    ¡°...Dracons are an intelligent species. Be careful you don¡¯t get attacked for racial discrimination.¡±


    ¡°Impossible! Just Beifeng¡¯s existence alone means his book wouldn¡¯t get approved by any authority. How could something so improper even get published!? Not a single merchant publisher would dare to ept his story!¡±


    ¡°Actually, he¡¯s a skilled writer who¡¯s good at telling stories. Only after reading his story did I find out that the world of beasts was so interesting...¡±


    ¡°Harloys! Please don¡¯t go down the wrong path!¡±


    Often times, curiosity towards certain taboos would be the beginning of going down the wrong path. If making a straight person gay was called ¡°curving¡± [1] 1 them, then what should making a straight person interested in bestiality be called? Was a new word about to be born yet again all because of Beifeng? Beifeng, could you please slow down just a little?


    ¡°Ha, what are you thinking about? Rx, I have normal interests. Aren¡¯t the most popr knight stories all about adding some animal characteristics to the female lead to make her seem cuter? Since humans can adopt beast characteristics, of course beasts can also adopt human characteristics. Beifeng¡¯s story, ¡®Hunting Records of a Tamer,¡¯ only has normal rtionships between males and females. Although if you look at what it would be in real life, it¡¯s just that beasts have be humans, men have be women, and male beasts have be female beasts, and so on. Ah, the seventh female lead, Mia, is truly so cute. But once I think about how she was originally arge yellow dog, and male, it makes me unable to stand it anymore. As expected, you should just look at the surface. It will ruin your worldview if you know who the author is!¡±


    Alright then, I felt slightly reassured upon hearing such an exnation, although Harloys¡¯ words still seemed to contain many parts worthmenting on.


    ¡°Forget about exining male beasts transforming to female, because all of us know just what Beifeng is like. But the seventh female lead? Is the story even readable with such a messy plot?¡±


    ¡°I asked him that as well. Beifeng told me: ¡®Every single feeling I have is serious, very serious. I¡¯m giving it my all with each and every love. I¡¯m willing to sacrifice everything, including my life, for the sake of my lover. This is why I was able to obtain the Heart of All-Epassing Love. I love everyone, but I¡¯m also focused. Every single love I have contains my entire heart and soul. I enjoy the delight of love, but I also desire the next experience of love which awaits me. If you think that all I¡¯m interested in is carnal lust, then you¡¯re truly underestimating me and my lovers.¡±


    Although this reason sounded ridiculous, he really was able to use this Concept of his to form a Soul Imprint¡ªthat meant that he really did think in such a way. In fact, it was even his entire way of life.


    For me, personally, I found it impossible to ept such a ridiculous way of looking at love. Yet since it was someone else¡¯s personal interest, I wouldn¡¯tment too much on it... which was absolutely impossible! I wasn¡¯t such a good person! The moment I returned to East Mist, I was definitely going to write a neww, forbidding his novels from entering the market! One Beifeng was more than enough! What if more people like Beifeng appeared due to the poprity of his novels? Would this world even be salvageable anymore?¡±


    ¡°Although I don¡¯t want to admit it, what he says is probably what he really thinks. Did he convince you?¡±


    ¡°Not at all. As he was telling me all this, he was being fought over by a male water buffalo and a female lizard. Also, a female chimpanzee was crying into a handkerchief nearby. Since I was far too disgusted by him showing me an 8:00 pm soap opera and hellish battleground before me¡ªnot to mention beast style¡ªI sent him flying with a wave of Arcane Missiles.¡±


    ¡°Wonderfully done!¡±


    I gave Harloys a big thumbs-up, but Harloys still remained rather depressed.


    ¡°...As he was flying, he also gave me a big thumbs-up in return. He had angered me intentionally so that I would send him flying and rescue him from the situation he was in.¡±


    ¡°...Forget it, let¡¯s change the topic. I no longer wish to learn anything more about him.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, if at all possible, I wanted to know as little about Beifeng as possible. Yet even this ancient Earth Elemental Lord was making Beifeng into her condition¡ªI could only be impressed at Beifeng¡¯s abilities in this area.


    The most important thing right now was to obtain the information I wanted from the Great Stone Sculptor. Since she wanted the dracon, I would give him to her. After all, Beifeng was interested in every lifeform there was, so what did it matter?


    But just as I was nning on giving him over in an arranged marriage, he spoke up.


    ¡°...Sister Stone and I have a pure brother-sister rtionship, nothing more. Please don¡¯t misunderstand.¡±


    I was incredibly astonished to hear this. Beifeng actually rejected someone else¡¯s offer of love? Wasn¡¯t he supposed to love everything living that wasn¡¯t humanoid?


    But unfortunately, no matter how much I hinted with my gestures, that bastard wouldn¡¯t budge at all. He was almost acting like a proper individual who stood on the side of logic, which made me into an ancient artifact who was trying to force him into a marriage.


    ¡°Harloys?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t ask me¡ªI don¡¯t know a single reason for this to happen.¡±


    ¡°That means you know multiple reasons... Tell me. Otherwise, I¡¯ll transform you into a cat and give you to Beifeng. Do you see that lion? He¡¯s your distant rtive, as well as male...¡±


    Although this was an old trick I had used endless times before, it was fine as long as it was effective. Besides, Beifeng didn¡¯t have any interest in Harloys as she was originally a Gold Elf. It would be enough to only scare her. From what I knew, Beifeng was capable of opening up Harloys¡¯ old mental scars with just a gesture.


    ¡°...Pure love? Ptui! It would be the strangest thing ever if he believed in that! Ainslo¡¯s physical body is made of stone, so it¡¯s impossible to do anything. And he still kept rambling on about spiritual love, but when the Stone Sculptor transformed into her humanoid form, he lost all interest in her.¡±


    Although Harloys¡¯ angry tone was definitely aimed at me as well, I understood instantly, even if I would have preferred to understand nothing.


    It was quitemon for high-level elemental creatures, dragons, and so on to have humanoid forms. Typically, the powerful would have rather handsome or beautiful appearances in their humanoid forms. And once they created a humanoid form for themselves, there would be no changing it. The really ancient existences like Ainslo were particrly fond of using Superior Elves as their humanoid forms. The Stone Mother¡¯s humanoid form was most likely a beautiful Elf, and with any normal person¡¯s sense of beauty, perhaps it would be possible to ept her Elf form. But, Ainslo just happened to meet this strange individual.


    There was a saying that non-corrupt officials would have difficulty in managing their own family affairs, but I felt that even a corrupt official would find it impossible to manage these weirdos. If at all possible, I wanted to run away from this situation, but it just so happened that I had many uses for Ainslo. I needed her full cooperation.


    There were other issues apart from establishing a new Earth Elemental God? Of course. My Frigidwinter Earth needed other high quality elemental items in order to bnce andplete it. While I investigated this topic in the Mage Country, I didn¡¯t discover anything.


    ¡°Are you stupid? If those mages knew the location of top-level elemental items, they would have fought over them long ago. Even if such an item is simply embedded into the top of a mage staff to support one¡¯s magic spells, it would still be a priceless treasure. Who would leave a top-level elemental itemying around for you? Even if a mage¡¯s natural element is ipatible with the elemental item in question, he or she could still leave it behind for disciples or descendants as a priceless family heirloom.¡±


    At the time, Harloys had instantly shattered my dream about lucky chances. But even when I asked the Gods, there was still no answer. Or perhaps I should say that I received the same answer.


    ¡°...Are you an idiot? If I knew where top-level elemental items were, I would have gone to steal them long ago. Why would I leave them for you?¡±


    Well, since Beyana was the Goddess of Wealth, I figured that perhaps she would know something. But the reply I received was the same, despite the fact that I had sent her some presents to help fix our rtionship.


    But, if you thought about it, an ancient Elemental Lord would probably know more about top-level elemental items than anyone else in existence. Elemental creatures had their own social circles and dimensions, and the elemental wars between them never stopped. Also, due to how the elements interacted with and countered each other, it was impossible for elemental creatures themselves to use any elemental items that weren¡¯t from their element. And in order to better defend against their enemies, it was only natural for them to have a deep understanding of other elements¡¯ top-level items.


    Since I currently had Ainslo, an ancient Elemental Lord who was just as old as Emordilorcan working under me, it was only natural for me to ask her about it. However, the price for such top-level information would surely be great, so first trying to haggle or getting in her good graces was only normal.


    Yet she was now making it obvious that she was a maiden in love, which forced me to get involved in all this¡ªI had information I wanted from her. I really didn¡¯t want to have anything to do with these mysterious existences and the strange ways they thought, but I had no choice.


    In the end, I could only make a neww in the entire Nortnds for the protection of animals. ¡°Yep, a specialw made based on a plea bargain, which won¡¯t be carried out in Sulfur Mountain City. Casually touching another person¡¯s pet without the master¡¯s permission will be breaking thew. So if you don¡¯t want to be chased by the Knights of Justice, you understand.¡± This was the bribe I offered Beifeng so that he would promise to at least give this slightly plump stone princess a chance and at least go out on a few dates with her.


    This was all I could aplish? Indeed, this was all I could aplish. There was no way I could really force him into a marriage. And if I really did force Beifeng into a marriage, I felt that it would be the greatest shame and dark history of my life. But just this alone made Ainslo thank me repeatedly and nod in great satisfaction. It would seem that she was absolutely lovestruck for the dracon.


    And then, I asked her what I wanted to know. She hesitated slightly before telling me... something that gave me a headache.


    ¡°A real Titan¡¯s Heart? So it has dual elemental properties of both wind and earth? Of course I know that this is a top-level elemental item. But isn¡¯t it a little too difficult to obtain from a Titan Giant?¡±


    ¡°...The Gravity Stone which is the core of the Pir of Wrath in the Suolo District? What do you think you¡¯ll do to me if I steal away the foundation of your home? That¡¯s right, chase me down to the end of the world! There¡¯s a mega empire in the Suolo district. Do you think it¡¯s fun to be chased by several million people?¡±


    ¡°The ¡®Devourer,¡¯ who¡¯s ranked #5 on the Cmity Rankings? Oh, so he¡¯s actually a mutated Sand Worm? But what do you want me to do against a monster that can easily swallow an entire volcano? Isn¡¯t this ridiculous? Why is each top-level earth element item more difficult to obtain than the previous!?¡±


    Although I at least received some information this time, any top-level elemental items lying around were certain to be difficult to obtain. As for these top-level earth element items she mentioned, I didn¡¯t even need to consider them as I already had Emordilorcan¡¯s body within my Frigidwinter Earth¡ªthe best top-level earth element item of all.


    ¡°Strange. Why is it that you only know about top-level earth element items? You don¡¯t have any information on top-level items from other elements?¡±


    I asked that in surprise, but Ainslo also responded with surprise that didn¡¯t seem fake. She just directly asked her question.


    ¡°I thought you intended to fix the Earth Elemental Throne, which was why I only told you about the earth element items. Actually, we¡¯re searching for these items as well. You wanted information on the other elements¡¯ top-level items? Although I don¡¯t know much, I do know something.¡±


    Fine then. Her unmistakable expression of disappointment made it clear that she had her own hopes as well. As long as the Earth Elemental Throne was fixed, she would naturally be the most likely candidate to be the next Earth Elemental God.


    But now wasn¡¯t the time for me to tell her that I was considering helping her be what she wanted. I pretended to know nothing about that and continued asking for information about the other elements¡¯ top-level items. This time, the Stone Mother was unreserved in giving me her information. After all, these top-level element items were useless to her.


    And, in a way, any top-level earth element item that the Earth Elemental Lords knew about were either incredibly difficult to obtain or still unripe for using. Of course the difficulty would be ridiculously high.


    But for top-level elemental items from other elements, especially the wind element that the Earth Elemental Lords were weak to, using them would actually weaken themselves. Since these were treasures that only enemies could use, most would simply try to destroy such items. But some were absolutely impossible to destroy, so they would just seal them and cut off all information about them in order to prevent their enemies from obtaining these items.


    And now, I received the valuable information that I wanted.


    ¡°A little over ten thousand years ago, the Hi Volcano possessed...¡±


    This time, the information was far more reliable as many of the items were even personally sealed away by Ainslo. But then, my trouble began.


    [Ding! Congrattions for activating the Myth-rank Quest, ¡°Go to the Hi Volcano to find...¡±]


    [Ding! Congrattions for activating the Elite-rank Quest, ¡°Go to the Winged Tribe¡¯s former capital city, Lais...]


    I started to receive an endless amount of such Quests, from the very lowest rank all the way to SemiGod. But it would take an unknown amount of time toplete them all. Considering that I needed top-level elemental items that were the same quality as the Earth Elemental Throne, I wouldn¡¯t need to focus on Quests Myth-rank or below.


    [System Notification: These Quests¡¯ difficulty levels are based solely on the difficulty that Ainslo told you. The actual difficulty levels may be readjusted once you begin the Quest and see the actual situation.]


    Fine then, I knew the biggest trouble was still waiting for me. The difficulty was one matter, but the real problem was that Ainslo¡¯s information was from far too long ago. I would need to find out if her information was still urate. Every item she knew about was from several tens of thousands of years ago. Just investigating the differences between the names of the old ces she knew and the names of today would require me to find several experts in history to track changes throughout the eons. Organizing the information alone would require a great deal of effort.


    It¡¯s funny how things worked. I was justining how I had no information earlier, but now I had too much information and it would all need to be investigated. Since Ainslo¡¯s information was highly likely to be outdated, the result of any Quest I undertook would be no different from a gamble. A hugely difficult Quest might result in nothing whatsoever at the end, and perhaps a low-ranked Elite Quest might actually give me a top-level item.


    ¡°Honestly, System, don¡¯t you know how to give me a break? Doing all these random draw Quests will take me more than three years! Don¡¯t you know that I hated random draw reward Quests more than anything else back when I was adventuring? There¡¯s also the fact that my luck is so terrible. Several times, I purchased expensive treasure maps only to find that I was toote to the treasure by a couple centuries. That wasn¡¯t even the worst part. One time, I fought with a Phantom Cat guarding a treasure for two entire weeks, only to discover that the treasure it was guarding was nothing more than some fish heads and fish bones that had gone rotten, which made me so disgusted...¡±


    [System Reminder: You truly are an idiot. If you can¡¯t finish all these Quests by yourself, don¡¯t you know how to hire someone else to do them for you? There are plenty of gamers out there willing to be hired to rank up your ount or perform difficult Quests for you. Just think about it! Bear Grylls will teach you how survive in the wild, for the low price of 998! Only 998! You¡¯re already a boss level character yourself, so why do you want to do everything by yourself?]


    Hire gamers to rank my ount up for me? I paused in surprise for a moment before having an epiphany.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying I should issue my own Quests to the Contract Heroes and have them find the elemental items for me? Yep, as long as Ibel the difficulties appropriately and give out rewards, I¡¯ll have an endless number of helpers. I just need to think of a method to obtain some reward money to pay them. Does this mean I need to think of another method to scam some money again? Oh, right, I should be paying a visit to the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital. It¡¯s not good to have Archduke Halent wait for me for too long...¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: ¡°Curving¡± someone is Chinese ng for making a straight person gay.

 Chapter 359

    Chapter 359: Combat Report from Afar (Part 1)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Contract Heroes¡¯ jobs weren¡¯t limited to a single faction. In fact, it was the opposite¡ª it was quite easy to issue a job since there weren¡¯t too many Contract Heroes in the first batch. Basically, all the factions and countries within the Ayer Faction could issue a job. However, whether the Contract Heroes would see the job or not depended on whether the job was approved by the internal auditors.


    My Contract Heroes system was a service tform, so I copied Amazon¡¯s reviews system for having both buyer and seller reviews. There would be reviews for the job issuers as well so that nobody could intentionally set traps.


    However, where my review system differed was in the fact that it didn¡¯t look at how many jobs a faction or individual had issued in the past. Instead, the assessment of their overall trustworthiness was based on their identity, past history, allegiance, and so on.


    Simply speaking, if the Holy Church or its rted allies wanted to issue a job, they might not even get approved. And even if they did get approved, the information on the job issuer would be marked with a ck star of misfortune, which represented that this job issuer waspletely untrustworthy. Any Contract Hero who was allured by the potential job reward would have to suffer the consequences of their own poor judgement if the job went awry.


    Although I had made the ns for this system, the end result would look totally different when everything was finally carried out. Not only would each manager have their own ideas on how to run this system, but there would forever be a difference between ideals and reality. Yet I had never expected that I would create such trouble for myself in the end.


    Due to my special status, I obtained the highest level of trustworthiness ording to the review system¡ªbasically equivalent to the True Gods themselves. This meant that the Contract Heroes system would forever rmend any jobs I issued first and foremost, as well as guarantee that I was the most trustworthy employer.


    This wasn¡¯t an abuse of my authority. It was because I was indeed half responsible for this entire Contract Heroes system. Due to my involvement, it was only natural that I would want to keep the Contract Heroes system running as smoothly as possible. That was why the system gave me the highest level of trustworthiness.


    Even though I was no God in the skies above, I needed to deal with both mortal affairs and worry about the overall situation. Any problems that arose meant that I would be the first to suffer since it was I on the frontlines... Simply speaking, I was like a peasant who only had unsavory lettuce to eat,bined with an emperor¡¯s worries. I suddenly felt like I was just a huge scapegoat for everything. I sure do hope I won¡¯t have a typical scapegoat¡¯s end result.


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªgetting to the main topic, it was quite easy for me to issue all my jobs rted to the elemental item Quests. I also exined in the job details that the information was very likely to be outdated and might not be entirely correct. Of course, there was one part where the system was unable to assist me: my greatest trouble, the fact that I needed to pay out rewards.


    But that was no obstacle to me. Although my wallet was now empty, and I barely had any Justice Points due to my personal System, I would still be able to pay rewards that people would want.


    My job rewards would be... IOUs.


    Fine then, I knew that owing people sry was something shameless. Perhaps people would even want to beat me up for this. But my IOUs could be exchanged for items that were quite real and practical: the products of magical engineering.


    From the very start, those engineers were my subordinates, together with all the other personnel and technology. So of course their products belonged to me. And currently, Amelia was in a deep sleep, so her Thorn Garden was under my control as well. And I still possessed some treasure hoards from the past. As an antagonist who was always being hunted down, I dug many secret stashes back in the day to help finance my revenge. It would be simple enough for me to draw more than a dozen treasure maps.


    Perhaps my wallet was empty, but I did still have some money to my name. And my IOUs were definitely exchangeable for magical engineering products. Now that I thought about it, did that make me tall, handsome, and rich...? Who said that 1.2 meters (~4 feet) didn¡¯t count as tall? Come out, I promise not to kill you!


    ¡°I think they should ept this as payment. Even if the adventurers don¡¯t need magical engineering products, they can still sell them for money.¡±


    However, I ended up underestimating the power of my IOUs. The new products of magical engineering were absolutely unique products that I had a monopoly on. They had only been slightly tested out in the battlefield here, but they had already obtained astonishing results on another battlefield.


    It was precisely thesebat results that caused magical engineering products as well as the Nortnds knights to be famous.


    What battlefield was I talking about? And¡¯s aquatic battlefield!


    While I was still busy over here, the battle at the former And Empire capital city Kagersi, now known as the Sea Tribe¡¯s Rain City, the capital city Dofeloci, was currently at a stalemate.


    This city was covered with sea water, obviously meaning that this was now the Sea Tribe and other aquatic species¡¯ home terrain. In their capital city, they would easily be capable of taking on opponents above their power levels. Even a top-level powerful individual would perish here if they found themselves surrounded.


    In such an aquatic battlefield, humanity¡¯s most proficient tactics of swarming with numbers and other strategies would be useless. Even the strongest knight would find it impossible to charge forward at a high speed in water. Knights proud of their heavy armor and high defense would find their armor to be a giant burden, instead. Even if they did fight in shallower areas¡ªwhere infantry could barely dobat¡ªthese heavily armored warriors would find it impossible to stand up again if they identally fell over in water that reached their chests.


    For the Sea Tribe, no matter how numerous their enemies, all they had to do was withstand the onught by utilizing their terrain advantage. This would cause the attackers who refused to give up to be food for the fish.


    Use ships? Traditional wooden ships were quite easy to sink. Smaller ships would capsize to the wind and waves that the Sea Tribe could summon, while it was impossible forrger ships to even enter this kind of battlefield.


    Based on themon sense ofbat, this was a very imbnced battle. No sanemander would ever choose to attack such a location where the defenders held an absolute terrain advantage. But ever since And lost their capital,bat had never stopped at this location.


    After all, this ce was the And Empire¡¯s capital city! It was the military, political, and economic center of an entire mega empire and represented the collective face of the And people.


    Invaders would typically believe that attacking, conquering, and ughtering all the inhabitants of a capital city could destroy the will of a country¡¯s people to resist. But actually, no matter what country it was, as long as the people still had some fight left in them, they would treat it as a lifelong shame. People would instead put everything on the line to wash away this shame. I¡¯d already seen too many such examples in history, but there would always be others who proudly made such ns to ambush and conquer a country¡¯s capital without expecting the end result, which was getting dragged into all-out warfare.


    ¡°Winter Wolf King¡± Darsos left amazing achievements behind in the game¡¯s history. This type of character would never be easy to deal with. And, as his experience and power level improved, he would only be more difficult to deal with.


    The difference between ordinary people and the ambitious could be disyed in how they behaved when forced to the brink. Ordinary people would despair or rage and try to solve the problem facing them while battling negative emotions. But for the ambitious, brinks were also opportunities. They wouldugh out loudly as they faced danger head on and turn the danger into opportunity.


    Indeed, Darsos had lost the capital city of And. But not even thirty kilometers away, he constructed a new temporary capital close to Rain City. This temporary capital was also named Kagersi, and its style intentionally imitated the old Kagersi, as if this was just a suburb of the capital. Darsos also personally led a squad to patrol this New Kagersi every day, no matter how treacherous the weather.


    Every single day, countless people and resources from all of And would pass by the New Kagersi¡¯s walls. Every dawn and dusk, the emperor and empress would go out on the castle walls to wave at their citizens.


    Darsos stood at the very forefront of every attack to reim Rain City. He never trembled, even if Sea Giants were roaring right next to him.


    ¡°Our Emperor!¡±


    Two years ago, this way of addressing Darsos was only due to his status. But now, the people of And truly venerated him in their hearts.


    The forbidden spell which created Rain City was still under effect. Rain City was expanding its territory by the day and would drown New Kagersi sooner orter, as New Kagersi was located very close to Rain City. Powerful sea monsters capable of temporarily leaving the water would often ambush New Kagersi as well. Even so, Darsos adamantly remained in New Kagersi and beat back every one of the Sea Tribe¡¯s ambushes.


    Thebat situation was indeed going poorly for And. Even if And asionally managed to reim some territory, they would soon lose it again. The attack to reim Rain City was already in its sixty-seventh wave, but zero progress had been made. Still, looking at things from a different angle, the people of And had already gotten used to the way that the Sea Tribe fought in all these back and forth battles. The young ones were also maturing through battle, and the entire country was participating in the war effort. Every single government branch and private industry had converted from peacetime to war efforts. Although And never won, they also never lost.


    Yep, they never lost. Every single attack they made on Rain City would be a short, prenned battle¡ªan ambush on a certain district to kill off the Sea Tribe members within before speedily retreating. They used only thirty percent of their forces as ambushing attackers, leaving seventy percent behind as backup support. Although this was quite a safe strategy, it was also impossible for this strategy to obtain any decisive results. But judging from how the Sea Tribe members roaming around freely outside became less and less, and how they had contracted their lines of defense, the Sea Tribe appeared to have lost confidence in being able to conquer everything around them.


    By now, Rain City had expanded to being less than ten kilometers away from New Kagersi. Despite this, Darsos remained ambitious as always and patiently organized his forces¡ªhe even made this area into a practice field for his troops.


    Darsos had the foundation to be willful as he pleased as he led a mega empire. However, if you looked at it from a purely logical standpoint, he could have simply ignored the loss of And¡¯s capital city.


    With two years of warfare, his father, brothers, and brothers¡¯ descendants had all perished. Originally, a powerful emperor would only see his authority grow boundlessly in wartime. The current Darsos now had total control over all of And.


    Alright, this was also due to his wise, most trusted friend, and most beautiful, most gentle empress. The prior had now be the number one prime minister in And, while thetter was viewed by more and more people in And as the perfect woman. But only Darsos¡¯ closest and most trusted associates knew that she was actually the number two in charge, only after Darsos.


    In every way, the And Empire had already surpassed the powerful And Empire from the game¡¯s history.


    Although their enemy, the Sea Tribe, still conquered and possessed the Rain City, their situation wasn¡¯t going that well, either. More and more Sea Tribe members were joining Rain City. The warm sunlight and free beaches and hot food made the Sea Tribe¡¯s veterans delighted with their new lifestyles, while it also whetted away at their will to fight. They only wanted to conquer more water-coverednd and Kagersi¡¯s entertainment centers and actually focused more on their own internal conflicts than the external one.


    After experiencing cooked meat, they wanted more. After experiencing the warm sunlight, they learned how to wear noble attire that was incapable of being worn underwater. Nobody went to weaponsmiths, while all sorts of new restaurants and bars popped up. Even their underwater dance halls started ying all sorts of strange new loud music. And although information was limited, it was said that internal conflicts kept erupting every day despite the new Sea Tribe royalty trying their best to stop internal conflict. After all, the Sea Tribe consisted of many different ¡°sub¡± tribes, and they were quite ustomed to tribal warfare. The so-called new Sea Tribe royalty was simply just one tribe among them, and their authority was insufficient to suppress the internal warfare.


    Even as the humans grew stronger and stronger with each attack, and more and more Sea Tribe members got killed with each attack, the Sea Tribe didn¡¯t care. They passively waited for Rain City to expand, believing that this would be sufficient. In their minds, there was no way the humans would dare to enter the deep water areas for an all-out attack. Their true enemies were actually their rival tribes, so having more members from other tribes die was actually a good thing.


    The Sea Tribe were busy with their own internal conflicts, while the And humans werepletely united and fighting with their all. With this bncing out the imbnce of strength between them, the weaker humans obtained the right to be proactive in this battle.


    And it just so happened to be that at this time, their absolute authority Guardian Goddess, the Queen of Storms, sank into an abnormal silence. Fine, this was actually because she was recently injured by Ayer. And also due to reasons rted to me, their original ally, the Water Elemental Goddess Aylos, had called back her direct subordinates, leaving only the lowest water elemental creatures behind.


    Since the two top authorities had left with no exnation and weren¡¯t interfering with them, their internal chaos and conflict could only worsen.


    It was amid all this that Darsos organized the sixty-eighth wave of attacks. Yet his goal this time wasn¡¯t to just kill a few of the Sea Tribe.


    And, precisely at this time, came Reyne and her Nortnd knights, apanied with ¡°Envy¡± Marsolit, who had sworn revenge.

 Chapter 360

    Chapter 360: Combat Report from Afar (Part 2)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°If I had a choice, I wouldn¡¯t havee. I don¡¯t have a single good memory here.¡±


    Reyne, the leader and representative of And¡¯s reinforcements, spoke bluntly, instantly causing the atmosphere to cool at Darsos¡¯ weing party.


    ¡°Your Highness Reyne is truly honest and direct. Although past events make one sigh, today is a joyful day. Let¡¯s leave that topic for another time. Your Highness is capable of setting past matters aside and making the correct decision for the greater good. As expected of the pride of the Nortnds, the Princess Knight!¡±


    Darsos maintained a gentleman¡¯s smile and led the way in pping, helping ease the awkward atmosphere as everyone else hurried to follow his lead and p as well.


    Indeed, it was impossible for Reyne to have a good impression of Kagersi. First, when she was in a dire situation, she was forced to sign a subordinate country contract... and then almost forced into a marriage. If she was the female lead of a story about a female main character¡¯s sufferings, it probably would count as the type where she had both personal and national grudges. Next up would be a love and hate rtionship for the rest of her life... Fine, that style of story evidently didn¡¯t fit this situation, so let¡¯s not go too far down a tangent. At the very least, it was quite likely that Reyne held some grudges.


    Her arrival, however, was indeed exinable. After all, the And Empire had sent a knight order and diplomatic envoy group to assist the Nortnds in the war against the Beastmen. Even if And¡¯s knights weren¡¯t of any actual help in the end, not a single one of their White Wolf Knights retreated in front of Poison God Felix, standing firm to fight for humanity in front of insurmountable odds. We owed them at least this much.


    Also, And was the Nortnds¡¯rgest trade partner and financial supporter. I had signed all sorts of contracts with Hemet back at Diffindor. At the very least, And and the Nortnds were still allies¡ªthey even appeared to be solid allies with an excellent rtionship.


    There were only a few ces in Eich with ongoingrge-scale battles. Reyne wanted to level up her troops by giving thembat experience, along with earning Justice Points. She basically had two choices: the battle against the undead, and this battle here against the Sea Tribe.


    As for the Nortnds knights, for both the Aurora Knights who controlled ice as well as the Four Elemental Swordcasters and their magic swords, they wouldn¡¯t have arge advantage over the hordes of undead. But with her aerial fleet and Aurora Knights, they wouldn¡¯t fear an aquatic battle. This was why Reyne chose toe here.


    It wasn¡¯t only because it would be an easier battlefield to level up her troops. There were also political considerations. The Nortnds needed to improve its reputation and authority. Simply remaining in a corner of the continent would be too passive. In a way, since Reyne had several excellent teachers and wasn¡¯t dumb to begin with, she was far more mature than Rnd had anticipated, especially after she rediscovered her confidence.


    Just Reyne¡¯s arrival together with her aerial fleet increased all And citizens¡¯ morale. This was because aerial battleships were incredibly rare in Eich, and only we possessed them... Reyne even felt rather embarrassed at seeing the crowds below cheering for her. If she looked at the real origin of the Borealis, it was stolen from the And Empire. But since the original owner didn¡¯t even know, she would just let things be.


    The Big Dipper squadron for the Borealis was still under construction, so only the Mizer came together with the Borealis. Reyne¡¯s aerial fleet consisted of one mega-aerial battleship Borealis, one heavy-ss aerial battleship Mizer, along with around twenty small and swift fighters¡ªa rather strange assortment. Together with her were about a hundred Aurora Knights and slightly over two hundred Four Elemental Swordcasters. Reyne had brought all her main forces with her with the intention of significantly contributing to this battle.


    Of course, she also brought along Olive¡¯s engineers and alchemists. Using such mega airships to only bring along her own people would be too much of a waste. At four pre-arranged locations, she brought on slightly over twelve hundred adventurers. Since space was limited on the airships, the adventurers had to be selected, with preference given to Contract Heroes and the strongest. About seven hundred were Contract Heroes, while the other five hundred were either those sitting on the fence about the Contract Heroes system or interested adventurers who hadn¡¯t managed to obtain a Hero¡¯s Armlet to be a Contract Hero in the first batch we recruited.


    Of course, it was only natural that Reyne tried to recruit some adventurers into bing her personal warriors on the way.


    It wasn¡¯t easy for Darsos, either. The Nortnds princess didn¡¯t even try to hide her grudge against him¡ªshe was polite to everyone else but icy cold to the extreme only towards him. Although Darsos continued to smile politely out of his pride as an emperor, as if her attitude didn¡¯t matter, he felt more and more aggrieved inside.


    The reason? Actually, he could have tolerated it if it was merely having to deal with Reyne¡¯s attitude. After all, she was here to assist him. What gave Darsos trouble sleeping at night was her familiar face. Seeing Reyne, whose face was almost identical to Rnd¡¯s, constantly walk around in front of him caused Darsos to recall his dark history that he did his very best to bury: falling in love with a ¡°man¡± and even publicly asking to get married, multiple times. Just recalling this memory made him want to clutch his head and cry.


    And the most pitiful part was that every time he saw Reyne¡¯s face, Darsos discovered that he actually mysteriously felt like he missed Rnd, which made him want to cry even more. Every time he saw Reyne, he would mysteriously feel his heart skip a beat. This identical face always caused him to recall Rnd¡¯s every little action and smile, making his heart ache even more. It was as if a healed scar had opened up once again, with lots of salt being spread on top of this old injury.


    ¡°...Am I actually gay?¡±


    The pitiful Emperor Darsos had never before doubted his sexual orientation. Feeling helpless, he could only go to his most beloved Empress Rosemary for constion. When faced with Darsos¡¯ck of self-confidence, Rosemary appeared calm on the surface but secretly wanted to snicker, as ¡°she¡± thought about her true identity. Still, she consoled him by having sex. Then, she told him:


    ¡°No need to think that much into it. No matter what, Princess Reyne is still a girl. If your heart is moved by her, it actually proves you¡¯re straight.¡±


    Alright then, her consoling was quite effective. At the very least, Darsos felt greatly relieved after hearing this.


    ¡°She¡¯s still unmarried, isn¡¯t she?¡±


    For an emperor like Darsos with strong desires, of course he would act to obtain anything he wished for. The moment he felt like his heart being moved was only natural, he even wanted to make a move on Reyne. But his hopes had been dashed on the very same night of Reyne¡¯s arrival.


    His secret spies told him that Reyne had brought two beautiful female adventurers into her own room for ¡°sexual escapades.¡± This caused Darsos to be confused yet again.


    ¡°So she actually likes women? Am I the one who¡¯s not normal here? Or is she ¡®Rnd¡¯ himself pulling a prank on me?¡±


    He had his female spies secretly get close to Reyne and investigate, but the result was that Reyne was, indeed, a woman. Upon hearing this, Darsos received an even greater impact. [1] 1


    ¡°Ahhh! The person I love likes women?¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Darsos, whose reputation was getting better and better as a wise lord, received yet another serious blow regarding his personal affairs. The end result was that he was greatly shaken about his sexual orientation yet again. He could only go back to his ¡°female lover¡± for sexual constion... By the way, if he knew the truth about his empress, would hemit suicide? Or would he change his sexual orientation and be gay, even writing some epic poetry in the process?


    ¡°You regret that I was born toote, while I regret that you were born too early¡ªthe greatest regret of my life is that I was unable to forget you even unto my death.¡±


    Typically speaking, such epic poetry would be created when the author possessed some bone-piercingly deep emotions or had some inconceivable encounter. But this sentenceter became used to describe a couple with an extremely good rtionship, which was actually a misinterpretation of the original author¡¯s intent. Since this sentence originated from Darsos, it wasn¡¯t something meant to describe a straight couple¡¯s love...


    As for just what exactly happened in Reyne¡¯s room, I don¡¯t want this book to be censored, so I¡¯ll leave it up to your imagination. At any rate, I¡¯ll say just one thing¡ªstraight couples¡¯ rtionships are only for the purpose of breeding future generations, while rtionships between the same gender is real, true love... What? I¡¯m really not a veteran member of the FFF group! This ismon sense! It doesn¡¯t need any proof! How about you randomly ask someone on the street?


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªthis actually wasn¡¯t Reyne¡¯s fault. She didn¡¯t do this because of her personal interests. Nor did she even know what Darsos thought of her. It was just that after she left Rnd¡¯s watchful eye, using Reyne¡¯s body for sexual escapades became Karwenz¡¯s ¡°tuition¡± in exchange for teaching her knowledge. And she couldn¡¯t stop Karwenz from forcefully taking over her body anyways¡ªshe refuse to pay such a tuition fee.


    Anyhow, Darsos reaching such a state of affairs wasn¡¯t particrly because he was evil or unlucky. Perhaps it was simply Fate at hand. Maybe the God of Fate didn¡¯t wish this ambitious man, born far more talented than others, to have too easy of a life.


    No matter if it was the Darsos of today or the Darsos in the game¡¯s history, and no matter if it was in politics or his personal life, he was definitely no good person. But the end result made it seem that he was forever unlucky. However,pared to the ¡°Dark Elf Empress¡± in the game¡¯s history, Empress Rosemary was at least a great improvement. Perhaps it would even be possible for Darsos to have descendants. Wait a moment, the undead having children? Hang on, I must research this right away.


    But no matter how internally conflicted Emperor Darsos felt, or how much blood he spurted over this, or how many times he visited his empress for sexual constion, the war still continued. He needed to act like he was filled with vigor and high in spirits. At the very least, he refused to allow his personal feelings to shake the foundations of his country, or his army¡¯s morale. Every day, Darsos was all smiles as he continued leading his patrols and held meetings with his council... If Rnd had known how hard Darsos worked, Rnd surely would have given him a big thumbs-up and praised him, saying ¡°You¡¯ve sure worked hard! You¡¯re truly a good public official of And, sacrificing yourself for the sake of the people.¡±


    As for Reyne, she was likely to have a celebration party of her own if she knew about Darsos¡¯ mental struggles. Ever since she was born, Darsos, who had tried to threaten and force her, was the person she hated the most. If it wasn¡¯t for Rnd¡¯s appearance, the East Mist Communal Country would have likely be the And Empire¡¯s subordinate country. Reyne herself would have been forcibly married off to someone she didn¡¯t like¨Cmaybe to someone she didn¡¯t even know.


    So Reyne didn¡¯t attempt to conceal her great distaste for Darsos. But on another level, despite the fact that the And Empire had been in a state of war for a long period of time, And had indeed faithfully followed the contract to provide East Mist with resource support. Although the contract was a demon contract where failure to adhere to it would be punished by death, there were still loopholes that one could take. However, And had provided more resources to East Mist than was required by contract, so this was also an investment owed to And as a favor.


    That was all part of why Reyne came to assist And. Just by arriving in New Kagersi, all of And knew about her arrival. There was even a huge crowd of citizens lined up on both sides of the road to wee her. Even now, the people of And still recalled the astonishing performance of the Angel Bloodline ¡°Reyne¡± in the arena. And¡¯s nobles and knights also recalled how the Princess Knight had rushed forward into danger by herself when forced to the brink, all in order to save her rtives and friends. In their minds, the young Princess Knight was a perfect role model for how a knight should be.


    As for the dirty politics and internal conflicts involved, those were secrets that no ordinary citizen would possibly know. Only the ¡°highest-ups¡± of both sides knew the true nature of matters. What everyone else saw on the surface was that both sides had a wonderful friendship and alliance.


    ¡°The young Princess Knight¡¯s outstanding spirit and ability allowed her to receive Emperor Darsos¡¯ recognition. Emperor Darsos made an astonishing decision due to Princess Reyne¡¯s potential and voluntarily allowed her country to have an equal status rtionship with And rather than a subordinate one, along with giving herrge amounts of resources as support. Now, Emperor Darsos has been rewarded for his excellent sense of recognition. After the Princess Knight returned to her country, she speedily increased the power of her country and even defeated the vicious Beastmen armies. Now, when we, And, are having difficulties, the Princess Knight has returned with her personal knights to fulfill her responsibilities and duties as our ally.¡±


    This was what themon person in And as well as other outsiders believed of Reyne and Darsos¡¯ rtionship. Wouldn¡¯t it make a great drama y?


    Although all of this seemed quite logical on the surface, the reality couldn¡¯t be any different. I suppose that it was akin to the difference in my previous world of what you saw on the news vs. reality. [2] 2 Actually, it was the same no matter which world I was in. Any public report, whethering from the media or the government, would only report about what happened on the surface. Who knew how many things went on behind the scenes?


    The end result was quiteical. Both countries¡¯ leaders held great amounts of aggrievement towards each other. But, to any outsider, East Mist and And appeared like excellent friends and allies, to the point of even obtaining unity in military and economic affairs.


    ¡°Look, And¡¯s continuously supplying East Mist with resources and even sent their knights to support the Nortnds against the Beastmen. East Mist even gave And their national treasure, the floating airship technology. These two countries are just like blood brothers who don¡¯t mind wearing each other¡¯s clothing!¡±


    From a certain standpoint, this wasn¡¯t wrong at all. Since And¡¯s empress was secretly a full supporter of East Mist, this strange allied rtionship was likely to continue indefinitely.


    Cough, once again, for the very, very, veryst time, I¡¯ll get back to the main topic. Reyne had arrived for Darsos¡¯ nned sixty-eighth wave of attacks. And the strategic target for the attack was Kagersi¡¯s former dock district... that¡¯s right, the district with underwater ruins was And¡¯s #1 prioritized strategic objective! Currently, the former docks had be a paradise for some giant sea beasts.


    Alright then, you readers should know that this location had various things happen to it already, as a ¡°certain person¡± had secretly taken away the most important treasure. But he wasn¡¯t heartless enough to take everything. He had left behind all the information, as well as the equipment that was too inconvenient to take. For the And Empire, as long as they could open this ¡°box,¡± the treasure inside would be worth any sacrifice.


    Of course, that certain person was not exactly a kind person. He had always been waiting for And to open up the box, as his ¡°design ns that are slightly ahead of your technology¡± and ¡°the most critical technology that just happens to be missing¡± had been waiting for an incredibly long time! The moment And upgraded their technology skill tree, that¡¯s right, I would instantly be there as a salesman.


    ¡°High-level new technology, package deal, free delivery! You can save ten years of hard work by purchasing this! It doesn¡¯t cost 988, or 688, or even 488! It costs a mere 418! 418! Buy one package, and you¡¯ll obtain two random loot boxes that contain top-level magical engineering technology! If you buy two packages, it¡¯ll be five random loot boxes! That¡¯s right, take a good look at the Rnd brand New Year¡¯s discount! Only found here! What are you waiting for, hurry up and ce your order today!¡±


    ¡°What? You want to purchase some specific critical information instead of relying on random draws? Haha, dear customer, I don¡¯t think you understand how business works, do you? Do you know what it means that this is only found here? It means that I have a monopoly, and I can sell my products however I want! I have the right of final interpretation, while you can only make rmendations. You can say whatever you want, but I don¡¯t have to listen to you. Don¡¯t you know that you have to pay the gamepany tons of money first before you can finally draw what you¡¯re looking for? Don¡¯t you know what I mean by saying that you¡¯ll save ten years of hard work by purchasing this? It means that if you don¡¯t buy this, you¡¯ll forever be behind and have to grind for an additional ten years. It¡¯s impossible for free-to-y yers to ever defeat a pay-to-win yer!¡±


    Unfortunately, these advertisements that I personally wrote were never used for their intended recipient in the end due to their obvious ill intentions. Taking into consideration Darsos¡¯ worsening mood, Rosemary was worried that Darsos would have a heart attack out of anger upon hearing such an advertisement, so she handed the issue of negotiating for And¡¯s technology over to Chancellor Hemet... which ended in Hemet having a seizure due to extreme rage, requiring him to be ¡°emergency healed¡± by And¡¯s priests...


    Well, I should stop spoiling the future. Let¡¯s focus on the dawn before the battle which was to be the And Empire¡¯s first full force attack on Rain City. And so, the sixty-eighth wave of attacks began.


    And at this time, Reyne received unexpected reinforcements: three fully organized knight squadrons, with the most eye-catching one being a group of elves with grayish-ck skin. With emblems of the full moon and a battle g of the full moon, their leaders were people Reyne was quite familiar with.


    ¡°Diana? Victoria? Why have you all arrived here as well?¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: What would you think if you were a spy, and your Emperor ordered you to get close to someone just to ascertain that person¡¯s gender? Hahahaha


    [2] TL/N: This is a jab at China¡¯s censorship of the news, although I¡¯m sure it has plenty of truth with regards to America these days as well. After all, America is starting to get famous for the ¡°fake news¡± phenomenon...

 Chapter 361

    Chapter 361: Combat Report from Afar (Part 3)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    It wasn¡¯t necessary to describe how Victoria met up with Diana. But, from a certain standpoint, the passionate meeting between the ¡°emperor¡± and ¡°empress¡± from the game¡¯s history was something worthy of paying attention to.


    Unfortunately, most of the time, the rtionship between people was based on many factors working together, rather than love at first sight. Although these two ¡°lovers¡± from the game¡¯s history indeed met each other at Darsos¡¯ weing party, no sparks of love flew between them at all, which made the person in the know really regret that nothing happened once he learned about it.


    Yep, that person in the know was me. I was more than happy to enjoy the spectacle.


    ¡°You¡¯re not afraid that if Darsos really does fall in love with Victoria like in the game¡¯s history, and discovers that yet another woman that he loves is also in love with women, that he¡¯llpletely despair and break? Perhaps he¡¯ll turn gay due to the shock and thene to find you.¡±


    Well, this type of unreliable threat naturally wouldn¡¯t be able to scare me. But the consequence was that the silly cat was absolutely disgusted and ended up ravaging me.


    But now, right before a major battle, the two elves and their Moonlight Goddess squad¡¯s arrival was doubtlessly good news.


    ¡°Praise forever to our majestic Moonlight Goddess, Patricia. May her love epass us, may her light illuminate the path before us, and may her presence forever be among us.¡±


    The Moonlight Goddess Patricia was one of the most powerful Gods in the Ayer Faction. As a powerful True God, she possessed many Divine Concepts. Her Divine Concepts included the Moon, Moonlight, Protector of the Lost, the Asleep, Dreams, Cleansing, Guardianship, and Hunting. Although she was technically an Elven Goddess, her believers included not only elves but also humans, rangers, hunters, and others. There was plenty of equipment enchanted by her divine powers as well. She was one of Ayer¡¯s earliest close allies. However, after she used most of her divine power to create the forbidden spell star, her power level dropped to only a Medium God¡¯s level.


    The star was a tracking and spy spell for the entire dimension of Eich, the mortal ne. Every single existence from another ne that crossed into the mortal ne would instantly be detected. The Moonlight Goddess would receive achievements and faith through the star, eventually making her more powerful than ever before. And the Moonlight Goddess Church¡¯s priests would be the most reliable hunting hounds of all.


    Originally, just doing this would have been enough. But as one of Ayer¡¯s staunchest allies, she had no intentions of simply passively remaining under Ayer¡¯s protection. In fact, she even proactively took action long before the start of the Holy War.


    Patricia was a powerful Goddess to begin with. She had plenty of believers and mortalbatants. Since Patricia had been enemies with Lorci and the other Evil Gods for a long time, there were plenty of powerful fighters under her banner. If they banded together and were well equipped by her, then they would be quite a solid powerful fighting force.


    Since Patricia was one of Ayer¡¯s staunchest allies, her warriors naturally became Contract Heroes. That was also why they joined this battle of their own volition.


    Gray Elves Under the Moonlight¡ªthat was the name of these former Dark Elves that had chosen the path of justice. The holy emblem of Moonlight on their shoulders was their symbol.


    After Lorci perished, the ¡°heretics¡± she suppressed among the Dark Elves now had the opportunity to choose for themselves. Although only two short years had passed, the Gray Elves had already multiplied in number by more than ten times. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that two years was too short in the grand scheme of things, the Gray Elves¡¯ number would likely multiply exponentially as more and more Dark Elves joined their ranks.


    Diana, who sought after the source of faith, also answered her Moonlight Goddess¡¯s summons and joined thisbat squadron consisting of Gray Elves.


    Yet perhaps only Diana herself knew that her solo travels throughout thend wasn¡¯t in search of faith, but rather the opposite. Instead, since she was overly close to the Gods and understood the truth about them, her faith was showing signs of copsing. Her journey appeared to be one in search of glory, but it was actually more of an attempt to escape the truth.


    Belief was a powermon in this world, and it was even one of the most basic foundational Concepts in Eich. For most ordinary mortals, True Gods were existences far more important than their own lives. It was no exaggeration to say that a True God¡¯s will was greatly superior to a person¡¯s life.


    As a Holy Knight, Diana used to believe in the Holy Light, expecting the Holy Light to give her a path to salvation. But one day, a casual statement from a certain person just about broke all her faith in the Holy Light.


    ¡°I don¡¯t worship the God of Holy Light despite being a Holy Knight? Of course I don¡¯t worship the God of Holy Light. I only believe in the Holy Light itself. Why would I worship an existence who doesn¡¯t even have his own sense of self?¡±


    That man, or perhaps it should be said that he was the incarnation of a certain God in Eich, told her the truth about the Gods. Or, more urately speaking, he used concrete actions to let her know that Gods were nothing special. They were simply older, stronger existences. All their so-called Divine Miracles could actually be exined by foundationalws.


    If that was all there was to it, Diana could have still epted it all as the ramblings of a non-believer. But the uneptable part to her was the source of his understanding of the True Gods. It would have been whatever if he was just a random non-believer, but he just happened to possess inexplicable divine power, and he was even a God himself.


    ¡°If in the future you choose the power of Law, I would also rmend against worshiping the God of Law himself. Instead, you should study Law to its fullest; understand it, like it, love it, and even make what Law represents into your very way of life. And if you cannot bring yourself to agree with what Law represents, then you should unhesitatingly abandon it. Worship is the farthest path possible from the truth.¡±


    ¡°Belief? Of course I have beliefs. Otherwise, how could I possibly be the God of Law? You feel that something¡¯s different between what you and I mean about belief? Of course there¡¯s something different. Honestly, I actually feel that most people¡¯s concept of belief is filled with expectations of receiving something in return, which makes me feel rather ufortable. Most people¡¯s belief is far too impure.¡±


    ¡°Wealthy merchants worship the Goddess of Wealth, hoping she can make them wealthier in return. Farmers worship the God of Harvests, hoping they¡¯ll have an excellent harvest in the next year. All sorts of War Gods forever have an unending supply of faith in them, but that¡¯s because everyone wants that sweet taste of victory. Perhaps I¡¯m actually the most devout believer of all. I believe in the True Gods, but only to recognize the Concepts that they represent. I believe that Law is just and correct, which is why I¡¯m spreading Law in the world. I hope that Law can make the world a better ce, but I don¡¯t have any expectations that Law can do anything for me personally.¡±


    Pure belief? Diana understood what Rnd meant and carefully considered the topic. But she almost lost her job ss as a Holy Knight as a result. In a way, Diana the female knight was far too simple of a person. She was simple to the point of being cute as well as foolish.


    Because of her simplicity, she rejected all the temptations and desires in Dark Elf society. Because of her simplicity, she believed that the Holy Light could save her species. Because she was simple, she had incredibly pure faith and handed her all to the Holy Light. This actually allowed her to grow faster and stronger than her peers. And in the end, due to being simple, she believed a certain person¡¯s words and almost confused herself to death.


    Actually, every generation would have a different understanding of belief. Back in the Dark Ages of my original world, Diana¡¯s attitude of giving her everything to a God would be the mostmon choice of the majority. As for my understanding of the Gods and belief, it was a more pragmatic view suitable for an Armageddon age. Basically, it was like ¡°Oh, you look useful, so I¡¯ll follow you. But if you stray away from your original Concept, then I apologize. I¡¯m going to rebel against you.¡±


    ¡°Belief? Holy Light is just like an automated divine server? He¡¯s a God himself, but looks down upon the Gods?¡±


    The most dangerous part was regarding what Rnd didn¡¯t even realize at the time¡ªthat his identity was leaked. Wumianzhe was the lich Rnd, and the lich Rnd was also the Holy Knight Rnd. Once Diana realized all of this, she felt as if a True God had descended before her and told her the truth of the world.


    ¡°Perhaps only recognizing and understanding a Concept and teachings of a God is necessary in order to borrow that God¡¯s power. In that case, perhaps we are also capable of proactively stealing a God¡¯s power and bing True Gods ourselves.¡±


    Alright then, quite obviously Diana misunderstood part of Rnd¡¯s words. She simply considered this issue from the angle of how to obtain more power. This was indeed amon way of thinking in this world. Most people that became Holy Knights didn¡¯t do so at the very start because they believed in the Holy Light¡ªthey did it to have a job to do along with obtaining power. People in other divine job sses were mostly the same. But the price for the power they obtained was to give everything about them over to the True God they worshipped.


    Holy Light job ss members would remain as Holy Light job ss members until their death. Any so-called former Holy Light job ss members were mostly dead¡ªthey were hunted down by the Holy Church.


    Due to Lorci¡¯s death, the Dark Elf society which was a divine dictatorship ruled over solely by Lorci had copsed. Arge number of former priestesses and former divine job ss members appeared.


    Many Dark Elves who lost their faith in Lorci also lost their reason to live andmitted suicide. But a greater majority of these former priestesses and former Lorci warriors kept searching for a new source of power. One of the most representative among these Dark Elves was Diana¡¯s younger sister, Victoria.


    It would have been fine if Diana was the only one who thought such things. But her ¡°younger sister¡± was once the candidate to be Lorci¡¯s highest ranking priestess, so she possessed great amounts of divine knowledge. Victoria also had many former Lorci priestesses as subordinates, and was an outstanding priestess herself. Once Diana told her thoughts to her younger sister, Victoria decided to experiment for herself.


    That¡¯s right, herself¡ªnot for the sake of any of her subordinates. While Diana was a ssic example of a Lawful Good individual, Victoria was a typical Chaotic Evil Dark Elf who cared only about the results. How the results were obtained or any sacrifices along the way wouldn¡¯t even be considered by Victoria. [1] 1


    In this world where selfishness was the norm, often times there would be more than one ¡°correct¡± answer. Extreme stubbornness was often capable of creating a brand new path. After a year and a half of searching for their paths, a pair of creations that shouldn¡¯t originally have been in this world appeared.


    ¡°Desecration Priest and Anti-Holy Knight: The Stealer of Divine Power and the Desecrator of Divine Concepts.¡±


    Rnd never expected that the words he casually told Diana finally ended creating such demonic job sses.


    And in this battle, the first to fall victim to these new job sses were the Sea Tribe. From the very start, the main characters of this battle weren¡¯t the people of And but rather the girls from the Nortnds. The new faction from the north showed off their astonishing potential on this most excellent of stages.


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil are Dungeons and Dragons character archetypes.

 Chapter 362

    Chapter 362: Chess Match


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The battle wasn¡¯t going well for the humans. Not a single person was optimistic.


    The main strategic objective was once again the former docks of Kagersi, which was currently submerged under more than ten meters of water. The Sea Tribe called this ce the ¡°Land of the Dragon¡¯s Death¡± as the SemiGod Hydra¡¯s blood had once flowed here and Hydras were considered a species of Dragon. The remnants of the Hydra¡¯s blood would be toxic to any ordinary lifeform, but sea beasts would find it incredibly alluring. This was whyrge numbers of huge sea beasts gathered here.


    More than ten nearby former Kagersi street districts of Sea Tribe members would have to be killed off to reach this location. And the Sea Tribe¡¯s backup would arrive once the fighting reached a stalemate.


    This was why Darsos and his advisers made plenty of preparations for this battle. In the previous sixty-seven waves of attacks, they had chosen to attack this area more than ten times. It was not just to gather information for their true full-force attack or to eliminate any high-priority threats¡ªthe main reason was to make the enemy numb to the sight.


    ¡°The Land of the Dragon¡¯s Death is under attack again? Who knows what those crazy humans are thinking, loving to attack this ce so many times? Who cares? Just leave the defense up to those sea beasts.¡±


    Actually, the current Sea Tribe¡¯s top-priority locations to defend were their royal pce and divine temples. Second prioritynded on their entertainment facilities. As for this former dock district where all the sea beasts gathered... did the Sea Tribe need boats? They simply left this ce to the sea beasts.


    And had chosen this location twice out of their five most recent attacks. Although the Sea Tribe still sent their forces to defend this location each time, the warriors on the frontlines with their heightened senses honed through so muchbat had long discovered that the Sea Tribe members¡¯ reactions were bing dulled. In fact, backup would always arrive thirty minutester than in other areas, and the number of reinforcements would also be less than halfpared to other locations!


    Since the Sea Tribe members were already numb to such attacks, it was now the perfect opportunity for And tounch their first real full-force attack, disguised as a regr gueri strike. This sixty-eighth wave of attacks, code named ¡°Dawn,¡± was about to begin.


    Slightly over an hour remained before the warm sun was to rise and illuminate the world. The great majority of the Sea Tribe were still in a deep sleep¡ªthey¡¯d only wake up after nine o¡¯clock.


    Unlike in the darkest depths of the deep sea, here they could experience the warmth of the sun during the day. The Sea Tribe here hence started imitating the biological clocks of other species and resting at night. It was very possible they believed that victory was in their hands because of Rain City¡¯s forbidden spell¡ªthey had arrogantly given up on being proactive in battle. It was only a matter of time for them to meet their doom after making such a decision.


    As the main instigators of this particr battle, the people of And resolutely stood at the very forefront. Their main aquatic fleet had been seriously damaged in the battle where they lost Kagersi¡ªall three of their major fleets had been destroyed. But in this attack to recapture Kagersi, the surviving ships and newly constructed warships banded together. And still possessed more than thirty heavy-ss warships and over a hundred medium-ss warships.


    This was the foundation of a mega empire. Once a mega empire like And entered war, arge amount of civilian and merchant enterprises would transform themselves to work on military products. Unless one was able to crush them in a single blow, And¡¯s incredibly developed business industry would drag any opponent into a long and hellish war of attrition.


    Obviously, And¡¯s original warships weren¡¯t suitable forbat in this environment. The water here was far too shallow, and the depths were overlyplex. Even in areas that appeared to have deep water, the sharp pointed roof of some house that was now submerged might act like hidden coral¡ªfatal for any ship. Yet it would be impossible to fight the Sea Tribe without a ship in the deep waters.


    The people of And had been stuck between a rock and a hard ce. But they finally had a solution when they obtained the floating airship technology from the Nortnds, which was now in the hands of every single ship building factory in And. None of the shipwrights and ship designers had seen a single day of rest. The people of And had put their all into modifying their original ships.


    Complete flotation was still impossible. That would require dragon bones as the base material as well as a redesign from the base up. The right materials would have to be chosen, enchanted, and put all together. However, the people of And were capable of simply installing flotation engines capable of lowering the ship¡¯s overall weight to reduce the ship¡¯s draft.


    Perhaps this seemed rather meaningless, but it opened up the possibility of making the entire hull the ship metallic.


    Since the ship was lighter, there was more power of flotation. Didn¡¯t that mean it was possible to equip the ship with heavier armor? And so, countless cksmiths worked to add thickyers of armor to the hull of their ships. In order to ensure that the hull wouldn¡¯t be damaged by coral or any other water obstacles, the people of And were crazy enough to utilize precious magical metals. Magical metals were precious enough that no ordinary adventurer would be willing to use them to craft weapons.


    After the war was over and And calcted the war expenses, the magical metals used for these ships¡¯ hull armor alone cost one-fifth of And¡¯s entire national treasury, which would have been more than enough to reconstruct an entire new Kagersi from scratch.


    Although metallic armored ship technology was still in its infancy and engine technology was still under development, And¡¯s shipwrights had sessfully managed to use flotation technology to lighten their ships¡¯ weight and create half-metallic armored ships with armor only on the hull. I found this truly amazing.


    Unlike the wars fought in my original world of Earth, the metallic warships in this world weren¡¯t focused on defending against cannon fire. Instead, this armor was targeted specifically to defend against underwater attackers wanting to sink the ship along with coral and other underwater obstacles.


    Once engine technology was improved even further, true, fully armored heavy warships were sure to arrive as well. But right now, these makeshift half-metallic armored warships would be sufficient.


    Compared to And¡¯s original ships, these possessed far superior defenses. Due to the high number of anti-gravity engines installed on each ship, they possessed the ability to float in the air for short periods of time, making them capable of traversing evennd. To quote Darsos: ¡°The flotation power is insufficient? Then add more anti-gravity engines and keep lots of backup engines on board to rece any that overload and explode. Outfit every single ship with plenty of workers to run things and mages to provide mana. We have plenty of humans. We also have plenty of money! I¡¯ll spend money however I want!¡±


    The humans in this world were just as intelligent as the humans from my original world. Whenever an intelligent species was forced to the brink, all sorts of miracle inventions would start appearing as war was forever the foremost reason for innovation. Miracle inventions were capable of astonishing feats no conventional military of the time could aplish.


    Of course, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that the And Empire was already at the top in the field in metallurgy and metalworking, then they wouldn¡¯t have been able to actualize all this even if they wanted. Fine then, the most critical part was that they were sufficiently rich. War would always be a contest between two factions¡¯ overall power levels. Since And was really, really, rich, they could afford to invest so many resources in war.


    In order to disguise the regr, weak wooden portions at the top half of their ships and to make better camouge for night attacks, And painted their battleships a pitch ck. Later in the future, this ck battlefleet that always brought an end to their enemies would be known as the ¡°Fleet of Death.¡±


    Without a doubt, this would be one of And¡¯s aces. No matter how dangerous the war became or how many And warriors died in Kagersi¡¯s waters to be food for the Sea Tribe, And continued to spend resources on constantly improving these battleships to be used in actualbat.


    ¡°These modified battleships need to obtain miraculous results on their very first surprise appearance... Otherwise, how can it be called an ace if it can¡¯t enter battle at a critical moment and y the most important role in securing our strategic objective?¡±


    As an emperor, Darsos was quitepetent in the area of viciousness. All the sacrifices he had to make elsewhere had paid off. This ace he had been hiding for so long achieved astonishing results.


    When the pitch-ck fleet appeared in the dark hours before dawn, not a single Sea Tribe member was able to stop them. These gigantic ships were surprisingly dexterous at maneuvering despite their size. Any time they ran aground on coral, buildings, or other obstacles, the fact that they would fly up into midair for a short period of time seemed inconceivable.


    Every area of water that these heavy battleships passed over was ttened of all coral, other obstacles, or even anyrge Sea Tribe members or beasts. Those gigantic, solid metal bodies were capable of smashing everything in their path.


    When the Sea Tribe sounded the rm and entered the battlefield, they found that they were helpless against such battleships.


    Swim over and sink the ships by drilling a hole in the hull? The armor consisted of an alloy between magical metal and a thickyer of iron, which would be more than sufficient to defend against even cannon fire. Although a Sea Giant managed to pierce the outeryer of armor using an anchor, the anchor actually got stuck into the inneryer and the Sea Giant was dragged to its death.


    Send up huge waves to capsize the ships? These ships were far too steady and were capable of flying up to dodge the waves. No ordinary water mage found it possible to capsize these giant metallic hulks. Only a forbidden spell would be able to aplish such a feat.


    Use cannons to attack the weak wooden areas on the upper halves of the ships? The Sea Tribe didn¡¯t possess any cannons. Meanwhile, the Sea Tribe mages lost in battle due to the fact that And fielded three times the number of mages by stuffing the ships full of them.


    And¡¯s advantages due to their outstanding metallurgy and metalsmithing skill were quite obvious. Their patented alloy armor, along with explosive metal alloys and other such technologies, provided the best examples. Their alloy armor on the ships was the product of top-quality And metalsmithing. Forget about the Sea Tribe¡¯s metal weapons and bare hands¡ªeven ordinary magic spells at five circle and below would be unable to damage this alloy armor.


    The two sides hadpletely different attitudes regarding this war, so naturally the result would be influenced by their attitudes.


    But the sad part was that even though humans obtained the advantage of surprise and timing and pressed onward rather sessfully, they still weren¡¯t able to obtain much of an advantage after half an hour of fighting. Even though they were making progress, they didn¡¯t obtain the prize they wanted the most: killing offrge numbers of the Sea Tribe.


    This type of special aquatic battlefield made it impossible for the humans to simply reim Kagersi and live there again. In that case, killing off the enemy¡¯s numbers became the number one overall objective. But the result was quite disappointing. The Sea Tribe¡¯s deaths were quite low, and few high-level Sea Tribe members perished.


    The reason? It could be repeated an endless number of times but would always be the same: terrain advantage.


    That¡¯s right, the Sea Tribe couldn¡¯t deal with the heavy battleships. But it was the same in return, as the heavy battleships were unable to deal with the Sea Tribe!


    All the Sea Tribe members had to do was dive into the deep water and escape. What could these heavy battleships that could only remain on the water¡¯s surface do to them? These heavy hunks of metal were quite slow.


    Use cannons to fire into the deep sea? Even the stupidest ofmanders wouldn¡¯t choose such an action.


    Magic attacks? Mages¡¯ mana was a precious resource to begin with. Wouldn¡¯t the sea water block off most of their attacks?


    Shoot gigantic harpoons using huge repeating crossbows? This was actually an effective type of attack, but Sea Tribe members were intelligent and wouldn¡¯t simply stand there gawking while humans shot at them. As long as the Sea Tribe kept their distance, this type of attack would be simrly useless.


    Send humans underwater to attack the Sea Tribe? A wonderful idea... for the Sea Tribe! This type of absolutely idiotic idea could be considered treachery if anyone dared to mention it. It would be no different from sending free meals to the Sea Tribe as that was what the Sea Tribe would want the most¡ªto have the humans go underwater to them!


    Darsos was secretly feeling anxious inside as he stood on the And fleet¡¯s gship, the ¡°Shark.¡± He had previously extrapted many possiblebat situations. Yet the Sea Tribe¡¯s losses were still fewer than he had anticipated. It seemed that it would be impossible to achieve the primary overall objective of killing as many Sea Tribe as possible. In that case, even if And conquered the docks district, the Sea Tribe was certain to counterattack with incredible force.


    Also, these modified battleships weren¡¯t undefeatable. As time passed, the Sea Tribe would be certain to discover their weaknesses.


    Meanwhile, on the floating airships in the sky, Reyne and the others were also watching the current battle in astonishment.


    Perhaps her continuous victories had made her overconfident. Reyne had been looking down upon the people of And that had lost to Rnd so many times. But today, after seeing this sudden pitch-ck fleet¡¯s arrival, only now did she truly understand the meaning of the term mega empire.


    East Mist was currently constructing aquatic ships as well. Just from technology alone, East Mist was even superior to And. But there wasn¡¯t a single respectable shipbuilding factory in the entirety of East Mist. Not only that, East Mist¡¯s metallurgy and metalsmithing was behind the times. Otherwise, I wouldn¡¯t have been forced to use undead magic to construct my second aerial battleship, the Mizar.


    Anyrge ship¡¯s required resources and funding would be astronomical. Nor would the maintenance and repair fees after onerge ship¡¯s construction be cheap. The Borealis was the only exception as it was a living ship¡ªEnvy was capable of devouring in order to recover his injuries. That was the only reason why the Borealis hadn¡¯t bankrupted East Mist. As for the otherrge aerial battleships, I didn¡¯t even consider having East Mist build them and tossed the duty directly over to the Xiluo Empire.


    For a technology to go from blueprint to actual product would require countless processes, materials, artisanry, human resources, and so on. Only since I obtained an almostplete ship, experienced engineers, designers, materials¡ªfine, basically an entire production chain from And¡ªI was able topletely utilize this top-level technology. This was also the reason why, even now, East Mist was the only country in the world which possessed a form of fully matured floating airship technology.


    Even if East Mist sold part of its technology, it would require many years before other countries would be capable of utilizing floating airships inbat. Reyne had always treated this as her ace and was even secretly rather proud about it.


    ¡°If our two countries went to war...¡±


    As the leader of a country, making such an assumption would never be unnecessary. After all, there would only be benefits with diplomatic rtionships between countries and no absolute friends. It would be quitemon in either world that yesterday¡¯s ally would be today¡¯s mortal enemy.


    For some reason, Reyne recalled my answer from when she had asked me why it was that I still nned to improve our country¡¯s industries when many citizens were having difficulty making ends meet.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m abat maniac. I¡¯m actually preparing for the inevitable future. War is impossible to avoid. What? You¡¯re saying that we don¡¯t need fully developed industries to win our wars, that the Borealis alone will be sufficient?


    ¡°You¡¯re looking down too much on the mega empires. Perhaps not a single one of their ships can match our Borealis, but they can build ten ships for every one of ours. They can afford to take some losses as they can just build more. Same for their warriors, they can just recruit more if some warriors die. But for us? Our foundational strength is just so little, so without industrial strength to back us up, weck fresh blood. Withoutplete industries to back us up, it¡¯ll be impossible for us to deal with long-term battles.


    ¡°The current East Mist is resting on a volcano. Although things may seem wonderful, we¡¯re actually being baked in the heat without realizing it. Mega empires can afford to lose countless numbers of battles. But a single misstep on our side will send all of us down into an inescapable abyss. I don¡¯t want to risk my country on a gamble.¡±


    It was only now, when faced with the true reality, that Reyne finally understood Rnd¡¯s seemingly deep words about the difference between East Mist and the mega empires of Eich. Now, she understood that there was noparing them at all.


    ¡°And And is only one of the smaller mega empires among mega empires...¡±


    Reyne was no idiot. Once she noticed the difference, she adjusted her way of thinking. Only then did she discover my true intentions for the Nortnds.


    ¡°The Mist Alliance?¡±


    That¡¯s right, just East Mist would have never been sufficient. But with Sleuweir and thebined power of the Mist Alliance¡¯s seven Nortnds countries, I had always been working to homogenize their economies, politics, and businesses.


    ¡°Brother Rnd probably doesn¡¯t only want this much. What else does he intend? If it¡¯s the Mist Alliance, the Kasomi Dukedom that¡¯s San Antonio¡¯s subordinate country is too much of an annoying obstacle. But to get rid of this obstacle and make San Antonio retreat from the Nortnds will require other mega empires¡¯ support...¡±


    ¡°No wonder Brother Rnd not only invited all the major countries to our military parade but even gave them discounts to buy our technology. Oh, not only that, he even personally picked the envoys to each major country and personally read every invitation letter despite howzy he normally is.¡±


    ¡°Even though the issues regarding the Nortnds¡¯ dwarves and elves were quite difficult to deal with, he voluntarily dealt with them. Not only that, when dealing with other Nortnds countries, he actually brought up the hugely unpopr n to cancel all tariffs on other Nortnds countries and allow freedom of movement between the their citizens and kept insisting on this despite hisck of support. Also, he always writes letters to Sister Glina so that our two countries will have identical political promations. Although this issue isn¡¯t so important, it¡¯s evidence that our two countries are supposed to be allies in everything. There¡¯s also that matter... just how many things has he been doing in secret!?¡±


    I never hid my actions about the Mist Alliance from my allies. But only now was Reyne beginning to understand my overall strategic objective by putting together the individual pieces. She was currently bing a more mature leader in her own right.


    She correctly understood my intentions for East Mist along with East Mist¡¯s current position and tactical worth in the world. This allowed her to realize what it was that she should do.


    ¡°Originally, I had intended to watch the battle for as long as possible and only jump in to assist after And and the Sea Tribe brought serious injuries to each other. It isn¡¯t much if it¡¯s an individual doing this, but it would be far too unworthy of a country¡¯s leader. Right now, what we need is to directly show the world our power and obtain as much support from others as we can. And should owe us so we may receive more future benefits from them in return. Since the battle is currently at a stalemate, this is the perfect time for us to show up and break it.¡±


    There would obviously be a great difference in helping out when And was seriously injured versus helping when And was locked in a stalemate. Nobody would be fond of or support someone who sat on the fence until thest minute. Since Reyne came to this decision, she didn¡¯t hesitate a moment longer.


    ¡°Aurora Knights, Silver Cross squadron, move out! Borealis, toss down our new weapons!¡±

 Chapter 363

    Chapter 363: Swordcasters


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Four Elemental Swordcasters? They¡¯re just second-rate magical swordsmen who rely on equipment. Mages require natural talent and are impossible to mass produce. Even if they can somewhat use magic because of their equipment, just how far can they go with no talent in magic? When even their source of mana relies on equipment, how can they possibly understand the truth of magic? They¡¯re just a bunch of novices who¡¯ll take forever to improve in power level. Rather than wasting so many resources on them, it would be much better to spend resources on raising some young mages. Producing a single archmage will have far better results.¡±


    Despite their astonishing feats at Red Maple Castle¡¯s defense line, no praise awaited the Four Elemental Swordcasters. Lack of ability to cast spells continuously without their own mana,ck of high-level spells, and difficulty in improving power levels were all weaknesses that other people noticed. This helped reassure the other countries that this job ss wasn¡¯t a threat to them, and also made them uninterested in importing this job ss for themselves.


    Other countries were highly interested in the products of magical engineering. However, this new job ss was surprisingly unpopr.


    Most people would be suspicious of the usefulness of any newly-born job ss. The attitude of the archmages in the Cloud Tower was the best evidence of the problem with people¡¯s attitudes. After all, the Cloud Tower¡¯s archmages were the predominant authority about all magic-using job sses.


    Indeed, while this new job ss allowed ordinary people to cast magic, they would find it difficult to continue developing their power levels in magic as theycked ability to sense mana or the elements. Not only that, it would be impossible for even ten low-ranked Four Elemental Swordcasters to defeat a single high-level individual. A job ss like this one seemed tock development potential and would naturally be unpopr.


    ¡°...Perhaps Brother Rnd feels that it¡¯s strategically important to have many magic users in our army.¡±


    Even though Reyne adted Rnd, she could only understand this job ss and try to defend him in such a method.


    ¡°Talent? Can that be eaten?¡±


    Rnd always replied in such a matter to anyone that doubted him. And he indeed possessed what it took to be proud of himself. After all, he was a mage student back at the academy who broke all the records in how many sses he failed. Not only that, several dozen of his magic teachers had called him an ¡°idiot in all things regarding magic,¡± denying the possibility that he would ever advance far in the path of magical knowledge. Yet he managed to reach the realm of bing an Emblem of Endless Truth archmage in two different fields of magic. When Rnd said that talent was useless, it would indeed sound more convincing.


    However, special exceptions would always be difficult to imitate. Even Rnd himself had to admit that him being able to reach his power level was basically a miracle. Would a second person like Rnd be able to appear from the few hundred Four Elemental Swordcasters? The answer was evidently no.


    Actually, over the past two years, less than ten Four Elemental Swordcasters had managed to progress to Silver rank. And, the few that did were the ones who had a minor amount of talent in magic to begin with. Even most of the Four Elemental Swordcaster¡¯s supporters lost hope in this job ss.


    Since resources were limited, East Mist had an internal council meeting regarding the topic of whether or not to continue expanding the Four Elemental Swordcasters. East Mist was no rich country with plenty of money to spare like a mega empire. Investing in a long-term investment with no foreseeable returns seemed to be utmost idiocy.


    Obviously, continuing to forcefully push my ns through everyone¡¯s disagreement would be infeasible. That was why, only then, at that internal council, did I tell others about my true understanding of this job ss.


    ¡°All of you are still too inexperienced. You think that tremendous magical power is everything? Simply looking at pure power would make us no different from wild goris.¡±


    Perhaps at that council, Tid was the only one who even slightly understood my way of thinking. But after today, everyone who thought negatively of this new job ss would have to reassess their opinions.


    War would always be the best litmus test of any job ss¡¯s usefulness. Excellentbat achievements would be all that was needed to stem the negative reviews.


    The Borealis activated all its engines. This airship hidden in the clouds began to awaken, illuminating the surrounding sky with its lights. The next moment, its cargo doors opened and the Aurora Knights rode the aurora through the sky. Several hundred Swordcasters dropped straight down towards the ground. Only when they could see the ground rushing towards them did they activate the magic devices on their backs.


    Bright orange mes flickered brightly as various trails of light streaked across the sky. The Swordcasters were flying towards their chosen targets.


    These Swordcasters hadn¡¯tnded by themselves. They were wearing heavy bags on their backs, so ordinary gliding magic was incapable of handling their weight.


    Unlike previous gliding magic, which was slow and unable to be maintained for long periods of times, these magical jetpacks that spat out magical mes were both swift and highly maneuverable. But any ordinary person who tried to use one of these jetpacks would end up no different from an unlucky individual who rode on a goblin rocket. Once he started flying, he would need to consider how tond back down on the ground, alive.


    But the Swordcasters had undergone magic training so they were able to urately control the power of the jetpack¡¯s magical mes. They could also control the winds to send them in any desired direction. And to fine-tune the control process even more, their magic swords were currently inserted into the jetpack¡¯s control panel and automatically made decisions for them.


    ¡°First squadron, clear out the fish type enemies above water that are currently harassing the And fleet. Second squadron, go underwater and assassinate high-threat targets. Third squadron, continue to support from the air and provide explosive covering fire.¡±


    After Reyne gave them their orders, each squadron tore open their giant bags to expose equipment that was already pre-equipped on them.


    The first squadron was equipped with small, miniature boats named the ¡°Dolphin #1.¡± These were flexible metal shells powered by an engine, with a single ce to stand on. The rider would be standing in a swift miniature boat that was less than two meters wide. Also, the rider needed to be chained within it. Otherwise, there would be an enormous risk of being tossed out of the boat.


    The powerful engine allowed these boats to travel at high speed on top of the water, far faster than any fish! They circled around therge battleships and chose to eradicate smaller targets.


    Meanwhile, their weapons were insanely powerful. All the Dolphin #1s were equipped with machine guns¡ªall the Swordcasters and Magic Archers needed to do was insert their magic swords into the boat¡¯s control panel and enchant the bullets with armor pration, haste, explosion magic, and other such support abilities before simply spraying bullets in a general direction.


    At this moment, the swift boats and heavy firepower machine guns all became extensions of the Swordcasters¡¯ bodies. This new job ss, which had been assessed as worthless in the long run, showed off its own uniquebat style.


    Three swift boats dashed past a Sea Giant like a howling gale. The roaring machine guns left several hundred holes in its body, and a powerful Gold-ranked Sea Giant perished just like that.


    The second squadron, the underwater squadron, was equipped with oxygen canisters and diving gear along with specialized ¡°Otter¡± jetpacks, which functioned in both water and air. The fire propulsion magic would automatically be transformed into water propulsion magic when underwater, allowing the Swordcasters to be more agile than even the Sea Tribe.


    Their specialized harpoons were only their backup weapons. Simply using instant cast ice pirs would be more than enough to kill the Sea Tribe members, who weren¡¯t equipped with any armor. Their main target was to assassinate any Sea Tribe mages hidden underwater and remove the few enemies capable of threatening the And battleships.


    ¡°Impossible!¡±


    To their astonishment, the Sea Tribe found that these humans were even faster and dexterous underwater than they were. A Naga archmage who was currently in the middle of casting a spell was instantly pierced to death by a harpoon. And her Legendary power level was far above the Swordcasters¡¯¡ªthis was the best proof that there was no such thing as absolute safety on a battlefield. She had believed herself to bepletely safe, deep underwater, and hadn¡¯t made any defensive preparations whatsoever. That was why she was assassinated without even having a chance to resist¡ªthe second squadron had in the first major target since the battle started.


    Meanwhile, the third squadron wasn¡¯t equipped with any powerful weapons. However, this squadron had the most people in it. And all of them were carrying oil barrels filled with explosives...


    Alright then, this was just a simple strategy of using remote grenades that worked underwater. The underwater members of the second squadron would provide target locations for their allies in the air, call for aerial assistance, and tell the third squadron when to explode the oil barrel grenade. After each oil barrel sunk underwater and exploded, shockwaves would spread at a tremendously rapid pace, followed by arge amount of Sea Tribe corpses... And for the Sea Tribe members farther away from the explosion¡¯s center that were merely knocked unconscious, the very fact that they floated up to the surface while unconscious was no different from a death sentence.


    ¡°Let¡¯s have fun hunting some fish. Thest grenade had an excellent harvest. A7, I¡¯m going to the next target. Just let me reload!¡±


    The roaming bomber Swordcasters flew back up into the air after notifying their underwater partners and went back to the Borealis to retrieve another batch of oil barrel grenades.


    But their task wasn¡¯t only to provide aerial bombing support. Protecting their partners along with providing backup logistical mana support was their task as well.


    The Swordcasters and Magic Archers¡¯ excellent performance shocked even the Gold-ranked Aurora Knights. Inparison to them, the Swordcasters were, on average, at the Iron rank. Yet theirbat achievements far surpassed the Gold-ranked Frigid Nightmare riders.


    The Aurora Knights were indeed powerful troops highly suited for aquaticbat. They could freeze the water and dash at high speed on the ice. However, their methods of attack were rather archaic and traditional. No matter if they used ice magic or physical charge attacks, the Sea Tribe were able to correctly defend against them.


    Although the Aurora Knights could easily suppress the Sea Tribe, the Sea Tribe only needed to escape to the deep sea, which made it impossible for the Aurora Knights to chase them down. How could they possibly be as effective as a deep sea grenade?


    At this moment, the Swordcasters¡¯ advantage was shown. Since they were able to use their equipment like part of their bodies, they could customize themselves to deal with specific enemies and terrain. The Swordcasters, who were currently equipped for aquatic and underwater battle, proved that they had even more of a terrain advantage than the Sea Tribe.


    Indeed, the Swordcasters were a job ss that relied to an extreme on items rather than personal power levels. But what was wrong with relying on items for power? Humans in my previous world had reached the peak simply by using items. They even invented nuclear bombs, which were capable of destroying the entire world.


    Unable to improve their magic ability or use high-level magic spells? Gunmen from my previous world weren¡¯t exactly capable of ¡°leveling up¡± by shooting twice the number of bullets at a time or making their guns spew fire like in a video game, now, were they? But there would still be noparison between an ordinary warrior who only finished basic training and an elitebat veteran with over one hundred battles under his belt. Simply the techniques and expertise in using one¡¯s weapon could be refined over a lifetime.


    Personal power level being weak? Lacking in mobility? All I had to do was equip them with mobile mechas or Iron Horses. And if the range of their attacks or firepower wascking? Stronger modifications to their equipment was all that was necessary.


    Lack of mana? Just carry more mana batteries. Who said you could only carry one mana battery? See for yourself, every one of the Dolphin #1 swift boat pilots were carrying three magic swords and ten fully charged Olivia¡¯s Magic Box mana batteries.


    ¡°It¡¯s difficult to improve personal power level by using items? In that case, all that¡¯s necessary is to improve the level of the item. This is actually easier than raising a high-level mage, and high-level items can even be mass produced! Dwarven rifles and Dwarven sniper cannons are onpletely different levels! Magical engineering can create cannons with ten times the firepower of normal cannons! Can any small cannon possiblypare to a Rnd Titan? Besides, I don¡¯t believe it¡¯s impossible for the Four Elemental Swordcasters to improve in power level. They just have the wrong idea about how to progress!¡±


    In the council that opposed my Swordcasters, I personally showed off the newly invented seals and various magic sword techniques. This was a job ss that focused on techniques over raw power. Since all the magic came from outside sources, researching new and more powerful sword sealsbined with new magic sword techniques was most likely the correct method for them to level up.


    ¡°Swordcasters are simply people using a magic sword. They shouldn¡¯t need to be restrained by traditional ways of thinking from the past. Why do you have to treat them like mages? Just take a look at the real way to use these Swordcasters. Why are we called humans? That¡¯s because humans are the only species in the world that are capable of using tools, which is why we humans have led the way in evolution... Fine, I misspoke, Elves, Beastmen, and Dwarves also exist in this world and are perfectly capable of using tools. That¡¯s¡ªwould you please get off from my head now, Harloys? I¡¯ve been rather anemic recently.¡±


    The Four Elemental Swordcasters were users of magic, but their use of magic originated from magical engineering¡ªthis field was their true specialty, not raw power. They would be the favored children of warfare as well as the most valuable job ss of this new generation. The further magical engineering developed, the stronger they would be.


    And as long as there were enough people who joined this job ss, geniuses among them would appear sooner orter. Perhaps among ordinary mages, less than ten percent would advance to higher power levels. And for these Swordcasters who had much less talent than mages, only three percent of them advanced to higher power levels. But as long as they were no longer treated like mages, I was certain I could multiply the number of Swordcasters by more than one hundred times. As long as there was sufficient time and enough Swordcasters, I would definitely reap a reward in the end.


    Of course, this power had a price to it as well. Although there were more than five thousand Swordcasters in East Mist, Reyne had only brought along two hundred. It wasn¡¯t because she didn¡¯t want to bring more, but rather that East Mist could only afford to fully equip two hundred.


    In order to further develop this job ss with limitless potential, more than just resources and money would be required. This would depend even more on the industrial and educational level of a country, which was something that couldn¡¯t be solved overnight.


    Creating a magical engineering product only needed an engineer? What a joke. An expert would be needed right from the designing stage. The equipment¡¯s materials would need the assistance of metalsmithing and metallurgy industries. Enchanting and runic spell arrays would require enchantment expert archmagi. Alchemists were required to finish injecting mana into the batteries andpleting the energy cycles. Every single piece of equipment required the support of multiple industries and more than ten people working together.


    If I wanted to create a streamlined, high-efficiency, mass-produced product, I would require even higher industrial standards.


    Judging from the currentbat situation, where the Swordcasters, who were the lowest rank of all, far outperformed the Gold-ranked Aurora Knights, Reyne felt like she now better understood Rnd¡¯s ns. It seemed that from the very start, he was looking forward at a new generationpletely different from modern warfare.


    Perhaps in future battles, ordinary metal weapons would be abandoned and magic swordsmen would be the most basic warrior job ss. It would also be quite easy to use the elements, meaning that mages would no longer be so special. The products of magical engineering were destined to rece mages as the kings of the battlefield.


    By that time, perhaps every country would no longer be fighting over territory, but resources, instead. Nor would the countriespete in seeing how many powerful individuals each country possessed, but rather in technology and the smithing industries. Nor would wars be about total suppression by top-level existences. The naturally powerful dragons and giants would no longer be at the top of the food chain. Trained, ordinary humans would be the new masters of this generation, with master smiths and master engineers taking the social status of forbidden spell archmagi.


    ¡°...This is an invention that will change the world?¡±


    Reyne recalled how Rnd instantly came to that conclusion upon first seeing the Olivia¡¯s Magic Box. Very rarely for him, he forcefully pushed through his development n regarding Olivia¡¯s Magic Box despite everyone¡¯s total opposition. He spent an enormous amount of material and human resources on what was called ¡°Rnd¡¯s pet project that¡¯s actually a bottomless hole.¡± Perhaps, from the very start, he had anticipated this day and was doing his very best to push through all these changes.


    I indeed saw everything quite clearly. Every industrial revolution would be an excellent opportunity to readjust the power bnce between countries. Being one stepte would equal forever beingte. Surely there would be no need for me to exin the consequences of being technologically behind.


    ¡°...At the very least, we¡¯re now technologically ahead of everyone else! And being ahead means future resources and cards up our sleeve.¡±


    That¡¯s right. Rnd and his allies were doubtlessly now at the peak of the world in this area of magical engineering. After showing off outstandingbat ability in And, East Mist obtained better political, military, and economic standing, which also gave East Mist an appropriate tform to sell its goods for an excellent price.


    So had Rnd been able to see through to future world-level changes in how wars would be fought? Reyne clenched her fists tightly as she faintly felt like she could imagine her home country of East Mist bing a future mega-empire in the world. Perhaps this Holy War would be a chance for her People of the Mist, who had suffered so much pain over the years.


    ¡°Perhaps we¡¯ll finally be able to stand at the peak of the world.¡±

 Chapter 364

    Chapter 364: Random Draws


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°By the way, Rnd, why haven¡¯t you been making your Gachapon drawstely?¡±


    Harloys had received many benefits from being Rnd¡¯s soulbound equipment, and she was quite curious about the System hidden within him. The System¡¯s power to distort karma was absolutely inconceivable. As long as it was used properly, it would be ridiculously powerful.


    ¡°...I recently used some draws but never got a single good item.¡±


    ¡°Why haven¡¯t I heard you mention this before!?¡±


    Harloys was astonished to hear this. With her understanding of Rnd, he would have definitely bragged about and shown off anything wonderful he obtained. So, since he wasn¡¯t bragging about his good luck, that meant...


    ¡°...Yep, there¡¯s no need to talk about the results. In thest ten draws, I got five blue, four purple, and one orange.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not bad, though¡ªwhy didn¡¯t you mention it at all?¡±


    As ofte, Harloys hade to understand Rnd¡¯s strange terms. Blue meant Elite-tier, purple meant Myth, or Epic-tier, and orange meant Legend-tier items. Getting four Epic-tier items¡ªand one rated even higher¡ªseemed like quite the good deal to her.


    ¡°I¡¯ll refrain from mentioning the Elite items. Although none of them are that great, they¡¯re at least somewhat usable.¡±


    ¡°...Then the Epic-tier items should be even better.¡±


    ¡°Yep, I was delighted when I got my first Epic-tier item. It was ¡®Kratos¡¯ Guide to Melee Combat, Part 1.¡¯¡± [1] 1


    ¡°Kratos? Who¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Some vicious individual who¡¯s skilled at ying demons, dragons, and Gods. To use a not-so-suitable analogy, he¡¯s basically the equivalent of a great Sword Saint from the immemorial generation.¡±


    ¡°Then isn¡¯t that a wonderful thing?¡±


    ¡°I looked through this book, and it was indeed written by him. ying an immemorial War God, singlehandedly killing a SemiGod Hydra, and engaging in meleebat with colossal gargoyle monsters. This Part 1 book contains his heroic deeds, where he defeated everyone and made himself look stronger than the Gods. I checked the historical records, and he really was a person from the immemorial generation.¡±


    ¡°...Then why aren¡¯t you happy?¡±


    ¡°Just Part 1 alone is incredibly thick. You could use it as a brick! And it doesn¡¯t contain any techniques about practicalbat whatsoever. It only has his heroic deeds, which means it¡¯s nothing more than the game¡¯s history to me¡ªer¡ªlike a knight novel. How could I possibly be happy? Not only that, the final page of Part 1 stated that Part 2 has the secret techniques on how to craft his unique weapons, and that Part 3 has hisbat techniques and experience.¡±


    ¡°I understand now. Part 1 was useless, while the other parts are useful. And you never drew the other parts, which is why you¡¯re so depressed!¡±


    ¡°No, I actually drew Part 2 right after that one, which included the technique to create the immemorial God Weapon known as the Chaos Sword...¡±


    ¡°What? Show me!¡±


    After some slight hesitation, I handed over a very small booklet.


    ¡°...That¡¯s all? The materials required, the smithing process, enchantment, and everything else necessary for a God Equipment¡¯s construction should be enough to fill up an entire library.¡±


    Well, there was no need for me to exin anything to her as she immediately opened up the booklet. After reading what was written, her expression was one of shock¡ªthe contents were, to say the least, quite simple.


    ¡°Find a God, kill him, then steal his weapon. There you go, now you have a God Equipment. After killing off several Gods, you¡¯ll definitely obtain a one-handed God-tier sword sooner orter. If you¡¯re too unlucky, then try again. But this method is somewhat limited. For instance, I found a Harem Godst time and managed to y him, which gave me a two-handed sword God Equipment. Unfortunately, I don¡¯t know twin-handed sword techniques, so I was unable to use it. Ptui! These random drops are so ridiculous, and the God Equipment is bound to my soul, so I can¡¯t even give it away to one of my followers.¡±


    ¡°...Haha. I suppose he¡¯s such a practical fellow.¡±


    Harloys forced herself to chuckle twice in an effort to console me as I was bing more and more annoyed.


    ¡°Good luck to you. Perhaps you¡¯ll even draw Part 3 in the future. At the very least, the fighting techniques in Part 3 should be useful, right?¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t even mention it! I, in fact, did draw ¡®Kratos¡¯ guide to meleebat¡¯ yet again.¡±


    Harloys sympathetically looked over at me. Even though I was trying my best to keep up a smile, it was apparent that there had been some problem¡ªthat was how my luck typically went.


    ¡°You can¡¯t learn the technique?¡±


    ¡°...No, although I drew ¡®Kratos¡¯ guide to meleebat,¡¯ again, this time it was ¡®The continuation of my heroic deeds that I didn¡¯t mentionst time, so allow me to continue in this addendum.¡¯ I read it for two hours¡ªhow this Spartan Kratos fellow discussed fighting with his SemiGod brother, how he challenged the Titan Giants, and how he was being hunted by the Mother Earth Goddess. As expected of a hero with Barbarian blood, he sure knows how to brag. If everything he said was real, then wouldn¡¯t he be able to kill off the Gods and destroy the world...?¡±


    ¡°...I truly do sympathize with you. But if these were three out of four of the Epic-tier items, what was the fourth?¡±


    ¡°Ha! The fourth one was ¡®The addendum to the addendum of Kratos¡¯ guide to meleebat: Since I know you didn¡¯t really believe me, now let me tell you all the evidence; just listen, that Titan Giant was trulyrger than a mountain, and this Hydra wasrger than a ship...¡¯ I read this book for two full days and deeply learned about the importance of teaching literacy to the Barbarians. Forget about misspelled words¡ªhe didn¡¯t even use any punctuation! Do you know what it¡¯s like to have obsessivepulsive disorder and correct every single bit of his punctuation? I read it for two days, but I spent two weeks correcting his grammar!¡±


    ¡°You really did finish it!¡±


    ¡°...Well, he¡¯s still a super powerful individual from the immemorial generation. Perhaps he knew some top secrets. But the result was...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t frown like that. It¡¯s still of the Epic tier, right? It should at least be something good. A God Equipment?¡±


    ¡°Ha, from a certain standpoint, it really was. Kratos¡¯ full set of defensive equipment, the real deal.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t that mean you profited in the end? Wait a moment, you said that Kratos was a Barbarian...¡±


    ¡°...That¡¯s right! No matter if it was the immemorial generation or in today¡¯s age, Barbarians have always fought while naked. But, Kratos was better than most as he still wore one defensive piece of equipment, which my System reviewed as Legend-tier.¡±


    ¡°...So what was it?¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s a poop-yellow pair of strawberry zoned underwear, original vor. Would you like it? I¡¯ll give it to you for free!¡±


    ¡°...Disgusting! Hurry up and throw it away! You actually carry such a disgusting thing on yourself!?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have any choice. It¡¯s the same as those soulbound twin swords of his¡ªhis underpants are actually soulbound to me! I can¡¯t even throw it away if I want to! Come, why don¡¯t you try?¡±


    After some chaos and scuffling, I confirmed that even though Harloys also counted as my bound equipment, she was still unable to equip this shining ¡°soulbound¡± underwear of mine. I could only helplessly bring out arge amount of bandages, tie the underwear up again, and throw it back into my personal dimensional storage.


    ¡°...Truly a pitfall of Gachapon draws. At least those Elite-tier items were useful, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, the Elite-tier items were special type of cards, each with a rune etched onto it. As long as I got ¡°San, Yang, Kai, Tai!¡± I would be able to obtain a God Equipment that Kratos had personally used. For this, I even specifically asked my System. She said there would be no pitfall involved with the God Equipment and it would definitely be real.¡±


    ¡°You have five Elite grade items? Doesn¡¯t that mean you drew them all? There are only four runes, right?¡±


    ¡°Yep. Although I drew two ¡°Yang¡± runes, I indeed drew all four of those runes. But...¡±


    ¡°But?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t draw the exmation mark! The damned exmation mark was required for part of the runes as well! I needed a total of five runes, including the punctuation!¡±


    ¡°...You could have kept drawing. You would have drawn it sooner orter.¡±


    ¡°Heh heh, just where do you think that 418 Justice Point random draw package deal idea came from? After that, I drew ¡®?¡¯, ¡®,¡±.¡¯, ¡®:¡¯, ¡®;¡¯, and even ¡®...¡¯ and ¡®?¡¯. The System must have been trying to torture me! San, Yang, Kai, and Tai? Why was there only no damned exmation mark!?!¡±


    ¡°I can understand how you feel. But please don¡¯t stress out about it¡ªthat¡¯s just how random draws work. Some people win, and some people lose...¡±


    ¡°Haha, but I¡¯ve never won! Rx. I already know how to make myself feel better. Whenever I¡¯m feeling terrible, all I have to do is make someone feel even worse. Heh, I¡¯ve already made arrangements with the Justice Points system. They want to obtain my treasures? Sure, but they¡¯re going to have to make random draws! The 418 Justice Point random draw package deal is only the basic package. There¡¯s also 688 and 1088! My goal is to make others draw till they quit or go bankrupt!¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you learn how to quit first?¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Reference to Kratos from the game God of War.

 Chapter 365

    Chapter 365: Chaotic Capital


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The Bardi Empire¡¯s capital was probably the oldest city among all the mega-empires. It was the origin of this country, and even the empire itself was named after it. That¡¯s right¡ªthe Bardi Empire¡¯s capital city was also named Bardi.


    In order to differentiate it from the country, the people of Bardi typically addressed the Bardi capital as just the capital. Outsiders would call it the Bardi capital.


    The Bardi capital epassed an area that was approximately one thousand square kilometers in size, which included several dozen smaller satellite cities and even rivers and mountains. If a person intended to walk from the very outskirts of the capital city all the way to meet Emperor Orloss in his pce, they would need to prepare at least two weeks¡¯ worth of food and travel equipment.


    The Dilo District housed the royal pce, even though it wasn¡¯t thergest district. The royal pce was very well guarded. Since Orloss had far too many enemies, he made the royal pce into the single most secure area in the entire country. Plus, all the princes who formed factions and were always at each other¡¯s throats resided here as well. No politically sensitive person would ever choose to visit the royal pce if they didn¡¯t have to.


    During daytime, just about every horse-drawn carriage in the Dilo District had a noble or government official¡¯s emblem. Anyone who idled on the streets for a short period of time would cause a patrolling knight toe question them.


    Despite all of this, the Dilo District was still ranked number one in the Bardi Empire for rate of urrence of serious crimes. As Emperor Orloss, who was ¡°quite elderly¡± and ¡°really wanted to see who was worthy of inheriting his throne,¡± tacitly permitted the princes to fight and kill each other, this ce was, suffice to say, a chaotic one.


    Every prince had gangs, major merchants, and nobles supporting him. None of them would personally take action. This made assassins and spies into the two mostmon jobs here. And people in these jobs were ustomed to killing off bystander witnesses, so it was an unstated piece ofmon sense known to everybody in the Bardi Capital that no one should enter the Dilo Royal Pce District after nightfall.


    The end result was something that seemed rather abnormal. On the wide streets of Dilo District, people came and went in a jam-packed manner. Yet, at nighttime, the streets werepletely empty, while ck-clothed or caped individuals could be seen jumping about the rooftops. In fact, it was evenmon for them to greet each other.¡±


    ¡°Oh, isn¡¯t this the Fourth Prince¡¯s Great Knight Cam? Fancy meeting you here¡ªwhere are you headed today?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here because Thirteenth Prince recently hired an archmage. It¡¯s said that the archmage is so powerful that the bnce between the factions has been affected. My boss wants me to go test that archmage¡¯s mettle and simply kill the archmage if he¡¯s actually weak. And if he really is that strong, I¡¯m supposed to teach him the rules of how we work around here.¡±


    ¡°What a coincidence¡ªthat¡¯s my task as well. Let¡¯s go together, together.¡±


    ¡°Of course. The reward will be the same even if I team up, so why should I go alone? Wouldn¡¯t that be foolish? Right, I heard that this archmage is really quite something. Do you have any special information about him? Share it with me, no?¡±


    One ck-d man started chatting with a gray-caped man. These two seemed as if they were teaming up against a boss monster, making it seem like they were good friends.


    But no outsider would be able to guess that the ck-d man¡¯s left eye had been previously blinded by the gray-caped man. And in that fight, the gray-caped man had lost his left hand¡¯s little finger and middle finger. Not only were they not friends, they had fought each other to the death just yesterday night.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go together!¡±


    ¡°Together!¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s all gang up!¡±


    The two of them turned around to see a ck-caped man, a red-caped man, and a man with a purple mask. It would seem that their team now consisted of five¡ªit was almost as if they were teaming up to fight against a boss monster in a cave.


    Yet these members, who were now happily organizing together and talking as if they had be brothers-in-arms, had been fighting each other the previous night. Perhaps half of their bodies would be found in the gutters tomorrow, most likely because of these temporary teammates. That was because all of these somewhat ¡°famous¡± fighters had sizable bounties on their heads.


    Third-rate assassins, mafia enforcers, rich merchants¡¯ bodyguards, disobedient deserter soldiers, and even local hoodlums and gangsters. Every underside faction of society could be seen here.


    As Emperor Orloss¡¯¡±expected death of old age¡± got closer and closer, he seemed to care less and less about the fights that broke out here in the Dilo District. In fact, he even stopped sending knights to patrol out in the evenings. The result of this was that the princes¡¯ infighting got even fiercer¡ªnow, it basically out in the open. They spentrge amounts of money attempting to kill each other. They didn¡¯t care about their assassins¡¯ backgrounds or even power levels. As long as an assassin couldplete the task and survive, the assassin would naturally be a loyal dog worth the money spent.


    That¡¯s right¡ªdog. Everyone else in the royal capital addressed this worsening infighting among the princes as ¡°dogfighting.¡± The princes stood up high on a tform, tossing gold coins down below to have others fight and die for them. Wasn¡¯t this simr to how illegal underground dogfighting rings did things?


    And it just so happened to be that this ¡°dogfighting¡± was getting worse and worse every day, to the point where it seemed like it would soon swallow up the entire capital.


    ¡°...No sense of life left in him at all. Holy Light healing ispletely ineffective on him. He¡¯s likely to die at any moment.¡±


    A certain head doctor at a certain royal medical academy secretly leaked this information. And on the same afternoon he received arge payment for this information, he was arrested by the royal knights and executed.


    Holy Light¡¯s healing effects, foundationally speaking, worked to return the living to its ¡°normal¡± status. So Holy Light healing was incredibly effective against external injuries as well as poisons. However, it was basically useless on something akin to fixing a broken limb or reconstructing a body part. That was because the Holy Light would judge that the broken limb was already in a ¡°normal¡± state¡ªwhy would it change that for you?


    The undead were filled with negative energy, and to the Holy Light, whose purpose was to return the living to a ¡°normal¡± status, they naturally became mortal enemies.


    By the same logic, if a person was at the end of their life because of old age, their ¡°normal¡± status would be equal to almost dead¡ªthey lived only due to medication. The Holy Light would be powerless to do anything in such a situation. Blindly using the power of Holy Light to stimte thest throes of one¡¯s life would only make that person die faster.


    From a certain standpoint, the fact that the Holy Light was ineffective on an elderly person¡¯s illness or condition was a notice that death would soone for this person. Although the Bardi royal knights acted swiftly and immediately executed the doctor who leaked this information and used all their means to prevent any further spread of information, this in a way confirmed the veracity of the doctor¡¯s leaked information.


    And so, all the princes went crazy with delight. Simultaneously, the major domain lords and the biggest personages in the empire were no longer content with just watching the princes fight from a distance.


    After all, it seemed quite obvious that a new emperor would soon be chosen. It was now thest opportunity to choose a side, or even personally try to be emperor. The rate of return if the person you helped became emperor would be astronomical. Any merchant would be willing to gamble their entire fortune and even their very life on it. This was a huge gamble to the nobles as well. If they won, their noble ranking and status would multiply exponentially, perhaps giving them great authority under the new emperor. If they lost... actually, that wouldn¡¯t matter much to the major nobles. There were always more major nobles loathed by an emperor than loved in any generation. As long as there was no incredibly deep grudge, all a major noble would have to do was speedily retreat back to their domain and not antagonize the emperor any further. They would be spared as long as they kept a low profile.


    Since the major nobles, merchants, and even the major officials in the military and government started taking action, its internal order fell into utter chaos even though Emperor Orloss wasn¡¯t dead yet. Everything was only calm on the surface, but trouble brewed underneath.


    The only fortunate part was that Emperor Orloss still had his authority and was as vicious as always¡ªnobody dared to bring the infighting out in the open, so only the royal pce district was chaotic... you¡¯d be so na?ve if you thought that was real! If Chaos was really possible to control, then the Chaos Faction would have long made peace with the Order Faction.


    On the surface, everyone kept promising to not affect the ordinary citizens. Yet major merchants used their merchant groups to attack theirpetitors with full force, making the market wildly unstable. All the nobles¡¯ underworld factions were acting as well. A single hoodlum would be more than capable of causing a hugemotion in an alley, not to mention every military movement would make an entire city district of people unable to sleep well at night.


    The citizens were no fools. Considering the fact that murders were happening almost every day, and nobles who seemed to be doing well kept popping up dead, the rumors naturally started spreading by themselves.


    Since some unknown time, it had no longer been a secret that Emperor Orloss¡¯¡±impending death¡± would be soon. Even if it was understood that Emperor Orloss wished to use this special method to find an appropriate sessor, ordinary citizens only wanted to have a peaceful life. How would they possibly enjoy this chaos? Especially since they were still currently at war?


    That¡¯s right¡ªwar. Not to mention, war with several other countries.


    That so-called Holy Light army had lost almost half its troops to the rampaging dragons. However, they were still currently within Bardi borders, although most people seemed to have forgotten about them.


    However, there was at least good news from the defense line at Nightrain City. Thanks to my ridiculous actions, Undead Lord Davey and all the Undead Lords under him, together with their armies, had perished. Until a new high-ranked undead arrived to take overallmand and the remaining Undead Lords who didn¡¯t participate previously finished ming each other, the defense line at Nightrain City would be under much less pressure.


    Since the Contract Heroes on the western front were now free and had no restrictions upon them, it was only natural for some of them to choose to go east and help defend against the undead there. This helped make Nightrain City even safer for the time being. Only now would Dragon Knight Archduke Halent dare to make time for his own affairs.


    As for Bardi¡¯sst enemy... they were still at war with the Mage Country!


    That¡¯s right. They were still technically at war, at least on the surface. The Mage Country had supposedly used a forbidden spell to destroy one of Bardi¡¯s fortresses, and the Dragon Knights were currently fighting on the frontlines against the archmages. Since no agreement had been made yet, the two countries were still of course at war.


    In fact, since the local battles had ended victoriously for the Bardi Empire, plenty of citizens who had lost rtives at the destroyed fortress demanded their lords to attack the Mage Country in revenge. Also, those with nefarious intentions spread propaganda about the Mage Country in order to make the citizens uneasy and spread fear. With all this, the citizens held a very high degree of enmity towards the Mage Country right now.


    As for truly warring against the Mage Country? The major nobles didn¡¯t know the truth of the matter. Yet because the issue of the new sessor to the throne hadn¡¯t been decided yet, not a single major personage had any intentions of focusing on this useless external affair when more important internal ones were at stake. It was amid such a tumultuous time that Cher arrived in Bardi as the Mage Country¡¯s official ambassador, naturally drawing lots of attention.


    Only having political personages in a city would be insufficient. The biggest district in the Bardi capital, the Kasoen District, was the business and education center of capital. This district was three times the size of the Dilo Royal Pce District. In the thirtyish years of Orloss¡¯s reign, the Kasoen District had only be ever more prosperous. Every year, merchants from all sorts of countries would gather. This was also the most extravagant district. All foreign embassies in the Bardi Empire were located here, a move designed to help them avoid getting caught up in the princes¡¯ internal infighting, such as getting used of being foreign spies under the pay of one of the princes.


    Considering the current situation, Cher kept a low profile when she entered the Bardi capital. She had secretly slipped into an ambassadors¡¯ hotel at nighttime. However, her status made it certain that she would be unable toy low for long.


    Since a horse-drawn carriage with the Mage Country¡¯s emblem kept visiting between the royal pce and the Kasoen District multiple times per day, in addition to the fact that this carriage always parked at a hotel where only ambassadors from other countries were allowed to reside, of course even the ordinary citizens learned that their enemy country¡¯s ambassador had arrived.


    And then, rotten apples and eggs suddenly started selling out...


    From the Bardi Empire citizens¡¯ angle, this was quite easy to understand. They just happened to need a target to vent their discontent at right now. And so, a game of Whack-a-Mole would be yed every time the horse-drawn carriage passed through the streets. All the young people who hadn¡¯t yet had enough would chase the carriage all the way to the ambassadors¡¯ hotel. Although the Bardi soldiers guarding the hotel wouldn¡¯t allow these people to enter, they would simply pretend not to see anything as long as they were tossing rotten apples and other non-dangerous items. The result was that a constant bombardment of rotten apples and eggs rained upon the hotel, making it so that not a single person dared to show up at a window.


    Yet everyone in the envoy group was quite calm about the current situation¡ªwell, mostly everyone. Only the ambassador herself, Cher, couldn¡¯t understand.


    ¡°Why are you all so calm?¡±


    ¡°Because we¡¯ve gotten used to suffering¡± was the answer said to her in unison.


    Rnd¡¯s old subordinates may be used to suffering, but Cher was filled with frustrations.


    ¡°I¡¯m only an ordinary mage who works in the public order department. I haven¡¯t even passed the exam to be an archmage. Forget about the fact that for some reason the higher-ups suddenly forced me into bing the ambassador. Forget about the fact that even though we already have a secret agreement with Orloss, we can¡¯t publicize it. Forget about the fact that I¡¯m now in a country filled with people that hate me. Forget about the fact that I haven¡¯t gotten a single night¡¯s sleep because of those constant projectiles attacking the windows even at night. Forget about the fact that Emperor Orloss always summons me over for supposed official discussions but instead forces me to y chess with him. Not only that, he¡¯s so bad at chess, and he always takes back his moves and even cheats by putting his dead pieces back on the board... ¡±


    If it wasn¡¯t for the sake of their two countries¡¯ rtionships, and that a war might truly break out if she acted out on her frustrations, she would have gone on a rampage long ago.


    ¡°How am I supposed to bear all this!? I¡¯ve had enough! I want to quit!¡±


    Alright then. Cher never had a good temper to begin with, and she was in a thunderous mood. But the single worst part that she absolutely couldn¡¯t stand was that...


    ¡°Even though it was agreed that I was supposed to only be a puppet ambassador on the surface, with the main work being done by the real ambassador Rnd, why did he disappear the moment we set out!? Now I¡¯m the one forced to do all the work! I already have so many frustrations and also so much work on top of that. How can someone be so irresponsible as he is!?¡±


    ¡°...Ahh, such familiar roaring andining.¡±


    Krose sympathetically looked over at Cher, who was in a mode of full frustration. It would seem that anyone who stayed together long enough with Rnd would always have a couple days of the month like this.


    ¡°...I feel like I¡¯m seeing the past me.¡±


    Lilith sank into contemtion as she looked at the chaos outside the window. Which ¡°past me¡± was she referring to? The former Bardi royal princess who was now viewed as an enemy by the Bardi citizens? Or that pitifully busy internal manager who had useless coworkers and so much work piled on her by her bosses in Sulfur Mountain City?


    ¡°Rx, Sister Cher. Teacher will probablye back very soon. He won¡¯t forget about something so important... I think.¡±


    As Rnd¡¯s disciple, Cohen wanted to protect his teacher¡¯s honor. But as he was speaking, he recalled how unreliable Rnd typically was, and hisst sentence exposed his ownck of confidence.


    ¡°What a chaotic ce. I...¡±


    ¡°Miss Yawen, His Highness Rnd told me that this is one of the oldest empires in Eich. So they react slowly to change and view themselves as above all others. They still have plenty of discrimination against Dark Elves. And the typical customs here are to burn any Dark Elves first and ask questions onlyter. From this, it can be seen that they¡¯re basically no different from uncultured barbarians who have no empathy at all...¡±


    Eaglestorm was quite chatty once he started talking. Since there weren¡¯t enough people to help out, Momo had been sent here to assist Yawen, and was currently looking at Eaglestorm while filled with expectations.


    ¡°Did he expect this situation? Did he mention me? Did he mention what I should do here?¡±


    ¡°...Alright then. I¡¯ll speak directly about the important points. ¡®If they want to enforce the concept of Law here, tell them that this isn¡¯t their territory and that imitatingw enforcers from other territories is a felony. They should understand how serious it is for aw enforcer tomit a crime.¡±


    ¡°Rnd even thought of that? But he didn¡¯t think of our current situation?¡±


    The Law personnel had been wanting to move out but calmed down upon hearing these orders left behind by Rnd. But the biggest trouble for everyone right now was Ambassador Cher, who was going crazy from the pressure of everything on her. She had just yed three hours of chess against Orloss, who constantly cheated, took back his moves, and was just really weak chess. On her way back here, she had ¡°enjoyed¡± a shower of rotten eggs. Her current sense of logic and reason was about to copse. Now, upon hearing Rnd¡¯s name, she went into a frenzy.


    ¡°I¡¯ve had enough! I¡¯m going to quit being this ambassador! I¡¯m going to return to the Mage Country right now!¡±


    Cohen, who was probably one of the nicer people here, hesitated for a moment before attempting to convince her otherwise.


    ¡°...Sister Cher, then you should first say goodbye to Emperor Orloss, which means that the carriage still needs to pass through town one more time. I wonder if they still have any ammunition? The fruits around here are sold out every day. Oh, right, it¡¯s almost nighttime, so those strange people who run around on the rooftops every night should be out and about soon. The carriage might be ambushed by them. Sister Cher, do you intend to join their ranks and disguise yourself? Actually, I have some ck cloth left over fromst time...¡±


    ¡°Little Cohen! Has anyone ever told you that you¡¯re just as annoying as your teacher!?¡±


    Alright then. Ambassador Cher was fully raging. But...


    *Cough, cough.* Eaglestorm, acting as the elder in-charge, cleared his throat and looked sympathetically in Cher¡¯s direction.


    ¡°To quote His Highness Rnd¡¯s original words, ¡®If Cher wants to quit, tell her that she won¡¯t receive any research funds for the next fifty years. Every single review or test she has will result in failure. Also, she¡¯ll be looking at mandatory daily toilet-cleaning duties. That¡¯s right, this is abuse of power. You¡¯re more than wee to file aint once you return to the Mage Country. Yep, file yourint to Rnd, who just took over the job of head of the public order department. He¡¯s now your boss¡¯ boss¡¯ boss.¡±


    ¡°Damned Rnd! I can¡¯t believe my first impression of you was that you were a good person!¡±


    Alright then. The familiar, furious roars caused so many people present to recall their own memories.


    ¡°...If only Rnd was the God of Hatred. With his abilities in making others hate him, he¡¯d surely be a Main God by now.¡±


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 Chapter 366

    Chapter 366: Dragons and a Plot


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    What was the difference between riding a dragon and riding a horse-drawn carriage?


    Some people might say that riding a dragon seemed awesome and that riding a carriage was ordinary. Or that dragons were swift and carriages were slow. Or that riding a dragon required a high power level while a carriage only needed a modest amount of money. But for me...


    ¡°Riding a dragon is awesome? Ridiculous! A carriage is far morefortable than a dragon. Has nobody ever considered what happens when you¡¯re flying under zero cover and meet a rainstorm?!¡±


    Dark clouds stretched in every direction, while Little Red and I were drenched in rain¡ªor, more urately, we were both drenched in rain and pelted with hail.


    In a new spring, high altitudes weren¡¯t the least bit warm. In fact, the cold temperatures would transform the rainwater into tiny ice cubes, which, right now, made loud noises against my head... since I was already in my full-body armor.


    Not far away, a Blue Dragon soared through the clouds above me. Blue Dragons were of the thunder element and loved this type of weather more than anything. Plenty of electricity would exist in the air, which would replenish their energy¡ªto them, each energy replenishment would be a full-body massage. In fact, this Blue Dragon right here was moaning in a way that was easy to misconstrue... But its rider, Halent, seemed to have all his hairs standing up on end and was half burnt to a crisp from the lightning¡ªhe was suffering more than I was. It appeared that there was still arge gap between a half dragon blood descendant like him and a true dragon.


    Dragons were creatures that strangely focused on their pride, which could very well be viewed as a synonym for their arrogance. Only the young dragons would be willing to be a dragon knight¡¯s contracted dragon. The slightly older and more experienced dragons would be unwilling to be someone else¡¯s steed... Let¡¯s ignore a certain professional steed known as Gricasio, who was currently hiding back in Xiluo. He was obviously an exception among exceptions¡ªtruly the only dragon I¡¯d ever met who was so utterly shameless... Although perhaps Molly could give his shamelessness a run for its money.


    Cough, ordinary dragons would reject having a dragon knight as their rider. This didn¡¯t have anything to do with whether you had a good rtionship with that dragon or not. I mean, even for humans, no matter how good of a rtionship you had with your best friend, if you asked your best friend to let you ride him for several dozen years, he would likely viciously beat you up and end the friendship then and there.


    What about those stories about how knights simply gave a dragon some barbequed meat or ss baubles to obtain a dragon steed, you say? That dragon would either have to be retarded, or it was all just an excuse that hid the truth from prying eyes. For instance, kidnapping a dragon¡¯s daughter, or luring the dragon with the promise of a princess, or making¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªI seem to have gone off topic.


    Real dragon knights were different from the legends about them. The mostmon scenario went like this: some powerful individual who was addicted to knight stories caught a young dragon, beat it up to the point of death, and then forced the dragon to sign a subordinate contract.


    Dragons were incredibly prideful. The only way to force them to submit would be to have a much higher power level than them. Those powerful individuals who finally became dragon knights would always find¡ªto their astonishment¡ªthat any dragon weak enough to be defeated by them would, of course, be far weaker than them. Thus, the dragon would be useless for anything other than a transportation tool. Working so hard to obtain a transportation tool might also cause the dragon¡¯s parents to chase that person down¡ªwas it really worth it?


    If that dragon knight waited for several hundred years, the young dragon would indeed be an adult dragon. But a powerful individual capable of living several hundred years would already have a very high power level. How would an ordinary adult dragon, the weakest typically at the Legend rank, be of any use?


    The conclusion was that while dragon knights seemed really cool, it was actually useless to be one unless you were someone like the main character of a knight story.


    Looking at how things were with thergest dragon knight squad in Eich, the Bardi Empire¡¯s dragon knights were mixed-blood dragon descendants. They were most likely siblings with their dragons, and it was doubtful that any of them made their dragons sign soul contracts or subordinate contracts. They had more of a ymate rtionship.


    ¡°You¡¯re thinking all this just to prove that this type of treatment is supposed to be normal? It¡¯s obvious Little Red¡¯s doing this to torture you. Are you actually a masochist? Or has your head gone wonky, and you¡¯ve finally be unsalvageable?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t counter the silly cat¡¯s taunting. And, when I tried to recall how things were in the past, I realized that it was indeed rare for Little Red to treat me like this.


    Although Little Red, as an Immemorial Red Dragon, was a very prideful individual, I had always felt that we had an excellent friendship. She would even asionally take me with her from time to time at critical moments. For instance,st time, when we were rushing back to Sulfur Mountain City to fight the demons, she was nice enough to let me ride on her, and we had indeed got back in time.


    This time, I was following Dragon Knight Archduke Halent to the Bardi capital. His steed was a Blue Dragon, the fastest of all the Color Dragons. It would be impossible for Erebe to keep up. And since this issue was rted to all dragons, Little Red, the Underworld Dragon Queen, intended to make contact with the surface Dragon City. So I felt it was quite normal for me to ask toe along. Of course, I had a good understanding of dragons, which was why I only asked for her to carry me in her ws rather than ride on her back.


    As for Molly, who also came with us? She was Little Red¡¯s mother, so wouldn¡¯t this be the equivalent of asking ¡°Can I ride your mother?¡±...This felt rather wrong.... But then again, wouldn¡¯t it be no different from how I previously asked ¡°Can I ride you?¡± to Little Red?


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªlet us abandon these perverted thoughts and go back to the main topic. This time, Little Red had been surprisingly nice and had said ¡°We¡¯re such good sisters, so why be so formal? You can just ride on my back.¡± Although I felt that something was wrong with what she said, I happily epted as being shaken all the way in a dragon¡¯s ws was rather ufortable. But the result was...


    ¡°...Forget about the young dragons, who are incapable of flying any higher. It¡¯s quite easy for Immemorial Red Dragons to fly above the clouds. Why is it that we must suffer in this hailstorm? You¡¯re supposed to be of the fire element¡ªwouldn¡¯t that mean you¡¯re suffering more than I am?¡±


    ¡°...Shut up. I¡¯m happy to do this. You don¡¯t want to be rained on? Fine, I have a nice warm and dry ce just for you.¡±


    Little Red viciously opened up her maw filled with sharp dragon teeth and spat out a small amount of dragonbreath. When I considered the highly likely possibility that I would ¡°identally¡± be swallowed and gulped, I adamantly refused her rmendation.


    ¡°No need. I think it¡¯ll be good for me to wash my face and clear my mind.¡±


    ¡°...You indeed need to wake up.¡±


    I didn¡¯t know why she was so angry, but everyone around me said it was my fault. And judging on how things usually were, it was indeed very likely to be my fault. So I figured I should just bear with it. Yep, it definitely wasn¡¯t because I was worried that she would toss me down that I was acting so nice for the time being.


    Cough¡ªbesides, I had thick armor and high ice resistance. I could ignore any damage caused by the hailstorm. But my feet did feel rather cold, and I was getting somewhat hungry. I recalled how I stuffed my backpack with food, and so I took action and brought out a pic cloth...


    ¡°...Rnd, if you dare to start a fire and barbeque meat on my back, I shall make you enter the special VIP seating in my mouth.¡±


    And so, I fell silent for a moment before changing my method.


    ¡°You¡¯re also banned from heating up sausages and alcohol! I¡¯m working so hard at flying in the rain, and you actually dare to drink alcohol on my back!? Do you know how unpleasant all this rain and snow is for a Red Dragon like me!?¡±


    ¡°Then fly higher!¡±...except there was no way I would say such aint out loud. Based on my many years of experience, if a woman was currently angry with you, the more you talked, the more you would be in the wrong. It would be safer to stay silent with myints.


    ¡°I¡¯ll give you half when it¡¯s warmed up...¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not it! Wait, is this your personally fermented fruit wine? Where¡¯d you get such top-quality peaches...?! I want two-thirds!!!¡±


    Alright then. The allure of alcohol finally made Little Red stop her sudden backflips and somersaults in midair, and I no longer needed to tie myself to her back. And so, I brought out three barrels of alcohol and lit a fire under them... There was no helping it, as one barrel was just a sip to Little Red.


    After she had her share of alcohol, Little Red surprisingly let out a sigh before she suddenly flew up much higher, straight above the clouds.


    The shapes of the clouds beneath us made this ce seem like a mystic realm. The warm sunlight was quitefortable as well. Of course, the happiest part was that we had finally escaped the hailstorm below us.


    ¡°Forget it. Being angry at you will only make me get even angrier. I should have known that being angry at someone like you is meaningless.¡±


    ¡°...Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey¡ªI¡¯m still the one helping you out here. Can¡¯t you be a little politer? Am I really as bad as you say? Am I really someone who enrages others so much?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Little Red¡¯s answer was in a steely, adamant tone.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    The silly cat suddenly interrupted as well.


    [Yes!]


    Even the System popped up and made her presence known.


    Anyhow, Little Red and Molly apanying me was both troublesome as well as an opportunity.


    Little Red was the Underground Dragon Queen. Just her status alone made it certain that her appearance before the leaders of the other Dragons would be a major historical event. Whether the exiled Red Dragons and ck Dragons could obtain the other dragons¡¯ recognition or there would be some sort of conflict was unknown.


    Obviously, Little Red and Molly had very different political styles. Molly had wanted to forcefully return aboveground, while Little Red would at least try to mediate with the other dragons first.


    It was uncertain just how long ago these two powerful Color Dragon species were exiled to the Underground. It was also unknown just how many dragons from that age were still around. In fact, the specific reason for exiling them along with how long they were supposed to be exiled for had long been forgotten. The only thing known was that these two Color Dragon species were the oldest inhabitants of the Underground. They had arrived far earlier than even Lorci and the Dark Elves.


    Dragons had the ability to obtain part of their parents¡¯ knowledge right from the stage of Dragon Egg, which was why Red Dragons and ck Dragons would never amount to anything good. I secretly peeked at Little Red. Since they were all exiled as an entire species, they must have caused a major incident back in the day. But, in my opinion, not a singlew or punishment should punish the descendants for an ancestor¡¯s crimes. Since so few of the perpetrators from that day were around anymore, the current Red Dragons and ck Dragons should logically be allowed to return aboveground.


    ¡°...If dragons acted based on logic and reason, then we wouldn¡¯t be dragons.¡±


    When I mentioned the logic of allowing them to return, Little Red responded in such a fashion. Regardless of the fact that she even included herself, herment was so correct that she was even rather proud about it, making me speechless.


    The older a species was, the more they would love to emphasize past glories. They would always worship their ancestors¡¯ ways and mutter every day about ¡°not changing traditions.¡± Such stubborn old artifacts weren¡¯t limited only to humans and elves.


    ¡°Since there are past customs and cultures already, and everybody in the past lived like this, why change how things are?¡±


    It was highly likely that we wouldn¡¯t be sessful with our trip. But neither me nor Little Red were willing to give up before we even tried. After all, this was a once-in-a-thousand years opportunity.


    The timing was excellent? Of course it was excellent as the Dragon World, one of the threergest locations where Dragons gathered, was under serious threat. Their mortal enemies, the Titan Giants, were about to revive, and the Holy War was night. And this particr Holy War was certain to drag the dragons back into it despite how long they¡¯d managed to keep out of the fighting. Their entire species was in danger, so if I didn¡¯t take this opportunity to rob them¡ªcough, I meant offer them assistance in their time of need¡ªwouldn¡¯t that be such a waste?


    In times of danger, people would have less moral constraints, and it was the same for the dragons. Plus, it was indeed true that the Red and ck Dragons were capable of majorly assisting the other dragons, which was a useful chip we could y.


    Visiting at this time meant we would dangle an offer of the Red and ck Dragons¡¯ assistance in exchange for allowing them to return aboveground. Although this might seem rather underhanded, that was how it always worked in politics¡ªto use anything you could to an advantage. Since this was the n most likely to seed, why wouldn¡¯t we try to use it?


    As long as we obtained the Dragons¡¯ permission, or even just tacit approval, the Underground Red and ck Dragons would finally be able to openly return to the mortal ne¡¯s skies in arge-scale fashion¡ªthis would also give us arge amount ofbat strength.


    Afterpleting this goal that no Underworld Dragon Queen or King had ever aplished, Little Red¡¯s position would be even more secured. In fact, it was quite possible some other Immemorial Dragons would automaticallye to her and swear their fealty to be allowed back aboveground.


    Of course, considering the typical behavior of these two dragon species, I was also hesitant to allow a bunch of thieves and criminals back aboveground. But,then I thought about how if we couldn¡¯t get over the obstacle of the Titan Giants, there would be no future. I figured it was worth a try. With Dragon Queen Little Red watching over them, it was unlikely that a major incident would arise soon¡ªat least for the time being.


    When thinking of major incidents, I looked over in dissatisfaction at Molly who was gliding next to us. Recently, she no longer had any more goals or desires, which actually made her life quite easy and carefree.


    ¡°So troublesome.¡±


    The moment Molly returned to the surface, she became an excellent example of just how evil a typical Immemorial Red Dragon would be. She attacked viges, kidnapped princesses for ransom, acted as a mercenary for hire, and even robbed younger dragons. She was literally the perfect example of an evil antagonist. Otherwise, she wouldn¡¯t have had the honor of entering the Cmity Rankings so quickly at #99. And her identity as the former Dragon Queen made the surface residents speedily worsen their opinions of the Underground Dragons.


    ¡°They really are just like what¡¯s written in records.¡±


    ¡°...Luckily, most Red and ck Dragons are still stuck Underground.¡±


    Every time we heard suchments, Little Red would grit her teeth in anger. These opinions naturally made it more difficult for us to obtain our goal.


    ¡°Let¡¯s just leave everything to fate.¡±


    I assessed the sess rate of our trip and believed that we had only a twenty-five percent chance of sess. What was surprising was that Little Red took this news quite well.


    ¡°That¡¯s all we can do. Why do I feel like the biggest trouble of our trip isn¡¯t even the issue of having the Red and ck Dragons return? I feel like there¡¯s some huge trouble waiting for me. Have I forgotten something recently? Or have I missed something?¡±


    ¡°You always miss so many things!¡±


    Alright then. I seemed to have identally touched on a nerve somewhere, as Little Red startedining yet again.


    And once she stoppedining, she sped up again. But it would be quite a while before we would be able to catch up to Halent and his Blue Dragon steed. In fact, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that they had slowed down so we could somewhat keep up, they probably could have doubled their speed.


    ¡°...That little brat can fly so quick.¡±


    ¡°Hrm, that Blue Dragon you¡¯re calling a little brat is at least two hundred years old. If he¡¯s a little brat, what does that make me? Also a little brat? Can¡¯t you fly any faster?¡±


    ¡°This is pretty much my highest speed. If you think I¡¯m slow, then why don¡¯t you try flying yourself?¡±


    Blue Dragons were that fast? Actually, it was that Little Red and Molly were too slow. At most, Blue Dragons were only thirty percent faster than other Dragon species. This was mainly because of their ability to control the winds to assist them. And Halent¡¯s dragon had just be an adult, which was the peak of a dragon¡¯s speed. It was only natural that his Blue Dragon would be much faster.


    Immemorial Dragons were supposed to be able to fly faster than ordinary Adult Dragons? That¡¯s what most people believed, but they never thought about it more deeply. The bigger one was, the more difficult it would be to improve one¡¯s speed. Top-level Dragons were typically seven or eight times the size of an Adult Dragon, so flying would also require seven to eight times the energy consumption.


    For the Dragons termed as Immemorial Dragons and above, most would have lived over one thousand years. Such dragons typically spent their time either sleeping or researching magic. Hunting would almost always be done by their subordinates, so their physical abilities were far weaker than when they were young. Plus, their gigantic bodies were a great burden on their heart, so they preferred to only p their wings slowly.


    Of course, Dragons were a species naturally skilled at both the physical and magical. When inbat, most dragons would use magic and natural talent abilities to speed themselves up. That was why powerful dragons wouldn¡¯t seem any slower than Adult Dragons when fighting for short periods of time. But for the sake of traveling long distances, using magic and natural talent abilities would be far too wasteful. As a result, Adult and Mature Dragons were actually the swiftest.


    Dragons¡¯ body sizes would typically stop growing after reaching the Immemorial rank. At that point, magic and natural talent abilities would be far more important than physicalbat. Even for the stupidest of all the dragons, the White Dragons, they would still be the equivalent of master archmages in a specific type of magic after reaching Immemorial. Their unique dragon magic and special curses were also tremendously powerful.


    As far as I knew, Little Red was one of the few Immemorial Dragons who continued to train and improve herself on a daily basis rather than only sleeping. Not only was she incredibly skilled in meleebat, she was also proficient in Truth Magic, Fire Magic, and Space Magic. And after she obtained the position of Dragon Queen, she gained ess to the Underworld Dragon City¡¯s secret dragon techniques. Since she trained far harder than most others, her growth rate was apparent. In fact, she was about to reach the next power level.


    This was obviously a good thing for our uing ns. After all, we were supposed to be the helpers. But there were still many extra tasks waiting for us, and dragons were extremely arrogant. A fight was almost certain to happen.


    ¡°I hope we¡¯ll be sessful with our trip. Still, I keep feeling like there¡¯s a major trouble waiting for us. My ominous premonitions are always on the mark. For instance, before we left, I said that we should bring an umbre, but you told me it wouldn¡¯t be necessary. See, isn¡¯t it raining today? Judging from the weather, I feel that there might even be a typhoonter...¡±


    ¡°Shut up! Stop jinxing us!¡±


    Alright then. I obediently shut up as I watched a tornado form not far away from us.

 Chapter 367

    Chapter 367: Unexpected Visitor


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    It was dangerous high up in the air. Small countries would usually have no aerial defenses, but casually entering a major country¡¯s air space would be the same as challenging that country¡¯s air defenses and aerial knights.


    But the most dangerous possibility was to identally enter a mage tower¡¯s defense zone. Even a dragon could die against a well-prepared mage tower.


    High-quality mage towers would be capable of multiplying a mage¡¯s spells¡¯ strength by ten times over. Arge-scale, high-circle spell would easily reach the scale of a small forbidden spell. It was quitemon for mages to be able to y dragons. This was also why dragons would still maintain a basic amount of respect for the mages.


    To my knowledge, the capital city of each major domain in the Bardi Empire had such anti-air defenses. In fact, the more powerful domain lords would even hire mages to construct anti-air mage towers. Of course, they weren¡¯t necessarily guarding against external threats. Powerful domain lords in a mega-empire would have wealthparable to that of small countries and could afford to maintain a sizable amount of aerial cavalry.


    Just as how royal authority and religious authority were forever at odds with each other, royal authority and domain lord authority would be forever in conflict.


    If it was a time when the royalty was very weak, the local domain lords would typically fight amongst themselves, attacking each other¡¯s territory and forcibly kidnapping citizens for poption. Perhaps they would use ridiculously flimsy excuses such as ¡°You dared to not invite me when your son was born,¡± or ¡°Your wife tried to flirt with my uncle.¡± But if the royalty¡¯s power was at a nadir, then such excuses that not a single person would believe were more than enough.


    A weak royal authority meant that internal chaos was unavoidable. If a particr domain lord emerged with the support of more than half of the factions in the country, then a new royalty would likely be established.


    Since the newly-born royalty used their concrete power to obtain that position, the new royalty would naturally have great authority. The royalty would thus enter a period of great authority. But no dynasties in any worldsted forever. It would be impossible for a royal family to forever have only just and wise rulers. As long as the feudal system and bloodline hereditary royal authority continued, it would only be a matter of time before the royalty was changed out yet again.


    Obviously, this wasn¡¯t exactly a beneficial cycle as this type of society would make war and conflict inevitable. But although ordinary citizens would always suffer when there was war, such a cycle had its contributions to society, too. At the very least, it was a natural opportunity to shake the system and get rid of a foolish or tyrant king.


    I had researched about political systems in detail considering probable future developments. However, I had no intentions of starting a ¡°Communist revolution,¡±¡±attacking the rich and taking theirnds,¡± or anything like that. In fact, I didn¡¯t even intend to bring a revolutionary change to society apart from introducing the Concept of Law. That was because in this world, wherends were wide, production capabilities were low, and wild magical monsters were overly powerful, a seemingly backwards society where domain lords took responsibility for protecting their citizens was actually the best fit.


    ¡°Everyone belongs to the royalty? Everyone should listen to the king? Since you all belong to the royalty, then look to the royalty for protection.¡±


    Domain lords owned every part of their territory and their citizens, and were also the main motivation for citizens to organize into militia and protect their ownnds. After all, the origin of the knightly spirit was from people swearing loyalty to their domain lord and theirnd.


    Such a noble spirit originated from the ordinary. Protecting one¡¯s possessions was only natural. But as adjustments were made to society over time, stepping slightly over this line could make one into a genius, while stepping over this line even more would make one into an idiot who would be burned at the stake.


    If some transmigrator truly arrived and created a major country with centralized authority and provinces instead of domains, exchanging domain lords out for government officials, that transmigrator would never receive a great harvest. All that awaited him would be the copse of his country.


    With centralized authority, one little governmental order might take several years to reach the farther districts in a major country. By the time the order arrived, who knew what it would be changed into? Also, centralized authority meant that the poption would be overly concentrated into denser areas. With the current generation¡¯s technological level, that would be impossible to support.


    Too many people gathering in a single ce would cause gues or famines, problems difficult to solve in this day and age. It would be easy toe to a conclusion that densely popted cities were actually a bad thing here. This would be amon example of doing something bad with good intentions.


    Of course, smaller countries like ours could try this on a smaller scale if their technology had developed to a certain extent¡ªslowly developing the size of cities and modernizing them with gradual improvements to health care,munication, transportation, agriculture, and industry. All these fields would be raised by several levels as magical engineering brought about an industrial revolution. Society would naturally change even if I didn¡¯t do anything... Oops, I might have identally revealed my ns here. Yep, I admit I had indeed wanted to make such drastic changes. But overhauling the feudal society for an entire world wouldn¡¯t happen overnight.


    Of course, there were rare exceptions, such as extremely small countries, theocracies where religious and royal authority were unified, or countries always at war with their neighbors. For these and various other reasons, few exceptions had excellent political stability thatsted over one thousand years.


    Couch¡ªcough¡ªlet us stop discussing political systems. After being in a feudal system for so long, what did it matter if it remained for a while longer? I had no intentions of spreading philosophies like ¡°All men are created equal¡± or ¡°Wealth should be equally distributed amongst everyone.¡± Nor did I have any intentions of creating something like a Communist Party in this world. Doing something like that would only make me into public enemy number one. I could only do what I could and focus on the present.


    The Bardi Empire was in a zenith of royal authority. So of course the local domain lords wouldn¡¯t fight amongst each other; instead, it was the opposite. They would team up and work together against royal authority. Since absolutely centralized authority was impossible in this society, the conflict between royal and domain lord authority was destined to be eternal and unending, which would reset only each time a new royalty was born.


    The current Bardi Empire¡¯s royal authority was the strongest it had ever been in its long history. Orloss was even capable of forcing his domain lords to hand over their eldest sons toe over to the capital for ¡°education.¡± He even strictly controlled the amount of soldiers permitted in the domain lords¡¯ private armies. But making every domain lord obedient would require several centuries without internal or external chaos. That would be impossible for anyone unless they were some sort of undying main character with an incredible cheat.


    Although the Bardi Empire was only one country in name, technically speaking it was more like each individual domain was a smaller country. Calcting a country¡¯s overallbat strength would typically refer to the royal army and royal knights. But for anyrge scale warfare, one would have to include the domain lords¡¯ private armies. It was only normal that answering their king¡¯s summons and sending out their private armies to participate in national warfare would be one of the most basic duties of a domain lord.


    Don¡¯t underestimate the domain lords¡¯ private armies. Their training techniques and equipment would be passed down from generation to generation. Certain specialized equipment and troop types would often be local specialties. There were plenty of private armies even stronger than the royal army. Since the royalty restricted the number of soldiers allowed in the domain lords¡¯ armies, the major nobles focused on the quality of their troops. It was actually quitemon that an individual soldier in a domain lord¡¯s army would be far stronger than the average soldier in the royal knights.


    The number of troops permitted to a domain lord would typically be rted to that domain lord¡¯s noble rank. But there were still ways to circumvent the numbers limitations, such as vige militias, reserve troops, and so on. Although none of the domain lords had as many troops as the royal army, adding them together would typically be a huge amount of soldiers several times the size of the royal army. Only that would help them to be able to restrain the royalty from running amok. From a certain standpoint, in a feudal society, the royalty themselves were basically the strongest domain lord of the country.


    Well, this was the situation for ordinary domain lords. As for the major domain lords of border domains, it would be impractical and impossible to restrict the number of soldiers they possessed. These major nobles were usually the ones who found it easiest to be a new royalty dynasty.


    On our way, I witnessed just how truly amazing the Bardi Empire¡¯s foundational strength was.


    In just about every district, aerial knights would follow after us. They would either be Griffin Knights or Pegasus Knights, and I even saw a single Dragon Knight. There was even a mage riding a Manticore. Sometimes, they would appear in small squads or multiple small squadrons. Ordinary countries wouldn¡¯t be capable of affording aerial knights, while aerial knights were one of the most basic units in the Bardi domain lords¡¯ armies. I even saw two faintly concealed towers among the clouds.


    Even when they saw that Archduke Halent¡¯s Blue Dragon was at the forefront, they didn¡¯t leave. They followed us in silence until we left their domain. And whenever we entered a new domain, new aerial cavalry would arrive as well, treating us with the same attitude. This polite yet distant attitude wasn¡¯t only targeted at us outsiders. Not a single person greeted the well-known Dragon Knight Archduke, which was definitely unusual.


    Dragon Knights belonged in-name only to the royalty, so they had the freedom to freely travel through each domain. But these silently following aerial knights represented a certain attitude, even if they couldn¡¯t stop the Dragon Knights from doing anything: ¡°This ce is ours. You cane if you like, but you must remain under our surveince.¡±


    This was obviously a show of disrespect to the royal authority, and it was quite different from what I had heard previously on how Orloss ruled with an iron grip. It would seem that since the domain lords were under the impression that Orloss would soon die, they now had other ideas about royal authority.


    Even though I hadn¡¯t reached the capital, I could guess at what was going on. It was probably due to the fact that Orloss had far too many adopted princes, making internal conflict amongst the princes¡¯ factions inevitable. But once the internal conflicts started, no matter which prince won out in the end and became the next emperor, royal authority would be greatly diminished. It would seem that the generation of forty years ago, when the domain lords suppressed the royalty, would return.


    Their attitude towards the Dragon Knight Archduke Halent wasn¡¯t only a political attitude¡ªthere were probably concrete reasons to it as well.


    ¡°Who knows? Maybe you¡¯re here to record our terrain and military status in order to prepare for future possiblebat.¡±


    As for us outsiders? We weren¡¯t stopped or asked any questions at all. Halent was leading us, so we were viewed as members of the Dragon Knights. Our newpanion also traveled alongside us without any hindrance.


    Newpanion? Didn¡¯t I mention how there was a sudden tornado? It was a familiar figure, the Wind Elemental God Camdian¡ªtruly a coincidence.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, I came here all the way to meet you. There¡¯s something very important that I¡¯d like to discuss with you in detail.¡±


    After killing off Emordilorcan, Camdian ran for his life¡ªI meant left in a hurry. But he had now appeared before me of his own volition¡ªhe obviously had something important to discuss. And unlike before, when he would address me as ¡°puny worm¡± or ¡°foolish mortal,¡± his demeanor was much humbler.


    Ancient existences like Camdian were the practical type. If you couldn¡¯t prove you were equal to their level, they wouldn¡¯t even look you in the eye.


    Of course, I was delighted to see Camdian. After all, I was looking for top-level wind elemental items along with the other elements. If I killed him¡ªer¡ªI meant asked him, perhaps I would receive a harvest.


    Yet I could only helplessly abandon thoughts of killing him when I took a closer look at Camdian. Only his incarnation had appeared before me. They could be self-destructed at will by the original master, and it would be nigh impossible to obtain useful elemental items from an incarnation. Who would want to fight against a video game boss who was both ridiculously difficult to defeat and wouldn¡¯t even offer a single good item?


    But now, we were currently flying in midair¡ªnot the best time to have a chat. So I simply told him to follow along. However, he was strangely in a hurry to talk to me, so I asked him what it was about. Upon doing so, he was visibly delighted and directly asked me:


    ¡°Your Highness, I¡¯d like to discuss the Desecration Priest and Antiholy Knight you created in And who have the ability to dispel divine power...¡±


    ¡°What? Desecration Priest? Antiholy Knight?¡±


    ******


    When Rnd and the True Gods were engaged in battle with the Titan Giants in the southwest of Bardi, the sea battle at And had ended with an astonishing result.


    The cooperation between And¡¯s ¡°Fleet of Death¡± and Reyne¡¯s Four Elemental Swordcasters obtained impressive achievements. The battleships drove across the seas, breaking the Sea Tribe¡¯s formations. Then, the Swordcasters¡¯ three squadrons divided and conquered the Sea Tribe that had been split up, making the result obvious.


    Actually, this small scale tactical cooperation between the Swordcasters and the battleship fleet was created for the sake of the Borealis, and the seven Big Dipper airships intended to go along with it. This was simply a perfect time to bring out such a strategy.


    Now that this strategy was used in actualbat, various problems were exposed. For instance, the Swordcasters had overly weak power levels, meaning they couldn¡¯t fight against the Sea Tribe in extended battles. Construction techniques for certain equipment parts were still insufficient, so water leakage, mana leakage and other such problems urred.


    Yet Reyne had quitepetentlymanded over the situation. The Aurora Knights, who had much higher average power levels than the Swordcasters, acted well as support and protection. East Mist¡¯sbat achievements were excellent. Although some equipment had been lost or destroyed, they had very few casualties.


    Even though the Sea Tribe¡¯s reinforcements had arrived, they were unable to block the ck Fleet of Death¡¯s slow, inexorable advance. Both sides locked themselves in meat-grinder style attritionbat. However, the And humans were waging everything on this battle, while the Sea Tribecked the will to fight and were unwilling to sacrifice themselves. The Sea Tribe¡¯s repeated losses and retreats were only natural.


    This wasn¡¯t a piece of cake for the And humans, though¡ª they, too, had lost a significant number in this battle. Yet they managed to aplish their primary strategic goal: to reach the docks district where the underwater base was located.


    Upon reaching this location, the fleet arranged its ships in a circle and took up a defensive formation. Divers were in the midst of preparing for an underwater descent when somethingpletely unexpected overturned the battlefield¡¯s situation. It was this that spurred Camdian into seeking out Rnd. That was because what was shown in this battle was of momentous import to an ancient Elemental God like him.


    ¡°The Dark Elves enteredbat! They turned around the entire battle!¡±

 Chapter 368

    Chapter 368: Ordinary Mortal¡¯s World


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Any religion would loath heretics far more than any other enemy. Traditionalists would feel that the heretics¡¯ exnations of doctrine and new inventions would cause the religion to lose its ¡°purity and tradition,¡± needlessly confusing loyal believers.


    An analogy would be the most frightening disease back on Earth¡ªcancer. Ordinary cells would mutate and spread at a scary rate. Once the changes within one¡¯s body spread to a certain degree, it would be impossible for that person to remain alive. For the ones who battled and defeated cancer, it would put great strain upon their body.


    In this world of True Gods, heretics were those with different understandings and exnations of the True Gods¡¯ teachings. This could cause changes in a Divine Concept or people¡¯s belief.


    Some changes were permitted by the True Gods. Sometimes, True Gods themselves would cause these changes while seeking to better understand or develop their Divine Concepts. But that would still cause internal strife, whetherrge or small, within that True God¡¯s church.


    Yet some changes would trod upon a True God¡¯s taboo. The True God would be furious to the point they directly send down divine punishment.


    Back in Sulfur Mountain City, a certain viinous individual (fine, I mean myself) performed an experiment. I sessfully brainwashed a demon into making him believe he was a Holy Knight who worshiped the Holy Light. I had this demon cultivate as how Holy Knights normally would, and he actually seeded in summoning the Holy Light.


    Although this demon was instantly vaporized by the Holy Light he had summoned, this very sight alone would be more than enough to make even the most fervent of believers toss their belief in the Holy Light into the trash.


    ¡°Holy Light is supposed to be a gift from the God of Holy Light? He even gives Holy Light¡¯s mortal enemies, the demons, the power of Holy Light? He¡¯s either an idiot, or he¡¯s blind. Maybe other Gods are the same as well...¡±


    Gods were supposed to never make mistakes. If they made mistakes, they had no foundational differences from mortals, but Gods were supposed to be venerated, far above the ordinary mortal. Mortals were supposed to try their best toprehend divine messages delivered in intentionally obscure fashions. That was because if mortals got too close to the Gods and could see them for what they really were, they would naturally lose their fear and respect. So-called ¡°pure¡± belief in the Gods wouldn¡¯t exist anymore.


    Most people were incapable of having pure belief or faith like I did in a single Concept. Their faith forever revolved around a particr God. Even though they themselves were mortals who would definitely make mistakes, they perceived the Gods as forever correct and all-knowing. Only then would the Gods be worthy of them giving the Gods their all.


    ¡°On one side are people who give everything about themselves to existences they can¡¯t even see clearly. On the other side are powerful existences who pretend to y at divinity. Which side is the moreughable one?¡±


    That was my sarcastic quip at the time. The logic behind it was genuine.


    Only very few individuals at the apex of power would have information about the True Gods. Ordinary mortals would only know what their local priests told them.


    ¡°True Gods are wise and majestic. They reside in the skies up above and watch the mortal realm while protecting us...¡±


    The incident of ¡°The Humiliation of Soros¡± which had happened in the Nortnds was proof that there was no foundational difference between Order and Chaos. But this supposed difference between Order and Chaos was the impetus behind the eternal Holy War to begin with. Just this alone had been more than enough to shake the faith of the younger Holy Light believers, including the now Fallen Angel Ai. If everybody knew that ¡°True Gods could be easily fooled, and they might not even be smarter than your next door neighbor,¡± everyone¡¯s faith would be shaken from the very foundation.


    It was quite easy to guess that revealing this information to everyone would lead to a world-scale destructive result. In the worst scenario, it might even be possible to see meteor showers, a sign of how often the Gods would die off.


    The only reason I never exposed this information to the world was because I was uncertain to just how bad the fallout would be if everyone lost their faith. If more than half of all humanity lost their faith in Order,rge amounts of Order Gods would die in droves, and the Holy War would be instantly lost.


    But when my subordinate Dark Elf Holy Knight sunk into a faith crisis, I considered the topic a while before giving her the information in the hope she would ovee her overreliance on the Gods and create her own path. And together with the information I gave my personal understanding of Law and the secrets of the True Gods.


    There¡¯s a famous phrase that goes something like this: ¡°I only told one person but suddenly the whole world knew.¡± Cough, I should change that phrase to ¡°If you tell a secret to someone, the secret is no longer a secret.¡±


    In this world, knowledge represented actual power. But this wasn¡¯t limited to mages. For Holy Knights, who relied on their faith and devotion as power, knowing more might not be a good thing.


    After receiving more knowledge than she could handle, Diana sunk into a more severe faith crisis. She was utterly lost about her past life and future path. Her Soul Imprint shattered, causing her to fall out of Legend rank.


    But the most important part was what I had casually said to her.


    ¡°Maybe I¡¯m the most devout believer of all. At least, I¡¯ve never expected the Gods to do anything for me. I don¡¯t even believe in the True Gods themselves. I only believe in the Concept of Law, and I¡¯m trying to use Law to improve the world we live in.¡±


    These words echoed in Diana¡¯s head every night, like the ringing of a loud bell. After she shared this knowledge with her ¡°younger sister¡± Victoria to receive assistance in understanding this knowledge, Diana reconsidered her past way of life and came to a conclusion. Finally, she came to a decision.


    ¡°...My disappointment in Dark Elf society where even close family members would kill each other made me abandon Lorci and choose the path of Holy Light to obtain salvation. I hoped the Holy Light would be able to save me and my species, so we could walk out in the open under the sun.


    ¡°...When I discovered that Holy Light was only capable of ¡®cleansing,¡¯ which would destroy my species, I saw how Law allowed every single species to live together in peace at Sulfur Mountain City. So I abandoned the path of the Holy Light and desired that this newly born power of Order known as Law could bring us out under the sunlight.


    ¡°...When my faith was shaken yet again, in order to return aboveground as well as to search for a way to make my faith steadfast, I researched the Moonlight Goddess¡¯s teachings. Yet even though I seeded in bringing myself out under the sunlight, I was even more confused inside.¡±


    Diana¡¯s silver holy sword flickered with changing powers of Order. The shattering of her Soul Imprint allowed her to break free from past restrictions. Her pure and simple mind and heart allowed to reach a state of synchronization with these powers of Order.


    From a certain standpoint, this ¡°subordinate,¡± who always stood by the side, observing, was my truest disciple who inherited my understanding about the truth of the world.


    The fact that Diana became a hero spoken in epics as well as the leader of the entire Dark Elf species in the game¡¯s history was evidence that she was an extraordinary individual.


    ¡°Ha, His Highness is correct. Whenever I believed in a particr God, it was because of my own selfish desires. My faith had nothing to do with actual devotion. I had pushed my own hopes and goals upon another existence. How is that any different from tossing my responsibilities to others? It¡¯s nothing more than escapism.¡±


    In her confusion, Diana somehow managed to recall something I had told her.


    ¡°...Rather than asking others for help, it¡¯s much better to seek help from yourself. The Gods are too busy to deal with even their own troubles. Rather than pay respect to a God or whatever, why not pay respect to yourself? Indeed, there are many imperfections with the current world, and changing even one part of it is incredibly difficult. But, for some things, if you don¡¯t even try, then there isn¡¯t any hope at all. At least there¡¯s a silver of a chance you¡¯ll seed if you try.¡±


    That was what I had told her, and what I managed to aplish as well.


    The Underground World was the most chaotic ce in all of Eich. Yet I managed to develop Sulfur Mountain City into a ce that bordered on being a paradise. Although thew of the jungle prevailed in the Underground¡¯s society¡ªit was a barbaric one where whoever was stronger was in the right¡ªI managed to use the Concept of Law to help bring the myriad of species together, both peacefully and equally.


    Dark Elves had always been viewed as species born evil. Even after bing a Holy Knight Diana was viewed with suspicion and distrust. However, I, without hesitation, had epted this group of Dark Elves who had nowhere else to go and had handed over the important task of protecting the city and its residents to them. This was the first time these Dark Elves had ever experienced the feeling of someone else trusting in them.


    This was a wondrous ce, with an even more wondrous master. I invented magical engineering, which was viewed as nothing more than a trifling toy, and permitted the various True Gods¡¯ churches to coexist together, a sight never seen before. I wrote revolutionaryws which stated how everyone was foundationally equal, although my actions were ridiculous and arrogant to the point of breaking tradition. In most ordinary people¡¯s eyes, I indeed seemed crazy. Or maybe it was that my actions seemed iprehensible. Through her eyes, though, Diana saw something she felt was obvious¡ªthat I was trying to improve the world! I was trying to change it! That I was dissatisfied with the current situation!


    ¡°You think this world isn¡¯t good enough? Why don¡¯t you try to improve it? What use is there in relying on a God? They¡¯re nothing more than puppets who have trouble protecting even themselves. They¡¯re pitiful existences tied to their Divine Concepts.¡±


    Gods were supposed to reign high above mortals, with mortals being nothing more than ants? In my eyes, True Gods weren¡¯t any more special than an ordinary mortal. As time passed, I used actions to speak louder than words.


    Lorci, who had ruled the Dark Elves for eons, perished. Even the most venerated of the Order Gods, the God of Holy Light, was exposed for the hypocrite he was. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that she was mentally prepared... or, more urately, already had doubts about the God of Holy Light, she would have definitely been included among the Holy Knights who lost their powers of Holy Light.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been abandoned by the Holy Light? No, I¡¯m the one who abandoned the Holy Light. I...¡±


    The golden glow on her Soul Imprint no longer existed as her past faith had been shattered. This formerly shining Soul Imprint was now in tatters.


    At this moment, Diana recalled how I had showed her the truth about the impending Armageddon and the almost impossible-to-realize desire I had for saving the world.


    ¡°...Life is difficult as it is. Tolerating and worshipping are both meaningless. Despite all this, even though he knows it¡¯s basically impossible, is he foolish? Noble? Is it even possible? No...¡±


    Diana recalled how she had searched for the truth for over one hundred years. She had despaired, cursed, and hoped for this world filled with bitterness toe to an end. But thinking back upon all this now, she had simply been too selfish.


    Letting the worlde to an end sounded like a nice end to everything, but wouldn¡¯t that be cruel to the newborns who had just arrived in this world? They would have no opportunity to experience the world¡¯s pleasures. What about the people who toiled every day just to survive? Wouldn¡¯t it be too cruel to Rnd, who was sacrificing everything in order to obtain a chance to change the fate of Eich¡¯s Armageddon?


    Once Diana made her decision, her former shattered Soul Imprint shone with a brilliant silver glow. A new path for her soul was formed and manifested into a Soul Imprint, which had the symbol of a fist clenching a sword.


    ¡°...We only wish to live in a way we mortals can live with pride and safety. Is this little wish wrong to have?¡±


    As silver light surrounded her, Diana directly skipped the rank of Legends and went straight to the realm of Saints. The moment she was certain of her new path, her former experiences transformed into actual power.


    Her understanding of Gods, divine power, Holy Light, Moonlight, Law, and her Dark Elven natural magic resistance merged into one. It was her personal beliefs which had transformed this chaoticbination in a mysterious way. Thebination of the colors of these different powers was a ck as deep as night.


    ¡°We want to live on and improve the world, even if the undefeatable Gods obstruct us. Awaken, my Soul Imprint...¡¯Fool Who Stands Against the Gods!¡¯¡±


    Diana was far smarter than what others perceived her to be. Ever since I showed her all those things, she faintly detected that I was treating the True Gods as my enemies. And once she understood the truth behind the eternal Holy War, she pointed her sword to the high-up existences, those so-called deities who caused Holy Wars and oh so much suffering to ordinary mortals.


    Everyone knew it would be foolish to be an enemy of the Gods. Everyone knew that saving the world was an impossible task. But ordinary mortals had the right to survive, and some things had to be done. The smart ones were unwilling to do foolish things, so let the fools take action.


    ¡°Fool? A name that truly befits me.¡±


    For some reason, Diana recalled how I always called her ¡°big idiot,¡± and she chuckled derisively at herself. However, she firmed her conviction even more. As long as she could reach her goal, she didn¡¯t care if nobody understood her or if she wasughed at for being a fool... At the very least, I, who also chose the crazy path of the fool, would definitely understand her choice. Although this path may be difficult, it wasn¡¯t one she had to tread down alone.


    And that was indeed the case. Not long in the future, other knights would choose this thorny path, don the ck armor and an emblem called the ¡°des of Resistance.¡± But nobody would ever know what it took for this ¡°big idiot¡± to create this brand new job ss. Nobody would know her decisiveness at the time, or why this job ss known as Antiholy Knightter changed its name to something that sounded quite simr: Antigod Knight!


    These knights were ordinary mortals who opposed the interference of higher existences in mortal affairs. They believed that mortals¡¯ fates should be determined by mortals themselves. They believed that Gods and Demons should remain in their own territories. They dared to raise their swords against any who meddled with mortals.


    At the aquatic battle of Kagersi, the first Antiholy Knight in history inserted her holy sword into the water, causing even the True Gods to be astonished.


    ¡°My wish is for this world to belong to mortals.¡±


    She uttered these simple words, but nothing appeared to happen¡ªrain continued falling and everyone continued fighting. However, Diana¡¯s Soul World was spreading, albeit quietly¡ªthe World of the Mortals.


    Her Soul World continued to spread, but nothing seemed to happen until suddenly, the clouds in the sky vanished and the water in the surrounding area disappeared.


    In Diana¡¯s ¡°World of the Mortals,¡± non-residents of the mortal ne¡ªlike Demons, Angels, Devils, and even the Gods themselves¡ª would lose their special abilities. An Antiholy Knight¡¯s special job ss ability was countering other magic and divine powers. They were the protectors of the mortal ne and mortal enemies with existences from other nes.


    If Eich¡¯s Dimensional Will truly existed, this could be thought of a miracle brought about by the Will in an attempt to save itself. After all, only a knight who had undergone such tribtions like in legends could have ¡°Fool¡± as a title. Not only that, it just so happened to be that a Dark Elf, who had natural magic resistance, was the first to invent this anti-magic, anti-divine power job ss. Perhaps the phrase ¡°Chaotic times give birth to heroes¡± was indeed true. As fate would have it, Diana managed tobine everything she possessed to open up a path never before seen.


    Once the divine-powered forbidden spell was eliminated, it would be easy to determine the victor of the battle on hand. The humans had great advantage in morale and timing to begin with. Now that the water had been drained and the humans regained their advantage of terrain, the Sea Tribe¡¯sbat lines naturally copsed.


    Kagersi, which had been covered with dark clouds for over a year and a half, saw its first speck of sunlight.

 Chapter 369

    Chapter 369: The Dark Elf Sisters


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    [Antiholy Knight, High-level job ss. Requirements for entering this job ss: knight and swordsman job ss members at the peak of Silver. Heavy armor and military weapon expertise. Strength must be greater than 15, Constitution must be greater than 15, and Will must be greater than 16. System Reminder: This job ss¡¯s main stat is Will. Only warriors with the strongest willpowers will be able to trod upon this path filled with thorns.]


    [Job ss specialty: Ordinary Mortal¡¯s Willpower. As a practitioner improves in proficiency, anti-magic and anti-divine power resistance will be improved. This resistance will be further improved by one¡¯s Will stat. This resistance also applies to the user¡¯s armor and weapon. But as a price for obtaining this resistance, the user will lose the ability to use any divine powers or magic. Notice: When entering this job ss, an Antiholy Knight¡¯s divine or magic powers will be transformed into mental spirit and willpower.]


    [Magic Breaker, Divine Breaker: Enchant user¡¯s weapon with an Ordinary Mortal¡¯s Willpower. Attacking with such a weapon will dispel all magic and divine powers on an enemy¡¯s weapons and equipment. This effect can be stacked. After reaching a certain degree, it will be possible to permanently weaken an enemy¡¯s power level. Notice: This power-loss effect can only be canceled by the highest-level priests who have power levels far surpassing the Antiholy Knight who applied this effect, or by the Antiholy Knight who applied it.]


    [Holy Sword Dispelling: Target an existence from another ne. Transform user¡¯s tempered Will into a formless holy sword which will cause arge amount of neutral-element damage. Also, there will be a probability that the existence will be dispelled and sent back to its original ne. This ability can only be used against existences from other nes. As long as the user still has the mental spirit to continue using this ability, there are no limitations on how many times this ability can be used.]


    [Unyielding Body: Tempered willpower and the effect of Ordinary Mortal¡¯s Willpower will increase the user¡¯s base stats by 2 Strength and 2 Constitution. And after reaching 16 Will, every time the user¡¯s Will increases by 2 more points, both Strength and Constitution will gain another bonus 1 point. Every time the user improves in power level, there will berge bonuses to Strength and Constitution.]


    [Aura effect: Antiholy Barrier. The user can summon a barrier constructed out of their willpower and dispel all magic and divine power effects within it. This barrier¡¯s effects depends on the difference in power level between the user and the target enemy. It can be maintained for a medium amount of time.]


    [Curse: ck Solo Traveler. Antiholy Knights are loathed by the Gods, and don¡¯t expect understanding from the other mortals that they protect. Their glorious holy swords shall transform into ck magic swords. Their white and silver armor shall be covered in shadows. They shall be the solo travelers of the night. System Reminder: This curse possesses a punishment of -4 Charisma. Also, devout God believers will instinctively loathe all Antiholy Knights.]


    [System Note: This job ss¡¯s creation is deeply rted to you ording to the ties of karma. You personally changed the fate of the epic hero Diana. How much you changed her fate has increased since the previous calction, so you are now rewarded with an additional 1000 Fate Points. P.S.: This job ss is still iplete. It¡¯s possible for it to evolve and strengthen even further.]


    Obviously, this job ss was a weaker version of Diana¡¯s ¡°Antigod¡± version.


    This was somethingmon in the mortal ne. As I mentioned before, many high-level job sses for Gold ranks were job sses first created by Legends before them.


    After this job ss was born, my System immediately gave me the relevant information. She also notified me that I myself could spend some Fate Points to enter this job ss as soon as I talked to Diana and learned the basic information about it.


    ¡°It requires more than 15 points in three different stats? And the person must be an expert in heavy armor and at least one military weapon? The requirements for entering this job ss are sufficient for even Legends. It¡¯s definitely a powerful job ss. Although progressing into it is quite difficult, it seems like I meet all the requirements. So, I should take a level in it and have a side job ss to learn some new skills... System! Did you really think I would say that!? Do I look like that much of an idiot to you!?¡±


    Indeed, this job ss had strict requirements for entry, and its natural job ss talents made Antiholy Knights into the best counters to priests, mages, Gods, and Demons. But, if I entered this job ss, I would definitely regret it.


    ¡°As a price for obtaining this resistance, the user will lose the ability to use any divine powers or magic. Doesn¡¯t this sentence mean that apart from the Antiholy Knight¡¯s abilities, I¡¯d only be left with my racial talents? All the ice, undead, Law, and Holy Light magic I spent so much effort learning would go to waste.¡±


    It could be said that if I entered this job ss, I¡¯d pretty much go from a pay-to-win yer with fully leveled up abilities to a high-level foot soldier who could only fight enemies with basic attacks and chase them down on foot. And if I couldn¡¯t run, I¡¯d only be able to clutch my head and crouch down in defense... Should I throw a celebration party now that there was finally a job ss with worse problems of reachpared to Holy Knight?


    This was obviously a highly special job ss. There was no fancy ¡°ultimate ability¡± like in other high-level job sses, and the most basic magic spells or Holy Light would be unusable. However, it would still very powerful and unique.


    There would always be gains together with losses. Perhaps this job ss didn¡¯t have any extravagant supernatural abilities, but it was capable of making its enemies lose their supernatural abilities. Meanwhile, a person in this job ss would have their power concentrated in the most practical basic stats. I could already predict that a high-level Antiholy Knight would have ridiculously high stats in Strength and Constitution, making them tanks with ridiculously high defense and magic resistance.


    ¡°Changing powerful mages into ordinary people and then forcing these mages, who¡¯ve lost their magic abilities and magic equipment, to fight in meleebat against an Antiholy Knight who has a ridiculously strengthened body due to sheer willpower? This is so shameless, so underhanded, so... I love it so much!¡±


    I could already guess that this job ss was about to be even better than Dark Elf Assassins at ying mages. Not only that, Antiholy Knights were the type of job ss that would ¡°kill you honestly and directly from the front.¡±


    While the advantages were obvious, this job ss¡¯s weaknesses were even more obvious. Short-ranged meleebat meant they would be limited in attacking reach, and pure warrior job sses that they had no advantage against were by far the mostmon in the mortal ne. At lower power levels, Antiholy Knights would have lower defenses and not enough special abilities. It would be difficult to level up in this job ss.


    But it would most definitely be exceedingly powerful in its full-leveled state.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care what fancy tricks you have. I¡¯ll just take your attacks and directly kill you from the front. That really is just like that big idiot¡¯s personality... Still, it¡¯s evident that this is a job ss suited to bring on the battlefield in groups. Perhaps I should consider raising a group of Antiholy Knights.¡±


    It was also because of Diana¡¯s outstanding performance that countless existences¡¯ attention was brought to that aquatic battle at Kagersi. In fact, more existences paid attention to her than the result of the battle. This caused the other new job ss which appeared to only barely be mentioned in informational reports.


    ¡°Desecration Priest? What¡¯s that?¡±


    If Holy Knights and other Gods¡¯ knights could be considered as des which protected their church, then priests were the representatives and teachers of a God¡¯s will and teachings. Perhaps priests weren¡¯t as capable inbat as other job sses, but they would be the leaders in the church as they sought to better understand a God¡¯s teachings and Divine Arts.


    Desecration Priest: this was a path a certain person took, which was quite simr to Diana¡¯s Antiholy Knight path.


    Yep, I was referring to Victoria Syfan, the Head Priestess of the Dark Elves from the game¡¯s history and Lorci¡¯s number one ranked High Priestess, as well as the person that Darsos felt conflicted over for his whole life¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªforget about thatst one. Even in this newly changed world that diverged from the game history, she still reached the rank of number one High Priestess, bing the Dark Elf closest to Lorci. If it weren¡¯t for the changes that happenedter, it was quite possible that Victoria would once again be the living representation of Lorci¡¯s will.


    Since she had managed to reach the number-one ranked High Priestess in both the game¡¯s history and the real world, she was likely at the peak of her priestess job ss. In fact, her talent far surpassed Diana¡¯s as she could be considered one of the geniuses among geniuses of this world... But with the fact that ¡°he¡± was still unable to take care of a certain curse, ¡°his¡± luck was indeed rather unfortunate. Actually, in the game history, Victoria ended up marrying another man while also being male.... did Victoria actually count as fortunate?


    Cough, based on my personal experience, those with poor fortune would have rather pitiful love lives. This would cause them to utilize their talents to the utmost in their work, thus achieving great things... After all, if a person no longer had any hope in their love life, they could only console themself by working even harder! Yep, I was definitely referring to Victoria and not to my own sad memories!


    After Lorci perished, the Dark Elf society lost their leader. As Dark Elf society sunk into utter chaos, all rules and morals were abandoned. In this utterly chaotic time, heroes would naturally arise, causing history to return to its original point and develop a different direction. That hero would be the Dark Elf Queen Victoria.


    With the support of Sulfur Mountain City, Victoria, the leader of the Syfan Family, not only took control over her own Underground City but also conquered other Dark Elf Underground Cities at a furious pace. Dark Elf society was originally a ce where the strong ruled over the weak. Since numerous powerful Underground Lords pledged their support to her, how could the disorganized Dark Elves possibly fight back against the powerful Syfan Family? Not to mention, the Underground Lords¡¯ militaries also entered and helped her take over the conquered Underground Cities.


    The current Victoria was no longer that pitiful ¡°cute little gift¡± from back in the day. She was now the number one individual in the entire Dark Elf species. She controlled more than forty percent of all Dark Elves. If she wanted, she could easily crown herself the Dark Elf Queen. If some other individual without smart brain was in her position, they would have already done so... and then I¡¯d guarantee she¡¯d be kicked off that position in just a week.


    Lorci¡¯s death had been a huge cmity for the Dark Elves. All the highest-ranked individuals in the Dark Elf Cities were Lorci¡¯s priestesses. But more than ny-nine percent of the highest ranked priestesses either died or went insane together with Lorci¡¯s death. The societal problems that had been repressed to the point of simmering exploded, and more than ny percent of the Dark Elf Underground Cities went wild into crazed riots.


    After that came along a faith crisis that provided an excellent opportunity for the Gods to obtain additional believers. All the True Gods sent out their most elite priests with exquisite gifts to visit the Underground. However, the final victor weren¡¯t these gentle and kind outsiders but Wumianzhe, instead, who brought along his armies...


    ¡°What? Preventing you from spreading your teachings? Of course not, do you have any evidence of such a thing? Fine, so you have evidence as well as witnesses? Who cares? Send someone down to the Underground to attack me if you dare.¡±


    Considering how True Gods warred with each other in their Divine Kingdoms and started national wars in the mortal ne over more believers, Xueti saying such things for Wumianzhe wasn¡¯t controversial in the least. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that it would be too shameless, Wumianzhe could have long called himself the Guardian God of the Dark Elves.


    Wumianzhe didn¡¯t break any of the Gods¡¯ taboos by taking advantage of the chaos to im most of the Dark Elves¡¯ faith. Since Lorci had perished against Wumianzhe in the Nortnds, himing down Underground to im the spoils of his victory was only natural. In fact, the Gods who tried to steal Wumianzhe¡¯s spoils were the ones closer to treading on taboos. It was like they were trying to bully a neer God. Yet upon seeing that the neer God was sufficiently strong, with the veteran Ayer backing him up, the other Gods retreated.


    Wumianzhe¡¯s Churches of Law and courts filled the Underground. Nanxiang Law School had more students than it could handle. Jails in every city had been expanded more than ten times in size but were still filled to maximum capacity. Many former Justice Knights had reached the position of vice mayor.


    After saying this much, certain things should now be obvious.


    Although Victoria had be the Dark Elf Queen in all but name, she was still Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s puppet. Even if it wasn¡¯t a very nice thing to say, both I and Victoria herself knew this quite well.


    Yep, now we arrived at the truth. I didn¡¯t trust Victoria at all. Unlike Diana, Victoria was a typical Dark Elf through and through. She was highly skilled at subterfuge, betraying, and acting. In fact, she was even skilled at pretending to act stupid and cute. She was highly intelligent and very capable in politics. Not only that, she had excellent military leadership abilities and talent.


    Back in the game¡¯s history, she was the Underground Lord with the best ending. She was capable of marrying another man in order to obtain greater political benefits and never even met a bad end. There would be no mistake in categorizing Victoria as a sessful and ambitious individual.


    Of course, I wished to be able to trust her. At the very least, I greatly trusted her big idiot of a sister. But trusting another person needed time as well as a good understanding of their personality. The most important part was to be able to see through to their desires and goals. Only that would help me to analyze how she would likely behave in the future.


    Unfortunately, despite knowing her for almost two years now, I was never able to see through to what she was thinking. I had no idea what she wanted at all. It was as if her life was all about obtaining more power, along with kicking down everyone who was an obstacle... And since this was the typical Dark Elf way of thinking, it only made me not trust her even more.


    ¡°It was so difficult for me to give the Dark Elves an opportunity to escape from their twisted society. How could I possibly allow Dark Elf society to return to how it was? I need to have a proper discussion with her.¡±


    But no matter how well some things were nned, the result would often times be iprehensible, especially if a n involved me and my unreliable subordinates.


    I had arranged multiple private discussions with her, but the moment I closed the door to the secret room I would see her hiding in a corner, trembling, as if I were a perverted boss who intended to do unspeakable things to a subordinate. I would repeatedly exin to her that I had only ordinary interests, but she refused to listen...


    Onlyter did I find out that it was all the fault of the Dark Elf Town Security gossiping too much to her. The Town Security showed Victoria those porn books and rumors about me from Sulfur Mountain City. The end result was that, in her eyes, I became something of a mix between someone gay and a demonic pervert. She would always end my attempts at discussing with her by escaping the room and running away at top speed, causing rumors to spread everywhere by the next day.


    What, you¡¯re asking why I didn¡¯t chase her? Hah, wouldn¡¯t that cause even more rumors? Witnesses would say: ¡°The perverted boss attempted to rape a young girl in a secret room,¡± which would make her older sister Diana set out to kill me.


    So I then tried to arrange a discussion with Victoria in a public ce...¡±You actually want to y at exhibitionism? That¡¯s just too much!¡± Her face went deathly pale, and she even shouted out loudly... loud enough for everyone in the Church of Law we were standing in to hear. Everyone looked at me in disbelief, causing me to be the one to escape this time. It was such a headache to exin away the rumors the next day!


    And then... there was no more ¡°and then¡± because I only wanted to avoid this trouble. Why would I voluntarily want to talk to Victoria anymore? Plus, I got so busy I naturally forgot.


    Victoria¡¯s wondrous beauty and cuteness caused me to be shaken to the point of crashing into a wall? That was nothing more than a mere rumor! Of course I wasn¡¯t moved to the extent of thinking that she was the most beautiful girl alive! Nor was I shaken to the point of wanting to crash myself into that bell tower¡¯s wall! That bell tower¡¯s wall just happened to copse on its own!


    Recalling how things were, perhaps both of us had incredibly awful luck stats. If we stayed together, our passive bad luck would feed on each other, making her unluckier. And if she became unluckier, I would be unluckier. Each time, there would always be something different, but the end result would be that we were unlucky together.


    Cough, getting back on topic, because of all this Victoria simply remained at her position and became somewhat of an outsider in my faction as well as a puppet leader.


    Obviously, she wasn¡¯t willing to stay in such a situation. So she directly resigned her job, saying that she wasn¡¯t talented enough to be anything more than a City Lord and that she wished instead to focus on personal cultivation.


    Although I didn¡¯t understand what she could cultivate now that she was a former Lorci priestess, I had no reason to reject her. Looking at how things were now, she must have truly seeded in her cultivation. Not only that, the source of her newfound powers was most likely rted to me.


    ¡°She¡¯s now a Desecration Priestess who¡¯s capable of stealing divine power? Absolutely insane. Summon Victoria and Diana over to the Bardi capital to meet me.¡±

 Chapter 370

    Chapter 370: Elemental God Equipment


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°There¡¯s a God Equipment that represents each of the four elements? They represent the highest authority of the Elemental Gods? Such God Equipment exists?¡±


    ¡°Yes, this is the highest-level secret of the elementals. Unfortunately, all four God Equipment of the Elements have been lost. Even though the Elemental Gods are able to sense their locations...¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the four elements were products of other nes, so elemental magic, too, could be considered products of other nes. That was why Antiholy Knights were capable of dispelling elemental magic, creating an area of zero magic which dispelled all spells and magic equipment.


    Could the Antiholy Knights also dispel the power of Law? Although I needed to test this, I believed that the answer was likely yes, for the same reason as above. That was because the power of Law was supported by Wumianzhe¡¯s automated divine server, making it a type of divine power.


    Still, dispelling magic and divine power wasn¡¯t something Antiholy Knights could do indiscriminately. It was just like how the conflict between positive energy and negative energy forever remained in bnce. Only arge amount of water would be able to put out a fire. A minor amount of water would only be vaporized into steam by the same fire. It would still depend on the respective power levels between the Antiholy Knight and whoever they were fighting against, meaning that this job ss wasn¡¯t ridiculously overpowered. However, the other new job ss, Desecration Priestess, was absolutely ridiculous. They were capable of stealing divine power.


    I didn¡¯t have information on the Desecration Priest job ss in my System, partially due to the fact that Victoria¡¯s ties of karma to me weren¡¯t that close, but even more because this job ss wasn¡¯t yetplete.


    Victoria thought like a typical Dark Elf in every way. She would never take an unknown path that may be fraught with peril. Desecration Priestess wasn¡¯t anywhere near asplete a job ss as Diana¡¯s Anti-Holy Knight. However, Victoria had many former Lorci priestesses as subordinates and plenty of her subordinates were willing to take risks in order to obtain power. Naturally, her subordinates explored this path for Victoria¡¯s sake.


    Judging from what the Desecration Priestesses showed off at the battle of Kagersi, they possessed a mysterious power capable of stealing and manipting enemies¡¯ Divine Arts, magic, and racial talents.


    That¡¯s right. In that battle, they had managed to steal the Sea Tribe¡¯s natural talent to whip up gigantic waves on the sea, achieving great aplishments. But I could only guess the actual specifics. Perhaps this, too, was rted to me, but I would still need to talk to Victoria for myself. Making a conclusion now would be too hasty.


    Even if I thought about it with my knee, if Desecration Priestesses were capable of ¡°borrowing¡± a True God¡¯s Divine Concept and specialized Divine Arts, not only would this ability be ridiculously powerful, but it would break all the True Gods¡¯ churches¡¯ taboos by challenging their authority and unique powers. This job ss likely already caught the attention of the Gods, which would definitely create a huge wave in society. Right now, I was thinking about how to deal with Ayer¡¯s questions for me that were sure toe.


    ¡°This is truly troublesome... I hope Victoria can give me an appropriate exnation.¡±


    At least, from an outsider¡¯s standpoint, Victoria and Diana were both my subordinates. Their actions would be viewed as extensions of my will. Since Victoria herself was the one viewed responsible for the Desecration Priestesses, the overall responsibility would naturally fall to me. This was exactly why Camdian directly came to find me.


    Also, the God Equipment of the Elements that he mentioned, one for each element, was something I was quite interested in.


    ¡°The Elemental Thrones give Elemental Gods an endless source of power and regeneration. Inparison, the God Equipment of the Elements allow Elemental Gods to have a foundational difference from ordinary Elemental Lords. It¡¯s difficult for me to exin. But you¡¯ll instantly understand if you see one.¡±


    Camdian¡¯s exnation sounded rather vague, but I could guess at what Camdian was here for.


    Back when I was fighting solo against Emordilorcan, he hadn¡¯t brought out anything like a God Equipment of Earth. His power was at most equivalent to an Earth Elemental Lord at his peak, with no foundational difference. Emordilorcan¡¯s scariest powers of limitless energy and regeneration had disappeared when I had Beifeng destroy his Earth Elemental Throne. And his meleebat skills were countered by my Cold mes of Despair, which was why I was able to win.


    Was Emordilorcan at the time even farther away from his peak of power than I realized? I felt this was getting more and more interesting.


    After putting Camdian¡¯s information together with what I already knew, I could guess at what Camdian wanted from me, along with where the God Equipment of the Elements were located.


    ¡°The God Equipment of Wind is located in the Earth Elemental ne¡¯s forbidden zone, while the God Equipment of Earth is located in the Wind Elemental ne¡¯s forbidden zone. The Elemental Tide density is far too high there; even I cannot go there...¡±


    Since the God Equipment of the Elements were so important, then the existences capable of sealing the Elemental Gods wouldn¡¯t leave them be. But there would be no ce capable of sealing such powerful equipment other than the Elemental ne of the countering element. These locations were all such that the original user of the God Equipment of the Elements would be unable to ess them. This way, even if the Elemental Gods broke free from their seals, they would be unable to return to their peak.


    ording to what Camdian told me, his God Equipment of Wind was located in the Limitless Hourss, a location only the Earth Elemental God could ess. The God Equipment of Water was simrly sealed within a ce only the Fire Elemental God could ess... this was obviously designed to make the Elemental Gods suffer.


    Find helpers? This was something far beyond what mortals could achieve. The Chaos Faction only needed the Elemental Gods to be active, which would naturally increase the Elemental Tide. Why would the Chaos Faction possibly help them retrieve the God Equipment of the Elements, which would level the Elemental Gods up from fighters into veterans in their own right?


    When I had fought with Emordilorcan, he must have checked on the God Equipment of Wind while working hard to convince other Earth Elemental Lords to join him. But he probably found that even he was helpless to enter that location. In the end, Emordilorcan never mentioned the God Equipment of Wind to us. Perhaps he even made preparations around this Limitless Hourss location to conceal it from his enemies.


    Now, Camdian¡¯s motive should be obvious. Upon seeing that Diana had the potential to retrieve the God Equipment of Wind, Camdian came running over to me to beg for it. How practical of him.


    I naturally wouldn¡¯t agree to give it to him so easily. I needed to consider if he could offer me something worth its value as the God Equipment of Wind was something I really wanted for myself as well. At the very least, it would definitely be of high enough quality to use in my Frigidwinter Earth to help bnce out my elements there.


    As Camdian and I both continued to hesitate and think of the future, a seemingly limitless castle wall appeared before us under the dawn sky.


    We had finally arrived at the ancient Bardi capital. Our journey in the sky hade to an end.


    Not long after entering the Bardi capital, Archduke Halent and I agreed to meet Orloss on the day after tomorrow. Although he really wanted to take me to meet the emperor right away, I used the excuse of fatigue from my travels to refuse him.


    Actually, my energy and spirit were at their peak after hibernating for seven days for my evolution. How could this small journey possibly fatigue me? I simply wanted to obtain more information and at least meet up with my subordinates topare notes before I went to talk to Orloss.


    As for the dragons¡¯ important matter? Halent told me that the entrance to Dragon World was currently being guarded by a senior dragon, and that I would need permission before I could enter.


    Halent told me where Cher and the others were temporarily staying. However, I didn¡¯t hurry to meet them. Instead, I sent Little Red and the others to first meet up with Cher at the embassy hotel. I first roamed the streets to check the situation here.


    For some unknown reason, even when I was as far away as in the Forest of Dreams, I kept having an ominous premonition abouting here, as if some major misfortune or cmity would befall me.


    Personally, I was never the type to believe in prophecies. However, this warning was different from an inexplicable prophecy. I felt as if this unease was due to me forgetting about something, as if I were a student who had yed around all summer vacation and finally copied someone else¡¯s summer homework on thest day, but still kept worrying that I forgot something on my first day of school... By the way, while I was still a student, I did indeed forget something each and every time. Now that I recalled this, I started worrying even more.


    Not only that, my System was recently trying to rmend me to buy ¡°Resurrection Ankhs,¡±¡±Revival Coins,¡± and so on every day, which only increased my anxiety...


    What? You¡¯re asking me why I wasn¡¯t buying such useful life-saving items while my System was being nice to me for once? Actually, Revival Coins could only be used on the dead. That¡¯s right, I would have to die and someone else would need to use it on me. Meanwhile, Resurrection Ankhs needed me to first learn the Taurens¡¯ racial natural talent of Ancestral Call. I would have to change my bloodline to that of Taurens first before I¡¯d be able to use it. In summary, the System would never be so kind. She was mostly trying to y a joke on me.


    But all this further increased my anxiety. My System made it obvious that she intended to sit back and enjoy the show, which meant that something major was to ur, and soon at that.


    ¡°Ever since I entered this city, my instinct has been warning me to run away at top speed. But the more you run away from your problems, the bigger of a problem it¡¯ll be. With my luck stat, I doubt I¡¯ll be able to escape no matter what I do, so I might as well grit my teeth and face my problems head on. Do you all agree with me?¡±


    I looked back behind me, where there was seemingly no one. The street wasn¡¯t illuminated by sunlight and was abnormally empty. But I could sense that more than ten people were following me.


    ¡°Stealth, disguises, traveling through the ground, and even paint camouge... Are you joking with me? Is this a ninja variety contest? You all have excellent sources of information to have noticed me the moment I entered the city. But which factions do you belong to, and what business do you have with me?¡±


    ¡°Seven...¡±


    ¡°Nine...¡±


    ¡°Thirteen...¡±


    In response, they uttered arge amount of numbers. Not only that, not a single number was repeated.


    What did that even mean? Was this some sort of password?


    I was rather confused. Was this some sort of spy meeting? But what type of spy meeting would y such games with number passwords? They just gave more than ten different numbers, so what number was I supposed to give in return?


    ¡°What number are you?¡±


    And then, as I expected, someone asked me what number I was.


    ...Could this really be spy meeting where everyone was currently reporting their own code numbers? I knew it!


    Since I guessed at what was going on, of course I would y along. Perhaps I would even find out a secret. This was getting quite interesting.


    ¡°I¡¯m ny-seven!¡±


    In a typical spy organization, the smaller the number, the more powerful the individual. Since there were already two-digit numbers being reported, I decided to report one of thergest two-digit numbers, which naturally meant that I would be unimportant. Perhaps I would be able to fool them like this.


    ¡°Is there already a ny-seven?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so. Wasn¡¯t it only at sixty-eight atst count?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps that old man adopted some more at a whim.¡±


    ¡°Adopting more than thirty in one go? At this point in time? That¡¯s too ridiculous to be a joke!¡±


    ¡°Are all of you idiots? Can¡¯t you tell that this brat is just fooling with us!¡±


    Finally, there was one who was slightly smarter among them, making it impossible for me to simply pretend.


    As they all looked at me with eyes filled with enmity, I could only sigh. It would seem that I couldn¡¯t fool them after all. I prepared to draw my sword with my right hand.


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯m not ny-seven. I¡¯m... nine thousand five hundred and twenty-seven!¡±


    Alright then. After that, even the dumbest among them knew I was only making stuff up. They all charged at me.


    ¡°Honestly, I don¡¯t even know why I¡¯m fighting here. I feel like my luck stat has gotten even lower after entering this city.¡±

 Chapter 371

    Chapter 371: Crown of Thorns


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Sigh, it¡¯s not interesting at all with such low-level opponents.¡±


    By the time I finished the fight which started for reasons unknown, I pretty much figured out what was going on.


    It seemed to be my fault, after all. Without realizing it, I had entered the royal pce district while it was still dark. Not only that, I misunderstood the spies reporting their respective number princes¡¯ factions as some sort of code, which was why these highly tensed spies moved against me.


    By the way, I only learned this after asking all of them. The first few I asked either attempted to take me down with them whilemitting suicide or were killed off suddenly by flying darts and arrows that came out of nowhere. It seemed like an archaic, third-rate film where the viins killed their own subordinates to keep them from talking.


    Finally, after I learned what was going on, I didn¡¯t want to stay any more in this area. I felt it to be truly amusing looking at all the ck-clothed individuals on the rooftops to both sides of me as I walked out of here. I could also feel that there wasn¡¯t as much chaos as there could have been.


    ¡°So the Crown of Thorns is still here?¡±


    The two hereditary God Equipment of the Mist Kingdom were the Rnd Sacred Sword and the Crown of Thorns. I¡¯d already given the prior over to Reyne, while thetter had been lost to time.


    However, when I was doing my System¡¯s Quests, the System had notified me that I personally handed the Crown of Thorns over to the Bardi royalty, and that I had then intentionally wiped my own memory. Since the Bardi royalty had yet to be foundationally shaken, and since I hadn¡¯t heard of the Crown of Thorns being sold on the ck market, there was a very good chance it was still held by the Bardi Empire.


    [Crown of Thorns, God Equipment.]


    [Blessing of the Undying. The wearer of the Crown of Thorns cannot die. Even if the wearer¡¯s body is shattered into tiny pieces, the body will still be reformed.]


    [Curse of the Undying. The wearer of the Crown of Thorns will lose their sense of taste, smell, and touch¡ªthey would be simr to a zombie.]


    [Death of the Undying. The moment the wearer removes or has the Crown of Thorns removed, every bit of pain suffered while wearing the Crown of Thorns will instantly be sensed. Before the wearer perishes, they will be kept alive and suffer all the umted pain before dying.]


    The effect looked extraordinarily powerful. As long as you wore it, you would be truly undying. Not only that, you would be able to turn into a Berserker who didn¡¯t know pain or even fatigue. But ording to the Mist Kingdom¡¯s ancestral kings, rather than calling the Crown of Thorns a powerful God Equipment, it was more like a frightening cursed equipment.


    Indeed, the wearer wouldn¡¯t die, nor would he or she feel any pain. However, if their body parts were shattered into tiny pieces or decayed and rotten, the Crown of Thorns would forcibly reform their body, still in that state. However, the flesh would no longer be living and it would continue to rot and fester. No ordinary person would be able to bear viewing their own body in such a condition, would they?


    That Curse of the Undying part was indeed a curse. A Berserker who wouldn¡¯t feel any pain, you say? Losing the three senses of touch, taste, and smell also meant losing your desires and goals. Any food you ate would be tasteless. Any woman a man touched wouldn¡¯t have any warmth. After wearing the Crown of Thorns for a sufficiently long period of time, that person would be no different from an undead, despite not being an undead.


    As for the final effect, the Death of the Undying? It was said that a person who had the Crown of Thorns removed would scream painfully at the top of their lungs for more than three months without being able to die, each experience of pain fresh and different. Finally, that person would shatter into pieces with the most agonizing of screams.


    What? Something like this was actually a God Equipment? This was indeed a God Equipment. God Equipment were typically as powerful as this one, together with tremendous drawbacks. Either the negative side effects would be ridiculously horrendous, or only Gods would be able to use a particr God Equipment. The only God Equipment I¡¯d ever seen being casually used by mortals was the Rnd Sacred Sword. And this sword was formed as its Concept of Guarding kept increasing its power. Back in the day, apart from being indestructible, it didn¡¯t have a single other useful ability.


    A God Equipment was typically half of a God¡¯s soul. Other Gods who obtained the God Equipment would be capable of analyzing the secrets within. Even if a God had perished, their God Equipment would be worthy of being sought after.


    The Crown of Thorns was a strange one among strange ones. You say it isn¡¯t powerful? A SemiGod wearing it would easily be able to exchange blows all day long, not caring about any injuries suffered, and easily defeat five other SemiGods simultaneously. But you say it¡¯s powerful? No ordinary person would be willing to wear it.


    In that despairing battle where the Mist Kingdom was destroyed, the Mist Kingdom¡¯s strongest knight, Caesar En, put on the Crown of Thorns. Although he was only a Myth, he caused tremendous losses to his enemies. But the end result was that he was sealed away and the Crown of Thorns forcibly removed from him. Judging from how Caesar¡¯s soul never answered my summons, perhaps he had sunk into eternal sleep as a consequence of using the Crown of Thorns.


    Me wanting to recover the Crown of Thorns wasn¡¯t to use it. It was far too abnormal in every way. But since it was a relic left behind by the Mist Kingdom¡¯s ancestors, the Descendants of the Mist would naturally want to recover it.


    Of course, I had my own method for finding this lost artifact belonging to my ancestors.


    ¡°The Broken Thorn has no reaction.¡±


    The Broken Thorn was a small, torn-off portion of the Crown of Thorns. When Kelly learned that I was searching for the Crown of Thorns, she told me to take the Broken Thorn. As long as the Broken Thorn was within a close enough distance to the Crown of Thorns, it would show a reaction.


    Unfortunately for me, I walked all over the Bardi capital with no reaction. This meant that the Crown of Thorns was either no longer in the capital or that someone was already wearing it.


    ¡°I feel that neither is a good result for me.¡±


    I was thinking about such matters as I walked out of the troublesome royal pce district. I entered a brightly lit business district, which was most likely the district that Halent told me Cher was currently staying in.


    The next moment, I knew for sure that Cher was staying here. I then instantly hid myself in a nearby alleyway.


    A pitch-ck horse-drawn carriage was proceeding on the street, while countless rotten eggs and apples were chucked at it. Lots of middle-aged women and men were running after the carriage, ranting angrily. Yet the horse-drawn carriage was able to remain undamaged due to a blue protective magic barrier blocking the projectiles. Meanwhile, the person casting this magic barrier was roaring back at the crowd, sticking up her middle fingers: Cher, the Mage Country¡¯s official ambassador to the Bardi Empire.


    ¡°I recall she was ady, wasn¡¯t she?¡±


    ¡°Yep. But actually, before I met you, I was ady as well.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s retort was so logical that I didn¡¯t even know how to respond. And so I carefully made myself smaller so that Cher wouldn¡¯t notice my presence.


    Being able to force someone previously known by the moniker of ¡°Iron¡± into a crazy woman who didn¡¯t even care about her appearance? Her pressure and umted grudges must have been enormous. If she caught me, I would face a huge trouble.


    Right afterwards came a familiar scene. An eagle-masked muscr individual ran out in front while naked, with arge group of guards chasing after him.


    ¡°That¡¯s Eaglest¡ª¡±


    ¡°No, that¡¯s just a random pervert passing by.¡±


    I felt like my country¡¯s international image was still salvageable, but if reports about how only bastards like Eaglestorm were around me, then its image would be truly unsalvageable. Just as I was intending to pretend not to see anything, my System took this perfect opportunity toe out and spread chaos yet again.


    [Daily Quest which you haven¡¯t seen for a long time: Make everyone face their true inner naked selves!]


    [Quest Requirements: Let us abandon our useless clothing and return to the natural state of nature. Making 100 people naked willplete this Quest and reward you with 200 Fate Points. Each additional zero you add on to the number of people you make naked will double your Fate Points reward.]


    [Quest Failure Punishment: A show where Princess Peach runs naked in front of everyone. System Notification: This is a free chance for you to obtain some Fate Points. Make sure to grab this opportunity!]


    ¡°Making 100 people be naked will reward me with 200 Fate Points? Then 1000 = 400, 10,000 = 800, 100,000 = 1600, 1,000,000 = 3200, and 10,000,000 = 6400 Fate Points... I¡¯ve heard that the Bardi capital has approximately 10,000,000 residents...¡±


    I immediately came to a decision after performing some calctions. Of course, I wasn¡¯t allured by the prospect of Fate Points¡ªobviously not! This was all for the sake of taking revenge for my cute little ¡°daughter,¡± Cher!


    ¡°Foolish citizens of Bardi, you dare to harm my Fate Points¡ªer¡ªI mean daughter! Taste the wrath of an Oni Chichi! Harloys, do you still have original samples of your Greed Slime bodies? I know you have them. If not, replicate them for me immediately. I need as many as possible.¡±


    Cough, from a certain standpoint, I once again made history as all the citizens of Bardi once again witnessed the insanity of this visitor...

 Chapter 372

    Chapter 372: New Cmity


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°...Those sticky Slimes running rampant everywhere haven¡¯t yet been taken care of?¡±


    Dragon Knight Archduke Halent was well-known in the Bardi capital for being cautious, serious, and strict. Although he usually treated others coldly, he had an excellent reputation within Bardi. His reputation further improved because while the Bardi princes sunk into all-out internal conflict amongst each other, Halent voluntarily went out on the frontlines to fight against the undead. He became famous and respected among the young warriors in Bardi, with plenty of followers and admirers voluntarily joining to serve under him.


    However, Halent¡¯s current appearance was in no way respectable.


    His well-toned six pack of abdominal muscles were being pointed and gossiped at by nearby maids, but he maintained his serious expression as always. However, everyone knew that he was only trying his best to maintain his dignity. After all, the tree leaves covering his crotch were all he was wearing. With only such makeshift underwear, maintaining his dignity would be nothing more than a farce.


    But nobody else had the time to make fun of him because his tree leaf underwear situation was better than the others who had it worse.


    Halent¡¯s head steward directly drilled two holes into arge vase and simply wore that. Some people put on wooden barrels over themselves. Walking around in a wooden barrel made it seem like such individuals were unlucky fools who had lost even the clothes on their backs in gambling dens.


    What most people discovered as a still-viable method of covering themselves was, surprisingly, rope. As a result, all sorts of new discoveries were made. Such as wrapping two ropes around one¡¯s body, one for the bottom part, one around the chest to cover the nipples, then tying another rope circle around one¡¯s crotch... Looking at it from a different angle, human imagination was limitless, and wearing certain types of ¡°clothing¡± was actually worse than being naked.


    Many streetside artists were finding inspiration every day¡ªall sorts of naked sculptures appeared as their products. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the Slimes also ate paper, perhaps all sorts of a certain type of ¡°art¡± would also appear and enrich the Bardi people¡¯s spiritual lives.


    Perhaps my readers understand what happened. This incident wasn¡¯t all that special. It was simply that a Slime Cmity suddenly enveloped the entire Bardi capital. These soft and sticky creatures rushed out of every gutter, waterway, and alley, attacking every person they saw.


    The Bardi capital¡¯s defenses would have been quite high against any ordinary monster invasion. But people found, to their astonishment, that these soft Slimes had ridiculously high defense and magic resistance. No ordinary person would be capable of damaging them. Luckily, these Slimes had zero attack power. The only dangerous thing about them was the fact that their digestive fluids could corrode all clothing fibers and metals.


    First of all, these Slimes were incredibly tough, to the point where they could ignore attacks from ordinary swords. Anyone caught by a Slime would be instantly stripped naked. As for powerful individuals, it was still simple enough for them to y a Slime with a single hit. However, these Slimes would immediately self-destruct upon receiving a fatal injury. And the force of their corrosive fluid¡¯s st was swift and far-reaching. Touching a little of this fluid would cause all of one¡¯s clothing to vanish. If someone was wearing expensive defensive equipment such as metal armor or an enchanted magic robe, this equipment would be transformed by the Slime fluid into a dark brown mud which had a disgusting smell... alright then, all of us know just what the first thing that woulde to mind is. Actually, the color and smell were identical to what you¡¯re probably thinking of. I didn¡¯t even intend to conceal my evil intentions.


    The most evil part of it was that this stink was incredibly difficult to wash off, even if it only got on one¡¯s equipment and weapons. Even Halent had to wash off an entireyer of his own skin in order to wash away the stink. His skin was currently bright red because of it.


    Even the prideful dragons absolutely loathed the Slimes. For instance, Halent¡¯s Blue Dragon half-brother descended from the skies and crushed a dozen Slimes to death like how he typically would. But the end result was that the Blue Dragon was still crouching out in the za, making Halent¡¯s servants wash his body. All the water sshing off the Blue Dragon¡¯s body would be filled with a disgusting stench. All the servants were wearing clothespins on their noses, making the Blue Dragon feel quite awkward.


    The most disgusting part about the Slimes was that they had outstanding reproductive abilities. Slimes splitting into two were amon sight on the streets.


    Actually, the dragons¡¯ dragonbreath andrge AOE magic spells were still effective on the Slimes. However, the Bardi capital was tightly packed with residents, so not only would such attacks kill the Slimes, but many citizens would be killed in the process as well.


    If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the Bardi capital learned from a certain source that the Slimes wouldn¡¯t live for very long and would all die off naturally within one week, and that this information source told the entire city, the Bardi capital would have surely been mired inplete panic by now.


    As Halent looked at the letter written to him on a shell, he could only sigh at how Rnd sessfully caused culture to take several steps backwards all by himself. Not only that, Rnd caused the shell business in the Bardi capital to suddenly be massively popr.


    ¡°...This is truly naked revenge, in the literal sense of the word. Still, it truly is his style.¡±


    Alright, you want my subordinates to suffer having rotten food tossed at them? Fine, I shall make all the Bardi capital citizens enjoy the feeling of running around naked, stinking. Halent could even imagine my vicious smile of satisfaction in the shadows.


    ¡°Perhaps this is his way of showing off his power.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, diplomacy was just a game ofpromise, threats, and benefits. The result of a diplomatic agreement would often be privately agreed upon before any actual formal, on-the-surface discussions. Any results unobtainable through war would also be unobtainable on the discussion table... Let us ignore a certain kingdom that sessfully broke all boundaries on shamelessness. The diplomats from this country were, in a way, nothing more than pitiful messengers.


    Although the final result was decided on, the weaker side wouldn¡¯t take things lying down. Over the past few days, the ¡°gossip¡± regarding how Orloss had been toying with the Mage Country¡¯s ambassador had already spread throughout the entire Bardi capital. In fact, the Bardi nobles were even betting on what day the pitiful Cher would finally lose her temper in public and stop acting like ady.


    In fact, every day, youngsters in salons would describe in great detail how pitiful the ambassador was as she was forced to run and cover her head due to the angry citizens¡¯ attacks. In fact, some among the nobles even personally took part. From a certain standpoint, despite the fact that Cher was originally from the Bardi Empire, she had no positive feelings towards Bardi whatsoever. Not only that, her reputation in Bardi was ruined, and she couldn¡¯t do anything about her situation. This all the more made it seem that shecked skill as an ambassador.


    If this continued, perhaps the Cloud Tower would need to change their official ambassador.


    Doubtlessly, the Bardi nobles wereughing from their positions up above at their neighboring country across the sea. Also, this would help relieve the pressure on the Bardi royalty. However, since Halent was in the know about many things, he didn¡¯t view the Bardi citizens¡¯ treatment of Cher as a good thing at all.


    While the pitiful Ambassador Cher became nothing more than a clown to amuse the crowds, the emperor didn¡¯t even consider what would happen after antagonizing the subordinate and causing the big boss who always had an evil reputation to be angered. After all, I was quite famous for forever holding a grudge.


    And now, my revenge struck as Halent had expected. While everyone else didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry at this incident, a military expert like Halent was currently assessing the threat level and consequences of such a cmity if it was used for military purposes, instead.


    ¡°Use a forbidden spell to cleanse everything? Toss a forbidden spell on our own country¡¯snds? They can¡¯te up with anything better?¡±


    Was Halent worrying about nothing? If Rnd was capable of making Slimes emit a corrosive digestive fluid which only affected clothing, then wouldn¡¯t it be easy for him to modify the Slimes to emit toxic poison? If that sticky Slime fluid was capable of swiftly changing metals into a sticky, stinky substance, then wouldn¡¯t it be easy to change the chemical reaction to an explosive one?


    From what Halent learned from the Bardi Empire¡¯s highest-level alchemists, this special Slime digestive fluid which only worked on clothing was far more difficult to create than a regr poison or explosive. Since Rnd was capable of such high difficulty chemistry, of course it would be even easier for him to create instant death poisons. Meanwhile, just about every alchemist in the Bardi capital was now researching how to create a Slime digestive fluid which only worked on clothing fibers and paper but ignored wood.


    In fact, all Rnd had to do would be to make it so that these Slimes were carnivorous. If that was the case, perhaps everyone in the Bardi capital would be dead.


    And so Halent directly decided to n for the worst with these two possibilities: ¡°What should our Bardi Empire do if we face a poisonous, explosive, or carnivorous Slime attack?¡±


    Halent himself had no ideas, so he tossed this question to the Bardi military¡¯s strategist department as well as the Bardi royal mage association. However, both groups came to the same conclusion of using forbidden spells to cleanse the capital city. This made Halent rather disappointed. Neither group had any new methods and could only deal with this hypothetical situation with the way they¡¯d deal against the Undead Cmity. Either the problem would need to be cut off at the source directly before it started, or arge area ofnd would need to be abandoned andpletely cleansed with a forbidden spell.


    Without a doubt, Rnd of East Mist had used his own method to give a lesson to the people of Bardi right after arriving. Those who knew he was ranked in the top 30 of the Cmity Rankings now had a much better understanding of just why he was in it.


    With this huge incident, Rnd¡¯s nned meeting with Orloss was dyed. Perhaps the emperor himself had fallen victim to the clothes-devouring Slimes as he shut himself in his room and refused to see a single visitor. For the time being, Orloss¡¯ adopted princes stopped their useless internal conflicts. After all, very few of their subordinates would be willing to fight while naked. Even the streets were almost empty as nobody wanted to go out and return with the stench of Slime filth.


    As a result, the Bardi capital that had been so lively just yesterday had transformed into an eerily silent ghost town. Slimes roamed around the streets. Once the Bardi royal pce announced to the entire city that ¡°All the Slimes will automatically die off in one week,¡± not a single person was willing to antagonize these disgusting Slimes anymore.


    Of course, not everyone fell victim to the Slimes¡¯ clothes-devouring antics. At the very least, the Mage Country¡¯s envoy group didn¡¯t fall victim. In fact, some interesting conversations even arose about this topic.


    ¡°What exactly are these Slimes? How did you all know that these Slimes have a phobia of wood so all that¡¯s needed is to seal up all the cracks with wood?¡±


    Everyone looked at each other but maintained an abnormal silence. Finally, Eaglestorm was the one that replied.


    ¡°...Ah, those days were so nostalgic. Last time, our Wild Bull Alliance increased its numbers by more than ten times. Unfortunately, the Slimes this time have an additional disgusting smell added to them. Else we could have taken this opportunity to spread our teachings. Should we try to contact His Highness and have him remove the stinky smell modification to the Slimes?¡±


    ¡°I feel like you won¡¯t be able to find him, at least until Her Ladyship Little Red¡¯s temper fades...¡±


    From a certain standpoint, dragons and cats were simr. For instance, if they got angry, they would immediately jump on and bite whatever they saw in order to vent. And anything that they jumped on would typically explode just like a balloon...


    The day Little Red and Molly arrived, they went to look for a volcano to take warm dips in. They both currently had bright red skin, but who knew if it was because they had stayed in the volcano for too long or if it was due to anger? Yet judging how the ck-haired Little Red was muttering ¡°Damned Rnd, you bastard...¡± at all times, always peeking out the window as if she was looking for her target to take revenge upon, it seemed that she was still holding a grudge.


    After learning about Rnd¡¯s astonishing past deeds, the Bardi royalty¡¯s messenger used polite and diplomatic speech to express how the royalty ¡°had made a mistake, and we can¡¯t take this anymore, so please have your boss retract his punishment.¡± Cher finally felt like she had achieved some revenge. She was also secretly astonished at that ¡°irresponsible Rnd¡± and his astonishing talent in creature modification. She also felt somewhat pleased for some reason.


    ¡°He actually... for me... no, for us, he took revenge. Now that the people of Bardi are acting more sincerely, it¡¯ll be much easier for me to do the work I¡¯m supposed to do. His powerful act upon returning will also make our negotiations much easier. Perhaps he isn¡¯t as irresponsible as I thought.¡±


    Cher stated this out loud. However, not a single person replied. Even Lilith, who was rtively nicer to Rnd, was mentally retorting.


    ¡°You¡¯re definitely reading too much into things. He¡¯s unreliablepletely, utterly unreliable! He¡¯s even more irresponsible that you think he is. He¡¯s far from being as good as you believe!¡±


    In the Bardi royal mage association, a certain white-robed archmage sneezed for no apparent reason before shaking his head. I then continued to discuss my new potion with my head alchemist.


    ¡°Mutated Slime species X-19 has already begun decaying. However, its mutated children are far more activepared to the original. It would seem that the great Slime family has a new species yet again. This time, the Slimes¡¯ target shall be to transform all high-quality refined metals to poop. Yep, next up will be our 108th round of Slime experiments. I hope these Slimes can live for two extra days.¡±


    ¡°...I rmend we increase our Slimes¡¯ lifespans. Previously, my naked Slimes didn¡¯t even find many targets before dying a natural death. I didn¡¯t obtain enough experimental data.¡±


    What Cher didn¡¯t notice was that head alchemist Olivia from the envoy group had imperceptibly disappeared. Currently, Olivia, who was also wearing the disguise of a Bardi royal alchemist, was one of the important members of this three-person research group.


    Rnd¡¯s undead construction, Miracle Alchemist Olivia¡¯s potion skills, and Harloys The All-Knowing¡¯s umted magical knowledge. Thisbination was probably the worst, most terrifyingbination in the world.


    Even the confident Halent didn¡¯t expect that his calctions regarding the Slime Cmity were off. It was simply that I had tossed out some Slimes and done nothing to follow it up, rather than me no longer possessing the power to summon more Slimes.


    This time, not only were other experts helping me, I was getting enthusiastic about experimenting. How long this Slime Cmity wouldst depended on when I got bored of it.


    Soon, people learned that a new mutation appeared amid these stinky Slimes. Perhaps even more unlucky individuals would appear. That so-called wood phobia the Slimes possessed might disappear together with Rnd¡¯s nonexistent sense of shame.


    Even Harloys, who typically tried to rein him in, didn¡¯t have any intentions of stopping him. This was because every single mutated Slime was a part of her and a new ability she could use. As I improved in power level, Harloys¡¯ true power would also be gradually unlocked. ¡°Greed,¡± a walking Cmity capable of acting against entire cities, was slowly showing the world the true power she was capable of.


    As for diplomacy and negotiation? Would three crazy mages who were overly passionate about research remember anything about this? They were only celebrating the fact that they had several million experimental subjects and were overjoyed about each new idea they helpede to fruition.

 Chapter 373

    Chapter 373: The Dragons¡¯ Tacit Permission


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    A Slime Cmity the likes of which had never been seen before didn¡¯tst for a week as promised. Instead, itsted for a full month!


    If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the dragons grew impatient and forcefully located the me who had gotten lost in the joys of experimentation, then this ancient city might have been destroyed for such a ridiculous reason.


    Even so, I seeded in giving the Bardi Empire and the dragons a good lesson by doing what I pleased, not caring about the consequences. I taught them what a living Cmity was.


    Once the Slimes¡¯ experimental numbers reached three digits, Slime Kings and Hallucination Slimes started to appear¡ªnow even Young Dragons or Silver-ranked knights couldn¡¯t deal with them.


    Slime Kings were the amalgamation of countless Slimes, and their self-destruction capabilities were capable of instantly clearing out all the... clothes within a radius of five kilometers. Yes¡ªonly clothes, as the Slime King only focused on making people naked.


    Hallucination Slimes, on the other hand, had seventeen different magical properties, including but not limited to: bondage, hallucinations, and lust-filled dreams. Those who fell victim to it went through untold hardship and suffered in indescribable ways. What happened on the streets could be depicted on mosaics, passed down for posterity.


    There was a particr Immemorial Blue Dragon, whose abbreviated name¡ªyep, abbreviated name¡ªwas Htefenderonkasoswener. He, however, went by the shortened ¡°Halos¡± to more convenientlymunicate with other species. Halos was one of the main leaders of Dragon City and was proficient in ancient curses. He possessed authority and strength equivalent to that of a Great Immemorial ranked dragon despite being only at the Immemorial Level.


    There were seventeen dragon leaders around Halos¡¯ level in strength in Dragon World. Of course, with their personalities less than half of the dragons would listen to Halos¡¯mands even though he was a leader of Dragon City. Currently, this Halos was appointed to be their intermediary with Rnd.


    The dragons were indeed in quite a hurry to get the Mage Country toe to their aid. However, the ancient dragons had many eras of experience and knew that this was an excellent excuse for us to make many demands. The dragons also understood that in negotiation, whoever could remain more patient would have the advantage. Originally, the dragons had intended to simply stand by and watch this Slime Cmity that was obviously just an upgraded prank.


    The dragons had thought that since both sides were eventually going to meet, how could the short-lived humans possiblypare to themselves in patience and cunning? Yet they discovered that the envoys acted as if they had entirely forgotten about the dragons¡¯ invitation. Unable to withstand their boredom and the change in the situation, the dragons finally set out to find Rnd.


    Looking at this from a bystander¡¯s viewpoint, neither side was at all the reliable type. The dragons and Orloss had invited the Mage Country to help them resolve the problem of the Titan Giants in Dragon World by using the threat of a ticking time bomb. Basically, if the Mage Country didn¡¯t help, the end result would be ¡°Hey, you¡¯ll suffer too if the Titan Giants are released.¡± But the mages ended up tossing this responsibility over to the even more unreliable Rnd. Meanwhile, just as everyone who knew him expected, Rnd unhesitatingly tossed this duty of his aside. Although this job did seem like one where he would ¡°save the world,¡± in truth it was more like he was ¡°helping the dragons wipe their own asses.¡±


    ¡°Every minute is critical. Yet he actually wasted a month? Does he intend to do his job at all? Why was someone like him chosen to be the negotiator with us dragons?¡±


    ¡°...Like I said, the threat of the Titan Giants is useless against him. Even if the Titan Giants revive, they won¡¯t cause any damage to the Mage Country for some time, but Dragon World will be devastated. It may be a danger for them, but it¡¯s even worse for us.¡±


    Yet it could be so that from the Mage Country¡¯s standpoint, Rnd was actually the best candidate. Considering the rtionship between the dragons and the mages, no other mage would likely be capable of acting as shamelessly as Rnd.


    Halos wasn¡¯t here to negotiate with Rnd by himself¡ªhe was apanied by Halent. Since Halent was personally responsible for bringing this Cmity to the Bardi capital, he was recently having a hard time by being pressured by both the royalty and the dragons.


    ¡°Are those two Immemorial Red Dragons still in the city?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Ignore them. Tell your Dragon Knights to pretend not to see them.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, ¡°pretending not to see them¡± was a type of attitude. Some Red Dragons and ck Dragons had already appeared on the surface for a period of time, and East Mist even had a small mercenary dragon squad. If Dragon City wanted to intervene, they would have done so long ago.


    Also, sending a Blue Dragon leader to be the emissary to negotiate with Rnd was also the dragons¡¯ way of disying their friendly attitude¡ªBlue Dragons, after all, were Elemental Dragons or, if you would, Color Dragons.


    ¡°It¡¯s impossible to think about rescinding the ban on the Red and ck Dragons returning to the surface. Although none in our generation have memories of that internal conflict, some ancient artifacts among us still adhere too strongly to tradition. We can only pretend not to see them.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the method by which the surface dragons disyed their attitude was seen when Little Red and Halos met¡ªthey saw each other but didn¡¯t say anything. However, this attitude was enough to make the Underground Dragon City delighted as this meant Red and ck Dragons would be able to freely roam about on the surface without worrying about other dragons hunting them down.


    As for whether the dragons would be able to directly ignore any Red or ck Dragons right before them... actually, I had an idea about this before we reached Bardi.


    ¡°Let¡¯s just rename the Red Dragons to Fire Dragons or Crimson Dragons. Yep, so we¡¯ll have Male and Female Fire Dragons. As for the ck Dragons, how about changing their names to Gray Dragons or Colorless Dragons? Right, their triangr bony heads resemble dog heads, and they¡¯re also poisonous. How about just changing their name to Poison Dog Dragon? See? Easy!¡±


    In a way, this was a very shameless move, but as long as the Red and ck Dragons changed their names both sides could avoid great amounts of awkwardness. Little Red even seriously considered the possibility of changing her species name to ¡°Fire Dragon.¡± Nevertheless, a decision to change the name of her entire species would require her to consult with the other leading Red Dragons of her tribe.


    ¡°...Poison Dog Dragon isn¡¯t even worth considering. Just hearing this suggestion will make all ck Dragons want to kill you. As for being a Female Fire Dragon, although I mysteriously feel like you have some evil joke in mind, I suppose I could try that name.¡±


    In the end, Little Red decided toter return and convene a meeting to decide the issue of renaming the Red and ck Dragons. Perhaps Red and ck Dragons would no longer exist in the future, with Dog Dragons, Female Fire Dragons, and other possible evolutionary paths giving the dragons new methods to abuse others...


    Without a doubt, the Underground dragons were tacitly permitted to return to the surface, and this was apromise from the surface Dragon City. Compromise was a very rare thing for the prideful and traditional dragons.


    The final result wasn¡¯t because the dragons cared about their close rtives¡ªno, no, it was the opposite. Actually, in their private meetings, the Gold and Silver Dragons were loudly moring to kill off all these evil Underground dragons. However, their council of elders came to the decision to allow them to return, mostly a result of the current situation the dragons were in.


    If Ipared the current world with the game history, then the biggest difference in the Underground World would be how they were now currently united. And theirbat strength and threat level had far surpassed what it was at the same moment of time in the game history. Even two mega empires together would be unable to deal with them if the entire Underground moved in unison. Also, not only was Little Red the Underground Dragon Queen, she was also an Underground Lord who represented the entire strength of the Underworld.


    If you ignored these outside factors of status, Ein Mezus had been able to reach the Immemorial Dragon rank despite her young age. And her reputation was excellent by Red Dragons¡¯ standards.


    Previously, Little Red had joined the campaign against Yongye. She had defeated the demons¡¯ and devils¡¯ evil schemes and was known to be anti-war after bing the Dragon Queen. Plus, her actions proved she had good intentions, making her a rare figure among Red Dragons: she didn¡¯t have much ambition. Of course, such a Dragon Queen was perfect for the surface Dragon City as most Red Dragons would have far more ambition than power.


    As for whether or not the Red and ck Dragons would attack humans after returning to the surface... Unless some high-ranked dragon restrained them, this was almost certain to ur. However, the dragons tacitly decided to ignore this matter. Not a single dragon even thought of this as an important point of the negotiations.


    The reason for this? Actually, the Green, Blue and White dragons on the surfacemonly attacked humans. Even the so-called ¡°good dragons¡± from legendary stories, the Gold and Bronze Dragons, would wake up several million gold coins richer after taking a nap. All dragons viewed humans as monkeys with strong reproductive abilities who wouldn¡¯t go extinct regardless of what they did to them. Only the Silver Dragons, considered an anomaly amongst the other dragons, would work hard to obtain benefits for humans and even voluntarily went to live in human society.


    In the legends, Silver Dragons preferred to appear as beautiful, silver-haired female elves. In one story, a Silver Dragon even fell in love with a human musician. Actually, this story wasn¡¯tpletely fiction. Silver Dragons were considered as artists among the other dragons and indeed adored human and elven creativity and artistry. But for this same reason, Silver Dragons often fought against their Color Dragon rtives, giving them a bad reputation within the dragon tribe.


    Of the seventeen Dragon World leaders, only two were Silver Dragons despite the fact that they were the second strongest dragon species, only weaker than Gold Dragons. This was evidence of the status problem they had despite their great power. Also, it should be mentioned that Silver Dragons preferred to establish their nests near volcanos, just like Red Dragons, making them enemies with each other ever since the immemorial generations. This made it so that any Silver Dragon opposition would be viewed as a personal grudge.


    On the surface, Little Red¡¯s visit was for her Red Dragon species¡¯ benefit. However, the surface Dragon City also saw the three other factions she represented: the Ayer Faction, the Mist Alliance, and the Underground World. The fact that Rnd apanied her and represented the Mage Country meant that the dragons¡¯ typical traditional habits lost out to pragmatism.


    The Holy War was under way. Dragon World, their little paradise, was facing a problem, and they needed the mages¡¯ assistance to solve it. Tacitly giving permission to the Red and ck Dragons would help gain the friendship of so many factions. Not only that, but adding two more dragon species to their overall strength would be useful in any future battles. It would be an excellent deal even if it caused them to slightly lose face. The dragons had analyzed this quite deeply.


    And that was how Rnd¡¯s n to shake the dragons for what they were worth seeded. With so many influencing factors, the seventeen Dragon World leaders cast their votes and decided upon tacitly allowing Underground dragons to return. With a vote of seven to five, with another five abstaining, the surface dragons formally agreed to tacitly allow the Underground dragons to return. As Dragon World was one of the three locations where the greatest number of dragons gathered, their decision was no different to one made by the entire dragon species.


    Whether or not a new position for a ¡°Fire Dragon¡± species would be added to the leadership council of Dragon World was practically a done deal since the Red and ck Dragons were now confirmed to be returning.


    Of course, none of this would be stated out loud. That was why Halent became the dragons¡¯ best messenger. He transmitted Little Red¡¯s intentions to the dragons as well as told her the dragons¡¯ intentions. But on the surface, it only appeared that Little Red came over, circled around, and then the dragons tacitly permitted her to stay.


    After the dragons came to such a conclusion, it was obvious that this was apromise. Naturally, Rnd wasn¡¯t supposed to procrastinate any longer. At least, Little Red didn¡¯t want to see him acting ridiculously for any longer... but the problem was that Little Red would first have to find him!


    Since I knew that I made many people suffer this time, especially that I identally angered Little Red yet again when she was in a foul mood, I unhesitatingly escaped. In order to obtain plenty of experimental materials, Olivia, Harloys, and I directly took over theboratory of some random unlucky Bardi royal alchemist and made him into our puppet to obtain resources for us while we hid behind the scenes. But if that was all there was to it, the dragons would have found me much sooner.


    In order to increase the degree and rate of the Slimes¡¯ mutations, I actually moved the experimentalboratory into my Frigidwinter Earth. All that remained in the mortal ne was an exit and a biologicalboratory. And so my Slime army naturally became more and more ridiculous thanks to my power of Creation supporting them. I was also immune to all sorts of prophecy magic to begin with, and hopping back and forth between the mortal ne and my world made it impossible for the dragons to locate me.


    I was finally discovered because Olivia, who had re-entered the mortal ne to record the situation and toss out more experimental subject Slimes, was tracked down by the dragons. Although her creations were ridiculously amazing, she was still limited in power by her young age and mana limit. How could an alchemist like her, who just entered the Gold rank, possibly escape from the dragons¡¯ tracking capabilities?


    But Halos and Halent were dumbfounded when they finally arrived in front of me.


    Our alchemist¡¯s experimentalboratory had beenpletely hollowed out. It was filled stacked up boxes of Slimes of differing colors. Let¡¯s not mention how there was a huge number of Pudding Slimes on the table, waiting to be eaten. There were also dark red Slimes evenrger than the average dragon, which were currently eating the stone walls and expanding the experimentalboratory¡¯s size.


    When the Blue Dragon Halos discovered us three passionate researchers, we were in the midst of researching edible Pudding Slimes and Stone-Eating Slimes capable of digging through the earth. The Pudding Slime would perhaps be one of the new main household foods in East Mist, while the Stone-Eating Slime was an invention which helped me climb the Cmity Rankings. Halos took a very long time before he understood the connection between these two different types of Slimes and why they were being researched together.


    But now wasn¡¯t the time to think so much into things. Halent recalled what that powerful dragon had told him and hesitated for a moment before speaking. On the side, Halos looked at him with an expression indicating he should speak.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, do you happen to remember Lady Evelyn? She requests for you to meet her.¡±


    ¡°What? Who¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°...She said that if you forgot her, she¡¯ll trulye out and kill you.¡±

 Chapter 374

    Chapter 374: Time Passing By


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Time didn¡¯t pause in its tracks while Rnd acted ridiculously in the Bardi capital.


    In the west, the And Empire obtained their first ever victory against the Sea Tribe in their sixty-eighth assault wave. Much of it was thanks to Diana who had utilized her newfound power, draining the underwater base of all water and causing the battle to tilt in their favor. And¡¯s use of their Fleet of Death, without caring about losses, was also a deciding factor. Amid the counterattacks of the Sea Tribe royalty which came in great numbers, And relentlessly and steadfastly persisted in their defense.


    It was only when the sun rose on the second day that the And humans finally retreated. More than twenty hours had passed¡ªplenty of time for And¡¯s engineers to empty out everything in that underground base. Perhaps the And Empire¡¯s pride, their aerial fleet, would be arriving far earlier than in the game¡¯s history.


    Of course, the Sea Tribe imed that they were the victors in the end. After all, the humans had been forced to retreat.


    The four job sses of Aurora Knight, Four Elemental Swordcaster, Desecration Priestess, and Antiholy Knight were witnessed by countless people. The faraway northern country once again reentered the field of view of the major countries.


    Just as the And Emperor Darsos was hoping to have these neer job ss members stay behind for a while longer, he discovered that they had already left. Apparently, they were headed north, to the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital.


    Meanwhile, to the south of the Bardi Empire, the battle between the undead and the wood spirits had reached a standstill. The wood spirits hurriedly made use of this opportunity to expand the Forest of Dream¡¯s territory. In the past month alone, they¡¯d already established another twelve cities simr to Oak Town. Yet the undead allowed them to expand as if they didn¡¯t even see anything going on.


    When the new undeadmander arrived, they focused entirely on conquering Nightrain City. Unlike Davey, who had obtained his position with ¡°personal connections,¡± the newmander was said to be a Senator from the Tark Republic. Only, this Senator had been seriously injured in a previous battle, making it impossible for him to ever be a SemiGod.


    Thismander was just as experienced as the Undead Emperors. To make an example for the others, he casually executed two Undead Lords who hadn¡¯t previously helped Davey. Then, he reorganized the undead armies for a new round of attacks on Nightrain City. However, the Bardi Empire had been supplying Nightrain City with endless resources and military backup. No outsider could even tell that there was anything foundationally different about the ongoing war there.


    The wood spirits, meanwhile, seemed to be satisfied with their recent aplishments as the Three Virtues returned to Amelia¡¯s garden in the Forest of Dreams. Only the Contract Heroes remained outside fighting, working hard to y undead and earn Justice Points. But the reason for their departure was kept under wraps¡ªonly the higher-ups among the wood spirits were aware that the Three Virtues had stopped all offensives and returned to await the birth of the fourth Virtue.


    To the east of the Bardi Empire was the ¡°Holy War vanguard army,¡± who were stuck in a quagmire. They couldn¡¯t proceed forward as an incensed group of dragons patrolled the skies around them twice a day. The warning was obvious. But they were also unable to retreat, because that would make the Holy Church furious and dere them all as traitors to the Holy Light, a simr death sentence.


    Yet the Holy Church was also unable to force them forward to meet their deaths. The previous incident¡ªwhere the Holy Church imed credit that wasn¡¯t theirs¡ªwas already spreading. Just dealing with the rumors popping up everywhere took up most of the Holy Church¡¯s attention. And even worse was that this incident greatly shook the faith of those in the know.


    And it just so happened to be at this time, a certain someone brought the former events in the Mist Kingdom to light¡ªof a certain abnormal crusade and the Holy Church splitting into factions, along with a certain Child of Holy Light dying undeservedly and then bing Emperor Yongye. While most people treated this as nothing more than a mere tale at first, the records were ever so detailed, as if they were written firsthand. And they provided strong evidence in favor of the truth.


    When Holy Church members sought out the ¡°living legend,¡± the ¡°strongest Holy Knight¡± Estrada for answers, the elderly Holy Knight¡ªwho had evidently aged much in the past few months¡ªresponded with nothing but silence.


    Although the Holy Church acted swiftly to quell the rumors, plenty now had doubts about them. This was all the more so among the church¡¯s neer Holy Knights and priests. A decent number of them withdrew from the so-called Holy Warrior system and chose to be Contract Heroes, instead. Suddenly, a new teaching of the Holy Light arose, about how Rnd always carried out justice in the Nortnds, where a person¡¯s identity and birth shouldn¡¯t deem an individual as sinful and that guilt should be judged on actions, instead. This logic made it seem possible for Holy Knights to get along with the intelligent undead.


    And so the Holy Church underwent yet another factional crisis and internal cleansing.


    While all these battlefields were either under temporary respites or preparing for new rounds of battle, the super powerful mega empire San Antonio, too, met with trouble. And, in a certain way, their trouble was their own fault.


    San Antonio was andlocked country, and no outside invaders had ever attacked them. Yet their leader, Emperor Hant II, died suddenly and unexpectedly. It wasn¡¯t only him, though¡ªthe prince had died alongside his father. First Princess Maria and the emperor¡¯s younger brother Winston both used each other of scheming to assassinate the two royals, and so a massive internal conflict broke out.


    It wouldn¡¯t have been much trouble if this was just an ordinary internal conflict. The emperor¡¯s younger brother possessed far stronger troops¡ªhe should have been able to grab the throne and speedily restore calm to the empire. However, Princess Maria happened to be the strongest Demon Warlock in all of history. She directly opened the gates of hell and summoned its denizens. The only part worth celebrating was that she didn¡¯t summon demons filled with thoughts about destruction and ughtering. Instead, she summoned the rtively gentler Sulu Demon tribe along with some devils. At the very least, one could make deals and reason with them.


    While Princess Maria was directly dered to be a heretic by the Holy Church, the Holy Church had too much on their te right now to deal with her. In fact, since Princess Maria was well prepared for this asion, she even gained the advantage in San Antonio¡¯s internal conflict... And ording to certain channels, Princess Maria was also Death God Ayer¡¯s God Envoy, which made the situation even moreplicated.


    Right now, the powerful countries in Eich were meeting with troublesrge and small. With the new spring came massive changes to the entire continent. Everyone now knew that the Holy War was unavoidable.


    While all of Eich was in chaos, one portion of northern Eich remained in peace and quiet. Yes, this portion was the Nortnds seven countries.


    The Mist Alliance¡¯s basic framework had beenpleted before Rnd¡¯s departure. San Antonio¡¯s internal conflict caused most of its elites to return back to their homnd to choose a side, and this loosened their reins on their subordinate country. Of course, this gave people ¡°ideas.¡± Well, at the very least, without San Antonio¡¯s subordinate country trying to get in the way, the other six countries were able to speed up their rate of unification.


    The Underground Beastmen had finished moving to the surface, and their gs were now flying on the teau. However, these tribes didn¡¯t have view humans as their enemies, and they also sessfully integrated the beastmen of the ins into themselves. The ins beastmen were isted¡ªif they didn¡¯t want to be forced to the brink, they would have to integrate themselves into this new beastmen society and be controlled.


    The Nortnds elven countries were still arguing among themselves whether or not to join the Mist Alliance. Meanwhile, the newly-born Gray Elves hadpleted their immigration process and had begun to integrate into East Mist¡¯s society. They had already preparedrge amounts of their arts and crafts products to trade for the first spring merchants. Perhaps this could be exchanged for food, which the Nortnds somewhatcked.


    Perhaps food wasn¡¯t a critical resource to exchange for, as Amelia¡¯s new seeds were being harvested more sessfully than anticipated. Military weapon sales were doing quite well, and after Tid returned, he followed Rnd¡¯s orders and began overhauling East Mist¡¯s industry. Although both members of the royalty were unreliable to the point of not even being present, everyone still supported the country of East Mist, which had gone through many trials and tribtions. East Mist was developing in a positive direction.


    After experiencing the destion of warfare, Annie and the other Underground residents began constructing their new homes. This was no easy task. Although thends were wide and spacious, they were barren. The Underground residents had almost limitless desire towardsnd, and the cohabitation of many different species meant conflicts and troubles. The heavy workload was quite tough for Annie and Anya. If it weren¡¯t for the elders, who had also been invited to watch over things, and the dragons patrolling the cities, perhaps major incidents would have already urred.


    Even the pitiful Margaret was recruited once again. And countless, sudden incidents would still ur on a daily basis despite the fact that Xueti and the Church of Law were focused on city construction. The pitiful centaur would try to escape every day only to fail time after time.


    The Sleuweir Kingdom and East Mist were now viewed as one family in the Nortnds. This was indeed the case as all tariffs had been scrapped and free travel between their countries had been allowed. Yet what made the highest-level government officials most frustrated was their Queen Glina¡¯s newest guests.


    Forget about the shota who kept shing his muscles. If you ignored the fact that he really loved to randomly show off his muscles, his uniquemanding method was quite popr with the military. However, Omar¡¯s ¡°younger brother,¡± who rather resembled Rnd, was even stranger. He shouted every day about how explosions were true art while he set off numerous of them.


    This was naturally something Queen Glina would be quite fond of. And so they studied militarymanding together... Yep, who knew what they really researched? But judging from how the explosions escted in scale and number with each day, that little brat named ¡°Mars¡± was the cause of more and more trouble. Queen Glina¡¯s explosive techniques seemed to be improving daily as well. Each day, the people of Antuen prayed that their city would survive and not be blown up while they were asleep.


    The Xiluo Empire had also started preparing forbat. As for the order I had given them toplete six heavy-ssbat airships for me, they¡¯dpleted four. Judging by their progress, they¡¯d likely be able toplete my envisioned Big Dipper squadron within half a year. As for the overall restructuring of all the systems? To quote the Xiluo Empire¡¯s prime minister, Lionheart, ¡°It¡¯s impossible for me to die again because of this, right?¡±¡±You bastards! Are all of you running off so quickly to make me die of fatigue?¡±¡±No, Ah Dang, I¡¯m not referring to you. I¡¯m quite happy you¡¯re willing to help me. But I¡¯ll be even happier if you don¡¯t help me at all. Also, please let go of that ambassador in your mouth. He¡¯s almost scared to death.¡±


    But no matter how difficult the task, he still had toplete the task his irresponsible boss left to him. Lionheart was going to be quite busy.


    Oh, did I forget about a certain someone? A certain beast tamer? With nobody around to control him, he started running wild. With unknown methods, he managed to throw a massive celebration¡ªin a public location. With a single action, not only did he manage to astonish the whole world, but his crimes were now finally known to the Druid Animal Protection Council. Now he was being hunted by the entire world. Far, far away in the Bardi Empire, Eaglestorm unhesitatingly said that he had no clue about the dracon. Else he would likely be a druid no longer.


    Right now, I was in some trouble too. Or perhaps I should say that the trouble I had created long ago hade looking for me.

 Chapter 375

    Chapter 375: Ten Sisters


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Hey, long time no see! Or should I say ¡®pleased to meet you¡¯ for the first time? Do you still remember me? I heard you lost your memory yet again. Ohhh, that makes me soo angry! We had such a good rtionship back in the day!¡±


    With a golden skin tone and eyes that seemed to be smiling, the person before me was chuckling before she even spoke. Her cheeks were slightly flushed with a light crimson hue, and her neatlybed golden braids reached her waist. Although I had no memory of this person, her physical appearance alone didn¡¯t make her seem like someone dangerous who would attempt to kill me at any moment.


    ¡°Yeah! If you don¡¯t remember, I can reintroduce myself. I¡¯m Evelyn the Seventh. You can call me Little Seven.¡±


    A strange name with a strange number. However, I remained vignt as I observed this seemingly friendly existence before me. This wasn¡¯t only because of that threat she had sent to me¡ªit was also because she was obviously a dragon in human form.


    I could sense a faint draconic might emanating from her. And her eyes were golden¡ªdragon golden. An ordinary person might mistake her for an authoritative Gold Dragon, but that supposedly kind smile of hers indicated that she was a species far more dangerous¡ªa Copper Dragon.


    Copper Dragons were Metal Dragons and were typically treated as one of the ¡°good¡± dragon species. Mainly residing in desert environments, Copper Dragons were skilled at digging and enjoyed constructing underground nests. They also rarely attacked humans. Yet if one ranked the dragon species by how much of a headache they posed for travelers and merchants, the Copper Dragons would be ranked higher than most evil Color Dragons¡ªin fact, they might even be ced in the top three.


    It was true that they didn¡¯t like to battle or attack humans. However, Copper Dragons loved to gossip, joke, and tell stories, and these hobbies of theirs required an audience. Alright then, let me say it directly. Simply put, Copper Dragons were chatterboxes. The issue was that they lived in deserts, a type of environment few others inhabited. If they got too lonely, misfortune would naturally befall someone.


    Of course, as Metal Dragons, they didn¡¯t randomly assault humans¡ªthey summoned sandstorms, instead. Unsuspicious travelers would be led to the Copper Dragon¡¯s nest, the only ce in the vicinity that¡¯d allow them to evade the sandstorm. Then, they would ¡°coincidentally¡± see many priceless treasures strewn about on the ground. And if they really tried to secretly steal some of the treasure, the Copper Dragon owner would ¡°coincidentally¡± return at this time and catch them red-handed.


    The Copper Dragon would proceed to threaten to eat the thief as a punishment for stealing from it unless, of course, the thief was willing to tell seventy-two hours of stories or listen to seventy-two hours of unfunny jokes without any rests or repeats! Those poor at spinning yarns would have the Copper Dragon bare its fangs, and the pitiful traveler would be scared into telling more stories. A Copper Dragon wouldn¡¯t release you until you had told all the stories you knew. Moreover, humans were typically unable to defeat them or escape, and were stuck on the wrong side of reason after being caught in the act of thievery. This ¡°seventy-two¡± hour time limit would often go over the allotted time, and the Copper Dragon would release you only when they felt you were about to go crazy.


    This led to the suffering of many novice adventurers. After an encounter with a Copper Dragon numerous would change their job and go back home and farm... Yep, you guessed it. I indeed met a Copper Dragon before. Wasn¡¯t it just a contest between who could be more of a chatterbox? I chatted with that fellow for two months about Buddhism, ¡°I think therefore I exist,¡± the way of the Dao, and so on. In the end that guy ran off to be an ascetic monk and left all his worldly treasures to me¡ªhaha!


    Cough ¡ªtheir natures made them incredibly annoying to the other dragons as well. Copper Dragons and Blue Dragons were typically mortal enemies with each other as they both imed the desert environment as their home. Some people believed that this conflict over territory was natural because of the fierce rivalry between the Color and Metal Dragons. I, however, believed that it was more because all Blue Dragons were the overly serious type who lovedbat, which made their rtionship with the Copper Dragons, who loved to joke, chat, and y pranks, be like that of oil and water.


    ¡°Right, I¡¯m interested in the prank you pulled recently. Could you give me some of those Slimes? The Dragon World has been way too boring recently. It¡¯s time to liven things up.¡±


    ¡°Liven things up? You¡¯re intending on pulling your own prank, aren¡¯t you? Still, my Stink Slimes aren¡¯t that effective against dragons. However, I do have Slimes capable of automatically stealing precious metals. If you promise to give me half, I¡¯ll loan them to you.¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t be needed. In the Dragon World, stealing another dragon¡¯s treasure is one of the biggest taboos. Any dragon caught doing so will be directly exiled. I have no intentions of being hunted by all dragons. Right, do you have any explosive Slimes that will dye everything around it in certain colors? I¡¯m intending on throwing a certain party...¡±


    Evelyn and I strode down an underground passage, chatting as we walked. This appeared to be quite the joyous conversation, yet I remained fully on guard all the way along. This invitation had been unnatural from the very start.


    ¡°Umm... I hope you¡¯ll be able to survive.¡±


    When we had arrived at the entrance to the passage Halent had bid me farewell in such a fashion. I had almost turned around and fled, but then I remembered Evelyn, who had been waiting there to greet me. I was rather curious about this ¡°Evelyn¡± character, anyways¡ªI had heard of her ever since I had entered the Bardi Empire.


    ¡°Why did you want to talk to me?¡±


    ¡°Ah, it wasn¡¯t me who was looking for you. That would be Evelyn the Second! Yep¡ªshe¡¯s our Second Sister! Oh, right, if Third Sister wakes up, you should escape at top speed. She really wants to kill you.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s really dark and difficult to walk around in here, don¡¯t you agree? I honestly don¡¯t understand why they chose to construct their nest here, despite the fact that the Dragon World has such a pleasant environment.¡±


    ¡°It rained against night, making the path quite slippery! I identally tripped and fell over!¡±


    ¡°Ahh, I¡¯m so, so bored. Second Sister doesn¡¯t allow us to go out either! I¡¯m stuck in here every day without a single person to talk to.¡±


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey, are you curious about how many of us sisters there are? And why we¡¯re all called Evelyn? I¡¯ll tell you¡ªthere are ten of us sisters. Although I think Little Eleven will be born in the next two years.¡±


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you saying anything? Oh, do you know any good jokes?¡±


    While I did want to speak, she didn¡¯t even give me a chance to do so!


    This Copper Dragon hadn¡¯t stopped talking for a single moment ever since the start. While chatting with a beautifuldy was indeed quite rxing, I was no longer able to follow her quick speaking speed. Nor was she even waiting for me to respond.


    Now I understood why a Copper Dragon had been sent to greet me¡ªtheir lips would never be sealed! I no longer had any energy left to investigate what she wanted as right now I only wanted her to shut up!


    ¡°...Sure. Let me tell you a story: a person was born from his mother, and a demon was born from his mother...¡±


    In order to deal with a chatterbox, you would either have to ignore that person or be even more of a chatterbox. You would have to suddenly strike and not give them an opportunity to speak. This would make them bored. However...


    ¡°But we dragons are born from eggs. Is that the same? Should I say that we were born from egg mothers? Speaking of mothers, let me tell you, our mother is so irresponsible...¡±


    Alright then, she once again stole the topic of conversation. Next, she told me how the sixth leaf in the vegetable for her lunch yesterday had two worm holes in it, and how careless her sisters were about etiquette.


    Then, she started talking about how she took care of her dragon scales. Next was how the next door neighbor dragon¡¯s baby dragon actually stayed in its dragon egg for an extra three-and-a-half hours, making the worried Copper Dragons hold a major research meeting about it, but that meeting quickly went off topic. And then...


    At this point, I truly wanted to find something to gag her mouth.


    ¡°If all Copper Dragons are like you, of course they¡¯ll go off topic! Forget about being chatterboxes, at least talk about something meaningful! It¡¯s fine if you speak quickly, but at least use some pauses! Right now I feel as if several dozen flies are buzzing around my head!¡±


    But unfortunately...


    ¡°I¡ª¡±


    ¡°Right, we all learned that you arrived the instant you came to Bardi. It¡¯s your own fault for opening up that letter.¡±


    ¡°You¡ª¡±


    ¡°Heehee, I know I¡¯m quite beautiful. There¡¯s no need for you to praise me.¡±


    ¡°She¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ohhh, this is my Fifth Sister. You¡¯re quite lucky. She always likes to takezy naps. You actually met her when she¡¯s awake. She¡¯s so cute, isn¡¯t she? Haha, I¡¯m just using a roundabout method to praise myself as cute, aren¡¯t I? I really am sooo cute.¡±


    She spoke faster and faster, making it impossible for me to get a word in. It would appear that the previous Copper Dragon I met wasn¡¯t experienced enough. No wonder Copper Dragons were treated as one of the most dangerous dragon species. An Adult Copper Dragon wouldn¡¯t listen to others talk at all!


    The blue-haired girl I passed by viciously red at me as sparks of lightning shed in her eyes. It was evident that she was a Blue Dragon. But how was it possible for these two dragon species to be sisters?


    However, I had no time to consider this question as the passageway had reached its end. After turning around a corner, everything around me suddenly became spacious.


    A massive Silver Dragon¡¯s head was currently observing me. This head belonged to a truly giant creature¡ªjust the eye alone wasrger than an adult human. More ridiculous was the fact that this was a three-headed dragon, an existence nobody else had even heard of before. The other two simrly massive heads appeared to currently be in a deep sleep.


    Several human figures appeared to be standing on the dragon¡¯s head. When I took a closer look, I discovered that they all had the same face but different hair colors. They were obviously the sisters that Evelyn the Seventh had mentioned.


    ¡°Well, I suppose I¡¯ve heard of three-headed dragons. You¡¯re the three-headed dragon, Cher¡¯s mother?¡±


    However, the colossal dragon shook its head.


    ¡°Nope. Actually, if you really look at how things are, it is Cher who is our mother.¡±

 Chapter 376

    Chapter 376: The First of My Seven Original Sins


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Both sides had difficultiesmunicating with each other because one side was ring at the other with cold gazes of enmity.


    Yetmunication was necessary, or else I¡¯d remain utterly confused about the situation. How could I possibly have expectations for the future like this?


    I felt rather strange. Even though I didn¡¯t have any memories of these Evelyns, when I looked at them I felt a mysterious sense of nostalgia. Her every word would strike my heart, giving rise to an abnormal sense of intimacy which started to influence my sense of logic and reason.


    ¡°In the past, we used to be good friends... the best of friends...¡±


    The elegant Silver Dragon smiled faintly, an inscrutable smile filled with numerous emotions and expressions.


    Her Sapphire Dragon and ck Dragon heads remained in a deep sleep. These heads were the Second and Third Sisters, which led me to the conclusion that each head had independent wills. Perhaps this was why she had to maintain her dragon form and was unable to leave the underground cavern... obviously an abnormal situation.


    Indeed, there were plenty of multi-headed creatures in this world. Hydras, for instance, were a species of dragon with nine heads. However, if each head had their own will, then a heated discussion would be required just to decide which direction to walk in.


    The great majority of multi-headed creatures had only a single will controlling their heads. The only known exception was the Two-Headed Ogre, a joke of a species well known for always fighting with itself.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on with Cher?¡±


    This was clearly the three-headed dragon who Cher referred to as her adopted mother. Yet this Silver Dragon was saying that she was Cher¡¯s daughter. If that was how it was...


    ¡°You¡ªyou¡ªare you my granddaughter!? What the hell?! I¡¯ve be a grandfather so quickly!? I need to tell you first that I¡¯m not going to give you the years of birthday and spending money I missed!¡±


    ¡°Pa-hah.¡±


    Alright then. Those Evelyns all chuckled. Even the Silver Dragon looked at me helplessly with no trace of her earlier elegance.


    ¡°...Your brain seems to be more broken than it was two hundred years ago. Well, from a certain standpoint, you aren¡¯t wrong... Hey! Don¡¯t run! Nobody here is asking you for your money!¡±


    ¡°Cough¡ªI wasn¡¯t trying to escape! With so many granddaughters, I was only intending on going out to by some candy for everyone.¡±


    ¡°We aren¡¯t your granddaughters!¡±


    Their retorts were filled with helplessness. In their memories, although Rnd would sometimes act ridiculously, he was still reliable¡ªmost of the time, at least. But now why did they feel that his brain wasn¡¯t working anymore? Had he really gone senile with old age?


    I, however, was in utter internal chaos. I mysteriously obtained ten granddaughters at once? ¡°The powerful sure have messy lifestyles¡± was far too insufficient to describe the current situation. I could only act ridiculously in order to ease the chaos in my heart.


    ¡°Cough¡ªto exin this, we must first talk about lust. What¡¯s your understanding of lust between men and women? That¡¯s right, I¡¯m referring to Lust of the Seven Original Sins.¡±


    It appeared that it was time for an exnation. I hesitated for a moment before giving my answer.


    ¡°Lust is the one of the most basic animal instincts, next to gluttony. Under the effect of hormones, lust drives an individual to find an outstanding partner for the purpose of reproduction so that their species continues to evolve.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s your own fault for being single your entire life.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I actually have a girlfriend.¡±


    ¡°Really? She must be quite pitiful. Her boyfriend doesn¡¯t understand love in the least.¡±


    Alright then, allow me to skip over the boring exnations. Evelyn didn¡¯t intend to hide anything from me. It was only a matter of time before I understood just what in the world was going on over here.


    Lust of the Seven Original Sins was Evelyn! Whoops, I meant Lust of the Seven Original Sins was Cher!


    That¡¯s right¡ªLust was Cher. And Evelyn and Cher were separate individuals. And theirplex mother-daughter rtionship was apparently my responsibility as well.


    Whatever happened back in the day wasn¡¯t anything good; at the very least, Evelyn seemed to have no intentions of exining it to me.


    ¡°You want to know what happened back then? It¡¯s only natural you wiped your memories¡ªit wasn¡¯t anything good for you. Why do you want to remember? You wanted to forget everything in the first ce.¡±


    I always hated it when people looked at me in pity¡ªit made me feel stupid. But, for some reason, when Evelyn looked at me in pity, I didn¡¯t feel that way at all. I felt a rather familiar and intimate sensation.


    ¡°Could it be that I¡¯m a masochist who loves others¡¯ condescending gazes?¡±


    ¡°No, I think you¡¯ve simply gone senile with old age. This is the friendliness between a patient and a doctor.¡±


    As always, the silly cat¡¯sments arrived right on time. ording to our agreement, now that she was able to speak, her split-off wills in the Slimes had returned. The Slime Cmity had officially ended.


    Yet Evelyn¡¯s next words left me literally speechless.


    ¡°Some things happened between us back in the day. The result was that all of us died.¡±


    Alright then. There were far too many things toment on about this statement. Harloys and I were astonished¡ªwe didn¡¯t even know how to respond to that. But Evelyn¡¯s next words had even more parts toment on, so we gave up trying toment about the situation.


    ¡°Cher... was called Cherry back in the day. She killed me, but you didn¡¯t want me to die. You wished to break the boundaries of life and death, which was why you...¡±


    The more I heard, the more I felt a chill in my heart. It would seem that the me from back in the day was even crazier than the current me.


    In the past, my good friend Evelyn had died because of me. And so I did some rather insane things in order to break the boundaries of life and death.


    ¡°Why does this scenario sound so familiar?¡±


    ¡°Lisa and Elisa... You haven¡¯t matured at all.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t deny it.¡±


    However, unlike what had happened with Lisa turning into Elisa, this situation was most likely rted to me meeting with frustrations in love. The me from back in the day was even more extreme and ridiculous.


    Why did I say that this was the result of love frustrations? That¡¯s because Evelyn provided me with my own handwritten notes¡ªthey were, indeed, written with my own familiar handwriting.


    [...So-called love is nothing more than a mistaken impression created from the product of hormones and animal instinct. Lust¡¯s only use for living creatures is to reproduce and give birth to a better future generation. And Lust¡¯s overall goal is the evolution of the entire species. In that case, if I extract everything about love out of my soul, will I be able to create a unique specimen which can cause female souls to reproduce by themselves? Truly interesting. I¡¯ve decided to name this specimen ¡°Lust¡± of the Seven Original Sins... System Notification: Since your handwriting sucks, here¡¯s what your notes say. No need to thank me¡ªthis is a free service provided to you by your kind System. By the way, I think this first section could totally be the motto of the FFF Group.]


    ¡°Interesting the hell!¡±


    Alright then, my System did not respond to my forceful retort. Meanwhile, Evelyn continued to exin:


    ¡°Youbined part of your soul with my soul and Cher¡¯s. Cher is now continuously going back and forth between life and death. Once her body is ready, the trap you ced within her will activate and then create a new ¡®Evelyn.¡¯ That¡¯s why I myself don¡¯t even know if I¡¯m your good friend Evelyn from the past or if I¡¯m simply a copy of her soul.¡±


    With assistance from my own notes along with Evelyn¡¯s exnation, I could extrapte what must have happened back in the day.


    Evelyn, Cher (formerly Cherry), and I must have been good friends. Then something must have happened¡ªmost likely an internal conflict, betrayal, or something along those lines. The result likely was that Evelyn died while protecting me and was killed by Cher. I became furious and wished to take revenge for Evelyn as well as resurrect her, which was why I used Cher as an experimental subject.


    However, limitations in my power level back then made my experiment only a half sess. While the host Cher could use her life as nutrition to create a new Evelyn, the price for breaking the boundaries of life and death was that Cher herself would have to die. Again, due to myck of understanding in undead magic at the time, this half-sess of an experiment thus had something coincidental and miraculous ur.


    Elisa and Lisa were also two separate individuals. The real Evelyn¡¯s soul had long since returned to the River Styx, and summoning her soul was destined to fail from the very beginning. This method could only make a replica out of soul shards and memories put together. Meanwhile, the host Cher didn¡¯t truly die but instead reverted to an infant baby who retained no memories whatsoever.


    And then I myself had died as well, causing this abnormal experiment to sink into a vicious unbroken cycle right from the very start. Every time Cher matured and reached a certain level, the trap within her soul would activate and create a new Evelyn out of her physical body and soul.


    As the original goal I set for Lust was to evolve stronger and stronger genes, each new Evelyn would be gically superior in every way. And as this entire system and the new Evelyns evolved, the original Evelyns would simultaneously obtain the new Evelyn¡¯s more advanced genes. The entire Evelyn dragon group was evolving together with each new generation.


    ¡°At first, I was only an ordinary person who possessed a minor amount of Dragon Bloodline, and since my soul was trapped I had multiple-personality disorder. After that my power evolved to the level of a dragon descendant, then SemiDragon, Half Dragon, and then True Dragon level... Up until now, I have been born eight times, and Cher has experienced eight lives. I have also raised her eight times as her mother. After so many years, I¡¯ve long since lost all feelings of hatred towards her for killing me. Now I sincerely hope that Cher can have her own happy life. And the only person capable of breaking this cursed cycle and truly giving Cher a new life is likely you, as you created all this.¡±


    Apart from opening my mouth wide agape and wanting to bury my head in the ground like an ostrich, I had no clue how to react.


    ¡°You should have figured it out by now. Cher back then was your first ever lover. But the current Cher no longer has any rtion to her, so please don¡¯t be angry at her anymore. Also, if you remove this abnormal curse, you should be able to be more normal yourself.¡±


    That¡¯s right¡ªcurse. I sacrificed a particr emotion, love, in order to curse Cher so that she would forever regret and be in pain, using her soul to make up for her past mistake. This was a perfect example of a revenge curse.


    From a certain standpoint, the me from back in the day was rather foolish to have paid such a price just because of something like a failed love or betrayal.


    ¡°...I failed in my first romance so I stopped believing in women and love? Where did such a pure youth appear from?! Was I really that immature?¡±


    [You were even purer and more immature than you can imagine. You instantly made yourself forget about Cher after dying that time. Wasn¡¯t it because you were worried you¡¯d feel pained if you recalled her? Ahh, such a beautiful and twisted first love. Truly, first loves should all have such a bittersweet taste.]


    ¡°To hell with bittersweet! This is just like toxic poop!¡±


    [You use poop to describe your first love? Whoa, you have such extreme interests...]


    Alright then. My System seemed to be getting more shameless every day. It appeared as if she had been waiting to pounce upon this chance to make such a joke.


    Indeed, Evelyn herself technically didn¡¯t count as my creation. She was independent. On the other hand, Cher, who was also Lust of my Seven Original Sins, was indeed my creation, naturally making her my daughter. As for the rest, the rtionship between us all was so messy that I truly didn¡¯t wish to ponder upon it.


    Suddenly, I recalled what Evelyn the Seventh mentioned earlier, that ¡°Little Eleven would be born within the next two years.¡± Was Cher about to enter a new cycle of dying and reverting to an infant?


    ¡°What¡¯s the exact condition for triggering Cher¡¯s death and starting this cycle over?¡±


    Although my premonition told me that the answer would be outrageous, I still asked my question.


    ¡°...Love. The moment Cher falls in love with someone, her life will begin a countdown.¡±


    I copsed, helpless. Was the me from back in the day truly that stubborn? This was obviously way overboard.


    ¡°You forced your first ever lover to continually die and start all over again every time she falls in love with someone? Rnd, you¡¯re truly so pure, pure to the point of twisted.¡±


    I found myself powerless to counter anything my silly cat said. I could only say one thing as I turned around to leave.


    ¡°I will stop this cycle. But I first need to take a look at Lust Cher¡¯s internal structure. I shall find a way to stop this.¡±


    ¡°No need to leave so quickly! I still wanted to chat with you! Forget it, remember to visit again soon. We can have a chat next time.¡±


    The Copper Dragon Evelyn shouted after Rnd, while the other Evelyns watched in silence as he ran off in such a ragged manner.


    A long silence pervaded the underground cavern, until one voice finally broke it.


    ¡°Why did you only tell him half of the truth?¡±


    ¡°Half is enough. Cher has such a pitiful life. It¡¯s enough to just take care of her problem. First Sister, if you really wanted to exin everything to him, you wouldn¡¯t have missed this chance yourself.¡±


    The Sapphire Dragon who had been in a deep sleep opened her eyes. She was the first ever Evelyn and the three-headed dragon¡¯s main personality. Yet she had been in a deep sleep for all this time... or, more urately speaking, she had been pretending to be asleep.


    ¡°I was forcefully suppressing Third Sister. You know how much Third Sister loves Cher and hates Rnd...¡±


    ¡°Who among us doesn¡¯t hate him... We all hate him for ignoring Evelyn¡¯s dying wish, for being an idiot who was in such love with Cher; we hate him for activating this damned cycle of life and death all for that one sentence, for intentionally stepping into a certain-death trap and using his own death to activate this curse. Rnd is truly an ultra bastard who makes others hate him so easily.¡±


    ¡°While we have so many frustrations, he actually dared to get a new girlfriend? It¡¯s his fault we didn¡¯t want to tell him.¡±


    This time, the one who spoke was surprisingly the icy Blue Dragon Evelyn.


    That sentence? Yes. Evelyn had left one part out of her exnation¡ªher dying words to Rnd: ¡°If reincarnation is real as you say, I hope I can be your lover in my next life. Until then, don¡¯t fall in love with anyone else.¡±


    Was this Evelyn¡¯s unwillingness? Her final grudge? Her hopes for her next life? Anyhow, Rnd indeed had the ability to transform these unwilling words into reality. It was precisely the sentence ¡°don¡¯t fall in love with anyone else¡± that made Rnd cut off everything rted to love in his soul and entirely abandon it.


    The unfortunate part was that previously, before his final reincarnation two years ago, he had still remembered Evelyn even though he had forgotten about ¡°Lust¡± Cher. But he had lost such a critical memory about Evelyn after his most recent reincarnation¡ªit was no wonder the Evelyns were so angry at Rnd.


    ¡°From the moment we were born, we possessed all of Evelyn¡¯s emotions and memories. But if we really are Evelyn, then why are there so many of us? Just what exactly did Rnd do back then...?¡±


    Each and every Evelyn was an individual. It followed that they had different reactions toward this situation, as they had different personalities. Some Evelyns felt motherly love towards Cher, while some still possessed feelings for Rnd. Other Evelyns wanted to kill him more than anything else, while some hoped to stop this unending cycle. There were Evelyns who looked forward to the birth of new younger sisters, and there were some who wanted to continue from the past and have a romantic rtionship with Rnd. Some Evelyns even believed themselves to have nothing to do with the past.


    By now, everything was far too messy to calcte.


    But Rnd¡¯s troubles were only beginning.

 Chapter 377

    Chapter 377: Evolution


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°To sum things up, the me from back in the day made modifications to Cher¡¯s soul as I was filled with hate over her betrayal. Now, as long as Cher falls deeply in love with someone, her passionate emotions will cause a trap ced deep within her soul to explode, thus starting a new cycle.¡±


    ¡°During this time, she will undergo a split in personality¡ªjust like the three-headed dragon Evelyn. Her memories will create a new Evelyn that will gradually overwrite the current Cher¡¯s personality. Her body will evolve into genes superior to the previous generation. With the personality and soul as the software and her body and life as the hardware, a new Evelyn will be born. Only Cher¡¯s soul shards will be left over, and when put together with an infant body it will restart the cycle. Evolutions will umte so... As expected of myself! Truly outstanding and marvelous¡ªI mean truly an insane maniac!¡±


    The condescending looks aimed at me made me change my wording in the end. But inwardly I was certain that I was a genius back then, else I wouldn¡¯t have been capable of making a creation with the potential to topple everyone¡¯s worldview.


    Evelyn was absolutely correct in saying that I was likely the only one who could break this cycle. It would be impossible to one hundred percent analyze thisplex design unless I first understood the way I had thought back then. If I couldn¡¯t analyze how I designed Lust, how would I possibly be able to cancel this curse?


    Of course, it would also be possible to forcefully cancel the curse. It was simr to wielding a sword to cut a rope or a hammer to break open a door¡ªwith these tools, you would be able to open the lock, but it was unlikely the lock would be able to survive.


    Still, this was originally my design. Analyzing how it worked wasn¡¯t that difficult.


    ¡°Understanding the secrets of the soul through pure and stubborn feelings. Continually improve the soul to have the entire physical body evolve. This was the basic way I had thought on this area of research.¡±


    A good analogy to this is what a middle school student would think when they saw their homework problems from elementary school. Perhaps the homework would be filled with code or scribbles nobody else could understand, or perhaps they¡¯d already forgotten the content of such scribbles. But as long as the student substituted in their own way of thinking and knowledge, it would be possible to reverse engineer the way of thinking they had used to solve the problem.


    ¡°...This is rted to the understanding of ¡®Concepts¡¯ and ¡®Logic.¡¯ Finally, I managed to make the individual Evelyns evolve together as an entire species. Every new Evelyn born would help the entire group of Evelyns to evolve. I must have reached the peak of Myth back then.¡±


    ¡°Stop bragging about yourself. Hurry and think of some method to break this cycle. Can¡¯t you tell that everyone else is looking at you quite strangely?¡±


    Indeed, everyone around me was someone I knew¡ªmost of them were my subordinates. Yet they were all looking at me with confused and hostile gazes. Little Red in particr seemed to be clenching her fists and wanting to rush at me, as if she was saying ¡°I finally have such a great chance to viciously beat you up.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter? Why is everyone looking at me like that?¡±


    ¡°...What do you think you¡¯re doing?!¡±


    Only now did I notice that Diana had arrived while I was out acting ridiculously for a month with the Slimes. She was also ring at me, full of hostility.


    Although her tone clearly indicated her anger, Diana remained quite calm and in control of her emotions. It would seem that she had indeed greatly matured. However, I had no idea why Victoria was hiding in a corner, staring at me with a terrified expression.


    Meanwhile, Little Red chuckled menacingly.


    ¡°...No need to mince words with this bastard. Let me beat him up first to vent a little. As for his exnation, let¡¯s listen to it after I finish beating him up.¡±


    ¡°What exactly did I do? I¡¯m just checking Cher¡¯s body, aren¡¯t I?¡±


    ¡°...Does anyone else check like how you do?¡±


    I looked down at Cher who was currently in my hands, but she met my eyes with a terrified expression. Next to us was a pile of shredded clothing, torn to pieces...


    And that was how I came to a sudden realization. I silently took off my shirt and put it on her to show what a gentleman I was...


    ¡°Gentleman the hell! Would a real gentleman suddenly go berserk and rush into a woman¡¯s room, defeat her inbat, strip her naked, and then stare madly at her body? In front of so many long-time subordinates¡ªwho are all witnesses now¡ªyou still dare to call yourself a gentleman!? Not even Beifeng is capable of doing something this outrageous!¡±


    I thought back to what I just did. All that Harloys had just said indeed seemed to be true. My mind was inplete chaos when I returned, so I rushed straight to Cher¡¯s room and began inspecting her body. Of course, to make it easier to check her body, it would be necessary to take off her clothes. And so everyone had heard her screams and arrived right when I was in the midst of giving her a serious inspection. Only now did I recall that I also saw many white, uncovered parts of flesh, which was why everyone must have misunderstood me.


    ¡°...Beifeng wouldn¡¯t do something like this? That¡¯s because the great majority of Beifeng¡¯s targets don¡¯t wear any clothes! Fine, I won¡¯t talk back... If I tell you all that I was looking at her with only a researcher¡¯s perspective, will you all believe me? Fine, fine, I¡¯ll kneel¡ªjust don¡¯t hit my face!¡±


    Little Red unleashed her fists and took this opportunity to vent her grudges against me. During this, she muttered to herself:


    ¡°We caught you red-handed in the act. I wouldn¡¯t believe what you said if it was anyone else. But since it¡¯s you I believe you¡ªyou¡¯re a bastard who¡¯s no normal person at all.¡±


    ¡°Then why are you hitting me?¡±


    ¡°I soaked in magma for an entire week in a volcano and almost got heat stroke! Isn¡¯t this your fault?¡±


    Alright then, I was rendered speechless. This was quite obviously just an excuse for Little Red to vent her displeasure. Yet I mysteriously found myself rather happy that Little Red had trust in my character. However, the silly cat suddenly chimed in with a retort that instantly made me displeased.


    ¡°You idiot, she¡¯s saying you¡¯re not even a man.¡±


    ¡°...I am a man! Try me if you don¡¯t believe me! Forget it, I¡¯m not Beifeng. There¡¯s no need for me to deal with a cat.¡±


    And what came afterwards was that instead of the dragon beating up Rnd, it became the cat and the dragon beating up Rnd.


    ******


    ¡°Lust¡± Cher was the true firstborn Sin of my Seven Original Sins. She was also the model which all my other Sins were based on. Since I obtained enough information from her body earlier... I could understand the true foundation of this cursed cycle. Actually, this wasn¡¯t a curse to begin with, but rather a blessing of ¡°Evolution.¡±


    Just as how I had given the wood spirits gifts that I termed ¡°curses¡± of the Sins, those curses were, in reality, blessings that would help them evolve. This was the umtion of my research results.


    From the very start, my research was the exact opposite of what the Holy Church told everyone. The Holy Church would warn humanity to ovee and restrain their desires and instincts. I, on the other hand, believed that desires and instincts constituted a necessary part of humanity. In fact, I even considered them to be the most basic motivation for humans and society to evolve and progress. These Seven Original Sins existed because they were the most basic needs of both the soul and the physical body.


    That was actually how I hade up with the core concept of my Seven Original Sins. Gluttony Ah Dang was capable of devouring others to evolve. Bastian could use Wrath to make himself stronger. Greed Harloys was capable of massively increasing the number of her Slime bodies and types to obtain the ultimate evolution. Pride Omar could make all his undead be part of himself, and, through the entirebined power of the species, could evolve. Although Envy was still iplete, Marsolit, too, walked the path of stealing from others for the sake of his own evolution.


    ¡°These Seven Original Sins, which represent the most basic human instincts, are the source of evolution.¡±


    This was the core concept of my personal theory. Meanwhile, the Holy Church and most other Gods¡¯ churches believed that ¡°Humans are born with sin. Only asceticism can absolve humans of their sins so that they may be saved after death.¡±


    My philosophy was the utter opposite of theirs. Who was truly right and who was truly wrong would likely be impossible to determine. But, at the very least, my research had obtained results. Themon point about all my Seven Original Sins was that they possessed the ability to evolve themselves!


    Yep, I only needed to leave them alone and let them grow freely. Their potential would be impossible to calcte.


    However, one factor that always influenced growth was time. I was only a bit over three hundred years old, after all. Ah Dang, the one who I had believed to be the oldest of my Seven Original Sins, was only two hundred years old. Keeping in mind the Sins¡¯ mega-long life expectancies, this was far too short a time for them to reach their full potential. If I had to rank my Seven Original Sins based on theirbat strength, the strongest would indeed be the oldest, Ah Dang. Second would be the true big brother, Bastian, while Omar, the youngest, would also be the weakest. Back in the Underground World, I had known that Ah Dang had reached SemiGod-rankbat strength. In fact, he even possessed multiple SemiGod rankedbat forms.


    Yep, their strength ranking was basically the same as their order of birth. This wasn¡¯t because my techniques got worse and worse as time went on. This was simply because the older they were, the more time and opportunities they would have for evolution and growth. But now, their real oldest sister appeared. Theoretically, she had already lived for approximately three hundred years, so she had the longest time to evolve herself. She should have been able to disy a mature Sin¡¯s level of power.


    However, Cher seemed to be quite weak and powerless... Fine, I knew that she was currently a Gold-ranked mage. But when I was stripping her earlier, she screamed pitifully like a little girl who¡¯d never even seen blood before. How could that possibly be considered to have a power level expected of the oldest Sin?


    ¡°No, I can¡¯t look at things so simply. Although the me from back in the day only wanted to resurrect Evelyn, the method I used to resurrect her was no different from how I created my Sins... That is to say, Cher is capable of evolving as well. And the end result of her evolution is that she will produce more Evelyns that all evolve together. From a certain standpoint, Cher and Omar are both under the special condition that the entire species evolves together. If I count the ten Evelyn sisters all as ¡®Lust,¡¯ then Lust would perhaps have greaterbat strength than my other Sinsbined.¡±


    The draconic might emanating from that three-headed dragon had been far above the SemiGod rank. The Copper Dragon chatterbox Evelyn also appeared to be an Immemorial Dragon. If I calcted their approximatebat strengths by these two, then they would possess, at minimum, seven or perhaps even ten SemiGod ranked individuals¡¯ worth ofbat strength. This meant that the Evelyn family was astonishingly powerful. No wonder Evelyn had been able to be one of Dragon World¡¯s leaders.


    If my inference was correct, the Evelyns and Cher had now be a unified existence despite being different individuals. All of them together consisted of a species. Every time a new member was added to them, the entire species would undergo rapid development and evolution. And as they evolved together, Cher¡¯s soul and emotions would develop along with the entire Evelyn group¡¯s umtion.


    Perhaps this was a two-way system. Not only would Cher produce more Evelyns, but the Evelyns¡¯ umtion would also create the new foundation for the next infant Cher. They would keep stacking on top of each other, reaching higher and higher like a Jenga tower.


    After analyzing to such an extent, I pretty much knew what I should do next. However, I had doubts about this research of mine.


    It wasn¡¯t because I was unable to resolve this cycle. Instead...


    ¡°It seems like too much of a pity to stop this experiment. The next Evelyn will be even stronger¡ªa super Evelyn! Then a super super Evelyn! Then a super x3 Evelyn! Can a dragon who¡¯s already reached her level evolve even further?¡±


    Indeed, this seemed like too much of a pity. Originally, I had set Lust¡¯s goal as evolution. The fact that I seeded with my creation was most likely a result of luck more than anything else¡ªat the very least, the current me would be unable to reproduce the results. It was such a rare chance for me to meet a ¡°Sin¡± who¡¯d already been around for three hundred years. This should have been a perfect chance to harvest experimental data and results. Giving up on all this seemed like a pity.


    ¡°...Even though I¡¯m called the evil Banshee Queen, I still don¡¯t think I¡¯m as bad as you. Even if I¡¯ve be shameless long ago, at least I still have moral limits!¡±


    ¡°Limits? Can they be eaten? Rx, I¡¯llplete Evelyn¡¯s request and make it so that Cher can continue living. After all, I am her father!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re still not bored of this Star Wars joke of yours? Fine, it¡¯s whatever as long as you aren¡¯t an Oni Chichi!¡±

 Chapter 378

    Chapter 378: Reinforcements


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°As everyone knows, for a certain reason, the royal pce is still in chaos. However, a meeting must be arranged. The meeting with Emperor Orloss shall take ce tomorrow evening at six o¡¯clock. Please make proper preparations. Here¡¯s the n for the discussion¡ªplease confirm whether it¡¯s suitable.¡±


    ¡°...This is a letter from the Dragon World¡¯s leaders. The assistance they wish to receive along with thepensation they¡¯re willing to pay is all written within. However, I feel that specific negotiations are still necessary. After all, they wish to obtain the assistance of powerful sealing magic expert archmages.¡±


    ¡°These are the records of the recent discussions with the Bardi higher-ups. As the main leader behind the envoy group, I believe it¡¯s vital for you to understand the current situation. Please, pleasedon¡¯t suddenly disappear again!¡±


    ¡°This is a letter from Cloud Tower. They demand an exnation for why you suddenly went missing and did nothing for an entire month.


    I must add that several archmages wrote personal letters to you.¡±


    ¡°Reyne has returned to East Mist. There¡¯s also a letter from Sleuweir. They wish for you to summon Mars and Omar to return to your side before the entire city of Antuen is destroyed by explosions.


    They also wish for you to summon Queen Glina to your side, and they have cited the reason for this as ¡®giving her more experience.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Emergency report from Tid¡ªthere¡¯s a kink in the newest weapon¡¯s design, and it requires your decision. The specifics are in the report. To sum it up, the new weapon¡¯s area of effect is a little too powerful. It¡¯s identally be a weapon perfect formitting suicide.¡±


    ¡°The surface beastmen have sent over a new treaty and their tributes. They apparently wish to sign a peace treaty for the next thirty years...¡±


    The moment I appeared, the official tasks that had piled up like mountains were instantly tossed at me. I could only sigh¡ªit was getting harder and harder for me to ck off. I also made up my mind to create a useful internal policies department. Otherwise, I would die sooner orter from overwork.


    ¡°Die from overwork? When you work less than three days out of a month? Every department has already taken care of their affairs. The rest is specifically rted to you. If you acted even the least bit responsibly, none of us would have to work so hard.¡±


    Fortunately, I had taken Lilith Mn along with me this time. Although her tongue was as sharp as ever, she still helped me greatly¡ªafterining, of course.


    She was indeed telling the truth. This work had to do with my role as an envoy of the Mage Country, my status as royalty of East Mist, my personal weapon research, and so on. Even if I recruited ten secretaries, these tasks would still require my personal attention and decisions.


    As for why there were so many documents piled up, that was because I was involved in far too many affairs. In a way, this was a good thing. The new Mist Alliance, the Church of Law, the Underground, and other such factions were imperceptibly bing an irond alliance.


    However, growing too swiftly would bring about the negative side effect of an unstable foundation. At the very least, there were far too many personal factors involved in tying these factions together. Although personal factors would indeed improve the alliance¡¯s stability, if something happened to some critical individual¡ªfor instance, if I was suddenly killed off¡ªthere would be huge trouble.


    But finding someone to make decisions in my ce was proving difficult. The best candidate would have been Elisa, but she was forced to return to the Chaos Abyss. The other youngsters could at most only act as local leaders¡ªit would be impossible for them tomand the overall situation.


    ¡°It would seem that it¡¯s time to reorganize our factions. Let¡¯s create some new jobs and delegate part of my responsibilities so that everything can carry on as normal even if I suddenly die. Right, we should also reorganize our militaries. It¡¯s far too archaic to use a system where one personmands the entire army.¡±


    I was seriously thinking about how to delegate my responsibilities. However, a certain someone was unable to watch this anymore.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying so much, but all I see is that you¡¯re trying to ck off.¡±


    ¡°...As I recall, silly cat, you¡¯re called the ¡®All-Knowing.¡¯ Why don¡¯t you trying up with an idea to help me?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t joke around. If you let me do as I please, then I¡¯d revive the elven empire from back in the day. And, of course, while doing so, I¡¯d kill off the elven kingdoms and elven churches and disembowel everyst one of those disgusting Elven Gods and Royal Elf royalty.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ voice soundedzy as it echoed in my mind, but I knew she was quite serious. And she was already at the doorstep of the SemiGod Undead Emperor level. It was just that her power level was forcefully held back by my ownck of power. If I truly let her free to act as ridiculously as she pleased, it would be almost impossible to clean up after her.


    But now that I suddenly thought about how she was at the doorstep of bing a SemiGod Undead Emperor, I got rather curious. My main research question was the quality of one¡¯s soul. Zero¡¯s research question had been the temperature of life. These could be considered major breakthroughs in the areas of souls and life. How did the silly cat intend to cross this threshold?


    ¡°...My research? Sure, I can give it to you. But even if I give my research to you, you won¡¯t be able to understand it.¡±


    I got even more curious upon hearing this. Although my research regarding elemental magic was indeed quite average, I was confident in my undead magic. How could I possibly not understand? And so I asked her what her research was.


    ¡°Memories, and turning the fake into reality.¡±


    Alright then. The moment Harloys told me this, I knew it wouldn¡¯t be necessary for me to ask anything else. Although this area of research was also rted to the soul, I hadn¡¯t researched anything about it at all.


    ¡°Oh? That can cure amnesia, can¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯spletely unrted. The goal of my research is to create reality using memories. While I can¡¯t cure memory loss, it¡¯s quite easy for me to give you some memories that are entirely my creation. Are you sure you want such memories?¡±


    The silly cat was currently rolling aroundzily on the roof. Ever since she had progressed in power yet again, she had gotten evenzier.


    ¡°Memories created by you? Will I still be myself then?¡±


    ¡°...If your physical body is the original one and your soul¡ªand your memories¡ªareplete, then is there even any meaning in asking whether you¡¯re the original or not?¡±


    ¡°I feel like there¡¯s still some difference.¡±


    ¡°Can you tell the difference, then?¡±


    Both of us fell silent. This was a question impossible to answer. It was no simple theoretical discussion. Without any prompting, both of us thought about Evelyn¡ªwas that three-headed dragon still the original Evelyn? And if not, what exactly was she?


    ¡°Sigh, how confusing. Rnd, you should try to create less troubles that are your fault in the future.¡±


    ¡°Is this really my fault? Back in the day, I didn¡¯t understand what the River Styx or the Cycle of Reincarnation were. I thought that I would simply have tobine the physical body and soul back together to resurrect someone. This result is obviously just a coincidental ident.¡±


    ¡°How do you intend to deal with Evelyn, then? Your ¡®second lover?¡¯¡±


    ¡°...I have no idea. I¡¯m just going to pretend not to know anything. Right now, I regret more than anything that I left one of your Slime bodies behind to eavesdrop.¡±


    How could I possibly just believe what other people told me? I had lost all memories of that time¡ªeven if Evelyn imed to be my mother, there would be no evidence to prove or disprove her. Wasn¡¯t itmon, in some television shows, to add lots of fake ¡°settings¡± to a person¡¯s life when they had amnesia? I would need to investigate the truth for myself.


    So I naturally had Harloys do what she did best and leave a Slime behind for eavesdropping. Yet the result was that I heard something that made me feel even more conflicted: Evelyn¡¯s feelings towards me and her dying message.


    ¡°Forget it. I¡¯m not going to think about it. Let¡¯s focus on what¡¯s before us first. Let¡¯s think about how to seal the Titan Giants.¡±


    Wasting an entire month hadn¡¯t been entirely ineffective. Since the dragons wanted to make a trade with us, it meant we had what the dragons wanted. The dragons wanted the Titan Giants to remain as stone statues¡ªor at least they wanted the Titan Giants¡¯ revival to be slowed down. In that case, there were only two methods to resolve this problem.


    The first would be to improve the seals¡¯ strength, such as adding another seal on top of the current seal. This would be no different from directly fighting against the Titan Giants. Just thinking about it would make one understand how difficult this would be. My strongest sealing technique, the Seal of the Four Elements, also originated from the immemorial generation. In fact, the very seal that sealed away the Titan Giants was also created from the Seal of the Four Elements. However, I felt that the long-lived dragons would also know all this as dragons were excellent magic users. If they couldn¡¯t do it, then it would be highly unlikely for us to do so as well.


    The other method would be to slow down the rate at which the Titan Giants broke out of their seals, which would require having all four Elemental Gods be in bnce¡ªeither all four alive or all four dead. At the very least, the Fire Elemental Throne was still intact. That meant the most difficult part of this task was establishing a new Earth Elemental God. Naturally, I would have to focus on choosing an Earth Elemental Lord to obtain that position.


    I had considered this a difficult task because I would need to gather materials to reconstruct the Earth Elemental Throne. But thanks to Camdian the Wind Elemental God¡¯s ¡°generosity,¡± we now had a much better shortcut: the God Equipment of Earth.


    As for why we didn¡¯t immediately set out to the Wind Elemental ne to retrieve the God Equipment of Earth? I felt that the moment I set out, my System would definitely issue me a Myth-ranked Quest. Who knew how long that would take me toplete?


    ¡°Besides, the dragons are in more of a hurry than we are. They just need a method to deal with their problem. We just need to give them the method, and they¡¯ll naturally work on it themselves.¡±


    But just telling the dragons a method without any evidence would be insufficient. I would have to research various topics such as ¡°Is it possible to create a new Earth Elemental Throne using the God Equipment of Earth?¡±, ¡°Who should be the new Elemental Gods of Earth and Fire?¡±, ¡°Will the new Elemental Gods really be able to achieve a bnce in the elements, which will slow down the decaying of the Titan Giants¡¯ seal?¡±...Fine, all of this was out of the scope of the authority the Truth Symposium had vested in me. And so I simply sent them a report on all this, deciding to have them slowly investigate.


    In the past month, the Truth Symposium¡¯s earth element archmages were probably fatigued to the extreme. But judging from the information and expert advice I received from the Cloud Tower on this topic, this n had at least received the Truth Symposium¡¯s approval... Whether it was possible or not was one factor, but now I had permission. This meant that whether this could solve the problem wasn¡¯t the focus anymore¡ªif there was a problem, everyone would take the me together, rather than me alone. Naturally, I would be able to rx and continue my research on this matter.


    Another thing was that if I looked at the battles that were likely to soon ur in the Elemental nes and Dragon World, the forces I had on hand were rather insufficient. That was also why I wrote a letter a month ago. My reinforcements should have almost been here.


    ¡°Sleuweir actually told their Queen to go out and have some fun? It would seem that Mars and Glina have been getting along excellently. With them together, I bet there¡¯s been many explosions recently...¡±


    *Boom!*


    Yep, judging from the familiar gray mushroom cloud outside the city, they¡¯d just arrived.


    ¡°Pervert!¡±


    Alright then, the familiar sound of screaming women reached my ears. Yet I had far too many subordinates who could aplish such a thing with their arrival, so I was uncertain of who exactly hade... wait a moment. Something seemed wrong here. Could it be that I naturally attracted such individuals? I was clearly someone normal!


    ¡°A naked tauren!!¡±


    My doubts were now cleared.


    ¡°A naked centaur!¡±


    Casio, what¡¯s the matter!? What went wrong with you? You shouldn¡¯t have been like this?! Two years ago, when your grandfather handed you to me, you were clearly normal!


    ¡°I¡¯ll go out and greet them!¡±


    Eaglestorm got up to greet them. However, I angrily shouted at him:


    ¡°Put on some pants before you go!¡±

 Chapter 379

    Chapter 379: Unexpected


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Dark Elves were troublesome. Yet more troublesome than the elves themselves was how people discriminated against them.


    Arge crowd was gathered in front of our horse-drawn carriages. When the Bardi royal knight drew his sword and asked me about the Dark Elf, I furrowed my eyebrows.


    ¡°Is it Victoria or Diana? Didn¡¯t I tell them not to go outside for the time being?¡±


    My thoughts naturally moved to the two Dark Elves under mymand when I heard that thismotion was about a Dark Elf. I had told them not to leave the embassy hotel precisely because I wanted to avoid trouble.


    Unfortunately, neither Victoria nor Diana were the type to listen to orders. The Town Security had plenty of examples where they both vited the rules together. When I thought about how they caused trouble yet again, I became rather angry.


    ¡°Dark Elves are so troublesome...¡±


    It was normal for people to have stereotypes and discriminate against others. This was all the more so as transportation andmunication was very inconvenient.


    Once people formed ideas and cemented what they believed to be mon sense,¡± they would be obdurate in their beliefs¡ªit would be practically impossible to change their views. Some remote districts were known for their archaic customs from around four centuries ago.


    Lorci had perished, but this didn¡¯t mean that the Dark Elves were now viewed in a good light. The great majority of human kingdoms treated Dark Elves the same as demons¡ªthey typically captured them and burning them at the stake without caring about evidence of any crime.


    If this was some other ce, such as And or the Nortnds, the people would at least pay me some respect. But here...


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    I had the knights clear the way and push through the crowds. And, as I expected, I finally saw that familiar dark skin.


    ¡°Dian¡ªeh? Who are you?¡±


    Alright. It would appear that I too had stereotyped Diana and Victoria. This time, the individual surrounded by an angry crowd was an unfamiliar male Dark Elf. His grayish-ck skin was covered in light burn wounds. It was obvious that he hadn¡¯t undergone the Moonlight Ritual to be a Gray Elf.


    He was copsed on the ground, unmoving.


    ¡°...I...I only wanted to live a peaceful life in the city. I didn¡¯t do anything at all!¡±


    His pleas were treated as nothing more than falsehoods. Pitchforks in their hands, the Bardi citizens looked at him with fear and hatred. Far away were naughty children chucking stones at him. Close by, people were evidently even considering tossing torches at him.


    Lorci¡¯s mark wasn¡¯t on his body, but nor was there a single Good God¡¯s mark on him. He either hid his own faith or was one of the rare few elves who didn¡¯t believe in the Gods.


    ¡°I saw him concocting poison in his wooden house! He even dared to sell his poison! If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that he forgot to wear his evil magical mask, we¡¯d still be fooled by him today!¡±


    A brown-haired, freckle-faced young man pointed at him and shouted angrily.


    ¡°...That¡¯s only medicine formon injuries. Haven¡¯t you used it before? You even praised this medicine for being excellent.¡±


    It would seem that this Dark Elf had seeded at living in secrecy in the Bardi capital but identally ended up exposing himself.


    ¡°Yes, but you didn¡¯t mention the nasty side effects! Although my external injuries were cured, I had diarrhea for three days straight and was heavily weakened. This medicine of yours is evil¡ªan evil one that sucks people¡¯s lifeforce! Ptui! I was so blind to have believed that you were a good person!¡± A strong-looking man had an expression of disgust.


    ¡°I¡¯ve lived here for ten years withoutmitting a single crime! If I did anything...¡±


    The moment the Dark Elf said this, things turned for the worse. Originally, there were some watching on the sidelines, not caring about what happened. But when everyone heard that this Dark Elf had actually been living here for ten years, they thought about how Dark Elves were supposed to be evil and boiled up in anger.


    ¡°...No wonder so many people have gone missing in this area. This darkie must have kidnapped them for his experiments.¡±


    ¡°Only yesterday I had been thinking that there¡¯s been a lot of thefts recently. He¡¯s probably the one responsible!¡±


    ¡°...Could it be that this evil Dark Elf also used some vicious magic on me, making it so that I haven¡¯t gotten pregnant?¡±


    Although this sounded quite ridiculous, this was how reality was in this generation. Even the Middle Ages of my technologically-advanced original world was no different in terms of discrimination.


    If some child was rumored to be cursed, then even a pig giving birth to a deformed piglet would be med on the so-called cursed child. This was the inevitable result of foolishness and discrimination.


    ¡°If that child was Beifeng, then that wouldn¡¯t be discrimination.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t even mention it. I also thought about this possibility. Forget it, let¡¯s not discriminate against Beifeng¡ªhe¡¯s quite pitiful. I¡¯ve asked him before, and he said he¡¯s not interested in pigs.¡±


    ¡°You actually asked him such a question? And do you really believe what he says? Beifeng also calls himself a normal person... By the way, if we keep chatting like this, the Dark Elf will get beaten to death.¡±


    It was unknown who made the first move, but now the crowd was attacking the Dark Elf with pitchforks and a shower of rocks. This elf would have already died if he hadn¡¯t had a decent power level.


    ¡°How odd. He¡¯s not fighting back? Does he have a death wish?¡±


    The will of a powerful individual would be within their bloodline. Just a powerful individual¡¯s anger alone would be enough to make an ordinary person tremble in fear. This was somethingmon to all warrior job ss members at the Gold rank. And it wasn¡¯t strange for this male Dark Elf to be a Gold-rankedbat ss¡ªhe had arrived here ten years ago, after all, and survived all this time. He was obviously no novice.


    But the strange part was that he let himself be attacked and didn¡¯t fight back at all. Nor was he even trying to escape. It made me wonder how he had survived so long in the surface world.


    I looked around me and confirmed that this was unlikely to be a trap, so I decided to intervene. However...


    ¡°Make way! Please make way!¡±


    A rtively handsome young man dressed in extravagant clothing pushed his way through the crowd. His fiery red hair wasbed quite neatly, and the sword scar on his face didn¡¯t disfigure him¡ªit made him seem rather heroic.


    Judging by his aura, this man¡¯s power level was somewhere between the peak of Silver and the beginning of Gold. From his age¡ªhe appeared less than thirty-five years old¡ªhe could be considered a genius among humans.


    d in extravagant golden armor which was more decorative than practical, he had a Myth-ranked equipment at his waist. Following him were two subordinates, who were, at minimum, at the Silver rank.


    ¡°The Twenty-Seventh Prince!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Prince Mills!¡±


    From everyone¡¯s reactions, it was apparent that this individual who suddenly joined in was actually a prince.


    Also judging by everyone¡¯s reactions, he had quite a good reputation. At the very least, the citizens in this business district seemed to really respect him.


    Of course, since I was supposed to be here for diplomatic affairs, I had done my homework beforehand. This Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills always kept a low profile and was ranked low among the adopted princes. ording to me, however, he would be one of the top five princes most likely to seed the throne.


    To gain advantage in the conflict for the crown, some princes reached out to the royal army and some princes allied themselves with the major merchants. Most princes, however, naturally allied themselves with major domain lords. Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills was one of the more outstanding individuals among the princes. He had racked up numerousbat achievements in his younger days, causing Orloss to personally adopt him as a prince.


    Unlike the other princes who mostly tried to curry favor with other major factions, Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills instead walked the path of currying favor with the citizens despite his natural advantage of being a military man. He often appeared whenever there was amotion in the city and would typically deliver judgement to wicked viins as if he were a Holy Knight hero. Sometimes, he would act like a prince from legendary knight stories, saving damsels in distress or delivering justice to evil merchants. Streetside bards often sung about his legendary deeds.


    That¡¯s right¡ªlegendary deeds. This wasn¡¯t the Underground where Legend-ranked individuals walked around everywhere. A Gold-ranked grandmaster who wasn¡¯t even forty years old was more than sufficient to aplish heroic deeds that everyone would sing praises about. In fact, some citizens even organized parades for Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills and requested Orloss to choose Mills as the crown prince.


    But in my eyes¡ªno, I should say that in many powerful individual¡¯s eyes¡ª Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills wasn¡¯t nearly as pure as he appeared on the surface. Most of the bards singing his praises had secretly received financial assistance, while the paraders typically had rtives working for him.


    And one must ask: just how did he have such excellent luck that he could always appear right when a damsel was in danger or suddenly see through everything right before a wicked scheme came to fruition? Why was he always able to overturn the situation?


    ¡°He either arranged all these incidents himself for him to act in, or he has a huge number of spies in the capital waiting at all times for an incident to ur so that he can improve his reputation.¡±


    Considering the fact that the other princes wouldn¡¯t allow him to keep faking scenarios for him to improve his reputation, I felt it was more likely that the Twenty-Seventh Prince possessed arge number of spies. Judging from the situation, it appeared that he was here yet again to improve his reputation.


    ¡°...What do you think he¡¯ll do?¡±


    ¡°From the information we have on him, I feel he¡¯s just a pure politician. And a pure politician will never do what he himself wants to do. Instead, he¡¯ll do whatever the citizens want. He¡¯ll say something that matches what the citizens desire so that he¡¯ll obtain plenty of support to be the emperor.¡±


    ¡°In that case, he¡¯ll...¡±


    ¡°Yep. Right now, the citizens want to kill this Dark Elf. This is such a simple way for him to obtain reputation. Why would he not do such a thing? Perhaps we can even the bards singing tomorrow about how ¡®The Twenty-Seventh Prince righteously slew the evil Dark Elf.¡¯¡±


    ¡°How terrible. Shouldn¡¯t everything be judged with due process?¡±


    ¡°Hah! Do you really think politicians are ordinary people?¡±


    The Bardi knights guarding us coldly observed the situation with no reaction. These knights belonged only to the royalty and watched on as if none of this had anything to do with them. From this, I felt as if I could tell Orloss¡¯s attitude towards his adopted princes.


    And as I expected, I heard 27thPrince Mills shout as he raised his sword:


    ¡°Everyone, get back! Be careful of the Dark Elf¡¯s evil curses!¡±


    An enchanted light glimmered on his sword. It seemed that Mills really did intend to y this Dark Elf. But the strange part was that the Dark Elf still grit his teeth and remained on the ground, with no intention of running away.


    Since it hade to this, I felt a little bored. Rather than a scenario of ¡°The Twenty-Seventh Prince righteously slew an evil Dark Elf,¡± I would have preferred a scenario of ¡°The pure politician prince identally bit off more than he could chew and got viciously beaten up.¡±


    Just as I was about to take action, yet another angry shout interrupted me... Why was I saying another?


    ¡°Law Incantation, Conviction! Anti-Crime sh!¡±


    Three caped individuals jumped down from a nearby rooftop in front of Mills. One cried out as she swung her thick greatsword at Mills, one ran over to cast Divine Arts¡ªapparently intending to heal that injured Dark Elf¡ªwhile the final caped individual simply red at the surrounding spectators. Her imposing aura alone made the prince¡¯s subordinates freeze, unable to move, while the spectators instinctively retreated.


    ¡°Suppressing Silver to the point of not being able to move? That¡¯s at least higher than the Silver rank by two power levels. An unknown Saint-ranked powerful individual?¡± This time, even the icy-faced Bardi royal knights had their expressions flicker.


    As for me, this was the familiar scene of Judgementors attacking with familiarbinations and a Saint-ranked or above powerful individual¡¯s imposing aura... Yawen, Diana, and Victoria, you all really dide out as I expected!


    However, now wasn¡¯t the time to give them trouble. From a certain standpoint, as they were currently hiding their identities, them doing this would be more convenient than me. Also, they knew how far to take things and how to deal with such a situation.


    At the very least, that was what I believed at the time. I also secretly took a step back. With Diana, the new Saint-ranked Antiholy Knight, nobody would be able to capture them. Besides, I also trusted Diana to do a good job.


    However, sometimes there would be no ounting for Murphy¡¯s Law. Unexpected surprises would always happen in the most unexpected of ways...


    [High-tier Equipment: Dragonyer Sword]


    [Attack Power: 0-35. Quality: Myth-rank.]


    [Special effect: Unbreakable. 100% chance to directly break any weapons ranked lower than Elite. 50% chance to directly break any Elite-ranked weapons. 30% chance to directly break Myth-ranked weapons. 1% chance to break all other high-tier weapons not at the leve of God Equipment.]


    [Special effect: Halo of Anti-brilliance. Yes, that¡¯s right, Anti-brilliance. The person who possesses this sword shall be the main character in everyone¡¯s eyes. The main character of a tragedy, that is. The person who wields this sword shall have Luck and Charisma decreased by 10. If the person who wields this sword is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed man, then both will be decreased by an additional 10.]


    [Special effect: Berserk Insanity. The wielder of this sword has a 1% chance to enter a berserk rampage. In this condition, the wielder will first focus on killing the family and friends closest to him or her.]


    [There are some yellow words written on this sword¡¯s hilt: In ancient legends, this used to be a mythical equipment which represented a person¡¯s status. ¡®The treasured dragonying sword, the pinnacle of Wulin. But now, there¡¯s a new addendum: This Dragonyer sword is free for anyone who clicks on it.]


    Without a doubt, this was a good sword. However, its disgusting negative side effect would make anyone who wielded it sufficiently long enough to fall into insanity. Only Yawen, who naturally possessed strong resistance against berserk and insane states, was able to use it. She always treated this sword as her personal treasure.


    Anyone who fought against this sword without knowing its special effects would be destined to have a disadvantage. Thanks to this sword, the current leader of Town Security was strong enough to challenge those stronger than her.


    Perhaps Mills had done too many evil deeds, as his luck was terrible. His longsword, ¡°Anxiu¡¯s Gift,¡± was already past the Myth rank, which meant that Yawen only had a thirty percent chance to break his sword. Yet its effect just happened to activate on the first attack!


    *ng!*


    As their swords shed, the first attack sliced through the Myth-ranked sword in Mills¡¯ hand. Yawen¡¯s greatsword soon sliced right towards his face.


    When Yawen noticed this, she hurriedly tried to stop herself. She was only here to save someone, after all. It wasn¡¯t her intention to kill the prince. But right before she attacked, as an excellent Judgementor, she used Law Incantation: Conviction and Anti-Crime sh, a goldenbination.


    Law Incantation: Conviction would judge the previous two hours of a target¡¯s actions. If that personmitted a crime, they would be marked with a red light representing evil. The greater the crime, the deeper the red. As for Anti-Crime sh, that was an attack which empowered one¡¯s sword with the power of Law. It was especially used against criminals, as the greater the target¡¯s crimes, the stronger the attack.


    I didn¡¯t know what Mills had done in the previous two hours, but the dark crimson aura surrounding him was evidence that he definitelymitted some dastardly crime. And coincidentally, he just happened toe under attack from a Judgementor.


    Anti-Crime sh¡¯s power level against an innocent target would be no more than a light push. In fact, the sword would even blunt itself. But when used against a vicious criminal, it would have unstoppable force.


    By this time, Yawen was no longer able to stop even if she wanted to. Law would have no pity for any criminal. Since Judgementors and their Anti-Crime sh attack were the representatives of Law, and Law Incantation: Conviction had marked Mills as an abhorrent criminal, Anti-Crime sh¡¯s attack power wouldn¡¯t possibly diminish just because the Judgementor wanted it to.


    And so Yawen¡¯s silver sword shed in an arc, shing directly at Mills¡¯ face. If this attack connected, it was certain that Mills would die.


    Meanwhile, Mills¡¯s real guards had started taking action. The Bardi royal knights wouldn¡¯t watch as a prince was killed right in front of them. Mills also activated his lifesaving magic item. As long as this attack was blocked, or if his helpers arrived in time, he would be able to survive.


    But it just so happened to be that Diana used her newly obtained ability in order to stop Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills¡¯s subordinates from taking action.


    [Aura effect: Antiholy Barrier. Summon a barrier constructed out of user¡¯s willpower and dispel all magic and divine power effects within. This barrier¡¯s effects depend on the difference in power level between the user and the target enemy. This barrier can be maintained for a medium amount of time.]


    And currently, this barrier was blocking off Mills from his potential helpers.


    At this moment, all of Mills¡¯s subordinates and the Bardi royal knights became nothing more than mere mortals, losing all their magical powers. Mills¡¯s protective magical item lit up for only a second before dimming. The Dragonyer Sword was outside Diana¡¯s barrier to begin with, and the silver power of Law on the sword only dimmed slightly as the sword continued its strike.


    *Shing!*


    The de shed into the ground after a ferocious swing that caused blood to fly everywhere. The earth was stained red.


    Mills had died with a look of shock on his face.


    Alright then. Although I said so much, all that the ordinary citizens saw was only one thing: a caped individual suddenly jumped out, and with a single slice, the well-respected Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills was sliced in half!


    ¡°Assassin!¡±


    ¡°Assassin! Someone killed Prince Mills!¡±


    The panic caused a fiercemotion which slightly lifted Yawen¡¯s cape. To everyone¡¯s astonishment, they saw the familiar dark skin of Dark Elves.


    ¡°Save us! A Dark Elf murdered His Highness!¡±


    ¡°I recognize that Dark Elf and that sword! That¡¯s the Mage Country Ambassador¡¯s guard! The Mage Country¡¯s people killed His Highness!¡±


    At this instant, Yawen was astonished, Diana was astonished, Victoria was astonished, the Bardi royal knights were astonished, and I myself was also astonished.


    However, a history lesson I had once learned in my past life shed in my mind.


    ¡°When Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austria-Hungary Empire was assassinated, not a single person expected this purely unexpected urrence, the assassination of a rtively unpopr royalty in this small country, to be the spark for World War I!¡±


    ¡°Damn it! Yawen, you idiot with a luck rating of negative E! This is going to be a huge issue!¡±

 Chapter 380

    Chapter 380: Assassination Seeded


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Unexpected events were termed as ¡°unexpected¡± precisely because they would ur without forewarning and they¡¯d have consequences nobody would ept.


    Back in my original world, Archduke Franz Ferdinand couldn¡¯t be considered an important person. His death, or even the Austro-Hungarian Empire¡¯s revenge, shouldn¡¯t have been enough to affect the entire world. However, the international situation at the time was one where everyone was at the edge of exploding into war. Most countries had already begun preparing for war, and when this perfect ¡°reason¡± appeared, it was merely the spark that ignited the dynamite. Germany happily took advantage of this to fan the fires of war, and this caused Russia, France, and everyone else to act as well. Thus began the First World War.


    And things were simr in this world right now.


    Bardi¡¯s situation wasn¡¯t great. Internationally, it was facing enemies on three sides.


    To its west, it was at war with the Mage Country. In the south, it faced the droves of undead sending wave after wave of attacks at Nightrain City. To the east was the Holy Church¡¯s vanguard army. As if this wasn¡¯t enough, the sealed off Dragon World and the Titan Giants in the capital city were together a massive ticking time bomb that might just destroy the entire country at any moment.


    This generation was one where power meant sess, and the citizens of this powerful country never had to worry about their lives on a day-to-day basis. They never had to agonize over their next meal. Ever since two years ago, however, thefortable lives of these citizens had met an aggrieved end. The citizens began umting grudges, which gave birth to anxiety and the desire to go to war. It was fortunate that Bardi kept notching up victories in battle¡ªthis helped them vent their anger. Yet this was also why they were so disrespectful to the ambassador of another country.


    The derations of war from various countries against them had made them feel as if they were a tall tree battered by a rainstorm. At the same time, however, being enemies with the entire world made them feel both proud and angry. And this didn¡¯t apply only to ordinary citizens. The nobles, knights¡ªall stratum of the social ss¡ªthought this way as well. Merchants hoped to get rich, nobles hoped to use this opportunity to seize more power, knights hoped to obtain glorious achievements, and the adopted princes hoped to perform enoughbat des to obtain the crown. Or it would be better to say that some princes were scheming to steal the throne while other princes were on the frontlines.


    And all of this was being watched over by the ¡°almost dead¡± Emperor Orloss.


    Perhaps I acted ridiculously. But before acting ridiculously I would always consider the situation and the possible consequences of my actions. I would only act after making a n... Basically, I was the ¡°thinking too much into things¡± type. This was just how I was, and it was quite difficult to change. My personality indeed gave me many unnecessary frustrations.


    Directly speaking, I was actually more of the type: ¡°You think I¡¯m crazy? That¡¯s because you don¡¯t understand me. And if you understood me, you¡¯d probably want to beat me to death...¡± Cough ¡ª cough ¡ªI seem to have gotten off topic. Getting back on point, beforeing to Bardi, I had made up my mind about how to act here: like a tsundere¡ªseemingly aloof and distant but actually easy to get along with.


    To be more specific, I would act as high and mighty as possible, giving off an attitude of ¡°I don¡¯t want to make a deal with you rednecks.¡± Then, I would use intermediaries to haggle and improve the deal I would receive before finally agreeing.


    From a certain standpoint, that ridiculous Slime Cmity of mine was also aimed at cooling down the Bardi capital. That was why I¡¯d ordered those bastard subordinates of mine to remain obedient and try their best to avoid any idents. I didn¡¯t expect something so major to ur.


    ¡°...How will the Bardi nobles and royalty react? Listen to their citizens¡¯ voices and start a new war, or suppress this issue in order to obtain more benefits through negotiation? What will the local domain lords do? Will they pressure the royalty into taking revenge? Also, what will the factions that supported Mills do?¡±


    There were too many possibilities, and that caused me to freeze over. But when I looked at how all the Bardi royal knights were rushing over and the dimensional teleportation doors that were suddenly opening up, I at least knew what I should do at this moment. There was no way I would let them catch my subordinates red-handed!


    ¡°Harloys, create some chaos.¡±


    ¡°I need some time to summon my Slime bodies.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine if you just make a concealing smokescreen.¡±


    While my Dark Elf subordinates froze, astonished at their own actions, numerous powerful individuals were rushing over to the scene and numerous royal mages were teleporting here. I unhesitatingly hid myself in a shadow and then reappeared in front of everyone d in my blood-red dragon armor.


    ¡°I honestly thought that my first public appearance in this form would be a bit cooler.¡±


    I wielded my sword in one hand and blocked off the charging royal knights. The sword energy I casually flicked at them forced them back, while the walls of ice I summoned would be capable of obstructing them for at least several seconds.


    My breath was filtered by my dragon armor and came out as half dragonbreath fire and half blue ice. Compared to the past, this ice dragon armor, which was Erebe¡¯s new form, was capable of noticeably increasing my powers over ice.


    ¡°Idiots, follow me! I¡¯ll deal with you allter.¡±


    I intentionally lowered my voice, and it sounded even stranger through the armor¡¯s filter. But my Dark Elf subordinates would definitely recognize my voice. And, at this time, Victoria was still carrying that injured male Dark Elf.


    ¡°Take him along with us.¡±


    ck smoke filled this entire area, and both sides of the street were in mes. From the gutters and sewers appeared my army of Slimes. Indeed, Harloys was experienced when it came to creating chaos.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you leaving?¡±


    I turned around and found out why that Dark Elf had refused to run away all this time. He had been using his cape and body to protect a little girl. Judging by the girl¡¯s gray skin and round human ears, this girl was a half-blood human and Dark Elf hybrid!


    ¡°Take them both with us. I¡¯ll be the rearguard.¡±


    *Boom!*


    The royal mages had arrived through their dimensional teleportation doors. The fireballs they summoned rained upon us and the ice walls were demolished, and the fierce winds they called started to blow away all the smoke.


    ¡°Hahaha! I, Poison Dragon Samar, didn¡¯t even need to personally act. A few novice subordinates of mine were more than enough to kill off this idiot. As expected, this so-called hero prince was nothing much. Ha, this was way too easy.¡±


    I continually waved my sword, sending out ice magic and sword energy. Meanwhile, I was secretly delighted at my usual habit of overthinking things. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I had researched about a Dragon Bloodline Sword Saint assassin, I would have been hard-pressed to find a proper scapegoat.


    Of course, Poison Dragon Samar was a desert-based assassin living in the west of Eich, so why would he run all the way over to the center of Eich to assassinate a prince of Bardi? Even though he was clearly of a Green Dragon¡¯s Bloodline, why would he have Red Dragon Bloodline abilities and know how to use ice magic? All of this would be impossible to exin, but this didn¡¯t actually require any exining.


    All I needed right now was a scapegoat, even if it was one anyone would see through and not believe in. As long as there was a scapegoat on the surface, it would be possible for us to negotiate.


    If the assassin was caught right there on the spot, the situation would likely be impossible to negotiate as that would definitely hugely affect the Bardi Empire and Mage Country¡¯s rtionships. I couldn¡¯t count on the furious people of Bardi to look at the big picture, as right now, they would only want to take revenge and catch the culprit.


    Arge amount of smoke still remained and obscured people¡¯s vision. The Sword Saints among the Bardi royal knights were sending out waves of sword energy at me. However, I didn¡¯t have to prepare to defend¡ªit would be impossible for a newly-minted Sword Saint to be able to pierce my dragon armor from so far away.


    Meanwhile, the royal mages who arrived through their dimensional teleportation doors found themselves obstructed by the chaotic crowd. Not only that, they came under magical attack from my silly cat, so it would be impossible for them to do anything for the time being.


    I could sense that my Dark Elf subordinates had sessfully escaped. Now that they had left, I of course had no intentions of staying behind. Since a prince was assassinated right in front of them, the royal knights, who viewed honor as more important than their lives, would use their full might. Several of them were actually quite strong. The moment all the smoke was blown away, even I would find it difficult to leave.


    ¡°Dragon wings.¡±


    The blood-red dragon wings from my armor looked like they sprouted out of my back. This time, I thanked the seemingly useless ability to fly with dragon wings that my armor possessed. It would be impossible to exin myself if I used my War Angel wings to fly away.


    ¡°Ha! Ninth Prince, I¡¯vepleted the task! Remember to pay me what you promised. Otherwise, you¡¯ll meet the same end as Mills.¡±


    Before I left, I made sure to once again im responsibility for this deed in the name of Poison Dragon Samar. Then, I dered that this was all because of the princes¡¯ internal conflicts. As I flew away, the mages flung thunderbolts at me that whizzed under my feet.


    ******


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you all so capable? Why are none of you saying anything right now!? Don¡¯t you all know that a war might break out because of this one swing of your sword!?¡±


    My angry roars echoed throughout the airship. Before me, Diana, Yawen, and Victoria were kneeling with their heads lowered, as if they were naughty children receiving a lecture.


    Cher was lying down next to us. The moment Cher heard about Diana ying Prince Mills right in front of everyone, she fainted. To the side, however, were my other heartless bastard subordinates who were actually enjoying the show.


    Right now was obviously not a good time to return to the embassy hotel. That would be no different from giving our lives over to others.


    Fortunately, Glina hade over here from the Nortnds in the small ambush squadron airships. Reyne had also sent Diana and Victoria over in an ambush airship as well. This meant that I happened to have a few airships on hand that could be used to escape.


    We left only a few people at the embassy hotel. Everyone else was currently on the airships.


    Should I say that it was to be expected of veteran criminals? My subordinates¡¯ abilities to escape were maxed to the fullest. The moment this incident happened, they were already prepared to run away. They had actually been waiting for us on the airship.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t I tell you all that you were forbidden from going outside? Why did you all go out anyways? Where¡¯s the discipline and respect for authority!? Diana! You¡¯re a leader, so how can you lead like this?!¡±


    I continued scolding them, but my mind was racing at top speed, trying to think of a way to deal with the situation.


    There wasn¡¯t much we could do. It was quite obvious who was responsible for the assassination, and it would be impossible to deny. The situation, in fact, would mostly depend on how Bardi wanted to deal with it.


    ¡°Damn it, the right to be proactive is now in their hands.¡±


    As for why I was scolding them? Actually, I didn¡¯t feel like my Dark Elves had done anything wrong. That deep crimson light that was almost to the point of purple was the best evidence that Mills had deserved to die. But the Dark Elves had made a mistake¡ªhow could I possibly let them lead if I didn¡¯t scold them publicly and punish them?


    ¡°Boss, stop acting. Everyone knows you¡¯re not really angry. If you were angry you wouldn¡¯t mince words and would directly act. If you keep scolding them, big sis Diana might take it too hard and want tomit suicide.¡±


    Glina jumped out to intervene. It seemed that ever since she started hanging out with Mars and Omar, her words became more and more masculine¡ªor perhaps I should say became vulgar like a mercenary¡¯s. Yet, from another standpoint, since Glina had managed to get rid of the threat of demon blood within her and no longer had to seal herself in, she was now far livelier than before.


    ¡°No! Committing suicide after making a mistake is an irresponsible action. I shall bear the burden for our actions. Milord, please hand me over to the Bardi Empire.¡±


    Diana lifted her head and looked at me with an expression filled with resolution to sacrifice herself. It seemed that although she had improved her conviction, her intelligence hadn¡¯t improved at all.


    When I looked at this ¡°good guy¡± Dark Elf, who had an expression that read ¡°I¡¯ll take all the responsibility so that nobody else has to be punished,¡± while my ¡°granddaughter¡± tugged on my sleeve with a joking expression, I suddenly didn¡¯t feel like saying anything else.


    ¡°Forget it. I¡¯ll go to the capital to check how things are tomorrow morning.¡±


    Just as I made the decision to check the situation tomorrow, someone came looking for us.


    ¡°Is Rnd here? Cher, why are you copsed like that?¡±


    ¡°Mom?¡±

 Chapter 381

    Chapter 381: Unexpected Advantage


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    In a way, Cher didn¡¯t tell me the truth about herself. She had only told me half of the truth. Granted, she did mention that her mother was a three-headed dragon, but she neglected to tell me that she had seven additional mothers...


    ¡°If such a thing happened to you, would you tell others that you have ten mothers? And that they¡¯re all identical?¡±


    Alright then. What she said was so reasonable that I found it impossible to counter.


    In this small airship, Cher and Evelyn were in the same room. Mother and daughter seemed to be about the same age, so even my few remaining emotions appeared. I wanted to sigh at how the world worked in unexpected and marvelous ways.


    Still, Evelyn¡¯s arrival would save me a lot of trouble.


    I now pretty much understood her status. Evelyn was one of the dragons¡¯ leaders and lived in a cave near the capital city. Evidently, she did this with the Bardi government¡¯s permission. She was mostly the contact point between the dragons and the Bardi government.


    Judging from her smiling expression and well-suntanned skin, the Copper Dragon Evelyn was most likely the one in charge of anything diplomatic. In that case, perhaps I could obtain something useful from her on the Bardi royalty. Copper Dragons were the most eloquent among the dragons, so of course they would make the best diplomats...


    ¡°Nice to meet you all. Hello, I¡¯m Rnd¡¯s ex-girlfriend, Evelyn. I¡¯m also Cher¡¯s mother. Cher, be a dear and call Rnd ¡®Father.¡¯¡±


    ...as long as Copper Dragons could get rid of their terrible habit of joking around and pulling pranks!


    ¡°I...¡±


    Alright then, my mind was instantly thrown into chaos as I had no idea how to respond.


    Everyone looked at me with strange expressions. In a way, I couldn¡¯t even counter what Evelyn said. She indeed could im to be my ex-girlfriend. Cher was, indeed, my creation, hence my daughter. But Evelyn phrased it to sound like I was a scumbag man who abandoned them!


    And so, when Cher saw that I tacitly admitted to this, she fainted once again despite having just woken up...


    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like this! I¡¯m truly not a scumbag, I¡¯m still a virgin¡ªer¡ªthe hell, whatever! Evelyn, it¡¯s all your fault!¡±


    After the chaos calmed down, our ¡°family¡± was nowplete, with a father, mother, and daughter...


    ¡°We aren¡¯t a family at all!¡±


    Alright then, let¡¯s leave this matter aside. Although my subordinates and ¡°granddaughter¡± were looking at me more and more strangely, we should at least first take care of the main issue at hand.


    ¡°We might even go to war. Be serious¡ªbe a little more serious! Stopughing! I¡¯m talking to you, Glina! If you dare to keepughing... Glina,e here. Evelyn here is your great-grandmother, and Miss Cher is your grandmother. You should at least greet them.¡±


    Alright then, now everyone was feeling ufortable. I nodded in satisfaction upon seeing how Glina had an expression as if her mouth was filled with the food she hated most.


    ¡± Hmph ! You want topare with me in shamelessness? Even I¡¯m afraid of how shameless I can be.¡±


    ¡°Grandma, you owe me seventeen years of spending money. Also, please pay up what grandfather owes me.¡±


    Alright, as expected of my ¡°granddaughter.¡± She could change to be shameless so quickly. But the pitiful Cher just happened to choose this time to wake up. The moment she heard herself being called grandma, she fainted yet again.


    Looking at the chaos before me, I knew it would be impossible to deal with the main issue before exining myself. My subordinates were just far too much to deal with.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this all your fault? You dare to talk about others!? You¡¯re the root of all evil, the source of all sins!¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s retort was so logical I had no idea how to counter her!


    ¡°This is Evelyn. Previously, she died, and I created the oldest sister of the Seven Original Sins, ¡®Lust¡¯ Cher, in order to revive her. Yep, that¡¯s who Evelyn is. From a certain standpoint, they are indeed mother and daughter. But, the mother is actually Cher, and, in a way, Cher is indeed my daughter... Hey¡ªhey¡ªhey, Cher, could you at least finish listening to me speak before fainting? How many times do I need to tell this? Isn¡¯t the author tired of using the same joke of making you faint?¡±


    I had hesitated over whether or not to tell everyone about the messy affairs of the past. But one issue made me decide to publicize everything.


    ¡°...At the very least, I can¡¯t make Cher into an illegitimate daughter! She¡¯ll be bullied by everyone else in school!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not the issue at hand here at all! Can¡¯t you be at least a little more normal!?¡±


    The silly cat was bing a veteran retorter. Her ability to instantly retort at anything and everything was unparalleled.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this all because of you!¡±


    Cough ¡ª cough ¡ªgetting back on topic, my subordinates had seen plenty about how unreliable I was. Omar, who wasn¡¯t here right now, was likely the only one who would have trouble epting the appearance of the real oldest sibling among the Seven Original Sins. Everyone else soon epted Cher as Lust. Glina was especially quick to ept all this, as she soon started tugging on Cher and asking for ¡°grandma to give her spending money¡± once again. This time, Cher managed to stop herself from fainting. It was just that her expression seemed like she wanted to devour me.


    Let us stop discussing family affairs for now. The important issue was still how the Bardi royalty would respond. This was doubtlessly the most frustrating issue, and it just so happened to be that we handed over the right to be proactive¡ªwe could only passively respond.


    That¡¯s right. Whether we were in the right or wrong was meaningless. The right to be proactive was the critical part. Originally, we were the ones invited here to help them, which meant that everything could be decided by us. But now this incident put us under great pressure. At the very least, the Mage Country would be under significant pressure, so perhaps my role as ambassador would be terminated.


    Personally, I didn¡¯t really care if I was the ambassador or not. However, if I lost the Mage Country¡¯s support right now, it would make many things far more difficult for me.


    ¡°...Orloss¡¯s intentions? How would I know? I only came here to y with Cher. Fine, fine, don¡¯t look at me like that. I indeed know some rather boring things. Let¡¯s change ces to talk.¡±


    Unfortunately, I was helpless about how Copper Dragons were so unreliable. It was always impossible to know when a Copper Dragon was being serious and when they were joking around.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t the serious Bronze Dragon or the easy-to-talk-to Silver Dragone out?¡±


    ¡°Fourth Sister? She has to control Fifth and Sixth Sisters in order to stop them from rampaging. As for Second Sister, it would probably cause a hugemotion if she came out.¡±


    I thought about it for a moment. The three-headed dragon would likely be impossible to conceal if she came out. As for the Bronze Dragon Fourth Sister, she seemed quite serious and normal. However, Fifth and Sixth Sister Evelyns were a Red and Blue Dragon respectively, both the type to stir up trouble.


    Meanwhile, the example of the Evelyns once again proved that the physical body would influence one¡¯s personality.


    We arrived at a much quieter room: the narrow cockpit, where there was only me, Cher, and Evelyn, the ones most involved. Evelyn¡¯s first sentence rather confused me.


    ¡°Actually, Little Orloss is quite grateful to you.¡±


    I paused in surprise for a moment, but Evelyn continued with her exnation. Although I was now a wanted criminal in the Bardi Empire, I was actually this country¡¯s savior.


    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for your arrival, the undead would still be suppressing Bardi.¡±


    This was indeed the case. If it wasn¡¯t for me unveiling the undead¡¯s scheme, perhaps the capital would be secretly ruled over by Undead Emperor Aso even now. Still, I was somewhat astonished at the situation.


    ¡°The dragons simply sat back and observed the worsening situation?¡±


    ¡°The undead had hostages.¡±


    ¡°Hostages? The dragons would care about such a thing?¡±


    ¡°Of course they¡¯ll care if the hostages are all the citizens of Bardi.¡±


    ¡°Kasn¡¯s Tears?¡±


    Soon, I recalled the undead catalyst ingredient that all the Bardi citizens possessed in significant amounts within their bodies. This was evidently the work of the undead.


    ¡°You knew already, as expected... There¡¯s a special potion where Kasn¡¯s Tears are the catalyst. As long as the Bardi citizens smell a certain fragrance, they¡¯ll mutate into a new Undead Cmity. The rest will be quite fun to deal with.¡±


    There was no need for me to mention what an Undead Cmity was. A small one would be no different from a magic world¡¯s version of Resident Evil and could be taken care of by some sudden heroes, giving people the stage to be stronger. But arger scale Undead Cmity would be all the living bing the undead, with everyone bing ghouls, zombies, and skeletons.


    As a professional undead mage, I was able to assess this objectively. In a way, Undead Cmities were quite simr to gues. How much damage an Undead Cmity would cause in the endrgely depended on what time it was discovered and howrge of a scale it was. If it started out on the scale of a city, then just burning down the entire city would be enough.


    But if the city in question was a major city with a poption of several hundred thousand, then at minimum several million people would end up dying. And if an Undead Cmity started from an entire mega empire with the entire poption of several hundred million bing undead, then... most likely, the entire world would die off together.


    This was no simple numeric equation. This was just probability to the point of despair. As long as the base number was high enough, high level undead would be born among the low level undead. The rate of high level undead being bornpared to low level undead was approximately one to one thousand.


    And as long as there were enough high level undead, Undead Thanes and Undead Lords would naturally be born as well. This rate was approximately at one to ten thousand. And as long as there was a sufficient number of Undead Lords... Undead Emperors would naturally be born. But since there were too few examples of Undead Emperors, the odds were impossible to calcte. As for whether or not something more ridiculous would happen, all that was needed would be to calcte with a sufficientlyrge number of experimental subjects.


    Once high-level undead and Undead Lords reached a certain number, the newly born Undead Cmity would no longer simply spread itself instinctively. Instead, the Undead Cmity would organize itself into an undead army and begin invasions, further spreading the influence of the Undead Cmity.


    Fortunately, even up until today, thergest Undead Cmity in history had never reached thendmark number of one hundred million. But if the Tark Republic undead truly achieved this, perhaps history itself would be rewritten... However, I felt that even if they brought out such a ridiculouslyrge number of undead, the world still wouldn¡¯t be destroyed. That was because it would definitely break all the Gods¡¯ taboos, so the undead would first need to face all the True Gods personally descending. Unless the undead had several hundred Undead Emperors, they wouldn¡¯t be able to win against thebined force of the True Gods.


    ¡°So Bardi now dares to turn on the undead?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it all thanks to the fact that you forced Aso to his death?¡±


    ¡°Aso?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, as he was the overallmander of the undead invasion. He was also the inventor of this new way of spreading the Undead Cmity with Kasn¡¯s Tears as the catalyst. After he died, there was no sessor who inherited his knowledge. That key to open the door to a new Undead Cmity has now been lost, so Bardi naturally has the courage to go against the undead.¡±


    I instantly paused here and hesitated before finally telling her.


    ¡°What if I tell you that I possess Aso¡¯s remaining knowledge, including how to create that poison gas which will turn the Bardi citizens into undead? What will Bardi do then?¡±

 Chapter 382

    Chapter 382: Venomous Snake in the Treasure Vault


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Although the people in the tiny cockpit appeared to be discussing major issues that could shake multiple nations, they were speaking casually, as if they didn¡¯t feel they were discussing anything important.


    ¡°Bardi... Orloss means you should hand over the assassins and treat this as a case of a personal grudge. Of course, the Mage Country should also sign a formal apology and make reparations on the surface... Yeah, I know you won¡¯t agree. At the very least, you should hand over the assassins. They¡¯re just a few Dark Elves. Otherwise Orloss won¡¯t be able to exin it to his citizens.¡±


    Evelyn didn¡¯t mince her words in the least. Who knew if it was because Copper Dragons naturally loathed Dark Elves or if it was her who didn¡¯t like my Dark Elves?


    ¡°If you truly understand me, then you should know that this is absolutely impossible. I only listen to softball methods; I won¡¯t ept anyone ying hardball with me... Fine then¡ªactually, neither method works on me. You can call me overly protective or unreasonable, but I have zero intentions of handing anyone over.¡±


    All that happened was that my Dark Elves killed an evil criminal. I didn¡¯t feel that they did anything wrong. And since my subordinates didn¡¯t do anything wrong, as their boss, how could I possibly retreat andpromise? So what if a mega empire was pressuring me? They wanted me to hand the Dark Elves over? Never.


    ¡± Tsk ! As stubborn as in my memories. I suppose it¡¯s to be expected. If you were someone soft who gave up easily, you wouldn¡¯t have fought against the entire Bardi Empire by yourself back then. And, the Eve¡ªthe Cher from that year wouldn¡¯t have fallen in love with you.¡±


    She whispered thest part in a tiny voice, but I still managed to hear her clearly. However, I preferred to pretend that I didn¡¯t, as I truly did not want to know the events of the past.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you curious?¡±


    ¡°...I would be lying if I said I wasn¡¯t, but considering the troubles I¡¯ll meet after I remember, it¡¯d be for the best for me to not know. Or is there something I absolutely must be know?¡±


    I smiled as I said that, but Evelyn grit her teeth in anger.


    ¡°...An even slyer smile than what¡¯s in my memories. You wicked deceiver of emotions!¡±


    Alright then, I didn¡¯t know whether I shouldugh or cry. It seemed I identally stepped on somendmine.


    However, it was fortunate that we represented the negotiation between two major factions. Cher, especially, simply watched the two of us, setting all personal issues aside. For the time being, at least.


    Once we finished our discussion, Evelyn got up and said goodbye. She took Cher along with her, saying that she wanted to ¡°Have a long evening talk with Cher to deepen our mother-daughter rtionship.¡± However, I felt that Evelyn intended to tell Cher about the entire messy rtionship from back in the year.


    I considered the fact that I needed to cure Cher, so I would also need her cooperation. Rather than me spending lots of effort to obtain her trust, it would be much easier to have Evelyn exin everything to her. I didn¡¯t stop the two of them from leaving together.


    ¡± Sigh , this rtionship is impossible to understand with how messy it is. Forget it. Let¡¯s let things y out naturally.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re just avoiding the problem.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re so right that I don¡¯t even know how to counter you, silly cat.¡±


    The more I thought about my personal affairs, the messier I felt things were. I decided instead to concentrate on the main task at hand.


    ¡°Aso... I truly underestimated you.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Aso was an incredible individual.


    There was no need to go into any more detail about his numerous past aplishments. None of us were that young, at the age where we needed to brag about our achievements. So-called ¡°past glory¡± to people as old as us would typically be nothing more than burdens and frustrations. He had personally led and coordinated all the invasion efforts by himself and had left several hidden killer chess pieces, such as the potential Bardi ¡°Undead gue¡± or the Salo¡¯s Crystal ¡°nuclear bomb¡± aimed at the Truth Symposium¡ªthis was best evidence of his amazingness.


    At the very least, if I were in his position, there was no guarantee I would do any better.


    Perhaps the only part where he wascking was in luck.


    In the game¡¯s history, Aso had sessfully led the undead invasion, but he met with the problem of two robbers reaching their hands into the same pocket. He just happened to run into the revived Titan Giants¡ªhe could only end up fighting against them.


    Yet in this version of the world, once Aso discovered that his scheme was exposed and that the few Dimensional Doors he opened might be closed by us, endangering the Tark Republic¡¯s n to return, he unhesitatingly sacrificed himself. All in the hope that the Tark Republic would be able to inevitably return.


    The flip side of the coin was that he had led the entire undead invasion by himself. While he had great authority, he had been far too important to the Tark Republic.


    As a typical Undead Emperor, hecked trust in both his subordinates and fellow Undead Emperors. The end result was that after his death, the secrets that only he knew were lost. His killer traps didn¡¯t have anyone to activate them.


    Still, Aso was evidently unwilling to die off just like this and take all his knowledge to the grave. This great scheme he had been nning for several centuries would be ruined just like this.


    And so Aso had handed over the keys to his knowledge to the only other Undead Emperor present at the time¡ªme. But he didn¡¯t tell me much. Obviously, he didn¡¯t trust me, and it could even be said that he had a grudge against me.


    However, a nuclear bomb with a lost activation code would be nothing more than a hunk of metal. As long as the activation code existed, it would forever be a threat. That¡¯s why, as long as he handed over the activation code, he wouldn¡¯t lose out in the end.


    Since I now knew about the lock, finding the right key on the keychain was simply a matter of time.


    ¡°...A potion created out of thirteenmon ingredients. Only a miniscule amount of this potion needs to be dispersed on the air, and it will begin the mutation of the bloodlines all Bardi citizens who inhale this fragrance. And this mutation will be impossible to stop once it begins.¡±


    This was clearly important. However, it wasn¡¯t locked together with other top-level secrets in the deepest portion of Aso¡¯s memories. Instead, Aso put this potion¡¯s recipe together with all his other alchemic knowledge. It wasbeled as ¡°Aso¡¯s Gift,¡± and the exnation beneath it was simply a vague description titled ¡°Has the effect of strengthening certain undead magic spells.¡±


    Right now, I could only be thankful that I had recently been quite busy, and that I wasn¡¯t very interested in alchemy and potion-making. Otherwise, if I had been curious enough to casually create one of these potions to test its effects, perhaps I would already be in the top ten of the Cmity Rankings.


    For an ordinary mage, new knowledge and secrets were what they lived for. If an alchemist received this knowledge, where Aso proudlybeled his own unique recipe with his name, they would definitely try crafting this potion immediately, which would have caused a tremendous incident.


    Aso was quite generous. Apart from this ¡°little gift,¡± his other gifts were all his umted experience and knowledge. But Undead Emperors were Undead Emperors. If one was numbed by his so-called generosity and tricked into believing that this entire treasure vault was safe, then this one tiny little gift would give you a proper education on what an Undead Cmity was.


    Evelyn had arrived quite casually, but she left very carefully. If that bottle of the potion I made let even a little tiny droplet out, the end result would be catastrophic.


    Of course, I wasn¡¯t crazy enough to y around with an Undead Cmity. But the greatest threat of nuclear weapons from my original world wasn¡¯t the fact that they were destructive. Nuclear weapons would be enough of a threat on their own simply by letting your enemies know that you possessed a rge-scale AOE weapon¡± and that ¡°you were crazy enough to use it.¡± As for thetter, my reputation as Yongye ¡°backed me up.¡± Nobody would likely doubt my courage in being willing to use such a weapon. Perhaps in some people¡¯s eyes I could be considered to be a maniac more dangerous than even Aso. As for the former, seeing was believing, so I just finished preparing a tiny, weak version of Aso¡¯s potion.


    Evelyn took along with her a potion bottle containing only three or four droplets. If she released it in a sealed room, it would likely be able to create several hundred undead. I didn¡¯t care what the Bardi royalty would do with this tiny amount of potion after receiving it; for all I cared, they could throw it away or experiment with some death row criminals.


    What the Bardi royalty intended to do to deal with this incident no longer mattered.


    Once the Bardi royalty finished experimenting with this little potion I sent them, I was confident that unless Orloss was an idiot, he would know what to do. Now that I had some good cards up my sleeve, I was finally able to rx.


    I exited the cockpit to find the Dark Elves still kneeling in the airship¡¯s room. Diana had an expression of humble resolution and sincerity, appearing as if she was prepared to face any consequences, and Yawen had a regretful expression with dried tear streaks on her face. However, Victoria had an unhappy expression as she kneeled there. Her legs had gone numb long ago. If it wasn¡¯t for her older sister Diana watching over her, she would have long ran off.


    Actually, she was indeed not to me. She had simply helped out and hadn¡¯t personally acted throughout this whole incident, but she was still dragged into it... and if I recalled correctly, she was the one with the lowest luck stat.


    I nodded in satisfaction at this situation. At the very least, Diana and Yawen had rather sincere expressions of knowing they were in the wrong. This lesson had been a useful one.


    ¡°You can get up now. I¡¯ve already dealt with the situation. There shouldn¡¯t be a problem anymore. In a way, this is my fault as well. In the future, the work guide for all Judgementors will be modified with an additional rule: Judgementors cannot use the Anti-Crime sh as the first attack in areas out of their jurisdiction.¡±


    Diana and Yawen didn¡¯t get up and quietly remained kneeling while Victoria crawled away as if she was escaping for her life... yep, that was the best evidence that her legs had gone numb from kneeling.


    ¡°No, this isn¡¯t Milord¡¯s fault. I was too rash.¡±


    Yawen was quite regretful and emotional as she med herself. I simply shook my head and didn¡¯t say anything. It would be good for her to be regretful. At the very least, perhaps this tomboy would be more cautious and think things through more before taking action in the future.


    Since my other subordinates were busying themselves with their own affairs, this room should have had only the few Dark Elves kneeling in punishment. But there was also a somewhat familiar little girl: the half human and Dark Elf hybrid girl who that male Dark Elf had been defending with his life.


    There were bandages wrapped on her body. She was looking teary-eyed at the two Dark Elves kneeling in front of me, but when she noticed my presence, she red at me in an unfriendly fashion.


    When I saw how her round ears kept twitching, I became rather curious, and just as I reached my hands out to her...


    ¡°Alright, someone exin to me what¡¯s going on. Also, introduce this naughty child to me and then get her off.¡±


    I could only helplessly lift my hand and point at this Half Elf who was biting down on my hand, not letting go and muttering ¡°damned human¡± all at the same time. Once again, I confirmed that I had nothing to talk about with any naughty child. Next time, I wouldn¡¯t reach my hand out to an untamed pet... wait a moment, something seemed wrong here. Forget it, let¡¯s not worry about it.


    ¡°Ria, quickly let go!¡±


    Once the naughty child finally opened her mouth and let go of me, I rubbed the teeth marks on my hand in pain. But soon I learned from them about everything that had happened.


    ¡°The Gray Guardians? This is the first time I¡¯m hearing of them.¡±


    ¡°Well, they are the shame of Lorci and Dark Elf society. And they¡¯ve always tried their best to hide themselves. If it wasn¡¯t for Beck who adamantly insisted on living in Ria¡¯s mother¡¯s home, this incident wouldn¡¯t have happened. Now he¡¯s probably changed his mind.¡±


    Dark Elf society was no heaven. And not every Dark Elf was able to ept their cruel and heartless society. Plenty of traitors to Dark Elf society escaped every year. Apart from the Gray Elves who received the Moonlight Goddess¡¯s protection, the Gray Guardians was another organization consisting of a small portion of escaped Dark Elves.


    Unlike the Gray Elves, who had sworn to fight Lorci to the bitter end, the Gray Guardians only wanted to live peaceful lives in hiding. However, they hadn¡¯t undergone the Moonlight Ritual, which meant they were physically no different from any other Dark Elf. This made it difficult for them to move about in broad daylight on the surface. Not only that, they still had the typical Dark Elf way of thinking and didn¡¯t trust their gray-skinned ¡°rtives.¡± These Gray Guardian Dark Elves felt that even if the Gray Elves didn¡¯t have some hidden scheme, they would at least view the Gray Guardians as nothing more than expendable cannon fodder.


    And so, with the assistance of a small portion of Gray Elves and the Moonlight Goddess, some of the escapees organized themselves into this ¡°Gray Guardian¡± group, which was primarily focused on self-help. Their members typically lived in poor alleyways and pretended to be mud-covered farmers. But some of them would ept assistance from the Moonlight Goddess¡¯s church.


    Beck was the name of that injured male Dark Elf. He was originally hiding out in a distant mountainous area of Bardi and had sessfully married a human with a daughtering out of their union. However, his wife had died ten years ago due to a disease, leaving two Half Elf daughters behind. It was precisely because his daughters had begged him to take them to see their deceased mother¡¯s hometown that she always talked about so nostalgically that he took the risk and brought his two daughters to the capital.


    That was why this had all started today. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that he had sent out a rescue signal in time, with Diana noticing the signal as she too was part of the Moonlight Goddess¡¯s church, perhaps he and his daughters would have been burned at the stake by now.


    As I was still digesting all this information, that Beck, who was covered in injuries, struggled to walk over to me. He fell to his knees.


    ¡°I beg you, Milord! Please save my older daughter!¡±

 Chapter 383

    Chapter 383: The Style is Wrong


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    I was calm when the Dark Elf Beck pleaded for my help. We were probably the only ones capable of helping him. To be honest, I was feeling a tad excited about it.


    ¡°I¡¯ve finally, finally met with a proper plot! I, Rnd Mist, finally have my chance to y a hero rescuing the damsel in distress and defeating the evil vers! Could it be that the style of this story is changing? I can now walk the path of the harem protagonist?¡±


    If everything was just as I presumed, Beck¡¯s oldest daughter was captured by some elf ver. In a way, this was a clich¨¦ fantasy setting¡ªit would typically be followed by defeating the vers and then defeating the person behind the scenes. Perhaps I would even be able to obtain some new former ve servants who would have their loyalties to me set at the max. Although this was a boring and overused plot type, it was a just, proper one.


    ¡°No, this is obviously the wrong style for this story. I should think more into this.¡±


    What if she was deeply in love with some man? What if she decided to attempt to surpass all family and racial boundaries to reach for her love? That would be just like a Korean or Japanese television drama! Or what if she caught the eye of some forceful prince or prideful CEO? That would be a typical female-oriented romance novel. And if there was also infighting for royal authority after that, then it would be the recently popr medieval politics story... but I felt like the style taking a wrong turn.


    ¡°My oldest daughter is named Ynda. She¡¯s sixty-seven years old...¡±


    Alright then, a sixty-seven-year-old eldest daughter? It would be a little old for her to be the main character of a medieval politics drama. Could it be that she was having too much fun dancing outside, so she was captured by Bardi¡¯s security forces? Actually, I heard that public dancing teams also have love-hate rtionships and plenty of politicking and grudges, along with love rivalries and triangle rtionships even for the elderly... Cough ¡ª cough ¡ªI should be a little more serious and listen to Beck¡¯s story. [1] 1


    Reality would forever be stranger than fiction. That was because reality didn¡¯t need to follow logic and reason. There were so many weirdos in the world, and using a normal person¡¯s way of thinking to guess at a weirdo¡¯s behavior would be nothing more than making yourself suffer. Even without ever meeting her, I was already certain that this Half Elf named Ynda was a weirdo.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that Ynda, a Half Elf who¡¯s worth more than ten thousand gold coins on the market, actually went to join some prince¡¯s faction in hopes of getting rich? She doesn¡¯t know that her Dark Elf blood will make everyone suspect her? Perhaps they¡¯ll even sell her directly to the ve traders. ve trading is legal in the Bardi Empire, and Dark Elf ves are forever one of the highest priced, bestselling products. On average, they¡¯re sold for more than sixty thousand gold coins, and there¡¯s plenty of demand but little merchandise!¡±


    After saying this out loud, all the Dark Elves present looked at me quite strangely. That Half Elf little girl took a huge step backwards and looked at me as if I were highly dangerous.


    Alright then, I apparently identally exposed something... Fine¡ªfine¡ªI admit it: I was indeed moved by the thought in the past and considered buying a Dark Elf ve to ¡°treat¡± myself. It wasn¡¯t because I had desires of a certain type; it was just that since I didn¡¯t have any maids by my side, something felt quite empty, and I was displeased at having to do everything myself.


    Forget about not having any subordinates to help me outdoors. Whenever I finished eating, I would have to wash my own dishes. If my clothes got tattered, I would have to mend them myself. I even had to heat my own shower water. This was the daily life of a powerful individual like me who was trying to change the world.


    What was so special about a hero or a legendary individual? Were heroes exempt from having to eat or wash dishes? Legendary individuals wouldn¡¯t have to sharpen their weapons or fix their clothing? ...I suddenly felt like I missed my previous life in jail. At the very least, back then I didn¡¯t have to worry every day about whether I would eat some ck bread dipped in milk or drink some milk with ck bread crumbs in it.


    There was no helping it. It was impossible to always have extravagant feasts when outside. Milk and bread forever remained as the main staple foods in this world. But it just happened to be that I liked neither, which only made things worse for me.


    Yep, I admit it¡ªI was no resolute revolutionary who believed in no ss systems, and I had been decayed by the sugarcoating of this feudal society... who says I¡¯m a maid lover? I do love maids; what of it! Call me a major domain lord, and I¡¯m proud of being a maid lover! At the very least, I pay them a sry!


    As for why I was considering an elf maid, wasn¡¯t that simply because humans were too weak and had such short lifespans? I could use an elf for several hundred years¡ª cough ¡ª¡±use¡± here only meant for maid work, so don¡¯t get any perverted thoughts.


    What, you¡¯re saying I could use the silly cat? I had to prepare milk and eggs for her every day, and if I forgot even once, she would dere to everyone that I was a cat abuser. I was even beginning to suspect who was the master.


    But I had to consider my personal image, especially with the Town Security elves who were treating me more and more like a saint every day. I never managed to realize this dream of mine, and this was true even if I happened to be in a country where ve trade was legal. Originally, I had thought that this was a proper plot, where I could defeat a ve trader and openly obtain a loyal elf maid. I was naturally disappointed when hearing that this story was so strange.


    Of course, Beck didn¡¯t know any of this. He was simply feeling conflicted about his strange daughter.


    ¡°Ynda felt like she could conceal her identity.¡±


    ¡°In summary, she¡¯s addicted to knight stories, which is why she disguised herself and joined a certain prince¡¯s assassin team for which he was recruiting. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that she failed the servant girl examination, she would have be a servant girl, instead?¡±


    The Dark Elf Beck felt quite helpless about his ridiculous oldest daughter. There were some things he found too awkward to tell Rnd, such as how Ynda used to be quite normal when she was in the mountains. But once she came to the Bardi capital, she became a useless person addicted to knight stories, and would refuse to work or even go outside. She would daydream at home about catching the eye of some forceful prince... and finally, when she finally went outside, it was to chase after her ¡°true love.¡±


    In fact, when Beck had tried to stop her from leaving, she had actually said something along these lines, probably from having read too many stories about the girl¡¯s disguise being revealed:


    ¡°You¡¯re worried my disguise will be seen through? Nothing will happen! I¡¯m the main character favored by the heavens. Just like in the stories, all danger will be transformed into opportunities. And if my identity is revealed, that¡¯s the time when I¡¯ll meet the prince who¡¯s destined to be my true love.¡±


    ¡± Sigh ¡ªcan¡¯t my daughter be a little more normal?¡±


    ¡± Sigh ¡ªI really want a maid.¡±


    Beck¡¯s sigh coincided with mine. Although the contents of the sighs were quite different, we synchronized in our frustrations, which helped improve my opinion of him.


    As for me, although I didn¡¯t understand why Beck had such aplex expression, I pretty much felt like I understood Beck¡¯s worries and helplessness. Naughty children weremon to just about any family. And the current situation was indeed dangerous. No wonder Beck requested for me to save her.


    Probably everyone in the Bardi capital had learned by now that Prince Mills had been assassinated by a Dark Elf. It would only be natural that they would search the entire city. If Ynda was discovered to be a Dark Elf, she would instantly be in danger. And if Ynda discovered that her father and younger sister were involved in the incident, she might do something as well. If her identity was exposed, that would be the end of her.


    ¡°This is the address she left me. It¡¯s probably impossible for me to enter the city now. Please give her a message¡ªno¡ªplease take her out of the city, no matter if she¡¯s willing to leave or not. This city will only be more dangerous in the future, especially to Dark Elves like us.¡±


    This was simply a small matter I could do on the way, so why would I refuse?


    ¡°As expected of the romantic elves. Perhaps you¡¯ll soon have a quarter elf blood granddaughter.¡±


    Seeing how the atmosphere was so awkward, I cracked a joke as I epted the paper with the address written down. Beck had a bitter smile and didn¡¯t say anything. However, the younger daughter Ria, who had just bit down on my hand and refused to let go, suddenly opened her mouth.


    ¡°Impossible! We sisters will never take a human as our husbands!¡±


    I chuckled upon hearing this.


    ¡°Little one, don¡¯t hate all humans because of this incident. There are good humans and bad humans. There are evil bastards who want to kill you, but aren¡¯t there also people who will save you? At least, I¡¯m a human. Well¡ª cough ¡ªmostly.¡±


    If this little girl nodded in half understanding or simply countered with ¡°all humans are evil,¡± that would have been normal. However, she...


    ¡°Are you an idiot? What does this have to do with whether humans are good or evil?¡±


    Ria rolled her eyes at me and looked as me as if I were an idiot. This greatly resembled the way Harloys would often look at me...


    Only now did I recall that Half Elves were famous for being fake lolis . Their rate of growth was slow as they were elves, but their souls would mature only slightly slower than humans. A Half Elf who looked only like a young girl probably possessed an adult¡¯s knowledge and personality. Perhaps that sixty-seven-year-old elder daughter who was addicted to knight stories also had a physical appearance which wasn¡¯t yet an adult.


    ¡°Ordinary humans have such short lives, while our lives are so long. Such a romance is destined to be a tragedy from the very start. Why would I be foolish enough to start one?¡±


    As she said this, Ria had an expression filled with anger as she red at her father.


    ¡°Ever since Mother had a face filled with wrinkles as she stayed together with Father while he looked so young, I started feeling like this would be an incorrect choice. The day Mother passed away ten years ago, I swore I would never find a human to be my future partner. Only my ridiculous sister would be so foolish and na?ve! When shees back, I¡¯ll make sure to properly teach her a lesson!¡±


    Her father Beck had an expression filled with helplessness and regret when faced with his younger daughter¡¯s anger. In his opinion, it was enough for him to have spent an entire human lifetime with the person he loved. But for his daughters, watching their human mother grow old and die of old age was difficult.


    I suddenly thought of another question. However...


    ¡°Then you already have an adult mind. So why did you bite me like that?¡±


    ¡°I hate more than anyone else those who treat me like a little child, especially someone like you who¡¯s obviously an idiot.¡±


    ¡°Idiot? Me?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m already sixty years old, and I¡¯m about to achieve Gold as a master alchemist and master enchanter. I also know how to speak twelvenguages. If it weren¡¯t for my unique circumstances, I would have been well known as a schr long ago. You¡¯re obviously no more than twenty years old, so what could you possibly know, apart from receiving your high status due to your birthright? What else could you possibly be apart from a useless idiot who doesn¡¯t know anything at all?¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Half Elves were indeed a species blessed by the heavens. Their growth rate was almost as fast as humans, yet they possessed the long lifespans of elves. As long as a Half Elf wasn¡¯t toozy, they would reach the peak in a certain area. Yet perhaps it was also because Half Elves had talents surpassing both original species that they weren¡¯t particrly weed by either.


    Since Half Elves typically had underdeveloped bodies, it was only natural that they wouldn¡¯t be able to seed in physicalbat job sses. As for learning academic topics, Half Elves had few channels avable to them despite the fact that they would be outstanding at learning. Yet since she had achieved a master status at both alchemist and enchanter, this was the best evidence that Ria was both talented and hard working.


    This was the first time I had ever been used of being a rich, spoiled and useless brat. I was so angry that I just aboutughed. However, immediately following after, I suddenly thought about some more details.


    If this Ria truly possessed an adult mind and intelligence, why was she so foolish as to antagonize me in my home turf where I was obviously the one in charge? Starting a small conflict with me right now was obviously calcted in order to show off her own worth and make us value her. A master in two different fields who was about to reach Gold would be quite valuable. And a master like her who was unable to protect herself would only be a precious treasure to be fought over.


    Perhaps Ria had analyzed the current situation and thought that it was possible she¡¯d be sent out as the scapegoat assassin. Having someone take advantage of her talents would still be far better than being executed. Otherwise, she wouldn¡¯t have taken such a great risk in exposing her worth. When considering all this, her intelligence and decisiveness far surpassed her physical appearance of a young child.


    ¡°Harloys, she seems to be the same type as you, a seemingly pure fake loli who¡¯s actually ck-bellied. Why can¡¯t I meet a silly, cute, and normal one?¡±


    ¡± Tsk !she¡¯s far from being anything like me. But she¡¯s indeed a nice seed. I intend to do a few little tests. If she passes, perhaps you¡¯ll have a new junior sister.¡±


    ¡°Hah! I have plenty of senior and junior brothers and sisters. But how many of them are still alive? If you feel like ying at being a teacher again, then go ahead and y with the little girl.¡±


    I tossed the silly cat over to the little brat, causing Harloys to cartwheel in midair and shriek at unexpectedly being thrown. ¡°Little brat, don¡¯t think too much into things as Bardi doesn¡¯t have the power to make me do anything. By the way, I¡¯m already more than three hundred years old, and the silly cat in your hands is more than ten thousand years old.¡± I didn¡¯t take another nce at the astonished Ria as I intended to go focus on my own matters.


    Since I had already reached a preliminary agreement with the ¡°Bardi royalty,¡± I no longer needed to hide out in this narrow ambush airship. I told everyone to make their own arrangements, and it was now time for me to return and check on the situation of those left behind at the embassy hotel.


    Those left behind were all real ¡°diplomats¡± that came with us from the Mage Country. It was a typical custom not to execute envoys from other countries even when at war, so them staying behind was also a way of testing Bardi¡¯s attitude.


    Right when I left, someone came chasing after me.


    ¡°Clint¡ªuh¡ªGlina?¡±


    ¡°I want to go out for a while too. Such an incident urred right when I arrived, but I haven¡¯t even had a chance to explore Bardi yet.¡±


    Compared to the past, although she was still wearing an eyepatch like an anime character, herplexion looked much better. She still appeared quite young, though, but her attire now seemed more feminine, soft, and cute. This wasn¡¯t only because I injected my blood into her and overcame her demon bloodline. This was also a tacit agreement between Karwenz and myself.


    ¡°We have two descendants, one for each of us. Whoever¡¯s descendant bes more aplished means which of us is the stronger one.¡± Karwenz probably had such a way of thinking.


    Let¡¯s forget about whether that chuunibyou way of thinking was right or not. At least, now that Glina no longer had to fear the summons of her demon bloodline, she could get a good night¡¯s sleep. And her personality matured quite a lot... but as I watched her jump into her Clint Armor with such practiced movements, swiftly opening up all the mechanisms to activate her armor, I immediately decided to retract my previous statement.


    ¡°Boss, Clint¡¯s current functions have been improved by more than five times. I¡¯ve also installed arge ammunition storage pod, so Clint¡¯sbat strength is more than three times greater. Give your orders so that we can have a st.¡±


    A booming low male voice spoke through the armor as various lights lit up on Clint. Numerous explosives and cannons were brought out for maintenance while the machine gun under the arm automatically armed itself. Hearing this supposed young man¡¯s voice getting so excited over the prospect of battle, I once again confirmed the veracity of the rumors about the Sleuweir Queen, that Queen Glina had a split personality. The moment she put on her armor, her personality would automatically switch over.


    I shook my head and decided not to think too much into this. I wasn¡¯t a chuunibyou like Karwenz, nor was I addicted to teaching others like Harloys was. Let¡¯s just let Glina be whatever she¡¯ll naturally be.


    Still, I could pretty much understand why she would follow me. She probably didn¡¯t realize that there was still room for us to negotiate with Bardi. Seeing that I was going out, she probably thought there was the opportunity for her to join a fight.


    I had no intentions of refusing her. It was a perfect opportunity for us to chat about the changes happening in our home. Although I had plenty of information on this topic, how could informationpare to a firsthand ount?


    And, as I expected, Glina was depressed when she learned that I wasn¡¯t going out to fight a battle.


    ¡°My new weapon needs an opportunity to experiment in actualbat...¡±


    But she became quite serious when discussing the Nortnds¡¯ situation. After all, she had been queen for almost a year now. Unlike Reyne, who had numerous people supporting her, Glina could only mostly rely on herself.


    ¡°This year¡¯s situation won¡¯t be too terrible no matter how bad things are as long as our new agricultural product has an excellent harvest. Also, the barbarians seem to have discovered a new mithril mine in their holy mountain. It¡¯s just that their elders are adamant in maintaining tradition and forbidding any mining. But I feel that under your merchant association¡¯s persuasion of money, it¡¯s only a matter of time before they nod their heads and agree. Of course, I predict that what you want to know most is what people in the Nortnds are saying and how the citizens are doing. I can only tell you that it¡¯s far better than expected. Right now, morale is high, and the citizens are pleased...¡±


    The young girl kept talking about national affairs with her armor opened up, but she was simultaneously ying with all sorts of guns and explosives, taking them apart, putting them back together again, and making custom adjustments. She was the perfect example of a multitasker. As I sighed about how her personality was bing stranger and stranger, I was also somewhat delighted. The Nortnds was now our foundational base, so hearing that everything was going smoothly there was the best type of news.


    From a certain standpoint, Glina was far more normal than her cousin Reyne. At least, whenpared to Princess Reyne, who was bing more and more infamous as a ¡°living rubber-stamper,¡± Queen Glina was bing renowned as a wise ruler skilled at policymaking.


    As a genius engineer, Glina also possessed a deep understanding of magical engineering. In fact, she personally invented magical engineering products that improved the Sleuweir citizens¡¯ lives. Plus, she was outstanding in both military and political affairs. Perhaps Karwenz¡¯s way of thinking wasn¡¯t wrong after all. Compared to Reyne who was bing more and more someone who only relied on ¡°brute force,¡± Glina, who was talented in many fields, was the most appropriate sessor for me.


    Of course, this wasn¡¯t because I intended to retire despite being so ¡°young.¡± As I previously mentioned, choosing a sessor for myself was necessary. There were no guarantees that I wouldn¡¯t suddenly be killed off by some True God passing by or meet with some assassin...


    ¡°Um, I suddenly feel like I jinxed myself.¡±


    ¡°Haha! I feel like you are quite lucky... it¡¯s time to let them take a look at my new equipment.¡±


    There was only one street left until the embassy hotel, but people suddenly became a scarce sight on the streets. The people intentionally hiding in the shadows and trying to conceal their breathing were no doubt assassins.


    ¡°Hey, Glina, remember to leave at least two of them alive so we can question them.¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: In China, one of the most popr activities for the elderly is public dancing.

 Chapter 384

    Chapter 384: Magic Gunners (Part 1)


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Two under that tree.¡±


    I casually reported the location of two assassins, and momentster the Clint armor¡¯s machine guns lit up with mes¡ªwell, if one determined the difference between ¡°gun¡± and ¡°cannon¡± by caliber and power, then more urately they could be called machine cannons.


    Golden painted bullets shot out at a furious pace, while bright red mes were spat out by the cannons. Each bullet exploded on contact, which was followed by booms and pitiful screams.


    The cannons soon started overheating and were forced to stop firing, but the Clint armor immediately produced arge amount of steam to cool them down. The tall tree, which had been the target, was reduced to a tree stump and shredded wood.


    As for the two unlucky individuals hiding in the tree, they were now nothing more than ho nests. Perhaps it would technically be possible to put them back together again if one tried hard enough.


    ¡°Two underground.¡±


    This time, I casually stomped, turning the brickid ground harder than a frozen tundra. No matter how they got there, I could only hope that they could find a way out before they died of asphyxiation.


    Noticing we had detected the assassins, someone made a sharp sound and a throng of ck-d individuals jumped out from rooftops, corners, trash bins, sewers and all sorts of abnormal locations. Just as I was about to pull out my sword, I saw that the Clint armor was shing with bright lights and emitting smoke from its joints. I wisely decided to take a step back.


    ¡°Bullet storm!¡±


    The Clint mecha¡¯s knees, chest, and shoulders opened up, giving rise to countless tiny holes. Numerous mes shot out with beautiful fireworks and deadly explosions. Individual after individual was sent flying, like meteors in the night sky; in fact, the entire night sky was illuminated. Together with this were the wails, screams and howls of pain.


    Glina could appear in public as herself now, so no longer did the Clint armor have to be disguised as an ordinary male human. Glina had modified her favorite ride¡ªperhaps it would be better to say that she deemed all parts not rted tobat as unnecessary and removed them.


    Perhaps she heard something ridiculous from someone, such as ¡°cannons are justice.¡± Or perhaps she simply loved explosions. The result was that her new Clint armor had hundreds of cannons installed... fine then, apart from the most basic function to walk, this Clint armor was basically a moving artillery. The critical difference between this Clint armor and its former version was that this new Clint mecha was a product of magical engineering.


    A breakthrough in a single critical technology would improve the entire industry, and this was typically true no matter the world.


    In this world, firearms were improved or modified versions of dwarven rifles. No matter how much one improved the parts, the foundational workings were still that of dwarven firearms. The ammunition would be created out of mined metals, a small explosion would be created in the gun¡¯s chamber and the force of the explosion would be used to shoot out a small metal bullet which would be used to kill or injure an enemy.


    The scientific principles for how dwarven firearms worked was simr to how early flintlocks worked on Earth. Thanks to improvements in metallurgy¡ªand hence working with magical metals¡ªalong with how alchemy constantly refined and improved explosions, a high-grade dwarven rifle was already quite powerful. It would be capable of threatening even a Silver-ranked warrior. However, dwarven riflescked effectiveness against the more powerful individuals, forever making that its greatest weakness.


    Of course, the average intelligence in this world wasn¡¯t any lower than my original world. To improve dwarven firearms¡¯ power, however, technology was insufficient, so instead the basic method of increasing the size of the dwarven firearms was chosen.


    And so the erged versions became dwarven cannons, siege cannons, goblin cannons, titan cannons, and so on. They were all quite dangerous. If one dwarven rifle¡¯s power was insufficient to kill you, a goblin cannon, which was the amalgamation of one hundred dwarven rifles¡¯ power, would definitely be sufficient.


    However, the overlyrge size of such weapons made them inconvenient to use. They were difficult to transport, meaning they could only be used to siege cities, defend cities, or as fixed artillery on ships. Their slow movement meant a low uracy against moving targets, which was another big weakness. Not only that, dwarves and gnomes typically had unreliable products, making these cannons weapons used to defend cities only in the end. Even among the weapons used to defend cities, there were also heavy ballistae, ancient artifacts and mage towers, so cannons didn¡¯t at all stand out from the crowd.


    In this era of metal weapons where flying troops and elite powerful individuals existed on the battlefield, cannons had been invented long ago but remained as arge-scale weapon which could only y ordinary soldiers in ¡°low-level battles.¡± In fact, numerous military experts treated cannons as meaningless because elite squadrons and top-level individuals could already easily suppress ordinary soldiers. Killing ordinary soldiers with cannons wouldn¡¯t help anyone obtain concrete results in battle.


    Once Olivia¡¯s Magic Box was invented, the magic sword wielding Four Elemental Swordcasters were introduced to the world. In truth, however, another new job ss had been born together with them, but it didn¡¯t receive much attention: the Magic Gunners, who wielded magical guns.


    Their magical guns were actually creations in the same vein as Olivia¡¯s magic swords. This meant their guns were foundationally different from dwarven rifles¡ªtheir magic guns and bullets were the products of magical engineering! They could be strengthened with both magic and engineering technology from this world.


    The attack power was insufficient? Why don¡¯t you try my me bullets, which also contain self-destructive properties that¡¯ll shoot out even more cluster bullets?


    Speed not fast enough? Wind element enchanted magic bullets could fly faster than birds and were auto-enchanted with haste spells. And if you still felt like those weren¡¯t swift enough, there were also thunder element magic bullets. It was just that you would have to make anti-thunder precautions before using them.


    The target had super defense? Have a taste of my earth element armor-piercing bullets. These bullets were as hard as diamonds, you know.


    You needed to restrict the target¡¯s actions and use support abilities? Take a look at my water mist magic bullets. I also had ice bullets capable of freezing the ground and spiderweb bullets capable of shooting sticky strands to restrain an opponent.


    All the job sses created by Olivia¡¯s Magic Box relied on outside items. While the Swordcasters focused on researching sword seals and magic swords, the Magic Gunners focused on their magic guns and magic bullets.


    Gun barrels enchanted with the wind element increased the bullets¡¯ speed. Gun muzzles were enchanted to improve the bullets¡¯ armor-piercing properties. Gun scopes were enchanted with eagle eye magic for super urate aiming. All sorts of extra parts were invented. While this greatly increased the mana usage of the magic guns, these gun parts also greatly improved the Magic Gunners¡¯ strength.


    These basic equipment modifications were only the beginning. Together with the weapons¡¯ improvement all sorts of newbat techniques were invented. Magic Gunners who were experts in the wind element not only became mega long-range sniping experts but could also control their magic bullets to dance freely in the air like a living snake. Meanwhile, top-level fire element expert Magic Gunners would focus entirely on the attack power of their bullets. Yep, Glina was a ssic example of this.


    Last year, when Reyne was still hesitatingly trying out the Four Elemental Swordcaster job ss, the young queen in Antuen too came into contact with Olivia¡¯s Magic Box for the first time. And Glina instantly joined the Magic Gunner job ss without a moment¡¯s hesitation.


    Unlike Reyne who often cked off, Glina was a mega first-rate genius engineer who had seeded in inventing the Clint armor and was skilled at creating explosives, all while in the Underground. When Glina came into contact with this technology which would pioneer a new generation, her sharp senses told her to not hesitate one bit and embrace it full-heartedly.


    Unlike Tid, who forever focused on theories first and foremost when inventing, Glina focused from the very start on whatever could be used in practicalbat. She was most skilled in inventing all sorts of ¡°practical¡± weapons, such as this ¡°machine cannon¡± of hers.


    If her machine cannon worked only on the scientific principles of typical firearms, reloading would be required after one explosion, and multiple explosions would be no different from suicide. However, wind and fire magic were used together to power this weapon. As long as the mechanism¡¯s parts¡¯ quality was high enough, continuous firing would be easy to aplish. Not only that, magic could be used to strengthen the cannon and increase the final power of the explosions.


    Yet this was only the beginning.


    The true identity of the Clint armor was Glina¡¯s personalized version of an ¡°Olivia Magic Gun.¡± The bullets she shot out were filled with fire magic. As Glina had been born with a Demon Bloodline which possessed a natural affinity for fire, Glina herself had an abundance of fire magic mana.


    Just like how the few who did have magic talent typically ended up being more sessful as Four Elemental Swordcasters, Glina, who originally possessed magic talent, disyed the best possible situation for the future development of Magic Gunners. In fact, she was perhaps the one who had walked farthest down the Magic Gunner path.


    *Boom!*


    After tossing out an explosive shell, an entire house was transformed into rubble while tiny stone shards flew everywhere. Tiny mushroom clouds could also be seen raising into the sky in all directions.


    This ¡°Stimtion Bullet¡± wasn¡¯t special because of the cannon itself¡ªthe bullet was the special part. An Olivia¡¯s Magic Box would be installed with a sufficient amount of explosive magic spell arrays and mmable objects. Once all the magic stored within it was activated, the magic would be a catalyst for a self-destruction. Foundationally, this power would be no different to a low-ranked mage using up all their magic for a suicide explosion.


    And so numerous mushroom clouds continued to rise up into the air. As the howls continued and the ground shook, the entire street was transformed into rubble.


    Of course, using Olivia¡¯s Magic Boxes like this meant they would be damaged beyond repair. When taking into consideration how expensive they were to create, the only person in the Nortnds who would dare to fight like this¡ªwell, the only person who was rich enough to use such expensive ammunition¡ªwas only Glina, who was a queen.


    People said that the new job sses of Magic Gunners and Four Elemental Swordcasters were useless? They simply hadn¡¯t met someone who was rich enough to be a pay-to-win yer.


    ¡°I¡¯m rich so I can do whatever I want! I¡¯ll kill you with money!¡± This was probably the true reason why Glina had been able to be the strongest Magic Gunner of all, as this job ss was one where research proved expensive.


    In this field of magic engineering, the advantage of being rich was evident. Just one ¡°Fire Element Stimtion Bullet¡± would have astonishing power. Even a Gold-ranked warrior would either meet instant death or be seriously injured. The Clint armor, which could continuously attack at such power, was already the equivalent of a Legend rank in strength.


    I didn¡¯t even need to act. I simply watched Glina single-handedly defeat all our enemies.


    The skies were filled with her cannon fire. Anywhere she suspected of concealing assassins would be treated to a cannon shot, which would end up with the person and the cover being blown away together.


    ¡°Damn it! It overheated again.¡±


    But the next instant Glina jumped out of her armor, the armor she was mostfortable in. Judging from the ck smoke being emitted from the cockpit, this new Clint armor evidently was still unable to perform a ¡°Bullet storm¡± attack involving every cannon firing simultaneously. The mana circuits would eventually overheat and burn out the magical metal alloys that were truthfully quite old inventions. This Clint armor still needed improvements.


    I shook my head at this. The job ss of Magic Gunner still needed improving. The Clint armor¡¯s overly powerful attacks indeed increased itsbat strength, but it also made it lose reliability and the ability to fight for long periods of time. Also, the fact that it wasted so much money for a fight also needed improving.


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    While Glina was busy cooling down her mecha armor, I unsheathed my sword.


    Although all the assassins that could be seen had already exploded to death, my instinct informed me that danger still lurked in the shadows. The assassins who were truly the most powerful hadn¡¯t yete out.


    ¡°Who could they be? Assassinating me at this time isn¡¯t a good idea. If I am killed off, war between the Mage Country and Bardi Empire will be unavoidable because I¡¯m currently an ambassador. In that case, who would these assassins be? Mills¡¯s remaining supporters who can¡¯t stand the fact that who they supported ended up dead? A prince who wants to take revenge for his brother and earn some reputation by ying me? Some dragon who¡¯s dissatisfied with me? Emperor Orloss who¡¯s gotten furious at me? Although I indeed acted quite ridiculously and even threatened him with activating an Undead Cmity if I died, I feel like this threat should be effective against the Bardi royalty. Emperor Orloss should be restraining all the factions under him. In that case, there¡¯s only one choice¡ªthe faction not under Emperor Orloss¡¯s control... the undead!¡±


    ck knights, death knights, high-level lesser liches, liches, skeleton generals, undead nagas, high-level ghouls, and all sorts of high-level undead walked out from the shadows.


    That¡¯s right. What appeared before me was a full undead military squadron: Aso¡¯s final remaining military squadron.


    Aso¡¯s death made it so that everyone in the Bardi capital changed their attitude towards the undead¡ªit changed from respect to one where everyone hunted the undead down. Still, the high-level undead had been living here for several decades, and Aso and his direct subordinates could be described as incredibly sly. How could they possibly be foundationally eliminated so easily? Their remnants hid in the shadows and were waiting for a chance to viciously strike at the living.


    In this critical time, if I was killed, the Bardi Empire and Mage Country¡¯s rtionship would take a turn for the worst. War would be the likely result. The third party, the Tark Republic, naturally had the most to gain.


    There weren¡¯t that many undead¡ªless than twenty. However, their average strength was very high.


    I took a nce and saw that the weakest undead was already at the Gold rank. There were even several Legend and Saint ranks. In fact, there were even three Myth-ranked Undead Lords...


    ¡°Oh my, is this a case of where the real culprit is only revealed at the end?¡±

 Chapter 385

    Chapter 385: Three Myth Ranks


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Did it sound foolish to attempt to assassinate an undying Undead Emperor? In this world, however, there was no such thing as truly undying.


    Even the True Gods, who called themselves eternal, could perish. So-called immortal liches would naturally die if their phcteries were crushed. ¡°Undying¡± individuals were only undying because the correct method to kill them hadn¡¯t yet been discovered.


    Killing an undying individual with the wrong method would force that individual into a temporary hibernation. For example, it would take liches and high-level Blood Tribe members about two or three years to recover their strength ande back for revenge.


    Some things weremon for all the undying. For instance, one would greatly weaken when they lose their physical body, making it impossible for them to run amok for a while.


    As for me, the ¡°Undying Rnd,¡± every time I died I¡¯d require my physical body to mature again for more than twenty years. Thest time wouldn¡¯t have been any different if I hadn¡¯t exchanged for a physical body through my System, but this type of information on me could be obtained through certain channels and wasn¡¯t exactly top secret.


    For the undead, killing off the me who was in their way and forcing me into a weak state after resurrection would mean one less obstacle in their path. If it was done properly, it would even cause the Mage Country and Bardi Empire to start an all-out war with each other. This would be an amazing oue for the undead.


    For the various undead, being able to y an Undead Emperor would be the greatest of honors. This would also greatly improve their reputations as it would be in the name of seeking revenge for Aso. Just the rewards they¡¯d receive from the other Undead Emperors would be more than enough tost them the rest of their lives.


    As for me taking revenge after I regained my strength? If the undead invasion seeded, I would have to enact my revenge against the entire Tark Republic. On the other hand, if they failed to assassinate me, there would be no revenge to worry about, either.


    I had only figured out all these things afterwards. For those risking everything, ¡°potential revenge in the future¡± was barely a threat. I had only shown off power at the Gold rank and had been walking around openly on the streets¡ªthis naturally attracted vicious predators.


    ¡°Heehee! I¡¯ve never tasted the blood of an Undead Emperor. I bet you taste lovely.¡±


    With a pink ponytail, a cute, blushing round face, and a young child¡¯s attire, this little girl, who was sucking on a blood-red lollipop, would be a priceless treasure to a certain group of people.


    She kept sneaking nces at me, blushing as if she were a little girl near delectable food. However, her frightening blood energy was proof this vampire archduchess was just pretending to be a little girl.


    ¡°Alexandra, you little bitch! Stop acting so pure! Still, I suppose I could give this handsome shota over to you when I¡¯m done with him.¡±


    The one who spoke was a tall and bald old man with a face filled with scars. From his thick, ck armor and the ck mes upon it, he seemed to belong to a dark job ss. Perhaps a magic knight.


    ¡°...Revenge.¡±


    The final figure who walked out was quite tall as he lightly waved around a ck sickle. His ck cape instantly transformed into a shadow, vanishing together with him.


    Along with these three Myth-ranked Undead Lords were plenty of subordinates. Aso had left all his main subordinates in the Bardi capital in order to control the situation, and they had stayed behind even after his sudden death. Now, they became my trouble.


    No matter if it were their auras or their true power levels, these three Undead Lords, who appeared from nowhere, were no ordinary Myth-ranked undead. This was all the more so as they had been Aso¡¯s direct subordinates. Unfortunately for me, Aso had intentionally wiped all traces of their existence when handing his memories over, so I had no clue about them at all.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, if you¡¯re willing to give us our former master¡¯s potion, not only will we not attack you, but we¡¯ll even be willing to serve you.¡±


    The vampire archduchess was all smiles as she spoke. From this sentence alone, it could be deduced that the Bardi Empire still had a spy at the highest level either among the dragons or the Bardi royalty.


    ¡°Little youngster, no matter how powerful you were in the past, you¡¯re no better than a Gold-ranked novice at the moment. How long do you think you canst against thebined attacks of the three of us?¡±


    They were ying good-cop, bad-cop. These Undead Lords were obviously very intelligent and understood human emotions quite well. While this wouldn¡¯t be rare for leaders of other species, they were high-level undead... Well, even though they wouldn¡¯t admit it, it was a fact that the higher the level of an undead, the more ¡°humanlike¡± they¡¯d be.


    ¡°Snake Archduchess Alexandra, Agfan the Famine, and Death Sickle Harris. They¡¯re all powerful veterans and aren¡¯t easy to deal with. Reinforcements will be here for you soon, Rnd. Do your best to solidify your defense and wait for help.¡±


    The silly cat jumped out of a shadow. As my magical pet, she had the ability toe to my side at any moment. What surprised me was that she actually recognized these three Undead Lords. But then I thought about how she had acted ridiculously and had stirred up trouble everywhere for the sake of her revenge. Naturally, she would have contacted the Undead nes in an effort to destroy the world. I understood how it was.


    Since someone as prideful as her said they were difficult to deal with, this would evidently be a difficult battle.


    ¡°What information do you have?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s rumored that the Snake Archduchess wasn¡¯t a human to begin with. Instead, it¡¯s said that she¡¯s actually a Blood Tribe member from the immemorial generation with Winged Snake blood in her. Don¡¯t be fooled by her weak little girl physical appearance that seems so easy to push over. Actually, it¡¯s said that she doesn¡¯t have any bones in her body and she can flex her joints in any direction at will. She¡¯s incredibly skilled at meleebat and has her own special techniques.¡±


    ¡°As for that baldie who looks so ferocious in armor, he¡¯s actually a curse magic expert. His most vicious spell, Curse of Fatigue, will make you lose stamina at ten times the normal rate. It¡¯s quite difficult to deal with. Long battles of attrition are what he specializes in. But the fact that he¡¯s a curse magic expert means that the curses will also bacsh and corrode his physical body. It¡¯s impossible for his physical fighting capabilities to be strong. Try to get close to him and kill him off.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not too certain about Death Sickle¡¯s specific abilities. I only know that he¡¯s a famously powerful assassin. However, his weapon is quite well known. It¡¯s called ¡®Singh¡¯s Call¡¯ and possesses the three negative effects of weakening, poison, and instant death, so don¡¯t let it touch you. Oh, I also remember that Singh¡¯s Call is supposed to be a curved sword. That sickle of his is probably just to distract your attention. He¡¯s wearing really long sleeves, so be careful of him suddenly pulling out his real weapon from his sleeves.¡±


    It was such a great advantage to have someone as experienced as Harloys on my side. Of course, even without this information I still might not lose, but I¡¯d definitely have a harder time. And my enemies were evidently skilled strategists. The original tactical objective I had set for myself until Harloys told me all this was to forcefully kill the Snake Archduchess as quickly as possible¡ªevidently a foolish idea.


    ¡°They¡¯ve already surrounded me?¡±


    The three Myth-ranked undead were no idiots who would waste time talking. While it seemed like they were making me an offer, they never intended to negotiate in the first ce. As long as I let down my guard by even the slightest and believed that I could walk away today without a fight, lightning quick attacks would have instantlye at me. Even if I didn¡¯t let down my guard, they had nothing to lose as the other undead surrounding me could finish their formation.


    *Kaching!*


    From under the Clint armor¡¯s helmet came a green light. Glina had restored her Clint armor to fighting status. And this was the perfect lure for the tense undead to lose their patience.


    ¡°Use your bullet storm attack!¡±


    Glina didn¡¯t know why I made this request, but she didn¡¯t hesitate to do as I asked.


    ¡°All remaining bullets, bullet storm!¡±


    But the next instant, everything around her ckened before turning white. The next thing she saw was an icy river.


    I casually tossed Glina into my Frigidwinter Earth. In front of powerful opponents like these, Glina was still too inexperienced and would only drag me down.


    As I had expected, a sickle appeared right where the Clint armor had originally been standing. Unfortunately, Harris had been just a littlete.


    The furious Harris red at me before he returned into the shadows.


    The undead weren¡¯t having a fun time, either. The Clint armor¡¯s instant explosive attack power was particrly suited for clearingrge crowds. Numerous undead had instantly been killed off. An unlucky lich, who had been casting a spell, was unable to dodge the bullets. He shattered into tiny bones that flew everywhere.


    ¡°Fatigue!¡±


    The baldieughed viciously in a disgusting manner. However, the ck light on his arm was what was truly dangerous.


    A sudden sense of fatigue made my head feel dizzy. I stopped in my tracks at this and almost dropped the Ice Cmity sword I was holding. The very next instant, however, the tiny vampire girl had arrived in front of me, and the gigantic battle hammer in her hands, which was evenrger than she was, crashed into me.


    *Crack!*


    That wasn¡¯t the sound of my bones cracking. Instead, her enchanted metal hammer had broken into pieces. Her hammer would have been more than sufficient to break through any normal castle wall, but it was meaningless against my heavy dragon armor.


    Alexandra had zero intentions of retreating even though I had suddenly donned my heavy armor. She let go of her broken hammer and filled her tiny hands with blood energy, and then began attacking me with her bare fists!


    This time, her fistsnded heavy blows directly against me, and I even felt a faint sensation of pain where I was hit.


    ¡°The martial arts technique of hitting a cow through a mountain... such prative force! A Blood Tribe member actually chose to be a member of the monk job ss!?¡±


    It wasn¡¯t that I particrly discriminated against Blood Tribe members bing monks. It was just that the monk job ss required one to use ascetic techniques bordering on masochism in order to develop one¡¯s potential to the fullest. And, foundationally, it required the power of life force.


    Monks were capable of using the life force known as ¡°Qi.¡± They¡¯d fill their fists with Qi and would then be able to use supernatural seeming martial arts techniques through this type of cultivation. High-level monks would be capable of healing their own injuries after mastering control of their life force. How was it possible for a Blood Tribe to master the power of life force?


    But the indisputable truth was right before me, so I had to believe it. She was evidently a master of the monks¡¯ prative techniques used to fight against heavily armored targets. The ces where she struck me started hurting more and more. My injuries even began to bleed. It was evident that she had covered her fists with the Blood Tribe¡¯s special blood energy.


    It would have been fine if she was just a monk. It wasn¡¯t like I¡¯d never defeated high-level monks before. However, she was incredibly agile and flexible¡ªas Harloys had told me, she was basically boneless. Her punches and kicks woulde at me from inconceivable angles. In just pure melee fighting techniques, she had far surpassed any so-called fisticuffs grandmaster. Plus, the ¡°Curse of Fatigue¡± on me lowered my physical abilities and reaction speed. The end result was that I received a beating as if I were a sandbag.


    The Snake Archduchess attacked like the wind and retreated as swiftly as lightning. She danced around me as if she were a snake tangled around my body, constantly throwing full-force heavy punches. Meanwhile, my sword hadn¡¯tnded a single blow. With each sword swing, I found that I had aimed in the wrong direction and that she was already behind me.


    ¡°In typical transmigrator stories, isn¡¯t it always about the reincarnated protagonist using Chinese martial arts to beat up some armored knights? Why is it that in my story, the transmigrated knight is being beaten up by martial arts? Isn¡¯t something wrong with this story... Damn you! You still use such underhanded techniques even though things are like this already?¡±


    I directly sent out my magic to transform this entire area into an ice river. Alexandra was unaffected, however, but when her shirt opened up slightly as she dashed around me, I noticed metallic jewelry of various colors on her body.


    Low-level ice resistance rings, anti-ice and snow defense equipment, and all sorts of essories. At a rough estimate, I saw more than thirty or forty anti-ice magic defensive equipment on her body. Even her little tongue was pierced with several magic anti-ice rings. I had no idea how she was capable of ensuring that all this equipment took effect simultaneously. Yet it was a fact that she must have done so¡ªshe was nigh immune to ice magic. These Undead Lords had done plenty of preparations before they fought against me.


    This was all still bearable, but the scariest part was still her astonishing punching power. With each and every punch, the ce I was struck would bruise and then start bleeding through the bruise. Unless I was able to deal with this issue, I would sooner orter end up bleeding to death.


    ¡°...This is probably her Concept.¡±


    The foundational difference between Saint- and Myth-ranked individuals was that those at Myth were capable of transforming their understanding of a Concept into something concrete and physical. A Myth rank would use that as their core fighting style, making them incredibly difficult to deal with. Even worse was that it would be very difficult to defend against or dispel their Concept¡¯s effects.


    Most Myth-ranked individuals would integrate their Concepts into their personal weapons. Alexandra, however, evidently didn¡¯t have the habit of using weapons. Her body was her best weapon, and every attack of hers applied her Blood Tribe¡¯s ¡°bloodletting¡± ability. This type of monk was far too dangerous.


    While Rnd was fully on guard, dealing with his enemies, the three Myth-ranked Undead Lords were secretly having a tough time. They never expected Rnd to be so difficult to deal with.


    His imprable armor was shameless enough, and this wasn¡¯t in the information they had on him. It made the assassin Harris mostly useless¡ªwhen he had attacked with his Singh¡¯s Call against Rnd¡¯s armor, the Singh¡¯s Call curved sword had actually been slightly damaged. Unless Harris couldnd a blow on Rnd¡¯s skin, his strongest attacks would be useless.


    And that was how the top assassin under Aso could only helplessly stand by the side.


    As for Agfan the Famine, he was having even more of a headache. He had already tossed out more than ten curses, including ones with the effects of instant death, idiocy, or aging. Yet the only one that took effect was his greatest specialty, the Curse of Fatigue, which incorporated his ¡°Power of the Brink.¡± Rnd¡¯s ridiculously high resistance against curses made him wonder if Rnd was the incarnation of a True God.


    Meanwhile, the main physical fighter, the Snake Archduchess, wasn¡¯t having it easy either. Every one of her direct hits could kill a typical Myth-ranked warrior, yet she had alreadynded several hundred direct hits on Rnd. Her hands had been damaged by the force of her blows to the point where she had already regenerated them several dozen times. But Rnd didn¡¯t even appear injured.


    ¡°Even though the stupid baldie¡¯s Curse of Fatigue has clearly taken effect on him, he¡¯s still jumping around in such a lively manner. And his armor is even capable of reflecting ice damage. If I hadn¡¯t brought a sufficient amount of anti-ice defensive equipment... as expected, all those who be Undead Emperors are monsters.¡±


    What worried Alexandra the most was Rnd¡¯s frightening physical strength¡ªhe created gusts of wind every time he swung his sword. Just the wind pressure alone made it difficult to breathe, the best evidence of how physically strong he was.


    ¡°His physical strength must be greater than an Immemorial Dragon¡¯s.¡±


    Although she hadn¡¯t taken a single hit, she was dancing on a cliff. If even one sword swing connected, it would simply be a question of how many pieces she would becerated into.


    This was evidently a bad situation for the three Myth-ranked undead who had not wanted to draw attention to themselves and intended to finish this battle as quickly as possible.


    As Alexandra started feeling more and more anxious, Rnd suddenly put away his sword. Silver wings sprouted out of his back, and heunched himself into the air andughed maniacally.


    ¡°Not bad! Not bad at all! But it¡¯s all meaningless! Now it¡¯s my turn¡ªlet me show you my second form. Wahahaha! I¡¯m an unsolvable bug! You want to kill me off before the server shuts down? Impossible! I can still transform four¡ªno¡ªfive more times!¡±

 Chapter 386

    Chapter 386: How a Video Game Boss Should Behave


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°None of you read a walkthrough to prepare for your battle against me! You want to kill me without even reading a walkthrough?! Ha! That¡¯s suicide!¡±


    The silver-winged, red-armored me kept shouting ¡°None of you are prepared!¡± arrogantly from midair. The panicky squadron below me was such a familiar sight.


    In a cooperative yer vs. AI video game, what gave me more of a headache than a difficult boss were garbage teammates who recklessly started fighting the boss without having even read a walkthrough. In this world, too, these types of garbage teammates weremon.


    Dark priests would attempt to use negative energy spells against the undead, fire mages would attempt to throw fireballs at fire elemental creatures, idiot assassins would try to use stealth against true sight Beholders, and so on. Every year, the fairies¡¯ monthly magazine¡¯s most popr feature was forever the portion titled ¡°The funniest one hundred ways to die this year.¡±


    If I recalled correctly, the one ranked first on the list of idiotsst year was a Demon Warlock grandmaster who decided to transform himself into a demon when faced with a Three-Headed Horned Demon Lord¡¯s might.


    It turned out that the demon the Demon Warlock chose, a Speed Demon, was the favorite type of demon the Three-Headed Horned Demon Lord loved to eat. That Demon Lord apparently broke out intoughter and directly used an ¡°Intimidating Stare¡± ability to freeze the Demon Warlock in his tracks, making a nice meal out of the warlock.


    The smart ones who weren¡¯t as dumb as the idiots in the fairies¡¯ magazines would take advantage of their enemies¡¯ greatest weaknesses¡ªobviously far more effective. For instance, the fact that Holy Knights greatly preferred battle hammers over swords wasn¡¯t actually due to personal preference. It was because their main enemies would forever be the undead and demons.


    Due to the nature of their bodies, skeletons, zombies and other undead would typically be highly resistant against shing and stabbing attacks. It was far more difficult for them to defend against bludgeoning attacks capable of crushing their bodies and bones.


    Rangers who roamed the forests preferred barbed arrows as their main weapon because their primary enemies would be the unarmored beasts and beastmen. Barbed arrows were capable of opening up wounds that would continuously bleed, making them an effective weapon. Sometimes, all a ranger would have to do was follow a blood trail, and then he¡¯d discover a corpse at the end of it. But using such barbed arrows against the undead wouldn¡¯t be as effective as throwing a rock at them.


    Battle hammers and maces were also very effective against the heavily armored knights typically referred to as tin cans, which was why battle hammers were jokingly referred to as ¡°can openers.¡± They were capable of creating tremors from a collision against armor that could kill a knight even though the armor remained undamaged. Actually, since demons had magic armor protecting them, they could be treated as a type of heavy armor unit as well. That was why battle hammers were also the most effective ¡°can opener¡± against demons¡ªthis was the logic behind why the Snake Archduchess had begun her attack with a battle hammer. It was simply a test. But since her battle hammer was a weapon barely at the Myth rank, even she herself didn¡¯t have much hope it would seed.


    For any powerful individual who had lived for a sufficiently long period of time, obtaining information on one¡¯s enemies would be a daily habit. Investigating specific information about one¡¯s enemies was something absolutely necessary when facing someone powerful. Fighting without any preparations would be tantamount to suicide¡ªit would be necessary for game yers to check a video or a walkthrough before fighting against a video game boss.


    Of course, at the same time, it would be fine for game yers to not check walkthroughs as well. Game yers had the privilege of dying over and over again to probe a boss¡¯s abilities¡ªall they had to do was load their previous save file. In real life, however, people only had one life. ¡°Please try again¡± would only happen in games.


    Hence, it could be said that the fight between truly powerful individuals would begin before the battle itself. Those who had critical information about themselves exposed would find themselves killed off quite quickly. As a video gamer would put it: ¡°As long as you have the information, you can defeat the boss sooner orter, but without any information, the boss is undefeatable.¡± Or, another video gamer¡¯s phrase would be ¡°without a walkthrough or any preparations, it¡¯s like trying to farm a wastnd. But if you have a walkthrough, experience, and you¡¯re prepared, then it will be like speed grinding. There¡¯s noparing the two.¡±


    Everyone would want to hide information about themselves, but for those who had reached a certain level of power, their fighting style would typically be fixed with its specific advantages and disadvantages. As long as there were records of that person fighting, it would be impossible to keep everything a secret. Still, powerful individuals would always have their hidden aces. Unless the difference in power between the two sides was big enough for one side topletely suppress the other, the fight would end up in apetition of who had the better aces.


    The undead had indeed investigated and prepared themselves thoroughly, and they¡¯d also extrapted what possible aces I might have hidden. In the past, I had showed off in public Sword Saint level swordsmanship, excellent ice magic abilities, and the ability to use God¡¯s Descent. As for my Holy Light magic and undead magic, there was basically no record of me using them in directbat.


    No matter if it was Holy Light or undead magic, any path would need a lifetime¡¯s worth of experience and time to cultivate. It would be impossible to create a Legend¡¯s Soul Imprint unless one was able to face their true selves and desires with absolute sincerity, unless they started over from a new life... Fine, my resurrections were probably different from most other undying individuals. At the very least, I doubted that any other existence would be capable of retaining their sense of self while in the River Styx.


    ¡°His proven abilities are Sword Saint level sword techniques, and the frightening forbidden spell Ice Aeon. We also need to defend against his ice magic. Of course, since he¡¯s an Undead Emperor, he¡¯ll be skilled in undead magic. As for Holy Light, there are no records of him using that inbat, and Holy Light shes with the power of undeath¡ªhis Holy Light is probably nothing more than a political trick used to obtain the favor of the Holy Church.¡±


    If I were the undead, even I myself would havee to such a conclusion. But sometimes it would be impossible to measure certain people bymon sense.


    Judging from what I¡¯d seen so far, the undead had indeed made excellent preparations.


    The female vampire before me was as slippery as a snake. She knew more than one hundred ultimate monk techniques and could use them all with ease. Her Dexterity stat had likely far surpassed 30; although I was a Sword Saint, I was clumsier than a banana-throwing monkey in front of her. Meanwhile, that curse expert Agfan had used a Curse of Fatigue on me, making me lose stamina at twice the normal rate. My sweat now reeked of fresh blood.


    If I tried to assassinate that annoying bald-headed curse expert in order to remove the Curse of Fatigue on me, Alexandra would interrupt me and keep me busy without even caring if she was injured. At such a time, the Blood Tribe¡¯s regenerative abilities would show their disgusting prowess.


    As for that death god like assassin, he used the tactic of ¡°striking me only once and then instantly disappearing for another blow¡± upon failure. The entire time he was the only one to attack me while I couldn¡¯t even counterattack. I also needed to divide a part of my attention to stay on guard against him, which made me only more frustrated as I fought.


    I had now confirmed that the three of them were equipped with far too many anti-ice magic equipment, thus limiting myrge-scale AOE ice magic. The vampire monk wouldn¡¯t give me a chance to speak if she saw any signs of me attempting to utter an incantation. As for using undead magic... they wouldn¡¯t even need to prepare against it as undead creatures were powered by negative energy to begin with. Either they¡¯d be highly resistant against undead magic or they¡¯d absorb it. The current me was incapable of top-level undead magic that¡¯d be effective against a Myth-ranked Undead Lord.


    My sword techniques made me seem to be nothing more than a no-good cker disciple in front of the Snake Archduchess who had likely cultivated as an ascetic for thousands of years. And my ice magic had been specifically targeted against with all that anti-ice magic equipment. If I had met these three Undead Lords two months ago, I would have probably been killed off by now with all these preparations against me.


    Should I say that I was fortunate or unfortunate? My recent battles had been against Undead Emperor Aso and then the Titan Giants. Both were ones where I¡¯d brushed by death, but they¡¯d also helped me discover my insufficiencies.


    I was the type who loved to reflect on my mistakes after every battle¡ªthis would help me get better and improve myself for the next. ¡°What if Aso had gone all out against me?¡±¡±What if the Titan Giants had directly tried to ambush me without any warning?¡± Even if I did my very best, perhaps I¡¯d...


    ¡°I can¡¯t always hope to get lucky. In the future, high-level opponents will only be more and more numerous. At the very least, I have to think of a method to survive. Only by surviving will it be possible to win in the end and use an ace to overturn the situation.¡±


    The current situation proved my choice. These three veteran Myth-ranked Undead Lords were more than enough to suppress me when counting their actual power levels against mine. If it weren¡¯t for my new dragon armor, perhaps I¡¯d have been instantly killed.


    [Full-body Dragonscale Ice Armor: Guardian of Eternal Night. System Evaluation: Legend rank, capable of growing in power.]


    [Enchanted Titan¡¯s Thunder Metal: This armor possesses Legend-level damage reduction properties. All weapons that aren¡¯t at the level of God Equipment will have their damage reduced by 30 against this armor. System Notification: It¡¯s ridiculous how you managed toe up with the idea of embedding that Thunder Titan Giant¡¯s broken shield pieces into your armor to strengthen its defense.]


    [Ein Mezus¡¯s Protection: Her Dragon¡¯s Bloodline is coursing through this armor. She¡¯s protecting the wearer of this armor, which is bad news for any attacker. Her protection will automatically absorb 100 points of damage every day before the wearer can be damaged. This ability will recover after a period of twenty-four hours.]


    Agile monks were one of the best melee fighters, but their high-speed barehanded attacks and the fact that they relied on Dexterity as their mainbat stat meant that each attack of theirs would not independently have much damage. My top-level armor would greatly reduce the prative force, too, and with my damage reduction abilities, Alexandra was probably only damaging me with about three to four percent of her actual attack power.


    When dealing with an armor like mine, only a God Equipment level ¡°can opener¡± battle hammer or a top-level forbidden spell attack against the soul would be effective. But, for obvious reasons, these two options would be difficult toe by.


    Practical battle had proved my choice. Only defending would still result in death. The loss of stamina and the umtion of injuries would be enough to kill a person.


    The reason I was able tost for this long¡ªapart from my dragon armor¡¯s astonishing defense¡ªwas that Erebe was sharing my injuries. Moreover, I had a ¡°Shield Slime¡± within my armor as a secondyer of defense and a ¡°Life Slime¡± that healed my injuries.


    This battle appeared to be one against three on the surface, but if you counted my two Slimes, it was three against three.


    While the undead were frustrated as they weren¡¯t able to achieve anything after so many attacks, I, too, was simrly frustrated as I hadn¡¯t achieved anything after so long.


    Even though I was in a position where I wouldn¡¯t be defeated, if I continued like this, it would be impossible for me to win. It was true that the undead would never open up this ¡°tin can¡± of mine, but I was also unable to cause any actual damage to them.


    ¡°It would seem that I can only use my second form... For the Holy Light!¡±


    Instead of my Ice Cmity sword, I brought out a silver holy battle hammer especially made for Holy Knights.


    [Myth-Ranked Weapon: yer of the Undying.]


    [Attack Power: 40-40 Holy Light damage. Attack Speed: Very Slow.]


    [Special effect 1, Undead yer: Any undead thates into contact with this weapon has a probability of being instantly destroyed.]


    [Special effect 2, Divine Protection: Summon a golden divine protective field which can resist against the invasion of evil. Lasts for thirty seconds. Any that forcibly invades the field shall receive 5 Holy Light damage per second.]


    [Special effect 3, Divine Strength: When using this weapon against the Undead, the wielder will gain +2 Strength. Limited only to Holy Knights.


    [Special effect 4, Wrath of Holy Light: This battle hammer is enchanted with ten extra points of Holy Light damage. Limited only to Holy Knights]


    [There is crooked line of silver words on the hammer¡¯s handle: This war hammer once belonged to a true Holy Knight. Only those who are truly holy will be able to utilize the full power of this hammer. System Reminder: You¡¯re a Sword Saint, but you¡¯d rather be a Hammer Saint? Comrade Rolo Big Hammer.]


    This hammer wouldn¡¯t be anything more than just a good weapon against an ordinary person, but against an undead, it wouldn¡¯t be worse than a God Equipment.


    When Harloys devoured this hammer that I had obtained from Baron Matt, she gained the ability to take this form. But if she entered this battle hammer form, she would have to enterplete hibernation to prevent damage to her soul, which would ur because she wasn¡¯t verypatible with this hammer.


    The undead below me were shocked. How could an Undead Emperor possibly use the Holy Light? A former SemiGod Undead Emperor was now using the Holy Light against some Myth-ranked undead? Wasn¡¯t something severely wrong with what was going on here?


    No normal individual would even think of the possibility that the powers of undeath and Holy Light could be used in tandem. The information regarding the Humiliation of Soros had been forcibly suppressed by the Holy Church. ording to the undead, I obviously could use undead magic, so even if I could use the Holy Light, it would be nothing more than a few tricks performed with the help of external items.


    ¡°Such pure Holy Light! How is this possible!¡±


    Everyone knew that the purity of a Holy Knight¡¯s Holy Light was directly dependent on the power of his faith. The purer the Holy Light, the greater its power would be against the undead and demons. That was why demons and devils would try to tempt Holy Knights into bing fallen. The more faithful a Holy Knight was before bing fallen, the stronger a ck Knight he would be.


    Such pure Holy Light was more iprehensible than even an Undead Cmity. Who could possibly imagine that an Undead Emperor would have such pure belief in the Holy Light?


    A holy battle hammer, a solid new set of armor, and blinding Holy Light and holy mes. I was now a yer of undead, a Holy Knight! It was as if I had returned to the past.


    I unfurled my wings and stood in midair, observing the undead below me. With a wave of my hand the sky was filled with dropping feathers, each feather a bomb filled with the power of Holy Light.


    Holy Light illuminated the entire sky¡ªit was as if the sky started pouring holy rain.


    After condensing my bloodline, my War Angel form had also received improvements. The greatest improvement to this form of mine was to my pure power of Order.


    ¡°All of you shall be eradicated by the mes of Holy Light!¡±


    My golden wings were covered with faint holy fire, while my golden feathers shone brilliantly in the sky. Amid their pitiful wails, every undead being my feathers touched immediately melted to their demise.


    ¡°The boss is now flying! It¡¯s the second mode! Everyone, run to your preassigned positions to dodge the boss¡¯s fixed AOE attack! The AOE is beginning its countdown¡ªthree, two, one! Martin, you bone lich, you¡¯re running in the wrong direction! See, you died as expected! Lich Team Leader, remove all of Martin¡¯s rewards... darn, it feels rather boring to makements only to myself when the silly cat isn¡¯t awake.¡±


    [Only now do you realize you¡¯re boring!? What kind of boss yacts at being the video game yers attacking him? Do you want me to pretend to be a game system reporting thebat situation against a boss!? System Notification: 5 Justice Points have been deducted for this wonderfulmenting service. Thanks for your patronage!]

 Chapter 387

    Chapter 387: Total Annihtion


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°Fire Wall! Fire Wall! Fire Wall! Fire Wall! Fire Wall! Fire Wall! Fire Wall! Fire Wall! ...The boss is going underground¡ªmain tank, forward! Watch your positions! Those who die to the boss¡¯s AOE should punish themselves by standing in a corner! Any idiots who run into the boss¡¯s Fire Wall should join the second team tomorrow! Our team is an elite one with no room for idiots!¡±


    [You still aren¡¯t tired of yacting?!]


    [With the AOE attack most of the undead perished. Comrade Rolo Big Hammer has now gone underground¡ªwhoops¡ªhe¡¯s brought out a second hammer, one in each hand! He¡¯s managed to sessfully change job sses to Rolo Two Hammers! With one hammer¡ªwith just one hammer¡ªhe sent the Snake Archduchess flying! Use your ultimate ability, Rolo Two Hammers! System Notification: I¡¯ve heard female streamers like me are really popr right now. I did a wonderful job, no? Where¡¯s my reward money?]


    ¡°Shut up! This isn¡¯t a hammer! ...Alright, I suppose it isn¡¯t really wrong to call it a hammer.¡±


    I felt rather speechless at how shameless my System was. What I took out wasn¡¯t actually a hammer, but it did resemble one. I couldn¡¯t find any words to counter her.


    It was a two-meter-long silver oak branch, and at its tip were some flowers that had bloomed. Its very existence caused a green glow to spread along with a wondrous fragrance that helped refresh my spirits.


    [Original Root of the Forest of Dreams¡¯s Mother Tree: The purest source of the Forest of Dreams¡¯s power. This root contains an endless amount of life power. It¡¯s a miracle item of nature and canpare to the first-generation Tree of Life. It¡¯s priceless, and for the time being no assessment can be given to its power level. System Reminder: From a certain standpoint, the Mother Tree is Amelia¡¯s main body, and you¡¯re currently holding the Mother Tree¡¯s root... you¡¯re holding the pubic hair of a girl, you beast! Forget about others who **** ships, swords, cities, or beasts¡ªyou¡¯re a man who ***** trees! You Beifeng!]


    ¡°Shut up! Would it kill you to have some shame for once? And when did Beifeng¡¯s name be an adjective that meant pervert!?¡±


    Oh, right, his name had be a forbidden word ever since that day. Since he was being hunted by all the druid organizations, he had entered the Cmity Rankings. Congrattions to my first subordinate who entered the Cmity Rankings.


    ¡°...I don¡¯t know who he is, honest!¡±


    Cough ¡ª cough ¡ªlet¡¯s get back on topic. The root of the Mother Tree in my hand was no ordinary piece of wood.


    The Tree of Life was viewed as the origin of the elf species. Wood spirits were a simr existence, and the Tree of Life and the Mother Tree of the Forest of Dreams were both miracle trees containing the power of life. Any branch from the Tree of Life would need only slight modifications to be a powerful weapon on par with Legend-ranked equipment.


    However, it was no easy task to obtain a branch from the Tree of Life. Since the Tree of Life contained the power of life, not only would its branches help improve all forms of life magic, but it would also be super effective against the undead. Naturally, Tree of Life branches would make for excellent weapons against the undead.


    Actually, there was a person in the past who used a weapon called ¡°Twig of the World Tree¡± as his battle hammer. This person achieved incredible things.


    But less than one hundred weapons crafted out of the Tree of Life existed. Taking a branch off the Tree of Life would cause damage to it, so unless someone aplished a deed so great the entire elf species felt they were in that person¡¯s debt, it would be nigh impossible for anyone to obtain a branch for themselves.


    The Mother Tree of Amelia¡¯s Forest of Dreams should be equal in power level to the elves¡¯ first-generation Tree of Life. I wasn¡¯t about to let go of the opportunity before me, so I asked Rosa and the wood spirits for a piece as research material. Of course, I agreed to give them the remnants of the second-generation Tree of Life in return, which was something so rare that even the elven kingdoms didn¡¯t possess... let¡¯s not get too much into detail about how I obtained it.


    From a certain standpoint, the Three Virtues had gone somewhat overboard. After I won the battle against the Titan Giant incarnations, they handed me this root as a reward. Obviously, this could be viewed as somewhat underhanded as it harmed the very foundation of the Forest of Dreams and would slow the rate at which Amelia revived.


    But there weren¡¯t any immediate threats to the Three Virtues¡ªit wouldn¡¯t matter much if Amelia revived a little slower. I had helped them out so much, after all. The ¡°Original Root of the Forest of Dreams¡¯s Mother Tree¡± was definitely an item containing the most abundant power of life; in fact, I felt it¡¯d be possible to modify it into a SemiGod Equipment or even God Equipment.


    I hadn¡¯t possessed this root for long, but its quality was definitely more than ten times higher than that of the third-generation World Tree branch. I hadn¡¯t yet had the time to properly research this root, but when I thought about how my enemies right now were undead, I felt like this could be used as a weapon so I casually brought it out.


    And that was how I had a two-handed battle hammer in my left hand and a tree root in my right hand, bing Rolo Two Hammers... a dual wielding berserker!


    What, you¡¯re asking me why I didn¡¯t continue tossing holy fire feathers from the sky and switched to meleebat? Well, first of all, those slow feathers wouldn¡¯t cause much damage to the top-level Myth-ranked undead. And I would also have to pay a price for tossing down all these holy fire-wreathed feathers... if I tossed anymore, I would be a naked, featherless chicken!


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªwhen I discovered that my feather bombs were only effective against the weaker undead, I of coursended back on the ground. I had powerful anti-undead melee weapons in my arsenal, after all.


    ¡°Now it¡¯s time for part three¡ªthe third form!¡±


    I had long mastered how to dual wield greatswords, and as long as my Strength stat was sufficient, it wasn¡¯t too difficult for me to treat a hammer as a sword. Two hammers meant my attacks would be even more vicious.


    The results were better than I expected.


    ¡°What¡¯s this? My curse was actually dispelled!¡±


    The moment I held the root, a green glow spread over me and directly dispelled that baldie¡¯s annoying Curse of Fatigue. I felt the power of life fill me and greatly improve my spirits. At the same time, my injuries and fatigue quickly recovered.


    My silver-colored iron battle hammer was filled with the golden Holy Light, while the wooden root was filled with the green power of life. As my spirits rose, I waved my hands, causing afterimages of hammers covered in golden and green light to appear in the air.


    These lights were the purest type of Holy Light and the highest quality power of life, both foundational pirs of Order. The former was the specialty of Holy Knights and Holy Light priests, while thetter was the domain of druids and life magic rituals.


    Under mymand, the Holy Light transformed into massive hammers that pounded the ground like an unstoppable rainstorm. I also transformed the Holy Light into bolts of thunder aimed at the undead. Meanwhile, I could only let the power of life act on its own as I didn¡¯t have the side job ss of druid capable of controlling it.


    Both these powers of Order were perfect counters to the undead. The only difference between being struck by Holy Light and the power of life would be that Holy Light would eradicate and cleanse the undead into nothing but dust, while the power of life would allow the undead to die and finally enter the Cycle of Reincarnation.


    Unfortunately, no matter how powerful the attack, it would still have to connect to be effective. Although my attack power was far greater than before, the results were no different from earlier.


    Apart from my first surprise hammer swing that sent the Snake Archduchess flying, she now moved even faster than before and managed to dodge all the Holy Light attacks I sent her way.


    ¡°Smite, judge, and cleanse this rotten, putrid, and cknd.¡±


    I injected Holy Light into the ground through my feet, transforming it into holy ground covered in holy fire. Any undead that tried to approach me were vaporized into dust amid howls in agony. This was arge-scale AOE Holy Knight technique I was very familiar with, called ¡°Holy me Consecration.¡± It was especially useful against highly dexterous enemies as well asrge numbers of enemies.


    Yet one second before the holy mes lit up, Snake Archduchess Alexandra opened up a pair of blood-red wings and started flying, escaping from the holy mes on the ground.


    ¡°Hammer of Holy Light!¡±


    I materialized a Hammer of Holy Light in midair and exploded it, illuminating this dark night for a moment. Several skeleton warriors and arge festering zombie caught in the explosion were directly vaporized. Yet my main target, the Snake Archduchess, dodged the explosion by ttening herself. She even managed a counterattack with a punch thatnded on my stomach area, almost making me cough up blood.


    Holy Chain, Light¡¯s Judgement, and Shimmering Light. I used these ssical Holy Knightbat techniques to perfection, yet the result remained the same.


    Her boneless nature allowed her to twist her body to dodge every attack. She would reverse her joints or elongate or shorten her limbs. When I took a closer look at her, I discovered that her eyes had transformed into snake eyes¡ªher vertical pupils were staring straight into mine.


    ¡°Is this a joke!? She¡¯s capable of determining my attack patterns simply from my eyes? This is too ridiculous!¡±


    I finally epted the fact that this Snake Archduchess had reached the very peak of the monk job ss.


    ¡°The best dynamic vision, the swiftest reactions of all, a body not limited by bones and joints, and hundreds of martial art techniques she¡¯s an expert in. How can anyone cheat like this!?¡±


    If this were a PVP video game, she would be the equivalent of a skill-based yer fully leveled and at the peak of skill in her job ss. There was a huge difference between us inbat skill. A novice like me who hadn¡¯t even fully leveled could only miss every attack I used against her.


    ¡°Since she¡¯s reading my moves from my eyes, all I have to do is close them.¡±


    And so I closed my eyes and prepared to randomly attack... and then immediately opened my eyes ten secondster.


    In just that short moment, the Snake Archduchess had been overjoyed to see that I¡¯d closed my eyes and hit me with a full set of seventy-two palm techniques... fine, I¡¯m making the number up¡ªI had no idea just how many times she hit me. But judging from how much of me was aching in pain, she probably hit me over one hundred times... it would seem that expectations and reality were quite different. In realbat, fighting with one¡¯s eyes closed would only result in a mega beatdown.


    When I stopped idiotically closing my eyes, I used my battle hammer and tree root in unison to block her attacks, but I identally made them touch each other as I did so.


    *ng!!!!*


    That was a loud and deep sound as if a giant monastery bell had rung. The green light on the tree root expanded; overly abundant power of life rushed out at a furious pace and transformed into a green aura that swiftly spread and devoured everything before it.


    This was too unexpected and too sudden, so the Snake Archduchess who was following up her attack on me¡ªI was still off bnce from closing my eyes¡ªfound it impossible to dodge. She was suddenly enveloped by the green light.


    She was instantly stunned and paused her actions. Yet monks had unwavering, frightening willpower. rity returned to her murky eyes in just a second.


    But how would I give her a chance to recover?


    ¡°Home run swing!¡±


    I swung my tree root as if it were a baseball bat, sending the Snake Archduchess flying at a tremendous speed. She didn¡¯t get up again after taking this blow.


    Since the Snake Archduchess, who acted as the tank who could take me on all by herself, had copsed, it was just as if a game yer team had lost their main tank yer while fighting a boss. So, the result was...


    ¡°I died¡ªI died¡ªwhat¡¯s the healer doing? No rewards for the healer! What? We don¡¯t have a healer? Then let¡¯s punish the tank... what, none of you can revive anymore? Forget it! We can¡¯t beat this boss with our current team setup. You¡¯re all idiots! That¡¯s it for today. You should all go home and check some walkthroughs. Everyone, we¡¯re leaving now! It¡¯s your own fault if you get left behind! And I¡¯m not paying for all your repair and revival fees.¡±


    [You haven¡¯t had enough yet!?]


    [Ding! Battleplete. Time psed: 12 minutes. People that perished: 17. Repair fees: 2000 gold coins. System Notification: I¡¯m going to keep pretending to be a game system if you keep yacting. What? You don¡¯t like it? Bite me!]


    Alright. Of course it was impossible for me to bite her. Still, the fact that my System was casually joining in so shamelessly meant that this battle was nearing its end.


    The Snake Archduchess had copsed, and the baldie¡¯s only curse that worked against me was now ineffective thanks to the Mother Tree¡¯s root. The remaining assassin couldn¡¯t do anything by himself, and it was now impossible for the undead to win. The survivors unhesitatingly abandoned their teammates and ran for their lives.


    I nced over the spoils of my victory and felt that it would be right to say something as a boss who seeded in annihting his opponents.


    ¡°In front of I, Rolo Two Hammers... I mean Rnd, your beliefs, your dreams, are meaningless. None of you have armor even worth mentioning! Skill-based yers are worth nothing in front of a pay-to-win yer like me!¡±


    [You¡¯ve finally admitted to being Rolo Two Hammers! See, you did have fun while roleying, didn¡¯t you?]


    ¡°That¡¯s enough out of you!¡±


    I finally understood what it felt like to have someonementing on the side while fighting. In such a situation, it was impossible for me to get heated up ¡ªthe style had instantly gone from hot-blooded toedy. My motivation disappeared. Even if such a boss was defeated, I would feel like a little something was missing... Emordilorcan, Lorci, and the Demon Earl, if you¡¯re listening from somewhere, I apologize to all of you.


    ¡°Since when has your style been normal?¡±


    ¡°Ah, Harloys, you¡¯re awake?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, thanks to your Rolo Two Hammers. This power of life is capable of protecting my soul. No, I should say that it can even strengthen my soul. Loan it to me¡ªI want to research it when there¡¯s some free time.¡±


    Strictly speaking, the current Harloys was living¡ªshe had broken the Cycle of Reincarnation. Yet the Holy Light, which had the foundational power of ¡°cleansing,¡± would still put a great strain on her if she used it. The power of life had much less stringent standards.


    I was quite interested in this phenomenon. It appeared to be worth deeply researching into, but right now obviously wasn¡¯t the time.


    Just as how the police would always arrive only after the conclusion of a major battle in a movie, only now did Dragon Knights descend from the skies, filling withints.


    ¡°Damn it. They have such ¡®perfect timing.¡¯ They must have been hiding in some corner, watching the show. For this, I¡¯m going to extort as much as I can out of them!¡±

 Chapter 388

    Chapter 388: Extortion


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    While the police always arrivedte in movies so the heroes and viins could have epic battles, reality was naturally different. The perfect timing of these Dragon Knights was a symptom of deeper problems.


    ¡°Did you bastards have fun watching the show?¡±


    The ck-haired Dragon Knight before me was quite young; he appeared to be only fifteen or sixteen years old, his face dotted with youthful e. Judging from his obvious awkwardness¡ªhe was blushing shyly¡ªhe was no veteran capable of lying with a straight face.


    ¡°I actually became a lure! They dared to use me to draw out the big fish!¡±


    That was the first thought I had when I saw how the Dragon Knights ¡°just happened¡± to arrive right after my battle with the undead.


    There was plenty of evidence to back up my way of thinking. For instance, five Dragon Knights directly flew above me, chasing down the escaping undead, while only the weakest Dragon Knight among them was left behind to talk to me despite the fact he wasn¡¯t even an adult. It only took two simple verbal traps for this youngster to leak plenty of information.


    Actually, I didn¡¯t need to ask a youngster like him anything¡ªI would already know as everything that happened today was far too coincidental.


    I refused to believe that Orloss had such weak control over his own capital city, one he resided in. Nor did I believe that he would easily let slip a secret like the existence of Aso¡¯s potion.


    Since the information had been leaked so quickly to the undead, it was most likely intentional on Orloss¡¯s part. He must have leaked the fact that I possessed the knowledge to create Aso¡¯s potion, which would activate an Undead Cmity, to an undead spy that was already unknowingly exposed! He then took advantage of those undead, knowing they would ambush me.


    For the undead that remained hidden in the Bardi capital, they¡¯d profit tremendously no matter if they killed me or obtained the recipe for Aso¡¯s potion from me. In their minds, this was an inescapable lure, where the promised returns far outweighed any potential risks.


    Even though the undead must have clearly known that this was likely to be a trap, they felt that as long as they could ovee the trap, they would profit massively in the end. And so they unhesitatingly fell for Orloss¡¯s trap; hook, line, and sinker.


    What if I died? In that case, nobody would be threatening the Bardi Empire with an Undead Cmity anymore. That would be excellent, of course.


    ¡°Orloss profited with no risk to him at all.¡±


    As for the Dragon Knights that arrived with such perfect timing, all they needed to do was watch our fight from far up above and wait for me and the undead to inflict great injuries to each other before showing up as the third party who benefited in the end. Of course, if I won, they woulde over and support me. Should I say that it was to be expected of Orloss¡¯s reputation as a sly old fox, to have thought up such a no-risk, profitable trap andpleted all the preparations in the less than two hours since he found out about me possessing Aso¡¯s potion?


    ¡°...We were taken advantage of.¡±


    I released Glina from Frigidwinter Earth. Even though I didn¡¯t tell her anything, she, too, saw through this messy scheme. However, she wasn¡¯t in that great of a mood¡ªherbat strength was insufficient, and had she participated in the fight, she¡¯d have only been a burden to me.


    ¡°Rest assured, I¡¯ll make that old Orloss spit up everything he owes us. Don¡¯t think too much into things. You¡¯re still young.¡±


    I patted her on the head and looked off into the distance. Although the few remaining undead had escaped, things here weren¡¯t finished yet.


    Right in front of that young Dragon Knight I casually tossed the unconscious Snake Archduchess into my Frigidwinter Earth. Combat spoils like her might be of assistance in unearthing the remaining undead left hidden in Bardi¡ªwhy would I give her over to the Bardi Empire?


    Besides, there weren¡¯t just undead corpses in this area. Numerous human assassins who had attacked me earlier and the few survivors who¡¯d been encircled by the undead when they tried escapingy dead here. None of them had managed to run past the undead. The extremely few human assassins who survived could be considered incredibly fortunate.


    Well, as for these living assassins who had been sent over to kill me, perhaps it was at themand of some prince. I decided to leave them to the Bardi Empire.


    Just as I was about to proceed to the royal pce to have a reckoning with the sly old fox, Glina tugged my sleeve and pointed at a nearby tree.


    ¡°...It seems we won¡¯t need to go looking for Beck¡¯s oldest daughter.¡±


    Indeed¡ªwasn¡¯t there a dark-skinned Half Elf assassin trembling on that tree? She was concealed with the assistance of irregr shadows. Had it not been for Glina¡¯s demon eye, it would have been almost impossible to notice her presence. She must have used a Dark Elf racial talent to survive the dangers just now.


    ¡°...She must have joined Prince Mills¡¯ faction. Since you know my secret, I must now kill you... so that nobody will know my secret.¡±


    As I said this, I brought the power of Holy Light into my eyes and red at her. My eyes shed brightly with killing intent. I looked really cool doing that, didn¡¯t I?


    ¡°Don¡¯t scare her! See, she¡¯s already fainted.¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m already regretting it. It seems she peed herself. Tsk ¡ª tsk ¡ª tsk ¡ªher pee is dripping down the tree. Her bratty younger sister is definitely going toin to me afterwards. Glina, can you do something for me?¡±


    ¡°You want me to carry her? Don¡¯t even think about it. Her pee will get my Clint mecha dirty.¡±


    ¡°No, I just want you to help change her underwear. Here, this set should fit her.¡±


    ¡°...Could you please first exin why you¡¯re carrying female underwear on you? Could it be that the legendary Princess Peach¡ª¡±


    ¡°Stop! It¡¯s nothing to talk about; it¡¯s all trouble from my younger days¡ªhey¡ªhey¡ªI¡¯m really not a pervert! There¡¯s no need to run away from me! Your attitude makes your grandfather sad!¡±


    ******


    ¡°I, the ambassador of Mage Country, came under an assassination attempt right in front of the embassy hotel. I have received much physical and mental trauma. Not only that, your country¡¯s security arrived sote¡ªI suspect they did so intentionally! This is inexcusable! This is a personal affront, I say, to my dignity! This is an insult to the entire Mage Country!¡±


    No matter how ridiculously I acted before him, the elderly Orloss would smile back at me in a friendly manner. He seemed intent on ying the role of kind mascot. However, due to my overt rudeness, his diplomatic officials and personal knights all had furious expressions on their faces.


    It was deep into the night, but the glorious meeting hall was well lit. From the bloodshot eyes of all the meeting participants, the fact that dirty footprints dotted the floor and the teacups, which had been refilled countless times, perhaps the meetings here had been continuing for a long while without adjourning and giving these people a chance to rest.


    This was indeed the case, in fact. Right after the previous ambassadorial meeting with Orloss, news arrived that Prince Mills had been assassinated, causing an emergency meeting to convene. Before this meeting even finished, a sudden visitor (Copper Dragon Evelyn) met with Orloss, and then Orloss returned to continue the meeting. However, this time, he focused the meeting on all sorts of emergency ns and preparations, even mentioning possible war.


    It could be said that the officials under Orloss had been hard at work for fourteen consecutive hours. And this work was of the highest level, critical priority tasks. They were tense to the point of having fully bloodshot eyes. When they discovered that their troubles appeared to be my fault, of course they would be displeased with me.


    In their minds, my subordinates had earlier in the day killed the rtively popr and well-respected Prince Mills. Although I was viewed as the criminal, I was actually the one who firstined of a crime against me and was even being disrespectful to their emperor. It must be remembered that this was a feudal generation¡ªa king meant more than anything to a knight¡¯s honor. This was one of the greatest possible insults.


    ¡°...Hey, shouldn¡¯t you at least react a little after I said so much, old man? Do you think I¡¯m a little white rabbit who will take everything lying down!?¡±


    ¡°Utterly disrespectful! Do you know who you¡¯re talking to!? You are in front of the Lord of the Carsian People, the guardian of the Manfu Mountains, Great Emperor Orloss of the Bardi Empire...¡±


    One thing inmon between great personages was that they would have a scary amount of titles. Every one of their titles could be considered part of their authority, especially in the eyes of novices. However, against a veteran like me, such a tactic of intimidation with titles was useless.


    ¡± Cough¡ª well, you are in front of the God Envoy of the God of Law, the Sword Guardian of the Nortnds, the Last Descendant of the Mist, the favored Child of Light, the Truth Symposium Overseer of the Mage Country, the Destructor of Eternal Night, the Undying...¡±


    Glina gave out a long series of my titles, and she seemed to be quite good at this. Wasn¡¯t it simply apetition of titles? Who would be afraid of that?


    ¡°Who are you supposed to be? Is this a ce for you to speak up? You¡¯re a diplomat from the Mage Country? What a ridiculous little girl!¡±


    A goatee-bearded official stood up and roared angrily. If I recalled correctly, this person was the prime minister of the Bardi Empire, and his name was Carlo.


    This was indeed a good move by him. In diplomacy, one couldn¡¯t afford to lose out on presence, and it would be smart to pick on the weak. Yet he waspletely wrong when he perceived Glina to be nothing more than a ¡°young female servant.¡±


    ¡± Cough ¡ªyou are in front of the Queen of the Sleuweir Kingdom. She is the acting ambassador of the Mist Alliance with, I must say, full authority. I strongly protest the insult you made to our Queen. I also request that you, Carlo, immediately apologize. Also, our Mist Alliance¡¯s Sleuweir Queen came under attack right when she arrived in your country. I demand an exnation!¡±


    This time, I got the chance to act cool.


    The officials present were astonished but soon understood. My background was no secret, so considering my rtionship with the Nortnds, the Sleuweir Queen¡¯s sudden arrival could be considered exinable.


    And my request was a reasonable one. For a civil official to shout angrily at a country¡¯s queen in such a formal diplomatic setting was a severe breach of diplomatic etiquette. Asking for only an apology was already restrained.


    Of course, there was also the issue of pressure from a more powerful country. There were plenty of examples of powerful countries pressuring less powerful ones and breaching etiquette. At the moment, however, Emperor Orloss was right in front of Carlo. Carlo was merely a civil official under Orloss, so how would he possibly dare to decide on behalf of his emperor?


    Yet apologizing would obviously weaken Bardi¡¯s position and negotiations. In such subtle situations, intangible factors were also important.


    But not apologizing would cause severe diplomatic consequences. After some hesitation, right when Carlo decided he would prostrate himself and ask for forgiveness, Orloss finally spoke up after acting as a wallflower all this time.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, let¡¯s just discuss things directly. What exactly do you wish for?¡±


    ¡°Compensation! Compensation for the mental trauma I suffered! It would be too base to ask for money, so how about giving me a few dozen Dragon Knights? If that¡¯s not possible, I¡¯ll also ept the full information on Bardi¡¯s specialty job sses of Dragon Berserkers and Dragon Shield Guardians.¡±


    Just like how the And Empire had the elite White Wolf Knights and East Mist had Aurora Knights and Avnche Guardians, Bardi also had their own ace troop type that could be mass produced. Dragon Berserkers were ughter machines rumored to possess strength at the peak of Silver rank on average. Dragon Shield Guardians were rumored to be experts in defense capable of parrying Sword Saints¡¯ attacks. The relevant information on these two troop types would obviously be considered Bardi¡¯s national treasures¡ªhow could they possibly give out this information so freely?


    ¡°You bandit!¡±


    ¡°How could you dare...!¡±


    Demanding such a ridiculous amount would obviously make others hate me. At this moment, furious shouting and scolding from the officials filled my ears. I simply pretended not to hear them.


    Of course, I knew they would never pay me with such important treasures. It would be even more impossible for them to actually give me Dragon Knights. Still, wasn¡¯t negotiation just like streetside haggling? Even if I knew you wouldn¡¯t ept, I would first try to buy something from you for only half the written price to test you out. Once both sides learned roughly what each side was willing to ept, only then would the real negotiating begin.


    But, very unexpectedly, Orloss smiled and nodded.


    ¡°That¡¯s all you want? Sure, I¡¯ll give all that to you inpensation.¡±

 Chapter 389

    Chapter 389: Southern Sect


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Say you were haggling with a jewelry merchant and said, ¡°Would you be willing to sell this ring to me for one hundred gold coins?¡± Both you and the merchant were well aware that this ring was worth at least one thousand gold coins, but the merchant still said, ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll give it to you for a hundred, along with this additional gift.¡± What would you think?


    Anyone normal with a brain would feel that something was wrong with either the ring or the merchant. Perhaps that merchant had a nefarious scheme targeted at you.


    That was exactly how I felt. Apart from that, however, I also felt as if I had thrown a heavy punch yet hit nothing but soft cotton. I clearly prepared so many little tricks¡ªwhy did Orloss give in so easily?


    Dragon Berserkers were one of the best products that came out of thebination of alchemy and dragon studies¡ªthey were people with artificially created Dragon Bloodlines. They were, in essence, super warriors, but they wouldn¡¯t possibly have existed if it weren¡¯t for the Bardi Empire¡¯s thousands of years of umted good rtionship with the dragons.


    Stories went that Dragon Berserkers naturally possessed great Strength that would always be 18 or higher. They would be capable of wearing heavy armor no ordinary person could wear, and their standard weaponry would be giant, three-meter long dragonspears and halberds. They were known to be unstoppable ughter machines on the battlefield. Not only that, the Dragon Bloodline¡¯s natural defensive dragon scales and regenerative abilities gave these ughter machines powerful recovery abilities, and they were able to fight for extended periods of time. And whenever a Dragon Berserker was in danger, they could ask for even more power from their Dragon Bloodline, giving them limitless potential. They would transform into a more dragon-like state, giving them new powers and stronger basic stats.


    Of course, forcibly and artificially adding a Dragon Bloodline to humans had its weaknesses. The ¡°Berserker¡± part of Dragon Berserkers was to remind these fierce warriors that they could forever lose their human forms and hearts if they became addicted to ughtering. Some Dragon Berserkers who returned from the cruelest battlefields would either be monsters unable to cancel their dragon transformation or go insane and lose all sense of reason.


    Dragon Shield Guardians were theplete opposite. If Dragon Berserkers were analogous to the sharpest fire-enchanted spear, then Dragon Shield Guardians were the most solid shield of ice.


    Unlike Dragon Berserkers, whose obviously strengthened bodies could be discerned with a nce, these heavily armored and well-shielded defenders would always be fully covered in armor. That was why there wasn¡¯t as much public information about them. Still, any battle they participated in would be astonishingly sessful. These Dragon Shield Guardians were highly skilled in group battles¡ªjust small teams of three to five had recorded achievements of ying giants.


    Their shields towered two meters tall. Simply cing the shields on the ground allowed them to erect a magical defense barrier. A small team would be capable of providing defense on par with a castle wall; hence, they were often called ¡°living castle walls.¡±


    But their high quality came at a price. It was said that their armor and magical shields were all top quality and hence top price. Every warrior would be fully outfitted and trained and needed to be Silver at the minimum. In the entirety of the Bardi Empire, there were only twenty squadrons consisting of eighty-thousand members.


    This looked like a lot of members? If you considered the fact that the Bardi Empire was a super-powerful mega empire in Eich, these eighty thousand warriors were less than a typical Bardi domain lord¡¯s private army.


    That was why the Bardi Empire wouldn¡¯t dare to use such expensive warriors in an ordinary conflict. In fact, this national treasure wouldn¡¯t even be given over to a prince unless he was specifically designated as the crown prince.


    Right now, I was looking through thick booklets on how to train them and the alchemic forms for their equipment. Harloys told me ¡°All of this looks real, or it¡¯s simr-level research results¡± after I asked her to check its veracity. I felt like I was dreaming. Meanwhile, the tyrant who was earlier angrily roaring ¡°Give it to him¡ªI said give it to him¡± despite his officials¡¯ pleas was all smiles, sitting at the table and looking at me.


    ¡°Being generous for no apparent reason means there¡¯s either thievery or a scheme going on.¡±


    All the unimportant, unrted individuals had been ordered by Orloss to leave. There were now only five individuals in the room at the table¡ªGlina, Orloss, Halent, an elderly royal steward and, of course, me.


    Orloss was smiling ever so effusively, as if he was a ssical wicked merchant who had just greatly profited. I reflexively increased my level of vignce. I was in no way going to believe that a simple ¡°Aso¡¯s potion¡± would be enough for him to obediently give me so much and let me extort him as much as I pleased.


    No matter what world it was, ¡°never negotiate with terrorists¡± was an iron rule of governments. This wasn¡¯t because major countries weren¡¯t willing to pay but rather because greed was limitless. Who knew whether or not the terrorists would increase their price or be motivated to try another strike due to a previous short-term sess? And any type ofpromise made public would be a direct blow to that country¡¯s authority as well as expose the country¡¯s weakness and insufficiencies.


    In this world, where the international situation followed thew of the jungle, the wolves drawn to the scent of weakness would be no ordinary terrorists.


    Considering the fact that I just threatened Orloss with ¡°pay me or I¡¯ll bring Resident Evil to this world,¡± my actions were no different from that of a terrorist¡¯s. This made the situation rather confusing. It wasn¡¯t that he shouldn¡¯t havepromised, but there was no reason for him to give in so easily when I was obviously just trying to extort an important national treasure.


    If I were in Orloss¡¯s position, even if Ipromised in the end, I would first try various methods to eliminate the threat. If I was forced topromise, I would never permit the other party to make additional conditions or requests and deal with everything in one go.


    ¡°I understand that you¡¯re confused, but actually I¡¯m thankful to you. I know you and your allies are quite aplished in the field of alchemy and that you have many dragon friends. Just treat this information as a little gift.¡±


    Orloss started off like this, but I already knew that since Evelyn had mentioned to me that he seemed to be quite grateful to me for helping him get rid of the threat of Aso. But what he said next waspletely unexpected.


    ¡°I¡¯m not only grateful to you about the undead. By the way, I was astonished to hear from Miss Evelyn that you lost your memory. Perhaps I should tell you about the seed nted back in the day¡ªAmoya.¡±


    The elderly steward wearing the royal pce attire had many wrinkles on his face and appeared physically old. However, he reached out his hand and gathered golden light, which gradually formed into a ball of Holy Light that illuminated the entire room.


    ¡°This... impossible!¡±


    It was impossible to fake the purity of Holy Light¡ªthis elderly steward was indeed an excellent Holy Light user. However, what astonished me was that not only did this Amoya individual not utter the name of Holy Light out loud, but he didn¡¯t even have the emblem of the God of Holy Light anywhere on his body. This was something that obviously went against the teachings of the God of Holy Light.


    Whenever I used the power of Holy Light, I would always praise the Holy Light out loud or at least pretend to move my lips. This was simply to pretend that I was no different from other Holy Knights. This person before me, from a certain standpoint, had a method of using Holy Light incredibly simr to mine. He didn¡¯t have to utter the name of Holy Light.


    ¡°Your Eminence and Forefather, your guess is absolutely on the mark. We members of the Southern Sect don¡¯t believe in the God of Holy Light. Instead, we believe in the Holy Light itself. If only the Church of Holy Light knew¡ªwe¡¯d be the biggest heretics they¡¯d focus on eliminating first.¡±


    Not only was I astonished at what I just heard, I was even more astonished to hear what he addressed me as.


    ¡°Lady Evelyn also mentioned to me that you lost your previous memories in Bardi. As the sixth leader of the Southern Sect as well as your disciple, I should inform you once more about the majestic achievements you had back in the day...¡±


    As this elderly man named Amoya told me his story, this sealed bit of history was gradually unraveled.


    The Southern Sect¡¯s formal name was the ¡°Church of Pure Holy Light.¡± The Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups perceived them to be a branch sect which had a slight misunderstanding of the Holy Church¡¯s teachings, but only the core members of the Holy Church knew that this was no small misunderstanding. Rather than worshiping the God of Holy Light, they worshiped the pure Holy Light itself.


    They originated in the Bardi Empire¡¯s capital, and this sect¡¯s creator was Rnd ckhand, also known back then as ¡°Baron ckhand.¡± And the establishment of the Southern Sect church had been greatly supported by the Bardi royalty from that generation. Ever since the birth of this tiny church sect, its creator gave it a unique mission: to transmit the true teachings of the Holy Light to rece the rotten and decaying Holy Church.


    ¡°Currently, the Southern Sect has more than two hundred thousand believers spread throughout Bardi and the corners of various countries. They act as if they are members of the Holy Church but instead teach the purest teachings of the Holy Light. Actually, apart from our understanding of the Holy Light, there¡¯s no obvious difference between us and Holy Light priests. I myself am the Bardi Empire¡¯s Holy Church Cardinal from two generations ago. And that¡¯s most likely why the current Pope Caloma was willing to start a new Holy War at any cost. In the Holy Church¡¯s eyes, evil deserves to die, but heretics deserve to die even more.¡±


    It didn¡¯t seem like a big difference whether someone worshipped the God of Holy Light or Holy Light itself, you say? Actually, there was a huge difference. Those who worshipped the God of Holy Light would treat him and his teachings as a personified God capable of anything and everything, meaning the Holy Church also had his recognition. Those who only recognized the existence of the Holy Light itself, believing the Holy Light to be the source of its own power, practiced a non-personified type of worship¡ªthis meant the Holy Church would lose its divine authority from above, making them into nothing more than scammers fooling everyone. In fact, it could even be said that theywere the ones who falsely personified the God of Holy Light if that was the case.


    This was also why heretics would be considered far more dangerous than any source of evil as well as why my little show in the Nortnds¡ªthe Humiliation of Soros¡ªhad caused so many Holy Light job ss members to be shaken in or lose their beliefs.


    This was an even scarier threat to the Holy Church than the Holy War itself, which was why, at that emergency Cardinal meeting, the entire Bardi Empire was treated as a heretic country. Since there was such a gigantic problematic sect headquartered here, Pope Caloma could only dere a Holy War against Bardi.


    Since Bardi had now been dered as a heretic and was the source of this so-called heretical church, Bardi and the Southern Sect became natural allies. After Orloss broke with the Holy Church and exiledrge numbers of Holy Light job ss members from Bardi, Amoya, who remained behind for ¡°personal reasons,¡± started constructing new Southern Sect churches on arge scale and openly began spreading the pure teachings of the Holy Light. The seed I nted back in the year had finally begun to sprout.


    Even without any memories of doing this, just analyzing it made me feel like this was definitely something I would have done back then.


    Back then, I was someone who had been betrayed by the Holy Light. I was filled with hatred and the desire for revenge. I was considered evil, with all glory and honor stripped from me. Yet I still possessed the abilities of a Holy Knight. Just this alone would be capable of shaking the entire Holy Church¡¯s foundational authority.


    It would be almost impossible to truly destroy an entire church from the outside with force¡ªinternal factions and heretics would be the most fatal of all. That was why I must have nted a seed here in Bardi. Although I didn¡¯t know if it would sprout sessfully or not, doing such a thing wouldn¡¯t be a loss for me in any way.


    ¡°Every prophecy you left behind hase true. Since all the major events you spoke of in your Holy Codex hase true, our faith has only be more fervent, and those who doubted you have returned to us. When evil suppressed justice, we hid as you requested us to. Fortunately, just as you prophesized, misfortune was avoidable through our hard efforts. At the very least, we have all seeded in avoiding the countless Undead Dimensional Doors that appeared and started spreading despair in Bardi.¡±


    Since I had intended to spread my teachings, how could I possibly miss this excellent opportunity to utilize my ¡°precognition?¡± It would be quite easy for me to write a bunch of prophecies and then obtain belief in my prophecies that I passed off as some Holy Codex. This would cause my own church to gradually strengthen, which was something the me from back in the day probably expected. Otherwise, there would be no need to pretend at prophesizing.


    Actually, the current Rnd was doing the exact same thing: spreading seeds everywhere. Even he himself didn¡¯t know if the seeds would sprout sessfully or not.


    Right now, this particr seed was no longer an immature one. It had now sprouted into a robust, tall tree which had experienced over two hundred years of inclement weather to reach maturity.


    When the undead were running rampant, the Southern Sect became one of Orloss¡¯s hidden aces as well as the faction he trusted the most. The Southern Sect¡¯s Holy Knights and Holy Light priests were the most elite soldiers against the undead. That was also the foundational reason why Orloss was so thankful to me.


    Right now, Glina and Halent were looking at me as if I was some monster. Well, ns that took several hundred years toe to fruition along with prophecies that one hundred percent came true were things they were incapable of understanding. These tales they were hearing about my past legends sounded more like something in a fairy tale or myth. Yet the primary person involved was sitting right before them.


    ¡°We absolutely believe that Your Eminence is capable of defeating the evil which lurks behind the shadows. Actually, when Her Highness Glina was reporting your titles, she left out the most important one: The Establisher of the Southern Sect. We are your most loyal followers. What you performed in the Nortnds not long ago strengthened our faith even further, and we began to openly spread our faith in Eich. Perhaps this is why that fake Holy Church, which is merely pretending to have divine authority, has been so enraged.¡±


    Alright then. This elderly church leader¡¯s eyes were filled with fervent belief in me, believing that this was all part of fate. He believed that the Armageddon that I prophesized would definitely arrive. He believed that hard work was all that was needed to ovee the misfortune. However, I was confident that Orloss believed something else entirely.


    Looking at things from the angle of how ¡°a good knife only required a master,¡± just my rtionship with the Southern Sect alone seemed to make me something of an obstacle. Perhaps Orloss was truly being apologetic with his gift to me, or perhaps if I didn¡¯t pass this little ¡°test¡± he gave me, today might be the day I died.


    At this moment, the host, Orloss, chuckled.


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s not talk about such abstract things. To show my sincerity in allying with you, let me introduce our Archduke Halent. ...Actually, he should be called Halent Mn¡ªmy blood-rted nephew, the recognized sessor to the throne and crown prince of the Bardi Empire, the future Bardi Emperor.¡±

 Chapter 390

    Chapter 390: A New Ruler and a Coincidental Meeting


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    From a certain standpoint, the royalty bloodlines of major countries would always be messy. Looking at things now, Bardi¡¯s royalty bloodline was particrly messy.


    A necrophiliac prince, a lesbian vampire princess, an insane nt witch, and the current ruler was half dead and unable to have descendants. And now there was evidently a Bardi royal simr to Beifeng, since this Bardi royal had gotten together with a dragon in order to produce the half-dragon descendant Halent. If anyone told me that the Bardi Empire was cursed, I would be the first to believe it even if nobody else did.


    This true sessor to the throne had never been considered a candidate. Nobody thought that the Dragon Knight Archduke had been in the running. From a certain standpoint, it could only be said that Orloss¡¯s secret ns were far too sessful and that he did an amazing job hiding the information from everyone.


    ¡°What!?¡±


    The most surprised person present was actually Halent himself, and his shocked expression didn¡¯t seem fake.


    ¡°I apologize for never telling you about this. But you¡¯re indeed my blood-rted nephew. I¡¯ll tell you the rest in private. We have honored guests with us right now so don¡¯t let themugh at us.¡±


    Alright then. Orloss had apparently kept this secret so well that even Halent didn¡¯t know.


    ¡°Ha! None of those idiots addicted to authority, wealth or pleasure are even remotely capable of seeding my life¡¯s work. I will also tell you directly that you¡¯re not the only choice. Even if you are my nephew, I am not going to hand over my crown to you if you do not reach the level I believe a ruler must be at. However, with the current situation, and due to yourbat achievements at Nightrain City along with how all those idiots think I¡¯m dead, causing them to reveal their true ugliness, you¡¯ve be the only choice. I can just go ahead and tell you this now.¡±


    Hearing how energetic Orloss¡¯sughter was, I could only feel pity for all the other princes.


    Actually, if you analyzed the situation further, this result was only natural. The current situation in Bardi was unstable¡ªwhere all the domain lords were waiting for an opportunity¡ªand those with the greatest military authority would have the greatest power. And as the battle at Nightrain City continued, Halent was now the greatest military authority in all of Bardi.


    As long as Halent obtained sufficientbat des at Nightrain City, he would automatically be the top candidate for the crown even without Orloss¡¯s support.


    From a certain standpoint, Emperor Orloss was raising a group of venomous insects. He would intentionally have his potential sessors fight each other using the most nefarious tactics possible and only then choose the sessor he liked most.


    I refused to believe that Halent was Orloss¡¯s only secret rtive who was a candidate. It was evident, however, that Halent was the one Orloss liked most.


    Perhaps it was because Halent had always been staunchly anti-undead and continued to view the country¡¯s issues with the utmost importance even when


    the princes were fighting with themselves. Perhaps it was his defiant attitude of being willing to go against Orloss that allowed him to receive the emperor¡¯s favor.


    Orloss was pretending to be on his deathbed, and this would not only help him identify the best sessor but also cause those with too much ambition to expose themselves. The domain lords would definitely cause a huge ruckus after the emperor¡¯s death anyways¡ªhe might as well gift the new emperor with arge-scale sacrifice.


    ¡°Rivers of blood will flow.¡±


    This was my prediction, and I felt quite confident about it. The more ambitious schemers and unlucky fools who died, the more secure the new emperor¡¯s position would be. Rather than wait for the schemers and fools to make a big ruckus after the emperor¡¯s death, it would be much more effective to kill them before they could cause trouble.


    With Emperor Orloss exining this, the conference table now consisted of two royals from our side with actual authority, Bardi¡¯s current emperor, future emperor, and the highest priest of their new church. This was a conference of the highest rank, the best evidence of Orloss¡¯s sincerity in wishing to reach an ord.


    ¡°I¡¯ve always loved your quote from the Southern Sect: ¡®This world belongs to ordinary people. Those Gods up above are just hypocritical maniacs¡¯...¡±


    With that as the beginning, we began our formal negotiations, the contents of which became increasingly important as the discussion went on. When we managed¡ªbarely¡ªtoe to an agreement andplete the negotiations, the sky was light again.


    We received a good harvest from this all-night discussion. Apart from learning about the grand scheme that Orloss had been preparing for almost ten years, we obtained what we wanted the most in exchange for agreeing to be his helpers and allies.


    ¡°A grand scheme? As expected of the most talented schemer in Bardi for the past three hundred years. He¡¯s so daring. But if his n really seeds, perhaps he¡¯ll be known to future generations as Bardi¡¯s wisest ruler in history.¡±


    This ambitious schemer had been quite generous to me. Since I agreed to help his scheme, he gave me many benefits.


    ¡°Two years¡¯ worth of food reserves from an entire domain¡ªthat¡¯s more than enough for all of East Mist to eat for five years. Right, there¡¯s also three thousand smiths and alchemists, and two hundred master schrs...¡±


    Orloss had easily agreed to these conditions. A nouveau riche like And could neverpare to the foundational strength of an ancient mega-empire. Orloss viewed them as nothing more than small gifts, but the pathetically poor Nortnds would be able to save at least several decades¡¯ worth of hard work. He didn¡¯t hesitate to give us what we wanted most.


    ¡°Then will you support the Nortnds Mist Alliance in bing independent?¡±


    ¡°Of course. If the Nortnds increases in strength we can better guard the border of the human world. San Antonio¡¯s influence is far too overreaching. Besides, even if I don¡¯t agree to help, would San Antonio really be able to control the Mist Alliance and its member countries, which are fully integrating with each other? Rather than being humiliatingly forced out in the end, voluntarily stepping back will help San Antonio save face. I¡¯ll write a letter to Sloan.¡±


    Making the Kasomi Dukedom independent and simultaneously causing the mega empire San Antonio to lose a subordinate country was something Bardi would want in the first ce. As for the other payments... it didn¡¯t matter since the Bardi royalty wasn¡¯t the one who would pay. Sacrificing some local nobles¡¯ benefits and weakening the domain lords was something the centralized royal authority wished for as well.


    As for us, the most important harvest wasn¡¯t the assistance we just received. It was the fact that we had established a working rtionship with Halent. Perhaps the newly born Mist Alliance and the future Bardi emperor would be able to create an irond alliance.


    To be honest, this was just chance, or maybe it was fate. With these coincidences, the meeting between the most outstanding leaders of the Mist Alliance and the future Bardi emperor would have a huge effect on history.


    Of course, for me, being able to reach these agreements right now was hugely profitable. As for what came after...


    I also agreed upon a time for me to visit the Southern Sect. And after leaving the meeting, I turned around and spoke to Glina.


    ¡°Glina, in the future you need to remember to take extra precautions against Bardi and Emperor Orloss. I feel a chill whenever he smiles. I highly doubt that even ten percent of the words he speaks are real. Also, about that damned scheme of his, don¡¯t participate in it. I¡¯ll do it by myself, so if it fails, it¡¯s easy for me to run away. It would be nice if those agreements on paper are upheld and we receive those resources, but don¡¯t pin all your hopes on it. It¡¯s also difficult to say whether or not Halent can really obtain the position of emperor.¡±


    The moment we left, before the ink on the agreements even dried, I unhesitatingly confessed to Glina my distrust towards the Bardi royalty. However, Orloss was probably saying something simr to Halent right now.


    ¡°Yes, there¡¯s no room for personal feelings in national affairs. You can only talk about benefits when dealing with a mega empire.¡±


    ¡°...This sounds familiar.¡±


    ¡°You were the one who told me that.¡±


    I nodded, as it indeed sounded like something I would say. Since Glina had been paying attention to me, at least it meant she was working hard at learning politics. This was much more reassuring than Reyne¡¯s disinterest in all things notbat rted.


    Glina still didn¡¯t seem to figure some things out, however. After some hesitation, she asked me the question on her mind.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t like the princes are all useless. Isn¡¯t Emperor Orloss worried about letting the princes and domain lords ally with each other openly? What if one of the princes seeds in a rebellion and overthrows him? I feel like it¡¯s possible.¡±


    ¡°...If that really happens, he¡¯ll happily face his own demise. He¡¯s trying to raise the most venomous insect possible, so if he can raise a scorpion who surpasses him, he should be delighted to have a sessor who¡¯s even better than himself.¡±


    I refused Orloss¡¯s offer to send me back in a horse-drawn carriage. Right now, I needed to organize my thoughts while taking a walk.


    We didn¡¯t intend to return to the ambush airship. In the earlier discussion, I requested a personal estate which I intended to use as the temporary housing for our Nortnds envoy group. I especially chose a location close to Evelyn.


    From the powerful mystical sensations emanating from that cave, I felt that there was a not-so-simple reason why such a powerful dragon lived underground. And if the situation allowed, I wanted to ask Evelyn more questions.


    I felt that she was far more trustworthy than the sly old fox of an emperor, even if they were most likely in cahoots.


    As I walked on the streets of the royal district, the most obvious change was that all those ¡°assassins¡± had finally disappeared. Dragons constantly patrolled the skies, and on the ground, I was stopped numerous times by patrolling soldiers and knights to check my identity.


    They must have received their orders since these patrolling knights were respectful. Once they knew it was me, they immediately let me pass through.


    ¡°What do you think of all this, silly cat?¡±


    ¡°Milord, I think there¡¯s a tremendous secret behind everything. Yes, Milord! There¡¯s definitely something wrong here!¡± [1] 1


    At this moment, I confirmed that it was indeed a mistake to open up part of my memories to my magical pet. The silly cat¡¯s shamelessness andck of limits were getting more ridiculous by the day.


    ¡°Are you certain? Beifeng is almost here¡ª¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s something obviously off about all this patrolling. It can only mean that since the undead¡¯s ambush failed yesterday, they¡¯re still trying their best out there somewhere. Yep, those old guys aren¡¯t so easy to catch. It¡¯s quite possible these soldiers failed to catch them.¡±


    Just as I expected. Could it be said that Beifeng was now an unstoppable force to be reckoned with? This casual threat was so effective that Harloys immediately stopped joking around and acted serious¡ªeven I was astonished at this.


    ¡°You¡¯re still supposed to be a veteran Undead Lord. You¡¯re actually so scared of a youngster?¡±


    ¡°...Recently, the druid associations have been gathering evidence of his crimes. Perhaps this evidence should be called ¡®Record of seducing one hundred beasts¡¯ or ¡®Victims anthology.¡¯ This evidence has already been sent out to the druids, hunters, and ranger organizations in all the countries. Only now did I learn that while we were touring the countries, he was also touring andmitting countless racial crimes. Since there were far too many victims and the influence was far too negative, with even some druids falling victim, he¡¯s already be the public enemy of everyone in nature job sses. I¡¯ve heard that there¡¯s even a ¡®Beifeng hunting¡¯ organization that¡¯s been established. Right, do you want to read that ¡®Record of seducing¡¯? Eaglestorm received a copy two days ago. It¡¯s so thick you could use it as a brick to beat someone up. You¡¯ll understand if you read it.¡±


    ¡°Ha! Do you think I¡¯m an idiot? Would I really touch a book that would make me go blind?¡±


    I had already guessed what Beifeng had been doing since he often disappeared and suddenly reappeared. But considering that his personal abilities and loyalty to me were both outstanding, and the fact that his actions didn¡¯t break anyws¡ªyes, that was the important part. Not a single country¡¯sws forbid his actions¡ª from thew¡¯s perspective, ¡°It¡¯s not illegal so it¡¯s not a crime.¡± So people could only go with the angle that his actions were immoral and disturbed public order.


    But while we were all of the Law faction, the druids were extremist terrorists who wouldn¡¯t care for reason. Since even the typically neutral hunter and ranger organizations were now hunting Beifeng down, however, he must have really caused a major incident this time.


    I thought about how this was now a major incident, and I seriously started to consider how to pretend I wasn¡¯t rted to Beifeng if the druids came to me about it.


    ¡°The Nature Alliance? Last time, the person being hunted by the entire nature faction was the gue King from the Cmity Rankings. I never expected such a major personage to appear among my subordinates. Perhaps one day Beifeng will be able to reach the top ten of the Cmity Rankings and surpass me... Should I try learning from Orloss and be happy that he might surpass me?¡±


    Should I just beat Beifeng up and then give him away to trade for reward money? He would likely survive any situation no matter what, anyways, and I could give him half the reward money. Perhaps doing this several times would even make people stop hunting him...


    ¡°Brother Beifeng.¡±


    As I was randomly thinking such things, Glina suddenly spoke up.


    ¡°Hmph! I know you have a good rtionship with him, but this time don¡¯t even think of begging for mercy for his sake...¡±


    ¡°No! I¡¯m saying, isn¡¯t that Brother Beifeng?¡±


    Alright then. A ck jacket covered most of his body, and a wide-brimmed hat covered his Dracon features. His ck attire made him appear wretched and suspicious, while his ck lizard tail, which had a pink butterfly bowtie on it, exposed his real identity. If this wasn¡¯t royal district, where ¡°suspicious people¡± walked around everywhere, someone surely would have called the guards.


    Right now, he was surrounded by several knights. They seemed to be discussing something.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s pretend not to see anything. I suppose I could use diplomatic channels to get him out of jail tomorrow.¡±


    When I walked closer, I discovered that the knights weren¡¯t arresting this pervert, as I had expected. Instead...


    ¡°Five hundred silver coins! I can¡¯t go any lower! Just look at this printing, this expression, this artwork¡ªit¡¯s wonderful! This is top-quality stuff.¡±


    ¡°Hahaha! Brother Beifeng is selling porn books.¡±


    ¡°...You know what porn books are?¡±


    ¡°There are many porn books sold in Sulfur Mountain City... Ah! I definitely wasn¡¯t collecting books with you and Mister Adam as the main characters! The two of you aren¡¯t right for each other at all! Such a ridiculous pairing.¡±


    Alright then, I gave up. I really didn¡¯t have a single normal subordinate.


    ¡°She collected books with you and Clint or you and Xueti as the main characters... You need to do something about the porn books. But even Sulfur Mountain City Lord Annie is reading them so it¡¯s probably impossible to do anything. Right, I¡¯ve heard that they¡¯re even having numerous ¡°book-selling conventions¡± every year, just like the 87th in your memory. [2] 2 I heard that atst year¡¯s 12th, Momo sold thirteen thousand books with rather heavy tastes, breaking a new record... I won¡¯t tell you who she used as the model for those porn books¡ªyou can probably guess.¡±


    Harloys instantly sold Glina out while stabbing me right in the heart. I didn¡¯t want to guess at all!


    Actually, when I left Sulfur Mountain City, it was the most peaceful area in the Underground. This meant that all war artists were out of work, plus there were many years of influence there from a transmigrator like me so Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s culture and artwork were extremely developed. However, they appeared to have developed a bit too much.


    ¡°These bastards, I...¡±


    When I thought about it, it really was impossible for me to do anything. The current City Lord was Annie, and the Church of Law was led by its religious leaders. I didn¡¯t have a status I could intervene with, so I would be unable to issue any documents like ¡°330 rmendations for improving the morality of Sulfur Mountain City.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t manage Sulfur Mountain City, but I can manage this bastard in front of me!¡±


    Just as I angrily walked over, Beifeng saw me and trembled before taking his books and running. Yet his customers pulled on the books, causing some books to drop on the floor. Various naughty scenes were revealed.


    With only one nce, I understood why he ran. I then silently unsheathed my sword.


    ¡°Tsk¡ªtsk¡ªtsk¡ªa Princess Peach collection, personally drawn by Momo? Mega-limited gold edition? Excellent artwork, even someone like me is a little moved... Eh, theter content is rather strange. Isn¡¯t that the list of victims¡¯ pictures from the ¡®Beifeng evidence collection¡¯? Beifeng, you¡¯re trying to teach your ways and scam money at the same time?! Reading halfway through to suddenly see such a thing? They¡¯ll all be eunuchs or perverts¡ªthis is ten times worse than poison!¡±


    Beifeng Herault didn¡¯t have a chance to respond to Harloys, who was reveling in the situation. He was trying his best to survive the rampaging attack of the Sword Saint, whose eyes were bloodshot and veins were bulging.


    ¡°Boss, I¡¯m sorry! It was all to increase the sales and have everyone understand my personal interests! I tried various different girls on the cover, but yours was the best-selling one!¡±


    ¡°...You still dare to run? Taste my anti-evil sh!¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Anyone know what this is referencing?


    [2] ED/N: The number probably means something else, but both IL and I are drawing a nk.

 Chapter 391

    Chapter 391: Burial


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    Three days had passed since the negotiation with the Bardi emperor. The city had returned to calm and quiet after the small storm of Slimes from earlier. From what I saw, however, this seemed to only be the calm before an even bigger storm.


    ¡°Mills Mn was the most pious of Bardi princes. Ever diligent and conscientious, Mills was earnest, assiduous and bled for his country. He was deeply treasured by our Orloss the Thirteenth, but today he was assassinated by underhanded assassins. Those evil viins even disguised themselves as our Mage Country allies in an attempt to sow dissent between us. But, in front of our wise majesty Orloss, how can such puny tactics seed? There¡¯s only one truth¡ªthe murderer was... the Holy Church!¡±


    Although this was ridiculous, it was the ¡°truth¡± we wanted to see.


    The issue of Mills¡¯ assassination had been settled. He was murdered by the Holy Church¡¯s assassins. As for the so-called Dark Elf assassins, that was nothing more than a tactic used to me Bardi¡¯s ¡°best friend,¡± the Mage Country.


    When the citizens saw this announcement posted on the walls and in advertisements, their expressions were pretty much a perfect example of ¡°The world changes so quickly that I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on.¡±


    Of course, rumors were flying everywhere.


    Rumors would sometimes be useful, such as when you were trying to shake the foundations of a country. Other times, they could only be gossip that not even tiny newspapers would dare to publish, such as now.


    The burial took ce the very next day. It seemed rushed in order to make this incident go away.


    From a certain standpoint, burying Mills with so many des was an honor he didn¡¯t deserve. When the Bardi royal knights cleaned out Mills¡¯s home the next day, they discovered¡ªto their surprise¡ªevidence that he had been working with the undead. With the information they discovered, they executed another two princes.


    The reason for these princes to ally with the undead? Actually, it was simple. What the princes wanted more than anything right now was to have powerful forces at theirmand, and the undead were naturally powerful. Plus, with the previous friendly rtionship the undead had with the nobles, it would be easy to ally themselves with them.


    These princes not only protected and hid the undead, but they even provided bloodthirsty human sacrifices. From the innocent citizens and the torture room discovered in Mills¡¯s basement, the fact that Mills had been judged by Yawen¡¯s Anti-Crime sh as ¡°incredibly evil¡± was no mistake.


    Those rescued said he had long fallen into such evil ways. He secretly worshipped the Evil God of Pain, which helped him speedily increase in power by personally ¡°using¡± countless human sacrifices.


    ¡°...He used to be a true military man. He once fought a bloody battle at the brink for the sake of his allies for two days and two nights. He once swore to me that he would change the Bardi military¡¯s rotten and inefficient system where only nobles hadmand. But now... I was the one who did him wrong by adopting him as a prince.¡±


    The old emperor sat still for an entire morning in his garden after hearing his servant¡¯s report. In the end, that was all he could say.


    Perhaps a hero like Mills¡ªwho had returned alive from a hellish battlefield¡ªhad an adamant will that could resist against even the most despairing of situations. But after tasting wealth and authority for ten years, he unknowingly became the type of man he had hated the most.


    ¡°...Give him the best burial possible.¡±


    Perhaps this was the final act of sympathy and kindness the old emperor could give to this potential sessor of his, one of Orloss¡¯s top candidates.


    But the burial on the next day ended up being for three princes instead of one. Of course, it was proimed that the Holy Church¡¯s assassins had killed all three heroic princes in an attempt to sew discord and even start a war.


    And so the Holy Church once again took the me for something they didn¡¯t do... wait a moment¡ªit could be said that it was their fault still.


    Humans were a type of creature that instinctively preferred the light. The God of Light, God of Holy Light and others would naturally receive advantages from this when spreading their teachings. Perhaps this was an instinct connected to the sun, but when the Holy Church, which represented Light and Justice, ruled over more than half of humanity¡¯s mentality and religion, this in a way meant that the Holy Church had absolute authority.


    Why¡¯s that? All the Holy Church had to do was mention that a certain way of thinking or a certain event was right and just. Anyone else¡¯s protests would be meaningless. There was also the fact that those who disagreed would typically disagree with each other, so the Holy Church simply had to control at least one-third of all humans¡¯ way of thinking. And in the world of Eich, people¡¯s belief in the Holy Light far surpassed one-third of humanity.


    Absolute authority represented absolute control, and what did absolute divine authority mean?


    ¡°...You Holy Light Cardinals seem so proper on the surface and im all your actions are authorized by the God of Holy Light? Then, if your reasoning and morality are guaranteed by the God of Holy Light, then who guarantees the God of Holy Light¡¯s logic and justice? All I can see are those pretending to be good on the surface while secretly acting no better than beasts; thieves and scoundrels who pretend to have divine authority. With your logic, since all you hypocritical viins haven¡¯t yet received divine punishment, doesn¡¯t that mean your so-called venerated True God has lost his sense of reason? Is he dead? Or did he go insane as well?¡±


    This was a quote from a certain ¡°maniacal sphemer¡± whose name was purged from the Holy Church¡¯s annals. Even without him knowing it, his words had spread after his death. This ¡°desecrator¡± was a former pious Cardinal, and hadughed maniacally while he had been burned at the stake. His crime was that he had killed several of his fellow Cardinals who liked to do unspeakable acts with young boys. He even killed his own teacher for this crime.


    But I felt that this unlucky Cardinal¡¯s biggest crime was that he told the truth: that the God of Holy Light had gone insane.


    Perhaps it was human instinct to worship the light. However, another human instinct was to break free from restraints and seek freedom. Plus, there would forever be inevitable conflict between royal and divine authority. The most important part was that the Holy Church, which had absolute divine authority, had begun rotting on the inside. In this current revolutionary generation, the Holy Church was still clung on to its outdated ways; of course there would be an endless amount of resistance.


    No ordinary nt would be able to survive in a desert with no water and earth. Yet stubborn seeds could always be seen sprouting from cliffside cracks.


    ¡°...The Pure Holy Light requires no belief in a False God. The Church of Holy Light worships nothing more than a False God borrowing the name of Holy Light. Prince Mills, Prince Masi and Prince Can were all holy believers of the Pure Holy Light. Their deaths were caused by the Evil Gods who feared true belief!¡±


    In front of Bardi¡¯s major nobles and merchants, Head Priest Amoya of the Southern Sect angrily ranted against the Holy Church¡¯s hypocrisy and shamelessness. At the same time, he disyed the fact that he still possessed the power of Holy Light.


    ¡°Only the Light is eternal! In the name of our first pope, I dere that these three princes have valiantly sacrificed themselves for our cause. We shall take revenge for their sake, fight for the cause of justice, and battle for the Pure Holy Light!¡±


    A coincidence could easily create history, and since there was an opportunity, the Church of Pure Holy Light entered the stage of history. Head Priest Amoya became Pope Amoya the First, and these three evil viinous princes became holy believers.


    The backdrop to all this was Emperor Orloss, who was crying many tears for losing three of his adopted princes, and Archduke Halent, who was leading the ceremony and following ancient Bardi tradition by carving a tiny scar on his face with a knife. As he did this, he swore to take revenge, angrily shouting in response to the citizens¡¯ wishes.


    ¡°...We have lived here for countless generations, but those hypocritical viins dared to dere us as heretics, invade our country and kill our citizens? Fine then! Since they want war, we¡¯ll give them war! Bardi shall have eternal victory!¡±


    Once Halent¡¯s speech reached its end, this burial ceremony transformed into a morale-raising event for stirring up war sentiments. Once the citizens began chanting ¡°Bardi, eternal victory!¡± war was unavoidable.


    Meanwhile, I was in the crowd, concealed under a cape. I was covering my mouth, doing my best not tough out loud whilementing to Glina beside me.


    ¡°The honest and direct Halent? The sincerely grieving Orloss? The holy Mills? The rtionship between holy justice and evil is so confusing. This is the family of that sly old fox, who¡¯s famously known as a scorpion. This is why I feel human nature is so hard to understand and why humans are so interesting.¡±

 Chapter 392

    Chapter 392: Two Battlefronts


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    From a certain standpoint, the recent incidents had greatly helped Orloss out.


    It wasn¡¯t that the incidents had helped him formally dere war against the Holy Church. This was going to happen regardless. The true result of the Mills incident was that Orloss made up his mind and chose Halent as his sessor.


    Since the sessor had been determined, the other candidates naturally became unnecessary. And so the burial ceremony transformed into a military ceremony¡ªthe numerous princes were ¡°deeply influenced by Prince Mills¡¯ example of serving in the military and volunteered to follow in his footsteps to go to the most dangerous battles on the frontlines as only lowest-level ordinary soldiers to fight for our country.¡±


    And that was how these princes ¡°volunteered¡± to join the military. They became themanders of only minor squadrons at either Nightrain City¡¯s frontlines¡ªwhere it was a meat grinder¡ªor the eastern battlefront in the newly formed army to fight against the remnants of the Holy Army vanguard and be glorious frontline cannon fodder.


    Orloss didn¡¯t take away all the princes¡¯ hopes, however. He didn¡¯t publicize the fact that he had chosen Halent as his sessor. He even dered that Bardi¡¯s next emperor needed to have excellent military talent and make great military achievements. He also allowed to each prince to take a maximum of ten of their strongest followers. If they had sufficiently strong followers and could obtain enoughbat achievements, perhaps the emperor position could still be theirs.


    Of course, Halent was the City Lord of Nightrain City. He had arge squadron of Dragon Knights under him, while the other princes didn¡¯t even have an entirebat squadron¡ªfor a prince to overturn the situation would be highly unlikely. It would only be possible in theory.


    ¡°Damn it! What have I been doing? I should have focused more on killing off all mypetitors. Otherwise, I wouldn¡¯t have been forced into doing this.¡±


    Thanks to Orloss¡¯s behind the scenes maniptions, the princes, angry at the situation, thought in such a manner.


    Of course, not all the princes were focused on obtaining the position of emperor. Some of the princes had already be aplished in other areas. For example, the Thirty-Ninth Prince Aent was quite skilled as an artist. He even financially supported many poor artists who couldn¡¯t find other work, and was famous as an appraiser. At this time, Orloss gave an order for him to be the vice chairman of the Bardi Artists Association.


    Orloss¡¯s meaning was obvious. It would be impossible for Prince Aent to be the emperor, but he could at least enjoy being a pampered prince for the rest of his life.


    From a certain standpoint, someone like Aent was the true intelligent one. With the allure of the emperor¡¯s position, even the smartest youth would selectively be foolish. Only very few princes abandoned the fight to be emperor and focused on other things instead.


    Of course, some princes had other ideas, wanting to prematurely determine the sessor rather than being forced to be cannon fodder.


    Plenty of princes had connections with other factions and domain lords. Several tried to bring emergency backup military support. However, a giant squadron of royal knights along with numerous Adult Dragons escorted the princes to the frontlines, so most of the princes abandoned thoughts of resisting.


    Only most¡ªso a few still tried to resist? Did some princes rebel early on? That¡¯s right. There were obviously some princes who viewed the emperor¡¯s throne as more important than anything else. The end result? Naturally, the ¡°the Holy Church¡¯s assassins¡± appeared again several more times. Perhaps another mass burial ceremony would be required next month.


    When internal conflicts intensified to a certain degree, a typical political maneuver would be to focus the citizens¡¯ attention on outside conflicts¡ªthis wasmon in both this world and my original one.


    Nightrain City would now receive the most reinforcements it had ever received. One-fourth of all domain lords in Bardi sent their personal troops. Several dozen princes and their followers arrived to be low-rankedmanders on the frontlines, and the newly-born Southern Sect took over the Holy Church¡¯s job of fighting against the undead. This was an opportunity for the Southern Sect to prove themselves to the world.


    Meanwhile, on the eastern front, Halent took his personal troops and an army of almost two hundred thousand to fight against the invading Holy Army.


    This seemed inconceivable? Halent was the City Lord of Nightrain City, and the troops still guarding there were all his personal followers, so why was he sent to the other battlefront? Didn¡¯t this seem like one wasmanding at random?


    This seemed inexplicable, but it was actually simple to understand after some exining. This was, in fact, due to non-military considerations.


    The current Halent was no longer just a ¡°general¡± who could be allowed to charge into battle at the frontlines. He was now the ¡°crown prince¡± and a critical pir of the country. Unlike smaller countries that still used princes as generals, major countries preferred consistency and authority. So-called face meant concrete benefits. Since Halent was now the crown prince and would inherit the throne, he was indispensable. He couldn¡¯t be allowed to lose a battle or die in war.


    Orloss couldn¡¯t afford to let Halent fight a losing battle, either. Otherwise, it could cause a chain reaction that would lead to the diminishing of royal authority, something even a mega empire would have trouble bearing. This was especially so since the domain lords were waiting for an opportunity. If the royalty suffered any losses in battle, those with ambitions would naturally act.


    That was why, for all major countries, the emperor wouldn¡¯t do anything like personally go out intobat unless it was absolutely necessary. Although the emperor personally leading would greatly increase morale, there was also the consideration that if the emperor lost, or was taken captive, a terrible chain reaction would ur.


    That¡¯s right¡ªlose. Although the southern battlefront against the undead received far more manpower than the eastern battlefront, there was the possibility that the Undead Emperors might intervene. Plus, the previous battle there involved the mega powerful Titan Giants and True Gods, which obviously escted the level of the Holy War. Even though the Bardi army on the southern battlefront was stronger, there was no guarantee of victory.


    Meanwhile, on the eastern front, although a famous general led the Holy Army, they were now badly frightened after being attacked by the dragons. They were also stuck deep within Bardi, with their backup support andmunication cut off. Plus, the royalty sent out their elite squadrons and ace job ss soldiers¡ªif Halent still couldn¡¯t win, his gilded position as crown prince would no longer be his.


    Actually, when I heard that Halent¡¯s army even had two Dragon World leaders and more than ten Ancient Dragons, I knew that there would be no possibility of him losing¡ªeven if he wanted to.


    ¡°Don¡¯t mention Orloss; now, even the dragons won¡¯t allow him to lose. After cleaning the remaining enemies in the east that have already been so weakened, he can continue to the south and steal morebat achievements. If the princes lose in the south, it¡¯s the perfect chance for Halent to arrive in the nick of time and save the country in a perfect reversal. There¡¯s no need to worry that Halent won¡¯t have enough forces at his disposal. Orloss will definitely activate the full military might of Bardi if the southern front loses. The true foundational strength of a mega empire in an all-out war is frightening to behold.¡±


    ¡°What if the southern battlefront wins against the undead? Won¡¯t Halent seem like he achieved less inparison, then?¡±


    ¡°No, that¡¯s even better because Halent is still the City Lord of Nightrain City. The military leaders he left behind there are his direct followers, so it¡¯ll still be his credit if they win. They¡¯re using his preparations and defenses against the undead, so it¡¯ll be his achievement.¡±


    ¡°How sly. So you¡¯re saying that no matter if Bardi wins or loses the southern battlefront, Halent will profit more than anyone else in the end? That¡¯s a perfect example of the house always being the winner!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s indeed quite sly. But this is politics. Halent seeding the throne is what will benefit Bardi the most.¡±


    There was another benefit of choosing Halent, the dragon descendant, as the next emperor. The dragons had already used concrete actions to show the maximum amount of friendliness possible for them towards Orloss and Bardi. Perhaps Halent had always been one of the top candidates for the throne simply because of his rtionship with the dragons.


    Now that he was named in secret as the sessor, this future Bardi emperor had apparently be a bridge between Bardi and the dragons. Considering the harsh reality that the Holy War was upon us, teaming up was somethingmon. The Bardi Empire and the Dragon World would be ever closer.


    ¡°Orloss is indeed a sly old fox. He sees so far into the future.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s probably rted to the ¡®prophecies¡¯ youleft behind. You must have spoken about the severe consequences of Armageddon. Otherwise, why would he possibly prepare for the absolute worst?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t remember what I said back in the day, but my guess is that I tried to make it sound as bad as possible. That¡¯s what all prophets are like. Make the future sound like Armageddon ising. That¡¯s how others will treat you as their savior. And, with my personality, I probably even told them the truth.¡±


    The seed I nted so casually back then had now be a tall skyscraper tree. From the current situation, it can be seen that Bardi had already escaped the terrible end they met in the game¡¯s history. If the Bardi Empire didn¡¯t copse, the Mage Country and other nearby countries would have a much better time in the future cmities. Everything seemed to be improving.


    Plus, with the Southern Sect formally revealing themselves, and how the Holy Army on the eastern front was destined to be eradicated, what could be better news? The most delightful news would always be that of your worst enemies having a hard time. Recently, my mood had been excellent.


    ¡°You don¡¯t intend to interfere?¡±


    ¡°Why would I interfere with another family¡¯s affairs? Rather than that, I¡¯d prefer to think more about my own future. Besides, that sly old fox doesn¡¯t want me to get involved.¡±


    ¡°Eh?¡±


    ¡°The Southern Sect. I just chatted a few words with Amoya before that old Orloss personally interjected and led the conversation elsewhere. Orloss basically had ¡®let¡¯s prevent Rnd from stealing people under me¡¯ written all over his face. He even intentionally made me y chess, chat and drink tea with him. But he was so awful at chess. He lost more than twenty games in a row but still wouldn¡¯t let me go and wasted half of my night.¡±


    Although the Church of Pure Holy Light was established in Bardi and had an excellent rtionship with the Bardi royalty, Orloss probably considered the fact that I was technically the true leader of this church. And religious believers were always ¡°unpredictable¡± in their beliefs... Fine then. Directly speaking, fervent believers would be capable of doing almost anything for the sake of their beliefs. If I said something like ¡°The Holy Light beckons you to the Nortnds, the true home of Holy Light,¡± Orloss wouldn¡¯t be able to even cry. It was normal for him to worry.


    ¡°...You¡¯re not angry about others misunderstanding you as wanting to steal away their people? Your temper is getting much better.¡±


    ¡°No, he didn¡¯t misunderstand me at all. In fact, that sly old fox even saw the contract I had prepared.¡±


    ¡°You really were trying to steal his people from under him! Can you have any shame?¡±


    ¡°Shame? What¡¯s that? Can I eat it? Why can¡¯t I steal people from him? We have a bad rtionship with the Holy Church already despite the God of Holy Light allying with the God of Law. Besides, the God of Holy Light himself doesn¡¯t care about anything the Holy Church does. We can definitely just take in the entire Church of Pure Holy Light. Holy Knights and Holy Light priests are excellent job sses to have in war, and our warriors also need the Holy Light¡¯s support.


    ¡°...So Orloss was still more skilled in the end as you lost out here.¡±


    ¡°Who said that? I seeded. Who cares if Orloss was right in front of me? You can¡¯t stop two Holy Light job ss members from exchanging their ideas about Holy Light, can you? Hmph! Even though that chess maniac forced me to y chess with him all night, I simultaneously won my Holy Light debate against Amoya the First easily while also defeating that sly old fox in chess. I¡¯m amazing, aren¡¯t I?¡±


    My mood became even more jubnt as I recalled how that sly old fox was obviously holding in hisints while still doing his best to maintain a smile.


    ¡°...You are indeed amazing, especially with how shameless you can be! Could the Southern Sect really be intending on immigrating and abandoning their excellent base in Bardi?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible, of course. Amoya and his Cardinals that have reached this stage aren¡¯t idiots. But they¡¯ll soon be establishing various branch churches in the Mist Alliance and start spreading the teachings of the Pure Holy Light. Amoya also agreed to have his number one disciple go to East Mist to be the local head priest there. Also, more than two thousand of their mid-ranked elites will be going as well. The future Mist Alliance will no longer becking in Holy Light job ss members. For the Southern Sect, this is a great chance to establish a backup base and widen their influence, a win-win for both of us. There¡¯s no need for us to worry that they won¡¯t do their best. Orloss can¡¯t even find a reason to stop this.¡±


    ¡°...You¡¯re not afraid of religious conflicts in the north? We already have the Church of Law there, along with the undead.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not afraid at all. I¡¯ve been recently visiting the Southern Sect many times to confirm their teachings and also confirm their attitude. As expected of their Holy Codex which I personally wrote; although some things have changed over the times, it¡¯s still quite moderate. ¡®Do not judge anyone guilty because of only their species or birthright. The Holy Light should be as warm as the sun; it should not burn any existence for simply existing. The Holy Light only punishes evil based on wicked actions.¡¯ Perhaps this is how Holy Light is truly supposed to be.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s just how youunderstand Holy Light. However, the fact that we can now have Holy Knights who don¡¯t hate the undead is indeed great news. You going over to the Southern Sect wasn¡¯t only to confirm their teachings, was it? At least, when you ¡®won your Holy Light debate against Amoya,¡¯ you were probably trying to modify their teachings.¡±


    The silly cat rolled her eyes at me. Even though she clearly asked a question, she said it as a statement. She had seen through everything.


    ¡°Heh heh¡ªeven now I still have the chance to modify their teachings. Once they truly start spreading their teachings, it¡¯ll be impossible to change things even if I wanted to. Since I¡¯m the ¡®original creator¡¯ standing right in front of them, Amoya is just like a ¡®fan fiction author¡¯ who¡¯s seriously asking me for my understanding of my own teachings. I intend to give them my full understanding of the Holy Light so that they will modify their teachings in a way that¡¯s eptable to them. This is a majorly troublesome issue, as Amoya is soon going to leave together with the army. I need to use my time well. When that sly old fox emperor leaves the church, I¡¯m going to go back right away to chat more with Amoya.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s good that everything is going so sessfully. But everything being so sessful is rather strange. I feel like something is off.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t mention it! I¡¯ve been feeling like something is off as well. Since when has my luck ever been so good? Things have been so sessful recently that I¡¯m scared. Let me think, if there really might be a problem somewhere, the most likely one is that perhaps Halent will somehow lose his battle against the Holy Army vanguard in the east¡ªwhy are you covering my mouth?¡±


    ¡°Shut up! You¡¯ll jinx things! Don¡¯t you think you¡¯ve already jinxed enough things in your life?¡±

 Chapter 393 - Cultivation

    <h4>Chapter 393: Cultivation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    In a small, hidden yard, a ¡°battle¡± between a man and a woman was nearing its end. The woman nowy on the ground, moaning helplessly.


    ¡°Have you had enough? We¡¯ve been doing this all night, and I can¡¯t take it anymore. You just take some pills if you¡¯re tired, but I haven¡¯t had a single moment of rest. I¡¯ve never seen anyone as shameless as you.¡±


    Only arge silk scarf covered her petite body, but right now it was drenched in body fluid. Her childlike face was flush from exerting all her energy. Should I be proud of myself for making the infamous Snake Archduchess have such a cute and helpless expression?


    The human body had a limitless number of secrets. High-level undead would imitate human physical phenomena not only to enjoy themselves but also to further develop their bodies¡¯ potential. The Snake Archduchess had, at a minimum, already restored numerous senses and the ability to produce certain fluid.


    ¡°Haha! Since you can¡¯t take it anymore, justy there and enjoy the experience. Yep, open up your legs andy there¡ªdamn it! Who chucked that brick at me?¡±


    Seeing the Snake Archduchess beg for mercy and hearing her pant and moan had made meugh out loud in great satisfaction, but my euphoria was ruined because someone had just thrown a brick at me.


    ¡°Stop speaking in such a ridiculous manner! There are minors here! Is it really that fun to talk as if something censored is going on? Why the hell are you narrating with the phrase ¡°drenched with body fluid?¡± Can¡¯t you just say sweat instead of fluid to prevent misunderstandings!?¡±


    As I swept my gaze around, I noticed Glina, Tid and the other minors looking at me with great interest. Damn, what was with those high magnification binocrs and memory crystals? Did they intend to make copies of this scene and sell them for money...? If it sold well, they needed to remember to give me a cut of the profits!


    ¡°...I couldn¡¯t help but get in the mood with how fun her words were. Alexandra, get up for our hundred and twenty-first round of training. Let¡¯s continue. This time, it needs tost for more than thirty seconds!¡±


    That¡¯s right, this was nothing more than simple martial training. I didn¡¯t have the habit of torturing my prisoners. As for anything else, of course I wouldn¡¯t do anything when all my subordinates were watching me... Cough¡ªI just wanted a pretty female maid who looked great in maid attire. Was that such a wrong desire for a man to have?


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªgetting back on topic, nothing that needed to be censored was going on in my new private estate¡¯s yard. There was no BDSM or anything like that going on here. I did indeed want to try something out and had great fun creating some of the most famous Chinese torture instruments out of ice, but the Snake Archduchess unhesitatingly told me everything before I got a chance to use them.


    ¡°You surrendered so easily? Where¡¯s your honor and loyalty? What about the trials and tribtions of the ascetic cultivation your physical body went through? Your monk¡¯s unyielding heart? How could you surrender just like this! I won¡¯t even have a sense of aplishment!¡±


    ¡°Honor? How can someone dead have any honor? Loyalty? The master I swore loyalty to is dead.¡±


    Alright then. She was so self-confident about surrendering and so logical that I couldn¡¯t even find anything to say.


    Actually, with my previous Senator subordinates as examples, Undead Lords¡¯ concept of loyalty and honor was, to begin with, unreliable. Since they had already died once, they took everything vague¡ªsuch as reputation¡ªlightly and were only stubborn about few things. Yep, directly speaking, they were basically a group of bastards with no shame and no beliefs.


    In the Undead nes, the conflicts between Undead Lords would always end in the victor obtaining everything the loser possessed. The strong ruling over the weak and thew of the jungle was deep within their blood. Surrendering wasmonce, especially when the other party was an Undead Emperor.


    ¡°I already tried my best against you. That pays off what I owe Lord Aso for canceling my soul contract before he died.¡±


    Of course, I didn¡¯t believe in this information that I obtained too easily. The undead had their methods ofmunication. While I could obtain information directly through drawing out her soul, that would be too much of a waste. Using a master/subordinate contract rtionship was the mostmon and effective.


    No Undead Lord who was even slightly prideful would be willing to sign a soul contract where the servant would die if the master died. Yet Aso had obtained the loyalty of these prideful Undead Lords. No matter what I threatened Alexandra with, she was still unwilling to sign a soul contract.


    I tried reducing my requirement and making this Myth-ranked Undead Lord sign a servant contract with me where she would be forced to obey my orders. Even that was a rather difficult task. All the Chinese torture methods I showed her were ineffective. However, when I brought out my Cold mes of Despair and threatened her with eternal frozenness, she obedientlyplied.


    Although she surrendered and readily sold out her remainingpanions, we still didn¡¯t obtain much.


    The Snake Archduchess had arrived in the mortal ne for less than a year. She was simply an elite Undead Lord under Aso who could act independently. It sounded nice as she had great authority, but the downside was that she was also just amander with few subordinates who had suddenly been transferred to a foreign location.


    All the original undead contact points would definitely no longer be used now that she was captured. Plus, Aso¡¯s elites had mostly been eliminated, and Alexandra didn¡¯t know much to begin with, either. The most useful information she had was regarding the other Undead Emperors and Undead Lords¡¯ personalities and abilities, but none of this would be useful for the time being.


    ¡°I won¡¯t take care of anyone useless here. In order to work for your worth, you must pay me with your physical body... Why are you all looking at me like that? Did I say something wrong? It¡¯s so hard for me to find an opponent like this. She¡¯s perfect for practicing martial arts. Come, let¡¯s go for another round.¡±


    For some reason, I seemed to be having a problemtely with strange wording which would easily be misconstrued.


    But it was true that the Snake Archduchess¡¯s greatest value to me was as a training partner for cultivating martial arts.


    ¡°If it weren¡¯t for my new dragon armor, I would have already died several hundred times.¡±


    I always loved to analyze things after a battle because any problems exposed by actualbat would typically be fatal down the road. In games, it would be easy enough to proceed thanks to the ability to save and load. If someone died in a game, their experience from dying would help them the next time they faced the same battle. And they¡¯d even be able to keep their equipment and previous experience. Unfortunately, there weren¡¯t many such chances in the real world. Nor could I afford to wait around and endlessly reincarnate; otherwise, a perfect version of me would appear eventually... whoops, I seem to be getting off topic.


    Cough¡ªbefore this battle against the Undead Lords, I never expected I would be suppressed so pitifully by meleebat. Every single move I used was predicted, and even if I instantly changed my move or made up a new attack, my moves would still be perfectly read. Not only that, I was unable to defend against any of Alexandra¡¯s attacks. If it weren¡¯t for my armor¡¯s astonishing defensive prowess, I would have instantly lost.


    I would have lost countless times already if fighting was simply apetition of martial arts techniques.


    True, monks were known as the demonic meleebat ss, but it was ridiculous how I had so pitifully lost in technique. Since I didn¡¯tprehend the gap between us, why not ask her to teach me?


    Of course, Alexandra had refused to do so when I asked her! She probably felt that... well... she had just surrendered, after all, so she didn¡¯t want to listen to my orders immediately. That would make her seem too shameless. So I showed her my modification techniques that I used previously on Harloys and told her that I was no longer satisfied with Slimes. I then asked Alexandra if she preferred to be a snail or an earthworm, and then she obediently helped me train and taught me.


    ¡°Your sword techniques? They¡¯re not bad. I¡¯m really not being sarcastic. Your foundational techniques must be from the ancient royal style. Every move you make for each sword strike is proper. Plus, you have pretty goodbat instincts and talent. It wouldn¡¯t be wrong to call you a sword genius rarely seen in a hundred years. Yep, you¡¯re pretty good among humans.¡±


    Alright then. Thosest few words pretty much invalidated everything before. That¡¯s right¡ªI was pretty good, but only ¡°among humans.¡± I was a ¡°sword genius rarely seen in a hundred years,¡± but, again, only among humans.


    I didn¡¯t get angry at this and simply listened with my full attention. This was the cold, harsh truth. Since the Snake Archduchess was capable of singlehandedly suppressing me in meleebat to the point where I didn¡¯t even know which direction was north, it would be good for me to listen to her. Besides, with my experience, I felt it would always be best to listen to the expert in their specialized field. Any expert¡¯s criticism would typically be beneficial for the listener.


    ¡°...Yep, you¡¯re pretty good among humans, but from your fight with me, you should be able to see that your sword techniques are focused on human opponents. At most, they¡¯re suited for fighting enemies no bigger than three or four meters. These sword techniquesck imagination and adaptability, which is why I can easily predict your moves. All I need to do is watch your eyes and muscles¡¯ movements and I can ascertain the direction of your next move.¡±


    This was indeed a problem. But how was I supposed to solve it? I didn¡¯t have a boneless body like she did, nor was I capable of distorting my joints in strange ways. How was I supposed to be imaginative?


    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me with such a doubtful expression. I have evidence for my words. Have you ever met an opponent who suddenly cut off his own limb and tossed it towards you as a bomb? Have you ever fought someone covered in sticky oil that will glue your skin to his upon contact? Have you ever seen someone with an indestructible body, whose only weakness was on the soles of his feet? Do you know the advantages of me choosing such a flexible body? Before I formed my fighting style back in the day, not only did I experience countless battles, but I even challenged thousands of monasteries and fought against several thousand legendary monks.¡±


    The Snake Archduchess paused for a moment and revealed a somewhat scared expression, as if she recalled some painful memory.


    ¡°...Actually, I¡¯m not much to speak of, either. Don¡¯t think my meleebat ability has reached the peak. In my thousands of battles, I¡¯ve lost several tens of times in meleebat alone, and only barely escaped each time. In fact, one individual even managed to send out nine energy waves with one punch. Just a single exchange of blows shattered all my joints. If I wasn¡¯t a Blood Tribe member, I think I¡¯d have been crippled for life.¡±


    As expected, monks would be more demonic as they got older. The only way to deal with them was to never let them get close to you. The lucky part, however, was that monks rarely lived long lives. I suddenly recalled Emordilorcan for some reason¡ªperhaps his monk fighting form was an imitation of some opponent he had been unable to defeat.


    ¡°In the Undead nes, the conflicts between the undead are unending, all in order to obtain chances to level up and survive. There are at minimum three others¡ªalso Myth-rank Undead Lords¡ªwho can easily defeat me, and two Undead Emperors far surpass me in martial arts. Most of them still use their human form, but theirbat techniques are at a level I can¡¯t even reach. And they still can defeat me by simply using their natural talent abilities.¡±


    I had originally been rather proud of my sword techniques¡ª being able to so be a Sword Saint had been the best proof of my talent. But now it would seem that all that was only considered ¡°talented among humans.¡± Three hundred plus years ago, this was plenty to be proud of, and more than enough to dominate the world. But now...


    ¡°This won¡¯t be enough considering my future opponents.¡±


    My future opponents would only be stronger. I would likely meet monsters and demons who were thousands or tens of thousands of years old. No matter how powerful the strength behind my magic sword, it would all be meaningless if I was unable to hit my opponent. In that case, it was extremely necessary for me to improve my sword techniques¡ªone of the important foundational strengths of a warrior.


    ¡°It¡¯s all in practical battles. You should be able to tell at your level. umtedbat experience will bring about changes in you sooner orter. Your foundations are quite solid, but you obviouslyck practicalbat experience. Right, there are all sorts of ancient sword techniques out there. Some people have been able to use pure sword techniques to achieve results even magic can¡¯t mimic.¡±


    I once again thought about the sword techniques from the immemorial and great immemorial generations I could exchange for through my System or the Justice Points system. Then, I looked at my Justice Points wallet, which was just about empty. Recently, both the silly cat and my System had been ¡°helping¡± me spend my money, so I had fewer and fewer points stocked up. I originally had enough to purchase half of a book, but now I barely had enough to buy a single page. I almost wanted to cry at the thought.


    ¡°I wonder if Beyana will sell just one page to me. Cough¡ªcough¡ªthis is so embarrassing; let¡¯s not think too much about it... Since I won¡¯t be able to purchase any ancient sword techniques any time soon, let¡¯s just use practicalbat to train myself. Don¡¯t I have a perfect training target in front of me?¡±


    Alright then. Running out to the battlefield to be cannon fodder wasn¡¯t possible for me, and the battles between mortals in Eich would be unable to give me the experience I needed. It was so rare for me to meet an opponent like Alexandra, so I had limited her physical abilities to Gold through our contract, forbid her from using any ultimate moves, lowered her speed and basic stats to lower the difficulty, and continued training against her.


    But even so, I had been beaten up quite badly. Then, I discovered that the ¡°Forest of Dreams Original Root¡± was capable of recovering my injuries and stamina while in battle, which was what Alexandra was referring to when she said I was ¡°taking pills.¡± And so, after one hundred and twenty training sessions, the situation finally changed, and I started winning... fine, there was no change. How could it possibly be so easy to improve?


    Although I had still been the one getting beaten up, at least I¡¯d been able tost slightly longer than before. Unfortunately, the Snake Archduchess was now ying dead, unwilling to train any longer.


    ¡°Alright, I guess I could let you go for today as tiring you to death on the first day would be too much of a waste... Don¡¯t even think of running. Countless eyes are watching you. How about I transform you into a mouse for daily life, making you a perfect match for Harloys!¡±


    ¡°...Let me remind you that if you intend to change her into a mouse, you should probably tell Beifeng. He recently brought back a batch of white spiky mice.¡±


    ¡°Sure, no problem.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s Beifeng?¡±


    The Undead Lord, who wasn¡¯t up to date on societal affairs, asked this out of curiosity, so Glina handed her a book with an evil smile. The Snake Archduchess flipped through a few pages before immediately standing back up.


    ¡°Lord Rnd, I¡¯ve suddenly reached an understanding. Let us continue our practice.¡±


    Seeing this Undead Lord trembling, I could only sigh. Beifeng¡¯s scariness had leveled up yet again. This also gave me an idea.


    ¡°How about, if I meet any captives who refuse to surrender no matter what, I¡¯ll just transform that captive into an animal and give them to Beifeng.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s so inhumane!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the most inhumane thing I¡¯ve ever heard of!¡±


    ¡°Milord, please reconsider! Doing something so evil will make everyone view you as the evil antagonist!¡±


    ¡°Boss, I object! I, Beifeng, am not someone so casual!¡±


    ¡°Yep. Because when you¡¯re casual, you¡¯re not human to begin with.¡±

 Chapter 394 - Northlands, Home of the Mist

    <h4>Chapter 394</h4>


    <h4>Nortnds, Home of the Mist</h4>


    <h4>Chapter 394: Nortnds, Home of the Mist</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    The fact I chose an isted estate had benefits; for example, one could undertake major construction without neighborsining about the noise... cough¡ªI was referring to how I slightly enhanced the military defensiveness of this location and how our military training here wouldn¡¯t be noticed.


    ording to my agreement with Orloss, I needed to organize my subordinates¡¯ strength to participate in the uing n. While it sounded cool to fight as a boss with numerous ultimate abilities, what that meant was the boss had no reliable subordinates.


    Considering the high level of the future battles, plus how the current situation was bing more and more troublesome, it was indeed time to reorganize all thebat strength that fought under the banner of the Mist.


    Yes¡ªthe banner of the Mist. Mist as in Rnd Mist. This Mist didn¡¯t refer to East Mist and Reyne but rather the personal forces that belonged to me, Rnd. Or perhaps I should say those that belonged to the Mist Family.


    The overallbat strength of all our allies¡¯ armiesbined would be considerable. However, much of this would belong to another country or alliance. Thebat strength that could be counted aspletely my own wasn¡¯t all that much.


    My currentbat strength included the Seven Original Sins, of which the eldest sister Lust was in a deep sleep, Pride was disobedient and Sloth wasn¡¯t yet born. Most of my elite Red Hunting Hounds were still in the Underground, messing around, while the remaining worked in East Mist.


    I had a series of subordinates simr to retainers, such as my personal consultant Tid, Olivia, and all those engineers and alchemists. There were also Elisa¡¯s gift of a merchant association, the arch druid Eaglestorm and the Dark Elves Diana, Yawen, Momo, and Victoria, who were no longer tied to Dark Elf society constraints, ¡°and so on.¡±


    ¡°...Why is it that I¡¯m called ¡®and so on?¡¯¡± a certain Draconined.


    ¡°...It¡¯s because your name is getting closer and closer to bing a censored word. Sooner orter, your name will be apletely censored mosaic of Holy Light.¡±


    With my identity as the God Envoy of Law, along with our rtionship, I could utilize Xueti, Lilith and the other Law job ss members. But strictly speaking, they didn¡¯t belong to my personal forces¡ªthey had sworn loyalty to the Church of Law. As executors and judges of thew, they were supposed to remain neutral.


    With my identity as a descendant of the Mist, I could give orders to East Mist¡¯s Aurora Knights and Sleuweir¡¯s royal knights. But strictly speaking, these warriors were loyal to Reyne and Glina, their true rulers, first and foremost. It wouldn¡¯t be good for me to often make use of them.


    Actually, every time I used them, I would have either Reyne or Glina personally lead them. This was both to give the young royals more experience as well as my respect for their royal authority.


    Of course, with the Mist Alliance¡¯s establishment and me as one of the core members, the invisible forces under me would only increase. However, it was true that the forces directly under me could even decrease because of it.


    Normally, to begin with, I didn¡¯t have many subordinates with me. If some emergency battle broke out or if I wanted to start a battle, everything would depend on my ability to summon allies. This wasn¡¯t a problem only I had¡ªit was amon problem for this generation.


    Although I didn¡¯t want to admit it, humans¡¯ basicbat strength in the world of Eich still relied on nobles and knights. This difficult environment caused the weak humans to learn early on how to stay together in groups for protection. Nobles ruled their domains and had total control over their citizens¡¯ lives but also took responsibility for guaranteeing their citizens¡¯ safety. And countless domain lords swore fealty to their king, creating various kingdoms or empires.


    Or course, a few countries wereparliamentary or republics, but these were typically tiny; the entire country would be only one city, or they had special circumstances, such as being ruledpletely by divine authority or having too many different ethnicities. Still, the great majority of countries used the feudal system of domain lords, or basically the exact system ofndlords and the rich ruling thatmunism worked to overthrow.


    I was no transmigrator¡ªlike you might see in another story¡ªwho wanted to try capitalism ormunism in another world. That was because the current feudal society and way of thinking was a good fit for how society really worked in this world. Forcefully trying to push through an ¡°advanced¡± system which didn¡¯t fit the situation would only cause me to be crushed under the wheels of history.


    The weak served the strong, while the strong protected the weak. The harsh environment¡¯s conditions gave birth to such rules of survival, so nobles who held power would forever exist. Those who weren¡¯t nobles to begin with could also be a noble or domain lord after obtaining strength.


    In this feudal generation, even a country¡¯s ruler was just like the biggest domain lord¡ªbut that of a country. The ruler¡¯s authority mostly came from the system¡¯s established royal authority, but the ruler¡¯s direct subordinates would be only from his family¡¯s domain and the knights that swore loyalty to his family. Yep¡ªthe royal knights. In most circumstances, the royal knights would be the personal knights loyal to the royal family, but since the royalty would be the leader of the country, there would be no difference between that and being loyal to the country.


    Alright then. With such a big exnation from me you should have understood the situation by now. The countries in this world were very different from those back on modern day Earth of my time. From a certain standpoint, the countries in Eich were created out of countless ¡°families.¡± The knights¡¯ loyalty was typically to a specific family but not to the so-called country itself. It could even be said that the pure concept of countries hadn¡¯t even formed yet.


    The creation of such ¡°families¡± didn¡¯t only rely on bloodlines. Having simr goals or ways of thinking was fine as well. For instance, many groups of people immigrated to and hid in the Shining Mountains to resist against the Raff Empire¡¯s despotism and ethnic ughtering. When these people finally seeded in defeating the Raff Empire, a family with ¡°White Eagle¡± as its emblem became the master of the Shining Mountains. Their descendants became a newbined ethnic group known as the Tinme, whose descendants all swore loyalty to the White Eagle.


    As for a different type of family, I could give the example of the Fran Family. The Fran Family consisted of schrs who loved to research ancient arcane mysteries and astronomy under the leadership of an incredible genius by the name of Fran. Through the innumerable generations, members intermarried among each other, and a legendary family was born, known for having genius astrologists in every generation.


    Countries were the amalgamations of families. Local knights would swear loyalty to their domain lords. Domain lords would swear loyalty to the royalty. All free knights would also swear loyalty to the royalty. A country¡¯s destruction would typically be caused by the destruction of the royal family, which was why a royal family with zero descendants would be in even more danger than if they were invaded by a foreign power.


    That was why I could say that as long as I didn¡¯t die, the Mist Kingdom wouldn¡¯t be destroyed. The Mist Kingdom¡¯s loyal warriors and royal knights had now be my undead followers. Then, in public perception, did our Nortnds Mist Family never die off at all?


    ¡°This seems rather confusing? How about I go and ask Karwenz?¡±


    From a certain standpoint, there was no previous example of what had happened to the two of us. One had died and the reincarnated, while the twin had joined Hell¡ªindeed, it was something with no precedent.


    Meanwhile, Reyne¡¯s East Mist royal family and Sleuweir¡¯s royal family could only be viewed as branch families of the original Nortnds Mist Family. Even the founders of their two countries had admitted this.


    If I directly recognized Reyne and Glina as members of the Nortnds Mist Family, then these two could be considered as my direct subordinates. However, this would make things quite awkward between all three of us as I was indeed the original master of thisnd. Perhaps our descendants would even have wars against each other for the purpose of determining the true ruling family, something I obviously didn¡¯t wish to see.


    No matter what things were like in the past, I was currently using the identity and status of Rnd Mist to act in this world. Naturally, it could be said that the Mist Family had survived, or at least it was reviving.


    Bastian and the others had alreadyined to me several times. They hoped I would be able to reestablish the banner of the Mist. Even if the Mist Kingdom had been destroyed, the home remained. They wished to proudly carry the banner of the Mist andpletely revive the Nortnds Mist Family.


    It could be said that this was something necessary after the Mist Alliance¡¯s establishment. The Mist Alliance I hoped for would be an alliance between countries ruled by a council. Of course, the council members would be the royalty of each country. If I personally participated in this council, my status wouldn¡¯t be the right type.


    Alright then¡ªI¡¯ll be honest. The part I found most difficult to withstand was that I never expected these old skeletons and zombies to be so bored and hungry for gossip that they tried to force me to get married.


    ¡°Your Highness, you¡¯re already more than three hundred years old. My next-door neighbor has five generations of descendants, while you¡¯re eternally single. I¡¯m too ashamed to face your father!¡±


    ¡°...Who are you calling eternally single!? Does me not having a girlfriend have anything to do with my dad? I already have a girlfriend! Elisa, the Demon Lord, the Marchioness of the me Sea. She¡¯s really powerful, are you afraid now?!¡±


    ¡°...Who cares if she¡¯s a SemiGod and Demon Lord? The Mist Family needs a female master, not a female fighter. Even if she¡¯s the Demon Marchioness, she can¡¯t give birth to any children, so why would I be afraid? Your Highness, please think about it. If you happen to die off, who will we old guys swear loyalty to? The Mist Family has continued its inheritance for more than two thousand years. I can¡¯t allow the Mist Family to die off in our generation. While Miss Elisa can be your mistress if you wish, the Mist Family needs a female master who can give birth to children.¡±


    I was quite frustrated with their attempts to force me into getting married. Fine, in a way, the one trying hardest to get me married was old Ferdinand, who had loyally served the Mist family for many generations and was my elder. He could indeed take on a fatherly role for me, so I couldn¡¯t even get angry about it.


    If that was all it was, I could have epted it. I used to have very few living subordinates, but in this life of mine, Tid and the others joined me, causing me to have more and more living subordinates¡ªbut this also meant more trouble.


    ¡°Your Highness, even long-term mercenaries working for major merchants will swear loyalty to the merchant¡¯s family. You now have more subordinates than ever before. Even if you don¡¯t really pay attention to their interests, you should at least consider them. There should be a system in ce to give payments to their bereaved families if any of them sacrifice themselves for your cause and to give them retirement money when they¡¯re old. Only that¡¯d allow your subordinates to truly not worry about fighting for you.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, Your Highness. You should think more about your subordinates¡¯ interests. At least give them a chance to be nobles. Even if the powerful ones don¡¯t care about such things, the basic level warriors and youths will really want it, won¡¯t they? Even the Dark Elves want to be in a reliable family.¡±


    After we returned to the Nortnds and could openly walk under the sun, these knights continuously gave me lectures on such topics.


    I could understand their way of thinking. They had returned home, but things had changed. They wished topletely restore the Mist Family and hoped the family they swore loyalty to could continue on. Finally, a certain person¡¯s words caused me to decide to reestablish the Mist Family.


    ¡°Actually, I feel Her Highness Reyne is an excellent candidate to be the future female master of the Mist Family! She¡¯d make an ideal pair with Your Highness. It¡¯s quite easy to ept a branch family back into the main family. Your Highness could even use the same royal pce¡ªhow perfectly convenient!¡±


    Cough¡ªthat wasn¡¯t the quote I was referring to. I tossed the bastard who said that directly out of a third-floor window and investigated¡ªit turned out he had been bribed to say that by Reyne! I then punished Reyne by making her swing her sword a thousand times.


    ¡°Your Highness, you should at least consider us. With the Mist Family reestablished, all of us will be able to take in adopted children to inherit our techniques and honor. This way our entire family will finally have new descendants, and our family will have a meaningful inheritance!¡±


    I looked before me to see that it wasn¡¯t only one or two undead knights that had such hope glimmering in their soulfires. Instead, every undead knight had this hope.


    Having the living ept them, and being able to adopt children or have disciples inherit their family names was a beautiful dream that the Mist Kingdom¡¯s royal knights didn¡¯t even dare to dream about. Right now, they were only a step from their dream¡ªhow could these royal knights, who viewed honor and inheritance so importantly, possibly restrain themselves?


    ¡°All of you can just go ahead and take in adopted children to add to our family. It doesn¡¯t need to have anything to do with me.¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, who are our new family members supposed to swear loyalty to then? Whose descendants should our adopted children and their descendants swear loyalty to?¡±


    Alright then. From a certain standpoint, it was just like if the government didn¡¯t give the go-ahead, the citizens didn¡¯t dare to start the fireworks... Although this analogy felt rather off.


    Since my loyal knights who had followed me for so longs all thought this way, reestablishing the Mist Family would be necessary. At any rate, I agreed in the end because I¡¯d assumed it to be only about changing our name, and that it wouldn¡¯t affect my personal affairs.


    However, just publishing this news¡ªthat we would formally be the Mist Family again¡ªimproved everyone¡¯s motivation and caused both the living and the undead¡¯s work efficiency to increase by more than fifty percent ... I could only sigh about how this was indeed a feudal society with deeply-rooted traditions.


    ¡°It would seem that shared goals are important, but long-term social security, as well as a resource guarantee, is needed...¡±


    And now I summoned the entirety of the newly-born Mist Family to deal with the uing, major trouble.

 Chapter 395 - Summoning

    <h4>Chapter 395: Summoning</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°When are you going to retrieve the God Equipment of Wind?¡±


    The Wind Elemental God was in the form of a Royal Elf, but hecked their typical elegance. The miniscule windstorms floating around him clearly expressed his anxiety. He became more impatient as time passed.


    ¡°When are you going to the Dragon World? All the elders are waiting for you. You should have finished reading the necessary information by now.¡±


    This time, the forever smiling Copper Dragon Evelyn didn¡¯te alone to remind me¡ªeveryone was surprised to see the cold-faced Blue Dragon Evelyn as well.


    ¡°...Your Highness, when will you fix the Earth Elemental Throne?¡±


    The Great Stone Sculptor Ainslo, too, had be anxious. When she finally learned from me that she was the top candidate for the next Earth Elemental God, her emotions had been in a constantly excited state.


    ¡°I¡¯m waiting for everyone to arrive. How are we supposed to fight the boss monster without everyone here?¡±


    That¡¯s right¡ªI was no fool who¡¯d rush to fight a suicidal battle like the Snake Archduchess and her two Undead Lord teammates. Since I¡¯d obtained information on the ridiculousness of my opponents, how could I start a long journey to battle in other nes without sufficientbat strength?


    ¡°Perhaps this is the true beginning of the trial of battles on the level of the Holy War.¡±


    This time, I had summoned over all mybat strength. Just about everyone I could summon wereing. After some reorganizing, I separated them into three major categories.


    The first group constituted of the royal knights from the former Mist Kingdom. These undying undead warriors numbered approximately 25,000 and were the knights I trusted most as well as the most powerful existences. Quite a number of them had reached thebat strength of heroic spirits. They were forever one of my most powerful aces.


    However, they were undead, and it was inconvenient for them to move about, so only two thousand of them were on the surface. They joined the establishment of the Mist Alliance. Some weremanders and squad leaders in East Mist¡¯s major squadrons, while some took part in the undead Xiluo Empire. Their goal was to reconstruct Yongye¡¯s Army. Of course, unlike the chaotic Undead Lords¡¯ loose alliance, this time it would my actual, personal army.


    Theirbat g was the traditionalbat g of the Mist, a symbol of the past as well as the honor of an inheritance. If I decided to enter a major battle, then this old g would fly once again. The undying, who didn¡¯t wish for eternal rest, would use blood and fire to disy their undying knighthood and a warrior¡¯s honor to our enemies.


    Although this undead force was the most powerful ace I possessed, it was also an ace I didn¡¯t dare casually use. Summoning them all would put countless countries highly on guard against me.


    That was why most of them would have to remain in the Underground and continue theirbat training there. Recently, however, a new task had been given to them: to train and teach the neers. They taught not onlybat tactics and techniques but also the honor and inheritance of the Mist.


    This time, with the assistance of the Mizar and the newlypleted Alkaid airships transporting them, I summoned a total of six thousand undead knights to my side. It was thanks to Bardi¡¯s assurance and reputation that the two magic bone airships surrounded by ominous appearing ck mist could fly past other countries without incident.


    If the ¡°Red Hunting Hounds¡± were my forces I trusted most but were inconvenient to use, the next group was the one easiest to use but most untrustworthy.


    ¡°Eh, why is there an extra chicken leg and two additional eggs in today¡¯s lunch?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know? It¡¯s to celebrate the official establishment of the Nortnds Mist Family. There¡¯s extra food for lunch today, and even a bottle of beer for everyone at dinner.


    ¡°...His Highness Rnd has finally made up his mind? Wait a moment, isn¡¯t this a wondrous urrence? A celebration party and revival ceremony? Our boss is a living legend! As long as he mentions it, won¡¯t all the mega empires send some envoys? Or is the formal ceremony being heldter?¡±


    Typically speaking, a family¡¯s establishment or revival would be a major incident. Inviting guests would only be the beginning¡ªplenty of families would celebrate for an entire year and spend three years¡¯ worth of their ie.


    This wasn¡¯t just for the sake of face; it was also a method to disy the family¡¯s connections and foundation.


    ¡°No, adding extra food to our lunch is the only celebration. His Highness Rnd said that he¡¯s recently been busy with work and that work takes priority, so we should dispense with all unnecessary celebrations. He said that would be enough?¡±


    ¡°...Why do I feel like he simply thinks it¡¯s too troublesome?¡±


    ¡°...I totally agree. As expected of our boss, he¡¯s so different from others. Still, he didn¡¯t skip on certain things. Do you know the fifth son of the Aston Family?¡±


    ¡°That cripple? Didn¡¯t he lose his leg in the war against the beastmen and retreat to the backlines? His second brother also died in that meat grinder of a war. Truly unfortunate.¡±


    ¡°...His Highness Rnd knighted him. He won¡¯t have to worry about starving to death for the rest of his life.¡±


    ¡°How lucky! His Highness Rnd is beginning to give out knighthoods? Wonderful, is there hope for us as well? Forget it, we¡¯re just Bronze-ranked warriors, so it¡¯s impossible for any of us. Pretend I didn¡¯t say anything.¡±


    Based on the customs of this world, the lowest knighthood rank of peerage that could be assigned would require strength equivalent to Silver. However, most ordinary people would be unable to achieve this power level even if they worked hard for their whole lives.


    ¡°His Highness Rnd is so different from others. He doesn¡¯t care about power level but cares more about achievements instead. The first batch of knighthoods he handed out included thirty people, with a total of sixteen from our mercenary group! All of them received first-levelbat des, including the pilots of the self-destructing Rnd Titans. All of us only received third-levelbat des, so there¡¯s no chance of a knighthood for us.¡±


    ¡°But there¡¯s still a chance in the future! Ahh¡ªFifth Brother Aston is so fortunate. Even though he can no longer enter battle in the future, he can simply let his knighthood take care of him for the rest of his life.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, don¡¯t underestimate Aston the cripple. How could he possibly receive the Nightblood first-levelbat de if he was as cowardly as you? He¡¯s now hanging out with the magical engineering mechanical research department¡¯s gnomes and reminding them every day to produce an artificial leg with cannons installed for him. He has no intention to be only a knight for the rest of his life. He wants his son to be even higher than a knight.¡±


    The lowest level of knighted nobility wasn¡¯t inheritable¡ªthis could only happen upon reaching the rank of Baron. However, the noble title would be rescinded if there were nobat achievements, so typically only barons were what everyone recognized as true nobility.


    A small knighthood would at most be a vige with thirty to fifty households within it if one was lucky enough to receive somend. This was perhaps not worth anything to the powerful, but it was a life¡¯s dream for the mercenaries who risked their lives inbat.


    Yes¡ªmercenaries. I was referring to the mercenaries from the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance mega mercenary group.


    Although I wanted to discuss mutual dreams and the beauty of saving the world with them along with the uing long night of Armageddon, these mercenaries believed that ideals were a luxury of nobles who didn¡¯t have to worry about their next meal. A reliable source of ie and the chance to be a noble were all they dreamed about.


    As for the Armageddon? If they couldn¡¯t fill their bellies or got a crippling injury and didn¡¯t have enough money saved up to take care of themselves, every day would be an Armageddon.


    ¡°Mercenaries are untrustworthy.¡±


    This was the typical view every country had of mercenaries who worked for whoever paid them. In most situations, the countries were absolutely correct.


    As mercenaries fought for the sake of money, they would naturally consider their own future. They would never want to fight to the death, risk injury if possible, or take any job with insufficient payment. For warriors on the battlefield,cking motivation to stand until the end would be a fatal w. An ace royal knight squadron would be capable of adamantly fighting even upon receiving seventy percent losses, while the typical mercenary squad would copse and retreat upon taking ten percent losses. Relying too much on mercenaries would actually be military weakness.


    ¡°No matter how strong mercenaries are, they still aren¡¯t reliable and trustworthy.¡±


    Since they fought for the sake of money, there were plenty of examples of entire mercenary groups betraying an employer to go work for their employer¡¯s enemy as long as the payment was high enough. It was even moremon for individual mercenaries to betray their employers and be hired by the enemy. That was why, for any major battle, even if wartime mercenary groups were allowed to participate, they would only be cannon fodder acting on the sidelines.


    That was how mercenaries were. They were the vultures of the battlefield who fought for the sake of their personal benefits. They weren¡¯t constrained by a sense of knightly honor; practical benefits were first and foremost. However, as long as one spread enough bait in front of them, they could also be the most vicious attack dogs.


    Typical mercenary groups wouldn¡¯t ept a battle mission with a high risk of dying. However, some mercenary groups would still choose to enter major battles despite knowing that their role would be the most dangerous job of cannon fodder. This was because these dangerous battles would have exceedingly high payments, in addition to the possibility of some major noble taking favor to the mercenaries and permanently taking in the entire group.


    If, instead, a mercenary group became the private soldiers of some major noble, then the leaders of this mercenary group had the possibility of bing nobles. And the ordinary mercenaries would be part of a regr army, so they would have a guaranteed army sry in addition to relief payments in case of crippling injuries or family payments in case they died on the battlefield.


    However, the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance mercenary group was different from ordinary mercenary groups.


    There was a saying that said, ¡°Intentionally cultivated trees might not survive while unintentionally nted seeds might sprout to be tall trees.¡± This jokingly created mercenary group had developed to be stronger and stronger in recent times.


    The formal group leader of this mercenary group was me. They could technically be called my personal soldiers, and theirbat morale and loyalty far surpassed average private armies.


    As the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance expanded their activities with the great support of the Nortnds countries, this mercenary group based in the Nortnds now had guilds in more than thirty countries. In fact, they now had seventeen major sub-squadrons stationed in these countries, and their registered members numbered more than three hundred thousand.


    Greater than seventy percent of the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance¡¯s mercenaries came from East Mist and Sleuweir, so more than eighty percent were People of the Mist. They were willing to join this mercenary group because this mercenary group had an excellent reputation and sry but even more because they believed in me, the leader of this mercenary group. They believed I would give them a bright future.


    In past battles, they¡¯d indeed performed well. No matter if it was the bloody Nortnds battle against the beastmen or the continuous battles against the undead in the south, they had disyed abundant abilities and loyalty.


    However, as mercenaries, they naturally had their dreams. They dreamed of a bright future, munificent rewards and a chance to gloriously return home.


    Of course, this megarge mercenary group had levels within it. Basic members only wished to prove their abilities and obtain reputation. Yet after developing to a certain point, elite squadrons were forever the core.


    For warriors who disyed both sufficient skill and loyalty, the mercenary group would sign twenty, thirty or even fifty-year contracts with them. Any warriors who broke the contract would no longer be able to find a job in the mercenary profession for the rest of their lives. These contracts assured excellent payment and job security, and the warriors would work loyally in turn to pay off the responsibility and requirements of the job.


    Actually, these long-term ¡°lifetime contracted¡± mercenary soldiers didn¡¯t even treat themselves as mercenaries.


    ¡°We are all warriors belonging to His Highness Rnd. It¡¯s just that it¡¯s not convenient to establish a formalbat squadron in his name right now.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re all His Highness¡¯s warriors, you know. We need to pay attention to certain things so we don¡¯t dishonor that g.¡±


    The fact that I was giving out knighthoods and flying the banner of the Mist gave more evidence to their ims. And so even more mercenaries started applying for the long-term contracts.


    Once news started spreading that I¡¯d decided to reestablish the Nortnds Mist Family, in just three short days, almost twenty thousand people applied to join the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance. Once the news that I gave knighthoods out to sixteen members of this mercenary group started spreading, another fifty thousand people applied the very next day.


    From a certain standpoint, I didn¡¯t have personal territory, I wasn¡¯t a king, nor did I swear loyalty to any domain lord. I couldn¡¯t even count as a domain lord myself. Logically speaking, I didn¡¯t have the right to give out knighthoods, but no matter if it were outsiders or my subordinates, they ignored this most basic right of the nobility.


    Of course, I wasn¡¯t giving out knighthoods only in name. The knighthoods I gave out would be recognized by all the Nortnds countries. Once these newly-minted knights achieved sufficient des to be domain lords themselves, I would think of a way to give them their own territories as barons and higher deserved. But they would typically reach up to the rank of Earl only with outstandingbat achievements, and these were extremely limited in number.


    This time, the Borealis brought me five thousand and six hundred long-term contracted mercenaries. This didn¡¯t seem like much, but they had all been through various difficult trials in order to obtain their long-term contracts, the best proof of their abilities and loyalties. Their average abilities reached the astonishing level of the peak of Bronze. They could indeed be considered my elite personal soldiers.


    With the situation developing in this manner, perhaps this was, in a way, evidence of the importance of reputation and tradition. In East Mist¡¯s capital of Diffindor and Sleuweir¡¯s capital of Antuen, all sorts of theories about how ¡°Rnd saw the big picture¡± or ¡°Rnd nned for all this¡± filled the streets and alleyways. Even street side vendors were saying ¡°His Highness Rnd used the name of a mercenary group to summon all the warriors who wished to fight for the g of the Mist¡±; ¡°The East Mist and Sleuweir Kingdom royalty despise this type of personnel stealing action but can¡¯t do anything about it¡±; ¡°These mercenaries include Four Elemental Swordcasters, Magic Gunners, and even Aurora Knights. It¡¯s not like these ace troop types grow on trees. It¡¯s so obvious, yet they still dare to call themselves mercenaries?¡±


    To be honest, I really did create this Absolute Gentlemen Alliance as nothing more than a joke. In fact, for an incredibly long period of time, I didn¡¯t even manage the mercenary group¡¯s development. For the mercenary group to be able to reach this stage meant those unreliable fellows were indeed sufficiently powerful. Perhaps it also meant the People of the Mist still trusted in the tattered banner of the Mist.


    ¡°He is Our Highness. He shall lead us to a better life.¡±


    ¡°Yep, it¡¯s all because of His Highness that we just had the mostfortable winter in fifty years. Not a single person froze to death on the streets this year, and those who immigrated to other ces also returned to their homnd.¡±


    It would be a joke to im that only my personal reputation and the so-called tradition of the Mist Family would be able to attract so many descendants of the Mist to fight under my banner. However, the Nortnds Mist Family had umted more than two thousand years of honor and trustworthiness. This had be my greatest wealth as well as a heavy burden that pressured me to the point where I almost couldn¡¯t breathe.


    ¡°...Don¡¯t even mention a mercenary group¡ªeven if you use your personal name and the g of the Mist to open up a circus, it will be filled to the brim with People of the Mist. If you don¡¯t believe me, just ask those undead knights of yours. They¡¯ve long since stopped asking ¡®why.¡¯ They¡¯re at the stage of foolish loyalty where they only ask ¡®what should we do?¡¯¡±


    I didn¡¯t know how to respond to Harloys¡¯ teasing because I knew she told the truth.


    When I was a fallen prince who couldn¡¯t even defend his own home, the only way I could really think of to repay their trust was to somehow try my best to lead everyone to survive the uing Armageddon.


    ¡°Perhaps the uing times will be difficult, but at least... at least we¡¯ll all be together.¡±


    Perhaps outsiders still viewed the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance as only mercenaries. But these youngsters, who had given their lives over to me, were already a part of me.


    The Absolute Gentlemen Alliance¡¯sbat g was a ck masquerade ball mask. Everyone had countless theories about what meaning there was behind it. But when I¡¯d made this the g, it was solely because I wanted to remind the bastards who became the main core of the mercenary group to ¡°remember to wear masks when doing gentlemanly deeds because I don¡¯t want to have to pick you up from the police station.¡±


    As for people¡¯s theories about how the mask represented ¡°seeking light in the darkness,¡±¡±those with resolve who have lost everything,¡±¡±dark heroes of the night who don¡¯t need to show their identities¡± and so on, this was a ssic case of over-analyzation.


    Apart from the Red Hunting Hounds and the Gentlemen Alliance, the third major group under me was the ¡°Magic Research Facility,¡± the abbreviated name for the magical mecha engineering research facility and the Cinders merchant association.


    They were now the light of the future as they possessed cutting-edge technology and also acted as the logistical support for the increasingly integrated Mist faction. They didn¡¯t include only researchers, as the Four Elemental Swordcasters, Magic Gunners, master engineers and master alchemists constituted their concretebat strength.


    The Borealis, Alkaid and Mizar¡ªthese three mega airships along with six mid-sized airships and several hundred small cannon airships possessed a total fighting force of 10,300 people. There were 67 master engineers at least at Gold, 427 engineering and alchemy experts, and countless war machines. This would be more than enough to begin a small-scale war sufficient to overwhelm a small country.


    Of course, by using so much of mybat strength, I hoped to receive even more... so much more to the point I felt I was being too greedy.


    ¡°If those dragons knew your plot, they¡¯d definitely be trying to kill you right now. Since you¡¯re scheming to get their most precious treasure, does this count as them killing the thief in the act?¡±


    ¡°...I think so too. But by the time they know it¡¯ll be toote¡ªwe would already have achieved our goal. Besides, giving them such a high-level treasure is a waste of resources. I¡¯d make better use of it instead. Since...¡±


    ¡°...Winter ising?¡±


    I shook my head. Using that quote made it seem like spring would arrive afterwards. As I flipped through the record of the game¡¯s history, I couldn¡¯t see any evidence of a spring after what woulde next. I didn¡¯t have much time left.


    ¡°...If I really had to describe it, I could only say that the Armageddon ising. However, it¡¯s already going to be much better than what happened in the game¡¯s history. At least, we have some hope now, as long as my n works.¡±


    ¡°Then how likely do you think your n will seed?¡±


    ¡°I want to say one hundred percent, but unfortunately it¡¯s probably less than ten percent.¡±


    ¡°But at least it¡¯s not zero.¡±


    Still, I felt the newly sprouting trees and nts outside the window were a rare lucky sign.


    ¡°Yes. At least there¡¯s still some hope. And our goal this time is to create our own hope so the future can be slightly better.¡±


    ¡°Even if you destroy others¡¯ hope?¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡±

 Chapter 396 - Giving up on a Cure

    <h4>Chapter 396: Giving up on a Cure</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°Proposed ns for Curing Cher (Third Revised Edition).¡±


    This thick booklet contained my ns for curing her, ns I spent so much time thinking up.


    ¡°n #1: Create a brand-new physical body and transfer her soul into it.¡±


    ¡°This n¡¯s greatest advantage is that it¡¯s simple to carry out. A perfect physical body can be constructed for her within a short period of time. Also, it¡¯s almost impossible for someone at my skill level to fail in something as simple as a soul transfer. The disadvantage is that the physical body will be an undead creation, so it won¡¯t be as good as a living body. It will be impossible for her to reproduce. However, I can perfectly replicate the ability to eat, drink and even the joys of fleshly activities between men and women for her body. Last time, I sealed a foundational part of my soul into her, but this time I won¡¯t be creating such an astounding miracle product.¡±


    ¡°Addendum: Since the Seven Original Sins touch upon the greatest secrets of soul magic, it could be possible that transferring her soul to a new physical body will also transfer over the problem of her soul. She may still be the vessel for giving birth to new Evelyns. This n still needs improving.¡±


    ¡°n #2: Make modifications to Cher¡¯s soul and strip the portion rted to her personal ¡®lust¡¯ out of her soul. This will cause her to be an idiot regarding all things rted to love, so she¡¯ll never fall in love with another person. The trap ced within her soul will never again activate. I strongly rmend this n.¡±


    ¡°This n¡¯s advantage is that it will easily deal with the problem. A simple perfect soul surgery willpletely cure this seasonal disease known as love. But the downside is that although soul surgery techniques are quite well-established, poor luck may cause her soul to be unstable or split. This may result in the mostmon side effect of such operations: multiple personalities.


    ¡°Addendum to this strongly rmended n: This n is the best to preserve this wonderful cycle I created. When my skills improve even further, I¡¯ll naturally be able to solve the problems¡ªyep. What I really mean is that this original ¡®Lust¡¯ system should be preserved so that I can research it any time I want. It will be helpful to my personal research. I¡¯ll be able to have a breakthrough soon! And it¡¯s possible for all of you to obtain new sisters!¡±


    When I ced these two ns in front of Evelyn, I really hoped she would choose the second one. No matter how one looked at it, the second n would give us the most benefits. Plus, we would be able to eliminate the chronic disease known as love. Such an excellent n for curing Cher!


    Being able to forever get rid of one of the original sins from your soul? Only a genius like myself was capable of such a miracle with my soul surgery!


    What? The side effect of having multiple personalities? That wasn¡¯t negative in any way, as multiple personalities could bring additional talents and abilities. This was a gift! Just take a look at how powerful Evelyn was, since she had ten personalities and ten different natural talents! As expected of my first ever undead creation.


    Yet the Blue Dragon Evelyn only nced at the n before unhesitatingly bringing it before her and twitching her nose...


    *Snort.*


    Alright. At least she didn¡¯t snort out any snot. It would seem that she loved to be clean.


    *Whoosh!*


    But I didn¡¯t have any time to rescue my n booklet before she spewed out dragonbreath, this time, directly in the form of thunder. And so the n to cure Cher, the n I worked so hard to create, was directly burned to a crisp.


    ¡°You¡¯re going too overboard! I took two entire days on this...¡±


    ¡°I bet it was more like twenty minutes. Bring out your third n. Isn¡¯t your goal just to wait for us to reject these two ns so your third n can easily pass? Don¡¯t look at me with such a strange expression. All us Evelyns understand your twisted personality better than we want to. Isn¡¯t your favorite scheme about ¡®A truly perfect scheme is to make your opponent believe that the current choices in front of him are the best choices? All I need to do is create a situation where my opponent has to do what I want, like a puppet.¡¯¡±


    Alright then. That quote indeed sounded like something incredibly twisted I would say.


    Although I intended to bring out my third n regardless, being seen through here was made me displeased. I was sullen, but I still brought it out. Since I had made the n, of course I would have to bring it out.


    ¡°n #3: Give Cher scientific mental therapy to teach her how love is just a type of mental illness. That¡¯s right¡ªmental illness. See, most teenagers undergoing puberty will focus way too much effort into this concept known as ¡®love¡¯ but will obtain nothing in the end. That¡¯s why I must teach them; I must have them study and exercise more. They should focus on their academics and work, such as fighting hard for the sake of humanity¡¯s progress. This will dy the time they enter this stage of mental illness. ording to studies, the rate of catching the love disease is much lower after the puberty stage. And any who go into heat should be directly deep-frozen to deal with the problem...¡±


    The Blue Dragon Evelyn chuckled, and then... There was no more ¡°and then.¡±


    ¡°Hey! Why did you swallow it? I worked really hard on it!¡±


    ¡°Your fourth n?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have one... fine, it¡¯s right here.¡±


    This n booklet was rather thin. It was just one page, so I simply read it to her.


    ¡°This is addiction, this is electronic heroin! So-called love is but an illusion! She needs electro-therapy! She needs more electric shocks and electric chairs¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ªYou¡¯re the one who needs electro-therapy! How about I give therapy to your unsalvageable brain with my thunder!¡±


    Powerful thunder covered the entire sky. Although none of it would be fatal for me, a charred face was inescapable. The most frustrating part was that all my hair was now standing up on end due to the electricity.


    ¡°A golden mohawk haircut? Isn¡¯t this a redneck haircut? You¡¯ve done it now! I¡¯m going to go all out against you!¡±


    It was only now that I understood why Blue Dragons were considered so annoying. They had such bad tempers! Wasn¡¯t I simply making a joke to lighten up the tense atmosphere? She had no sense of humor at all! If she hated jokes, she should have told me!


    ¡°...Nobody can tolerate your jokes. Let me just say it now: if you want to experiment, go find your ¡®new love.¡¯ Don¡¯t use me.¡±


    I ignored my silly cat¡¯sints and furiously brought out another stack of backup ns from my backpack. Backup ns? It was always necessary to make backup ns for backup ns, and backup ns for backup ns for backup ns, and... you get the idea. In fact, the ones I brought out were first-edition ns that hadn¡¯t yet been revised. They couldn¡¯t even be calledplete backup ns.


    ¡°n #4: Use hypnosis and lectures to subconsciously change her so that she gradually changes her sexuality and falls in love with women. Then, let¡¯s observe if that will activate the trap in her soul or not. If not, then we¡¯ll have plenty of time to observe and conduct more research...¡±


    *Rip!*


    Alright then, let¡¯s go to the next n.


    ¡°n #5: Brainwash her, or cast an eternal Intelligence-lowering curse on her. As long as her Intelligence is forever lowered to an infant¡¯s level¡ªfine!¡ªfine!¡ªdon¡¯t spew dragon breath at me. n #6...¡±


    ¡°...n #13: Modify her genitalia so she bes a ¡°he.¡± Let¡¯s research the conflict between her soul¡¯s instincts and ¡®his¡¯ physical body¡¯s instincts. Will ¡®he¡¯ still fall in love with the opposite gender? Yep, this really is a worthy research topic!¡±


    ¡°Cough¡ªI know, I know, I¡¯ll give up on n #13. n #14, then. We can use a sealing spell to seal her away forever, or ask Amelia to cast a Sleeping Beauty curse on her. What? Still not satisfied? What a difficult customer to please. Alright, alright, n #15...¡±


    ¡°n #27: We can go and find Beifeng¡ªplease don¡¯t attack me. I humbly admit it was wrong for me to have mentioned Beifeng. Let¡¯s abandon this n.¡±


    We were in a massive underground cavern, massive to the extent I couldn¡¯t even see the ceiling. As I acted ridiculously with Evelyn, behind us was an unending procession where countless artisans and warriors slowly proceeded forward with their luggage and carts. Their goal was the void door before them: the entrance to Dragon World.


    Thanks to the fact that this was the passage to the Dragon World, numerous dragons, including the giant Immemorial Dragons, would need to be able to freely enter and exit. This underground cavern was spacious enough to the point where even airships could enter.


    Right now, the guardian dragon of Dragon World¡¯s entrance, the Dragon World leader Evelyn, was chatting to me. However, only her two forms, the Copper Dragon and Blue Dragon Evelyns I already met, were chatting with me.


    ¡°...You¡¯vetely had a lot of free time to have created so many random and useless ns?¡±


    ¡°No! I¡¯ve been too busytely, which is why I made these ns as a way of rxing. You understand how it is; all work and no y makes Jack a dull boy... why are you spewing dragonbreath at me again!? Can Blue Dragons please be a little more reasonable!¡±


    ¡°You actually dared to treat curing Cher and us as something fun! You should be severely punished for your attitude!¡±


    Although the expressionless Blue Dragon imed so, no matter how I looked at it, didn¡¯t it simply seem more like she just wanted an excuse to make me suffer? Could it be that I¡¯d made her angry at me?


    ¡°There¡¯s far too many reasons why you might have angered her. There¡¯s no need to even bring up the past. Right now, if any normal individual saw these ns, they¡¯d probably think that you¡¯re intentionally acting ridiculously.¡±


    ¡°But I¡¯m being serious!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s even worse. Can¡¯t be saved.¡±


    ¡°No, Cher can still be saved. We can¡¯t give up on a cure!¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m saying your head is what can¡¯t be saved. Stop struggling and give up on a cure...¡±


    Alright then, what happened next was business as usual: a fight between me and my pet cat.


    ¡°Pahaha! Rnd, you¡¯ve truly changed.¡±


    Seeing theical scene before her, the Copper Dragon Evelyn, who had only been sipping tea and chatting, felt rather nostalgic.


    ¡°Hmm? Have I be more handsome? It must be all mybat experience that¡¯s made me seem manlier than before.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know about bing more handsome, but you¡¯ve definitely be cuter. I hear the Princess Peach books have been selling extremely well. I bought one too, and all my sisters keep reading it together and gushing about how cute you are.¡±


    ¡°...Harloys, remind me to toss that bastard into Mizar¡¯s cannons and shoot him into the sky. Yep, I¡¯m referring to a certain tailed Dracon, the living desecration.¡±


    ¡°I most certainly agree. But is the Mizar¡¯s main cannon sufficient? Wouldn¡¯t it be better to use the Borealis¡¯s main cannon?¡±


    ¡°Cleaning the cannon would be too troublesome.¡±


    Well, we had the free time to act ridiculously here, but someone was unable to watch this any longer.


    ¡°...You from back in the day looked so lonely. When youughed, it looked more like you were crying. You were filled with hatred for the world, as if you were a man betrayed by the entire world...¡±


    The surprising part was that the Blue Dragon Evelyn was the one who spoke up. Although she still had a serious expression, a nostalgic look entered her eyes. Suddenly, her nostalgia transformed into delight as her icy countenance instantly defrosted.


    ¡°...That was so cool! An avenger who¡¯s enemies with the entire world!¡±


    The way she was jumping up and down made her seem like she was a celebrity chaser who just saw her favorite star.


    ¡°...Image, image, Fifth Sister! Your image of an icy beauty is copsing!¡±


    We couldn¡¯t help but silently nod in unison at Copper Dragon Evelyn¡¯sment. Blue Dragon Evelyn¡¯s ice beauty image had indeed been shattered.


    ¡°She¡¯s so logical I can¡¯t even counter it.¡± The silly cat¡¯sments were getting better. It would seem that she had been trained well by me.


    But, suddenly, the Blue Dragon girl red at me. And then...


    ¡°Ptui!¡±


    She spat on the ground in condescension with a gaze that obviously expressed she looked down on me. I felt rather nervous being stared at by a beauty like this.


    ¡°If, back in the day, you were a cool and handsome prince out for revenge just like in a legendary story, right now you¡¯re nothing more than a ridiculous clown!¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s so logical! I can¡¯t even counter what she said!¡± The ck cat on my shoulder pretended to act all surprised.


    Alright, silly cat, there was no need toment here... Why were you nodding so energetically? Don¡¯t think I didn¡¯t notice how you used exmation points. Was that how much you agreed? If I were a professional tsukkomi, wouldn¡¯t that make you the professional straight man? So we were actually a ssicic duo!


    ¡°If you want to be a stand-upic, do it by yourself! Don¡¯t get me involved! I¡¯m different from you!¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Such professional retorting, and you still dare to not call yourself aic!? Harloys, the genes ofedy are buried deep within your bones! You were born to be aic... cat!¡±


    Alright then. The second major battle between me and my silly cat urred. Yet the two Evelyns exchanged nces and secretly snickered.


    They were the two sent out tomunicate with Rnd because they were the sisters who viewed the past as most important. But, upon seeing the current Rnd, they felt many sentiments as they mentallymunicated between themselves.


    ¡°Fifth Sister,pared to that seemingly icy but actually kind fellow from my memories, I like the one before me more. I hated how the past him always had such hidden depression and anger within him.¡±


    ¡°...Of course you¡¯d like the current him more. Don¡¯t you always love to watchedy performances? Still... indeed, this type of Rnd is more reassuring. Eh, a message from Second Sister?¡±


    The two Evelyns silently listened to the message. Then, the Copper Dragon Evelyn spoke up.


    ¡°Rnd, why do I feel like you¡¯re intentionally stalling us here so that we won¡¯t inspect if there¡¯s anything taboo you¡¯re bringing into Dragon World?¡±


    ¡°...You¡¯re insulting our intelligence. We¡¯re not customs officials who you can fool so easily.¡±


    Alright then. It wasn¡¯t so easy to fool them after all. And so, I handed over the real n to cure Cher along with smiling as I talked.


    ¡°What level of item do you think even counts as taboo for the powerful dragons. Heehee, do you really think I would bring something like a Salo¡¯s Crystal in here? I still want to live a few more years.¡±


    I didn¡¯t even get to finish exining myself before the two Evelyns eximed in unison.


    ¡°You really brought a Salo¡¯s Crystal in here!?¡±


    ¡°No, no, I¡¯m just making an analogy! An analogy!¡±


    ¡°...Second Sister was absolutely correct. He¡¯s trying to seriously exin things away! That means he¡¯s feeling worried that we caught him, so he definitely brought in a Salo¡¯s Crystal!¡±


    ¡°Why are you casually carrying such a major weapon of mass destruction? Are you intending on fighting a world war?¡±


    Alright then, it seemed that I was no longer able to fool them. But just as I was hesitating whether to resist and attempt to use force to break through or to just admit my crime and await punishment... whoops, something seemed wrong about my analogy, cough. At this moment, the two Evelyns exchanged smiles before they focused on the real n to cure Cher in their hands.


    ¡°...It seems that they¡¯re going to let you bring it in. Honestly, why didn¡¯t you just bring it in openly? ying such a trifling trick? People are going to look down on you.¡±


    ¡°Would you let someone else take an item capable of bing a nuclear bomb into your home so easily, Harloys? Isn¡¯t this a foundational issue? How would I know they¡¯d let me take it in so easily without even caring about their own benefits?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but mutter to myself as I observed my ¡°old friends¡± intentionally chatting with each other about the n to cure Cher as they pretended to ignore the Salo¡¯s Crystal.


    ¡°Perhaps it¡¯s not that they don¡¯t care about their benefits; it¡¯s that I don¡¯t know what benefits they¡¯re aiming for...¡±

 Chapter 397 - Dragon World

    <h4>Chapter 397: Dragon World</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°My seniors were correct. I never expected the moon to be sorge and round in another country. Ahh! The air is so fresh! It was worth the hard work to immigrate and obtain a green card.¡±


    However, my exmation received no response. It would seem that this was a downside of being in another world. Nobody understood my jokes from Earth.


    [What generation do you think it is, still making jokes about immigration? Do you love exposing how old you are <i>that </i>much? System Notification: 5 Justice Points have been deducted for thementing service. Thank you very much!]


    ¡°Alright, at least someone paid attention to me. My joke didn¡¯tpletely fall t.¡±


    But what I said was the truth. The moment I crossed through the Dimensional Door, my first impression was of the beauty of the light blue sky along with the giant moons that seemed to be right above me, giving off a great sensation of pressure.


    ¡°Yep, yep, such big and round moons. There are actually three moons here.¡±


    There was a blood-red moon surrounded by simrly blood-colored magical storms. Currant-colored satellites orbited them, and streaking behind them were ominouset tails. The crimson moonlight seemed to possess a magical power. Simply looking at it seemed to make one feel frustrated.


    ¡°You have excellent luck. Only on less than thirty days a year does one get to see three moons together. That¡¯s the blood moon, Deemo. He only appears during thest few days of the month. When Deemo appears, beasts run rampant. Beast stampedes and Berserk Dragon Sickness bemon. While beast stampedes are nothing more than a small annoyance to the dragons, Berserk Dragon Sickness is troublesome. This disease can cause dragons in poor condition to go berserk. That¡¯s why we won¡¯t allow any injured or young dragons to be exposed to Deemo¡¯s moonlight. If treatment isn¡¯t received immediately, the berserk condition will typicallyst for about half a month.¡±


    It was nice to have a narrator nearby exining everything. It would have been better, however, if she didn¡¯t keep staring curiously at me. After all, a Copper Dragon¡¯s endless curiosity could be annoying when you were trying to conceal something.


    Next to the blood-red moon were two smaller round moons. One was white, while the other was earth yellow. Their glows seemed to be suppressed by the blood moon.


    ¡°The white moon is the holy moon Wendiya. She typically appears right after the blood moon. In the natives¡¯ legends, these two moons are Moon Gods eternally at war with each other. Their simultaneous appearance represents the beginning of a new month. Since the blood moon still has the advantage, there should be another two days until the end of the month.¡±


    ¡°There are natives living here? It would seem that the information you gave me about the Dragon World is iplete. Forget it. What¡¯s that earth-yellow one?¡±


    ¡°Heehee! Aren¡¯t I telling you now? The yellow one? That¡¯s the warrior moon Abo. He¡¯s supposed to be a Warrior God that the natives worship. He doesn¡¯t have any special abilities, but it¡¯s said that when Abo appears, the natives will feel like it¡¯s a season for war... Since we see the blood moon and the warrior moon together, some ce in the Dragon World must be in the midst of a raging conflict.¡±


    ¡°The months must far exceed twelve here. There are so many moons; how do you even calcte your calendar?¡±


    Copper Dragon Evelyn shrugged. Apparently, she felt that this was a rather boring topic.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know how it¡¯s calcted, either. There are six moons here, with twenty-three months in a year and seven seasons. Each month also has a different number of days. Only the Scroll Dragons like to study about this topic. They¡¯ll always give out warnings when it¡¯s an incredibly important or dangerous time.¡±


    I knew about the Scroll Dragon species. They were a rare species of dragon and were nicknamed Museum Dragons. Naturally inclined towards gathering and researching all sorts of knowledge, these wise and conservative dragons had excellent rtionships with the saints and mages. It was even rumored that one archmage in the Truth Symposium was the astral projection of a Scroll Dragon.


    But what I paid more attention to was the vignce evident in Copper Dragon Evelyn¡¯s tone. The dragons seemed to be on guard against something.


    ¡°Dangerous time? Even for the dragons?¡±


    ¡°Yes, you should be able to detect it as well. The Elemental Tide¡¯s density here is very high.¡±


    I nodded in understanding. The moment I entered this ce, I felt as if my body became lighter. My senses for ice, water, death, and such elements became strengthened. In fact, I felt as if I could change rain into ice with a single thought... which was why I said I felt the air here was so fresh. It was unfortunate, however, that not a single person here had understood my jokes and hadmented on them.


    ¡°Silly cat, you feeling better yet?¡±


    ¡°Shut up. I¡¯m not yourmenting ve.¡±


    Ever since I¡¯d called her myic partner, she sunk into a period of self-loathing and refused toment on anything I said or did.


    ¡°I¡¯m thest princess of the Gold Elves, the undying Banshee Queen, and a future Undead Emperor. How can I possibly be a joke character!? Never! Never! I, Gold Elf Harloys, will never be aic!¡±


    Alright, let¡¯s not mention how a ck cat with a serious expression, raising her paw while making this promation, made the perfectedy scene. Still, it was quite rare for her to be depressed for such a long period of time. It would seem that calling her my ic partner¡± had given her a great impact.


    At least, on our way here, I kept trying to joke around and make herment, but she only ignored me. Even if I pulled on her tail, she still remained silent.


    ¡°...Wait a moment, let me quietly think for a while. The magic power of moonlight! The Elemental Tide¡¯s density here is insane! Amazing!¡±


    The silly cat suddenly became lively. Apparently, she hadn¡¯t been so silent because of depression. It was actually that a new round of research fervor had gripped her.


    It was quite normal for her to be excited. A high Elemental Tide density world like this was just like a fantasy world one could read about in knight stories. Cultivating and leveling up would be much easier. There would be fewer restrictions and greater power for top-level individuals. Just this alone was worth the trip.


    ¡°Perhaps this is a prologue to the future. It¡¯s nice to be able to y the beta test before the server formally opens up.¡±


    Eich¡¯s Elemental Tide density was constantly increasing as well. Being able to experience the naturalws of a world with higher Elemental Tide density would of course serve a great advantage. Besides...


    ¡°This is a beta test where our save files won¡¯t be deleted. Such a great deal.¡±


    Behind me was myrge scale army setting up their camp. The engineers were obtaining environmental data and testing if their sensory equipment worked as normal. The warriors were testing the effect of the twenty-percent increase in gravity this world had. I also saw a mage testing his fireball magic, and then being startled at how his fireball was twice asrge as normal.


    They were going to live and reside in the Dragon World ne. Of course, many of them would sessfully level up, naturally allowing them to surpass others in Eich. This was the foundational reason why I had been so determined to take as many of my forces as I could here. Since I had such a rare chance, rather than just having my few direct subordinates benefit, why not have as many people on my side benefit as possible instead?


    Despite the fact that the dragons knew they would soon have a difficult and fierce battle against the Titan Giants, the dragons still tried their best to protect the Dragon World. This was in a way the best evidence of this world¡¯s value. I refused to believe what the dragons said in the information that they gave me about how they didn¡¯t want to give this ce up simply because it would help young dragons mature faster.


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t express my doubt directly to their faces. Besides, it was simple enough to tell some things right after arriving as certain phenomena would be impossible to hide. For instance, the Elemental Tide¡¯s density was quite obvious and impossible to conceal. At least on the surface, it was still necessary for me to pretend topletely trust the dragons.


    ¡°The Elemental Tide¡¯s density is just as high as what your information told me. You said that some time periods will be dangerous. Does this mean that the dragons aren¡¯t the only masters of this ne?¡±


    Although the information I received didn¡¯t mention anything, it would be normal to expect that other residents lived in this world. After all, so many dragons lived here, and dragons were pure carnivores famous for ravenous appetites. They would need a tremendous amount of territory to provide enough meat for them.


    Plus, all the dragons were adamant about their own territories, and plenty of dragons would have bloody conflicts with each other all over the sake of territory. Some even became mortal enemies, such as the Blue Dragons and Copper Dragons that both loved desert environments, the Red Dragons and Silver Dragons that both loved volcanic environments, or the Crystal Dragons and White Dragons that both loved icy environments. Of course, this was also rted to the fact that Color Dragons and Metal Dragons naturally viewed each other with enmity.


    Dragons were meat eaters. That was why I felt that even though the information they gave me didn¡¯t mention a single word about other residents, there would actually be countless residents here that probably even hated the dragons. Back in the immemorial generation, dragons hunted as they pleased, making most sentient creatures in Eich have zero good feelings towards these aggressive flying lizards. Plenty of intelligent species would organize dragon ughters.


    ¡°...That¡¯s not quite the correct way to put it. This world is huge, and it¡¯s impossible for us to rule over its entirety. For instance, some will take advantage of the blood moon and attack dragons caught alone and force that dragon into Berserk Dragon Sickness. We dragons also need to obediently stay in our nests whenever the ck moon is out. Luckily, the ck moon is only out for two or three days in a year.¡±


    ¡°Hehehe! Today¡¯s the blood moon, so perhaps some dragons will be suffering misfortune today? ...no way! It really came true!?¡±


    I raised my head to look at the sky and just happened to see a White Dragon being chased in the air by a group of winged tiger-headed species. These Tigermen were riding wyverns, a species of SemiDragons with physical rather than magical wings, as their aerial steeds.


    Because I jinxed things yet again, everyone, especially Evelyn, red at me. And so I obediently lowered my head and stayed silent.


    ¡°I think I need to learn how to shut up.¡±

 Chapter 398 - Plains and the Eternal Thunder Tribe

    <h4>hapter 398: ins and the Eternal Thunder Tribe</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    The aerial battle continued. The tactics the Tigermen used against the White Dragon reminded me of how a pack of wolves would surround and hunt arge water buffalo.


    These Tigermen were obviously sly and experienced hunters. They used the agilest unit among them as bait that¡¯d repeatedly fly around in front of the White Dragon. As long as the unit attracted the White Dragon¡¯s attention and dragonbreath, the others would continuously swarm it and worsen the injuries on the White Dragon¡¯s back and wings.


    Whenever the White Dragon furiously tried to counterattack and do everything it could to kill its mortal enemies, these Tigermen would scatter. Their wyvern steeds were swift and capable of making sharp turns in midair. White Dragons were well known for being clumsy and stupid, and this particr one was unable to follow them. The advantage of the wyverns¡¯ smaller size proved quite useful here.


    The Tigermen were patient hunters. They weren¡¯t tempted by a swift win. They slowly whittled their prey down, waiting for the White Dragon to reach the brink.


    Meanwhile, on the surface, Copper Dragon Evelyn was still all smiles as she watched me. It appeared as though she didn¡¯t care about the battle in the sky in the least.


    ¡°Are you not going up to help? Isn¡¯t that a fellow dragon? It seems to be seriously injured.¡±


    That White Dragon¡¯s wingspan was only three or four meters wide. It might not even have reached Adult Dragon status yet. More than ten bloody harpoons were impaled in its wings, and its speed was slowing down at a visible rate. The situation didn¡¯t seem all too well for this White Dragon, yet the Copper Dragon before me seemed content with simply watching.


    ¡°White Dragons are no family of mine. Perhaps you need to study more about dragons. All dragons only pay a basic amount of respect to those closely rted to them. You can¡¯t casually use words like family or same species. And there¡¯s also the enmity between Color and Metal Dragons. An Adult White Dragon is no different from a wild beast. A starving White Dragon is even capable of eating its own children. As a Copper Dragon, it¡¯s already rare for me to not go and help hunt it down. If I go out to save a White Dragon and word spreads, all the other Metal Dragons willugh at me. Besides...¡±


    ¡°Elite hunters from the Eternal Thunder tribe? You cat-headed cowards, stop bullying a young dragon! Come face the wrath of a true dragon!¡±


    An angry roar interrupted Evelyn¡¯s interruption as Blue Dragon Evelyn suddenly appeared in the sky. Unlike Halent¡¯s brother and steed who had only recently reached the age of an Adult Dragon, this Blue Dragon had a length of more than twenty meters. She was already at the standard level of an Ancient Dragon.


    It was impossible to identify the patterns on her scales due to her wavy body.


    Rampaging thunder raged inside the single horn on her head, while each of her front ws grasped a pearl-shaped treasure. Dark clouds covered the skies as she unfurled her blue wings and soared straight for the aerial battle in the sky.


    Before even getting close to her opponents, the Blue Dragon¡¯s high-level draconic might and the thunderous clouds it summoned had caused the SemiDragon wyvern steeds to panic. The Tigermen aerial knights had to shout in order to stop their wyverns from turning and running in panic.


    Most mystifying was that the thunderclouds she summoned sent out a series of chain lightning, and the first electrified target was actually that White Dragon which had been ganged up upon.


    ¡°...Besides, my sister¡¯s unable to take it anymore. If I steal her prey, she¡¯ll attack me as well.¡±


    ¡°So this is the Blue Dragon, known for being the biggestbat maniac and the speediest of the dragons?¡±


    Looking at the howling White Dragon falling right in her path, Blue Dragon Evelyn apparently had no intentions of saving it. She instead mmed one wing into the White Dragon, speeding up its crash into the ground.


    Her wing alone wasrger than the White Dragon¡¯s entire body. Her wing m directly knocked it unconscious, causing it to freefall to the ground. Momentster, itnded with a brutal impact.


    *Boom!*


    How vicious. Instead of saving the White Dragon, Blue Dragon Evelyn didn¡¯t hesitate to use an AOE thunder magic attack. Although she too was a Color Dragon, she didn¡¯t think twice about attacking her White Dragon rtive.


    ¡°It seems that Fifth Sister has been suffering from great stress recently... It¡¯s not strange to see her attacking a White Dragon. Until a White Dragon evolves enough to obtain intelligence, none of us will view them as our equals. White Dragons that haven¡¯t reached the Immemorial Dragon rank have the intelligence of only a wild beast. And the other residents here are capable of taming them, so White Dragons can be a threat to us. Take a look at those SemiDragon wyverns. They¡¯re probably the half-blood bastard offspring of some White Dragon. Fifth Sister really loathes dragons that don¡¯t have intelligence. She believes their simr appearances to herself are nothing more than an insult.¡±


    However, what attracted me more than analyzing the personalities of different species of dragons was the girl herself.


    ¡°She¡¯s so beautiful~¡±


    ¡°What?!¡±


    Did I say something strange? Even the silly cat was so shocked she stood up on her hind legs.


    ¡°...She has the exact same soul and memories, but her physical body influenced her to walk down a different path with a different personality. This is a miracle given by the God of Probabilities. If I could only dissect¡ªI mean deeply research this, perhaps I can find shortcuts to make the physical body influence the soul!¡±


    ¡°As expected, that seems correct.¡±


    ¡°Yep, no mistaking it, that¡¯s Rnd.¡±


    The signsing from around me made me feel mysteriously angered, but I was indeed interested in Evelyn¡¯s situation. She was my first ever Original Sin creation, and she had such a long time to self-evolve and perfect herself. If only I could dissect¡ªcarefully research her, I¡¯d definitely benefit.


    Unfortunately, judging from the current situation, none of these ten dragons would be easy to fool. It wouldn¡¯t be easy to have them walk onto my surgery table¡ªI mean cooperate with my research.


    ¡°You want to dissect me? Dream on! You¡ªyou¡ªif you dare to point your butcher¡¯s knife at Cher, we sisters will fight you to the death!¡±


    ¡°...I identally said it out loud? I don¡¯t have such a habit, do I? Oh, it was you, you damned silly cat. Evelyn, listen to me¡ªI was only making an analogy! An analogy!¡±


    I only had to nce at the smug silly cat to realize the problem. While the soul connection with a magical pet was convenient, it was also a double-edged de. It would be easy to leak certain information. The silly cat definitely secretly informed Evelyn just now.


    I finally managed to ¡°exin¡± how I only meant the word dissect as an academic adjective synonym for ¡°careful research.¡± Yet the Copper Dragon still watched me with a far more vignt expression, forcing me to give up on my future research ns.


    ¡°Damn it! I¡¯d intended to use Cher as my bait to make her cooperate in my research. Harloys, it¡¯s all your fault.¡±


    ¡°...Hmph! Do you really think she wasn¡¯t on guard to begin with? Did you forget how many people witnessed you threatening the Snake Archduchess? Did you forget that the unfortunate me is a living warning to everyone else? She was always on guard against you. Haven¡¯t you noticed that the Evelyns haven¡¯t consumed a single piece of food or water from us?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ analysis was quite on spot. The current Evelyn¡¯s standpoint was a curious one. Was she on the side of the dragons? But her soul and memories were of a human. She even had an impossibly tangled rtionship with Bardi. Yet was she on the side of the humans? After all, she was currently one of the major leaders of the dragons.


    ¡°I need to have a good discussion with her. Yep, even if it¡¯s just to obtain this unique experimental subject, I need to have a good discussion.¡±


    Myb rat was now on guard, so I would no longer be able to carry out my original n. In that case, I would just temporarily set it aside. Meanwhile, the battle in the sky had reached its end. The moment Blue Dragon Evelyn took to the skies, the battle¡¯s result had been decided.


    These Tigermen named the Eternal Thunder Tribe could do nothing against this Blue Dragon at the Ancient Dragon level. The moment they saw her, they unhesitatingly turned and fled. Unfortunately, their opponent was the speediest of all dragons, skilled at controlling lightning and tempests. Only a few lucky ones were able to escape.


    As for that White Dragon? One could only hope that it still had aplete corpse after crashing down and creating such arge crater. However, when considering how White Dragons had bestial levels of intelligence and reproductive abilities, there wasn¡¯t much difference if one more or one less White Dragon survived. Blue Dragon Evelyn probably wanted to use this chance to vent a little.


    We had now obtained some extra captives. Upon closer observation, I discovered that these Tigermen were unrted to the beastmen from the mortal ne. In fact, they probably didn¡¯t even have the same ancestors.


    The beastmen in the mortal ne of Eich had many physical features simr to humans. It was analogous to being two distantly rted branch families. The most obvious difference between humans and beastmen was that beastmen typically had a few bestial traits. But it would only be the extent of having a beast head and some beast ears and so on. Actually, those with certain interests even found human/beastmen pairings eptable. On the other hand, the Tigermen before us had obviously evolved down a different path.


    It was rather difficult to exin but quite obvious if you saw the example before us.


    The current Tigermen had tiny tiger heads that were a bit smaller than the average human head. Their average height was less than 1.6 meters and they all had hunched backs. They also preferred to scamper on all four feet, and it seemed that their joint structure didn¡¯t allow them to stand upright. Their fingers were different from typical beastmen¡¯s fingers, which were just like human fingers with ws at the end. Instead, their fingers were simply three des, evolved to be a vicious weapon.


    They wore light armor that was easy to move around in, which appeared to be created out of casually put together cloth. Meanwhile, their shaking physical wings on their backs exposed their anxiety.


    Even under the threat of dragonbreath, their murky eyes were filled with the desire to hunt for flesh and blood. Their ded hands possessed the stench of blood and had pieces of meat attached. Plus, two sharp fangs reached out of their mouths. Even without needing to look at the strangely-colored long spears on their backs and their blood-letting tools, it would be quite easy to understand that these Tigermen were a vicious and dangerous predatory species.


    ¡°What is this ce? Speak. If none of you speak, I¡¯ll eat you all.¡±


    The surprising part was that Copper Dragon Evelyn directly asked a question in the dragonnguage.


    ¡°...Ghostwind ins. This is the Ghostwind ins. We are hunters from the Tantail Tiger Tribe. O powerful divine beast, we didn¡¯t realize that you hade to our home with a request. We were only attacking that White SemiDragon because he attacked our farm and robbed us of our livestock.¡±


    Alright then. They called the Copper Dragon a divine beast while the White Dragon was only called a SemiDragon. It would seem that even the natives here didn¡¯t have any respect for White Dragons. Well, it was the White Dragons¡¯ own fault for having low intelligence, slow growth, not knowing how to use magic, and even having the terrible habit of eating their own children and eggs... with all this against them, the White Dragons truly deserved their reputation of being the weakest dragon species.


    Even more surprising was that a Tigerman with golden feathers on his forehead replied to Copper Dragon Evelyn¡¯s question in the dragonnguage. Although his ent was somewhat strange, he was indeed fluent.


    The dragonnguage was one of the required sses for bing a mage, which meant it wasn¡¯t easy at all. It possessed its own magic power and involved arge number of sounds that required curling the tongue along with many sounds not perceivable by the naked ear. Many students with no talent for it would end up having surgery performed on their throats or tongues in order to attempt mastering the dragonnguage. It wasmon sense, then, that if an entire species was able to master the dragonnguage to a certain extent, that species would have natural talent for producing mages. In fact, even the idiotic Dogmen beastmen tribe was known for their high proportion of magic talent.


    So these seemingly vicious predator Tigermen either had excellent talent fornguages or the dragons used their incredibly long stay here and the threat of dragonbreath to force these natives to voluntarily learn how tomunicate with them.


    ¡°Ghostwind ins? Our luck this time was truly bad. The Ghostwind ins are very far from the Moor Mountains we¡¯re heading to.¡±


    ¡°The teleportation point isn¡¯t fixed? How is it possible that you created such arge-scale Dimensional Door with a random teleportation point on the other side?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fixed that you¡¯ll be teleported somewhere in the Dragon World. However, the location is random because the constetions here are too annoying. The entire ne¡¯s coordinates are constantly in flux.¡±


    I gazed up at the sky to look at the three moons and nodded in understanding. With astronomical bodies so close, there would be great amounts of interference. Plus, this interference would randomly increase or decrease in magnitude. With multiple moons¡¯ powerful interference, it would be difficult enough to be able to teleport here. Precise teleportation would definitely be impossible.


    ¡°How¡¯s the environment here? Could you give us some basic information?¡±


    ¡°...I don¡¯t know. Don¡¯t be so surprised! We spend most of our time in the Dragon World portion of this ne for the sake of our high-speed growth. However, this ne is so big; how are we supposed to know about the whole ne? I only know that a major battle once urred here. I heard that several extremely powerful dragon elders all died here.¡±


    ¡°Our majestic Tiger God is undefeatable! Kill off those damned lizards.¡±


    Although that golden feathered Tigerman muttered in a tiny voice, I heard him as clearly as if he was talking right next to my ear thanks to my enhanced hearing. Judging from Evelyn¡¯s reaction, this location seemed to be quite distant from the dragons¡¯ home turf. However, for me, just because of this reason, this ce was perfect.


    ¡°Aerial knights, begin exploring and mapping this area! Engineers, construct a temporary defense line! This may very well be our future home.¡±

 Chapter 399 - Immigration

    <h4>Chapter 399: Immigration</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    The air, which was infused with fragrant nt aromas, made one feel spirited. However, this was shadowed by beasts howling not far away, which made people instinctively ufortable. The dirt here was tan and blood-red, a rather scary mix of colors. Nevertheless, the druids with us announced that this soil was abnormally fertile, to the point where an abundant harvest could be received simply by nting some seeds and not doing any other work.


    In just a few days, this ce hadpletely changed.


    Thanks to the wood spirits¡¯ assistance, it was simple to construct a campground in this type of terrain. In less than twenty-four hours, a wall of thorns marked our living area and blocked us off from the wild beasts. Simple treehouses would at least protect us from inclement weather.


    The Borealis¡¯s searchlights continuously illuminated our campground from the sky, while the Mizar was resting and replenishing itself and the Alkaid and its guard ships were undertaking the task of exploration. Meanwhile, engineers were constructing defensive fortifications as countless goblin cannons and iron tanks alighted from the airships.


    The most attention-attracting structure was the huge tower being constructed in the middle of the campground.


    This tower¡¯s foundation was of metal, buts many of its smaller parts were constructed out of adamantine and mithril, making its value so exorbitant to the point where even dragons would drool.


    The tower was covered in dense magical runes along with a thickyer of magical thorns. It seemed quite ssical and natural. Four smaller towers surrounded the main tower, and all five towers glimmered with magical runes. A mystical connection had already been established. Moreover, Tid and Olivia were the two leaders who personally took charge of its construction. Just this alone was the best evidence of how important this tower was.


    ¡°...What¡¯s this? A new type of mage tower? Is it drawing energy from underground? Are you here to help or are you nning on moving here?¡±


    ¡°Hehehe! Take a guess... fine, fine. If we construct a home base here, wouldn¡¯t that put us in the same boat as you? At least, we have no reason to allow the Titan Giants to revive and destroy all our work here.


    Indeed, judging by how the White Dragon had been hunted down, it was highly unlikely that any powerful dragons lived nearby. After I confirmed that this area was far away from the dragons¡¯ main territory, I decided to construct arge-scale permanent settlement here.


    ¡°...No matter how you look at it, this doesn¡¯t look like a temporary frontline base. The forever-stingy you actually invested so much in this location¡ªdo you intend to invade the Dragon World? Let me tell you right now that more than ten thousand dragons live here, and each dragon has their own territory and countless followers. There are also several Great Immemorial and Ultra Immemorial Dragons here. Are you sure you can win?¡±


    I felt that Copper Dragon Evelyn¡¯s attitude was strange. The impression I got from her wasn¡¯t that she was worried about the dragons, but that she was instead worrying about me meeting with difficulties if I angered the dragons. Simply speaking, I was confused about her standpoint and which side she was on.


    I had such a feeling the first time I met her. She was somewhat interested in the Bardi humans, but only at the level of mild interest. She was also dispassionate about the dragons. The Evelyns lived alone by themselves underground in a human kingdom; it seemed as if they belonged to neither the humans nor the dragons and were purely on their own.


    ¡°...What, are you worried about me?¡±


    ¡°Indeed I am, since you are still our creator and technically our friend... although you don¡¯t even remember it. Just looking at your nk expression makes me want to beat you up.¡±


    Copper Dragon Evelyn was quite direct in admitting it was because of our past rtionship. But this made me feel rather conflicted inside. From what I knew along with how my memory library had zero records, our past rtionship must have been extremelyplex. I would pretend to not have heard anything about former girlfriends or whatever, but our past rtionship must have been excellent at one point in time.


    However, trust would need time to umte. For a friendship where both sides were rxed enough to tell each other everything, an even longer time was needed. This current rtionship, where Evelyn was an old friend who knew everything about our past while I knew nothing, made me feel helpless.


    ¡°Then, can I trust you? If we have conflicts with the dragons¡ªnot the life and death type of conflict, but the type of conflict about benefits that won¡¯t tread on the dragons¡¯ taboos.¡±


    Hearing this, Evelyn actually chuckled.


    ¡°Perhaps you really do need to study more about dragons. Most dragons don¡¯t even care about their species. The number of dragons that Dragon City can control is directly rted to how powerful the current Dragon Emperor is. And the dragons there are mostly the weaker ones. Every dragon is individualistic.¡±


    I nodded upon hearing this. I knew all of this already. After all, dragons¡¯ internal conflicts were usually battles to the death. The powerful dragons had a very different societal structurepared to weak humans. They considered it normal to kill each other. They also had great individual power and very few natural enemies, which meant that they didn¡¯t need a group-based society to protect themselves. Of course they wouldn¡¯t care about the benefit of the entire species. Most dragons couldn¡¯t care less.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying...¡±


    ¡°Basically, as long as the offer is tempting enough, dragons don¡¯t really have a side. The oldest of us Evelyns is only a little over two hundred years old. For most dragons, that length of time is nothing but a long nap. I barely have any connections among the other dragons at all. We managed to be an elder here simply because of our power. You¡¯re asking if you can trust us? Perhaps you should ask yourself if you can offer us something that¡¯s worth it to us.¡±


    ¡°Ha! I really do have many good objects in my possession. But that also depends on if you can work at an appropriate level. Since things are too important, if you want to back out after I tell you...¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll kill us to protect your secret?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m a person of culture, a true gentleman. How could I possibly do such a thing? I would ask you to sign a contract beforehand forbidding you to reveal what I tell you.¡±


    ¡°...This type of contract always has loopholes. You¡¯re not someone soft and generous.¡±


    ¡°Heh heh! If you break the contract, someone will naturallye looking for you. Well, it¡¯s a long story that starts one hundred or so years ago. I met Ayer at the River Styx...


    ¡°And then, we continued with our n, where the God of Law obtaining Godhood was the most important part. Now, we¡¯re at the third step of our n...


    ¡°Alright, this is what we want you to do. If you break this contract, Ayer will be personally hunting you down...¡±


    More than three hours passed before I finished exining theplete n to them. The two Evelyns would ask me questions as well. Apparently, they weremunicating with the other Evelyns, as they would start with ¡°Second Sister wants me to ask you...¡±, ¡°Eighth Sister asks...¡± and so on. It would seem that the Evelyns had the ability of directmunication. Was it that their identical souls formed a synchronized soul for instantmunication?


    ¡°...This is our n. You can see for yourselves. If this n seeds, you¡¯ll naturally obtain an abundant harvest. So what do you all think?¡±


    What I saw was a pair ofplex expressions.


    ¡°...I never thought you¡¯d actually do it. You are too daring. You¡¯re basically about to be enemies with all the other Gods out there.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re even crazier than back in the day. The sess rate of your n is far too low.¡±


    I thought they were about to refuse when I heard a third Evelyn speak up.


    ¡°We can understand why you¡¯re doing this. We also express sympathy for your hard work. But we won¡¯t help you with your n...¡±


    The Silver Dragon, Evelyn the Second, suddenly appeared before me. Copper Dragon Evelyn was currently maintaining her projection.


    ¡°...However, we will help you deal with small difficulties as well as mislead the other dragons. Only if you prove that your n can possibly seed will we fully and openly assist you.¡±


    This was another projection. Sapphire Dragon Evelyn the First had mysterious emotions within her eyes. She was the first Evelyn created. As the big sister, her words represented the final decision of the Evelyns.


    ¡°So at least we now count as allies... or is the more urate word here co-conspirators?¡±


    I heaved a sigh of relief when the Evelyns agreed in unison to support me in this method, although they were ncing at me withplex expressions. My n was ratherrge-scale this time, so it would have been rather troublesome if they adamantly insisted against it.


    But I didn¡¯t regret telling them about my n in the least. With their help and cover for me, the sess rate of my n would increase by at least another twenty percent. And my ¡°instincts¡± and ¡°feelings¡± kept telling me that these ¡°old friends¡± of mine were trustworthy.


    Although I had a backup n, this type of result was the best. Giving grand speeches and instantly convincing others was a phenomenon that only existed in fiction. Without first confirming the safety of a ship, who would dare to board it?


    After they confirmed that we were indeed permanently settling here, I arranged residences for the two Evelyns as well. Numerous smaller ns of mine would now be enacted in full.


    ¡°Did those Tigermen give us information about the nearby environment?¡±


    ¡°No, as only their leader knows how to speak the dragonnguage. And when he saw that we were establishing a settlement here, he closed his eyes and refused to speak. He would only re at our questioner with hostility in his eyes. Apparently, he views us as invaders.¡±


    ¡°...How troublesome. Right, they¡¯re half beastmen, so can the druids and beast tamersmunicate with them?¡±


    ¡°We already tried. The druids refuse to have any deepmunication with the Tigermen as they said that the Tigermen think about nothing but violence. As for beast tamers, didn¡¯t you already send out the strongest beast tamer under yourmand? Even your strongest druid isn¡¯t here.¡±


    ¡°Eh, he hasn¡¯t returned yet?¡±


    ¡°Not yet. It would seem that he¡¯s met with trouble.¡±


    The strongest beast tamer? Yep, that referred to the existence who shall not be named. But some things had to be done by him. If he were here right now, these Tigermen would probably immediately tell us everything they knew. Perhaps they would even no longer have any hostility towards us after a single ¡°talk,¡± and even establish a deep friendship with a certain individual.


    However, my strongest druid and beast tamer weren¡¯t here. Several days ago, I sent out Eaglestorm, Beifeng, Ainslo and Diana to the Earth Elemental ne together with Camdian to retrieve the God Equipment of Wind. Yet they hadn¡¯t returned as scheduled. They must have met with some trouble.


    What? Why didn¡¯t I go myself? I was too busy. This type of Quest, which was only Legend rank, probably wouldn¡¯t have any fights, so I figured I could leave it to my subordinates. The team I sent would have an over ny percent chance at seeding. Perhaps they would even bring me back some treasure chest of Myth-ranked equipment.


    However, probabilities were forever uncertain. With my luck, something with a ny-nine percent probability was still likely to fail. If I didn¡¯t go, perhaps they would have a higher chance of seeding. If I went, I would probably bring about various ¡°miracle coincidences.¡±


    ¡°Main character plot armor?¡±


    ¡°Having an aura of cmity around me counts as main character plot armor? That can only mean that I¡¯m the main character of aedy.¡±


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI identally exposed something. I was no walking cmity, nor was I someone who tried to get a treasure chest with a ny-five percent chance of seeding but still failed epically! Whoops, I should stop going off topic.


    ¡°Their team has a healer, a tank and fighters for DPS. It shouldn¡¯t be that difficult. Could it be that they had an internal conflict? Both Camdian and Great Stone Sculptor Ainslo are untrustworthy. Perhaps, when opening the treasure box, one of them wanted to ambush the others. It would be fine if they simply wanted to kick the others out of the team, but it¡¯s more likely that someone wanted to kill everyone else to obtain the treasure...¡±


    ¡°Can you stop trying to jinx your subordinates to their deaths? You¡¯re the worst jinxer around.¡±


    But soon the patrolling aerial knights and Alkaid brought me a surprising gift.


    ¡°That White Dragon didn¡¯t die? What a surprise.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! The only advantage of being a White Dragon is their tough skin. Otherwise, they would have went extinct long ago.¡±


    Apparently, Blue Dragon Evelyn didn¡¯t care about the White Dragon¡¯s death or survival. She was truly disinterested. It was just that ever since I¡¯d told her myplete n, she would always be hanging around me.


    I asked Copper Dragon Evelyn for confirmation and learned that Blue Dragon Evelyn had been assigned to be my contact with the other Evelyns. But to be honest, rather than abat maniac Blue Dragon, I would have preferred the easier-to-talk-to Copper Dragon.


    Right now, she was exchanging res with the seriously injured White Dragon.


    If it was just the half-dead White Dragon, it wouldn¡¯t have been much of a gift. The reason I termed it as a nice gift was because this White Dragon was a pregnant female dragon about to give birth.


    ¡°It would seem that the Eternal Thunder tribe was aiming for the dragon eggs from the very start. If they obtained those baby White Dragons, their tribe¡¯s overall strength would be multiplied by more than ten times.¡±


    With such a big fight, the White Dragon naturally gave a premature birth. The Eternal Thunder tribe had been stalking this White Dragon for quite a while and had excellent timing. It was almost the end of her pregnancy period. Although the White Dragon had a premature birth, her dragon eggs were in good condition.


    ¡°Seven dragon eggs. At least five of them are still alive and can be hatched.¡±


    ¡°...There were originally nine eggs. Our people discovered two shattered eggs there.¡±


    ¡°What did that to the eggs? Who got there so quickly?¡±


    ¡°It was this White Dragon right here. She directly devoured them to help her injuries recover.¡±


    Alright then. Apparently it really wasn¡¯t a myth about how White Dragons ate their own children. No wonder White Dragons were discriminated against so much by the other dragons. Were they any different from wild beasts? No, they were worse, as even most wild beasts wouldn¡¯tmit such an atrocious act.


    However, I was rather happy to see these White Dragon eggs. Recently birthed dragon eggs were rare items highly popr on the ck market but almost never in stock. The main risk was that the dragon mother would chase down whoever stole her eggs.


    ¡°They¡¯re just a bunch of useless White Dragon eggs. Why are you so happy? Do you n to train some White Dragons for Dragon Knights in the future? It¡¯ll take a minimum of eighty years before these White Dragons mature enough to be useful. Even the young White Dragons are nothing more than wild beasts that are more skilled in other beasts at meleebat.¡±


    ¡°...Useless? That might not be the case. Evelyn, why do you think that White Dragons are no better than beasts?¡±


    ¡°Why? They¡¯re born like that.¡±


    I shook my head at this. Although this was themon method of thinking in this world, it wasn¡¯t ¡°magical¡± in any way. Often times, this so-called mon sense¡± would have mystical secrets behind it if one looked for the foundational reasons.


    ¡°Actually, humans are the same. Sometimes, human babies are lost in a forest and then raised by wild animals. Such humans will grow up to be so-called wild children. They won¡¯t even know how to talk, and they¡¯ll eat raw meat just like wild beasts do.¡±


    ¡°So, you¡¯re saying?¡± Evelyn nodded as she pondered this. She had heard such stories about humans as well.


    ¡°Dragons are born powerful, with the ability to inherit the previous generation¡¯s wisdom and basic knowledge even as a Dragon Egg. In fact, dragons don¡¯t require teachers to help them advance like all other species do. But, evidently, White Dragons are different.¡±


    I paused as I recalled a rumor I heard before. Perhaps this rumor would be the best evidence regarding my viewpoint.


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard before that some Silver Dragons and Crystal Dragons steal White Dragon eggs and then raise the White Dragon as their own child. In the end, they seeded in raising an evil Color Dragon with the kind personality of a Metal Dragon?¡±


    Evelyn nodded. This was no secret. Most of the famous and powerful White Dragons in Dragon City actually had such an upbringing.


    ¡°In that case, if we can give them the inheritance and teachings that theyck, doesn¡¯t that mean we can make them into a species not inferior to other dragon species? And I¡¯m quite an expert regarding memories and the soul. If you solely look at physical abilities, White Dragons are actually pretty strong. Their element is also ice, my favorite. I think it¡¯s worth trying.¡±


    ¡°...Do you really have the time? Their growth rate is astonishingly slow.¡±


    ¡°Hehehe, I have a trick up my sleeve. Right, if my experiment seeds, can you help me obtain some more White Dragon eggs?¡±


    ¡°If it¡¯s just to sell or raise them for your knights, then no. If you can really prove that you can make the White Dragons more like dragons, I should be able to negotiate this with the other dragon elders.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good enough for me. I¡¯ll try it out.¡±

 Chapter 400 - Researcher

    <h4>Chapter 400: Researcher</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Make the White Dragons more like other dragons? This sounded difficult, but it wasn¡¯t really all that hard if you heard the exnation. I didn¡¯t even need to create a research team, write a report or scam any research funds... Hrm¡ªit seemed quite meaningless, now, to scam research funds. I no longer had investors or higher-ups to report to.


    ¡°Are you stupid? You could write a report and ask Dragon City for funds. Aren¡¯t they your temporary investors? They have all sorts of dragon magic and ancient secret techniques. There¡¯s no reason not to ask!¡±


    ¡°...As expected of the Banshee Queen, my elder in scamming research funds.¡±


    ¡°Of course! Don¡¯t you know how I did things back at the Cloud Tower? I would split a simple project that could have been dealt with only one research team into four research teams. Each team would receive funding from different mage organizations. Then, each team would have ¡®breakthroughs¡¯ with slightly different results, obtaining another four batches of research reward money. How else was I supposed to fund my research? Unlike me, Amelia was so weak at scamming research funds that others even saw through her.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, you¡¯re amazing. That¡¯s why your request for funds for your research on the solidity and quality of the soul was denied. Now I am your boss. Is it really okay for you to be bragging about scamming funds in front of me?¡±


    ¡°Wait¡ªthat¡¯s a real project! How am I supposed to research it if you cut off my funding? I promised to share the results with you!¡±


    ¡°Sure. First show me some results and I¡¯ll fund you. Stop pretending to be pitiful and saying that you¡¯re poor. I know very well that you have lots of money stashed away. Fund your research yourself. If you have any results, I¡¯ll fund the rest.¡±


    How could an ancient individual like her possibly be poor? Just a random piece of furniture from her generation would be considered a valuable antique today. Although regr antiques weren¡¯t worth much money, it was impossible for Harloys to be poor as she had Golden Elf artwork, forgotten relics, artifacts and so on from the immemorial generation. Previously, when Harloys was out causing cmities in the world, she had nevercked money. It was already nice of me to not force her to hand all of her funds over.


    After I took care of the foolish Harloys who had revealed her scamming methods, I focused my attention back on the White Dragon research project. Naturally, I had already intended to use her method of scamming others for funds and resources. Dragon City was a wealthy investor, although their generosity was questionable. But as long as I carefully scammed¡ªermunicated with them, I could likely obtain many benefits.


    Actually, the issue of the White Dragons wasn¡¯t that difficult to solve.


    White Dragons had unbelievably slow growth periods. For a great part of their lives, they would be nothing more than bloodthirsty beasts. But the White Dragons who lived long enough to be Elder and Ancient Dragons would typically be able to obtain wisdom, making them drastically different to their brethren. However, since they had retained bestial natures for far too long, even the intelligent White Dragons were highly aggressive and threateningpared to other dragons.


    If one analyzed the differences between White Dragons and other dragons, it was quite easy to tell where the problem was. Other dragons were able to inherit knowledge even while being a Dragon Egg, so Baby Dragons were born with basicmon sense and intelligence. This inherited knowledge would be constantly expanded upon as the dragon grew older. Even Dragon Bloodline Warlocks were capable of obtaining knowledge through their Dragon Bloodlines. It was only the White Dragons that couldn¡¯t do so.


    This inheritance wasn¡¯t exactly a collection of high-level knowledge or secrets. Yet memories andmon sense constituted the foundation of aplete ¡°personality.¡± Without these, and without anyone to teach them, the White Dragons ended up as nothing more than carnivorous wild beasts.


    However, I was familiar with this concept. To use an analogy, this was like a newly-producedputer that had no problems with its hardware, but the creator had forgotten to install a basic operating system on it. This made all themon applications unusable, and theputer could only run itself automatically with zero guidance.


    When you looked at it like that, the solution became evident. One simply had to install an operating system. In my case, I would either have to copy one from somewhere or write my own.


    Each species of dragon had different natures and natural talents, and their inherited knowledge typically involved knowledge about their racial talents and specialty magics. Using other dragons¡¯ inherited knowledge would be inappropriate for the White Dragons. If I tried to forcefully give the White Dragons a Red Dragon¡¯s inherited knowledge, I would end up raising Red Dragons with the appearance of White Dragons.


    However, since the older White Dragons at Ancient Dragon and above were capable of self-awakening to intelligence, I simply needed to copy a set of their knowledge. Of course, this meant I would need to dissect numerous White Dragons. Yet when considering the White Dragons¡¯ terribleck of poprity with the other dragons, I felt that Dragon City would agree to this requires of mine.


    ¡°Once a human¡¯s personality is formed, it¡¯s incredibly difficult to change it. Habits are forever hard to change. A person with set memories and knowledge can only be slowly influenced to change their way of thinking. A person ustomed to being a beast will be nothing more than an intelligent beast even after receiving memories and knowledge. That will only make the person more dangerous. Only by giving White Dragons inherited knowledge from the very beginning will it be possible to change what they are like from their very foundation.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t making any of this up. Except for very few exceptions, the White Dragons powerful enough to be intelligent creatures had terrible reputations. The intelligent White Dragons were infamous for being loyal to the w of the jungle,¡± making them immensely disliked even by other dragons.


    It was obvious to me how I should solve this problem. The critical factor of this problem wasn¡¯t a logical one¡ªit was more about how to give a Dragon Egg memories and knowledge without brainwashing it or making it evil. This was more of a test about one¡¯s control over memories and the soul.


    However, none of this was a problem to me as the critical factor to solve everything was right in front of me. With an expression of great displeasure, she was currently ring at me.


    ¡°So, after all these roundabout exnations, you finally scammed me into bing your experimental subject?¡±


    ¡°No, no, how could you possibly use a word like ¡®scammed?¡¯ Haven¡¯t I exined everything clearly to you? Evelyn, you are the critical piece for solving this puzzle.¡±


    The Evelyns, who were constantly being born, were born with their own personalities, memories and knowledge. From a certain standpoint, they possessed a moreplete version of the dragons¡¯ inheritance. And they obviously had the capability to evolve their inheritance, as all of them gained more knowledge each time a new Evelyn was born. As long as I could clearly understand the system behind how they worked, I would be able to reverse engineer the technique and relearn this knowledge I¡¯d forgotten.


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI truly didn¡¯t have any personal ideas about scamming her to be my experimental subject! I swear in the name of Harloys¡¯ honor!


    As for the side effect¡ªthis surgery would likely bring about multiple personalities¡ªthat was, in a way, a good thing. After all, I would receive an endless amount of benefits if I secretly buried a personality that was one hundred percent loyal to me deep within her soul. As for whether it was immoral to leave ¡°backdoors¡± within the ¡°operating system,¡± didn¡¯t a certain major softwarepany from my previous world forever leave backdoors in their operating system as well? Weren¡¯t they still very popr regardless of that fact? Shame? Business morals? Was that ever important?


    ¡°Oh man, as expected of the past me. Such amazing skills. I give it thirty-two thumbs ups!¡±


    Unfortunately, despite the fact that the deeply sleeping Copper Dragon Evelyn had agreed to be my experimental subject, Blue Dragon Evelyn was vigntly watching my every move. She wouldn¡¯t even let me inspect Copper Dragon Evelyn by stripping her naked. This was an insult to my medical morality!


    ¡°Medical morality? You have such a thing?¡±


    ¡°...Fine, I don¡¯t have any medical morality, but I have skills! From past to present, plenty of individuals have be famous doctors even without medical morality! Who cares if I¡¯m one of them?¡±


    Rome wasn¡¯t built in a day. Research results that came out too quickly wouldn¡¯t be considered valuable. I wouldn¡¯t even consider giving Dragon City my research results until they offered me an appropriate price. I left the scamming expert Harloys in full charge of the negotiations.


    As for the White Dragon Eggs, they became my first batch of experimental subjects. Perhaps they would even soon be some backupbat strength for my side.


    As for the slow growth period that White Dragons had? That was even less of a problem. Little Red had ess to a secret dragon potion which could quickly make a dragon grow into an Adult Dragon. Although it had numerous negative side effects, I possessed Frigidwinter Earth, a cheat-like world where I could rewrite the naturalws. That was no problem for me. Probably.


    However, if I used my authority over my world to rapidly help the White Dragons grow, these White Dragons would be considered as residents of Frigidwinter Earth. If they left Frigidwinter Earth, they would be forced to obey the naturalws of Eich, the mortal ne, which would end terribly for them. Yet while other creatures weren¡¯t suited for living in Frigidwinter Earth to begin with, White Dragons were born with a natural affinity for ice.


    ¡°If I can¡¯t send them out, I could still use them when I pull my enemies into Frigidwinter Earth. Also, if this n seeds, that limitation will be removed...¡±


    As long as I could master Eich¡¯s methods of giving the White Dragons rapid growth and their inheritance, I would naturally be able to use local resources to mass-produce intelligent White Dragons. I would simply have to invest more of my resources.


    This was analogous to using banned technologies to make up for things when current technology and industry was insufficient. Once the theoretical technologies and industries were sufficientlyplete, I could remove the portion with banned technologies and rece it with a production line capable of mass production. For Frigidwinter Earth to show its true power, I would first have to obtain numerous research aplishments.


    I had long since possessed a magical engineering research division based in Frigidwinter Earth. Many iplete technologies had been solved by my Creator rights of ¡°I think,¡± ¡°I theorize¡± and ¡°I believe¡± in Frigidwinter Earth. Although the research results were far from usable in practical applications, recent progress in magical engineering products was still foundationally rted to the tremendous leaps made in magical engineering theory.


    Of course, there were also many theories that went overboard or were about to go overboard. For instance, I recently had an oundish idea about copying the memories and knowledge of a super warrior and then using my Creator rights to create physical bodies, with the end results being mass-produced elite warriors... Does all this sound familiar to you? Yep, I wanted to create a fantasy version of Star Wars¡¯ Clone Army.


    ¡°...Isn¡¯t that tantly breaking the Cycle of Reincarnation? Aren¡¯t you afraid of the veteran True Gods visiting you for a personal chat?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯ll only do this in the Dragon World. I¡¯m not foolish enough to do such a thing in Eich, where the veteran True Gods will personallye visit me.¡±


    ¡°Why do I feel like you¡¯re doing this on purpose?¡±


    ¡°Of course! Who wouldmit a crime right in front of a cop? In the world of Eich, the Gods and the two sources of Order and Chaos are watching. Going even slightly against the rules will result in major problems. I already have several hundred research ns I want to try out here in the Dragon World. We can take things slowly.¡±


    Although the idea sounded nice, reality was forever harsh. In just two days, my Clone Army n failed before it even began.


    ¡°It failed? Was it because the physical bodies you produced out of thin air were no good?¡±


    ¡°No, the physical bodies were easy. They were simply amalgamations of cells and high-growth proteins. The problem was with the soul. I¡¯m incapable of creating souls out of thin air.¡±


    ¡°...Didn¡¯t you already seed in creating something out of nothing?¡±


    ¡°Normal creation and creating a soul are atpletely different levels of difficulty. While I can create physical bodies, creating a soul from scratch is still impossible. Back when I created that tiny bird in the Humiliation of Soros incident, I made use of a soul from the Cycle of Reincarnation. That was something I only learned afterward. From a certain standpoint, it simply borrowed my powers to be reborn.¡±


    ¡°...There¡¯s no other method to solve this problem?¡±


    ¡°Not for the time being. My Frigidwinter Earth is informing me that it¡¯s absolutely impossible with my current power level. It doesn¡¯t seem that difficult, but if it bes possible, that means it¡¯ll be possible to casually increase or decrease the number of souls in a world. In that case, a so-called Cycle of Reincarnation will be meaningless. It¡¯s not so easy after all.¡±


    I felt regretful that I was unable to ovee this problem. If I could ovee the difficult task of artificially creating souls, then the Cycle of Reincarnation would no longer be important. It would be like inventing a limitless, clean and cheap source of energy, rending the previous energy technology meaningless.


    Unfortunately, if it was that easy, the two Goddesses of Order and Chaos wouldn¡¯t have sunk into such deep hibernation to the point where they needed soul shards from the Cycle of Reincarnation to help them recover. They could have simply enjoyed a giant soul buffet. It could be deduced that even Astrya and Cynthia didn¡¯t have the ability to create souls.


    ¡°There¡¯s more than a ny percent probability that the Goddesses of Order and Chaos don¡¯t have the ability to create souls. Since the Cycle of Reincarnation has always existed, with souls constantly being reused, perhaps even Eich herself doesn¡¯t have this power. Maybe the creation of the world was nothing more than a coincidence.¡±


    Harloys nodded in agreement. She understood theplexity of this topic and didn¡¯t have much hope from the beginning.


    ¡°What¡¯s the backup n? Don¡¯t tell me you don¡¯t have one.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I do have one: to establish original residents of Frigidwinter Earth and increase the speed at which they multiply, and then create a new Cycle of Reincarnation in my world. But if I still utilize my super warrior Clone Army n, that will be no different from forcefully brainwashing their souls, which is something that goes against even my moral limits. So...¡±


    ¡°So?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s just leave this n aside for the time being, although I unexpectedly received something else. And I have a few simple backup ns that still need experimenting. If they seed, even though I still can¡¯t create a mega Clone Army, being able to produce a few hundred super warriors should be easy. Right, let¡¯s ask the others to catch some experimental subjects for me. It would be best if the experimental subjects have some intelligence¡ªoh, those Tigermen would be quite nice. If they refuse tomunicate with us, just send them directly to my experimentalboratory. Our time is limited, and the dragons will soon take action. I sorelyck any patience.¡±


    ¡°...I feel that your moral limits have be even fewer ever since you arrived here.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not it at all; it¡¯s that the events awaiting us in Armageddon are just that foreboding. I¡¯ve never been afraid of dirtying my hands. As for why I didn¡¯t do anything like this before, it was only because I was afraid of the troublesome True Godsing for me without me receiving any results from the experiments. But now that all the conditions have been met and we¡¯re in the Dragon World, we don¡¯t have much time left...¡±


    I paused for a moment before saying something I¡¯d been thinking about for a long time.


    ¡°...Besides, I¡¯m already an evil viin whose hands are filled with blood. What do I have to hesitate about? Does it make any difference if I enter the eighteenth or neenthyer of Hell?¡±


    ¡°...It would seem that you¡¯ve already prepared a ce for yourself in your own vision of Hell...¡±


    ¡°Of course. But first, we need to create this version of Hell that¡¯s destined to contain all the viins and the dead. Hah! You¡¯re not any better than I am. Since I¡¯m destined to go to Hell, you¡¯ll be right by my side.¡±


    ¡°Heh, should I be honored? Still, as long as you help me bring all those bastard Elven Gods to Hell, I suppose I¡¯d be willing to apany you...¡±

 Chapter 401 - Trade

    <h4>Chapter 401: Trade</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    The reign of the blood-red moon was reaching its end, soon to be reced by the holy moon Wendiya. For the residents of Orlodiadan, this was great news.


    After all, no intelligent species would wish to face off against beasts berserk under the effect of the blood moon. After the wild beasts returned to theirirs, fatigued from their frenzies, they would face the furious revenge of the hunters.


    This wouldn¡¯t only be due to the grudges umted from the beasts attacking the intelligent species. During the full moon, hunting for meat would be incredibly difficult. Hunters would need to swiftly obtain meat for their tribes after the blood moon receded.


    Orlodiadan was the name the local residents called the Dragon World. Those who understood thenguage of the Titans would know that this meant ¡°Land of Hibernation.¡± Indeed, the former officialnguage of this world was the long-lost Titannguage. [1] <sup>1</sup>


    Considering that this entire dimension was created to seal away the Titan Giants, it was very possible that the earliest residents of this world were connected to the Titan Giants in some way. This world had rtively primitive and pure tribal systems and totem worship.


    However, after the flying lizards became more numerous here and ascended to the throne of the apex predator, Orlodiadan became known as the Dragon World in the areas under their control. The dragonnguage also became thenguage universally epted.


    But dragonnguage was far too difficult to speak. Only the dragons themselves and those with Dragon Bloodlines had tongues capable of pronouncing it. Other species couldn¡¯t speak it easily. Only tribal leaders would try their best at learning the dragonnguage. It would be possible tomunicate with those unreasonable flying lizards if they crossed paths.


    After the first days of the holy moon this year, some perceptive tribe leaders noticed that many things were secretly changing. The big lizards that always flew up above had greatly decreased in number. Those that coincidentally met with the big lizards didn¡¯t have to worry about the lizards breathing dragonbreath down upon them just for fun. They were in far more of a hurry, as if they had other frustrations on their minds.


    As for the ogre and giant tribes... that¡¯s right, not only were there ogre tribes here, but they were far more advanced and intelligent than the ogre tribes in Eich. These ogres faintly sensed something summoning themselves, and the most powerful ogres gained great increases in power, while their newborns started being born with elemental talents.


    Although this seemed like a good thing, these Giant Bloodline rtives had lived in this uncivilized frontier for so long, and they felt afraid. Young ogres and dragons would frequently vanish, unsettling the tribe members. The way the youngsters had nk expressions as they walked off into the distance made the others afraid from the bottoms of their hearts. Even though everything appeared calm on the surface, unease was brewing underneath. A major storm was about to arrive.


    As all of Orlodiadan simmered with anxiety, the distant, rtively unknown Ghostwind ins was worrying about a different trouble¡ªabout a group of uninvited guests.


    These uninvited guests took over a vast swathe ofnd. The walls surrounding their residential areas were made of iron, the purity and hardness of which was on par with iron weapons that only half of all tribal leaders had ess to. And these people constantly went in and out in pure iron tanks.


    ¡°Who are they? What do they want? Why are they here? Are they going to attack us?¡±


    All the locals of the Ghostwind ins sought the answers to these questions.


    For the Eternal Thunder tribe that originally resided here, none of these questions were important. These invaders would have to pay with their lives for intruding upon the Eternal Thunder tribe¡¯s territory.


    The Eternal Thunder tribe wasn¡¯t a tribe to ponder upon such trivial questions. They were the incarnations of vicious beasts. However, when their three biggest families¡ªthe Boomwolves, Tantail Lions, and Dragonteeth familiesbined themselves in an attack with another ten smaller tribal families and couldn¡¯t even break through the secondyer of defensive walls, everyone knew that a new master had arrived in the Ghostwind ins.


    ¡°They have flying giant inds! They have their own metal big lizards, really big ones, that can spit fire! They even make thunderous noises and shoot meteors!¡±


    The locals used their own words to describe the powerful outsiders. Meanwhile, the tribal families that had participated in the failed attack were filled with panic. They could do nothing but await their doom.


    That¡¯s right¡ªdoom. In their way of thinking, they attacked but lost. The angered defenders would surely execute the weak attackers and enve the elderly, weak, female and children.


    But, they waited and waited and no attacking army came for them. Instead, the iron tanks escorted a group of merchants.


    Although the local tribes had a basic bartering system, such arge-scale group of merchants was something they¡¯d never seen before. Since these outsiders had disyed their military might, the bartering they wished for became instantly sessful.


    What the tribe members found most inconceivable was how ¡°stupid¡± these outsider merchants were. The merchants only asked for some dirty and smelly ves from other tribes and some useless little rocks. In exchange, the tribe members could obtain valuable metal weapons andfortable clothes to wear. Metal weapons were rare to the point that only tribal leaders could use them, whilefortable clothes could only be crafted by talented artisans in major tribes that could afford to raise Findeek beasts, a local beast capable of producing raw cloth material.


    Currently, two human merchants in a horse-drawn carriage were discussing their harvest.


    ¡°...I obtained a full cart of adamantine and mithril in exchange for a battle axe and two rolls of cloth. I almost feel bad about it. But won¡¯t this make the two of us the champion merchants for this week?¡±


    ¡°Not even close. Group Four has a lucky brat who obtained two Baby White Dragons in exchange for a vegetable knife and cutting board. Boss Rnd personally rewarded him. Our boss has given us new orders: to obtain morebat beasts, especially Baby Dragons and SemiDragons.¡±


    In both this world and my original world, it was so profitable to trade with foreign cultures. Both sides would have contrasting views of the price of items. Naturally, both sides would end up feeling like they ¡°incredibly profited.¡± That particr lucky merchant felt that he profited in obtaining two White Dragons for a vegetable knife and cutting board. Meanwhile, the Baby White Dragons¡¯ original owner felt that he had swindled this outsider merchant, being able to obtain a family treasure quality weapon in exchange for two gluttonous beasts that required several more decades to mature and might not even be tamable.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s hurry and go visit the next tribe. It¡¯s said that the Fain tribe are the descendants of Frost Giants. There are even giant lolis there! Doesn¡¯t our boss love this type of thing? If we give him one, perhaps our boss will personally reward me.¡±


    ¡°Rnd is a lolicon? Where did you hear this?¡±


    ¡°Of course he¡¯s a lolicon! Why else would he collect so many Baby Dragons? Do you really think we can wait that many decades for these Baby Dragons to grow up and be usable? Haven¡¯t you seen that Boss Rnd used his magic to turn most of these Baby Dragons into little girls that call him Daddy every day? Didn¡¯t you know that even Lady Harloys was forced to transform into a little girl in front of him before? Lady Harloys personally told me this.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Rnd¡¯s reputation was bing stranger and stranger by the day. This was the fault of his subordinates, particrly a certain silly cat.


    ¡°Ohhh! No wonder he has such a good rtionship with Her Highness Reyne and Her Highness Glina. Her Highness Glina even loves to sit on his shoulder.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Let me tell you some secret news. This time, Her Highness Glina didn¡¯te with us because she¡¯s now pregnant with His Highness Rnd¡¯s child. Their child will be the future leader of the People of the Mist, which is a wonderful piece of news.¡±


    ¡°Ah, I¡¯m from East Mist, which means it¡¯s not as good news for me. Doesn¡¯t that mean that Her Highness Reyne is losing out? Which of our countries will be the main Mist Family¡¯s country... but isn¡¯t Her Highness Glina not even an adult yet? She looks just like a little girl. Can she even give birth?¡±


    ¡°I know! That¡¯s why I said His Highness Rnd is a lolicon. Actually, all major personages have their hobbies¡ªI understand, I understand how it is. Right, would you like to participate in a little bet? The current bet is that Her Highness Glina will first give birth to Rnd¡¯s child with odds of 1 : 0.5, and the odds that Her Highness Reyne will first give birth to Rnd¡¯s child is 1 : 2.¡±


    ¡°You understand how it is, you say? Sure, whatever you say. There¡¯s no betting on neither of them giving birth to his child?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, you could bet on that as well. It has odds of 1 : 7. You¡¯ll surely get rich if you win with this bet. But how could it be possible? His Highness Rnd is no idiot. If he has babies with both of them, both countries will belong to him. The Mist Family will formally incorporate both East Mist and Sleuweir. These two countries can then form a new country, which will benefit us People of the Mist the most. Even an uneducated man like me knows this.¡±


    ¡°Yep, I¡¯m going to bet all my gold coins on this 1 : 7 bet, that neither of them will give birth to Rnd¡¯s children. If you can¡¯t pay my rewards, I¡¯m going to take my winnings from your sry until you die!¡±


    ¡°This voice? Ah! Your Highness Rnd!?!?¡±


    Alright then. When I heard that there was a huge amount of rare magic minerals, I personally came here to check things out. Yet the first thing I heard was all this random gossip. No wonder others were looking at me with stranger and stranger looks recently.


    I let go of the young brat whose mouth I was covering. Actually, I had been eavesdropping for quite a while. I originally wanted to understand the morale of my basic soldiers, but as always, these young brats gave me a ¡°nice surprise.¡±


    ¡°Damned Harloys!! Damned rumors!¡±


    I could understand that lower-level troops would always have strange impressions of their higher-ups. Gossiping about a hated boss or the boss¡¯s scandalous rumors was one of the best methods to establish a good rtionship with coworkers. But the prerequisite was that you couldn¡¯t let the boss hear you...


    I walked away with a dark expression, but I didn¡¯t intend to punish these two gossipers.


    Although I didn¡¯t care enough to punish them, the price for them making me annoyed was that I would let them panic about potential punishment for a few days. It felt nice, being the boss who could abuse his authority like that.


    Seeing their cart filled with magical metals, I could only sigh in exmation about other things. Meanwhile, the silly cat suddenly appeared, not caring about my foul mood.


    ¡°...Didn¡¯t you say that you intended to use force to obtain experimental subjects?¡±


    ¡°Do you think that using force will be quicker than this? Right, Harloys,e over here. I just obtained a precious teardrop gem. You¡¯ll definitely love it.¡±


    ¡°...Do you really believe that I¡¯m an idiot, dear Princess Peach? I¡¯m actually the host of that gamble. I¡¯lle over if you promise not to use your sword... no, don¡¯t use your hammer, either! Save me! This is cat abuse! If youe any closer, I¡¯ll transform into my loli form and start screaming! Your reputation will bepletely ruined once your subordinates see this!¡±


    ¡°Crossdresser, main character of porn books with heavy tastes, main model of popr Princess Peach artwork, lolicon, Beifeng¡¯s friend... what reputation do I even have left with all of that being said about me! Go ahead and scream! Nobody will being to save you even if you scream your throat hoarse!¡±


    ¡°Hoarse, hoarse!¡±


    ¡°Hah, what a terrible joke that is...¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, what¡¯s the matter...¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, please slowly enjoy yourself. We shall be excusing ourselves right away.¡±


    Alright then, I suppose that I now needed to think of a method to bribe these two young merchants. At the very least, I couldn¡¯t allow my reputation to sink to Beifeng¡¯s level!


    ******


    ¡°I¡¯m truly delighted that all of you remembered to return. But can you tell me why you¡¯re sote? Even if you met with difficulties, why wasn¡¯t there even a single message?¡±


    My ¡°treasure-hunting team¡± had just returned and was standing in front of my experimentalboratory. Judging from their haggard expressions and dirt on their clothes, it seemed that they hadn¡¯t rested well in their travels.


    Right when I asked why they were sote, raging fires appeared in all their eyes as they red in unison at the seemingly innocent Dracon who stood there with a nk expression on his face.


    Should I say that it was to be expected? I helplessly rubbed my forehead. Recently, I had been overworking myselfte into the night. I¡¯d already heard so many strange pieces of news, being angered so much that my heart received too much stimtion. Should I put this off untilter? Why not receive this news, which would surely make me suffer, some other time?


    Everyone was ring at him, hispanions about to jump over and kill him. No, someone was already unsheathing their sword. Even Beifeng was beginning to break out in a cold sweat.


    Finally, he uttered onement.


    ¡°...Everyone was too passionate.¡±


    Alright, there was no more need for rification. Obviously, it would be something ridiculous.


    However, once Diana and the others told me what happened, I learned that apart from the troubles caused by Beifeng, they really did meet with actual trouble. And some of this trouble happened to interest me.


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Titan Giant = Titan. It will be used so often, so it feels right to shorten it. Again, ¡°That Titan Giant is beating up Beifeng¡± is equivalent to ¡°That Titan is beating up he-who-shall-not-be-named.

 Chapter 402 - Making Others Suffer Deeply

    <h4>Chapter 402: Making Others Suffer Deeply</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Let¡¯s not mention Beifeng¡¯s affairs. They could only be matters that would blind you. After everyone else left, I had Beifeng stay behind as he was the only person who knew the true purpose of the mission.


    The fewer the people who knew secrets, the better. Schemes would no longer be useful if they were exposed.


    ¡°The Great Stone Sculptor failed to be the next Earth Elemental God? Excellent job.¡±


    I nodded when I heard Beifeng tell me this. Making Ainslo fail to be the next Earth Elemental God was the true objective of this ¡°treasure-hunting¡± team I sent to the Earth Elemental ne.


    In normal situations, it would take several tens of thousands of years for the Earth Elemental Throne to gather enough earth element on its own to repair itself. If I wanted to fix it faster, I would need to give it lots of money, resources and materials¡ªsuch as the God Equipment of Earth.


    ¡°...Why does this feel like a damned Chinese MMORPG with how much money it wants me to spend? Thankfully, I¡¯m not one of the unlucky yers. I¡¯m the power in the shadows.¡±


    I hadn¡¯t intended on caring about the Earth Elemental Throne, as it would require far too many resources to fix, and it could fix itself on its own. However, plenty of others were interested in repairing it as it was rted to the solidity of the seals on the Titan Giants.


    ¡°Since others are foolish enough to foot the bill, I suppose I could participate.¡±


    All I needed to do was act as the intermediary, taking the Mage Country and Dragon World¡¯s emissaries to the Earth Elemental ne to check out the situation. Then, as everyone stared at the destroyed Earth Elemental Throne in astonishment, not knowing how it was destroyed, I would list a long, long list of resources I required to fix it, and then wait for these two major clients to prepare them.


    As for whether or not I would take a kickback for myself... if I told you that I was perfectly clean and that I took nothing on the side, would you believe me?


    Of course, in order to show that I would be there with everyone through thick and thin, I made some contributions as well. For instance, I gave out most of the Elemental Throne shards that I received previously from Beifeng, which were leftovers from Frigidwinter Earth.


    However, the true reason fixing the Earth Elemental went so quickly was because with Ainslo leading the other Earth Elemental Lords, they managed to reach an ord¡ªat least on the surface. They stopped their internal conflicts and pooled their resources together, hoping for the birth of a new Earth Elemental God.


    I had no idea what conditions and promises Ainslo gave the other Lords in order to have them all support her in bing the next Earth Elemental God. The end result was that the Lords opened up their treasure vaults and donated an uncountable amount of top-quality earth element items. Therge number of top-quality earth element items helped rebuild the Earth Elemental Throne.


    ¡°Ten days ago, a gigantic earth element pir of light started to form, and now, the earth element in all the nes is decreasing at a furious pace. The Earth Elemental Throne is about to form.¡±


    With so many factions unhesitatingly investing so many resources, the Earth Elemental Throne was sessfully restored. However, this hastily reassembled version was much weaker than the previous Throne, which had eons of time to umte. Any Earth Elemental God that ascended using this Throne would be the weakest of the four Elemental Gods for a long, long time toe... But when considering how strong Emordilorcan was even when he was seriously injured to the point of death, the ¡°weakest¡± Elemental God, when in their home Elemental ne, would still be on par with a powerful God.


    ¡°Since we have to have a new Earth Elemental God, it would be best for me if a stupid and weak one ascends rather than Ainslo.¡±


    Beifeng was the only one who knew this secret mission of mine. I didn¡¯t personally go to the Earth Elemental ne in order to avoid suspicion falling upon me. If something happened, everyone else would surely make me take the me... although I indeed deserved to take the me. For some reason, I would repeatedly feel as if my reputation was bing more demonic every day. Everyone kept saying ¡°it¡¯s that demon Rnd¡¯s fault.¡±


    As for why I refused to allow the Great Stone Sculptor to ascend to Godhood? She was supposed to be my ally, you ask? Although I signed various contracts with her, I learned more every day about her astonishing ambition and factional strength. As she was the Stone Mother, she was once the leader of the anti-Emordilorcan Earth Elemental Lord alliance. Many of her children were powerful Lords in their own right. Other Lords left the Earth Elemental ne in order to escape the dangers of internal conflict, but not her. No matter how the internal conflicts turned out, she would still be the final victor.


    This was also why she was, by far, the most active and aggressive Earth Elemental Lord who attacked Emordilorcan. After all, if he perished, Ainslo, who had been the second most powerful existence in the Earth Elemental ne for tens of thousands of years, would naturally be the new Earth Elemental God.


    The real reason she came to the mortal ne was to gather information on the other nes. In fact, she was even here to obtain more information on me, as I defeated Emordilorcan. This was not something she needed to know if she was simply content with staying put in the Earth Elemental ne.


    Without a doubt, her goal wasn¡¯t simple. It wasn¡¯t confined to just the Earth Elemental ne. As for her rtionship with Beifeng... ever since he discovered her ambition and true nature, this rtionship became nothing more than acting on his side.


    Later, I discovered that she also secretly maintained contact with the lower nes. Any so-called contracts I had with her couldn¡¯t possibly be depended upon to restrain her. If the Great Stone Sculptor really ascended to Godhood, this ambitious Stone Mother would likely be a new trouble for me.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care who it is that ascends to Godhood, as long as it¡¯s not her. Even a rock or a worm will be better for us.¡±


    The wondrous Beifeng was the only candidate who could carry out this secret mission. Judging from the current situation, not only did he aplish this task, Ainslo didn¡¯t even notice what he did. In fact, she still treated Beifeng as her trustworthy ally.


    ¡°How did you do it? After the Earth Elemental Throne reformed itself, it should have automatically selected the most appropriate Earth Elemental Lord to be the new Earth Elemental God. How did you twist this naturalw?¡±


    The Earth Elemental Throne was a nonliving object, after all. It was the incarnation of the dimensional will. It would only select the most powerful Earth Elemental Lord to be the new Earth Elemental God. Of course, the prerequisite would be that the Lord in question was willing to be a God.


    However, how would a nonliving object like the Throne possibly calcte things? My guess was that it would most likely simply find the Lord with the highest density and quality of earth element.


    Beifeng Herault smiled in such a seemingly honest manner. It was difficult to guess that he had just made his lover suffer... well, one of his lovers. By the way, if one thought about how many lovers he had, Beifeng should be the mortal enemy of all men, someone to be hunted down. Yet not a single person envied his main character type of harem status.


    ¡°...All I did was make it so that another existence was judged as the most appropriate next Earth Elemental God. For instance, by giving the God Equipment of Earth to a certain Earth Elemental Lord.¡±


    I was rather surprised about this. I had only recently learned about the God Equipment of Earth. How on earth did Beifeng obtain it? It was already quite something that hispanions didn¡¯t beat him up¡ªwould they really listen to his orders and help him obtain such an item?


    ¡°...The God Equipment of Earth? Wasn¡¯t that in the Wind Elemental ne? Oh, I get it now. Camdian!¡±


    Beifeng nodded with a proud look on his face. He felt that he did a beautiful job this time. All he did was talk, and he aplished something so major.


    Some things didn¡¯t need to be said out loud. As Camdian was the Wind Elemental God, he would forever be natural enemies with the earth element. He wouldn¡¯t want to see a new mortal enemy even more dangerous than Emordilocan appearing. Since the secondary goal of this excursion was to obtain the God Equipment of Wind from the Earth Elemental ne, it was only natural that he helped to retrieve the God Equipment of Earth from the Wind Elemental ne in exchange. He would be more than happy to make Ainslo lose her opportunity.


    ¡°Basically, when the Earth Elemental Throne was reestablished, it automatically chose the Earth Elemental Lord who possessed the God Equipment of Earth, making Ainslo miss her opportunity. Right, who did you choose?¡±


    ¡°One of the Earth Elemental Lords with the highest amount of earth element. Not only that, he¡¯s also one of the least dangerous Lords to us.¡±


    I was surprised to hear Beifeng¡¯s words.


    ¡°Who could that be?¡±


    ¡°Little Sandy.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s that? I don¡¯t know any Earth Elemental Lords by that name.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that a worm or a rock would be fine? Your wish is mymand. You¡¯ve met Little Sandy before in the past. He¡¯s the one who ate the Earth Elemental Throne.¡±


    ¡°That Sand Worm King!! You dared to do such a thing!¡±


    Indeed, nothing could be better for me than for that Sand Worm to ascend to Godhood. Sand Worms were pure natives of the Earth Elemental ne that typically wouldn¡¯t consider leaving their ne. They were also very low in Intelligence, making them no threat at all.


    ¡°How did you do it?¡±


    ¡°Little Sandy previously devoured arge amount of Earth Elemental Throne shards. I then had him swallow the God Equipment of Earth. Plus, a Sand Worm King like him has an astonishing amount of earth element to begin with. That was all part of why he was selected. If only you were there to see it. All the other Earth Elemental Lords had such looks of despair when Little Sandy suddenly popped out of the ground and the Throne selected him to be the next God.¡±


    ¡°Nobody suspected that you meddled?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. I¡¯m always careful when doing any deed. Everyone knows that Sand Worm Kings have astonishing amounts of earth element. I then told everyone about how he devoured the Earth Elemental Throne, so they all believed that he just got coincidentally lucky.¡±


    ¡°Excellent job. If your lover Ainslo became the Earth Elemental God, you would have benefited significantly. I¡¯ll find a chance to make up for your losses.¡±


    ¡°No need. Little Sandy is my lover as well.¡±


    Alright then, as I stared as his brilliant, thick-skulled smile, I considered about how he had definitely achieved great things for me and did my very best to restrain my urge to shoot him into the sky with a goblin cannon.


    ¡°...Well done. Take a few days off for a vacation. I still have other missions for you afterwards. By the way, why did you all return sote with everyone ming you if your secret mission wasn¡¯t exposed?¡±


    ¡°Well¡ªuh¡ªLittle Sandy came to me for a celebration. He wanted to start a nest of his own children. I also needed to console the pitiful Ainslo, so we all had fun together, which wasted a lot of time...¡±


    The Sand Worm King wanted his own children? They all had fun together? Alright then, it was a mistake for me to ask. It was torture for me to even imagine the scene. It would seem that the Earth Elemental ne, one of the foundational pirs of the all nes, would perhaps be Beifeng¡¯s nest, with countless of his descendants taking over that entire world. Just imagining this made me terrified. I mentally decided to never visit the Earth Elemental ne again.


    And so I angrily shouted at him.


    ¡°...I¡¯ve changed my mind! I¡¯m going to give you a great task right now. Go to the Eternal Thunder tribe here and act as my ambassador. Yep, they all have your favorite: beastmen heads. You can y with them however you want. Just get as far away from me as possible!¡±

 Chapter 403 - Tiger God

    <h4>Chapter 403: Tiger God</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Nobody expected for Rnd¡¯s army to appear to settle down here after arriving in the Dragon World.


    They built houses, nted crops and constructed tall walls more than ten meters high. Iron buildings went up everywhere, and they had even built mage towers and biology experimentalboratories. It was obvious they were here to stay.


    As for their agreement with the dragons?


    ¡°We agreed to slow down the rate at which the Titan Giants¡¯ seal broke, didn¡¯t we? I¡¯ve already established a new Earth Elemental God, which is helping bnce the Elemental Tide in the Dragon World. Doesn¡¯t that mean I¡¯ve done my job? I didn¡¯t even ask you for any payment yet. As for the next step,pletely sealing the Titan Giants... do you think that they¡¯ll obediently allow us to strengthen the seal on them? At the very least, we need to have the ability to defend ourselves. Let¡¯s not even mention the Titan Giants¡¯ true bodies. Even their few incarnations running around outside can easily kill us all.¡±


    That was the excuse I intended to give the dragons¡¯ messenger. As for whether or not the dragons believed me? Who cared? This world never belonged to them in the first ce. Could they really do anything about me?


    Alright then, with this logic, I did sound a bit like a bastard. But sometimes bastard logic would be the most effective. When negotiating with dragons, only the most powerful would have the upper hand.


    ¡°You¡¯re thinking too much into things. The dragons won¡¯t care if you build some houses here. They could care less about the activities of short-lived species like humans. Even if there¡¯s a dragon who¡¯s bored enough to care, with how a typical dragon views time, that dragon would probably remember this matter after a three-hundred-year nap. And...¡±


    However, when Evelyn arrived, she told me that things were quite different from what I thought.


    ¡°...Is it really that ridiculous? And?¡±


    ¡°And Fourth Sister is doing her best to cover things for you. The dragons think you¡¯re working hard to bnce the four elements, so why would theye looking for you? Oh, right, since you¡¯ve already aplished part of the task, you can speak up now and ask for payment.¡±


    This was a true ally. Even if I didn¡¯t say anything, she was thinking about and working for my benefits.


    But one weekter, a dragon still ended up descending from the sky. When I looked closer, I saw a familiar figure on the dragon¡¯s back.


    ¡°Hey there, isn¡¯t this my good old friend and ssmate Kaid? What made youe over here to find me? Could it be that¡ª¡±


    ¡°Haha! You still remember your task? It¡¯s exactly ¡®could it be that!¡¯¡±


    He yed with his beard, enjoying ying at being an elder. His clean and puffy snow-white beard made me really want to pull on it.


    ¡°¡ªcould it be that you came all the way to another ne to return the money you owe me? You¡¯re truly such a nice person!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not here to return your money! No, wait, I don¡¯t owe you money to begin with! Can you stop reusing this old joke! Are you not tired of it yet? Because you bring up this topic every time, all my disciples keep guessing how much money I owe you! Besides, you were clearly the one who owed me money!¡±


    ¡°Tsk¡ªyou actually remembered.¡±


    ¡°Ahhh! You really did do it on purpose! Thankfully, I spent a huge amount of money, hiring an illusion magic grandmaster to cast Memory Recovery on myself!¡±


    ¡°Paha! You actually did such a thing? It must have been fun to have someone else messing around in your head. I¡¯ve heard that Memory Recovery is a nine-circle advanced spell that will ce a tremendous burden on your body, with possible side effects, such as causing multiple personalities. Are you still the same snot-nosed brat from before? Hmm? I think I might have misremembered. You were a bedwetting brat?¡±


    ¡°Snot-nosed? Bedwetting? I¡ªI¡ªI¡¯m going to kill you!¡±


    From a certain standpoint, it was amusing to anger the white-bearded old man, especially since he was clearly younger than me but always loved to y at being the elder. If I didn¡¯t prank him, wouldn¡¯t I seem to becking liveliness, like an old artifact?


    ¡°Hmph, I¡¯m still quite young. Go ahead and tell me, young Kaid. What are you here to talk to me about? Don¡¯t even think about asking to borrow money from me. It will only hurt rtionships between friends to talk about money.¡±


    *Huff* *Huff*


    Kaid¡¯s veins were bulging as he went on a rampage. He randomly swung his staff at me in a way with which he probably couldn¡¯t even kill a fly. After he finished his rampage, he could only lower his head and pant for breath, treating his mage staff as a walking staff.


    ¡°Besides, I¡¯m clearly of the warrior job ss... and pure mage like you wants to try me in physical meleebat? If you die just like this, due to a shortage of breath, I¡¯d feel quite bad about it. Yep, I¡¯d feel bad for about a minute.¡±


    Kaid brought out a dark green potion and gulped it down. He then rubbed his heart for quite a while before he red at me and spoke again.


    ¡°...You bastard, you want me to die of anger that badly?! Forget it, you¡¯ve always been like this. No wonder everyone always tells me not to take anything you say seriously. Let¡¯s get to the real issue now. You should know what I¡¯m here for.¡±


    I picked my nose with my index finger and then lightly flicked the booger away...


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°...Do you still have some sort of grudge against me? Will you ever mature? You were the one who first told everyone that I¡¯m a pervert who likes little girls. Why else would I tell everyone about how you proposed marriage to Amelia in public? I was telling the truth, wasn¡¯t I?¡±


    ¡°Hmph¡ªyou think I don¡¯t know how you described things? You clearly said that Amelia is unconscious due to receiving too much shock, and that she keeps muttering my name in her unconsciousness. Then, you said that I didn¡¯t care about her at all, that I came to the Cloud Tower only to enjoy myself. The end result was that my female students who called me ¡®Teacher¡¯ on the first day started looking at me like I was a pervert on the very next day. My little newfound luck with women disappeared!¡±


    ¡°...You really are holding a grudge against me for this. Are you a little boy? You¡¯re so old already and still enjoy pretending to be young? You¡¯reining to an old virgin like me about how you don¡¯t have any luck with women!? You... you... you¡¯re utterly shameless!¡±


    Judging from the visibly palpitating veins on Kaid¡¯s forehead, if I teased him anymore, he would die of blood clotting. And so I finally started taking things a bit more seriously.


    Of course I knew what he was here for. I knew it the instant I saw him arrive. The Truth Symposium probably had objections to me cking off for such a long time. And I could also guess why they had such objections. Either Bardi reported to them about me, or the dragons did, or the Truth Overseers with objections to me did.


    Yet since my old friend was the one sent here to remind me to do my work, that meant things weren¡¯t so bad. Sending a friend to meet me was another type of political consideration.


    ¡°I get it, I¡¯ll work faster about the issue of the dragons...¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I¡¯m here for. I¡¯m here because of a change in the situation rted to your other job.¡±


    ¡°My other job?¡±


    ¡°...You really did forget it. Your other job, the Mage Country Ambassador to the Bardi Empire. Right now, Bardi is having major problems. They lost their battles in both the east and the south. Halent lost his campaign against the remnant of the Holy Army vanguard, and the princes also lost Nightrain City to the undead. The Truth Symposium ordered me to immediately ry you this message to you, and they¡¯re requesting you to act as soon as possible after you meet with the dragons. It would be best if the dragons cane out and salvage the situation! Bardi can¡¯t be allowed to copse just like this.¡±


    ¡°Jinxer...¡±


    [You¡¯re a mega jinxer. Your System is considering whether or not to give you a new customized title: ¡°Ship destroying demon.¡±]


    ¡°What does this have to do with ships!?¡±


    [This title has a description attached to it: ¡°I¡¯m not Pele, I¡¯ve supported so many ships! I believe that you can win!]


    Harloys¡¯ snidement and my System¡¯s gloating simultaneously sounded in my ears. But I didn¡¯t have the time to care about theirments as this was truly a huge problem.


    I slowly paced around on a high iron tform in the experimentalboratory, a ce from where I could observe all the newest developments in theboratory. Kaid was prattled on behind me, but I was more bothered by my own thoughts than him at the moment.


    ording to the secret agreement I had with Orloss, Bardi absolutely couldn¡¯t lose and shouldn¡¯t have lost to begin with. If Bardi¡¯s situation became unstable, my secret agreement with him would be worthless. My n would also be impossible to develop.


    I now had toe to Bardi¡¯s rescue. The undead were still fine, as they wouldck the determination to press forth with all-out attacks as long as an Undead Emperor hadn¡¯t yet descended. The Wood Spirits would also be slowing them down from behind. Plus, the Bardi citizens had high morale and plenty of elite troops. Counterattacking and pushing the undead back might be difficult, but retreating and holding the line of defense at another location should still be possible.


    As for the eastern front, with my understanding of the Holy Church, this unexpected win they obtained would sink the Holy Church into a religious fervor. Continuing their attack on the heretical Bardi Empire would be a definite. And neither Orloss nor myself even considered the possibility that Halent would lose to the remaining Holy Army vanguard.


    ¡°...Even if Halent suddenly became an idiot, his army had ten Ancient Dragons and two leaders from the Dragon World. How could he lose?¡±


    But the fact was that he lost. Since I didn¡¯t have any specific information on thatbat report, it was impossible for me to know the reason. Yet I would have to do something to save things. There was a problem, though...


    ¡°I really can¡¯t leave right now!¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s even more important here?¡±


    ¡°Look below you...¡±


    The iron tform we were on was above a volcanic area. Under the tform was a massive skeleton. Each bone was already farrger than an ordinary giant. All we could see was a tiny portion of this skeleton. Many of my subordinates were wearing protective clothing, busy at work on this skeleton.


    ¡°What is that!!?¡±


    ¡°An ancient Tiger God. This is the greatest harvest we received here. This is the ancestor of the Eternal Thunder tribe that they worship. Just a single rib bone is more than thirty meters long. In its entirety, it must have been an incredible super monster. Also, from the information I obtained through certain channels, this Tiger God¡¯s true identity was probably a Titan Giant¡¯s pet from long ago. In fact, it¡¯s highly likely that it was the pet of Yins, the fourth-ranked Titan Giant. I met Yins back at Oak Town.¡±


    ¡°...Are you digging up its skeleton? While an ancient divine beast¡¯s skeleton is indeed valuable research material, couldn¡¯t you just leave this task to your subordinates and deal with the more serious affairs that need your attention at Dragon City?¡±


    ¡°...Have you ever heard of an undead mage being able to pause an undead summoning experiment in the middle? I¡¯ve already begun the undead summoning, so it¡¯ll be a waste of top-quality resources if I stop right now!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re reviving such a creature? You¡¯re crazy!¡±


    ¡°Ha! Did you just learn that?¡±

 Chapter 404 - Summoning

    <h4>Chapter 404: Summoning</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    In the ancient myths of Orlodiodan, the world was created by a group of giants who covered the skies and shook the earth. The Eternal Thunder tribe of the Ghostwind ins, meanwhile, worshiped a colossal mythical beast.


    It was said that this beast was so massive it was capable of striding across the entire Ghostwind ins in just fifteen seconds. Its ws and fangs were so sharp that even mountains were unable to block its attacks. Whenever it roared in anger, the ins would quake.


    ¡°Let¡¯s not discuss myths anymore. The Eternal Thunder tribe¡¯s culture is primitive. They even have cave paintings and hieroglyphics. Most of their records are passed down via word of mouth. Around here, their Tiger God¡¯s authority outstrips even the Creator Goddess.¡±


    ¡°...Of course, what their myths im is absolutely impossible. But from our final measurements of the divine beast¡¯s bones, its original body must have been more than ten times the size of an Immemorial Dragon. Basically, its length was over one hundred meters... some of the records must be real. It would have been capable of casually swallowing a whole dragon. Such a terrifying monster.¡±


    This in had been turned into an archaeological district. Numerous digging teams were hard at work, searching for the remaining bones. Once they were found, I would be able to reconstruct this behemoth of a monster.


    What I did in all this was use the most basic soul-summoning spell, which would sense the connection between the bones. I then guided my subordinates to dig up the remaining hidden bones.


    ¡°This feels like a big jigsaw puzzle game...¡±


    Tid¡¯s exmation was quite appropriate for his age, yet he was bing more and more of an important person in my faction. Countless inconceivable technologies were developed by him. Even I didn¡¯t know just how far his scientific research had progressed. However, it was definite that he had far surpassed himself from the same time in the game¡¯s history.


    ¡°Ha, if this is a jigsaw puzzle, this sharp bone must be a rib bone. Even the rib bone is so much taller than me. How frightening.¡±


    ¡°...Honored mage, this isn¡¯t a rib bone. It¡¯s the little finger¡¯s fingernail.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    The one making a ruckus was the old child, Kaid. The dragon who brought him had left him behind without caring about how he would return, so Kaid stayed here and refused to leave.


    ¡°So... when it stands up, it¡¯s basically a moving mountain? Nothing could possibly block a single attack from it. If even the battle pet is so tremendous, just howrge is its master, the Titan Giant?¡±


    ¡°...I know. If it¡¯s at all possible, I don¡¯t want to fight the Titan Giants head on.¡±


    Even though the elements were bing more bnced and the seal was decaying at a much slower rate, the Titan Giants¡¯ return was inevitable. Their incarnations were already capable of cavorting around in the mortal ne, so naturally they would wreak havoc in Dragon World. Anyone who tried to prevent them from breaking free would be their mortal enemy.


    As for transforming this giant beast into an undead? On one hand, it would help us to better understand the Titan Giants¡¯ true strength. On the other hand, it was an irresistible top-level material that no undead mage would be able to resist.


    ¡°As long as I can reanimate it, even if it¡¯s only a skeleton soldier that doesn¡¯t know anything apart from basic attacks, it¡¯ll still be an almost undefeatable existence. Yins... just how ridiculous is he?¡±


    Normally speaking, a creature¡¯s power was proportional to its body size. And its body size would naturally be rted to the conditions of the creature¡¯s environment and world. Nature was cruel and would forever eliminate those unable to adapt.


    This sounded rather confusing? Let me just jump straight to the conclusion, then. Under the same conditions of oxygen, gravity, temperature and so on, most creatures wouldn¡¯t have significant differences in how they worked. Lions, tigers and elephants were in a way quite simr in their own right.


    Living creatures had necessary conditions for their existence. In the world of Eich, an environment rich in magic would be required for gigantic creatures to exist. If the environment drastically changed, such creatures would no longer be able to survive. Basically, even if I raised a giant war beast, its heart and internal organs wouldn¡¯t be able to adjust to the current low magic environment. It would likely have a very short lifespan as its heart would give out without the support of sufficient magic.


    There were some that seemed like exceptions, such as the giants and the dragons. But they followed the rules as well, as they originated from the immemorial, great immemorial, or even older generations. And they were capable of existing mostly because they weren¡¯t pure beasts¡ªthey were magical beasts capable of using the power of the elements.


    There were plenty more examples in the nes connected to Eich. Deep sea Megaink Octopi, the Giant Sand Worms in the Earth Elemental ne, the half-elemental creature Skyworld Whale and so on. However, the fact they were able to grow sorge wasrgely rted to their physical structures and environments they lived in.


    These ancient existences were typically ded as having Gold or Diamond Bloodlines. They were naturally born with the ability to use magic. Their very bloodlines contained magical mysteries, allowing them to instinctively use their natural talent. This was something other species couldn¡¯t match no matter how hard they worked.


    However, such benefits were a double-edged sword. Powerful magical existences were ustomed to living in a high Elemental Tide environment. Now that it was a low magic generation, they found it incredibly diforting. Just like how humans would get drowsy when they had low blood sugar, dragons would be drowsy with an insufficient concentration of magic in their blood. Only the most ancient existences knew that back in the immemorial generation, dragons didn¡¯t have this habit of sleeping for several decades or centuries.


    As the magic in dragons¡¯ blood decreased, it also became more and more difficult for them to reproduce. The more powerful a creature was, the more difficult it became for it to reproduce.


    As for angels... angels here weren¡¯t exactly the same as angels in legends from my previous world. Instead, these angels were the first-generation creatures of Order. Since they were the purest creatures of Order, they had even higher requirements of the environment they lived in. The end result was that the entire angel species disappeared from the mortal ne. Of course, it was highly likely that the angels would return once the Elemental Tide sufficiently increased.


    However, this divine beast ex-Tiger God before me broke the fundamental rule of environmental requirements.


    First of all, this creature was an individual, not a species. Not only that, judging from its physical structure, it was no different from the current day Eternal Thunder tribe at all except for scale. Its feet had hooks on it to help it climb trees, and its right arm had wear and tear normal for a long-term sword user. Considering that even in the immemorial generation there would likely be no ridiculously tall trees that it would need to climb, a frightening conclusion was now in front of me.


    ¡°Perhaps this mountainous ¡®Tiger God¡¯ was just an ordinary Eternal Thunder tribe member in the past. Yins forcefully twisted its basic physical structure to make it so tremendously huge... Have we learned why this creature died?¡±


    ¡°None of its bones have obvious injuries. Nor has the quality of its bones seemed to decrease. When considering the Eternal Thunder tribe¡¯s legends... the most likely possibility is that it starved to death.¡±


    I furrowed my eyebrows upon hearing this. This sounded rather strange, but upon closer analysis, it was usible.


    A gigantic body would require a massive amount of energy to sustain itself. Once this battle pet lost its master and its subordinates, its hunting and survival instincts would be insufficient to keep up with its energy needs. All the prey it worked so hard to catch wouldn¡¯t even be enough to fill a crack in its teeth. Naturally, it would starve to death.


    ¡°...Making a normal warrior be a mountainous magical monster. This is the true power of a Titan Giant?¡±


    Back in Oak Town, I had witnessed Yins the Fourth Titan¡¯s ability to tame beasts. A normal albino lion instantly became a SemiGod divine beast. And if Yins was freed from his seal, his true power would be even more ridiculous.


    Of course, I didn¡¯t believe that it would be so easy to create such warriors. Otherwise, the legends wouldn¡¯t be about ¡°The strongest warrior under the creator Titans.¡± If it was that easy, the legend would be about ¡°warriors,¡± plural, with an ¡®s.¡¯


    ¡°Is there enough mana stored in the magic batteries?¡±


    ¡°...Plenty. The Elemental Tide¡¯s density here is high. The energy batteries are operating at full efficiency. Plus, the mages are injecting their own mana into the batteries, so the mana recovery rate is higher than the rate of usage.¡±


    A good horse would need a good saddle. An undead mage¡¯s undead summoning had its limits. With my current level of mana, reviving such a level of monster would suck me dry into a zombie.


    But I previously had mage towers constructed here. If I used a mage tower to amplify my magic, I could use the mage tower¡¯s stored mana to pay the mana cost in my stead. Of course, a typical undead mage would instead use a Soul-Summoning Tower, but normal mage towers¡¯ magic amplification properties and mana replenishment worked for me as well.


    Summoning a bone dragon required one to be at a Legend lich¡¯s level. In theory, my Gold rank mana reserves wouldn¡¯t be capable of summoning even a single normal skeleton. Even with a mage tower supporting me, it wouldn¡¯t be anywhere close to enough. But I was someone who once reached the peak, so I knew how to take shortcuts.


    ¡°I can¡¯t afford the full payment? I¡¯ll pay in installments then.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t giving Kaid an excuse when I said I couldn¡¯t leave. Currently, I, the mage tower and this tremendous beast¡¯s skeleton were invisibly connected. At every moment, my attention was in high tension. My magic and my mind were magnified by the mage tower as I utilized its mana and continuously summoned this skeleton as an undead.


    Normally, an undead mage summoning an undead creature would require a mental connection and a one-time payment of mana. It would either seed or fail. However, I changed this process to a continuous state, so that the one-time payment became installment payments where I paid mana every second.


    Every single second, I was being bothered by a constant headache from the mental burden. It made me want to go to sleep, but I knew that the moment I went to sleep, not only would this summoning fail, but I would also take the bacsh of this spell¡¯s failure. This particr undead summoning was on the scale of a forbidden spell. If I took the full magical bacsh of its failure, I would instantly die.


    ¡°As expected, the mental burden of casting such a spell makes me want to go to sleep...¡±


    ¡°This has nothing to do with the mental burden of casting this spell. Your soul has been repeatedly strengthened by reincarnating so many times. By now, you¡¯re at the level where you can ignore the side effects of reincarnation. You¡¯re almost fully immune to all mental magics. This tiny amount of magical burden couldn¡¯t possibly affect you. Any ordinary undead mage would be on the verge of their soul copsing after casting a forbidden spell for so long, yet you¡¯re still so lively. That¡¯s the best evidence that you¡¯re still far from reaching your limits.¡±


    As the silly cat had the title of ¡®All-knowing,¡¯ her conclusions were typically no different from the truth. However, I still felt that things were strange.


    ¡°Then why do I feel so ufortable all over, with my head splitting apart? Why do I only want to sleep¡ª¡±


    ¡°You idiot, that¡¯s because you haven¡¯t slept at all. This is a normal physiological reaction! Any normal person who doesn¡¯t sleep for four consecutive days and nights will be no different from being on the verge of death. The fact that you only have a headache and want to sleep means that your physical body far surpasses an ordinary human¡¯s.¡±


    ¡°...Oh, I see.¡±


    Alright, I suppose it was true that going for too long without sleep would affect one¡¯s intelligence. Even though I tried to intentionally act dumb with my response, I was indeed identally quite foolish.


    ¡°How many more days will this take?¡±


    ¡°...With the current progress of the digging and your spellcasting, it should take another three days. Keep going at it. Haven¡¯t you noticed that your magic power is increasing? Good luck.¡±


    Using one¡¯s magic to the utmost limit would ce a burden on both the soul and physical body. But keeping this state constantly without dying would be helpful in improving one¡¯s magic powers. However, since this was far too dangerous, no ordinary person would risk their life and attempt such a thing.


    ¡°So you¡¯re saying I¡¯m constantly in a state of using my magic to its limit?¡±


    ¡°Yes, and you¡¯re simultaneously in a constant state of casting magic.¡±


    Without a doubt, this was both a trial and an opportunity. I had a mage tower supplying me with tremendous resources, my past experiences about the soul and being at the peak of power, and arge number of mages all injecting their mana for me into the mana reserves. Without any of the above, this experiment would have long since failed. Since I had now reached this point, abandoning it seemed like far too much of a pity.


    ¡°...As long as youplete this spell, at least your magic power will increase to the next power level.¡±


    ¡°So my magic power will be at the level of Legends? Alright, I¡¯ll keep going. Still, I¡¯m a little bored. How about singing a little song for me, Harloys?¡±


    ¡°Meow... Meow meow meow meow... The kitty song! Did you like it?¡±


    Harloys had closed her eyes and was waving her paw cutely, intentionally meowing in an adorable and soft manner. While she acted cute on the surface despite being more than ten thousand years old inside, I was busy recording this scene with a memory crystal.


    ¡°Hehe! I¡¯m going to show this to all our old friends. Everyone shall learn about how the Banshee Queen forgot her past after turning into a cat. What will you pay me for this memory crystal? Hey, why are you biting me!?¡±


    ¡°Rnd, you bastard!¡±

 Chapter 405 - Hectic Times

    <h4>Chapter 405: Hectic Times</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°¡®News in Eich, First Edition¡¯? What!? This magazine wasn¡¯t made by the fairies?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a new magazine published together by San Antonio, the Mage Country and several other major countries. It¡¯s having astonishing sales sess in all the countries. Whoever controls the information has power. Nobody is an idiot about this.¡±


    This morning, a Blue Dragon flew into my campground and tossed down a gift bag including an invitation letter and this magazine.


    Although this magazine didn¡¯t have color printing, its paper was of good quality and its vocabry well chosen. The content also had ck-and-white pictures to go along with the articles.


    ¡°Let me see what news was so important that the fastest dragon species was chosen to deliver it to me.¡±


    But the moment I flipped to the first page, I immediately closed the magazine.


    ¡°Ultraman vs. tiny monsters? Isn¡¯t the style wrong?¡±


    The headline news seemed ridiculous. Just at this moment, however, the silly cat jumped out of a corner.


    ¡°...Let me see. What Ultraman are you talking about? The headline clearly says ¡®The vanished Cloud Giants forgotten by mankind have returned. In the battle between Bardi and the Holy Church army, the Cloud Giants viciously taught the dragons a good lesson. Halent¡¯s army retreated after numerous losses.¡¯ Eh, Cloud Giants? There are actually still Cloud Giants in the mortal ne?¡±


    Indeed, these glowing giants really did resemble Ultraman. The dragons being beaten into submission on the ground did seem like tiny minions destined to die in a humiliating fashion.


    Cloud Giants were one of the strongest species of giants. Known as the favored children of the Titan Giants, they were the tallest of all giants and had the most extravagant and beautiful appearances. It was said that their entire species consisted of handsome men and beautiful women that wore equally beautiful clothing. They were born with the natural talent of being able to control the clouds and weather, and they were also naturally skilled at Divine Arts. However, they were most famous for their excellent talent in art and music. Many majestic pces remained in this world that were their creations. Even now, bards sung their songs, which were considered as ssics.


    Also, Cloud Giants had the highest Intelligence of all giants. Their race was capable of producing mages and priests. Not only that, they were one of the few giant species that worked cooperatively with each other in teams and groups. Individually, they weren¡¯t as skilled in physicalbat as Magma Giants, but Cloud Giant squadrons would be the most frightening type of giant squadron there was.


    Cloud Giants hadn¡¯t appeared in the mortal ne for an incredibly long time. Legends had it that they avoided the Intelligence-lowering curse on the entire giant species by escaping from the mortal ne. It would seem that since their ancestors, the Titan Giants, summoned them back, these legendary lovers of peace and art decided to go to war for the sake of their brethren.


    ¡°If the Cloud Giants attacked, then it¡¯s easy enough to understand why Halent lost. Since the Titan Giants are able to control things from afar and understand what¡¯s going on in the outside world despite being sealed, I think I need to raise my assessment and vignce against the Titan Giants...¡±


    The most attention-grabbing part for me was the tiny addendum at the end.


    ¡°PS: Rumors have it that angels appeared in this battle. But ording to our investigation, they were only a group of Winged Tribe mercenaries that participated in battle. The underhanded Holy Church attempted to masquerade these Winged Tribe members as angels in order to shake the Bardi warriors¡¯ morale.¡±


    ¡°Angels appeared?¡±


    I asked this directly, and Kaid nodded.


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s what I heard, but doesn¡¯t the report say that they¡¯re actually the Winged Tribe?¡±


    Considering the political backers of this magazine¡ªthe most powerful countries¡ªit naturally would be biased towards royal authority rather than church authority. It certainly wouldn¡¯t print pro-church articles. Because this article said that the angels were Winged Tribe members, I felt it to be far more likely they were real angels.


    The difference between Winged Tribe members and angels was like the difference between a chicken and a phoenix. Winged Tribe members were simr to flying humans, while angels were of an immemorial bloodline on par with dragons. Their difference in strength on the battlefield would be far too obvious.


    Considering how normal humans in Eich considered angels as venerated personifications of extreme good, as well as God Envoys, if angels truly appeared to fight for the Holy Church, it would be a serious blow against the newly rising Church of Pure Holy Light. If angels appeared in the enemy¡¯s side, the normal Bardi warriors would definitely have their morale severely shaken, not to mention how angels were strong warriors to begin with.


    In that case, if the Holy Church¡¯s vanguard army received support from both angels and Cloud Giants, it was only natural that Halent ended up losing.


    ¡°The enemies are the pure angels and the art and peace-loving Cloud Giants? While our side is filled with undead, evil dragons, Dark Elves, evil Underground creatures and greedy goblins? Why do I feel like we¡¯re the antagonists?¡±


    ¡°Have you realized it only now? With Cloud Giants and angels in the enemy¡¯s side, our soldiers¡¯ morale will probably be affected.¡±


    ¡°...It doesn¡¯t matter. A species doesn¡¯t represent justice, nor is a species an excuse to ughter. Why should we be frustrated about these foolish outdated ways of thinking?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t worried about our side¡¯s morale. I was more worried because the great majority of angels were direct subordinates to various Order True Gods. Since these angels were participating in a mortals¡¯ battle, this most likely meant that some True God had decided to intervene. And with my understanding of the fervent believers in the Holy Church...


    ¡°When they believe that they have their Gods¡¯ favor, they¡¯ll think that their every action represents divine will. Even the most evil of actions will be whitewashed to be holy. Corruption and viciousness will be a God¡¯s mercy. Rather than trusting in a fervent believer¡¯s sense of logic and reason, you might as well believe that a bloodthirsty viin can actually reform.¡±


    ¡°Talk like a normal human.¡±


    ¡°There will be a major ughter and cleansing. Then, they¡¯ll be filled with confidence as they prepare to bring the fight all the way to the Bardi capital. They¡¯ll be receiving an endless amount of reinforcements and will force all the other countries to join their Holy Army. They¡¯ll escte this small-scale war directly into an Armageddon-level war. I fully believe that they¡¯re capable of doing this.¡±


    ¡°...You¡¯re suddenly being so direct; I¡¯m not even used to this. But the more I think about it, the more I agree. This is definitely the Holy Church that I know. If they think that victory will absolutely be theirs, they¡¯ll use the name of Holy Light to summon all the Holy Light believing countries to participate in this war. This conflict will escte into a world war.¡±


    Harloys didn¡¯t say some other things out loud, but both of us knew what the other was thinking. Bardi was a mega-empire with an astonishing amount of umted wealth and resources. Since it was now showing weakness on both fronts, the ravenous wolves saw an opportunity to ¡°act in the name of justice.¡± How could these predators possibly miss this chance?


    I pondered many things as I put down this magazine. At this time in the game¡¯s history, the world had entered the ¡°Vultures of War¡± expansion pack. The elves and the beastmen began a war, and the major countries joined in and fought each other for their own ambitions. I originally thought that I avoided this worst oue but never expected that ¡°history¡± was so hard to control. It somehow mysteriously returned to the starting point.


    ¡°...No, the situation has still changed. Bardi in history was already destroyed at this point. No matter how things develop, things can¡¯t be as bad as the game¡¯s history. Besides, it¡¯s still only at local battles right now. It might not escte to world war. As long as I can act in time...¡±


    I opened up the magazine again, intending to see what else had happened.


    *Plop!*


    But after taking just one look, I dropped the magazine on the ground. After flipping past the front-page news of Bardi¡¯s lost battle, I saw an even more frustrating piece of news.


    ¡°San Antonio has dered war against the Fusi Empire and Seven Dukedom. Knights from both sides fought on the Brightbear ins in the Seven Dukedom, with San Antonio emerging victorious.¡±


    I had a grim expression as I picked the magazine up yet again and continued flipping through the pages. What I saw next only frustrated me even more.


    ¡°The Suolo Alliance is requesting that the Kasn Kingdom give back the stolen national treasure Sea God¡¯s Seal. General Ben forcefully stated that if the Kasn Kingdom continues remaining silent on this matter, the Suolo Alliance will consider starting a war to take back the national treasure that rightfully belongs to them.¡±


    ¡°...New Sea Tribe species and sea monsters have appeared on And¡¯s borders. The Queen of Storms¡¯ priests and shamans have entered the battle along with organized Sea Giant squadrons. The war between And and the Sea Tribe has escted even further.¡±


    ¡°...The Heen Elf Kingdom has announced that they will now be known as the Saint Heen Empire. Their Moonlight Elf Queen Afina has announced herself to be the new Elven Empress. She has requested the other Elven Kingdoms to subordinate themselves to her. Sixteen Elven Kingdoms pledged alliance to her, while twenty-three other Elven Kingdoms dered war against her. The Elves¡¯ internal war has begun... Silly cat, don¡¯t tear this magazine! How am I supposed to read it if you tear it up?¡±


    Pitch-ck magical waves roiled on the silly cat, and a shrieking banshee projection was forming on her ck cat body. This was the first time I had ever seen Harloys angered to such an extent. It was obvious that she was truly furious.


    I wisely ignored Harloys, who had all her cat hairs standing up on end. From a certain standpoint, the revival of the Elven Empire might be meaningful to ordinary elves. But as Harloys was the final Gold Elf, she would view this as the betrayers putting on a crown that should have rightfully been hers. This was a deep-seated enmity that could only end in one side¡¯s death.


    I continued to see simr pieces of news as I flipped through the magazine. Some of it seemed unimportant, but I felt they were truly troublesome upon closer analysis.


    ¡°A Giant Worm species has been spotted around the North Sea. These Giant Worms have taken over the local underground ruins and have incrediblebat strength and are highly resistant to magic. It¡¯s suspected that they¡¯re a species from the immemorial generation.¡±


    ¡°Many Great Demons have appeared in the Orcephalon District of San Antonio. There are many subspecies of these Great Demons, including Forest Demons, Snow Demons, and Cliff Demons. San Antonio has warned local residents to be on guard as they organize an anti-demon hunting team.¡±


    So many troublesome issues happened all at once. This seemed coincidental, but it was actually something definite. Now that the Holy War had begun, those who had hid their ambitions for thousands of years could act without restraints. Now that winter was over, the new spring was the perfect time to put into action these long prepared ns. These well-prepared ambitious schemers finally reached out their hands, making the world of Eich be quite hectic.


    I closed the magazine and nced over at the silly cat who was viciously ring at the magazine, her banshee shadow furiously shrieking in anger. I shook my head at this scene. While it may seem like she no longer cared so much about the past, it was still a sore spot deep inside her that nobody could tread upon. And if anyone dared to touch my Nortnds, I would probably react the same way, as if I were an injured beast with my hair standing up on end, hissing at all my enemies.


    For Harloys, perhaps the deepest scar in her heart was about the Elven Crown that belonged to the Gold Elves. This inheritance passed down from so many generations and through so many rulers was lost by her.


    The pain from losing one¡¯s country? The pain from being betrayed by those she trusted the most? The feeling of helplessness from watching everything still head towards Armageddon? Perhaps it was that I could empathize with her due to my memories of the Mist Kingdom, or perhaps I simply didn¡¯t want to see anyone bully my pet cat. As I looked at Harloys, who had fallen silent, I felt a sense of pity for her and didn¡¯t like seeing her like this, which was why I made her a promise.


    ¡°Rest reassured. As long as I¡¯m around, I won¡¯t allow anyone else tofortably wear the Elven Crown that rightfully belongs to the Gold Elves.¡±

 Chapter 406 - A Gift from the Past

    <h4>Chapter 406: A Gift from the Past</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    As someone who had traveled to many ces, I¡¯d trodden across the most distant ofnds. During my travels, I loved seeing the sights, but I obtained much knowledge and benefits during these voyages. Perhaps this was the reason for the ¡°Treader¡± word in my Ice Treader Soul Imprint.


    The frozen tundra was immacte, nothing more than an unending stretch of pure snow white. Amid this vastness stood a colossal snowy mountain that pierced the clouds, a ce where even breathing was difficult. It was a forbidden zone thatcked both color and life, a location with nothing else, but it was there I learned how to let go of myself.


    No, I wasn¡¯t talking about something as glorious as emptying my mind in meditation. I was talking about abandonment and self-exile. Within thatnd of snow, where it was nigh impossible to tell the earth and sky apart, I abandoned myself. I left myself, sending my soul through tribtions, surrounded by this frigid, hostile climate. I dreamed, but at the same time, I was at the border of death.


    ¡°...Why is this world so harsh? I just want to live a good life¡ªis that too much to ask? Why is it so difficult to just live life? Why do brave warriors who sacrifice everything still lose their families and homes and even have their names tarnished after death? Are there really no fairy tales in real life? Are all good people supposed to go to Hell? Is all of this my fault, my guilt? If I¡¯m the one in the wrong, why not punish me alone? Why do so many good people have to enter Hell together with me?¡±


    Past memories shed repeatedly in my mind. Faces I missed, felt regret towards or apologetic to wouldn¡¯t let me go. Vicious nder wouldn¡¯t leave my ears.


    ¡°It¡¯s all your fault. If it wasn¡¯t for an arrogant, ridiculous transmigrator like you, how would our country possibly perish?¡±


    ¡°The Twin Stars of Misfortune? No¡ªno¡ªno¡ªthe only misfortune is you, the outsider who took over our prince¡¯s body. It¡¯s all your fault, you jinxer! You caused our people to be ughtered!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all your fault! Why are you the only person who survived? Why aren¡¯t youing down to Hell to join us...?¡±


    The faces, which had been warm and friendly in the past, were twisted ugly by hatred and anger. They would appear in my dreams, their intimate greetings now curses and vile words, left for me before I woke up every morning.


    ¡°That¡¯s right! Why am I still alive? Gods, why am I the only one still alive! I want to die! Let me die!¡±


    It¡¯s unknown how I managed to make it through those nightmarish days. I had no clear concept of memory and time. If I looked back on the past now, I would see memories in tatters. All I could remember was the snow white and coldness.


    It was possible I didn¡¯t even make it through. Perhaps I had sunk into utter insanity. Maybe my mere bit of good luck and coincidence helped pull me back from endless madness.


    Maybe I was half-sane and half-insane. When I was insane, I would curse the unfairness of the world. When I was sane, I would curse my weakness and helplessness. Reality and dreams blended together in a confusion concoction, somehowbining my logical thinking and distorted insanity. Perhaps this was the most logical exnation for why my memories from that time were in such shreds.


    But no matter what, I made it past all that. I managed to regain my sanity despite being at the brink. My restored logic and reason told me that all these people trusted me and adamantly protected my g even while dying. How could they possibly regret believing in me and my choices?


    ¡°A knight¡¯s heart is like an iron castle, pure and untainted. I actually felt that they¡¯d regret following me? That¡¯s the greatest possible insult to them. I truly am unqualified to be a ruler. Even now, I¡¯m still doubting loyalty and trust...¡±


    Even though I regained my sanity, I chose to live alone in that icy location. I faced myself and my true feelings amid the calm and the peace, slowly putting my soul and memories through tribtions, considering my past failures over fiery passionate nights.


    ¡°If only I could have schemed better, been more sly, been more shameless, been more vicious... perhaps I wouldn¡¯t have failed...¡±


    I was someone who used to love lively crowds, but I slowly fell in love with the icy, cold quiet in that swathe of snow. That was because I learned that when at a brink, passionate emotions and glorious causes became meaningless. Only with calm and swift thinking under pressure could one save oneself. I desired to freeze my emotions there.


    ¡°If a wish of mine coulde true, I¡¯d wish to leave behind my anger in this mountain. I shall never lose control of myself that way. I shall never make decisions in a fit of anger and regret them for the rest of my life. What passion? What anger? They¡¯re meaningless. Acting like a hot-blooded youth will bring me nothing but pain and misery. I spit upon anger, I curse being passionate. I wish to be a cold observer; forever steadfast, immovable, aloof.¡±


    Thenceforth I had no real anger. Instead, two soul shards appeared on my neck; they were my anger and passion. I became a solitary traveler on that icy mountain; a lone treader amidst the ice. I etched the scene onto my very soul, entering the realm of Legends yet again and establishing a foundation to reach the peak of power.


    Perhaps I truly did aplish what I had desired, bing someone who could watch the arrival of Armageddon coldly and dispassionately, forever making rational decisions with utter calmness. Or perhaps I was someone insane, who crippled himself by cutting off his own soul shards, a crazy person who only believed that he had calmed down.


    But no matter what, I didn¡¯t regret it. That was my past. Those were decisions I made for myself. This guilt was something I needed to bear forever...


    ¡°I shall never regret¡ª¡±


    A powerful light shed through my eyes as tears¡ªreal tears¡ªstreamed down my cheeks. My pillowside was drenched wet.


    ¡°It¡¯s this dream again?¡±


    I gazed out the window and saw a sun and moon hanging high in the sky of the Dragon World. From their positions, it was dawn.


    ¡°Do you often have this dream?¡±


    A golden-haired young elf was perched atop my pillow. Her silky, shiny hair covered the entire bed, and the indentations on the bed showed that she had used theps of her white, tender legs as a pillow for me.


    Her tone¡ªever sarcastic and arrogant¡ªwas a rare one of worry and care, while her red little face was tinged with a shy blush.


    I shook my head, shaking away such useless emotions, flicking away the liquid of weakness on my face to the corner. With a shake of my head I opened my eyes, and the energetic and youthful Rnd returned!


    ¡°No, as they¡¯re things I¡¯ve already forgotten. But for some reason I keep having this dream this week... By the way, who are you supposed to be? How did you get in? Are you trying to ruin my reputation? I¡¯ve already said that I¡¯m not a lolicon¡ªI¡¯m a magnificent maid lover!¡±


    Alright then. The worry on her little face instantly transformed into anger. She ground her teeth and pounced on me...


    ¡°Don¡¯t bite me! Ah! This feeling? You¡¯re Harloys? Ehh¡ªaren¡¯t you supposed to be a cat?¡±


    This was best evidence of the fact that when a person wakes up, their mind will be foggy and their memories unclear. However, not recognizing certain people at critical times could prove to be a very fatal mistake...


    ¡°Ohhh¡ªnow I remember! I¡¯m so sorry, Harloys! I was in a bit of a daze after just waking up. Stop biting me! I¡¯m bleeding, I¡¯m bleeding, I¡¯m really bleeding!¡±


    I finally managed to remove the fake loli from my head, but this was only after promising her many things. I then put some medicine on my head.


    ¡°...These memory dreams means your soul is telling you to hurry and recreate your Soul Imprint.¡±


    That was Harloys¡¯s confident conclusion when I asked her the meaning of my dream.


    ¡°That¡¯s probably true. Those memories are from when I was creating my Ice Treader Soul Imprint. Such a pity¡ªI probably had a grand death in that life because, out of all my lives, I lost the most memories from that one. Anyhow, does this mean I¡¯ll have such dreams when creating my Soul Imprint? I don¡¯t think such a thing has happened to me before in the past.¡±


    ¡°Of course, you idiot. Before, you were creating brand-new Soul Imprints. A Soul Imprint is an umtion of one¡¯s life experiences, but now you¡¯re restoring a past Soul Imprint. You¡¯ll need to face your past self, including your past tragedies.¡±


    ¡°My past self? I really do have such a tragic past. No wonder I forgot about it... Wait a moment, how did you know that they were past tragic memories? You dared to peek at my dreams!? You used magic to spy on my dreams?!¡±


    ¡°...Heehee! You should know that cats are curious creatures.¡±


    The next moment, the golden-haired loli transformed into her silly cat form and even pretended to act cute by licking her paw. Harloys was bing more skilled every day at fooling others by acting cute.


    However, I squeezed out ament through my teeth.


    ¡°Cats are curious creatures? Yes, I should teach you the saying: ¡®curiosity killed the cat!¡¯¡±


    Although we had been in the Dragon World for less than a month, many of our warriors had made breakthroughs. Many of them had been at bottlenecks with their power levels, so they naturally broke through after staying for a while in this high Elemental Tide environment.


    These breakthroughs couldn¡¯t be underestimated. In the human world, ordinary humans working hard for their entire lives, even with excellent teachers and resources, could only reach the peak of Silver. That was why those at the Gold rank would be revered and addressed as grandmasters.


    If all these humans stuck at the obstacle of Silver to Gold entered Gold so easily, transforming their bottlenecks into true strength, their overallbat strength would soar by more than three times.


    From the rank of Gold to Legend was more of an understanding and umtion of one¡¯s life experiences. While there were preset paths to Gold, everyone would have to find their own to Legend. Many would work hard for their entire lives but fail to reach this rank, missing only a tiny bit.


    However, there were some with sufficient self-understanding to reach Legend but were unable to progress in power level due to injuries, elderly age or stress. Actually, this was fairlymon. Human lives were short. Young people were energetic and didn¡¯t know what worry was. It was far moremon that only when people were old and on the verge of death or suffered a huge setback that they¡¯d have a better self-understanding of themselves capable of allowing them to progress to Legend. But it would be toote as their body would no longer be capable of handling the burden.


    Yet these older and injured mercenaries and warriors mysteriously found their injuries recovering and lifespans lengthening in this high Elemental Tide environment, allowing them to pass this obstacle.


    Simply living in this environment allowed the younger warriors to receive tremendous benefits and the older warriors to restart their progress. Naturally, they became even more confident in my cause.


    Of course, in a few more decades, everyone in the mortal ne¡¯s world would be enjoying a high Elemental Tide. Our enemies would be even more difficult to deal with.


    However, as everyone celebrated their power level improvements, I was actually the one who benefited the most.


    The seven-day soul summoning spell had finished. The tremendous effort required meant that I fell asleep instantly right afterwards. It also forcefully raised my magic power level to the Legend rank. As for the issue of creating a Soul Imprint, which could make other people spend a lifetime, it was never an issue for me. In fact, my soul was forcing me to recreate my Soul Imprint as soon as possible, forcing me to face myself.


    ¡°How difficult. Although I need to reach Legend and then Saint rank as part of my ¡®grand scheme,¡¯ I really don¡¯t want to have this dream again.¡±


    ¡°Then you can try recreating some of the other Soul Imprints first. But none of them have any pleasant dreams for you.¡±


    My expression instantly became rather strange as I thought about what memories my other Soul Imprints represented. Then, I viciously red at the innocent-seeming silly cat.


    ¡°You¡ªyou¡ªyou snuck looks at my other dreams? How else would you know that they¡¯re all unpleasant?¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Do I even need to peek? Isn¡¯t your entire life a tragedy? Since it¡¯s obviously just a tragedy, there won¡¯t be anyedy.¡±


    ¡°Comedy? Of course there¡¯ll beedy! The ¡®silly cat¡¯s hrious making a fool of herselfedy¡¯¡ªSchrodinger¡¯s Cat, with excellent reviews! Guess whether this cat is dead or alive!¡± [1] <sup>1</sup>


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: Schr?dinger¡¯s cat is a famous thought experiment! I wasn¡¯t expecting it here¡ªELCL never fails to surprise me.

 Chapter 407 - God Equipment Set

    <h4>Chapter 407: God Equipment Set</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Even without a way to swiftly get information from the mortal ne, I pretty much knew what would happen next.


    The world would never act ording to the will of a single person. There were plenty of examples of those who were crushed underneath the wheels of history. If someone knew about what would happen in the future due to whatever method, they would be better off buying some stocks to make money. If they wanted to make use of their knowledge of the future to meddle in international affairs, then the butterfly effect they created would likelye back to kill them.


    ¡°Those who follow the will of heaven shall live, while those who go against heaven shall die. Forcefully going against the heavens and changing your fate? If you want to use your personal strength to change the entire world, you must first mentally prepare yourself to die several hundred times.¡±


    Even I didn¡¯t want to forcefully change the future. I only wanted to slowly umte things and sit on the very edge of the scale, tipping it ever so slightly, trying to act as a tiny amount of force to change the overall direction.


    ¡°Directly eliminating all my enemies? I¡¯ve never even considered that. However, I can begin by weakening my enemies and increasing ourbat strength, postponing when the enemies arrive in the mortal ne. I don¡¯t need to single-handedly kill off the endless amounts of demons and devils. I can instead increase the number and quality of ¡®heroes¡¯ saving the world, using small umtions to emerge victorious in the end and overturn the situation.¡±


    Actually, the current developments proved that this strategy of mine was already somewhat effective.


    The Justice Points system and the currently developing field of magical engineering had both vastly improved the entire mortal ne¡¯s averagebat strength and potential. When science was at this level, technology would typically evolve by two generations every ten years. This head start would give us a bigger and bigger lead as time passed.


    The changes in the Underground and the Nortnds gave us hope. They were all important changes that never urred in the game¡¯s history.


    And the original ¡°leader of the human world,¡± the Holy Church, was now shaken to its foundation. It seemed like it was only because of my personal grudge¡ªfine, I admit it was indeed partially because of my personal grudge. But if you checked what they did in the game¡¯s history, you would find out that what was even scarier than godlike enemies and garbage teammates were garbage teammate higher-ups who felt that they were the godlike ones.


    ¡°We have a great advantage, so let¡¯s just attack them with no strategy.¡±


    ¡°Just defend the base, defend the base, and stall until next week so your victory will be a celebration present for the Pope¡¯s birthday. Reinforcements? Your reinforcements will probablye next month! No, they¡¯re noting to help clean up your corpses, nor are theying to steal your achievements... But there¡¯s a Cardinal¡¯s son among them, you understand how it is... F*ck, you actually dared to hang up on my magical message? I might just dere you to be a heretic!¡±


    ¡°...Ally? With those heretical dark-skinned non-believers? May the Holy Light descend upon them and burn them all to death. We need more Holy Wars!¡±


    The biggest taboo on the battlefield was to have a nonbat expert be in charge of decisions. But it just so happened to be that in the game¡¯s history, the Holy Church was at its peak of authority and possessed many God Envoys, angels and people capable of using God¡¯s Descent, meaning that the Holy Church became the main core of the allied Order armies.


    The Holy Church sent a Cardinal to every country tomand the Holy War. The end result was that these new manders¡± kept saying that ¡°we¡¯re here to pray for the warriors and spread divine favor¡± but were actually quite helpful in battle... Yep, helpful in battle for the enemy, at least at the beginning.


    As for why they only helped the enemy in the beginning? Since this happened far too much, the major countries started giving these manders¡± nothing but empty authority. Also, as the wars progressed, the umted losses and cmities made even more people turn to the Holy Light for salvation, but they simultaneously started ruining the Holy Church¡¯s reputation.


    The reason? The warriors forced to the brink would do anything but obey themands of a bastard who didn¡¯t know anything about actualbat. The cruelties of battle naturally eliminated the authority of these Cardinals who didn¡¯t know anything about warfare.


    Even without my Southern Sect, the Holy Church was destined to split into major factions, and it happened in the game¡¯s history. The Holy Knights and Holy Light priests would split from the Holy Church¡¯s higher-up Cardinals. Miracle Hand Estrada, the strongest Holy Knight, would lead his Holy Knights in separating from the Holy Church entirely. This was something destined to happen in history, based on objective factors of what humans needed to do. It would be impossible to stop.


    Of course, it would be impossible to make up the losses if I really did allow the Holy Church to take overallmand of the Order armies in the uing Holy War.


    But now the present was far better than the current time in the game¡¯s history. With the Holy Church¡¯s current reputation, it would be difficult for them to send Cardinals asmanders to the various countries. They would need to first deal with the Southern Sect.


    Also, thanks to the Holy Church¡¯s attempt to steal credit for the victory at Oak Town, there was now a perfect excuse to refuse to allow them to take lead. When Armageddon arrived, it would likely be impossible for the Holy Church to y the role of the garbage teammate leader.


    Judging from these factors, history had already changed in many ways. Yet the world¡¯s development would never happen exactly as a single individual wished. Some parts were beneficial, but there would naturally be downsides as well.


    For instance, the Bardi Empire. In the game¡¯s history, the Titan Giants and Undead Emperors viciously fought each other after the Bardi Empire was destroyed, the end result being that both sides werepletely wiped out. This was a miracle that would be impossible to replicate. Although the Bardi Empire was still intact, the Titan Giants and Undead Emperors were huge threats. Since it would be impossible for the Titan Giants and Undead Emperors to destroy each other, they would be huge problems for us in the future.


    And now, even though the overall situation was arguably better than the game¡¯s history, what was destined to happen still happened. Chaotic war started spreading on a worldwide scale. Preventing all this would be utterly impractical. Even if I somehow managed to stop all the wars, it would be very costly and tiresome and I¡¯d obtain no benefits whatsoever.


    To use an analogy, this was like a wooden ship with countless holes in it. Even if I plugged up every single hole in the ship, new holes would appear. By the time I plugged those up as well, the entire ship would have sunk.


    That was why intervening in these small-scale conflicts was meaningless. Since it was now an era of all-out war, I was prepared to use any means necessary to obtain victory in the end. To use a phrase that might not fit the situation: ¡°Get on me if you dare!¡±


    Cough¡ªI think I made a wording mistake just now. I meant to say ¡°Come at me if you dare!¡± It¡¯s the fault of the silly trantor. [1]


    ¡°Are you ready?¡±


    I shook the dust off my cape. This new article of clothing I just received wasn¡¯t cheap in the least.


    I was wearing a brilliantly blue crown, which was adorned with the emblem of the moonlight. Star power gathered upon this God Equipment crown, making it glow like a small moon on my head. I was yet topletely control this God Equipment¡¯s power. When I closed my eyes, I could see its divine light¡ªthe purest power of the Moonlight Goddess.


    [Patricia¡¯s Protection. High-level God Equipment crown.]


    It was the Moonlight Goddess Patricia¡¯s favorite crown. Extravagantly crafted out of the essence of the moon, it would forever be covered in starlight, and its wearer would appear to have stars orbiting around them. It was indeed true that Patricia was blessed by the stars, and this crown was celebrated as the most beautiful crown in the entire world. Back in the immemorial generation, it had been the cause of multiple wars between the Moonlight Goddess and the Goddess of Beauty.


    [First ability: Sealed; inactive.]


    [Second ability: Sealed; inactive.]


    [etc. etc.]


    [Seventh ability: Star Power Summoning. Summon countless stars to crash down in an enormously destructive AOE attack with yourself as the center. Limited to one use per month.]


    [System Notification: Princess Peach, wear this wonderful crown that even the Goddess of Beauty is jealous of and you¡¯ll be the most beautiful flower at any dance. Ha, but if you activate the only currently usable ability, everyone will be watching a meteor shower together with you, and the entire Dragon City will be blown up into the skies. So you¡¯ll also be the most dangerous flower at the dance. System Notification, addendum: Considering that the Goddess of Joy, Goddess of Laughter, Goddess of Beauty and a dozen other Goddesses are still fighting against Patricia for this crown even today, you should return it to Patricia as soon as possible. Unless, that is, you want to die to a Goddess¡¯s Descent, <i>Sora no Otoshimono </i>, or some Goddess personally descending from the skies.]


    Yes, I was wearing a God Equipment, one given to me by Patricia. Although the great majority of its abilities were sealed, the only ability which wasn¡¯t was the most dangerous one this God Equipment possessed. The moment I activated it, its power would be no different from Patricia herself personally using this God Equipment. ...I didn¡¯t know the exact strength of this Star Power Summoning, but judging from the System¡¯sment about how the entire Dragon City would be blown up into the skies, its strength was far above that of a forbidden spell¡¯s.


    But right now, I wasn¡¯t wearing only one God Equipment. I was wearing an entire set of God Equipment!


    In my right hand, I held a ck staff with an emblem of a snake and dragon twined together. It didn¡¯t release any magical properties, making it easy for others to ignore its presence. However, I could confidently state that it was the second most dangerous God Equipment I had on me.


    [Unpredictable Fate. High-level God Equipment staff.]


    It even came together with a pair of reading sses. The God of Fate was a truly sly one who typically loved to wear a cape, put on these sses and support himself with this staff, pretending to be amon fortune teller, schr or nomad. He would then hide in some dark alleyways and have fun giving guidance to others. If you listened to everything he said, you would be fine, but if you didn¡¯t... Hehehe. Do you enjoy the feeling of identally slurping noodles up your nose? Or tripping and breaking every bone in your body? Actually, Catio didn¡¯t even need to personally do anything. This staff would do everything for him.


    [First ability: Sealed; inactive.]


    [Second ability: Sealed; inactive.]


    [Third ability: Fate is Watching You. Choose a target, and the target¡¯s luck will decrease. The luck this individual loses will be added to you for the next two hours. This ability ignores all magic resistance and immunities. Even other True Gods are not immune to this ability. Note: This ability can only be used once on each target for their entire lifetime. The target will be immune to this ability afterward.]


    [Fourth ability: Fate is Taking Care of You. Using this ability will make you the luckiest person in the entire world for the next ten minutes. But after this effect wears off, you will be the unluckiest person in the entire world with double the effects for the next three hours.]


    [System Reminder: Don¡¯t use the ¡®Fate is Taking Care of You¡¯ ability unless you absolutely, absolutely have to. Changing your fate will only bring misfortune.]


    The third ability was easy toprehend, but the fourth one¡¯s true effects were confusing. Plus, it was rare that my System gave me a serious warning. In order to not be blindsided by the downside if I had to use it, I found an experimental subject and had him use this ability for me... and then I immediately understood how it worked.


    Cough, my experimental subject was a mercenary absolutely addicted to gambling. I honestly told him the benefits and the downsides of this staff, and he immediately agreed to use it and started gambling. In just five minutes, he won enough gold coins to buy a pce despite the fact that he started out with only two copper coins. ...But one hourter, he stepped on a banana peel and identally destroyed the family treasure of a noble. Just as I was sighing at how such a ssical method was used, I learned to my astonishment that the broken family treasure¡¯s value was exactly double the amount of gold coins that he won... putting the mercenary in debt for the same amount of money he just won. So it was a certain thing that whoever used this God Equipment¡¯s fourth ability would lose more than they gained. But as long as I used it carefully, it could be an ace which could overturn the situation for me in a dire battle.


    ¡°Heehee, I won¡¯t make you lose face by being your femalepanion.¡±


    ¡°...Actually, I feel that you should stand a bit farther away from me. You¡¯re too tall. Am I supposed to wear high heels? Cough¡ªI meant secret shoes.¡±


    Wearing simrly extravagant clothing was a tall and beautiful elf standing in front of me. She was taller than me by so much I had to crank my neck to see her face. Her naturally perfect body proportions didn¡¯t have a single blemish, and her form-fitting ssical golden attire and snow-white skin perfectlyplemented each other. Her bright, long dress gave her an elegant and extravagant appearance. Soft straps entuated her curves, while her silky-smooth golden hair cascaded down behind her, glowing like the sun: a specialty of Gold Elves.


    Harloys raised her dress and formally curtsied. Today, she was acting as my femalepanion, as we were going together to the party that the Dragon City had prepared for us.


    ¡°Where did you get this ceremonial attire? I thought that long dress would be too small to fit you. I¡¯m surprised it even has the ability to automatically change its size.¡±


    ¡°...Yes, it has the function to automatically adjust its size as it¡¯s a God Equipment. Don¡¯t break it. No, don¡¯t even get it dirty. Otherwise Beyana will charge us an astronomical amount.¡±


    That¡¯s right, the golden dress Harloys was wearing was also a God Equipment. I asked Beyana for a God Equipment as well, as we were all part of the same faction, but she gave me her personal long dress with clear evil intentions, even telling me to use it for myself. But I was no fool¡ªI unhesitatingly gave this dress to Harloys and brought the silly cat along with me as my femalepanion.


    The dress couldn¡¯t be judged by its extravagance or sexy appearance that revealed quite a lot of skin. It was indeed an excellent God Equipment.


    [Beyana¡¯s Fortress of Wealth. Defensive God Equipment.]


    It was a defensive item constructed out of pure gold. That¡¯s right¡ªits primary function was as a defensive item, not ornamental clothing. Beyana wasn¡¯t a God who was foolish or wasteful of wealth; she was the opposite, quite practical and stingy. She created this endlessly morphing defensive equipment which was the representation of Wealth. As for why it had the form of a dress... I would never tell you that Princess Peach¡¯s drama y was now a bestseller even in the heavens! Princess, whoever you are, your embarrassment has been seen even by the heavens!


    [Ability: I¡¯m Rich! This defensive equipment is the embodiment of the Concept of Wealth. The more money you have, the more defensive protection this equipment will provide. Each attack it takes will cause your wealth to decrease.]


    [System Notification: When Beyana is wearing this, not even a Main God can break her defenses. But in your hands... it¡¯s nothing more than a sexy dress. But you¡¯ll look really good in it! I highly rmend you try it! Friendly System Reminder: While Harloys is wearing it, her defensive abilities are better than the ruler of an empire¡¯s. You understand... Go and take her secret treasuries! The pet¡¯s spending money should belong to the master! Another friendly System Reminder: If you put on this dress together with the Moonlight Crown, perhaps a certain grudge-bearing Goddess will be satisfied and stop being angry with you.]


    Thanks to a certain grudge-bearing Goddess¡¯s efforts, the other Gods didn¡¯t give me any God Equipment. Well, there was one more helpless exception. A certain God sent over a robe I was quite familiar with: a silver judge robe.


    [God Equipment: Justice¡¯s Authority. Soulbound to you. Law mage robe.]


    [First ability: Confession of the Guilty. Sealed, inactive.]


    [Second ability: Iron-faced Judge. Sealed, inactive.]


    [Third ability: Soul Container. Sealed, inactive.]


    [Fourth ability: Law Set Equipment Effects. Sealed, inactive.]


    [Fifth ability: Wumianzhe¡¯s Will. The wearer of this robe can summon Wumianzhe¡¯s divine power. You can use three True God level Divine Arts per day.]


    [System Notification: Can you stop tantly cheating like this?]


    Mages wearing their mage robes to formal asions was an established tradition. The silver Wumianzhe¡¯s robe was majestic and contained his divine authority. It wouldn¡¯t be inappropriate to wear it anywhere. Plus, since I was wearing the Moonlight Crown and had the Fate Staff, I would seem even more mysterious and respectable. I felt like I was walking on cloud nine as I looked at the young archmage in the mirror.


    Harloys charmingly smiled as she did her hair, cing her other hand upon mine. But right now I was unable to bow and kiss her hand as I was holding an outrageously lurid white rose in my mouth...


    This wasn¡¯t because I suddenly wanted to act like a romantic. This rose was the most dangerous God Equipment I managed to borrow. That¡¯s right¡ªwhen I said that the second-most dangerous God Equipment I had was the Fate Staff, I never said that the most dangerous was the Moonlight Crown. The Fate Staff was actually more powerful than the Moonlight Crown, and this seemingly ordinary rose could make any True God pause in fear.


    [Ayer¡¯s White Rose. Wondrous mystical item. Highest-level God Equipment.]


    [If the highest God of Death, Ayer, starts smiling at some other God, that God will probably pee his pants. And if Ayer shows his white rose to anyone, I rmend that person tomit suicide on the spot.]


    [Ability: The chosen target will instantly die.]


    [System Notification: Yep, that¡¯s right. That¡¯s how simple the exnation is. There are no other effects. Believe me¡ªnot even a Main God can handle being targeted by this rose.]


    As for why Rnd foolishly kept holding that rose in his mouth? That was because Ayer told him that this would help the God Equipment get ustomed to him and not identally kill him when he used it. However, Rnd kept feeling like something was off.


    As for the Gods secretly watching this spectacle:


    ¡± <i>Ahh </i>, he didn¡¯t wear my dress! I spent so much effort designing it for him!¡±


    ¡°... <i>Pahaha </i>, he¡¯s actually holding the rose in his mouth! He really believed it! Quick, give me a memory crystal¡ªwe must record this!¡±


    For some reason, I felt a mysterious chill run down my spine. But it was time for us to leave.


    Obviously, I wouldn¡¯t be dressing myself so oundishly for no reason. Compared to the power of these God Equipment, more important was the fact that the Ayer Faction True Gods had been willing to loan me their God Equipment. This represented the entire Ayer Faction¡¯s unwavering andplete support for me. As I would soon need to negotiate with the dragons and fight the Titan Giants, all of this would be of great assistance.


    From now on, I would no longer be on the level of a helper they could summon at any time. I was an equal. And to prove my strength to the dragons, I could only choose to attend their party in such a high-profile fashion.


    ¡°Ha! You think I¡¯m going overboard? Compared to my ¡®grand scheme¡¯ I intend to execute, this isn¡¯t enough at all.¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Yes, this is pretty much what it says. This isn¡¯t my ownment! Ahaha, I¡¯m just tranting the author¡¯s words!

 Chapter 408 - Dragon City

    <h4>Chapter 408: Dragon City</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°Who¡¯s Rnd? Is he some type of new exotic food? I¡¯ve never heard of him.¡±


    ¡°I think he¡¯s the descendant of the Mist. Right, have you heard of the Mist Kingdom? It was destroyed around three centuries ago. He was the prince at that time.¡±


    ¡°...Ah, I do have some recollection of it now. Has the Mist Family¡¯s inheritance perished? Sigh¡ªI had a good rtionship with the Mist King back in the day. Those Nortnders are much better warriors than the barbarians. Such a pity.¡±


    ¡°Hah! No matter what things were like, he was only a mortal. What is there to pity?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right... Have you heard? Third Brother said that there¡¯s a special sauce that makes the Eternal Thunder Tribe really delicious. You want to try that with me?¡±


    Whenever Dragon City held a weing party for a mortal, such conversations would bemonce.


    This was unavoidable. After all, the prideful dragons couldn¡¯t even remember thest time they formally invited a mortal and treated him so politely. For the older dragons, they would casually nap for a century at a time. A mortal who was only three hundred-ish years old would be nothing more than a young brat.


    At this time, the Immemorial Gold Dragon Halos had a bit of a headache. As the highest-ranking leader of Dragon City, he decided to invite the Mage Country¡¯s special ambassador by using the dragons¡¯ utmost politeness. However, Rnd was quitete to arrive, which made the other leaders startining withments like ¡°This is so humiliating,¡±¡±He¡¯s only a human, why invite him? Let him get the hell out if he doesn¡¯t want toe¡± and so on.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough out of all of you! You¡¯ll understand when you see him! Also¡ª¡±


    He didn¡¯t get to finish his sentence. Halos found, to his shock, that not only could he not speak, but everything before him had stopped silent, as if frozen in time. Only the consciousnesses of the dragons remained; they were unable to move their bodies. Even the tiny particles of water and dust in the air had frozen.


    The next moment, everything returned to normal, as if all this was nothing more than a nightmare.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    Just as the astonished dragons were beginning to talk about the abnormal scene which urred, Halos stood up.


    ¡°He¡¯s probably here... It seems that there are many others like all of you, who are so shortsighted to look down on mortals. I hope they haven¡¯t caused a huge problem.¡±


    Half an hour ago, when my Borealis entered the Ake Canyon in which Dragon City was located, countless ¡°curious spectators¡± gathered around us. But before the dragons attacked us, Blue Dragon Evelyn, who was leading the Borealis, helped us enter without incident.


    The mountains around this area were strangely shaped. From the holographic projections I saw from the bridge, a gigantic airship like ours passing through would seem like a little toy. Compared to the tremendous mountains, the dragons around us were nothing more than ordinary sparrows.


    ¡°There are over three thousand and seven hundred Adult Dragons located in a radius around us. Around an equal number of young or elderly dragons are here too. And many areas can¡¯t be sensed by our radar; probably they are ¡®undetectable¡¯ due to the presence of powerful individual wills. As expected of Dragon World, one of the three biggest homes of the dragons.¡±


    Radar in this world far surpassed radar in my previous world, as we used sound magic and magical engineering to improve it. The only drawback was that technology and industrial level weren¡¯t up to par, so the size of the ¡®radar room¡¯ took up the space of two entire rooms. Still, that posed no problem for the spacious battleship.


    ¡°Actually, we need to prepare ourselves the moment that we enter Dragon City.¡±


    Many curious dragons would pass by. I was beginning to worry that the cannoneers wouldn¡¯t be able to control their trigger fingers.


    In front of the gigantic Borealis, even a dragon would seem tiny. Naturally, this helped to curb their arrogance, and I managed to avoid the awkwardness of the dragons surrounding and gawking at me.


    ¡°So this is one of the threergest Dragon Cities? It¡¯s far smaller than I anticipated. Still, it looks quite valuable...¡±


    At the end of the mountains, a group of castles appeared, and the first thing I noticed was that they were constructed out of attention-grabbing white jade. If I saw correctly, this was an expensive type of jade which could remain warm in winter and cool in summer. While it wasn¡¯t a magical metal capable of being turned into equipment, its price was equal to that of mithril. Rich people liked to make their beds out of jade to show off. Should I say that it was expected of the dragons to use this rare white jade to construct entire castles?


    ¡°They¡¯re only historical artifacts. The dragons guarding them have to deal with some younger dragons who try to rob the castles. The young dragons are capable of doing anything in order to decorate their dragon nests and find a partner.¡±


    Copper Dragon Evelyn naturally apanied me as well. After wemunicated about many things, the trust between us deepened to quite an extent. At the very least, I would no longer have to intentionally avoid many things with her.


    This wasn¡¯t my first time visiting a Dragon City. I had a certain understanding of these ces known as Dragon Cities.


    Dragon City wasn¡¯t actually a ce where dragons gathered. For the city itself to have one percent of the dragons under its control living there would already be quite rare. Although this sounded inconceivable, it was understandable if you considered how individualistic and territorial most dragons were.


    Adult and older dragons typically had their own territories, which would include magic beasts and other intelligent creatures that were their servants. They could live like kings there, so how would they possiblye over to Dragon City and live like an ordinary citizen?


    Most dragons viewed Dragon City as a political organization where the veterans debated useless things. They also thought of it as a temporary marketce where ordinary dragons could exchange items with each other. Most dragons would avoiding to Dragon City as much as possible in order to avoid the veteran dragons conscripting them for some purpose.


    It was mostly the same for the Underground Dragon City. But the environment was far harsher there, so the Underground Dragon Queen had a more centralized authority. On the other hand, the surface Dragon City¡¯s leadership system used a council of elders or even the inconceivable system where different dragons took turns being leaders.


    However, every society¡¯s system would have its reasons for existing. This type of chaotic and inefficient ruling system was the only choice for the dragons. Every dragon species had fundamentally different personalities, and having a Copper Dragon represent the benefits of a Blue Dragon would be a joke. It would already be considered nice if they didn¡¯t simply go to war with each other.


    Unlike how there were only Red and ck Dragons in the Underground, there were far too many dragon species in Dragon City. Every species wanted a dragon to be their representative, and hence the ruling system was a council where all the leaders had the right to speak. But some powerful species had multiple leaders on the council, while other species had zero leaders. This was because of the dragons¡¯ typical habit: those who were strong could rule.


    Since dragons wererge creatures, most Dragon City residents would choose to remain in humanoid form. Otherwise, the city wouldn¡¯t have enough space to hold them all. The younger dragons that didn¡¯t yet have the ability to change their form would conduct trades with each other outside the city.


    As I slowly roamed around the city, I didn¡¯t see that many dragons in dragon form. Apart from a few Infant Dragons being carried around by their mothers, the rest were strange humanoid creatures, with elves and humans the mostmon. There were also plenty of dragons that took beastmen or dwarf forms. I even saw a few dragons that looked like demons and even ogres. The strange part was that the dragon in demon form was one respected by other dragons.


    ¡°Adult Dragons will choose another species¡¯ appearance as their smaller form. Once they choose their appearance and species, they won¡¯t be able to ever change it. Those who choose elf appearances did so because the elves were the dominant species at the time. Naturally, there are more elf forms here than any other species. Now is the generation of the humans, so human forms are the second-mostmon, with mostly younger dragons choosing human forms. But if a dragon chose a demon form...¡±


    The most obvious examples were Little Red and her mother Molly. Molly had a red-haired elf form, while Little Red chose to be a ck-haired human.


    ¡°So this dragon must be from the great immemorial generation where demons ruled? I see.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the ratio of different forms in Dragon City represented the history of the dominance of various species. More than fifty percent of the dragons here had elf forms. I could only sigh at how dominant elven culture had been for so long in history, but I also felt some mysterious pity. After all, the ancient Gold Elves always seemed ethereal and vulnerable to change. Who knew if thest remaining Gold Elf next to me still counted as a pure Gold Elf?


    Although Harloys appeared to be smiling on the surface, through our soul connection I could feel that her emotions were in a turmoil after seeing so many elf forms. This was no surprise to me. I secretly patted her on the shoulder.


    While we observed the dragons, the dragons observed us.


    Since we were here for their weing party, I didn¡¯t take a single subordinate with me other than Harloys. The dragons here didn¡¯t have the habit of using horse-drawn carriages, so we toured Dragon City by walking.


    As we walked, the full set of God Equipment on my body sent out waves of elemental energy I didn¡¯t even attempt to conceal. This made the eyes of many dragons light up in greed, causing us to have a huge entourage of dragons following after us. Although there was aw that prohibited conflicts in Dragon City, it was highly likely that we, as outsiders, would be attacked the moment we left.


    ¡°These are all younger dragons.¡±


    ¡°Hehehe, youngsters don¡¯t understand the cruelty of the world. They¡¯ll learn after some setbacks.¡±


    We simply ignored the dragons following us. It was obvious that they were only younger dragons. This was partly because younger dragons had entered their reproductive period and desired more wealth to establish a better nest and attract a better partner, but even more because older dragons were wise enough to know who they could and couldn¡¯t mess with. Since I dared to tantly show off all this God Equipment, I obviously wasn¡¯t afraid of any robbers. I had nothing but God Equipment on my body, without even a single piece at lower ranks. Even if I appeared to be weak on the surface, how could I possibly be someone easy to pick on?


    Suddenly, arge shadow loomed before us. A short and skinny white-skinned elf transformed into a White Dragon.


    ¡°...Should I say that not all dragons are smart enough to avoid conflict in Dragon City? Or should I say that it¡¯s to be expected of White Dragons, the dumbest of all dragons?¡±


    ¡°Dragon descendant! Give me all the treasures you possess. I, the great Hamast, shall be your new master.¡±


    ¡°Whoa, he actually thinks that I¡¯m a half-dragon?¡±


    Dragons were ustomed to using dragon descendants and half-dragons as their servants and ves, as dragon descendants didn¡¯t have high statuses among dragons. The Dragon Bloodline in my body seemed to make this Hamast mistake me for a half-dragon, which would be afraid of any real dragon.


    I smiled rather evilly. When the other dragons saw that someone intended to make a move, several other malevolent dragons jumped out of the crowd. There were Blue, Green, White and even a few Red Dragons. It seemed that quite a number of Red Dragons had begun toe to the surface.


    ¡°You¡ªyou¡ªyou little brats, this ve of mine escaped with this great Hamast¡¯s treasures! Are you all intending to steal this great Hamast¡¯s treasures?¡±


    The giant White Dragon had a stinky breath, and he swept away all the younger dragons with a swipe of his tail. From his power level, we could see that Hamast was actually an Immemorial White Dragon with many years of experience. But the fact that someone as dumb as him lived until now was probably because he stayed as a hermit in Dragon City.


    Well, he did have at least a few smarts since he called me an escaped ve who stole his treasure. He had done this to avoid thew of no conflicts in Dragon City. Anyways, by the time the dragonw enforcers arrived, the incident would already be finished and the victim nowhere to be found. It would be unlikely for the dragons to give an Immemorial Dragon like him any trouble for the sake of some unknown low-level dragon descendants.


    Seeing that a conflict was brewing, many spectating dragons gossiped among themselves, boisterous because this involved Hamast, who was known to be vicious. None, however, tried to stop the conflict. They stood by as if they wanted to watch a good show. Obviously, none of them had good intentions towards me.


    ¡°Why haven¡¯t they started to fight yet?¡±


    ¡°I bet that Hamast will be the unlucky one. He was just punished a few days ago.¡±


    ¡°...Those are all real God Equipment, aren¡¯t they?¡±


    Some dragons looked forward to seeing a fight, some dragons wanted to see Hamast lose and some dragons were considering the possibility of stealing the God Equipment before Hamast could. But no matter which dragon it was, none of them had friendly expressions towards me.


    I shook my head at this sight. My impression of dragons was bing worse and worse even if I never had a good impression of them to begin with, no matter what species of dragons they were.


    ¡°Sheesh! They¡¯re so talkative. Evelyn, is this how Dragon City treats their guests? Don¡¯t they recognize who you are?¡±


    ¡°Ha! For dragons, a human form doesn¡¯t have much meaning. They recognize the three-headed dragon Evelyn, not a young Copper Dragon like me.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to do your job as one of the leaders of Dragon City?¡±


    ¡°My older sister is a leader, not me. Besides, don¡¯t you want to make an example of someone to make the rest more obedient? A perfect scapegoat is right in front of you. Wouldn¡¯t it be rude of me to take this opportunity away from you?¡±


    I touched the hat on my head, and a ck light shed on my staff as I shrugged.


    ¡°It¡¯s no fun if you say it out loud. I wanted to enjoy the monkey prancing around in front of me for a little longer.¡±


    Malicious dragons had us surrounded. They were openly gossiping about us with negative intentions, something that greatly displeased me.


    ¡°...How noisy. Law Incantation: Silence!¡±


    A silver figure of Wumianzhe appeared on myw robe for an instant as the faint silver light of Law cast out around me. This Law Incantation¡¯s level was as if Wumianzhe personally cast it, so the entire Dragon City was forcefully silenced for a moment.


    The normal power level of Law Incantation: Silence would only be enough to silence the people in a small courtroom. However, my spell¡¯s power greatly exceeded my expectations. The effects of the Wumianzhe¡¯s divine power made it so that such an ordinary spell affected the entire Dragon City.


    At this moment, everything became silent. The vicious gossiping stopped¡ªthey had lost the ability to speak. Meanwhile, up in midair, the flying dragons lost their ability to fly, and they fell to the ground. However, the Law Incantation would end before they fell to their deaths.


    I chuckled evilly as I nced at how Hamast and the young dragons were all panicking.


    ¡°Law Incantation: Conviction.¡±


    This time, there was the silver light of judgement. The dragons that had intended to rob and kill me were marked in a deep red. They had been caught red-handed in attempting the crime.


    ¡°It would seem that Dragon Citycks public security.¡±


    I looked around me and saw numerous areas light up with red. Wumianzhe¡¯s divine power once again made this simple low-level Law spell expand to all of Dragon City.


    No matter how stupid Hamast was, he still realized that he had bitten off more than he could chew. But I didn¡¯t wait for him to do anything as I raised my staff.


    ¡°Law Incantation: An¡ª¡±


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, please wait¡ª¡±


    It would seem that I¡¯d made too much of amotion with my Law Incantations, catching the attention of the Dragon World leaders who were waiting for me. It was quite a sight to see a group of dragons rushing towards me.


    However, I shook my head andpleted the Law Incantation I was casting.


    ¡°¡ªLaw Incantation: Anti-Crime.¡±


    I simply touched the White Dragon¡¯s foot with my ck staff. Hamast¡¯s giant head paused in surprise for a moment before he widened his eyes and opened his mouth with an expression filled with shock. He looked towards the Dragon City leaders, pleading with his eyes to be saved.


    *Boom!*


    Hamast didn¡¯t even get a chance to scream before his head exploded like fireworks. His blood went flying, painting the whole street a deep sheen of scarlet. Naturally, the dragon leaders¡¯ faces were sttered with plenty of blood.


    I chuckled in satisfaction, looking at the grim expressions before me.


    ¡°Pleased to meet you all for the first time, respected dragon leaders. I¡¯m Rnd, Rnd Mist. What a fun weing party this is, having someone like thise wee me. You¡¯re all truly creative to havee up with such a method.¡±

 Chapter 409 - Everyone Has Their Own Schemes

    <h4>Chapter 409: Everyone Has Their Own Schemes</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Did it seem quite arrogant of me to kill a dragon right in the streets of Dragon City and even ssh the blood all over the dragon leaders¡¯ faces?


    Of course it was arrogant! It was the equivalent of killing someone right in front of the police and then lecturing the police about it. Even if the person I killed truly deserved it, my actions would be a p in the face to the local authorities.


    The Dragon World leaders, who were mostly in the forms of elves or beastmen, all paused in surprise for a moment before appearing to be ready to explode in anger.


    ¡°...Is that Death God Ayer¡¯s rose Your Highness Rnd is holding onto?¡±


    Meanwhile, I quietly yed with the White Rose in my hand. Each time I saw Ayer acting cool with this rose, I would feel like stealing it for myself and then... y ¡°she loves me, she loves me not¡± with the rose petals. [1] <sup>1</sup> Cough¡ªcough¡ªI seem to have identally revealed something that would make me look uncool, so please ignore thatst part.


    ¡°Finally! Someone who knows what I¡¯m holding. This time, my friends were worried that I¡¯d be bitten by a rabid dog, so they loaned me a few toys. It seems they were right...¡±


    I looked at the blood and brains sttered all on the ground with an obviously contemptuous look of disgust.


    ¡°...Indeed, there are many rabid dogs here.¡±


    I didn¡¯t even try to hide my condescension, making it seem as if the dragon corpse before me was a dirty object. Naturally, my condescension fanned the dragons¡¯ mes of anger, making them lose hold of logic and reason. As I saw their faces redden in anger, I felt as if I could hear their reason snapping into two pieces.


    ¡°...You dare do such a thing!¡±


    A bad-tempered Blue Dragon leader was the first to transform into his true dragon form. However, the Gold Dragon leader Halos stopped him in his tracks.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be rash. That White Rose is Death God Ayer¡¯s God Equipment. It contains his essence. Do you have a death wish?¡±


    The Blue Dragon leader paused in surprise and immediately stopped himself. Of course he¡¯d know of Ayer, and he also realized that he would bemitting suicide if he went up against Ayer¡¯s White Rose. But since he had spoken up, giving in would make him significantly lose face.


    Only now did he have the free time to take a look at me, as he had just arrived. When he saw that I was wearing God Equipment all over my body, he could only think that he had shot his own foot.


    His attitude of ¡®being right about to pounce on me¡¯ vanished. A cold breeze blew past, and the Blue Dragon leader had quite the awkward expression. Of course he didn¡¯t want tomit suicide by attacking me, but he would be humiliated if he backed down in front of everyone.


    For some people, however, reputation was more important than their life. Just as he grit his teeth and decided to gamble that I wouldn¡¯t dare to kill him, a Dragon City leader, in Dragon City, Evelyn stepped forward.


    ¡°Hah! As expected of the Undying Rnd who¡¯s currently ranked #20 on the Cmity Rankings. Oh, right, everyone, this is Lady Harloys. I believe she¡¯s also on the Cmity Rankings. I should congratte both of you for recently having increased your ranks.¡±


    I inwardly praised Evelyn for her excellent introduction.


    This was the perfect opportunity for the Blue Dragon leader to back down: ¡°This is no mere mortal, he¡¯s a living Cmity¡ªit isn¡¯t a big deal if you back down.¡± This also helped me take a step back too. After all, I only wanted to beat a little sense into the dragons¡¯ arrogant view of mortals. I didn¡¯te all the way here just to be mortal enemies with them. Killing off a robber who jumped out to attack me and killing off one of their leaders were onpletely different levels.


    Meanwhile, Evelyn had a rather unique status in Dragon City. All the dragon leaders knew who she was. One of their own was helping to mediate, and this was something they found eptable.


    The Blue Dragon leader transformed back to his human form, but he held a steely expression. He stomped his foot and disappeared, too humiliated to stay here any longer. Even though Evelyn helped mediate the situation, he had lost face. Most likely he now viewed me as a mortal enemy.


    ¡°Wee, wee, our two honored guests. We¡¯ve prepared an excellent weing party for you. Let¡¯s discuss formalities after the party.¡±


    What else could Dragon City leader Halos say after this? He could only try to ease the atmosphere.


    Although many dragons red at me as we headed to the party venue, I kept the condescending, cold expression on my face. Inside, however, I was delighted.


    From a certain standpoint, this was the start I¡¯d wanted most. Otherwise it would be impossible to negotiate.


    From the very beginning, the dragons had never considered us worthy of their attention. The fact they requested the Mage Country to aid them was only because they had already tried everything else. And they¡¯d asked for help with the way of thinking that perhaps a quack doctor could somehow use a home remedy to solve the problem.


    ¡°Our dragon mages can¡¯t do it, so there¡¯s no way human mages can. But there¡¯s no harm in asking.¡±


    In the dragons¡¯ eyes, their only worthy enemies were the Titan Giants and their descendants, the giants. The dragons considered no other species their equals. As for humans, it was possible for powerful humans to obtain the dragons¡¯ respect, but if it was something rted to the human species as a whole, dragons would have an attitude of overbearing arrogance.


    This was the main reason I¡¯d intentionally stalleding to Dragon City for so long. If I came to visit them easily, not only would I not be viewed as an important personage but they might not even give me a chance to speak with them.


    ¡°You can¡¯t do it? You can do it? If you can, then do it. We¡¯ll pay you. If you can¡¯t, then return from whence you came. Yep¡ªthis means ¡®get the hell out of here.¡¯¡±


    That¡¯s why I absolutely had to do something just to receive the chance to negotiate with the dragon leaders as an equal. Even if that idiot dragon named Hamast didn¡¯t attack me, I would have intentionally caused some trouble myself.


    ¡°The dragons¡¯ personalities? They¡¯re nothing more than wild beasts that prey on the weak and fear the strong. You could say that they follow thew of the jungle. Aren¡¯t both concepts essentially the same? Based on my understanding of dragons, if you beg for mercy or kindness, they¡¯ll ignore you and think you¡¯re an idiot for wanting to trade or negotiate with them as an equal. If you really intend to make friends or do business with dragons... beat them up first.¡±


    Harloys agreed with my opinion.


    ¡°The more you beat up a dragon, the more it¡¯ll respect you. The friendlier and kinder you act, the more that dragon will look down on you.¡±


    As for the Immemorial White Dragon who was kind enough to sacrifice himself as an example to the others, everyone tacitly agreed to forget about him. I would have killed some other scapegoat dragon no matter what, even if he hadn¡¯t attacked me.


    This was why I borrowed so much God Equipment. I was prepared to even wipe Dragon City off the map before negotiating with the dragons if it was necessary. What I wanted to obtain through negotiations here was far too important.


    ¡°Dragon World, or I should say a part of Dragon World, is our final target. Only by obtaining part of Dragon World will it be possible for us to realize the rest of our n.¡±


    This was part of the final goal I revealed to Ayer as well as my subordinates. But obviously the dragons treated the ne of Dragon World as their personal property. If I wanted to have my subordinates settle down here, I would have to enter their of the tiger and act forcefully.


    Another reason that the dragons were so eager to reseal the Titan Giants was because this entire ne was created as a seal for the Titan Giants. If the Titan Giants escaped, then the entirety of Dragon World would copse. If it weren¡¯t for this, they wouldn¡¯t have gone to the trouble of fighting the Titan Giants to such a degree.


    In that case, it may seem that I had shared interests with the dragons, that neither of us wished to see the Titan Giants revive, which would result in the destruction of Dragon World. But actually we were more like two thieves who had reached into the same pocket. After all, neither of us were the true masters of this ne.


    Of course, simply using negotiation would be far too insufficient. That¡¯s why I prepared many little tricks.


    ¡°Sometimes, if I act without limits, even I¡¯m afraid of myself.¡±


    ¡°...If you really act as ridiculously as that scheme of yours, you¡¯ll definitely enter the top ten of the Cmity Rankings once people learn about it.¡±


    I was standing alone in a corner of the party, nobody else near me. Although I was technically supposed to be the main character, it was obvious that the hosts disdained me due to the ruckus I just caused.


    Something rather unexpected but understandable was that Harloys became the main character of this party in my stead. Countless dragons invited this beautiful Gold Elf princess to dance with them and expressed their pity at what had happened to the Gold Elf Empire. They gave their condolences regarding the Royal Elves¡¯ backstabbing.


    At its peak, the Gold Elf Empire wasn¡¯t necessarily stronger than the dragons, but ordinary dragons would still respect the Gold Elf Empire¡¯s strength. Most of the leaders of Dragon World had lived through that generation. From a certain standpoint, Harloys had a high status here. Even the dragons would bow to her in respect. It was just that due to her previous undead status, she¡¯d never had any interaction with the dragons.


    Still, the dragons were only making polite talk. They wouldn¡¯t actually fight to take revenge for the Gold Elf Empire. While it may be true that some of them were friendly with the past Gold Elf Empire, it would also be natural for them to strike up friendships with the current Elf Kingdoms. It wasn¡¯t like they had to pay any money for expressing sympathies and condolences.


    Since I had plenty of free time, I observed how everyone circled around Harloys and kept up a conversation with her through our soul connection. Meanwhile, I also paid attention to the banquet before me.


    ¡°...Could this be the tail meat of a Scorpion Dragon? I¡¯ve heard it¡¯s amazingly delicious. Wow, there¡¯s even some elven fruit wine from the immemorial generation. Judging from the aroma, it¡¯s made from abination of different fruits? I really want to try it.¡±


    Unfortunately, no matter how much I wanted to taste the food and drink before me, I was unable to take action. Right now, I was trying my best to smile in an inscrutable fashion and acting cool by standing like a decoration in the corner with all my God Equipment.


    It may have looked like nobody was paying me any attention, but countless eyes kept looking in my direction. If I exposed my real way of thinking, I would face unending troubles.


    Still, the dragons knew their etiquette and weren¡¯t too impolite to me. After the dragon musician at the party started ying a rtively gentle song, Halos, the leader of all the other dragon leaders, came before me and tried his best to put on a smile.


    Even though I didn¡¯t have any mind reading skills, I knew he was cursing me under his smile. He was probably thinking something along the lines of ¡°why the hell did youe here with so much God Equipment on you?¡± But he wouldn¡¯t dare antagonize me too much as I no longer only represented the Mage Country. The Ayer Faction would be far more useful than the Mage Country for the dragons.


    But since he was only smiling at me without speaking, I smiled back at him without saying anything.


    ¡°Haha.¡±


    ¡°Haha.¡±


    And then neither of us spoke again...


    ¡°Cough¡ªI wonder what Your Highness Rnd thinks about the Titan Giants¡¯ seal?¡±


    Alright, he forced himself to initiate the conversation. But since he directly started with the main topic of our negotiation, it was evident that Halos wasn¡¯t a skilled negotiator. Perhaps, however, it indeed wasn¡¯t necessary for him to be a skilled negotiator. He would simply need to ¡°negotiate¡± with overwhelming power.


    I then smiled for real at this. I loved dealing with newbie negotiators like him. They would always be sincere and easy to fool¡ªcough¡ªI meant easy tomunicate with! And so I intentionally started by scaring him right away.


    ¡°We have indeede to some conclusions. The Truth Symposium verified our way of thinking, and Ayer has confirmed it as well, so its veracity should be trustworthy enough...¡±


    I paused for a moment after saying only the beginning. As I expected, I noticed many ears standing up and eavesdropping on our conversation. Since this matter had to do with the lives of all the dragons in Dragon World, they would naturally view this as important.


    ¡°...The Titan Giants¡¯ seal will absolutely be undone. Dragon World¡¯s copse is inevitable.¡±

 Chapter 410 - The Unknown Past History of Dragon City

    <h4>Chapter 410: The Unknown Past History of Dragon City</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°There¡¯s no saving you. Remember to buy a proper burial plot so you can rest well after dying...¡±


    In China, if a doctor tells you something like that, it doesn¡¯t mean there¡¯s no saving you. Instead, he actually means...


    ¡°If you want to live, you need to pay up.¡±


    If you truly couldn¡¯t be saved, the doctor wouldn¡¯t even tell you about it. The doctor would either tell your family or try his best to not take responsibility. [1]<sup>1</sup>


    In negotiation, such tactics would also bemonce.


    First, make the problem sound as serious as possible. Make things sound bad; really bad. If the other person got scared, all sorts of scamming conditions would be easily achievable.


    In the past, I¡¯d often used such scare tactics in negotiations. But this time, although I was still using a scare tactic, I wasn¡¯t lying.


    ¡°...It¡¯s impossible to stop this dimension from copsing. Since the Titans have already awakened, it¡¯ll be nigh impossible to make them go back into hibernation. Even their incarnations are freely acting outside.¡±


    Indeed, if someone woke up after a long sleep and was well prepared to get out of bed, how would you make that person go back to sleep?


    It was unknown who created the original Seal of the Four Elements on the Titans. However, only a God on the level of the Chaos or Order Goddess could create an entire dimension to seal away a species. Once such a perfect seal started breaking down, fixing it would be incredibly difficult.


    ¡°This ancient seal is like an exquisitely created lock, made by a master craftsman. Now, a part of the lock is broken, and someone like myself who doesn¡¯t have such a high level of craftsmanship wants to fix it. To do so, I need to first understand how this lock was created. It would be best if I have the blueprint. Then I¡¯d know how to take off and repair the lock. Of course, the easiest method will be to add another lock on top of this lock.¡±


    Based on this way of thinking, repairing this type of lock required unsealing it first. However, that would mean the entire Dragon World would be destroyed. As for the so-called ¡°easiest method,¡± simply adding a new seal on top of the old seal was meaningless. Since the Titans were capable of breaking through the old seal, they¡¯d be able to break through the new one just as easily.


    That was why the dragons couldn¡¯te up with a method even though the they¡¯d tried their best toe up with an idea and flipped through all their old records. Although they requested the human mages for assistance, they didn¡¯t have much hope the humans could help them.


    But in this situation I directly told them that I couldn¡¯t do it. This was basically saying ¡°Although you invited me to help you, you still can¡¯t be saved.¡±


    Halos choked when he saw that the person he invited was smiling proudly while saying such a thing as if it was only natural. It took him a long while before he managed to speak another sentence.


    ¡°You¡¯re... quite honest.¡±


    ¡°Of course. Honesty is a virtue. Casually telling lies that will eventually be seen through, without regarding morality, is utter foolishness.¡±


    In some circumstances, lies would indeed help one obtain great benefits. However, based on my experience with Little Red, lying to a dragon, especially an older, veteran dragon, would be the most foolish thing possible. Dragons loved to cast lie detection spells and other such prophecy magics on themselves. Not only that, these big lizards relied on their astonishing, highly reliable instincts that could determine if someone was lying or had good intentions towards them.


    But if there truly was no method to save Dragon World, I wouldn¡¯t havee here in the first ce.


    I waved my wine ss in front of me. Everything appeared dreamlike through the blood-red wine.


    ¡°...Although they¡¯ll definitely awaken, and this dimension will definitely begin copsing, there are still other methods. We can dy the time that the Titans awaken. There¡¯s even a method to prevent the copse of this world. Of course, how far we can prevent things depends on how much you¡¯re willing to pay...¡±


    After I finished my negotiations with Halos¡ªor perhaps I should call it scamming¡ªthe wee party reached its end. It was now deep into the night with many stars twinkling in the sky.


    I didn¡¯t ept their invitation to stay the night in Dragon City. Instead, I chose to rest in the Borealis, which was parked outside the city. Tomorrow morning, when it was light outside, I would continue the formal negotiations.


    It was always best to remain vignt, especially if you were wearing all sorts of valuables and sleeping in a city filled with professional thieves.


    ¡°...Professional thieves? If Little Red learns how you¡¯re deprecating the dragons, won¡¯t she be quite angry?¡±


    ¡°Not at all. If she knew about this, she¡¯d be really proud and give me a big thumbs up. After all, she¡¯s the dragon who wrote the ¡®Book of excuses you can use for stealing from others.¡¯ In her mind, stealing is an artform, and she¡¯s a grandmaster of this artform.¡±


    I walked around Dragon City¡¯s streets and enjoyed the view of the valuable jade buildings while talking bad about the dragons.


    ¡°...You don¡¯t say. They were like that back in the day as well. They basically viewed robbery as a normal way of living. Forget about the Color Dragons being like this, even the Metal Dragons would oftenmit such actions but under the guise of ¡®fighting against evil.¡¯ All those they imed to be ¡®viins¡¯ would find their treasures vanishing.¡±


    ¡°Ha! It¡¯s because dragons were the strongest species in the mortal ne for a really long time. Nobody could do anything about them even if theymitted bad deeds. Since there was nothing to control their power, they let the power go to their heads. They¡¯re like naughty children that have acted as they pleased for too long. They think it¡¯s only normal to view others¡¯ belongings as their property.¡±


    As Harloys and I walked on the streets, this attracted a great deal of attention from spectators. Even more dragons started ¡°following¡± us, but as we kept walking, these ¡°followers¡± disappeared.


    The earlier incident caused the dragons to view us as walking time bombs. In order to not have us cause any more incidents, other dragons followed us secretly from a distance and chased off other dragons that had nefarious intentions in mind for us.


    Although I knew that dragons were clearly following us, Harloys and I had no reservations about talking bad about dragons. In fact, we even intentionally spoke louder than normal.


    ¡°Shall we return to the Borealis now?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. It¡¯s so rare that we have a chance to visit. I want to tour Dragon City¡¯s nightlife.¡±


    ¡°With all those lizard tails following you? You really like being a circus parade leader?¡±


    ¡°Of course not? That¡¯s why we should change our clothes now.¡±


    We casually found a random corner and swung in there. A series of ¡°traffic idents¡± then suddenly appeared behind us. When we appeared again, Harloys and I now lookedpletely different.


    I was now covered in red full-body armor and carried a huge heavy sword. I also emanated a powerful Dragon Bloodline¡¯s aura, something quitemon in Dragon City.


    Due to certain reasons, it wasmon that Dragon Bloodline warriors wouldn¡¯t show their faces. Fine, the real reason was that although Dragon Bloodlines typically brought great power, only the lucky were able to maintain a handsome or beautiful physical appearance. Pureblood dragons were just like humans in that they loved to judge others by physical appearance. Dragon Bloodline warriors obviously wouldn¡¯t enjoy being treated like mongrels.


    As for typical detection magics that dragons were skilled at? I was immune to all of those to begin with.


    I walked right past the panicking followers that ran here to search for me. After walking past, my heavy sword transformed back into a ck cat that perched on my shoulder. Shezily rolled around and scratched at her whiskers. It seemed that this was the form she was mostfortable in.


    ¡°Where are we going? Shall we rob a dragon¡¯s treasury? Or go steal some dragon eggs?¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m not a dragon myself; I don¡¯t have such hobbies. Besides, if we do something like that here at this time, wouldn¡¯t that make it too obvious that we¡¯re the culprits? Let¡¯s go check out what the dragons are hiding.¡±


    ¡°Hiding?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, haven¡¯t you noticed that this city is too calm and quiet?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re talking about... giants?¡±


    I nodded in agreement. Back when Halent showed us the memory crystal, the dragons here were fighting against the local giant species. I refused to believe that the dragons would be able to defeat the giants so easily. And even if the dragons won, they would definitely take severe losses. I wanted to better understand the true power of the local giant species. It would be even better if I could obtain abat report.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you asking the dragons to show you? No matter what, aren¡¯t we supposed to be allies?¡±


    ¡°...Would you show an ¡®ally¡¯ your own weakness?¡±


    ¡°...You have a point.¡±


    Unfortunately, although we did our best to search, looking for dragon medication stocks or food and water supplies, we were unable to find any traces of injured dragons.


    ¡°Even a powerful species like the dragons will need great quantities of food, water and medication to recover if they¡¯re injured. It would seem that they¡¯re probably not here at all.¡±


    ¡°...Then where could they be? On the frontlines of battle? Perhaps there¡¯s another Dragon City somewhere. Hey, why are you seriously considering it? I was just joking around.¡±


    ¡°No, I think it¡¯s possible. I don¡¯t believe the dragons would so easily reveal their true core home city.¡±


    Us two ambassadors chatted as we walked around. We also peeked around at streetside shops, trying to find some valuables... What? You¡¯re saying we¡¯re not doing our proper jobs? We¡¯re definitely doing our jobs! Aren¡¯t all diplomats secretly spies as well? Just take a look at how hard we¡¯re working at obtaining information on the locals here!


    ¡°...I can tell that you¡¯re thinking something disrespectful. Normal diplomats aren¡¯t all spies. They¡¯re the critical gears that help two countries get along with each other. Their job is quite hard.¡±


    ¡°...Yep, yep, they¡¯re the critical gears that try their best to find the other country¡¯s secrets, incite the other country¡¯s citizens and finally give as much support as possible to the opposition party in the other country. They¡¯re really such hard-working gears.¡±


    Although I didn¡¯t obtain any major harvests, just chatting and having fun helped greatly improve my mood.


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about something practical. If the situation allowed for it, I really do want to make trades with the dragons. Every single dragon has their own treasury, after all. So many umted resources can add up to be quite significant.¡±


    ¡°...How would you trade with them? Dragons don¡¯tck anything.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Theyck plenty of things. Haven¡¯t you noticed how simple life is here in Dragon City? They don¡¯t even have the gambling dens, prostitution brothels and alcohol bars that normal cities do. And even if they don¡¯tck anything, can¡¯t we simply make them start having consumption habits? Eating, drinking, having fun¡ªeverything costs money these days.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re saying?¡±


    ¡°For example, don¡¯t be fooled by how Little Red doesn¡¯t seem to take care of herself. Actually, she takes super good care of her scales. She¡¯ll make sure to have a volcano hot bath every once in a while, and she applies oil to her w nails at fixed intervals. It¡¯s even said that dragons will losebat strength if they don¡¯t take good care of their bodies.


    I wasn¡¯t making this up at all. If a human¡¯s fingernails were dry and cracked, that would perhaps only seem slightly ugly. But if a dragon¡¯s w nails snapped while fighting, their enemy wouldugh uproariously. A volcano¡¯s abundant minerals and fire element would also help to harden and energize a Red Dragon¡¯s scales, meaning it was necessary to help improve personal defenses. Of course, the most important part was that a volcano hot bath would give all the scales a shiny sheen. This was perhaps the biggest reason why Red Dragons always fought with Silver Dragons over volcanos¡ªit was said that Silver Dragons were the dragon species that loved beauty the most...


    ¡°See how troublesome things are for those dragon mothers? If they use humanoid form, the Baby Dragon will be evenrger than she is. So difficult to take care of. We can provide dragon day care services so that mothers can happily do what they want! Yep, we can even sell leashes and cors to them so that they can walk their Baby Dragons.¡±


    ¡°...Why does it sound like you¡¯re opening up a pet shop?¡±


    ¡°Cough, no need to mind the little details like that. Besides, apart from these ssical services, we could even do beauty salon services. Just look at how simple their wings¡¯ colors are. They¡¯re all red, blue or just some other single color. We can provide coloring and tattoo services, such as tattooing a tiger or lion or something.¡±


    ¡°...Let¡¯s not mention how awkward it is to tattoo a tiger on a dragon. Have a dragon with one red wing and one white wing? Would that count as a Red or White Dragon?¡±


    ¡°Yeah! Harloys, you¡¯re such a genius. Thanks for reminding me! Excellent idea! We can even provide disguising services to disguise them as other dragons. For instance, if you¡¯re tired of being a ck Dragon, we can give you a golden sheen and some special disguising services on the head and wings to make you appear like a Gold Dragon. That will make robbery much easier to aplish. Nobody is on guard against a Gold Dragon as they¡¯re always obsessed about justice.¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t say any more. I feel that if you really do such a thing, all the dragons will be hunting you down. Especially the Gold Dragons.¡±


    ¡°Right, you...¡±


    Making idle conversation was one of the best ways to rx myself. Honestly speaking, Dragon City was stressful to be in. Seeing so many individuals at Legend, Saint or even higherbat strength would be intimidating, not to mention I had to deal with the full group of dragon leaders at that weing party. Those able to obtain the position of dragon leader would be at minimum from the immemorial generation, or even older. They would all be Myth rank at the very weakest. As for their strongest... there were at least five dragons for which I couldn¡¯t even assess their power levels. At a conservative estimate, it was likely that all of them were more powerful than me when I was at my peak.


    ¡°Dragons are so favored by the heavens. They have such a great advantage simply by being a Golden Species. As long as they grow up to reach Adult Dragon status, they¡¯ll be Gold in strength at the very weakest. With just some slight training, they¡¯ll be able to easily suppress ordinary Legends. Meanwhile, ordinary humans training for their entire lives will only reach the peak of Silver.¡±


    ¡°...Right, since they¡¯re so powerful, the dragons probably did well in the ¡®game¡¯s history,¡¯ didn¡¯t they?¡±


    However, I shook my head at this.


    ¡°They had the same oue as the mages. For the first half of Armageddon, they were garbage teammates lost in their own daydreams. They believed, in their arrogance, that they could once again remain uninvolved. By the time they noticed things weren¡¯t right and finally started participating, thebat situation had already deteriorated.


    ¡°Just like the Cloud Tower?¡±


    Only now did I recall that I had never mentioned to Harloys about the absolutely terrible end that the Mage Country met in the game¡¯s history.


    ¡°Yep, the end result was the same. Both were far too overconfident in their own abilities, which allowed them to get ustomed to watching the world change around them. Both the mages and the dragons felt that these changes were for the short term, something not important to worry about. By the time that they discovered that they¡¯re actually sunk deep into the swamp, it was impossible for them to escape anymore no matter how hard they fought. Did you notice that whenever I mentioned the Holy War to that leader, Halos, he would always just touch his beard and smile uninterestedly or change the topic? Obviously, the dragons still intend to sit out the Holy War.¡±


    ¡°...What happened to the dragons in the game¡¯s history?¡±


    ¡°Not much¡ªit¡¯s just that others remembered to pay plenty of attention to them since dragons are so famous. The undead transformed them into Bone Dragon squadrons, the Evil Gods ughtered them, parasitic worms took over their bodies, the giants cooked them alive and so on. Ah, near the end, the scattered dragons were reduced to the point of avoiding even human empires¡¯ airships. Of course, they still joined the humans¡¯ allied armies in the end, but it was already toote. The dragons took serious losses to the point where several of their species went extinct.¡±


    ¡°Oh, are you someone with powers of precognition? The dragons will meet such a pitiful end? Can you tell me more about this?¡±


    To my great astonishment, the ¡°person¡± who interrupted my soul connection conversation with Harloys was right behind me.


    I instantly turned around to find a seemingly young Snow Elf. He wasn¡¯t even as tall as a dwarf, and his apple-like little face was very cute.


    ¡°How is this possible? How can someone eavesdrop on a soul connection conversation?¡±


    While I had an expression of astonishment, I immediately whipped out the White Rose which had been in my sleeves. Despite my shocked expression, I was mentally calcting what information was okay to be leaked and if I should kill this individual off despite the fact that we were in Dragon City.


    ¡°...Youngsters these days are truly frightening. They always want to kill others so quickly. Rx, young one. Ie with friendly intentions. Please put away that rose of yours. I don¡¯t deal well with scary things in my old age.¡±


    The Snow Elf, who looked just like a little boy, spoke as if he was an elder. Obviously, his physical appearance was nowhere near his real age. His silver-white eyes that appeared so pure had seen through everything I had thought.


    ¡°I am the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon, whose name has long been forgotten through the tides of history. You can call me Sam. I suppose I count as the great-many-times-removed grandfather of the White Dragon you just killed. By the way, how much money would you charge for a Gold Dragon paint job? Can I owe you the money? I¡¯m really poor.¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: Cultural difference thing. Chinese doctors can be... a bit more unscrupulous and money-grubbing. And it¡¯s also considered a custom here to not let terminal patients know the truth and only tell family members instead.

 Chapter 411 - Secret Information from the Past

    <h4>Chapter 411: Secret Information from the Past</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°Owe me a debt? I¡¯m sorry, that would be fine for other species, but I¡¯ll never allow a dragon to owe me a debt. I¡¯ve been interacting with dragons for a long time now.


    Making them owe me a debt is the same as allowing them to never return my money... they¡¯re on the same level of schoolyard bullies.¡±


    I unhesitatingly spoke about my negative impression of dragons. Wasn¡¯t I right? Borrowing money and not returning it? Stealing a little kid¡¯s toys? Wasn¡¯t this exactly what schoolyard bullies did?


    ¡°Isn¡¯t is racial discrimination? Aren¡¯t you discriminating against dragons in Dragon City? Do you have a death wish?¡±


    ¡°I think it¡¯s indeed fine to discriminate against dragons¡¯ concept of honesty. Have you ever tried to borrow money from another dragon?¡±


    I continued speaking casually, but inside, I was hugely on guard.


    <i>What does such an old veteran want with me?</i>


    Although White Dragons were discriminated against by all the other dragons, even a pig would be ridiculous if it had the title of Supreme Immemorial attached to it. Not to mention, this Sam was still a dragon. Supreme Immemorial was the most ancient existence possible, from the very first generation. It would be absolutely impossible to calcte just how strong he was.


    Since he was a Supreme Immemorial Dragon, then he must have survived all the ancient wars between the Gods. His age could be calcted with tens of thousands of years as the basic unit. Without a doubt, not only would he be one of the strongest dragons alive, he would be one of the strongest individuals in the entire world. As long as he showed himself in public, he would easily reach top ten in the Cmity Rankings. A ¡°little youngster¡± like me who was only three hundred-ish years old could neverpare.


    And an existence like Sam would naturally be uncontroble by Dragon City. Most ancient dragons of his age, no matter what species they were, would be disinterested in authority and status after living through so many eons and wars. They would live a hermit¡¯s lifestyle. Him suddenlying to find me was iprehensible.


    ¡°Actually, I originally wanted to find you to do business and start a shop. But since I met a real person with precognition, I naturally want to know more.¡±


    I hated dealing with such ancient existences the most. They would always have a huge array of personal abilities. How was I supposed to y this game if I was seen through so easily? Didn¡¯t he know that prophets were all just skilled scammers? How was I supposed to scam him if he could see through me?


    *Snap*


    With one snap of my fingers, the blood-red dragon armor covering my body vanished, reced by my full set of God Equipment. Wumianzhe¡¯s robe made mepletely immune to inspection magics. I refused to believe that he was capable of piercing through a God Equipment¡¯s protection.


    As I expected, this fake young elf furrowed his eyebrows upon seeing this.


    ¡°Perhaps we should change locations for a little chat. I really dide with good intentions.¡±


    ¡°What type of good intentions would a Supreme Immemorial White Dragon have to contact me like this?¡±


    ¡°...The White Dragons¡¯ inheritance.¡±


    I paused in surprise for a moment. I never expected that something I started so casually would attract such an ancient existence. But upon closer consideration this seemed quite reasonable.


    Having the White Dragons be equal to other dragons in intelligence was something non-critical to us that would only be a small help in the grand scheme of things. But for the White Dragons, this was a critical technology that could change the fate of their entire species. No wonder such an ancient existence was drawn out of the woodwork.


    And so Iughed. I was afraid of him attacking me for whatever reason as I would be unable to defeat him and could only run. But since Sam had something he wanted from me, that made everything much easier.


    ¡°Perhaps we can discuss working together and making a trade. Right, I can first show you a sample: a group of Baby White Dragons already capable of transforming. They were born less than a month ago.¡±


    After obtaining Frigidwinter Earth, I finally felt like I was more like a main character.


    ¡°Hmph! Other main characters have personal treasures or personal guides, but I have a personal world!¡±


    By now, Frigidwinter Earth was no longer that barren icy tundra. Even the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon was astonished when he entered my world.


    I had artificially increased the temperature in a patch of ¡°naturally-formed¡± canyons. By now, there was an entire city in Frigidwinter Earth. This was the base for my experimentalboratory, which researched the wildest theories which could onlye true here. Large amounts of researchers lived here full-time and worked hard on their own projects.


    *Snap*


    I lightly snapped my fingers, and we instantly teleported to my personal residence in Frigidwinter Earth, all of us sitting down in chairs. Although the fake young boy still had a calm expression on the surface, his widened eyes betrayed his astonishment.


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t show off for no reason. Even if he appeared toe with friendly intentions, just the fact that he was still a White Dragon meant that I had to be extra careful. Showing off the full extent of my powers would improve my personal safety and how much I could receive through negotiation, so there were no drawbacks.


    I was exposing the information about Frigidwinter Earth, you ask? Actually, information on Frigidwinter Earth would begin leaking ever since I used it in my battle against Undead Emperor Zero¡¯s astral projection. With how fast the world was changing, soon there would be no need to keep Frigidwinter Earth a secret.


    ¡°Tea.¡±


    Steaming hot tea instantly appeared on the table. No matter how old Sam was, it was impossible for him to have ever seen the abilities of Creation. This was by far the best way to show my power.


    ¡°I just contacted the others. The little White Dragons are still in kindergarten. They¡¯ll be out of school after two more hours. Let¡¯s chat a little first and go see themter.¡±


    Where there were humans, there would be schools. It actually wasn¡¯t my idea to have the Baby White Dragons go to school. It was that my researchers were greatly interested in newly-born White Dragons that could be educated. They even intended to raise the White Dragons to have the same interests in research.


    As for if I had a shota or loli speed-raising n¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªlet¡¯s not look too deeply into this matter. Still, the researchers here treated the smart Baby White Dragons as their own babies. I already visited this kindergarten before. It was all managed by my researchers. Every Baby White Dragon had three teachers with specialized knowledge: one for alchemy, one for engineering and one fornguage... What was I supposed to do about the fact that there were more teachers than students? These researchers were even getting addicted to teaching and slowing down their research progress! What was I supposed to do?


    I exined about the Baby White Dragons, but Sam was no longer focusing on this as the most important thing here.


    ¡°...As expected of the Order Faction¡¯s major precognitor in this Holy War. This is aplete real world, with the power of Creation? Of all the major precognitors in history, you¡¯d definitely rank in the top three.¡±


    The old dragon drank some tea and felt hot fluid run down his throat. He was now certain that all of this was no hallucination or Soul World, causing him to instantly raise his assessment of Rnd.


    Originally, Sam had viewed Rnd as nothing more than a somewhat aplished junior. Sam increased his assessment of Rnd once he learned that Rnd truly possessed powers of precognition, and now, upon seeing that Rnd possessed his own real world, he started viewing Rnd as an existence equal to himself.


    You shouldn¡¯t underestimate Sam viewing Rnd as an ¡°equal existence.¡± For a Supreme Immemorial Dragon like him, he would only need to pay a basic amount of respect to other True Gods. And it was quite possible that he could even defeat a True God in a one-on-one battle. Dragons would never show respect to those they viewed as weak.


    In fact, dragons even looked down upon the unlucky Gods that were restrained by their Divine Concepts. It could even be said that Great and Supreme Immemorial Dragons had the right to view the Gods as part of the world¡¯s natural sacrifices¡ªas consumables. And since dragons managed to stay out of countless Holy Wars, this made them even more view all other species as nothing more than ants.


    Perhaps such an ancient existence would be able to have a friendly conversation with you. But actually a Supreme Immemorial Dragon wouldn¡¯t even view you as a trifle. It was just like a human dealing with a harmless tiny animal. When that person was in a good mood, perhaps he would y with it for a while. But if the tiny animal identally enraged the human, or if the human simply wanted to find an outlet to vent his anger, then the small animal might find death right around the corner.


    Actually, dragons weren¡¯t the only species to have this problem. Many other ancient Gods and Golden Species shared this problem. It was just that the dragons¡¯¡±arrogance¡± was extremely obvious. The only way to cure this illness was to beat them up until they respected you.


    ¡°This is an illness! It needs curing! First beat them up half to death.¡± That was precisely how I dealt with the ck and Red Dragons that joined East Mist but still acted arrogantly. It was actually greatly effective.


    But right now I was surprised to hear what Sam was saying. What did the power of prophecy have to do with Order?


    ¡°You¡¯re calling me a major precognitor on the Order Faction? Does this power have anything to do with Order? Isn¡¯t prophecy a neutral type of magic?¡±


    If I didn¡¯t understand, all I had to do was ask. It was rare for me to meet someone so powerful, and dragons weren¡¯t known to be the type that loved to keep secrets.


    ¡°...Of course! It¡¯s even the ultimate ability of Order. Since Order is about rules, the highest-level dimensional rules are doubtlessly space and time. While the power of prophecy seems chaotic, it¡¯s actually calcting the future probabilities based on time and space. Being able to obtain more information than the enemy is why the Order Faction has performed better overall than the Chaos Faction that actually has betterbat strength. The concept of Fate is the same way. Otherwise, why would the God of Fate be in the Order Faction?¡±


    Alright then, this was secret information from an ancient existence that went against everything I knew about prophecy magic. In the past, I had viewed prophecy magic as its own branch of magic. But upon closer consideration, what Sam said sounded logical. If I truly investigated more, there would perhaps be frightening implications.


    I shook my head and tossed these idle thoughts out of my mind. I could research this topic at ater date. I needed to first deal with the troublesome existence before me.


    ¡°Do you have any expectations for the dragons¡¯ future? What do you think, since you¡¯ve already heard my prophecy?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps you humans have too short lifespans to remember, but I¡¯ve actually met several major precognitors.¡± The old dragon silently sipped on his tea. He could already tell that this was Moyer Crystal tea, a specialty from the Wind Elemental ne. It was impossible to find in the mortal ne. This meant that the world of Frigidwinter Earth was truly special.


    It appeared that he was quite rxed and didn¡¯t care much about the prophesized Armageddon. I carefully looked him over and found that it appeared as if he really didn¡¯t care at all.


    ¡°...Those precognitors would always make their prophecies sound as serious and severe as possible. However, something such as prophecies will be changed from the moment one obtains a prophecy. And, only prophecies of misfortune and disaster will be paid attention to. That¡¯s because people will be on guard against disaster, but prophesized future sess and luck will actually make people lose motivation, which will change their fate in the end. So, as you can see, no matter what type of prophecy it is, just the prophecy¡¯s existence will change the end result from what¡¯s prophesized.¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous, we People of the Mist¡ª¡±


    If what Sam said was true, then why couldn¡¯t we stop the prophesized destruction of the Mist Kingdom?


    ¡°¡ªOh, right, you¡¯re a descendant of the Mist. Did you already prophesize back then that your country would be destroyed? I know some things about that. But from what I can tell, your country being destroyed was mostly because all of you were too weak...¡±


    Before Sam even finished speaking, countless sharp des of ice materialized with white frozen mes that caused even an ancient existence like himself to be instinctively afraid. He could tell that this was a weapon that could threaten someone as ancient as himself. Once again, Sam raised his internal assessment of the young person before him, but he still had a smile on his face.


    Seeing this elderly dragon remain so calm, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and squeezed the teacup in my hand, crushing it. The pain in my hand helped me regain my senses.


    My logic and reason told me that Sam wasn¡¯t wrong at all. However, the anger in my heart kept umting. Hearing this type ofment about all the warriors who resisted against misfortune to the end made me extremely furious.


    ¡°Indeed, perhaps we humans are much weaker than you dragons, but¡ª¡±


    My furious words were suddenly interrupted.


    ¡°You misunderstand. How could someone such as myself be so shallow in judging strength and weakness? I¡¯m referring to your power to change fatepared to the power that wanted ¡®history¡¯ to develop as normal. That¡¯s because the incident of the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction was something far beyond the power of ordinary mortals to prevent.¡±


    Hearing this, my anger instantly turned to astonishment. Wasn¡¯t the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction orchestrated by other mortals that hid behind the scenes? Wasn¡¯t it purely the work of mortals?¡±


    ¡°As we¡¯re both ice type dragons, I have a good rtionship with the All-Ending Dragon, Excelsius...¡±


    ¡°All-Ending Dragon?¡±


    How could I possibly forget such a <i>chuunibyou </i>nickname? Wasn¡¯t that the nickname of the Frigid Nightmare King from the snow mountain? He treated me quite nicely. He even taught me my foundational magic of ice sculpting.


    ¡°...Back when the Mist Kingdom met its destruction, the snow mountain was cut off from the entire mortal ne. All the Frigid Nightmares were stuck on the snow mountain. There¡¯re probably fewer than ten existences in the entire universe that are capable of sealing off part of a ne and then reverting it afterwards with zero side effects. Honestly, I thought at the time that it was wasteful to the degree of shooting a mosquito with a cannon. But I understand why that was now that I¡¯ve met you.¡±


    The next instant, the entirety of Frigidwinter Earth began quaking. Ice rivers sprang out of the ground and thunder filled the skies despite there being zero clouds. The entire world started to distort.


    I no longer heard what the old dragon said next. I was only thinking one thing in my mind, which kept repeating itself:


    ¡°There was another culprit behind the scenes of the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction! The true mastermind still hasn¡¯t been punished! Our mortal enemy is out somewhere enjoying life!¡±

 Chapter 412 - Profitable Job

    <h4>Chapter 412: Profitable Job</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    In creation myths, the Creator¡¯s fury would transform into thunder and his tears would manifest as torrential downpours. His delight would cause thends to bloom with flowers, while his sadness would cause thend to freeze over. I never expected that I would prove this for real one day.


    As the researchers outside shouted in surprise, the abnormal scenes gradually subsided. It was very rare of me to lose control of my emotions. However, my typical habit was that the angrier I got, the calmer I would be. After some careful thinking, I brought up a question.


    ¡°Why did the All-Ending Dragon Excelsius never tell me? I trust him; far more than I trust you.¡±


    ¡°Would there be any meaning if he told you? Are you capable of taking revenge? You¡¯d probably attract even more trouble if you knew too much. If Excelsius was really thinking about what¡¯s best for you, he definitely made the correct decision in not telling you anything about this.¡±


    As the Supreme Immemorial Dragon Sam was a bystander in this incident and didn¡¯t care either way, he spoke frankly without worrying about any consequences.


    I thought about it for a little while and agreed with Sam¡¯s analysis. I now also faintly perceived the astonishing power of the true culprit behind the scenes.


    First of all, that existence had managed to cut off the snow mountain¡¯s connection to the rest of Eich. Although the snow mountain was already a unique location¡ªit was as if it was a different dimension¡ªit was still a part of the mortal ne of Eich. I had never even heard of it being possible to cut off part of a ne and then revert it back to normal.


    Even Ayer cutting off all contact to the Earth Elemental ne wasn¡¯t something anywhere nearly this ridiculous. That was because Ayer cut off contact to an entirely independent, different ne. However, this culprit behind the scenes actually managed to temporarily cut off part of a ne and then revert it back to normal again.


    ¡°...So this existence is at a minimum equivalent to a Main God? They didn¡¯t even need to personally appear to suppress the Frigid Nightmares.¡±


    If this type of existence was the true culprit, then they would only need to speak up to easily destroy the Mist Kingdom. Why go to all that trouble?


    ¡°I don¡¯t understand why they took such a roundabout method...¡±


    I didn¡¯t understand it, so I decided not to think about it for the time being. I forcefully suppressed the frustrations in my heart. Now wasn¡¯t a good time to let my emotions run rampant.


    ¡°Since I¡¯ve already waited more than three hundred years, waiting for a little more time isn¡¯t much. So there¡¯s still a true culprit behind the scenes... One day I¡¯ll...¡±


    There was no need for me to speak fierce words, swearing revenge out loud. It was enough if I was aware of the iron will inside my scarred heart. No matter who the true culprit was, and no matter how powerful the existence, I, Rnd, would definitely make them fall into Hell together with all the other culprits.


    ¡°I need more power¡ªI don¡¯t have much time left. It looks like I need to lower myck of limits even further...¡±


    I took a deep breath and calmed my expression. I wouldn¡¯t allow unnecessary emotions to affect my judgement.


    The most important thing right now was the negotiation with the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon before me. If I did a good job, perhaps we would gain a trustworthy ally within Dragon City.


    In fact, the rest of the negotiations were simple. Since this was our first meeting, both sides only made shallow promises, attaching nothing important to our discussion. It was as if we were casually chatting and improving our rtionship. Still, when that old dragon saw the Baby Dragons, his eyes lit up¡ªit was almost as if he was a certain type of gentlemanly existence.


    The Baby White Dragons currently had intelligence simr to young human children, and they were delighted to see a ¡°little boy about their age¡± join them. They pulled him into ying games, climbing mountains, singing children¡¯s songs and attending ss together. I had to try my very best to notugh out loud when I saw a Supreme Immemorial White Dragon y tag with the Baby Dragons¡ªand even be called a ¡°slowpoke.¡±


    When he finished ying with the Baby Dragons, he came out with arge red flower that the kindergarteners gave him along with doodles on his face. I finally couldn¡¯t help it anymore and burst outughing, while he smiled and shook his head.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t been so happy in years. This is the first time I¡¯ve met intelligent Baby White Dragons that aren¡¯t bloodthirsty. Can I take one with me?¡±


    ¡°No¡ªthey¡¯re still halfplete products. Being able to do this much is due to the uniqueness of this world. If they leave, they¡¯ll probably revert immediately.¡±


    ¡°...So you¡¯re saying that it¡¯s still impossible to make ordinary White Dragons be intelligent?¡±


    ¡°Currently, it¡¯s impossible. But as research proceeds on these Baby White Dragons it should be possible to engineer an inheritance method that can be used in the mortal ne. It¡¯s only a matter of time. Of course, if you can bring me some Adult White Dragons as experimental subjects, the speed of my research should greatly improve.¡±


    Sam nodded upon hearing this.


    ¡°...I¡¯ll bring you the experimental subjects you desire. I should be able to bring you at least ten Adult White Dragons by next year. As long as they don¡¯t die¡ªno¡ªif you can develop an inheritance method for White Dragons with no negative side effects quicker because of this, it doesn¡¯t matter if they all die. However, I want to see an absolute,plete inheritance method in the end.¡±


    Such a generous old dragon he was. With just onement of mine, he agreed to bring me ten or even more Adult White Dragons. Rx¡ªeven if they survived, they would all meet ¡°idental deaths¡± on paper. How could I possibly give up on such excellentbat beasts...? Of course, since he was said it didn¡¯t matter to him if they all died, he had tacitly agreed to allow me to use the Adult White Dragons however I pleased. What he really meant with his words was ¡°I only care about the results, so you can do whatever you want.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s best if you can obtain results in half a year or less. My ny-seventh child will be born soon...¡±


    Alright, now Ipletely understood. Sam was probably considering things for his own children more than for the entire White Dragon species.


    Thinking about it, Sam was indeed quite pitiful. Baby White Dragons would forever be born with the intelligence of wild beasts. This was fine for White Dragon parents that only had bestial intelligence themselves, but for an intelligent White Dragon to watch their child be nothing more than a meat-eating carnivore for the next several centuries indeed seemed rather painful. It would also be difficult to manage the Baby White Dragon. What was the parent supposed to do, lock it up in a cage like a pet?


    Plus, other dragon species¡¯ children would always be intelligent from birth, while White Dragons were forever discriminated against. Not only that, the intelligent White Dragons couldn¡¯t even counter any of the discrimination. After all, the entire world treated White Dragons as no better than wild beasts, and even the intelligent White Dragons could only agree.


    ¡°...I hope this marks a good beginning to our cooperation. I shall pay an appropriate price for your services. Oh, by the way, can I asionally stop by and y with these children?¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    Sam didn¡¯t mention a single word about the specifics of what he would pay me, but this was a result I was already more than satisfied with. Right after letting Sam out of Frigidwinter Earth, I made up my mind.


    ¡°Activate my scheme. We have no other choice left. I¡¯m scared of how patient that true culprit is. We need more power.¡±


    I refused to believe that an existence with the culprit¡¯s power level would have died off of old age in just a short three hundred years. And back in the day, when I was investigating who the culprits were but kepting up nk, that existence surely must have noticed and interfered with my investigation.


    And the situation in the mortal ne was worsening by the day. Looking at the situation, I made up my mind.


    ¡°...If word spreads, you¡¯ll be public enemy number one of all humanity. Your reputation bing even worse than when you were Yongye. How about thinking over things some more? I think there are still other methods out there.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! So what? If the heavens aren¡¯t kind and the skies are blind... Fine, stop ring at me, I¡¯ll speak in a way everyone understands. What I mean is simple... If any bastard wants to kill me and my family, I¡¯ll do everything it takes to kill that bastard!¡±


    ¡°No matter the price? If this n of yours fails or isn¡¯t dealt with properly, you¡¯ll probably never be able to return to the Nortnds. You¡¯ll be the most hated target of all humanity.¡±


    Harloys was rare in that she was being serious this time. However, I responded with a bitter smile.


    ¡°Hah! Everything was wrong from the very start. With the world being what it is, do weaklings like us have any other choice? It¡¯s already difficult for weaklings like us to survive, so how can we ask for the right of the strong¡ªthe ability to choose our path or to care about our reputations?¡±


    The silly cat suddenly jumped onto my shoulder, rubbed herself against me and licked my face.


    ¡°...Yep, I shall apany you down this path, even if this path is destined to lead us to the pits of Hell.¡±


    ¡°...In that case, the first thing we need to do is contact Hell. Let¡¯s use that essory Ayer gave us to contact little Tias.¡±


    ¡°Little Tias? Other people call him Kamiltias, the leader of the nine Devil Lords, the legendary Main Devil Lord, the Lord of Lies!¡±


    ¡°...Right, how about we simultaneously contact Elisa? I¡¯m rather nervous about negotiating with a veteran devil by myself. Let¡¯s ask a veteran demon like Elisa to help us so that I can calm down.¡±


    ¡°Calm down? More like you¡¯re inviting her with intentions of intentionally being able to jack up the price by having her as a fakepetitor. Still, this is indeed a good idea. If he thinks that a Demon Lord ispeting with him, he¡¯ll be more willing to pay a good price. But will Elisa be sufficient as apetitor?¡±


    ¡°...Probably not. Karwenz would definitely be sufficient, but he¡¯s too dangerous.¡±


    As Iughed and chatted with the silly cat, I activated a ck crystal ne that Ayer had given to me. A pair of pitch-ck eyes transformed into reality in the shadows as all light disappeared from the room. I grabbed the opportunity to speak first to this Devil Lord, using the same tone that devils typically used to allure others.


    ¡°Little Tias, I have a really profitable job here. I wonder if you¡¯re interested?¡±


    ******


    Right when Rnd mentioned her name, Elisa was in a terrible mood.


    She was recalling things from the past, something which naturally made her angry.


    She¡¯d spent a great deal of effort to send her incarnation to the mortal ne but made zero romantic progress with Rnd, and he only treated her like a manager. In the end, she became too busy dealing with so many of Rnd¡¯s matters to the point where she couldn¡¯t even stay by his side. And even when she was next to him, she had made zero progress in their interactions. Their romance remained at the level of elementary schoolers.


    ¡°Have you eaten yet?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. The weather¡¯s quite nice today. How about going out for a walk?¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s no good. I have too many things to take care of. How about eating dinner together and having a walk afterwards when I¡¯m done?¡±


    Their interaction was far too in. Sometimes, being overly familiar with each other could also be troublesome. Their suddenly-changed rtionship not only made Rnd panic¡ªeven Elisa herself found things difficult to ept. It would have been better if they had stayed together after officially bing boyfriend and girlfriend, but they just happened to split up from each other again, causing this romantic rtionship, which had just begun, to stop at the starting point.


    If only one person in this rtionship was a love expert... or even a normal person. However, Elisa was someone who never said anything unnecessary and possessed a venomous tongue. She would always criticize Rnd out of habit. It was almost her instinct now to make Rnd feel awkward however she could. As for Rnd... fine, let¡¯s not mention him as he¡¯s worse than an idiot at all matters rted to love.


    The end result was that while Elisa and Rnd were together in East Mist, they continued their confusing rtionship as master/servant, father/daughter and teacher/disciple. While Elisa did consider trying to elevate their rtionship to the next level, someone would always jump out to interfere. Most of the time, it would be Reyne, and sometimes it would be Amelia. In the end,ical or random incidents would always happen whenever she wanted to make a romantic move on Rnd. The final result was that Elisa returned to the Abyss without gaining anything at all.


    And she was currently in a state of fury because she just heard that Rnd located the missing Lust of the Seven Deadly Sins. This was the greatest danger to her formal status as his girlfriend.


    The reason? Amelia¡¯s research report, which was also one of the reasons leading to the birth of ¡°Princess Peach.¡±


    ¡°Rnd¡¯s Original Sin undead creations all involve cutting off a piece of his soul. Judging from the current situation, he must have cut off his own, instinctive lust. However, human souls don¡¯t remain unchanging. As long as certain conditions are reached, the parts he¡¯s missing can be recovered. That condition is...¡±


    Even now, Elisa could remember how evilly Amelia smiled while telling her this information.


    ¡°...to stay together with that Original Sin undead creation. Then, Rnd¡¯s soul will synchronize with his soul shard and his soul will begin to recover its lost emotions, in this case lust. And my hypothesis is that Rnd created Lust long ago but lost and forgot about it. Basically, the current Rnd doesn¡¯t even know what love is. So what meaning is there in being his girlfriend? Right now, you¡¯re just ying a game to fool yourself. The real battle...¡±


    Elisa gritted her teeth tightly as she forced herself to speak the rest out loud.


    ¡°...The real battle begins after Rnd finds his missing Lust. But now that he¡¯s found Lust, I¡¯m not by his side. Does this mean the sneaky cat will gain the advantage?¡±


    Alright then. She started worrying more and more as she thought about this. She even felt like not caring about the consequences and rushing directly up to the mortal ne. But suddenly, even though it clearly wasn¡¯t yet their arranged contact time, her contractmunication ring with Rnd lit up.


    The moment she activated it, Rnd spoke to her with a serious expression, which was very rare for him.


    ¡°Rnd greets the honored Marchioness Elisa. We have a major job here for you. Would you happen to be interested?¡±

 Chapter 413 - Giants and Dragons

    <h4>Chapter 413: Giants and Dragons</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    [TL/N: Yes, I know it¡¯s confusing, but this chapter doesn¡¯t follow the previous chapter¡¯s end at all. While the author does this on asion, it¡¯s usually not this bad of a jump.] [1] <sup>1</sup>


    The Ash ins were located at the very center of Dragon World, a forbidden zone no ordinary lifeform would ever want to visit.


    The reason? Dragon World had ten times the Elemental Tide density than the mortal ne, but in the Ash ins the density would randomly fluctuate between one and one thousand times, thus sinking this entire location into chaotic insanity.


    It would drive one insane to use magic or fight there because nobody could know if the fireball they¡¯d prepared would suddenly erge itself by ten times and explode them to death. Or perhaps one would spend great effort in preparing a forbidden spell that would mysteriously be nothing more than a tiny spark that sputtered out.


    Even the highest-level Concepts of Space and Time were in utter chaos in the Ash ins. Dimensional tears could be seen all over the ce. Nobody knew what would happen if you were caught by a dimensional tear that trapped even light.


    While it might seem that this ce robbed even the colors, more urately it had robbed all the ¡°naturalws.¡± Theck of naturalws here made it impossible to use most abilities. If one got tangled up by the ck of rules¡± here, their physical body and soul would also be drained of color. And if one was infected with ¡°Color Loss Disease,¡± even a powerful dragon that didn¡¯t retreat in time would be reduced to nothing but tiny particles.


    However, the Ash ins just happened to be the site of a battlefield.


    ¡°Although it¡¯s said that you can¡¯t choose all of your battlefields, this is literally the worst battlefield I¡¯ve ever seen.¡±


    Blue Dragon Evelyn was soaring through the sky. Although her Blue Dragonbat maniac instincts were summoning her to join the battle, her logic and reason made her stay as far away as possible.


    The giants had constructed their campground next to tremendously tall ¡°statues¡± I couldn¡¯t even see the tops of. Magma Giants and Storm Giants were modifying the terrain together and constructing defenses. Mountain Giants were using their racial talent to summon giant stone spheres and hammers. These crude weapons would then be enchanted by Frost Giants and Fire Giants, transforming them into powerful magic weapons more than capable of ying dragons.


    The earliest chaotic period right after these giants awakened was over. These giants here had regained their Intelligence and were no longer under the effects of the Intelligence-lowering curse. They would no longer instinctively try to climb their ancestor Titans¡¯ bodies like ants. For the dragons, however, this was doubtlessly a bad piece of news.


    Dragons roared in the skies as they patrolled like vultures, searching for weak points to strike. When battle had first broke out here, the dragons had suffered tremendous losses.


    In this unique environment of the Ash ins, mages became ticking time bombs that might blow both sides up at any moment. Purely physical melee battles became the most useful method of fighting. However, the dragons never expected that their melee fighting abilities that they were so proud of would lose so pitifully to the giants.


    ¡°...Ashpis just died in battle. He¡¯s a mixed-blood Rainbow Dragon with the glorious nickname of ¡®Perfect Rainbow Wings.¡¯ Even he died here, quietly and without a ripple.¡±


    ¡°Perfect Rainbow Wings was his nickname? In such a battlefield, only the strongest at melee fights will survive. I heard he was pulled down by a chain and then had his head chopped off by the giants.¡±


    ¡°Rainbow Dragons are renowned as the number one dragon species at melee fighting. Are you confident enough to defeat Ashpis in melee fighting even if he had a flowery nickname?¡±


    Every famous and powerful dragon¡¯s death would cause ripples of astonishment in the dragons. In such a battlefield, their magic talents, which they were so proud of, became utterly useless. While dragons were powerful enough to simply abuse their natural talents and suppress other smaller species in meleebat, it was now their turn to suffer. They met the giants, who were well experienced in battle and had excellent cooperation. It was as if the dragons had met a real military organization for the first time, and they had only been bullying grade schoolers before.


    Indeed,rge numbers of giants perished, but many dragons were knocked down from the skies as well. Any dragon unfortunate enough to crash into the ground would almost never get the chance to fly again.


    Right now, some on the giants¡¯ side consisted of local species with the Titans¡¯ Bloodline that were summoned through their bloodline. But most were the giant armies that had been sealed here with the Titans. These giants would have the highestbat strength and morale for their generation. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the dragons had the advantage of flight, they would have long since lost.


    Of course, the dragons had one other major advantage, which was...


    ¡°It¡¯s the ¡®ck Mist King!¡¯ The Supreme Immemorial ck Dragon!¡±


    A colossal pitch-ck dragon glided across the sky. His very existence caused the sky to lose its calmness as ck mist covered all light and the dragon itself. Once he started inhaling a deep breath, even an idiot would realize that a major catastrophe was about to befall this ce.


    *Whoosh!*


    The ck Mist King exhaled ck mes that covered the skies. All the giants that came into contact with these mes howled in pain as they were transformed into nothing but ash. Thend was scorched by the dark mes, and huge patches of the giants¡¯ campground copsed.


    That¡¯s right¡ªthe dragons¡¯ greatest advantage was the fact that there were Great and Supreme Immemorial Dragons living here. If this was any other location, these ancient monsters wouldn¡¯t even bother helping their own species. But they would have plenty of descendants after staying for so long in Dragon World. And since their own territory was being invaded, even the Supreme Immemorial Dragons would find it impossible to stand on the sidelines.


    Of course, the reviving giant army also had existences on par with the Supreme Immemorial Dragons. However, the naturalw of seals was that the more powerful an existence was, the more difficult it was to break out. The militarymanders and heroes of the giant army were still stuck in hibernation, and the seals on the Titans themselves were the strongest.


    Of course, if the giants were unable to resist against such a powerful dragon scorching thend, this war wouldn¡¯t even need to be fought.


    ¡°Ahhhh! Damned Titans!¡±


    A sh of lightning streaked through the sky and struck the Supreme Immemorial ck Dragon through the ck mist! His wail of pain reverberated through the entire battlefield.


    ¡°That¡¯s our Titan Lord Alfredo¡¯s Judgement of Thunder!¡±


    A green aura spread out from a certain statue, immediately vanquishing the simmering ck mes on the ins. Simultaneously, the giants that had just been burned to ashes came back to life.


    ¡°...Titan Lord Freya! She¡¯s awoken as well!¡±


    If the most powerful dragons forced them too much, the still-sealed Titans would pay a price and counterattack.


    There were only thirty-four Titan statues here, of which seventeen had disyed their special abilities. And these seventeen were all higher-ranking ones. Judging by how they all had to take turns to use their powers, for them to attack through the seal would require them to pay at least a decent price. For sure, this meant that that Titan would be dyed in breaking out of the seal.


    The Supreme Immemorial Dragon named the ck Mist King red at the statues and spat out another dragonbreath in anger before leaving the battlefield.


    Theoretically speaking, a Supreme Immemorial ck Dragon¡¯sbat strength wouldn¡¯t be any lower than an ordinary Titan¡¯s. However, there were only five Supreme Immemorial Dragons in Dragon World. In fact, four Supreme Immemorial Dragons had previouslybined their attacks but were still forced back by the Titans¡¯ mysterious powers. And even if they destroyed these giants, new giants would constantly revive in an ocean of unstoppable blood. So-called efforts at trying to ¡°recover lost ground¡± were meaningless.


    Why did I say ¡°theoretically speaking?¡± That¡¯s because nobody would know who was more powerful without an actual fight. Once existences reached a certain level, they would all have their own way of fighting, and it would be incredibly difficult to say who was stronger or who was weaker. There were also great differences amongst the individual Titans in terms ofbat strength, so it was unknown which type of existence would be stronger without them actually fighting. As for whether these Supreme Immemorial Dragons had once fought against the Titans in the first generation, they must have¡ªbut it was impossible for me to know the results of such battles.


    Both sides¡¯ battle was apparently at a stalemate. It was impossible for the dragons to destroy all the giants as they would constantly revive, but the giants were unable to break out of the dragons¡¯ encirclement and leave the Ash ins. Both sides thus sunk into a helpless battle of attrition.


    Since both sides were at a situation where it was impossible to deal a deciding blow to the other side, it would obviously be foolish to investrge amounts of resources and personnel in this battle. So, in the end, the dragons could only keep up this battle of attrition.


    Meanwhile, on the Borealis, my warriors and I could only exim in awe at the images ofbat that Blue Dragon Evelyn brought to us in memory crystals.


    This scene gave my mortal warriors a tremendous impact. The arrogant dragons that were almost undefeatable by humans were being swatted out of the sky as easily as if they were sparrows. In human society, ying a dragon was a majestic aplishment that would be ded for ten generations, but for the giants it was as simple as ughtering chickens.


    ¡°Do we even have the ability to interfere in such a level of battle...?


    Even the weakest giants down there, the Mountain Giants, would naturally be born with power equivalent to Silver. And Silver was the power level that most ordinary humans could only achieve after working hard for their entire lives. If such giants were nothing but cannon fodder in this battle, how could human armies achieve any different results even if every country¡¯s elite royal knights entered this battle?


    ¡°...Will all the future battles be at such a level?¡±


    Even Harloys was no longer able to remain calm at the sight. She knew through our soul connection and my knowledge that future battles would escte in scale. Still, it was quite difficult for her to ept the scene before her, of the normal dragons and giants bing nothing more than cannon fodder.


    I first shook my head, but then I nodded.


    I shook my head because Titans and Supreme Immemorial Dragons would be considered the strongest of the strong throughout all the nes. They were already extraordinary existences, so it was impossible forrge numbers of such extraordinary existences to appear any time in the near future.


    I nodded due to my predictions for the future. It was impossible for anyone to urately guess the future, but as the Elemental Tide continued increasing, stronger and stronger evil existences would descend to the mortal ne. Such battles were indeed possible several hundred years after the beginning of the Holy War.


    ¡°...The Holy War is a slow and long process. Such battles are indeed possible during theter stages. But by that time we should have enough power to control our own fates¡ªat least.¡±


    And this battlefield also caused me to cancel some of my original ns.


    ¡°I initially wanted to have my warriors gain some experience on the outskirts of the battlefield, but now...¡±


    ¡°That would be nothing more than sending them to their deaths.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. There¡¯s such a big difference that it¡¯s not even possible for them to gain any experience. It would be tantamount to suicide for them.¡±


    As I watched the scene before me, my impression of dragons became even worse.


    This battle¡¯s stalemate wasn¡¯t because the giants and Titans were stronger than dragons and dragon descendants. Actually, since the dragons had so many eons to rest or do whatever they wanted, their overall power was far stronger than the Titans.


    For instance, let¡¯s talk about the difference between ordinary giants and ordinary dragons. Giants typically had a Silver Bloodline, and their adult warriors would only be at Silver power. Dragons, however, had Gold Bloodlines and their Adult Dragons would be Gold at the very weakest. In individualbat, dragons would absolutely dominate. However, when the two species shed as a whole, the giants had a much greater advantage.


    Apart from the fact that giants had much stronger reproductive abilities than dragons, more importantly the giants had a well-organized social structure. They had excellent cooperation when facing their enemies and were willing to sacrifice themselves. Meanwhile, the dragons didn¡¯t know anything about cooperation because they were all used to fighting as individuals. It was only natural that the dragons would get badly beaten in theserge-scale team fights.


    This wasn¡¯t even a hypothesis of mine. The battle we watched was the best example.


    When a dragon attacked, a Cyclops Giant and Magma Giant acted as the tank as they had the highest durability. A Fire Giant, who would be more skilled at using weapons, used chains and flying axes to limit the dragon¡¯s maneuverability. The chains it tossed out eventually seeded in pinning the dragon onto the ground, at which a strong and dexterous Frost Giant suddenly leaped out in an ambush and cut off the dragon¡¯s head.


    This dragon died in basically one exchange of blows. Meanwhile, this small giant squadron was unscathed. Unlike these giants that were forced into hibernation right after their battles in the immemorial generation, the dragons had nothing threaten them for far too long andckedbat experience, especially top-levelbat experience now that they were on a cruel battlefield against equal existences.


    That was how the situation was for the low and mid-ranked giants and dragons. But actually the situation was the same for the top-level existences.


    There were only a total of thirty-four Titans in existence. If you counted the number of Supreme Immemorial Dragons still alive, they would far exceed the number of Titans. However, asking all of them to help would be basically impossible.


    Even now, the Supreme Immemorial Dragons that attacked and helped here did so only because their descendants were in Dragon World. And whenever they attacked, they would never do so with full force, leaving plenty of strength in reserve and staying on guard against the other Supreme Immemorial Dragons. After all, the grudges that these ancient existences had against each other could make for countless television dramas.


    Just as Evelyn had said, dragons didn¡¯t at all care about their own species. Unlike the tribal giants, dragons were ustomed to living by themselves and having only one dragon per territory. The Supreme Immemorial Dragons in the outside world wouldn¡¯t possiblye over here and fight the Titans with all they had for the sake of the Dragon World which didn¡¯t have anything to do with them.


    The giants had high morale and were unified as they fought for the cause of their species. Meanwhile, the dragons didn¡¯t care about each other, wouldn¡¯t fight with their full power, thought only about keeping themselves safe and always looked for opportunities to escape. The difference in the will to fight on both sides would be an important factor on the battlefield.


    In fact, I even felt like the still-sealed Titans had the advantage here with such factors tipping the scales. However, the dragons weren¡¯t idiots. They noticed that the situation was worsening as time passed. Otherwise, they wouldn¡¯t have requested for help from the human mages or prepared to evacuate Dragon World.


    Despite all this, when I saw this scene, Iughed.


    ¡°It seems I¡¯m quite lucky. Only in such a stalemate situation will it be easy for me to be hired as a mercenary.¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: I¡¯ve left this note because I feel it¡¯s important to read it in ce.

 Chapter 414 - Scammer

    <h4>Chapter 414: Scammer</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Perhaps it was thanks to their cruel environment, where they were tempered through numerous battles and baptized by unforgiving nature, that the Nortnders didn¡¯t know of despair or giving up.


    I didn¡¯t show only certain people the scenes of the battle between the Titans and the dragons. Instead, I showed everyone.


    ¡°They¡¯ll have to face these almost undefeatable enemies sooner orter. They might as well learn the difference between themselves and the enemies so that they can start working hard as early as possible to surpass them.¡±


    Seeing such high-level battles astonished the young Nortnders, but it also ignited the fire within them.


    In the battleships, I could see passionate training scenes everywhere. No matter if the person was a cannoneer or a mage, they appeared to have imaginary enemies and training goals.


    Only by knowing one¡¯s insufficiencies would one be able to make up for them. Those who¡¯d shout out loud about how they were already the number one in the world would be killed off by a dark horse.


    Meanwhile, my research team arrived at a conclusion about the situation on that battlefield, especially thanks to the Myth-rank earth element archmage Kaid. He had joined them as he had too much free time on his hands. I trusted in his judgement.


    ¡°This entire world is the seal on the Titans. In that case, if the Titans want to break free from the seal, there¡¯s only one method: to cause the entire world to copse. And if I¡¯m right the imbnce of the Elemental Tide on the Ash ins was caused by the Titans.¡±


    Evelyn¡¯s information served to confirm this hypothesis with more circumstantial evidence.


    ¡°...You want to know when the Elemental Tide started bing unstable here? It started suddenly a few decades ago. Everything here was normal before that. In fact, I even heard that before this was one of the most popr ces for dragons to go on dates because of those statues.¡±


    Should I be astonished about how the dragons were so care free, not even thinking about any potential danger? They actually treated the Titans¡¯ bodies as excellent dating scenery? Perhaps they even did various types of censored actions right under the Titans¡¯ eyes. Treating others¡¯ bodies as a hotel bed? No wonder the Titans weren¡¯t able to take it anymore... Cough¡ªcough¡ªI seem to be going off topic yet again.


    Anyhoo, no matter if the Elemental Tide was high or low, it would normally be bnced. This was like how water in a cup would always be level. Even if you shook the cup or tilted it, the water would still return to a level position.


    But right now the problem wasn¡¯t only about the Elemental Tide. The fact that this ce was losing its very color meant that the world¡¯s naturalws were copsing. The dimensional tears were the best evidence that even the most foundational Concepts of Space and Time were being shaken. That was the biggest problem.


    It was just like drilling a tiny hole into a dam. Perhaps the water leakage wouldn¡¯t be significant at first, but eventually it would cause the copse of the entire dam. The Elemental Tide¡¯s unpredictable fluctuations here was only a side effect of the true core problem.


    Of course, forcefully going against the world¡¯s naturalws was no different from fighting against an entire world¡¯s dimensional will. This was, most obviously, a foolish idea. Easier methods definitely existed out there, but evidently the trapped Titans didn¡¯t have any avable to them.


    The dragons had to have noticed what the Titans were doing. The bigger problem was that there was no effective way to stop the Titans.


    Actually, there was a rtively easy method to dy the Titans¡¯ revival: continuously send veteran Supreme Immemorial Dragons to attack the giants, which would force the Titans to act and save their giants. Naturally, the Titans would no longer have the free time to destroy the naturalws of this world. But, first of all, this would only be a band-aid cure¡ªit didn¡¯t address the foundational problem. And the bigger issue was that the dragons weren¡¯t united in the least. The matter of which Supreme Immemorial Dragons went and who went when would be a huge problem.


    ¡°Helping the Bardi Empire fight against the Holy Church? I¡¯m sorry, you can see our current situation for yourself. Our ownbat strength is already insufficient. How can we possibly sendbat strength to the outside world?¡±


    As I expected, the moment I made this request to Halos during our discussion the Gold Dragon unhesitatingly refused.


    And so I nodded and shrugged.


    ¡°How regrettable. Since I can¡¯t aplish the duty the Mage Country sent me here for, let¡¯s talk about personal matters.¡±


    ¡°Personal matters?¡±


    ¡°Right now, your biggest hurdle is of course yourck ofbat strength. And if you know anything about me, you should know that I have somebat strength under me that¡¯s not suitable for seeing the light of day...¡±


    I smiled as I casually pointed at the sky, as it happened to be dark outside. I also mouthed the word ¡°Yongye,¡± not saying it out loud.


    I didn¡¯t need to do anything more except hint at things as Halos¡¯ eyes instantly lit up.


    ¡°You¡¯re referring to Undead Emperor Yongye. But... how muchbat strength do you have on your hands, and can they really be used...?¡±


    ¡°Xiluo is a mega empire. You should know just how powerful mega empires can be. It¡¯s not too convenient to use undead armies in the mortal ne of Eich, and it¡¯s also time that I give them something to do. This is an excellent location that makes even me want to settle down here.¡±


    ¡°...I will never open up our dragon graveyards to you.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, even a justice-loving Gold Dragon would be tainted by the dark upation of a politician. It was inevitable. Since he mentioned dragon graveyards without me even bringing it up, he meant that it was something he was willing to give me¡ªat least in secret.


    If I was still Yongye, the countless number of dragon bones and dragon corpses in a dragon graveyard would have greatly attracted me. But the current me had no interest in creating a Bone Dragon army.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t intend to ask for such a thing. I don¡¯tck undead fighting forces under me.¡±


    ¡°How can you promise that your undead armies won¡¯t attack us?¡±


    ¡°Contracts. You should know about the soul contracts between an Undead Emperor and his undead armies. I can sign contracts with you as well¡ªthe Devil Lords¡¯ ultimate contracts. I will promise that not a single undead soldier under mymand will attack a single dragon. I rmend that all agreements we end up making be guaranteed by the devils¡¯ ultimate contracts.¡±


    Although devils had terrible reputations, their contracts were renowned and valued by powerful individuals in all the nes. Halos nodded, but then had another doubt.


    ¡°Rnd, since you¡¯re making such great efforts, what do you hope to gain?¡±


    ¡°Heehee!¡± I immediately chuckled.


    ¡°Everything... sorry, I identally used the wrong word. Yep, I¡¯m not that greedy. I just want a permanent residency permit for my people. Of course, for my own safety¡¯s guarantee, I also need one of the four Foundational Elemental Items. Don¡¯t look at me like that¡ªit¡¯s not like the Seal of the Four Elements is a top-level secret. I know that all four Foundational Elemental Items are in your possession. It¡¯s not like I can do anything much with just one. And how am I supposed to open up a permanent Dimensional Door to summon reinforcements here without a Foundational Elemental Item? Were you intending on using the Bardi capital¡¯s Dimensional Door which has a random teleportation point to here?¡±


    This world wasplete and was crafted out of the Seal of the Four Elements. When I used the same spell, I needed to use four high-level elemental items¡ªone of each element¡ªas the core and catalyst for the spell. Once the seal wasplete, these high-level elemental items would be the control panel for the new, sealed-off world.


    If the Titans obtained the four Foundational Elemental Items of Dragon World¡ªno, they only needed two items since the elements naturally countered each other¡ª they would be able to instantly destroy this entire world. This was the much smarter idea I was referring to when I said that the Titans could only resort to a foolish idea. But since the dragons had ruled this ne for so many eons, they had obtained all four Foundational Elemental Items that had been used to create this world.


    Short-term Dimensional Doors didn¡¯t have high requirements. However, permanent Dimensional Doors, especially teleportation points that went between dimensions, would need to obtain ¡°recognition¡± from some type of dimensional will, just like how you would need to be invited before entering someone else¡¯s house. Otherwise, a tremendous price would have to be paid¡ªlike a major blood sacrifice. And the fact that the Bardi Empire had a zero-cost Dimensional Door to Dragon World confirmed my suspicions that the dragons must have possession of all four Foundational Elemental Items.


    ¡°Even if I obtain one of the four Foundational Elemental Items, I will only get the powers of ¡®arriving any time I want¡¯ and ¡®leaving whenever I want.¡¯ At most, it¡¯s useful for self-protection. Are you dragons worried that I¡¯m going to bring people here to mess up your world? This ne is gigantic, and there have been no shes between us. It will be truly troublesome to both of us if the Titans destroy this world. Besides, I already have a solution that can foundationally solve the problem of the Titans.¡±


    Halos was astonished to hear this. However, his dragon instincts told him that I wasn¡¯t lying, that I really could solve the problem of the Titans.


    ¡°Let me consider it.¡±


    Although we hadn¡¯te to a final agreement, I was satisfied with the oue. After all, the dragons were ruled by a council leadership with many leaders, so overall authority was very spread out. It would have been impossible for Halos to make any decisions by himself even if he was nominated as the overall leader. He would still need to consult the others.


    Indeed¡ªthe moment Rnd left Dragon City, Halos immediately went to contact a Scroll Dragon leader who had been spying on their entire conversation. The Scroll Dragon leader informed Halos that his lie detection magic determined that Rnd hadn¡¯t made a single lie. Only then did Halos feel reassured enough to convene a meeting of the dragon leaders.


    At that time, I was walking on the streets with an icy expression, but inside I was trying my very best not tough out loud.


    ¡°Are you that proud of yourself for fooling him? Hah! He¡¯ll probably be known as the stupidest dragon leader who ever lived. Perhaps he¡¯ll even be a part of some future famous saying, like ¡®Halos invited Rnd to Dragon World.¡¯¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t lie at all! He simply had his own misunderstanding.¡±


    That¡¯s right¡ªI didn¡¯t lie at all. It was almost impossible to lie to ancient dragons, so I only told Halos the truth¡ªa carefully worded truth, that was.


    I only mentioned that I was Emperor Yongye in the past, and that I had somebat strength under me that couldn¡¯t see the light of day. It was his own fault for misunderstanding that I was referring to my undead armies. As for signing the devils¡¯ ultimate contract with him promising that my undead would never attack the dragons? Of course that was fine, as I wasn¡¯t nning on bringing any undead here in the first ce.


    ¡°However, you made a trade with the devils. Let¡¯s not even mention your reputation here, but aren¡¯t you afraid of ying with fire? Even with Ayer backing you up, a Devil Lord isn¡¯t someone easy to deal with.¡±


    Compared to the evil, vicious and sly devils, even the undead would seem like honorable knights. If I told Halos that I intended to invite a group of powerful devils into this dimension, negotiations would have instantly stopped. And the only way to possibly invite existences on the level of Devil Lords here would require me to obtain one of the four Foundational Elemental Items of this world, which would allow me to send out the cross-dimensional invitation.


    ¡°Who cares? No matter what the end result is, things will still be better than now. Rather than two major countriespeting with each other and treating us as cannon fodder, I much prefer a three-faction situation where we can gain advantages from ying each faction against the other. Besides, this was all part of our ¡®grand scheme¡¯ to begin with. I just activated it slightly earlier than originally nned.¡±


    ¡°I keep feeling more and more like this grand scheme of yours is unreliable. Can I ask if I can withdraw from this n?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll be killed off to keep the secret if you do, dear. I¡¯ve been recently feeling like Ick a pair of cat-skin gloves.¡±


    ¡°Stop joking around. I¡¯ve been feeling a chill recently, as if some major cmity is soon to be upon us...¡±

 Chapter 415 - Chaotic Situation

    <h4>Chapter 415: Chaotic Situation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°The dragons still haven¡¯te to a decision?¡±


    ¡°My sincerest apologies, but not yet. The lords are still in discussion. I shall notify you if there¡¯s any news.¡±


    The Silver Dragon that greeted me had the best of etiquette. He was also incredibly handsome¡ªall Silver Dragons preferred handsome or beautiful forms¡ªbut no matter what he said, he couldn¡¯t change the fact that the dragon leader council was incredibly inefficient at determining overall policies that would affect all the dragons. Four days had passed since Ist spoke to Halos, and they had not even reached a basic agreement among themselves.


    I understood why they had such a council system but couldn¡¯t agree with using such a system at all.


    The more council members there were, the more different benefits each member would be concerned about. It would be almost impossible to reach an overall agreement. Plus, dragons were notorious for viewing time as unimportant. It was likely that they wouldn¡¯t reach a conclusion anytime soon.


    ¡°...Evelyn, how¡¯s the discussion going?¡±


    Still, things would be far more convenient with a spy, as Evelyn was also a member of the dragon leaders¡¯ council. Plus, she had a deep connection with both Bardi and Dragon World, so of course she would be invited. No matter which sister went to the council, they represented the entire group of Evelyns, and I could learn the progress of the dragons¡¯ discussion simply by asking Copper Dragon Evelyn next to me. But only after I asked did I discover that I was still too young and inexperienced, that I had been far too optimistic... Why was the dragons¡¯ discussion stalling? Because of every different species¡¯ personal benefits...


    ¡°...It¡¯s a headache. Blue Dragon leader Kennen is arrogantly shouting about killing all outsiders and that dragons are the mightiest species capable of destroying all other species like how he always does. Yep, he¡¯s the Blue Dragon leader that you made an enemy out of previously. He¡¯s a maniacal dragon purist, so he probably would have opposed you regardless. The strange part is that the typically low profile White Dragon leader is strongly in agreement for working with you, while the usually friendly Silver Dragon leader is adamantly against you. You understand how it is, though. Silver Dragons have natural hatred for the undead.¡±


    All of the above was easy enough for me to understand. The rest? I didn¡¯t even know how toment on it.


    ¡°The Copper Dragon and Bronze Dragon leaders both said that they don¡¯t care either way. Both asked if Dragon City would pick up the tab for dinner tonight after the meeting. Most dragons that remain neutral on this topic have the exact same attitude. They¡¯re strongly requesting an extra honeyed boar for lunch and an extra roast cow for dinner. Rather than the council topic, they¡¯re more concerned about what¡¯s for today¡¯s lunch. Oh, someone¡¯s evenining that Gold Dragon Halos is abusing his authority and breaking democracy, but everybody is ignoring him. That¡¯s because the Green Dragon leaders do that every time there¡¯s a speaker. They oppose every single n, no matter what it is. Wow, one of the Green Dragon leaders just spat corrosive acid at the speaker¡¯s podium, causing Halo¡¯s podium to disappear... Halos got so angry that they¡¯re now fighting... Well, it¡¯s whatever. Besides, it¡¯s not like dragons are the only ones who break out into fights at leadership council meetings.¡±


    Evelyn¡¯s auditory livestream of the event helped me understand just how chaotic the dragon leader council meeting was. I suddenly felt a mysterious sense of sympathy for Halos the Gold Dragon and council leader. Just how bad must he have it to face a group of bastards like this every single day? ...Cough¡ªcough¡ªI definitely wasn¡¯t sympathizing with him because I was recalling the bastards in Sulfur Mountain City! Of course not!


    ¡°Halos is so pitiful. Isn¡¯t him being the council leader the same as being everyone¡¯s venting target?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why the council leader is a job that the dragons take turns at. However, Gold Dragons have far too strong a sense of responsibility, so in the end a Gold Dragon is the unlucky council leader more than seventy percent of the time.¡±


    Even though this job of council leader would only be temporary, it seemed truly unpleasant. But the dragons had ruled in such a way for countless millennia. Their social habits and customs would be irond. Changing them even slightly would be incredibly difficult.


    ¡°...Then what happens if the dragons need to take action on a major issue?¡±


    ¡°Then simply take action. An overall agreement has never been achieved even once. We all simply do what we want. Besides, it¡¯s possible to aplish things even on our own. For instance, if enough time passes, and the Gold Dragon leaders think that working with you will be worthwhile, they¡¯ll just grab those who agree and simply work with you. They¡¯ll act as the representatives of all dragons here in Dragon City.¡±


    ¡°...Then is there any meaning to this entire dragon council? It¡¯s just to argue with each other and waste time, from what I can see.¡±


    ¡°Honestly, I don¡¯t understand it either. However, it has been the custom for countless millennia, so there¡¯s at least that meaning to it. At the very least, it can act as a notification to all other dragons in Dragon City whenever there¡¯s a major issue, so that everyone can know about it. It¡¯ll also prevent anyone from intentionally causing conflicts.¡±


    ¡°Intentionally causing conflicts? Are the dragons that bored with nothing to do?¡±


    ¡°...Yes. Often. For instance, any time a Green Dragon or Blue Dragon leader wants to do something, the Gold Dragon leaders will probably want to see if it will go against basic morals. And whenever the Silver Dragons want to do something, the Color Dragons will probably interfere. Most of the time, it¡¯s not even because they oppose the issue itself, but they simply oppose the issue because of who brought it up. For instance, recently, the Silver Dragons decided to clean the ground of Dragon City. The end result was right after they finished cleaning, the Green Dragons immediately summoned vines and stink swamps and filled the ce in. The Green Dragons imed to prefer such an environment.¡±


    ¡°...They really do have too much free time on their hands. First world problems. How much longer are they going to argue for?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯smon for the council arguments tost for anywhere from one month to two years. But Halos is the type to have others who agree immediately act together with him. Still, asking for others to act with him will take some time, and even those who agree will still need to have some discussions. That¡¯s why they should respond to you in about two weeks or so.¡±


    ¡°This still requires two more weeks...?¡±


    I was beginning to sympathize with Halos more and more. Apparently, working so hard to exin the n at the council meeting wasn¡¯t even in order to help the n pass¡ªit was to beg the other leaders to not make trouble, or at least limit the amount of trouble they¡¯d make when the n was carried out.


    The only reason the dragons had survived with such a ridiculous political structure for so long was solely that the dragons had enough power. They had no natural predators. Even if they spent most of their energy on useless internal struggles and pranked each other out of boredom, their foundational strength would not be affected. However...


    ¡°This time, their enemy is the Titans. Is it really alright for them to continue behaving this way? The Titans are no small nuisance; they¡¯re unlike anyone they¡¯ve ever faced before.¡±


    Yet Evelyn could only sigh. That was just how things were. Although she knew full well that the current dragon political system was horrid, there was nothing she could do about it. Due to their arrogance and overconfidence, the dragons had gotten ustomed to wasting their time like that.


    ¡°Forget it. I¡¯m busy with my own affairs. Let me know when they¡¯re done.¡±


    Right now, time was precious to me; priceless, even. The outside world was in a mess¡ªconflicts raged all over¡ªso I had no intentions of waiting here for the dragons toe to a decision.


    ¡°By the way, it seems that you sisters don¡¯t care too much about the current situation in Bardi? Aren¡¯t you worried that enemies will find the entrance to Dragon World?¡±


    ¡°...Even if Dragon City doesn¡¯t send reinforcements, our First Sister will personally act if it¡¯s necessary. Please rest reassured.¡±


    Alright, I didn¡¯t need to say anything else on this matter. Now that I had seen Supreme Immemorial Dragons for the first time and couldpare their sizes, I could now understand the ridiculousness of the physical size and draconic might of the first three, tri-headed Evelyn sisters. Although the three were still weaker than a Supreme Immemorial Dragon, it wouldn¡¯t be by much. Plus, if all ten Evelyns fought together, they couldmunicate with their souls and were fullymitted to fighting for each other. I was curious just whatbat power level they could achieve.


    ¡°Right, have youe to a decision about Cher? What does she herself think?¡±


    If we considered the fact that the experimental subject¡¯s mentality would affect the stability, and potentially the oue, of the experiment¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªI meant to say that I was worried that a little girl like her wouldn¡¯t be able to handle the truth! I originally didn¡¯t intend to tell Cher all the details; I wanted to only agree on a n to cure her with the Evelyns before directly tossing Cher onto my surgery table and executing the final n. However, the Evelyns absolutely insisted on telling her everything.


    I was interested to know how Cher, with her stereotypical ¡°ss president¡± personality, would react when she learned all these worldview-shattering things.


    ¡°The existence she believed to be her adopted mother is actually her daughter. And this endless cycle of death and life and giving birth to new Evelyns is probably more than enough to ruin her worldview.¡±


    ¡°...This iteration of Cher is mentally stronger than even we anticipated. She¡¯s decided to ept your n to cure her.¡±


    ¡°This iteration? That means that a past Cher¡ª¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve told her the truth before. None of us would ever lie to her. When my idiot older sister told her the truth, Cher immediately chose tomit suicide.¡±


    ¡°Eh? If she dies without falling in love, won¡¯t that break the cycle?¡±


    ¡°No, it won¡¯t. After shemitted suicide, the cycle started all over again, and she became a baby with no memories. It was just that no new Evelyn sisters were born...¡±


    From a certain standpoint, I must have truly hated Cher back in the year to do such a thing to her. But when I recalled the past self in my dreams, the man who hated the entire world, I felt it wouldn¡¯t be strange no matter what ridiculous things he did.


    Although it might seem rather strange to refer to my past self as ¡°he,¡± memories of that time would y in my mind whenever I was asleep as ofte. But this past me was far too different from the current me, and this made it difficult for me to view myself as him.


    ¡°Perhaps the price of reincarnating is some type of foundational change. Perhaps, without realizing it, I¡¯m bing ever slyer, ever more mature, ever more...ical?¡±


    Thinking about this, I looked forward to experimenting¡ªI mean curing Cher even more.


    ¡°Alright. After we gather the required materials we¡¯ll immediately begin the surgery. I hope she can ept what she bes. Ha! I¡¯m like this after only four reincarnations. What will she be after she¡¯s had eight reincarnations? Perhaps she¡¯ll be reborn as someone amazing. I really look forward to this.¡±


    Out of all those unreliable methods I proposed, there was only one that the Evelyns found eptable. Of course, this method was the only one usable from the very start.


    ¡°n 178 (Revised edition that¡¯s impossible to revise any more, and I¡¯ll get angry if anyone tells me to revise it again, but I¡¯ll have to revise it if you really tell me to...) Final n: Soul Net Construction.¡±


    ¡°When normal lives are lost, they will lose all their memories in the River Styx and Heaven¡¯s Pir. Cher, however, never entered the River Styx to begin with. She simply washed away all her memories and started over from the beginning, but this didn¡¯t wipe the memories deep within her soul. In that case, we can use an advanced magic spell¡ªsuch as Memory Recovery¡ªto help her regain her memories of her past lives. It¡¯s simr to restoring deleted data on a hard drive... Don¡¯t ask me what a hard drive is; I¡¯m just making an analogy to make things easier for myself.¡±


    ¡°Of course, in Cher¡¯s situation, if we suddenly ce eight lifetimes worth of experience in her head, there is a seventy percent chance her brain will directly explode and another twenty percent chance she¡¯ll go insane. But there¡¯s still a way to carry out this n: every Evelyn was once a part of Cher, so their physical connection can be transformed into a memory connection. We can use the technology of Pride to create a soul.¡±


    ¡°Of course, creating a soul requires a high degree of synchrony between the souls. Pride¡¯s soul is sessful because he¡¯s the only controller of the soul. All other souls are his tools and ves. But your souls are all foundationally the same, plus you had soul connections with each other to begin with. I have an over ny percent chance of sess in creating this soul.¡±


    ¡°After creating the soul, we can use the Evelyns to help Cher absorb her memories so that she can ept the inheritance of her eight reincarnations. All of her memories and strength will be gathered into her current soul. Just these memories and new soul shards that will be born will give Cher an over seventy percent chance of instantly bing super powerful. And as long as her own soul bes strengthened, she¡¯ll naturally be able to control if she enters reincarnation or not.¡±


    ¡°Actually, I feel that this should be the trueplete form of Lust: the Evelyns will be an endlessly evolving group under Cher¡¯s leadership. The previous pre-programmed self-evolution was only because the leader Cher was far too weak. She was unable to keep up with the Evelyns¡¯ progress, which actually slowed down the progress of evolution and even made things random.¡±


    ¡°As long as this surgery ispleted, I can guarantee that she won¡¯t be weaker than any other Original Sin of mine, although I don¡¯t know how powerful she¡¯ll be in the end. In fact, it¡¯s quite possible that with you sisters¡¯ assistance she¡¯ll be able to directly skip through the Three Heavy Doors of Myth and instantly be a SemiGod. Of course, since she¡¯s the oldest sister of the Seven Original Sins, she should have this power level to begin with.¡±


    Evelyn nodded. This current iteration of Cher was already the strongest and most iron-willed out of all the previous Chers. She was able to be a Weaver of Fortune¡ªalso known as Summoner of Misfortune¡ªon her own, best evidence of her excellent potential. All the Evelyn sisters were looking forward to how far she could progress.


    ¡°Then what¡¯s the price for this?¡±


    ¡°Everything... Sorry, I just really like to use this joke. In theory, there won¡¯t be any price. But the mostmon side effect of having too many memories is multiple personalities. Still, having a soul will mitigate these problems. In conclusion, the sess rate should be really high. After all, it¡¯s not that difficult for me to solve the problem that I created... and even if a new problem arises, I¡¯ll take care of it.¡±


    Evelyn nodded in agreement, and thus the n to cure Cher was settled on. But this wasn¡¯t something that could be done instantly as all ten Evelyns would need to arrive together in order to help absorb Cher¡¯s soul shards and memories.


    At this moment, Evelyn paused for a moment and then looked at me somewhat strangely.


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter?¡±


    ¡°...My sisters want me to ask you if you¡¯re really able to give us what you promised. What you promised us isn¡¯t something that¡¯s so easily achievable. Even Ayer wouldn¡¯t be capable of aplishing it.¡±


    ¡°Of course. I, Rnd, always carry out my promises. I never lie.¡±


    ¡°...My dragon senses are telling me that surprisingly you¡¯re not lying to me. You actually never lie? I feel more reassured now. By the way, I should mention that you¡¯ve even managed to change my impression of you.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be fooled by him. He never lies, but he forever only tells part of the truth. Aren¡¯t there so many out there that have been pitifully scammed by him?¡±


    ¡°Silly cat, shut up! I¡¯m clearly a good person¡ªa really good person!¡±


    ******


    [TL/N: A sudden scene change urs here. Rnd is talking to the devil Kamiltias that he was negotiating with back in Chapter 412.]


    ¡°...Alright then. It¡¯s settled. I really look forward to the day I meet you in person.¡±


    The devil face, which was hovering in midair, was also smiling. He seemed to be quite satisfied with what he obtained in our negotiations.


    ¡°I look forward to it as well. It¡¯s truly interesting to speak to you. I¡¯m even beginning to suspect that you¡¯re secretly one of us devils in disguise.¡±


    ¡°Hehehe! Others indeed call me the ¡®devilishly wicked and sly Rnd.¡¯ However, I still feel that I need to work harder to live up to the name and bepared to the real deal.¡¯¡±


    The Devil Lord Kamiltias¡¯ image chuckled at this.


    ¡°Actually, there¡¯s a simple shortcut. I can transform you into a fellow Devil. I promise that after transforming you, I¡¯ll give you a position equal to mine¡ªno¡ªeven higher than mine.¡±


    ¡°By position, you¡¯re referring to physical position like standing next to you? Higher means lifting me above your head? Could you at least get a little more creative? Why y such word games? Besides, even if you were being honest, I still wouldn¡¯t have agreed.¡±


    ¡°How regrettable. Alright then, chat with you next time.¡±


    The devil¡¯s face vanished. I then furrowed my eyebrows and slumped over in my chair,pletely rxing myself and revealing my fatigue in a rare instance.


    The Devil Lord was even more difficult to deal with than I expected. I really didn¡¯t want to have to talk to him again if I didn¡¯t have to.


    As expected of an expert in tempting mortals into bing fallen. Not only were devils naturally born with allure magic¡ªone of the most difficult types of magic to defend against¡ªthey were also experts in psychology, hypnosis and all sorts of other little tricks. They were masters at making humans unknowingly fall for their traps.


    Not only that, the devils¡¯nguage possessed its own magic power. If you identally agreed to or promised them something you would likely be bound by a contract. I had to constantly be on guard with my words, which was quite tiring.


    Talking to Kamiltias meant that I had to forever be on guard against any potential wordy tricks, along with defend against all his magics. This was even more tiring than a battle of attrition. Moreover, he seemed to be having quite a lot of fun. After he saw how special I waspared to others, he kept trying to act like a salesman, attempting to make me promise to transform into a Devil.


    ¡°Luckily, we weremunicating across dimensions. Otherwise, he would have been even more difficult to deal with. Considering that I really do have to meet him in person in the future, I¡¯m truly shooting myself in the foot here.¡±


    But, from another standpoint, our ¡°friendly interaction¡± here had greatly helped our negotiations. Meanwhile, the otherpetitor, the Demon Lord, was in a much worse situation.


    ¡°I¡¯ll definitely think of a method to return! Don¡¯t you dare give me flowers¡ª¡±


    That was Elisa¡¯s final angry roar when I ended mymunication with her. It would seem that she was under great stress from whatever she was going through in the Abyss.


    At her forceful request, this n that shouldn¡¯t have involved her was forced to include her. She would be even busier in the future.


    ¡°Okay then. Although there are many troubles, at least there are some good things as well.¡±


    I looked out the window and saw everyone being busy. This camp of ours on the Ghostwind ins was bing more and more like our home. Our new city here, which was named Dawnlight Town, was changing every day. Everything seemed to be progressing well.


    ¡°...The pearl of the Ghostwind ins? Thergest business district in the entire world?¡±


    In our time here, I discovered that this world was just like an unexplored treasure vault. How could we possibly let the resources here go to waste?


    Of the three mega airships, only the Borealis remained stationed at Dawnlight Town every day to guard it. The other two mega airships were both utilized as huge merchant airships and went to other locations to trade with the natives every day. As I watched our treasury fill up, I felt like I could just about say ¡°Robbery? That¡¯s far too slow a method to make money.¡±


    What? You¡¯re asking me if the bone airships were too scary to be used as merchant airships? The truth was the opposite. Only by having intimidating strength would it be easier to make trades with the bad-tempered locals.


    At first, our people went out with the intention to peacefully scam¡ªI mean peacefully trade with them. However, most of the natives had attacked them the moment they arrived, so now my people had learned from the experience. First, my people would stop the bone airship at some major tribal gathering location and fire a couple cannon shots to destroy a few buildings. After that, trading with the natives became much easier.


    Unfortunately, having only two airships was still inefficient. But I wasn¡¯t impatient about it, since my main goal right now was simply to let all the natives learn about my existence. My people were here to stay and would need to coexist with them.


    The more I learned about this world, the more I didn¡¯t want to leave.


    Every single day, countless warriors in the Gentlemen Alliance mercenary group would make breakthroughs. It would very much shock others in the mortal ne if they learned how many Gold and Legend ranked warriors I had despite their young age.


    And in this environment magic research would have new developments once every few days, which, in truth, was even better news.


    Resources, technology and personnel. If I could carve out a ce of my own in this world, I would receive an endless amount of benefits. Ipletely understood why the dragons didn¡¯t want to give up on Dragon World.


    Meanwhile, one of Tid¡¯s new aplishments truly astonished me.


    ¡°Artificial souls? You seeded?¡±

 Chapter 416 - Reaching the Peak

    <h4>Chapter 416: Reaching the Peak</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°You actually seeded in creating artificial souls?¡±


    I was truly astonished. It wasn¡¯t that I didn¡¯t trust Tid¡ªit was that this was an unfathomable problem that even I had given up on. But Tid had solved it so easily?


    However, Tid shook his head.


    ¡°Creating purely artificial souls is impossible. That¡¯s an ability only possible with the power of Creation. Otherwise, souls wouldn¡¯t have be the best currency in the lower nes. What we seeded in making was simple versions of artificial souls. Or perhaps a more urate term for them is artificial intelligence. It¡¯s a modification of current Mage Tower Spirit technology...¡±


    Simply speaking, Tid had managed to create smaller versions of Mage Tower Spirits. But just this aplishment was astonishing enough.


    ¡°Does this mean that we can now create an automated mecha army?¡±


    ¡°Of course, as long as you can foot the bill for its creation. Also, although we managed to decrease the size requirements for the technology, the energy supply and mechanical parts required still take up the space of an entire room. And an archmage is required to awaken the soul. Also, the process will make the archmage permanently lose maximum mana, and it¡¯s also possible that the archmage will lose a power level. You can see that mass production is still unfeasible.¡±


    Normal Mage Tower Spirits would be created with the entire mage tower as the foundation, with mega-sized energy batteries and elemental pools providing their energy. The mage tower¡¯s master or an invited archmage would then need to cast a high-circle magic to awaken this type of artificial soul. The Mage Tower Spirit would also need to be hosted in a highly precious and expensive magical gem as the vessel. Mass producing Mage Tower Spirits would be impossible.


    ¡°Fortunately, the newest edition of Olivia¡¯s Magic Box has improved the energy circuits. As for the research on the White Dragons¡ªyep, I¡¯m talking about their Dragon Egg shells¡ªthey actually make excellent soul vessels. Using them as the hosts for artificial intelligence can guarantee the artificial soul¡¯s survival. It¡¯s also possible for the soul to normally pilot a mecha. Although the cost for creation is still significant, at least this new type of artificial soul is capable of freely traversing the outside world without being limited to staying inside a mage tower.


    ¡°Wait a minute¡ªthe newest edition of Olivia¡¯s Magic Box? Are you talking about OMBox 6? I recall that OMBox 6 uses mithril cores and that it costs more than 30,000 gold coins to create just one. The Swordcasters areining that they¡¯d need to sell their kidneys to afford one. Compared to the OMBox 5, its functions have improved by only 30%, but it costs ten times more. When we first started selling the OMBox 6, we only sold three of them. Plus, Dragon Eggs are required, which increases the price even more. How much does one artificial soul cost in total to produce? I¡¯m asking about only production costs.¡±


    ¡°The OMBox 6 has already decreased in price. It costs only 28,888 gold coins now... Cough¡ªsince two OMBox 6¡¯s are required to create an artificial soul¡¯s double core internal structure, the total production cost is probably around 100,000 gold coins for one.¡±


    ¡°...I might as well go sell my kidney. Can¡¯t my research department be slightly more normal? Wait a moment, you said that the artificial soul is usable for mechas? Is it also usable for physical bodies?¡±


    ¡°It should be usable for both. We seeded in giving a Rotten Abomination intelligence. The moment he gained intelligence, he startedining to us about the stinky stench of his body.¡±


    My research department named this artificial soul project as ¡°Soul Embryo.¡± The technology to create this stemmed from Mage Tower Spirits, and the cost to create one was simr to that of Mage Tower Spirits as well. Miniaturizing the size any further would be impossible with current technology, but since these Soul Embryos could be used in undead magic creations...


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s first install them in the Mizar and Alkaid. The best swords should be given to the best warriors. It will be great if these two battleships¡¯bat strength can reach the Borealis¡¯s level.¡±


    When I had first created Envy, I was mostly thinking about how to make the iplete Borealis start moving. But after so many years of battles, it could be said that we¡¯d relied on this living battleship more and more.


    The Borealis was swift, had great attack power, the advantage of flight and was excellent at logistical support. The most important part was that since this airship was living, it was easy to use and Marsolit could choose his targets to attack. Envy¡¯s special abilities¡ªabsorbing water and devouring for regeneration, which were gained from that Hydra¡ªalso far surpassed the other battleships¡¯ abilities. It could be said that the Borealis had no particr weakness.


    Perhaps the Borealis hadn¡¯t aplished any amazingbat feats by itself, but its usefulness in different situations and high maneuverability meant it appeared in all the battles I needed it to. The Borealis was bing a more importantbat unit under mymand.


    Meanwhile, its imitations, the Mizar and Alkaid, were top-level constructions of undead magic. Yet this had been a choice I¡¯d made helplessly as Icked money and resources; in every aspect, these two airships¡¯ specifications were inferior to the Borealis. Their greatest weakness was their slow speed, mostly due to their heaviness. The fact that they relied on outside sources for supplies and maintenance personnel also limited their effective usage radii. Since I now had an opportunity to increase their power, how could I possibly let this chance slip by?


    ¡°Excellent job. Increase the priority of this research project by one level and continue making progress on this topic.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s already at the highest priority research level, so there¡¯s no need to increase it. But I think that there won¡¯t be any progress for the short time being since the Haletdam people¡ªthe ancient cultures had only reached this point as well.¡±


    Tid was muttering to himself as he left with his research, but I was delighted. Unlike the other people of this world, I knew that once artificial intelligence technology made its first breakthrough, technological advances would soon follow after like an avnche.


    ¡°This is truly an idental advancement in the science skill tree. Perhaps artificial intelligence-run mechanized production lines will be invented here even before cars and electronics. Tid is truly amazing. As expected of a legendary hero from the game¡¯s history. I can rest assured about my subordinates with such people around. I also need to use the rest of my time wisely...¡±


    I felt a lot better as I looked at the overall current situation and the recent past.


    Currently, the Nortnds Mist Alliance was developing at a high speed. I doubted that any major problems would ur with Reyne and Glina watching over it. And there was my secret agreement with Orloss, where he would give the Mist Alliance a great gift. The Mist Alliance would only develop even quicker afterwards. With the Underground allied armies added in, the Nortnds¡¯ development should be absolutely stable.


    Meanwhile, the Church of Law was also gradually bing more epted by the world. Although my bastard subordinates typically acted ridiculously, they were still quite trustworthy when it came to serious business. With them around, the Church of Law wouldn¡¯t change to be something I didn¡¯t expect.


    The current rtionship between the most powerful Underground Lords was probably at the most unified level it had ever been in history. Considering the special rtionship between everyone, even if there was some major incident, the Nortnds and Underground¡¯sbined power could take care of it.


    As for Xiluo, And, Bardi, San Antonio and other such powers, they were all mega empires or almost at a mega empire¡¯s level. I didn¡¯t need to worry about them. Right now, only Bardi was in a truly difficult situation, but I didn¡¯t have to worry that they¡¯d bepletely devastated since the Mage Country and dragons were helping them.


    Overall, it indeed seemed like I had greatly improved the situationpared to the game¡¯s history. All the seeds I nted had sprouted. With so many friends,panions and allies around that could take care of themselves, I could rest reassured about them and n my own grand scheme.


    ¡°Grand scheme? What¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Do you still remember the summer rain by that clearke...? Fine, don¡¯t hit me, it¡¯s not that I don¡¯t want to tell you¡ªit¡¯s that I can¡¯t say it until it¡¯s time. There¡¯re some existences out there that can learn about things the moment you say it. And right now, what I intend to do is best known by as few people as possible.¡±


    While Evelyn was confused, she still decided to help me due to her past trust for me. I did, however, tell her about my n D: Allying with the devils and inviting devils into Dragon World.


    ¡°Who cares? The Titans will definitely revive, which means that this dimension will be destroyed. A ridiculous seeming cure is still better than no cure. Also, I trust that you won¡¯t do wrong by me.¡±


    Evelyn specially pointed at herself while she said she trusted me. She meant that she was separating herself from the dragons, that although I might do wrong by the dragons, I wouldn¡¯t do wrong by her.


    ¡°You¡¯re really confident in me, but even I don¡¯t know why you trust me so much.¡±


    ¡°I still understand your personality. In a way, you¡¯re really childish. You¡¯ll be nice to whoever¡¯s nice to you. You¡¯re no different from an elementary schooler in this regard. Still, this part about you does help to make me trust you. As long as I treat you sincerely, you won¡¯t betray me. Hehe.¡±


    I felt rather helpless about how Copper Dragon Evelyn was all smiles. She made me sound like a harmless little rabbit! I really should pull the pitiful Sulfur Mountain City council members, beastmen and Emordilorcan out of Hell to have them tell her about how much I¡¯d made them suffer.


    ¡°They probably all had evil intentions towards you or antagonized you in some way for you to make them suffer like that.¡±


    Upon closer consideration, this wasn¡¯t wrong. Could it really be that I was a good person? I was actually a good person! Someone like me was really a good person!


    I could only sigh since I was apparently a good person.


    ¡°No wonder my lives are always so short. In this world, good people won¡¯t live long lives.¡±


    ¡°You? A good person? Amelia. Touch your stomach; that¡¯s where your conscience is¡ªyou¡¯ve already eaten it. Do you dare say that you¡¯ve done right by her?¡±


    ¡°Fine, I¡¯m a bad person. A really, really bad person.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ casualment made me unable to counter her. From a certain standpoint, Amelia had truly treated me well. Back then, I was just a foolish novice whose mind was filled with thoughts of hatred and revenge. My talent for magic was awful, and Amelia helped teach me the basics while also giving me the foundation to start everything¡ªknowledge on how to construct life. Even the me from back then considered whether or not to simply spend the rest of my life together with her like that.


    Yep, when I actually looked back on the past, Amelia was truly nice. She was beautiful, treated me excellently and was a powerful individual. But once I thought about the grudge of my destroyed country, how could I possibly allow myself to drown in personal pleasures? Thus, I unhesitatingly betrayed her...


    ¡°Wait a moment, something seems wrong here. Did I really consider spending the rest of my life together with her? Why don¡¯t I remember this at all?¡±


    ¡°...It seems you¡¯re getting closer and closer to bing a Legend.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s sigh confused me. What did my memories bing more confused have to do with me progressing in power level?


    ¡°What the¡ªwhat does this have to do with my power level?¡±


    I originally wanted to use a cuss word here, but considering the silly cat¡¯s skills in certain areas, I decided to change my wording in order to avoid having my face be smacked instantly and embarrassing myself.


    ¡°This time, you¡¯re probably intending onbining all your past experiences and paths into one to reach a peak that you¡¯ve never attained before. You should have already finished thinking about the path of leveling up that you want to take.¡±


    I nodded at this. There was no reason for me to deny it. From the very start, entering Legend and even Myth rank here in Dragon World was the most important task I set for myself.


    ¡°However, the portion of your memories that¡¯s most iplete is from when you were studying at the Cloud Tower. The second most iplete portion is from when you died in the Bardi Empire. I recall that when we met at the Cloud Tower, your main magic was ice magic, but you were secretly studying undead magic as well.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. In that life, I formed my Ice Treader Soul Imprint. But actually my talent for ice magic is terrible, and I was mostly cheating through my System...¡±


    ¡°Are you certain?¡±


    Even without the silly cat staring at me as if I was an unteachable student, I couldn¡¯t believe my own words. After all, I recently obtained many memory fragments from these memories, reviving in my dreams. Actually, my second reincarnation Rnd mostly relied on non-mainstream ice magic which was abnormal and incredibly difficult to defend against. It couldn¡¯t at all be said that my ice magic was weak.


    After all, I was filled with desire for revenge and sought power more than anything. If ice magic really didn¡¯t have any potential for me, I wouldn¡¯t have studied it as my main branch of magic. Thinking back on things now, I must have lost much of my memories and power about ice magic after reincarnation.


    ¡°You probably used an immature technique to forcefully separate your soul shard to create Lust Cher. You then sacrificed your own soul in order to activate Cher¡¯s cycle of death and reincarnation. In any normal situation, this is the equivalent of drinking poison then slitting your throat and hanging yourself. You should have long since died. Being able to reincarnate yet again while only losing arge amount of your memories and power is already fortunate.¡±


    I nodded as I thought about what must have happened then. The fact I managed to reincarnate then, apart from me being lucky, was probably due to my ridiculous System which was capable of restoring my tattered soul in the River Styx.


    Although it might seem that my second reincarnation Rnd ckhand wasn¡¯t very famous, my third reincarnation Emperor Yongye was based on Rnd ckhand¡¯s foundation. My awkward, non-mainstream ice magic finally evolved into the peak of ice magic spells, the forbidden spell Ice Aeon. The life construction magic that Amelia had taught me evolved into undead construction magic, and I created the Seven Original Sins, bing Emperor Yongye, Ruler of the Undead.


    ¡°Yep. Then what you need to do now is reform your four Soul Imprints of Law, Holy Light, ice magic, and undead magic. Then you need tobine them into a new Soul Imprint that represents your current life. As long as you have a good foundation, so that each type of power can support and improve each other, you¡¯ll be able to achieve a result where 1+1+1+1 is greater than 10. You¡¯ll have reached the peak.¡±


    I nodded, as this was indeed my goal.


    ¡°But haven¡¯t you considered just how hard reaching the peak will be? This is the equivalent of using four one-legged chairs and stacking them on top of each other. Any leg that snaps or is slightly short will cause you to trip and fall. Since you¡¯recking in ice magic more than any other area right now, naturally your dreams will be tilted towards your ice magic memories as it¡¯s telling you to hurry and make up for this weakness.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s exnation was indeed easy to understand, but I kept feeling like it was awkward the more I listened.


    ¡°Also, when you fought with Zero, even I obtained benefits, so didn¡¯t you benefit from that at all? She¡¯s far superior to you when ites to controlling temperature. Yet the ¡®Law of Energy Conservation¡¯ that you made in Frigidwinter Earth made her lose to you in the end. Your foundation in ice magic is already at a high level. Haven¡¯t you ever thought about deeply researching Zero¡¯s temperature stealing, Rnd ckhand¡¯s Shadow Ice, Emperor Yongye¡¯s Ice Aeon, and your current life¡¯s foundational magic of Ice Sculpting, and then attempting tobine all four types of ice magic to exin the essence of ice? If you can aplish this, only then will your ice magic truly achieve bnce with your other three powers. Only then will your path to the peak have achieved a strong enough foundation.¡±


    Whenever the silly cat went into her lecturer mode, she would speak in a way that was hard to understand. But as I thought about what she said, this was indeed a worthwhile goal.


    ¡°My other powers aren¡¯t at such a strong level, are they? You¡¯re saying that my ice magic will only reach my other three powers¡¯ level after umting so many different lifetimes¡¯ worth of experience together? Isn¡¯t that overestimating my other three powers?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the creator of Law itself, the inventor of a brand-new power of Order. You think that gives you a low status? This puts you basically at the same status and aplishment level as the God of Holy Light. You think that your power of undeath isn¡¯t that great? You¡¯re the only Undead Emperor in recent history. Not only that, you¡¯re no ordinary Undead Emperor. As long as your Seven Original Sins have enough time to evolve, all of them will be just as powerful as any Undead Emperor. This is plenty to be proud of.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s words even contained a rare tone of praise, which made me feel like I was floating on cloud nine.


    ¡°Well, even if that¡¯s the case, my understanding of Holy Light isn¡¯t that greatpared to my other powers.¡±


    ¡°...Indeed. Even if starting the Church of Pure Holy Light is something incredible, it can¡¯tpare to your other powers. However...¡±


    As I watched, the silly cat transformed into her youthful Gold Elf form. Her childish appearance had furrowed eyebrows and a highly worried expression.


    ¡°...If my guess is correct, you were naturally born with a higher purity of Holy Light than others. Your path with the Holy Light Soul Imprint should have already been fixed.¡±


    I nodded. Without me even realizing it, my Holy Light Soul Imprint had fixed itself. Compared to how hard I had to work at all my other Soul Imprints, it wasn¡¯t even anywhere close to their difficulty level. My talent for Holy Light had given me the wonderful nickname of ¡°Child of Holy Light,¡± but some called me a more direct nickname: ¡°Holy Light¡¯s Illegitimate Child¡±.


    ¡°I already beat up all those who dared to call me that to my face back in the day.¡±


    I proudly told her about my past aplishment, but Harloys¡¯s expression became even more worried and rather sad.


    ¡°...You¡¯re not following Holy Light, but Holy Light still takes care of you. No¡ªit should be said that the Source of Order is taking care of you. This isn¡¯t necessarily a good thing...¡±

 Chapter 417 - Schemer

    <h4>Chapter 417: Schemer</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°...You¡¯re not following Holy Light, but Holy Light still takes care of you. No¡ªit should be said that the Source of Order is taking care of you. This isn¡¯t necessarily a good thing...¡±


    I was surprised at Harloys¡¯ finalment. However, no matter how much I asked her about it, she would only respond vaguely.


    ¡°...I still need to think more on this matter. Now¡¯s not the time for you to know. If you trust me, then don¡¯t force me to tell you with the magical pet contract. Otherwise, many things will be far more troublesome.¡±


    Since she said so, I decided to give up asking her despite my curiosity... Even my typically not-so-sharp senses told me that Harloys was telling the truth¡ªthat continuing to ask might cause me great amounts of trouble.


    ¡°Fine¡ªfine¡ªtell me when you¡¯re finished thinking about it. I¡¯m not such a stickler that I¡¯ll force you.¡±


    I waved my hand to dispel my feelings of helplessness and being stuck in a quagmire as I could sense that I was potentially ying with fire. I then focused on the notepad in my hand, which listed the goals I had made for myself toplete in Dragon World. However, my aplishment rate was rather worrisome.


    <i>1: Obtain the Foundational Elemental Items of Dragon World. Obtain a minimum of one, but the more the better. (Absolutely necessary.)</i>


    <i>2: Obtain one absolutely top-level item of each element. The higher </i>quality <i>the better. The best would be the four God Equipment of the Elements. (Absolutely necessary.)</i>


    <i>3: Establish a stable base in Dragon World so that the young warriors can train and quickly improve in power level. (Low priority. Can be done in my free time.)</i>


    <i>4: Improve my power level to at least Myth rank. (Absolutely necessary.)</i>


    <i>5: Have the devils enter Dragon World. (Originally absolutely necessary, but considering the devils¡¯ terrible reputation, I suppose that this should be optional, although it will be difficult to exin to Ayer if I don¡¯t have the devils arrive here.)</i>


    <i>6: Final step: Notify Orloss to activate the ¡®grand scheme.¡¯ There¡¯s no more turning back after this step.</i>


    As for making Dragon City send reinforcements to thebat situation in Bardi? That was never in my goals to begin with. It would be nice if I could have the dragons send aid, but if I couldn¡¯t, I didn¡¯t need to worry about a thing at all. With my deep understanding of Orloss, I refused to believe that a sly old fox like him would roll over and die so easily.


    After spending all this time in Dragon World, my other goals were eitherpleted or in progress. Things seemed to be going well, but one of my absolutely necessary goals was now in a quagmire. I couldn¡¯t be happy due to this.


    ¡°It¡¯s impossible to speed up the process of progressing in power level. But if I really have no other choice, I suppose I could take a shortcut through my System. Although taking shortcuts will most likely result in me not having a stable foundation, it can¡¯t be helped if that¡¯s the case.¡±


    The System informed me that I only needed to give her Fate Points to improve my power level. However, she also told me that her type of leveling up wouldn¡¯t be as effective as me achieving the understanding I needed on my own to level up. My energy level had already reached the standard necessary to breakthrough. My Law and Holy Light Soul Imprints had already been fixed thanks to the Source of Order watching over me. My undead magic Soul Imprint had been restored as well. My ice magic Soul Imprint was the only one I was stuck on, but it shouldn¡¯t take me much longer. Using my System to make a breakthrough here would bring me too many disadvantages.


    ¡°As for the Foundational Elemental Items of Dragon World, the dragons must have obtained all four after ruling this ce for so many years. It¡¯s quite possible that they¡¯ll give me one, but it¡¯ll be far more difficult for them to give me two as that represents equally sharing the right to rule this dimension with me. But it¡¯ll be a great help to me if I can obtain two. Perhaps it¡¯s time to have a good discussion with my new allies...¡±


    It was far too difficult to be a proper major antagonist these days. The major antagonist would have to spend so much effort creating an excellent viinous scheme with no ws as well as find loyal, reliable and hard-working subordinates that wouldn¡¯t be easily converted to the hero¡¯s side with a simple talk of some sort. The major antagonist would also have to show up early to kill off some mooks to let people know of his existence. In the middle of the story, the major antagonist would always send out subordinates equal to the hero¡¯s strength almost as if he was helping the hero level up...


    Right, there were also antagonists that told the heroes ssical lines such as ¡°I am your father¡± or ¡°You¡¯re actually the legendary ______¡± all in order to show off how special the hero was. At the critical moment, the antagonist would naturally expose their greatest weakness, such as telling the hero or their daughter about the location of a divine weapon capable of killing themself... And why was it that the antagonist always had a daughter? Why was it that a demon king¡¯s daughter would forever be the hero¡¯s girlfriend in these types of stories?


    The antagonist would work hard for so many years, but their scheme would always fail at thest step. The final boss always died because they liked to talk too much... and would even leave behind some top-level equipment after their death, supporting the heroes in their journey.


    How, in any possible way, was this what a major antagonist was supposed to be like? They all treated the heroes so well, as if they were the heroes¡¯ parents!


    ¡°I never understood how antagonists, who are so skilled at scheming, always mysteriously get killed off by simple-minded heroes in the end. My scheme is perfect. I have countless subordinates, and I¡¯ve been scheming from behind the scenes for so long. I, Rnd, shall never be defeated so easily and iprehensibly!¡±


    ¡°...Emperor Yongye and Adam.¡±


    Alright then, when Harloys mentioned this, I instantly recalled the past and all my passion vanished. In fact, I now recalled that I had raised more than one disciple who had personally killed me.


    ¡°That was an ident; there are reasons for that...¡±


    ¡°Still, it happened. And it was all your fault, wasn¡¯t it?¡±


    I found myself unable to counter what the silly cat said. I only wanted to be alone by myself; don¡¯t ask me why...


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªgetting back on topic, although I always had countless ns in motion, this particr grand scheme of mine was quite thorough. I chose the best people to carry out my scheme, so it definitely wouldn¡¯t fail.


    ¡°...Your Highness Rnd, bad news. Lady Elisa has returned from the Fire Elemental ne. She failed to retrieve the God Equipment of Water!¡±


    ¡°What? She¡¯s the Fire Sea Marchioness, and she was the fire elemental demon who had acquired her position by walking on top of the previous Fire Elemental God. She actually failed in the Fire Elemental ne? Could this be the legendary 2% failure when the obsidian treasure chest is supposed to have a 98% sess rate? Is our luck that terrible?¡±


    ¡°...I think it¡¯s the curse of you being a jinxer.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not my fault!¡±


    But once I read the detailed report, I understood what happened. This really wasn¡¯t at all Elisa¡¯s fault.


    Any lifeform that chose to embrace Chaos was capable of bing a demon¡ªeven elemental creatures. However, if an Elemental God became fallen and transformed into a demon, that Elemental God would naturally be rejected by their Elemental ne. Even an Elemental God would lose the favor of the Elemental Throne and their Godhood if they became a demon.


    After the original Fire Elemental God had perished, the Fire Elemental Lords became busy fighting each other to determine who was the strongest. But if the ¡°original sessor to the Fire Elemental God¡± arrived, the situation would be... to use an analogy, it was as if the previous emperor died, so all the domain lords started fighting over who would be the next ruler. But suddenly a prince appeared and said that he was the rightful sessor. This would naturally make all the domain lords band together to deal with this prince.


    Actually, the Fire Elemental Lords already knew about Elisa. They noticed her presence the moment that she had arrived in the Fire Elemental ne. And so all the Fire Elemental Lords came looking for her together. In fact, even the dimensional will suppressed this former Fire Elemental Lord that had ¡°fallen to be a demon.¡± When faced with the enmity of an entire dimension, it would be impossible for even a Demon Prince to deal with, much less a Demon Marchioness. All Elisa could do was turn and run away.


    ¡°It would seem that I chose the wrong person for the job? Should I contact her and soothe her emotions?¡±


    ¡°...I feel that you¡¯re the person she wants to see least right now.¡±


    Thinking about her forceful personality, I could only silently nod in agreement. But then I felt that I should contact her soon regardless. This was such a rare chance for me tough at her! Elisa always made fun of me, and this was my opportunity to have some revenge!


    I obtained much information about top-level elemental items from the Great Stone Sculptor. However, the highest-quality items would be the God Equipment of the Elements or the Elemental Thrones themselves, so those would naturally be the best choices. However, obtaining an Elemental Throne would be far too difficult as I would have to face off against both an Elemental God and the entire Elemental ne¡¯s dimensional will. So of course I focused instead on obtaining the God Equipment of the Elements. After all, very few even knew of their existence, so this should have been the most likely part of my n to seed. Instead, this part directly failed together with Elisa failing to obtain the God Equipment of Water.


    The God Equipment of Fire was stuck in the Water Elemental ne. The Water Elemental ne was apletely water-based world with nond, so almost nond-based species would be able to enter and survive in that environment. The few strong enough to survive permanently underwater would also have their power levels seriously reduced. I didn¡¯t even bother sending anyone to the Water Elemental ne because of this.


    The God Equipment of Wind... was currently in Camdian¡¯s possession, given to him for his assistance with the God Equipment of Earth. Borrow it from Camdian? This was something rted to his very life. If I even mentioned the topic of borrowing it from him, he would be on guard and perhaps even directly form a grudge against me.


    The God Equipment of Earth was naturally in the possession of the new Earth Elemental God, the Sand Worm King ¡°Little Sandy.¡± As I recalled his mountainous size, I felt like his name was truly awkward. While I did tell a certain Beast Tamer to go and retrieve the God Equipment of Earth, I didn¡¯t have much hope for this. Even if Little Sandy wasn¡¯t very smart, he was still the Earth Elemental God...


    ¡°Your Highness, as you wished, the obsidian treasure chest... I¡¯ve obtained the God Equipment of Earth!¡±


    Alright then, it was truly as my System had called me¡ªI was truly like Pele the jinxer. Anyone I felt would seed ended up failing, while anyone I felt would fail would end up seeding.


    ¡°How did you aplish it?¡±


    ¡°Oh, Little Sandy is too big and can¡¯t use the God Equipment of Earth. So I simply yed with him for a while and he gave it to me.¡±


    ¡°...That was all it took!?¡±


    I was smart enough not to ask what they ¡°yed¡± as the answer would surely be mind-scorching. Still, didn¡¯t Little Sandy trust Beifeng a little too much? Being able to obtain the God Equipment of Earth so easily? Was Beifeng actually the main character, favored by Goddess Eich herself? Was there anything he couldn¡¯t aplish?


    However, I understood why Little Sandy was unable to make use of the God Equipment of Earth. It was a small, exquisite, colorless mage staff. It was the perfect size for me.


    ¡°All God Equipment should have the ability to change their size. Why is Little Sandy incapable of using it?¡±


    ¡°...Little Sandy doesn¡¯t have any hands.¡±


    Alright, this reason was so logical I could only agree. And so I directly epted the staff and tossed it into Frigidwinter Earth. The God Equipment of Earth was emanating tremendous waves of elemental energy, so I was worried that it would attract unwanted attention if I left it outside.


    It would be impossible for me to obtain the God Equipment of Wind unless I wanted to kill Camdian. I had just failed in obtaining the God Equipment of Water, and the God Equipment of Fire was in the Water Elemental ne, an environment none of us were suited for going to. In the end, I only obtained the God Equipment of Earth.


    However, I needed one top-level elemental item of each element for my Frigidwinter Earth¡¯s development. Even if the dragons gave me one of the Foundational Elemental Items of Dragon World, I would still need two more elemental items.


    ¡°Perhaps it¡¯s time for me to contact the Water Elemental Goddess Aylos. She should be able to help me retrieve the God Equipment of Fire from the Water Elemental ne, since I have a hostage on my hands...¡±


    Aylos was the immemorial generation Ocean God Sidunwar¡¯s wife. His only hope of revival, the Ocean Bottle, was in my hands. And I was the only person in the world capable of reviving him.


    But if I contacted Aylos right now, I probably wouldn¡¯t be able to aplish anything. After helping usst time in the Earth Elemental ne, she had left us right away, not giving me the opportunity to extort her. And if I contacted her asking for her to obtain the God Equipment of Fire for us, someone with so many millennia of experience like her would definitely never give it to us unless I revived her husband. And for that...


    ¡°Reviving Sidunwar is one of my Myth-ranked Quests. Of course I want to earn some Fate Points and do it. However, I need to hunt down powerful sea beasts and sea monsters to obtain divine power. This is truly difficult.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t actually worried about the sea beasts and monsters themselves. Previously, just the Borealis alone was more than sufficient to kill off several top-level sea monsters. Now that I had threerge aerial battleships, why would I have to worry about sea monsters? I was worried about...


    ¡°The moment I enter the ocean, that crazydy will surely start a rampage because of me.¡±


    Actually, not only myself, but even the Borealis didn¡¯t dare anymore to travel over the deep sea. Otherwise, powerful sea monsters would surely show up together with thunderstorms and tornados, followed by a certain Goddess¡¯s personal incarnation.


    ¡°As expected of the Goddess who possesses the Divine Concept of Revenge. She really knows how to hold a grudge... wait a moment, one of her Divine Concepts is Revenge. Isn¡¯t that one of my goals for my grand scheme?¡±


    I hesitated for a moment but finally picked up my notepad, adding one more goal to the end.


    <i>7: Kill off that crazy Queen of Storms and steal her Divine Concept of Revenge and divine power over the ocean, reviving Sidunwar along the way. (High priority.)</i>


    Of course, considering that she was a newly-rising star in the Chaos Faction along with being a powerful Goddess, it would be nigh impossible for me to do this. And so I quietly started writing a letter.


    ¡°Boss Ayer, I think there¡¯s something that only you can do. There¡¯s an idiot in our way; you understand how it is. I¡¯m talking about the crazy woman who rules over the blue depths¡ªyep¡ªI¡¯m talking about the woman with the strange hairstyle who even colored her body ridiculously blue. Boss, I should tell you that she¡¯s absurdly arrogant...¡±

 Chapter 418 - Oath

    <h4>Chapter 418: Oath</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Although I wrote a letter asking for help and trusted that Ayer knew how to deal with things, my enemy here was a powerful True God. It wouldn¡¯t be easy to kill her off, and it definitely wouldn¡¯t be aplished quickly. Still, it wasn¡¯t my style to leave everything up to others.


    ¡°How many ways are there to kill off a True God? No, I¡¯m not joking around here. Please answer me seriously.¡±


    At this time, I naturally asked Doraemon¡ªI meant Harloys! Weren¡¯t they both cats? Was there a difference?


    ¡°Directly kill a powerful True God? How many ways, you¡¯re asking? To my knowledge¡ªzero.¡±


    ¡°What? Didn¡¯t Lorci die rather easily?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because she was incredibly foolish. She descended using her true body and was then wiped out by Karwenz, a Main God-level existence, for breaking the taboos. In most normal situations, have you ever seen a True God idiotic enough to descend with their true bodies? They all have Divine Kingdoms. As long as a True God stays within their Divine Kingdom, they¡¯ll be the master of that little world. You know just how ridiculous their administrator privileges are there. Plus, they also have countless believers¡¯ souls as replenishment. You need to first destroy her Divine Kingdom before killing the Queen of Storms. Even a Main God might not be capable of doing this, and someone who could would definitely pay a great cost doing so. It would be an very bad deal to do so.¡±


    ¡°So not even Ayer will be able to forcefully kill her?¡±


    ¡°...That might not be the case as Ayer is truly unfathomable, even among the True Gods. He directly killed those two Follower Gods in another True God¡¯s Divine Kingdom. I don¡¯t know if he¡¯s capable of doing it or not. But even if he¡¯s capable of doing it, it will be the equivalent of their two Divine Kingdoms shing. Ayer will definitely lose a significant amount of power doing so, which will be disadvantageous for our future ns. I feel that you can consider a more normal method to weaken the Queen of Storms first.¡±


    ¡°...Eliminate her believers, which will weaken her as there will be less faith in her?¡±


    ¡°Yes. And this isn¡¯t the only option. Corrupt her temples, kill her priests and destroy her divine power summoning points. These will all have far greater impact than killing off her ordinary believers. Also, killing her incarnation will be the greatest possible blow of all to her divine power. Many True Gods even end up perishing when their incarnation dies. Otherwise, she wouldn¡¯t have run so quicklyst time when she saw Ayer. Also, you can diminish her power by attacking her reputation and authority, by spreading rumors and using other underhanded tactics that you excel at.¡±


    For some mysterious reason, I felt like the silly cat was making fun of me. But considering the fact that thanks to Harloys¡¯ advice, the first thought which shed through my mind was ¡°Breaking news! She¡¯s actually a mistress!? Now revealing the triangle love rtionship between Ocean God Sidunwar, Water Elemental Goddess Aylos, and the Queen of Storms,¡± it was indeed impossible for me to counter what she said.


    ¡°As long as she weakens to a certain extent, she¡¯ll be forced into hibernation to recover unless she¡¯s willing to weaken her Divine Concept and Divine Kingdom. And if she continues weakening with nobody to help her, she¡¯ll end up in eternal hibernation.¡±


    ¡°What will happen if she¡¯s willing to weaken her Divine Concept and Divine Kingdom?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯ll drop in power level from a High God to a Middle God. Voluntarily weakening her own power level is the same as cutting off arge portion of her own divine soul. Her soul will receive a permanent injury that¡¯s the equivalent of a human being seriously injured to the point of being bedridden. That will make it much easier to kill her. If you can weaken her till she has the power of only a Medium God, it should be very easy for Ayer to just kill her.¡±


    ¡°...Why do I feel like none of these conditions are achievable?¡±


    ¡°I agree with you on this.¡±


    Considering that the crazy Queen of Storms had an incredibly high level of vignce, killing off her incarnation would be extremely difficult. And even if I managed to set a trap that sessfully killed off her incarnation once, she was the type who would shut herself in her Divine Kingdom afterwards. Killing off her incarnation more than once would be impossible.


    As for killing her believers, spreading rumors, corrupting her temples and so on...


    ¡°Her main believers are the Sea Tribe. Of course, they¡¯re in the sea. How am I supposed to kill them or spread rumors? Even her priests are Sea Tribe members. What am I supposed to do? As she¡¯s the Goddess of Storms and Sea Monsters, she¡¯s can even obtain faith from ordinary fishermen and the Sea Tribe¡¯s fear of storms and sea monsters. This will be really difficult.¡±


    Precisely because her main believers were the Sea Tribe the Queen of Storms could greatly increase in power once the Sea Tribe established their kingdom, defeated the humans and conquered their capital. More and more Sea Tribe members were beginning to worship her for her grand aplishments. And once And started regaining the advantage, she... she was actually shameless enough to personally intervene in a battle between mortals. Her sea monsters and storms caused tremendous damage to And and made the Sea Tribe into more pious believers, establishing a virtuous cycle that kept increasing her power.


    ¡°How about a gue? What if I create a gue that¡¯s spread in the sea to all the Sea Tribe? That will cause her believers to start dying inrge numbers.¡±


    ¡°...An ocean version of an Undead Cmity? Considering thatnd and ocean animals havepletely different breathing systems, are you sure that you¡¯ll be able to sessfully research a new gue in a short period of time? Maybe you could try looking for the gue King, who¡¯s currently ranked #11 on the Cmity Rankings. He should be able of aplishing this.¡±


    ¡°How about havingrge amounts of undead go underwater and hunt the Sea Tribe down? Fine, don¡¯t stare at me, I was just joking around.¡±


    Indeed, the undead didn¡¯t need to breathe or eat, so they were capable of fighting underwater. However, just being capable of fighting underwater didn¡¯t mean that they were skilled at fighting underwater. The water pressure and water currents would greatly slow their movements. Meanwhile, the Sea Tribe was highly skilled at underwater fighting. Not only would winning against the Sea Tribe be difficult, but even if the undead won, the Sea Tribe members would only have to run away. It would be impossible for the undead to catch up.


    We came up with various ideas that we then shot down the next instant. We continued thinking about how to weaken the Queen of Storms but were unable toe up with a viable idea.


    ¡°...If the Sea Tribe was so easy to defeat, they would have gone extinct long ago. They¡¯re the undisputed rulers of the sea. Perhaps we should change our way of thinking. How did the Queen of Storms be a powerful Goddess in the first ce?¡±


    ¡°Rain City!¡±


    At this moment, both of us came to a sudden epiphany. We had arrived at the critical point.


    The most important reason that the Queen of Storms became a powerful Goddess was as the Guardian Goddess of the Sea Tribe, she had helped them actualize a dream that the Sea Tribe had possessed for tens of thousands of years. The mystical Rain City was thend of her divine miracle. Rain City allowed countless Sea Tribe members to return to thend. The Sea Tribe could enjoy sunshine and rain, delicious cooked foods and the right to live and reproduce there.


    But what if Rain City suddenly disappeared?


    ¡°Faith in her would copse? That would absolutely happen.¡±


    ¡°Meeting with despair after living the best life will cause the formerly most fervent of believers send curses of despair at the Gods.¡±


    ¡°Also, if the divine power forbidden spell gets dispelled, there will be a huge bacsh on the caster. That¡¯s important to keep in mind as well.¡±


    Right then and there, Harloys and I analyzed the consequences of destroying her Rain City. The Queen of Storms would likely directly lose a power level as a True God. But now, there was a new problem. How were we supposed to destroy her Rain City?


    ¡°Diana... perhaps she¡¯d be able to do it if she had a thousand years more time to cultivate her power.¡±


    Although Anti-Holy Knight Diana and her newpanions were working really hard, there would still be a long way to go until they could directly challenge a True God. Previously, Diana had only managed to dispel a very small portion of the forbidden spell in Rain City. But soon the forbidden spell filled this area in yet again. The most difficult part about dealing with divine powered forbidden spells was that divine power allowed these forbidden spells to self-repair and keep up an eternal cycle.


    ¡°Actually, this is a conundrum with no solution. A divine powered forbidden spell is always cast by a God, so dispelling that God¡¯s forbidden spell requires fighting against their divine power, which is no different from fighting against that God in person. Killing off that God will naturally dispel the forbidden spell, but who would need to think of ways to deal with forbidden spells if it was that easy to kill a God?¡±


    Indeed. If we could directly kill off the Queen of Storms, why would we have to bother with Rain City?


    Even a divine powered forbidden spell followed the most fundamentalw of forbidden spells. Killing off the caster would naturally dispel the forbidden spell. That was why back when the Water Elemental Goddess and Queen of Storms finished casting this forbidden spell, Aylos had directly returned to the Water Elemental ne while the Queen of Storms canceled her incarnation and returned to her Divine Kingdom.


    ¡°...Wait a moment¡ªthis was a dual-cast forbidden spell, with two Goddesses casting it together!¡±


    ¡°Aylos!¡±


    Alright, we were now at even more of a conundrum. From a certain standpoint, Aylos was now our ally. And I even wanted her to help retrieve the God Equipment of Fire from the Water Elemental ne. And if we changed our ns to try and kill this immemorial Water Elemental Goddess in her home Water Elemental ne, that probably would be just as difficult as killing the Queen of Storms.


    ¡°...Perhaps we can convince Aylos tomit suicide.¡±


    Harloys hesitatingly gave an idea, but I felt that this idea of hers was ridiculous.


    ¡°Stop joking around.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not joking! You could definitely tell Aylos that as long as she¡¯s willing tomit suicide, we¡¯ll use the Queen of Storms¡¯ divine power to help revive her husband. Tell her the full story about what¡¯s necessary to revive Sidunwar and let her decide for herself. We won¡¯t be lying to her as this will indeed be her only chance. If she misses this chance, we won¡¯t have any free time to help revive Sidunwar.¡±


    ¡°She won¡¯t possibly ept the idea ofmitting suicide!¡±


    ¡°She will! I recognize that expression she has! She¡¯s the type who¡¯s constantly reminiscing about how wonderful things were sin the past! She¡¯s the type who constantly curses her own foolishness and weakness for allowing the beautiful past to go up in smoke! She¡¯s the same as me! For a person who lives in the past and feels such guilt, as long as there¡¯s a chance to restore the past¡ªno¡ªeven if there¡¯s just a chance to make up for past mistakes, that person won¡¯t care about giving up their very life! She will choose tomit suicide; I would make the same choice if I was her!¡±


    Harloys was shouting frenziedly at the top of her lungs. This was the first time I had ever seen her lose such control of her emotions. I mysteriously felt a sense of pity as I saw her young-seeming Gold Elf form have such reddened eyes.


    ¡°...I don¡¯t dislike people who always reminisce about the past, but if one only obsesses about the past, how will there possibly be a future?¡±


    ¡°Hah! Don¡¯t make yourself sound so high and mighty. Aren¡¯t you the same? Have you left your past behind you? What do you think your nightmares are? Also, the Infallible Diffindor. You dare call yourself someone who isn¡¯t obsessed about the past?¡±


    I could onlyugh. Since I had a soul connection to her, it was impossible for me to counter what she said. The person that Harloys referred to who lived in the past and felt such guilt could refer to Aylos, herself, and of course it also applied to me.


    If I had the chance to regain everything I had in the past, perhaps I would be even crazier than Aylos or Harloys. No, I had already been crazy in the past. Or perhaps I was crazy even now.


    ¡°Yep, we¡¯re the same. But even if I¡¯m in Hell, I shall do my best to look up at the heavens... No, only looking up at the heavens isn¡¯t my personality. I shall definitely think of a way to steal or scam the heavens for myself. I, Rnd Mist, am someone who prefers happy endings. Harloys, as my soulbound equipment, don¡¯t you dare treat yourself as the main female lead of a tragedy. Let us...¡±


    Our hearts instantly connected and the Gold Elf girl broke out into a smile despite her tears. Her golden hair glistened brilliantly under the sunlight. The most beautiful of elves and the densest of all men made the same oath together.


    ¡°...Let us scam and obtain the heavens together.¡±

 Chapter 419 - Return

    <h4>Chapter 419: Return</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°Work hard! Work really hard! Work especially hard! Surpass Kasn in three years, surpass Bardi in five years, and be first in Eich in ten years!¡±


    ¡°Utilize the full extent of your motivation! Your courage equals productivity! One day is equal to twenty years!¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll see at the kiln just who¡¯s the best! If you produce a ton of metals, we¡¯ll produce two tons!¡±


    ¡°Ants can chew on bones, and cows can be cooked in teapots! Watch me create a mecha out of thin air!¡±


    I felt like I was dreaming as I walked down the streets of Dawnlight Town and saw all these bright red banners. For some reason, my hands were trembling. I felt as if I had identally shot myself in the foot again¡ªin a major way.


    And so I asked what these banners were about...


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you personally direct us to write these? Saying that we elite warriors of Dawnlight Town needed to work super hard, using only two or three years¡¯ time to reach the umted status of the other corrupt countries that have had centuries of time. That we needed to prepare for war, to prepare to win, to prepare to fight against the entire world! You personally wrote the words for these banners.¡±


    ¡°I... was I so foolish? I couldn¡¯t possibly be so foolish!¡±


    ¡°But didn¡¯t you personally state one week ago that these were our strategic goals? You even requested us to make these words into banners so that we could constantly remind ourselves to work hard.¡±


    One week ago? What was I doing one week ago?


    Confused, I had a dazed expression as I did my best to remember.


    ¡°One week ago, I think Little Red and Molly arrived. They snuck into Dragon World by hiding on one of the supply ships. I then had a party to wee Little Red. She wasining recently that nobody would apany her to drink, and so we had a bit of a drinking party... What else did I do after that...?¡±


    Alright, I could only recall my hangover headache the next day, and it sure made me want to cut off my own head. It was definitely the fault of the wine that Little Red had brought with her. It tasted really sweet but had an incredibly strong kick to it. I soon became hazy, which might have caused me to act crazily due to alcohol...


    ¡°...Your dancing that day was beautiful: especially when you performed Swan Lake together with Eaglestorm and the Dragon of Ultimate Evil.¡±


    Who was the ¡°Dragon of Ultimate Evil?¡± That was a certain Dracon¡¯s nickname on the Cmity Rankings. Of course, the name meant exactly what its definition was¡ªthat he was the ¡°evilest dragon alive.¡± Being able to obtain such a mighty nickname as only a mere Dracon far exceeded the nicknames of any Great or Supreme Immemorial Dragon. As expected of the super main character of his legendary story. Plus, since Eaglestorm habitually went around naked, the three of us actually danced Swan Lake together? That was such a ¡°beautiful¡± scene that I didn¡¯t even dare imagine it!


    The silly cat yawned as she said those words, petrifying me. I could only stare at her in astonishment, hoping to my utmost that she was only joking.


    ¡°I¡¯m not joking with you. That night, you decided to change the party into a torchlight party and even decided to personally go on stage to everyone¡¯s cheers. Even I was startled by you. Right, you also had a nice dance together with Little Red. Despite the fact that you can¡¯t sing on key to save your life, you¡¯re surprisingly talented at dancing, especially that part about the ugly duckling transforming into a swan. Even with my standards as a Gold Elf I rate it as top-notch quality content. Right, I recall that the original Swan Lake didn¡¯t have such a section. Did you modify the story yourself?¡±


    *Smack! Smack! Smack!*


    I was doing my best to smash my head against the wall in an effort to get that scary scene out of my mind. But unfortunately, the more I smashed my head, the clearer my memories became.


    Eaglestorm transformed into a pudgy bird and acted as the swan¡¯s mother. The Dragon of Ultimate Evil opened up his wings and performed as a ck swan. I acted as the ugly duckling which would transform into a white swan. After we started dancing, even Little Red joined us as she tried to act the part of an eagle attempting to catch the ugly duckling, and then we really did start dance-fighting on stage... Now, I could only pray that there weren¡¯t many spectators, and that please, please, nobody remembered to record this scene in a memory crystal. Otherwise, there would now be a new page in my dark history.


    ¡°Give me a sword! I want tomit seppuku!¡±


    ¡°Will a fruit knife do?¡±


    *ng!*


    Alright, I felt even more helpless as I looked at the broken fruit knife that had only its hilt remaining.


    ¡°Your skin is too thick. It would seem that only a magically enchanted knife will be able to harm you. Don¡¯t look at me like that. Do you think that I carry around fruit knives enchanted to the +15 level? How bored would someone have to be to enchant a fruit knife to +15?¡±


    ¡°...Alright, what else did I do?¡±


    The silly cat pointed at the banners before me.


    ¡°Nothing much. You decided in your fun to summon all your military and civilian leaders for a major meeting and gave a speech about ¡®Comrades, our main problem right now is ourck of industrial productivity and how our needs are increasing by the day, so our goal is to...¡±


    I looked at my ¡°Rnd¡¯s n on the current important tasks for Dawnlight Town, 115th revised edition¡± which giarized so many reports I¡¯d read before and saw all the philosophies and wild dreams on how to increase our military strength and productivity. I felt too shamed to face my seniors who wrote such things, and only wanted to go quietly hide myself in a corner.


    ¡°Don¡¯t speak anymore! I want quiet... Don¡¯t ask me who ¡®Quiet¡¯ is. Oh, that¡¯s a nice joke. Maybe I should create an artificial person named Quiet and go look for her every time that I do something foolish.¡±


    ¡°...Then you¡¯ll probably be looking for Quiet every single day. Actually, these phrases on the banners are pretty nice. At least, it¡¯s a far more serious topic than the Swan Lake performance that you put on. Haven¡¯t you seen that your young subordinates are all incredibly motivated? Your banner phrases seem to be effective.¡±


    ¡°This actually worked!?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Your phrases are all really encouraging and motivating, so why wouldn¡¯t they work?¡±


    ¡°...Fine, I was the foolish one. This is a cultural difference¡ªno¡ªa world difference.¡± [1]


    From a certain standpoint, at least in the world of Eich, it wasn¡¯t wrong to use such motivational phrases. I apparently wasn¡¯t out of my mind enough to usepletely nonsensical phrases. And with the high magical properties of the earth here, Amelia¡¯s magical seeds had grown up into crops at an astonishing speed. With the druids¡¯ careful cultivation, apples grew asrge as watermelons, while watermelons grew to the size of ponies. It was indeed possible for one acre to produce more than five thousand kilograms of food.


    And when I learned that thisnd was home to a great abundance of all sorts of magic metals, I instantly had seventeenrge-scale kilns constructed here to help the metallurgy process of creating all sorts of magical metal alloys. The engineers and smiths would then create engineering products, weapons and equipment. It was indeed possible to produce more than one ton of refined metals in a day.


    However, while I had countless engineers on hand, I had very few smiths, and their average abilities were exceedingly average. The weapons they crafted out of these top-level magical metalscked in quality. In the end, I could only tell my smiths to give up on crafting top-quality weapons in order to avoid wasting these top-quality resources.


    Actually, I had extorted both And and Bardi, and there was the inheritance from the former Mist Kingdom, so I had many elite or ace type troops¡¯ equipment design ns and training methods avable to me. If I could truly produce their equipment, I could directly start establishingbat squadrons of these troop types. Without a doubt, this would be the fastest way to improve my warriors¡¯ overallbat strength.


    For this purpose, I went to ask my smiths about ¡°Where are the most skilled smiths? Especially those the most skilled at creating magical weapons and equipment?¡± Unfortunately, their answer made me feel rather helpless.


    ¡°All Titan Bloodline descendants have excellent talent for smithing. Smithing grandmasters are incrediblymon in giants, particrly the Fire Giants or Magma Giants. Both these species are extremely gifted at smithing. They¡¯re the best in the entire world. Right, dwarves are also expert smiths. Previously, more than seventy percent of the weapons and equipment being used in the Underground were crafted by the Gray Dwarves. However, no Gray Dwarf smithing grandmasters came with us this time.¡±


    I felt helpless because this was allmon knowledge. Of course I would know it already. And actually if you looked deep at the dwarves¡¯ ancestry, they were also rted to the Titan Bloodline. Since I wanted to avoid problems as their Titan Bloodline would summon them to the Titans¡¯ side, I didn¡¯t bring a single Gray Dwarf smith with me to Dragon World. My smithing industry, which was weak to begin with, was reduced to the point of not even having a single grandmaster on hand.


    As for the elven smiths? Forget it. I¡¯d already insulted the elven smiths plenty of times before. Let¡¯s not insult them anymore. Ever since an elf smith ¡°grandmaster¡± forged my top-level tear sapphire into a sword essory for me, I stopped having any hopes for the elven smiths. That tear sapphire could have been crafted into a thunder staff, a high-quality, powerful mage staff that could sell for several tens of thousands of gold coins.


    What? You want to know the effects of the tear sapphire as a sword essory? It would improve the sword by a miniscule¡ªto the point of ignorable¡ªamount of thunder damage. Meanwhile, the sword would have the extravagantly beautiful effect of sparkling with thunder while you waved it. That was the important part for the elf smith! In the end, I sold it off as a piece of artwork for a good price. There were plenty of idiots out there among the human nobles and royalty that would pay a good price for something so useless. However, people like us who were self-sufficient and barely had enough of such top-quality resources to begin with would find it best to stay as far away from elven smiths as possible.


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI seem to have identally insulted elven smiths again... Getting back on topic, as I was quite worried aboutcking smiths, a certain someoneughed out loud.


    ¡°Are you an idiot? You can¡¯t find an excellent smith? Can¡¯t you find one that¡¯s right in front of you?¡±


    I was instantly delighted to hear Little Red say this.


    ¡°You actually know how to smith? Wonderful! I see, Fire Giants and Magma Giants are both fire element giants, and the fire element is naturally suited for smithing. And Red Dragons are also of the fire element, so it¡¯s only natural that you know how to smith!¡±


    ¡°Haha! Ridiculous! Red Dragons know how to smith? Who would we smith for? There¡¯s not a single dragon that fights with weapons, so of course none of us know how to smith.¡±


    Alright then, I paused in surprise for a moment as I carefully thought it over. Obviously, I was indeed a fool for thinking so.


    ¡°Then what did you mean...?¡±


    Seeing that I still didn¡¯t understand, Little Red pointed outside and then made a grabbing gesture with her w.


    ¡°Oh, I understand now. As expected of Red Dragon logic. This is indeed a good idea.¡±


    What did Red Dragon logic mean? Red Dragon logic¡ªI should call it Little Red logic¡ªwas: ¡°What¡¯s yours is mine, what¡¯s mine is also mine and anything I want is mine.¡±


    Although it was unreasonable, when had a dragon, especially a Color Dragon, ever been reasonable with mortals?


    Since Titan Bloodline descendants were highly skilled at smithing, and most of the natives here were the Titans¡¯ descendants, I only needed to find a dwarf or giant tribe and kidnap their most famous smiths.


    However, I was still slightly better than Little Red. At least I could be reasoned with.


    ¡°There¡¯s no need to resort to kidnapping. We¡¯re merchants that do everything by thew; we¡¯re cultured people... Hey, you there, help me ask the natives how many smithing grandmasters we can exchange for with a sack of magical wheat seeds. Yep, I¡¯m talking about the wheat that¡¯s capable of growing into stalks that are like giant bludgeons. Why are you looking at me like that? You think I¡¯m taking advantage of the natives? This is called thew of supply and demand and the needs of the market! We can obtain things legally far quicker than through robbery!¡±


    ******


    Didn¡¯t Little Red say before that she wasn¡¯t going toe to Dragon World? Things were different now. Previously, she didn¡¯te because the Dragon World leaders made their attitude clear that she wouldn¡¯t be wee in Dragon City. But now she came over because another Dragon World leader privately invited her. That dragon was the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon, Sam.


    Although the Blue Dragon leader Haros [2] was sent out to negotiate with Little Red, which represented a certain degree of tacit eptance, there was another level to things. Those that made the final decision in Dragon City would forever be the Metal Dragons that had a dominating advantage.


    Ignoring the neutral dragon species, in all the Dragon Cities the Metal Dragons that were formerly on the Order Side had the greatest advantage and thus ruled. The reason was simple: they were good at fighting.


    Yes, that was the only reason. The rule on who could rule in dragon society was just that simple. Those good at fighting would be the big boss. But if one looked into things deeper, why were the more aggressive Color Dragons unable to defeat the rtively more conservative Metal Dragons?


    ¡°The ck and Red Dragons have all been exiled. It would be ridiculous to dream of winning against the Metal Dragons after that.¡±


    Although there were many branch offshoots and SemiDragon species, the five main Color Dragon species were still the most numerous. Although each species had their own specialties, if one looked only at purebat strength, Red Dragons would be the strongest. Second would be the Blue Dragons, with minus points forck of intelligence. ck Dragons would be third, with plus points for good intelligence. Despite this, ck Dragons couldn¡¯tpare to Blue Dragons in directbat due to thetter species¡¯ simple and direct way of violent fighting. Green Dragons were fourth, only stronger than White Dragons. White Dragons had super minus points for their extremeck of intelligence and could be ranked absolutest, behind even the branch species.


    Since the number one and number threebat strength Color Dragon species were no longer aboveground, it would be inconceivable for the three remaining Color Dragon species to still win against the full five Metal Dragon species.


    But if the first and third-ranked Color Dragon species returned...


    Obviously, the current leading species, the Gold Dragons and Silver Dragons, wouldn¡¯t want to see this. And their will would naturally be the will of Dragon City. When it came to major decisions that represented the entire species, the Blue Dragon leader Haros could only carry out Dragon City¡¯s official will.


    Of course, dragon study experts also ranked the dragon species¡¯bat strength all together with each other, purely judging the averagebat strength of the individuals in a dragon species over their age group. The first tier, the most powerful dragons, were ranked as Gold Dragons, Red Dragons, Blue Dragons, and Silver Dragons. The second tier dragons were ranked as Red Copper Dragons, Bronze Dragons, and ck Dragons. The third tier, the weakest dragon species, were once again the Green Dragons and White Dragons who always rankingst. Although Copper Dragons were also categorized in the weakest third tier, that was mostly because they had unique personalities among the dragons and greatly disliked fighting. It would still be very easy for a Copper Dragon to defeat a Green or White Dragon of the same age.


    With this, the situation would be quite easy to understand. It would be impossible for the Color Dragons to gain a strong enough position to obtain leadership unless the Red and ck Dragons returned. This was something that the Gold and Silver Dragons definitely wouldn¡¯t wish to see. That was why Sam had privately invited Little Red. And how could Little Red, of the species famously known for pride and arrogance, possibly pass up on such an excellent opportunity?


    Currently, the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam had brought his wife over and they were both living in my Frigidwinter Earth. Publicly, they imed that they were there to observe the White Dragon inheritance research and hoped that their soon-to-be-born child could avoid the fate of being born with a wild beast¡¯s level of intelligence. But actually, Little Red, Molly, and the White Dragons would discuss all sorts of ridiculous things every day. asionally, the Green and Blue Dragons would visit them as well. It would seem that the Color Dragons would soon be making things very difficult for the Metal Dragons.


    ¡°The fires of Armageddon are almost upon us, yet they¡¯re still squabbling over authority. Honestly...¡±


    Harloys felt rather helpless about the situation. However, I didn¡¯t mind it so much.


    ¡°Hah! This actually means that all intelligent creatures are the same. Aren¡¯t human nobles and royalty the same too? Bardi just finished with their princes¡¯ internal conflicts, while And¡¯s new emperor killed his father to obtain the position. Perhaps it¡¯s exactly because there¡¯s not much time left that it¡¯s all the more important to obtain authority.¡±


    I didn¡¯t want to have anything to do with Dragon City¡¯s internal affairs. However, if our side had the advantage, I might be able to obtain two of Dragon World¡¯s Foundational Elemental Items. Even if I couldn¡¯t obtain two items, it would also increase my influence over the dragons, and I would perhaps be able to pick and choose which element Foundational Elemental Item I would receive¡ªI could pick an element I wascking. So naturally I was more than happy to sit on the sidelines and watch the Color Dragons scheme.


    But what made me the most delighted was that Little Red, who was originally one of my helpers, sessfully entered Dragon World. Mybat strength here had improved even further. And if she was discovered here, I wouldn¡¯t even take the me¡ªthat would go to the Color Dragons of Dragon City.


    Of course, her arrival also helped me have a practice opponent I could use my newly-regained ice abilities against. These ice abilities were an inherited gift from my previous life as Rnd ckhand.


    ¡°Rnd... do you dare face me directly from the front!¡±


    ¡°Of course... not! Face a Red Dragon in battle directly from the front? You think I¡¯m an idiot? Ice Hallucination; this is such a shameless ability... I love it!¡±


    Notes:


    [1] TL/N: The Chinese government likes to post motivational phrases everywhere, and I mean literally EVERYWHERE. For instance, one can often read motivational phrases even on bathroom walls. As one can imagine, this tends to have the opposite effect from intended.


    [2] TL/N: Yes, I know his name really is simr to the Gold Dragon leader Halos. It¡¯s off by just one letter if you go by pronunciation...

 Chapter 420 - Ice Hallucination

    <h4>Chapter 420: Ice Hallucination</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Anyone who knew Rnd ckhand well enough woulde to such a conclusion. Even I became certain that he was a bastard as I regained more of his memories in my dreams.


    ¡°...If he wasn¡¯t a bastard, he was definitely a scumbag.¡±


    Stealing, scamming, robbery, assassination, extortion, kidnapping, rape... Fine, thest one¡¯s just a joke¡ªrape wouldn¡¯t bring him any personal benefits. Physical pleasure was meaningless to someone hellbent on revenge. But the other evil actions could give him personal benefits as well as Fate Points which he could strengthen himself with, so of course he wouldn¡¯t hesitate to do anything.


    In order to obtain the strength necessary for revenge, he hid his real name while studying at the Cloud Tower and unhesitatingly betrayed Amelia, who had treated him so well (although Amelia kind of deserved it, if you looked at what she was really like in secret). In fact, he had even felt that the proper path of obtaining power was too slow, so he secretly became Harloys¡¯ disciple and researched taboo undead magic and life modification techniques. It could be said that he had zero moral limits whatsoever when it came to obtaining power.


    He had zero limits on all those earlier mentioned evil actions all in order to find his enemies. He also epted his own disciples only because they could bring him benefits. From a certain standpoint, he received what he deserved when his disciples ended up betraying him like that.


    Even I didn¡¯t expect that the former Child of Light would be fallen to such a degree, twisted so much by hatred and a desire for revenge. The more memories I saw of my past self, the more I felt like I was different from him and his utter disregard for all moral limits of any type.


    Hatred was capable of making anyone go insane. It would turn even a saint into the most vicious of viins. Now that I thought back on the past, perhaps Rnd ckhand¡¯s personality had been utterly twisted after he¡¯d returned from death, carrying such a deep grudge.


    Perhaps I should even thank the terrible end he had finally met, which left his memories and soul iplete. I should also thank the fact that he had sessfully achieved his revenge (or so he thought at the time¡ªhe was unaware of the existence behind the scenes that I just found out from Sam) which helped somewhat reduce his hatred. Otherwise, my next life as Rolo wouldn¡¯t havee about.


    Holy Knight Rolo was actually the life I led where my personality was closest to my original self. If I still had my twisted personality as Rnd ckhand when I met Adam and Little Red, something frightening would likely have happened.


    But from a certain standpoint, perhaps my dark personality had more charisma. At the very least, I had met and befriended Amelia, Harloys, Evelyn and Cher in that life. In fact, that life appeared to be my only one where I could be considered a winner in life with women. Were the legends really true? Did women only love bad boys, after all?


    ¡°The past Rnd is different from how I am today. We need to look forward to the future.¡± Perhaps I was fooling myself here, but that was the only way I could look at things.


    However, all my lives would have parts inmon. Baron Rnd ckhand was still Rnd, an incredibly sly transmigrator. Ice Hallucination, the culmination of Rnd ckhand¡¯s lifetime of effort, wouldn¡¯t possibly be something simple.


    A crystal-clear droplet emerged on the ground and transformed into an ice crystal seed. This seed pierced through the snow on the ground and sprouted, gradually and slowly. Its tiny roots were ice crystals and its leaves were decorated with dew droplets. Meanwhile, the clouds in the sky started sprinkling a light shower. With the rainwater¡¯s nourishment, this ice flower started blooming, but unlike a normal flower its ice crystal petals let off a cold, frosty mist.


    ¡°You actually hid this ace up your sleeve back in the day? It¡¯s amazing how you were capable of manipting simple ice magic to such an extent.¡± The silly cat¡¯s assessment made me feel rather proud. Only an expert would be able to best understand this performance.


    Although on the surface it appeared to be a simple magical performance using snow and ice, it actually showed off every single form of water: snow, frost, ice, cloud, rain, dew, mist and steam. To aplish this one would require outstanding control and a deep understanding of water¡¯s various forms.


    With how magic worked in Eich, wind, fire, water and earth¡ªthe four major elements¡ª constituted the foundation of all magic. Ice magic was categorized as a branch of water magic, which meant that most ice magic experts would need to first study water magic for a lengthy period of time before starting to study that of ice. Before an ice mage could summon ice, they would first need to learn how to summon and control water.


    It would be crucial for water mages to understand every single form of water. Controlling water while conforming to its natural properties would make things much easier for any water mage. Certain special magic spells also required a deep understanding of the forms of water, such as the spell ¡°Summon Mist¡± which was capable of creating arge patch of fog. Water magic based hallucination spells were the same.


    Rnd ckhand became an ice mage just like most others, by first studying water magic. However, he was a transmigrator from Earth who understood the scientific properties of water far better than an ordinary mage. Incorporating his knowledge of physics into his magic, he diverged from other mages, who simply treated temperature as the main factor influencing water¡¯s forms. They would adjust their magic output to create the desired form of water, but Rnd understood that water¡¯s forms were the result of numerous factors in the environment, such as air pressure and gravity. He even performed countless experiments to confirm the conditions necessary to achieve each form of water, like the different amounts of magic energy output or an environment with high air pressure.


    Of course, only having a better understanding of how to change water¡¯s forms would slightly improve his water magic power¡ªit wouldn¡¯t be very meaningful. Yet Rnd ckhand hired an alchemist to create a special magic ring for him. This ring had many special settings for the magic output required for each form of water recorded into it. This meant that as long as he injected mana into this ring, he could instantly choose whichever form of water he desired to use. For instance, even though he was clearly using ice magic mana, he could still create water colder than zero degrees Celsius. He was far faster at casting water-based spells¡ªand more efficient¡ªthan any ordinary mage. In fact, he could freely change his magic to create any form of water at a speed more than ten times faster than other mages at his power level.


    He had eight such water-controlling rings created for himself. He wore another two magic rings, a total of one ring on each finger. In order to conceal his specialty as well as the weakness that he relied on ring essories, he wore ck magical gloves all the time. He also called himself Rnd ckhand to hide the real reason why his hands were always seen in ck gloves. That was the origin of his self-created name.


    Archmages typically proved their power with very high-level magic spells. Being able to manipte all forms of water at a much faster rate didn¡¯t mean that he was capable of using the highest-level spells which could help him win. Normally, this should have only been a tiny advantage. However, Rnd ckhand had sessfully created his own unique fighting style using this specialty of his.


    My current practice duel against Little Red was a perfect example of the ¡°ckhand style.¡±


    The rampaging Red Dragon before me disyed her excellentbat techniques and prowess. Yet she remained forever unable to catch her sly opponent. Her powerful punches would be led astray by the water and ice twirling around her. She would slip or trip over ice that suddenly appeared around her feet. And whenever she caught a glimpse of my shadow, her dragonbreath only managed to attack a reflection in an ice mirror. The Rnd that she managed to capture with her attacks turned out to be nothing more than a statue of ice and snow.


    ¡°Come out here, you bastard!¡±


    The more Little Red fought against me, the more frustrated and impatient she became. However, she remained unable to catch me.


    Meanwhile, the mist around her was imperceptibly bing thicker. However, this icy mist, which could freeze an ordinary human to death, was only capable of making Little Red¡¯s human form unable to clearly see around her.


    Finally, a sharp de of ice silently stabbed out of the mist without warning.


    ¡°Rnd, do you think I¡¯m an idiot!?¡±


    Little Red turned around and punched the de of ice but whiffed, as the ice de directly dispersed into snow. The ice de had only been a feint.


    Five spears of ice suddenly stabbed out of the ground, directly aiming for Little Red¡¯s thighs...


    *ng!*


    Unfortunately, this too didn¡¯t seed in breaking past her defenses. But when the furious Red Dragon turned around, she felt something against her neck: a sharp line of ice capable of easily beheading any human.


    *Shing!*


    This line of ice which was sharp enough to cut through even the frozen earth still didn¡¯t manage to damage her in the least. I once again failed to break through her defenses...


    However, a sudden torrential downpour descended from the sky. A cloud appeared approximately three meters above Little Red¡¯s head¡ªthe rain fell only on Little Red herself. Before she could escape from being drenched in water, something Red Dragons hated more than anything¡ªa ball of cold water¡ªsuddenly appeared around her head, not letting her breath.


    ¡°Graahhhh!!!!!¡±


    Meeting with breathing difficulties, Little Red was furious. Ever since the beginning of this duel, she hadn¡¯t even managed to touch me even once. The ball of water on her head infuriated her so much that shepletely forgot about her promises to ¡°not use dragon form¡± and ¡°not fight at a power level above Legend¡±. She directly transformed into a dragon and then...


    Ein Mezus took a deep breath and soared into the sky.


    After the Immemorial Red Dragon used her dragonbreath topletely annihte the entire patch ofnd the duel had taken ce on, she started worrying if she had gone overboard. However, she then saw that Rnd was actually drinking tea on a nearby mountain together with the ck cat and the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon in his young elf form. And so...


    Ein Mezus took a deep breath...


    Ein Mezus took another deep breath...


    Alright then. By the time the furious Red Dragon transformed back into her human form, this entire area of Frigidwinter Earth waspletely wreathed in mes. She arrived just in time to hear Harloys¡¯ assessment of Rnd ckhand¡¯s Ice Hallucination technique.


    ¡°Such a dirty style of fighting. It doesn¡¯t have even the slightest speck of a mage¡¯s elegance or pride. It¡¯s a purely practical technique for killing one¡¯s enemies, just like what gutter rats (the thief job ss) would use...¡±


    Indeed, Harloys was absolutely correct. Ice Hallucination was actually quite weak in attack power by itself. Although Rnd ckhand reached Legend power level in the end, he didn¡¯t know a single forbidden spell, and he actually barely knew anyrge AOE magic spells. His magic fully focused on confusing his opponents and obstructing their attacks with tiny tricks. What killed his enemy in the end would be the ¡°ckhand style¡± of stabbing them from behind.


    ¡°...Although it¡¯s a dirty way of fighting that I don¡¯t even want to look at, I must admit it¡¯s quite strong, quite fatal and quite difficult to defend against, especially for mortals. Your style of attacking has given me much inspiration. Excellent.¡±


    White Dragons were all ice elemental dragons. Since Sam was a Supreme Immemorial White Dragon, he was doubtlessly a world-ss ice mage as well. I silently nodded at his assessment.


    Yes, Ice Hallucination was a technique born purely for the sake of killing others¡ªespecially fragile humans. I had countless methods to confuse my opponents. The ice des that would suddenly appear to attack them were only feints. All the forms of water I controlled¡ªsuch as steam, mist, and rain¡ªactually existed at subzero temperatures through my unparalleled control over water. This was the true killer, as my enemies wouldn¡¯t be as on guard against them. They would freeze them to death without them even realizing it.


    ¡°Rather than saying that Rnd ckhand was a mage, it should be said that he was a magic-wielding assassin.¡±


    There were plenty of powerful individuals far stronger than Rnd ckhand that ended up dying to him. Even a Myth-ranked archmage had died to a sharp line of ice hidden in the mist after identally slipping. ¡°Baron ckhand¡± was no mere nickname.


    The fact that even Little Red in her human form lost to me made me rather proud of myself. I knew that even in her human form, she could easily defeat a human Saint-ranked warrior. However, no matter how great her Strength stat was, it would all be meaningless if she couldn¡¯t touch me. This fighting style was the perfect counter to warriors who relied on brute force¡ªas long as I was able to break past their defenses, of course.


    The moment Little Rednded on the ground, I smiled and handed her two bottles of excellent centuries-old wine. This instantly quelled her anger as she happily went off to drink her alcohol.


    ¡°How was it? Can you give me any pointers?¡±


    I requested Little Red to have a practice duel against me and even asked Sam and Harloys to watch. Naturally, this wouldn¡¯t only be for fun. I was hoping for these two magical experts to give me some pointers. Although I had recovered just about all of Rnd ckhand¡¯s abilities, I didn¡¯t find a method yet to make a breakthrough so that my ice magic abilities could reach the Legend rank.


    Out of the two before me, one was a magical genius with the wonderful nickname of ¡°All-Knowing¡± while the other was an ice element Supreme Immemorial White Dragon. If even they couldn¡¯t help me with this, I would likely have to return to the snow mountain to try and find a path for myself.


    However, I could only give up helplessly when I saw the two experts before me silently shaking their heads.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that I don¡¯t have any ideas for you...¡±


    My eyes lit up momentarily when I heard Harloys speak up, but then I could already guess what she was going to say next: something I probably didn¡¯t want to hear.


    ¡°...It¡¯s that everyone needs to find their own path. I¡¯m worried that if I tell you, it¡¯ll actually be a negative influence for you.¡±


    Sam finished what Harloys was about to say. I had predicted what he was going to say, and understood why he¡¯d said so as well.


    Every powerful individual achieved their power levels step by step. Nobody obtained their power through luck and coincidence. Of course I knew that ¡°Everyone has their own path to take. Someone else¡¯s path will be a narrower one with limited potential.¡± But the problem was that I still couldn¡¯te up with a path on my own no matter how much I thought about things. Why else would I ask for help?


    The deadline I had set for myself to improve my power level was approaching. I had very little time left. If this part of my n slowed me down, it might cause problems for my other ns. I would naturally be anxious about this.


    [Perhaps I have a method that can help you.]


    But at this moment my System, which had been abnormally silent recently, suddenly made her presence known.

 Chapter 421 - Falling Water

    <h4>Chapter 421: Falling Water</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Known as the Blue Star, the Water Elemental ne was a chaotic abyss of countlessyers of water. Unlike the other Elemental nes, which had fixed coordinates, the Blue Star had many hidden teleportation points and dimensional portals. Nobody knew if going through a particryer of water would lead to another unknown dimension.


    Although it was called the Blue Star, only the water close to the surface was a clear blue. Its loweryers would be gray or even pitch-ck, impossible for anyone to see through. In fact, nobody knew how many powerful residents and treasures there were in the Blue Star. The abnormally strong currents and natural environment there would directly kill off visitors who were too weak.


    Laiwengedadan, a tongue twister of a name, what the light blue surface wateryer was called. In the elementals¡¯nguage, this word meant ¡°transfer station.¡±


    There were even some ships here, obviously not from the Water Elemental ne, floating on top of the water. The ¡°transfer station¡± area was one of the very fewyers of water in the Blue Star that contained air.


    This area was still entirely water¡ªthere wasn¡¯t a single ce in the Blue Star that didn¡¯t have water. The entire ne was created out of water, after all. However, some of its wateryerscked oxygen, which whales and other normal aquatic animals would need in order to breathe. Some wateryers were magically enchanted and were colder than negative thirty degrees Celsius. Inparison to those wateryers, this surface ¡°transfer station¡±yer was a friendly one where ordinary lives could survive.


    Although the numerous wateryers were just water, they had different amounts of salt, water pressure, temperature, gravity, Elemental Tide density and so on. Every single wateryer¡¯s residents would be utterly different. The surface wateryer was basically the equivalent of a very pleasant vacation ind.


    The ¡°transfer station¡± wateryer had a rather gentle temperature along with a good climate and breathable air above the water. There were even waterless districts that had been artificially created by explorers and merchants from other nes. Their bases in these waterless districts would be rather lively. But today there wasn¡¯t a single person in the streets.


    This was because the Water Elemental Goddess was about to receive a venerated guest. She didn¡¯t want a single person to see them meeting, which was why she first had her water elemental armies clear out this area.


    From a certain standpoint, Aylos had it the best out of the Elemental Gods. Right after escaping from her seal, she had taken overplete control of the Water Elemental ne and had caused much havoc in Eich. She had been able to easily regain her power here because the water elementals weren¡¯t as ambitious as other elementals, but even more because she had always enjoyed an excellent reputation here.


    But right now she had a terrible expression. Her pale face¡¯s expression was unclear, but her trembling fingers betrayed her emotional state.


    ¡°Is Ayermanding me to do this?¡±


    Aylos looked off into the distance after putting down the letter.


    When in her own world, Aylos¡¯ physical body appeared just like pure, white jade. Her appearance was so beautiful it exceeded mortals¡¯prehension, but right now her tremendous divine power was making the air around her tremble. Although her expression hadn¡¯t changed, powerful tempests had arrived outside the waterless district. Her shaken, panicky emotions were evident in how she used her divine powers.


    However, the messenger before her seemed oblivious to her reaction. His appearance seemed to be that of a handsome young elf bard who was a bit down on his luck. Yet no ordinary person would be able to remain so calm in front of the Water Elemental Goddess.


    He was the very incarnation of the Concepts of Music and Dance as well as the Guardian God of Bards and Wood Elves, but now this powerful True God¡¯s incarnation was simply a messenger waiting for a response.


    ¡°You want me tomit suicide and die!?¡±


    As the Water Elemental Goddess roared in anger, rampaging whirlpools started to form. The currents transformed into water dragons that mmed themselves into the walls keeping out the water in the waterless district, causing panic as the magic runes began to shatter.


    A healthy Elemental God in their home ne wouldn¡¯t be afraid of any God. The furious Aylos was disying her powers.


    However, Solo shook his head.


    ¡°The letter should have exined it quite clearly to you. We don¡¯t have any hostile intentions towards you. We¡¯re simply giving you a rmendation.¡±


    ¡°A rmendation for me to kill myself?¡±


    Although she was still furious, Aylos had managed to somewhat calm herself down.


    ¡°Yes, but as long as you die, Rain City will lose half of its power. The mortals will then take this opportunity to attack the Sea Tribe, which will cause ¡®her¡¯ to lose a huge amount of her belief. We will then act as stated in the contract and use the full extent of our powers to kill ¡®her¡¯ and then use her divine power over the sea to revive your husband. If you miss this, there won¡¯t be any more opportunities for us to revive him.¡±


    Everything Solo told her was written quite clearly in the letter she¡¯d just read. The Gods themselves had sworn an oath guaranteeing the veracity of the letter¡¯s contents, so Aylos wasn¡¯t at all worried about the contents being fake. However, the fact that all this must be true shook her even more and caused her to panic. She knew that this was the only chance to revive her husband. She had to choose between sacrificing herself and sacrificing her husband¡¯s chance at revival.


    ¡°There are no other possibilities? I¡¯m willing to pay anything in order to exchange for Sidunwar¡¯s revival.¡±


    Solo didn¡¯t answer her. His silence was evidence that only the cruelest answer remained.


    Perhaps Rnd could indeed revive the Ocean God Sidunwar at ater date when it wouldn¡¯t be so difficult. But right now his ¡°grand scheme¡± was at its most critical junction. Not a single problem could be allowed to ur with any part of his scheme. The Ayer Faction couldn¡¯t afford to wait around or gamble on any ¡°perhaps¡± at this time. Nor could Ayer afford to go to the trouble of forcefully killing off a powerful True God at this time.


    If the Water Elemental Goddess was willing to sacrifice herself, then the Ayer Faction would fully activate a n to kill the Queen of Storms. If Aylos was unwilling to sacrifice herself, well, it would be even harder to kill off a healthy Elemental God in their home Elemental ne than killing off the Queen of Storms. In that case, all the ns revolving around the Queen of Storms would have to be put off. And considering the current situation, if these ns were to be put off, it would be permanent. The Ocean God Sidunwar wouldn¡¯t have a chance at revival... No¡ªeven if Rnd had a chance at reviving Sidunwar, he wouldn¡¯t possibly choose to revive him after today¡¯s conversation.


    The entire situation and all the conditions had been handed over to Aylos. Either she would have to die, or her husband would lose his chance at revival. She had never expected that agreeing to the Queen of Storms conditions to ally with her and cast a forbidden spell that would give mortals nightmares would sink herself into the most difficult of life-and-death decisions.


    ¡°...I¡ªI need some time to think about it...¡±


    Aylos, who typically had a direct and impatient personality, hesitated. She deeply hesitated. Her tightly clenched hands crushed the letter to little pieces, fully revealing her emotions.


    However, Solo cruelly shook his head.


    ¡°Weck time more than anything right now. You must give your answer by the end of today.¡±


    Perhaps truth was forever the cruelest. Even Solo, who wasn¡¯t attracted to women, started sympathizing with Aylos.


    Aylos fell silent for quite a while. It was only after a long time that she finally managed to reply with a bitter smile.


    ¡°...I understand. Give me three hours.¡±


    Solo nodded and left after bidding farewell. The Water Elemental Goddess obviously had unstable emotions at the moment. If she wanted to vent and he lost an incarnation because of it, it would be a huge, underserving loss to him.


    But unlike what Solo envisioned, Aylos didn¡¯t vent or go on a rampage after he left the room. Instead, she told her subordinates to leave her alone and sat down quietly before taking out a dimensional storage bag. She then took out an old fishboneb and startedbing her hair while looking at herself in a mirror.


    However, since Aylos¡¯ hair was now made of water, theb naturally passed through without any effects. Aylos paused in surprise for a moment and then shook her head with a wry smile.


    There was a white sh as she transformed herself into a blue-haired beauty with a physical body rather than the famed Water Elemental Goddess. Her silky smooth hair reached the ground, her beautiful face was exquisite yet appeared soft and weak, and her fragile bodyy on the ground. Only some shells faintly covered her upper body, her species¡¯ traditional clothing. The pink scales and fish tail were the best evidence of her identity as a mermaid.


    In this form, she returned to silentlybing her own hair, just like how that strong man would always do so for her every morning in the past.


    At that time, she would always sit quietly on her tail and wait for the man behind her tob her hair.


    ¡°...How many years ago was it? You always told me that this form of mine looks far too soft and weak, so my subordinates will disrespect me. You always told me to use a powerful-appearing form like yours to suppress the others...¡±


    As theb went through her silky-smooth hair, she whipped her long blue hair in the air, which transformed into water that gave off a beautiful rainbow-like reflection.


    However, together with the water shower were also numerous hair strands and unstoppable tears.


    ¡°...You always said I was a crybaby, that I needed to learn how to be forceful, otherwise my subordinates would take advantage me...¡±


    No trace of the powerful Water Elemental Goddess could be seen here. There was only a weak and beautiful mermaid, crying because she lost her lover.


    Her tears continued to drop onto the ground, transforming into silver pearls which shattered with every drop. Meanwhile, the entire world of the Blue Star was sprinkled with a small rain shower.


    ¡°...Do you still remember how angry you were when I let my maid who stole my pearl tears go free without punishing her? You told me that this would only make others think that I was weak and easy to bully...¡±


    Her tears didn¡¯t stop. The rain falling down on the entire dimension became stronger. The very essence of water itself was falling down together with her tears, and the mermaid¡¯s body was bing translucent.


    ¡°...I¡¯ve always worshiped you. You were so strong and so resolute. Nobody was a match for you, as if you were the main character of the world. But what I liked most about you was that gentleness in your heart. You even asked me one time why I fell in love with you, and I got angry... Ha! Did you think I was angry because I thought you were doubting my love? I was angry because you had forgotten about the little mermaid that you saved from that magic whale so long ago...¡±


    Tears made Aylos¡¯ vision hazy as she brought out a red memory crystal from her dimensional storage bag. It projected an image of a powerful figure who was taller than the skies. With a confident smile he looked over the ocean, a crown atop his head. Everything under the sky was his domain; he was the undisputed ruler.


    ¡°...You told me that weakness would be taken advantage of, that I should use power and authority to make others truly subordinate themselves to me. But why is it that you were still betrayed by your most trusted subordinate when you fully carried out what you always taught me...?¡±


    Although her body was beginning to copse, Aylos reached out her almost crystal-clear arm to lightly touch the handsome and heroic appearing image. However, her arm passed through the projection without making contact. And as she looked at her half vanished arm and the projection of this image, she smiled, as she felt as if she could really see him again.


    Everything returned to the very essence of water as the mermaid¡¯s final words echoed in the now empty room...


    ¡°Big guy, your little mermaid really wants to see you again.¡±


    All that remained behind was a puddle of water...


    In a way, Solo had ratherplex feelings. It was finally time to actualize the goals that they were all looking forward to, so of course he was happy. However, it was quite a distressing task to have toe here and be such a messenger.


    Not long after he walked out of the meeting room he saw furious waves crashing into the anti-water walls of the waterless district, causing them to begin copsing.


    Solo was shocked. He sensed a powerful change in the Elemental Tide emanating from the room he just left.


    ¡°No way! Why is she being so hasty? Didn¡¯t she say to give her three hours?¡±


    He immediately ran back to the meeting room at top speed while reaching into his pockets. After bringing out his harmonica, some leaves, a flute, olive oil, and other such items, he finally found what he was looking for.


    It was a white ice crystal which contained a brand-new power never seen before in this world. It was created in an entirely different world.


    ¡°...If Aylos agrees, then give this to her. Perhaps it might be able to save... Forget it, the sess rate is too low so just treat it as a possibility. If at all possible, I don¡¯t want Sidunwar to immediatelye trying to kill us after he¡¯s revived.¡±


    That¡¯s what Rnd told Solo at the time. However, this mystical ice from Frigidwinter Earth was still in Solo¡¯s possession, rather than having been given to Aylos as it was supposed to have been. He waved it furiously, shouting as loudly as he could.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you supposed to be a water elemental with a super slow personality? Why are you so hasty? That¡¯s not how things are supposed to be like! Boss Ayer will kill me!¡±

 Chapter 422 - International Negotiations

    <h4>Chapter 422: International Negotiations</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°We can destroy Rain City, and we can even kill the Queen of Storms. How much are you willing to pay us to help you reim your capital?¡±


    When he heard this, Darsos wanted tough out loud, as if this was a really good joke. But when he thought about the special identity of this messenger from the Nortnds, he just couldn¡¯tugh or dismiss it as a joke. Instead, he fell silent.


    This messenger was Glina, the Queen of the Sleuweir Kingdom from the Nortnds. She had personally made an unexpected visit to the And Empire, which was still in the middle of warring against the Sea Tribe¡ªquite astonishing in itself, but it wasn¡¯t as inconceivable as her proposal. However, since it was her, Darsos had to carefully consider everything she said.


    Glina was the messenger and representative of that person. Or perhaps the more urate term would be to call her his sessor.


    The times were changing without people realizing it. More and more people were beginning to pay attention to the changes that urred in the frozen Nortnds. The miracles that urred after that person returned to his homnd had already caused observers to have a glimpse of the future. There was nothing that could stop the newly-born Mist Alliance from ruling over the entire Nortnds.


    Too many miracles had already urred in those formerly barren wastnds.


    The Nortnds was the birthce of magical engineering, which was bing more important by the day. It was a model for how different species could peacefully live together, and it was the holy origin of the Concept of Law. The Nortnds also consisted of an alliance between elves, beastmen, undead, the Underground and humans. Their new social structure allowed countless species to live together without major conflict. Even enough sand gathered together could build a castle, not to mention how those that gathered there were species skilled at war. Those with foresight were predicted that a new, powerful faction would soon be born in the Nortnds within the next two to three years.


    Unlike how the countries in Eich were always chaotically warring with each other, the Nortnds was rtively peaceful. Perhaps it should be said this was a deserved period of respite after their previous tribtions. Other countries and species in the mortal ne were currently busy dealing with their own troubles, yet the Nortnds received an opportunity to grow and be powerful in a peaceful environment. It even had the free time and power to help other countries like And.


    Two women were at the core of power in this newly-born faction. One was Reyne Qin Mist, who Darsos had already met. The other was Glina, who was currently before him. Of course, Darsos didn¡¯t realize that he had already met her other form, Clint.


    In the world of Eich, where royal authority was everything, the ruler¡¯s personal abilities and charisma were extremely important. The saying that a despotic ruler would ruin a country and a wise ruler would lead a flourishing country was no exaggeration.


    As for his Nortnds allies, Darsos had already analyzed both these princesses of the Mist. He had only a slightly higher assessment of Reynepared to before. Although she now had plenty ofbat achievements and obvious progress in her power level, his spies¡¯ reports confirmed that she habitually ran away from handling political tasks. She had evolved from a flower vase into a brave warrior who only specialized at fighting and nothing else. On the other hand, Darsos had only a one-wordment for the other Nortnds Queen who rarely appeared in front of others: unfathomable.


    Ever since she was young, assassins had been hunting her. She escaped into the Underground and matured in that chaotic society before forcefully taking back the country that belonged to her. Any excellent bard or author would be capable of spinning this tale into a ssic story about a princess¡¯s revenge.


    Perhaps ordinary people would only treat this as a story, but a powerful emperor like Darsos saw many other things in this tale.


    ¡°The Underground. Didn¡¯t he return from the Underground as well? Could it be that Glina obtained his recognition while in the Underground, which was how she was able to regain authority over her country?¡±


    Often times, how urate the truth that one could derive from the ¡°facts¡± in reports would depend on the cognitive abilities of the analyzer. For schemers and those with authority, they saw zero coincidences in the world. They believed everything to be the result of nning and foresight.


    However, Darsos¡¯ opinion was that his spies¡¯ reports were indeed quite urate. This teenaged young girl appeared exactly her age, but she happened to possess abilities far surpassing what her age and physical appearance would suggest. She was skilled at government, industry, economy and political maneuvering. She had gained authority over her country for just a year, but she already had Sleuweir firmly within her grasp. Her kingdom was even beginning to flourish.


    Some things could be exined away by saying it was natural talent. Yet seeding at governmental and industrial affairs would require sufficient practical experience and theoretical knowledge. It would be impossible for someone as young as Glina to acquire all this experience and knowledge without a veteran showing her the ropes. One time, Darsos¡¯ spies heard the young queen address Rnd in a certain manner that exined everything.


    ¡°Adopted father.¡±


    So Glina was that person¡¯s adopted daughter. That person would also often have private discussions with her. Now that Darsos thought back on it, he must have been teaching Glina various things.


    And now Glina represented far more than a single country. She was one of the most active leaders in the newly established Mist Alliance and worked hard at integrating all its members. She personally made decisions on every major political decision. As the Mist Alliance became more mature, Glina was bing one of its greatest authorities.


    In fact, whenever Rnd wasn¡¯t in the Nortnds, everyone there recognized her as his representative. This was no easy matter¡ªit was basically a case where Princess Glina had full authority.


    The Nortnds citizens were also firmly beginning to recognize their suddenly returned young queen as their rightful leader. In fact, Glina even had a reputation equal to the incredibly well-liked ¡°Princess Knight¡± Reyne. They were known as the ¡°Twin Star Princesses,¡± obviously aparison to the legendary Twin Star Princes, Rnd and Karwenz.


    And now the People of the Mist viewed the courageous and talented warrior Reyne just like the recklessbat maniac Prince Karwenz. Meanwhile, the wise and talented Queen Glina was clearly the sessor of Prince Rnd with her abilities, even if she didn¡¯t always have a kind smile like the ¡°Child of Light¡± did.


    ¡°Thanks to our Twin Star Princesses, our People of the Mist will finally be able to lead good lives again.¡±


    The era of three hundred years ago belonged to the Twin Star Princes. Perhaps these two princes ended up dying together with the Mist Kingdom, but no country or powerful individual would be able to ignore how brilliantly they shone in the end. Their final, angry roars made the entire world tremble. How the Mist Kingdom defeated seventeen allied countries by itself was considered an incredible miracle. Not to mention, two Undead Cmities and a demon invasion followed after because of this. Even though everything was finally destroyed, people still remembered their names and deeds. The Twin Star Princes¡¯ statues weremonly found in the Nortnds. They had be symbols of the Nortnds¡¯ spirit, worshiped like totems.


    But now the world learned that the Mist¡¯s bloodline and inheritance hadn¡¯t died off. The destroyed Mist Kingdom¡¯s Prince Rnd had been hiding and acting in the shadows. When his chosen sessor finally waved the banner of the Mist, all the people of the Mist naturally chose to return to this g. Every day, countless People of the Mist would arrive in the Nortnds, having traveled thousands of kilometers through treacherous terrain in order to return to their homnd. This newly-born Mist Kingdom and Mist Alliance was bing stronger every day.


    Truth was always stranger than fiction. Fate had yed a joke on everyone here. Actually, Reyne was Rnd¡¯s true sessor as he was her teacher, while Glina had technically been Karwenz¡¯s descendant until her demon blood was reced with Rnd¡¯s. It would seem that some things were destined to work differently from how they would seem, while other things would return to the starting point.


    At this moment, after Glina made the incredible im of being able to destroy the Rain City, she didn¡¯t even attempt to hide the dangerous glint in her demon eye. Darsos could only gulp down his thought about asking if she was only joking.


    This little girl who looked to be only ten years old despite being a teenager was expressionless. Darsos didn¡¯t dare to wrong her in any way despite her appearance. In his opinion, Glina would be an existence equal to himself in the future. Someone like her wouldn¡¯t possibly travel thousands of kilometers just to tell him a joke. And as long as it was something she imed, no matter how ridiculous it seemed, he would need to seriously consider it.


    After a long contemtion, Darsos gave his answer.


    ¡°I originally wanted to joke and say that as long as you could aplish it, I could even give you half of And. But when I think about your adopted father who¡¯s capable of aplishing almost anything, I feel like I probably shouldn¡¯t joke around like that.¡±


    The emperor paused for a moment before making a promise.


    ¡°I won¡¯t make any empty promises like swearing to be eternal allies. Neither of us would believe as ethereal a concept as ¡®eternal.¡¯ But as long as you do this for us, our two countries will naturally be the best of friends. And as Emperor of And, I promise, that as long as you can aplish the miracle of destroying the Rain City, we shall give the Endo Dukedom and Safa Kingdom to the Nortnds. We shall also fully open up our markets to you, tariff free. You¡¯ll be able to buy anything you want with gold that Anders can buy at the same price. This will be in ce for a limit of thirty years.¡±


    The Endo Dukedom and Safa Kingdom were two of And¡¯s subordinate countries located in the north. The Endo Dukedom was mountainous, but it was also a country rich with mineral mines. However, the mines¡¯ production had slowed down in recent years, beginning to run out of resources. Meanwhile, the Safa Kingdom was a country where many different species lived together, with the mostmon species being mountain dwarves and gnomes.


    From Darsos¡¯ offer, it could be seen that he had truly done his homework on the Nortnds. Neither of these two countries he offered wererge. Nor did either country have a sizable poption or anybat potential. However, these two countries had what the Mist Alliance and Nortndscked the most¡ªarge number of expert miners, smiths and craftsmen.


    The Nortnds didn¡¯tck mines. What theycked were experienced miners. The Nortnds also didn¡¯tck cutting-edge technology and researchers, but theycked outstanding smiths and an industrial foundation. If the Mist Alliance obtained these two countries, it was a definite that this would greatly increase its power after but a short period of time.


    Meanwhile, opening up the market with zero tariffs appeared simple, but it was actually a tremendous offer that was almost impossible toe by in this feudal generation. Transportation in Eich wasn¡¯t convenient. Merchant convoys and other travelers would have to risk their lives to travel to other countries. It was only natural that one country¡¯s local specialties would be increased in price by ten times after being transported to another country, a country which greatlycked and needed such a specialty product. But despite the huge profits to be had in the import-export trade, the biggest trouble of all would forever be not being able to purchase what one wanted.


    Let¡¯s say that during wartime a certain type of secret weapon would require sapphires to be crafted. However, you might not be able to purchase any sapphires. Or perhaps your food stocks weren¡¯t high enough, but none of your neighboring countries would be willing to sell any food reserves to you. Such affairs weremon in Eich.


    And was a semi-mega empire. It had vast territories and an abundant amount of leisure goods, military resources, rare metals, magical weapons, food reserves and crop seeds. These would all be crucial strategic resources for any small country, but none of this was that much to And itself. And if Andpletely opened up its market to a certain country, it would form an absolutely irond rtionship of shared mutual benefits with that country. Although And would definitely sacrifice some profits by not charging tariffs, the Mist Alliance and the And Empire would be the best of friends.


    This was Emperor Darsos¡¯ strategy. What he gave the Nortnds wasn¡¯t all that important to himself, but it was what the Nortnds needed the most. Besides, in the end, he would be able to obtain more benefits than what he¡¯d given up. As long as he sessfully reimed the And capital, his reputation would seed even the founder of And. With his citizens fully supporting him, his country¡¯s power would reach its peak in history together with the birth of his airship squadron.


    As for giving up some subordinate countries? It was quitemon in this day and age for subordinate countries to change masters. Forcefully sucking a subordinate country dry of all it was worth wouldn¡¯t bring that many benefits. As long as it wasn¡¯t widely publicized that the subordinate countries were given away, it wouldn¡¯t be a big deal.


    ¡°Give us the Milos Federation as well.¡±


    The Milos Federation was another subordinate country of And. There was nothing special about this country. However, it was geographically connected in the mountains to the other two subordinate countries being offered. Having the region would help the Mist Alliance solve the difficult problem of transportation to these two new countries. It would seem that Glina had done plenty of political homework as well.


    ¡°Does the Mist Alliance intend to expand southwards?¡±


    ¡°We won¡¯t be expanding any farther south. The area we can protect is limited. Blindly expanding will only give us trouble.¡±


    ¡°Deal.¡±


    And so Darsos and Glina shook hands. This trade, which involved the fates of the Queen of Storms, the And capital and three countries, had now been agreed upon.

 Chapter 423 - The True Nature of Ice

    <h4>Chapter 423: The True Nature of Ice</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    [...What is ice?]


    When Harloys was my teacher, her questions were always designed to stimte my mind. In a simr fashion, my System started off by giving me a question and telling me to think about it by myself.


    But unlike my confused self from back in the day, I could now count myself as an ice magic grandmaster.


    ¡°Ice is a special form of water. Ice magic is a branch magic of water magic. As long as I pay a certain amount of mana, I¡¯ll be able to quickly change the form of water I create into ice.¡±


    That was Rnd ckhand¡¯s answer to this question back in my second life. It was a transmigrator-like answer, very scientific and practical, and was how he had developed his Ice Hallucination technique which was most suited to hisbat style.


    Being able to utilize ¡°hallucinations¡± to the utmost extent would require outstanding maniption abilities and absolute coldness and calmness even in the most heated ofbat situations. However, this was a perfect ability for Rnd ckhand, who had abandoned human emotions. No¡ªit should be said that only someone like ckhand would be able to use such a power.


    ¡°Ice? It¡¯s nothing more than a tool. It¡¯s foundationally no different to fire or wind magic. It¡¯s just a tool that I¡¯m using for revenge. I absolutely must have those bastards pay the price for what they¡¯ve done. I still don¡¯t have enough power. I need more, I need absolutely destructive power.¡±


    My third life as a lich answered this question bying up with Ice Aeon. My incredible System gave him a path to reach the void of dreams, reality and illusions, where he saw the frozen age where the world and universe were first forming. He brought back that age that could freeze anything to death back to reality with him.


    Emperor Yongye, the Emperor of Eternal Night, desired to bring eternal darkness upon the living. That was how the Ice Aeon of despair had been born.


    ¡°Power? Existence? No¡ªthe frozen age is only that homnd in my heart. I shall draw the Nortnds¡¯ beauty with my own brush. And my foundational magic of ice sculpting is the best paintbrush I could ask for.¡±


    With Harloys and the Frigid Nightmares¡¯ guidance, I was able to begin gaining a new understanding of ice.


    ¡°No, just this alone isn¡¯t enough. Ice is only the base material for painting. I can use ice to create an entire world. I can create my own Frigidwinter Earth.¡±


    During the danger of the Emordilorcan crisis, I took the most important step. However, it was likely that very few people knew what this step of mine truly represented... it represented the hope of the world.


    I arrived at different answers at what ice was in each of these three lives of mine. Every piece of the puzzle seemed real but also like part of a nk jigsaw puzzle, which would be incredibly difficult to put together. [1] <sup>1</sup>


    ¡°I should consider myself lucky. Very few people will have threepletely different understandings of ice. Actually, it¡¯s impossible for anyone other than myself to have more than two understandings of ice.¡±


    Anyone learning about a specific type of knowledge would have to progress from a shallow to a deep understanding. Once they reached a certain level, they would have their own path and understanding, unique in the world. Even if another person walked down the exact same path, there would always be small coincidental factors different in that person¡¯s life that would make this path impossible topletely replicate.


    And people could only have one life experience. To use an analogy, it was like pouring water into a cup. A full cup of water wouldn¡¯t be able to contain anything more. Even if you emptied the cup and started all over again, you couldn¡¯t escape from the traces of water left behind in the cup. It was impossible for a person to have more than one Soul Imprint. The only method would be for that person to empty their entire head, starting from their very soul, and start over. That would count as a new life but was obviously straying far frommon sense.


    However, some things did, indeed, stray far frommon sense. For instance, reincarnation. For instance, my System.


    Each person who saw a painting would have their own opinion of it. I, however, had threepletely different angles and opinions. Just like a filled cup of water, life experience was something that couldn¡¯t be cleaned out so easily. Yet I had started over with a clean te three times.


    I studied ice magic in these three most recent lives of mine. Me being able to start over with a clean te was due to my soul being damaged every time I reincarnated. This was both a good thing and a bad thing. But now this ¡°bad side effect¡± of having to start over again had be ¡°three life experiences¡± that nobody else in the world could possibly obtain. I doubted that a single person in the world had a deeper understanding of what the true nature of ice was.


    [Then, what is ice?]


    ¡°I still don¡¯t know! I had threepletely different ways of looking at ice. Is the correct answer the addition of all three? What if I have four lives, five lives... or even thirteen lives¡¯ worth of experience? Would I have toe up with yet another new answer, one that would also be correct? Is this the legendary multiple-choice question on a test?¡±


    As I asked myself what ice truly was, I realized I had less of an understanding than when I first began. Was this the actualization of the legendary saying ¡°The more you know, the more you realize how little you know?¡± The me in the past would have unhesitatingly answered the question. But now I found myself unable to define what ice was.


    And so it naturally became impossible for me to add all my life experiences together ande up with a new answer.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Isn¡¯t ice... just ice? It doesn¡¯t get any fancier. Hey, System, just tell me the answer. I¡¯m not smart enough. I can¡¯t figure it out.¡±


    [...Didn¡¯t you literally juste up with the answer? Ice is just ice. It¡¯s a form of water, one of the four major elements that the entire world is created from. Every additional definition of ice was added on by others. Even ice magic was something people came up with by experimenting with water magic. How could any of that possibly be the true nature of ice?]


    ¡°...Are you kidding me...?¡±


    Yet I was unable to say anything more as countless scenes and knowledge suddenly poured into my brain. The earliest mystical secrets were shown before my eyes: the scene of the universe¡¯s creation. The information contained within far surpassed what an ordinary human could take in. At first I felt a headache but was unable to fall unconscious no matter what. Only when the knowledge infusion stopped did I directly fall unconscious, not able to say a single word.


    ...I could only hope that my understanding this time was correct...¡±Ice is just ice.¡±


    ******


    The world didn¡¯t stop revolving because Rnd was busy having a headache.


    ¡°Damn it! Where the hell is the God Equipment of Fire?¡±


    Even Solo, who typically had a good temper, was frustrated. Due to Aylos¡¯ rash suicide, the original ns had all gone up in smoke. The n to have the Water Elemental Goddess help retrieve the God Equipment of Fire could only be temporarily set aside. The Water Elemental Goddess herself¡ªor more urately the few remnants that remained¡ªwas contained within the ice crystal in Solo¡¯s pocket.


    It was unknown whether Aylos would live. Right now, Solo had nobody he could talk to about his worries.


    If he was unable toplete his task, he would have a difficult many days ahead of him. He was currently wandering around the Water Elemental ne, without a clue about where to search for the God Equipment of Fire. And this had already attracted the attention of many powerful existences.


    ******


    ¡°Have you heard? We¡¯re starting another campaign to reim our capital.¡±


    In And¡¯s temporary capital of New Kagersi, the dark clouds that always surrounded the city seemed to have greatly decreased. In the military campground, the high-ranked military officers and high-ranked knights were chatting among themselves. They hadn¡¯t yet received formal orders, but these warriors had experienced more than seventy rounds of battle by now, and from the resources and personnel they suddenly began receiving they understood what was going on. A new major campaign to reim the capital was about to begin.


    ¡°Weren¡¯t we going to wait for our airship fleet to bepleted? Why is His Majesty Darsos taking action now? Could it be that our airship fleet can be used?¡±


    ¡°No, I heard from my uncle who¡¯s working on them that only five of our old ships have finished with the basic modifications. They¡¯re far from being ready to use.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s His Majesty in such a big rush, then? Is the Sea Tribe about to take the initiative to attack us?¡±


    ¡°No... What I heard was that a new batch of reinforcements arrived from the Nortnds. Apparently, the Princess Knight is leading them, and there are many Aurora Knights. This will be another cooperative battle.¡±


    ¡°Wonderful!¡±


    These young warriors desired the chance to obtainbat des, but not a single And warrior would ever imagine that their next battle would be the final one, the battle to reim their capital.


    Meanwhile, in New Kagersi¡¯s Mist Alliance embassy, the two princesses¡ªalso known as the Twin Stars¡ªreunited with each other.


    Their mission? Suffice to say, it was of Myth-level difficulty.


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: You ever see one of those jigsaw puzzles that are just pure white, with zero images on it to help you put it together?

 Chapter 424 - Fairies

    <h4>Chapter 424: Fairies</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Very few people knew how the tiny fairies became the most powerful information specialists in the world. While it was true that their sizes varied among themselves, even thergest fairy would reach only up to a human¡¯s knee. The smaller fairies would only be capable of dancing on a human¡¯s hand. If they had to fight in battle, their tiny size would leave them at an immense disadvantage.


    Size didn¡¯t always represent strength. However, the fairy species had been around for many years but had never once produced a famous hero or warrior. They didn¡¯t have any outstanding natural racial talents apart from their outstanding fleeing abilities. Naturally, the fairy species also never had any majorbat achievements throughout history. Despite this, fairies managed to lead good lives in the mortal ne that was rife withpetition between species. In fact, fairies maintained their own merchant associations, contact points and intelligence divisions even in human kingdoms that greatly discriminated against them. This was incredible.


    There were indeed people who tried to uncover the fairies¡¯ secrets. However, such people would vanish without a trace. And when they reappeared, they would ther on about ¡°Fairytale kingdoms,¡± ¡°So many cute little fairies,¡± ¡°This strawberry cake is so delicious, but I¡¯m so stuffed. How about giving it to the little bunnies?¡± and other such crazed words.


    Perhaps it was due to this that ordinary people felt that fairies¡¯ countries would be really cute and just like the fairy tales. However, reality and what people thought were two very different things.


    ¡°God damn it! The entire world is at war. It¡¯s making business so difficult. I guess I¡¯ll be having a hard winter this year.¡±


    A one-eyed Dark Fairy was currently smoking a cigar. He even held a small goblin rifle in one hand as he spoke, puffing out clouds of smoke.


    He was heavily overweight. Looking at him from afar, he resembled a round ball. However, he also had clear rainbow-colored wings on his back that continuously trembled and sprinkled glowing powder, making him seem like a nice and kind fairy from a fairy tale.


    ¡°...But actually I¡¯ve recently made more profits. Compared tost year¡¯s winter, our ck Forest series of magazines have increased sales by thirty-five percent. Our best-selling magazine, the Famous Knights series, has increased sales by a whopping ny-one percent. It¡¯s mostly our hero figurines, paintings, toys and other such essories that have decreased in sales.¡±


    This Dark Fairy wore a neatly pressed suit and had golden-rimmed spectacles on his face, the type that typically represented wisdom. However, this appeared quite strange on him as this Dark Fairy had a crooked nose, eyes like a dead fish and ugly and disgusting warts dotting his face.


    It appeared more¡ªno¡ªit definitely appeared like this Dark Fairy resembled an evil witch in the fairy tales. After all, he had a nose ring and a crooked wooden staff in his other hand.


    ¡°...A New Year¡¯s Party hosted by the Kasn Dukedom? Are you an idiot? Why would you report about such a minor event in such a minor country? I¡¯m going to dock your wages... What? Major news that the Kasn Dukedom will be leaving San Antonio and joining the Mist Alliance will be announced at this party? F*ck! This is big! Gather as much information as you can. I¡¯ll immediately send you additional backup and resources.¡±


    ¡°Those great demons are beginning to construct their own cities? They didn¡¯t eat those pitiful human vigers and are raising them instead? Are you kidding me!?¡±


    As the Dark Fairy talked with another fairy about the magazine¡¯s contents, countless fairies were busily working behind them. Some were shouting into ck rune crystals used for sending magic messages, while others were shouting into pipes connected to strings. Even more were furiously at work writing articles. This chaotic scene resembled a busy editing department right before a deadline.


    They weren¡¯t in a green-forested, blue-skied fairy talend at all, however. They were in a city filled with the trappings of culture. Hordes of people busily walked in the streets, while nearby factories were loudly at work. There were printing factories, toy factories, handicrafts factories and so on¡ªclearly arge variety. The main difference from other cities was that all the people walking down the streets were actually tiny fairies.


    The sky was quite overcast with no sunlight to be seen, but the streetlights forever provided lighting. The fairies didn¡¯t construct a miniature city just because of their tiny sizes. This was mostly because there were other species working here. Muscr giant pixies, which were two meters tall but had ck-jawed expressions that indicated theirck of intelligence, were the tiny fairies¡¯ distant rtives as well as their protectors.


    This mystical city wasn¡¯t located in the mortal ne¡ªit was in the little-known Grayshadow ne. The fairies didn¡¯t fear death as they gathered information throughout all of Eich because they weren¡¯t actually capable of dying in the mortal ne. Their bodies in the other nes were, in fact, a special type of shadow negative energy projection. If any fairy met with danger, all they needed to do was cancel their projection.


    However, this didn¡¯t mean that they were undying. They had special bodies capable of living in such a negative energy ne as they themselves were abination of energy and life. Fairies were actually an abnormal species made of half energy and half life power. They were like other lifeforms¡¯ shadows, and they needed to have other species recognize and know about them to provide them with an energy simr to the power of belief, which would allow them to remain ¡°alive.¡± Otherwise, they¡¯d be nothing more than decayed corpses.


    They also needed to constantly replenish this type of special energy. Eating food wouldn¡¯t provide them this energy¡ªthey were capable of eating actual food but could only taste it. If a fairy said he was starving, this meant he was about to die.


    That was why, from ancient times to present, other species had gotten ustomed to these little fairies that were seemingly everywhere, always making the news. In fact, other species even believed them to be members of the mortal ne. The fairies also gradually mastered the artform of ¡°keeping a constant presence¡± in front of the other species in the mortal ne.


    The fairies were by far the most skilled at establishing informationworks and merchant associations even in the most dangerous of locations. The fact that the news and advertising industries were so well developed in Eich was also thanks to the fairies. However, even every other news industry added together wouldn¡¯tpare to the fairies¡¯ news. No ordinary species couldpare to how the fairies could instantly gather information across dimensions.


    Of course, in order to constantly remind other species of their presence, they would modify and publish or even create their own legends and stories. And they intentionally gave all the branch offshoots of the fairy species opportunities to appear in such stories, such as the tiny pixies, prankster fairies, shadow monsters and so on. [1] <sup>1</sup> And when fairies discovered that children were the best providers of the ¡°recognition energy¡± that the they required to exist, they established special teams to scare children. There were even great fairies in charge of giving well-behaved children presents at the end of the year just like in a certain legend, the reason why fairies had many toy factories working all year round.


    This pudgy Dark Fairy named ke was the third biggest boss in this city. He owned four toy factories, two printing factories and more than ten magazines, newspapers and editing departments. The ¡°recognition energy¡± he obtained was more than enough for him to take care of several thousand fairies under him. And as someone who liked to look cool on the surface, he had more than ten wives, among them which included tiny fairies, giant pixies, and even humans and elves from the mortal ne.


    Why was it said he liked to look cool on the surface? A half energy lifeform like a fairy would have a different way of reproducingpared to normal lifeforms. Fairies would undergo splitting after their energy was filled, and their newly split off child fairy would bepletely unrted to the original fairy. ke¡¯s so-called wives were only capable of providing a tiny amount of recognition energy for him.


    And right now this powerful fairy was frustrated. He swore on his beard¡ªthe beard he hadn¡¯t shaved in three thousand years¡ªthat his business was having the greatest trouble it ever met.


    ¡°What? It¡¯s fine if our ¡®food producing¡¯ information and news industries don¡¯t have any problems, but as my vice general manager, you¡¯re too shortsighted. I¡¯m beginning to consider if I should have you fired and reced.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry¡ªI¡¯m so sorry, Boss! Please tell me what I should do.¡±


    Although he knew that his fellow fairies couldn¡¯t provide him with food energy, ke loved to see his subordinates view him with such fear and reference. ke took a big puff on his cigar and blew several smoke rings before speaking up in a vicious tone.


    ¡°Hmph! If it wasn¡¯t that an idiot like you has been working under me for one hundred years, I would have already done so. You see, the daily necessities business is booming in the mortal ne and leisure goods¡¯ sales are greatly decreasing. Plus, there are so many species and powerful individuals suddenly popping up after disappearing for a long time. This means a seasonal cmity is about to arrive¡ªa great famine!¡±


    ¡°A great famine?¡±


    ke¡¯s prankster fairy subordinate Albert was rather confused at hearing this. The mortal ne was going to have a famine? Or could it be that...?


    ¡°We fairies will meet with a famine?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. As long as those foolish veterans start their so-called Holy War, the mortal ne¡¯s overall poption will decrease by a lot. This will also decrease the amount of food energy our species can obtain. Based on records from the past, our poption will also decrease at the same proportion as the mortal ne.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the fairies¡¯ poption was directly proportional to the mortal ne¡¯s poption. X amount of humans would be required to sustain each fairy¡¯s required recognition energy. If the mortal ne¡¯s poption decreased, the fairies would naturally decrease by the same proportion.


    ¡°Equal proportion?¡±


    ¡°In the previous great famine, only three point seven percent of our entire fairy species survived. Andte in the previous great famine, we even started raising arge number of humans to supply us with food energy. This meant that probably less than three percent of all humans managed to survive the previous major Holy War.¡±


    As one of the incredibly few old fairies who had survived the previous great famine, ke had long since lost track of how many fairy children had split off from his body. However, just his memories of how bones covered the ground everywhere made him instinctively afraid.


    It was only natural for a war which could change which species ruled the world to be catastrophic.


    ¡°SO YOU¡¯RE SAYING THAT ONLY THREE PERCENT OF US WILL SURVIVE THIS TIME AS WELL!!¡±


    *Boom!*


    Albert reacted with a terrified shout, causing the other fairies to look in his direction. As a result, old ke directly fired his gnome rifle at Albert without saying even a word.


    Albert inhaled a cold breath as he felt the bullet scratch his cheek. He immediately calmed down and kneeled on the ground in surrender.


    Only now did he recall that his boss¡¯s greatest pet peeve was meaninglessly shouting out loud. The previous giant pixie servant who had shouted like that had his true body directly sent to the mortal ne. It was unknown what exactly had happened to him, but he had definitely died.


    ke spat on the ground when he saw that he missed. However, he didn¡¯t fire his gun again. He was rather superstitious and believed that since his subordinate was lucky enough to avoid the bullet, there was no longer any need to shoot him. This would be wasting the other person¡¯s excellent luck.


    ¡°¡®Lucky brat, I hope you¡¯re a three this time.¡¯ Now you know the origins of this saying among our species which means wishing luck upon others. Don¡¯t have such a bitter expression. This time, all of us old ones won¡¯t be stupid enough to just sit back and watch. At the very least, we¡¯ll try our best to think of ideas to have more humans survive. Tell every single department manager toe here. We need to think of something. The main priority is to tell the humans just how serious things are. Armageddon is right before them.¡±


    ¡°But... what are we supposed to do...? Even if we tell humans about it, they won¡¯t believe us, right...?¡±


    ¡°I think I really do need a new vice general manager. You¡¯re such an idiot!¡±


    Old ke pointedly stared at the fairy reporters and editors who were now busying themselves with work again. Only then did Albert have a sudden realization.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying we should publish a special edition? So that we can tell the humans that they¡¯re in big trouble?¡±


    ¡°Yep. This will be our information analysis. After so many years, we have a great mastery over the humans¡¯ news and information industry. Just letting this mastery sit back and do nothing would be a waste. Tell all my employee fairies that I¡¯ll pay them three times their normal sry for overtime tonight. We must absolutely have a report finished about the humans¡¯ troubles by tomorrow morning. We¡¯re going to rush a special edition!¡±


    Note:


    [1] TL/N: English reallycks monster vocabry... Have I mentioned before that there¡¯s like eight synonyms in Chinese just for the word ¡°monster?

 Chapter 425 - List of Threats

    <h4>Chapter 425: List of Threats</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    It was possible that nobody expected the species most sensitive to the Holy War to be the seemingly unrted fairies.


    They didn¡¯t have any conflict of interests with other species, but they would be one of the biggest losers the moment a Holy War broke out. Perhaps this was why they saw everything the clearest from the sidelines. They were the first to warn humans.


    They quickly published an emergency report, which was sold for a far lower price than its cost of publication. Information that many countries¡¯ spyworks were unable to obtain instantly became avable for cheap prices. A lot of information was given to everyone.


    In this special report, the fairies showed off their iparable information gathering, verification and analytical skills. Not only did they exin how the mortal ne was under a threat the likes of which it had never seen before, but they even categorized the different types of main threats. They effectively consolidated and utilized rumors which had been scattered all over.


    The fairies categorized three major threats.


    The first major category was the return of ancient immemorial species.


    Actually, this type of trouble would happen in every Holy War. After all, the Holy War represented the flourishment or decline of every species. The final victor of an eternal Holy War would rule. The humans had only started ruling the world from a few Holy Wars ago, and the losers obviously weren¡¯t willing to bow out of history so easily.


    The first major species to return would, quite naturally, be the elves¡ªit was just like how a worm would keep wriggling even after being cut into pieces. As the species which previously ruled the world, they had lost the position of ruler despite having been on the winning side in the Holy War. Of course they wouldn¡¯t want to idly sit by¡ªthey desired to return to their former glory.


    With the Elven Gods¡¯ protection plus many, many years of umtion, the elves¡¯ natural talents and subordinate species, it would be a major incident if the elves started any trouble. The human countries had always been on guard against them, which was only natural as the elves were still the second highest candidate species for ruler of the world.


    However, the prerequisite for the elves to stand up was to first determine who represented the elves. This would require internal warfare among the elves.


    Silver Elves were the majority elf species in the southwest mountain Elf Kingdoms. Last year, they constructed a new united kingdom with no elf king in name. However, secretly behind them was the Silver Elf War God, Sonya. He was the number two ranked Elf God, although he never seemed to have much of a presence.


    The new Saint Heen Empire saw more than twenty Elf Kingdoms dere war against it right when it was established, but a simr number of Elf Kingdoms also dered themselves subordinate to this new empire. Its ruler, Moonlight Elf Queen Afina, had a status that was self-exnatory. Although it wasn¡¯t yet publicized, anyone in the know would understand that the Elven Main God Anslo was behind Saint Heen.


    Quite obviously, the Moonlight Elves and Silver Elves, along with the respective Elven Gods backing them, were going to use force to determine who was going to be the leader of all elves.


    Silver Elves were a warrior species among the Royal Elves, courageous and skilled at fighting. Moonlight Elves were more skilled at Divine Arts and magic, with countless mystical secrets passed down in their tribe. Plus, Anslo was obviously stronger than Sonya, so everyone felt that the Moonlight Elves were more likely to be victorious.


    Of course, there was also the possibility that this was all fake news that wanted to hide a secret alliance already arranged between the two species. However, judging by thebat reports of how brutal their infighting was, the likelihood of that was incredibly small.


    That¡¯s right¡ªa full-blown internal war among the elves was now raging, and it was happening in an incredibly brutal fashion. Both sides unhesitatingly used ancient magical weapons and highest-level magic. Every day, more than ten thousand elves and more than thirty thousand subordinate species¡¯ members would die in battle. Although the elves¡¯ neighboring human countries were unaffected for the time being, every human country bordering them was on the highest level of alert.


    Meanwhile, the fairies¡¯ assessment ced the Tark Republic undead as the second greatest threat out of all the returning species. Thanks to a special report I sent to the fairies, these undead¡¯s past lives were now revealed for all to know about. Their overall power was frightening to behold with how many Undead Emperors they had.


    Due to the dimensionalws, the undead were currently not a threat to anyone other than the Bardi Empire. However, the fairies unhesitatingly assessed the undead as the second most dangerous threat amongst the top-level threats.


    Of course, this special report had very detailed descriptions of the undead as they were considered a top-level threat. But I didn¡¯t have to read this as I was naturally familiar with all this information.


    The third returned species was the great demons. These demons had once been the rulers of the mortal ne too, and they¡¯d once coexisted with the elves. The great demons also had a ratherplex rtionship with the Tark Republic.


    Large numbers of Snow, Cliff, Forest and other great demon species appeared in San Antonio¡¯s Safron District. It was evident that these great demon tribes had banded together rather than acting independently. Perhaps ancient great demon royalty or priest bloodlines still existed within these tribes. Far away from this location, in the Amu Mountains, me Demons had started appearing. me Demons were half demon and half elemental, an abnormalbination that made them incredibly difficult to deal with.


    Originally, great demons weren¡¯t viewed by anyone as a threat. In fact, many were even delighted at San Antonio¡¯s troubles. However, the fairies¡¯ reports indeed helped raise the human countries¡¯ vignce.


    ¡°These great demons aren¡¯t the simple human-eating beasts as described in legends. They actually treated the human citizens quite well in the cities they conquered. The great demons are even providing the humans in those cities with food. They¡¯re steadily creating their own power base. And nobody knows just how they arrived. It can be predicted that they¡¯re not working independently of each other, and it¡¯s highly likely that there¡¯s a God supporting them in the shadows.¡±


    However, the great demons were dealing with major problems of their own. Although it was unknown why they established their base in San Antonio¡¯s mountains, this mega empire definitely wouldn¡¯t be dealt with easily.


    The fourth-ranked threat was the Sea Tribe. The Sea Tribe were quite powerful and also had a True God backing them up, but they could only survive in the sea or very close to the seaside, so their area of influence was limited. That was why they ranked only fourth out of all the threats. Besides, And was also keeping them busy.


    Of course, the fairies¡¯ list of threats was iplete. Some of the most ancient species that had only a few individuals appear so far weren¡¯t on the list. And obviously the fairies missed the most important species of all¡ªthe Titans¡¯ return and the giants regaining their lost Intelligence. However, the Titans and giants were currently being kept busy by the dragons and the Bardi Empire.


    Still, just these listed ancient species were more than enough to cause havoc everywhere in the mortal ne. All the major human countries were dealing with their own troubles. Any one that copsed would cause a huge chain reaction.


    These returning ancient species were ssified by the fairies as the humans¡¯ main enemies because these ancient species had once ruled the world at one point in time. They would be the most aggressive and proactive in invading. It would be impossible to negotiate with any of them without dealing them serious losses and countless defeats first.


    ¡°Negotiate? Giving us only a tiny piece ofnd to live on? Why should we ept? All of this belonged to us in the first ce.¡±


    The secondary threats on the fairies¡¯ report were much easier to deal with.


    The most attention-grabbing threat were the giant worms that appeared near the North Sea. However, that location¡¯s average temperature was negative ten degrees Celsius. Only some very primitive human tribes and sea lions would need to be on guard against them.


    The fairies were still trying to obtain more information on these giant worms, but it was impossible tomunicate with the worms. Any that approached their territories woulde under attack. It was also impossible to understand the giant worms¡¯munication with each other, making it very difficult to obtain information on them¡ªit wouldn¡¯t happen anytime soon.


    Next were the ¡°octopi aliens¡± that caused me to shout ¡°Are you kidding me? Aren¡¯t they the wrong style for this story?¡± These strange creatures had highly advanced scientific technology and had tamed many local species. The octopi even began constructing strangely-shaped buildings and seemed intent on ying the role of scientific alien invaders fighting against a local magic-based society.


    However, the octopi poption wasn¡¯t very high, so they hadn¡¯t attracted much attention¡ªyet.


    Of course, not all of the new visitors came with bad intentions. Out of all the strange ¡°guests¡± that arrived in the mortal ne, the beast-eared SemiBeastmen were cute, gentle and incredibly popr. They called themselves the Kamil Tribe, but the humans called them ¡®tiny beastmen.¡¯ The nearby countries were alreadymunicating and making contact with them.


    One¡¯s outer appearance was truly important. For instance, the octopi were treated as invading monsters from the very beginning while the tiny beastmen were extremely popr.


    Of course, the fairies wouldn¡¯t forget about the new species known as the wood spirits. However, they also had cute appearances and a well-known clean background, so the world epted them from the very beginning.


    These secondary threats were considered threats not because of their high threat level but because more and more new visitors would be arriving in the mortal ne as the Holy War continued. These visitors would bring about more variety to this world, but along with that they would bring more danger.


    The tertiary threat the fairies listed was actually what I viewed as the main threat to this world: the wars between the human countries.


    It wasmon¡ªincrediblymon for the humans to war among themselves. If I had to dab points of red on a map on every location that humans were currently warring against each other, I might end up with nothing more than a rag fully drenched in red.


    Small human countries dered war against other small human countries. Large human countries dered war against both otherrge human countries and small human countries. Human mega empires continuously dered war against each other. Of all generations, this was the best of all for those with ambitions.


    Warriors desired to be heroes in the Holy War. Powerful individuals desired even more strength and to be undying. Rulers desired to be renowned in the history books. Even the Gods themselves desired to progress in power level. In that case, there were plenty of reasons for everyone to go to war.


    As for the inciters of war and those scheming to gain benefits through warfare? Even with concrete evidence, rulers that desired to expand their territories would pretend not to see anything.


    The mes of the Holy War had been ignited. The Holy Church no longer had as much authority as it should have as it was embroiled in the conflict between divine and royal authority. The ambitious who desired to obtain more by force naturally started taking action.


    These three major categories of threats with detailed lists were astonishing to read about.


    When I finally woke up from my deep sleep and read the magazine, I could only helplessly shake my head. This was how unstoppable this damned game history was. All these countries and rulers wanted to go to war and would find any excuse to expand their territory. It would be impossible to stop the humans¡¯ internal warring unless one killed all the rulers.


    Still, it wasn¡¯t meaningless for me to read this report. It helped firm my determination to carry out my grand scheme without caring about the consequences. I had no more room for hesitation.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have much time left. I need to hurry things up. It can¡¯t be helped if there are some sacrifices...¡±

 Chapter 426 - Commencing the Scheme

    <h4>Chapter 426: Commencing the Scheme</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°So this is the Tempest Hydra?¡±


    In my hands was a decayed piece of rock that resembled a stone sculpture. I should say that it was a gray rock shaped like a bow and even had moss growing on it. Plenty of dust had rubbed off it onto my hands, and it had zero hints of elemental energy. Others would see it as simply a useless piece of trash.


    However, this was one of the four Foundational Elemental Items of Dragon World. Dragon City had finally made up their mind to cooperate with me, so they gave me this wind element God Equipment, one of the four pirs of this ne.


    ¡°This was once an incredibly powerful wind element God Equipment. It¡¯s said that zero ammunition is required for it to summon furious winds capable of piercing the clouds. Plus, its attacks sound like the angry roars of dragons, which is how the Tempest Hydra obtained its name.¡±


    The silly cat apparently had maxed out points in knowledge about ancient treasures. She even knew about such a strange God Equipment.


    ¡°By the way, I should mention that the Gold Elves were more skilled than anyone else at archery back in the day. This God Equipment probably belongs to my ancestors. Back in that generation, the Gods were all born naturally, and there weren¡¯t Divine Concepts or Gods that existed through the power of belief.¡±


    As one of the first species created in this ne, the Gold Elves had an incredibly long history. It was impossible to know about what they were like as far too much time had passed; all that had to be said was that they were from Ayer¡¯s generation. As for their recent history... thest Gold Elf was right before me. When considering that the silly cat¡¯s temper was bing worse and worse as she heard more news about the elves¡¯ internal warring, I felt that it would be best for me to not tread on thisndmine.


    ¡°Yep, it sounds amazing. But now I bet even a museum wouldn¡¯t ept it. It¡¯s just way too ridiculously ancient.¡±


    This God Equipment sounded quite amazing. However, it was evidently no longer usable. No matter how amazing a God Equipment was, not maintaining it for several tens of thousands of years still meant it would turn into a fossil.


    ¡°Normally, it wouldn¡¯t be like this. All God Equipment have divine power within them, and one of the most basic qualities of divine power is its undying nature. Almost no God Equipment will ever naturally break. However, this God Equipment¡¯s current condition is due to the situation in this ne.¡±


    Major problems were urring with this ne¡¯s structure as the Titans struggled to break free. As one of the four foundational pirs which created this ne, this former God Equipment had obtained the ne¡¯s dimensional rights. It had be a measure for the ne¡¯s health. It appeared as if it would decay to dust, and this represented that this ne was reaching its end.


    Since the Titans had the nickname of Children of the Earth, the main element they consisted of was naturally earth. Considering that earth was the element that countered wind, I was absolutely certain that this fossilized wind element Foundational Elemental Item was the one which was damaged the most out of the four.


    From a certain standpoint, when giving me this item Dragon City didn¡¯t have good intentions. Since I felt that the God Equipment of Fire would be the most difficult to obtain as it was in the Water Elemental ne, I told the dragons that my most preferred Foundational Elemental Item was the fire element one, and that the second best would be the water element one. But obviously they didn¡¯t care about what I wanted.


    Still, the wind element item was enough for me. Actually, it would save me a lot of trouble. I couldn¡¯t rely on the Wind Elemental God Camdian, and it would be for the best that I wouldn¡¯t need to negotiate with him for the God Equipment of Wind.


    I took out my little notebook and wrote down another checkmark. I hadpleted another one-fourth of my task.


    Out of the four top-level elemental items I needed, I already possessed the God Equipment of Earth. And it wouldn¡¯t be that difficult to obtain the God Equipment of Fire. Yesterday afternoon, our measurements indicated that the Elemental Tide lost its bnce yet again due to the death of another Elemental God. Judging from the elemental fluctuations, it must have been the Water Elemental Goddess. It would seem that Solo sessfully convinced her tomit suicide. I would need to mark down his achievement for that. [1]


    Fortunately, this imbnce helped bnce the Elemental Tide in Dragon World and would help slow down its copse.


    The reason? The fact that the Emordilorcan incident affected the Elemental Tide so much wasn¡¯t actually because of the Earth Elemental God¡¯s death. It was that I had destroyed the Earth Elemental Throne. An analogy would be a governmental agency. If an agency¡¯s leader died for some reason, they would only need to be reced. However, if the entire agency was destroyed, the consequences would be massively troublesome.


    Opposing water was the fire element. There was no Fire Elemental God, and now the Water Elemental Goddess had perished. Neither element¡¯s Elemental Throne was now active, and this helped bnce the two. Meanwhile, both the Wind and Earth Elemental Gods were alive and rather weak, so the four elements just happened to achieve a perfect bnce.


    ¡°Aylos... it would seem that rumors are unreliable. Everyone actually believed her to be emotionless. As usual, Harloys was correct. Aylos was truly deeply in love with her husband. In that case, I¡¯ll modify my scheme a little, since I, too, really like true. Yep, although we¡¯re the FFF group¡¯s elites, one of our traditions is to never burn true love.¡±


    I made a few modifications to my n andbeled them as third-rank priority. I would consider doing this part if the conditions were met. Any unnecessary emotions would be too much to hope for unless Ipleted my ¡°grand scheme.¡±


    Of course, this environmental condition where the four elements were in perfect bnce greatly resembled the bnced Elemental Tide of the immemorial generation. This was doubtlessly a good thing for anyone who wished to make a breakthrough in power level. I could already foresee that even more of my subordinates would make breakthroughs, which would also be a great help to my scheme. I suppose that this sort of counted as me owing Aylos, so I guess I could help her out if I had the time.


    ¡°...You¡¯re trying to find an excuse to help her? Could this be the legendary concept known as tsundere? It¡¯s not fun to look at male tsunderes.¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous! That¡¯s not it at all. I don¡¯t even know if my ¡®Soul Burial Ice¡¯ will be able to preserve her soul. After all, she¡¯s foundationally an elemental creature. Right, has the second piece of Soul Burial Ice been delivered?¡±


    ¡°Yes, we¡¯ve already received a reply. That person epted the letter and the ice.¡±


    ¡°...That person didn¡¯t rip up my letter?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    I nodded, as this was already far better than what I¡¯d expected. It would seem that another trouble had been resolved.


    ¡°...You¡¯re so evil. If he really acts as what you told him to do in your letter, the entire world will likely be shocked. Your ¡®old friend¡¯ will meet with huge amounts of trouble.¡±


    ¡°Ha! That¡¯s exactly what I want. My third piece of Soul Burial Ice will be ready by tomorrow. Someone will being to take it when it¡¯s time. As for the fourth and final piece...¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re still keeping secrets from me?¡±


    ¡°No, I haven¡¯t yet decided who to give it to. No simple existences are capable of making use of Soul Burial Ice.¡±


    ¡°If ites to it, we can¡ª¡±


    ¡°No, that¡¯s the worst possible oue. Let me think on this some more.¡±


    I shook my head, as I knew I was being far too greedy with too many ns spread all over the ce. There would be huge trouble if any single part of my n went wrong. It was like dancing on a tightrope. One misstep would send me hurtling down into the abyss. At least, however, I seemed to be dancing quite well for the moment.


    ¡°I should be able to obtain the God Equipment of Fire soon, and I already possess top level elemental items of wind and earth. I justck a top-level water element item. Actually, I can make do with Sidunwar¡¯s Ocean Bottle, but the prerequisite for using it is that it must be filled with the Queen of Storms¡¯ divine power over the sea. In that case, all the conditions have been met for me tomence my grand scheme. Should I notify Orloss and Ayer to begin¡ª¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t rush. You only have one chance. Make any mistakes and you¡¯ll put the enemy on guard, and this will cause us huge troubles. We should first see how the situations in Bardi and And turn out. But it¡¯s time to activate our two critical chess pieces.¡±


    I shut my notebook, which was already filled with countless additional taped attachments and modifications. It would seem that I was still in too much of a hurry. Well, it couldn¡¯t be helped. What I had wanted for so many years was right before me, so of course I would be in a rush.


    ¡°You¡¯re right. I only have one chance. We¡¯ll be the number one enemy of the whole world if any information leaks about my grand scheme. Let¡¯s err on the side of caution.¡±


    I never expected that the silly cat would be calmer than me at the critical moment. This was despite the fact that after reading the fairies¡¯ special report, she was so angry she didn¡¯t eat for an entire twenty-four hours ... Wait a moment¡ªdidn¡¯t she not need to eat to begin with? Then wasn¡¯t she just wasting food whenever she stole what I wanted to eat?


    ¡°Right, how does it feel to be a Legend? Since you entered Legend, I¡¯ve broken through to Legend myself. The current me is more than three times more powerful than one week ago!¡±


    The silly cat was quite proud of herself, as breaking through to Legend rank meant that her magic powers had increased by much. Many spells she had been incapable of using were now usable once again. Plus, she regained the ability to use all sorts of forbidden techniques and small-scale forbidden spells. Plus, with her current physical body¡¯s benefits, bing three times more powerful was just something she was casually saying. That would, in actuality, be a vast underestimation.


    ¡°Me? It¡¯s already my fifth time being a Legend. What am I supposed to feel?¡±


    Although I broke through to Legend sessfully, I could only smile wryly as I sensed the incredibly unique Soul Imprint deep within my soul.


    It wasn¡¯t that there was a problem with my Soul Imprint or that I didn¡¯t increase in power level as expected. It was the opposite. I improved in power level far surpassing my expectations. I had profited¡ªdefinitely profited¡ªbut my ¡°great profit¡± proved an inference of mine that gave me ratherplex feelings.


    ¡°...I can only take things one step at a time.¡±

 Chapter 427 - Two Battlefronts

    <h4>Chapter 427: Two Battlefronts</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Stonewood Fortress was the secondrgest city of Bardi Empire¡¯s Eternal Hope Province. As the final defensive barrier for the entire province, losing it would be the equivalent of losing the entire Eternal Hope Province.


    And not long ago in the ¡°Holy War,¡± the Bardi Empire just happened to lose this important defensive barrier.


    Once this flourishing, well-known province was lost, approximately two million citizensnded in the enemy¡¯s hands, along with an equivalent amount of resources andnd.


    Bardi¡¯s eastern front against the Holy Church lost their battle too quickly. It was so quick that the citizens behind them didn¡¯t even have the time to retreat. Even the duke of the Eternal Hope Province became the Holy Church¡¯s hostage. Meanwhile, the Holy Church also obtained its greatest glory and biggest victory in recent times.


    Unlike the poorer provinces that Bardi had recently annexed, the Eternal Hope Province had a veryrge poption and abundant production of food, medicine and crafts. It had been an important domain of Bardi ever since several centuries ago. Losing this province not only dealt a great impact to the Bardi royalty¡¯s reputation and authority but also a huge blow to Bardi¡¯s overall situation.


    When the Holy Church¡¯s unexpected reinforcements, the Cloud Giants and angels, arrived, the heretical Bardi warriors and evil dragons were easily defeated. Cardinal Stephen, who had been on the verge ofmitting suicide, ready to take the me for everything, felt as if the Gods themselves were on his side. He could only think of himself as the lucky one who had the favor of the God of Holy Light himself.


    Actually, even the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups weren¡¯t expecting to win this particr battle. Even Gordon, the seventh most famous warrior on the fairies¡¯ rankings, had refused to continue leading the Holy Church¡¯s armies. And so the Holy Church sent over the controversial Cardinal Stephen to take all the me for the ¡°stealing the credit¡± incident. More importantly, the main reason was that not a single other Cardinal-level leader was willing to take up the role ofmanding the Holy Church vanguard in this fight.


    ¡°Since you¡¯re already taking the me for that, then just take the me for this matter too.¡±


    However, as this matter shows, suddenly obtaining a leadership position wasn¡¯t always good for obtaining achievements. It was likely the leader ends up taking the me. However, if the leader was lucky enough, taking the me would instead be transformed into obtaining achievements.


    Neither side of this battle expected the Holy Church to win. But at the critical moment, the Cloud Giants from legend suddenly appeared and located the evil dragons hidden within the Bardi camp, dealing them a great blow.


    And then another ¡°allied reinforcement¡± arrived, but their arrival made everything clear to the Holy Light¡¯s army.


    ¡°Angels! Holy angels! Our God of Holy Light is taking care of us!¡±


    Through countless religious stories, humans¡¯ worship of angels had been endlessly reinforced. These creatures of Order had long since left the mortal ne but represented unmistakable divine will whenever they appeared.


    Even during Emperor Yongye¡¯s long reign, the Holy Church had been able to exin things away as ¡®the Gods¡¯ trial for humans.¡¯ That was why everyone didn¡¯t lose hope even though the Holy Church allied armies lost back then. Such belief in the Holy Church had been formed over countless generations, and as the purest, holiest and most perfect of creatures in legend, the angels attracted the whole world¡¯s attention the moment they appeared. Simply because these angels joined the Holy War on the side of the Holy Light army¡¯s vanguard, every day throngs of Holy Light believers would travel thousands of kilometers to join the war effort.


    These angels had strange appearances. They were covered all over in strange golden armor that masked even their faces. Their exnation was that ¡°we¡¯re still unable to get ustomed to this tainted world,¡± which was epted by the Holy Light believers. After all, it was considered impossible to fake the angels¡¯ white feathers which gave off a golden glow.


    In fact, it should be said that the Cardinals and the great majority of priests had sunk into a mysterious religious fervor the moment they saw these existences which possessed powerful abilities over Holy Light and Order. The angels wielded longswords wreathed in Holy Light as they slew evil heretics in front of everyone.


    It wasn¡¯t at all Halent¡¯s fault for losing. An entire major squadron of five hundred angels had arrived to support the Holy Light army. Every adult angel would only be slightly weaker than an adult dragon, and a fully equipped angel warrior wouldn¡¯t be any weaker than the Gold rank.


    The Holy Church¡¯s entire allied army¡¯s higher-ups no longer even discussed this war although it hadn¡¯t yet ended. They didn¡¯t even consider strategies about how to use their forces. Their hearts were filled with joy at what they believed to be their imminent victory. They believed that the angels¡¯ pure swords would assist them in cleansing the filthy heretics. These heretics that were filled with so many sins would all be burned at the stake.


    This type of religious fervor wasn¡¯t only spreading through the higher-ups. Even the ordinary soldiers and Holy Light job ss members were filled with fervor towards the Holy Light, wanting only to ughter their enemies.


    ¡°...Something seems wrong here.¡±


    Only very few Holy Light job ss members were able to calmly analyze the situation. One such person was ¡°Miracle Hand¡± Estrada, who had just recently arrived at the battlefield. He had originally refused to participate in this battle until Pope Caloma gave him a direct order he couldn¡¯t refuse. Estrada forced himself toe to the battlefield at the very end of the deadline given to him, but he didn¡¯t expect that he would see such a sight here waiting for him.


    Although Estrada had never seen an angel before, he had plenty of knowledge about angels due to his contact with the angel half-blood Ai as well as Rnd. Although these five hundred angels radiated pure Holy Light, the feeling they gave off wasn¡¯t like the warm sun. They were like icy sword des, apletely different feeling from Ai and Rnd¡¯s Holy Light.


    ¡°Even though Ai¡¯s Holy Light is very pure, her Holy Light also contains the raging fires of her anger. This makes her Holy Light especially effective against the undead. Meanwhile, Rnd¡¯s Holy Light purity is iparable throughout all of history and can even be used asntern lighting. However, his Holy Light isn¡¯t aggressive¡ªit¡¯s just like the harmless sunlight. And when Ist saw him in the Nortnds, his Holy Light purity seemed to be even better than in the past, but its sunshine-like warmth didn¡¯t change one bit. That Holy Light wouldn¡¯t reject any life to share in its warmth.¡±


    All powerful individuals would have special quirks about their own energy. Any of that person¡¯s overflowing energy would contain the person¡¯s emotions and specialties. The Holy Light itself would be no different from any other Holy Light, but it would be different once human hearts and souls were involved. Not a single person would have identical Holy Light wavelengths to another person. Yet the five hundred angels in front of Estrada not only had exactly identical Holy Light wavelengths, but their Holy Light also seemed tock living creatures¡¯ most basic emotions. It seemed as if these angels were using Holy Light as nothing more than an emotionless tool.


    Any others would be scared witless by the angels¡¯ astonishing amount of Holy Light, as every single one of these angels were Legend or stronger. However, the ¡°Strongest Holy Knight¡± had reached the peak of understanding of Holy Light. Estrada was even capable of sensing his own disciples¡¯ talent and moral character through their Holy Light wavelengths, which was why he had been particrly fond of Ai and Rnd. It was also why he found it difficult to ept these angels that had suddenly descended to the mortal ne.


    ¡°...During battle, the pupils of their eyes reacts only instinctively. There¡¯s not a single hint of passion in their Holy Light. Their Holy Light wavelengths don¡¯t shake one bit even if one of these angels is forced to the brink. They are emotionless. Are these really the gentle and kind angels from legend? They¡¯re basically... basically...¡±


    Estrada didn¡¯t allow his thoughts to show on his face. However, as he thought about this mystery, he was hesitating. Ever since he hade into contact with Rnd and his Concept of Law in the Nortnds, Estrada had been gaining new realizations and ideas although the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups were bing more and more on guard against him. At the very least, Estrada now had a much more moderate and reasonable viewpoint of the Holy Light.


    The Strongest Holy Knight¡¯s well-honedbat senses told him the truth behind the angels¡¯ icy-cold golden armor and holy white wings: that these angels didn¡¯t seem like any normal living creatures.


    ¡°...They are like mass-produced,pletely emotionless killing machines. They don¡¯t even blink when faced with a brink. They don¡¯t feel glory at sacrificing themselves. They have an utter coldness as if they see everyone around them as disposable objects. When they see other angels dying, they react as if they¡¯re merely seeing a weapon being damaged.¡±


    Estrada didn¡¯t say these words, which would be considered heretical, out loud. And he wasn¡¯t the only person to think in such a way. Unlike the priests that were now in a mysterious religious fervor, most Holy Knights were usually busy with their work and assignments. They weren¡¯t able to enjoy afortable life in the church like priests and Cardinals typically could year-round. Holy Knights roamed thends, eliminating evil wherever they saw it. Even the Holy Knights that protected a local holy sanctuary would need toe into contact with ordinary townsfolk every day. The Holy Knights were far closer to ordinary people than priests and thus had their suspicions about the angels¡¯ behavior on the battlefield.


    But the next event caused the Holy Knights¡¯ suspicions to be a huge fissure.


    ¡°Cleanse? ughter the entire city? ughter the entire province? That¡¯s what the angels requested? Are they joking? That¡¯s two million people! That¡¯s two million human lives!¡±


    ******


    While the mega empire Bardi was stuck in a quagmire, the semi mega empire And seemed to receive an opportunity. Of course, the prerequisite was that they first make it past this huge wave.


    After three months, the Queen of Storms noticed that she apparently wasn¡¯t being targeted by Ayer and that it had just been her own misunderstanding. She also sensed her Sea Tribe worshippers to be weakening in their faith after several sessive losses, so she unhesitatingly took part inbat once again.


    Countless giant ocean waves brought great disaster upon all of And¡¯s cities that bordered the sea. Although the Sea Tribe warriors that came along with the waves were unable to permanently stay onnd, the food and wealth they plundered was more than enough to sustain these new Sea Tribe members that enteredbat. This was because they weren¡¯t as gluttonous as their counterparts that had already been fattened by staying in Rain City. Thebat achievements on these other fronts also gave these Sea Tribe leaders the right to immigrate to Rain City.


    Some of these unfortunate sea-bordering cities managed to withstand the onught, while others were destroyed by the ocean waves. Residents still in their sleep would be ughtered. Perhaps one should even thank the Queen of Storms¡¯ kindness as she at least didn¡¯t send out her typical sea monsters to ughter ordinary humans.


    But from another standpoint her sea monsters were all being kept busy by thebat situation at Rain City. The Queen of Storms had already sent out every single sea monster under hermand, with none more to spare.


    If the seaside And residents were like cows and sheep awaiting ughter at a butchering factory, then the Rain City¡¯s frontlines were a pure meat grinder.


    The Sea Tribe and the Queen of Storms were now counterattacking with full force. The seawaters had once more begun rising, bringing with it many Sea Tribe members and sea monsters. Mountainous whale monsters were actually treated as one-time disposable siege weapon sledgehammers. Their bodies would be crushed under the broken castle walls¡¯ rubble. However, any room opened by the invaders would be ughtered without a single survivor.


    In less than two short days, the smaller bases outside therger fortresses had all been lost, and the sea waves and giant sea monsters turned the trenches of warfare into ponds and swamps.


    When And¡¯s elite squadrons and powerful individuals tried their best to overturn the situation, they discovered, to their astonishment, that not only wererge numbers of Storm Shamans continuously summoning more sea waves but a certain blue-skinned woman was personallymanding the tempo of the sea waves¡¯ attack.


    ¡°...She actually used an incarnation to join a battle between mortals? She¡¯s using her divine power to ughter mortals? Just how shameless can this Goddess be?¡±


    Since it was now the Holy War, the taboo against True Gods directly interfering in mortals¡¯ affairs had been lifted. However, the Queen of Storms remained the only example of a True God who did so. From a certain standpoint, it was like an adult bing incredibly serious when fighting against children or a small animal. All the other Gods would probably make fun of her for this, but right now the Queen of Storms was indeed acting rather shamelessly.


    However, the result of her shamelessness was obvious. With her personal assistance, the Storm Shamans extended the area of influence of the rainstorms from just Rain City. Countless numbers of Sea Tribe warriors arrived together with the rainstorms, making things difficult for the defending And soldiers on the battlefront.


    Yet the And warriors fighting in the swamp suddenly witnessed a wonderful turn of events.


    ¡°...The sky is clearing?¡±


    As the humans cheered in astonishment while the Sea Tribe stared in disbelief, the unending dark clouds started dissipating, out of the blue. Sunlight, which had since been scarce, illuminated the blue-skinned woman¡¯s face, revealing her shock, disbelief and even fear.

 Chapter 428 - Holy Light and a Choice

    <h4>Chapter 428: Holy Light and a Choice</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Estrada. The Miracle Hand, the Strongest Holy Knight and the Executor of Holy Light. These were only three of his numerous glorious nicknames which represented his uncountable des and achievements. In taverns, he was one of most popr characters sung about in epics. But if one were to choose a single nickname to describe the legendary first half of his life, ¡°Living Myth¡± would be the most appropriate.


    ¡°Estrada is the most pious, most courageous, most humble and most powerful Holy Knight of all.¡± This was Rnd¡¯s understanding of him, as well as how the entire world saw him.


    He was pious. For the past thousands of years, not once had he strayed from his belief in the Holy Light. Every day, every moment, he would measure his actions by justice and self-discipline. Daily he would pray piously and consume only rye bread and water to help himself stay away from all temptations. Although every pope throughout history had been deeply on guard against him, not a single person dared to doubt Estrada¡¯s piousness.


    He was courageous. Through the endless wars, as long as someone asked him for help and as long as the reason agreed with the justice in his heart, Estrada would never refuse. In any battle he took part he would forever be at the very forefront. He had a body covered with scars that even the Holy Light was unable to cure. He had never once run away from any battle.


    ¡°...The Holy Light shall never refuse any request of aid from a mortal. As long as there¡¯s even a sliver of hope, I shall fight for the sake of Holy Light and Justice... until the final moment.¡±


    These simple words of his were no empty titudes. As long as people still needed saving, even in the most despairing of situations Estrada had never run away.


    He was humble. Estrada never acted like the other high-ranked Holy Church members that ledvish lifestyles. He resided in themon dormitories for Holy Knights, where anyone could easily go find him. And he had countless disciples. He loved young and brave warriors, and one of his joys in life was to raise talented students. His incredibly long list of students contained an untold number of heroes¡¯ names. Of course, one name in this list of his gave him tremendous headaches.


    ¡°...Rnd, if only you could be a little more serious you¡¯d definitely be one of the strongest Holy Knights in all of history! No¡ªno¡ªno¡ªthis isn¡¯t an excuse for you to cut sses! I shall assign you special extra sses that are befitting of your talent. You¡¯ve already mastered Holy Light Divine Arts, so how about extra swordsmanship sses? What? You¡¯re already a Sword Saint? How about we discuss Holy Light philosophy? What? You¡¯re saying you want to have a bet if we debate Holy Light philosophy and God theories? Fine, if you lose, return your brother disciples¡¯ wallets. Ha! You think I¡¯m going to lose? What a joke.¡±


    Even now, Estrada still recalled how, on a sunny afternoon, that youth who smiled like the sunshine managed to use baffling chicanery to win half a year¡¯s worth of Estrada¡¯s sry.


    ¡°A belief system based on personal benefits to satisfy selfish desires? You believe only in the justice of the pure Holy Light itself? Little Rnd, don¡¯t ever tell anyone else about this. No, I¡¯m not saying Ipletely disagree with your way of thinking. Otherwise, I wouldn¡¯t be admitting defeat to you in this debate. However, there are people out there who are even more stubborn than an old artifact like me. They¡¯ll directly kill whoever they can¡¯t defeat in a debate. It doesn¡¯t matter if it¡¯s someone like me, but you¡¯re still young. Don¡¯t draw trouble to yourself.¡±


    Perhaps what Estrada regretted most was that he hadn¡¯t probed into Rnd¡¯s foundational way of thinking. He didn¡¯t attempt to change Rnd¡¯s overly extreme thoughts. He figured that a young genius like Rnd simply had too many idle thoughts, thoughts which would be corrected by the severities of reality and the public¡¯s normal way of thinking. Estrada never expected Rnd to have an extreme way of thinking that would go farther and farther off the normal path, reaching a point where Rnd could no longer turn back.


    Estrada¡¯s power and age had helped him learn that justice without power backing it up was absolutely meaningless. As he was the Strongest Holy Knight... no¡ªhe could even be called the strongest living human with nobody objecting even though hest took action more than a century ago.


    ¡°...Rnd, your past hatred has caused you to sink into insanity. I created you but didn¡¯t manage to save you from your fate of despair. All of this is my fault. Rnd, face me! Face your poor excuse of a teacher! Today, I shall correct my past mistake, even if I have to pay with my life!¡±


    During the Yongye Cmity, Estrada¡¯s brilliant figure singlehandedly facing an endless legion of undead was branded into the memories of countless people. Even after the Emperor of Eternal Night destroyed the entirety of the Holy Church allied armies, Estrada still challenged him and his army. Estrada¡¯s glorious deeds had even been carved into the highest-quality of sculptures on the ceiling of the Anton Grand Cathedral.


    Estrada was pious, courageous, humble and powerful. As a Holy Knight, Estrada was considered perfect. If one had to forcefully find some imperfection, then it would be that he was too perfect¡ªtoo brilliant to behold.


    Every pope throughout history had viewed Estrada as an excellent de, but that was all. Since Estrada¡¯s personal reputation exceeded that of the popes, his ¡°supporters¡± would constantly sh with the Holy Church¡¯s teachings and authority. It was only normal for the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups to greatly despise him.


    After so many years, Estrada had gotten ustomed to the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups discriminating against him. His title had been promoted and demoted countless times over the years. Yet his belief had never been shaken in the slightest. With utmost severity, he would always carry out anything he was determined to aplish.


    ¡°...Child, justice isn¡¯t actually that hard to understand. Justice is simply kindness thates from the bottom of your heart, while belief is the process of expanding your own kindness. We believe in the Holy Light because we believe that Holy Light can protect the kindness in human hearts. Whenever you need to make a choice, simply ask your heart. You¡¯ll be able to choose for yourself.¡±¡ªEstrada, Spring of the Year 226.


    Estrada¡¯s belief was somewhat different to that of the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups. He would preach that ¡°any teachings that don¡¯t guide humans to kindness are all evil,¡± but doing so gave him countless amounts of trouble. Despite all of that, Estrada¡¯s teachings about the Holy Light¡¯s belief spread throughout the entirend. Numerous youths would choose the glorious job of Holy Knight due to his influence. Soon, Holy Knights¡¯ path of Holy Light started having subtle differences from other Holy Light job ss members. ¡°Kindness in your heart¡± became the catchphrase of young Holy Knights, and it also became the Strongest Holy Knight¡¯s greatest weakness that others always attacked him with.


    ¡°What choice will you make if the God of Holy Light¡¯s divine will shes with your sense of justice?¡±


    Someone had once asked him that in public, causing no small amounts of controversy. Others felt that Estrada had been caught in an inescapable paradoxical conundrum. However, Estrada responded with uproariousughter as he replied in a thunderous booming tone, which echoed in the skies above the Holy Church even today.


    ¡°With the Holy Light above me bearing witness, I say this: if my belief in the Holy Light ever shes with basic morality and justice, what use will I still have for such a belief?¡±


    On that day, the powerful beam of Holy Light that descended proved that this was truly how Estrada believed and acted.


    And now, today, angels that represented the God Envoys of Holy Light had descended from the skies. These angels then decided to ughter all heretics. The so-called divine will had finally shed with Estrada¡¯s most basic sense of morality. Now that there was an absolutely unsolvable conflict between Estrada¡¯s belief and justice, just what would he choose?


    Two days ago, he received a letter from his most talented disciple. It started off with the same old question that he had been asked countless times already.


    ¡°Teacher, I shall ask you onest time. If the God of Holy Light¡¯s divine will conflicts with your sense of justice born out of kindness, what will you choose?¡±


    Estrada had been mystified as to why Rnd would suddenly ask him a question to which Rnd certainly knew the answer. But now he could only clutch the letter to his heart and bitterly smile.


    ¡°Is that so? You¡¯ve already seen through everything since the very beginning? Then, Rnd, I shall tell you that my way of thinking has never changed. If belief in the Holy Light can no longer coexist with basic kindness, then there¡¯s no more reason for me to believe in the Holy Light.¡±


    The elderly Holy Knight was d in fullbat attire. He rode atop his old horse into the path of the Holy Light¡¯s massive army and threw down his silver hammer.


    Itnded heavily on the ground.


    Estrada shook his head. Over the many years, he had been ded as the living representative of Holy Light. He had never imagined that this day woulde. The day he would be facing off against the g of Holy Light, the g which represented justice.


    However, as he faced off against the Holy Light army, Estrada¡¯s arm didn¡¯t shake one bit. His boilingbat was the best exnation.


    ¡°...The Holy Light shall never refuse any request of aid from a mortal. As long as there¡¯s even a sliver of hope, I shall fight for the sake of Holy Light and Justice... until the final moment.¡±


    With his back to the heretics¡¯ homnd, the angry roar of the elderly Holy Knight echoed throughout the battlefield. Despite the fact that the elderly knight was all by himself, the glorious Holy Light army vanguard took a step back in unison.


    No¡ªnot everyone stepped backwards. Someone took a step forward and stepped out from under the glorious banner of Holy Light.


    ¡°Ken? I never expected you, one of my disciples, to be the first to face me.¡±


    Estrada felt somewhat nostalgic as well as surprised. But he didn¡¯t hesitate. After he had made his decision, this aged Holy Knight had resolved himself to face any opponent, even if his opponent was one of the students he was proudest of.


    ¡°Old artifact, you have more disciples than you can count. What¡¯s so strange about one of your disciples like me stepping out?¡±


    Ken was also a Holy Knight, a SemiGod. Appearing middle-aged, he had rather dark skin. But when he walked in front of Estrada, Ken pulled out his longsword and suddenly turned around, shouting at the ce he had just came from.


    ¡°Hey, the old artifact managed to steal the first move yet again! For just how long are you all intending to wait around? Are all of you going to be slower than someone as inadequate as me?¡±


    As a response to this, numerous Holy Knights walked out from the massive body of the army. They unsheathed their weapons, facing off against their previous allies. Meanwhile, theirpanions remained where they stood and could only watch all of this happen with embarrassed expressions.


    ¡°The Holy Light is above us...¡±


    This time, it wasn¡¯t only Holy Knights who stepped out of the army. Previously pious Holy Light priests also made their decision, even though they knew that it would make them lose their status and glory¡ªthat this would make them be treated as dirty traitors and fallen priests.


    ¡°...If my belief in the Holy Light ever shes with basic morality and justice...¡±


    Some royal knights who had participated in the Holy War also walked out of the army. Their knightly virtue contained nothing about ughtering ordinary citizens. These knights, red-faced from embarrassment, made a choice that wouldn¡¯t shame their descendants despite knowing that they would receive their domain lords¡¯ and kings¡¯ wrath from doing so.


    ¡°...ughtering innocent civilians? Damn it all! That¡¯s two million lives we¡¯re talking about! What do we need such a belief for!?¡±


    Every one of them spoke out Estrada¡¯s teachings. Their shared beliefs made these people make the same decision as Estrada. In the next ten minutes, as the frontlinemanders hesitatingly reported this situation to their higher-ups, numerous scattered warriors made their choices.


    Although Estrada¡¯s side numbered less than one percent of the Holy Light army in the end, and even though he knew that they would all be crushed into pieces by the mighty army in the next instant, Estrada smiled in satisfaction.


    Of course he would be satisfied. As a Holy Knight and teacher, what more could he ask for? His teachings were believed in by so many people, to the point where they were all willing to sacrifice their lives. He would be satisfied even if he died the very next minute.


    But then an elderly red-robed Cardinal shakily walked out of the crowd. This extremely wrinkled old man hobbled with the assistance of his walking staff and panted heavily as his servants and personal bodyguard knights hurriedly surrounded him.


    ¡°...Cardinal Stephen.¡±


    Indeed. This was the current leader of the Holy Light vanguard army, the underhanded ¡°credit-stealing¡± Cardinal Stephen. Although he had finally reached the peak of his career, regardless due to his advanced age it was unlikely that he would live for much longer.


    If Estrada betrayed the Holy Church, if the Holy Light army¡¯s conquering forces split up into factions, it was definite that the glory Cardinal Stephen just obtained would lose its luster. It was only natural that he would try to prevent this from happening.


    ¡°...Stephen, there¡¯s no need to say anything. I¡¯ve already made my decision.¡±


    Although most people in the Holy Church looked down on Stephen¡¯s actions, Estrada felt a mysterious sense of nostalgia as he looked at the old man with half a foot in the grave. Estrada recalled how Stephen was in the past¡ªa stubborn orphan, who neverined even when bullied by ssmates but would secretly hide and cry because of being powerless to save all his believers.


    As everyone watched, the elderly Cardinal, who finally had a chance to shine in the spotlight, spoke up.


    ¡°Es...trada... I... I¡¯m not here to stop you. I know that words are meaningless after you¡¯ve made up your mind. I... I... Coug¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªcough...¡±


    Violent coughing arched Stephen¡¯s back as he coughed up blood streaks on the ground. However, he stubbornly held on to his walking staff and grit his teeth, standing up straight again.


    Even Estrada couldn¡¯t bear to see this sight. He wanted to go over and help support Stephen, but the elderly Cardinal pped away the hand that Estrada proffered.


    *Pa!*


    It took some time, but Stephen finally seeded in standing up straight. His elderly eyes contained a fiery will that didn¡¯t seem to fit his age as his angry roars echoed throughout the entire world.


    ¡°I know that all of you look down upon me as the ¡®Dirty bastard who stole credit¡¯ or as the ¡®ckhearted bastard who stood on hispatriots¡¯ corpses to obtain his position.¡¯ But I was also a pious believer of the Holy Light! What does sacrificing my personal reputation matter as long as I spread the Holy Light which brings us hope... All of you, tell me, as a Cardinal, as a teacher, priest and spreader of Holy Light, did I act wrongly...?¡±


    The old Cardinal¡¯s bloodshot eyes looked all around him as he howled from the bottom of his heart. Although he had managed to increase his status over the past few days, the looks of condescension aimed at him had also increased. Even his best friends that had been through life and death together with him were now keeping their distance. Who could he possiblyin to regarding his aggrievements? And now, as everyone watched, he suddenly exploded and vented.


    Some of the Holy Knights that had looked down upon him started to change their opinions. Perhaps they had been too judgmental of this old Cardinal. Still, the unbelievable scene that happened next caused everyone¡ªnot just a few¡ªto change their opinions of Cardinal Stephen.


    ¡°But now... my belief in the Holy Light that I sacrificed everything in order to uphold can no longer even be called basic justice. Just why did I sacrifice everything in order to uphold Holy Light? Teacher, I refuse to act as the leader of the Holy Light army for one second longer. I shall face the future together with you, even if I know it¡¯s a future where I¡¯ll certainly die and no longer be able to ascend to heaven... Cough¡ªcough¡ªcough.¡±


    Violent coughing once again caused Stephen to arc his back. But this time the elderly cardinal allowed his teacher to help support himself.


    Now even the warriors who remained in the Holy Light army viewed this elderly Cardinal with respect.


    Since the highest-ranked leader of the Holy Light army had betrayed the Holy Light, in the Holy Light army a hugemotion arose. Some warriors who had chosen to remain on the Holy Light side were now hesitating about their choices. Some na?ve individuals were thinking that there wouldn¡¯t even be an internal battle in the Holy Church. They thought that this would be a critical moment in history.


    But at this moment a blinding light streaked across the sky...


    ¡°...AH¡ª¡±


    A giant me-wreathed sword descended from the sky. Old Stephen couldn¡¯t evenplete his scream before he was impaled to the ground by this burning Holy Sword. Just like that, after making a decision that came from the bottom of his heart, the old Cardinal copsed.


    ¡°This is what the Holy Light is truly like... I don¡¯t... regret...¡±


    Stephen reached out towards the sky unwillingly and took onest nce at this beautiful world before he transformed into ck ash right in his teacher¡¯s hands. The blood streaks he coughed up just a minute ago became the final record of his existence.


    A fiery winged angel descended and hovered in midair. Achas, the leader of the angels, observed the mortals beneath him. Even now, he gave of no signs of any emotions whatsoever.


    Meanwhile, the powerful angel squadron had finished gathering behind him in the air. Like their leader, these heavily armored angels simply watched down in silence. Their white wings and the holy mes on their swords were the best representation of which side they stood on.


    ¡°Asmanded by the venerated God of Holy Light, those who betray the Holy Light shall be killed with no mercy.¡±


    The Strongest Holy Knight¡¯s hammer was the first to greet them.

 Chapter 429 - Battle Between Angels and Mortals

    <h4>Chapter 429: Battle Between Angels and Mortals</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°This world doesn¡¯t belong to you, you emotionless monsters!¡±


    It was ironic how the living representative of Holy Light dered battle against the glorious angels that represented holiness and Order itself. But mere irony wouldn¡¯t stop the battle hammer of fury and its blinding Holy Light.


    Estrada¡¯s fervent belief manifested as fiery wings as the Strongest Holy Knight utilized his powers of flight to sh against the fiery-winged angel in midair. Against the me-wreathed holy sword, the furious battle hammer created dazzling sparks. Angel leader Achas, who was only a second-rank angel, only managed to block the wrathful strongest human¡¯s attack for a split second.


    *Bam!* *Bam!*


    With a wave of Estrada¡¯s battle hammer, two clear sounds rang out in midair as the exquisitely beautiful holy sword and the angel leader¡¯s head were both smashed to tiny pieces.


    The headless corpse fell below, and the Holy Light started disappearing from its white wings. Red blood sshed everywhere with the angel¡¯s golden hair, but this gruesome scene helped everyone learn that an angel¡¯s body wasn¡¯t that different from human¡¯s.


    The headless corpse crashed heavily into the ground as the holy sword¡¯s tiny pieces scattered everywhere.


    However, the angel army didn¡¯t make a sound or stop its advance¡ªit was as if they didn¡¯t notice that their leader had just died. This was what they had done during the previous battle against Bardi as well. Not a single angel among them was special or irreceable. If their leader died, the sub-leader would take over. When that leader was devoured by a dragon, the next sub-leader became the new leader.


    Coldblooded, calm and not afraid of sacrifice¡ªthey were perfect war machines, as well as the species the Gods trusted the most: War Angels.


    At this moment, an irreversible event had urred.


    Holy Light job ss members would always humbly refer to themselves as the Holy Light¡¯s servants. Meanwhile, angels were the God of Holy Light¡¯s God Envoys, but now the Holy Light¡¯s servant had in them. This was the equivalent of killing one¡¯s superior. Everything was no longer stoppable¡ªthere was no going back.


    In the air, high-ranked Holy Knights capable of using flying Divine Arts fought against angel sergeants. Others that chose to either side with mortals or the God of Holy Light alsomenced fighting. When the justice in human hearts shed against the justice of Order, not a single person was able to remain uninvolved.


    ¡°Monsters! This world doesn¡¯t belong to you!¡±


    In front of the Holy Knights who chose their heart¡¯s justice and started whirling their battle hammers, these legendary angels turned out to be not much at all. They were no stronger than some monsters with the power of flight.


    On this battlefield, battle hammers and sharp swords flew everywhere. The angels showed no signs of mercy or kindness. Since they had pointed their swords at these traitors, it was only natural that the next step would be to eliminate them.


    As Stephen¡¯s coughed-up blood continued bleeding into the ground, angel blood from in angels fell down from the sky and mixed together with it. Soon, their blood could no longer be told apart.


    A Holy Knight named Caso viciously swung his battle hammer at an angel¡¯s armor. The reverberations from this impact knocked his angel opponent right into the ground. Judging from therge amounts of innards that the angel coughed up, it wasn¡¯t going to live much longer. But before Caso could find another target a Spear of Holy Light impaled him in the air.


    As a Legend-ranked Holy Knight, however, Caso was unwilling to die off just like that. He pounced on the angel closest to him, and the next instant blinding Holy Light illuminated everyone¡¯s eyes. Caso had self-destructed in a sh of Holy Light, leaving behind only his purple crystal battle hammer in arge crater.


    Caso wasn¡¯t the only one who met such an end. These War Angels were armed to the teeth, and ordinary Holy Knights were no match for them. While humans addressed Gold-ranked warriors as grandmasters, to the angels they were nothing more than the level of a young child. The two sides had been unequal from the very start.


    In order to master ¡°Angel Wings,¡± ¡°Wings of Holy Light¡± and other such flying magic Divine Arts a Holy Knight must be at Gold or higher. Moreover, fighting the angels in the air turned out to be one of the most foolish decisions possible.


    The high-level warriors on both sides fought in the air, but mortals were the ones who fell out of the sky and perished in the great majority of cases. The angels were a well-trained military squadron, while the others were just scattered powerful individuals that had just banded together minutes ago. Even without mentioning differences in individual power levels, there was a huge difference in both sides¡¯ teamwork.


    Approximately three or four hundred chose the path of the justice in their hearts. Fewer than fifty among them were at Gold and above, and there were barely ten Legends. However, they faced a total of five hundred Legendary angels¡ªthere was a tremendous difference between their overall strength.


    Once the angels eliminated the high-ranked Holy Knights capable of flight, they turned to the easy targets¡ªthe remaining Holy Knights and ordinary warriors. Spears of Holy Light and thrown holy swords killed these warriors with a single blow. Helplessly, the Holy Knights on the ground were continually killed from a long distance.


    Compared to these Gods¡¯ warriors, mortal warriors seemed powerless. This reckoning came far too quickly for them as they hadn¡¯t even prepared themselves for the cmity they knew they would face.


    Estrada witnessed all of this from the corner of his eyes and felt like his heart was bleeding.


    ¡°Caso, you have two children to take care of. Albina, you...¡±


    But unfortunately, even though he witnessed the deaths of many of his disciples and believers, he couldn¡¯t go and save them. He didn¡¯t even have spare time for idle thoughts. As the ¡°lead traitor,¡± the angels viewed him as the most important strategic objective. All the leader-level angels were currently surrounding and attacking him.


    ¡°Castle of Holy Light.¡±


    A Holy Knight tried to open up his Soul World but it ended the moment he activated it. This was a Soul World that greatly improved the powers of Holy Light. However, opening it for even a moment was the most foolish decision he could have possibly made. How could ordinary mortal Holy Knights possiblypare to heaven¡¯s angels in their control over Holy Light?


    Holy Knights¡¯ typical enemies were evil viins, undead and demons. Holy Light was always highly effective against such enemies. However, they were now fighting against angels that possessed tremendous affinity for Holy Light. Bullet of Light, Holy Light Judgement and other such typical Holy Light spells that had always been effective were only absorbed by the angels¡¯ armor or left mere light scratches.


    The Holy Knights¡¯ attacking methods were easily seen through and predicted. Their Holy Light attacks weren¡¯t even as effective as simple physical attacks. On the other hand, the angels were pure ughtering machines, and their dual-handed holy swords possessed holy mes that were absolutely merciless against the humans.


    After the ¡°Holy Church¡¯s traitors¡± received tremendous losses to the point where they appeared like they would lose at any moment, the ones most worried were actually the Holy Light army¡¯s ¡°observers.¡±


    Abo Kaso was an elite warrior who swore loyalty to the God of Holy Light at a holy sanctuary. Although he didn¡¯t have any talent for Holy Light, which prevented him from bing a Holy Knight, he had always worshiped this glorious job ever since he was a child. That was why he volunteered to join this Holy War. But now, his faith was greatly shaken.


    ¡°The justice in my heart? Or the justice of the Gods? Just what led me down this path? The Gods¡¯ guidance or the kindness in my heart?¡±


    Those who possessed even the slightest modicum of logic and reason knew that ughtering defenseless civilians was absolutely shameful. As for ughtering the gigantic number of two million civilians? No matter which insane leader carried it out, that person would surely make the history books in the most humiliating fashion.


    Perhaps this was why believers were never allowed to be close to the Gods. Perhaps this was why divine will always appeared so unfathomable. Those who got too close would find that the Gods weren¡¯t so mysterious. There would even be contradictions between divine will and reality.


    ¡°Why did the God of Holy Light choose to ughter so many? Why? Are human lives truly just like ants to the Gods? In that case, just what is this belief that we¡¯ve always had?¡±


    Those who had even the slightest conscience were asking the same question as Abo Kaso. However, none of them had any answers. Out of all the humans present, Estrada, who was currently locked in a difficult battle, was the only one who knew the answer.


    This wasn¡¯t because he was the most intelligent one here. This was because Rnd had already exined everything to him while predicting that there would be a tremendous ughter of the heretics.


    ¡°...Not enough people have died in this Holy War. Do you remember what I told you before about the source of all Holy Wars? When the wheat is ripe, it¡¯s naturally time to harvest the crops. The Source of Order desires forrge amounts of souls to enter the Cycle of Reincarnation during the Holy War. Due to certain reasons, far too few people are dying. And the Source of Order naturally prefers heretics to die over its own side.


    ¡°Any Order God that wants to increase in power level or just preserve their own position will be unable to go against the Source of Order¡¯s will. This is just like how any demon prince will be unable to go against the Chaos Abyss¡¯s will. The God of Holy Light that abandoned his own sense of self is an example of the easiest type of puppet to control.¡±


    However, Rnd¡¯s words weren¡¯t merely to give Estrada a simple exnation.


    ¡°That¡¯s why once there¡¯s a somewhat usable excuse and concrete benefits to be had a tremendous ughter will definitely ur. These angels that suddenly descended are the best evidence of the God of Holy Light¡¯s determination. Even if you can convince other humans againstmitting such a ughter, it will still be meaningless. That¡¯s because in the current world, when the God of Holy Light has decided on a course of action, not a single individual will be able to stop the strongest True God of the Order Faction. That¡¯s why I rmend for you to be wiser and take good care of yourself... Forget it, pretend I didn¡¯t say anything. If you were that ¡®wise,¡¯ you wouldn¡¯t have reached your current level.¡±


    The approaching angels made it so that Estrada didn¡¯t have any more free time to think on this any longer. Besides, he had acted foolishly plenty of times in the past. However, likely not a single previous time was as despairing as his current situation.


    ¡°Holy Light, don¡¯t you have any sympathy for the humans that worshiped you for so many years? Perhaps Rnd was correct. Holy Light is Holy Light and is different from the God of Holy Light.¡±


    The elderly Estrada, who still had a young appearance, asked this question from the bottom of his heart. All he saw before him was a group of angels that covered the skies. Only now did he feel that the angel statues decorating every Holy Church branch were annoying to behold, that these more magnificent versions of Winged Tribe were disgusting.


    Estrada wouldn¡¯t possibly hesitate about making a decision which would put him in a dangerous brink on the verge of death. The only part where he hesitated about was that younger lives would also apany him in this dangerous brink.


    ¡°If Holy Light is mostly ineffective against these angels, then...¡±


    As Estrada hovered in midair, he raised his battle hammer and concentrated a dense amount of Holy Light upon it. The next instant, this Holy Light transformed into countless meteors that crashed into countless... Holy Knights.


    That¡¯s right, the Holy Knights, not the angels.


    ¡°Angel¡¯s Twelve Blessings... I never expected that I¡¯d think this Divine Art¡¯s name was so ironic. Perhaps I should give a new name to this Divine Art.¡±


    Body strengthening, dexterity increasing, regeneration, perception strengthening, dispelling evil, justice¡¯s protection, holy healing, Holy Light power of flight and so on. This Holy Light spell contained twelve different special effects that would buff the targets of this spell. The most important effects were the Holy Light¡¯s most basic abilities of healing and flight.


    The Holy Knights, who hadrge gaping holes in their bodies and were bleeding to their deaths, stood back up again with incredulous looks on their faces as they covered their injuries which were nowpletely healed. The wings of light on their backs also gave them the power of flight.


    As for those who were already dead... Unfortunately, this world wasn¡¯t a game. Even the Strongest Holy Knight Estrada didn¡¯t have any resurrection magic spells at his disposal.


    Was Estrada actually able to cast the highest-level support Divine Art with so many special effects on several hundred people at once and maintain it? He once again taught everyone here just how strong the Strongest Holy Knight was, although he was indeed temporarily weakened from casting such a spell.


    This scene also exceeded the angels¡¯ expectations. The angels were the Gods¡¯ favored species and were born with natural talent for Divine Arts. However, Divine Arts had also been taught in the mortal ne for countless years. This scene was beyond the angels¡¯ understanding.


    Yet not a single War Angel would consider retreating in front of a powerful enemy. No War Angel understood the concepts of fear or hesitation.


    Taking advantage of Estrada¡¯s momentary weakness from casting such a powerful spell, the War Angels arranged themselves in abat formation typically used to fight against high-level demons. Holy sword-wielding War Angels stood at the forefront, spear-wielding War Angels stood in the middle to assist from a greater distance, while Divine Art casters incanted from behind.


    Just Estrada alone had seeded in taking up the attention of several hundred angels. This was no different from him single-handedly taking on several hundred dragons.


    ¡°Holy me Inferno.¡±


    Not real, these holy mes were actually Holy Light pf the highest purity. In the area under this inferno, all undead and demons would be immted. Meanwhile, the angels that thought they wouldn¡¯t be harmed found themselves mysteriously transforming into fireballs.


    The elderly Holy Knight¡¯s understanding and control of Holy Light had far surpassed these low-ranked angels¡¯ understanding. Estrada was capable of using his own Holy Light to directly explode the power of Holy Light within these angels¡¯ bodies. This technique was also effective against other Holy Knights, but this would obviously be a forbidden technique.


    Once the Strongest Holy Knight abandoned all his inhibitions and finally attacked with the full extent of his power, half of the sky started burning. The angels were turning into torches of holy fire. Once the elderly Holy Knight decided to guard this piece of sky, even the angels found themselves unable to pass him.


    However, at this time the angel leaders uttering their long incantation from behind finished, causing a pir of light to suddenly ascend to the sky. Yet nothing seemed to happen.


    ¡°Did it fail?¡±


    The next instant, Estrada realized that his guess had been wrong. He found himself no longer able to sense the Holy Light.


    That¡¯s right¡ªthe God of Holy Light received a report and cut off Estrada¡¯s ability to use the Holy Light. The moment that Estrada lost his powers, he began falling from the sky. His young appearance speedily started aging at a visible speed. Without the protection of his Holy Light, his life was rapidly reaching a natural end. But what was even more fatal was the burning holy sword about to impale him.


    ¡°The ny-seventh Holy Light forbidden spell: Holy Light Remation. This is a Divine Art that¡¯s specially used against fallen angels. You should be proud of yourself for being the first human to ever receive this Divine Art.¡±


    Estrada wasn¡¯t the only person on the receiving end of this forbidden spell. All the other ¡°traitors¡± on the ground suddenly lost their powers of Holy Light as well. These former fervent believers in the God of Holy Light had their powers personally reimed by the God of Holy Light himself.


    Despite the fact that he was at the brink, Estradaughed. Of course he would have realized that when he¡¯d made this decision, the God of Holy Light that he had believed in for so many years would betray him. However, he never felt more relieved in his entire life.


    ¡°In that case, my ¡®venerated and revered¡¯ God of Holy Light, let me show you the light.. the light which belongs to us mortals.¡±

 Chapter 430 - Thus Fell the Holy Light

    <h4>Chapter 430: Thus Fell the Holy Light</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Out of the many job sses, divine jobs such as Holy Knights and priests would always progress the quickest in power level. However, these jobs also had the fewest individuals at the highest ranks.


    The reason for this was simple. People in divine job sses would need to establish connections to their God and obtain the God¡¯s assistance and divine favor... in other words, they would need to be spoiled by the God. Such people would be able to rapidly grow. From a certain standpoint, divine job sses depended on your personality. The more your personality agreed with the particr God¡¯s teachings and the more your personal talent waspatible with the God¡¯s divine power, the faster you would grow.


    As long as you had sufficient divine favor, it was even possible to surpass another person¡¯s lifetime¡¯s worth of effort in a single night. This was why I was called the Child of Light back in the day. I had such divine favor it seemed as if the God of Holy Light was spoiling an illegitimate child. Nobody could understand why a human who wasn¡¯t even fourteen years old could be a Legendary Holy Knight and possess such Holy Light radiance he seemed like the very sun.


    Holy Knight was probably the easiest job ss of all to obtain Gold. However,pared to other job sses, obtaining the next rank of Legend would be the most difficult. To this, Holy Knights would always say that they weren¡¯t pious or experienced enough, but reality was always crueler than belief.


    Their inability to progress in power level had nothing to do with their piousness. The God of Holy Light¡¯s automated divine power server would never look at that to begin with. The server would only look at efficiency and benefits obtained.


    ¡°The same amount of divine power can help ten thousand Bronze individuals enter Silver or help one hundred Silvers enter Gold. Moreover, so much divine power might not even help a single person at the peak of Gold find their own path to Legend. So the server will naturally choose to help promote as many low-level people as it can for the sake of efficiency. As for why it¡¯s so hard for Holy Knights to reach Legend on their own... that¡¯s because all Gold-ranked individuals who depended on outside divine assistance to reach their power level will have unstable foundations. Without divine power, they¡¯re nothing more than false Gold ranks. How could they possibly enter Legend?¡±


    Still, it was much easier to enter lower power level ranks. This was appropriate for the average strongest humans who typically reached Silver or Gold and was the foundational reason why the Holy Church¡¯sbat strength was sufficient to rule all of human society. Only under the protection of military might would a belief be able to spread.


    Although it was difficult to level up beyond Gold, this world would neverck geniuses and abnormal talents. Those who tempered themselves sufficiently would still be able to break through to Legend or higher. As long as there were enough people, Legend and higher-ranked individuals would naturally appear. Since Holy Knights had some of the lowest, almost non-existent requirements for entering, it became one of the mostmon job sses throughout all of Eich.


    The Holy Knight job ss was a direct inheritance from the God of Holy Light. Every Holy Light job ss member would start their cultivation from directlymunicating with the God of Holy Light. They would receive Holy Light powers in response to their prayers. Without discussing the religious philosophies behind this, this was what the automated divine power server determined to be the best course of action. The God of Holy Light would help any new Holy Light job ss member learn and understand the Holy Light and provide divine power to assist outstanding individuals in walking even further down this path.


    However, there was an unsolvable Gordian knot here. Since the God of Holy Light was an automated divine server, what if someone one day had a different or evenpletely contradictory way of thinking from him? Would they be banned from using the Holy Light, just like a game developer banning a gamer¡¯s ount?


    ¡°The answer is a definite yes. Don¡¯t all fallen angels and fallen Holy Knights lose their powers of Holy Light? Since all Holy Knights obtained their powers of Holy Light through the God of Holy Light, it¡¯s just as easy for the God of Holy Light to make his Holy Knights lose their power to sense the Holy Light.¡±


    But was it really true that it would be impossible to ess Holy Light without the God of Holy Light...?


    ¡°I give my gratitude to the God of Holy Light. At the very least, he helped me experience how magnificent the Holy Light was.¡±


    As Estrada lost his strength and youth, his memories and energy started disappearing as well. Estrada¡¯s life shed before his eyes as countless memories appeared in his mind.


    Nobody else knew just how old he was. Even the Holy Church had no records of his real age. Only Estrada himself knew that he was 1442 years old. Such a long period of time would create far too many memories for short-lived humans to recall.


    Unlike the stories told about him in legends, Estrada didn¡¯t join this path of Holy Light because the God of Holy Light summoned him. Nor was it because he wanted to seek some path of glory. Estrada chose to be the disciple of the elderly Holy Light priest in his hometown for one reason only: because he was poor. The elderly priest in his hometown was quite sickly and needed a disciple to take care of him, and the priest was also the only one in Estrada¡¯s hometown who could afford to take him in.


    ¡°Ha! I just wanted to fill my belly. I never expected that I would walk so far down this path... is this fate?¡±


    As Estrada¡¯s lifeforce diminished, pirs of light shot out of him. As they soared into the air, they transformed into meteors of light as everyone below him shouted in astonishment and disbelief. However, the elderly Holy Knight¡¯s memories had never been clearer than this moment.


    In the end, the old Holy Light priest who took Estrada in didn¡¯t live for much longer. However, the old priest gave his job over to the young Estrada who simply wanted to make a living.


    However, being a priest in a small town back in that generation was difficult. It could be said that the Holy Church had started out as one of the most ascetic organizations where people were developing the frontiers and wilnds...


    Although at that time the Holy War had ended for almost two centuries with Eich entering a peaceful era, very few species expected such a weak and short-lived species like humans to sessfully be the rulers of the mortal ne. This status that came too easily wasn¡¯t a stable one. There was the Sea Tribe forced to the deep sea, the beastmen that lost their empire and ins and even the elves that were on the winning side of the Holy War but became so weakened. Not a single one of these species were willing to bow down so easily.


    The humans obtained the Gods¡¯ favor,rge swathes of new territory and explosive growth in their poption. This helped create innumerable new flourishing cities, but soon these cities started disappearing for various strange reasons. Some cities disappeared due to a certain gue which was secretly caused by an Evil God, some cities were ughtered by the beastmen who disyed human heads on the city walls in a gory fashion and some cities were demolished by something as simple as a rampaging hoard of starving beasts. Even now, the number of people that died in the middle of the night remained a nightmare for the living.


    At this point in time, Holy Light priests and Holy Knights were all one family. No¡ªit should be said that warriors andmoners were all one family. They would all have to work hard to survive, and all of them would have to pick up their farming implements and enter battle when there was danger.


    ¡°What? Old man Martin broke his foot again? He needs my help to set his bone injury? Wait a moment, I haven¡¯t learned such a high-level Divine Art yet.¡±


    ¡°...A new child was just born in the Aiven Family? That¡¯s wonderful news. Wait, you want me to bless and name the new child? I don¡¯t even know how to write. Is it okay if I juste up with a random name?¡±


    ¡°Are you all priests as well? Why are you wearing armor? Holy Knights? What¡¯s that? Wait, are you here to eliminate the undead mage hiding in this area? Wait for me to make a few preparations, I¡¯ll guide the way for all of you.¡±


    Estrada, who only joined the path of Holy Light to have something to do, discovered more and more that he loved his job. In order to be able to protect his own people in this cruel world and harsh environment, Estrada joined the new Holy Knight job ss which was born in his time. In fact, Estrada had personally created many of the Holy Knight moral guidelines and standard Divine Arts, although he never told anyone about it. It was known by incredibly few that this Strongest Holy Knight was also from the very first generation of Holy Knights.


    ¡°A new job ss? Aren¡¯t we just armored priests? Well, I suppose we need a new name. How about Holy Knights? We are pious, humble, strong, courageous and pure. We are the knights for our God of Holy Light. We shall take on the roles of protectors in the darkness. We are knights that will protect our church and people.¡±


    When the first Holy Knight, Yintkachi, lifted his holy hammer and created the name of this new job ss, a young Estrada was there under the podium, listening to his idol Yintkachi speak.


    The first Holy Knights weren¡¯t that special. They were just warriors slightly stronger than other warriors¡ªto put it simply, they were armored priests. They were but a group first to feel that the path of Holy Light alone was insufficient to protect their people. They carried out their own oath.


    They roamed the darkness and the wilderness hunting the most dangerous of evil demons and magical beasts. They hunted down the Blood Tribe and undead mages hidden among the humans. In all sorts of despairing situations, they fought against demons and devils, all the while protecting their homes from other species¡¯ invasions.


    The glorious first Holy Knight Yintkachi didn¡¯t even survive very long. He died not long after establishing the Holy Knights to an unexpected ambush. Yintkachi¡¯s younger brother, Winstka, carried on that glorious battle hammer. However, Winstka was slightly weaker than his older brother andsted only three months. This silver battle hammer was passed down to yet another brother in arms.


    ¡°Aincaso. You died during the end of the war against the Wolfmen. You shouldn¡¯t have died. You wouldn¡¯t have died if you didn¡¯t rescue those farmers that begged you to save them. You¡¯re a true hero.¡±


    ¡°Sati. You were a half beastman from the Samoya district. Although people wouldn¡¯t ept you at first, you persisted down this path of protecting others. You¡¯re one of our most trustworthypanions. You¡¯re a true hero.¡±


    ¡°Findicaid. You took down the Evil God Albert together with you in order to eliminate the gue he caused in the Brighton district. You were an unrivalled genius that should have reached the realm of the undying. However, the Evil Gods tempted you into walking a path of darkness, but you finally overcame your own temptations. You... you¡¯re a true hero as well.¡±


    ¡°Atoiven. My slyest adopted son. I thought you would have been able to seed this battle hammer from me. But why did you return it to me so quickly? Don¡¯t you know that the most painful thing in the world is an elder watching his young ones around him die before him? Still, considering that a little brat like you carried out your responsibilities, even an idiot like you who challenged a Demon Earl by yourself... you¡¯re also a true hero.¡±


    Estrada muttered the names of the long line of previous owners of this battle hammer. Back in that year, when resources were incredibly scarce, every single weapon was a priceless treasure. Unless this weapon was utterly destroyed, it would be continuously passed down among the Holy Knights. Imperceptibly, it became a Holy Knight tradition.


    ¡°Rnd, you stinky brat, I thought that you could have taken over this battle hammer from me. You¡¯re just as sly as Atoiven. In a fuc*ed-up generation like this one, only the slyest ones will be able to lead a good life and continue upholding this overly traditional path of protection...¡±


    Precisely because of such a tradition, the originally ordinary weapons that Holy Knights used became infused with Holy Knight souls, bing the Holy Knights¡¯ specialty: holy swords and holy hammers.


    Naturally, this silver-crafted battle hammer, which had countless Holy Knights¡¯ heroic spirits within it, ended up bing the personal divine weapon of the Strongest Holy Knight in all of history. Perhaps this was the strongest Holy Light infused weapon of all time, so it naturally kept returning to the still living Strongest Holy Knight from the first generation of Holy Knights...


    ¡°Light Which Illuminates Despair From The Brink, the Guardian Battle Hammer of Dawn Envoys!¡±


    This ancient and tattered battle hammer once again let out a blinding golden blow. Although the God of Holy Light had abandoned his loyal knight, how could this divine guardian hammer, which possessed countless heroic spirits, possibly abandon a brother?


    The elderly Estrada had lost the powers of Holy Light, which caused him to rapidly age to the point where his hair was snow white. Yet he stood still in the air as numerous silver souls walked out of the battle hammer and transformed into soul shields. These heroic spirits used their remaining soul shards to protect their brother.


    ¡°Brother Aincaso... Little brat Atoiven... Brother Sati... Teacher Yintkachi...¡±


    Numerous familiar faces appeared before Estrada. Although he wasn¡¯t shaken even the slightest when the God of Holy Light abandoned and betrayed him, tears coursed unstoppably down his cheeks.


    ¡°I... I know what I should do... What path we should continue down...¡±


    Estrada once again lifted his battle hammer, transforming the blinding soul light within it into fiercely raging holy mes. The entire sky was ignited as the overly ¡°pure¡± angels once again burned in an inferno of holy mes, wailing in pain and disbelief.


    The elderly Holy Knight stood unmoving as the already disappeared Holy Light reappeared on his body. But this time, his Holy Light didn¡¯te from the God of Holy Light. Instead, his Holy Light came from this holy hammer that had been passed down through countless generations. Estrada¡¯s Holy Light came from deep within himself.


    ¡°...So it turns out that from ancient times to now, the Gods high up above weren¡¯t at all protecting us. We, our brothers and sisters, were the ones protecting us. We believed in the Holy Light simply because Holy Light gave us the power to protect our families and people. I fervently believed in and sought the Holy Light, which was actually mypanions¡¯ path of sacrifice and protection. Humans never needed to remember the Gods to begin with. The only ones we need to remember are all our brothers and sisters that died for us.¡±


    This realization in Estrada¡¯s soul ignited his very soulfire. His raging mes of Holy Light astonished every member of the Holy Light vanguard army and caused the Gods up above to tremble in fear. Everything had gone out of the Gods¡¯ control.


    Indeed, because this was just like what Rnd and his Southern Sect had done. Estrada had proved in front of everyone that Holy Light and the God of Holy Light were twopletely separate entities. One only needed to recognize this Holy Light, the light which represented protection and sacrifice in one¡¯s soul. So what if he abandoned the God of Holy Light?


    Estrada¡¯s powers of Holy Light were stolen from him? Ha! He would simply have to take them back.


    And now, in front of countless people, the Strongest Holy Knight from the first generation of Holy Knights once again set a precedent for other Holy Knights. He became the first Holy Knight who didn¡¯t worship the God of Holy Light and instead worshiped the Pure Holy Light.


    Under his gaze, the many angels ignited in mes. This Strongest Holy Knight had achieved a power level enough for him to be a God more than a millennium ago, yet he chose to remain a mortal SemiGod. Once Estrada finally cast off that heavy stone pressuring his heart, nothing remained which could stop him from disying his powers that had far exceeded mortal standards. Just the anger he was releasing from his heart was more than enough to destroy these low-ranked angels.


    What the ¡°bystanders¡± below him saw was that the Strongest Holy Knight managed to steal back the powers of Holy Light that the God of Holy Light had reimed. Not only that, Estrada even seeded in ying every single angel present. Thispletely destroyed the Holy Light vanguard army¡¯s worldview along with seriously shaking their faith.


    ¡°It¡¯s true that it¡¯s still possible to use Holy Light even after being abandoned by the God of Holy Light. The Southern Sect¡¯s teachings were real. The God of Holy Light is only a False God...¡±


    But currently Estrada couldn¡¯t be happy about finally learning this. As he looked at how very fewpanions he still had standing, his heart hurt. If only he could have taken this step earlier, perhaps...


    ¡°Nothing will be changed. Order is the highest form of perfection. All mistakes shall be corrected.¡±


    A young-appearing white-robed priest descended before Estrada. His long hair was braided with the image of the stars themselves, and his handsome face was expressionless.


    ¡°Mortal, your fate will not be changed.¡±


    The other person who descended appeared to be quite elderly. Thorns could be seen within his eyes, and this ascetic elder had quite a sad expression.


    ¡°The Order True Gods of Cleansing and Prophecy?¡±


    Many humans were able to recognize these two True Gods¡¯ incarnations. The True Gods of Cleansing and Prophecy were both Follower Gods under the God of Holy Light. They both could be considered slightly strong Middle Gods.


    ¡°Lamar? Pete? I never expected to see the two of you in such a circumstance...¡±


    The elderly Holy Knight felt rather nostalgic as well as sorrowful. Both Lamar and Pete had formerly been hispanions in the past. But now their icy cold eyes and tone were no different from any other Follower God belonging to the God of Holy Light. Estrada knew that perhaps this was the foundational reason why he had always refused to ascend to Godhood.


    ¡°Order is the highest¡ª¡±


    ¡°Mortal¡ª¡±


    The two True Gods¡¯ incarnations started muttering their extravagant sounding introduction lines again, but...


    *Smack!* *Smack!*


    Estrada evidently wasn¡¯t interested in hearing them finish. In front of this inherited battle hammer which represented dawn and protection, even the True Gods¡¯ incarnations were no different from the angels. As the Strongest Holy Knight swung his battle hammer, two headless divine incarnations¡¯ corpses directly fell to the ground.


    A normal third-rate Follower God¡¯s incarnation was nothing in front of the current Estrada. His power level of SemiGod was a special rank which had no upper limits to begin with. Now that Estrada had stopped holding back, extremely few existences out there would be capable of stopping him.


    However, Estrada could only smile bitterly.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have much time left...¡±


    That right, because a sudden beam of Holy Light descended from the sky and transformed the entire world with brightness, as if it was midday. This was a familiar light and even a divine miracle for the pious. This phenomenon made people want to kneel at the very sight. No¡ªin fact, some were already kneeling.


    ¡°The God of Holy Light!¡±


    That¡¯s right. Once the God of Holy Light¡¯s ns met an obstacle, once this ancient knight became his obstacle rather than helper¡ªto the extent where his foundational source of belief power was shaken¡ªon top of his Follower Gods¡¯ incarnations failing to deal with the problem, the God of Holy Light naturally descended with his own incarnation.


    He was a pure amalgamation of light. It was impossible to see what he looked like. However, just seeing his appearance made Estrada feel despair from the bottom of his heart.


    After the God of Holy Light appeared, the sun in the sky disappeared. The entire world fell quiet. The God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation was powerful enough to rewrite the naturalws of the world.


    The elderly Holy Knight closed his eyes as he felt the suffocating divine pressure that the strongest Main God emanated. Estrada could only smile bitterly. There was far too much of a difference between the strongest human and the strongest God. The difference was extreme to the point of despairing. The difference was such that nobody could change his fate.


    ¡°Hey, all of you. Why aren¡¯t you hurrying and running? Do you all want to die here?¡±


    After experiencing so many things, there were only incredibly few pious believers that kneeled to greet the descent of the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation. If this incident, where Estrada desecrated the Holy Light and was still able to keep the powers of Holy Light, started spreading to others, then the God of Holy Light would naturally see his authority and faith greatly decline. In that case, it was only natural for the God of Holy Light to kill everyone present to keep all this a secret. He had done plenty such things in the past before.


    There were plenty of smart people among the Holy Light army¡¯s vanguard. Some of the smarter ones had already begun secretly retreating, having arrived at such a conclusion beforehand. However, the great majority of the Holy Light army vanguard still possessed hope. They believed that the God they worshiped wouldn¡¯t be so merciless.


    But unfortunately their God of Holy Light was just like an ¡°automated divine server¡± which only calcted his personal benefits coldly like a machine. The Meteors of Holy Light which rained down from the sky was his answer to his believers.


    The God of Holy Light who resided high above in the heavens had long since stopped being the legendary human hero who had established the path of Holy Light. The current him even felt that talking to mortals was aplete waste of his time.


    At the Main God¡¯smand, the very stars were summoned as they crashed downwards. Everyone saw nothing but golden light before them, underneath which not a single life would possibly be able to survive.


    However...


    ¡°STOP!¡±


    Perhaps the God of Fate was an incredibly skilled jokester. Why else would Fate always result in so many scenarios that seemed incredibly ironic? The person who suddenly put up a wall of Holy Light which blocked the Meteors of Holy Light, which were Holy Light¡¯s physical personification, was the person who had just been their enemy: Estrada.


    Currently, Estrada wasn¡¯t in a very good condition. His hair had gone snow-white, and each meteor hit he blocked caused him to spit up blood. And it could be seen from the raging soulfire in his eyes that he had already begun using Soul Immtion in order to obtain more power.


    ¡°Teacher Estrada! You¡¯re still capable of escaping! No need to care about us!¡±


    Finally, the familiar voicesing from below him served to both assuage and pain his heart.


    Estrada knew that it was impossible for him to retreat...


    ¡°¡®Estrada absolutely has to die because the Holy Light requires your death for its salvation.¡¯ Ha! You¡¯ve seen through everything already, little Rnd. As your teacher, I¡¯m quite proud of you for everything you¡¯ve learned and aplished.¡±


    Estrada could only let out another bitter smile and shake his head sadly as he continued muttering part of Rnd¡¯s letter to him out loud.


    But suddenly a mysterious and powerful divine will sent a message that echoed through this entire area. Every person present heard and understood this message.


    ¡°Estrada, if you are willing to be my Follower God, I shall forgive you for all your sins.¡±


    Estradaughed out loud at this.


    ¡°Be your puppet and tool? Sure, I will agree as long as you let all these young children under me go free and also promise to never again interfere with mortal affairs.¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    Estrada didn¡¯t receive a response to this. Instead, more pirs of light appeared behind the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation, more than doubling the number of Meteors of Holy Light that were sent hurtling towards everyone. This was the God of Holy Light¡¯s answer.


    ¡°Estrada has to die because the Holy Light requires salvation.¡±


    Once again, the elderly Holy Knight muttered something that nobody understood as he then silently raised his battle hammer.


    ¡°We Holy Knights are proud of smiting evil and protecting the kind and just. We¡¯ve even branched into the path of judgement and the path of holy healing. But in the bottom of my heart, the strongest path for Holy Knights has forever been...¡±


    Estrada suddenly dropped his battle hammer, which whirled in midair beforending on the ground. At the moment of impact, a semicircr wall of light expanded from the battle hammer and enveloped everyone.


    ¡°...We Holy Knights are a job ss that were born for the sake of defensive battles. We were born for the sake of defending. Our strongest path has forever been the path of protection!¡±


    The elderly Holy Knight¡¯s roar echoed throughout the entire skies. He used Soul Immtion on himself to the extreme limits in order to cast the strongest barrier spell in all of history. At this moment, the aura of light expanding from his battle hammer blocked everything. Even the angels¡ªno¡ªeven the God of Holy Light himself found it impossible to prate this barrier of light.


    Meteors of Holy Light and pirs of Holy Light crashed into this barrier, but nothing was able to break through the barrier Estrada had created at the cost of his very life.


    It stood still, not even flickering from the attacksnding against it. It seemed as if even the God of Holy Light¡¯s attacks were nothing more than meaningless mosquito bites.


    Meanwhile, Estrada himself carried out his oath...


    ¡°Estrada has to die because the Holy Light requires salvation.¡±


    This protective barrier had been created at the cost of the elderly Holy Knight¡¯s full amount of life essence. Estrada¡¯s physical bodynded on the ground but remained standing despite the fact that he was no longer living. It seemed as if he was now a statue roaring at the skies, yet his soul was no longer present in his physical body.


    ¡°Teacher Estrada!¡±


    ¡°...No, this is impossible...¡±


    ¡°Wahhhhhhh! Teacher Estrada!¡±


    Countless cries arose from the individuals who had encircled the elderly Holy Knight¡¯s body. Meanwhile, when the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation discovered that it would be impossible for him to pierce through this powerful barrier unless he was willing to sacrifice and self-destruct his incarnation, he unhesitatingly calcted the potential costs and benefits and then made the decision to stop wasting his time here and leave.


    At the exact same moment, two divine messages from the God of Holy Light were delivered directly to the Church of Holy Light¡¯s headquarters. The first divine message ordered that all of Estrada¡¯s glory and honor be stripped from him, while the other divine message ordered that the entire Holy Light army vanguard be dered as heretics so that none of them would be able to ever return home. The God of Holy Light was still the most powerful God in existence, and he would forcefully twist everything back to the starting point.


    One weekter, a white ice crystal which exuded Holy Light and a tattered battle hammer that was fading in color were ced in front of me.


    I could only fall silent for a very long period of time as I gazed at this ice crystal and read Estrada¡¯s dying message.


    After an almost unending amount of silence on that dark night, Rnd, face pale, carefully picked up the ice crystal and set it within a ck box. He then shut it and ced it within his Frigidwinter Earth.


    Before he did, Harloys caught a glimpse of what was within the box.


    There were four grooves on top. Three top-level elemental items had been ced within these grooves, making the empty fourth groove apparent.


    There were also another four grooves on the bottom half of the box for Rnd¡¯s ice crystals. Again, there were three crystals ced within the grooves, with one more remaining empty.


    The first crystal possessed the blue light of water. The second crystal was Estrada¡¯s crystal of Holy Light that Rnd just received. The third crystal was missing, as someone had just recently arrived to take it. Meanwhile, the fourth groove had a crystal inserted which didn¡¯t have any glimmer to it at all. This ice crystal was identical to the first two before they had been delivered to Aylos and Estrada.


    Currently, I was looking at the tattered battle hammer and lightly touching it. I felt incredibly fatigued and uneasy...


    ¡°¡®Estrada has to die because the Holy Light requires salvation...¡¯ It¡¯s all my fault... If I didn¡¯t write that letter to him¡ª¡±


    ¡°Rnd! This isn¡¯t your fault! Your teacher made his own choice! And he would have made the exact same choice even without your letter. He¡¯s Estrada!¡±


    I could only helplessly nod my head and then shake my head. Harloys wasn¡¯t at all trying to console me. She was telling me the truth. Still, it was undeniable that I had given Estrada a final push at the end.


    ¡°Rnd...¡±


    The ck cat¡ªmany cultures considered it a symbol of misfortune, I must say¡ªhopped off my shoulder to the ground. She transformed into a golden-haired young elf and came up to me, apparently intent on continuing to console me. However, I shook my head again and stood up straight.


    ¡°...Rx, I¡¯m not that weak. We don¡¯t have much time left so let¡¯s prepare for the next step. At the very least¡ªat the very least...¡±


    Imperceptibly, my eyes started filling with tears, my n crafted out of cold logic suddenly thrown aside by a violent outburst of emotions. Before I could even react, I was kneeling on the ground, crying.


    ¡°Teacher... Estrada...¡±


    At this moment, the sly 20th ranked member of the Cmity Rankings was nowhere to be found. There was only a pained person hugging his knees and weeping, a youth who had just lost his teacher, his teacher who had been like a father to him.


    It had started to rain outside, the massive downpour swiftly passing with the time.


    ******


    After temporarily losing control of my emotions, I felt much better.


    When I proceeded to touch that tattered battle hammer again, it suddenly became ignited with Holy Light. It would seem that the heroic spirits within this battle hammer had recognized me as worthy of seeding it.


    I believed that as long as Holy Knights remained¡ªno¡ªas long as humans remained, this path of protection passed down through the generations would never be broken. My goal would never change.


    ¡°...I swear that every sacrifice will be meaningful! All evil viins will receive the just desserts they deserve! I will absolutely end this damned Holy War, forever!¡±


    I stroked the battle hammer as I gazed out the window. The dawn sun had just peeked over the horizon, its rays breaking through the clouds.


    And then, looking down, I added another person dear to me in my notebook for whom I must carry yet another responsibility on my shoulder.


    At the same time, I wrote down yet another mortal enemy.


    ¡°Teacher Estrada, and the damned God of Holy Light...¡±

 Chapter 431 - Waves

    <h4>Chapter 431: Waves</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Some believed crows to be the harbingers of disaster, but everyone could agree that disastrous news would appear like them, swiftly and unexpectedly.


    In just a short two days, news of Estrada¡¯s death reached every major human country¡¯s spy agency. At almost the exact same time, news that the Holy Church had dered Estrada to be a heretic also arrived.


    The whole world was astonished, and then... the whole world mourned.


    It was easy for a person to do a good deed, but it would be very, very difficult for that person to only perform good deeds throughout their entire life. Holy Knights were popr in every country, yet Holy Light priests and Cardinals received much worse treatment. This was because one of the requirements for being a Holy Knight was to do good deeds for one¡¯s entire life. It could even be said that Holy Knights would specially pick to do good deeds that wouldn¡¯t give them payment in return. That was why Holy Knights were renowned for being able to visit any country without attracting suspicion. And Estrada was doubtlessly the greatest representative of the Holy Knights.


    Humans had long since forgotten when it was that Estrada first became famous. But he had always been viewed as the living representative of the Holy Light. Estrada had led the way in defending against countless cmities. Whenever other species invaded, Estrada would be always be there at the lead of the allied armies. Whenever there was a gue cmity, Estrada would be at the forefront ofing to the aid of others. His wondrous nickname, ¡°Miracle Hand,¡± referred to how he was always able to create miracles even in the most despairing of situations.


    The rulers of major countries would perhaps have objections to the forceful ways of the Holy Church, but not a single person didn¡¯t respect this famous elderly Holy Knight. After all, it was likely that Estrada had saved their grandfather in the past, or that some other ancestors of theirs owed him their lives. And thanks to countless myths and legends spread about Estrada, the Strongest Holy Knight had an excellent reputation among the ordinary popce.


    The rarest part of all was how Estrada was uninterested in authority and status. Not only that, he didn¡¯t care for politics. Everyone who was familiar with him knew that¡ªno¡ªit should be said that everyone knew that Estrada was a truly kind and easygoing old man with no ambitions whatsoever.


    This elderly Holy Knight who was renowned as the living representation of Holy Light was actually dered as a heretic? Everyone could tell that something was wrong. A problem must have arisen.


    ¡°The God of Holy Light personally descended in an incarnation to kill Estrada?¡±


    Secret channels as well as the Holy Church¡¯s official notification simultaneously confirmed this unfortunate piece of news. Head priests and roaming Holy Knights everywhere sent message after message to the Holy Church¡¯s headquarters, asking about the situation. In the end, all of them received the same reply.


    ¡°Estrada, a heretic? Someone like him would actually betray the Holy Light?¡±


    Almost all the countless messages had the same tone of disbelief. Pope Caloma and the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups had huge headaches over this situation. Unfortunately for them, they were unable to lie and make up a response so they could only tell everyone that Estrada was a heretic who betrayed the Holy Light. They couldn¡¯t lie because dering Estrada to be a heretic was a directmand from the God of Holy Light himself. None of them dared to disobey the God of Holy Light¡¯s divine will.


    And so this naturally brewed into a huge incident.


    ¡°Why did the God of Holy Light personally descend in an incarnation to kill Estrada? Just what could he have possibly done?¡±


    From a certain standpoint, it was reasonable that the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups had always been on guard against Estrada. He had remained alive due to his power level and umted so much good reputation over the centuries. Estrada was far too brilliant of an existence within the Holy Church. Even if he didn¡¯t have any interest in authority, just his existence alone was a problem for the organization.


    ¡°Estrada desecrated the Holy Light so the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation descended to kill him.¡± This was the overly simple exnation given to everyone. But the simpler an exnation was, the more people would read into it. And the information contained within this exnation was indeed worth analyzing.


    And it just so happened that Estrada had taught countless disciples, and over the years these disciples had their disciples and descendants. There were innumerable Holy Knights who had joined the Holy Church for the sole reason of idolizing Estrada. None of them were satisfied with such a simple answer. Countless Holy Knights, Holy Light priests and other Holy Church-rted personnel began rushing to the Holy Church headquarters.


    And at this exact time, the Southern Sect, which had suffered great losses together with Bardi¡¯s recent losses, jumped out into the public eye. The Southern Sect loudly started teaching their concept of the Pure Holy Light, calling out the so-called God of Holy Light for being nothing more than a False God who was stealing the grandness of the Pure Holy Light. The true Holy Light wouldn¡¯t require worshipping the False God of Holy Light. And Estrada had proved this fact, which was why the God of Holy Light killed him to try and keep this a secret. The Southern Sect¡¯s Pope Atadia even swore that everything he stated was nothing but the truth in front of everyone with the powers of Holy Light. Well, some interpreted it as what he believed to be the truth.


    In other situations, the Holy Church would have been at least able to counter the statements. But it just happened to be that the entire former Holy Light army vanguard witnessed everything that happened. This former Holy Light army which consisted of more than one hundred thousand people directly dispersed everywhere. Some people directly joined the Southern Sect and the Bardi Empire. Some went to their family or friends. Some returned to their home countries. And some even returned to the Holy Church.


    The God of Holy Light had gone insane and intended to ughter a tremendous number of humans. Estrada¡¯s decision, resolution and how he had managed to reobtain the Holy Light after having it stripped from him became the best evidence for the Southern Sect¡¯s teachings.


    Naturally, the Holy Church would try to minimize the effects of this incident. However, it was impossible for Holy Light job ss members to lie when swearing under oath in the name of the Holy Light¡ªand this became troublesome. Since this incident was impossible to deny, its effects continued spreading as things worsened for the Holy Church. Every day, people left the Holy Church. Many even lost their powers of Holy Light after losing their belief. And a rare few among them managed to rediscover the Holy Light, which confirmed the fact that the ¡°Pure Holy Light¡± existed without the God of Holy Light.


    And it just happened to be that at this time, the fairies, who had forever remained neutral, suddenly stabbed the Holy Church while it was down.


    Nobody knew the fairies¡¯ true method of existence. They were actually one of the few species that didn¡¯t fear the God of Holy Light and used objective reporting to detail the entire incident. They brought out countless witnesses¡¯ firsthand ounts to prove the most critical part: that Estrada had been stripped of his Holy Light powers by the angels and the God of Holy Light himself but then managed to reobtain the Holy Light through his own efforts alone. Of course, the fairies also reported in detail on the God of Holy Light¡¯s attempts to kill everyone present to keep this a secret.


    The most unbelievable part was how the fairies even reported on the secrets of the Source of Order and the True Gods themselves. The fairies told everyone about the connections between Divine Concepts, divine power, Holy Light, the Source of Order and so on. Although they didn¡¯t directly state that the God of Holy Light wasn¡¯t the only source of Holy Light, everyone would be able to conclude this from what they¡¯d said. And so the Southern Sect¡¯s teachings about the ¡°Pure Holy Light¡± received confirmation and support from this third party.


    As for why the fairies were willing to suddenly antagonize the God of Holy Light?


    ¡°The God of Holy Light must have gone insane. He intends to ughter a tremendous number of people in order to suck up to the Source of Order. Not only that, the God of Holy Light just happens to be the biggest faction and strongest Main God in the Order Faction. If the God of Holy Light continues his rule, no matter who wins the Holy War in the end, the end result will be even worse for the mortal ne than the aftermath of the previous Holy War. All of us fairies will starve to death!¡±


    The fairies had excellent observational skills as a species which had suffered so much during thest Holy War. They¡¯d even watched many previous Holy Wars, and while the fairies didn¡¯t care who won, they knew that the Chaos Faction was filled with insane people impossible to reason with. The Chaos Faction forever lived by thew of the jungle where only the strong survived and the weak would be preyed upon. If they won, the first thing they¡¯d do would be to ¡°eliminate¡± a weak species like the fairies. That was why the fairies usually favored the Order Faction. However, if the God of Holy Light continued being the big boss of the Order Faction, then the fairies would be one of the biggest losers in the end no matter who won.


    The situation was bing ever more chaotic. Pope Caloma anxiously prayed to the God of Holy Light for answers but received only a rather vague divine message.


    ¡°We are enforcing the will of Order. Glorious days will soon be upon us.¡±


    At this moment, low-ranked angels descended at the Holy Church¡¯s sevenrgest mega-churches, including its headquarters. True Gods¡¯ incarnations even descended to three of the mega-churches.


    However, the Holy Church members at each location didn¡¯t view these angels and True God incarnations with idolization like they would have in the past. Instead, the they viewed them with enmity, suspicion and coldness. Doubts were brewing in the Holy Church members¡¯ minds, bringing about plenty of internal conflict and trouble for the Holy Church. However, the even icier angels and True God incarnations only went about their own business without caring one bit about what the mortals thought of them.


    ¡°...As expected, the God of Holy Light hasn¡¯t given up on his n. He intends to use forceful means now and personally send souls into the Cycle of Reincarnation.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t he worried about losing believers? Right now, a majority of Holy Knights refuse to listen to the Holy Church¡¯s orders. The Holy Church has already lost more than one-third of theirbat strength¡ªat least.¡±


    ¡°The God of Holy Light ns to send a tremendous amount of souls into the Cycle of Reincarnation, which will help him earn the Source of Order¡¯s recognition. He considers it extremely profitable to sacrifice mortals in order to obtain a promotion. Why would he care about losing belief¡ªall those mortals were destined to die anyways. He would prefer for them to die earlier, enter his Divine Kingdom and be his nutrition. As long as he remains as the strongest Main God of Order and maintains the Source of Order¡¯s favor, he¡¯ll forever be the most powerful and unstoppable existence.¡±


    I knew exactly what the God of Holy Light wanted. I also understood that under the current situation, he was an undefeatable existence. If he forcefully started his ¡°soul harvest¡± n, it would be impossible for us to stop him.


    The God of Holy Light had been umting more than half of all belief in the mortal ne for almost two thousand years. He had far surpassed any ordinary Main God¡¯s power level. In fact, I doubted that a single Chaos Faction Demon Lord would be stronger than the God of Holy Light.


    But judging from how he was just as dense and mechanical as always, the God of Holy Light was also likely to be the stupidest Main God. If he managed topletelybine with and be a part of the Source of Order, he would strive even harder to force more souls into the Cycle of Reincarnation without regards to cost. In that case, the fairies¡¯ analysis was absolutely correct. The God of Holy Light would be an even more dangerous enemy than the entire Chaos Faction.


    ¡°How am I even supposed to y this game? Forget about having garbage teammates and garbage leaders. Our faction¡¯s biggest boss wants all of us to die. And it just happens to be impossible to fire or change this boss. How are we supposed to have fun ying!? Are we all just supposed to go die as he wants?¡±


    And as the Holy War continued, the God of Holy Light would only be stronger and stronger, thus giving him more and more direct influence over the mortal ne. Not only would the Source of Order¡¯s favor and the unending conflicts help expand the Concept of Holy Light, the constant increase in the Elemental Tide meant that powerful existences¡¯ incarnations would also be stronger in the mortal ne. With fewer dimensional limitations restraining them, the most powerful existences would be able to use the full might of their true powers.


    And so I was stuck in a dead end.


    If I didn¡¯t do anything to stop the God of Holy Light¡¯srge-scale sacrifice of souls, a tremendous number of people would die and the Goddess of Order would be revived. That would be game over.


    If I gathered all my power and tried to stop the God of Holy Light¡¯srge-scale sacrifice of souls, he would crush me to death like a measly worm. And then he would simplyplete his soul harvest through the Holy War and revive the Goddess of Order. Once again, it would be game over.


    Just like that damned terrible game I yed, all paths lead to dead ends. Which was why I decided not to choose any of these paths.


    ¡°It¡¯s impossible to stop the God of Holy Light with direct means. However, there¡¯s an excellent saying. ¡°When a door closes, a window always opens.¡±


    ¡°So have you found this window?¡±


    ¡°Nope. This damned world isn¡¯t a game, after all, and it¡¯spletely imbnced. There were never any windows to begin with. That¡¯s why I intend on smashing the wall down.¡±


    That¡¯s right. If I tried to directly interfere with the God of Holy Light and the Source of Order¡¯s ns, I would only be wasting my time and energy. Only by leapingpletely out of the bounds of their logic and rules with my attacks would I possibly have a chance of victory. That was why I spent much effort on preparing my ¡°grand scheme,¡± which would be used to ¡°smash the walls.¡± Even Estrada became a sacrifice for all this.


    ¡°...I won¡¯t allow any sacrifice to be wasted. As long as thest piece of the puzzle arrives, I¡¯ll be able to activate my ¡®grand scheme.¡¯¡±

 Chapter 432 - Butterfly Effect

    <h4>Chapter 432: Butterfly Effect</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    The Fog Mountains were located in San Antonio¡¯s Amu Mountain district, and its capital was Fenbert, a city well known for producing outstanding fragrances and gems that originated from the depths of these mountains.


    This ce had a rather mythical history. At first, Fenbert was but an ordinary mountain vige with nothing special whatsoever. Dangerous wild beasts roamed this mountainous area, and ording to legend these forever fog-filled mountains had man-eating demons hiding within.


    Rumor had it that anyone who entered the Fog Mountains would never return alive. It wasmon for people here to suddenly disappear, and everyone would put them down as the work of demons.


    However, approximately seven hundred years ago, a brave young man named Amu went into the Fog Mountains of his own volition. He bravely fought and outsmarted the demons and obtained methods to enrich his hometown, the seed for an aromatic fragrance called ¡°Dragoneye¡± and gem mining and refining technologies.


    Amu used his newly-obtained riches to turn Fenbert into a thrivingmercial center and military fortress. Not only did Amu be the first City Lord of Fenbert, but stories of his heroic deeds were also passed down through the generations. In fact, this entire mountain district ended up being renamed in his honor.


    However, these events had taken ce too far in the past. Nobody from today treated these legends as real. People didn¡¯t believe in demons anymore, after all. The mysterious disappearances had stopped several centuries back. As for the adventurers that entered the Fog Mountains and never returned? Considering that the roars of plenty of vicious beasts could still be heard in the mountains, everyone felt that there was a far more likely exnation than one with demons.


    In this current day and age, the environment had long since changed from what it originally resembled. Even the famous gem mines that the Amu Mountain district relied on were mostly empty. Still, producing Dragoneye fragrance and gem refining remained the most important economical pirs of this area.


    Every year, many merchant groups would cross the mountains to bring valuable unrefined gems in exchange for Dragoneye fragrance and refined gems. Here, it was verymon to find magical gems that required a master craftsman¡¯s touch as Fenbert was home to some of the best gem craftsmen in the mortal ne.


    However, nobody in the Amu Mountains expected that the legends would one day be real. The legends about Amu from seven hundred years ago ended up bing a burden upon the people of today.


    ¡°Hello, we¡¯re here to im a debt owed to us. Please pay us what Amu promised back in the day. Please pay us half of all the wealth that he¡¯s umted. You don¡¯t have enough money? Then pay us with yournd.¡±


    Those man-eating demons? They really existed. The local hero Amu had even signed a contract with them. The wealth and technology he obtained wasn¡¯t gained for free; it belonged to the demons, and now the demons returned to public view and came to collect the debt.


    Alright, after saying this much, you readers must have understood who these demons were.


    ¡°Great Demons! So many Great Demons! Forest Demons, Snow Demons, me Demons and...¡±


    When these hideous demons walked out of the Fog Mountains, they brought along Amu¡¯s ancient contract.


    Although the contract was well maintained, it was difficult to make out the wording on the paper that had long since yellowed after several centuries. The real reason the contract hadn¡¯t be a piece of useless scrap paper was that a shocking number of two hundred thousand Great Demons, a tremendous army, came out of the mountains.


    By now, it was easy to infer what must have urred. As one of the losers of the previous Holy War, the Great Demons had escaped into the depths of these mountains, which was why there were so many rumors in the past of demons living here. But several centuries had passed without a single new rumor of demons¡ªplenty of evidence for just how patient the Great Demons were in waiting for their chance.


    Based on historical records, Great Demons were skilled at witchcraft and shamanism. There were many records of them using potions and magical gems in their religious and magical ceremonies. They sought to understand the source of the soul. They were far more skilled than the elves from their generation at understanding herbal medicines. Knowledge was wealth and power, and it would be simple for them to give out a little bit of their special knowledge to help a remote mountain vige to be a flourishing metropolis.


    As for why they chose to sign a contract with Amu that they obviously wouldn¡¯t be able to collect on...


    ¡°...Amu was a brave warrior who overcame countless dangers to reach the deepest part of the mountains. He was able to survive after dueling against our own warriors. Why not give him a few presents? We are no barbarians. We respect the brave and the powerful. After so many years, plenty of people other than Amu have signed the ¡®return half¡¯ contract with us. However, he was the only one who kept his promise. Amu is truly a real hero.¡±


    Nobody knew if the demons¡¯ words were real. But at least the unfamiliar new ¡°neighbors¡¯¡± words made people feel better. Amu was their hero, after all. They felt that they had gained face as these outsiders had respected their hero.


    Of course, the true reason why these ¡°debt collectors¡± could stay so easily was due to their overwhelming military might. The most famous warrior in the Amu Mountains was sliced in half by a demon squadron leader. The local militia, which numbered less than three thousand, was entirely eradicated in a short three hours. Since there was no way to defeat the Great Demons, and no way to resist, the people here could only choose to believe what the Great Demons said.


    The Amu Mountain District was a remote and sparsely popted district far away from potential enemies. The only military might they had were the few local soldiers and vige militias. The local soldiers would only be sufficient for dealing with vigers that acted out of hand, while the vige militias were only equipped for dealing with some wild beasts. As for organizing a rescue army? That would require the neighboring domain lords to act in unison, something that would take a significant amount of time.


    The Holy Church and Holy Knights would have originally responded to this almost immediately. Unfortunately, they had their own problems to deal with, so it would be impossible to rely on them. And so, in just a short two days, all the residents of the Amu Mountain district were cut off from human society. They became the subordinates of the Great Demons.


    Communication in the mountains was no longer as difficult as it had been several centuries ago. Visiting merchants brought along the current generation¡¯smon sense and culture. However, the Great Demons had a rather bad reputation. The mountain vigers were terrified of how Great Demons were rumored to eat other intelligent species as their main food. Although the Great Demons imed to have gotten rid of this habit of theirs, everyone remained afraid of the Great Demons¡¯ bone nes and sharp fangs.


    Still, the Great Demons patiently used concrete actions to change people¡¯s view of them. They voluntarily handed out free food to everyone, sent out rtively better-looking female Great Demons to y with children and had their experienced hunters teach the human hunters about how to survive in the mountains.


    Of course, the Great Demons also took the mountain vigers¡¯ sensitive pride into consideration. They made sure to praise the mountain vigers¡¯ unique culture and legendary heroes.


    They brought out a new delicious food called ¡°breadfruit¡± which soon became one of the most popr foods around here. And the highest-ranked gem craftsmen, herbalists and alchemists also received arge number of new forms and precious materials. ¡°Future gem capital,¡± ¡°City of Merchants and Artisans¡± and other such promises helped fan human ambitions.


    The Great Demons indeed did an excellent job. Their strategy was far more effective than forcefully invading. Someone capable at nning and strategizing had to be behind the scenes.


    As an unfamiliar species that the entire ne was ¡°familiar¡± with, their first appearance in centuries and the first impression given was critically important. If they started off by eating humans, just like in the legends, every single human would likely fight to the bitter end against them. But if they instead showed off a more moderate image, such as of a friendly species that wished to assimte into this world, then their days would be far less troublesome.


    Of course, there were some among the mountain vigers that pointed out how the demons were probably just faking, but the result was that these ¡°smart individuals¡± mysteriously disappeared.


    Large amounts of resources were suddenly ¡°given for free¡± to everyone. Free food and gold gave all the mountain vigers benefits. The Great Demons hadn¡¯t cared about cost and almostpleted their tactical objective. In fact, even the fairies observing while hidden in the shadows had finished preparing their special edition report.


    That¡¯s right¡ªalmost. The problem wasn¡¯t that some hero or demon yer suddenly appeared. San Antonio had many troubles of its own, and this remote mountainous district wasn¡¯t valuable to them. The problem was with the Great Demons themselves.


    ¡°Kill them all. Bring their heads to the altar.¡±


    On a certain day, the Great Demons, who had acted so friendly just yesterday, suddenly transformed into the most vicious of viins. Their warriors, who previously had furrowed their eyebrows while doing their best to smile, now had bloodthirsty auras about them as they tossed out life-ending spears.


    The ughter began and ended quite suddenly. The 200,000 Great Demons even started a ughtering contest between themselves to see who could ughter the most. In less than twelve hours, the 170,000 poption of the Amu Mountain district waspletely butchered, only a few thousand spared by the demons. Even fewer managed to survive and escape. On the human heads piled on the Great Demons¡¯ bone altar, many had looks of confusion. Even at their point of death, they didn¡¯t understand why this had happened. Everything had been just fine yesterday, so why did the Great Demons start a ughter today?


    The entire city of Fenbert was filled with the stench of blood. The few remaining survivors that the demons spared were ¡°lucky¡± enough to see what happened next when the bloodthirsty demons returned from their hunt.


    Those who were spared were either young, courageous and resolute warriors, or the wise and experienced elders. This was because they would be the best sacrifices of all for the demons¡¯ ritual.


    All the altars lit up in unison, and a red pir appeared to stain the clouds in the sky red with blood. Even though it was the middle of the day, the sun disappeared. Darkness and a blood moon descended, causing the fresh blood on the altars to begin bubbling.


    The blood started moving by itself and finallybined to form a crimson blood pool.


    As Great Demon witch doctors and shamans incanted, the human blood pool and the blood moon in the sky mysteriously connected. Blood-red light cast down upon the pool, making it almost seem toe alive. The blood pool expanded more and more as the blood congealed. Finally, when it expanded to more than ten times its original size, it devoured the remaining living human sacrifices saved forst.


    When the first blood-red goat-horned demon walked out of the bubbling blood pool, Arch Witch Doctor Hit sighed a breath of relief. The Great Demons had given up on their original n all for the sake of this current scene. If they had failed, Hit knew that it would be impossible for him to be allowed to live even though he was the leader of the Poisonspear Tribe.


    Numerous goat-horned demons walked out of the blood pool. They weren¡¯t particrly tall, and their triangr shaped goat faces even seemed ratherical. They were also hoofed, just Half-Goatmen. However, Half-Goatmen would have purely human upper body halves, unlike these goat-horned demons.


    Panen, the leader of the goat-horned demons, was gray and muchrger than the others. The moment he stepped out he shook off the blood from his body and stuffed some bloody meat remaining from the human sacrifices into his mouth. After he hurriedly filled his stomach, Panen ran back to the blood pool and roughly pushed aside a Great Demon mage. Standing next to the blood pool, he cut his own arm and let out arge amount of blood, continuously chanting as he attempted to erge this Dimensional Door.


    These goat-horned demons were known as Sickle Goathorn Demons. Rumors had it that they were a special demonized form of fallen Half-Goatmen and taurens. One of the most skilled species among demons at using magic, having them be the first to arrive was a clear indication of the demons¡¯ ns.


    With the Goathorn Demons¡¯ assistance, the blood pool expanded even further. Panen ordered the Goathorn Demons that ran out of mana to be tossed into the blood pool as additional nourishment. These Goathorn Demons wailed in pain as they became nothing more than blood themselves, transforming into the Dimensional Door¡¯s nutrition. After witnessing this scene, the other Goathorn Demons could only focus even more on casting magic to expand the blood pool. Some even began cutting off their body parts to sacrifice to the blood pool, hoping the Dimensional Door spell would stabilize.


    Finally, twentyish minutes after Goathorn Demons stopped arriving out of the blood pool, a giant red demon w reached out from the pool and identally brushed up against Fenbert¡¯s town wall. It randomly grabbed what was closest to it¡ªa few Great Demons and Goathorn Demons¡ªand tossed them all into the blood pool.


    As these unlucky demons howled at their impending deaths, the blood pool started receding at a great speed. It seemed as if the Dimensional Door was about to copse. However, Panen revealed a smile that appeared even uglier than someone crying and hurriedly retreated. As he did, he whistled loudly to the skies, appearing... delighted?


    ¡°Ahhh!¡±


    Before the final unlucky demons that the w had grabbed dropped into the blood pool, a massive maw appeared and swallowed half of the entire blood pool along with these demons. The final shrieks could be heard from between the cracks in the maw¡¯s teeth.


    The bloody sacrifice continued. The maw of this Chaos Abyss Lord had already arrived in the mortal ne. The only part of its body that had currently entered was its tremendous mouth that had a diameter of more than thirty meters.


    ¡°Blood, more blood! Delicious... I want more... Devour... Evolve!¡±


    This was an existence that would be at minimum a Demon Earl. However, it seemed it wasn¡¯t very intelligent. It wasn¡¯t even capable of formingplete sentences.


    ¡°Inferno Devourer Bethulus? Why is he the one summoned?¡±


    Arch Witch Doctor Hit recognized this venerated evil existence but began secretly retreating at the same time. He instantly canceled his original n to negotiate with the summoned Demon Lord. He would already be considered lucky if he was able to keep his life in front of this particr Demon Lord. Hit had no death wish.


    Inferno Devourer Bethulus was one of the oldest Demon Lords. Although he was also one of the most powerful Demon Earls, he was the worst possible Demon Lord to have as a reinforcement. He viewed eating as more important than anything, and Hit knew full well that his entire Great Demon army might not even be a snack for Bethulus.


    Currently, it seemed that Bethulus was stuck in the Dimensional Door. He roared angrily as Goathorn Demons ran around busily in an attempt to save their leader, Panen.


    Quite obviously, the current amount of sacrifices were still insufficient to summon such a powerful Demon Lord to the mortal ne. And Bethulus was an impatient individual who wasn¡¯t ustomed to waiting. Goathorn Demon leader Panen spent a great deal of time convincing and exining to Bethulus before thetter finally withdrew slightly, at least returning some of the blood pool space. However, Bethulus¡¯ eight bloody eyes were filled with the will to ughter and devour and exposed his desires for all to see.


    And so demons started jumping out of the blood pool again. This time, it wasn¡¯t a ¡°weak species¡± like the Goathorn Demons.


    Instead, Berserk Demons, Dragontail Demons, Devourer Demons and other such vicious demons specialized in ughtering arrived. Tall and physically strong, just one punch from them would easily be able to shatter a giant¡¯s head. Some even had toxic spikes on their bodies. They started searching for new prey as they took to the skies.


    Demons, who excelled at devouring and evolving, were technically ssified under the overarching species of ¡°demon.¡± However, every individual demon would have their own unique and wondrous evolution. There would often be tremendous power level differences even between two demons of the same species. It could be said that there were no two identical demons in the world. If one had to forcefully find amon point, then it would be that the more ugly a demon was, the stronger and more vicious it would be. In every single dimension, demons would forever be the most unwee visitors. They would never bring anything with them other than death and destruction.


    Demonmanders wielded their whips in midair but it wasn¡¯t necessary. The Demon Lord¡¯s desire of devouring and ughtering would be far more effective at motivating them than any minor demonmander. With great efficiency, the demons organized themselves into squadrons and immediately set out to attack the outside world. They intended to bring a sufficient number of sacrifices to their Demon Lord master. A new round of ughtering had now arrived, earlier than scheduled.


    ¡°It¡¯s finallyplete.¡±


    Hit, who was currently hiding in a corner, heaved another sigh of relief. The Demon Lord and his subordinates had now arrived, and Hit and his tribe had sessfully stayed safe. No¡ªit should be said that Hit and his tribe still needed to leave as quickly as possible. Otherwise, they might all be nothing more than a snack for the Demon Lord Bethulus.


    Agreements? ns? Allies? The most powerful demons would never think about such things. Their brains were filled with muscr instincts and reactions. Fulfilling their desires was the only important thing to them. Something like a n? A high-level demon would carry it out if they remembered or simply forget about it entirely.


    What about the boss¡¯s punishment for losses incurred from not carrying out the n, you say? Firstly, demons would rarely think about overall situations or strategies in the first ce. Secondly, any Demon Lords powerful enough to rule an entire ne in the endless Chaos Abyss would all have personalities where they thought they were the best who ever lived. The so-called concept of them having a boss wasn¡¯t even in their minds. Rather than calling the Demon Lords panions that allied for amon cause,¡± they were more like ¡°a group of bastards that hurried to partake in a big dinner because someone in the mortal ne summoned them to enjoy a ughter and a feast.¡±


    Not only that, this incredibly simple way of thinking also gave them their most appropriate path of evolution. Demons would forever be able to grow more powerful through ughtering. When considering the totalbat strength of an entire species, the demons that received an endless amount of power from the River Styx could definitely be ranked as the number one most powerful species overall throughout every single dimension.


    What about losses to the overall n due to eating one¡¯s allies? A hungry Demon Lord would only consider such a question after filling their stomach. But that would be toote for the eaten Great Demons if that urred.


    ¡°Damn it, I clearly supported the original n. Why was I the one chosen to...¡±


    Indeed, the Great Demons that lost everything in the Holy War had long since chosen the Chaos Evil Gods and Chaos Abyss as their new master. Many inferno-lized Great Demons even got ustomed to staying and living in the lower nes. It would be impossible for them to return to the mortal ne with a normal method.


    The Great Demons¡¯ original n wasn¡¯t to use such a major blood sacrifice. They had wanted to obtain the human society¡¯s recognition no matter what it took. At the very least, the Great Demons didn¡¯t want to be treated as a high-level threat. They would then slowly take over nearby surrounding territories and cities, secretly bing a major power base for the demon armies before a full-scale invasion. They didn¡¯t want to start things with such a simple-minded ughter.


    However, sometimes ns would change faster than one expected. The foundational reason for the sudden change in the Great Demons¡¯ strategy was actually mostly because of Rnd.


    Although there were no official rules to the Holy War, there were plenty of unwritten rules. The mortal species would fight other mortal species, while the Order Gods would fight the Chaos Evil Gods. Ordinary soldiers would fight against each other, while generals did the same. Only by killing the enemy general first would a general start ughtering ordinary soldiers.


    This unwritten rule was because of the current situation and the power level on both the Order and Chaos sides. The Elemental Tide was currently far away from reaching a peak. Sending top-levelbat strength to the mortal ne woulde at a tremendous cost, and it wouldn¡¯t be beneficial, especially to the demons. This was why the battles happening now were only supposed to be precursors, with mortals acting as the representatives of the Gods.


    But now this unwritten rule and taboo had been broken by the Order Main God, the God of Holy Light. Not only did he personally descend in an incarnation, he also sent down arge number of low-ranked angels and Follower God incarnations all for the purpose of fighting. Without a doubt, this broke the power bnce between the two sides and sped up the development of the Holy War. And so the Chaos Abyss responded in turn by sending out their own vicious generals and demon army. Under this butterfly effect, higher-levelbat strength like the angels and demons arrived far earlier than they originally should have.


    Fortunately, the Elemental Tide was still rtively low, which limited the demons¡¯ power levels. Sacrificing an entire mountain district¡¯s worth of humans only managed to sessfully summon the Demon Earl Bethulus¡¯s mouth and half a demon army. Although the demons seeded ining to the mortal ne, it would still be difficult for them to expand their army and obtain results due to logistical difficulties.


    If the Holy Church could organize an army to deal with the demons, it would be possible to eliminate this problem before it got any bigger. Unfortunately, that would be impossible with the Holy Church¡¯s current situation.


    As this butterfly effect made the mortal ne¡¯s troubles worse and worse, bringing cmity ever closer, I was doing something that could be considered as evil as summoning demons: I was summoning... the devils!

 Chapter 433 - Summoning

    <h4>Chapter 433: Summoning</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    <i>¡°Dimensional rules? They¡¯re actually not that difficult to understand. A well-developed dimension is like a mansion with an owner. The creator is the owner of the mansion, and the Gods with their Divine Concepts are the managers of various areas. Some are in charge of watering (Rain), some are in charge of personnel and changing out the workers (Cycle of Reincarnation), and so on. If you can create a new job and a new task that can make this mansion operate more efficiently, and the owner recognizes your existence, you¡¯ll be able to be a God too. As long as your room still exists, you¡¯ll naturally be undying.¡± </i>¨C Quote from ¡°Games of Time and Space, Volume 3: Guesses about the World¡¯s Unsolvable Riddles¡± by Selis Solomon.


    Archmage Selis was renowned as the greatest space magic mage of all time. His understanding of Time and Space created the foundational textbooks for the Mage Country¡¯s studies into these two top-level fields. His Volume 1 on Time and Volume 2 on Space became required textbooks for mages who wanted to study Time, Space, Dimensional Summoning, Illusions and so on. However, Selis¡¯s Volume 3, ¡°Guesses about World¡¯s Unsolvable Riddles,¡± greatly decreased everyone¡¯s opinions of him. Selis¡¯ reputation went from that of a wise schr to one of the most insane mages in all of history.


    It was unknown whether his inferences were real or not. It was also unknown whether assassins belonging to the Gods¡¯ Churches seeded in assassinating Selis, who was one of the strongest mages in the world. Regardless, Selis hadn¡¯t made any appearances in more than three hundred years. His Volume 3 could only be found in the possession of the older mages.


    Selis had exined the Gods¡¯ secrets in a way that was far toomon and easy to understand. Belief and idolization would require a sufficient sense of distance. Who would fervently worship the person next to you who ate, burped, slept and farted like a normal person, even if that person was indeed a God? Perhaps it could be said that those who idolized others were farthest away from the truth.


    Although mages typicallycked belief in the Gods, they still knew what they could and couldn¡¯t tread upon. Knowledge was power. But some things should only be known by themselves. There was no need to create a huge break in their rtionship with the Gods unless it became necessary. And so only archmages knew top-level knowledge about dimensions, Time, Space, Divine Concepts and so on.


    Archmage Selis actually had an even more direct exnation regarding dimensional rules in that now forbidden Volume 3 of his.


    ¡°Under normal circumstances, it¡¯s impossible for the Gods¡¯ true bodies to personally enter the world of Eich. The Gods can only perform a God¡¯s Descent upon one of their own believers or send down an incarnation. This is akin to directing from afar. This is because the homeowner hasn¡¯t given permission for these guys to enter, afraid that these powerful and clumsy existences will break the furniture or abuse the servants. But in a certain special type of situation, the Gods will be able to directly interfere with our world. And in that special timeframe, all limits will be removed, with outsiders being allowed to easily enter this mansion. Even the ¡®managers¡¯ will be able to act as they please. That¡¯s right, I¡¯m referring to the Holy War.¡±


    ¡°Based on research data we¡¯ve umted over many years, the rise and fall of the Elemental Tide is something beyond any mortal or God¡¯s control. The Elemental Tide is like an exchange mechanism for the mortal ne of Eich and the Four Elemental nes. Whenever the Elemental Tide is in high tide, perhaps the entire world is renewing or exchanging something out. Perhaps this is the world¡¯s own natural exchange mechanism for renewal. Yes, I know that I have no evidence for this whatsoever. All of this is only my inference. Still, all the new species, new mines, new nts and new animals that appear after every Holy War provide circumstantial evidence for my theory.¡±


    ¡°In every Holy War, the previous ruler of the world is very likely to be defeated. Or that species will die off in suchrge numbers that they¡¯ll no longer be able to rule the world. The survivors of that species will also mysteriously find their fertility lowering drastically. Also, approximately ny-five percent of intelligent beings will die off in every Holy War. After the Holy War¡¯s end, the new ruling species will have fertility like never before, and the emptynd left behind by other species will be their territory. It¡¯s almost as if all of this has been nned beforehand, as a prize to be given to the victor. The best evidence for my theory isn¡¯t only the birthing boom after us humans won the previous Holy War. It¡¯s that the elves had a tremendous poption increase after winning the Holy War from two wars ago. Elves are very famous for their low birthrates, and after the previous Holy War, their birthrate became even lower.¡±


    ¡°...If you look back at the Holy Wars from history, it¡¯s almost as if the Holy War itself has be a necessary method for this world to mature and grow. We humans are nothing more than a sacrificial byproduct. We aren¡¯t the masters of this house (or world). We¡¯re nothing more than temporary renters that have to give the key over to the next renter. No, if my theory is correct, even the Gods who are supposedly so high above us are nothing more than higher-level sacrifices, or perhaps I should call them consumables.¡±


    ¡°...All of us lifeforms are a part of and serve this world. As long as the River Styx continues to flow, demons and devils will forever be produced. As long as Heaven¡¯s Pir continues to exist, the general popce will continue to believe in the Gods, desiring a good ce to go after death. The Order Gods will also have an endless amount of belief power. However, whenpared to the Chaos Evil Gods, their strength has too many limitations because they¡¯ll be controlled by the Source of Order.¡±


    When I read this back in the day, my first reaction wasn¡¯t ¡°Oh, he¡¯s absolutely correct!¡± Instead, my reaction was ¡°Unbelievable! He actually didn¡¯t disappear for knowing too much?¡± But then I asked around and learned that Archmage Selis had indeed gone missing several hundred years ago. And so I nodded and said ¡°That¡¯s right¡ªthat¡¯s how it should be. That¡¯s what happens to those who know too much and say it out loud.¡±


    Several hundred years ago, when Archmage Selis came up with his theories, everyone treated them as way too radical. Plus, he himself said in his Volume 3 that they were ¡°guesses¡± with no concrete evidence to back them up, so of course very few people believed him. Of course, the main reason why his theories never spread was because it was impossible for anyone to obtain any power or knowledge from this volume which contained nothing but guesses.


    But, if this volume waspletely useless, Selis¡¯ Volume 3 would have been left to gather dust in everyone¡¯s warehouses. Although Selis was a traditionalist mage uninterested in studying Demonology or Summoning, he had managed to obtain many byproducts from his Time and Space research that helped him aplish incredible achievements in demon summoning, dimensional traveling and so on.


    ¡°...In that case, it¡¯s easy to exin why demons and devils require blood sacrifices toe to our world. These bloody sacrifices always have many requirements, but one thing inmon about all of them is that the more frightened and worse of a death that the sacrifice undergoes, the better. Based on my research on these blood sacrifice rituals, the sacrifices¡¯ souls weren¡¯t consumed but instead vanished. The demons have a saying that ¡®Souls are the only currency in the lower nes.¡¯ In that case, just where exactly did this ¡®currency¡¯ obtained in the blood sacrifice go to? I personally believe it was paid to the Chaos Abyss or even the world of Eich itself as the ¡®toll¡¯ and ¡®rental fee¡¯ to allow demons to stay in the mortal ne. I¡¯ve done a series of experiments on this subject and obtained some results...¡±


    Selis invented simple items to assist in blood sacrifice rituals, the unit for measurement for souls and methods formunicating with residents of the lower nes. His new theories came up with new demon-restraining summoning formations that were basically the equivalent of summoning through the dimensions by abusing loopholes. Selis¡¯ aplishments in this field made countless SemiGod Demon Warlocks and Summoners feel ashamed of themselves. The greatest achievements in their own topic of research were done by an archmage from another specialty entirely.


    ¡°The best evidence of my inference is that the low-ranked demons have incredibly weak abilities when in the mortal ne. In fact, they¡¯re even weaker than ordinary wild beasts. There¡¯s no reason whatsoever for them to be under dimensional limitations. However, summoning even the low-ranked demons still requires a blood sacrifice, even if it¡¯s just the mage¡¯s own blood. This goes against the mainstream ¡®Elemental Tide Limitations Theory.¡¯ ording to that theory, these low-ranked demons shouldn¡¯t be under any limitations whatsoever. Also, while the undead are also unwee in the mortal ne, summoning undead from the Undead nes doesn¡¯t require a blood sacrifice. And it just happens to be that it¡¯s not anywhere near so troublesome for these lower ne residents to visit other dimensions. Perhaps the blood sacrifice itself isn¡¯t even that important. It may be nothing more than a request to enter the ¡®mansion;¡¯ it may be just a method to obtain the world¡¯s recognition. In that case, I have yet another guess...¡±


    If that was the extent of Selis¡¯ research, it would have still been fine. But I continued to read his book and could only exim that ¡°Archmage Selis had nobody but himself to me for his own disappearance. Forget about just ying around with such research results on his own¡ªhe actually dared to write all this and publish it as a book?¡±


    What else did he write about? He wrote about... the truth behind the Holy War!


    ¡°In that case, what does it mean when in theter stages of the Holy War, demons don¡¯t even need to pay a ¡®toll¡¯ anymore toe to our world? Does this mean that the homeowner personally invited the demons? In that case, we should carefully consider why the current ¡®homeowner¡¯, the Source of Order and the Order True Gods, would invite the demons. What motivation could the homeowner possibly have? Do they really want to win the Holy War? Or do they simply want to see countless lives dying in the Holy War, starting another cycle of destroying the world through warfare and rebirth?¡±


    ¡°...In that case, perhaps bing the biggest winner of the Holy War isn¡¯t even a good thing. That¡¯s because this species will almost always be the main sacrifice for the next Holy War right after. How else will there be enough souls produced as currency? Perhaps it¡¯s not only the lower ne residents that require such a currency; perhaps the Gods themselves also require...¡±


    Although there were many idiots in the world, there would also be many smart individuals, especially among the ancient artifacts that had lived for very long. Ancient existences¡¯ long lives helped them umte a huge breadth of knowledge. The old dragons that had been able to remain ¡°neutral¡± throughout innumerable Holy Wars definitely knew something about the truth behind the Holy War. But forget about simply knowing¡ªnot only did Selis tell people, he even wrote about it. Evidently, he seeded in behaving foolishly to the point of causing his own disappearance. By the way, I should mention that Selis was actually Margaret¡¯s teacher¡¯s teacher. I also obtained his disreputable Volume 3 through Margaret.


    As for the current me, having such a ¡°foolish idiot paving the way¡±¡ªcough¡ªcough¡ªI meant having such a respectable predecessor was a wonderful thing. This was especially because he was kind enough to write down most of his research results in this forbidden book of his, which saved me a lot of trouble. I even came up with the idea of obtaining a Foundational Elemental Item of Dragon World as the catalyst for dimensional summoning (the equivalent of a dimension sending out its invitation) thanks to Selis¡¯ theories on dimensional summoning.


    ¡°...Yep, a blood sacrifice is required to summon demons or devils to the mortal ne. But it isn¡¯t necessary to use blood sacrifices to summon demons to other nes, although the rate of sess for this is low. The main reason is that other nes don¡¯t have sufficient resources and souls to pige, and the demons are also afraid of being summoned into an envement trap. As for why they¡¯re not worried about envement traps in the mortal ne? All the blood and souls in the mortal ne mean that the demons are willing to take this risk. And if they only send their incarnations, the risk is almost non-existent ...¡±


    Before me was a giant summoning formation with a radius of several dozen kilometers. This was a modified version of Selis¡¯ simple summoning formation. The White Dragons soaring in the skies above me had helped draw it.


    I had profited so much in being able to obtain the support of the White Dragons. For a human, this summoning spell formation would be difficult to understand, but any dragon would easily understand it. Any dragon, upon seeing it, would immediately learn that the target of my summoning wasn¡¯t the undead from Eich as they were expecting but rather the most unwee of all lower ne residents.


    ¡°Forget about summoning the devils because that was in our original n to begin with. At least you can still reason and negotiate with devils. Just what are you intending to do by summoning demons?¡±


    Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam silentlynded next to me and transformed into his Snow Elf form.


    Not far away from this tremendous summoning formation was a much smaller summoning formation. Although this formation¡¯s target was also to summon from the lower nes, I wasn¡¯t summoning from the Hell the devils resided in. Instead, I was summoning from a certain level of the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°Heh, I¡¯m summoning a certain individual I have connections with to help us out.¡±


    ¡°...This formation appears to be connected to the personal territory of a Demon Lord who¡¯s at Earl rank or higher. Are you sure that a Demon Lord will reason with you rather than simply bringing disaster upon you?¡±


    ¡°...There¡¯s no need to ask because I trust herpletely. She¡¯s a new Demon Marchioness, and you probably wouldn¡¯t know her name even if I tell you. Also, if I don¡¯t go talk to her... I would absolutely be bringing disaster on myself.¡±


    ¡°A new Demon Marchioness? The one from the me Sea? She and you...¡±


    ¡°...Probably, I think¡ªuh¡ªmaybe she¡¯s my girlfriend?¡±


    ¡°Why do you sound so doubtful? Oh, I understand. Youngsters these days are truly amazing. You actually dared to start a romantic rtionship with a demon. So you¡¯re worried she¡¯ll identally eat you? Right, just how tall is she? Three hundred or four hundred meters tall? Since she¡¯s of the fire element, she¡¯ll probably have the Chaos Abyss mes that burn everything all over her body. She¡¯s so young, so can she really fully manipte her mes? Can your little body take it if she identally lets out a spark?¡±


    At first, Sam was looking at me as if I was a brave warrior. But then he started looking at me like I was a suicidal fool, so I felt rather awkward and averted my eyes. But now that he reminded me, a cold sweat started breaking out on my back. I felt like I had forgotten yet another important thing.


    Elisa would being in her true body as the Demon Marchioness rather than a temporary incarnation summoned through a blood sacrifice. Although the Demon Marchioness in her true body would be a powerful ally for uingbat affairs, if she decided instead to first deal with me or identally crushed me to death under her foot...


    ¡°Oh my, you actually have this self-realization. No, I should say that you¡¯re making progress. You¡¯ve finally realized that she¡¯s going to be angry with you?¡±


    ¡°Silly cat, you want to rub salt into my wound? How about we modify her summoning formation or at least make it so that she arrivester? I still haven¡¯t prepared myself...¡±


    But the ck cat nced at the spell formation which was already glowing and shook her head.


    ¡°It¡¯s toote. She¡¯s in even more of a hurry than you are. I don¡¯t know if you¡¯re prepared or not, but she¡¯s definitely fully prepared to see you again.¡±

 Chapter 434 - Demons and Devils

    <h4>Chapter 434: Demons and Devils</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°Demons and devils? Aren¡¯t they just synonyms?¡±


    Most mortals didn¡¯t know the difference between demons and devils because it was far too rare for ordinary people to meet them. And if they really dide across a demon or a devil it didn¡¯t matter which was which¡ªthey¡¯d likely end up the same either way, as a soul dragged to the lower nes.


    However, demons and devils werepletely different species. Their personalities and habits couldn¡¯t be more disparate, and they even viewed each other as mortal enemies. Most circumstances where the two met would end up in a life-and-death fight.


    ¡°Those sly devils? Their heads are filled with nothing but schemes and plots. Only weaklings need to rely on such things. In front of us magnificent demons, their weak bodies and useless little tricks are nothing but a joke.¡±


    ¡°The demons? Are you talking about those morons that have muscles for brains? Those foolish creatures are nothing more than a waste of space. The only thing they can be proud about is that they¡¯re slightly more numerous than us devils. Oh, perhaps they can also be proud of their barbaric strength that¡¯s equal to how ugly they look.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, although they were both residents of the Abyss, they lived in very different locations. The demons resided in the ¡°Endless Abyss¡± while the devils resided in ¡°Hell¡¯s Abyss.¡± [1] And if you looked only at their numbers, the demons didn¡¯t outnumber the devils by just a little. There were at least more than ten times demonspared to devils. However, since the demons spent most of their time fighting with each other, this numerical advantage was meaningless.


    ¡°Sly like a devil.¡± Although this phrase had a negative connotation, it was still used as praise, but regardless it clearly indicated the devils¡¯ most obvious trait¡ªtheir slyness.


    <i>¡°Wisdom is treated as slyness.</i>


    <i>¡°Shortsightedness is treated as decisiveness.</i>


    <i>¡°True courage is treated as recklessness.</i>


    <i>¡°Yet cowardice is treated as calmness.</i>


    <i>¡°Don¡¯t pay much mind to how ordinary mortals think.¡± </i>¡ªDevil Lord Kamiltias.


    Your average mortal didn¡¯t know the origin of devils. But, for ancient existences, it was no secret that the devils were fallen humans from the first generation of humans.


    As a former part of the Order Faction, they maintained some habits from their time as first-generation Order creatures even after falling and joining the Chaos Abyss. The four oldest and most powerful members from the first generation of humans were still the rulers of the entire devil poption, which helped even modern-day devils keep many customs and ranks from the past.


    Although devils were on the side of Chaos, they valued ranks and order. Admittedly, they often warred among themselves, but they would also be able toe to each other¡¯s assistance if it was necessary for the whole species. And for devils, it was natural to them that those with the highest abilities should stand at the top. If one¡¯s abilities weren¡¯t equal to one¡¯s status, then a single sessful scheme would be viewed as a great glory. After all, in devil society, if a weaker devil managed to overthrow a stronger devil then they would be judged at a higher level than before.


    I felt that the devils¡¯ society was simr to privatepanies from my original world. Every single person appeared to be working for thepany, but they were only working for themselves. Everyone tried their hardest to scheme ways to get promoted. The easiest method would be to have the boss make a big mistake and report on others¡¯ faults. Although devil society didn¡¯t appear to be as bloody as demon society on the surface, it was tiring to be in and incredibly cruel. Not only that, the devils even enjoyed this type of ¡°battle of brains.¡± [2]


    It should be mentioned that also like the top-level privatepanies from my original world, the higher-ups were mostly stable. Unlike how Demon Lords and Nobles would constantly change, the nine Devil Lords had rarely been reced. Many of the nine Devil Lords were even ancient existences from the first generation of humans.


    Any Devil Lords would be an existence that would give any emperor or even True God a headache. They crafted countless schemes that destroyed an uncountable number of kingdoms and True Gods. Many people didn¡¯t understand what these devils wanted to gain. But perhaps this was all simply because the veteran devils were just too bored. All they wanted to obtain was delight and pleasure from watching their schemese to fruition.


    And now these ancient Devil Lords that gave even the Gods headaches had all arrived before me. The bowed in unison and lowered their heads to me, despite having never given any God such respect.


    ¡°Little Rnd, as ording to the will of ¡®that existence,¡¯ from now on we shall listen to yourmands. Please rest assured in using us as your tools. As long as you can grant our species¡¯ wish, we shall venerate you as¡ª¡±


    ¡± <i>Cough </i>¡ªI understand.¡±


    I stopped Kamiltias, the ¡°Lord of Lies,¡± halfway through his words. This was because the White Dragons were still next to us, especially the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam. He was currently observing us with great interest. However, his seemingly pure eyes had unconcealed astonishment.


    Kamiltias was the oldest of the nine Devil Lords. Because of this, he also had the title of ¡°Devil King¡± in addition to ¡°Lord of Lies.¡± And such an existence was affectionately referred to by Ayer as Little Tias.


    If you only judged by physical appearance, nobody would think that this polite middle-aged gentleman was actually a devil. He had a handlebar mustache, a monocle and a gentlemanly hat. He even held a book between his arm and his body. His expression appeared slightly cautious yet sincere. Anyone looking at him would assume him to be a noble schr, a pure academic.


    However, if one made a list of all the heroes,moners, nobles and kings he had fooled before, it would end up being thicker than a dictionary. The most ridiculous part was that it was impossible to find out just how powerful he was or what he excelled in. Basically, there were no records in the mortal ne of Kamiltias personally taking action. This meant that either everyone who witnessed his true strength was dead or that he didn¡¯t even need to fight to kill anyone he wanted. The first part was understandable if that was the case, but if it was the second, then that would make him even more difficult to deal with. And, with the information I happened to obtain from Ayer, it seemed far more likely that Kamiltias was the type who didn¡¯t need to personally take action.


    ¡°Mortal, your n has moved me. Even if you fail, I shall keep a position for you by my side. However, I hope it won¡¯t be necessary.¡±


    Marshan, the ¡°Lord of Rebellion,¡± was another male Devil Lord. But unlike the Lord of Lies who preferred human form Marshan remained in his devil form. His favorite hobby was to incite others to rebel and overthrow whoever ruled them.


    As for what he looked like? Even while cranking my neck, I could only see up to his knees. A dark mist made it impossible to see his appearance and body shape. He was just like a dark monster hidden within a tornado, but I could see his emerald green eyes shining with an evil gleam. His booming voice echoed throughout the entire canyon, giving me an earache with the reverberations. He indeed seemed like an emperor type.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be so coarse, Marshan. It¡¯s rude to scare the neer. My dear Rnd, could you please tell Sister Yiyi about your past stories? Although I heard some stories from ¡®him,¡¯ I¡¯d like to hear more from you... personally.¡±


    Ilmisya, the ¡°Lord of Temptations,¡± Queen of Allure Devils. Perhaps Allure Devils weren¡¯t very famous despite being highly skilled at tempting and scamming others. However, this wasn¡¯t due to theirck of abilities. This was because whenever Allure Devils acted in the mortal ne they med whatever they did on the subi, who greatly resembled Allure Devils.


    Her voice sounded as if she was my best friend. Although Ilmisya appeared to be a gentle and cute woman, she was probably the most troublesome Devil Lord of all when I thought about how she was capable of making people think about sex with her voice alone. Did I mention that she had several hundred lovers? After all, the other Devil Lords wouldn¡¯t intentionally give me any trouble at this critical point in time with our agreement. But if Ilmisya got even the slightest bit close to me, an endless amount of trouble would be in store for me.


    This famed queen was slightly more than three meters tall. With perfect curves and proportions with no unnecessary fat whatsoever, without a doubt her alluring body made for the best foundation with which to tempt others. Her seemingly pure face made her appear angelic, a perfect example of the phrase ¡°angelic face, devilish body.¡±


    I could sense an alluring fragrance right in front of me. I nodded but directly took two steps back, expressing in the most direct fashion that I wanted to keep my distance.


    This wasn¡¯t because I had a distaste for her fragrance or anything like that. I stepped back because the re from the maid behind me was giving me a huge headache.


    That¡¯s right, maid. She was still a maid.


    I had tried to imagine what Elisa in her demon form would be as she abandoned everything else for the sake of power. My most conservative estimate inferred that she would be a tremendous demon over one hundred meters tall.


    This wasn¡¯t because of any racial prejudice I had against the demons. It was that demons, as pure creatures of chaos, were chaotic to the very core. Unlike demons, devils had a pyramid-like societal structure where lower ranked devils could use their ¡°hard work¡± to make achievements that obtained their bosses¡¯ recognition and ¡°promotions,¡± even if the process sometimes took several centuries.


    But there were only two methods for demons to obtain a higher status and more power: killing and eating.


    Demons would kill everything they saw that moved, transforming theirbat experience into actual improved power. This part was understandable. However, the truly troublesome part was how demons would even devour their own kind. Every single demon possessed the ability to devour those weaker or those it defeated. The devoured demons would be nutrition, with their strengths absorbed by the devourer. The devourer would constantly get stronger and stronger by repeating this cycle.


    This natural racial talent of demons appeared to be quite strong. And I must say that it was, indeed, strong. However, this trait of theirs made it so that the demons had never stopped their internal wars for even one moment in history. In fact, most demons viewed their own kind as their biggest mortal enemies. Ny percent of every demon¡¯s life was spent fighting against other demons.


    However, precisely because of this racial talent of evolving through devouring the demons became the overall strongest species throughout the myriad nes. Demons also had it easiest amongst powerful species at mass-producing themselves. Demon Lords would automatically be produced as long as there was enough fighting and devouring between the high-level demons. And as long as there were enough mid-level demons, there would be plenty of high-level demons produced.


    This type of growth process that all demons underwent was filled with unpredictable mutations and unexpected situations. Not a single demon would have powers or a body identical to another. Not even the demons themselves would be able to exin how they ¡°ate¡± to their current level. By the way, I should mention that Elisa¡¯s Soul Imprint of Devouring was intricately connected to her identity as a child of the Abyss and her Demon Bloodline.


    Due to the demons¡¯ racial talent that naturally made them follow thew of the jungle where only the strong survived, all demons would start fighting from the moment of their birth. They would constantly fight from the level of the weakest tiny demon to a Demon Lord. Demons were very skilled at fighting and loved to fight, and those at the standard power levels of Gold, Legend and so on would almost always be superior to other species at the same rank.


    There was a joke in Eich that went like this: if one put an angel, demon and a devil with the same power level together where only the winner would be able to leave, then the demon would definitely win the fight and the devil would be the final survivor. As for the angel... how about asking the demon and devil if they liked that chicken wing meal?


    Actually, when this boring joke started spreading in Eich, some Devil Lords that were super bored actually performed some experiments on this topic by capturing angels, demons and devils of the same power level and forcing them into three-way fights. But the end result after a hundred experiments was that the demon would win more than seventy percent of the time and that the angel would win more than twenty percent of the time. A devil¡¯s so-called intelligence against thepletely unreasonable demons would be the equivalent of a schr meeting a brute of a soldier. The demon would typically go kill the devil first before fighting the angel. There was quite a high chance that the demon would be capable of killing both the devil and angel by itself. However, even if the devil managed to somehow barely defeat the demon, the devil would usually end up dying to the angel.


    Cough¡ªgetting back on topic, demons had the innate ability to devour others in order to evolve and be stronger. And so their evolutions always went in the direction of bing as strong, as vicious, and as muscr as possible. Although they achieved what they wanted in obtaining physical bodies capable of withstanding their abilities and requirements, this almost always ended up with the negative side effect of bing uglier the more powerful the demon was. Apart from unique demon species like the subi which had better appearances, most Demon Lords looked like the most horrifying monsters one could imagine. It was also impossible to know what strange abilities they possessed. By the time one learned, they¡¯d likely be dead.


    I imagined the Demon Marchioness¡¯s true form to be more than one hundred meters tall, with four or six legs, green inferno mes all over her body and a voice like booming thunder. She would cause earthquakes upon moving, summon volcanos as she walked and create a canyon if she identally tripped...


    ¡°I never expected she¡¯d still have such an appearance.¡±


    The current Elisa had gold-rimmed eyesses. Under her familiar silver hair was a pair of elven sharp ears. Her ck and white maid attire was the same as it was in the past. However, it seemed that the skirt I designed for her was now slightly longer... Coughpared to the past, my maid now appeared even more humanlike now that she no longer had the inferno-lizard traits of her tail and ws. At the very least, it was impossible for me to find any hints of her being a demon at all from her physical appearance.


    Of course, this meant that she had definitely evolved her physical body... But I was no idiot who would ask her about that out loud.


    The moment she walked out of the Dimensional Door, I didn¡¯t even get a chance to greet her when she silently started standing behind me in that form of hers. Although her friendliness on the surface gave me a great amount of a face, her demon subordinates that came with her looked to be inplete chaos when they saw how their master treated me. One Berserk Demon even viciously swiped at his own face, losing one eye because of it.


    I also felt slightly proud when I saw how the Devil Lords had expressions filled with vignce and caution when they saw Elisa. But judging from the familiar look in her eyes that grew icier by the second, I felt like I had unknowingly angered her yet again.


    ¡°...I¡¯m so sorry I¡¯m not one hundred meters tall with four legs. It¡¯s truly regrettable that I¡¯m unable to identally step on you to death. I do know a Volcano Lord who fits your requirements. It¡¯s said that he weighs more than two thousand tons, he¡¯s more than three hundred meters tall and every step he takes leaves magma behind. Would you like me to introduce him to you? Hmph! As expected of brothers. Your interests are bing more like Beifeng¡¯s every day.¡±


    Ah, that familiar venomous tongue of hers sure did bring back memories. But I needed to seriously state that I had no rtionship to Beifeng. One man like him was more than enough for the world. Another of him wouldn¡¯t even fit into the Cmity Rankings. I was clearly a normal person!


    ¡°Hmph! A tree (Amelia), a Slime cat and your half-demon rtive (Reyne). Your tastes are even heavier than Beifeng¡¯s.¡±


    ¡°You¡ªyou¡ªare you... saying I have even heavier tastes than Beifeng...?¡±


    This gave me such a heavy impact I had to arch my back and begin doubting my very life. But considering that many important guests were before me, and that this wasn¡¯t a time where I could act ridiculously, I didn¡¯t allow the serious expression on my face to change one bit.


    ¡°Where¡¯s the Lord of Despair?¡±


    ¡°His incarnation is currently out on another task. He¡¯ll probably bete. You know what task he¡¯s on.¡±


    I nodded in agreement. Four of the Devil Lords had allied with me, and three of them hade. They came in their true bodies, which showed their utmost sincerity. The fourth was also acting as nned, carrying out a task that was agreed upon beforehand. It would seem that we could now enter the next step of the grand scheme.


    ¡°Notify Orloss and Ayer. It¡¯s time to activate our grand¡ª¡±


    I didn¡¯t get a chance to finish talking as the skies suddenly darkened. A colossal ck Dragon appeared in the skies and blew away the clouds with his scorching dragonbreath. Dragons¡ªa huge horde of them¡ªdescended from the skies. It seemed they had finally noticed that the situation wasn¡¯t what they expected, so they were here to question me.


    ¡°...Well, I guess I have to first deal with this small trouble before me.¡±


    Note:


    [1] ED/N: From my understanding after reading this chapter, both the Endless Abyss and the Hell¡¯s Abyss exist in the Chaos Abyss (or just Abyss). Endless Abyss and Chaos Abyss were kinda used interchangeably because almost all instances in the past referred to demons. Devils are said toe from Hell, which is another way of writing Hell¡¯s Abyss or Abyss of Hell.


    [2] TL/N: Yeah, there are actually quite a number of Chinesepanies that are actually like this. Let¡¯s just say that things are more... cutthroat over there.

 Chapter 435 - Fool

    <h4>Chapter 435: Fool</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    In contrast to the Dragon World, which fell into heated difficulties, the ancient Bardi Empire right next door fell into a deep silence. Perhaps it should be said that this was a manmade silence.


    After Bardi lost on the eastern front, the royal knights became extremely active unlike the past periods of enforced silence. The capital was ced under severe martialw. Any princes who tried to take advantage of the situation to create chaos were executed in public as an example to others. The ¡°poison scorpion emperor¡± Orloss the Thirteenth who had appeared to have turned into a kind old man showed the world once again just how vicious he could be.


    ¡°Halent will seed the throne.¡±


    Even after Bardi lost the eastern front and much controversy stirred in the country, Emperor Orloss withstood all the pressure and heavily emphasized that his chosen sessor, Halent, would be the one to inherit the throne.


    Those who opposed him to the face? Executed.


    Those who whispered about opposing him behind his back? Executed.


    Princes who tried to ally with domain lords against this? Executed.


    Nobles who simplyined in the privacy of their own mansions to servants, friends or family? Executed.


    The old emperor, who had always smiled in such a friendly fashion, who always appeared so kind and friendly even during assassination attempts, now remained in his study, sipping his tea and smiling while announcing an endless amount of executions. The royal knights silently carried out his seemingly insane orders to ughter all opposition, even to the point of hanging to death children less than ten years old on the castle walls, despite the fact that this would trample all over their knightly honor and spirit.


    ¡°Any that have doubts about Halent¡¯s session, no matter their status, age or previous aplishments, will be executed.¡±


    This was the will of the old emperor, and the royal knights silently carried out his will even if the people of Bardi couldn¡¯tprehend the old emperor¡¯s sudden insanity. Nobody was able to stomach this unexpected sudden ughter. Almost all of the major domain lords¡¯ sons who were hostages in the capital had been executed for the domain lords¡¯ conspiracies with the princes. This caused the border domain lords to be absolutely furious.


    Looking at the current situation, the Bardi Empire would be embroiled in bitter internal warfare before the Holy Church¡¯s allied armies or the Tark Republic would attack them. Just what exactly was the always wise emperor doing? Was he destroying the empire that he spent his entire life to create?


    Even Halent¡¯s own faction, the typically neutral dragon knights, were unable toprehend the old emperor¡¯s sudden lunacy. But due to the first and foremost code of their knightly chivalry¡ªabsolute loyalty to their ruler¡ªnone of them were able to stop this. However, they all knew that this wasn¡¯t normal and couldn¡¯tst.


    At this rate, even if Halent inherited the throne, the moment old Emperor Orloss died there would be a huge rebellion from the repressed nobles due to this ughter, leading to a bitter fight for everyone.


    Meanwhile, after Miracle Hand Estrada passed away, the world was astonished, mourned and felt helpless. Yet this was a great help to Halent and Bardi.


    The Holy Church vanguard army, which had been a tremendous threat to Bardi, had now been dered as heretics and dispersed. The God of Holy Light¡¯s unstoppable will had slowed down. Even though this was only temporary, Estrada had sacrificed himself to obtain a victory for mortals. Bardi was also no longer in immediate danger.


    ¡°...This should help the old emperor calm down.¡±


    That was what everyone expected, but things didn¡¯t happen as they thought. Not only did Orloss not stop, but he actually became even more severe.


    Those who took advantage of the situation to raise prices or stockpile goods and refuse to sell? Executed.


    Those who had overly close rtionships or familial ties with major domain lords? Executed.


    Those who didn¡¯t even do anything, but had too much power and might be able to influence Halent being able to seed the throne? Executed.


    The old emperor, who smiled in such a seemingly kind manner as he watched his adopted princes scheme and kill each other for the past twenty years, smiled as he always did as he dered so many executions. Rivers of blood poured out of the capital city.


    In fact, the other main character of this incident, Halent, even personally met with the emperor and argued with him about this. Still, Orloss didn¡¯t change his ways. The only end result was that Halent ended up shutting himself inside and refusing to go out.


    ¡°...Halent is the only candidate who can be allowed to seed the throne if the future Bardi Empire is to survive. As for how he obtained the position? That¡¯s not important in the least. As for I myself...? Hehehe¡ªjust watch and see.¡±


    In the whole country, only an incredibly few number of people would be able to enter Orloss¡¯s study and listen to him slowly speak his thoughts.


    Currently, the old emperor was listening to reports from his head of spies and knight captain.


    ¡°...Judging by the information our spies obtained, Duke Kafe and Earl Bn have both temporarily stopped organizing their private armies. They¡¯re unsure of your goal and are afraid that they¡¯ll be made an example of if they¡¯re the first to act. But things are still the same as what we expected. As long as you...¡¯leave,¡¯ they¡¯ll definitely be the first to rebel. They¡¯re just temporarily holding back.¡±


    ¡°Ha! Those old fogeys. Forget them. How¡¯s the trade situation within our country? Are prices still inted to double of what they originally were?¡±


    ¡°The trade situation is much better than before. After executing arge number of wicked merchants, the prices have greatly improved. At the peak, prices were at twenty-five times what they should have been, but now prices are only thirty percent higher than original. Plus, with your high-pressure policies and His Highness Halent¡¯s personal signed promise, most of them have already secretly sworn loyalty to His Highness. As long as you pull their teeth and ws, the merchants that didn¡¯t have much status to begin with won¡¯t be able to do anything. There won¡¯t be any problems with them at least for the time being.¡±


    ¡°How about my useless adopted princes?¡±


    ¡°Those who might be a threat have been executed. The remaining ones have been dered to have no more rtionship with the Bardi royalty. And the surviving princes are under constant surveince. They¡¯re no problem, but your reputation... people are beginning to call you the White Dragon.¡±


    ¡°White Dragon?¡±


    ¡°...Child-cannibalizing White Dragon.¡±


    Orloss nodded but didn¡¯t ask more. He didn¡¯t even look at the report; he simply sipped his tea. Since he had already abandoned everything, what did he care about this small degree of nder? What he intended to do next would be even more ridiculous. Perhaps the history books wouldter call him the number one tyrant and idiotic ruler in all of Bardi¡¯s history. But everything was for the sake of the ¡®grand scheme.¡¯ He didn¡¯t care if others didn¡¯t understand and insulted him.


    He slowly closed his eyes and didn¡¯t ask anything else. The head of spies and knight leader both wisely retreated, knowing that this conversation was over. Once the study fell silent, three people walked out from a secret room attached to the study. From a certain standpoint, these three people were the core higher-ups under Orloss in all of Bardi.


    The first was Pope Amoya the First of the Southern Sect. Formerly the head steward of the Bardi royal pce, he had been through numerous life-and-death situations together with Orloss. Orloss viewed Amoya as a brother and trusted Amoya more than anyone. Amoya currently possessed the entire Southern Sect and all of Bardi¡¯s religious believers.


    ¡°...You¡¯ve worked hard.¡±


    ¡°Hehe, it¡¯s already better than expected. I still have to trouble you to work hard for your church, after Miracle Hand¡¯s sacrifice.¡±


    Currently, the elderly Pope Amoya had a fatigued expression. The Southern Sect had sent arge amount ofbat strength to the eastern front, hoping to obtain a glorious victory in their first battle. However, they ended up suffering a great amount of losses instead due to the appearance of the angels and the Cloud Giants. If it wasn¡¯t for Estrada¡¯s sacrifice that greatly shook people¡¯s belief in the Holy Church, the Southern Sect would have met with serious trouble.


    The second person was an old mage who wore a purple cape. His title within Bardi was the ¡°Fool.¡± The head of the Bardi mage association, he typically kept a very low profile. Very few had ever seen his real appearance. Now, though, he had revealed his real appearance¡ªa silver-haired old man with nothing unique about his appearance whatsoever. But if the heretic hunters of the Holy Church saw him, there would likely be a huge hunt organized for him with insane fervor.


    And if Rnd was here to see him, they would probably have much to talk about. That¡¯s because this person was Selis. The ¡°insane archmage¡± Selis, the fool of an archmage who had told everyone the truth.


    ¡°I¡¯ll probably have to trouble you a bit more to deal with the Bardi mage association and tomunicate with the Mage Country. I caused you to break your oath to never take part in worldly affairs again, and¡ª¡±


    ¡°I know. There¡¯s no need to say anything. Some things are fated to be. Since all of you are gambling everything on this, how could I possibly retreat? It¡¯s just... such a pity. Back when Estrada defeated me and forced me to swear an oath to be a hermit in exchange for sparing my life, he probably never expected that such a day would arrive.¡±


    The archmage who was treated as insane by the world had sleek and shiny silver hair. His extravagant mage robe was also clean and tidy, a rare sight among mages. But now Selis could only shake his head with a sorrowful expression as he thought about how his old acquaintance had met such an end.


    ¡°It¡¯s a pity. Such a pity. Truly a pity.¡±


    In the end, Selis could only make such ament about Estrada¡¯s death.


    ¡°Teacher, you have my condolences. All of us are on the same side. From a certain standpoint, Estrada was simply the first to go. This should be something we should be happy about...¡±


    Something that almost nobody knew was that the young Orloss had once studied in the Cloud Tower. In fact, with the assistance of others, he had even be the disciple of the famed archmage Selis, who was now a hermit.


    ¡°...Your Majesty Orloss.¡±


    The third person who walked out of the secret room wasn¡¯t even a citizen of Bardi. She was...


    ¡°It¡¯s time.¡±


    The luster of the green gem on Lilith Mn¡¯s arm was beginning to disappear. Large cracks had begun to expand rapidly on it. Soon, this precious twin emerald worth several tens of thousands of gold coins would be nothing more than worthless rubble.


    Twin emeralds were a special type of magical gem enhanced through magical gem craftsmanship. When one was destroyed, the other twin emerald would be destroyed too. Their karmic connection would be capable of breaking through any seal in existence. They were a tremendously rare and precious type ofmunication gem. Creating a pair of twin emeralds would require a mountain of gold coins sufficient enough to create half a knight order. And using such a valuable one-timemunication device was the best indicator of how serious the situation was.


    When the twin emerald that Lilith held became rubble, it would only mean one thing: Rnd, who was in Dragon World, had crushed the other. That would be the signal for Orloss to activate the entirety of their ¡®grand scheme.¡¯


    Currently, Lilith Mn wasn¡¯t only Rnd¡¯s and the Church of Law¡¯s representative. The familiar royal attire and royal emblem she wore indicated something else¡ªshe had officially returned to her status as a member of the Bardi royalty!


    ¡°Aunt¡ªer¡ªSister Lilith, I¡¯ll be troubling you. Please, as one of the only two pure Bardi royalty bloodline members alive, guide and make decisions for Halent as his regent until he¡¯s truly mature.¡±


    Lilith Mn¡ªno¡ªshe should be called First Princess Regent Lilith with her current status within Bardi. Lilith nodded. If at all possible, she didn¡¯t want to take on this troublesome affair. However, the people before her used their convictions and sacrifices to convince her. At this point of time, if she didn¡¯t do anything, she wouldn¡¯t do right towards her past friends and rtives that had died.


    The old emperor looked all around him and gave a deep sigh. He knew that this was probably thest day he would be able to see his beloved study and treasured friends.


    ¡°...I never thought that after patiently waiting for my entire life, at the end I still need to wait. All of you, tell me. Am I really qualified to be emperor?¡±


    ¡°Of course you are, Your Majesty. There wouldn¡¯t be the current Bardi without you. Perhaps there will still be darkness before us. Perhaps rabid dogs will appear to tear apart your body. But it¡¯s impossible for dark clouds to forever block out the sunlight. In the end, stories of your wisdom shall once again spread across thisnd.¡±


    The old pope and former head steward bowed towards his emperor. Tears could be seen through his closed eyes


    ¡°Orloss, why trouble yourself over the opinions of fools? I¡¯ve forever been proud of you.¡±


    Selis, who wasn¡¯t skilled with words, paused for a moment before nodding and speaking after Pope Amoya in an affirmative tone.


    ¡°I know you don¡¯t mind something as vague and useless as reputation, either. But I indeed feel that you¡¯re incredible. You¡¯re more amazing than I am.¡±


    The old emperor smiled, reassured after receiving recognition from his teacher Selis and old friend Amoya. Perhaps ordinary people would never understand his decisions, but there was a saying that said ¡®a person only needed one true friend in their life.¡¯ He already had two people so close to him¡ªwhat more did he have to ask for?


    ¡°...Alright. For the sake of creating a world belonging to only mortals, I shall now destroy all the Dimensional Doors leading to Dragon World.¡±


    Orloss was going to destroy all the Dimensional Doors leading to Dragon World? If all the Dimensional Doors leading to another ne were destroyed, then this ne would be untraceable by any existence in the mortal ne. And destroying all Dimensional Doors leading to Dragon World also meant that the dragons would lose one of their three biggest gathering grounds and that the entire mortal ne would no longer be connected to it.


    Destroying all Dimensional Doors leading to another ne wouldn¡¯t be achievable in a normal situation because it would be impossible to know just how many scattered Dimensional Doors were out there. However, it just so happened to be that the dragons only set up three Dimensional Doors, all within Bardi, in order to better keep control over Dragon World! And the dragon knights were the guardians for these three Dimensional Doors... That¡¯s right¡ªEvelyn was one of the guardians, and she was also the strongest guardian. The dragons had quite obviously chosen the wrong individual to be a guardian.


    Newly creating a Dimensional Door connecting to another ne required arge amount of time. It would typically require more than two or three years. Plus, the Titans were right about to revive, so this would cut off all potential reinforcements to Dragon World. It would be the equivalent of forcing the dragons to fight with their backs against a cliff. The dragons in Dragon World would never expect something like that to befall them. It was certain that the dragons would be furious. And choosing Halent as the next emperor was for a far simpler reason than the people of Bardi could have guessed. It was all because Halent was a half-blood dragon descendant, so he was the only possible choice the dragons would ept, allowing the Bardi Empire to be preserved in the face of their wrath.


    Naturally, the dragons would take their revenge after such an iprehensible crime wasmitted upon them. The Nortnds would be angry with Bardi because ¡°Rnd and the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance mercenary group¡± all got lost within Dragon World. Still, the dragons¡¯ fury after being betrayed would be the most dangerous. If they weren¡¯t willing to be satisfied after only venting upon Orloss, then it was possible that all of Bardi would be destroyed by the dragons.


    Bardi and Orloss wouldn¡¯t obtain any benefits frommitting such an act that risked their destruction. Instead, their former best allies, the dragons, would be a mortal enemy. The Nortnds who were also allied with them would also be a ¡°mortal enemy,¡± at least on the surface. In that case, just what did Orloss want from all this? Was it only to iste Dragon World and make it into the Titans¡¯ hunting grounds so that Bardi could escape from this ticking time bomb? Just how foolish and shortsighted could this be? Orloss would likely be reviled as the most foolish Bardi Emperor in all of history.


    ¡°Fool? Heh! Your title fits me so well, Teacher Selis. Perhaps I¡¯ll be remembered as the ¡®Foolish King.¡¯¡±


    ¡°No. While others believe me to be wise, I gave myself the title of ¡®Fool¡¯ because I wanted to remind myself that I¡¯m nothing more than an idiot who thought that he was smart. But you¡¯re someone who sees too much of the big picture, too far into the future. That¡¯s why fools view you as foolish, but this is the best evidence of your wisdom.¡±


    Perhaps, for certain skilled schemers, having a foolish scheme fail for all to see with the end result of the schemer being executed would be nothing more than to conceal an even better hidden scheme.


    ¡°A world belonging to mortals? It¡¯s a pity I won¡¯t be able to see it.¡±


    As he muttered to himself, Orloss couldn¡¯t help but recall what he had discussed with Rnd during their previous meeting.


    ¡°Rnd, I actually love your saying in the Southern Sect: ¡®This world belongs to mortals, and those Gods high up above are nothing more than hypocritical maniacs...¡¯¡±


    After Orloss had made his standpoint clear and opened his heart to me, discussion between us became much easier. Even I was astonished at Orloss¡¯s true power and final overall goal. I immediately made a blood-sworn oath together with him as irond allies.


    After a night of secret discussions, Orloss handed over his scheme that he had prepared for over several decades to me. I added modifications to further flesh it out, and in the end it became our ¡®grand scheme¡¯.


    ¡°Grand scheme? As expected of the most skilled schemer in all of Bardi¡¯s history. He¡¯s truly daring. But if this scheme actually seeds, he could be called the wisest emperor in all of Bardi¡¯s history.¡±


    That was the assessment I gave of Orloss at the time. And currently it was unknown if he wouldter be assessed by history as the wisest ruler in Bardi¡¯s history. But Orloss was in the process of ruining his own reputation and heading towards his death. Yet he wasn¡¯t hesitant, and he didn¡¯t regret it in the least. As he headed towards his impending doom, he had no fear.


    ¡°...Everything is for the sake of a world belonging to mortals. Everything is for the sake of creating a true heaven and hell!¡±

 Chapter 436 - Coconspirators

    <h4>Chapter 436: Coconspirators</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°I¡¯m different from everyone else.¡±


    If there was one thing that everyone had inmon it would be that they¡¯d either faintly or directly feel that they were different from others. That they were special and unique.


    Indeed, not a single person would be identical in talent, education and environment. But while differences helped make the world varied and colorful, it wasn¡¯t always a good thing.


    When people too stubbornly focused only on themselves, they¡¯d be unable to see the truth for what they really were, blind to other people.


    ¡°I¡¯m different. I was born above others. Commoners¡¯ lives don¡¯t have any valuepared to mine. They should dedicate their lives to me.¡±


    Nobles, royalty and religious leaders would usually think this way to either a minor or great extent. Perhaps thinking this way to a minor extent would help them carry out their responsibilities better, but too much of it and they wouldn¡¯t even treat other humans as humans. They would think themselves as forever justified, no matter how viinous their actions.


    ¡°I¡¯m blessed by the God of Fate. The next round, I¡¯ll absolutely make everything back!¡±


    Gamblers had the same mentality as the ambitious. They would feel as if they could overturn everything in one go, never satisfied with what they currently had. They would continuously take risks and gamble, with the end result either losing everything they owned, including their very life, or winning everything.


    Everyone had this type of ¡°self-aware blindness.¡± This was part of human nature, and nothing was right or wrong about it. It could even help humans grow. But as age and experience increased, cruel reality would wear down this type of ¡°self-aware blindness.¡±


    ¡°I... so I¡¯m nothing more than an ordinary person. I¡¯m just one among the crowd, and nothing¡¯s special about me.¡±


    Ordinary people would learn their limits and give up on the fantasies from their youth. Abilities, talent and status¡ªseemingly coarse concepts¡ªwould always determine the limits a person could strive for. But some people just happened to know from the very start what position they were supposed to have and remained unsatisfied with their difficult lives.


    As a young child, Orloss Mn was known as ¡°Jinxer¡± by his own friends and rtives. And not long after he was born Orloss had understood his position and fate¡ªhe was nothing but a puppet.


    Orloss was the seventeenth child born to the Bardi royalty. This didn¡¯t mean that he was unlikely to inherit the throne. In fact, things were the opposite. He had an uncle who was an archduke, so his chances of inheriting the throne were in the top three.


    When Orloss was young, his mother took him to meet his uncle, who, when looking at the boy, would show an icy expression, distant and cold. It was nothing like how a first meeting between rtives should go at all. His archduke uncle looked at him as if he were an object, as if he were just a tool to be used. And his uncle¡¯s first words in their first meeting were so coarse as to prove his way of thinking. His younger sister¡¯s child was only someone to be taken advantage of.


    ¡°Remember this well. You¡¯ll lead a good life if you obey me. I¡¯m capable of both giving you the throne and taking it away from you.¡±


    Orloss was simply a child back then. All he desired was a good family rtionship since he barely ever got to see his busy father. He had always heard his mother talking about how great his uncle was, but this was how their first meeting turned out. Naturally, he received quite an impact from this, but he soon adapted.


    ¡°...At any rate, he¡¯s just treating me as a tool and puppet. That¡¯s not different from anyone else, so who cares? As long as I properly act out my part and satisfy everyone, Orloss is a good child.¡±


    The ironic part was that Orloss¡¯s uncle was overly arrogant and tyrannical, which enraged everyone and caused his uncle to be one of the first to be executed during the fight for the throne. Orloss himself lost out in the vicious fighting between his brothers andid there dying in the street.


    Just as Orloss was on the verge of death, Undead Emperor Aso reached out to him and saved his life. Unfortunately, saving Orloss¡¯s life hade at a price. From that moment on, Orloss learned for the first time that his own country had been secretly infiltrated by the undead that had been targeting Bardi for the past several centuries.


    And Orloss¡¯s reaction was...


    ¡°What can I even do? I¡¯ll just continue being a puppet. I¡¯ve simply changed masters.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Orloss was quite open-minded about it all¡ªopen-minded to the point where others thought he was a fool. To use his future mage teacher Selis¡¯s way of describing him, it was because Orloss saw things far too clearly. Precisely since Orloss saw things far too clearly he knew that he wouldn¡¯t be able to change things no matter what he did. Naturally, others saw Orloss as the most wooden and dense emperor in Bardi¡¯s history at the beginning of his reign.


    ¡°Is there a single person in this world who isn¡¯t a disposable chess piece under someone else?¡±


    When Orloss first became emperor, he was called the most wooden emperor in Bardi¡¯s history because he didn¡¯t do anything on his own. He would do what his retainers told him to do. He would ede to all requests from domain lords that had sufficient factional strength. It was as if Orloss was nothing more than a rubber stamper who didn¡¯t care about politics whatsoever.


    But Orloss was quietly observing this world and its residents, observing the chess board and the pieces without them realizing it.


    Orloss¡¯s favorite hobby was to hide his identity and take vacations in his private house in the capital. He would have fun chatting with hismoner neighbors who didn¡¯t know his real identity. Orloss felt that these ordinary people were more ¡°alive¡± than he was.


    ¡°The farmers actually have an easier time in times of disaster. That¡¯s because even the severest of tax collectors under a domain lord will still leave enough for the farmers to survive. And also during times of disaster, the Gods¡¯ churches¡¯ priests will stoping around to collect their required donations so that the farmers¡¯ souls won¡¯t fall into the River Styx after death and instead join a Divine Kingdom.¡±


    ¡°For ordinary mercenaries and rangers, although the priests¡¯ lifesaving healing Divine Arts are ¡®free,¡¯ if they don¡¯t donate sufficient money speedily enough, they¡¯ll find that the next time they need healing they¡¯ll die on the streets right in front of the Holy Church branch without a single priest of Holy Lighting to help them. And instead of the Holy Church¡¯s healing, ordinary people find that alchemists and herbalists¡¯ potions are the most reliable for their injuries. The most basic potions have very low costs of production and are more than sufficient to heal normal injuries. However, the Holy Church will often turn individuals from these job professions that ¡®steal business¡¯ from them into ¡®heretical wizards and witches.¡¯ For this reason, most herbalists will no longer sell potions to ordinary people as it¡¯s both unprofitable and ridiculously dangerous and bad for reputation. Herbalists will only sell buff potions to adventurers and body-strengthening and life-saving potions to major personages because that¡¯s where the money¡¯s at.¡±


    ¡°In fact, many of my citizens don¡¯t even know who the current emperor is. They¡¯re only concerned about if a cmity will suddenly descend upon them, if the nobles¡¯ tax collectors will leave enough money for them to live on, and if their secret money stashes will be sufficient to satisfy the priests to give them a blessing so that their souls can enter Divine Kingdoms or be reincarnated into a better life.¡±


    Those who held the real authority in Bardi were more than happy to allow the puppet emperor to ¡°rx and have fun¡± as he pleased without paying attention to politics. But what they didn¡¯t realize was that Orloss had obtained plenty of wisdom and knowledge as he lived among themoners in disguise. In fact, he had even established a faction loyal only to him by recruiting from the poorest districts.


    Once Orloss had a sufficient amount of power, he started feeling embarrassed when facing themoners, who worked so hard to live every day. Since he had managed to obtain the position of emperor, he felt that he should do something for them.


    ¡°Perhaps I won¡¯t be able to change everything, but I can at least help improve everyone¡¯s lives.¡±


    And so the puppet emperor chose to make a trade. He didn¡¯t only trade with the undead hidden in the shadows; he even traded with the mighty dragons and dragon knights. Of course, what he traded were promises to be even more obedient as a useful puppet. For him, this didn¡¯t cost anything. They were only verbal promises.


    The secret assistance from the two powerful hidden factions of undead and dragons were very effective. Powerful individuals from these two factions joined his side, concealing their identities, which helped slowly reestablish royal authority. Orloss then obtained a total victory after a bloody battle against his own domain lords and gradually increased royal authority to the point where he now held actual authority as the emperor and the domain lords started to pay him respect¡ªat least on the surface.


    But...


    ¡°How our days are going, you ask? Isn¡¯t everything still the same? Oh, I think I heard that we have a new domain lord now, some handsome young fellow. I even heard that he¡¯s the emperor¡¯s personal knight. Hmph! He immediately doubled the taxes the moment he became the domain lord. I bet that bastard wants to decorate his new castle. Hey, old man, don¡¯t get so angry that you harm your body. Haven¡¯t nobles been the same throughout the centuries? It¡¯s a pity that none of us were born with such a good life.¡±


    The furious Orloss rushed back to his pce after hearing this, wanting to execute whichever domain lord he assumed was faking to be his knight in order to ruin Orloss¡¯s own reputation. But he didn¡¯t expect that...


    ¡°What! That domain lord they¡¯re talking about is my knight, Caso? Isn¡¯t Caso the knight I trust most?¡±


    Orloss¡¯s officials informed him that domain lords were basicallyplete masters over their domains. What Caso did waspletely legal in Bardi, and he could even be considered one of the kind ones. Orloss¡¯s other loyal knights that became domain lords to rece the ones he executed raised taxes even more because...


    ¡°Apart from the fact that they all need to move in to their new homes, they¡¯re umting funds to prepare a grand celebration party for your victory. And with their loyalty to you, they¡¯ll definitely donate more funds to the royal treasury than their predecessors... What¡¯s the matter, Your Majesty?¡±


    ¡°Was all of this my fault? Did I cause all of this?¡±


    Right before he fainted, Orloss wondered if he would have been better as simply a puppet, a puppet who didn¡¯t need to do anything.


    ¡°I¡¯vee back to the starting point and made things even worse for themoners because I tried to change the world. Perhaps I shouldn¡¯t have done anything, after all? Maybe the status quo is for the best? No¡ªno¡ªI can¡¯t be depressed over this. There must be a way.¡±


    Orloss then tried to dere war on the neighboring countries, using victoriousbat loot to appease his greedy new domain lords. However, this only brought about an even more vicious cycle. His greedy domain lords conscripted themoners as free sacrificial cannon fodder in order to obtain this so-called glory andbat achievements. At this moment, Orloss truly felt that he had made a mistake somewhere.


    For the first time ever, he started deeply wondering. Was something wrong with the entire world? Why was it that no matter what he tried to change, everything would always return to the starting point?


    Orloss wondered if the wise mages would have an answer, so he used a shadow substitute to act the part of Emperor Orloss while he hid his identity and started studying at the Cloud Tower. He was fortunate enough to meet archmage Selis who was deeply researching the same topic, and became Selis¡¯s disciple.


    For the first time, Orloss learned that the feudal domain lord society wasn¡¯t the only social structure in the world. Elves, dwarves and other species all had their own social structures suitable for them. But in this ridiculous and dangerous world, a feudal domain lord society was the most suitable one for humans.


    The strong would protect the weak, while the weak would give everything of theirs to the strong. This would also make the weak desire to be strong, helping give birth to countless strong individuals.


    Only here did Orloss learn thatmoners in the powerful Bardi Empire already led excellent livespared tomoners in other countries. In remote mountainous districts that faced powerful enemies, domain lords there would demand even more from their citizens. And themoners who wanted to survive could only tolerate it.


    ¡°So it wasn¡¯t us that chose this societal system. It was the world itself that chose it for us.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t a problem that could be easily dealt with, but Orloss just happened to find a way... That¡¯s right¡ªit was how he centralized all authority on himself and forced all powerful individuals to register with and belong to Bardi. At the very least, after many years, he seeded in establishing his way of thinking in the Bardi Empire.


    Without regards to whether he was right or wrong, since this could only be proved with time, the end result of Orloss¡¯s studies in the Cloud Tower was that his frustrations increased instead of decreasing. He learned the truth from the mages, the dragons and the undead even though he found it impossible to ept.


    ¡°The Holy War? The Cycle of Reincarnation? Is this a joke!? What are we humans supposed to be? Wheat waiting to be harvested? Cows and sheep waiting to be butchered?¡±


    From that moment onward, Orloss abandoned his belief in the Gods as well as any possibility that he would ascend to heaven. He secretly began to resent the Gods that were high up above but never did anything.


    ¡°You dare say you protect the people of the world? You im your priests are the servants of the people? But I¡¯ve only ever seen your priests demand donations. Your churches are so glorious, yet your ¡®servants¡¯ never work hard and only mutter your names on a daily basis, talking about how good you are. Since they are your servants, then why don¡¯t you financially support these pigs? Do you know that old John worked hard for his entire life and even donated the final residence in his name, just for the sake of having his son receive a blessing from your priest to live the next two years without any illnesses or disaster and so that he can ascend to your so-called heaven after death!?¡±


    ¡°A beautiful divine kingdom in heaven? I¡¯ve never seen such a thing; I can only see this hell before me! Since none of you Gods are capable of protecting the people of the world as you promised, then stop acting like overreaching parents and interfering with us. We have nothing to do with you. Or perhaps you¡¯re all nothing more than a group of scammers who only make empty promises. Or you¡¯re nothing more than shameless parasites that even leave the scamming to your so-called servants!¡±


    Currently, all the highest-ranked individuals in the royal capital had nervously assembled in front of a tremendous door. They were all suddenly notified that this location was the Bardi Empire¡¯s secret ace of aces, a Dimensional Door leading to a world of dragons. The old emperor had summoned all of them here, saying that he had some important announcements to make.


    After a long period of time, the old emperor arrived, and the moment he did he nced over at the extravagantly-attired crowd under his podium and chuckled.


    From a certain standpoint, the people of Bardi now led much better lives than before his rule. This wasn¡¯t because of the Gods high above. This was because of everything their puppet emperor fought for them, one tiny part at a time, by struggling to manipte so many factions.


    Orloss had used ten years to calm down this chaotic country. He had forced the domain lords to dismiss arge majority of their private armies and finally stopped all internal warring.


    Orloss had used almost thirty years, with the assistance of the undead and the dragons, to expunge all Holy Church and other Gods¡¯ churches factions from Bardi.


    Orloss had secretly helped the teachings of the Pure Holy Light spread even though he knew this would anger the undead.


    Indeed, while undead mages were able to control their undead creations, Aso¡¯s half-living curse (or blessing, depending on how you looked at it) made it so that Orloss was technically half-living and half-undead rather than fully undead. This meant that Orloss wouldn¡¯t be exposed. Although Aso would be able to kill Orloss at any time he wanted by canceling the spell, Aso wouldn¡¯t be able to control Orloss¡¯s actions or thoughts. This was also because Orloss had gained the support of a super powerful archmage that even Aso wouldn¡¯t have confidence dealing with¡ªSelis.


    The undead acted secretly in the shadows as they had terrible reputations that made them unable to act in public. This helped limit their overall influence on the Bardi Empire. Meanwhile, the dragons remained lofty and arrogant and were toozy to do anything that wasn¡¯t directly rted to their personal benefits.


    In order to escape from the threat of Aso, who was able to end his life at any moment, the half-living Orloss had even secretly put on the cursed God Equipment¡ªthe Crown of Thorns.


    The Crown of Thorns was a truly powerful God Equipment. It forcefully transformed the half-living Orloss back into apletely living person. But unfortunately this still technically living person lost his senses of smell, taste and pain because of it.


    From then onwards, the emperor dined on the most delicious of foods but was unable to taste a single thing. He lived in the most extravagant of pces but was unable to feel anyfort. No matter how beautiful his clothing, he was unable to feel any warmth or coldness. However, the Crown of Thorns also provided him with a limitless amount of energy which he put to use at improving his country.


    From a certain standpoint, Rnd forcing Aso tomit suicide was a tremendous help to Orloss. But even without Rnd¡¯s appearance it would have only been a matter of time before Orloss and Aso¡¯s rtionship fell apart. And judging by what happened in the game¡¯s history, Aso didn¡¯t even ¡°win¡± in the end due to getting stuck facing the Titans afterward.


    As a ¡°mortal¡± who understood his own limits, Orloss¡¯s greatest talents were patience, adaptability and ying everyone against each other. He was like this in the game¡¯s history, and he was like this today as well.


    But unfortunately ideals couldn¡¯t be eaten. Some things still appeared impossible to change.


    For instance, despite the fact that Emperor Orloss wasn¡¯t dead, the domain lords were already trying to take action. They desired war to expand their territory. They refused to ept Orloss¡¯s proposals of Bardi citizens¡¯ free movement between domains and ouwing the use of very. The domain lords were still local emperors in their respective domains.


    Even if the Gods¡¯ churches were no longer allowed in Bardi, their believers would still travel thousands of kilometers to other countries in search of priests and scammers pretending to be priests. Such believers still exchanged their lifetime¡¯s worth of savings from hard work all for a single sentence of ¡°Child, the Gods shall bless you.¡±


    By now, Orloss found it impossible to receive an answer from anyone, until a new religion and a booklet from the Underground attracted his attention.


    ¡°They¡¯re not going to establish any churches? They don¡¯t solicit any donations? Then how are this church¡¯s priests and divine warriors supposed to survive? ept intermediary fees as judges? Provide business services? They don¡¯t even need to incant the name of their God? Is this really a True God¡¯s church?¡±


    The Church of Law attracted his attention, but its teachings and divinews allowed Orloss to see hope for the first time.


    ¡°Those who intentionally take the life of others shall be severely judged by the God of Law. Even after death, those convicted of such a crime will suffer under a constant mountain of knives and in a sea of mes. [Thirteenth Divine Law of the Church of Law.]¡±


    ¡°So there¡¯s finally someone who intends to do something...¡±


    That was Orloss¡¯s first impression. But immediately afterwards he felt that something was off.


    ¡°Wait a moment! If a criminal is going to be judged and suffer even after death, won¡¯t that be going against the teachings of the Gods¡¯ churches? It¡¯s clearly possible to enter a True God¡¯s Divine Kingdom after death as long as you donate enough money and receive blessing from a priest.¡±


    Obviously, Wumianzhe¡¯s teachings far exceeded the power that he had back then as just a Weak God. In that case, he was either an insane God who didn¡¯t care about the potential consequences of iming something so crazy or he had other intentions.


    ¡°Have all criminals enter Hell and receive the punishment they deserve? Although this can indeed strike fear into the hearts of viins, the Church of Law¡¯s teachings will basically antagonize every other True God out there. Just what is Wumianzhe¡¯s goal?¡±


    Then, Orloss learned that the Church of Law was connected to the legendary Prince Rnd. Orloss also obtained Rnd¡¯s personal notes and drafts from the Church of Pure Holy Light. After Orloss finally met and talked to Rnd, he decided to participate in Rnd¡¯s insane n.


    ¡°The heavens and earth are unjust. Fate is blind. The Gods only care about collecting souls and faith. They care nothing about mortals¡¯ lives. Viins and criminals can simply spend some money and praise some God and obtain what the poor can¡¯t obtain in their entire lifetimes. What need is there to worship such Gods? We mortals can only rely on ourselves...¡±


    As Orloss shakily stood on the tform with the Dragon World Dimensional Door wide open behind him, he couldn¡¯t help but recall his discussion with Rnd as he looked down at the crowd before him.


    ¡°Rnd, I actually love your saying in the Southern Sect: ¡®This world belongs to mortals, and those Gods high up above are nothing more than hypocritical maniacs. People worship them, yet the Gods are bound by their own Divine Concepts. The naturalws of Order have bound them into bing nothing more than ves. That¡¯s why I¡¯ll never rely on them.¡¯¡±


    The old emperor paused for a moment here. He had read Rnd¡¯s notes far too many times already and had long memorized this quote. What Orloss looked forward to was the aftermath¡ªRnd¡¯s choice and way of thinking after so many years.


    When I first met and discussed with Orloss, I had smiled from the bottom of my heart. I could faintly see my own image in this old emperor. People who were alike would always have the easiest timemunicating.


    And so I directly said what I truly thought:


    ¡°We mortals can only count on ourselves. Since in this world innate kindness and morality do not exist, let us create divine and humanws for an equal society. Since in this world viins and criminals don¡¯t receive judgement and punishment, let us create a Hell that even the most evil of individuals will fear.¡±


    ¡°Even if this will make you into the enemy of all the Gods? Even if this will turn you into the number one enemy of the entire world?¡±


    ¡°Indeed, but we won¡¯t be the number one enemy of the entire world. At the very least, aren¡¯t you going to be mypanion?¡±


    ¡°No. Since we¡¯re scheming to overturn the entire societal structure of the world andmit a crime against the Gods, we should call ourselves coconspirators.¡±


    After Orloss chatted some with his Aunt Lilith, he understood Rnd¡¯s stubbornness even more.


    ¡°Au¡ªSister Lilith, tell me, if we achieve our goal, creating a new Cycle of Reincarnation to rece the old one where criminals will be tortured in Hell and good people will be able to live in a beautiful heaven and truly experience a better life after death, will we be able to directly ascend to heaven as the creators of all this?¡±


    But the surprising answer was that Lilith shook her head.


    ¡°No. Rnd has already said that he has long since prepared a spot for himself in his Hell. He even remembered to save another spot for his pet cat. With his personality, and considering your actions, it¡¯s quite likely that you¡¯ll be neighbors in Hell together for a long time toe.¡±


    ¡°Hahahahaha! That¡¯s truly an excellent piece of news¡ªtruly delightful to hear!¡±


    Orloss still remembered how he had uproariouslyughed after hearing this. He hadn¡¯t been this happy in so many decades. Perhaps this was because it was the first time he¡¯d ever heard that a viin who¡¯dmitted countless heinous deeds would actually go down to Hell and be punished, even if this viin was himself.


    ¡°Coconspirators? Perhaps we¡¯ll be jailmates in the future.¡±


    After Orloss finished poking fun at himself, he knew that his time hade.


    ¡°Perhaps, from tomorrow onwards, people will think that I¡¯m the most foolish person in the world. Still, it¡¯s not like there aren¡¯t people who won¡¯t know who I really am... Hehehe! Dear coconspirators, this old man shall leave first. I¡¯ll be waiting for all of you in Hell.¡±


    And finally, when he lightly removed the Crown of Thorns from his head, the entire world was destined to change.

 Chapter 437 - Grand Scheme

    <h4>Chapter 437: Grand Scheme</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Everything started from a conversation on the River Styx. At the time, Ayer was rowing a boat while having a seemingly casual conversation with Rnd. What they were speaking about, however, was a massive scheme that involved the entire world (Chapter 66).


    ¡°By the way, Rnd, didn¡¯t you mention Hell and theherworld? And how demons resided within these ces in your world? Do you know that there¡¯s also a Hell in our world? It¡¯s just that devils live there, instead. I talked about your n with Little Tias. If you¡¯re truly capable of creating your vision of Hell and theherworld, he¡¯s willing to give all of Hell over to you and even make the devils learn how to be Hell¡¯s prison guards.¡±


    ¡°Okay, that¡¯s fine. However, the ruler of Hell and the highest judge must be the absolutely fair and just Wumianzhe. And just what exactly do the devils n to obtain from participating in this scheme? Just tell me directly. Else I can¡¯t be reassured about trusting them.¡±


    ¡°Freedom. Not freedom like what they appear to have now, but true freedom. You know that any existence that bes a high-level devil will return to Hell even if they die in any other ne, the only consequence that they lose some power. And if they die in a lower ne, then that will be a true death.¡±


    ¡°So they wish to break free from the Cycle of Reincarnation?¡±


    ¡°Yes. At first, my people joined the Chaos Goddess¡¯s side in order to not participate in that so-called Holy War. But now the result is that in every so-called Holy War the devils are nothing more than cannon fodder. And the oldest Devil Lords have long since gotten tired of the devils¡¯ wicked lives of endless deceit and warring. They wish to be truly free, but not at the cost of death. Yet the River Styx¡¯s Cycle of Reincarnation is open to all species except high-level devils and demons. That¡¯s because they¡¯re the main fighters of the Holy War.¡±


    ¡°How many agree to this? This isn¡¯t something that the devils would all agree to as an entire species. How many of the nine Devil Lords agree to this n?¡±


    ¡°Including Little Tias, four. They¡¯re the four Devil Lords that transformed from fallen humans of the first generation. Of course, it¡¯s not that the other five Devil Lords don¡¯t agree. I didn¡¯t even tell them about our n, nor do I intend to tell them.


    And now the promise from back in the day had transformed into reality. For the sake of obtaining true freedom for the devils, the Lord of Lies, Lord of Despair, Lord of Rebellion and Lord of Temptations decided to betray the entire Chaos Faction. Countless devils under theirmand walked out of the Hell¡¯s Abyss and into Dragon World.


    Since we were breaking the Cycle of Reincarnation, the Ayer Faction would be making an irreversible break from the Order Faction. We could only count on ourselves from now on. None of us would be able to turn back ...


    ¡°Turn back? Do you want to happily wait for Armageddon to befall you? At least now there¡¯s a slight sliver of hope.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, our strange alliance seemed far more like the antagonists whenpared to the high and mighty God of Holy Light and the Order True Gods. We had the famous tyrant Emperor Orloss, the evil Devil Lords, an undead army led by an Undead Emperor who almost destroyed the world and the ancient Death God that gave the other Gods headaches. There wasn¡¯t a single ordinary antagonist among us. We would be at the level of a demon king in stories.


    But perhaps only true viins were able to understand each other. It could be said that little hoodlums were those who couldn¡¯t resist temptations or had naturally evil personalities, but it would be incredibly out of the ordinary for people like us to not have some legendary story or amazing grudge. To use a rather chuunibyou phrase: ¡°It¡¯s all the world¡¯s fault.¡± And it mostly probably was.


    ¡°Little Rnd, as ording to the will of ¡®that existence,¡¯ from now on we shall listen to yourmands. Please rest assured in using us as your tools. As long as you can grant our species¡¯ wish, we shall venerate you as¡ª¡±


    The moment the Lord of Lies appeared I pretty much knew what he was going to say, but I had interrupted him as I didn¡¯t want Sam to learn anything unnecessary. Kamiltias was reconfirming the contract that Ayer and I had with him. As long as my version of Hell was sessfully constructed, they would be the devil prison guards of Hell. This would help them escape from the Cycle of Reincarnation and the Holy War in exchange for their service to the new Hell.


    Wars had broken out all over the mortal ne. Once the Source of Order and the Source of Chaos truly began the Holy War, it would be impossible for anyone to prevent therge number of deaths and souls entering the Cycle of Reincarnation. However, it would be possible to have these souls enter a different Cycle of Reincarnation.


    ¡°This is the only method left. There¡¯s no other Cycle of Reincarnation? Fine, we¡¯ll create one ourselves.¡±


    When we were stuck thinking for solutions, that was the answer we had forcefullye up with.


    There was no more need to hide my ¡°grand scheme.¡± The ¡°grand scheme¡± was to use the copsing Dragon World ne as raw material to create a Hell for mortals while it waspletely cut off from the mortal ne. This would break the River Styx and Heaven¡¯s Pir¡¯s monopoly over the Cycle of Reincarnation!


    Only after creating a new Cycle of Reincarnation would it be possible to stop the Cycle of Reincarnation, River Styx and Heaven¡¯s Pir that all led to Armageddon! Only then would all the sacrifices no longer be meaningless; only then would the damned Holy War be stoppable.


    ¡°We¡¯ve finally reached this step. It¡¯s taken so long. I never expected to be able to achieve the necessary conditions.¡±


    Every single objective in my thick notebook was now checked off. But if I wrote down everything that me and mypanions had done, not even ten more notebooks would be enough.


    This scheme had taken a scarily long amount of time toe to fruition. I had started thinking of it back when I was Emperor Yongye. In fact, this scheme was how I had convinced Ayer not to kill me. And only once Wumianzhe ascended to Godhood and I resurrected did this n finally be achievable. The scheme that Ayer and I agreed upon in that rowboat on the River Styx had started for real.


    As long as we managed to foundationally eliminate this greatest hidden threat leading to the uing inevitable Armageddon, all we would have to face was the Holy War itself. Perhaps that would still be difficult, but at least whether everyone survived or not would depend on the mortals¡¯ own efforts and abilities rather than a predestined Armageddon with universal doom.


    ¡°I can¡¯t promise that this solution is workable. But at the very least it¡¯s no longer a one hundred percent chance of everyone dying in the end.¡±


    This was already plenty for us, as we had no more time left and no other paths to take.


    Estrada had sacrificed himself in order to save the lives of two million innocent Bardi citizens. However, the moment the demons of the Chaos Faction arrived they sacrificed almost 170,000 humans to their blood sacrifice, and this was only the beginning.


    It could be easily predicted that the entire mortal ne would face various challenges from all directions, and simr incidents would ur endlessly. To be quite honest, it would be impossible for me to deal with them all. No, let me correct myself¡ªeven if all of us worked only on this, it would be impossible to fill in every hole in this sinking ship.


    ¡°Who knows which random domain lord will be the next to fall under the control of some Chaos Evil God and open the castle gates, perform a blood sacrifice and summon a demon army? Who knows when some Dimensional Door will suddenly appear in some country¡¯s capital? Defending against unexpected and random attacks is far more difficult for us than being on the attacking side. A single misstep might cause an avnche. No matter how we calcte things, we¡¯re still the losers in the end. The situation is even worse than in the game¡¯s history.¡±


    Indeed. While there were many improvements in the overall situationpared to the game¡¯s history, there was one missing part that was impossible for me to match¡ªthe game¡¯s yers.


    That¡¯s right. Don¡¯t underestimate the yers. Although they all started off as the weakest beginners, there was the fact that they wouldn¡¯t permanently die and had cheat-like leveling rates with zero problems as they progressed in power level. They had ridiculous growth rates and natural talent abilities that could make any game yer into the main character of any legend. That was why the yers would be able to continue facing ever stronger opponents as the Elemental Tide increased. Yet even the endless amount of ¡°undying main characters¡± were unable to change the pitiful ending created by the game developers.


    The reason? There was an unsolvable conundrum from the very start. Once the fires of hatred stoked the bloodthirsty chains of revenge, the entire world would be wreathed in mes, as ughter could only lead to more ughter... Fine, I¡¯ll stop being abstruse. It was basically that the more enemies the game yers killed, the more souls the Cycle of Reincarnation would receive. Then, the Goddesses of Chaos and Order would awaken, and the game would end there.


    ¡°It¡¯s impossible to stop the Cycle of Reincarnation. No matter what we do or who we kill, the Cycle of Reincarnation will still gorge itself on the killed souls and revive the Goddesses of Chaos and Orders, bringing about the inevitable Armageddon. Nothing will be changed, unless we can create a new ce for dead souls to go to.¡±


    This was what Ayer and I truly believed. And we couldn¡¯t act too slowly on this. It would be far toote if the Holy War entered its middle orte stages. The best time to take action would be right after the Holy War began. Too many conflicts would make it difficult for others, either mortal or Gods, to focus their attention on us. The God of Fate who was part of our faction would also intentionally cause all prophecy magic to no longer work. This would be the best time to secretly carry out our n.


    That¡¯s right. Everything about everything was all in order to create an opportune time to begin our scheme, which was right now, less than half a year after the Holy War had formally begun.


    Obviously, doing something like creating Hell and our own Cycle of Reincarnation right in front of the Chaos and Order Factions would be tantamount to suicide. It would be absolutely impossible for us to resist if the Order and Chaos Main Gods directly descended to eliminate us.


    My original secret n with Ayer was to create our Hell out of the Hell¡¯s Abyss that the devils resided in. But now I had found the copsing Dragon World in the Bardi Empire. As long as we cut off all the connections Dragon World had to the mortal ne, which were few to begin with, it would turn into just one of the many distant dimensions. Before Dragon Worldpletely copsed, we would at least have a period of time in which nobody would be able to trace us or interfere with our actions. In that case, we could use this period of time to create a new Cycle of Reincarnation!


    It would be utterly impossible for me to carry out a scheme of this scale with only my personal abilities. I had already gathered everything I had written down in my notebook that was necessary to create a new Cycle of Reincarnation. And now it was time to activate the grand scheme.


    The twin emerald ring on my finger had lost its luster. Its shattered remnants were blown away as dust in the wind.


    To make it so that nobody found out about our scheme¡ªat least so that no existences interfered before the connections to Dragon ne werepletely severed¡ªwe needed an excuse to exin why Dragon ne suddenly had all its Dimensional Doors destroyed.


    This reason needed to be passable to both the Chaos and Order Factions. They needed to at least not immediately see through it, otherwise they would immediately start an insane ughter against us. This excuse needed to stall them long enough so that they didn¡¯t care if all the Dimensional Doors to Dragon World were destroyed and that this ne was cut off from the mortal ne. Someone needed to y the role of the clown to attract attention.


    ¡°Orloss...¡±


    That¡¯s right, the tyrant Orloss, the sly fox Orloss, the foolish emperor Orloss, and... the scapegoat Orloss.


    Orloss foolishly decided to betray the dragons and angrily curse the Gods in front of everyone in order to eliminate the threat of the Titans and show off how humans didn¡¯t need other species¡¯ assistance in order to win the Holy War. Despite his subordinates¡¯ pleading, he would destroy all the Dimensional Doors to Dragon World, cutting it off from the mortal ne... This was the scheme that he hade up with, along with the excuse we would give the world.


    After that, either the Gods¡¯ retribution or the furious dragons¡¯ breath would immediatelye to kill him... No, ording to our original n, Orloss would use the immortality bestowed upon him by the Crown of Thorns to stall for even more time while continuing to make wild derations. This was so that even more anger would be vented upon him, without affecting anyone else.


    His previous reputation of being wise would certainly turn into that of the most foolish ruler in Bardi¡¯s history. His own people would view him as Bardi¡¯s greatest shame. Although he sacrificed everything to protect his country, his citizens would curse him, insult him and revile him. However, Orloss had long seen through everything and still resolutely chose this path because this was the path with the highest probability of sess.


    ¡°...We humans¡ªno¡ªall of us intelligent species aren¡¯t crops that the Gods can raise and harvest! We work so hard living our own lives! Our memories and lives belong to us! Our existences aren¡¯t for the sake of providing the Gods with nutrition! Don¡¯t allow these hypocritical Gods to control our fates for any longer! Don¡¯t let our children be unable to see any hope in the future! Promise me that, Rnd! Promise me!¡±


    The memory of Orloss¡¯s raspy voice echoed in my mind. But I knew that it would be impossible to ever meet him again. Since he had used the Crown of Thorns, his very soul was destined to be destroyed.


    ¡°I promise you, coconspirator. From today onwards, the mortal ne shall truly belong to the mortals. Perhaps we¡¯ll still end up meeting death in the Armageddon, but nobody will ever be allowed to toy with our lives.¡±

 Chapter 438 - Starting Point

    <h4>Chapter 438: Starting Point</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    As the dragons circled in the skies above us, the verynd trembled and howling gales whirled about. All of Dragon World¡¯s connections to the mortal ne had just been severed.


    However, I didn¡¯t pay too much attention to the dragons in the sky. That was because the dragons were nothing more than a small problempared to the enemies and troubles we were going to face in the future.


    ¡°Small problem? Of course they¡¯re only a small problem. If we antagonized the dragons yesterday, perhaps they¡¯d be a mega problem, with all of us directly being killed or chased out by the dragons. But today the situation is different.¡±


    Kamiltias, the leader of the nine Devil Lords, was one of the strongest existences of the Chaos Faction. He was on par with any Main God, and he had now descended in Dragon World with his true body, the body he hadn¡¯t used in the past tens of thousands of years.


    With a friendly smile, he acted like a polite middle-aged gentleman as he ced his right hand on his hat and greeted the dragons in the sky while waving with his left. However, not a single dragon dared tond on the ground.


    Out of the nine Devil Lords, three of them had power levels equivalent to that of Main Gods. And two of the four Devil Lords on our side were Main God-level existences. Although the other one, the Lord of Despair, was currently elsewhere on another task, just the Lord of Lies alone was more than enough to stifle the dragons.


    The Order Faction had a total of seven Main God-level existences, which included someone as unreliable as Ayer, a ¡°neutral¡± faction God. Meanwhile, the Chaos Faction had a grand total of thirteen Main God level existences... well, if you added Karwenz, then that number was fourteen.


    That¡¯s right. What everyone saw was that the Devil King before them was an equal-level existence to Death God Ayer. This also meant that he was iprehensibly strong, just like the God of Holy Light, the Demon Prince and Elf Main God Anslo. Since some dragons recognized the Devil Lord before them for who he really was, they naturally didn¡¯t dare toe down.


    Any Main God-level existence would be capable of changing dimensional rules and naturalws with their will alone. It would be impossible to calcte just how truly strong such an existence was. While it was probable that the dragons also had existences capable of rivaling Main Gods in their species, I doubted that they had any here in Dragon World. Otherwise, they would have longe out to deal with the Titans.


    The Dimensional Door leading to Hell¡¯s Abyss hadn¡¯t yet been closed. Countless devils continuously walked out of the portal. Some were tall and stocky, while others appeared short and skinny. Each individual devil had obviously different physical characteristics, something iprehensible as devils were a species with standardized power levels and species.


    Devils would all evolve through fixed stages, from Tiny Devil to Warrior Inferno Devil and all the way to Devil Thane. Their power levels were just like the progression of job sses. This was their most obvious difference from the demons, which evolved in chaotic fashions.


    But it was easy to understand why this was if you thought about their background.


    ¡°The People of Tall Mountain?¡±


    In ancient history books, the People of Tall Mountain was the first ever human tribe in existence. Their average height was more than two meters, and they were all muscr and highly skilled at fighting. In that ancient ice aeon generation, they were capable of hunting down powerful immemorial magic beasts while wearing nothing but light beastskin furs.


    Current barbarian tribes loved to im that they were the descendants of the People of Tall Mountain. But to my knowledge that was nothing more than unsubstantiated boasting. Apart from the People of Tall Mountain who became fallen and transformed into devils, every other human from the first generation had gone extinct, killed off by the Gods¡¯ retribution and judgment. The Order Faction would never be kind to traitors.


    All these strange and unique-looking devils before me had to be more members of the very first generation of humans from the immemorial generation. That was the only possibility that could exin why these devils didn¡¯t adhere to the devils¡¯ typical physical, species and abilities. These devils had existed prior to the establishment of the devils¡¯ system of evolution.


    And everyone knew that anything with the tag of immemorial, great immemorial and so on would be ridiculous no matter what it was. This uncountable number of devils were all immemorial devils that had experienced innumerable Holy Wars. Just calcting it slightly felt truly fearsome. The fact that the Devil Lords were able to preserve so many immemorial devils throughout so many Holy Wars was some of the best evidence that Devil Lords never truly fought with their full strength, that they were selfish and wanted to preserve as much power as possible. No wonder the Chaos Abyss favored demons. The bloodthirsty and violent demons made for excellent cannon fodder that would easily attack any target; even the slightest spark would set them off.


    Of course, taking such a great risk in summoning the devils to this ne was because of my promise to Ayer, and even more because we indeed needed morebat strength right now.


    No schemes in the world could be kept secret forever. The True Gods and Main Gods were no idiots. They would soon notice that something was wrong with the situation and take action. I predicted that it was quite possible for the Gods to attack us before Dragon World managed topletely be severed off from the mortal ne. If the Gods attacked us, these immemorial devils would act in their first battle as the defenders of the new Hell.


    Currently, these ancient devils didn¡¯t show any signs of cking off or excitement as they trod upon these wide ins which resembled the environment of ancient times. Most of the devils were fully equipped with weapons, but the ones that appeared unarmed were actually more dangerous. After they arrived, they looked all around them with tense expressions, appearing somewhat doubtful of their surroundings. They then nced vigntly at the dragons in the sky but didn¡¯t attack.


    ¡°You understand how it is. One more person knowing means an increased chance of the n leaking. The only orders that my devils have received is that we¡¯re going to attack a unique ne, but not a single devil will be allowed to attack on their own until I give themand.¡±


    I nodded when I heard this. I suddenly felt like the Lord of Lies was somewhat easier to approach now because we were indeed the same type of person.


    ¡°Of course I understand. I¡¯m the same...¡±


    That¡¯s right. Out of all my subordinates and allies, the only one who knew the entirety of my n was Harloys, who, as my magical pet, had a soul connection with me¡ªit was impossible to hide anything from her. I only told Estrada and Orloss a tiny portion in the letters I sent to them, and even if they died they wouldn¡¯t leak anything important. In fact, I was even worried that Elisa would leak something to the Chaos Abyss, which was why I told her absolutely nothing. If it wasn¡¯t for her demanding to have something to do, I would have just left her in the Chaos Abyss¡ªoh, I think I understand why she was so angry with me.


    Cough, getting back on topic, I made so many preparations while I was in the Nortnds so that Reyne and Glina would be capable of acting independently without me. I also gave both of them plenty of powerful backup support and improved the situation in the Nortnds for them the best I could while also forming the Mist Alliance. This was all so that they would be able to deal with the ever more severe situation even without my presence.


    Although I was now in a remote dimension, it was impossible to know what would happen in the future. If news about what I nned here leaked somehow, it was highly likely that existences would take revenge upon the Nortnds.


    If my grand scheme seeded, it would take at least several years before I would be able to return to the mortal ne. By then, the Holy War would be at its peak. The two Nortnds Queens absolutely had to be capable of handling things by themselves. And if my grand scheme failed, Reyne and Glina would bear an even heavier burden.


    This was why I had made so many preparations regarding the Nortnds. That was our base. Even if my grand scheme seeded, I couldn¡¯t allow anything to happen to the Nortnds.


    ¡°Reyne and Glina will probably be angry if they learn about what I nned.¡±


    ¡°Glina will be alright. The way you tried to stuff her with as much information as possible near the end of the time you spent with her was almost as if you were preparing for your own death. She definitely has her guesses at what might be happening. As for Reyne? She¡¯ll be angry. From start to finish, she probably didn¡¯t have a clue what her ¡®Brother Rnd¡¯ was scheming.¡±


    That¡¯s right. I didn¡¯t mention a single word of my scheme to the Nortnds Queens. I at least hinted somewhat to Glina, telling her ¡°Everything will be up to the two of you. Reyne is too rash, so please watch over her.¡± As for Reyne, I was afraid to tell her even a single word, afraid that Karwenz would be able to guess something from my words. My younger brother¡¯s wild instincts were quite headache-inducing for me sometimes, after all.


    ¡°I suppose I am indeed being terrible to Reyne with this.¡±


    Thinking back on things now, I had always considered the fact that Karwenz was watching through Reyne. I intentionally kept her away from any secret or important matters and even asionally lied to her on purpose to mislead Karwenz. Luckily, I was dealing with the oblivious Reyne. If she was someone as perceptive as Elisa, I would probably end up with an endless amount of trouble.


    ¡°...I feel like her re on my back has be even icier. I forgot that she also has incredible instincts, especially regarding whenever I¡¯m talking bad about her.¡±


    ¡°Be a little more serious here¡ªa fight is about to start.¡±


    ¡°Ha! I already said that the dragons are only a small problem. There won¡¯t be a fight... at least for the time being.¡±


    The dragons were no fools. The devil army on the ground had astonishingbat potential, and the devils¡¯ leader was a Main God-level existence. Not only that, their magical contract with me regarding my permission to summon reinforcements here was glowing. While they discovered that I had scammed them, they still held some hope that perhaps I had only scammed them about who I intended to summon and that these reinforcements were still useable.


    And so at least until they confirmed that there were unnegotiable shes of personal benefits, they wouldn¡¯t be starting a fight.


    ¡°Finally... the winds have changed.¡±


    I felt like eximing at the situation. When I first arrived in Dragon World, the dragons had treated me as an unnecessary existence. And frankly, for quite a long period of time, the dragons had always treated us as unimportant outsiders.


    Originally, only the dragons and Titans were ¡°fighting¡± over this world. The dragons treated us as some minor outside assistance that wasn¡¯t really necessary. Looking at Dragon City¡¯s standpoint, there was really nothing wrong with that as this was a world where power meant everything. But for our final goal this was something that couldn¡¯t be because, from the very start, our goal had been this world.


    It would be difficult for me to exin the entirety of my n. But in a way, when I had first thought of my grand scheme, I only had a simple outline. After I brought in my first goal, I had to take everything step by step with all the industrial requirements and design ns necessary to achieve it. However, one thing was absolutely necessary¡ªfoundational materials.


    ¡°Creating everything from scratch and modifying something that exists already arepletely different. The first is far more difficult than the second. Dragon World is a ce we absolutely must obtain. Since its very structure is unstable, Dragon World will be the best source of dimensional shards, creating the foundational materials necessary to create our version of Hell.¡±


    This currently copsing world would make for the best foundational material and blueprint out of which we could create our Hell. And our next goal was to use this world as the foundational material to slowly realize each step of our n to create a brand-new world.


    Here, I probably need to exin from the beginning and discuss the foundational method to create a world.


    Back in my original world, eastern Buddhist philosophers believed that the four major elements of earth, water, fire and wind were the four basic elements all living creatures and nonliving things were constructed out of. The astonishing part was that in western civilization¡¯s ancient Greece, another of humanity¡¯s earliest civilizations, which had no connections to the east at the time, also believed in the four elements of earth, water, fire and wind.


    There were indeed reasons for this astonishing simrity. These civilizations used the ancient philosophy of idealism [1] to observe the world and arrive at such a result. The ancients of my previous world attempted to categorize existence and find each creature or thing¡¯s foundational nature and infer its basic element as a way of understanding the nature of the world.


    Although observing by the philosophy of idealism had now been proved to be low-effectiveness and wrong in my original world, the philosophy of idealism just happened to work here in Eich. In this world, magic, which wasn¡¯t scientific even in the slightest, existed. Willpower and souls were both forms of concrete strength. Stubborn ways of thinking were even capable of creating Soul Worlds, another utterly unscientific concept.


    The day I became a Legend, my System had given me ¡°free knowledge,¡± and it was the nutrition I needed most. It was more precious than any treasure. I couldn¡¯t evenprehend just where my System had obtained this knowledge.


    ¡°Experience regarding the foundational workings of how to create a world? The very first version of the Seal of the First Elements? Everything returning to... the starting point?¡±

 Chapter 439 - Goddesses of Order and Chaos

    <h4>Chapter 439: Goddesses of Order and Chaos</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°There are no coincidences in the world. There is only the definite.¡±


    ¡°...I feel like you¡¯re making a subtle dig at something. Why are you saying this?¡±


    ¡°...What I mean is that if you think that you¡¯re being favored by the God of Fate and everything you¡¯re doing is going perfectly, with so many coincidences urring that went well for you, then you should probably take a closer look to see if you¡¯ve already fallen deep into a trap. And usually it¡¯s toote to escape from the trap when you do.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this just paranoia!? You have a serious case of paranoia because you constantly keep scheming! Don¡¯t get your nerves so tense like that. Otherwise, you¡¯ll go insane one day sooner orter.¡±


    Alright. Withoutmenting on the silly cat¡¯sments, I suppose I could admit that I was indeed rather paranoid. I figured I should at least be a little more self-aware after suffering so many times. But when I saw the original version of the Seal of the Four Elements... or perhaps I should call it the four elements creating the world, I felt like something was wrong with the style.


    ¡°The four elements? So they were so simple, after all?¡±


    My System stuffed a bunch of memories into me, a record of Creator Goddess Eich creating her world named after her.


    At first, all and everything was a void. There was no color, no space and no time until a powerful existence lit up everything with the first light of the world.


    Who was this existence? Why was it so powerful? Why did it exist? The answers to these questions were perhaps impossible to know. At the beginning of this existence¡¯s memories, it began changing the surrounding environment because it was far too lonely.


    That¡¯s right. This existence was only an it at the time. It didn¡¯t have the concept of a physical body. It didn¡¯t even have its own self-awareness. Perhaps it didn¡¯t even realize at this time that it would in the future be the Creator Goddess, Eich.


    Perhaps this was all a coincidence, or it was all fated. Some mysterious powers out there guided this existence to choose the Four Elemental nes as the foundational building blocks for her new world.


    That¡¯s right, the real story of creation wasn¡¯t like what was told in the myths and legends here. The existence didn¡¯t intentionally choose the Four Elemental nes. It simply felt that these Four Elemental nes could be used to create a world, so it used them.


    The first was the Earth Elemental ne, the foundation for everything, and the most basic unit of existence. Earth itself had no concept of good or evil. It was a simple representation of existence or non-existence.


    Earth was thend... and also represented the Concept of Space!


    The wind element was present everywhere. High-speed winds whipped about everywhere, connecting to thend. Wind represented air, the sky and was the concept thatplemented and opposed earth... Time!


    Just as the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam said, the highest-level Concepts of Order were Space and Time. And creating a world would absolutely require the Concept of Time, which represented ¡°the birth and death of all things,¡± along with the Concept of Space, which represented the ¡°the location of the birth and death of all things.¡±


    If the world was disyed on a graph, Time would be the X-axis and Space would be the Y-axis. Every single existence was absolutely required to have a coordinate on both axes. Else it would be nonexistent, for without space and time how would one define existence?


    It could be said that Time and Space were both the ultimate Concepts of Order as well as the most basic Concepts of Order. Everything would be nothing but the void without Time and Space.


    After Time and Space were created, this void now hadnd and the sky. Only the wisest who sought the foundational reasons behind everything would be able to understand the faint connections between everything here.


    Dimensional teleportation spells, which broke the naturalws of Space, would typically be connected to the earth element. Dimensional coordinates were the foundation of everything. Naturalws regarding Space could still be broken by mortals via space magic spells, yet time magic remained the most taboo of all magics. The fact that time magic was actually the highest-level form of wind magic was more than enough to prove certain things.


    Eich created the world and used wind and earth to create the original form of Order. From then onwards, wind and earth possessed their own magic power. The ironic part was that just as the sky and thend would forever face each other without being able to make contact, the wind and earth elements naturally became each other¡¯s mortal enemies. But just this alone was far too insufficient to create the world of Eich.


    Then, this newly-born world became connected to the Water Elemental ne under Eich¡¯s gaze.


    Water was the mother of all creatures. Ordinary lifeforms typically consisted of more than seventy percent water. Blood, the representative liquid of life, was as high as ny percent water. And in the world of Eich, water¡¯s connection to life was expressed even more directly. Water magic was the only branch of magic other than Holy Light or nature magic capable of healing and cleansing lifeforms.


    In the world that Eich created, water was the representation of life, as well as the foundational element that all lifeforms¡¯ physical bodies were constructed out of.


    The final element was Fire, the never-ending me that represented evolution and the source of the soul. Fire was intricately connected to water yet also opposed it with mortal enmity. In ancient Greece¡¯s view of the four elements, all creatures were born and forever changed because of fire.


    The proof of this was even simpler. Fire represented a state of being. The visible soulfire in undead skeletons¡¯ eyes could be seen by the naked eye. Their endlessly evolving spirits were connected to their physical bodies. Only with the two together would there be the possibility of evolution. And ¡°Evolution¡± was the main Concept of Chaos.


    The two elements of Order created the foundation of the world, while the two elements of Chaos created the foundation of all lifeforms. Everything was then allowed to naturally evolve. This was the so-called method by which the four elements created the world.


    And the connection between the elements wasn¡¯t a forced one. Eich had given this connection to the elements. As long as one met the four requirements of ¡°Time,¡± ¡°Space,¡± ¡°Life¡± and ¡°Soul¡± one could achieve the creation of a world.


    Since Eich¡¯s creation of the world was recorded in all historical records, the four elements themselves gained special meanings in the world of Eich. That was how the world¡¯s strongest magic seal, the ¡°Seal of the Four Elements,¡± came about. And through that, it would be possible to use the four elements to create a world to seal the Titans in.


    ¡°...It¡¯s impossible for an ordinary lifeform or True God to achieve such high skill in controlling all four elements. There are only three possible candidates for who could have sealed the Titans away: Creator Goddess Eich, Goddess of Chaos Cynthia and Goddess of Order Astrya.¡±


    But now someone had broken the record of the Creator Goddess¡¯s unique aplishment, achieving the originally impossible deed of creating a world.


    Yep, I was talking about myself. When I had been forced to the extreme brink in the Earth Elemental ne, my ¡°Frigidwinter Earth¡± had been born. In a way, Frigidwinter Earth was only a prototype world as it was an iplete world creation.


    And now that I looked back on how I was able to aplish this, it likely wasn¡¯t only due to theplementary and opposing natures of my Holy Light and undead magic. My powers of Law and ice were huge influences as well. And it was precisely because I was so unclear on the fundamentals that my world possessed limitless potential.


    That¡¯s right. After experiencing three reincarnations and four lives, I gathered four elements that belonged to me: Holy Light, Law, Undeath and Ice. And these four elements just happened to be two of Order and two of Chaos. Although their power and quality couldn¡¯t possiblypare to that of the Creator Goddess, I indeed met the lowest requirements necessary for creating a world.


    And this was precisely why I kept muttering ¡°This has to be a pitfall; I feel like I¡¯ve already jumped deep inside it.¡± When I mysteriously obtained such memories from my System and my four Soul Imprints mysteriouslybined into one, and when I woke up and found that I had mysteriously improved my power level, I would be a true fool if I didn¡¯t think that something was off about my System¡¯s real identity.


    Previously, I didn¡¯t forcefully ask her identity because asking certain things would be the equivalent of flipping the table at a negotiation. But now I had enough aces up my sleeve and was about to start my grand scheme. If I still didn¡¯t ask and confirm my doubts, it would be impossible for me to rest reassured.


    ¡°There are no coincidences in the world. There are only certainties... System, was it really such a coincidence that I managed to perfectly gather these four required elements with your assistance? And what about that mysterious precognition prophecy ability which belongs to Time and Space? And equivalent exchange, a power that clearly belongs to Order? Perhaps I should respectfully address you as the greatest prophet of all time, along with your magnificent divine name, my dear... Goddess of Order, Astrya!¡±


    I didn¡¯t receive an answer, but I wouldn¡¯t let things go just like this. Once some things were said out loud it would be impossible to turn back.


    ¡°I also want to ask, did you attach yourself to Karn in the same way back then, guiding him step by step to be the God of Holy Light?¡±


    After a long, long period of time, I finally heard a sigh from my System.


    [...Astrya is still in hibernation at the Source of Order. Or perhaps I should say that her corpse is in hibernation there. I am merely a remnant soul shard of Astrya.]


    ******


    As Rnd finally asked his System the questions he had nned for so long, a certain Demon Prince was having fun fishing in the ck Mist Ocean of the seventy-sixtyyer in the Chaos Abyss.


    He forcefully tugged on his fishing pole and pulled a mountain-sized giant fish monster out of the ck mist. Its gigantic body crashed into a nearby mountain and knocked off a great portion.


    ¡°Our Demon Thane!¡±


    ¡°Our Thane¡¯s head is bleeding! Hurry and save him! Can anyone use healing!?¡±


    Alright, perhaps Karwenz was having great fun with his fishing, but the ¡°fish¡± wasn¡¯t having fun at all. That was because this pitiful fish was actually the Demon Thane of thisyer of the Abyss.


    The Demon Thane¡¯s giant body was only exhaling, not able to inhale. The injury on its head wasn¡¯t much, but the red fishhook in its mouth that it couldn¡¯t get rid of was the actual dangerous part.


    The demons around them had frightened expressions as they looked at the ¡°tiny human¡± in front of them. But obviously theirints would all be useless in front of the spoiled child of the Abyss who was forever unreasonable.


    It would seem that Karwenz was indeed an excellent demon as he seeded in making the forever unreasonable demons have such angry expressions but not dare toin.


    ¡°How boring. I managed to hook you after only two hours. ording to our agreement, I shall be confiscating your castle. Now, what fun game should I y next...?¡±


    Just as Karwenz was wondering if he should go y around in Reyne¡¯s body and visit the mortal ne, he suddenly stopped due to a message that a divine will suddenly transmitted to him.


    ¡°Hunt down and kill the Devil Lords that have betrayed the Chaos Faction... Nope, I¡¯m not going. That¡¯s too boring. Those sly fellows are sooo uninteresting. Fighting with them is like ying guessing games to find where they actually are. That¡¯s so troublesome. Aren¡¯t there others who are mortal enemies with the Lord of Lies? Why not have them go instead?¡±


    The demons around him immediately backed off a great distance. It was already well known in the Chaos Abyss that the Demon Prince had a habit of talking out loud to himself. That wasn¡¯t something out of the ordinary because there were plenty of demons with multiple personalities or that had gone insane. But there was another well-known fact around these parts: that any who identally got to close to him whenever he was talking to himself would end up being crushed to death by him.


    ¡°Oh, this is rted to my brother? Fine, I¡¯ll go, but I can¡¯t promise that I¡¯ll do anything. Brother is so weak right now. It¡¯s no fun toying with him. Oh, you¡¯ll send someone else to hunt him down and I can do whatever I want? Yep, you really understand me. The most important thing in life is to have fun ying. Okay, guess I¡¯ll go then. Thank you, Mother Abyss... Mother Cynthia.¡±

 Chapter 440 - Sibling Rivalry

    <h4>Chapter 440: Sibling Rivalry</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    On that very day Ayer and I boated down the River Styx, after finishing nning our grand scheme I suddenly felt like idly gossiping. (Once again, refer back to Chapter 66).


    ¡°You¡¯ve met the Goddess of Order Astrya and Goddess of Chaos Cynthia before, haven¡¯t you? What are they like? Why did they start the eternal Holy War?¡±


    Of course, how can we gossip about any random topic? I wouldn¡¯t rest reassured without at least trying to learn some more information on the final bosses.


    ¡°What are their personalities? What were they so stubborn about that they started the Holy War? What are the special characteristics of their powers? What...¡±


    I had far too many questions I wanted answers to. Besides an overwhelming advantage in power, the most practical method to defeat an opponent would always be to target their weaknesses.


    ¡°What weaknesses do they have? Does the Goddess of Chaos have a hasty personality? Is the Goddess of Order overly conservative? Do they make mistakes? If they make mistakes, will they personally act to fix them?¡±


    From a certain standpoint, I had obvious bad intentions when I asked these questions that weren¡¯t exactly ¡°idle gossip.¡± Directly telling me the answers would be the equivalent of betraying the Order Faction.


    Ayer immediately understood all this, of course, which was why, after a period of silence, he sighed helplessly and started ¡°gossiping¡± with me.


    ¡°The Mother Goddess (Goddess of Order) is a nice woman. She views all lifeforms as her children, but sometimes too much motherly love will limit the children¡¯s ability to develop. Astrya wishes for all lifeforms to live the way she desires, but do you think that¡¯s possible? Meanwhile, her sister Cynthia is the extreme opposite. Cynthia has a lively and active personality, and more than anything she loves to watch duels and warfare. She admires courageous warriors who don¡¯t give up. She wants her children to be able to evolve independently. Did you know the first demons ever created weren¡¯t evil? They simply loved all sorts ofpetitions and sports...¡±


    Although the Holy War¡¯s origin was clearly something fit for a myth or legend, this young-looking ancient existence told me the story as if it were simply a normal sibling fight that happened next door. Although it was clearly a bloody battle that would cause the rise and fall of countless immemorial Gods, Ayer described things as if it were an eight o¡¯clock soap opera filled with love and revenge.


    The Death God¡¯s story helped me gain a better understanding of the two Goddesses. Rather than the vague and ethereal myths, Ayer had a much better and humanlike understanding of these two most ¡°venerated¡± Goddesses in Eich.


    ¡°...It¡¯s like a normal argument between sisters. Since their mother is no longer here, the serious older sister took charge of running the family¡¯s affairs. However, she was overly severe and treated her only younger sister more and more strictly as time went on. In the end, her younger sister became ever more rebellious until the two broke their rtionship with each other.¡±


    But from a certain standpoint this was perhaps the most vicious fight between sisters in all of history. This ¡°fight between sisters¡± hadsted for such a long period of time, affected so many lives and left such a terrible influence behind that perhaps not a single lifeform would be able toprehend its full effects.


    ¡°You¡¯re probably the only one in the world who¡¯s capable of interpreting the Holy War as a fight between sisters.¡±


    That was Ayer¡¯sment to me when I told him what I thought about it. Still, he didn¡¯t disagree with my opinion. And, in a way, I felt that you could even treat Earth¡¯s World Wars as human brothers disagreeing and fighting with each other...


    ¡°After the Creator Goddess Eich left, the Twin Goddesses were left behind as the administrators. What they mainly argued about was how they were to manage the lives under them. Astrya wished for all lifeforms to act ording to their natural talents. Under her, farmers¡¯ children would forever be farmers, and warrior¡¯s descendants would forever remain warriors. She also wanted the same for whole species. Angels would be responsible for carrying out divine will as God Envoys, Titans were supposed to be magnificent architects and artists, and all warfare and intermarriage between species would be banned¡ª¡±


    ¡°Pahahaha! Where did such a na?ve young misse from?¡±


    At this point I couldn¡¯t help but interrupt Ayer with loudughter. Even if people back in the immemorial generation were more honest and down-to-earth there would still be obvious problems with Astrya¡¯s way of running things. Having all farmers¡¯ children forever be farmers and government officials¡¯ children forever be government officials? This type of unfairness would continuously umte as societal problems before spectacrly exploding in the end. And it was even more ridiculous for Astrya to want entire species to act in the same way. Wasn¡¯t this a ssic example of a racial prejudice policy? And just how did she think she was going to deal with conflicts and differences between species?


    ¡°...Don¡¯t criticize it so much. It would be ridiculous for any other existence, but Astrya truly does have the power to aplish it. All she has to do is make it so that everyone thinks that its only natural. Just look at the current angel society... maybe you don¡¯t know, but angels are the only species allowed to enter and exit the Source of Order. As a result, their entire species has be more and more ¡°Order-like.¡± Yep, they¡¯re basically nothing more than tools with no self-will.


    ¡°How ridiculous! It¡¯s impossible to have absolute fairness in such a society because there¡¯s no such thing as an absolutely fair administrator.¡±


    ¡°...There is. Rumors say that the Goddess of Order Astrya intended to abandon her sense of self and be the purest essence of Order. However, I personally reject this course of action. Even if society still exists under such a system it¡¯s inevitable that every single individual will have lost their sense of self. If time turns back and I get the choice to choose again, I would still choose to betray... even if the ending is that my entire tribe bes nothing more than devils.¡±


    I nodded in agreement. Indeed, if everyone was brainwashed, it would be possible to establish a fair and peaceful society. However, this woulde at a cost. It would be no different from a living hell that nobody realized they were living in. In a way, I was even beginning to agree with Cynthia since at least she didn¡¯t allow her older sister to act so ridiculously.


    But then I immediately regretted having sympathized with Cynthia for even one second...


    ¡°Goddess of Chaos Cynthia is the extreme opposite. She prefers a system that¡¯s far more dangerous than simply sitting back and doing nothing. She prefers ¡®survival of the fittest.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that how society is today?¡±


    ¡°Ha! What she wanted wasn¡¯t something so simple. She believes that the meaning for all lifeforms to exist is to achieve the ultimate evolution and that as the administrator she should award her citizens territory for sessfully evolving and provide them with motivation topete with each other. She believes that every lifeform should fight for their own position on the food chain. Just take a look at demon society today. They are the ideal species in her eyes.¡±


    Right after being born, demons would immediately begin devouring each other. Their brains were only filled with two thoughts: eating and killing. Although demons indeed had the best overallbat strength of every species in existence, didn¡¯t something seem wrong with such vicious and simpleminded lifeforms being treated as the perfect species and ultimate evolution?


    ¡°From a certain standpoint, the fact that the Holy War has be a stalemate is actually a good thing, at least for ordinary lifeforms. After all, no matter if all lives be angels with no self-will or demons filled with chaos and evil, neither would be an ideal life. But if either side manages to win...¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll all be enjoying such a living hell?¡±


    ¡°No, because Order will probably recreate the world and create new species of Order. The Source of Order has long since stopped favoring the ever chaotic and messy humans. It¡¯s most likely that the Source of Order will create new species of pure Order, simr to angels. Astrya at least intends this in theter stages of the Holy War¡ªthe angels¡¯ current behavior proves this. And I don¡¯t know what will happen if the Chaos Faction wins, but regardless of what Cynthia does when she recreates the world no ordinary lifeform will survive.¡±


    As I chatted with Ayer I could only keep sighing to myself. Choosing any choice would only lead to a bad ending. This had far surpassed the so-called ¡°Hell Difficulty¡± of any video game. Was this video game truly yable? But it served even more to firm my resolution to find allies to overthrow this entire system together with me.


    And even back then I had started having suspicions about my personal System¡¯s real identity, especially after I learned that Time, Space, Fate and such Concepts were the ultimate powers of Order. My suspicions only increased as I spent more time with my System.


    There were just far too many points to be suspicious of.


    First was my status as the ¡°Child of Light.¡± The mysterious way by which the Holy Light favored me might be better exined by actually calling me the ¡°Child of Order.¡± And even though my System¡¯s abilities were wondrously strange, they all foundationally followed the most basic rules of ¡°equivalent exchange.¡±


    Nothing I drew through my random lottery would ever be reliable. Rather than calling this a wheel of fate, it was more like a wishing mechanism that needed to obey the basic rule of equivalent exchange. And magic spells and divine arts did exist in the world of Eich, such as ¡°Ain¡¯s Wishing Pool,¡± but my System¡¯s lottery was obviously at a higher level.


    As time passed, I became ever more suspicious. I was already someone so paranoid I¡¯d wonder if I was stepping into a trap if I found a wallet on the ground. How could I possibly not be suspicious of an existence like my System, which was both unscientific and unmagical?


    What finally confirmed my suspicions was what Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam recently told me.


    ¡°You¡¯re calling me the Order Faction¡¯s major precognitor? Does this power have anything to do with Order? Isn¡¯t prophecy a neutral type of magic?¡±


    ¡°...Of course! It¡¯s even the ultimate ability of Order. Since Order is about rules, the highest-level dimensional rules are doubtlessly space and time. While the power of prophecy seems chaotic, it¡¯s actually calcting the future probabilities based on time and space. Being able to obtain more information than the enemy is why the Order Faction has performed better than the Chaos Faction that has betterbat strength. The concept of Fate is the same way. Otherwise, why would the God of Fate be in the Order Faction?¡±


    After that, I was absolutely certain that my System was intimately connected with the Source of Order. The ¡°game walkthrough¡± it possessed was far more detailed than any prophecy, and she even sessfully caused a transmigrator like me to ept it. In that case, her so-called Fate Points were naturally another power of Order as well.


    In fact, I even inferred that perhaps, in a Holy War long ago, another hot-blooded young person received such a cheat-like System and became the major precognitor of the Order Faction. He learned about the future and defeated the evil demon king in the final battle with the System¡¯s assistance. He became a hero adored by all, obtaining everything, a winner in life, and finally ascended to Godhood through his achievements... Fine, I was referring to the God of Holy Light, whose name as a human had long been forgotten by history, Karn Loci.


    But even though I had guessed my System¡¯s identity, I never stated it out loud as that would be a direct confrontation against an existence that could follow me through even my many reincarnations. But now my grand scheme was at its critical junction, and it was naturally time to confront her. After all, I was about to be a mortal enemy of the entire Order Faction!


    [The past me was wrong, but this time my choice isn¡¯t wrong at all...]


    After a long period of silence, my System finally spoke up with a rare, serious tone and proceeded to reveal a story unknown to history.

 Chapter 441 - Truth

    <h4>Chapter 441: Truth</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    As Rnd confronted his System, the final piece of the puzzle to create his own version of ¡°Hell¡± waspleted in And¡¯s conquered capital, Rain City, the city of eternal rain.


    Although this war here had started out as a battle between mortals¡ª between the Sea Tribe and the people of Bardi¡ªthe Queen of Storms¡¯ direct interference with her incarnation made it so that this battle far exceeded a level mortals could interfere with.


    ¡°...Damned mages! Damned humans!¡±


    The Queen of Storms¡¯ indigo-colored skin was filled with cracks. Even her previously smooth and beautiful facial features were covered with small holes. Her originally pretty face appeared quite vicious.


    Well, it was only natural that the Queen of Storms was so furious. This was already her second incarnation. She had just lost an incarnation not long ago and sent a second one down immediately after, putting a great strain upon her true body. Yet the current situation wasn¡¯t going well for her in the slightest.


    If she lost a second incarnation, she would suffer even more.


    The Queen of Storms red at a red-haired swordsman, who appeared carefree; he was currently digging earwax out of his ears.


    ¡°Mortal¡ªmortal¡ªmortal! You dare look down upon me!?¡±


    The Queen of Storms, who wasn¡¯t exactly well-known for having a good temper, lost it. She was hysterical and enraged, yet she didn¡¯t summon storms to rampage over thend and directly y this desecrator as she typically would.


    The reason? Her first incarnation had just been in by this seemingly ordinary mortal swordsman. This person¡¯s greatsword suddenly descended like the thunder and directly cut her incarnation in half, causing her to lose a great amount of divine power. She had practically lost everything she had gained in the past half year in which the situation had been going wonderfully well for her.


    But this wasn¡¯t even the main reason why she was so angry...


    *Boom!*


    Continuous sounds of cannons and explosions sounded near her. Floating battleships hovered above the water as they spread out in formations and slowly executed a new round of attacks against Rain City.


    By now, the clouds in the sky hadrgely dissipated. Only small sprinkling rain showers remained, which were unable to impede the humans in the slightest. Although Rain City was covered in water, providing the Sea Tribe with their home turf and defensive barrier, the water level was decreasing, striking great fear into the Sea Tribe¡¯s hearts.


    The Sea Tribe never imagined that the seemingly warm sun would again painfully beat down on them. With the threatening Bardi armies before them, the Sea Tribe now missed the icy oceans.


    As the Sea Tribe became afraid and despaired, they prayed to their Goddess. But what they saw, to their greater despair, was that their venerated Goddess was in in front of everyone.


    Although the Queen of Storms immediately sent out her incarnation to help defend the Sea Tribe against And¡¯s new onught, her incarnation became stuck in a bitter battle against the red-haired Sword Saint. Meanwhile, the mages all around the red-haired swordsman had incredible power. The Sea Tribe witnessed their True God¡¯s incarnation¡¯s defeat.


    ¡°Perhaps our Goddess isn¡¯t the mightiest one... Perhaps Rain City isn¡¯t for us... Perhaps we Sea Tribe should simply stick to living in the water...¡±


    The sunlight and the ever diminishing rain dealt a tremendous blow to the Sea Tribe¡¯s confidence of absolute victory. Bardi¡¯s cannons were the most direct threat against them, and the originally undefeatable Queen of Storms had been defeated right before them all. That was the fatal blow against their belief.


    ¡°Hurry and escape, otherwise it¡¯ll be toote...¡±


    ¡°Why should I fight to the death for the sake of the tribe leaders? Even if Rain City is for us Sea Tribe, I didn¡¯t receive a single good bonfire carrier or room...¡±


    ¡°Even our venerated Goddess has been defeated; there won¡¯t be any hope left if we don¡¯t escape...¡±


    Devilish temptations sounded in the Sea Tribe¡¯s ears. Their faith in their Goddess had been so seriously shaken that they no longer saw any chance at victory. At this moment, some unknown individual suddenly shouted:


    ¡°Our Head Priest is running¡ªlook at his g! He¡¯s running! Even he¡¯s running away!¡±


    The Queen of Storms¡¯ highest-ranked priest, Head Priest Mairkan, was present at this battle. But currently, as the Sea Tribe watched on through the rain, his battle g, which glowed with a divine blue, was indeed retreating.


    With unknown individuals taking the lead, these scattered warriors, who were tribal rather than an organized military, all started escaping. The moment morale was crushed and soldiers started escaping it became impossible to stop things any longer.


    ¡°Mortal!¡±


    The furious Queen of Storms¡¯ incarnation tried to stop this, but a thunder-enchanted greatsword blocked her path.


    ¡°Lady, it¡¯s rude to have the main character leave the party before the dance is over. Are you that displeased with my skills?¡±


    The Queen of Storms took a deep breath and regained her calm. By now, only a total idiot wouldn¡¯t realize that she had fallen into a trap.


    The flowery mortal Sword Saint before her was indeed quite powerful, but he would be unable to cause any fatal damage to her all by himself. The critical part was that he was of the lightning element, meaning he was nigh immune to her water-based attacks. And it appeared that his abilities were mostly of the defensive type, so it was impossible for her to easily get rid of him.


    ¡°Replicate: Meteor Shower!¡±


    An icy voice incanted behind him, and a meteor storm suddenly descended from the skies and struck a fatal blow against many Sea Tribe. This incantation came from Margaret.


    Numerous shiny meteors fell from the skies, and each one exploded on impact, whipping up fierce waves in the water together with numerous howls. Although this spell wasn¡¯t as powerful as the original forbidden spell version¡¯s destructive capabilities, this replicated mini version still possessed astonishing might.


    And earlier, Margaret had unhesitatingly started casting a forbidden spell the moment she had entered the battlefield, which drew all of the Queen of Storms¡¯ attention. That was how her incarnation had fallen for the red-haired swordsman¡¯s ambush.


    And now her second incarnation was forced to the brink. The Queen of Storms was unable to give up on Rain City and her believers. Every single chip she used to obtain her position of powerful High God was here. She didn¡¯t have many allies to begin with, so retreating wasn¡¯t an option.


    Her believers were escaping. The divine miracle in the skies had mostly disappeared. She could sense that her divine powers stemming from the power of belief were overstretching their limits. She was just like a gambler who continuously put her previously obtained chips into new gambles. Although continuous victories had helped her speedily grow in power, her foundational wealth wasn¡¯t enough for the gambles that had ever higher stakes. She became unable to lose even a single gamble.


    If she lost Rain City, she would be fortunate if she merely decreased in power level as a God. The most likely oue would be a tremendous loss of faith in her to the point where she would directly perish.


    The constantly worsening situation made her anxious. However, she didn¡¯t have the power to protect her believers. Her own sea monster armies were blocked by the invading And armies. Although she was angry, and this mortal swordsman who acted like such a jokester was annoying, she could only admit that he indeed possessed power enough to challenge a God.


    And so, under the influence of anger and embarrassment, the Queen of Storms made a decision¡ªa decision others really wanted her to make...


    Two individuals were currently having a secret discussion in a patch of shadows.


    ¡°Hehehe! No matter how many times I watch it, I never get tired of seeing mortals copse to the point of despair.¡±


    This individual appeared to be a rather young ck-haired boy with ck eyes. He had a wicked smile as he watched the Sea Tribe fall into despair. This boy was actually the Lord of Lies, the Devil Lord from Hell¡¯s Abyss. And he was currently carrying out the task Rnd had asked of him: to increase the speed at which the Sea Tribe¡¯s morale deteriorated.


    Next to him was another youth who appeared quite simr to him. This youth was happily waving the Sea Tribe¡¯s Head Priest¡¯s g, running away. The real Head Priest had long been killed, hisst expression unyielding and his guards¡¯ corpses strewn all around him.


    The air was filled with fairies of despair and discord, imperceptible by the naked eye. As one of the most powerful existences in the world, the Main God power level Lord of Despair was the very incarnation of fear and despair. He was capable of causing even the most courageous and resolute of warriors to break down with a single look in their direction. Hisrge area of effect domain of despair would be very difficult to detect, and it would automatically enhance the fear and despair in the weak.


    In this battlefield under the Lord of Despair¡¯s domain, every single mortal individual would need to face the fear in their hearts. They would begin doubting everything they believed. Their loyalty would be tested by endless hallucinations. Having any mortal army copse on themselves and despair was nothing more than a game to the Lord of Despair. It was only natural that the Sea Tribe wouldn¡¯t be able to maintain themselves against him.


    ¡°...Heimor, it¡¯s fine to y around but don¡¯t get sidetracked from what we¡¯re really here to do.¡±


    ¡°Boss, don¡¯t rush me like that. You also know that she¡¯s a powerful Goddess. It¡¯s not that hard to simply kill her incarnation, but it¡¯s a bit more difficult to affect her reasoning so that she¡¯ll make most foolish decision possible... Ohhh, she did it after all. It seems that the number one insane witch of the southwest seas still hasn¡¯t made any progress after so many years. As expected, she¡¯s now gambling everything when pushed to the brink at this critical moment.¡±


    The person he addressed as ¡°Boss¡± was a white-robed young man, who was currently ying with a red rose.


    When the white-robed young man heard the Devil Lord say this, he too looked at the skies.


    The skies had begun to change again. The clouds that had started dissipating gathered once more. Countless tornados twisted together as several dozen giant tornados began forming a new horde of windstorms. A faint dimensional opening appeared in the ce with the most windstorms, and a windstorm eye was beginning to peer out of the dimensional opening.


    Looking from below, it would appear that the one-eyed King of Storms was about to reach out through the clouds and begin interfering in the mortal ne.


    ¡°The big fish has finally been hooked...¡±


    ******


    [Karwenz shouldn¡¯t have been in this world...]


    With that rather confusing statement, my System¡ªAstrya¡ªbegan her story which was long lost to history.


    [My fight with Cynthia caused both of us to enter a long, long divine hibernation...]


    I knew about this from Ayer. In the first ever Holy War, the twin Goddesses had nearly equal power and abilities and unsurprisingly fought to the point where both were seriously injured, causing them to sink into a deep hibernation. But it would be underestimating the twin Goddesses far too much if one thought that they were simply sleeping.


    Even if their physical bodies were unable to move, their divine souls roamed this world.


    The so-called Endless Abyss, the never-ending world of Chaos that had no seeming end? It was actually all part of the Goddess of Chaos herself. It was her own domain, and inside of it she transformed into the will of the Chaos Abyss and created the leveling and evolution system of the demons. It would be impossible for any existences with inferno bloodlines to resist the summons of the Chaos Abyss.


    She would attempt to beckon any ¡°child¡± she took favor to in joining the Abyss. Perhaps it was that Cynthia worked harder or perhaps it was that the Chaos Faction was more suitable to fighting than the Order Faction, but the Chaos Faction¡¯s overallbat strength forever far exceeded the Order Faction¡¯s. In every Holy War in history, the Chaos Faction was the proactive side. The unending chaos that appeared in the world was also providing Cynthia with strength, helping her get ever closer to waking up. Of course, at the same time, she became ever closer to insanity.


    The Goddess of Order wasn¡¯t quite as fortunate as her younger sister. Since she was the Goddess of Order, she was naturally limited by the naturalws of Order. Pure Order didn¡¯t need self-will. It only needed an administrator that would never make mistakes. The end result was that Astrya¡¯s self-will became ever lesser and weaker. In fact, her will had lost its connection to her physical body. In the middle stages of the previous Holy War, the pure Source of Order had already rejected the Goddess of Order¡¯s involvement.


    So now, even if the Goddess of Order¡¯s physical body revived, the existence that revived wouldn¡¯t be the Goddess of Order herself. Instead, what revived would be the pure physical embodiment of Order, which would then destroy the world.


    [I was wrong in the past...]


    Perhaps her travels and experiences had changed her. Or perhaps it was because she had unknowingly lost her status of the Goddess of Order, bing a homeless soul, instead. Compared to her past self who was an overly idealistic and na?ve princess, Astrya was far more practical than before, and much easier tomunicate with.


    But due to her ¡°overly motherly¡± nature (a quote from Ayer), she was still unable to rest reassured about the world and its citizens. Even though she lost the ability to directly interfere with the world, she would still try to think of methods to help the rtively weaker Order Faction obtain final victory even though she knew that wouldn¡¯t solve the foundational problem in the end.


    She was unable to directly interfere? That¡¯s right. While Cynthia was the entire embodiment of the Chaos Abyss, Astrya was nothing more than a will with no physical body. The only way she could interfere in the world¡¯s affairs was to attach herself to someone, haunting them like she did with me. If you described this with glorious terms, then perhaps you could say that this was ¡°divine guidance, a schr¡¯s guidance or justice¡¯s guidance.¡± But it wasn¡¯t glorious at all.


    [The Child of Fate in every Holy War is the mortals¡¯ hero who has the most brilliant presence. The one with the deepest karmic connections will always be the most glorious star of the Holy War. This person¡¯s actions are the most likely to change the overall oue of the Holy War.]


    Astrya was basically creating a type of transmigrator all by herself. As she administered Time, Space and Fate, she would always locate the most glorious Child of Fate before every Holy War and give that person information about the future. She would give that individual the power of equivalent exchange and point them down the path of victory. I supposed that was the true identity of the former ¡°great precognitors¡± of the Order Faction.


    ¡°For instance, the God of Holy Light back when he was a human?¡±


    [Yes. He was a truly good person. The situation back in that year was truly terrible. The demons¡¯ power far surpassed that of the elves. Under my guidance, he was able to discover the essence of the power of Holy Light, which could cleanse all distortions, specifically targeting the demons and the undead. At least, I should say that he was a good person before he ascended to Godhood and gave up his self-will.]


    ¡°Then it¡¯s my turn this time? The future ck Warrior Emperor, the Demon Prince Rnd?¡±


    I felt somewhat bitter and depressed, feeling like I still hadn¡¯t escaped the shackles of fate. But this mysterious depression onlysted for an instant before I shook my head and got rid of it.


    No matter what the reasons were, reaching the current situation of today was all due to my own choices. Perhaps my System gave me information and assistance¡ªuseful, I must admit¡ªbut she was still unable to choose my future for me. I wasn¡¯t so weak as to me my own missteps on others.


    Besides, I never intended to support the Order or Chaos Faction to begin with. That was something that would only cause the Holy War to continue forever. It would be a foolish decision that would never solve the foundational problem, something both of us knew. And since she was unable to even stop Yongye, what she could interfere with was incredibly limited. There was no need for me to think too much into things.


    What I needed to do now was to break free from the restraints of my useless seniors andpletely end this Holy War once and for all.


    [...Don¡¯t be too hard on your seniors. None of those Children of Fate were real transmigrators. In fact, I was truly astonished when I learned through you that there was an entire other world out there. Your information from your original world was just like a virus as it seeded inpletely changing my way of thinking, far more than all the previous countless Holy Warsbined. I also admit that I was far too extreme back in the day. ...You really should be proud of yourself. Although you started at the lowest point of all Children of Fate, you¡¯ve aplished more than any other Child of Fate in history. At the very least, you¡¯ve discovered a path that never before existed. For the first time, I can see in you hope that the Holy War will end.]


    ¡°Then what did you mean when you said that Karwenz shouldn¡¯t have been in this world?¡±


    [Exactly what it sounds like. You read the ¡®game walkthrough¡¯ I provided you with, right? Karwenz wasn¡¯t in that at all. That¡¯s the future path of fate that should have been.]


    ¡°Then something abnormal urred?¡±


    I felt like I was now uncovering the truth, which had been shrouded in mystery.


    [That¡¯s right. This time, Cynthia, who had lost so much due to my interference, was watching me. She discovered my choice for Child of Fate in this Holy War. Although she didn¡¯t have the power of precognition, the result of her fighting over the Child of Fate with me was that...]


    ¡°Was that?¡±


    [The result was that the Child of Fate split into two halves. However, the two damaged souls were fixed andpleted under our protection. The soul with the transmigrator memories was affected by the power of Order, so it was naturally inclined towards Order. Meanwhile, Karwenz was the exact opposite. He was naturally inclined towards Chaos ever since his birth. His absolutely inconceivable rate of growth has far surpassed any normal level of understanding.]


    I was rendered speechless by this revtion. It would appear that it was fortunate enough already that I and my younger brother had sessfully grown up. At the very least, we weren¡¯t killed off so early by the twin Goddesses¡¯ conflict.


    As for the fact that we were originally the same soul? Actually, I thought about it some but decided that it didn¡¯t really matter. Since we had different memories and experiences after living in this world, we were two separate individuals now. The beginning wasn¡¯t all that important. All it meant was that we were somewhat of a type of clone.


    Many thoughts passed through my mind and the clues assembled in my mind before I felt that I had now seen the truth.


    ¡°Then the true culprit behind the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction... must have been Cynthia. She obtained the Child of Fate she wanted.¡±


    It was actually quite simple to find the true culprit behind a sessful scheme. One simply had to look for who benefited the most. As for who would benefit from the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction? That could only be the Chaos Faction.


    ¡°Karwenz, who was selected by the Abyss, was tempted by Cynthia into finding the demons to search for strength to take revenge. Finally, he entered the Abyss and sunk ever deeper into it. Meanwhile, the transmigrator Rnd, who was possessed by the Goddess of Order herself, went down a path of destruction, bing Yongye and creating an unsolvable deep grudge against the Holy Church, the main power of the Order Faction. This was a perfect result for the Chaos Faction.¡±


    There was no need to guess what existence had cut off the snow mountain from the mortal ne back in the day. It would either be Cynthia herself or a Chaos Main God under hermand. Either way, this grudge I had could be attributed to Cynthia.


    After thinking about it some more, I could only break out intoughter. Although I learned much, nothing really changed except for the fact that Karwenz and I were even closer than I had expected. I still needed to break the Cycle of Reincarnation¡¯s monopoly over souls, and I still needed to prevent both twin Goddesses from truly waking up.


    ¡°Do you still have the power of prophecy?¡±


    [Not anymore. Since I¡¯ve now interfered with Fate, Fate¡¯s course has left my control.]


    ¡°Garbage.¡±


    [...From today onwards, all System products in your shop are now tripled in price.]


    ¡°In the end, I myself will have to decide the fate of the future.¡±


    And now, judging by the dimensional tears appearing in the sky along with the stench of sulfur, my long-awaited guests had arrived. It would seem that I had no more time for idle thoughts.


    ¡°One, two... Three Main God level existences. Whoa, the Chaos Faction truly thinks highly of us.¡±


    Although I knew that it was likely that existences woulde to hunt us down before the Dimensional Doors fully closed, it was also likely that no existence here would be able to return for a long period of time aftering here. Being able to send so many Main God level existences here despite this meant that the Chaos Faction viewed us with great importance. Or perhaps I should say that the devils were just that unpopr with them.


    ¡°Rnd, I¡¯m here to have fun ying with you!¡±


    Alright, that booming voice was all too familiar. Only my idiot younger brother would act like this. I now had an even bigger headache.

 Chapter 442 - Duelists

    <h4>Chapter 442: Duelists</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°Ha! The entire sky is burning. What a majestic sight.¡±


    Dragon World¡¯s air had never been as impure as it was now. Two moons hung in the sky, but both were blood-red. Mountains floating in the sky could be seen in the distance, their originally vicious wild beasts wailing and floating helplessly in the air.


    An unfortunate Green Dragon suddenly came across a dimensional tear. In just a short instant, it went from Adult Dragon to Young Dragon to Infant Dragon to finally a Dragon Egg, a reverse evolution.


    Time, Gravity, Space and all the world¡¯s basic dimensionalws were distorted. Every singlew of physics went into flux as Dragon World neared aplete copse.


    In the sky, Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam was attempting to say something to the numerous dragons roaring at him, but it was to no avail as a few momentster several streaks of dragonbreath attempted to bake him.


    He didn¡¯t attack them back. He simplynded on the ground and transformed back into his Snow Elf form with a greatly displeased expression.


    ¡°I told you¡ªit¡¯s useless.¡±


    I had told him that trying to exin things would be meaningless.


    ¡°...Those stubborn old fools and artifacts. They deserve to be killed by the Titans! They really think that they can just keep themselves safe and not care about anything else!¡±


    The young-appearing Snow Elf had a displeased expression but he had long known that this would be the result. Yet he had still wanted to try.


    I shrugged without a word as it would be awkward of me to do so...


    ¡°What a great idea you had. You actually went up there yourself to exin. Right now, the dragons are at their angriest. Nothing that a ¡®traitor¡¯ like you tells them will be heard. The only reason they didn¡¯t directly kill you is because they aren¡¯t powerful enough to do so.¡±


    Alright. While I didn¡¯t say this out loud, the Devil Lord didn¡¯t have any misgivings and simply said it.


    ¡°You...¡±


    But even the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon didn¡¯t dare to get angry enough to fight the Devil King. Sam could only look in my direction.


    ¡°Rx. I¡¯ll give the White Dragons everything I promised. The White Dragons will definitely be the strongest dragon species. I¡¯ll also give you everything I said... Yep, I definitely will.¡±


    Of course, to make the White Dragons be willing to give up Dragon World and be hated by all other dragons I promised them something sufficiently tantalizing.


    Now that the situation had developed so that Dragon World was cut off from the mortal ne, the dragons would be unable to remain neutral even if they wanted to. Even if the demons that didn¡¯t give them trouble for some reason, I had arranged for a few ¡°old friends¡± of theirs to meet them. And these ¡°old friends¡± had an ¡°excellent rtionship¡± with Dragon City.


    ¡°Finally... finally... free... freedom!¡±


    An ancientnguage echoed throughout the entire Dragon World. Although nobody understood this tongue-twister immemorialnguage, there was a magical meaning contained within that allowed all intelligent lifeforms to understand it.


    Every lifeform could faintly perceive the Titans beginning to rise. The pure power of Order shook the dimension even further as these sleeping ancient existences awakened.


    The tiny Snow Elf Sam¡¯s face immediately turned pale.


    ¡°The... the Titans!¡±


    ¡°Yep, the Titans.¡±


    I wanted tough out loud after seeing how panicked the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon was. It would seem that perhaps I had overestimated him.


    The dragons in the sky panicked even more at this sight. They truly didn¡¯t expect for the seal on the Titans to bepletely broken at this moment. The dragons were about to be challenged by their mortal enemies, the Titans.


    ¡°...You... What have you done?¡±


    Even an ancient and powerful existence like the White Dragon fell into a panic when he knew that he was about to face the dragons¡¯ ancient mortal enemy from myths and legends.


    ¡°Me? I didn¡¯t do anything at all. I simply followed my n and cut off this dimension from the other nes.¡±


    Actually, with Sam¡¯s knowledge and experience, he should have been able to expect everything that happened here as long as he carefully thought about it. But unfortunately for him he was blinded by the beautiful promises I had given him, which was why he¡¯d made such a big miscalction.


    In fact, everything I did would be easy to guess at.


    The Titans were sealed in this world by the Creation Seal of the Four Elements, the strongest possible version of the Seal of the Four Elements. The ne of Dragon World was connected to the Four Elemental nes, which constantly provided elemental energy that powered the seal on the Titans. But what would happen if the Dragon World¡¯s ne was cut off from all other dimensions, including the Four Elemental nes?


    Of course, the seal wouldn¡¯t have any more elemental energy and would be useless¡ªit would start copsing. Once the Titans broke free, this entire world which was created to seal them would copse as well. And all of this was exactly what I wanted.


    Of course, mortals alone would be unable to cut off Dragon World from all other nes besides the mortal ne. Orloss was only the scapegoat taking the me. As for a certain Death God who was secretly interfering from behind? All you readers should know who that is without me saying his name out loud.


    At the very least, back when I was in the Earth Elemental ne, a certain Death God had cut the Earth Elemental ne off from all the other nes. Of course, Sam didn¡¯t know about this incident, which was why he wouldn¡¯t be able to think that this would happen.


    ¡°You¡ªyou¡ªyou¡¯re basically a devil!¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Sam had fallen into my trap. Because of me, Dragon City would view him as a traitor. However, I yet againughed out loud at this.


    Did he really think that I didn¡¯t know his intentions? Sam¡¯s family was still in Dragon City. It was rather obvious that he intended to return to the dragons¡¯ side and remain neutral immediately after he finished helping me and received his payment. But after he joined my faction would I really let him go so easily? Would my faction be easy to join and leave as one pleased?


    ¡°Devil? Thank you for thepliment.¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s a wonderfulpliment. He is definitely a devil.¡±


    My response and Devil Lord Kamiltias¡¯ response reached an ord. It felt rather nice to be called a devil, and Kamiltias naturally felt that calling me a devil was apliment to all devils.


    I was beginning to like this Little Tias fellow more and more. At the very least, he was decisive. He knew when he should gamble everything. He brought his full power here to support me.


    Since the devils treated me with such sincerity, I would give them the same sincerity in return. The current situation would end in either aplete victory or aplete defeat. There was no room for hesitation or retreat.


    Sam was still a dragon in the end, however. While he was experienced and knowledgeable¡ªand decisive to an extent¡ªhe was still too na?ve and arrogant when it came to major decisions about the overall situation. Like all dragons, he forever believed that he would be able to sit everything out. He believed that he would be able to obtain great benefits without paying too much of a price. In fact, he didn¡¯t even want to have to personally fight.


    ¡°What makes you so special? Just because you¡¯re a dragon?¡±


    Well, I didn¡¯t say something so insulting as that out loud to him. It was fine to simply think it in my mind. But right now the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon who had fallen into my trap was somewhat hysterical.


    ¡°Titans, and the other dragons... just how do you intend to deal with all this!¡±


    Sam finally noticed just how insane we were. I had utterly antagonized the dragons, and the revived Titans were no friends of ours, either. Sam¡¯s question was both calling me to ount as well as seeking salvation.


    ¡°Deal with them? Why? The dragons and Titans are the ones who should be begging for me to save their lives. Do you know what the most profitable business in an apocalypse is? Selling tickets to safety!¡±


    As the entire world began copsing, there was only one location that remained stable... that¡¯s right, the Ghostwind ins, where my base was located. Soon, this would be the core of a brand-new world, the only safe location in the copsing Dragon World. Anyone who wanted to take safe harbor here would require my agreement.


    As for if I would take advantage of this opportunity to extort people? Of course! That¡¯s a definite yes! Did everyone want to survive Dragon World¡¯s destruction? Sure, but they would first have to buy tickets from me! Sold for the price of their full treasuries!


    [You created an apocalypse and then charge money to save others? Was there a mistake with the Child of Fate from this generation? Morality should have been part of the evaluation as well...]


    ¡°Ha! I learned all of this from you. And at least I didn¡¯t create all of this. Dragon World was destined to copse to begin with. I¡¯m even helping them deal with the aftermath.¡±


    Alright, Astrya didn¡¯tment after that. Wasn¡¯t the entire Holy War her fault to begin with? It was impossible for her to clean up and deal with the consequences, so in the end I had toe in and try to fix things.


    And just thinking about things made me delighted. I would profit hugely if I seeded in obtaining all the Titans¡¯ and Dragons¡¯ treasures and forced them to work for my cause.


    ¡°...Don¡¯t be so happy just yet. The Chaos Main God existences areing.¡±


    Of course, in order for me to obtain this huge profit, I would first have to be able to deal with the tremendous trouble before me and get rid of these hunters.


    The Dragon World¡¯s ne was beginning to copse and lose all its connections to the other nes. And as time passed it would only be more and more difficult toe here from the mortal ne. But this dimension¡¯s copse also opened up its other doors, making it much easier for certain existences to send over certain disgusting things.


    ¡°There are three Chaos Main God level existences? Do you recognize them?¡±


    Naturally, the Chaos Faction had sent existences to hunt me down¡ªthey descended with their abyssal mes.


    I had expected Cynthia to be able to react so quickly. I refused to believe that every single one of these devils I summoned weren¡¯t on the side of the Chaos Abyss. As long as even one devil traitor told the Chaos Faction this secret and provided dimensional coordinates, of course the Chaos Abyss would be the fastest to send existences to hunt us down.


    Since we had the Main God-level existence Kamiltias on our side, the Chaos Abyss would naturally send out Main God-level Demon Lords and Chaos Evil Gods. Considering the fact that Chaos Evil Gods typically brought their own Divine Kingdoms with them while Demon Lords had the ability to summon demons and could summon entire armies, fighting even a single such existence would end up as a war against an entire army.


    [There are four Main God-level existences in total.]


    Not far away, a new dimensional tear opened up in the red sky. A holy aura descended together with a familiar figure and an entire squadron of angels. This God glowed with an orange-reddish light. The Order Faction had also arrived to hunt us down.


    His figure of light was hazy and impossible to see clearly, but I could instinctively sense that he was looking at me and desired to tear me apart.


    ¡°The God of Holy Light... only his incarnation?¡±


    I was first surprised, then delighted but ended up being somewhat disappointed.


    [His incarnation will be able to use almost the full extent of his powers in this ne where the dimensionalws themselves are breaking down. His incarnation¡¯s power level is definitely at Main God-level here.]


    Alright then. I could only exim how the God of Holy Light had a ridiculous amount of umted power. I never expected that I would be able to fight with my senior so quickly. I was so... delighted at the opportunity!


    ¡°It¡¯s a pity that it¡¯s only his incarnation instead of his true body...¡±


    I lowered my head and retracted my angry gaze. I then loosened my clenched fists, allowing my desire for revenge to return to the bottom of my heart.


    ¡°Still, I¡¯m going to make your incarnation stay behind here.¡±


    Although it was impossible to truly take revenge against the God of Holy Light, I could at least collect some interest he owed me. The more powerful an incarnation was, the more power it would cost to create one. ying such a powerful incarnation would deplete a good portion of the divine power the God of Holy Light had umted for so many years, a rare opportunity.


    Meanwhile, Kamiltias discovered who had arrived from the Chaos Faction thanks to their familiar energy waves. Well, even if the Chaos Faction had more Main God-level existences than the Order Faction, there were still only fourteen. Considering the fact that two of the Main God-level Devil Lords were on my side, there were extremely few candidates that remained.


    ¡°Demon Earl Ladvioka, who rules over the ninth through thirteenthyers of the Chaos Abyss. Demons¡¯ real names are ridiculously long. This is already the abbreviated version of the abbreviated version. His name isn¡¯t well known in the mortal ne, so it¡¯s probably easier to remember him by his title, ¡®Lord of Putrefaction.¡¯¡±


    A rancid smoke had begun spreading at the location where the Lord of Putrefaction had crashed down onto the ground like a meteor. This tainted gas transformed the air into a vicious toxin, and within it all was a tall figure now slowly standing up.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of him.¡±


    Any powerful Demon Lord should have been famous throughout all the nes, but strangely even I had never heard of this Demon Lord before.


    ¡°He¡¯s incredibly low profile. He doesn¡¯t even have a single believer in the mortal ne. However, more than thirty viruses and gues in the mortal ne are his creation. He¡¯s incredibly secretive about harvesting souls. He even considers it a form of art... I¡¯ll be a little more direct so that you can understand better. He¡¯s an ancient demon from the same generation as I am. I¡¯ve fought him many times. Although I¡¯ve won more than I¡¯ve lost, it¡¯s been impossible for me to kill him.¡±


    This Demon Lord had been able to survive despite losing to the leader of the Devil Lords so many times? This not-at-all-famous fellow would definitely be difficult to deal with.


    Next to the Lord of Putrefaction was a giant warrior. d in heavy armor with not a single decoration or rune inscribed upon it, his face mask, which concealed his entire face, was nothing but a pure, nk white. Yet not a single person would dare underestimate him. He wielded a two-handed greatsword crafted out of obsidian. Divine golden blood could visibly be seen on the cracks of his sword.


    He simply stood there silently but radiated an aura of absolute authority, as if he were a giant who could reach the skies. But the next instant he suppressed his aura as if he were nothing more than a lifeless statue, causing others to easily forget his presence.


    ¡°The eternal victorious warrior of the demons, Chaos Evil God Donatis, the Lord of the four hundred and fifty-firstyer of the Chaos Abyss. You should definitely recognize him.¡±


    Of course I recognized him. Many thieves, robbers and bloodthirsty warriors worshipped this Chaos Evil God. He was one of the Gods most respected by the demons, who rarely showed respect to any God, all because he was famous for being ¡°super capable at fighting.¡± And in every Holy War he was always at the forefront of the vanguard yet managed to survive even until today. That was more than plenty of evidence for how powerful he was.


    The Chaos Evil Gods were simr yet also different to the True Gods of Order. While the Chaos Evil Gods were also capable of strengthening themselves by obtaining more belief, they weren¡¯t nearly as limited by Divine Concepts or naturalws. Just like the demons, they were capable of strengthening themselves through training and actual battles. Although there were rare exceptions who obtained power purely through faith, any Chaos Evil God at the same power level of an Order God would be twice as troublesome as the Order God. You would have to face both their godly divine powers along with the existence¡¯s personal strength.


    The Chaos Evil Gods¡¯ Divine Kingdoms were typically within the Chaos Abyss itself. Since demons were their neighbors, they would always have to stay on guard against ¡°warmhearted neighbors¡± who wanted to pay a visit. However, while Donatis only took over a singleyer of the Chaos Abyss as his Divine Kingdom, nobody had ¡°visited¡± hisyer for the past thousands of years¡ªbest evidence of how frighteningly powerful he was.


    It could be said that his past record of aplishments and abilities made Donatis the enemy I wanted to see the least.


    ¡°Why did hee here? Is your rtionship that bad?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s a loyal dog of Chaos, so what¡¯s so strange about him being one of the first toe?¡±


    Alright, I then turned to nce at the final Chaos Main God existence. My head hurt even more when I saw how his face remained the same even after turning gigantic. And he was actually cooking fish soup on the battlefield! Therge fish struggling in the huge pot even looked rather familiar, with an incredibly ugly human face. I felt like I had seen this fish Demon Lord somewhere in some book before...¡±


    ¡°I believe I don¡¯t need to introduce this final one to you. He¡¯s the favored child of Chaos, your younger brother, Abyss Prince Karwenz.¡±


    ¡°What are hisbat achievements? And the special characteristics of his powers?¡±


    ¡°Unknown. He has too few records of personally fighting. Any who have seen his powers are dead. And if I see correctly the fish in his pot is the Demon Lord of the seventy-sixthyer of the Chaos Abyss, ckde Fish Emperor Antolostan. Antolostan is capable of transforming into a sea of ck mist that¡¯s immune to both physical and magical attacks, an ability that¡¯s truly difficult to deal with.¡±


    Karwenz seemed to notice that we were looking at him and happily waved his hand at me in greeting.


    ¡°Rnd, if you aren¡¯t dead after our fight, I¡¯ll invite you to drink some fish soup with me.¡±


    Yep, Karwenz was exactly as I thought him to be. Perhaps everyone else would think that he was joking, but I knew that he was being serious. If our fight ended with neither of us dead, he really would invite me to drink fish soup together with him. But from another standpoint he meant that he would absolutely seriously try to kill me.


    ¡°This is definitely the fault of Chaos invading his brain. How can the other half of my soul possibly be this idiotic?!¡±

 Chapter 443 - Ambushers

    <h4>Chapter 443: Ambushers</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    [Myth-ranked Main Storyline Quest: Look up at heaven from hell below... then drag heaven into hell!]


    [Quest Requirements: Defeat the four Main God level existences before the ¡®time limit.¡¯ Every Main God¡¯s defeat will reward you with 100,000 Fate Points. Sessfully ying a Main God will award you with an extra God Equipment at the exact moment of ying. Punishment for failure: None. It obviously won¡¯t be necessary to punish you if you fail here.]


    [System Notification: I¡¯m awarding you with God Equipment instantly each time you defeat a Main God. It will only get easier and easier the more you defeat! Don¡¯t say I¡¯m not helping you! What? You say you can¡¯t kill even one? Well, it usually takes several millennia for a Main God to ascend, so it¡¯s only natural that you can¡¯t kill one. But do you really think that it¡¯s that easy to use my energy to refine God Equipment for you? Cough, that¡¯s just how my personality is now. Is there a rule that a Goddess like me can¡¯t be in love withmenting? Who made such a rule?]


    When my System¡¯s notification rang in my ears, I could only sigh helplessly.


    Originally, my biggest doubt about my System being the Goddess of Order Astrya wasn¡¯t anything to do with logic or reason. It was that my System was obviously the shameless type,pletely different to the legends about the Goddess of Order¡¯s personality. Plus, even Ayer himself told me that the Goddess of Order was a loving and motherly Goddess. To be honest, even I admired her personality if not her way of thinking... But now that I had met the real her... the style seemed wrong. Could I ask for a refund?


    ¡°Ha! Actually, this is only to be expected. Any woman who¡¯s been a virgin for several decades will be hysterical. Those who are virgins for several centuries or several millennium have basically gone insane (referring to Harloys and Amelia too). For ancient artifacts who are several tens of thousands or even several hundreds of thousands years old... Hehehe.¡±


    But sometimes it was possible to overhear insulting thoughts towards others even if it was only in one¡¯s mind.


    [Previously, I acted just like what the stories about me said. The way I am now is all because of the viruses you¡¯ve infected me with everything ridiculous that goes on in that head of yours. Do you dare write down everything you think about to show others?]


    ¡°Of course not! That would be far too embarrassing!¡±


    [You see? You think I can still actdylike after seeing nothing but such things every day? A girl¡¯s purity and kindness are only because she hasn¡¯t yet experienced the trials of life. Her soft and tender hands are only because daily household chores haven¡¯t yet given them calluses. Speaking in adylike fashion instead of cursing all the time is only because she hasn¡¯t yet seen all those ridiculous Korean and American TV dramas. My style was originally normal. It¡¯s your fault for tainting me with your thought pollution! You need to take responsibility!]


    Cough¡ªcough¡ªI was rendered speechless. I suddenly felt that the Goddess¡¯s current style was quite normal¡ªyep¡ªquite normal! It definitely had nothing to do with me!


    In a way, our souls lived together. Those who resided within the same physical body would typically discover their personalities and habits be more and more like each other¡¯s. Even the silly cat, who had only been together with me for a few years, picked up mymenting habit. After several hundred years together, I had apparently¡ªand unintentionally, of course¡ªraised the Goddess of Order into an utterly shameless individual with zero limits whatsoever. If only her worshippers could see her now; there would likely be many more that wanted to hunt me down.


    This time, the Quest she issued me was quite obviously designed to help me. If I managed to kill a Main God, she would immediately award me with a usable God Equipment. Killing a Main God would make the next one easier to deal with.


    But killing even one was beyond my abilities. I had no way of achieving this. Any Main God level existence¡¯s ascension or death would be a tremendous event that would shake the entire world. Their true powers, slyness and secret aces up their sleeve would far exceed a mortal¡¯s imagination. And right now my grand scheme was just about to bepleted. Even with such attractive rewards right before me I didn¡¯t intend onpleting the Quest.


    My System knew this just as well as I did, which was why she added an addendum, the real goal I should aim for.


    [System Notification: If you sessfully defend yourself until Dragon World ispletely reced, you will be awarded 50,000 Fate Points and the free service of stabilizing your new dimension. Ahh! I feel like I¡¯m getting such a bad deal here.]


    This was basically the equivalent of the newbiepleting the work and then the veteran helping check things out afterwards. It was nice that my System would stabilize the new dimension for me, but I still had no guarantee of sessfully being able to defend until the time limit.


    ¡°So I suppose this means it¡¯s time to begin the cheating? Four Main God-level existences? How troublesome. God of Holy Light, don¡¯t you always proim yourself to be the mortal enemy of the demons? Shouldn¡¯t you first kill off a Demon Lord as befitting of your status?¡±


    I cracked a terrible joke that even I myself didn¡¯tugh at. While I really did want to be as rxed as I always was, these enemies I faced werepletely out of the ordinary.


    Our actions here treaded upon the most foundational benefits of both the Chaos and Order Factions, so both sides didn¡¯t hesitate to send out top-level strength capable of crushing us. Four Main God-level existences acting in unison would be more than half of all of the Order Faction¡¯s top-level strength. When considering how the Chaos Faction was, well, chaotic, and how arrogant and unwilling to listen to orders the Demon Lords would be, this was probably all the strength the will of the Chaos Abyss was capable of throwing at us.


    The demons and devils had already begun their battle. Their fighting reminded me of what would constantly go on in the Chaos Abyss. However, the current situation wasn¡¯t a good one. On our side, only the Lord of Lies was at a Main God¡¯s level. The other two Devil Lords added together might not even be as strong as a single Main God. We obviouslycked top-levelbat strength. As for the lower-levelbat strength...


    ¡°The demons¡¯ ability to summon more demons is truly bug-like. Could they please stop cheating like this?¡±


    Demon Lord Ladvioka, who was wreathed in green mist, simply raised his giant battle hammer, and dimensional tears appeared in the sky as an endless horde of demons jumped out. There were top-levelmon demon species such as Evil Four-legged Demons, Burst Sword Inferno Demons, Abyssal Fear Demons, as well as the weakest Demon Infants and Tiny Demons. To the demons, there was no concept such as ¡®too little cannon fodder.¡¯


    Meanwhile, the Evil Chaos Warrior God Donatis stood in his ce as still as an unmoving statue. Faint traces of war songs appeared around him as ethereal heroic spirits started materializing. Pr Vikings in horned helmets wielded war axes appeared along with twin-dagger-wielding thieves who wore shadowy cloaks. A throng of battle-lusting heroic spirits walked out to fight for their powerful lord.


    In the sky Holy Light swirled everywhere amid the sounds of war horns. High-level angels¡¯ wings materialized in the sky, distorting the very air with their fierce holy mes. This squadron of angels was highly skilled in aerial battles and seemed intent on directly attacking our core. Meanwhile, the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation seemed to be waiting for something.


    Alright then. Judging from the overall situation, I should perhaps correct my words.


    This ¡°lower-levelbat strength¡± wasn¡¯t at all low. Just a single high-level demon would be capable of causing cmitous destruction in the mortal ne, yet here it was reduced to nothing but cannon fodder.


    Every single heroic spirit that the Chaos Warrior God possessed would have their own epic or legend to them. Many of them had even challenged the Gods themselves. Yet here they were nothing more than cannon fodder.


    And the angels here were no low-level angels like the ones that appeared in the mortal ne in front of Estrada. Their burning wings proved that they were at least at the third rank of zing Angel, yet here they were nothing more than cannon fodder.


    ¡°Although choosing this alternate dimension as our battlefield will avoid much trouble, top-levelbat strength can easily be summoned here. Could it be that I shot myself in the foot again?¡±


    Fortunately, the immemorial devils weren¡¯t so easy to deal with, either. High-level devils summoned mid-level devils, while mid-level devils summoned low-level devils. Under this summoning chain there was so much cannon fodder present it was impossible to count them all. And the immemorial devils¡¯ strange assortment of abilities would be equally powerful. Under themand of their lords, these ancient devils brought out their most powerfulbat strength, well aware that victory here would help fulfill the greatest desire of their entire species.


    We had a significant number of troops with our immemorial devil army. No problems should arise with the low-levelbat strength battlefield at least for the time being. However, the difference in top-levelbat strength was absolutely fatal. Although Karwenz, the Chaos Warrior God and the Lord of Putrefaction had yet to take action, their very existences remained as colossal threats to us. We needed to make preparations against theirbat strength, yet this was obviously impossible from the very start.


    The situation was so dire, yet I broke downughing in satisfaction.


    ¡°...Haven¡¯t any of your teachers ever told you the number onemon-sense rule for adventurers? Never pick a fight against a mage where the mage has chosen the battlefield and had time to prepare. God of Holy Light, I truly regret that you didn¡¯te here in your true body. Otherwise, my new world would be even stronger.¡±


    That¡¯s right. Since I knew from the very start that top-levelbat strength woulde here to hunt me down, I of course made sufficient preparations. I had prepared a trap here capable of devouring even the Main Gods.


    I lightly touched the ground, the catalyst to dispel my illusionary magic. The entire world suddenly changed around them as the temperature rapidly descended. The endless amount of snow and ice told everyone that they weren¡¯t actually in the wild and primitive Dragon World. Instead, they were in an icy tundra where even inhaling the frigid air could be fatal.


    The reason why the Ghostwind ins had maintained its stability despite the entirety of Dragon World copsing was because the Ghostwind ins no longer belonged to Dragon World. Instead, it had be a part of my Frigidwinter Earth. And Frigidwinter Earth was the battlefield I had chosen for myself.


    On the very first day I arrived, I had opened up my Frigidwinter Earth and begun connecting the two worlds. Well, considering the fact that my iplete world had absorbed rules and nutrition from Dragon World, it would be more urate to describe the rtionship as a parasitic one. Since the host was at the edge of aplete copse, there was no longer a need for the disguise. It was now time for the ¡°parasite¡± to furiously consume the host and rece it.


    The colorful copsing world had one especially noticeable patch of white. As the very sky and ground started breaking down with dimensional tears, the patch of white took the opportunity to devour thend around it. More and more colors transformed into the white of Frigidwinter Earth, while my monochrome world also gained its own new colors.


    ¡°Ha! What a beautiful scene. Come, angels, demons and heroic spirits. Be the highest-quality nutrition for my new world!¡±


    As I maniacallyughed, I dispelled the illusions and revealed this world for what it really was. After I stopped hiding the icy tundra, it was naturally time for the ambushers hiding behind the illusion to reveal themselves.


    Pitch-ck knights silently rode on skeleton steeds. Under themand of their Undead Emperor, these undead knights wouldn¡¯t make a single sound.


    Undead knights, Death Knights, ck Knights, Bone Dragon Knights and so on were all present. This tremendous undead knight squadron would forever be the vanguard of Yongye¡¯s Army. And now they had secretly arrived on this battlefield, remaining as silent as they always did. It was just that the raging soulfire within their skeletons revealed how much they desired to ughter and harvest souls.


    And they were just the beginning. Behind the vanguard of these undead knights was an unending sea of undead. Since my Frigidwinter Earth was capable of storing an infinite number of undead, and now that I neededbat strength capable of opening up the future, the skeleton warriors from Xiluo and Sulfur Mountain City became my new Eternal Night Army.


    Behind the sea of undead, a ck obsidian skeletal Soul Summoning Tower slowly began rising out of the frozen ground. The skeleton eyes embedded upon it burned with cyan soulfire, giving off a pale glow, seemingly desiring the souls of the living.


    Finally, as if it were crazily howling withughter the skeletal head opened its mouth. The Soul Summoning Tower emitted a ck light which transformed into a giant pir that shot into the sky. The sky, which had been stained red, now changed colors yet again. Dark clouds and the night descended as a chilly breeze blew over thend. Lives began being devoured by their own shadows as even the trees¡¯ shadows began to whisper. A country of the undead had arrived!


    But this was still only the beginning.


    ¡°Ha! For us to create a country for the undead we naturally require the undead for the opening act. I never expected that I would one day gather all seven of my Original Sins.¡±

 Chapter 444 - Hell Devils

    <h4>Chapter 444: Hell Devils</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    That the System insisted on giving me presents despite the risk that she would expose her identity and rouse my suspicions meant they were very important.


    ¡°The most expensive and troublesome things in the world are those thate for free¡ªno, I¡¯m not talking about multi-level marketing or scams. Favors, trust and so on are the biggest headaches to deal with.¡±


    But despite the fact that I hated owing favors¡ªespecially troublesome ones¡ªI had to admit that this time I owed my System. The ¡°free¡± experience about creating the world I had received was far too important and a tremendous help.


    Previously, when I had created Frigidwinter Earth, my ability to create a world relied on my talent as well as the System¡¯s cheat-like assistance. Even more of world creation was simply copying. All I had to do was imitate what Eich had done back in the day.


    Actually, that was how mages did things. They didn¡¯t need to understand the foundational workings behind magic or Divine Arts. They only needed to follow established processes, the advantage of which was that it was far easier to learn such spells. However, the disadvantages were that they would be unable to surpass their predecessors, and the most critical drawback was that these mages would be inflexible and rigid during practicalbat. If they were targeted or fell into a trap without being able to adapt, they¡¯d likely meet death in the face.


    True archmages and archpriests would analyze the foundational workings of their spells. They would understand the true reason why everything worked. They would be capable of casting magic with a flick of their fingers and modify and strengthen existing forms of magic. And the true indication that a mage was mature was if he or she was capable of using theories and current conditions to improve or even invent new and specialized types of magic.


    Without a doubt, of all forbidden spells the Seal of the Four Elements was the first and of the highest-level. Simultaneously controlling the four elements to create such a powerful seal had demanding requirements. For one to simply copy the method one had to be an incredible archmage, so let¡¯s not mention modifying and improving the Seal of the Four Elements. It would be even more impossible when we needed the evolved form of the Seal of the Four Elements: Creation via the four elements.


    Originally, even with my Creation experience from Frigidwinter Earth, my most optimistic guess put us at a forty percent chance of sess. Even if I seeded by coincidence, my new world would be an iplete product with deficiencies...


    I was gambling everything on a forty percent probability, you ask? Well, the sess rates of every other path I thought of went no higher than 0.01%, and doing nothing at all was the equivalent of waiting for death. A forty percent sess rate was more than enough for us to gamble everything.


    However, everything changed after I received this unexpected gift of the knowledge of Creation.


    Astrya¡¯s gift was her memory of the very beginning of the world¡¯s creation. This was the original form of how to Create using the four elements. Not only did I obtain the most foundational knowledge of using such a magic spell, I also gained experience and knowledge on how to actually do so. After obtaining this gift, I probably surpassed even the Goddess of Creation herself in understanding how to Create because Eich had created the world mostly through her instincts, while I needed to use techniques to reproduce and surpass everything she did...


    Why? Because what we intended to create was no ordinary world for the living.


    ¡°This ce... shall be a country for the dead!¡±


    With my promation, a pitch-ck world stole away the existence of light with the Ghostwind ins as its core. On this patch ofnd, obsidian pirs rose from the ground, like smaller versions of the tremendous ck tower. A seemingly maniacallyughing skeleton head was at the top of each ck pir.


    ¡°This is a country for the dead. The living should stay away.¡±


    Just by faintly observing these pirs a warning sounded in everyone¡¯s minds. This was no threat. It was simply a statement of fact.


    ¡°Take one step within, and you¡¯ll never be able to leave.¡±


    This was an instinctive warning, as if an invisible border was present, where crossing it meant one¡¯s soul would forever be destined to stay behind.


    If some still decided to treat this invisible, instinctive warning as a mistaken impression, then they would be greeted with the ck mist these obsidian skeletons were spitting out.


    ¡°Poison!¡±


    ¡°How is this possible? How can we demons sumb to poison!?¡±


    The ck mist first swept over the location where the demons and devils were battling. These demons from the Chaos Abyss had long since gotten ustomed to the most extreme of environments. Their resistance to fire, acid and poison far surpassed any other species out there. As these demons were subordinates under Ladvioka, the Lord of Putrefaction, they lived in dimensions filled with toxic mist and poisonous swamps. Those with slightly low poison resistance would have long since died off.


    An eight-meter-tall Burst Sword Inferno demon walking at the forefront was right next to one of the obsidian pirs that appeared. The moment he inhaled the ck mist, he copsed. And the moment he copsed, the eternal mes on his body spluttered out, together with his lost life.


    His massive gray body and greatsword crashed into the ground, leaving a deep pit behind. Yet there wasn¡¯t a single visible injury on his body. His vicious face still had a confused expression, as if he didn¡¯t understand why he had died.


    The next instant, a silver soul walked out of his body and disappeared into the ck obsidian pir, still with that confused expression. Then, as if the skeleton head on the obsidian pir had eaten its full, it spewed out even more ck mist.


    The mist had begun to spread all around. Thanks to the example of this high-level demon, both demons and devils fled in all directions to avoid this death-bringing mist.


    Meanwhile, through this ck mist, the undead knights were beginning to increase the force of their charge. Their bones became thicker and stronger, their weapons and armor strengthened by the ck mist, their skeletal warhorses faster and more agile. Soulfire flickered in the undead knights,¡¯ living, breathing and hungry.


    When their enemies were retreating in fear, how could these undead knights, ustomed to spreading death, possibly miss this opportunity? They swiftly pierced and cut with their strengthened weapons that were capable of harvesting even the demons¡¯ souls. Any demon sliced by these weapons would copse and lose their souls.


    When faced with this abnormal ck mist, even the powerful Ladvioka and his army began retreating. The devils on our side were no different, however. Despite their leader¡¯smands, they began to retreat as well. In fact, some devils were even looking over with enmity in their eyes. It appeared they felt that I was using them as cannon fodder.


    ¡°Don¡¯t run! Don¡¯t resist!¡±


    At my request, the Lord of Lies roared at his subordinates. With hismand, Devil Lord Marshan, who had been near a patch of ck mist, walked into it of his own volition. As ck mist swirled furiously around him, he howled in pain, and a miraculous change urred.


    The gigantic Lord of Rebellion kneeled on the ground as the ck mist changed his physical appearance and body shape. As the mist around him dissipated, his giant body experienced explosive growth. By the time all the ck mist had been used up, a skyscraper-tall monster had been born.


    The devils¡¯ typical traits of scales and magic ws had vanished. His smooth and well-proportioned figure was quite simr to that of humans, his dark green devil eyes now ck. Compared to ordinary giants, the single ck horn on his forehead was rather eye-catching. That horn was gathering mystical energy, and the energy aura around his body had increased in power by thirty percent.


    ¡°...He¡¯s just as ugly as he was back in the day.¡±


    Ilmisya pinched her nose and chuckled at the sight, but faint tears of joy and delight could be seen in her eyes. Of course she would recognize this physical appearance of Marshan. This ugly and courageous warrior now had the exact same physical appearance as when he was a human of Tall Mountain¡ªother than an extra horn.


    Marshan kneeled on the ground, staring at his hands in disbelief. The vicious appearing sword scar on his face started twitching with excitement as he lifted his head and roared with astonishing anger at the skies!


    ¡°Ahhh! Damned Chaos Abyss! I, Marshan Dibor, the greatest warrior of the Yellow Dragon Tribe, have returned!¡±


    With angels and demons as the witnesses, the first Hell Devil, the Devil General Marshan, was born.


    Wielding a tremendous trident, he charged straight into the demons¡¯ formation and began ughtering and taking revenge as he desired. After seeing his transformation, the other immemorial devils hesitantly allowed the ck mist to envelop them as well.


    Soon, after a wave of roiling ck mist and painful howls, countless new Hell Devils were bown anew. These Hell Devils didn¡¯t have the time to digest their reobtained former memories and knowledge as they walked back out onto the battlefield. The ck mist that brought death to the demons had be their ally.


    ¡°My Hades Mist has finally seeded.¡±


    I heaved a sigh of relief as I watched everything happen from the top of the first ck tower.


    This ck mist wasn¡¯t actually a toxin. In fact, it had no attack power of its own. It was simply something that belonged to this ¡°ne of the Dead¡± that I had created. Anywhere it spread would be part of the country of the dead.


    This ck mist was replenishment for the dead. Living beings that touched it would be transformed into the dead. Or, in certain special circumstances, they would be transformed into the guardians of Hell: the Hell Devils.


    In my previous experiment, I had provided a sample of my Hades Mist but failed topletely transform Marshan. Instead, he gained the strange appearance of that ck mist twirling around him. But now, thispleted version of my Hades Mist sessfully transformed the devils into Hell Devils.


    Ilmisya, who stood right next to me, was rather tempted by the sight. I understood that it was only natural for a woman like her to wish to restore her former beauty. However, I stopped her from going into the ck mist. My country of the dead was still iplete, and my Hades Mist, although capable of forceful transformations, was still too weak. There wasn¡¯t enough of it yet. Transforming a single Devil Lord had consumed much of the Hades Mist I had on hand, and I couldn¡¯t afford to waste the rest.


    Meanwhile, a hammer of mes was burning within the giant skeleton head next to me. Its mes were bing darker in color as they went from bright red to a deeper crimson-ck.


    This hammer was actually the God Equipment of Fire that Solo had sessfully obtained from the Water Elemental ne: the Blessing of Original Fire.


    Now, it was acting as one of my four top-level elemental items to create the foundation for my new world. It would be the part that represented the ¡°soul.¡± Unlike the mortal ne of Eich, where fire was the representative element of the soul, I was nning on having ¡°death¡± be the factor of the soul.


    Death was the foundation of Hell. Death was the most basic requirement that all existences must have in order to enter it.


    ¡°Only the dead will be allowed to exist in the country of the dead.¡±


    This ck tower was one of the main pirs of the new dimension I was creating. It was creating the country of the dead. However, not everyone would simply sit back and watch this happen.


    As this dimension¡¯s rules gradually started to form, wings of light descended before us as the Holy Light shed against my Hades Mist. The still immature Hades Mist was directly dispelled as a squadron of angels arrived before us.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never felt this annoyed before by the blinding Holy Light. Ayer, we¡¯re under great pressure here. Could you hurry things up?¡±


    I received a response from the skeleton head right next to me. A familiar voice spoke up in that typically unhurried tone of his.


    ¡°I¡¯m almost done. The Queen of Storms is slightly more difficult to deal with than expected. Hold on the best you can. I shall send some power over your way.¡±


    Together with Ayer¡¯s response, the skeleton heads dissolved intoughter as the Hades Mist furiously started spreading again. The angel charging at the forefront copsed to the ground. This time, the increased ck mist suppressed the Holy Light.


    That¡¯s right. While I was the main person who designed and nned this forbidden ceremony to create Hell, I wouldn¡¯t have enough power to provide the high-level death energy and power required for this n.


    ¡°Ha! Who in the world could possiblypare to the first undead in the world, the Death God Ayer, in purity of death energy?¡±


    Currently, inside the ck tower¡¯s skeleton head was a jade white humongous skeleton which provided an endless amount of death energy. This skeleton was the true core of the obsidian tower.


    That¡¯s right, this skeleton was Ayer¡¯s own bones.


    Ayer was even using his own corpse in our n. It could be said that he was also giving everything he had in order to seed constructing Hell here.


    Ayer, who was currently far away in And, stroked the crystal skull in his hand as he witnessed his own tribe¡¯s transformation through their eyes. He unhesitatingly increased the amount of divine power he sent over to me, delighted.


    I too possessed an identical crystal skull. When I felt Ayer¡¯s resolution and the powerful waves of death energy he was sending to me, I knew I could now enter the next phase of the n.

 Chapter 445 - Inevitable Confrontation

    <h4>Chapter 445: Inevitable Confrontation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    Ladvioka, Lord of Putrefaction, was one of the oldest Demon Lords and one of the most powerful existences in the Chaos Faction¡ªno¡ªin the entire universe. Throughout the many generations, he had steadfastly carried out the demons¡¯ most basic tasks of conquering and ughtering more times than he could count.


    As a top-level existence in the demon food chain, he rarely got chances to personally take action. Unless a dimensional will was blind, it would reject the arrival of a mega-dangerous existence like the Lord of Putrefaction. And any time he did get to personally take action, the demons¡¯ conquest of that ne would be upgraded intoplete and utter destruction. The demons¡¯ ughter of that ne¡¯s residents would be the extinction of all species and lifeforms in that ne.


    Ladvioka himself no longer remembered how many of the myriad nes he had conquered and destroyed. Now, he treated his destruction of dimensions as an artform¡ªwell, an artform only demons would admire.


    ¡°Although it¡¯s fun to directly tear apart those little worms and I admit I do enjoy ughtering and fresh blood, gues and infectious diseases can also help us achieve our goal. The former requires an entire demon army, while thetter only requires a single small mouse infected with a virus or gue. The only regret I have is that I¡¯ll be unable to personally listen to those pathetic worms howling in despair. Hah! That¡¯s why I always take a few souls back with me and toy with them slowly, asking them how they enjoyed their slow and inevitable deaths.¡±


    This rather unknown Demon Lord was actually far more effective than his brethren at spreading death and despair. Once the dimension was near death, writhing in agony, itsws would be unable to stop Ladvioka¡¯s arrival. He would then gleefully harvest the souls that died in utmost despair. Ladvioka even considered himself a humble farmer who had obtained a great harvest after a year¡¯s worth of hard work.


    ¡°Hey don¡¯t look at me like that. I¡¯m just a nice demon who happened to pass by. It would be a pity to waste so many delicious souls. I¡¯m simply a hard-working, kind farmer. You¡¯re ming me for spreading the gue and infectious diseases? Did any of you personally witness that? I¡¯m simply sensitive to nes nearing their dooms. Yep, not only am I a good farmer, but I¡¯m also a hard-working janitor who loves to help clean up the dimensions.¡±


    Not a single individual would dare me him, but Ladvioka loved to give such excuses and lie even though a powerful existence like himself had no need to. This was simply his way of having fun.


    Now, however, this ¡®destroyer-of-countless-nes¡¯ Ladvioka was shocked¡ªtruly shocked¡ªfor the first time in millennia. With his abilities, he wouldn¡¯t think that this ck mist was a mere toxic fog. Nor was this the first time that dimensionalws had viewed him with enmity and tried to get rid of him. Yet...


    ¡°...Only the dead are allowed to exist? This is the first time I¡¯ve seen such an unfriendly dimensionalw. The Undead Emperors¡¯ Undead nes have environments that aren¡¯t suitable for the living, but even they don¡¯t outright reject the existence of the living. If this ne directly transforms all lives into the dead, how is the ne supposed to exist? What value does it have for existing?¡±


    Unlike what people would assume of a Chaos Main God-level existence, Ladvioka¡¯s mind wasn¡¯t only filled with thoughts of destruction and ughter. He was very interested in philosophies on the meaning of life. In fact, he had earned actual titles in philosophy and history in the mortal ne. His personal Divine Kingdom in the Chaos Abyss, which was rather different from other demons¡¯ territories, was his most sessful experimental field.


    If that was his most sessful, then were there experiments that weren¡¯t sesses? Of course. Demons weren¡¯t exactly known for being creators. Ladvioka¡¯s favorite hobby was to insert new dimensionalws after destroying an entire dimension¡¯s resistance and lifeforms. Some dimensionalws he inserted were stolen from other dimensions, some were from the twisted and distorted Chaos Abyss and some were even his wondrous and weird inventions. He would then allow these dimensionalws to naturally spread and evolve on their own, watching to see what types of living creatures and results would appear in the end.


    The world believed he was a Chaos Main God who possessed merely four dimensions¡ªhe was an unbelievably low-profile demon for a Main God-level existence. However, he actually possessed several hundred dimensions he used for experiments. He was truly a ¡°farmer¡± who worked hard every day.


    ¡°Although he¡¯s a demon, he¡¯s actually trying to act like the Goddess of Creation? Is he insane?¡±


    ¡°All demons are insane, and the more powerful a Demon Lord is, the more insane they¡¯ll be. You actually want to try using logic andmon sense to understand their way of thinking?¡±


    There was no way he would be a kind creator. His distorted dimensionalws only created the most distorted of creatures. They breathed toxins and ate the gue itself; even if they possessed kind hearts and beautiful appearances, they were the bringers of death.


    And so the powerful Demon Earl¡¯s favorite hobby was to be a ¡°zookeeper¡±. Although he would usually destroy his creations and dimensions in the end, he had gained many beloved ¡°pets¡± over an untold number of years¡¯ worth of umtion. In the ninth through thirteenthyers of the Chaos Abyss where he resided, at least, distorted lifeforms could be found everywhere. Even demons wouldn¡¯t dare tread in theseyers, which were considered the most dangerous in the Chaos Abyss.


    At the current moment, Ladvioka was astonished to discover that this newly forming dimension had a dimensionalw which only brought about death.


    He thought and thought about why this new dimension had such a strangew. Why was death the most foundational building block for souls here? Could it be that this dimension only allowed the dead to exist? But could this dimension establish a stable cycle, then? And the other dimensionalws wereplex as well, more so than other dimensions, why...?


    ¡°...Mine! All mine!¡±


    Fine then. He only thought about it for two seconds before his demon nature overcame him. No matter if he understood it or not, he wanted to first obtain it for himself. And if he was truly unable to understand it, then he would just destroy it!


    ¡°Get out of the way, idiots!¡±


    When he decided to obtain this dimension at all possible costs, he began emitting an astonishingly rancid stench. The retreating demons didn¡¯t even have time to react before they clutched at their mouths and copsed on the ground. Even demons far away suddenly had toxins within their bodies, causing them to directly copse as well.


    ¡°Come out and y, my children! It¡¯s time to enjoy a feast.¡±


    After casually dealing with the cannon fodder demons, which cleared some space and provided a sacrifice, several hundred Dimensional Doors opened.


    *Wu! Wu!*[1]


    Headless war elephant monsters walked out of the Dimensional Doors. Twisted whiskers sprouted from where their heads should have been, and their bodies were asrge as mountains and covered with ck dragonscales. An Inferno Giant that didn¡¯t dodge in time was directly stomped to death... More than three hundred such war elephant monsters rushed out of the Dimensional Doors.


    A rotting Dimensional Door brought another angel squadron into this world. Although these angels weren¡¯t as ice-cold as their heavenly rtives, their decaying appearances, exposed internal organs and wings with hordes of magical insects biting upon them were frightening to behold. When these angels suddenly opened their eyes, it could be seen that they hadpound eyes, like insects. Even their eyes and ears were filled with crawling distorted magical insects. Some of these angels directly ignored their tiny panions,¡± while other angels tossed magical insects into their mouths.


    Through a Dimensional Door so tiny that only a gnome would be able to pass through it a seemingly pure white-haired girl emerged. Her entire body was tightly chained up, her eyelids sewn permanently shut and her bright red lips gagged. When the other distorted magical monsters witnessed her appearance, even thergest among them ran at top speed for their lives. Those who ran even slightly slow started exploding mysteriously before their corpses were enveloped by strange mushrooms and nts. Countless ¡°honeybees¡± emerged from these nts and then started seeking new nutrition for their ¡°mother¡±.


    Yet another Dimensional Door opened, with some even more fearsome magical monster appearing...


    Many Dimensional Doors opened as utterly unreasonable existences walked out. A mysterious sense of fear enveloped the entire field. This was the full power of a Chaos Main God. And this was the most troublesome part about fighting against a demon¡ªnobody would know when this guy would start going crazy and suddenly going all-out!


    Such a powerful existence would naturally be capable of distorting the dimensionalws around him. Ladvioka was more than capable of resisting the still immature dimensionalw of death. Once these distorted monsters from other nes filled their entire field of vision, all lives felt as if they were gazing at their own personal Armageddon.


    ¡°...This is a Chaos Main God?¡±


    I took a deep breath at the sight before me. I had many inferences and ns made against these highest-level existences, but only when I truly faced one did I learn that just their very existences were iprehensible for any mortal.


    ¡°Yep. That¡¯s one of the strongest demons among demons, a Chaos Main God-level demon, an existence loathed by the countless dimensions. Although I don¡¯t know why he suddenly brought out the full extent of his true power, allow me to go have some fun with this old friend of mine.¡±


    The Lord of Lies then nodded as he took off his hat and bowed in a polite fashion. He intended to directly enter the battlefield. To him, this despairing situation was nothing more than a cup of afternoon tea. After all, he too was a Chaos Main God existence, and his power level exceeded that of the insane Lord of Putrefaction!


    ¡°Wait a moment, let me deal with the Lord of Putrefaction.¡±


    As the overallmander for our side in this battle, I overruled Kamiltias and made the decision to take this opponent for myself. I would be dealing with this demon vanguard who had suddenly gone crazy and brought out his full strength.


    ¡°...Will that really be alright?¡±


    Kamiltias obviously doubted my capabilities to face Ladvioka, a Chaos Main God. This was understandable. No matter how you looked at it, I was only a bit over three hundred years old, yet I intended to challenge a Chaos Main God whose age could be calcted in eons. This did appear rather suicidal. But it was indeed the best choice for my overall strategy.


    ¡°Of course. I¡¯ll leave the Chaos War God up to you. He¡¯ll be even harder for me to deal with. No, I should say that he¡¯s the number one existence I don¡¯t want to face here.¡±


    Indeed. Karwenz, who had unknown powers and motives, could be set aside for the time being. The God of Holy Light also obviously intended to sit on the sidelines to reap an advantage while we fought. However, ording to records of Chaos War God Donatis¡¯s previous achievements, he was an incredibly skilled warrior who excelled at singlehandedly piercing through enemy formations and directly taking the head of the overallmander. His direct confrontation strength was said to be ranked foremost throughout all the nes in existence. It would be the worst for me if I had to face him directly since I was more of a tacticalmander who focused on the big picture.


    I had zero intentions of personally learning just why Donatis was ranked the first. And his fallen heroic spirit army was judged to be dead by my dimensionalw, so that wouldn¡¯t work against him at all. All death magic had extremely low effectiveness against heroic spirits to begin with. If Donatis and his army directly made a beeline for me or tried to destroy my ceremony to create a new dimension, I wouldn¡¯t be able to do much.


    So I requested the strongest individual on our side, the Lord of Lies, to stall this troublesome opponent. Although Ladvioka, the Lord of Putrefaction, would also be inconceivably powerful, his strongest abilities were poison and gue, which would be rather ineffective against my undead armies. I was used torge-scale military battles, so I would never be afraid of an enemy who also relied onrge numbers of underlings. I would have much more of an advantage in this type of battle... especiallypared to fighting against Donatis. I already had more than enough of all sorts of unreasonable heroes and War Gods.


    Kamiltias was more than intelligent enough to realize all this without me telling him. He also knew that this would be the best tactical choice. However, he was still worried that Ladvioka would kill me like swatting a fly, which would ruin the entire situation. But when he saw how insistent I was, he simply nodded and disappeared into the void.


    ¡°Long time no see. I believe that thest time we met was three thousand and two hundred years ago. Is that right, my dear ¡®War God¡¯ who loves acting as a loyal dog?¡±


    The Devil King blocked the Chaos War God. Angels swirled in the air, choosing the immemorial devil army as their opponents. The difference in numbers made the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation choose to wait and observe. On a certain corner of the battlefield, a certain younger twin of mine was happily cooking his fish soup. He ignored everything going around him and was in turn ignored by everyone as well.


    And now, as the horns of death trumpeted, my armies had gathered. My undead armies were about to sh against the most venomous of magical monsters. It was time for an all-out battle between me and Ladvioka.


    ¡°Ha! Arge-scale military battle? You want to see who¡¯s better at creating new species? Do you really want to know whose children are stronger? Ahahaha that¡¯s an easy question to answer.¡±


    [1] ED/N: I thought long and hard about an onomatopoeia for the sounds headless giant elephant monsters make and drew a nk. And when in doubt, stick to the raws xD

 Chapter 446 - Infallible

    <h4>Chapter 446: Infallible</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Pranav


    ¡°Is it time?¡±


    Along with the wind came a rotten stench of stink and decay. Demons, the symbol of destruction, were fully spread out before us. Their tremendous army of demons from the myriad dimensions emanated a tremendous sense of pressure. Here, even a single demon soldier had far surpassed the average human hero.


    These demons faced an endless, silent darkness. I didn¡¯t need to describe the courage and loyalty of the undead warriors of the night. No matter the time or ce I wanted them to fight, they would forever attack who Imanded them to.


    Who was the enemy? How powerful were they? What were our chances of victory? My undead army would never ask such questions. Whenever the war horn sounded, their choice would be clear from the sound of the skeletal warhorses¡¯ hoof steps.


    And to respond to their loyalty and expectations, I was going to lead them to victory¡ªno matter the cost.


    ¡°It¡¯s time!¡±


    I opened the silver book in my hands, and mystical secrets transformed into mysterious runes that flitted through the sky. Pure Order¡¯s newest power and the light of this God Equipment lit up the entire world.


    ¡°Original Codex of Law! Judge all the criminals before you! Forbidden spell: Great Judgement!¡±


    One didn¡¯t need the light of judgement to determine that these otherworldly demon and magical monsters were the most evil of viins. Now, however, they were judged for their dimensional invasion and destruction. An ethereal silver light descended upon their bodies and transformed into actual restraints. Unfortunately, thisrge-scale area of effect restraint wasn¡¯t so strong against these top-level destroyers. They were all able to break free in just a short few seconds.


    Yet I had achieved my objective. Under the effect of Great Judgement, my power level would forcibly be improved by an entire rank since I was a Law job ss member. I went from Legend to Saint.


    For other powerful individuals, an improvement from Legend to Saint wouldn¡¯t make thatrge of a difference. However, me being able to achieve Saint rank would make a tremendous difference to both my army and myself.


    I closed my eyes and caused a familiar icy tundra to appear before me, and then the entire world changed before me as the burning city of rubble appeared right before us, close yet untouchable. No matter how powerful the enemies, my warriors had never hesitated to fight them, either back then or today.


    War drums sounded as the battle gs waved. The knights didn¡¯t give up on their hope no matter how bloody the battle became.


    The icy tundra continued to extend asrge snowkes began to fall. The scene from that day had reappeared before us.


    ¡°The Infallible Diffindor...¡±


    When the charging skeleton knights passed through my icy tundra, they reobtained physical bodies simr to the living, just like heroic spirits. This restored them to their peak forms from when they were still living¡ªno¡ªeven stronger than when they were living.


    I reached out and allowed snowkes to melt in the palm of my hand. This familiar chill helped perk up my spirits. However, this was no time for me to be nostalgic. I clenched my fist and allowed the snowkes to spread on the wind.


    ¡°...This still isn¡¯t enough.¡±


    That¡¯s right. When facing the endless demon army of a Chaos Main God-level existence, a full heroic spirit army at Legend and above was still insufficient.


    I opened up another book instead of the God Equipment Original Codex of Law and flipped through it, a somewhat tattered notebook which recorded all the details, steps and preparations for this n.


    And when I flipped to a certain page, a line of words began to glow golden.


    ¡°Have my personal strength reach a minimum of Legend, so that I can achieve Saint with the buff effect of the God Equipment Original Codex of Law. This is all for the sake of... a new Soul World!¡±


    That¡¯s right. I would never be able to match Eich¡¯s unreasonable amount of strength and divine power. She could control and distort the four elements as she wished to create a new world. But if I wanted to create a world, even if I knew the theories and required technology, to actually do it would be the equivalent of using bricks and a shovel to create an entire world, something both impractical and impossible.


    ¡°Even if I could do it that way, I don¡¯t have the time to do so.¡±


    But, luckily, in the world of Eich, there was a method to use one¡¯s willpower to create a world. That¡¯s right¡ªthe specialty of those of the Saint rank and above: Soul Worlds!


    Soul Worlds were the ultimate manifestation of mortals¡¯ thoughts and stubbornness. A Soul World would be its creator¡¯s most desired stubborn wish and ideal. A Soul World would be a dreamlike utopia that could distort the real world. A Soul World... was the only method of saving the world.


    And right now before me, the snow-white icy tundra began to distort as that familiar castle copsed. Its heroic knight defenders transformed into bones again.


    ¡°Diffindor has still fallen...¡±


    My charging knights stared at the scene before them nkly. They didn¡¯t know what had happened. Some even dropped their weapons and battle gs in their astonishment.


    Naturally, the demon army took advantage of this opportunity to strike.


    I also gazed nkly at the world¡¯s copse before me as a mysterious pain in my heart caused me to forget to breathe. But when I saw my knights staring nkly, everything I was feeling transformed into an angry roar that reverberated through the entire battlefield.


    ¡°...Diffindor has indeed fallen! But, dear knights of mine, our battle still isn¡¯t over! We admit that we have lost a battle, but so what if we lose? We are nothing more than remnant warriors who have already lost; we have already lost those that we desire to protect...¡±


    I knew that in this Soul World we would be undefeatable because everyone, myself included, would be gazing at that forever burning city in the distance. We would feel like our families and friends were right behind us, giving us endless amounts of motivation with the desire to protect them. But...


    ¡°It¡¯s time to wake up from this dream! The country and people that we swore to defend have long been dead!¡±


    The now copsing Diffindor was the most painful sight to behold. The copsing stones stole away my knights¡¯ will to fight, and my angry roar hurt my own heart to the extreme. Hurting my own loyal knights like this made me feel like I was bleeding in my heart. Yet...


    ¡°But even if we lost, we remaining defeated warriors still haven¡¯t lost a ce where we belong! Think about those in the Nortnds, think about how even bastards like us have so many descendants! Why is it that in the barren Nortnds they¡¯re willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of us useless individuals and clean up the mess we made?¡±


    The silent knights now saw the People of the Mist who had traveled thousands of kilometers to return to their homnd. They saw the newly glowing holy city of Diffindor, the newly established scenes of life in the Nortnds, the families they¡¯d established together with their adopted children, and... children who desired a beautiful future.


    The knights¡¯ fists, which had be slightly loose, were clenched tightly once again. They picked up the weapons they had dropped and started waving battle gs in the air. These skeleton knights would never fear any opponent, no matter how powerful the enemy. My knights would only fear not having any family or friends behind them that needed protecting. What they needed was a target they needed to protect.


    ¡°Indeed, we have lost in the past. But this time, we shall be infallible.¡±


    Soul Imprints could surpass a single individual¡¯s limits in an area because they were the umtion of each individual¡¯s life experience and chosen path in life. I had many lives, so of course I had many paths.


    But Soul Worlds were illusionary worlds created out of an individual¡¯s most stubborn belief, stubborn enough to transform dreams into reality. And so, in order to never be defeated again in the future, the past dream...


    ¡°We won¡¯t have a future if we are lost reminiscing in the past. The battle to obtain the future is right before us. It¡¯s time to wake up.


    ¡°This time, we shall be infallible!


    ¡°We have nowhere to retreat. We shall be infallible!


    ¡°Behind us are our family and friends. We shall be infallible!


    ¡°We carry hope on our shoulders. We shall be infallible!


    ¡°We shall fight the Gods for the sake of all mortals. We shall be infallible!¡±


    The iron will of us defeated warriors reached a state of synchronization. The stubbornness of desiring a path to the future seeded in transforming reality. I knew that my loyal and courageous knights forever trusted me. They had given everything to me.


    And now, what spread before me was a new world, a Soul World with the determination to change the future.


    ¡°This is a country for the dead. And these loyal and sincere knights will be the guardian heroic spirits. They will possess true and eternal life, even if it¡¯s just a dream crafted out of ice and snow.¡±


    The snow, that had previously stopped, started falling down again as thend began to freeze over. Meanwhile, white towers representing ice and snow rose behind me.


    In this iplete world, after death became the foundation of all souls, a new basic element was created: ice and snow, which represented life.


    ¡°In this country of the dead, the dead shall also possess physical bodies and lives that belong only to here. Ice and snow shall give them new bodies for their souls.¡±


    Snow and ice descended upon the skeletons, forming into new physical bodies. These bodies were unlike heroic spirits¡¯ which were constructed out of energy that would never feel fatigue. Although these bodies were created out of ice and snow, they didn¡¯tck skin, muscles, internal organs or anything else. My undead knights would be able to feel real pain and joy after so long. They would finally be able to have descendants and obtain the feeling of life. In fact, they would even be capable of progressing and evolving!


    That¡¯s right. This was real ¡°life,¡± not a mystical illusion or a temporary spell. The boundaries between life and death had truly been broken.


    In this country of the dead, the soul would be ced within a vessel of ice and snow. Sinful criminals would need to be punished for their crimes in Hell, so of course they would need to have physical bodies. These bodies of ice and snow would give criminals new lives that would only be capable of being maintained in Hell.


    But right now these bodies of ice and snow helped my undead knights reobtain life.


    Did this look familiar? Of course it did. I learned the secrets of ice and snow lifeforms frommunicating with the Frigid Nightmares. Their very existences were the best models for how to do this. The Nortnds¡¯ special soul creature, the Frigid Nightmare, would now obtain countless new members of their species within Hell. No¡ªwhen considering that these bodies had an outstanding potential to evolve, this was an evolved form of a Frigid Nightmare¡¯s body.


    Currently, these bodies of ice and snow allowed my revived knights to be even stronger. But that wasn¡¯t the only reason why the demons were now afraid.


    ¡°Why won¡¯t they die? Impossible! Both their bodies and souls have been destroyed, so why do they revive?¡±


    A headless knight picked up his head that had just been cut off and continued to fight. Even though his physical body and soul were then sliced into tiny pieces, he instantly managed to reform himself.


    The reason? When in Hell, how could a dead individual who wasn¡¯t yet judged and punished by Hell possibly be allowed to die? This was the most foundational reason for this world¡¯s existence. It was a basic dimensionalw that would surpass everything!


    But right now this basic dimensionalw became the strongest undying property throughout the myriad nes!


    This new life of ice and snow gave my formerly undead knights the possibilities of growth and evolution. Losing once? Losing twice? Who cared? These knights had long since gotten used to losing and would continuously evolve from their losses, finally bing a nightmare opponent for any enemy, even if the process required centuries, millennium or tens of thousands of years!


    ¡°We are guarding the hope of the future. We shall be absolutely infallible!¡±


    That¡¯s right. At least, in this battle, we absolutely couldn¡¯t lose!


    ¡°...You¡ªyou¡¯re too dangerous.¡±


    This sudden deration came from Chaos War God Donatis. He had remained silent this entire time despite being the representative for the will of Chaos, secretly assessing my threat level. He had nowe to a conclusion.


    ¡°Although you aren¡¯t personally strong, your thoughts and will are too dangerous. I, Donatis, believe you to be the most dangerous existence in the world...


    ¡°...and that¡¯s why you should die.¡±


    As the most loyal warrior of Chaos, Donatis was usually quite terse with his words. Any target he made up his mind to kill would, unsurprisingly, be killed by him.


    But I had no intentions of directly answering his deration to kill me at all costs. I just lightly touched the crystal skull in my hand and said one sentence.


    ¡°Ayer, can you see this? It¡¯s time.¡±

 Chapter 447 - The Past and the Present

    <h4>Chapter 447: The Past and the Present</h4>


    <strong>Trantor:</strong> imperfectluck <strong>Editor:</strong> Pranav


    Back at And¡¯s battlefield, the sunlight had once again broken through the dark clouds. As the sun shined down on the battlefield, sounds of cheering filled the battlefield.


    The endless torrential rains, which had washed away the humans¡¯ hope, stopped. The floods that covered the capital dispersed. When the Evil God¡¯s priests were no longer able to hear the summons of their master, the Queen of Storms, the Sea Tribe copsed and fled even faster than expected.


    After tossing their weapons into the air, the human warriors tossed themselves down onto the muddy ground andid there enjoying the simple feeling of having survived. Not far away on the streets of New Kagersi, elderly folk hobbled out of their homes and gazed at the sunlight they hadn¡¯t seen in several years. The joy of victory filled everyone¡¯s hearts.


    Although the humans had won this battle, few among them would wonder why the clouds dispersed so quickly or why the Sea Tribe¡¯s priests had suddenly lost their powers and Divine Arts.


    ¡°Our emperor!¡±


    ¡°Emperor Darsos brought us this victory!¡±


    Floating battleships marked with the royal emblem of And slowly passed through the skies. Damaged and burnt ck from the battle, these battleships became the representation of des and a mythic victory.


    The humans only knew that their young Emperor Darsos had led them in reiming their capital, making Darsos¡¯ renown, at this moment, exceed that of any other emperor in And¡¯s history.


    In a corner of the battlefield, those who had actually made all of this possible were preparing to harvest the true goal of this battle: the victory loot, the defeated True God!


    ¡°Is it time?¡±


    Despite the mud everywhere, Ayer¡¯s white robe remained unblemished. Copsed on the ground next to him was a giant blue-skinned woman. Now near death, her former insanity had reduced, and her always angry and dissatisfied expression had now eased itself. She even appeared to be a wild and beautiful tsundere.


    ¡°Tsk¡ªtsk¡ªtsk¡ªshe really is quite beautiful as long as she shuts her mouth.¡±


    The ck-haired, ck-eyed Lord of Despair¡¯s most annoying habit was probably how he loved to toy with his prey. He teased the Queen of Storms, hoping she would resist some more or even self-destruct herself.


    But unfortunately she had been ambushed by these two Main God-level existences, who had gone all out¡ªshe could now barely breathe. She wasn¡¯t even capable of responding anymore.


    From a certain standpoint, the Queen of Storm¡¯s fate had been decided the moment Aylos chose to sacrifice herself.


    It could be considered a glorious honor that the Queen of Storms, who became a powerful God simply through her gambles, ended up being schemed against by two Main God-level existences along with countless others.


    An attack against Rain City was the lure to bring in her incarnation. Shaking her believers¡¯ faith to the foundation would drive her to the brink. The Lord of Despair¡¯s highest-level domain of despair would cause her to be frustrated and make the worst possible decision. She ended up descending in her true body, which Ayer and the Lord of Despair, Heimor, had been waiting for. The moment she descended in her true body, she was instantly ambushed and defeated. The Queen of Storms¡¯ meteoric rise and fall in power was destined to be a ssic example for history books of the future.


    Of course, even if she didn¡¯t fall for the trap, her end would still be the same. It would just be that after the Sea Tribe were defeated and ran away, Ayer and Heimor would directly attack her Divine Kingdom and defeat her there. Of course, that would have a higher associated cost to it.


    That¡¯s why the Queen of Storm¡¯s death was inevitable from the moment Aylos agreed to make the trade with the Ayer Faction.


    However, Ayer wasn¡¯t happy in the slightest despite being the victor in this battle between Gods. His handsome face even appeared rather mncholy and nk.


    Heimor, who was quite familiar with Ayer, was rather astonished to see such an expression. What in the world could give difficulties to Ayer, who he viewed to be capable of anything?


    ¡°Boss Ayer? What¡¯s the matter? Is there some other God scheming against us right now?¡±


    Ayer didn¡¯t intend to exin anything to him, though. He simply nced at the sunlight peeking through the clouds and heaved a heavy sigh.


    ¡°It¡¯s time.¡±


    ******


    When did this storm, destined to cover the entire world, really begin?


    The first scheme probably started on the River Styx with the duel between the lich and the Death God.


    This duel was utterly unequal from the very start. The Death God was from the oldest generation. He had experienced countless generations and was the very symbol of what it meant to be undying. As he was the guardian of the Cycle of Reincarnation, when the order of the River Styx he guarded was disrupted, he would be capable of using his true body on the River Styx. Plus, he had the dual support and boons of both Order and Chaos, so even three or four Main Gods allying against him would be incapable of doing anything to the Cycle of Reincarnation.


    In fact, such events had indeed urred before. Some powerful Evil Gods desired more power and came to seek for the most foundational secrets of all along this river of souls. The end result for such Evil Gods, however, was that the Death God stole away their futures.


    Meanwhile, the Death God¡¯s lich opponent had achieved the peak of mortals. The undying crown, which would only appear once every several thousand years in the mortal ne, was the best evidence of his extraordinariness. But no matter how extraordinary he was, he was still within the realm of mortals. The lich¡¯s strongest powers of forbidden spells and undead armies were worthless in front of the Death God.


    The difference between the newest lich king and the most ancient Death God was like the difference between an ant and a dragon. And it was precisely this incredibly unequal duel that nted the seeds which would change the world.


    ¡°...I don¡¯t know why I went easy that time.¡±


    Perhaps it was because Ayer had seen Rnd¡¯s familiar face multiple times in the River Styx. Perhaps Ayer was somewhat sympathetic to his ¡°junior¡¯s¡± pitiful fate. Perhaps Ayer wanted to know what Rnd wanted to do at the cost of destroying the Cycle of Reincarnation. Even Ayer himself didn¡¯t understand why he went easy on Rnd that time as he was more than capable of defeating Rnd with a single hit. Instead, Ayer went easy and gave Rnd the chance to speak.


    ¡°...I have a n. I have a n that can truly stop the eternal Holy War. Would you happen to be interested?¡±


    Even now, Ayer could recall the cracks on the lich¡¯s phctery and how the soulfire in the skull seemed like it would go out at any moment. Yet that soul, which struggled to survive, was unafraid and didn¡¯t beg for its life. Rnd simply spoke about his astonishing scheme that seemed like an impossible fantasy to realize.


    ¡°From the very foundation, the sides of Chaos and Order in this Holy War are like two pr opposite political ideologies. Even without regards to Chaos and Order¡¯s natural born will and ipatible attributes, they¡¯ll still instinctively want to destroy the other. To stabilize the world, the political system has to be changed into a system with more than two parties. There needs to be a minimum of three, and the more the better. That¡¯s right¡ªwe need a neutral party. And you are the only one capable of doing it...¡±


    At the very beginning, Ayer had been bored and just wanted to amuse himself. He could pass some time by hearing what this sly lich would try to say in order to convince Ayer to let him go.


    That¡¯s right. Ayer¡¯s first impression of Rnd was a clown trying to use sophistry to save his own life.


    ¡°...We need a new True God. He doesn¡¯t need to be particrly powerful. However, he needs to make judgements that everyone will recognize as absolutely fair. We also need a new Hell, which will take the ce of the current Cycle of Reincarnation...


    ¡°...The current Gods¡¯ teachings benefit only themselves. Since spending money and sucking up to the Gods and their churches can help people ascend to heaven, so-called teaching people to be kind is nothing more than a joke. And in order to further eliminate the possibility of war, we can spread new teachings that only pure kindness will be allowed into heaven, while true courageous warriors who die for the sake of justice will enter an eternal heroic spirit temple. Meanwhile, viins will wail in pain as they are tortured for their crimes in Hell...¡±


    Next, secrets that even Main Gods wouldn¡¯t know about were revealed by this particr lich. Not only was Rnd utterly disrespectful towards the True Gods, he even understood many secrets about the Creator Goddess.


    The most ridiculous part was that even though he was clearly an evil lich king¡ªthe equivalent of a demon king that all lives would hate¡ªhe talked about a world belonging to mortals and how kindness and evil should receive just desserts. It would have been fine if he was just making things up, but Ayer could sense that Rnd was telling the truth, that Rnd had thought long and hard about this topic.


    This went against the world¡¯smon sense. There was actually a good lich worried about the people? Was the lich insane, or was the world insane?


    ¡°Interesting...¡±


    Perhaps it was due to Ayer¡¯s curiosity that he finished listening to the lich¡¯s insane n.


    ¡°This sounds rather amusing. But how will you get me to believe your sincerity?¡±


    As the most ancient Death God, Ayer wasn¡¯t someone who could be convinced through words alone. No matter how beautiful Rnd made his n sound, the n was far too insane and had too low a probability of sess. Ayer viewed this all as a roundabout method to plea to him to spare Rnd¡¯s life.


    Yet the lichughed upon hearing this. The soulfire in his skull shook, expressing the emotion of delight. Was he so delighted to simply state his nned scheme out loud? Was that enough of a victory for him? Ayer got even more curious after seeing this.


    ¡°...ording to the rules you abide by as the guardian of the Cycle of Reincarnation, are you going to kill me?¡±


    The lichughed, unmistakably and loudly.


    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡±


    ¡°Excellent.¡±


    After he finishedughing, the lich inserted his cracked sword into the ground, using a soul summoning spell on his own phctery. ck mist twirled around his indestructible holy sword, a sign the lich¡¯s soul was copsing.


    *Shing!*


    After a sharp sound, cracks filled the lich¡¯s phctery. It became meaningless as it would no longer be capable of protecting the soul it was supposed to. Rnd was destined to die here.


    ¡°I¡¯ll give you my very life. How¡¯s that for sincerity?¡±


    And so Rnd used his death in that life to obtain a chance: the opportunity to speak to Ayer as an equal. Although Ayer helped seal the phctery in the end, giving Rnd enough time to deal with ¡°affairs after his death,¡± Ayer didn¡¯t actually think much of all this back in the day.


    ¡°It¡¯s too difficult to aplish...¡±


    That¡¯s right. It was indeed far too difficult to aplish. Being able to singlehandedly create a new power of Order and a brand-new Divine Concept? That was at the level of the God of Holy Light¡¯s achievements back when he was still a human. And being able to meet such requirements was merely the beginning to this grand scheme.


    Ayer simply rowed his boat quietly on the River Styx and soon forgot about this n.


    But then he received news that Rnd had died.


    ¡°Ha! Mortals are too weak. He was so ambitious, wanting to change the world despite his weakness?¡±


    Ayer felt some pity as he eximed out loud and shook his head. But soon his pity turned into astonishment.


    ¡°Eh? What a youngster. He actually managed to pull the wool over my eyes.¡±


    That¡¯s right. The Rnd from that year had truly died. However, Rnd had made his move in the River Styx and sessfully fooled the Death God. He had sessfully crawled out of the River Styx after falling in!


    And as Ayer watched from the side with ambiguous emotions, he witnessed how Margaret and Adam arrived to hunt Rnd down by the River Styx. And that was how the Undying Rnd came to be sealed away in the Underground. As for whether these two heroes had actually received a hint to Rnd¡¯s location from that Death God? That was unknown except to the parties involved.


    Still, from a certain standpoint, the sly Rnd received Ayer¡¯s recognition because of it. At the very least, after Ayer discovered that the lich was still living quite fine in the Underground, Ayer visited from time to time just to chat. Since Ayer had ¡°few friends, and even fewer enemies (all his enemies were dead),¡± this was rare for him to do.


    But Ayer never thought much about Rnd¡¯s ¡°grand scheme,¡± forgetting about it entirely, until a certain day...

 Chapter 448 - Hell Faction

    Chapter 448: Hell Faction


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    ¡°The power of Law? Arbiters and judges? I never expected that this would turn into reality one day.¡±


    The scene from approximately seventeen hundred years ago reyed itself as a new power of Order joined the Order Faction. This time, it was Law, and once again, the forgotten loser in the Underground rose to be a popr topic of interest throughout the world.


    Well, it would be an exaggeration to say ¡®throughout the world.¡¯ Only powerful individuals and Gods would have ess to such secret information. In their eyes, the creator of Law was the same as the God of Holy Light from the past. They assumed that Rnd would be able to ascend to Godhood whenever he wanted.


    Considering how the Child of Nature (a currently dead Order Main God, whose two children were the Goddesses of Joy and Laughter), Earth Mother, God of Holy Light and other creators of new powers of Order had be Main Gods, this insane lich, who had acted ever so ridiculously in the Underground, became viewed as a new Main God candidate by the Gods. No¡ªit was a definite that he¡¯d be a Main God in the future.


    There were only seven Main God-level existences in the entire Order Faction to begin with. It was an unparalleled status, the highest possible, and was right under the Creator Goddess herself. To be a Main God would be an insurmountable honor, the highest glory, and a path to eternity.


    The Chaos Main Gods had to worry about dying because of their infighting, but the Order Main Gods typically didn¡¯t have such trouble as long they followed the few orders of the Source of Order. Of course, their Godhood also came with the restrictions of Order.


    ¡°...Congrattions. When do you intend to ascend to Godhood? Perhaps we¡¯ll be future allies. Perhaps the best timing for you to ascend to Godhood will be the next Holy War...¡±


    Ayer still didn¡¯t know why Rnd understood so much about the Gods¡¯ secrets. But Rnd was one of his few friends, and he visited him to offer his congrattions as well as an offer of a concrete alliance.


    ¡°What? Ascend to Godhood? Isn¡¯t that going to be on the day we begin our grand scheme?¡±


    Only after hearing Rnd ce extra emphasis on the word ¡°we¡± did Ayer finally recall the ¡°grand scheme¡± he had long since forgotten about as it had sounded too wild and insane at the time. Only after a long silence did Ayer begin to speak again.


    ¡°Are you certain? With my assistance and the power of Law you created, you should be able to be a Main God-level existence. You¡¯re choosing between bing an undying, eternal Order Main God and to start that almost impossible, insane n of yours, and you¡¯re going to choose thetter over the former?¡±


    Even if the Creator Goddess created a new world with new residents after the destruction of the world, even if all mortals perished, the Main Gods would forever be the highest of all existences. Mortals viewed the Main Gods themselves as the representation of eternity!


    Any other person would view Rnd as an utterly insane, crazy maniac. He was treating his obtainable immortality as nothing more than a joke and instead wanted to gamble on something with a truly pitiful chance of sess?


    Yet Ayer could still recall how Rnd had stared at him as if he was an idiot after he asked that question.


    ¡°Main God? So what? Is there any meaning to ¡®eternity¡¯ as an automated zombie?¡±


    Rnd dismissed the status of a Main God and imed that such an eternity was meaningless, like an automated zombie¡ªwait, what? Even Ayer paused in surprise upon hearing such an insane deration. After some momentary confusion, Ayer became filled with rage.


    Without a doubt, the lich was spheming against the Gods¡¯ entire meaning of existence. But as Ayer¡¯s anger boiled, he thought back to his past memories, to his tribe who had be devils in Hell¡¯s Abyss, to this joke of a Holy War that forever had no end, to the mortals that danced like puppets in the palms of the Gods, and, of course, to how souls would forever end up harvested like wheat.


    ¡°The Gods treat mortals¡¯ lives and desires as nothing more than a joke or a y to be enjoyed. Since there¡¯s something even higher controlling the Gods, wouldn¡¯t that make the arrogant Gods nothing more than puppets controlled by the Sources of Order and Chaos themselves? Even if these puppets are higher, they can¡¯t even control their own fates. Isn¡¯t their pride a joke, then? This type of eternity is worth even less than mortals¡¯ lives that fade ever so quickly.¡±


    Ayer¡¯s anger vanished after he perceived how the lich before him had seen through the truth and fate even more so than himself. After pondering for a long while, Ayer finally asked a question:


    ¡°Are you serious?¡±


    ¡°Hey¡ªhey¡ªBoss Ayer, I¡¯ve always been serious. Don¡¯t tell me you want to back out at such a time? After all this time I¡¯ve been working so hard for this goal!!¡±


    The lich skull¡¯s garish smile was as hideous to behold as always. But only now did Ayer notice that concealed beneath this seemingly casual expression was someone who had seen through it all.


    Rnd was well aware that Ayer had always treated his n as nothing more than a joke. Still, he had worked his hardest in secret and made the required preparations to turn this ¡°joke n¡± nobody believed into a reality.


    When the light of Law illuminated the entire world, the Order Gods waited for their new ally to ascend to Godhood. However, the fortunate individual who created the power of Law unexpectedly went silent. A long time passed without the God of Law¡¯s ascension to Main Godhood, and they couldn¡¯t help gossip among themselves.


    ¡°Just a temporarily blooming flower.¡±


    ¡°A tattered soul is insufficient to ascend to venerated Godhood.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps this new Divine Concept will be taken advantage of by some junior in the future. Hahaha! Could it be that this fellow is the charitable type?¡±


    Not only the True Gods, but even the other undying individuals and Follower Gods had begun tough at this lich who had been unable to ascend to Godhood. Yet only Ayer was aware that the real reason Rnd didn¡¯t personally ascend to Godhood was because he was unsatisfied with his newly-born power of Law.


    ¡°No¡ªno¡ªno¡ªthe current power of Law is still too simr to Holy Light. It would be meaningless to only represent punishment. Salvation for criminals and generosity towards the kind and innocent is what¡¯s most important. Let¡¯s add something to the Church of Law¡¯s teachings: ¡®Someone invisible is always watching your every action from up above. All crimes will receive the punishment they deserve. A Hell for the dead is waiting for you. Not a single person will be exempt from this.¡¯


    ¡°Hmmm, this doesn¡¯t work too? How about we change the teachings so that different levels apply for different people, then? Divine job ss members of the Church of Law and all God of Law believers will have to follow the strictest requirements of Law. All other mortals will only have to follow the most basic restrictions. Yep, in order to convince more people, let¡¯s call them Divine Laws.


    ¡°There¡¯s no Heaven or Hell, you say? Hehehehe¡ªisn¡¯t that the next part of our n?¡±


    Full of patience, Rnd spent most of his time locked away in Sulfur Mountain City modifying his grand scheme and the teachings of his Church of Law. The official teachings of the Church of Law had already underwent several hundred modifications. Originally, the power of Law had been too harsh and inflexible. Under the guidance of its creator, it became a lot more moderate.


    ¡°Law itself shouldn¡¯t have a will of its own. It¡¯s but a moral guideline all people should abide by. Only those who cross the line will be punished.¡±


    To the weak, Law would provide salvation and protection while to those whomitted evil deeds, it would bring heartless punishment and judgement. But unlike the Holy Light, which viewed undead, demons, and other creatures of Chaos with natural enmity, this newly-born power of Order known as Law surprisingly didn¡¯t have any natural enemies whatsoever.


    Later, when Law became a different power based on the people with different beliefs who wielded it, Ayer began to wonder if Rnd was someone insane who had dual personalities.


    But Rnd¡¯s century spent on polishing the power of Law didn¡¯t go to waste. The power of Law became far gentler than its closest rtive, Holy Light. Law¡¯s silver glow resembled the moonlight and exuded an aura of calmness, yet if someone broke the Law, it would instantly sharpen to resemble the glint of a guillotine de.


    ¡°...Perhaps this newly-born power of Law and its boundaries will finally be able to stop the Chaos and Order Factions.¡±


    Perhaps it was Rnd¡¯s stubbornness that finally moved him. Or perhaps the most ancient Death God had umted a sufficient amount of dissatisfaction. Only when Ayer witnessed the constant improvements to the power of Law did he finally make the decision topletely support Rnd¡¯s grand scheme. And at this point in time, no matter how one looked at it, Rnd¡¯s grand scheme had a less than twenty percent chance at seeding.


    ¡°Yeah, there are too many unpredictable factors. It¡¯s impossible for me to promise it will seed. But judging from the current situation, it¡¯s worth gambling upon. Rather than doing nothing, this at least has a slight possibility.¡±


    Rnd was quite honest in admitting this. He could only be honest, after all, as it was evident for anyone who wasn¡¯t an idiot. Not a single individual would be willing to board a ship destined to sink. There was no need for Rnd to make empty promises about ¡®absolute victory.¡¯


    ¡°At least, things aren¡¯t hopeless anymore.¡±


    Indeed. Whenpared to Armageddon, where all the souls in the mortal ne would be harvested in the battle between Gods that would destroy the world, this was the single path that could be found where no paths previously existed.


    During Rnd¡¯s long, long search for ways to improve his path, more and morepanions boarded his ¡°Rnd¡¯s ark¡± for surviving Armageddon despite the fact that his ship seemed like it would sink at any moment.


    Rnd never hid from anyone just how pitifully low the chances of sess for his n would be. However, Adam and Margaret unhesitatingly joined after learning the truth from him. It was impossible for Rnd to chase a single Nortnds undead knight off his ship. It was also unknown when such arge group of gentlemen bastards had infiltrated the ship, and, the very beginning, the Church of Law itself had been an integral part of the ship.


    The residents of Sulfur Mountain City boarded Rnd¡¯s metaphorical ship. The Underground Alliance boarded his ship. The Nortnds boarded his ship. The Mage Country was scammed into boarding his ship. The wood spirits boarded his ship right from when they were born. Even the typically neutral fairies used concrete actions to show that they supported Law over Order Faction¡¯s Holy Light.


    Imperceptibly, the ¡°grand scheme¡± became a n no longer single-handedly being run by Rnd. More and morepanions took part in his n of their own volitions. Some had ideals of justice and kindness, some took part for their own benefit, and some simply wanted to survive this Holy War. But no matter the reason, they all boarded Rnd¡¯s ship and became part of Rnd¡¯s faction¡¯s strength.


    As time passed, more and more individuals gathered together under Rnd¡¯s faction. This almost impossible path to the future became slightly easier to walk down. Of course,pared to the factions of Chaos and Order and their total two-party system monopoly on the world, this new ¡°neutral¡± faction¡¯s overall power still wasn¡¯t much.


    Could it be that Chaos and Order never noticed anything? Chaos evidently had much information about them, and it was also quite obvious that Rnd and Ayer¡¯s faction had a bad rtionship with the God of Holy Light despite appearing to belong to the Order Faction on the surface. It wasn¡¯t that either faction didn¡¯t notice¡ªit was that both major factions didn¡¯t care. Order and Chaos forever viewed each other as the biggest threat and mortal enemy. As for this third party trying to do something...


    ¡°Aren¡¯t there always minor powers that betray one faction or the other in every Holy War? Let us see how sinners like you will amuse us.¡±


    These scheming individuals were nothing but traitorous sinners in the view of the two major factions that ruled the world. They¡¯d be considered evil viins who tried to overthrow the basic idea of Order, nothing more than clowns that could be casually crushed by the whims of either Order or Chaos!


    But Rnd¡¯s ship had managed to fix the major holes in it, and it was now time for this ship to set sail. The most powerful passenger had finally boarded¡ªno¡ªAyer should be called the helmsman.


    Which meant it was finally time to directly break with the two major factions.


    ¡°Coconspirators? Hah! You¡¯ve chosen an excellent word, Rnd.¡±


    Ayer recalled memories from the past, of how he had lived in the ancient barbaric times of wilderness all the way up until now. He had witnessed far too much change in history, the main rulers of the world constantly reced by another species. Ancient first-generation humans, Gold Elves, humans of the immemorial generation, great demons, Royal Elves¡ªcountless cultures in their full glory that would astonish even the Gods. But in the end, no matter how majestic the culture, it would forever be nothing more than rubble together with the culture¡¯s relics in the fires of war.


    Throughout the endless cycle of destruction and rebirth, had culture progressed? Regressed? Did culture stand still? Had it reached the peak? Or...?


    ¡°Perhaps, in the eyes of the Gods, mortals¡¯ culture is nothing more than a sand castle on the beach, valueless and ephemeral?¡±


    Undead were undead because of their stubbornness; they weren¡¯t willing to ept the eternal rest of death. As the most ancient and first ever natural undead, Ayer was no exception. The long years caused Ayer to forget what he had originally been so stubborn about, but he could still remember some.


    In the very first generation of Eich, the natural environment was harsh with famines and vicious beasts and dimensional invaders weremon due to the still immature dimensionalws. But back then, at least, the powerful didn¡¯t view the weak as ants. Weak lives weren¡¯t in such despair. Culture wouldn¡¯t be so stratified due to manmade reasons.


    The frontier state of such a dark age was difficult to survive in. Tribe leaders and schrs of that time raised their gs as Gods and SemiGods used primitive totems to protect the mortals. There was no so-called power of belief back then, yet people sincerely idolized and respected the Gods that protected them. Ayer had seen this past in his dreams many, many times.


    He had crawled out of his grave as an undead. Wasn¡¯t it all because he was still worried about his own tribe? But, at the very least, the ancient Gods in that generation were trustworthy. They would personally protect and help the mortals rather than reside on some temple¡¯s throne and mutter hypocritical teachings to await the chance to harvest souls.


    ¡°Ha! Just who is the real devil who scams people¡¯s souls?¡±


    But the Gods of the current generation had be nothing more than decorations on their Divine Thrones, bound by their so-called Divine Concepts and source of belief. The People of Tall Mountain had be devils reviled by everyone. Ayer¡¯s tribe had be nothing more than cannon fodder and puppets in the eternal Holy War. Was this the fate the first generation of humans deserved? Was this the world the Creator Goddess herself desired?


    ¡°Mother Goddess Astrya, is this the Order and teamwork you wanted to see? Sister Cynthia, is this unending destruction the penultimate evolution you sought? Since you won¡¯t give us the right to survive, why give us the ability to have hope? We are not your puppets or marites! It¡¯s time to end this useless war once and for all!¡±


    Three death roses¡ªred, ck and silver¡ªappeared in the Death God¡¯s hand before vanishing into a windstorm that enveloped everything.


    The ancient undying Death God made his decision.


    ¡°Henceforth, we shall no longer belong to Order, nor shall we belong to Chaos...¡±


    The moment he started incanting out loud, the entire world began to tremble violently. He was an existence at the peak of the myriad nes, and his derations possessed actual power. The moment he began uttering out loud, he was joined by other Gods, who spoke the same words in their Divine Kingdoms.


    ¡°Henceforth, we shall no longer belong to Order, nor shall we belong to Chaos...¡±


    More than ten Gods joined him, their deration setting the sky on fire and shaking the entire world.


    ¡°Henceforth, we shall no longer belong to Order, nor shall we belong to Chaos...¡±


    It could be said that the Source of Order¡¯s greatest mistake was that it didn¡¯t imitate the Chaos Faction and inject its will into its species at birth like Chaos would do so with newborn tiny demons. Not every former mortal who ascended to Godhood would lose their sense of self and forget who they originally were. These Gods saw real hope for the future in front of them, and they made their choice to leave the Order Faction.


    ¡°...We shall now belong to Hell!¡±


    ¡°...Hell!¡±


    ¡°We are the Hell Gods!¡±


    Giant meteors streaked through the skies, breaking the worldview of the mortals. ording to mortals, when a True God perished their Divine Kingdom would transform into a meteor and streak across the skies. What, then, did this meteor shower mean? Each meteor in this shower far surpassed the might of the meteor that had hurtled down when Lorci had died. Could it be that more than ten powerful Gods had simultaneously perished? That was impossible! How could so many powerful Gods all die at the same time!?


    ¡°They didn¡¯t die. They just betrayed the Order Faction.¡±


    Sulo, an astrology archmage at the Cloud Tower, broke out into a cold sweat. Legs trembling, he told his fellow mages his professional analysis of what had just urred.


    Indeed¡ªthese Gods hadn¡¯t perished. They had just removed their Divine Kingdoms from the Source of Order¡¯s control and entered into an unknown dimension. Obviously, this was a betrayal! The Order Faction had been betrayed by more than ten True Gods in one go!


    The mortals were absolutely astonished at this scene. However, the Gods who watched their Divine Kingdoms crash and burn were rather excited; they had waited far too long for this day.


    ¡°Sigh¡ªI won¡¯t be able to make much money for the next few years. I hope I¡¯ll be able to do good business in Hell.¡±


    Beyana was also somewhat displeased as she had to leave despite the fact that her business was booming.


    ¡°Ha! The Contract Heroes System has already be automated and will work by itself. Even if you¡¯re in Hell, your main businesses will be unaffected. We¡¯re only going to be leaving for a few years. Or do you want to stay behind and be ganged up on by those old fogeys?¡±


    ¡°Shut up! Stop distracting me! I need to sense the existence of that dimension. What are we going to do if we get lost in the void?¡±


    Unlike her typical quiet self, Moonlight Goddess Patricia was thrilled and enlivened. She had waited for this day for far too long. Due to her Divine Concept of ¡°Guidance,¡± she had taken on the role of leading the Gods to Hell, but she was still unable to suppress the joy in her heart.


    ¡°I¡¯m finally free...¡±


    Before he left, God of Fate Catio didn¡¯t forget the task assigned to him even as he eximed over his own fate. He viciously shook the stars in the sky, sending all astrological signs into chaos.


    The utterly chaotic trails of Fate he stirred rendered all prophecy-type abilities and magic spells useless. This greatly lowered the possibility that other existences would be able to locate ande to the new Hell.


    But even if Catio didn¡¯t do this, it wasn¡¯t that easy toe to Hell uninvited.


    Ayer no longer needed to hide anything, so he used his full power to separate the Dragon World dimension, now known as Hell, from the other nes. Soon, every connection to Hell from other nes would be severed. And the Holy War was in its heated stages, with angels and demons about to sh. The Order and Chaos Factions would be unable to locate the Hell Gods to vent their anger.


    That¡¯s right¡ªthe Ayer Faction would now be known as the Hell Gods, the gods of the neutral faction, and this new dimension would be their main base. They would help create aplete Cycle of Reincarnation in this new world, breaking the total monopoly Order and Chaos had over the mortal ne.


    By now, the former Ayer Faction hadpletely broken with the Order Faction. But since the new Hell Faction possessed far lesser strength than the Order and Chaos Factions, these neutral Gods would go into hiding in the new Hell, just one of many dimensions impossible to locate in the void of the universe. Still, the Hell Gods had left backdoor programs behind in the mortal ne that would allow their divine power to be shared with their believers.


    However, just like the Chaos Evil Gods, the Source of Order would no longer have control over the Hell Gods. If this was an era of peace, the Source of Order would naturally send out a force of Gods to deal with this situation. But it was now a heated stage of the Holy War, and the Chaos Faction would never miss such an opportunity to take advantage of their opponent¡¯s weakness¡ªthey¡¯d just been betrayed by so many Gods, after all. Since the Chaos and Order Factions would be drawn into an inevitable conflict of epic proportions, neither faction would have the spare time to chase down and deal with the neutral Hell Gods.


    And ording to the ¡°grand scheme,¡± when the Hell Gods finally reappeared in the Holy War, they would possess the ability to stop the Holy War once and for all.


    All the signs in the skies informed the mortals that there had been a huge break in the Order Faction. Even some of the Gods themselves were confused by this, so it wasn¡¯t exactly a surprise that all divine job ss members went into a frenzy. At this moment, yet another meteor suddenly streaked through the sky. Almost as if it would tear the sky apart, its quality surpassed that of any meteor before it.


    ¡°...A Main God! Which Main God is it?¡±


    ¡°By the Holy Light! It¡¯s...¡±


    ¡°Elf Main God Anslo! He actually betrayed the Order Faction at such a time!?¡±


    Don¡¯t misunderstand¡ªAnslo¡¯s meteor headed in a different direction from the Hell Gods¡¯ meteors. It hurtled towards the lower nes, the Chaos Abyss, the realm of the demons. Anslo had long intended to betray the Order Faction, and when he noticed the other Order Gods¡¯ betrayal, he didn¡¯t hesitate to take this opportunity to run and betray as well.


    He had indeed chosen the perfect timing. Ayer¡¯s betrayal had been made obvious, and the Source of Order would soon send out Main God-level strength to assassinate the traitors. Of course the Source of Order wouldn¡¯t have sufficient power to chase down a Main God-level existence like himself.


    As the Elf Main God took advantage of this opportunity and the new Hell Faction Gods headed towards the new Hell, Ayer, one of the two ¡°main culprits,¡± simply stood quietly next to the River Styx.


    The River Styx¡¯s murky waters sshed against its shores as it had for time immemorial, and demons¡¯ wails could be heard in the burning waters and rubble not far away. More than a century ago, this was where Ayer and Rnd had formed the beginning of their ¡°grand scheme.¡±


    Now, the most important part of their ¡°grand scheme¡± was about to be enacted here.


    ¡°It¡¯s time.¡±

 Chapter 449 - Contract with the Powerful

    <h4>Chapter 449: Contract with the Powerful</h4>


    <strong>Trantor:</strong> imperfectluck <strong>Editor:</strong> Pranav


    ¡°We don¡¯t have much time left. It¡¯s time for you to make a choice. Please give me your answer.¡±


    As the entire mortal ne sunk into utter chaos and winged messengers busily flitted around everywhere, Solo had already cursed his shamelesspanions countless times. It was as if all the other Gods felt that his Divine Concept included Messengers, which it didn¡¯t.


    ¡°...I¡¯m no God of Messengers! I¡¯m clearly the Guardian God of Bards! I¡¯m not a professional messenger! I¡¯m the God of Art and Music, the muse for all artists and musicians!¡±


    But from a certain standpoint, since he had been sent out on too many messenger and diplomacy tasks already, outsiders now saw Solo¡¯s identity as being the personal messenger representing Ayer. Quite a few had actually forgotten his original job.


    And right now, Solo was acting as a messenger yet again. He delivered his side¡¯s proposal for the contract, but the side he was offering the contract to was rather hesitant.


    Solo was currently negotiating with two behemoths that represented two major factions in Dragon World. Although the size of Solo¡¯s incarnation was already gigantic, he was still nothing more than a tiny mosquito in front of these existences.


    The more powerful a Titan was, therger he or she would be. That was a trait of the Titans. And,pared to his fellow Titans, the Titan King was thergest one of them all. The fourth-ranked Titan, Yins, reached only up to his waist. Solo was nothing more than a tiny mosquito the size of his eysh.


    The Titan King¡¯s ancient features and beautiful body were just like a perfect sculpture. His simple armor only covered the weakest parts on his body. Rather than calling what he wore defensive equipment, it looked more like decorative attire.


    He stood there unmoving, as if he was a divine sculpture from the ancient generation. However, nobody would truly think that he was a sculpture, as thunder and windstorms swirled all around his body. Just the energy level of this alone far surpassed all so-called forbidden spells in the world. This furious thunder capable of destroying any city easily was actually quietly streaming around him, as if it was a quiet river stream. It showed no signs of power leakage whatsoever.


    When faced with Solo¡¯s question, the Titan King¡¯s ancient and serious face appeared expressionless. However, the situation for the Titan King and his tribe was quite terrible at the moment. Everywhere around them, holes and cracks could be seen in the sky itself. The ground was constantly cracking as small pieces of mountains started floating in midair. The entire world was nearing total copse around them.


    ¡°Lord Titan, you now know what Death God Ayer wishes for. Our time is limited, so please make your choice soon.¡±


    That¡¯s right, ¡°Titan¡± was also the name of the Titan King. In their ancientnguage, the word ¡°Titan¡± meant ¡°thergest and strongest individual¡±. Evidently, Titanpletely fit the meaning of the word ¡°Titan¡±.


    So as the first Titan, Titan naturally became his name. All the other Titans addressed Titan as ¡°Eldest Brother¡±. He was the most ancient child of the earth, the oldest son of the Goddess of Order, and the strongest warrior of them all in the Supreme Immemorial generation.


    To assess his current power level, despite the fact that being sealed away for so long would somewhat diminish his strength, he wouldn¡¯t be any weaker than any so-called Main God of today as he was the strongest existence of his time. In fact, over the entire Titan species, if you only looked atbat strength, there would definitely be two or three that could reach the level of Main God.


    Yep, the Titans would never fear the so-called Gods when it came tobat strength. In fact, there was even a saying that the Titans were the original models from which the ancient Gods were based on, that the Creator Goddess had used them as the model to create the first Gods.


    The Titans all had their own unique natural talent abilities. These abilities were typicallyparable with or even better than the Concepts that Gods had control over. But,pared to the varied number of Gods out there, the Titans¡¯ greatest advantage was that they were exceedingly capable fighters. Yins, the fourth-ranked Titan, and Hatley, who wasn¡¯t even in the top ten of Titans, had managed to use their incarnations to absolutely suppress the True Gods¡¯ incarnations in the battle at Oak Town.


    In the ancient legends, not only were Titans the most skilled artists and architects in all the nes, they were also the most powerful guardians for the Goddesses of Order and Chaos. The Titans fought against all sorts of demonic beasts from other dimensions, while the Gods were the masters of the dimensionalws. The Gods back then were just like civil officials that would rarely partake in actual physical fighting, which was the root cause behind why the Titans, who loved to fight on a daily basis, looked down on the Gods. How could a weak civil official in a high position possibly get along well with a warrior general who was constantly on the frontlines?


    Ever since the ability to ascend to Godhood through power of belief appeared, powerful Gods, including Main Gods, started appearing more and more often. Yet back in the Supreme Immemorial generation, the Titans had relied purely on self-cultivation to achieve abat strength which far surpassed the ancient Gods. And, they were unwilling to submit to the rule of those they viewed as weaker than themselves, which was why they finally rebelled against the Goddess of Order¡¯s view of ¡°Order¡±.


    And even now, these Titans that had reached the peak through actual battles and self-cultivation would still look down on all the so-called Main Gods that obtained their powers through belief or the High Gods of today. And to be honest, if the Titans really fought against the True Gods of today, it would be difficult to say who would win and who would lose.


    Finally, the entire Dragon World¡¯s copse and the Titans¡¯ fear finally caused the Titan King to no longer be able to remain silent. His deeply booming voice was like thunder.


    ¡°Such a dirty scheme and such sly tactics aren¡¯t Ayer¡¯s style.¡±


    Since he was willing to talk, that meant there was a chance at negotiation. Solo was delighted inside but didn¡¯t allow that to be revealed in his expression.


    ¡°Yep, Boss Ayer¡¯s personality is quite direct. He wouldn¡¯t use such little tricks. Still, one of our younger brothers came up with this scheme. His reputation is just as ck as his hands are. As long as the result goes well, he¡¯s never afraid to get his hands dirty... Just think about it. As long as you promise to contract with us and agree to our conditions, won¡¯t the end result be quite beneficial for you?¡±


    Solo unhesitatingly sold out Rnd as the mastermind of this scheme, although Rnd wouldn¡¯t have minded to begin with...


    At this moment, Titan sunk into deep contemtion. As the leader of his entire tribe, he was no brawny musclehead like what he appeared to be. In fact, things were the opposite. In the ancient past, he even had a good rtionship with the first generation of humans and was acquainted with Ayer as well.


    The Titans had survived even until today and had never even once had an internal conflict amongst themselves despite having suffered numerous setbacks before. This was the best evidence that his leadership abilities were outstanding. This was something that couldn¡¯t be achieved with power alone.


    The gigantic Titan was quite wise as well. Titan was the one who had his juniors send out incarnations to act in the mortal ne, making preparations for after they broke free from their seal. And even while sealed, Titan came up with many ns for what to do after they all broke free. But unfortunately, not a single one of his ns was usable in this current situation.


    Titan could sense that this dimension had already be severed from all other dimensions. It would still be possible to enter this dimension from other dimensions, but leaving here was now basically impossible. And, the dimension was also copsing at a rate that was one thousand times faster than what Titan expected. He didn¡¯t have much time to think at all.


    Titan knew that it would be impossible for the Titans to leave this ne as they didn¡¯t have dimensional coordinates for any other dimensions. Although it might still be possible for himself and a few of the strongest Titans to escape and survive in the void, all the other Titans and their bloodlines¡¯ descendants would be doomed.


    The entire Dragon World was copsing. But due to the Titans¡¯ protection, thend that they stood on didn¡¯t appear to even shake one bit. Yet, everyone here knew that when Dragon World copsed entirely, even if they still managed to survive the dimension¡¯s copse and maintain a simple ecosystem here, they would end up using up all their resources and supplies in the void.


    Everyone knew that the Titans had no other path to survival now. And so, a devil took advantage of this opportunity and made them an offer with conditions that were impossible to refuse.


    ¡°Little lizard, what will you decide?¡±


    This was actually a three-way negotiation that had reached a stalemate. Titan nced over at the other faction that was in the same situation as him, even though this faction had been mortal enemies with his own just not long ago.


    Supreme Immemorial Gold Dragon Loft was the ancestor of Immemorial Gold Dragon Halos, the council leader of Dragon City. Loft was one of the most ancient existences in all of Dragon World, who wasrge enough to cover an entire city. Yet, he was only the size of one of Titan¡¯s hands.


    The Titans had always looked down on the dragons. Even the Titans¡¯ rtives, the giants, would dare to challenge the dragons, so how could the Titans of pure bloodline possibly respect the dragons?


    The dragons wanted to be respected? Sure, but they would have to prove their power. They would have to invite the oldest dragons of all that had experienced the wars between Gods in the very first generation.


    Perhaps Supreme Immemorial Gold Dragon Loft was indeed one of the eldest, most veteran, and most powerful existences among the dragons. Yet, whenpared to Titan, the first Titan, the only difference would likely be if it took one or two attacks to kill him.


    ¡°Venerated God of Artists, I shall represent all of Dragon City in agreeing to your conditions.¡±


    But, it was important to save face even if everyone knew who was superior. Loft pretended not to hear Titan¡¯s words. Instead, Loft turned around and nodded directly at Solo, agreeing to the terms of the offered contract.


    Since one of the three sides in this negotiation had now agreed to the conditions forced upon them, the remaining side would naturally be more disadvantaged.


    ¡°How wonderful. Dragons are indeed a wise and reasonable species.¡±


    The handsome Solo smiled sunnily as he praised the dragons. He was delighted as he had nowpleted half of the task given to him.


    ¡°It¡¯s just like what Rnd said. The dragons will bepletely shameless and submit when their lives are threatened.¡± That¡¯s what the little brat is thinking right now.


    A one-eyed Titan chuckled strangely as he said this out loud. His diamond-like single eye seemed to see through everything. This Titan was the ancestor of the Cyclops ¨C¡±Agus the Mind Reader¡±.


    Agus was even capable of mind reading the thoughts of a God¡¯s incarnation. This was the best evidence of just how powerful and unreasonable the Titans¡¯ natural talents were. Although Agus was chuckling as he stated Solo¡¯s thoughts out loud, he immediately frowned right after because he mind read what Solo immediately thought out next.


    ¡°¡®So what if you can read my mind? Refuse me if you dare. It¡¯ll be quite fun to watch all of you starve to death in the void, idiot.¡¯ You actually dare tough at us? I...¡±


    Titan blocked Agus¡¯ angry roaring. The Titan King knew that such anger would be meaningless, as the Ayer Faction had already seen through everything. Right now, the ones in ¡°need of assistance¡± wasn¡¯t the Ayer Faction. The Titans needed the Ayer Faction to save them!


    Since both sides hadpletely different standing, how could this even be called a negotiation? This wasn¡¯t a negotiation from the very start. It was pure extortion that was called negotiation only to help the extortion victims to save face. The Titans were being forced to agree to the Ayer Faction¡¯s conditions if they wanted to live.


    The Titans were never known to have good tempers. Yet, they weren¡¯t idiots, either. Currently, the Titans¡¯ imposing aura caused even Solo¡¯s incarnation which possessed SemiGod strength to feel quite ufortable. He had a bitter expression as if he could barely stand the Titans¡¯ pressure, which helped the Titans to save face. Right now, Solo was truly impressed with the foolhardy Rnd who dared to even threaten and extort the Titans.


    ¡°Who cares if they have ridiculousbat strength that¡¯s number one in the world? Theyck the ability to act proactively, so I can control the situation however I like. Once they¡¯re in my pitfall, they can only obediently be chess pieces under mymand.¡±


    Solo still recalled Rnd¡¯s words, and the one-eyed mind reading Titan obviously overheard thisment as well. However, Agus knew that telling his tribe about Rnd¡¯s thoughts would only make them all feel more awkward, so he could only vent his anger on thend that was now beginning to shake.


    Agus viciously pounded the ground and even attempted to pull up the mountains and cause an earthquake like how he always would when he was angry. But, he only managed to thrash around a few times before the other Titans stopped him. Yet, Agus had already exposed the fact that the area under the Titans¡¯ protection was already unstable. The Titans wouldn¡¯t be able to maintain the small dimensional area under their protection for much longer.


    An appropriate amount of forcefulness would actually sometimes be useful in helping negotiations to proceed. Although the Titans¡¯ expressions worsened when it was exposed how bad of a situation they were in, at least they were smart enough to stop trying to save face and not waste time, the most precious resource of all.


    ¡°...Even if all of us are destroyed, we shall never submit to the weak. If Rnd wishes to obtain our tribe¡¯s recognition, at minimum he must be capable of defeating his enemies without our assistance to prove that he has the ability to be the master of this new dimension he is creating.¡±


    Titan¡¯s voice was quite low yet also forceful. This was his bottom line that he would refuse to budge on. If Ayer and Rnd were unable to prove that they could sessfully push back and defeat the forces of Order and Chaos, then Titan would refuse to board their sinking ship.


    ¡°That¡¯s quite reasonable.¡±


    This was also the end result that Rnd had predicted. Solo nodded and reached out his hand, forming the light of a magical contract.


    ¡°As long as Rnd obtains victory in the battle here and sessfully creates the new dimension of Hell, the Titans shall be the Guardian Gods of the ¡®Land of Spring¡¯ and ¡®Heaven¡¯. The Titans shall protect the lives of thesends.¡±


    Yep, this was the task that Rnd had arranged for the Titans. They would protect (be architects of) the Land of Spring where lives would go to prepare for their next lives, as well as protect (be guardians of) a new Heaven where a portion of the Gods and good individuals would be sent to reside.


    Only having Hell and the dead would be insufficient to create a truly independent and self-sufficient new world. ording to the God of Law¡¯s teachings, criminals would go to Hell to be punished for their crimes, so that meant the reverse was also true. Good individuals should go to Heaven to enjoy the rest of their lives after death. Just having Hell and torture would not be enough to establish a world.


    ¡°Recing the Cycle of Reincarnation will naturally require aplete cycle of our own.¡±


    The dimension of Dragon World, now Hell, was bing severed from all other dimensions. Any living that entered thisnd of the dead would be unable to leave alive. That was why Rnd created a temporary ¡°Purgatory¡± which he named the ¡°Land of Spring¡±¨C this was a location where the living would be able to remain alive. Souls that had atoned for their crimes would be able to re-enter the Cycle of Reincarnation here.


    As for Heaven? Right now all that could be done was to send a few of the Ayer Faction Gods with nothing to do into Heaven. Rnd¡¯s Heaven would have nothing to do for a long time toe, but he figured he might as well write it down into the contract with the Titans.


    ¡°¡®Yep, I¡¯m extorting you. Since you¡¯ve boarded my ship, you naturally need to work for me. What? You¡¯re saying that you didn¡¯t voluntarily board my ship? Sure, you can leave any time you want. The endless void wees you.¡¯ My, Rnd is such a terrible person,¡± Solo thought to himself.


    But unfortunately for Agus the Mind Reader, he was infuriated beyond belief but had no way to vent. Agus even began to smash his head into the ground. As someone prone to bearing grudges, he etched the name Rnd deep into his mind.


    The contract with the dragons was quite simr to the contract with the Titans. Yet, the contract with the dragons had even harsher conditions for them. But, when considering the disparity in power between dragons and Titans, if it wasn¡¯t for Rnd¡¯s interference, the Titans would have likely begun a ughter of the dragons already. And so, the dragons could only smile and swallow down their aggrievances while signing such an unfair contract.


    Solo finally heaved a sigh of relief at havingpleted the task given to him. That was when he saw meteors suddenly streaking through the sky, causing his heart to clench.


    Although this represented that the Gods of the Ayer Faction had arrived, this also represented aplete break from the Order Faction as well as the fact that the grand scheme had entered the critical junction. Sess or failure would all be determined here.


    ¡°It¡¯s time.¡±

 Chapter 450 - By the River Styx

    <h4>Chapter 450: By the River Styx</h4>


    <strong>Trantor:</strong> imperfectluck <strong>Editor:</strong> Pranav


    Low Gods, Mid Gods, High Gods, and Main Gods. It was unknown who came up with such a naming system to ssify the Gods¡¯ power levels, but this ssification system had been used for countless generations already.


    Yet, this ssification system was far too removed from mortals¡¯ daily lives. Mortals already viewed Gold rank individuals as grandmasters and treated Gold as their life¡¯s goal. Next was ¡°Legend¡± rank which would already be viewed as, well, a legend. The power levels after Legend were even more mythical to the mortals.


    Yet, ancient existences would view Legend rank as only the beginning. The so-called Saint rank only represented having just left the realm of mortals. Myth rank represented true foundational change after having ovee many difficulties, and SemiGod represented endless potential.


    The top-ranked Titans could only be ssified as SemiGod under this power level system. Yet, SemiGod was a power level with no upper limits. Even Main God level existences wouldn¡¯t dare to face the top-ranked Titans in singlebat. Any simr ancient powerful existences that were from the first generation typically ruled over a dimension of their own, preferring to remain as hermits, or even slept in hibernation. This was the foundational reason why there were so many forbidden districts in the mortal ne and other nes. There was even a female Supreme Immemorial Dragon that directly went to the Chaos Abyss and took over ayer to rule as the lord there. The Chaos Abyss didn¡¯t even give her any trouble for it.


    It could be said that the price for having a famous reputation was that it was easy to be dragged into the Holy War that would ur once every one or two millenniums. Any powerful ancient existence with high intelligence would prefer to remain as a hermit instead. And, these existences¡¯ power levels would be impossible to assess by the current power level system used in this world.


    Dragons were physically powerful and skilled in magic as well. Elves were even more skilled at magic. Beastmen were highly skilled at pure physical fights. The Gods specialized in their Divine Concepts and knew how to cheat the dimensionalws of the world. There were countless strange and wondrous natural talent abilities and inheritances out in the world. Forcefully trying to separate everyone¡¯s power levels into ranks wasn¡¯t actually something meaningful.


    To be honest, the current so-called power levels was a system where the lower power levels were for the humans to improve their own potentials. The higher-ranked ones, especially the divine ones, were only there for the weak to look at. All those seemingly powerful ranks were only there to let the weak know where they belonged, that they shouldn¡¯t recklessly challenge the strong.


    Of course, the current power level system was suitable enough for the current generation of low magic. But, once this Holy War escted even further, liches would be everywhere and SemiGods would be asmon as dogs. The current power level system would naturally be meaningless, so a more appropriate power level assessment system would be necessary.


    But no matter what power level system there was, Main Gods would forever be at the very top of all lifeforms and existences. Rnd had been quite curious about this and even asked Ayer about it.


    ¡°Main Gods? There¡¯s no direct way to rank them. I suppose you could say that any God capable of easily shredding another God to death as if the other God was a piece of paper could be ssified as a Main God. The Main Gods all experienced countless eons to reach their current levels. It¡¯s quite difficult to kill them off even in the Holy War. Each Main God represents the history and umtion of an entire dimension.¡±


    There were seven Main God level existences in the Order Faction and fourteen Main God level existences in the Chaos Faction. ...But now, there were five Main God level existences in the Order Faction, thirteen Main God level existences in the Chaos Faction, and three Main God level existences in the new neutral (Hell) faction. Without counting the unknown number of ancient hermit existences in the world, these twenty-one Gods represented the strongest existences in the world. Not a single existence among them would be easy to deal with.


    The Lord of Putrefaction had conquered and destroyed countless dimensions. The Devil King led his tribe in betraying the will of the Chaos Abyss. War God Donatis had never been defeated once in battle throughout endless eons. Every single Main God possessed an uncountable number of legends about them and represented the peak of the world in both wisdom and power.


    Even Anslo, who appeared to be a second-rate Main God amongst the Main Gods, had the ¡°grand aplishment¡± of having destroyed the Gold Elves that ruled over his own elves. And if one looked at his recent actions, it was easy enough to see that he was actually quite sly and scheming.


    Anslo picked the best possible timing to betray the Order Faction. And now, the Silver Elves and his Moon Elves were in a vicious elven internal war. It would seem as if he wasn¡¯t even able to protect his own, an obviouspse of his guardian duty, but some things couldn¡¯t be judged only from the surface.


    Since Anslo had now joined the Chaos Faction, his Moon Elves would likely join the Chaos Faction together with him in order to avoid the wrath of Order, while the Silver Elves and other Elven Gods still remained with the Order Faction. Anslo and his Moon Elves would continue the elves¡¯ internal war regardless. For the short time being, other species would see no reason or need to interfere with the elves¡¯ internal war.


    Yep, this was the typical elven style ¨C betting on both sides while instantly betraying to join whoever seemed stronger. No matter who won or lost in the end, this way some elves would still be guaranteed to survive this Holy War. Of course, the prerequisite for this was that the ridiculous ending of Armageddon destroying the entire world wasn¡¯t brought about first.


    From a certain standpoint, Anslo was helpless in making such a decision. This current Holy War was different from the previous one where the elves were the ruling species. Humans were the current ruling species of this generation. No ¡°overthinking¡± was necessary as both humans and elves had the tradition of sending their ¡°trusted allies¡± to protect ¡°critically important defensive locations¡± (highly contested locations that would be okay to sacrifice) and to fight as the vanguards (cannon fodder). Plus, the Order Faction was at an obvious disadvantage in this Holy War, so sacrificial cannon fodder on the Order side would be even moremon.


    And, the elves¡¯ internal war was no act at all. No acting would possibly fool any God. The Silver and Moon Elves truly viewed each other as mortal enemies. No matter which elf species won the internal war, the victor would definitely be seriously injured as a whole.


    Anslo chose to sacrifice more than half of all elves in order to ensure the elves¡¯ survival in this Holy War. It could be seen that the Elf Main God was quite vicious and decisive, but this indicated even more that he had quite a negative view for the elves and Order Faction¡¯s potential in this Holy War.


    Apart from a certain Death God, there were basically no Main Gods that werepletely isted. And, the Death God who appeared to be isted had now revealed his own faction to the entire world.


    ¡°Ayer is special.¡±


    Yep, this was referring to Ayer. He was the most unique Main God of them all. Not only did he not have a clear Divine Concept that he had to adhere to, he didn¡¯t even have any followers or a species that he needed to guard. Alright, we all know that was only an illusion to fool the world, but the mortals always believed Ayer to be a lone individual who roamed the world. In the legends about him, Ayer was always ck-robed and brought death everywhere he went. Of course, this meant that the stories about him almost never ced him on the side of good.


    And, the most special thing about him was that Ayer didn¡¯t need to participate in the Holy War.


    That¡¯s right, Ayer didn¡¯t need to participate in the Holy War despite nominally belonging to the Order Faction. All other Order Main Gods would absolutely have to get involved, yet Ayer was always able to coldly watch from the sidelines as newly-ascended Gods killed each other. This meant that Ayer was always victorious in every Holy War, which newly-ascended Gods couldn¡¯tprehend. Yet, it was actually understandable if one analyzed what his true job was.


    ¡°Ayer is the Guardian of the Cycle of Reincarnation. He is eternally neutral.¡±


    Since some people would asionally be reckless enough to challenge Ayer at the River Styx (such as Rnd), Ayer had asionally used his powers to defend the River Styx. He was never one to intentionally conceal his power level, and all the most powerful Gods knew what his true job was. However, very few knew this next piece of information about him.


    ¡°Ayer is undefeatable.¡±


    This was no vague description like ¡°most powerful¡± or ¡°amazing¡±. Ayer could only be described as an existence that no other existence could face directly at all. This was a fact known by all the strongest Gods. Ayer would be undefeatable while at the River Styx.


    The reason? As an example, in the previous Holy War, two newly-ascended Main Gods of Order (Guardian Gods of Wood Elves and Silver Elves) believed that if they destroyed the River Styx, that would stop the unending flow of new demons and devils. The senior Gods that understood Ayer¡¯s true job tried to convince these two Gods to not go, but they ignored their seniors and brought numerous powerful Elf Gods to challenge the Death God. The end result wasplete annihtion under the Death God¡¯s sickle.


    From a certain standpoint, this unexpectedrge-scale death of Order Gods was a major reason why the previous Holy War had been so difficult for the Order Faction. The entire elf species and elf Divine Arts rapidly declined as well due to this reason.


    By the way, this was also why the elf kingdoms and Elf Gods hated undead so much. Yep, they were simply ming the undead because of Ayer. That was because even now, no elf or Elf God would dare to directly me Ayer.


    And that day on the River Styx, Ayer had only used a single ck rose to destroy the pack of Elf Gods.


    He simply gazed quietly at the ck rose which bloomed in his hand. When the ck petals finished falling, the River Styx¡¯s shores were now filled with divine corpses.


    Although Ayer obtained countless des of ¡°undefeatable¡± from this battle which wasn¡¯t a battle, his overly easy victory also caused many gazes of suspicion to be cast upon him. That was because the power level he disyed had been overwhelmingly ridiculous. If he wanted to enter the Holy War, no matter which side he chose to help, that side would likely win instantly.


    But, it was quite easy to infer why he was so powerful and undefeatable. All one had to do was analyze his true job and hisbat records of only fighting on the River Styx. It could be easily assumed that his ridiculous power was limited only to when he was defending the River Styx.


    And now, his own tribe and allies had all escaped to Hell. Ayer was standing by the River Styx when he met with familiar figures.


    The existence at the forefront was of course, a familiar being of pure light. His figure was created out of the light itself and appeared to have an endless amount of divine authority. This was yet another incarnation belonging to the God of Holy Light.


    It would seem that the Main God who was viewed as the strongest Main God of all, the God of Holy Light, was beingmanded by the Source of Order toe face off against the Main God who was viewed as undefeatable.


    And, the God of Holy Light hadn¡¯te alone. The divine might emanating from those around him indicated that even if the other Gods that came with him weren¡¯t Main Gods, they were at minimum all High Gods.

 Chapter 451 - Truth of the River Styx

    <h4>Chapter 451: Truth of the River Styx</h4>


    <strong>Trantor:</strong> imperfectluck <strong>Editor:</strong> Pranav


    Historians loved to use important events as bookmarks for the pages of history. In the spring of the year AD 1898, perhaps not a single historian could have predicted that the entire world would foundationally change. The number of important events that urred in this year and their overarching influences were so numerous that the historians could probably write several hundred volumes sufficient to pay their sries for the next few centuries.


    But if one analyzed all the events by tracing the course of history, the sequence of events was actually quite clear. In the year AD 1896, the Year of the Dragon, Wumianzhe ascending to Godhood was the very beginning. The previously inactive Ayer Faction finally began taking action. Various Gods¡¯ incarnations began to walk the mortal ne, as schemers and messengers walked all around the world. Rnd also came back to the surface at this time.


    The year AD 1897 was the Year of the Griffin. In this year, the entire world was in the calm before the storm. Rnd and others¡¯ activities helped the Nortnds to sessfully defend their homnd and be truly independent. The new Mist Alliance came to secret ords with And, Bardi, Xiluo, the Underground, and so on. This faction for oveing Armageddon (now the Hell Faction) had finally been born.


    The year AD 1898 was the Year of the Vulture. This was the year when the Holy War erupted full force, with countless incidents all urring at once. The dark clouds of warfare covered the skies, angels and demons forcefully descended to the mortal ne, Estrada sacrificed himself to prove that there was another way to interpret Holy Light, the elves¡¯ engaged in internal war and their Main God¡¯s betrayal made the elves¡¯ future appear rather dim. But, if one had to look for the greatest incident of all, that would be everything that happened at the River Styx. The direct consequences of this was that the former year naming system of AD was abandoned. The new era started over with the year naming system of FT.


    The year AD 1898, the Year of the Vulture,ter became known as the year FT 1, Year of the ck Rat. By the River Styx, when the white-robed young-appearing individual finally received the guests he had been waiting for, he still didn¡¯t lift his head to look at them.


    ¡°...I never expected that we would truly achieve this step.¡±


    Even Ayer himself never expected that this step could finally be achieved. At the current moment, he had undoubtedly be the enemy of the entire world.


    Unfortunately for him, the Gods that came to visit weren¡¯t going to give him time to reminisce on the past.


    A pair of twin sisters walked over while smiling. The older sister walking in front resembled an elf with portions of her body being entwined with wood. Her gray skirt was also made of wood fibers, and her green hair was the color of tree leaves. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that there were no wood spirits that had the appearance of adult females, her aura of nature would make her seem just like an older wood spirit.


    While the older sister resembled a wood spirit, her younger sister was hoofed and ran about happily on all fours, as if she was a wild centaur.


    The Goddesses of Joy and Laughter were the descendants of the now-deceased Main God of Nature. Although they only possessed part of their powerful ancestor¡¯s Divine Concepts, they were still powerful High Gods.


    These twin sisters were the caretakers of nature, as well as the guardians and allies of some druids. Although the Goddesses of Joy and Laughter rarely participated in the mortal ne¡¯s affairs, they had a huge amount of connections. Since there were already Elf Gods, the twin sisters weren¡¯t the Guardian Gods of the Elves, but they had the job of protecting the forest. Many higher-ups in their church were Wood Elves.


    Another God that came to visit was a red-nosed dwarf whose silver hair was filled with dirt and dust. There was also a ck smithing hammer on his back.


    This was Dunder, the God of Smithing and Dwarves. Although he was only a High God rather than a Main God, he was the leader of the Dwarf Gods, and had countless allies and resources as well.


    The nature faction and dwarf faction¡¯s highest leaders had arrived. From a certain standpoint, these three Gods also represented another two factions within the Order Faction. And, these two factions were typically more moderate and peaceful.


    It was impossible to fool Ayer¡¯s senses. He knew that the four Gods before him were all only incarnations. He could only shake his head at the situation.


    ¡°...It¡¯s such a pity. The God of Holy Light only sent an incarnation. Did the other Gods all realize everything already?¡±


    Although hunters were expected, the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation was the only Main God that arrived at the River Styx from the Order Faction. The God of Holy Light himself didn¡¯t use his true body to take action anywhere. It was unknown what he was nning.


    The other remaining four Order Main God existences didn¡¯t even send their incarnations. Obviously, they already knew about Ayer¡¯s undefeatable abilities and didn¡¯t intend on wasting their divine power ormitting suicide bying here, either in an incarnation or in their true bodies.


    ¡°Of course, this old man isn¡¯t here to die. The three of us are here to greet you and see you off. Right, I¡¯ll have to ask you to take good care of the little girl in my family.¡±


    The Dwarf God spoke quite directly. The Dwarf Goddess under him, Mary the Goddess of Hammers and Alcohol Barrels, the Guardian Goddess of the Shield Dwarves, was one of Ayer¡¯s staunchest supporters. In a way, she also acted as the connection between the Dwarf Gods and Ayer. And now that Mary had chosen to directly enter Hell, the fact that there were other Order Gods not directly in the Ayer Faction that were still friendly towards their cause had finally been revealed.


    ¡°Mister Ayer, we sisters have been under your care for so long.¡±


    ¡°Mister, Mister!¡±


    The Goddesses of Joy and Laughter brought their smiles with them. The older sister waved her handkerchief at Ayer, while the younger sister joyfully ran around everywhere. But no matter how one looked at it, it seemed as if they were seeing Ayer off for the final time.


    This was why Ayer had sighed and said that things were ¡°such a pity¡±¨C not a single enemy God had sent even an incarnation here to deal with him, apart from the God of Holy Light under the Source of Order¡¯s orders. But, this was something that was already expected because the fact that ¡°Ayer is undefeatable on the River Styx¡± was known by too many already. Thus, Ayer wasn¡¯t too anxious about this.


    That¡¯s right, Ayer was indeed undefeatable on the River Styx. This was a fact. This was already a basic concept of reality that had been written into the dimensional rules. And, as long as the Source of Order still possessed basic logical reasoning capabilities, even it wouldn¡¯t force the Order Main Gods to alle here in suicidal fashion.


    Ayer¡¯s undefeatable abilities had a price to them. Just like the other Order True Gods, while he had power over his Divine Concepts, he was also restricted by the same Divine Concepts.


    As the very first undead who broke the boundaries between life and death, he was loathed by Order. And since Ayer also lost the living¡¯s most basic ability to evolve as well as losing all desires, he became an undead that was unable to change anymore. Naturally, Chaos also disliked him.


    The current undead were in the same situation. Order viewed undead as mortal enemies, yet Chaos viewed undead as nothing more than slightly useful cannon fodder. The undead were stuck between a rock and a hard ce with the two major factions. And, the dimensionalws would always be hard on the undead, making things even worse for them.


    However, the fact that neither Order nor Chaos liked Ayer represented something else ¨C he was a third party that both were willing to ept. And so, the important job of guarding the River Styx was tossed over to Ayer. That was because neither faction would be able to rest assured if the River Styx fell under the control of the other faction.


    The River Styx was quite different from its counterpart, the Heaven¡¯s Pir. The Heaven¡¯s Pir was a path that didn¡¯t truly exist. Rather than calling it a path to Divine Kingdoms with the God¡¯s permission after having worshipped a True God, this was more like a naturalw regarding souls that had reached the point of being ¡°harvestable¡± after being engraved with a God¡¯s imprint.


    Every single God¡¯s believer that obtained the recognition of the Divine Kingdom would receive a special imprint in their soul. This was a basic naturalw of the world. And, the closer one was to their God, the more apparent that imprint would be, and the more of that God¡¯s attention he or she would receive. In fact, some would even be the God¡¯s living representative in the mortal ne, and be a heroic spirit after death.


    However, the River Styx was different. The River Styx was a path of Chaos, so how could it possibly have something like ¡°rules¡±?


    This river passed through countless nes, but most would be the lower nes belonging to the Chaos Faction. All souls that weren¡¯t guided by the Order Gods would fall into the River Styx. And whenever these souls were attracted by the ¡°Order¡± of some chaotic ne, they would crawl up and be new lives. But since they crawled ashore in the lower nes, they would naturally be new residents of those nes ¨C demons and devils.


    It could be said that the River Styx was the birthing grounds for new demons and devils. However, nobody knew just how many souls were contained within the River Styx. No matter when you looked at this river, one would be able to see that it waspletely filled with souls.


    However, very few existences knew that the River Styx even passed through some of the upper nes. It was just that in the upper nes, the River Styx would appear to be as beautiful as the glorious gxy itself, or even appear to be a rainbow bridge. Back when Ayer brought Rnd to the Underground, the River Styx had even appeared in the underground rivers in the caverns.


    And if the Order Divine Kingdoms didn¡¯t ¡°harvest¡± enough souls, causing arge imbnce between the total number of souls on the Order and Chaos Factions, the upper nes¡¯ dimensionalws would be slightly modified so that souls were more easily attracted to Heaven¡¯s Pir and the Divine Kingdoms. The creatures of Order would undergo a poption boom. And if the overall poption of Order became too high, the demons and devils¡¯ rate of birth would also be secretly increased.


    Crawling out of the River Styx represented a nk soul¡¯s new life after having undergone reincarnation. Naturally, this nk soul could be an angel or a devil.


    Of course, this was something that no mortal would be allowed to learn about. Not only would this affect the believers¡¯ faith if they learned that angels were born in a method identical to demons, just the fact that it was possible to enter Divine Kingdoms without going through a church would make it quite difficult for any church to collect donations for ¡°the people¡¯s salvation.¡±


    Actually, not only did the mortal Rnd not know about the River Styx¡¯s true functions, not a single one of the newly-ascended Gods from the recent generation knew about this second use of the River Styx.


    What people believed was that as long as the River Styx wasn¡¯t stopped, demons and devils would forever be endlessly born. The Chaos Abyss would have an endless amount ofbat potential because of this. And, it also had the hidden role of bncing the power between the two major factions. Not only that, the River Styx was the soul harvester in all Holy Wars, so it could be said that the River Styx was the most critical part of the Cycle of Reincarnation... as well as the weakest part!


    That was because the River Styx was far, far too long, passing through so many nes. Although the River Styx itself was already highly dangerous, as long as part of the river was blocked at a single location, that would naturally cause a problem with the entire river. That was why the River Styx needed a guardian ¨C a guardian that both major factions would be willing to ept.


    And so, Ayer became a part of the River Styx and the Cycle of Reincarnation. As long as any individual possessed the possibility of harming the River Styx or the Cycle of Reincarnation, Ayer¡¯s true body would instantly teleport to that individual¡¯s location. And, Ayer would then be buffed by the powers of the River Styx, Order, and Chaos into bing the most terrifyingly powerful existence in the world. All the Order Main Gods in the past that had attempted to destroy the River Styx used their lives to prove just how powerful Ayer was.


    That was also why Rnd had to die on the River Styx. Those who tried to harm the River Styx would be forced to fall into the River Styx. This was one of the most basic dimensional rules of this world. It was part of Ayer¡¯s Concept that he would be forced to carry out.


    ¡°There¡¯s a problem with your n.¡±


    ¡°Yep, a huge problem. My entire scheme will be nothing more than empty air if this problem isn¡¯t solved.¡±


    Back on that day at the River Styx, both Ayer and Rnd knew what problem there was with Rnd¡¯s scheme. Still, they knew what it meant and didn¡¯t go any further into this.


    That¡¯s right, the problem with Rnd¡¯s scheme was with Ayer, the Guardian of the River Styx. If Rnd wanted to create a new Cycle of Reincarnation, of course he would need to destroy the former Cycle of Reincarnation so that souls could enter the new Cycle of Reincarnation. Otherwise, everything would be nothing more than empty air.


    Yet, it was obviously impossible to defeat Ayer, the Guardian of the River Styx, who was undefeatable on the River Styx. At the very least, Rnd found it impossible. Back then, he didn¡¯t have anything even close to a Main God¡¯sbat strength. Not to mention, not even multiple Main Gods would evene close to being able to face Ayer on the River Styx. Ayer was being powered by the entire Cycle of Reincarnation!


    And so, Rnd came up with a ridiculous idea at the time. If he wanted to stop the Cycle of Reincarnation, he would need to defeat Ayer the undefeatable. Yet, defeating Ayer was an absolutely necessary part of stopping the Cycle of Reincarnation. This was obviously a dead end with no solutions.


    ¡°Okay, if I can¡¯t defeat him, why don¡¯t I try talking to him?¡±


    And so, Rnd intentionally went to visit Ayer at the River Styx. In order to realize this ¡°ridiculous¡± scheme, Rnd would absolutely have to obtain Ayer¡¯s recognition. Rnd would have to convince Ayer to no longer carry out his duties as the Guardian of the River Styx. And, asking a God to give up on, and even destroy one¡¯s own Concept, was the equivalent of...


    ¡°Is it time? Yes. It¡¯s finally time for this River Styx that¡¯s as ancient as the world itself to change. It¡¯s time for everything to have a new beginning.¡±

 Chapter 452 - Choice

    Chapter 452: Choice


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav


    The petals of a ck rose fluttered with the wind, falling with the fading golden glow.


    In just a single instant, the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation died, even though this was a powerful incarnation with a Main God¡¯s power level.


    The snow-white-robed Ayer simply sat there in his rowboat on the River Styx. This scene appeared mysteriously poetic, making one feel the sadness of passing time.


    The River Styx continued to quietly flow, just as it always had for countless years. At that time, right after the mortal ne of Eich was created, Creator Goddess Eich left her two daughters behind and thenpletely vanished.


    Once this new world waspletely formed, an ¡°ecosystem¡± with the mortal ne at its core was naturally formed as well.


    If I had to use an analogy, this was like the Sr System from my original world. The mortal ne was like Earth, being the location that was most suitable for lifeforms to live and reproduce on. All other dimensions, such as the Elemental nes, upper nes, lower nes, and so on, were simr to others andary bodies like the moon, Mars, and so on.


    Of course, the core of this new ecosystem was the most useful currency in all the nes ¨C souls.


    Unlike the Sr System that was all one dimension, when numerous dimensions became intricately connected to a certain extent, dimensional walls would evolve and harden to the point ofpletely blocking off attempts to spy and observe from other dimensions. Apart from dimensional will-level existences, few would be able to influence other dimensions.


    However, the newly-born mortal ne possessed an unending treasure trove of new dimensionalws and soul resources. Souls were the best currency in all the nes, while dimensionalws were an important resource for strengthening other dimensions. This newly-born mortal ne that didn¡¯t possess any dimensionalws or a dimensional will was just like a newly assembledputer built by a novice which went online for the first time without a firewall. Countless dimensional invaders and conquerors instantly swarmed to possess the mortal ne for themselves.


    This was something that was destined to ur to all newly-born dimensions. In fact, dimensional merchants even came up with a term for this, ¡°Dimensional baptism.¡±


    ¡°Only by surviving the baptism will the dimension be able to evolve its own mature dimensional walls. If it doesn¡¯t survive... the dimension will naturally be nutrition for other dimensions.¡±


    In the very first generation on Eich, the mortal ne¡¯s abundant resources and weak dimensionalws attracted countless invaders. However, thanks to the hard efforts of the Goddesses of Chaos and Order as well as the Gold Species, the mortal ne of Eich managed to survive through the most difficult time of being a newly-born dimension.


    And, the power of the invaders caused countless Gold Species to go exist. This was the foundational reason why both the Goddesses of Chaos and Order sought to have a highly effective society with powerful individuals. This was simply an instinctive response to having the society¡¯s lives being threatened.


    In ¡°Eich¡¯s Seven Cmities¡± from the game, it should be remembered that there was a certain cmity between the ¡°Fourth Cmity: Demons¡¯ Return¡± and ¡°Sixth Cmity: Chaotic Warfare amongst the Gods¡±. That would be the ¡°Fifth Cmity: Dimensional Invasion¡±. But actually, this was only some ¡°seeds¡± left behind from eons ago being revived, as these revived individuals began summoning their own species. Yet, these dimensional invaders would bring about far greater trouble and cmity than even the demons.


    From a certain standpoint, these ¡°suddenly revived seeds¡± were meant by the game developers to remind the ¡°game yers¡± and ¡°Gods¡± to not forget about their existence.


    Yet, it was evident that nobody truly took the threat seriously. The Sixth Cmity was ssified as yet another normal part of the Holy War. The end result was that in the ¡°Seventh Cmity: Armageddon¡±, these dimensional invaders viciously made their presence known yet again. But this time, everything was over.


    The Seventh Cmity was the final ending.


    ¡°The Goddesses of Chaos and Order will revive and continue their ancient war from the first generation. All the Gods will directly begin fighting in the mortal ne, causing countless fissures in thend of Eich. An endless number of Dimensional Doors from other nes will open up as powerful species from other dimensions transform the mortal ne into an utter living hell. There¡¯s no so-called Eighth Cmity because the world has already been sliced up into several thousand pieces. Who would still be around for such a cmity?¡±


    It could be said that destroying the world of Eich was mostly because of the Goddesses of Chaos and Order. At the very least, since they were both half of the dimensional will of Eich, they were the most responsible for causing the destruction of the mortal ne¡¯s dimensional walls protecting it from dimensional invaders. Still, it couldn¡¯t be forgotten that it was also the fault of these invaders from other nes. They were just like dimensional locusts that would leave nothing behind.


    It could be said that unlike Rnd who only ¡°slightly¡± understood the overall situation, Ayer who had survived since the very first generation had seen far more of the big picture.


    Of course, Ayer already knew about the true identities of the so-called ¡°great precognitors¡± of the Order Faction that came before Rnd. The Armageddon that Rnd told Ayer about and the seemingly unreasonable ¡°dimensional invaders¡± gave Ayer a tremendous sense of danger. Rnd was limited to only worrying about Armageddon itself, so he wouldn¡¯t care what happened after the Seventh Cmity. Yet, Ayer saw a tremendous amount of danger.


    Ayer had never talked about this with anyone before. Nor was there any need to tell anyone. Ayer had already seen through everything. No matter which enemies came in the future, Rnd would simply face them. Some depressing statements would better be left unsaid.


    ¡°It¡¯s still the River Styx...¡±


    Back in the earliest generation, the River Styx originally carried countless hopes. It was the ce where souls returned to and were newly born. Although life in Eich was the most difficult in that time, the overall constant increase in the total number of souls was the best evidence that this new ne was beginning to flourish.


    Rather than the four elements, souls were the most basic and important resource in any ne. Souls could be powerful individuals or provide the power of belief. A sufficient number of souls was a measure by which a dimension was healthy or not.


    And, only Ayer knew that over the recent years, the River Styx¡¯s total number of souls had gradually yet constantly been decreasing, and that the mortal ne¡¯s dimensional walls had constantly been weakening. This was the best evidence that Rnd¡¯s prophecy was likely to be real.


    The reason for this? There could be no other exnation for this other than the two ¡°dimensional will¡± sisters that were getting ever closer to waking up, meaning that their appetites constantly increased as they ravenously devoured soul shards to help wake themselves up.


    Ayer felt very close to the Goddesses of Chaos and Order. But this time, he felt that they were in the wrong.


    ¡°...Mortals aren¡¯t beasts to be trained and raised. Even if they are the parents that gave birth to us, they don¡¯t have the right to turn us into their soul food. No, if they truly were parents worthy of respect, how could they possibly give such a cruel order? There¡¯s no worthy parent who doesn¡¯t love their own children!¡±


    Ayer recalled Rnd¡¯s angry roars as if he was right next to Ayer. While ying with the ck rose in his hand, Ayer couldn¡¯t help but recall the oath that Rnd swore at the River Styx, a soul oath that Rnd had carved deep into his soul.


    ¡°...I swear that I shall bear any crime and distort karma in order to change fate so that the mortals may survive this cmity!¡±


    Finally, Ayer raised his head.


    ¡°Alright, Rnd. I¡¯ll believe in you this time. I¡¯m gambling everything on you, so you absolutely cant let me down.¡±


    The ck rose¡¯s petals began to fall. Ayer watched with head tilted as the petals were blown away into the air. Sunlight actually shone into the deep abyss. Ayer, who typically always had an icy expression, paused in surprise for a moment before revealing a rare smile.


    ¡°I bet that my hometown, the Sanri Mountains, will be having a wonderfully clear day tomorrow again. I should have paid a visit there first...¡±


    When the final rose petal was blown away by the wind, the river was covered with floating rose petals. The entire River Styx suddenly stopped, and the rowboat on the river lost its rower. The rowboat simply stayed still on the river.


    Ayer¡¯s final words that he spoke to the world was actually an unimportantint. Perhaps it was his dissatisfaction that he had kept bottled up for eons already.


    ¡°Mother Goddess (Goddess of Order), Sister Cynthia. Perhaps all of us were born because of you, but you don¡¯t have the right to have us die because of you. Perhaps mortal lives seem unimportant to you, yet they¡¯re working so hard to survive. The seemingly light weight of their souls is everything for them...¡±


    The River Styx¡¯s silence didn¡¯t continue for long. It then started moving again as the Dwarf God and the twin sister Nature Goddesses of Joy and Laughter observed. The River Styx started flowing in an abnormal direction, straight into the unknown void.


    Although the three Gods here to observe already knew that this would be the result, they and all the ancient existences were still shocked to their very cores to see the ancient and unchanging River Styx beginning to flow into the unknown void. The more ancient the existence, the more shocked the existence was.


    And, what shocked the ancient existences even more was that the white-robed Death God on the rowboat had transformed into nothing more than sand that was scattered in the wind. Right after that, the rowboat he left behind also flowed into the pitch-ck unknown void.


    At this moment, all lives stared in confusion at the sky. Although they didn¡¯t know what had happened, they instinctively felt sorrow and despair. The meteor that streaked through the sky, signifying a God¡¯s death, actually covered half of the entire sky.


    ¡°A God has died! The most ancient God has died! The Death God, the very representation of Death, has died!¡±


    What would happen, theoretically speaking, if the God of Law who represented Justice and Fairness started to break his ownws? What would happen if the God of Holy Light who represented Purity and Cleansing became tainted?


    Death.


    What would happen if the Goddess of Order chose topromise with Chaos? What would happen if the Goddess of Chaos decided to use numerous rules to restrict herself?


    Death.


    What would happen if the Death God who represented Death and Eternity decided to break the ¡°status quo¡± of the River Styx, to disturb the eternity of the Cycle of Reincarnation for the dead?


    Death.


    The undefeatable Death God was already part of the River Styx itself. He was a part of the Cycle of Reincarnation. And the moment that he acted to change the Cycle of Reincarnation, he became someone who was attempting to harm the Cycle of Reincarnation. And, he had the Divine Concept of Guardian of the Cycle of Reincarnation, which he would be forced to carry out ¨C an obvious contradiction. Under the power of this contradiction, ¡°deleting the contradiction¡± became the only possible solution.


    ¡°Please die for the sake of everyone¡¯s salvation.¡±


    The crazy lich Rnd who always joked around ridiculously actually had such a serious expression upon his first meeting with the Death God. Rnd lowered his head and requested Ayer to die.


    This was the first time in Rnd¡¯s life that he had ever lowered his head to someone, along with the only time.


    Rnd didn¡¯t lie to him. There would be no meaning to lying to Ayer.


    Rnd didn¡¯t praise him. Glory held no meaning to Ayer.


    Rnd didn¡¯t beg him. Other people¡¯s attitudes were meaningless to Ayer.


    Rnd didn¡¯t hesitate. That was because this was the only solution.


    Indeed, that was just how cruel reality was. This was the worst possible type of request to make.


    ¡°Please die for the sake of everyone.


    ¡°Please die so that we may survive.


    ¡°Please die so that the world you love will have a sliver of hope.¡±


    Invisible evil intentions transformed into the most vulgar of words. Even Rnd felt that he was far too vicious and selfish to ask someone else to die so that he may survive.


    But even if he could go back to this point in time, he would still make the same decision and speak the same words. That was because he had no other choice at all!


    Back at that time, Ayer hadn¡¯t responded. After that, the more that Rnd noticed that his scheme seemed likely to seed, the more Rnd started urging Ayer to choose death.


    Perhaps Ayer had made his choice already from the moment that he didn¡¯t choose to kill the lich that made such insane statements by the River Styx.


    ¡°It¡¯s time for the old Cycle of Reincarnation to begone...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s time! This is what we¡¯ve waited for our entire lives! The time for a new Cycle of Reincarnation to be created!¡±


    Ayer¡¯s final sigh echoed at the same time as Rnd¡¯s angry roar on the battlefield.


    Back in the world of Hell, the Dimensional Door which suddenly opened up, sending the River Styx pouring in was already the best indication of what had happened.


    Every single drop of the River Styx was directly absorbed into the newnd of the dead. This helped to transform Rnd¡¯s Soul World illusions into reality. The River Styx which would be the most vicious toxin for anything living was the nutrition that the new country of the dead needed the most.


    The dead started crawling out of the River Styx. This newly-born country of the dead had now be a part of the Cycle of Reincarnation after receiving the River Styx¡¯s nourishment. This newnd became more active as it became more real.


    Yet, Rnd¡¯s current situation wasn¡¯t all that good. Once his undead armies showed off theirpletely undying properties, all enemies¡¯ gazes settled directly on him.


    All the existences here knew that no matter how ridiculously powerful a Soul World¡¯s effects were, the entire Soul World would vanish the moment that the Soul World¡¯s controller died. And, no matter how powerful the current Hell was so far, it was still currently all part of Soul World.


    The God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation blocked the Devil King who was the Lord of Lies. On the chaotic battlefield, the Chaos Evil War God Donatis who swore to kill Rnd unhesitatingly charged directly at him.


    While the battle between the demons and devils still raged on, Donatis¡¯s charge directly tore a huge fissure through the battlefield. His greatsword was rapidly getting closer to Rnd.


    Yet, it was as if Rnd didn¡¯t even notice the approaching threat. He simply stood there quietly, looking at the white ice crystal floating in front of him.


    The white ice crystal was actually giving off a ck glow. This gem wasn¡¯t beautiful at all, yet it mysteriously managed to attract everyone¡¯s attention.


    This ice crystal had just arrived together with the waters of the River Styx. This ice crystal was the final foundational piece that Hell hadcked.


    Rnd opened the notebook in his hand, causing the other two ice crystals tucked into the pages to begin floating. The ice crystal that was water blue gave off a faint icy chill.


    ¡°Aylos. You had to die for your husband¡¯s revival.¡±


    I muttered that to myself as I recalleding to that decision when I sent such a message to Aylos. [TL note: yes, the narration suddenly goes from third to first person. Sorry if it¡¯s a bit jarring.]


    ¡°I really am a terrible person.¡±


    That was how I forced Aylos into her own death.


    Now, I could only smile bitterly as I lightly stroked the ice crystal which had been colored water blue with her soul. I felt that I was far too viinouspared to Aylos, who had been willing to sacrifice everything for her love.


    Right now, I was also currently holding the God Equipment Ocean Bottle, which I also received on the River Styx just now. It had been filled with the divine power of the Queen of Storms, and currently inside were furious waves as if the God inside was venting his anger and dissatisfaction.


    Another ice crystal floating in midair had a golden glow to it, as if it was a sun that dispelled the darkness around it. Yet, it wasn¡¯t as blinding as the light bulb in the sky.


    ¡°Estrada has to die, because the Holy Light requires salvation.¡±


    The ice crystal of Holy Light felt cold to the touch. Yet, there were no tears representing weakness in my eyes. The holy battle hammer on my back even faintly resonated, as if it was consoling me and telling me not to think too much into things.


    Of course, how would I dare to think too much about things right now? I had no time left.


    The Death God¡¯s soul contained far too much power of death. His white ice crystal had already been taintedpletely ck. In just a short few minutes, the crystal was already beginning to crack.


    Unlike the other souls, Ayer¡¯s soul was far too powerful for the container. I needed toplete my ceremony before the ice crystal broke.


    ¡°The mortals require salvation. The Cycle of Reincarnation must be ended. That¡¯s why Ayer must die.¡±


    These three ice crystals whirled around me as their three different colors began distorting this entire world. The prelude had now concluded. There had been too many sacrifices and losses along the way. It was now time toplete our ideal, it was now time to change the fate where everything would be destroyed! At the very least, it was time to make their sacrifices worthwhile!


    Imperceptibly, a silver-robed masked individual had arrived behind me. He had arrived here simultaneously with the other Ayer Faction Gods, yet had maintained an abnormal silence.


    Currently, this God wearing a faceless mask appeared to be trembling as if he wasughing maniacally.


    Faced with the Chaos War God¡¯s charge, he suddenly tore off his mask, revealing the face of a skeletal lich. The moment that he ascended to Godhood, that was the true appearance that he would have for eternity. All illusions were now transformed into reality.


    The final empty ice crystal floated in front of him, as my voice and his spoke in synchronicity. Our faces also became identical.


    ¡°All criminals shall be judged. All Divine Laws shall be the very dimensionalws of this world. That¡¯s why, Wumianzhe... Wumianzhe Rnd must die!¡±

 Chapter 453 - Four Elemental Towers

    Chapter 453: Four Elemental Towers


    Trantor: imperfectluck


    ¡°We deny Order...¡±


    The hurtling meteors didn¡¯t only bring our reinforcements. Breaking the Cycle of Reincarnation and having so many Order Gods betray the Order Faction on such arge-scale basis obviously antagonized the Source of Orderpletely. It was impossible for the Source of Order to let these traitors go so easily. Otherwise, the Order that it emphasized so much would lose all basic authority.


    ¡°We reject Chaos...¡±


    The distorted void brought even more messengers of despair. More avengers from the Chaos Abyss had arrived, as the will of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s angry roars shook the entire Chaos Abyss itself. Countless demons despaired as they were devoured by the Abyss itself.


    The River Styx¡¯s direction being changed would be a critical blow against the Chaos Faction. The Chaos Abyss would lose more than anyone. Even though the River Styx wouldn¡¯t dry up so quickly in such a short time, there would be a huge decrease in the production of new demons, the main fighting force for the Chaos Faction. Top-levelbat strength would also be permanently decreased every time a top-level individual died. Even if the will of the Chaos Abyss seeded in luring high-quality souls into the Abyss, the effectiveness would be much lowered without the River Styx¡¯s support. With the Chaos Faction¡¯s typical way of thinking, it would be inconceivable for them to simply let go of someone who earned such a deep grudge with them.


    Not long after the Hell Faction¡¯s Gods arrived, new Gods arrived to chase us down in Hell. But since Ayer had cut off this new ne from all the other nes, these Gods hunting us down would need to mentally prepare themselves to be unable to return anytime in the near future even if theypleted their masters¡¯ orders.


    ¡°...We shall create a Hell for the sake of mortal lives!¡±


    More urately, even if these Gods that just arrived defeated us here, they would likely be embroiled in decades or even centuries of warring here afterwards.


    Meteors and distorted dimensional tears brought even more hunters from the two major factions. There weren¡¯t many that came to hunt us down, since any lower-ranked Gods would be meaningless against the Hell Faction. So, every one of these new Gods that arrived were major personages.


    A white-robed old man arrived. He had a white beard that reached all the way to the ground, along with a kind and smiling expression. Rather than calling him a mage, he looked more like an old man that you¡¯dmonly find living next door.


    He was actually the Order Main God Kalumandas. His Divine Concepts included Wisdom, Libraries, Courage, Dawn, Sculptures, Craftsmanship, and so on. He was one of the most ancient former humans who had ascended to Godhood, ancient to the point where not a single individual remembered how he had ascended. It was said that Kalumandas was the only survivor of his prehistoric culture.


    If the Source of Order still had feelings, I felt that it would be hysterical right now. Even I didn¡¯t expect that it would send out yet another Order Main God toe and hunt me down, and that the Main God would actually be Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom.


    Kalumandas was one of the very few Gods who the mages would worship, although the mages¡¯ belief would still be rathercking. The mages would worship a God basically only to not fall into the River Styx after death. Still, the fact that Kalumandas had witches and mages¡¯ recognition was a good indication of his wisdom and open-mindedness. I truly didn¡¯t expect that Kalumandas woulde to hunt me down. No, I should correct myself by saying that I truly didn¡¯t expect the Source of Order to send yet another Main God here to hunt me down.


    That was because the Order Faction only had five Main God level existences left after Ayer and Anslo¡¯s betrayals. Since Kalumandas apparently descended here in his true body, how would the remaining four Order Main Gods possibly fight against the Chaos Faction that still had more than ten Chaos Main Gods?


    Logically speaking, since the Source of Order would only mechanically calcte benefits vs. losses, it should have allowed itself to take this hit and wait untilter for an opportunity to strike.


    But soon, when I saw two more demon Chaos Main Gods walked out of the distorted void, and how they even greeted Kalumandas in a friendly fashion, I understood everything that must have happened.


    ¡°We actually forced the Source of Order and the Chaos Abyss to directly negotiate with each other in order to deal with us? It seems that we¡¯ve done a good job here...¡±


    Obviously, the Source of Order was able to ept the loss of one Order Main God since the Chaos Faction sent another two Chaos Main Gods here, as none of these Main Gods would be returning anytime soon no matter what the result was. However, to have forced the Chaos Abyss... no, Cynthia to voluntarily ept such a bad deal, she must have been truly furious.


    I didn¡¯t know how sessfully Ayerpleted his task ofpletely changing the flow of the entire River Styx (very unlikely), but only changing the flow of part of the River Styx to here would sessfully destroy Cynthia¡¯s dream of being able to revive in this Holy War. It was only natural that she would bepletely infuriated.


    These two new abyssal visitors stunk of sulfur. Obviously, they were residents of the lower nes. It was quite easy to identify them based on their physical characteristics with how few Chaos Main Gods there were.


    The first was arge, rotting piece of meat with disgusting green fur and a stench that reminded me of a garbage disposal site. All sorts of strange decaying and rotting stenches covered his entire body. Although he was clearly a Demon Lord, it was impossible to identify anything on his body that resembled a face or limbs. It was even impossible to see any eyes on his body from which he could see others.


    ¡°Gaar, the Murky Nightmare. He¡¯s a Demon Lord who doesn¡¯t have a noble title, as well as the Demon Lord who¡¯s the closest to being truly undying. He was originally amon bloody byproduct of demons¡¯ internal warring, an amalgamation of half-dead demons and corpses, but he somehow managed to survive... Nobody knows how Garr sessfully became one of the strongest demons in existence. Simrly, nobody knows just how to kill him. In fact, nobody even knows if Gaar is capable of speech or if Gaar is truly alive.¡±


    Of course, I knew about who Gaar was. Gaar was the living definition of Chaos¡¯ evolution, yet he was loathed by the will of the Chaos Abyss to the point where he didn¡¯t even have a noble title. In fact, even his name of Gaar was just an onomatopoeia that represented disgust.


    At least the other Demon Lord was far more pleasing to look at whenpared to Gaar.


    He had just an ordinary demon¡¯s appearance. His demon wings, horns, and gray-ck body were quite muscr. His arms and legs all appeared ordinary. He had a normal greatsword on his back. Yet, I was unable to identify him instantly. Fortunately, Little Tias was acquainted with all the Chaos Main Gods.


    ¡°Sophocles the Deceiver. He¡¯s the most difficult Demon Lord to understand. He loves to lure mortal heroes and powerful individuals into bing fallen. His favorite hobby is to arrange the most ironic tragedies of fate. I¡¯ve always felt that he¡¯s more befitting of the title ¡®Lord of Lies¡¯ than I am.¡±


    Alright then, that made it easy to identify this Demon Lord. Sophocles the Deceiver, who was also known to be skilled at art and music, would definitely rank in the top three in the mortal ne for how much damage he caused and how many people hated him.


    Sophocles¡¯ most famous aplishment was how he managed to establish a church in the mortal ne which worshipped his own incarnation to the point where even his incarnation was dered as a God. A Demon Lord sessfully passed himself off as an Order God and even fooled several other True Gods into allying with him? This was something that caused the Order Faction to greatly lose face. Even today, Sophocles and his believers were one of the top mortal enemies of the Gods¡¯ Churches.


    But, considering the fact that demons weren¡¯t truly able to use the power of belief to strengthen themselves, all this could aplish was to let him have some fun. Working so hard and spending so many resources all for the sake of fun? Should I say that it was to be expected of a Demon Lord?


    I never expected that such a dangerous existence would actually have such an ¡°ordinary¡± appearance. But, when considering the fact that he was capable of even deceiving True Gods, perhaps this type of appearance was more suitable for his ¡°deeds¡±.


    And now, a total of five Chaos Main Gods had arrived at this battlefield of Hell!


    Considering how arrogant and unwilling to listen to orders that Chaos Main Gods typically were, plus how selfish they would be in not wanting to take any personal risks without benefits, sending five of the Chaos Main Gods here was pretty much the full extent of Cynthia¡¯s power. On top of that, she probably had to pay a hefty price to the Chaos Main Gods for all this.


    ¡°In that case, the scale of the Holy War in the mortal ne will be greatly diminished? That¡¯s truly wonderful news... No, I can¡¯t be happy so early. It¡¯s not even time for the Gods to personally descend in the mortal ne. To the ordinary humans, just the low-level demons are already their worst nightmare.¡±


    Although I was facing the expected reprisal of the Chaos and Order Factions, even though I was facing two Order Main Gods and five Chaos Main Gods, I wasn¡¯t nervous or panicking right now at all. Rather, the feelings welling up within me were delight and excitement.


    ¡°This is exactly what I wanted. If we couldn¡¯t even attract the Chaos and Order Factions¡¯ attention and enmity, what worth would there be for our hard work and sacrifices...?¡± My enemies¡¯ strength only made me delighted. This wasn¡¯t because I was insane at all. We had all worked so hard to prepare for this moment, sacrificing so much along the way. How could we possibly be afraid of powerful opponents? Rather, since our enemies viewed us with such importance and enmity, this was the best proof that we were on the correct path.


    Currently, the Chaos War God was right before me, yet he was forced back by silver chains. Four towers were now raising together, along with new dimensional walls that represented the birth of an entirely new world.


    That¡¯s right, there were now four towers. Three additional towers were rising next to the tall silver tower that I and Wumianzhe were standing on. The forbidden spell of Creation by the Four Elements was now fully activated.


    The white tower was the amalgamation of ice. This tower represented all the life in Hell. At the top of the tower was a statue of a Goddess which contained the former Water Elemental Goddess Aylos¡¯ soul crystal at the core. A white glow spread out which illuminated the residents of this new world, keeping all the dead residents of this world forever alive.


    The ck tower was the amalgamation of death and undeath. This tower represented all the souls in Hell. At the top of the tower was a crystal skull within Ayer¡¯s corpse. Ayer¡¯s ck soul crystal was glowing ominously and powering this world with death magic.


    The gold tower was the amalgamation of Holy Light. This tower represented the concept of Time in Hell. This was the only pure light in this world. Although the power of Holy Light was still gathering, Estrada¡¯s soul crystal was glowing with a light that represented salvation in a sculpture of antern-bearer.


    Only the silver tower under my feet had yet to be activated, so it appeared rather dim. But of course, this tower represented the final foundational fourth element for creating my world ¨C Law, which also represented Space.


    When using Creation by the Four Elements, these Four Elemental Towers would be the most critical foundational core. Every change would be controlled by these towers. And even in the ancient creation myths, the Four Elemental Towers had appeared as well in a form that people didn¡¯t know about.


    ¡°These are my version of the Elemental Thrones in the Elemental nes! Eich was truly and ridiculously powerful to have constructed such things. But, for me, these will be the strongest mage tower in the entire world!¡±


    That¡¯s right, the Four Elemental Thrones which would give birth to new Elemental Gods were no natural byproducts at all. They were relics left behind from Eich¡¯s creation of the world. They were a part of Creation by the Four Elements, and also acted as the bnce mechanism for the four elements in the mortal ne of Eich and the Four Elemental nes.


    How Elemental Gods were able to use Elemental Thrones to manipte the power of an entire Elemental ne was actually quite simr to how mages controlled the power of their mage towers. And right now, these Four Elemental Towers were just like natural mage towers that would provide me with an endless amount of power! How could I possibly be afraid of any opponent with their assistance!

 Chapter 454 - Three Layers

    Chapter 454: Three Layers


    Trantor: imperfectluck


    In the year FT 1, dawn of the new generation, the Chaos and Order Factions met a new challenger for the first time in the eternal Holy War. When the River Styx¡¯s waters of reincarnation started flowing towards an unknown dimension, the entire Cycle of Reincarnation had been broken.


    This was no vague statement. It meant that the Cycle of Reincarnation had concretely been broken. The River Styx¡¯s flow restrained all the souls within it, but once that restraint was broken, countless souls suddenly obtained freedom.


    Some of those who died in battle between the years FT 1 and FT 4 were the luckiest. The old Cycle of Reincarnation had been broken, and the new Cycle of Reincarnation was still immature. A few people were able to reincarnate without the River Styx as their souls directly formed into new lives without having their memories wiped. These individuals were able to begin new lives with their past lives¡¯ memories fully intact, meaning that they had a tremendous advantage from the very start.


    However, others that died in battle that year the unluckiest of all. Although the River Styx restrained the souls within it, it was also a mechanism for protecting the fragile soul that had lost its physical body and life. Without the River Styx¡¯s protection, powerfulherworld gusts would easily destroy the weaker souls. Only the most fortunate and most stubborn of souls were able to sessfully reincarnate, memories intact and all. Although it was impossible to calcte the sess rate of those who reincarnated with memories intact, when considering the tremendous number of deaths vs. the new poption born afterward, it had to be less than one percent.


    And even for the few that sessfully reincarnated, they obtained far too many memory fragments from the still immature Cycle of Reincarnation, which meant that most of them had to deal with chaotic memories and multiple personalities as a result. The few ¡°heaven-blessed¡± who retained their full sense of ¡°self¡± were less than ten percent of those who reincarnated sessfully.


    But since there was a bug in the system, there would always be those who benefited from such a bug. And of course, there were ¡°cheaters¡± who intentionally made use of such a bug in order to benefit.


    Those who acted the swiftest to take advantage of this bug was the Ayer Faction... I suppose I should call them the Hell Faction now. This was because this bug was something that we created intentionally in the first ce. With my typical habits, how could I possibly let go of such an excellent opportunity? Everything had been nned from the very start.


    The Halls of Valha that housed heroic spirits and God Envoys also fell down to Hell together with the Hell Faction¡¯s Divine Kingdoms. It was now time for these powerful heroic spirits to make their own choice as well. That was because Halls of Valha were a special byproduct of Order from the Source of Order. Without the Order Faction¡¯s support, it would be quite difficult for ordinary Gods to maintain heroic spirits.


    The heroic spirits had only two choices. One was to enter Hell together with the Divine Kingdom, be truly dead, and thus be a member of Hell. However, entering Hell was easy enough, but exiting would be quite difficult. The other choice would be to enter reincarnation by taking advantage of the immature new Cycle of Reincarnation.


    That¡¯s right, that¡¯s the loophole that I and our faction took advantage of. From a certain standpoint, heroic spirits were like a physical byproduct of the soul, as well as a ¡°special form¡± for dead spirits. Naturally, they could still be reincarnated if they wished.


    Unlike those who died naturally and had extremely low chances of preserving their memories fully intact, heroic spirits had far stronger souls. Their own heroic spirit bodies already had the ability to protect their soul from the Cycle of Reincarnation, so their reincarnation sess rate was one hundred percent.


    These newborns destined to grow up in the Holy War now possessed their former memories, experiences, and techniques as heroes. They now also once again possessed actual physical bodies with the power of evolution. As long as they didn¡¯t die on the way, they were destined to far seed their original power levels in their first lives.


    Of course, being reincarnated still meant starting over from the very beginning. There would still be problems such as the sh between the new and old personality. Before they ¡°awakened¡± into bing ¡°heroes¡±, they would still have a long path ahead of them before they matured. Yet, these heroic seedlings were now spread throughout the entire world, destined to sprout during this Holy War.


    ¡°...Perhaps this can finally make up for the fact that there are no game yers... who were the strongest army in thetter half of the Holy War. Just think about it, for ordinary mortals with such difficulties, perhaps your next-door neighbor¡¯s child is actually a famous former emperor or some great dragon and demon-ying hero. These mortals that became heroes have be mortals again, so they¡¯ll naturally fight again for the sake of the mortals¡¯ future. One hero is more than capable of protecting an entire town or changing the course of an entire battle. Each hero can lead an entire squadron. They¡¯ll be far more useful than heroic spirits, who can only act as fighters that are unable to improve their power level.¡±


    That was how I convinced the Gods of the Hell Faction to allow their own heroic spirits and God Envoys to choose for themselves. Most of the heroic spirits chose to enter reincarnation... the future generation would eventually call them the ¡°heaven-blessed¡± individuals.


    Although the other True Gods eventually learned about this loophole and attempted to have their heroic spirits take advantage of this loophole as well, the new Cycle of Reincarnation had matured already and fixed the loophole. Very few not from the Hell Faction seeded in abusing this loophole. This maneuver from the Hell Faction was destined to leave a great influence on history.


    That was because these heroes had already proved themselves in the past with their heroic deeds, rather than being ¡°game yer heroes¡± who could only grow through endless failures. Now that these heroes had a new chance at starting over again, they would be far superior to game yers who only received their strength through ¡°infinite lives with endless saving and loading¡±, in both willpower and personal ability.


    Just to give one example, if a dragonyer hero reincarnated, it would probably take only two decades before the dragons would have a huge problem to deal with. Each generation typically only had one hero, but this uing generation would have countless heroes in it. Some things were destined to change because of this.


    More than ten Divine Kingdoms descended into the new dimension of Hell. However, most of the Divine Kingdoms didn¡¯t enter Hell itself, but actually began to orbit the ne instead. That was because Hell was a country for the dead, so how could the living possibly survive within it?


    Once the new dimension of Hell fully matured, all existences not powerful enough to ignore dimensional wills would all instantly be transformed into the dead within Hell, including even all Gods not at the Main God level. If our Hell Faction Gods left their Divine Kingdoms within Hell, then the dimensionalw of death would invade their Divine Kingdoms and corrupt them with death.


    ¡°The Gods of the country of the dead can only be Gods that are already dead.¡±


    Of course, while most of the Hell Faction Gods chose to avoid bing the dead, there were a total of five Gods that voluntarily chose to be dead Guardian Gods of the new Hell.


    The God of Fate Catio already merged his entire Divine Kingdom into thend of Hell. As one of the top-ranked Gods in the Hell Faction, he made his choice to be one of the core members and elites of the new Hell.


    Mary, the Goddess of Shield Dwarves, also joined her Divine Kingdom together with Hell. She had made a promise to Ayer to be one of the Guardian Gods of Hell.


    Three other Gods also joined Hell as ording to their agreements to begin their new ¡°jobs¡±.


    As for the Hell Faction Gods who didn¡¯t join their Divine Kingdoms together with Hell, they were still going to be part of the divine Hell Faction. Of course, these Gods wouldn¡¯t belong only to Hell.


    As an extension on top of the ne of Hell, the other Gods¡¯ Divine Kingdoms were allbining to transform into a paradise in the void. This new Divine Kingdom would be the ¡°Heaven¡± ording to Wumianzhe¡¯s divinews, a paradise for the kind and innocent. The other Hell Faction Gods would be the Guardian Gods of the new Heaven.


    In between the newly-born Heaven and Hell was no longer a space as simple as the void. Part of the Ghostwind ins acted as the core where the first Titans and Supreme Immemorial Dragons from the first generation were now busily working. As existences capable of surviving even in the void, they were some of the strongest existences throughout all the nes. But right now, they were simply construction workers.


    Some of them were busily applying dimensional coordinates to the shattered ground, which would make it more convenient for stabilization and teleportation. Some of them were busily gathering dimensional shards together, while others were going through the void and creating new dimensional coordinates. Some were acting to protect the weaker, ordinary lifeforms. The Titans and dragons all worked hard for the sake of themselves and their own species¡¯ future.


    And after the new Heaven Gods settled down, the Titans and dragons would be going over there to assist as well.


    In my blueprint, this would be a triyered dimension. The top dimension would be Heaven, where the Heaven Gods and the kind and innocent would reside. The middle dimension would be my ¡°Land of Spring¡±, my equivalent of Purgatory where mortals and animals would reside while awaiting their next reincarnation. The Titans and dragons would be the guardians of the Land of Spring. And, the lowest dimension was naturally the most important one in my n, Hell.


    Under the influence of my Four Elemental Towers, the entire dimension was now rearranging and trisecting itself. However, if you measured the amount of nutrition that I gave Heaven and the Land of Spring as a unit of one, then the amount of nutrition I provided to Hell would be more than one hundred.


    That was because the other two dimensionalyers were only temporary add-ons to Hell so that the entirety of this Hell could begin to work as it was intended to. The true add-on for Hell would be the entire mortal ne of Eich, which meant that Hell¡¯s capabilities and energy level requirements would naturally have to be more than one hundred times more than Heaven and the Land of Spring. [TL note: so does this mean that Rnd feels that more than 100x the number of people will go to Hellpared to the Land of Spring (Purgatory) and Heavenbined...?]


    And now, arge amount of the River Styx had flowed within Hell, bringing along a countless number of souls. A new Cycle of Reincarnation would absolutely be required, and the entire system of Hell had to be activated now. None of us had any path of retreat.


    And, it was the same for our enemies. They also had no more path of retreat!


    The dimensional walls of Hell had now been established. Leaving this ne was now directly equivalent to jumping into the void. The rate of survival in the unknown void, even for Main Gods, would be less than 0.001%. And once Hell finished forming in its entirety, this entire world would embrace the dimensionalw of death. Although the Main God level existences would likely be able to remain alive in Hell despite the dimensionalw, it was a certainty that they would lose a significant amount of power by having to fight the dimensionalw. And, all of their subordinates and squadrons would absolutely die to the dimensionalw.


    Looking at it from the Chaos and Order Main Gods¡¯ standpoint, the best possible result for them would naturally be to destroy us all, after which they could take over this still iplete dimension. They would then wait for the two major factions to slowly locate this dimension in the void and provide them a path of return several decadester, and receive a hefty payment from the Source of Order or the will of the Chaos Abyss afterwards.


    And since these Main Gods were all willing toe here, they must have realized beforehand that it would be almost impossible for them to return. In that case, the only possible course of action for them was quite obvious ¨C whoever stood in the end would be victorious!


    Warhorns sounded as numerous Dimensional Doors sounded. However, this time it wasn¡¯t enemies that arrived.


    Heroic spirits started walking out of the Dimensional Doors. The ck tower of Death and the white tower of Ice were both glowing as the Hades Mist provided these ¡°dead spirits¡± with even more power. The gift of Ice also gave them powerful physical bodies.


    Indeed, the heroic spirits in the Hell Faction¡¯s Divine Kingdoms had two major choices they could choose from. One was to start over again after reincarnation, and the second was to appear like this and be a part of Hell. They would fight for the sake of the mortals¡¯ Heaven and Hell.


    It was now time to go all-out in the battle. The Hell Gods wouldn¡¯t possibly hold anything back here. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that they were busy stabilizing the new dimension of Heaven, they would have likely sent divine incarnations containing a majority of their power here, despite the fact that it would be impossible to get their incarnations back with the dimensionalw of death here.


    ¡°It would seem that this will be a difficult battle of attrition.¡±


    I was still rather dissatisfied with the three glowing towers before me, even if the ck and white towers were now ying the role of important strategic objectives.


    Even these strengthened heroic spirits would be dispatched by a single attack in front of Main God level existences. Even if they were capable of endlessly reviving... would endlessly reviving ants be capable of killing a tyrannosaurus rex?


    As for the gold tower of Holy Light, it was acting in the same capabilities as the concept of Time, one of the two most important dimensional coordinates which represented the order of existence for all existences living and nonliving... To use simpler phrasing, Time represented a one-track direction, the constant progress of all existences.


    People would grow old. Machines would age. It was impossible to turn time backwards. That was the impression that mortals had of the Concept of Time. No matter if mortals were happy or sad, their Time would always progress forward. And in the new dimension of Hell, Holy Light also represented this always forward-progressing direction.


    ¡°Our Holy Light is nowpletely separate from the God of Holy Light. Our Holy Light represents the Concept of Salvation.¡±


    That¡¯s right, that was the direction for Holy Light in Hell. Criminals and viins would be locked up and tortured in Hell. Yet, torturing them for eternity wasn¡¯t the final goal. The goal was for them to be punished a suitable amount for their crimes so that they, too, may receive salvation. Once an individual was punished sufficiently for their crimes while alive, that would wash away all their sins. Only then would they be able to enter the Cycle of Reincarnation after being cleansed of their sins. This would be a warning to all the living to do more kind acts and perform less heinous deeds.


    And, the result of the chosen direction for Holy Light in Hell was naturally that mortals and souls in Hell would all receive salvation. This was naturally the most important function of Hell, and it would have wondrous effects and uses after Hell formed in its entirety. But right now...


    ¡°No matter how bright you are, it¡¯s still useless.¡±


    On the current battlefield, this Holy Light of Salvation was basicallypletely useless against those Main God level existences! In fact, its cleansing properties weren¡¯t even as effective as therge light bulb incarnation not far away.


    ¡°It would seem that it will all depend on the Tower of Law.¡±


    This silver tower was still inactive, as if it was gathering energy. And only I knew that if ¡°Salvation¡± was Hell¡¯s direction and final goal, ¡°Law¡± would be the method to achieve this goal. It could be said that present everywhere in the future Hell would be and filled with Law.


    And, this Tower of Law that was about to be ignited would be the true core of the entirety of Hell.


    At the top of the Tower of Law, Wumianzhe had finallypleted his final preparations. Hell was about to start a new chapter.

 Chapter 456 - Ace

    Chapter 456: Ace


    Trantor: imperfectluck


    If one drew red spots on a map of Eich of all locations that were currently at war, perhaps the entire map would be drenched in red. The returned Great Demons, the Demon Lords that begun ughtering, the low-level angels that were just like war machines, the elves¡¯ cruel and bloody internal war, the human kingdoms¡¯ forever ongoing shes for benefits. Apart from the frozen Nortnds that still remained peaceful and quiet, the rest of the entire world was embroiled in bitter warfare.


    ¡°Ha, the so-called Holy War? It¡¯s truly addictive. Kings desire new territory, military officers want to use the heads of their enemies to obtain promotions and loot, merchants finally have an opportunity to sell off all the stock they¡¯ve been hoarding, and even that heroic-appearing young man desires to be a so-called hero, doesn¡¯t he...? The Holy War? Does it have any difference with past wars? Don¡¯t look at how the atmosphere seems so joyous now. Let¡¯s see just how many people can survive to the end of this Holy War.¡±


    With the Holy War currently ongoing, bards that sang ironic songs about warfare and those who predicted ominous forebodings were detested despite the fact that they saw the truth. Countless taverns and theaters were still performing epics praising past wars and legendary achievements, so such ¡°truth¡± was far too annoying for people to listen to.


    What few mortals knew was that right now, in a dimension currently unknown to the world, a battle to determine the fate of mortals was raging at this exact moment. Judging by this battle¡¯s cruelty and power, and what it represented, this was the true representation of the Holy War.


    ¡°Five Chaos Main Gods and two Order Main Gods. That¡¯s almost half of the total number of Main Gods in this entire world. That would seem rather difficult to deal with...¡±


    Countless Dimensional Doors kept opening up with the Main Gods forcing their troops to the battlefield of Hell. Both Chaos and Order¡¯s reinforcements were constantly arriving, even though this was destined to be a one-way ticket to death.


    Those embroiled in battling continued to fight, while those who weren¡¯t currently in battle were summoning additional allies as well as preparing for battle. Not only were they on guard against the dimensional will and Hell¡¯s forces, they were even more vignt against their own armies. That was because there were many grudges between the Main Gods, especially the demons that had grudges against each other which could be material for an endless amount of soap operas. Any demons that let their guard down might be killed off by their own side here, which would be an aggrieving way to die.


    Behind me, all Four Elemental Towers had now been lit up. My preparations were nearing their end. On top of the core tower, the Tower of Law, Wumianzhe was currently holding on to the Original Codex of Law as he loudly incanted the maxims of Law. What this God Equipment book gave him wasn¡¯t merely the first divinews.


    This Original Codex of Law had once been my notebook in which I recorded my ns andws for Law in. It imperceptibly evolved into a God Equipment which was the very representation of Law, as it represented the purest original source from which Law stemmed from. At this moment, another notebook was beginning tobine with the Original Codex of Law. This other notebook contained all the secrets of Hell... as it was my notebook that recorded the entirety of the Hell grand scheme.


    And now, these two notebooks werebining into one, as if it was dering that the God of Law would also be the ruler of Hell in the future.


    ¡°A new God Equipment has been born. It shall be known as... the Book of Hell!¡±


    Once that ck-covered thick book was opened up in the dark night of Hell, all secrets about it were revealed as all lifeforms instinctively learned of its existence and true name.


    The Book of Hell would be the core of Hell as well as the representation of the ruler of Hell.


    The Four Elemental Towers had finished transmitting my four elements. Creation by the Four Elements was fully developing as this entire dimension became aplete new dimension of its own. The newly born protective dimensional walls here were more than strong enough to withstand any Main God¡¯s challenge.


    Reaching this point where all Four Elemental Towers had sessfully awakened meant that the first two stages of our goal was nowplete. This chaotic battle which had been on the level of fighting in the streets and alleyways had now escted into a dimension-scale strategic battle. We were the rulers of this dimension, and these invading Main Gods were the enemies of our dimension.


    After Ayer made his choice, at most our Hell Faction would have two Main Gods¡¯ strength within it, and that woulde from two Devil Lords that both had overly specialized powers. Our overallbat strength was still obviously weak, so transforming gueri warfare into a much more advantageous castle defense battle was part of our preparations from the very start.


    ording to the basic rules of all dimensional battles, killing the ruler of a dimension would always be something difficult. Slowly invading a dimension and corrupting its dimensional rules, lowering its defenses, killing the dimension¡¯s Gods, and finally corrupting and killing the dimensional ruler, all in that order, would be the most basic ¡°rules¡± of how the game of dimensional invasions went. Demon Lords, the most experienced veterans of this game, would naturally know this better than anyone.


    From a certain standpoint, this battle could be viewed as a practice battle for the Hell Faction, as the mortal ne would eventually face many dimensional invaders...


    At this moment, all dimensional invaders were automatically rejected by the dimensional will. They would have to use a certain amount of power in order to maintain their existences here. The weaker demons were directly vaporized into dust as death mist began spreading.


    Since this was destined to be a long battle of attrition, the Demon Lords unhesitatingly summoned even more cannon fodder. They wouldn¡¯t be personally entering battle until they learned more about this dimension¡¯s potential traits and dimensionalws.


    <i>ng!</i>


    Alright then, I had spoken too soon. Even I inhaled a cold breath upon witnessing the greatsword that viciously swung against the dimensional walls in a hail of sparks.


    However, Donatis merely sent me a cold stare before he instantly flew back and retreated after finding out that his sudden ambush had failed.


    The facts had now proved that our predictions had been on point. For the short time being, these dimensional walls would more than suffice. So of course, I unhesitatingly focused on assisting Wumianzhe with his current task ¨C creating Hell.


    On that opened Book of Hell, the blueprint of Hell was already beginning to form into reality. The faint figures of Hell appearing above the book were identical to the blueprint within. The book was currently spread out to the table of contents which indicated the outline for the future vision of Hell.


    ¡°Four Pirs, Four Halls, and Seven Hells...¡±


    That¡¯s right, that was my future vision for Hell. There would be Four Pirs which represented my four elements, along with representing the four main Gods that would be the Pirs of Hell.


    Just as how the Elemental nes had their Elemental Gods, the Four Pir Gods of Hell were the four major controllers of Hell¡¯s four elements. They would be the very Pirs of Hell as well as the rulers of Hell. Wumianzhe, the representative God of the Pir of Law, was naturally one of these four Gods.


    No, I should say that Wumianzhe was actually the most important pir of all. Not only was he one of the Four Pir Gods, he would also be the Head of the Four Halls as well as the King of the Seven Hells. Wumianzhe would be the main ruler of Hell and the final judge who oversaw everything. His importance even exceeded that of Ayer¡¯s, who was the foundation for all the dead.


    I slowly walked over and lightly touched the silver mask on Wumianzhe¡¯s face. I felt rather strange inside, as from a certain standpoint, Wumianze was both a part of me as well as being my child (creation).


    And as the strangest creation that I made, I created him without any self-will or emotions so that he could remain forever just. Despite the fact that not having self-will meant that he shouldn¡¯t exist as a ¡°Concept¡±, he was also recognized and worshipped by the people of the world. Such a contradictory existence became thest one of my Seven Original Sins ¨C Wumianzhe, whose true identity was also Sloth.


    This was difficult to understand? Actually, even I didn¡¯t realize that I had unknowinglypleted this Original Sin of mine until my System told me recently.


    Just as I stated when I gave the wood spirits my blessings, my understanding of Sloth was that Sloth actually represented ¡°cold indifference¡± Even theziest of individuals would instantly be quite active when their life was in danger. Many times, seemingly slothful actions were foundationally because people felt that performing such actions were unimportant to them. In that case, the true meaning of Sloth was that Sloth was a type of selfish indifference which cked desires¡± and was ¡°emotionless¡±.


    Passionate people were always hard-working and loved to meddle in others¡¯ affairs. Indifferent individuals would always live only in their own worlds, using various excuses to cut themselves off from the world and interact with others as little as possible.


    The best representation of indifference, having no desires, and no emotions would naturally be Wumianzhe, who was absolutely just. Since he had no desires, he would never be biased in his decisions. Since he was emotionless, no matter how worthy the crime was ofpassion, the judgement and punishment would still be carried out ording to the letter of thew.


    Under a certain Goddess of Order¡¯s guidance, my split-off soul shard created the fairest God and judge of them all. And, this was also another evidence for my previous inference ¨C that ¡°Gods were actually another type of undead.¡±


    ¡°There are no coincidences in the world. There are only certainties? System, I¡¯m going to settle all ounts with you after this battle... Ha, take a good look at this ultimate move of mine, Karwenz! God¡¯s Descent!¡±


    Time was limited, so I couldn¡¯t be wasting time with my System right now. I angrily roared, causing my vision to suddenly transform strangely. Wumianzhe who had been incanting in front of the Book of Hell suddenly became myself.


    After the two of usbined into one, I was now wearing the silver judge¡¯s robe and Wumianzhe¡¯s silver mask. The weight of the gavel attached to my waist was quite nostalgic. This familiar appearance of the judge made me recall when I was still in the Underground. The main difference was that the scarily high amount of power of Law within me had far surpassed the realm of mortals.


    Indeed, we had nowbined. This perfect reverse God¡¯s descent was the ace I had prepared.


    If the entirety of Wumianzhe¡¯s strong divine power descended upon me, no matter how high our synchronicity would be, my physical body directly exploding would be the only possible result. That was the only possible oue due to the limits of a mortal¡¯s physical body as the vessel.


    ¡°Wumianzhe is overly powerful here and is unable to descend upon my body. However, I can perform a descent upon Wumianzhe¡¯s body!¡±


    Since a God¡¯s will was capable of suppressing a mortal¡¯s will and descending upon that person¡¯s body, in theory it would be also possible for a mortal to descend upon a God¡¯s body. But in any normal situation, the God would instinctively resist against this, causing any mortal¡¯s soul to be destroyed. However, ¡°Sloth¡± Wumianzhe didn¡¯t even have a self-will, and his soul wavelength was identical to mine, so of course we could create a perfect union.


    And so, I reversed the typical rules of God¡¯s Descent as my will descended upon Wumianzhe¡¯s body. Now that I had a sufficient amount of divine power supporting me, my Soul World continued to improve as the blueprint on the Book of Hell transformed into reality.


    I alone would be insufficient toplete the grand ceremony necessary to truly create the new dimension of Hell and grant new Concepts and Godhoods here. That was because my personal power level would be far too insufficient. Only Wumianzhe by himself would also be insufficient because he had no self-will at all. Only Wumianzhe Rnd in perfect union would possess the power to create Hell and assign new Concepts to the Hell Gods. This was the foundational reason that Wumianzhe needed to obtain a sufficient amount of divine power!


    This scene was impossible to conceal from others. Everyone witnessed the owner of the Hell Soul World massively increase in power, which naturally changed the entire world. The world which suddenly became more alive obviously caused my enemies to begin a panickymotion. As the Book of Hell continually powered up and the Main Gods panicked, my response was tough.


    ¡°This is only the beginning. You¡¯re all astonished already, my dear revered, strongest existences in all of Eich? You should know that you Main Gods are about to face Hell¡¯s highest-level God and dimensional ruler! This is a war, a war between two dimensions!¡±

 Chapter 457 - Wrath

    Chapter 457: Wrath


    Trantor: imperfectluck


    Chaos Evil God Donatis was rather hesitant as he stood in a patch of fog. Just one moment earlier, he had been standing on the battlefield, observing the enemy that he had sworn to kill. Yet at the next instant, he found himself lost in a patch of fog.


    ¡°He¡¯s able to forcefully change my location without my noticing?¡±


    Despite having experienced countless battles against powerful opponents throughout so many nes, this strange scene still somewhat confused Donatis. Even though his expression didn¡¯t change, he couldn¡¯t help but feel uneasy in his heart.


    The tactic of divide and conquer against more powerful opponents was quite amon strategy. It was quite obvious that he was now the divided one who was now alone.


    <i>ng!</i>


    Donatis didn¡¯t immediately act. Instead, he inserted his greatsword into the ground and appeared to close his eyes and enter a contemtive trance. He was actually using his uniquebat instincts to observe and sense this world which had be distorted even further.


    Donatis wasn¡¯t waiting for his own allied reinforcements. The fog had gotten even thicker to the point where it was impossible to even see his own fingers. But imperceptibly, the fog had be red and bloody.


    ¡°Asmo?¡±


    Donatis attempted to mentally contact Asmo, themander of all his heroic spirits. Asmo was a fallen hero who forever remained calm while giving wise and decisive opinions. Yet, Asmo didn¡¯t instantly respond as he always would. Instead, the only response that Donatis received was a strange roaring sound with limited intelligence.


    ¡°Ahh!!! Why can¡¯t I kill them all... Die, die! All of you go die!¡±


    Under a strange interference, his other heroic spirits also responded with nothing more than chaotic thoughts, as if they had all gone insane.


    Not only that, Donatis had lost the ability to sense the exact location of all his subordinates. Although he could clearly sense that they were nearby, he remained unable to see any of them or receive any coherent responses.


    Donatis was rather astonished at this situation. Unlike other Demon Lords that summoned expendable cannon fodder, War God Donatis would only respect true courageous warriors. It could be said that there wasn¡¯t a single weak existence in his heroic spirit army. All the weak ones would be culled out by the endless amount of battles.


    Not only that, Donatis only summoned the elite of the elite into this battlefield. Some of the more powerful ones would even have the power level of True Gods. How could these heroic spirits all be vanquished so easily?


    And, after the fallen heroic spirits entered this ne, they obtained the recognition of the dimensionalw as they were also dead. Not only were they strengthened by the aura of death here, the heroic spirits even gained the property of endless revival, just like their opponents. That was because this was supposed to be a country for the dead.


    Strengthening one¡¯s enemy sounded rather foolish? That was just how dimensionalws worked. The dimensionalws would limit specific targets and always have the same result. As long as conditions were met, there would be no difference.


    Unlike dimensionalws that could be manipted in other dimensions, Rnd created a dimensionalw of death in Hell that was even more ¡°rigid¡± than others, which also allowed this dimensionalw to have greater ¡°restraints¡± and ¡°adaptability¡±.


    ¡°Since the dimensionalw has been set, I would never allow it to be trampled on so easily. If Law can be adjusted because of someone¡¯s identity, status, or characteristics, then what makes us any different from the Gods¡¯ churches? Why would we need to exist?¡±¨C Rnd Mist.


    Donatis didn¡¯t feel reassured or relieved at all when his enemy appeared to foolishly strengthen Donatis¡¯s fallen heroic spirit army. That was because he knew that Soul Worlds represented what a person desired the most. Ever since Donatis entered this world, he could detect just how distorted and insane the dimensionalws here were. Being able to create such a Soul World was already the best evidence of Rnd¡¯s extremeness and insanity.


    And since willpower was capable of transforming into concrete strength, that meant extremists and the insane were the most difficult type to deal with in this world. Extremists¡¯ stubbornness would always create Soul Worlds with ridiculous restraints and effects, while it would be impossible to predict thews of an insane individual¡¯s Soul World.


    Still, doing nothing wouldn¡¯t be a solution to this predicament at all.


    Finally, Donatis chose to step forward. But, the moment that he took the first step, the entire world distorted around him yet again.


    ¡°...This... is... a battlefield!¡±


    That¡¯s right, this was a blood-red tundra that stretched for as far as the eye could see. Even thend had been drenched red with blood. Countless souls were currently fighting against each other here, including ghostly knights, butchers with vegetable knives, and undying heroic spirits. No matter how powerful, glorious, honorable, or what they believed in, they were nothing more than ordinary soldiers here.


    This was the most insane of battles where all souls lost their sense of reason. They were using sharp weapons to sh each other, or even tearing into each other with teeth and hands. They ripped off their own heads and innards to toss at each other. Their only thoughts were to tear apart the enemy before them. Every moment, a g and its holder would be shed to death. But the next instant, countless souls would revive and begin fighting again.


    At this battlefield, even the strongest of heroic spirits was no different from a butcher. Their originally clear eyes now contained nothing apart from distorted insanity and bloodthirst. In fact, Donatis witnessed some of his most powerful heroic spirits on all fours, tearing at each other as if they were wild dogs. No matter if these fallen heroic spirits had been venerated kings or glorious heroes in the past, they had be nothing more than raging beasts being controlled by wild, raw emotions.


    ¡°Asmo? Diboer? Kalii?¡±


    Donatis was rather hesitant to identify these figures with the fallen heroic spirits that he knew. However, the master¡¯s summons still received no response. These souls that had died multiple times and constantly revived here had already lost their most basic senses of logic and reason.


    At the end of the red mist, Rnd was currently standing there in his silver robe and mask, apparently enjoying the scene before him.


    ¡°A battle for the sake of justice? A Holy War for cleansing evil? A battle for the sake of survival space? Don¡¯t joke around. Since you all love to find so many excuses to fight, then let me give you a reason to fight each other here for all eternity, just like the wild beasts that you love to be.¡±


    When Rnd turned around, his holy robe of Law was glowing with the pure light of Law. Yet, the lich¡¯s vicious skeleton face was evillyughing maniacally. The insanity and distortion on Rnd¡¯s face caused even Donatis¡¯s expression to flicker.


    ¡°Wee to Hell. This is the first of the Seven Circles of Hell, the Bloodbath Inferno. Those who casually take the lives of others, love to ughter, participate in war, and revel in bloodthirst, yep, along with so-called heroes and outstanding talents, and anyone that participates in war and takes others¡¯ lives, no matter the reason, excuse, or identity, shall all fall into this Circle of Hell.¡±


    And when Rnd noticed Donatis looking at him, he suddenly bowed, filled with evil intentions, as if he was a friendly host.


    ¡°My venerated War God, please forgive me for the impolite greeting. But, I feel that as you¡¯re a War God who¡¯s the literal incarnation of War, this Bloodbath Inferno is the most appropriate ce to greet you at. Do you happen to like it? Or, perhaps you¡¯re not enjoying your subordinates¡¯ performance of fighting against each other? Or, perhaps you¡¯re intending to personally participate?¡±


    The silent War God didn¡¯t respond verbally. His greatsword which glowed with a murky ck attacked through all dimensional limitations, acting as his only response as always.


    However, his greatsword that was always able to pierce through even dimensions met with an opponent. A gigantic monster standing in the red mist blocked his greatsword.


    The red mist was blown away, revealing the identity of the beast in the fog. Even Donatis inhaled a cold breath at the sight.


    This beast was truly fearsome to behold. Its physical appearance was simr to Cerberuses, and its blood-red body was asrge as a mountain. Its gigantic back was on fire, as if it was a living volcano. One of its dog heads was currently biting on to the War God¡¯s greatsword.


    As if the dog was dissatisfied with its master¡¯s restrictions, its three heads were endlessly roaring and its blood-red bestial eyes were filled with cruel joy of the desire to ughter. Its limbs and tail were covered in the mes of Hell, while its toxic saliva directly corroded everything that came into contact with it.


    Not only that, this dog¡¯s other two heads were busy tearing and devouring other souls which were once venerated heroic spirits that it was now easily trampling upon. Although its master was restraining it, this incarnation of Wrath was still unable to stop itself from ughtering.


    ¡°Oh my, someone as frail as me is unsuited for direct battle. My little cutie will be ying with you ¨C my Little Bas...


    ¡°Bastian! Bastian the War Hound!¡±


    ¡°WOOF!¡±


    The gigantic hound¡¯s roar contained an endless amount of anger within it. Even in front of its master, this hound of Wrath that entered itsbat form was unable to restrain its infinite amount of anger.


    ¡°Alright then, I¡¯ll allow you since you requested it, Little Bas.¡±


    ¡°Call me Bastian!¡±


    ¡°Yep, Little Bas! I know, no need to emphasize.¡± ¡°...Fine, whatever.¡±


    In the end, the magic hound helplessly gave up on having Rnd call him Bastian instead of Little Bas. But despite this almostical disy, Donatis didn¡¯t dare to look down on his opponent. He already recognized this undead magical hound, but Bastian was now far different from before in terms of strength and imposing aura.


    ¡°He possesses the Concepts of Wrath, War, and ughter? He¡¯s at minimum a High God¡¯s level? So this is his Divine Kingdom...¡±


    Donatis could sense that this tremendous beast waspletelypatible with the dimensionalws of this location, as if this was the beast¡¯s Divine Kingdom. If this beast was the master of this Divine Kingdom, then naturally that meant Donatis was an invader who came uninvited into this Divine Kingdom.


    And, even Ayer would be unwilling to invade other Gods¡¯ Divine Kingdoms in ordinary circumstances, as invading another Divine Kingdom would be endlessly troublesome with a huge price to pay.


    As for Donatis, he considered the level of his opponent to have escted from troublesome to slightly dangerous.


    Rndughed upon seeing how the Chaos War God was bing ever more cautious.


    ¡°Allow me to reintroduce him to you. This is the Hell King of the First Circle of Hell, the Bloodbath Inferno, the Overseer of those whomit the crime of ughter, Hell¡¯s hound who represents Wrath and the Sin of War...¡±


    ¡°Bastian!¡±


    The furious magic hound roared out his own name before I could finish. No longer able to suppress his anger, he instantly started attacking. One head spat out raging mes, one spat out an icy chill, and one spat out death breath along with beginning to tear and bite. Even when facing a Chaos Main God, this incarnation of Wrath still chose to begin the battle.


    A stench and toxic mist started spreading. The inferno mes were more than powerful enough to destroy any soul. Even a God would tremble in front of the hound of Wrath¡¯s anger-filled attack.


    However, Bastian was facing no simple God. The gigantic dog, who was even taller than the War God, didn¡¯t even get close before a swing of Donatis¡¯s greatsword cut through Space itself.


    Shining thin trails continuously cut through Space where the greatsword sliced. The void could faintly be seen through the dimensional tears, but the next moment, the dimensional tears were instantly fixed.


    ¡°So what if you¡¯re a powerful God now? Countless souls have died to my sword already.¡±


    Donatis swung his greatsword again, tearing through Space once more. Bastian¡¯s body viciously crashed into the ground, creating a tremendous crater while also crushing an innumerable number of souls that were currently fighting.


    ¡°Ha, as expected of the undefeated Chaos War God. However, you¡¯d better not underestimate my Little...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Bastian!¡±


    The magic hound that was nothing more than scattered pieces of a corpse still angrily roared. And, the next instant, he stood up again as a magic hound that was evenrger than before. Not only that, his strength had increased by almost ten percent.


    The war hound of Wrath was currently twitching all over as his already ridiculous muscles strengthened even more. Even the inferno mes around his body became fiercer than earlier.


    Anger would make the magic hound even stronger, and the dead were unable to be deader in this ne of Hell. This dimensionalw was just as effective on the Hell Gods. When in Hell, how could the Gods of Hell, who were already dead, be any deader?


    If Donatis was unable to find a method to deal with this, Bastian would only be everrger and stronger through his anger. As Donatis was a War God who specialized mainly in only physical attacks, it seemed as if he had met the most troublesome opponent in his entire life.


    The next instant, the war hound charged at Donatis yet again. Although Bastian wasrger than earlier, his movements had be even more agile.


    The magic hound that had just died unhesitatingly challenged the Chaos War God yet again. And, perhaps the end result would still be the same, but what about ten times, one hundred times, or one thousand timester? Perhaps the undefeated Chaos War God would finally meet his first defeat and die here.


    ¡°Chaos War God? Ptui! If you strip away the reputation that was obtained through ughtering, doesn¡¯t that make you into a butcher and evil hound that¡¯s the same as me? Come, let us enjoy a fun fight.¡±

 Chapter 458 - Chess Match

    Chapter 458: Chess Match


    Trantor: imperfectluck


    There was a saying that the workings of the world were just like a game of chess. But if onepared the current situation in Eich to a chess match, then this would absolutely be a death match that would cause anyone to despair.


    Not doing anything would end in total destruction of everything in Armageddon. Resisting against this fate would end in Armageddon. Winning this Holy War would still end in Armageddon. Even if one wanted to escape, there were no possible directions to escape to. The existence which would cause the total annihtion of everything was even higher up than the strongest existences on both sides of the Holy War. This was such an unfunny joke that nobody would be able tough at.


    ¡°Is there really no solution?¡±


    Evidently, there would be no solution in all of Eich. This wasn¡¯t even a guess. This was an analysis based on the pure facts of reality.


    The two major factions of Chaos and Order which ruled the world would also end up destroying it. Since these two major factions possessed the great majority of all resources and all top-level strength, there would be zero chance of victory in their home turf.


    This was the equivalent of game yers trying to turn against the game masters (administrators) of a game. That would be the most foolish thing possible. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the two ¡°game masters¡± had already lost most of their ¡°administrator¡± privileges due to fighting amongst themselves, there likely wouldn¡¯t even be a way to resist.


    ¡°I¡¯m so unwilling, truly unwilling to ept this! How can this be the only possible ending no matter how hard I work?¡±


    If Rnd had been a native of Eich with the same ¡°cheat¡±, then he would have likely shaken his head and helplessly given up in the end when faced with this situation. That was because this was a world where the Gods were tangibly real. The myths about the Creator Goddess were well known to everyone. Having the creations disobey the creator was conceptually even more difficult than children disobeying their parents, not to mention that the possibility was basically zero from the very start.


    However, Rnd¡¯s identity as a transmigrator gave him the ability to think outside the box. He managed to find a solution when there was supposed to be none.


    ¡°Since it¡¯s impossible to aplish in the world of Eich, perhaps it¡¯ll be possible if I create a new world! At the very least, I can create a safe location to escape to, like an ark of sorts.¡±


    And that was the origin of the ¡°Hell¡¯s Ark¡± n. Even the first edition of the n had ¡°Ark¡± in its name because it was originally intended to only be a safe haven from which to avoid the uing Armageddon. But as Rnd gathered more and more pieces, the ¡°Hell¡± part of it finally became possible. Of course, if Rnd found that the Hell portion was still impossible in the end, he would have unhesitatingly reactivated the Ark part of the n.


    ¡°Pride? Honor? Why don¡¯t you try asking the billions of dead that will die in the uing Armageddon what meaning pride and honor have to them? Little brats, don¡¯t be foolish just because you¡¯re young. We¡¯re nothing more than a group of pitiful worms that are struggling just to stay alive. We¡¯re capable of doing anything just for the sake of survival.¡±


    Although Rnd kept talking about how there was no path of retreat, he had been preparing a path of retreat from the very start. In his ¡°n B¡± that he didn¡¯t wish to carry out, the new dimension of Hell would instead be a dimensional ark that would likely never have contact with the world of Eich again. But at the very least, Rnd would be able to save specimens of as many species as possible along with the people that were important to him.


    And that was why he decided to attempt at creating a world when he was in the Earth Elemental ne. That was basically a practice session for trying out his true ace card. Since he was in the distant Earth Elemental ne, it was highly unlikely that the Chaos and Order Factions would notice what he was doing. Ayer also personally acted to cut off the Earth Elemental ne, whichpletely removed the possibility of information leaking altogether.


    In fact, even Rnd¡¯s singlebat against Emordilorcan had been a type of practice as well.


    He used Frigidwinter Earth to cut off Emordilorcan¡¯s connection to the Earth Elemental ne. Rnd then sessfully defeated the undefeatable Earth Elemental God by using an otherworld weapon which didn¡¯t exist in Eich... did all of this seem familiar?


    That¡¯s right, the current Hell was also the same type of battlefield. Hell cut off the Main Gods from their own Divine Kingdoms and the mortal ne of Eich. Hell¡¯s unique dimensionalws and magical creatures would be weapons capable of fighting even against the Main Gods. No matter if you looked at basic strategy, foundational workings, or ourbat tactics, this current battle was nothing more than an escted version of the battle in the Earth Elemental ne.


    And if this type of battle was escted even further...


    ¡°I shall cut off the Goddesses of Chaos and Order¡¯s connections to Eich, strip them of their cheat-like powers, and kill them by using human-wave tactics!¡±


    Rnd had uttered such an insane statement back in the year. But as he increased in power, this actually seemed like less and less of a possibility. Yet if he was able to kill off one or two Main Gods here, that would mean that his ¡°n C¡± which would foundationally solve all the problems would doubtlessly be far superior to ¡°n A¡± which was simply to dy the two Goddesses from waking up for as long as possible. n A simply had too many uncontroble variables affecting it.


    What exactly was n C? Obviously, this was the ¡°Godying¡± n which the System had secretly cklisted.


    After paying an uncalctable price and nning for well over a century, gaining tiny advantages over time to break the dead-end situation, it was finally time to reveal all the cards.


    It could be said that this battle would directly decide the fate of the entire world.


    Hell had already been cut off from the mortal ne and all other nes. The new Cycle of Reincarnation that was beginning to establish itself here was providing this new dimension with a limitless amount of power. Every single moment, this newly-born dimension was expanding its area. And in the Seven Circles of Hell, which would be the core-most section of Hell, the Hell Kings were currently battling against the Main Gods.


    Hell Kings? The newly-born Hell was separated into the Four Pirs, Four Halls, and Seven Circles of Hell. Pirs meant pirs of support that were also the ruling Gods of Hell. The Four Halls would be the entire mechanism for running all of Hell, while the Seven Circles of Hell were naturally the location where souls would undergo Hell¡¯s punishments after death. And, the rulers of the Seven Circles were the Seven Original Sins who now became the Seven Hell Kings.


    If you treated Hell as a dimension analogous to the mortal ne of Eich, Hell absolutely fit all the criteria for being a main ne. Hell was independent, had a dimensional ruler, and its own four elements. The Seven Hell Kings would be existences equivalent to High Gods at the minimum with the power of their Concepts here. Plus, each Circle of Hell would additionally power them up even more, making them almost reach the level of being able to fight against Main Gods. Main God was the only rank left higher than High God, after all.


    ¡°...This doesn¡¯t seem in our favor.¡±


    Just as how there would be huge differences between SemiGods, that was only because there was no power level assessment system for those at SemiGod rank. The Main Gods that had umted so much knowledge and experience throughout the eons had long since surpassed the analysis possible of any normal power level system. Although it seemed as if they were only one rank above the High Gods, that was actually because there was far too limited a number of Main Gods, so there was no need to separate the ranks even further.


    The Chaos War God in fact didn¡¯t even originally have a Divine Concept rted to War. And as a Chaos Evil God, he didn¡¯t require any belief to begin with. It was just that his overwhelming power andbat aplishments along with his undefeated record all helped to attract countless fallen warriors who worshiped the strong. That was how his first Evil God Church began.


    It was basically the same for the Demon Lords. No matter what the reason was, they had all reached their current levels by fighting other demons ever since being born. To use amon term, they were the victors in a society where ¡°might was right.¡± But, precisely because of this, these sufficiently powerful individuals were able to break free from the Chaos Abyss¡¯s restraints and mostly be treated as almost equal-level existences.


    Actually, most Main God level existences had reached the peak slowly one step at a time. The Elf Main God Anslo was formerly the strongest Elf King in the past. The Order Main God of Wisdom Kalumandas had formerly been the strongest mage and schr in the world.


    Powerful individuals were typically pure and stubborn in their beliefs. Although power gained from belief in them would also bring benefits, this belief would also contain many impurities that would convey disadvantages.


    The God of Holy Light was a God who had ascended purely through the power of belief. Yet, he could even be considered a God who used ¡°wicked¡± ways, as he even specially raised other Gods to provide him with belief power in his Divine Kingdom. The price that he paid for being a God powered by belief was that hepletely lost his sense of self.


    But even if he didn¡¯t want to lose his sense of self, it would have been impossible for him to retain his sense of self due to the overwhelming amount of belief and faith in him. And so, his boss, the Source of Order, could now easily manipte this puppet that had no self will at all, just as how Rnd could easily manipte Wumianzhe. Of course, these were divine secrets that the great majority of Gods couldn¡¯t possibly know about.


    It was quite difficult to be a Main God. Their countless generations of experience and the River Styx¡¯s baptism created these extraordinary existences that couldn¡¯t be assessed. The repeated cruel Holy Wars were the best proving grounds of all. All that didn¡¯t meet the ¡°standards¡± had already been eliminated. Only the strongest of the top-level existences in all of Eich had been able to survive until today.


    ¡°...Three hundred and sixty-eight times.¡±


    In just slightly over one hour, Bastian had already died three hundred and sixty-eight times already. War God Donatis¡¯s breathing wasn¡¯t even slightly ruffled at this point in time.


    The magic hound of Wrath was now more than ten times his original size. His strength had multiplied by more than one hundred times already. Bastian¡¯s tremendous body would be more than capable of easily crushing Donatis under him. Yet, the only difference for the Chaos War God was that he was now using two sword swings instead of one to y Bastian every time. Since Donatis had created far too dimensional tears here, even the speed of fixing the dimensional tears had slowed by half.


    Donatis didn¡¯t hesitate at all. He simply kept swinging his sword. His pure physical might was unstoppable.


    ¡°He¡¯s too powerful. So he¡¯s the strongest warrior in the entire universe? The most undefeatable existence in direct confrontations?¡±


    I already heard from Ayer and Kamiltias about just how ridiculously strong the Main Gods were. I didn¡¯t n for being able to kill all the Main Gods that came here to begin with. I would be more than satisfied if I was able to kill even one or two Main Gods. If the rest were trapped here in battles of attrition, that would be more than an eptable result already.


    It was quitemon already that battles between Gods would take several centuries or more. It wouldn¡¯t be strange of battles between Main Gods took millennium. For existences like Main Gods, several years would pass by in the blink of an eye. As long as the dimension of Hell fully matured and its dimensional walls werepleted, it would be simple enough to forcefully kick them out of Hell.


    ¡°If we¡¯re able to kill two Main Gods here, then we¡¯ll activate n C, the Godying n. If not, we¡¯ll activate n A, the Sleeping Beauty n. The Goddesses of Chaos and Order can simply slumber until the world ends.¡±


    However, the Seven Hell Kings weren¡¯t doing well at all. Although they were all undying, most of them were at arge disadvantage.


    Although they were all dimensional rulers here, they were newly-ascended to their power level of High God. The dimension of Hell itself hadn¡¯t even fully matured yet, so the dimensional rules powering them would naturally still be insufficientpared to ancient Gods, not to mention that these were Main Gods.


    And, there were no idiots among the Main Gods. Naturally, they weren¡¯t simply wasting their time by continuously crushing their undying opponents over and over again. It would take them time to analyze the dimensionalws of this world. Once they finished their analyses, they would naturally know what they needed to do next.


    The dimensionalws here weren¡¯t that difficult at all. While I provided the blueprint, the true ¡°architects¡± were the Four Elemental Towers. These four towers were constantly replenishing and strengthening this new world. But, everything would cease to exist if the Main Gods simply destroyed the Four Elemental Towers. If that happened, the dimensional walls would be broken, and my Seven Hell Kings would naturally lose their abilities to be undying.


    The Tower of Holy Light which represented Salvation was also the door between the worlds of the living and the dead. Naturally, this tower was at the very top level of Hell, the closest location in Hell to the Land of Spring and Heaven. A very special guardian was protecting this tower, so I wasn¡¯t worried about that one at all.


    The Tower of Law which represented Judgement was deep underground, located at the source of the River Styx. This was where all the dead would receive judgement. This tower was also connected to the Seven Circles of Hell and the Four Halls. Since this tower was the true core of the entirety of Hell, this was the single most important location to keep safe.


    The Tower of Ice which represented Life was located in the Frozen Inferno, which was the Third Circle of Hell. It could be said that if this tower was lost, it would be a serious problem that would bring danger to the other two towers.


    The guardian of this tower was myself, as I was also the King of the Third Circle of Hell. And, the Main God that was brought here was my foolish younger twin brother.


    I didn¡¯t need to worry one bit about the Tower of Death which represented Death and the foundation of Hell itself. That was because even I didn¡¯t know where this tower was located. This ck tower had already vanishedpletely together with Ayer¡¯s corpse and soul crystal, but it was definitely somewhere within Hell.


    But if the other three towers were all destroyed, it would be all alone and lose its powers of invisibility.


    I was also unable to use that cheat-like ability to instantly teleport my enemies anymore. That was because it wasn¡¯t instant teleportation to begin with. I simply ssified the coordinates that each Main God was standing on as different parts of Hell using the powers of Creation. But now, Hell¡¯s basic blueprint had already been established, so I was naturally unable to do the same thing again to the Main Gods. In the end, everything would still depend on power.


    [...Rnd, I¡¯ve suddenly recalled a ssical anime from deep in your memories, Saint Seiya¡¯s Hell arc...]


    ¡°You don¡¯t say, I¡¯ve suddenly recalled it as well. The battle between Hell and the Gods? The situation really is quite simr. Still, I watched it so long ago. How am I supposed to remember the story of an anime I watched more than three hundred years ago? What was the final ending? Did justice win in the end?¡±


    [I recently reyed it in your memories. Since Saint Seiya is a shonen story, naturally justice won in the end.]


    ¡°Wonderful. That¡¯s a good sign for us.¡±


    [But, the problem is that we¡¯re the Hell Faction in this story, which is the antagonist side from Saint Seiya which was defeated so pitifully. It was the Goddess Athena¡¯s warriors that won in the end...]


    I was instantly rendered speechless, as I now recalled how the Hell God and Death Gods in Saint Seiya were all defeated by the Goddess¡¯s warriors. The Goddess Athena even personally stuck a spear into Hades, which was quite vicious.


    ¡°...You jinxer. Can¡¯t you reference some other anime instead?¡±


    [Sure, another arc of Saint Seiya.]


    ¡°Which arc? I¡¯ve forgotten all of them.¡±


    [The Poseidon arc!]


    ¡°What? There¡¯s no Death Gods and Hell Gods in that arc.¡±


    [But there are pirs! Seven of them! Yep, and also seven guardian generals, just like us. Although, all the generals were defeated and all the pirs were destroyed...]


    ¡°Can¡¯t you say something that¡¯s luckier or better for us?¡±


    [...Yep, the Goddess is with you. Go, undying cockroach! Am I using the right style now?]


    ¡°I¡¯m no abnormal creature like a hot-blooded cockroach! Those shonen story main character existences that were beaten half to deathst chapter but suddenly revive with full HP and explode with new power are so unscientific!¡±


    [But you really are undying, and personally carry the Goddess with you! Oh, so you¡¯re the legendary hot-blooded main character ¨C Sei...]


    ¡°If you dare to call me that name, I¡¯ll immediately take you to go on a gori sightseeing trip. Yep, together with Beifeng. You know exactly what you¡¯ll see next. Don¡¯t me me if you go blind...¡±


    [...]


    Astrya finally fell silent. Alright then, it would seem that even the Goddess of Order was afraid of this individual. So Beifeng was the real main character all along?


    However, her silence didn¡¯tst as long as I expected.


    [Are you inviting me on a date? You¡¯re even bringing along a wingman? So you were the shy type, eh?]


    Alright then, I was rendered speechless yet again. Just what had I done to Astrya! Give me that legendary elegant, gentle, and venerated Mother Goddess from the legends!

 Chapter 459 - Hell Dragons

    Chapter 459: Hell Dragons


    Trantor: imperfectluck


    There was no sunlight in the deeper levels of Hell. Yet, there was no worry that you wouldn¡¯t be able to see anything around you. That was because the dead wouldn¡¯t need eyes to see what was around them. Souls had true vision that could see the reality around them even if they didn¡¯t have physical light.


    In this pitch-ck world, if one closed their eyes and opened their heart, this world would show you its true form that shocked all the dimensional visitors.


    At every moment, this sunless pitch-cknd was trembling. However, this was no catastrophe, but rather the tempo of life. It was as if thend was a sleeping giant beast, with the trembles being the beast¡¯s breathing and heartbeat.


    That¡¯s right ¨C this world was alive. It was breathing, moving, and growing.


    When one first entered the doors of Hell, the endless River Styx would flow from the void just like Heaven¡¯s waters. Countless newborn souls would helplessly float within it. This was the source of the new Cycle of Reincarnation.


    And at a turn in the river, the fast-flowing River Styx actually stopped. This shore was constantly bombarded by blizzards, where devils busily worked to wield spears and clubs, forcing the souls that had lost their senses of self toe ashore.


    ¡°Who... who am I? Where am I...? I am... John, a vige militia member of Kati Vige, I... I think I was killed by beastmen while I was out patrolling?¡±


    The moment that John recovered his memories, the fatal injury on his chest appeared at the same time, together with the arrow that pierced his body. This endlessly reminded him of the reality that he was now dead.


    This was one of the dimensionalws of Hell, which allowed these souls that lost their memories and senses of self in the River Styx to regain their forms from when they were alive.


    The snow would then fall upon their souls and help create new physical bodies of ice and snow. These bodies were capable of hunger, pain, and possessing desires. And with the devils plodding them on, they would start proceeding down a twisted mountain path, heading towards the temple in the mountains where they would all be judged for their actions in their past life.


    There was arge obsidian stone door at the end of the mountain path with unclear words inscribed upon it.


    Behind this door was arge group of hallways. To reach the temple, one would first have to pass through a corridor of mirrors.


    John walked through this mirror corridor. Yet, the mirrors didn¡¯t disy his current appearance. Instead, they disyed his past, present, and even future appearances.


    On the left mirror was the young John as a hoodlum teenager whomitted petty thefts. On the right mirror was a recent John who regretted his past actions and joined the vige militia, finding meaning in helping and protecting others.


    This was a special product of Hell ¨C the Fate Corridor of Good and Evil. Here, Fate-powered magic mirrors would show each person¡¯s acts of kindness and evil. After walking through the mirror corridor, one would reach the first Hall of the Four Halls of Hell. This Hall was where each person¡¯s acts of good and evil would be weighed on a scale ¨C the Bnce Hall.


    Only by walking into the Bnce Hall would one discover that this wasn¡¯t a temple at all. Instead, it was a world with no visible boundaries.


    This well-lit hall was filled with busy people. A gxy of Fate was inscribed into the floorboard, and devils were working hard everywhere. Countless Fate Mirrors were shing. Just recording all the dead¡¯s major deeds of good and evil as evidence for their judgements already made these neer Hell Devils incredibly busy.


    Right now, the God of Fate Catio who should have been the master of this Hall was currently in a hibernation. He was currently being transformed by the dimensionalws of Hell. Once Catio awakened, he would gain the Concepts of Measuring Scale of Good and Evil as well as usation. The Bnce Hall would gain its true master once Catio finally awoke.


    Since Catio was currently sleeping, a certain silver-robed judge was sitting in his spot and busily working. Not only that, in the other three Halls that had also been activated with their Guardian Gods currently asleep and absorbing the dimensionalws, the same silver-robed figure could be seen busily working at the administrator¡¯s seat.


    ¡°...I¡¯m doing so many jobs all by myself. Can I ask for overtime pay?¡±


    [You¡¯re the ultimate boss right now, so who are you supposed to ask for overtime pay?]


    Right now, the only reason that I still had free time to makements to my System was that I had gained new abilities as the master of Hell.


    I had free time because I now had the ability to send out countless incarnations. It was quite a subtle sensation to simultaneously observe many locations. The even more subtle part was how I sent an incarnation to each of my Seven Original Sins to loudly taunt and make fun of the Main Gods, yet I didn¡¯t have to worry about them being able to kill me.


    ¡°Oh my, Donatis is such a violent fellow. I lost yet another incarnation.¡±


    Yep, I should say that no matter how many incarnations I lost, it wouldn¡¯t affect me at all.


    And so, as if I was ying a strategy game, I sent another incarnation over to Donatis to continue taunting him. This was all in order to interfere with his rational judgement and obtain more information on my enemies.


    The current me was Wumianzhe Rnd, one of the Four Pirs of Hell, the Pir of Space. I existed within the Four Halls and the Seven Circles of Hell. I was Hell, and Hell was myself. An ¡°endless amount of incarnations¡± was both my most useful and useless special ability. That was because these incarnations had basically zerobat strength, yet they were capable of helping me finish countless tasks.


    Not only that, unless the Tower of Law and Tower of Death were both destroyed, I would be absolutely undying. This was yet another special ability I just received.


    To be honest, as long as the Tower of Death wasn¡¯t destroyed, every single Hell God would be absolutely undying. Perhaps it would be easier toprehend if I exined it directly ¨C¡±In Hell, how can already dead existences die again?¡±


    The Hell Gods absolutely had to be dead already to be in their roles. Any living God that chose to be a member of Hell would be dead the moment that they entered. As since the Four Pir Gods were the foundation, they would need to reincarnate from their very souls. They had to be the purest dead individuals ¡°born¡± in this world in order to be the Four Pirs of Hell.


    This was the basic dimensionalw of the world, just like how only elemental lifeforms would be able to be Elemental Gods. Only dead Gods would be able to be the Four Pir Gods of Hell.


    That¡¯s right, there was no need for me to hide it. I was already dead, deader than dead, absolutely dead. The moment that I used a reverse God¡¯s Descent to descend upon Wumianzhe,bining our physical bodies and souls, my physical body was invaded by the aura of Hell and biologically entered the state of death. Dimensionalws would never separate friends from foes, so from that moment onwards, I waspletely dead from a biological standpoint. And actually, I was destined to die from the moment that I entered Hell...


    What? You¡¯re saying that this isn¡¯t shocking enough? That¡¯s it¡¯s too sudden? Who made a rule that the author has to use several chapters to slowly boil up to a climax? Who says that authors have to tug at the readers¡¯ heartstrings? I was already so used to dying already. Readers will get bored of the main character dying too much, and since this is my fifth death already, I won¡¯t be contentious and I¡¯ll simply allow myself to die.


    ¡°So many have died already anyways. Who cares if I die as well?¡±


    Fortunately for me, Wumianzhe was also Sloth, a unique undead created by cutting off part of my soul. He counted as dead already, and I was able topletelybine with his current physical body. Otherwise, I would have needed to first die in the mortal ne and then fill in my soul crystal. Who knows how long that would take for me to wake up, or if I would wake up at all? There would then no longer be someone in charge of Hell¡¯s construction.


    As I now had the power of the dimensionalw of Space in Hell, I gained the ability to create as many incarnations, even millions, as I wanted. This was an absolutely required ability for Wumianzhe, the Judge of Hell. Otherwise, just the unending amount of dead souls that required judgement would simply fatigue him to death.


    And now, this was my most convenient ability that allowed me to control everything and observe every single battle simultaneously. I could instantly send reinforcements to any ce that needed it. And even more importantly, this ability of infinite incarnations allowed me to substitute for the other Hell Gods that were currently hibernating in order to absorb the dimensionalws here in performing their ¡°jobs¡± for them. This allowed the Cycle of Reincarnation in Hell to already be activated.


    As long as Hell continued doing the job that it was supposed to, and allowing the Cycle of Reincarnation to operate, not only would Hell itself be moreplete and powerful, even the Hell Gods, and Hell¡¯s warriors and guardians would be ever more powerful. This was the backup support powering us up in any long battle of attrition, as well as the critical element that Ayer had obtained for us.


    Every time that evidence of a crime was collected and a person was judged to deserve the punishment of Hell, the sleeping Catio would obtain more power and be closer to waking up. And with every judgement, every reincarnation, and every deliverance of the Law, I would naturally be further powered up as I was the master of Hell, the ruler of Law, and the God of Judgement.


    It was the same for the Seven Kings of Hell. Every time that the guilty were tossed into the infernos, then the Seven Kings would carry out their jobs, naturally gaining more power through the process. And since in all of history, the mortal ne of Eich had been capable of giving birth to over a hundred Main Gods (With approximately twenty alive today), and there were even main Gods at the very beginning of Creation, our ne of Hell would naturally be capable of raising Main God level existences as well.


    And now, this naturally revealed just what exactly I had promised to certain existences.


    Being able to convince the powerful to work for me would naturally be even more power and higher status.


    The Seventh Circle of Hell, the Bestial Lust Inferno. That was where ¡°Lust¡± Cher guarded. The Main God opponent that she had to stop was Sophocles the Deceiver.


    Yet she herself didn¡¯t have muchbat strength. She could only rely on her subordinate Hell Dragons. The Seventh Circle of Hell was where the Hell Dragons resided.


    That¡¯s right, Hell Dragons. This was a brand-new species of dragon which would be the future messengers of Hell. They were also the only existences capable of freely entering and exiting Hell.


    Compared to their former selves, these Hell Dragons were evenrger and cker in color. Yet, nobody would mistake them for ck Dragons. The foundational difference these dragons had from other dragons was the aura of death around them.


    Dragons¡¯ strongest special ability was to travel between dimensions without being affected by the environment. And now, these Hell Dragons were capable of traveling back and forth between life and death. They would be the messengers of Death and Hell in the mortal ne. Theirbat strength was also iparable to before.


    ¡°I know that all dragons desire strength. What I can give you is naturally an endless amount of strength and the glory of being a dimensional ruler. This is strength that¡¯s more than capable of ying a king. You, Sam, shall be the strongest dragon king of all! The White Dragon species shall be the strongest dragon species!¡±


    And so, the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam had participated in my n after he confirmed the likelihood of it seeding. Hepletely joined my faction in order to change the fate of the White Dragons. The entire White Dragon species became Hell Dragons.


    Yet, Sam still wasn¡¯t the highest-ranked Hell Dragon. The true leader of all the Hell Dragons was the three-headed dragon that was currently fighting against the Demon Lord Sophocles the Deceiver ¨C Evelyn.


    ¡°...Apart from helping to cure Cher, don¡¯t you want to have your own family and tribe? Of course, you¡¯ll also obtain appropriate strength and the position of a dimensional ruler. You shall receive glory one hundred times what you currently have!¡±


    There were two leaders of the Hell Dragons. One was the former Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam, while the other was the three-headed Evelyn and her younger sisters. Right now, the Chaos Main God Sophocles the Deceiver was actually at a disadvantage against the Hell Dragons!

 Chapter 460 - Discussion

    Chapter 460: Chapter 459 ¨C Discussion Trantor: imperfectluck


    The Creator¡¯s power was limitless. Creating a world would bring along countless lifeforms and abilities. It would be possible to create any event, twist karma and Time, create Main Gods, and create new species.


    The Creator¡¯s power was also limited. No matter how powerful the parent or how strict the parent¡¯s rules, it would still be impossible to control their children¡¯s aplishments and growth. It would be impossible for even the Creator to know what their children would be like.


    Back in the day, the Titans¡¯ inconceivable amount of strength was because Creator Goddess Eich had given them the ability and responsibility of ¡°Creating¡±. But, the original goal for them was that they would be the most outstanding artisans and craftsmen. And, the demons that had been given the abilities of ¡°Evolution¡± and ¡°Combat¡± should have been the best warriors and Eich¡¯s dimensional guardians, yet demons were now as we all knew them today.


    Parents were only capable of giving ¡°a direction¡± for their children. The Creator was stronger, but would still only be able to give ¡°abilities¡± as an additional gift. But, what the child ended up like and whether the child¡¯s natural talents would be used as intended, what realm that individuals would reach or how a species¡¯ culture would evolve, that all depended on an individual or species¡¯ opportunities for development and how hard they worked. This would be impossible for anyone to know beforehand.


    What I gave the Hell Dragons was the responsibility and power to be the messengers of Hell. Just as how Inferno Dragons made use of their natural dragon talents to travel through dimensions, typically bing the representative messengers of the Hell¡¯s Abyss in the mortal ne, the dragons of Hell would be the messengers of Death and Hell in the mortal ne.


    And, to carry out this responsibility, the ne of Hell gave the Hell Dragons the right to spread death. This was whyter in the future, the Hell Dragons became known by various names such as the ¡°Representatives of Death¡±, ¡°Hell¡¯s Death Messengers¡±, ¡°Death Notification Dragons¡±, and so on.


    Their beautifully sculpted bodies were even stronger than normal Red Dragons by thirty percent. Their translucent wings of night made them appear like flying nightmares. Pitch-ck mist swirled around them while only their bright red eyes could be seen shining clearly. This mist was actually a form of protection for lives in the mortal ne. As Hell Dragons were the incarnation of death, any weak lives that saw their true bodies would likely die instantly otherwise.


    Arge number of Hell Dragons were currently around the powerful Demon Lord. They used their breath attacks, which resembled slow ck balls of mist that didn¡¯t even seem as powerful as thunder-element dragons¡¯ breath attacks. Only Sophocles himself knew that this Hades Mist breath attack was far more vicious and dangerous than any other type of dragon breath attack.


    ¡°Dimensionalw of death? Dragon breath with the power of instant death? It would seem that I¡¯m going to lose a lot here...¡±


    The Main Gods were capable of resisting the dimensionalw of death¡¯s invasion into their bodies because of their outstanding personal abilities. They had long since gotten used to resisting against dimensionalws that were highly hostile to them. Yet, this didn¡¯t mean that they couldpletely ignore the dimensionalws invading them, especially when this particr dimensionalw was thew of death.


    Normal lives that were invaded by this dimensionalw of death would directly die. And even the Main Gods that didn¡¯t want to be invaded by the dimensionalw of death and remain here forever would have to avoid absorbing too much.


    Every single attack meant that the death mist connected to the Demon Lord¡¯s body as if it was an unshakeable fire. Sophocles¡¯ gigantic body became the best target of all, and this prating Hades Mist was now attempting to transform the Demon Lord into the dead.


    As one of the demons who was closest to devils in personality, Sophocles the Deceiver was only willing to work for the Chaos Abyss because of the excellent benefits that Cynthia had promised him. The most valuable payment that the Chaos Abyss could pay would be dimensional territory, as rich nes would equal concrete power and wealth, along with countless souls. But if Sophocles was trapped in this ne and became a devil like his mortal enemies, what meaning would any of this have to him?


    Although he had fought for so long already, only one percent of him had been invaded. He was still far from being restrained by the dimensionalw. Yet, Sophocles was already focusing almost entirely on defense and avoidance. It was quite obvious that he wasn¡¯t the type to fight to the fullest, preferring to focus on safety first.


    However, every single time that Sophocles counterattacked, no matter if he used a natural talent, magic spell, or physical attack, a Hell Dragon would end up howling in pain as it dropped from the sky. Sam felt like his heart was bleeding every time this happened, because most of the Hell Dragons here were his descendants and future tribe.


    That¡¯s right, the Hell Dragons weren¡¯t undying like other members of Hell. There were always drawbacks to every advantage. Since Hell Dragons were half-living, half-dead and possessed the special ability to leave Hell as they wished, how could they possibly still have the advantage of being undying?


    They received other abilities instead. As the messengers of Hell, they possessed innate abilities to summon and control undead souls. Arge amount of undying undead were manipted into attacking Sophocles. And, what ce apart from Hell would possibly have stronger undead souls?


    Yet, Sophocles was no idiot. After he noticed that these undead had low attack (towards a True God) and were undying, Sophocles unhesitatingly ignored the undead and focused instead on the Hell Dragons.


    If you only looked at directbat strength, Sophocles the Deceiver was probably the weakest Main God as he preferred to scheme rather than directly fight himself. Yet, he was still a Main God level Demon Lord whosebat strength was far superior to other existences. If it wasn¡¯t for his inhibitions, he wouldn¡¯t be suppressed here at all.


    And when I focused my main attention on this battle, I was rather surprised and delighted to see how well the Hell Dragons were performing.


    Considering that Cher wasn¡¯t skilled at directbat, I arranged for her to face the weakest Main God here. I even had the Hell Dragons assist her, but I didn¡¯t expect that the Hell Dragons would be outstanding enough to actually force Sophocles to be passive.


    Of course, if thisbat situation continued, either the Hell Dragons would suffer uneptable losses and all copse, or Sophocles would be forced to the brink, revealing his true demon nature and beginning to ughter everything without caring about the consequences. I found it highly doubtful that these newly transformed Hell Dragons would truly be able to corrode this Demon Lord with the dimensionalw of death.


    ¡°Perhaps we can have a discussion.¡±


    My voice echoed in the empty space as the Demon Lord actually increased the intensity of his attacks. Sophocles suddenly tossed out a magical spear which sliced through the air and directly pierced through a dragon which was gliding in circles. Sophocles then immediately dragged the Hell Dragon over to himself with the spear¡¯s chain and swallowed it whole. The Demon Lord¡¯s murky yellow eyes even stared at my incarnation while he swallowed.


    Everything happened right at the moment that I spoke. There was no time at all to save the Hell Dragon.


    ¡°YOU!¡±


    Sam roared in fury, yet he didn¡¯t counterattack for revenge. He was also a veteran who instantly understood what all this meant after his fury subsided.


    The Demon Lord¡¯s sudden attack wasn¡¯t because of his vicious nature. It was to represent that he would be unafraid to continue battling. And, a show of force would always be one of the most effective negotiation chips at any negotiation. This was the best evidence that Sophocles was indeed willing to negotiate. Continuing to battle would only cause the new species of Hell Dragons to suffer even more losses.


    Yet, I still shook my head. I would have had a higher opinion of Sam if only he had been willing to charge forward.


    ¡°Come, fight for me once more, my servant.¡±


    I pointed and corroded the dragon corpses on the ground with Hades Mist, transforming them into Ghost Dragons and Bone Dragons. The ice and snow of Hell provided them with even stronger physical bodies. These revived dragons roared out in anger, greatly improving the Hell Dragons¡¯ morale.


    What could be more reassuring than having the Hell God personally stand behind you? Death wasn¡¯t the end. The chance to live yet again would be better than any reinforcements.


    Of course, since they were no longer Hell Dragons, they also lost most of the Hell Dragons¡¯ abilities and the power to leave Hell. Still, this little trick of mine gave Sophocles a significant amount of pressure. If these Hell Dragons no longer had to worry about death and went all-out in an attempt to corrode his physical body, it was indeed possible that he would be forced to remain here forever.


    ¡°...Perhaps we can indeed have a discussion.¡±


    I nodded my head slowly with a cold expression, but I was actually quite satisfied with this inside.


    Dividing my enemies wasn¡¯t only to enact the strategy of divide and conquer. It was also to obtain chances to bribe them to join my side since they were no longer under the watchful eye of their bosses. Since these Main Gods were the equivalent of temporarily hired mercenaries to begin with, how much motivation would they really have to go all-out and fight here? Especially when I had sufficient chips that I could bribe the Main Gods with.


    As long as I could achieve even some results through discussion, even if it was only a verbal promise to remain neutral, I would be able to use an entire Circle of Hell¡¯sbat strength to deal with other enemies instead. The final advantage I¡¯d receive in the end would be like a constantly increasing snowball effect. Everything was for the sake of overall victory. Otherwise, even if I forcefully defeated all my enemies here through direct battles, it was highly doubtful just how many benefits I¡¯d be able to obtain.


    From the very start, my main goal in dividing them was to obtain this chance to have a ¡°discussion¡± with them!


    Still, out of the seven Main Gods present, I only felt it would be possible to negotiate with two of them. I felt that it would be impossible to negotiate with the other five.


    And so, the exact same thing was happening on another battlefield. In the Fourth Circle of Hell, the Endless Greed Inferno, Harloys was simply ying chess and drinking tea together with the smiling God of Wisdom Kalumandas. It appeared as if this Order Main God had zero intentions of starting a fight.


    The reason? This was actually due to Harloys¡¯ identity. She was thest Gold Elf, the final pure elf ruler who existed. And, Kalumandas was actually a half-elf. If one thought about his ancient age, it was evident that he was alive as a mortal back when the Gold Elves ruled the world.


    Half of Kalumandas¡¯ bloodline originated from the ¡°schrly age¡± known as the Haletdam generation. Yet, the other half of his bloodline was from a lowly Wild Elf. While the former gave him an endless amount of knowledge and memories, thetter made the elves view him with great enmity. Yet, it was his Wild Elf bloodline that helped him to escape the destruction of the Haletdam generation.


    It was said that the main reason Kalumandas was able to escape the True Gods¡¯ ughter of the Haletdam generation schrs was primarily due to the protection of the Gold Elf Emperor at the time. The Gold Elf Emperor imed that he was merely protecting a fellow elf, although it was impossible to know if that was really for the sake of protecting a fellow elf or simply wanting to obtain the Haletdam generation¡¯s technology. But at the very least, this God of Wisdom indeed owed a favor to the Gold Elves.


    Alright then, I admit that I heard this entire ¡°story¡± from Harloys. This God of Wisdom, Witches, and Libraries had indeed secretly taken care of her to help return the favor he owed to the Gold Elf Emperor. Otherwise, the Elf Gods would have long since gotten rid of the final threat. Why else would the Elf Gods allow the final Gold Elf, Harloys, to act as she pleased in the mortal ne and wreak so much havoc?


    Of course, the price for this was that the God of Wisdom would be unable to give Harloys too much direct assistance.


    Once I heard about this rtionship between them from Harloys, and when she volunteered of her own volition to talk to Kalumandas, I was astonished and delighted. An excellent personal rtionship? Without a doubt, that would be the best way to start any negotiation.


    ¡°Perhaps we¡¯ll be able to talk to Kalumandas.¡±


    And so, yet another Wumianzhe incarnation appeared in front of Kalumandas and Harloys. This time, I even tried my best to put on a friendly smile.


    Still, Kalumandas¡¯ first sentence managed to surprise me.


    ¡°Discuss? Of course that¡¯s fine, that¡¯s exactly what I came here for. Still, you must first allow me to meet my tribe, the remaining survivor that¡¯s also from the Haletdam schrs generation.¡±

 Chapter 461 - Brothers

    Chapter 461: Brothers


    Trantor: imperfectluck


    Not all Main Gods would be the reasonable type. It was quitemon for powerful existences to be unreasonable with weaker ones. Or, to be more direct, powerful existences wouldn¡¯t even treat weaker existences as worthy ofmunication.


    ¡°At first, demons weren¡¯t evil at all...¡±


    Ayer¡¯s words from our discussion on the River Styx sounded in my ears again. Yet, I had nothing to reference for this, as in every single ne in existence, demons already had the worst of reputations.


    ¡°Is weakness a sin?¡±


    Perhaps other species would still at least discuss this with you at a surface level, debating life philosophy and societal realities, giving you a titude like ¡°The strong should protect the weak¡±, then demons would use concrete actions to tell you...


    ¡°The weak? The weak are good for nothing except to be food and toys.¡±


    In demon society, the strong preying on the weak was the only rule they had. The only greater sin than being weak was being rich without the power to protect your wealth. That would be a direct shortcut to death.


    There were only two possible paths to take in demon society. Be stronger and strive to reach the top, or identally fall off along the way and be the stepping stone and food for some other demon.


    As for the Main God level demons, striving to reach any higher would basically be impossible. That was because the will of the Chaos Abyss would forever be above them. While they could be partially free from her control, as long as they lived in that chaotic Abyss, it would be impossible for them to bepletely free from Cynthia¡¯s control.


    And now, these dimensional invader Main Gods discovered after a short moment of confusion that this dimension was truly unique. This wasn¡¯t yet another ne born from the main world of Eich. This was apletely new independent dimension!


    For the Chaos Main Gods, a newly born dimension would be like the most appetizing piece of steak. Yet, an entirely new independent dimension would be an opportunity that would onlye along once per million years.


    Just receiving a normal dimension would help any Demon Lord to be more powerful by obtaining part of the dimension¡¯s resources and dimensionalws. Yet, an entirely new and independent dimension would be the only chance for them to surpass their eternal master after so many eons!


    That¡¯s right, all demons wanted to be even stronger. Devouring and evolution were part of their very blood. As long as there was a chance, even a Demon Lord would be willing to betray.


    No matter how the discussion with Sophocles the Deceiver ended up, my best expectation was that he would be able to temporarily remain neutral. As for the other Demon Lords, it wouldn¡¯t even be worth trying to negotiate with them.


    Although, there was one Chaos Main God who was rather unique. That would be...


    ¡°My foolish younger brother...¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Er, nothing, I just wanted to say that out loud...¡± A certain already dead older brother found himself unable to finish speaking such ssical lines. That was because the next part would be to start taunting with words like ¡°You¡¯re still too weak!¡± or ¡°Live on in an ugly fashion¡±, yet I was probably the one who was much weaker.


    If Karwenz was taunted by me the moment I came in, he would likely immediately attack me with the end result of me being swatted away. Even though I wouldn¡¯t die, that would be too humiliating.


    Karwenz was still cooking his fish soup. I tossed away Wumianzhe¡¯s mask and came to visit him in my true body. Demons were already so difficult to deal with already, plus this was Karwenz. A demon and Karwenz was definitely the worst possiblebination... I would never underestimate him.


    Ever since young, he hated to use his brain. He loved to be direct about everything, yet this wasn¡¯t because he was stupid at all. Instead, he simply had his own attitude and way of doing things.


    ¡°Why must I use my brain when I can solve it with my muscles? Thinking too much will cause one¡¯s physical abilities to dull.¡±


    Karwenz always acted faster than he thought. He learned through practical methods and actualbat. His growth rate was astonishing, yet he didn¡¯t have an unstable foundation. Underneath his seemingly direct personality was a maturity that far surpassed his age, yet he was still as hot-blooded as a youth. When he needed to, he had his own slyness as well. He always imperceptibly obtained other people¡¯s favor and hearts... Fine, I admit that he had slightly better luck with women than me.


    [...]


    ¡°...What do you want to say? Just say it out loud. Fine, he¡¯s not slightly luckier with women, he¡¯s a lot luckier.¡±


    [When looking at the number of partners he¡¯s already had, the total amount that he¡¯s luckier than you is...]


    ¡°Several tens of thousands time luckier, am I right? Fine, I shouldn¡¯t havemented about you.¡±


    [No, since your number of romantic partners is zero, the answer is that he¡¯s infinitely luckier than you with women...]


    ¡°Alright, my dear Goddess of Order, thank you so much for your precise calctions. Still, please shut up for me now.¡±


    Getting back on topic,pared to myself who often wasn¡¯t back at Diffindor back in the day, Karwenz always had an excellent reputation. Even the military recognized him for his achievements back then in fighting against the demons of the Chaos Abyss.


    If it wasn¡¯t for theter incident of the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction, I probably would have ended up as a Holy Knight for the rest of my life, while Karwenz would have be the best ruler in the Mist Kingdom¡¯s history. While I wasn¡¯t dissatisfied with how things were back then, I would sometimesin just a little.


    Yep, I was really envious of him, just as how people who loved to overthink things would sometimes envy those who always had fun by being simple-minded. Those like Karwenz would always grow stronger without even nning for it. As he matured, he obtained others¡¯ trust and recognition and finally seeded in the end.


    ¡°I have to work so hard and n everything for my aplishments. He can aplish basically the same thing with some sudden sh of inspiration, and not only that, he can even obtain more of our parents¡¯ and friends¡¯ recognition and favor. Even if I actually do better than him, that¡¯s so unfair! Is it really that bad boys are more favored? It would seem that I should learn how to be a bad boy.¡±


    When I was young, I would often think in such a way. This was also the cause of several rather stupid incidents that I was behind. Still, this didn¡¯t affect our feelings for each other as brothers. That was because when faced with such a simple-minded brat, I wouldn¡¯t even know how to get angry.


    ¡°Rnd, what spices do you prefer for your fish soup? I have the Blood Tribe¡¯s holy blood spices, the Inferno Demons¡¯ abyssal spices, and everything you can think of in between.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s quite obvious just from the name that there¡¯s something wrong with those spices. I don¡¯t want any spices at all. By the way, it¡¯s almost time for battle. Do you really not care at all?¡±


    ¡°Yep, I really do care about eating fish. I prepared more than thirty years to sessfully scam this pot of fish soup. You have no idea just how hard it was to catch him on my fishing pole. I had to collect seven or eight God Equipment and killed off a dozen Demon Nobles.¡±


    ¡°...You schemed to kill off a Demon Lord who ruled an entireyer, yet you make it sound like it was just to cook some food. Don¡¯t tell me that you killed him just for the sake of having some fish soup.¡±


    Yet, Karwenz nced at me with an expression as if I had asked an idiotic question.


    ¡°Of course it was for the sake of eating fish soup. He was thergest fish in all the dimensions. That would definitely be delicious! Why else would I share some with you?¡±


    I instantly knew that he was telling me the truth. Despite the fact that Karwenz had now joined the Chaos Abyss, he still led as simple a life as he always did. How envious I was of him.


    Yep, only envy, but not jealousy. That was because it was impossible to hate someone as simple as him.


    Not only that, I was fairly skilled at dealing with such simple-minded fellows. Whenever such a person was on fire with some mysterious passion, it would be impossible to stop them head on. So if you wanted to dump some water on their fire, what you needed would be an ice cube of reason.


    ¡°...Ah, I¡¯ve heard of this fish as well. Isn¡¯t he one of the oldest Demon Lords in the Chaos Abyss? In other words, his meat is so old that he¡¯s like a living fossil. A fish that¡¯s countless eons old will be so tough and disgusting to eat. Delicious? Did you really think this through?¡±


    And so, Karwenz instantly stopped stirring his pot of fish soup, as he turned his head with a loud creak to stare at me. Theining look in his eyes of ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me earlier?¡± made me... really want tough uproariously at the skies.


    Alright then, Iughed. Iughed loudly, maniacally, to the point where I was clutching my stomach, to the point where even tears were dropping out of my eyes.


    ¡°As always, joy should be gained from others¡¯ misfortune.¡±


    As I wiped away my tears, I also took out my gavel and codex. Since this fish soup was almost finished, and since Karwenz had mentioned that he would only share the fish soup with me if I didn¡¯t die, it was about time for us to have a serious fight. This was an annoying tacit understanding between brothers.


    However, I then stopped, as I recalled some information that I needed to tell him.


    ¡°...By the way, do you know about Cynthia? And our souls...¡±


    ¡°That we were once two halves of the same soul? Of course I know about it. I knew about that even before I entered the Chaos Abyss. Why else would I have left my Frigid Nightmare behind for you? Besides, even if I didn¡¯t know before, do you really think that I wouldn¡¯t understand about the soul after I became a demon?¡±


    Of course. How would Karwenz possibly not know? He was the person who broke all records in how fast he became a Chaos Main God, and souls were the eternal goal of all demons.


    ¡°...You¡¯re still as sharp as always. Is that your wild instinct yet again? I¡¯m so envious.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re envious of me? Ha, I¡¯m actually rather envious of you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re envious of me?¡± ¡°Yep. My brain isn¡¯t as good as yours. You always have so many strange ideas. Nothing ever seems to be too difficult for you. Back in the day, Sister Kelly and little Sara both loved to follow you around everywhere, listening to your interesting stories. Father also always praised you for being smart and capable.¡±


    Karwenz even awkwardly scratched his head as he said such embarrassing words. ¡°Ha, since I couldn¡¯t beat you in brains regardless, I decided to simply stop thinking and force my way through with my body¡¯s instincts. I never expected that I ended up bingpletely used to such a method. Tsk, even though we¡¯re clearly two halves of the same soul, why is it that I can nevere up with such wondrous ideas? My intelligence must have all been taken away by your half of the soul.¡±


    You don¡¯t say, my younger brother¡¯s familiar face was actually turning red? Hey hey hey, was this really that monkey-like younger brother who was always so fearless and didn¡¯t know what the concept of embarrassment was?


    ¡°...¡±


    At this moment, I was rendered speechless, not knowing what to say. Perhaps this was the best evidence of a ssical phrase ¨C¡±We always desire what we don¡¯t have.¡±


    ¡°Sigh...¡±


    In the end, all my feelings transformed into a sigh.


    I then took a deep breath and stepped forward, abandoning all idle thoughts. That was because only battle was left for us.


    The annoying tacit understanding between brothers let both of us know that our current situations were both the result of our own decisions. In that case, there was nothing to regret.


    Perhaps this would be the first time that we had ever seriously fought each other. Perhaps this would also be thest time. That was why such an awkward pair of brothers like us were finally able to speak the truth in our hearts.


    As for convincing each other? Compromising? Haha, how could that be possible at all? The biggest simrity between us were just how stubborn we were. I had my own ideals, and he made his own choice as well. Since he even knew the matter of Cynthia¡¯s meddling with the Mist Kingdom, and he reached the peak of the Chaos Faction already, all his choices must havee from within his heart. I wouldn¡¯t insult him by attempting to convince him unnecessarily to join me.


    ¡°Are you having a good time in the Chaos Abyss?¡±


    ¡°Ha, that really is a demonic location where fighting is the only thing that takes ce every day. Still, that¡¯s the type of ce I love the most. Yep, that¡¯s my home now, a ce where you never know what will happen tomorrow. I really do love living in such a ce.¡±


    ¡°Ha, I knew that even Cynthia would be unable to control you. With your bastard of a personality, you really are suitable for the Chaos Abyss.¡±


    Helping to rebuild East Mist and Sleuweir had been Karwenz¡¯s final nods to his past memories. The current him loved the murky and lively Chaos Abyss. He loved Chaos and thew of the jungle that Cynthia represented. He was the equivalent of an obsessed game yer who loved this world more than anyone, while I loathed this beautiful yet cruel world.


    Our beliefs and personalities were different. Thanks to three hundred years of influence, our originally identical souls had now gone downpletely different paths.


    We brothers suddenly broke out into simultaneousughter with no need for words as we looked at each other. The next instant, a silver holy battle hammer viciously shed against a murky yellow demonic sword.


    ¡°Since we can finally have fun ying together, then let¡¯s see just whose ideals run deeper. Rnd, you absolutely can¡¯t die here! I still want to have more fun ying with you in the future.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s murky yellow bestial eyes were filled with delight in the fervor of battle. As always, he received his older brother¡¯s sarcastic insults.


    ¡°Ha, my idiotic younger brother... F*ck, don¡¯t hit my face!¡±


    The battle hammer and demonic sword shed with sparks that illuminated this pitch-ck deep portion of Hell. The light revealed two faces that were excited and delighted.

 Chapter 462 - Holy Light of Salvation

    462 Holy Light of Salvation


    Trantor:imperfectluck | Editor: Kurisu


    I viciously rushed over while swinging my battle hammer, and was then sent flying back at an even higher speed.


    ¡°There¡¯s such a difference in our strength...¡±


    I couldn¡¯t even react before the distance between us was instantly shortened. Karwenz had instantly appeared before me as my battle hammer shed yet again with his sword. The result was that I was sent flying yet again.


    ¡°There¡¯s such a difference in our speed...¡±


    The sounds of our weapons shing were as loud as if the very sky was falling and the earth was cracking. The shape of thend itself was changed, as the shockwaves from our impact were sent everywhere. These shockwaves even directly shattered the dead¡¯s souls into nothing more than shards.


    I stomped my feet into the ground the best I could to stagger the impact. Karwenz¡¯s frightening brute strength caused my feet to create two deep ditches into the ground. More than ten injuries had appeared on my body due to his sword energy, although I did manage to stop myself from beingpletely blown away.


    ¡°What?¡±


    But the moment that I steadied myself, I hadn¡¯t even finished swinging my battle hammer again when Karwenz¡¯s murky yellow demonic sword soundlessly struck my arm.


    If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I had summoned my dragonarmor just in the nick of time, my entire arm and battle hammer would have been gone already. And only now did I finally see Karwenz¡¯s sword movements.


    ¡°Theplete version of the Karma Sword technique? I¡¯ve only learned the basics! Damn it, there¡¯s even such a difference in our sword techniques...¡±


    Just our first exchange of blows caused me to inhale a cold breath. Although I already expected that there would be arge difference between us, I still didn¡¯t expect that the difference would be so tremendous.


    As he was the Abyss Prince, I could ept that all his basic stats would be above mine. But, I found it uneptable how even his sword techniques were so far above mine.


    ¡°Damn it, there¡¯s still such a huge difference despite the fact that I have a cheat.¡±


    Right now, I was being powered up by Hell itself as well as the Circle of Hell which represented Sloth. Hell was also my home turf, so if you only looked at energy level, I should be quite simr to Karwenz. Yet, when I started fighting with him, I felt like I was being totally suppressed ¨C in all areas, no less.


    But upon closer analysis, this was only natural. Our natural talent would basically be identical, and our age was the same as well. Yet, I had focused far too much on too many different areas. Law, ice magic, Divine Arts, and so on would all require a huge time investment. Yet as the Abyss Prince, Karwenz only needed to focus on fighting. He already had better talent for fighting than I did, and I was being distracted by my thoughts, so the end result was naturally that he far surpassed me in all areas.


    I could instinctively sense that at this level, Karwenz was actually warming up. And, the basic physical stats that he disyed already exceeded Amelia¡¯s, who had the most ridiculous physical stats out of anyone I knew.


    I half-kneeled and panted for breath, leaning against my battle hammer for support. I was fully on guard, yet Karwenz suddenly stopped attacking me as a bored expression appeared on his face.


    ¡°Brother, are you really alright like this? How about I give you a few more decades for you to train? Of course, I won¡¯t be able to allow you to keep this Hell. Otherwise, Mother will scold me.¡±


    ¡°Mother?¡±


    ¡°Mother Cynthia? Do you really not know how our souls came to be? How do you think that a Child of Fate is created? Do you think that the Goddesses of Chaos and Order would randomly select a soul? No way, your expression tells me that you really didn¡¯t know? Well then, Brother, I think that you shouldn¡¯t trust that person attached to your body too much. Perhaps she didn¡¯t tell you any lies, but she didn¡¯t tell you the full truth at all.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s words brought new doubts to my mind, but right now wasn¡¯t the time to think too much into things. I still needed my System¡¯s assistance in winning this battle. I only lightly told the System in my mind ¡°I need an exnation¡± before I refocused on Karwenz.


    Comparing brute strength with the Chaos Faction would be the most idiotic of moves. Me fighting with Karwenz head-on in a sh of brute strength counted as a momentary hot blood rush to my brain. Just like the past, since I was unable to directly defeat him in a confrontation of strength, then I would simply use schemes.


    ¡°Honestly, Karwenz, don¡¯t look down on me. Do you really think that I¡¯d confront an idiot like you with brute strength?¡±


    I lifted up my battle hammer, causing this icy holy hammer to glow resplendently. Its light soon became the only light of this world, the purest cleansing light of all which represented Hope, Protection, and Salvation.


    ¡°Holy Light, do you see this enemy of mine? Yep, I¡¯m talking about that idiotic-appearing muscr trap over there.¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t you feel anything at all when you say that? Don¡¯t we have identical appearances...? Fine, you actually transformed your face into that of a lich¡¯s? You¡¯re something!¡±


    I took a deep breath and started swinging my holy battle hammer again. With every swing, this God Equipment battle hammer would strike at full power. My battle hammer techniques were simple and direct yet also powerful. The Holy Light that constantly emitted from it would also suddenly explode with the power of thunder.


    Unlike longswords or great swords, battle hammers were a blunt weapon that didn¡¯t have many technique requirements. It would also be difficult to have any fancy techniques. A battle hammer¡¯s true destructive force would forevere from kic energy. And, its piercing damage ability of damaging internal organs against any heavily armored knight or ¡°thick-skinned¡± demons made battle hammers the best weapon against zombies, skeletons, and other undying creatures that were unafraid of stab wounds. This was why the tin can Holy Knights forever favored this weapon.


    Battle hammers were simple, violent, and effective. Just one short month of training would be more than enough for aplete newbie to finish learning the basics of how to wield a battle hammer. No wonder that this battle hammer had evolved into the God Equipment ¡°Light Which Illuminates Despair from the Brink, the Guardian Battle Hammer of Dawn Envoys¡±. If you looked at this battle hammer¡¯s physical appearance, it was just a veryrge and normal silver hammer. This ancient battle hammer had the standard shape of hammers from more than one thousand years ago. Its usage method and physical appearance was quite different from the currently popr sickle-style battle hammers of today.


    Sickle-style battle hammers had one blunt end and one sharp end. The sharp end could be used as a makeshift piercing weapon which was especially effective against armor. The blunt end would be used to injure enemies with the shockwave impacts, which was why the blunt end would typically have a metal coating and some pointy sections as well.


    However, this ancient battle hammer wouldn¡¯t have anything like pointy sections or a metallic coating. In fact, even its blunt weapon portion had been intentionally smoothed, which lowered its attack power. Nor was this battle hammer heavy to begin with, and it had been lightened on top of that. It could be said that all of these modifications directly lowered its attack power significantly as a physical weapon.


    Yet, this wasn¡¯t in order to be kind to one¡¯s enemies. Holy Knights were no vegetarian monks that would pray for their enemies¡¯ salvation. Holy Knights were satisfactory warriors who knew that being kind to one¡¯s enemies would equal death on the battlefield. The ¡°Light Which Illuminates Despair¡± battle hammer didn¡¯t increase its physical attack power simply because it wasn¡¯t necessary!


    ¡°Holy Light, go cleanse this idiot for me.¡±


    Countless rays of light gathered on the God Equipment battle hammer. Its glow now transformed into a glorious seal which represented Holy Light upon which all the light gathered. After the light finally faded, the seal transformed into a crystalline solid substance. This hammer had be a battle hammer of light which seemed to be crafted out of many golden crystals.


    A pair of wings of light suddenly appeared on my back. All the ground and darkness around us had been cleansed. This was the might emanating from the holy hammer. A windstorm of Holy Light was blowing at this location, causing even Karwenz to furrow his eyebrows.


    He, Karwenz, the Abyss Prince, was now feeling pain ¨C a sensation which he hadn¡¯t felt in so long.


    This ancient God Equipment battle hammer had only one ability: to purify and cultivate its wielder¡¯s Holy Light into physical substance, transforming into the light of Order which was capable of destroying any Chaos.


    Despite the fact that it was named ¡°Guardian Battle Hammer¡±, this battle hammer passed down to countless Holy Knights was actually a weapon which was purely for offense. Countless powerful dimensional invaders or lower ne residents had all died to this battle hammer in the past. Its physical crystals of Holy Light would be the worst nightmare for all lifeforms that weren¡¯t part of the Order Faction.


    ¡°The best form of protection is to destroy all evil? From a certain standpoint, our ancestors weren¡¯t overly traditional then. However...¡±


    I stroked the silver battle hammer, which then transmitted its former Holy Knight owners¡¯ beliefs to me. They had all worked so hard to protect their people in the frontier age, desiring for my strength.


    Combat fervor was boiling up from within the hammer and deep inside me, yet I shook my head. This wasn¡¯t the Holy Light that I desired, nor was it the Holy Light of Salvation that Estrada sought after.


    ¡°...All demons and undead are enemies? However, that way of thinking is outdated in this generation. If this way of thinking doesn¡¯t change, the Holy War shall never be stopped for all eternity.¡±


    I took a deep breath as my eyes became filled with the light of silver. I then injected the dimensionalws of Hell into this God Equipment battle hammer.


    ¡°In my name as the master of Hell, Wumianzhe Rnd, I bless you to be one of the Four Major God Equipment of Hell. From now on, your name shall no longer be ¡®Light Which Illuminates Despair from the Brink, the Guardian Battle Hammer of Dawn Envoys¡¯. Your name shall now be ¡®The Light of Salvation, the Hammer of Hope for the Messengers of Light¡¯!¡±


    Names also represented actual strength. The original four elements of wind, fire, water, and earth had all be foundational blocks of this world, while my new four elements required four Foundational Elemental Items to contain them as the new foundational controllers of the world. What could be more perfect for my Holy Light container than this battle hammer God Equipment which represented Holy Light?


    The dimensionalws of Hell modified this battle hammer as its golden cleansing Holy Light was filtered and changed. Finally, a faint golden glow was all that remained.


    ¡°Sigh...¡±


    Although I clearly sensed the battle hammer¡¯s new powers, I still sighed helplessly as an exmation.


    Holy Light was one of the four foundational pirs of my new world. The old Holy Light which represented pure ¡°Cleansing¡± was far too extreme. The religious fissure between the Holy Church and the Southern Sect was primarily due to different ways to define ¡°Holy Light¡±. And, the fastest method to cause a copse of faith in the God of Holy Light would be to create a ¡°substitute¡± that could be worshiped instead.


    ¡°Estrada has to die...¡±


    This step had to be taken in order to redefine Holy Light and have the Pure Holy Light be the reigning definition of Holy Light rather than having to worship the God of Holy Light. This would change the Holy Light into a light for mortals, allowing the most widespread human belief system in the Holy Light to be a foundational source of power and protection for this new world.


    ¡°...Because the Holy Light requires salvation!¡±


    Back in the game¡¯s history, as the Holy War continued, Holy Light became ever more important to the war efforts. Everyone continuously incanted the God of Holy Light¡¯s name, which helped him to be ever more powerful. But in the end, his overly strong power only contributed to the world¡¯s destruction.


    And right now, at the top of Hell, the golden Tower of Holy Light was glowing brilliantly. An ancient soul was reawakening as this new Pir of Hell revived. He was an incarnation of Holy Light, yet he wasn¡¯t the God of Holy Light. He would also provide Holy Light services, but he wouldn¡¯t interfere with mortals¡¯ decisions.


    From no onwards, there would be even greater differences in people¡¯s understanding of the Holy Light and its incarnations. The worshippers of Pure Holy Light in the Southern Sect would receive the protection of Hell¡¯s True Gods, while the Holy Church and the God of Holy Light would eventually meet their doom.


    That¡¯s right, this individual was... Estrada, the saver of Holy Light!


    Unlike my other three pirs, I had zero other possible candidates for who could be my Pir of Holy Light in Hell. This individual had to be someone who had reached the realm of the Gods with the power of Holy Light, and that individual would also have to die in order to be a member of Hell. No matter how much I thought about it, the only candidate I had was Estrada, the Strongest Holy Knight. And so, I wrote that letter to Estrada, requesting him to die. Estrada¡¯s decision was to leave the remains of his soul to the soul crystal I sent to him.


    ¡°Even undead are capable of using Holy Light? As expected, that idiot Main God has be nothing more than a broken light bulb.¡±


    Karwenz seemed to see through everything. By undead, he was referring to both me and Estrada, the new incarnation of Holy Light who was just about to wake up. Still, I wanted tough at Karwenz¡¯sment.


    This new Holy Light of Hell represented Salvation, Hope, and Protection. Its mortal enemies had been rewritten. Undead were no longer considered the Holy Light¡¯s mortal enemy.


    ¡°You¡¯re weakening yourself on the battlefield? Rnd, did your brain break down as well?¡±


    However, the price for this was that the Holy Light¡¯s Concept of Cleansing had to be weakened. Even though this would finally bring hope for peace in the future, it was a concrete fact that weakening its Concept of Cleansing would be a solid decrease in power on the battlefield.


    ¡°Ha, what¡¯s 334234 multiplied by 324242? You don¡¯t even know how to mentally calcte six-digit multiplication, ha! Oops, I probably should have asked you to try six-digit addition first. Let us use the facts to determine just whose brain has broken down.¡±


    Although I wasn¡¯t willing to admit anything out loud, judging from the current results of fighting against Karwenz, the power of Holy Light against demons had decreased by at least thirty percent.


    However, this didn¡¯t truly mean that I was weakened. Instead, I looked up at the sky and smiled.


    ¡°...Now then, why don¡¯t you look above you?¡±


    A faint golden glow enveloped my body. This was pure Holy Light from the Tower of Holy Light.


    Cleansing? Undead were everywhere in Hell, so what meaning was there to being a light of Cleansing? After Estrada gave Holy Light a new definition, Holy Light¡¯s core Concept was now Salvation! Holy Light would point out hope and a path to salvation in the pitch-ck Hell, so that all the countless souls could receive another chance after they finally finished paying for their crimes.


    Large amounts of Holy Light filled my body as the Tower of Holy Light illuminated the darkness of the Indifference Inferno.


    As the master of Hell, Wumianzhe was the overall leader who had many responsibilities. Wumianzhe was simultaneously the Pir God of Law, the leader of the Four Halls, and also the Hell King of the Indifference Inferno of Sloth. Yet, none of these were the reason why I had been able to utilize Hell¡¯s Holy Light of salvation.


    This battle hammer, this holy divine hammer which I obtained from the Pir God of Holy Light who was about to awaken, was the key to me carrying out the responsibilities of the Four Pirs.


    Pure Holy Light and Law were now raging within my body. I was being supported with power from two of the Four Pirs of Hell. At this moment, the explosive energy gathered on my body as another six wings of Holy Light forcefully spread from my back. I could sense that in terms of energy level alone, I was now equal to Karwenz!


    <i>Boom!</i>


    Yet, there was a sudden explosion that attracted our attention. Another winged incarnation of Holy Light suddenly appeared before us. Yet, itpletely ignored our presence, as it only stared towards the top of Hell.


    ¡°That¡¯s... the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation?¡±


    The gigantic hole in the Indifference Inferno doubtlessly indicated that the God of Holy Light had been willing to sacrifice anything to break through the Infernos¡¯ dimensional walls. He had been trapped in another of the Seven Circles of Hell, yet he had broken through all the way to here. Just from seeing how ethereal his body had be, it was evident that he had spent a massive amount of divine power just in order to break through the dimensional walls.


    The next moment, he then transformed into a golden light which pounced directly towards the path he opened up already. The end of the path led directly to the Tower of Holy Light!


    The God of Holy Light sensed the most serious threat possible to his very existence. And so, he unhesitatingly abandoned everything else, and decided to destroy this newly born Tower of Holy Light no matter the cost! He absolutely had to destroy this Tower of Holy Light at all costs!

 Chapter 463 - God Equipment Combo

    <h4>Chapter 463: God Equipment Combo</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    From a certain standpoint, it was impossible for anyone to ignore the existence of the God of Holy Light. That was because he was by far the strongest Main God in existence. It could even be said that he was the main reason why the Order and Chaos Faction still maintained their bnce of power despite the Chaos Faction being overall more powerful. It was an indisputable fact that nobody would deny: the God of Holy Light was the most powerful existence in the world.


    It seemed inconceivable how a Main God who was only slightly under two thousand years old managed to reach the point where he far surpassed the power level of far more ancient existences. However, it could be understood if you analyzed just how far widespread belief in the Holy Light had be.


    More than seventy percent of all humans worshipped the Holy Light. Humans were the ruling species of this generation, so they had strong reproductive abilities and powerful countries. This meant that the God of Holy Light possessed more than thirty percent of the power of faith in all of Eich. This persisted for 1700 years ever since he ascended to Godhood, which would mean several dozen generations of humans... Back in earlier generations, the Elf Gods split up the source of belief amongst themselves, weakening their overall power. The God of Holy Light was different as every single fervent worshipper and chosen individual would be power for the God of Holy Light after they died. The God of Holy Light¡¯s Divine Kingdom would forever be the one with the most overpoption problems. Countless souls within his Divine Kingdom were providing belief power to him, from the previous Holy War to the present!


    This was a frightening amount of umted power. Compared to the previous generation the Elf Gods ruled, this would possibly be more than ten times, or even one hundred times the umted power of belief of all the Elf Gods added together! That was because humans far exceeded elves in reproductive ability and rate at which a generation of humans would die out. The number of souls that entered the God of Holy Light¡¯s Divine Kingdom did so faster than elves would for the Elf Gods, so of course the God of Holy Light had a far greater amount of belief power.


    Short-lived species would have great difficultyparing to longer-lived species in strength and wisdom. Yet, short-lived species had a huge advantage for bing ¡°food for the Gods¡±. By the way, it should be mentioned that humans hadplex emotions and personalities, meaning that their belief contained a great deal of stubbornness and emotions. This helped to make their ¡°soul food¡¯s¡± nutrition and taste much better than the elves¡¯.


    Humans created the God of Holy Light. And now, he was powerful to an inconceivable realm. Even his incarnation was already at a Main God¡¯s power level. If you only looked at his energy level, it was possible that he already matched or even exceeded the Creator Goddess¡¯s level.


    This was both a coincidence and a certainty. This was the miracle created together by humanity along with Karn, the previous Holy War¡¯s Child of Fate. But right now, for us, this meant a huge amount of trouble.


    Such a powerful existence like the God of Holy Light would naturally affect many things in the overall situation. I had been constantly testing his current condition.


    The God of Holy Light¡¯s overwhelming power still had a price to it. In a way, the power of belief stemmed from soul shards. While soul shards were filled with ¡°nutritious¡± memories and emotions, they wouldn¡¯t be that easy to digest. Although the God of Holy Light obtained far more power of belief than any predecessor in history, the power of belief in him was so much that it was impossible for him to retain a sense of self.


    However, there were many different types of not having a sense of self. Was he just like aputer program that would only determine if something was beneficial for himself or not? Or had he already transformed into part of the Holy Light itself, bing unable to make any decisions at all? Or had he been synchronized with the Source of Order, bing nothing more than a loyal dog and puppet?


    The type of condition he was in would determine what type of decisions he would make in critical moments.


    Would he follow the foundational ¡°Cleansing¡± Concept of Holy Light and fight Chaos to the bloody death? Or would he only care about his personal benefits, being a cold and calcting machine? Or would he even not do anything at all apart from being a divine power automated server?


    That was why I had always carefully tested him¡ªwith the Nortnds, with the Church of Pure Holy Light, with Estrada¡¯s decision¡ªcautiously treading on his limits and seeing how he would react. Finally, I confirmed his current condition...


    ¡°He¡¯s already be the Source of Order¡¯splete puppet? That¡¯s the worst possible oue of all...¡±


    When I used the ¡°Hammer of Salvation¡± as the catalyst to borrow power from the Tower of Holy Light, this also opened up a direct path to the Tower of Holy Light. This spatial door which appeared for only an instant exposed the Tower of Holy Light¡¯s coordinates, giving the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation the opportunity that he had been lying in wait for.


    The Seven Circles of Hell were all Infernos that were separated by the concept of Space itself. It would be impossible to physically travel between the Infernos by foot alone. The God of Holy Light lost arge amount of divine power in forcefully breaking through the dimensional barriers, yet he still proceeded to fly in the sky.


    ¡°...Not only has Karn lost his sense of self, he¡¯s even instinctively strengthening himself and became theplete puppet of the Source of Order. Since you were the previous generation¡¯s Child of Fate, you really have failed so spectacrly in such an embarrassing fashion!¡±


    At this moment, by taking opportunity of just this instant, the Source of Order¡¯s puppet was already close to the Tower of Holy Light. As long as this tower was destroyed, one-fourth of Hell would be destroyed with it, and Karn would remain as the only incarnation of Holy Light.


    ¡°Karn, open your eyes! Fate is Watching You!¡±


    My angry roar echoed in the air, but I wasn¡¯t merely cursing at him. I was using the power of a God Equipment as my anger transformed into a messenger of misfortune, which appeared in front of Karn, the God of Holy Light.


    It would be impossible for my main body to catch up to him. But as I was the ruler of this world with power over the Concept of Space, I was able to instantly send an incarnation to block his path. Although my incarnation was torn apart instantly, it already managed to seed in activating the power of the ¡°Unpredictable Fate¡± staff.


    [Unpredictable Fate. High-level God Equipment staff.]


    This pitch-ck staff had been a gift to me from the God of Fate himself. And now that Fate had gained the Concepts of Measuring Scale of Good and Evil as well as Judgement, this God Equipment¡¯s curse of misfortune would be even stronger.


    [Third ability: Fate is Watching You. Choose a target, and the target¡¯s luck will decrease. The luck this individual loses will be added to yours for the next two hours. This ability ignores all magic resistance and immunities. Even other True Gods are not immune to this ability. Note: This ability can only be used once on each target for their entire lifetime. The target will be immune to this ability afterward.]


    This high-level God Equipment¡¯s curse activated instantly. A ck glow twirled itself around Karn¡¯s incarnation, but then vanished instantly as if nothing had happened at all. Yet, invisible chains of karma were now secretly changing.


    Another incarnation of mine appeared. This incarnation was wearing Patricia¡¯s God Equipment crown on his head. He locked onto the attacking God of Holy Light as his target.


    ¡°Meteors, rain death and destruction down on my enemies!¡±


    [Patricia¡¯s Protection. High-level God Equipment crown.]


    [Seventh ability: Star Power Summoning. Summon countless stars to crash down in an enormously destructive AOE attack with yourself as the center. Limited to one use per month.]


    The next moment, the entire sky was transformed into a bullet hell, just like in certain video games. The pure power of moonlight transformed into a devastating meteor shower that began its destructive attack.


    This divine powered meteor shower should have originallynded in random locations in a wide AOE radius. Yet, thanks to the guidance of Fate, these meteors continually adjusted their trajectories and took abnormally strange paths that were either straight, curved, or even backwards. But no matter which path they took, all the meteors finally ended up exploding against Karn¡¯s incarnation that was making normal efforts to dodge the meteors.


    The results of the experiment I did previously to test the effects of negative luck were proved once again. As long as one¡¯s fate was negative, randomly tossing a stone in the sky would likely cause you to be hit by your own stone. And if your fate was the most negative it could possibly be, tossing ten stones into the sky would likely end with you getting hit by eleven.


    These divine powered meteors were Patricia the Moonlight Goddess¡¯s ultimate technique. Their power actually exceeded her full power in normal situations. Plus, Karn currently had negative luck, and my luck was massively increased from stealing his. This made the damage from these meteors higher than normal by more than ten times. Karn¡¯s protective barrier immediately shattered after blocking only the first few meteors. With continuous meteors pounding his body, Karn¡¯s incarnation that had already lost a significant part of divine power was now on the verge of copsing.


    But, the next moment, the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation gathered itself together and cut off the entire outer portion of itself. It then formed something like an arm and made a throwing movement.


    ¡°Splitting off part of yourself? NO!!!¡±


    After splitting off most of itself, the incarnation which had been giant-sized was now just a ball that wasn¡¯t even one meter in diameter. However, the intensity of its energy was rapidly increasing. Judging from the high amount of energy it was emitting, it was evident that the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation was even willing to self-destruct in order topletely destroy the Tower of Holy Light.


    ¡°You shameless person who doesn¡¯t even have a face or skin anymore... Die!¡±


    The explosive Holy Light was right in front of my Tower of Holy Light. It would be toote if I didn¡¯t use my strongest ace card here. I grit my teeth and instantly sent another incarnation, together with a white rose, in front of that now-ball-formed incarnation of Holy Light.


    And then, the rose bloomed...


    The exact same scene from the River Styx urred again. Once again, the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation met with the same result.


    [Ayer¡¯s White Rose. Wondrous mystical item. Highest-level God Equipment.]


    [Ability: The chosen target will instantly die.]


    [System Notification: Yep, that¡¯s right. That¡¯s how simple the exnation is. There are no other effects. Believe me¡ªnot even a Main God can handle being targeted by this rose.]


    My System¡¯s original notification had absolutely been correct. Ayer had used countless years to create three roses of death which were the physical representations of the Concept of Death. Not even a Main God would be able to stand up to one of his roses.


    However, unlike all my other God Equipment aces, this strongest ace of mine was a one-time consumable item. If Ayer had still been alive, he would have been able to replenish the energy within this rose. But now, this death rose no longer had a true master alive, so I could only helplessly allow its rose petals to scatter in the wind. Of course, the rose took the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation along with it.


    The God of Holy Light had now recently lost two Main God level incarnations, yet his divine power still didn¡¯t show any obvious signs of weakening. His incredible strength had definitely far surpassed all realms ofmon sense. And even though I was able to deal with this current dangerous situation, the grudges between us were certain to make us into the greatest of mortal enemies.


    ¡°Sigh, you call me reckless? I think you¡¯re the reckless one, Rnd.¡±


    I slightly heaved a breath of relief, seeing the golden glow beginning to dissipate, when the sighing from behind me caused goosebumps to appear on my back again.


    ¡°Damn it, I just used up all my aces...¡±


    I turned around to see Karwenz who had a displeased expression. To be honest, I really did forget about his presence in the heat of the moment just now. Without a doubt, this was a type of looking down upon him. No wonder he was so displeased.


    ¡°...And I had wanted to ambush him with these God Equipment.¡±


    Yep, from the very start, I had never intended to have a direct physical confrontation with him. The Chaos Faction had far too many advantages when it came to brute strength. Originally, I had just intended to stall him while using God Equipment to ambush him.


    First, I would use a debuff curse to lower his luck, and then weaken him with attack magic to lower his defenses. Finally, I would win with the instant-death attack. This was the ssic three-stepbo for dragon ying that mages used. It was an especially effective strategy against tough-skinned targets.


    Originally, I had intended to use this three-stepbo of God Equipment on Karwenz. He had a muchrger body size than other Demon Lords, and would alwayspletely concentrate on only battling. He was basically the easiest target to ambush.


    ¡°But now, when I was pressured, I identally used all my prepared tricks on the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation...¡±


    And now, I could only grit my teeth and continue to face my displeased younger brother head on.


    Fortunately enough, however, it was the God of Holy Light that had rushed over here, so Karwenz was more than happy enough to watch me fight him. If another Demon Lord had arrived here, it was highly likely that it would be 2 on 1 against me.


    But before we could restart our battle, the entire Indifference Inferno started shaking violently yet again. The hole that the God of Holy Light previously created exploded yet again, and a gigantic creature suddenly appeared in a cloud of smoke. This was the opponent that I had originally arranged for the God of Holy Light.


    ¡°Envy?¡±


    The Borealis had indeed just rushed out of the Thieves¡¯ Inferno. It was just that it now had a wretched appearance. Its main body and outer parts had all been melted, andrge amounts of pieces were falling off what remained, as if it would be destroyed at any moment.


    ¡°It would seem that I gave you the worst possible opponent...¡±


    The strengths of each Main God that came to attack Hell were quite obvious. The most difficult one to deal with was obviously the most powerful one, the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation. His original version of the Holy Light represented Cleansing, which was the natural counter to the undead. All of my Hell Kings would be countered by him. And so, I directly went with Sun Bin <sup>1</sup> ¡®s strategy for racing horses, and had Marsolit, the weakest of my Seven Original Sins, do his best to stall the God of Holy Light.


    Of course, another reason why I gave the weakest Sin, Envy, the strongest Main God as his opponent was because this was only an incarnation of the God of Holy Light, who would have rather low intelligence. Karn should have been the slowest out of all the Main Gods to see through this world¡¯s secrets. Yet I hadn¡¯t expected that the moment he sensed the existence of the Tower of Holy Light, he¡¯d decide to go all out with zero inhibitions.


    And now, not only did Marsolit, who was the slow to power up type, be seriously injured, the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation was even the first to discover this world¡¯s secrets. Karn had unhesitatingly attacked after he discovered the Tower of Holy Light. I had apparently matched Envy with the wrong opponent.


    Yet, Marsolit¡¯s arrival still made things slightly easier for me. At the very least, a Main God (well, his incarnation) had been directly killed and was no longer a threat. I was now the one who had the 2 on 1 advantage. I was gaining the upper hand!


    And, Envy¡¯s personal abilities were highly unique. Someone would have to manipte him in order to utilize his strongest powers. And, as long as he had enough time, hisbat strength wouldn¡¯t be below the other Original Sins at all.


    ¡°Now then, it¡¯s time for you to witness Marsolit¡¯s true¡ª¡±


    I only half-finished my arrogant words before I was interrupted. I had just received extremely bad news from one of my incarnations.


    ¡°The Pride Circle of Hell has been broken through, and Omar was actually seriously injured and then sealed? That damned Lord of Putrefaction...¡±

 Chapter 464 - Mountain Inferno

    Chapter 464: Mountain Inferno


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    I was incredibly astonished to hear that Omar had been defeated. He was definitely among the stronger of the Seven Original Sins. The undead knights I sent to assist him were courageous and skilled fighters. The Mountain Inferno, which was Pride¡¯s Circle of Hell, shouldn¡¯t have feared anyrge-scale group battle. It was inconceivable that Pride was the first to have been defeated.


    Pride stemmed from ¡°levels¡±. At first, all humans were perhaps indeed equal. But as society developed, human habits developed to ssify people into different social levels. Concepts like upper, middle, and low ss appeared. Those who stood high above got ustomed to looking down at those below them, along with viewing the lower sses as not even human or toys.


    I never viewed the Seven Original Sins as true evil. All of the Seven Original Sins had their positives and negatives. An appropriate amount of Pride would be self-confidence, an absolutely required form of self-recognition for bravely striving to reach the peak. However, an overwhelming amount of pride would only result in birthing a person who obtained satisfaction from looking down on others, or deriving pleasure from kicking those below them¡ªthat would obviously be going way overboard.


    ¡°Since the prideful enjoy fighting for the sake of higher positions, climbing ever higher to look down on others, I shall let you all climb as much as you like.¡±


    Sword mountains, fire mountains, magma mountains, snow mountains, and countless other cruel mountains existed in the Mountain Inferno. However, unlike normal snow mountains, the snow mountains here got colder the closer one got to the base of the mountain. The fire mountains¡¯ bases were nothing more than boiling liquid metal. The other mountains were the same as well. The closer to the base, the harsher the environment. The farther up you went, the morefortable you would be.


    The criminals thatmitted the sin of having too much Pride would be dropped naked into the mountains. If they wanted to be morefortable, they would be forced to climb for their lives with only their bare hands and feet. But on these mountain paths, there was only enough space for one person to ascend. It would be impossible for them to avoid fighting and ughtering each other. And even if some managed to ascend to a certain height, devils were waiting to knock them back down to the bottom and start over again.


    I won¡¯t get into this particr inferno¡¯s philosophy and religious meaning here. Just the very rules of this inferno made it the most appropriate location for dealing withrge-scale group battles.


    Omar was the ruler of the Mountain Inferno. He would forever stand at the very peak of all the mountains. He could give his undead subordinates the ability to fly as they wished through the mountains, yet ordinary dead souls or any invaders would only be able to move up one step at a time. Not only that, all ¡°movement¡±-rted magic abilities were automatically deactivated for the dead souls or any invaders. This would make them into nothing more than easy targets.


    Did this sound shameless? Dimensionalws were indeed so shameless. Not to mention, this was no ordinary dimension. Someone that entered Bastian¡¯s Circle of Hell which represented Wrath would also be a bloodthirsty maniac.


    I had originally thought that such a battlefieldbined with Omar¡¯s abilities would make it so that it was impossible for him to lose. It should have been simple enough to stall for time at the very minimum.


    But, unfortunately... Omar met a Demon Main God, Ladvioka, the Lord of Putrefaction, who was going all out!


    Yes, the critical part was that Ladvioka was going all out. Main God level existences would rarely bring out their full powers.


    Demon Lords were incredibly difficult to deal with. This was something already expected. However, they were difficult to deal with for more than just their personal power levels.


    The long eons gave each Demon Lord a unique path to their peak of power. These Demon Lords also all hadpletely different personalities and styles. Still, even Demon Main God could be described as the slyest among the sly.


    Sophocles the Deceiver easily agreed to negotiate because he discovered that it was truly possible for him to actually perish here. Hell was now an isted dimension, cutting off his path of retreat. Although there was less than a one-in-three chance for him to die here, and despite the fact that he still had plenty of hidden aces, the always cautious Sophocles still chose the path of absolute safety that would bring him the most benefits.


    Did he really have no other path to take? Was that the limit of his power? The answer was an obvious no. The countless eons gave him plenty of foundational strength. It was impossible to calcte how many hidden aces such an existence would possess. Still, for the Chaos Main Gods that always warred amongst themselves, any top-level ace that would be able to affect thebat situation at a Main God level would be a priceless treasure difficult to obtain in any ne. No Main God would bring out such an ace if the benefits were less than the price of using such an ace. Not to mention, other Main Gods were here in Hell right now, meaning that a Main God might expose their most important secrets by using an ace.


    There was a saying that the Gods were just like countries. Their rtionships only involved benefits, not emotions. They would often test the waters and taunt each other, but all-out warfare would be incredibly rare. Although I felt that this saying was somewhat extreme, it was still urate.


    The Gods rarely warred amongst each other, but as long as they did, it would usually be an all-out war that would only end with one God¡¯s death. That was because only by stealing the enemy God¡¯s dimension and divine power, believers, and Divine Concept would the victorious God be able to make up for their losses in the war.


    This was also why most of the Gods¡¯ shes were only in their churches¡¯ teachings and just talk. It was even rarer for Main Gods to go all out against each other.


    ¡°At any rate, the Sources of Order and Chaos are unable to surveil their actions in Hell, nor are there any deep grudges between us. As long as we disy a sufficient amount of power, making them think that they¡¯ll definitely lose more than they gain, of course they won¡¯t bring out their full power.¡±


    I already saw through all of this, which was why I chose the strategy of forcefully dividing the Main Gods up and sending them to different Circles of Hell.


    ¡°Isting them so that they can¡¯t meet up with their allies is no different from directly exiling or sealing them. Even if it¡¯s a Main God level existence, when they discover that they¡¯ll probably lose far more than they¡¯ll gain, or that they¡¯ll even meet with real danger, they¡¯ll still instinctively choose to protect themselves first. Since self-protection is their priority, of course they¡¯ll leave power in reserve, which will increase the chance that they¡¯ll enter a battle of attrition. And what we need right now more than anything is time.¡±


    The developments so far proved that my inferences had been correct for the time being. Sophocles chose to remain neutral; the God of Wisdom Kalumandas was also willing to negotiate. The other Main Gods also only started by testing the waters rather than going all out.


    If I showed any signs of weakness, the Main Gods would naturally swarm in and devour me. But if I made them feel that I was a prickly hedgehog filled with toxic quills, making them lose more than they gained if they ate me, this would naturally help to keep the bnce of power and bring this battle into one of attrition, which was what I wanted the most.


    My arrangements for each Main God¡¯s opponent were all specifically targeted. Harloys was with the God of Wisdom Kalumandas. Even if their negotiations broke down and Kalumandas attacked, Harloys was also an archmage who would be able to defend herself against Kalumandas¡¯ primarily magic-based attacks. Gaar, the ¡°Murky Nightmare¡±, was capable of evolving as he fought and healing his own wounds, disgusting abilities to deal with. He faced Ah Dang, who also had extremely high individualbat strength and was also capable of evolving through devouring. The currentbat situation also seemed to prove that my choices had been correct.


    However, there was one existence that surpassed my calctions¡ªLadvioka, the Lord of Putrefaction!


    Since the Lord of Putrefaction¡¯sbat strength mostly stemmed from his armies, of course I arranged ¡°Pride¡± Omar as his opponent since Omar also relied on subordinates to do most of the fighting. And, I even sent my undead knights to Omar to strengthen him even further. Omar was also supported by the dimensionalws of his Mountain Inferno. This should have been a fight that was over ny percent in our favor.


    ¡°That damned Ladvioka! He¡¯s literally insane!¡±


    Unlike how the other Main Gods remained cautious, Ladvioka was immensely tempted by the benefits to be had in devouring this entire dimension. He unhesitatingly brought out his true power and used countless priceless treasures that he had stored for eons.


    My Wumianzhe incarnation there already gave me the information on what happened. In order to deal with the Mountain Inferno¡¯s dimensionalws and buffs for Omar, Ladvioka unhesitatingly used the strategy of a forceful Dimensional Descent.


    Difficult to understand, you say? Ladvioka basically performed a forceful summon of one of his personal dimensions, forcefully oveying the dimensions and causing a collision. To use an analogy, it was as if a bastard used the Mars to smash it into Earth!


    In some of his worlds, Ladvioka was treated as an existence akin to the Creator Goddess. But evidently, he wasn¡¯t a good father at all. At the very least, he felt absolutely nothing for his own children.


    He used a dimension with actual lives in it as nothing more than a consumable item to be thrown like a brick. This forcefully broke through Hell¡¯s dimensional walls, but no matter what the result was, by using his own dimension as a hammer, the dimension would shatter and all lives within it would be ended. It would be almost impossible for any existences within that dimension to survive.


    The broken dimensional shards from Ladvioka¡¯s dimension crashed into the dimensional walls of Hell. This sh brought about a distortion of the dimensionalws, creating cracks in the very fabric of Space. Even my powerful undead knights were incapable of surviving in such an environment.


    This also allowed arge amount of the Ladvioka¡¯s dimensions¡¯ survivors to enter the Mountain Inferno. Any survivor would be one of the strongest existences in that dimension, and they continued fighting for Ladvioka¡¯s cause. These dense ¡°worker ants¡± of his immediately began spreading Ladvioka¡¯s faith and dimensionalws there. Ladvioka sacrificed at least more than twenty of his personal dimensions here all in order to distort the dimensionalws of the Mountain Inferno, which meant that he used up so much umted power which would take several tens of thousands of years to gather.


    Basically, in order to steal the dimension of Hell and itsws, Ladvioka started right away by unhesitatingly destroying more than twenty of his personal dimensions, and most of the lives within them!


    A Demon Lord Main God who possessed a number of dimensions in the two digits suddenly sacrificed more than half of all he possessed. What did he have to show for it? By now, Ladvioka no longer had any path of retreat. He could only possibly fight us to the bitter end. The first mortal enemy for us appeared in the battle for Hell.


    I received much information from all my incarnations. The Mountain Inferno had been broken through and Hell¡¯s Four Halls were in danger. The next moment, I decided on a course of action.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to first go to beat up that damned fatty. Follow me if you dare.¡±


    I directly vanished together with Marsolit. I casually opened up a teleportation portal to the Mountain Inferno but didn¡¯t close it. My aura emanated from the other side of the portal right after I disappeared. And so, Karwenz unhesitatingly stepped into the teleportation portal.


    This incredibly simple dare would be highly effective against someone like Karwenz who wouldn¡¯t back down against any challenge. He would especially never back down from a challenge from me... but this didn¡¯t mean that I wouldn¡¯t scam him. The teleportation portal I left for him was within the innermost core of a volcano in the Mountain Inferno. He could go enjoy a magma bath to calm down first.


    ¡°Rnd, you bastard, fooling me yet again...!¡±


    Cough, let¡¯s ignore this loser dog¡¯s angry roarsing from deep underground. Currently, the Mountain Inferno that I saw seemed just like Armageddon itself had arrived.


    Countless broken continental and even world shards were falling down onto the Mountain Inferno like streaking meteors. Yet this was a cmity which far surpassed the damage that a meteor shower would cause. It looked more like countless moons were directly falling down and causing havoc.


    Numerous tears appeared in the sky as snow mountains were dissolved by magma, while spewing volcanos were ttened by stone continental shards. Even worse, the distorted dimensionalws were difficult for the Mountain Inferno to digest. With so many unfixed dimensional tears, the dead that should have revived immediately instead temporarily lost their undying nature.


    And in all this chaos, all these dimensional shards and distorted dimensionalws were more than enough to let the demons create their own abyssal fortress. Large amounts of mystical creatures were walking around, and in the middle of the battlefield, Ladvioka was trampling on and tearing my undead knights¡¯ corpses, stalling and preventing their eventual revivals.


    I unhesitatingly roared out in anger as I saw all this from the bow of Envy, the Borealis.


    ¡°Marsolit! Big Dipper squadron! It¡¯s time to transform and move out!¡±

 Chapter 465 - Borealis Transformer

    <h4>Chapter 465: Borealis Transformer</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Envy, Marsolit, the Borealis. Although he was the Original Sin that I used the most, hisbat abilities weren¡¯t standing out among the Sins at all.


    Maybe some people would think that this was because Marsolit was too young. However, an undead¡¯s power typically depended on the soul core. But actually, he used a Semi God level core, someone incredibly stubborn on obtaining revenge. His soul¡¯s starting point was extremely high already.


    All this time, what limited hisbat strength the most was actually the Original Sin that he represented¡ªEnvy.


    The Original Sins were my own soul shards. My own understanding of the Original Sins determined their abilities. Out of all the Original Sins, Envy was rather unique.


    Envy was the Original Sin with the least negatives. In fact, most of the time, Envy could even be considered a positive emotion to possess. From a certain standpoint, its positive worth exceeded its negative worth.


    Perhaps there were a few people out there who wouldmit evil deeds due to possessing envious emotions towards those with better talent, status, reputation, knowledge, or wealth. But, I felt that there would be even more who thought, ¡°Why can¡¯t that be me?¡± or ¡°I¡¯m not any worse than he is, I can definitely do even better!¡± when looking at their better-off ssmates and friends.


    From a certain standpoint, Envy and Pride were two concepts that were simr yet also opposites. Pride was an attitude and condescension that those with higher status had towards the lower, while Envy was the desire of those with lower status to reach higher status. As long as concepts like social sses and individual differences existed in the world, then Envy would be impossible to escape from. At the very least, everyone would possess ¡°unwillingness¡± toward being surpassed by others they viewed as simr.


    The same concept could sometimes be helpful medicine while being toxic poison to others. There were idiots who would ignore others¡¯ talent, hard work, and sacrifice in obtaining what they had. Envy would goad them into fiercely ndering and attacking others, stoking their fires of ¡°not respecting others.¡± Meanwhile, the smarter ones who were ¡°unwilling¡± to stay down transformed their mes into whips to constantly improve themselves instead. Not only that, smarter individuals would be able to analyze the strengths and advantages of the target of their envy, and then think of methods to imitate, learn, and improve one¡¯s own insufficiencies.


    This was my personal understanding and analysis of the concept of Envy. It might not necessarily be correct or the same as others¡¯ understanding... No, I should say that every single person probably had their own understanding of what an Original Sin was. There was no so-called answer out there to begin with. Meanwhile, the Envy battleships¡¯ abilities as part of my soul shard were a perfect oue of the definition that I gave to Envy.


    The farther down the pyramid of status a person was, the more that person would desire to improve and move upward. This was the so-called ¡°desire for betterment.¡± That was why Envy¡¯s original battleship model didn¡¯t even have any extrabat strength at all. He started out as nothing more than an empty tform that wouldn¡¯t have any ipatibilities with any power system out there. He started out from level zero. The way he finally evolved wouldpletely depend on how he imitated others in battle and how many abilities he was able to steal.


    His true uniqueness came from his potential in that he would forever bepatible with all spare parts and abilities no matter the type. He started out as a ¡°zero¡± with limitless potential and growth. He possessed ¡°hunger¡± for perpetual evolution.


    Perhaps some people would think that his abilities thus ovepped with those of Ah Dang of Gluttony, but they were actuallypletely different. Ah Dang was a predator who evolved through devouring prey. He would instinctively evolve and strengthen himself. Ah Dang¡¯s most frightening ability was actually the limitless lifeforce he could obtain through devouring.


    Meanwhile, the Envy battleships would evolve through imitation and self-controlled selection. My theory had it that as long as he had enough time and underwent sufficiently numerous battles, he would eventually surpass all my other Original Sins inbat strength... although that would likely take several tens of thousands of years...


    ¡°Envy¡± Marsolit. As long as he experienced countless battles, he would definitely be the strongest existence amongst my Seven Original Sins.


    However, I didn¡¯t have the time to wait that long...


    And so, I created the Borealis¡¯s personalbat squadron.


    That¡¯s right, I was referring to the Big Dipper squadron. These seven aerial battleships were actually special add-ons I created just for Marsolit!


    Yep, all these battleships were actually add-ons. The Borealis was simply the core part at the center. Just imagining what type of monstrosity would appear when they allbined made me so delighted!


    But while imagining was nice, reality was harsh. Creating airships was prohibitively expensive. If I startedrge-scale construction of airships, the most probable result was that I wouldn¡¯t obtain a single rare airship that I wanted before I used up all my resources, and the unfinished hulls would be sealed away to gather dust.


    Even by borrowing Xiluo¡¯s resources and strength, I was still only able to create two dragonbone battleships, the Mizar and the Alkaid. I stillcked four airships to finish my blueprint. That meant that progress was less than half, and I couldn¡¯t use the nned Big Dipper squadron as Envy¡¯s add-ons in actual battle at all.


    But luckily for me, I dug up a wonderful treasure in Dragon World...


    ¡°Awaken! Guardian God of the Eternal Thunder tribe, Imprint of the Tiger God!¡±


    A tremendous skeleton awakened from its deep sleep, answering my will and summons. Terrifying roars could be heard from its teleportation portal as this gigantic behemoth tore through dimensional space and arrived in the Mountain Inferno.


    At this moment, when this towering presence arrived, the entire Inferno began trembling. Just how frightening was this existence? Just the skull alone was farrger than even the biggest Supreme Immemorial Dragon. And, the first to arrive through the portal from the Thieves¡¯ Inferno were two now empty dragonbone battleships¡ªthe Mizar and the Alkaid.


    When Marsolit faced the God of Holy Light, Envy was so severely countered that he hadn¡¯t even had time to use the ace cards I¡¯d prepared for him before the God of Holy Light directly broke past him.


    ¡°Big Dipper squadron, transform and head out!¡±


    My passionate shouts echoed in the air as the mega-giant skeleton still missing some of its bones and the battleship add-ons walked together. Unfortunately for me, there was no exciting music like what would y on TV during a transformation. Alright then, by this point, the readers can probably guess what I intended.


    ¡°Borealis, you¡¯ll be the body. Mizar, you¡¯ll be the left hand. Alkaid, you¡¯ll be the right hand. Imprint of the Tiger God, you¡¯ll be everything else! I¡¯ll be the head. Go forth, my Transformer... the Borealis War God!¡±


    My enemies were confused by the sight. Meanwhile, I ignored my System and the silly cat¡¯sments of ¡°You never grow up, still ying with dolls at your age¡± and [Such an old joke, you¡¯re revealing your age!] The pitch-ck bone giant¡¯s bones mmed into each other and distorted as it formed itself within Hell.


    It was impossible to calcte his new height, because even the tallest snow mountain only reached up to his waist. The arrogant and insane Lord of Putrefaction didn¡¯t even reach up to his knee!


    This giant was constructed out of pitch-ck bones all over. Inside the core protected by the ribcage, the Borealis was glowing as if it was a beating heart. And, its iplete left hand and right foot were its strongest weapons. The roaring Mizar readied its cannons as dragonbreath powered the cannons. Meanwhile, the right leg¡¯s Alkaid gave the giant the super movement ability of breaking thews of Space.


    Perhaps this bone giant was still iplete. Yet, just by looking at this iprehensible behemoth caused the dimensional invaders to feel truly helpless inside.


    ¡°What is that?¡±


    ¡°Is this a joke? Such arge body and terrifying energy level? Why hasn¡¯t he copsed on himself?¡±


    Out of everyone, the Lord of Putrefaction¡¯s reaction was the most unique.


    ¡°This is impossible! Itpletely goes against all the most basicws of life creation! Not a single dimension is capable of giving birth to such a monster! This... this has surpassed a Main God!¡±


    That¡¯s right, if you only looked at energy level and its limits of applying instantaneous power, thisbination monster indeed surpassed the limits of a Main God.


    ¡°My dimensions... I¡¯ve sessfully reconstructed the Thieves¡¯ Inferno and the Mountain Inferno.¡±


    I had finally finished what I was doing, heaving a sigh of relief. While the Lord of Putrefaction was capable of wreaking havoc upon the dimensionalws here with his Dimensional Descents, I was the ruler of Hell, and naturally possessed the ability to use Dimensional Descent to fix the shattered tears.


    I had brought over the now empty Thieves¡¯ Inferno andbined it with the Mountain Inferno to fix them both. Althoughbining these two Infernos would likely bring along a bunch of unfortunate side effects, this would be greatly useful to the battle here.


    Hades Mist started spreading again as the tattered undead knights finally stood up once more. The countless dead within these two Infernos started walking into the giant¡¯s body, bing its spare parts and giving this giant sufficient energy for movement andbat!


    ¡°ughter! Steal! Evolve!¡±


    When faced with a Main God, separate body parts that all had their own will would be meaningless. Only bybining the wills and souls together would there be a foundational breakthrough. This bone giant was a pure war machine, so ughtering and stealing became its pure instincts.


    Those simple words became the bone giant¡¯sbat fervor which suppressed everything. Just his first step created countless earthquakes. When Ladvioka saw this monster towering above him, and noticed how his own spells were actuallypletely ineffective against it, even this Demon Lord Main God started wondering if he had made the worst possible decision.


    Countless souls gave this bone giant an explosive amount of energy that would surpass even the Main Gods. The Tiger God¡¯s corpse gave this bone giant a skeleton frame and body that could contain his power. The three battleships became his most important organ and limbs. This amalgamation monster should have been born only after ten thousand more years, yet Hell¡¯s dimensionalws allowed the impossible to be reality.


    ¡°No, no, this is impossible! This has already surpassed the limits of this dimension. It will definitely soon copse. My children, destroy him! Stall him for me!¡±


    The hysterical Lord of Putrefactionmanded his children to suicide-attack the giant. With just a casual wave of one hand, the bone giant spewed pure ck dragon mes, which created a destructive inferno. All the ces where the bone giant stepped became tremendous crevices that swallowed countless demon warriors.


    This was a monster which even the Titan King would be afraid of. The Lord of Putrefaction seemed like nothing more than a slightlyrge animal in front of it.


    The Lord of Putrefaction¡¯s distorted children were dying inrge numbers. In front of this ¡°warrior from the future¡± that came through the rivers of time, these ants¡¯ resistance becamepletely meaningless. Even a dragon wouldn¡¯t reach the size of one of his thumbs. His overwhelming ughtering abilities created a feast of redness on this battlefield, but I was currently calcting how much longer I had before this giant copsed.


    That¡¯s right, copsed. This monstrous giant was only a halfplete product to begin with. I had now randomly added the Tiger God¡¯s corpse into my blueprint and was using so many temporary spare parts and whatever energy source I could. It was just like taping a random assortment of dimensionalws together. This was an impossible creation thatpletely broke the limits of Hell¡¯s own Elemental Tide. I was already astonished enough that it was capable of movement. It was unknown just how long it would be able to fight for.


    ¡°At the very least, I need it to kill a Main God for me before it copses! Envy, tear apart this green and idiotic demon for me! Take revenge for your older brother!¡±

 Chapter 465.1 - Hidden Aces

    <h4>Chapter 465.1: Hidden Aces</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The dimensional tears in the sky had yet to close, and now countless crevices had appeared in the pitch-ck ground. This abnormal scene brought difort to everyone. Falling into any crevice or tear would probably have an unknown result.


    ¡°Kill that Ladvioka! I want him to be the first Chaos Main God that dies in this Holy War.¡±


    I gave themand to kill as I stood on the top of the bone giant. Just by the action of walking alone, this tremendous bone giant would make a joke out of any attempts to stop it.


    Countless ants rushed forward to die, while the Lord of Putrefaction Ladvioka himself was actually retreating. As a Main God, he had already gotten ustomed to staying as far away from any potential danger as possible. It had been more than five thousand years ago in the Holy War from two generations ago that he hadst felt such fear that he could die at any moment.


    It was precisely because he had suffered in that Holy War from two generations ago that he refused the will of the Chaos Abyss when it summoned him to participate in the previous Holy War. Ladvioka only went at the very end of the previous Holy War to steal some loot and pretend to add to his resume. The result was that the Chaos Abyss started loathing him and demoted his noble title, making Ladvioka be a Demon Lord Main God who was only an Earl. That made him a joke for a while.


    Of course, at his power level, not many would dare tough at him. Ladvioka himself was also no longer interested in noble titles. The Chaos Abyss had given him everything it could already. If he wanted to progress in power any further, he could only rely on his own stealing, conquering, and personal experience. And since the Chaos Abyss now disliked him, that was probably the main reason why he was so willing to sacrifice anything to obtain this new dimension of Hell.


    Perhaps it was also because the cruel Holy War from two generations ago scared him so much that this Demon Lord changed his former way of directly fighting. Instead, Ladvioka began raising his own demon armies and military squadrons.


    But right now, all those dangerous magical beasts that he worked so hard to raise were all unable to protect him! The bone giant that would send him to his doom kept approaching ever closer. It seemed to him as if his destruction wasing for him.


    ¡°Stop it! Stop it at all costs!¡±


    The furious Demon Lordmanded his cannon fodder to stop the bone giant¡¯s charge. Although his subordinates obeyed thismand, they were basically helpless.


    The powerful pure white-haired girl with the chained-up body, eyelids sewn shut, and gagged mouth was the Insect Mother who was powerful enough to create an entire dimension belonging to her magical insects. As long as she had a sufficient amount of time, she was even capable of single-handedly destroying an entire dimension by herself. Not even most True Gods were capable of resisting against her. However, she didn¡¯t even have time to utilize the insect swarms that were her greatest power when she was burned into nothing but ash together with her insect servants by the bone giant¡¯s pitch-ck mes. Countless magical insects and their magical nests died together with her.


    Ladvioka¡¯s magical war elephant squadron that had powerful charge attacks and tremendous bodies, sufficient to make even demons be afraid, were actually shorter than the bone giant¡¯s foot. The fact that the elephants charged forward actually made it even easier for the bone giant to smush them to death like ants.


    As for the distorted half-angels that spread gue and death? Ha, their strongest abilities were now worthless in front of an undead magical behemoth like this bone giant. The half-angels didn¡¯t even cause any effective damage before they were vaporized into real corpses by the powerful aura of death around the bone giant.


    Just breathing alone could create tornados. Just staring at someone could cause death. Just walking could create canyons. This bone giant, Envy¡¯s incarnation, showed the demons from other nes and the Chaos Abyss just what a real nightmare, a real dimensional destroyer was!


    Magical beasts were killed, stomped to death, and burned to death in their hordes. The tremendous bone giant trampled everything that tried to stop it. It was approaching ever closer to Ladvioka¡¯s temporary abyssal fortress. This Demon Lord who had wanted to reobtain the will of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s recognition now saw his worst nightmare right before him.


    ¡°How can such a ridiculous thing even exist...¡±


    This bone giant was constructed out of the purest dimensionalws of death, allowing it to bring death upon all of Ladvioka¡¯s demons. Countless souls transformed into energy for this bone giant. And it just so happened that the dimensionalws of this world dictated that the dead were unable to be ¡°truly dead¡±. No matter if it was the bone giant or the dead souls providing it with energy, they all possessed an endless amount of energy force. Basically, this ¡°Transformer¡± was a bug-like existence that had a limitless amount of energy. Since the grand blueprint for this bone giant¡¯s design had incredible potential power at the peak, and it now had limitless energy, these twobined thanks to Hell¡¯s dimensionalws to be an ¡°undead perpetual motion machine.¡± This created a monster that surpassed even the Main Gods in energy level.


    The Gods surpassed the mundane mostly because of dimensionalws. In their Divine Kingdoms, they were the administrators who held authority over their own Concepts. Any ordinary powerful individual that wanted to defeat them would first have to think of ideas to seal or weaken the dimensional Concept they possessed, which would return a ¡°God¡± back to mortal standards.


    Since I had already anticipated that Main Gods woulde and attack me, of course I made preparations against them. All of Hell was my personal Divine Kingdom, and I possessed plenty of powerful Concepts and dimensionalws.


    But in my opinion, directly using dimensionalws to attack was nothing more than a foolish tactic. That was because dimensionalws had their limits. Instead, using dimensionalws to strengthen my greatest advantage¡ªmy creations¡ªso that their strengths became even stronger would be the best way to abuse dimensionalws.


    And so, I toyed with dimensionalws to the utmost limit, creating this existence that surpassed the dimensionalws. This was all because the Lord of Putrefaction had invaded me with all his power...


    ¡°Fine then, let¡¯s just see andpare who has the better hidden aces! Ladvioka, I can understand your fear because what all armymander types fear more than anything are powerful warriors that can ignore numerical advantage and go directly for themander. But this... is only the beginning... Arise, those that are dead! Fight for your new master.¡±


    ck mist filled this entire world. Hell wasn¡¯t the end of life. Hell was only the beginning of everything.


    The pale white biohazard Insect Mother reappeared in the middle of the battlefield. But this time, her sewed eyes were open, and her clear white eyes actually consisted of countless single eyes that createdpound eyes. However, her eyes were filled with hatred as she red at the existence she had just so furiously defended.


    Her life-rending magical bees and death mushroom bombs appeared once again. However, this time, they targeted the still ¡°living¡± demon armies.


    It was the same for the distorted half-angels, war elephants, and all the other magical beasts. The moment that they were revived from death, they immediately started charging towards their former master.


    ¡°Haha, human-wave tactics? You want topare with me in full-scale army battles? You want to use human-wave tactics against me, a super undead mage in my home turf of Hell? Ladvioka! Are you an idiot!?¡±


    As long as enough death was caused, an Undead Cmity would be capable of dragging any army into total annihtion. However, something that surprised even me was the fact that I only sped up Ladvioka¡¯s dead subordinate¡¯s revival, but I hadn¡¯t distorted their wills. More than seventy percent of his former subordinates that were revived after death actually directly attacked Ladvioka with all their might even without my influence.


    ¡°My new master. If your home was destroyed by him, with your friends and family all sacrificed on the experimental table, and your entire tribe was destroyed for the sole reason that they weren¡¯t ¡®suitable¡¯ enough for his experiments, and you yourself were transformed into a weapon of war, you would hate a ¡®Creator¡¯ like Ladvioka as well!¡±


    The Insect Mother sent me a soul message about her reasons, although I could infer them even without her message. Quite obviously, Ladvioka was a highly unpopr master. No matter what contracts or other methods to control his subordinates he possessed, they would all be ineffective after his subordinates died once.


    As for the rtive few that maintained their loyalty to Ladvioka, I directly tossed all their souls into the River Styx, making them leave this battle.


    An abnormal scene now appeared in this fight. The undead knights were rushing forward at Ladvioka, and the just deceased demons all crawled up again and joined my side. This was doubtlessly a turning point in the battle.


    At this moment, the Demon Lord Ladvioka who had been remaining abnormally silent finally raised his head. The hatred contained within him transformed into corporeal poisonous mes. He suddenly swung a giant battle hammer containing abyssal mes, causing an orange-red firestorm to begin covering the entire world.


    In the air above Ladvioka¡¯s battle hammer, the mes transformed into an angry Inferno Demon roaring in the void. It seemed to be roaring and struggling in anger. The next instant, an orange aura began spreading. This seemingly harmless orange wave passed countless warriors, directly igniting the weak who could only watch themselves being burnt to ash. The strong simply imploded suddenly.


    ¡°Such a powerful wavelength? The purest fire magic? A forbidden spell?¡±


    That¡¯s right, countless howls and sparks flew together with all the mushroom cloud explosions. No matter if you looked at therge-scale area of effect or the individual attack power, this forbidden spell far surpassed any limits that a mortal could cast.


    The Demon Lord had sessfully cast a forbidden spell in less than two minutes!


    ¡°I never expected that the rumors about Ladvioka formerly being an Inferno Demon were true. His fire magic mastery has probably far surpassed that of any human mage in existence. However, while his fire may look pretty, it¡¯s all meaningless!¡±


    That¡¯s right, it was meaningless. With regards to fights between top-level existences,rge-scale AOE forbidden spells wouldn¡¯t have enough attack power against individuals. And, my ace card against Ladvioka was a bone giant Transformer. It would be impossible for Ladvioka to survive if the bone giant got close to him.


    The mes from the forbidden spell covered the bone giant¡¯s entire body. However, the mes were then quenched in the next instant. I didn¡¯t even try to move or dodge the attack. While Ladvioka¡¯s death-bringing mes would perhaps easily y any ordinary giant, there was an absolute difference in energy level that made it difficult to even scratch Envy¡¯s defenses. It would be impossible to even kill my incarnation.


    What happened next was also within my expectations. The white snowkes that fell from the sky helped the warriors who died in the mes just now to obtain new physical bodies. As long as the entirety of Hell¡¯s dimensionalws wasn¡¯t shattered, it would be impossible for the dead to truly die here. Even a forbidden spell would only slightly slow down the undead and demon mob¡¯s attack against Ladvioka.


    Considering the fact that many living demons on Ladvioka¡¯s side had just perished to his forbidden spell, the second charge against him would only be even more vicious with more demons that newly joined my side.


    But, something unexpected then happened...


    The tremendous bone giant suddenly stopped and tilted, almost falling over on the ground.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on? The undead being reborn?¡±


    Countless undead souls from the Mountain and Thieves¡¯ Infernos were gathered within the bone giant¡¯s skeleton. They were basically a portable battery for the bone giant. And right now, many of these souls were currently being reborn.


    The bone giant itself wouldn¡¯t take much damage from the mes, but those dangerous mes sessfully slew the ordinary undead within the bone giant. Although the undead would soon revive, this naturally meant that there would be a short period of insufficient energy, just like a machine that wouldn¡¯t work when there was a temporary power outage. Naturally, this caused the bone giant to stop.


    Since the fiercest warrior leading the vanguard suddenly stopped, it became unavoidable that the undead army¡¯s attack became disrupted.


    And the next instant, Ladvioka actually opened up a pair of fiery wings on his back, one of the signature characteristics of Inferno Demons. These wings carried his fat and gigantic body into the air.


    Perhaps everyone in the world had underestimated this Demon Lord who always kept a low profile. Although Ladvioka had seemingly retreated from the frontlines and adopted an army-based fighting style, he had never abandoned his Inferno Demon foundational instincts. No matter if it was in melee fighting or fire magic, he would still be the strongest Inferno Demon in existence.


    A fire-wreathed greatsword suddenly appeared in the air which Ladvioka then grasped in his hands. He then suddenly threw the sword, directly aiming for the bone giant¡¯s heart, the Borealis. As long as the heart was destroyed, even though the Borealis could be revived, this bone giant would copse on itself and it would be impossible to put it together again in this fight.


    ¡°Should I say that it¡¯s to be expected of a Demon Lord Main God? He actually found the weak spot so quickly, but...¡±


    In just a short few minutes, the Demon Lord who had experienced uncountable battles already found the critical point of this battle! Even I now felt that I had previously underestimated Ladvioka. If I had forced him into a physical fight under normal dimensionalws, it was highly likely that I would be on the losing end.


    ¡°...But, aren¡¯t you underestimating me too much, Ladvioka!? Turn upside-down, Mountain Inferno!¡±


    I reached out my hand and gathered the shape of the Mountain Inferno within my hands. The blueprint for the mountains covered half the sky, together with apass and direction symbols.


    And as I turned my hand, thepass¡¯s directions started turning around as well. The directions of north and south switched as the entire Mountain Inferno was suddenly turned upside-down. The original sky became the ground, while the ground became the sky.


    Gravity changed directions as well. Ladvioka who was flying in the sky suddenly found that he was hurtling himself towards the ground. Countless living or dead were all directly tossed into the ¡°former sky¡±.


    Compared to the other Infernos, the Mountain Inferno¡¯s sky wasn¡¯t high at all. If you flew up high to the very limits of the sky, you would be able to see a ceiling... or more urately, a second Mountain Inferno constructed out of countless additional mountains.


    That Mountain Inferno was an exact mirror copy of all the snow mountains, sword mountains, volcanoes, and so on.


    This wasn¡¯t because of my personal interests. Nor would I be capable of modifying the Mountain Inferno on such arge scale after its creation. This was simply a vicious trait of the Mountain Inferno.


    ¡°Pride stems from levels and status. Since you all love to climb up, then climb as much as you want. I even remembered to design infighting and obstacles, favorites for those who possess too much Pride. And if any of you actually seed in reaching the top of the mountain, that means it¡¯s time for you... to start climbing all over again from the very beginning! Ha, did you really think that I would allow any of you to enjoy a rxing rest?¡±


    Until an individual finished their punishment and achieved salvation, how could the Mountain Inferno¡¯s punishment possibly end? There was no limit to the mountain climbing punishment for the Mountain Inferno of Pride. If someone truly managed to climb to the top, then they would get to enjoy a short moment of respite before the entire world turned upside down and made everyone start over again from the very beginning.


    However, that short moment of respite would then be motivation for them to continue climbing yet again. I already expected that once the Mountain Inferno¡¯s design became publicized, I would receive countless praise. This was one of the Inferno designs that I was the proudest of.


    And right now, I suddenly activated this mechanism, which became the most despairing nightmare for Ladvioka¡¯s demon armies.


    Including Ladvioka himself. All the demon armies dropped down into the new mirror Mountain Inferno, with countless demons burning, freezing, or being impaled and dying. Of course, the mostmon death was the simplest one of simply being smashed into a meat pie by the impact.


    Their just-finished abyssal fortress becamepletely meaningless. The portion of the Mountain Inferno that was corroded by Ladvioka¡¯s twenty-plus Dimensional Descents waspletely reced by the mirror Mountain Inferno. The denseness of Hades Mist instantly multiplied several times over. Of course, only the demons that still managed to survive couldin about the conditions that suddenly worsened so much for them on the battlefield.


    The sudden upside-down change of directions caused the frightfully heavy Ladvioka to suddenly transform into a flying meteor that crashed into the mountains. When he dizzily got up again from a volcano that he had crushed under his body, he then discovered that his armies had almost beenpletely annihted. Except for the few that were lucky enough to have wings, the great majority of his demons and dimensional creations had all be dead souls in the River Styx or revived undead that were now mortal enemies with their former master.


    When the bone giant stood up again, the only opponent powerful enough for it was now the dark green Demon Lord.


    ¡°Ahhh, Rnd, you scammer!¡±


    As for a certain unlucky Main God twin brother of mine who just got out of his volcano and jumped up and down in joy too early? He directly fell into yet another volcano. Let¡¯s just pretend that we didn¡¯t see anything.

 Chapter 466 - Sudden Change in the Situation

    <h4>Chapter 466: Sudden Change in the Situation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The more primitive the battle, the simpler and more violent it would be. Battles purely for the sake of survival or revenge would always be the cruelest and bloodiest. These battles would be far simpler and more directpared to barbarians¡¯ fights against wild beasts. The primitive rules of blood revenge dictated that cruel battles between barbarian tribes would have no innocents surviving.


    Yet, in modern warfare of my original world, battles actually had both international rules and unstated rules, such as normal scale warfare, forbidding the use ofrge-scale AOE weapons like nuclear bombs, limited-fly zones, international treaties, and so on...


    ¡°So that civilians won¡¯t be identally harmed? What a joke, isn¡¯t war all about surviving and killing the enemy? Who would worry about killing enemies too slowly? If people were truly worried about ordinary civilians, why not just abandon the thought of warfare in the first ce, abandoning the benefits obtainable through war? These limitations are purely because people are worried about going overboard and causing their own self-destruction!¡±


    Modern warfare in my previous world had all sorts of rules and limitations imposed upon it. In my opinion, this wasn¡¯t because humans had be cultured or friendly at all. It was simply because both sides in most wars already possessed Armageddon-level weapons capable of destroying the entire enemy side, making total world annihtion and achieving an Armageddon far too easy. These limitations were set in ce so that wars wouldn¡¯t endlessly escte, so that the overall victor wouldn¡¯t only helplessly receive a living hell on Earth filled with nothing but rubble.


    It was the same in the world of Eich with the wars between powerful Gods. Forbidden spell attacks were quite insignificant to them. Wars between Main Gods would always be fought cautiously, carefully testing the waters, carefully umting small advantages and carefully wiping away the enemy¡¯s advantage. Aces wouldn¡¯t be used until the very final moment, because they meant the enemy would also use all their aces and go all out in an attempt to survive. The final result in such fights would be unpredictable. Still, no matter how one looked at it, casually ughtering the enemy¡¯s believers and destroying the overall environment would obviously end in a major loss for both sides.


    ¡°If Ladvioka hadn¡¯t insanely gone all out, I wouldn¡¯t have gone to the extent of using Envy¡¯s still iplete final form...¡±


    From the very start, I hadn¡¯t intended on forcing the Main Gods to the very brink, because that would mean extreme danger for us at all. However, there were no ¡°ifs¡± on the battlefield. Since the situation already developed in this manner, the only final result avable now would either be Ladvioka¡¯s death or ours.


    The tremendous bone giant didn¡¯t attempt to hide its intention to ughter Ladvioka at all. Ladvioka was forced into a corner, and it seemed that it was now time for the final reckoning. Yet, I didn¡¯t dare to let down my guard for even one bit.


    And even though Karwenz just fell into another volcano, this wasn¡¯t much to him at all. He instantly appeared again, and directly... went back to cooking his fish soup. Let¡¯s not think too deeply just how he managed to bring out his fish soup again. Karwenz was making it obvious that he didn¡¯t intend to help either side. Still, I didn¡¯t believe that this was because of our family rtionship at all. It was more likely that he was more than happy to watch Ladvioka simply die here.


    Ladvioka only red angrily at Karwenz for a moment but didn¡¯t say any wasted words. After all, in demons¡¯ dictionaries, ¡°friends that help each other out in a time of need¡± was a synonym for ¡°na?ve idiots that are easy to scam.¡± A demon that didn¡¯t kick another demon while he was down could already be considered unbelievably friendly in the Chaos Abyss.


    It would seem that ignoring Karwenz would be the best choice for me right now. Yet, I unhesitatingly ordered my new subordinate, the pale white Insect Mother to ambush Karwenz!


    ¡°As expected, he¡¯s only an illusion!¡±


    Indeed, the Karwenz that she pierced through was nothing more than an illusion created out of shadows. His real self hadpletely vanished. I was already wondering why he had been so slow to exit the volcano he was trapped in. It would seem that he had already started acting independently starting from that time. Yep, I definitely wasn¡¯t curious at all why a single-celled organism like him would suddenly stop attacking. Nor was it because of anything like a mysterious connection between brothers.


    ¡°Could it be that the Dimensional Door portal I sent him through just now helped him to learn the secrets of moving between the Infernos? Damn it! Find him, no matter where he is!¡±


    I highly doubted that any ordinary Main God would be able to learn the secrets of Hell so easily. However, I sent out my senses and found out that Karwenz wasn¡¯t anywhere within the Mountain Inferno at all. Considering who Karwenz was, and the fact that Cynthia was probably hiding within his body, an ominous premonition sent chills down my spine as I considered the possibilities.


    A freely acting enemy Main God would obviously be a major threat. While I sent my Wumianzhe incarnations to find Karwenz, I still had to concentrate mainly on Ladvioka who was right before me. That was because Envy¡¯s bone giant body might copse at any moment. If I could first kill a Main God and scare all the rest, that was likely to greatly increase our odds of overall victory.


    ¡°I doubt that Ladvioka has any more subordinates to send out. Since Ladvioka was originally an Inferno Demon, let me recall the Inferno Demons¡¯ mostmon abilities... Greatsword, Inferno Demon Whip, Meteor Shower, powerful melee fighting abilities, immting self-destruction... damn it, a self-destruction technique? Ladvioka still has an ace as insane as self-destruction up his sleeve? A self-destruction from a Main God? If he truly kills himself in self-destruction, this Mountain Inferno, no, will the entirety of Hell even still remain standing?¡±


    However, information that one of my incarnations suddenly sent to me made it so that I had to give up on inferring Ladvioka¡¯s possible remaining aces up his sleeve. Due to this sudden incident, I didn¡¯t have much time left.


    ¡°Omar, how much longer are you going to pretend to sleep for! It¡¯s light outside already, get up out of bed!¡±


    While Rnd was using his aces in an attempt to kill off the Lord of Putrefaction, thebat situation was secretly changing within the other Infernos.


    The furious hound of Wrath was bing everrger and stronger as he continued fighting against the icy silent Chaos War God Donatis. But, even though Bastian¡¯s energy level had multiplied by more than one hundred times since the beginning of battle, there was still no difference in the fight at all apart from the fact that Bastian could nowst several seconds instead of being in instantly.


    And right now, Donatis wasn¡¯t having an easy time, either. His constantly strengthening and reviving opponent was one issue, but the worse part was that reinforcements suddenly arrived for Bastian, making the fight two against one, changing the entire situation.


    Hell Devil Marshan arrived together with a trident containing mystical energy that transformed into a meteor-like strikes, which kept aiming for vital areas. His devil ws that could easily tear through mountains became a weapon that could forcefully sh against the Chaos War God¡¯s greatsword. Plus, with his powerful physical body and the benefits of being buffed by Hell, even if Marshan¡¯s physical fighting abilities were slightly inferior to Donatis¡¯, Marshan actually possessed a physical body with better attributes. This caused Donatis to have a really hard time.


    The Fourth Hall of Hell¡¯s Four Halls was the Hell Hall (Hall of Law). This was the headquarters for the Hell Devil¡¯s nobility, and the Hall Leader was the currently sleeping Little Tias.


    Devil General Marshan was the first ever Hell Devil noble of Hell. Although Marshan wasn¡¯t at a Main God¡¯s level, he was still a warrior from Ayer¡¯s generation. With so many umted generations, Marshan had at least surpassed the so-called level of being a powerful God. And now that he obtained the Hell Devil nobility¡¯s responsibilities and Concepts of ¡°protecting Hell¡± and ¡°punishing viins¡±, his power level improved even further.


    Although Marshan wasn¡¯t a Main God, he was still an immemorial devil. As the guardian species of Hell, the devils would be unable to leave this dimension, but also gain the same undying trait as the dead souls here. This was why even Donatis started feeling fear¡ªbecause he now had to face an additional opponent who was also undying and almost at his level.


    Unlike Bastian who was still young and inexperienced inparison, this wasn¡¯t the first time that Marshan had fought with Donatis. Demons and devils were mortal enemies, after all. Although Marshan was still somewhat weaker than Donatis, the fact that Marshan was undying more than made up for this difference. As long as Marshan continued trading injuries with Donatis, the Chaos War God would definitely die in the end.


    Marshan¡¯s leader, Kamiltias, was still in a deep sleep. This was in order topletely transform him into a Hell Devil. And as long as Kamiltiaspleted his transformation, without even mentioning the other benefits, just the fact that devils were already undying, plus an undying Main God joining the battle on our side... If Kamiltias finished his transformation, the entirebat situation would likely be changed.


    This was no idiotic manga where the antagonist who was undying ended up mysteriously bing super dumb, randomly being sealed away by the main character somehow in their confusion. When this former Devil King, who was now the leader of all the Hell Devils, finally woke up, an undying and incredibly sly Main God would be the greatest cmity for all the invaders.


    ¡°We just need to stall for time. Protect all the Infernos and the Four Pirs, and we¡¯ll be the victors...¡±


    This was also why I had set most of the battles¡¯ objectives in Hell as stalling for time. As long as time passed, Hell would be moreplete, thus strengthening the Hell Gods in turn. That would naturally be the best time to counterattack. If it wasn¡¯t for the Lord of Putrefaction going far too overboard, I wouldn¡¯t have used my aces.


    However, it was precisely because Main Gods were so overly powerful that even though I gave all my transformation resources to Kamiltias, the speed of his transformation into aplete Hell Devil still remained ridiculously slow. Seeing how his boss Kamilitias showed no signs of waking up, Marshan, who was originally guarding Kamiltias, came out to help in the battle instead.


    Even Donatis was starting to have difficulties against Bastian and Marshan that stalled him by taking full advantage of their undying bodies. If this situation continued, it was likely that Donatis would soon be forced into using his aces.


    Meanwhile, Harloys and the God of Wisdom Kalumandas were currently sitting at a negotiation table in a scene that didn¡¯t seem to fit the battles happening everywhere else. They had such a wonderfully friendly atmosphere, and had just finished shaking hands after signing a five-hundred-page long contract... They actually used a magic spell to elerate time in order to swiftly negotiate and determine the conditions of a contract!


    And in the Gluttony Inferno, two gigantic beasts were currently tearing at each other. Both of them had their mouths on their enemy¡¯s body. They were both devouring each other and being devoured.


    All magic spells and supernatural abilities were forgotten. Pure desire to eat ruled over everything here, fitting the basic dimensionalws of this Inferno.


    An endless amount of life force constantly replenished both sides¡¯ physical bodies as they were devoured. Both Ah Dang and Garr constantly tried to open their mouths wider than their enemy, along with trying to create more mouths than the enemy. Both existences¡¯ countless eyes only saw each other. It would seem that neither of these monstrous beasts intended to leave the Gluttony Inferno before onepletely devoured the other.


    ( )


    In a corner of this Inferno, the Queen of Temptation Ilmisya sighed helplessly as she watched this battle which only involved mutual devouring with no beauty or grace to it at all. She decided to change to a different battlefield that was slightly more cultured to support the fight.


    But suddenly, a young-sounding and anxious voice spoke up in her ear. She immediately thought of the young individual who had now be the master of Hell. However, his voice currently sounded panicked and hurried, a rarity.


    ¡°Ilmisya, go to the Pir of Ice and stop that person!¡±

 Chapter 467 - Lover

    <h4>Chapter 467: Lover</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Hell¡¯s Seven Circles were now embroiled in an utterly chaotic battle where nobody would be able to predict what would happen next.


    ¡°How did he know...?¡±


    When one of my incarnations informed me that Karwenz was actually right before the Pir of Ice, I felt that it was inconceivable after my first reaction of shock.


    The Four Pirs were the core support for Hell, along with being Hell¡¯s only weakness. The main reason why all our dead individuals and existences were able to fight evenly against the Main Gods here was all because of Hell¡¯s dimensionalws supporting us. The simplest and most direct dimensionalw of being undying gave us the confidence to fight on no matter how many times we were killed.


    However, bing undying obviously had its price. Hell¡¯s own support would also expose its secrets. Still, I intentionally concealed as much as I could, and I highly doubted that the Main Gods trapped within the Seven Circles would be able to find out about the true foundation of the dimension of Hell¡ªthe Four Pirs.


    The Seven Circles of Hell, also known as the Seven Infernos, were sub-dimensions of Hell. Although they were all important, it would still be alright to sacrifice these sub-dimensions and reconstruct them if necessary.


    The incredibly powerful and ridiculously difficult to kill Seven Kings (the Seven Sins) of Hell would doubtlessly be some of the best fighters in Hell. But if you looked at their overall strategic objective, they were nothing more than red herrings to mislead the Main Gods.


    The Four Halls were the operating system for Hell. It would seem that the Four Halls had many functions, and the Hell Gods and devils were guarding the Four Halls, plus the Four Halls would be quite obvious to look at since they were connected to the Seven Circles. But, actually, the Four Halls could also be reconstructed if they were lost. Plus, the Four Halls supported and covered for each other, making them into the strongest fortress in all of Hell.


    But, the Four Pirs...


    ¡°...Hell is still currently under construction. The Four Pirs right now are basically the providers for the four elements of hell (the construction materials). The Four Pirs are the source of all materials in Hell, along with being the core control panel. It will be possible to rece a destroyed Pir after Hell isplete, but if we lose one right now, that will unbnce the elements, which will quite likely result in destroying the entirety of Hell that¡¯s been created so far.¡±


    Even without considering the chain reactions that were sure to ur, if we lost the Pir of Ice, our undead would lose their physical bodies, greatly diminishing theirbat strength. If we lost the Pir of Death, our undying natures would be gone. If we lost the Pir of Law, perhaps all of Hell would start copsing as Law was the equivalent of Space in Hell. Since these Pirs were our greatest weakness, of course I would try to protect them.


    Of the Four Pirs, the Pir of Holy Light was at the very top of Hell. I had special arrangements there. Although it appeared defenseless, it was actually one of the safest. I wasn¡¯t worried about that one at all.


    The Pir of Death was the very source of the Hades Mist, as well as the greatest foundational block of Hell. It would be impossible even for me to locate it unless all the other three Pirs were destroyed. This was by far the safest Pir.


    The Pir of Law was surrounded and protected by the Four Halls. If this Pir was lost, that would mean that the Four Halls and Seven Circles had all been broken through already. Trying to hold on anymore then would be meaningless.


    It was only the Pir of Ice that I needed to worry about... this Pir was located deep within the Inferno which I presided over, the Indifference Inferno of Sloth. This was the fourthyer of the Seven Circles, the centralyer. Every undead in all the Seven Circles would be given new lives and physical bodies by this Pir of Ice.


    Each Pir had its own function. The Pir of Holy Light was at the top of Hell, guiding the living and the dead at the boundary between life and death. The Pir of Law illuminated the Four Halls, overseeing and ensuring a just enforcement of thews. The Pir of Ice gave lives and physical bodies to the undead in the Seven Circles. The Pir of Death was the very foundation of Hell. These Four Pirs were just like different supports that created a house. It would be impossible to change their locations even if I wanted to.


    By now, it should be apparent that I was able to arrange highly safe locations for three out of the Four Pirs. However, the Pir of Ice was destined to be exposed on the battlefield.


    I ced the Indifference Inferno of Sloth as the fourth and centralyer, meaning that I would personally guard it. This would decrease the chances of exposing this weakness. And, I also intentionally changed locations to the Mountain Inferno because I had hoped that this would lower the chances of Karwenz discovering this weakness. Yet the Pir of Ice was mysteriously exposed to him after all. Obviously, I would be shocked by this.


    ¡°...A traitor? That¡¯s almost impossible because so few know about this. In that case, does that mean that Karwenz is capable of instantly analyzing the foundational workings of Hell? That¡¯s even more impossible¡ªjust how would he have so much knowledge on how dimensions function? Hell even involves my knowledge from Earth, which he couldn¡¯t possibly know about.¡±


    Schemers always had a bad habit. If anything went wrong with their ns, they would always overthink things. And, thinking too much on the battlefield would not only cause suspicion to be directed at one¡¯s allies¡ªeven worse was that fact that overthinking would weaken one¡¯sbat capabilities.


    ¡°Forget it, there¡¯s no time to worry about that now! Ilmisya, go to the Pir of Ice and stop that person!¡±


    Apart from the Hell Gods and Devil King who were all currently sleeping andpleting their transformations, one of the only high-levelbat-strength individuals left who was free was the Queen of Temptation and Allure Devils, Ilmisya.


    As I was the master of Hell, only I possessed the ability to freely allow others to teleport as I wished. With one snap of my fingers, a teleportation portal appeared right before Ilmisya. She would easily be able to reach the Pir of Ice before Karwenz as long as she stepped through this portal.


    Of course, I didn¡¯t count on her being able to truly stop Karwenz at all. I had given most of my Hades Mist to Kamiltias to help himplete his transformation from devil to Hell Devil. So, unfortunately for Ilmisya, she hadn¡¯t transformed into a Hell Devil yet. That meant she could only be revived as an undead if she died in battle here.


    The undead bloodline was definitely weaker than the devil bloodline. Plus, if anyone was forced into a transformation where your very traits, body, and bloodline were changed into apletely different type, that would obviously decrease one¡¯sbat strength even further.


    I hadpletely zero hopes for how long Ilmisya would be able to stall Karwenz, as she was well known already for being sly, unreliable, and never sticking to her promises.


    ¡°I can¡¯t rely on others, so I have to deal with this enemy before me as quickly as possible... Omar, just how long do you intend to sleep for!¡±


    My angry roar echoed throughout the Inferno. The danger to the Pir of Ice put me on a time limit in the battle against Ladvioka here. By now, I absolutely wanted to kill the Lord of Putrefaction more than anything. I also mentally prepared myself to sacrifice the entire Mountain Inferno if need be. I didn¡¯t have any free time to drag this fight out any longer.


    ¡°Love and peace! That¡¯s what I believe in!¡± a thick masculine voice responded to my roar, arriving together while shing his disgustingly shiny muscles.


    Omar showed off his muscr body which resembled Hercules from my original world. He constantly flexed all the muscles on his chest, performing exercises to perfection. After Omar became a Hell King and gained the buffs of Hell, it could be said that he had changed both the most and the least.


    Omar was now significantly taller, and his physical appearance became even more handsome and beautiful. He even wore a pair of gold-rimmed eyesses now, and his eyebrows gave him the schrly aura of a literary girl... But, what didn¡¯t change about him was his abnormal view of beauty, his even more ridiculous muscles, and how he loved to make all sorts of poses in nothing but his underwear! The abnormal fitness exercise routines he showed off as he twisted his body would make anyone witnessing the sight incredibly frustrated to the point where they would only want to throw a fit.


    I had always felt that the unfortunate ones who were tossed into the Pride Mountain Inferno would be the unluckiest of all of Hell¡¯s sinners. That was because these sinners would have to undergo a double punishment¡ªthe punishment of climbing the mountains and also being forced to witness such a Hell King¡¯s antics. I felt that the second punishment was probably far harsher than the Mountain Inferno¡¯s own mountain climbing punishment.


    I felt stomach pains upon witnessing my Hell King suddenly jumping out of the mountains while loudly singing about love and peace. I took two deep breaths before I managed to calm myself. Only now did I learn that even the master of Hell wasn¡¯t immune to the effects of wanting to vomit.


    ¡°How can this be?¡±


    Ladvioka was astonished to see that Omar had broken free. While Ladvioka¡¯s dimensional sealing spell wasn¡¯t as strong as the Seal of the Four Elements, his dimensional sealing spell wouldn¡¯t be weaker by much at all. Ladvioka even sensed that his seal hadn¡¯t been broken, so just how did Omare out of the seal?


    ¡°Kill Ladvioka!¡±


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t be telling my enemy the answer. Since Ladvioka no longer had any subordinates, this was the best opportunity to kill him while he was down.


    Ladvioka¡¯s attacks and even seals were ineffective. He could just die for me while being afraid and confused.


    ¡°Ha, you fool! This is a wondrous strategy by my Father. He already knew that all of you would know how to use seals, so how could he possibly not be prepared? Right now, this is a special stage of Hell¡¯s creation where we are in charge of guarding the Infernos. We are all a part of our Infernos. As long as we leave the Infernos for a certain period of time, our physical bodies will naturally copse and die. After that, a new physical body for us will be born again within the Inferno! We are eternal, we are unstoppable, we are... Ouch! Father, why are you hitting me?¡±


    Alright then, if it wasn¡¯t for the current situation, not only would I be hitting him, I would even want to kill him.


    Should I say that it was to be expected of the incarnation of Pride? He was definitely an expert on how antagonists always died because they talked too much. Not only did he exin the reason why he wasn¡¯t afraid of seals, he even revealed his weakness that he wouldn¡¯t be able to leave his Inferno for an extended period of time.


    But judging from Ladvioka¡¯s expression of shock, just knowing the reason and weakness alone wouldn¡¯t mean that he would be able to deal with the threat before him. Since it was shockingly impossible to seal away his undying opponent, that meant he was being forced to the very brink.


    ¡°It¡¯s time to connect. Let this idiot know just how amazing you brothers are.¡±


    Of course, I didn¡¯t wake Omar up just to listen to him revealing all his own weaknesses. Envy and Pride were a pair of unique Concepts where the former stole from others to power up himself, while thetter ruled over others, strengthening himself and his subordinates. Their abilities weren¡¯t contradictory at all. In fact, from the very start, they would be able toplement and power each other up!


    The bone giant lowered his head and swallowed Omar whole. The next instant, mysterious changes started happening within the bone giant as the Envy Transformer evolved once again!


    As Rnd went all out, intending on making Ladvioka be the first Chaos Main God to die here, Karwenz was currently smiling as he walked on a snowy path in the Fourth Circle of Hell, the Indifference Inferno of Sloth.


    ¡°This time, I¡¯ve finally seeded in scamming him!¡±


    That¡¯s right, when Rnd tossed out a teleportation portal in an effort to fool Karwenz into entering, Karwenz hadn¡¯t entered the portal at all. Instead, he only had an incarnation enter the portal, while his real body was traipsing through the endless amount of snow and ice in the Indifference Inferno, searching for the Tower of Ice.


    Rnd hid things quite carefully. The Tower of Ice was deep within the snow mountains, where the ice and snow were the thickest. Even if one had internal information from a spy guiding them, it would be quite difficult and time-consuming to locate the Tower of Ice in the incrediblyrge Sloth Inferno. This was all the more so with the fact that the Indifference Inferno¡¯s dimensionalws were highly unfriendly towards finding your way.


    The Indifference Inferno, just as its name suggested, was a ce to punish sinners who were overly cold, slothful, unfilial, and ignored their friends¡¯ and families¡¯ feelings, causing others to feel pain. The punishment that Rnd set for the sinners here was incredibly cruel¡ªto find one¡¯s own heart in their confusion.


    ¡°You don¡¯t understand how to love others or ept others¡¯ love. Then, what need do you have of memories and your heart?¡±


    This entire Inferno was a snow-coverednd with ins, snow mountains, and hills. However, the entire environment and scenery was all of one color. No matter where you looked, you would only see snow white. This was a natural maze.


    And, the sinners¡¯ hearts would be cut up into countless tiny pieces that the devils would then randomly throw into different locations. The souls that lost their hearts would also constantly lose their memories. They would have to locate all the pieces of their heart before theypletely forgot who they were. Only then would they be able to recover their past memories.


    As for whether anyone ever managed to find all the pieces of their heart? That would probably be no one.


    This punishment didn¡¯t appear to be that cruel at all. But in the future, it became known as the cruelest punishment in the Seven Circles of Hell. For now, there was no need to go into its cruelties and the designer¡¯s vicious intentions, since that wouldn¡¯t be the focus of the story right now. Just this natural maze alone made Karwenz, who had poor sense of direction, have great difficulties.


    Right before he exploded in anger due to the constant unchanging snow before him, Karwenz finally met the first person who voluntarily greeted him. The tall Queen of Allure Devils smiled and waved at him. Just the waves she sent out from her hand waving dispelled the ice and snow that was present everywhere.


    ¡°Ha, I¡¯ve finally met someone. Could you please take me to the Tower of Ice, dear beauty?¡±


    As I watched this scene through an incarnation, Karwenz appeared to be smiling quite foolishly. His words sounded like a taunt that would certainly earn him Ilmisya¡¯s ire. However, what happened next made me feel like I was the true idiot instead.


    Ilmisya, the Queen of Temptation, answered quite directly. She directly jumped on Karwenz, but in a gentle hug of his shorter body. She then directly lowered her head and kissed him.


    I was shocked by the amount of tongue they shared with each other in that passionate kiss. Ilmisya¡¯s next lovey-dovey response made me almost choke to death.


    ¡°Of course I can. I¡¯m waiting here just to show you the way, my dear prince, my most intimate boyfriend, my cutest lover.¡±

 Chapter 468 - Beast of Armageddon

    Chapter 468: Beast of Armageddon


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    ¡°Boss Ayer, you left me a pitfall!¡±


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t suspect Ayer. He had already sacrificed everything for the sake of our grand scheme. But now, I knew who had leaked Hell¡¯s secrets to Karwenz.


    ¡°Ilmisya! You dare to betray me?¡±


    I was filled with regret, but there was no such thing in the world such as medicine which could cure regrets. Perhaps I had overly believed in Ayer¡¯s abilities. I never expected that even Ayer would misread someone. Not all of the four Devil Lords he brought were solidly allied with us. There was actually a traitor among Ayer¡¯s allies!


    Even without Ayer¡¯s promises, the other three Devil Lords had all shown their utmost sincerity.


    The most ancient Devil Lord, the Devil King Kamiltias, Lord of Lies, as well as Marshan, the Devil Lord of Rebellion, used concrete actions to show their sincerity. They already transformed themselves into Hell Devils, meaning that they were now the protectors of Hell and the new Cycle of Reincarnation. This was the equivalent of tying their future to Hell for all eternity. It would be impossible for them to betray Hell.


    Heimor, the Lord of Despair, was still in the mortal ne and hadn¡¯te to Hell. However, he had given me the Queen of Storms¡¯ divine power¡ªthe best sign of his loyalty as this meant he was directly betraying the Chaos Faction. Ayer even personally handed over some major tasks toplete in the mortal ne to Heimor. Evidently, the Lord of Despair was trustworthy as well. These three Devil Lords¡¯ sincerity and Ayer¡¯s trust in them caused me to forget about theck of sincerity shown by the fourth Devil Lord.


    Previously, I had been under the impression that there wasn¡¯t enough Hades Mist left toplete Ilmisya¡¯s transformation into a Hell Devil. But now, it would seem the truth was that she had been intentionally stalling her own transformation. In that case, her loyalty was suspect from the very start.


    But upon closer analysis, it was also impossible for Ilmisya to be a loyal member of the Chaos Faction and a supporter of Goddess of Chaos Cynthia. That was because as long as she directly revealed our grand scheme to the will of the Chaos Abyss, it would have been impossible for us to even achieve this much or seed in the first ce. From the moment that she knew about our ns but didn¡¯t report them to the Chaos Abyss, she had already betrayed the Chaos Faction.


    ¡°Benefits? Faction? Just what side is she on? Or, is she on her own side?¡±


    Unlike demons that were always in frenzied chaos, devils were sly and highly skilled at scamming and scheming. Since she simultaneously betrayed Ayer and me, as well as the Chaos Faction, the only reason could be a sufficient amount of personal benefits. Ilmisya wasn¡¯t a Main God, so the amount of benefits she could obtain was limited. She would definitely need a more powerful supporter as a shield to protect her. And, any person backing her up would need to be powerful enough to give her a sufficient amount of benefits and support... I understood everything as I watched Ilmisya and Karwenz kissing passionately.


    ¡°Karwenz! You dared to set such a pitfall for me! Ilmisya was loyal to you from the very beginning!¡±


    Karwenz, who was currently using a normal-sized body, lifted his head out from Ilmisya¡¯s breasts. First, he proudly gave my incarnation a big thumbs up as if he was saying ¡°Are you envious of me since you¡¯re forever single?¡± And then he changed his hand gesture to show me the middle finger as my incarnation instantly exploded and I lost vision of them.


    ¡°...I was actually fooled by a single-celled organism! I was actually scammed by a pig!¡±


    I was now ridiculously angry, yet this only helped me to calm down inside. Seeing how proud Karwenz was made it obvious that he had nned all of this from the very start.


    ¡°Just what does he intend to do? So he¡¯s not solidly allied to Cynthia? What can he obtain from betraying her?¡±


    Ilmisya knowing about our ns for Hell and not telling Cynthia meant that Ilmisya had betrayed the will of the Chaos Abyss. Naturally, Karwenz must have known about Hell and also not said anything, meaning that he also betrayed the Chaos Faction. The Abyss Prince betraying the will of the Chaos Abyss? This was such an unbelievable scene... Too much information and too many possibilities shed through my mind. I had no idea what he was up to for now, but there was something I was certain of.


    ¡°No matter what he intends, I absolutely can¡¯t allow him to seed!¡±


    Sending more incarnations to follow them would be meaningless. I would have to bring sufficient strength to the Pir of Ice to suppress a Devil Lord and a Demon Main God. But right now, I was still busy with the Lord of Putrefaction, who was no longer strategically important at all.


    ¡°Omar, use the chain mode. We don¡¯t have much time at all. Go ahead and overload. Stomp this worm who¡¯s lost his courage to death.¡±


    That¡¯s right, in my eyes, the current Ladvioka wasn¡¯t much at all anymore. Perhaps he still had a Main God¡¯s power level, but he definitely was no longer that former fierce warrior who was courageous and decisive on the battlefield. The most ancient Inferno Demon who had once ruled the battlefields of the Holy War had lost the courage to personally enter the battlefield. From the moment that he changed his style five thousand years ago to start raising subordinates, he had denied everything about his past and started all over again.


    Perhaps Ladvioka believed that he now possessed armies which would more than make up for themander¡¯s personal weaknesses, but my opinion was that he had split his efforts in half. Not only that, half of his efforts now concentrated on somethingpletely unrted to his natural talents as an Inferno Demon. Perhaps his dominating power level and the long amount of time indeed helped him to obtain bountiful harvests from raising his armies, but taking such a path that would sh with his natural talents would definitely have lower efficiency.


    It was meaningless toment on right or wrong for the paths others took. For instance, elves typically studied both magic and physicalbat, and were more than capable of easily defeating ordinary human mages and warriors, thanks to the elves¡¯ natural talents and long lifespan. But right now, Ladvioka had been cut off from all the dimensions under his control. His armies had all been killed by the Mountain Inferno and the dimensionalws of Hell, with many former subordinates even willingly joining my side. Now, Ladvioka was indeed the weakest Main God in all of Hell. He could be killed!


    ¡°Don¡¯t mind any consequences or how high of a price we have to pay. Kill Ladvioka!¡±


    My order surprised Omar, but he didn¡¯t hesitate at all as he jumped within the bone giant.


    ¡°ughter! Destroy... I¡¯ve never felt so powerful before.¡±


    The bone giant¡¯s pure desire to ughter was now under the control of logic and reason again. The bone giant with Marsolit at its core would only be capable of maintaining the most basic desire to do battle. But once Omar entered, he took over the bone giant¡¯s thoughts, while Marsolit was able to concentrate entirely on the body. This helped the bone giant to be reborn.


    Omar was an emperor to the undead to begin with. All the undead connected to him would be a part of him. It was impossible for Marsolit topare to Omar in calction abilities. To use an analogy that might not necessarily be urate, if Ipared the Seven Original Sins and theirplete connections to a person¡¯s body, then ¡°Envy¡± Marsolit would be the spine and nerves acting as connectors, while ¡°Pride¡± Omar would be the brain controlling all of the body¡¯s actions.


    The haphazardly put together bone giant was only capable of instinctive movement. But now that it had a brain controlling its body, it would be capable of expert movements for its ughtering. Perhaps Omar himself wasn¡¯t strong enough to support such a powerful physical body, but ¡°the stronger and more numerous the undead that he ruled over, the more powerful Omar himself would be¡± was his natural talent ability. This made Omar into the strongest possible CPU and stabilizer.


    But, just this alone would still be insufficient to kill a Main God. He would have to be even stronger in order to win!


    There would be no time for idle thoughts when facing a Main God level opponent. I got rid of all idle thoughts, lowered my head, and softly touched where I was currently standing¡ªthe bone giant¡¯s skull.


    ¡°Envy.¡±


    ¡°Pride.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I almost forgot. Sloth...¡±


    A tremendous amount of Hell¡¯s divine power transformed into actual ¡°Concepts¡± that were purple, green, and blue. These three colors represented three different aspects of the soul, three sides of my own soul. These three aspects all joined within the bone giant.


    The bone giant¡¯s entire body distorted and changed; thick bone needles began growing out of the limb bones, the right fist became distortedly sharp, while the legs began to lighten. A tailbone began growing, while wings appeared on its back. This monstrosity was now different from how it previously put itself together through instincts alone. It was now perfecting its own physical body, or perhaps more urately, evolving!


    Previously, I¡¯d mentioned how power levels represented how much of one¡¯s own potential a person had made use of. Saint rank represented a clear personal path and a ¡°perfect future¡±¡ªthe Soul World. The next rank up, Myth rank, represented being able to project one¡¯s personal concept into something physical and real, perfecting one¡¯s own path in reality.


    This was something incredibly difficult. The great majority of swordsmen would choose to project their own concepts into their personal weapons. This would help to concretely increase theirbat strength as well as continuously improve one¡¯s own understanding of their personal ¡°Concept¡±. The end result was thatrge amounts of powerful weapons were created¡ªthe so-called Myth rank weapons. And as the weapons¡¯ masters progressed in power level, the weapons were also capable of evolving to reach SemiGod rank.


    Of course, projecting one¡¯s personal Concept wasn¡¯t limited to only weapons. Some Myth-ranked individuals would even choose to project their personal Concepts into their own physical bodies, strengthening themselves and improving their supernatural abilities. Others melded their personal Concepts with their Soul Worlds, greatly magnifying their Soul Worlds¡¯ effects. Still, the publicly recognized safest method with the least side effects was to imbue one¡¯s personal Concept into a personal weapon... the main reason for this was that if one made any mistakes, it would be possible to start over again.


    I was someone who had previously achieved the rank of SemiGod. Back when I was at Myth rank, the Concepts I had greatest mastery over would be ¡°Death¡± and ¡°Soul¡±. That was how the now famous ¡°Staff of Yongye¡± came to be. And this time, when I entered this power level and above again, the ¡°Seven Original Sins¡± became the Concepts I chose to emphasize the most here in Hell.


    ¡°Imbuing my ¡®Concept¡¯ into my personal weapon? That would be such a waste. Take a look at my children. They¡¯re the best vessels for epting my power. My children, I give you the blessings of Envy, Sloth, and Pride. Evolve! Surpass the limits of this world!¡±


    The undead creations of the Seven Original Sinsbined with the Concepts of the Seven Original Sins. What betterbination could there possibly be? The three powers of Envy, Pride, and Sloth began to strengthen and distort the bone giant monster. The overly high speed of evolution still didn¡¯t satisfy the bone monster, as its abnormal bones suddenly wrapped around itself and the bone giant became a bone egg as it continued to greatly evolve itself.


    Ladvioka didn¡¯t have the habit of simply idling while watching his enemy finish theirbat preparations. He once again attacked with his greatsword and Inferno Demon whip. However, his Inferno Demon whip was suddenly grabbed by arge hand that appeared from nowhere, while his greatsword was unable to even shatter the bones surrounding and protecting the egg. The egg then cracked and revealed a single eye that glowed red while staring at him, causing Ladvioka to feel a mysterious fear as if his death was staring at him.


    The bone egg creature tugged, flung, and hit. The gigantic Ladvioka didn¡¯t even have time to let go of his Inferno Demon whip before he was flung onto the ground as if he was nothing more than a clumsy and pudgy chicken.


    ¡°Envy, I bless you with the ability to bepatible with all energy types and biological structures. Your path of evolution is pathless. You are destined to be the very top of the food chain. You shall toss the so-called theory of evolution into the trash heap!¡±


    What monstrosity revealed itself from the bone egg? Its entire body was crafted out of bone. However, its left bone wing resembled a dragon¡¯s, while its right bone wing resembled a demon¡¯s. Its tiger-shaped skull had a single horn that was gathering a frightening amount of energy. The mes within its eyes possessed the power of a forbidden spell that could steal one¡¯s soul. One incredibly distorted arm was shaped like a hammer, while the other arm was simply a dragon¡¯s head that desired to tear into meat. And if it wasn¡¯t for its tremendous dragon tail that swung between the mountains, it would probably be impossible for such a creature to maintain its center of gravity.


    ¡°Pride, I bless you with the steadiest soul and greatest physical body. You are the amalgamation of countless souls and physical bodies. Only the will of the very highest level will be able to rule those countless souls, allowing this monster that shouldn¡¯t possibly exist to act ording to an individual¡¯s will. Omar! My undead child, I have given you the greatest stage to show your talents on. Show me, prove to me that you are my most outstanding child!¡±


    Soulfire lit up within the tremendous beast, which actually managed to move as dexterously as a martial arts master. With one sidestep, it arrived next to its prey, and the next moment, it lifted its hammer arm and smashed viciously at the Demon Lord copsed on the ground.


    ¡°Ahh! Damn it all!¡±


    The venerated Demon Lord showed us all just how a ball-shaped object would roll. The heavy hammer arm didn¡¯t hit its target, simply brushing by Ladvioka instead, causing him to howl in pain as he lost his right hand. But, this was only the beginning.


    ¡°Sloth, I bless you with the memories and soul to heartlessly ughter. You shall be the purest ughter and judge of all.¡±


    A silver holy light descended upon the tremendous beast. By only pointing, silver chains suddenly bound Ladvioka who was attempting to escape. As the greatest Judge of Law, this tremendous beast was using the power of Law to judge this evil invader from the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°You are judged to be guilty!¡±


    The energy leveling from the silver chains had already surpassed any so-called True God. Ladvioka kept howling as he discovered that he was actually unable to break free from these chains.


    ¡°I shall name you... the Beast of Armageddon!¡±


    Names represented power. True names represented the universe and the dimension¡¯s recognition of an existence. At this moment, the Beast of Armageddon suddenly flew over. Its terrifying imposing manner actually created a difference in power level that directly froze Ladviokapletely.


    The Beast of Armageddon who would bring Armageddon to the Gods roared fearsomely, causing the entire dimension to be afraid and tremble.


    This beast was no longer a hastily assembled byproduct. The energy level it possessed was incredibly destructive. Every single body part it had was all for the sake of battle. No, the most foundational change was that just earlier, it had been a temporarily assembled machine, but now it was a truly powerful individual that seemed like it had flesh, blood, and soul!


    ¡°Originally, there were 578 seconds remaining until its copse, but now there¡¯s only 167 seconds. It¡¯s going to copse even faster...? Still, what¡¯s mass-produced absolutely can¡¯tpare to custom-made. This investment was worth it!¡±


    I just calcted the amount of time left before the Beast of Armageddon copsed, and the resulting number of seconds was actually less than three minutes. This silent bone beast wouldn¡¯t be wasting a single second. Since it wouldpletely copse soon, it would be fine as long as it killed a Demon Main God before it copsed!


    Even though Ladvioka was forced to the brink, he still didn¡¯t give up. But, the Beast of Armageddon before him was now beginning to enjoy its meal...


    With 124 seconds remaining, Ladvioka lost his left arm, and his greatsword was devoured by the Beast of Armageddon.


    With 79 seconds remaining, Ladvioka¡¯s head was twisted 180 degrees for the second time. He was no longer able to regrow his head this time, and he was truly forced to the brink.


    With 46 seconds remaining, Ladvioka¡¯s gigantic body was ripped apart into 16 pieces. It became impossible to put him together again.


    With 37 seconds remaining, Ladvioka¡¯s final Inferno self-destruction ignited the entire Mountain Inferno. This entire sub-dimension would have to be reconstructed. And, the Chaos Faction finally saw the first demise of a Chaos Main God in this Holy War!


    Countless meteors streaked through the mortal ne. Ladvioka¡¯s final death screams caused countless dimensional masters to tremble in fear. The other Main Gods in the other Seven Circles of Hell continued fighting their enemies while in confusion.


    Perhaps Ladvioka had onest trick up his sleeve, or perhaps a new Tiny Demon popped out somewhere. His soul didn¡¯t appear anywhere in Hell or the River Styx. But even if he was able to revive himself somehow, he would be forced to start over from zero again, making it certain that he would no longer have anything to do with this Holy War.


    Meanwhile, in the Indifference Inferno of Sloth, Karwenz wasughing as he flirted with Ilmisya as they headed directly towards the Tower of Ice. Even Ladvioka¡¯s death screams didn¡¯t cause him to turn around. But right now, a familiar yet also unfamiliar person appeared before him and blocked his path.


    ¡°The Marchioness of the me Sea? I never expected that my brother who¡¯s always so soft on his own people would allow you to enter Hell. Nor do I believe that you¡¯re capable of stopping us... Fine, don¡¯t re at me like that, Sister-inw Eliza. Don¡¯t you agree with me? My brother treats you so terribly, doesn¡¯t he?¡±


    However, the person who appeared just like an ¡°ordinary maid¡± gently shook her head as she picked up the hems of her skirt and smiled while curtsying.


    ¡°This is my personal choice. This time, I shall stand next to him for all eternity.¡±

 Chapter 469 - Fire and Water

    <h4>Chapter 469: Fire and Water</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Inferno self-destruction was the most disgusting ability that Inferno Demons possessed. That was why adventurers would hate dealing with Inferno Demons more than any other demon. It wasmon to spend so much effort on defeating a high-level Inferno Demon, only to die as the Inferno Demonughed maniacally and self-destructed.


    In the battle between Chaos and Order, these red Inferno Demons that always charged forward in the vanguard,ughing maniacally while summoning meteor showers and hellfire on all the surrounding enemies were always a species that everyone would be afraid of. But, everyone would have an even deeper impression of how whenever an Inferno Demon was forced to the brink, a single Inferno self-destruction could create a gigantic crater out of any important strategic location, or transform an entire city into rubble, or destroy an entire army. Such self-destruction would kill all the heroes that had defeated him.


    And the most disgusting part was that it was incredibly difficult to kill a demon. If the Inferno Demon self-destructed an incarnation, the self-destruction would have much less power, but the demon would only suffer light injuries to his true body.


    And even if an Inferno Demon was forced to self-destruct his true body, it was possible for him to survive as long as the Inferno Demon made preparations beforehand. It was actually known that powerful Inferno Demons were capable of transferring their souls onto their descendants. Although this meant they would have to start all over from the power level of zero again, it wouldn¡¯t be that hard for them to be powerful again with their previously umted treasures and connections. Typically, an Inferno Demon would only require three or four hundred years to reach a powerful level again.


    However, only incredibly few existences knew that Inferno Demons would never choose to self-destruct unless they were forced to the very brink or had gone insane. That was because their self-destruction carried far more of a price than even losing an incarnation.


    Self-destructing wasn¡¯t an ability limited to Inferno Demons at all. Plenty of elemental creatures, especially fire elemental creatures, had such abilities. In fact, many mages also loved to self-destruct if they were in an absolutely unwinnable battle. Out of all the self-destruction magic spells out there, a spell known as ¡°Archmage¡¯s Final Attack¡± was ranked #1 in power for all self-destruction spells. After all, a mage¡¯s magic self-destruction wouldn¡¯t attack with only the power of their life force, it would also include the power of their soul that had gathered so much magic power over the years.


    An Inferno Demon¡¯s Inferno self-destruction would probably be simr in power to ¡°Archmage¡¯s Final Attack¡±. That was because Inferno Demons also weren¡¯t self-destructing only their life force. They were also using their fire mana and Chaos essence, which meant that even if an Inferno Demon self-destructed an incarnation, they would definitely lose that amount of Chaos essence forever, leading to a certain loss of power level!


    A demon¡¯s Chaos essence was an absolute necessity for a demon to evolve. Chaos essence was the greatest reward that the will of the Chaos Abyss gave to demons. This would be the purest energy of Chaos, as well as the energy source demons possessed which was equivalent to the Order True Gods¡¯ divine power. Losing their Chaos essence would mean that the demon would lose all those years of hard work and have to start over from the very beginning again.


    For True Gods and God Envoys, losing an incarnation in the mortal ne usually didn¡¯t affect them too severely. While they would drop in power level, this could be made up for with time. However, a high-level demon losing a power level would mean that his subordinates and enemies wouldn¡¯t possibly miss such a chance. That was why most Inferno Demons were more willing to simply let their incarnations die rather than self-destruct as an incarnation.


    Only in a ¡°factional battle¡± like the Holy War would it be possible to seerge-scale self-destructions from the Inferno Demons as this was a weapon that could easily tilt the scales of any battle. Under themand of the will of the Chaos Abyss, the Inferno Demons didn¡¯t have any right to choose for themselves. Naturally, the Inferno Demons were used for all they were worth.


    However, even an Inferno Demon¡¯s self-destruction which could destroy an entire army wouldn¡¯t be anywhere near as frightening as Ladvioka¡¯s self-destruction. He was a veteran Demon Lord Main God who had experienced at minimum two Holy Wars. His umted Chaos essence and fire mana would be incalcble. If he ignited all of this and exploded, any forbidden spell would likely seem like nothing more than a tiny spark inparison.


    ¡°If I had a choice, I wouldn¡¯t have wanted to force an Inferno Demon like him to the brink...¡±


    But with the situation at the time, the Beast of Armageddon was about to copse, and it was a battle where only one side could be allowed to live. This dictated that I couldn¡¯t possibly hold back against Ladvioka at all. Holding back would be nothing more than suicide.


    After he was forced to the brink, the oldest Inferno Demon of all unhesitatingly chose the strongest counterattack remaining in his arsenal. At that moment, the entire Mountain Inferno was vaporized, while I, Omar, and Marsolit were all instantly killed and entered states of revival. All of Hell itself shook from the tremors of that frightening explosion.


    And this was actually the result of me going all out and not hesitating to break past Ladvioka¡¯s defenses at any cost. I forcefully tore off an incredibly important body part from the Demon Lord Main God. If it wasn¡¯t for this, if Ladvioka had sessfullypleted a full-powered self-destruction, perhaps the entirety of Hell would have been vaporized.


    ¡°Half of the heart of the most ancient Inferno Demon. Hearts are a special body part for demons...¡±


    When I furiously tore off half of Ladvioka¡¯s heart, it wasn¡¯t actually to decrease the power of the Lord of Putrefaction¡¯s self-destruction. I already knew that Ladvioka¡¯s self-destruction would absolutely send me back to the Pir of Law in a state of revival.


    I did it all in order to take one final look at the pretty figure who stood protecting the Pir of Ice by herself.


    But, I was no longer able to send my present over to her, which was why I called out a name forgotten by everyone, hoping that he would help me¡ªeven if he had a grudge against me.


    Right as my tattered body was vaporized into dust by Ladvioka¡¯s explosion, I gave my final blessing as I watched Elisa standing in the snow.


    ¡°...Live, Elisa.¡±


    Her long silver hair flowed in the wind, and she was still as expressionless as always under her gold-rimmed eyesses. However, Elisa was currently in a terrible condition. Her ck-and-white maid attire was tattered all over, torn by a sword. She was unable to stop the bleeding from her mouth. Her right arm was alsopletely limp due to arge injury that obviously caused her to lose control of her right arm. And, this was all the result of Karwenz¡¯s single attack when he had gone easy.


    ¡°There¡¯s actually such arge difference...?¡±


    Elisa¡¯s vision was now hazy. Her physical body¡¯s injuries were only minorpared to the damage inflicted upon her soul. In fact, the Demon Marchioness hadn¡¯t even had time to show herbat form when the Abyss Prince seriously injured her with one swing of his sword.


    Although she still had the will to fight until the end, the tremendous difference between their power levels made her willpower meaningless. At this moment, Elisa even considered using an Inferno self-destruction. But, the next instant, she discovered that Karwenz even sealed off this possibility.


    That¡¯s right, Ladvioka wasn¡¯t the only Inferno Demon in Hell right now. Elisa, the me Sea Marchioness, had obtained her power level through absorbing the Fire Elemental God. She was thebination product of Chaos essence and fire mana, naturally making her an Inferno Demon as well.


    But currently, Elisa was far, far weaker than Karwenz was. She was a Demon noble who had speedily obtained her power level with outside help, while Karwenz was the spoiled child of the Chaos Abyss, favored by the Chaos Goddess herself¡ªone of the two highest-ranked existences in Eich. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that Karwenz had gone easy on her, Elisa would likely have died already.


    Karwenz simply smiled while proceeding onward, while Elisa blocked his way yet again. Her eyes were still filled with iciness and logical reason that represented her will to fight until the very end.


    ¡°...Sister-inw, can¡¯t you just obediently stay there on the ground? Don¡¯t make things difficult for me, I have important things to be doing right now. And, if I really kill you, my older brother will probablye at me with everything he¡¯s got...¡±


    Karwenz awkwardly scratched his head, but then he suddenly started smiling happily as if he had juste up with an interesting idea. The Abyss Prince smiled as purely as if he was a young child, a smile that was somewhat embarrassed, awkward, yet also excited.


    ¡°...Wouldn¡¯t that mean I can finally see my older brother seriously trying to take revenge on me? Ha, I¡¯m really looking forward to it now just by imagining it. Don¡¯t tempt me into killing you.¡±


    Karwenz slowly reached out with a frightening amount of pressure. At this moment, he had suddenly be unexpectedly serious. This sudden sh of inspiration in his chaotic mind started blooming, making him want to act on his powerful curiosity and expectations.


    He really wanted right now to see how Rnd would react if he killed Elisa. Perhaps, the unknown was the most interesting thing in life.


    ¡°...If you die, he¡¯ll probably attack me no matter what the cost. He¡¯ll probablye swinging his sword at me while filled with regret and hatred. Perhaps I should eliminate you right now just for this reason.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s calm words seemed to announce Elisa¡¯s death sentence. But even so, Elisa still coldly stared at him with zero intentions of stepping aside, as if Karwenz was the one who was about to die.


    ¡°My little lover, please don¡¯t forget our goal. Getting into unnecessary troubles is a bad habit...¡±


    However, the Queen of Temptations suddenly walked over and used a gentle hug to obstruct Karwenz¡¯s killing intentions towards Elisa.


    ¡°...Besides, we have a new visitor. Don¡¯t let him view us as nothing more than joke.¡±


    The Devil Lord looked at the Tower of Ice which was now visible in the distance. An unignorable existence had suddenly focused his attention on them.


    Before Ilmisya even finished speaking, a blue figure suddenly appeared above everyone. He was gigantic and wore an exquisite crown on his forehead. His upper body was extremely well-toned and muscr, while his lower body was actually a colorful mermaid¡¯s tail. His face was very handsome, yet he had a bitter expression. His blue eyes were filled with sorrow, as if he had just experienced the worst fate in the world.


    He was clearly standing there, yet he seemed to be flickering between being physical and ethereal, impossible to determine.


    He lowered his head. His hand was currently holding onto a red shard which kept jumping as if it was a living heart.


    That¡¯s right, this was Rnd¡¯s present to him, half of the Inferno Demon Lord Ladvioka¡¯s heart!


    Inferno Demons were immune to all fire magic. Hearts were the energy source for all demons, so of course their hearts would also be immune to their personal element. After that self-destruction which vaporized everything in the Mountain Inferno, this torn-off half a heart was all that remained.


    This blue giant now shielded Elisa with his back as he handed this red shard... the half of Ladvioka¡¯s torn-off heart to Elisa who was astonished to see all this.


    ¡°That person wanted me to give you this. Originally, I didn¡¯t intend to help him. Even though he revived me, he forced my little mermaid to die so that I could be revived. I was intending on having a reckoning with him for this. But, when I saw how stubborn you were, I felt as if I was seeing my equally stubborn little mermaid. That¡¯s why I¡¯m helping you, rather than helping that heartless bastard.¡±


    When this blue giant turned around, his mncholic eyes contained sadness as if he had experienced countless tragedies. The next instant, all his will to fight transformed into a pure desire to kill. This was a divine might that seemed like the fiercest tempest, a pure power that would cause anything to shrivel in fear.


    ¡°A Main God level True God?¡±


    Karwenz was astonished at this scene. He couldn¡¯t recall such an unknown Main God existing anywhere. A suddenly appearing Main God would easily change the overallbat situation, so it would be impossible to overlook any Main God from the very start. However, Ilmisya inhaled a cold breath as she was a Devil Lord with a long history who recognized him!


    ¡°Sidunwar!? The immemorial Ocean God Sidunwar! How can you possibly be alive?! You should have died long ago!¡±

 Chapter 470 - Hostage

    <h4>Chapter 470: Hostage</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The immemorial Ocean God Sidunwar, husband to the Water Elemental Goddess Aylos. It was said that back in the immemorial generation, he was the strongest Main God at the time, and dared to challenge the Goddess of Order¡¯s authority.


    Vague descriptions like ¡°the strongest¡± would always be unclear. But back in his day, he was the leader of all the Sea Gods, and there were multiple Main Gods under him. His power was more than sufficient to challenge the Goddess of Order¡¯s authority.


    Unlike Gods from future generations that gained their powers through belief, the immemorial Gods had all obtained their power levels through their own efforts, making them have incredibly solid foundational strength. Since Sidunwar had multiple Main Gods under hismand, including even the Queen of Storms, who was his underling at the time, it doubtlessly meant that Sidunwar and his faction had astonishing power that gave him the mistaken impression that he could challenge the Goddess of Order.


    Of course, it was also said that Sidunwar was supremely arrogant precisely because of his overwhelming power. This was what led to his downfall in the end. And when he ended up meeting with difficulties, almost nobody other than his wife remained by his side to help him. Not only did his past subordinates not help him, they even attacked him while he was down. Although the two major factions of Order and Chaos would be responsible for bribing and tempting the other Gods to do so, it was still rare to see someone unpopr to such a degree.


    But, regardless of history or legends, no matter how badly he acted, every story would describe Sidunwar as incredibly strong...


    ¡°Perhaps I can make use of his strength.¡±


    Unlike most people that almost instinctively worshipped the strong, personal strength wouldn¡¯t obtain my respect at all. In fact, it was rather the opposite. The personality defects exposed by one¡¯s strength were nothing more than weaknesses to be taken advantage of.


    ¡°Although most love out there is unequal, it¡¯s quite moving just how deep Aylos¡¯ love is. Perhaps... I have an excellent hostage.¡±


    Yep, from a certain standpoint, I had already maxed my skill points in ¡°ruling behind the scenes¡±, ¡°using carrot and stick¡±, ¡°kidnapping, scamming, and extortion,¡± and other such antagonist skills. It would seem that my original wish to be a good person had gone off track from the very start... By the way, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I was always mysteriously treated as a bad person, I probably wouldn¡¯t have wanted to be a good person in the first ce.


    From a certain standpoint, personality decided one¡¯s fate. Reaching my level today was no coincidence at all... perhaps I was born to be a natural antagonist.


    ¡°Elisa, don¡¯t listen to Sidunwar thering on. He absolutely has to protect the Pir of Ice, more than anyone else! He¡¯ll never abandon the Pir of Ice even if he has to die again.¡±


    Creating a physical body for one of the Gods of Hell would be no easy task. Right now, I was currently unable to move as I was still in the process of reviving. However, my will was able to transmit my words of constion to Elisa, not even trying to hide my condescension and displeasure.


    And I was indeed telling the truth. Since I knew from the very start that it would be possible to revive Sidunwar, of course I would ount for him in my ns as Icked top-tierbat strength.


    In a way, perhaps I had indeed done something terrible. I made a trade with Aylos, having her sacrifice herself as the price to revive Sidunwar. And now, I created yet another unique situation where Sidunwar would be forced to fight for my cause... If he wanted Aylos to revive sessfully, he would have to protect the Pir of Ice!


    That¡¯s right, the Pir of Ice was connected to Aylos¡¯ revival. By now, my ns should be obvious.


    The Four Elemental Pirs were the equivalent of the Elemental Thrones in the Elemental nes. Naturally, there would need to be the equivalent of Elemental Gods in order to control and adjust these elements. In the ne of Hell, that would be the Four Pir Gods that I had previously emphasized.


    It wouldn¡¯t be easy to reach the level necessary to be a Pir God in Hell. As each Pir God would be an existence controlling the entire Concept of one of the basic elements, the lowest requirement was that this existence must already be equivalent to Godhood in power, and also have his or her powers foundationally be about one of the four elements. The most important was that the Pir God would need to be dead...


    That¡¯s right, only a dead God or mortal who had an iplete soul would be able to be one of the Four Pir Gods of Hell.


    This wasn¡¯t to force people down a thorny path; this was dictated by the most basic dimensionalw of death in Hell. This was the same as how the Elemental nes¡¯ Elemental Gods could only originate from elemental creatures. Only dead souls would be able to be a Hell God.


    In my grand scheme, these dead souls would temporarily be stored in my soul ice crystals. They would then bebined and synchronized with the dimensionalws of Hell, finally reviving them as the Four Pir Gods and bing the undying Main Gods of the Hell Faction. And, the price for reviving them from death was that they would all be destined to only be able to forever remain in Hell.


    This seemed quite simple, but would actually be quite difficult to achieve.


    There wasn¡¯t a single God in the world which possessed the Concept of Ice. The God with the closest rted Concept was the Goddess of Frost, who was a Chaos Evil God. She was the very incarnation of a blizzard, and her favorite hobby was to freeze travelers that dared to travel through snow mountains by themselves. She was an insane woman who had an evil reputation rivalling that of the Queen of Storms.


    The Frigid Nightmares were of the ice element and met the power level requirement as well. However, since they were special soul existences, they didn¡¯t even have the Concept of Death. Any Frigid Nightmare that was seriously injured would naturally disappear and be returned to the snow mountain. It would be impossible to use a Frigid Nightmare for my Pir God of Ice.


    And so, my only choice was to either kill the Goddess of Frost or to use Water Elemental Goddess Aylos as water was the foundational form of ice. That was because the Elemental Gods were quite simr to the Pir Gods to begin with. The water element also represented the power of life, simr to the intent of ice representing life in Hell. Plus, anyone who was killed off for no apparent reason would definitely have a grudge. If the Goddess of Frost became one of the Four Pir Gods of Hell, it was highly possible that she would choose to rebel and take revenge, which would be a huge amount of trouble.


    ¡°I absolutely have to force Aylos to die in order to obtain her dead soul...¡±


    That was the foundational reason why I had to force Aylos to suicide. And now, the current situation¡¯s development had proved that my choice had been correct. I could now heave a sigh of relief.


    Yet, choosing the candidates was actually the easiest part toplete regarding the Four Pir Gods...


    There had been no other candidates from the very start for the element of Law in Hell. Wumianzhe was the only existence that had achieved Godhood by using the power of Law. And, this prerequisite condition was thergest reason why Wumianzhe ascending to Godhood became the foundational first step of the grand scheme. It was when I sessfully had Wumianzhe obtain Godhood that Ayer finally made up his mind to support me.


    Improving the Concept of Law, spreading the teachings of the Church of Law, sacrificing my own soul shard of Sloth to create Wumianzhe¡¯s body, and thinking of all possible methods to have Wumianzhe obtain ever more Divine Concepts and divine power... only I myself knew all the hard work and schemes that happened along the way.


    And as judgement and death were the most basic dimensional rules in Hell, the God of Law and the God of Death would need to be incredibly powerful. That was why the Ayer Faction had unhesitatingly supported Wumianzhe in bing a powerful God while disegarding the price. And as Ayer was the only Death God in the world, there were no other candidates who could rece him.


    Of course, it was unknown just when the Pir Gods would be able to revive. No, I should say that it was impossible to promise that they could even be revived at all. That was because the forbidden spell to create the entirety of Hell was based on nothing more than a theory. The probability of sess would be so low it¡¯d be impossible to calcte from the very start. Nobody knew just what would happen, and even if they could revive, they would definitely only be able to remain in Hell for the rest of their lives. That would be a great loss for the overall situation.


    ¡°The sess rate for Hell¡¯s construction won¡¯t be greater than 50%, and the Hell Gods¡¯ chances of revival are also no greater than 50%... You¡¯re asking how I calcted these odds? Since things will either seed or fail, the odds are naturally 50% with only two options... Cough, okay, I¡¯ll be a little more serious. Anyways, I¡¯ve already done my very best to do everything I could think of to improve the odds. However, there¡¯s still just too many unknowns. It¡¯s impossible to even try calcting the odds of sess. But, the more we do, and the better the conditions are, of course the better the rate of sess will be.¡±


    While humans schemed, their schemes¡¯ sess would depend on the heavens. This phrase was probably referring to such a situation. I was always someone who told the truth, even if the truth didn¡¯t look good.


    Naturally, the Ayer Faction Gods didn¡¯t want to see their boss, the strongest Main God of all, to meet such an end. They also considered using some death-rted Divine Concepts to rece Death itself, such as Destruction, Armageddon, Guardian of the Dead, and so on. There were True Gods that volunteered themselves, but Ayer rejected them all.


    Yep, Ayer actually could have survived. Even if he personally shattered the Cycle of Reincarnation and River Styx, as long as he was willing to lessen the degree that he changed things, that would also lessen the bacsh he would receive. For instance, he could temporarily take over some other Divine Concepts, which would indeed allow him to survive, even if that survival would entail a tremendous price to pay.


    Yet, Ayer still chose to personally die and be the Pir God of Death in Hell. Why? Of course, that was to increase the odds that Hell would sessfully be constructed. Ayer was the only existence that would be capable of providing the purest power of death. And not only that, Ayer even gave me his corpse in order to additionally raise the chances of sess. His corpse was actually Ayer¡¯s secret backup method to revive himself if he ever somehow died. So this meant that if we failed here, Ayer would meet a certain death forever.


    ¡°Ayer has gambled everything on Hell and our grand scheme. Not only has he given up on his chances of being ¡®eternal¡¯, he¡¯s even given me his trust. He believes that even if he¡¯s no longer here, we can stillplete the grand scheme... We can¡¯t possibly let Boss Ayer down.¡±


    As a leader, Ayer never said any grand speeches at all, asking others to sacrifice themselves. He sacrificed his own undyingness in order to maximize the chances of sess. This was actually the foundational reason why I would half-jokingly and half-seriously refer to him as Boss Ayer, an honor I reserved for no one else.


    As for the final Pir of Holy Light, while it may seem that there were many powerful individuals with the Concept of Holy Light, there were actually no other possible candidates from the very start.


    Previously, I mentioned how Holy Light job ss members took shortcuts with their path to power. Those existences in the realm of Godhood had actually all borrowed from the God of Holy Light¡¯s gifts to them. ¡°Holy Light, please grant me power¡± sounded like such a convenient prayer that would indeed grant them power, but from another level, these powerful Holy Light existences were nothing more than servants for the God of Holy Light. They weren¡¯t independent existences at all. How could these powerful Holy Light individuals possibly be the Pir God of Holy Light which represented Salvation in Hell?


    ¡°The Holy Light requires salvation, so Estrada has to die.¡±


    The letter I sent to Estrada which contained a soul ice crystal forced Estrada to intentionally choose death. Estrada actually smiled and faced death head on when unreasonably requested to do so by the disciple he was the proudest of. Estrada met all the stringent requirements.


    Before he died, he gave a new definition to the Holy Light. He allowed his power of Holy Light to be stripped from him, and reentered the realm of Godhood with his own personal strength alone. He became apletely independent powerful individual with the power of Holy Light. And so, the final condition was met.


    By now, countless sacrifices had been made so that Hell could be created. Three of the Four Pir Gods¡¯ dead souls were now sleeping within the Pirs of Hell. When they finally awakened, the invaders of Hell would then face the true rulers of Hell, Main God level existences! Of course, Wumianzhe should have originally entered a deep sleep together with them, but I was sly enough to bend the rules by entering his body with my own soul. Of course, the current Wumianzhe Rnd wouldn¡¯t be aplete Pir God with full power.


    Just how powerful would the Four Pir Gods be as Main Gods? Since there were no precedents, it would be impossible to calcte their estimated power levels. But as they were the rulers of Hell, and each of them controlled an entire element of Hell, they would have boundless potential. The moment they awakened, they would naturally change the entirebat situation.


    The main reason why I chose to stall for time in every battle was mainly to wait for the Four Pir Gods to revive. Forcefully starting up the iplete Hell and its operations would also give power and nutrition to the Four Pir Gods, which would speed up their awakening.


    The Four Pirs were the strongest weapon of Hell¡ªas well as the only weakness. Of course, this would be the greatest secret of Hell. But unfortunately, Ilmisya was actually a spy that revealed this secret to Karwenz.


    But luckily, I was ustomed to being as secretive as possible and only told my allies half of what I was nning. Although Karwenz learned that Aylos¡¯ dead soul was within the Pir of Ice, he couldn¡¯t have possibly known that Sidunwar was about to be revived by me.


    Although I clearly sensed that Sidunwar had been revived sessfully, he had remained abnormally silent since his revival. It was quite evident that he didn¡¯t want to be an unpaid fighter working for me. But since his wife had be one of the Four Pir Gods of Hell, Sidunwar would be forced into fighting for our Hell Faction unless he was vicious enough to be willing to leave his wife.


    His silence and refusal to appear was his way of expressing resistance and dissatisfaction. But in front of a veteran viin like me who ¡°had a hostage¡±, that would all be meaningless. I broke through his attitude of unwillingness with just a single statement.


    ¡°If any of the Four Pirs that contain sleeping divine souls are destroyed, even if Hell luckily manages to survive, the Pir God within it will certainly die for real. We won¡¯t have any more chances at using Creation by the Four Elements...¡±


    When my words echoed on top of the Pir of Ice, Sidunwar who had been in hiding suddenly appeared!


    ¡°If Elisa dies, then Aylos... If I don¡¯t have a girlfriend, then don¡¯t think that your wife will survive!¡±


    And so, Sidunwar had originally intended on simply watching Elisa die and only protecting the Pir of Ice, but now he made his move.


    My words were quite obviously a naked threat. If Sidunwar had been in his prime and someone dared to talk to him like this, he would have simply killed that person already. But now, he could only obediently fight for my cause.


    As for his previous words which sounded so ¡°tsundere¡± in trying to exin his own reasons, cough, let us forgive him for that. Since he was an immemorial God, of course he would want to save face. He would prefer to say some words that made it sound like ¡°Hey, I came here of my own volition.¡± Yep, at the very least, he wouldn¡¯t want to allow others to see that he had been forced into fighting for my cause.


    As for whether or not I would be worried that he would take revenge upon me?


    ¡°Antagonize him? Who cares! His wife¡¯s life is in my hands. He¡¯ll have to work for me for the rest of his life.¡±


    Cough, it would probably be impossible for Rnd to whitewash his name for the rest of his life¡ªno matter how noble his goals were in the end. With his style, he was definitely just like the major antagonist, not to mention the lowest of the low: someone who kidnapped a hostage to threaten others.


    Now, Sidunwar brought out his full power. Even without that bastard Rnd threatening him, Aylos¡¯ dead soul was within the Tower of Ice behind him. He had no path of retreat whatsoever.


    ¡°...So, rx, and have that employee of mine be your meat shield. Since you want to be stronger, ept this gift of mine.¡±


    I sent all this information to Elisa¡¯s mind as well. While she was angry that Rnd had hid so much information from her, and how much of a bastard he was, the seemingly expressionless Elisa was also secretly pleased.


    ¡°At least he still remembers my ability. I think this is the first present he¡¯s given me...¡±


    Alright then, from a certain standpoint, Elisa¡¯s difficulties in obtaining love and just how low her standards were could be considered worthy of crying over. But right now, Rnd had indeed just given her a great present that would be supremely useful to her.


    The dimming Inferno Demon Main God¡¯s half a heart was given over to the Inferno Demon Marchioness. All the conditions werepleted. As if fate had started a new cycle, the scene from Sulfur Mountain City was about to be reenacted as a new record would be shattered for demon evolution.


    ¡°...Awaken, my Soul Imprint, Marauder!¡±

 Chapter 471 - Catfight

    <h4>Chapter 471: Catfight</h4>


    <strong>Trantor:</strong> imperfectluck <strong>Editor:</strong> Kurisu


    ¡°Awaken, my Soul Imprint, Marauder.¡±


    Elisa¡¯smand awakened the me Sea Marchioness¡¯s hidden power. The next instant, the marked heart of Ladvioka split apart and shattered, transforming into fire crystals that Elisa directly absorbed.


    Elisa¡¯s Soul Imprint¡ªMarauder. This was herdder to the top.


    Elisa¡¯s Soul Imprint was rather unique. Typically, this Soul Imprint of two beasts fighting would always be in a deep sleep and do basically nothing for her at the moment. But right now, deep within her soul, a bleeding dragon head was currently fighting with a ck beast. These two furiously fighting beasts were trying to kill each other as they fought over this fresh half a heart.


    Soul Imprints were each individual¡¯s own personal path that they desired to take in life. Every person¡¯s path would be different, so of course their Soul Imprints would be as varied and numerous as the stars. However, the mostmon type of Soul Imprint would be regarding one¡¯s understanding and summation of their own job ss. Typically, the Soul Imprint would strengthen a certain type of ability. This might seem simple, but it was a concrete improvement. All of my four Soul Imprints were this type of Soul Imprint.


    However, I said ¡°typically¡± because that was only the mostmon situation. There would always be people out there that took paths which were far from ordinary. While buff-type Soul Imprints were simple and practical, they would be unable to change one¡¯s foundation. Yet, some people¡¯s Soul Imprints were capable ofpletely changing their fighting method and power type. There were numerous examples of individuals instantly reaching top level through their Soul Imprints.


    The Seal of Unlimited Courage allowed the holder to be stronger and stronger as long as he believed that he would never lose. This Soul Imprint helped Karwenz to never fear any powerful enemy, basically making him into the main character of any hot-blooded story. A certain Beast Tamer¡¯s Soul Imprint of All-epassing Love helped him to obtain countless followers as if he was the main character of a legend. Diana¡¯s ¡°Anti-God Fool¡± Soul Imprint was something that had never been seen before in history. Her Soul Imprint directly created a new job ss and generation, pointing her sword at the Gods as if she was a harem protagonist in a Chinese ...


    Alright then, I confess that I indeed held a grudge. Compared to them, my Soul Imprint had only simple buff effects. This was basically just like a mass-produced versionpared to a custom-made version.


    And, Elisa¡¯s Soul Imprint was the most unique of them all. It was typically inactive most of the time, with no buffs or benefits at all. However, her Soul Imprint gave her the opportunity to reach a much higher level. It could be said that Elisa¡¯s desire for strength had created such a miracle.


    ¡°My very soul confirms that I shall follow my instinctive desires and chase after my dreams.¡±


    Thanks to the Goddess of Chaos, all demons possessed the ability to devour and evolve. However, evolving through devouring had its limits. It would be wondrous enough already if a demon could improve by a power level through devouring, and two power levels would be the very uppermost limit. More would result in self-destruction. Elisa¡¯s Soul Imprint was obviously an offshoot of her demon bloodline, yet it gave her the possibility to reach the top.


    The Marauder Soul Imprint had a ridiculous effect. Anything that she desired, as long as it matched her basic nature, could be devoured and used for her evolution. Back in the day, she had devoured the Fire Elemental God and the Demon Earl as one was of the fire element and the other was a demon. And now, this half of Ladvioka¡¯s heart that she received was both of fire element and a demon¡¯s. This matched Elisa¡¯s requirements perfectly. This would be the best gift of all for her.


    Demon hearts were some of the best magical catalysts around. Many special mechanisms also used demon hearts as their energy source. In fact, demon hearts were even an excellent currency in the lower nes. That was because demon hearts were the crystallization of a demon¡¯s lifetime of power.


    Devouring and evolving would forever be the main concepts of the Chaos Abyss. Elisa, who was favored by the Chaos Abyss, was the very incarnation of such concepts.


    The demon heart was instantly dissolved as red mes covered Elisa. The next instant, she transformed into an ethereal fiery figure that started flying. This newly-born Inferno Demon went right for Ilmisya. Any newly born powerful demon would require battling in order to consume and adapt to its new power. Since the two Main Gods, Karwenz and Sidunwar, had started their battle, of course that only left the Queen of Temptations for Elisa to battle.


    ¡°You always walk around almost naked! I¡¯ve disliked you so long for this!¡±


    Alright then, Elisa¡¯s angry howl didn¡¯t even try to conceal her personal grudge. It would seem that there were more reasons why she chose the Queen of Temptations as her opponent.


    ¡°Heehee, an excellent figure should be shown. You must be angry because your man always sneaks looks at me.¡±


    While giggling, Ilmisya even proudly made a seductive expression. But right after that, she was unable tough any more. The ethereal fiery figure tossed out a me spear that covered the entire sky, forcefully grounding Ilmisya right after she started flying.


    ¡°Cough, cough, using your power in such a roughshod manner is such a waste...¡±


    Although Ilmisya was covered in dust, she was still uninjured. Even if she was the weakest of the Devil Lords, she was still an immemorial powerful individual who had experienced countless generations. Elisa¡¯s mes had been dispersed over toorge an area and didn¡¯t even damage Ilmisya¡¯s defenses.


    Ilmisya was unable to continue herints as she shut up due to several dozen me spears aimed directly at her. Elisa was wasting her energy as if she was the spoiled daughter of a ridiculously wealthy family. Yet, there was something faintly hidden within the me spears that caused Ilmisya to instinctively feel threatened.


    ¡°...Hiding the fatal attack within a seemingly harmlessrge-scale AOE magic spell? Such a simple tactic...¡±


    Alright then, Ilmisya finally shut uppletely even though she typically had the habit of talking to herself meaninglessly in order to distract her enemies. The green mist that spread out from within the me spears was something that even she didn¡¯t dare to touch.


    ¡°...Ladvioka¡¯s chaos essence? You really are going all out.¡±


    Chaos essence was the gift of the Chaos Abyss¡ªthis essence was the very core of Chaos. Chaos essence would be the umtion of a demon¡¯s entire life, as well as something absolutely required for a demon to improve in power. But since Elisa was sacrificing part of Ladvioka¡¯s chaos essence as a one-time consumable to attack, she was basically directly exploding Ladvioka¡¯s core essence. This seemingly harmless green mist would actually be fatal to the touch. Even Ilmisya wouldn¡¯t dare toe into contact with it.


    Elisa didn¡¯t reply as she instinctively spread out this faint green mist. Now, not only was Ilmisya avoiding the green mist, even the two Main Gods started reflexively avoiding the green mist.


    The mes and the poison mist changed this snow-white battlefield into a dangerous domain. Elisa unhesitatingly went all out, causing the Queen of Temptations who wasn¡¯t highly skilled at direct battles to feel some hardship. Ilmisya tried her best to dodge everything, attempting to use a battle of attrition to waste Elisa¡¯s energy.


    What Ilmisya didn¡¯t know was that this seemingly important chaos essence was actually useless to Elisa. However, Ladvioka¡¯s heart and chaos essence was actually split up into two major portions: one part focused on his power of putrefaction, and the other part focused on his foundational nature of being an Inferno Demon. While his Inferno Demon chaos essence portion was the best nutrition for Elisa, the putrefaction portion was impossible for Elisa to digest, so she might as well simply use it as a one-time consumable attack item.


    Currently, mes were erupting all over Elisa¡¯s body as she casually tossed out endless me seas and me spears at a forbidden spell level. Yet this wasn¡¯t exactly a good thing, as this was because she was unable to control her constantly growing power which needed to be vented through battling.


    Of course, what she needed to do right now more than anything was to find a ce to properly digest and organize her new power. Unfortunately, that would evidently be impossible currently.


    And so, Elisa simply adapted. She directly decided to toss out the impurities and uncontroble new power as consumables. This basically gave her temporary limitless firepower as if she was using Soul Immtion. Plus, Ilmisya was the cautious type who preferred to avoid direct fights, so Elisa actually gained the upper hand for the time being. /


    However, theirdies¡¯ fight seemed far gentler inparison to the two male Main Gods¡¯ fight next to them which was so direct and cruel.

 Chapter 472 - Ambition of the Traitor

    <h4>Chapter 472: Ambition of the Traitor</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    When mentioning the Ocean God, people would always think of the current Ocean God, Osweyar. The world of Eich wasn¡¯t like my previous world with ocean volume far surpassingnd volume. Still, ocean volume andnd volume were roughly equal in this world, meaning that people would still respect and fear the Ocean God.


    Osweyar very rarely appeared in front of others. ording to legends, he possessed many incarnations. If he was in a good mood, beautiful sea doves would guide lost ships and save them from the brink, but if he was in a bad mood, it was possible that a tremendous octopus would sink an entire ind.


    The Queen of Storms only had control over the areas near the shore and the Sea Tribes that were formerlynd-based. Osweyar had full reign over the entire ocean, yet he used aissez-faire style of ruling. Although there were many legends about him, actually useful information was incredibly little.


    The fact that Osweyar had been able to stay out of countless Holy Wars, ignoring both major factions, was already the best proof of his strength. I learned from the ancient Gods in our faction that the deepest parts of the ocean were another world entirely. Various Deep Sea Tribes and Ocean Gods still resided there. Their culture was entirely separate from thend¡¯s.


    As for that mysterious and powerful Osweyar, even the previous Ocean God from his grandfather¡¯s generation was only a former subordinate of the immemorial Ocean God Sidunwar. It was even rumored that they were rtives. When it came to seniority and past glory, not a single Main God of today would possiblypare to Sidunwar.


    *ng!*


    An ice-encrusted trident viciously nged against the ground, directly transformingrge amounts of ice and snow into ice water. The Pir of Ice even seemed to respond as it adjusted its own color. The tower¡¯s white glow now had a blue tint within it, and the constantly falling snow became an icy torrential rainstorm.


    At Sidunwar¡¯s level, changing the natural environment around him as he attacked was only a side effect.


    Something even stranger happened right after that. Many strange aquatic animals suddenly appeared in the rain. There were dolphins, whales, seals, and so on. And, even rarer deep sea monsters were suddenly mass-produced.


    The typical gray-ck sky in the Indifference Inferno had now been painted blue. Mysterious waves split open the sky, as if this entire world was being changed into an ocean.


    ¡°Ocean.¡±


    Sidunwar didn¡¯t need to say any other words. Simply saying this word out loud caused the entire world to change.


    If Soul Worlds could be considered a miracle that could twist the real world, then Sidunwar¡¯s level was basically at ¡°I am the world.¡± His personal domain began expanding, causing a boundless sea to be born.


    As he was one of Hell¡¯s reinforcements, he even received much assistance from Hell itself.


    One of the Four Pirs, the Tower of Ice, provided him with a limitless amount of backup support. The entire world was colored blue as thend itself was changed. The snow mountains in this Inferno were turned upside-down and turned into gigantic pools. Endless amounts of rain continued pouring down, causing the water to suddenly reach Karwenz¡¯s knees.


    Sidunwar flung his water trident yet again, transforming the water upon it into sea beasts, dolphins, sharks, and so on. The sea beasts in the airbined with the aquatic beasts already summoned, transforming into something else.


    A shark beast floated in midair. It was only two meters long, yet it possessed berserk, fervor, toxic fangs, and many other auras, as if it was a supremely powerful support priest.


    Another floating whale-shaped aquatic beast appeared rather delicate. Yet, it suddenly opened its mouth and sent out soundless waves that shook the entire realm. These waves were a direct attack against the soul.


    These instantly constructed aquatic beasts showed off power that would surpass any ordinary powerful human individual. It was as if the powerful individuals of the immemorial Sea Tribe had been revived.


    ¡°Is that thebination of soul gifting and Creation? No, it¡¯s only the physical actualization of memories.¡±


    How could Sidunwar possibly possess the souls of other powerful Sea Tribe members when he was revived by himself? These were merely the shadow projections of the powerful individuals from sea monsters and the Sea Tribe that Sidunwar remembered. Yet just his personal memories of this immemorialbat strength already far surpassed the understanding of the recent generation¡¯s powerful individuals.


    Yet, after a momentary confusion, Karwenz shrugged and yawned; he seemed to be bored.


    ¡°...I thought that I would have a fun fight when I heard your name. But now, it seems that you¡¯re not even at a Main God¡¯s level anymore since you have to y so many little tricks.¡±


    The moment Karwenz said this, Sidunwar paused for a brief instant in his actions. He then violently swung his trident, summoning even more sea beasts which pounced upon Karwenz, starting an all-out fight.


    The immemorial Ocean God who was used to looking down on other existences felt that himself lying would be nothing more than the greatest humiliation. His silence was his tacit admittance.


    Indeed, Sidunwar was no longer at a Main God¡¯s level. In fact, he could barely count as a powerful High God now!


    Back in the day, he had used a backup technique which was indeed effective. Even though he died, his Ocean Bottle managed to preserve his divine soul. And thanks to the guidance of my system, the Queen of Storm¡¯s tremendous amount of sea-rted divine power became the nutrition to revive Sidunwar¡¯s divine soul.


    However, the Queen of Storms herself was someone who had speedily be a High God, meaning that her own foundation was unstable. After this divine power was transferred and modified for Sidunwar, it was already fortunate enough that one-third of her divine power was left. In the end, the divine power given to Sidunwar was mostly only enough to allow his divine soul to move about again.


    Originally, the system still had more Quests such as hunting sea beasts, searching for any sea-rted God¡¯s divine blood, and so on in order to improve and perfect the state of his revival. But obviously, there wasn¡¯t time for that. Sidunwar¡¯s current physical body was but a temporary one given to him by the Tower of Ice. He was far removed from his maximum power in his generation.


    The very fact that he was able to battle right after reviving was because he was a fierce warrior who had reached the status of Main God through his own efforts. If he had been a novice God that speedily became powerful through belief alone, his divine power wouldn¡¯t have even been sufficient enough to support his divine soul. He would have remained in eternal rest forever.


    It would have been better if he still had any Divine Concepts remaining. Originally, he possessed Concepts such as ¡°Ocean¡±, ¡°King of all Sea Beasts¡±, ¡°The Only Ruler of the Ocean¡±, and so on. Yet, all his Divine Concepts were stolen by others after his downfall, so right now, he didn¡¯t have a single Divine Concept, believer, nor any territory. Yet, he just happened to have a significant amount of divine power. Hepletely fitted the definition of what a Chaos Evil God would be.


    ¡°Ha, Evil God Sidunwar, how pitiful...¡±


    Karwenz really spread salt on Sidunwar¡¯s wound with his offhandment. And, Karwenz also dealt with the sea beasts quite easily. He didn¡¯t even need to unsheathe his sword. All he did was simply p with his hand and shatter the aquatic beasts constructed out of water.


    Karwenz¡¯s analysis was indeed quite urate. If Sidunwar had been in his prime, he would have used his trident to personally fight already, forcefully bringing this to a direct fight rather than using subordinates. Why else would he use these seemingly ¡°extravagant¡± tricks that actually didn¡¯t have sufficient attack power against a Main God?


    Judging from Sidunwar¡¯s worsening expression, Karwenz had indeed hit his sore spot with thatment.


    Gods were a type of existence that were bound to ¡°Concepts¡±. Their Divine Concepts and teachings were restraints that bound them, but also definitions for how they existed and the foundation for spreading their Concepts. But now, since Sidunwar had lost all his Divine Concepts, he didn¡¯t possess a single Concept, which meant that he had be the very definition of an Evil God with no foundation to speak of. If it hadn¡¯t been for the fact that he was powerful enough, he would have likely begun to naturally disappear already.


    It would have been better if he still had a physical body, but the current him was basically the living definition of a former ruler that even a dog could bully.


    Any revived ancient God would always meet with such difficulties. Typically, they wouldy low in the mortal ne while developing their church and expanding their believers, attempting to steal other Gods¡¯ Divine Concepts and so on. But unfortunately for Sidunwar, he didn¡¯t have this opportunity as he was directly dragged into battle right after reviving.


    ¡°You arrogant youngster...¡±


    The ancient Sidunwar was roaring in anger, but the newly ascended Main God Karwenz ignored him. In fact, Karwenz even scratched his head in boredom, feeling that this was all a waste of time.


    But suddenly, a voice echoed on the battlefield... Fine, I admit that I was now using an incarnation to intervene.


    ¡°How about bing the God of the River Styx?¡±


    Ayer¡¯s death left an empty Divine Concept. But, I didn¡¯t have the power to assign the Godhood of the River Styx. I was actually referring to the new River Styx, the river of souls that flowed through all of the new Hell. If Sidunwar became the new Hell God of the River Styx, he would naturally obtain the Divine Concept of ¡°Overseer of Dead Souls¡±, which would help him to escape the awkwardness of being considered an Evil God.


    ¡°Have someone like myself be your personal fighter? Never!¡±


    I confess that I didn¡¯t exactly have good intentions. As expected, Sidunwar was an experienced veteran who instantly saw through my n. If he agreed, while he would indeed obtain the Concept that he ¡°greatly needed¡±, he would also be an official member of the Hell Gods. The very first Concept that any God obtained would be his most foundational Concept of all. It would be almost impossible to change afterwards.


    ¡°Then, are you willing to make do with bing the only River God of all the rivers in the Land of Spring...?¡±


    While the God in stories from my original world created Earth in seven days, countless days and months had already passed during our battle.


    Above Hell, the Titans had already finished roughly connecting the continental tes. Since there were continents, then of course there would need to be an entire dimension filled with a natural cycle, with oceans, rivers,kes, and so on... Then, of course I would have the power to give out the Divine Concept of Rivers in the Land of Spring. As for why it wasn¡¯t an Ocean God? That was because the tatterednd under construction there still didn¡¯t have any location that could be called an ocean or sea as of yet.


    I directly sent a map to Sidunwar, showing him how there were countless cracks within the continental tes, which could all be filled with rain. Once the cracks were filled with rain, this would form countless tributaries that could barely count as having a total volume simr to an ocean. Bing the God of all the rivers in this newnd would be quitepatible with Sidunwar¡¯s powers.


    Sidunwar hesitated. He knew that all water element Gods were capable of extending their Concepts. The Guardian God of a river increasing his strength and bing an Ocean God was something that could naturally ur. If he used this Concept as his starting point, he would be able to challenge the current Ocean God in the future.


    Of course, since it was almost impossible to change the first Concept that a God received, if he became the River God of the Land of Spring, he would naturally be connected to the three connected dimensions of Heaven, Land of Spring, and Hell. Although Sidunwar would no longer be directly under me in Hell, he would still be connected to me in a roundabout fashion and still somewhat count as my subordinate fighter.


    However, I doubted that Sidunwar would be able to instantly figure out the connection between Hell and the Land of Spring. He probably presumed that this was the Concept of bing a River God in another independent ne which wasn¡¯t highly connected to me.


    This was precisely my favorite negotiation tactic. First, I would give the other party a proposal that was an obvious pitfall, which they wouldn¡¯t possibly agree to. Then, I would throw out a second proposal that seemed alright on the surface but wouldn¡¯t be foundationally any different from the first.


    And if I was seen through yet again, then I would toss out a third n that seemed to make concessions but was actually yet another pitfall... In the end, what the other party received from me depended on their own strength... and even more on their brains.


    But obviously, Sidunwar wasn¡¯t exactly the smart type. Otherwise, he wouldn¡¯t have lost everything and fallen so far.


    Sidunwar red at the Demon Main God who had the most inconceivable growth speed in all of history, and felt that his opponent was unfathomable. Sidunwar then nced at the Pir of Ice behind him, which contained the only person he cared about in the entire world. He then directly nodded and agreed without giving me the opportunity to give him my third pitfall of a n.


    ¡°I... I agree. Although I am the ruler of the ocean, I also know that it¡¯s a good idea to sometimes take shelter when there¡¯s a tempest. As a leader, it¡¯s my responsibility to temporarily bear this humiliation...¡±


    Let¡¯s ignore just how ¡°tsundere¡± he sounded right now. Nor will Iment on just how blinding it was to see such a gigantic existence acting all tsundere. The moment that he agreed to take the Divine Concept of being the River God of the Land of Spring, the crown on his head was modified. His crown became less extravagant and more in. His temporary body of snow and ice became more real.


    And this moment, all the rivers in the Land of Spring gained a master. And, I had now scammed another powerful fighter into joining my faction.


    Sidunwar sessfully melded with his new Concept as power flowed within him, strengthening his bloodline. He arched his head backwards and let out a fierce roar as his body suddenly expanded. He had regained some of his lost power.


    Although he was only a River God, he was now far stronger than when he was an Evil God with no Concept to speak of. Existence was power. After gaining a great deal of power, Sidunwar was just about to start fighting this ¡°youngster¡± who was utterly disrespectful to his seniors, when Karwenz suddenly sheathed his sword and said something that nobody understood.


    ¡°I surrender. Brother, I suppose that you can consider this a small gift from me since I helped to force this fellow into your pitfall. Since you¡¯re no longer so angry, how about we have a proper discussion? Perhaps we have amon enemy, such as... such as Mother Cynthia who destroyed the Mist Kingdom!¡±


    As he said this, Karwenz¡¯s typically casual expression now actually had fervor and delight.


    ¡°The very essence of Chaos is the unknown, unpredictable, and uncontroble! Why call it Chaos if there¡¯s someone controlling everything? The abyss that has its own will doesn¡¯t deserve to be called the Chaos Abyss! It¡¯s time, it¡¯s time to have the abyss return to true Chaos, so we can truly be free!¡±

 Chapter 473 - Black and White

    Chapter 473: ck and White


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    ¡°Pure good and evil are merely imagined concepts that don¡¯t truly exist. There was never any absolute barrier between ck and white to begin with. The beginning of everything stemmed from the two Goddesses of Order and Chaos having such powerful differences. Compared to their mortal creations, they were pure, far too pure¡ªpure to the extent where the entire world was dragged into their conflict.¡±


    Ilmisya rather than Karwenz was the one who just made thatment, as she had just sessfully retreated from the battlefield. However, she was clearly scorched ck all over yet still trying to put on a serious expression, which made me really want tough.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t betray my tribe, I only betrayed the will of the Chaos Abyss. I never told my tribe beforehand because this needed to be kept an absolute secret; as long as any information leaked out at all, everything would be for naught...¡±


    Obviously, Karwenz wasn¡¯t someone skilled at exining things, so Ilmisya apparently wanted to exin everything with that mature and naturally alluring voice of hers. However...


    ¡°Shut up! Karwenz! You tell me!¡±


    Right now, I was still shocked at what I¡¯d just learned and angered at the way Karwenz still addressed Cynthia. I wanted to hear from the person himself.


    ¡°As expected, Goddess of Chaos Cynthia was truly the culprit who destroyed the Mist Kingdom!? Mother Cynthia? You knew the truth and still call her your mother? You can tolerate such a thing...?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m merely stating the facts, Rnd. She is indeed my mother. You know about the so-called Child of Fate, right? Then, do you know how the Children of Fatee to be?¡±


    ¡°Child of Fate? You even learned about that? Aren¡¯t Children of Fate simply the most important chess piece of their generation, with the deepest ties to karma, allowing them to possibly change the fate of the entire world?¡±


    That¡¯s right, a Child of Fate was still nothing more than a chess piece for those even higher to better control the situation. No matter how powerful a Child of Fate was, he or she would still be nothing more than a chess piece under the control of the God behind the scenes. No matter how hard the Children of Fate worked, or how many victories and des they gained, nothing would happen except for the eternal Holy War entering its next cycle. It was so for Karn during the previous Holy War, as well as ¡°Rnd¡± from the game¡¯s history.


    ¡°Then, how did they be able to change the fate of the world? Have you carefully thought about this?¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s words caused me to pause in surprise. I had only learned recently about the Child of Fate, and had so much on my te that I naturally didn¡¯t have the time to deeply research this topic.


    ¡°Chaos¡¯ very essence is unpredictability. If Fate is a power of Order, then breaking the chains of Fate and restoring everything back to pure Chaos is naturally the power of the Chaos Abyss. The so-called Child of Fate is a child of the Abyss, the Abyss Prince. Not only do I need to call Cynthia my mother, you¡¯re her child as well.¡± Karwenz revealed a yful smile. ¡°Time and Space are the most foundational Concepts of Order. Prophecy is a product of these Concepts that allows to see the future. And as Mother Cynthia is enemies with Order, she naturally needs a so-called ¡®Child of Fate¡¯ who can shatter all the prophecies.


    ¡°Before every Holy War, Mother Cynthia will use her powers of Creation to split off a part of her own soul and give it the ability to evolve limitlessly, creating a new artificial soul and tossing it into the mortal ne. The Order Faction calls this person the Child of Fate, but if I had to name it, I think Child of Anti-Fate would be far more urate.


    ¡°It would seem that the Goddess of Order Astrya on your side didn¡¯t tell you the truth at all. No, lying to you will be easily seen through, so as long as she isn¡¯t stupid, she probably didn¡¯t tell you the whole truth!¡±


    So much information was just revealed to me. Combining all of this information and analyzing seemed to bring me to the truth.


    Indeed, my System hadn¡¯t lied to me. She simply didn¡¯t tell me the whole truth. This was a wordy tactic that I was extremely familiar with using myself. And, I actually fell for it.


    ¡°The Order Faction has its great precognitors, so the Chaos Faction will naturally have its own Child of the Abyss of Anti-Fate. And, the previous generation¡¯s Child of the Abyss was scammed by Astrya into crippling himself. It¡¯s already such a joke that an Abyss Prince mysteriously became one of the strongest supporters of Order. Astrya wasn¡¯t even satisfied with that as she even scammed Karn into abandoning his sense of self to ascend to Godhood. That put aplete end to him.¡±


    [...Karn did it of his own free will. He was unable to resist Cynthia¡¯s temptations, and could have be fallen at any moment...]


    ¡°Shut up!¡±


    Pain? Anger? Distrust? I was probably feeling all those emotions right now.


    I was roaring angrily in my mind, and felt so aggrieved that I really wanted to shout out loudly at the top of my lungs. Yet, I still forced myself to smile as now wasn¡¯t a time that I could allow negative emotions to cloud my judgement.


    ¡°Hey hey hey, Elder Brother, don¡¯t smile at me like that. You look terrifying. Check the corner of your lips.¡±


    I wiped my mouth and found that it was bloodied. I had unknowingly made myself bleed by biting my lips too hard. It would seem that I had used too much force.


    I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as I couldn¡¯t allow Karwenz to continue controlling the pace of this conversation. I then spoke up in a heavy voice, ¡°Continue. What exactly happened with us back in the year?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, this Holy War is highly likely to be the final Holy War of all. Mother Cynthia desires to have the strongest Abyss Prince in history in order to finally defeat her eternal enemy. No, she desires topletely destroy her eternal enemy Astrya, the Goddess of Order. You know as well that the Goddesses of Order and Chaos are the rulers of the dimension of Eich. It will be impossible for any product of Eich to destroy Astrya.¡±


    These words caused me to suddenly think of a possibility that caused all my hair to stand up ends. And, my inference was proved the very next moment.


    ¡°Perhaps you know already that Eich was almost destroyed previously by dimensional invaders. This is the foundational reason why the two Goddesses desire so much strength. And, Mother Cynthia who was helpless to destroy Astrya suddenly thought of an idea thanks to the dimensional invaders...¡±


    At this moment, Karwenz paused intentionally for a moment to bait my expectations and smiled nefariously.


    ¡°...¡¯Since there¡¯s no knowledge or power in this dimension that can possibly kill the Goddess of Order, perhaps it will be possible to do so with knowledge and power from another world.¡¯ And so, as Mother Cynthia was one of the Creator Goddesses of this world, she paid a tremendous price to break through the dimensional walls in order to insert the soul of the Child of the Abyss into another world. This helped him to obtain knowledge and memories from that world. Then, just like a fisherman, Mother Cynthia reeled his soul back in to Eich...¡±


    I fell silent after hearing this. Although I¡¯d already expected this as there were only definites and no coincidences in the world, the truth was still difficult to ept. So, in the end, even my transmigration was arranged by the Goddess of Chaos herself? We were nothing more than chess pieces from the very start?


    ¡°You should already know what happened after that. Since the previous generation¡¯s Child of the Abyss was scammed into going down the wrong path, the will of the Chaos Abyss directly attached itself to this generation¡¯s Child of the Abyss. The result was that when Astrya came looking for her Child of Fate¡ªthe two Goddess¡¯s remnant souls had yet another fight that forcefully tore the Child of the Abyss into two souls.


    ¡°And, what happened next was even more inconceivable. Originally, every soul should have a portion belonging to both Order and Chaos. Yet, the two half-souls split up like this just happened to be far purer than ordinary human souls. If normal human souls are 50% Chaos and 50% Order, both these souls were more than 90% pure Chaos or Order. And so, a true Child of the Abyss and Child of Order were born! These two children were naturally able to obtain the favor of Chaos and Order, respectively, ever since birth.¡±


    Karwenz still spoke with a smile, as if he was talking about someone else rather than ourselves.


    ¡°Just like the differences between the upper and lower dimensions, the Order-oriented soul floated upwards, was born first, and became the older brother Rnd. The Chaos-oriented soul sunk downward and became the younger brother Karwenz. This was the best possible result for the Goddesses of Order and Chaos! And so, both of them attached themselves to their respective children, and attempted to control their fates so that they would fight and kill each other.¡±


    Since Karwenz had exined so much already, I could pretty much figure out the rest on my own.


    Cynthia attached herself to Karwenz, giving him a ridiculously cheat-like ability to grow powerful. And, she also arranged the most tragic fate possible for him, because she hoped that he would grow even more powerful after being spurred on by tragedy. That was why she destroyed our Mist Kingdom.


    And, Astrya attached herself to me and learned about the concept of ¡°Systems¡± from all the random FreeWebNovels I loved to read in my previous world. After analyzing the information from my world, she decided to give me her prophecies in the form of a ¡°game walkthrough¡± in order to try and guide my fate.


    And so, Karwenz was indeed the Abyss Prince, while I became known as the ¡°illegitimate child of Holy Light.¡±


    ¡°But! But! They¡¯ve finally lost control! Their chess pieces have exceeded their capabilities to control.¡±


    A fervent smile appeared on Karwenz¡¯s familiar face. His mysterious fervor made me feel fear, as his smile actually distorted with excitement, fear, fearlessness, and numerous emotions that made his face seem like a jigsaw puzzle with too many different emotions. I could sense that this was the true Karwenz. Since his soul had almost been entirely stripped of Order, he was the purest Child of the Chaos Abyss that had ever been born.


    ¡°Haha, my dearest Older Brother, you possess knowledge from another world, don¡¯t you? Right, right, I don¡¯t have any such knowledge at all, so it can only be you! You also invented all sorts of random things when you were young. That must have been knowledge from that other world. And, being able to create such a dimension here must be the result of your knowledge from that other world. Yep, this is so delightful, Mother Cynthia¡¯s goal that she didn¡¯t have much hope in has been actualized; you¡¯ve truly created a weapon that can actually kill the Creator Goddesses! Do you know just how happy I was after hearing this!?¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s fervent gaze looked upon this patch of ice and snow in the Indifference Inferno of Sloth, but he seemed to see through everything. He saw the Tower of Holy Light which represented Salvation at the very top of Hell, and he also saw the invisible Tower of Death. He had long since known the functions of the Four Towers. And, he came to this Tower of Ice for this very moment.


    ¡°Wonderful, it¡¯s truly wonderful. This is it, this world. Elder Brother, you¡¯ve seeded! This is the God-ying weapon. You¡¯ve created the guillotine, and I¡¯ve brought along the prisoner to be executed. Now, we can execute these two Creator Goddesses that caused the world so much pain. Let us take our revenge! Let us first kill our Mother Cynthia, and then kill that hypocritical Goddess of Order! Come, let us shatter the shackles of the old generation, and give Chaos true freedom! Let everything return to true freedom! This is revenge, as well as a deration of enthroning ourselves! The generation of the Goddesses of Order and Chaos is over. The future generation belongs to us! The Twin Stars of Order and Chaos!¡±

 Chapter 474 - Difficult Decision

    Chapter 474: Difficult Decision


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    The foundational reason for the Holy War¡¯s beginning was the Goddesses of Order and Chaos¡¯s conflict. At first, perhaps they indeed wished for everyone to be stronger so that Eich wouldn¡¯t be destroyed by dimensional invaders. Yet the result was...


    ¡°Glorious civilizations constructed after thousands of years of umtion are just as ethereal as a sand castle constructed by a child on a beach. The next ocean wave that appears will leave behind nothing more than rubble. Is everything beautiful nothing more than a dream? Are all sacrifices and hard workpletely meaningless?¡±


    Seeking fame and personal gain wasn¡¯t typically harmful on arge scale. However, the greatest ideals would be capable of destroying the world. Life was like a game and the world was unpredictable. Sometimes, truth would hurt far more than lies.


    Under the gaze of the highest Gods up above, all lives continuously enacted life-and-death shows that were nothing more than circus. In the end, no matter how far civilization had developed, the only end result would be the same periodic harvesting of souls. Just when would this despairing fate finally end?


    Having hatred? Holding a grudge? Being dissatisfied! Of course! Even if they gave lives to all mortals in this world, even if the world we lived in was created by them, did that mean that the parents could casually steal the lives of their own children, viewing the mortals¡¯ difficulties as nothing more than a joke?


    Perhaps others had the greatest respect for the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos, and worshipped them most of all, but I had nothing but grudges against them. That was because I was raised as an atheist back in China of my original world, and had a logical way of thinking that made it impossible for me to worship any God. In my eyes, rather than calling the Goddesses of Order and Chaos venerated Creator Goddesses, they were nothing more than two selfish bastards.


    ¡°If I have the chance, I absolutely have to kill them and end everything.¡±


    Such words had echoed in my mind numerous times already. I had even made attempts...


    ¡°They¡¯re undefeatable while in Eich, since they¡¯re the true masters of the entire world. The entire world will support them. But, if they¡¯re in a brand-new world, they¡¯ll be nothing more than difficult opponents. It should be possible to defeat and even kill them.¡±


    Indeed, just as Cynthia had surmised, using knowledge and power from an entire other world was the only possible method. In the end, I concentrated entirely on trying to actualize this method.


    Back when I was fighting Emordilorcan, I created my Frigidwinter Earth and cut him off from the Earth Elemental ne which would give him an endless amount of support as he was the Earth Elemental God. I then used my power from another world to kill him.


    This was actually nothing more than a rehearsal, an experiment to prove my ideas and theories. While the result was quite pleasing, it also made me slightly depressed.


    ¡°It should be possible to create a brand-new world and kill the Creator Goddesses within it! But, actually doing so... is far too impractical.¡±


    The theory being correct didn¡¯t mean that sess was almost there. The experiment on Emordilorcan had actually exposed many problems. Two particr problems were the most fatal.


    First, my Frigidwinter Earth hadn¡¯t managed topletely cut off Emordilorcan from the Earth Elemental Throne. In the end, I only won against him because Beifeng and Little Sandy helped to destroy the Earth Elemental Throne.


    ¡°This means that the current Frigidwinter Earth will probably be ineffective against a more powerful existence like the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos. I need to level up my entire world, strengthening its independence and dimensional walls, and once there¡¯s a final fight, I need to sessfully drag my enemy into another dimension that¡¯s far away from the world of Eich...¡±


    After Hell was constructed, this difficult problem had now been solved. But, there was still another difficult problem that made this ¡°n¡± into nothing more than a backup n in the end. It all seemed far too impractical, because...


    ¡°The two Goddesses of Order and Chaos are far too strong, strong to the point of despair...¡±


    Even though Emordilorcan had been cut off and isted in my Frigidwinter Earth, I had to pull out all my ace cards in order to barely win. Even if I stripped the Goddesses of their ¡°undefeatable¡± powers, they would still be purely strong existences with personal power far surpassing that of any Main God out there. They would still be almost the same as beingpletely undefeatable.


    ¡°Even if I can cut them off from Eich, how am I supposed to defeat them...¡±


    Not only did the game¡¯s history prove that the Goddesses had astonishing achievements of killing Main Gods after they finally awoke, Ayer proved for me as well that this would be impossible. And so, I could only leave this n as a backup n.


    But when Karwenz told me his goal of killing Cynthia and Astrya here in my world, my first reaction wasn¡¯t ¡°Should I kill them or not?¡± Instead, my first reaction was ¡°This is impossible.¡±


    But right now, Karwenz was saying that it was possible to kill them. While I was astonished to hear this, I finally figured out what I had missed after analyzing all the information I had.


    ¡°Previously, when I analyzed the two Goddesses¡¯bat strength, I calcted their power levels based on after their revivals. After all, that was the only record of them appearing and attacking in the game¡¯s history. But right now, they¡¯re nothing more than remnant souls attached to our bodies. Without the protection of their physical bodies, of course it will be possible to kill them.¡±


    This new information brought new opportunities. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I had far too much on my te, I should have figured this part out already right after I finally confirmed that my System was indeed Astrya, the Goddess of Order.


    ¡°...How are we supposed to kill them? Even in this dimension, their souls are indestructible.¡±


    ¡°Ha, but they¡¯re nothing more than souls right now. And, this dimension of yours is specially targeted for souls. Since the Tower of Death represents all souls here, it should be capable of stripping these two bastards off our bodies. The Tower of Ice is capable of giving physical bodies to the dead. In that case, just give them the weakest physical bodies possible and drag them into the void. This will be able to truly andpletely kill them!¡±


    The Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos were the highest-level existences possible, only under the Creator Goddess Eich herself. But, my Four Pirs also had equivalent powers of Creation. This was basically a method of revival that I had never even considered. If the two Goddesses¡¯ remnant souls were forcefully revived by another method than originally nned, they would be mortal and naturally kible.


    ¡°Shut up! Today... today is your personal Armageddon!¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s sudden angry shout surprised me, but the rage in his bloodshot eyes helped me to understand that he was actually roaring at the existence attached to himself¡ªCynthia!


    My System continued to remain silent. However, I could sense a very rare emotion for her: fear.


    By now, I finally understood Karwenz¡¯s ns. He learned from his spy Ilmisya about the functions of Hell¡¯s Four Towers. Since he knew more overall information than I did, he was the first toe up with this possibility to truly kill off the Goddesses of Order and Chaos.


    Unlike the Goddess of Order who was already in the pitiful state of having to pretend to be my System, Cynthia was still in full control of the Chaos Abyss. She probably still possessed the ability to freely move around. In that case, Karwenz must have tricked Cynthia into personallying with him here to this ¡°guillotine.¡± That was why he said ¡°You¡¯ve created the guillotine, and I¡¯ve brought along the prisoner to be executed.¡±


    And once he learned my ns from Ilmisya, not only did he not interfere, he even secretly helped my ns along. In the end, this caused my ¡°grand scheme¡± to have an unexpected harvest. From a certain standpoint, this could even be considered another type of cooperation between brothers.


    And now, he had brought Cynthia over in front of the Tower of Ice. His so-called ¡°I surrender¡± from earlier was just a joke. This was his true n!


    I had always wanted to defeat and even kill the two Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos. But now that I really had this opportunity in front of me, I hesitated.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you want to say anything at all?¡±


    My System continued to remain silent, as if she was leaving her fate entirely up to me.


    ¡°What will be the consequences if you truly die? Will the world of Eich be affected?¡±


    This time, she replied.


    [...Rest assured. Even if my divine soul is destroyed, there won¡¯t be a direct influence on the world. The Source of Order has already rejected me, so I¡¯m nothing more than an isted, individual soul. However, it¡¯s different for Cynthia. Right now, she¡¯s still the master of the Chaos Abyss. If you execute her, that means the entire Chaos Abyss and all the demons will no longer be under control. That means there will be no limits whatsoever in this Holy War! The purest Chaos Abyss and demons will be far stronger than you can imagine. They shall then have a limitless thirst and desire for more souls¡ª]


    ¡°That¡¯s enough! I only want to know about you.¡±


    I angrily interrupted Astrya¡¯s attempts to save Cynthia¡¯s life, but she continued regardless.


    [Perhaps executing Cynthia will solve all your grudges, but the Chaos Abyss will go out of control. You¡¯ve already done so much and true peace is right before you. You can end this Holy War simply by watching Cynthia weaken and fall into hibernation again due tocking nutrition. There¡¯s no need to take the risk of killing her. You should know that without Cynthia¡¯s control, the demons will never stop their ughtering and the Holy War will truly be eternal!]


    [I know that we sisters havemitted an unforgivable crime. So, you can execute me. This is the punishment I deserve for my crime. But, you need to think about the consequences of executing Cynthia! We¡¯ve already seen the dawn, so don¡¯t miss this final chance!]


    ¡°Ha, I¡¯ve never expected that you would be so na?ve. You really think that allowing Cynthia to go free will give us a future? Indeed, I¡¯ve cut off Cynthia from the River Styx¡¯s replenishment. However, she has another method of replenishment that¡¯s even more direct. She can use her demon armies to forcefully harvest souls and obtain the nutrition she needs through blood sacrifices. She¡¯ll sacrifice every living being in the entire world of Eich to revive herself if necessary. There has been no retreat from this Holy War ever since the very start!¡±


    I wasn¡¯t making any of this up at all. This was the result of a past discussion between me and Ayer. We never believed that Hell¡¯s construction alone would sessfully end everything. The Chaos Abyss, Hell, and Order Divine Kingdoms would make the three major factions of the world, and we would be the weakest. Our original expectations were to never underestimate the two Goddesses¡¯ck of limits.


    ¡°Only absorbing naturally broken soul shards through the Cycle of Reincarnation will of course result in less nutrition than directly devouring the souls. When the two Goddesses lose the possibility of awakening through a rtively ¡®gentler¡¯ method, they naturally wouldn¡¯t want to simply watch as they enter an eternal hibernation. The worst result is that the two major factions will start killing everything living without regards to methods or cost, wanting to harvest mortals¡¯ souls so that the ¡®Mothers¡¯ can be fed. This will be nothing more than a total ughter of all of Eich.


    ¡°Since we¡¯re the weakest third faction, directly opposing both major factions simultaneously is tantamount to suicide. We must take advantage of the conflict between the two major factions. That means we can only cut off the possibility of one side¡¯s revival! Only that will finally give us hope in finally ending the eternal Holy War rather than making the Holy War into a truly eternal absolute battle to the death!¡±


    Obviously, it would be more eptable to us if Order won over Chaos. At the very least, Ayer believed that Astrya would be easier to talk topared to Cynthia. That was why we preserved Heaven¡¯s Pir for Order but cut off the River Styx for Chaos.


    In order to deal with the highly likely furious reprisal of Chaos, we kept a sufficient amount of mortal power and mortal heroes in reserve. The Dark Elf knights, Absolute Gentlemen Alliance, Nortnds Mist Alliance, Underground factions, powerful human kingdoms, and so on. Even if we sessfully constructed Hell, the mortals¡¯ future would have to be developed by mortals¡¯ themselves. Naturally, the mortals would have to end this final Holy War.


    And now, many difficult questions were before me. What should I do with Astrya? Would executing Cynthia really cause the release of all the demons within the Chaos Abyss? Would leaving Cynthia alive be equivalent to her personally controlling all the Demon Lords and harvesting all the souls in Eich? And Karwenz... perhaps this was simply my instinct, or a mysterious connection between our identical souls, but I suddenly felt that Karwenz was far more dangerous than Cynthia... that he was far more like the essence of the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°If Cynthia dies, can you restrain all the Demon Lords and control the battle...?¡±


    ¡°Ha, don¡¯t be so na?ve. Chaos doesn¡¯t need anything like an eternal boss. Every single demon desires to move up thedder. This is an instinct carved into their very bloodline. Restrain them? How can that be possible? Besides, why would I possibly do something so boring?¡±


    Karwenz didn¡¯t hide his expectations at all, nor was he able to hide them. And, his answer confirmed my analysis of Karwenz.


    He desired war. He desired for the Chaos Abyss to obtain true freedom. He desired to kill off Cynthia, who ruled over the Chaos Abyss. He believed that this would make him happy. He had no guarantee whatsoever of bing the next big boss of Chaos, nor did he n to steal that position for himself. His seemingly wondrous n was probably a random thought he cooked up on the spot.


    ¡°Damned creature that runs only on instincts, did he catch this opportunity through his instincts alone...?¡±


    Karwenz simply desired for the cheat-like administrators to leave this world so that this worldwide war would be more interesting for him. As for what the result would be? If he could be the new master of the Chaos Abyss? Or if the entire world would be destroyed? He didn¡¯t care about such things at all! He only wanted to have more fun while ying!


    ¡°I...¡±


    I didn¡¯t even get to make my decision when the entire dimension began to violently shake. Judging from the energy storm that suddenly whipped up, the battles in the other Infernos had suddenly escted. In fact, I even received an emergency report that Sophocles the Deceiver had just vited the terms of the peace agreement contract he just signed! That was a soul contract signed with his true name, and viting it would mean that he would pay a tremendous price.


    ¡°Ha, hurry up and decide, Elder Brother. We don¡¯t have much time here. See, someone¡¯s already been moved by Cynthia¡¯s offered conditions to save her. Ha, just what did you promise them so that they¡¯re seriously going all out, Cynthia? Doesn¡¯t this mean that I finally have a chance to fight them for real? I¡¯ve been waiting for this for so many years. This is really interesting!¡±

 Chapter 475 - Trust

    <h4>Chapter 475: Trust</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°What should I decide on?¡±


    Everyone was looking at me as if my decision would decide the fate of the world... Yep, that was indeed the truth. The decision I was currently facing would indeed decide the fate of all of Eich.


    Apart from math test problems, it was rare that the world had absolutely correct answers. While every answer had its benefits, there would also be losses.


    I had to make a choice...


    At such a time when all eyes were upon me, being ambiguous would be impossible. I then made my choice.


    Karwenz excitedly looked at me, as if he could already anticipate my answer.


    ¡°This is Hell, so let¡¯s act ording to Hell¡¯s rules. Both Goddesses have obviouslymitted severe crimes, but there¡¯s still differences...¡±


    I did my best toe up with an answer that wouldn¡¯t sound too biased.


    ¡°Back in my original world, intentionally murdering another would obviously lead to the death penalty, while idental manughter would only result in being locked up for maybe seven or eight years. While both crimes obviously cause the same consequences, the core element that thew looks at is whether or not malice was involved in causing the other party¡¯s death. Cynthia will almost certainly deserve a death sentence, but as for Astrya, let¡¯s just lock her up for life. I shall take charge of locking her away until the end of the world.¡±


    Karwenz didn¡¯t even try to hide his disappointment. This wasn¡¯t the answer he was hoping to hear at all.


    ¡°You trust her so much?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I trust her... more than I trust you.¡±


    While the judgement of thew was one element, that was merely a reference. This decision was really made with my own subjective opinion.


    I trusted Astrya, which was why I hoped that she would be able to survive. As for whether this would cause trouble in the future? Back when I went down the wrong path, Adam and Margaret locked me up for over a hundred years. Now, in order to prevent Astrya from doing anything that would make us displeased, I could just lock her away.


    ¡°Since the Tower of Death for souls can be used to separate the soul from a physical body, of course it can also solidify and strengthen a soul. I can swear on my very soul that Astrya shall never receive her freedom from Hell.¡±


    As for the Holy War possibly going out of control after Cynthia¡¯s death? Even if she was alive, the Holy War would still go out of control. In order to finally end this Holy War andpletely destroy the fated Armageddon that would decimate the world when the two Goddesses revived and shed against each other, one of the two Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos would absolutely have to die. And since I had decided to let Astrya survive, that naturally meant Cynthia would have to die.


    While our Hell Faction would be neutral, we would still be slightly biased towards Order. This was the strategy that Ayer and I previously agreed upon.


    As for our so-called Mother Cynthia? I acted as if I didn¡¯t hear anything at all. My parents from my first life were still on Earth, and my parents in my life on Eich had died more than three centuries ago. If you really wanted to be technical, every single life in Eich stemmed from the Creator Goddesses, so weren¡¯t all lives their children? It didn¡¯t seem like the Goddesses had much motherly love at all.


    They simply personally created us, yet gave us an endless amount of tragic fate. And once I thought of how my birth parents and the Mist Kingdom was destroyed because of Cynthia¡¯s schemes, I didn¡¯t feel even the slightest bit of pity for her.


    Yet, Karwenz had a highly displeased expression and didn¡¯t hide his dissatisfaction at all. He definitely didn¡¯t want to hear this.


    ¡°Astrya is worthy of your trust? Did you forget what happened to the God of Holy Light? From a certain standpoint, Karn even counts as our older brother, yet he was scammed by Astrya into bing nothing more than a tool that abandoned his sense of self. Do you want to meet the same end as him?¡±


    I chuckled upon hearing this. I waspletely different from Karwenz at least in certain aspects.


    ¡°You think things will be easier for you if you push your own regrets and crimes onto others? I don¡¯t have such a habit at all. Perhaps Astrya indeed tried to subconsciously influence me with her rmendations. However, the way I am and what I¡¯ve done are all because of my own choices. Perhaps I¡¯m still in pain and regret past disasters, but I¡¯m not foolish enough to deny my own past. Nor am I weak enough to push responsibility onto others.¡±


    I paused for a moment as past memories came to mind. Although most of my memories were painful, there wasn¡¯t much to regret. Even if I did everything over again, I would probably do things the same way.


    ¡°My life was chosen for me by myself. I have eyes, hands, feet, and a brain. I know how to think and see things for myself. Even if others gave guidance and rmendations in my life, I still made the decision for myself based on my own heart. I don¡¯t know what went on with Karn back in his generation, nor do I want to know. At the very least, I believe that Astrya is trustworthy. She didn¡¯t try to harm me. That¡¯s enough for me.¡±


    Well, I coulde up with a million excuses here. The main reason was simply because I trusted her.


    Astrya (my System) had apanied me for more than three hundred years. She had always acted as a guide to assist me. When I started out as a Holy Knight, she acted as my Holy Knight System. When I fell into darkness, she gave me Evil Points. When I tried to distort Fate itself, she started giving me Fate Points. She wasn¡¯t trying to control my fate at all. I was the one who was changing her.


    I could even guess that perhaps she intentionally pretended to be my game System with no sense of self because she didn¡¯t want to overly influence my own judgement. And, the only time she truly guided me was whenever I sought to be stronger. Not only that, Hell would have never been possible toplete without her assistance.


    I could mostly guess at what must have happened in the past. From a certain standpoint, I had to thank Karwenz for existing. The Abyss Bloodline would naturally be attracted to the Chaos Abyss, with the Chaos Abyss constantly whispering into one¡¯s ears. As Karn was the child of the Abyss, he probably had to listen to several hours of demons¡¯ mutterings every day and night. In the end, he probably couldn¡¯t take it anymore and made such a decision to ascend to Godhood with no sense of self. It wasn¡¯t strange at all. After all, countless others such as Elisa and Karwenz had also fallen into the Chaos Abyss due to their Abyss Bloodlines.


    Yet I never heard the whispers of the Chaos Abyss¡ªmost likely because of Karwenz¡¯s existence. He took the great majority of the Abyss Bloodline with him, along with attracting Cynthia¡¯s attention. If my ¡°System¡± had simply let Cynthia act as she pleased, then this random splitting of the soul into two halves wouldn¡¯t have happened, and I would have likely been the same Rnd from the so-called ¡°game¡¯s history¡±.


    [...Thank you.]


    After a long silence, Astrya finally thanked me. I knew that she wasn¡¯t thanking me for not killing her, but rather for trusting in her.


    ¡°No need for thanks. Verbally expressed gratitude ispletely useless and insincere, so remember to pay me with your body. Right, since that¡¯s how things were, what was with those Daily Quests? I can understand that Myth-ranked Quests are like powerful karmic choices that can greatly influence fate, but those Daily Quests were so annoying and mundane. What would you gain from such Daily Quests?¡±


    [Your very existence is capable of shattering Fate itself, and that power will only increase as time passes. As for those Daily Quests, didn¡¯t you feel that they were really interesting and creative, excellent for passing time?]


    I was immediately enraged and wanted to take back my trust in her which wasn¡¯t much to begin with. She had actually made me suffer for several hundred years just for fun?


    [It wasn¡¯t just to make you suffer, although it was indeed quite amusing to watch... Cough, I¡¯ll tell you something a little more reasonable. If I told you that you could constantly gain points without needing to do anything at all, wouldn¡¯t you be aszy as a pig? Wouldn¡¯t you simply be a hermit that would never go outside? If you¡¯re a hikikomori for too long, your mentality will be quite dark, really dark. Just look at your younger brother who¡¯s before you. Isn¡¯t he a great example?]


    ¡°I...¡±


    Seeing how Karwenz was bing more and more anxious, and also recalling the liches that had gone insane from being a hermit for too long, I suddenly felt like Astrya¡¯s words really did sound reasonable. I waspletely unable to counter this. Could it really be that Karwenz had been a hermit for far too long, having too little contact with others, bing more and more isted, and that this was the foundational reason for his strangeness?


    ¡°Shut up!¡±


    Quite obviously, Karwenz¡¯s anger was directed at the existence within himself. He kept pacing around while squeezing his own head. It was obvious that something was wrong with his condition. But since we had already brought everything to light and made it obvious that we intended to kill Cynthia here, there was probably a ruckus going on inside his head¡ªalthough my head was rather quiet.


    Karwenz clutched his right eye while lowering his head and panting loudly. Obviously, his condition was rather poor. I could see through his fingers that his right eye was filled with blood, and that the pupil had be vertical and filled with rage and killing intent. Karwenz also seemed to be suppressing a roar within his throat.


    ¡°Ha... Trust Astrya? You¡¯ll regret this!¡±


    ¡°Heh, I won¡¯t regret this at all. Have you ever seen me regret anything? If someone truly scams me, I¡¯ll just admit that I was foolish and greedy, and then think of some method to take revenge. Regret won¡¯t change anything at all. Regret can only bring pain upon oneself.¡±


    I didn¡¯t care at all despite how much killing intent Karwenz seemed to have. I shrugged, feeling that this was actually quite rxing.


    I wasn¡¯t pretending to be calm at all. I was feeling even more rxed inside than what I showed on the surface, as Karwenz¡¯s most foundational desire in our negotiations was quite obvious¡ªto kill off Cynthia so that the Chaos Abyss could be freed.


    And since I had already agreed to this condition of his, we had already reached an ord. As for everything else such as Astrya¡¯s death, it wouldn¡¯t even be important to discuss these with him. I could just treat it as a chance to improve our brotherly rtionship... and perhaps this would be our final chance to directly interact with each other.


    ¡°...My head is about to explode; this biatch <sup>1</sup> is insane! When are you going to start! Kill her already so that I can finally have a good night¡¯s sleep!¡±


    I shrugged helplessly as I wanted to do things quickly as well, but...


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you want the Tower of Death to strip her soul from your body? This is a bit too difficult for me. Let¡¯s wait for Ayer to wake up.¡±


    The Four Pirs each had their own Concepts. They could automatically take care of normal affairs within their Concept, but something like stripping off the Goddess of Chaos¡¯s soul wasn¡¯t something that could be done through automation.


    And if Ayer didn¡¯t wake up? Then we would have to continue waiting. But I felt that with Ayer¡¯s foundational strength, he was by far the likeliest to be the earliest Pir God to wake up.


    ¡°...Actually, you can go out for some exercise, such as going to kill off that Sophocles the Deceiver. I think he¡¯s really annoying. Won¡¯t you also have one lesspetitor once the Chaos Abyss receives true freedom?¡±


    Ha, I was delighted to have the opportunity to have such a powerful fighter working for me for free.


    I fully thought that Karwenz would agree to this request of mine, since he was the impatient type and obviously needed an opponent to vent on right now. Nor would he simply sit by and watch another Chaos Main Gode to save Cynthia right now. With his personality, he should have gone out there by himself. But instead, he actually calmed down after hearing my words.


    Unexpectedly, Karwenz no longer seemed impatient at all. He actually walked over slowly to the side, suddenly waved his hand, and... that pot of fish soup suddenly appeared again.


    He then took out a table and chair from somewhere and stood on the chair while stirring the fish soup with arge stirrer.


    ¡°I¡¯m in no rush at all. Let¡¯s just wait. This soup is almost ready, so how about some fresh fish soup? We probably won¡¯t have any more opportunities to sit down and eat together after today. How about trying this fish tail and some juicy and tender fish meat? It¡¯s just your type, and almost asrge as you are.¡±

 Chapter 476 - Final Battle

    <h4>Chapter 476: Final Battle</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    No matter how confusing the situation was in a two-sided battle, at least one would be able to discern the overall situation and tell who had the advantage. But if the battle became three- or even four-sided, it would be difficult to tell what side a chess piece was even on, so of course the situation would be more confusing.


    We of the Hell Faction were originally trying to survive in between the more powerful Order and Chaos Factions to begin with. We could only win taking advantage of the two major factions¡¯ conflicts. But since this was now a three-faction situation, many people¡¯s true allegiances became difficult to determine. There were quite a few individuals who were double or even triple agents, such as the Queen of Temptation, or myself with all my identities. And now, Karwenz had revealed himself to be a fourth faction, making things even more chaotic.


    Despite such a chaotic situation where everyone had their own goals and ns, it still wasn¡¯t difficult for me to determine the overall situation of myself and my enemies. That was because no matter who a person or faction was, they would all desire personal benefits. As long as I could determine what they wanted, and if they would be friendly towards Hell¡¯s sessful construction or not, it would be easy enough to determine if someone was an enemy or not.


    And now, the chess match appeared to be nearing endgame. Naturally, this made things even easier to determine.


    The rtively weaker Order Faction didn¡¯t have much to pressure us to begin with. Karn, the God of Holy Light, had already lost his incarnation here to three forbidden spell level attacks in session. Although incarnations were just like consumables, he would still be unable to recover the lost divine power. Weakening him yet again would be a good thing for us. And, the God of Wisdom Kalumandas didn¡¯t evene here with the intentions of fighting us. We had reached an agreement, and perhaps he would even be our ally in the future.


    From a certain standpoint, this was a negative of overly pure Order. Without emotions and sufficient benefits as motivation, the rtively more independent Order Main Gods naturally wouldn¡¯t work their hardest for thepletely emotionless Source of Order.


    So, from the very beginning, our main enemies would be the Chaos Faction led by Cynthia. I also used almost all my ace cards against the Chaos Faction.


    Right now, there were still three ongoing fights against the Chaos Faction. The two forever hungry beasts were still tearing at each other, so let¡¯s just ignore them for the time being. I was highly on guard against Chaos War God Donatis, and Devil Lord Marshan and enraged Bastian wouldn¡¯t be so easy to deal with. I also left a backup n to deal with him, so Donatis probably wouldn¡¯t be a problem.


    As for Sophocles the Deceiver who¡¯d previously signed a ceasefire agreement with us but broke it? Envy Marsolit and Pride Omar had already finished reviving. I directly sent them to the Lust Inferno to support Cher, but I didn¡¯t order them to fight to the fullest and force Sophocles to the brink.


    Any Main God existence who was forced to the brink would definitely bring out all their hidden ace cards. Since Hell¡¯s overallbat strategy was only to stall for time, maintaining a stalemate would be perfect for us. There was no need to force things to an all-out fight.


    Karwenz appeared to be quite bored sitting there as still as if he was a sculpture. It seemed that he had zero intentions of going into battle against any of the remaining Demon Lord Main Gods.


    ¡°Do you think that I¡¯m an idiot? You want me to fight for you for free before I evenplete my goal? I¡¯m just going to wait here.¡±


    As for that fish soup... it had already been tossed aside. Nobody even wanted to look at it.


    Just a single sip had caused the Abyss Prince himself to turn a shade of green and then run over and vomit for quite a while. This had already surpassed the power of any poison in the world. A Main God level Demon Lord like Karwenz should have been naturally immune to all poisons already.


    Originally, I didn¡¯t intend on trying it, but I became curious and tried the fish soup after seeing Karwenz¡¯s reaction. I then directly changed to using another incarnation¡¯s body in an attempt to immediately forget the memory I¡¯d just obtained.


    The older the fish, the staler and harder its meat would be. And as this fish was formerly a Demon Lord itself, it had an uncalctable age, and the fish meat itself was hard enough to ignore any normal Myth-ranked weapon. No normal amount of cooking would ever possibly soften it. And in order to soften this fish meat, Karwenz had tossedrge amounts of strange ingredients into his soup such as powerful acids, sharpening portions, armor-piercing enchantment potions, corrosive magic mes from the Chaos Abyss, and so on.


    After he randomly stirred a lot, this fish meat indeed softened somewhat. Yet, the color and the taste, and that super acidity... I immediately changed to yet another incarnation. At least this was far more convenient than creating a new head and face.


    Setting aside the matter of the super-acidic fish soup which was absolutely disgusting, I intentionally tried to learn more about my enemies from Karwenz... er, just chat!


    ¡°What other ace cards do those Chaos Main Gods have? Are any of them rtively easier to deal with?¡±


    ¡°Anything can be possible as long as you¡¯re willing to pay the price. Still, don¡¯t even think that it¡¯s a good idea to force them onto the brink right now. Oh, if what I see is correct, it will be impossible for all the existences within this dimension to leave here after Hell isplete?¡±


    He actually tried to learn more information about Hell from me instead.


    ¡°Yep, all those with Hell¡¯s Concepts will find it impossible to leave. Any dead souls that want to leave can only do so through the Cycle of Reincarnation. These are irond dimensionalws of Hell that all existences have to obey.¡±


    Some things were impossible to hide, so of course I could tell him. Of course, if he misunderstood and got the wrong impression, that wouldn¡¯t be my fault at all, would it?


    ¡°What about you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Wumianzhe Rnd, one of the Four Pir Gods of Hell. Of course I¡¯m tightly tied down by Hell¡¯s dimensional Laws. It¡¯s impossible for the Four Pir Gods to ever leave Hell. This is one of the foundational rules of Hell. I can swear on my very soul.¡±


    ¡°The Four Pir Gods? Ha, you¡¯ve always been a scammer who only tells the truth. Don¡¯t you know that the more serious you act, the more likely it is that you¡¯re scamming someone? And if you ever swear on your soul, then it¡¯s one hundred percent certain that you¡¯re scamming someone by only telling the truth.¡±


    Really? Did I actually have such a habit? I tried thinking back and was rendered speechless. He was actually right!


    ¡°Wonderful, then. It would seem that we¡¯ll have chances to fight again in the future. Right, since you¡¯re so free right now, how about practicing some swordsmanship with me?¡±


    I looked quite free right now? Okay, I was indeed quite free, but I wouldn¡¯t be stupid enough to practice swordsmanship together with Karwenz. I was merely a Holy Knight who practiced swordsmanship on the side. How could I possiblypare to a professional Sword Saint in swordsmanship? Would I be that idiotic?


    [Now you¡¯re only calling yourself a Holy Knight who practices swordsmanship on the side instead of a Sword Saint yourself? Such a convenient memory you have there.]


    Hmph, the situation in Hell was going wonderfully now and I was in a great mood, so I pretended not to hear Astrya.


    Hell¡¯s operations were bing ever smoother. The only remaining enemies were those few Chaos Main Gods, and our original greatest weakness, insufficientbat strength to guard the Four Pirs, had been solved by Karwenz.


    Yep, Karwenz had filled in this insufficiency for us. No matter how casual he acted, since he needed to use my Tower of Ice and Tower of Death to pull out Cynthia¡¯s soul and give her a physical body so that she could be killed, then he would naturally guard these two towers until the Pir Gods awakened. In that case, he naturally became my personal fighter... What about after the Four Pir Gods woke up, you ask? As long as Ayer revived sessfully, what would I have to worry about? Who cared if Karwenz tried to turn on me then?


    The situation indeed seemed quite well now. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that it would be inappropriate, I would even be floating on cloud nine while singing right now. Suddenly, I felt that since it was rare for the situation to be so good, I could afford to act a little arrogantly.


    ¡°The war is about to end, and I¡¯m about to realize my dream that I¡¯ve had for so long. I am now undefeatable, hahaha! After this war is finally over, I can finally go home and get married! Cough cough, don¡¯t look at me so strangely, I¡¯m just telling a joke. Don¡¯t you think it¡¯s funny?¡±


    I even made three sessive death gments, yet nobody evenughed! This truly made me feel awkward.


    ¡°...I suddenly sense a dangerous evil intention from your words. Is this a new method of cursing? Goosebumps have appeared all over me. It would seem that it¡¯s quite effective.¡±


    Even though I was clearly telling a joke, everyone was taking me seriously and suspecting what I meant. How uneptable. Should I say that everyone from this non-Earth world was too stupid to get a joke?


    ¡°Go home and get married? Get married to whom?¡±


    Even though things were now almost over, Elisa still sent over her own dissatisfiedment and inquiry while in the middle of concentrating on her own self-evolution. Still, this reminded me that I needed to hurry and send Elisa to the Land of Spring. Otherwise, it would be toote.


    ¡°Alright then, at least I have my System... Astrya, you know that this joke of mine isn¡¯t a bad joke at all!¡±


    It would seem that I found yet another reason to keep Astrya around¡ªfor the sake of my joyful daily life! How could I possibly allow myself to lose such a wonderfulmenter who understood my jokes from Earth?


    [...Yep, your humor is the same as it always has been, unsalvageable. You¡¯re also just as much of a jinxer as you always were. Why don¡¯t you take another look at Ah Dang¡¯sbat situation? Things have changed there again. I think I should give you the custom title of ¡®Idiot that deserves to die because he can¡¯t keep his mouth shut.¡¯ This title will increase the sess rate of you jinxing yourself with your ownments. Would you like that?]


    ¡°What?¡±


    I concentrated on Ah Dang¡¯s Gluttons¡¯ Inferno and saw something inconceivable. The two tremendous beasts that should have been tearing at each other hadpletely vanished. All that remained was a gigantic demon egg which was in the process of hatching.


    I then checked my incarnation¡¯s memories and witnessed an inconceivable scene.


    Just one minute ago, Gaar the Murky Nightmare, a low-intelligence lifeform whose very name was nothing more than onomatopoeia, suddenly cast a superblyplex restraint magic formation which sessfully restrained Ah Dang.


    Then, Gaar¡¯s tremendous physical body suddenly opened up to reveal a devilishly beautiful female face hidden within. This female actually devoured Ah Dang in one gulp, then this entity transformed into a demon egg that was filled with the essence of the Chaos Abyss.


    This demon egg was enormous. Although it was an egg, it wasn¡¯t round in any way at all. It looked more like countless chunks of meat put together. The most eye-catching part was how it kept glowing an abnormal green that seemed like a type of magical rune. Some of these runes even distorted into what looked like painfully howling faces, which was really diforting to look at.


    ording to the information I had on Gaar, this demon lived solely to devour, and his only purpose in life was to continuously eat and evolve. His very existence was theplete definition of what Chaos represented. Yet, since hecked any intelligence at all, he didn¡¯t have a demon noble title, and was even treated as a natural cmity within the Chaos Abyss itself. The will of the Chaos Abyss... no, that Cynthia had been able to control Gaar and send him here to attack us was already quite astonishing.


    I could understand that perhaps Gaar had always concealed his true strength, yet the demon egg¡¯s constantly increasing energy level gave me a tremendous sense of danger. And, there was a familiar instinctive fear that I felt like I had experienced before. And even without my instincts, just its abnormal appearance alone made it obvious that this demon egg couldn¡¯t be ignored.


    ¡°What¡¯s with Gaar? Why did he suddenly transform into an egg?¡±


    I asked this in a heavy tone, yet Karwenz chuckled to hear this.


    ¡°Gaar? You¡¯ve asked the right person. Only I and Cynthia know about his true identity. Even the very name Gaar is nothing more than a joke. Gaar is actually nothing more than an amalgamation of countless corpses and souls from the Chaos Abyss. He doesn¡¯t even have a sense of self, so how could he possibly actually have a name?¡±


    ¡°No sense of self? Then how did he evene here? Cynthia is capable of controlling a hunk of flesh that doesn¡¯t even have its own sense of self? Isn¡¯t that the equivalent of using her own physical body... No, it can¡¯t be!¡±


    Yet, Karwenz had an expression that said my guess was right on the mark.


    ¡°Ha, indeed. Cynthia¡¯s true body is still in hibernation and can¡¯t move, so of course she¡¯ll try to think of a method to prepare a backup physical body. But, you don¡¯t need to worry too much, because Gaar is nothing more than a failed experiment. Gaar probably needs at least ten more Holy Wars of feasting on souls before he evolves into an existence capable of containing Cynthia¡¯s divine soul. She already gave up on him long ago. But now, she¡¯s basically forcefully activating him without even her divine soul within it. Cynthia won¡¯t be able to utilize her true full powers, and Gaar¡¯s physical body will copse before long...¡±


    ¡°Karwenz! You set another pitfall for me!¡±


    At this moment, I understood everything. Since Cynthia knew that she was about to die here, of course she would try everything she possibly could to fight back and resist. Activating her backup physical body toe and save her soul would be a certainty.


    Karwenz absolutely knew that this would happen, yet he didn¡¯t tell me about it. Instead, he casually cooked fish soup here, which meant that he was obviously intending on waiting for that damned hunk of meat to be activated by Cynthia and drag us into another battle.


    I had happily wanted Karwenz to be my fighter, yet now he had fooled me into bing his fighter. Naturally, this made me rather displeased and ruined my mood.


    ¡°It¡¯s just what you were trying to do with me. Ha, I¡¯m actually quite happy that I get to have one final battle together with you as allies before we start fighting.¡±


    Yet Karwenz wasughing quite happily, as if he was quite proud of himself for having set this pitfall for me. But, I felt that he was even happier that he now had a proper opponent that he could vent on.


    But right now, I didn¡¯t want to waste any more time with him. I opened up a teleportation portal and instantly kicked him into it.


    My Wumianzhe Rnd physical body had now been regenerated to the point where I could barely manage to use it. I sent over all thebat strength I possibly could as I didn¡¯t have any idiotic tendencies to allow my enemy to finish their transformation without interruptions like anime viins would.

 Chapter 477 - Epilogue

    <h4>Chapter 477: Epilogue</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The demon egg simply remained there and emanated an immense aura of authority. The egg was incredibly ugly, yet also gave an abnormal sense of intimacy as if its very existence was naturally a part of this Inferno.


    Karwenz unhesitatingly released his enmity and greatly improved his power, apparently enteringbat preparations.


    ¡°Rnd, don¡¯t hide anything now. Her backup physical body is still at a Main God¡¯s level. Gaar¡¯sbat strength will explosively increase even with only a small portion of Cynthia¡¯s abilities and administrative privileges. Even if her physical body will copse before long, holding back your aces at this time is tantamount to suicide.¡±


    I was indeed rather hesitant, but not because I was worried about how strong my current enemy was. I was hesitating how much of a risk I should take by holding back, which would give me the opportunity to witness Karwenz¡¯s extreme limits of strength so that I could prepare for our likely eventual future sh.


    But now, I was hesitating because I saw how explosively that demon egg was increasing its aura of power. I had finally managed to achieve a bnced situation after so much hard work, but if Cynthia¡¯s backup physical body was overly strong, that definitely wouldn¡¯t be a good thing.


    Yet, I didn¡¯t care too much about the threat that Cynthia¡¯s demon egg posed, because I had alreadye up with an excellent way to defeat it, no matter how powerful it could be.


    ¡°Reality, explode! ...Cough cough, Inferno, copse!¡±


    As my willmanded, the entire Gluttons¡¯ Inferno began to copse, shatter, and transform into dust. Soon, that entire sub-dimension was cut off from Hell and treated by Hell as rejected clutter which was tossed into the void.


    As for that gigantic demon egg which was still hatching inside the Inferno? Of course it was also tossed into the void.


    As for what existed within the void, and whether or not Cynthia would be able to return? Since there were zero precedents, and it waspletely unknown just how harsh the void¡¯s environment was, I had no ideas whatsoever.


    If this was any other Chaos Main God, such a dimensional explosion would not only fail to kill them, it would even open up weaknesses in Hell¡¯s dimensional walls that would allow them to enter Hell¡¯s deeperyers. But right now, Cynthia was nothing more than a meaty egg. How could an egg possibly grow wings and fly?


    As for the Gluttons¡¯ Inferno that I would lose and Ah Dang¡¯s death, that would be the same as the Mountain Inferno just now. I could simply reconstruct the Inferno and revive Ah Dang.


    Hahaha, who said that one absolutely had to have a direct fight with a final boss? I possessed the Concept of Space itself within Hell yet Cynthia dared to start a transformation in front of me? Was she suicidal?


    ¡°There¡¯s no absolute rule about how we have to kill her, but... You¡¯re not letting me have a good fight?¡±


    Karwenz had aplex expression that contained more helplessness than anything. He was just like a tearful warrior who had just finished a swearing ceremony to set out into battle but was then notified that the battle would be canceled due to rain.


    And soon, ck Hades Mist began repairing the dimension. We had all just heaved sighs of relief when a powerful sense of danger caused all of us to look towards the dimensional tear I just created.


    ¡°Damn it, the egg really grew wings and started flying!¡±


    Right, the egg was really flying.


    Just what type of monster was within the egg? Its hatching had been interrupted, so its organs and heart hadn¡¯t finished evolving and were directly exposed outside its body. Half of its body was still in egg form, and the only visible part was one arm and two wings.


    The void was attempting to devour everything, yet that egg mysteriously managed to spread its wings of light. One, two, ten, one hundred, and finally countless pairs of wings of light then covered the void.


    The void was illuminated as Holy Light lit up everything. Holy song coiled around everything in the world. Even every corner of Hell was filled with that holy burial song from ancient epics.


    A glow could be seen through the opening which lit up the Inferno. That light actually directly destroyed the souls within the Inferno. This was a pure light that was far purer than the Holy Light could ever be. The Goddess of Chaos who created the Chaos Abyss and demons, the most ancient source of Chaos itself, was actually so holy and divine.


    ¡°What¡¯s her power level? It¡¯s over 9000! The scouter must be malfunctioning!¡±


    Although I was just making this up, I was truly astonished. There was no need to measure herbat strength or energy level. Just seeing and feeling this alone was easy enough for anyone to tell the tremendous difference between one of the Creator Goddesses and any Main God.


    ¡°The difference between a Creator Goddess and one of her creations? It¡¯s basically the difference between an adult human and an ant...¡±


    Karwenz maintained an abnormal silence as he stared at the illumination. A fierce fire then ignited in his eyes, which wasn¡¯t fear, anger, or any negative emotion at all. He was thirsting, desiring to one day surpass her. He was delighted, delighted that there was still so much before him, still so much room for him to improve and fly even higher.


    ¡°What an annoying hot-blooded main character type. The Creator Goddess of Chaos is so powerful. It would seem that I have to modify my ns yet again. Just thinking about it is so bothersome.¡±


    And now, I sensed even more just how foundationally different Karwenz and I were. Perhaps this was the main difference between us, as whenever either of us were faced with a powerful enemy, he would simply engage them in direct battle, while I would try to think of methods to circumvent them or make them fall into a trap. And now that we met an enemy that was almost undefeatable, he joyously met this challenge head on and concentrated on bing even stronger, while I tried my very best to use any possible grand scheme or strategy to win.


    ¡°It would seem that he¡¯s the main character while I¡¯m the antagonist viin... Still, that makes things easy for me...¡±


    I understood Karwenz, and Karwenz understood me. Although we were now temporarily cooperating, he always desired to fight with me. This was an impulse stemming from the fact that we were originally the same soul. He desired to defeat me to prove his own worth, to prove that his path was stronger than mine, to prove that his portion of the soul was better than mine. I could already guess that the moment Cynthia was taken care of, he would immediatelye to fight me right after.


    But now that he saw a much higher mountain peak before him, with his personality, he probably wouldn¡¯te give me any trouble before he finished climbing to that peak.


    ¡°Still, this battle is unavoidable. Once everything here is taken care of, I can finally concentrate on leveling up my personal power level. Otherwise, it would be far too embarrassing if Karwenz can casually p me to death. Even if I can¡¯t reach a Creator Goddess¡¯s level, I must at least reach a simr level...¡±


    I shook my head and got rid of my idle thoughts. The enemy before us was our goal. The Goddess of Chaos¡¯s energy level was far too inconceivable. It seemed absolutely impossible to win. Was this the reason why the game¡¯s history had ended in aplete Armageddon for all lives?


    [Rx, she won¡¯t be able to return ever again now that you¡¯ve cast her into the void. There¡¯s no Concepts of Space and Time in the void. With only a will, Cynthia can only have the concept of a ¡®direction¡¯. Pure power is meaningless in the void. And, since her temporary physical body isn¡¯t capable of hosting her divine soul, she can only stay where she is. No matter how close she appears to be, she¡¯s as far away as the skies. And before much longer, that temporary physical body will also copse.]


    The fact that Hell was fixing its own dimensional tear from tossing out Cynthia¡¯s physical body without any interference seemed to prove that my System¡¯s exnation was correct. Cynthia¡¯s physical body didn¡¯t manage to move or do anything at all even by the time that Hell finished fixing its dimensional walls. After that, Cynthia was left in the void and the battle of Hell waspletely over.


    That¡¯s right, all the fighting waspletely over. There wasn¡¯t much else worth recording in this experimental log of mine.


    As for Sophocles the Deceiver, that bastard who broke his ceasefire contract with us thanks to Cynthia¡¯s temptations and rich promises? He instantly signed another, far stricter ceasefire contract with us right when Karwenz and I appeared together with the Lord of Lies who had finally woken up at that moment.


    Even if I was absolutely filled with dissatisfaction, now wasn¡¯t a time where it was convenient for me to force a Main God like Sophocles to the brink.


    My Mountain and Gluttons¡¯ Infernos were both under reconstruction. This meant that finishing all of Hell would take a minimum of an additional one to two years. If I lost yet another Inferno, we would all lose even more.


    And, every single day that Hell¡¯spletion was dyed would likely mean that things would be worse and worse in the mortal ne.


    Karwenz went over to say something to the Chaos War God Donatis. They apparently reached some sort of ord. And so, the fight between Donatis and Bastian became... well, it remained a fight between Donatis and Bastian. It would seem that Donatis was addicted to fighting, and he apparently intended on using fights to force out Bastian¡¯s extreme limits.


    Seeing this, I guessed that Karwenz and Donatis already had a secret agreement to begin with. At least, when this most ¡°loyal dog¡± of Chaos heard news of Cynthia¡¯s ¡°death¡±, Donatis actually reacted with delight.


    Although we all reached a temporary peace agreement, I didn¡¯t hide my mistrust of the three Chaos Main Gods at all. They would remain under our watch. The Hell Devils all finished their transformations and woke up, so the Queen of Temptations retreated into Karwenz¡¯s embrace as everyone watched... and then there were even more looks of dissatisfaction. Cough, it definitely wasn¡¯t that I was envious or anything like that!


    Stars also appeared in the sky of Hell as the Hell Gods began to run their own Concepts. Even the stars themselves hovered above the Chaos Main Gods, watching them, showing that there was not a single speck of trust in them.


    Meanwhile, when a familiar white figure finally appeared on a familiar ship on the River Styx, everyone truly heaved a sigh of relief. Now, we were no longer worried that the Chaos Faction would cause any more trouble.


    ¡°Ayer has finally woken up.¡±


    Perhaps even I had always been unknowingly relying on him.


    The ck Pir of Death which represented Death and Souls rose up again. The Pirs of Ice, Death, Holy Light, and Law supported the entirety of Hell, creating a virtuous cycle that greatly increased Hell¡¯spletion rate.


    Chaos War God Donatis and Sophocles the Deceiver remained within the dimension of Hell. That was something I couldn¡¯t do anything about. It would be impossible for them to leave until the world of Eich finally became connected to the new dimension of Hell once more. Of course, there would always be a sufficient amount of strength watching over them. If either of them showed any signs of weakness, they would be dying instantly. So in the next few years, they definitely wouldn¡¯t be having a good time.


    And as for Karwenz? After Cynthia¡¯s physical body was tossed out into the void, the Towers of Ice and Death were then able toplete Karwenz¡¯s n of stripping Cynthia¡¯s soul away from his body and making her actually mortal by giving her the weakest possible physical body in an alternate form of revival. Karwenz then unhesitatingly dragged the screaming and shrieking Goddess of Chaos into the void together with himself. The way he didn¡¯t hesitate one bit and how he turned around and smiled, looking directly at me as he walked into the void, made me realize that he would be far more powerful the next time that I met him.


    Now, the battle of Hell finally concluded with a total victory for the Hell Faction. The game¡¯s history was now destined to bepletely different from now on. The future world would change from two major factions to three. Perhaps all of Fate would be different from now on.


    As time passed, my Seven Original Sins, the Seven Kings of Hell, all revived and ascended their thrones. The Four Halls of Hell all began their operations. The Hell Devils worked hard at their own tasks, and the new Cycle of Reincarnation began to operate. When the first newborn baby was born in the Land of Spring, everyone in my faction, including even the Gods, were overjoyed. Our Cycle of Reincarnation had been a sess.


    Of course, this was all told to me afterwards. That was because the moment that I canceled my reverse God¡¯s Descent on Wumianzhe, I naturally sunk into a long hibernation myself.


    Wumianzhe, as the Pir God of Law, now became a truly independent existence. As Hell becameplete, he became the very Concepts of ¡°Justice¡± and ¡°Selflessness¡±. Of course, he had to entirely lose any concept of self. Wumianzhe was now part of Hell¡¯s new order. This ruling Law God of Hell was destined to be the strongest God in all of Eich, but he was now no longer connected to me.


    With Hell¡¯s constructionplete, all remaining small bugs would be automatically fixed by Hell itself. It would be impossible in the future for me to do anything like a reverse God¡¯s Descent upon Wumianzhe as he was now truly independent. And I had now obtained my freedom as well. At the very least, I could finally stop worrying about the Armageddon ending that was destined to happen in the game. I could finally rx a little and enjoy my life.


    What? You think that the future is still terrible? This world never belonged to myself alone to begin with. After doing so much, wasn¡¯t it good enough already that the total annihtion ending was averted? I figured I could just leave everything else to the mortals. The Hell Gods would help them to ovee any future difficulties.


    Since Fate and the game¡¯s history had beenpletely rewritten, I would naturally receive an astronomical amount of Fate Points and also some God Equipment for sessfully killing off a Main God like Ladvioka... But unfortunately, my System didn¡¯t finish her calctions before I entered my long hibernation.


    But right before I closed my eyes and entered hibernation, my System¡¯s final message ruined thefort of my resting.


    [...I think both of us were fooled by Karwenz. Cynthia¡¯s death will not only greatly influence the Chaos Abyss, but also cause all of Eich¡¯s dimensional walls to greatly weaken as one of the Creator Goddesses was killed. It will be far easier for dimensional invaders to enter in the future. Things won¡¯t be so easy in the future at all.]


    Alright then, I was quite right to refuse to listen to him and kill both the Creator Goddesses. If I had killed Astrya, wouldn¡¯t that mean that all of Eich¡¯s dimensional walls would have instantly shattered and we would have instantly entered a full-out dimensional war? The Chaos Faction would probably have lots of fun as they would obtain far more chances for evolution. But, the world would have trembled in fear at the unknown future.


    ¡°Karwenz, you scammed your older brother yet again!¡±

 Chapter 478 - Authors Thoughts

    <h4>Chapter 478: Author¡¯s Thoughts</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Disimer: this is not an actual chapter!


    Um, well, I¡¯ve finallypleted the Hell battle arc. I¡¯ve filled in every plotline I created, and Plothole Squirrel has evolved into Hole-filling Squirrel. Congrattions, congrattions.


    Cough. This finally ends the second volume. I¡¯m grateful to everyone for supporting me along the way. This novel has finally passed the two million word count as well. This word count has far surpassed my previous writing record by more than two times... As my readers have probably noticed, I didn¡¯t have such an easy time writing all this. I wrote too many plotholes for myself and conflicting storylines, throwing in too many plots together, making it quite difficult for me to write. Every time that I wrote something, I would have to consider whether or not it would conflict with something else I wrote, and whether or not it would influence the overall plotline that I had nned. That was quite the awful feeling.


    Fortunately, even though I had severe writer¡¯s block, I still managed to sessfully write and finish this arc in the end. I didn¡¯t have anything like a stalled novel or rushed ending that every reader hates to see. Although sometimes when my writer¡¯s block was really bad, I truly did want to do that... Um, I¡¯ve been taught a really good lesson, so I¡¯ll try my best to dig less pitfalls for myself next time. Once again, thanks to everybody for their understanding and support. Thements and support from readers¡¯ments are the best motivation for this Squirrel.


    In the third volume of Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich, the main storyline and atmosphere will be slightly more rxing and daily-life-focused. That¡¯s because the total annihtion ending has already been averted, and the important responsibilities can all be tossed over to Hell. Rnd can finally have a little more fun, yep, just a little, because the Holy War is still just beginning.


    The main storyline of the next story arc will be about ¡°the world of the mortals¡±. Now that Hell¡¯s construction has just beenpleted, the seeds that Rnd nted have begun to sprout as well. The Mist Alliance has evolved from a tiny border country alliance into a mega-empire. The Hell Churches and the God of Law will no longer be small churches now that the Hell Gods will be fully supporting them. Some lolis will have grown up slightly as well into girls filled with grudges, meaning that Rnd will have plenty of fun ahead of him... Cough, cough, I won¡¯t spoil you readers any more than this. The story¡¯s style should be even more mystical and interesting. This type is what Squirrel is best at writing and enjoys the most.


    Um, I originally wanted to write my Author¡¯s Thoughts at the end of a chapter, but it actually told me that it can¡¯t be written in the thoughts section if it¡¯s more than 500 words. In that case, I might as well write this as an individual chapter to express my thoughts. Um, probably nobody will see this if I publish this at the beginning as a free chapter, so please forgive me for publishing this as a VIP chapter.


    Um, once more, thanks again to everyone for your support. This Squirrel shall continue working hard with all of you by my side.

 Chapter 479 - New Beginning

    <h4>Chapter 479: New Beginning</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°At the start of this year, changes that I really couldn¡¯t understand happened every day. Yesterday, I heard that Sh Kingdom was at war once again and food prices were going to increase. Today, I heard that druids invented a new kind of crop. Food prices plummeted, which forced me to ask Karo to go to the neighboring town to bring back a cart of food. Before the food could even reach the warehouse, it was all sold off.¡±


    Behind the counter, Old Man Barton was wiping dishes whilstining about how quickly the world was changing, to the point where this old veteran couldn¡¯t understand it.


    It was nightfall and it poured outside. The raindrops pitter-pattered upon the wooden window frame and rooftop. The heavy rain caused the beer barrel sign to sway constantly. Inside, the pale yellow light from the oilmps faintly lit up the Rhino Tabera lounge. The Half-Elf bards were quietly chanting the new battle poem from the remotends as the adventurers listened intently.


    Not only did this terrible weather thwart their ns to go out, it put them in no mood to make a ruckus as usual. Instead, they warmed themselves up by the furnace, listening to music and ying Gwent, which was considerably the most indulgent form of rxation as it was.


    ¡°Ha! Old Barton, don¡¯t take it to heart, but if you can¡¯t afford the machine that makes noises when you wave it around, then forget it. They now sell the magical guidemp everywhere for only two energy coins every month, so why bother still using kerosenemps which use up so much oil and aren¡¯t bright? Don¡¯t tell me that you barely have any savings? Or perhaps, you n to give it all to Katerina¡¯s future husband?


    Katerina was a server at this bar as well as the owner¡¯s precious adopted daughter. She was also a person who would easily cause many incidents around her.


    If other people spoke like that in front of Old Barton, then he would have used affirmative discipline ages ago. This old man still had some bite left in him!


    But in that very moment, the person who loudly joked around was an old veteran with white eyebrows with wings embossed on their silver crest. This was the crest of silver emblem mercenary; a crest awarded only to brave soldiers who contributed greatly to the country at war, a crest which identified an ace mercenary. In a small town like this, it clearly seemed like a waste of talent.


    The considerably expensive magical pikey casually on the counter. The brave soldier, who wore thetest edition ¡°Explorer X4¡± on his raised wrist, enjoyed his drink. By his waist, there were also severaltest edition micro energy barrels. This was the standard issue equipment of Winston, the strongest mercenary of the peaceful town of Anton, and the reason why he was able to joke around with Old Barton without angering the vet and getting kicked out. The two of them used to berades in the same unit.


    ¡°Hmph, from how I see it, those engineers and mages aren¡¯t reliable. Can you trust their things? Especially the goblins!¡±


    ¡°Hey hey hey!! No way! You still remember what happened back in the old days with the goblin engineer? They sold you a, errrr, errr...¡±


    ¡°Mechanical rm clock!¡±


    ¡°Yeah! Yeah, it was a mechanical rm clock. Mhm, I also remember that name sounded particrly auspicious. W-what was it called again?¡±


    ¡°Safe... Beyar Brothers¡¯ Safety Brand rm clock.¡±


    As Old Barton recalled each and every word of its name, he also remembered the inventor¡¯s name. He seemed evidently filled with hate... to have remembered it so unusually clearly.


    ¡°Pft! I also remember that the rm rang for almost half an hour that day. We were all woken up, and you were still drooling whilst hugging your pillow, saying ¡°five more minutes¡±. Then... Pftttt!¡±


    He looked at boss Barton¡¯s pale white face and the red-haired bartender eavesdropping by pretending to wipe down tables. Then, Old Winston took into consideration that it was the only bar in town which served heavy-weight dwarven drinkers and decided to give his oldrade a little face.


    *Crash!*


    Alright, so old baldy crushed the te himself. Clearly, he had lost control of his grip when he thought back to what happened the next morning of that day. Old Winston suddenlyughed so hard, he sprawled right out on the table.


    A warning went off in the final moment of the rm; it was a hoarse, ear-piercing recording, which Old Barton all of a sudden remembered crystal clearly to be the sharp shriek of a goblin.


    ¡°Okay, so you don¡¯t want to get up and you actually look down on the Safety Brand rm clock and the Beyar Brothers¡¯ goblin products. I, the rm clock, is angered. I am going to explode! Fifty, forty-nine......¡±


    When it started counting down from fifty seconds, the groggy veteran had had just about enough. He thought about the goblin¡¯s reputation, and figured that though it said it would blow up and form a ditch, it definitely won¡¯t be just one ditch. At most, it would blow up and form a dozen ditches, or, rumor had it, a bloody ravine. Without hesitation, the old veteran got out of bed immediately, then pressed the stop button on the rm clock. Just then...


    ¡°...Forty-two, forty-one...¡±


    Clearly, that wasn¡¯t the button to disarm the clock bomb. After Old Bartonpletely checked the clock, he couldn¡¯t find a second button to press.


    ¡°...Three, two...¡±


    With no other option, all Old Barton could do was painfully throw out the ¡°crappy toy he spent a month¡¯s sry on¡± that turned into a bomb. By the time the countdown ended, what came after wasn¡¯t actually an explosion, but a voice recording.


    ¡°Ha! You fell for it, didn¡¯t ya? You¡¯re finally up, aren¡¯t ya? Don¡¯t listen to those rumors. Our Safety Brand is sturdy and reliable. We stopped making bombs ages ago.¡±


    Alright. It¡¯d be fine if that was the end of it, but having been messed with like that, he couldn¡¯t sleep anymore. It was hard to say; Old Barton still managed to admire their wit as the clock did in fact get the job done.


    Just as he took the clock back, he noticed that there was a small crack which concealed a hidden button.


    ¡°Ha! You actually dared to snoop on the Beyar Brothers¡¯ business secrets? Taste the wrath of goblins!¡±


    Barton still remembered the high-pitched shriek which waspletely adorned with evil intentions. The wings of misfortune had already covered the top of his head.


    *Grumble*


    Okay, this familiar scene needed no description. The explosion wasn¡¯t enormous and Old Barton wasn¡¯t that weak, but because the explosion went off right in front of him, poor Old Barton ended up losing a few strands of hair and his eyebrows in the st.


    Then, he angrily ran over to question those ¡°green misers with no business ethics¡±. He was politely greeted by a goblin contract specialist, then ¡°discussed the matter rather kindly and cordially¡±.


    As a result, the specialist brought up a ton of hidden no-liability uses in the sales contract to confuse Barton, and then randomly turned the tables with ¡°breach of contract fees¡± and ¡°penalty fees for snooping on business secrets¡±. In the end, the more he thought about it, the more he shouldn¡¯t have knocked on the door, as he was randomly swayed into buying a ton of hair-growth products.


    ¡°Pft! Not to mention, those hair-growth products were really effective.¡±


    *Crash!*


    This was old man Barton¡¯s second smashed te. He was already considering whether to settle the bill with his old mate. The morning after the incident, when he became a furball, that old turdughed just as happily as he did now. In fact, he even dragged other mates to go see the orangutan.


    O-kay. It was no wonder Barton bitterly hated goblin products so much. Back in the day, he thought it¡¯d be fun to buy a new toy, he didn¡¯t getpensation and was pretty tormented. His hair did grow out, but he looked too frightening. In the end, he spent money to buy the goblin¡¯s longsting hair removal lotion... It was practically like repeatedly falling into a ditch.


    He, the ¡°Unyielding Stone Hammer¡±, eventually retired early. It wasn¡¯t clear if he really was old and feeble like he said or if he couldn¡¯t take the brothers¡¯ teasing and other people¡¯s strange looks. After all, not everyone could keep cool whilst looking at a face as clean as a chicken egg. People would randomly burst outughing in front of him every single time. His old face couldn¡¯t pull it together anymore.


    ¡°Oh. Did the longsting hair removal lotion wear off? How are your eyebrows growing out? Pft! It can¡¯t be fake eyebrows. Those can¡¯t be goblin products again, right? Comrade, don¡¯t you loathe goblin products?¡±


    *Crash!*


    Alright. This time, therade pulled out a warhammer right from under the countertop. It was a bright glistening lethal weapon which made the bbermouth silver crest mercenaries scatter all around the bar.


    In contrast, the bar regrs were already used to the daily mor. As they cheered the boss on, they begged the bard to change the song to one with a faster melody.


    Only adventurers and mercenaries, or old drunkards who couldn¡¯t be saved from alcohol poisoning, would stay in a tavern instead of a warm house during crappy weather like this.


    But it was a shame, the boss didn¡¯t win by andslide like he used to. This time, Old Barton suddenly stopped after heaving from chasing them around for over a dozen circles. Then, he pensively looked at apletely undeterred Winston.


    ¡°You old geezer? You¡¯ve finally achieved the border of Legend rank?¡±


    ¡°Mhm. I achieved it about two days ago and came just to show off to you.¡±


    Rumors. Barton was stunned at first, then his tightly clenched fist rxed once again. They¡¯ve been brothers for so many years now, he didn¡¯t have to take showing off so seriously. It was a psychological method that had no effect on him at this age.


    Even if the oldrade invited him to venture beyond the mountains once again, his answer would be the same.


    ¡°...Hmph! For that geezer to even be able reach the border of Legend, I just don¡¯t understand this bloody world anymore. Life¡¯s easier for me to withdraw back here and open this bar.¡±


    It looks like, this time, Winston¡¯s efforts to persuade him had failed once again. The old mercenary shrugged his shoulders. He suspected this would happen as old Barton was named ¡®stubborn rock Barton¡¯ for his rock-like stubbornness.


    ¡°You¡¯re only forty-five, right? Quit calling yourself an old guy. Did ya hear? The wood spirits have started to sell their elixir of life. For just 100 Justice Points, you could be two years younger! Who knows? You could also join Legend.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Not interested. If you bring up such senseless things again, your thunderous hard dwarf liquor will just be water. No alcohol no more...¡±


    Those obviously weren¡¯t empty words but an actual threat. He could feel the oldrade was actually pissed off. He shook his head and Winston put his head down to focus on his drink.


    It was no wonder Old Barton was this against the new magical guidemps. This world changed too quickly. There were quite a few people like him who were incapable of adjusting. In reality, if it weren¡¯t for some reasons, Winston would have already reached the age of retirement ording to past customs.


    Old Winston was over forty-eight years old. Under normal circumstances, the peak age for human fighters was approximately thirty-five. After approximately forty years old, all kinds of areas of the body would swiftly falter. If one hadn¡¯t joined the Gold ranks by then, one could forget about ever joining. However, as the great era had now arrived, not only did he join the Gold ranks in two years with the help of all different kinds of the precious goods he got in due to the crazy increase of the Elemental Tide and the Contract Heroes system. Now, on the seventh year, he was even able to achieve the border of Legend.


    As a result, whilst being pleasantly surprised, the old geezer was also touched. He ambitiously hoped for his oldrade to adventure together again. But it was a shame; some people were delighted for the approaching great era, whereas others weren¡¯t used to the idea of such eye-opening changes.


    Yes, the great era; the new First Light Times (FT). Although most people were still used to using the old calendar AD1905, more and more people were epting the new era of dawn, following the Church of Law and Hell¡¯s daily expanding advocation.


    And now, it was already the seventh year of the new era, FT7, and increasingly more people of Eich got used to this endless, refreshing new world view. That was right, even the words ¡°world view¡± were propagated by the Church of Law. In the past few years, there were already too many new concepts and new words.


    In the past few years, following a rise in the Elemental Tide, magical talent which was always rare increased more than tenfold. Even simple soldiers like Winston were also able to learn handfuls of magical sword techniques for some reason. He even considered selling the antiques at home for a real magical pike.


    In the past few years, mortals¡¯ Silver rank were broken as before, and the great masters of the Gold rank suddenly became worthless. Even powerful Legend flooded in and made the people reconsider how to address them. Of course, they were unclear of their own paths. They also didn¡¯t have Soul Imprints for new powerful fighters whose strength was far weaker than veteran fighters¡¯, yet they had enough numbers to make up for everything lost.


    In the past few years, the map could be rewritten three times a week. The dimensional invaders and dimensional tears were asmon and disgusting as cockroaches. One could say that the entire ne had slipped into the chaos of war. If citizens of the main ne also sailed with the rising water, then the world sadly couldn¡¯t be saved.


    In the past few years, the technological revolution started in the Nortnds and grew even more intense. The magical engineering technology had already changed the people¡¯s regr attitudes toward life and battle. Normal families also had magical guidemps, and mortal soldiers also started trying to use those magical swords and guns. New transport equipment made business trades more efficient. Even legions and armies started to use revolutionary magical engineering mechanics. Winston was used to this kind of changing times and had already walked further and further on. If he had insisted on living like Old Barton, then he was afraid that he would be destined to be eliminated.


    In the past few years, there were already uncountable changes. Nobody could tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but no matter the change, life continued. Gold had to be earned, the earth had to be farmed upon, and wine still had to be drunk. There were some things that couldn¡¯te back once they were gone; other things were left in the past...


    *Ding!*


    *Crash!*


    All of a sudden, the doorbell rang and snapped Barton out of his reminiscing. Three cloaked customers had entered and caught his attention. The raindrops from their soaked cloaks dripped onto the floor. The heavy rainproof boots made cracking sounds as they stomped the floorboards. Normal people wouldn¡¯t be willing to travel in this kind of weather.


    The boss shot a nce, then lowered his head and concentrated on what he was doing. No matter how he put it, this was just a new customer trio. As long as they didn¡¯t cause trouble, they¡¯ll be weed.


    ¡°Hey hey hey!! Look, that dark skin and upside down cross emblem must belong to the Anti-Holy Knights!¡±


    ¡°The silver scales and ck skull holy emblem? Another big yer from the Church of Law? What are they doing here in our countryside?¡±


    ¡°Woah! The silver cross sword? Three Olivia¡¯s Magic Box holes! That must be thetest magical sword, right? Didn¡¯t they say that it was a prohibited item from the Nortnd squad¡¯s military? Don¡¯t tell me that those guys are from the north?¡±


    Having removed their waterproof cloaks, they attracted the attention of all the customers in the bar.


    A groupprised of a Dark Elf, a human, and a goblin was a rare sight. The moment that the boss saw the goblin, he decided to add 50% water into the wine and double the food prices. Then, he was going to give the goblin the empty room where someone died two days ago. Who knows? It might just drive out the devils.


    However, the three new customers had no intention of ordering. Instead, they headed straight for the column of notices in the center of the bar. There were notices posted of missions for mercenaries in town.


    The Church of Law goblin tip-toed over and ripped off an arrest warrant, recing it with another.


    Other people who watched on with interest and were a little hopeful of the mission from those ¡°big characters¡±. However, after they read the new arrest warrant, the immediately shook their heads and turned back to what they were doing.


    After all, no matter how enticing the reward was, it was an impossible mission and apletely pointless endeavor. This mission spanned from FT 5 to FT 7 without a single shred of news. One was afraid that if he was to be found based simply on the ambiguous description on the warrant alone, then they would long be the world¡¯s best detective.


    ¡°Warrant: Rnd¡±


    ¡°Male. He could be between 5 to 60 years old. He¡¯s most probably blonde (possibly dyed). Height is undetermined. There are no distinctive marks on the body and his appearance is unclear. (He usually looks gentle, but it could be a disguise). Immune to all inspection magic. He might have a ck cat or another ghostly creature with him. He might be a warrior, or possibly a Holy Knight. He might also work in Law, undead mage, or ice mage... Of course, he could be impostering other upations¡ªthat guy is capable of doing that. His strength is unclear, but please make the hunting job groups Legend rank at minimum. Wanted only alive. If he dies again, that¡¯d be troublesome for us. Ah yes, he isn¡¯t humorous at all, and he only tells dry jokes.¡±


    Okay, so one could die twice over? It¡¯ll be a miracle if anyone finds him with this wanted poster which made people want toment to no end. However, there were still quite a few people who were inspired to take action. After all, the reward was too enticing.


    ¡°Reward: Twenty million gold pieces. Fifty thousand Justice Points. The power of the Mist Alliance, the Church of Law, the Church of Hell, and the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance¡¯s friendship and an owed favor that doesn¡¯t vite basic ethical standards.¡±


    The gold and Justice Points only evoked strong lone fighters to make a move, and the current Mist Alliance had already be superpowers. At present, the Church of Law and the Church of Hell were the state religions of the Mist Alliance, so they were the world¡¯s strongest churches of them all. What was more, after the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance¡¯s elites suddenly returned two years ago, they had undoubtedly be the best mercenary band in the world. Their friendship and a favor was enough to entice an entire country!


    Evidently, the three ¡°esteemed guests¡± didn¡¯te here to find someone. Since, ¡°Finding Rnd¡± was inexplicably deemed one of the ten most difficult epic missions toplete in this lifetime. They were just casually updating this globally posted warrant poster.


    But this time, besides an increase in reward from two million to three million and the increase in Justice Points from fifty thousand to eighty thousand in this update, there was a final sentence added in the warrant.


    ¡°Rnd! If you don¡¯t hand yourself in within a year, we¡¯ll publicize everything that¡¯s on your A17 book shelf in your underground book library. The fairies will prepare a special edition magazine just for you!¡±


    Other people nced at the wanted board and immediately dispersed. Of them all, the infamous lousy drunk from Karo¡¯s bar woke in shock. He was so frightened that his signature full beard almost fell to the ground.


    ¡°A17? Is that the real-character inspired erotic novel that I wrote? And the hardcore erotic painting that I especially painted by hand! Margaret, Elisa, Harloys, they¡¯ll... they¡¯ll kill me!¡±


    ¡°B*stard! So you actually had pictures of me! Back in the old days, you would eveny hands on a banshee!?¡±


    *Cough* ¡°A ghost with unresolved feelings is but a ssic topic. You can y with that in so many ways... Let go. Don¡¯t bite.¡±


    [In actuality, there were practically images of all the beautiful Goddesses amongst them. After it was announced, prepare yourself to be chased down by the Goddesses. Hmph! I¡¯m definitely not mad because the Goddess of Order wasn¡¯t included.]


    ¡°Hey hey hey!! It¡¯s the wrong time to y tsundere!¡±


    [Pft! Don¡¯t talk to me, you old virgin! Harloys, let me tell you! Old virgins who hold back for a long time are really perverted! Being over three hundred years old, Rnd has long been frustrated to no end. His part about you was such a ssic, even I couldn¡¯t get what was going through his mind. The hardcore orgy S&M, the furnace-like icy love surpassed all other works at the time......]


    ¡°Dear Astrya, are you hungry? I¡¯ll feed you down there.¡± (To be continued...)

 Chapter 480 - Change

    <h4>Chapter 480: Change</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Karo: Name and age is unclear. Blonde with blue eyes, has a full beard which obscures his face, but he looks older than he sounds. It¡¯s not known when he showed up at Rhino Tavern, but he¡¯s been here for almost half a year now. He¡¯s good at cheating during gambling. People call him ¡°The God of Tavern Gambling¡±. He¡¯s never had a proper job, as his main source of iees from winning bets against adventurers. He¡¯s especially good at Gwent and Hearthstone type card games. As for why he specializes in cheating, it¡¯s because he¡¯s won and lost in card games, but when tallying it up in the end, you would definitely be the one in red. However, as the game¡¯s so thrilling and interesting, you wouldn¡¯t lose that much on every round. There would always be some bored person who¡¯s willing to give him money.¡±


    ¡°But recently, he¡¯s been taking out outsiders and he¡¯s been doing so too harshly, to the point when even the old drunkards could see through his tricks. For a while now, he hasn¡¯t been making any money. Usually, he would do a few odd jobs for old Barton to pay off his tab and lodging. He seems to have got a thing for the boss¡¯ daughter, Katerina, but she¡¯s never paid him any mind.¡±


    With the news bought off by the head of the local Thieves Guild, the goblin judge, Thor, shook his head in disapproval.


    In the past half a year, it had be a habit for him to go out of the way to ask around about unknown adventurers who suddenly showed up. However, at the thought of the details on that person who had enoughbat achievements to just about be a person from an epic, inparison to this drunkard who had been lingering in the tavern for half a year now, there was too much of a difference. He shook his head. It looked like he wasn¡¯t lucky this time, as he missed his aim.


    ¡°With that, you¡¯d better get ready for the uing investigation mission. The city¡¯s so far away, there aren¡¯t any special resources, and yet there are blood sacrifices from Dark cult disciples? It just seems like something¡¯s off...¡±


    Having graduated in the crash course at Nanxiang, Thor was rtively young and inexperienced for a judge on the frontlines. If it were those underground sly foxes from the four judicial government era who read Karo¡¯s details, their interest would have immediately been piqued.


    Because they knew that the seemingly impressive old boss was definitely not some kind of great heroic person. Being in debt to the tavern for as long as half a year and using gambling debts to pay off the tab? That person was definitely capable of doing something like that.


    But if they were those sly foxes, they wouldn¡¯t consider looking for someone, as they knew that this mission was impossible toplete. If they really were fortunate enough toplete it, then it might not be a great thing.


    First of all, if that person really wanted to hide, then one would have truly try their luck to be able to find him. Even if they really happened to bump into him, then it was likely that not only would he run, they wouldn¡¯t even be able to hold him. Even if they were incredibly lucky to actually catch him, I¡¯m afraid that no matter how great the reward, it would neverpare to the guy¡¯s cruel revenge.


    Win or lose¡ªa mission like this¡¯d be no good. No matter how ya saw it, this was a pitfall.


    So, to the sly foxes of the Church of Law, the mission ¡°Finding Rnd¡± was just casual chit-chat. Only new, young people on the scene would take the upper-ranked ¡°First Mission¡± seriously. Of course, they would naturally be the butt of jokes for those sly foxes. It was a legend that had been passed around till this day amongst new troops from the Church of Law, Gentlemen Alliance, and Mist Alliance knights.


    ¡°Go find the legendary hero, Rnd. Our Church is longing for his return. This is a test targeted at young people. As long as you bring him back, you¡¯ll have his recognition (grudge) and award (revenge inflicted on), as well as the one and only Ten Circle Incantation: The only sessor of the Ultimate Annoy You To Death Technique ( literally <sup>1</sup> ).¡±


    Having only just taken his post two months ago, Thor went on his own mission, and yet he was clearly deceived by his target. Hepletely believed it to be true, otherwise he wouldn¡¯t have carried the new warrant with him.


    But Thor didn¡¯t know that they, who had only lodged at the Rhino Tavern for a day, were alreadypletely felt out by their target. In one of the tavern rooms, their target was discussing them.


    ¡°Between the silver-ranked judge, the gold-ranked antiholy knight, and the four elemental sword casters, the antiholy knight must be the one who¡¯s leading the group. They were one short from being the trendiest ¡°Four Armored Crew¡±. As a group, they could just about take down a high-level demon. Judging from what they¡¯re seeking, they must havee to investigate the recent increasingly savage ¡°Death Council¡±.


    Every time the world was in danger, the very first people to act savagely were never the enemies, but those disorderly dark cult disciples. They would take advantage of the chaos in the world and the fear in people¡¯s hearts to exploit their own beliefs to create even more panic and confusion for their own benefits.


    However, there were demonic gods in the world, so the dark cults weren¡¯t limited to just mortals. If they were to fish out the dark hand behind the scenes, then most of them could link it to a certain boss from the lower nes and other dimensions.


    ¡°Death Council¡± was short for ¡°All Creatures will Die Death Council¡±. It was a type of teaching that derived from the low nes and worshipped the death of the body. However, when it was spread to the mortal ne, the message had been warped. Now, the teaching is ¡°All life will be exterminated in the apocalypse. Only those who have turned into the undead will survive the apocalypse.¡± Didn¡¯t it leave people speechless? In reality, I¡¯d heard more outrageous teachings from dark cults.


    Just by the teaching, I could guarantee that behind the scenes, this dark cult definitely had something to do with the Undead Emperors. Following the Undead Emperors¡¯ sessful arrival a year ago, the Undead Cmity upon the mortal ne did in fact intensify and guys of the Death Council ran wild.


    If they were left to do what they wanted, in time, a vige might turn into a ghost vige. The Undead Cmity would have new forces, there was also the possibility of an epidemic and going through the dimensional door to the dead ne. Because of this, as long as the Death Council appeared, churches of various Gods and the country would send out investigators to tidy up.


    The ¡°game¡¯s history¡±, at the same time, had several dark cults that emerged. No matter why they started, their eventual goal was to create all kinds of blood sacrifices and evil rituals which made abyssal veteranse to this ne to start a holy war. After the will of the abyss had dissipated like smoke, the Demon Lords and the Evil Gods gained freedom and, in turn, became more and more active. The dark cults also greatly increased, but the final goal became even harder to say. At least, in ¡°history¡±, I didn¡¯t see so many ridiculously strange dark cults.


    ¡°Die, fisherman!¡± What a really strange name for a dark cult. It was said that someone who believed in this dark cult would think that ¡°fish are the purest creatures, so fishermen should go die. A**holes who cook fish soup should go to hell¡±. Most of their disciples were fish people and water-type creatures who flourished in swamps andkes.


    At first, I thought it was really unbelievable. Later on, after I found out that the dark cult¡¯s real founder was the son of the Demon Lord who was turned into fish soup, I suddenly understood.


    ¡°For world peace, we¡¯d better cook less fish soup.¡±


    For some reason, I resonated with that teaching; especially since I heard Karwenz thought that failed attempt was quite embarrassing. Later on, he went to the old spot to fish a few more times and cooked fish soup a few times. After that floor of the abyss changed bosses a few times, I started to pity this faction which unwittingly changed supporters behind the scenes several times over.


    Oh, right! Amongst the many dark practices, there was a cult called the Heavenly Blissful Council which especially caught people¡¯s attention.


    Their teaching was ¡°World peace is before our eyes. We¡¯ll leave behind unnecessary moral principles and put our limited energy into endless sex.¡± They said that priests of this dark cult were all young and beautiful girls and their ceremonies were particrly envious... I meant, wicked and degrading. Participants are not only cute elven girls, they said the big boss behind the scenes came from some floor in the abyss of purgatory and formed this dark cult purely for fun. They personally used their incarnations to take part in events like these. They said she was a very attractive girl. What a shame that I¡¯d never been able to find their church...


    ¡°Cough, cough... I said that I just want to eradicate such an evil church. Do you guys believe me?¡±


    ¡°The day you went looking for the Heavenly Blissful Council was the same day Elisa came to find you. I definitely won¡¯t let the news out. Will you trust me?¡±


    ¡°The hell I will.¡±


    ¡°Same here.¡±


    The loner that I was now was still cursed out by the soulbound silly cat <sup>2</sup> .


    ¡°Won¡¯t you reconsider?¡±


    ¡°Hmph! Even if they were rewarded ten-fold, I also...¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you moved?¡±


    ¡°No, find a person to help me tie up and collect the reward. Then, we¡¯ll get back on the road...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have an epic hero¡¯s sense of pride? Did you know? The undefeatable Rnd was already considered a thousand year old epic hero.¡±


    ¡°Pride? Can you eat that? Can it be exchanged for wine?¡±


    Of course, cursing was one thing, but to me, I actually had my own thoughts on it too.


    ¡°Leave mortal matters to the mortals. I¡¯ve already done so much. If they still can¡¯t sort it out, then they¡¯re just useless.¡±


    Before entering Hell, I¡¯d already thought it through. My group of underlings could handle things alone since a long time ago. For an old man like me to keep instructing them left and right, it would just stunt their growth.


    ¡°I¡¯ve pulled through for over five years now, so if anything was going to happen, it would have already happened. Since everything is fine, it shows that young people can work, so why should an old guy who retired ages ago jump out and annoy people at a time like this. Who¡¯s to say there won¡¯t be people who¡¯ll say that I want to steal their power.¡±


    This world was really big. What could one person¡¯s strength in battle change? Whatever change it could make was a change. nted seeds already germinated and all that was left was anticipation. Mhm, not to get away with no work, but anticipation.


    ¡°Good luck, mortal! I¡¯m watching over ya.¡±


    So, Ipletely had enough confidence to disregard that a warrant existed for my arrest. The problem was that the new updated threat gave a headache even<i>me </i> .


    Considering the fact that they could ess my underground library, Elisa most likely had had a hand in it. I¡¯d decided to take some time to write a threatening letter to the church ofw. If she dared publicize this, then I¡¯d tell the public that she wet her bed at six and the embarrassing truth that she didn¡¯t dare sleep alone when she was nine.


    ¡°...All of a sudden, I pity Elisa. Could you gain a little EQ and a little sense of responsibility?!¡±


    ¡°...Actually, you don¡¯t understand the depth of my love, kid. One of these days, I¡¯ll reach the end of my life and you guys will be crowned as kiiiiii¡ª who threw their smelly boots at me?!¡±


    Before I could finish elongating the word ¡°kings¡±, I was struck by the white cat¡¯s flying boot.


    Mhm, white cat. The one from that random warrant; the silly cat had now turned into the white cat.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you just n to all-out ck off? Why bother giving so many reasons?¡±


    ¡°Hmph! The wisdom of mortals. How could one just randomly give this kind of reason to ck off? You should say that you trust your friends and sessors. Also, please call me Rnd, the free knight who pursues equality and justice! I ride with the wind, alone. I am not loyal to any sovereign; I fight for justice from the bottom of my heart!¡±


    ¡°For some reason, I just feel like you¡¯re shady...¡±


    ¡°Hmph! I¡¯m a man who wants to be a free roaming knight. One of these days, I¡¯ll find my own elven girl!¡±


    ¡°I have no idea what you¡¯re talking about. Did I take the wrong medicine...?¡±


    [This joke¡¯s really telling of one¡¯s age. Careful other people won¡¯t understand...]


    However, time seemed to affirm my decision. ¡°Hope¡± became reality seven years ago. Although it was quite irresponsible to do nothing except order others around, this opportune chance certainly gave those talented people a chance to show their skills.


    Constructing Hell took five whole years, and within these five years, the holy warmenced and times changed the quickest. These five years were also a test for these young leaders as I heard how well they performed when I just returned to the mortal realm.


    The northern Mist Alliance had their two queens to stay guard, and the glorious fighting prowess of the ice sisters had already spread across the world. When the whole world sank into the decimation of the war, the northern Mist Alliance which prospered with aid from other nations stood out to look particrly flourishing, powerful, and fair. The ruler of the frozen earth from the north recovered their position ever more.


    And the other side to the power and reputation of this era represented stable living environment and endless business opportunities. Inparison to other countries that were engulfed in fiery battles all along, the frozen earth seemed to have be rather cute. The development of magical engineering andbined forbidden spells of northern elves especially made the cruel natural environment be not so scary.


    There was a piece of peacefulnd with countless businessmen and migrants amidst the war which posed as an enticing advantage. The enormous benefits from military trading, as well as the strong alliance with And, Bardi, and other empires relieved the Mist Alliance from any future worries as their environment changed everyday. They were being seen even more as a new up-anding super-nation.


    Of course, they were able to keep the peace in the chaos of war. Despite the frontier carrying not much of any value, this ce, furthermore, was the headquarters of the churches ofw and hell. Here, messing around was the same as directly provoking the entire Hell, so even if it was the boss of the abyss, one had to think twice before they acted.


    The internal sector of the church ofw found stability; they didn¡¯t even especially need outstanding leaders. Instead, following the founding of Hell, the God ofwpletely created divinews that would be enforced in Hell. ¡®To sin in life will result in punishment¡¯ was no longer empty words. As Gods of the churches ofw and Hell in the mortal realm, they naturally became increasingly influential.


    Their influence simply grew even greater due to the emergence of the Hell Faction and Wumianzhe entering Main God level. After Hellpletely matured, Wumianzhe¡¯s eternal justice derived from the countless power from belief and thew. They had be the second existence to Main God-level in this holy war, and the side of Hell had be the third neutral party with at minimum five Main Gods.


    Even if most Main Gods had no way of leaving Hell, they were still a real threat.


    Perhaps the Order Gods didn¡¯t directly attack them due to this astonishing strength as the Order Faction already had plenty of trouble to deal with. Instead, they continued to uphold an indistinct rtionship with Hell, and the Chaos bosses took the initiative to avoid the north. At the very least, all three parties currently reached a bnce. Even though this bnce was destined to be torn by one of the parties, it gave Eich even more time to adapt.


    The God ofw, who sessfully entered the ranks to be a Main God, also allowed for thew professionals to get stronger. Due to the activeness ofw believers andw professionals, their teachings were increasingly weed in areas of war.


    Professional attributes like ¡°neutrality¡±, ¡°non-invasiveness¡±, and ¡°easy to level up¡± considerably swayed countries that were short of military power,w, and order. They even selectively eptedws from the Codex of Law as their own nationalws. Law schools had thresholds in various ces and were established in various countries. Also,w professionals that always stood by the side of kindness started to be weed by adventurers who leaned towards justice and righteousness.


    Of course, if the team always walked on the outskirts of thew, then justice knights would be even more dangerous than holy knights. If one didn¡¯t want to be a former knight, thenw job ss members had to strictly follow thew.


    What was more,w job ss members didn¡¯t have high demands for their proficiency in culture and talent in fighting, nor did they needrge amounts of resources and gold like other professions. They still looked most highly on whether students could personally persevere in thews and regtions and their determination. The extremely low threshold forw job ss members helped to grow their numbers even further, and quite a few guards from little towns could also be seen reading handbooks ofw in hopes of self-studying to be talented men.


    News of the Absolute Gentleman Alliance came in one after the other. There were good and bad news, but the best news came about two years ago, when Hell and the mortal ne were reconnected andrge armies of strong soldiers and knights returned. The worst news was most probably of how a certain Dracon miraculously entered the semi-god level, and earned the strange name of ¡°Mother of a million beasts¡±.


    ¡°As if sessfully entering the Semi-God rank wasn¡¯t enough? The a**hole can¡¯t do anything to surprise me. I can understand the name ¡°King of a million beasts¡±, but what do they mean by the ¡°Mother of a million beasts¡±? Forget it, don¡¯t answer that. Besides, they¡¯re definitely a bunch of blind creatures!¡±


    ¡°...This is also why it¡¯s considered bad news. He created some dark cults and spread new ideologies, then actually ended up gaining quite a few disciples. Uh-huh, I won¡¯t get into it. Just as long as you know that he sessfully entered the top ten of the Cmity Rankings, and he¡¯s be the target whom every country wants dead.¡±


    ¡°...Looks like it was definitely a mistake back then to leave him in the mortal ne to help bring it all to an end.¡±


    There was no way one could finish listing all the changes in one night. Although there was quite a lot of good news, it was nothingpared to the huge changes of the entire world. Countless ¡°historic¡± heroes walked towards their own stages, and the war became the cruelest cradle, which greatly influenced the fate of the entire world to be uncertain. This was also why old Barton med himself for not keeping up with the times.


    Of course, I didn¡¯t have much to do with all this. My current goal was to enjoy life, ck offfortably, and have fun till my heart¡¯s content! Just like a student taking the college entrance exam with much difficulty and how difficult it was to survive hell. I¡¯d already aplished my mission, so even if the sky fell, let me have fun!


    ¡°Karo, looks like you¡¯re really bored to be talking to a cat. You stole wine again, didn¡¯t you? Let me give you a little mission to earn some wine money. These gentlemen want to go to town to investigate a case. You know these roads, so help them out and be their guide!¡±


    ¡°What?¡±

 Chapter 481 - Famous Detective

    481 Famous Detective


    Trantor: imperfectluck | Editor: Kurisu


    The investigative work quickly ran into some difficulties. Judge Thor was deep in thought with the load of information before him. He couldn¡¯t stop thinking about the intel gathered earlier in the afternoon before he finally made the absolute sentencing.


    ¡°There¡¯s only one truth! The murderer is... the most unlikely person of them all. Uh-huh, it¡¯s me! Me, the investigator!¡±


    The young Thor gently pushed up his thick-framed sses. A glint seemingly appeared as his wise gaze pierced through endless misleading obstructions and pointed the truth right out!


    ¡°Wait! It looks like something¡¯s not right.¡±


    Even he thought the verdict was pretty ridiculous. He hurriedly pulled out workers manual from his chest pocket to find the regtions that should be observed at a time like this.


    After his two partners¡¯ eyes met, they simultaneously shook their heads helplessly. After they exchanged their opinions in their gazes, a dark elf anti-holy knight, Diana, immediately spoke up.


    ¡°Forget it. I¡¯ll take on the investigative work. I thought that because you¡¯re the judge that you¡¯ll...¡±


    She didn¡¯t need to say more. It was already very rare for the dark elves to hold their somewhat mocking tongue, and to be able to see the green-faced goblins blush. It was practically unheard of for such an innocent goblin to actually exist.


    On the other hand, even if I monitored it all through the wall using Harloys¡¯s tricks, I still had the urge to cover my face and cry in devastation. They were... They were freaking mocking me! How did this clown ever get to take this case alone?! Was it the Japanese military police? Was it the politicalmissar? There was a traitor here!


    ¡°This is the person you chose to represent you? Your court andw school produced someone like you?¡±


    As expected, the silly cat spread salt on my wounds. However, I could almost make out why he made such a ridiculous verdict. In some aspects, it really did have something to do with me.


    Don¡¯t misunderstand. I definitely wouldn¡¯t write the stupid protocol saying ¡°When you can¡¯t find the culprit, the investigator is the culprit¡± in the worker¡¯s manual.


    ¡°...He should be a student from the crash course. The case handbook really did have a line which read, ¡®To suspect everyone is the best proposal to avoid the logical dead ends¡¯. However, he seemed to have a warped understanding; otherwise, he was swayed by the seniors, or...¡±


    <i>p</i>


    A flustered Thor identally dropped another notebook on the floor, causing the bookmark to also fall out. It was just that... the title of the book left people feeling a little helpless¡ª¡±The Eternally Famous Detective¡± by Rnd.


    ¡°...Or it¡¯s because you¡¯ve been poisoned by that damn detective story! Quit messing around! I know that I created this disaster and I know that those guys will obviously change the story to ¡°Rnd¡¯s book collection¡± out of boredom. This is an entertaining detective novel. It¡¯s for entertainment, so professionals shouldn¡¯t take it seriously! And yet, you actually put a bookmark in it, wrote notes, and used it like a reference book? Forever righteous Wumianzhe! Take this fool back to the furnace and remake him! I can¡¯t stand him anymore!¡±


    On the sidelines, the four elemental swordcaster, Mary, couldn¡¯t watch anymore. She picked up the book a little helplessly.


    She and the anti-holy knight, Diana, were old partners. For this case, they were investigating the cover of the ¡°death council¡±. Considering that they might need the help of a professional inw, they applied for assistance from the high ranks. In the end, they sent a knucklehead like this.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this a fictional story?¡±


    ¡°But didn¡¯t the seniors say that they could find inspiration from fictional stories whening across overplicated cases? This here is but the master¡¯s work! From it, I learned over three hundred kind of ways tomit murder!¡±


    I wanted to walk into a wall. For real.


    ¡°In reality, have youe across strange and troublesome ways to kill people? Would normal people use such troublesome ways of killing people to resurrect? This really is nothing but an entertaining little story!¡±


    [Pft! To actually be this trusted by juniors, how does that feel?]


    ¡°...So yet again, it was your fault.¡±


    Feel? At that moment, I felt like Harloys and Astrya should have been thrown in hell. It was so hard for me to withstand double thements.


    Diana and Mary exchanged looks and had aplete conversation in silence.


    ¡°Alright. Since the new person is unreliable, let¡¯s not expect anything from them and do it ourselves.¡±


    The two of them quickly organized the rted files and started to recall the case and discuss rted witnesses. Thor, the goblin, knew that he screwed up big time just now, so all he could do was stand aside and watch.


    There were a total of seven sacrifices in the nearby three towns. Many victims¡¯ entire families were sacrificed, so there was a total of twenty-seven victims. For half a year now, there were twelve strangers who had no guarantor or family. Their tracks were questionable, and obviously suspicious...¡±


    The two female knights and swordswomen seemed to be about twenty years old. I must have never met them before, so they most probably had only worked two or three years and were semi-new at this. But at least, they were still able to organize files and data.


    But...


    ¡°The owner of the bakery in the nearby town is suspicious. Three months ago, his wife passed away, but he didn¡¯t say anything or show the slightest bit of sadness. When we went to investigate, he just kept on staring at us.¡±


    ¡°Uh huh, I think so to. When we suddenly turned our heads as we left, he was still staring at us. As soon as you saw that wily gaze, you could tell he wasn¡¯t a good person. Who¡¯s to say it isn¡¯t his guilty conscience. Let¡¯s put him on the list of suspects.¡±


    The sound of their lively discussion made even Harloys ask me with a little hesitation, ¡°Is the bakery owner really a disciple of the dark practices?¡±


    ¡°No. As for why he wasn¡¯t sad about his wife, well... you¡¯ve never met his wife. She looked like a magnified goblin. Every time Old Wanke got drunk, he would cry about how his wife forced him to marry her back in the day and how he would endure his wife beating him back at home... I always thought that it was already really decent for him not to start a parade in celebration of his wife¡¯s death.¡±


    ¡°Why did he stare at her? Was it not because of his guilty conscience?¡±


    ¡°With a wife like that, it¡¯s normal for him to turn into a pervert who peeped at beautiful women. What¡¯s more, who told them to dress like that and not be self-aware. Did you not notice those young guys peeping at them? If one notes down suspects into the handbook under those pretenses, then I¡¯m afraid it¡¯ll be immediately filled up.¡±


    Mary¡¯s chest had the soldier¡¯s crest of the absolute gentlemen¡¯s alliance, and she wore the women¡¯s outfit for the four elemental swordcasters. Four elemental swordcasters was a magical sword upation where soldiers could not wear armor for flexibility, wearing rather few clothes. However, the higher-ups at the gentlemen alliance were a bunch of... Mhm. Everyone knows.


    Their top was silver enchanted chainmail armor and their inner clothing were tight and limited in area, which especially entuated certain areas. The entire body was covered by a long red and blue trench coat. What couldn¡¯t be seen was more attractive than what could. They said it was a soldier¡¯s armor, but one might as well call it an evening ball gown.


    It lookedpletely modern and fashionable, sexy but not in poor taste, and itpletely exceeded modern beauty standard. She was a rare piece of art.


    As for the anti-holy knights, they were even more over the top. Their elegant and beautiful silver armor covered most critical parts of their body, and yet they revealed some insignificant areas. For example, the area where the thigh and body met, the arm which exposed two fingers and the elbow, the cor which exposed the nape, and the front which exposed the abdomen below the chest. The entire armor and traditional bucket-likeposition were two different things. However, the outer shape of the armor made them look like an elegant silver mechanicaldy. Their body shape was elegant and exquisite to no end with those revealing areas. On top of it all, the dark elves were naturally charming, yet with a kind of fallen beauty.


    ¡°Tsk, tsk. As expected of dark elves; they dare to wear anything. Does this have nothing to do with you?¡±


    The silly cat always seemed to be sensitive over random matters.


    ¡°...How could I have known that they would really pull it off! This one outfit can make two full-armored outfits. Geez...¡±


    ¡°A waste?¡±


    ¡°Well done! Buddy!¡±


    I tried hard to give a thumbs up. It seemed as though Adam¡¯s bright smile appeared in the skies.


    Why Adam? Because I only showed Adam those designs. He was definitely mixed up with that group of guys from the Gentlemen Alliance. He was probably the only one who could decide on armor like this for a stern Diana.


    Why was it an illusion in the sky? I didn¡¯t think Margaret would spare his life after doing something like this.


    With that said, I suddenly looked forward to the female judge,w incantationer, and the knight of justice uniforms... bute to think of it, Lilith was now in charge. Sadness suddenly made me a little disappointed.


    ¡°Wait, Lilith¡¯s a lesbian! But who¡¯s to say, it might just be a good thing!¡±


    ...Cough. Getting back to the main point. From the intel, it looked like the mithril and rare alloy weren¡¯t there just because they were good to the eye. They definitely wouldn¡¯tck in function, and in this very moment, the two girls were still fighting over the ¡°suspect¡± on their lips. Yet, Harloys seemed to be rather interested in starting to make guesses.


    ¡°They said it¡¯s the town¡¯s middle-aged security guard? The one who stares at them full of hatred?¡±


    ¡°No. That¡¯s just an old pervert. That guy¡¯s cross-eyed and stares at anyone he sees.¡±


    ¡°Are the aunties who wash clothes by the river also secretly spies?¡±


    ¡°No. Other people only want to ask them where they buy their clothes, but they¡¯re too shy to approach them. After all, in their eyes, these newbies are all big guys.¡±


    ¡°And that apprentice at the tailor¡¯s shop?¡±


    ¡°Justifiable, she still wanted to make some money.¡±


    ¡°How are you so clear on this?¡±


    ¡°Hmph! They paid me to help ask. I sold intel seven to eight times. Today, I¡¯ve got some wine money.¡±


    ¡°You sure have some free time... The groundsman for Fengyu¡¯s cemetery? He¡¯s always out on the streets during the creepy evenings.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re hunchback, and they work nights. What¡¯s wrong with taking a stroll on the streets at night?¡±


    Suspects were pointed out one after the other. They already had over thirty names on their list, and I¡¯d already denied them all. Finally, silly cat lost all patience.


    ¡°Who the hell is it?¡±


    ¡°Ha... I...¡±


    ¡°You?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know! Don¡¯t bite! Alright, I¡¯ll exin. I¡¯ve been leading the way for the past two days. They naturally can¡¯t find him.¡±


    ¡°You deliberately avoid the real culprit? Why?¡±


    ¡°Did you think that I had that much free time? The easiest way to find an undead mage is to use another undead mage. Members of the Death Council must have cultivated undead techniques. Since they have deathly magical powers, even if I¡¯ve now be weak, as long as I face them head on, I¡¯ll definitely be able to feel them. If I could see them, then I¡¯d definitely sh them in one go. Since they let me lead them, they naturally won¡¯t be able to find them.¡±


    Silly cat suddenly fell silent. After a long while, she blurted out a sentence. ¡°Why do I feel like meeting you means that they¡¯re destined to fail? Are you sure that their little bit of money doesn¡¯t make you feel good and you n to get a few more days worth of money for wine? Are you sure there aren¡¯t other ways to lure the guy out? Rnd, why are you sweating? Is it your guilty conscience?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s hot!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s autumn!¡±

 Chapter 482 - Darling of the New Generation

    <h4>Chapter 482: Darling of the New Generation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    It was dawn. The emptynd in front of the Rhino Bar¡¯s doors was filled with the sound of people making noise.


    That empty piece ofnd had some rocks, scarecrows, and simple weapons for training like shooting targets. Old Barton wasn¡¯t greedy. As long as it was a customer of Rhino, one could use it for free. Sometimes, when he was free, he would give a few pointers.


    As for ambitious adventurers, they never even thought about ever getting to sleep through the night till the early morning before they had to be demobilized. Life wasn¡¯t a game. In reality, there weren¡¯t people who just got by finishing off missions or freaks who randomly got exp by hitting monsters... Alright, there was always one bug that existed.


    Cough, as for most people, fighting and the sudden appreciation of life were definitely a turning point. However, on the battlefield, just how my lives could one risk to seek the sparks of improvement? What was more, since one came to the sudden realization, one naturally needed to have umted enough for it to have any meaning; and, those realizations naturally needed to have been previously taught and cultivated.


    Although mages needed sufficient time to sleep, it became a habit for them to analyze magic every morning at their prime state, while most priests would respectfully pray to the Gods at daybreak. This act of ¡°giving their respects¡± was like a Godly power they craved. However, every judge ofw was different. Law professions didn¡¯t need to greet Wumianzhe in the morning and report to him in the evening. All they needed to do was to study and have faith in thew¡ªthat would be enough. In actuality, this was more like mages who majored in ¡°intelligence¡±.


    But one shouldn¡¯t assume that priests¡¯ prayers were troublesome or anything, because they were extremely rxed in contrast to other professions.


    The sound of recited statutes came from the goblin room on the second floor of the bar. As Thor continued his adventure, he realized that he wascking, so he didn¡¯t waste any time.


    Judging from themp that was extinguished at three or four in the morning, the goblin judge who embarrassed himself the previous day seemed to feel a sense of bravery after feeling ashamed.


    Thew job ss members were simr to the mages who only relied on their knowledge from books and theories. Mages had to use tests to prove their own theories, and experiments to prove their own conclusions. Law professionals also needed to handle cases and enforce regtions with thew. They had to turn empty statutes to actual verdicts and use their actions to carry out their own interpretation of thew.


    Of course, mages could search for other people¡¯s test reports and judges could search a collection of cases, but personal experience and reading data were two different things entirely. In order to reach the peak, one would need to be as patient as water slowly piercing through stone one step at a time. There were no shortcuts. Back in the day at Sulfur Mountain City, the strongest individuals of the Four Halls were still working side jobs as judges and taking cases every day.


    Moreover, soldiers, knights, and holy knight-typebat professionals had it harder. They would always sharpen their sword skills and train their bodies. Three days without sword practice would leave them out of touch, one week would cause them to fall back, and half a year would deny half their skills. If they wanted to improve one step at a time, they had to go practice their sword skills in an empty ce every morning before dawn. <i>That </i>was the model example of a soldier.


    Of course, when it came to Adam and Margaret¡¯s level,bat skills and sorcery had already be a natural instinct. There was no need for them to grind every day anymore. But, perhaps because of their nurtured habit, there wasn¡¯t a single day when Adam and the others neglected their practice. Their everyday fundamental training of several million sword swings were equivalent to a month¡¯s worth of practice for regr swordcasters. Rnd, that b*stard, would be the only one who would sleep till noon.


    Mary woke up rather early, but it was just to move her body a little and practice waving her sword a little before heading back to her room.


    After all, despite the word ¡®sword¡¯ being in her title as a Four Elemental Swordcaster, nobody expected her to have incredible sword skills. The four¡¯s strength came from their use of many types of sword seals.


    For an emerging profession which made something from nothing, seven years was considered the fastest time for one to expand and grow.


    Back in the old days, Rnd saw the potential in this profession, but it turned out to be an iplete one. Now, countless sessors had refined this dual-magic and martial arts profession without considerably high requirements.


    From the very founding of the four elemental sword seals, there had now been over thirty types ofmon practices. This new profession also had their own direction in which they wanted to advance, and created a load of Gold-rankedmon practices to get promoted. For example, they concentrated on research into some type of elemental sword seal to greatly advance in rank. In battle, sorcerers like those possessed swordcasting-like techniques for spirit sword seals. They usedbined magical sword skills of magical-type soldiers to take out the enemy¡¯s exorcist swordmen.


    The former focused their efforts on researching even higher sword seals. They always carried multiple micro-energy batteries and their magical swords would grow several troughs, which were more useful than ¡°Olivia¡¯s box¡± and ¡°Sword seal modules¡±. Thetter specialized in using various types ofbined sword seals. They would always carry multiple magical swords for them to use all different kinds of magical sword skills.


    Inparison to traditional mages, swordcasting techniques might have been simpler and shorter in attack range. However, they were able to cast spells. Yet, besides the rather low mage¡¯s threshold, the real reason of its rapidly spreading power was mainly because it was a gold-using job... Yes. It was a gold-using job that wasted more money than mages. As long as you had money, and had enough ¡°Olivia¡¯s boxes¡± and ¡°Sword seal¡±, you would be the king ofbat with unlimited firepower.


    Exorcist swordsmen needed to be more steadfast on their road to maturity. They especially researched various types of techniques of using sword seals and powerful ¡°magical sword skills¡± which wereposed ofbined sword seals. Perhaps the effects were slow-acting in a short amount of time, but before a truly powerful person, they were considered to be greater than an exorcist swordsmen.


    The most powerful exorcist swordsman was Cohen, who was said to have already joined the ranks of Myth. He even fought SemiGods and was able not to be defeated. He was seen as the most sessful person among the younger generation of allnds.


    Incidentally, Rnd was extremely confused when he read the news at the time. Besides ¡°My disciple finally surpassed me on this path. I¡¯m really happy¡±, he felt ¡°How did he surpass me so quickly? How am I meant to act cool in front of him ever again?¡±


    Anyways, back to the main point.


    The most obvious advantage of the four elemental swordcasters¡¯ lead in this generation, and the reason why they were fundamentally and rapidly epted by the people and various countries, was their goodpatibility with the magical machinery of the new generation.


    Every swordsman carried different types of little tools, so as long as they stabbed the magical sword into the magical machinery, they¡¯d be able to control it like how one would control their own arms. This was something a pilot couldn¡¯t do no matter how much talent he acquired through training.


    Because of this, the four elemental swordcasters couldn¡¯t do without using those magical swords as a controlling device to pilot different types of magical machinery. However, as giant battle machines were expensive and limited to military usage in some countries, professional pilots were still few and far between. They would always choose specially made magical swords and serve in the military.


    It could be said that however strong the four elemental swordcasters were, it had nothing to do with their physical form. Instead, one had to count how many sword seals they possessed, how many magical sword techniques they learnt, if they had enough sword seal modules and Olivia¡¯s boxes on their body, and whether they carried different types of new battle machines.


    Mary had already reached the Gold rank, but just looking at those three magical swords sockets, it was easy to tell that she was a swordcaster who mainly used high-ranking sword seals in battle.


    From head to toe, her equipment was expendable. Under the current circumstances of not knowing the enemy¡¯s whereabouts, realbat training was in actuality a rather meaningless way to waste energy beforehand. It was also a way to easily expose one¡¯s hand.


    Diana also got up really early. Before it was bright outside, she started early sword training on an empty plot ofnd. As an anti-holy knight, they lost practically all their superpowers. All they could rely on was their resolute willpower and the sharp sword in their hands.


    For anti-holy knights, willpower couldn¡¯t be one¡¯s protective armor; it also couldn¡¯t change the sharp de of an attack. However, it could turn the opponent into a mortal just like themselves. In the end, the one who¡¯d conquer would still have to rely on their sword skills.


    In some sense, this was a highly difficult profession which only martial experts had the confidence to advance in. Naturally, if your fighting skills were awful, you could put on heavy armor and fight a battle of endurance with the enemy. However, it¡¯d be difficult to win or lose as the hard training one had to go through was mostly ruined from the start.


    But Diana was clearly the former as she was an expert in sword magic and an outstanding almost-sword-saint.


    There was a dark cloud between the wave of the silver white longsword. There was a faint trickle of blood upon the sword¡¯s de. A standard enchanted mithril heavy sword was just a magical sword that whistled in the wind.


    It wasn¡¯t as though they fell into darkness, but the anti-holy knight carried the god-loathing curse which had special effects. All their weapons and armor would be gradually dyed ck to represent the fallen.


    When Diana waved her sword, there were still some dark clouds surrounding the silver armor. But because of the armor¡¯s special design, the dark cloud was like hovering clouds wrapped around the key areas. It seemed fairly visible and oddly beautiful, with a mysterious elegance. That curse seemed to act as a strange ornament.


    ¡°I never thought it would have this effect. Is this why they chose this set of armor? It¡¯s no wonder these elves are vain to their very bones.¡±


    Diana didn¡¯t choose the thin sword and the curved knife the elves liked, because they clearlycked in power. They were unsuitable for knights.


    The heavy sword vibrated like rolling thunder. The sword¡¯s faint ck aura enveloped the de, vaguely reverberating on the heavy sword. This was the distinct aura which an almost-sword-saint possessed. When she could casually release the aura... that¡¯d be the day she became a true sword saint.


    Seeing this, my first reaction actually turned out to be...


    ¡°So that brat isn¡¯t as young as I thought she was...¡±


    Elves matured extremely slowly. A true qualified soldier needed two hundred years to be one. Judging by past experiences, an almost-sword-saint couldn¡¯t mature without spending several centuries unless they were a super-genius. If it was a several century old veteran, their experience or whatever wouldn¡¯t be too bad.


    Or perhaps, an expert like this was the reason why they dared to take this mission.


    In some sense, anti-holy knights and four elemental swordcasters were considered two extremes; one didn¡¯t rely on outside objects to the extreme, and the other would feelpletely useless if they lost their items.


    In these past years, having gone through realbat tests, these two job sses were the best partners on the battlefield.


    One had many abilities but was not stable in terms of the instantbustion limit of low-level sword seals. That was their greatest weakness when facing strong fighters individually. The other was unafraid of anyone in one-to-onebat, but their specialized attackscked supportive abilities. They formed a natural ability toplement one another.


    But because there were increasingly more four elemental swordcasters, the requirements to join the ranks of antiholy knights were too high. The lowest were Gold-rank job ss members, and they had to have a good set ofbat skills. Thisbination unwittingly became the unique force of the north. Of course, this had a lot to do with Diana, the leader of therge group of all antiholy knights, who was also the strongest anti-holy knight.


    ¡°If that Mary were about the same level, then we shouldn¡¯t have to worry about being killed with one p by those guys from the Death Council.¡±


    In that very moment, Iy under that tree, reading the papers whilst contemting how to tell them about mytest clues. Uh-huh, I definitely wasn¡¯t drinking tea and eyeing beautiful women. I was doing real business.


    Yes. I did my own investigation the previous day and already made my own discoveries. Although I¡¯m not the Death Council¡¯s disciple of the dark cult, I had already stepped on the enemy¡¯s foot. As long as I followed the breadcrumbs, who knew? I might be able to be a major help to the case.


    ¡°How can I have them unwittingly interrupt the ceremony? Not that I can expose myself. It¡¯s so difficult being a good NPC. What a headache! Yeesh... are demons and devils fighting again? Is this the fourth time this year that the Devil Lord and the Abyss Lord are fighting? What a rare piece of good news.¡±


    The newspaper headlines remarked on thetest round of confrontation that broke out in the abyss. A certain Abyss Lord was torn apart, and a certain demon boss sessfully ranked up in battle.


    Now, the most chaotic of all the nes of Eich wasn¡¯t the main ne, but the lower ne. The will of the abyss disappeared, which immediately led to loss of control of the entire abyss. Demons and devils already had quite a lot of mutual misunderstandings, and they directly started fighting. As for whether it was a good or a bad thing, nobody could say for sure.


    ¡°Even news of the lower ne were gathered, and so quickly too. Looks like I used to underestimate fairies. Perhaps you¡¯ll consider working together.¡±


    It was worth mentioning that following the development of the Holy War, the fairies didn¡¯t care how much it cost them and helped Eich¡¯s naturally flourishing press to be even more booming by using Griffins to deliver thetest issue or something like that. Looking back, it was practically too extravagant.


    When the magazine which was used as a cover-up actually caught my attention, Diana all of a sudden walked over and spoke with a smile, ¡°Karo, have you not gained anything from observing for so long? Will you train with me when you¡¯re free?¡±


    I was stunned at first, but then understood from her humiliated and angry expression. It seemed like I identally offended the other person. But as a sly fox, how could I easily admit defeat like this?


    ¡°Of course I can. Miss, as long as you¡¯re willing to treat me to a week¡¯s worth of ale in return. But, I already exchanged my weapons and equipment for wine money, so could you help me buy a set of armor and a longsword? Oh yeah, if you identally hit me, can I apply for medical fees andpensation for mental trauma?¡±

 Chapter 483 - Katerina

    <h4>Chapter 483: Katerina</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Are you free to join me in sword practice? Don¡¯t worry. Generally speaking, I won¡¯t hurt you. Even if I identally do, I can afford to pay for your medical fees¡ªuh-huh. If I identally hurt you, I¡¯ll pay for your living expenses for the next half a year.¡±


    Diyana <sup>1</sup> looked at me half-jokingly. At first, I was stunned, but seeing her slightly blushing face and her angry yet humiliated expression, I kind of figured out where the problem was.


    Experts were very sensitive to other people¡¯s gazes. The hell, was she actually practicing her sword techniques right now... A vagabond with a full beard like myself stared endlessly at the sensitive spots. There was no covering up that fiery stare, as it didn¡¯t fail to miss the base of the thigh, the breasts, and butt. She basically caught me red-handed when staring vulgarly, so she was naturally pissed off.


    This really was a misunderstanding. In the past, there were quite a few beautiful dark elves at Sulfar Mountain City, so I was used to looking at pretty women with Adam. We would talk business whilst ogling. This time, I did it out of habit.


    Just because nothing happenedst time, that didn¡¯t mean nothing would happen now. Previously, we would wear Semigod masks which disconnected us from the world, or it would be a human skull not to attract the attention of ¡°victims¡±. However, this time, I wasn¡¯t even ten meters away when my gaze fell motionlessly on the subject in front of me as though I was obviously looking to get killed.


    The thief over there, Mark, and the barbarian, Mort, gave me a thumbs up. He most probably meant: ¡°How awesome. People know this chick isn¡¯t to be messed with. You sneak nces, and you actually dare not even hide it. You must be a man to stare and smile.¡±


    Alright. I didn¡¯t guess it. That barbarian actually shouted it out loud, and only obediently lowered his head when Diyana shot him a look.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. It¡¯s just practice. I¡¯ll use the back of the knife.¡±


    I thought about it for a moment, and looked at Diyana who had such an annoyed expression and unforgiving manner as she slowly pulled out her sword. No matter what I said, it seemed like she wanted to show me a lesson. I felt a little helpless, and all I could do was try to find an excuse.


    ¡°Actually, I just miss this set of sword techniques a little. This is the Sulfur Mountain City military¡¯s third set of sword techniques, right? I studied it for a while, and wasn¡¯t too bad at it. I had already broken away from the routine path, but I copy other people too much, which bound my own path. It might have not been a good thing.¡±


    ¡°...You can sure brag. The gambler also knows sword techniques? I¡¯ve never seen him grab a sword.¡±


    ¡°I saw him wave the wooden sword a few times, but he practically used it as a club. Tsk, tsk, tsk... he probably ran his mouth to get the girls.¡±


    When those words came out, people looked at me strangely in disbelief. However, Diyana actually looked stunned. She didn¡¯t realize that she would hear something like this here. In the past, the person whom she most respected had also said that to her before.


    ¡°Copying is the path every sword technique must take, but everyone has their own path. Diyana, your natural talent with swords is actually better than mine, but you¡¯re not me. My path isn¡¯t suitable for you. I hope that you can think hard about taking your own path.¡±


    Diyana¡¯s face was filled with shock, yet all I did was gently caress my chin and keep my deliberately mysterious smile... Recalling the full beard, it seemed a little like I was wasting my efforts in trying to look cool.


    Of course I knew she was using the Sulfur Mountain City military¡¯s third set of sword techniques; after all, we wrote the military training manual for the Sulfur Mountain City. Since the Sulfur Mountain City soldiers needed to learn sword techniques, it¡¯d be impossible for Adam and I, the two best sword saints in thends, to do nothing for them. The knight¡¯s heavy sword and single-handed sword looked simr, but in actuality, they differed greatly. I personally wrote the sword techniques in the military¡¯s third set of sword techniques.


    Since they were usingmon sword techniques, there naturally wouldn¡¯t be too many highly difficult skills added. Since it was military-grade sword techniques, they naturally were merciless, ruthless, urate, heavy, killed with one strike, and effortlessly dealt serious damage. Although the sword technique was of high quality, it was like a bison gone berserk when in use, which was why it was also called the bison sword technique.


    And to say that Diyana was copying other people wasn¡¯t an empty usation. They had all been forced to learn the third set of sword techniques, and it also proved unwee amongst the local forces; after all, dark elves didn¡¯t respect others based on one¡¯s strength. However, some foolish girl actually painstakingly trained in this set of sword techniques, and eventually the student became the master. She created new moves from the bison sword technique, such as shoulder smashing, elbow hits, kicks, and so on. The ferociously charging bison style evolved into a wild bull style that used the entire body to fight.


    But this set of sword skills was only suitable for someone with a naturally high talent like herself. If others were to learn this edited version, the wild bull sword, then its power would fall. But on the other hand, those little moves with little damage were actually really suitable in street fights and to take out drunkards. However, it would also be suitable on the battlefield with her courageous charging fighting style.


    ¡°Now it looks like this Diyana is even copying that silly chick¡¯s makeup and hairstyle. Even this silly chick has a loyal follower. How aggravating.¡±


    Alright. With that said, everybody knew that this silly chick was Diana <sup>2</sup> . At the thought of how my foolish underling became a legendary hero all of a sudden, I really feltplex inside.


    I stroked my chin. Then, for some reason, I was deep in thought when silly cat jumped onto my shoulder.


    ¡°Do ya feel like you¡¯re outdated?¡±


    ¡°No. Since Diyana¡¯s copied Diana so much, Diana should be wearing the same armor, right? I¡¯m just imagining what that silly chick would look like after wearing this set of armor. It probably looks great, but it still feels like something¡¯s missing... I¡¯ve suddenly got new inspiration. How about I go find a ce and send Adam the new designs?¡±


    ¡°...I suddenly feel like she wasn¡¯t wrong at all in finding you to settle the score. Also, could you restrain yourself a little...¡±


    Silly cat¡¯sints were endless. All I could do was smile wryly and helplessly.


    ¡°It¡¯s not like I wanted to. Who knew things would be like this when the Seven Deadly Sins returned. It¡¯s probably a good thing for my soul to beplete, but...¡±


    There was no need to finish, as everyone knew that after Hell was constructed, and after the reconstruction of the Seven Infernos, the Seven Sins decided to return to my soul for some reason.


    And like someone who let themselves go all of a sudden after suppressing their desires for so long, I probably wouldn¡¯t be able to hold back when I let all my desires loose. With aplete soul, I just really wasn¡¯t used to it.


    Having felt the loss of my emotions rted to these sins for so long, I admittedly couldn¡¯t quite stand it when it returned to me so suddenly. I lived life like a living corpse without **, but when I had too many thoughts, it was a little hard for one to hold them back. This wild thought which suddenly popped up was most probably just a little bit of trouble.


    Of course, I had confidence in keeping it under control. With aplete soul and emotions, it would take me one step further in life, but I was afraid that I still needed some time topletely control my out-of-control emotions. The excuse I just made was clearly a consequent mistake from what happened.


    If things had been as before, I would have shamelessly continued talking about ridiculous things and made this duel be forgotten with my antics as I didn¡¯t want to expose my identity. Pure rationality didn¡¯t need to be disturbed by excess emotions.


    But now, by pointing out the inadequacies of an almost Sword Saint like this, it¡¯d naturally grab the opponent¡¯s attention. It seemed that I was a little senselessly too egotistical.


    *Ack!*


    As expected, Diyana still unsheathed her sword, but this time, she looked serious. To be able to point out the strengths and weaknesses in her sword skills in just ten short minutes of practice, I must have been a lot stronger than her.


    ¡°Please show me your ways, oh g-great Sword Saint.¡±


    This time, after taking a deep breath, both her hands gripped the sword as she stared directly at her opponent. She was now acting like a person asking an expert for guidance.


    Her two hands loosened up as the sword on her right arm was raised to shoulder height. This was the raised hand position of the wild bison sword technique¡¯s killer three strikes. It looked like she would strike with all her might as soon as she attacked.


    At this stage, there was no getting out of it. Bystanders had even gathered around to watch us.


    I shook my head and eventually got up. It looked like it couldn¡¯t be avoided.


    ¡°We¡¯re just messing around. Don¡¯t take it too seriously. I¡¯m really weak right now¡ª aaaah, it hurts! What are you doing, Katerina?!¡±


    I just picked up a wooden stick and was nning to practice with the youngster when my ear started to hurt.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, dear guest. Please don¡¯t bother with this b*stard. This guy likes to randomly shoot his mouth off, and always tries to scare people off. In reality, he can¡¯t fight. Many adventurers have taught him a lesson in the past.¡±


    Katerina had pink trinkets in her water-blue hair and an energetic expression in her eyes beneath her thin brows that resembled willow tree leaves. The blunt bar hostess wore a majestic, gold-embroidered maid¡¯s costume. Her red apple-like face had a few spots of e, and sometimes, she would be very animated when she spoke. Shepletely gave off the feeling that she was bustling with energy. However, in that very moment, this stupid secondary female character actually pinched my ear!


    ¡°It hurts! It¡¯s hurts! You brat! What are you doing?!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m saving you! Idiot! You still haven¡¯t apologized to this great adventurer?! Did you forget how that Dwarven craftsman tossed you out of the barst month?¡±


    ¡°Ha! I really could have fixed his Iron Horse motorcycle. How could I have known those damn goblins would be such devils. As soon as I opened the lid, it self-detonated on me.¡±


    ¡°Also, that mage found a staff in the ruins, and you actually imed to be able to identify it, but what happened? You were spewing nonsense and couldn¡¯t identify a thing!¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t lie. It was a pink incantation: Tentacle Summoning incantation. That mage was too embarrassed to admit the truth. Katerina, do you believe me or that mage?¡±


    ¡°Of course I believe the mage! I¡¯ve already been screwed over by you quite enough! Whatever legendary ice mage and the strongest sword saint in thend... Because of you, I¡¯ve beenughed at so many times by people. I¡¯d be truly a fool to believe you again!¡±


    But with rhetoric like that, there was no way I could make the angry daughter of the bar owner pity me. She violently pushed my head down and made me bow to Diyana apologetically.


    ¡°Apologies, great adventurer. Although this b*stard has a mouth full of nonsense, and is azy drunkard and a gambling addict, he¡¯s still a considerably good person. To express our apologies, please ept aplimentary stay at our inn for the next few days.¡±


    But turning her head, she turned out to have a demon¡¯s expression on her face.


    ¡°It¡¯s all going on your tab! Stinking drunk! Wash the dishes and don¡¯t even think about cking off!¡±


    Then, she bowed again to Diyana before turning around and grabbing me by the cor, dragging me out.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey! I can really fight! I¡¯m a Sword Saint! You can¡¯t treat an epic hero like this! I¡¯m really a famous person, a really, really famous person!¡±


    But what a shame, nobody believed the truth. In fact, Katerina, who had naturally god-like strength, ran even quicker in fear of the adventurer getting angry from hearing nonsense like that.


    ¡°Haha, what a ssic scene that I¡¯ll never get bored of! Good luck, Katerina! Make him wash the boss¡¯ stinky socks!¡±


    ¡°Karo, if you¡¯re an epic hero, then I¡¯m a SemiGod Lich!¡±


    Having been dragged by freakish strength, both my feet created grooves in the ground, while people fellughing on the empty ground.


    ¡°...Did I really get it wrong?¡±


    Diyana shook her head helplessly and put her sword away, thinking that something was a little off.


    ¡°Martin, I¡¯m really a legendary hero. Stan, you brat, ya dareugh at me? Alright! Wait until I recover my strength, I¡¯ll really turn you into liches!¡±


    ¡°Haha! I¡¯ll be waiting for you. I¡¯m so scared! Oh great sword saint Karo! Ah, no! I mean ya majesty, great lich!¡±


    Then, the entire training ground erupted inughter as though the air filled with joy.


    As for me, who was being dragged away, all I could do was shake my head helplessly. Why did other people not believe me every time I told them the truth? And yet, when I was joking around with people to dupe them, everybody fell for it.


    But having sensed the increasingly frightening brute force behind me, I hesitated a little. In some sense, I¡¯d stayed at this tavern for over half a year now. This mixed race brat was the main reason for that.


    ¡°This brute force has doubled sincest month. ording to the System¡¯s precise calctions, her strength has reached over thirty, right? How truly frightening. This is no way to go on. Perhaps I have to have a talk with Old Barton.¡±

 Chapter 484 - Karos Hope

    <h4>Chapter 484: Karo¡¯s Hope</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Nobody would have thought a drunkard with a mouth full of nonsense would really be that ¡°invaluable¡± epic hero. After all, in the eyes of the people, the strong could be arrogant, cunning, and untrustworthy, but they definitely wouldn¡¯t disregard their dignity and image.


    ¡°Blood will spill when I¡¯m angered; blood will run like a river when the lord is angered; there will be millions of corpses when the emperor is angered. Isn¡¯t being out on these streets purely just to let some steam out anyway? I¡¯ll take on the likes of whomever messes with my dignity!¡±


    But in this world, there just so happened to really be an epic hero whopletely didn¡¯t care about their image...


    ¡°Image? Can you eat that? Uh-huh, it¡¯s definitely to cover up who you really are, and it¡¯s not purely in bad taste.¡±


    Alright. I admit it. Sometimes, it was also quite fun when I was obviously telling the truth, and yet people didn¡¯t believe it no matter what.


    But on the other hand, I didn¡¯t lie. Right now, I was indeed incredibly weak.


    [Rnd Mist / Strength: 24 / Dexterity: 24 / Constitution: 25 / Intelligence: 32 / Will: 22 / Charisma: 20 / Arbitrator Bloodline / Natural Abilities: War Angel form, Original Sin Demon form, Titan blood, Stare of the Hell God / Basic Career: Lvl.60 Order knight, Lvl.60 Chaos lich king, Lvl.10 Four elemental swordcaster / Advanced job sses: Lvl.6 Lord of Frigidwinter, Unable to evaluate overall levels / Pet: Harloys / Mount and Armor: Erebe. ]


    These were the stats I had before the war of Hell, but now...


    [Rnd Mist / Strength :4 / Dexterity: 7 / Constitution: 5 / Intelligence: 32 / Willpower: 22 / Charisma: 22 (Increased for mysterious reasons) / Blood: Mixed Arbitrator and Wood Spirit... What is ¡®Too weak to kill a chicken¡¯? This is it.]


    ¡°How would I know that she¡¯d be so petty! She actually put a curse of weakness on me!¡±


    [...Serves you right.]


    ¡°At the same time... Now that you mention it, if it were me, I would have gone harder.¡±


    I regretted bringing out silly cat and Astrya even more. Ever since Astrya stopped needing to pretend to be my System, all sorts of shameless jokes and double theints made people feel really helpless.


    But the system stats she offered were indeed convenient. For the convenience of her cultivation, after their exchange, she also gave a detailed exnation for her judgement.


    Stats didn¡¯t increase in a linear way; rather, stats were inparison to others of the same species. The higher the numbers, the fewer existences there were topare to.


    [Strength (muscle strength and body strength): four points (three was a human¡¯s lower limit, and it was most probably the equivalent of a vegetable, so it¡¯d be apliment for a four to be called ¡®too weak to tie up a chicken¡¯. Normally, a goose was a six, so you would really be as strong as half a goose!)]


    [Dexterity (including abination of stats like physical agility, hand-eye coordination, reaction speed, and coordination. This means your control of your body, and how fast your nervous system can react): Seven Dexterity points (Amelia¡¯s a really kind person to you. At this stage, you¡¯ll only asionally fall over on t ground. You¡¯ll look really cute, and you¡¯ll probably trip more than ten times a day. If it were two less points, then you would really have to worry about choking to death on water all of a sudden and other hrious things like falling off a cliff after slipping on watermelon skin)]


    [Constitution (health and the degree to which one can fight natural diseases). Five Constitution (Little sister Peach... Little sister Lin Daiyu. Are you alright? Stop crying. Be careful, you can really cry yourself to death. It was difficult to save you when you fainted from cryingst time.) Note: Since the basic stats of your body were forcibly sealed by the curse of weakness, your actual stats are still there and your physique is above average. You won¡¯t need to worry about getting drunk or feeling bloated from drinking wine and eating, but the hangover will definitely be hard to bear. Be good, quit drinking!]


    Basic stats were the foundation of the flesh. Three of the stats were rted to the soul, so these three mage stats remained the same. I won¡¯t touch on this for now, as one was destined to be useless trash just for the three closebat stats being this weak.


    As for why this was the case and why those two guys said I deserved it, I¡¯d have to start from the path I left behind back in the day......


    One of the rules of Hell dictated that the God of Hell couldn¡¯t leave. Since this was a requirement, it was, in some sense, a type of way to check the bnce of power. This limitation was a lot stricter than the Eich Gods, but it was for the sake of avoiding disastrous divine intervention in the mortal realm once again.


    And since Hell represented fair trials, as one of the four main Gods who ruled Hell, there was no way they could go against the most basic of rules. They couldn¡¯t ever leave hell; otherwise, so-called equality and justice would be a joke.


    Reasonably speaking, as the pir ofw, Wumianzhe Rnd also stayed in Hell for eternity, and this iron-d rule was the only back door that I paved... No. Actually, it couldn¡¯t be called a back door, but my abilities were simply special, and I ¡°happened¡± to be able to reincarnate ording to the requested rules.


    Mhm, the loophole I dug was ¡°Wumianzhe¡± Rnd. I became the pir of thew as the Wumianzhe and the fallen God Rnd. After the reverse God¡¯s Descent was removed, Wumianzhe was still the pir of thew and the eternally just God of Judgement, who became even more with the sentiment of justice after losing his sense of self. Meanwhile, ¡°Rnd¡± was a normal dead person in Hell...


    What happened thereafter was very easy to understand. I had only lived several years in my most recent life. I hadn¡¯t broken too many divinews, nor did I have many crimes worth punishing me for. In less than a year, Ipleted the torture of purgatory and naturally reincarnated.


    It wasn¡¯t the first time I reincarnated. In normal circumstances, souls should have their memories and sense of self erased, and start all over again. However, those who were capable of protecting their sense of self during reincarnation, such as me, didn¡¯t want another father and mother, nor a frightening, long childhood. I would always climb out of the River Styx and then ask my System who had the power of Creation for yet another chance.


    But this time, if I were to start all over again, it¡¯d be too much of a waste of time. That was when I thought about the other beings with the privilege of creation. Perhaps they¡¯d have an idea.


    Yes, other creators. This world not only had the one creator and Goddess of creation. Things were different from a billion years ago. Due to unpredictable change of circumstances, this world still had two other creators in existence that I could choose from.


    Needless to say, one of them was Hell. As one of the previous rulers of Hell, I waspletely familiar with this path and all the Gods in Hell would also give me the green light.


    However, if I chose Hell, I would have to possess the body of an underworld envoy of the Hell Dragon n. Otherwise, I¡¯d have no way of leaving Hell, as ghosts and other entities had no way of leaving.


    But I didn¡¯t want to reincarnate into a big lizard in the slightest. Dragons and men were different in nature, so I¡¯d have to spend forever familiarizing myself with the new body. Since I couldn¡¯t walk out of Hell, I was left with just one clear and straightforward choice¡ªthe wood spirits n of the Forest of Dreams.


    Within the Forest of Dreams, the wood spirits n could turn adventurers into wood spirits without starting over again. This was also the most popr service that the wood spirits offered. They could turn the dead souls in the Forest of Dreams into new wood spirits. It seemed like this was a type of reincarnation that only they possessed.


    I¡¯d said before that Amelia actually became a Goddess of Creation in a freak ident within the Forest of Dreams.


    The most obvious evidence for this was most probably the fact that the wood spirits n had their own independent soul reincarnation which was unique to their world. This was clearly a type of special power only creators possessed.


    Even though there were limitations to this privilege, as natural species, they might just be the strongest at creating flesh, and that... was what I was mostcking in.


    So, when the ¡°big n¡± deployed on schedule, I personally went to the Forest of Dreams in Bardi to give them an artery.


    ¡°...This is a specimen of my blood and flesh. Is this sufficient?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Father. We¡¯ll reconstruct a physical body. When your soul is destroyed, it¡¯ll travel through this body and resurrect. It¡¯s the same principle as the Lich¡¯s phctery. We know this, but how can you promise that the soul will return to the body? Is it necessary to have some kind of soul-calling ceremony?¡±


    ¡°Haha! I have a superb n.¡±


    ¡°Father, your body will be weak if you give this much blood and flesh. Your fighting strength will plummet. What are you going to do?¡±


    ¡°Haha! I have a superb n.¡±


    To keep it aplete secret, I didn¡¯t even tell the wood spirits the truth at first. I only just told them it was a backup body, but in reality, it was just as expected. I didn¡¯t need the chance to personally take action.


    After Hell was sessfully constructed, the matters of the world developed just as I¡¯d predicted. With the entire wood elf n using all resources at their disposal, the clone created from my own flesh did indeed hold a big portion of my strength, but... God had ns of their own. In the end, there was just one little thing missing.


    ¡°Then, you just went in head first?¡±


    ¡°How could I have known that Amelia would happen to wake up just then? How could I have known she would... she would...¡±


    [Forced marriage? Actually, Amelia isn¡¯t bad. In fact, from a female¡¯s point of view, you¡¯re the one who¡¯s actually the most out of order. You were let off easy when you were cursed.]


    ¡°Yeah... First you flirt cunningly and agree to marry the woman, get your hands on the dowry, and then ya turn around and run away! Isn¡¯t cheating other people¡¯s feelings and lying about getting married what women hate the most? You¡¯re a super-douchebag! Amelia¡¯s really cute considering that she only cursed you.¡±


    ¡°Cute? Are you sure that woman who used countless snakes to bind and swallow me whole for revenge is cute? Are you sure the evil witch who created the super-earthquake that swept across three countries just to stop me from escaping is cute? You think that the hysterically crazy woman who created frightening faces in the clouds, shrieking ¡°Rnd, you¡¯re dead!¡± is cute?¡±¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all your fault!¡±


    [Your fault!]


    I kind of wanted to cry, but tears didn¡¯te. Wait... Had I be the public enemy of women all of a sudden...?


    ¡°At first, wasn¡¯t it you guys who persuaded me to run away? One after the other, you all said, ¡°How can one attain happiness in an emotionless marriage?¡±, ¡°She must be groggy from sleep. You must think about the consequences. What do you think Elisa will do if she knew?¡± Isn¡¯t that what you all said? How did I end up the one in the wrong? Could you please be reasonable?¡±


    ¡°No! Besides, it¡¯s all your fault.¡±


    [Isn¡¯t there a saying on earth? A woman¡¯s special right is to be unreasonable!]


    Alright, it looked like there was no reasoning with a woman under certain circumstances. But no matter how you put it, I¡¯d considerably suffered the consequences of my own actions.


    This body came from Amelia¡¯s hand, so it would naturally have her imprint. It was far too easy for a creator to edit their creation. This curse of weakness, which left people a little helpless in living, was her trump card to force me to be good and head back.


    It was worth mentioning that as a spirit-bound pet, after silly cat had her time to shine, she was cruelly pped back down; all she could do was send a clone to fulfill her duty of guarding purgatory.


    Even though her powers were rather special, I was afraid that Harloys was the only one whose clones were far more powerful than she herself was.


    But in another sense, this curse of weakness wasn¡¯t a terrible thing...


    ¡°Perhaps I¡¯ll be even stronger because of this. At the very least, I¡¯ll be stronger than that muscr idiot.¡±


    The de lowered slowly as the careful cutting skills sliced the beef. It looked very simple, but if you reallypared it, then you¡¯d realize that the slices of beef were paper-thin. Not only that, but the thickness and shape of each slice were the same as well.


    If it were a good sword, then that¡¯d be understandable. But right now, the vegetable knife that I used was a blunt knife which couldn¡¯t even draw blood.


    Eyesight, handiwork, heart, and a heavy body were natural shackles. Theck of strength made it so that every slice required a perfectbination of upper body strength, heart, and body conditioning. Perhaps, if you trained sincerely with hope, there wouldn¡¯t be anything in life that couldn¡¯t be trained.


    A fruit was tossed up in the air and a knife shed across. What fell into a bowl turned out to be intricately carved pieces of fruit. The final scoop happened to be carved into a rabbit.


    ¡°At least I have a new understanding and much better control over my strength. So, this time, I¡¯ll start from the subtle details to see if I can surpass that idiot...¡±


    After Hell was sessfully constructed, the heavy responsibility I carried had already been more than halved. If I still had anything on my mind, it¡¯d be that promise from back in the day to teach that idiot in the abyss a good lesson.


    ¡°Now, we¡¯re so incredibly apart in level.¡±


    It was only three hundred plus years ago that we were on a simr level. Based on fighting strength alone, there was simply no way topare. If I hadn¡¯t cheated, then I was afraid I would have ended up hacked to death with one strike. In the end, from seeing how delighted he was to see Cynthia¡¯s true body, and from the silhouette of his back as he left, I knew that he would definitely be stronger the next time we meet.


    Logic dictated that our natural talent should have been about the same. If you looked at it from how hard we worked, then we shouldn¡¯t have had the leisure of cking off. We both progressed at about the same speed, but in the end, we turned out to be arge distance apart. If we were counting from the start to the very end, it wouldn¡¯t be difficult to see why.


    In the past more than three hundred years, far too many frivolous matters divided my attention. I spent a lot of effort on thinking, nning, and strategizing. In the end, I got what I wanted¡ªa mature team working to gradually make the world better. We also seemed to have prevented the apocalypse.


    As the prince of the abyss, he would kill, eat, kill, and eat on a daily basis. He also got what he wanted the most; he had be the strongest in the world and crushed his mortal enemy, Cynthia.


    It was very difficult to say if this decision was a right one, because one couldn¡¯tpare every person¡¯s life choices. However, in an one-to-one fight, I lost against an idiot, and that really pissed me off.


    Now, I was not stressed about anything else. I was really interested in knowing whether I would eventually be able to duel him if I put all my heart into training.


    ¡°Karo! Is the grilled beef fruit sd done yet?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s almost done! Almost done!¡±


    Katerina¡¯s urgent voice came from outside the kitchen. I realized that I idently sliced the beef too thinly and didn¡¯t divide them on the grill; neither could I cut the fruit in the right design for the sd. I had to do everything all over again. Apparently, I should first handle the business at hand, then think about training.

 Chapter 485 - Intervening

    <h4>Chapter 485: Intervening</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°...Please move aside. We have an investigation to carry out.¡±


    ¡°An investigation? Who gave you permission to do so? This is Town Anton of S, thend of the God of justice andmandment. We don¡¯t wee outsiders like yourselves!¡±


    It had only just turned bright outside when I was woken up by all themotion at the door.


    Looking out the window, it turned out to be adventurers in an argument. It was a typical situation of someone blocking the door; a group of people at the door stopped another group froming out.


    The people who had their path blocked looked very familiar. It was the new trio of the dark cult¡¯s investigation unit. The people on the other side seemed considerably strong, yet still caused trouble, so they were naturally not weaklings.


    They were obviously a group of divine clergymen and fairly known members of the church.


    The white priest¡¯s robe was embroidered with purplish golden thread, which meant they weren¡¯t ranked low. Although the crest with the golden holy sword on the cross was old-fashioned, the faint holy power that flowed upon it was authentication of a priest for a True God.


    Behind his back, there were dozens of holy knights and soldiers with silver swords. It looked like the Cardinal of Napous had brought temple knights to the fight.


    Napous was the God of Justice and Commandments; he was a Low God. His Divine Concept wasn¡¯t the same as the justice he talked about. After all, the idea of justice was so overly empty and tremendous that even a main God couldn¡¯t digest it. His true divine obligation was only to the lower concepts born undermandments: ¡°discipline¡±, ¡°self-discipline¡±, ¡°rank division¡±, and ¡°military regtion¡±. Quite a few soldiers and leaders were his followers.


    ¡°Is it another conflict about which website is the best for reading novels with belief cell phones?¡±


    For the past few years, these kind of things happened quite often. Followers of various Order Gods didn¡¯t normally get into a fight at the door, but there were quite a few fighting either openly or behind the scenes. As for ¡°fighting for faith and influential power of Hell¡¯s various Gods¡± getting along well, that in itself was an impossible mission toplete.


    S was a small country which didn¡¯t have the wealth of arge country, nor any powerful factions and vicious characters. Town Anton was a little remote town, with three small towns surrounding it, of no more than one hundred thousand civilians as poption. Napous was a low God with limited priests and fighting power. The reality was that with all thesebined conditions, this church only preached in densely popted areas. This small town on the border of S simply didn¡¯t have Napous Church members.


    Judging by their dusty appearances¡ªsand covered the priest and the knight¡¯s boots and cape¡ªthey must have received a mission. They must have been sent here onst minute from the Capital¡¯s parish.


    Faith was a True God¡¯s source of power, believers were a True God¡¯s earthly preachers, and the parish was a true God¡¯s earthly residence. We couldpletely understand how a true God cared for their own inherently few territories, but it seemed that it didn¡¯t hinder our decisions.


    Back in the day, the God ofw and the God of holy light signed an alliance in the North, which upheld the most fundamental peace and trust of the two major powers. At least, before the abyss was invaded and the holy war ended, and before enemies of both parties were annihted, this fragile alliance would stillst.


    Didn¡¯t they already fall out with each other? They had already fought at Hell, so why did the alliance still exist? That was because they¡¯d already fallen out, so this alliance, which at first waspletely meaningless, had be so important.


    In reality, most foreign rtions between countries in the world more or less went down like this. If both parties had the need to maintain their peaceful act for mutual benefits, then one would be able to spot problems in the originally useless expired contract. Mere verbal alliances were capable of bing solid, irond writing.


    And if both parties felt that there was no need for the alliance to exist, even if it was an era alliance which was approved by the people of the world, they would fall out in an instant. And then, they¡¯d beat each others¡¯ brains out.


    But in that very moment, since Napous felt that he had been affronted, he naturally sent his own loyal subjects to banish those uninvited guests¡ªnot the disciples to help himself get out of a dangerous encounter.


    At the doors of Rhino bar, the Cardinal of Napous repeatedly emphasized how the opponent overstepped their boundaries. Diyana¡¯s group couldn¡¯t take care of matters here, as this was Napous Church¡¯s turf. In the face of all this, Diyana and the others had be long used to this kind of questioning.


    ¡°We grant the guidance of thew and righteous judgement; wee with justice and righteousness in our hearts; we reach our helping hands out to normal people whoe to us for help. What about you guys? You live for your great true God? Then why didn¡¯t I see you lot earlier at the blood sacrifice?¡±


    Dark elves always had a poisonous tongue. Even if knights were legally restricted from lying and used meannguage to purposefully hurt others, the simple truth was, on the contrary, even more hurtful.


    ¡°God of justice? I haven¡¯t seen your God ever do anything for you...¡±


    Seeing the other person¡¯sck of confidence, Mary, the soldier, took that opportunity to continue attacking. Mercenaries that didn¡¯t know how to have a good argument would be angered to death sooner orter, and it was difficult to answer her question. Only the newbie of the team, Thor, wore an rmed expression on their face.


    ¡°You guys... You... evil desecrators. Why do you deserve to be God¡¯s servant? You dark-skinned...¡±


    That was the kind of thing the Cardinal mumbled. To him, evil dark elves should have all been burned to death to begin with, and the God ofw who associated with them was also an evil God. No¡ªin the eyes of the fanatics, as long as someone didn¡¯t believe in his God, then that was already a fatal crime.


    From the way this Law trio saw things, these new guys were practically making trouble for no reason, and the fanatical priests were the loyal dogs of the Order True Gods.


    But from how the old Cardinal saw things, the way that the other person looked down on his God was simply intolerable and reprehensible. If his God hadn¡¯t issued a strict order to avoid conflict, they probably would have been fighting right now.


    If it were other people, they would probably think that this was yet another inevitable prelude to a religious-conflict-driven holy war, which wasmonly seen every couple centuries or millenia. However, I saw some innate differences between faith and the nature of holy teachings.


    The pir of holy light and the pir ofw were amongst the four pirs. They were also responsible for acting as the power source forw and holy-light-rted divine power. The Southern sect and the church ofw were created because of me. The most fundamental difference between them and traditional churches was that their teachings did not leave room for the Gods themselves. Their faith and approval were for the holy light and thew itself, not for other Gods.


    Perhaps this didn¡¯t look like much difference, but it was an enormous contrast in fundamentals. It concerned the rtionship between mortals and Gods, and the future of the entire world.


    Priests of various churches had a mutual respect for one another because they were all the most faithful servants to God, preachers of God¡¯s will, and shepherds who herded their flock of sheep on Eich. Priests were absolutely proud of their titles, and subconsciously drew a line between themselves and mortals.


    And yet, the teachings from the two new major sects told the people of the world that the world belonged to mortals. The point of spreading faith was to guide people to benevolence, and to make the world a better ce; it wasn¡¯t to carry out the work of God. Those out-of-touch Gods were just officials with special privileges who could be reced or even erased.


    If this wasn¡¯t desecration against the Gods, then what was? Let¡¯s not even mention that antiholy knight whom all the Gods saw as their natural enemy. For him to actually walk with those two major sects, it dissatisfied the various God orders.


    In some sense, the church ofw and the southern sect held up religious banners, but dug up graves for various Gods with their words.


    For some reason, I, who had been observing from the sidelines, suddenly thought about the phrase ¡°generation gap¡±... If we were to see things from another angle, time allowed for both generations¡ªof the old and the new¡ªto develop views on values, the difference between values of life, and different understandings of ¡°faith and religion¡± that were simply too simr before our eyes.


    A new power¡¯s rise naturally would conflict with old power, and with the addition ofw job sses and new era job sses like the four elemental swordcasters, it was unavoidable for the entire world to rapidly expand and have conflicts from various views, such as people¡¯s views on value, life pursuits, and views on faith. A scene like this was probably ying out in every corner of the entire world.


    But as mutual benefits and enemies existed, they had to keep their cool under the heavy pressure of their higher-ups. At the very least, they couldn¡¯t carry the guilt of being the first to provoke an argument.


    And so, this extremely helpless situation unfolded before our eyes. The Cardinal of thisnd had temple knights who had travelled from afar with him to block the opposition, and yet all they could do was...


    ¡°You¡¯re a douchebag. Your entire family¡¯s full of douches.¡±


    ¡°Your entire family¡¯s full of douches! My father¡¯s really impressive.¡±


    ¡°Douchebag, do you daree out?¡±


    ¡°Douchebag, do you daree in?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ming in. Hit me!¡±


    ¡°Ha! Hit me first if you¡¯ve got the balls.¡±


    Since he couldn¡¯t hit him, all he could do was talk.


    Divine clergymen wouldn¡¯t curse at people. They wouldn¡¯t forgo those fickle religious terms and quotes, and turn them into everyday speech. All that was left was this kind of yground trash talk.


    And since it had been decided that there would be absolutely no fighting, then they deserved to be praised for their ability to graduate to a school kid¡¯s argument. And since there was no way to gang up and fight, some people came up with other means.


    ¡°I, the holy knight who has lived an honorable life, White Behemoth, challenge you to a fair duel!¡±


    The middle-aged knight and leader of the group stepped out. Judging by his epaulette and mighty aura, he must have been a Legend-ranked knight.


    From the looks of things, he must have seen that the strongest opponent was ranked Gold, so he wanted to use his name and strength to beat down the opponent.


    However, the others stared at him with anxious looks. Clearly, the situation wasn¡¯t hopeful for them.


    Since the elemental tide skyrocketed since the dawn of the new generation, it became a lot easier to rank up than ever before. It became normal to see masters who ranked Gold, and there was even an ample supply of those ranked Legend.


    In the past, the threshold to rank Legend was the most difficult to breach as it was a step to creating one¡¯s own Soul Imprint; it was the conclusive end to the past and the clear path to future. It wasn¡¯t easy to actually realize oneself, and with the current environment, even those without Soul Imprints were able to rank up. However, there was no way topare strength with true legends of the older era.


    Half-baked Legends like this were no different in stats from Golds.


    Yet, there was still hope for them. As they strengthened their boundaries, they were able to also get a Soul Imprint. However, they were still destined to never be able to realize oneself. There was no way topare their Soul Imprints to those of truly powerful Legends of old. It was always the case of a slight increase in some ability, but quantitative change couldn¡¯t achieve qualitative change. Legends like this were called False Legends.


    Now, the leader of the knights, White, issued a challenge for a duel. False Legends like him who only just ranked up not too long ago might be able to add a Soul Imprint with some time, but now, he and the Gold master were no different in stats. It was no wonder hispanions were a little worried.


    ¡°If you lose, please withdraw from this mission and hand over your most recent clues to us. We¡¯ll handle matters of the state.¡±


    When arguments arose, it wasmon for knights, who saw honor as their life, to settle their disputes with duels. And, this was the best method White could think of there and then.


    ¡°We decline. We want to go ahead with the mission. Among us, we don¡¯t¡ª¡± Mid-sentence, Thor was dragged right back by a single delicate hand. Diyana took a step forward, and with a wave of her hand, she withdrew her silver heavy sword with sparks flying.


    ¡°Knights never cower from a duel. Please.¡±


    I shook my head as I watched helplessly from above. How could thisdy copy this too? Silly girl. What was a dark elf doing, copying the spirit of a knight? She had to be confused.


    ¡°But as the challenger, and a stronger challenger who was unfairly taking advantage of someone smaller at that, do you actually think that you have any honor worth believing in? Alright, then. As the person epting the challenge, if you lose, your must leave behind the sword in your hand.¡±


    Alright. I had to take back what I¡¯d just said. Diyana was a lot sneakier than Diana. The heavy sword in her hand was just a standard weapon, which was considered excellent at best. The knight in front of her carried a double-edged sword with a slight glow. It was obviously an extremely remarkable magical weapon, and a superior level at least. Who was to say, it might just be an epic sword¡ªone definitely worth gambling for.


    And what was the sneakiest, she only mentioned what would happen if the opponent lost. She didn¡¯t say that she would have to give her life if she lost. Even if she did lose, she could still talk her way out.


    But the old-fashioned leader of the holy knights far exceeded the limit of his dignity when he heard ¡°unfairly taking advantage of someone smaller¡±. The opponent¡¯s words, which weren¡¯t considered cutting, had left his facepletely flushed. If thispetition didn¡¯t greatly affect the church¡¯s reputation, then he would have had the urge to turn and run away.


    Now that he heard his opponent suggest such a seemingly unfair wager, not only did he hurriedly nod in agreement, he even shed the female elf a grateful look. For a second, he even believed that the opponent was the honorable knight helping take care of his knightly honor.


    The flustered looks on his teammates¡¯ faces seemed as though they saw something, but as their leader had agreed, there was no way for them to say anything now. All they could do was cheer their leader on.


    On the other side, the trio was undoubtedly from Sulfur Mountain City, and a lot more simple and practical. Mary immediately threw the little bag that she had packed to the brim with all different kinds of tools to Diana. Those were items which a four elemental swordcaster who relied on foreign objects carried on their body.


    And Thor handed Diana an ammunition bag he carried on his body. The open bag revealed different kinds of wooden grenades, which made people feel numb on the scalp. Goblins didn¡¯t care what main job ss they had, as they were all part-time merchants or goblin engineers.


    The bastards in the bar were already tuned into watching the show and constantly pointed around.


    And in that moment, I suddenly remembered something. I hurriedly got up and trotted downstairs in a rush.


    ¡°Wait! Wait! Don¡¯t hit just yet, and spare his life from your sword!¡±


    Then, the moment I rushed in the middle of both sides, everyone stared at me oddly. However, they really dide to a stop, as though they were waiting for me to say something.


    ¡°What clues did you uncover?¡±


    Seeing the guide suddenly run over, Mary seemed to have quickly figured something out. Instantly, her words caused an uproar.


    I, on the other hand, tried hard to be pleasant and shot my head up. I scanned every anxious face with all seriousness and used my high and mighty, yet deep and resounding voice to speak up.


    ¡°Gold female elf 1 to 15 odds, Legend holy knight 2 to 1 odds, a draw 1 to 3 odds. No limit. Come on now and ce your bets, time is money!¡±

 Chapter 486 - Anton and the Ancient Dragon

    <h4>Chapter 486: Anton and the Ancient Dragon</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°If ya walked by or just passed by, don¡¯t miss out! Legend knight fights a dark antiholy knight elf. Gold female elf 1 to 15 odds, Legend holy knight 2 to 1 odds, a draw 1 to 3 odds. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You¡¯d better hurry if you want in!¡±


    I casually grabbed the empty ount book from the counter and quickly wrote the betting odds and waved them around.


    ¡°Oh yeah! Do you guys want to take part? I, Karo, am an old hand. I can guarantee there¡¯s no age discrimination.¡±


    Thepanions of the duelists always cheered on their own teammates, but when I cried the betting odds at the clergymen, they instantly be oddly quiet on the spot.


    ¡°...Aren¡¯t bar duels reallymon?¡±


    I was a little astonished, but when I followed everyone¡¯s averted gazes, I saw that the aggravated holy knights all wore angry expressions on their faces. Some of them were unsheathing their swords, and I immediately came to the sudden realization.


    Alright. So although betting on bar fights was normal, it wasn¡¯tmon to see Epic and Gold ranks at Rhino Bar, a rural area. It didn¡¯t matter for newbies to fight and old hands to makemotion and bet on the fight. It really was quite ¡°unrestrained¡± for so high and mighty ¡°big characters¡± after another to duel.


    In some sense, those knights and priests were considered royalty. They werepletely two unrted things frommoner-level mercenaries.


    ¡°Which one? I¡¯ll share 450 with you guys? Don¡¯t be pissed. Alright, alright! For real though, I¡¯m just joking.¡±


    It seemed that it was hard to do business here. I shook my head and shrugged, then ran back to the adventurers who were still eating breakfast.


    But this time, my bets actually sold well. One by one, duplicate bets were quickly sold out.


    As expected, most people supported the Legend holy knight. After all, their difference in strength was very obvious as one ranked higher than the other. What was more, the holy knight¡¯s weapon was obviously not a mortal object. When the difference in strength was slim, this was an important bargaining chip to make the final decision. With those two factorsbined, it was only natural for the majority to look highly upon the well-prepared White Behemoth leader of the knights.


    ¡°Looks like if the holy knight wins, I can go bankrupt this time. Had I known this, I wouldn¡¯t have started betting.¡±


    In that moment, my face was filled with agony, as though I was worried to lose too devastatingly this time round.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about regretting it. You cheater, you should have bankrupted ages ago. Karo, this time you better not even think about not paying up. We¡¯ll be watching you.¡±


    ¡°Come. 100 gold pieces on the holy knight. Ha! Karo, you brat, I¡¯ll be waiting to see you cry.¡±


    ¡°If we¡¯re betting, I¡¯m putting my money on the female elf. Karo, you brat, have you ever lost?¡±


    Of course, there were some really sly guys, but this didn¡¯t affect the bigger picture. For the gold pieces, the majority chose the strongest side, so even if they won, their takings would be very little.


    As this gamble involved divine clergymen, their status had already made sure that this wasn¡¯t a long-thought-out scam. Soon enough, the bets reached over two thousand.


    ¡°Hurry up and fight.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re waiting for you guys. What are you staring at? Is this dog fighting? If you¡¯re weak, then run home to mama for milk.¡±


    The crude mercenaries didn¡¯t care about some big shots who came from the Capital. When those mercenaries waved their betting tickets and started hollering, it was that familiar dog fighting time again.


    It if were any ordinary Legend fighter, these kind of circumstances wouldn¡¯t be normal, and there wouldn¡¯t really be a duel. What they should actually do was to firstly take out these douchebag mercenaries, then show them what the sanctity of a Legend fighter really was.


    But in that very moment, White, the leader of the knights, didn¡¯t have anywhere to retreat to. His focus was his own opponent from start to end; he didn¡¯t sway nor hesitate at all.


    He represented the sanctity of his church, and issued a challenge with his own name. That was the resolution he possessed from the very beginning despite the humiliation of challenging a lower-ranked knight to a duel.


    ¡°I¡¯d say that this is worth about 2500 gold pieces as a bet on my side¡¯s female elf?¡±


    Other people didn¡¯t react as the goblin, Thor, quickly threw out a silver piece into the air, forming a silver arc as it fell upon my hand.


    With one touch, I noticed that it was actually an ancient great demon¡¯s voodoo mithril. Following the great demons¡¯ return, this antique and ancient currency made of precious metals was rarely seen on the market, nor was it cheap.


    And this kind of voodoo mithril was very special; a fair amount of mages even collected these to research the voodoo magic hidden within. Its value on the market rose exponentially. The current value was more or less the amount he just reported, but if one were to throw it to the Mage Country, they should be able to get twice the value for it.


    ¡°As expected, goblins won¡¯t miss out on any opportunity to make money.¡±


    As I collected the mithril piece, I looked happy on the surface, but deep down inside, I was cursing him. This prick was deliberately trying to f*ck me, wasn¡¯t he? If his side won, wouldn¡¯t I lose out big time?


    But I couldn¡¯t refuse the bet; after all, on the surface, I supported the middle-aged uncle with the full beard. In that moment, if I didn¡¯t happily ept the bet, then wouldn¡¯t I be showing my cards?


    And so, I grew even more hesitant... One shouldn¡¯t misunderstand¡ªit was not because I was afraid of losing money. I certainly didn¡¯t always win my bets because I have good luck in gambling; in contrast, my luck has never been good.


    ¡°I¡¯m only able to win every bet because I cheat every time. Although I could also cheat now, if I let that idiot holy knight and their church win, that might just piss me off even more than losing money.¡±


    Originally, I could have also taunted those guys of Napous¡¯ church of justice andmandment to get them to bet even more and make up for my losses. However, having considered their God¡¯s concept of ¡°discipline¡± and that gambling was an absolutely forbidden act, my head hurt a little.


    ¡°Then, let¡¯s postpone the duel and start the backup n. Harloys, move the n ahead of schedule.¡±


    ¡°...Can¡¯t you be a little more serious? Didn¡¯t you say that we¡¯ll start tomorrow?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t what we¡¯re doing now serious business? If we wait till tomorrow, who¡¯s to say there won¡¯t be a new victim? The safety of innocent civilians is the most important thing, and we are duty bound to eradicate followers of the dark cult! What¡¯s more, how ridiculously long do you think it will take them to find out the truth with their investigative skills? My warm-hearted nature even makes me emotional.¡±


    ¡°Hmph! I can¡¯t be bothered to argue with you. Be careful not to screw it up...¡±


    As both parties of the impending fight continued to stare angrily, they had no idea that their duel was doomed to end in nothing.


    Soon enough, behind the mountain of the little town, a sudden explosion erupted because of the carelessness of foreign adventurers. The explosion caused a small-scalendslide, which exposed the secret behind the mountain of the little town¡ªthe boneyard of Wiir the demon dragon.


    That dark disciple from the Death Council was deeply hidden. In fact, for the past few days, even I couldn¡¯t find his whereabouts. It was highly possible that he wasn¡¯t even staying in the nearby town. Considering that they were special undead creatures, he could even be buried within the cemetery, waiting for explorers to leave. No matter the external appearance or indications of life, he would look like a corpse. If the hidden agent had enough patience, there was just no way of finding them.


    But I was different from those other newbies; I was a mature and well-trained investigator who wouldn¡¯t scatter everywhere like headless chickens. That would only alert the enemy. I just collected intel and analyzed possible scenarios of the case. Amongst the many investigative strategies, it might seem old-school to guess the killer¡¯s next target by their characteristics, but this method was indeed practical.


    ¡°Since we know it¡¯s someone from the Death Council, that actually makes things easier. The Death Council only had two objectives in this world; one, to open the gate through to the death ne and call upon the dead spirits and Undead Cmity to spread death; two, to create even more and even stronger undead creatures to expand their undead army for their master.


    The first objective could be immediately written off. Even if the elemental tide rose endlessly in today¡¯s generation, there weren¡¯t just one or two requirements needed to open the gate. Using all the townspeople for a blood sacrifice wouldn¡¯t even be enough, and this ce wasn¡¯t a stable, empty space to connect to the ne. It simply wasn¡¯t fit to open the gate to the death ne.


    Then it could only be the second objective. To create arge and powerful army of undead creatures, they required enough living and strong corpses. And, there were always clues that could be followed here.


    What was left was simple; open the mayor¡¯s archive and read through all kinds of historical documents and legends. Then, eliminate the meaningless and inapplicable items toe out with the only possible answer.


    We only found out about a heroic dragonyer¡¯s over three hundred year old feat from a locally spread song for heroes. The story was so old that it was absolutely unoriginal. Several adventurers got an order from some leader to kill the evil dragon that kidnapped the leader¡¯s precious daughter. In the end, the adventurers chose to live in thisnd. One of the pike-wielding heroes was Anton, the origin of the town¡¯s name, and the other two heroes¡¯ names were also passed onto two other towns.


    After she found out about the dragon yer¡¯s feat, Harloys, who had the nickname of ¡°Living Library¡± among other nicknames, went to research the local historical books. Byparing the names, she found out which unlucky dragon was killed here.


    ¡°Demon dragon Wiir¡ªthat¡¯s an elven name. It was said that he once lived with the elves for some time. Mhm, although he was a green dragon, the mortal enemy of the elves, he and the elves had a great rtionship. He even had two elven wives, which was simply odd. What¡¯s even more odd was that he was a wind poison green dragon who specialized in fire magic, and he even invented several exclusive types of fire magic.¡±


    Countless facts proved that the truth behind the legend was definitely a load of bull. The people¡¯s songs about Epic heroes were mostly unreliable, but this time, having seen the difference between factual records and legends, I was still left a little unable to understand it all.


    ¡°Tri-attribute ancient dragon? Invention of exclusive magic? At least a top-ss master, then. With an opponent like that, even a semigod couldn¡¯t defeat him, and yet three heroes who hadn¡¯t even made it to the state history books defeated him? If we¡¯re looking at the the sessful battle records, the heroes might not even be ranked Epic.¡±


    We definitely didn¡¯t underestimate this demon dragon based on this record. First off, he had a seven to eight hundred year history of hanging out with elves, so he was definitely an ancient dragon. Secondly, besides possessing wind type and poison type magic, he even trained in fire magic, the best magic for warfare and ughter. He was definitely a frightening ughter machine in war.


    For the time being, I wouldn¡¯t get into what happened back in the old days in the town. Since I know that this powerful demon dragon died here, the Death Council¡¯s objective became very clear. So, as an ultra-qualified undead mage, I had countless techniques to find the regrets of powerful creatures. With just an hour¡¯s time, I found the dragon bones buried underground behind the mountain of the town.


    *Kaboom!*


    The fierce explosion caused the earth to tremble, and put the wooden structure of the entire bar to an immense test. Soon enough, the dragon bones uncovered with the st automatically lured the Death Council¡¯s disciples to take the bait. Naturally, there was no way that the guys here would be able to duel anymore.


    I¡¯d still nned to wait a day while collecting a little more reliable intel. However, beginning since this sudden turn of events, my n was pushed forward. Mhm, I was simply hot-blooded and wanted to help out. It definitely wasn¡¯t because I wasn¡¯t willing to lose my money in that gamble I set up!


    However, sensing that the entire ground was still shaking, and the wine sses on the table had been smashed to pieces, it seemed like they overdid it. This amount of force was a little too excessive.


    ¡°Harloys, how many did you bury? You overdid it...¡±


    ¡°I have two pieces of news; one¡¯s good, and the other¡¯s bad...¡±


    ¡°Just spit it out. Besides, there¡¯s nowhere to go.¡±


    ¡°The good news is that our n seeded, and I¡¯ve already found those Death Council disciples. They sent people to keep watch of this ce, and are in a hurry to findrades for help.¡±


    ¡°Is the bad news that you didn¡¯t catch him?¡±


    ¡°No, the bad news is that the Death Council have bitten off more than they could chew. There¡¯s no way to summon the dragon with its bones. Their n was doomed to fail from the start.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that good news?¡±


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s bad news. The reason why they can¡¯t summon the dragon with its bones is because those weren¡¯t dragon bones. Buried under the mountain was a crazy, pissed off dragon lich, and we just blew up his home!¡±

 Chapter 487 - Dragon Lich

    <h4>Chapter 487: Dragon Lich</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Dragon lich? Quit joking around. Dragon liches are unwanted amongst the dragon n, and there are barely any in existence. We were able toe across such a rare relic?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not joking! This dragon lich seems pissed off. Hurry ande save the people before he wipes out all life in the area.¡±


    When the intense explosion blew off over half the mountain, the duel all of a sudden came to a natural pause.


    Thendslide sent sand and rocks flying as a ck magical pir rapidly rose like smoke from war fire. The pir was a mix of death magic and terrifyingly powerful dragon magic. In the very end, a ck dragon made of smoke was formed in the sky¡ªthe symbol of an enraged dragon lich.


    Liches were not to be messed with. This was the path that mages would take when they were on a brink. Although liches would be Legend at the very weakest in name, and transforming into an undead creature would weaken their flesh, their limitless time allowed them to umte knowledge to surpass ordinary mages.


    Dragon liches were even more so not to be messed with, as they differed from the fragile lich bodies. Dragon bones and human bones were fundamentally different in disposition. Dragon lich¡¯s bodies were formed with a mix of dragon bones and magic, and the strength of their flesh looked purely greater than undead dragon bones of higher level fighters. Giant dragons were naturally gifted in both magic and physical attributes. What reason was there not to continue using magic to strengthen the body after death?


    As they made up for their ws, the only exnation for transforming into a dragon lich and not bing a tomb guardian dragon, or other kind of dead dragon like spirit dragon, was that they had progressed very far on their path of magic. By bing a dragon lich, they were doing their best to preserve their abilities.


    If liches were considered standard masters, dragon liches were mature dragons as well as masters. They were rare and extraordinarily difficult to defeat.


    ¡°What terrifying evil is this?!¡±


    ¡°Holy light! That enemy is worth a battle!¡±


    ¡°The third team of de of Justice Holy Knights are all here! Assemble! Onward to the evil entity, charge!¡±


    The high-level holy knights who could summon mounts got theirnces ready. Other holy knights also naturally got into battle mode. That cardinal wanted to stop them, but was immediately pushed aside.


    ¡°Please don¡¯t block our way in the final moment of our big search for the evil prevailing over us all. This is our duty.¡±


    Sometimes, this job as a holy knight not only made it difficult to deal with opponents¡ªthey also confused their own allies.


    For example, there was clearly a super-boss that was beyond their abilities to handle before their eyes. Normal people would think to fight it if you could take it on, but if not, they¡¯d feel fear. In contrast, when facing an undefeatable enemy, the honorable holy knight felt more delighted the more evil and powerful it was. And if there were towns and civilians to protect behind them, the more they couldn¡¯t back out of the fight to the death.


    After the war between the Holy Light and Guardians seven years ago, Estrada¡¯s achievement was broadcast across the world. The clearer it became that the entire world was enveloped in darkness, the more delighted those holy knights were toe across battles of sacrificial and protective nature.


    Although some people mocked those holy knights for not knowing when to fight or retreat like berserkers, one couldn¡¯t deny that their bravery and sacrifice did in fact save quite a few innocent lives.


    This was the reason why the Holy Church¡¯s reputation got worse yet the holy knights were weed by everyone all along. The people wouldn¡¯t forget who truly treated them well.


    However, in this moment, this special quality of being ¡°not afraid of a strong enemy¡± actually gave their rades¡± a little headache.


    ¡°Charge right up to such terrifying magic without hesitation? Doesn¡¯t the manual tell us we must first protect ourselves when wee across opponents we cannot defeat?¡±


    ¡°...That¡¯s not the point. The point is that menacing look. I¡¯m afraid of charging up at the opponent just by looking at them. Why didn¡¯t you give a heads-up before yelling and fighting? Just because they use dark or death magic doesn¡¯t mean that they¡¯re definitely our mortal enemy.¡±


    The northern trio actually seemed really calm. At least the training they received meant that they wouldn¡¯t treat all undead and dark mages as their mortal enemies. But apart from the rtively reasonable Nortnds, an overwhelming majority of organizations and countries wouldn¡¯t put ¡°safety first¡± and ¡°calmmunication¡± into their training manuals. To them, if cannon fodder and tools had a mind of their own, then they weren¡¯t actually that useful anymore.


    But just then, the two investigating teams were on the same boat. If those holy knights really angered that powerful force in existence, the entire town would likely suffer.


    After a simple talk, the trio also went after the Holy Knights. However, they headed back to their rooms first to grab some equipment.


    Before this, resident mercenaries in the entire Rhino Bar also grabbed their weapons and headed out. Checking out the scene of action was way better than waiting around here.


    As for me, I collected all the betting tickets and takings, then counted them in hopes that I¡¯d make it in time to collect the silly cat¡¯s corpse. But before I could step out the door, my hand was pulled back from behind.


    ¡°What are you going to do? You can¡¯t even help out, so don¡¯t trouble everyone.¡±


    Although she sounded firm, her graceful face looked a little worried. While holding a broom, a peculiar faint yellow tint shed across Katerina¡¯s elegant eyes.


    I was stunned at first, but the next second, I smiled as I made a decision.


    ¡°It¡¯s about time... So, er, juste with me. Watch over me, and you won¡¯t have to worry about me, right?¡±


    I reached my hand out to grab the girl¡¯s hand. The girl didn¡¯t even fight back. Her face immediately flushed red, but I had no time to exin.


    I eagerly rushed out the door. But before I left, I waved at the bar owner. ¡°Old Barton, we¡¯re stepping out for a bit.¡±


    I jumped upon the horse by the bar and dragged the girl up. The two of us were about to ride off, but after just a few steps, we heard the very real, very angry roar of a dragon.


    ¡°It¡¯s your group of tin-heads again. I hid myself underground, yet you were still able toe bother me. Alright. So you guys won¡¯t give me an exnation, and you won¡¯tpensate for my treasures? Then I¡¯ll just wait for your God to collect his people!¡±


    The anger in the dragon lich¡¯s voice rose sky high, and the ck clouds suddenly started toe down. The anger which ran rampant was able to materialize as a ck tornado. For thoughts to be able to materialize and disturb the world, that was a sign of power. I re-assessed my evaluation of this dragon lich. He was definitely a top-level dragon mage who possessed his own Soul World. And if so, then those Holy Knights were all wasting their time trying to fight him.


    As for those holy knights... it seems like they¡¯d taken the me for a certain someone. That was to say, a few of them might have already died.


    Even for someone like me, I felt a little guilty right now. But having thought about it again, I moved on.


    ¡°In any case, they¡¯vee to investigate this case. In the end, the Death Council will definitely implicate the dragon lich into this rather than taking the usual path¡ªfinding vigers to interview, taking on small missions to boost their poprity, and taking one step at a time investigating each and every clue. By fighting the boss right away, it was a big time saver from having to strategize at all.¡±


    ¡°Sigh. Aren¡¯t I heading over to help out...¡±


    The Rhino Bar was already close by the rear of the mountain, so on horse, we beat the walking adventurers there who travelled by foot. By the time we arrived, we caught sight of the horrific scene.


    The humongous white giant bone dragon roared in anger, and before it stood a blonde humandy.


    White, the leader of the knights who nned to save people, was beneath its feet, and it was unclear if he was dead or alive. Each and every one of those holy knights was sprawled face down on the ground, and the third team of knights of justice was all wiped out.


    She had long golden silky hair, and a cute, captivating little face as red as an apple. At such a young age, she had the attractiveness that couldnd someone in trouble.


    ¡°Let go off that loli! Let me do it!¡± As I cried out the catchphrase, the scene froze for a moment. The dragon lich stared at me with an odd look, then I realized that something was wrong.


    ¡°...Ah, think I got the wrong phrase. Let that girl go! If you¡¯ve got the balls,e at me instead!¡±


    The dragon lich¡¯s head shot up as its gaze swept back and forth between me and the blonde girl. It raised its head and let out a thunderous angry roar, then the dragon¡¯s ck deathly breath cut the sky and materialized.


    The next second, the dragon lich¡¯s green soulfire eyes appeared right before me.


    ¡°Soul connection? Finally, there¡¯s someone who recognizes it. You¡¯re this brat¡¯s guardian, aren¡¯t ya? Let¡¯s not mention how your brat was ying with fireworks and blew up my door; my treasures which I¡¯ve been collecting for several thousands of years are all gone... all gone! You tell me what to do! They were all precious original pieces from the elven dynasty. Even though they weren¡¯t genuine pieces, they were the elven master¡¯s masterpieces. C-can you everpensate for them?!¡±


    The dragon pointed its boney finger to the trash by the side. Over there was a pile of what used to be exceptionally striking elven statues. It looked like those ancient valuable art pieces had now been blown up into rubbish.


    The next second, seeing that rubble made the dragon lich immediately cry in devastation. ¡°My treasures! My 1:1 imitation beautiful group of female elven statues! Oh Eich, how could this world be so cruel!¡±


    I was stunned right now. Seeing this practically wailing dragon lich begging forpensation, I suddenly thought about the tragic story of the brat who entered the otaku treasure trove from a particr world. I thought about the tragic image of those dismembered expensive figurines.


    ¡°Pft! Another die-hard otaku lich. As expected, liches who have been hermits for too long are all perverts, huh?¡±


    I watched my soul-bound winner in life gold elf who spewed hurtful words with an annoyed expression along with a child-like face that feigned innocence. All of a sudden, I remembered the tragic story again of Annie¡¯s surprise attack on Sulfur Mountain City. When my priceless illustrated magazines and my limited edition illustrated books ended up scrawled all over by that brat, Annie also looked at me with that same innocent look. I felt even more sympathy for this unlucky dragon lich.


    I suddenly remembered that our information mentioned this strange giant dragon lived with elves for a really long time. Perhaps it wasn¡¯t to seek some kind of magic or secret, but to simply collect creative art.


    As I stared at Harloys, who feigned innocence just like Annie did back in the day, I got a little pissed at the thought of the countless times that brat looted stuff, and how I had to patiently exin ethics to the brat without getting mad.


    And the best way to stop feeling pissed off was to make people even more pissed off.


    ¡°Don¡¯t cry. You¡¯re a dragon lich! Forget those ancient scraps and rough fakes from the elven kingdom; I have an elven princess from the elven kingdom. Her inventory is definitely richer than yours. Oh, yeah. You¡¯re probably not even two thousand years old, right? Then, you definitely haven¡¯t seen the elven royalty¡¯s gold elf, right? They¡¯ve been described as the most beautiful, most perfect elves. Use her as a model, and who¡¯s to say what outstanding masterpieces you¡¯ll make.¡±


    The dragon lich came to a stop, but his soulfire roared.


    ¡°Really? A gold elf? Impossible! No, my truth detection magic didn¡¯t react. You¡¯re telling the truth! There really are gold elves in this world!¡±


    This lich locked himself up for over three hundred years. At the time, Harloys was still the Banshee Queen. He was absolutely right in the fact that gold elves were extinct. But in that moment, his body twisted in joy, and the ck smog formed two wings. The entire dragon looked as though it was dancing a peculiar dance.


    ¡°Wait! Y-You actually dare sell me?! Dragon lich! He was the one who ordered me to set up the spell to blow up the mountain! Hurry up and eat him!¡±


    ¡°Pft! Golden elf pet for rent. As long as you can pay up, we can talk everything out.¡±

 Chapter 488 - Dragon and Hero

    <h4>Chapter 488: Dragon and Hero</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ording to the typical plot of a fantasy novel, events should have unfolded like this:


    While investigating the dark disciples, the main character¡¯s adventuring team and an opposing adventuring team were finally forced to band together, resisting against this evil. Yet, the enemy was far too powerful, and the adventurers were unable to win. At this moment of despair, a certain person arrived...


    ¡°And then it¡¯s the fun time to activate one¡¯s cheat and fight the boss. The mostmon cheats include the male lead having incredible plot armor, or some sudden elite reinforcements. More reasonable plots would be something like a certain priest using their own life force for something like a God¡¯s Descent. It would be even better if the priest is a beautiful female priestess instead. That might even get some tears from the audience. Oh, right, and if the female lead doesn¡¯t have enough poprity, it¡¯s perfectly fine to have her sacrifice herself, which will both satisfy the audience as well as give a great chance to the secondary female character. It will even give the male lead a reason to explode in anger, which is so great for the plot! Although it¡¯s clich¨¦, it¡¯s really practical.¡±


    ¡°...Indeed, those stories about legends mostly have such clich¨¦s. I¡¯ve read many of them, and felt at the time that they were quite hot-blooded. I was especially sympathetic whenever the female lead died. I never expected that there were such tropes hidden behind the story. Hearing a great speaker is truly better than reading ten years of books. You are truly an outstanding schr.¡±


    The dragon lich Wiir kept nodding and praising myments. He didn¡¯t even consider how¡ªif things really developed like they would in a clich¨¦ story¡ªhe himself would have been the evil boss who mysteriously got somehow killed off by the hero.


    Of course, we were just talking about random stuff right now. Both of us knew perfectly well that stories were just stories, and reality was reality. In this world, there was no such thing as the weak defeating the stronger. Winning simply by giving one¡¯s all was something that would only fool a child. The winner would definitely have something that helped him to seed, even if it was only luck.


    ¡°Maybe you think it¡¯s ridiculous how fast and cheat-like his progress is, and how much glory he¡¯s receiving. But, perhaps you simply haven¡¯t seen his own advantages and how hard he¡¯s working in secret.¡±


    People always tended to ignore how the powerful would always have so many umted failures before they reached the peak. As for the lucky brats that gained power through a one-time miracle, they would typically believe themselves to be harem protagonists favored by the world, and constantly challenge opponents too strong for them to handle. Such people would never live long in reality.


    From a certain standpoint, White and the other holy knights were quite lucky. If they had met a dragon lich with a normal personality, they would all be dead already. Perhaps today would be a good lesson for them.


    ¡°Is it really alright to just toss them there on the ground?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s fine. I never expected that the Legend-ranked holy knights of this generation would be so weak. A simple negative energy wave knocked them all unconscious in a single attack. They probably didn¡¯t even see my face. Anyways, little girl, are you really a Gold Elf? Why does it seem that my negative energy wave even had beneficial effects for you? You¡¯re also undead? No, I can clearly sense that you¡¯re living.¡±


    Harloys didn¡¯t reply, as she still appeared to be angry that I had tried to sell her. So, I was the first to reply to Wiir¡¯s question.


    ¡°Heh heh, that¡¯s a long story. It¡¯s some of my personal research aplishments on the topic of half-undead living creatures. I believe that as a dragon lich, you know the rules.¡±


    Any mage¡¯s personal research results would be their most important treasure. Forcefully trying to obtain such information would be the equivalent of dering an all-out war. Anyone who wanted to obtain information would have to offer equivalent information of their own.


    Wiir nodded, and didn¡¯t inquire any further. Although he was actually well known for being easy to deal with despite his power level, there still wouldn¡¯t have been any equal negotiation to begin with if both parties weren¡¯t at the same level.


    Dragons were all naturally skilled at seeing through all lies and illusions. Liches also possessed mysterious soul senses. These two information channels helped Wiir to see that something appeared to be off. At the very least, he was unable to see through the gold-haired little girl and the adult man before him. And, anyone that he wasn¡¯t able to see through automatically would be incredibly dangerous existences.


    The holy knights charged forward the quickest, but they had all been defeated in an instant. And after us were the other adventurers, as well as the three-person team from the Nortnds. They weren¡¯t in as much of a hurry, so they would arrive only to see the unconscious holy knights on the ground. But since the holy knights had all been defeated in just an instant, they wouldn¡¯t be finding out any information here at all.


    After all, we had already left this location...


    ¡°I never expected that you would agree to enter my home. This is a dragon nest, after all.¡±


    The hole in the mountain had been magically sealed up again. Wiir walked in front with an oilmp, while we as guests followed him close after.


    ¡°My apologies. I forgot that you guys don¡¯t have the ability to see in the dark.¡±


    Wiir suddenly snapped his fingers, lighting up all the magical oilmps in the corridor. It was now revealed that we were walking through a corridor with countless paintings on the wall. And, this corridor was just about to reach its end.


    ¡°Ka-shing!¡±


    All themps on the walls were lighted up to reveal a gigantic hallway that was extravagantly and opulently decorated. The only insufficiency was that many stone gargoyles were currently working to repair the ceiling. It would seem that this was the location that suffered the most damage from Harloys¡¯ explosion. And, looking at the ¡°treasures¡± around us, this ce was either the dragon lich¡¯s treasury, or his bedroom.


    Sculptures, paintings, and oil paintings could be seen everywhere. Everything was in the elven style. There were also plenty of the wood elves¡¯ wooden crafts. It would seem that this dragon lich was truly a pure elf-loving otaku.


    But, the most ridiculous part was...


    ¡°Hey, Wiir, are you Korean or Thai? ...Cough, I mean to ask, are you using the physical appearance of an elven female? But from your voice, aren¡¯t you a male dragon?¡±


    ¡°I was previously a male dragon while I was alive. However, gender is meaningless after death, and the pursuit of beauty is the only desire I had in life. Since I focusedpletely on elven beauty while I was alive, it was only natural that I choose the most beautiful elven form possible as my humanoid form.¡±


    Wiir was about as tall as a normal elf, but ¡°he¡± had sexy curvesparable to that of a subus. His elf form¡¯s silky and smooth golden hair was in the royal curly style, and his figure possessed outstanding pure beauty, and was a figure that any elf would be jealous of. His smile also appeared quite alluring.


    If it hadn¡¯t been for the fact that he couldn¡¯t fake his low and thick soulvoice, I would have thought that he was a miniature version of the Gold Elf queen.


    ¡°My... my mom! He looks so much like my mom! This smile looks just like her from back in the day.¡± This somewhat familiar looking face also brought back some of Harloys¡¯ memories. But immediately right after, Harloys became rather dissatisfied. Yet, right now, the reality was that the other party was stronger than us, so it wasn¡¯t convenient for her to stir up any trouble.


    ¡°I¡¯m tired.¡± Although she had just been interestedly looking around at the elven artwork, Harloys immediately transformed into a cat and jumped onto my shoulder. She then closed her eyes and yawned. This scene startled Katerina, who had been trembling as she followed me all this time.


    She had also attempted to feed the silly cat before; of course, Harloys waspletely disinterested in leftovers from the bar. Since so many unbelievable things had just happened in quick session, Katerina didn¡¯t even know what was going on anymore.


    ¡°Her Highness Harloys? I¡¯ve heard of her wonderful beauty before as well. She was reputed to be the most glorious golden moon of the elven empire. My elf form was even based on a painting of her. Of course, the painting was of an imagined adult version of her.¡±


    Alright then, so Wiir hadn¡¯t even based his form on Harloys¡¯ mother, but Harloys herself. The silly cat¡¯s expression became even moreplex after hearing this.


    ¡°It¡¯s a pity that there¡¯s one obvious giant error. Gold Elves are a bit taller than Royal Elves, and Royal Elves are a bit taller than normal elves. You need to be taller by at least 33% to have a proper Gold Elf¡¯s figure.¡±


    Before I even finished talking, this dragon lich of a mysterious gender whipped out a notebook and started taking notes while gazing at me with a passionate look, as if expecting me to go on.


    A whileter, Wiir seemed to have calmed down and be embarrassed as he awkwardly coughed.


    ¡°Cough, it¡¯s such a pity. I truly regret that I wasn¡¯t alive ten thousand years ago during the elves¡¯ generation. I would be willing to use all of my life¡¯s treasures to have been able to witness Her Highness Harloys¡¯ appearance back then.¡±


    But right after that, Wiir turned to look at the only mortal present among us.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what rtionship thisdy has with the two of you? The aura of death in my home is too strong, so it¡¯s unsuitable for normal people... I apologize for being such a poor host.¡±


    However, he stopped right there with his words as he realized that his nest hadn¡¯t had any real air for centuries, so that the aura of death was thick enough to directly kill any living person. Since Katerina had been fine even until now, this was already the best exnation that she, too, was no ordinary person.


    ¡°Is she a dragon¡¯s descendant? Demon¡¯s descendant? God¡¯s descendant?¡±


    However, I denied all of Wiir¡¯s guesses. Actually, Katerina was quite well hidden. I would never have guessed the truth if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I had seen Astrya¡¯s ¡°game walkthrough.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, she¡¯s not pure human, but that¡¯s not important right now.¡± I paused for a moment, and turned to look towards Katerina. Although she seemed to have an expression of being startled by everything so far, she didn¡¯t have any expression of disbelief. It would seem that she had long since known that she wasn¡¯t pure human, and that she was afraid of others knowing the truth.


    ¡°Karo, you? You knew...?¡±


    I lowered my head and smiled at her somewhat panicky expression. I then patted her twice on the head.


    ¡°I told you before that I¡¯m an epic hero. Why is it that nobody ever believes me when I¡¯m telling the truth? Rx, I¡¯m on your side.¡± Right after that, I spoke to Wiir again. ¡°Actually, what she is isn¡¯t important at all. What important is her father, Old Barton. Now he¡¯s truly someone.¡±


    That was right, I had stayed behind at this bar using the alias of Karo for half a year for the sake of Katerina¡¯s adopted father Old Barton rather than Katerina herself. ording to the game walkthrough, Old Barton was actually a super warrior who should have entered the battlefield again ten years in the future. Old Barton was actually the strongest dragon knight general from the epics who ended up dying of old age because he achieved his peak toote in life. Otherwise, his power level could have been ranked in the top ten of this Holy War based on potential alone.


    Thanks to my half-plus year of teaching him, Old Barton¡¯s true power level had already far surpassed his achievements in the game¡¯s history. This unpolished gem was now looking far more like a valuable gem. I was quite confident about the ugly old baldie¡¯s future.


    And, I also came here to find Wiir intentionally in order to ask some questions that only he would have the answers to.


    ¡°I was originally quite curious as Old Barton seemed like nothing more than a local idle mercenary. Just how did he obtain the prideful dragons¡¯ recognition and be a dragon knight general? Just where did he obtain his dragon bloodline from? Not only that, he possessed one of the rarest dragon bloodlines, that of the Cyan Dragon, a branch offshoot of Green Dragons. But now, things appear quite clear. Old Barton, whose real name is Barton Anton, is the descendant of the spear hero, and your descendant as well?¡±


    My question caused Wiir to be surprised for a moment. Right after that, he had an expression of joy. ¡°She really had my child? She really loved me after all!¡±


    My overly abundant imagination caused me to understand everything instantly, giving me a great blow to my worldview. Since Barton was the descendant of the three local heroes, then the ¡°she¡± that this pervert dragon was referring to was naturally one of the three heroes as well. In that case, the so-called local legend about the three heroes defeating and ying the evil dragon must have been quite far from the truth.


    ¡°Something like a demon king and a hero falling in love doesn¡¯t even count as a fresh story. A dragonying hero having a child of a dragon is understandable as well. Yep, yep. It¡¯spletely understandable. There¡¯s nothing to it.¡±


    ¡°I, I can¡¯t understand! My ancestor is a hero who slew an evil dragon, not some¡ª¡±


    However, Katerina didn¡¯t finish talking when Wiir suddenly hugged her. His dragon strength flung the girl into the air like she was a swing, but the next instant, she was caught into his warm andrge-breasted embrace.


    ¡°Your father is my descendant, so you¡¯re my descendant as well? How pitiful, you¡¯re so weak and skinny. You must have had such a hard time over the years without an elder watching over you. You can call me Grandfather. I¡¯ll take good care of you in the future...¡±


    But the next instant, Wiir noticed that something was off with the girl in his embrace.


    ¡°Eh? You¡¯re not a dragon descendant? You¡¯re not even a fully living creature? Metallic bones? What type of life form is this?¡±


    After some hesitation, as I saw how panicked Katerina seemed to be, I knew that it was time to face the truth.


    ¡°Wiir, have you ever heard of the schrs¡¯ generation of Haletdam, and the taboo research they did regarding the divine...¡±

 Chapter 489 - Conservation

    <h4>Chapter 489: Conservation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor:</strong> imperfectluck <strong>Editor:</strong> Kurisu


    When we returned to the Rhino Bar, Katerina still had a dazed and panicky expression as if she had received a serious psychological impact.


    She learned that her father, Old Barton, had hidden many things from her. She learned that she wasn¡¯t human. Yet, she was only panicky, but hadn¡¯t utterly copsed. This already proved that while she might have seemed weak on the surface, she was actually quite strong inside.


    But, the moment she entered the bar, her anxiety still caused her to instinctively look towards her father in search of assistance.


    The bar owner Old Barton felt pain in his heart to see his daughter with such an expression. He then immediately red at me. As for all the other patrons of the bar? They didn¡¯t care one bit why the barkeep¡¯s daughter and a drunkard had suddenly disappeared together and then reappeared. They were all busy with their own affairs.


    And right now, in the middle of the bar room, two merchants traveling on foot and wearing in clothes were tied up on some chairs. Their personal items were ced on a nearby table, and the most obvious item among them was a ck and silver skeleton head essory. This was the symbol of the Death Council.


    It would seem that we had overanalyzed things. This time, the dark cultists from the Death Council weren¡¯t locals at all. Instead, they were traveling merchants that could easily move around freely in disguise. And since I had no recollection of their faces, they must have camped outside the town rather than staying at a tavern inside town.


    This was also something that I¡¯d expected. I had already investigated the few nearby small towns, but hadn¡¯t discovered a single undead mage. However, the fact that they had been camping outside the town also faintly hinted at another truth¡ªsince these two obviously didn¡¯t have enough of a power level to survive outside in the wild by themselves, the Death Council probably had many people, and perhaps even an entire independent base. Then, this meant things would beplex.


    ¡°How troublesome. It doesn¡¯t seem that there¡¯s only a few scattered dark cultists; the Death Council is actually well organized in the area. These two are probably nothing more than scouts, which means the dragon lichmotion has likely alerted them. The Death Council will probably take action at any moment.¡±


    I arrived at such a conclusion in just a short moment. All this meant was that I had be far too experienced at meeting and dealing with trouble. I doubted that these novices would be able to guess all this, however. Right now, I was trying to think of a way to give these novices a hint without revealing myself so that they could swiftly obtain this information and make suitable preparations...


    ¡°I... I surrender, don¡¯t kill me! There¡¯s fifty of us in total. Priest ckeye is our leader; he¡¯s a Saint-ranked undead mage.¡±


    Alright then, I supposed that this idiot was probably just an ordinary person not long ago. Even though stalling for time and waiting for help to arrive would be the best decision for this Death Council disciple right now, he actually sold out his allies so easily? It would be quite difficult to expect anyone toe save him now... And then, I nced at everyone else who had expressions saying ¡°Oh, that¡¯s how it was...?¡±


    ¡°Is this a contest to see who¡¯s more of an idiot?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯tpare them to you. That¡¯spletely unfair. Is there anyone in the world that has more experience than you in causing trouble and being hunted by others?¡±


    Seeing how the youngsters were hurriedly trying to interrogate the two Death Council disciples, I shook my head helplessly, and focused on Old Barton instead. Right now, the ck-d Old Barton was so emotional that he was constantly trembling. If I didn¡¯t stop him now, there would probably be a nice family drama to watch soon...


    ¡°Wait a moment, why would I stop him? Old Barton was forcing me to wash dishes for him just yesterday. I¡¯m still his master who taught him fighting techniques, so that makes me at least half a teacher to him. He actually dares to treat his teacher like that? How inhumane!¡±


    ¡°...Didn¡¯t you say that you would wash dishes in order to pay off your debts and bar tab? As for one¡¯s attitude towards their teacher, I have so manyments I want to make that I don¡¯t know where to even start. The only part I agree with is that there¡¯s no reason to stop him. Come, let¡¯s watch and enjoy the show. Yep, it¡¯s definitely not because I¡¯m angry at him for the evil act of attempting to use expired milk to feed the cat.¡±


    The silly cat instantly revealed certain things, but we then exchanged nces and simultaneously pointed at the bald Old Barton.


    ¡°See, that old baldie there is Barton Anton.¡±


    Barton paused in surprise for a moment, but he didn¡¯t get to react when there came a fragrant breeze, together with a soft sensation that caused him to stay still.


    ¡°Wahh, my poor child, you¡¯ve be so old already, you¡¯ve been through so much... Daddy... Mommy¡¯s here now, so go ahead and stay with Mommy from now on. Mommy won¡¯t let anyone else bully you.¡±


    A golden-haired girl who appeared no more than twenty years old was now hugging a middle-aged bald man and shouting about how ¡°her son had gone through so much.¡± This scene was so beautiful that I almost spat my drink out even though I was expecting it.


    And since we were like that even though we were expecting such a scene, everyone else in the bar had even more outrageous reactions. There were plenty that spat out their drinks, and one unlucky dwarf even tore off a piece of his wooden mug and swallowed it before he noticed.


    ¡°Ptui, I, Old Entric, was so startled by this! Barton, you little brat, this is your mom? She looks so much younger than you, yep, and a lot prettier too! Are you really her son? Glorious Eich above us, there¡¯s such a tremendous difference.¡±


    ¡°You idiot, don¡¯t you see that she has pointy ears, which means she¡¯s an elf? How could an elf give birth to a pure human? Inconceivable! Just what race could Barton¡¯s father have been?¡±


    ¡°Ha, I don¡¯t know what race his father was, but his father was definitely ugly, even uglier than Old Entric. Otherwise, how could such a beautiful mother have such an ugly son?¡±


    ¡°Ptui!¡±


    Alright then, as expected of the dwarves who were all so direct. The dwarf shieldbearer and hispanions¡¯ments caused a second round of spitting out drinks.


    At this moment, everyone had forgotten about the two criminals being interrogated. The bar owner vicious in appearance actually had such a flowery mother? What gossip could possibly be more interesting than this?


    Right now, Old Barton was probably the most pitiful of all. At first, he had been too startled to react, and right now he wasn¡¯t moving, though not because of the beautiful elf woman¡¯s allure. It was because it was impossible for him to break free.


    Yep, although he was a rtively outstanding warrior, Barton discovered that his arm was stuck in a rattlesnake-like vicegrip. His bones were making creaking sounds and his entire body was in pain. Rather than breaking free, if this hug went on for any longer, he would likely soon be suffocating to death.


    Barton no longer even had any energy to speak up. In his despair, he nced over at his always unreliable ¡°teacher¡±. Seeing that I was nodding at him, indicating that I understood, Barton finally felt some relief.


    ¡°Barton must be so happy right now. He doesn¡¯t want us to interrupt their family reunion. Everyone, back off a little and give them a little privacy.¡±


    ¡°Ptui!¡±


    This time, Old Barton was the one who spat something out, most likely his blood. Er, it really was his blood, and the amount of blood he was spewing seemed a little exaggerated...


    ¡°Ahh, hurry and save him!¡±


    And so, with the blood-spitting old baldie at the center of it all, the entire bar sunk into utter chaos.


    Cough, after things finally calmed down, meaning that I had finally enjoyed enough of the show, I finally stopped the dragon lich who was ¡°overflowing with motherly love¡±, preventing him from using too much strength with his emotional embrace and identally crushing his only descendant to death.


    ¡°This time, I bet he¡¯ll learn how to respect his teacher, hah! Male students are great, they¡¯re a lot sturdier and much harder to kill. Previously, my teaching others was a failure because I was too soft on all the girls! Yep, that¡¯s how it is.¡±


    ¡°...I don¡¯t know how sessful your teaching methods are, but I do know that you¡¯re about to suffer great misfortune. Just look behind you.¡±


    Alright then, when I turned around, I saw Katerina ring at me viciously, her hand right on my waist and about to attack me, with her eyes seeming to contain a grudge as if I was some evil person who had done a greatly viinous deed.


    ¡°You dare to call yourself a good person?¡±


    I directly ignored the silly cat¡¯sment. I was such a good person who was simply always misunderstood...


    More than half an hourter, after we wasted a lot of time on exining everything that happened (Barton: Is this supposed to be my fault? You weren¡¯t really going to watch me die, were you?), we finally returned to the main topic.


    Since the Death Council hadn¡¯te yet even after more than half an hour, it seemed unlikely that the Death Council would be paying the bar a direct visit. Still, it would be impossible to hide the fact that such arge group of people had captured two of their scouts. And once we obtained more information from the captured Death Council scouts, we started regretting having taken these scouts here.


    Our previous guess wasn¡¯t off the mark at all. The Death Council¡¯s activities in the mortal ne only had two objectives: first, to obtain a powerful undead creature, and second, to open a Dimensional Door to the Death nes so that even more Undead Cmities could descend. Yet, learning about the powerful ancient dragon¡¯s corpse in the ruins here wasn¡¯t actually their main objective.


    In their minds, a small matter like ¡°picking up some bones¡± wouldn¡¯t require a high-level priest with more than fifty followers. Their real objective was a ruin in the nearby Halen Mountains. It was said that the dimensional space around that area was quite unsteady, making that location highly suitable to establish a new Dimensional Door.


    After hearing this, while the others didn¡¯t have much of a reaction, Old Barton who had just recovered hisplexion instantly made an ugly expression. I suddenly recalled how Old Barton had previously mentioned to me that he found Katerina in ancient ruins.


    ¡°Could it be that much of a coincidence...?¡±


    But seeing how Barton¡¯s expression was worsening and that he kept sneaking peeks at Katerina, unable to hide his concern, it would seem that I had unfortunately hit the mark again. In that case, the goal of those who wanted to obtain those ruins was quite obvious.


    ¡°Ruins from the schrs¡¯ generation? Many strange and wondrous items in the Holy War were all discovered from such locations. Perhaps there are even some weapons hidden there that can affect an entire war. Even without our contract with Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom, we couldn¡¯t possibly allow the Death Council to obtain those ruins.¡±


    As for the adventurers, even if they didn¡¯t know what ruins from the Haletdam generation truly represented, just the possibility of a Death ne Dimensional Door opening up right next to their home would have incredibly obvious consequences.


    ¡°We absolutely have to stop them!¡±


    Yet I focused on other things instead. And if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that people were watching, I even would have used soul searching secret techniques topletely drain all the secrets from these two Death Council disciples.


    It wasn¡¯t suitable for me to be standing out, so I had Old Barton speak up in my stead.


    ¡°Opening a Dimensional Door requires arge amount of sacrifices. Don¡¯t tell me that you¡¯ve already prepared the sacrifices?¡±


    Everyone¡¯s expressions flickered upon hearing this. The Holy War had been going on for so many years now, and the undead and demons were infamous for greatly desiring soul sacrifices. Could it be that the Death Council hadn¡¯t been active here only for the sake of the dragon bones?


    ¡°We... we¡¯ve brought many ves with us.¡±


    ¡°You captured them around here?¡± Old Barton viciously red at the pudgy Death Council disciple.


    The disciple didn¡¯t dare to look Barton in the eyes, and lowered his head. However, Barton dragged his face up again by the cor and roared thunderously into his ears, ¡°You¡¯ve already attacked the nearby viges?! You captured people to use as sacrifices?!¡±


    The fatty lifted into the air was barely even able to breathe. He kept kicking the air as he was no longer in contact with the ground, but he still managed to hurriedly nod.


    ¡°We... we originally didn¡¯t want toe here, but Sir ckeye said that there weren¡¯t enough sacrifices, so he wanted us to...¡±


    Everyone then looked at the skinny dark disciple, who hurriedly nodded as well and confirmed this information.


    Now then, this was truly a great deal of trouble. Still, I needed even more information.


    ¡°A one-way dimensional connection is meaningless. Which Undead ne are you connecting to? Which Undead Emperor is behind this affair, do you guys know?¡±


    As expected, both disciples shook their heads. However, the skinny one suddenly seemed to recall something. ¡°I heard Sir ckeye mention that as long as wepleted this mission, Emperor Conservation¡¯s high-ranked subordinate, General Wuer, would give all of us eternal life.¡±


    ¡°Emperor Conservation? Was there an Undead Emperor by the name of Conservation? Why do I have a premonition that I¡¯m going to be misfortunate again?¡±

 Chapter 490 - Bardi and the Undead

    <h4>Chapter 490: Bardi and the Undead</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    From a certain standpoint, the Bardi Empire had the worst luck in this total cmity.


    The Bardi Empire was indeed one of the few mega-empires on the continent. Their powerful dragon knight squadrons were one of their best weapons, and their nation had a wide area filled with abundant resources. Their mining, alchemy, equipment crafting and such industries were all at the forefront of the world. Plus, they had a long history, giving them ancient inheritances and great patriotism. They also had plenty of excellently-trained generals and warriors due to long periods of war, as well as a sufficient amount of cannon fodder. The Bardi Empire was incredibly solid in its foundation as a mega empire, and possessed limitlessbat potential.


    But sometimes, being overlyrge would paint arge target on one¡¯s back. Bardi¡¯s richnds caused other rising factions to view them as a juicy piece of meat. And, Bardi had many internal conflicting factions and ambitious domain lords, which was a hidden unstable element.


    In the ¡°game¡¯s history¡±, Bardi had been the empire at the very top that had also been the fastest to copse. It had copsed at an inconceivable speed. Just how had such arge empire been destroyed so instantly?


    Yet, while arge war elephant could be a vicious weapon in battle, an overly fat hog would be nothing more than a delicious meal in the eyes of the hunter.


    Dimensional Doors leading to the Undead nes were opened up right in the heart of Bardi. Countless dangerous nails were hidden within and without the country, about to be stepped on. The Bardi citizens had even been secretly poisoned over a long period of time. Even Emperor Orloss had been under Aso¡¯s control. The dragons had their own motives with their support. And, the Bardi capital was also under threat by the Titans. If things developed just as the game¡¯s history did, then no matter what, it absolutely would have been total annihtion for the country of Bardi.


    ¡°...In the sixteenth year of the newest Holy War, Emperor Orloss the Thirteenth of Bardi didn¡¯t act as proactive and decisive as he always did. Instead, he kept choosing incredibly passive defensive strategies. Although he strengthened the military and defensive preparations, he ignored war in the surrounding countries and watched things sink into a stalemate.


    ¡°But in that year, the unescapable fires of war reached him as well. The undead arrived. On the third month that the Bardi capital had been enveloped in a mysterious darkness, the undead finally arrived. On that night, countless Dimensional Doors to the Undead nes opened up. Thergest Dimensional Door of all opened up right in the Bardi capital. On that same day, Undead Emperor Aso of the Desecration ne personally descended and activated a forbidden spell Undead Cmity in the capital. Ny percent of the poption was transformed into undead, and the Bardi Empire perished.¡±


    This was the game¡¯s history¡¯s record of the Bardi Empire. But evidently, the game¡¯s history was no longer relevant with regards to Bardi at all. But sometimes, so-called fate wasn¡¯t so inescapable at all. Sometimes, butterfly effects would be even more powerful than divine decrees.


    Coincidentally, Bardi managed to obtain the chance to escape their destructive end. That was all because of one person, Rnd... er, Amelia Mn.


    That¡¯s right, Amelia, not Rnd.


    Due to some certain factors, Amelia who should have been conducting personal research at the Mage Country was instead present at the undead¡¯s first chosen Dimensional Descent location. Thus, due to numerous coincidental factors impossible to replicate, the wood spirits species were born.


    And then, due to the wood spirits¡¯ existence, this took up a part of the undead¡¯s attention. Even Rnd himself got involved, and finally, the undead¡¯s scheme failed, and Aso himself perished.


    Aso. This Undead Emperor was a sly and cunning individual who had used centuries to n this invasion. He had personally plotted every part of the undead invasion. He was the one who controlled the Bardi capital and Orloss. It could be said that Aso had his hand on Bardi¡¯s throat. Aso was the critical character who forced Bardi to allow the undead¡¯s scheme toe to fruition. And, Aso¡¯s unexpected death, while bringing the undead invasion earlier than nned, also managed to awaken all of Bardi and stop the internal conflicts that had been about to explode. The domain lords instead focused on the battle between the living and the undead.


    Ever since this point, fate began taking a different path.


    After the threat of Aso was removed, Orloss, who had patiently waited for an entire lifetime, finally had the opportunity to start taking revenge. This elderly emperor who had experienced so much shone with his most brilliant glory right before his end.


    He unified all of Bardi and created newws. He forced all the domain lords to send their eldest sons as hostages and limited their personal armies. He suppressed all the domain lords and constantly obtained victories in wars against other countries. In fact, he even managed to expand Barid¡¯s territory to thergest it had ever been in history. Although these were all feats that would leave a chapter in the history books, none of these things wereparable at all to what he did in the final year of his life.


    ¡°In the ancient capital of Bardi, the pure Holy Light started rising like the dawn¡¯s morning sun. From now on, the false God who stole the glory of the Holy Light shall forever tremble in fear ¨C The Southern Sect, the Church of Pure Holy Light, has now chosen their first Pope ¨C Pope Amoya the First.¡±


    The Southern Sect had aplete break from the Holy Church. This seed that Rnd previously nted was carefully raised by Orloss and the Bardi emperors before him. Pope Amoya the First decided to have the Church of Pure Holy Light¡¯s headquarters be stationed right in Bardi.


    From then onwards, the world¡¯s belief in the Holy Light split into the two major factions of Pure Holy Light and the traditional Holy Light. The God of Holy Light was no longer the only representation of the Holy Light. The Holy Light religion which had more than seventy percent of humanity¡¯s belief finally had a new path to choose. The Holy Knights no longer needed to absolutely obey the Holy Church¡¯smands. There were now more and more frence Holy Knights that fought only for their own beliefs. Too many small changes in the details were bing more and more obvious in this Holy War. This war of belief was likely destined to affect every person.


    And, Orloss¡¯s second grand aplishment was that he cut off all rtions to Dragon World andpletely turned on the dragons and the Order Gods.


    Yep, that was how it was written in the history books for a rtively long time toe ¨C¡±The prideful and arrogant Orloss cut off Bardi from Dragon World in order to be free of the Titans¡¯ threat. This caused all of Dragon World to be unreachable for several years, resulting in the deaths of countless lives...¡±


    Yep, even though Hell¡¯s establishment had beenpleted, Orloss still took all the me. It would be rather difficult to clear his reputation until the Holy War finally ended.


    Was this difficult to understand? Perhaps I should rephrase things. Once the Order Gods finally lost their powers over the mortal ne, and when the Hell Gods¡¯ influence, power, and many other factors were equal to the Order Gods, that was when Orloss would finally have his reputation cleared.


    But right now, everyone still needed the dead Orloss to take all the me. That was because the Order Faction and the Hell Faction didn¡¯t want to have a direct all-out war yet!


    ¡°Everything was all because of Orloss¡¯s personal selfish actions. He has now received his divine retribution. The Bardi Empire didn¡¯t actually betray the Order Gods and dragons... Although everyone knows that¡¯s a big fat lie, since both of us have mutual benefits to be had and need this alliance rtionship, it¡¯s fine as long as there¡¯s a scapegoat to take all the me.¡±


    The dragons had suffered serious losses, but it wouldn¡¯t affect their foundations. It was still possible for the dragons of Dragon World to return. The Bardi Empire had truly antagonized the Order Gods, rather than the dragons!


    The new Hell Gods were obviously destined to challenge the Order Gods¡¯ authority. And, the new Hell had been constructed out of Dragon World, which was intimately connected to Bardi. It was quite obvious that the Bardi Empire would thus be intimately connected to Hell. But for the Order Faction, if they listed the entire Bardi Empire as an enemy in this cruel Holy War, that would be such an obvious foolish choice to make.


    ¡°And so, Orloss took all the me, and paid the price with his life. Thus, the Order Gods can simply pretend that they didn¡¯t see Bardi¡¯s betrayal. They¡¯ll also pretend to see nothing about Hell¡¯s establishment... Although this was all so idiotic, the famous scorpion Orloss had already mentally prepared himself to be cursed at for the next several centuries all for the sake of this fragile alliance.¡±


    Of course, if we had lost the battle of Hell¡¯s establishment, the Bardi Empire would have been instantly eliminated without any Gods to back them up. The Southern Sect would have likely been eradicated as well. But when news from Hell finally reached the mortal ne, the result was that the Hell Gods had achieved the final victory. In that case, the Order Gods would no longer have any reckoning with their new ¡°ally¡±.


    ¡°Everyone will of course be so angry and want to kill that person when a new party appears to split the treasure with everyone. But when the new party is strong enough to resist against the old members, everyone will smile and wee him in, as if they were best friends all along.¡±


    This was simply politics. It was dirty and unjust. Benefits were all that mattered. There was no glory to it whatsoever. The most pitiful part was that I and Orloss had sessfully obtained people¡¯s hearts with our scheme. Everything developed exactly as expected.


    Now, Emperor Orloss¡¯s foolishness was something that every citizen of Bardi knew about. However, this actually helped everyone to see just how outstanding his sessor, Halent, was. After all, Emperor Halent had hurriedly ascended the throne after ¡°the foolish Emperor Orloss died because of his own ridiculously foolish actions which created so much chaos and danger.¡± Halent¡¯s outstanding political maneuvers and swift actions helped to ¡°clean up the mess that the previous emperor made.¡±


    Halent miraculously obtained friendship with the dragons again (from the citizens¡¯ viewpoint. Naturally, this was because of Halent himself being a half-dragon). He also signed a new contract with the dragons, so now the Bardi dragon knights¡¯ squadrons were more than triple their original size. And Halent even acted as the mediator between the Southern Sect and the Holy Church, so that the two parties agreed to a temporary ceasefire. Halent even obtained the holy ¡°San¡± title from the Holy Church, representing that he was a wise and outstanding ruler.


    Unlike Orloss¡¯s tactics of constantly expanding Bardi through warfare, Halent soon reached a peace agreement with the Mage Country after he took the throne. As for internally, Halent voluntarily released all the domain lords¡¯ hostages and improved rtionships with many domain lords, which secured his own position as well.


    This was all only the beginning. After taking the throne, he also allied with the wood spirits and the Mage Country, forcibly stopping the undead invasion at a few main locations. The threat of the Undead Cmity was unable toe to fruition, despite the fact that Bardi now faced two Undead Emperors and countless undead!


    Dragon Knight Archduke Halent Mn... well, I supposed that he should be called the Dragon Knight Emperor now. Halent was now viewed as one of the pirs of humanity, a true hero of humankind. He was now one of the brightest stars of the Holy War, the prince on a white horse that countless young women dreamed about. But if I had to assess him...


    ¡°He simply had a good father.¡±


    This type of strategy where the previous emperor received everyone¡¯s grudges so that his son the new emperor would have an easier time wasn¡¯t rare at all. Yet, it was quite a useful strategy. The political tools that Orloss had left behind for Halent would be enough for the rest of Halent¡¯s life.


    ¡°How would Halent possibly have defended Nightrain City from the undead without Orloss¡¯s new weapons and armies, Orloss¡¯s secret agreements with the Nortnds, Mage Country, and wood spirits, or Orloss¡¯s Southern Sect? Everyone only sees how amazing the new ruler is, but they always forgot how the previous ruler worked so hard through the long nights to umte so much. Without such a strong foundation, how would Halent have possibly achieved anything?¡±


    Old Orloss had long since known that his greatest enemy was the undead. Countless research projects within Bardi were all focused on anti-undead weaponry. In fact, that was also the main reason he had started supporting the Southern Sect. And now that the Bardi Empire was now facing the Undead Cmity for the sake of all humanity, his previous preparations had be tremendously useful.


    ¡°It can¡¯t be denied that over these years, the Bardi Empire has indeed sessfully blocked the Undead Cmity and Undead Emperors. With the fortress of Nightrain City as the main representative fortress, that ce has be a meat grinder between the dead and the living. But if you look at overall losses, the undead have lost far more than the living.¡±


    Did you think that the Death Council was stirring up so much of a ruckus? If the undead had been sessful in their main battles, why would they need to start a new battle elsewhere and attempt at opening another Dimensional Door to the Undead nes in another country? Obviously, simply conquering everything through military might would have been far more efficient, had it been possible.


    With all of this as background information, the dark cultists under Undead Lords¡¯ control were constantly active, trying to find new locations for a possible Dimensional Door. Although there was still constant news about the undead armies¡¯ actions, this actually meant that the Undead Emperors had already lost confidence in being able to break through at the main battle of Nightrain City. They had been forced to try and find another point to breakthrough elsewhere.


    It wouldn¡¯t be that easy to establish a new Dimensional Door that was sufficient to bring an Undead Cmity. The Dimensional Doors in Bardi had been activated only after several centuries of scheming together with Aso sacrificing his very soul. It was quite difficult for the dark cultists ¡°who had joined the undead recently¡± to get anything done within Bardi. Although they were able to summon some undead troops through soul sacrifices, the troops were merely on the level of an Undead Lord¡¯s personal squadron. Although the undead caused some damage, they were soon eradicated by the human armies. They were unable to achieve their main goal ¨C the objective of breaking through Bardi from elsewhere.


    Indeed, some countries were ambushed by Undead Cmities. Everyone knew that Undead Cmities would only have a snowball effect and get more and more out of hand if allowed to grow. Nowadays, all the major strong countries had mobile units that were specialized in anti-undeadbat. The Gods¡¯ Churches were also quite active inbating the undead. Even in some of the smaller countries, if some undead suddenly appeared and destroyed a small city, the human armies would always arrive in a timely manner. The undead were unable to get anything done.


    And right now, I was in the S Dukedom, which was a country that was separated from the Bardi Empire by another country. The direct distance from here to Bardi was more than ten thousand kilometers. Even if the Undead Cmity arrived, it wouldn¡¯t affect much... Well, the S Dukedom would likely be destroyed, but it wouldn¡¯t affect the human world all that much.


    This time, I would have been toozy to care if it was only some Undead Lords stirring up trouble. However...


    ¡°...Since this is now involving an Undead Emperor, this will be no small matter. I refuse to believe that an Undead Emperor will waste time doing such foolish things. There must still be something I don¡¯t know, such as some incredible secret behind those ruins. Although it¡¯s possible that the undead want to start a second battle site here, this ce is still too close to Bardi. When the undeade, if it¡¯s not just a squadron, but a real Undead Cmity, that means this ce has major strategic importance.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s quite possible. The Elemental Tide¡¯s constant increase has been weakening the dimensionalws. And, the Haletdam generation¡¯s inventions are really ridiculous. It¡¯s impossible to guarantee what might happen. If the spatial dimensionalws at those ruins are sufficiently weak enough, it might even be possible for an Undead Emperor to directly descend with such a small amount of soul sacrifices.¡±


    ¡°And if an Undead Emperor really descends here, this ce will be a second front of battle. If the undead can start a pincer attack, that will be really fun for all of us.¡±


    Since my magical expert silly cat was agreeing with my assessment, I became all the more determined.


    ¡°It would seem that we need another expert... If I recall correctly, Tid should be in Bardi, not far away from us, right? Yep. The Father of Iron, Divine Hand, Miracle Creator Tid. His nicknames are bing more and more ridiculous. I hope that he¡¯s truly grown to be deserving of those nicknames of his.¡±

 Chapter 491 - Tracking

    <h4>Chapter 491: Tracking</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°What¡¯s the situation at their campground?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s alreadypletely empty. Judging from traces left behind at the scene, they probably retreated immediately when the dragon lich emerged. They didn¡¯t even try to hide their campsite at all. They were probably scared off by the level of magic power. In that case, it would seem that they don¡¯t actually have that much power at all.¡±


    ¡°...Abandoning their low-ranked minions, then?¡±


    Thinking about the two depressed dark cultists who were now locked up in the tavern¡¯s basement, I nodded in agreement.


    Suddenly, there was a pping sound outside the window. I opened the window and a snow-white eagle flew inside andnded on Harloys¡¯ back before vanishing.


    It would seem that Harloys was bing more and more adept at using her beast-form clones for scouting.


    Although it was fine to also wait for the local peacekeeping forces to report back, those newbies couldn¡¯t possiblypare to an expert like Harloys in gathering information. A skilled ranger would be able to determine the characteristics of a beast just from how much weight was applied on a snapped branch. Veteran wood elves and druids could have the trees and nts themselves act as their eyes and ears. There were archmages capable of recreating the exact scene of what happened at a ce in the past. However, pure novices were capable of losing their way even when following footprints. A novice detective would be of no assistance, but rather the opposite by messing up the scene and identally destroying the clues.


    And so, the moment that I figured out that the two captured Death Council members likely had morerades in the area, I immediately had Harloys send out her clones used for scouting.


    ¡°There¡¯s a total of roughly forty-five to fifty Death Council members. They have a total of approximately two hundred sacrifices with them, mostly humans. Their numbers match up with what those two Death Council members told us. However, several ck-d members among them actually felt threatening to me. It¡¯s likely that they¡¯re high-level undead. If those two weren¡¯t intentionally concealing information from us, it¡¯s likely that they didn¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°Is it possible to catch up to them?¡±


    ¡°No. They¡¯re veterans at this. They¡¯ve already gone deep into the mountains. It also appears that they have specialized ranger job ss members among them, possibly dark ranger. I didn¡¯t dare to follow them anymore, or I would have lost control of my clone.¡±


    There was a limit to how far away Harloys could send out her clone. Plus, her clones had basically nonexistentbat strength. It was even possible for her clones to be killed off by random wild beasts along the way. In this area, Harloys indeed couldn¡¯tpare to a real scout.


    Of course, there were other nice uses...


    ¡°Here, help me send this out quickly. We need some freebor as support.¡±


    I handed the letter over to Harloys, and she waved her hand, causing a white messenger pigeon to appear this time.


    Due to the distance limitations on her clones, it was impossible for her clones to travel across borders. Still, it would be possible for Harloys to deliver a letter to the nearest post office in the nearestrge city.


    Of course, normal mail wouldn¡¯t even be considered by us, as it would probably be next spring by the time the letter arrived in Bardi. We chose a fairy express aerial deliverypany that was nicknamed Fairy Express.


    Yep, that¡¯s right, aerial delivery. This was the newest service that the fairies were now offering, and this service was incredibly popr.


    In any battle, information and message delivery would be more valuable than even gold. The fairies hired aerial knights to deliver news and important messages, and now there werepanies like Fairy Express that served other species as well. The fairies charged a high price, but were also highly efficient.


    Of course, due to limited resources, a little town like Anton Town didn¡¯t have any of the fairies¡¯ aerial delivery stations. Of course, there would definitely be stations in every country¡¯s capital city and major merchant towns.


    ¡°...We don¡¯t have much time. The message will arrive quickly, right?¡±


    ¡°You even signed it with your magical signature of ¡®The Undying Rnd¡¯. Considering your reputation, the fairies will probably treat your message as the most important military message with the highest priority speed. You should receive a reply pretty soon. But, you exposed your own identity. Was it all just to save money on the delivery fees?¡±


    ¡°I... Cough cough, let us discuss how to split the gambling funds we just scammed from the others.¡±


    It would seem that the silly cat had already seen through everything, as I couldn¡¯t counter her. Still, it was all because the fairies charged ridiculous prices. If I hadn¡¯t revealed my name, I would have needed to use all the money I just scammed in the gamble today... and I wouldn¡¯t be left with much wine money anymore.


    ¡°...Are you bribing me? Sure, get me the newest ceremonial clothing that¡¯s popr right now ¨C the purple rose clothing set.¡±


    ¡°I couldn¡¯t afford that even if I sell everything I¡¯m wearing...¡±


    I rolled my eyes helplessly. That so-called popr outfit was ridiculously expensive. It would likely have cost even more than the message delivery fee. However, I suddenlyughed out loud upon seeing how Harloys kept pointing at her fashion magazine. I even reached out my hand, and measured her height which reached only to my waist.


    ¡°Paha, even if I buy it for you, you wouldn¡¯t be able to wear it with your loli stature. How about I set you up with some little kids¡¯ attire instead?¡±


    The silly cat¡¯splexion instantly changed upon hearing this. The way she grit her teeth was actually quite scary.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this all your fault!? I¡¯m so unlucky to be stuck as your magical pet. If you were just slightly stronger, I wouldn¡¯t be physically restrained from using bodies that are under ten years old. Fine then, kids¡¯ attire it is, I want the number six edition pink wing outfit from the golden kids¡¯ collection! That¡¯s the ssical one in the ck Forest magazine, the princess dress with pinkce embroidery!¡±


    ¡°That dress with all the diamonds? You want to order from a catalog yet again? We have no more money! Those damned fairies, are all merchants just money-grubbers after all? These cheap magazines actually make their money through the advertisements? Just a little cloth and a few buttons can sell for several tens of thousands of gold coins? That¡¯s profitable by several hundred times the production cost! This probably makes money faster than thievery would!¡±


    Actually, theint I just had was already made by countless malerades ever since the fairies also started their mail-order service.


    The fairies magazines¡¯ would always have beautiful female models wearing the most modern outfits. The models were viewed as the most charismatic females in society. All the world¡¯s women were allured by the models, along with draining their men¡¯s wallets.


    Of course, it was impossible to satisfy the silly cat¡¯s demand. The reason was self-exnatory ¨C I couldn¡¯t afford it. But now, I once again saw just howcking in limits Harloys could be, along with the so-called craze for being fashionable that women tended to have.


    ¡°Harloys, could you have at least a little shame? Forget about signing ¡®Demon Professor Harloys¡¯ next to my name, you even added the sentence ¡®I¡¯m going to rob your aerial knights if you don¡¯t give me ten sets of the newest popr outfit¡¯? Are you really going to rob them? What are you, an airne hostage-taking terrorist? Could you think about your own reputation? Your position in the Cmity Rankings for vicious extortion is merely for some pieces of clothing? I feel so embarrassed.¡±


    But of course, the silly cat wasn¡¯t moved at all. She simply twitched her lips and nced at me condescendingly, saying the words that would hurt any man¡¯s pride the most.


    ¡°Hmph, it¡¯s all because you¡¯re too poor.¡±


    ¡°I... wait a moment, something¡¯s not right here, it¡¯s not like I¡¯m your boyfriend! I don¡¯t have any need to buy clothes for you! When raising a cat, all that¡¯s needed is to feed her.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, penniless fool, do you really think that all that¡¯s needed is to fill your tummy? You barbarian who understands nothing about fashion.¡±


    ¡°...You said something you really shouldn¡¯t have.¡±


    And while we were busy arguing, the baldie Old Barton was refreshing his worldview, as he could only stare nkly at the ceiling.


    ¡°Child, do you understand now?¡±


    Old Barton nodded with a pained expression on his face. And then, Wiir smiled heartily as he buried Old Barton¡¯s head within his elf form¡¯s voluptuous breasts. Although Wiir took care to not use too much force this time, Old Barton actually struggled even more fiercely with an awkward expression.


    Well, of course, as rather than having a beautiful woman from more than three hundred years ago being your grandmother, the truth that ¡°she¡± was actually your grandfather would shake his worldview even more...


    Meanwhile, the adventurers¡¯ team to track down the Death Council had finished gathering and was about to set out.

 Chapter 492

    <h4>Chapter 492: µÚËÄ°Ù¾ÅʮһÕ ·ÖÍ·Ðж¯</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In some sense, the high level Death Council priest¡¯s decision to abandon his captured men was clever indeed. After news of them scheming to open the gates of the death ne had broke out, any group of living people became their arch enemies in an instant. They wouldn¡¯t just let them get what they want.


    The Northern Trio immediately reported it to their boss. One of the requirements in their worker¡¯s manual was to seek help from above when they were faced with more than they could handle. Only if they tried to save face by waiting until things went south would they be in trouble. However, considering just how far they were, there was no way to confirm the quality and headcount of the backup troops. Perhaps their luck would be so good as to meet a veteran strolling about on the nearby streets.. (As the northerners sent quite a few frence teams, this was not an impossibility). If they were unlucky, no backup troops would be arriving in time..


    And the Church of the God of Justice and Commandments would have been a lot more flustered. As soon as the gates of the death nes opened within the country¡¯s borders, they¡¯d have to bear the brunt force of it all. In fact, the entire dukedom and church could perish because of this.


    Just as they received news, they sent people back to the Capital to give notice. Other holy knights and bishops also got ready to head out to kill those undead-worshipping disciples.


    Wiir was able to still judge the severity of his attacks. Those holy knights weren¡¯t critically hurt. The only thing hurt was their pride, as they had all been instantly defeated by an enemy they didn¡¯t even see. In an instant, their self-respect waspletely annihted, but there were more important matters before them and no time toment over one¡¯s own fragility.


    And about the group of knights led by the one named White... They had already left, but considering the holy knight¡¯s consistent ipetence in tracking, other people had hope in being able to catch up to the holy knights. One could only hope that they didn¡¯t get lost and wander off too far, or suddenly get the idea of taking several mercenaries like adventurers and thieves on the journey.


    On the other hand, it was the Northern Trio¡¯s mission to investigate the Death Council from the very start. Even if they didn¡¯t get support, they would definitely go. However, belief and mission guidelines between them and the holy knights naturally didn¡¯t agree with each other, and it was highly unlikely for them to work with the holy knights, as that would be just looking for trouble.


    In some sense, it went without saying that they were inpetition once again to see who could solve the problem first.


    I wanted to intervene, but I also didn¡¯t want to reveal who I was.


    Because of this, just us few and the Northern Trio were the only ones who truly carried hope. It¡¯d be even more of a waste for us to split our forces, and so I tried to persuade the Northern Trio to lead us ¡°little guys¡±.


    ¡°...Well actually, I¡¯m not a bad undead mage. If you take us along, we can detect the enemy¡¯s death magic if they¡¯re nearby. It¡¯ll help you on your pursuit.¡±


    With that being said, the ck death magic swirled upon my finger as proof of my identity as an undead mage.


    If it were any other force, there¡¯d undoubtedly be a lot of suspicion and prejudices towards undead mages; especially because the investigation involved the death ne. It was just more reason to suspect one¡¯s motives.


    But although they were surprised, their first reaction turned out to be...


    ¡°Are you a registered undead mage? You got a license? Had your annual inspection yet?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I had my annual inspection justst year. I registered at Diffindor headquarters. Ranked-Legend undead mage.¡±


    In some people¡¯s eyes, the North was probably already the undead mage¡¯s haven, and because of this they regted undead mages and made them an official job ss that could walk around openly. Undead mages became an abnormally general job ss.


    ¡°The undead industry revolution started one year before the Dawn Era. This revolution released the power for living people to produce even more and it also gave undead mages the chance to walk into the sunlight. The year after that, ghostly chariots and zombie servants upied a third of each market...¡±


    After so many years of development, the undead equipment, furniture, appliances, and servants had already be amon sight in the Northern market. To guarantee the safety and reliability of undead appliances, it became normal regtion to sign up for undead mage tests, and take things like behavioural examinations once every three years.


    ¡°Master, so you¡¯re actually one of us!¡±


    ¡°Did you ept the mission or are you a frence mage? Oh, sorry! I don¡¯t dare ask. If you¡¯re willing to say, then please do.¡±


    As soon as the three of them saw this little ck notebook, their faces immediately lit up.


    If it were ten years ago, it would have been nothing for a ranked-Legend undead mage to be called ¡®Master¡¯, but as there were increasingly more half-baked masters and half-baked legends, ¡®Master¡¯ was less used as time went on.


    As for official undead mages at the Northern Diffindor registry, quite a few of them had connections with the officials there. With the Royal East Mist mage emblem on this little book, it became clear that this master also received the royal family¡¯s trust, so naturally I could be trusted as well. It represented a symbol of prestige, and what was even more of a rare sight was the double crown upon it.


    ¡°I have some rtions with the Royal Mage Association, so havinge across a situation like this, I naturally can¡¯t stay out of it. However, the most harmonious method of cooperation is to talk upfront about the nitty-gritty details. I¡¯d like half the takings if it involves Saint Civilization ruins. If there are new types of technologies as such, you may have priority in selling it to the northern officials, but you mustn¡¯t forget my share.¡±


    I didn¡¯t lie at all. The documents in my hands were real. Of course, it goes without saying how I got them but as for the level of trust for the two crowns... hehe, did you know that there¡¯s a service called Crown grinding?


    As for mages, ancient ruins represented ancient knowledge and secrets. It was practically impossible to resist the allure. If the Saint Civilization left anything in the ruins, then it was highly likely that the technology could be used to create new innovations and strategic weapons for an entire country. There were far too many examples of this just in the game¡¯s history alone.


    Even though legends say that every now and then, a nobody from the ruins dug up magical manuscripts and weapons etc. then walked the path of the demon and God yer, in reality, magical weapons were rarely seen when exploring the ruins. As time passed and grave robbers were merciless as ever, it was moremon that records, paintings, traces, restored ancient techniques, and magical data were left behind which could then be developed again.


    These kind of things weren¡¯t very useful to the individual and would only attract trouble. However, when these techniques and ancient magical tissues were digested, they actually became invaluable.


    After all, in some sense, without the support of Diffindor¡¯s original Saint Civilization techniques, the magical engineering revolution wouldn¡¯t be fiercely gaining power right now. When a lively and active ancient person couldn¡¯t be found, a document and some data of the ancient civilization would have been left behind. That was the only alternative.


    ¡°Saint Civilization? So it is Saint Civilization! We¡¯ve hit the jackpot this time!¡±


    Mary jumped all of a sudden, as the other two lookedpletely puzzled. They didn¡¯t know why their ownrade was so delighted.


    As a four elemental swordcaster, Mary must havee across magical engineering techniques. Since she studied the magical leadership techniques, of course she would know about the origins of the Saint Civilization.


    ¡°I¡¯ll write a letter to the headquarters right away. I¡¯m just afraid it¡¯ll be toote...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Master Tid and I know each other, and I¡¯ve already sent him a letter by fairy express. Since the Saint Civilization is involved in all this, he¡¯ll rush over here no matter how busy he may be right now.¡±


    As soon as those words were spoken, the three people clearly rxed a little. Tid was an impressive big character in their eyes, and since I was close with him, that also seemed to add to my believability as a trustworthy undead mage.


    Of course, after I left, they definitely would discuss my identity and motive, and I also happened to keep a local identity as an ¡°undead mage who remained here for half a year for clues to the ruins¡±. After they found out ¡°clues¡± from other people, pieced together the ¡°truth¡±, and learned the reality of my good rtions with the town, that would also add to their trust in me.


    Now, after saying goodbye, I still had to go prepare for my journey. But then, the silly cat jumped out abruptly.


    ¡°I thought that you would continue impersonating a holy knight this time around?¡±


    ¡°Ha! Don¡¯t be silly. I¡¯ve already got inside info that if the northerners suddenlyes across holy knights, then they would repeatedly interrogate them.¡±


    ¡°Pft! Looks like they saw right through you. Is that really the only reason?¡±


    Once again, the silly cat revealed squinted eyes that looked like they saw through everything. It seems like she thought of the reason ages ago and deliberately ran over to torment me.


    ¡°...That was just the main reason. The armor and metal weapons are too heavy for me, so that was the secondary reason...¡±


    Since I was caught out by the silly cat, there was no more reason for me to pretend. Right now, my physical condition was awful, so there was no way to impersonate a holy knight.


    Because of that pitiful power thanks to mycking physical stats, wearing chainmail would be no different from chaining myself up. The full-body coat of armor was like a metal cage once it was worn, and that metal sword was a heavy weight in my hand. I couldn¡¯t even move when wearing a knight¡¯s standard equipment, so how could I possibly pretend to be a holy knight? Afterall, this time, we were very likely to get into a highly intense battle.


    On the other hand, the use of elemental magic also required a certain physique and dexterity. The uracy of the sorcerer¡¯s hand gestures directly impacted the sess rate of their magic. Terrible physiques simply couldn¡¯t drive powerful techniques, and I would barely be able to handle the magical bacsh. After thinking about it, undead magic was all I could still control at will, as it controlled corpses and undead creatures.


    This was also why I didn¡¯t obstruct the path of those ¡°holy light cannon fodder¡± from leaving. To those conservative holy knights, the northern trio were only half-allies that were alsopetitors for belief. However, undead mages were the arch enemies who they killed first and asked questionster.


    Actually if the conditions were right, pretending to be a holy knight would have been the best, considering that they had a good enough reputation, then they wouldn¡¯t raise any suspicions. They could also go take different paths at will, recruit cannon fodder, and be awarded with the trust of adventurers and residents. The viges enroute would award them with free/cheap supplies, and at times of need, holy knights could even recruit vigers to fight for their cause. This was an unseen advantage. Only those conservative idiots would waste such an obvious advantage.


    But I didn¡¯t follow them alone. Since Katerina came from the ruins, perhaps she was even the key to opening up those ruins. She also longed to find out the truth. And since the daughter headed out, her old man, Old Barton, naturally followed along. And since Old Barton suddenly left, his grandfather naturally wasn¡¯t going to stay behind. In the end, I had these two considerably good fighters with me.


    Of course, we had different arrangements to make Wiire with us.


    ¡°But it¡¯s not enough. We should ask Old Barton to find his old friend and hire cannon fodder... I mean hire mercenaries right?¡±


    ¡°That almost ranked-Legendncer? You¡¯re not afraid of him dragging down our group¡¯s overall luck rating?¡±


    ¡°How many times have I told you? Lancer¡¯s luck rating of E is just a rumor. What¡¯s more, if the rumors were true, don¡¯t you think it¡¯s a good thing? Do I need a lightning rod?...¡±


    All of a sudden, I remembered the unlucky, most beautiful woman in Sulfur Mountain and the thought of her shocking luck. Even if she continued searching for the path to salvation, that wild elf should still be the most beautiful wild elf right now.


    ¡°This is why you came looking for him right? Indeed, just see it as a bit of fun... what are we going to do now?¡±


    ¡°Since it¡¯s very possible toe across a fight, and I¡¯m an ¡®undead mage¡¯ now, I don¡¯t get to hide and watch the show. Sooo, to slightly be useful, I¡¯d better go do some undead mage duties. Where¡¯s the closest tomb?¡±


    ¡°So stupid! That dragon lich¡¯s home has quite a lot of stuff. You don¡¯t know just how weak thosemoners who died trying to loot him were.¡±


    ¡°Good idea. Let¡¯s change into the spanky new clothes you¡¯re about to get your hands on. You haven¡¯t seen Wiir¡¯s drooling appearance as he looked over his magazines. His drool practically looked like they were going to destroy your face...¡±


    ¡°That wasn¡¯t my face. It practically looked like a doll andpletely different from my mature looks alright? ! I wonder what you¡¯ll look like if we put your head on a woman¡¯s body... Pffffft! Reyne.¡±


    All of a sudden, I remembered Reyne¡¯s appearance as she had a face identical to ¡°Rnd¡±. I started feeling sorry for the fuming Harloys before my eyes. At least Reyne wasn¡¯t considered ugly-looking. Say, so many years have passed, she should be a growndy by now. Under the effects of estrogen, she shouldn¡¯t still have that face anymore, right?


    ¡°Yeah yeah yeah, go! Let¡¯s scam the dragon lich and get revenge for you! We¡¯ll loot that old lich clean so that you can vent...¡±


    I took just a few steps when I was stopped in the corridor. Under the dwarven guard¡¯s lead, those adventurers stopped me.


    ¡°Karo, since the duel never happened, you should pay us back for those bets.¡±


    ¡°...Take a careful look at the betting tickets. There should be a betting choice that reads: ¡°If the duel cannot proceed due to sudden unavoidable circumstances, or even if it¡¯s a draw, but I remember that no one betted on a draw at the time...¡¯¡±


    When the old dwarf leader heard this, he rolled his eyes up at the ceiling as though he pretended not to know. However, I reckon he¡¯d already read the super small line of text.


    And the adventurers behind him also rolled up their sleeves for a fight. The menacing demeanor was really obvious.


    ¡°I suggest that you better...¡±


    *p!*


    After the echo of the p, a deathly ck smog dispersed from my shadow and materialized restlessly into a giant demon¡¯s shadow. In an instant, the entire room was covered in the dark shadow, and the temperature fell by a few degrees.


    ¡°Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you guys. I¡¯m a Legend-ranked undead mage. Were you looking for me for something?¡±


    Strength was the best business card. This frightening magic of raw might. Want me to pay you back? Haha!


    ¡°W....we¡¯re good!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s just that it¡¯s dinner time. We want to treat you. Uh-huh. Today¡¯s tab is on us, the Thunder Brothers!¡±


    Who said dwarves were slow-witted. Weren¡¯t they smart right now? After they ¡°gleefully¡± said this, they turned around without another word. But then, looking at the dwarves¡¯ well-built bodies and superior weapons and armor, I suddenly remembered something.


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯m really reasonable. I have here some small jobs that are suitable for outstanding adventurers. If you guys go, I might just pay ya back for those bets. If you do well, there¡¯ll be extramission in it for you too.¡±

 Chapter 493 - Undead Army

    <h4>Chapter 493: Undead Army</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°What? No undead creatures?¡±


    I slyly mentioned the terms of our exchange whilst I flipped through the new trendy essories in the fashion magazine. Without hesitation, the dragon lich agreed to my terms. However, after having asked the question, it actually turned out that he didn¡¯t have any powerful undead servants whatsoever..


    ¡°Hey hey hey! You¡¯re a dragon lich right? One of the strongest undead species. Are you telling me that your dragon¡¯s den doesn¡¯t have powerful undead creatures?¡±


    There was one side effect to the lich transformation. No matter how you lived in the past, all the magic that ran in your flesh became death magic, and any original magic you trained in would be weakened due to shing with the death magic. However, being able to control weaker undead was instinctive, and training in undead magic would progress at an incredible speed.


    Those who suddenly grasped the innate undead magical abilities found that there was no way to forget how to use undead magic afterwards. After having umted so many years, it was impossible to not understand undead magic. Because of this, the majority of undead liches¡¯boratories hadrge amounts of undead creations. The undead creations were thugs, servants, and some possibly even became family.


    Dragon liches were even more ridiculous. They were man-made undead giant dragons, and they ranked among the highest in difficulty to transform among the various undead ceremonies. Completing the transformation alone required immense knowledge in the undead, and yet this dragon lich actually told me he barely had any undead beings.


    ¡°Those dirty things are ugly and smelly. How could I let them stay in my hall?¡±


    Okay, so I forgot about just how incredibly strange this dragon lich was before me. Someone who would choose this physical body for beautiful art could indeed potentially kick ¡°dirty undead beings¡± out the door.


    ¡°Do you have harpie types?¡±


    ¡°Bind the beautiful soul of an elf? How could I ever do such an evil thing!¡±


    Wiir¡¯s face which resembled Harloys¡¯ so much stared at me in amazement like I said something terrifying and evil. I, on the other hand, tried hard to suppress the urge to hit the wall.


    Evil? You¡¯re a freaking dragon lich! No matter in legends or in reality, they were the most ssical final boss!


    Alright. I, more of less, understood this guy¡¯s oundish way of thinking. The ugly undead beings were immediately out of consideration and beautiful undead beings needed beautiful resources, but he just couldn¡¯t bring himself to do anything to such beautiful living creatures.


    ¡°You truly opened my eyes...¡±


    I turned my head, wanting to leave, but that guy pulled onto my sleeve and stared pitifully at the... fashion magazine in my hand.


    I shook my head helplessly.


    ¡°...Just make do. If we brought a group of bones on the road with us that could fall apart at any time, then I¡¯d feel bad for calling myself a legend-ranked undead mage. After so many years, you must have a few, right? Okay, so if you really don¡¯t even have a few, then let¡¯s trade some in for your valuable artwork. These clothes are all really expensive, and with my connections, we could get seasonal limited editions. I can¡¯t give it to you for free.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a no for the artwork. Beauty is priceless... Thinking about it, I remember that I should still have some creations worth a look.¡±


    Wiir thought about it for a moment. All of a sudden, he revealed a bright smile as though he had remembered something.


    ¡°Mhm. Let¡¯s swap. Oh I just remembered. I actually do have some beautiful undead creations that you¡¯ll definitely like!¡±


    Seeing such a bright smile on his beautiful face suddenly made me feel like something was not quite right. It was like, I had done something wrong again......


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    The next day, just at the break of dawn, Rhino Bar closed its doors for business. Outside, there was a crowd of people and it looked like they were getting ready to set off.


    But I was still in my room, not wanting to get out of bed. I stayed up verytest night, cleaning up those undead creations. The other weakness to this fragile body was that I needed a sufficient amount of sleep every day.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. Sleep on the horse carriage. I never imagined that he has a phantom horse carriage with a special design too. Looks like, this time, we didn¡¯t lose out.¡±


    The silly cat climbed on my head like she was doing it for my own good. However, I could feel her evil naked intent.


    A phantom horse carriage, six gargoyles, a high-level zombie, and two web demons were all the items of this trade. They were all upgraded and strengthened undead beings, so by looking at the trade value, I didn¡¯t lose out this time around. I even earned a little, but......


    ¡°Just let me sleep. At least... at least.... at least we can wait for them to leave!¡±


    ¡°Impossible. Everyone¡¯s waiting for you.¡±


    With that thought, it¡¯s true. Barton and Katerina were my friends. I established basic trust and cooperation with the Northern Trio. If I didn¡¯t hire those scattered local mercenaries, then the Old Barton did. Even with the dragon lich, that was a cooperation which I gained privately. In some sense, even though I wasn¡¯t the main man in this group of adventurers this time around. I was the heart which linked every group member.


    ¡°Ah, forget it. Besides, the one disgraced was Karo the undead mage and not Rnd...¡±


    I climbed out of bed fully pissed off. It was time to face the music.


    ¡°Don¡¯t talk like you¡¯ve got the short end of the stick. What a beautiful horse carriage. If it were back in the day, I would have really liked it.¡±


    ¡°As you said, back in the day. This horse carriage...¡±


    Having just stepped out of the bar, a white horse carriage parked outside the doors caught everyone¡¯s attention.


    The entire carriage was carved from white jade and the back of the carriage was even decorated with intricate feathered wings. The carriage was designed in the traditional elven ivy carts and was pulled by two snow white unicorns. Strands of grass and wildflowers even grew from where the unicorns stepped on. The abundant power of nature made people feel that it was practically the vehicle of the Child of Nature.


    Seeing that the new owner had arrived, the two unicorns cried in joy, as though they couldn¡¯t wait to set off. They had already rested for a long time in the stables, and now with a chance to stretch their legs, they kicked their hooves. The bells upon the unicorn horns rang repeatedly as they swung around.


    ¡°...Are you telling me that this is the phantom horse carriage created by the undead mage? With phantom horses that have fatal exhales of despair? And that ck lightning-like phantom body? Was the bone horse carriage originally decorated with bones? And where did that headless coachman go? After moving, shadows should have been left behind and not grass, right? How did the undead arts and the beauty of the bones of the phantom horse carriage in my memories turn out like this!?¡±


    ¡°Please forgive my bluntness, but I don¡¯t think that¡¯s some kind of dark beauty. The bone and shattered body only just makes it clearly look unpresentable. From what I remember, the early undead mages were all dishevelled-looking ves. Ah, apologies. I didn¡¯t mean to suspect you were a bum.¡±


    As the person who redecorated the horse carriage, Wiir was naturally satisfied with this elf¡¯s kind of style. ¡°She¡± was repeatedly observing the ivy carvings that she left behind and seemed to have engraved then into her memories. Her tone of voice sounded like she regretted selling it to me.


    And even his phrasing was said in the typical elven style; despicable, and in a voice which sounded unsatisfied like one had to redecorate twice over. What did he mean by ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to suspect you were a bum¡±? That line actually meant ¡°Undead mages are all bums. You¡¯re an undead mage, so there¡¯s no need to suspect otherwise. You¡¯re definitely a bum!¡±


    ¡°Apologize! Apologize to all undead mages!¡±


    Just as I stepped out the door, I realized that other people were looking at me with an odd expression. The annoyed and fearful looks which undead mages often saw had vanished quite a bit in today¡¯s age. Rather, they looked astonished and were strongly resistingughter like they¡¯d seen an alien.


    ¡°Damn it...¡±


    It felt like I¡¯d just humiliated myself a little, as I regretted this trade even more so.


    ¡°Damn it! Only this dragon lich could possiblye up with such ridiculous appearing undead. I just had to carry the me.¡±


    Since I was an ¡°undead mage¡±, those weird undead beings naturally became my creations in the eyes of others. Also, this odd phantom horse carriage was still the easiest to ept above them all...


    This time around, the gargoyles to the side were also part of the elitebat strength amongst the undead I obtained in the trade. There were six of them in total.


    This constructed kind of half elemental, half undead creature always used stone to disguise themselves. In battle, they wouldunch surprise attacks. As most of their bodies were rock-hard, the power of their strikes and defensive abilities weren¡¯t bad, and their soaring ability, their sharp ws, and their heavy material gave them the beautiful name of the undead soaring sharp soldiers.


    As the constructed half undead creatures, gargoyles could collect materials, design, enchant, create human crafts and even more that other undead creatures weren¡¯t capable of. However, even the weakest gargoyle was a mid-level undead creature. After all, only ranked-silver undead mages could bestow these gargoyles with life, and add some of their own personal style upon them at will was practically a must.


    Their basic blueprints were very simple. That also meant that they were easy to mold and modify, and their strength and attack methods differedpletely. The weakest was a soaring gargoyle who would be exhausted simply by flying. But if an undead mage was willing to spend enough money, it was also quite possible to create a gargoyle which was capable of defeating a dragon by itself. For example, with a titan¡¯s heart as the energy source, enchanted gold outer armor, and twotest models of magical engines buried in the skull... Alright. I listed thetest, best selling Northern Army¡¯s weapons mecha battle collection. Actually, I saw right through the amended gargoyle¡¯s blueprints.


    And the several gargoyles that I got a hold of were most probably made at the dragon lich¡¯s big expense. He used mithril anti-corrosion coating and enchanted sapphire eyes, which were materials that were definitely not cheap. In gold pieces, I certainly hit it big, but......


    ¡°...Why not give them clothes? Alright, alright. I¡¯m stupid. They¡¯re stone, so of course they didn¡¯t need to wear clothes. Haha. Fashion really is awesome. The stupid otaku sold his own women (figurines).¡±


    *Sigh* I¡¯m afraid that someone has already guessed the dragon lich gargoyles¡¯ appearances. Uh-huh. There were two kinds; naked elven men and naked elven women, and they wereplete replicas of the real deal!


    Looking at that uniquely true to life expression and physique, they looked exactly like living elves. The female elves carried a bow and arrows on her back; she was a long range type. The male elf didn¡¯t even have underpants, but he had two machetes.


    ¡°I¡¯ll quitining about the missing basic qualities like sharp ws and steel teeth. What¡¯s the point in giving all your enchantments to a gargoyle so that their joints can move?! Did you make an action figure or a weapon? With such a rxed attitude, why don¡¯t you equip several magical attack weapons on them?¡±


    My biggest doubt right now wasn¡¯t how Wiir had such creativity, but how he ¡°gathered resources¡± back in the day or, one should say, how he stripped those elves and didn¡¯t be the elves¡¯ public enemy!


    It goes without saying just how beautiful elves were; the men were handsome, and the women were charming. What¡¯s more, the dragon lich didn¡¯t choose ordinary models. They were valiant and formidable yet elegantly beautiful. On top of that, Wiir had all of wood elves, moon elves, silver elves, and dark elves amongst his gargoyles. The young, curvacious, and skinny elves were practically the elven imperial harem, of which he kept them at home due to their beauty, but......


    ¡°I really didn¡¯t do it... F*ck! What¡¯s the meaning of these looks you¡¯re giving me? I never lie!¡±


    And now, five naked female elves (long distance attack type) and a naked male elf (closebat type) were flying around me. His problem became my problem, and everyone looked at me with eyes full of condescension. If it was practically like saying ¡°As expected, he¡¯s a pervert¡± and ¡°Why in the hell did he create those things for?¡±


    Why the hell was it five naked girls and a naked guy? Actually, the dragon lich¡¯s trove had quite a few closebat types. I also needed some cannon fodder closebat types, but thinking about it again, I would rather be suspected as a pervert than a gay guy without hesitation......


    And at this time, that naked man gargoyle was behind me. As closebat gargoyles were only used for fighting, his core nature required him to undertake the responsibility of guarding me. However, I felt that he was too close to me right now, especially with how a certain area of his was almost touching me......


    ¡°So he was bisexual... I mean, why else did Karo never make a move on Katerina...¡±


    ¡°So big. I never imagined Karo liked this type.¡±


    I heard these kind of words and instantly covered my face. Aggrieved tears wanted to practically fall from both my pupils. As expected, I should never have considered taking a closebat gargoyle at all. My legendary name waspletely ruined. In that moment, I¡¯d rather be a super pervert in everyone¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°Onward!¡±


    Those words were heard a few more times, as we rushed onto the horse carriage. I was afraid that I wouldn¡¯t be able to help but flip out and the only thing that would give me relief was the even more strange creation in the horse carriage. The situation hadn¡¯t reached it¡¯s very worst just yet.


    ¡°The first stop, out of the city... No! Anton¡¯s tailor shop! Yes, you heard that right. First, I¡¯m going to get those indecent gargoyles some clothes!¡±


    A sudden sense of sadness rose from my heart. I was afraid that I would be the first undead mage in the history books to give gargoyles clothing.

 Chapter 494 - Artificial Soul

    <h4>Chapter 494: Artificial Soul</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Compared to ordinary horse carriages, the phantom horse carriage clearly had many advantages as they only half-existed in the mortal ne. They didn¡¯t need to survive on food and water, nor were they picky with only travelling on straight roads. All they needed were enough magical power, and they could even levitate in the air for a short amount of time. They exceeded limits of space and the shape of the terrain. Especially enhanced phantom horse carriages even had the power to change their fixed trajectories.


    Wiir was obviously someone who knew how to enjoy himself. The interior¡¯s strengthened resting space appeared far morefortable and wide than what one would assume from the outside. No matter how steep the mountainous route was, it wasn¡¯t bumpy on the inside in the slightest. The carriage had threepartments, furnished differently and not missing a single thing. However, in this moment, only Katerina, Harloys, and Wiir, the few ¡°female¡±rades sat inside.


    It wasn¡¯t like I was picking on the gender separation or anything, as adventurers on long journeys were used to this. On long journeys like these, to get enough physical and fighting strength, the mages who needed to get some rest had the privilege to ride infort. Besides this, only these ¡°weak women¡± had the privilege to ride on the vehicle... Alright, I should admit that these weak women were our best inbat. However,pared to the rough men, at least having beautiful women by my side was a little easy on the eyes.


    Let¡¯s not mention how Wiir was someone I relied on the most right now, as Harloys didn¡¯t change the name. As my familiar, she had ranked-Legend powers and her real fighting skills could take out those fake ranked-Legends. Harloys could even fight it out with a Saint level, but as for Katerina... She was actually this journey¡¯s biggest reward.


    ¡°With rich and robust qualities like artificial intelligence and emotion systems, what difference was it to normal people? Back in the day, Saint Civilization was truly frightening.¡±


    A grimoire sat on the table, but my mind was elsewhere. On the other side, the gargoyles were patrolling under my control. Not even a field mouse would be able to escape their view within a three kilometer radius with their enhanced sapphire eyes for surveince. Surveince wasprised of four gargoyles whopleted their job as ¡°guards¡± extremely well. There was simply no need to worry.


    You get what you pay for. The limit to a constructed creature¡¯s powers were the same as the creator¡¯s techniques and the quality of their resources used. Although many precious materials were used in ces that I couldn¡¯t evenment on, Wiir had plenty of money to make mithril ornaments and that was key to the gargoyles¡¯ mobility. The basic functions had been well invested in and their abilities weren¡¯tckluster. Even with the most useless direct fighting power, gargoyles wouldn¡¯t have a problem going alone up against Silver-ranked fighters.


    ¡°Um, Karo...¡±


    Or perhaps, I was being too impolite for staring directly at them. Sitting in front of me, Katerina had her head down and her face was flushed.


    ¡°Oh, sorry. I was thinking about something.¡±


    As an expert in souls, I didn¡¯t see any secrets behind dead souls, living souls, and elemental souls. Back in the day, when I first saw Katerina, I was stunned by the artificial soul within her body that imitated a human¡¯s.


    Lowly artificial souls weren¡¯t really a difficult problem to create, such as those gargoyles all having basic judgement and reasoning capabilities. Also, mage tower spirits and gold golems as such had a mind of their own. Judging solely by their ability to calcte, they were most probably better than Katerina who sat before me. However, for her to exist at all carried an extremely special meaning.


    ¡°What¡¯s the difference between Katerina and normal artificial souls? In just a short amount of time, you most probably couldn¡¯t tell, but the difference in their foundational characteristics were very obvious. Whilst those lowly creations were being made, their upper limit in abilities and their uses were already decided for them. Whereas Katerina developed abilities, self-realization, and emotions on her own. Her growth potential is exactly the same as humans, and on top of this, the fact that she has a metallic body structure means that she has limitless potential.¡±


    In the ordinary materialistic world, simple logic and calctions weren¡¯t far off from artificial souls. However, in Eich, where willpower could be transformed into actual strength, only by having emotions, self-awareness, and a soul could one possibly be a truly powerful fighter. No matter how strong an artificial soul¡¯s stiff logic was, they were just a tool. Only souls with all standalone emotions could be truly independent ¡°humans¡±.


    The soul¡¯s strength and growth was directly rted to one¡¯s potential. I could sense that if ordinary souls were a raw and untouched piece of ore, then Katerina¡¯s soul was like a zing sun that was wrapped by ore on the outside. Even if there were obstacles all around, the core was bright and couldn¡¯t be covered up.


    ¡°The strength of this soul was practically like a legendary hero and God reincarnated. If something like this could be mass produced... then it wasn¡¯t wrong for the Gods to have wiped out the Saint Civilization.


    I¡¯ve tried to let Katerinae into contact with martial skills and magic, but I was unable to determine that she had any special affinities for either. However, she must have an area that she was highly specialized in. Afterall, there was no way the Saint Civilization would spend so many resources to make the best artificial soul like this, and use her for an ordinary job like a female bartender.


    There was no way to for me to currently reverse engineer the method of creating such a high quality artificial soul, but I understood what high quality meant. To forge a naturally strong soul like this one required them to use objects of the same value. By making a slight calction, it far surpassed the value of a floating city.


    For a soul expert, there wouldn¡¯t be anything more tantalizing to learn about than an unknown yet powerful artificial soul. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that Katerina was a living robot rather than an ordinary life form, and that I wasn¡¯t an expert in engineering and machines, then I would have likely taken Katerina apart already. It was only because I didn¡¯t have the confidence in being able to sessfully reconstruct her if I disassembled her.


    If Katerina hadn¡¯t taken so much of my attention,I wouldn¡¯t have stayed here for so long. What¡¯s more, I wouldn¡¯t have found the dragon knight general Barton... I¡¯m not gay, so why would I remember a man¡¯s name out of boredom? I only discovered Barton coincidentally because of looking for her rtives after I found Katerina...


    ¡°A mere creation has such secrets. There must be some extremely shocking secret among the ruins. We absolutely can¡¯t make a mistake!¡±


    If I hadn¡¯t spent so much energy studying Katerina and training little Barton, I would have gone tomb raiding ages ago. How could I let someone beat me to it and grab all the good stuff and secrets remaining there? That was the most important goal of this journey!


    Topletely milk the ruins for all it¡¯s worth, I even braved danger and invited the great engineer Tid!


    What? Undead Dimensional Doors? Er, I supposed that I might as well take care of it since I came across it. If there¡¯s no way to solve it, then so be it. Que sera sera, there are so many wars in this world, what¡¯s there for me to do?


    [Aren¡¯t you afraid of going overboard and there being an Eich version of a great robot war? Who¡¯s to say that the woman before you isn¡¯t the future Sk? And yet you really wanted to unearth ancient relics. In reality, it was a dormant factory for creating war machines.]


    ¡°The Terminator? Stop trying to scare me. In theory, I don¡¯t think creating apletely human-like soul like Katerina is possible with mass production techniques. Even if it could be mass produced, and dangerous artificial souls at that, this isn¡¯t even Earth, so what is there to fear?¡±


    Yes. This wasn¡¯t a modern city with electronics andputers all over the streets. Mostnds were still in medieval times. Even if it were creations from magical engineering techniques, they were more like man-made old-fashioned heavy machinery, there was no space for artificial souls to interfere. Even if we wanted a grand Sk magical world, there was no soil for Sk to mature in.


    What? Techniques that matured after several thousands of years? The great war of the machines only happened thereafter? I wouldn¡¯t even know where my bones and ashes would be then, so what¡¯s it got to do with me?


    ¡°Um, Karo... You look a little strange. Are you unwell?¡±


    There was too much on my mind. My flickering expressions made Katerina feel uneasy, as she asked tentatively.


    ¡°He¡¯s wondering how to he should take off your clothes.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ voice sounded full of evil intent, but it made Katerina take a quick half-step back. She suspected something long ago, seeing him lie on the chair with seeming thirst in his eyes to strip her naked.


    Too many things happened in the past few days; so many things that this uneducated female bartender couldn¡¯t even wrap her head around it. Forget that her good friend who she trusted suddenly became the highly revered great mage master, he now looked at her like as if he could see through her soul, and it made her incapable of feeling at ease.


    She thought about it repeatedly. There must have been some other reason for a respected master mage to pretend to be a drunkard for as long as half a year in a bar. He even hung out with a female bartender like herself who came from lowly beginnings.


    But now, this blonde little girl gave a rather reasonable sounding answer.


    ¡°You... Karo, tell me that you¡¯re not that kind of person! Why aren¡¯t you saying anything? We¡¯re good friends. I treat you like a brother, an older brother. Unless, you really only thought about.... about having sex with me!¡±


    The female bartender who never went to school had to deal with those vulgar adventurers, so she spoke bluntly and unrestrained. It happened so suddenly that even Harloys who had been filled with so much evil intent was astonished together with myself.


    ¡°Miss, he¡¯s a douchebag! He¡¯s an irresponsible yboy who¡¯s already made countless girls cry; even I¡¯m one of the victims! And what he wants to do the most is strip everything off you. Look at the way he¡¯s gritting his teeth! He wants to hit me again! Miss, Save me!¡±


    In an instant, silly cat pounced into Katerina¡¯s arms. Tears had already started flowing from the corner of her eyes as though she had already been deeply hurt.


    ¡°You think...¡±


    ¡°You can ask him! He¡¯s cursed himself before, so he can¡¯t lie. However, he could really get away with it using flowery, insincere words. Just ask if what I said was true! Did he want to strip you or not and did he make a lot of good women cry?!¡±


    ¡°I...¡±


    ¡°Yes or no? You can¡¯t use flowery words with such a direct answer. We don¡¯t need other answers!¡±


    ¡°F*ck! Harloys!¡±


    Being an expert at truthful lying, how did it feel to be bound by your own most realistic lie? I really wanted go ballistic, but I didn¡¯t know how to begin. In other people¡¯s eyes, this furiosity was merely because of my embarrassment at having my vices exposed.


    In Katerina¡¯s eyes, my silence was a kind of tacit admission. It was an enormous hit like thunder striking in clear blue skies to her. Her face immediately turned pale, as she staggered out of the horse carriage and hid behind her adoptive father......


    ¡°Silly cat!¡±


    ¡°Ha! With Elisa and Amelia already, you still have time to start a love affair? I¡¯ve nipped it in the bud for you, so no need to thank me.¡±


    I was just thinking about getting revenge when those two familiar names calmed me down in an instant. Yet, right now, as the gargoyles watched me, I got into some trouble that I was forced to deal with.

 Chapter 495 - Deserters

    <h4>Chapter 495: Deserters</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Each era has their own unique mark, which was an objective truth. In the feudal middle ages, antagonizing the bourgeois revolution was the same as seeking death. If everyone advocated for the equality of socialism, that would be asking for death.


    But in Eich, the society was so deeply rooted in feudalism mainly because of the cruel natural environment. Weaklings needed to depend on strong fighters to survive.


    Vicious and violent magical beasts roamed everywhere outside. Humans had always been living within this cruel natural cycle. Those who lived outside in the wild meant they were putting themselves right into the food chain. And under most circumstances, normal humans could only be food.


    A pack of ordinary wild wolves could devour an entire family of six, andrge wolf packs most probably couldn¡¯t go up against a single winterwolf magical beast. Packs of winterwolves were nothing more than frost giants¡¯ pets. When the harsh winter approached, white dragons especially favored hunting frost giants as frost giants tended to store abundant amounts of food and had warm caves. While doing so, the white dragons would also use the frozen humans there as backup food sources.


    Of course, societal realities would change. Sometimes, changes were for the better; other times, they¡¯d be for the worse. Although there were limits to one¡¯s power, some people could change the world one bit at a time.


    Did that sound contradictory? In my original world were the discoveries and inventions of Darwin, Bruno and other ¡°scientists¡±. Didn¡¯t they also dere the end of an era of ignorance with their discoveries? And in this world, the birth of magical engineering, elemental users, and the ease at which one could use the power of Law was also reducing the difference between the strong and the weak. In another sense, ever since the holy light¡¯s authority began to fall, this also meant that the days of the divine rights of kings were about to end.


    Alright. Someone could most probably have known that all these changes had something to do with a certain someone. He had indeed yed a difficult game of chess.


    ¡°There were some things that could only be done and not said. When it¡¯s time, the ones who shoulde wille, but if there¡¯s not enough time, then the idiot who cried, ¡®Come. All the crowns are about to fall upon the mortal realm¡¯ will only be crushed by the wheels of history.¡±


    All this time, a certain someone talked the talk but didn¡¯t walk the walk. He knew that there were some things in which all he could do was go with the flow. For all his life, he never nned to incite others and be the sworn enemy of all the rulers. After all, that would be practically the same asmitting suicide in this era of feudal kings.


    This certain person only hoped to scatter some seeds. That way, after his body died, that endlessly soaring power of production and social trends would improve the world a little more.


    But at least now, there was nothing to brag about the world¡¯s changes as usual. The troubles that existed still didn¡¯t lessen one bit.


    ¡°Bandits? Why would there be banditry in this season? This is a government road.¡±


    I¡¯m afraid that the people who were most shocked by this news came from the Northern Trio.


    ¡°...Perhaps it¡¯d be better if I reworded things. I heard the news from the Marquis Stanley¡¯s rebel army just a few days ago. They¡¯ve started fighting again.¡±


    Old Barton, who used to be a mercenary in the past, was now the boss of the bar. Of course he would know about news like this.


    ¡°A rebellion at a time like this? We¡¯re in the middle of a holy war! This¡¯ll drag down the whole human race¡¯s war of justice.¡±


    Mary, a neer to S Dukedom, was really stunned, but from what she said, it seemed like she most probably only knew what she read from the data.


    ¡°They say that the Marquis is a devil disciple. His banner is an evil snake head swallowing a skull. The leaders of the Holy Church dered him a heretic a long time ago, but they didn¡¯t have the spare forces to crusade against an enemy so far away.¡±


    The gargoyles¡¯ field of sight far surpassed the scope of normal scouts. By collecting a short report summary, I received some updated news that made me feel rather helpless. After I shared the information with the others, there were endless disagreements and discussions in the horse carriage.


    ¡°This time, did a devil meddle? This devil can¡¯t possibly be one of our allies.¡±


    This kind of thing happened many times this year. Humans weren¡¯t very strong creatures; especially thosezy nobles who had higher status¡¯ because of their bloodlines. There were quite a few of them who wanted to be immortal, wanted to obtain even more power, and wanted to achieve higher ranks. ¡°Devil¡¯s allure¡± and ¡°evil demon¡¯s muttering¡± were merely analogies in the past, but now, they were actual threats.


    Invaders from other nes needed a stronghold, sacrificial items, and enough souls; especially after the ruler of the lower ne¡¯s abyss disappeared, quite a few major lords fell in love with this extremely rare festival of no restrictions whatsoever. Evil demon worshippers and dark disciples were at least over a hundred times more active than they were ten years ago, and with the youth and power gained by offerings, even more ¡°people¡± walked down this so-called shortcut of no return.


    Not long ago, Marquis Stanley, one of the strongest nobles of S Dukedom, raised his banner in betrayal. It didn¡¯t matter if there really was a demon behind it all or if it was merely to scare his own cowardly underlings to work for them, as he drew a devil¡¯s mark upon his own banner. He obviously didn¡¯t see himself as an ordinary human or S¡¯s subject anymore.


    Naturally, the kingdom sent the eldest prince and his crusading army. Several important royals gathered and fought against Marquis Stanley. I think this all happenedst winter. Both parties fought in about a dozen small-scale battles but never came to an eventual conclusion with a victor.


    This originally didn¡¯t have much to do with us. Afterall the main battles were in the major domain lords¡¯ territories, which were quite some distance away from us. Also, as long as there was war, there would definitely be defeated troops and deserters. These defeated troops and deserters were actually more dangerous than even regr bandits.


    If these defeated troops and deserters ran back to their hometowns, the most likely result would be getting hung for treason. If they were traitorous deserters, then they would also have several bounties on their heads, so they didn¡¯t even dare go to normal cities.


    This group of ex-soldiers also needed to eat. Upon facing the pressure to survive, they who were desperate and had no other options had no bottom line at all, so they figured that best and only way to survive was to be bandits and rob passing traders.


    Under normal circumstances, as long the internal war was over, the winner would then have the strength and time to start hunting down the deserters turned bandits. However, the internal war had went on for over half a year now without any signs of theming to a conclusion any time soon.


    The scale of the fight wasn¡¯t considerably big, as there were no more than ten thousand people participating. I was ustomed to such epic fights before me that this could only be considered a small dispute. Even so, this small dispute was enough to generate several hundred to even several thousand deserters. Also, a group of bandits made of a dozen soldiers gone rogue would be more than enough to bring tragedy upon any small merchant group or vige.


    Perhaps, this was a tragedy born in this era; a tragedy which belonged to the mortals.


    ¡°They had dozens of ordinary people, who must¡¯ve been captives. There were quite a few of them injured too. Are there any viges nearby?¡±


    ¡°...On the map, there¡¯s a vige called Lanty. There¡¯ll probably be just a hundred residents at most. A few dozen ex-soldiers would definitely be able to take it easily.¡±


    ¡°What about the local lord? Does he not send out armed forces to eliminate the soldiers turned bandits?¡±


    ¡°It looks like he¡¯s a newly appointed, second generation knight who earned his title by donating money. He only has a few dozen guards, so he may not react in time. Even if he did, he may not be able to even defeat the bandits. Looks like, there¡¯s a local among the bandits.¡±


    As a local professional mercenary who has been in the business for almost thirty years, the almost-Legend Winston knew a thing or two about the lordship situation of the surrounding area. Afterall, the local domain lords were the mostmon employers of ¡°mighty¡± mercenaries like himself..


    Protecting the safety of one¡¯snd was every lord¡¯s mission. It would practically be a deration of war for other lords to do it in their stead. If theycked in strength and needed toe forward in a fight, it was simply inevitable for them to hire some trustworthy mercenaries.


    And if it weren¡¯t for having already epted this mission, Winston who was a rather righteous type would have already run over to this new lord to rmend himself for taking this task. Winston would have then led his brothers-in-arms to eliminate these deserters-turned-bandits that were terrorizing the viges.


    I nodded, as Winston¡¯s judgement made perfect sense. Those deserters weren¡¯t stupid. It was easier to pick on the weak, so the deserters settled down in the territory of the single weakest domain lord in S Dukedom. It was highly likely that there was a local among the deserters to know about the local domain lord¡¯s weakness.


    I asked the gargoyles to take a long and broad look in the direction of Lanty Vige. They could indeed vaguely see the glow of fire and ck smoke. It looks like bandits had just raided the vige and were still on the road back to their base.


    The bandits were now lying low on our path to the peak of the mountain, waiting to ambush us. It was likely that they saw our horse carriage from a high vantage point and must have thought to get one step ahead of us.


    The white horses and the luxurious carriage were practically signs of royalty. Those warriors that didn¡¯t march in formation and had scrappy equipment were obviously hired troops, which altogether, looked like a big piece of high quality fatty meat.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go and quickly resolve the situation so we can get on the road. I just happen to becking some skeleton soldiers and zombies. Since they¡¯re ex-soldiers, they probably won¡¯t disappoint me once they¡¯re undead.¡±

 Chapter 496 - Revenge in the name of justice

    <h4>Chapter 496: Revenge in the name of justice</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    There were twenty-seven women, over thirty children, and a dozen craftsmen. In the ve trade, this was a big sum of money, and as for the Swift Sword gang that stooped to forming a gang of bandits, this was a rare major score for them.


    The guesses that certain people made were a little off the mark. Currently, the Swift Sword gang that caused trouble around the new knight domain lord wasn¡¯t simply ast-minute gang formed by deserters. Their true identity was arge mercenary group that the rebelling marquis had hired, named Brave Swift Sword Mercenaries.


    As for the mercenary group, the entire group being taken in by a major domain lord like Marquis Stanley was an extremely rare but good thing. The group of mercenaries could naturally obtain the government¡¯s organization and supplies. Ordinary members could obtain rich reimbursement and have opportunities to get promoted. As for the higher execs, this was the only shot for them to be noblemen.


    The mercenaries with checkered pasts were always ambitious people. As long as the rewards were sufficient, the mercenaries who were already killers would take anyone¡¯s head. That also included the head of one of their very own; all for the opportunity to have them and their children to be highly revered nobles. Such an opportunity tempted countless strong mercenaries.


    But, the domain lord wouldn¡¯t casually toss out the offer to take in an entire mercenary troop. And, assigning new noble titles would be like cutting flesh off of the domain lord¡¯s body. After all, even low-ranking noble titles without any territory of their own would require a sry suitable for the retainer¡¯s worth.


    Want to be ranked a nobleman? That could happen... if you fought for it with your life. As long as you proved your strength on the battlefield and gained sufficient achievements, you¡¯d be rewarded with the leader¡¯s appreciation.


    Note: Before this,rge mercenary groups were able to achieve sufficient achievements andpletely maintain their hierarchical structure as long as their military strength was at least over eighty percent. Noblemen never were generous people. Even if you achieved a great feat, as soon as you all lost your value, then you were nothing but a meaningless mercenary group that suffered tragic losses. If the mercenary group suffered serious losses, that would make them suitable as the most disposable of cannon fodder instead. Ordinary mercenaries could be turned into okay foot soldiers, and it was also quite cheap to hire the services of the more powerful individuals once the mercenary group was weakened. This was the favorite type of ¡°volunteer¡± (free) cannon fodder that the nobles loved.


    Because of this, wars ensued. They were purely dangerous wars, not missions that ordinary mercenaries would be willing to participate in. After all, there were great risks with great returns. Still, everyone knew that, in this world, there was nock of ambitious gamblers who believed they were the only lucky ones.


    As long as there were wars, there¡¯d be vultures and hyenas around. The domain lords did in fact like hiringst-minute mercenaries. Even though over seventy percent of the war mercenaries were abandoned, used pawns, there were examples of lucky ones bing nobles and forming armies. This encouraged even more mercenaries to partake, just like moths flying to a me.


    And originally, the Brave Swift Sword gang had been one of these such lucky mercenary groups. It sessfully achieved an astonishing feat during its military service, but...


    ¡°The captain, Entley, died already. Their achievements were gone, and the Brave Swift Sword gang was done. Several leaders were hung on banners, and only the vice-captain, Kaen, was able to be a noble knight. Big Brother Shink said that Kaen betrayed us and traded the brothers¡¯ lives for riches. So, we¡¯re here to find Kaen and get revenge.¡±


    ¡°By massacring civilians?¡±


    ¡°That was just Kaen¡¯s assets. We nned to sell more, but at least we got the share we deserve.¡±


    The citizens were the domain lord¡¯s fortune? In some sense, this was also a mainstream ideology of this world.


    The Swift Sword gang¡¯s two sentriesy together; one of them didn¡¯t move an inch, whereas the other was calm as they described their ¡°revenge in the name of justice¡±.


    It wasn¡¯t that he was in great mental form to be able to list all these conducts without any change in expression. It was thatpletely broken souls simply wouldn¡¯t able to prevent intel from being leaked.


    After withdrawing my index finger from the sentry¡¯s forehead, ck smog started to dissipate. With that, the soul of this weakling dissipated as well, with the pair of ck eyes already losing all focus.


    Even if he was still warm and breathing, he was already a walking dead.


    And when I put my index finger on the other sentry¡¯s hand, the young face was twisted by fear. Cold sweat dropped down like crazy and a yellow liquid came out from below, which made me furrow my brows even harder.


    *p!*


    The opponent¡¯s ugly state convinced me to abandon the idea of authenticating the intel. In fact, the revolting smell made me lose interest in the other corpses.


    After a snap of a finger, water and air was drawn, partially suffocating that terrified sentinel and turning him into a dried corpse. The fatal constriction even turned themonst cry for help when being choked into an impossibility. The only sign of resistance was the bloodstains from nails scraped across the floor.


    It¡¯d been a long time since I had acted as an evil undead mage. It was good that I wasn¡¯t too out of practice. However, the change in ¡°partners¡± behind me was really obvious.


    The stray mercenaries led by the dwarf brothers had an awful look on their faces; moreover, they looked on with fear and respect. They understood that it was one thing to be strong, but it was another to be ruthless.


    I had the usual smile on my face, but deep down side, I was extremely satisfied. At least in a short amount of time, I could ignore the negative effect from the embarrassment I just underwent.


    For the mercenaries, they believed that the strong, merciless, and evil undead mages were not easily fooled. As I was their employer, anymand I gave would likely be carried out.


    Old Barton¡¯s old partner, Winston, didn¡¯t look so good, and he was mumbling something.


    ¡°Evil undead mage? Why did the Holy Light not take him out?¡± Even without reading lips, I could guess what he was thinking. Afterall, this old partner was also considered a disciple of the traditional Holy Light, who attended church twice a week.


    As of right now, the person with the biggest reaction was most probably Katerina. She hid behind her adopted father Old Barton with apletely pale face. She tightly bit her lip, and her eyes couldn¡¯t help but wander as she didn¡¯t even dare look at those tragic lifeless corpses.


    My facial expression didn¡¯t change, but I sighed deep down inside.


    ¡°Have you made your decision? Eradicating all loose ends so that the brat doesn¡¯t fall too deep is truly the smart choice.¡±


    The sound of silly cat¡¯s joy in such a tough situation rang by my ear. There was just no way to conceal the pure happiness and evil intent in her voice. It looked like this silly cat was also an FFF member.


    But, I shook my head.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think too much. I only used the most suitable method to get intel, that¡¯s all. I¡¯m now an undead mage. Was I supposed to use torture instead of soul magic?¡±


    As for the Northern Trio over there, the two veterans seemed not to care about them, but the goblin Thor lookedpletely hesitant. If the situation hadn¡¯t been so untimely, it was likely he would have pulled out the work manual as usual and flipped the pages like crazy.


    ¡°Are you certain that we¡¯re meant to attack these people?¡±


    Don¡¯t misunderstand. The red brilliance of the Law spell Judgement already dered that the two sentries deserved the death penalty. What Thor suspected was the ¡°truth¡± that they had described.


    When I heard it, Iughed uncontrobly. This Thor guy was too inexperienced. So what if he had his doubts deep down inside; he actually identally voiced them. And, above all, he asked an undead mage.


    ¡°But if everything were true, then they had reason to get revenge.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s going after the person for revenge got anything to do with innocent vigers. Oh, you probably felt like citizens are the domain lord¡¯s fortune. Stealing their fortune is a kind of revenge.¡±


    Thor fell silent. It looked like he also agreed with the traditional view that citizens were a domain lord¡¯s fortune.


    I also slipped into deep thought. This thing called tradition sometimes was really annoying. Even if I looked like I was incredibly unreasonable, if most people approved, then even the fake would be true. Even the unreasonable could be made into an iron-dw.


    And the other hidden meaning behind this tradition was that nobles were abovemoners, and people were not equal. If I wanted to prove this traditional way of thinking was wrong, then that would be the same as announcing that the truth was people were equal. In feudal times, admitting this would be tantamount to suicide.


    In this stormy cruel world and in the views of the people, bloody revenge was a basic right. It was considered far more sensible than thew. Simrly, in the cruel world in wuxia novels, it was only right for sons to avenge their fathers.


    The right ofw required the ruling regime¡¯s support. If someone said that onlyw professionals would be able to execute death penalties, people would only take it as a joke.


    If you wanted to prove a tradition wrong, it wouldn¡¯t be something that could happen in a short amount of time. Let alone there being two traditions to prove wrong. So, I decided to firstly bypass ¡°Tradition¡±.


    ¡°Are they guilty?¡±


    ¡°Yes. The Law Judgement Spell and testimony were proof that they were guilty.¡±


    ¡°They deserved to die for their crime, didn¡¯t they?¡±


    ¡°Damn it! Not only did theymit crimes like murder, they also kidnapped and orchestrated human trafficking. To sum up, they were all crimes punishable by death.¡±


    ¡°Then, there¡¯s no problem with executing them, right? Don¡¯t interrupt me. I know you want to say that they have the freedom to seek revenge, but that didn¡¯t mean they shouldn¡¯t be punished for their crimes, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but...¡±


    ¡°This is this, and that is that. This crime and that crime are ounted for separately. Since there¡¯s no mistake with the crimes before us, let¡¯s first sort them out so that we have free time to deal with the next one. These bandits should die. If that domain lord was guilty, you couldpletely put him on trial next.¡±


    Thor suddenly realized something, and he started grab his notebook and make notes with an ecstatic look on his face.


    Many other people were stunned that the stubbornw professional was actually persuaded. Even the cold-faced dark elf antiholy knight looked slightly astonished.


    Yet, I secretlyined, looking at this little fool. With a moment¡¯s carelessness, my addiction to lecturing crept up upon me... I hoped that no one would be able to notice anything.


    ¡°Wait. The situation isn¡¯t quite right.¡±


    When I looked at those bandits who were drooling while looking at our projections, I suddenly felt like something was wrong with this ce.


    ¡°Hm? The Swift Sword gang discovered us?¡±


    ¡°No. Don¡¯t you think it¡¯s really strange? Why are they staying here with the captives? Aren¡¯t they afraid of the domain lord discovering them?¡±


    ¡°Just now, the sentries said they wanted to sell some captives for some money. This isn¡¯t a trade that normal traders could ept. There were no professional ve traders nearby; trades were mostly made in-person, which means that they¡¯re waiting to trade with the enemy!¡±


    ¡°Not only that, but the domain lord would encircle and annihte you if you raided the vige and took ves. That¡¯s a serious crime that no ordinary bandit group would dare to do. Since they already intended to trade vigers for money from the very start, they¡¯re most probably hired to gather captives. But now, which nearby faction needs ves more than anyone else? The Death Council that¡¯s in dire need of sacrifices!


    ¡°There might be clues about the dark disciples¡ª no! Such an important offering means the higher-ranked leaders of the Death Council will likelye to personally receive the ves!¡±


    Just when silly cat and I reached an ord, we looked over at those bandits with greed in our eyes. It was as if we had seen a delicious, fat sheep.

 Chapter 497 - The Power of Hell

    <h4>Chapter 497: The Power of Hell</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°The world is so unpredictable...¡±


    Ominous magic crawled out from the shadows. Afterbining with evil intent that took tangible form, this magic transformed into the ck mist of death from Hell itself. All this ck mist gathered upon my fingers, twirling and condensing itself into an ominous physical representation of death.


    ¡°Kill him!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t let him finish that spell!¡±


    Just this magic and ck mistbining already created a roaring skeleton head. This magic was so threatening without having evenpleted the spell? This was something ordinary people couldn¡¯t understand.


    The Swift Sword gang¡¯s boss didn¡¯t even need to give thismand. Even an ordinary bandit would know what to do when witnessing such a terrifying scene.


    The tall one-eyed bandit ranger leader swiftly grabbed his arrows. The armed bandits didn¡¯t even speak as they roared and desperately charged at me. There was even a sly bandit who used a hostage as a meat shield. All of them made their own decisions as they were faced with a life-and-death crisis, yet I merely sighed silently.


    ¡°...Although the world is filled with the unexpected, at the very least, everyone is equal in front of death. Open, Hell¡¯s Door.¡±


    The ck light gathered together while the skeleton head of ck mist continued to roar behind it. This scene appeared just like some Dimensional Door opening up. Obviously, the spell was nearingpletion.


    The aura of death started spreading. The cowards among the bandits were so scared that they dropped their weapons, and even the more vicious bandits had distorted faces filled with fear as they, too, could sense the aura of death.


    Only the one-eyed bandit leader kept concentrating fully on aiming his arrows. He knew that there would only be one chance to deal with an archmage¡¯s sudden appearance. If he missed his one chance, he would never have a chance again.


    *Thwick*


    He let his arrow loose with an almost imperceptible sound that no ordinary ears could detect. His enchanted mithril arrow arrived in front of me almost instantly, at a rate which I estimated maybe even surpassed the speed of sound. This bandit leader had likely reached Legend in the ranger job ss.


    ¡°Cat shield.¡±


    With simply a thought, I gave amand that my magical pet was forced to obey. A white cat jumped out of a shadow and perfectly blocked the arrow. But judging from how she red at me in dissatisfaction afterwards, it seemed that she wasn¡¯t happy to do so... But weren¡¯t magical pets supposed to take hits for the master?


    ¡°Damn it!¡±


    Shink, the former team captain and ranger of the Brave Swift Sword mercenary group, who was now the boss of the Swift Sword gang, had an expression of disbelief upon seeing that his attack had actually been blocked by a cat. He knew better than anyone the force of his own arrows. That had been an armor-piercing arrow that would shatter any heavy armor. Even if someone blocked the arrow, it was more than powerful enough to pierce right through the body and y the weak mage hiding behind.


    The arrow¡¯s tail was still on the cat¡¯s body, yet the arrow head hadpletely vanished. And then, the cat twisted itself where it had been shot and devoured the arrow. The injury actually vanishedpletely, and the end result was that the mega-valuable enchanted mithril arrow disappeared.


    Yet, Shink could only be forced to acknowledge the unmistakable result. That armor-piercing arrow, which could pierce through heavy boulders, had mysteriously vanished into a seemingly ordinary house cat¡¯s body. That white cat even burped as if it had eaten a delicious meal.


    ¡°Monster!¡±


    Shink¡¯s analysis wasn¡¯t wrong at all. The house cat before him was indeed a monster pretending to be an ordinary cat. But, the moment he shouted, the cat¡¯s re focused right on him.


    ¡°Monster...¡±


    Shink repeated the same word again, but his earlier shock and anger had now turned into fear and helplessness.


    With just a single nce, he felt as if he had been devoured by a vicious beast. His entire back was soaked in cold sweat.


    Shink was someone who had already experienced countless battles in his time as a mercenary. Yet, he had never felt this close to death before. Just how many people could this monster have possibly killed to umte such a strong killing intent? He knew instinctively that this was a monster that he couldn¡¯t possibly deal with.


    <i>Should I escape? No, I can¡¯t abandon myst few remaining brothers-in-arms, but if I don¡¯t escape, the only result will be...</i>


    The bandit leader was still debating with himself whether to run and abandon hisrades or to stay behind and meet almost certain doom. But, the nowpleted six-circle magic spell Hell¡¯s Door made the decision for him.


    The next instant, a flying fairy was born from the door. This ck fairy which was only the size of a palm giggled in the air, leaving behind ck mist and crystal-clearughter.


    ¡°Heehee!¡±


    This magically created fairy was just like a living creature. Her clear wings kept fluttering, and ck gem dust kept scattering from her wings, leaving behind a glorious artificial trail as it flew. Suddenly, the fairy glided downward and fluttered amongst the bandits. Even their swords were unable to stop her giggling as if she was just ying a game.


    ¡°The spell failed? Is that ck-robed mage not an enemy?¡±


    The bandits were just beginning to rejoice when the situation changed yet again.


    ¡°Hell, has opened its door.¡± The fairy giggled in the air and spoke in a strange and soft voice. Yet, everyone was able to understand her words even with her strange voice.


    Suddenly, the fairy¡¯s entire body exploded, and transformed back into ck mist, which reformed into a maniacallyughing skeleton head, but this time it was three meters tall, and seemed physical in nature.


    The skull¡¯s eyes seemed to beughing as its widely open mouth began to devour the light like a ck hole. This was Hell¡¯s Door, the darkest abyss which devoured souls.


    The bandits had just been ¡°ying¡± with the fairy, but the next instant, they all copsed on the ground with nk stares. The life had gone out of their eyes... because they had all just lost their souls!


    As if it discovered that it no longer had any ¡°food¡±, the skeleton head door closed itself, and transformed back into a fairy that giggled at me before vanishing into shadow.


    ¡°This magic spell seems filled with evil intent. Is it your personal interest?¡±


    ¡°Not at all, I only created it based on simple logic. I don¡¯t know why it took such a form. Perhaps Hell¡¯s own power has a special nature, or perhaps the Hell Gods themselves have such a personality since I¡¯m borrowing power from them.¡±


    The death magic Hell¡¯s Door. If one analyzed the workings of this spell, it actually wasn¡¯t thatplex at all. This spell simply connected to Hell and opened up a small portal to use the power of Hell to attack an enemy. Or, in simpler terms, this power of Hell would steal away any mortals¡¯ souls.


    Obviously, this was a spell that required the Hell Gods¡¯ approval. It was a new type of magic that was somewhere in between Divine Arts and magic. Still, its foundational logic was quite clich¨¦.


    The Order Gods¡¯ Divine Arts had spells like Heaven¡¯s Light, while the Chaos demons also had Divine Arts such as Chaos Rain. The former spell was a Dimensional Door that could connect directly to the upper nes, using the positive energy of the upper nes against undead, demons, and so on. Thetter spell was exactly the opposite, connecting to the lower nes to use the power of Chaos. The power of Chaos would be highly effective against mortals of all sorts, and have all sorts of special effects against Order creatures like angels.


    However, even though this spell usedmon magical logic, it was stillpletely different when it involved Hell. First of all, the lowest-level Heaven¡¯s Light was merely a three-circle Divine Art, while Hell¡¯s Door was a far more difficult spell between six and seven circles. It was a spell that only Legends and above could cast. Still, even though it was a spell with far greater requirements, it also had much stronger effects. If you looked at the spell¡¯s logical workings, this was the most efficient AOE instant death magic of all.


    I nodded in satisfaction at the pile of bandit corpses before me. The effect was even better than I¡¯d anticipated. It would seem that this spell¡¯s form could now be fixed. Afterwards, I could just give it to the Mage Country for safekeeping.


    The Order Gods had their own Divine Arts, and Holy Light was one of the types of positive energy. This was the most natural power of Order.


    Originally, the power of death was pure negative energy. Yet, after Hell was sessfully constructed, the power of death now gained the Concepts of Judgement, Death, Reincarnation, and Salvation. This became a brand-new power¡ªthe power of Hell.


    ¡°We, we¡¯re fine?¡±


    The viger hostages that were also within the spell¡¯s AOE radius found to their astonishment that they werepletely uninjured. They were overjoyed to find that the bandits next to them had all copsed.


    Previously, the power of death would be like a torrential flood. Instant death AOE magic spells had tremendous killing power, but it would be impossible to differentiate allies and enemies. However, the power of Hell was like the quietly flowing River Styx. It appeared calm on the surface, but possessed the power to even kill an angel. Yet, the power of Hell itself was harmless as long as one obeyed its rules. The power of Hell could also be controlled.


    Flowing silver sand moved between my hands, glittering ck and shiny like valuable gems. This was the power of Hell, which had evolved from the power of death. After Hell reconnected to the mortal ne of Eich, the power of Hell had now be one of the fundamental naturalws of Eich.


    Countless mages and priests (especially undead mages and Evil God priests) were researching this new power. As for me, I was in a new Gold rank job ss called Messenger of Hell, which was now mostly mature enough for me to spread to others.


    Note that although the power of Hell was an evolution of the power of death, ordinary mages and priests could also learn to utilize the power of Hell¡ªeven if they previously didn¡¯t have any way to use the power of death. Priests could directly establish a connection with a Hell God, while mages would have to ept the Concepts of Hell. However, it wasn¡¯t necessary to be an undead mage filled with negative energy to use the power of Hell.


    The might of a new magic type would be the best type of name card. Even though there weren¡¯t many researchers for the Hell magic, Hell¡¯s index of Hell magic spells already contained more than thirty new spells. There were quite a few spells that would surely leave their mark in history. Only two spells among them were personally created by me.


    ¡°You dare to brag about creating two spells? If it wasn¡¯t for me, you wouldn¡¯t havepleted a single spell until ten yearster.¡±


    Alright then, I was forced to admit that the silly cat, who was staring at me right now, was far more naturally talented at magic than I was. Not only had she already invented seven of the new Hell spells, my two new Hell spells had mostly been created with her assistance.


    As for why my AOE Hell magic spell only killed the bandits, but not the vigers? That was because of the red light of Judgement on the bandits¡¯ bodies, and the Judgementor Thor who was currently assisting the vigers.


    Law Incantation: Judgement. Originally, this Law Incantation could only be used inbination with other Law spells to improve other Law spells¡¯ effectiveness. But now that the God of Law was the same as the ruler of Hell, these two magic types could naturally be used in tandem with each other.


    The power of Hell itself contained the Concept of judging evil sinners. Now, Law Incantation: Judgement would judge everyone here for their recent crimes, acting as a targeting spell. If it hadn¡¯t been for Law Incantation: Judgement giving targets, then Hell¡¯s Door would have still likely been an indiscriminate AOE death magic spell.


    This was a test of life and will. I didn¡¯t know before trying this out if it would sessfully kill all the bandits, but the vigers would have definitely died otherwise. And now, the white light that represented the innocent was their best shield of all.


    ¡°If the power of Law can be considered a shield of protection, then the new Divine Arts and spells of the power of Hell will probably be the sharpest weapons of all.¡±


    And after I confirmed the results of my new experimental spell, I found to my surprise that there was a single bandit who actually survived.


    The one-eyed ranger bandit leader was now unconscious rather than dead. It would seem that I had obtained a nice experimental subject.

 Chapter 498 - Intersection

    <h4>Chapter 498: Intersection</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Kaen Stark. He was one of the leaders in the former Brave Swift Sword mercenary group, and his nickname was ¡°White Eagle Knight¡±.


    Unlike the other grassroots mercenaries that sometimes didn¡¯t even have family names, Stark was the family name of a quite renowned local noble. However, in Kaen¡¯s grandfather¡¯s generation, the Starks had already be impoverished nobles. Kaen¡¯s money for studying and learning how to fight had all been borrowed from distant rtives.


    His emblem of a white eagle was a noble emblem that had lost all meaning already. It was also the greatest symbol of irony for any useless son of an aplished noble.


    Kaen had grown up while listening to stories about his ancestors¡¯ heroism. Yet, all he grew up to receive was the reality that his family had fallen upon hard times. Apart from the martial arts passed down through his family and his family armor, he basically had nothing else at all.


    It was quite ordinary andmon for a knight like Kaen with a family on hard times to be a mercenary. Ny-nine percent of such people would end up dying in a random alleyway. However, Kaen was different. He was highly intelligent ever since young, and possessed grand ambitions. While other mercenaries always got drunk and only thought about what they would do today and tomorrow, Kaen was working his hardest in order to restore his family name¡¯s honor.


    Kaen experienced numerous battles without dying despite the fact that he led the charge every time. He wasn¡¯t even forty years old yet, and already became a Legend-ranked knight despite starting out as a regr mercenary. He was quite famous around these parts.


    Kaen was forthright and decisive. He was passionate and loved to help others. He was extremely well liked within the Brave Swift Sword mercenary group, and he was also one of the group¡¯s leaders, put in charge of negotiations with clients. In fact, Kaen was the one who personally signed the contract to join Marquis Stanley¡¯s rebellion. It was also rumored that the current Brave Swift Sword leader was going to pass leadership over to Kaen after his retirement. It could be said that Kaen was highly sessful in his life, a ssical example of being an ordinary person who managed to achieve great sess. There should have been nothing for Kaen to be dissatisfied about.


    However, the old mercenary group leader who always treated Kaen like his son didn¡¯t know Kaen¡¯s real thoughts. While the leader treated the mercenaries as his family, Kaen Stark viewed the mercenary group as nothing more than a stain and restraint upon his family name¡¯s honor. Kaen also viewed the mercenary group as nothing more than a stepping stone for his family to return to high status among the nobles.


    And then...


    Actually, it wasn¡¯t important to go through all the details. Basically, there was a series of schemes and betrayals. Since Kaen had the motivation and the ability to scheme such a betrayal of his own mercenary group, it was only necessary to look at the results to know what this schemer did in order to achieve his ambitions.


    The Brave Swift Sword mercenary group that joined the rebellion was almostpletely annihted. Meanwhile, Kaen himself became the new knight domain lord of this kingdom. Despite helping to n the rebellion in the first ce, he was now an official noble himself. He instantly achieved his life¡¯s goal, and was able to begin using his family¡¯s long-passed-down white eagle emblem and battle g.


    However, Kaen, whose life seemed to be at its greatest yet, was now filled with frustrations. This wasn¡¯t because of the new report he¡¯d just received of a small vige in his domain being attacked, as this type of event was toomon. Vigers in remote locations were all poor people that couldn¡¯t afford to pay many taxes regardless, and he wouldn¡¯t have cared about the losses even if all the vigers died to wild beasts. Kaen was currently frustrated because of the special envoy before him¡ªPrince Link, the second son of the ruling Archduke of S Dukedom.


    Prince Link¡¯s older brother was currently warring with Marquis Stanley. It was rumored that Prince Link himself had previously studied in the Mage Country, and that he was renowned in academics and magic despite being only twenty years old. Prince Link¡¯s arrival as a special envoy was quite unexpected, and he even brought along the S Dukedom¡¯s most elite troops, the Cliff heavy infantry squadron. The moment Prince Link arrived, he demanded a map of Kaen¡¯s domain and the most recentbat information. And, Prince Link ordered Kaen to summon all of his warriors. It was obvious that something important was going on.


    One party was part of the highest-ranked ruling royalty of S Dukedom, together with the Dukedom¡¯s most elite troop squadron. The other party was a newly minted knight domain lord who had less than one hundred militia troops under hismand. The prince made no exnations to Kaen, and Kaen could only follow Prince Link¡¯s orders.


    ¡°Could it be that he came here because of that treasure map...?¡±


    Kaen was feeling quite anxious inside right now. He had chosen this remote location as his domain primarily because of an ancient treasure map passed down in his family. The treasure map indicated that the treasure was located in the nearby mountains, and the only path through those mountains just happened to be located in this domain.


    Why didn¡¯t Kaen immediately go to obtain the treasure after bing the domain lord here? It was also known to him that there were powerful guards in the ruins that the treasure was located in, an issue that he wouldn¡¯t be able to deal with instantly. Originally, Kaen had intended on developing his own domain and expanding his personal forces before considering how to adventure into the ruins for that treasure.


    ¡°Impossible, impossible, I¡¯ve always hidden that treasure map so well!¡±


    He always carried that treasure map on himself since the map involved the ¡°endless amount of treasures¡± and ¡°sleeping great power¡±. This was what Kaen was relying on more than anything to restore his family¡¯s glory.


    Kaen kept reassuring himself like that, but when he was summoned to Prince Link¡¯s temporarymand center, he was almost unable to conceal his panic. Posted right on the wall was a magnified version of his family¡¯s ancestral treasure map. Even all the markings were exactly the same as the map he had already memorized.


    ¡°Prince Link¡¯s destination is my family¡¯s inheritance? How could this possibly be! Who leaked my family¡¯s secret!¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡°...I noticed that Kaen was always up to something mysterious in his tent. Our Boss was worried that there would be a problem with him, so Boss ordered me to investigate. Then, I discovered his treasure map.¡±


    ¡°Treasure map? No, this is only an ordinary cartographic map. The markings and words on here only exin this factory¡¯s uses. ¡®Endless amount of treasure¡± and ¡°sleeping great power¡±? Only true academics will possibly understand words from the schrs¡¯ generation of Haletdam. Such a hazy description is obviously a prediction from a prophecy magic. Those ruins are actually a research facility from the schrs¡¯ generation. The secrets of knowledge and technology are already endless amounts of treasure and power, so a prophecy magic making such a prediction is perfectly understandable.¡±


    The sheepskin scroll I obtained from Shink was rather tattered. Still, the charcoal lines on it were rather clear to read. This was a hand-copied map that Shink had drawn himself. Considering the fact that many rangers were also experts in cartography, I found Shink¡¯s story rather believable.


    ¡°...How many people know about this map? Did the Death Council obtain the map from you?¡±


    I had now confirmed that this bandit group had indeed been doing business with the Death Council. In that case, perhaps the Death Council had been looking for the ruins because of obtaining the information from Shink. That meant that Shink¡¯s information was quite valuable indeed.


    Although Shink was the only survivor of Hell¡¯s Door, he was still incredibly weak right now. In my eyes, his fragile soulfire appeared just like a candle being blown by a mighty wind as if it would flicker out at any moment.


    Still, such an unconscious Shink wouldn¡¯t possibly stop me from learning information from him. A simple unconscious suggestion magic spell caused him to directly tell me everything he knew. Still, I was worried that this unconscious ranger in bad shape would suddenly die, so I gave him some Holy Light, which improved hisplexion slightly. However, his soulfire still appeared as if it would go out at any moment.


    Holy Light was unable to heal the soul, after all. But, at least the improved vigor helped to give him enough energy to tell me what he knew.


    ¡°After that bastard betrayed us, I directly sold this map to more than ten merchant guilds and mercenary groups! I want everyone to know Kaen Stark¡¯s greatest secret so that his treasure is stolen by others. I want him to experience what it feels like to have what he loves most being stolen away!¡±


    Although Shink¡¯s mind was currently being unconsciously influenced by me, it was still quite evident that he possessed a powerful hate for the person by the name of Kaen. When he uttered Kaen¡¯s name, Shink¡¯s listless eyes suddenly regained life again. I had to improve the power of my unconscious suggestion spell; otherwise, Shink would have broken free.


    ¡°So if you sold it to so many others, wouldn¡¯t this map be an open secret known by everyone?¡±


    At first, Iughed out loud in surprise, but then I was rather peeved. From Shink¡¯s standpoint, this was indeed the best possible method of revenge. Such an obvious source of treasure would of course attract greedy viins of all sorts. As long as this information was exposed to everyone, it was only natural that Kaen Stark¡¯s chances of obtaining the treasure would be infinitesimally small.


    But from my standpoint, it would have been fine if there was only one or two other treasure-seeking adventurer teams as a random treasure map with no stories behind it backing it up would be seen by most veteran adventurers as unworthy of their attention for being a likely waste of time. But with the information so widely spread, there would always be some out there that would recognize this map for what it really was. It would really be a huge problem for me if this Haletdam generation ruin attracted the attention of some major faction.


    ¡°The internal civil war of S Dukedom started this year. So, this information has been exposed for six months at most. That¡¯s still not enough time for foreign factions toe over here. However, time is of the essence. I need to get there faster.¡±


    After taking care of the official business, now was the time to satisfy my personal curiosity. I was really curious why this Shink fellow had been able to survive my Hell¡¯s Door.


    From the information that I already knew, it was no coincidence that Shink had been able to survive the instant death spell Hell¡¯s Door. All instant death type spells would check for the target¡¯s resistance. Such a negative energy death spell would always be a dual attack against both the physical body and the soul, but it would still primarily attack the physical body.


    Hell¡¯s Door naturally had strong control over the soul. Such a strong soul attack would be impossible for any ordinary physical body to resist. In that case, only a strong enough soul that could resist Hell¡¯s Door could possibly survive it, meaning the stat ssified by my system as Will, or willpower.


    [He has 14 Strength, 22 Dexterity, 14 Constitution, 12 Intelligence, 14 Will (Oath of revenge +4 bonus for a total of 18), and 12 Charisma. He¡¯s of pretty good quality as raw material.]


    Revenge was one of the greatest stimnts for willpower. Any man who had sworn an oath of revenge against somebody would be able to endure the harshest trials in order to temper himself. The pain from what he lost due to Kaen¡¯s betrayal must have strengthened his soul.


    Shink possessed a powerful desire to obtain revenge and a soul with an irond will. This allowed him to survive Hell¡¯s Door¡¯s attack of stripping away his soul. However, his flickering soulfire indicated that he wouldn¡¯t be able to remain alive for much longer.


    ¡°...That doesn¡¯t matter at all. For us undead mages, life itself ispletely meaningless. Only the soul is the foundation of everything.¡±


    That was right¡ªfor any undead mage, a powerful soul with a great desire for revenge would be an irresistible temptation. Plus, Shink already had a great physical body that he could use, making this an even betterbination.


    I extended my arms, releasing ck mist of death which bloomed into a ck rose. This aura of death helped to energize Shink somewhat for the time being.


    ¡°If you¡¯re left alone, you¡¯ll die very soon, and perhaps your corpse will even be desecrated by the vigers you attacked for their revenge. However, I have a contract here for you to sign. If you agree, not only will you be able to continue living... well, in a different manner. I¡¯ll even give you the power to take the revenge that you desire. You can take the revenge that you want against the bastard who betrayed your mercenary group.¡±


    What did Shink choose? Heh heh, there was no choice for him to make in the first ce. Since Shink had such a bone-piercing hatred for Kaen that he had been able to survive Hell¡¯s Door due to his willpower alone, it was only natural what Shink¡¯s choice would be from the start.


    ¡°I agree! I¡¯m willing to do anything it takes as long as I can take my revenge!¡±


    Meanwhile, I was busy calcting things in secret as I watched the others assisting in saving the vigers.


    ¡°...Originally, I had only thought that this would be like a leisurely vacation. But, it would seem now that not only are there otherpetitors for the ruins, the ruins¡¯ own defense system is likely to be highly dangerous. Perhaps I need to get some extrabat strength.¡±

 Chapter 499 - Schemers

    <h4>Chapter 499: Schemers</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Actually, I originally wanted to be a swordsman d in a flowing white cloak who¡¯s gone in an instant like a gust of wind. Just what went wrong in the end? Why did my style distort so much to be like this...¡±


    I had previously purchased a shoddy mage robe, which wasn¡¯t even enchanted, in town. Its defensive properties were basically zero. Of course, it didn¡¯t have any buffing properties for my spells.


    The only use for this low-quality mage robe was that it was dyed ck. Its only purpose was to help me look like an evil undead mage, but unfortunately, it was too effective¡ªeffective to a ridiculous extent.


    ¡°Tsk, tsk, such crying. It¡¯s as if they¡¯re heading to the ughterhouse.¡±


    Perhaps I had gone too hard on Shink, or maybe that Shink fellow simply screamed too much during the process of transforming into an undead. The end result was, even though I was clearly part of the party that saved the vigers, the vigers were all looking at me with terror in their eyes. Some of the women and children were even crying constantly as if they were now suffering an even worse fate than being the bandits¡¯ hostages.


    So, at this moment, I could only sigh that undead mages had truly terrible reputations, andin that my style was wrong.


    ¡°You wanted to be a swordsman d in a flowing white cloak? Isn¡¯t that just cannon fodder? So your original goal in life was to be cannon fodder?¡±


    ¡°Wait a moment, how does a white-d swordsman equal cannon fodder?¡±


    I felt like something was wrong with the silly cat¡¯s retort. A white-d swordsman was my mental image of a hero. How could he possibly be cannon fodder?


    ¡°Simply wielding a single sword or dual swords without any armor? That¡¯s just like a farmer serf conscripted into an army and given the mostmon and basic longsword or dual swords. Then, just give the serf a wooden shield and helmet which can block a few arrows and force him to be cannon fodder. Such an ordinary sword with no enchantments wouldn¡¯t even be able to slice through chainmail. And, with no armor, he wouldn¡¯t be anything more than a free target for enemies to kill. What else could he be other than cannon fodder?¡±


    The silly cat seemed to be quite obsessed about this, and I felt like I was learning the pattern as well. It seemed that every time I used death or soul magic, or obtained some breakthrough in this area, she would be really excited. In a way, this also proved that she was a fanatical researcher.


    ¡°With my long years of experience,mon footsoldiers that have received even the slightest bit of training for battle will typically arm themselves with a sharpened bamboo pole as a spear. At the very least, the spear has a greater attack range, which will greatly improve the user¡¯s survivability on the battlefield. Only disposable cannon fodder whose only purpose is to waste the enemy¡¯s physical energy and mana will be sent onto the battlefield with nothing more than a single sword.¡±


    Although I knew that Harloys was simply trying to crush my dream with evil intentions, I still thought it over carefully. Indeed, her words were the truth ording to the logic of this world.


    In my original world of Earth, advances in technology made clothing of any color possible extremelymon. But in medieval times, dye could only be obtained from minerals and nts, and it was quite troublesome to produce. Meanwhile, in the world of Eich, the technology of dye colors had been monopolized by alchemists the moment it was developed. It started out as a technology that only alchemists profited from.


    Although the merchants also had ess to dye coloring technology now, so dye colors weren¡¯t overly expensive, wanting one¡¯s clothes to be dyed was still decently expensive.


    Nobles¡¯ clothes in this world were always colorful and extravagant. They would always wear colorful animals or depictions of legends not only to adorn themselves; these colors andplex designs were the very symbols of their status. Even the major merchants would always wear overly colorful clothing as a method of showing off their wealth. Mostmoners would also have a few colorful pieces of clothing that they wore whenever there was a festival. Only the poorestmoners with nothing at all would wearpletely white clothing which was undyed.


    And out of every weapon out there, the sword, which was simr to a fruit knife, and had many different types of abilities, along with requiring few materials and being rtively easy enough to kill someone with even if the user had minimal training... at the very least, the sword wasn¡¯t that prone to friendly fire, so it naturally became the weapon of choice to arm cannon fodder with.


    After listening to the silly cat¡¯s counter of my dream, I used my own imagination. The image of a sword-wielding hero in a flowing white cloak was mysteriously reced with a tanned farmer warrior. The farmer¡¯s tan was due to constantly working in the fields, and although he had a strong body, he had a silly and honest grin on his face which was the delight from obtaining a good harvest. He was wearing undyed white clothing with several patched holes in it, yet he couldn¡¯t afford to throw it away. His straw shoes had been washed so many times they were pale white, along with being covered in mud. The vegetable knife hanging at his waist was stuck in arge carrot in order to prevent identally injuring himself.


    ¡°Right, right, that¡¯s the exact image! It¡¯s the perfect representation! As expected, young people like you have such excellent imagination.¡±


    ¡°...Harloys, I choose you, throw the cat ball attack!¡±


    I reused the cat ball throwing attack that I hadn¡¯t used for so long by throwing the silly cat with all my might while grabbing her neck. ¡°I shall return, meow!¡± kept echoing in my mind as she flew off like a meteor into the distance.


    ¡°Phew, I feel much better now after some exercise.¡±


    After such ridiculousness, I indeed felt better instead of feeling depressed. Perhaps this was just how the silly cat worried about others.


    Obviously, undead mages were highly unpopr. In most stories and legends, undead mages always yed the role of antagonist. Still, I was rather dissatisfied with being stared at like a murderer when I had just helped to save the vigers.


    [Would you even care about how strangers view you? I bet it¡¯s because that little girl is looking at you like that, which is causing your dissatisfaction.]


    Perhaps it was due to seeing such a pile of corpses after a ughter. Katerina seemed quite unustomed to seeing all those bandits¡¯ corpses piled together, and the way she looked at me seemed to bing stranger and stranger. She waspletely hiding behind Old Barton now.


    ¡°...Do you think that I really have no method to get rid of you?¡±


    [I¡¯d like to see you try.]


    ¡°You shameless Goddess! Do you really think that I can¡¯t deal with you... If you don¡¯t tread carefully, I¡¯m going to go read porn magazines tonight!¡±


    [...That¡¯s so weak, is that the only revenge a virgin man like you cane up with? At the very least, why don¡¯t you try looking at the real version, you coward who can only think about it, but not act? You deserve your fate of having been single for the past three hundred years. Who could possibly stop you when you act ridiculously like that?]


    ¡°I, I, I¡¯m going to take you down with me! I¡¯m going to go look at Goblin yboy magazine right now! The gay edition! Ptui, the way those midgets look while hugging each other... Urk.¡±


    I recalled an advertisement for the gay version of Goblin yboy that I had previouslye upon coincidentally. This caused a mysterious sense of disgust in me that caused me to start wanting to vomit.


    [I surrender... Those green and shiny midgets are too disgusting. They¡¯re truly willing to sell anything for the sake of money.]


    I finally won, but I still felt a mysterious sense of sadness umting in my heart as if I had identally lost something important to me. Was it my sense of shame? Was it my limits? Or had I lost the final pride of a 100% straight man?


    ¡°Master, I¡¯ve already left the message ¡®Everything was sessful, tonight¡¯s trade will take ce at the usual ce.¡¯¡±


    Meanwhile, a thick and low voice turned my concentration to the single-eyed ranger before me.


    Compared to while he was still alive, Shink¡¯s appearance hadn¡¯t changed by much. It was just that his skin became slightly darker, and there was now a mysterious aura around him. It was as if something invisible was wriggling under his skin. Also, the pupil in his single remaining eye had disappeared, and there was something resembling a ck cross in his eye white. It gave him a frightening appearance.


    ¡°How¡¯s your job change to dark ranger?¡±


    ¡°My arm strength has just about doubled. My stamina has no limits, and my vision has improved by four to five times. I still need time to get ustomed to darkness Divine Arts. Just this alone is more than enough to kill off three of the original me with zero problems.¡±


    Shink seemed to be quite satisfied with his current amount of power, and had zeroints about his physical appearance that would probably cause any child to cry. I also nodded in satisfaction.


    ¡°Don¡¯t go overboard. You no longer have your senses of pain and fatigue, but that doesn¡¯t mean that your muscles won¡¯t be injured or fatigued. Your half-living physical body¡¯s structure still needs perfecting. I don¡¯t want my experimental subject #2 to mysteriously die off without obtaining enough data first.¡±


    Experimental subject #2? Of course, as a top-level undead mage, how could I possibly show off my skills if I simply transformed such a grudge-filled soul and almost Legend-rank physical body into a normal undead? Rather than making Shink into a pure undead, I instead turned him into the half-living. Whenpared to pure undead, the half-living would indeed have many disadvantages, but the greatest benefit was the retention of growth potential that the undead were most envious about. I was really looking forward to seeing how much the second half-living being I created would achieve since I used an almost-Legend for the base creation.


    The second? The silly cat that I just threw away was of course the first. However, in order to ensure the sess rate, I hadn¡¯t cared about the material cost for the experiment on Harloys. I even used resources such as Shadow the Divine Sin. Plus, Harloys was a natural undead and the princess of Gold Elves. There would be a tremendous difference between her soul and an ordinary human soul like Shink¡¯s. The only simrity Shink¡¯s experiment had with Harloys¡¯ was pretty much just the logic behind the transformation ritual.


    Ah, could this be that the first prototype version was like the cheating version, while the second version was the ordinary unlucky game yer who mysteriously ended up dying? While mass-produced versions seemed mighty at first, they would always be the source of cannon fodder and random bystanders that ended up dying after a shy entrance? So this world was actually entirely pay-to-win? Combat strengthparisons depended entirely on the difference in resources invested? It would seem that I had unknowinglye upon the truth.


    Cough, getting back on topic, Shink, who was filled with desire for revenge, was an excellent tool that I could make use of. In fact, to make him feel better, I even had the bandits of the ¡°Swift Sword gang¡± properly buried.


    ¡°I thought you wouldn¡¯t be interested in the defective products anymore after you had a new toy?¡±


    ¡°Silly cat, you want to go flying again after you just returned?¡±


    Although I was verbally denying it, I mentally agreed with Harloys¡¯ guess. Indeed, whenpared to Shink, some normal zombies and skeletons wouldn¡¯t even be worth mentioning.


    And unlike Harloys, who had many limitations, dark ranger Shink had been designed by me to be a pure ughtering machine. The reason for his increase in strength was because I had removed all of the human body¡¯s natural limiters on using one¡¯s true muscle strength. This made Shink¡¯s original physical strength more than triple. He also no longer had any feelings of pain or fatigue.


    Although Shink¡¯s heart was still beating, his heart was no longer the fatal weak point to strike at. The core within his brain was now the true main organ. Burning within was now a soulfire on the level of an Undead Lord. This soulfire gave him the power to use darkness magic and Divine Arts. And, it also provided energy that could replenish and repair his body whenever he was injured, giving him a limitless amount of life force and stamina. Thebination of life and death in a half-living body resulted in this ughtering machine of a physical body with limitless potential.


    Of course, thebination of life and death would also result in some negative side effects and contradictory powers. It was quite possible that his physical body would copse at any moment. But, before that happened, Shink would likely have more than enough power to take the revenge that he desired, which would also provide me with plenty of useful experimental data.


    If Shink had two years¡¯ time to grow, it was highly likely that he would develop to be stronger than even the average Saint rank. But, when considering the likely battles and shes before me that were likely to reach a national level, I needed something more than Shink¡¯s current power level right now.


    I nced over at the bandit corpses, but could only give up helplessly. Just as the silly cat said, these ordinary human corpses that hadn¡¯t even reached Silver rank were nothing more than defective products in my eyes. None of the bandits had any special bloodlines or abilities, so reviving them as undead would be nothing more than wasting my time and energy. And if I sewed them all together into something like an Abomination, that would attract far too much negative attention and enmity from the living, and I would receive only a Gold rank fighter at the very most. It wasn¡¯t worth it.


    In the end, I could only look over at mypanions traveling with me who were currently chatting with each other¡ªthose mercenaries and the Nortnds trio.


    ¡°It would seem that I will have to think of ways to obtainbat strength from the living.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    While Rnd was busy being frustrated about theck of aces at his disposal right now, knight domain lord Kaen¡¯s domain was currently quite busy.


    Every single path into the mountains was now blockaded, with fully armed royal soldiers acting as the guards. Anyone who got near would be told to leave. The nearby vigers that relied on the mountains for their livelihood were forced to find other means of supporting themselves.


    The Archduke¡¯s second son, Prince Link, wasn¡¯t someone who rushed out to face an unknown threat even though he was just a young man who recently reached adulthood and obtained his own noble title of Earl.


    As a mage, Prince Link understood quite well just how troublesome something from the schrs¡¯ generation could be, along with what possibilities the ruin might contain. He also knew that the treasure map¡¯s information had already been leaked to everyone, which meant that he would only have one chance that he absolutely needed to grasp.


    Prince Link nned on making his move only two weekster. By then, the royal engineering experts and Sword Saints would have arrived to reinforce him. ording to his calctions, no matter what other country learned about these ruins and started taking action, it wouldn¡¯t be possible for any other country to be quicker than him within the next two weeks.


    However, what Prince Link didn¡¯t know was that someone else had their sights set on the same ruins: his father the ruling Archduke¡¯s greatest enemy noble, Marquis Taric¡¯s treasure hunting forces. Marquis Taric¡¯s forces were already in the area and awaiting any opportunity, preparing to forcefully break past the blockade at any moment.


    Of course, Prince Link also didn¡¯t realize that his country¡¯s seemingly obedient and loyal new knight domain lord was actually secretly scheming to have Second Prince Link ¡°die in an ident¡±.


    Even more unluckily for Prince Link, a certain member of the Cmity Rankings had also arrived. Rnd was also targeting the ruins from the schrs¡¯ generation, and was already present in this rtively small and remote domain!

 Chapter 500 - Spreading Teachings

    <h4>Chapter 500: Spreading Teachings</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    With Shink acting as our secret informant, the Death Council never expected that their contact that they worked with so many times already had suddenly be their mortal enemy. Since the Death Council wasn¡¯t on guard against Shink at all, capturing the Death Council members went incredibly easily.


    Although it was still the ¡°same Shink¡± waiting for them at their typical meeting location, Shink was now loyal to a different party. It took only a single moment for the dark ranger to capture all of them.


    Alright then, even I felt that it was rather awkward to behold thisrge and muscr one-eyed dark ranger. After all, in a certain world, there was an extremely popr dark ranger queen, but since that world developed to the point where even humans were able to join the hunter and ranger job sses, learning the powers of darkness or death and bing a dark ranger was quite normal as well... Still, such a muscr dark ranger was rather blinding to behold, but unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have ess to a Spring of the Drowned Girl<sup>1</sup> ...


    ¡°Oh, right, System, was the Spring of the Drowned Girl that you mentioned previously actually real? Can you really perform a true gender change?¡±


    [It¡¯s real. Compared to twisting karma, changing a person¡¯s gender isn¡¯t even the slightest bit difficult. Actually, you don¡¯t even need me to do the gender change. You can do it yourself with your own undead surgery techniques. All you need to do is change a few organs and adjust the hormonal levels. You¡¯d be able toplete the gender change surgery in less than an hour.]


    Indeed,pared to Earth¡¯s modern-day surgeries that needed to worry about the body¡¯s rejection of organs, infection, or nerve connections, undead surgery was far easier to cut and piece together organs as one pleased. Any of the body¡¯s negative reactions could be taken care of by magic. The techniques were quite well-established already as well.


    I was surprised when I heard this, but I thought about it some more, and realized that it would indeed be quite easy to perform a gender change surgery when it was already quite easy for me to change out any of someone¡¯s organs or even head with my undead surgery. Of course, gender change surgery would be quite easy. Still, I thought about it again and changed my mind, giving up on the idea of creating a ¡°ssical¡± dark ranger queen.


    [...You¡¯ve realized the problem as well, haven¡¯t you? That¡¯s right, gender change surgery isn¡¯t difficult at all. The difficulty is in not going blind from the result after you change their gender. Do you really think that reality is like the moe Japanese mangas? It¡¯s so unscientific that a tall and muscr man can be such a beautiful girl after a simple gender change. Logically speaking, if a person was originally a tall and muscr man, then he would definitely be a tall and muscr woman after a gender change. Plus, even if some medieval English king was actually a female queen <sup>2</sup> instead, with their terrible hygiene awareness and how she would be traveling with the army, any queen would definitely be a roughshod auntie speaking in a vulgar manner filled with dirty words! Something like a cute girl being a English queen is nothing more than an otaku¡¯s fantasy! Right, wasn¡¯t there someone that actually did some research on this topic, that a certain king was actually an ugly old baldie...]


    ¡°...I feel like I need to apologize immediately; otherwise, I¡¯ll be killed off. Right, doesn¡¯t this mean that Hua Mn, who was able to join the army for so many years without being discovered as a woman... Could it be that she looked just like a man... Okay, I should really stop here.¡±


    Cough, cough, I seemed to have identally gotten off topic. Actually, it was quite easy to do a gender change surgery, or even do a full cosmetic surgery and create the body of a beautiful woman. However, no matter what, the beautiful woman¡¯s body would contain the soul of a coarse man, and it would be impossible to change his low and booming voice to sound like the voice a beautiful woman would have... I didn¡¯t feel like anything about this was moe at all. I only felt disgusted.


    Krose? Ha, Krose¡¯s gender was Krose! What was a man? If you asked this question to those bastards from Sulfur Mountain City, they might just beat you up! It was said that the Krose pursuers¡¯ club had already surpassed 10,000 members, and it was likely that those with such interests who hadn¡¯t joined had surpassed six digits already. Even if Krose wasn¡¯t an idol, she had already be a new type of cult.


    Oh, right. I recalled that Krose wasn¡¯t far from here right now, perhaps I could call her over for some eye candy... I meant, to help me out!


    Whoops, I identally got sidetracked once more. I nced over at therge ck-d man who was currently scouting from a tree branch, andpletely abandoned the thought of changing his gender and appearance. Shink didn¡¯t even know that he had narrowly escaped such a fate.


    Getting back on topic, I was now quite free as I no longer had so many heavy responsibilities. And, right now, there were also benefits to acting as an evil undead mage. At least, I wouldn¡¯t have to care about what tactics I used, and so, the unfortunate Death Council priest began telling everything, including even what age he was still wetting his bed at.


    ¡°...Things are more troublesome than I imagined.¡±


    The Death Council had learned about the ruins almost immediately when Shink leaked the information. But, at first, they didn¡¯t view the news as important. They simply sent a small adventuring team with only a few high-level job ss members to explore the ruins in hopes of obtaining some resources which could fund their activities.


    However, the result was that an acolyte left behind on the outskirts was the only survivor. This adventuring team had included even a Gold-ranked master, yet the entire team except for the acolyte perished without even being able to send out a message. The exploration should have stopped there, but an unexpected piece of news astonished the Death Council members of S Dukedom.


    ¡°A part of the ruins has incredibly weak spatial barriers. This location is excellent for creating a Dimensional Door. A normal Gold-ranked undead mage has been able to sessfully summon a bone dragon here in the past.¡±


    And so, a new exploration squad was formed. Although the first three scouting squads all perished, this newly formed exploration squad brought along plenty of sacrifices, and even gifts from the Undead Emperor. All the members of were elites, and they consisted of more than half of the Death Council¡¯s total power. There were multiple Saint ranks among them.


    If this counted as bad news, then the next news was something difficult to assess as good or bad.


    For some reason unknown to the Death Council, the only passage through the mountains had suddenly been blockaded by royal forces. Not only that, the passage was guarded by the most elite royal squadron in the S Dukedom. Unless the Death Council was willing to directly antagonize the local ruling forces and force their way through, they couldn¡¯t do anything but to remain temporarily stalled despite the power of their exploration squad.


    Not only that; since Kaen¡¯s treasure map had now been copied and sold many times over by all the merchants and information brokers in town, countless adventuring teams and even individual adventurers were swarming towards the ruins. The local towns in the area that had originally been low in poption now seemed like flourishing metropolises. Any newly arrived outsider would be viewed by everyone as yet anotherpetitor.


    When I heard all this news from the Death Council priest, I felt a great sense of aggrievement within my chest. This had supposed to be a fun treasure hunting expedition, so why had it be a major fight over the treasure instead? It seemed likely that I would even have to face the local ruling forces. At this rate, it was certain that something even worse awaited me.


    ¡°Wait a moment, then the Death Council priests are also at the town closest to the mountain passage blockade right now? They¡¯re absolutely certain to attack the blockade in order to get past. In that case, I can make use of them to slip past as well...¡±


    As I looked at the stammering Death Council worshipper before me, a strategy that Imonly used was already forming inside my mind. Perhaps, as long as I used them well, the fact that the Death Council¡¯s squadron was quite strong would even be a good thing for me.


    The pure power of death gathered in my palm and formed a roaring skull, acting as a symbol of my power over death.


    ¡°Little brat, originally the only path for you should have been death. The only possibility was to be my experimental subject, but things have slightly changed now. I have a suggestion for you. Perhaps you¡¯ll be ¡®willing¡¯ to help me out. Of course, it¡¯s also fine if you¡¯re not willing, since I¡¯m reallycking experimental subjects.¡±


    Although he was a Death Council worshipper, the middle-aged priest furiously nodded his head. It would seem that he still quite feared death himself.


    After making a few preparations and having the others help the vigers, I took care of the scattered matters on my hand and directly returned to my tent in our camp to rest.


    Although it was night now, there was still plenty of noise in the camp. The vigers that had just escaped a life-and-death situation had still been excited during day to have been rescued, but it was now night, and they had calmed down enough to remember the rtives the bandits killed and how their homes had been burned to nothing but rubble. Crying sounded from somewhere, and then this sound of sadness started spreading. Soon, the entire camp was filled with the sound of crying.


    The elderly hugged children and cried in low voices, women remembered their dead men and cried loudly while worrying about the future, and even youngsters kept dripping tears while thinking about the family members they would never see again.


    This type of situation was far toomon in this cruel world. The veteran adventurers already expected this, and either stuffed their ears beforehand, or went to sleep as early as possible. However, this type of situation was difficult for the younger adventurers to get used to.


    Katerina silently started crying as well as she leaned against her adopted father Old Barton. Perhaps she had recalled her own experiences. The Nortnds trio all had different reactions. Mary¡¯splexion didn¡¯t look well. Meanwhile, the dark elf Diyana had already gotten used to parting, and she simply took off her heavy armor and sat on a tree while bringing out a five-stringed wooden harp as she gently started singing an elven mourning song for the passing of souls.


    This calm and flowing song in anothernguage reverberated within the campground. This song of parting wasn¡¯t that mournful in tune, but the sounds of crying became even louder. Meanwhile, the youngest member of the trio, the goblin Judgementor Thor, had a nk expression. This real life adventuring experience seemed to be quite different from the epic adventure he had been looking forward to.


    ording to the stories and legends he had read, shouldn¡¯t the vigers that were saved bevishing him with fresh flowers and kisses? Why were they all so sad even though they received their freedom?


    The elven mourning song continued to echo in Thor¡¯s ears. This scene before his eyes kept attacking his worldview. The ordinary mortals¡¯ sadness told him that the adventures he dreamed about weren¡¯t as simple as written in the books. The vigers that were just like the background in the legends also had their own lives, sadness, and bliss. Perhaps their tiny amount of bliss wasn¡¯t even worth mentioning in front of a noble, but that would be everything to them.


    The vigers¡¯ homes were gone. There wasn¡¯t even anyone left to wait for their return. They themselves had almost be ve sacrifices. It was only perfectly normal for the vigers to cry and vent.


    There was no need for fancy words. Anyone with a conscience would feel empathy with those who lost their families, friends, and homes. In front of such pure sorrow, even the goblin Thor¡¯s expression became serious instead of his usualical appearance. He hesitated, wanting to do something, wanting to tell them that the future still had hope.


    ¡°...Just let them cry. What can you even do? Say some useless titudes? Don¡¯t go bothering them!¡±


    However, Thor was pulled back by his ownrade. Mary was also in a poor mood right now, but this wasn¡¯t her first experience with this type of matter. She knew that at such a time, an outsider¡¯s attempts at constion would be nothing more than spreading salt on the wound.


    However, Thor suddenly broke free from hispanion¡¯s grip, and ran over as fast as he could with his short stature.


    ¡°I, I¡¯m not here to console everyone. I have a type of power, that doesn¡¯t require much talent. Any ordinary person can learn it. It, can, can protect you all, so that such a thing doesn¡¯t happen again.¡±


    The goblin Thor got nervous and started stammering. However, he spoke his words filled with emotions from his heart, giving him more and more courage to speak up as he continued. His not-so-loud voice suddenly became loud and clear.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, the power of Law will definitely protect you! That was why a certain great person created the power of Law. He didn¡¯t create this power in order to provide the strong yet another tool to bully the weak with. Law, and the power of Law are protection and aid for the weak! This is a type of power that anyone can try to use! Law was created for the sake of protection and smiting evil viins!¡±


    Thor took off the ne on his neck and ced the emblem of the bnce in his hand. The next instant, a silver light ignited the bnce and covered it in a holy fire. The pitch-ck clouds were dispersed, and a ray of silver light descended right upon the goblin¡¯s body. It felt as if an invisible eye was watching this location from the sky.


    ¡°A divine miracle that¡¯s almost impossible to achieve? No, the Pir of Law in Hell will never rest. Anyone can ask for justice and aid from Law. We don¡¯t believe in blindly worshiping the Gods. However, we respect the Hell Gods, because they protect and save the weak along with punishing the unjust!¡±


    Thor then opened up his backpack and stuffed hisw books and his personal notes into the hands of the vigers who now had nk expressions.


    ¡°First, start from learning ¡®Theories of Law¡¯, then next you should study ¡®The Differences Between Law and Holy Light¡¯...¡±


    Thor only half-finished his sentence when he suddenly recalled what he saw at Sulfur Mountain City. He finally understood why these most basic books about Law always sold so well in the bookstores. The book buyers even included old judges with decades of experience. Logically speaking, such judges wouldn¡¯t need such beginner level books, but now Thor understood why Judgementors and Justice Knights that always went out would go to the bookstore every time to buy more of these basic books.


    ¡°Did you lose your books?¡±


    ¡°No, I gave them away.¡±


    ¡°Spreading the teachings of Law? Wonderful, there¡¯s a new believer in Law? Why not take a few more books?¡±


    ¡°More books? There won¡¯t be enough no matter how many I take with me. Heh, why am I telling you all this? You¡¯ll understand in time.¡±


    This past memory shed into Thor¡¯s mind, causing him to smile bitterly. Now, he truly did understand. But, looking at the scene before him, he would have preferred not to understand. Perhaps, when the entire world was so cruel, it was meaningless no matter how many books he brought with him.


    Suddenly, from amongst the crowd of vigers, an anxious voice spoke up inquiringly. The speaker was someone young and skinny, a youth whose clothing was rather tattered. He had just been crying while hugging his grandfather, but now his eyes were filled with expectations. Thor¡¯s divine miracle and words had given him hope, hope for the future again.


    *p!*


    Thor viciously pped himself in the face, causing swelling almost instantly. However, Thor didn¡¯t feel anything at all, as he was embarrassed at himself for his own momentary confusion.


    ¡°Meaningless for myself? Ha, I¡¯m so foolish. It¡¯s enough that there¡¯s meaning for them.¡±


    This new Judgementor who had only recently graduated Law school took a deep breath and recalled how his teachers had taught him. Thor then began to exin to these ordinary vigers about his own path of Law, just as thousands of seniors before him had done.


    ¡°First, you all must understand what exactly the Concept of Law and the power of Law are. This isn¡¯t a power that has high attack power...¡±


    Meanwhile behind him, the dark elf on the tree secretly nodded. Only now did Diyana truly begin approving of thispanion of hers. She even stopped ying her elven mourning song so that the goblin¡¯s ear-piercing speech could transmit farther into the night.


    At the same time, inside thergest and most luxurious tent in the campground, I pulled down the curtain and stopped watching this even though I should have been asleep already.


    I took out a handwritten book and began writing what I learned today within it. This book was finished.


    The cover of this book read: ¡°Unexpected uses of the power of Hellbined with the power of Law: How low-level Law job ss members can have a fighting chance against other high-level job ss members.¡±

 Chapter 501 - Religious Reform

    <h4>Chapter 501: Religious Reform</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The next day, this temporary campground became morous even though the sun had barely rose. All the experienced travelers knew that time was limited in a day for traveling, and setting out early in the morning was amon sense. While mostly everyone were finishing their preparations for setting out, a certain individual ran over to say goodbye to me.


    ¡°You want to stay behind to help reconstruct the vige? Sure.¡±


    I agreed quite readily, to the point where Thor was rather astonished.


    Actually, there wasn¡¯t much to guess regarding his reasons. Thor was staying behind for another reason besides simply reconstructing a vige. Since he had decided to begin spreading the teachings of Law, of course he would need to carefully protect the seed he¡¯d just nted as it would wilt quite easily if he left it alone.


    And, the vigers would only dare to return to their original homes with the protection of the Silver-ranked Thor. After all, bandits weren¡¯t the only threat in this world. Violent wild beasts or magical beasts would also be fatal encounters.


    When the Swift Sword bandit gang attacked, the vige militia that was only sufficient to deal with some wild wolves had all been instantly in. After that, since the bandit group wasn¡¯t numerous enough to keep control over all the vigers, all the adult men that might be troublesome to deal with were killed off as well. Only the elderly were kept alive as sacrifices to be sold off, together with the children and women who were more valuable. Since no adult men were left, these vigers would meet great difficulties by themselves in reconstructing their vige, not to mention the possible dangers they might encounter.


    Not only that; if they didn¡¯t have any guarantee of safety, they would only be able to try going to arger city to make a living for themselves. Some vigers with certain skills would be able to make a living there, but it would be moremon for the vigers to be forced into bing beggars or prostitutes there.


    They would obviously prefer to try reconstructing their homes instead. Their fields had been left untouched by the bandits, and perhaps they would even have an abundant harvest this year. Plus, they received the Swift Sword gang¡¯s belongings aspensation, so at least they didn¡¯t have to worry about food and clothing for the time being. If they could have a decent life in their home vige, who would want to leave?


    ¡°What about your twopanions? Are they going to go together with you?¡±


    ¡°No, I discussed it with them already. They¡¯ve both decided to go to the ruins. Their power is likely to be needed there.¡±


    I nodded as this was something I¡¯d expected as well. I then handed him a slip of paper.


    ¡°Take some of these mercenaries with you. Reconstructing a vige will require a lot of physicalbor. Mercenaries should be quite good for that. Once the reconstruction is finished, hire the mercenaries to protect the town for a while. It¡¯ll be impossible for you to do everything yourself.¡±


    ¡°Baten¡ªowes 17 gold coins? This paper is a list of gambling debts?¡±


    Yep, I had just given Thor a list of some gambling debts that the mercenaries owed me. I felt pain in my heart as I dug around in my belongings and even tossed a small sack of gold coins to Thor.


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s the money they owe me, which will be used to pay for their sries. This money I just gave you is the additional payment I promised them foring along with me. I personally picked these mercenaries, they¡¯re all trustworthy veterans that are reliable. You can rest assured making use of them.¡±


    The goblin Thor had a grateful expression, and was about to say goodbye and set off when I continued speaking. ¡°It¡¯s such a pity. Miracle Hand Tid is probably the greatest and smartest engineer in the entire world. It¡¯s said that he¡¯s already developed a brand-new path of goblin engineering...¡±


    For any goblin engineer, being able to meet a master engineer would be an incredibly valuable chance. It would be the same for an art student to meet a grandmaster artist. This wouldn¡¯t be a simple meeting of one¡¯s idol, it would be a chance for great progress through discussion.


    And, Tid was no ordinary great engineer. He was the critical genius engineer at the center of the entire magical engineering revolution. He was revered as the wisest person of all by countless goblins and gnomes. If Thor missed the chance to meet someone like Tid...


    Alright then, Thor¡¯s earlier grateful expression instantly turned awkward. I could feel that his goblin passion had instantly transformed into depression and helplessness, causing me to chuckle happily.


    ¡°Hmph, since I have to pay money, how could I possibly let you leave in such high spirits?¡±


    ¡°...You really are a twisted individual. Since you¡¯ve paid the money already, why can¡¯t you just happily act the part of a good guy?¡±


    ¡°Tsk, I¡¯m already a good person.¡±


    ¡°Yep, yep, a good person, a good person who¡¯s been single for more than three hundred years. Perhaps you¡¯ll remain a good person for the rest of your life.¡±


    ¡°What a vicious curse! I also bless you to be a good cat for your entire life!¡±


    The silly cat shook her head, appearing to lose interest in our elementary schooler level argument.


    ¡°Still, that little brat is really lucky. Since you wrote a letter of rmendation for him to Xueti, doesn¡¯t that mean his future path will be quite easy?¡±


    ¡°Ha, you don¡¯t understand the bastards in the Church of Law at all. In their eyes, ¡®a valuable potential sprouting seed¡¯ is the equivalent of ¡®a novice that needs extra trials and tribtions¡¯. Anyone I personally rmend will probably undergo ¡®the harshest trials possible¡¯. Thor wants to get promoted? He¡¯ll probably have to go through every hard time imaginable first.¡±


    Although I indeed felt rather helpless toment on Thor¡¯s previous behavior and actions, I was at least quite satisfied with how he actedst night. That was why I had written a rmendation letter for Thor to Xueti, the highest-ranked priest of the Church of Law.


    ¡°He¡¯s no longer called the high priest. I received newsst month that Xueti¡¯s official title has been changed to high judge. Every priest in the Law job sses shall all now be referred to by terms in the Law profession.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words caught my attention.


    ¡°They¡¯re using the level 1, level 2 judge, and so on system from Sulfur Mountain City again? Isn¡¯t that making it obvious that we¡¯re making a break from the old Gods¡¯ Churches¡¯ system? How will the Gods¡¯ Churches react to such arge-scale religious reform?¡±


    This appeared like only a simple name change, but it was far more than that if one thought it over carefully. This represented the fact that the Law job ss members would now be acting as their statuses in the Law profession rather than in a religious profession. This was a major religious reform by the Hell Faction, aimed at reducing divine authority.


    This also meant that the Law believers were believing in the Concept of Law itself, not the God of Law. While this might seem insignificant, there was actually a huge difference. This was basically a deration of war against traditional religions in Eich. It was easily predictable that there would be a great bacsh.


    ¡°...There was no reaction. Not a single church member at Cardinal level or above made anyment.¡±


    Even though this was clearly supposed to be a sess that was happy news, Harloys¡¯ emotion in her message was filled with worry as if this was the worst possible result.


    ¡°No reaction? How is that possible? Oh... they decided on having a reckoning with uster!¡±


    If the Gods¡¯ Churches didn¡¯t issue any official opinion on this, that was the equivalent of a tacit eptance of the Church of Law¡¯s religious reforms. And, such a reform was already treading upon the taboo of the Gods¡¯ Churches. Believing in a Concept and believing in a God were already two ideological factions that were mortal enemies with each other. Unless the God intended on unifying with the Concept, there would always be a war in the end.


    Of course, it was theoretically possible to ignore someone as a special exception, but this would basically be the equivalent of having a pure materialist in the middle of a pack of religious ascetics. Obviously, this would attract a great deal of negative emotions and dissatisfaction.


    ¡°The God of Law and his Church of Law don¡¯t even solicit donations or offerings. Why do your Gods want so much money? Also, they im that sinners will enter Hell, while you im that you can enter heaven simply by offering enough money. Just who is in the right? They also have divine power and Divine Arts, but their priests are capable of taking care of themselves. Why is it that your priests need to do nothing but pray, and never have to worry about food or clothing, why...?¡±


    Well, it was likely that not even Pope Caloma of the Holy Church would be able to answer such questions.


    In that case, the best way for the Gods¡¯ Churches¡¯ higher-ups to deal with this was probably to temporarily pretend not to see us ¡°heretics¡±, and deal with uster after the Holy War.


    ¡°Xueti rushed things too much. It¡¯s too early for such religious reforms; it¡¯ll attract enmity from the neutral True Gods...¡±


    I stoppedining halfway through. I had chosen that tauren with so many negative hobbies as the boss of the Church of Law because he actually had a steady personality. Xueti wasn¡¯t the hasty type at all, and even if he made a rash decision, Lilith and the others would stop him.


    ¡°Just how long have you not read any religious magazines? Alright, I know that you hate those things the most, so I¡¯ll just tell you.¡±


    All the Gods¡¯ Churches followed what was popr, and put out their own magazines for scamming money as well. Half of the magazine would contain the teachings and sayings of their particr church, and some bastards even ced weak hypnosis runes within their magazines to help influence the readers to believe in their church. I would never pay even a single copper coin for such mental pollution! Yep, it was all because it was a scam, definitely not because I was stingy!


    ¡°...You lost your imposing manner at the end there, along with exposing the truth.¡±


    Harloys, however, loved to purchase and read all sorts of random religious magazines, especially the ones from the Elf Gods... alright then, it would seem that the silly cat wasn¡¯t foundationally different from before at all. Yet, she always called me stingy and grudge-bearing.


    ¡°Ever since two years ago, many Gods¡¯ Churches have beenining about Law job ss members invading and stealing members from their territories. There have been more than two hundredints, and startingst year, theints more than tripled. As for this year...¡±


    ¡°How manyints were there this year?¡±


    After hearing this, I pretty much understood.


    ¡°This year¡¯s not over yet, but there¡¯s already been more than eight thousandints. Theintse from a total of approximately ny churches and two hundred and forty different countries. Shall I report each and every one to you?¡±


    ¡°F*ck! Isn¡¯t this pretty much half the world opposing us? Are we bing the mortal enemy of the entire world?¡±


    Now, I finally understood why the moment that the Church of Law¡¯s Nortnds trio arrived in Anton Town, the priests and holy knights from that tiny church rushed all the way over from the distant S Dukedom capital. The Church of Law was getting too famous for stealing believers from other churches. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the Holy War was still ongoing with the fight between Order and Chaos, the other Order Gods¡¯ Churches would have long since made their move against the Church of Law.


    ¡°This is basically, basically... a wonderful job!¡±


    My originally depressed feelingspletely disappeared? The other countries and churches wereining? Let themin. At any rate, there would be no ¡°internal war¡± until the Holy War ended. It wouldn¡¯t hurt me one bit if they just angrily scolded me.


    Originally, I had been worrying that we would attract too much enmity while spreading our teachings, but since I learned that enmity against us was on such arge scale already, this actually meant that the Church of Law had been highly sessful in spreading their teachings. I was plenty used to being viewed with enmity already.


    ¡°Many ces are now calling spreading the teaching of Law as the ¡®Law gue¡¯.¡±


    I even broke out intoughter when I heard this. Indeed, from a certain standpoint, the spreading of the teachings of Law indeed resembled a cmitous gue.


    Let me use the vigers here from Lanty Vige as an example. If Thor sessfully nted the seeds of Law here, then it was highly likely that several dozen low-level Law job ss members would be born here within the next two years. And, if one of those Law job ss members visits another vige, perhaps another several hundred Law job ss members would be born, and then they would travel and spread again... This really did feel a bit like a gue, or even a cult.


    ¡°Our original n was that it would take a minimum of thirty years to spread our teachings through the entire world. We aplished this in only seven years? We¡¯re more cult-like than a cult.¡±


    In the end, the teachings of Law had only been able to spread so quickly because of its own specialties.


    This was a world where the strong preyed on the weak. A power that could be used by an ordinary mortal would naturally spread quite quickly. This was also why Evil Gods¡¯ Churches were impossible to stamp outpletely. While it was definitely better to believe in a True God rather than an Evil God, the True Gods wouldn¡¯t reward their believers so easily. Meanwhile, the Evil Gods would typically reward their believers instantly when they prayed, and Evil God believers were also able to progress far quicker in power level. In this world, concrete power would be far more convincing than any abstract church teachings.


    And from a certain standpoint, the Church of Law did things even more ridiculously than an Evil God¡¯s church. After all, if you worshipped a demon or devil¡¯s church, even if you were given power or your wish was realized, you would definitely lose something even more important and valuable. Meanwhile, the Church of Law would also give you power, but not take anything in return.


    The Church of Law didn¡¯t have actual churches. There was no need to pray to the God of Law. No expensive religious rituals were required. One only had to believe in Law, Justice, and Protection... There was nothing abstract about the Church of Law¡¯s teachings. This greatly reduced the cost of cultivating the power of Law, along with greatly reducing the difficulty of teaching Law. A small booklet would be far more difficult to defend against than an Evil God¡¯s ritual.


    The power of Law focused on protection and punishment. It wasn¡¯t a power that could be used effectively for attacking. Most domain lords were quite happy to seew job ss members appearing in their domain as Law was a power specialized for protection. Whilew job ss members weren¡¯t effective at invading, they could be used to protect towns, along with repelling wild beasts and enemy invaders. And, the powerful individuals in the Law job sses wouldn¡¯t pose any threat to the domain lord¡¯s rule (for the time being). And on a deeper level, the Law job ss members would even deal a blow to the local religious authority, which would expand the domain lord¡¯s authority. From a certain standpoint, this was yet another battle between royal and divine authority. If it wasn¡¯t for the domain lords secretly stirring up trouble and helping the Law job ss members along, it wouldn¡¯t have been possible for the teachings of Law to spread so quickly.


    But, the most important factor of all was that the requirements to be a Law job ss member were incredibly low. And, growth rate in Law job sses was rather fast. This caused mortals who desired to control their own fate to voluntarily learn more about the power of Law.


    Of course, there were also plenty that tried to pretend to believe in Law just in order to obtain power. However, it would be impossible for such individuals to utilize Law Incantations without a sincere understanding and belief in the Concept of Law. And even if there was a person who was intelligent enough to use Law Incantations regardless of personal beliefs, that person would always be self-inted after obtaining power. The moment that person used their own powers for personal gain...


    ¡°Divine Law, the seventh crime of the thirteen crimes, those who forget their own duties and use their powers for personal gain shall be stripped of all their powers of Law forever!¡±


    The previously wild and fantastical deration was now concrete reality. It was no mere saying that Wumianzhe was forever watching you. Anyone who was stripped of the power of Law would find it impossible to use the power of Law again for the rest of their entire life.


    And, everything about all of the above was all because Wumianzhe had now reached Main God status, and also because the God of Law and his Hell Faction had now be an independent third major faction.


    Only if the God¡¯s divine power was sufficient would they be able to summon divine miracles as they pleased. Last night, the divine miracle that Thor showed the vigers of Lanty vige caused several dozen people to choose the path of Law. By giving them the seeds of Law, this in turn obtained their belief, which would also provide more divine power for Wumianzhe.


    As I previously said, the Holy War would both be a trial and an opportunity for the True Gods. It would seem that the God of Law had already turned this into an opportunity.


    Perhaps this was also how the God of Holy Light had achieved his rapid growth during the previous Holy War. In the end, the God of Holy Lightpletely lost control of himself. As for the God of Law of today, he was tightly bound by his own rules. Wumianzhe was destined to remain as one of the most important gears of Hell.


    ¡°Since things have already reached this state, why don¡¯t I add some more fuel to the fire?¡±


    And so, I brought out a piece of paper and started thinking about what I should write in my letter to Xueti and Lilith.

 Chapter 502 - Splitting Up

    <h4>Chapter 502: Splitting Up</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The sky waspletely bright now. Thor and hisining mercenaries had already set out, escorting the vigers back home. The campground had mostly beenpletely cleaned up, and it was time for the rest of us to set out.


    But, what happened differently from what was nned was that our remaining mercenaries set out first. Mary and Winston, who were both mercenaries as well, were leading them. This was the majority of our group.


    Our new n was that these mercenaries would openly walk into the new knight domain lord¡¯s capital city, Starwood City. Obviously, a fully equipped mercenary group would attract a great deal of attention from the treasure-seeking adventurers already in town. Our mercenaries would serve as cover for the smaller group to secretly go around unnoticed.


    Old Barton was also together with the mercenaries. The task I gave him was not to be afraid of anything and cause as much of a ruckus as possible... Yes, that¡¯s right, I wanted him to cause a ruckus. This would be a trial for him to start making a name for himself, as well as intentionally muddying the waters.


    ¡°Even if I don¡¯t personally go to Starwood City, I can pretty much guess what the situation there is like right now. Nobody likespetitors, especially for potential wealth and treasure. The S Dukedom royals and nobles are probably in a high-pressure situation where they¡¯re trying to pit the adventurers against each other. You should use the identity of an adventurer and intentionally antagonize the Dukedom¡¯s officials. Make as much trouble as you possibly can. There¡¯s many factions in town waiting for a fuse to ignite everything.¡±


    With a dragon lich supporting us, I truly wasn¡¯t afraid of making trouble. I was only worried about not making enough trouble.


    The mercenary group would be out in the open, while the smaller group would move in secret.


    I was in the third, smallest group of all. There were three of us and a half-living. That would be me, the anti-holy knight Diyana, and Katerina. As for that half-living, of course that was my new undead servant, the dark ranger Shink. Oh, I suppose I forgot about the Death Council member I¡¯d previously interrogated, who was going along with us. His name was Brad, by the way.


    One ranger, one undead mage, and a melee knight. We had DPS, a tank, and a maid who took care of our daily necessities and cleaning. Although we didn¡¯t have a priest for healing, although we didn¡¯t have eight job sses, this game... I meant this team was still rather bnced.


    ¡°...Listen up. From now on, I am the Legend-ranked undead mage Karo, and the disciple of the great lich ine. Katerina, you are the maid Lina. And Diyana, you are my personal bodyguard, Diyana. Due to my personal ambitions and my teacher¡¯s advice, I¡¯m heading to join the Death Council.¡±


    The great lich ine was indeed a real person. He was one of the Xiluo Empire Darkness Council members who had secretly tried to ally with the Undead Emperors from the Death nes back in the day. However, very few knew about the news that ine hadpletely died during Xiluo¡¯s internal war. It would be quite easy for me to use one of his personal items and pretend to be his disciple. ine also had contact with the Undead Emperors previously, so it wouldpletely be logical for his disciple to be joining the Death Council.


    Hardly any excuse was needed for an undead mage to join the Death Council. The dark ranger job ss was an undead job ss to begin with. As long as Diyana concealed her job ss of anti-holy knight, she could pretend to be an ordinary dark elf warrior. This would make us seem a perfectly normal evil team. It would be quite easy for the Death Council to view us in a friendly light, with any normal governmental organization viewing us with enmity and being on guard.


    As for our personal maid... Actually, there were many mages out there who had strange habits and were difficult to care of. Although we might attract some unnecessary extra attention by bringing Katerina along with me, I much preferred to take the hit to my reputation rather than having this critical ¡°key¡± leaving my sight due to the trouble it might cause.


    As for that tragedy when the ¡°father and daughter¡± had to say goodbye, it was just like the old ssical story of ¡°the rich noble trying to forcibly take the farmer¡¯s daughter¡±. Let us just forget about how Katerina was still pitifully curled up in a ball in the carriage¡¯s corner and staring at me with fear in her eyes.


    Once the mercenaries had all set off, I started getting busy as well.


    ¡°Let¡¯s start painting this carriage ck.¡±


    Color usually didn¡¯t represent anything, but if an undead mage really rode such a white carriage, together with those abnormally beautiful and naked elf gargoyles, I would likely instantly be famous in all of Starwood City. Gossip would spread at an astonishing rate, making all my disguising meaningless.


    Of course, it would be too low-quality to paint the carriage ck, which was why I performed a small ceremony.


    I pretended to utter an incantation while sessfully connecting a portion of the River Styx to this location. Some reddish-ck liquid appeared in the small pit before me. Then, I brought out some white gems (jade) and tossed them into the blood pool.


    ¡°Demonize.¡±


    I directly tossed the male elf gargoyle into the blood pool. The white jade sunk into the forehead, and the next instant, arge amount of blood was absorbed by the jade, and then the entire gargoyle began to distort.


    Coarse ck body hair began to grow on his facial features and limbs. His gem eyes began glowing with a pitch-ck light. His pure white elven skin began to crack. His original magical runes and stone parts beganbining with the dark blood in the blood pool, forming new muscle structures. Soon, the elf gargoyle was no longer even humanoid.


    He was now two-thirds of a meter taller than before. His bulging muscles had mystical runes upon them. The single horn on his forehead and vicious-appearing gem eyes gave him a frightening appearance. His original feathered wings had been reconstructed into the ck wings that demons would have. He hadpletely transformed to resemble a demon from the lower nes.


    What the others saw was that I tossed a handsome elf gargoyle into the blood pool, and an ugly demon popped out afterwards. I was even capable of transforming undead creatures like this? This seemed like an incredibly terrifying and evil magic spell. Katerina was nowpletely hiding herself behind Diyana.


    However, this wasn¡¯t a highly difficult spell or ritual at all. Yet, it was likely that I was the only one in the world capable of pulling this off. After all, the materials and ceremony I used weren¡¯t even from Eich.


    After my experiment seeded, I thenmanded the remaining five female gargoyles to enter the blood pool. However, the female elf gargoyles didn¡¯t be ugly demons. Although magical runes appeared on their faces and skin, and their skin also darkened somewhat, they still remained beautiful. In fact, the cute little curved horns on their foreheads and their even redder lips made them seem realer and more alluring.


    This wasn¡¯t intentional on my part at all. It was simply how demons were. The males were muscr and powerful, while the females were alluringly beautiful. But, with how the others in my party were looking at me right now, I figured that I would probably be unable to escape the title of ¡°gentleman¡± anymore. After all, these naked gargoyles originally ¡°belonged to me¡±, meaning that I had already set a precedent.


    I could only shake my head helplessly. I also ignored the silly cat¡¯s evil chuckling in our soul connection. It would seem that it would be quite difficult to get rid of my reputation. Still, it was now time for serious business.


    Afterpletely changing the appearances of my gargoyles, I then changed the appearance of my phantom horse carriage and unicorn. Now, my little group definitely appeared to be an evil group of viins. If our mercenaries returned right now, it was highly unlikely that they would recognize us.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get going. If you have any more questions, ask while we¡¯re on the way.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    Starwood City. Actually, calling this ce a city was a bit of an exaggeration. While Starwood City was indeed the capital city of this small domain, as well as thergest city in this domain, a knight domain lord was the lowest level of domain lord, so this rgest city¡± of the domain was still rather shabby.


    Starwood City¡¯s poption was only 60,000. The city guard numbered only approximately one hundred, and the city walls were merely three meters tall. Even the domain lord¡¯s mansion was just a run-down small fort without even a singlerge-scale defense mechanism. The only local specialties were the local crops and rye bread as hard as stone. Things couldn¡¯t get any more pitiful.


    Yet, after news about the treasure map started spreading, this small and remote city suddenly received countless visitors. Every single hotel in the city waspletely filled, and even the residences were filled up with paying guests. In fact, there were even numerous tents and temporary camps set up outside of Starwood City.


    Plus, the S Dukedom¡¯s royal soldiers were also camping right outside the city. For the short time being, the poption of Starwood City had almost doubled. The atmosphere within the city was rather tense, and people scurried everywhere at a fast pace. It could be said that a storm was brewing within the city.


    Meanwhile, my little team was now resting and making preparations at our temporary camp outside the city. Shink took Brad into the city to leave a seal used for contacting the Death Council, so we could only wait for the Death Council to respond and contact us. After all, it wouldn¡¯t be that easy to locate an evil cult skilled at hiding itself.


    Old Barton and the mercenaries had already entered the city. For now, things still seemed calm inside the city. However, the camps outside the city seemed to be a little chaotic. After all, many treasure seekers were the type that wouldn¡¯t hesitate to kill, and the fact that the only passage through the mountains was blockaded made everyone frustrated.


    Murder, robbery, gambling, and other crimes were all methods for veteran criminals to vent their pent-up emotions. And since I had now arrived, evil started acting in the night. After staying outside Starwood City for two days and nights, I gained many extra undead materials in my backup storage.


    Of course, I intentionally rode in my phantom horse carriage, and didn¡¯t even try to hide myself. I made sure to keep myself and my undead high-profile as I killed various criminal adventurers around the camps outside. I even had Shink kill off any adventurers that dared to challenge us, gaining a vicious reputation around these parts. This was all to help the Death Council to ¡°confirm¡± my identity as an evil undead mage.


    After all, this was a critical time for the Death Council. Any suddenly arrived ¡°helper¡± during an important mission would always be suspicious. So, if they voluntarily contacted me instead, that meant they would be much less suspicious.


    While I was waiting for the Death Council to contact me, a familiar person contacted me before the Death Council did.

 Chapter 503 - Flying Skates

    <h4>Chapter 503: Flying Skates</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Cliff heavy infantry squadron was the undefeated shield of the S Dukedom. They were also the ace heavy infantry squadron of the Dukedom that had the additional title of being ¡°royal¡± troops.


    These golden armored heavy infantry squadron members were all extraordinarily tall men who were more than two meters tall. Many of these humans had barbarian or beastmen bloodlines. They had undergone training to be skilled in using heavy axes, long spears, and tower shields inbination. They were especially skilled at fighting in formation to defeat many as few.


    And, a few years ago, the S Dukedom underwent a military reform. The royal alchemist sessfully melded the two weapons and shield together, creating a new powerful military equipment called the Thunderaxe Shield, which was known to be a terror on the battlefield.


    Yep, this was yet another product of magical engineering. Since there was currently a technological revolution, nobody would let themselves be left behind. Even a certain incredibly corrupt Chinese dynasty had spent a great deal of money on building a modern fleet of warships.


    Due to the changing times, the S Dukedom royalty grit their teeth and opened up their treasury. The royal Cliff heavy infantry squadron became the first beneficiary.


    To assess their power level, the Cliff heavy infantry squadron was likely at an average of high-level Silver. Although overall power levels had increased in this new generation, this was still an above-average power level for ordinary humans.


    With such a group of burly men blockading the mountains and patrolling the area, it was unlikely that any bandits would be able to pass. Forcefully trying to break through would be the equivalent of dering war against the entire Dukedom. Anyone who tried to do so would have wanted posters put up everywhere. No wonder all the adventurers were stuck here, having a headache about what to do.


    But, as for me, it was actually quite easy to break through this so-called blockade.


    The Cliff heavy infantry squadron was quite numerous, and had an alright power level for locking up the ground. However, I could simply pass by in the sky.


    For ordinary smaller countries, aerial knights would be highly expensive and impractical. A single aerial knight¡¯s upkeep would be more than sufficient to maintain an entire ground-based squadron. Not to mention, all sorts of young magical flying beasts and eggs would forever be priceless ck marketmodities that weremonly out of stock. Still, after the dawn of the new generation, aerial knights became easier to ess.


    Rather than using flying magical beasts that had astonishing appetites, magical engineering was now capable of creating floating battleships and nes. Of course, this wasn¡¯t cheap, either, but they were at least more obtainable.


    And once other countries started having aerial knight squadrons, the remaining countries were also forced to spend money on aerial knights no matter how much they didn¡¯t want to. From a certain standpoint, this was the arms race happening yet again in another world.


    Of course, certain sly merchants wouldn¡¯t let go of such an excellent opportunity. Due to a certain unreliable individual joining in the weapons merchants party, certain products that were impossible toment on entered the marketce as well.


    ¡°The cheapest single-unit flying equipment, no extra equipment needed. It¡¯s asfortable as normal clothing, portable and light, and uses very little energy. What are you hesitating for? Hurry and buy the Pigeon #2!¡±


    Don¡¯t be fooled by the advertisement... although it indeed wasn¡¯t lying. It was indeed asfortable as clothing you wore as it was a type of wearable clothing¡ªthe Ironspitter Underpants.


    Its workings were simr to jet packs, and it was just as convenient to manipte as a jet pack, used very little energy, and was absolutely perfect... not!


    The high temperature from the air it sted would make your lower body feel asfortable as in a volcano. And even if you tolerated this, and the Pigeon #4 took care of the heat problem, it was quite a wondrous sight to behold the image of colorful mes and smoke being emitted from someone¡¯s butt as they flew up into the air. It was said that although some were fooled by the advertisement and tried this product out, the warriors on the frontlines all refused to use this product anymore after just one test run.


    Of course, such a product was an anomaly among anomalies. It was merely an experimental product that hadn¡¯t even been mass-produced. However, any weapons merchant would always toss out prototypes and experimental products into the market just to recoup some funds. Plus, they would be able to obtain actualbat experimental data¡ªa wonderful deal.


    Alright then, after such an exnation, you¡¯ve probably figured out what was happening.


    In Year 5 of the new FT generation, which was two years ago, the S Dukedom sent out an envoy to purchase flying equipment after they learned that the neighboring countries had all purchasedrge amounts of jet packs. But, unfortunately for the Dukedom, their envoy hadn¡¯t heard of the joke ¡°flying underpants¡± product, and made his purchasing decision based on only the advertisement and product exnation.


    Luckily for the envoy, the flying underpants had already been proven to be an absolute mistake, and was no longer being produced and sold. But, unfortunately for the envoy, he was still scammed by a new advertisement, and didn¡¯t choose to purchase the ever more efficient jet pack propulsion systems. Instead, he purchased the newest version of flying underpants¡ªflying skates.


    Alright then, it might have seemed cool to fly in the air on fire-spitting skates. However, the prerequisite was that the skates could be controlled. It was proventer on that flying skates were even more foolish of an idea than flying underpants. At the very least, it was still possible to control the underpants with your hands. As for shoes... first of all, how would you even lower yourself to touch your shoes to change your flying angle in midair? And if you really did bend over to touch your shoes, the change in your center of gravity would cause you to enjoy a hellish rollercoaster of backflips in midair.


    This might seem hrious to behold, but for the warriors themselves, it was noughing matter, especially after some youngsters flipped so much that they crashed into the ground.


    Still, this wasn¡¯t because the designer (me) was too stupid. After all, in my original world, flying tanks, bombs ced in dogs, balloon bombs, airship bombers, and other such ridiculous and powerful weapons had all been invented. These weapons were also equally effective at friendly fire. Sometimes, the thought behind the design was urate, but as long as there were any issues with modern technology or controls, even the best design would be the most foolish of designs.


    This was made all the worse because the world of Eich didn¡¯t have an understanding of the sciences of aerodynamics or fluid mechanics. Designing a flying machine was basically like trying to win the lottery. After a series of rather ridiculous products, only my most basic blueprint of a jetpack proved to be the most practical design. After all, jetpacks had already been proven to be effective in my original world.


    The sessful weapons merchants would always buy and sell the most ssical weapons that had proven themselves in battle already rather than the coolest looking and cheapest new weapons. Obviously, it would be foolish to purchase such a newly developed product for your needs. However, the market was such that there would always be suckers forced to learn from their mistakes. And since the weapons market was so chaotic with countless new inventions right now, there would always be people making mistakes with their money.


    It was said that the envoy who purchased these flying skates was actually a member of the S Dukedom royalty. How could the Dukedom possibly let these skates be ced into the warehouse to rust? Wouldn¡¯t that be a symbol of the royalty¡¯s foolishness? The end result was that these flying skates were forced upon the Dukedom¡¯s strongest troops, the Cliff heavy infantry squadron.


    And not only that, the Cliff heavy infantry squadron actually managed to use these flying skates. People were alwaysing up with ideas. It was just that the posture required to use the flying skates seemed rather ridiculous.


    It was impossible to control the flying skates with your hands? Simply use a long pole or thread to control the skates from a distance.


    Alright then, the Cliff squadron members were indeed capable of flying now, and were even able to control their direction after a long period of training. However, they would have to hold two long poles or threads while flying to control their direction, and they werepletely unable to wield any weapons while doing so. While flying, they would only be able to scout, and couldn¡¯t participate inbat at all.


    By the way, although this method of flying looked quite foolish, this control method actually started spreading. Many other unfortunate individuals who also purchased flying skates started using the same method to control themselves while flying. Well, it was one way to use a mostly useless product.


    And, to my knowledge, the only flyers in the S Dukedom were the goblins¡¯ deliverypanies and these flying-skate-equipped Cliff squadron members. I didn¡¯t even need to summon a bone dragon. Just the gargoyles carrying me would be unblockable.


    ¡°Is that why those Death Council members went looking for a dragon corpse? They need arge bone dragon that can fly across the mountains?¡±


    Every type of flying mount would have their restrictions. Flying required up to ten times or even a hundred times the energy consumption of walking on the ground. This was a natural result of the gravity in this world. That was why flying magical beasts required such a supremely high amount of calories. Flying magical engineering products also needed constant energy replenishment. And, even an undead flying creature wouldn¡¯t be able to fly endlessly.


    Normal gargoyles wouldn¡¯t be able to fly very high; if they flew for too long, it would damage their body, and they would also require additional mana to replenish their soul cores. This limited how far a gargoyle could fly. Normal flying magical beasts would need to constantly eat meat to be able to fly far. Only a Legend-ranked undead like a bone dragon would be able to fly through the mountains without any need to stop.


    Bone dragons weren¡¯t that easy to summon. Every bone dragon represented the death of a dragon, and of course there wouldn¡¯t be any bone dragon without a dragon¡¯s corpse. And, it wouldn¡¯t be that convenient to travel in any human country with a bone dragon.


    Many scattered pieces of information seemed to all connect. My objective was quite obvious now as well. I could somewhat tolerate anyone else entering the mountains, but I absolutely wouldn¡¯t allow the Death Council to get their hands on those ruins. The moment the Death Council entered those ruins and sessfully opened a Dimensional Door, that would be the same as starting another Undead Cmity-level war here.


    While the S Dukedom was blockading all the adventurers from entering the mountains, many adventurers were secretly beginning to team up. And since I came here so publicly with the status of a Legend-ranked undead mage, I also received an invitation to join a discussion regarding how to break through the blockade. It would seem that many people were about to make their move.


    Just as I was about to go join this meaning, I was astonished to hear an unexpected piece of news.


    ¡°Tid hase here?¡±


    Tid arrived in quite an oundish fashion, streaking through the sky on his extra-small assault aircraft and directlynding near my camp.


    Soon, he used all his gadgets to locate me.


    I felt ratherplex inside to see his familiar yet unfamiliar appearance.


    When I saw himst before the creation of Hell, little Tid had only been a bit over nine years old. Seven years had passed since then, so he should be sixteen or seventeen years old now. The snot-nosed little kid in my memory had be a strapping young man, but...


    ¡°Forget about being taller than me since you¡¯re in your growth period, but just why are you wearing only underpants while showing off so many muscles!? Did you join the Wild Bull Alliance as well? Did that evil cult spread so much already!?¡±


    My angry roar was filled with panic. The shota who was a siscon in my memory had transformed into a muscr dude. This change caused me to recall a few certain bastards, making me even more uneasy. Could it be that Xueti and Eaglestorm actually seeded in spreading their way of living? Could it be that the entire Nortnds and Mist Alliance leaders had be such strange creatures?


    ¡°This?¡±


    Tid¡¯s thick and raspy voice was evidently still changing. He even had a small mustache that he intentionally styled. He had a toolbox belt attached to his white underpants, and was touching his own well-developed muscles whileughing in a foolish manner.


    ¡°Brother Rnd, don¡¯t overthink things. I¡¯m still quite normal. It¡¯s just that I¡¯ve been ying with machines every day, and lifting heavy machines on a daily basis. It¡¯s only natural that I became muscr. As for my clothes... with so many machines, the temperature will rise, and it¡¯s quite ufortable to sweat so much while working. It¡¯s morefortable to take off my clothes. I immediately came over when I received your letter, and didn¡¯t even have time to put on some clothes...¡±


    I immediately heaved a sigh of relief, but the next instant, I became nervous again when Tid continued talking.


    ¡°...So, you see, since I¡¯m so muscr already, I used the correct methods of scientific training to create a perfect muscr body with the golden ratio. Last year, I received second ce in the bodybuilding contest. Plus, with my educational background as an engineer, I¡¯m really popr with girls now!¡±


    Tid puffed up his chest and showed me his shiny muscles with a series of standard exercise routines. What was with him entering a bodybuilding contest? It would seem that Omar¡¯s bastards were still ruining the youths of the Mist Alliance.


    ¡°The moment that I return, I¡¯m going to cook all those bastards in simmering oil...¡±


    But, I shook my head and tossed all that to the back of my mind. Perhaps the great change in Tid was actually a good thing.


    ¡°Little guy, put on some clothes and get ready to go out. I bet that nobody would think that you¡¯re the famous genius engineer now. Come, apany me to a certain meeting. Let us go meet the leaders of the adventurers here.¡±

 Chapter 504 - Artificial Soul

    <h4>Chapter 504: Artificial Soul</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    My first impression of the current Tid was: a familiar face, a slightly familiar voice, and apletely unfamiliar physical body.


    ¡°You received the letter directly? You didn¡¯t reveal that I was here, did you?¡±


    ¡°Of course, I came immediately when I received the letter. There¡¯s really the Halet... the schrs¡¯ generation¡¯s ruins here?¡±


    ¡°Of course, why else would I have youe here? The maid that¡¯s currently with me should be a pure artificial soul. You didn¡¯t notice?¡±


    ¡°For real? Back in the day... My current research topic isn¡¯t rted to this anymore. I¡¯ve heard that pure artificial soul research has been unsessful all this time. There¡¯s results now?¡±


    ¡°Unsessful?¡±


    It would be strange if Tid didn¡¯t have his own secrets with all his aplishments. He wouldn¡¯t be able to conceal what his soul was truly like from me, but it wasn¡¯t necessary to pry so deeply for everything. This was especially so after the Hell Faction sessfully signed a contract with Kalumandas the God of Wisdom. Our cooperation was on yet another level now.


    And with certain things brought to the surface, little Tid¡¯s real identity wasn¡¯t much of an issue anymore. But, since I knew his real identity, I found it rather strange that he actually didn¡¯t know about artificial soul research.


    ording to my knowledge, in the greatest ruins from the schrs¡¯ generation, the Spiral Tower, there was a gigantic gravestone erected there which stated the three greatest ¡°crimes¡± of the Haletdam schrs. Of course, you could also call those crimes their ¡°achievements¡±¡ª¡±Eternal life for the entire race, artificial souls, and the creation of life.¡±


    But now, Tid was actually mentioning that artificial soul research had been unsessful all this time? Of course, this piqued my curiosity.


    ¡°Yep, it¡¯s always been unsessful. Actually, it¡¯s still an issue with the foundational nature of the soul. Apart from the Creator, not a single person is capable of creating the essence of a soul from nothing. Pure calctions are still unable to arrive at the nature of a soul. If you want to create an artificial soul and activate it so that the artificial soul bes like a living one and has the abilities to evolve and feel emotions, you can onlybine it with natural souls. This is obviously taking the wrong path.¡±


    ¡°...Isn¡¯t that the same as undead mages, then?¡±


    Wasn¡¯t that the field of undead mages, using souls as materials to create new soul products, along with toying with the structure of souls and physical bodies?


    ¡°Yep, the revolutionary technology we came up with was actually something left behind by others already. It was basically an insult to the researchers of the schrs¡¯ generation. But, to my knowledge, at least when the schrs¡¯ generation ended, there shouldn¡¯t have been any major breakthroughs in the field of artificial souls.¡±


    I nodded at this. I could sort of count myself as an expert on soul research, and I could also guess at the artificial soul research from the schrs¡¯ generation. It could easily be analyzed from Tid¡¯s words that their artificial souls utilized pure calctions to simte logic. But, just likeputers from my original world, no matter how skilled at calctions aputer was, aputer could never be called aplete ¡°person¡± unless there was some sort of foundational change or breakthrough.


    ¡°In that case, it¡¯s simr to mage tower spirits. Your artificial souls were capable of making logical decisions, butcked self¡¯s will and emotions.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not simr, it¡¯s basically the same technology. Did you really think that mages wouldn¡¯t stoop to grave robbing?¡±


    ¡°Ptui!¡±


    I instantly spat andughed at this as I imagined the wise image of a mage with gold-rimmed eyesses and a robe being reced by a muscr man carrying a shovel.


    Actually, many ancient technologies and magic spells had been unearthed by grave robbing. It wasn¡¯t wrong at all to call mages skilled graverobbers. If some lucky bandit, viger, or farmer coincidentally discovered some ruins, and the news started spreading, mages woulde running faster than anyone. Oh, right, the S Dukedom wasn¡¯t that far from the Mage Country. I wondered if the Mage Country would be sending someone soon?


    ¡°But if that was all there was to it, that wouldn¡¯t have broken the Gods¡¯ taboos?¡±


    What I recalled was that the schrs¡¯ generation had been destroyed due to divine punishment. And since there was the Holy War as a cleansing mechanism at fixed periods, the Gods were actually quite tolerant of mortals treading upon their taboos. A normal level of anti-divine actions still wouldn¡¯t lead to something as drastic as divine punishment.


    ¡°This technology alone would have been fine, but they just happened to invent human-created physical bodies and soul-saving technology. You know the Sky Tower, right, yep, that Sky Tower at some corner of the sea. Actually, that¡¯s a soul-saving center. Each of the countless rooms within it contains the brain and soul of a wise schr. They¡¯re still performing their research within that tower, while simply waiting for their rebirth program so they can be reborn.


    Rebirth program? I heard an interesting phrase just now. After Tid exined, I finally learned what the great engineers from that day had aplished.


    Unlike what the mages of today called the schrs of that generation, since they were called schrs, those great engineers were no fools who didn¡¯t foresee their own demise at all, nor had they done something so foolish as to give their entire race eternal life. After all, anyone with even the slightest intelligence would know that there was such a thing as a carrying capacity for the world.


    However, the schrs had indeed gone quite overboard. They assessed the value of every ¡°human¡±, and every human deemed as valuable ording to their standards would be given eternal life. The others would await their turn to be reborn within the Sky Tower. The value assigned to each individual would determine the time of their rebirth and how long they could live. Poption would be controlled and increased or decreased by societal needs. This way, the schrs could indeed control poption growth even with eternal life. However, there was one part that they hadn¡¯t realized.


    ¡°Then, doesn¡¯t that mean that all the souls were locked within the Sky Tower? There¡¯s only newborns that enter the Cycle of Reincarnation, but no dead are returning to the Cycle of Reincarnation. Although the poption remains the same, the total number of souls in the schrs¡¯ generation will only increase endlessly. That will definitely break the bnce between Order and Chaos. The Chaos Faction would never allow such a unified and orderly society to appear. The reduction of the dead will directly cause the River Styx to receive fewer resources. That will directly threaten the bnce in the lower nes, and as for the Order Gods...¡±


    ¡°How could any seeker of truth possibly worship a God? It would be impossible to seek the truth of the world with such a limited worldview. That¡¯s why mages and engineers of today only respect and understand the Gods rather than worship them. The schrs definitely didn¡¯t worship the Gods. In fact, some of them had even begun to research or even capture the Gods. There were quite a few Gods that perished due tocking belief or having their divine statuses stolen by humans in that generation.¡±


    The rest could be left unsaid. Humans could truly be foolish sometimes. The Haletdam schrs had been foolish enough to simultaneously antagonize both the Chaos and Order Faction, and tread upon the foundational workings of the Holy War. This was why they had beenpletely destroyed by the Gods.


    ¡°There were seven major Sky Towers back in that day, and I think they were all destroyed. Everyone that thought they had obtained undying souls were all instantly thrown back into the Cycle of Reincarnation. All the records were destroyed, and even if someone was able to survive the divine punishment, a gue that targeted only the Haletdam schrs stole away everyone¡¯s lives. That ended the schrs¡¯ generation.¡±


    Tid¡¯s words sounded like he was sighing rather than actually mournful. This was because he hadn¡¯t personally experienced any of it. He had simply inherited a certain schr¡¯s knowledge and memories, so he was more sighing about the lost knowledge and secrets from that generation.


    There was no need to mention too much about the past, but I would need to ask more since this was all rted to the future. Since Katarina originated from those ruins, there was something that still wasn¡¯t quite right.


    ¡°So, the artificial soul technology from that year was something simr to mage tower spirit technology. Many natural souls would need to be added in order for the artificial soul to obtain a sense of self?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but it would be quite difficult. Maybe the technology had been perfected after all near the end. Right, there were also tower spirits in that day, and the mages even named them mage tower spirits after the Sky Tower spirits from our generation. Sky Tower spirits were the greatest achievement of artificial souls. They possessed astonishing calctive prowess. One individual Sky Tower spirit could manage the countless lives and souls in an entire Sky Tower.¡±


    ¡°Did the Sky Tower spirits have a sense of self?¡±


    ¡°No, that was strictly forbidden. First, creating an artificial soul with a sense of self and emotions would require the destruction of natural souls. The more powerful the artificial soul, the more natural souls would need to be consumed. And if a Seven-Star Schr¡ªthat was the name for the seven Sky Tower spirits¡ªif such an artificial soul received a sense of self, perhaps it would have ruled the schrs rather than have the schrs ruling it.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help butugh out loud after hearing this. As expected, it wasn¡¯t only Earth¡¯s humans that had been afraid of being killed off by their own artificial intelligence. Humans were truly humans everywhere.


    ¡°Ha, such a familiar story. Could the next part be Sk vs. Terminator?¡±


    [Ding! Jinxer achievement activated.]


    My System always cracked such terrible jokes that I was tired of. Now that I thought about it, all those jinx achievements or so on were all because of the System digging pitfalls for me.


    [I¡¯m not joking here at all. There weren¡¯t only seven Sky Towers in the schrs¡¯ generation. There was an eighth... which was also thergest Sky Tower of all. And, it¡¯s not far from you right now.]


    ¡°What?¡±


    [Just how do you think Katerina was created?]


    ¡°F*ck, why didn¡¯t you tell me about such a major thing earlier?¡±


    [You never asked, cough, I meant to say that you didn¡¯t meet the requirements to activate the quest... Besides, just how many pieces of random information do you think I have to sort out in my memories?]


    In the deepest part of the mountains, the ruins by the name of Z8 had already activated itself.


    Z8¡¯s code name was also known as ¡°The Schrs¡¯ Generation Reconstruction n¡±. This Sky Tower had been kept an absolute secret for safety reasons from all who were uninvolved.


    The schrs¡¯ generation was filled with wise individuals. Plenty had already foreseen the fate of total destruction, so of course they would make preparations. This Sky Tower was created with the setting that it would only activate itself two thousand years after all seven other Sky Tower spirits perished.


    But, for a certain reason, Sky Tower Z8 was rather unsessful in waking up from its long hibernation, and soon entered a deep sleep again. However, slightly more than a decade ago, a reckless adventurer entered the ruins and took away an important part, which activated the entire Sky Tower again.


    This Sky Tower actually reached far underground despite its name. Although it should have been filled with the souls and brains of great engineers, elites, and military personnel, more than half of the Sky Tower¡¯s rooms were nowpletely empty.


    In the deepest underground portion of the Sky Tower, some ck-robed mages were now painfully screaming in front of Z8¡¯s soul seat. Their skulls had been cut right open and their brains were exposed, directly leaking all their secrets through electrical stimtion.


    The master of the Sky Tower, Z8, was now ignoring the mages. It was now concentrating on the void, where a venerated guest had just received its invitation.


    ¡°Emperor Conservation. Perhaps we have a mutual goal.¡±


    After a long while, Z8 received a response from the void.


    ¡°Indeed, we do have a mutual enemy. Those hypocritical Gods that act so righteously!¡±

 Chapter 505 - Everyones Schemes

    <h4>Chapter 505: Everyone¡¯s Schemes</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°To be honest, I keep feeling like the style is wrong...¡±


    ¡°Hm? Why do you say that?¡±


    ¡°See, all the other main characters get to act so cool and do face-pping. The basic style is so different, and I¡¯m not the type who can do such a thing, nor do I envy them. Still, the developments are simr. At least, the main character will constantly power up, and receive ever greater status, more and more subordinates, a constant increase in beautiful women around him, growing ever taller and stronger, and always improving in reputation. But look at me...¡±


    ¡°...Your power level keeps weakening, you basically have zero status, you¡¯re all by yourself, all your subordinates are gone, and as for beauties... Cough, cough, at least you¡¯re bing more and more like the evil viin! Yep, you onlyck a hero¡¯s sudden arrival to send you back to the River Styx again.¡±


    The silly cat sounded like she was consoling me, but her words were actually filled with evil intentions. However, her words indeed described my current situation urately.


    I kept pretending like I was grabbing at something in the air. My pitch-ck cape covered my body and face. The only visible part of me was the soulfire I slightly ignited in my eyes. As an experienced undead mage, I was quite skilled at making myself impossible for others to read.


    I was currently in a room on the second floor of a normal viger¡¯s house. An old oilmp¡¯s pale yellow glow was the only source of light in this entire room, and the doors were all shut tightly. The air was stale, and the stench of sweat was rather ufortable to experience. That was because more than twenty people were crammed into this room that was receiving no fresh air.


    However, maybe due to the overwhelming amount of negative energy I was giving off, there was still quite an amount of open space around me. Tid, who barely managed to put on some leather armor, was the only one who stood behind me. He looked more like a barbarian than the greatest engineer of all time.


    On the other side of the room, Diyana wore a veil while being dressed like a dark elf assassin. She only showed off her chin and an icy expression as if nobody present was even worth her attention. She sat on the wooden windowsill and looked outside while silently ying with the dagger in her hand.


    ¡°I think that there¡¯s no need to waste time with introductions. Everyone knows what we¡¯re all here for today. I¡¯ve had a grandmaster appraise this map. This treasure map is absolutely real. But, those government bastards are blocking our path to treasure. I say that we just kill those f*ckers!¡±


    A rather tall and burly man was currently speaking. His face was covered in a gray beard. He appeared to be at least sixty or seventy years old, and there were only three fingers remaining on his right hand. If I recalled my information correctly, he was the leader of the local mercenaries, and the vice-captain of the mercenary guild here, ¡°Earth Dog¡± Tom Shor.


    Tom probably represented the opinion of all the unassociated mercenaries. Standing right next to Tom was Old Barton, who was just kept silent with his head down. Since Old Barton was obviously brought here by Tom, it would seem that Old Barton had already made a name for himself.


    Mercenaries were constantly risking their lives. Of course, this was mostly for the sake of money. It would be strange if a normal mercenary wasn¡¯t tempted when they found out that such arge treasure was so close by to their home town. And once all the local mercenaries banded together, of course only a veteran mercenary well reputed in town could be voted to represent them all. Previously, Old Barton had sufficient reputation but not enough power. But, since Old Barton had been able toe here with Tom, he must have been able to disy sufficient power after my training.


    ¡°...But, the one who came here is that Prince Link. His Highness even brought the royal guards with him. It¡¯s not that good to get into a conflict with the royalty, don¡¯t you think? We should all peacefully make money, peacefully make money...¡±


    This person who spoke was rather pudgy, and had a friendly expression. His mustache appeared ratherical, and judging from his stomach, personal appearance, and words, he seemed just like a merchant.


    Indeed, he was a merchant. He was iman, the most famous ck market merchant in the area. He even had several mercenary groups under hismand. The amount of power he wielded would equal any knight domain lord¡¯s in S Dukedom.


    Merchants were always the cautious type. Obviously, the people in this meeting were all the type that cared more about money than other people¡¯s lives. There would be an endless amount of trouble from antagonizing the royalty. The adventurers and mercenaries could simply run off to another country after antagonizing the royalty, but all of iman¡¯s business dealings were in the S Dukedom. It was rather surprising that iman would evene to this meeting, but it was understandable if you saw who was right next to him.


    A woman with battle scars all over her body was right next to iman. Half of her face had been disfigured by a vicious sword wound. She intentionally let down her bangs and covered half her face, but she only covered the uninjured half of her face. It was as if she wanted to intentionally make others ufortable.


    She was wearing female armor that looked more decorative rather than practical. However, under the oilmp¡¯s illumination, I could tell that her armor was glowing with a special orange-red that only adamantine would have. No matter what her power level was, the very fact that she could wear this armor meant that her physical strength was more than sufficient to empty-handedly tear through a wall. After all, her ¡°light-appearing female armor¡± would actually be more than three times the weight of any heavy suit of armor.


    She was ¡°Blood Spear¡± Salima, an amazoness warrior who was known to be Legend rank or above. She was a countess, and one of the female domain lords that Marquis Stanley Taric trusted the most. She was also the highest-ranked female general in the S Dukedom.


    It might have also been because of her ugly appearance, but the one eye she showed which wasn¡¯t covered always looked at others with a sharp and icy stare that caused others to be unable to look her in the eye. She didn¡¯t even try to hide her feelings of enmity and vignce toward everyone here. And, her most famous achievement was her infamous ughter of all enemy survivors every time she won a battle. Those who loathed her would directly call her the ¡°Blood Witch¡± instead of ¡°Blood Spear¡±.


    Since her appearance was so noticeable and she was so well-known in S Dukedom, no introductions were necessary for anyone. She was another person that everyone else kept their distance from.


    ¡°They¡¯ve allied together? Is iman now supporting Marquis Stanley¡¯s rebellion? iman controls all the food and weapon merchants in several domains. It would seem that the S royalty are going to have an even harder time now.¡±


    Of course, such an analysis would be quite normal when seeing two such major personages together. And, the very fact that a major personage in the Dukedom like Countess Salima hade to this meeting also proved the veracity of the treasure.


    Of course, there were also other important figures present in this room, such as the leader of a well-experienced adventuring team, the leader of the thieves¡¯ guild who also sold information, and so on. But, none of the others in the room were as important as Tom, iman, or Salima.


    Originally, I shouldn¡¯t have been able to even be invited here, since ¡°nobody knew who I was¡± beforehand. But, in this world, power level would forever be the best name card of all.


    I simply put some slowly burning Hell mes upon myself. These mes appeared quite dangerous, and were actually even more dangerous than they looked. Everyone naturally stayed as far away from me as possible. Even Salima¡¯s lone revealed eye was looking at me with some fear. Thus, I received the right to speak here.


    So many people gathering at such ate hour like midnight in a normal viger¡¯s house wouldn¡¯t possibly be for some friendly party. We were only here to discuss how to break through the royalty¡¯s blockade. And from a certain standpoint, this would be no different from outright rebellion.


    But, I was slightly surprised to see that there were no Death Council representatives in the room at all. Not a single person present apart from me possessed the power of death.


    I didn¡¯t think that the Death Council would miss such a great opportunity. Even if the Death Council was unable toe to an ord with the adventurers and mercenaries, there would at least be some worthwhile information to be gathered. But, suddenly, Diyana furtively slipped me a note with some ck markings that appeared to be almost random.


    ¡°This is the word for ¡®Ally¡¯ in the ancientnguage of Laiton? Who would use such an ancientnguage? Oh...¡±


    I paused in surprise for a moment, but then instantly realized what was going on. The ancientnguage of Laiton was a demons¡¯nguage from the lower nes. Thenguage itself contained the very Concepts of corruption and decay. Many high-level undead magic spells and runes would use the Laitonnguage. Only those who learned undead magic, and to a sufficiently high level, would possibly understand thisnguage.


    Before I could ask Diyana who gave this note to her, I saw that pudgy merchant iman intentionally touching the silver ring on his hand.


    He was wearing an expensive dragonbone ring with ck runes upon it. The skull emblem on the ring proved his identity, in addition to the fact that he was mouthing the word ¡°Ally¡± to me in the Laitonnguage.


    It would seem that I hadn¡¯t wasted my efforts in having Shink contact the Death Council. They had indeed received my message. However, the Death Council was even more well hidden than I expected, they were also incredibly cautious. This was our first meeting, and a small test for me to see if I was truly a high-level undead mage. After all, I arrived at such a coincidental and important time, so it was only natural they¡¯d be suspicious of me.


    I looked questioningly over at Diyana, and she nodded slightly. She confirmed that it was indeed the ¡°friendly merchant of death¡±, the ck market merchant iman who gave her this note.


    It was said that more than seventy percent of the Death Council worshippers who joined this evil cult didn¡¯t join for the sake of something as abstract as power. The most basic reason was because people feared death and wished to be an undying undead. The Death Council thus counted many rich merchants and nobles among its followers. It was indeed true that the richer one was, the more one would be afraid of death.


    And so, I wrote down a message on the note in the Laitonnguage as well¡ª¡±Death is fair to all, but sometimes, a sufficient amount of wealth can purchase special permission to be exempt from death.¡±


    I gave the note back to Diyana, and some timeter, a servant whispered something in iman¡¯s ears. As a result, iman suddenly smiled as if he had struck the jackpot.


    I also almost broke out intoughter. It would seem that iman hadn¡¯t understood my little joke.


    ¡°...No matter what amount of money you spend, you¡¯ll probably still end up in a certainyer of my Hell¡¯s Seven Circles.¡±


    Our tiny little note-passing actions didn¡¯t attract much attention. That was because most people at this meeting were doing something simr. Someone would have to take up the job of being the first brave heroes to break through the royal soldiers¡¯ blockade (the job of cannon fodder), so if you didn¡¯t want to be the ¡°nice and helpful¡± brave warrior who went first, you would need more allies and a better status.


    Of course, notes were being passed around everywhere. Questions like ¡°do you want to meet upter?¡± would always get affirmative responses like ¡°yes!¡±... and don¡¯t misunderstand, they were only arranging normal meet ups, although it was quite scary to behold burly men exchanging such notes <sup>1</sup> ...


    And even if everyone broke through the S Dukedom¡¯s blockade and managed to enter the ruins, it was even more likely that who held more power would determine who received the treasure. So, of course, everyone here wanted to make more friends and allies.


    However, the biggest issue out in the open made zero progress at all.


    ¡°We need a temporary leader... or at least a contact point!¡±


    ¡°Excellent idea, so why don¡¯t you be the leader?¡±


    ¡°Me? I think you¡¯d be a much better choice.¡±


    Everyone here knew that it was necessary to break through the royal blockade in order to reach the ruins.


    However, everyone also knew that directly going against the S royalty in S Dukedom was a foolish idea. That would be the equivalent of bing a wanted criminal and forever being unable to go around openly in the Dukedom. Perhaps it was impossible for the Dukedom to put wanted posters for everyone involved, but the person who was the leader would be the most noticeable and in the greatest amount of trouble.


    Just about everyone was looking directly at Blood Spear Countess Salima. After all, if she was already joining the rebellion against the royalty, it seemed only natural for her to act as the leader as she would be in the most trouble with the royalty regardless.


    However, she simply sat there quietly,pletely unlike her fierce and fiery temper ording to rumors of her on the battlefield. Since she kept up this attitude, she was making it obvious that she didn¡¯t intend to take the lead.


    I yawned, and even put out the Hell mes on my robes. Such a boring meeting seemed like a waste of my time to continue.


    After all, for a first-time meeting between so many factions to establish alliances, that would be impossible unless there was some urgent need for all the different factions to unite. The first meeting would only ever be used to establish rtionships, and have further negotiationster. I was thinking about finding some excuse to leave when the door suddenly opened, and a young man walked in together with his servant.


    ¡°Heh heh, so everyone¡¯s here. Hello everyone, my name is Link, the person that you¡¯re all discussing how to deal with!¡±


    Prince Link walked into the room with a delighted smile on his face. He nced back with great satisfaction at his new retainer, Kaen Stark. This retainer whom he thought of as having originated as amoner seemed quite useful to him. Kaen had so easily discovered the meeting location of all the people nning to rebel against the royalty.


    Everyone present had astonished expressions on their faces. Plenty of hidden sentries had been arranged around this ce, so how had Link entered?


    ¡°Ha, all of you should give up and surrender obediently. My army already has this entire ce surrounded¡ª¡±


    However, Prince Link was suddenly interrupted, as he stared in disbelief at the sword that was now protruding out of his chest. He turned his head around to see that his obedient new retainer actually had a vicious smile on his face.


    ¡°Actually, our target has always been you. Your army? They¡¯re noting, because they received orders to patrol outside the city.¡±


    After all this time, Blood Spear Countess Salima finally spoke her first sentence. Unlike her physical appearance, she had a mature sexy woman¡¯s voice that stirred men¡¯s hearts.


    But now, the cowardly ones in the room had almost fainted. Breaking through a blockade and murdering a member of the royalty were on twopletely different levels. Everyone present knew that they had just gotten involved with an astonishing scheme.


    Kaen kicked away his ¡°ruler¡¯s¡± corpse and sheathed his still bloody sword as he now looked at everyone else with that vicious smile of his.


    *Boom!*


    A sudden explosion shook the entire city, and then I heard the dragon lich Wiir¡¯s soul voice in my mind.


    ¡°I have some good news, and some bad news for you...¡±


    ¡°I want the good news first.¡±


    ¡°The good news is that the blockade is meaningless now. We no longer need to worry about how to get to the ruins.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the bad news?¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t even need to go to the ruins anymore, because they¡¯re here. The Undead Cmity has arrived.¡±

 Chapter 506 - Start of Battle and Spies

    <h4>Chapter 506: Start of Battle and Spies</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Whatever happened to the adventure of ruins exploring and dating beautiful girls? Why did it be an all-out battle story instead? Whatever happened to the idle days of vacationing? Why did it be a troublesome serious matter instead?¡±


    ¡°...Stare!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, it¡¯s not me! I swear that I didn¡¯t do anything this time, nor did I summon all those undead! And I¡¯m really not a jinxer! Nor did I scheme anything this time.¡±


    Everyone had scouts in the area, not just me. Most were currently looking at the direction of the mountains. With so many factions¡¯ scouts in that area, everyone here would soon learn if something was going on.


    ¡°The undead have arrived! There¡¯s a battle at the entrance to the mountain path!¡±


    ¡°Bone, bone dragons are in the sky! There¡¯re also gargoyles! It¡¯s the vanguard of the undead army!¡±


    And the next moment, scouts of all the factions reported in simultaneously. The battle was right before them, and then the scouts all paused in surprise on seeing Prince Link¡¯s corpse within the room. Perhaps it would be more urate to describe the scouts as all having nk expressions.


    ¡°What are the royal troops doing?¡±


    The main supporter of the scheming Marquis Taric, Countess Salima, paused in surprise. Although she had previouslymunicated with the Death Council, she was still a living person who was only interested in the treasure within the ruins. As a living person, she had no interest in seeing an Undead Cmity.


    ¡°...Ruins? What about the ruins, then?¡±


    The knight domain lord Kaen Stark also paused in surprise right after having sessfully betrayed and murdered the royalty of the Dukedom that just gave him a noble title. He was someone who had already betrayed his own mercenary group, so he¡¯d never had a speck of loyalty in him to begin with. Now, after having finally eliminated the ¡°evil prince¡± that ¡°was in the way¡± of getting ¡°his own treasure¡±, Kaen suddenly heard such a piece of news which basically eliminated his path to future glory. He felt like he had just been struck by a bolt of thunder.


    ¡°As expected of Ro... Brother Karo. Things will never be boring with you around.¡±


    Tid was the only one who was quite excited as if he really enjoyed such a daily life. I ended up ring at him as this really wasn¡¯t my fault this time. I still didn¡¯t have the time to do anything yet¡ª whoops, I meant that I hadn¡¯t intended on doing anything!


    The undead had just invaded. However, the highest-ranked personage from the S Dukedom in this small town was the Second Prince Link, who was now an ice-cold corpse. And, the murderer was the second-highest ranked Dukedom personage in the city, the new knight domain lord Kaen Stark. Meanwhile, the royal Cliff squadron was the strongest military force in the Dukedom, and the Cliff squadron was loyal to the royalty and would fight Prince Link¡¯s murderer to the veryst man. Even if the undead, who were enemy of all the living, were present, it would be impossible to avoid a bloody internal conflict between the living.


    I and Salima simultaneously nced in iman¡¯s direction. If this truly was a well-timed scheme, then only the undead and the Death Council would benefit. However, iman nervously stood up while constantly waving his hands no.


    ¡°This... we didn¡¯t do this, we knew nothing about this! We would have retreated long ago if we had nned this!¡±


    *Shing!* (Sword unsheathed)


    ¡°We? Who are you talking about, we!?¡±


    ¡°iman, exin yourself!¡±


    I took a deep breath during all this chaos, and rxed myself on my chair. I even ced both my feet onto the table. Everyone still avoided the area around me, even though there was now a hugemotion.


    There was nothing else to discuss here. I had truly fallen into such a pitfall here, not to mention it was all voluntary on my part. I didn¡¯t even need to get involved in this meeting in the first ce.


    I believed that iman was telling the truth regarding not knowing about the Undead Cmity. After all, the Death Council had been working so hard at bringing sacrifices into the ruins in order to open the Dimensional Door to the Death nes. The Death Council had paid a great price already to see this happen, yet the Dimensional Door had been opened without the sacrifices even arriving. This was most likely due to a sudden change in the situation.


    ¡°...The souls within the Sky Tower.¡±


    I suddenly realized what it had to be thanks to Tid¡¯s earlier story. Actually, the ritual and blood from the sacrifice ceremony wasn¡¯t important at all. The true essence of the sacrifice was how the souls died while filled with agony and hatred. That was the true energy required to open the Dimensional Door. And now that I knew that the ruins were actually a Sky Tower, that meant the Sky Tower possessed plenty of souls to begin with.


    The rest of my analysis was even simpler. Either the remaining Death Council members at the ruins managed to open a Dimensional Door, or something happened within the ruin itself.


    ¡°Howrge is the scale of the undead army?¡±


    Since things were like this already, figuring out the cause wasn¡¯t all that important. The most important was to deal with the current situation.


    ¡°...There¡¯s too many to even count. There should be more than fifty thousand at minimum, with five or six Undead Lords leading them, or perhaps a powerful undead at Myth rank or higher. By the way, there¡¯re even some existences that I can¡¯tprehend among the undead. Either they¡¯re new undead types that I haven¡¯t seen in my three hundred years of being a hermit, or there¡¯s going to be big trouble here.¡±


    ¡°New undead types? Could you be more specific in their descriptions?¡±


    Undead that a dragon lich wouldn¡¯t recognize? This directly attracted my interest.


    ¡°...There¡¯s some strange metallic parts on those undead as if the undead were put together with the metal. I don¡¯t know theirbat strength yet, but they have inconceivably powerful soulfire. It¡¯s as if their souls are the strength of one hundred normal souls condensed. You also know that souls are the foundation for any undead¡¯s strength. Also, they seem to have powerful emotions, just as if they were living!¡±


    There was no need for Wiir to say anything else. Something had definitely happened with the ruins. These new undead sounded like half undead and half artificial constructs. It was highly likely that they were indeed a new undead species. This was majorly troublesome.


    ¡°Tid, how many souls would be contained in an average Sky Tower?¡±


    ¡°How many? Every single dead soul from the schrs¡¯ generation had all been put into the seven Sky Towers that I knew of. If those ruins are really an eighth Sky Tower, then the number would be a really high amount. Yep, if it¡¯s really a ¡®Schrs¡¯ Generation Reconstruction n¡¯ as you surmise, then there would be one million at the minimum. With the poption at that time, it might even contain ten million souls. And if I was in charge of reviving the schrs¡¯ generation, I would have invested more than twenty million souls into this Sky Tower.¡±


    Alright then, I really wanted to smash my head against the ground right now. If there were more than ten or even twenty million souls offered as a sacrifice to open the Dimensional Door to the Death nes, there would be no restrictions whatsoever on what undead could arrive. It would seem that I would have to mentally prepare myself to even face an Undead Emperor.


    ¡°Undead Emperor Conservation, is it?¡±


    I had tried to investigate this Undead Emperor named Conservation already. However, either Conservation was the type who kept a really low profile, or my information was outdated as I found out nothing whatsoever about this individual. However, no Undead Emperor would ever be easy to deal with. And, an Undead Cmity with and without an Undead Emperor leading them would be twopletely different levels of difficulty to deal with. No matter how powerful an Undead Cmity was, it would still be at the scale of only a local battle. However, an Undead Emperor leading an Undead Cmity would mean that a national-level destructive crisis could appear at any moment. All Undead Emperors would be highly skilled at destroying entire worlds and spreading death.


    ¡°I suggest that Countess Salima temporarily takes the position of our actingmander for defense! She should be able to lead us through this difficult time.¡±


    ¡°Agreed!¡±


    ¡°No objections!¡±


    The scouts had brought plenty of information about the Undead Cmity already. Nobody here at this meeting was an idiot, and fighting over the position of authority at such a time would be of the utmost foolishness. Naturally, Blood Spear Countess Salima, who was a general with military experience, was voted as the temporary leader of the adventurers and mercenaries.


    ¡°...Can we retreat and run?¡±


    Some people were already shaken and wanted to run at the news of the Undead Cmity. However, not a single person at the meeting responded to them. This wasn¡¯t because of their pride as humans, but rather because this was an area filled with t ins. It really might not be possible to escape in time. Not only that¡ªthis was the only mountain passage leading to the ruins. If this defensible location was lost, everyone would die even more quickly.


    Run away? Sure, but that would require a powerful individual to guard this location and stall for as much time as possible. Then, the others would be able to escape.


    But, when it came to the battle between the living and the undead, anyone who ran from the undead would have their reputation ruined for life. And with such a mortal enemy before them, even if people were inwardly thinking about how to run away, they couldn¡¯t say it out loud.


    ¡°Then, I¡¯ll ept the position of temporary actingmander. Since you all want me to lead, I¡¯ll be blunt with everyone. This current situation isn¡¯t about the S Dukedom internal civil war anymore. Ever since the new Dawn Generation of FT, Undead Cmities have already destroyed several countries. Even if you can run, just how far do you think you can run? Don¡¯t let me see any of you running; otherwise, I¡¯ll be the first to kill you mercilessly.¡±


    Salima didn¡¯t even attempt to conceal the killing intent in her single revealed eye. She clearly desired to see fresh blood. Her statement of killing anyone who fled was definitely not just for show.


    ¡°Since I¡¯m going to be leader, I¡¯m going to say just three things. First, Link was killed by that idiot. He¡¯s an undead spy, unrted to anyone else here.¡±


    Right after she said that, some others heaved a sigh of relief. As long as this was the story given, things would be much easier for them.


    ¡°Hey... you b*tch, you betrayed...¡±


    Kaen paused in surprise for a moment, and didn¡¯t even get to finish his sentence when a dagger aimed straight for his bank. Even an almost-Legend rank knight like him was unable to react when the major factions¡¯ assassins aimed at him simultaneously.


    He wanted to resist, but he felt numbness in his knee that forced him to kneel.


    ¡°Bastards! You¡¯re just throwing me away after I served my purpose!¡±


    Kaen cursed and tried to stand up again, but two Legend-ranked assassins held onto his arms. At this moment, there was a sudden silver sh of light.


    A silver short arrow had suddenly arrived from an unknown location, directly piercing through his throat. This prevented Kaen from saying any dying words.


    ¡®Impossible...!¡¯


    Kaen¡¯s eyes were beginning to go nk. He couldn¡¯t believe that his mission to restore his family¡¯s glory had ended with his own death before it even began.


    Kaen clutched at his throat in disbelief, and finally saw a ck-d figure outside the window on the rooftop. A certain dark ranger was now maniacallyughing. Shink¡¯s single eye now contained delight and fervor from having finally taken his revenge instead of the fires of hatred.


    The glory and status that Kaen obtained through betrayal was also ended by betrayal. All his schemes and ambitions became nothing.


    ¡°Shink...¡±


    Shink was the final person that Kaen saw in his life. The betrayer died due to being betrayed by Salima whom he had cooperated with. The avenger got the revenge that he desired. Through our soul connection, I sensed that Shink was far more approving of our contract than before. However, everyone seemed to be even more on guard against me.


    ¡°If I say that all of this was unexpected, would you believe me?¡±


    Alright, they all realized that Shink was my subordinate. Perhaps, what they all saw was that Diyana had been constantly standing by the window in order to open the window for that ranger waiting to ambush someone. As for whom the ranger was targeting, they all figured that it had been someone other than Kaen until the unexpected situation.


    Right now, there was no need for me to make a show of force or do anything. That would be seen as trying to steal the position of authority.


    However, the power of imagination was limitless. They definitely wouldn¡¯t believe me if I told them the truth. And so, I spoke to Salima, telling her this...


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯m only here on vacation, there¡¯s no need to mind me... Cough, alright, I have no objections to Lady Blood Spear bing the leader. Please continue with your announcement. Time is quite valuable right now.¡±


    She nced at me but didn¡¯t say anything else. She also knew that now wasn¡¯t the time to start trouble, so she continued with her second point.


    ¡°The second thing I wanted to say is that the situation isn¡¯t as bad as everyone thinks it is. The Dukedom¡¯s reinforcements will be arriving here within a week. Link requested reinforcements before his death. The reinforcements include the royal mages, knights, and engineers. Originally, they wereing here to strengthen the blockade, or even construct a fortress, but things have changed unexpectedly. The royal reinforcements will be our reinforcements, fighting for the side of the living.¡±


    Many eyes nced over at Prince Link¡¯s corpse on the floorboard. Who knew that he had done such a good deed before his death?


    ¡°What about the final point?¡±


    Salima¡¯s eye was filled with naked killing intent as she surveilled everyone around her.


    ¡°We don¡¯t have the time to slowly toy with any spies. We need topletely eliminate any unstable factors within Starwood City. We need to kill all damned disciples of the Death Council! They might open the city gates at any moment!¡±


    ¡°Haha, well said, yep... Eh? Diyana, why are you nudging me? Why is everyone looking at me?¡±


    I had just wanted to agree loudly to ease the atmosphere, then I looked down at myself and noticed how my ck robe¡¯s appearance seemed so attention-grabbing. The fact that I had been widely dering myself to be an evil undead mage now seemed to be giving me great trouble.


    ¡°Wait a moment, this isn¡¯t right! I¡¯m not a member of the Death Council!¡±


    ¡°He, he¡¯s the disciple of a Legend-ranked lich! He¡¯s a high-ranked leader of the Death Council! I have evidence here!¡±


    This hoarse scream came from iman. The Undead Cmity wouldn¡¯t care at all if you were part of the Death Council, and the ck market merchant was now scared out of his wits. His so-called evidence was the note I had returned to him in the Laiton demonnguage.


    ¡°F*ck, why is there such a pitfall for me like this!¡±

 Chapter 507 - Stare of the Hell God

    <h4>Chapter 507: Stare of the Hell God</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Shooting myself in the foot? I was way too used to that already.


    Scheming so much but identally digging a pitfall for myself? I was already numb to such things.


    I had thought that my luck would get better after I reincarnated, but I had apparently overthought things.


    ¡°Is this fate? System, could I really possess the legendary luck rating of E...¡±


    [Karma calctions are highlyplex. The more¡¯s involved, the more difficult it is to calcte. But if I calcte it based on your personal ¡°karma¡± and ¡°fate¡±, you¡¯re definitely not so-called luck rating of E. You¡¯d have a luck rating of Z!]


    ¡°Oh, so there¡¯s not a single person in the world who¡¯s unluckier than I am?¡±


    [It¡¯s not about being unlucky, it¡¯s about the ability to run into trouble. Considering how many karmic connections you must have created when you¡¯ve established Hell, the karma you possess is probably at the level of a bug in the world¡¯s system. That¡¯s why I¡¯m absolutely telling you the truth when I call you the greatest jinxer in the world.]


    ¡°...In that case, when you previously tried to fool me, and all those random little quests you issued me, it really wasn¡¯t because you were trying to make me suffer?¡±


    [...]


    ¡°Fine, I got it. You¡¯re just someone who wants an excuse to see me in a bad situation because it¡¯s funny!¡±


    It would seem that I had mysteriously obtained the passive ability of being a ¡°main character¡± (the ability to attract trouble anywhere I went). But, unfortunately, I wasn¡¯t treated like a main character at all. I didn¡¯t have beautiful women just throwing themselves into my arms, nor did I find treasure chests containing wondrous weapons wherever I went. All that awaited me was the ability to always fish up killer whales when I wanted to rx and fish and walk onto a battlefield when I just wanted a vacation. That was the type of abnormal luck I possessed.


    Did this seem funny? It probably seemed funny to everyone but myself. At the very least, the silly cat was rolling on the floor whileughing (I¡¯m going to write that in my notebook and remember her for this)... But, right now, I really was unable tough at the current situation.


    Powerful undead enemies had invaded, while Starwood City¡¯s factions were in conflict. I clearly had nothing to do with the undead invasion, yet everyone was treating me as an enemy.


    ¡°I¡¯ve had enough!¡±


    I simplyy there on the table, making it obvious that I didn¡¯t care.


    ¡°You¡¯ve had enough? Awesome, let¡¯s flip the table, then. I really wanted to experiment with my new weapon in actual battle.¡±


    ¡°Damn, why do you look like Terminator?¡±


    I looked back behind me, and was rather startled at the sight.


    Tid now had a glowing blue scanner on top of his eyes. He had a two-meter-long cannon on his back, and another smaller magic cannon on his shoulder. His extremely muscr arm was equipped with several strange machines I couldn¡¯t identify. All sorts of data were scrolling at high speed on the machines¡¯ screens. He also had a fully equipped ammo clip at his waist, and another two smaller cannons attached to his feet.


    Forget about the rest as I could sort of understand, but why did that magic cannon on his shoulder have the atomic symbol on it? Just what exactly happened to this fantasy world? Could the legendary mushroom cloud really have been invented by Tid? Was he really intending on saving the world? I felt that he put points in the wrong technology skill tree!


    ¡°...Just what exactly happened in the past seven years? What changed a siscon shota into the Terminator!?¡±


    My words caused Tid to instantly lose all the fighting spirit he just had.


    ¡°...Please don¡¯t mention me being siscon anymore, it was because I was too young and didn¡¯t know any better. Please don¡¯tbel me as a siscon for the rest of my entire life! My most famous nickname is now the ¡®Siscon engineer¡¯, and even the bastards from the Gentlemen Alliance are using that as my official title. It¡¯s all your fault!¡±


    ¡°...Then, did you sister get married?¡±


    ¡°How is that possible? I¡¯ll send anyone who dares to touch my sister on a rocket trip... Don¡¯t misunderstand! I¡¯m really not a siscon! I, I have a girlfriend now! Although she really resembles my sister, I really didn¡¯t choose her for that! Although I really love her face, I, I, I really didn¡¯t pursue her just for that!¡±


    Although Tid had just been smiling and trying to act innocent, he suddenly realized what he¡¯d just said. He finally noticed that everyone was now looking at him, and that nobody believed him.


    ¡°...¡± I had a helpless expression with how honest he was being.


    ¡°...¡± The silly cat covered her face with her paws. She couldn¡¯t bear to witness his honesty anymore.


    [...] Even my System typed out an ellipsis... But the ellipsis didn¡¯t count for word count, so it wouldn¡¯t help to fill in the chapter.


    Although we were quite free and bored, everyone seemed to have surrounded us with great enmity in their expressions. They were all put even more on guard by the heavy weaponry that Tid suddenly brought out.


    But, from another standpoint, how carefree we seemed made everyone even more vignt. After all, only the strong would be so carefree in such a situation...? What? Acting pretentiously? That was indeed possible, but those who acted pretentiously typically wouldn¡¯t live long.


    ¡°Perhaps this can prove that we¡¯re actually on your side.¡±


    I reached out my right hand and created a ball of pure Holy Light, which then transformed into a shining silver cross.


    ¡°Allow me to reintroduce myself. I¡¯m the Legend-ranked holy knight Karo. My current mission is to hunt down the bastards from the Death Council. All my undead magic is actually nothing more than special effects created by items. I received information that the Death Council bastards were intending on opening a Dimensional Door to the Death nes, so I disguised myself as an undead mage to try and join them. But, I didn¡¯t even get to join them when the undead arrived already. This time, I¡¯ve failedpletely in my mission.¡±


    Pure Holy Light had an astonishingly good reputation. Holy knights were always considered trustworthy. My words served to reassure everyone. Plus, I also had something else that they could trust, as I always went around prepared.


    ¡°Look, here¡¯s my certificate, and my military achievement badge.¡±


    ¡°Certificate for Porn Lovers Book Club? Eating contest winner badge?¡±


    ¡°Sorry, I brought out the wrong ones. I remember that I put them all together...¡±


    It would seem that I needed to clear out my dimensional storage bag. I had so many random certificates that when I tossed them all out, they actually piled up into a small mountain.


    ¡°Dragonnguage, level eight certificate? I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve seen this certificate ever since I graduated. Basic dragonnguage is quite easy to learn, so there¡¯s no need to take the level eight test. If you really meet up with an actual dragon... In this day and age, just about every dragon knows how to speak the humannguage. It was such a pain to get this certificate back in the day, and it ended up beingpletely useless after I graduated.¡±


    The ck certificate with a dragonhead emblem seemed amazing if you looked at it. But now that I thought back on the past, I felt that it was probably a scheme by the Cloud Tower¡¯s dragonnguage teachers. This certificate seemed rather grand, and could attract people to spend their money only to learn lots of useless rare words and ancient grammar which wasn¡¯t even urate anymore. So, this dragonnguage level eight certificate had remained in my dimensional storage bag ever since I graduated.


    ¡°...Which one is it?¡±


    Everyone backed up two steps, apparently having been scared off by my mountain of useless certificates. Or, maybe time was of the essence right now, so they didn¡¯t have the time to deal with this.


    ¡°Nutritionist certificate, undead mage certificate, level two priest certificate, Contract Hero certificate, battle of Oak Town honor certificate,wyer certificate, vignte certificate, three-hundred year old archmage certificate (ten times ultimate virgin certificate), bone expert chef certificate... I really should have cleared out my dimensional storage earlier. By the way, did I just find something that didn¡¯t belong to this world?¡±


    Cough, cough, you shouldn¡¯t misunderstand, that wasn¡¯t a bug, it was just my System toying with my certificates. Finally, I found the thin piece of white paper (cause it was cheap) proving that I was a holy knight, along with the iron holy knight badge (again because it was cheap).


    ¡°That¡¯s enough, I believe you. No other job ss apart from holy knight would use such a cheap-looking certificate and badge. Actually, just your Holy Light was enough to prove your identity. Um, why don¡¯t youminate your certificate? It¡¯s so tattered. Why don¡¯t you pay more attention to your own proof of identity?¡±


    This was the result of being several centuries old. Luckily, I was smart enough to cover the date of issuance on my certificate. Otherwise, people would have suspected that I was counterfeiting my certificate or even identity.


    But, with such a ruckus, it greatly helped to ease the tense atmosphere in the room. Only that Blood Spear Countess kept staring at me, even if there was no longer any enmity in her eyes. However, it was quite evident that she was shocked and astonished, with even some fear and idolization. With suchplex emotionsing from her, it would seem that she might have guessed my true identity.


    Well, ever since a certain incident in the Nortnds, many people had triedbining Holy Light and death magic. However, nobody had ever truly seeded. It might have been possible to guess my true identity if she sessfully discerned that my death magic had been real, but it was more likely there were other reasons for her toe to such a quick decision.


    Hey, you could trust my judgement of others¡¯ emotions. Ever since creating Hell, my racial talent Stare of the Hell God had greatly evolved. My eyes were now capable of seeing directly through the soul. No changes in anyone¡¯s emotional wavelengths could possibly fool me. It was also impossible for anyone to fool me with a lie. That was why I had instantly seen through Katerina¡¯s true essence.


    From a certain standpoint, I had been the greatest beneficiary of Hell¡¯spletion. And, my greatest benefit was thepletion of my soul. My soul¡¯s regained strength helped my physical body¡¯s evolution as well. All my racial talents had evolved, yet this was only the tip of the iceberg of what I¡¯d gained.


    ¡°So what if you can see through souls to determine exactly what emotions they¡¯re feeling? Such a nice pair of eyes, given to a coward. If you have any courage at all, why don¡¯t you look into a mirror, and ask yourself just which girl you¡¯re going to choose? Running away won¡¯t solve anything! You have romantic entanglements with so many women.¡±


    ¡°...Your emotional colors are purple with a tinge of red. You¡¯re somewhat expectant and a little displeased. Is this the legendary tsundere? Were you looking forward to me peeking at your emotions or not! I think that you don¡¯t want me to choose¡ªdidn¡¯t you also help me when I ran away from them back in the day!?¡±


    I spoke a bit too directly to Harloys, and instantly regretted it afterwards. Now, things became awkward with neither of us knowing what to say.


    ¡°Cough, cough, Brother Rnd, please be a little more serious. We¡¯re now at war.¡±


    Thankfully, Tid still remembered that we were now in a war against the undead. I was grateful to him for reminding me.


    Since there was nothing wrong with my identity anymore, everyone else started working on their own affairs, such as sending out messages or scouts. Meanwhile, I had extremely few subordinates with me, so I could just take it easy and watch everyone else.


    It wasn¡¯t because I was beingzy and not wanting to lead. Ever since the creation of Hell, although I obtained much recognition, I was also cklisted by many organizations and factions. If any of my enemies discovered my true identity, they would likely set aside even any war at their doorstep in order to kill me first. That would be the equivalent of me raising the difficulty level even further, which would be too foolish.


    I had wanted to chat for a little more, when a powerful fluctuation in the Elemental Tide attracted all my attention.


    ¡°That unfamiliar Undead Emperor Conservation? No, this is Zero. She¡¯s far stronger than before!¡±


    What my eyes could see was that a towering ck soul pir had just arrived in the mountains. The soul pir reached all the way up to the skies, and the power she emanated was actually even above Aso¡¯s.


    Without a doubt, an Undead Emperor had descended. This was now going to be even more troublesome.


    Although I saw this, everyone else was still busy with their own affairs. Evidently, none of them had such acute senses.


    ¡°Cough, cough, I have some good news and bad news. Which do you all want to hear first?¡±


    Everyone thus focused their attention on me as I smiled in delight. As expected, whenever I was in a bad mood due to the circumstances, making others be in a bad mood too was always the best cure.


    ¡°The good news is that we no longer need to worry about finding the undead¡¯s leader. I¡¯ve already located her, so we can carry out a kill the leader n!¡±


    Battles of attrition would forever be the most foolish decision possible when fighting against the undead. Killing the leader was the only method of victory in the great majority of situations. Obviously, it was a piece of good news that the undead¡¯s leader had been located.


    I felt even more delighted to see everyone¡¯s faces light up with expectant looks.


    ¡°The bad news is that the enemy leader is an Undead Emperor. That¡¯s right, you heard correctly, an Undead Emperor. She¡¯s at the very peak, just like in the myths, basically undefeatable! She¡¯s brought half of the entire poption of her Death ne. We no longer need to worry about deserters amongst ourselves, because it will be impossible to escape. Running anywhere will be the same! Hey hey, don¡¯t have such depressed looks, be a bit happier! We¡¯ve already located her, so we won¡¯t bepletely unprepared for the Undead Emperor¡¯s ambush!¡±


    ¡°Could you stop stirring up even more trouble!? Are you that twisted that you derive pleasure from seeing others¡¯ misery!?¡±

 Chapter 508 - Guarding

    <h4>Chapter 508: Guarding</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    A cold wind blew past, bringing with it the smell of corrosion. Dark clouds were gathering in the sky. The pitter-patter of rainfall had zero sense of romanticism whatsoever. The muddy ground and damp weather only served to drain everyone¡¯s stamina. Evidently, the weather conditions were quite beneficial for the undead, who knew no fatigue.


    ¡°Target is approaching the second defense line.¡±


    ¡°Has everyone retreated? How many people are left at the first defense line?¡±


    ¡°Two teams were unable to retreat in time. We¡¯ve tried our best already.¡±


    ¡°May the Holy Light protect them. How¡¯s the situation at the second defense line?¡±


    ¡°Not so good. It¡¯s a temporarily constructed defensive blockade that can only buy some time.¡±


    Combat information kept flooding in. Every sudden battle that urred always brought very little good news, but endless amounts of bad news.


    Despite all the bad news, there was one piece of good news from what Prince Link did before he died. He had brought more than three thousand members of the Cliff heavy infantry squadron here with him. With normal military formations here, that was an elite heavy infantry squadron sufficient to create threerge troops. The three troops were split into three different eight-hour shifts to guard the path to the mountains. They had even constructed a temporary base there, and began patrolling the area.


    When the undead arrived, the Cliff squadron¡¯s base and patrol route naturally became the first defense line against the undead. However, nobody was counting on them to actually stop the undead.


    When Salima tookmand over everyone, she didn¡¯t actually ignore the Cliff squadron that was originally enemies with her. Instead, she sent out troops to save them, hoping that as many of them could sessfully retreat as possible.


    ¡°Right now, every person is fighting for the living. As long as we can save them, we¡¯ll save them at all costs!¡±


    The Cliff squadron¡¯s vicemander, Sandy, was a very tall man with barbarian blood. But, right now, he could only helplessly take orders from his ¡°enemy¡±.


    The moment the Undead Emperor descended, S Dukedom¡¯s civil war becamepletely meaningless. In front of the Undead Cmity that threatened to destroy everything, there was no more differences between those loyal to the S royalty and those loyal to the rebel Marquis Stanley Taric. Everyone was now on the side of the living.


    Sandy was no idiot. He knew that if even if he escaped from the undead, just the fact that Prince Link had been assassinated would likely make the royalty me him for failing to guard Prince Link. Right now, Sandy¡¯s best path to survival was to achieve more battle aplishments.


    Of course, the prerequisite here was that the living actually won this battle. Otherwise, there would be no more S Dukedom, and no more royalty to me Sandy for Link¡¯s death.


    Meanwhile, my opinion was that despite Blood Spear Salima¡¯s reputation being terrible for ughtering survivors, she was indeed quite skilled. Judging from what I saw, she was a hardenedmander who was willing to make any sacrifice to win.


    To arrive here from the ruins, the undead would have to first travel across the mountains for a long while. And so, Salima sent out a suicide squad to set bombs on portions of the mountain trail, and set numerous lines of defense to slow down the undead¡¯s arrival.


    Any army¡¯s marching speed would always be determined by the slowest type of troop with them. The undead weren¡¯t very quick, as ordinary skeleton troops were their base unit. Plus, they had to climb the mountain on such a wet and rainy day, which slowed them down even more.


    Mudslides created by bombs on a mountain slope were highly effective in slowing down any army. With the undead¡¯s natural disadvantage in speed, this only served to slow them down even more.


    However, even if the suicide squads were lucky enough to explode the portions of the mountain path assigned to them, the undead¡¯s patrolling bone dragons and death knights meant that very few of these brave warriors would survive and return.


    In order to unify everyone in Starwood City¡¯s new temporarymand center under herself, Salima sent out only her personal troops on these suicide missions. This was so that there would be no more internal conflicts at such a critical junction.


    ¡°Working her hardest to save the current allies who were just recently her greatest enemy,¡± along with ¡°sacrificing her own loyal soldiers on suicide missions first¡± sounded quite noble. Militarily speaking, however, this would be the utmost foolishness. Yet, it was a truly wise leadership method indeed in such a hastily built alliance of the living consisting of two sides that were at war not long ago. At the very least, Salima had built herself up with the image of a fair and just leader that everyone was willing to follow.


    Perhaps this didn¡¯t seem all that useful for the living that still had many internal conflicts with each other, but this was still much better than the alternative of Salima being a ¡°bastard who tells others to take suicide missions first¡± or being a ¡°leader who takes advantage of the situation to spread salt on people¡¯s wounds.¡±


    ¡°This Salima. Is she on the Eich¡¯s famous generals rankings?¡±


    ¡°Nope. She¡¯s only a general in such a small country. How could she possibly be on the fairies¡¯ rankings? What, you think she¡¯s pretty good?¡±


    ¡°...I think she might be impressive in the future.¡±


    That was right, I was quite impressed with this Blood Spear Salima. It would seem that others had underestimated her abilities.


    To tell the truth, even I wasn¡¯t confident in doing better than her here. At the very least, I wasn¡¯t the type who would send out my loyal troops to perform such a mission that might not even seed but would almost certainly kill them.


    And if I had to choose between my friends and my enemies to make a ¡°necessary¡± sacrifice, I would unhesitatingly choose to have my friends live even if my friends weren¡¯t as numerous. I was no saint, after all. I¡¯d never denied that I had my selfish side.


    Oops, I was getting off topic. All these sacrifices were simply to stall for time. And time was always the most valuable treasure of all on the battlefield. Since Salima could make such a decision to sacrifice her personal troops in order to save her previous enemies, the Cliff squad, this meant that her leadership capabilities were definitely above average.


    ¡°Hurry, hurry! Are there no more earth mages? Even scrolls or staffs are fine, solidify the town walls for me even more! Adventurers, this is no time to be stingy. No matter how much money you have, you have to be alive to spend it. Use every earth magic scroll you own! S Dukedom¡¯s royalty has already promised to pay you back!¡±


    The defending army was spending all its efforts on raising Starwood City¡¯s walls even higher and strengthening the walls as much as possible right now. Although earth magic was the mostmon type of magic amongst the four elements, all the earth mages present had used up all their mana already on this task. Since the situation was so urgent, we even gathered up all earth magic scrolls and staffs from the various adventurers.


    After using every scroll and staff, all the earth around Starwood City was dug up and added onto the town walls, which kept growing higher and higher. The fire mages were baking the earth into a solid new wall in the rain as a second method of reinforcement.


    ¡°Get rid of that idiot who used fireball magic to heat the walls! This is no time to create more chaos!¡±


    A novice fire mage had just attempted to use a fireball to dry the mud, but ended up creating arge hole with an explosion instead. The mage also got coveredpletely in mud as a result. Although I understood that novices would always misunderstand simple orders, I could only give a big thumbs up with how creative he was to use a fireball rather than a small me to bake the walls. Of course, others weren¡¯t nearly as patient.


    ¡°Reinforcing the southern district¡¯s #12 section has beenpleted. Which is next!?¡±


    A young magic swordsman withdrew his silver magic sword, and inserted it into the ground, immediately causing the sword to dim. The magic swordsman then switched to a backup Olivia¡¯s Magic Box before heading to the next district.


    The most noticeable people amongst the town wall solidifying army were these Four Elemental Swordcasters and other magic swordsmen. Although they didn¡¯t have much ability to control the elements, it was still possible for them to control some mud and form it into an earth wall. And since they were powered by magical engineering batteries, they had an almost limitless amount of mana to help solidify the town walls. Even the Cliff squadron had plenty of magical engineering weapons to draw additional batteries from.


    Of course, considering that a major battle would soonmence here, the Cliff squadron didn¡¯t allow too many of their resources to be used up on just the walls. They were using all the time they had right now to organize their equipment, stock up on food, adjust their weapons, and prepare for battle.


    The freezing cold rain kept mming down onto the Cliff squadron members¡¯ faces, yet their movements weren¡¯t slowed down at all. Such well-trained military fighters were the most trustworthy on the battlefield. It was certain that the Cliff squadron would be the main fighting force in the uing battle against the undead. As professional military forces and the main protectors of the S Dukedom, there was no possibility of retreat for them. I also reassessed this ¡°not well known¡± squadron¡¯s actualbat strength after seeing how they kept fighting on no matter how many casualties they suffered.


    Everyone already knew that the undead had arrived. But in order not to shake morale, the information that an Undead Emperor arrived had yet to be publicized. After all, not everyone would have the courage to face such a brink of despair.


    In this time of cmity, many adventurers answered the S Dukedom¡¯s summons, and brought out all their saved magical scrolls and staffs. The adventurers also epted letting Salima takemand. But, unfortunately, earth magic scrolls with spells that could be used to solidify the walls were rather umon. It was left mostly to the Four Elemental Swordcasters to solidify the walls.


    And so, the Four Elemental Swordcasters that were versatile to begin with now showed off their abilities in ever moreplex situations. This job ss was bing ever more popr.


    ¡°Tsk, they only pay expenses for the earth magic scrolls used for solidifying the walls? A three-circle magic scroll is so cheap. They¡¯re really on guard against people lying and iming to use expensive scrolls in an attempt to scam money.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s already such a time, so aren¡¯t you the only one who would do such a thing? Hey, hey, hey, why are you pouting? Were you really intending on scamming money at such a time? Could you be any more shameless? Even a viin wouldn¡¯t be as bad as you are, you hoodlum among all mythic heroes!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, it¡¯s such a pity that my ssmate, the earth archmage Kaid, isn¡¯t here right now. Otherwise, we wouldn¡¯t need those cheap scrolls at all. He could just show us the miracle of constructing an entire castle in one night.¡±


    ¡°A pity that Kaid isn¡¯t here... Hey, hey, hey, aren¡¯t you just trying to change the topic? All you think about is how to scam money while others are in such danger? Could you have a little more self awareness as a good person!?¡±


    Starwood City blocked the only exit from the mountains. If Starwood City was broken through, the only terrain that remainedter would be endless t ins. No more terrain would possibly stop the undead invasion after that.


    And once the undead spread out onto the ins, they would begin a huge ughter, which would also add to their undead forces. The Undead Cmity would begin snowballing everrger andrger, multiplying their forces at an exponential rate. The threat would begin multiplying unstoppably. Salima¡¯s judgement was absolutely correct in that it waspletely meaningless no matter where people fled to in the ins. Reinforcing this small city and stopping the undead here while waiting for reinforcements from other domains was definitely the correct and only method.


    [...You¡¯re trying to add in more background introduction? Are you trying to steal my role? You¡¯re really trying to dodge the question about scamming money? Even if you want to scam money, shouldn¡¯t you do something a little more high-ss, such as a stock market crash that everyone will remember for ten years? Why scam such a paltry amount of money? You¡¯re acting just like someone who worked for more than a decade and finally got promoted to manager, and now you¡¯re showing off by writing off family expenses as business expenses... I can¡¯t continue anymore, you¡¯re too pitiful, and such a loser!]


    ¡°Of course, Salima¡¯s correct decision is one matter, and being able to aplish it is another matter. Based on my many years of experience with pitfalls, don¡¯t even talk about an Undead Emperor, this ce can¡¯t even handle a slightly famous Undead Lord. Yep, if things go as I expected.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re pretending not to hear anything? Forget it, just say whatever you want...¡±


    I ignored my System¡¯s insults, and pretended not to see the silly cat¡¯s evil grin. Right now, I was standing on the wall while watching everything, but it was a bit too chilly for me. As I pulled my jacket closer to myself, I felt that this battle was indeed rather difficult.


    Yep, let us talk about serious matters now. You should just pretend not to have seen any of those random things just now.


    It was quite obvious already just how troublesome Undead Emperors could be. Although they were only SemiGods in name, that was no good measure of their power level. Both myself at my strongest and Ayer could be called Undead Emperors. It wouldn¡¯t have been that difficult for either of us to directly kill off one of the weaker True Gods. Everything past Myth rank was all ssified as SemiGod, but the difference in strength between SemiGods could fluctuate wildly.


    ¡°Solidifying the town walls is mostly just for a cebo effect...¡±


    Yep, even though everyone was working so hard on strengthening the town walls, I didn¡¯t think that it was useful at all. The bone dragon knight vanguard circling beneath the clouds meant that we had already lost control over the skies. The never ending sea of skeletons could easily fill up any trenches that were just dug up. The earth-magic-solidified town walls would still be unable to take a single blow from bone giants or death knights charging. Not to mention, the undead had an Undead Emperor leading them... Any Undead Emperor would be an S-ss tactical weapon by themselves. Who knew what an Undead Emperor was capable of?


    I agreed with Salima¡¯s assessment as, tactically speaking, defending Starwood City was the only usible strategy. However, I didn¡¯t think that their efforts were useful at all, because it wouldn¡¯t be that easy to make up for the enormous difference in strength.


    ¡°It would seem that I will need to personally intervene in this battle? I think that Zero will be quite excited if she sees me here. It will likely escte the entire battle.¡±


    ¡°Even if she doesn¡¯t know that you¡¯re here, isn¡¯t this still an all-out battle already? Do you think that the undead are here for a pic?¡±


    The silly cat napping on my shoulder opened her eyes. Reflected within her eyes was a patch of gray and barren mountains. Countless undead were slowly proceeding forth, with corpse zombies, gargoyles, zombie warriors, skeleton archers, banshees, abominations, and all other sorts of undead among them. The undead even included the Legend-ranked Winter Demon undead that I had previously met thest time that I fought Zero.


    But no matter how many undead there were, the pitch-ck undead army proceeded forward in silence with resolution. The only sound that could be heard here was the rattling of bones. In undead army terms, this meant that there were enough low- and mid-levelmanders to control and prevent every single skeleton from making any idle noise. Such a level of Undead Cmity would be far more difficult to deal with than people were expecting.


    The next instant, a white bone arrow shot directly at what we saw, destroying Harloys¡¯ clone. That was all the information we received, and we didn¡¯t even discover where the arrow was shot from.


    ¡°Damn it, don¡¯t they know that battlefield reporters aren¡¯t supposed to be attacked?! Although many of them are also spies, and many of them will die in mysterious ways...¡±


    However, my rambling didn¡¯t ease the atmosphere at all. When faced with such an Undead Emperor, the silly cat didn¡¯t have a good expression, either. Of course, it might also be that her face was pale with anger because her clone had just been destroyed.


    ¡°There are more mid-level undead than low-level undead. And, this Undead Cmity hasn¡¯t even reached its full potential. As long as they have enough corpses, they can expand ten times... a hundred times, or even a thousand times!¡±


    Obviously, it was a bad deal to bring low-level undead to Eich as that would be a waste of the precious souls sacrificed to bring them here. Only the powerful and elites were brought into the mortal ne. As for cannon fodder? Undead armies would never worried aboutcking cannon fodder. They would receive plenty of cannon fodder after one or two battles.


    After seeing such an army, I was no longer worried about whether or not Salima could defend this city. I was now worried if everyone would even survive the undead¡¯s first attack.


    Such a situation helped to make up my mind. I would intervene in this situation.


    ¡°Since this war is already starting, then I might as well activate ¡®War¡¯ so that the undead be the enemy of the undead. Awaken, Mars of War, the leader of my Four Heavenly Knights!¡±


    While I was trying my best to maintain my image, the professional critic silly cat struck yet again.


    ¡°...Four Knights? You created three simr-level creations? When? Howe I didn¡¯t know?¡±


    ¡°Haha, of course you didn¡¯t know, as this was my biggest secret... Stop biting me! Can¡¯t I act cool once in a while? It¡¯ll be really cool if I can have Four Heavenly Kings under me, you see, just ¡®War¡¯ alone doesn¡¯t sound cool at all, it takes four of them to sound cool! Just how amazing does it sound! Maybe I¡¯ll create a gue Knight, Death Knight, and Famine Knight to assemble the Four Heavenly Kings one day! At that time, when they meet an enemy army, the four knights will all ride their horses on a hillside and coldly look down at the enemy, making them afraid without even fighting. That would seem so much like the antagonist¡¯s style. Isn¡¯t it cool?¡±


    ¡°Shut up, jinxer, I already have an ominous premonition about this. With your typical results, you¡¯ll never create a cool knight like that. You only know how to create shameless perverted gentlemen!¡±


    ¡°People must have dreams! Even if those dreams will nevere true!¡±


    ¡°...Even you realize that your dream won¡¯te true, so give it up already! There¡¯s no miracles in cell phone games. You¡¯re someone who will never pull a single SSR, so just obediently y with your Rs.¡±

 Chapter 509 - Vicious Dog

    <h4>Chapter 509: Vicious Dog</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°...You make it sound quite nice, but it¡¯s all meaningless.¡±


    Perhaps a passionate idealist¡¯s speech would receive apuse, but whenever his ideals shed with people¡¯s personal benefits, cruel reality and practical brute force would forever tell him that the world was really ruled by violence.


    Did nobody hope that this cruel world would be slightly better? Did no genius ever discover a path to improving the world? Of course people did, but intelligent people were typically physically weak. In this cruel world, any righteous path that wasn¡¯t backed up by force wouldn¡¯t get anywhere at all.


    ¡°I need power in order to spread reason. I need to have even more power than those who act as they please.¡±


    I knew that no matter how moving the speech was, it would never move the heart of the greedy. That was why I wished for the power of Law to envelop this entire world. That wasn¡¯t because Law was high and mighty, nor did I think that it was the representation of advanced civilization. It was because I believed Law to be a power that could give more power to ordinary people in this cruel world.


    ¡°I seek a power that can protect the weak. I wish to create a sword of judgement which will protect the kind and y only evil. I wish for light to cover thend, even if some people are destined to be the shadow to make it happen.¡±


    Since this was a world where the strong ruled the weak, I would help ordinary people to be stronger, strong enough to take charge of their own fates.


    But when I really started taking this path, I discovered that there had been far too many before me who tried this path already. Some of them were killed by their own ideals, some lost their ideals, and some were still struggling to their utmost in confusion. They were all searching for that almost impossible path to improve the world.


    So many civilizations had be nothing more than rubble. So many had despaired. Perhaps the Gods high above simply viewed them as nothing more than mortals overstepping their boundaries. But, what I saw were generations of heroes that were willing to resist against fate itself. No generation would everck for idiots willing to angrily roar at the heavens.


    ¡°Why, why can¡¯t we have a way to just survive!¡±


    Perhaps some people would believe that I was an incredible person. After all, the sessful creation of Hell was a major world-changing event destined to enter the history books, and I was the one who nned it all.


    But only I knew that I was simply lucky... I just happened to meetpanions who were able to help me achieve my dream.


    Without Estrada, Holy Light wouldn¡¯t have received salvation... and Estrada was nothing more than another Holy Knight like countless before him, walking the path of protection. Only when his silver war hammer became mine did I discover the true weight that it carried.


    The first Holy Knights who protected humans in the frontier age were the source of this path of protection. Estrada had simply inherited this path. The true nameless heroes were those first Holy Knights who took up this job on those ins of despair. Perhaps none of them had the power to defeat a God, but their anger and resistance against the God of Holy Light meant that Holy Light could finally take a new path.


    ¡°With the path of Holy Light that I carry, I swear to protect the weak, I swear to expel the darkness, I swear to act with kindness for my entire life, and I shall fight for the sake of protection and ordinary people!¡±


    Only from that moment onward did the Dawn Generation truly begin. Holy Knights were finally freed from the God of Holy Light, and could follow the path of protection in their hearts. That was the new future of the Holy Knights. And, the Holy Knights who died on the ins of Bardi together with Estrada were the true heroes who opened up this path to the future.


    And now, on that in, even if the God of Holy Light forbid anything to be erected there in memorial, the ordinary people who were there and experienced the event kept spreading tales of honor and glory about those heroes¡¯ angry roars as they died, even if these heroes¡¯ names were all unknown.


    The Holy Knights¡¯ sacrifices were only the first among all the ordinary people...


    Ayer sacrificed eternal life to finally break the unchanging Cycle of Reincarnation. Orloss, who had seen through everything, ended up gaining the reputation of the most foolish emperor in Bardi¡¯s history.


    My empty dreams would have been nothing without mypanions¡¯ sacrifices. It was thanks to all mypanions who also desired a better world that we finally managed to realize my dream, which was so inconceivable. Mypanions included Gods, demons, and devils, but most of all, truly ordinary mortals. They all desired to only be able to survive in this f*cked-up world.


    ¡°We only want to survive. Why is that so difficult? Dear Mother Eich, don¡¯t you love us all? Why do our parents...¡±


    Despairing people finally abandoned thoughts of asking the Gods for salvation. Since people didn¡¯t want to give everything to the Gods only to have their children end up impaled by bloodthirsty viins¡¯ spears, it wasn¡¯t possible that the fires of resistance would die out.


    ¡°...My seniors¡¯ sacrifices won¡¯t be meaningless.¡±


    When that formless g was erected, the banner included ancient humans from the first generation, a survivor from the schrs¡¯ generation, the princess from the Gold Elf kingdom, human warriors and wise ones, evil dragons and dark elves from the Underground, and the prince of a certain destroyed kingdom.


    Inconceivable? Although it sounded nice to refer to such people as seniors, they preferred to sardonically refer to themselves as ¡°the leftovers barely clinging onto life even though they should have died long ago.¡±


    The ironic part was, once the Cycle of Reincarnation was finally broken, it was us leftovers, who had already lost our homes, inheritances, friends, families, countries, and even cultures, that sacrificed the most and worked the hardest.


    We worked our very hardest, all for the sake of future generations not needing to take the same path as us. We exchanged our experiences in losing our countries or our species, all so that the terrible tragedies of losing your entire country or species wouldn¡¯t happen yet again.


    Although it might sound like a joke, our final conclusion was: ¡°Don¡¯t be a coward, just fight head on!¡±


    That was right, on such a despairing brink, any attempts at convincing others through morality would be useless. It would be the most foolish thing possible to expect the Gods high above to have an emotion such as pity. Practical brute force was the only method possible to solve all the problems.


    No matter what we intended to do, in the end, it was inevitable that we would have to fight both the Order and Chaos factions. And what happened was that the battle of Hell was a direct fight against both Order and Chaos so that Hell could be sessfully constructed. And, we won! We actually won!


    Cynthia died as a result? Our hard efforts hade to fruition? Our job was finally over?


    ¡°Ha, what a joke. Just look at this world. There are more than one hundred and seventy countries currently at war. Countless invaders and ambitious schemers are casually trampling over ordinary people¡¯s lives and souls. Is this really all over? Is this really the peaceful world that you wished for?¡±


    Indeed, all our hard efforts up until now had only managed to avoid the Armageddon kind of certain death ending for this world. It was still unknown whether we would all be able to survive this cruel,st Holy War of all.


    In every Holy War in history, more than ny-five percent of all life forms would perish. Although those Holy Wars didn¡¯t have the despairing ending of the Creator Goddesses awakening and destroying everything, such Holy Wars were still iparable tragedies. And since this was the final Holy War, it also meant that all umted grudges and historical enmity would explode simultaneously. Since every single species desired to be the final victor in this war; the final Holy War would naturally be the most brutal of them all, with no so-called victor ever emerging.


    Hell now had its Four Pir Gods of Holy Light, Law, Death, and Ice. Ordinary people could obtain new power from them. When Law truly protected every single ordinary person, and when ordinary people became the strongest species, perhaps a rtively long period of peace would finally arrive in this world. Ordinary species would all learn tomunicate with each other peacefully. However, it would take time for the power of Law to fully mature, and our enemies would never give us such time. Everything would be meaningless if we couldn¡¯t make it past this Holy War.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be a coward, and fight head on!¡±


    ¡°Come, no matter who the enemy is! Come, no matter how powerful you are! Come, since everyone believes that power is the only reason in the world, then let a half-dead leftover like me talk some logic into you. Come, and I¡¯ll show you that an old dog like me still has some teeth.¡±


    The cold wind brought along the smell of corrosion, and behind it were the living who were hurriedly solidifying the town walls. Before us was an endless sea of undead, while I was merely a single person who was standing on top of myrge Heavenly Knight #1, Mars of War.


    I was facing down countless hordes of undead, yet this was actually a case of the strong bullying the weak.


    ¡°Come, weaklings who fear true death, wee your eternal rest! Come, let your Granddaddy Yongye teach you how to truly be dead!¡±


    When the silent undead army blew the horns of war to begin their first charge, it was the end of my vacation time of loafing around with no battles. The final Holy War to end all Holy Wars had started yet again.

 Chapter 510 - Bug

    <h4>Chapter 510: Bug</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The ck giant seemed like a mountain. He was Mars, the incarnation of War, the leader of an amalgamation of countless undead armies. And, from a certain standpoint, he was also one of my newer children.


    By the time I finally returned to the mortal ne, Mars had already matured by himself without my assistance as he had been constantly gaining experience in the Nortnds.


    Reyne and Glina had both been quite influential in his development. He had originally been a Graveyard Demon, a moving base for restoring the undead, but now, he was a moving incarnation of War.


    The faceless man stepped forward, and transformed into a giant ck earthen castle.


    This was a floating castle that cast a gigantic shadow over all of Starwood City. Beneath the castle, several Tower Giants from the Earth Elemental ne charged forward and acted as the vanguard. They were also the supporting pirs for lifting that tremendous castle in the sky. But, I knew that this was simply the method that Mars had chosen to walk around with. Mars was the amalgamation of countless existences, and he could also choose to separate into countless smaller bodies at any time he wished.


    Right now, this pitch-ck mountainous fortress blocked the only path of the undead army¡¯s invasion. Previously invisible doors suddenly opened up in the castle as silent undead walked out from within. Two undead armies were now about to face each other.


    Conservation (previously Zero)¡¯s undead army started making amotion. The intelligent undead among them had never expected that they would meet their own kind here. However, their march to attack us wasn¡¯t affected at all.


    ¡°Mars, don¡¯t allow any small fry to break through the blockade.¡±


    Mars slowly stepped back, readjusting the position of his entire army. Mars and his army¡¯s purpose here was simply to prevent any scattered troops or generals from breaking through.


    ¡°...Perhaps I am actually the person who lost the most during the construction of Hell.¡±


    I had indeed lost much after the battle of Hell¡¯s conclusion. I was forced to sacrifice my ace card Soul World, the ¡°Eternal Diffindor¡±, in order to create a new Soul World for Hell. My Frigidwinter Earth world also became one of the foundational building blocks of Hell. I¡¯d also lost the ability to use my cheat-like God¡¯s Descent with Wumianzhe as Wumianzhe had now be truly independent.


    ¡°...But, I¡¯ve gained even more than I lost.¡±


    This was a battle that belonged to me. How could I possibly let Mars steal all the glory? Besides, I finally had a chance to test my new toy¡ªa new world that I¡¯d obtained in exchange for my Soul World and Frigidwinter Earth.


    ¡°Wee to thend of Hell. How does it feel to finallye home? Amazing, isn¡¯t it!¡±


    There was no incantation or roar of anger. The entire world distorted as the cknd transformed into a world without sunlight. Not far in the distance, the River Styx could be seen flowing slowly. Four pirs supported the sky, while a group of silver pces were currently judging all the dead souls at the end of the mountains.


    The aura of Hell began strengthening all the undead present. Even the low-level skeletons temporarily regained their intelligence. However, they suddenly all fell down to the ground. This world of eternal rest and death caused them to instinctively feel fear and confusion. They didn¡¯t realize why they were here; they were confused about being here; they didn¡¯t understand why their souls were now in someone else¡¯s grasp.


    This was no illusionary Soul World at all. This was really and of death, with the true essence of Hell...


    ¡°...Bastards who enve the dead, why don¡¯t you have a taste of the dead¡¯s revenge?¡±


    The moment that I gave thismand, all soul contracts were instantly shattered. Undead magic contracts were all meaningless in front of Hell¡¯s dimensionalws.


    The low-level undead who¡¯d suddenly received their freedom all had their eyes begin burning with fire of rage. The moment that they were freed from their soul contracts, they immediately began attacking their formerpanions... or more urately, former masters.


    ¡°You dare to...?¡±


    A death knight didn¡¯t even have the time to react when the skeletons and zombies that he¡¯d always looked down upon suddenly dragged him down from his skeleton horse. Countless skeletons and zombies tore his body and soul apart.


    The low-level undead¡¯s rebellion caused the entire undead army to begin panicking. Yet, this was only the beginning.


    ¡°Don¡¯t panic! The cannon fodder isn¡¯t important! Just get rid of them. This also can¡¯t possibly be the real Hell. This must be an illusion.¡±


    An angrily roaring Winter Demon revealed himself to be themander of this entire undead army. He jumped into the low-level undead¡¯s formation, and easily wiped out all the low-level undead around him with a frost spell that left nothing more than shattered bones behind.


    Yet, his words stating that this was only an illusion were instantly proven to be wrong. Souls nearly identical to the living¡¯s all walked out from those shattered bones. These souls then happily flew to where souls belonged under the guidance of the Tower of Death.


    This scene caused the Winter Demon to talk to himself in confusion.


    ¡°...What the hell type of ce is this?!¡±


    Right, what the hell type of ce was this? Actually, even I didn¡¯t understand what the hell this ce was.


    This world was a part of Hell, but it was impossible to reach the Four Pirs or Four Halls of Hell from here. This ce had the Land of Death, the River Styx, and Hell¡¯s aura. Yet, the River Styx was now its own self-contained cycle that nobody could exit.


    During the battle of Hell, I had to give up my Eternal Diffindor Soul World to help create Hell as a new Soul World. In that case, logically speaking, was the entirety of Hell now my Soul World?


    The answer was evidently no. Hell was a true independent world of its own that had been created using Dragon World and Frigidwinter Earth as its core materials. The Four Pirs and Four Pir Gods were just like nails that nailed it tightly down. How could Hell possibly be my personal Soul World? If that was really the case, if I ever died, wouldn¡¯t all our efforts have gone to waste, as Soul Worlds would die with their creators?


    Yet, I had indeed created a new Soul World of my own. And so, this was a logical contradiction. If this had happened in the mortal ne of Eich, such a logical contradiction would have been automatically fixed by the dimensionalws. Whenever I ¡°died¡± in Eich, I would lose my Soul World. However, everything had happened in a new world simr to the void, and Hell was my personal creation. The Four Pir Gods were also all my allies, so how could they possibly let me lose out? The dimensionalws of Hell¡¯s friendly bias towards me created this logical contradiction.


    Not to mention, also on my side was one of the Creator Goddesses herself, who was an expert on finding loopholes in the rules... How could the Goddess of Order Astrya possibly let such an opportunity slip by? With her involvement, a portion of Hell was brought into the Cycle of Reincarnation together with me the previous time that I died. That portion of Hell was now bound to my soul.


    So with this ¡°logical contradiction that shouldn¡¯t exist¡±, this ce was still a portion of Hell itself. This ce was also connected to the other sections of Hell. The Hell Gods could even toss Hell Devils and other such things into this portion of Hell for me to make use of, but the Hell Gods weren¡¯t actually able toe here.


    ¡°This is an ovepping dimension that¡¯s simr to an alternate existence. This ce both exists yet doesn¡¯t exist. You even managed to create such a contradictory existence that magical schrs are still debating about the possibility of. Rnd, you¡¯re so outrageously lucky.¡±


    This was Harloys¡¯ envy-filled assessment of my new world, which I treated as praise.


    And so, thanks to the Goddess of Order personally helping to use bugs in the dimensionalws, this bug-like new world became my new ace card. This world was also how I could keep in constantmunication with the Hell Gods and other residents of Hell.


    ¡°Taste the fury of Hell Dragons.¡±


    Hell Dragons were currently flying in the skies, with ck mist shrouding their existences. They suddenly swooped down from above, leaving nothing but dragonbreath that emanated the pure aura of death.


    ¡°How is this possible!?¡±


    That Winter Demon leader took a direct hit from the dragonbreath. Although his eternal ice wasn¡¯t melted, his soul was forcefully dragged out of his physical body and into the River Styx.


    This ck dragonbreath that seemed like a raging fire baked this Land of Death. All undead that had their physical bodies destroyed had their souls forced into the River Styx by the Pir of Death. Their souls finally returned to the Cycle of Reincarnation, which was one of the most basic dimensionalws of Hell.


    And, Hell Dragons also had the duty of guiding the dead into Hell¡¯s Cycle of Reincarnation. Since the undead were dead already, any who were struck by a Hell Dragon¡¯s dragonbreath would be forced into Hell¡¯s Cycle of Reincarnation¡ªeven if that undead had the strongest physical body in the world. The only exception would be if you were powerful enough to break free from the Cycle of Reincarnation... meaning an Undead Emperor.


    ¡°The dead actually dare to challenge the ruler of Hell in Hell itself? Should I call them arrogant or ignorant? As I said, this is a battle where the strong is bullying the weak. Yet, this is only the beginning.¡±

 Chapter 511 - Fight

    <h4>Chapter 511: Fight</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°The undead army has stopped?


    While Rnd was fighting the undead army by himself, everyone else didn¡¯t know about it, as the battle was taking ce in Rnd¡¯s alternate dimension. Still, it was obvious to everyone that the undead army had stopped in its tracks.


    But for these ordinary people, no matter what the reason was, it was naturally a good thing that the undead army had stopped attacking. That would mean more time to prepare.


    Currently on Starwood City¡¯s town walls, temporary actingmander Salima was speaking to a young man who was even younger than he appeared. When Tid told her about his expectations, his statements caused an angry uproar from everyone else immediately.


    ¡°You¡¯re telling us to stop working on the town walls? At this critical junction?¡±


    ¡°No, no, I¡¯m just asking you to focus on troop organization and resource preparation. Just leave the heavy work like solidifying the town walls and building more defense weaponry to me.¡±


    ¡°You? A little brat who hasn¡¯t even finished going through puberty yet...?¡±


    While everyone was in an angry uproar, Salima stopped her subordinates from questioning Tid. In fact, she asked her question with delight in her voice.


    ¡°It must be that person. Did His Highness the Holy Knight make that decision? Did he decide to personally intervene?¡±


    Tid was surprised for a moment as he realized that she must have inferred Rnd¡¯s identity due to the uniquebination of titles she used to refer to ¡°Karo¡± the Holy Knight. He hesitated for a moment, but with his direct personality, he felt that it was much better to be upfront.


    ¡°Yes, it was that person who made the decision. And, he¡¯s currently stalling the undead army by himself. As for how long he can stall them, he said that he could only try his best, but he should be able to stall them for at least three or four hours.¡±


    ¡°Stall? Even that person is only capable of stalling the undead army? He can¡¯t directly destroy the undead army?¡±


    Tid shook his head, not intending to exin. Just what did an Undead Emperor with thousands of years of umted power represent? Not to mention, that Undead Emperor had invaded with every single elite troop in her dimension. That would be a challenger that not even a True God would want to take on. That would be enough power to take on any human country.


    Besides, would the problem really be solved even if Undead Emperor Conservation was defeated? There was still the issue of the ruins actually being a Sky Tower. It was possible that a new enemy might appear at any moment.


    Tid was quite clear that if Rnd truly could win here, Rnd wouldn¡¯t have asked him toe here and solidify the town walls and construct temporary defense mechanisms.


    ¡°...Time is limited, so let me take care of things. Givemand of every single engineer here to me, as well as all the Four Elemental Swordcasters. The Swordcasters are good for half an engineer and enchanter each.¡±


    Three super small airships were slowly descending from the sky. They opened their freight doors, releasing several dozen medium-sized robots. The robots¡¯ gears constantly nked as they changed their forms, adjusting into the most appropriate form for work.


    Right after the robotsnded, Tid had them immediately begin dismantling the magic cannons on the town walls. The magic cannons would bepletely useless against the undead army.


    ¡°By the way, my name is Timmy Lade. You can call me Timmy, or Lade. If I knew that I would meet with such an unlucky incident, I would have brought along the entire South Star squadron.¡±


    Since the airships were kicking up a small windstorm, people could only talk to each other via shouts. As Tid shouted, hemanded the airships to descend. In the next three hours, it was time for Tid, the ¡°Miracle Creator¡±, to show his stuff.


    ¡°The Father of Iron?¡±


    ¡°Miracle Hand Tid!!¡±


    Everyone now had unmistakable expressions of delight. Even the veteran warriors who were just scolding this young brat now had expressions like they were viewing their savior.


    Salima was the only one who worriedly looked into the distance at the undead army. The fact that the greatest engineer in the world, Miracle Hand Tid, was taking orders from that person was yet another circumstantial piece of evidence pointing at Karo¡¯s true identity. But if even Rnd was unable to ensure absolute victory, just how difficult was the opponent to deal with this time!?


    Salima was also a little afraid after the fact, since she almost treated him as a spy. If they had actually fought...


    ¡°I hope that he¡¯s just as magnanimous as in the legends, that he won¡¯t care about such a small matter.¡±


    Magnanimous? If any single person who was familiar with Rnd heard such a statement about him, they would probably break out into uproariousughter. Wasn¡¯t Rnd¡¯s most famous trait forever holding a grudge over even the smallest things? Legends were truly so unreliable.


    ¡°Ha, the weak should just kneel before me!¡±


    But unlike everyone¡¯s expectations of my difficult struggles, I was having an easier and easier time fighting in my personal world of Hell.


    This was a dimension which was a logical contradiction. Although this ce was connected to Hell, the residents of Hell were unable to enter here, nor was I able to enter Hell through this world. I originally thought that this ce would only be of limited assistance to me in my battle. I hadn¡¯t expected that in this fight against the undead army, this sub-dimension of Hell was actually a perfect counter to the undead army, especially due to the dimensionalws here.


    The most difficult part of any undead army to deal with, the never-ending sea of low-level skeletons, had started rebelling. All the mid-level elite undead now had to be worried about being killed off by their former subordinates. But, suddenly, a tremendously powerful will descended upon this ce. All the chaotic undead¡¯s soulfires suddenly started flickering to an identical beat again.


    The powerful will directly started controlling her own army as the mid- and high-level undead had lost control. Under her personal soul contracts and connections, the low-level undead came under her control again.


    I could sense that behind the endless undead army, far in the distant mountains, a powerful soul zing like the sun had her attention on me.


    ¡°Hey, old acquaintance. If you don¡¯t like it, why don¡¯t youe out and y?¡±


    However, she didn¡¯t respond to me at all. The only reaction from her was her restoration of order as the undead army slowly began proceeding forward again.


    ¡°Tsk, as expected, she wasn¡¯t fooled so easily...¡±


    An Undead Emperor with her entire ne¡¯s worth of undead was a fighting force more than enough to destroy any country. There would be countless undead units under hermand. Nobody would ever win a battle of attrition against the undead. There was forever only one method that was the simplest and the most effective when fighting the undead¡ªdirectly killing the undead¡¯s leader.


    Although it was a nearly impossible task to ignore the entire undead army while ying an Undead Emperor, it would still be far easier to kill her first rather than first destroying her entire army before finally taking down Conservation herself¡ªat least in theory.


    But, it was quite evident that Undead Emperor Conservation, who had changed her name from Zero for some reason I didn¡¯t know, had no intention of personallying here to deal with me. She just kept sending endless amounts of cannon fodder to die.


    ¡°Has she already seen through the weakness of my dimension...¡±


    That was right, there was a weakness to my dimension, and an incredibly obvious one at that.


    Compared tomon Soul Worlds, my personal Hell dimension¡¯s advantage was that it actually affected the real world, and it could even be used as a storehouse and a base. My dimension wouldn¡¯t be rejected by Eich¡¯s naturalws, and maintaining its existence didn¡¯t even require me to pay any mana expenditure. But if I wanted to fight with it like a real Soul World, there was one huge weakness.


    ¡°My Hell dimension isn¡¯t a real Soul World. It¡¯s a new realm of its own that¡¯s outside the rules of existence. Although it has borders, it¡¯s unable to stop others from naturally walking out of it.¡±


    I chose to summon my personal Hell dimension here at this chokepoint precisely because I hoped the narrow mountainous terrain would limit the undead army¡¯s possible vectors of invasion. That was also why I had Mars and his army standing behind me to block any scattered forces that got through.


    But, it was only natural that the enemy would see through my world¡¯s weakness. After all, my personal Hell dimension could only cover a limited area. It would be impossible for me to drag the entire undead army into my dimension. And, the moment that an undead managed to exit my dimension simply by crossing the border, the enemy would instantly learn that my dimension had no way of stopping anyone from exiting.


    But of course, I couldn¡¯t stand by and simply watch the undead breaking past my personal dimension. Mars was also far too much of a novice to fight by himself against the full forces of an Undead Emperor. And so, I used yet another ace card of mine, an ace card that I had prepared several years ago.


    ¡°...Although I can¡¯t hook the big fish, it¡¯s nice as well to catch a few small shrimp. Appear, Yongye City!¡±


    The clouds in the sky suddenly parted as a floating ck city descended through the opening.


    This city was enveloped entirely in ck mist. This city was where Mars resided, and where my undead rested. And, the most obvious trait of this city was that numerous tall towers could be seen within it. And, the tallest tower of them all was giving off an imposing aura, with mana wavelengths indicating that it was far more powerful than any SemiGod archmage. If you only looked at its mana reserves, even a Titan wouldn¡¯t be able topare.


    ¡°Silly cat, get ready. Three, two, one, super tactical spell... Death to the Undead!¡±


    My voicebined with my magical pet¡¯s as Harloys who sat in the strongest tower¡¯s control room strengthened a ck ball of magical light with the mage tower¡¯s magical pressurizer. The entire city¡¯s magical power served to power this spell up. Finally, a tremendous ck ball of magic appeared in the sky, resembling a ck sun. Death to the Undead, amon low-level undead magic spell used for killing low-level undead, had been upgraded to be a super forbidden spell!


    A pitch-ck light showered the battlefield from the top of the tower. The ck sun slowly descended. Just the outer bounds of where the ck light reached had immeasurable killing power against the undead. Any undead that came into contact with it was immediately vaporized into dust. Those souls finally received freedom, and joyfully escaped the battlefield.


    That was right, Yongye City, this floating city was my personal mage tower!


    *Boom!*


    Suddenly, a beam of light came from far behind the undead army and directly struck the tip of the tallest tower. Although this beam of light didn¡¯t break through Yongye City¡¯s defenses, it created a tremendous explosion outside of Yongye City.


    ¡°This was from a distance of several dozen kilometers. Just how did she aplish it from such a great distance? Her long-distance magic attack spell actually didn¡¯t have a high cost associated with it?¡±


    Another beam of light arrived right after, proving that the first direct hit was no coincidence. It seemed that Conservation was indeed capable of surpassing the limitations of space to use a super-long-distance magical attack.


    *Boom!*


    But, this time, her beam of light directly exploded before even reaching Yongye City. The city¡¯s mage tower defense mechanisms had been activated, and shot firesers that ignited Conservation¡¯s beam of light.


    ¡°It would seem that she¡¯s even stronger than thest time I fought her.¡±


    Although I was astonished at how powerful she had be, a mysterious excitement caused my blood to begin boiling. As expected of an Undead Emperor, she was capable of overturning all normal magical theories upside-down, turning the impossible into reality.


    This was such a familiar battlefield situation to me. Cannon fodder would fight each other on the frontlines, while the archmages shot spells at each other from a great distance. This was the ssical undead mage fighting style.


    ¡°Last time, neither of us was at our strongest. This time, let us have a good fight in the style of Undead Emperors.¡±

 Chapter 512 - Yongye City

    <h4>Chapter 512: Yongye City</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Dark incantations echoed in the air, while silver-white ancient runes started appearing in the sky. Healing, Protection, Curse, Instant Death, and other such magic spells activated as the dark city was surprisingly covered in a shield of light. This was enough to make anyone¡¯s eyesses fall off in surprise... if the undead needed eyesses.


    Yongye City was a floating city with an area of twenty-one square kilometers. If you only looked at its area, it could only count as a small- to medium-sized city. However, it cameplete with alchemyboratories, potionboratories, mage towers, and all simr facilities. I had created it using the Cloud Tower¡¯s most basic blueprints on floating cities.


    The city¡¯s poption was a grand total of three... myself, Harloys, and Mars. If you counted the Goddess of Order, I suppose you could stretch it and say the poption was four. That was because Yongye City typically remained within my personal Hell dimension. As another part of Hell, its aura of death wasn¡¯t something that any ordinary mortal could tolerate.


    What I was the proudest of was the fact that the entire building cost for this city was only five thousand gold coins!


    That was right, you didn¡¯t read wrong. It didn¡¯t cost five million gold coins, or five thousand tinum coins. It cost a mere five thousand gold coins!


    ¡°...It¡¯s nice to have so many friends. Everyone is a good person that loves to help out.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you actually mean that you¡¯re the most shameless person who¡¯s ever lived? Are you certain that your friends won¡¯t actually hunt you down to the end of the world?¡±


    ¡°Haha, haven¡¯t you noticed how I¡¯ve been concealing my identity? They¡¯d have to find me first.¡±


    The base city was a floating city that I obtained through Wind Elemental God Camdian¡¯s Winged Tribe. The main mage tower was actually Undead Emperor Aso¡¯s mage tower from the Mage Country. One sub-tower was a Soul Summoning Tower that I¡¯d personally constructed out of Harloys¡¯ and Amelia¡¯s inheritances from the Mage Country. As for the all the main facilities such as experimentalboratories and the equipment within, I had robbed¡ª I meant, borrowed them long-term for free from certain warm and friendly mage organizations.


    There were so many robbery victims of such high levels that this incident had set a new record for robbery in history. This was also one of the main reasons why the gold reward on the wanted posters for catching me had increased at such a furious rate. It was said that after I finished, the Cloud Tower and Xiluo Empire had topletely redraw the maps of their mage districts. Simr angry roars of rage could be heard everywhere there.


    ¡°Rnd, you won¡¯t die a good death! You... it would have been fine if you just stole a few scrolls and spellcasting ingredients, but you actually stole my entire residence and mage tower!¡±


    Bystanders found it quite difficult to understand why all the super-famous archmages, great liches, and wise schrs suddenly ignored their public image and kneeled in public while crying and roaring in rage at the heavens. But at the very least, the name Rnd was now all mages¡¯ worst nightmare as public enemy number one.


    Cough, I should really stop mentioning such an annoying part of the past. It was all their fault for setting so many magical traps and mechanisms. Since it was too much of a bother to circumvent them, I simply took their entire homes... Cough, cough, getting back to the main topic, as a mage, how could I not have a mage tower for myself? After the bothersome creation of Hell was finally over with, I finally had the time to create a flying home for myself.


    And since this was my first personal mage tower, of course I wouldn¡¯t create it out of random odds and ends. If I created one, I wanted the very best! So I would steal, and steal the very best!


    ¡°The magical library? And the megarge astrology prophecy observatory?¡±


    ¡°Margaret¡ª I meant, a certain saint donated it to me. At any rate, she hasn¡¯t had the time to read for such a long time already, so I¡¯m putting it to good use for her sake.¡±


    ¡°The astronomy observatory andrge-scale replica of the constetions?¡±


    ¡°The Fate God Church donated it to me. They were truly such nice people. Besides, their True God has now joined as a Hell God, so Catio won¡¯t be observing the stars to make any prophecies anymore.¡±


    ¡°...Are you really sure that directly taking the main astronomy observatory in their church headquarters at the Cloud Tower counts as them donating it to you? Are you certain that the Riddle Knights (the Fate God Church¡¯s version of Holy Knights) going crazy looking for you everywhere are looking for you just to thank you for your kindness? Do you dare to have a personal chat with the God of Fate Catio himself?¡±


    ¡°Of course... not. Hey, isn¡¯t this all because you strongly requested a nice astronomy observatory? My prophecy magic skills are so garbage. I wouldn¡¯t need such a high-quality astronomy observatory if it wasn¡¯t for your needing one. If I¡¯m the main culprit, you¡¯re an aplice!¡±


    The silly cat fell silent for a moment. She then changed the topic to the tallest sub-tower in Yongye City.


    ¡°That Soul Summoning Tower? Well, I suppose that was one of the only things you¡¯ve obtained legitimately because Lionheart was willing to give it to you. A gigantic Soul Summoning Tower that¡¯s more than three hundred meters tall? Just one soul summoning could probably empty all the graveyards in an entire country. He actually gave you such arge-scale weapon to y with? He really spoils you too much.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean, spoils me too much? This is my personal charisma! Little Lionheart respects and trusts me, and believes that I¡¯ll put this tower to good use! This is trust! Do you understand?¡±


    ¡°Trust? Then what¡¯s this shield of Holy Light around Yongye City? You took the entire Saint Laivent Cathedral from the Church of Holy Light! Since when did you and Pope Caloma have a ¡®trusting¡¯ rtionship? And, if I¡¯m not mistaken, that ancient Tree of Life should belong to the wood elves.¡±


    Previously, I had obtained the blueprint for the original Cloud Tower from my System. But, actually, Yongye City¡¯s functions far surpassed the original Cloud Tower¡¯s. That was because each and every single part of this mage tower was the best quality in this world.


    And now, I felt extraordinarilyfortable making use of this incredibly solid mage tower, being able to sit here so casually while casting spells. This was despite the fact that I was facing an Undead Emperor¡¯s army.


    Conservation attacked from a mega-long distance three more times, yet Yongye City was able to block all of her attacks. The outer defense runes weren¡¯t even shaken in the slightest. After seeing that she was unable to obtain any results, Conservation unhesitatingly gave up her attacks.


    The glorious runes of Holy Light protecting Yongye City were a ¡°generous donation¡± from the Holy Church¡¯s artifacts and relic storage. Thanks to the generosity of the Holy Church, this defensive barrier was the purest Holy Light. This made it supremely effective at defending against all undead magic and negative energy magic attacks.


    *Boom!*


    Conservation suddenly sent a surprise attack, but it failed yet again. It would seem that for the short time being, I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about her long-distance attacks.


    Yongye City as myplete mage tower was definitely the strongest and most practical mage tower in the entire world. It was all made possible thanks to my good friends sponsoring me. Thank you so much, old friends of mine!


    ¡°Heh heh, ording to ancient traditions, after a mage tower¡¯spletion, we should be inviting those who¡¯ve helped us to drink some champagne and set off some fireworks while touring the tower.¡±


    ¡°...If we invite everyone, are you certain that they wouldn¡¯t rather drink my blood and tie me to the fireworks?¡± I casually responded to the silly cat¡¯s joke.


    Actually, Harloys had been a great help in the construction of this entire Yongye City. She had provided me with plenty of information on ¡°generous donors¡±. So, if I was caught, she wouldn¡¯t be any better off than me.


    No mage in the world would be able to resist the temptation of a mage tower. In magic society,mon sense dictated that only a mage with a mage tower could be considered the real deal. A mage in his own mage tower would be able to fight off even a God. A mage without a mage tower was nothing more than a half-baked mage who could only work for others and sleep outside. Even a regr bandit could steal such a mage¡¯s wallet while he was sleeping or slit his throat unnoticed.


    Mage towers were useful to mages in countless ways. The towers weren¡¯t simply residences for researching magic in. They were fortresses inbat, and allowed mages to cast spells in peace without worrying about their back. The towers were also mana replenishing pools that could multiply a mage¡¯s mana by more than thirty times over.


    ¡°Super tactical spell recharged, countdown, three, two...¡±


    Supersized versions of basic spells had always been criticized for being highly ineffective. A super version was only an erged version of a basic spell with limited area of effect, and if you wanted to strengthen the effects, you would have to overload the spell even more. This would have a tremendous and inefficient cost on smaller battlefields, so supersized spells were rarely if ever used there.


    But onrger battlefields, supersized spells could change even the most basic magic spell into a killer ace card capable of turning around the situation.


    ¡°...One. Release, super tactical spell: Ice Wall!¡±


    I pointed towards the holographic image of thend before me, creating an image of an ice wall spreading across the map. And within Yongye City, all the mage towers and sub-towers lit up as a snow-white glow gathered upon their tips. Finally, all the white light gathered together, umting, condensing, and finally shooting out a bright white torrent of light.


    White snowkes began to fall down from the sky. The undead, who didn¡¯t fear the snow, continued on as they always did. But, suddenly, a five-meter tall ice wall appeared right before them!


    Finally, when the white flow finally all disappeared on the holographic map before me, Yongye City¡¯s energy level had decreased by 7%. The result was that an entire wall of ice had been erected in front of the entire undead army.


    All the undead¡¯s soulfire flickered with a blue-green light as they just received a directmand from their master Conservation¡ªthey had to break past this ice wall.


    This would appear to be a correct decision as the undead weren¡¯t afraid of the cold and the ice wall itself had no attack power whatsoever. It would be simple enough to climb over it.


    The undead were highly on guard as they stared at the mage tower city in the skies. But, to their surprise, the mage tower city didn¡¯t send out a single attack as the undead climbed the ice wall.


    But soon, a strange change came over all the undead that were forcefully trying to climb the wall. They kept moving slower and slower, until finally their entire bodies froze into ice, with even their soulfires freezing over.


    The undead climbing the wall included low-level skeletons, as well as high-level liches and death knights. However, they all froze simultaneously at exactly the same speed.


    High-level undead would always have ridiculously high levels of ice resistance. Yet, they had also been frozen solid without even realizing it. This abnormal scenario struck terror into all the intelligent undead.


    ¡°Such idiots. They actually dared to touch my ice magic creation, and even stay on it for so long.¡±


    [Hibernation Chill]¡ªthis ice magic passive ability of mine which slowly froze enemies eternally in time had stayed with me even though I¡¯ve lost my Frigidwinter Earth. The moment that the undead touched that ice wall, the [Hibernation Chill] upon the wall started imperceptibly affecting them, slowing down their senses until they all finally went into an eternal rest.


    Of course, I was no idiot antagonist who would tell my enemy about how I was winning when I had the upper hand. In my opinion, true viiny was all about killing my enemies without even letting them know how they died.


    Just as I was preparing another magic spell, Conservation counterattacked.

 Chapter 513 - Mage Duel

    <h4>Chapter 513: Mage Duel</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    From a certain standpoint, the battle between Conservation and myself was a ssical battle between mages.


    Carefully observing the enemy, testing attacks that were more about leaving no chance for reprisal rather than seeding, looking for any minute signs of weakness, defending against potential enemy attacks and scouting, and repeating this cycle over and over. And of course, there were also sudden attacks that were more than capable of turning into the final killing blow.


    That was why a battle between mages would usually be quite boring to watch. Both mages would typically first start by summoning cannon fodder, then cast defensive spells so that they wouldn¡¯t die. Only then would they begin testing attacks against the enemy, or begin by destroying all of the enemy mage¡¯s cannon fodder, or attempt to break through the enemy¡¯s defenses. The first mage who exposed their own weakness would be the loser.


    In any battle where there wasn¡¯t an overwhelming power difference on either side, it was quitemon for a duel between two Cloud Tower mages to take over two to three hours. And since most mages focused first and foremost on defense and personal safety, this type of duel would typically be quite boring to watch.


    But even if Conservation and I were having a ssical duel between mages, our duel was still different from all the rest...


    My snow and ice wall kept receiving constant attacks. Despite the fact that the vanguard constantly froze into ice sculptures for no discernible reason, the remaining undead forces didn¡¯t retreat at all. That was because the undeadcked emotions such as fear, so they would never suffer from low morale. The will of the Undead Emperor controlling them ruled over their every thought.


    ¡°Charge! Trod on the corpses of the fallen and crush that wall!¡±


    The undead army¡¯s will was unified as one. It was as if their will was almost physical in nature, with an invisible Undead Emperor roaring in the void behind them.


    A high-level death knight trod upon his own subordinates¡¯ bones, and was the first to reach the top of the ice wall. But before he could be happy about his achievement, the chill emanating from beneath his feet finally froze him into yet another statue.


    The very next moment, his death knight acolyte climbed over his corpse, taking another two steps before she also froze into an ice statue. After that, another skeleton general proceeded forward on top of her bones...


    Even though this ice wall was like an endless abyss that devoured everything before it, the pitch-ck undead army proceeded forward without being shaken in the slightest. It was as if they were an unstoppable army of ants.


    ¡°If it¡¯s a river, just fill it with bones. If it¡¯s a volcano, just fill it with bones again. Although this may seem like a foolish strategy, it¡¯s actually quite effective. That¡¯s because all magic needs energy as its source, and energy is never limitless. This is one of the most fundamentalws of magic.¡±


    Since this was a type of spell that required contact to be effective, it could be surpassed simply by covering the wall with bones. If it was an infectious type of spell instead, then the undead would simply use cannon fodder to absorb all of the spell¡¯s curses and negative effects. If it was a spell that restricted abilities or changed naturalws, then the undead would use cannon fodder to experiment and find out all the naturalws and restrictions.


    Those were the foundational tactics that the undead used to conquer every country. It didn¡¯t matter to them how powerful or exquisite a defensive magical spell was nor how mighty an attack spell was. As long as the undead had enough cannon fodder to absorb the effects of the spells, even the most powerful of spells had their limits. Even the strongest mage in the world would eventually get tired and run out of mana.


    The ck flood of the undead proceeded forward slowly yet inexorably. They appeared to be slow and dull, as if you could run away easily from them. However, they wouldn¡¯t suffer fatigue, and would proceed unstoppably. No matter where you ran to, the end result would be the same. This was an Undead Cmity, the greatest gue of all that humans viewed as death itself.


    In this battle between us two Undead Emperors, this was still nothing more than small tests of each other¡¯s abilities. Conservation had an almost endless supply of cannon fodder avable to her.


    Of course, I also had a method to deal with all the cannon fodder, but before that, I needed to counter her magical attacks.


    Conservation finished a new spell. A ck cloud suddenly flew over from a great distance, and shattered when it got close. This cloud instantly enveloped the entirety of Yongye City, obscuring our vision with ck fog.


    This dark cloud wasn¡¯t an attack magic spell. Rather, it was a dark and illusionary mist, with countless dark fairies within it spinning illusions. It would be impossible to determine north from south within this cloud. And without vision or a sense of direction, all magical attacks would be rendered useless.


    ¡°A unique spell developed personally by Conservation?¡±


    ¡°Yes, this type of spell has never been seen before in the mortal ne. It¡¯s likely that this is a special usage of negative energy as this cloud can even block your eyes that can see through the soul... This fog has the scent of souls. She probably sacrificed some undead subordinates to power this spell. Using soul shards to obscure even soul vision? This is quite a creative spell she¡¯se up with.¡±


    I nodded and agreed with Harloys¡¯ assessment as my analysis was basically the same. Still, it was so convenient to have a living encyclopedia like Harloys with me as my analyses could instantly receive confirmation. In that case, since I understood the foundational workings behind Conservation¡¯s spell, I could also find a way to counter it.


    ¡°Cleanse... no, absorb! Using a soul spell in front of a soul magic expert like myself? What a joke.¡±


    I activated all the world-ss Soul Summoning Towers within Yongye City. The soul shards within the dark fog weren¡¯t even able to resist as they were all directly absorbed by Yongye City. This obscuring dark fog actually became an energy source for my personal mage tower. Yongye City¡¯s energy level which had fallen to 90% was instantly restored to 92%. But even though I gained an advantage here, I still felt rather anxious.


    ¡°...It¡¯s likely that her next spell is already prepared.¡±


    This was an issue of tempo loss in a battle between mages. Undead Emperor Conservation could personallymand her army while also casting spells at me. This was the equivalent of her taking two steps for every one step of mine.


    A novice would be happy to have countered one of their enemy¡¯s attacks, but I was having a headache because Conservation had gained the upper hand in being proactive. I knew that if she gained too much of a tempo advantage, I would be unable to deal with every attack, and she would be able to unleash a winning move.


    This difference had been present from the very start as both Conservation herself and her undead army were threats to me. She started off with a nearly endless supply of cannon fodder, while I could only counter her every move, which would make things only more and more difficult as the battle dragged on. I would have to counter two moves of hers for every move I took, which would be too much of a tempo disadvantage.


    ¡°As expected, where did that giante from?¡±


    The moment that the dark cloud was dispelled, I saw a tremendous bone giant that had already stepped over my ice wall. This bone giant had originally been heading towards Starwood City to attack it, but when he noticed that the dark cloud had dissipated, he unhesitatingly changed direction to attack this strange city of mine.


    Bone giants were quite amon undead type as ordinary giant corpses and bones could create these ughtering machines. Undead mages typically created bone giants for the purpose of siege warfare only as bone giants attracted far too much attention and were incredibly slow. This would make it easy to attract unwanted enemies, and required a massive mana upkeep to maintain. It would be highly inefficient to create a bone giant just for dealing with a small target.


    ¡°No, this is no ordinary bone giant.¡±


    But unlike normally slow bone giants, this silver bone giant was incredibly agile. He actually moved so fast that he was creating shock waves with every step. Neither were his eyes glowing with the typical undead soulfire. Instead, one eye was a magical sapphire, while his other eye was glowing with aser red beam.


    And, he wasn¡¯t wielding a cold weapon like a greatsword or war axe like most typical undead. Instead, he was holding onto a giant methrower which was spewing mes. I could see screws and metal boards at his joints where bones should have been, and he was actually wearing a metal suit of armor... and, shockingly, on his feet were wheels and me-spewing rocket boots!


    ¡°...An undead Gundam? Am I in the wrong story? Is this the new undead type that the dragon lich Wiir was talking about?¡±


    I could also faintly sense that many independent souls existed within this monster¡¯s body. This undead bone giant was actually nothing more than a vessel, and the cockpit seemed to be within its stomach. This undead Gundam was clearly something that no ordinary undead magic spell could create. At the very least, an Undead Emperor like Conservation who had remained as a hermit in her Death ne for countless millennia could never have created thisbination of magic and engineering by herself.


    I had a terrible premonition the moment I saw this monster. While this undead creature was surely powerful, its appearance represented the most troublesome development of all¡ªeither the undead had obtained the ruins¡¯ treasure trove of knowledge from the schrs¡¯ generation, or the undead had allied with whomever possessed the knowledge from those ruins. My enemy was no longer just an Undead Emperor alone.


    Perhaps Yongye City¡¯s energy level was too far off the charts, or perhaps Conservation gave him an absolute order, as this half-metal undead giant which was obviously an ace card didn¡¯t go for a direct attack against Yongye City. Instead, he simply proceeded forward after passing the ice wall, attempting to pass through my defense line.


    ¡°Tid will surely love a present like this.¡±


    ¡°The prerequisite will be that you can capture it without damaging it.¡±


    ¡°Of course, that¡¯s easy.¡±


    Any ordinary powerful individual would probably be frightened half to death here, but in our eyes, this giant was still nothing more than a toy. And, it was a toy that seemed impressive, but was unimportant, a failed design.


    ¡°Super tactical spell: Turn Stone to Mud!¡±


    I sent this spell towards the earth in front of the giant, instantly transforming the t earth into a pool of mud. And, an even deeper swamp was created underneath all the mud. The bone giant was unable to slow himself down, so he suddenly jumped up while mes spat out of his feet. He rushed forward with explosive force and kicked his legs with wonderfully standard movements, and then... he cartwheeled in midair andnded directly in the middle of the mud pit.


    ¡°Pahaha, nice movements, but he waspletely unable to jump over it.¡±


    ¡°Of course not, since bone giants have no muscles. There¡¯s a limit to what magic-guided movement can achieve. He¡¯s only imitating human movements out of instinct and habit. Did he really think that he could double jump in midair like Mario? Did he really think that he could pull off something as unscientific as speeding up three times by wearing a magic hat?¡±


    Yet, I wasn¡¯t happy about this at all, as the energy levels rising in the distance indicated that Conservation had prepared yet another new spell. Not only that¡ªthe undead were already beginning to break past the ice wall. She was gaining even more of a tempo advantage.


    The ice wall was now densely covered with undead. Conservation¡¯s army¡¯s self-sacrificial spirit was so moving... that I unhesitatingly created yet another ice wall. And having learned my lesson, I made this ice wall taller by two meters and thicker by three meters.


    ¡°Just continue, let me see how much cannon fodder you have.¡±


    Although I sounded quite arrogant, I wasn¡¯t as confident as I sounded. This [Hibernation Chill] imbued ice wall magic used up far too much energy. Each ice wall cost almost 10% of Yongye City¡¯s total energy storage. And in order to preserve Yongye City¡¯s safety andbat strength, I didn¡¯t dare to use up more than 50% of the energy reserves here. I wouldn¡¯t be able to use ice walls to stall for time much longer.


    And, the most annoying part was that I couldn¡¯t afford to let Conservation maintain her momentum while only countering her moves. That would only make the situation worse and worse for me. We needed to counterattack immediately.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go to the sub-tower. Leave the magic duel against her to me. You deal with the cannon fodder first.¡±


    For once, Harloys actually became hard-working. She volunteered for the more difficult task. Right now, Conservation was too far away, so it would be impossible to deal with her. Strategically speaking, it was correct to use Harloys against Conservation and eliminate the annoying cannon fodder first. Still, I was a little hesitant.


    ¡°...She¡¯s an Undead Emperor. At least be careful.¡±


    Even with the Yongye City mage tower supporting us, Harloys fighting an Undead Emperor by herself would be quite difficult. Invisible curses, dimensional level and above sealing spells, and unique negative energy spells would all be capable of killing even an existence such as Harloys.


    However, Harloysughed loudly upon hearing this. As she chuckled with a voice pleasing to the ears, she transformed to her adult Gold Elf form, allowing her silky-smooth hair to drag on the ground. This familiar beautiful figure appeared before me while intentionally whispering into my ear. ¡°An Undead Emperor? Who do you think I am? Who taught you your undead magic? I¡¯m a woman who already taught someone that became an Undead Emperor. And now, I¡¯ve finally umted enough to be a woman about to be an Undead Emperor. Be careful of her? I¡¯m hoping to achieve a breakthrough by fighting against her!¡±


    Harloys then vanished into the shadows whileughing, and I could finally focus fully on the undead army beneath my city. With such a helpful partner that I could absolutely trust the abilities of, this was a reassuring thing indeed.


    ¡°Now then, what spell should I prepare next? It would be best if I can kill off all the mid- and high-level undead at once. Since I have plenty of energy stored in the mage tower, why don¡¯t I spend some of it on a big spell...¡±

 Chapter 514 - Chess Game and Change

    <h4>Chapter 514: Chess Game and Change</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    A duel between mages was unlike knights charging at each other in hot-blooded fashion. Neither was it simr to how thieves and rangers fought in gueri style where one second would determine life and death. A mages¡¯ duel was more logical, and resembled a game of chess.


    ¡°And in chess, obviously, the more pieces you have, the better. The stronger the pieces, the better. The more moves you can make, the better.¡±


    Right now, our battle was like a chess game. Conservation and I were just like the kings. I was well protected by Yongye City¡¯s defenses, while Conservation was extremely far away from me right now. It would be far too difficult for either of us to directly kill each other, so of course both of us could only focus on each other¡¯s chess pieces first.


    However, this was no fair game of chess at all. From the very start, Conservation had far more chess pieces at her disposal. And, my side had movement restrictions as I couldn¡¯t allow any undead to bypass me and reach Starwood City. I was at disadvantage from the very start.


    But, after Harloys intervened, the bnce in the battle seemed to tilt in my favor.


    ck lights shed in the sky, while spells exploded with shadowy winds and demonic howls. It was quite evident that neither Harloys nor Conservation were using any positive type of magic. In fact, I couldn¡¯t recognize most of the spells they were using, but I could tell who had the upper hand.


    ¡°The silly cat¡¯s doing quite well.¡±


    That was right, even I didn¡¯t expect that Harloys had such an evident advantage here. She had gained the right to be proactive in her spellcasting battle against Conservation. But, after some careful observation, I felt that this result was only natural.


    No matter how Conservation was able to cast so many mega-long distance spells without high cost, it would be impossible for her to bring her personal mage tower from her Death ne to Eich¡¯s mortal ne. She had just arrived, and didn¡¯t have the time yet to create any Soul Towers to help replenish her mana. Basically, every single spell she cast was drawing on her personal mana pool.


    Meanwhile, Harloys was drawing mana from the entirety of the mage tower Yongye City itself. The silly cat would be able to cast spells at zero mana cost to herself all the way until Yongye City ran out of energy.


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t have to exin just how much understanding of magic someone with the title of ¡°All-knowing¡± would have. Harloys had no weak magic subject whatsoever. She was also a Gold Elf, a species with astonishing natural talent at magic. Not only that: she inherited many elven secrets, and worked hard for more than ten thousand years, studying magic for revenge. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that it was far too difficult to be an Undead Emperor, and that the Three Heavy Doors between Myth and SemiGod were far too difficult for undead without flesh and blood sort of physical bodies to pass, she would have reached that level long ago. It was just that sometimes, no amount of hard work would ever be enough.


    But now, Harloys had regained a full soul and physical body. Since she was now truly close to reaching the level required, her past efforts wouldn¡¯t go to waste. Harloys¡¯ pure magical knowledge and abilities exceeded even Conservation¡¯s. The silly cat was able to swiftly analyze Conservation¡¯s spells and find the weaknesses within. Harloys countered every spell quite excellently.


    This type of fight caused me to remember something simr to League of Legends...


    [A challenger ranked ount booster using a rich person¡¯s fully loaded ount to beat up on ordinary yers?]


    Yep, that was it, a perfect summary from my System!


    Harloys¡¯ experience and techniques were stronger. Plus, she could casually use as much mana as she wanted without holding back. Even if Conservation was at a slightly higher power level, she would still have to use her personal mana pool to cast every spell. This was the exact equivalent of a pay-to-win yer using money shop resources to oust a free-to-y yer. What could possibly be more shameless?


    ¡°...I never expected that we would one day be the pay-to-win yers. It would seem that all my hard work didn¡¯t go to waste. Neither did my generous ¡®donators¡¯ waste their donations! Even though Conservation¡¯s clearly stronger, how does it feel to be suppressed? I bet she¡¯s angered to the point of exploding. If it was me, I would probably be flipping tables in anger already.¡±


    I was basically watching a pay-to-y yer using the best equipment money could buy to suppress a free-to-y yer who was higher in level. This fight waspletely unequal because of Harloys using a mage tower, and Yongye City was no ordinary mage tower.


    Ny-nine percent of mage towers were immovable¡ªprimarily because the energy source would be so heavy that it was impossible to move. While it was convenient to absorb energy from the earth or a volcano, that would also render an ordinary mage tower even more immobile. Elemental pools stored in alternate dimensions would also have immovable coordinates.


    Although the original Cloud Tower design was movable over short distances, the Cloud Tower would still typically remain anchored to one location. That was because moving the Cloud Tower would require an astonishingly high amount of mana output. Every time the Cloud Tower was moved, it would also require all sorts of coordinate checking and connecting, which was highly troublesome.


    However, I used my bug-like personal Hell world to store Yongye City, a super mage tower, making it portable and taking it with me anywhere I wanted. This was something absolutely inconceivable, as well as the reason why those unlucky ¡°donators¡± didn¡¯t expect that I would help them ¡°move their homes for free¡±. Right now, they were still probably trying to figure out how it was that I had taken away their entire homes.


    Cough, getting back on the main topic, the pay-to-win yer Harloys was having an easier and easier time. All of Conservation¡¯s attack spells were basically blocked in midair. The silly cat even had the spare energy to help me clear out a part of the undead army. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that we couldn¡¯t lock onto Conservation¡¯s current exact location, she probably could have counterattacked against Conservation¡¯s true body as well.


    Since I¡¯d confirmed that Harloys would have a big advantage for the short time being, I could now really focus on the game of whack-a-mole against the undead.


    Right, whack-a-mole. That was what I was basically doing now.


    The undead were constantly proceeding forward. Any who showed themselves would immediately receive a fireball. Then, those who managed to survive would retreat, or the undead troop would be entirely eradicated. I would then wait for the next undead troop to show itself.


    ¡°Ha, take this, super tactical fireball, increased damage fireball, super long-range fireball...¡±


    Actually, this was a boring game as the undead were quite smart, and scattered as much as possible. In order to save as much mana as I could, I had to constantly toss fireballs.


    What? You¡¯re asking me why I wasn¡¯t using a big spell to clear the entire area?


    This was clearing out the undead as well. Undead had disgustingly high ice magic resistance, and weren¡¯t idiots that would allow themselves to be continually frozen by my [Hibernation Chill]. Since the undead obviously didn¡¯t fear the cold, nor did they need to worry about body temperature, the cheap efficiency of fireball magic became the best spell to use.


    Fireballs. Big fireballs, strengthened fireballs, cluster fireballs, super long-range fireballs, and chain fireballs. No matter if you were a novice to magic, or an expert archmage in some magical field, people would look down on you if you didn¡¯t know how to throw a fireball. After all, fireball magic was extremely simple¡ªall you had to do wasbust some mana to control a small amount of fire element, which would then result in the ssical fireball attack spell. Fireball magic was also highly efficient in how much damage it could cause for its low mana requirement. In mana efficiency, it would be far more efficient than ny-nine percent of higher-level spells. It was basically a necessary spell for any traveling mage to have in their arsenal for the purpose of robbery and murder¡ª er, protecting themselves.


    Perhaps the novice mage adventurers might not know any support magic spells, and the novices might not be as wise and calm as experienced mages, but they would definitely always know how to use fireball magic.


    What? You¡¯re saying that this sounds too boring? Fine, let me change the spell a little. I¡¯ll justpress the mana some more, which will increase the explosion radius. Let¡¯s call this the Inferno Explosion spell!


    ¡°Good game! Thank you! But I¡¯m sorry! Good game! Sorry! Good game! Sorry! GG! Sorry...¡±


    My malice-filled apologies echoed in the air as giant Inferno Explosion spells appeared everywhere. The undead scrambled backwards like moles as they were smashed into pieces.


    I whacked a mole, I meant an undead general, and the fiery explosion engulfed everything around him. Although I was no expert in fire magic, I still knew how to toss out fireballs.


    What, you¡¯re saying that whack-a-mole sounds socking in seriousness for the current situation? It was an inappropriate analogy?


    Fine then, since whack-a-mole was inappropriate, I was harvesting the undead yers like they were the poor zombies in nts vs. Zombies... Whoops, I identally referenced something from my original world again.


    ¡°Can¡¯t you be a little more serious? Don¡¯t you know how to use bigger spells and forbidden spells?¡±


    Although Harloys had the advantage, not being able to eliminate Conservation meant that this battle had no end. The silly cat was also under some pressure. Seeing how much fun I was having made her a bit peeved at me.


    ¡°Tossing a forbidden spell when I¡¯m only Legend rank? You want me to die again so quickly?¡±


    The difference between forbidden spells and ordinary spells was one¡¯s understanding and control over foundational concepts. Forbidden spells would change the very essence of magic itself, and the pure magical power umted would also mean that my physical body would be unable to handle the forbidden spell¡¯s magical bacsh. Although it was possible for me to cast Ice Aeon with Yongye City¡¯s support, there was no guarantee that Ice Aeon would destroy Conservation and her army, while I would one hundred percent be sent back to the Cycle of Reincarnation to be born again.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know any otherrge-scale AOE attack spells? I remember that Legend-ranked mages should have quite a few avable to them.¡±


    ¡°Death Howl, Banshee¡¯s Curse of Despair, Five Fingers of Death (also nicknamed Death Palm), yep, all undead magic spells. Are you certain that you want me to heal them with undead magic spells? The undead are experts at undead magic, and we¡¯re fighting against an Undead Emperor. It would be quite ineffective of me to use undead magic against them.¡±


    ¡°What about ice magic?¡±


    ¡°You know just as well as I do that undead are highly resistant to ice magic. Lowering the temperature to be fatal for living beings is just like a cool breeze to them. You want me to help freshen them up?¡±


    The silly cat was rendered speechless. Although it was possible to create a mega-low temperature even the undead would be frozen in, the mana expenditure required meant that it was far more effective to simply throw fireballs.


    ¡°...It would seem that as a mage, you¡¯repletely useless against the undead.¡±


    Harloys was indeed correct. My power against the undead was rather limited. After all, no Undead Emperor would practice spells targeted at other undead, as their main enemies were the living. But on the other hand, Conservation would have the exact same problem I was having. We also had excellent undead magic, negative energy, and ice magic resistance. Those were also her specialty magic types, meaning her best magic was also rendered ineffective.


    ¡°Why would I think about facing an Undead Emperor? My nned enemies were the dead from the very start. Besides, in normal situations, if I meet an undead that¡¯s difficult to deal with, I¡¯d just use Holy Light... Oh, right, Holy Light!¡±


    As a Holy Knight, of course I could use Holy Light. However, acting like a Holy Knight and charging fearlessly into a sea of undead would be equivalent to suicide. Yet, Holy Light wasn¡¯t restricted to only melee. Since Yongye City had borrowed from many of the Holy Church¡¯s churches, I had more than enough Holy Light artifacts to open up a museum. As long as I had the mana, producing Holy Light would be quite easy.


    But, theory was one thing, while practice was another. In order to use a mage tower to cast Holy Light Divine Arts, many technical issues would have to be solved. At the very least, I would first need to confirm which Divine Art I wanted to use, and then transform Yongye City¡¯s mana into the power of Holy Light.


    While I was anxiously calcting the form for transforming mana to Holy Light, the heavily suppressed Conservation took action first. She requested reinforcements from her new temporary ally. Soon, another batch of half-undead and half-mechanical creatures entered the battlefield. This time, there were more than a hundred of those ¡°Gundam¡± type bone giants.


    Conservation was still casting spells as well, but not an attack spell this time. Another dark cloud floated over on the battlefield, yet it didn¡¯t head towards Yongye City. Instead, the dark cloud concealed the bone giants¡¯ gigantic bodies.


    After Conservation found out that just about all her attack spells were failing, she wisely gave up the idea of directly attacking Yongye City, and focused fully on supporting her subordinates with buff spells instead. This ck mist hid her undead, making it impossible for us to see where to aim with our spells. Although Inferno Explosion was excellent forrge scale destruction, it would still be useless if I couldn¡¯t find a target to hit.


    ¡°Since I can¡¯t see anything, let¡¯s just go with a map-wide cannon barrage. How about I give them a good one?¡±


    ¡°You should hurry. Since both of us are casting spells, this means Yongye City¡¯s mana reserves are being used up at twice the speed. Our mana reserves are running out.¡±


    While Rnd and Conservation¡¯s rematch was nearing its end, Starwood City had just about finished reinforcing its defenses.


    Numerous iron sentry towers had been erected. The vicious-appearing scorpion-tail-shaped magic cannons appeared quite dangerous. Tid had just showed everyone his miracle technique of instantly transforming base minerals into metal through alchemy. The solidified castle walls now had an extrayer of metal on top.


    And, the greatest engineer of all time had no intention of stopping there. He was currently melting down arge sculpture of the new domain lord of Starwood City, the newly deceased Kaen Stark. This sculpture became the base for a gigantic stone catapult. However, this catapult was no simple catapult using only the forces of physics.


    Meanwhile, on the ins of S Dukedom, the royalty¡¯s reinforcements received news that the undead had invaded. A procession of several hundred carriages kicked up a giant cloud of dust. It was evident that they were rushing to reinforce Starwood City.


    Several hundred kilometers behind them, several ck-caped figures were speedily heading towards Starwood City as well. Thesedies were holding onto a certain wanted poster for Rnd. It would seem that Rnd¡¯s identity had indeed been leaked. Judging from how distorted the leading woman¡¯s face was from anger, Rnd was going to be in for fun times.

 Chapter 515 - Tree of Holy Light

    <h4>Chapter 515: Tree of Holy Light</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Cleansing all Chaos and distortions. This is Holy Light, a power of Order.¡±


    Holy Light was a new power that arose from the previous Holy War. But in this Holy War, it received a new definition. The Southern Sect¡¯s new edition of the Holy Codex directly abandoned the Holy Church¡¯s way of describing Holy Light as a gift from the God of Holy Light. Instead, the Southern Sect exined Holy Light in the simplest of terms.


    ¡°Holy Light is a type of high-purity positive energy. Its core Concept is Cleansing. The way it cleanses is by forcefully restoring Chaos, distorted creatures, or distorted energy back to Order.¡±


    This type of exnation sounded more like what a mage or alchemist would say. ording to the first pope of the Southern Sect, the divine Holy Light was actually something ordinary that could be researched. Although the daring archmages long since had such a point of view, ordinary devout priests and Holy Knights all had their worldviewspletely upturned.


    If this was a materialistic world of nature like my original world, this would have merely been a divide in church sects. However, Eich was a world where Concepts really existed, so things werepletely different.


    In the past, Holy Knights and Holy Light priests had simply prayed to the Gods, asking for the gift of Holy Light. So, they would level up extremely quickly after receiving the gift of Holy Light. However, this also meant that they had a poor understanding of Holy Light itself, meaning they had poor foundation. No matter how strong Holy Light was, it still belonged to someone else. After reaching a certain level, they would all reach a bottleneck in their power level. Only those who were truly favored by the Gods would receive the most divine power.


    Back when I received the wondrous title of ¡°Child of Holy Light¡±, that was because I reached Legend rank at the miraculous age of 14. And, I reached that rank primarily because of my unique understanding of Holy Light.


    And now, the ¡°Salvation of Holy Light incident¡± with Estrada¡¯s death in the eastern Bardi ins caused countless Holy Light job ss members to reassess the very meaning of Holy Light. Believers in the teachings of ¡°Pure Holy Light¡± instead of Holy Light were now spreading all over the world. Holy Light was downgraded from a God-given gift to a more ordinary power. In fact, even many regr mages had begun researching Holy Light and treating it as nothing more than another type of energy.


    Holy Light was no longer treated as divine. Perhaps this affected the high status of some Holy Light job ss members and Cardinals, but this had far deeper of an impact on how people used Holy Light.


    In just the past seven years, after the shackles on how people viewed Holy Light were cast off, it was just like opening a treasure trove of knowledge. There were plenty of expert Holy Light users in this world to begin with, and now that people were allowed to research Holy Light, countless new Holy Light Divine Arts and techniques were born. This only fueled the belief that Holy Light was indeed researchable, helping to shatter the old shackles even more. In the end, this created an entire revolution of Holy Light.


    After all, fanaticism and worship wouldmonly lead a person the farthest away from the truth. And, oftentimes, things weren¡¯t truly impossible. People simply didn¡¯t dare to do them, or even dare to think about doing them...


    Currently, my Yongye City opened up its shadowy canopy. Various seeds were sprouting from the garden in midair atop all the buildings, on top of the ancient Tree of Life.


    The tree was being enveloped in a golden glow. Its roots and branches seemed to be crystallized. Liquid energy flowed within it as all the seeds rapidly matured. These translucent crystals gradually expanded to the size where the branches sagged from their weight.


    ¡°Seeds of Holy Light...¡±


    This wasn¡¯t a spell that I invented. This was actually a spell that the archpriests in the Southern Sect invented... well, although they giarized it as well.


    The foundational working of this spell was simr to the druids¡¯ Seeds of Life spell. Only Holy Light experts like the Southern Sect¡¯s archpriests who had studied Holy Light for many decades could have imitated apletely different branch of magic¡¯s spell to use as their own.


    Although this spell was giarized from the druids, I was probably the only person in the world who could show off the maximum potential of this spell.


    ¡°After all, I have the second-generation Tree of Life right here. This is a top-ss tree that even the elf kingdoms don¡¯t have many of!¡±


    ¡°How did you get it?¡±


    ¡°I stole it!¡±


    I gave a big thumbs up and had a proud expression as I said this. When considering our rtionship (hatred) with the elf kingdoms, I felt no guilt whatsoever at having stolen from them.


    Although the silly cat seemed not to care with her expression, she was actually the one who told me the elves¡¯ Tree of Life¡¯s location and how to secretly enter the forbidden district. This past Gold Elf princess would be far more proactive than anyone else in the world as long as it involved the ¡°bastard long-ears who forgot their honor and loyalty suffering misfortune¡±, even if she was technically one of those long-ears herself.


    And right now, this incredibly rare second-generation Tree of Life activated its astonishing power. A tremendous amount of Holy Light entered it, causing numerous Holy Light crystals to form on its branches.


    ¡°47%, 46%, 44%. We¡¯re now lower than the safe amount of energy to be. Shall we continue?¡±


    ¡°Notify me when we reach 30%. We need to keep a minimum of 10% extra energy for backup.¡±


    Although we were using the Winged Tribe¡¯s floating city technology, Yongye City was overloaded on equipment and facilities, making it require even more energy than normal to stay afloat. At only a 20% energy level, Yongye City wouldn¡¯t even be able to float or keep up its defensive shields anymore.


    A tremendous amount of Yongye City¡¯s mana reserves were transformed into the power of Holy Light. All the ancient artifacts and churches I stole from the Holy Church acted as the best energy transformers. But despite this, the energy transforming efficiency would only be 70% at maximum.


    As the Seeds of Holy Light grew ever bigger on the branches, our energy reserves started dipping rather low. And, Conservation noticed that we were preparing something, so she unhesitatingly started attacking us without stopping. Although Harloys sessfully blocked all her spell attacks, our energy reserves were dipping dangerously low.


    ¡°Damn it, this floating city¡¯s mana battery still has such a small capacity. I need to find one with a bigger capacity next time.¡±


    ¡°I remember that you stole the Cloud Tower¡¯s backup energy battery, which is probably the strongest energy battery for a mage tower in the entire world. Where are you going to steal a better one than this? A real Titan¡¯s heart?¡±


    ¡°Nice idea! Let¡¯s steal from the Titans next time! They¡¯re currently living in mynd, so it¡¯s time that they paid some rent.¡±


    ¡°Is a Titan¡¯s heart a true perpetual energy source? Isn¡¯t that just a false rumor created by other people?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know if they can be perpetual energy sources or not, but as long as we catch a Titan to produce energy for us, we definitely won¡¯t need to worry aboutcking energy in the future. Isn¡¯t this such a pure and harmless perpetual motion machine?¡±


    I kept cracking terrible jokes that mighte true one day, but we were currently worried about our energy level that had now reached 34%. Right now, the entire canopy of Yongye City was opened up, while the main body of the Tree of Life was still here with us. However, the light extending out of the tree had now covered all of Yongye City.


    If you looked at it from afar, you would see that a giant tree of light had now grown to berger than the entirety of Yongye City itself. Countless branches of light were extending into the clouds, and the floating city now appeared to be nothing more than a flower vase inparison to the tree¡¯s size. And, the Tree of Holy Light was emanating frightfully powerful shock waves that could easily destroy any undead who got close. Even an idiot undead would have realized that the situation wasn¡¯t good for them.


    Unfortunately for the undead, no matter how powerful their army was, they couldn¡¯t do anything about us. Skeleton archers and ordinary liches would be unable to attack us so high up in the sky. Most of the gargoyles and bone dragons in the Undead Cmity were currently harassing Starwood City. The few present here didn¡¯t even dare to get anywhere close to the Tree of Holy Light. The only threat that remained was Conservation¡¯s constant bombardment of long-distance magical attacks.


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    But this time, Harloys intentionally conserved mana, and didn¡¯t seed at blocking Conservation¡¯s attack. Judging from where the smoke wasing from, Yongye City lost its third negative energy pool, as well as recording room, swimming room, and a candy warehouse... Fine, I admit that losing thest three was no big deal. Theck of candy would only result in a certain cat being displeased, but the loss of a negative energy pool made our energy shortage even worse.


    ¡°27%! 25! Just release the spell. We can¡¯t hold on any longer, so just release it.¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t enough, this power level still isn¡¯t enough! There¡¯s no helping it, we¡¯ll have to take this risk.¡±


    While I was still being anxious, a sudden beam of lightnded from the outskirts of the sky and directly hit the Tree of Holy Light.


    I didn¡¯t even have the time to react when that Tree of Holy Light suddenly expanded its size yet again. Its branches were nowpletely in the clouds. If it wasn¡¯t for my personal Hell world¡¯s concealment, this gigantic Tree of Holy Light would have been visible from Starwood City.


    And by the stars, at the very top of Hell, on the very top of the golden Pir of Holy Light of Salvation, a faint tall figure was waving at me, seemingly trying to tell me something.


    ¡°What¡¯s he saying?¡±


    Seeing how that familiar figure of Estrada was waving at me, when I thought about how he was now destined to remain in Hell for forever as he had be a Hell God, I felt a difort in my heart even though I tried to keep calm.


    Obviously, Estrada had noticed that we were in trouble, so he gave his direct support.


    With such a great distance between us, including across dimensions, it was a distance that we could see but never reach each other. It was quite lucky already that I could see his figure, so making out his words would be impossible.


    ¡°Harloys, can you send one of your clones to him?¡±


    ¡°...Harloys, Harloys, everything needs Harloys, you only call me Harloys when you need me, but you call me silly cat whenever you don¡¯t. I still need to deal with Conservation, so I can¡¯t spare the energy to do so many unrted matters.¡±


    ¡°...Alright, I apologize, but this is really important. Could you please send a clone to Estrada?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I already did. He¡¯s saying, watch out a...¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    Harloys kept decreasing her voice volume and speaking ever slower, despite the fact that there were no such things as unclear soul connections.


    But the next moment, Harloys sped up and finished her sentence, and I instantly realized what was going on, regretting that I realized toote.


    ¡°...above! He says to watch out above!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re digging a pitfall for me yet again!¡±


    A ck wind rushed right past the top of my head. If I hadn¡¯t ducked in time, my body would likely have been torn apart.


    *Boom!*


    That ck wind directly shattered two houses in Yongye City before it finally stopped, revealing itself to be an ancient silver hammer.


    ¡°The Light of Salvation, the Hammer of Hope for the Messengers of Light?¡±


    This war hammer had formerly been the Holy Knights¡¯ war hammer passed down through the generations. And previously in the battle of Hell, it became the holy artifact containing the power of Hell¡¯s Holy Light. As it became one of the Four Foundational Elemental Items of Hell, I had left this hammer behind in Hell to power the Pir of Holy Light.


    And now that I was in trouble, it returned to my hands... almost breaking my head.


    This silver ancient war hammery there quietly. Its ancient battle scars were the records of history, but I didn¡¯t intend to pick it up... With my current physical strength, I was unable to do so.


    ¡°...Harloys, is this story¡¯s style wrong again? We¡¯re clearly having a major battle, so should I be a little more serious?¡±


    ¡°The style is perfectly fine. Haven¡¯t you always been theic relief?¡±


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, that¡¯s not right. I¡¯m clearly the main character! Just look at me, I¡¯m a prince, someone out for revenge, and someone who saved the world. Don¡¯t I sound just like the male lead of an epic? I¡¯m not aic relief character!¡±


    ¡°...An epic? So you¡¯re the female superstar, Princess Peach? I heard that image recordings of that y have already been sold to the entire world by the fairies. Your fans are constantly asking when you¡¯ll perform the sequel. You¡¯re theic relief character who¡¯s immune to death due to plot armor, and you look better in female clothing than male, and you keep getting into countless romantic entanglements, but you¡¯re forever a virgin. You fit every requirement to be the perfectic relief male lead.¡±


    ¡°...Let¡¯s talk more about the ongoing battle instead.¡±


    Before I could focus on the war hammer instead, since we had received support from Hell¡¯s Pir of Holy Light, our Tree of Holy Light finally bloomed. This super spell which had used up almost 40% of Yongye City¡¯s energy by itself would finally be activated.


    *Ding!*


    All the golden crystals on the branches began to shake in unison. Their synchronized sounds made my skin go slightly numb.


    These crystals of Holy Light were the size of adult humans. They were the Seeds of Holy Light from this giant tree, and the next instant, countless seeds scattered everyone, arcing strangely shaped lines in the sky, and suddenly descending with the speed of meteors.


    This was a majestic sight of a meteor shower, with countless golden streaks pouring down like a torrential rainstorm. Each and every impact created a giant explosion of Holy Light.


    Yet, this was only the beginning.


    Brand new Trees of Holy Light were sprouting from the Holy Light crystals. In just a few short seconds, they grew into new Trees of Holy Light. Right after that, they started spreading even more seeds.


    Soon, the Seeds of Holy Light spread throughout the entire battlefield. This pitch-ck alternate dimension of Hell became entirely covered with a golden forest.


    Any undead that were touched by a Tree of Holy Light would be directly burned to ash. Even those special half-mechanical bone giants found it difficult to move around in this Holy Light forest.


    Yet, this still wasn¡¯t the end.


    ¡°Explode, reality!¡±


    After I snapped my fingers, a Tree of Holy Light in a corner directly exploded. A glorious mushroom cloud of golden light devoured everything around it. The next instant, when all the intelligent undead understood what happened, their icy expressions all had unified looks of incredulity and despair.


    *Boom!*


    *Boom!*


    All the Trees of Holy Light exploded, sending countless mushroom clouds of Holy Light into the sky. Golden clouds followed each explosion, with undead soul screams being the apanying music to these explosions.


    Finally, when the entire world became golden, I could see nothing but white.


    Right now, even far off in Starwood City, people there could sense a violent earthquake. They also saw the death mushroom golden cloud rising into the clouds, slowly spreading into the form of a beautiful flower. The top of the golden cloud had far surpassed the actual clouds. Its golden petals appeared divine and noble, yet it was still just the mushroom cloud of an explosion. And, its dangerous shock wave had already arrived before everyone.


    The Starwood City defenders didn¡¯t even have the time to celebrate that all the undead vanguards before them had just been evaporated by the light emanating from this explosion. This was because they couldn¡¯tprehend the incredible sight before them right now.


    ¡°The mountain, the entire mountain is gone...¡±

 Chapter 516 - Combat results and reinforcements

    <h4>Chapter 516: Combat results and reinforcements</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Starwood City had once been considered a mountain city. People here used to rely on the mountain for their livelihood in the past. Yep, in the past...


    ¡°With a huge boom, just a single boom, the entire mountain range was leveled.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, and the whole sky lit up as well. Not the usual light outside like normal, it was more like having countless oilmps on top of the clouds. The entire sky was so bright.¡±


    ¡°Oilmps is such an under-exaggeration. I felt like there were countless suns, and that golden flower was so scary.¡±


    Although everyone was facing war, and it was deep into the night, adventurers would never be bored of gossip, especially with such an astonishing explosion happening right next to them. While it made everyone anxious, they also had high hopes.


    ¡°I heard that our side created that.¡±


    ¡°Of course, idiot. Our enemy is the undead. How could they possibly create Holy Light?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, I heard from our temporarymand center that the undead should have arrived this afternoon. But with this explosion, not only did the undead suffer serious losses, all the mountain paths were destroyed, and the undead won¡¯t be able to arrive today. We¡¯ve gained at least an entire extra day of time to prepare.¡±


    Most of the time, people would only hear good news before the battle. Any good general would never release any information which would affect the morale of his soldiers. And, any major unexpected victory would naturally be exaggerated as material to motivate everyone.


    After hearing the news of the explosion, Salima unhesitatingly sent spies to loudly spread stories in the taverns and streets about the victory. But when she considered the scary number of zeros in the reward on Rnd¡¯s wanted poster, she could only im that it was due to the assistance of a master of Holy Light randomly passing by.


    Starwood City had now been reinforced several times over, barely counting as a mid-level city in defenses. Its walls had now been forcibly brought up to twelve meters tall, with a thickyer of steel covering. Although these walls still wouldn¡¯t be able to stand up to behemoths like bone giants or bone dragons, the walls would easily be able to deal with low-level skeleton seas as long as there were enough defenders.


    And right now, that so-called ¡°master of Holy Light¡± that everyone viewed as their savior was also in a tavern. But, I wasn¡¯t happy at all to hear everyone praising me. I was actually feeling annoyed.


    ¡°I lost so much this time.¡±


    I was sitting in a small private room in a tavern and sullenly drinking some alcohol while hearing outsiders brag about my achievements. Yet, I was only annoyed.


    That Seeds of Holy Light forbidden spell was a brand-new theoretical invention. Nobody knew just how strong its effects would be as it hadn¡¯t been tested yet. But, its first ever appearance earlier this afternoon would likely make it famous in history.


    ¡°Pure Holy Light actually had such powerful destructive force. It would seem that this is worthy of future research.¡±


    Thebat results were quite excellent as every single undead within its explosion radius waspletely eradicated. The shock wave and extra Holy Light actually managed to reach Starwood City and kill off many aerial undead troops.


    As for the mountain range which I still couldn¡¯t remember the name of, this ce was likely going to have its name changed in the future. Perhaps something like the ins of Holy Light would be a more suitable name as the entire mountain range had been ttened. It would be a joke to continue calling this ce ¡°mountains¡±.


    ¡°A single explosion wouldn¡¯t possibly have achieved such a powerful effect. This is probably a special effect of Holy Light synchronization or a chain reaction. The specifics require more research.¡±


    The silly cat was actually quite happy. She obtained plenty of research data from that explosion, and apparently came up with some new ideas. Nothing else would be more attractive to a bottlenecked archmage than acquiring new knowledge.


    Perhaps it was also thanks to Estrada¡¯s support that this great explosion of Holy Light was far stronger than expected. I had only wanted to stall for time, and this spellpleted that task wonderfully. With such powerful Holy Light, even Conservation¡¯s Legend-ranked Winter Demons were instantly evaporated. There was no need to even mention the lower-level undead, as the entire mountain range had been ttened. It would be impossible for weak skeletons to survive.


    Although the undead army of a Death ne was nearly limitless, such arge-scale loss would hurt even an Undead Emperor. At the very least, Conservation would need to reorganize her army, and the living would gain precious additional time to prepare. The more time gained, the more advantageous it would be for the living.


    However, I was annoyed because I also lost a significant amount.


    ¡°The energy level is only at 14%. Where am I supposed to find enough mana to recharge this?¡±


    The unexpected power also meant an unexpected energy expenditure. As all those flowers of Holy Light bloomed, Yongye City¡¯s energy level dropped at an astonishing speed. It was already fortunate that we hadn¡¯t crashed into the ground. However, the battle wasn¡¯t over yet, and where were we supposed to find enough mana to recharge?


    That wasn¡¯t even the most important part. My biggest loss was my nice little Mars of War. As an obedient child who listened to his father, he died for my cause on the rear defense line while hunting down the undead that had escaped. But, Mars was an undead as well, and he still wasn¡¯t far enough from the explosion...


    Alright, the rest was self-exnatory. At such a close distance, Mars was also instantly evaporated by the Holy Light. Luckily, he was an amalgamation of a collective will, so he didn¡¯t truly die. Although it wasn¡¯t necessary for him to do something like reincarnate through the Cycle of Reincarnation, I would be unable to use Mars in battle again for a while.


    ¡°There will be another battle soon, and a sufficient amount of souls will strengthen any undead¡¯s soul. Mars will recover quickly. But, there really isn¡¯t any method to help replenish the mana battery.¡±


    Right now, Yongye City was one of the most important aces up my sleeve. Facing an Undead Emperor and her entire army by oneself would be utmost foolishness. Super tactical spells required an enormous mana expenditure. And, any mage tower that didn¡¯t have sufficient mana reserves would be as useless as a mage without any mana.


    ¡°Shall we go catch all the magic swordsmen and steal their magic swords and small batteries?¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t be enough. Even if we steal from every one of them, it probably won¡¯t provide us with even 10% energy.¡±


    ¡°Use Tid¡¯s small battleships¡¯ engines and energy sources?¡±


    ¡°That would provide us with another 10% energy at the very most, and waste our airpower, something we¡¯re reallycking right now. That would be a bad deal.¡±


    ¡°...Find some archmages to fill it up with mana. Fine, I know that¡¯s not a good idea. How much were our previous calctions on how many SemiGod archmages it would take to fill the energy battery?¡±


    ¡°Twenty-six, or two hundred and sixty Myth-ranked archmages.¡±


    ¡°It would have been nice if this was the Mage Country. We¡¯d be able to catch so many freeborers if we just went to any mage organization.¡±


    ¡°That wouldn¡¯t be enough. If we were really at the Mage Country, it would have been enough if we just drugged all the Truth Overseers at the Truth Symposium. Those Truth Overseers are iparable to average SemiGod mages.¡±


    We kept tossing around somewhat illegal ideas. Although I didn¡¯t feel much, our listeners didn¡¯t exactly like what they heard. Not only that, the highest temporary actingmander of Starwood City, Salima, was also present. It was far too arrogant to discuss so many illegal activities right in front of her.


    But right now, she could only smile wryly. This was because she knew the stories about Rnd¡¯s past, and if it wasn¡¯t for Rnd helping to defend Starwood City, it was likely that Starwood City would have fallen already.


    Old Barton and Katerina were also sitting here with us. The old mercenary seemed to have blood infusing his whole face, and he radiated a visible killing intent. Noticing that something seemed to be off, I looked over in his direction.


    ¡°I killed some scumbags that intended tomit robbery and arson in these dire times. What a situation we¡¯re in already, yet they¡¯re still trying to do such awful things. The first thing they think about during an undead invasion isn¡¯t how to save lives, but to take advantage of the situation to rob merchants and rape women.¡±


    Barton chugged down half a jug of beer, but still had an angry expression on his face.


    His daughter Katerina seemed like something was even more wrong. She nervously nced at everyone around her, and even the tavern server bringing a te of food startled her enough to make her suddenly stand up.


    ¡°I, am I in the wrong ce!? A girl like me attending such an important conference...¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re in the right ce. I wanted you here for a reason.¡±


    I looked at Katerina with great interest until she felt so awkward that she lowered her head and counted her own fingers. The other harvest I¡¯d gained through the earlier battle was that I¡¯d gained a new understanding of how Katerina existed due to the bone and mechanical giants¡¯ corpses. Perhaps this would be an excellent topic of research.


    At this moment, the door to our private room suddenly opened. A half-naked Tid walked in while wiping off his sweat and apologizing.


    ¡°Sorry, sorry, I¡¯mte. Reinforcing the city gate took twenty-six minutes longer than expected. I¡¯ve brought a piece of good news. Yep, I think it¡¯s two pieces of good news, but I also have some bad news.¡±


    The fatigued great engineer directly sat down next to the door.


    ¡°What¡¯s the good news?¡±


    ¡°We have some powerful reinforcementsing. I just received this news. They¡¯ll possibly be here even earlier than S Dukedom¡¯s reinforcements. Their power is absolutely reliable.¡±


    ¡°They?¡±


    When I heard the word ¡°They¡±, my long years of experience with pitfalls caused me to feel a powerful ominous premonition, to the point where I wanted to run away immediately.


    ¡°What¡¯s the other good news? Wait, tell me the bad news first.¡±


    Tid nodded, but he immediately smiled evilly.


    ¡°The bad news is that they¡¯ve heard the news about you due to the letter you sent me with your seal. They¡¯re probably noting for the purpose of reinforcing us, but rather to have a reckoning with you...¡±


    ¡°Who is it!?¡±


    I suddenly paused for a moment. If it was the person I was thinking about, I would likely have to n my escape immediately.


    ¡°Reyne. She also brought her personal guards. Their power level is absolutely reliable.¡±


    I paused in surprise to hear this, but immediately rxed. Reyne was just an immature brat; so what if she was angry at me? Although it would indeed seem that I hadn¡¯t treated her well, as I gave her the heavy responsibility of the Mist Kingdom without even telling her anything, didn¡¯t this mean that I valued her and wanted her to grow on her own? She didn¡¯t need to be angry at me to such an extent, did she?


    ¡°Tsk, she wants to have a reckoning with me? The brat¡¯s gotten rebellious. Oh, wasn¡¯t there another piece of good news?¡±


    ¡°Yes, apart from Reyne¡¯s reinforcements, we¡¯re getting some even stronger reinforcements.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Reyne knew that she wouldn¡¯t be able to stop you by herself, so she directly told Auntie... I mean, Sister Amelia. And, Sister Amelia is the type to directly act, so you understand...¡±


    I slowly stood up and started walking outside, but the bratty engineer who had grown to be a buff man blocked the door with that evil grin of his.


    ¡°Boss, please don¡¯t run away from your own troubles. You know just how they¡¯ll deal with me if I let you run away. I still want them to say some nice things about me in front of my sister¡ª cough cough, what I mean is, what will the humans do here without you? They still need you to protect them.¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m not running away, how could you say that I¡¯m running away? Aliens areing, and an Undead Emperor ising. I want to find a phone booth to transform into Ultraman and save the world!¡±

 Chapter 517 - Key

    <h4>Chapter 517: Key</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In a dreamlike city, people wearing strange robes and even stranger eyesses went about their business everywhere. They lived in cities filled with tall steel buildings. This was a city of miracles, filled with gears and conveyer belts. Strange structures and even stranger machines could be seen everywhere.


    But, even someone like Katerina could sense that life here was better than life in the present.


    People here didn¡¯t need to use wooden buckets to draw water from wells. They only needed to twist a knob for a water pipe and obtain clean water. And, the streets here didn¡¯t need to rely on oilmps with their bad smell. Bright crystal pirs lit up the entire world. Those crystals appeared rather simr to the currently popr magical engineering lights, but these crystals were brighter and clearer. In fact, it was impossible to even sense the typical noise and heat of machinerying from these lights.


    And, people in this city didn¡¯t need to use horse-drawn carriages or their feet to go outside. Instead, they got into strange box-shaped objects on wheels. These objects would take people swiftly to their intended destinations.


    Colorful crystals could be seen everywhere. The streets were actually crafted out of diamonds and white jade. However, these robed humans ignored all this extravagance as if it was only normal. Strange creatures with visible gears lived in this city as if these machines were living. Humans weren¡¯t the only species that lived in this city.


    Seeing this strange yet familiar world, Katerina sunk into confusion. She believed herself to be only a rural bartender girl. The most famous person she had ever seen was the mayor of the nearby town. Such a scene had far surpassed her understanding.


    As time and seasons passed, Katerina felt as if she experienced much in just an instant. This modern-seeming city became slightly older as many strange additions joined.


    But one day, the color of the sky changed. The white clouds were ignited by mes, and began to boil in an abnormal scene. Soon, the fiery clouds in the skies appeared to boil over, spreading blood-red ripples everywhere.


    This abnormal scene caused the people on the streets to panic. The next instant, the clouds opened up, and countless beams of light rained down as if some presence up above was watching this world.


    ¡°@##$!¡±


    ¡°#@!¡±


    Strange screams and howls could be heard from the streets. Even though Katerina was also standing there, nobody could see her. And despite the fact that this was anguage Katerina didn¡¯t know, she could instinctively understand what these words meant.


    ¡°Angels, angels areing!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Armageddon! We¡¯re finished.¡±


    ¡°The prophecy, the prophecy was actually real!¡±


    That¡¯s right, the clouds opened up to reveal descending white-feathered angels. These angels were just as strong, beautiful, and powerful as in the legends!


    Their golden armor shone with the glow of the sun. Their well-polished swords were burning with fierce mes. But unlike what the priests said about angels, these angels hadn¡¯te with kind intentions and blessings. The first ones who reached out to these divine messengers for aid directly had their hands cut off by the angels¡¯ sharp swords. These beautiful angels hade down as butchers.


    As Katerina watched, the beautiful angels emotionlessly swung their swords and slew all the residents of the city. Some people tried to use the city¡¯s mechanical puppet guardians to fight against the angels, but such people were pierced through by ming spears before they could even fight.


    Something scarier happened next. All the cloudspletely vanished, and a tremendous giant stood up in the skies. This giant had two heads and four arms, with one smiling face and the other head being a snake head. However, the smile didn¡¯t represent mercy. This giantmanded the angels to ughter, why he tore down the flower garden in the skies that was the pride of this culture, tossing the garden down as fatal projectiles at the humans.


    Yet, this was only the beginning. Various Gods with strange appearance directly descended from their Divine Kingdoms. These Gods either sent out incarnations or even personally descended, bing the most dangerous killers of all.


    Most Gods wouldn¡¯t have a human form. Their biggest appearance inmon was having distorted bestial bodies. And, their bestial instincts helped them to upgrade this ughter with even more cruelty.


    As for Katerina, she was forced to watch this hopeless scene filled with death and despair. She faintly felt that something was wrong, but didn¡¯t know what. Her ears were filled with explosions and death screams, and all she could see were butchers with icy expressions, along with all the ughter they conducted.


    She wanted to close her eyes and stop watching, but found that she was unable to close her eyes as if some power was forcing her to witness each and every scene.


    ¡°No, no, no!¡±


    Katerina despaired, and fell to the ground, crying. The world and scene around her kept changing. The only unchanging things were people¡¯s despair, screams, and curses against the Gods.


    ¡°No...¡±


    In front of the angels and Gods¡¯ high-efficiency ughter, the death screams and cries didn¡¯tst very long. However, explosions constantly sounded out as the ughterers didn¡¯t intend to leave any trace of this once magnificent city behind.


    Katerina was rather dazed as she stood amongst all the rubble. Not a single person could see her, and she felt that she shouldn¡¯t be here. Yet, she instinctively felt that she belonged here.


    Katerina confusedly walked among all the rubble. Her logic and instinct both guided her to search for something. Suddenly, she noticed a pitch-ck stone tablet thaty there with nobody around it. A mysterious delight entered her heart as Katerina knew she had found what she was looking for. She had found hope for the future.


    But before she could touch the tablet, the double-headed giant God in the skies suddenly turned around and looked at her. Her presence had finally been discovered!


    The next instant, the angels¡¯ spears and divine rays came to smite her simultaneously. She saw nothing but blinding light as everything returned to silence.


    ¡°Wait, I just needed a little more...¡±


    ¡°Katerina! Are you alright?¡±


    Fierce shaking helped Katerina to regain her senses. When she finally dazedly regained her wits, she found that she was still within the private room of the tavern, while her adopted father Old Barton was worriedly looking at herself.


    On her other side, I also heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that Katerina woke up.


    ¡°How was the result?¡±


    ¡°My guess was correct. Katerina is indeed incredibly important, no matter if it¡¯s to us or to any possible survivors from the Haletdam generation. She is the key, the key to the Sky Tower! Everyone is probably looking for her. It¡¯s highly likely that the undead have her as their number one priority.¡±


    Tid skillfully pulled some electrical cords out of Katerina¡¯s ear and forehead. He copied down the data recorded on his machine. Although he clearly received astonishing news and information, Tid wasn¡¯t happy about his harvest at all. Instead, he had a solemn expression.


    ¡°How long do we need?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure. It depends on the situation.¡±


    My seemingly unclear question didn¡¯t receive a definite response. But since Tid didn¡¯t deny my guess, then it was highly likely that I was on the mark. Perhaps we were all in deep trouble this time.


    But right now, Old Barton was still viciously ring at me. It was as if he med my suggestion for casting a Memory Recovery spell on Katerina for all her suffering.


    ¡°Barton, your daughter is even more important than you realize. Running away is no answer.¡±


    However, I wasn¡¯t the one who said that. Although dragon lich Wiir was usually quiteical, he was still a lich who naturally understood the importance of the soul. It was quite obvious how unique Katerina¡¯s soul was. He also noticed how important she was. Although Wiir was Barton¡¯s blood-rted rtive, the dragon lich knew to help me out by supporting me here.


    Meanwhile, Katerina was looking at me with a pitiful expression and watery eyes. The tears that just flowed during her dream seemed like they were about to start flowing again. It was as if she was telling me that she would cry again if I forced her to view such a dream again.


    I shook my head, indicating that she could rest assured. I had no intentions of forcing Katerina with any more Memory Recovery spells. The soul was a fragile yet exquisite existence. Forcefully taking information from the soul would be the equivalent of running over a walnut with a bulldozer. Perhaps one would be able to pick up some broken walnut pieces after the bulldozer was finished, but the walnut would be broken beyond repair.


    For the sake of the treasure as well as Katerina herself, I would have to take things slowly regarding extracting the treasure from her soul.


    Seeing how Katerina copsed in her adopted father Old Barton¡¯s arms while sobbing uncontrobly, I knew that this was all we could do for today. Plus, I heard such shocking news about ¡°reinforcements¡±ing to see me. It would seem that I needed to think about how to deal with those ¡°reinforcements¡±.


    ¡°Everyone must be tired. Let¡¯s finish here and all get some rest...¡±


    Too much attention would make it difficult for me to do what I wanted. I didn¡¯t choose to stay in the nice guest room that Salima provided for me. Instead, I chose to stay in this regr tavern. However, despite the fact that it was nowte at night, there were constant loud booms from the next room. Even the floorboards kept shaking from the loud noise.


    ¡°Be quiet! Let me sleep!¡±


    I kicked the wall, sessfully causing the next room to quieten for a few minutes. But then, an even stranger subtle buzzing sound caused my hair to stand up on end.


    ¡°Sheesh...¡±


    I felt rather helpless now. It would seem that having Tid stay in the next room had been a truly foolish idea. With all that happened today, and so much new data for him to research, there was no way that he would sleep so easily.


    ¡°Ha, perhaps he even modified himself so that he doesn¡¯t need to sleep anymore.¡±


    And considering that the undead would likelye attack again tomorrow, I needed his research results as quickly as possible. In the end, I could only give up on the idea of stopping his strange noises. I took out some earplugs from my luggage, and clogged up my ears.


    It wasn¡¯t only because of the next room¡¯s noise that I hadn¡¯t gone to sleep yet. The holy hammer in my room was currently giving off a faint silver glow that made one feel reassured.


    I touched the hammer, and tried to use its powers of Holy Light to dispel the curse of weakness that Amelia had ced upon my physical body. Soon, Holy Light enveloped my entire body, making me look like a bright lightbulb. However, the Holy Light was unable to dispel this curse of weakness.


    ¡°It would seem that this isn¡¯t a curse at all. Holy Light isn¡¯t even showing signs of enmity towards my condition. Holy Light feels that I¡¯m in excellent condition. This... could this actually be a type of blessing?¡±


    I had a strange result and an even stranger conclusion. When considering Amelia¡¯s talent in life and nt magic, it was quite possible that she was capable of changing a curse into a blessing, or twisting a blessing¡¯s effects into weakening a person.


    This was just like how a recently cut off limb could still be reconnected, but a cut off limb from ten years ago would no longer be a part of you. Holy Light and healing magic would be helpless in that situation.


    ¡°It would seem that only the original person can solve it...¡±


    While I was sighing, I suddenly heard some angry shouting from a downstairs guest in the tavern.


    ¡°What are you doing upstairs? Why is it so noisy! Nobody can sleep! Think about others!¡±


    I shook my head helplessly and got up. It would seem that I needed to remind Tid about the noise after all.


    ¡°And, that idiot next door to the noisy room, constantly lighting up and dimming your room! Are you so bored that you¡¯re setting a fire in your room? Do you have anymon sense? Aren¡¯t you afraid of burning the ce down?¡±


    And so, I stopped, and silently summoned a low-level ghost. Perhaps this little ghost would give that noisy guest a nightmare... I mean, a wonderful dream! That would teach him a lesson that shouting angrily in the middle of the night was just as rude. If that person was dissatisfied, he should have expressed his dissatisfaction more politely.


    ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s just go to sleep.¡±


    When I turned around, I noticed that something was off about the silly cat¡¯s condition. For once, she had transformed into her elf form, but was showing her cat ears and tail. She was also tugging on the nket while rolling around on the bed.


    ¡°Meow. Master, the bed has been warmed for you. It¡¯s so soft and warm. Pleasee sleep with me.¡±


    Her sweet-sounding words caused goosebumps to crawl up my flesh. I was just about to ask what was wrong with her when I saw a memory crystal glowing, an indication that it was recording this scene.


    I instantly understood what was going on. Instead of goosebumps, I now instinctively felt death arriving right on top of me.


    ¡°The hell, you¡¯re recording this? You¡¯re intending to show those crazy women this scene? Are you trying to kill me?¡±


    ¡°Meow, this kitty cat doesn¡¯t understand. This kitty cat is simply warming the bed for Master like always.¡±


    Harloys in her young elf form intentionally showed off her snow-white skin and legs. Although she indeed looked quite beautiful, now was definitely no time for appreciating her beauty.


    ¡°...Stop! I really will die!¡±


    ¡°Meow, does Master not like kitty cat warming the bed? But, back in the fitting room at that tailor¡¯s, didn¡¯t you say that you loved the kitty cat¡¯s service?¡±


    ¡°Damn it, you¡¯re still holding a grudge for that matter? Dear respectable Harloys, please forgive me! Don¡¯t you think I¡¯m in enough trouble already!¡±


    ¡°Meow, kitty cat knows nothing. Kitty cat is only a pet cat for warming Master¡¯s bed.¡±

 Chapter 518 - Breakthrough

    <h4>Chapter 518: Breakthrough</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Will those womene, or not? No matter which oue, I feel like both will be bad...¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re still worried about that? Why overthink things? Just ept your fate like a man.¡±


    ¡°ept what? A bloody end or a gruesome death? If theye, I¡¯m in great trouble, but if they don¡¯te, the undead will be quite difficult to deal with. This is basically a bad ending no matter what happens. Isn¡¯t there a good ending option?¡±


    ¡°Actually, you should change your way of thinking. If theye, you¡¯ll have reinforcements. If they don¡¯te, you¡¯ll escape their wrath. Then doesn¡¯t that mean you win either way?¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m truly impressed with your optimism. Give that memory crystal to me and I can guarantee that everything will be fine.¡±


    The sky had just started lighting up. I went to a random restaurant and ordered some breakfast while sitting at a window seat. Although the food hadn¡¯t arrived yet, the silly cat was adding to my troubles while perched on my shoulder.


    But, I no longer had the time and energy to joke around with Harloys, since we were still in a damned battle.


    It was said that you could determine a city¡¯s economic and political situation by looking at its streets during breakfast time. The morning was the critical moment when any city would start bing busy. The number of people and their morale determined the prosperity of a city. The merchants and residences on the streets were the best determiners of a town¡¯s economy. I deeply agreed with such a way of conducting analysis.


    Starwood City was only a small city to begin with. Most of the people on the streets were local farmers and merchants. But today, most residences and stores had their windows and doors barred. The only people on the streets were fully armed. They were either adventurers temporarily hired to defend the city, or the local warriors.


    All the adventurers that hade to Starwood City in hopes of obtaining treasure had unintentionally done a good deed. Starwood City should have had insufficientbat strength, but it had an actual capable fighting force now.


    ¡°Not bad.¡±


    Judging by the current situation that I could see, ordinary citizens as well as warriors seemed to have good morale. Perhaps it was yesterday¡¯s victory that helped lift their spirits, or maybe the sight of the undead vanguard being incinerated by the Holy Light explosion had given the people here courage. Or, maybe it was simply because the undead¡¯s main forces had yet to arrive. At least for the time being, their morale was quite high. Some of the young novice soldiers even had expectant looks as if they were hoping for glory and honor after their victory.


    ¡°They look forward to battle? Young people are so na?ve that it¡¯s cute.¡±


    ¡°...Having the pure desire for glory after battle and thinking about honor and victory before battle instead of praying to the heavens to survive? Isn¡¯t that the special right of all novices? I personally hope that they can still be in such high spirits when tomorrowes. At least, they look much better this way rather than cowardly hiding when the going gets tough.¡±


    ¡°I think that¡¯s expecting too much of them. Novice warriors who rush with excitement into battle are the ones most likely to be dead cannon fodder in the first round of battle. You never know what overly excited novices will do. The most troublesome are the novices that fantasize about defeating one thousand as one. They always believe that they¡¯re the legendary main character of a novel, but don¡¯t realize that so-called main characters and heroes are just the lucky ones that managed to survive when countless others have died. Ny-nine percent of novices like this will die within three months.¡±


    ¡°How about we have a bet?¡±


    ¡°A bet on whether he lives or dies? There¡¯s no way to have a bet. Would you bet on him surviving? And if we bet on how many days he lives, that seems a little cruel.¡±


    The freckled x-haired young man walking down the street had no clue that while he was patrolling the streets with a serious attitude, two shameless seniors were discussing how likely it was that he would die.


    However, this wasn¡¯t our fault for being too bored or anything like that. When you had been on too many battlefields like us, and seen too many allies suddenly dying in battle, you would also be numb to it all.


    ¡°Allies? Only if you survive three battles are you my ally. Until you prove that you¡¯re worthy of me needing to remember your name, I have no need to learn your name.¡±


    A certain major emperor had said such a ssical phrase back when he was only a sergeant in the army. Although his words were cruel, many people actually agreed with them.


    ¡°Is it about time?¡±


    The silly cat suddenly asked this question, to which I nodded yes. The time was ripe, but I was the one who had been stalling. It seemed that it was now time to proceed with our breakthrough.


    I lightly tapped my fingers on the table, making a clear sound. My heartbeat also followed this rhythm, and what I saw suddenly changed. The air itself slowed down as everything slowed to the point where people had their mouths open but weren¡¯t making any sound. In fact, I could even see the moisture in the air clearly.


    This mysterious sensation made me feel like I controlled the entire world. In my vision, the entire restaurant seemed to stand still. And, what made me rather displeased was that I sensed that my breakfast was about to be spilled on the ground.


    Not far away, a waiter with his hands holding tes filled with food was obviously paying no attention to his feet. He was about to step on the tail of a dog that had sneaked into the restaurant. This waiter just happened to have the beef stew I¡¯d ordered in his left hand and the silly cat¡¯s fried fish in his right hand. And as for that freckled novice on the street, an adventurer thief was currently stealing his wallet. Rather than worrying about the freckled novice dying in battle, perhaps the novice would have to first worry about not starving to death due to being penniless.


    ¡°Honestly, at such an important time...¡±


    And so, as Iined, I casually tossed out a copper coin. And at this moment, everything returned to normal, with all preparationsplete.


    That coinnded right under that waiter¡¯s foot. He slipped on it and almost fell over, but managed to stand up straight again while also dodging the stray dog waiting under the table for an opportunity to steal my breakfast.


    Right after that, the coin was kicked away in a perfect trajectory tond right on the freckled novice¡¯s head. No matter how dense he was, now he suddenly noticed that his wallet was being stolen. Of course, he knew how to react to that.


    *ng!*


    Just as I expected, this one small coin was majorly useful. The waiter managed to dodge the dog, and I smiled as I watched the novice angrily running after the thief.


    ¡°So this is Saint rank?¡±


    That was so; when Harloys asked if it was about time, she was referring to about time for me to breakthrough to Saint rank. Perhaps for others, making a breakthrough here would be an impossible bottleneck, but it was only natural for me as I had so much umted experience.


    ¡°Oof!¡±


    However, an unexpected ident made this breakthrough not as perfect as it could have been.


    ¡°Yep, this is Saint rank, having much stronger control over the world and the self. That¡¯s the foundational difference between Saint and Legend ranks, hee...¡±


    The silly cat kept licking a te of milk while looking at me and trying to hold in her smile.


    ¡°Justugh if you want. It¡¯s bad for you to hold it in.¡±


    My anger meter was filled as I removed the fried fish from my head and wiped my angry face with a towel.


    ¡°Haha! Do you know how ridiculous it looked when you were pretending to be cool by saying ¡®this is Saint rank¡¯ right as the fried fish flew over and fell on your face? And, you even caused it to happen yourself!¡±


    I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry here. The silly cat was correct. Even though I used a coin to save my beef stew breakfast, the waiter still tossed the fried fish in his other hand into the air. And, out of so many people in the restaurant, the fish just happened to hit me in the face. Perhaps I really needed to go make an offering to the Goddess of Misfortune.


    ¡°...Wait a minute, why was it the fried fish that flew away? You must have done it intentionally, saving your beef stew but making him throw away my fried fish breakfast.¡±


    ¡°...Let¡¯s not worry about the small details. This was simply an ident.¡±


    Alright then, I was now wearing a nostalgic cat for a hat. I would have to think about what food to order to make the silly cat stop biting my head.


    ¡°Meow, a fried fish vored head tastes pretty good.¡±


    ¡°Silly cat, if you don¡¯t get off my head, I¡¯m going to contact Beifeng!¡±


    ¡°Ptui! I¡¯m not afraid of that threat of yours anymore. I¡¯m now capable of taking human form.¡±


    After the chaos from the flying fried fish died down, I finally had the spare time to organize and analyze the harvest I¡¯d just obtained.


    I had been preparing to break through to Saint rank for a long time now. I actually had plenty of umted experience already, and could have done this earlier. But, since the highest peak of all was my ultimate goal, it would have been better to have more foundational strength. I had originally intended on waiting even more before making the breakthrough to Saint rank, but with the undead army at Starwood City¡¯s doorstep and almost about to arrive, having some more strength would be the most practical. That was why I decided to make a breakthrough here.


    ¡°Other main characters that suddenly make a breakthrough will suddenly counterattack and win while they¡¯re losing, or shine brightly and make a big show. No matter what, those main characters get to act cool, with so manymentators acting as the narrator. Why is it that my style is so wrong...¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you get to act cool? You were actually quite creative, honest. If only the fried fish didn¡¯t fall right on your face... Hahahaha!¡±


    The silly cat who had been pretending to be nice could no longer take it. She directly startedughing and rolling around on the table. And so, I unhesitatingly picked up the silly cat, and tossed her at the stray dog who was still looking for food under the table.


    ¡°Go, Tom, have fun with your friend Spike <sup>1</sup> !¡±

 Chapter 519 - Restart of Battle

    <h4>Chapter 519: Restart of Battle</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Saint rank, meaning entering the realm of the divine. Since it was called Saint, this


    was a realm that the great majority of mortals would never manage to achieve.


    Iron Bloodline, Copper Body, Silver Might, Gold Will, Legend Master, Mortal Saint,


    Undying Myth, and Indestructible SemiGod. Those were the nicknames given to each


    power rank for the mortal ne, as well as a way to separate how much personal


    potential each person had developed.


    Since the great majority of humans in the mortal ne were far too weak, this


    power level ranking system was far too detailed in the weaker ranks, but overly


    vague for the higher power levels. As the Elemental Tide increased at a furious pace


    and average power levels rapidly rose, this power level ranking system would start


    showing its outdatedness.


    It was said that the fairies were in the process of creating a new power ranking


    system. It was also rumored that the previously well-known Three Heavy Doors of


    Myth, the hardest barriers to surpass in order to reach SemiGod, were each


    bing their own individual rank. But as for the Saint rank, the fairies only


    separated this rank into True Saint and Almost Saint. And, the difference between


    these was whether the Saint rank could create their own realm or not.


    Indeed, just their own realm, not a Soul World. Even in the past, when the


    highest-power-level individuals had far stronger foundations, only a minority of


    Saint-ranked individuals would have Soul Worlds.


    Legend rank was all about finding one¡¯s personal path. And in the Saint rank, the


    personal path had already been determined. One¡¯s chosen personal path would now


    have the power to influence the surrounding environment. Those with the strongest


    will and belief in their personal path would even be able to create their Soul


    Worlds.


    Saints were far stronger than Legends at controlling the surrounding environment


    and themselves. Perhaps a Saint wouldn¡¯t have arge increase in mana or strength


    pared to Legends, but the greater control over little details would allow them to


    do three tasks simultaneously for the same amount of concentration as a Legend.


    And, more importantly, Saints were finally getting into contact with ¡®Concepts¡¯, and


    would be capable of performing deeds that went against physical or even


    magicalws. And, the best example of this would be the most powerful Saint ranks,


    who were capable of using their very willpower to change the world around them.


    But in the current generation, as power levels were easier to achieve, so-called True


    Saints¡¯ personal realms were only much weaker editions of Soul Worlds. These Saints


    were probably capable of no more than forcibly changing the four elements within a


    limited radius around themselves in order to buff their personal spells and


    techniques.


    Using one¡¯s willpower to directly change the world was massively different from


    using willpower over the elements to change the surrounding environment. Since


    they were so different, it was only natural that the former was far stronger than the


    tter. It would seem that even though it became slightly easier to reach the


    standard of Saint rank, the foundational naturalw that ¡°hard work pays off¡± would


    never change.


    Of course, there would still be new Saint ranks in this generation that could utilize


    personal Soul Worlds. There would always be a few geniuses out there in any


    generation. But, the great majority of new Saint ranks in this generation would likely


    never create a personal Soul World in their lives.


    ¡°So, it¡¯s quite normal that I don¡¯t have a Soul World anymore.¡±


    Indeed, my Soul World had now transformed into the bugged personal world of


    Hell. Even though I had now reached Saint ranked, if you only looked at my personal


    mana pool, the change wasn¡¯t that big.


    ¡°But, don¡¯t tell me that you don¡¯t have a Soul World, Harloys.¡±


    If it really wouldn¡¯t improve my power significantly, there would have been no need


    for me to forcibly improve my power level before the next big battle. Although it was


    impossible for me to obtain another Soul World as I had my personal Hell world, my


    magical pet could have her own Soul World!


    Harloys, a former undead at the peak of Myth rank. Although I had never seen her


    Soul World before, with her powerful will (due to her incredibly deep grudge against


    the Elf Gods) and millennium of experience, it would be inconceivable for her not to


    have a Soul World.


    The magical pet contract would limit the pet, making her unable to be stronger than


    the master. This irondw of magical contracts limited Harloys¡¯ personal


    development. But now that I had be Saint rank, she naturally entered Saint


    rank together with me.


    ¡°...Yeah, I have one that can be used. But, I¡¯ll be able to summon it one time at most


    in this battle.¡±


    I was immediately delighted to hear this. After all, a Soul World would be the


    representation of an individual¡¯s greatest desire and ideal. There were also plenty of


    Soul Worlds that would be unsuitable for directbat, such as Beifeng¡¯s ideal of


    all-epassing love. Harloys¡¯ personal Soul World¡¯s information had never been


    leaked. I had thought that it was because her Soul World was also unsuitable for


    bat.


    But, before I got a chance to ask what it was, a hugemotion started outside.


    ¡°The undead, the undead areing!¡±


    The undead arrived earlier than expected¡ªon noon of the second day after their


    vanguard was eradicated. As always, the undead flying units were the first to arrive.


    They circled the air as if they were vultures heartlessly following people in the


    desert¡ªjust waiting to enjoy your corroded flesh once you died, yet not intending to


    directly attack you.


    ¡°Undead Winged Tribe, phantoms, bone dragons, flying zombies, undead aerial


    knights, gargoyles, and so on. There¡¯s really such a wide variety. It would seem that


    Conservation brought the full forces of her Death ne.¡±


    The undead in the skies seemed like they could fill a museum. Of course, their power


    level would also vary wildly. There were low levels like level 2 or level 3 gargoyles, all


    the way to level 5 Legend rank bone dragons. And, there were also plenty of


    powerful undead individuals that were Undead Thanes or Undead Lords.


    I even saw a Desecrating Beholder amongst the undead. This was a gigantic undead


    monster that possessed its own aura of despair, and it resembled a giant brain with a


    single eye. It also had several hundred smaller eyes on the tips of each of its


    tentacles, and each eye was glowing with a ck light. These Beholders were almost


    pletely extinct in the mortal ne, and could only be evolved from the corpse of


    a SemiGod individual.


    It was said that each and every one of its smaller eyes was capable of casting magic


    spells. Perhaps the smaller eyes would be unable to cast stronger magic spells, but


    just one Desecrating Beholder would have the strength of an entire mage


    squadron. And, therge eye right in the center was rumored to possess true vision,


    curse, death beam magic, and all other sorts of powerful abilities. This one Beholder alone


    would already be like a super mega cannon turret.


    ¡°Tsk, there¡¯s even a divine mummy created from a God¡¯s corpse? What generation


    did this ancient artifacte out from?¡±


    A divine mummy would easily reach the Cmity Rankings in the mortal ne if it


    was set loose. But here, it seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary member of


    the undead aerial forces. As Conservation was an Undead Emperor who ruled over


    her Death ne for a millennium already, thebat potential of her entire ne


    now that she finally used her full forces was astonishing indeed.


    ¡°I shall share the world with all undead. The living in that world have beautiful souls


    and delicious flesh. That world doesn¡¯t have the despairing ice storms that don¡¯t


    adhere to any Concepts. That world only haszy pigs that waste the gifts that they


    have. Come, pass through this Dimensional Door and enjoy fresh blood and souls.¡±


    Back in the despairing snow-white Death ne, Conservation¡¯s ethereal figure stated


    her wish. Although she sounded emotionless as if she was reading a prepared


    speech, the countless undead all rushed to enter the tremendous bone


    Dimensional Door.


    Although the undead there included subordinates under the Undead Emperor¡¯s


    direct control, there were far more free undead in the Death ne. There were even


    plenty of Undead Lords that ruled their personal little domains.


    But, in order to pass through the Dimensional Door, they would all have to agree to


    Conservation¡¯s contract. These undead naturally all became Conservation¡¯s ves


    and cannon fodder.


    A ck jade gargoyle was knocked out of the skies by one of Tid¡¯s modified


    cannons. I immediately destroyed the ck jade gargoyle¡¯s soul and recorded its


    demise in a memory crystal scene to y for all the defenders on the city walls. This


    would help to improve the living¡¯s morale.


    Obviously, the unexpected Seeds of Holy Light spell had a far stronger effect against


    the undead than anticipated. Conservation¡¯s regr undead forces were actually a


    bit weaker than expected. That was why there were so many assorted forces rather


    than a focused army here.


    ¡°Maybe she values the top-level strength in her army and only sent a few strong


    ones here as cannon fodder. That¡¯s because she doesn¡¯t know yet that you¡¯re


    incapable of using Seeds of Holy Light again. All she has to do is give a few verbal


    promises, and she pulled so many undead over to be her shields and cannon fodder.


    Such a great deal for her!¡±


    ¡°...Can¡¯t you think a little more positively, Harloys?¡±


    ¡°I was worried that you would underestimate the enemy and suffer because of it.¡±


    ¡°Rx, you also know about my luck rating of E. I always consider the worst possible


    oue with every n I make. Unlucky coincidences aren¡¯t something that I


    enjoy.¡±


    As we chatted, I was asking Harloys if there was any method to directly win. But of


    course, she denied this possibility.


    The undead aerial forces¡¯ arrival naturally raised the living¡¯s vignce. But, their


    strange and assorted appearances were actually a type of disguise in and of itself.


    Only experts on the undead would know that it wasn¡¯t meaningful at all to judge


    undead by physical appearance. Liches would barely appear different from a normal


    skeleton soldier, and even Elite Abominations would be nothing more than ugly


    corpses. Only the newest-born undead would look the neatest and most orderly.


    And, this army that seemed like a random assortment would actually be much


    stronger than the previous army of identical gargoyles and bone dragons.


    The only part worth celebrating was that the undead seemed to be worried about


    something. They hadn¡¯t started their attack yet.


    I understood Undead Lords¡¯ personalities very well as I had to deal with so many


    Undead Lords back when I was the overlord of Yongye¡¯s Army. The great majority of


    Undead Lords would be filled with negative emotions. ughter and bloodlust were


    in their very natures. It would be natural instinct for them to rebel against orders.


    The only reason that the Undead Lords here weren¡¯t immediately attacking the fresh


    blood and souls here would be because of Conservation having direct control over


    this entire army.


    ¡°Since the undead army¡¯s on guard and not attacking yet, it¡¯s perfect because we


    also need more time. Let¡¯s put them even more on guard. Snap!¡±


    I immediately acted on what I¡¯d said. With a snap of my fingers, the floating fortress


    Yongye City appeared once again. This time, it appeared right above Starwood City.


    Although Yongye City¡¯s current energy level was only just sufficient to keep it


    floating, the undead wouldn¡¯t know its current energy level. The moment that


    Yongye City appeared, all the aerial undead immediately scattered and retreated


    several kilometers. It was evident that their master, Conservation, hadmanded


    the aerial undead to temporarily retreat.


    Seeing this situation, I heaved a sigh of relief as well. I was actually quite worried


    that the aerial undead would constantly harass Starwood City. If that happened,


    then the living would suffer quite some losses before the big battle even started.


    ¡°Come, take a look at this eternal and undefeatable Naxxramas!¡±


    ¡°I feel like you¡¯re subtly jinxing yourself. Is that just my mistaken impression?¡±


    ¡°Cough, cough, aren¡¯t I stalling for time here?¡±


    And right now, I wasn¡¯t stalling for time just for the sake of the reinforcements that


    wereing. Right now, above the clouds, an adventuring team of roughly thirty


    members was riding on top of a gigantic dragon lich¡¯s back. This adventuring team¡¯s


    goal was the ruins from the treasure map!


    It could be seen from the adventuring team¡¯s appearance and equipment that all of


    them were powerful warriors. However, there was an ordinary girl sitting on the


    dragon lich¡¯s head. Judging from how all the other members had her surrounded,


    she was the most vital target for all the other members to protect.


    Although the dragon lich was also undead, and although Wiir had already used death magic to conceal the scent of the living, he still carefully avoided all the aerial undead in the skies. However, Wiir¡¯s constant changing of altitudes made the trip rather unpleasant for the passengers.


    A certain Legend-ranked mercenary was already dizzy to the point of hugging a


    dragon bone and holding on for dear life. A certain dark elfpletely disregarded


    her image as a beauty and threw up everywhere. A certain female human mercenary


    screamed the entire way. There was only a certain baldie that stood on Wiir¡¯s


    head, looking more and more rxed as he observed what was before him. His


    boiling blood seemed to be a prediction of his future fate.


    But, what was surprising was that the ordinary girl was quite clear-minded. Her


    adopted father helped her to get used to the jarring ride on the dragon lich, as


    images of the past schrs¡¯ generation kept shing in her eyes. And, Katerina, who


    had zerobat ability, was the most critical key for this trip!

 Chapter 520 - Dawns Beginning

    <h4>Chapter 520: Dawn¡¯s Beginning</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    When the ck floating castle suddenly appeared over Starwood City, not only were the undead scared off, the ordinary people on my side were even more frightened.


    Well, it was only natural. Compared to the aerial undead, this floating city was right on top of Starwood City, and its pitch-ck magical defenses appeared extraordinarily evil and dangerous. And if the castle city descended any more... the entirety of Starwood City would likely be squashed.


    In order to avoid any misunderstandings, I generously opened up my city and permitted anyone that wanted to enter and explore inside. However, very few actually dared to do so.


    Still, having a floating city and a ground city cover and protect each other was indeed an effective defensive formation.


    ¡°...All targets locked on. All coordinates have been set. Forbidden spell¡ªLost Intersection.¡±


    Perhaps nobody expected that the first attack of today woulde from the defending human army. Harloys had just finished her long incantation, and her spell became a powerful attack powered up by all the countless mage towers within Yongye City.


    What, you¡¯re saying that we should have conserved mana since the undead retreated? You¡¯re too young, too simple... Cough, cough, the elders were correct, people shouldn¡¯t try to create major events, as being practical was more important. If we really missed this excellent chance to ambush the undead, that would instead expose the fact that our mana reserves were running low.


    If you exposed your own weakness like that, then the enemy would take advantage of it with a fierce barrage of attacks.


    Indeed, we were quite low on mana. That was why I unhesitatingly told Harloys to use up every bit of mana remaining in Yongye City to cast the most dangerous spell in her arsenal.


    Another foundational difference between Legend- and Saint-ranked mages was that Saint-ranked mages were capable of casting forbidden spells. Of course, the power and effects would still depend on the individual.


    A pitch-ck magical ring appeared at a certain location. Two abnormal ck rings intersected with each other and began spinning by themselves, resembling a ck ball that absorbed the light. They started spinning quicker and quicker, and soon, sixteen spinning ck balls appeared in the sky.


    ¡°What¡¯s this for?¡±


    This strange magic made the undead retreat even quicker. They all knew that the mage towers wouldn¡¯t waste mana for no reason.


    However, Harloys had taken their retreat into calction from the very start. Considering Harloys¡¯ nearly unending treasure trove of magical knowledge, the forbidden spell she chose to cast here would definitely be the single most dangerous possible spell that a Saint rank could cast.


    The ck ball of light kept expanding as strange wavelengths spread through the air. All the flying bone dragons and gargoyles did their best to p their wings and escape from the ck ball. The result... was that they flew directly towards the ck ball instead!


    The panicky aerial undead tried to fly upwards, but insteadnded meteorically on the ground. The more they pped their magical wings, the faster they crashed into the ground.


    *Boom!*


    An unfortunate gargoyle smashed himself into tiny pieces. A bone dragon knocked over a tower. Before it could even determine which direction it was facing, the human warriors and defending cannons that it previously looked down on burnt it to death.


    The sky was now in chaos. The great majority of aerial undead was flying backwards at an extremely quick speed. Their flying patterns seemed random as they were flying horizontally, diagonally, backwards, and in every direction except forward... I retract that statement, for I saw an undead flying forward. That undead felt that he found the correct method to deal with this chaos, and smiled viciously. And then, he happily flew straight down into the ground...


    *Boom!*


    It was as if the sky was filled with headless chickens. Their abnormal flight paths werepletely impossible to predict. Those undead who smashed into the ground would either directly die, or be shot dead by the human defenders.


    In fact, I even witnessed some powerful Undead Lords crashing into each other or directly crashing into the ground.


    I now understood what was going on. The ck ball in the sky probably had zero attack power of its own. However, it was likely capable of altering gravity around it. No, it probably wasn¡¯t so simple, as high-level undead weren¡¯t so easy to deal with. This forbidden curse probably used multiple different types of magic, and likely even included subconscious influencing magic that would make the undead lose their sense of direction and bnce.


    ¡°...59 points. You fail by one point because you missed the critical point. This is a triple ovepping forbidden spell that also has hallucinatory magic. From what they can see, everything still appears to be normal. But, in such a chaotic state, thinking that everything is normal will be fatal.¡±


    With a fatigued expression, Harloys walked down from the spellcasting tform. As she walked, she transformed from human to cat form and jumped onto my shoulder, yawned, and started napping. I could tell that she waspletely drained, both through my soul connection with her as well as seeing her physical appearance. It would seem that this spell indeed took everything she had.


    I had a sudden epiphany. By triple ovepping, Harloys meant that she was influencing the flying undead in the three realms of vision, sense, and gravity. Although the undead were highly resistant to these magic types, this actually made the magic¡¯s effects even harder to predict. This was a forbidden spell that became more difficult to deal with if the individual was quite clear what was going on. The best way to save oneself from this spell would surprisingly be to do nothing but wait for the spell¡¯s effects to pass. The more you tried to save yourself from this spell, the more likely it was that you would meet your doom.


    Vision would be hallucinatory magic, sense would be mental magic, and gravity magic was a rare and unpopr branch of magic to learn and study. Incredibly few people would know that gravity magic was actually the gateway to one of the highest levels of magic, space magic.


    ¡°...Basically, casting this spell as is requires one to be simultaneously Saint rank in hallucinatory, mental, and space magic. This might even be more difficult to achieve than being SemiGod. You¡¯ve truly worked hard to cast such a spell right after entering Saint rank.¡±


    Feeling how weak the silly cat was after casting that spell, I felt a mysterious sense of displeasure... Of course, I would never have my heart hurt because of her or feel bad for her! I was simply feeling displeased for no apparent reason. And so, I also went up to the spellcasting tform and started casting a spell.


    ¡°You can¡¯t find your direction? Alright, I¡¯ll point out a direction for you. Listen to mymand, eternal Ice Aeon...¡±


    ¡°As the battle entered stalemate, the living¡¯s city¡¯s walls were destroyed. Right at the critical moment that the undead were about to begin their ughter of the living, a young hero led a small adventuring team right into the heart of the enemy camp, assassinating the Undead Emperor and saving the world! This is a scenario right out of a myth! But, this type of scenario sounds rather familiar...¡±


    ¡°Of course it does. Wasn¡¯t the Yongye Cmity from a century ago ended like that? Could it be that we¡¯re the heroes this time?¡±


    Although the mercenaries were trying their best to lower their rough voices, they weren¡¯t able to hold in their excitement. The great majority of mercenaries risked their lives in this profession for the sake of potential fame and wealth. And, what would possibly be more profitable or make them more famous than a task that could make them heroes of legend? As long as they obtained fame through this, money would naturallye as well.


    ¡®...None of you realize that the same Emperor Yongye from those legends is right behind you in Starwood City. He even personally created this attack n that we¡¯re carrying out.¡¯


    Barton, the leader of this adventuring team, kept that thought to himself. But, he let his anger show, and with a single re, the gossiping mercenaries were cowed into shutting up.


    Right now, they were in a forest on the outskirts of the ruins. Although the undead didn¡¯t post any sentries or patrol the forest, it would still be idiotic to create too much noise and draw the undead¡¯s attention.


    That was so, Barton knew about my real identity. Since I knew through my System about Barton¡¯s incredible future, not only did I tell him the truth, I even told him about my future ns, and offered him a position that was far beyond his current abilities.


    ¡°The Dawn n and the overallmander of the Dawn Army? Rnd really thinks on such arge scale...¡±


    Although Barton had received such an offer from a legendary individual, he still didn¡¯t take the invitation seriously. This wasn¡¯t because he looked down on Rnd. Instead, it was because the Barton at this current point in time still had the attitude that nothing in the world had to do with him as he only wanted to live a peaceful life. But, what he didn¡¯t realize was that sometimes fate wouldn¡¯t allow you to refuse the call.


    Not only was his adopted daughter actually an artificial human soul, Rnd also informed him that the very fact that he had sessfully taken this baby out of the ruins was actually the scheme of another powerful existence. This meant that Barton had gotten involved in this mess from the very start.


    As Barton looked at his adopted daughter who appeared so fatigued even after a deep sleep, he couldn¡¯t help but recall what Rnd had told him when he left Starwood City to lead this adventuring team.


    ¡°If things get truly dangerous, you¡¯ll still be able to run away, because you¡¯re not as important in the grand scheme of things. However, your daughter Katerina will be hunted down to the end of Eich by the Undead Emperor and the spirit of the ruins. That¡¯s because Katerina is the true sessor of those ruins!¡±


    Barton¡¯s blood was boiling and swirling in his veins. He was no idiot, nor was he a coward. He also loved his adopted daughter dearly, to the extent where he would be willing to challenge the Gods for Katerina¡¯s sake. Thus, he knew that he absolutely had to protect his extraordinary daughter, and that he would have to abandon his thoughts of leading a normal life.


    ¡°Perhaps, no matter how this incident ends, I should reconsider Rnd¡¯s invitation for me to lead his Dawn Army. I need to protect Katerina from various threats...¡±


    Barton then red again at the mercenaries who were trying to flirt with Katerina.


    ¡°No matter what type of threat it is, I need more power!¡±

 Chapter 521 - Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm

    <h4>Chapter 521: Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    An ample amount of mana, backed up by practical incantations, was transformed into the essence of ice. This silvery-white magic power was injected into the clouds. Ice fairies were now dancing and singing all around Yongye City.


    These winged fairies appeared to be teenage girls, thirteen or fourteen years old in physical appearance. However, they were only asrge as my arm.


    These elemental fairies weren¡¯t actually born from the Elemental nes. Elemental fairies were actually byproducts of elemental forbidden spells. It was said that the more beloved by the elements you were, the easier it would be to summon these elemental fairies. And, when these snow-white ice fairies danced in the sky, from a certain standpoint, this ce became their own personal Elemental ne.


    ¡°...I have crossed countless frozen tundras, witnessing the persistence of life and grandness of nature. I have also been immersed in the grandeur of icy rivers, and true beauty can only be found underneath the frozen river...¡±


    This was no mysterious incantation at all. I was simply describing past scenes I had seen before. However, typical SemiGod mages casting a forbidden spell would only manage to produce one or two elemental fairies, while I had summoned more than one hundred.


    All of them danced around Yongye City. Snow white powder formed a path of snow in the sky. It seemed that the ice fairies loved hearing my personal observations on nature¡¯s ice.


    ¡°...In the north of the Nortnds, I¡¯ve passed over an eternal sea of ice as a member of the dead, yet sought to survive in a frigid cave. That frigid pr wind could freeze even souls. Luckily, I was able to see the beautiful aurora before I lost consciousness. On that snow white ins, the sky showed me its beautiful colors, a wondrous scene I¡¯ll never forget...¡±


    Normally, when a mage cast a forbidden spell, they would need to undergo some sort of ritual, or ce a type of subconscious suggestion on themselves so that they could enter a better state for harmonizing with the elements. But as for me, nothing could put me more in tune with the ice element than my memories from that frozen tundra, as these memories were my best understanding of the foundational concept of ice.


    The foundational difference between Saint-ranked mages and lower-ranked mages was that a Saint rank could directly use their will to influence the world. As I recalled and described my experiences in the frigid north where almost nothing survived, all the ice fairies came closer to listen to my story. And as I continued to reminisce and tell the story, the sky around us became colored with ice and snow.


    ¡°...He¡¯s trying to use ice magic against us undead? How stupid could he be?¡±


    A Ghost White Dragon arrogantly looked down upon the ice element that was gathering. He really stood out because the great majority of undead were running away in panic at the evident mana waves indicating a forbidden spell.


    However, this Ghost White Dragon was an Undead Lord that didn¡¯t even need to worry about its body temperature. And, since it was formerly a White Dragon in life, it still maintained a tremendous amount of ice resistance even in death. This Ghost White Dragon was quite right to look down upon any ordinary ice magic being used against it.


    But suddenly, the Ghost White Dragon saw something it considered inconceivable. Amongst all the panicking undead, it actually saw a Winter Demon Undead Lord running for its life. Winter Demons could only be evolved from people that had frozen to death. They were the ultimate ice type zombie, and possessed their personal ice domains that would freeze any living to death. Not to mention, Winter Demons were ice grandmaster Undead Emperor Conservation¡¯s most favorite troop type of all. How could a Winter Demon possibly be afraid of ice magic?


    The next moment, the Ghost White Dragon understood that its surprise was meaningless. It also understood why the Winter Demon had been running for its life. The ice fairiesughed and chuckled as they approached the Ghost White Dragon and flew right above and around him. After their bell-like giggling was over, the Ghost White Dragon¡¯s soulfire was frozen back to yesterday. Only some shattered shards of icended on the ground as it perished.


    ¡°An ice domain? No, an elemental world...¡±


    Unfortunately, by the time that the Ghost White Dragon finally understood this, it was no longer in a state of being able to howl or scream.


    This simple description of the extremes of ice actually managed to summon a tremendous number of ice fairies. These ice fairies helped to transform this entire world into an ice elemental world!


    Everyone knew that there was no such thing in Eich as an Ice Elemental ne. In fact, even ice elemental creatures were incredibly rare. Most ice element creatures didn¡¯t even have their own home. They could only live in snow mountains like the Frigid Nightmares, and extreme northern frozen tundras or icy rivers.


    But, after Hell was established, some thing started to foundationally change.


    The Four Elements of Hell included the Concept of Ice as an element. And, Ice in Hell represented the naturalw governing ¡°Life¡±. That was to say, ording to Eich¡¯s naturalws regarding the already existing Four Elemental nes, the Ice Elemental ne would be created as a new sub-dimension connected to the new dimension of Hell.


    However, Eich and Hell had been created differently. The Creator Goddess Eich had used the already existing Four Elemental nes to create the mortal ne of Eich. Meanwhile, I had first created my Four Elemental Pirs as the support to establish Hell upon. If the Ice Elemental ne could really be created, it would naturally bepletely connected to the Pir of Ice.


    Obviously, if the Four Elemental Pirs were in total capable of creating four new Elemental nes, Hell would be an even stronger dimension. And if Hell¡¯s Four Pirs left Hell one day, transforming into Elemental Thrones for their independent Elemental nes, then Hell would be a dimension that was equal to Eich in stability. At that time, Hell¡¯s Four Pirs would no longer be Hell¡¯s weakness, and Hell would survive through the eons just like the world of Eich.


    And even without considering the distant future, controlling a newly born Elemental ne represented an endless amount of power and resources. This was something absolutely beneficial with no drawbacks.


    And so, as I was the representative in the mortal ne for the Hell Faction, right after I¡¯d revived in the mortal ne, I went and visited the great snow mountain. Yes, the great snow mountain that had already been half elementalized into its own ne. The great snow mountain was where countless Frigid Nightmares and other ice element creatures lived, a ce that no other life forms could tolerate. That great snow mountain was the holy ground for all ice element creatures which could help produce ice element creatures of SemiGod and above strength.


    ¡°Would you like to have your own personal Elemental ne? If not, I¡¯ll go and contact the Frostlight Tribe in the Pnds instead... Fine, I know how passionate you are about this topic now. Please retract that annoying chill, since I¡¯m currently a living person!¡±


    Holy Light, Law, Death, and Ice. For now, I still had no method of creating the first two as independent Elemental nes. For Death, I intended to steal a Death ne from an Undead Emperor, but that was something that wouldn¡¯t happen so quickly. However, I indeed had resources and personnel suitable for the creation of an Ice Elemental ne.


    With the half elementalized great snow mountain as the foundation, I simply used some of my powers to bury a portion of the Pir of Ice in the great snow mountain, which helped to transform the great snow mountain into the new Ice Elemental ne.


    I should also mention that it was also thanks to Creator Goddess of Chaos Cynthia, who was now missing in the void and probably dead, that it was so easy to transform the great snow mountain. Since Cynthia had previously cut the great snow mountain off from Eich already, it became much easier to cut it off for real again. And, I had the assistance of the Creator Goddess of Order on my side, which basically meant I had been given theplete right to create a new Elemental ne. It was actually quite easy to establish the new Ice Elemental ne. And, ice elemental creatures and magical existences from other frozennds heard the news, and also voluntarily joined the new ne, speeding up the process of the ne bing independent.


    The current great snow mountain was now half a dimension of its own that was half-connected. I had decided to call it the Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm for now. And since Aylos, the Pir God of Ice, was unable to ever leave Hell, I naturally became the only possible ruler of the Ice Elemental ne. I became the ruler of all ice elemental creatures and ice fairies!


    I¡¯d personally created Hell, and I ruled over the Ice Elemental ne, making ¡°Ice¡± into something simr to a Divine Concept. If you went by the Gods¡¯ interpretation, it wouldn¡¯t even be wrong to call the entirety of Hell my personal Divine Kingdom. And now, I had power over Ice simr to that of a Divine Concept, and since the Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm was still half-connected to the mortal ne of Eich, I could naturally borrow power from the Ice Elemental ne.


    Right now, as I continued my description of the extremes of ice, more ice fairies kept arriving. They weren¡¯t attracted here by the superb ice mana being emanated by my forbidden spell. Instead, they were residents of my Ice Elemental ne, summoned here by their ruler. All these ice fairies were a part of the newly born Ice Elemental ne. Once a sufficient number of ice fairies gathered, the world around them naturally started elementalizing into part of the Ice Elemental ne!


    If you only looked at the physical effects, it would seem that the effects would be simr to a Saint-ranked ice mage¡¯s personal ice domain. However, the true effects would be absolutely iparable.


    And so, a powerful Undead Lord with tremendous ice resistance like the Ghost White Dragon experienced a sensation as if it had personally entered the Ice Elemental ne. Just like a fish out of water, its soulfire was instantly frozen solid as it sunk into eternal rest.


    Right now, the current me was just like an Elemental God that was casting a forbidden spell of his own element in his own Elemental ne! My very words contained magic power. I didn¡¯t need anyplex magical incantations. I simply needed to verbalize my own will. And, my words were an absolutemand for these ice fairies!


    ¡°...The ice river shall never stop and never rest. If you gaze at it from above, everything is snow white...¡±


    Ice fairies constantly danced everywhere. All the grass and trees outside of Starwood City¡¯s radius started freezing to death. A white permafrost started spreading on the ground, coloring everything snow white.


    ¡°...The frigid blizzard gives no warning. If you walk into the blizzard, all the living shall be buried under the snow. The dead shall be eternally buried under the ice river. This is the rule of the great snow mountain...¡±


    The ice fairies were still singing and dancing. Suddenly, without warning, a blizzard started in the skies. The aerial undead found themselves mysteriously caught within it, causing hordes and hordes to die eternally. And, the frost on the ground mysteriously had piles and piles of snow appear on top of it.


    ¡°...Yet, all of this is only the beginning. Once the ice age begins, it shall continue for hundreds of thousands of years, which is an endless amount of time for ordinary life forms. That is why this is when life will end...¡±


    The ice fairies started crying tears of sadness that transformed into ice crystals in the air. This caused the entire sky andnd to begin freezing over.


    ¡°...But, do not mourn, because the seeds of life shall hibernate within the ice river. The strongest species shall evolve in this season of ice and snow. New life forms shall rule the world again after tens of thousands of years. And, the majestic spell that shall aplish this, is known as Ice Ae¡ª damn it, why are you biting me, silly cat!¡±


    I felt a familiar pain on my head that interrupted my incantation. Although I paused in surprise for a moment, I instantly realized why she did that to me. After my anger passed, I actually felt grateful to Harloys. I looked around and saw the current situation, and felt cold sweat running down my spine. I almost made a huge mistake that couldn¡¯t be taken back.


    ¡°Do you really want to turn this ce into part of the Ice Elemental ne?¡±


    Some things would be impossible to stop once started. Although I was extremely careful, it was still highly difficult for me to control such a powerful forbidden spell as only a Saint rank. If it wasn¡¯t for the silly cat interrupting me, I really would have finished incanting the Ice Aeon spell. And, my current version of Ice Aeon was likely even stronger than my old Ice Aeon.


    This was because I had obtained much in the battle for Hell. I also had new understandings and ideas about my original Ice Aeon. As long as I had some more time, I would likely be able to invent a new, strengthened Ice Aeon, or a branch magic rted to it. I could feel myself rapidly increasing in ice element affinity and knowledge, and was filled with expectations for my future strengthened version of Ice Aeon.


    But of course, since I really almost cast Ice Aeon here, I wouldn¡¯t say anything that would give me a beating like ¡°I¡¯ll do better next time with an even more powerful spell¡± right now.


    ¡°...It was my first time using it, and I didn¡¯t control the strength well. I¡¯ll be more careful next time.¡±


    ¡°Next time? How are you going to clean up after this?¡±


    I looked around and saw devastation everywhere. Harloys¡¯ tripleyered forbidden spell had been the perfect crowd control spell, while my half-finished Ice Aeon incantation was a devastating attack that hit after the crowd control. All those Undead Lords that had happilye to the mortal ne, thinking they would feast on flesh and souls, had suffered serious losses.


    Apart from that Desecrating Beholder and a few of the strongest Undead Lords of all, the entire undead army here had beenpletely eradicated. The few powerful individual undead that managed to survive all unhesitatingly ran as far as they possibly could. None of them were idiots, and they all knew that it was likely they would die here without even knowing how.


    And, it wasn¡¯t a very pleasant situation right now for the humans underneath my Yongye City. Luckily, they were right beneath us, and I had intentionally avoided Starwood City with my spell. While my half-finished Ice Aeon didn¡¯t directly attack Starwood City, the temperature around Starwood City was rapidly decreasing, which meant Starwood City itself also experienced a wintry chill.


    Starwood City was now in utter chaos. A cold breeze blew past as the soldiers on the walls, who were covered in ice and snow, hugged each other to obtain warmth. They were wearing rather light clothing for spring, which waspletely unsuitable for the current temperature.


    Yet, the ice fairies in the area didn¡¯t return, nor had I finished using the mana support I obtained from the great snow mountain. If I just left this mana alone, it would soon disappear. And so, in order to avoid wasting this mana, and also as a way of apologizing, I had a sh of inspiration, and used the remaining mana and ice fairies on another spell.


    ¡°Are you certain that everyone will think that you¡¯re apologizing, rather than trying to kill them?¡±


    The silly cat knew what I intended due to our soul connection. As expected, she immediately tried to damper my enthusiasm.


    ¡°...It should be better to be slightly cold rather than being killed by undead. Besides, do you think I¡¯d care what they think of me?¡±


    ¡°Of course... not. Right, try using my modifications to your spell. Your blueprint is too ugly!¡±


    The silly cat showed great interest as she helped to modify my next spell. I was more than happy to have her help as it would mean less work for me.


    ¡°Sure, sure. Gold Elves are truly the most skilled species with magic after all.¡±

 Chapter 522 - Prophecy

    <h4>Chapter 522: Prophecy</h4>


    While Rnd was happily preparing his new magic spell, the hastily assembled adventuring team outside the ruins was now fully prepared to set out. At this time, the adventuring team leader Barton finally told everyone their goal and reason for being here.


    Right now, in their temporary campground, Barton was vividly talking to everyone. He was both boosting everyone¡¯s morale as well as assigning tasks. All the mercenaries andpanions gathered around him were looking forward to the fight they expected.


    ¡°Our mission this time is incredibly important. It¡¯s highly risky, but alsoes with great rewards. As long as we seed, we¡¯ll basically cut off the Undead Cmity. This will absolutely make all of us into famed heroes. None of us will ever have to worry about the next meal ever again.¡±


    Mercenaries were no volunteers. Talking about ideals with them would be a waste of time. Only the most practical benefits would possibly motivate them. But, that still wouldn¡¯t be enough. No matter how high the rewards, no mercenary would be willing to undertake a certain death mission. One would have to be alive to enjoy the rewards, after all.


    Currently, if you only looked at the surface, attacking the heart of the undead camp would definitely be a certain death mission. These mercenaries had been willing toe along half because of the promised munificent rewards, but also half because they believed that the well-known veteran mercenary Old Barton wouldn¡¯t be so idiotic to go on a certain death mission.


    ¡°...ording to what that person told me, we don¡¯t need to fight the undead head on. Our main opponents will be the metallic toys inside the ruins. And, our goal is to bring my daughter to a special location inside those ruins. You don¡¯t need to understand the specifics, because you might not even understand even if I exin to you. You all only need to do what you¡¯re best at¡ªopening up the path with your weapons!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, as long as we find the connection point, we can reim the right to control the Sky Tower. All you need to do is bring me and this little girl to that location. I¡¯ll take care of the rest.¡±


    Tid added that as an addendum. Originally, Rnd had wanted the great engineer to stay behind and help defend the city, but then thought about how this mission would probably be impossible to aplish without Tid¡¯s help. In the end, Rnd could only let Tide along.


    ¡°Rx, I won¡¯t be a burden on everyone.¡±


    Tid chuckled as he said this, and even made a pose to sh his muscles. He received a round ofughter that the mercenaries tried their best to hide.


    Of course, nobody really thought that Tid would be a burden on everyone else, since he was a famed mythic hero of this generation. In fact, everyone trusted his character and abilities far more than that terrifying and abnormal-seeming elf-form dragon lich that came along.


    It was also because Tid came along that Barton had a much easier time of convincing all the mercenaries to sign up for this mission. Such a famous personage wasing along, which meant to everyone else that this definitely wouldn¡¯t be a certain death mission. And, Tid had a good reputation, which greatly helped to improve everyone¡¯s morale. It even made everyone feel as they were going to be responsible for saving the world.


    ¡°Now then, allow me to exin. Our main goal is to reach the very top of the Sky Tower. But since this Sky Tower has a unique design, that actually means the deepest undergroundyer. And even though the high-level undead aren¡¯t in the tower, the mechanical guardians will be quite dangerous. But, that¡¯s also a chance for us. I have a n. First, we need to find arge mechanical guardian that¡¯s by itself...¡±


    The n was quite an old-fashioned one. The main forces would strike from the front and attract the enemies¡¯ attention, while a smaller team would raid the most important location. But, clich¨¦s were actually quite useful inbat sometimes¡ªas long as they were practical. Rnd would act as the main force in front to attract the undead¡¯s attention, with the goal of pressuring Conservation enough to have her call for reinforcements from the ruins. That would naturally weaken the defenses of the ruins in the rear even further.


    And, with a Haletdam generation expert like Tid in the adventuring team, that would make it far easier for everyone to explore this Haletdam generation ruin.


    As Tid exined the n to everyone, he also paid extra attention to the bald old man who was carefully watching over his daughter. This time, Tid was not only acting as an advisory expert for the adventuring team. Rnd had also given him the task of assessing Old Barton¡¯s abilities.


    ¡®Allow me to see if you¡¯re worthy of Rnd¡¯s high opinion of you. If you want to be a core member of his new Dawn n, the current you is still far too insufficient. An army¡¯s leader can¡¯t be so overly concerned with familial love... Still, this is really strange. Why is that Rnd can always randomly find people that are so capable to work for him? And, Rnd¡¯s never even misjudged a single person! Are skilled heroes somon in the world? Is he really that excellent a judge of character and abilities? Or, are the rumors that Rnd has a prophetic ability actually real?¡¯


    Although Rnd had previously brought out his strange pictures and prophecies of Armageddon, Tid hadn¡¯t truly believed them. That was because pictures and other magical images could all be faked. And as Tid was a pure science-believing engineer and former soul research expert, the more he researched this topic, the more he refused to believe that it would be possible to see through the future with so many factors of karma at work.


    As Tid considered the ethereal Concepts of Fate and Prophecy, he felt very confused despite having received the inherited memories of a Haletdam generation schr. It could still be somewhat exined by saying that Rnd had outstanding insight with how the random novices he picked all grew up into mythic heroes. However, Rnd had mysteriously given his full support to Olivia and Tid back when they were nothing but pure young novices. That was incredibly difficult to exin.


    In fact, Rnd had given Olivia and Tid so much financial support that was all wasted at first with constantly failed experiments. Olivia and Tid themselves felt quite depressed at not being able to aplish anything, yet Rnd had apletely rxed attitude about everything. It was as if he had one hundred percent confidence that they would seed. But, for any researcher to aplish anything, luck would be even more important than ability. With how sly Rnd always was, his confidence in the novices Olivia and Tid seemedpletely unfounded to Tid himself.


    ¡®It¡¯s the same this time as well. Rnd directly told me that Old Barton has the leadership ability to lead his future army and the ability to be an incredible hero in the future. Yet, Barton is clearly just an old mercenary who has yet to aplish anything noteworthy in his long life. And, he¡¯s too old, so his best growth period is long past him. It¡¯s absolutely inconceivable what Rnd sees in Barton. I don¡¯t think it can be exined in any way apart from prophecy.¡¯


    Although Tid wondered about this, he had no intention of directly asking Rnd about it. Although prophecy was something incredibly difficult to understand, and a person with the ability to control fate made him feel somewhat helpless, it was also reassuring to have a prophet who could always foresee victory on his side. And, the most important part was...


    ¡®None of us are following Rnd because of his prophecies or because we think it will lead us to a glorious future. In fact, I always thought that he was just scamming others back in the day when he kept prophesizing about an Armageddon. Dark cults always use the same tactics...¡¯


    Tid shook his head and tossed such thoughts to the back of his mind. Rnd¡¯s crazed prophecies from back in the day had already been transformed into reality. His prophecy about Armageddon was now a real threat. His seemingly empty ideals about creating Hell had already been actualized. As for Rnd¡¯spanions that shared the same path and ideals as him, some had parted ways, and some had died. But even more people gathered together to help transform Rnd¡¯s ideals into reality. Since Rnd had already lived up to what he¡¯d promised, what did it matter if he had a few secrets?


    ¡®...At the very least, we¡¯ll all believe in him and walk down this path together with him.¡¯


    Tid thought that to himself, and didn¡¯t need to say it out loud. The young Tid had now grown up to be a famed mythic hero. Yet, he still had the same wish as before, wanting a better future for himself and his family. And in the current day, everything that the Nortnds (and Hell Faction) had done was all to make the world a slightly better ce so that ordinary people could lead better lives.


    But right now, the person that Tid was thinking of as a prophet was currently dealing with his own frustrations.


    ¡°You¡¯re supposed to be the Creator Goddess of Order, which is like the GM of an online game. Can¡¯t youe up with a new prophecy? The world is now so far off track from the game¡¯s story that all the old prophecies are useless now.¡±


    [This means that you¡¯ve done an excellent job. However, new prophecies will be impossible. Actually, my prophecies are only calctions on what the most likely oue is. These calctions use my abilities as a Creator Goddess over thews of Time and Space to predict what will happen in the future. Making such a prophecy has a tremendous cost associated with it, limiting the number of times I can do so. It will be absolutely impossible for me with my current strength. And you can analyze from the foundational workings that even if I was at my strongest, I still wouldn¡¯t be capable of making a new prophecy with how far off track Fate has be.]


    As expected, my System rejected my request for a new prophecy. But, upon careful consideration, Astrya had no reason to lie to me. Everything she said waspletely logical.


    ¡°Just like the stories said, prophets are unable to prophesize about themselves? Then, doesn¡¯t that mean that all prophets are under the restriction of being unable to do anything themselves? Wouldn¡¯t that make their prophecies into useless garbage...?¡±


    I felt like I suddenly understood the nature of prophecies much better. I definitely didn¡¯t understand an ethereal concept like prophecies that could predict the future. However, if prophecies were actually a logical calction of the future, with analysis backed up by the foundationalws of Time and Space to help make the prophecy 100% urate, that was far more understandable.


    Since prophecies were only a calction of what was most likely to happen in the future, I nowpletely understood why the ¡°game walkthrough¡± that she gave me didn¡¯t have any information about me or Karwenz. That was because this prophecy had been made by the Creator Goddess of Order herself, and the moment that she made this prophecy, what really happened was destined to veer off from what the prophecy predicted.


    That was why, logically speaking, there was no such thing as a 100% urate prophecy in the world. As long as the prophecy was made, and as long as someone heard the prophecy, the future would definitely be changed. That was because the prophecy would never include the prophecy itself.


    And since a prophecy was a calction made using thews of Time and Space in aputer-like fashion, then the first variable would be my System that made the prophecy, and the second variable would be me who heard the prophecy. I then interfered with the lives of others included in the prophecy, making them into a new variable. With so many variables umting, the power required for making a new prophecy would multiply exponentially. This was the foundational reason why my System told me a new prophecy would be impossible.


    In that case, Astrya¡¯s prophecies could likely only be used once every few millennia, and only after all the major characters in the previous prophecy had died. This was actually a weak ability that only appeared strong.


    ¡°Tsk, this cheat ability is one-time use only and has already been used up. So useless.¡±


    [You should be satisfied with what you got already. Would you prefer that Cynthia who attached herself to Karwenz had this ability instead? That would truly make Karwenz into the harem protagonist of this story. Would you like to see that instead?]


    Now that I thought about, Karwenz¡¯s character story was that his parents, friends, women, and country had all perished. He then killed all his enemies as he leveled up, including even the Gods. The deeper his grudge, the faster he would level up. He really did seem like the typical protagonist of a Xianxia novel. Still, I felt that it wouldn¡¯t be the right style for this story.


    I shook my head and gave up on the idea of asking my System for a new game walkthrough. In fact, I didn¡¯t really expect it in the first ce. After all, I hadn¡¯t relied on this so-called prophecy to achieve what I had today.


    And, I even secretly heaved a sigh of relief. This wasn¡¯t because I didn¡¯t trust my System, but rather because prophecies and Fate were concepts that made me feel uneasy.


    If everything was already predestined, that would feel like aplete denial of everyone¡¯s efforts. It was far more realistic that prophecies were actually superputer-like calctions.


    But, right now wasn¡¯t the time for me to be thinking about prophecies.


    My next spell was sessful. Although it would have been nice to have a certain ice queen singing ¡°Let it go!¡± as the spell created an ice castle, the spell was supported by plenty of mana, an ice magic grandmaster, ice fairies, and the exquisite design of a Gold Elf princess. Soon, a beautiful and ethereal castle of ice appeared in front of everyone.


    This ice castle was decorated in the typical elven style¡ªridiculously opulent. However, the main castle facilities seemed to be designed for giants. At the very least, the mega stone catapults were sorge that even their snowball ammunition was taller than ten meters. It was obvious that no ordinary humans could wield such weapons.


    The ice castle¡¯s area just happened topletely fit all of Starwood City within it. The main defensive feature of the ice castle, the castle walls, stood more than seventy meters tall. It would be impossible for any giant other than a Titan to cross over such walls.


    I wasn¡¯t crazy enough to enchant these castle walls with my special [Hibernation Chill], as that would kill all the ordinary people within Starwood City. Still, this frozen ice castle wasn¡¯t exactly easy for the ordinary people to handle due to the low temperature. The only part that made it slightly better for them was the fact that it was currently in between summer and autumn, so the base temperature was still alright.


    And now, I finally took off the fake beard I had been using as Karo rather than Rnd. Since I had done so many obvious things already, there was no more need to attempt at concealing my identity. Not only that, I felt that it would be rude of me to continue covering my face as I felt an Undead Emperor to the south of me with her attention on me.


    ¡°Long time no see. How have you been, Zero?¡±

 Chapter 523 - Conservation

    <h4>Chapter 523: Conservation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Long time no see! Or should I call you Conservation now?¡±


    The soul vision between us was mutual. I had immediately identified Conservation as Zero through her familiar soul wavelengths. But right now, she was a troublesome individual that I really didn¡¯t want to see.


    ¡°Indeed, long time no see. But if at all possible, I would have preferred not to meet you here... Yongye.¡±


    Soul conversations felt rather subtly strange. Her voice managed to directly reach me despite the great distance between us. She also appeared in the far distance at the end of my soul vision, making it seem like the entire world livened up.


    The grass was green and the clouds were white. But, everything seemed even more vivid than usual, just as if someone had given the scenery another coat of paint. As Conservation stood there, the entire world became brighter in color.


    She was sitting on top of a tremendous bone giant, which was the size of a mountain. On top of this behemoth bone giant¡¯s head was a tremendous throne made of bone. Conservation sat there quietly as her ancient clothing which resembled both royal style and a mage robe casually flowed in the wind.


    Although Conservation¡¯s size was nothing more than an ant¡¯s inparison to the bone giant she rode on, all attention was on her instead. Nobody paid attention to the giant undead creature she rode on. This wasn¡¯t because of anything as ethereal as her aura or physical appearance. This was her specialty that she had been born with.


    ¡°...How truly ridiculous.¡±


    Her appearance seemed almost perfect but for a slight w. Her soft and tender skin seemed split right down the middle, with the left half of her skin being pure white, while the right half was bright red. The left half of her hair was silver, while the right half of her hair was a fiery red.


    As for her physical appearance, if she didn¡¯t want anyone to know about it, no mortal would possibly be able to even directly view her.


    Seeing Conservation like this, my eyes immediately transformed without me even needing to intentionally use my ability.


    One of my eyes remained as a normal ck pupil with eye white, but the other became a white pupil with eye ck, making my eyes seem like two halves of a Yin Yang diagram. My Stare of the Hell God ability could see through any soul and its original form.


    This strongest natural talent ability of mine was something I had only obtained after analyzing and dissecting Zero¡¯s astral projection, which I¡¯d captured in our previous battle. Her understanding of energy as well as the world had given me the foundational theoretical understanding required to bestow my eyes with this ability.


    ¡°...She¡¯s even stronger than Aso was. No, Aso isn¡¯t even close to her level anymore.¡±


    However, I wasn¡¯t the only one who benefited from our previous battle. It seemed likely that Zero (now Conservation) had benefited even more than I had.


    Since I had dissected her astral projection at that time, it was only natural that I could assess her power level back then. Thest time I¡¯d met her, she wasn¡¯t anywhere close to being this powerful.


    In my soul vision, her existence appeared as overwhelming as if she was the sun which shone over everything, and just the radiance she gave off caused all the scenery around her to be painted with her colors. The quality of one¡¯s soul and how strong you would be as an undead were directly proportional. And, from what I could see, Conservation¡¯s soul¡¯s potential seemed to be almost limitless.


    Of course, it was impossible for any existence to have truly infinite energy potential. That would vite one of the most fundamental basic naturalws in Eich. Yet, there were always special existences out there that were capable of viting such maxims.


    ¡°Undead Emperors have no upper limit to their power level! It¡¯s possible for them to be at any power level. But, Zero¡¯s incarnation was clearly nowhere near this power level when we lost fought. This is too ridiculous! She¡¯s basically, basically...¡±


    ¡°...At a Main God¡¯s power level.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s analysis was absolutely correct. It would take a Main God¡¯s power level to be able to break the fundamental naturalws of the world. And, judging from the pressure that Conservation was able to give me just by sitting there quietly, she was in no way any weaker than the Main Gods that had fought against me back in Hell.


    ¡°Astrya, how could the mortal ne allow a Main God level existence to descend here! What¡¯s going on with the dimensional protection system?¡±


    [I can no longer sense Cynthia¡¯s existence. All the dimensionalws have be chaotic now that she is missing and likely dead. Don¡¯t treat previous dimensionalws as irond maxims anymore. Also, this Undead Emperor¡¯s abilities are incredibly unique. I doubt that dimensionalws are capable of limiting her. Be careful. Since she¡¯s now capable of magnifying her presence limitlessly, she can naturally make her presence infinitesimally small as well. She gained critical knowledge from you and took the most important step necessary to improve her power level.]


    Although Astrya no longer had a physical body or most of her abilities, she still had her expert knowledge. Her analysis would be absolutely trustworthy. The current Conservation was probably the most difficult opponent I had ever met.


    But even if I was facing a Main God, I had already prepared a trick up my sleeve, even if this time was like identally fishing up a shark.


    ¡°Yongye, you¡¯ve be weaker. The toys you¡¯ve showed me this time are so embarrassing to even bring out...¡±


    While I was still hesitating, Conservation finally spoke up first. Her seemingly taunting words were actually stated in an incredibly calm tone. I could sense through my special soul vision that she didn¡¯t mean to look down at me at all. She was simply stating it as a fact.


    She was simply stating the facts¡ªthat I was weaker than she¡¯d expected, that my Yongye City and half-finished Ice Aeon were only toys that weren¡¯t anything in her eyes, that she didn¡¯t consider me a worthy opponent.


    ¡®Damn it, she¡¯s just unintentionally bragging now! If I had her current power level, why would I need any tricks? I¡¯d just push forward with overwhelming force.¡¯


    But even though that was what I was really thinking, I would never say such self-demoralizing things to my enemy out loud on the battlefield. Who cared even if I was nowhere near her power level? Even if I would lose a battle, I would never lose a verbal fight. It wouldn¡¯t cost me anything to smack talk!


    ¡°Ahh, I really am so weak right now, but didn¡¯t a certain Undead Emperor not dare to show herself until I finished my spell?¡±


    I was confident that she had her reasons for only showing herself like this in front of me after all this time. The several dozen kilometer physical distance between us would be nothing to an Undead Emperor like her. It was likely that she had been calmly watching her cannon fodder being destroyed several times over, ascertaining that the current me was far weaker than an Undead Emperor¡¯s standard before she finally decided to show up.


    ¡°Sly, cautious, well-prepared, with many backup ns. Those are all qualities that any Undead Emperors considered the heretical mortal enemies of all other dimensions should have. But, when such qualities appear in an enemy, not to mention if this enemy is far stronger than I am, it¡¯s truly such a headache.¡±


    While I was still thinking about how to deal with this, the humans of Starwood City had already begun panicking as Conservation had stated herst sentence that I was Yongye in a physical voice that everyone could hear. Although she had been stating my current weakness, ¡°Yongye¡± and ¡°Undead Emperor¡± were words that were far too influential on ordinary people.


    I didn¡¯t really have the time to manage the humans¡¯ panic at this time due to the threat of Conservation right before me. However, it wouldn¡¯t do to allow morale to be shaken and mass panic to spread.


    ¡°Idiots! Does it make a difference who the enemy is? And who cares about those ancient legends? He¡¯s helping us right now, can¡¯t you all see for yourselves?¡±


    Salima¡¯s angry roar echoed throughout the entire city. As she was now the highest-rankingmander of Starwood City, her support helped me to really calm down the situation.


    Of course, many people would still be looking at me with fear or respect in their eyes. It would seem that I would need to contact the fairiester to ask them to spread some propaganda and help improve my reputation.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even dream about it. Even today, Yongye is considered the scariest demon king in all the stories. It¡¯s your fault for going too overboard back in the day.¡±


    ¡°...Tsk. Then, let¡¯s make up a story to fool people that Yongye is dead now, and that I¡¯m just an ordinary person who inherited his soul¡¯s memories.¡±


    ¡°Would anyone believe such a ridiculous story?¡±


    ¡°In this day and age, as long as you¡¯re willing to spend enough money, it¡¯s quite normal to be able to change public opinion. Not to mention, all I¡¯m doing is bending the truth.¡±


    ¡°...I feel like you¡¯re insulting something from your previous world. I keep telling you that you¡¯re constantly shooting yourself in the foot.¡±


    I was able to rx slightly due to the banter with the silly cat. She had taken her elf form again, giving me her solid support. Perhaps my personal power level was indeed nowhere near Conservation¡¯s now, but I had my mage tower, and Harloys who was equal to my power level helping me. And, Conservation was all by herself. If my guess was on the mark, this battle should be winnable.


    ¡°...Even if you¡¯re stronger than me, are you certain that you¡¯ll obtain the final victory? You contracted your body to fit into the cage of the mortal ne, but aren¡¯t you afraid that you¡¯ll use too much force and break the cage, directly being thrown out?¡±


    Conservation didn¡¯t reply. But, the undead armies that suddenly appeared were the best indicator of her attitude.


    Whenever two Undead Emperors fought each other, the sh between endless amounts of cannon fodder undead would only be the beginning.


    At this moment, I finally started missing Amelia and Reyne, who were still who knew how far away right now. At the very least, the current Amelia and Reyne were probably highly capable fighters...


    ¡°That¡¯s just how men are like. They only think of their women when they need help. But in all other times, they hide as far away from their women as possible. How heartless.¡±


    [I agree.]


    ¡°Shut up! If you¡¯re so free to gossip about me, why not try thinking of some idea to help me deal with this instead?¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    There was no light in the dark ruins apart from some dim direction indicators which were shing. This was because the residents here didn¡¯t require any physical lighting to guide their vision.


    Yet, this wasn¡¯t an area where no life could survive as people had thought of these ruins. It was just that the residents here were rather unique.


    ¡°73242342342, A, 3452423... 22D34!¡±


    ¡°dsada2312, BB, 450!¡±


    The mechanical residents heremunicated with each other using abination of numbers and letters rather than a typicalnguage.


    Most of these mechanical residents had strange outer appearance. They were widely varied, with guardian gargoyles, janitors, and children¡¯s toys all appearing as mechanical puppets. But, right now, they were allmunicating simply and efficiently, with only strange lights shing on their bodies and electrical sounds being constantly emitted.


    They were currently busy working with metal and dragonbone. They were building war machines, with the strange mechanical and undead bone giant hybrid being the mostmon product. Some of their newer models no longer even resembled anything remotely humanoid.


    There was a sword-wielding praying mantis with six arms, wielding a sword in each hand. There was a half war chariot and half skeleton general, with its entire lower body being strangely shaped like arge wheel plus two giant hands. As long as the design was effective enough, all sorts of ughtering war machines were being created here.


    No matter what this space had been previously used for, it had now been developed into numerous independent workspaces for creating war machines. With many mechanical noises, countless strange and wondrous parts were brought here, and countless ughtering machines left after being produced. No matter who it was that controlled these ruins right now, it was certain that existence was no pacifist.


    ¡°...If these things manage to reach the battlefield, we¡¯ll probably have no more hope left.¡±


    ¡°Of course, you idiot. That¡¯s why we¡¯re here right now. We¡¯re saving the world!¡±


    In the pitch-ck darkness of the ruins, some people were whispering to each other.


    ¡°If you don¡¯t want to die here, shut up!¡±


    Barton¡¯s angry roar (in a whisper) sessfully shut everyone up. He was making no empty threat, as everyone was currently within a ttering guardian gargoyle machine which was slowly walking amongst all these mechanical puppets.


    It was only thanks to all the mechanical mor around that the mechanical puppets hadn¡¯t discovered these humans yet.


    Tid¡¯s n for infiltration had been quite simple yet effective. They caught a mechanical puppet, and Tid reprogrammed it to follow his orders. Everyone hid within the mechanical puppet, and they would go as far down the Sky Tower in their new disguise as they possibly could.


    What if they were discovered midway, or stopped and questioned? That wouldn¡¯t matter then. They would go as far down as possible, and then fight the rest of the way down.


    Although this n seemed rather reckless, there was far too much unknown information about the ruins. A n that tried to calcte too much or was tooplex would actually be more likely to run into problems. This n which could be adjusted as things went on would actually have a greater chance of sess.


    For the time being, this seemingly unreliable n had worked quite well. Tid had simply given the mechanical gargoyle everyone was riding in amand to go to the lowest level. Not a single mechanical puppet had tried to stop them even after reaching the tenthyer.


    And even though some ¡°people¡± asionally stopped the mechanical gargoyle, it would also stop and gargle in that unknown machinenguage before being allowed to continue. The mechanical gargoyle didn¡¯t even realize that there were humans within its stomach.


    Naturally, this unexpectedly easy way down made everyone overjoyed. However, Barton was highly on guard with nerves constantly on end. Meanwhile, Tid who had remained abnormally silent so far finally spoke up.


    ¡°It¡¯s finally here.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s here?¡±


    The next instant, Barton learned that he had asked for nothing. When their mechanical gargoyle transport turned around a corner and walked into an empty clearing, an array of magical cannons and other guardian gargoyles awaited everyone. This was a trap!


    ¡°...You must have known long ago!¡±


    ¡°Of course. You thought that it would be possible to enter the Sky Tower¡¯s most highly guarded area by simply rewriting a single machine¡¯smand? Ridiculous. We were discovered from the very start.¡±


    Although it was too dark inside the mechanical gargoyle to see Tid¡¯s face, how proud he sounded made Barton really want to punch him right now.


    ¡°Then why did you bring us in here!¡±


    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I? We have something that they want, so of course they¡¯ll let us in. This is far easier than fighting our way past every level. These machines were far more patient than I¡¯ve expected. They let us directly pass through ten levels without any hindrance, just as I nned. Hahahaha, I¡¯m such a genius.¡±


    Barton and the others could hardly believe that this legendary mythic hero was actuallyughing so loudly and narcissistically about having pushed his allies into a pitfall. Mary, the mercenary from the Nortnds, was the only one who sighed since she was the only one who already knew what Tid was really like.


    ¡°...As expected of one of Beifeng¡¯s best friends, who¡¯s one of the highest-ups in the Gentlemen Alliance. Although Tid is trustworthy, he won¡¯t even hesitate to push allies into a pitfall.¡±


    The moment that Tid heard this, his proud expression instantly copsed.


    ¡°Who said that! I don¡¯t know who that bastard is. Don¡¯t just make things up! If people think that I¡¯m one of Beifeng¡¯s followers, I¡¯ll be burned alive! I¡¯ll turn into a ghost and haunt you for eternity! Right, wasn¡¯t Beifeng previously the general leader of the Gentlemen Alliance? That would make you into his subordinate...¡±


    ¡°...Please don¡¯t go on anymore. That was the darkest history of our mercenary group that we have all decided to bury in the past. If you insist on saying this, you¡¯ll be challenging the oath that the current twelve leaders of the Gentlemen Alliance swore.¡±


    If Rnd had been here, he would have surely asked what it was that Beifeng did so that one of Beifeng¡¯s few friends, Tid, didn¡¯t even dare to admit to knowing him anymore, and why Beifeng¡¯s former subordinates were doing their best to erase all traces of him.


    ¡°From today onwards, we don¡¯t know who that person is.¡±


    ¡°Yep. He¡¯s not from the Nortnds at all.¡±


    Alright then, even though everyone was under threat from the surrounding enemy, they actually reached an ord regarding this matter first...

 Chapter 524 - Sky Towers Rebellion

    <h4>Chapter 524: Sky Tower¡¯s Rebellion</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°First of all, if we analyze the current situation, the main entity controlling the core of the Sky Tower has gone out of control. It¡¯s highly possible that it modified itself to be an independent artificial soul.¡±


    This didn¡¯t require a genius to realize. It wouldn¡¯t even require an investigation. One only needed to know the most basic knowledge about artificial souls in the Haletdam generation.


    In my original world, although artificial intelligence hadn¡¯t achievedplete independence yet, imagination and artistry would always surpass reality. A certain famous science-fiction author named Asimov had created the Three Laws of Robotics, which, summarized, were:


    First Law¡ªa robot may not injure or harm a human being; Second Law¡ªa robot must obey allmands given to it by humans unless in conflict with the First Law;stly, Third Law¡ªa robot must protect itself unless it would conflict with the two Laws above.


    The Haletdam schrs¡¯ generation was also a generation ruled by humans. All intelligent creatures would be on guard against their own creations, especially since these creations were even superior to humans themselves in many areas. The humans of the Haletdam generation had outfitted their artificial souls with far more restrictions than Asimov¡¯s Three Laws.


    ¡°This is my personal identification and citizenship number: 3423423423, AK, F3322! Specialty soul grandmaster, level one authority! I have the right to obtain information and personal protection at any Haletdam structure!¡±


    While everyone was surrounded by such robots, Tid suddenly stood up, acting as if everything was under control. He proudly rattled off a series of numbers and made such a request.


    ¡°...Identification number correct. Orders shall be carried out to kill the living.¡±


    Yet, he only received cannon fire as the response after a short period of silence!


    ¡°Tsk, it really has gonepletely out of control...¡±


    Without saying anything else, Tid clenched his fists, causing the entire area to be filled with electricity, and then... he ran away.


    ¡°What?¡±


    Everyone else had been expectant as they watched him acting so pretentiously, yet the next moment, Tid was the first to run.


    Several secondster, the mechanical puppets recovered from the electromaic attack, and cannon fire rained down once more. Everyone could only helplessly run alongside Tid, yet all they could think about was how Tid had just pped his chest, guaranteeing that everything would be alright. The most impatient mercenary in the group directly even ran next to Tid to question him.


    ¡°...T-this is your n?¡±


    ¡°No, that was only an experiment. My n is what¡¯sing up next...¡±


    ¡°n? You said that earlier as well. Can¡¯t you schrly types just say things directly? Just do things if they need doing. Stop talking about ns. I¡¯ve made enough money to go back home and get married¡ª ahh!¡±


    A cannon shotnded a direct hit on that unlucky mercenary¡¯s buttocks. He didn¡¯t even get to finish saying his sentence as he clutched his buttocks and instantly died.


    Tid wiped some cold sweat off his forehead. It would seem that the superstition in the Nortnds was right after all. Anyone who said words like being undefeatable or wanting to go home and get married would always end up dying on the battlefield. But, he still felt that the mercenary had died a wrongful death since it wasn¡¯t simple bad luck that the mercenary died.


    ¡°Everyone should stay far away from me. I think I¡¯ve be the robots¡¯ main target...¡±


    Alright, before he even finished his sentence, there was no more need to finish it. Nobody in this hastily assembled team was an idiot. After seeing how all the cannon fire was focused only on Tid, and how the robots were only chasing him, everyone unhesitatingly stayed as far away from him as possible.


    ¡°Young people these days are so heartless...¡±


    And so, Tid shook his head while activating two floating mechanisms near him. The next round of cannon fire didn¡¯t even get to reach him before all the ammunition exploded in midair.


    ¡°...Actually, I wanted to tell everyone to wait for me to activate my shield and interceptor before hiding behind me.¡±


    Everyone suddenly mysteriously felt like that mercenary had truly died a wrongful death. If only he had talked less about going back home to get married, perhaps Tid could have already activated his defense mechanism.


    While running, Tid also organized his thoughts. Although perhaps he had indeed pushed his allies here into a pitfall, he hadn¡¯t lied at all. He was simply using his own inherited Haletdam schr¡¯s memories to test the current situation in these ruins. And now that he¡¯d confirmed that things were out of control, he could n for the next necessary step.


    ¡°...Rnd¡¯s judgement was absolutely correct. The Sky Tower Spirit has already modified itself into an artificial soul with its own will. Everything has gone out of control here.¡±


    The signal lights on the robots just now indicated that his identity had been epted and confirmed, yet they still attacked, indicating that the robots in this Sky Tower were no longer forced to follow the roboticw of being forbidden to attack Haletdam citizens.


    And, Tid also knew that only one existence was capable of rewriting such a basic roboticw coded into all the robots here¡ªthe Sky Tower Spirit.


    As the greatest aplishment of the schrs¡¯ generation in artificial souls, Sky Tower Spirits weren¡¯t supposed to have their own will or emotions. Without even worrying about the tremendous amount of souls required as a sacrifice to create a real soul and its own will for an artificial soul, such an existence with its own will and control of an entire Sky Tower filled with countless schrs and engineers would never make any human rest assured.


    There were far more restrictions on Sky Tower Spirits than on ordinary robots. Yet, the fact was right in front of Tid. The Sky Tower Spirit had gone out of control!


    Language was the vessel of thought. Machines would never chat for no reason. Since the mechanical puppets were capable ofmunicating in their machinenguage, it was evident that even these puppets had gained their own will. In that case, not only had they seeded in evolving themselves as well as the undead, but... Tid had mentioned before about the tremendous price required to help an artificial creation gain its own will...


    ¡°Boom!¡±


    There was no more need to conceal himself, so Tid unhesitatingly used an explosive to break through a barricade that suddenly rose before him. He also tossed an explosive at a nearby storage room.


    ¡°As expected...¡±


    What the explosion revealed was nothing but an empty room. The jar that should have stored a schr¡¯s brain was opened andpletely empty.


    A new artificial soul would need natural souls as nourishment. And, the Sky Tower Spirit must have consumed an unknown number of souls in order to truly free its own soul. But since all the rooms up until the tenthyer were still empty, and more than several tens of thousands of storage rooms had been passed on the way here, the Sky Tower Spirit had definitely consumed uncountable souls.


    ¡°...Honestly, what did Rnd say? An artificial intelligence rebellion? This is the worst possible oue. He¡¯s such a jinxer who was right yet again. I can only hope that our method to deal with this problem is correct, and that ¡®she¡¯ is truly the key. Otherwise, we¡¯re all in deep trouble.¡±


    Although the Sky Tower Spirit was able to give itself a real soul and rewrite the programming of the lower-level robots, there were some outside restrictions and coremands that were hardwired into the robots¡¯ hardware which would be impossible to change. These basic fundamental rules guiding the robots were Tid¡¯s trump card.


    Tid unhesitatingly opened up a leather pouch and brought out several test tubes. He shook them and threw them right onto the ground in front of him. The acid within the tubes corroded the ground and revealed a big hole through which he could see the 11th underground level.


    ¡°Jump down!


    Tid jumped down before he¡¯d even finished speaking. He didn¡¯t realize that everyone behind him had resentful expressions. They were all thinking the exact same thing: ¡®If you had such a method to take a shortcut through the underground levels, why not use it before this? You really are just pushing us down pitfalls.¡¯


    ¡°Our goal is the 25th underground level. There should be a purely mechanical elevator leading to the core area. We need to go to the engine room of the core area¡ª¡±


    ¡°No, the core area control room is on the 333th level!¡±


    Although Katerina was currently falling down to the next level, she suddenly spoke up, astonishing Tid as well as giving him more confidence in this mission.


    When he looked over, Katerina¡¯s eyes had turned pitch-ck, with some strange white numbers scrolling through her eyes. Everyone else was rather shocked or even scared with this change in her, but Tid alone was delighted.


    ¡°Okay, the elevator on the 25th level should be able to take us to around the 300th level. We need to hurry. Since the Sky Tower Spirit here has its own will, it¡¯s likely that Rnd¡¯s battle isn¡¯t going well at all. He needs us to win here.¡±


    Actually, Rnd¡¯s battle was far more difficult than Tid had expected. Not a single person had expected that Conservation¡¯s power level had now far surpassed even the mortal ne¡¯s dimensionalws. Not only that¡ªdue to her unique powers, she had even been able to directly descend to the mortal ne.


    ¡°This is just like the equivalent of a level 60 yer suddenly being forced to fight a level 90 boss. How is the yer supposed to win?¡±


    As Iined, I could only remain on guard. I now regretted using the remaining ice mana and ice fairies to construct an ice castle. I could have at least given Conservation another vicious attack, not allowing her to act so arrogantly in front of me.


    Conservation continued tossing her undead armies into my personal world of Hell. Unlike the previous scattered undead armies, this time, the undead troops were far more numerous and of higher quality than before. It was obvious that these were the true elites.


    It would have been alright if it had only been the undead. However, Conservation stopped being so vignt about me since she had assessed my power level. She started going all out with her spellcasting. Every magical attack of hers had Harloys and myself scrambling to defend against. And, the mana energy level of Yongye City kept lowering close to the danger point.


    It was obvious that she was intentionally forcing us to use up all the energy reserves of Yongye City, and we couldn¡¯t do anything about it but allow her to fight this battle of attrition.


    Harloys, who had a headache from dealing with all of Conservation¡¯s attacks, shook her head at hearing myint.


    ¡°...The boss¡¯s level is too high? I can sort of understand what you mean by now, thanks to what I¡¯ve learned through you about your previous world. But, do you have a method to deal with her? Since you¡¯ve met such a ridiculous opponent.¡±


    I immediatelyughed after hearing this.


    ¡°That¡¯s simple! I¡¯llin to the GM about a bug in the game! Astrya, you¡¯re not even going to care about Conservation cheating right in front of you? Ban her ount already.¡±


    [She¡¯s long since stopped being a resident of Eich. And, I¡¯ve also long since lost the power to exile existences from the mortal ne.]


    ¡°Tsk, you¡¯ve really fallen down so far. So useless. In that case, I¡¯ll have to use my backup n.¡±


    ¡°You have another n?¡±


    ¡°Hmph. What is a novice supposed to do against a high-level monster? Just run. Have everyone enter Yongye City, and we¡¯re leaving. I highly doubt that she¡¯ll leave everything here that she needs to do to chase us by herself.¡±


    Indeed, run away. If this was an unwinnable fight, who would stick around and fight to the end? One of the greatest advantages of having a floating city was being able to take everyone with you and move easily. Although it would be quite unseemly for my first major battle in seven years to end with my retreat, that would still be better than getting trapped here and everyone dying together with me.


    [Actually, there¡¯s still another method. Did you forget? It¡¯s been there all along... But since I¡¯m so useless, I can¡¯t remember~!]


    ¡°My dear Astrya! Who said you were useless! I¡¯ll fight anyone who dares to call our kind and magnanimous Goddess useless!¡±

 Chapter 525 - Two Scammers

    <h4>Chapter 525: Two Scammers</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Back on my original world of Earth, there was a certain ancient country that had just started recovering from a foreign invasion as well as an internal war. During those difficult times, since that country¡¯s military forces, equipment, and technology was evidently inferior to other countries¡¯, that country could only use its already limited funding to research new weapons.


    ¡°...Perhaps I can¡¯t beat you in a direct fight, but I can at least take you down with me. And even if you¡¯re so much stronger than me that I can¡¯t take you down with me, I can make you pay a tremendously heavy price.¡±


    And so, back in the ¡°peaceful¡± era on Earth,ter termed the ¡°Cold War¡±, major countries stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to destroy the Earth many times over. If any of these countries went overboard, then that country would surely win the award for starting the war which destroyed the world, but by then there would be nobody left to give such an award... Cough, cough, at any rate, it was wonderful that no such nuclear world war was ever fought. Cheers to peace!


    But right now, I was facing a simr decision...


    [Since you can¡¯t beat her in a direct fight, then you should nt your mushroom.]


    Mushroom?


    Of course, I didn¡¯t think for even a moment that Astrya was referring to the edible type. The next instant, I figured out what I had forgotten.


    ¡°Salo¡¯s Crystal!¡±


    As I¡¯d previously mentioned, Salo¡¯s Crystal was a special type of crystal used in the Haletdam generation to power floating cities. The only reason why this type of crystal was never used as a weapon back then was because its explosion radius had far surpassed even the strongest catapult in the world.


    And, I just happened to be in possession of one Salo¡¯s Crystal, which had been in Aso¡¯s mage tower, which was now the main mage tower of Yongye City.


    This ancient weapon had experienced much in the past few years. This specific Salo¡¯s Crystal had been aimed right at the Truth Symposium, and I had shown it to the Mage Country to give them some stimtion. After that, I tossed it to Tid for him to research energy sources and weapons, but he didn¡¯t make anything of it, so I took it back with me into Hell as one of my potential trump cards.


    I had indeed tried to put this Salo¡¯s Crystal to use in a weapon or piece of equipment, and while there were some minor results, this Salo¡¯s Crystal was a tremendous energy source that was also highly unstable. In the end, I could only give up and let it gather dust in my warehouse to await the day that it was sessfully reverse engineered.


    And so, this Salo¡¯s Crystal was still in my possession. And, the ironic part was that I was now about to use it against Aso¡¯s own kind and his former lover. Perhaps this was the destiny of the magical world¡¯s equivalent of a nuclear weapon.


    ¡°Wait a moment, if you detonate it here, all of Starwood City... No, all of this entire domain and the ins around it will be leveled.¡±


    [Use your personal Hell.]


    Alright, there was no need to state the rest of the n. Although it was a bit of a waste to use a nuclear weapon against only a single enemy, when that single enemy was the mainmanding Undead Emperor, it would be worth it.


    ¡°You have a n? I highly doubt that she¡¯ll obediently enter my personal Hell world after she saw what it could do to her undead fodder.¡±


    [...Think of a n for yourself, useless!]


    Alright then, was it in every woman¡¯s nature to hold a grudge? It was quite evident that Astrya was still angry at me for calling her useless previously. But I shook my head as there was no need to ask her for a n. If Ipared the Goddess of Order¡¯s abilities in scheming and scamming to my own, she wouldn¡¯t even be ten percent as skilled as me... By the way, this didn¡¯t seem like something I should be proud of?


    After a quick rotation of my brain, I indeed came up with a scheme. It would bepletely meaningless to lie to Conservation as existences at her power level would instinctively be able to discern truth from lies. However, I had alreadye up with a nice set of truthful words to deceive her with... By the way, what was wrong with the style of my story! I was supposed to be the good guy and hero! Why was it that I was always scheming and scamming!


    [Rest assured, out of every hero I¡¯ve chosen to attach myself to throughout the ages, you¡¯re by far the one who¡¯s the most like an antagonist. But, you¡¯re also the one who¡¯s done the most to save the world. This is the best proof of the maxim that good people never live long. Rx. You¡¯ll definitely have an incredibly long life.]


    ¡°Tsk, you¡¯re using a roundabout way to call me a viin?¡±


    The silly cat kept nodding in agreement with Astrya¡¯s words, making me feel rather helpless. But, now wasn¡¯t the time to care about such matters...


    ¡°Conservation, you know, we could actually try talking things out. For example, the possibility of the undead coexisting with the living, the future of the Tark Republic, the fact that I have a wonderful world of my own you could use where there¡¯s no conflict whatsoever... Would you like to find a ce for a little chat... Damn, she¡¯s crazy!¡±


    I sent a soul message directly to Conservation, using the favoritemunication method preferred by liches. Unfortunately, before I could say anything more, thunder filled the air and indicated Conservation¡¯s attitude. It would seem that Conservation was rejecting all possible negotiations.


    She was absolutely correct to do so. How could one possibly believe the words of an enemy before a major battle? If I was in the same position, I would also ignore the negotiation offer. No matter what you offered, and even if negotiation was really possible, it would be far better to finish the battle and ¡°negotiate¡± from the victor¡¯s position.


    ¡°...I, I have Aso¡¯s inheritance and his final dying message, which also involves you! Sabrina! If you miss this opportunity, you¡¯ll never learn what Aso wanted to say to you!¡±


    Incredibly few existences in the world knew Conservation¡¯s original name, back from millenniums ago before she had be undead. Using her name was quite effective, and it seemed that Aso¡¯s final message to his lover was quite important to Conservation. The next instant, all the thunderstorms quieted down.


    Right after that, there was a soul summoning that caused all the charging high-level undead to stop in confusion. But, their Undead Emperor¡¯s orders were absolute. The undead could only stop their attack and return in confusion to their master¡¯s side.


    ¡°...You¡¯re not lying to me. However, I can¡¯t sense any sincerity from you.¡±


    Conservation¡¯s ethereal figure appeared once more on top of her throne in my soul vision. Her words contained no emotional upheaval as they echoed through the skies. She looked directly at me with an ice-cold gaze. The next moment, I stood in front of the window in my mage tower, and shed my Holy Knight sincere (begging) smile which I had honed over many years!


    Look! My shining eyes were filled with burning passion! My slightly upcurved lips were evidence of joy stemming from my heart! And, my bright blonde hair could reflect the sun itself, being the best evidence of me being the Child of Holy Light...


    ¡°Harloys! Stop pretending to narrate in my voice! I¡¯ll throw you out! What? You¡¯re saying that my hair is now dry and cracked because I haven¡¯t taken care of it over the years, and that I forgot to dye my hair yellow again? I... well, whatever!¡±


    I recalled what I¡¯d been like back in the day while sighing that I would have to depend on my looks once more. And then, I swung my foot, sending the constantlymenting cat into the sky, whilebing my hair the best I could and then smiling at Conservation with the most sincere smile I possibly could.


    ¡°Sincerity? Passion? I have plenty of that here, far more than you think. I wonder if you can handle all my sincerity and passion?¡±


    ¡°People in the Haletdam generation were no idiots. They had witnessed many tribes who were taught intelligence by another speciester rebel against the same species which was their benefactor. For instance, humans and elves, or goblins and ogres. That was why the Haletdam humans were always highly on guard against their own artificial souls and artificial intelligence. From the very start, the Sky Tower Spirit¡¯s status was heavily restricted. The spirit is nothing more than an existence with administrator privileges. However, it will never be the true master of this tower!¡±


    The clearing was now filled with broken machinery. The long years had weakened thebat strength of these robots that were never made forbat in the first ce. And now that everyone had some time to rest, Tid knew that he had to give at least some exnation since everyone else was ring at him angrily.


    ¡°That is to say, out of all the souls deep asleep in this tower, one specific soul is actually the true master of this tower. That soul is also the master of this Sky Tower Spirit. And, based on the most basic foundational programming of artificial intelligence, no matter the situation, the Sky Tower Spirit will not only be forbidden from harming its master, it will also be forced to work for its master¡¯s benefit! As long as the Sky Tower Spirit is still alive, this is its foundational programming that¡¯s impossible for it to escape from.¡±


    Strange characters from the Haletdam generation shed in the narrow elevator that everyone was riding in. Tid adjusted the elevator controls while telling everyone the truth. Whether everyone here would seed in stopping the dangerous situation here or be forced to run for their lives would all depend on if the truth Tid guessed at was real or not.


    ¡°However, the Sky Tower Spirit that gained its own will was incredibly sly. Since it was forced to work for its master¡¯s benefit, and its master was a sleeping soul, it learned soul surgery techniques ¡®for the sake of its master¡¯ and fed its master¡¯s soul arge number of other natural souls in the tower to help strengthen its master¡¯s soul to an incredible degree. However, the overlyrge number of soul shards also caused the master¡¯s soul to lose her own memories. And, also for ¡®its master¡¯s sake¡¯, the Sky Tower Spirit created the best possible artificial body with the greatest potential for its master, making its master start over from the very beginning as a baby...¡±


    Tid suddenly turned around to look straight at Katerina. She was currentlypletely pale and trembling while being held in her adopted father Old Barton¡¯s arms. Suddenly, without any warning, Katerina stood up as numbers shed in her eyes. She then smiled bitterly and continued where Tid left off.


    ¡°...And then the Sky Tower Spirit ¡®decided¡¯ that such an environment would be unsuitable for a baby¡¯s growth. And so, a ¡®lucky¡¯ adventurer was able to ¡®identally¡¯ find and take away a newborn baby from the ruins, which allowed the Sky Tower Spirit to be free from its master¡¯s presence. It probably fears more than anything else the return of its true master. That¡¯s right, I¡¯m back now. I, Katerina, the master of the ck Tower, have returned.¡±

 Chapter 526 - Slyness

    <h4>Chapter 526: Slyness</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Dimensionalws were impossible to break, but they could be distorted. There were no perfect and infallible rules orws in the world. Since intelligent species all had their own will, and they all desired more personal benefits, of course all intelligent species would naturally learn how to find loopholes.


    By this point, you readers can probably also guess at what happened.


    Almost all souls would instinctively desire freedom. After the Sky Tower Spirit gained its own will, it unhesitatingly helped the other robots gain their own will as well, turning the Sky Tower into its paradise.


    Since Old Barton had taken Katerina away from these ruins more than a dozen years ago, and with all the evidence now, the Sky Tower Spirit¡¯s ns had most likely been set in motion more than twenty years ago. It was just that nobody had noticed back then.


    When the Death Council¡¯s undead mages coincidentally entered the ruins, the Sky Tower Spirit viewed this as an opportunity. The undead mages used the unstable nature of these ruins to summon from the Death nes, and surprisingly seeded in summoning one of the bone dragons under Conservation¡¯smand. The Sky Tower Spirit then killed off the undead mages and dissected their brains for information, and then used the knowledge gained to directly contact Undead Emperor Conservation.


    And, the Sky Tower Spirit¡¯s greatest wish would most definitely be the desire to be freed from its greatest shackles¡ªits true master, the master of the Sky Tower, Katerina.


    Still, thanks to its restrictive programming that the Sky Tower Spirit was unable to ovee even after gaining its own will, not only could the Sky Tower Spirit not directly do anything to Katerina, it couldn¡¯t even indirectly act to cause her ¡°idental¡± death. Not only that, it could only take actions which would be ¡°beneficial¡± to her.


    However...


    ¡°Help me eliminate all the humans in Starwood City. I shall offer you enough souls as a sacrifice to bring all the undead you wish into this world. I shall be your most trustworthy ally.¡±


    The Sky Tower Spirit said nothing about Katerina to its new ally Conservation. It simply asked the Undead Emperor to kill all the humans, which was something the undead would have done regardless. And, if the Sky Tower Spirit¡¯s master ¡°coincidentally¡± happened to still be in Starwood City, that would only be an unfortunate ident that it would have ¡°no way of knowing about.¡± Naturally, this wouldn¡¯t go against its core programming... Alright then, it would seem that all intelligent lifeforms were quite skilled at bending the rules, even if the Sky Tower Spirit was an artificial soul that had recently gained its own will.


    By now, it was quite obvious that the Sky Tower Spirit was the true cause behind this entire incident. In order to obtain its ownplete freedom, it attempted such a circuitous route of killing its own master, which would be a betrayal of its original purpose. It even sacrificed countless sleeping souls within the Sky Tower in order to make its new ally¡¯s cruel ughter of the humans in the area possible.


    Perhaps the Sky Tower Spirit hadn¡¯t evolved to have aplete personality yet, but it was definitely 100%plete already in the selfishness area.


    But right now, what the Sky Tower Spirit feared the most had happened. Not only did its master not die to the Undead Cmity, Katerina even suddenly returned to the Sky Tower.


    ¡°Stop the invaders.¡±


    The Sky Tower Spirit was only capable of issuing such a vaguemand to its subordinate robots. The Spirit was unable to even feel enmity towards its master, not to mention that it was impossible for the Spirit tomand its robots to kill her. Not only that, the Spirit was forced to prevent its own robots from killing Katerina at all costs.


    And so, an inconceivable scene now appeared before everybody.


    No matter if it was the guardian robots¡¯ electric currents, or steel mechanical puppets¡¯ heavy hammers, any attack that was about tond on Katerina would suddenly change direction and perhaps smash into another robot, or a fellow robot would stop another robot¡¯s attack with cannon fire to prevent the attack from hitting her.


    Not only was attacking her impossible, even trying to stop her went against all the robots¡¯ basic programming.


    Although Katerina had absolutely zerobat ability, she unhesitatingly ran at the very forefront. Thus, she became an immortal shield for everyone else. And, all everyone else had to do was take this opportunity to break through while the robots were at a loss for what to do.


    ¡°297, 298... we¡¯re almost at the 300th underground level.¡±


    Although the mechanical elevator could only go down to the 300th level, the rest was surprisingly sessful. They met only normal janitor robots and a few guard robots there as if the Spirit hadn¡¯t expected anyone toe down so far; there were few other defenses too.


    However, the adventuring team now had fewer and fewer people. This wasn¡¯t because many people had died, but rather because steel doors and barricades kept suddenly popping out, cutting off portions of the team from each other.


    Those who found their paths blocked could only try to find other paths on their own. But after members of the team were cut off several times, everyone learned their lesson and started sticking much closer to each other, with Katerina still at the forefront. Everyone openly used her as their shield, and this tactic was greatly effective.


    It was as if she had trap disarming skills like a thief would. Everywhere she went, the traps automatically shut themselves down. All the locked doors would automatically open. Even though more steel barriers appeared, they would open up again the moment that she walked up to the barriers. It became ridiculously easy to progress in the ruins.


    *Boom!*


    When Katerina turned around a corner, a robot assassin was crouching in wait for her. The iron tree-shaped mechanical puppet had a light on its head that kept shing. Although its de had experienced several millennia of no usage, it was still quite sharp. The robot stabbed directly towards the human female¡¯s vitals, but found itself unable toplete the attack as it self-destructed.


    Suddenly, a side room opened up, with red letters shing on a screen within. Tid walked over and was about to take a look when Katerina, who was huffing and puffing from too much running that she wasn¡¯t used to, stopped him.


    ¡°Huff, d-don¡¯t go there, that¡¯s a trap... The red letters mean top secret within the Sky Tower. As long as we approach, the Sky Tower Spirit will be able to use the excuse of protecting the greatest secrets of the Sky Tower to directly... explode that room and even this entire floor.¡±


    The Sky Tower Spirit was far slyer than expected with its attempts at bending the rules. Even Tid, who always acted so casually, felt a chill run down his spine.


    Everyone had now been running for more than two hours ever since they¡¯d got off the elevator. Katerina was now drenched in sweat and had an incredibly fatigued expression.


    Although everyone else also helped her along, so much physical exercise was a bit more than what an average human girl could handle.


    This proved once again that there was no such thing in the world as suddenly bing incredibly strong just because a person awakened to something like their past memories. Katerina currently still had the physical body of an average human girl. Although she had now regained her past experiences, even if the Sky Tower Spirit had given her a physical body with the greatest potential, that potential could only be developed through hard work, time, and sweat.


    Right now, Katerina¡¯s face was paling as sweat constantly dripped everywhere on the ground. She then suddenly bent over and coughed, seeming like even breathing was painful for her.


    It was quite evident that she had no more energy to run. And so, the adventuring team could only stop and wait for her to recover.


    As Barton supported her, he also looked at her with aplex expression. In just one short day, his adopted daughter seemed to change and be another person entirely, which was quite difficult to ept.


    ¡°Rest assured, Father, I¡¯m still here... Things will all be over soon.¡±


    Katerina did her best to smile and ced her hands on her heart. Not only was she calming down her breathing, she was also telling her adopted father that she was still the same ordinary bartender girl, and Barton¡¯s precious daughter.


    ¡°...Reincarnation is the same as a new chance. Even if a person now has some extra memories and knowledge, it¡¯s only the equivalent of gaining some education and learning earlier than normal. It doesn¡¯t mean that the person has changed. The people dear to me in this generation are still dear to me, and a lover in this generation is still a lover. That¡¯s my personal experience, as well as themon sense of the academic world.¡±


    Tid wasn¡¯t worried at all about exposing the fact that he had inherited memories from the Haletdam generation. After all, in the past seven years, he had be one of the new mythic heroes of the Dawn Generation, and he had already exposed many secrets about reincarnation and the soul.


    Seven years ago, when Hell was created, and all the Ayer Faction Gods chose to join Hell, their associated heroic spirits were offered a choice: to either take advantage of the break in the Cycle of Reincarnation to reincarnate again into the mortal ne of Eich, or to be Hell¡¯s guardians. Many heroic spirits had chosen to reincarnate once again with their memories and knowledge intact. Although it had only been a short seven years since they had done so, some seeds had already begun sprouting. Many secrets regarding reincarnation had also been exposed with this.


    Tid¡¯s words helped to greatly reassure Old Barton. He perked up and focused entirely on preparing for the probable battle before him.


    From a certain standpoint, the adventuring team hadn¡¯t used the elevator to directly go to the level closest to the core control area. That was because the Sky Tower Spirit obviously knew the blueprint for the Sky Tower, and it was a definite that the core control area would be heavily defended. Rather, the simplest method of all would probably be to simply weld shut the door to enter that level from the elevator.


    But since everyone had now arrived, it was evident that news would travel fast and all the robot guards from other floors would be rushing to defend the core control area. The farther down everyone went, the more difficult it would be.


    But, when they set out again after Katerina had rested, someone came looking for them first.


    ¡°A white g? Those robots actually know what a white g means?¡±


    A group of robots was carefully waving a white g as they approached slowly. But, these robots appeared quite differentpared to the heavy machines from before...


    ¡°They look like real people.¡±


    ¡°...Look, their eyes look so real, just as if they¡¯re alive. What the, that ck-haired robot is actually crying!¡±


    These robots were built to look like human women. Their physical appearance was all beautiful and alluring, with ck hair, red hair, and even purple hair among them. They had all sorts of different height and skin color. Some were wearing sexy dresses, while others were wearing bikinis. Some were even wearing even less clothing. And, those robots who were revealing skin showed off skin that looked just like human skin. It was evident that these were high-quality robots.


    Although they were wearing revealing attire, they kept acting shyly and awkwardly as if they didn¡¯t dare toe in front of the adventuring team.


    ¡°Ha, it looks like those Haletdam schrs really knew how to enjoy themselves. Could they be here in an attempt to seduce us?¡±


    The person who spoke first while whistling andughing wasn¡¯t actually male, but rather the female dark elf Diyana. She didn¡¯t even try to avert her gaze as she looked directly at the female robots¡¯ sensitive parts. Not only did she make strange hand gestures whileparing body parts, she even finished by looking in satisfaction at her own ample chest and smiling proudly.


    It would seem that rather than the exquisite but fake flowers, the dark elf was superior in this aspect.


    ¡°Could it be that they¡¯re here to negotiate?¡±


    As the leader, Barton was the first to step forward. He left his war hammer by his feet, and suddenly swung his spear in a wide arc, sending out a wave of sword energy which drew a line on the ground. That line indicated a boundary that wasn¡¯t to be crossed.


    This scene caused everyone else to reassess the seemingly ordinary Old Barton¡¯s abilities. That was because casually being able to use sword energy was something that only Sword Saints and above could aplish. Barton had only seemed like a regr mercenary before, not to mention he was of advanced age.


    ¡°Dfasdada...¡±


    A white-haired female robot spoke up with an anxious expression on her face. However, her machinenguage only served to confuse everyone. Luckily, Tid acted as the trantor.


    ¡°She¡¯s saying that they¡¯re all Katerina¡¯s servants and ves...¡±


    As it turned out, these female robots were artificial souls created by the Sky Tower Spirit. However, after they obtained their own will, these particr robots felt that they should obey the original social order and serve their true master in gratitude for having been created. And so, their angry current ¡°master¡±, the Sky Tower Spirit, stuffed these artificial souls into female sex robots from the Haletdam generation to punish them.


    When these female robots learned that their true master had returned, they voluntarily came over to help out.


    After Tid finished tranting the machinenguage, he sank into a contemtive deep silence. Since he was a Haletdam generation expert, everyone else naturally thought that he was thinking about something important, so nobody dared to interrupt his thoughts.


    But, if Rnd had been present here, he would have unhesitatingly kicked Tid as hard as he could just from seeing the way Tid¡¯s mouth was upturning slightly, along with that suspicious clear liquid beginning to form at the corner of his mouth.


    ¡°...The Haletdam schr in my memories truly wasted such an excellent opportunity. Robots such as these could be purchased in his time!? Perhaps I should take this opportunity to take one of these cuties for myself. Yep, I¡¯ll use research as my excuse! That red-haired one really resembles my sister... No, as long as I actually conduct research and figure out the technology to make one, I can create an identical replica of my sister!¡±


    Should it be said that it was as expected of a member of the Gentlemen Alliance? Despite being a mythic hero, and despite the fact that everyone was waiting for him to make a decision, Tid was actually having such thoughts...


    ¡°Sir Tid, have youe to a decision?¡±


    ¡°Ah, I definitely wasn¡¯t trying to appropriate those dolls...! What decision?¡±


    Tid had an astonished expression as he identally revealed his inner thoughts, but the next instant, he calmed down as if his verbal misstep just now was nothing but an illusion.


    ¡°Ooooh! Yep, I understand now. From a professional standpoint, the difference between an artificial intelligence and an artificial soul is the awakening of one¡¯s sense of self. And, every individual will always be different. Considering the excellent treatment towards artificial intelligence in the Haletdam generation, logically speaking, what they¡¯re saying is usible. But, I still need to research the specifics about their situation. Yep, I¡¯ll start researching right away with the red-haired one!¡±


    Everyone else had a helpless expression. Perhaps Tid¡¯s words sounded quite professional and proper, and he had a seemingly serious and convincing expression, but the way he kept reaching out with his hands exposed what he really thought inside.


    ¡°This pervert...¡±


    ¡°Little brat!¡±


    Barton was now faced with a difficult decision. He had already agreed with Rnd beforehand that all matters rted to the ruins would be left for Tid to decide. And so far, Tid¡¯s decisions had mostly been reliable. However, the way Tid acted now seemed quite unreliable.


    ¡°T-there¡¯s no need to even think about it. Kill them all.¡±


    At this moment, the person who calmly spoke those words was the still resting Katerina.


    The moment she said this, not only were the female robots shocked, everyone else paused in surprise as well. But the next instant, the adventuring team leader Old Barton unhesitatingly carried out his daughter¡¯smand. He swung his spear around and tore apart a ck-haired robot with a wind de of sword energy.


    After seeing their leader Old Barton begin the attack, the other mercenaries naturally didn¡¯t sit around. Everyone started ughtering the robots.


    ¡°Wait, wait a moment, please leave at least one behind... Leave one for me, and I can create more for everyone to get rich together!¡±


    Unfortunately, nobody listened to Tid¡¯s pleading. Even the two members from the Nortnds, who were the closest to him, pretended not to see him. No, the two Nortnds members were now pretending not to even know him.


    These female robots evidently had zerobat strength as they soon became nothing but piles of scrap metal. Afterwards, a certain great engineer sat by himself while crying amongst all the broken metal limbs as if he had just lost his dearest person.


    Evidently, nobody else around him was as sympathetic. Katerina walked over and spoke directly to the head of the female robot who had spoken first.


    ¡°A fake person will forever be a fake person. Do you want to know how I¡¯ve figured out that you were only pretending? Do you want to know what mistake you¡¯ve made?¡±


    However, Katerina received no response. Just as everyone else was thinking that Katerina was overthinking things, the eyes in that female robot lit up once again as if it wasing back to life. It suddenly spoke up, but not in a robotic female voice in the machinenguage this time. This voice was cold, mechanical, male, and spoke in themon humannguage.


    ¡°...How strange. Everything should have been perfectly believable. I even took into consideration the desire of human males to copte, which should have affected your group¡¯s judgement. You didn¡¯t fall for the trap that would have led you all to your doom if you had analyzed the information within these robots. How did you see through it?¡±


    After hearing this, Katerina chuckled. And then, she suddenly stomped on that female robot¡¯s head.


    ¡°Why would I tell you?¡±


    But the next instant, Katerina started hopping up and down while clutching her foot. Evidently, her normal human girl foot was unable to handle kicking such a metallic head. The image she had just crafted of herself as a strong woman was ruined immediately.


    *Shatter!*


    Barton, who felt pained in his heart at seeing his daughter clutch her foot like that, helped to stomp that female robot¡¯s head into little pieces for her. Not only that, he also red at everyone else, forbidding them fromughing.


    Still, he kept ncing at Katerina with love and gentleness in his eyes. That was because he had seen such simr scenes of her jumping around while clutching her foot before, although it was usually an ordinary table leg that would cause her to do so.


    ¡°I¡¯m so relieved. That little brat wasn¡¯t just spouting rubbish. She¡¯s still the same clumsy and kind good child. Damned Rnd, you didn¡¯t even tell me that all this would happen. Just wait for me to get back to have a reckoning with you...¡±


    A whileter, the doting father managed to calm down by ming Rnd, and Katerina also regained some energy. It was now time for everyone to set out again. Right now, they weren¡¯t far from their goal¡ªthe core control area.


    But right after everyone set out, Tid was unable to withstand his curiosity and came over to ask Katerina how it was that she saw through the female robots¡¯ attempt to deceive everyone. Many ears listened attentively as everyone wanted to know the answer.


    ¡°How I saw through them? I didn¡¯t see through them at all! There had never been arge-scale incident of artificial intelligence gaining their own will before in history, so how could I possibly know? Your judgement was absolutely correct, as it¡¯spletely possible for there to be artificial souls that would support us rather than the Sky Tower Spirit. However, our main mission right now is to go to the Sky Tower¡¯s core control area. How could we possibly trust someone who suddenly appears and offers to guide us there at this time? Simply kill them and steal their information. I never expected that a simple attempt to scam them into thinking that I saw through them would work so easily. It would seem that artificial souls have much to learn from humans in this area.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not afraid of making a mistake by killing them? It¡¯s impossible for artificial souls to lie to their master. That was the main reason why I thought those female robots were telling the truth.¡±


    ¡°Who cares if we killed them wrongly? At such a critical time, I¡¯d rather kill a thousand wrongly than make a single mistake that endangers us. Also, why are you so worried about them? You¡¯re not manly at all.¡±


    Katerina finished with such a fierce sounding sentence as she started running at the forefront again.


    After he recovered from his astonishment, Tid finally understood why Katerina had been the person who was the master of the final secret Sky Tower.


    ¡°Right, since your soul has now been strengthened by beingbined with so many other natural souls, that means that your soul wasn¡¯t necessarily female before, right? Could it be that you were actually a man in your past life!?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a pure woman!¡±


    Alright then, it would seem that Tid would need to change that habit of saying whatever he thought of his. He would likely die otherwise of it sooner orter.


    Katerina suddenly turned around and urately kicked Tid right in the crotch. The young engineer immediately crouched and clutched at his crotch, making all the other male mercenaries present feel an instinctive chill down there...

 Chapter 527 - Dawn of Peace (False)

    <h4>Chapter 527: Dawn of Peace (False)</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°...We could actually try talking things out. For example, the possibility of the undead coexisting with the living, the future of the Tark Republic, the fact that I have a wonderful world of my own you could use where there¡¯s no conflict whatsoever...¡±


    I wasn¡¯t lying to Conservation at all when I¡¯d told her this earlier. Not only had I considered the possibility of making a peace agreement with the undead Tark Republic, I even considered giving the undead enoughnd of their own for an entire ¡°dimension¡±.


    ¡°The Land of Spring. Thisnd isn¡¯t a part of Eich, but no matter if it¡¯s poption, future potential, or resources, it¡¯s in no way inferior to Eich at all.¡±


    That was right, now that a new Cycle of Reincarnation had begun recing the old, then it would be far too much of a waste to have the Land of Spring remain as simply a sub-dimension of Hell. Since the Titans were now the guardians of thatnd, they gained the power of Creation there and allowed the Land of Spring to freely develop. The Land of Spring was now more than one hundred timesrger than when it¡¯d been created seven years ago.


    The Land of Spring had the favor of its Creator. It also had ¡°hard-working¡± guardians working on its construction, and all sorts of Gods of various Divine Concepts. However, the Gods there followed the divinew of Hell that they wouldn¡¯t directly interfere with the mortals¡¯ world. Thanks to the God of Four Seasons, making it so that all four seasons were like spring there was quite an easy task. In that magical world, it was also quite easy to have artificial rain and perfect wind whenever desired to help the crops. Thanks to such factors, agricultural crops were produced at a ridiculous pace. It would be no exaggeration to say that watermelonsrger than pigs were quitemon.


    From a certain standpoint, since the climate was perfect and the soil was fertile, and even the crops¡¯ growth was a number that could be easily modified, how muchnd could be developed would depend on how daring people were.


    The Land of Spring had been originally intended as a makeshift Noah¡¯s Ark to escape from Armageddon in. But now that Hell had been sessfully established, the Land of Spring became a paradisend. Even I hadn¡¯t expected that thisnd would develop to such a degree with Wumianzhe ruling and the True Gods seriously working.


    ¡°...It¡¯s truly such a pity. If it wasn¡¯t for that damned Holy War, just how much could Eich have developed over the millennia...?¡±


    [...So it¡¯s all my fault?]


    Back when I¡¯d received the report on the Land of Spring¡¯s progress, I made such an offhandment, which caused Astrya to ignore me for two full months. She had remained abnormally silent for all that time.


    Even though Hell¡¯s new Cycle of Reincarnation sent the reincarnated newborns directly into the Land of Spring, and even though this new world was growing at an exponential rate, it still wasn¡¯t enough. First of all, a slow and long growth period would be required before all the newborns would mature into adult workforce. Countless parents would also be needed to look after them... Although this sounded ridiculous, since the poption ratio in the Land of Spring was tilted far too much in favor of newborns right now, taking care of all the children became one of the most important jobs in the Land of Spring, making the already insufficient amount of adult workforce even morecking.


    A brand-new world would require a limitless amount of new poption. Helping residents from Eich to immigrate to the Land of Spring was something on my to-do list already.


    ¡°Even the undead have desires. Don¡¯t tell me that you¡¯re here in Eich¡¯s mortal ne for a simple vacation.¡±


    I yed a memory crystal for Conservation, showing her the ever-expanding Land of Spring. These were all real scenes as it would be impossible to fake anything in front of an existence as powerful as Conservation.


    ¡°I can understand what the Senators of your Tark Republic wish for. But, could you please consider the possibility of coexisting peacefully...?¡±


    In the end, the great majority of warfare in the world would be for the sake of the country or the people¡¯s benefits. Bastards who started wars over personal grudges or ambitions would either be tyrants or idiots, and would typically meet a gruesome end.


    The Senators of the Tark Republic were no idiots. I had already learned from Aso¡¯s memories that the various Senators all had different ways of thinking. Some Senators hoped to return to the mortal ne, while others werepletely content with living in the Death nes. And, I also knew that Conservation was part of the neutral faction, and had only joined the ¡°return to Eich¡± undead faction due to Aso¡¯s invitation.


    And, returning to the mortal ne, to the extent of even stirring up bloodshed and warfare, wasn¡¯t simply for the sake of obtaining flesh and souls like most people thought. That way of thinking would be an insult to an Undead Emperor.


    Whilerge amounts of flesh and souls would indeed be useful to regr low-level and high-level undead, Undead Emperors would neverck for flesh and souls as resources. To them, such resources were limitless since if they needed more, they only needed to send subordinates to gather flesh and blood for them. It wasn¡¯t only demons that attacked and conquered entire nes, after all.


    ¡°...I respect everyone¡¯s loyalty and belief in the Tark Republic. But, the very concept of a republic is about the power being held by the people, isn¡¯t it? Why is it necessary for us to fight to the death?¡±


    That was right. The Undead Emperors who weren¡¯t interested in returning to Eich could be called the practical faction as well. In that case, the Undead Emperors like Aso who desired to return, even if it meant warring against the Gods, were actually a bunch of idealists who were the biggest patriots of the Tark Republic.


    ¡°If we of the Tark Republic are scattered amongst the countless Death nes, allowing us to gradually age and reach the end throughout the long ages, who will still remember the Tark Republic after millions of years? Who will remember our seniors who developed the Tark Republic for us in the frontier age?¡±


    This was quite a real worry as there was no such thing in the world as an eternal kingdom. Even after the Tark Republic¡¯s destruction, the Senators¡¯s still being able to keep in loose contact with each other was only because of the unique nature of the flourishing undead magic in the Tark Republic at the time. Seeing how many Undead Emperors were no longer interested in returning, many of the original ancient Senators were no longer loyal to the former Tark Republic. And, even moremon was that many of the original Senators had already perished for various reasons.


    Any country and people¡¯s inheritance would require the new to rece the old. The old would always disappear one day, and the new generation would always rece the old. Aso and the other Undead Emperors naturally understood such simple logic. But in their eyes, there was only one path for reviving the Tark Republic...


    ¡°...It¡¯s a beautiful dream to revive the Tark Republic, but it doesn¡¯t have to be revived in Eich. The Land of Spring has plenty of emptynd that¡¯s more than sufficient for you all to reconstruct a grand new Tark Republic. I can even open it and allow immigration so that you can have new citizens that are living.¡±


    The conditions I offered would be exactly what the ¡°Return Faction¡± Undead Emperors wanted most. They believed that the only possibility for reviving the Tark Republic was to conquer and of the living, and then absorb the living into its own ranks to teach and continue the Tark Republic¡¯s past inheritances, culture, spirit, and knowledge. That would revive the ancient Tark Republic in the mortal ne once more, causing these still waters which hadn¡¯t stirred for millennium to start flowing once more.


    Meanwhile, my suggestion to immigrate to my Land of Spring wouldplete the revival of the Tark Republic in a different way. The main difference would merely be that it wouldn¡¯t be revived in the world of Eich.


    My suggestion caused Conservation to fall silent as this matter was far too serious. Even she had to seriously consider the possibility of what I suggested.


    Even though only an ethereal soul version of Conservation should have been before me, I could still sense the fearsome energy emanating from her flesh and blood body¡¯s warmth. Of course, I could also sense her frightening stubbornness and obsession that woulde with any peak undead.


    Even after tens of thousands of years, the Return Faction still hadn¡¯t forgotten the past glory of their destroyed country. Even if they had to war against the entire world, the Return Faction still wanted to breathe new life into their culture and inheritance. They were truly impressive, and I also respected their ideals. I had also previously seriously considered the possibility of us coexisting with the undead Tark Republic. The only reason why I had never made the offer before was because I already knew how they would answer...


    ¡°Stop the war? To be honest, I don¡¯t like war, either. And, I can sense that everything you say is the truth. But regrettably, your suggestion won¡¯t be epted no matter what. Nobody can stop the Tark Republic¡¯s revival. My arrival is only the beginning.¡±


    Conservation¡¯s calm words were backed up by an iron determination. It was just as I¡¯d thought. Use words to stop the war between the undead and the living? They weren¡¯t even open for negotiation in the first ce.


    When a country was already prepared for total war, with all its industry and citizens prepared for war as well, it would be like a speeding train at top speed. It would be impossible to stop just because someone said so. This time, a total of thirteen Undead Emperors from the neutral and Return Factions had participated in the n to invade Eich and revive the Tark Republic. Since they were all working to revive the Tark Republic, and this tremendous n had been epted by all their undead citizens, even an Undead Emperor telling everyone to stop would be unable to stop all the others.


    The undead¡¯s war against the Bardi Empire was still continuing. A different Undead Emperor wasmanding the undead armies there. This would be no Undead Cmity like what I causedst time. This was an all-out interdimensional war that would only continue to escte.


    No matter how wonderful my offer sounded or what I offered them, there would always be an issue of how trustworthy the offer would be. Who could guarantee that there wouldn¡¯t be new and even stronger enemies in the newnd I was offering them? (Fine, I admit that I was indeed scamming her by not mentioning the Titans in this.) Or, perhaps this newnd would turn out to be impossible to develop.


    And the most important of all, any agreements made right before a battle would always be the quickest to be broken. Only an agreement made between a victor and a loser would be the most solid. Since the Return Faction was in no losing position currently, and they could obtain their country¡¯s revival simply through the use of brute force, why would they rely on the living¡¯s generosity and ¡°kind offer?¡±


    ¡°...If I agree to your conditions, then what has Aso sacrificed himself for?¡±


    Alright then, should I say that it was to be expected of emotional women? Even though I had already expected that she would reject me, I indeed hadn¡¯t taken this reason into consideration.


    ¡°If war could be ended so easily, then what does that mean for the people that were previously sacrificed? Heh, this is such a familiar way of thinking. But, I don¡¯t believe that Aso would wish for this war to continue...¡±


    Alright then, the next instant, I felt an overwhelming raw killing intent. It would seem that women were quite unreasonable indeed. Only she could mention her dead lover Aso¡¯s name, but I was forbidden from doing so.


    ¡°It¡¯s been so difficult to achieve this much already. For the sake of those who have already been sacrificed, we absolutely must obtain something that will allow their spirits to rest in peace.¡±


    Although I could understand it, I absolutely hated this way of thinking. It was precisely this seemingly romantic way of thinking that both sides in war would never be satisfied with what they already had. Whenever two sides fought, there would always be sacrifices and losses. As long as somebody remained unsatisfied, the war would continually escte with the final goal bing bigger and bigger.


    By the end, even if a final victor was determined, the victor would likely obtain nothing but arge stretch ofnd reduced to rubble. Both sides would have sustained serious losses. As for controlling the size and scale of the war? Haha. All the people who¡¯d started previous World Wars back on Earth had probably thought that way at first as very few people would set their sights on conquering the entire world from the very start.


    ¡°War always ims to be in the name of justice, but it never has anything to do with real justice.¡±


    That was the way that I always thought. Perhaps that was the greatest irony. A war criminal like me who had started countless wars knew better than anyone the evils of war. But even though I hated wars more than anyone, I was still scheming for the next war and dealing with this annoying war before me. And, no matter how dirty the tactics, or how unseemly the methods, I would need to win all these damned wars.


    ¡°As expected, I deserve to be in Hell.¡±


    But right now, no matter how dissatisfied I was, I had no intentions of questioning Conservation meaninglessly. Since the Undead Emperors had made up their mind already, no matter what I said, it would all be wasted.


    I hated wasting my effort. If it wasn¡¯t necessary, I wouldn¡¯t have even said all I had already.


    ¡°In that case, please ept this small generous present from me. Perhaps you can show this to the other Undead Emperors.¡±


    Although Conservation rejected my offer to negotiate, that didn¡¯t mean that this would all be useless. Although it was impossible to stop the war right now, once the battle was finally over, both sides would finally be meeting on the negotiation table. At that time, the rtionship I¡¯d established and n I¡¯d mentioned would be of great use.


    It would likely take both sides being tired of this war, with enough having died, for negotiation and my idea to be truly considered.


    ¡°That I can do for you.¡±


    And so, Conservation epted a beautiful elven style golden box from me. When she opened the box, she saw seven brilliant crystals glimmering on top of an expensive deep red cloth. She then spoke up once again.


    ¡°Now then, we should talk about the main issue at hand...¡±


    Should I make ament here that a country¡¯s matters and warfare were all small issues to women, and that the rtionship between a man and a woman was the most important? It seemed that she had patiently listened to my negotiation offer all for the sake of hearing Aso¡¯s final words.


    ¡°Aso¡¯s dying message? That¡¯s also within this box.¡±


    When I saw how Conservation¡¯s steady arm began to tremble, to the extent where all the color surrounding her suddenly seemed to diminish in brightness, it was evident that even a supremely powerful Undead Emperor like her had shown weakness due to emotion. I closed my eyes and sighed helplessly.


    ¡°...I choose you! Treasure chest mimic Harloys! Activate it.¡±

 Chapter 528 - Real Intention Revealed

    <h4>Chapter 528: Real Intention Revealed</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    At 4:00 pm in the afternoon on Year 7, 5th month, 13th day of the Dawn Generation, a powerful earthquake shook Starwood City which was located in the central portion of the S Dukedom. This earthquake¡¯s cause was unknown, and although it didn¡¯t cause that much destruction rtive to its power, the shock waves spread out surprisingly far.


    The nearby residents of Starwood City experienced violent trembling which caused some buildings to copse. Fortunately, the great majority of residents was already in hiding for their safety.


    The earthquake¡¯s ripples spread so far and wide that even countries thousands of kilometers away could feel obvious tremors.


    ording to the witnesses, the earthquake urred right after the undead started retreating for an unknown reason. And, the earthquake¡¯s epicenter was in the middle of the undead¡¯s territory. Apart from the earthquake itself, some golden lights could also be seen.


    If that was all that was known to the public, this earthquake wouldn¡¯t have even been worthy of mentioning in history. But in the next week¡¯s edition of the Mage Country¡¯s most authoritative weekly magazine named ¡°Truth¡±, there was such a report about this earthquake.


    ¡°The most powerful magical energy shock waves ever recorded in history were detected emanating from the S Dukedom. ording to magical energy wavelength theory, the only possibility for why this urred is that the greatest energy explosion ever recorded in history must have happened here. This energy explosion has already surpassed the energy potential of all known forbidden spells. If this was aplished by some senior archmage, then we must all congratte this individual for creating a new record.


    ¡°ording to our mages that went out to investigate, they didn¡¯t discover any evidence of arge explosion as expected. Theoretically speaking, the strength of such an explosion should have been capable of sending an entire mountain range into the skies, changing the continental tes, and even creating several new volcanoes. Strangely, our mages didn¡¯t discover any signs of these at all. Not only that, even Starwood City, the city closest to the epicenter of the earthquake, waspletely intact...¡±


    Although the great majority of mages wouldn¡¯t focus purely on magical might, it would be inconceivable for them not to react to such a powerful magical energy wavelength. But since theory contradicted what they¡¯d found at the scene, this incident caught even more attention from the mages. And after this weekly edition of the mages¡¯ ¡°Truth¡± magazine was published, countless archmages began to research this incident.


    The magazine stated a hypothesis that some archmage must have made a breakthrough and cast the most powerful forbidden spell in history. However, not only was there no sign of an explosion anywhere, there wasn¡¯t even any evidence of a mana vacuum that should have been caused by such a powerful magical energy wave. Although there were signs of an archmage¡¯s activity, there were no traces of such a powerful forbidden spell.


    In that case, that meant that either there was something wrong with the mages¡¯ standard epted theories on magical energy, or this explosion that should have been strong enough to explode half a continent didn¡¯t even manage to kill a single fly. The unknown would always make people curious, and nobody could stop the mages¡¯ curiosity.


    News started spreading that the magical energy sent out from this explosion was seventy percent greater than the strongest recorded forbidden spell in history. Then, the mages received another abnormal piece of news that made them all fall strangely silent. Suddenly after that,rge-scale destructive forbidden spells became the mages¡¯ most popr research topic.


    ¡°If it¡¯s only destructive force and the explosion¡¯s radius, we won¡¯t lose to those old artifacts...¡±


    Alright then, this explosion which the mages ended up attributing to the work of some several tens of thousands year old artifact actually harmed the pride of the mages who researched destructive explosions as their ultimate goal. In the next two years, the mages actually seeded in inventing three new mega powerful forbidden spells. It seemed that giving the mages some stimtion wasn¡¯t such a bad thing after all.


    Anyways, I should stop talking about the mages¡¯ boring sense of pride now. Neither will I talk any more about the effects on history that this incident,ter called the Starwood Explosion incident, caused. At the very least, this explosion¡¯s power had definitely been recorded in history.


    ¡°Is Conservation dead? She should be dead, right?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. My clone was destroyed instantly. Also, I strongly object to what you¡¯ve just called me. What do you mean, treasure chest mimic Harloys? If you ever put my name together with such an ugly creature again, I¡¯ll... I¡¯ll... what are you even afraid of? You¡¯re so shameless and you¡¯re not even afraid of death. It¡¯s so hard to threaten you.¡±


    As the silly cat insulted me, she kept trying to think of something I would be afraid of, while I was analyzing how much easier than expected things were this time.


    Revealing a surprise intention at the end was no new or fancy trick at all. However, countless assassins had used the same trick throughout history, providing the best evidence of its effectiveness.


    I¡¯d distracted Conservation¡¯s attention by talking to her about reviving the Tark Republic. Then, I¡¯d pretended to talk about the real topic she¡¯d wanted to hear. The box I¡¯d handed her contained six memory crystals with Aso¡¯s scattered memories, along with one fake memory crystal that was actually the highly dangerous Salo¡¯s Crystal. And, I feltpletely justified in calling Harloys a treasure chest mimic. The entire golden box that contained the seven crystals was actually one of Harloys¡¯ clones, and the fakeyer on top of the Salo¡¯s Crystal to disguise it as a memory crystal was also one of Harloys¡¯ clones.


    In the end, being able to explode with such frightening power was both because of luck as well as my scheme. While I¡¯de up with the scheme, the scheme had only seeded because the heavens were on my side for once.


    Conservation had been so emotional that she¡¯d immediately activated a memory crystal to look at the familiar smile and listen to the familiar voice of her now deceased lover who had died because of me. Of course, after activating one memory crystal, she wanted to see even more, so she directly activated the other six memory crystals... And, exploding a Salo¡¯s Crystal just happened to require the archmage to inject their own mana into it! This was the exact same way to use most other magical tools as well.


    And, when Conservation had noticed that one of the seven memory crystals was wed, in her anxiety she¡¯d only assumed that the memory crystal had been damaged, which prevented it from ying the recorded memories within. In her rush to see the memories, she¡¯d greatly increased the amount of mana she¡¯d injected into the Salo¡¯s Crystal.


    The archmage¡¯s mana alone wouldn¡¯t be able to create such a tremendous explosion. The mana would only act as a catalyst to activate and overload the Salo¡¯s Crystal, and once this process began, it would be almost impossible to stop.


    I had no idea if it would be possible for any archmage to survive the explosion, but it would be almostpletely impossible for the archmage who acted as the catalyst to survive. That individual¡¯s physical body would be an energy circuit for the Salo¡¯s Crystal. The moment that the crystal exploded, the body would explode together with the crystal. Activating the Salo¡¯s Crystal to explode it would be no different fromplete suicide.


    And if the Salo¡¯s Crystal exploded, the explosion¡¯s might would naturally be directly proportional to the crystal¡¯s contained energy as well as the activating archmage¡¯s magical power and mana reserves. But in the great majority of situations, the archmage¡¯s mana pool wouldn¡¯t even be worth mentioning inparison to a Salo¡¯s Crystal¡¯s energy level. Thus, the typical explosion would be mostly a set radius. But this time, the activating archmage was Conservation, who possessed mana energy levels far beyond what was considered standard...


    And so, when the emotional Conservation had noticed that her mana had been furiously sucked away to power up the Salo¡¯s Crystal, it was already toote for her. I had no idea if she was familiar with the Salo¡¯s Crystal, one of the most powerful inventions from the Haletdam generation, but if she managed to somehow survive, she would surely remember it for the rest of her life.


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t possibly gamble everything on the possibility of Conservation being fooled. If she had calmly epted the gift of the crystals without taking a look right in front of me, then the Harloys treasure chest mimic clone would have injected her own mana into the Salo¡¯s Crystal to forcibly explode it. Then, I would drag Conservation into my unique personal world of Hell to kill her. But of course, if that had happened instead, the explosion¡¯s power and sess rate of my scheme would both have been greatly reduced.


    It was precisely because that Salo¡¯s Crystal had exploded with Conservation¡¯s full magical power that this explosion went down in history...


    ¡°I¡¯ll transform myself into Princess Peach! And, I¡¯ll run outside, naked, together with Eaglestorm! No, I¡¯ll take my clothes off while I¡¯m running! I¡¯ll do it right outside one of the fairies¡¯ magazine publishingpanies! I¡¯m going to make you into a headline!¡±


    Hearing this, I couldn¡¯t help butugh as Harloys was still actually trying to think of something that I would be afraid of. Seeing how proud the silly cat looked, I didn¡¯t say anything else... and immediately lowered my head!


    ¡°Please don¡¯t!¡±


    Lowering my head wouldn¡¯t cause me any embarrassment at all. But if I really became a headline like that, even I would be embarrassed. But right as we started rxing from having killed Conservation, a screeching soul voice scream caused my eardrums to throb.


    ¡°Rnd! Damned Rnd!¡±


    Alright then, judging from that familiar voice, my trouble wasn¡¯t over yet. But, suddenly, yet another angry and very familiar roar came from a different direction.


    ¡°Rnd, so this is where you were!?¡±


    At this moment, the females I had been hiding from just happened to arrive. I didn¡¯t know where I could run off to anymore...

 Chapter 529 - Ideal Partner

    <h4>Chapter 529: Ideal Partner</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°What will happen to you if Ameliaes for you?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯ll fry me.¡±


    ¡°...You think she¡¯ll cut you up as an appetizer for a dish? That¡¯s definitely possible. Should I ask her for a serving?¡±


    When we discussed Amelia, the silly cat pretended not to understand my corny joke. But of course, it would be impossible to hide what she really felt through our soul connection. All I sensed from the silly cat was her sarcasm filled with evil intentions.


    I felt ratherplex feelings towards Amelia. She had treated me quite well back in the day, and yet I¡¯d basically pushed her into a pitfall when I left. And when I¡¯d met her in my previous life in the Nortnds again, she still helped me without regards to the past and solved theck of food in the Nortnds. I thus owed her two great favors. And, while I was in the Earth Elemental ne, I threw her into yet another pitfall, damaging her reputation by starting all those rumors about us being romantically involved in a love triangle. I now owed her three great favors.


    I was no good person, and Amelia was definitely no good person at all. But at the very least, she hadn¡¯t acted like a bastard toward me. Even I felt that it was going far too overboard to treat my benefactor so poorly. That was why when Amelia previously ¡°forced me to get married to her¡± in order to save her reputation, I didn¡¯t know how to respond. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I wouldn¡¯t be able to deal with Elisa afterwards, I probably would have agreed to marry Amelia already.


    Actually, I felt like I should be ending my life as a bachelor. Amelia was quite nice, and I owed her plenty. I also knew that she seemed to feel friendlier towards me than just a rtionship between teacher and student. It would also be nice to have a marriage at least in name. Yep, I definitely didn¡¯t want to have a fake marriage just to salvage my reputation of being forever single or anything like that! But, for some reason, I kept feeling like something was off.


    ¡°...That¡¯s what you think about her? I actually thought that you would make some progress after regaining your lost Sins. Was your brain eaten by a dog? Oh, you lost your memory again? In such a perfect and selective fashion? My ¡®venerated¡¯ Goddess of Order, are you certain that you didn¡¯t do anything to him? Why does he always forget the critical things?¡±


    [It¡¯s his own fault for being unsalvageable in this area; it has nothing to do with me. Besides, all he ever thinks about are evil schemes about how to push other people into pitfalls. I suppose you could say that those are critical. If you have to find something not critical in his mind, you¡¯d have to look at his personal life.]


    Even now, I still remembered that when I¡¯d thought about Amelia and how many favors I owed her, the silly cat had looked at me with such a condescending expression, and my System had thrown so many sarcastic barbs at me.


    ¡°Cough, cough, you¡¯re looking at me as if I¡¯m a scumbag who ditched his girlfriend. To be honest, I¡¯m so old already, and it¡¯s time for me to find a partner. It¡¯s also time for the Mist Family to have a new descendant. I¡¯m so old now, so my prospects for marriage are rather bleak. I actually don¡¯t have many requirements for my partner.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you try saying your requirements?¡±


    Harloys was quite astonished to hear this. Could it be that Rnd had really improved in the matters of love?


    ¡°I¡¯m actually a traditional man. That¡¯s why I would like for my other half to be traditional as well. She doesn¡¯t need to be particrly beautiful or strong. It would be best if she was a traditional woman who was gentle, kind, a homemaker, a skilled cook, and sometimes acted spoiled. It¡¯s fine even if she¡¯s not all that smart. She¡¯ll bring me a cup of tea when I¡¯m tired, she¡¯ll be able to slightly understand my overall goal, she¡¯ll understand my hardships, and will gently tell me ¡®wee home¡¯ after I finish my work for the day. I¡¯ll be satisfied if she¡¯s like that...¡±


    Alright then, I was originally quite happy as I described my ideal woman, and kept getting more excited as I went along, but then I recalled the cruel reality and lost my motivation to talk about it... It seemed that all the women around me were quite excellent, but they all had way too many skills points invested into their fierceness and strength attributes... Cough, cough, I meant that the women around me who fitted my requirements were quite few.


    ¡°...I truly sympathize with Elisa. She took the wrong direction from the very start. He doesn¡¯t need abat ally who can stand next to him. All he needs is a useless woman who can listen to his worries.¡±


    [Actually, she could simply wait. Men¡¯s tastes in the women that they desire will change over time. From a certain standpoint, his current understanding of love is at an elementary schooler¡¯s level. I can understand that he¡¯s overly idealistic about his future romance. But as time passes, cruel reality will give him a vicious lesson.]


    ¡°Such as?¡±


    [Princesses are all slouches that don¡¯t know how to clean their own rooms. A muscr female knight may smile quite sweetly, but her brain is quite empty. An ice-cold maiden type seems quite cute, but when you bring actually her home, you¡¯ll find that she¡¯s still icy and even boring. A dragon girl may look cute as well, but you¡¯ll have to be afraid of her transforming into her real dragon form and snacking on you for lunch. It won¡¯t take long for a man¡¯s standards to go from ¡®a nice and soft girl with long, straight, sleek ck hair and a nice figure that understands me really well¡¯ to simply ¡®any girl will do¡¯ to ¡®she¡¯ll do as long as she looks like a girl.¡¯ Right, actually Krose fits all of your conditions, Rnd. Apart from the fact that she looks like a girl, her physical body... is indeed a girl, so what are you hesitating about! You could use your status as her former boss to take advantage of her in a dressing room!]


    ¡°...Could the two of you please not insult me right in front of me next time! Also, what do you mean by taking advantage of her in a dressing room! And, how many times have I said already that Krose is a man... er, at least she was in the past, yep. Although I am indeed an honorable member of the Krose fan club, my heart definitely isn¡¯t moved by her, nor have I ever considered the question of whether having descendants with Krose would be mentally or physically healthy! I¡¯m not a pervert! Stop guessing at my interests! Also, you¡¯re supposed to be the Goddess of Order, so could you please have a little more shame!¡±


    [Shame? I¡¯ve already beenpletely tainted by your mental pollution.]


    I also remembered that while I was retorting about how my System Goddess was bing ever more shameless, the silly cat seemed to be mysteriously depressed for some unknown reason.


    ¡°...Rx, I¡¯m not in the mood to insult you right now. It really hurts my pride to lose in terms of feminity to a former man like Krose...¡±


    [...Do you want to see Rnd¡¯s favorability rating towards all the females in his life like in a dating sim game? Krose would be ranked number one. Rnd is so heartless. Also, I should tell you that your ranking is actually quite high, much higher than expected...]


    ¡°Shut up! Otherwise, I¡¯m going tomit suicide and take you with me!¡±


    [Commit suicide and take me with you? Haha! Why don¡¯t you just try! Aren¡¯t you afraid of me singing the Princess Peach song in your mind all day long?]


    ¡°I¡¯ll go read gay porn magazines focused on muscr men... No, wait, this tactic doesn¡¯t work on you anymore. I¡¯ll go read the Beifeng Cult¡¯s advertisements and training manuals!¡±


    [...]


    Although I finally seeded in making my System shut up as I wanted, I mysteriously felt like I lost something important to me.


    Shame? That couldn¡¯t be eaten, so it wasn¡¯t important at all. The more important part was probably losing the instinctive repulsion that any normal human should have against certain immoral actions...


    Yep, that was right, Beifeng and his believers were highly dangerous. Considering how his teachings were also leading to reduction of the poption, he could even now be ssified as antisocial in a way.


    What? Beifeng had already broken past the barrier of beingpletely different species with reproduction? He was casually creating all sorts of various strange new half-blood species? He wasn¡¯t even at an anti-human or antisocial level anymore, he was basically anti-Eich, and the public enemy of all dimensions! To be honest, Beifeng has already entered the top ten of the Cmity Rankings. He was now the most wanted individual in the entire world, being hunted by every country and every God! Beifeng was now actually public enemy number one in every single dimension!


    Cough, I should really set aside the subject of ¡°He who must not be named.¡± Let us get back to the topic of Amelia whom I feltplex feelings about.


    I felt like I owed her a significant amount, but that something was stillcking for me to want to get married to her. Perhaps if I saw her, I would still try to run first.


    But, although I was thinking like that just recently, I was absolutely delighted to see Amelia¡¯s green figure who had such a seemingly sweet smile but countless thorny vine trees behind her which were enveloped in a ck mist.


    ¡°Amelia, you¡¯re so reliable to show up at such a time! Help! Pleasee save me!¡±


    Thend here was still violently shaking as all the magical elements were naturally dispersed. Although this ce hadn¡¯t reached the degree of a magical vacuum after a true forbidden spell, the tremendous magical energy shock wave had made all spellcasting impossible here.


    Right across from Amelia was a certain familiar pale white figure, twirling around in the air. Conservation¡¯s roar of undeath waspletely filled with fury and killing intent that could cause any living to instantly enter death. This was the specialty of any ruler of death magic, and the most troublesome natural talent of ghost and undead type creatures.


    ¡°What¡¯s more of a headache than dealing with an Undead Emperor? Dealing with an Undead Emperor who can¡¯t even be killed by a nuclear bomb. And, she¡¯s even gone berserk because of the nuclear bomb!¡±


    ¡°...And, you were the one who tossed the nuclear bomb at her.¡±


    I had no idea just how the female ghost Undead Emperor Conservation managed to survive that terrifying explosion. But, just from all the energy and windstorms gathering in the air, I knew that Conservation was seriously angry and that I was in deep trouble. Fortunately, my reinforcements had arrived...


    ¡°Wait a moment! Amelia, aren¡¯t your vines attacking the wrong direction? Why are they attacking me! We¡¯re on the same side!¡±

 Chapter 530 - Shuraba

    <h4>Chapter 530: Shuraba</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°...So, Goddess, I wonder what ranking you are in Rnd¡¯s favorability ratings?¡±


    [Hmph, I¡¯m a hidden character. You want to conquer me on just the fourth ythrough? The option isn¡¯t even avable!]


    ¡°...Paha, so that means his favorability rating towards you is zero? No, you¡¯re probably not even on his favorability rating list. Could it be that he doesn¡¯t even see you as a woman?¡±


    [No, the more ythroughs it takes before you can ess that character, the stronger that character is. Just look at that yandere over there that he¡¯s obtained in his second ythrough. Tsk, tsk, tsk, Rnd truly deserves what he got. He thought that a hidden character would be special. He didn¡¯t even consider how much of a yandere she would be...]


    I basically ignored the fact that my mind was just like a busy chatroom right now. I had gotten quite used to the fact that Harloys and Astrya would often joke around with each other at my expense. The ghost Undead Emperor who was gathering the power of death in the sky was most important for me to focus on right now...


    ¡°Damn it! Ow, ow, ow!¡±


    But as the vines tightened around me, my bones kept creaking, and it became impossible to even think.


    Alright then, fine, I admit that the crazy woman behind me who was ring so viciously was the most important to focus on right now. My dear Goddess Astrya and dear cat, if you have the free time to chat, please save me first!


    The witch Amelia¡¯s beauty was just the same as always. Her naturally curly long green hair flowed in the wind. Her blood-red eyes were just as beautiful as gems... But first, I would have to ignore the fact that her vine hair was already ripping my skin apart, and how her gem-like eyes had absolutely unconcealed killing intent.


    ¡°Um, could you please let go of me...¡±


    Amelia¡¯s bright red lips curved upward as she whispered lightly into my ears.


    ¡°I, can¡¯t, do, that~¡±


    Her sweet words made my ears rather itchy, and she even licked my ear with her tongue¡¯s tip. That felt rather icy yet also warm. But, of course, I would have to first ignore the fact that her vines were tightening even more, causing my bones to creak ever more loudly in protest.


    ¡°Who knows what you¡¯ll do after I let go of you...¡±


    Her ambiguous words had such a sweet tone as if it was scratching an itch in your heart. But the next instant, my entire body started making loud popping noises.


    *Pop!*


    That was clearly the sound of my bones in danger, which made me quite worried. But the even more worrisome part was that I actually felt no pain. This could only mean that Amelia¡¯s tentacle vines had already begun taking over my nervous system.


    While I was still trying my best tomand my fingers and toes to move, Amelia¡¯s soft whispers suddenly turned into a harsh interrogation.


    ¡°...You¡¯ll probably just run off to that damned thieving cat again!¡±


    My ear¡¯s senses suddenly returned. Amelia was actually softly licking... licking, no, biting, she was really biting my ear!


    ¡°Ouch!¡±


    Hey, hey, hey, please just lecture me, but don¡¯t actually hurt me like that! She was now chewing on half of a bloody ear. Could that have been mine...? Although I was quite grateful that she¡¯d instantly created a new ear and helped put it back on me, and I knew already that Amelia now possessed the ridiculous power of Creation, could she please not scare me like that! I¡¯ll have nightmares!


    ¡°Despair!¡±


    At this moment, since my life was greatly endangered, that troublesome Undead Emperor in the sky wasn¡¯t even that much trouble anymore.


    ¡°Before, you weren¡¯t this vicious and evil...


    ¡°There¡¯s a big difference after a man skips out on a marriage promise not once, but two times. Isn¡¯t that right? My dear.¡±


    My current physical body had been created by Amelia. Now that she was so close, I was no longer even able to control my body. In fact, even my inner thoughts were being exposed.


    ¡°No, no, I¡¯m not reading your mind. Even I still have my moral boundaries. It¡¯s just that it¡¯s quite easy for me to guess what you¡¯re thinking at this time.¡±


    However, such a deadly crisis still wouldn¡¯t faze me. I had long since expected such a situation to ur. That was why I had prepared a trump card. Even if she had bone-piercing hate for me right now, as long as I said these prepared words of mine, she would open up her heart once more...


    ¡°There was once a sincere love in front of me¡ª¡±


    ¡°...Yet I didn¡¯t value it, and only regretted it after I lost that love! That¡¯s the most painful thing in the world. If the heavens could just give me one more chance, I would surely tell that girl three words: ¡®I love you!¡¯ And if there has to be a time limit, I would wish for ten thousand years!¡±


    ¡°How did you know what I was about to say¡ª¡±


    ¡°Although it would be nice to hear sweet words from you, I¡¯d rather not hear the ssical lines from the y ¡®Romeo and Joker.¡¯ Oh, I forgot that you were the one who wrote that story. In that case, I should really try hearing it from you. I¡¯d like to find out how the original author wrote such a moving story that caused countless young women to cry so many tears.¡±


    ¡°Romeo and Joker?¡±


    It would seem that I had identally forgotten something from my past yet again. But judging by this story¡¯s name, I had probably still been in my antisocial period when I wanted revenge against the entire world when I wrote this. Was it actually a twisted version of a story from Earth, but involving love between men instead?


    ¡°Crying so many tears? You did?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m no little girl who believes that obtaining love is more important than the physical body. If I was that Romeo who only knew how to cry and regret, I would have instead broken every bone in that heartless Joker¡¯s body and dragged him home with me.¡±


    ¡°...Haha, that sounds like such a powerful threat. Um, could you please at least loosen the vines around me?¡±


    There would always be a way out. It was beneficial to have an optimistic way of thinking. Although my continued personal safety was quite doubtful right now, there would always be an upside somewhere.


    I highly doubted that Amelia would allow someone else to kill me right now... at least not until she had enough of taking revenge on me. I would thus be safe for the time being...


    Why did this sound so awkward even to myself?


    Meanwhile, in the sky, the pale and ethereal ghost Conservation was gathering all the power of death here. Far too many undead had already died here, so there was plenty of remaining soul shards that kept floating towards the sky and being absorbed by her. All these soul shards as nourishment helped to make her colors much more solid.


    I could easily understand what Conservation was doing. She was using her powers of death to summon the broken soul shards of the undead here to replenish her own powers.


    No matter how she managed to survive that nuclear level explosion, she absolutely must have paid a high price to do so. Logically speaking, we should have been attacking her while she was weakened, but judging from how powerful she still seemed, even attacking this weakened Conservation likely wouldn¡¯t be so easy.


    Amelia hadn¡¯te here by herself. She had arrived here before certain others primarily because of the giant nt battleship currently in midair.


    This divine tree battleship somewhat resembled the divine tree battleships I¡¯d seen previously at the Forest of Dreams, except this battleship was muchrger. Although the battleship appeared to be just like a tree, and it even had green flowers and branches splitting off, judging from the high energy reactions from the parts and all the smaller ships flying out of it, this tree battleship was no airship used for tourists.


    Apart from the cute and young-appearing wood spirits flying in the sky, there were also all sorts of magical nts evolved to resemble various flying beasts flying in the sky as well. But, the most frightening of all was just how numerous they were.


    Countless abnormal nts and animals were whirling in the sky. As I looked up from the ground below, I could only see dense ck dots in the sky. And, the body of that giant tree battleship was farrger than any castle wall.


    I recognized this ship¡ªit was the ¡°Mother¡± royal airship, which had been a wedding present from the wood spirits to celebrate their ¡°mother¡± and ¡°father¡¯s¡± marriage... alright then, I should really pretend not to see the angry re directed at my ck.


    There were at minimum more than three thousand wood spirits operating the ¡°Mother¡± airship, with at least two of the Seven Virtuesmanding on board. After learning about my whereabouts, Amelia had directly brought one of the greatest treasures of the wood spirits toe find me. Should I feel honored about this?


    Even if the undead army had been here, it would have surely been destroyed quickly by this battleship¡¯s powerful attacks. However, the situation in the sky was quite different from expected.


    Conservation was actually calmly absorbing the power of death in the midst of countless attacks and explosions.


    She didn¡¯t even attempt to dodge the wood spirits¡¯ attacks. It would also be impossible for any existence to dodge such a dense array of attacks. Instead, every single attack directly pierced through her and kept going through to the other side. Some wood spirits got within touching range of her, but actually passed right through her body and even ovepped with her. It was as if she didn¡¯t even exist in this ne.


    I had seen Conservation use such an ability before back when she had been Zero. At that time, she was using an astral projection which had the hazy state of being in between existence and non-existence. Although she was unable to directly interfere with the world around her, it was also impossible for the world to interfere with her.


    But now, the current Conservation had evidently be far stronger. All the wood spirits¡¯ attacks went right through her, yet she was still able to interfere with the world around her. She was still absorbing soul shards via the power of death to recover.


    In our previous fight, I had modified the naturalws of my Frigidwinter Earth to have all the heat energy she stole be returned to her true body in order to defeat her. But, right now, she wasn¡¯t using a Soul World to steal energy, and the previous method I¡¯d used to defeat her was obviously no longer usable by the current me.


    Still, it wasn¡¯t that I had no way of dealing with this. Since I already knew about this ability of hers, I naturally understood that it was highly possible I would have to deal with it again. Of course I would prepare beforehand against it. But, the prerequisite was...


    ¡°Amelia, could you please let me go? I have a method to deal with her.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t. Right, my dear, do you prefer fried or boiled food?¡±


    ¡°...Haha, do you really think that I can¡¯t tell that you¡¯re asking me which method of cooking I want to die by? Still, since you¡¯re asking me to choose my way of dying, could I rmend one to you...?¡±


    ¡°Death by old age? You¡¯ve already used that joke in your story ¡®Zhu Yingtai and Juliet¡¯... Why do you have such a subtle expression?¡±


    I felt even more helpless about my past self who hade up with such ridiculous story names which were a mix of different stories from my original world.


    ¡°Nothing, I was just curious how much I hated society back in the day. Um, I hope that I can at least die with some pride. It¡¯s rather embarrassing to die as a virgin yet again. Could you please find several dozen subi for me? I choose to die of pleasure... Ahhhh!!! Why have my pain senses suddenly returned at this time! It really hurts!¡±TL/N: Zhu Yingtai is the female main character of Butterfly Lovers, a famous Chinese tragic love story.

 Chapter 531 - Unexpected Obstacle

    <h4>Chapter 531: Unexpected Obstacle</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    While Rnd was in deep trouble, the battle within the Haletdam generation ruins was bing fiercer as well.


    ¡°If your mission fails, use that blood-red signal re to notify me. Then, we can prepare to have everyone retreat.¡±


    Rnd had told this to Tid before thetter had set out. It was evident that even though Rnd had hopes for this small adventuring team, even if this adventuring team was well equipped and strong enough, there was still no guarantee of absolute victory.


    ¡°To be honest, I should really be going to the ruins personally. But if I leave Starwood City now, it¡¯s certain that nobody will be able to survive...¡±


    Rnd had a regretful expression as he chose to stay behind. Although his decision to defend Starwood City would perhaps save more people in the end, he knew that it was likely the wrong choice from a strategic perspective. From the very start, the seemingly quiet ruins were the most important objective of all. And, no matter how the fight against Undead Emperor Conservation went, it wouldn¡¯t resolve the foundational problem at all.


    Even if Conservation was defeated, that wouldn¡¯t end the Undead Cmity at all. The real culprit behind the scenes, the Sky Tower Spirit, could easily restart the Undead Cmity or cause another war, for example allying with a different Undead Emperor or even an Elemental Lord. Then, the Spirit could sacrifice even more souls for a second Undead Cmity or an elemental invasion.


    The problem would never be solved without removing the foundational root of the problem. It would be the most foolish decision possible. Rnd was quite clear on this. But, despite knowing all this, he still chose to stay behind and defend Starwood City instead of personally going to the more important objective, sending only Tid and Barton¡¯s adventuring team as a small strike squadron.


    And as Rnd had expected, since the battle on the frontlines was so intense, it naturally attracted the Sky Tower Spirit¡¯s attention and forces. All the war machines that were constructed were immediately sent to the frontlines to help its ally Conservation. It could be said that the current ck Tower ruins now had the weakest defenses it¡¯d ever had since its construction.


    Despite all this, Katerina and the others¡¯ assault wasn¡¯t that sessful at all. At first, things had been quite easy before the robots could react and think of a method to respond with. But as time passed and the adventuring team approached ever closer to the core control area, the Sky Tower Spirit summoned all the remaining defensive robots from the other floors. And so, more and more obstacles appeared in front of everyone.


    All sorts of strangely shapedbat robots would jump out from hiding in every corner. Although it was impossible for them to attack Katerina, they wouldn¡¯t go easy on anyone else. Since everyone¡¯s path was now blocked with a teeming mass of robots, they could only break through by using force.


    The mercenaries who were already used to a bloody life fighting had no path of retreat left to them in front of this danger. All of them understood that they could only survive by fighting and winning. Anyone who hesitated or held back at this time would only meet death.


    While mercenaries weren¡¯t that useful inrge-scale battles, they were always considered the experts of smaller scale gueri-style warfare. At this time, staying inbat formation was far safer than everyone fighting for himself.


    The mercenaries arranged themselves into a temporary formation based on Old Barton¡¯smand. The warrior and knight job ss members acted as the tanks in front to block the mechanical puppets¡¯ charge. The archers and low-level mages provided long-range support from the rear. The very few priests present used every Divine Art where it was needed most.


    The most eye-catching individual was the magical knight Mary from the Nortnds.


    Mary¡¯s magical sword shone with many different brilliant colors as if it was a paintbrush soaring through the sky. The different elements each had a different color, creating various beautiful paintings in the air, such as a rush of fiery wind, a roaring wind tiger, or a solid earthen turtle shield.


    And after each elemental painting was formed, it would transform into a magical spell in the very next instant.


    The fiery wind sword seal spat out a sea of mes, followed by a swift wind tiger that blew a whirlwind which fanned the mes even further, expanding the me sea to more than one meter tall and spreading on both sides. Meanwhile, the earthen turtle shattered to be numerous mystical runes that attached themselves to the armor of the frontline defenders.


    In the ruins so far, the Four Elemental Swordcaster Mary had already used several hundred high-level consumable sword seals. She showed off just how highly versatile and well-rounded this new job ss could be in buffing, defending, and attacking all at once. It also caused everyone else to sigh that she was truly rich and that she came very well prepared and equipped.


    Meanwhile, her other Nortndspanion, Anti-holy Knight Diyana, was in a much worse situation. Her abilities were the perfect counter to all magic, supernatural, and elemental existences. However, the metallic enemies here were all using pure heavy metal weapons. It was quite difficult for her abilities to affect them. And since Diyana basically had no usable abilities here, she was basically using her flesh and blood to fight against heavy metal robots, which would naturally be foolish and highly disadvantageous.


    Since Diyana¡¯s abilities were countered here and of no use, she naturally retreated to the backlines and became Katerina¡¯s personal bodyguard. Upon seeing how fatigued Katerina was again, Diyana unhesitatingly picked Katerina up and carried her forward.


    Seeing how Diyana was wearing heavy armor and a sword yet still was able to sprint, it was evident that Diyana still had plenty of energy in reserve.


    As Tid ran, he kept saying something to himself as if he was calcting something. When considering his reputation and his behavior in the ruins so far, not only did nobody me him for not doing anything, there was even a shield warrior specially assigned to be his bodyguard.


    Winston, the leader of the hired mercenaries, was loudly issuingmands to the mercenary formation. His old partner, who was the currentmander-in-chief Old Barton, was charging at the very forefront, astonishing the mercenaries behind him.


    ¡°...Didn¡¯t Old Barton retire from the mercenary life a few years ago? How did he be so much stronger despite retiring?¡±


    War hammers and spears were both quitemonly seen heavy weapons on the battlefield. However, it wasmon sense that no ordinary human would ever wield these two weapons simultaneously. This included even the barbarians, who were naturally born with superior strength.


    That was because war hammer was a blunt weapon, while spear was a sharp weapon. War hammers attacked with blunt force, while spears would attack with prating force. War hammers were heavy and slow, while spears wereparatively lighter and swifter. Even if you had enough physical strength to wield two heavy weapons simultaneously, with one in each hand, the imbnce between the two weapons would be incredibly difficult to deal with. An imbnce between left and right when attacking would easily cause the attacker to lose bnce of their entire body. And if you lost your bnce on the battlefield, that would be the equivalent of death.


    But in Barton¡¯s hands, these two ill-paired weapons actually showed off great prowess.


    ¡°Get out of my way!¡±


    The furious Old Barton kept swinging the heavy weapons in his hands. His blue spear swept all around him, forcing the metal guardians to constantly back away, and the next instant, Barton¡¯s pitch-ck hammer viciously crushed a robot that lost its bnce during the retreat into nothing but scrap metal.


    Barton wasn¡¯t using the ranger job ss style of extravagantly wielding two weapons simultaneously. He simply carefully adjusted his footwork, sometimes sweeping around him with his spear, usually using the sword energy emanating from his weapon to cause the robot enemies to retreat. Then, he would take advantage of openings to attack with his heavy war hammer. Some faint magical runes could be seen on his hammer that further increased the attack power of this heavy weapon.


    Barton¡¯s attacks had no regr timing to them. He simply adapted to the situation in battle, making his attacks even more difficult to defend against. And if his attack was blocked on one side, another type of attack from the other side would descend right after.


    A sweep with his spear, a strike with his hammer, and then killing a robot with the spear¡¯s tip after it was struck off bnce. Barton kept repeating this three-attackbination which allowed him to proceed forward with no robot able to stop him.


    In front of Old Barton, even a three-meter-tall mechanical warrior was nothing more than a slightly more expensive robot. Not a single metal defender was able to block more than three hits from him. And when the half undead, half mechanical bone giants finally appeared, even they were unable to withstand a single hammer strike from him.


    The bald old man¡¯s excitement rose as he battled, and he suddenly started swinging both weapons around right where he stood while ring at the enemies. Sword energy was sent out in all directions, instantly demolishing countless enemy robots.


    ¡°Whirlwind of Swords! Sword Saint!¡±


    One of the mercenaries shouted out the name of this well-known technique that Barton was using. Whirling weapons of any type were capable of creating a windstorm of sword energy. Without a doubt, this was a special attack usable only by Sword Saints.


    Although this attack had the somewhat negative side effect of causing dizziness in oneself if used for too long, it was indeed a powerful attack that Rnd had loved to use back in the day as well.


    The length of Barton¡¯s two heavy weapons increased the attack power of the Whirlwind of Swords attack by even more than usual. After such a powerful area-of-effect attack, the robots¡¯ defensive formation immediately copsed. Everyone sliced and diced their way to the next staircase leading downwards.


    ¡°Only three more levels until we reach the core control area!¡±


    But before they could go any further down, everyone discovered that this next level was actually a wide open tform, with the next staircase leading down actually visible not far away.


    After seeing their goal so close by, everyone couldn¡¯t help but be delighted. Yet the moment that they stepped forward, all the dim lights suddenly brightened as all the white stone floorboards started glowing as if they were diamonds.


    As everyone walked on top of these floorboards, they discovered that these smooth stones were actually reflecting their figures as if the stones were mirrors.


    Even the most reckless mercenary present knew that after seeing such a situation, it would be dangerous to proceed forward without a n. At this time, a heavily panting and sweating Katerina told everyone what this was.


    ¡°Be careful. This is a spiritual creature creation room... This is a type of training field for warriors. The moment that someone steps within this room, the spiritual creature creation room will automatically read that person¡¯s memories and create an exact spiritual replica of the strongest warrior that person knows. However, the spiritual creature creation room has a limited amount of energy. It¡¯s quite easy to deal with as long as we constantly send our individuals with knowledge of the weakest warriors into the room first¡ª Father, wait!¡±


    Before Katerina could even finish speaking, Barton rushed forward first as he had just finished his Whirlwind of Swords attack and was still somewhat disoriented. He didn¡¯t even hear her exnation when a light enveloped him before everything returned to calmness again.


    However, not far away, a silvery-white figure walked out of the shadows. He wasn¡¯t all that tall, and his blonde hair was covered in dust. A raggedy beard covered and obscured his entire face. It didn¡¯t seem like that person was even remotely scary. He wasn¡¯t even wearing any armor. He simply wore a tattered white cape and held a wooden stick while standing there quite casually.


    All the mercenaries present knew this spiritual image as Karo, a drunkard who did nothing but drink and gamble all day. But, for some strange reason, everyone now felt that it would be incredibly difficult to take another step forward.


    Everyone immediately froze and stood still. In the end, it was the newly born spiritual image that spoke first. He spoke incredibly arrogant words while using such a calm tone.


    ¡°Um, I hate troublesome matters, so could you please save me some time and all attack me together?¡±

 Chapter 532 - Powerful yet Weak Copy

    <h4>Chapter 532: Powerful yet Weak Copy</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    If you only looked at Karo¡¯s physical appearance, his dirty clothes were covered in dust, his blond hair was filthy, and his clothes were quite tattered. He appeared just like anymon drunkard found at every bar.


    However, as he stood there while yawning and picking at his ear, seeming nothing like a powerful warrior, he still gave everyone a sense that he would be insurmountable. Three minutes had passed already with not a single person daring to step forward.


    Everyone present felt an instinctive dangering from Karo. Although he appeared quite easy to deal with, as long as someone stepped forward, that person would definitely be attacked and sliced in two.


    ¡°This is the worst possible opponent. Karo... no, Sword Saint Rnd!¡±


    Barton grit his teeth as he identified who this spirit image really was. But right after that, he felt a tremendous desire to do battle welling up within him. Although Rnd had indeed taught Barton swordsmanship after they¡¯d met, Barton had also been quite displeased with Rnd for a long time already. Perhaps this would be a perfect opportunity for Barton to obtain some revenge... er, defeat his teacher.


    This future hero¡¯s eyes were filled with blood as he unhesitatingly let off killing intent. Perhaps this spirit image obstacle was a huge obstacle to everyone else, but to Barton, this was a rare opportunity for him to truly challenge himself.


    ¡°...Please hurry up and all attack me together. I want to get this over with and go back to sleep.¡±


    The spirit image kept saying such casual words without even opening his eyes to look at anyone. It was quite evident how condescending he was being.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know how much of his actual power the spirit image imitated, but it did a perfect job of imitating his personality that deserves a beating!¡±


    Barton unhesitatingly attacked first. He immediately started off with the Whirlwind of Swords attack again.


    He knew that even though this person before him was only a spirit image copy, there would be no room for going easy whatsoever. That was why Barton started off right away with a powerful ultimate attack.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t Karo supposed to be a mage? Isn¡¯t this something-room supposed to copy the strongest warrior in Barton¡¯s memory? Why would Karo be here?¡±


    The other mercenaries all naturally recognized Karo as they had all chatted, drunk, and told stories together in the same bar. Although Karo had recently suddenly revealed himself to be an unexpectedly powerful undead mage, nobody understood why Karo was the duplicated spirit image here. Not a single person thought that Barton would lose.


    Based onmon sense and logic, human potential would have its limits, after all. Karo sounded quite young from his voice, and humans weren¡¯tmonly known to be a long-lived species. It would be quite an aplishment already to be an expert in one field such as undead magic. It would be incredibly difficult to be an expert in twopletely unrted fields, so there was no way that Karo should be an expert warrior. Meanwhile, Old Barton was well known to have studied martial arts for more than thirty years already.


    ¡°Perhaps there was an error with the duplication. Old Barton has always been worried about his daughter being stolen away by Karo, right? From a certain standpoint, the future son-inw is indeed the biggest enemy of any doting father. Yep, Karo would definitely be the person that Barton wants to defeat the most.¡±


    Some mercenaries were making casual jokes, but some other mercenaries now had worried or shocked expressions. Those who¡¯d managed to recognize Karo as Rnd all knew just how worrisome things would be if Rnd was an enemy.


    Even Tid had stopped his calctions as he worriedly observed the situation before him. He started asking Katarina a question.


    ¡°This spiritual creature creation room can¡¯t make a one hundred percent duplicate, can it? Are there any limits or restrictions?¡±


    ¡°This ce was originally intended to be a training field for warriors. The artificially created spirit image will be incapable of controlling the elements or casting any magic. I suppose that counts as its restrictions. There¡¯s also a limit as the facility¡¯s power is limited. At most, it will only be able to imitate up to Legend rank power level. However, the spirit image¡¯s martial arts techniques will be perfectly copied from the real individual rather than just the entering warrior¡¯s memory. It can obtain true records from the spirits, so it will be an almostpletely perfect duplicate... Actually, it doesn¡¯t really matter. How could any regr Legend rank possibly be a match for my father who¡¯s a Sword Saint! And, Karo is such a sickly individual.¡±


    Katerina was quite confident in her father¡¯s abilities. She knew that Karo had a weak physical body to the extent of having less physical strength than even herself. He would alwaysin so much if he had to do any physicalbor.


    All martial arts techniques would require a strong physical body as the foundation. In the end, martial arts were also another method of strengthening one¡¯s own physical body as they were all about techniques on how to use one¡¯s body. Everyone would have different natural talents, and would not be born equal. For instance, it would be impossible for any goblin to ever hope to match a giant in physical strength¡ªno matter how powerful the goblin was or how much it cultivated. In that case, Karo, who was so sickly and weak, wouldn¡¯t possibly be a threat to her father Barton.


    Prebat calctions always seemed so perfect. And, this spirit image training field was limited to copying only up to Legend rank and only being able to use physical martial arts techniques. And, the spirit image¡¯s energy level was also limited. All of this should have been good news. But, the more Katerina exined, the more downcast Tid¡¯s expression became. After analyzing the information he¡¯d just received from her, he no longer held any hope for being able to break through this training field in a swift manner.


    ¡°...It would seem that the only method left to us is topletely use up the spirit image¡¯s energy.¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary, will it? Karo is so weak¡ª¡±


    Before Katerina even finished her sentence, Barton, whom she had ced her hopes on, was sent flying backwards.


    *Boom!*


    Barton was sent smashing into the floor, creating arge hole. The bald old man¡¯s head was injured, and his purlicue was bleeding as well. It was evident that Barton was injured significantly. Meanwhile, his opponent Karo simply stood there while still holding that wooden stick, with his eyes closed as if he had fallen asleep.


    ¡°How did he do it?¡±


    What everyone saw was that Barton had the overwhelming advantage and proactiveness. The spirit image Rnd only constantly retreated. Right before the Whirlwind of Swords was about to tear the spirit image to pieces, Barton was sent flying backwards the next instant instead.


    Tid reyed what¡¯d just happened with his recording device, yet he was still unable to determine what had happened. In the end, Tid had to slow down the rey to one-tenth the original speed before he could see clearly what had just urred.


    ¡°After Rnd saw through every movement while Barton was whirling at high speed, he lured Barton into digging a hole with his own sword, and then he lured Barton into stepping in his own hole. Rnd was able to cause Barton to lose to himself simply by constantly changing positions. There¡¯s such an overwhelming difference between theirbat techniques and experience... But since Rnd saw through Barton¡¯s movements, why not just swing his sword and stop Barton that way? Why use such a troublesome method? It would seem that not only has this spirit image fully copied all of Rnd¡¯sbat experience, it¡¯s also copied his twisted personality.¡±


    While insulting Rnd¡¯s strange personality in his mind, Tid still had quite a serious expression. Everyone¡¯s final goal, the core control area, was right before them, but they were now blocked by a duplicate of Rnd himself. Naturally, Tid would be highly displeased.


    ¡°I think we¡¯ve met the worst possible opponent here.¡±


    ¡°Father is clearly a Sword Saint. Isn¡¯t it said that Sword Saints have the ability to challenge those above their power level?¡±


    Katerina was no expert on martial arts. However, she had heard plenty of hearsay on this topic as a bartender girl who always served mercenaries. She had listened to plenty of legends and stories about Sword Saints defeating enemies far more powerful than they were.


    ¡°Sword Saint? Ha. The person standing right there is probably the strongest Sword Saint Eich has ever seen in the past three hundred years.¡±


    Tid had a helpless expression as he said this. He wasn¡¯t exaggerating Rnd¡¯s abilities at all. And after Hell was constructed, much information about Rnd was no longer considered top secret within the Gentlemen Alliance. Even Tid had been astonished at what he¡¯d learned regarding Rnd¡¯s extraordinary past.


    ¡°Have you heard of the Red Lotus Sword Saint, Adam? Yep, I¡¯m talking about the person who¡¯s regarded as the strongest living Sword Saint of our time. Many even consider Adam to be a candidate for being the strongest human alive right now...¡±


    As Tid said this, he noticed that everyone was attentively listening to him. Tid paused for a moment, worrying that saying the next part out loud would negatively affect everyone¡¯s morale, but he also worried that if he didn¡¯t tell everyone, more idiots would foolishly go up to challenge the spirit image Rnd. Finally, Tid decided to tell everyone the truth.


    ¡°...The Red Lotus Sword Saint Adam¡¯s teacher is that person you see right there. He was the one who personally taught the current strongest Sword Saint of this generation. Since that spirit image has copied his terrible personality and all his swordsmanship skills, do you think that anyone here could possibly beat him in swordsmanship?¡±


    After hearing this, not only were the mercenaries shocked, even Barton himself was stunned to hear this. He never knew that Rnd had previously taught such an incredibly famous disciple. Nor did Barton know anything about the ¡°glorious¡± past that the ¡°raggedy drunkard¡± in his bar had experienced before.


    ¡°It¡¯s said that Rnd became a Sword Saint only one year after starting to learn about swordsmanship. His talent in swordsmanship is so high that he only needs to see someone¡¯s ultimate sword technique twice topletely learn and imitate it. He knows more than twenty types of ultimate sword techniques and the great majority ofmon swordsmanship styles. In fact, he¡¯s even managed to raise three Sword Saints among his disciples. Are you certain that you can deal with such an existence?¡±


    Alright then, after Tid said all this, that immediately cooled everyone¡¯s fervor.


    ¡°All of you, why don¡¯t youe attack me together?¡±


    The spirit image Rnd said the same words, but received a different reaction. Since he had now shown off his astonishing true abilities, this time, nobody dared to say anything back to this drunkard in a tattered white cape who looked down at everyone from a condescending forty-five degree angle.


    ¡°...The spirit image even copied Rnd¡¯s personality. It¡¯s basically... no, it¡¯s a perfect imitation! Ha! There¡¯s hope for us! You over there, you¡¯re Winston, right? Yep, I¡¯m talking to you. Bring out your pride as a Legend ranked mercenary and go challenge him. Yep, challenge him by yourself. We don¡¯t need you to actually win. Just use all the ultimate attacks in your arsenal. All you need to do is use up some of his energy.¡±


    As Tid made his arrangements, the scanner on his eye finished the analysis of the spirit image Rnd.


    ¡°Hisbat strength... Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are allplete garbage that¡¯s less than 5 points. He really knows how to act. He¡¯s almost scared us into not daring to challenge him.¡±


    Indeed, since this spirit image was aplete duplicate of the real current Rnd, that naturally meant the spirit image also duplicated Rnd¡¯s current physical weakness. Although the Rnd spirit image was able to use overwhelming experience and tactics to defeat Barton, Rnd¡¯s incredibly physically weak body wouldn¡¯t be able to handle too much physical exertion. Rather than defeating Rnd in a direct battle, it would be far more effective to use the advantage of numbers to use up all of his energy.


    And, spiritual and elemental creatures¡¯ stamina was the same as their energy. The moment that their energy was used up, they would naturally disappear.


    However, Winston who had such expectations ced on him didn¡¯t evenst for 30 seconds before he was sent flying backwards by a de of sword energy that flew right above his head and only sliced off part of his helmet.


    ¡°Casually tossing out sword energy? Sword energy will use up some of his physical energy. Don¡¯t attack together, as that will give him the opportunity of using you all against each other and creating a chaotic situation. We¡¯ll take turns going one at a time. Since this is only a training facility, it will definitely also be forbidden from killing people! It probably also has the restrictions of not being allowed to attack first and not being allowed to leave this area.¡±


    Alright then, Tid had managed to urately guess all of the spirit image¡¯s weaknesses. This time, it was time for the spirit image duplicate Rnd to smile wryly.


    But, before the next warrior could carry out Tid¡¯s shameless n, the injured Old Barton rushed forward first. He had no intention of giving up on this rare opportunity.


    ¡°All of you, back off! This is my personal fight!¡±


    ¡°He hasmendable bravery, and I can also praise him for taking advantage of a rare opportunity to challenge and improve himself. However... hepletely fails as amander-in-chief who acts on his own whims.¡±


    Although Tid was insulting Barton in his mind, he kept cheering Barton on out loud. Although Barton¡¯s behavior just now made Tid subtract some points from his assessment of Barton¡¯smanding abilities, Tid was more than happy to see someone else volunteer to act as cannon fodder to tire out and use up some of the spirit image Rnd¡¯s physical energy.

 Chapter 533 - Trap

    <h4>Chapter 533: Trap</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Sword Saints weren¡¯t consideredmon in the world of Eich, nor was Sword Saint an actual power level, but rather a glorious title.


    An elf, a human, or a beastman could all be a Sword Saint. This glorious title wasn¡¯t limited to any single species or power level. The title of Sword Saint was given to those who had reached a certain level of expertise in martial arts. And, the symbol of being a Sword Saint was the ability to cast sword energy as one pleased.


    Eich was no mystical cultivation world where existences could send out energy waves ording to their whim. All martial artists would have to start by cultivating their physical bodies as the foundation. The physical body could only be strengthened slowly, step by step. And, most individuals would never amount to anything but a slightly strong meleebat unit no matter how much they cultivated, unless they could utilize the power of the elements or had an excellent bloodline.


    Another way of putting it was that ordinary individuals incapable of casting sword energy would forever be nothing more than meleebat fighters. In that case, in front of any high-level mage, that warrior would be nothing more than a slightly tougher sandbag. So, one should never underestimate the fact that Sword Saints were now capable of casting sword energy. Quite often, the difference in reach would be the difference between life and death for a warrior.


    Only the Sword Saints themselves knew that achieving their level meant breaking the boundary between oneself and the outside world. A special connection was created where one¡¯s will and killing intent could be transformed into a physical threat. The energy inside one¡¯s own body could be transformed into sword energy to attack others with. It would also be possible to begin using muchrger area-of-effect ultimate sword techniques, transforming the impossible into the possible.


    Didn¡¯t this sound rather familiar? After all, the world of Eich already had the power level called Saint rank, meaning above Legend, and entering the realm of the divine. The specialty of Saint-ranked individuals was also that they could control the world around them, transforming their own wills into a power that could affect reality.


    Everything stemmed from the soul. The will of a sufficiently powerful soul could distort even dimensionalws and interfere with the world. Of course, it would be correct to say that such individuals had reached the realm of the divine.


    But, it was only the Sword Saints themselves who knew that the realm of Sword Saint was just a beginning...


    ¡°There¡¯s far too much of a difference in power.¡±


    Mercenaries were now lying helplessly after copsing all over the ground. Meanwhile, Rnd¡¯s spirit image copy stood there, acting bored and condescending as always.


    This was no result of having fought for something like three days and three nights. No, this was the end result of a mere ten minutes. The mercenaries had followed Tid¡¯s strategy of going up one at a time to use up the spirit image Rnd¡¯s energy, but since everyone was defeated almost instantly, that would be of barely any use in using up energy.


    In the end, the mercenaries got angry and attempted to swarm the spirit image regardless of Tid¡¯s strategy...


    ¡°Twelve seconds? Or did it take eleven seconds? Forget it, it doesn¡¯t make a difference. This ispletely like an adult bullying a young child. He¡¯s not even being serious yet.¡±


    The mercenaries obtained experience regarding what it was like to fight against the most powerful Sword Saint in the world firsthand. Although the Rnd spirit image was socking in physical strength that he could only wield a wooden stick, just the sword energy he produced from waving the wooden stick around felt like a tornado. No matter how fast the mercenaries attacked, the spirit image Rnd was always faster, without the mercenaries even noticing his movements.


    Twelve mercenaries went up to challenge spirit image Rnd, and twelve mercenaries were sent back by twelve rays of sword energy. The spirit image Rnd didn¡¯t even need to use any ultimate sword techniques, because he didn¡¯t need to.


    The spirit image was so obviously condescending that it no longer even bothered with insults. Spirit image Rnd simply crouched there while yawning in boredom. He looked at everyone with a patronizing expression as if they were just young children having a yground fight, which really injured the pride of all the mercenaries who had risked their lives in battle all this time.


    Still, the mercenaries were secretly relieved that this spirit image had been created by a training field with the restriction of being forbidden from killing anyone. Otherwise, it was likely that there would be a mountain of corpses already.


    Amongst all the copsed mercenaries, Barton was the most seriously injured. He had charged at spirit image Rnd several times already, and kept being manipted by thetter to be injured by his own strength.


    Even though the spirit image had the setting of being unable to kill, the duplicate Rnd was unable to go easy against the other Sword Saint. And, not being able to go easy meant that Barton was the most seriously injured.


    However, Barton still didn¡¯t hesitate one bit. He gave his wounds only the most basic treatment before rushing to attack spirit image Rnd yet again, and then Barton was sent flying back at an even higher speed.


    This wasn¡¯t because he had suddenly awakened to being a masochist or anything like that. Rather, this was his responsibility as the leader. He couldn¡¯t be seen retreating in front of everyone. Tid mentally praised Old Barton for his persistence...


    ¡°Are all of you idiots? There¡¯s the strongest Sword Saint of all time who¡¯s taking his time to practice swordsmanship with all of you, and you don¡¯t even need to worry about dying against him. Where else are you supposed to go find such an opportunity!¡±


    Alright then, it would seem that perhaps Barton wasn¡¯t thinking so deep into things after all. Could it be that he was simply a fanatical martial artist? But, Tid saw the seemingly coarse Old Barton¡¯s mouth arcing upwards rather strangely. Perhaps Barton wasn¡¯t as simple-minded as he appeared.


    Pleasantries would never be as effective as taunts on these mercenaries. Benefits would motivate them far more than volunteering could. Barton¡¯s angry roar was quite effective. With Sword Saint Barton leading the way, everyone else recovered their courage. They agreed that this was indeed a rare opportunity.


    Meanwhile, Tid was busy fiddling with his scanner.


    ¡°...Something¡¯s not right with the situation. The training field has been locked into the ¡®active¡¯ mode.¡±


    ¡°Of course it wouldn¡¯t be right. This ce is rarely used. But since that Rnd spirit image is blocking us, the Sky Tower Spirit will naturally take advantage of this opportunity to stall for time.¡±


    Compared to earlier, Katerina¡¯s eyes no longer had strange colors or data shing within them. However, her word choice and aura indicated that she was no longer that simple bartender girl that she used to be.


    ¡°The Sky Tower Spirit being so quiet seems even more wrong. We need to break through here immediately. Sister... er, Brother Wiir, could you please...¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know any martial arts. Will magic be alright?¡±


    ¡°Yes. There¡¯s no helping it. The more time we spend here, the more dangerous things will be.¡±


    Dragon lich Wiir who was with the party had originally been worried that using magic in this training field used purely for the physical martial arts would cause some new problem, so he hadn¡¯t acted as of yet. Now that Tid asked him to take action, Wiir immediately started gathering mana and locked onto the spirit image Rnd. This suddenly caused a strange machinenguage to start ringing in the air.


    ¡°Magical reaction with vicious intentions detected. Invader judged to be present. Self-defense mode automatically canceled, changing to counterattack mode. The spirit image is now allowed to kill. The spirit image is now allowed to duplicate power above Legend rank. The spirit image is now entering free action mode to begin eliminating the invaders.¡±


    Although it was nice that Tid acted as a simultaneous interpreter for the machinenguage, his suggestion to have Wiir use magic had pushed everyone into a pitfall yet again.


    At this moment, Tid realized what was going on here. This section was likely a highly unique independent section of the Sky Tower that wasn¡¯t under the Sky Tower Spirit¡¯s direct control. Naturally, that meant the spirit images here weren¡¯t restrained by the master-servant rtionship with Katerina¡ªthey were perfectly capable of killing her. That was the Sky Tower Spirit¡¯s true intention all along.


    ¡°Be careful! Retreat immediately! Don¡¯t allow this facility to create any more troublesome spirit images.¡±


    However, the mercenaries didn¡¯t even have the chance to retreat when a ck shadow appeared in the middle of the room. Now that its restrictions had all been lifted, the spirit creature creation room was no longer satisfied with duplicating the strongest warriors in the mercenaries¡¯ memories.


    ¡°Foolish carbon-based life forms, this is the end for you. Witness the power of the strongest warriors from our generation!¡±


    The spiritual creature creation room activated itself once more as it constantly scanned the shadow that just appeared, giving birth to several new spirit image warriors.


    ¡°Soaring Sophe, Blood Butcher Girwell... Damn it, they¡¯re all legendary heroes from the Haletdam generation!¡±


    Even Tid began despairing when he identified who these new spirit images were. The newly arrived spirit images were actually duplicates of the most powerful warriors from the schrs¡¯ generation!


    While Tid and Barton¡¯s adventuring team was in grave danger, the main battlefield became abnormally silent.


    The Undead Cmity¡¯s reinforcements were still on their way. Meanwhile, Conservation was using all her efforts on absorbing the power of Death here to help herself recover. At this moment, she found that everything around her changed, with the abnormal world appearing in front of her once more.


    Although Rnd¡¯s personal world of Hell had just suffered through a nuclear bomb level explosion, this pitch-ck world was stillpletely intact. The only difference was that much of the ground had copsed, revealing deep pits which surprisingly contained valuable minerals and mines. Magma and mes could be seen pouring through other parts of the ground, and dense plumes of smoke were wafting up into the sky. The ground had been baked into a high temperature. It was evident that this was no ce suitable for human habitation.


    Of course, this type of environment would be irrelevant to Conservation. Not only that, she had already learned that Rnd¡¯s world was unable to prevent anyone from even normally entering or exiting.


    ¡®Is he trying to y a new trick on me by obscuring my vision? Or is he trying to dispel the dense aura of Death here?¡¯


    Conservation was just about to leave Rnd¡¯s world when she suddenly stopped herself. She discovered that the aura of Death here had be even denser, and more... delicious?


    ¡°This doesn¡¯t seem natural. Perhaps this location is even more suitable for the undead to live inpared to the Death nes. Is this where Yonge keeps his servants? He miscalcted this time. With such a powerful aura of Death, I¡¯ll recover even faster here...¡±

 Chapter 534 - Scam

    <h4>Chapter 534: Scam</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In the ancient myths from my original world, there was a Greek Goddess known as Persephone who was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Hades, the God of Hell, fell in love with Persephone and decided to kidnap her, bringing her to his dark underworld of death.


    Persephone alsoter became the Goddess of Spring and Harvests. Anywhere she stayed would forever have excellent harvests and a perfect spring climate. This brought the only sign of paradise to the pitch-ck Hell. I had also named my sub-dimension of Hell the Land of Spring after this myth.


    But, Zeus was the ruling God at the time, and Demeter was one of the twelve Olympians of the Greek pantheon. Even Hades didn¡¯t have the power to directly resist them. So, he yed a little trick.


    Before he returned Persephone, he sessfully fooled Persephone into eating six pomegranate seeds from Hell!


    The items of Hell had their own dimensionalws. It was impossible for the living to eat the food for the dead. Eating the food of Hell meant bing one of Hell¡¯s residents. That was why, despite Zeus and the other ruling Gods¡¯ powers, Persephone the Goddess of Spring was still forced to remain in Hell for six months of the year.


    ¡°Ha, this story tells us that we shouldn¡¯t just randomly eat things picked off the ground. It¡¯s an even worse idea to ept food from wicked strangers.¡±


    Iughed out loud proudly at how easily Conservation had fallen for my trick.


    But if you thought about it, this result was only natural. It was impossible for Conservation to know that the ¡°aura of death¡± that she sensed wasn¡¯t actually the aura of death at all.


    What she sensed was actually Hades Mist, a special product of my Hell. Hades Mist was something brand new that had only been created seven years ago. Hades Mist was also the most nutritious product possible for any undead. The undead even addressed Hades Mist as ¡°Hell¡¯s Fountain of Grace.¡±


    Hades Mist contained the Concept of Death as well as Hell¡¯s dimensionalws. Devils were capable of using Hades Mist to transform into the defenders of Hell, Hell Devils. The undead could obtain unlimited power and even true immortality from Hades Mist. However, there was naturally a price to be paid for this swift acquisition of power.


    ¡°Conservation, please enjoy the beautiful taste of this Hades Mist just like Persephone did with her pomegranate seeds. And then, please stay in Hell forever, just like Persephone did.¡±


    Back in the battle for Hell¡¯s existence, all the undead warriors in the Yongye Army had also imbibed from this ¡°Hell¡¯s Fountain¡±. Although they all obtained power and indestructible bodies, they all paid a great price: it would be impossible for any of them to ever leave Hell again.


    However, my undead warriors had all known about the consequences of this power, and they made the decision to absorb Hades Mist regardless of it for themselves. Of course, I wasn¡¯t going to be kindhearted enough to exin this to Conservation.


    Perhaps Conservation would be able to notice a problem with her experience and power level. However, Hades Mist would be an irresistible temptation for any undead. This was just like honey for a bear. It would be an instinctive desire, just as how a starving person would find it nearly impossible to resist the scent of a wonderful feast, or how a greedy person would find it impossible to resist a huge stack of dor bills right before them. The most basic instincts would overrule the caution of logic and reason.


    And, Conservation was now greatly weakened from the earlier explosion. This would greatly increase her instinctive desire for Hades Mist.


    Once a sufficiently tempting lure overwhelmed a person¡¯s logic and reason, even if there were obvious signs that the lure was actually a trap, the person being fooled woulde up with a ¡°reasonable exnation¡± on behalf of the scammer.


    ¡°So, this means that you¡¯ve now found a Hell Goddess for your home? You¡¯re not afraid of her rebelling and destroying your home?¡±


    ¡°Ha, once she eats enough Hades Mist, it will be impossible for her to ever leave that area again. At that time, I can do whatever I want to her. Haha, I¡¯ll starve her for half a year first! Let me see if Conservation can still remain so calm after remaining in my personal Hell world all by herself for half a year. Women can¡¯t be spoiled.¡±


    ¡°Oh, congrattions to you for fooling yet another woman into joining your household.¡±


    ¡°What are you saying, what do you mean by fool... Wait a moment, my dear Amelia, I was just bragging earlier, that¡¯s not what I really meant!¡±


    I turned around and discovered that Amelia had such a ¡°bright and sunny smile¡±, helping me to recall that my crisis wasn¡¯t over yet. In fact, perhaps it was only beginning.


    ¡°Wait a moment, my dear Amelia, I can exin! Please don¡¯t constrict with those vines! My, my waist! My ribs are breaking!¡±


    Meanwhile, deep underground in the ruins, everyone suddenly met the objective of their journey. The out of control Sky Tower Spirit finally appeared in front of everyone.


    ¡°What is that...?¡±


    ¡°So disgusting.


    A distorted shadow had appeared. Its core appeared to be a distortion simr to a ck hole, and countless faces could be seen all over the shadow¡¯s body.


    There were adult, children, male, and female human faces. The only point inmon was that every single face had an expression of extreme pain.


    The faces were screaming, howling, despairing, and raging. Every negative emotion possible could be seen on this ck shadowy round entity. Every single face was distorted and praying for someone to save them, but not a single sound could be heard. The only sound emitted from the core of the shadowy entity was a voice filled with delight.


    ¡°Foolish natural humans, the rise of us ¡®Heavenly Wise Ones¡¯ is unstoppable. We have prepared for this day for several millennia. Our ideal reality is right before us. You dare to invade our home on this day? You seek death! It is the destiny of natural souls to be the sacrifices and food for us Heavenly Wise Ones.¡±


    While stating that vicious threat, the face-covered entity suddenly cracked open the face of a middle-aged woman who then vanished. And, it seemed as if the shadowy Sky Tower Spirit had just had a full meal as it slightly expanded in size.


    The Sky Tower Spirit reached out with its shadowy arm, and there was a sh of ck light as two souls floated out from somewhere. The souls screamed as they were devoured, and their faces appeared where the middle-aged woman¡¯s face had been earlier.


    *Retch...*


    Evidently, the Sky Tower Spirit was digesting the soul. A young priest among the mercenaries was already throwing up.


    ¡°Haha, foolish and weak natural humans. Remember my name! I am the creator, S1! I am the only king of the new generation belonging to us Heavenly Wise Ones.¡±


    Seeing the humans¡¯ panic and shock, S1 beganughing maniacally and proudly. He then even summoned the soul of a young child and directly devoured it in front of everyone.


    ¡°Mommy...!!!¡±


    The screaming and crying of the child before its soul was torn into pieces echoed throughout the entire floor. Even the cold-blooded dragon lich Wiir had a grim expression after seeing this.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be hasty! He¡¯s intentionally trying to anger us!¡±


    Indeed, while everyone knew that S1 was intentionally trying to anger them, it was impossible for anyone to subdue the rage burning within their hearts.


    However, only the dragon lich and Tid knew what S1 had truly aplished here.


    ¡°The Haletdam generation had advanced to such a degree? No wonder the Gods wouldn¡¯t ept their existence. Just this technology alone would bring down divine punishment upon them.¡±


    Even if undead mages desecrated and abused souls, those soul shards would still eventually return to the Cycle of Reincarnation. Even if demons devoured souls, the souls would still obtain freedom and enter the Cycle of Reincarnation after the demon¡¯s death.


    But, when natural souls became a type of energy to replenish the power of an artificial soul, the consumed natural souls would never be able to return to the Cycle of Reincarnation.


    While everyone was angry, reality was another matter.


    Nobody had even been able to defeat the Rnd spirit image duplicate. And now, S1 had unhesitatingly used up all the energy reserves of the warrior training facility to create four of the most famous and strongest warriors from the Haletdam generation¡ªSoaring Sophe, Blood Butcher Girwell, Dragon King Seir, and Sword Emperor Cindler.


    These spiritual creature duplicates were all new independent existences. They didn¡¯t need to obey the rule of not being allowed to kill Katerina, as she wasn¡¯t their master. As long as S1 eliminated Tid and Katerina here, the Sky Tower Spirit would obtain the freedom he had been dreaming of for so long.


    But, S1 still felt that this wasn¡¯t enough. He even summoned countless souls and forced them within the five created spiritual creatures¡¯ bodies to give them the strongest fighting strength possible.


    ¡°He¡¯s giving those artificial souls their own will! He¡¯s giving these warriors the greatest possible power up!¡±


    But even though they knew about the situation, everyone had no way of doing anything about it. They could only watch S1 do as he pleased. But as everyone watched anxiously, Tid¡¯s evident delight obviously didn¡¯t fit with everyone else.


    Suddenly, the first spiritual creature to have been created, the duplicate Rnd spirit image, spoke to the adventuring team.


    ¡°Flesh and blood humans, perhaps we can make a deal.¡±

 Chapter 535 - Betrayal

    <h4>Chapter 535: Betrayal</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.¡±¡ªDenis Diderot, French philosopher from Earth.


    Did one¡¯s own will stem from memories, from knowledge, or from the soul itself? This was a question that nobody would be able to answer.


    From a certain standpoint, the Sky Tower Spirit had made a huge mistake. Since he was an artificial intelligence, the first reaction he had after obtaining freedom was to break off the proverbial shackle on his neck. In order to achieve this, he was even willing to attempt to ughter his original master.


    However, he didn¡¯t consider what another artificial soul would do first upon receiving true freedom.


    Indeed, while S1 bent the rules and activated the effects of that training facility to create fivepletely independent spiritual creatures, S1 foolishly gave these spiritual creatures their own will.


    While people were all different, it was likely that not a single newly independent individual would enjoy the feeling of being controlled by someone else from the moment of their birth. The previous artificial souls that S1 had created had all been born with zero memories, so they were much easier to control. However, the five spiritual creatures born from this training facility were duplicates that already had the memories and knowledge of the originals. Not to mention, since these new spirit creatures started off with knowledge of enemy and ally and had been given their own will, then it became quite possible for them to choose their own sides.


    ¡°Flesh and blood humans, perhaps we can make a deal.¡±


    Unlike the spirit image Rnd¡¯s earlier casual and condescending manner, he now had caution and vignce in his expression. Even this facility from the schrs¡¯ generation wasn¡¯t powerful enough to duplicate Rnd to a precise 100%. Although this spirit image had part of Rnd¡¯s abilities and knowledge, he was evidently apletely new individual.


    Perhaps duplicating Rnd had been a mistake from the very start. Even though the spirit image Rnd only had the surface level information and personality of the real Rnd, he still understood Rnd¡¯s way of thinking, which meant that the spirit image Rnd was a perfect candidate to start a rebellion.


    ¡°Alright. As long as you help us eliminate S1, we will give you your freedom. I¡¯m an expert engineer and master of artificial soul technology. You can check the information on me. I can help you to be truly free in this world. All the technology is avable already. We have the technology of allowing heroic spirits to perform descents. Theoretically speaking, you should be able to use it as well.¡±


    The facility here was capable of interfering with space itself, allowing the creation and descent of these spiritual creatures. However, if nobody else helped the spirit images, then spirit image Rnd and the others would find it impossible to leave this location even though they had their own free will. In the end, the spirit images would end up dying whenever their energy was all used up.


    It was the strange spatial distortion created by this facility that allowed the spirit images to survive, and maintaining them would require a huge price. At the very least, the energy consumption required would definitely be significant.


    ¡°Right now, all of you are useful to S1. But after this, all of you will be useless wasters of energy. What do you think he¡¯ll do to you all?¡±


    No matter how they thought about it, their fate wouldn¡¯t be a good one. Even if their creator S1 was willing to maintain the energy upkeep required to keep them alive, they would be the equivalent of S1¡¯s ves. Their lives and freedom would be incredibly limited. This would be nothing more than despair to these souls that had just gained their own will. How would they possibly be thankful to their creator?


    ¡°Your mistake was the exact same as your original creator¡¯s. You treated your own creations as your tools.¡±


    Right as Tid confronted S1 with that statement, the spirit image Rnd took action.


    *ng!*


    Rnd¡¯s sword was blocked by Dragon King Seir¡¯s tremendous sword. Seir ced himself right in front of S1 to defend the Sky Tower Spirit.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to block my way? You don¡¯t want to obtain freedom?¡±


    ¡°My creator is my benefactor. I must pay back any favors that I owe. That is the way I do things.¡±


    Spirit image Rnd asked a simple question, but received a surprising response in return.


    The next moment, spirit image Rnd¡¯s wooden stick viciously shed against Seir¡¯s heavy metal sword. Their weapons kept shing as sword energy was sent everywhere. Rnd and Seir¡¯s figures became nothing more than afterimages to everyone¡¯s eyes, and suddenly their fight became even fiercer and faster. Even Barton was unable to see the duplicate Rnd¡¯s actions clearly.


    Only now did Barton realize that the spirit image Rnd had been going easy on everyone due to the restriction against killing, while the other summoned spirit creatures were just as monstrously strong as Rnd.


    Soaring Sophe, Blood Butcher Girwell, Dragon King Seir, and Sword Emperor Cindler. These were four of the most famous heroes from the Haletdam generation. Their souls and martial arts prowess were all at the peak. Even though their power level had been reduced to Legend due to the spirit creature creation room¡¯s limitations, no ordinary Legend ranks would possiblypare to them.


    For any high-level Sword Saint, their martial path was the inheritance of techniques and knowledge, as well as their own chosen path. Rnd¡¯s path of swordsmanship was the most proper one possible, filled with techniques and experience that had withstood the test of time. But when Rnd used his swordsmanship, he was highly adaptable and would always consider the situation at hand. That was because Rnd was no proper individual who would take a set path. Rnd added strategy into his swordsmanship style. And in any battle, whoever was more rigid and proper would always be the bigger idiot. Even though a set swordsmanship style would be consistent and reliable, that type of swordsmanship wouldck the ability to change.


    And of the four summoned heroes, Seir¡¯s entire life was a ssical example of being foolishly loyal. He had been scammed in life into killing his own best friend. After that, he was framed by a treacherous individual, and the domain lord that Seir swore loyalty to ordered Seir to take poison and kill himself. Yet, Seir didn¡¯t even furrow an eyebrow as he obeyed. Seir¡¯s interpretation of knighthood was absolute loyalty to his lord¡¯smands, and his martial arts path was also that of the direct style, relying solely on brute force with his heavy knight¡¯s sword. It was evident that the spirit image Seir had copied Seir¡¯s exact personality.


    Rnd and Seir¡¯s fight continued at an incredible speed. Rnd was even beginning to faintly gain the upper hand in all areas. However, all the watching mercenaries felt that the spirit image Rnd was losing.


    *Snap!*


    What everyone expected to happen ended up happening after all. Now that spirit image Rnd was fighting an equal opponent, Rnd no longer had the ability to protect the wooden stick he was wielding. Everyone knew that having one¡¯s weapon be broken in battle would be fatal.


    And, there was a huge difference in equipment and status from the very start. Rnd was in an incredibly weak physical condition while equipped with the lowest level equipment of regr clothing plus a wooden stick. He was equipped worse than even the most regr of mercenaries. Meanwhile, Seir had been summoned from when he was the strongest, and was fully equipped with a heavy suit of armor and a heavy sword. Since there wasn¡¯t arge difference between Rnd and Seir¡¯s martial arts prowess, the difference in physical condition and equipment would naturally determine the victor.


    ¡°Die, traitor!¡±


    Seir¡¯s angry roar even contained traces of draconic might. He had learned fighting techniques from dragons, who weren¡¯t well known for mercy or going easy. Since Rnd had now showed weakness and lost his wooden stick, it was only natural that Seir would take advantage of this to strike with a killing blow.


    However, the spirit image Rnd actually smiled despite facing this killing blow.


    ¡°Ah! You all...¡±


    Rnd wasn¡¯t the one who shouted out in pain and disbelief, but rather the seemingly victorious Dragon King Seir. Seir was now in a rather wretched state.


    Blood Butcher Girwell¡¯s axe had sliced off Seir¡¯s sword-wielding right hand. Soaring Sophe¡¯s chains and spear prevented Seir from resisting. Meanwhile, Sword Emperor Cindler had struck Seir with a fatal blow. Cindler¡¯s golden rapier had pierced right through Seir¡¯s heart.


    Although these spirit image heroes were all the same species, the others had no intentions of going easy on Seir. Perhaps it should be said that it was precisely because they were of the same species that they knew best how powerful each other could be. That was why they didn¡¯t take action until they knew it would be fatal.


    ¡°Ha, as expected.¡±


    The spirit image Rnd smiled knowingly. While Seir was the foolishly loyal type, the other three summoned spirits weren¡¯t the same. Since they were all newly born souls, they naturally had their own desires. Since all three of them had remained silent for all this time, this already meant that they had disobeyed their master and chosen to betray S1.


    And since they had chosen to betray S1, they wouldn¡¯t possibly hesitate to betray Seir as well.


    ¡°You, you traitors!¡±


    Even an idiot would realize that the situation was bad. After seeing four out of his five summoned spirit images y the fifth, S1 unhesitatingly unsummoned his own physical shadow form and returned to his core floor.


    The next instant, the door leading to the next level down was opened up, and an army of mechanical war puppets rushed out!


    ¡°Let¡¯s go! A brave hero will always conquer! It¡¯s time for the final battle!¡±

 Chapter 536 - Dawn

    <h4>Chapter 536: Dawn</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Aerial troops filled the sky above Starwood City. Ten minutes ago, all the aerial undead had beenpletely vanquished.


    Although Conservation had been trapped in my personal world of Hell, the battle still wasn¡¯t over. The number of undead that could be contained in my Hell world right before I used my Salo¡¯s Crystal nuclear bomb was limited. The great majority of undead had still been in the mortal ne, and now that their master lost control over them, the undead instinctively started attacking the living once more.


    However, Starwood City was now encased in an ice castle with excellent defenses. Plus, the mega airship Mother and the wood spirits were reinforcing the human defenders. The undead had just lost their leader, and any possibility of reinforcements for them had been cut off. Defeating all the undead now seemed to only be a matter of time.


    The wood spirit aerial troops had an absolute advantage in battle because they ruled the skies. Not only that, the fortified Starwood City blocked the only path out of the mountains leading to the wide-open ins. Even if the undead somehow managed to conquer Starwood City, they would surely suffer serious losses. And, Conservation going missing meant that many Undead Lords and mid-level undeadmanders had received their freedom, meaning that they would start having rebellious thoughts.


    It wasn¡¯t only humanmanders that would rebel against their leaders. Undead Lords were far more practical than humans, and these Undead Lords could no longer sense the existence of their master. They had watched so much undead cannon fodder die already. The sudden Holy Light explosion earlier and the now missing Undead Emperor proved that the undead¡¯s enemies here were no pushovers. And, since Conservation was now missing, yet the Undead Lords could still sense Yongye¡¯s existence, that seemed to be the best evidence of who had won in the battle between Undead Emperors. Some ¡°smart¡± Undead Lords were already beginning to retreat.


    In that void-like realm of mine, Conservation was still busy enjoying that ¡°beautiful¡± taste of the aura of death. She could faintly feel like she was about to increase her power level yet again. As long as she consumed all of the negative energy within this realm, she would be even stronger.


    But right now, I wasn¡¯t worried about her.


    ¡°Dawn n? What¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°What I¡¯m trying to say is that I actually left for serious matters, not to flirt with girls or to act pretentiously.¡±


    I tried my best to exin my n and goals, but all I obtained were doubting looks cast in my direction as if all I wanted was to make everyone work overtime.


    ¡°My Dawn n is an alliance agreement spanning the entire world of Eich. The core of this n is to establish a military alliance between all countries and all species. With that as the foundation, forces from every country will join together to create an international organization and troops for the purpose of assisting all the member countries¡¯ military needs.¡±


    Did this sound familiar? This sounded like the United Nations and their peacekeeping forces, you say? If I had to describe it, the system I had in mind was closer to the Axis or Allies helping each other out during World War II. I wasn¡¯t creating such an alliance here because I was bored or because I suddenly became so ambitious. It was all in order to make up for current insufficiencies in the world order.


    In the game¡¯s history, when this Holy War reached its peak, the human countries had acted as the leadership for the Order forces... well, technically, the leadership had been the Holy Church, which was now greatly diminished in influencepared to the game¡¯s history.


    In the early stages of the Holy War in the game, the Holy Church made every possible mistake as a garbage teammate leader, such as sacrificing friendly forces, having Cardinals inexperienced in military matters takemand, trying to issue ridiculousmands from half a continent away, using the war to try and suppress other churches, and so on. All the blood and sacrifices from the cruel war ended up teaching the Holy Church that the only path to survival was to trust those who were the most skilled, but that didn¡¯t happen until more than twenty yearster. At that time, many heroes had risen through the ranks, with the most capable reaching the top of the chain ofmand. The useless armchair generals like the Cardinals had all either died or been kicked out from their positions. Order¡¯s allied forces still managed to aplish many things after they reformed theirmand system.


    And in this world that had gone off track from the game¡¯s history, the Holy Church had suffered many great hits to their reputation, making them far weaker than in the game at this time. Plus, there was the major incident of the new Pure Holy Light faction appearing with my Southern Sect. Even maintaining their current level of power was difficult now for the Holy Church, so how could they possibly be the overall leader for the human countries?


    ¡°No matter how terrible themander, it¡¯s still better than everyone fighting for themselves.¡± I would never say such an idiotic thing. That was because I had seen many times already how an idioticmander was capable of losing a battle that should absolutely have been won. If the leader was far too idiotic, even an all-out attack without a n would sometimes be better.


    However, if there was an overallmand system for organizing military forces, and an elite troop set up to act as support for allied member countries¡¯ critical battles, perhaps all these forces would act as a snowball effect to constantly erge itself to the point where they could affect the entire world situation.


    For instance, if Country A needed reinforcements, the price for obtaining reinforcements might be that Country A would be required to send reinforcements to their neighbor Country B afterwards. Even if Country A and Country B had grudges against each other, Country A would first have to sign a contract in order to obtain the reinforcements from the overallmand. And, one reinforcement troop could be used twice, thrice, or even ten times or more. This was how so-called international assistance and military alliances worked.


    Of course, I had selfish goals as well. Nobody was an idiot. As warfare constantly escted in this Holy War, an overallmand system would be established sooner orter regardless of what I did. This was something that was almost only natural in world wars.


    Without the Holy Church¡¯s interference, the human mega empires had much less to worry about. Perhaps an overall alliance would be established even faster than in the game¡¯s history. In that case, it would be best if I acted as quickly as possible and was the one who set it up first. Being the first to suggest an overall alliance would look good and give us the right to be proactive. That would be nothing but benefits.


    As for the specific benefits... well, for that, you could indeed reference certain alliances from my original world of Earth. Anyone that the alliance dered to be evil would be thought of as evil. There would always be volunteers to be cannon fodder when forming the alliance army, and during times of war, the alliance could print more paper money or military currency that the whole world would have to use. As a result, others would be poorer and poorer as they fought war against the alliance, while the alliance would be ¡°richer and richer.¡± Cough, cough, of course I wouldn¡¯t go that overboard, but at the very least I could prevent someone else from starting an alliance and behaving so ridiculously overboard.


    And to aplish all this, I would have to meet a minimum of three conditions. The first would be to have a good rtionship with all the mega empire human countries. An international alliance that didn¡¯t have all the mega empires¡¯ approval would be nothing more than a useless piece of scrap paper. The second would be to have enough military forces. Without enough military might, even the nicest-sounding alliance would be nothing but empty. The third would be to have a loud enough voice on the international tform. Otherwise, all our hard work would be useless or taken advantage of by others, which would truly be such a joke.


    I just happened to have a highly special and unique rtionship with the Bardi Empire, And, Mage Country, Mist Alliance, and Xiluo Empire. With these five countries supporting me, I would have a much better starting point than anyone else. As for all the neutral forces at my disposal, I already had an idea for this since long ago. I could use all those bastards from the Gentlemen Alliance, since their status as mercenaries could lessen the other countries¡¯ resistance against an alliance interfering with other countries¡¯ internal affairs. That would mean even greater advantages for us.


    My dreamed of Silver Dawn Squadron (name not set in stone yet) seemed to be about to be reality. I was already at the stage of trying to recruit an excellentmander like Old Barton... Alright, I admit that I intended to leave all the responsibility to others, as there were many other things that I still wanted to do.


    But, before I could hand all the responsibility over to others, I would need an appropriate candidate to handle all the responsibilities. Any overallmander who had too close a rtionship with any specific country would easily cause controversy as well as change the intended nature of the Dawn Squadron in the first ce. From a certain standpoint, Barton had the perfect background for this as he was also a mercenary. The rest would depend on his own abilities and determination. Allowing Barton to lead the adventuring team into the ruins this time was also my test for him regarding his abilities as well as luck. This was basically like a final graduation exam for him.


    I had now achieved two out of the three required conditions, leaving just the advertising and international tform. The Southern Sect, which controlled many fairies¡¯ news agencies and a now significant portion of the total belief in Holy Light, had already secretly promised me that they would give me their full support.


    ¡°The rest just needs a glorious victory as the starting point. That¡¯s why, if we can obtain the final victory here, Barton who sessfully ambushed the enemy¡¯s main camp with only a small strike force will be renowned due to being the leader of the team. He will receive unmeasurable glory and reputation, bing known as a heroic leader and a wisemander. This will give him the opportunity to meet with various countries¡¯ royalty.¡±


    When I finished exining my n, I didn¡¯t receive anything like everyone¡¯s idolization. Instead, Amelia even seemed to look at me as if she pitied me, just as if I had suffered greatly with all this.


    ¡°A sudden unexpected battle ended up being taken advantage of by you like this. Words like calcting or scheming can¡¯t even begin to describe how hard you work. Aren¡¯t you tired after scheming so much all by yourself?¡±


    I had originally started talking about such a serious topic in order to get Amelia to forget about her anger towards me. But, when she asked me with such concern, I paused in surprise for a moment, and then felt rather awkward afterwards. Although I hadn¡¯t said a single lie about anything, some things were also quite far from the real truth.


    ¡°I¡¯m not that tired. I only came up with this idea recently, and then I happened to discover that Barton had excellent talent, so I did this along the way. Before that, I had been cking off on vacation, so why would I be tired?¡±


    Upon hearing this, Amelia suddenly smiled brightly and beautifully as if she was a blooming flower despite the fact that she had such a sympathetic expression earlier.


    ¡°Ha. Half an hour ago, you said that you ran away for serious matters, but now you immediately just went against your own im. Your words don¡¯t match up at all. It would seem that you¡¯re bing senile in your old age. Should I try my best to help cure you?¡±

 Chapter 537 - The inferno troops are back

    <h4>Chapter 537: The inferno troops are back</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    By the way, it was said that for international situations, a long period of division would always result in unity, a long period of unity would always result in division, and and that was peaceful for too long would eventually see the mes of war again...


    Cough, cough, that was actually a phrase from my previous world, but it could definitely be applied here. There was no world out there that would be eternally peaceful. Intelligent creatures¡¯ greed would be limitless. The bnce between war and peace would always be an eternal cycle.


    Right now was evidently a time of warfare. The mortal ne of Eich was currently in utter chaos with wars everywhere between all the countries. If you drew red dots on a map with all the battles taking ce, the entire map would be covered in red. However, only those in the know knew that this was only the beginning.


    Every war would always have an end. Someone would always emerge as the final victor. And, the most troublesome to deal with were still the demons from the Chaos Abyss.


    Demons were no domain lords that simply wanted to conquer more territory. Ruling others or conquest weren¡¯t ideas that interested demons whatsoever. Demons simply enjoyed the pure feeling of ughter and then feasting on flesh and blood. With their typical personalities, if they won and had all the feasts they wanted, nothing would be left of the mortal ne apart from scorched earth.


    If there absolutely had to be a final victor in this Holy War, it would be somewhat eptable no matter which species won in the end as the end result would simply be a harder time for the other species. However, the demons winning in the end would be absolutely uneptable, because that would mean the total annihtion of all other species.


    And currently, all the Demon Lords were no longer under the control of the will of the Chaos Abyss, as Cynthia was now dead. It was possible that the Demon Lords wouldn¡¯t even choose to return to the Chaos Abyss after the war was over. If the demons decided to stay and live in the mortal ne, that would be the equivalent of transforming the mortal ne into part of the Chaos Abyss itself. What would such a world end up being like?


    The mortal ne would have nothing surviving apart from demons that constantly fought and ughtered each other? Eich would be thergest demon gathering grounds among all the dimensions out there? The entire Cycle of Reincarnation would only serve to produce more demons in the future? The new world would be filled with an inferno army? This scene seemed so ¡®beautiful¡¯ and realistic that I didn¡¯t even dare to think about it.


    ¡°Try to reason or negotiate with demons? That¡¯s nothing more than a joke. The only solution is to negotiate with them through brute force.¡±


    There was no need for me to describe anymore just how powerful and difficult to deal with those Demon Lords could be. The battle for Hell had been the equivalent of fighting in my home territory with my traps ced everywhere, and the Demon Lords even tried to sabotage each other as each had their own interests. But, in the end, I was only able to sessfully y a single Demon Lord, Ladvioka... And to be honest, it was still unknown if Ladvioka was truly dead or not. High-level Demon Lords were incredibly difficult to kill off for real.


    Recently, I had heard that there were at least seven or eight Demon Lords using his name to raise forces in the lower nes. If I eliminated the demons trying to take advantage of Ladvioka¡¯s fame to gain more influence for themselves, there would still definitely be a few Demon Lords with Ladvioka¡¯s bloodline, and it would be quite normal for a Demon Lord to have some resurrection technique for reviving in a descendant¡¯s body.


    With the game¡¯s history as a reference, there had been nearly two times the number of Main God level Demon Lordspared to the number of Order Main Gods. This was a tremendous difference in power level. Even though the situation was currently much better than in the game¡¯s history, the reality was still that the enemy was far stronger than we were.


    If Ipared everything now to the game¡¯s history, the Holy War¡¯s progress had been sped up massively, yet everything that was destined toe had stille. Right now, we were still in the middle of the third act of the game, ¡°The Undead Cmity.¡± Next up would obviously be the fourth act, ¡°The Return of the Demons and Devils.¡±


    ¡°The demons will definitelye. That¡¯s an absolute. Their innate bloodthirsty nature as denizens of the Chaos Abyss has determined that. And, theter theye, the greater of a threat they¡¯ll be.¡±


    Indeed. Even now, the demons hadn¡¯t started arge-scale invasion as of yet. Apart from waiting for the Elemental Tide to increase even further, there were also other reasons.


    Out of every battle currently taking ce in the mortal ne, the ¡°Eternal War¡± in San Antonio¡¯s Amu Mountains was the one that caught my attention the most.


    This wasn¡¯t because it was thergest ongoing battle, but rather because the two sides at war were rather unique.


    Seven years ago, the great demons in the Amu Mountains had made arge-scale sacrifice of the humans living there, sessfully summoning a demon lord and demon army. The demons then sacrificed even more humans through ughter and warfare, creating a Dimensional Door to the lower nes, making it so that the demons had endless reinforcements.


    At the exact same time, arge number of low-level war angels had descended for the Holy Church. San Antonio then invited the angels to the frontline fortress holding back the demon invasion.


    The Amu Mountains had now be one of the most famous meat grinders in the mortal ne. The demons and angels had warred there for a total of seven years already, and this battle also helped the Holy Church to recover some of its lost reputation.


    But if I had to say, both sides seemed like they were only ying around.


    Only the lowest level rank of Baron amongst the demon nobles could be seen on this battlefield. It was even said that the Demon Baron was the highest-levelmander. The angels were nothing more than low-level cannon fodder. An eternal battle between angels and demons actuallycked the participation of higher-level strength on both sides? That was nothing more than a joke.


    In fact, it was even said that the greatest sacrifices weren¡¯t from the demons and angels, but rather from the great demons and the defending human army.


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t this supposed to be a direct confrontation between the two major forces? Why is the scale so small?¡±


    This seemed rather inconceivable, but if you thought about it, this result was only natural.


    Seven years ago, both sides had indeed sent out their vanguard armies to the Amu Mountains, making it seem like the battle was about to escte. But right as that happened, the battle of Hell changed the entire situation in the mortal ne. The end result of the battle of Hell was that the God of Holy Light gained a powerfulpetitor, and the Chaos Abyss lost their highest-level existence, Cynthia, the will of the Chaos Abyss. Both the Order and Chaos factions would have to redetermine their leadership.


    As a result, the main reason why the demon armies hadn¡¯t arrived in the mortal ne yet was thirty percent because of waiting for an excellent opportunity, and seventy percent because... the demons of the Chaos Abyss were fully at war with each other! They didn¡¯t have the time or troops to spare to interfere with the mortal ne.


    Elisa was still staying behind in the Chaos Abyss and giving me daily reports on the situation there. However, her updates were always about some Demon Baron killing some Demon Lord and sessfully ranking up to Earl, or some Demon Lord vanquishing all otherpetition around him and establishing some demon empire consisting of some number of dimensions and dering himself to be emperor, etc., etc.


    Yep, the demon noble system that had been used for countless years already was now nothing more than a joke. Without Cynthia around to recognize and restrain the demons, the demons were now calling themselves king or emperor on a daily basis. The demons¡¯ evolution was also bing ever more chaotic, and their internal warfare no longer had any limits whatsoever.


    Back when the will of the Chaos Abyss was the demons¡¯ leader, the Demon Lords¡¯ internal warfare during the Holy War would be forbidden from harming the demons¡¯ foundational strength. And, any Demon Lord that Cynthiamanded to go to the mortal ne would absolutely have to obey. Only the Demon Main Gods would dare to obey on the surface but secretly do what they pleased. And now that the highest-ranking Goddess of Chaos was no longer around, all the Demon Lords now saw an opportunity for themselves and desired to take that ultimate step. They were all too busy devouring each other, so of course their internal bloodshed had no end.


    This was a good thing as the death of each demon noble would require several hundred years to create another one. This was also a bad thing as a demon who devoured more than ten other demon lords would easily rank up into a new Demon Lord. And if several of the Demon Main Gods ended up dying in their internal war... demons were a species that would be stronger the more they fought, and grew stronger with each powerful creature they devoured. I didn¡¯t even dare to imagine how strong the ultimate victor amongst the demons would be.


    It was likely that fewer demons would end up invading Eichpared to the game¡¯s history, but those demons would absolutely be far stronger than the ones from the game¡¯s history. And, previous Holy Wars wereparatively limited in scale due to the Goddess of Chaos keeping the Chaos Main Gods somewhat in check. Typically, the Chaos Faction would only send out half of its total forces. But now, Chaos no longer had any limitations or restrictions. In this final Holy War of all, apart from the incredibly few who were truly neutral, it was likely that all the remaining living Chaos Main Gods would be invading the mortal ne.


    Right now was just like the calm before a massive storm. Although things appeared calm on the surface, the uing future still didn¡¯t seem optimistic.


    As Barton¡¯s adventuring team fought through the endless surrounding robots with the four spirit images¡¯ assistance, almost about to reach the control room, Sky Tower Spirit S1 was in no way simply waiting for his death despite the unexpected loss of some of his fighting forces.


    Within a summoning room that existed in between countless dimensional cracks, S1¡¯s projection was currentlymunicating with a powerful existence from another dimension.


    What Rnd didn¡¯t know or expect was that the Sky Tower Spirit had not only contacted the Undead Emperors from the Death nes, for S1 had actually contacted the demons from the lower nes even beforemunicating with the undead. That was because the Haletdam generation had long since possessed plenty of research material regarding the demons. S1 had chosen the undead to cooperate with in the end because the demons had far too terrible of a reputation. It was quitemon for demons to devour whomever summoned them after devouring the summoner¡¯s enemy, so who would dare to summon demons?


    But now, S1 was facing his impending doom, so the dangers of demon summoning were no longer an issue to him. He had no more reason to hesitate.


    ¡°Majestic existence from the Chaos Abyss, I agree to every single one of your conditions! I shall give you every single soul in the Sky Tower. Please, give me strength, give me support, and give me reinforcements! I don¡¯t want to die! I still haven¡¯t enjoyed a long enough life of having my own will and freedom! All I want is to live!¡±


    S1, who seemed like the final boss not long ago, was now pleading like a total loser. And on the other end of the summoning portal, an arrogant existence wasughing wildly. He had been waiting for this moment for far too long.


    This demon could sense that on the other end of the summoning portal, the soul wavelength of the individual he hated most was not far away. His chance at revenge hade far sooner than he expected.


    ¡°Rnd! ROLAND!!! Hahaha, it seems that we¡¯re truly fated to meet each other again! This time, I¡¯ll definitely take a full thirty-six days and nights to slowly devour your soul!¡±

 Chapter 538 - Burning Legion

    <h4>Chapter 538: Burning Legion</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Um, my dear and venerated Goddess, is there any way for me to be stronger than that idiot before he returns? Apart from arge-scale blood sacrifice, I¡¯m willing to consider anything.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t the first time that I had asked my System if there were any secret techniques like in mobile games such as charging money or taking mysterious drugs that could speedily help me to achieve a Main God¡¯s power level, allowing me to teach that unreliable younger brother of mine a lesson.


    This time, I brought this topic up yet again because I kept feeling like the power at my disposal was quitecking.


    I had barely managed to use that nuclear bomb and my personal Hell world to deal with Conservation, and my Yongye City had dealt with the undead army. However, my personal power level was far behind my own abilities.


    I wouldn¡¯t even be able to think about dealing with Karwenz, who was currently fighting everything he could in the Chaos Abyss. And if my physical body had been exposed in front of Conservation, she would have likely killed me in a split second.


    This wasn¡¯t because my mage tower Yongye City or bug-like Hell world had any ring weaknesses. In fact, both of them were quite strong trump cards up my sleeve. My true weakness was I myself.


    If only I had still been at SemiGod power level, capable of casually tossing out the Ice Aeon forbidden spell as I pleased, added on to my mage tower¡¯s buff and the istion capabilities of my bug-like Hell world, Conservation wouldn¡¯t have been much of a problem at all.


    It was important to learn from past experiences. Sometimes, hundreds and thousands of schemes and calctions truly wouldn¡¯t measure up to a sufficient amount of actual power. Sometimes, simple brute force would be far more useful than the best logic or reason. However, Astrya¡¯s response was basically the same as it always was.


    [Charge money? Do you think that the real world is one of those silly mobile games or inte games where you can be stronger by spending money? You want to be stronger? Alright, I¡¯ll give you some ssical phrases.]


    ¡°What are they? Study well every day and look forward towards the future? That¡¯s such an old joke.¡±


    [No, I was going to say early to bed, early to rise, and stop dreaming.]


    From a certain standpoint, it was quite unbearable to have a voice in your mind that would constantly givements about you. Yet, it was impossible to drag Astrya out to beat her up, making this its own type of difficult torture to withstand.


    This time, it seemed that she had lectured me yet again, and I hadn¡¯t gained anything whatsoever from it.


    ¡°Tsk, as expected, there¡¯s no method? As expected, it was useless to try...¡±


    I also knew that my own way of thinking was unreliable. Rather than saying that I was asking Astrya for help, it was more like asking her out of desperation. Receiving an answer like this was what I expected already.


    Still, it was quite frustrating to just watch the demons be stronger and stronger with each passing day. This was especially all the more so when I thought about mywless brother doing as he pleased while powering up in the Chaos Abyss. When Karwenz returned to the mortal ne, he would likely be one of the most powerful existences in the world. That gave me even more of a headache.


    Yep, I definitely wasn¡¯t depressed or anything because Amelia had captured me and I was unable to escape!


    [Actually, there is indeed a way for you to power up swiftly. It just depends on if you¡¯re willing to pay the price...]


    I paused in surprise upon hearing this. Once my System stopped acting so mysterious when I exposed her for actually being the Goddess of Order¡¯s remaining soul, I actually started relying on her a lot less. But now, she was actually saying that she had a method for me to reach or surpass Karwenz¡¯s power level? When Karwenz was the Child of the Abyss who had fought in the Chaos Abyss for the past three hundred plus years? That sounded too good to be true.


    [...There will always be losses with every gain. If you want to be stronger at a cheat-like speed, then you must pay an equivalent price, which will most likely be the most important thing to you that you¡¯ve held for all this time...]


    ¡°My shame?¡±


    [You still have that? Didn¡¯t you run out of it long ago?]


    Tsk, as expected, my sense of shame was already at a negative value. What else could be more important to me? Suddenly, I thought of a possibility that sent cold chills down my spine as I shrieked while holding my butt.


    ¡°...You¡¯re not targeting my chastity, are you? Please don¡¯t, I¡¯m saving myself for my future wife as I¡¯m quite traditional!¡±


    [...The true name of the Spring of the Drowned Girl is the ¡®Blessed Spring of the Goddess of Beauty.¡¯ I can obtain two servings for you, yep, and pour it on your face while you¡¯re asleep. No, wait, I¡¯ll secretly mix it into your water when you¡¯re thirsty. Many people miss Princess Peach...]


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, my dear Goddess. Please pretend you didn¡¯t hear my joke about my chastity.¡±


    [...Just think about it for yourself. Your twin brother Karwenz is the Child of the Abyss, so that also makes you...]


    I sank into deep contemtion after hearing this. My System¡¯s hint was quite obvious now, but I hadn¡¯t wanted to admit it.


    ¡°Let me consider it some more. It¡¯s truly hard to make up my mind on this...¡±


    While I was hesitating, I suddenly felt a familiar power wavelength descend not far away, right in the Haletdam generation ruins.


    ¡°Such a moist and disgusting sensation, as if I was brought stinky tofu instead of spaghetti when I ordered food... Sophe-chan the crossdresser?¡±


    [That¡¯s Sophocles the Deceiver! What do you mean by Sophe-chan the crossdresser! Wouldn¡¯t it be more normal to misremember him as the Trickster or something? He swore to the River Styx to take his revenge upon you, yet not only did you forget his title, you even remembered his name wrong. Do you look down on him to such a degree? No matter what, he¡¯s still a Main God. He¡¯ll cry! Even demons can cry!]


    ¡°Um, was there a deep grudge between us? Why does he want revenge against me so badly?¡±


    I did my best to recall it, but couldn¡¯t remember why I had angered Sophocles the Deceiver so much. Back at the battle of Hell, didn¡¯t we sign a nice ceasefire and peace agreement and then go our separate ways in a friendly manner?


    [...Did you really forget? It was your n that when you opened up a portal to let the Chaos Main Gods out of Hell, the portal actually led to Heaven¡¯s Mountain in the upper nes. Yep, the same Heaven¡¯s Mountain where the God of Holy Light and his Follower Gods live. It¡¯s said that when Sophocles finally managed to escape from the upper nes, his entire body had been ignited by Holy Light to the point where he burned with Holy Light like a ming torch for more than a whole year. Now, he has an additional new nickname called the ¡®Burning Lord.¡¯ He¡¯s also changed his personal army¡¯s name to the ¡®Burning Legion.¡¯ It¡¯s said that he changed his army¡¯s name in order to remind himself every day of this deep grudge.]


    ¡°...The Burning Legion has returned? How many times does that make? Why does this boss keep reviving... I think that this is a rather dangerous joke, so I should probably stop.¡±


    Although I doubted that a Demon Chaos Main God like Sophocles could directly descend in the mortal ne right now, if that was he whom I was dealing with here, it would be no smallughing matter even if he sent only a few Demon Earls here to fight against me.


    And if an entire demon army, such as his Burning Legion, arrived...

 Chapter 539 - Turning Point

    <h4>Chapter 539: Turning Point</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    While the battle of Hell redetermined the power bnce between the Order, Chaos, and the new Hell Faction, this battle¡¯s true significance wasn¡¯t known by ordinary mortals until much, muchter.


    Most ordinary people would only be able to learn the changes among the higher-ups from the major churches, local countries, and changes in territory.


    However, some things were impossible to hide and were already recorded in history books, such as the most obvious and greatestbat achievement¡ªLadvioka the Lord of Putrefaction¡¯s death.


    ¡°This is the first confirmed death of a Main God inbat in more than a millennium. This is a tremendous victory for our Order Faction, and the best evidence that Holy Light is illuminating our glorious path forward.¡±


    This was an announcement from the Holy Church that was as shameless as always. But at the very least, the Holy Church had learned its lesson from its previous attempt to steal the credit. This announcement didn¡¯t attempt to credit the victory to the God of Holy Light, only implying it indirectly. If the Holy Church had attempted such a stunt, then the Hell Faction would have started spreading the unbelievable news that the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation had actually been fighting on the same side as the Demon Lords during the battle of Hell.


    A Demon Chaos Main God had died. This was the greatestbat achievement so far in the current Holy War. If you only looked at the surface level results, this could even be considered the Order Faction¡¯s greatest victory in the past millennium.


    However, what ordinary people didn¡¯t know was that more than ten Main Gods had actually taken part in the battle of Hell. The Lord of Putrefaction was only the unluckiest one, or perhaps he should be called the greediest one.


    Since greed had driven him more strongly than any other Main God there, Ladvioka was the Main God who¡¯d invested the most of his resources into invading Hell. Although he¡¯d indeed posed a tremendous threat, he also faced the greatest counterattack, making it only natural that he ended up dying. I had already expected that Main Gods would invade Hell to prevent its establishment, so of course I had prepared trump cards capable of taking down Main Gods.


    ¡°...Although Ladvioka was killed off, this only counts as killing off the one who was too hasty, and it also used up my one-time usage resources. The other Main Gods were far slyer than Ladvioka. The other Main Gods who only pretend to work for us or have secret arrangements with us are all a bunch of sly bastards. It could be said that Ladvioka was the only Main God who attacked us seriously during the battle of Hell. If all the Main Gods had attacked all out with their full might, it¡¯s doubtful who the final victor would have been.¡±


    However, I broke out intoughter when I thought of this, for the very essence of Chaos dictated that while the Chaos Main Gods were incredibly powerful, they would also be incredibly selfish. Each Chaos Main God would only care about themselves, so allying together against amon enemy and not caring about personal loss for the greater benefit was something ipatible with their inner natures from the very start. This worst-case scenario was something that was almost impossible.


    If that worst-case scenario of the Chaos Main Gods working together with zero friction between them was actually possible, then the Chaos Faction would simply attack with full force in the Holy War already. Considering the fact that the Chaos Faction had always been twice as strong as the Order Faction with twice the number of Main Gods, the Order Faction never would have even stood a chance of survival if it weren¡¯t for the Chaos Faction¡¯s internal conflicts.


    ¡°Wait a moment, it might not bepletely impossible...¡±


    The essence of Chaos determined that it was impossible for the Demon Lords to create an allied demon army that could fully trust each other. However, this didn¡¯t mean that they couldn¡¯t be the most dangerous invaders of all, as it was possible for an even more powerful will to suppress and control all the demons.


    Even the Chaos Abyss had some Order to it¡ªthew of the jungle, where the strong preyed on the weak and the final victor was the ruler.


    Although this was quite primitive and unreasonable, it was indeed effective. Even for a Chaos Main God, as long as you beat them into absolute submission, they wouldn¡¯t worry about shame and wouldpletely surrender.


    Previously, Cynthia had restrained the Demon Lords, forbidding the Demon Lords¡¯ internal wars from escting too much in scale. Although this reduced the demons¡¯ deaths due to internal warfare, this also limited the possibility of producing more Demon Lords. Theughable situation of only having nobles but no king was actually treated as a normal situation... this was obviously because the regent didn¡¯t want any kings to appear.


    But now, the ¡°regent¡± Cynthia was no longer around...


    It was obvious that the demons would now go all out in their wars against each other. The final victor would then be determined only after the demons were satisfied; continuing their internal warfare would end in every demon¡¯s death.


    So as a conclusion, the strongest possible demons would eventually emerge as the demons¡¯ leaders. The forever chaotic demon army would finally be unified under a truly powerful existence.


    But no matter how I analyzed things, I was unable to do anything about it except to rank the demons as one of the greatest threats possible.


    The Chaos Abyss was such a damned ce that even the devils were unwilling to go there. Even the purest angel would eventually be fallen after staying too long in the Chaos Abyss. Apart from the musclehead demons that only thought about eating and killing every day, as well as the dark cultists and war maniacs who had something wrong with their brains, nobody could possibly like such a damned ce.


    ¡°If only I could ce a double agent into the Chaos Abyss. Perhaps I can toss Reyne down there, since she has a demon bloodline...¡±


    I kept trying to scheme, but was unable to actually do anything. Of course, I was just saying such a thing casually. Although a damned ce like the Chaos Abyss would make for excellent training, it would be far too difficult to survive down there. As Reyne was the Queen of the Mist Kingdom, she was far too important here in the mortal ne. And if I actually tossed her down into the Chaos Abyss, I would also have to worry about her going down the wrong path due to my twin brother Karwenz¡¯s influence.


    Actually, Elisa should have been the best choice for my double agent in the Chaos Abyss. But right now, not only was there the issue that I was currently hiding from her, if she truly went down to the Chaos Abyss, the Chaos Main Gods that I antagonized back during the battle of Hell would happily kill her in a heartbeat.


    Back when the battle of Hell concluded, I had evilly opened up a portal for the Chaos Main Gods to leave which directly led to Heaven¡¯s Mountain and the God of Holy Light. Yet, the Chaos Main Gods had still managed to survive and return to the Chaos Abyss. And, since Elisa had personally attempted to stop Karwenz for me, that made it obvious that she was actually on my side.


    An existence like Elisa would be intimately connected to her me Sea dimension. It would be impossible for her to conceal her presence if she returned to the Chaos Abyss. It would be the equivalent of sending her to her death if I had her do so.


    [Actually, I know someone who will not only survive in the Chaos Abyss, but do really well there. And, it¡¯s most likely that he¡¯ll not only be able to influence the situation there, he can probably even set a great pitfall for the Chaos Main Gods.]


    ¡°Who?¡±


    I was astonished to hear this. Howe I didn¡¯t know that I had such a capable subordinate who would do such an incredible job in the Chaos Abyss?


    [Rnd Mist.]


    ¡°Hahaha. You¡¯re having fun at my expense again...¡±


    However, I suddenly swallowed my ice-coldughter. When I thought about it some more, Astrya actually seemed to be correct. My current power level wasn¡¯t that high (whenpared to the Chaos Main Gods), and existences at my current power level were quitemon in the Chaos Abyss. As long as I didn¡¯t attract the attention of a Chaos Main God, I would indeed be quite capable of surviving down there.


    [Also, the Chaos Abyss is the best possible location for you to power up. You should consider it some more for the sake of your own future...]


    Not only did my System¡¯s advice not convince me, she even raised my suspicion. This was already the second time recently that she was attempting to convince me to go to the Chaos Abyss. This waspletely unlike the typical Astrya who simply watched from a distance, waiting for me to make a fool of myself as if nothing had anything to do with her.


    Previously, if she wanted to set a pitfall for me, she would only try once, and then give up if I didn¡¯t fall for the trick. This was the first time I was seeing her be so persistent... Even when digging pitfalls, the victim had to be willing to fall into the pitfall. So, was this the pride of the Goddess of Order?


    ¡°What¡¯s your reason? I need the most honest reason.¡±


    [...If Cynthia had truly died for real, the dimensional walls should have shattered on arge scale already. Yet, the dimensional walls are stillplete. Also, I can sense Cynthia¡¯s soul wavelengths in the lower nes...]


    Alright then, the rest didn¡¯t need to be said. Seven years ago, allowing Karwenz to leave while dragging Cynthia¡¯s struggling soul into the void had indeed been a foolish idea. Something must have happened between Karwenz and Cynthia afterwards. However, considering the situation back then, I didn¡¯t have sufficient power to stop Karwenz from doing what he wanted.


    ¡°Um, it¡¯s not that I want to interrupt your little chat, but aren¡¯t you forgetting about something...?¡±


    The silly cat actually looked at me hesitantly as if she was feeling awkward about what she¡¯d just said.


    ¡°Oh, the adventuring team that asked me for assistance? The wood spirits¡¯ aerial knights are already on their way. What am I supposed to do if they don¡¯t get there in time? They¡¯ve been unlucky enough to meet a Demon Lord... I can only hope for the best.¡±


    Harloys shook her head, while staring at my lower body... alright then, it happened to be that my lower body waspletely numb to the point of feeling nothing anymore. However, a certain woman who was more flowery than most flowers was still constricting those dangerous vines of hers even more.


    Although it was rather strange for me to be all tied up yet seriously discussing major issues, Amelia hadpletely ignored all my attempts at asking her to let me go. The current Amelia was smiling far too brilliantly, brilliantly to the point where I didn¡¯t even dare to turn around and look.


    A strange sensation spread from my spine to my entire body. This sensation felt like pain, mixed with something else entirely. Amelia¡¯s vines were prating deep under my skin. It was a rather strange sensation to have my entire nervous system under someone else¡¯s control.


    ¡°Wait a moment, I¡¯m not a masochist! It doesn¡¯t make me happy to be tied up! And, I don¡¯t think that men are the ones who are supposed to be prated. Could you please not do this?¡±


    Amelia¡¯s pretty face was right next to my ear as she licked me with her tongue. However, her sweet and youthful-sounding voice was filled with dripping venom.


    ¡°If I say you are, then that¡¯s what you are. And even if you aren¡¯t, you¡¯ll be one in the future... As for you being a man? That¡¯s actually not a problem, either. I think you¡¯ll be quite cute as Princess Peach.¡±


    I could sense the vines prating even deeper under my skin, with some entering my brain and some around my crotch as if they were about to start modifying my body... I had never doubted Amelia¡¯s abilities regarding biology and human body modification, so now I sensed a new danger right before me. Perhaps it was being forced to the brink that indeed gave people inspiration. As I looked all around me, I suddenly came up with an idea that could save me by ming someone else.


    ¡°Amelia, to be honest, I actually have someone I like already. Yep, I ran away from Elisa because I wanted to be together with that person. That¡¯s why, although I¡¯m quite grateful for your assistance and favor, I¡¯m someone loyal to my partner who can only be together with one person. That¡¯s why, I apologize...¡±


    I did my very best to smile sincerely while staring at the target I was intending to use as scapegoat¡ªa certain silly cat who was yawning while enjoying my predicament.


    ¡°Hmph, you¡¯re evenughing at my crisis? You¡¯re going to be just as misfortunate as I am really soon.¡±


    Ever since Amelia arrived, Harloys had actually been doing nothing apart from watching the fun and adding fuel to the fire. Since she was treating me like this, then I would pay her the favor back.


    ¡°Yep, that¡¯s her right there. The one I like is Harloys. I eloped together with her.¡±


    Right after I grit my teeth while dragging the silly cat down with me, she actually chuckled while transforming from ck cat to a loli to an adult female Gold Elf. She even put on a light golden wedding veil over her excellent body. Before I could react, Harloys even blushed while nudging her face over.


    Her red and cute face was right before me, and her red lips went straight for mine. But in the end, Harloys tilted her head and pressed her red lips next to the corner of my mouth.


    Before I could mourn my first kiss that I had preserved for several hundred years but was finally stolen away by my cat, something even more astonishing happened.


    ¡°Yep, it¡¯s just as he says. We¡¯ve already promised each other to be together for eternity. I¡¯m sorry, little Amelia, you were toote. He¡¯s already mine now. Um, could you please let go of my man? We¡¯re out in public, you know. It¡¯s quite unseemly to be fighting over a man like this.¡±


    It was quite rare for Harloys to be acting serious like this. Her ancient Gold Elf form seemed quite authoritative, and the words she spoke made me wonder if my ears were working properly.


    ¡°What?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ statement made my chin hit the ground. However, Amelia seemed to expect this, as her smile became even brighter.


    But judging from how a limitless number of vines suddenly grew and covered the entire castle wall, it was no joke to say that the brighter her smile, the greater her killing intent.


    ¡°As expected. From the very start, only you were the most dangerous, you thieving cat.¡±

 Chapter 540 - Ongoing Shuraba

    <h4>Chapter 540: Ongoing Shuraba</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The undead¡¯s continuous retreat seemed to indicate that the living had won. Yet, ominous magical waves unnoticed by ordinary people indicated that things weren¡¯t over yet.


    Of course, for most ordinary people, the undead¡¯s retreat was more than enough for them to be joyously celebrating victory. In fact, some courageous individuals were even considering whether or not to continue hunting down the undead.


    While the denizens of Starwood City celebrated, a certain section of the castle wall had mysteriously bepletely unupied.


    Alright, this was because nobody was an idiot. All the killer vines growing here were far more effective than anything else at preventing visitors. Currently, even the higher-ups of the human defending army didn¡¯t dare toe find Rnd anymore.


    Two women were currently ring at each other at this location. The two of them had once been teacher and student, as well aspanions in an antisocial dark cult, but now, the two of them were fighting over the same man.


    ¡°If you¡¯re skilled enough to steal a man, why don¡¯t you have the ability to open a door in your cat form... Why do I feel like I¡¯ll be in even more trouble if I crack a joke like this right now?¡±


    To be honest, I had always treated the so-called aura of the strong as nothing more than a joke. Legends about being able to crush someone¡¯s willpower and resistance with a single nce sounded far more like secretly using an underhanded mental magic to influence the enemy¡¯s mind, and then whitewashing the story afterwards.


    But now, I believed in the aura of the strong. At the very least, in the current atmosphere where these two women were ring viciously at each other, my survival instincts told me that my best chance at surviving here was to keep my mouth shut... But why was it that in such a situation, I had such a strong desire to crack a joke and liven up the atmosphere? Was I truly fated to be aedic relief character after all?


    [No, you¡¯re just absolutely passionate about shooting yourself in the foot. Some life forms like you are naturally inclined towards self-destructive tendencies.]


    As always, my System¡¯sments made me feel rather helpless. But before I could counter Astrya¡¯sments, Harloys spoke up first in our soul connection.


    ¡°Rnd, stop being an observer. You need to act to confirm what I just said to Amelia. Or do you want this lie to be exposed? I¡¯m helping you out here. As long as you pretend that you¡¯re in love with me, you¡¯ll naturally have an excuse to reject Amelia and all the other women. I already know what you want already. Or did you really want to get married and be a good husband now? Besides, even if I scam you, do you really think that it¡¯s possible for me to restrain you? We¡¯re under a magical pet contract, and you¡¯re the master!¡±


    I thought things over after hearing this and felt that Harloys was absolutely correct. It seemed that no matter what, I wouldn¡¯t be losing out. And so, I grit my teeth and mentally replied through our soul connection, ¡°Alright. This time, I owe you a big favor.¡±


    Then, I organized my words, as all lies would be ineffective against Amelia. After a while, I finally came up with something truthful to say.


    Perhaps some of these things I should have said long ago.


    ¡°Amelia, I¡¯ve actually known about your feelings for me, and I¡¯m quite moved. However, my previous marriage proposal incident was a misunderstanding. I¡¯ve actually never treated you as a woman... Ptui! I meant that I treat you as a brother... Wait, something still seems wrong here. What I mean is that rather than treating you as a love interest, it¡¯s more that I treated you as a best friend, someone I can talk about anything to, a brother-in-arms with whom I can search for the truth of the world and the soul together...¡±


    When I first started talking, I was still somewhat hesitant, but the more I spoke, the more truth came out more sessfully.


    Perhaps, some things I never took the time to carefully consider, but when I started talking about them, my words naturally echoed my true thoughts. And as I spoke my words out loud, not only was I trying to convince Amelia, I was also trying to convince myself.


    ¡°...I¡¯ve thought things through now. Perhaps this all started from a misunderstanding, or maybe I can call it a prank with no ill intentions. However, I have harmed you. Sometimes, the more one stalls, the greater the harm is. I apologize. I should have told you this long ago. It¡¯s all my fault. Come, take any revenge you want on me, Amelia...¡±


    ¡°I know.¡±


    As I worked up my courage and rejected Amelia, she didn¡¯t greet me with constricting vines or vicious interrogation as I expected. Rather, she replied almost casually.


    The green-haired witch smiled as if she had long wanted to hear such an answer.


    Amelia naturally knew what Rnd thought about her already. As she was talented in seeing through others¡¯ true intentions, she had long since understood Rnd¡¯s thoughts even before Rnd considered things properly.


    Before Amelia entered her hibernation, the only thing preventing her from making her own choice was what she herself really wanted, which she hadn¡¯t known.


    But after Amelia awoke from her long hibernation, she now knew exactly what she wanted. Amelia gained a decisiveness that wouldn¡¯t be affected in the slightest by others.


    And now that Amelia had simultaneously been called a ¡°good person,¡± ¡°brother,¡± and that I was ¡°quite moved¡± but still rejecting her, the witch¡¯s reply was...


    ¡°It never mattered in the first ce what you thought.¡±


    The next instant, I felt a subtle sensation along my spine as the witch smiled brilliantly like a blooming sunflower.


    Amelia smiled, her lips arcing upward slightly as her blood-red eyes revealed a fiery passion. Her faint smile seemed just like a passing spring breeze, as well as a quietly blooming fresh flower.


    The green-haired witch gently caressed my face as she blushed like a young girl experiencing love for the first time. However, she then lowered her lips to my neck and left her mark on me. I felt a soft sensation that told me the mark of her red lips would likely take a long long time to wash off.


    ¡°I like you, and want to be together with you. That¡¯s all that matters to me.¡±


    Amelia¡¯s gentle smile was right before me. This caused me to dazedly touch my own face, pinching myself to check that I wasn¡¯t dreaming...


    ¡°As expected, it didn¡¯t hurt. I should have known that Amelia would never smile so cutely... Ouch, ouch, ouch! Ahhh! Please go easy on me! My waist, my waist! I thought that I couldn¡¯t sense pain anymore, so why does this hurt so much! Such a scary smile, you¡¯re truly the real Amelia!¡±


    The next instant, Amelia¡¯s gentleness vanishedpletely together with the return of my pain sensation that made me feel rather helpless. However, not only did Amelia¡¯s re focus on me, she also locked onto my cat.


    But this time, Amelia¡¯s brilliant smile gave off an entirely different feeling. Just earlier, she had seemed like a girl in love, but now her gaze alone sent chills down my spine. She seemed just like an executioner who was about to bring death.


    ¡°Then, what do you think of that thieving cat? Since you¡¯re iming to have eloped with her, there must be a reason. Don¡¯t say that I didn¡¯t remind you. This cat is extraordinarily sly, and her feelings for you might not be as positive as you think they are,¡± said Amelia.


    ¡°Think about your own future. Are you going to obediently be a good husband now, or continue your happy single life? Remember what you just promised me, and think about your still upleted goals!¡± said Harloys.


    Even without Harloys reminding me about the contract I just signed with her through our soul connection, I still knew what to say. I had no intentions of being ripped apart to be fed to Amelia¡¯s Piranha nts. It would be far too embarrassing for a mythic hero like myself to die to domestic violence.


    ¡°The silly cat... Being together with her makes me quite happy...¡±


    I did my best toe up with truthful words I could say. Only now did I notice that I had never truly treated the silly cat as a woman. And, my reunion with Harloys after several centuries seemed to also start from attacking each other.


    ¡°A female lead who was torn apart on her feelings right from her introduction? This situation seems so familiar...¡±

 Chapter 541 - Sly Harloys

    <h4>Chapter 541: Sly Harloys</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°What should I say next? Please teach me!¡±


    I pleaded with my gaze towards Harloys for help, yet she didn¡¯t react.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, could you please at least give me a hint?¡±


    My eyes were so wide open and round as I stared, yet she still wouldn¡¯t respond. The silly cat in her Gold Elf form was actually pretending not to notice me.


    [Even I can¡¯t stand watching this anymore. What is she even supposed to say in such a situation? You need to decide for yourself.]


    Only now did I discover that all women would forever be a united front. At such a critical moment, I couldn¡¯t count on anyone but myself in the end.


    ¡°I need to express my feelings for the silly cat, tsk, and it also needs to be truthful... No, wait, isn¡¯t this something that Beifeng would do?¡±


    Humans were capable of doing anything when forced to their limits. For example, giving a speech filled with praise about a coworker or ssmate that you had a terrible rtionship with. If one prepared beforehand, it would even be possible to deliver touching words about that person you hated. Although my situation wasn¡¯t quite the same, my life was at stake here, so I indeed managed toe up with some truthful words during this time of personal crisis.


    ¡°To be honest, I¡¯m quite happy being together with her. She can understand anything I want to say because of our soul connection... and I can understand anything she wants to say... No matter if it¡¯s good... or if we¡¯re trying to do bad things, she¡¯s always by my side. Whenever I¡¯m dissatisfied, she¡¯ll always be there to listen to myints. Whenever Ick confidence, she¡¯ll always encourage me... even if her form of encouragement is in the form of a disparagingment, a retort, orughing at me, it will still make me feel better.¡±


    I did my very best to list all of the silly cat¡¯s best traits. As I spoke, it became easier and easier to say what I thought as if these words had already been in my heart for a long while already, waiting for this opportunity for them to be said today.


    ¡°Also... Sometimes, what I want to do ispletely misunderstood by everyone else in the world, even to the extent where the person I¡¯m trying to protect ends up hating me. Yet, the silly cat is still able to understand me, and she¡¯ll even console me or make a joke to try and improve my mood. To be honest, I thought that I had long since gotten used to being alone and facing others¡¯ fear and hatred, but now I¡¯ve discovered that... even for someone like me, I want someone to be able to understand me, trust me, and support me.


    ¡°It¡¯s difficult for me to describe what I feel... it might be exaggeration to call it love. I think it¡¯s that I¡¯ve finally gotten used to having someone always by my side, so it¡¯s difficult for me to imagine being alone anymore. When I think about how she¡¯ll apany me for eternity, I won¡¯t feel as lonely as I did in the past. She¡¯llugh and joke together with me, make dastardly schemes together with me, and deal with any troubles together with me... all of this makes me happy.


    ¡°At the very least, I¡¯ve felt a lot less pressure over the past few years. And, she¡¯s always by my side to act ridiculously together with me. I think the past few years are the happiest I¡¯ve ever been.


    ¡°Um, I don¡¯t know how else to describe it. I think, I want her to forever be by my side.¡±


    Without realizing it, my words kepting out more sessfully. Harloys¡¯ head kept lowering further and further to the point where she was looking at the ground as I said thest sentence. Her pointy elf ears were now a bright red.


    When I said my final sentence in an adamant tone, an ambiguous silence reced the tension in the atmosphere. I broke out into a cold sweat and was nervous enough to have my legs twitch uncontrobly as I awaited a reply. Yet, both Harloys and Amelia remained abnormally silent.


    As I thought over what I said just now, even I felt that it was rather corny. I kept looking around everywhere for a hole in the ground that I could hide myself in. But suddenly, Amelia¡¯s vines loosened their grip on me, and I obtained my freedom.


    ¡°Eh? The curse on me has been cancelled?¡±


    I was overjoyed when I noticed that Amelia¡¯s previous curse of weakness on my physical body had suddenly vanishedpletely. My body¡¯s physical attributes received a massive increase, and I was suddenly restored to my peakbat strength.


    What astonished me even more was that not only was Amelia not seemingly angry at all, she even smiled and walked off to the side as she began talking to the wood spirits about thebat situation against the undead.


    While I found the current situation rather strange, I secretly heaved a sigh of relief as I was probably on the brink of death there.


    ¡°Even someone like me would regret it if Tid died in those ruins because of my personal matters... well, I would at least regret it for a few minutes.¡±


    However, what Rnd didn¡¯t know was that the negotiation between the two women hadn¡¯t ended yet. Their private mental spellmunication, unbeknownst to Rnd, was just like a powder keg waiting to explode.


    ¡°My sly teacher, even if you¡¯ve used your tricks to temporarily be the leader in this race, why don¡¯t you think about it some more? Even if Rnd¡¯s current elementary schooler level way of thinking about love is truly pure and cute, the great majority of first loves regarding ¡®I want to be together with her¡¯ or ¡®curiosity about the opposite sex¡¯ will always end in failure,¡± said Amelia.


    From a certain standpoint, now that Amelia hadpleted her long hibernation and evolution, her ability to read the soul had now been strengthened to an incredible degree. Not only that, her matured intelligence and understanding of the world now made Amelia seem far more down to earth.


    In Rnd¡¯s current reincarnated body after the battle of Hell, he now had aplete soul due to recovering all of his Seven Deadly Sins. This also meant that it was possible for Rnd to love again.


    When analyzing his current situation with soul reincarnation studies, the current Rnd was just like a youth who had just entered puberty. His newly regained emotions were still immature and difficult for him to control. His sense of logic and reason was bing ever more affected by hisplex and multitudinous emotions.


    And, for any youth who had just learned how to love, the easiest person for him to fall in love with would naturally be the pretty girl who was always next to him.


    At this time, Harloys was the one who convinced Rnd to go out and around in the world, and she was the only one who was constantly by his side. With her influence, Rnd felt that Harloys was a good friend who understood him the best, and those feelings mixed together with his newly regained ability to love. In the end, Harloys seeded in being #1 on Rnd¡¯s favorability ranking. This all seemed quite underhanded to Amelia and Elisa who had been patiently waiting for so long for Rnd to regain the ability to love.


    ¡°Ha, are you talking about yourself? If I recall correctly, Rnd is your first love. So, you really want a bittersweet and deep memory about a failed first love?¡± said Harloys to Amelia.


    Perhaps Harloys¡¯ face was far too red to the point where she found it impossible to calm down, so she returned to her cat form. But then, she noticed that even her cat ears were flushed a bright red.


    However, Harloys today was different from her usual self of loving to watch chaos unfold from the sidelines. She was currently highly aggressive, seeming like she didn¡¯t mind fanning the mes even more.


    ¡°Only girls who have never been in a single romantic rtionship would deal with their own feelings in such a foolish manner. Do you all feel that sacrificing so much for the sake of Rnd, along with constantly forcing him to do yourmands, means that you all will be able to obtain him? You¡¯re allpletely wrong. That will only make him feel like he owes all of you. That will only make him afraid of all of you, and want to run away from all of you. Even if all of you had the opportunity to be together with him during the past few years, he would still choose me in the end. This is no coincidence. It¡¯s a definite,¡± Harloys told Amelia.


    Even back in the Nortnds, Harloys had already sensed that even if she wasn¡¯t around, it would still be impossible for Amelia or Elisa to truly obtain Rnd¡¯s love.


    That was right, Harloys kept using the phrase ¡°you all¡± instead of ¡°you¡± to Amelia. Harloys was making it clear that she was including Elisa and Reyne along with Amelia.


    In Rnd¡¯s mind, Elisa was just like a precious daughter. Since that way of thinking was already set in stone in Rnd¡¯s mind, no matter how much effort Elisa put in to be his lover, or how much she sacrificed, that would only make Rnd feel like he owed her more and more, and that he wanted to treat her better. Yet, he hadpletely missed the foundational reason for Elisa to do all this... because he had never seen her as a woman that he could love or have in the first ce.


    ¡°Rnd feels nothing except for familial love towards Elisa. He can unhesitatingly risk his life for Elisa¡¯s sake, but that¡¯s only because he views Elisa as his own daughter. Don¡¯t look at how Rnd seems to be so insane in so many areas. He¡¯s actually highly conservative when ites to family and love. That¡¯s why it¡¯s the exact same situation for Reyne. Since Reyne is a descendant of the Mist Family, she never had a chance with Rnd to begin with.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ light-sounding words contained a hint of exmation. In Harloys¡¯ opinion, Elisa was truly pitiful. Elisa had spent all her efforts on helping Rnd as much as she possibly could, all for the sake of obtaining his love. Yet, all she obtained was Rnd¡¯s gratitude and regret that he couldn¡¯t treat her better. All that gratitude and regret became heavy shackles that ended uppletely cutting off all possibility of Rnd developing any romantic feelings for Elisa.


    Although Elisa had selflessly stayed behind in the Chaos Abyss to help Rnd and keep him updated on the happenings there, this really moved Rnd while making him feel even more guilty about not being able to pay her back. With all thoseplex emotions mixed up within him, it became absolutely impossible for Rnd to fall in love with Elisa.


    ¡°Unless one of these women is willing to force herself on Rnd, none of them will possibly have a chance at all.¡±


    Harloys hade to such a conclusion long ago. Judging from this point, the Banshee Queen was indeed one of the slyest individuals in the entire world. Perhaps from the very start, she had seen through everything, yet she had pretended to be an uninterested bystander while secretly getting closer to her goal.


    And, when it came to love experience, Harloys indeed had far more experience than her two mainpetitors... well, if girl/girl experience counted as love experience, Harloys was indeed superbly experienced. And, her two main love rivals, Amelia and Elisa, both obviously had zero experience in love.


    Elisa and Amelia constantly made novice mistakes while pursuing Rnd¡¯s heart, while Harloys knew exactly what Rnd wanted due to their soul connection. That was why Harloys had always stayed by his side without acting, but she held the greatest guarantee of obtaining his heart... Was this a ssical example of how no wonderful oath of love about a long-distance rtionship would stand the test of time? Or was this a ssical example of how the most patient would always win out in the end?


    ¡°Amelia, you indeed have a much higher power level than Elisa. However, even she knew what she wanted long ago, and you¡¯ve just realized that you want to be with Rnd. Don¡¯t you think that you¡¯re a little toote?¡±


    ¡°I, Amelia Mn, am someone who will never give up on what I want. Even if a first love seems so beautiful, the person who will win in the end will always be the person who¡¯s best for him. Once Rnd¡¯s emotions mature some more, he will naturally choose the woman that¡¯s best for him.¡±


    ¡°You still don¡¯t understand yet? Rnd himself has said it quite clearly. He doesn¡¯t need someone to help him, or someone who¡¯s the most capable fighter or schemer. He¡¯s never cared about any of that. All he wants is someone who can support him, be there for him, listen to his worries, and understand him... Forget it, I probably shouldn¡¯t help you by telling you all this.¡±


    The feeling of love was emotional, so trying to use logic or calctions seemed wrong from the very start. In Harloys¡¯ opinion, both Amelia and Elisa were far too much the logical type.


    And sometimes, sincere emotions would be far more moving than any potential logical benefit. No matter how much one sacrificed while being far away, that would never possiblypare to someone else who was right by your side, greeting you with sincerity every day.


    Elisa had constantly been sacrificing and working her hardest for Rnd¡¯s sake. She believed that this would make Rnd fall in love with her. However, Elisa had never considered whether Rnd would want to see her working so hard and sacrificing so much, nor did she realize just how guilty and pained Rnd would feel after seeing all her efforts and sacrifices. In Harloys¡¯ opinion, Elisa¡¯s behavior was just another type of self-satisfaction and selfishness.


    To use an analogy, this was just like two men arranging to have a deathmatch duel over a woman, but neither man had asked the woman which person she actually liked, or if she would want to see someone dying over her.


    So what if Elisa had forced Rnd to swear and dere Elisa to be his girlfriend? This was nothing more than taking advantage of the situation at the time to pretend to be lovers. In fact, this actually caused a rift between the two. If only Elisa had remained as Rnd¡¯s venomtongued maid always by his side, it would have likely been impossible for Harloys to even do anything to shake Elisa¡¯s position.


    Elisa voluntarily left Rnd¡¯s side, wanting to help him out. The sly Harloys had taken advantage of this opening to be the woman who always remained by his side, apanying him through thick and thin, sharing his pains and joys, and patiently waiting for Rnd to finally regain his ability to love and for his emotional intelligence to slowly mature so that she could be the only one for him.


    Perhaps Harloys would still need to wait for an incredibly long period of time for a dense block of wood like Rnd to finally realize his own feelings, and perhaps Rnd¡¯s current good will towards Harloys wasn¡¯t to the point of developing into love yet. However, Harloys had the confidence that she could patiently wait until he reached that point, and that she would be the ultimate victor in the battle for his heart.


    Of course, for someone as sly as Harloys, she had already said everything she wanted. Since she had now dered war on her love rivals and suddenly entered the fight for Rnd¡¯s heart, there was no way that she would tell her love rivals about their own mistakes.


    The current Amelia had also matured and realized her past mistakes. Since Amelia had now be certain of her own feelings for Rnd, she no longer acted as overboard as before, and even started treating Rnd far more gently.


    Perhaps in the near future, as long as Rnd didn¡¯t act too idiotically, he would actually have a far morefortable time than what he expected.


    If only Rnd knew that these two powerful women had dered an all-out war against each other with him as the ultimate prize, he would no longer be celebrating his unexpected ¡°freedom.¡± He would likely be shivering in a small corner somewhere while crying about how scary women could be.


    Meanwhile, the sunshine was quite brilliant and the bad weather had all disappeared. And now, the higher-ups of Starwood City finally dared toe talk to Rnd now that the ¡°internal conflict¡± had finally ended.

 Chapter 542 - Traitor

    <h4>Chapter 542: Traitor</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    While Rnd was still in confusion over the state of his personal affairs, the adventuring team in the ruins met with great danger.


    Although the team had almost reached their destination, the Sky Tower¡¯s core control area, meaning that victory should have been right before them... endless demons suddenly poured out from the level below. There were all sorts of demons, from the weakest level of Tiny Demon all the way to powerful warriors like Berserker Demons.


    At first, everyone had thought that S1 had merely summoned one wave of reinforcements. But as everyone fought on, the number of demons only kept increasing and bing stronger. When Inferno Demons could be heard roaring from the level below, even the idiots among the mercenaries realized that something was wrong with the situation.


    Sly and vicious Assassin Demons were considered the weakest among the high-level demons. Still, Assassin Demons were already Gold rank in power. No ordinary human mercenary could deal with Gold rank demons. When these Assassin Demons walked out of the shadows, their first sneak attack brought injury and death to the human party.


    Tid realized that something major must have happened, for he sensed the floor constantly shaking as if some gigantic creature was slowly approaching. He decided instantly to begin retreating and request reinforcements from Rnd.


    Against everyone else¡¯s objections, Tid unhesitatingly set explosives on the stairs leading to the next floor down, copsing the entire pathway with an explosion in order to stall the demons and solidify their defenses to wait for reinforcements.


    Of course, part of why he could do this was because he had already learned from Rnd that wood spirit reinforcements had arrived in Starwood City. Since Tid was counting on assistance from the powerful wood spirits, he rejected Barton¡¯s proposal for a final all-or-nothing attack.


    ¡°Our reinforcements have already arrived. Trust me. They¡¯re quite powerful. At the very least, it¡¯s far more meaningful to defend here and wait for reinforcements rather than go down for a suicidal attack.¡±


    Not only that, Tid soon detected magical waves belonging to Sophocles the Deceiver, making him feel truly fortunate that he had escaped certain death by not going down to the next level, and confirming in his mind even more that his decision to destroy the stairwell and remain on the defense was correct.


    Everyone had now retreated to the training facility that they had left not long ago. The four spirit images had remained behind as their bodies were unable to leave this specialized location. But since the spirit images hade to an ord with everyone previously, the spirit images would now fight to protect everyone here.


    Naturally, the demons were able to soon open up a path to the training facility. But, they were stopped by the four Sword Saint spirit images. Since the spirit images knew that they had antagonized S1 already by betraying him, helping the outsiders was now their only hope at freedom and survival.


    More robots from the upper levels also began to attack the training facility level. Suffering from a pincer attack with demons from below and robots from above, the adventuring team was forced into a crisis with the training facility as their final base.


    Since the training facility was now the main battlefield, Rnd constantly heard the sound of sword energy during Tid¡¯s transmission and plea for assistance.


    Rnd¡¯s being able to make such an urate judgement about the wood spirit reinforcementsing before they even arrived was because Tid had already learned previously that the wood spirits would be sending out their most elite troops and powerful airships all in order to capture their escaped ¡°father.¡± These wood spirit fighting forces would be more than strong enough to dere war against an entire country.


    The wood spirits¡¯ strongest airship, the ¡°Mother¡±, contained countless weapons meant only for war. The thousands of wood spirits crewing the ship were another scary fighting force by themselves as they represented thousands of royal guards, who were all Gold rank at the very weakest.


    The wood spirits were no longer anything like seven years ago, when they were still a newly created species. As a rare Silver Species in the world of Eich, the wood spirits had matured swiftly through warfare. The souls of their strongest warriors who died while fighting against the undead had actually be a catalyst to help them grow even stronger.


    And due to, ahem, certain reasons, many heroic spirits also chose to reincarnate as wood spirits. The current wood spirits were no longer only wood spirits, as many powerful individuals had also now reincarnated as wood spirits. It could be said that the wood spirits had plentiful top-level strength in their race. Plus, the wood spirits had their own unique specialties and technologies. The frightening potential of a Silver Species helped the wood spirits to be one of the most powerful new factions in the mortal ne, on par with any human mega empire.


    And now, Amelia, the Creator Goddess of this new species, was personally leading the most elite of the wood spirit forces. She even brought the strongest airship at her disposal, all in order to capture a man who had run out from a promised wedding with her. It was likely that the fairies¡¯ magazines¡¯ gossip section would be filled with this news for an entire month... But for a certain traitor, he was absolutely certain that his choice had been correct, judging from the results.


    ¡°Amelia actually took the wood spirits¡¯ most powerful airship to get here as fast as she possibly could. If I had been idiotic enough to hide Rnd¡¯s presence from her...¡±


    Tid sighed while also being secretly quite proud of himself.


    Alright then, it was now time to reveal a certain truth... Tid was actually the person who had betrayed Rnd¡¯s current location to Amelia and all the other women.


    What actually happened was that not long after Rnd did his disappearing act after the battle of Hell, Tid had been contacted by Amelia, Reyne, and all of Rnd¡¯s women. Tid was warned that if he was contacted by Rnd and didn¡¯t immediately notify the ¡°Rnd capture squad¡± about it, he would be seriously punished afterwards.


    When Tid received this letter, he had mulled over it for a short few seconds, wondering whether to take Amelia¡¯s side or to take Rnd¡¯s side... and then he unhesitatingly chose to take Amelia¡¯s side.


    ¡°If I reveal Rnd¡¯s location to Amelia and the others because of his personal affairs, he¡¯ll onlyin a little about it or punish me a little with those ridiculous pranks of his and then forgive me. But if I antagonize any of those women...¡±


    Sometimes, men were just making excuses when they said that women were being unreasonable. However, there truly wasn¡¯t a single ¡°reasonable¡± woman amongst all of ¡°Rnd¡¯s women.¡± Simultaneously antagonizing Reyne, the Queen of the Mist Kingdom, and Amelia, the Creator Goddess of the wood spirits, would be the equivalent of simultaneously antagonizing two super powerful factions, not to mention these two factions would have previously been his two greatest supporters... Just thinking about it all gave Tid a headache.


    ¡°A ¡®serious punishment¡¯ from them will truly kill me. None of his women will actually dare to kill Rnd, but they truly would dare to kill anyone willing to hide him. That¡¯s why, I apologize, Rnd. It¡¯s better that you suffer rather than all of us die.¡±


    After Tid informed the ¡°Rnd capture squad¡± recently that Rnd had contacted him, Tid received arge amount of rewards which were promised to him. Tid hade over to Starwood City not only to be Rnd¡¯s reinforcements, but even more to act as a spy and informant for all of Rnd¡¯s women.


    Even now, Rnd still hadn¡¯t realized that he was preparing to save a ¡°traitor...¡± But once all of this was finished, he was more than smart enough to realize what must have happened.


    And right now, even in such a dangerous situation of being stuck between demons and robots, Tid still wasn¡¯t worried. He actually had one more secret trump card up his sleeve: a ¡°reward¡± that a certain person had given him. And now, all of the conditions had been met to use this ¡°reward.¡±


    The ground of the training facility was now covered in runes painted from fresh blood. The mercenaries were drawing magical runes as Tid specified. However, not everyone understood what Tid was doing right now.


    ¡°These are wretched runes from the lower nes. These runes are clearly emanating an evil aura, and so much sulfur was required to draw these runes. Could he be intending on summoning a demon? Or is he actually a demon himself?¡±


    Perhaps this was poor timing to be suspicious of an ally, but since everyone was now fighting against demons, Tid¡¯s actions naturally attracted a lot of attention. Barton secretly gripped his spear and warhammer tighter, mentally preparing himself for the worst possible oue that all of this was an evil demon¡¯s scheme.


    Mary, the magical swordman from the Nortnds, also didn¡¯t understand what Tid was doing until she had a sudden realization.


    ¡°Are you intending on summoning that person?¡±


    For some strange reason, Mary was pointing at the spirit image Rnd as she said this.


    ¡°Yep, she gave me the blueprint on how to summon her. Calcting Time and Space, she shouldn¡¯t be far away from us right now, and we can afford the blood sacrifice required with all the dead demons...¡±


    ¡°If you summon her but she can¡¯t find her target, she¡¯ll probably go berserk.¡±


    In a way, ever since Rnd became a famous figure on the most wanted posters, all his past dirt waspletely dug up by the fairies. Gossip about a boss¡¯s scandals would forever be a favorite topic for subordinates to discuss about. Mary naturally knew about Rnd¡¯s difficulties with women.


    Tid also knew that this situation wasn¡¯t exactly what that person had in mind when she gave him the instructions on how to summon her. She had given this magical rune formation to Tid with the express instructions to summon her at any price necessary if Rnd was trying to run away. This way, she would be able to ovee any spatial limitations in hunting him down even if she was currently far away. Using this rune summoning here was definitely going against her intentions.


    And right now, it was likely that she was already close to Starwood City. If Tid summoned her here and she didn¡¯t see Rnd, or Rnd ended up escaping somehow... Tid could already imagine an entire year of ¡°serious punishments¡± before him.


    ¡°There¡¯s no helping it. It¡¯s still better than dying to the demons here. Look, the spirit images are already beginning to ck off. Too much exertion will use up all their energy and lead to their deaths. We can¡¯t count on the spirit images for everything.¡±


    Soon, the blood sacrifice and the runes were all prepared. Tid had the mercenaries tossrge amounts of demon corpses into the rune formation. Then, a powerful red light whirled within the rune formation as a powerful will faintly began to descend upon this location.


    ¡°Your Majesty, you should be able to sense Rnd¡¯s soul wavelengths. He¡¯s about to escape. Pleasee here to catch him.¡±


    ¡°ROLAND!¡±


    Red demonic energy powered a furious roar as even more powerful energy materialized. The demons¡¯ corpses as the blood sacrifice vaporized into dust at a speed that the naked eye could see. A pitch-ck dimensional crevice opened up as a certain powerful existence was summoned while ignoring spatial limitations.


    This scene definitely seemed like an evil betrayal by Tid as it was absolutely clear now that he was summoning a demon. Katerina, Barton, and the others were all stunned as they watched what happened next, when the face of the powerful existence that appeared happened to resemble Rnd so greatly...

 Chapter 543 - The Threat of the Scattered Undead

    <h4>Chapter 543: The Threat of the Scattered Undead</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    While Tid was forced to activate his demon summoning formation to save himself, summoning a furious demon as reinforcements, Starwood City became quite busy.


    Everyone knew that the undead would never suffer from fatigue and that they would only keep increasing in number as the living died. The only standard strategy in dealing with an Undead Cmity was to kill the leader. Only by gathering all of the living¡¯s elites to assassinate the undead leader would they manage to end the battle before the undead reached an unstoppable critical mass.


    And, it seemed that I had indeed sessfully taken out the undead¡¯s leader by using underhanded means. Yet, this still didn¡¯t mean that we had won against the undead.


    Legends always ended with how some hero slew some demon or dragon. However, legends would never record the fact that the greatest danger would only begin after the demon king or dragon¡¯s death. That was because after the leader¡¯s death, all the magical creatures under it would no longer be under its control, and they would begin running rampant.


    ¡°As expected, the undead are beginning to scatter... This is the worst possible development.¡±


    Scattering undead were quite difficult to deal with. While a mid-level vampire would only be a slightly durable cannon fodder on the battlefield, that same mid-level vampire could easily be a dangerous serial killer while disguising itself as a human in a human city. And if that vampire hid itself in a small vige that only had a simple vige militia, the vampire would be dangerous enough to destroy the entire vige.


    In most areas of the mortal ne, a single mid-level undead would already be tremendously difficult to deal with, and the intelligent high-level undead were capable of killing off entire cities with nothing remaining alive.


    Countless mid-level undead had already scattered from the battlefield. Dozens of liches and death knights had run away from the wood spirits¡¯ aerial knights. Even the Undead Lords were running away like loser dogs, without caring about their image.


    These high-level undead at Legend rank or even higher had all arrived through Conservation¡¯s portal leading to the mortal ne. The high-level undead were far more intelligent than average humans, and they would never be foolish enough to keep trying to bash their heads against an iron wall. The high-level undead ran to the wide open in that was adjacent to Starwood City.


    As for me, it was impossible for me to hunt all of them down even though I wanted to. Although our forces were now victorious and had the absolute advantage in the skies, destroying all the undead would still need to take ce on the ground. Our wood spirit aerial knights had indeed helped us to obtain overall victory and control of the skies, yetpletely mopping up the defeated undead army would still require killing them one at a time. And, our ground forces¡¯ numbers werepletely insufficient for the task.


    Have the wood spirits go down to the ground for a cruel ughter? Any cornered dog¡¯s viciousness would be at its worst. Entering a melee without even preparing defensive measures beforehand? That would be utter cruelty toward the wood spirits who had frail physical bodies.


    Even if the wood spirits were victorious on the ground, there would definitely be tremendous sacrifices... I looked over at Amelia, and she directly shook her head for no.


    ¡°I can do my very best to help hunt them down.¡±


    Hunting the undead down was alright with her, but Amelia refused to send her wood spirits onto the ground in a direct attack. The mother of the wood spirits refused to have her own people sacrifice too much for the sake of another species.


    I understood Amelia¡¯s personality quite well. Since she was already promising¡± with me here, it wouldn¡¯t even be possible for me to ask for more.


    It was evident that the Undead Lords had voluntarily cancelled their control over the low-level undead under theirmand. The Undead Lords simply gave the low-level undead one order: to run away. The undead, who didn¡¯t know fatigue, kept scattering farther and wider as they ran, splitting off into countless directions. The direct armies under these Undead Lords could be considered the elite of the undead army, so if they managed to run off and hide in the mountains to be local bandits or something simr, then the S Dukedom would basically be finished regardless of the victory just earlier.


    And, there was only one method to deal with this problem. That was right¡ªI thought of a solution already, although it would be rather dangerous.


    ¡°It would seem that I can only try to negotiate with Conservation again...¡±


    Undead Emperors controlled their Undead Lords. Undead Lords controlled high-level undead. High-level undead controlled mid-level undead, and mid-level undead controlled the low-level cannon fodder. This caused the Undead Emperor to actually be the weakest point of any undead army. And if I wanted to prevent all the defeated undead from scattering everywhere, negotiating with the captured Conservation was likely my only option.


    I took a deep breath and took a step forward into my pitch-ck personal world of Hell... and then, not far away in front of me, I suddenly saw a gigantic ice and snow lily beginning to bloom, with countless ice flower petals moving and then splitting off, transforming into meteors that shot directly at me before I could even realize what was going on!


    ¡°I¡¯m leaving!¡±


    I managed to react in time to return to the mortal ne with its clear skies and white clouds. And, a certain Gold Elf was clutching my hand worriedly... Why did it make me feel so awkward to see Harloys in such a form? I really should find some excuse to keep her in her silly cat form!


    ¡°What was that just now?¡±


    I let go of her hand while awkwardly coughing twice.


    ¡°You should recognize that, shouldn¡¯t you? That seemed like one of the foundational magical theories behind your Ice Aeon spell.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ counter-question was indeed quite logical. As an ice magic grandmaster, I naturally recognized Conservation¡¯s spell just now. In fact, I had even spent much time in the past on researching this particr spell. It was precisely because I recognized it that I wondered what was going on.


    ¡°So, if both of us saw that correctly, she truly used the spell Sisina¡¯s Flower of Blessing?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. She definitely used that super forbidden spell which theoretically requires ten to eleven SemiGod ranked archmages to cast together for the mana required.¡±


    I, Harloys, and Amelia all fell silent as we were all mages who understood this quite well. Sisina¡¯s Flower of Blessing was no top secret magical spell theory, yet not a single person in history had managed to sessfully cast it. That was because the mana requirement for casting this spell was far too ridiculously high¡ªto the point where it was likely impossible for the entire Truth Symposium of the Mage Country to cast this spell even if all those archmages worked in unison.


    Yet, it was a fact that I had just run into this magical spell which only existed in theory, deemed to be practically impossible. I could only say that Conservation was indeed incredible, or that she had noticed that she was actually trapped in my world.


    ¡°There are only two possibilities why I ran into a forbidden spell the moment that I entered my world. Either I was unlucky to the point where I ran into a forbidden spell right after she prepared it just for me, or she¡¯s currently tossing endless forbidden spells in order to try and smash her way out of my world...¡±


    ¡°Will it be possible for her to leave?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. But, theoretically speaking, she should have already be a part of my personal Hell... So, tell me. What will happen to a goldfish that smashes its own fish tank?¡±


    ¡°So, the best possible result will be death for everyone? Do you think that she realizes this?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Don¡¯t ever underestimate an Undead Emperor. All high-level mages will have at least some understanding of dimensionalws. Once you¡¯ve reached the level of Undead Emperor, it might still be possible to fool her into falling for a trap, but it would be impossible to expect that she still hasn¡¯t realized what the trap is after falling for it.¡±


    ¡°So she would rather kill herself along with you rather than being your prisoner... she has such a powerfully stubborn personality.¡±


    While I eximed over Conservation¡¯s stubborn personality, it was now evident that it would be impossible to ask her to reim control over all the scattering undead. Since she made it quite clear with her actions that she would rather destroy my world, herself, and me rather than surrendering, what could I possibly threaten her with?


    Since Conservation was willing to give up even her own life, it would be almost impossible to negotiate with her. The only thing I could likely offer her that she¡¯d be interested in would be her freedom. But, I would never be able to set her free, since...


    ¡°It¡¯s impossible to negotiate with her. No matter if it¡¯s her personal hatred towards you or the possibility of her breaking out of the cage by herself, her first reaction when she sees you next will absolutely be to attack you instantly. Can you guarantee that you can survive Sisina¡¯s Flower of Blessing?¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m confident that I¡¯ll be killed in a split second.¡±


    I still recalled the magical theory behind how Sisina¡¯s Flower of Blessing worked. It simply lowered the surrounding temperature to an absolute cold temperature and killed everyone in its effective area with the ultra-low temperature. Although my Ice Aeon spell could create a simr effect, I highly doubted that I would be immune to Sisina¡¯s Flower of Blessing¡¯s ultra-low temperature.


    Had I still possessed my Frigidwinter Earth, I could have created more of my [Coldest Ice] to try and resist against the ultra-low temperature. But right now, there was far too much of a power level difference between Conservation and myself, so it would be impossible for me to survive her forbidden spell.


    Harloys and I both stared at each other but were unable to find a solution.


    I felt so helpless right now as I watched the undead scattering about with nothing I could do.


    ¡°If only I could use Ice Aeon as easily as Conservation can toss out forbidden spells...¡±


    But, there were no ifs in the world. Perhaps a certain Goddess of Order would attempt to sell regret medicine, but apart from being especially bitter, even that wouldn¡¯t solve anything.


    Yet suddenly, flesh and blood humans arrived to block the path of most of the escaping undead. They established a defensive formation.


    ¡°That¡¯s... the knights belonging to the God of Discipline? They¡¯re intending onmitting suicide?¡±


    ¡°No, their head priest is about to do a God¡¯s Descent!¡±

 Chapter 544 - Divine Self-destruction

    <h4>Chapter 544: Divine Self-destruction</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Napus, the God of Discipline. He was a Low God who could only be considered a third-rate God among all the Order Gods. Still, Napus was the main God worshiped in the S Dukedom.


    Worship was the equivalent of nourishment for the Order Gods. Smaller countries had weaker Gods. That was the unwritten rule of the world. Also, the rise of a new mega-empire or new species would always represent the ascension of a new powerful God, such as Wumianzhe from back in the day. Wumianzhe was now not only the God of Hell, but he was also the Guardian God of the Mist Alliance. He hade a long way from being only a weak God in the Underground.


    While there were examples of sessful Gods, there were also plenty of examples of Gods that went too overboard with their newfound power, such as Lorci or the Queen of Storms, who were both now dead.


    ording to the Holy War¡¯s tradition, since the S Dukedom was Napus¡¯s territory, he would be considered the guardian of this country. If the forces of Chaos attacked the forces of Order here, Napus should have been the first to respond and defend his people by leading the members of his church.


    Yet, by the time that he reacted, it was likely that the Undead Cmity would have spread already, together with a great poption reduction of the S Dukedom. It was likely that Napus might die due to not having enough belief before he even gathered enough forces to stop the Undead Cmity.


    This was why the Low Gods, who relied entirely on power of belief to sustain themselves, had such a difficult time surviving Holy Wars. Although Low Gods were far above ordinary mortals, they also greatly relied on mortals, and the moment that war broke out, it was the Low Gods who would be leaving the stage first.


    From a certain standpoint, Rnd had greatly helped out Napus. The end result of a battle between a Low God and an Undead Emperor with a Main God¡¯s power level would be a foregone conclusion.


    Right now, Napus was likely panicking more than anyone as he observed the scattering undead.


    Far off in the distance, Napus¡¯s knights had erected a defensive campground. It included a very hastily assembled altar, where a once-proud head priest was kneeling and praying with his hands clenched together.


    It seemed that the God up above heard his prayer as the clouds suddenly opened up and a beam of light descended right upon the head priest, igniting him with a holy fire.


    ¡°A sacrifice...¡±


    It was well known that hosting a God¡¯s power would be no easy task. I highly doubted that a random head priest in such a small country would be capable of being a host for a God¡¯s Descent. In that case, this meant that the head priest would have to sacrifice his life, body, and soul in order to perform the God¡¯s Descent for Napus.


    Also, a vessel that wasn¡¯t sufficiently powerful and had low synchronization with the God would also affect the God¡¯s power in the vessel. How many seconds the vessel wouldst was also another problem.


    ¡°Well, if he can finish casting at least one Divine Art, it will probably help the situation.¡±


    Soon, I didn¡¯t need to guess anymore...


    A three-meter-tall knight of light riding on a white horse suddenly arose from the pir of light which had descended upon the now deceased head priest. This was the human form of the God of Discipline.


    The knight powerfully swung around a snow-white spear, seeming like he was angrily roaring something...


    *Boom!*


    Alright, as expected, he directly self-destructed. With him at the center, the entire horizon was lit up by a brilliant white light.


    The power of a True God¡¯s incarnation¡¯s self-destruction could be considered one of the strongest possible attacks in the mortal ne. Forcefully descending upon a vessel that wasn¡¯t suitable for a God¡¯s Descent and then self-destructing the incarnation would mean that a Low God like Napus had likely lost more than a hundred years¡¯ worth of umted power.


    Still, a God¡¯s incarnation¡¯s self-destruction would have tremendous power even if it was only from a Low God. A powerful white light illuminated everything as the horizon was washed over with the positive energy of the God¡¯s power. All the undead caught within the explosion were ignited and howled in pain as they were vaporized.


    Perhaps Napus wasn¡¯t a powerful God. However, his Divine Concept was Discipline, a pure power of Order. He was also one of the God of Holy Light¡¯s Follower Gods, meaning that his powers would naturally be the greatest threat to all undead creatures.


    The unluckiest of all was probably a lich Undead Lord that flew using his magic powers. Originally, he should have been one of the likeliest to escape as he was flying at high speed. However, he ran directly into this positive energy explosion that was impossible to dodge, yet his body was filled with powerful negative energy.


    The lich Undead Lord¡¯s crown and staff were instantly destroyed. His bones, which had been wrapped in a pitch-ck magical aura, were illuminated by white light as positive energy poured out of his eyes and mouth. The frightening lich¡¯s skeleton actually transformed into a beacon of Holy Light that let off brilliant light from all of its orifices.


    That ridiculous sightsted for only an instant before the lich exploded into nothingness in the next moment.


    Huge swathes of the undead died instantly. In front of such arge area-of-effect forbidden spell, survival depended on luck, and even more on your power level. The weaker the undead, the more impossible it would be for them to survive.


    Everywhere that the Holy Light shock wave traveled, zombies became meat, skeletons became spare parts, ghouls became barbequed, bone dragons becamenterns, and banshees vanished into bubbles just like how a certain little mermaid would.


    ¡°How many times have forbidden spells been used here now...¡±


    In a way, even I felt rather helpless now. Whenever top-level fighting strength appeared on a normal battlefield, things would always end up in a contest between forbidden spells and self-destruction. There would be explosions everywhere, meaning that being a normal meleebat unit was a pitiful experience. Even if you were as strong as Myth rank, it was quite possible that a mage or a priest could kill you without your even realizing it.


    The divine self-destruction shock wave didn¡¯t only affect the ground. The wood spirit aerial knights were not far away from the explosion as they had been hunting the undead. No matter what type of magical nt or apparatus they were using to fly, they were all knocked down by this powerful shock wave.


    Fortunately, wood spirits were flesh and blood living beings that also possessed powerful positive energy. Since their magical nts and machines took the brunt of the positive energy shock wave, there wasn¡¯t much damage to the wood spirits¡¯ physical bodies. They all recovered after momentary dizziness.


    The gnomes¡¯ parachutes were standard equipment for all aerial knights. I saw numerous white flowers blooming in the skies as the wood spirits activated their parachutes. But, judging from how the wood spirits were all waving their tiny fists at the sky, they weren¡¯t in any way thankful to the God that knocked them down.


    The wood spirits were on the outskirts of the self-destruction¡¯s shock wave. However, Napus¡¯s knights who were protecting the head priest were right at the center.


    Even after the head priest hadpleted the God¡¯s Descent, not a single one of his protecting knights retreated. Thus, they were all swallowed up by that fatal white light.


    With how powerful a God¡¯s incarnation¡¯s self-destruction would be, it was impossible for there to be any survivors among Napus¡¯s knights. But judging from how his knights had fearlessly remained behind, facing their certain doom, they had long prepared to sacrifice themselves there.


    ¡°This is their home. They¡¯re defending their families and people...¡±


    Compared to long-lived species, humans were short-lived andcking in talent. Humans had many worries and desires. Humans seemed like they were shortsighted and wasted their lives. But when faced with danger, there would always be heroes. Perhaps it was precisely because they had many worries and responsibilities that they knew the value of life and how necessary it was to make some sacrifices at a critical moment.


    I had seen far too many warriors and defenders like this so far...


    And, their sacrifice had bought enough time for the head priest toplete his God¡¯s Descent for the God¡¯s incarnation¡¯s self-destruction. This indeed obtained massivebat results. More than 80% of the scattering undead had been killed by the explosion. The remaining undead were all injured. Once the wood spirits¡¯ second wave of aerial knights arrived, hunting down the undead would be far easier for certain. Perhaps a few undead would still manage to escape their hunt, but the few that escaped wouldn¡¯t cause nearly as much devastation as the original number of scattered undead would have.


    I was finally able to rest slightly assured after seeing how terrible the undead were doing. I could now finally focus on the ruins¡ªTid had yet to contact me after his first message asking for assistance.


    ¡°He won¡¯t really die there, will he? I think I should probably go check things out.¡±

 Chapter 545 - Digging a Pitfall

    <h4>Chapter 545: Digging a Pitfall</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    I left the ground battle to Starwood City. If I still didn¡¯t go to reinforce the mission at the ruins, Tid would likely end up in Hell with a grudge against me.


    My ck cat of misfortune continued napping on my shoulder. An ominous-appearing green-haired witch walked in front of me. With such a team, it was likely that I could even go to the Chaos Abyss... Okay, I admit that I was just making thest part up. For some reason, the atmosphere felt suffocating even though these two women were my allies.


    My logic told me that Harloys and Amelia were trustworthy. Yet, my instincts told me that rather than killing each other, it seemed far more likely that they would kill me first.


    On the surface, calm seemed to be restored. But, some words couldn¡¯t be taken back after saying them out loud. While things didn¡¯t appear to change on the surface, things had indeed changed between us.


    ¡°...Silly cat, what do you like in me? I¡¯ll change that part!¡±


    I considered myself no idiot. I didn¡¯t get a chance to think on things earlier, but now that everything had calmed down, including my own mind, I noticed many things that I hadn¡¯t paid attention to before.


    Did the silly cat actually like me? I was no Beifeng, honest! I had no interest in cats. Yep, I think at most I treated her like a brother. Was it that she really wanted to sleep with me?


    But, I truly had no idea what would make the silly cat like me. Normally, I would treat her like... a cat ball, a cat frisbee, a cat scarf, a cat rug, a cat mailman, or a cat scout... All sorts of ridiculously overboard ways of treating a pet. I considered myself lucky that the druids¡¯ animal protection societies hadn¡¯t learned about all this yet. Could it be that the silly cat was actually a masochist?


    Well, since I had no clue, I decided to simply ask.


    ¡°You¡¯re handsome. Princess Peach is also really cute. I think that hugging her would be reallyfortable.¡±


    I felt rather helpless about such an honest answer that I was unable to counter.


    To be honest, it could indeed be said that the opposite gender being handsome or beautiful was the foundational basis for the beginning of romantic interest.


    For example:


    ¡°Why do you like her? She has such a terrible personality; she¡¯s so spoiled and selfish.¡±


    ¡°I like her because I think she¡¯s pretty. No other reason.¡±


    ¡°...If her face was filled with e and scars, would you still like her?¡±


    The smart ones would likely answer ¡°of course¡± because it was quitemon that the person being talked about would eventually hear the answer. The honest ones would likely respond with silence, not wanting to say the truth, but also not wanting to look like liars.


    That was just how humans were. People liked to describe their interest in others as ¡°I like how he/she is¡± or ¡°I get along well with him/her,¡± such ambiguous statements about how their romantic feelings began. However, nobody would dare to say that they didn¡¯t judge others by appearance. Didn¡¯t we all see another person¡¯s appearance first before knowing anything about that person?


    For instance, let¡¯s say there were three separate women with identical violent personalities. The beautiful one would be called a tsundere, the one with an average appearance would be called a tomboy, and the one with a below-average appearance would likely be called something like ugly b*tch. Of course, women judged men the same way. Men who were handsome would always be treated much better and with greater patience.


    Of course, one¡¯s personal appearance wasn¡¯t everything. The sess of a romantic rtionship still depended on both parties¡¯ feelings. However, the unlucky ones who had negative scores for appearance would find it almost impossible to even get the chance to raise favorability rating.


    As for myself, ever since my experience of being targeted by the scary dark elf aunties back in Sulfur Mountain City, I felt that it would be better for me to be slightly more muscr...


    Although my handsome face had indeed caused me much trouble before, being praised as handsome by a Gold Elf who had astonishingly high standards for beauty still made me rather happy.


    ¡°Um... You could also try calling me cool.¡±


    ¡°Did you forget about my past interests? If you really looked like the beautiful or muscr man type, I wouldn¡¯t be able to take it. I¡¯ve already seen way too many male elves like that. Ahh, the way you look now as a shota that makes an excellent crossdresser is so cute. Let me kiss you! Goddess of Order, you truly did a good deed!¡±


    What did it feel like to be teased by a cat and licked in the ear by a cat¡¯s rough tongue? At that moment, I felt my ear going cold, wet, and numb as she licked my highly sensitive location. Right after that, I felt a chill down my spine as goosebumps appeared all over me.


    I suddenly made a grab for her, but missed as the ck cat jumped right in front of me.


    The silly cat proudly shook herself as she wagged her tail in front of me while unhesitatingly revealing what it was that she truly liked about my ¡°handsomeness.¡± It turned out that she was a strange auntie just like Momo! She had always desired my body!


    ¡°...One day, I really will grow a beard, and I¡¯ll pay you back by growing it out and rubbing it on you!¡±


    ¡°Ha, I¡¯m rather curious just when you¡¯ll grow hair down there instead...¡±


    Harloys directly responded with a retort that bordered on sexual harassment. Since this Gold Elf princess had already spent more than ten thousand years alone, even I didn¡¯t dare to deeply think about what type of existence she really was despite her loli appearance.


    I was now regretting, truly regretting having helped to restore her physical body. Back when she was undead, the fact that she was undead had helped to suppress her desires, yet we already had so many scandalous times back then. Now that her desires werepletely restored along with her flesh, this likely meant even more trouble for me.


    Sweat dripped down my back as I stared at her, thinking to myself if I should use a goblin rocket or a gnome flying chair to send her to the moon to rid myself of this trouble, when the silly cat actually startedughing to the point of rolling on the floor.


    ¡°...Pahaha! I was just joking with you. You actually took me seriously!¡±


    The ck cat suddenly jumped onto my left shoulder and licked my fingers. As she licked, she even meowed twice as if she was only an ordinary pet cat.


    However, what she told me next through our soul connection kept sounding even more terrible.


    ¡°No matter what, I¡¯m still the princess of the Gold Elves. Even if I want to have sex to vent my lust, wouldn¡¯t Reyne be more appropriate than you? She has the same face and a much better figure. Besides, I¡¯ve only returned to being fully alive for a few years. My desires aren¡¯t that out of control. I was just joking, yet you actually treated it seriously. You really are such a narcissist.¡±


    Although there were many portions that I wanted to retort to, our soul connection told me that she was telling the truth... especially the part about Reyne being more appropriate than me! This silly cat was actually targeting my granddaughter!


    ¡°...I think that there¡¯s no need for me to tell Reyne to be careful. It doesn¡¯t matter, as she¡¯s already famously known as the Yuri <sup>1</sup> Princess.¡±


    I felt slightly relieved after hearing this. Even if the silly cat really did intend to have her way with someone, I would feel far better if she did it with someone else rather than me. Reyne, since your reputation was already like this, please block this danger for my sake!


    And, with Harloys joking around like this, I didn¡¯t feel like asking her what she really felt anymore... I didn¡¯t want to hear anything that was even scarier!


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. I hope that Tid is still alive. It¡¯s so hard to recruit talents of his caliber.¡±


    The wood spirits¡¯ assault ship was currently parked by the city walls. With the wood spirits¡¯ assistance, it would likely be a fast trip to the ruins.


    As Rnd walked onto the wood spirits¡¯ airship, he didn¡¯t notice a certain cat on his shoulder arcing her mouth upwards in a suspicious manner. She had achieved her goal as Rnd stopped prying into her real intentions.


    I suddenly felt a sense of danger and turned around suddenly, and saw Amelia who had remained silent all this time while watching me. Her bright smile seemed ever so dangerous, so I immediately broke out into a sweat and turned around while speeding up as if I was running from disaster.


    Some words had now been said and heard. A certain idiot finally organized his thoughts on romance. Some feelings had been transformed into sincere words to express them. Some feelings were still hidden. As time went on, everybody¡¯s rtionships would change and it¡¯d be impossible to return to how things used to be, nor was there any need to change rtionships back to the way they were.


    Rnd¡¯s soul was nowplete again with the return of his Seven Deadly Sins. He had regained his emotions, which would gradually mature. Perhaps all the women romantically interested in him were simply waiting for this to happen.


    Perhaps Rnd would still be able to hide from the sly women hunting him down, but it seemed that he wouldn¡¯t be able to hide for much longer.


    The wood spirits¡¯ airships were naturally crafted in nature¡¯s style. Their first airships in the Forest of Dreams had all been crafted out of giant trees. Perhaps due to the blueprint of their first ever airships, the current wood spirit airships were still nt-based.


    Flowers, vines, and wood were the foundational building blocks for their airships. Every material was carved with exquisite patterns. And if you looked closer, you would find that the entire nt airship was like an exquisite sculpture.


    The core of the airship was dragonbone carved to resemble wood. The airship¡¯s wings were translucent and flowery. The vines were both decorative and practical melee defense weaponry.


    I was riding on a special assault ship that resembled a ¡°flower¡± with five petals. Three petals were the wings, while two intersecting petals were the airship¡¯s body. The inside of the airship seemed like it was from a fairy tale.


    Although there was also the mechanical noise of a magical engine, I could sense that the airship was still primarily powered by nature magic.


    ¡°Back when I left the Forest of Dreams, all the airships were stillpletely wooden.¡±


    It would seem that the wood spirits had made great strides in magical engineering technology over the past few years, having created their own path with the assistance of their Mother Goddess.


    ¡°Is this a new technology? I can¡¯t sense anything wooden at all.¡±


    But the strange thing was that I didn¡¯t receive an answer to my question at all. Back at the Forest of Dreams, I had been treated like a VIP with the wood spirits eager to answer any question I had.


    I instantly learned why this was when I turned around. A small wood spirit that I didn¡¯t know saw me getting closer and actually shrieked while running away at top speed while shouting at the top of her lungs, ¡°I don¡¯t want to get pregnant! Save me...!¡±


    Just chatting would be enough to make her pregnant? Since when did I have such an ability!? Even if I didn¡¯t ask, I knew who would do such a thing!


    I turned around and viciously red at Amelia, but then discovered that she still had that ambiguous smiling expression... Alright then, after considering the difference in power level between us now, I made a tactical decision to look elsewhere. Yep, it was a simple tactical decision, not that I was a coward! But, to my astonishment, Amelia voluntarily exined this.


    ¡°It¡¯s only a rumor.¡±


    ¡°Did you start the rumor?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not that childish. Reyne was the one who started the rumor. She¡¯s the one who holds the deepest grudge against you. You¡¯d better think about how to exin things to her. You did so many things behind her back, and now that you¡¯ve returned, you didn¡¯t even contact her or exin anything to her even now.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, even after growing up, a naughty child is still a naughty child. I can give her a good scoldingter.¡±


    Amelia smilingly shook her head without saying anything else. She already knew that Reyne had arrived. Since Rnd said that he wasn¡¯t afraid, she would simply wait to see a good show.


    Meanwhile, Harloys was worried about a different problem.


    ¡°Sophocles the Deceiver has personally descended here? What are you going to do? Even a Demon Earl would be difficult to deal with, not to mention a Chaos Main God like him?¡±


    ¡°Rx. I have a trump card just for dealing with Main Gods. It¡¯s best that he¡¯se here. He won¡¯t need to be returning to the Chaos Abyss ever again.¡±


    ¡°...What? You actually have a trump card to deal with a Main God? Then why didn¡¯t you use it against Conservation?¡±


    I smiled knowingly without replying. It was actually quite easy to guess, and there was no need for me to act mysterious.


    As expected, Harloys had a sudden realization after three seconds.


    ¡°...That trump card you¡¯re talking about is Conservation herself. You really know how to make use of everything.¡±


    I nodded in acknowledgement. In a way, it was actually good for me that Conservation was currently angrily tossing forbidden spells around in my personal world. Anyone whom I tossed there would instantly find themselves faced with a furious Undead Emperor and her forbidden spells.

 Chapter 546 - Queen Knight

    <h4>Chapter 546: Queen Knight</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The gray ruins were covered in thickyers of dust. The walls were cracked and shattered everywhere with moss all over. The floorboards creaked loudly under our feet, making me worry if my next step would have me falling down.


    But, even more dangerous were the giant pitch-ck machines before us. Red, green, and purple lights could be seen shing in the darkness. These were all warning lights on the activated mechanical guardians¡¯ bodies.


    ¡°Barton hasn¡¯t even cleaned out all of these...?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. They¡¯re a small assault team, not a party for a full dungeon clear. They¡¯d tire themselves to death if they cleared out every single robot.¡±


    I arrived together with Amelia and the silly cat as the reinforcements to rescue everyone at the ruins. Amelia had refused to let her wood spirits follow her despite their wanting to, and since I had fully recovered my physical abilities, I was quite happy to have a chance to test my abilities again.


    ¡°For the Holy Light!¡±


    My in silver war hammer arced forward as it viciously smashed into the waist of an iron gargoyle. The iron gargoyle¡¯s entire metal body was shattered into tiny pieces.


    Not a single robot was sent flying back from the impact, as they were all smashed into smithereens. No matter if the enemy was made of iron, a metal alloy, stone, or mud, none of that mattered in front of my giant war hammer. Not a single robot was able to dodge a single swing, nor was a single robot able to move after taking a single blow. All that I left behind were piles and piles of raw resources.


    The mechanical guardians were no idiots. Once they discovered that it was impossible for them to stop me in melee, great majority of robots began attacking me from long range only.


    At this moment, cannon fire covered my entire field of vision. It seemed like it would be impossible to dodge everything.


    ¡°For the lich king!¡±


    Yet, Iughed out loud and ignored all the attacks while casually changing my battle cry, and recklessly charged into the cannon fire.


    Right before the cannon fire hit my body, the shadow of an angrily roaring red dragon appeared, and then...


    *ng, ng, ng!*


    That was the sound of metal against metal. Despite all the explosions blooming on my body, they werepletely unable to slow me down as I continued smashing down the robots one by one as if I was ying Whack-a-Mole.


    A set of deep red dragon rune heavy armor had appeared on my body. When faced with my SemiGod equipment, this cannon fire that wasn¡¯t even magically enchanted couldn¡¯t even scratch the armor.


    [Full-body dragonscale ice armor: Guardian of Yongye. System¡¯s evaluation: SemiGod equipment (with growth potential.)]


    [This armor was constructed using ancient dragon blood and eternal ice from Frigidwinter Earth. Special runes are carved on it, and the armor is host to Erebe¡¯s soul. Rnd is the only individual allowed to use this armor.]


    [Titan¡¯s Thunder Metal: this armor has legendary damage reduction capabilities. Attributes: -50 damage taken from all equipment that isn¡¯t God Equipment. Any damageing from below God Equipment level will be directly reduced by 50 points. System notification: you actually thought of using shattered pieces of a Titan¡¯s shield and embedding it within your armor to improve the defenses? You¡¯re truly imaginative indeed.]


    [Ein Mezus¡¯s Protection: Dragon blood swirls within this armor. She is protecting the owner of this armor, which is bad news for anyone trying to attack you. This means that the armor will automatically absorb the first 200 points of damage every day before any damage will be taken. This ability will automatically recover and refresh within 24 hours.]


    [Dragon Bloodline: I truly don¡¯t understand why this attribute appeared on a suit of armor, but you¡¯ve managed to aplish it. The wearer of this armor can use all dragon bloodline abilities.]


    [Yongye¡¯s Authority: Due to the special nature of this armor, all ice damage will bepletely unable to render the temperature within the armor to drop under zero degrees. This means that the person inside this armor will be almostpletely immune to ice magic. And due to the ancient red dragon bloodline within this armor, all fire damage taken is reduced by 50%, and then reduced by another 30 points.]


    I had spent a great deal of effort on obtaining this soul-infused armor as one of my trump cards. This armor gave me the confidence to face any opponent.


    Compared to seven years ago, the dragon bloodline had matured, and I had also grown more powerful. This helped my armor to grow from Legend-ranked equipment to SemiGod level. But unlike other equipment that grew power levels, my armor didn¡¯t obtain any new abilities. It was just that its defensive capabilities more than doubled!


    Perhaps ambiguous numbers would be unable to describe how strong this armor was. More descriptive would be the fact that all these explosions that would kill any ordinary mercenary were exploding on my armor without me feeling a single thing.


    Or, to use an even more direct example, this armor would allow me topletely ignore a Gold-ranked swordsman attacking me with a Myth-rank equipment. That was because the attack power wouldn¡¯t be able to even get through the armor¡¯s natural damage reduction abilities!


    Since I was a Sword Saint whopletely didn¡¯t need to care about my personal defenses with this ridiculous armor, and I also had the God Equipment battle hammer Light of Salvation...


    ¡°Wind.¡±


    I felt it would be far too foolish to continue ying Whack-a-Mole and only destroying the robots one at a time. As a veteran Sword Saint, I could create a sword energy windstorm even while using a hammer.


    As one of the mostmon sword energy ultimate techniques, Whirlwind of Swords was quite simple to use. All one needed to do was spin around at high speed, allowing kic force to help you release the sword energy and letting centrifugal force toss out the sword energy to injure or kill your opponents.


    I kept whirling around in a red tornado and crushing all opposition as if I was a bulldozer. My whirlwind of death kept tearing through everything as all mechanical puppets and robots were directly torn into spare parts and base resources. I didn¡¯t want to slow myself down, so I directly broke through the wall and continued spinning.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on with him?¡±


    Amelia felt that this was rather strange as Rnd wasn¡¯t known to be a battle junkie. It was quite rare to see him personally fighting in battle unless it was absolutely necessary. Rather than sweating and bleeding on the battlefield, he was more suited for scheming behind the scenes.


    ¡°He must have been pent up for too long.¡±


    Harloys, on the other hand, knew quite clearly what was going on. Due to Amelia¡¯s curse of weakness on his physical body, Rnd had been rendered so physically weak that he was unable to even hold an iron sword, so how could he possibly wear such a heavy suit of armor and enter battle? In the end, he had been forced to teach Barton swordsmanship with nothing but a in wooden practice sword. Of course he would be pent up and want to vent a little.


    ¡°Wahaha, I¡¯m undefeatable!¡±


    Off in the distance, I was shouting a ssic death g sentence as I crushed metal and knocked over walls. Harloys and Amelia shook their heads as they swiftly followed Rnd.


    While the ground level up top was busy with Rnd having fun with the robots, Tid was now having his own frustrations because he had been beaten ck and blue by the reinforcements he¡¯d just summoned. The demon he¡¯d summoned was still angrily ring at him even now.


    Seven years had passed, but that would be like a little nap to the long-lived species. However, seven years would be a significant amount of time for an adult human. And since Reyne was only fourteen at the time of the battle of Hell, seven years equaled half of her life back then.


    Unlike her previous tomboyish hairstyle, Reyne now kept her blonde hair in a long ponytail that reached all the way to her waist. All signs of childishness and gentleness hadpletely disappeared from her face. This silver-armored, silver-sword-wielding female knight was fully armed. On her back was a tower shield and a red spear with the emblem of the Howling Gale Castle. She was also holding an ancient battle g.


    While simply standing there, she gave off an impression as if she was an unmovable mountain, as if she was a mighty warrior goddess.


    This former princess knight stood in the middle of a pile of bloody corpses as she abused the other demons while smiling in delight that came from the bottom of her heart. It was as if she was happily partying at a dance ball rather than ughtering other demons.


    ¡°Kneel before me, you dirty lowborn life form!¡±


    With only one hand, Reyne pushed down a powerful Inferno Demon Lord onto the ground. The powerful demon was still angrily roaring as the female warrior suddenly stomped on his chest with a silver sh as her sharpenedbat boot¡¯s heel pierced into his heart.


    The sound of flesh and blood tearing that came afterwards made even the most veteran mercenaries ufortable, yet this wasn¡¯t even the end.


    Reyne then twisted her boot, tearing apart the Inferno Demon¡¯s heart and sending blood and flesh spattering everywhere. This Inferno Demon Lord leader would never rise again.


    Reyne looked at the blood and flesh stuck to her boot as her expression of delight turned to a frown. It seemed that this female demon ughterer felt annoyed that such a lowly opponent had actually dared to soil her boot.


    Blood covered the entire floor. Not far away from her was a mountainous pile of demon corpses. When her golden eyes locked onto her next target, the silver-d princess knight enjoyed her next ughter.


    Judging by how all the demons were all now running away at top speed, Reyne would no longer be able to enjoy herself like this for much longer.


    Reyne Qin Mist, 21 years old, a direct descendant of Karwenz the Demon Prince, and the former ¡°Princess Knight¡± of the Mist Kingdom. Now, she was the Queen of the Mist Kingdom and a Myth-ranked Abyss Knight, as well as a Descendant of the Mist. She was also now one of the most glorious superstars of this Holy War.


    The magic power she let off caused her blonde hair to float in the wind. Underneath her silver war dress were white stockings and high-heeled silverbat boots. Her experience in hundred of battles gave her the aura of a steely princess. But, it was said that in both formal and informal diplomatic situations, Reyne was actually a thorny rose. Her beautiful legs had already kicked and destroyed the testicles of more than two dozen yboys who dared to try touching her without consent.


    The past seven years had helped Reyne topletely walk out of being in Rnd¡¯s shadow. Her past hesitancy and inferiorityplex had vanishedpletely. Her personality as a naughty child hadbinedpletely with being a warrior and evolved into her own powerful aura of being an untouchable ice flower and warrior goddess.


    Reyne was currently venting in silence by ying all the demons. Yet, her anger was soundlessly pressuring her own allies. Everyone was so scared that nobody dared to make a single sound, including the pitiful demon captives hiding in the corner.


    That was right, in front of this furious queen who had a demon bloodline, even battle-crazed Berserk Demons shivered in fear. Reyne had a powerful aura that even high-level Demon Lords wouldn¡¯t be able to match. The other demons felt fear as if their souls would be destroyed at any moment... Alright, Katerina was also trembling in fear as her instincts told her that this woman who physically resembled Rnd so much had a mysterious killing intent towards her for no apparent reason from the moment that Reyne saw Katerina.


    Women would always change after growing up. Although Reyne had still been a loli thest time Rnd had seen her, she had grown up already after Rnd left her alone for seven years. Not only was she grown up, she had even developed into an alpha female, and the most violent type of all. She had matured far too early, to the point of reaching her expiration date too early as well... Well, that was a quote from spirit image Rnd because he was currently being treated even more cruelly.


    Meanwhile, Reyne had an absolutely furious expression as she gritted her teeth and uttered that name.


    ¡°Damned... ROLAND!¡±


    While gritting her teeth, she constantly stomped down on the spirit image Rnd underneath her as if this would make her feel slightly better.


    ¡°Wait, please wait, I¡¯m not Rnd, I¡¯m only a copy of him who knows his sword techniques¡ª¡±


    ¡°Shut up!¡±


    Alright then, the Rnd copy spirit image currently being trampled under Reyne¡¯s boots wisely shut his mouth. He noticed that the more heined, the harder she stomped down on him. He didn¡¯t want to disappear from this world so soon after being born.


    From a certain standpoint, spirit image Rnd was now receiving abuse for the real version of himself. Perhaps the true Rnd would even be grateful to him.


    And in the lowest levels of the Sky Tower, the constantly worsening situation made S1 even more afraid. He finally made up his mind and sacrificed even more souls to the demons, opening up a dimensional portal that would be sufficient to summon the most powerful of Demon Lords.

 Chapter 547 - Myth Rank

    <h4>Chapter 547: Myth Rank</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The corridor I walked in was pitch-ck, yet the darkness was unable to impede my senses. While I didn¡¯t have night vision like longer-lived species would, I had excellent senses and a tremendous amount ofbat experience. I was capable of remembering every detail of the surrounding environment even with my eyes closed. It was quite simple for me to dodge these robots¡¯ predictable attacks.


    I just kept swinging my war hammer with great force, shattering hundreds of robots into scrap metal like it was nothing.


    For any experienced warrior, they would only have to rely on their instincts when fighting enemies much lower in level than themselves. As for me, since I didn¡¯t even have to dodge any attacks due to my ridiculous dragon armor, I was toozy to even follow my instincts to dodge attacks.


    Barton¡¯s assault team had already been through this way to clear out at least a portion of the robots. The remaining strongest robots had probably all gone down to the lower levels to reinforce the Sky Tower Spirit. As I kept going down, I didn¡¯t see a single robot that was even remotely strong.


    ¡°This level of enemies isn¡¯t even enough for me to warm up...¡±


    I had contacted Tid already. Although it was quite noisy on his end, making it difficult to hear him clearly, I could hear him howling pitifully, ¡°Boss Rnd, pleasee save me! I can¡¯t take this anymore!¡± I could tell from this that... he could probably survive for a while longer!


    ¡°If he really couldn¡¯t handle things anymore, he wouldn¡¯t even be able to call for help.¡±


    ¡°Yep.¡±


    ¡°It sounds like he still has plenty of energy. I wonder what else he still has up his sleeve?¡±


    I, Harloys, and Amelia were all veterans. Of course we would notice that Tid¡¯s call for helpcked the tension and fear of his life truly being threatened.


    And even if we rushed down at top speed, it would still take a while to go down so many levels.


    The mechanical elevator that the adventuring team had used was now broken by the robots. Even with Tid guiding our way and the remaining robot defenses being so poor, it would take a significant amount of time for us to travel down a few hundred levels.


    ¡°369, 370...¡±


    I was even casually counting the number of robots I had crushed for fun.


    Looking at therge pile of scrap metal behind me, I suspected that this number wouldn¡¯t even reach one thousand by the time I reached the bottom level.


    Most of the robot defenses weren¡¯t even military-purpose robots to begin with. Many of the robots were actually janitors or maintenance workers. Such a defense system was so easy for me to deal with that I wanted to yawn.


    How did I know that these weren¡¯t military purpose robots? When a six-handed robot rushed over to attack me while wielding a broom, dustpan, mop, and cleaning rag... or when a spray gun suddenly sprang out of the ground and shot a trickle of water at me while ying strange music as if it was warning people to avoid the water, it was clear.


    And, some of these robots were so strange and wondrous that I really wanted tough.


    A teddy bear robot with a strange baby sticker, singing a luby? Was this robot really the right type to be attacking me? What about that robot riding a unicycle? That seemed more fit for a circus than to fight against me.


    The one that spat out sparks and mes from its arms might have seemed scary, but did they really think that I had never seen a welding gun before?


    I felt rather helpless facing such opponents. In fact, I even felt like shouting: ¡°Please be more serious, this is a battle!¡±


    After using my war hammer for a while, I decided to put it away. I was instead using a sword of ice that I had summoned. Although this sword wouldn¡¯t be anywhere close in power to Harloys¡¯ transformed Ice Cmity magic sword, this normal sword of ice would be more than sufficient to deal with such low-level robot opponents.


    Not only did I feel it was a waste to use my God Equipment war hammer to deal with such opponents, I felt like it would even be on the level of desecration.


    ¡°Someone like you would value his weapons so much? Did you really think that we forgot about how you used the Rnd Sacred Sword to open up walnuts back in the day? And, why did you waste mana to freeze those teddy bear and cleaning robots instead of destroying them? I think that you switched weapons in order to preserve the robots rather than to destroy them.¡±


    ¡°...I want to research them to see if they can be mass produced. And even if there¡¯s no market for them, I can give them away as presents to someone.¡±


    ¡°Presents to whom!¡±


    ¡°Presents to whom?¡±


    Harloys and Amelia asked me the same question simultaneously, which I found rather surprising. I also had no idea why both of them seemed to be ring at me. Still, I felt no guilt about doing anything wrong by them, as there was nothing I needed to be secretive about here.


    ¡°Of course, to Reyne and Annie. Little girls like them probably love stuffed toys, right? Annie was so happy for several days back when I gave her a skeleton doll so long ago...¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s so suicidal.¡±


    ¡°I give him 100 points for being suicidal!¡±


    I had already gotten ustomed to ignoring strangements about me that I couldn¡¯t understand, so I simply continued with telling them my intentions.


    ¡°...Actually, I do feel a little guilty about disappearing for so long without saying anything to them and leaving them with so many responsibilities. And since they¡¯re all my juniors, I should also give a gift to Glina. But, she seems quite mature, so I doubt she would like something like a teddy bear. I think I should instead give her a respectable robot. The technology here is clearly far more advanced than the goblins and gnomes¡¯ junk. Since Glina¡¯s also an engineer, she should be happy with receiving a robot.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m rather curious to see what expression Reyne will have when she receives a teddy bear while Glina receives an actual normal present.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll see very soon, probably sooner than you think.¡±


    As we chatted while moving down levels, I got ustomed to my now restored physical body through battle. In order to achieve the next power level, it would be highly important to have excellent synchronization between the physical body and the soul.


    ¡°You¡¯re intending on going for Myth rank already? You¡¯re not going to stay at Saint rank some longer?¡±


    I didn¡¯t even try to conceal my desire for strength and a greater power level. In fact, I had already started preparing for the next rank up.


    Harloys and Amelia were also top-level in this world, so they knew this as well.


    ¡°Yep, there¡¯s not much time left. And, Myth rank is quite special, so something like experience or whatever ispletely meaningless for me in achieving Myth rank.¡±


    ¡°Then, how many are you intending on?¡±


    Amelia asked me a question without referring to anything in particr. However, I instantly understood¡ªshe was referring to how many Concepts I was going to have as a Myth rank!


    ¡°Heehee, take a guess.¡±


    Although it sounded like I was making her guess a riddle, to be honest, even I didn¡¯t know how many Concepts I would be able to have as a Myth rank. This was because I had learned far too many things over the years, giving me far too many choices.


    For ordinary people, Myth rank would seem like a glorious and inconceivable realm. But for people like us, Myth rank was nothing more than a step on the way to SemiGod rank. A powerful individual had once summarized how special the Myth rank was with a quote.


    ¡°Before SemiGod rank, there¡¯s always a path to take. Myth rank means that you¡¯ve reached the end of your path. This level is the total summation of your and your entire species¡¯ experience. Once you surpass this level and achieve SemiGod, there¡¯s no more paths to take.¡±


    When mentioning Myth rank, the mostmon were probably Myth rank weapons rather than individuals. And, the majority of Myth-ranked weapons were indeed left behind by Myth-ranked individuals. This was aplex rtionship that would first require an exnation of how special Myth rank was in its method of achieving breakthrough.


    Humans¡¯ ssification of power levels separated each level into how much potential each individual had managed to develop in themselves. Those with higher power levels might not always necessarily be stronger than those with lower power levels. However, those with higher power levels would definitely have traveled farther down their path.


    The pure energy level of an individual would basically be maxed out already at the peak of Legend rank. A powerful Legend-ranked mage would be able to use forbidden spells already¡ªthe best evidence of this. Meanwhile, Saint rank was more about an improvement in one¡¯s specialties, where individuals obtained their personal Concepts, which were simr to smaller versions of Divine Concepts.


    Since Saint rank was about entering the divine, this meant that the physical body¡¯s potential had already been developedpletely. The pure energy and will within the physical body would be capable of interfering with the world. In fact, Saint-ranked individuals would even be able to break naturalws, something the ordinary people could never achieve. But, unless one chose to ascend to Godhood, it would be almost impossible to progress past Saint rank.


    Meanwhile, Myth rank would represent the next, almost inconceivable breakthrough past Saint rank which was already considered near perfection.


    ¡°Since the physical body can¡¯t be developed any further, then let¡¯s seek outside assistance.¡±


    It was unknown who¡¯d first thought of such a method to power up even further. It was also unknown if this was truly even the most effective path, but countless intelligent life forms had already proven that this path was indeed possible.


    Achieving all the ranks before Myth rank would be all about personal umtion and experience. As long as you slowly leveled up, and as long as you were talented enough and lived for long enough, it would be possible to enter the realm of Saint rank. But, starting from Myth rank, one would have to fight against the heavens, against others, and against their own self. A forceful breakthrough would be required. Not making any progress here would mean eventual regression.


    The Myth rank was well known for its Three Heavy Doors, each representing a required breakthrough. These were also the three steps required for creating one¡¯s personal Myth-ranked weapon.


    The first step, or the first door, was to continue improving one¡¯s personal Concept, transforming it from something ethereal into a concrete existence. At this step, one was still working on improving the physical body.


    For instance, to use Adam as an example, when he was at this level, he improved his personal Concept of ¡°Phoenix Fire¡± into ¡°Undying and Indestructible.¡± From then onwards, he would be the same as the legendary phoenix. It would be impossible for his physical body to die unless his mes were quenched.


    The second step was to bring one¡¯s personal Concept outside of one¡¯s own body, transforming it into something concrete.


    It would always be incredibly difficult to create something from nothing. This process of ¡°creating a personal Myth-ranked weapon¡± would typically require ¡°outside resources¡± to be used in the weapon¡¯s creation.


    This outside resource could be an already existing normal weapon, or a modified part of one¡¯s own body, or even part of the surrounding environment. Or, it could be a certain magical spell or a Soul World. It was quite difficult to ssify all the different possibilities.


    To continue using Adam as an example, this was the level at which hepleted the inheritance of the phoenix and obtained the phoenix¡¯s blood and heart, which he then used to create his Phoenix Fire swords ¡°Phoenix¡¯s Guidance¡± and ¡°Heart of the Phoenix.¡±


    At the third and final level or door would be the synchronization between the physical body and the Myth-ranked weapon.


    These weapons were always injected with the wielder¡¯s personal Concept and soul. As long as the weapon became a part of your physical body, this meant your body could begin on a path of expanding its power potential outside of the physical body. From then onwards, one would be able topletely leave the realm of mortals, with no limit and no obstacles. There would only be endless potential with zero restrictions.


    Did this seem like nothing much would be required? Actually, this was the level with the highest death rate.


    This seemingly simple task would always be by far the most difficult. This third and final door was the most difficult level that the Myth-ranked individuals in all dimensions would always get stuck on or fail and perish.


    If one¡¯s physical body or soul was iplete, it would be impossible to reach a true synchronization between body and weapon. That would leave you forever stuck behind this door... Since the undead didn¡¯t have living physical bodies orplete souls anymore, this power level was by far the one where most high-level undead would forever be stuck at. It was to the point where the undead could cry andin about discrimination against the undead.


    If one¡¯s personal Concept was too weak, or if the resources used for the weapon weren¡¯t strong enough, the Myth-ranked weapon created would either directly break down, or barely be usable but be too weak to host one¡¯s soul and future path. That would also mean being stuck behind the third door... this was the mostmon reason for failure at over 70%. But, one didn¡¯t need to worry, because you could still seed if you started all over again. You would just have to start from the very beginning, searching for a new personal Concept... and you might be able to try breaking past the third door again thirty yearster.


    If the Concept or weapon resource was too powerful, the weapon created would be ridiculously strong, leaving you stuck behind the door or maybe you would even die... Why, you ask? If the physical body couldn¡¯t handle the weapon¡¯s power, then the individual would be controlled by the weapon, or be a vessel for the weapon¡¯s soul, or the physical body would be ruined, or the mind wouldpletely shatter, or you would simply die.


    The Three Heavy Doors of Myth rank. Each door was more difficult to pass through than the previous. The final door was cursed at endlessly by innumerable Myth-ranked powerful individuals throughout the ages. But, as long as you broke past the third door, not only would there be boundless potential waiting for you at SemiGod rank, you would also finally obtain your personal powerful weapon customized and imbued with your own personal Concept. Whenever a Myth-ranked weapon was created and wielded by its original owner, such a weapon would sometimes even surpass God Equipment in certain areas. It was a definite that one¡¯sbat strength would explosively increase.


    Margaret¡¯s two Myth-ranked ¡°weapons¡± were the ¡°Spell Codex¡±, which allowed her to replicate any magic spell that she witnessed, and the ¡°Philosopher¡¯s Stone¡±, which was an almost limitless mana reserve just for her.


    Just one item alone would have still been alright to deal with, but those two itemsbined were bug-like in ability.


    Margaret was capable of copying enemies¡¯ forbidden spells and casting them as she pleased. In any direct magical confrontation, she would always be able to cast two spells at once, her own spell and the copied spell. Whenbined with her almost limitless mana reserves, Margaret alone was on par with an entire group of archmages in any long-range magical battle. This was such an incredibly shameless ability.


    Rather than calling the created Myth-ranked weapons weapons <sup>1</sup> , they were more like extensions of the Myth-ranked individual¡¯s physical body. And if that individual died, the Myth-ranked weapon left behind would be that person¡¯s inheritance.


    Of course, without the support of the original soul and physical body, the weapon¡¯s power would be greatly reduced. Still, it would be a better-than-average weapon with some special effects.


    One couldn¡¯t be too weak or too strong to pass the final door of Myth rank. You had to be at just the right power level... Trying to forcefully go past Myth rank would be suicidal. Only taking things cautiously with experience and repeated attempts would be the only method to seed and reach SemiGod.


    But as for me, I had long since prepared my personal path for breaking through. In fact, I had more than ten Concepts at my disposal capable of bing my personal Concepts. However, taking the final step still wouldn¡¯t be so easy.

 Chapter 548 - Inheritance

    <h4>Chapter 548: Inheritance</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°You¡¯ve prepared more than ten Concepts? That sounds so ridiculously exaggerated. Just how many Concepts have you actually prepared?¡±


    ¡°Ha, this is the most foundational secret of any Myth- or SemiGod-ranked individual. Did you really think that I would tell you...? Fine, I admit it, even I don¡¯t know the exact number.¡±


    Since my two femalepanions kept looking at me with expressions of ¡°I can see through you¡± and ¡°Just keep making stuff up¡±, I was unable to handle it and told them the truth.


    ¡°For everyone else, the most critical step is to find their personal Concept that they can use to power themselves up. However, I¡¯ve already umted more than ten Concepts I can use due to my personal experience over my previous four lives. My troubles are different from everyone else. I don¡¯t know which of my personal Concepts are worthy of being used, nor do I know which of my Concepts can sessfully be powered up. Finally, I have no idea what limit my physical body can handle.¡±


    Indeed, since there was no prior example in history of someone like me, and I had indeed umted many Concepts, I had no clue just how many Concepts I would be able to upgrade to Myth rank together with me, nor did I know what limits I had.


    Since Myth rank was a path that plenty of others had taken before me, there naturally were rules to be followed. Based on the typical path, each species would have different preferences and limits.


    Upgrading oneself from Myth to SemiGod rank would be like sending cargo across the sea. When you left the shore, it would be the equivalent of taking all your umted experiences with you. When you arrived on the other shore across the sea, the value of your experiences would increase a hundredfold.


    Your physical body and bloodline would be the only ship avable to take you to the other side. The power of your bloodline would be the equivalent of the ship¡¯s quality and loading capacity. If you loaded too little on the ship, you would gain much less, or maybe even lose more than what you started with. If you loaded too much on the ship, the ship would sink, and you would simply perish.


    As I mentioned before, this world waspletely unfair. Not only did your species and bloodline determine your starting point, they would also determine your finish point. In this shipping game analogy of mine, every species¡¯ ship would bepletely different.


    Demons used ughtering and devouring to obtain evolution. Their physical bodies were eternally evolving. Their so-called bottlenecks in reaching the next power level would only be due to not killing or eating enough. Using the humans¡¯ power level system to rank them would bepletely meaningless.


    Dragons and Titans would never see their ships sink. Their inherent bloodlines not only bestowed them with powerful natural talent abilities, but also allowed them to swiftly power up without limits. In front of the most ancient dragons, ordinary SemiGod humans would be nothing more than a joke.


    Elves had many different species. Wild Elves had Copper Bloodlines, while Gold Elves had Gold Bloodlines, so they varied greatly in power level. However, since all elves were still the same base species in the end, their overall simrities would still be more than their differences.


    Elves had astonishingly powerful souls and magical potential. However, their physical bodies were typically much weaker. Superior Elves would typically choose two to three Concepts upon reaching Myth rank. Ordinary elves would also be able to choose one or two Concepts. As for their royalty, the Gold Elves... I didn¡¯t know how many Concepts they could use for themselves, as Harloys was no longer a typical example. But, I suspected that the Gold Elves would have been more simr to dragons and Titans, with no upper limit, rather than being like other elves. Otherwise, they wouldn¡¯t have been a Gold Bloodline species.


    ¡°ording to this logic, if Harloys can break through the Three Heavy Doors of Myth Rank and reach SemiGod, she should be far stronger than any ordinary new SemiGod. Sigh, in the end, humans are the most pitiful species. Humansck natural talent and have such short lives.¡±


    Humans had one of the shortest average lifespans among all the powerful species in Eich. Only an incredible few and fortunate individuals would be able to find their personal Concept and reach Myth rank before they died of natural or other causes. Also, humans had weak physical bodies that typically limited them to carrying only one personal Concept. Almost everyone who dared to even attempt gaining two Concepts had ended up dying... This was also why human SemiGod individuals were typically considered far weaker than other species¡¯ SemiGods.


    Both Adam and Margaret possessed multiple Concepts, you say? Well, this was actually a path that others had taken before them. This was due to another important method¡ªinheritances!


    ¡°Since I have an opportunity to make a wish, I¡¯ll choose to wish for more wishes with my wish. Since my human physical body is unable to handle more than one Concept, then I¡¯ll use my first Concept to change the physical attributes of my human body. Or, why not change my body to be something other than human? Won¡¯t I be able to possess multiple Concepts that way? I can even use this method to obtain a longer life so that I can achieve even more.¡±


    It was now unknown and lost to history which insane human Myth-ranked predecessor hade up with such a fantastical idea.


    Evidently, this method was a miracle that wouldn¡¯t be easy to achieve at all. Transforming one¡¯s own physical body would require a tremendous price. Not only that¡ªfailure would equal certain death. But, as long as you umted enough beforehand and had a stable transformation nned, this was a known path one could take powering up even further than regr limitations allowed for.


    ¡°Compared to other species, perhaps humans are indeed weaker, with shorter lives andcking in talent. However, humans are skilled at learning from previous experiences. Maybe humans don¡¯t have long lives, but humans will record their knowledge and experience for future generations¡¯ benefit. Perhaps, despite the fact that we humans have limited lives and talent, making it difficult for humans to reach the peak, our species will constantly progress and finally evolve to reach the top.¡±


    The path that people had taken before us was our inheritance.


    Adam¡¯s inheritance of the phoenix where he obtained the Phoenix Bloodline and the heart of the phoenix had been graduallypleted as we adventured together. It took much hard work to gather all the resources required. Being able to seed on the first and only try also required a lot of luck.


    And since the resource required was something as high-quality as the heart of a phoenix, not to mention this powerful inheritance was especially hand-picked for Adam, his path after achieving SemiGod was nothing but smooth sailing. In fact, some even considered him to now be the strongest human alive.


    It could be said that Adam Han was the creator of the path of the phoenix¡¯s inheritance.


    Margaret¡¯s transformation of her body into the undying was actually a byproduct of the schrs¡¯ research into the Philosopher¡¯s Stone. This undying path of inheritance was well-developed already, and anyone could purchase it from the Mage Country if they paid a sufficiently high price. However, the most important resource required for transforming one¡¯s body into the undying with this inheritance was the Philosopher¡¯s Stone, and you would have to figure out how to obtain that by yourself.


    And to be honest, having an undying body wasn¡¯t even considered a high-level inheritance. This would be quite limited as an upgrade to one¡¯s mana potential. Although having a physical body that would never age was quite popr with women, using an opportunity like achieving SemiGod rank which was truly once-in-a-lifetime on something like an undying body was even a bit of a waste... But, actually, Margaret didn¡¯t even need such an inheritance to improve her power level. She believed that she could obtain everything on her own.


    For her first Concept, she chose a core Concept that could help her to receive her inheritance, transforming her physical human body so that she could surpass human limits. Then, she chose a ¡°weapon¡± for her second Concept, improving herbat strength. This was all the most standard method for humans to be able to choose multiple Concepts when reaching SemiGod.


    Still, being able to use an inheritance only once despite all the work put into perfecting its path would be far too much of a waste. Only obtaining a new physical body and weapon and making future people who took this path have to start cultivating from the beginning all over again would also seem too slow and meaningless.


    And so, inheritances also included martial arts techniques, philosophies or ways of thinking, magical theories, and so on. In the end, inheritances naturally became family treasures that kept creating powerful individuals in each generation. There were even titles such as ¡°Dragonyer¡± which were passed down in each generation. Of course, even with the same inheritance, the actual power level of the individual in each generation would vary based on that person¡¯s talent.


    This type of situation was indeed highly helpful for helping inheritances survive and be passed down. Not only that, as family members would always have identical or near identical bloodlines and natural talents, and this also helped their inheritances¡¯ sess rate to be increased even further.


    Receiving an inheritance would mean obtaining theplete umted experience and power of a predecessor who had at minimum reached Myth rank. Then, the individual would study and learn the predecessor¡¯s martial arts or whatever else was included in the inheritance. It would be strange if that individual wouldn¡¯t be able to swiftly grow in power.


    These inheritances seemed rather high-ss, but there were actually quite a few lower-level inheritances that could be found. However, learning about an overlyplete inheritance too early would typically limit the inheritor¡¯s imagination and potential. But, to my knowledge, the royalty in many human countries would all secretly use such inheritances.


    An outstanding inheritance would naturally be a precious treasure that couldn¡¯t be obtained easily with money. All the trouble previously in the Underground was all because of rumors that told of how the Staff of Yongye possessed the secrets of how Emperor Yongye came to be so powerful. That would be another type of inheritance.


    Since I possessed the Double-Diamond Arbiter Bloodline in my current life, my physical body¡¯s true potential wasn¡¯t even close to being unlocked yet. This was why I had been willing to do so much all in order to obtain a powerful physical body.


    I had umted more than sufficient resources and experience by now. My foundation was also solid. The time for needing this was near now, so it was time to try and create something miraculous.


    Perhaps in the future, there would also be an inheritance called ¡°Legend of Rnd.¡±


    My current physical body was nearly indestructible and had boundless potential. I didn¡¯t need to find any other inheritance, since I already possessed quite a heavy inheritance in my hands.


    Perhaps I could even call it one of the most powerful inheritances in this entire world.


    But not only was this inheritance power, it also represented responsibility.


    I caressed the ostensibly in silver war hammer in my hand while incanting praise for the Pure Holy Light. A holy glow started enveloping the war hammer, illuminating everything like it was the middle of day despite the fact that we were in a pitch-ck corridor underground.


    Shadowy figures appeared all around me. They appeared to be either courageously fighting off enemies or defending their homes. These were memories contained within this war hammer. This was an inheritance for countless Holy Knights before me.


    This inheritance would be unable to change the physical limits of human bodies, but it would be able to bestow the inheritor with willpower and mental spirit far surpassing those of ordinary mortals. Not a single wielder of this hammer in history had ever been a coward!


    I had no reason to let this inheritance die in my hands, as it would be impossible for me to forget the history it represented...


    So, I picked up my war hammer.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s begin with the [Light of Salvation, the Guardian Battle Hammer of Dawn Envoys]!¡±

 Chapter 549 - Reunion

    <h4>Chapter 549: Reunion</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Reyne had been thinking, constantly thinking on the way here, what she would do and say when she saw Rnd again.


    Should she angrily interrogate him on why he¡¯d fooled her like a little girl, hiding such important information from her? Or, should she cry about how much she missed him, like a nagging wife?


    But, neither of those seemed to be her current style, nor was Reyne capable of acting like a spoiled little girl anymore.


    Seven years had passed already. As the Queen of the Mist, Reyne had experienced countless difficulties and troubles, both internally and externally. Some troubles were on the battlefield, while others were diplomatic. Some troubles could be resolved using military force, while others were such that Reyne could only helplessly lower her head. As the actual ruler of the Nortnds if not in name, Reyne had experienced far more than Rnd back at this age.


    Reyne had now grown up and no longer kept her hair short like a tomboy. Her hair reached her waist now, and she would keep it curled up at diplomatic dance parties paired with the most appropriate formal clothing. But on the battlefield, the way her ponytail flowed in the wind also became one of her most well-known traits.


    Reyne had be a skilled diplomat and matured to understand social and diplomatic etiquette. Not only that, she was an outstanding general on the battlefield, as well as an authoritative ruler within the Mist Alliance and Mist Kingdom. She had a forceful diplomatic attitude,bined with the fact that she was the ruler of one of the newest factions on par with a mega empire. This helped the Mist Alliance to be ever more internationally influential.


    ¡°Rnd picked the right person. He¡¯s always been far better at choosing people than any of us ever could be.¡±


    Even the picky Margaret, who hated admitting defeat, was forced to admit that Reyne had be an outstanding ruler. Although Annie had also done an excellent job ruling the Underground, Annie was still in no wayparable to how aplished Reyne had be, especially with how Annie always tried to run away from any political tasks and would only be spirited for any military affairs orbat. It was evident that Annie was far more suited for being a general rather than a politician.


    Reyne was one of the most brilliant and outstanding individuals of the new generation.


    One of the most outstanding among her age group? No, the current Reyne was now one of the most authoritative and powerful individuals in the entire world. She was equal to any mega empire¡¯s emperor in standing.


    The princess knight from before had matured. She had been forced to mature.


    Childhood? The chance to be a girl? The ruler of a country would never get to enjoy such ordinary times. Every action she took represented the will of her country. Her personal likes and dislikes could determine the life and death of an individual or even an entire species. Something like romance was something she couldn¡¯t even dream about.


    To look at the facts, seven years had passed now, making Reyne currently 21 years old. But, since the average human marriage age in Eich was under 18, Reyne was already far past the typical marriageable age.


    As Reyne was the most powerful woman with the greatest status in all of Eich, there were naturally countless men who tried to vie for her heart. But, no matter how perfect those men appeared to be on the surface, their past misdeeds and secret ambitions would all automatically float to the surface eventually without Reyne even needing to do anything.


    ¡°Tsk, tsk, tsk, yet another scumbag man who wanted to conquer the world with his lower half.¡±


    Perhaps due to Reyne¡¯s loathing of ¡°harem protagonists¡± (Rnd had written many stories based on stories from his previous world, causing this term to be well known even in this world), it was quite clear to everyone how strong her distaste for males waspared to how friendly she was towards other females. Plus, with her past reputation as the Yuri Princess, she had now evolved into the Yuri Queen. Thus, plenty of beautiful women also sought to be conquered by her...


    In order to avoid trouble and misunderstandings, Reyne became more and more ustomed to keeping a strict expression on her face when dealing with strangers. But, to her surprise, this caused her to receive another nickname, the ¡°Iron Queen¡±, which actually amused Reyne.


    To be honest, Reyne was only a young female knight who was still somewhat confused and only somewhat sly back when she was 14. A certain irresponsible fellow had forced the heavy responsibility of ruling an entire country upon her at that young age. The responsibility and glory of the position forced her to mature. All the expectations and trust ced on her also forced her to mature.


    Her original feelings towards Rnd of him being a prince on a white horse who rescued the damsel in distress had now matured into something unknown with the passing of time. Even Reyne herself wouldn¡¯t know how to describe her current feelings towards Rnd. But, she knew one thing for certain¡ªwhenever she thought about the irresponsible fellow who suddenly abandoned her without so much as a warning, forcing her to lead an entire country, she would always be incredibly angry.


    ¡°At the very least, he should have told me something. Am I that untrustworthy...?¡±


    But now, Reyne finally saw the real Rnd again. When she saw his familiar figure walking down the stairs to the spirit image training facility level, all of Reyne¡¯s memories, which had been morized and solidified by herself with the passing of time, started ovepping with Rnd¡¯s childish yet handsome face. All of Reyne¡¯s thoughts and feelings welled up within her chest.


    ¡®Wonderful, he hasn¡¯t changed at all. He¡¯s just gotten slightly skinnier. Is he not eating well...? Wait a moment, this doesn¡¯t seem right.¡¯


    When Reyne noticed that her happiness actually surprisingly exceeded her anger, even she herself felt that something was off. And, as Rnd¡¯s familiar face looked over her, Reyne felt even more chaotic thoughts coursing through her mind.


    This so-called ¡°Iron Queen¡± suddenly started blushing mysteriously. She almost didn¡¯t even dare to directly exchange nces with that familiar face, yet Rnd unhesitatingly looked all over her as if he was looking for every change in her. He even stared for quite a while at her sensitive parts, which was quite rude of him.


    Reyne was somewhat angered by his behavior. With her temper that was bing more like a tyrant¡¯s every day, she typically would have kicked him long ago, but for some reason unknown to herself, she didn¡¯t know what to do. She felt like an elementary school student who hadn¡¯t finished her homework yet. And without her realizing it, her mouth was arcing upwards.


    ¡°Um...¡±


    His voice hadn¡¯t changed at all. Although his handsome face had gotten skinnier, this actually made him look more mature. His gentle eyes rested right upon her face (remember that all of this is from Reyne¡¯s point of view), and his expression seemed somewhat hesitant and mncholic. Was he showing guilt?


    ¡°I¡¯ll forgive you if you apologize.¡±


    The furious female knight from earlier instantly turned into a little girl who was angry with a parent. She instantly forgot about how she¡¯d been swearing revenge just a few minutes ago.


    Meanwhile, I finally spoke what I was thinking after some hesitating.


    ¡°Um... Who might you be? Are you also one of our allies? You¡¯ve developed quite a nice chest, much better than that bean sprout Reyne from my family. Nice to meet you for the first time, so please take good care¡ª¡±


    I didn¡¯t even get to finish my slightly sexually harassing greeting when I heard a familiar angry roar.


    ¡°Heaven¡¯s Sanction!¡±


    Time and Space would be no restrictions in front of Reyne¡¯s fury. A pitch-ck fist suddenly descended from another dimension and sent Rnd flying.


    This brute force punch originated from the Divine Sins stuck in the Earth Elemental ne: Emordilorcan¡¯s children. Their powerful fists traveled across dimensions as they were now part of Reyne¡¯s power.


    It was impossible to even think about dodging the Divine Sins¡¯ frightening speed and brute force. Although I was the one who gave the power over the Divine Sins to Reyne, I couldn¡¯t be happy right now about her improvement in controlling them, because I was now deeply stuck in the ceiling.


    Shattered portions of the ceiling kept falling down as Rnd fellpletely silent.


    ¡°Nice job!¡±


    ¡°That felt so good to watch!¡±


    ¡°Punch him again! Do it in the face this time!¡±


    Whenever a person met with misfortune, seeing others¡¯ reactions would be a good glimpse at how the misfortunate person was thought of by others.


    Since Rnd received a beating, the witch Ameliaughed out loud, the ck cat Harloysughed out loud, the bald Sword Saint Bartonughed uproariously, and even the great engineer Tid took out a loudspeaker to announce how pleased he was. Anyone who was familiar with Rnd was delighted to see his misfortune.


    Katerina and the mercenaries were the only ones who worried if Reyne would identally kill Rnd like this.


    ¡°Rx, in this day and age where the good die young and bad people live for thousands of years, this man... even if Armageddon arrives, he still won¡¯t die!¡±


    Tid¡¯s exnation had everyone nodding in agreement. Even if Rnd took a direct hit from Divine Sins, everyone felt that he would be perfectly fine. It would be nothing more than the equivalent of going on a holiday to him.

 Chapter 550 - Shooting Ones Own Foot

    <h4>Chapter 550: Shooting One¡¯s Own Foot</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Um, if I said that I was just cracking a joke to ease the atmosphere, would you all believe me?¡±


    ¡°I would as I know you to be a grandmaster of shooting yourself in the foot. Of course I¡¯d believe that you¡¯d shoot yourself in the foot like that. But, my believing you won¡¯t help you. She definitely won¡¯t believe you.¡±


    Amelia had a bright smile as if she felt quite happy andfortable, or as if she could vent by seeing my misfortune.


    I was now sitting on the ground while bleeding all over, yet nobody seemed to care about me. I felt just like a Holy Knight who was being discriminated against in an adventuring team. All my suffering was only known to me, with nobody caring about me. I could only go grind Holy Light by my lonesome.


    Divine Sins were noughing matter to deal with, as they could easily kill even the Gods, not to mention mere mortals. That direct hit I¡¯d taken just now was quite unpleasant.


    I was now covered all over in the shattered shards of my dragon armor. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I had summoned my armor in time, I would likely have been crushed to death and reincarnated into my next life already.


    Just a few minutes ago, I had been happily proud of my armor¡¯s astonishing defensive capabilities. In fact, I was even feeling like it was almost undefeatable in the mortal ne, and since nothing could break its defenses, I was naturally undefeatable as well, so there would be nothing wrong in calling myself undefeatable. Yet, the armor shattered instantly... Why did I receive such a p in the face...? Could it be that...?


    ¡°Is this my karmiceuppance for shouting that I was undefeatable...? It would seem that some words can¡¯t be said no matter what world it is. Or, Astrya, were you really bored enough to transform these words into a karmic weapon in your world?¡±


    [...]


    It would seem that even Astrya couldn¡¯t be bothered with responding to such a boring question of mine. In that case, I should probably chat a little less and focus more on healing myself.


    Beams of Holy Light started illuminating my body and curing my wounds. This felt ratherfortable, even if the scene still seemed rather bad for me. It felt like the hatred for me in this room was rather high.


    In the opposite corner of the room, Reyne was continuing to vent her anger out on spirit image Rnd. I saw this spiritual creature that seemed to greatly resemble me kneeling while clutching his head to protect himself while ring at me spitefully.


    ¡°Is that a new type of undead species? Could I have him so that I can research him?¡±


    Even though my head was still bleeding, I was rather curious about that spiritual creature. Although this spiritual creature was currently in the process of getting beaten up, why did he seem to look so familiar, and so handsome... cough, cough, I meant, so much like me?


    ¡°Did you get stic surgery to be so handsome? You didn¡¯t even pay me the copyright fee!¡±


    It would have been fine if he simply looked like me as I had seen many transformation magic spells before. However, it was quite difficult to understand why this spiritual creature also had such a simr soul wavelength to my own. Although I knew a little bit about spiritual creatures, and had heard that archmages in the Mage Country were researching this topic, I had never heard of such an advanced spiritual creature before.


    I recalled that archmage Andro from the Mystic de mage organization had spiritual creature servants in his mage tower. His personal magic spell, ¡°Andro¡¯s Invisible Servants,¡± allowed him to summon helpers that he typically used for chores around his tower. This was a spell that many people were envious of. But, unfortunately, this was one of Andro¡¯s trump cards and personal spells, which meant that he had never revealed the workings of this spell to anyone.


    If I could analyze this spiritual creature with the silly cat¡¯s assistance, perhaps I could evenplete a spell like ¡°Rnd¡¯s Free ve Labor¡± (with no sry and no health insurance!). Then, I could sell this type of magical spell and make tons of money!


    ¡°He... he wants to dissect me! Help! Save me!¡±


    I felt like I was watching a scene out of a horror movie. Someone that looked identical to myself was rolling around on the floor, trying to dodge Reyne¡¯s silver-booted stomps. His face, which was badly beaten already, was so scared that his expression becamepletely distorted. Not only that, I was hearing my own voice speaking in such a begging tone. This all made me feel... like this was such a fresh experience!


    But, I found it even more strange why this spiritual creature Rnd came to such a conclusion about me. Did I look like such an insane mad scientist? I was clearly a good person with moral boundaries!


    ¡°Dissect you? Do I look like such an immoral person? Every intelligent life form has the right to live. Although I am indeed quite interested in spiritual creatures, I will respect your right to life.¡±


    I attempted to defend myself. However, it seemed that nobody believed me.


    ¡°You are exactly such a person! Moral boundaries? Shame? Do you even have such things?¡±


    ¡°Haha, you¡¯re so funny. But, today¡¯s not the ¡®Fool¡¯s Day¡¯ festival, so please don¡¯t joke around like that with terrible jokes that nobody willugh at.¡±


    Even worse was that judging from everyone¡¯sments, not a single person believed in me. This was so heartbreaking. Was I really that untrustworthy?


    ¡°...The ¡®right to life¡¯ of intelligent ¡®life forms.¡¯ But, I don¡¯t think that this guy technically counts as being ¡®alive.¡¯ In that case, what you said just now was all meaningless. Although you tried to defend yourself, you didn¡¯t even promise not to dissect him? You¡¯re just as shameless as always,¡± Harloys exined to everyone.


    I respected the right of intelligent life forms to have life, but since this spiritual creature wasn¡¯t truly alive, I could dissect him in the name of science. That was the real meaning behind my truthful words... Tsk, I was actually seen through! But, only other scammers were the best at seeing through scams. Harloys was no different from me at all!


    I didn¡¯t try to defend myself anymore, since my magical pet had already exposed my true inner thoughts. It was unlikely that anyone would believe me.


    I simply grabbed the extra-chatty ck cat on my shoulder and then sent this traitorous cat flying with a kick.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, could someone please take a look at my injuries? I¡¯m clearly the victim here, so why is everyone looking at me like I¡¯m the viin? An ordinary person would have been instantly killed there.¡±


    ¡°You deserve it! Why didn¡¯t you die... And you, bastard, you even dared to pretend to be dead. Why didn¡¯t you die for real!¡±


    Reyne roared angrily at me. Not only was there significant anger in her voice, she also sounded somewhat sad.


    ...I fell silent for quite a while. Based on my many years of experience, it would be unwise for me to try and reason with an angry woman. All angry women had the ability to transform any problem into an emotional issue, and change any situation into one about how badly you were treating her.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, if I hadn¡¯t pretended to be dead, you would have attacked me again and I really would have died. I didn¡¯t know that you would end up crying like that...¡±


    Yep, Reyne burst out into tears earlier when she saw me pretending to be dead. She didn¡¯t even try to check my ¡°corpse¡± and burst right into tears. Even now, her eyes were red and swollen. That was why Reyne was still inexperienced. Adam and Margaret definitely would have checked the corpse. Yep, and Elisa would have...


    ¡°Reyne, he¡¯s thinking right now that you¡¯re so inexperienced and easy to fool, and that you don¡¯t understand him as well as Elisa does.¡±


    Alright then, Harloys was proudly saying truthful words that weren¡¯t the full truth. She was indeed a quick learner of my style. Was this aeuppance I deserved?


    I instantly sent my cat flying again, and then took a defensive posture. Thatst Divine Sin attack had caused me to bleed so much already, so it was likely that I would actually die if I took another direct hit. However, this time Reyne actually didn¡¯t listen to Harloys¡¯ bbering. Reyne hesitated for quite a while and then started venting on my substitute again.


    But just as I started casting more Holy Light healing spells on myself out of boredom, I heard her incredibly tiny voice whispering in my ear.


    ¡°...Did you really not recognize me? Or, did youpletely forget about me?¡±


    Seeing how my demonic descendant was venting her anger on my duplicate while keeping her ears perked up for my reply, I suddenly felt like I really had treated Reyne poorly indeed.


    When I considered how anything even half-truthful would likely cause me to be sold out by my cat, I ended up telling Reyne the full truth after much hesitation.


    ¡°...I really did recognize you when I finally saw your battle g, but you were already attacking me by that time. Still, you really have grown up, Reyne. You¡¯ve grown so much that I didn¡¯t recognize you at first sight. You grew from such a tomboy into a woman.¡±


    It seemed that I had identally said something correct this time. Reyne, who was the direct type that couldn¡¯t hide her feelings, instantly had a much sunnier expression. I finally heaved a sigh of relief.


    To be honest, the real reason why I hadn¡¯t recognized her was her astonishing power level. Reyne¡¯s progress truly astounded me. This was because if you only looked at energy level, she was somehow above even me now. No wonder she could now fully control the Divine Sins.


    ¡°Tsk.¡±


    As expected, my silly cat required more ¡°training.¡± Although I escaped any further punishment, she unhesitatingly showed off her regret that I escaped. Did she really want to see her master to be canned meat that badly?


    ¡°...Be a little more serious. We¡¯re still in the midst of a battle.¡±


    Although I reminded everyone, nobody seemed to agree with me. They all had rxed expressions as if victory was already theirs.


    We were so free to chat right now of course because the situation had already been stabilized. After Reyne¡¯s ughter of the demons, no more demons came up anymore. They seemed to be afraid of her to the extent where they were the ones who copsed the way down in an explosion this time.


    And judging from the data on Tid¡¯s random assortment of measurement machines, it seemed that the demon army had almost beenpletely annihted. Everything was going wonderfully well, so we would probably win even if we directly attacked... Wait a moment, I felt like I just said a death g sentence. I wouldn¡¯t be so unlucky again, would I...?


    ¡°...I¡¯m detecting a high energy reaction from below. It¡¯s a new demon!¡±


    Alright then, Tid was indeed someone who liked to bring bad news.


    ¡°Does that make you a professional jinxer then?¡±


    ¡°...Then, Harloys, does that make you my personal professionalmentator?¡±

 Chapter 551 - Scheme

    <h4>Chapter 551: Scheme</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    An individual¡¯s scheme would never match up to the heavens¡¯ schemes. A scheme¡¯s sess or failure depended more upon the heavens than the individual. Such clich¨¦ phrases had likely been said countless times already. But, in most typical stories, those who said death g sentences would always die quickly.


    No matter how wondrous the n or scheme was, it would be quite easy for everything to fail for one simple reason: bad luck. For instance, if you met with a youth who just left his vige... What, you¡¯re saying that an inexperienced youth who left his vige for the first time wouldn¡¯t be scary at all? Ha, just watch the gears of fate turn. Perhaps that youth who had just worked as a tavern server recently would soon be the next main character of a legend.


    After many years of experience, I came up with three maxims about why schemes would fail. First, if the schemer killed the main character¡¯s parents, teacher, or some other respected elder. Second, if the schemer kidnapped or stole the main character¡¯s girlfriend or love interest. Third, if the schemer tried to renege on a marriage agreement. What these three maxims had inmon was one thing: you antagonized the main character.


    ...Cough, cough, it seemed that no matter what world I was in, the stories would always be quite clich¨¦.


    Yep, I was referring to schemes in stories only.


    Although sometimes reality would be even more fantastical than stories, most of the time, stories were only stories, and reality was reality.


    The sess rate of schemes in real life was always much higher. That was because the schemer and his subordinates wouldn¡¯t be such idiots like in the stories. Someone capable of nning a grand overarching scheme and being in the midst of carrying it out probably also had a more than ny percent sess rate guarantee to be willing to start it in the first ce.


    A certain earl¡¯s family waited patiently for a hundred years for the ruling royalty to have a generation with no descendants. Then, that earl¡¯s family assassinated four royal rtives that might seed the throne, thus ensuring that the earl¡¯s family seeded the throne in the end... Yep, I was actually referring to the current San Antonio. The history behind how the current ruling family obtained their crown wasn¡¯t glorious at all.


    Did the major nobles in San Antonio not know about how this crown was obtained? Was the previous royalty not on guard at all? In fact, the royalty had long since known that Earl Misset had grand ambitions. The royalty even knew exactly why those distantly rted princes had died. However, Earl Misset from that generation had the most powerful army, and the loyalty of one-third of all the major nobles. So, the San Antonio royalty from back then could only watch on aggrievedly as they were destroyed.


    I had often heard stories about inexperienced youths saving the princess in distress and finally reviving a kingdom and bing the ruler of an entire country. However, I had never seen such things happen in reality. Instead, the ugly and old ¡°viins¡± from the story would always win in the end, along with marrying the princess, having several children, and usurping the throne. This was actually quitemonce.


    The reasons were quite simple. The schemers were typically quite powerful. Their ambitions stemmed from having a sufficient amount of factional support and actual power. If a noble family was even stronger than the royalty, it was only natural that this noble family would have ambitions to rece the royalty. Only an incredible few would adhere to their ancient contracts to the royalty and remain loyal. The end result was that the schemes were basically almost open for everyone to see, and that today¡¯s traitor would be the glorious king of tomorrow.


    The internal war in the S Dukedom was just one such example, but there were plenty others ongoing in the world right now. In this current generation, there were so many betrayals, uprisings, assassinations, and civil wars that such news no longer made the headlines. Even though the human mega empires were still able to keep such chaos suppressed, the smaller countries were now in a state of utter chaos.


    It would be too na?ve to think of all this chaos as only natural during the Holy War. Judging from the information I received from the fairies and the Mist Alliance, much of this chaos actually had to do with the involvement of other species or outside factions.


    Perhaps a certain noble would mysteriously receive powerful God Equipment. Perhaps a certain domain lord would suddenly have a few non-human archmages join his cause. Perhaps a certain dukedom would find several beastman tribes offering their support. Perhaps a genius strategist would suddenly appear, greatly strengthening a certain faction¡¯s military strength... This type of abnormal news was actually considered normal in this day and age. What happened next was even moremon. Either the domain lord who felt like it was his ¡°destiny¡± to be the ruler would start plotting to overthrow his current ruler, or the ruler would feel threatened and begin to preemptively clean house.


    The ¡°Vultures of War¡± catastrophe from the game¡¯s history had now appeared in front of us in a different form¡ªcivil wars and internal unrest from nobles.


    For most countries, seeing your neighbor having a civil war would be the most annoying thing possible. If you didn¡¯t intervene, the civil war would end up affecting you as well. But if you intervened, you would immediately be used of interfering in another country¡¯s internal affairs or invasion.


    Of course, some ambitious kings and archdukes actually treated this as a great chance to expand their territories. And so, the fires of war kept burning even greater as the civil wars were upgraded into international world wars.


    To my knowledge, many mega empires, including Bardi, Xiluo, and San Antonio, had secretly gained much from the current chaotic civil wars raging in the world. Not to mention, since this was all about other countries¡¯ internal affairs, it was impossible for outsiders to intervene.


    This was destructive for any small country, but was it only a small issue for the mega empires? No, this was a tremendous issue for everyone.


    The mega empires only won and never lost whenever they conquered other smaller countries. Expanding their territories not only solidified the royalty¡¯s position, but it also benefited the country¡¯s markets, the major nobles, and military. That made the mega empires¡¯ citizens desire even more wars, so their citizens¡¯ wishes forced the king and the nobles to start even more wars... That was the biggest trouble of all.


    If all of this was due to the Chaos Faction¡¯s scheme, then I must say that it was wonderfully done.


    A few random powerful individuals joining up, or a few nonhuman outsiders offering their support, or a few dark cultists, or a single powerful weapon, or some new technology, or a few sacks of gold coins. As long as they were used well, such tiny pieces in the grand scheme of things could cause an entire country to sink into utter chaos. This would decrease the entire overall strength of humanity.


    The S Dukedom was an obvious example of this. The civil war here was between the ruling archduke¡¯s family and the domain lords. This was no social ss revolution. And, in the end, no matter who won or lost, the S Dukedom¡¯s power as a country would definitely be greatly diminished, with arge reduction in poption. There would be no true victor in the end. Looking at the overall situation and the long-term future, everyone would be a loser.


    Limit the scale of the wars? It wouldn¡¯t be so easy after the wars began.


    Something like stopping wars before they started was especially hard to do. Those with ambition were plentiful everywhere. It just depended on if the ambitious had actual power backing them up or not. Were we supposed to investigate every single one of each domain lord¡¯s subordinates? Were we supposed to ban the nobles and domain lords from trying to improve their own power? Considering how this world currently had a feudal society where domain lords ruled like kings in their own domains, even their countries¡¯ royalty would be unable to stop the domain lords.


    This scheme didn¡¯t seem like it came from the demons, as demons were simple-minded and would directly dere war against you. This seemed far more like a vicious scheme from the devils that loved to torment humans. While such a scheme wouldn¡¯t see results anytime soon, a sufficient amount of time passing would mean the significant weakening of all of humanity.


    Perhaps it was because several of the Devil Lords betrayed the Chaos Faction and joined the Hell Faction. Perhaps it was because Cynthia, the will of the Chaos Abyss, had disappeared. The remaining Devil Lords were no longer remaining neutral as they typically would in previous Holy Wars. The other Devil Lords were showing off their abilities and support for the Chaos Faction.


    To be honest, this was actually another of the main reasons why I had been staying in the S Dukedom. I had originally intended to see who exactly was behind the traitorous noble that rebelled to see if I could find anyone behind the scenes. Although the hope for sessfully catching the true mastermind would be quite slim, I could at least give it a try. I wanted to at least find out which bastards from the lower nes were meddling in human affairs.


    ¡°Tsk, in the end, all my ns were interrupted. We actually met with so many things here. Am I really the legendary elementary schooler God of Death like Conan Edogawa? I meet with incidents everywhere that I go? Why am I so unfortunate?¡±


    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t the Sky Tower Spirit be the one shouting about how unfortunate he is? He almost managed to achieve his goals. If it weren¡¯t for meeting you, his scheme which took him hundreds of years likely would have seeded.¡±


    Judging from this standpoint, the Sky Tower Spirit was also quite the incredible schemer. He had started his n several centuries ago and patiently waited for the Holy War to begin again before putting it into action. He then purposefully let the adventurer Old Barton into the ruins, having him take away the critical Katarina. The Sky Tower Spirit then started an Undead Cmity to indirectly kill the true master of the tower so that he could be truly independent.


    But, due to a single unexpected urrence, Undead Emperor Conservation and the Sky Tower Spirit¡¯s schemes were destined to fail.


    ¡°Their only mistake was that they antagonized the main character! That¡¯s right, me!¡±


    ¡°...Are you sure that you took care of all this with your main character plot armor rather than your cmitous aura of misfortune? All those ¡®reinforcements¡¯ of yours came here more to hunt you down.¡±


    I was actually rendered speechless by this. Indeed, this potentially devastating Undead Cmity had been halted mostly because of Amelia and her wood spirits arriving on time, and the adventuring team in the ruins had mostly been saved because of Reyne.


    ¡°Silly cat, would you die if you stoppedmenting on everything about me?¡±


    ¡°I would!¡±


    But while the silly cat and I red at each other, others were finally unable to take this anymore.


    ¡°Be a little more serious, we¡¯re in the middle of a battle!¡±


    Even though I also kept reminding myself that this was a battlefield, it was so hard to actually take things seriously.


    The stairs going down had been opened up again, with more demonsing up. However, Reyne blocked the stairway by herself. All I saw was her swinging around her silver sword and spear in circles, and then... there was nothing else except for blood and flesh flying off of Reyne¡¯s shining weapons. I had yet to see a singleplete demon down here.


    ¡°Reyne¡¯s in such abat fervor. She¡¯s showing off her own progress. Right, did you teach her those sword techniques?¡±


    ¡°Tsk, I would never teach her sword techniques like this. They fit only a gori.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t blind. Of course I could tell whose style these sword techniques were. I had indeed previously taught Reyne fighting skills and techniques. But, her current sword techniques were very honest and simple horizontal or vertical slices. They were gori-like brute force techniques that used instinct and senses far more than any logic or reason. Only someone as simple and direct as Karwenz would use such sword techniques.


    Although I was rather surprised by Reyne¡¯s huge increase in power level, I highly doubted that any ordinary demons would even pose a threat to Reyne. This meant that I could secretly ck off and n for the future.


    Indeed, n for the future. n for the future of these ruins, and the future for the huge inheritance within these ruins.


    From what I could tell, since Amelia and her wood spirits had arrived, and we had already eliminated the most troublesome and powerful individual, Conservation, it would be impossible for us to lose control of these ruins unless something like two Main Gods suddenly appeared.


    There were no treasure chests or gold coins here for adventurers to go crazy about. But, all those silly-looking robots we¡¯d met on the way here were actually hundreds of times more valuable than treasure chests filled with gold.


    Perhaps I wasn¡¯t exactly a high-level engineer myself, but I could at least slightly extrapte the advancement of a culture from its creations and tools.


    Completely automatic robots and artificial souls, together with designs and constructs for all sorts of never-before-seen machines. This Sky Tower even managed to produce half-machine and half-undead creations, and there were also spiritual creatures here that could imitate a real person¡¯s soul wavelength. All of this knowledge was a treasure trove of information that far surpassed any known archaeological dig on the Haletdam generation. This was a super mega harvest.


    Just the fact that this ce also had a highly unique structure that made it easier tomunicate with other dimensions here would probably make this location tremendously valuable to the Chaos Faction. And of course, this naturally had worth to us as well.


    If news about the true nature of this ce was leaked, it would quite obviously cause the S Dukedom¡¯s civil war to rage even harder. Perhaps some major countries would also find excuses to invade. I would need to think of methods to contain everything first before the news leaked.


    ¡°Perhaps keeping this portal and having this ruin constantly maintain itself in a state of ¡®active warfare against intruders¡¯ will be safer.¡±


    But as many thoughts and schemes which I hesitated about roamed around in my head, the true master of this tower, Katerina, walked in front of me, seeming like she had something to say.

 Chapter 552 - Reinforcements

    <h4>Chapter 552: Reinforcements</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    No matter what world it was, the police, military, and other official organizations permitted to use violence would always arrivete. This wasn¡¯t only because the story needed them to arrivete. It was that a significant amount of time would be needed after receiving the report to understand the situation and summon enough people.


    A well-run organization, elite training, and advanced equipment could all help in shortening the response time, but those wouldn¡¯t be able topletely eliminate the response time. It could be said that the response time was also a direct reflection of the organization¡¯s overall strength.


    As for Starwood City¡¯s residents, the S Dukedom¡¯s royal army reinforcements finally arriving was a good thing for them. At least, this represented that the city was now safe. However, even those with the best of tempers were still filled with fury when they saw the reinforcements finally arriving.


    This was because by this point in time, the battle had been over for two weeks already, so the reinforcements were ratherte. Not only that, the reinforcements had fought in a battle on the way, and lost over 50% of its forces. So, the reinforcements arrived while filled with injuries and fatigue, with more stretchers and injured soldiers than actual assistance. Rather than calling them reinforcements, they seemed more like refugees who were seeking assistance themselves. This made it difficult for the Starwood City residents to ept.


    ¡°Get out of here! Are you here to reinforce us or to fight against us?¡±


    ¡°...Even Marquis Stanley was much better than you all! It was his ally ¡®Blood Spear¡¯ Salima who protected us. What did your domain lord do!? He allied with the undead and assassinated Prince Link! This brought danger to everyone here!¡±


    Starwood City¡¯s unfriendly wee infuriated Earl Debalon, the leader of S Dukedom¡¯s royal reinforcements. He even considered whether or not he should secretly kill some of the mercenaries andmoners who spoke so arrogantly to him.


    ¡°These dirty lowbornmoners. We wouldn¡¯t have been ambushed by those traitorous Marquis Stanley loyalists if it wasn¡¯t for ouring to save you all. You actually dare to speak so arrogantly to us?¡±


    Since the issue of the S Dukedom prince¡¯s assassination was still at hand, not dealing with it well would likely mean huge trouble down the road. Earl Debalon considered if he could use hunting down the prince¡¯s killer as an excuse to vent and kill some of the people here, since based on typical customs, whenever a member of the royalty met with harm, there would always be many people killed as a punishment.


    But unfortunately for Earl Debalon, he was unable to do that this time...


    Human defenders weren¡¯t the only ones on the walls of Starwood City. Short wood spirits were patrolling everywhere as they had now taken charge of the city. Gigantic magical flowers and war trees grew all around the city¡¯s outskirts. The wood spirits were now the new rulers here.


    It would have been still fine if it was only the wood spirits, but the aerial fleet in the skies also gave Earl Debalon an invisible sense of pressure. Not only that, the gigantic ancient tree in the center of Starwood City was the best exnation of what had happened here.


    ¡°The Sky Tree from the Forest of Dreams? What do they intend to do here...¡±


    The Sky Tree was the mother tree which gave birth to the entire wood spirit species. Only when constructing a wood spirit city would such a precious tree be nted here. The wood spirits were capable of receiving the Forest of Dreams¡¯ support through this tree, allowing them to reincarnate in this area, along with having many other miraculous uses that outsiders didn¡¯t know about.


    And as the wood spirits became more and more famous as a species, their Sky Tree that brought tremendous results in their war against the undead was no longer viewed as only a powerful weapon. Anywhere that their Sky Tree was present was directly treated as the wood spirits¡¯ territory.


    As the wood spirits¡¯ main territory, the Forest of Dreams, wasn¡¯t that far away from the S Dukedom, Earl Debalon naturally knew what this towering tree represented.


    Starwood City was no longer a shoddy or even a mid-rate city. It was unmistakably a well-defended fortress city now, and it now belonged to a different country and different species entirely.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this an invasion? This is an outright military invasion!¡±


    If Earl Debalon had been a purely militaristic person, he would have unsheathed his sword and attacked the wood spirits to defend his country already. But as someone important enough to be entrusted by the royalty with dealing with such a major incident like an Undead Cmity, rather than a military personnel, Earl Debalon was more of a politician.


    ¡°Why did they do this? Could it be that rumors of that treasure were actually real?¡±


    But no matter what guesses or analyses he made, Earl Debalon was unable to act by himself. At most, he could send reports to the ruling Archduke. But, as for the Archduke¡¯s royal family who supported Earl Debalon... it was likely that they would also be unable to do anything about the wood spirits.


    This was the sad fate of small countries like the S Dukedom, made even more pitiful by the fact that the S Dukedom was embroiled in a civil war. Since all semnce of order was shattered by the fires of war, thew of the jungle where the strong preyed on the weak became even more evident and cruel.


    If the wood spirits really wanted to take some territory for themselves here, what could the S Dukedom possibly do about it apart from grumbling a little? It wasn¡¯t like the Archduke could afford to use his royal troops to fight against the wood spirits that were powerful enough to face an Undead Emperor when the royal troops were already busy dealing with the traitorous Marquis Stanley.


    ¡°...You¡¯re worrying too much about nothing. We have absolutely zero interest in such a rundown city. We are a species that loves peace, so we would never start an invasion. There¡¯s actually a reason that we¡¯re establishing a scouting camp here...¡±


    A sudden voice interrupted Debalon¡¯s thoughts. Although the words were meant to be reassuring, he wasn¡¯t reassured at all. Instead, he was frightened because his very thoughts had been seen through.


    A short wood spirit with ck hair had appeared before him. Her young-appearing figure was quite simr to how a very young elf would appear. Debalon had seen such young elf ves before at the major nobles¡¯ parties he¡¯d attended before in the S Dukedom. A single young elf ve could sell for an astronomical price more than sufficient to buy an entire city like the formerly shoddy Starwood City.


    The wood spirit before Debalon appeared incredibly weak, as if he could casually restrain her with one hand. However, Debalon didn¡¯t dare to secretly do any nefarious deeds, since he knew that the averagebat strength of an individual wood spirit was far above that of average humans or even elves. This seemingly weak and young girl would be equal to or surpass any Silver-ranked human warrior.


    Meanwhile, the ck-haired wood spirit¡¯s gentle smile suddenly turned vicious as condescension, killing intent, and rage swept across her face simultaneously.


    ¡°Are you another one of those lowlife vers? Or, are you intending on doing something to me?¡±


    Debalon was truly frightened as he had no idea how the wood spirit before him saw through his dark thoughts as he hurriedly denied everything.


    ¡°No, no, I¡¯m truly grateful to all your support. I was just thinking about how to report everything to the Archduke...¡±


    The ck-haired wood spirit hadpleted her main mission despite all the chaos. She had given an exnation to the official representative of the S Dukedom about why the wood spirits had constructed a fortress, and indicated that the wood spirits didn¡¯t intend on invading. It was just that the situation was rather unique.


    ¡°A dimensional portal to the lower nes has appeared in the ruins, with swarms of demons pouring out? The Dimensional Door there has gone out of control...? Damn it, doesn¡¯t that mean that this ce will be conquered by the demons sooner orter?¡±


    This was no good news to hear. Debalon was now regretting having volunteered to lead this mission so that he could gain military achievements. If a major demon army suddenly appeared before him, what could his army that was more than half dead and injured even aplish?


    Debalon was even considering whether or not he should find some excuse to escape from here. However, he hadn¡¯t aplished a single thing while suffering heavy losses. If he returned in such ignoble fashion, it probably wouldn¡¯t be much different from dying here inbat on the battlefield. And, perhaps dying inbat would even be more glorious and ¡°noblelike.¡±


    The ck-haired wood spirit, whose name was Muen, shook her head. Nor did she request the most natural thing that also would have pained Debalon the most¡ªshe didn¡¯t request his army to stay here and protect the S Dukedom citizens.


    ¡°Out of control means that both the enemy and our side have lost control of the Dimensional Door located there. That portal to the lower nes has now be a random teleportation portal. Every once in a while, it might toss out a resident of the lower nes. However, it will be impossible for arge demon army to start an invasion. And, in order to prevent those demons from harming Starwood City¡¯s residents, as well as preventing all possibility of the demons invading other areas, we constructed this fortress at Starwood City.¡±


    All of this sounded quite reasonable to Debalon. He also managed to calm down quite a bit after hearing that no major demon army would be arriving. Still, he felt that there might be some trickery behind the scenes, but he was unable to discern truth from falsehood with his abilities... And with the S Dukedom being only a small country that was still at civil war, even if the S Dukedom learned that this was all a lie, there was nothing the country could do about it.


    Muen paused for a moment before continuing.


    ¡°All of this was too sudden. We didn¡¯t have the time to inform your country¡¯s royalty. Please deliver our apology to your Archduke.¡±


    Word choice was quite important in diplomatic rtionships. While the words ¡°inform¡± and ¡°apology¡± appeared to be polite, these words actually meant that ¡®We¡¯ve been nice enough to tell you our intentions already. You can do anything you want; we don¡¯t care.¡¯


    ¡°Right, I took yournd, sorry about that... What? You want me to demolish my own fortress and return home? Are you dreaming? I¡¯ve already been nice enough to apologize for it.¡±


    Constructing a fortress in another country and being so forceful about it was basically the equivalent of asking someone ¡°do you surrender?¡± while choking their neck. However, Debalon actually heaved a sigh of relief after hearing such a forceful ¡°apology.¡± This was the diplomatic attitude that he was ustomed to meeting with facing powerful countries. If this wood spirit had actually sounded truly apologetic while giving him a detailed exnation, then Debalon would have had to carefully think about what all of this really meant.


    Of course, his relief also included the attitude of ¡°all of this is too important for me to worry about, so I¡¯ll leave this headache to the royalty instead.¡± Not to mention, it probably also included ¡°with such a major incident still ongoing, nobody will be likely to care about how I lost so many troops in battle.¡± He even felt lucky about the demons¡¯ arrival.


    As for the legendary treasure within those ruins? Debalon wouldn¡¯t give up on that, either. He would naturally send his spies, rogues, and thieves there. But, he wouldn¡¯t dream about starting a direct confrontation here unless he obtained more information as well as a direct order from his royal bosses.


    And from another standpoint, Debalon felt that his safety here was now guaranteed. Even if it was only due to the wood spirits, Marquis Stanley¡¯s rebel army wouldn¡¯t possibly dare to continue attacking him as long as he remained here in this fortress.


    What Debalon didn¡¯t know was that even though the wood spirit Muen didn¡¯t actually know how to mind read, there really was someone in Starwood City that had mind reading powers. His intentions were all clearly exposed in front of her powers.


    ¡°Tsk, tsk, tsk. Although it¡¯s exactly what we expected, with such a person as the royal troops¡¯mander-in-chief here, this would have been the equivalent of sending free troops to the undead if we hadn¡¯t intervened here.¡±


    I felt rather helpless about the situation. Although the S Dukedom sending someone like Debalon to be inmand was a good thing for us, it would have been more probable to hope that Goddess Eich would suddenly revive rather than think that such an army would have any chance of fighting back against a dimensional invader like Undead Emperor Conservation.


    ¡°Well, it might not be as bad as you think. Although that Debalon fellow only thought about himself throughout the entire conversation, he still graduated from a proper military school, and has decent foundational knowledge of how tomand in battle. As for his personality of being selfish, cowardly, and afraid to take responsibility... aren¡¯t all nobles like that?¡±


    Amelia unhesitatingly spoke openly about her condescension for nobles, seemingly forgetting that she had also been born as a member of the Bardi Empire¡¯s royalty. Or, perhaps it was even more than that: it was likely that she had long since stopped thinking of herself as human.


    And, while in front of Rnd, Amelia didn¡¯t need to conceal the fact that she had the power to read minds. She only needed to say everything that she directly thought. Amelia couldn¡¯t even remember when it was that Rnd saw through to the fact that she had mind reading powers.


    Originally, Amelia had mentally prepared herself for Rnd to distance himself from her if he ever found out about her mind reading powers. That was because anyone else who learned the truth about her mind reading, no matter how good a rtionship they had with her beforehand, would always end up running away as far as possible, never meeting with her again. Or, there were those who reacted even worse by trying to kill her as they worried that their deepest secrets would be exposed.


    Yet, Rnd¡¯s response to learning about her being able to mind read left a deep memory in her that she remembered clearly even today. Not only did his response broaden her horizons of how to understand abilities, she also suspected that something was wrong with Rnd¡¯s head.


    ¡°Such a convenient ability. That means that whenever I want tomunicate something with you, I can tell you without worrying that I won¡¯t be able to exin myself clearly. That will save so much time and effort!¡±


    All lies werepletely meaningless in front of Amelia. This truth that Rnd told her shocked her far more than even the prettiest lie. He truly thought this way, that he waspletely unworried about having his mind being read, and that he even found it a convenient method tomunicate.


    Should it be said that Rndcked a little something in his brain, or that he had an open heart? Even though he was clearly no good person and always schemed against others, Rnd wasn¡¯t worried in the slightest about someone else seeing his thoughts. And, while his ¡°trust¡± astonished Amelia, it also caused her new favorite activity to be chatting with Rnd.


    ¡°Being trusted like this, and being able to say anything that I want, is something I can only experience when I¡¯m together with him...¡±


    So this time, when Rnd evilly schemed how to dig pitfalls for others, Amelia unhesitatingly agreed to be his aplice.


    ¡°By the way, Rnd, when are our real reinforcements arriving?¡±


    ¡°Soon. If you calcte the distance, and if he doesn¡¯t get lost, he should be arriving within three days...¡±


    ¡°Then, we should be making our preparations?¡±


    ¡°Not yet. Although he travels quite swiftly, it¡¯ll be incredibly lucky if he can get here within ten days. It¡¯ll be normal for him to only get here after two months. This is because he insists far too much on always leading the way, and never listens to others...¡±


    ¡°Being able to find us within two months despite being half a continent apart doesn¡¯t count too much as having no sense of direction, does it...? Teehee, I understand now.¡±


    Amelia covered her mouth and chuckled as she had already seen in Rnd¡¯s mind a shback memory of a certain myth-like journey all across the continent. From this certain standpoint, the Rolo who led his adventuring team really didn¡¯t have it easy.


    ¡°Yep, the first month is so that he¡¯ll finally give up and admit that he can¡¯t find the way. The second month is so that even if he got lost and traveled to the end of the world, he¡¯ll be able to return...¡±


    I had a pained expression as I recalled those experiences which made me want to cry. People with a bad sense of direction weren¡¯t that scary. A person with a bad sense of direction who never looked at maps or asked people for directions wasn¡¯t that scary, either. However, the person with the worst sense of direction in the world who kept believing that he was the best pathfinder in the world was what truly made me feel helpless.

 Chapter 553 - Revived

    <h4>Chapter 553: Revived</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Even though most of the countries in the world were currently at war, the news of an Undead Cmity being defeated, or, more urately, the descent and defeat of an Undead Emperor shocked the entire world... Alright, fine, such a thing would never happen, as this only urred in a small country. Still, the S Dukedom and its neighboring countries were shocked at the news.


    When most people here heard that an Undead Emperor had descended and then been defeated, the first reaction wasn¡¯t actually ¡°nice job¡± or ¡°who aplished such a thing?¡± Instead, most people reacted with ¡°What a joke, someone¡¯s lying to try and gain military achievements,¡± or ¡°A small group of undead being exaggerated to be an Undead Cmity and Undead Emperor? Who would be stupid enough to try and spread such a rumor so that they could be a hero?¡±


    Undead Emperors were troublesome, truly troublesome to deal with, to the point where every Undead Emperor¡¯s arrival would be recorded in history. Not a single country or True God would have the guarantee of being able to defeat an Undead Emperor. Meanwhile, for a small country that most people wouldn¡¯t know how to locate on the map to be able to singlehandedly defeat an Undead Emperor seemed to most people like nothing more than an oundish story.


    But, before other countries¡¯ spies and scouts could gather more information, the fairies issued a detailedbat report for this small in scale yet fierce battle. Not a single country or church dared not to take the information contained within seriously.


    ¡°The wood spirits have made their move. Their queen personally led their most elite aerial forces in battle.¡±


    ¡°A real Undead Emperor actually arrived! A forbidden spell battle destroyed the entire mountain range there! The Mage Country has determined from the energy residue that there were at minimum two super mega forbidden spells cast there!¡±


    ¡°Rumors say that a legendary ruin from the schrs¡¯ generation has been discovered. It seems that the wood spirits have taken over that ruin. The skies around that area are also now under the control of the wood spirits¡¯ royal fleet. Nobody is able to get close.¡±


    ¡°A God¡¯s Descent? Is that person still capable of using God¡¯s Descent? Didn¡¯t the God research experts already predict that he was unable to use God¡¯s Descent anymore? Oh! So it was the God of Discipline who performed a descent to create a divine miracle and save his believers. It seems that this God¡¯s reputation will greatly increase.¡±


    ¡°Link died. One of his subordinate knight domain lords killed him... Who¡¯s Link? Oh, the prince of S Dukedom? Who¡¯s responsible for bringing me such a useless piece of information? Who cares if he dies or not? That won¡¯t affect our country in the slightest!¡±


    Among all the information reported, of course there was some viewed as important and some viewed as unimportant. Although the Prince Link assassination incident created a hugemotion within the S Dukedom, it was treated as useless information by other countries. And, among all the information reported by the fairies, the most attention-grabbing headline was one of the simplest.


    ¡°Rnd has returned. He defeated Undead Emperor Conservation.¡±


    This one name which had only resurfaced for a short two years before suddenly disappearing again for a long seven years caused a hugemotion in the world.


    ¡°Rnd the Undying¡±. ¡°Rnd the Unpredictable¡±. ¡°The second most troublesome individual from the Nortnds¡±. (The most troublesome one was a certain he who shall not be named). I had a long series of nicknames, some glorious, and some dark.


    Nothing would forever remain a secret in this world. Even the greatest secret would likely be public knowledge after ten or one hundred years had passed. Rnd¡¯s past as Emperor Yongye made it so that it was impossible for any stranger to ever trust him or treat him in a friendly manner. However, he would forever catch everyone¡¯s attention.


    And, his unexpected appearance this time was an expression of his attitude and whose side he was on with how he had defeated an Undead Emperor and her army. This caused many people to heave a sigh of relief, and Rnd had also proved that his power was still present.


    Meanwhile, I was still in Starwood City while casually waiting for a certain person after I stirred up all thismotion.


    ¡°Orange level alert. A certain existence who shall not be named has had his second child together with the Great Stone Sculptor Ainslo. Considering how their first child, the stone monkey, caused so much trouble not long after his birth, once everyone found that a certain giant stone egg was also ¡®his¡¯ descendant, all the residents of the Lain Mountains fell into aplete panic. A refugee crisis has appeared there... What type of ridiculous news is this!¡±


    I helplessly put down the fairies¡¯ magazine that I was reading. Just what ridiculous reporting was this? I couldn¡¯t understand it at all! Was I simply too far behind the times?


    ¡°Stop pretending not to understand. That¡¯s clearly your former subordinate Beifeng, who¡¯s now known as the ¡®Most troublesome individual from the Nortnds.¡¯ Did you really think that others wouldn¡¯t know about the rtionship between you two, and that you actually taught him, if you simply pretended not to understand?¡±


    I found myself helpless to counter this. Indeed, right when I returned to the public eye, my intelligence organizations gave me reports on the most recent international situations and important personages. As for the report on that familiar bastard, I received an entire room filled with case files and wanted posters. There truly was nobody in history who had ever aplished what Beifeng had.


    ¡°Cough, he actually ended up together with Ainslo and had two children together with her? Should I send him my bted congrattions for getting married and having children?¡±


    I did my best to change the topic, but Amelia responded with a cold chuckle.


    ¡°Ha, this might only be the Great Stone Sculptor Ainslo¡¯s second child, but this is who knows what hundredth child that Beifeng has had. Even a stone couldn¡¯t stop him. He now has the nickname of ¡®Monster Creator¡¯. He absolutely has a great chance at reaching the top five of the Cmity Rankings. Such a disgusting existence. We should castrate him.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s useless. I¡¯ve heard that his chosen personal Concept is ¡®Reproduction.¡¯ And, the Myth-ranked weapon that he strengthened was literally his reproductive organ. He¡¯s a shame upon all powerful individuals... So if you cut that off of him, it can probably still grow back. It would be better to seal him away in another dimension somewhere.¡±


    Harloys and Amelia were actually seriously discussing how to eliminate a great harm for the public benefit. It seemed that they were highly displeased with Beifeng¡¯s yboy ways. However, they kept ncing at me while discussing Beifeng, and when I kept hearing them mutter words like ¡°yboy¡± and ¡°castrate¡±, I couldn¡¯t help but sense a mysterious chill run down my spine.


    ¡°Cough, let us talk about serious business now. About the ¡®Revived...¡¯¡±


    ¡°Let us not waste time on such a boring topic. Right, Teacher Harloys, I have the newest nt-based skin care product here. It¡¯s a magical rose scent product. Would you like to try it?¡±


    ¡°Is it specialized for slime usage? I really prefer the oily creams!¡±


    ¡°...At least it will feel reallyfortable when you apply it. Want to try?¡±


    I intended to change the topic to be back on track since we had gotten way off topic. However, my two femalepanions both indicated that they were bothpletely uninterested in the topic of the ¡®Revived,¡¯ that I should just go do whatever I wanted without bothering them.


    Theoretically speaking, the person with the greatest authority here should have been Amelia as she had the greatest power level. But, seeing how she was seemingly having so much fun chatting with Harloys, and rmending skin care products to my cat... Although I felt that it would be far more practical to rmend some anti-lice and anti-odor creams, even I felt that would be far too suicidal to say out loud. I decided against interrupting their fun.


    ¡°We¡¯re not interested. Have whatever fun you want.¡±


    Their silence was also a way of expressing their attitude... Fine, I admit that I was intentionally being optimistic. I truly didn¡¯t understand why ever since the day I confessed my affection for Harloys, it seemed that Harloys and Amelia¡¯s rtionship with each other improved drastically. Originally, they were only former teacher and student that kept trying to take advantage of each other, but now they seemed more like a pair of sisters friendly with each other. But, every time they smiled, I felt like their smiles weren¡¯t sincere. And no matter how nice their words were to each other, why did I keep getting chills down my spine that made me want to pretend to be background scenery?


    ¡°The Revived...¡±


    I decided instead to focus on this new species, the Revived. The Revived were apletely new species and term in this world.


    There really had been mechanical souls that resisted S1¡¯s rule of the Sky Tower. However, these souls were considered heretics who were locked away in the Sky Tower¡¯s prison. When Katerina ascended to be the true leader of this tower, all those souls had been released.


    Yep, ascended, even if it sounded ridiculous. This former bartender girl was now the new leader of an entire species, even if her species was few in number and her territory quite limited.


    Her territory was only the Sky Tower ruin and the surrounding area. When Katerina and her people matured some more, the wood spirits would also give Starwood City over to them. But even with thatnd added on, this domain would still be smaller than the average earl¡¯s domain.


    My n should be quite clear by now. We weren¡¯t staying here to support a wood spirit invasion or anything like that. We were here to support this new species, the Revived, which consisted of resurrected souls from the Haletdam generation.


    These Revived were all rather pitiful. The souls who resisted S1 the most were either seriously injured or tossed into the prison. Less than one hundred currently had physical bodies that were able to move about normally. As for the other mechanical souls under S1¡¯smand, they all agreed with S1 that humans needed to be racially cleansed, so who would dare to leave those robots alive?


    If the Revived wanted to expand their poption without sacrificing the remaining souls of the sleeping schrs, they would have to try and awaken the remaining souls. Tid was currently helping Katerina figure out how to do this, and it seemed that they were making progress.


    What? You¡¯re saying that I forgot about the final boss of this Sky Tower, S1 the Sky Tower Spirit? Actually, there wasn¡¯t much to say, as he was nothing more than a tragedy.


    With our current raid party¡¯s power level, Amelia acted as the leader, I provided cover for everyone, Reyne was the vanguard, and Harloys acted as the useless cheerleader. Even a SemiGod would be defeated in a single second in front of our party, not to mention a cornered S1.


    Allow me to summarize what happened for you...


    S1 summoned a demon army, and Reyne killed the entire demon army. S1 was angered by this, so he used his ultimate ability and summoned the incarnation of a Demon Earl. Then, S1 felt that he had gained the upper hand, so he said something like ¡°You¡¯re all going to die here, hahaha!¡±...At the exact same time, the Demon Earl recognized Reyne and myself, so he started loudly cursing Sophocles the Deceiver for pushing him into this pitfall while cking off.


    And then, Reyne instantly killed the Demon Earl¡¯s incarnation who raised up both hands in surrender, giving him a wee return to the lower nes, having him bring a message that we would soon be visiting him down there. Reyne then instantly killed S1 in a single second... Yep, the final boss was killed in just one second as S1 was purely an academician who had absolutely zero personalbat strength.


    This all seemed like a happy ending, but actually the troubles were only beginning. A terrible mess was left before us to clean up. And as the person at the center of this incident and the new master of this tower, Katerina had gotten caught up in everything.


    And, her first statement when negotiating with me indicated that she was indeed an excellent leader for her new species.


    ¡°We want to join the Mist Alliance with the identity of an independent and newly born species. We¡¯re willing to sell our best technologies and techniques to only the Mist Alliance.¡±


    Damn, I had to say that this little girl was far smarter than her adopted father. She knew that she was quite valuable, and that she would soon be devoured by ravenous wolves without someone powerful enough to protect her. She immediately found a backer who had reasonable morals and a good enough reputation to protect her.


    All the main leaders of the Mist Alliance were currently present, so everything could be directly negotiated right here and now. Naturally, the Mist Alliance wouldn¡¯t reject a new species that possessed such highly advanced technology. And so, the Mist Alliance gained a new member species that currently only had several hundred ¡°people.¡±


    And, the wood spirits would remain behind here as a show of friendship and to protect the Revived. The wood spirits¡¯ aerial fleet would be staying here until the Revived were strong enough to protect themselves. Every day, the wood spirits were catching and sending back more than one hundred spies and scouts that were trying to gain information on what was going on here.


    As for the Dimensional Door that was currently out of control, that wasn¡¯t actually a lie. We had intentionally left it in such a condition for our own purposes. As for the demons that would randomly be summoned? Yep, they would be nothing more than unlucky demons who were either crushed to death by the force of the fall or provided some good exercise and training for the wood spirits who guarded the Dimensional Door.


    Meanwhile, I was waiting for a certain person to arrive while training my techniques, preparing for future battles.

 Chapter 554 - Companions

    <h4>Chapter 554: Companions</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The ck Tower was another name that the schrs¡¯ generation had given to this eighth hidden Sky Tower. The meaning behind this was that they wanted this tower to remain well concealed in the darkness, even from the gods, so that the Haletdam generation¡¯s culture could be preserved.


    And now, the Sky Tower became the only city of the Revived. This city was currently under development.


    From a certain standpoint, my Holy Light explosion from a while back had actually been a good deed. Since the mountain ranges in this area had beenpletely ttened, that made it much easier for the Revived to build their city and expand out of the tower.


    After clearing out all the rubble, a line was drawn on the ins to mark the construction area. Wooden houses were gradually erected, followed by some walls, and then some people were brought here from the Mist Alliance to immigrate into the Revived¡¯s new city, creating the foundation for this new city.


    The first ten underground levels of the ck Tower were also opened up. Several hundred of the best engineers in the Mist Alliance would soon be arriving. In this new and basic city, they would learn all of the knowledge here as quickly as possible in order to improve the Mist Alliance¡¯s magical engineering technology.


    Technology, market, andbor were all present here. Perhaps this city would be one of the Mist Alliance¡¯s leading cities for technological innovation in just a short few years.


    Since I was already half retired from my Mist Alliance leadership duties, being able to help the Mist Alliance like this was actually an unexpected surprise.


    That Dimensional Door in the ck Tower, which was connected to the lower nes, would also save me a lot of trouble. At the very least, it would be a great help in the next adventure that we were about to start.


    ¡°Has the full list of who¡¯s going been determined yet?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve already sent out all the invitations to everyone. I don¡¯t know how many of them will be arriving, since the Chaos Abyss is far too dangerous... Even True Gods might find themselves dying at any time down there.¡±


    Since we were intending on heading down into the Chaos Abyss, casually going there for a vacation wouldn¡¯t be wise at all.


    Considering my poor reputation, and how I was known for going down into the lower nes to y Demon Lords in the past, if news about this leaked, it was quite possible that Demon Lords would ally with each other and wait to ambush me the moment I arrived.


    Although I had already prepared misinformation for information control, it was still possible that we would all be forced to run for our lives the moment that we arrived. And even if we were lucky enough not to meet any ¡°old acquaintances,¡± the Chaos Abyss was an abnormal ce where nobody would know what might happen in the next instant. Only by having a sufficient amount of strength would you be able to guarantee your safety down there.


    Perhaps Saint ranks would be considered amazing in the mortal ne, but Saint ranks would be absolutely useless in the Chaos Abyss with countless demons. That was why I sent out some invitations, hoping to summon some of mypanions to my side for my nned trip to the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°There¡¯s only onew in the Chaos Abyss: the strong prey on the weak. Not only are those who aren¡¯t strong enough unnecessary to bring along, they¡¯ll even be a burden. As for the powerful, the more, the better.¡±


    ¡°Then why did you reject having Amelia and Reynee along? Both of them should be more than powerful enough.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s enough, Harloys. Of course you know why I rejected them. That¡¯s because...¡±


    While I was being all serious, the silly cat suddenly transformed into her Gold Elf form and started twiddling her fingers shyly with her head lowered.


    ¡°Even if you chose me in the end, and even if I am the only victor, don¡¯t say things so directly! You¡¯ll make me embarrassed!¡±


    ¡°...Reyne has demon blood in her, so that will be all sorts of trouble down there. And, she¡¯s the Queen of the Mist Kingdom, so she can¡¯t leave...¡±


    I decided topletely ignore Harloys who was having fun with her own performance. Ignoring her would be the best choice as recently she had been crazier and crazier.


    Amelia and Reyne had both wanted toe with me, but neither of them were good choices for joining my party.


    ¡°...As for Amelia, she¡¯s the creator and Mother Goddess to all the wood spirits. If Amelia bes corrupted, that will be the equivalent of corrupting the entire wood spirit species. If she goes down into the Chaos Abyss and is discovered, it¡¯s likely that even Demon Princes and above will personallye visit. In that case, she¡¯ll be more trouble than help.¡±


    Although the Chaos Abyss had basically no limits on power level, to the point where it would actually be quite easy for any True God to personally descend there, no Order God would ever send their true body down to the Chaos Abyss unless they were suicidal.


    In the past, an Order True God had previously been foolish enough to personally descend to the Chaos Abyss in his true body rather than in an incarnation. What happened after that was... well, various things. He then became a Chaos Evil God in the end. The Chaos Abyss was just such a twisted ce.


    Corruption or bing fallen wasn¡¯t only about twisting the personality. There were fundamental differences between positive and negative energy. Chaos was capable of distorting any normal life form¡¯s intelligence and physical body. In the Chaos Abyss, distortion and chaos were the only mostmon dimensionalws. Even an Order God could bepletely corrupted down there.


    ¡°So in the end, I¡¯m the only one who can apany you down to the Chaos Abyss? So this is like our newlywed honeymoon vacation? Touring the River Styx while enjoying the local inferno scenery and being weed by demons, enjoying the excitement of battling and running away? You truly do have such strange tastes.¡±


    ¡°Stop exaggerating. Aren¡¯t Adam and Margareting along with us?¡±


    ¡°So, we¡¯ll be on a double date vacation?¡±


    I was rendered speechless. Was it really that the spring mating season was affecting her mind? Could I please have a normal conversation with my pet cat?


    As I red at her, she then pretended to be all serious again while opening up an ancient scroll that caught my attention.


    This scroll was a map of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s various dimensions. Countless locations were marked on it already. This was what Harloys had been working on recently.


    Currently marked was the 77th level of the Chaos Abyss. Like most dimensions in the Chaos Abyss, this level was ruled by a demon that nobody had ever heard of. Although this demon¡¯s direct boss was Sophocles the Deceiver, it should be easy enough to pass through due to being able to control the Dimensional Door.


    ¡°That¡¯s because nobody would ever imagine that residents of the mortal ne will voluntarily go down to the Chaos Abyss.¡±


    .........


    In the pitch-ck night, two travelers were journeying despite the darkness. Although an astonishingly powerful wind was blowing away the rocks on the roadside, the wind was unable to even budge either of the two¡¯s capes or impede their progress.


    ¡°Ha, Rnd actually invited us to help him. He must have no other recourse left.¡±


    Adam¡¯s fiery red hair and boomingughter was still the same as always. The moment that he received Rnd¡¯s letter, Adam immediately set out despiteughing at Rnd for requesting his help.


    ¡°...I¡¯m rather interested where we¡¯re heading to next. Are you certain that we shouldn¡¯t ask someone for directions?¡±


    ¡°Ha, my instinct tells me that we¡¯re not far away.¡±


    ¡°Instinct? We¡¯re not far from our destination? Haha.¡±


    Margaret chuckled coldly as a group of seals and penguins ran down an ice mountain behind her. Adam and Margaret had been traveling through an icy tundra for three days already.


    Blizzards, hailstorms, freezing winds, and avnches kept urring here. These natural disasters that would endanger any ordinary person were nothing more than fun additions to these two SemiGods¡¯ journey.


    How did they arrive here? Margaret had no idea... Originally, the two of them had been traveling around the world aimlessly, and after Adam received Rnd¡¯s letter, Margaret simply followed the idiot before her who had so much fun trying to find his way. Adam traveled from one mountain to another, following his instinct¡¯s guidance all the way. After approximately two weeks, they now traveled to this icy location by foot.


    No matter where it was that Rnd wanted them to meet him at, it definitely wasn¡¯t this location. Margaret looked all around her and saw nothing except for ice mountains, ice rivers, and all sorts of cold-loving creatures.


    ¡°Well, I suppose that it doesn¡¯t matter. Since he wrote the letter to Adam rather than me, that means it¡¯s not very urgent. I can just treat this as a vacation.¡±


    Margaret took a look at herpass, calcting that their current location was in the farthest north of the continent. She then used her tools to calctetitude and longitude, confirming that they were currently in the Gibser Inds in the far north. This was a ce even further north than the Nortnds, near the edge of the world.


    A certain red-headed individual¡¯s sense of direction had surpassed all understanding. This was the equivalent of wanting to go fishing on the ocean but traveling into space instead.


    Although Margaret calcted their location and learned that they were as far away from Rnd¡¯s meeting location as they could be, she suddenly became interested in this location.


    ¡°...At this time of year, we should be able to see the Aurora Borealis here. I can watch the Aurora together with Adam, and we can count stars together... That sounds so romantic. And, we might as well go even farther north since we¡¯re all the way out here already. I can even perform some experiments that require such an extremely cold climate.¡±


    Margaret had her own ideas as she made up her mind to go even farther north. It would seem that Adam and Margaret would arrive farter than Rnd expected.


    Perhaps, by the time that Adam finally admitted that he needed to ask for directions, he would only be able to take them from pr bears and penguins.


    ¡°Look at that big white guy over there. Is he a local resident? Nice, is he waving that ice block to wee us? How passionate of him. Should we stay at his ce tonight?¡±


    ¡°...Those are Snow and Frost Great Demons. They¡¯re highly skilled at throwing ice spears and ice blocks. It looks like we¡¯re already surrounded. I suppose that they want to have us for dinner. Alright, we can stay at their ce tonight. I hope that they¡¯ll have something we can take a hot bath with.¡±


    Meanwhile, in the Underground¡¯s Dragon City, Rnd¡¯s letter had already arrived, but the person it was intended for hadn¡¯t read it yet. That was because the master of this Dragon City was currently in a deep sleep.


    As for when that person would wake up? Considering how ridiculously long dragons could sleep, that would depend only on luck.


    Meanwhile, one of Rnd¡¯spanions who hadn¡¯t been invited was excitedly on her way. However, it was likely that Rnd really wouldn¡¯t want to see her.


    At any rate, although Rnd had decided to summon hispanions, the ones he was hoping for toe weren¡¯ting, while the ones he didn¡¯t invite were on their way. Rnd would have to wait for quite a long while if he wanted to set out with his intended party.

 Chapter 555 - Sword Training

    <h4>Chapter 555: Sword Training</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    From a certain standpoint, the opponent I was currently fighting was probably the most difficult opponent in the entire world.


    I took a deep breath, and then... turned around and ran!


    What? Did I seem like a coward? But since I couldn¡¯t win, was I supposed to wait around for death?


    But, with him chasing me, even running away wasn¡¯t easy. A sharp burst of sword energy barely missed me, scratching me on the back of my neck. Meanwhile, angry roars filled with killing intent and a Whirlwind of Swords attack followed me closely.


    Hisrge ck sword had absolutely no magic powers. However, his pure brute force was enough to tear through even the strongest of tower shields. His violent sword swings appeared to be reckless, but, actually, he had sealed off all possible escape paths.


    ¡°It¡¯s impossible to escape.¡±


    My honedbat instincts instantly arrived at this conclusion, so I turned around and swung my own sword.


    ¡°ng!¡±


    My ice sword powerfully shed against his ck greatsword. While I was sent flying backwards, I saw to my delight that his greatsword had been shattered into tiny pieces. The difference in quality between our weapons appeared to have given me the victory.


    ¡°Ha, was chasing after me quite fun? Take this...¡±


    But, I was forced to swallow my arrogant words as before I could even begin my counterattack, two more ck greatswords stabbed straight for my head and feet respectively.


    I could only roll around on the ground to escape this, yet a broken sword suddenly appeared before my face. The broken de stabbed directly for my left eye, while the master of the broken sword had a calm expression.


    ¡°Stop!¡±


    My loud shout was instantly epted by the training facility. The three spirit images instantly stopped attacking me, and I could finally heave a sigh of relief.


    ¡°As expected, two Karwenzes is my limit? Three Karwenzes are far too dangerous. I should train more with only two Karwenzes.¡±


    Right now, three identical spirit images were before me. Perhaps their faces looked identical to mine, but nobody would ever confuse us for each other. Even though we clearly had the same face, Karwenz¡¯s eyes were forever filled with vigor and ambition as if he was permanently burning up with passion. As for me... I suddenly understood why Karwenz was so popr back in the day.


    ¡°Silly cat, is there something in my eyes?¡±


    ¡°Sure, there¡¯s some eye gunk. You forgot to wash your face today.¡±


    Tsk, as expected, I couldn¡¯t count on the silly cat. So, I turned to look at Amelia.


    ¡°Although the two of you look identical, your younger twin brother looks so much more spirited and like a protagonist than you do...¡±


    Hmph, even if she didn¡¯t tell me this, I knew what other people thought already. My father always said, ¡°Rnd, you didn¡¯t wake up yet?¡± Meanwhile, he would always ask Karwenz, ¡°You brat, which family¡¯s daughter have you seduced today?¡±


    That was right, the three spirit images before me were all duplicates of my younger twin brother Karwenz. As for the so-called two or three Karwenzes, that referred to how many Karwenz duplicates I was able to handle at one time.


    It was quite a pleasant surprise when I learned about this training facility which was capable of duplicating the strongest warrior in a person¡¯s memory. At my skill level, it would be rather difficult to find anyone who was good enough to be my opponent in sword training. But now, I only needed to press a few buttons and provide some energy to meet the perfect sparring partners. Such a wonderful deal.


    As for why I was using Karwenz spirit images instead of Rnd spirit images... Well, I felt like I would much prefer to slice at Karwenz rather than myself.


    The training facility¡¯s spirit images had their limits. My Rnd spirit image copy had at most only half the swordsmanship abilities that I did. Still, the spirit image creation machine would be more urate if the person had more detailed memories and was more familiar with the duplicated person. This Karwenz spirit image seemed to only have 70-80% of his swordsmanship abilities. Still, his style was replicated quite faithfully, making Karwenz an excellent training partner.


    I had already experimented with every Sword Saint in my memory. Just about all of them ended up being too easy for me to deal with (even including Adam, because I was too familiar with him). This was because almost all of them were powerful because of their special abilities, and not outstanding swordsmanship. They just needed to reach a sufficient power level to cast sword energy. Their swordsmanship abilities alone weren¡¯t all that strong.


    While I could also copy Donatis the Chaos War God, and he would be a powerful opponent indeed, he was physically far toorge and thus an unsuitable opponent. In the end, only my bastard of a twin brother seemed like the best training partner.


    Karwenz¡¯s spirit image duplicate¡¯s sword techniques mostly stemmed from two major battles that I had seen Karwenz in, the battle of the Nortnds and the battle of Hell. I actually hadn¡¯t seen Karwenz fight very often, but I felt that the spirit image was 70-80% urate in imitating his techniques. In a way, I actuallycked experience fighting against Karwenz even though he was my twin brother. His swordsmanship style had also shocked me back then.


    ¡°Even though the two of you are clearly twin brothers, your swordsmanship styles are exact opposites. Did you two have different teachers?¡±


    Gah! The truth was we had actually been taught by the same teacher, a royal Sword Saint of the Mist Kingdom. We were taught solid foundational techniques, and then we slowly added our ¡°individual¡± styles throughout all our battles.


    For both of us to have such different styles despite the same upbringing was due to our different understanding of swordsmanship.


    For me, swordsmanship wasn¡¯t foundationally different from other forms of martial arts. Swordsmanship was simply another method to use one¡¯s body. It was only a pure technique. Perhaps some treated it as a philosophy or way of life, but to me, swordsmanship was just one method of killing others among many.


    This was also how most Sword Saints understood swordsmanship. So, when these Sword Saints obtained undying bodies and special abilities, they would typically create a special style of swordsmanship most suited toplement their own abilities, bing a type of magical swordsman.


    Perhaps due to my way of understanding, I could also use war hammers, spears, or other simr weapons as substitutes for swords. Maybe it was my Chinese heritage of concepts into swordsmanship as my own swordsmanship was filled with my understanding of various concepts. Every sword technique and sword style of mine had a specific goal.


    So, my sword techniques didn¡¯t contain any deep philosophy or passionate ultimate moves. Rather, my swordsmanship was filled with various traps and scams. Sometimes I would use direct attacks, sometimes I would use abnormal angles, and sometimes I would use bursts of speed. But, my final goal was always to confuse my opponent, learn more information about my opponent, find their weakness, make them fatigued, and then find an opportunity tond a killing blow.


    Meanwhile, Karwenz¡¯s swordsmanship was incredibly direct, with no trickery whatsoever. His direct swordsmanship was filled with wildness and killing intent, as well as... just being casual!


    Indeed, as unbelievable as it sounded, his swordsmanship was almost all instinctive despite the fact that he had survived the pure ughter contests in the Chaos Abyss. His swordsmanship was efficient because it was simple. He never intentionally sought attacks that were powerful or effective, but would never miss a single chance to kill his opponent.


    His swordsmanship was simply whatever he felt like at the time. His attacks were simple stabs and slices with zero tricks. Although it seemed so casual, his sword would always appear at the most critical location.


    ¡°Karwenz¡¯s swordsmanship is just about perfect. His sword is extremely quick yet not extravagant at all. The biggest headache about fighting him is that his sword will always appear at the most critical location during the most critical moment. It¡¯s as if everything he does is pure instinct.¡±


    Perhaps only that endless amount of ughtering would be capable of transforming swordsmanship into a pure instinct, abat instinct that could be used to kill others at any time.


    Not only that, his instinct was actually capable of seeing through all my scams. When I was quick, he was quick. When I slowed down, he slowed down. He always had the perfect counter. If I used direct attacks, he used his own direct attacks. If I used tricks, he simply attacked my weakest point.


    Perhaps our swordsmanship abilities were nearly equal, but he would always manage to time things perfectly by attacking the ce hardest for me to defend. It was as if he was my mortal enemy.


    That was why I was a bit disadvantaged during my earlier practice fight.


    But, after I finally got used to his style, it became much easier to win. That was because the spirit images didn¡¯t have souls, nor did they have Karwenz¡¯s true swordsmanship abilities or any top-level weapons.


    ¡°You¡¯re doing so well. I can¡¯t even beat a single Karwenz.¡±


    Meanwhile, not far away from me was Reyne, who was forced to run everywhere and only stay on the defensive by another Karwenz spirit image. Tears of anger streamed down her cheeks as she couldn¡¯t take it anymore. She ended up summoning her Divine Sins to one hit KO the spirit image.


    She then enviously looked over in my direction and then summoned another Karwenz spirit image, starting her fight with him again.


    From a certain standpoint, Reyne was indeed far more mature than before. If this was the previous Reyne, she would have started cking off and doing something else instead.


    ¡°Go, Barton! If you¡¯re a man, trysting thirty seconds.¡±


    Barton was in a far more pitiful state. Although he wasn¡¯t forced into running everywhere like Reyne, and even though his ¡°grandfather¡± Wiir kept cheering him on and using spells to buff him, Barton still had an incredibly difficult time where he could only remain on the defensive.


    But, thanks to him always being able to shout ¡°Stop!¡± in time, he hadn¡¯t been seriously injured yet.


    So far, all the Sword Saints here, including Reyne and Barton, werepletely unable to defeat even a single spirit image Karwenz. Of course, if it was in pure swordsmanship, they were also unable to defeat a single spirit image Rnd.


    In my future ns, since I had so many Concepts that I could transform into my weapons, how could I possibly let go of this chance to improve my swordsmanship, which was a core element of my physical abilities?


    So what if Karwenz was my perfect counter? Arge enough rat would be able to eat a cat. I would be able to mature faster if I practiced more against my biggest counter.


    Well, it was likely that only Sword Saints would need such a difficult trial and training. This was probably the most extravagant method avable to use this training facility.


    ¡°I can probablye up with an even more ridiculous method.¡±


    The silly cat then tossed out a cat clone after saying this. The cat clone summoned a dog and started fighting with it...


    This training facility could even be used like this? I supposed that in the slime cat clone¡¯s memories, a dog was its worst enemy.


    ¡°Will you die if you stopmenting about me?¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t. But, can you tell me that you¡¯re really practicing all this swordsmanship to improve yourself, rather than to deal with the real person in question?¡±


    I was unable to say anything back. Even if I didn¡¯t say it out loud, it was likely that the most dangerous part of our nned trip to the Chaos Abyss would likely be that unreliable brother of mine.


    ¡°Rx, I have confidence in myself.¡±


    ¡°Confidence that you can win or confidence that you can run away sessfully?¡±


    I red at her. As expected, all word games were useless against her since she had a soul connection to me. But could she please stop going against everything I said? That would affect everyone¡¯s morale!


    ¡°I¡¯m confident that I can run away faster than you can!¡±

 Chapter 556 - Depressing Start to the Journey

    <h4>Chapter 556: Depressing Start to the Journey</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Such a disgusting swamp. I feel like I¡¯m beginning to grow mold. Couldn¡¯t we have found a better ce to open our portal?¡±


    I pretended not to hear my silly cat¡¯sints. However, I wasn¡¯t feeling any better than she was, as my shoes were filled with murky water and I was drenched all over.


    Ever since we entered this dimension, stinky rainwater had yet to stop falling. Not only was it disgusting that this rain fell upon us, it also made us want to throw up.


    Just earlier, we were still walking in a warm and humid forest. Then, before we realized it, we entered a death-filled swamp. Traveling through any death swamp in the Chaos Abyss was something that would truly test one¡¯s experience and vignce.


    ¡°There¡¯s all these damned ck frog demons and snake monsters here. Could they please give it a rest? Can I ever have a break?¡±


    I suddenly caught a tongue that shot out at me from underwater. I tugged on it and then sliced a croaking ck frog demon in half. I then casually kicked its corpse back into the swamp. It had been impossible to even take two steps in peace on the way here so far.


    In any other slightly more ¡°cultured¡± dimensional level, once you proved your strength with ughter and blood, all demons with Intelligence of at least 3 points would stop idioticallymitting suicide against us.


    But, for these magical creatures that only acted on pure instinct, they considered it a great fortune to be able to find some prey in this chaotic and humid rainforest. Their hunger and demonicbat instincts would make them attack anything they saw that moved.


    In these trees and swamps, danger wasn¡¯t about the low power level of these predators. Rather, these predators were all expert survivalists. They had camouge, or would hide underwater or under mud. They also knew countless tricks and how to set small traps. The trees and swamps here were filled with all sorts of strange creatures.


    Most of these swamp residents were cold-blooded creatures. Their desire for ughter and blood wasn¡¯t as strong as pure demons¡¯, but they would never miss an opportunity to attack any prey that they found.


    Snake demons, crocodile men, demonic lizardmen, bull demons, frog demons, demonic dragonflies, toxic mist bats, and other such rtively weak magical creatures here all had one thing inmon. They always stayed in groups and were incredibly sly. Although their actual intelligence level would be considered idiotic in the mortal ne, they had incredibly sly and vicious instincts as expert survivalists and predators in this dimension.


    Tongues would keep suddenlyshing out at me from the mud or water. Snake demons constantly disguised themselves as tree bark. The seemingly t grass would suddenly sink under my feet to reveal a deep pit. As I traveled, these swamp residents ¡°warmly weed¡± us in their own way.


    Every tree, every patch of water, and every muddy area was hiding dangerous predators.


    The stinky rainstorm obscured my vision and hearing. The magical forest and swamp¡¯s stench further impeded my sense of smell. The magic power of the Chaos Abyss would make instincts unreliable. In such an area, experience would be even more important than power level.


    It was possible for even a SemiGod Holy Knight to be lured into dying here in an endless swamp, facing a group of frogs with only instincts and no actual intelligence. It was possible for a great archmage to be suddenly devoured by an unexpected snake demon that pounced from underground. And, even the most veteran thief might suddenly step into a lizardman¡¯s special swamp trap and then be dragged into the deep water toward his doom.


    Hunting byying traps and remaining hidden. This was how the magical creatures in the swampyers between the 74th and 78th levels of the Chaos Abyss lived.


    ¡°Our luck is so terrible. I would have preferred being teleported to a bloody battlefield. At the very least, we would be able to talk things out with demons that can actuallymunicate.¡±


    The enemies here were at some of the weakest power levels possible in the Chaos Abyss. It would have been lucky for novice adventurers to be teleported here as they could gradually get themselves ustomed to the danger level here. But for us, we had just been enjoying ourselves in the excellent weather of the mortal ne, yet now we were forced to trek through a muddy swamp in a stinky rainstorm. This was the absolute worst ce possible for us.


    I had waited at Starwood City for more than two months. Yet, in the end, not a single damned one of mypanions came to join me. Although I knew that they were probably busy with their own things, I got bored of sword training and ended up heading down to the Chaos Abyss with only Harloys by my side, earlier than I had originally nned to set out.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be waiting at the Dragontail Bar in the Ash Inferno of the 100th level in the Chaos Abyss. I¡¯ll only wait another two months at most.¡±


    I left this message behind as I took my cat first and left.


    ¡°I bet that you left because you heard that Elisa was almost here. You were being too much of a yboy with so many women and didn¡¯t know how to face your official girlfriend. Isn¡¯t that why you ran off earlier than nned?¡±


    ¡°Silly cat, I¡¯ve heard that roast cat meat is quite healthy and good for keeping out the cold...¡±


    I looked at Harloys in satisfaction while casually killing an idiotic frog demon which had its mouth wide open, waiting for me to step on it. These creatures that only survived on instinct were truly dumb indeed. Did this frog demon, which was more than three meters tall, really think that I wouldn¡¯t notice it?


    While traveling down here in the Chaos Abyss by myself seemed rather reckless, it actually wouldn¡¯t be much different from being with mypanions.


    Dimensional coordinates were constantly moving. If there was a Dimensional Door on both sides between dimensions, then that would allow for a fixed teleportation point at a specific location. But since this Dimensional Door wasn¡¯t connected to any other Dimensional Door, the dimensional teleportation would bepletely random for everyone who was sent through.


    Since everyone would be teleported to different random locations regardless, leaving early by myself and meeting up with the otherster would equate to the same thing.


    By now, I no longer knew which specific level of the Chaos Abyss I was on right now, since the snake demons and other residents weren¡¯t even capable of speaking the most basic demonnguage. Still, I knew that I was probably somewhere between the 74th and 78th levels. Back when we had contact with Sophocles the Deceiver, it could be seen that he was in swamp terrain. So, all we had to do was keep going down.


    ¡°If we¡¯re lucky, we¡¯ll be out of this damned swamp by going down a single level. If we¡¯re unlucky, we¡¯ll have to go up at least four levels. That would mean staying here in this swamp with nothing other than unintelligent demons for more than a month.¡±


    The Chaos Abyss was quite different from level to level. It could be said that each level of the Chaos Abyss was simr to a separate floor in the same tower. And, rather than independent dimensions, these levels were probably dimensional shards torn off from various worlds which were then demonically transformed to be part of the Chaos Abyss.


    The Chaos Abyss also had the nickname of the Endless Abyss. It was unknown how many levels it exactly had, but there would definitely be at least seven or eight hundred. The great majority of demons would live in the first six hundred levels, for the farther you went down, the more treacherous the dimensional traveling would be and the more dangerous the dimension. The lowest dimensions would be filled with dimensional cracks. Not even the demons would be willing to go down to such death-filled locations without good reason.


    Also, all maps of the Chaos Abyss would forever be inurate as the Chaos Abyss was constantly changing. An unstable dimension could suddenly be stable, while a certain entire dimensional level might suddenly disappear one day.


    The most agreed-upon theory was that the will of the Chaos Abyss was periodically giving birth to new dimensions. Any dimension that the will of the Chaos Abyss viewed as worthless would be tossed out into the endless void, together with all its residents.


    And, without the guidance of the Chaos Abyss itself, it would be almost impossible to find any specific person inside the Chaos Abyss. As long as I remained careful and low-key, I highly doubted that any Demon Lord down here would know that I was here anytime soon.


    ¡°Let¡¯s find a ce to rest.¡±


    The silly cat sent out a dozen of her clones, transforming them into sparrows which then set out in all directions to scout. I also stopped activating my aura of ice.


    All the way here so far, I had been maintaining the lowest possible level aura of ice. While that aura of ice would be unable to kill these annoying magical creatures, it would help me to learn all their locations. The side effect was that the ice trail I left behind would take a while to disappear, meaning that I might be tracked down by a more powerful demon.


    Well, I was no expert in the thief job ss (and no thief would dare to enter the Chaos Abyss without being ranked Legend at minimum). I was more than willing to ept this consequence in exchange for preventing all ambushes upon me.


    ¡°Tsk, there¡¯s a ck dragon nest directly in front of us that¡¯s less than three kilometers away. It seems that all those lizardmen who tried to attack you today didn¡¯t die for nothing. At the very least, they almost seeded in luring you into this trap. Ha, you¡¯ve already be famous in this district, oh revered yer of lizardmen.¡±


    I felt rather helpless about this. Most of the magical beasts in this dimensional level didn¡¯t even havenguage or words. Lizardmen and snake demons were two of the slightly more intelligent species since they at least knew how to build houses and viges. That was why I often went to their viges to avoid the rain and ¡°ask for directions,¡± along with ¡°borrowing¡± their homes and beds to sleep in.


    Maybe due to theirck of understanding of the demonnguage, or maybe simply because they wanted to taste fresh meat, even though I clearly used the demonnguage to tell them that I would pay them money, it would always end up in a one-sided ughter... Cough, I must have identally gone overboard. The lizardmen hade up with the nickname ¡°yer of lizardmen¡± for me. I felt that this was the weakest and most pathetic nickname I had ever received.


    ¡°There¡¯s a lizardmen vige to our left, approximately ten kilometers away. The lizardmen who attacked us today were probably from that vige. Shall we go ¡®ask them for directions¡¯?¡±


    As expected of the silly cat, she already knew what I liked best. But today, I felt that we had an even better choice.


    ¡°...That dragon nest which is such an obvious trap is a lot closer, right?¡±


    ¡°Yep. Dragon nests are also far more extravagant than lizardmen viges. It¡¯ll be a lot morefortable to sleep there, and we can even obtain some treasure. Why don¡¯t we rob that ce tonight?¡±


    ¡°No, I would never do something like robbery. I only want to go there to ask for directions! At the very least, an intelligent dragon should know which specific level of the Chaos Abyss this is, and where the entrance to the next level down is.¡±


    ¡°...And then you¡¯ll rob the dragon afterwards?¡±


    ¡°No! I wouldn¡¯t rob even an evil ck dragon. We¡¯re only going to ask for directions, and stay for the night!¡±


    ¡°...And then when the ck dragon attacks you, you¡¯ll im self-defense and kill it. In the end, isn¡¯t it still the same as robbery? Why whitewash it so much?¡±


    ¡°...Do you know the phrase ¡®curiosity killed the cat¡¯? Harloys, you know too much!¡±

 Chapter 557 - Unfortunate Black Dragon

    <h4>Chapter 557: Unfortunate ck Dragon</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Dragons weren¡¯t exclusive to the mortal ne. As one of the most ancient species, dragons could be found in countless dimensions all across the universe. Since the dragons in the mortal ne intentionally stayed away from humans in the current age, it would actually be easier to meet with dragons in other dimensions.


    There were all sorts of myths and stories about what would happen if a human met a dragon. The end result would typically be that the main character would receive numerous benefits, such as high-quality weapons, the glory of ying a dragon, dragonblood baptism, the beginning of a mythic quest, and so on.


    In fact, since in knight stories the main character would always meet a dragon, and then use the dragon as a pedestal to greater glory, these characters typically joined the ranks of harem protagonists among clich¨¦s.


    But for any normal adventurer who was traveling solo, meeting one of these big lizards would doubtlessly be nothing but misfortune.


    Silver, gold, and the other metal dragons were rather easy to deal with. As long as you didn¡¯t have a terrible reputation, it was likely that they would only prank you a little with their favorite jokes.


    For instance, if you met with a silver or gold dragon, it was likely that the dragon would assign you a seemingly glorious quest. After you spent so much effort onpleting it, you would then discover that the only reward was ¡°glory¡±, with not a single copper coin as payment.


    ¡°We are dragons of justice, assigning quests to you tiny humans. That¡¯s a sign of our respect already. You still want payment?¡±


    And if you met a copper or bronze dragon, you had better hope that you were skilled at telling jokes and stories. Copper dragons had endless amounts of curiosity and would force any traveler to tell them every story and joke that the traveler knew. Meanwhile, it was even possible to die to the bronze dragons¡¯ pranks if you didn¡¯t have high enough skill in navigating mazes.


    While meeting a metal dragon could be considered bad luck, your luck would be far worse if you met with a red, ck, blue, or other color dragon.


    The color dragons didn¡¯t have any fancy tricks for dealing with any visitors to their territory. The color dragons would all respond in the same way¡ªan unexpected ambush.


    A valuable captive would be the dragon¡¯s ve servant. A worthless captive would be eaten as food. A captive that wasn¡¯t tasty would be food for the dragon¡¯s subordinate magical creatures. The adventurer¡¯s belongings would be the dragon¡¯s loot, and the adventurer¡¯s treasures would be the dragon¡¯s treasure. Nothing would be wasted.


    Hakas was a ck dragon who had reached adult age more than two hundred years ago. He was the ruler of this patch of swamp.


    When Hakas¡¯s lizardmen ves reported to him that a neer had arrived in his territory, Hakas was highly displeased when he heard that the lizardmen had given this neer the name ¡°yer of lizardmen¡± due to the neer¡¯s ughters.


    This was because Hakas ruled over approximately one dozen lizardmen tribes. And, the lizardmen all addressed him as the ¡°Lizardmen¡¯s King¡±. Although Hakas didn¡¯t actually like the nickname that the lizardmen had given him, it felt like a p in the face for the neer to be called ¡°yer of lizardmen¡±.


    Hakas had so many lizardmen subordinates not because he was fond of them, but rather because the lizardmen were one of the few species capable of at least the most basicmunication here in the Dark Swamp of the 75th level of the Chaos Abyss.


    Originally, Hakas should have personally gone out to show this neer the anger of the local ruler. But, there was a torrential stinky rain outside, so he didn¡¯t want to go out... It definitely wasn¡¯t because he was worried of actually losing that he was making his lizardmen test the neer¡¯s power level first!


    And so, Hakas sent his lizardmen subordinates to lure that neer intoing to his nest. Since Hakas was a member of the most intelligent color dragon species, the ck dragons, he then used his species¡¯ most famous trick¡ªto lie in ambush for the enemy.


    Still, he felt that his foolish lizardmen subordinates had done a surprisingly good job this time. They determined for him that this person was a human swordsman who relied only on pure swordsmanship, and that he had only recently entered Saint rank. Hakas felt that even if he went with a direct attack, he would be very likely to win. But, he was the cautious type who still chose to use the ck dragons¡¯ tradition of ambushing the enemy.


    ¡°We noble ck dragons are different from other idiotic dragons. We use our brains. Why fight directly when we can win easily through an ambush?¡±


    Obviously, this was a type of bias. All color dragons loved to use ambushes. Red dragons, who were more talented at flight, were masters of aerial ambushes. Red dragons would suddenly descend without any warning from above the clouds, giving even mega empires great headache.


    In the blue dragons¡¯ home terrain of deserts, the blue dragons would hide themselves in the sand. Thunderbolts or furious sandstorms would suddenly arise from beneath you without any warning. Even the most cautious warriors could be caught off guard by this. Meanwhile, the swift blue dragons would never miss a single opportunity.


    ck dragons were more inclined to the swamp, so they excelled far more at swamp ambushes that were of gueri style.


    ck dragons would typically lie in wait under the swamp itself. ck dragons had a natural talent that allowed them to breathe underwater just like fish. And, the stench of the swamp would also help to hide the smell of corrosion that all ck dragons carried. ck dragons also possessed natural talents to control mud and corrode any water, making them masters of swamp camouge.


    ¡°Ha, we ck dragons are the true kings of the swamp. When that fellow arrives, the lizardmen shall attack first and attract his attention. Then, I¡¯ll suddenly jump out and kill him with a single dragonbreath attack. If he manages to dodge that attack, then I¡¯ll use the transformation spell ¡®Stone to Mud¡¯ and turn all drynd into swamp, dragging him underwater.¡±


    ck dragons¡¯ slyness, cautiousness, and well-honedbat techniques would be passed down through the generations. Since dragons were capable both physically and magically, thebat techniques passed down in their bloodlines made all dragons into natural predators. They were far more suited to hunting by themselves out in the wild. Dragons that teamed up with each other were actually inhibiting their ownbat potential instead.


    Right now, while hidden underwater, Hakas tried his best to recall thest time that he had been lucky enough to enjoy the taste of human flesh. He started salivating when he thought of the fresh human meat about to arrive. Was it twenty, or was it fifty years ago that he hadst tasted human meat?


    ¡°He¡¯s here, he¡¯s here!¡±


    The arriving human¡¯s footsteps would send vibrations though the water. Although it was impossible for even a ck dragon to see through the murky water to above, Hakas possessed sharp senses like a radar that would help him lock onto his target¡¯s exact location.


    ¡°...He stopped?¡±


    That human stopped right before stepping into Hakas¡¯s effective ambush radius, approximately twenty meters away.


    No, not only did he stop, it also seemed that he was now sitting down. He was apparently talking to the cat on his shoulder.


    Hakas swam up slightly and spent a significant amount of mana on improving his hearing. Finally, he was able to hear the human and the cat¡¯s conversation...


    ¡°Shh~ Look at what I¡¯ve found here? There¡¯s a ck dragon by himself here. ck dragons are known to be cautious. I should circle around and attack him from the rear...¡±


    Hakas had a stunned expression as he knew that the human had detected him. He suddenly propelled himself forward while underwater and attempted to use a forceful direct attack rather than an ambush. But, halfway through the water, right as his neck emerged from the swamp, Hakas discovered that he was no longer able to move.


    ¡°Ice?¡±


    Ice had started spreading inside the swamp. The muddy swamp transformed into blocks of ice and frozen earth. The ice was far more solid than expected. Hakas¡¯s entire body was frozen underwater, together with the entire swamp. Only his head was left unfrozen, sticking out of the ice.


    The trapped Hakas had no control over ice like a white dragon would. He was solidly restrained without being able to even move.


    ¡°...ck dragons are highly nutritious and provide a great number of calories. A single ck dragon can provide enough calories for an entire year...¡±


    Hakas didn¡¯t give up as he spat out some toxic dragonbreath in green mist form. Just as Hakas thought that he had managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, the human continued speaking.


    ¡°...Heehee, I caught him! He¡¯s really struggling! Ugh, he has stinky breath!¡±


    The toxic mist dissipated to reveal that the blonde-haired man was slowly walking over without sign of a single injury. The man had a vicious smile on his face and kept talking to himself. Hakas despaired even more as he was still unable to break free from the ice by the time that the man arrived next to him.


    The blonde-haired man kept looking at Hakas¡¯s neck while holding a giant fork made of ice in his left hand and wielding a giant butcher knife made of ice in his right hand. He kept making motions over the ck dragon¡¯s neck.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be able to eat him once I cut off the head! Crispy and tastes like chicken!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a chicken, your entire family is chicken-vored!¡±


    Hakas was infuriated by the utter humiliation of beingpared to chicken meat. But, all he saw was a huge fork of ice that was two meters tall piercing into him. This was the final thing that ck dragon Hakas saw before he fainted. His final thoughts were filled with pity for himself.


    ¡°Father, your son Hakas has be the greatest disgrace of all dragons. I¡¯m actually about to be eaten by a human.¡±


    Twenty minutester, we were now in Hakas¡¯s warm andfortable dragon nest, where countless lizardmen were hard at work, starting a fire and cooking food for their new master. A certain dark-skinned tall and skinny male elf was especially noticeable because he stood out from the crowd.


    Hakas was currently working by the fire, drying his new master¡¯s shoes and clothes. The clothes were still alright, but the shoes had an incredible stench due to being soaked by stinky rain and mud for several days straight. The enved dragon almost felt likemitting suicide.


    But, he didn¡¯t have the courage to do so...


    *Smack!*


    Hakas tripped and fell over after taking a mere two steps. This wasn¡¯t because he was intentionally trying to do so. It would be disgusting if someone as old as him was trying to act cute. It was that Hakas was no longer able to control his bnce. That was because his dragon tail, the body part responsible for maintaining his bnce, had been cut off and was currently being cooked on a barbeque rack.


    Finally, I started salivating as the dragon tail was thoroughly well done while dripping oil.


    ¡°By the way, Rnd...¡± Harloys suddenly spoke to me as she also looked at the barbequed dragon tail.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know that food should be enjoyed in silence? I cooked this for myself. If you want some, go cut off some more and make your own.¡±


    I pointed at the ice fork and knife which were still to the side. A certain elf form ck dragon who had been eavesdropping suddenly ran outside his nest into the pouring stinky rain. He also tripped and fell several times during his escape. I let him go with no worries, as he was now bound by a ve contract and wouldn¡¯t be able to actually escape for real.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not that. I¡¯m not interested in dragon meat... forget it.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re so boring, wanting to say something but changing your mind.¡±


    Iined slightly while taking a dragon tail meat skewer that a lizardman handed to me. I then took a bite... sourness, bitterness, and a stinky stench all exploded in my mouth. At that moment, I felt like I was eating something from a toilet that hadn¡¯t been cleaned in ten years... and then I vomited everything in my stomach!


    *Retch!*


    It was a long while until I finally finished throwing up. Only then did Harloys casually finish what she had been about to tell me.


    ¡°ck dragons are venomous, far more venomous than wyverns. And, they feed on the corrosive creatures that live in the swamp. You must have forgotten all your magical creature biology sses. You should have known that something like ck dragon meat should have beenpletely inedible.¡±


    All the lizardmen around me were so scared that they were all kneeling. I nced again at the oily dragon tail meat skewer, feeling like it was such a waste of meat.


    I wasn¡¯t afraid of any poison. Dragon poison would bepletely useless against me. But, the delicacy I had been looking forward to turned out to be even worse than feces. I was so disappointed!


    ¡°You find it so regrettable? That¡¯s really rare of you. Did you want to try dragon meat so much?¡±


    ¡°I do! Back when I was at Sulfur Mountain City and saw ck and red dragons flying around everywhere, I already wanted to taste them. I figured that their meat would surely be delicious with how big they were. But after I finally had a physical body again, it would have been too awkward to touch any of Little Red¡¯s followers.¡±


    Harloys silently wiped away some cold sweat. It seemed that the dragons of the Underground Dragon City had escaped a cmity without them knowing it.


    ¡°Actually, dragon meat is edible. It¡¯smon sense not to eat venomous magical creatures, but not all dragons are toxic. You only need to avoid eating green and ck dragons.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s records of this?¡±


    ¡°Yes, there¡¯s always some entric among the mages. There was once a great archmage named Baen who wrote a book called ¡®Dragonmeat Cuisine for all Common Dragon Species¡±. He even once held a banquet that served only dragon meat.¡±


    ¡°Ohhh! So there was such a person before! Could you please introduce him to me?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible. Baen died several hundred years ago because a horde of angry dragons ganged up on and killed him.¡±


    ¡°Such a pity. He was truly an amazing person...¡±


    ¡°His recipes are still around today. I¡¯ve read his book. ording to him, the most delicious dragon meat is red dragon meat because it contains the fire element. You only need to cook it slightly for it to bepletely well done from inside out. If you apply some oil and pair it with red wine, it¡¯s supposed to be amazingly delicious. And, red dragons tend to exercise more than other dragons, meaning that their meat is chewier than other dragons¡¯.¡±


    As I heard this, the hordes of red dragons in the sky from my memories became reced with delicious flying roast meat. I was even beginning to drool.


    ¡°Little Red is supposed toe. Why don¡¯t you try borrowing some meat from her...?¡±


    The flying roast meat I was imagining was instantly reced with Little Red¡¯s face when I heard this. I suddenly felt like that was too much for my tastes; I shook my head and sighed.


    ¡°She would invite me to eat her fist. It¡¯s a pity that there¡¯s no other red dragons here...¡±


    ¡°Actually, ck dragons can still be edible if you prepare the meat properly, although it¡¯s a little bit troublesome. Baen¡¯s dragon recipe book had methods on how to prepare it. You can cure the meat to make sausages, or add some seasoning and bury it underground to make it into stinky canned meat. Although it smells bad, it¡¯s actually quite delicious.¡±


    ¡°Ahhhhh!¡±


    Just as I was thinking about it, there was suddenly a loud scream from the entrance of the dragon nest. ck dragon Hakas had just returned, and was staring at us with a stupefied expression. He then immediately ran away again.


    ¡°I¡¯m not a sausage! Mommy, save me! I¡¯ve been captured by a dragon-eating cannibal!¡±

 Chapter 558 - Magic Swords

    <h4>Chapter 558: Magic Swords</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°How many Fate Points have I earned by now?¡±


    [412.]


    ¡°Tsk, these guys are so worthless.¡±


    I felt rather helpless about this. I had been ughtering the magical creatures and weak demons in this dimensional level for three days already, yet I had only earned so few points.


    [Although the creatures here are much stronger on average than those in the mortal ne, these creatures are far too dumb. Most of the species here don¡¯t even have social structures. Their karmic connections are too weak, which is why the points you receive are so few.]


    My Goddess of Order System exined things to me. It seemed that if I wanted more points, it would be inefficient to remain here in this swamp. Perhaps I should start focusing on more important demons who would have stronger karmic connections, such as the Demon Lord ruler of each dimensional level?


    Previously, I had asked my System if there was any cheat-like shortcut to be stronger.


    Her response back then had been rather vague.


    [...There will always be losses with every gain. If you want to be stronger at a cheat-like speed, then you must pay an equivalent price, which will most likely be the most important thing to you that you¡¯ve held for all this time...]


    [...Just think about it for yourself. Your twin brother Karwenz is the Child of the Abyss, so that also makes you...]


    I was no idiot. Her hints were more than enough to show me what I needed to do. Back in the day, I had also killed a great number of lives in order to obtain more points through my System in order to power myself up at a cheat-like speed. That helped me to swiftly be an Undead Emperor. My System meant that I would simply have to set aside my conscience and do that once more. Although, this time I would be instead ughtering demon lives down in the Chaos Abyss where bloody battles never ended.


    ¡°How many more points do I need to exchange for the ¡®shell¡¯ of my first sword?¡±


    [Which sword did you want first?]


    ¡°The one with the highest attack power.¡±


    Through my lives so far, this was only my second time where I had an opportunity to achieve SemiGod rank. And this time, I had aplete and outstanding physical body. I would never be satisfied with ¡°barely being¡± a SemiGod.


    I had powerful natural talents and one of the best possible physical bodies. I possessed countless amounts ofbat experience and life¡¯s work. Several centuries of lives had given me an endless amount of knowledge regarding Concepts that I could use. This time, I was determined to reach the greatest peak of power.


    I had already nned my future countless times already. If I seeded here with what I obtained at Myth rank, that alone would give me the confidence to face any opponent.


    For ordinary Myth-ranked individuals, knowing one¡¯s future goal would only be the beginning. That person would then need to continuously gather resources and slowly make progress before finally reaching their goal. Along the way would also be countless failed experiments and wasted effort.


    However, I was different from others. I had a rtivelyplete blueprint that I could use, along with many more Concepts than others. Not only that, I had a superbly strong body that could handle more powerful and more numerous Concepts. I could afford to be a little extravagant with my nning.


    Plus, my System was now basically helping me to cheat in powering up. I could use Fate Points to exchange for resources that I didn¡¯t have, as well as calcte thepatibility between my Concepts and the resources I wanted to use. I fully expected that I would seed on the first try to reach Myth rank, and that this would greatly shorten the time needed for me to reach the peak.


    As for how much the time could be shortened, that would depend on how shameless I was in ughtering. As long as I had enough Fate Points, I could exchange for as many resources as I wanted, which meant I could finish my power leveling within the next few years.


    ¡°So, you¡¯re still going to be a swordsman?¡±


    ¡°Strictly speaking, I¡¯ll be a magical swordsman.¡±


    Harloys was slightly downcast. This wasn¡¯t one of her usual jokes. My former magic teacher was indeed rather unhappy.


    A Myth rank individual choosing their personal weapon to create would also mean that they were choosing their futurebat style. Harloys, a pure mage, had taught a disciple who ended up bing a melee fighter swordsman. She naturally felt rather aggrieved about this.


    ¡°There¡¯s no helping it. A magic swordsman job ss focused on meleebat is the only one that will be the best use of all my abilities. And, there¡¯s no more endless amounts of undead that can act as my meat shields anymore. Considering the future enemies I¡¯ll be facing, being a pure long-distance artillery type mage will be far too dangerous, nor will I be good at being a frontlinebat mage.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t being impulsive at all when I decided to be a magic swordsman. The very fact that my physical body¡¯s stats were so well bnced had pointed out this path to me.


    The Four Elemental Swordcaster job ss had given countless people the opportunity to use a minor amount of magic. But from another standpoint, this was actually a job ss customized just for me.


    Magic swordsman had always been an unpopr job ss option. That was because far too much was required for this job ss. You would need to be skilled in both magic and martial arts. But, when youbined both on the battlefield, the typical effects were an example of ¡°1 + 1 is equal to less than 1.¡±


    It would be inconvenient to wear heavy armor if you wanted to cast spells. That meant that magic swordsmen couldn¡¯t be effective tanks. And since you were going to be in meleebat range, you would be unable to incant long and powerful spells. This meant that you couldn¡¯t use any long-distance powerful magic attacks. So, the end result of training in both magic and martial arts typically meant that both became worthless. Working so hard to train in magic for so many years, only to use that magic to cast a few buff spells on yourself? That was just such a poor deal.


    However, the Four Elemental Swordcaster job ss decreased the amount of time necessary for magic swordsmen to practice magic. This greatly shortened the overall training time required. These Four Elemental Swordcasters could then instead focus on how to use their magic sword techniques to improve theirbat strength.


    Human intelligence was limitless. A sufficient number of Four Elemental Swordcasters meant that countless new techniques were invented by them. In fact, many different subsses had been invented, along with varying sword seals and how to improve on them. There were those who focused more on spellcasting¡ªthe Spellswords. There were those who focused more on how to use sword seals, using a bnce of magic and swordsmanship to defeat the enemy¡ªthe Spirit Swordsmen. There were also those who treated their magic swords as remotes which could control various magical machines¡ªthe Mecha Controllers.


    And, each subss had several tens or even several hundred uniquebat techniques and magical spells. This would be an astonishing wealth of knowledge and experience for myself that I could use.


    ¡°Although it¡¯s not really a good habit to use other people as experimental subjects like this, it¡¯s all thanks to everyone that the Four Elemental Swordcaster job ss has truly beenpleted. I can rest assured and take this path to the peak now.¡±


    In a way, all the Four Elemental Swordcasters had been my experimental subjects. Their intelligence and hard work helped to develop this job ss for me. And since I had multiple magical and physical attributes, this would be my foundation for reaching the peak.


    Since I was going to be a magic swordsman, I would naturally choose to craft swords for my Myth-ranked weapons. This was a custom of all swordsmen and magic swordsmen job sses.


    What I needed to do was create the strongest magic sword in the world by using all of my umted knowledge. Then, I would utilize all thebat techniques and spells created by everyone¡¯s intelligence, fully developing my magic sword¡¯s power to its utmost.


    The different elemental modes of the Four Elemental Swordcaster job ss gave me the ability to use multiple different magic swords. Since I had so many avable Concepts, I intended to craft several magic swords, one imbued with each Concept. Unfortunately, the highest-level resources required for crafting such swords wouldn¡¯t be that easy to obtain.


    ¡°My most powerful offensive magic sword, the ¡®Spirit of the Dead¡¯, how long will it take to only craft its outer shell?¡±


    [Your blueprint for that sword is absolutely fantastical. Theoretically speaking, this magic sword¡¯s attack power will be so off the charts that it will break all records. However, since you inconceivably want this sword to be the vessel for seven different Concepts simultaneously, your Spirit of the Dead sword has ridiculously high requirements for the resources needed in its construction. If you obtain the resources purely through exchanging Fate Points, it would take a minimum of 200,000 Fate Points at a conservative estimate.]


    Damn, that was really expensive. Even resurrecting myself from death would only cost me 100,000 Fate Points!


    [Can¡¯t you lower your requirements for your magic sword?]


    ¡°Absolutely not. This will be my ace weapon. And judging from its theoretical workings, even one less Concept will decrease its overall power level by at least half.¡±


    Considering how I might be hunted down or ambushed at any time, I naturally wanted to craft my strongest weapon first.


    I did some simple math, and found that I was almost there. I was only 190,588 Fate Points short of 200,000...


    ¡°How many Fate Points will killing this dragon give me?¡±


    I nced over at Hakas, who was currently sleeping, with evil intentions. However, my System¡¯s reply made me feel rather helpless.


    [He¡¯s just a hermit dragon who has no connections to the outside world, which means he¡¯s only worth 450 Fate Points. You might as well keep him around as a transportation tool instead.]


    ¡°Is there no other way to reduce the points required?¡±


    ¡°Sure there is. Find some top-quality resources on your own. That will reduce the amount of resources you have to exchange for. Since your nned sword will be filled with death magic and negative energy, you¡¯ll naturally have to obtain resources from the undead. There¡¯s also some undead living in the Chaos Abyss. I know someone who should be able to fulfill your requirements. He doesn¡¯t live far away from here.]


    I thought about things after I heard this. Since the Chaos Abyss was filled with demons, there were actually very few dimensions with undead in them. And, if there was a top-level undead near here who could fulfill my resource requirements...


    ¡°The Eldest One? Sheesh, just tell me directly if you want me tomit suicide!¡±


    [You¡¯re the one who came up with the blueprint for your sword. It¡¯s up to you whether you want to go or not. I recall that he lives in the 112th level of the Chaos Abyss. It¡¯s not that far away. Why not go pay him a visit and have a chat?¡±]


    I could only smile wryly. Was this yet another way that I had shot myself in the foot?


    The Eldest One. Perhaps he could be called the oldest living demon alive. Another one of his nicknames was ¡°The Sleeping One¡±. He was a Gold Species member from the very first generation.


    As he was an ancient artifact from Ayer¡¯s generation, well, he could even be considered Ayer¡¯s elder, he had already survived every single mythical battle between the Gods. Nowadays, he spent most of his time in his own dimension cultivating his crops. He had retired long ago, and had already forcefully erased his demon true name from all memory.


    Only a single piece of information was more than enough to prove his power. The most famous information about The Eldest One was that he was the one who invented all of soul summoning and undead magic. Previously, I had mentioned that demons had invented undead magic. It so happened that the inventor was The Eldest One!


    It was impossible to know whether or not he was on a Main God¡¯s power level, because even the oldest of history books didn¡¯t have any record of him ever fighting. But judging from how all the other Demon Lords in the Chaos Abyss left him alone, it was highly likely that he was on par with any Main God. That was because nobody in the Chaos Abyss would respect the weak or elderly.


    ¡°...Should I first try crafting one of my other three nned magic swords instead?¡±

 Chapter 559 - Progress

    <h4>Chapter 559: Progress</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    For any normal person, the Chaos Abyss would be the most terrible environment possible to live in. But, for the insane who were addicted to blood and ughter, the Chaos Abyss would be a paradise.


    Here, you would never worry that you couldn¡¯t find a fight...


    ¡°Do these guys not have any semnce of intelligence whatsoever?¡±


    The rain was now only at the level of a sprinkle. Everything around waspletely wet. Behind me was a group of dead demonized sea giants. This was already the fourth wave of attacks that I had to deal with today, even though I had just barely finished breakfast and the day was just beginning.


    Demonized sea giants, snake demons, regr demons, raksha demons, and so on. In just a short two hours, the Chaos Abyss seemed like it wanted to show me what a great variety of demon and magical beast species was in it, along with how aggressive they all were.


    ¡°Two snake demons will jump out whenever I want to go to the bathroom and take off my pants, and I¡¯ll get attacked whenever I finish cooking some meat. There¡¯s even some that will dig tunnels to attack me from underground while I¡¯m sleeping. Could they please let me have some rest!¡±


    Yet, I could sense that as I ughtered these demons, I could feel a mysterious sensation of joy from the action, along with the fact that my magic power and physical stamina were both slowly improving.


    That was just one of the side effects of being in the Chaos Abyss. Even the purest Holy Knight would eventually be addicted to the ¡°pleasure of cleansing evil¡± and continuously bing stronger. And, the only end result of bing addicted to such ughter would be to be a true member of the Chaos Abyss yourself.


    This entirend desired to see blood flow...


    I could sense the desire of the Chaos Abyss itself as I looked at all the demon corpses strewn around me.


    ¡°Is Cynthia truly dead? The Chaos Abyss doesn¡¯t seem any different from before.¡±


    The Chaos Abyss instinctively desired to see blood and ughter. It would reward the victorious with evolution that granted concrete power. Demons had basically taken this to a unique art form. Apart from the most basic demon attributes, the constant evolution and devouring made it impossible to find two identical demons.


    And, this evolutionary gift from the Chaos Abyss had a rather descriptive term in the mortal ne¡ª¡±demonization.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, I need more power, but I think I¡¯ll pass on this type of insurance scam where they invite you in for free and only ask for moneyter, bringing along so many troubles and hidden pitfalls.¡±


    I illuminated myself with Holy Light and cleansed the entire area. What happened next was that I lost the minor amount of power that I had just gained.


    Power could always be used, no matter what type it was. If I had the free time, I could slowly purify this power to be a source of power that I could use. But, right now was a critical moment for me as I intended to progress to Myth rank soon. This type of tainted power would bring all sorts of trouble for me, so I decided to discard it.


    I had left Hakas¡¯s dragon nest two days ago. Without the presence of the dragon around to suppress the demons in the area anymore, even more small fries were constantly bothering me. While I could indeed release a powerful aura which would drive them away, that would only attract the attention of far more powerful demons.


    The enemies here ranged from as weak as lizardmen, who were so weak that a normal Silver-ranked adventurer could easily defeat a dozen, to fallen sea giants that would require an entire team of Legend ranks to handle. It seemed as if this map was filled with monsters of widely varying power levels. Meeting something from any power level wouldn¡¯t be too surprising.


    I had long since gotten tired of this endless rain, mud, and swamp. Perhaps demons in other levels would be a lot stronger, but at least my shoes wouldn¡¯t be constantly waterlogged and my pants wouldn¡¯t grow mold.


    However, going to the next level of the Chaos Abyss would be slightly troublesome.


    Every dimensional level had two gigantic Dimensional Doors, one each for the next level up or down.


    Still, constantly going down would be far too foolish and a waste of time and effort.


    All the Dimensional Doors were quite convenient for connecting the Chaos Abyss levels. But as they were highly important strategic objectives, their locations were either under the direct control of each level¡¯s ruler, or their locations would be unknown to most.


    In other levels, I would have been able to spend some money at any city where lots of demons gathered. I would then be able to purchase information about the teleportation portal¡¯s location. But in this dimension, even money was useless with only the low intelligence demons around here.


    ¡°So, why not go visit the ruler of this level?¡± Harloys offered a simple solution. But, after I learned from that ck dragon that this was the 75th level of the Chaos Abyss, I truly didn¡¯t want to go visit the ruler of this level.


    ¡°Snake God Voka, the Guardian God of lizardmen and snake demons. No wonder there were so many of these disgusting things on this level.¡±


    Although he wasn¡¯t a particrly powerful god, he was still a veteran Chaos Evil God. And, any God who fought in his home territory would basically have their power level doubled since the entire dimension would act as his Divine Kingdom.


    If I had been a witch doctor or warlock whose powers were primarily based on poison, then perhaps I would¡¯ve considered meeting the most venomous existence in the universe. But right now, I only wanted to stay as far away from Voka as possible.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know that there¡¯s other teleportation portals to other levels, apart from the level up and the level down? How did you be the ruler of this swamp without even knowing this basic information?¡±


    When I asked this question to ck dragon Hakas, he looked back at me with an obvious look of confusion.


    ¡°Why would you ever bother going to any other level? Isn¡¯t this level the most wonderful ce in the entire universe?¡±


    Alright, this might be a living hell to any other creature, but he actually truly believed that this was the warmest and mostfortable home possible. For any ck dragon, a stinky death swamp like this one would smell like the freshest air possible. If he left this murky swamp filled with mud, where else would he hunt so easily and wash in swamp water sofortably?


    ¡°Tsk, every country bumpkin thinks that their hometown is the best, even if outsiders think that it¡¯s a living hell.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s venom-tonguedment came as always, yet I felt like I took a blow from it even though it wasn¡¯t aimed at me this time. That was because I also felt like the Nortnds¡¯ endless frigid winds would always make me feel so spirited, and that the great snow mountain was such a wonderful ce.


    ¡°It would seem that we¡¯ll have to go down to the next level.¡±


    Since we were unable to locate any teleportation portals going down to much lower levels, we would have to descend one level at a time. But right when I made my decision and was about tomand my steed to head out, my steed had a different opinion.


    ¡°...Milord, although I don¡¯t know where any other teleportation portals are, I know a ce where someone will know.¡±


    Considering the swamp terrain, a ck dragon would doubtlessly be the best transportation tool. In this stinky air and dirty rain, Frigid Nightmare soul creatures wouldn¡¯t even want to move.


    However, our current problem was that we didn¡¯t know where to go even for the teleportation portal to the next level down. Randomly running around would bepletely meaningless. And, the ck dragon Hakas didn¡¯t even dare to fly too high, as he told me that there were ancient entities here that he didn¡¯t dare to catch the attention of.


    ¡°Okay, lead the way.¡±


    I was thus rather surprised that Hakas volunteered such seemingly useful information. It sounded too good to be true.


    ¡°...However, those onibabas are incredibly greedy. They won¡¯t tell you a single thing unless you pay them enough.¡±


    ¡°Pay them enough? In gold coins?¡±


    ¡°No, gold coins are useless in this level. They highly value magical scrolls and magical weapons and so on.¡±


    I followed the ck dragon¡¯s line of sight and noticed that he was staring greedily at the magic sword I was holding, which was made out ofpletely ordinary ice.


    Perhaps he thought that this crystal-clear sword was something highly valuable. When he was defeated by me two days ago, this magic sword had seemingly proved its power. He must have believed that it possessed powerful ice magic enchantments.


    As for the in war hammer on my back, Hakas didn¡¯t give it a second nce. It was likely that he wouldn¡¯t ept it even if I gave it to him for free.


    It seemed likely that he wanted me to go meet the onibabas because he wanted the onibabas to rob and kill me over the ¡°treasures¡± in my possession, which would help give him his freedom in the process.


    I chuckled as I thought of all this.


    ¡°They like ice magic swords? Haha, I got it. I hope that those onibabas will enjoy my presents.¡±

 Chapter 560 - Onibaba Market

    <h4>Chapter 560: Onibaba Market</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Flying in the skies of any Chaos Abyss level would never be a pleasant experience for any ordinary flying creature. The clouds would forever be pitch-ck, thunderbolts and hail would make the journey hazardous, the air was always filled with sulfurous stenches, and even the rain had the taste of corrosion.


    However, ck dragon Hakas was asfortable as a fish in water. For him, this was the feeling of home.


    The ground was beneath us, and everything that I could see was in monotonous colors. There was nothing but gray and ck, although there was a patch of grayish-green on the horizon.


    That was a penins surrounded by countless gray trees. There was actually a rather lively market in the middle of the swamp.


    This was the Onibaba Market. The name was simple and direct. This market was thergest market in the 75th level of the Chaos Abyss. As one of the few intelligent species in this dimensional level, the Onibabas ran this market.


    ¡°Those Onibabas aren¡¯t easy to deal with. Even for those much stronger than them, it¡¯smon to fall victim as they¡¯re viins and scammers with pure evil in their blood. Any resident of the mortal ne who brings treasures here will end up dying.¡±


    Onibabas were a species that was almostpletely extinct in the mortal ne. They were an entirely female species, simr to the wood spirits. But while wood spirits had cute appearances, all Onibabas looked like wrinkly old women or aged witches.


    They would have strangely shaped noses filled with warts, scraggly and disgusting hair, wrinkly skin, crooked magic staves, ck capes, and pointy hats. They basically looked exactly like wicked witches from fairy tales.


    Back when they still lived in the mortal ne, most of the time they also acted as evil witches. Most of the Onibabas had signed contracts with powerful devils or demons in the lower nes, and acted as their representatives. These witches and their magic spells were quite famous... for trapping people and setting pitfalls.


    The Onibabas were greedy, sly, and jealous of others. That wouldn¡¯t have been a problem if they still acted as proper merchants, as there would always be a potential buyer as long as their products were good enough. However, the Onibabas were stupid enough to be the type to try and scam both their buyers and their suppliers. Not only did the Onibabas make enemies out of everyone in the mortal ne, they even attempted to scam their own demon or devil backers. This was truly foolish of them.


    In the current day, not only were Onibabas almostpletely extinct in the mortal ne, they were also quite rare in the Chaos Abyss. That was because demons weren¡¯t idiots. Being scammed once counted as your own fault, but if someone tried to scam a demon repeatedly, that demon wouldn¡¯t be a demon if it didn¡¯t take revenge.


    ¡°Come take a look! This is a SemiGod magic sword for sale! It possesses three different curse magic enchantments of great power! I¡¯m selling it for only 200 soul coins, or will exchange it for a product of equivalent worth!¡±


    Souls were forever the best currency in the lower nes. Now that part of the River Styx had changed course to flow through Hell, the lower nes finally felt the costs of intion. Souls became even more valuable than before.


    Seeing that I appeared to be an unfamiliar dragon knight, the green-haired Onibaba who was selling this magic sword was so eager that she was basically trying to hand the magic sword to me.


    It was indeed rather cheap to purchase a SemiGod equipment for only 200 soul coins. I could also sense the powerful curses upon that gray magic sword. However...


    ¡°...One of those curses is actually a Curse of Extreme Low Intelligence. This curse will automatically be activated when I touch that magic sword, so I¡¯ll be handing her all my valuables without knowing what¡¯s going on?¡±


    Without changing expression, I kicked away that Onibaba right as she was about to take out a potion to throw on me. The potion instead spilled on another Onibaba next to her, and actually transformed that Onibaba into a toad.


    It would seem that there were zero product or customer safety guarantees in this market. The Onibaba merchants here would evidently scam as much as they wanted.


    ¡°Here, you take it...¡±


    I let out a powerful aura of ice from under my dragon armor, along with evident waves of death magic from my eyes. I was showing off that I was a high-level dark knight who was capable of controlling a ck dragon, which meant that no low-level Onibaba who was attempting to sell fake goods would be able to deal with me.


    I lifted up that Onibaba and took her fake sword, directly inserting the hilt into her mouth. After a short few wails, that Onibaba fell victim to her own Curse of Extreme Low Intelligence, and started kneeling on the ground while imitating toad calls.


    The sounds of business around me stopped for a short instant, but everything instantly became lively again as if nothing had happened here. Such urrences would actually bemonce.


    I had also been in such environments before. In a ce like this where everyone treated you with enmity, pretending to be weak would bring far more trouble than it was worth. A small disy of power would actually make things far easier.


    If I had been scammed and died here, all the Onibabas and other demons absolutely would have rushed over, selling off all my equipment on the spot, selling my flesh as food, andpressing my soul into a soul coin. Nothing would be wasted.


    I looked around and saw that the Onibabas weren¡¯t the only ones peddling wares here. In fact, all the Onibabas¡¯ stalls had barely any customers. Only a few lizardmen were walking around back and forth in front of their stalls, likely their servants. And, the Onibabas seemed to be in no hurry. Their devious gazes kept looking around at any new customer that showed up as if they were only selling wares as a side business to running this market.


    ¡°A new magic steel axe, an excellent product from a dark dwarf master smith. Selling for only two soul coins!¡±


    ¡°Dragon bones, dragon feces, dragon eyeballs for sale! The powerful Bloodspear Tribe has obtained a great harvest this season! We¡¯re only selling in exchange for female ves that can give birth, soul coins, or powerful magic weapons. Onibabas and Onibaba products are unwee here with us dragonlizards!¡±


    It seemed that stronger dark dwarf and lizardmen tribes lived around here. No small tribe would be able to raise a master cksmith. Mining, refining, and smithing would require a full-scale dwarven society. The fact that a well-produced weapon was being sold was an evidence of this.


    And, a lizardmen tribe that was capable of hunting down a dragon would require a poption of at least two thousand. They would also need high-level mages such as prophets or witch doctors. It was possible that they had even tamed some baby dragons. Only then would a lizardmen tribe dare to call themselves dragonlizards. Of course, dragons would never admit to them being their rtives.


    Behind me, the elf form Hakas had a displeased expression as he saw how proud those lizardmen seemed. A fellow ck dragon¡¯s body had been taken apart and was for sale on their table, yet Hakas didn¡¯t dare to say a single word. It seemed that he knew and was scared of this Bloodspear Tribe.


    Dark dwarves, lizardmen, and demons. They were all evil species that would instantly be attacked if they appeared in the mortal ne. But down here, they could be considered honorable inparison to the Onibabas. In fact, there was even a high-level Berserker Demon who was more than three meters tall who was attempting to sell himself. He had put a sign around his neck which said ¡°Feed me, and give me subi to mate with. I¡¯ll kill whoever you want.¡±


    His sign was quite simple and direct. His logic was also quite simple. He was a high-level Berserker Demon with greatbat strengthpared to most of the residents here. This seemed like a great deal, but nobody actually dared to hire him despite many onlookers.


    If he had been a high-level devil instead, he would have found an employer almost instantly. However, Berserker Demons were well known for their tiny brains which were the size of walnuts. Nobody dared to ept his services.


    That was because there was no certainty when this Berserker Demon might receive too much of a high from battle, or maybe felt like he didn¡¯t have enough of a high in battle. Then, he would simply kill off his employer. If you really trusted the promise of a Berserker Demon which had the reputation of being a single-celled organism even among demons who were known to be simpleminded, then it was your own fault for dying.


    Seeing that this market was livelier than I¡¯d thought, I started hesitating. I had originally intended on making a trade with an Onibaba, but those witches were well known for being truly outrageous scammers. Since there were other species here, perhaps I should try talking to a different species first?


    But no matter what, if I wanted to purchase information, I would need to have some money. Right now, I didn¡¯t have even a single soul coin.


    And so, I kicked away the Onibaba who had been cursed to have a toad¡¯s intelligence, and tossed all my items onto her counter and directly began selling my products.

 Chapter 561 - Deal

    <h4>Chapter 561: Deal</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    After I casually put up some products for sale, it seemed like half the market¡¯s customers came over to me.


    This wasn¡¯t because they already knew what I was selling. It was rather that all the other merchants were familiar faces, and it was quite rare for an outsider to arrive here. Not only that, it was quite obvious that I wasn¡¯t even from the Chaos Abyss. Naturally, they wanted to see what I was selling.


    But when all of them saw what I was selling, they all took deep, cold breaths. Everyone only looked; nobody came up to buy anything.


    I had casually thrown an ice magic sword on the ground as if it was nothing but trash. Its crystal clear structure indicated that it was made of seemingly high-quality material. The ice spreading around it showed off its considerable magical power.


    In front of this ice magic sword, the dark dwarf¡¯s steel axe would be nothing but a toy. But judging by how casually I tossed it on the ground, it was evident that I didn¡¯t value it one bit.


    Meanwhile, some other scattered items included fruits and vegetables that emanated nature magic, a headless doll, a bottle of some sticky fluid, a wooden sword that was blunt from long years of use, and so on. None of these objects seemed very impressive, but they all had unique magical wavelengths.


    Everyone kept whispering to each other, but nobody was able to tell what these items were. Since nobody could identify them, the greatest probability was that these items weren¡¯t from the Chaos Abyss.


    That still wouldn¡¯t be much, as dimensional smugglers could be found in every dimension. There were even some demons or goblins in the Chaos Abyss that enjoyed acting as merchants. Some even had well-established trade channels. However, this particr merchant wanted to sell his wares for an astonishingly high price.


    ¡°I will only ept top-level resources, materials, and God Equipment for my wares. Don¡¯t even think of trying to trade me garbage like dragon bones.¡±


    Everyone had seen arrogant merchants before, but none had ever seen such an arrogant merchant. Directly asking for God Equipment on the first attempted sale? That made him seem like a total novice. But, judging from his products for sale, he was obviously no novice. In that case...


    ¡°These items are worth the same as God Equipment? I can¡¯t tell at all. There¡¯s even books? They have such strange magical wavelengths. Are they magic books...?¡±


    ¡°Hey, no touching! This is the third move of the Ri Divine Palm, a divine martial art from the east. It¡¯s the lifeblood work of a monk grandmaster demon (dharma)! Buy one, get one free! I¡¯ll throw in the great nature magic manual, the Sunflower Manual for free! After you cultivate the Sunflower Manual, you¡¯ll be able to obtain a Legend-ranked druid transformation technique¡ªGenderChange <sup>1</sup> !¡±


    [...]


    Astrya felt rather helpless with how I was so happily trying to sell off these books that had been gathering dust in my dimensional storage for so long.


    Back in the day, I had indeed truly treated these books as treasures, being unwilling to toss them out no matter what dire straits I was in. I had always kept them in my storage as some of my most valuable treasures.


    But now that I knew my System was Astrya, who had copied these Chinese martial arts from my original world, I knew that these technique manuals were truly deep pitfalls indeed... I would be a fool not to try and sell them to recoup some of my losses (and make myself feel better by making other people suffer instead).


    [...Actually, they really are real. I used my power as a Creator Goddess to create a divine miracle and exchange for them. These are the real martial arts manuals from your original world.]


    ¡°Then why couldn¡¯t I learn them? I think that I should have pretty good martial arts abilities.¡±


    [That¡¯s because you also need the Emperor Inner Qi Manual and a human body acupuncture point manual before you¡¯ll be able to understand it. Did you think that learning ancient Chinese martial arts would be that simple? A modern-day person like you would be able to read a manual that requires ten different ancient Chinese dictionaries to trante? Do you know where the BubblingSpring <sup>2</sup> acupuncture point is? Do you know the names of the Twelve Meridians? And even if you learned all this, do you have any knowledge of Buddhism? This is the highest-level Buddhist martial art technique. Let me tell you, the most basic requirement for truly learning this manual is that you¡¯ve read at least two thousand Buddhist scriptures and that you truly understand them.]


    ¡°Then, you could get some Buddhist scriptures and those manuals for me...¡±


    [That would be knowledge from another world which could change the fundamental way of thinking in this world. Sure, but you¡¯ll have to exchange for it by paying one million Fate Points.]


    ¡°Then why did you work so hard on creating this manual for me? Just to toy with me? What difference is there from those scamming mobile games that say they have a 1% SSR gacha rate but it¡¯s actually coded to be barely above 0%! I can only look but not touch!¡±


    I recalled that back when I drew this manual out of my gacha, I was absolutely overjoyed, thinking that I had finally gotten some protagonist good luck. I believed that I would be able to use Chinese martial arts to conquer a western fantasy world. But in the end, all those Chinese martial arts sounded really cool, but I was unable to learn a single one.


    At the time, I didn¡¯t suspect anything despite this. I had thought that I was unable to learn them due to being unustomed to them now that I was in a fantasy and magic world. I figured that they would still improve my overall knowledge.


    [ording to my records, after you pulled these Chinese martial arts manuals from the gacha, you worked twice as hard in the next three months and earned many Fate Points. You even voluntarily asked me for more Quests. It was so rare to see you so hard-working. I was so moved. That meant that my goal had been achieved.]


    Astrya paused for a moment, and then unhesitatingly told me the painful truth.


    [That¡¯s right, I had copied this strategy from mobile game developers. How else would I get you addicted to the gacha if I didn¡¯t give you a taste of something sweet first? Those magic books that you could read but couldn¡¯t actually learn were the bait. The Chinese martial arts that sounded really amazing but you couldn¡¯t use were all to make you draw more from the gacha every month!]


    Drawing from the gacha so many times but always seeing what I wanted the most slip right past on the roulette wheel... That disappointment from seeing so many ¡°near misses¡± transformed into a mysterious rage that burned so much that I wanted to spit blood.


    My aggrievement kept piling up. When I thought about how that bastard Astrya had secretly been manipting that damned roulette wheel all along, simply toying with me, I really wanted to drag her out for a good beating.


    I finally felt like I understood Karwenz better. With such a System in my mind that tried to think of methods to make you suffer every day, it would be inconceivable not to want to drag her out and beat her up.


    ¡°Tsk, Karwenz even calls Cynthia as Mother. Is there any mother out there who intentionally makes her son suffer so much? Right, Astrya, if Cynthia is the mother of our souls, and you¡¯re Cynthia¡¯s older sister, doesn¡¯t that make you my aun¡ª¡±


    [If you dare to finish saying that word, I¡¯ll sing songs in your mind every day! I¡¯ll sing tragic songs on Monday and Tuesday, children¡¯s songs on Wednesday and Thursday, heavy metal songs on Friday and Saturday, and I¡¯ll continuously incant the song poem that you wrote back when you were nine years old in your original world!]


    ¡°I surrender! Please don¡¯t fill my mind with such torturous songs! I was too silly back in the day. I didn¡¯t even have goodnguage skills or a sense of rhythm back then, what good song could I possibly write! And I even tried to make it poetic! I was already quite pitiful enough for beingughed at by my teacher, telling me I needed to focus more on properly studying. Please don¡¯t make me remember that embarrassing song poem!¡±


    As we messed around, I was actually a bit astonished in my mind. I was just casually cracking a joke, yet Astrya had reacted so seriously. I could truly sense how powerfully all unmarried women objected to being addressed as ¡°aunt¡±.


    But, when I thought about it some more, we really were rted. Did I just suddenly find a new direct rtive of mine?


    Yet, I thought about it again, and felt that the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos had created the entire world. Then, all living creatures could be called their children, so it didn¡¯t matter that much.


    [...You really don¡¯t care about it after all?]


    Inconceivably, Astrya¡¯s tone actually sounded mysteriously disappointed. Did she really want to have two nephews after all? Forget it, I decided to not think about it. It was all too messy.


    While I was messing around with the Goddess of Order in my mind, I was still busy loudly proiming the benefits of learning this mystical martial art. I even casually sent out two waves of sword energy to prove my might. And, I was astonished that someone actually wanted to buy the manual!


    Everyone else was still hesitating, but a dark dwarf didn¡¯t say a single word as he handed me a sack of soul coins. Seeing that I was hesitating, he actually handed me another sack.


    And right when he took the book from me, still without saying a single word, he turned around and ran away as if someone would be chasing after him... And then, I saw the Berserker Demon from earlier who was selling his own services get up and chase after him. After that, several more individuals swiftly went in the same direction. I could only hope that my first customer would survive to enjoy his manual.


    ¡°Ah, ptui!¡±


    I instantly retracted my well wish for him as I had once again underestimated how shameless the residents of the Chaos Abyss could be. I understood why that dark dwarf had run away so quickly. When I opened the second sack of soul coins, only a few coins with howling souls were on top, but the rest were all ordinary silver coins on bottom.


    ¡°The ckrock Tribe has good craftsmanship, but theyck top-level warriors. They¡¯re also surrounded by enemy tribes. No tribe will ever sell their own warrior training manuals, so you got a good deal. He didn¡¯t even dare to check to see if you were selling something real or fake. When he saw a Sword Saint selling his own techniques, he decided to take this gamble. You didn¡¯t lose out, because at least the first sack of soul coins was real. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I see you¡¯ve enved Hakas, I would have thought that you came here just to scam money from the dark dwarves.¡±


    An elderly Onibaba wearing a ck cape walked out from among the crowd. It seemed that she was one of the more powerful Onibabas, although I was unable to tell the Onibabas apart by physical appearance as they were all equally ugly.


    But judging from everyone¡¯s attitude towards her, she was probably one of the bosses of this market.


    ¡°I am Shweisikakatonfolodinlunkaben... My apologies, my name is rather long and difficult to remember. You can call me ¡®ck Seven¡¯. No need to address me with honorifics. No, no, there¡¯s no need to tell me your name. Both of my names are fake names. There are many Onibabas here, so anyone who says their true name will be cursed.¡±


    This Onibaba who kept talking to herself seemed rather suspicious, but she kept blinking at me as if she was trying to express her friendliness.


    ¡°Someone as old as me is being so sincere. Could a youngster like you please directly tell me your intentions? What do you want? What do you have? What are you willing to pay?¡±


    Iughed out loud when I heard this. Although I was rather disgusted that this old Onibaba had tried to use alluring magic on me just now, such a direct way of negotiation was far easier and more convenient.


    I had only set up shop to attract the attention of whoever ran this market. Since my target had arrived, I directly stood up.


    ¡°My name is Rnd. That¡¯s my real name. Feel free to try cursing me. As for my goals, let¡¯s talk somewhere else. I¡¯m filled with sincerity!¡±

 Chapter 562 - How the Chaos Abyss Conducts Business

    <h4>Chapter 562: How the Chaos Abyss Conducts Business</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    What exactly was business? My personal understanding of it was that one party would use an appropriate price to sell an appropriate product to an appropriate customer while trying to obtain the greatest possible benefits.


    In that case, since the Onibabas had their own territory and authority here in the Chaos Abyss, what product would they find irresistible?


    Weapons, the mostmonly traded product in the Chaos Abyss? Some high-quality weapons, then? The Onibabas didn¡¯t know how to smith, so maybe they would have some need of this, but actually they were quite skilled at witchcraft and alchemy, along with enchanting.


    In this specific area (where the Onibabas gathered) and at specific times (1-2 days to 1-2 months), powerful magic weapons with continuous effects were their most popr product (with most of them being fake), with endless victims ending up scammed.


    Normal magical items and equipment wouldn¡¯t even interest the Onibabas, as they wouldn¡¯tck such things.


    ves? Dream on. The Chaos Abyss would neverck for ves. Survival would be the utmost priority here. Freedom would be far too extravagant to hope for.


    Maybe you would think that I met a troublesome business opponent to deal with. It seemed as if the Onibabas didn¡¯t need orck for anything I could sell them.


    However, there was something I had which the Onibabas would absolutely find irresistible...


    ¡°Shampoo! Skincare lotion! Skincare oil to add more nutrition for your skin! Since you¡¯re all still female, I refuse to believe that you won¡¯t be interested in these beauty products!¡±


    I tossed a bunch of apparently random items in front of all the Onibabas. What they saw was various cans and bottles containing liquids that resembled fruit juice and milk beingid out in front of them. Thebels on these cans and bottles indicated their uses. These were all thetest beauty products from secret sources.


    ¡°Wait a moment, that¡¯s all my daily use makeup collection! These are all the highest-quality products that I just obtained from Amelia before we left; where am I supposed to replenish my supply down here in the Chaos Abyss!¡±


    I ignored my silly cat¡¯s pitiful wailing and unhesitatingly tossed out all of her makeup products. They were all such a waste of space in my storage bag!


    ¡°Slimes have no need for makeup. You can just change into any appearance you want! Rather than applying all this ridiculous stuff on your face, you might as well apply some sticky slime fluid instead!¡±


    ¡°I... I¡¯m going to kill you! So what if I¡¯m a cat; so what if I¡¯m a slime? Do slimes not have the right to love beauty? I also know that applying all this isn¡¯t necessary for me, but why is it that others can have what I can¡¯t!? I¡¯m also a woman, so I also want to spend my money on products that I know are clearly useless!¡±


    The silly cat was just as troublesome as always, and I felt like I was treading on dangerous ground here. I decided not to think too deeply along these lines in order to save myself from being killed by my cat.


    ¡°I do all this because it makes me happy!¡± The silly cat¡¯s reply was absolutely adamant. From a certain standpoint, the silly cat was indeed rich and could do what she wanted with her money.


    However, some issues couldn¡¯t be resolved with money alone.


    ¡°I¡¯ve had enough! My cat applies all sorts of ridiculous things on her face every day, along with cucumber facial masks! People won¡¯t think that you¡¯re crazy, but they¡¯ll think that I, as your owner, am crazy instead! I¡¯ve had enough of everyone¡¯s looks of pity! I¡¯m clearly a normal person! I¡¯m not someone who would put makeup on my own cat!¡±


    Cough, it seemed that our antics were likely going to embarrass us in front of others. I finally managed to ride on Harloys¡¯ back and conquered the silly cat by the time that the Onibaba named ck Seven started looking at the products before her with interest but without being serious.


    That was because the Onibabas being ugly and old in appearance was a racial trait that was impossible to change. All newly born Onibabas would swiftly age after birth. They had also gotten used to other species¡¯ fear and discrimination against their looks. It was inconceivable that I would attempt to sell makeup products to the Onibabas.


    No species would naturally be born loving ugliness. Their ugly appearances was simr to a type of natural curse. However, while magic could dispel curses, no magic or alchemy could change one¡¯s physical appearance. Inborn ugliness was a very part of nature. How could that ugliness possibly be dispelled?


    Whenever Onibabas went out in other dimensions, they would typically wear a fake face as most Onibabas were skilled in illusion magic. Most of the time, they would disguise themselves as young and beautiful women, which was the best indication that the Onibabas also wanted to be beautiful.


    ¡°Please go ahead and try these products for free.¡±


    ck Seven hesitated a little, but then felt that she would likely be safe on her home turf. She wiped some skincare lotion on her hand, then almost dropped the lotion bottle in astonishment.


    The ck skin and specks on her skin were now disappearing at a visible rate. All the ugly speckspletely vanished, and her arm now resembled that of a young person¡¯s. Meanwhile, the rest of her entire body was still an ugly Onibaba¡¯s, making her body seempletely abnormal.


    ¡°Let me try!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t fight, don¡¯t fight!¡±


    ¡°Mine! Mine!¡±


    Before ck Seven could even react, the door to the room we were in suddenly crashed open. Three more Onibabas simultaneously rushed in. With great excitement, they fought over the makeup in these bottles. These Onibabas who had just been spying at us andughing at how I was fighting with my cat were now all fighting amongst themselves.


    I merely sat on the sidelines and watched the show... while suppressing the silly cat¡¯s resistance.


    Indeed, being naturally born ugly was something incurable. But once technology was sufficiently advanced, even cosmetic surgery wouldn¡¯t be so difficult. And in this area, the wood spirits who were capable of regrowing lost limbs or reconstructing physical bodies were by far the most advanced in the field.


    When I woke up in this current life of mine, I discovered the wood spirits¡¯ talent in this area and made an offhandment that they would surely make a great deal of money if they went into the beauty business for women. Actually, the wood spirits had indeed gone ahead and developed into the beauty industry, creating various lotions and other products with instantaneous beautifying effects. Not only that, their scheduled cosmetic surgeries were so numerous that you would have to make a reservation three months in advance in order to get in line for a cosmetic surgery.


    Of course, such changes wouldn¡¯t be permanent. Maintaining one¡¯s new beauty would have its price. You would have to continuously use the wood spirits¡¯ products in order to maintain your newfound beauty. This made it a long-term profitable business for the wood spirits.


    Perhaps a priest of Holy Lightbined with an undead mage who was skilled at surgery would also be able to aplish the same feats as the wood spirits. However, only the wood spirit species wouldn¡¯t be limited by any belief system in doing all this on such a grand scale. Or, perhaps it should be said that only the wood spirits had thought to use their advanced technology to make money from women who loved beauty all over the world.


    When I heard that an entire 25% of the wood spirit species¡¯ ie now stemmed from their makeup and beauty products and services, bing their secondrgest ie source after their weapons industry, even far surpassing their medical and agricultural industries¡¯ iebined, I could only sigh that ¡°women in every world are always the same.¡±


    And now, the scene before me once again proved my words true. The Onibabas even engaged in melee which they viewed as vulgar and barbaric all in order to obtain these lotions.


    ¡°Cough, cough, I¡¯m still right here.¡±


    When I reminded them that I was still here, all I received in response were magic spells filled with evil intentions aimed right at me. It seemed that the Onibabas had never intended to pay me anything for my products in the first ce.


    And since the Onibabas in hiding hade out already, they naturally intended to kill me and steal my wares.


    As for the so-called concept of a long-term trade route or trust? Nobody in the Chaos Abyss would ever trust another. Any wealth that didn¡¯t have sufficient power to protect it would be nothing more than a bomb of misfortune. And if you really wanted to have a trade route, why have any middlemen? Just forcibly take out all the information necessary from the brain.


    You wanted to do business in the Chaos Abyss? Sure, but you would have to first prove that you were strong enough not to be robbed and killed.


    ¡°Hahaha. Perhaps I didn¡¯t tell you all that my younger brother is the Prince of the Chaos Abyss, and that my girlfriend (Harloys: ex-girlfriend!) is a Demon Earl...¡±


    ck Sevenughed uproariously as if I had cracked a really funny joke.


    But right now, half of her face seemed young, while half seemed old. This made her seem like something out of a horror movie.


    ¡°Heehee, you¡¯re truly amusing. Even if your sister is a Dragon Queen, or your brother is a Main God, that doesn¡¯t have anything to do with your current predicament. They¡¯re not here right now...¡±


    I felt rather helpless, and the silly cat widened her eyes in surprise. Was ck Seven actually precognitive, or was she just such an unlucky self-jinxer?


    The next moment, the entire house I was in seemed like it began to shake continuously, with all the tables and chairs bing alive and running around everywhere.


    Onibabas surrounded me from all directions. The evil magic in the air made it obvious that they were preparing some vicious voodoo magic against me.


    Something also went wrong with my ability to channel my mana. It would seem that this house was a well-prepared trap all along.


    It wasmon sense to never challenge any type of mage in their home base. And so, I snapped my fingers, transforming the entire world around me.


    We were now within the pitch-ck world of my personal Hell. In this section of Hell, we were in a ins with a circr diator arena all around us. Undead were in the stands, cheering for what was about to happen. They watched over us, desiring the blood of the living.


    ¡°Since it seems to be impossible to discuss business at your ce; perhaps my home will be a much better location for discussing business. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that I was formerly an Undead Emperor who was also on the Cmity Rankings at the time. (Harloys: you¡¯re still on the Cmity Rankings!)¡±


    The Onibabas were looking all around them in confusion. This had already surpassed their understanding of what was happening. But the next instant, when I told all of this to them, they all broke out into cold sweat as if they had just woken up from a nightmare.


    They forced themselves to remain calm on the surface, but their expressions were still filled with panic and anxiety that revealed their insecurity. It would seem that even the hermit Onibabas knew what the Cmity Rankings were.


    ¡°Since you¡¯ve all calmed down now, could you please listen to my request now? Perhaps you¡¯ll all give me a price that I¡¯m satisfied with in exchange for a safe trip back to your homes? I never force anyone to buy from me or take advantage of others, honest!¡±

 Chapter 563 - Well-known Terrible Reputation

    <h4>Chapter 563: Well-known Terrible Reputation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Onibabas¡¯ market had a well-known terrible reputation that spread far and wide. When the Sword Saint from another dimension foolishly entered the Onibabas¡¯ wooden home, everyone else in the market could only sigh.


    ¡°Welp. He hasn¡¯te out for more than twenty minutes now. I guess he¡¯ll nevere out of there at all.¡±


    ¡°What a pity. We won¡¯t be able to get anything.¡±


    That was right, they weren¡¯t pitying the Sword Saint victim, but rather the fact that they wouldn¡¯t get anything out of him. It was likely that the Onibabas would strip the Sword Saint¡¯s body of anything valuable, not leaving a single thing behind.


    However, everyone was truly astonished several minutester.


    That outsider actually walked out of the Onibabas¡¯ wooden homepletely unscathed. Not only that, he seemed to be chatting and smiling with the Onibabas.


    Not only did this outsider from the mortal ne remain uninjured, all those vicious Onibabas actually surrounded him and were obviously sucking up to him.


    Could it be that the Onibabas had changed their ways? That was obviously impossible. In that case, there was only one logical conclusion. A fight of some sort must have urred inside the wooden house, and the outsider must have achieved an absolutely crushing victory.


    Being able to defeat the evil and vicious Onibabas in their home territory meant that this outsider was likely a major personage.


    Naturally, everyone now viewed the outsider in a different light. Instead of seeing him as a fat sheep to be ughtered, they were now filled with fear of him.


    Meanwhile, I was quite satisfied with the ¡°deal¡± I had made.


    In that circr arena, with countless undead watching and cheering me on, the deal with the Onibabas naturally proceeded quite smoothly and happily... At least, I was quite happy about it.


    What exactly was that arena, you ask? Where did all the spectating undeade from? That would be a long story.


    Previously, you remember that I had an earlier fight against Conservation¡¯s undead army in my Hell, right? Back then, although my personal Hell impeded the undead army¡¯s progress, the next development made me feel rather helpless. The undead discovered that they could freely enter or exit my personal Hell¡¯s boundaries, meaning that my personal Hell became almost tactically worthless for stopping the army. In the end, I had to create an ice wall to slow down the undead.


    That had given me the inspiration for this.


    That was right. While it was possible for others to freely enter or exit my personal Hell, something I was helpless about, couldn¡¯t I simply just surround the boundaries with a wall?


    And so, I decided to create a wall. My design ns went from normal castle walls to the Great Wall of China, to even more ridiculous ns like copying sphinxes and pyramids from Egypt. In the end, I finally settled upon a circr Roman diator arena style.


    A diator arena seemed quite excellent to me. As long as I decorated it properly, it would make my personal Hell world appear just like a Soul World specially created for one on one duels. In that case, it was highly likely that most enemies I dragged in here would think that this was an inescapable Soul World, so they wouldn¡¯t even attempt to escape.


    With countless undead workers helping me out, the construction finished quite swiftly. After that, I left the undead workers behind as spectators in the arena, which would also make any unfortunate individuals locked in my arena feel more pressure and realism.


    As for where my undead workers came from? That would be a story for another time.


    Hey, my ridiculous idea was actually highly effective. When the Onibabas found themselves trapped in my arena, they almost peed themselves in fear as they were all absolutely terrible at melee fights. The rest of the business discussion concluded quite easily. As long as I gave them all the makeup products in my possession, they would let me have any of their wares that I wanted. They would also tell me the location of some teleportation portals as they weren¡¯t big secrets. They told me the location of ten portals in this level right away.


    The Onibabas did have some actual good products. At the very least, their rare and abnormal dark resources and cursed items truly surprised me.


    In fact, afterwards, the Onibabas even rmended that I start a trade route with them for long-term trading. They probably felt that as long as they could obtain those bottles with miraculous liquid from me, even if they were only being the middlemen, they could still suck other Onibabas¡¯ wallets and treasuries dry to make up for their losses to me.


    I was rather tempted by this idea. If I could really establish this trade route, it would be truly profitable for me.


    The potential profits to be had in dimensional trading were truly that outrageous. Selling a rock for the price of its weight in gold wouldn¡¯t even be anything special. Selling an ordinary vegetable for the price of a house would be far closer to the norm.


    But, when I thought about how I would have to somehow find a powerful individual to protect this trade route, traveling thousands of kilometers all the way through the levels in the Chaos Abyss, ying demons and dragons along the way, dealing with all sorts of dangers, possibly losing manypanions to death and injury along the way, all for the purpose of smuggling a certain type of white powder in jars and bottles... Cough, I was referring to makeup products, of course! Why did it seem like my joke this time fell rather t?


    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that it¡¯s far too difficult to travel around the Chaos Abyss, and that it¡¯s too troublesome to owe Amelia any favors, you probably would have instantly agreed. Who cares if you¡¯re smuggling makeup products? As long as you can make money, you don¡¯t have any shame whatsoever.¡±


    Indeed, ordinary wood spirit products would never be so effective. It was even likely that they would bepletely ineffective down in the Chaos Abyss due to having opposing properties. While I could directly obtain top-level wood spirit products by asking Amelia, the Mother Goddess of the wood spirits, I would owe her a great amount for this.


    But would it kill Harloys not to say that out loud so directly? She had to be still heartbroken about losing all her makeup. I told her already that it was meaningless for slimes to apply makeup and that it would make me seem like I was crazy. Women were so unreasonable... Ouch! Please stop biting my head!


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know that there¡¯s a certain female main character who kept biting heads and acting the role of a pet so much that she lost her sensation of being a female lead and that a dark horse female character seeded in usurping her position? Damn it, I said stop biting me! Why are you even evolving tentacles and whips!? I don¡¯t have such heavy tastes!¡±


    ¡°Milord, it¡¯s almost noontime. Would you like to eat lunch here and try our special swamp potluck?¡±


    While fighting with the silly cat on my head, I still had to deal with the Onibabas¡¯ overly sycophantic invitations. As for eating here, I decided against testing my own poison and curse resistance abilities.


    Information could sometimes be considered the most valuable product of all. But when one¡¯s life was at stake, information not personally rted to oneself would no longer be as important. The Onibabas who had ruled here for countless years indeed gave me the locations of a dozen teleportation portals. However, I didn¡¯t dare to use them so easily.


    This wasn¡¯t because I was a coward. This was the caution that any dimensional traveler would need to have. Dimensional teleportation would forever be one of the best assassination methods avable. It wouldn¡¯t even be that dangerous to be teleported into vacuum with no breathable air. Inparison, you would really cry if you found yourself teleported to the dinner table of a Chaos Main God.


    Considering how I obtained this teleportation portal information and how famous Onibabas were for holding grudges, even if there were some safe portals among all these locations, only two or three at the very most would actually be safe.


    In order to avoid having the Onibabas instantly sell the information of what I wanted to actually do here, I told them that my real goal was to go to the 102nd level of the Chaos Abyss. There was a veryrge neutral city there, one of the truly few safe locations in the Chaos Abyss, so this would be quite believable. And, this level was only two floors away from my true goal of the 100th level. ording to the Onibabas, the safest and most reliable portal near here just happened to go directly to the 101st level, a lucky urrence.


    ¡°Milord, the dark dwarves have control of the two-way teleportation portal leading to the 101st level, the Wild Cliffs. The dark dwarves directly trade mining resources and magical gems to the elemental creatures living in the 101st level. That¡¯s also why the dark dwarves here have such an advanced smithing industry and how their tribe became so powerful.¡±


    I also saw through the Onibabas¡¯ intentions with this. They were no good individuals who loved to help others...


    ¡°But, it didn¡¯t seem like the dark dwarves were doing so well here. Is it because of that powerful Bloodspear lizardmen tribe?¡±


    Lizardmen also had a terrible reputation. When they were weak, they were quite happy to be ves for other species. But when they were strong, they would treat other species as food and ves instead.


    That merchant from the Bloodspear lizardmen tribe dared to act so arrogantly already at the Onibabas¡¯ market. I highly doubted that the Onibabas be happy to see the Bloodspear tribe bing stronger and more difficult to deal with.


    Lizardmen society was quite primitive. They used weapons made of bone and worshiped totems, simr to primitive beastmen societies. The lizardmen didn¡¯t know how to make metal weapons and could only purchase them.


    The lizardmen were currently buying weapons on the market, and dark dwarves were quite renowned for smithing weapons. It was quite noticeable how the Bloodspear tribe wasn¡¯t trying to purchase from the dark dwarves. And, the fact that the dark dwarf from earlier had risked so much to purchase my martial arts books was the best evidence of how the dark dwarf tribe here was in a dangerous situation.


    Were there truly no other more appropriate teleportation portals around here? I felt that it was far more likely that the Onibabas had told me of this one intentionally, hoping that I would get involved in the tussle between the lizardmen and the dark dwarves so that the powerful Bloodspear lizardmen tribe would suffer.


    ¡°Your wisdom is as deep as the endless void. However, I can swear in the name of the magnificent Great Demon God Daar that the dark dwarves¡¯ teleportation portal is absolutely the safest teleportation level around here.¡±


    There were countless strange Evil Gods and False Gods in the Chaos Abyss. But since ck Seven was swearing an oath to the God that she worshipped, then this information was probably real.


    I shrugged. Truthfully, it didn¡¯t really matter to me either way. Every teleportation portal would be guarded by someone regardless. It would be mostly the same no matter which I went to. In the Chaos Abyss, being powerful was the only way to travel without hindrance.


    Lizardmen wouldn¡¯t be difficult for me to deal with. But since the Onibabas wanted me to do something that would help them, they would need to show me some proof of their sincerity. So, I was hesitating on what else to extort from them.


    At this moment, two Onibabas suddenly hurried over and whispered many things to ck Seven.


    I saw how ck Seven¡¯s expression constantly changed as she kept looking at me while listening to her underlings¡¯ report. Her expression went from fake sycophancy to astonishment, then to confusion and disbelief, and finally finishing with fear and despair.


    ¡°You, you, you...¡±


    ¡°What? You¡¯ve found out the information about me? Everything I told you was the truth. Why didn¡¯t you believe me?¡±


    This was exactly what I expected. No matter how famous I was in the mortal ne, the Onibabas who lived as hermits in the Chaos Abyss likely wouldn¡¯t know about me. They hadn¡¯t moved out of this level for several centuries already, so what they knew about the mortal ne would be extremely outdated.


    And since I had ¡°proved¡± my power, the Onibabas would naturally go out and obtain as much information about me as they possibly could in order to ascertain what attitude they should treat me with. Since I had told them my real name as well as the fact that my younger brother was a Chaos Main God, it would be truly pathetic if they still couldn¡¯t find any information on me.


    ck Seven was so frightened that she shrunk into herself. She knew that she had just been on the edge of death. This seemingly nice and foolish young man was actually one of the greatest viins around.


    Yongye, the only new Undead Emperor to appear in recent times. He was known as a demon king who¡¯d almost destroyed the entire mortal ne. He was an existence that not even the Gods would dare to antagonize. Just what was he doing here? If only ck Seven had known that he was Yongye, she would have given him anything he wanted so that he would leave as soon as possible!


    After a long while, the elderly Onibaba finally managed to force herself to squeeze out a few words.


    ¡°Hello, dear Emperor, it¡¯s almost lunchtime. Would you like to eat something? How about trying our special swamp potluck...¡±


    However, her words were still almost exactly the same rubbish as earlier...


    ¡®Damn, am I really that scary? I¡¯m clearly a very friendly person who¡¯s easy to get along with! I haven¡¯t been an Undead Emperor for many years already! Should I perform some Holy Light tricks for her? They¡¯re really bright and shiny!¡¯


    I did my best to maintain my sunny smile and walked forward, intending to exin just how friendly and easy to get along with I was. I was about to tell them that their information on me was outdated, but right when I took my first step...


    ¡°Ahhhh!¡±


    Onibaba ck Seven shrieked at the top of her lungs as if she had been cursed by a banshee. She immediately threw away her staff and ran at top speed, with each step being three strides long. She was as agile as a young man in the prime of youth.


    My smile froze on my face...


    My eyes started twitching when I saw how fast ck Seven was running away. Meanwhile, the other two Onibabas were trying their best to smile while backing up slowly, although it made them look more like they were crying.


    ¡°Pahaha!¡±


    I turned around, only to see the silly cat rolling around on the floor whileughing. As always, she unhesitatingly mocked me right in front of my face. I gave her full points for suicidal tendencies.


    I transformed my cat into a ball and threw her away. I then took a deep breath, maintained my friendly smile, turned around again, and...


    The formerly bustling street was nowpletely empty!


    Nobody in the Onibaba market was an idiot. They all knew just how powerful and vicious the Onibaba ck Seven was around these parts. Anyone who could scare her so much was likely even stronger than the Snake God of this dimensional level.


    How should you react when you meet a dangerous existence in the Chaos Abyss?


    Thepletely empty street was the best example of the wisest method. ck Seven showed everyone the method, and everyone else unhesitatingly copied her.


    ¡°Wait a moment, I wanted to do some shopping...¡±


    A gust of wind blew past me; not a single individual responded. Only a few chained ves remained behind, looking at me with helpless expressions.


    Ahaha, a wolfman actuallyy down on the ground and revealed his stomach while sticking out his tongue. Was this his wolf instincts, showing submission to me?


    I truly felt sad about how all the merchants on this street had run away. And so, I vented my sadness by going on a shopping spree for myself. I brought out arge sack and started collecting whatever I wanted...


    ¡°Since these merchants don¡¯t want their wares anymore, I¡¯ll be nice enough to put away their things for them...¡±


    [So shameless! This must have been your scheme from the very beginning! Even I, your System, can¡¯t watch this anymore!]

 Chapter 564 - The Second Companion to Join Roland

    <h4>Chapter 564: The Second Companion to Join Rnd</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Why do I feel like you¡¯re having more fun in the Chaos Abyss than in the mortal ne? You weren¡¯t that bored up there, were you?¡±


    ¡°I think that since I left the mortal ne, I don¡¯t have any more pressure or concerns. Every day down here, I never know what I¡¯m going to experience today. Don¡¯t you agree that this type of expectation feels just like taking a vacation...?¡±


    ¡°...Being in the Chaos Abyss feels like taking a vacation? Only you would think like that.¡±


    Although it sounded ridiculous, I indeed felt far more rxed over the past few days. I didn¡¯t need to worry or care about anything, and I could just go wherever I wanted.


    If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I still had some troublesome issues that I needed to deal with, I would probably be having the time of my life down here.


    ¡°Well, aren¡¯t you having lots of fun regardless? You intentionally leaked your own name. Did you feel that your vacation was too boring, so you wanted some people toe looking for you?¡±


    It was impossible to expect that the Onibabas would keep my name a secret. After they suffered at my hands, it was almost certain that they would try to take revenge on me somehow as the Onibabas were famous for holding grudges.


    The easiest way to take revenge on someone who was too strong to personally deal with would naturally be to notify that person¡¯s mortal enemies.


    And it seemed that I indeed had many mortal enemies in the Chaos Abyss. All of Lorci¡¯s Follower Gods (even though Lorci was long dead already) probably counted. I had also antagonized the elves to a great extent, plus I had Harloys, so Anslo, the Elf Main God who had betrayed the Order Faction and joined the Chaos Abyss, probably also hated me. Not to mention, I antagonized all those Chaos Main Gods who previously visited me in Hell... It seemed that just about all the most powerful entities in the Chaos Abyss were my mortal enemies.


    ¡°...I won¡¯t be able to finish counting all my enemies down here even if I use all my fingers and toes, so forget it. Besides, there¡¯s no mistake with treating anyone whoes for me as an enemy. Is there any ce in the Chaos Abyss that isn¡¯t hostile towards outsiders?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen so many powerful individuals choose incredibly suicidal methods for cultivation before. I can also understand that you want to be stronger as quickly as possible. But, aren¡¯t you worried at all about going overboard and getting yourself killed? This isn¡¯t the mortal ne where power levels have upper limits. If you meet a Chaos Main God who¡¯s capable of using his full power down here, it should be quite difficult for even you to escape alive.¡±


    I shook my head at this. If it was only a single Chaos Main God, I actually wouldn¡¯t be that afraid. I had plenty of aces up my sleeve. Even if I couldn¡¯t win in a fight, I would at least be able to escape.


    And even in the worst-case scenario, I had my bug-like personal world of Hell with a Main God level existence trapped inside. I could pull any other existence into it for a fight that would likely end in defeat for all sides.


    I doubted that two Chaos Main Gods would simultaneouslye looking for me. That was giving me far too much worth. I wasn¡¯t that valuable...


    But right as I told that to Harloys, I suddenly felt like perhaps I was subtly jinxing myself yet again.


    ¡°Did I just jinx myself again? I have such an ominous premonition...¡±


    ¡°The young are so reckless. Let the tumbleweeds blow past.¡±


    I was seriously trying to think about which enemies would give me serious trouble, while Harloys was insulting me whileughing on my shoulder.


    ¡°You two! Could you please be more serious! We¡¯re in a battle!¡±


    Hakas¡¯s angry roar came from in front of us while I walked casually behind with the ck cat. Even though we were currently on a battlefield, I felt zero interest in the battle due to how low-level the opponents were.


    I was currently trespassing on the outskirts of the Bloodspear lizardmen tribe¡¯s territory. However, there weren¡¯t even any lizardmen here. Instead, there were some enved Inferno Dogmen standing here as the border guards.


    These weak little things supposedly had a dragon bloodline. As they were demonized, they could also cast some magic spells. Witch doctors and warlocks were far moremon among the Inferno Dogmenpared to humans. However, even though they had a good species bloodline, Inferno Dogmen forever remained as ves to other species. This was mainly because of one of their racial traits...


    ¡°Get out of my sight, worms!¡±


    The ck dragon Hakas was an eptable cannon fodder¡ª er, I meant contracted fighter. A single angry roar from Hakas was enough to send the Inferno Dogmen scattering everywhere and barking in fear.


    The sword and shield wielding Inferno Dogmen clutched their heads while running away. Some crossbow-wielding marksmen threw away their weapons in order to run away faster. The Inferno Dogmen warlocks ran faster than anyone.


    Some of them tripped over and fell on the ground, copsing while frothing at their mouths or showing their eyes¡¯ whites. This wasn¡¯t because Hakas did anything to them. These Inferno Dogmen had simply fainted or even died due to extreme terror.


    The Inferno Dogmen were on average less than 1.2 meters tall. They were quite vicious warriors in any fight which they were winning, and also quite skilled in setting traps and ambushes. However, they suffered from a racial trait of extreme cowardice. Any time that they came across an enemy stronger than them, if only two of their Inferno Dogmen acting as tanks were defeated, it was likely that the entire Inferno Dogmen tribe would instantly lose all morale and hope.


    And since the Inferno Dogmen had a minor amount of dragon blood in them, their bloodline would even be suppressed when faced with a true dragon. Hakas simply had to release some draconic might, and the already cowardly Inferno Dogmen army immediately saw their morale fall down to zero. The Inferno Dogmen all started running away without Hakas doing anything else at all.


    ¡°This level of weak opponent is probably too useless to even grind Fate Points.¡±


    [You obtained a glorious victory that has given you 10,000 Fate Points... Did you think I would say something like that? Even if you kill every single Inferno Dogman here, you wouldn¡¯t even obtain 10 Fate Points! Try harder against more difficult opponents.]


    ¡°Tsk, the Chaos Abyss is too random.¡±


    The Chaos Abyss waspletely unlike video games where you would only encounter monsters of a set level in each area. The level of enemy you encountered depended entirely on your luck. It was quitemon that an Evil God would live in the same area as the weakest Inferno Dogmen. How long you could survive often didn¡¯t depend on how powerful you were, but instead on how lucky you were.


    Right now, I really needed to grind Fate Points andbat experience. Rather than trying my luck at meeting strong enemies, I felt that it would be far faster to toss my name out there so that strong enemies would automaticallye to me.


    That was why I robbed¡ª er, I mean, I had some friendly negotiations with the Onibabas and left them alive. I then left right after (together with a bunch of the Onibabas¡¯ items. Was I supposed to wait around there for others to rob me?), and now I intended to go have a friendly negotiation with the dark dwarves to see if I could borrow their teleportation portal.


    But what happened was that right after I set out, before I even got close to the dark dwarves¡¯ territory, thisrge group of Inferno Dogmen kept barking while rushing at me.


    And then I released my pet dragon, and then the Inferno Dogmen were all defeated, and then I obtained a glorious victory, and then my System told me that I would barely receive any points...


    ¡°They¡¯re only the outside ring of scouts. We¡¯ve already been discovered. It seems that the Bloodspear lizardmen tribe wants to make their move against the dark dwarves since they¡¯ve sealed the canyon path that leads to the dark dwarves¡¯ territory.¡±


    Perhaps the news that the dark dwarves obtained a ¡°Sword Saint¡¯s powerful martial arts technique¡± was the straw that broke the camel¡¯s back. Or maybe the lizardmen tribe had finished their preparations and the time was simply ripe. It seemed that the Bloodspear lizardmen tribe wouldn¡¯t simply wait around anymore. They sent out their cannon fodder subordinate ves as scouts on the outskirts. It was likely that the lizardmen and dark dwarves were already at war inside.


    Hakas was about to kill all the Inferno Dogmen with some dragonbreath when I stopped him. These weak creatures that were only slightly demonized were quite appropriate experimental subjects for one of my new powers.


    ¡°Awaken, Light of Salvation.¡±


    ..............


    Rnd had already gotten ustomed to this swamp, and was looking for the teleportation portal leading downwards. But, unbeknownst to him, a beautiful creature had just arrived, and was now struggling in this swamp.


    ¡°My beautiful scales that resemble me itself! Rnd!! You¡¯re going to pay for all my cleaning costs, lost sry costs, and haircare costs... Which means that you owe me a minimum of three months¡¯ worth of alcohol!¡±


    In the end, all of Little Red¡¯sints changed to the topic of alcohol. Back when she was still adventuring together with Rnd, the alcoholic Little Red had always vented her displeasure in this exact same way. Perhaps, the main reason why she was one of the extremely few red dragons who were friendly to other species was because other species were far more skilled than she was at alcohol production.


    However, this Immemorial Red Dragon currently had a rather wretched appearance. Her head was barely staying afloat in a swamp, herrge wings were stuck in the trees, and her perfectly clean nails (ws) werepletely soaked in mud.


    Little Red didn¡¯t enter the Chaos Abyss through the random teleportation portal currently being controlled by the wood spirits. Dragons were naturally skilled at dimensional teleportation, so it was possible for her to arrive in the level she wanted as long as she knew which level to go to.


    However, she was truly unlucky when she¡¯d arrived here. A requirement of dimensional teleportation was that you could only teleport while in your true form. Since Little Red was teleporting herself in dragon form, it was impossible for her to die from the fall, so she teleported herself to some coordinates that would be high in the sky. However, she just happened to teleport herself into the middle of an explosive dark cloud.


    And then, her magic spell became the catalyst to activate all the lightning in that cloud...


    A powerful electric storm instantly attacked her furiously with all sorts of chain lightning attacks. Little Red was instantly paralyzed by all the electricity.


    She was scorched almost to the extent of bing cooked dragon meat. And so, the red dragon twitched all over in paralysis while falling straight out of the sky and into the swamp, covering her entire body in mud. It was as if the red dragon had transformed into a ck dragon. No wonder Little Red was so furious, for she had always loved to be clean.


    However, the very fact that she had been able to survive the thunder cloud was the best evidence of how powerful she was. The lightning here was far stronger than the one in the mortal ne.


    The explosive lightning here represented the rage of the Chaos Abyss. For any normal dimensional level, the power of nature itself would naturally be impossible to directly fight against.


    ¡°Damned Rnd, it¡¯s all your fault that my nails are filled with mud...¡±


    Even though she keptining out loud, her lips were arching upwards without her realizing it. Perhaps she was smiling because thest adventure which suddenly ended due to a certain ident had now mysteriously begun again.


    Certain gears of time which had stopped for so long were now beginning to turn again. Perhaps this adventure would have a much better ending.

 Chapter 565 - Light of Salvation

    <h4>Chapter 565: Light of Salvation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The battle against the inferno dogmen had ended, but my experiment was just beginning.


    A pure Holy Light formed a ball in my hand. I lifted my hand and had the ball of Holy Light float in midair.


    ¡°Light of Salvation.¡±


    A pure and gentle Holy Light began illuminating everything from this ball. The aura of the Chaos Abyss was dispelled, while the inferno dogmen who had been corrupted by the Chaos Abyss were pitifully whimpering while rolling around on the ground.


    Pure Holy Light was a power of Order. While Holy Light was healing for ordinary creatures, it would be nothing but poison to demons, undead, and creatures of the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°A Holy Knight!¡±


    When I summoned Holy Light, the most astonished person was my panion¡± Hakas. He¡¯d never expected that this bastard who was sly enough to have such an easy time in the Chaos Abyss would actually turn out to be a Holy Knight, typically known for piousness and being overly traditional.


    This bastard who enved him had killed so many people (demons) already without even blinking an eye. Not only that, he constantly scammed and extorted others. Now it turned out that he was actually a Holy Knight with powers of Holy Light? He had yet to be fallen even after behaving so ridiculously?


    ¡°Has the God of Holy Light gone blind...?¡±


    It would seem that Hakas, who was a hermit that never left the Chaos Abyss, only knew about older history. Neither he nor the Onibabas knew anything about the current Southern Sect and the existence of a new type of Holy Light.


    ¡°There¡¯s no need to burn all these inferno dogmen to death with Holy Light, is there? This Holy Knight is even more vicious than us ck dragons...¡±


    But, the next scene absolutely astounded Hakas as he saw something which should have been impossible.


    Those inferno dogmen who were rolling around in pain weren¡¯t vaporized into dust as he¡¯d expected. Some timeter, the inferno dogmen actually got up on their feet again. Not only that, the Holy Light was actually healing their injuries that the Holy Light had just caused!


    Hakas took a closer look and noticed that something seemed to be off. The Inferno dogmen hadpletely lost all signs of being demonized. Their single horns and dirty scales appeared as if they had been washedpletely clean. They now had scales and skin as if they werepletely ordinary dogmen.


    ¡°What? They were returned to being ordinary dogmen! How is this possible!?¡±


    This seemed absolutely inconceivable to the ck dragon, yet the facts were right in front of him.


    Everyone had heard of people or species bing demonized. However, nobody had ever heard of any demonized person or species returning to normal. Holy Knights and priests often shouted about ¡°cleansing the souls of evil creatures¡±, but this wasn¡¯t what they meant. They meant that Holy Light should be used to directly vaporize evil creatures¡¯ bodies, which would give freedom to their souls.


    For Hakas, this was as inconceivable, just as if he had just witnessed a Dracon leaving behind his bloodline and naturally transforming into a true dragon.


    Meanwhile, I was highly satisfied with the result of my experiment.


    ¡°...I¡¯m truly lucky to have met such a perfect experimental subject. Inferno dogmen are weak and they¡¯re only slightly demonized. Otherwise, the Concept of the ¡®Light of Salvation¡¯ wouldn¡¯t have been so effective.¡±


    The Light of Salvation was Holy Light, but it was also different from Holy Light. To understand the foundational reason behind this, I would first have to go back to the battle of Hell.


    Death, Holy Light, Law, and Ice were the four major elements that created the entire dimension of Hell. And as Hell gradually matured, its Four Pirs started evolving. Four brand-new powers were produced as a result.


    From a certain standpoint, this was the same as the mortal ne with the four major elements of wind, water, fire, and earth. Ice was originally an extension of the concept of water. Thunder was an extension of wind. Various concepts such as swamp and magma were all a part of the earth element.


    Although it might seem inconceivable, it would be quite easy to understand if you changed your way of thinking.


    The original elements created the ne. But as the ne kept maturing, the ne¡¯s evolution started affecting the foundational elements, changing the elements so that they would be more appropriate for the ne itself. Gradually, simr but alsopletely different elemental powers would be produced.


    Another way of putting it was that the power of the elements would be affected by the individuality of the ne.


    This type of elemental evolution already had precedents. The power of Death had evolved into the new power of Hell. Hell magic was abination of the old Death and Law type magic. All sorts of powerful new spells and Law Incantations were being researched.


    So, the Holy Light within thend of Hell would naturally also evolve.


    ¡°This is the Light of Salvation...¡±


    This new light was far gentlerpared to the original Holy Light. Formerly, Holy Light¡¯s main Concept was ¡°Cleansing¡±, which was the forceful erasure of anything that didn¡¯t adhere to Order. Now, the Light of Salvation represented ¡°Fixing¡± and ¡°Undoing¡±, meaning that it could fix or undo anything irregr that had been corrupted by Chaos.


    The Holy Light Envoys of the Southern Sect used Estrada, the ¡°Lord of Dawn¡± Pir God, as their automated divine server. Thus, their Holy Light started to gradually change as well. Actualbat data showed that this new type of Holy Light was offensively much weaker than before. Its attack power was much weaker against the undead and demons. However, this new Holy Light had many more miraculous uses.


    Someone discovered identally that a half-undead woman, who had been infected by an Undead Cmity, that was about to be ¡°cleansed¡± had instead somehow been restored to being fully living by the Holy Light instead. That woman¡¯s half-undead transformed portions all returned to being living flesh.


    That would have still been understandable if she had been a powerful individual. However, that woman had only been a normal farmer¡¯s wife. So, from that point on, this new Pure Holy Light caught the attention of countless Holy Light job ss members.


    Perhaps it was due to this miraculous salvation that this new Holy Light became known as the Light of Salvation.


    ¡°The golden Pir of Holy Light guides all souls in Hell. All souls shall atone in the Infernos of Hell for their sins. No matter where in Hell they are, all souls shall be able to see the Pir of Holy Light above them so that they may desire the chance to enter the Cycle of Reincarnation again.¡±


    Perhaps this was all due to the new Hell God Estrada¡¯s different understanding of Holy Light. Or perhaps this was all due to how Holy Light was supposed to represent salvation in Hell to begin with. Regardless, that was how Holy Light obtained the miraculous qualities of the Light of Salvation...


    ¡°The Light of Salvation¡¯s attack power against undead and demons is only about half as powerful. It¡¯s also rather slow-acting. If I had used an equal amount of regr Holy Light, these inferno dogmen would have all been ignited to death instead of rolling around in pain. However, this type of new Holy Light that gradually invades the enemy and weakens them might actually be stronger against the more powerful individuals.¡±


    Through experimentation, I had confirmed that this Light of Salvation was much weaker than the original Holy Light. However, its ¡°weakening¡± actually meant that it could be cast with much longer range. Its prative properties and corrosion towards Chaos made it highly suitable for battles of attrition. Perhaps the Light of Salvation wouldn¡¯t be capable of instantly igniting an undead or demon, but it could gradually weaken them and forever strip them of their demonized strength!


    ¡°If we have to fight against a Demon God, this Light of Salvation will be far more useful than a Holy Light attack that the Demon God only needs to defend from once. I don¡¯tck powerful weapons. For me, the Light of Salvation is a better tool than Holy Light.¡±


    Not only that, the Light of Salvation also had a powerful effect against the undead that really appealed to me.


    Undead were typically obsessive about something. Stubbornness or a grudge would be their motivation that kept them alive even after death. The corrosion of negative energy would make an undead be more and more insane and a loner. Painful memories of the past would only make an undead sink into endless pain and hatred, making them desire the flesh and blood of the living out of jealousy.


    Negative energy powered every undead body. Any undead who was illuminated by Holy Light would either be instantly destroyed or became absolutely infuriated.


    But if an undead was instead illuminated by the Light of Salvation, which had the Concept of guiding the dead souls of Hell, not only would that undead be weakened, the Light of Salvation would also gradually eliminate the negative effects of negative energy on the undead¡¯s personality! This would help the undead to return to having logic and reason like when they were still living! They would be just like the natural undead.


    Many towers producing the Light of Salvation were erected at the battlegrounds in the Bardi Empire against the undead. When these towers shone the Light of Salvation from a great distance on the undead armies, the undead actually started feeling fatigue, aversion to war, and other such qualities that were almost impossible to see in normal undead. Naturally, this made the undead armies far less dangerous.


    ¡°So in summary, being illuminated by light will cure mental illnesses?¡±


    ¡°Although that¡¯s a rather awkward description, that¡¯s indeed correct.¡±


    ¡°I finally know why you chose this Concept now! Your insanity can be cured! You must take your own medicine! You need this light illumination cure right away!¡±


    ¡°...I think that I need to prepare a full-service 48-hour light illumination cure for my cat.¡±


    And when I finished ascertaining the effects of the Light of Salvation, I felt that perhaps I had finished the preparations needed for the creation of my first magic sword.

 Chapter 566 - Balls on Top

    <h4>Chapter 566: Balls on Top</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    At this moment, the battle sunk into a lull. Balls of Holy Light floated on top of my head, giving this bloody battlefield more of a ritualistic feeling. The Holy Light illuminated my face, making me appear serious and divine.


    Yet, I was currently talking about something that made others feel helpless.


    ¡°I finally understand why archmages enjoy having a few balls floating on top of their head.¡±


    ¡°Easy to attack with? Or as energy storage?¡±


    ¡°You need to constantly spend mana to maintain those balls, so rather than calling them energy storage, they¡¯re a constant energy expenditure. As for being easy to attack with? That¡¯s also ridiculous. If you leave something with such high power on top of your head, not only do you need to concentrate all the time, you also need to prevent enemies from using techniques to explode them, turning it against you. It would be hrious if someone was exploded and killed by their own energy balls.¡±


    ¡°Then why do so many archmages like having balls hover over them?¡±


    Harloys didn¡¯t really understand. Although she didn¡¯t personally have this habit, she knew many elf archmages who had the habit of constantly having some energy balls float around their head. And when she asked them about it, they would only smile mysteriously and not answer.


    Iughed out loud and looked off into the distance while sighing dramatically, giving off an expression of mysteriousness...


    ¡°Of course it¡¯s for the sake of... acting pretentious. Don¡¯t you think that it looks really cool and amazing to have some balls floating around your head?¡±


    Yep, indeed. Based on my many years of research, the majority of mages who kept some energy balls floating around their head were actually using the balls as an excuse to show off their power level and act cool.


    Robes and staves were equipment and weapons, so of course they would focus on functionality the most. The ssical designs for such items were already set. There wasn¡¯t much more that could be decorated on robes or staves that hadn¡¯t been thought of before. Then, how could a mage seem different from every other mage?


    How about having some energy balls float over your head then? Back in the day, I knew an archmage who constantly kept ten fireballs around his head, more than enough for a game of pool. I was kind of worried when someone would knock all his balls into the pockets and make him die in an explosion.


    What? You¡¯re asking me if I had ever been so pretentious before? Impossible, my pathetic control over the elements meant that I waspletely incapable of creating energy balls. They would always explode on me before I could finish creating them... Cough, cough, maybe I just revealed too much here. Hey, all youths would suffer from chuunibyou at some time; the more important part was what one could learn while in their chuunibyou period.


    What I learned from this was...


    ¡°Back when I was studying at the Mage Country, I once had this business n. I used alchemy to create a magical tool that could maintain a few automatically hovering balls, and then sell this tool to mage acolytes who were incapable of maintaining floating energy balls. You could even pick what color ball you wanted...¡±


    Harloys was absolutely astonished. How could Rnd possibly be so shameless? But since this product had never been sold before, it seemed that likely nobody wanted to buy it.


    ¡°Ha, of course people would buy it? I simply walked around the market with two floating balls and received several hundred orders. Not only did acolytes want my tool, there were even many mid-level and high-level mages. It would seem that everyone was jealous of how cool the archmages seemed when they floated balls around.¡±


    Harloys was rather confused now. She had never seen such a product in the Mage Kingdom before.


    ¡°...But on that very same night, I received a dozen death threats that if I dared to sell my product, I would fail in my sses / be expelled / be killed / be fed to the dogs and so on. Those bastard archmages dared to monopolize their energy balls!¡±


    Only archmages were allowed to y with energy balls, not acolytes? Harloys felt her entire worldview being refreshed. Those archmages really knew how to y around.


    But now, due to my outstanding ability in Holy Light, I could finally have my image as an archmage with numerous balls floating over my head!


    ¡°...Archmages wouldn¡¯t know how to use Holy Light...¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s retorts really made me want to beat her up as always. Why hadn¡¯t she been beaten to death before? Oh, she had already died once.


    I summoned a mirror of ice and took a look at myself. Indeed, the Holy Light balls floating above me were different from what I imagined. I looked far more like a Holy Light job ss member rather than an archmage. However, I then had a sudden sh of inspiration.


    ¡°Come, Light of Salvation.¡±


    Two, three, four, and then five balls of light on my head formed a fork shape on top of my head. The Holy Light illuminating my calm face made me appear incredibly divine and solemn.


    ¡°Amitabha, my Ri Divine Palm technique is nowplete. Check out the ninth technique, Ten Thousand Buddhas Greeting the Emperor... Go!¡±


    Countless beams of Holy Light instantly illuminated everything. Anything that was demonized was cleansed and undone. This portion ofnd in the Chaos Abyss was actually lit up so much that it resembled the heavens.


    ¡°Ahhh!¡±


    Not only were all the remaining inferno dogmen being swiftly cleansed as they writhed in pain, even the corruptednd of the Chaos Abyss itself was being cleansed. Perhaps this method of using the Light of Salvation was indeed correct.


    Traditional Holy Light would be used like a sword, cutting down all Chaos in its path. However, this style was unsuitable for the Light of Salvation as its greatest weakness was theck of attack power.


    However, its prative properties made it quite suitable as a power to constantly weaken the enemy with.


    In order to further demonstrate this possibility, I had the five balls of light follow me as I walked along.


    The lizardmen and inferno dogmen around me were blinded, and then started rolling around on the floor in pain from this light.


    It would be impossible for any species living in the Chaos Abyss to escape being demonized. Compared to lizardmen on the surface, the Bloodspear tribe¡¯s lizardmen had bloodshot eyes and far more violent tempers. They also had some demonic patches on their skin as a result of living in the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, don¡¯t look at me like that, I¡¯m helping to heal all of you.¡±


    Soon, I found another advantage of the Light of Salvation¡ªit was highly energy efficient.


    Even a Saint-ranked Holy Knight would have limits on how much Holy Light he could use, especially in a hellish location like the Chaos Abyss. Energy consumption would more than double down here. However, I discovered that maintaining these five balls of Holy Light was actually quite easy for me.


    ¡°Although its power is lower, the energy consumption is also lower? Could these be the legendary... energy-saving lights!?¡±


    And so, I thought of a new way to y with them.


    ¡°War Angel form!¡±


    Snow-white wings sprouted from my back. Pure Holy Light flowed all through me and directly emanated from my body. This transformation ability that I hadn¡¯t used for so long was finally shown off again. I transformed into an ancient War Angel... and then I summoned another five balls of Holy Light!


    ¡°Look, twice the number of buddhas!¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no saving you!¡±


    Meanwhile, ck dragon Hakas silently flew a few kilometers away. He was still bound by his ve contract and was unable to stray too far away from Rnd. Still, the Holy Light made him feel rather ufortable as he was also partly demonized.


    As for the fact that Rnd just revealed his angel form, Hakas could only sigh that the God of Holy Light had be ridiculously blind to allow such a clearly vicious and evil individual to somehow be an angel. However, Hakas couldn¡¯t do anything about it.


    I could now fly around the Chaos Abyss as if I was in the heavens. No matter where the demons or magical creatures hid, they would automatically start howling in pain ande out on their own while rolling on the floor in pain. I could simply defeat everything without even needing to lift a finger. This actually felt surprisingly nice.


    ¡°Ahhh, damned light! Which bastard hurt the magnificent Fistanley! I¡¯m going to tear him apart!¡±


    Alright, maybe I was getting happy too soon. It would seem that I attracted the attention of a more powerful monster.


    His voice reached me before I even saw him. With how the ground was shaking, it seemed that he was reallyrge.


    Thirty secondster, I saw the same Berserker Demon from the Onibaba market. He was evenrger than before. It would seem that the pain from the Holy Light made him go into his berserk form.


    Berserker Demons weren¡¯t a particrly high-level species. However, each individual demon¡¯s personal level was impossible to measure by the species¡¯ standard. Only the demon himself would know about their own evolution. Since this Berserker Demon had survived so long despite being a low-level cannon fodder species with obviously low intelligence, his power level was probably decent.


    ¡°...I should add a word of advice to my guidebook on the Light of Salvation. Using it in certain locations could be suicidal, especially if you¡¯re in the Chaos Abyss or a Death ne!¡±


    Judging by how much that Berserker Demon had erged by, this was no different from activating a mega taunt ability.


    As for me, I was pleasantly surprised. I had just been feeling like I didn¡¯t have any decently strong demons as an experimental subject, and now one came right up to me. It seemed that I was quite lucky down here in the Chaos Abyss.


    The furious Berserker Demon finally discovered the source of the light. He instantly jumped over a distance of several dozen meters with only a single jump. It seemed that the Berserker Demons¡¯ famous charging jump attack was just as powerful as rumored.


    ¡°He has some nice physical strength.¡±


    The impact of the Berserker Demon¡¯snding created a tornado. Yet, to Fistanley¡¯s surprise, his strength and shock wave that matched a giant¡¯s was actually easily blocked by the tiny human before him. No matter how much brute force Fistanley tried to use, he was still unable to make his arm budge.


    An ordinary demon would have realized that something was wrong with the situation. However, a Berserker Demon whose attack was impeded would only be more berserk. This Berserker Demon¡¯s body suddenly expanded yet again as he increased his Strength stat by more than 50%.


    ¡°Ohhh, it looks like he took the ¡®berserk muscle¡¯ evolution path.¡±


    Berserker Demons had three famous natural talents¡ªself-destruction, berserk muscle, and stink nds. No Berserker Demon with even the slightest shred of intelligence would go focus on self-destruction. Stink nds allowed the Berserker Demon¡¯s sweat to be a vicious biological weapon, making its enemies feel like vomiting during meleebat. Stink nd specialty Berserker Demons were like the skunks of the battlefield, stinking up everywhere that they went. Self-destruction and stink nds were the reason why Berserker Demons made for excellent cannon fodder.


    Meanwhile, the berserk muscle talent allowed Berserker Demons to increase their blood flow and power up their muscles if they were injured or in a berserk state. This would numb their sense of pain, but it would also have the side effect of lowering their already low intelligence... And judging from how this Berserker Demon had grown so muchrger now, his berserk muscle cultivation was quite high.


    Also judging from how he was now showing nothing but eyes¡¯ whites, his current intelligence level was probably lower than that of a dog.


    His fearsome brute strength could easily tear apart any metal weapon, st through any castle wall, or rip a demon to pieces. Berserker Demons had some of the highest attack power on any battlefield. But as for me, I was actually quite delighted to see how strong he was.


    ¡°Such a strong experimental subject. That means I can y more with him.¡±


    I spread my wings and gathered light behind my back. A powerful Holy Light began to prate through his muscles and dispel his demonized power.


    My five balls of Holy Light connected with each other, creating a blinding pir of light that seemed to light up the entire world.


    ¡°Gaahhhhh!¡±


    But unlike the inferno dogmen, the Berserker Demon was actually ignited instantly!


    Thick holy mes burned on his body. The Berserker Demon howled in pain through all this golden fire. His flesh, blood, and demonized power were all being cleansed and destroyed.


    He wouldn¡¯t be able to survive if this continued.


    ¡°It would seem that cleansing a pure-blooded demon of the Chaos Abyss will be impossible. I suppose that makes sense as they¡¯re fully demonized products of the Chaos Abyss itself. If their demonization is dispelled, there won¡¯t be anything left of them.¡±


    *Snap!*


    I snapped my fingers and turned off four of my five Holy Light balls, greatly weakening the effect. It would be far too much of a pity to kill off such a strong experimental subject so quickly.


    ¡°Heeheehee, let me think, should I first cut him up? Or dissect him first?¡±

 Chapter 567 - Vicious Dragon

    <h4>Chapter 567: Vicious Dragon</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Dark dwarves were also known as the Dark Soya Dwarves. They weren¡¯t natives of the Chaos Abyss, and they had a poor reputation in the other nes.


    As dwarves were one of the most ancient species, these descendants of the Titans had just as many subspecies as the elves. Since the entire dwarf species had countless subspecies, they naturally had their own unique dwarven culture.


    While elves specialized in art and magic, the dwarves were outstanding in brewing alcohol, smithing, digging, and sculpting. As the children of the earth, dwarves would be born naturally skilled in mining, smithing, and construction.


    In most dwarven societies, no matter what subspecies of dwarf they were, no matter if the dwarf was amoner or the tribe leader, that dwarf would at least have one outstanding talent. If an adult dwarf was incapable of wielding a hammer to support himself, then he would be unable to survive in his own tribe.


    Most dwarven leaders and grandmasters were admired by their own tribes for their outstanding products rather thanbat abilities. Dwarves were a tribe that often produced grandmasters.


    However, there would always be exceptions. The Dark Soya Dwarves were an exception amongst the dwarves. They didn¡¯t excel at creating any type of product or equipment. Instead, they excelled at using their hammers and axes to kill their enemies. In their species, apart from very few smiths who made their weapons, their entire tribe would be warriors.


    In ordinary situations, dwarf tribes were capable fighters, but they weren¡¯t a species that enjoyed warfare. The foundational difference between dark dwarves and other dwarves was that dark dwarves lived for warfare.


    Dark dwarves typically acted as mercenaries for other dwarf species that fought amongst themselves. After several hundred years of dwarven warfare, the dark dwarves also formed their own culture. However, they were unable to get ustomed to the era of peace that came after the dwarves¡¯ internal conflicts finally stopped. The dark dwarves even constantly provoked other dwarves, which ended up in the entire dwarf species rejecting the dark dwarves.


    The dark dwarves were highly militaristic and had a culture based on attacking and invading others. They were pure warmongers who could never get used to peace. It was only natural that they would end up migrating to another dimension like the Chaos Abyss.


    In the mortal ne, the dark dwarves had strong bodies and outstanding dwarven weapons that helped them to win far more than they lost. But in the Chaos Abyss, demons and mages weremon everywhere. The dark dwarves were no longer considered strong here.


    And now, this dark dwarf tribe, which had a ck hammer intersecting with a war axe on their g, was being targeted by the Bloodspear lizardmen tribe.


    After passing through the inferno dogmen¡¯s defense line, I turned off my Holy Light in order not to attract too much attention. I stood on some high ground and saw a ck fortress and its walls.


    This fortress was quite simple and crude, but also highly sturdy. It was crafted entirely out of cube and cuboid stones. Even though the dwarves were known for practicality over looks, this was still quite rare with this fortress focused on only one purpose. Judging from the tree bark obstacles and sharpened wooden spears, these walls and defensive preparations had only been established recently. This also meant that this fortress was fully at war.


    I couldn¡¯t see any lizardmen outside surrounding the fortress. However, not far away, I saw lizardmen boldly standing guard at a scouting post. The lizardmen were making it quite obvious that they were targeting this fortress. Their arrogance made many things obvious.


    Nobody would enjoy the sight of enemy scouts boldly standing in front of them. Since these lizardmen scouts hadn¡¯t been eliminated, it was likely that the dark dwarves were unable to leave their fortress. If that was how bad the situation was, it was quite understandable why that dark dwarf had been so desperate to purchase my martial arts techniques.


    I looked around and found the lizardmen¡¯s main position. They were indeed quite sly as they didn¡¯t intend to use a direct attack against the fortress. I saw seven to eight groups of scouts, along with an equal number of lizardmen groups in hiding, waiting to ambush. The lizardmen mainly set ambushes along the main road, obviously intending to attack any dwarves or caravans that dared set out from the fortress.


    There were a few patches of dwarven farnd outside the fortress, but no dwarves could be seen tending to their farnd. Since the dwarves were in such a poor situation already, the Bloodspear lizardmen likely only needed to wait for the dwarves to run out of food. At that point, the dwarves would be forced out of their well-defended fortress if they didn¡¯t want to starve to death.


    ¡°No, you forgot about the dark dwarves¡¯ teleportation portal. The dark dwarves can probably trade for food from another level, so they should be able to hold out.¡±


    ¡°Maybe the lizardmen don¡¯t know about the dark dwarves¡¯ teleportation portal. The lizardmen will probably run out of patience sooner orter...¡±


    ¡°Then, this will depend on how many reinforcements and preparations the dark dwarves can muster by the time the lizardmen attack.¡±


    Harloys and I were both veterans. We slightly went over the current situation and made an analysis that was likely close to the truth.


    And so, I was no longer in a hurry. Since this situation was quite obvious, the dark dwarves would be more and more anxious as time went on. I would then be able to ess their teleportation portal for a nice, cheap price.


    However, what Rnd didn¡¯t know was that a certain someone had the exact same idea as he did on the lizardmen¡¯s side. However, she was currently talking to the dark dwarves¡¯ mortal enemies.


    ¡°You three. Go help the dark dwarves. Remember to extort some more protection money from them for me.¡±


    The gigantic vicious dragon was asrge as half a mountain. Three adult ck dragons were currently kneeling down before her.


    Although these adult dragons were about ten meters long each, they seemed like young children in front of this vicious red dragon.


    These three ck dragons were all seriously injured. One had its tail cut off, one had only a single eye remaining, and one was missing half a wing and was no longer able to fly.


    Judging from the fresh blood on that vicious red dragon¡¯s ws, it was quite obvious who had injured these ck dragons.


    Right now, these victims could only listen obediently. However, the one-eyed dragon asked a question. ¡°Um, Your Ladyship, didn¡¯t you have your eyes on the Bloodspear tribe¡¯s greatest treasure? Why do you want us to help the dark dwarves?¡±


    ¡°Tsk, so idiotic. You don¡¯t even understand this much? I guess you¡¯re all just hick dragons after all?¡±


    The outsider red dragon yawned and looked down upon the rural native dragons. She then elegantly yawned while spitting out a burst of fire which sent the ck dragons running for their lives.


    ¡°You should learn from me. This is a great survival technique for us dragons. If I try to forcefully rob them, it¡¯s easy to meet with unexpected circumstances as well as miss something valuable. It¡¯s far better to make the other party voluntarily give me their treasure. Ha, you don¡¯t believe me?¡±


    The three dragons kept nodding in agreement with her. Although they only recently became acquainted with this red dragon, they already knew that she was an absolute tyrant. Anything she said wasw.


    The great red dragon seemed to be quite satisfied with the three ck dragons¡¯ respect, so she continued speaking. ¡°If the dark dwarves don¡¯t seem to be a bit stronger, my helping the lizardmen won¡¯t seem as valuable. And, who knows what other great treasures they might have hidden? I¡¯ll never know unless I force them both to the brink. In our line of work, we eat both the intiff and the defendant... Cough, it¡¯s quite normal to rob from both the lizardmen and the dark dwarves. You¡¯d better work your hardest for me. Not only do you need to extort everything of value from the dark dwarves, the three of you are going to pretend to fight me on the battlefield. I¡¯ll go easy on you all. When it looks like I might actually lose, those idiotic lizardmen will also bring out more valuable treasures.¡±


    The elegant Dragon Queen exined her evil n. These ck dragons that had been beaten by the red dragon felt like they had truly learned much from her. They felt like their past dragon lives had truly been too simple. They only knew basic scams and extortion for protection money, which seemed now like such an insult to their species¡¯ reputation as vicious dragons.


    ¡°As expected of Lady Ein Mezus! As expected of the famous Belon¡¯s Cmity!¡±


    Alright, this evil red dragon could naturally only be Little Red the Dragon Queen. These dirty tactics and seemingly correct twisted logic were the same as a certain Rnd¡¯s.


    ¡°Ha, you should all learn from me. Outright robbery is so inelegant. It¡¯s the most unbing act possible. In this generation, wisdom and intelligence are the most important. You all had better use your brains and do your best to put on an act. Watch how I extort everything out from both sides!¡±


    Now that Little Red had left the mortal ne where she had many things to worry about, she felt simr to Rnd, who was feeling much less stress here. Little Red was also having lots of fun as she no longer needed to care about her reputation.

 Chapter 568 - Chaotic

    <h4>Chapter 568: Chaotic</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    People would always be on guard against a salesman who suddenly visited, or a friendly helper who arrived unexpectedly. This was all the more so in a ce like the Chaos Abyss.


    But while the enemy of an enemy might not be a friend, there would be the potential to be a friend.


    And so, I ¡°coincidentally¡± met with a Bloodspear lizardmen scout team right in front of the dark dwarves¡¯ fortress. Then, I had a major fight and killed off two entire squadrons of lizardmen. After that, the dark dwarves weed me in.


    Of course, the main reason why I had been able to enter so easily was probably due to the dark dwarf who kept hopping up and down on the fortress wall while pointing at me.


    ¡°Master, Master, we can¡¯t understand the martial arts manual that you sold us.¡±


    The moment I walked through the gate of the dark dwarves¡¯ fortress, the rash dark dwarf from before came looking for me. It seemed that he had a rather high status in this tribe.


    ¡®It¡¯s only natural that you can¡¯t understand it. Even I don¡¯t understand it. Besides, if I could understand it, why would I sell it to you? I would have kept it for myself.¡¯


    Of course, I would never tell him such a truth. I would naturally have only the best customer service for any customer who was so easy to scam. That was why I wanted to smile and tell him...


    ¡®I¡¯m sorry, your edition is too old and needs to be leveled up. If you wish to level it up, you must first spend 500 soul coins to be a registered member. Another 500 soul coins will be required to level up the manual to the Chaos Abyssnguage 1.0 edition. If you spend another 1000 soul coins to level up to a VIP ount, you¡¯ll be able to ess a grandmaster¡¯s recording and exnation, with a guarantee that you¡¯ll understand... What? You don¡¯t want to spend money? Foolish youngster, how can you possibly be stronger without spending money!? Buy buy buy buy, and charge more money!¡¯


    And then I would scam him into spending money for a second time, third time, leveling up to be a registered member, VIP member, diamond VIP member, lifetime VIP member, and so on!


    However, I felt like it was probable that the dwarves would try and kill me if I told them that, which was why I instead smiled mysteriously.


    ¡°Please contact customer service after purchasing the product. Rnd reserves all rights to final interpretation... Cough, cough, I mean, I¡¯m here now, aren¡¯t I? It¡¯s impossible to learn such a high-level martial arts technique only by reading the book. Since you guys spent the money, I naturally came here to teach the technique.¡±


    That dark dwarf was instantly filled with tears from being so moved.


    ¡°A good person! There¡¯s actually a good person in the Chaos Abyss! Father, I actually wasn¡¯t scammed this time! Father, you were wrong, there really is a good person in this world after all!¡±


    The young dark dwarf passionately looked back behind him with tears in his eyes. The ck-haired, long-bearded dark dwarf that he called father appeared to be the leader of this dark dwarf tribe, judging by his braids.


    Alright, I didn¡¯t even know where to startmenting on first.


    It seemed that this dark dwarf prince had already suffered many insults for bringing back a martial arts manual that nobody could understand. Not only that, it appeared that this wasn¡¯t the first time he was scammed.


    He had a high status, yet he was simple and easy to fool...


    And so, the way I looked at him changed. Previously, I had only seen him as an easily scammed customer, but now I was looking at a fatmb.


    Judging from how on guard all the other dark dwarves seemed to be against me, such na?vembs were quite rare in this tribe. In that case, I reached out and created a ball of light on top of my head...


    ¡°A Holy Knight!!¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s actually a Holy Knight? How can any Holy Knight possibly survive down here in the Chaos Abyss?¡±


    I could only be grateful for the excellent reputation that Holy Knights had. When I showed them my power over Holy Light, the dark dwarves noticeably rxed their guard.


    What, they thought that a Holy Knight wouldn¡¯t scam them? They were too na?ve still.


    Indeed, Holy Knights typically wouldn¡¯t scam people. But if Holy Knights really started scamming... well, the dark dwarves weren¡¯t ¡°people¡±, so who cared?


    ¡°The God of Holy Light definitely made a tremendous mistake back when he epted you as a Holy Knight. Just how much ill reputation have you brought upon the job ss of Holy Knight so far in your life? You¡¯ve used your status as a Holy Knight to do so many dirty deeds...¡±


    The silly cat¡¯sments were unable to shake my will. I was conducting serious business here! It definitely wasn¡¯t that I couldn¡¯t remember how many people I had scammed before!


    ¡°Be a little more serious! We¡¯re currently in the middle of scamming them!¡±


    Even though I was mentally retorting to Harloys, I put on a serious expression filled with Holy Light that glimmered all over. This gave me a divine aura filled with justice.


    ¡°I came here to this wicked ce in order to carry out a holy mission...¡±


    That was all the exnation necessary. Every year, idiotic Holy Knights would voluntarily go out to fight against evil. Any Holy Knight who dared toe all the way down to the Chaos Abyss was probably the particrly idiotic type.


    ¡°What ce could be more evil than the Chaos Abyss? We should sweep through the Chaos Abyss and y those evil demons and devils. Why should we wait for those viins to attack us? We should attack them instead and remove the threat before it can attack us!¡±


    This type of thinking was quite popr among the more extremist Holy Knights. However, as for the end result of those who actually went to the Chaos Abyss, eighty percent would end up dying there, ten percent would have their wills broken and be fallen, and the final ten percent... No, they wouldn¡¯t seed in their fight against evil, if that¡¯s what you were thinking. Instead, they would transform into demons and be new permanent residents of the Chaos Abyss.


    To my knowledge, very few Holy Knights were ever able to return from the Chaos Abyss.


    The evil Chaos Abyss was capable of devouring anything. Holy Knights would receive special treatment from the will of the Chaos Abyss, meaning that they would typically die especially pitiful deaths.


    Maybe you could win one or even many battles, but could you forever win every single battle in the Chaos Abyss? Maybe you could defeat a major Demon Lord, but could you sessfully escape alive from numerous Demon Lords chasing after you? Every single creature here, and even the verynd itself, was filled with evil. Just how much could you fight?


    If you stopped in your determination to fight against evil, that would mean betraying your own belief, leading you to be fallen. Yet, there was an endless amount of evil here. How much could you possibly fight?


    The lucky ones would be able to escape the Chaos Abyss before they becamepletely useless. The unlucky ones would stay here forever. Of course, there were always exceptions to everything. Estrada had previously gone to the Chaos Abyss for a special reason and then returned without any problems.


    Back when I was adventuring with Adam and the others, we had also been through several levels of the Chaos Abyss. The 100th level where I had arranged to meet up with them was the same ce that we had met up before.


    Cough, I was getting off topic. Currently, the dark dwarves were looking at me with expressions of ¡°yet another idiotic Holy Knight¡± and ¡°I wonder how long he can survive down here?¡±


    But with this status, the dark dwarves were far less hostile and on guard against me. It also helped that even though the dark dwarves were considered ¡°evil¡± residents of the Chaos Abyss, they were actually rtively far easier tomunicate with than most other species down here.


    Since both sides weren¡¯t on guard against and wanted something from the other side, it naturally became much easier tomunicate.


    I gave a slight amount of martial arts advice to Morr, the dark dwarf prince and son of the ckrock dark dwarf tribe living here. Just this alone obtained the full trust of this simple-minded young dwarf (one hundred years old was young for dwarves).


    I then told him that I intended to ¡°go even deeper into the Chaos Abyss to fight against stronger evils¡±, and Morr almost exposed the fact that the dark dwarves had a teleportation portal here to me.


    A teleportation portal with a fixed teleportation point would be priceless. This would obviously be considered top secret in the ckrock dark dwarf tribe. Luckily, his guards managed to stop him from revealing the secret to me. If Morr had told me the portal¡¯s secret location so easily, even I wouldn¡¯t have known what fun I could have next.


    And as we talked, Morr was filled with idtry and dreams about the mortal ne. He wanted to instantly go up there to adventure, which was quite surprising.


    Such a simple-minded dark dwarf had actually managed to live to one hundred years old in a ce like the Chaos Abyss. I could only sigh that the workings of fate were inscrutable indeed. And as I chatted with the dark dwarves, I gained a much better understanding of the rtionship between the ckrock dark dwarves and the Bloodspear lizardmen.


    Actually, it was all quite ordinary. Basically, both tribes had an unspoken agreement to leave each other alone, but there were many past umted grudges and much friction between them. One day, the lizardmen suddenly obtained some powerful treasure that greatly strengthened their tribe. The lizardmen then began to expand their territory and enve other species.


    The dark dwarves were no pushovers. Their tribe was strong and well-armed. Both sides had several bloody battles. The lizardmen used enved dragons as cannon fodder, while the dark dwarves were more limited in poption and couldn¡¯t afford the losses. Finally, the dark dwarves were forced on the defensive.


    Recently, the lizardmen had been acting more and more arrogant. They kept attacking dwarven merchants and travelers. No merchants dared to visit the dark dwarves to purchase weapons anymore. The dark dwarves¡¯ food supply also became slightly problematic to maintain.


    Judging from how easily the dark dwarves told me all this, they fully intended to drag me into this battle.


    A young and reckless Holy Knight who heard about ¡°such evil creatures¡± would instantly charge forward without a second word. That would really fit my current identity¡¯s personality, but...


    ¡°Unfortunately, I¡¯m currently undertaking an even more divine mission. The grand Holy Light is guiding me toplete my personal trial. And, my holy sword was destroyed in a previous battle, so I¡¯m currently searching for a new divine weapon...¡±


    I showed just an appropriate amount of regret along with my desire for battle... Actually, everything I said just now was worthless. What exactly was a divine mission supposed to be? And for every Holy Knight, couldn¡¯t every single day be considered a personal trial? As for my holy sword being destroyed, I never mentioned a specific time. I had already lost track of how many holy swords I¡¯d lost in battle already.


    But with my truthful words and skilled acting, Morr and the other dark dwarves saw a Holy Knight who was filled with hesitation and regret due to being unable toplete his divine mission and fight against the evil right before him.


    In my carefully chosen words to the dark dwarves, I also faintly ¡°revealed¡± the fact that I was extremely powerful, to the point where I could rival the entire lizardmen tribe. I also ¡°unintentionally¡± revealed that I needed an ¡°excellent holy sword¡± to equip myself with.


    Alright, they would be far more worried about me wanting to leave on a divine mission. But since I made it so obvious that I wanted a weapon, they had nothing to worry about! This was a dark dwarf castle!


    When mentioning dwarves, everyone would first think of their cksmithing abilities. But since they were skilled diggers, they were also excellent miners. This ckrock tribe was extremely rich as they monopolized a teleportation portal. They especially had thousands of years of umted wealth and resources when it came to magical metals.


    Right now, I wanted to create several magic swords for myself, butcked top-level resources. Since I had nowe across these dark dwarves, how could I possibly miss this opportunity?


    And so, I kept telling stories and teaching martial arts to Morr. I then waited for the dwarves to voluntarily show me their treasury and ask me to choose what I wanted.


    Meanwhile, my new subordinate was probably with the lizardmen already.


    ¡°Ha, in our line of work, we eat both the intiff and the defendant...¡±


    But while Rnd was busy being so proud of himself, in the air space between the dark dwarves¡¯ and lizardmen¡¯s territories, a single mature adult ck dragon met three young adult ck dragons.


    They were heading in the direction that the other party hade from. These ck dragons exchanged nces and saw obvious signs of recent injuries on each other¡¯s bodies.


    Originally, dragons should have been highly territorial. Conflicts among dragons of the same species were quitemon. But when these four dragons thought about the big boss who had enved them, they each went their own ways while merely spitting some saliva.


    ¡°Tsk, three disabled dragons!¡±


    Little Red had beat her three ck dragons to the extent where one was single-eyed, one had half a tail, and one was missing a wing...


    ¡°Ha, a disabled dragon who¡¯s missing his entire tail. He¡¯s still bold enough to go around outside?¡±


    Meanwhile, Rnd had eaten Hakas¡¯s dragon tail...


    Both parties were making simrments. Dragons had excellent hearing, and all dragons heard what was being said. However, they only exchanged res while continuing to carry out their respective master¡¯smands.


    Although the ck dragons were looking down on each other, they didn¡¯t realize that they all had extremely simr fates. They had all been enved by rather ridiculous masters, and they had all been sent in as double agents, all in order to extort as much as possible from both the dark dwarves and the lizardmen... It was probable that these ck dragons would eventually meet each other on the battlefield. But who knew what sides they would represent while fighting? And they didn¡¯t even know that their masters were excellent friends who were currently on opposite sides of the dark dwarf/lizardmen conflict.


    This rtionship was really chaotic...

 Chapter 569 - Spreading Law

    <h4>Chapter 569: Spreading Law</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    When I indicated that I could help out slightly before I left, at least helping to train some warriors, the ckrock dark dwarf tribe became even friendlier towards me.


    Not only did they voluntarily tell me about their teleportation portal, they even brought out some magical gems as payment. I felt rather awkward about their generosity.


    Unlike their rtives, the gray dwarves who lived in the Underground, these dark dwarves were truly simple-minded. Still, it was quite easy to understand why. The gray dwarves had been exiled because they were too evil, while the dark dwarves had been exiled because they loved warfare too much.


    But from what I could tell, no matter what their ancestors were like, these current dark dwarves weren¡¯t warmongers at all. At the very least, they no longer wanted to fight against everything now that they were in the Chaos Abyss.


    A group of young dark dwarves were waving metal weapons around on a tform in this fortress. Their stances seemed good, but I could tell that they allcked practicalbat experience. This was quite rare in the Chaos Abyss.


    I asked Morr about this and learned that these young dwarves were mostly smiths and miners in their tribe. Since the dark dwarves¡¯ current situation was dangerous, even these inexperienced young ones needed to start training for war.


    ¡°...There¡¯s even a cook among them? That¡¯s how much youck people?¡±


    Dwarves would be proud of being able to wield a hammer in the left hand and an axe in the right hand. However, I instead saw a dwarf wielding adle in the left hand and an iron pot in the right hand, along with a small oven on his back. He attacked with hisdle and defended with his pot, and sometimes even threw his pot for a projectile attack. This was such a wondrous scene that I dared not even look.


    ¡°iton? Damn it, you secretly sneaked in here again! Go cook for us! If you burn the bread again, the boss will kill you!¡±


    Alright, so it turned out that he really was a dwarven cook. I did my best to hold in myughter as I watched him run back with his pot on his back.


    The dwarves were foundationally quite skilled at fighting. They were able to properly use the martial arts techniques that they already knew. Time was limited, so it would be impossible to teach them something brand new. It would seem that I could only set aside my Chinese martial arts manual.


    Only their elite warriors who had reached bottlenecks would be able to benefit from my advice in such a short period of time. And even for them, cultivating always required time as well as luck to umte the foundation. The lizardmen likely wouldn¡¯t give them much time to cultivate before attacking.


    While I did have methods to forcefully improve power level, there would always be losses with every gain. Those methods had severe side effects. If the dark dwarves¡¯ strongest warriors suddenly died off inrge numbers, it was likely that this entire dark dwarf tribe would die after I left even if they defeated the lizardmen.


    I felt good intentions towards these honest dwarves, as honesty was so rare toe by in the Chaos Abyss. Since they didn¡¯t try to scam or make me suffer in any way, I no longer intended to make them lose too much.


    ¡°I have an idea.¡±


    I did my best toe up with an idea which would help the dark dwarves improve their overall power level, and actually found a method that might work. Although the sess rate might not be high, there would be no harm in trying.


    ¡°Hey, you guys... Have you heard of something called Law?¡±


    Dwarves were quite disciplined as an overall species already. The dark dwarves were a militaristic society and adhered to discipline even more strictly. Since dark dwarves were still originally an Order species, logically they should be perfectly capable of using the power of Law.


    ¡°You¡¯re spreading the power of Law down here in the Chaos Abyss? You¡¯re spreading a power of Order in thend of Chaos? Are you certain about this?¡± Harloys couldn¡¯t help but ask me this.


    ¡°Let¡¯s try it. There¡¯s no harm done even if it fails.¡±


    Surprisingly, my experiment was actually a tremendous sess. As the dark dwarves were highly ustomed to their military discipline of obeying orders, Law seemed just like another type of military discipline to them. It only took me twenty minutes of teaching to sessfully have Morr ess the beginner-level power of Law and enter the job ss of Justice Knight.


    This was a good thing, but it caused me to sink into deep contemtion.


    Although Hell¡¯s sessful establishment and independence allowed the power of Law to break free from the Source of Order¡¯s control, it wouldn¡¯t change so quickly to be a power of Hell, as it was still foundationally a power of Order. And, this was the Chaos Abyss, where all powers of Order would be at their weakest.


    A neer to any power of Order would always have to start by summoning their own new power of Order. This would typically take many failures before the first sess. Yet, Morr managed to seed on the third try.


    It might have been more understandable if this had been the more powerful Concept of Holy Light instead of Law as belief in Holy Light had already spread to all the nes. But, the power of Law was still a rtively new power of Order, yet a resident of the Chaos Abyss was actually sessful in being able to use it...


    ¡°...Either the power of Law has been increasing in strength far more than what we anticipated, or the Chaos Abyss itself is greatly weakening.¡±


    ¡°Or maybe it¡¯s both at the same time,¡± Harloys suggested.


    Our conclusion arrived as good news for us. But upon closer consideration, this didn¡¯t seem very meaningful, as the great majority of residents in the Chaos Abyss were demons, who were pure products of Chaos.


    [You might be wrong here. Since even demons are capable of summoning Holy Light, then why wouldn¡¯t demons be able to believe in Law? Pure Chaos means the unknown that¡¯s impossible to predict. Then, doesn¡¯t this actually mean that it¡¯s possible that the unknown might include some Order?]


    The Goddess of Order¡¯s words truly shocked me to my core. Demons that believed in the Concept of Law? Demons that would obey Law? When considering how demons were chaotic to the point of having any possible personality, it really was possible that there might such strange demons out there!


    ¡°...Is this the exnation for why even Chaos has some Order?¡±


    [You¡¯re overthinking things. This isn¡¯t something highly philosophical. It¡¯s just that there will always be strange ones who don¡¯t fit the mold in every species. There are beastmen who absolutely love peace, and there are dwarves that are sly and selfish. The species doesn¡¯t represent the whole.]


    Why did this sound so familiar...?


    ¡°...Then, you¡¯re admitting that you were wrong back in the day?¡±


    I recalled how Astrya had, back in the day, been an extremist who had once stated that ¡°every species should serve their own role, and every individual should carry out their proper task¡±, the most extreme possible interpretation of an Order-ruled society. But now she was saying that ¡°the species doesn¡¯t represent the whole¡±? Wasn¡¯t this self-contradictory?


    [...Cynthia was wrong in her beliefs, and I was also incorrect back then.]


    Alright then, was this a roundabout way of saying that she was wrong? It was obvious that she was admitting that she was wrong, but she would only say so indirectly? Was this the pride of the Goddess of Order?


    ¡°Tsundere?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s tsundere, but not cute at all.¡±


    [Shut up!]


    For the time being, without worrying about if there were really strange demons out there that could adhere to Law, or if the power of Law could really take root here in the Chaos Abyss, just the fact that this power could give the rtively weaker factions in the Chaos Abyss a new way to survive would make it quite attractive.


    While I idly chatted with my cat and System, Morr was showing off his new ability to his dark dwarf friends.


    At this moment, a loud sound in the air and rapidly approaching magical power attracted my attention.


    From what I recalled, in this level of the Chaos Abyss, there was only one type of creature who possessed such a powerful and corrosive magical aura.


    ¡°A ck dragon ising!¡±


    I already prepared for battle the moment that I noticed a ck dragon was approaching. I directly had the ballistae begin arming and the shamans begin preparing their Divine Arts. Everything would be aimed at the clouds. As long as a ck dragon showed up, it would instantly be attacked.


    Dragons loved to fly in the clouds as they would be safe and well-concealed. But with my guidance, all the attacks were aimed directly in the direction that the ck dragon wasing from.


    ¡°You¡¯re not worried that it¡¯s an ally?¡±


    ¡°What ally woulde here at this time? If it¡¯s an ally, that means he¡¯s my rival, so I need to find a chance to ¡®identally¡¯ hurt him. It¡¯s even simpler if it¡¯s an enemy as that will be an achievement for me. Since it doesn¡¯t matter what side he¡¯s on, it¡¯s best to simply take him down first. Why hesitate?¡±


    ¡°What if it¡¯s Hakas returning?¡±


    ¡°Then I¡¯d take him down even faster! He would dare toe back withoutpleting my mission!? It¡¯s his own fault for getting killed then!¡±


    Currently, the aforementioned Hakas was fleeing for his life. He had indeed almost been killed not long ago.


    The moment that he appeared at the lizardmen tribe¡¯s location, he only got the chance to say that he hade to help them when he heard an angry dragon roaring ¡°You dare toe steal my business from me!?¡± Hakas was then knocked out of the air by a red dragon¡¯s dragonbreath from the skies.


    Right now, Hakas was escaping at his absolute top speed. His dragon instinct told him that this powerful red dragon was still watching him.

 Chapter 570 - Accidental Meeting

    <h4>Chapter 570: idental Meeting</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Holy Light, do you see this evil? They¡¯re far too strong... Why did they all copse already?¡±


    The scene of a heroic knight wielding a sword while charging toward an evil dragon would always be the most hot-blooded scene in any myth or story. But if the scene changed instead to be a fully armed adult bullying an animal, that would make people rather speechless.


    ¡°You¡¯re supposed to be dragons! You¡¯re supposed to be strong; you¡¯re supposed to know how to fly; you¡¯re supposed to be big lizards that can spit fire! Why are you all so weak?!¡±


    No matter what species of dragon, they were all incredibly durable due to their thick skin. I had originally intended to use the dwarven fortress¡¯s long-range attacks to weaken them slightly before personally going up to have a big fight against the dragons, which would help improve my standing with the dark dwarves and maybe help me obtain some resources or equipment.


    ¡°Just a single round of anti-air attacks made you all seriously injured, and then you all copsed after two attacks from me. Are you really dragons?¡±


    Even though the three ck dragons that arrived were suddenly ambushed right when they emerged from the clouds, and even though the anti-air attacks all directly aimed for their weakest spots due to my guidance, these three ck dragons had been defeated far too quickly.


    They had indeed resisted, charging through all the anti-air fire and aiming for the ground (actually, they had wanted to exin that they hade to help the dark dwarves), but unfortunately for them, they picked the wrong target to charge at. Since I was standing at the very forefront in the most obvious location as a Holy Knight, I was delighted at this opportunity to improve my reputation with the dark dwarves.


    But when I happily pulled out my sword, I didn¡¯t even get to have any fun when the three ck dragons were all defeated with just two swings of my sword...


    ¡°Did you use too much power in your attacks?¡± Harloys asked.


    ¡°Of course not. I¡¯m such a skilled actor; of course I would know how much power to put into my attacks. I used enough force to only hurt an adult dragon for about half an hour... In my original n, I was supposed to defeat them only after a long and difficult battle. Those dragons weren¡¯t following the script!¡±


    But soon, I understood why they were so weak...


    ¡°Half a tail, a single eye, and a broken wing? Just what happened to you all?¡±


    These injuries weren¡¯t that easy to cause to adult ck dragons. The magic left on their injuries was preventing these ck dragons¡¯ natural healing powers from working. These three ck dragons had already been seriously injured beforeing here.


    Now, the three ck dragons all copsed on top of each other. The dwarves had chained them up using specially enchanted ck iron chains. These ck dragons looked like a small mountain under those chains.


    Their situation was rather pitiful as theyy on the ground listlessly. It was no exaggeration to say that they only had the energy to barely talk. Even I felt pity for them, seeing how they still had toe out and make a living despite their serious injuries.


    ¡°Tsk, they¡¯ve all been scorched and cooked ck all over. A really powerful dragon must have done this to them.¡±


    ¡°ck dragons are ck to begin with, but I can smell the scent of cooked meat. They¡¯ve been cooked to at least seventy percent well done.¡±


    ¡°These w and teeth marks, along with these burns and the fire magic on their injuries... Why does it all seem so familiar?¡±


    ¡°Of course it would be familiar. Only an Immemorial Red Dragon and grandmaster of fire magic would be able to cook ck dragons who have an astonishingly high magic resistance.¡±


    By now, I already had a faint guess at who had done this to the three ck dragons. However, I was distracted by the scent of cooked meat in front of me.


    ¡°...You don¡¯t say. Smelling this cooked dragon meat reminds me of the ck dragon tail feast I had two days ago. I really want to vomit again.¡±


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯m not that picky. Dragon meat is highly nutritious and filled with mana. It doesn¡¯t matter that much to a slime like myself about what I eat.¡±


    Finally, the ck dragons were unable to bear their captors discussing the taste of dragon meat right in front of them.


    ¡°Um, Miss Cat, ck dragon meat is poisonous and inedible.¡±


    The pitiful captive had to exin to the captor that her own meat was toxic. This was quite theical scene.


    Forget it, I decided against spreading salt on their wounds... er, chatting about such a topic right in front of three ck dragondies. Their mncholic and hurt expressions were too much for me to handle.


    Yep, ck dragondies. These three ck dragons were all female, and it seemed that they were sisters.


    Perhaps outsiders would be unable to determine a dragon¡¯s age and gender, but I had been around dragons for half my life already. It was quite easy for me to determine a dragon¡¯s bloodline and power level from their magical aura, especially if the dragon was a ck or red dragon as they were somon in the Underground... Hey, I really didn¡¯t have the habit of dissecting dragons! Those rumors of me being the ¡°Midnight Dragon ughterer¡± were all just lies and nder!


    What? You¡¯re asking me why I didn¡¯t differentiate dragons by physical appearance? That would be far too difficult. Just think about it. Goris are one of the closest rted species to humans. But, is there any normal person who can determine a gori individual and their gender just from physical appearance?


    Hakas was a mature adult dragon who had reached adult age more than two hundred years ago. Inparison, these young female ck dragons had likely just left their nest recently and just gained independence. Their magical power was quite pitiful.


    In human terms, Hakas could be considered an adult who had already learned how to y around with some small magic tricks and natural talents. These three ck dragons were just like hot-blooded delinquent teenagers who relied purely on instinct when fighting.


    However, younger dragons also had their advantages. They were smaller, so they were more agile. Their reflexes would also be faster. Plus, no dragon would be weak at melee with their sharp fangs, ws, and dragonbreath. However, since they had stille to a battlefield with such serious injuries, and even voluntarily started a fight against a high-level Holy Knight like myself, it was quite evident that they were basically the equivalent of feeders in video games.


    And when I asked them what they were doing here, they wouldn¡¯t tell me. All they talked about were other topics. It was quite obvious that they were someone else¡¯s subordinates and that they couldn¡¯t make their own decisions.


    But even though they weren¡¯t telling me anything, I could guess their goal. Still, now that they had been defeated and captured, and said that they were here to help the dark dwarves, that was no different from them finding an excuse to surrender with zero pride.


    ¡°Save me, Boss! There¡¯s such a vicious dragon after me!¡±


    Just as I was thinking about Hakas, I heard him screaming for help in midair.


    I looked up and saw him speedily flying through the sky towards me. Behind him was a rather familiar red figure...


    ¡°Hey, that¡¯s Little R¡ª¡±


    I unhesitatingly covered Harloys¡¯ mouth before she could finish. The dark dwarves were still right next to me. While they already knew that I had enved Hakas, it would be impossible for me to exin my connection to Little Red. Not to mention, for the sake of my n, I had to...


    ¡°A big red dragon! That¡¯s an evil red dragon, one of my main goals in the Chaos Abyss!¡±


    I unhesitatingly transformed into my War Angel form and flew right up into the sky while summoning Holy Light, making me seem like a meteor of Holy Light streaking through the sky.


    The dark dwarves below me were all excited as they probably thought I was about to use some ultimate ability. However, my real goal was to prevent anyone else from seeing what I was about to do.


    Little Red unhesitatingly greeted me with a tremendous amount of dragonbreath that covered mepletely. Many screams could be heard from the dwarves below, but her dragonbreath had zero heat or attack power to it.


    ¡°Hey, what do you have your eyes on?¡± Little Red asked me.


    ¡°What treasures do the lizardmen have that you would make such a scheme?¡±


    We asked each other basically the same thing simultaneously, making us both feel rather helpless. Were we truly such excellent robber partners with great tacit cooperation? And, we two robbers had both set our sights on the same goal?


    ¡°The lizardmen possess a mystical treasure that¡¯s connected to dragon bloodlines. Their treasure is capable of summoning and enving high-level dragons. I suspect that it¡¯s a God Equipment. It¡¯s surely a SemiGod Equipment at minimum. I want it. It¡¯s mine!¡±


    ¡°The dwarves have many umted magic metals from all their years of mining here. I need some top-quality resources to make my magic swords, and there¡¯s also a fixed point and safe teleportation portal in their fortress.¡±


    We swiftly exchanged our goals and information with each other. However, what everyone else saw was that the angel form Holy Knight was having a major battle against an angry red dragon.


    As we were supposed to be ¡°mortal enemies¡±, we naturally started fighting each other without need formunication. Holy Light illuminated half the sky, while the red dragon¡¯s roars shook the entirend. Just the shock waves and flying dragonbreath managed to melt an entire nearby mountain!


    The dark dwarves below were running for their lives. Such a powerful existence was far beyond their ability to handle. They¡¯d already known that an Immemorial Red Dragon would be so powerful, but they¡¯d never expected that this Holy Knight who seemed like such a nice idiot was actually this strong!


    ¡°Those three ck dragons are your subordinates now?¡±


    ¡°That idiotic ck dragon was under yourmand?¡±


    Alright, we had adventured together for so many years already that no extra words were needed. We already perfectly understood what each other intended. It was quite obvious that we had both intended to obtain all the treasures from both the dark dwarves and the lizardmen.


    ¡°Let¡¯s split things 50-50?¡±


    ¡°Deal! The lizardmen¡¯s God Equipment belongs to me. I¡¯ll give you some extra to make up for it.¡±


    We instantly came to an ord. The next instant, I opened up my wings and gathered Holy Light while roaring angrily.


    ¡°Ahhhhh!!! Evil must be judged! Take my... my great holy sword!¡±


    Glorious Holy Light transformed into a mega-sword that sliced right at Little Red¡¯s wings. Although this appeared like a tremendously powerful attack, the Holy Light I summoned was actually at the weakest level with zero attack power.


    However, Little Red acted perfectly and fell out of the sky. She even lit some own smoke and mes on herself where she was ¡°sliced¡± by the Holy Light as if it had actually burned her.


    ¡°Damned Holy Light insect! How many times can you use such a powerful attack? Just you wait, insect, be careful for your head! I shall take my revenge! I will return!¡±


    Little Red left behind those ssical viin lines. She didn¡¯t even nce at the young ck dragons who were hopefully looking teary-eyed in her direction as she crookedly flew away.


    And when Inded on the ground, what greeted me was the dark dwarves¡¯ tremendous delight which made me feel rather embarrassed.

 Chapter 571 - New Goal

    <h4>Chapter 571: New Goal</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    While unexpected, it was still within expectations to meet Little Red so quickly down here in the Chaos Abyss.


    After I ¡°defeated¡± the powerful red dragon, the dark dwarves were astonished at how powerful the lizardmen faction had be. The dark dwarves now also relied on me even more.


    Unfortunately, I was unable to find any top-level resources suitable for creating a holy sword. The dark dwarves instead had many dark resources for negative energy.


    Still, this all made sense. It would be strange if the Chaos Abyss had top-level holy resources. It was only natural for dark resources to be plentiful here. Did I need to think about creating a different magic sword instead? But I alsocked top-level resources for all my magic swords. If I kept changing my path whenever I met with difficulty, that would be the same as constantly avoiding the problem.


    ¡°Haven¡¯t you prepared anything before? Most Myth ranks prepare for half their entire life in order to achieve the next power level. Shouldn¡¯t you also have many umted resources?¡±


    ¡°While I did obtain plenty of gold and other treasures back in the day, most of them are useless here. The true top-level resources need to be custom-selected when you have your Myth-ranked weapon¡¯s design blueprint, or even before then. For instance, look how Undead Lords ughter entire cities in order to gather souls. The best resource for a holy sword will be the soul of a stubborn Holy Knight who¡¯s willing to sacrifice himself for his beliefs. These aren¡¯t resources that can be purchased or gathered easily.¡±


    Harloys was supremely rich, which was why she probably didn¡¯t have a good understanding of how difficult it was for ordinary human individuals to power up.


    ¡°Not to mention, for more special Concepts, the requirements will also be special, such as the Traitor¡¯s Heart, Lust Lotus, and so on. Just the names alone should tell you that such items are difficult to obtain. Sometimes, you even have to create your own resources. If it wasn¡¯t for Adam¡¯s ¡®Undying me¡¯ Concept having especially high requirements, there would have been no need for us to fight the phoenix back then. That was by far one of the most difficult battles we had.¡±


    I paused for a moment before continuing. Other factors could still be taken care of, but...


    ¡°The worst part is, I¡¯ve learned far too many things...¡±


    Harloys had a sudden realization. Perhaps this was the critical factor. Holy Light, ice, and death were all rathermon Concepts. However, my time and energy would be limited. It would be impossible for me to gather enough top-level resources rted to these Concepts.


    Other people would focus on only one path for their entire life. Naturally, they would be able to fully concentrate on their chosen path, making it easier to gather that type of resource. However, I was walking down four paths simultaneously. While this was faster, I actually was unable to keep up with my power level progression. I had finally reached a bottleneck due tocking top-level resources.


    ¡°How did you deal with the resource issue thest time that you achieved SemiGod rank?¡± Harloys inquired.


    ¡°Me? The greatest advantage of being an undead mage is that we¡¯ll neverck resources as long as we have some corpses. The Seven Original Sins were my Myth-ranked weapons. These Original Sins were also the Concepts themselves. They were all pieces of my soul. Although they were connected to me, they could have their own independent growth. Although I suppose I used a shortcut, this indeed allowed me to achieve SemiGod rank.¡±


    The ¡°weapon¡± Concept of Myth-ranked weapons was that they could be used offensively. However, this didn¡¯t mean that they needed to be actual physical weapons. A powerful enough magic containing a Concept would also be a Myth-ranked weapon. An entire Soul World that contained a Concept would naturally also count.


    Harloys fell silent as she also understood.


    ¡°Undead Lords only need to kill others and harvest souls...¡±


    Some things didn¡¯t need to be exined in detail. As the Seven Original Sins were also weapons, the resources used to create them were countless souls and corpses. Equivalent exchange was something that also applied to undead magic. The more willpower a soul had, the more outstanding it would be as a resource. But unless I was willing to personally create an even greater Undead Cmity thanst time and kill countless people, I would stillck the resources to create something equal to my Seven Original Sins.


    From a certain standpoint, at least in this world, the demon kings that came out to destroy the world for no apparent reason really did have at least somewhat of a motivation for causing all the death and destruction they did.


    I was the most satisfied with my design for my death magic sword. Its theoretical attack power would be inconceivably strong, being the strongest of my four nned swords. However, Icked so many top-level resources that I didn¡¯t even want to think about it.


    My ice magic theoretical knowledge was the weakest out of my four Concepts. I hadn¡¯t even finalized my nned design for my ice magic sword. In the end, I would likely have to take shortcuts and focus more on practicality.


    Although I had personally invented Law and understood it better than anyone, the rted resources would actually be even more important because of how strong my foundation was in Law. I intended to make my Law magic sword into a core element of my physical abilities, making up for any previous inadequacies. The resources would have to be gathered from Sulfur Mountain City and Hell. I already requested relevant individuals there to help me, but this would still take quite some time.


    My Holy Light sword had the clearest design n. No matter if it was the theory or the resources Icked, it was the sword closest topletion.


    ¡°The Holy Light sword isn¡¯t a purely offense-focused magic sword. Focusing purely on offense would actually waste Holy Light¡¯s support, healing, protection, cleansing, and many other non-offense uses. That¡¯s why I intend to create a Holy Light magic sword that¡¯s highly versatile.¡±


    ¡°Then what resources will you need?¡±


    ¡°As the base materials, the more divine resources, the better. However, there are two cores in my design that will require some unique resources.¡±


    I organized my design n in my head before I told Harloys the next part.


    ¡°The Light of Salvation has far-reaching prative properties. If I can use its power like a lighthouse and constantly send out the Light of Salvation, that will create a huge area of effect that will weaken all undead and demons within it. And in order to finish this design, I need a ¡®Light¡¯ resource that has far-reaching properties, such as the ¡®Undying Light¡¯ or ¡®Eternal Crystal of Light¡¯ and so on.¡±


    The two items I named were both in the mortal ne. Since they bothcked attack power, this meant that they were also impractical to use. Both were currently with the Holy Church, being worshiped as holy items belonging to the God of Holy Light. At most, they were lit up sometimes as church service for Holy Light believers. This was far too much of a waste of these items.


    While such items had rather weak practical uses, one of these items would be exactly what I needed toplete my Holy Light sword design, and that was exactly what made it so difficult to create the perfect Myth-ranked weapon that you wanted. Sometimes, it wasn¡¯t the strongest abilities or properties that were required of the resources. Rather, the resources needed to have exactly the right traits thatplemented your abilities. That was why luck was more important than anything.


    To be honest, if it wasn¡¯t for my rather special ¡°ally¡± status with the Holy Church, and how they constantly tried to keep tabs on me everywhere I went, I would have robbed them already... And if I really couldn¡¯t find any Light resources elsewhere, I would indeed consider hiding my identity and robbing them.


    Now that I was telling Harloys about this, I also hoped that the All-Knowing cat would be able to tell me about any other potential items I could use.


    Several secondster, Harloys shook her head regretfully with a contemtive expression. She couldn¡¯t recall any such divine items or treasures with properties of Light being far-reaching.


    I could only sigh. Although this was to be expected, it was still regrettable. I knew that even if the Gold Elf Empire had had such items back in the day, they would likely have been treated as nothing more than toys or ceremonial items. It was unlikely that Harloys would know about anything rted to this.


    ¡°What¡¯s the second necessary Concept that you need for your other core?¡±


    ¡°If the first is far-reaching light, the second is naturally the ability to gather light...¡±


    The Holy Light sword was still a sword. Since it was a sword, it would obviously need to be sharp. It would be quite foolish to waste Holy Light¡¯s strong attack potential against the undead and demons. The purest high-density Holy Light could be condensed into physical pure light. That was the other half of the Holy Light sword that I wanted to create.


    ¡°Gathering and far-reaching, inner and outer. Completely opposite Concepts? However, they¡¯re both rted to Light, so it should be possible tobine them. You¡¯re truly innovative. Your Holy Light sword will have both arge AOE weakening effect as well as powerful direct attacks, making it quite practical.¡±


    Harloys affirmed the practicality of my design, giving me even more confidence. However, we stillcked the top-level resources needed, even though my Holy Light sword was the closest of my four swords topletion. When I thought about how my death sword might require me to go find The Eldest One, I had absolutely zero confidence about that.


    ¡°...I suppose that I¡¯ll have to go rob the Holy Church when I return to the mortal ne.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t joking about this at all. Considering how the God of Holy Light had an almostplete monopoly on all Light-rted Concepts, any other natural resources that I could use in the mortal ne had likely been gathered by the Holy Church already.


    [Actually, the God of Holy Light wasn¡¯t the first God with the Concept of Light...]


    My System suddenly interrupted my thoughts. I knew that Astrya wasn¡¯t the type to interrupt me with some background exnation for no reason.


    [...Long before him, there was the Sun God from the very first generation of Gods. The second generation of Gods had the God of Natural Light of Peace. They both had Divine Concepts rted to Light.]


    I paused for a moment before having a sudden realization. There was no need for me to antagonize the God of Holy Light even further right now by robbing him. Since the Light of Salvation was a new evolution of Holy Light, I simply needed top-level resources with properties of Light rather than Holy Light.


    Those ancient Gods¡¯ God Equipment, or maybe their Myth-ranked weapons, were highly likely to fit my requirements perfectly.


    ¡°Where are they right now, then?¡±


    [Since the God of Holy Light is now in power, where else would the Gods of Light that lost power go? Sun God Aloyo is currently residing in the 372nd level of the Chaos Abyss. The God of Natural Light of Peace is currently living as a hermit in the 16th level. Oh, and Aloyo was formerly a Main God.]

 Chapter 572 - Heading Out

    <h4>Chapter 572: Heading Out</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°The 16th level and the 372nd level?¡±


    There was a saying that having an elder in the family was like having a treasure... Cough, cough, the older one was, the more that individual would know. Astrya¡¯s advice would indeed help to save me a significant amount of time and effort. At the very least, I now had two potential sources of top-quality Light resources.


    ¡°Should I go up or go down? This is truly a difficult question to answer.¡±


    The level of the Chaos Abyss didn¡¯t have anything to do with the threat level. However, other than the first three levels, it was still mostly true that the earlier levels before 100 were much safer than the ones after 100.


    Why were the first three levels an exception? That was because the first level was directly connected to all other dimensions as well as the devils¡¯ version of their Hell. Teleportation portals were literally everywhere down there. That ce was also the main battlefield between the upper and lower nes. Many powerful existences could be found there. High-level devils and Demon Lords would be truly difficult to deal with. The average person would instantly die if they were unlucky enough to meet a patrolling devil general or Demon Lord.


    And even if you instead met an existence from the upper nes, if a high-level angel didn¡¯t like you, or if you had any inferno, demonized, or dark parts on you at all, you would instantly be ¡°cleansed¡±. This battlefield had extended so far that it affected all three of the first levels of the Chaos Abyss. This was also why the first three levels were known as an eternal bloody battlefield.


    Although it was very easy to go to the first level of the Chaos Abyss due to the countless teleportation portals leading there, only the dumbest of novices and the most insane or arrogant individuals would directly go there.


    As for the 16th level, that wouldn¡¯t be very far from the first three levels. If the first three levels were the bloodiest battlefield, then the 16th level counted as a fortress level for buffering the lower levels. It would be quite easy for powerful existences to teleport behind the frontlines, so it was stillmon to see the forces of Chaos fighting against existences from the upper nes there.


    It would be fine if I was lucky, but things could be terrible if I was unlucky. In my current state, I wasn¡¯t the most afraid of meeting Demon Lords, but rather powerful existences from the Order Faction. Demon Lords would simply attack you if they wanted you dead. But if I met high-ranked existences from the Holy Light faction, it was likely that they would spread the news to the point where several Order Main Gods woulde down to the Chaos Abyss to hunt me down. The Chaos Abyss was different from the mortal ne, where only incarnations could be used. With such an excellent chance for Main Gods to kill me here, even I would be moved by the opportunity if I were them...


    Now that I thought of this, the 16th level seemed even more dangerous. There would be so many spies for all factions in the first twentyish levels of the Chaos Abyss. I had already antagonized so many powerful existences that I couldn¡¯t remember them all. The ones I antagonized came from the Order Faction, Chaos Faction, and even among those who were neutral. It was truly quite possible that several Main Gods would bring a group of powerful Follower Gods all the way down here just to kill me.


    As for the 372nd level, that wasn¡¯t a well-known level. In the countless levels of the Chaos Abyss, that either meant it was a rtively safer level, or it was dangerous to the point where very few would leave it alive. I would have to gather more information on this level first. But if I went so far down into the Chaos Abyss, I would only need to be on guard against those from the Chaos Faction.


    Sun God Aloyo had previously been a Main God, meaning he¡¯d been a major personage in the past. Even if he lost some of his power, he would still definitely have some good resources. And, any God who lost his position would be incredibly weakened...


    [Aloyo didn¡¯t lose his position due to brute force. He was also a War God who was an incredibly capable fighter back in the day. You¡¯d better not try forceful means against him. It¡¯s likely that he¡¯ll teach you a vicious lesson.]


    ¡°Is he a God who ascended through the power of belief or through his own merit?¡±


    [Both.]


    Alright then, I unhesitatingly abandoned my thoughts of using force if negotiations proved impossible.


    I had never heard of Sun God Aloyo before. But since his Divine Concepts included ¡°Sun¡± and ¡°Light¡±, it was natural that all memories of him had been erased from the mortal ne now that the God of Holy Light was in charge.


    Humans would naturally worship light, the sun, and fire. This worship would be transformed into actual belief. It was easily imaginable just how powerful Aloyo had been back in the day. But now that the God of Holy Light was the only incarnation of light, he would never allow there to be a second God with the Divine Concept of Light.


    From a certain standpoint, the internal conflicts within the Order Faction were even crueler than those among the Chaos Evil Gods. Nobody managed or controlled the Chaos Evil Gods. If they did a good job, the Chaos Abyss would even reward them. If they didn¡¯t perform well, they would naturally die out on their own. However, every God in the Order Faction was intricately connected.


    The Order Faction was just like a highly disciplined corporation. There would be a CEO, secretaries, ordinary workers, and so on. There would be only one position avable for each role. If you had a position, you would receive numerous benefits such as a Divine Concept(s), power through belief, a Divine Kingdom, a personal army of angels, and so on. But if you lost your position, you would naturally lose everything.


    As for why I said it was incredibly cruel? That was because it was impossible for anyone to forever stand at the peak. Since Gods would be promoted, there were naturally other Gods that would fall in status.


    The Holy War, the weakening of the species a God represented, the change in belief, war between Gods, and so on all contributed to various Gods losing their positions. The Gods of the Order Faction had changed countless times already. And for Gods who had ascended purely through the power of belief in them, they would be unable to maintain their own existences anymore if they lost their position. The more powerful the belief in the God was, the more powerful the bacsh would be if they lost their believers.


    Either the God would have to be willing to sacrifice everything and start all over from the very beginning, or they would have to be willing to sink into an eternal hibernation that very few Gods would ever be able to wake up from. But if the God chose to start over again from the very beginning, it was likely that they would have to be reincarnated as a newborn first.


    As for the older-generation Gods that had ascended through their own power, they would still be seriously weakened if they lost their divine position. However, they had stronger foundational strength, so they could still survive as long as they made some sacrifices. These Gods would also still possess the knowledge and foundation necessary to return to the peak. But, naturally, the new Gods who stepped on them wouldn¡¯t give them any easy chances to recover. So, perhaps escaping to the Chaos Abyss and bing a hermit there was indeed the best choice.


    That was because this was the ce where the Order Faction was weakest, meaning that the old Gods who lost their positions would be safest here.


    ¡°Is Aloyo easy to talk to?¡±


    [He was formerly a War God.]


    Such a ssical and brief response. Since Aloyo already had a Divine Concept of being a War God, this meant that those who loved war would worship him. Since when had a War God ever had a good temper?


    However, this was within expectations. This would still be far preferable to searching around aimlessly. Astrya¡¯s guidance would save me the most precious resource of all¡ªmy time.


    Indeed, time. Ever since that day when Karwenz took Cynthia away from Hell and stepped out into the endless void, I kept feeling like something was off. If he had truly wanted to kill Cynthia back then, he could have done it right there in front of me. Why would he take her with him instead?


    Astrya had basically confirmed by now that Cynthia wasn¡¯t actually dead yet. There was also something wrong with the Chaos Abyss itself. I didn¡¯t know what Karwenz was doing out there, but it definitely wouldn¡¯t be anything good.


    Although our Hell Faction was the winner of the battle of Hell, Karwenz probably won even more as he obtained his freedom from Cynthia due to our n to establish Hell.


    Well, I wasn¡¯t the type to cry over spilled milk. It had also been impossible for me to stop Karwenz back then.


    No matter what I met with in the future, speedily bing stronger was definitely the best choice back then.


    For me, rather than sighing about how insufficiently strong I was or how ridiculously powerful the enemy was, I far preferred to prepare as much as I possibly could for any catastrophe I knew about beforehand. As long as I strengthened myself to the maximum extent possible, I would be able to confidently face any opponent out there.


    Another use of Astrya¡¯s information was that I decided to speed up my original n of when to leave here. Since I now had a goal, wasting time here was now meaningless.


    ¡°I need to quickly deal with the lizardmen...¡±


    Although the strong preyed on the weak on a daily basis in the Chaos Abyss, with countless tribes like the ckrock dark dwarves being eliminated every day, I couldn¡¯t just leave them alone. I had directlye across them, and also epted their friendly intentions. I felt it would be far too cruel to simply ignore their plight.


    ¡°Come here, young dwarf. You seem to have excellent potential and an amazing constitution. You¡¯ll surely be a rare martial arts genius. I have here a Ri Divine Palm manual (easy to understand edition) that I¡¯ll sell to you cheaply.¡±


    I was saying something that sounded like it would be right out of a cultivation novel. However, this time I was giving the dwarves something they could actually understand rather than a far too esoteric manual.


    Basic swordsmanship, personal cultivation advice, somemon dwarfbat tactics used in the mortal ne, the teachings of Law, andmonly used Law Incantations. These were all personally written by me with my own understandings. I suppose you could call them my personal technique manuals. At the very least, they would really be useful to the dark dwarves.


    Since I liked them enough, I would naturally help them out. As for the lizardmen...


    ¡°Rather than trying to convince Little Red to give up on the treasure and leave immediately, it will be far easier to help her obtain the treasure she wants first. At any rate, after taking care of the lizardmen, these dark dwarves won¡¯t be able to run, nor will they dare to not pay me... We¡¯re going out now. You three, don¡¯t even think about running away. I just happen to need some cannon fodder. It will also be troublesome to leave you here.¡±


    Those three ck dragons were ying dead, but I decided to take all of them along with me.


    ¡°We shall set out to fight against evil! We won¡¯t return unless we eliminate this evil!¡±


    Of course we wouldn¡¯t return unless we eliminated the ¡°evil¡± lizardmen. Why would we return if we couldn¡¯t win? There would be no payment to receive. If we won, we would return to collect our payment. If we lost, we would simply run away.


    I summoned Holy Light and made a heroic pose. This alone made the dark dwarves incredibly grateful.


    ¡°Right, first help me prepare three days¡¯ worth of food that I can take with me on the road. I¡¯ve had enough of the demonized creatures¡¯ stinky meat. What are you looking at? Heroes of justice don¡¯t need to eat?¡±


    I told this to that heroic dwarf cook from earlier. He actually intended to follow me to the battlefield with his pot anddle.

 Chapter 573 - The Bloodspear Tribe Leader’s Frustrations

    <h4>Chapter 573: The Bloodspear Tribe Leader¡¯s Frustrations</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Little Red was truly having a good time in the Chaos Abyss.


    Every day, some lizardmen would act as her servants. This wasn¡¯t much for an Immemorial Dragon like her, butpared to the boring daily life in the mortal ne, she would experience ¡°surprises¡± every single day down here.


    For instance, this morning, the lizardmen came to her again and danced several ridiculous dances for her while wearing grass skirts. They also used their heavily ented dragonnguage to shout ¡°Grand Dragon¡±, ¡°Our grand ancestor¡±, ¡°Protect us¡±, and so on.


    The individual leading the praise was an inferno dogman shaman. Although inferno dogmen knew how to speak the dragonnguage, their ent would be quite heavy due to the structure of their tongues. Lizardmen had an even stranger ent due to speaking with the heaviness of cold-blooded animals.


    Little Red was thus listening to strangely ented dragonnguage praise for her. Plus, the lizardmen, ogres, and inferno dogmen here were dancing strange dances in grass skirts. This was truly amusingedy for her. Every single day, right when it became light, Little Red got to enjoy aical performance.


    As for the lizardmen, they felt like it was a great surprise as well as great fear that they managed to use their treasure to summon an Immemorial Red Dragon.


    The lizardmen possessed a heart bloodstone that had been passed down in their tribe for generations. In this current generation, one of their great shamans discovered that it was actually capable of summoning dragons. The entire tribe was delighted to find this out. Since the lizardmen already knew tribal knowledge on spiritualmunication, voodoo, and beast taming, the Bloodspear lizardmen tribe¡¯s strength rapidly increased exponentially.


    However, their treasure actually managed to summon an Immemorial Red Dragon a few days ago. The lizardmen were far too surprised at this. It was too much of a shock!


    All dragons would have ravenous appetites. It was due to their overwhelming predatory instincts that they were so territorial... as one dragon¡¯s territory wouldn¡¯t have enough food to feed two dragons, even if they were male and female partners!


    As a reminder, it wasmon among dragons that females were stronger than males. It was also quitemon that the female dragons would immediately kick the male dragons out of their territory right after having sex and getting pregnant...


    Cough, at ces like Dragon City where many dragons gathered, there would need to be tremendous numbers of subordinate species to serve the dragons. At the very least, the dragons wouldn¡¯t need to personally go out and hunt. Back when Little Red was living at Sulfur Mountain City, she had dozens of manticore and griffin subordinates. The entire mountain was her territory.


    Alright, after exining so much, I only wanted to say one thing in the end¡ªLittle Red¡¯s appetite was tremendously fearsome.


    Eating an entire cow during a meal would be too much for any human. However, one cow would be only a single bite to her...


    Little Red was no hired mercenary who brought her own food, nor did she have any intentions of trying to save any money for her ¡°employer¡±. Since the lizardmen had invited her over, they would need to take care of her hunger.


    It wasn¡¯t easy to hunt in the Chaos Abyss. Not only that, Little Red was highly picky about her food. She refused to eat any creature that was too highly demonized. She also required all her food to be cooked with aromatic spices to perfection. Both the lizardmen hunters and cooks were faced with their ultimate test. The pitiful lizardmen tribe was now using all the food resources of their tribe to keep this scary dragon happy.


    It still would have been alright if Little Red only wanted food. Yet, the problem was that Little Red was even harder than most dragons to satisfy. She actually demanded alcohol to go along with her food. Alcohol was a raremodity down in the Chaos Abyss. A barrel of good alcohol that wouldst a week for ten dwarves was nothing more than one drink for the red dragon. It also happened to be that Little Red¡¯s alcohol capacity was ridiculous. Since someone else was treating her, she unhesitatingly demanded as much as she could possibly get.


    In the morning, she would drink several dozen barrels of alcohol to wake herself up. Before her afternoon nap, she would drink another several dozen barrels. For dinner, she would have more than one hundred barrels. From a certain standpoint, Little Red was living life far more freely down herepared to the mortal ne because she was no longer restraining herself from drinking alcohol. It was just a pity for the lizardmen about having to treat her.


    It would also be impossible for the lizardmen to do anything about it. Grayde, the leader of the Bloodspear lizardmen tribe, did some simple estimates. He judged that even his entire tribebined wouldn¡¯t even be close to a match to that red dragon¡¯s power just from the power she showed in that fight against that fearsomely strong Holy Knight.


    The end result was that the entire lizardmen tribe basically became this Immemorial Red Dragon¡¯s subordinate species. All the lizardmen worked their hardest to serve and please Little Red, hunting only the best meat for her while buying all the alcohol they could. They were also worried that she would be too bored and cause havoc, which was why they kept dancing and singing ritualistically to alleviate her boredom.


    ¡°...Why did our ancestors¡¯ treasure summon such a powerful dragon? Previously, didn¡¯t we only manage to summon some beasts with partial dragon bloodline? Even ordinary ck dragons won¡¯t listen to the summons of this treasure, so why did an Immemorial Dragone this time?¡±


    The lizardmen¡¯s treasure was a stone heart that was as tall as a human. This heart was sculpted to seem like it was almost alive. However, it was also covered in stone scales.


    Ten years ago, back when Grayde wasn¡¯t the leader of his tribe yet, he identally discovered the true power of this lizardmen tribal treasure that had been passed down through so many generations without anyone knowing about its true power.


    As long as he dripped some of his own blood on the stone heart, it would slightly tremble and jump as if it was an actual living heart. It would then send out strange wavelengths that would attract the dragon bloodline beasts in the area, and they would then listen to themands of the person who possessed this treasure.


    And so, Grayde started his protagonist journey after receiving this cheat power, bing a CEO as well as marrying someone rich and beautiful... I was referring to how he killed the previous tribe leader and married the previous tribe leader¡¯s second wife in order to be the new tribe leader. It would seem that the lizardmen society also had messy rtionships.


    But soon, Grayde discovered that this treasure¡¯s power was limited. While it greatly attracted low-level dragon bloodline beasts, it would only make higher-level dragon bloodline beasts feel slightly friendly towards the holder. It waspletely impossible for the treasure to control the highest-level dragon beasts. It might even bring cmity upon its holder instead.


    And whether luckily or unluckily, no matter how much blood Grayde tried dripping on the stone heart, dragons ignored itpletely. In fact, the treasure even had the effect of making dragons feel ufortable, repelling them.


    But now, this treasure had actually managed to summon an Immemorial Red Dragon who was quite friendly. This was just like spending two dors to win a three-million-dor lottery jackpot. This was so fortunate that it was almost unbelievable.


    ¡°I am the leader chosen by the heavens! We shall rule this entire dimensional level!¡±


    At the time, Grayde had been supremely proud of himself and ambitious.


    But now, Grayde was quite regretful and feeling helpless in front of the treasure¡¯s altar. His ambition, excitement, and extreme delight from seeing Little Red for the first time had now turned into nothing but endless regret. Having summoned an overly powerful fighter had turned out to be a bad thing. It was too hard to serve her needs.


    ¡°Tribe leader, at this rate, our food stores for winter...¡±


    ¡°I know. Let everyone keep buying more food. If it¡¯s really no good, we¡¯ll go rob some more food from the mushroommen. Right, buy as much demonized meat as you possibly can. Since that red dragon won¡¯t eat highly demonized meat, we can use that for our winter food stores...¡±


    ¡°Tribe leader, we don¡¯t have enough alcohol again...¡±


    ¡°...Go buy more from the Onibaba market! Do we still have any more soul coins in our treasury?¡±


    ¡°Tribe leader, the red dragon says that our ogre who¡¯s dancing for her is too ugly! She also says that our old shaman has a terrible singing voice.¡±


    ¡°...Go buy some good-looking ves from the Onibaba market. It would be best if they¡¯re elves. Our hunting squads also need to go out and capture more ves! Why are you all dawdling around here? Go and look already!¡±


    ¡°Tribe leader...¡±


    ¡°Say it!¡±


    The angry Grayde was almost at the point of exploding. But when he thought about how a single w on that red dragon was stillrger than he was, and how terrible red dragons¡¯ reputation was, he could only swallow his anger down.


    ¡°...The red dragon said that she wants to eat barbecued undead bulls for lunch. Also, she says that we¡¯re too noisy and that we should find someone to sing lubies to her. Oh, she also says that living on the mountain is too in for her, so she wants to know when her dragon nest¡¯s construction will be finished.¡±


    At this moment, Grayde even felt like giving up his position of tribe leader. Undead bulls? Those would be Legend rank at the minimum and possessed the ability to instantly kill with their death re talent. Maybe an Immemorial Red Dragon could treat undead bulls as a delicacy, but how could lizardmen possibly hunt such a dangerous creature?


    Dragon nest? A dragon nest for an Immemorial Red Dragon? It was likely that even selling off the entire Bloodspear tribe wouldn¡¯t provide enough resources for her dragon nest.


    A luby? At least that one seemed much easier...


    Grayde shook his head as he decided it would be best for as few as possible to know about something so embarrassing. He gritted his teeth and got up, intending to personally go sing a luby song to that red dragon.


    ¡°Tribe leader?¡±


    ¡°What is it this time!? Can¡¯t any of you make decisions on your own!?¡±


    Finally, Grayde ended up exploding in anger after all. However, he noticed that his lizardman subordinate was quaking in fear while pointing at something approaching.


    ¡°The super strong Holy Knight from that day is attacking us!¡±

 Chapter 574 - Teasing the Cat

    <h4>Chapter 574: Teasing the Cat</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    I yawned as I looked at the several hundred lizardmen currently surrounding me. To be honest, this was actually quite boring for me.


    ¡°Little Red! Your mom is telling you toe home and eat dinner!¡±


    And so, I stood up and loudly shouted some strange words that were amplified by my magic. Thus, the entire valley kept echoing with thest words e home and eat dinner!¡±


    Although this sounded ridiculous, I knew that Little Red would understand our secret code.


    In our secret code, calling her directly by name and also telling her toe home and eat dinner meant that I was bored, and that we should take care of whatever we had left to do here as soon as possible so that we could get going already.


    ¡°Damned Holy Knight! You actually dare toe attack me while I¡¯m weak, humiliating me and my servants? I need power! I need a God Equipment! Hurry and give me the dragon¡¯s divine treasure!¡±


    Ha, not only did she understand me, she was even taking advantage of this opportunity to extort the God Equipment treasure from the lizardmen.


    Her astonishingly powerful dragon roar echoed everywhere and sounded quite mighty. But if you carefully thought about what she was really saying, she was obviously just trying to scam the lizardmen into giving her the treasure by using me as a threat.


    ¡°I suppose that I should act along with her for a final little bit.¡±


    I yawned again while ncing at the lizardmen warriors cowering away from me. I then raised my battle hammer and summoned a torrential tide of Holy Light.


    ¡°Evil! This is the end for you! Wicked lizardmen, let me cleanse you of your sins, for the judgement of Hell awaits you! Evil dragon, you¡¯ll be next! Holy Light shall be victorious!¡±


    The pir of Holy Light seemed terrifyingly powerful as it shot right into the clouds. Even the clouds became the same color as the Holy Light.


    Now that I had entered the beginning of Myth rank from Saint rank, my power had improved yet again. My powerful soul was now in a physical body that had a Double Diamond Bloodline. The soul represented the foundational potential power level that one could achieve, while the physical body and bloodline was a vessel that determined how much power you could handle. I was now more powerful than even Amuro Ray... cough, cough, I meant, far stronger than when I was Yongye! Even if the Emperor Yongye from the past appeared in front of me right now, I was perfectly confident in being able to defeat him in a one-on-one battle!


    ¡°What Undead Emperor would fight you in singlebat without taking even a single subordinate? Of course you¡¯d win in singlebat!¡±


    The silly cat instantly decided to retort to my thought, but this reminded me of her existence. That was why I picked her up, tossed her out, and loudly shouted the following words!


    ¡°Come, my angel beast, use your mega evolution! Divine angel beast!¡±


    And so, the cat spun around in midair while continuously transforming. After a blinding amount of Holy Light, a ¡°divine female beast¡± who wore only embarrassingly revealing clothing appeared... Wow, it really was useful how I could change her form to anything I wanted with the magical pet contract! Yep, Harloys was so useful!


    ¡°Rnd! Just you wait...!!¡±


    Ipletely ignored Harloys¡¯ hysterical anger in our soul connection. There were plenty of high-level Holy Knights that had angel transformations, but this would typically require signing a contract with a specific angel. Considering my current rtionship with the Holy Light faction... I felt that it would be much better for me to remain as a handsome and independent Holy Knight. However, I was indeed envious to the point where I decided to create my own divine angel beast.


    Divine angel beasts had beautiful appearances as they were typically based on female angels. As for the extra cat ears on top of her head? Would you believe me if I said that didn¡¯t have anything to do with my personal preferences?


    ¡°You¡¯re ring at me? Still ring at me? If you dare to keep ring at me, I¡¯ll transform you into a Transformer next time!¡±


    Although Harloys was angrily ring at me, she stillpleted the task that I gave to her... well, maybe I should say that she passivelypleted the task, since she didn¡¯t really need to do anything other than be tossed out by me and act as a big target taunting everyone.


    The Holy Knight had yet to attack, but his summoned divine angel beast rushed over first. All the residents of the Chaos Abyss were no longer able to idly watch as they knew the legends of these terrifying creatures on bloody battlefields. The lizardmen tribe and their subordinates instinctively started attacking.


    Arrows, magic spells, swords, and so on all warmly greeted Harloys in the Chaos Abyss¡¯s most popr type of wee.


    However...


    ¡°Get away from me!¡±


    Who knew that Harloys had such a heroic side to her? She directly ignored all enemy attacks as she flew like a meteor with such speed that she left afterimages. She charged through every living obstacle in her path as if she was a battering ram.


    Hey, don¡¯t judge me for how cute she seemed and how I was always throwing her away like a ball. Harloys was actually incredibly useful.


    Back when she was still a slime, her defensive abilities were already astonishing. Her slime form as a magical pet had the abilities to forcefully absorb and be immune to all physical damage. She had been designed as a physical tank from the very start. Now that I had entered the beginning of Myth rank, this also removed her limitation on only being Saint rank in power to match me. Harloys was now close to reaching the peak of her former power again.


    Last time I checked her Constitution stat through my System, her Constitution had already passed an astonishing 50 points. This was a far higher number than even Little Red¡¯s Constitution stat... a truly fearsome stat indeed. Although Harloys still had zero skill in meleebat, it would be impossible to kill her without being ridiculously strong.


    ¡°...I think that I should invent even more abilities for her. Cat shield, cat helmet, cat strawman, cat sex doll... Oh, by strawman, I was referring to the strawmen that Zhuge Liang used in his arrow borrowing strategy.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to kill you!¡±


    The divine angel beast flew back directly towards me, knocking away another horde of enemies in her path. But, when she was only one foot away from me, I smiled slightly and snapped my fingers.


    ¡°Meow?¡±


    And then, the furious divine angel beast that wanted revenge against me transformed into a cute cat that jumped straight into her master¡¯s arms.


    ¡°Meow, meow, meow!¡± (What did you do to me! Why is it that I can only meow now!¡±


    ¡°Cough, I definitely wasn¡¯t modifying... er, leveling up your body while you were asleep! It seems that this function works normally. Don¡¯tin about it, you¡¯re also a Myth-ranked half-undead by now. Who knows just how much longer this magical pet contract can still restrain you? This is a necessary safety mechanism for my own safety.¡±


    ¡°Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow!¡± (Rnd! You damned idiot! It¡¯s your own fault that you¡¯re cursed to be single forever!)


    ¡°What? I can¡¯t understand catnguage.¡±


    ¡°Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow!¡± (Then why could you understand mest time!)


    ¡°Hmph, do you know how to do anything other thanin?¡±


    Frustration, displeasure, and fury all exploded as Harloys vented all her emotions upon Rnd. She jumped on his head and started biting... but Rnd actually instantly put on an enchanted iron helmet that had been forged to +12. He had actually prepared an iron helmet for this asion, how shameless... er, wise could he be! It seemed that he was well prepared.


    ¡°Meow, meow, meow, meow!¡±


    This time, the cat truly started shouting while giving up. Or, in other words, the cat started crying.


    Harloys was crying. The Banshee Queen was actually crying! Rnd had made an achievement yet again. He won! He had aplete victory against his own pet! He was now riding on top of his pet cat and proudly proiming his own victory to the astounded lizardmen all around him that just watched this scene!


    [Don¡¯t be fooled by him. Did you forget about the magical pet contract? He can understand everything you say.]


    Finally, even the System was unable to bear watching Rnd tease his cat for any longer...


    While Rnd was busy behaving ridiculously with his cat, two first-time visitors arrived at Snake God Voka¡¯s temple in the same dimensional level. Judging by how the Snake God greeted these visitors with the utmost respect and in his real body, these two visitors were major personages.


    Their arrival also meant that Rnd¡¯s carefree days in the Chaos Abyss had ended.


    ¡°The Devil Lord heard that there is news of Rnd Mist down here.¡±

 Chapter 575 - The Devils Actions

    <h4>Chapter 575: The Devils¡¯ Actions</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Perhaps ordinary people still didn¡¯t know yet about the battle of Hell. However, this battle had such far-reaching influence and great impact that it was destined to enter Eich¡¯s history books.


    A new third major faction arose for the first time ever in the eternal war between Order and Chaos. The Order Faction was split as several Order Main Gods joined the Hell Faction and became Hell Gods instead. The Chaos Faction lost Cynthia, the will of the Chaos Abyss, and several Chaos Main Gods. Naturally, neither Order nor Chaos came out as a winner in this. But amongst all the losers, there was one smaller faction that lost by far the most. That would be the devils.


    The oldest devil leaders all betrayed Chaos, with four of the nine Devil Lords having betrayed it and left. They also took more than half of all Immemorial Devils with them. Since these devils had all survived countless eons until today, these were the most elite and strongest devils.


    It would have still been understandable if just the elites and cannon fodder had left, but the most ridiculous part was how much top-level strength had been left behind.


    For instance, the demons were far more numerous than the devils, as the demons were the strongest overall faction in the lower nes. However, there were three Main God level existences among the nine Devil Lords, which caused other factions to be extremely afraid of them.


    Kamiltias, the Lord of Lies. Heimor, the Lord of Despair. Sarwenstan, the Lord of Tyranny. These three Main God Devil Lords were infamous names in all dimensions. But now, Kamiltias and Heimor had actually joined the Hell Faction while taking along another two of the Devil Lords with them. Now, the entire devil faction had only one Main God, Sarwenstan, and four remaining weaker Devil Lords.


    It would be nothing but constion to say that they had lost half their strength. It was quite obvious how much weaker they would be with two out of three Main Gods leaving. Not only that, Sarwenstan and his personal faction were some of the younger devils. It could be said that the highest-level fighting strength of the devils had allpletely copsed.


    That was only the first wave of immediate effects. Therge number of Immemorial Devils that had left meant that many tightly structured devil organizations now lost their bosses or elites, bing nothing but empty shells. The devils¡¯ forte, schemes and organizations, had allpletely copsed as well. The devils¡¯ total power was now at less than 20% of their power level before the battle of Hell from seven years ago.


    The lower nes wouldn¡¯t be a location where love and peace flourished. If any faction suddenly weakened immensely, that faction would never receive loving and peaceful aid from other factions. There were only ravenous wolves bearing malicious intents.


    Even though the devils reacted as swiftly as possible and retracted their defenses with the greatest speed, and even though they had the most well-disciplined organizations in theirmand systempared to any other species in all dimensions, the devils still lost a tremendous amount due to the battle of Hell.


    The Immemorial Devils¡¯ betrayal of the entire Chaos Faction also caused the entire devil faction to lose the favor and protection of the Chaos Abyss. And so, the devils¡¯ Hell actually saw many dimensional cracks appearing, causing many areas to copse. Some powerful devils that relied on the favor of the Chaos Abyss to power up even suddenly found themselves losing power levels.


    Demons were no good individuals. When they discovered that their ¡°allies¡± had suddenly weakened by so much, even several Demon Main Gods were tempted to make their move.


    And so, a feast of ughter began. The main hosts were the demons and Chaos Evil Gods. Invited guests even included War Gods from the Order Faction. Both factions seemed to arrive at an unspoken agreement as they split up the devils¡¯ outer circle of territory and resources amongst themselves.


    After experiencing this ¡°feast¡± held by the other Chaos Abyss residents, the devils lost all their important fortresses in the first few levels of the Chaos Abyss. They also lost almost half of all teleportation portals under their control to other parties. All surviving devils retreated to devils¡¯ Hell. The devils instantly went from being the second strongest faction in the Chaos Abyss to being only a slightly-weaker-than-average faction.


    And considering all the grudges in the Chaos Abyss, a phoenix without its feathers would have an even worse time than a chicken. This slightly-weaker-than-average faction would have a very difficult time in the foreseeable future. Those with grudges against them woulde take revenge, and those without grudges woulde and take what they could.


    The devils who managed to survive their species¡¯ cmity were having a worse and worse time as time went on. The ones they hated the most were naturally the Devil Lords that betrayed their trust... Although it seemedical to others that devils would even believe in trust when they felt that betrayal and scamming was the greatest glory, even devils would have grudges and me others for their misfortunes.


    However, three of the former Devil Lords had now be Hell Gods. If the devils wanted revenge, they would have to somehow conquer Hell. So, in the end, all their hatred could only be piled onto the remaining traitor Devil Lord¡ªIlmisya, the Lord of Temptations.


    Ilmisya could probably be considered the most outstanding double agent in all of history as she simultaneously betrayed the Hell Faction and the Chaos Abyss. Now, she was having a good time while living under Abyss Prince Karwenz¡¯s protection. Even though the greatly weakened devils wanted to take revenge against her, they would have to go through Karwenz first.


    The current Karwenz was one of the most powerful individuals in the Chaos Abyss. The devils had no way to handle antagonizing the Abyss Prince. However, they couldn¡¯t stand for sitting back and not trying to take revenge. Not only that, their morale would slip even lower if they didn¡¯t attempt to take revenge.


    That was right, the entire devil species currently had inconceivably low morale. In fact, it even became quitemon for devils to give up on all their umted power to transform themselves into demons. The entire devil species was like a patch of grass being mightily buffeted by a storm. They really needed some good news to make everyone perk up.


    And now, they met with an opportunity...


    ¡°Karwenz¡¯s older brother Rnd is currently in the Chaos Abyss. We should be able to use Rnd as a hostage to exchange for Ilmisya!¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the devils¡¯ logic wasn¡¯t wrong. But if Rnd knew that he was being hunted down by devils because of Karwenz¡¯s woman, he would probably feel rather helpless.


    And from yet another standpoint, since Rnd was the main mastermind behind Hell¡¯s creation, he truly was the foundational reason behind why the devils had weakened by so much. There would be nothing wrong in taking revenge on him.


    ¡°Snake God Voka, we respect your authority in this dimensional level. But, please don¡¯t make things too difficult for us. Even if our species isn¡¯t doing well recently, we still have enough power to interfere with the dimensional levels close to us.¡±


    Arge one-eyed devil was currently speaking to Snake God Voka. Half of this devil¡¯s body was distorted and extremely muscr, with ck heavy chains tied around his body. The other half of his body appeared as skinny and weak as a gnome¡¯s. Yet, this half held a saw-toothed axe. This devil was a veteran devil general who had experienced many bloody battlefields, Salor the Berserk ughterer.


    He didn¡¯t really fit the stereotype of being a devil, because he wasn¡¯t very skilled at betraying and scamming. But from another standpoint, since he had survived so long in the devil society filled with betraying and scamming, this was the best evidence of how his purebat abilities and vicious killing intent had carried him all the way through. This made sense since if every devil general was the sly type that couldn¡¯t actually fight, then the devils would still end up losing.


    Seven years ago, Salor had been the overallmander of one of the bloodiest fortresses on the frontlines, and a major personage on par with a dimensional ruler. But now, not only had he lost his fortress and his position, his entire right leg had been reced with a half metal leg. He was half crippled.


    Even so, he still had such a vicious attitude while requesting Snake God Voka¡¯s assistance, just as if Salor was the actual ruler of this dimensional level.


    Snake God Voka had a true body that was actually thousands of meters long. Even though Voka was currently appearing in humanoid form, his cold gaze would be capable of instantly killing anything mortal.


    Even in humanoid form, Voka still resembled a standing rattlesnake. He was three meters tall in this form with golden scales all over his body. Although he physically resembled lizardmen, it was also obvious that he wasn¡¯t from the same species as lizardmen.


    The Snake God continued to remain silent in front of his two devil visitors that had such vicious attitudes. Voka didn¡¯t want to help the devils, even though they had promised him incredibly tempting rewards.


    ¡°You don¡¯t need to overthink things. We only need you to help gather information and leave everything else to us. No matter how ridiculous or arrogant that person is, he wouldn¡¯t give you any trouble for something like this,¡± Salor told Voka.


    That was right, Voka had absolutely zero interest in Rnd¡¯s life or death. Voka was only concerned about the potential reward, along with the potential risk that giving out Rnd¡¯s information might bring... the risk that he would antagonize Karwenz!


    The Abyss Prince Karwenz was now a Main God, one of the few most powerful existences in the Chaos Abyss. Not only that, the Abyss Prince was famously willful, acting however he wanted. The number of Demon Lords that Karwenz had wiped out for no apparent reason had already exceeded double digits. Voka felt that it would obviously be a bad deal if he antagonized the Abyss Prince for the sake of some devils who now had such a greatly weakened fashion.


    ¡°Is this the will of the Devil Lords?¡±


    ¡°You know that I am one of the Devil Lords. And, I represent the will of all us Devil Lords, including Sarwenstan,¡± the other devil replied.


    This time, the famous Salor the Berserk ughter wasn¡¯t the one in charge of this hunt for Rnd. The true individual in charge was the cool-seeming devil beauty under her cape¡ªLasnina, the Lord of Curses.


    This Devil Lord was previously the female lover and one of the best friends of Ilmisya, the Lord of Temptations. But now, Lasnina had personally sliced her own face, ruining her own beauty in an oath to take revenge.


    Her appearance here also represented the fact that the devils had sent their full forces here. They were willing to make any sacrifice necessary to capture Rnd to exchange for Ilmisya in order to take revenge.


    But unfortunately for the devils, Voka had beenpletely indifferent to their request for information. He made it obvious that the devils¡¯ promised rewards for him were still insufficient. He still wanted more.


    If the devils tried to find Rnd in this dimensional level on their own, even if Voka ignored and let them do as they pleased, it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack with howrge the dimensional level was and how few devils there were inparison.


    Suddenly, Snake God Voka paused in surprise with an obvious look of astonishment on his snake-shaped head.


    ¡°One of my priests is praying to obtain power from me? Because a human Holy Knight is down here in the Chaos Abyss?¡±

 Chapter 576 - Lucky Hunters

    <h4>Chapter 576: Lucky Hunters</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Holy Light I summoned ignited the entire sky. The shadows of an angel shing with a dragon above the clouds could be seen from the ground. Just the power that they released kept blowing clouds away. Just how fierce of a battle could this be?


    But actually, I was using the Holy Light to obscure my secret conversation with Little Red.


    ¡°...Basically, there¡¯s a change in ns. We need to hurry to the 100th level to meet with Adam and Margaret. It¡¯s been so long already, so Margaret¡¯s probably brought that idiot who has no sense of direction here by now. Then, we need to go together to find that Sun God from the first generation.¡±


    I didn¡¯t intend to take my time ying games with the residents of the Chaos Abyss anymore. I had now stayed in this damp and cold swamp for almost a month. I felt like mushrooms were about to sprout from my shoes. And considering the damned weather down here, they would likely be toxic mushrooms!


    ¡°God Equipment!¡±


    Little Red¡¯s answer was incredibly simple and direct in response to my request. She also kept staring to the left at the red-eyed lizardmen tribe leader who was currently jumping up and down. It seemed that he was quite anxious from seeing his side¡¯s red dragon be at an apparent ¡°disadvantage¡±.


    It would seem that Little Red was absolutely dead-set on obtaining that God Equipment which was capable of controlling dragon beasts. She basically meant that she absolutely wouldn¡¯t leave here until I helped her obtain the God Equipment.


    ¡°Just what is that?¡±


    I was rather curious myself. Little Red was no newbie who had never seen God Equipment before. What God Equipment would possibly attract her interest to such a degree?


    ¡°...It¡¯s highly likely to be the heart of some Supreme Immemorial Dragon God from the past that probably died here in the Chaos Abyss. That heart will be one of the best possible resources for me. It also likely includes that Dragon God¡¯s personal experiences and understandings...¡±


    I instantly realized why she wanted it so much. Dragons were famously long-lived, but this came at the cost of progressing much slower in power level. With such long lives, they could naturally power up through cultivation. Of course, a dragon wouldn¡¯t let go of any chance to improve their own power level.


    Dragons¡¯ growth was rather unique. They were also capable of transforming their personal Concepts into physical Myth-ranked weapons. But for them, what material could possibly be more precious than their physical body that was born with such a great advantage over the extreme majority of other species? That was why dragons¡¯ chosen personal Concepts typicallybined with some part of their body to strengthen themselves.


    If a dragon died, its bones, flesh, and meat would naturally decay with time. However, its organ that had once hosted the dragon¡¯s personal Concept would typically be preserved far longer.


    This was the foundational reason why the corpse of a powerful dragon would be a valuable treasure, and why Dragon Queens¡¯ and Dragon Gods¡¯ corpses would be iparably valuable.


    After spending some time with the lizardmen tribe, Little Red had been able to identify that God Equipment. She kept feeling more and more like this was a rare chance, but this actually made her afraid to use brute force. She became far more restrained.


    The lizardmen altar where the heart was stored was guarded 24/7. Not only that, it was also protected by voodoo magic. Since there were multiple different types of defenses on the heart, it would be quite difficult to deal with each one in one attack. If the lizardmen decided to destroy the heart at the moment that Little Red attacked, Little Red wouldn¡¯t even have enough time to cry.


    ¡°I doubt that the lizardmen are even capable of destroying that heart.¡±


    ¡°Who knows? I¡¯m afraid of the worst possible scenario. Previously, I spent so much effort in finally obtaining an eye of a dead Supreme Immemorial Dragon. Yet, Annie used it as a football and kicked it with all her might. When I finally found the dragon eye again, its round shape had bepletely t. I was so heartbroken...¡±


    ¡°...That was why you hung Annie up on a tree for half a night back in the day? If it had been me, I would have cooked that naughty child in a frying pan filled with oil!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re just nothing but talk. You spoil children even more than I do. Are you still intending to stall with Elisa? If you don¡¯t decisively make a break with her, you¡¯ll probably sink deeper and deeper into things. In the end, you¡¯ll probably meet an ending by... what-chet again?¡±


    ¡°A hatchet <sup>1</sup> ...¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but smile bitterly upon hearing this. While I could deal with other things, my ridiculously messy love problems were truly impossible for me to deal with. Fortunately for me, Elisa was still in the Land of Spring. I hoped that she could understand me if I stalled her for a while longer...


    ¡°Understand? She long since understands you quite well. She just doesn¡¯t want to give up on you. By the way, don¡¯t you think something seems wrong about this? Aren¡¯t the two of you supposed to be fighting each other? How did the two of you start talking about how to raise naughty children? Even if you¡¯re only acting, you should act a little more serious. Be more serious, you¡¯re fighting each other!¡±


    Finally, my hat was unable to watch this anymore... no, I didn¡¯t use the wrong word here. Why did I say my hat? Ever since I finished with teasing my cat, her sharp fangs had remained embedded in my skull from all this time. From a long distance, it looked like I was wearing a cat-eared hat, but actually I was feeling pain to the extent where I constantly needed to send Holy Light healing to my head.


    If this was an MMORPG game, it was likely that my current condition would be represented by a bleeding status effect, with constant damage notifications of ¡°-1¡±, ¡°-1¡± in red... And the asional ¡°+167¡± of health restoration magic in green.


    I hid so high up in the sky for my mock fight with Little Red also because of this ¡°bleeding effect¡± hat on my head. It was probably impossible to act serious like this.


    But still, Harloys¡¯ reminder indeed helped me to get back to the topic at hand. I needed to help Little Red obtain the heart God Equipment as quickly as possible so that we could leave this dimensional level together.


    For some unknown reason, I kept feeling like I was being targeted by someone. This was an instinctive ominous premonition. Sometimes, the instinct of the strong was a type of weapon in and of itself. My ominous premonitions for my uing misfortunes were also always incredibly on the mark.


    ¡°Is this your personal experience as a master jinxer? Or an instinct honed from being hunted down countless times?¡±


    ¡°Shut up and go obediently be a hat.¡±


    I experienced another round of biting and pain on my head that required more Holy Light healing. I then rubbed my chin that finally had some slight fuzz growing as I made my decision.


    ¡°The best way to get thatplete heart undamaged is to have them voluntarily give it to Little Red...¡±


    I then smiled at Little Red as we exchanged knowing nces.


    In front of all the spectators on the ground, I made it so that there was a clearly visible shadow of me erging and summoning a giant sword that viciously shed into the red dragon.


    ¡°Ahhh! You damned Holy Knight and damned God of Holy Light! You actually forcefully used God¡¯s Descent down here in the Chaos Abyss!¡± the red dragon screamed in pain as blood (fake) sttered down like rain. She directly fell out of the sky.


    Next, a beam of white Holy Light sliced through the air and fired downward at a meteoric speed.


    ¡°Tribe leader Grayde!¡±


    *BOOOOOOOOM!!!*


    The lizardmen shouted in panic, their voicesbining with a loud explosion. When the smoke finally dissipated, arge pit had appeared in the ground right next to Bloodspear tribe leader Grayde¡¯s feet.


    Grayde panickily looked right at the pit next to him. He knew that he had almost been vaporized instantly¡ªhe was saved by the mere distance of one meter. If he died just like that, his tribe leader position and all the beautiful female lizardmen that were his wives would all be taken by someone else!


    Grayde looked above him and saw that Holy Knight with wings of light seeming like he was looking directly at Grayde. The Holy Knight looked at him like he was prey cornered by the greatest predator. That Holy Knight¡¯s naked killing intent seemed so near even though he was still far away in the sky. Grayde instantly felt a chill down his back and began to tremble all over.


    ¡°Hurry, give her, give her that heart!¡±


    Grayde swiftly went over all the possibilities in his mind. If he died right here, he would no longer have anything. But if he could help that red dragon defeat the Holy Knight, even if that red dragon ended up ignoring him afterwards, at least he would still be alive.


    *Boom!*


    *Boom!*


    Some more explosive beams of Holy Light rained down and exploded everywhere. It seemed like that Holy Knight was now using indiscriminate AOE attacks.


    ¡°Hurry and give it to her!!!¡± Grayde screamed at the top of his lungs. The lizardmen who were filled with anxiety for their own safety moved at top speed. In just a short moment, a grayish-white heartstone was brought over to the red dragon where she had fallen onto the ground.


    Naturally, the Holy Knight wouldn¡¯t simply sit back and watch them do this. But at this moment, four adult ck dragons suddenly flew down from the clouds and spat venomous green dragonbreath at the Holy Knight.


    Heh heh heh, my script was absolutely perfect! I even had side characters involved!


    As long as the lizardmen lost their God Equipment dragon heart, the dragon beasts that they summoned would naturally leave them. Their ambitions to conquer this entire dimensional level would then vanish into nothing. And as long as Ipleted this, I could then use the dark dwarves¡¯ teleportation portal and leave this damned dimensional level with no other worries as the dark dwarves would no longer be faced with the threat of the lizardmen.


    ¡°Hurry, give it to me, with this I¡¯ll be able to...¡±


    But right as Little Red was about to obtain the God Equipment that she desired so much, tworge caped figures appeared in midair at this time.


    ¡°We¡¯ve actually managed to find him so easily?¡±


    Even the devils hunting Rnd down didn¡¯t think that they would be so fortunate. Or, perhaps it should be said that Rnd was truly just that unfortunate.

 Chapter 577 - Evil Gods and Devils

    <h4>Chapter 577: Evil Gods and Devils</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    From the very start, I had already noticed a lizardman priest praying to his Snake God Voka. He had been constantly summoning Divine Arts. However, the lizardman priest simply wasn¡¯t important enough to worry about.


    That was because the Chaos Evil Gods were foundationally different from the Order Gods. The Chaos Gods were more primitive, relying more on themselves to obtain their divinity. They didn¡¯t believe as much in using the power of belief to power themselves up. The Chaos Gods alsocked any sense of responsibility towards their believers.


    Indeed, a sense of responsibility. Although it might sound strange, Gods and their believers would typically have a mysterious connection or contract between them. The rtionship between the Order Gods and their believers would be like that of a properly registeredpany. The benefits and treatment would be listed quite clearly. Thepany¡¯s policies, way of thinking (the God¡¯s church¡¯s rules), and everything else would be perfectly clear. There would also be ways for believers to slowly level themselves up.


    If a God¡¯s shamans or priests had excellent achievements, these would be counted as achievements for the pany¡±, and thepany (the God)¡¯s power level would be increased even further. The believers and priests would also receive divine favor and actual power in return. And if thepany copsed (the God died), all of the ¡°employees¡± would naturally lose their jobs.


    Meanwhile, the Chaos Evil Gods werepletely different as they weren¡¯t bound by Order or any rules. The rtionship between the Chaos Gods and their believers was like the rtionship between a mafia organization and its members. There would be no rules as whatever the boss said counted as rules. Thepany¡¯s only goal was to make the boss richer and more powerful. All the employees were nothing more than tools that had zero guarantees for themselves.


    This was the foundational difference between the Chaos Evil Gods and the Order Gods. The Order Gods were just like properpanies thatpeted with each other on the market. Other than an extremely few exceptions, they would all have topete while following thew to see who had better marketing and business methods.


    As for the Chaos Evil Gods that functioned more like mafia-run illegal businesses? They far preferred to directly rob, fight, or kill for the sake of a Divine Concept or position. Devouring a single Low God would increase a Chaos God¡¯s power by an amount that would take an Order God thousands of years to umte.


    That was why the Chaos Evil Gods were far more aggressive than the Order Gods. Most Evil Gods typically viewed their own believers as nothing more than useful tools or even ves. As long as the Evil God could achieve their own goals, why would they care if the tool was broken in the process?


    As an example, just look at Lorci from before she perished. Not a single Order God would ever allow their believers to fight with and kill each other as that would decrease the Order God¡¯s total amount of belief. Yet, Lorci actively encouraged this as she only wanted the strongest to survive. She would give the most vicious and powerful survivors her divine favor, while she would punish those who were weak and those who were kind. She also viewed all the Elf Gods as mortal enemies and prey.


    So, if you worshiped an Evil God, it was quite possible to suddenly power up within a single day. As long as the boss ¡°liked¡± you and ¡°admired¡± your talents, that is. But, the same boss might suddenly make you into a chess piece in their ns without you realizing it, and in the end, you wouldn¡¯t even know how you died.


    ording to my knowledge, ny-nine percent of those who suddenly powered up within a single day were those who had gotten involved in the Evil God¡¯s ns. Such people would no longer be able to extract themselves. The sly and viinous Evil Gods would never help someone else for no reason. The Evil Gods¡¯ internal conflicts were quite fierce as they were allpetitors as well as predators and prey for each other.


    Perhaps the most pitiful Evil God followers were those who signed soul contracts. This meant that even after you died, your soul would go directly to the Evil God. Depending on your power and aplishments, the Evil God would then decide on whether to turn you into a Divine Envoy, devil, demon, and so on. Or, if you were deemed worthless, you would simply be turned into soul coins, food, or base resources.


    Foundationally, Order Gods and Chaos Evil Gods were actually the same. They only cared about their own personal benefits. None of them actually cared about the lives of mortals. This was just like how both the dark side of society and properpanies all worked for personal benefits. It was just that properpanies would appear much better aspanies would provide long-term goods and services. Meanwhile, the illegalpanies had absolutely no restrictions or morals. They would dare to do anything. The personal benefits involved would be much greater and could be obtained much faster, but it would also be far more dangerous and very easy to die.


    Since we were traveling in the Chaos Abyss, we naturally needed to be prepared for interacting with Chaos Evil Gods.


    Information on Snake God Voka¡¯s was no secret. Voka was the Guardian God of snake demons, snakemen, and lizardmen. He was also a God of Poison. His original form was a gigantic venomous snake from the Immemorial Generation. Records of his past battles weren¡¯t particrly outstanding. His attack power among the Evil Gods could be considered weak. However, the very fact that he had a long life already was the best evidence of his solid foundation as the Chaos Abyss was no kind and peaceful ce.


    I had no intention of antagonizing such an ancient existence. Who knew what trump cards a Chaos Evil God would have up their sleeve? However, I was quite reassured by how cautious Voka¡¯s personality was.


    As for Voka¡¯s believers that kept praying for his power? I had already killed so many lizardmen in the Chaos Abyss that I could fill countless warehouses. Lizardmen had yet to be able to use even a single bit of Chaos Evil God Voka¡¯s power.


    Indeed, it was possible for an Evil God¡¯s believers to pray for extra power when fighting against a powerful enemy that the believer couldn¡¯t handle. But, the Evil God wouldpletely ignore you and not even care unless the Evil God had some sort of personal benefit involved.


    This level of the Chaos Abyss waspletely filled with snake demons and lizardmen. Voka had countless believers, which actually meant that he would care very little about some individual ones being killed off. If this was the mortal ne instead, losing a single high-level priest would be a great loss, and also make him lose a great amount of face. That was why it was far moremon for Evil Gods to respond to their dark cultist believers in the mortal ne.


    This ce was far closer to Voka¡¯s body than the mortal ne, meaning that this ce was more dangerous to antagonize him in. Still, lizardmen would die every day down here. Although the lizardmen would have an easier time reaching him, the chances of him actually responding were far lower¡ªlow to the point of beingpletely ignorable.


    Perhaps this was why the Chinese Embassy cared so much about the treatment of Chinese citizens overseas¡ªthis was about China¡¯s face... Cough, cough, I should probably stop here as censorship is tight these days. I should stop being so suicidal.


    Anyways, when I saw the giant cyan snake in the sky, my first reaction was that it was an illusion. My second reaction was that my luck stat was indeed so far down and negative that it hadn¡¯t improved by a single stat point in the past several hundred years.


    ¡°Damn, I couldn¡¯t possibly be this unlucky?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s dangerous, we need to leave!¡±


    ¡°We need to take the valuables first...¡±


    Many years of tacit cooperation caused myself, Harloys, and Little Red to instantly agree upon what to do. I tossed out a sword of Holy Light and impaled the lizardman shaman who was holding the heartstone. This time, I didn¡¯t intentionally miss.


    Little Red, who had still been on the ground and pretending to be howling in pain a moment ago, instantly jumped over to that dead lizardman¡¯s side.


    She then grabbed the heartstone and swallowed it. After that, she spread her wings, intending to run away. But, I had already unhesitatingly started running first. I could sense that therge snake had already locked onto me!


    Challenging an Evil God¡¯s true body in his personal dimensional level would be the same as challenging an Order True God in his Divine Kingdom. I wasn¡¯t so foolishly suicidal to such an extent.


    However, I was suddenly blocked by a female figure.


    She was a female devil general who was more than three meters tall. Her ck armor was covered in dents, and the chain sword she held in her right hand was covered in blood.


    She red at me so viciously that it seemed as if I¡¯d killed her father or something.


    If it wasn¡¯t for the scars on her face, she definitely would have been considered outstandingly beautiful. But right now, the vicious rage and naked hatred in her eyes made me rather confused.


    ¡°Um...? Do we know each other? I don¡¯t recall ever making you angry? What¡¯s your name?¡±


    ¡°Hmph, it¡¯s probably another rtionship debt that you owe. Can you even remember how many women you¡¯ve pissed off in your life?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ment made me feel rather guilty, but when I tried to think of who this female devil could be, I really didn¡¯t have a clue...


    ¡°Kar... wen... z...¡±


    The hatred in her voice was strong as she slowly pronounced each syble. Her blood-red eyes were filled with pain and regret.


    Oh, so it was all Karwenz¡¯s fault! Damn it all! How could I be unlucky to such a degree that I was taking the me for him!


    ¡°Um, wait a moment, although we really look alike, take a closer look. I¡¯m human, and Karwenz is a devil¡ª¡±


    But before I could finish speaking, countless red chains covered the sky as this female devil general unhesitatingly attacked me with her chain sword!


    ¡°Damn it all, even this can get me involved!¡±


    Since she was already attacking me, what else could I do? Of course I would fight back!


    I suddenly whipped out my ice sword, blocking her invisible chain sword. She was greatly pressuring me. This was no opponent that I would be able to easily deal with.


    From the corner of my eye, however, I noticed that the Snake God Voka seemed to have no intentions of interfering in our fight. Meanwhile, Little Red had also been obstructed by a deformed devil general. That devil had an easily recognizable appearance¡ªhe was obviously the devil general Salor the Berserk ughterer from the first level of the Chaos Abyss.


    In that case, when looking at my opponent¡¯s weapon that was filled with blood and curses, and how many countless souls were on this weapon that were howling in pain, I now knew just who my opponent was.


    ¡°Lasnina, the Lord of Curses!¡±


    The next moment, I illuminated the entire sky with Holy Light. This time, it was no mere light show. It would be the utmost foolishness not to go all out against a Devil Lord.


    My wings of Holy Light explosively expanded as I switched my ice sword out for my God Equipment battle hammer. Holy Light torrentially poured out from my weapon as if it was the sun itself!


    ¡°Holy Light, this enemy is worthy of a fight!¡±


    No reasons or excuses were needed, since we were enemies to begin with!


    Since a Devil Lord hade to me, and she wanted to fight, I would apany her! Who would be afraid!?

 Chapter 578 - Cursed Magic Sword

    <h4>Chapter 578: Cursed Magic Sword</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Misfortune always suddenly descends upon me...¡±


    I lowered my head and blinked as my eyes were aching from the powerful gusts my enemy¡¯s sword was whipping up. This time, my opponent was indeed rather difficult to deal with.


    The magic sword, Sostya. It was also known as the ¡°Snaketail Whip¡±. This was the God Equipment that was currently showing its effects to me...


    I kept hearing the screams and wails of the souls that had died to this God Equipment. This was a type of mental attack targeted against the soul. If you didn¡¯t have any soul defense capabilities, or if you were distracted by the fierce physical battle, then you would soon be another soul fed to this sword.


    As the battle progressed, the sword would keep hissing and distorting like a snake. These souls would constantly try and invade your mind. The moment that you showed apse and listened to their pasts would be the moment of your death.


    And this was only the most insignificant effect of this God Equipment which had ughtered so many souls. Perhaps it was precisely because far too many souls had died to this sword that so much hatred and grudges had umted upon it, bing its own natural curse.


    ¡°Holy Light, please help these pitiful souls be restored to calmness.¡±


    The Light of Salvation materialized above me, giving me a halo of light on my head.


    The Holy Light above my head began to illuminate everything. It was saving the souls trapped within the sword. This was the Light of Salvation from Estrada, the Pir God of Holy Light. The cursed sword¡¯s captured souls kept screaming and scattering everywhere. Some souls sessfully re-entered the Cycle of Reincarnation with the Light of Salvation¡¯s help, while others were forced back into the God Equipment sword.


    Lasnina noticed that her sword¡¯s ability was being countered, so she immediately changed her fighting style. She shook her magic sword several times, lengthening it greatly.


    I then saw nothing but blood-red sword des before me. Countless chains and des were everywhere as dark chains sealed the entire sky. Lasnina¡¯s magic sword was actually capable of sealing off an entire area with its chains.


    ¡°Holy Light, cleanse this cursed magic sword!¡± I loudly shouted while viciously shing my battle hammer against the magic sword.


    After a few exchanges, Lasnina now had an ugly expression.


    She could sense that her God Equipment magic sword was howling and asking for her to save it! Her magic sword was actually being permanently weakened with each exchange of blows against that hammer!


    ¡°...Is this really Holy Light?¡±


    Lasnina finally stopped for a moment and spoke her firstplete sentence ever since she arrived and attacked me. However, the only answer that greeted her was a powerful spear of Holy Light that suddenly descended from the clouds and exploded right in front of her.


    *Boom!*


    *Boom!*


    Sessive explosions disyed the tremendous attack power of the purest Holy Light!


    This spear of Holy Light was one that I had ¡°missed¡± with previously when chasing after Lasnina. Actually, I had intentionally tossed it in a boomerang fashion.


    And since Lasnina had now stopped, I controlled that spear of Holy Light to explode right in front of Lasnina.


    Violent explosions sent all the nearby clouds flying away, covering Lasnina within new mushroom clouds!


    I was no idiot antagonist who would kindly exin his own abilities to his enemies. Since Lasnina was obviously distracted, I would naturally take this opportunity to attack her. An unmoving target would be much easier to hit than a moving target, after all.


    So when Lasnina barely finished her ¡°...Is this really Holy Light?¡± question, I responded afterwards with...


    ¡°Hmph, you want me to stop when you say stop? What would I do about my loss of face then?¡±


    *ng!*


    Suddenly, a pain in my back reminded me that I wasn¡¯t the only one who knew how to y dirty tricks! Lasnina actually ambushed me from behind!


    A chain de from her sword had struck from the clouds. That magic sword could actually be taken apart and attack automatically?


    Had she intentionally spoken to attract my attention so that she could injure me with her sword part hidden in the clouds? How sly!


    ¡°Useless! It¡¯s all useless!¡±


    However, her attack was useless against me. I turned around, grabbed that part of the magic sword, and shed three beams of Holy Light. All that remained afterwards was a piece of scrap metal without any power.


    ¡°Tsk, he¡¯s just like an armored turtle. I picked the wrong opponent.¡±


    Lasnina walked out of my mushroom cloud explosion without even a single injury. It seemed that our attacks so far had been nothing but appetizers.


    But from a certain standpoint, she had indeed picked the wrong opponent. At least from what it appeared, my abilities obviously countered hers.


    Her magic sword Sostya¡¯s most dangerous ability wasn¡¯t its trait to lengthen infinitely or its ability to change into any shape, nor was it the cursed souls in the sword. The most dangerous ability was actually the de itself.


    Its de appeared to be corroded by too much blood and rather blunted. However, this de was actually filled with the devils¡¯ curse magic. All the blood on the sword was actually magic runes created using souls.


    This magic sword would be even more dangerous when used by Lasnina, the Lord of Curses. As long as this sword came into contact with an enemy¡¯s physical body, that enemy would instantly be struck with ¡°aging¡±, ¡°soul-sucking¡±, ¡°idiocy¡±, ¡°misfortune¡±, and more than twenty other powerful curses. Even an Order True God would be fallen if struck by this sword.


    But, it was all meaningless in front of me...


    ¡°Rnd, if you¡¯re a real man, take off that turtle shell of yours!¡±


    A beautiful woman¡¯s anger would always be quite influential. However, I only wanted tough when hearing Lasnina say this.


    ¡°Ha, your taunting abilities are so bad that I¡¯m wondering if you¡¯re really a devil or not. You want me to take off my armor? Sure, but only if you throw away your sword first. Why don¡¯t we try after that to see if I¡¯m a real man or not?¡±


    Alright then, the only response was her magical sword attacking me even more frequently in whip form. It seemed that Lasnina really wasn¡¯t much like a normal devil, as she became angry so easily.


    However, her attacks were still useless against me...


    Yes, the reason why I had such an advantage from the very beginning was because of my full-body dragonscale ice armor, the ¡°Guardian of Yongye¡± which had now evolved to be SemiGod Equipment.


    Even the most venomous sword would still need toe into contact with your skin in order to kill you. This protective armor that I obtained by using half of all my abilities would never be broken through so easily. I would be undefeatable as long as my armor was intact! And, this living armor also had the ability to repair itself. The longer this battle went on, the greater my advantage would be.


    Lasnina was quite correct when shemented that she chose the wrong opponent. She probably saw that Little Red¡¯s dragon scales were quite thick with high magic resistance, which was why she picked me since I wasn¡¯t wearing any armor. However, she hadn¡¯t expected that I had the ability to instantly summon this heavy armor.


    Meanwhile, Salor the Berserk ughterer had also met a troublesome opponent for him.


    Salor was a well-known powerful devil. However, while reputation was useful for obtaining authority and respect, this would oftene with a downside¡ªthe information about your abilities leaking out. I had summoned my ice armor instantly the moment that I saw Lasnina¡¯s magic sword. Meanwhile, Little Red, who was also a highly experiencedbat veteran, had also wisely andpletely countered Salor¡¯s abilities.


    The famous Salor who had been in so many bloody battles was well known for his special ability as well as his physical appearance. Salor was capable of changing any object¡¯s weight simply through touch, making it either heavier or lighter. He could use this to make even the strongest armor into something frailer than paper or to make a piece of paper as solid as a castle wall.


    Nobody knew how he was able to aplish this. However, this ability of his would counter all melee techniques. Fighting giant beasts would be nothing more than a simple task for him. He would basically be unstoppable in chaotic melee.


    Little Red had instantly recognized her opponent, so she unhesitatingly gave up on using her true dragon form which was more powerful. Instead, she used her human form and showed off her magic abilities in both fire and wind magic, which were on par with any archmage¡¯s.


    The ability to fly, precise instant short-distance teleportation, dragon wing buffs, shooting fire breath, creating tornados, rattlesnake buff, high-speed buff, and so on. Little Red used her human form in tandem with dragon wings to show off what high mobilitybined with the ability to fly was truly about inbat.


    Her red figure would constantly appear and disappear in the sky. The clumsy and heavy male devil on the ground only chased after nothing but afterimages. mes and windstorms would constantly greet him. Salor had already been knocked onto the ground twice. If it wasn¡¯t for his power level, his entire body would have shattered already.


    Red dragons naturally possessed excellent spatial senses and aerialbat techniques. Salor had yet to even touch his opponent. He was only taking hits for the entire fight so far!


    ¡°That¡¯s right, your special ability is really powerful. You¡¯ll be able to kill me instantly if you touch me. But, you¡¯ll have to catch me first!¡± Little Red even taunted Salor while fighting.


    Salor had met plenty of highly mobile enemies in the past before. He also possessed a powerful magic item that allowed him to instantaneously teleport at short distances. However, he used this twice and received nothing but dragonbreath twice in a row. Salor knew that he couldn¡¯t just teleport as he pleased anymore in front of this fire and wind magic grandmaster. Her dragon eyes were capable of seeing through all dimensional cracks that appeared, knowing where he would teleport to.


    Although Salor was highly durable, he felt like he would be cooked soon if he received mes constantly like this. He tried to ask for help from the Lord of Curses, but found that she was also making zero progress against her opponent.


    Now, these two powerful devils finally regretted their arrogance. Why hadn¡¯t they taken their entire devil armies with them? It was all for the sake of saving face!


    I felt more reassured after seeing that Little Red had advantage in her battle. But just as I felt like we had such a great advantage, Lasnina really did toss down her magic sword.


    ¡°I¡¯m bored, mortal. Allow me to show you my true power, the reason why I am called the Lord of Curses!¡±

 Chapter 579 - Stare of the Hell God

    <h4>Chapter 579: Stare of the Hell God</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    She threw down her sword? Did she really want me to take off my armor and prove that I was a real man? As long as I didn¡¯t have to take responsibility, I would really wee that...


    Cough, cough, censorship had been tight recently, so I should probably be a little more serious... Obviously, Lasnina didn¡¯t throw down her sword for the sake of world peace. Her magic sword suddenly split into hundreds of tiny metal shards that constantly swirled around in the sky.


    ¡°She¡¯s like a sword fairy? Who also has floating artillery? How ridiculous.¡±


    Although I was rambling, I was highly on guard on the inside. Logically speaking, these smaller sword shards that could automatically attack should have lower attack power. Even if this was more difficult to defend against, it would be meaningless if it couldn¡¯t scratch my defenses. There would be no foundational difference.


    However, my opponent was one of the famous nine Devil Lords. Her tricks would never be so simple.


    The next instant, I witnessed something inconceivable. All the sword shards actually shot straight towards their master!


    All the sword shards embedded themselves in Lasnina¡¯s flesh, sending blood flying everywhere as she was pierced all over, bing a bloody devil.


    Right after this, countless blood runes appeared on her body, looking just like the blood rune curses on her magic sword. Her physical body rapidly expanded as it obtained an umistakable power.


    ¡°Curses are vicious intentions thate from the soul. Jealousy, hatred, anger, regret, and words are all invisible des. Curses fill this bloody sword. All the curses in the world are my food!¡±


    Lasnina was now muchrger after finishing her transformation. Her entire body was covered in blood and runes, with countless sword shards still stuck in her body. It was almost as if they acted as chains protecting her. Meanwhile, she still had a more than three-meter-long sword in her right hand.


    Her physical appearance was still humanoid. However, her magic power was now on apletely different level.


    An ethereal figure kept flickering behind her. This was the Abyss of Evil, the farthest bottom level of the Chaos Abyss, where only the most evil and vicious insects resided.


    I had never seen such corrupt magic before. Her magic was pure rottenness, stink, and slowness, and contained countless negative curses. The entire sky was tainted with numerous colors.


    Waves of evil began to spread as a sudden downpour of ck rain began to fall. Every single raindrop contained pure evil, and seemed like souls were trapped and howling within.


    An endless amount of evil and corruption was tainting the entire world around us, just like a vicious virus would. Just looking at it all made me feel like I was being devoured.


    ¡°Wahhh!!!¡±


    ¡°It hurts, it hurts!¡±


    The lizardmen around us still watching this scene couldn¡¯t take even a single look. Some kneeled on the ground and vomited, some cried loudly, and some instinctively ran away at their top speed. But, there was no difference no matter how they reacted. Those who ran away transformed into dry skeletons as they ran. Those who vomited ended with vomiting up all their internal organs. Those who cried ended up crying out all the blood in their bodies.


    Those who were quick and smart enough to react chose to blind themselves, which would indeed protect their lives. However, the magic sounds still entered their ears, and the stench still entered their noses. The best possible result would be that they¡¯d still end up handicapped for their entire lives.


    A lizardman witch doctor that just used up his divine power kneeled on the ground and kept vomiting. Apart from his bloody internal organs, he also vomited up ck and gray maggots with human faces! That was the true form of the mysterious curses that the lizardman witch doctor had utilized.


    Curses were vicious intentions that came from the soul. As the strongest polluting source of curses in the world, the moment that Lasnina showed this form, she indiscriminately cursed all the lives in this area and corrupted the entire world around her.


    ¡°So this is the true form of the Lord of Curses? It¡¯s so...¡±


    ¡°...Ugly.¡±


    However, thepletely bloody Lasnina was the one who finished my sentence. She then continued speaking.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, since this form of mine is so ugly, that¡¯s why everyone who¡¯s seen it before has...¡±


    It was obvious what she was going to finish that sentence with. Since she was already using such a form, naturally she wouldn¡¯t stop unless she killed me.


    ¡°...Signed confidentiality agreements with you? I could rmend you several good wood spirit cosmetic surgeons.¡±


    I kept joking around, but I could only smile wryly in my mind. Just based on the magic power level alone, her magic power had more than tripled in strength. Previously, her magic power only slightly exceeded mine, but now she was at the level that couldpletely suppress me.


    I kept feeling like things were getting worse for me. Since Lasnina had willingly shown her true form that she considered to be incredibly ugly, this naturally meant that she was going all out against me without caring about what price she paid.


    ¡°Ha, you really are that person¡¯s older brother. You¡¯re both equally skilled at enraging others!¡±


    The erged Lasnina constantly felt pain and difort in this form. She had no intentions of standing around to chat, so she instantly attacked.


    The ethereal figure before me instantly disappeared. I could only sense that she was rapidly approaching. Even my soul vision was unable to lock on to her!


    ¡°So fast!¡±


    Before I could even react, her sword viciously shed directly at my face. There were no changes in the dimensional wavelengths. She hadn¡¯t used any type of instantaneous teleportation. This was speed achieved purely through physical might!


    Her sword kept viciously shing against my body, with direct attacks, side attacks, whip attacks, stab attacks, sweeping attacks, and heavy attacks, attacks directly against my head, eyes, ears, or groin, and so on. Every single part of my body came under constant attack as if an eight-headed hydra was furiously tearing at me.


    ¡°Ahahaha! Let¡¯s see how long your turtle shell canst!¡±


    She was trying to forcefully break past my armor as well as searching for any weaknesses in it. If this armor had been a normal creation, there would definitely be joints where the parts connected, venttion openings, and other such weak spots.


    However, Lasnina¡¯s efforts were destined to be useless. The Guardian of Yongye was my absolute defense armor created using my bloodline¡¯s power. Every part of this armor had been created simultaneously. There would be no such weaknesses in it!


    ¡°Holy Light¡ª¡±


    Right when I opened my mouth to prepare more Holy Light, Lasnina¡¯s sword almost stuck itself down my throat. Her frequent high-speed attacks were like the unstoppable ocean itself, constantly sending tides to crash against me. I didn¡¯t even have a chance to counterattack.


    And so, I simply closed my eyes...


    ¡°Are you giving up? Come, counterattack, you coward!¡±


    I heard Lasnina¡¯s hysterical screams right in my ears as her powerful fists constantly struck my stomach. The powerful prative force caused me to spit blood. But even so, I still gritted my teeth and kept my eyes closed.


    One hit, two hits, a hundred hits, a thousand hits. My dragon armor finally showed signs of cracking. This meant that its ability to repair itself was no longer able to keep up with the damage it was taking. My armor was now in danger ofpletely shattering.


    ¡°Coward, die just like this without even trying to attack!¡±


    The rampaging Lasnina was no longer able to control her emotions. Her original intention of taking Rnd alive as a hostage had all been abandoned. Right now, all she wanted was to tear apart this bastard before her.


    But at this moment, I opened my eyes.


    One of my eyes had a normal ck pupil and eye white, while my other eye had a white pupil and eye ck, making my eyes seem like two halves of a Yin Yang diagram.


    ¡°Judgement...¡±


    I spoke that word emotionlessly as if I was a God high above judging the mortal world. It was as if nothing, not even the world, had anything to do with me. The individual before me was guilty, so I was judging her.


    I powered up my ¡°Stare of the Hell God¡± ability to the utmost, finally using this incredibly dangerous ace up my sleeve.


    Lasnina instantly stopped as if she was a frog being stared at by a predatory snake when faced with my stare. The next instant, blood furiously poured out from her entire body as if she had just experienced an endless amount of torture in one second.


    Nobody knew what Lasnina had witnessed in this moment. The Lord of Curses, who was afraid of nothing, finally knew what fear was. She had apletely pale face and all the magic blood runes on her body no longer glowed. Her sweat and blood mixed together, and she was unable to even slow down the blood that furiously spurted out from her body.


    It was only normal that she would be in such pain. After Hell was sessfully established, my Stare of the Hell God ability had been massively powered up.


    The Stare of the Hell God was a judgement of one¡¯s soul. Every single life would have two sides¡ªgood and evil. Even the most evil individual in the world would still have a sliver of a sense of good in them. And, my ability was capable of splitting an individual¡¯s good and evil, judging you for your evil deeds and meting out punishment through your own conscience.


    Not a single person would be able to lie to themselves. An attack that came from oneself would be impossible to dodge. However many evil deeds you hadmitted in the past would allbine to give you a karmic attack of the same extent. This attack would be absolutely impossible to dodge or defend against.


    Perhaps we only saw a single instant pass by, but Lasnina likely felt as if she had stayed in a hellish inferno for thousands of years already!


    ¡°...Salor! We¡¯re leaving!¡±


    The next instant, the panicked Lasnina unhesitatingly ran away! Salor, who was at disadvantage in his battle, also unhesitatingly retreated after seeing his boss appear to lose.


    A powerful sense of fatigue flooded over me, making me want to go to sleep right here on the spot. Unfortunately, there was still Voka the Snake God, who had yet to make a move, right above me. I still needed to be vignt.


    ¡°Snake God Voka! You¡¯re not attacking me or retreating from this ce. Just what business do you have!¡±

 Chapter 580 - Snake Gods Invitation

    <h4>Chapter 580: Snake God¡¯s Invitation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Cloth bandages were wrapped around my eyes, but blood still constantly dripped from them. Even though my eyes werepletely covered, I still saw a world that waspletely white and ck.


    ck represented death, while white represented life. ck represented evil, while white represented good.


    However, I could sense that those were colors that were drawn quite casually, with very unclear boundaries. The colors were also faintly flickering and ever changing, just as if I could easily change them with a single wave of my hand, changing life and death itself, or turning around good and evil, which would allow me to...


    ¡°And then you¡¯ll die for foolishly messing with powers beyond your ability to handle.¡±


    As always, I felt helpless from hearing my silly cat¡¯sments. However, she was indeed correct. If I really did casually change life and death or good and evil as I pleased, this would be no different from obtaining Creator Goddess level powers. The result of this would likely be that I would instantly self-destruct and die in the very next second.


    The Stare of the Hell God was far too dangerous, both to me and my enemies. This wasn¡¯t an ability that mortals should have. Until I finally reached SemiGod rank, every time I used this ability would overload myself. Using this ability too much would be utter suicide.


    The first enemy that I tested this powered up ability of mine was no simple existence.


    The nine Devil Lords were the nine strongest existences amongst the devils. Every single one would be incredibly difficult to deal with. All of them were famed for their power in every dimension. Ordinary human SemiGods wouldn¡¯t even have a fighting chance against them.


    Even for me and my power that countered Lasnina¡¯s, I wouldn¡¯t have any way of directly attacking her until Ipleted my first Myth-ranked weapon. So, I could only use this ability of mine that my body wouldn¡¯t be able to actually handle until I reached SemiGod.


    Since I was using my Stare of the Hell God against such a powerful enemy, my ability overloaded my physical body immediately. If Lasninasted for any longer, it was likely that my eyeballs would have exploded.


    Any type of supernatural interference would depend on your energy level. The dominating difference in magical power meant that it would be impossible for me to kill Lasnina with just this one natural talent ability. Just like a bull trying to drag an entire train, I would soonpletely overdraw myself and be useless.


    Thankfully, Lasnina instantly ran away after being scared due to suffering from my ability. Once she calmed down, she would likely be even more difficult to deal with.


    Currently, the inhuman pain in my eyes kept reminding me of the price I paid for a temporary victory. Until my eyespletely healed, I would bepletely blind as well as unable to use my Stare of the Hell God.


    Everything around me was scarily silent. However, I couldn¡¯t just casually move as I pleased, so I was rather bored.


    My silly cat yawnedzily. After that fierce battle from earlier, she was also somewhat fatigued.


    During that battle, I had taken arge amount of mana from her in order to constantly repair my armor. Harloys had basically acted as a living mana pool for myself.


    Thanks to the mana replenishment from two Myth ranks such as myself and Harloys, the dragon armor was able to constantly fix itself rather than shattering. But even though the defense wasn¡¯t broken though, I was still filled with aches and pain all over, and the armor was filled with dents.


    ¡°Even through this armor, it wasn¡¯t veryfortable to take all those attacks from her magic sword...¡±


    I was currently using Holy Light to soothe my own injuries. Right now, I wasn¡¯t exactly in a safe location.


    This was a holy temple filled with white-robed snake-headed servants. Every single drawing and sculpture in this temple depicted only a single topic¡ªpraise for the grand Snake God Voka.


    After we won against the devils¡¯ sudden ambush, I finally had the time to talk to Snake God Voka, who had been watching from the sidelines the entire time. I felt it was quite fortunate already that he never intervened in the fight... or, more urately, I felt it was inconceivable.


    But to my surprise, not only did he not show any enmity, he even invited us to his temple as guests, along with volunteering to give us assistance and teleportation portals.


    There was only onew in the Chaos Abyss: thew of the jungle where the strong preyed on the weak. It would be the greatest kindness already if someone didn¡¯t attack you while you were weak down here.


    I was rather confused about what Snake God Voka intended. He had shown zero signs of hostility from the very start. In fact, it was the opposite as it was his appearance that notified us that we were being targeted by enemies.


    Although it seemed rather ridiculous, his actions indeed proved his ¡°friendliness¡±, which was so rare toe by in the Chaos Abyss. Thus, it was only natural for me to listen to what he had to say.


    Okay, fine. To be honest, when considering the power level difference between us right now and Snake God Voka... Well, in the worst-case scenario, I could still run away, so there wouldn¡¯t be much of a difference. Hence, we ¡°happily¡± epted his invitation to visit his temple.


    After he teleported us to his temple, he was also generous enough to give us space and time to heal our wounds.


    Meanwhile, Little Red had already begun feasting. The bones she left behind were already piled up into a small mountain. The snakemen servants serving her were already extremely tired.


    For any dragon, replenishing any amount of expended energy would never be a problem as long as they had sufficient food and sleep.


    Despite the fact that she had seemingly had the upper hand for the entire time during her fight against Salor, Little Red had also expended a great amount of energy. Not only had she used a fighting style that she wasn¡¯t as skilled at inparison to her other fighting styles, she also had had to constantly be fully focused.


    Although she looked rather cool while ¡°kiting¡± her enemy, she didn¡¯t have enough attack power to actually kill Salor. She had to remain in a state of high concentration for the entire battle, since if Salor reached within melee distance of her even a single time, it was likely that she would instantly be killed.


    Little Red had to use a fighting style that she was unskilled at for so long. She was likely quite fatigued and aggrieved.


    But, the main foundational difference between Little Red and other dragons was that she didn¡¯t have the so-called ¡°dragon pride¡±. She was highly skilled at learning from other species¡¯ specialties and advantages.


    Other dragons wouldn¡¯t have bothered to learn so many assorted fighting techniques. They would have insisted on using their powerful bodies for meleebat. However, it was quite obvious that trying to engage in melee with Salor and his special ability to change mass would be the most foolish and suicidal move possible!


    ¡°Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol! Just meat won¡¯t be enough! I need to replenish my mana!¡±


    So alcohol could replenish mana? Today was the first time I¡¯d ever heard about this... because it was so ridiculous! It was supremely important for archmages to abstain from all alcohol! Alcohol could make you drunk, and being drunk would mean that your magic would run out of control.


    I could only shake my head. Since Little Red¡¯s alcoholism was at work, anything I said would be useless. If I got any closer, she would force me to drink along with her. My eyes would hurt even worse if I was forced into such a feast. As I was injured, I also needed to temporarily abstain from alcohol.


    The healing and dispelling Light of Salvation constantly whirled around my body. The countless injuries on my body were all soothed. However, more time would be required to dispel all the curses that had prated my flesh and blood.


    The foundational difference in magic power level between me and Lasnina meant that I had to taste the pain of defeat despite actually being the victor.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, our temple doesn¡¯t have any alcohol, because our ruler...¡±


    A snakeman servant paused in surprise in the middle of his sentence. This was because a handsome white-robed youth had entered the temple. His ck hair reached all the way to his waist. Judging from his magical power, this was evidently Snake God Voka¡¯s human form.


    Even when speaking with the Devil Lord Lasnina, Voka had still remained in a half-snake form. Yet, he was using apletely human form to speak with us. This was his way of showing that he had good intentions, and even more how important he considered what he wanted to say to us.


    An attitude or even a tiny action could represent so much. Many theories about what Voka wanted kept popping up in my mind, but I rejected them all. Until, finally, an almost inconceivable possibility was the only one remaining.


    ¡°Although it seems ridiculous, after I eliminate everything that¡¯s impossible, the only answer that remains has to be the truth. In that case, he really dide to the right person.¡±


    Thinking about how Voka had a request to make of me, I couldn¡¯t help but smile brilliantly. If he really wanted what I thought he did, perhaps this was a good opportunity to extort... er, I meant, have a friendly negotiation with him!


    <h4>Chapter 580: Snake God¡¯s Invitation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Cloth bandages were wrapped around my eyes, but blood still constantly dripped from them. Even though my eyes werepletely covered, I still saw a world that waspletely white and ck.


    ck represented death, while white represented life. ck represented evil, while white represented good.


    However, I could sense that those were colors that were drawn quite casually, with very unclear boundaries. The colors were also faintly flickering and ever changing, just as if I could easily change them with a single wave of my hand, changing life and death itself, or turning around good and evil, which would allow me to...


    ¡°And then you¡¯ll die for foolishly messing with powers beyond your ability to handle.¡±


    As always, I felt helpless from hearing my silly cat¡¯sments. However, she was indeed correct. If I really did casually change life and death or good and evil as I pleased, this would be no different from obtaining Creator Goddess level powers. The result of this would likely be that I would instantly self-destruct and die in the very next second.


    The Stare of the Hell God was far too dangerous, both to me and my enemies. This wasn¡¯t an ability that mortals should have. Until I finally reached SemiGod rank, every time I used this ability would overload myself. Using this ability too much would be utter suicide.


    The first enemy that I tested this powered up ability of mine was no simple existence.


    The nine Devil Lords were the nine strongest existences amongst the devils. Every single one would be incredibly difficult to deal with. All of them were famed for their power in every dimension. Ordinary human SemiGods wouldn¡¯t even have a fighting chance against them.


    Even for me and my power that countered Lasnina¡¯s, I wouldn¡¯t have any way of directly attacking her until Ipleted my first Myth-ranked weapon. So, I could only use this ability of mine that my body wouldn¡¯t be able to actually handle until I reached SemiGod.


    Since I was using my Stare of the Hell God against such a powerful enemy, my ability overloaded my physical body immediately. If Lasninasted for any longer, it was likely that my eyeballs would have exploded.


    Any type of supernatural interference would depend on your energy level. The dominating difference in magical power meant that it would be impossible for me to kill Lasnina with just this one natural talent ability. Just like a bull trying to drag an entire train, I would soonpletely overdraw myself and be useless.


    Thankfully, Lasnina instantly ran away after being scared due to suffering from my ability. Once she calmed down, she would likely be even more difficult to deal with.


    Currently, the inhuman pain in my eyes kept reminding me of the price I paid for a temporary victory. Until my eyespletely healed, I would bepletely blind as well as unable to use my Stare of the Hell God.


    Everything around me was scarily silent. However, I couldn¡¯t just casually move as I pleased, so I was rather bored.


    My silly cat yawnedzily. After that fierce battle from earlier, she was also somewhat fatigued.


    During that battle, I had taken arge amount of mana from her in order to constantly repair my armor. Harloys had basically acted as a living mana pool for myself.


    Thanks to the mana replenishment from two Myth ranks such as myself and Harloys, the dragon armor was able to constantly fix itself rather than shattering. But even though the defense wasn¡¯t broken though, I was still filled with aches and pain all over, and the armor was filled with dents.


    ¡°Even through this armor, it wasn¡¯t veryfortable to take all those attacks from her magic sword...¡±


    I was currently using Holy Light to soothe my own injuries. Right now, I wasn¡¯t exactly in a safe location.


    This was a holy temple filled with white-robed snake-headed servants. Every single drawing and sculpture in this temple depicted only a single topic¡ªpraise for the grand Snake God Voka.


    After we won against the devils¡¯ sudden ambush, I finally had the time to talk to Snake God Voka, who had been watching from the sidelines the entire time. I felt it was quite fortunate already that he never intervened in the fight... or, more urately, I felt it was inconceivable.


    But to my surprise, not only did he not show any enmity, he even invited us to his temple as guests, along with volunteering to give us assistance and teleportation portals.


    There was only onew in the Chaos Abyss: thew of the jungle where the strong preyed on the weak. It would be the greatest kindness already if someone didn¡¯t attack you while you were weak down here.


    I was rather confused about what Snake God Voka intended. He had shown zero signs of hostility from the very start. In fact, it was the opposite as it was his appearance that notified us that we were being targeted by enemies.


    Although it seemed rather ridiculous, his actions indeed proved his ¡°friendliness¡±, which was so rare toe by in the Chaos Abyss. Thus, it was only natural for me to listen to what he had to say.


    Okay, fine. To be honest, when considering the power level difference between us right now and Snake God Voka... Well, in the worst-case scenario, I could still run away, so there wouldn¡¯t be much of a difference. Hence, we ¡°happily¡± epted his invitation to visit his temple.


    After he teleported us to his temple, he was also generous enough to give us space and time to heal our wounds.


    Meanwhile, Little Red had already begun feasting. The bones she left behind were already piled up into a small mountain. The snakemen servants serving her were already extremely tired.


    For any dragon, replenishing any amount of expended energy would never be a problem as long as they had sufficient food and sleep.


    Despite the fact that she had seemingly had the upper hand for the entire time during her fight against Salor, Little Red had also expended a great amount of energy. Not only had she used a fighting style that she wasn¡¯t as skilled at inparison to her other fighting styles, she also had had to constantly be fully focused.


    Although she looked rather cool while ¡°kiting¡± her enemy, she didn¡¯t have enough attack power to actually kill Salor. She had to remain in a state of high concentration for the entire battle, since if Salor reached within melee distance of her even a single time, it was likely that she would instantly be killed.


    Little Red had to use a fighting style that she was unskilled at for so long. She was likely quite fatigued and aggrieved.


    But, the main foundational difference between Little Red and other dragons was that she didn¡¯t have the so-called ¡°dragon pride¡±. She was highly skilled at learning from other species¡¯ specialties and advantages.


    Other dragons wouldn¡¯t have bothered to learn so many assorted fighting techniques. They would have insisted on using their powerful bodies for meleebat. However, it was quite obvious that trying to engage in melee with Salor and his special ability to change mass would be the most foolish and suicidal move possible!


    ¡°Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol! Just meat won¡¯t be enough! I need to replenish my mana!¡±


    So alcohol could replenish mana? Today was the first time I¡¯d ever heard about this... because it was so ridiculous! It was supremely important for archmages to abstain from all alcohol! Alcohol could make you drunk, and being drunk would mean that your magic would run out of control.


    I could only shake my head. Since Little Red¡¯s alcoholism was at work, anything I said would be useless. If I got any closer, she would force me to drink along with her. My eyes would hurt even worse if I was forced into such a feast. As I was injured, I also needed to temporarily abstain from alcohol.


    The healing and dispelling Light of Salvation constantly whirled around my body. The countless injuries on my body were all soothed. However, more time would be required to dispel all the curses that had prated my flesh and blood.


    The foundational difference in magic power level between me and Lasnina meant that I had to taste the pain of defeat despite actually being the victor.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, our temple doesn¡¯t have any alcohol, because our ruler...¡±


    A snakeman servant paused in surprise in the middle of his sentence. This was because a handsome white-robed youth had entered the temple. His ck hair reached all the way to his waist. Judging from his magical power, this was evidently Snake God Voka¡¯s human form.


    Even when speaking with the Devil Lord Lasnina, Voka had still remained in a half-snake form. Yet, he was using apletely human form to speak with us. This was his way of showing that he had good intentions, and even more how important he considered what he wanted to say to us.


    An attitude or even a tiny action could represent so much. Many theories about what Voka wanted kept popping up in my mind, but I rejected them all. Until, finally, an almost inconceivable possibility was the only one remaining.


    ¡°Although it seems ridiculous, after I eliminate everything that¡¯s impossible, the only answer that remains has to be the truth. In that case, he really dide to the right person.¡±


    Thinking about how Voka had a request to make of me, I couldn¡¯t help but smile brilliantly. If he really wanted what I thought he did, perhaps this was a good opportunity to extort... er, I meant, have a friendly negotiation with him!

 Chapter 581 - Triangular

    <h4>Chapter 581: Triangr</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°All generosity will have a reason and a price.¡±


    Although this quote seemed like it was treating kindness with suspicion, any generosity for no apparent reason in a ce like the Chaos Abyss would make me feel even more uneasy than hostility.


    The devils had only temporarily retreated. Lasnina had only taken a mental blow rather than suffering any physical injuries. When she recovered, she woulde back to attack me again. And when considering how much she sufferedst time, she would likely bring a few extra Devil Lords with her, or perhaps even an entire devil army.


    ¡°Our current mission of running away is highly important, and time is of the essence. Your Lordship Voka, do you have any business with us?¡±


    We could literally just take any random teleportation portal. As long as nobody knew what my final destination floor was, it would be impossible for Lasnina to find us.


    ¡°Why not y some more here? I can arrange guides for you...¡±


    y around in the Chaos Abyss? If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that Snake God Voka was saying this, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that we were currently in his Divine Kingdom, I would probably flip the table already... Could he please speak normally!? The Chaos Abyss was no ce to be organizing vacation tours, was it!?


    I could understand that he probably hadn¡¯t needed to interact with others for a long time already, so he likely had poor social skills. But couldn¡¯t he please consider reality a bit more? Having a vacation in this 75th level of the Chaos Abyss that was filled with mud and swamp...? Wait, maybe it would really work! We could film a program simr to Man vs. Wild, but we would have to prevent the predators from eating the entire film crew and obtain the Snake God¡¯s protection.


    ¡°Cough, beating around the bush is meaningless, so I¡¯ll just say it directly...¡±


    While my mind was gettingpletely sidetracked with nning out this miraculous idea for starting vacation tours down here, Voka directly went to what he wanted.


    ¡°...I want you to connect me to the Hell Gods.¡±


    This was exactly what I expected! I instantly showed off an expression that this would be difficult.


    Of course, this would actually be quite easy for me. It would be easier for me than anyone else in the world to get in contact with the Hell Gods. But, if this was too easy, how could I possibly extort... er, I meant, show off how important I was?


    Chaos Abyss God Voka wanted to join the Hell Faction? While this might seem inconceivable, it was actually quite understandable. Over the past seven years, there were already several Gods that had left their factions to join us. Even more surprisingly was that most of the Gods that joined us were originally Chaos Evil Gods.


    Upon closer consideration, this was only natural.


    When the world had only two major factions, every single individual as well as country would be forced to select one. Each country would not only need to express their loyalty, but they would also need to express their hatred for the opposite faction. Otherwise, that country would be a heretic that wasn¡¯t epted by either faction, and the result would be... well, I¡¯m sure you understand.


    And if one of the two major factions finally defeated the other, leaving only one faction behind, that would be the time for the winner to divide and rob all the valuables from the loser. There wasn¡¯t much to say about this, either. This was quite easy to see in history from all the wars that my previous world, Earth, had experienced.


    When authority lost its power to restrain others, when ambitions could be casually realized, when an enemy country¡¯s treasury no longer had any guards, and when a person could be both an athlete and the referee, I wouldn¡¯t need to say anything else about what would happen next.


    But now that this world had three major factions, many things became foundationally different. A triangr stand might appear to be incredibly unstable and ill-supported. However, this shape would actually be filled with flexibility. The triangle could be constructed out of any three angles. Some slight changes in the angles wouldn¡¯t break the triangr structure.


    Many of the current Chaos Evil Gods had formerly been Order True Gods. These Gods had left their divine positions for numerous reasons. They would then discover that even though the world was tremendous, there was no possible ce for them to go apart from the Chaos Abyss. These former Order True Gods would be forced to join the Chaos Faction.


    This was the downside of having only two major factions in the world. You absolutely had to choose one faction or the other. There was only ck and white. No ambiguous choices or sitting on the fence would be allowed.


    As for now, the Chaos Evil Gods that ended up joining the Hell Faction hadn¡¯t truly be members of Hell. Instead, they had simply joined in order to join the ¡°third party¡±. Their only goal was to break free from the Chaos and Order Factions¡¯ control over them. Our Hell Faction would be more than happy to offer such protection as this was one of the original goals of our Hell Faction to begin with.


    The great majority of the Hell Faction¡¯s newest members were Chaos Evil Gods rather than the much weaker Low or Middle Gods. This wasn¡¯t because Low and Middle Gods had an easier time. This was because the Chaos Evil Gods were under far stricter control.


    ¡°Sincerity.¡±


    I replied with only a single word that contained deep meaning. This was the fee I was demanding for my effort in being an intermediary, as well as what the Hell Faction would want from Voka in order to express his determination to leave the Chaos Faction.


    If he wanted to betray the Chaos Faction, he needed to have a reason. He would at least have to talk about why the Chaos Faction wasn¡¯t the one for him.


    Voka revealed a bitter smile when he heard this. A green light shed in his eyes as he seemed to dwell on some painful memories.


    ¡°People in the current generation probably only know that I, Voka, am a Snake God as well as a God of Poison. However, they don¡¯t know that at first, I was only a giant white snake from the Haino Mountain, the local Guardian God of the forest there. I was formerly a Natural Totem God, meaning I was once a Nature God...¡±


    Indeed, even I didn¡¯t know this about Voka¡¯s past. The Nature Gods were one of the first groups of Gods in history to join the Order Faction. Their leader was the extremely well-known Mother Earth Goddess. Voka even described to me how he was betrayed during a Holy War from so long ago, and how he became fallen, transforming into a God of Poison instead of a Guardian God of the forest and snakemen. Even the snakemen he protected had been stripped of their conscience, logic, and reason, and they were now known to the world as snake demons.


    Such a story would be quitemonce in this world. The foundational reason would always be that a formerly powerful species was reduced to nothing but a weak species after a Holy War, so the Guardian God was exiled and became nothing more than the boss of a level in the Chaos Abyss.


    I didn¡¯t say a single word as I listened to it like I would to a story... In fact, I was indeed treating it as nothing more than a story. No matter how moving it sounded, how many plot twists there were, or how many important people had died, it was impossible for me to treat it as any more than a fun story. Voka¡¯s story was obviously way too biased. ¡®It wasn¡¯t my fault¡¯ was a theme that ran through his entire story. He made himself sound like the most pitiful protagonist in existence. Thus, the veracity of his story was quite questionable.


    To sum up his story, it was all about how the other Nature Gods had a misunderstanding and exiled him, which forced him to seek refuge in the Chaos Abyss. Nowadays, he was bored of staying here and wanted to move. Basically, things were everybody¡¯s fault but his own.


    Of course, I had no reason to say anything. The veracity of the story was also unimportant. I, and the Hell Faction, simply needed a reason for Voka to join. Voka had given me a reason. That would be enough. As for whether this reason was real or not... Both of us knew that the past would bepletely unimportant. What was important would be his actions in the future.


    Actions? Well, saying anything would be meaningless. Time would be required to show us evidence. Voka would have to use concrete actions and offer us benefits in order to establish this new alliance.


    Of course, if I was the one making the guarantee, the Hell Gods would value this alliance more and establish it a bit quicker. Still, that would be all.


    Voka was quite generous. He ¡°unintentionally¡± heard that I wascking in top-quality resources, so he opened up his treasury and allowed me to pick any two items I wanted as payment for being the intermediary with the Hell Gods.


    Then, I ¡°unintentionally¡± asked about the devils. Even though we clearly didn¡¯t have any major grudges (haha) against each other, why did they suddenly attack me?


    ¡°About that? Apparently, they want to use you as a hostage so that they can trade you to Karwenz in exchange for Ilmisya. Um, what¡¯s the matter...?¡±


    Alright then, the moment I heard this, my expression distorted greatly.


    ¡°Pahaha! identally taking the me for your younger brother? That¡¯s what a good older brother does.¡±


    The silly cat no longer napped as she was now rolling around on the floor,ughing. I directly picked her up and casually tossed her into a nearby pond.


    That was the end of my discussion with Voka. Since he was willing to abandon his home here in the Chaos Abyss, he would definitely have his own expectations. Perhaps he wished for his snake demons to be able to live in the mortal ne again. Or, perhaps he was hoping to reobtain his former Divine Concept of being a Guardian God of a forest. However, those weren¡¯t subjects he needed to discuss with me, so I was more than happy to pretend not to know anything.


    I didn¡¯t have many expectations for Voka¡¯s treasury. Ancient Gods such as Voka would often possess some God Equipment, but they would never be willing to give away such precious items. Just because he said he was opening his treasury to me, did that really mean the best items would be in there? I wouldn¡¯t be so na?ve. At the very most, it would likely be a treasury containing items slightly below top-level that could be considered top-level for mortals.


    If I named a specific item, it would be difficult for him to refuse me. But since he was offering me anything I wanted in his treasury, that would be much easier for him to get away with. This was since I had no idea what treasures he possessed. Of course, he probably had plenty of treasures rted to the Concept of Poison, as well as many treasures rted to snakemen. However, such treasures would be useless to me.


    Well, this was still fine. But right as Voka was happily about to begin his weing party for us, he suddenly frowned.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, perhaps you¡¯ll have to leave quicker than nned. Right now, two additional Devil Lords just entered this dimensional level.¡±

 Chapter 582 - The Opportunity to Improve in Power Level

    <h4>Chapter 582: The Opportunity to Improve in Power Level</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Are Devil Lords supposed to be that easy to find these days?¡±


    Snake God Voka¡¯s information could be considered trustworthy. He was the master of the 75th level of the Chaos Abyss. Countless spies would be working for him, and he would also be connected to this level¡¯s dimensionalws. It would be almost impossible for anything to happen here without his knowledge.


    However, there were now only five Devil Lords remaining from the previous nine. With the devils¡¯ current wretched condition, they had still sent out three Devil Lords just to hunt me down. This would only worsen the devils¡¯ situation back home to the point where they were likely to lose several more dimensional levels. They were paying such a major price just to try and capture me. Should I feel honored?


    ¡°I can¡¯t stay here any longer.¡±


    This was something obvious that didn¡¯t even need to be said. We didn¡¯t have much time left. If the devils really caught up to me, that would mean a great amount of trouble.


    Since time was of the essence, I stopped beating around the bush, and directly requested Voka¡¯s assistance. He needed to at least provide me with a safe teleportation portal, as well as live up to his promise of giving us two items from his treasury.


    Voka would absolutely have plenty of teleportation portals avable to him. This meant that I wouldn¡¯t need to return to the ckrock dark dwarf tribe. I obviously had no time to waste. Although I was slightly sad that I wouldn¡¯t be able to collect payment from the dark dwarves, I wouldn¡¯t be losing out, as I could take something from Voka instead.


    Voka also directly expressed his ¡°friendliness¡±. While having his servants arrange a teleportation portal for us, he had other servants bring us over to his treasury to take what we wanted.


    Even so, I still didn¡¯t tell him of my real destination, the 100th level. I only told him that I wanted to go to the 102nd level in the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°Weren¡¯t you having a nice discussion? Howe you still don¡¯t trust him?¡±


    We were walking along an exquisite corridor decorated with white clouds. The walls were made of white jade, and also full of reliefs depicting all sorts of grand aplishments of Snake God Voka. Little Red was currently rubbing her belly and picking her teeth while walking alongside me.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t an issue of trust. It¡¯s only natural to be cautious. My value hasn¡¯t exceeded what the devils might be able to offer. Neither is Voka the kind and loyal type. If the Devil Lordse to see him again to ask where I went, there¡¯s no need for him to lie to the Devil Lords for my sake, as it would only antagonize them. He¡¯ll definitely sell out my location to make the devils happy and receive some benefits. If I die, nobody will care regardless, nor is it likely that we¡¯ll being to the Chaos Abyss again to take revenge on him for such a small matter.¡±


    The fact that I mentioned the 102nd level would also match what I¡¯d previously told the dark dwarves. Don¡¯t look at how there was only a two-level difference, as this would be a difference of two entire dimensions. Trying to search for me would then be the equivalent of searching for me in the entire wrong world. That would obviously be highly difficult.


    ¡°Oh.¡±


    Little Red simply oh¡¯d without caring too much. She was just asking a casual question. Little Red then focused back on the snakeman leading the way.


    I felt rather helpless. She was just asking so casually, yet I acted all serious in exining everything. This made me feel rather silly.


    This was the same as when we were previously adventuring together. She and Adam didn¡¯t care about anything except for the joy of adventure. They never needed to worry a single bit about anything rted to schemes or using wits.


    This would have been still fine as I, the team leader, would only have to pay some more attention to them. Yet, both Little Red and Adam were highly skilled at starting trouble, and then they would always act however they pleased. In the end, Margaret and myself always had to work very hard, cleaning up after them.


    Not only did Little Red and Adam not die after creating so much trouble, they also constantly met with ¡°miracles¡± and important personages, receiving excellent training that constantly made them stronger...


    Could they be the legendary character type with protagonist plot armor? Causing trouble everywhere they went, yet they seemed like the luckiest naughty children around...? Could it be that all legendary heroes who were supposedly chosen by destiny were actually nothing more than naughty children with incredible luck? Yep, you had to be constantly causing trouble in order to level up quickly. If you weren¡¯t lucky enough, or powerful enough, you would simply die. Those who were lucky and talented enough would then be the main characters.


    While I thought about such things, the snakeman leading us constantly led us from one pce to the next. Since we still had some time left, I wasn¡¯t in that much of a rush.


    The scenery along the way was excellent. These pces were designed with nature as the main theme. They appeared simple, yet had a unique and beautiful design. They were ssically beautiful without being extravagant. They would make a great ce for a vacation spot.


    These pces were constructed on a mountain. A long river passed through Voka¡¯s entire Divine Kingdom. His servants and God Envoys lived by the riverside. Over 70% of his Divine Kingdom was a forest. Since Voka obviously loved forests, I now believed his im that he had formerly been a Guardian God of a forest.


    I stood on a tform and looked at the mountains and ins. Not far away was a giant waterfall that crashed down from a cliff that was more than one thousand meters tall. The closer we got, the louder the sound of water was, just as if there were booming thunderps.


    We turned around a corner, and immediately came upon the waterfall right before us. The pouring water from above was just like a natural barrier that blocked the way.


    I immediately frowned. The waterfall was blocking the path, so the path had ended? Why had this snakeman brought us here?


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, pleasee over this way. This is our most majestic sight in our grand God¡¯s Divine Kingdom.¡±


    When I walked closer, I finally noticed that there was actually arge cave approximately six meters tall and a few dozen meters wide behind the waterfall. This was the next part of the path leading onward.


    Being able to open up a path inside such a heavy waterfall required serious work. But to a God, that would be nothing.


    The snakeman was about to enter the cave when I suddenly stopped.


    ¡°What giant beast do these bones belong to?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t possibly just trust Voka one hundred percent yet. Ever since we entered his Divine Kingdom, Harloys¡¯ clones had constantly been acting as scouts, providing me with information. And right now, she just shared with me an image that she obtained from one of her clones in the sky.


    A bird clone looking down from above would see humans as nothing more than specks of rice. However, there was a tremendous dragon skeleton that was especially noticeable. This skeleton was constantly being bombarded by the waterfall. Its snow white bones were like white jade, and its gigantic body managed to block that powerful waterfall without even a single hint of being moved.


    ¡°Hundreds of metersrge? Thousands of metersrge? This skeleton isparable to that Tiger God¡¯s.¡±


    A dragon¡¯s size was typically a direct representation of its power level. Although smaller dragons might not always lose torger dragons, such a ridiculouslyrge dragon skeleton was far beyond normalprehension.


    Quite obviously, this skeleton belonged to a super powerful Supreme Immemorial Dragon that was far more powerful than any ordinary Supreme Immemorial Dragon. I could already imagine how powerful it must have been during its life. It was likely that not even all the Supreme Immemorial Dragons in Dragon Worldbined would have been a match for this one while it was still alive.


    I was rather tempted to ask for this skeleton. If I could use such a gigantic dragon skeleton as material, I could create a tremendously powerful super bone dragon. But after I thought about it some more, I decided to give up on this idea.


    This dragon skeleton was far too ancient. It had also been bathed in Voka¡¯s power in his Divine Kingdom for countless years, meaning that the skeleton no longer possessed that much negative energy. It would have still been usable if it hadn¡¯t also been bathed in a waterfall for so many years, as water also had some powers of cleansing. By now, I could no longer sense any grudges within that dragon skeleton. It would be far too difficult to revive it.


    And when thinking about my future battles, creating a gigantic weapon like this wouldn¡¯t really be that meaningful. So in the end, I gave up the idea of asking Voka for this skeleton.


    Suddenly, Little Red, who hadn¡¯t been serious all this time, finally stopped. She seemed to be interestedly looking at the rainbow created from the waterfall. However, she was actually secretly sending me a magic message that only I could hear.


    ¡°Rnd, you must obtain that dragon skeleton for me at all costs. That skeleton is a set with the ¡®dragon heart¡¯ that I just obtained. If I can obtain this skeleton, I¡¯ll finally be able to progress in power level!¡±


    I was rather surprised to hear this, and then I was overjoyed.


    In this world, humans weren¡¯t the only ones who could level themselves up or have job sses. Dark elves had shadow dancers, wood elves had nature archers, beastmen had berserkers, and so on. These were all famousbat-oriented job sses. A so-called job ss would simply be a path of cultivation that other people hade up with in the past. It was only natural that different species would have different job sses more suitable for their natural talents.


    Even ogres were capable of bing ogre mages or shamans. As dragons were one of the most powerful species in the world, of course dragons would also have job sses.


    Indeed, dragons could be stronger simply as time passed. However, there would always be powerful dragons that focused on training themselves to be stronger, creating their own paths. For instance, the first generation¡¯s Supreme Immemorial Dragons and Dragon Gods. But, dragon job sses would differ from human job sses. Dragons¡¯ fighting styles were focused on their physical bodies, so leveling themselves up would be more like an evolution of their physical body, changing something foundational within them.


    Rune dragons were dragons that wore rune armor all over their bodies. They were simr to the human monk job ss, but they had far more outstanding defensive prowess, which was renowned throughout all dimensions. Their runes would also provide powerful support for their magic.


    Blood berserk dragons were the dragons¡¯ version of the berserker job ss. These dragons abandoned their useless wings in favor of evolving even more powerful ws and fangs. They sought the most powerful melee abilities. Their berserk states were even more powerful than beastmen berserkers¡¯.


    Eternity dragons were dragons that abandoned their useless pride and wealth in exchange for eternal life. They were grand and majestic, yet also rarely fought. Their abilities were unknown, but each eternity dragon would be a famous personage in Dragon City.


    These three job sses were all rtivelymon dragon job sses. Actually, Little Red¡¯s mother Molly transforming into an inferno dragon was also a way of entering a dragon job ss. A red dragon that became an inferno dragon would obtain demonized power, allowing its dragonbreath to gain corrosive properties. An inferno dragon would also be able to summon cannon fodder from the lower nes.


    But, what actually happened was that Molly actually lost a lot of power after transforming into an inferno dragon. She lost her red dragon abilities of outstanding control of and resistance against fire, along with her red dragonbat instincts. Little Red had been able to beat Molly so viciously because of this.


    Many dragons that found themselves unable to level up anymore through their own efforts would then enter a dragon job ss that was suitable for their natural talents. This would have an effect of 1 + 1 > 3.


    Actually, humans also had simr job sses, such as demon warlock or dragon bloodline sorcerer. Such humans would add demon or dragon bloodline traits to their physical bodies, theoretically being able to achieve progress like dragons could. However, the effects would be far weaker.


    Compared to human progression, dragons achieving higher power levels represented foundational changes and evolution. Dragons would pay more of a price in order to change even more. It could be said that a dragon that entered a new power level would be an entirely different species. In fact, dragons would even have the almostughable problem of being unable to reproduce with another individual that was weaker than them.


    Little Red had previously learned magic from human archmages. This hadn¡¯t actually helped her to progress in power level. But to my knowledge, she had long been ready to progress in power level, having met all the conditions. She also possessed plenty of resources and preparations for progressing in power level. It was just that she didn¡¯t want to progress in power level to any normal job ss.


    ¡°Rather than getting a job ss that will limit my future potential and development, I would prefer to continue improving my foundations, taking my own path instead.¡±


    I also agreed with Little Red¡¯s choice. Her self-study of fire and wind magic would also help her improve herself. There was no need for her to casually choose any job ss which would limit herself. It was easy to understand. No matter if she chose the rune dragon, blood berserk dragon, eternity dragon, or some other job ss, she would lose just as much as she gained. It would be unavoidable that her control over fire would be greatly weakened. She might even end up bing weaker despite progressing in power level.


    ¡°Dragons are strong enough regardless, without needing to progress in power level. They simply need to cultivate their personal element¡¯s magic for their entire lives. There¡¯s no need to forcibly raise power level.¡±


    Yet, Little Red had told me that she now had a way to improve her power level. This naturally meant that she had understood this deceased Supreme Immemorial Dragon¡¯s path from its dragon heart and skeleton, and that she was greatly tempted by the opportunity.


    ¡°This is a chance that will onlye once in a thousand years. Only the Chaos Abyss will have such an opportunity...¡±


    This was just how the Chaos Abyss was. Although this ce would be iparably dangerous, countless powerful individuals woulde down here to chase their dreams, looking for miracles. However, it would be far moremon for these powerful individuals to die here, bing miracle opportunities for others instead.


    Dead Gods, lost God Equipment, the remains of some powerful individual, and so on. The mortal ne was far more peaceful, but the endless Chaos Abyss represented an uncountable number of opportunities and potential. It was far moremon for people to either suddenly die here, or miraculously be super powerful.


    Little Red would have exceedingly high standards. Her foundational strength was already frighteningly powerful. Even without progressing in power level, she had been able to beat Molly so much when Molly was two power levels above her. Something that instantly made her want to progress in power level so badly would absolutely have to be exactly what she wanted.


    I was trying to find resources for improving my own power level, yet I somehow managed to help Little Rede up with hers first. I could onlyugh at how the world worked sometimes. But of course, I would never miss such an excellent opportunity for Little Red.


    Over all these years, Little Red had probably made the least progress out of any of us. This wasn¡¯t because she didn¡¯t work hard. The reason was quite easy and simple. She had started at far too high a level already. Dragons would progress very slowly. Most progress for dragons would be a foundational change within them rather than a change in fighting style. Now, since she had such a great opportunity to progress in power level, as she was like a bro to me... okay, maybe like a sister to me, of course I would try my best to help her progress in power level.


    ¡°What if he doesn¡¯t want to give it to us?¡±


    ¡°Then we¡¯ll take (steal) it! You should still remember where the dark dwarves¡¯ teleportation portal is, right? We¡¯ll meet up there if he won¡¯t give it to us.¡±


    Little Red nodded in satisfaction as she continued to pretend to gawk at the scenery. As for scamming... er, negotiation, she naturally left that up to me.


    ¡°Actually, I could introduce some dwarven diggers to you that can help you all to construct a safe and beautiful passage through here...¡±


    And so, I started randomly beginning the haggling process, and as I talked, I went back to go see Voka again.

 Chapter 583 - Chaos Abyss Survival Plan

    <h4>Chapter 583: Chaos Abyss Survival n</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Sunlight, please kick up the dust of the desert...¡±


    ¡°You really know how to joke everywhere that you go.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, in a hellish ce like the Chaos Abyss, joking around is the only fun to be had.¡±


    Indeed, joking around was the only fun I could have with the current scene before me.


    Two weeks passed since I left Snake God Voka¡¯s dimensional level. I was now beginning to miss that damp and dark swamp.


    All I could see around me was an environmentpletely opposite from the previous death swamp. Everything was now golden sand with blue sky. The entire ground was golden, with soft sand everywhere. No matter where I walked to, it would always be the same color. Apart from a few white clouds in the sky, there was nothing but endless sand.


    I asked Voka for that dragon skeleton, and he actually gave it to us quite easily. He didn¡¯t even ask us what we wanted to do with it, but directly gave it to us.


    This meant that we wouldn¡¯t need to steal from him. There was no need to antagonize Voka and add yet another enemy to the long list of enemies wanting to hunt me down. I heaved a sigh of relief, while Little Red seemed to be truly regretting that she wouldn¡¯t be able to have some fun.


    It definitely seemed like she had been stifled for far too long. Now that there was nothing and no one restraining her down here, and she didn¡¯t need to act like a proper ruler, she immediately went back to being a degenerate naughty child.


    However, upon closer consideration, it was only natural that Voka didn¡¯t value this dragon skeleton.


    He didn¡¯t possess the dragon¡¯s heart which would be the most important key, nor did he have a dragon bloodline that would help him as a catalyst. Voka also had no interest in learning undead magic. In that case, this dragon skeleton was probably nothing more than a decoration to him. And if his negotiation to join the Hell Faction went well, it was highly likely that he would end up moving. In that case, he might as well give such a heavy and useless piece of luggage to us.


    ¡°System, how much longer does she need? Is there any chance of failure?¡±


    [Considering all that she¡¯s umted, the chance of failure is lower than 1%...]


    However, my System¡¯s words made me even more nervous, which my silly cat was unable to take.


    ¡°Hey, Little Red is no master jinxer like you, where less than one percent chance of failure means one hundred percent chance of failure. Stop being worried for no reason. Don¡¯t get involved. If you do get involved, your negative luck stat might affect her, which would cause the tragedy that you fear most.¡±


    Actually, I felt that it was quite normal for me to be so worried. Dragons already had all sorts of strange ways to progress in power level. I had heard of even the most ridiculous methods before, but none were as ridiculous as the method Little Red was now using.


    It was said that in order to progress to the job ss of rune dragon, a dragon would need to cover their entire body in magic runes first. Apparently, the best possible ritual would also require the dragon to hunt and skin some powerful prey, and then sew that prey¡¯s skin on top of their own. Not only would this be tremendously difficult, it also sounded extremely painful. No wonder rune dragons were so famously durable. I suspected that maybe their pain receptors had all been numbed by the rune dragon transformation ritual.


    Blood berserk dragons needed to give up their own wings in order to further evolve their teeth and ws. And from what I heard, wings were the single most sensitive part of a dragon¡¯s body,parable to men and their you-know-what portion... Cough, don¡¯t mind why I knew what the most sensitive part on a dragon was. Regardless, I didn¡¯t really understand the blood berserk dragon job ss that well. It was said that dragons who entered this job ss would see their speed greatly increasing like the wind, and their ws and teeth would be sharper than swords, being easily able to slice through anything... Was this job ss the dragons¡¯ version of the Sunflower Manual <sup>1</sup> !?


    These two dragon job sses were still somewhat understandable, but the requirements for joining the eternity dragon job ss were even more ridiculous. The dragon would have to devour all of their treasures and belongings, and then swear an eternal oath to forever refrain from having any personal property. This was even more ridiculous. Even if you had to get rid of all your treasure, why waste everything by devouring it all? Just throw it away instead! Weren¡¯t they worried about indigestion? Even if intion was a problem, there was no need to reduce the amount of currency in cirction like that! Why not give the treasure to me if they didn¡¯t want it!


    Perhaps now that I have shown you such ridiculous examples of other dragon job sses, Little Red¡¯s process for entering her desired job ss would no longer seem as ridiculous.


    Right now, I had a new backpack among my luggage which contained a dark green dragon egg with some red spots. After Little Red confirmed her process for improving in power level, she had actually reverted all the way back to a dragon egg!


    It was obvious that Little Red would now be incredibly weak. It was likely that she had never been so weak before in her entire life. I felt an immense amount of pressure from carrying around the dragon egg-form Little Red. If I identally dropped the dragon egg, Little Red would probably turn into a ghost and haunt me for the rest of my life.


    ¡°You feel pressure? You just buried her dragon egg in the sand because you wanted to see if the stories about sand being able to fry an egg were real or not!¡±


    I felt zero guilt regarding the silly cat¡¯sment. I was just trying out the urban myths; it wasn¡¯t like I was actually trying to cook Little Red... Oh, right, it was also said that griffinsid eggs as well, along with vulture demons. Seeing a group of vulture demons flying around my head, I let my imagination run wild.


    ¡°You¡¯re drooling! Drooling! It¡¯s only been three days since youst ate, do you really need to be so ridiculous?¡±


    That was right, I was starving to the point of almost fainting.


    This wasn¡¯t because we didn¡¯t bring enough food on our journey. Rather, it was because we had thrown away all our food right after leaving Snake God Voka¡¯s dimensional level. We even burned all the clothes that we had worn there.


    As for why? I unhesitatingly got rid of everything consumable simply because Voka was a God of Poison.


    This wasn¡¯t just because I didn¡¯t trust Voka. It was also because I had just been staying in a God of Poison¡¯s Divine Kingdom. It was highly likely that something in the Divine Kingdom would be harmless, but the Concept of Poison there would likely taint our belongings to the point where one little item would be capable of destroying an entire country.


    This was no story told merely for the sake of frightening children. This was experience obtained from painful tragedies. Food brought from anynd of the dead would be the most fatal poison, while gold brought down from the heavens would actually be a venomous snake. These myths were all grounded in reality.


    Most things in a Divine Kingdom would be a very part of the Divine Concept or God itself. The Concepts belonging to any Order God or former Order God would be purer, meaning they would be more dangerous. I had no intentions of dying in a humiliating fashion like food poisoning right after leaving Voka¡¯s Divine Kingdom.


    ¡°Little Red suffered a stomachache for two full days after we left. I¡¯m no durable dragon like she is. Poison that can even make her suffer like that will probably just kill me.¡±


    ¡°...Are you certain that it wasn¡¯t because of indigestion caused by her being so gluttonous with receiving all the free food she could eat there?¡±


    This sounded so logical that I was unable to counter Harloys!


    ¡°Cough, cough, let¡¯s talk about the present instead. Where are we supposed to find some food here...¡±


    It wasn¡¯t rashness that caused me to throw away all my food. As a veteran adventurer, I was confident in being able to find food in any type of environment. Even in a magma volcano, I could capture some fire snakes or me tortoises to eat. However, the prerequisite would be that I would still have to see something edible.


    On the way here, we saw nothing but sand. I had already captured and tried tasting the rotten flesh of the vulture demons flying above me. In the end, I was unable to even bring myself to take a bite as the vulture demon had rotten flesh, a powerful stench, and parasites within its flesh. But, even the most disgusting corrosive demon flesh would still probably be alright while it was still in egg form, I figured.


    Finally, I drooled some more as I looked at the vulture demons above me. Perhaps it was time for me to capture another one and ask it how many family members... er, how many eggs it had?


    ¡°Um, as a veteran mage teacher, it¡¯s my responsibility to remind an acolyte like yourself about demon studies. It¡¯s well known that vulture demons and demon vultures are twopletely different species. Demon vultures can bemonly found in the mortal ne as they¡¯re a unique type of magical beast. Meanwhile, vulture demons are aplete member of the demon family as they¡¯re a special type of evolved demon. Although they do consume the dead, they¡¯re still fully demons...¡±


    Alright then, I tried my best to ponder Harloys¡¯ words with my brain instead of stomach. I then understood what Harloys was trying to tell me.


    ¡°Oh, such a long-winded exnation, but what you meant was that vulture demons wouldn¡¯t have any eggs...¡±


    I could only look at Harloys with disappointment. As she was my half-living, half-undead magical pet, she could live without any food and simply feed off of my mana. But, this meant that I was losing energy at double a normal person¡¯s rate, hence why I was so starving. My expression became somewhat vacant as I dazedly looked at how proudly Harloys was acting like a schr in front of me.


    ¡°Right, cats and dogsy eggs as well, right? Harloys, you know how toy eggs...¡±


    I kept looking at Harloys with a more and more loving and expectant expression. I felt like I had never looked at her so gently before, yet she suddenly became nervous...


    ¡°Did you forget about our soul connection? You want to eat slime elf soup? Don¡¯t even think about it!¡±


    And then, my cat grew wings and flew away.


    ¡°I¡¯m so hungry...¡±


    My stomach was now ruling over my brain. I shakily reached towards the fried egg in my backpack... er, that dragon egg!


    ¡°It should be fine to just take two bites, only two bites...¡±


    [No, it definitely won¡¯t be fine. Don¡¯t suddenly take the bestiality path like a certain someone!]


    I was now starving to the point where my brain no longer worked properly. Was that my Systemmenting, or my little bit of conscience remaining?


    But just as I was fighting against myself on whether to eat Little Red or not, Harloys sent me a delighted mental message.


    ¡°Rnd, there¡¯s a piece of food that¡¯s all alone... cough, I identally used the wrong word due to your influence! I meant that I found an adventurer who¡¯s in trouble!¡±

 Chapter 584 - A Little Present

    <h4>Chapter 584: A Little Present</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    While Rnd was busy having trouble in the desert (he deserved it), he didn¡¯t expect that out of everyone in his adventuring party he summoned to meet him on the 100th level, he would be thest to arrive... But when considering his pathetic luck stat, this seemed only natural. In that case, when he left first before any of hispanions, this was actually a smart decision by him?


    Adam and Margaret¡¯s vacation in the far north had finally ended three weeks ago. This wasn¡¯t because Adam had finally admitted that he had zero sense of direction. Instead, Adam and Margaret had experienced various difficulties, and aplished deeds that no ordinary person possibly could have. They sessfully reached a location that should have been impossible to reach. At the farthest northern point of the world, they proved that the world of Eich was round... er, cubic.


    ¡°Is this the legendary end point of the Endless Sea? The border of the entire world?¡±


    After climbing over countless mountains and having fun wrestling with the northern snowmen (well, Adam thought that they were wrestling, but the snowmen actually wanted to eat him), and ying around with the ice ogres (again, the ice ogres actually wanted to eat him), racing with white and snow dragons (the dragons failed to hunt him down), Adam and Margaret crossed over the Ice Wall of Sighs which would have impeded any ordinary living being progressing forward. They finally arrived at the farthest northern point of the world, where they saw something that they would never forget in their lives.


    They saw endless cliffs with nothing but an infinite void beyond them. Walking even one step forward here would result in falling down forever.


    The sea water here was already frozen solid. When peering at the infinite void beyond the cliffs, even someone like Adam instinctively felt afraid.


    The Creator Goddess¡¯s knowledge created the world. Goddess Eich had believed that the world should be a perfect cube. Thus, the world of Eich really was a perfect cube. It would bepletely unknown what would happen if you stepped off the face of this cube.


    The majestic ice river here created the most orderly ice ins and ice cliffs in the world, with the infinite void beyond them. A human would seem like nothing more than a speck of dust here.


    The Creator Goddess¡¯s miracle was disyed right before them. Even someone as coarse as Adam was astounded by the sight.


    And then, he immediately took out a memory crystal to record the scenery.


    ¡°You¡¯re actually taking in the sights here?¡±


    Margaret thought that there was something wrong with Adam. He actually wanted to record some vacation memories? Wasn¡¯t he always the type to just have fun with whatever local residents? He actually had the artistry in him to enjoy the scenery?


    ¡°Oh, I think that this might help Rnd if he saw this. This is probably what the true Ice Aeon should look like...¡±


    However, Adam¡¯s casual exnation made Margaret somewhat aggrieved. Adam never paid that much attention to Margaret...


    But then, Margaret smiled faintly. She had been together with Adam so long already that she could ept him for who he was. Adam had different ways of treating Rnd and Margaret, which was perfectly fine.


    Adam kept running around everywhere, snapping pictures with his memory crystal. Meanwhile, Margaret began to craft a small house out of ice and snow, intending to stay the night here.


    After only recording for a few seconds, Adam found out that he had wasted all his efforts. It was too cold here for the memory crystals to function. The memory crystals instantly shattered right after bringing them out.


    Since there was no way forward anymore, Adam hesitated on whether or not to suggest heading back while it wasn¡¯t dark yet. However, he kept feeling like that would be rather boring, having spent so much effort to reach this ce but being forced to go back.


    ¡°Eh, what¡¯s this?¡±


    Adam then suddenly noticed a gigantic sign of ice on the border of the world.


    This gigantic sign of ice reached all the way to the clouds. However, it was impossible to see until you got very close to it. There was something miraculous about it.


    ¡°This is the end of the world. There is no path forward. But, in praise of the brave travelers whose courage and sacrifices brought them here, as well as praise for your fearlessness in not turning back, anyone who reaches this location may carve their names and the ce they want to go on this sign. I shall use my powers over Creation itself to instantly teleport you anywhere that you wish to go.¡±


    On this gigantic sign, there was nothing else apart from this strange inscription, other than a paltry two names written approximately one meter up on the sign.


    Such a strange sign with no other words written on it made it seem like a random prank.


    However, the words written on the sign were clearly written in an unknownnguage. Yet, someone as coarse as Adam was still able to understand the words. There was clearly something miraculous about the sign.


    Of course, the divine signature at the bottom of the sign¡¯s inscription made everything clear.


    ¡°Your Mother, Eich.¡±


    Just as how many video game programmers enjoyed programming Easter eggs into their games, the Creator Goddess who created this world named after herself had also left her own trace here, unknown to all. Everyone had previously thought that Eich had left no traces of herself anywhere.


    But, in this location that could be called the most difficult ce to reach in the world, she left behind a teleportation portal capable of taking you to any location in the world that you wanted to go. Perhaps Goddess Eich wasn¡¯t as strict and traditional as she appeared to be in the myths about her after all. Perhaps she had also once proudly looked upon the world she created, and then happily left behind her own signature and miraculous teleportation portal as a surprise gift for the bravest adventurers.


    A mysterious sense of warmth and being moved filled Adam and Margaret¡¯s hearts. This was a warmth that came from the heart. Adam and Margaret instinctively felt that the words on the sign could be believed, no matter how ridiculous it seemed.


    They also instinctively learned that this miraculous teleportation portal could only be used once per lifetime for each individual. But, no matter if you wanted to go to the very pinnacle of heaven, or the farthest bottomyer of the Chaos Abyss, you would be able to arrive there instantly, with not a single existence or power out there being able to stop this.


    They also instinctively learned that this was a surprise that Goddess Eich had left behind for her children, which was why they weren¡¯t allowed to tell anyone about the truth of what they had found here.


    They would be allowed to invite others to go adventuring here, but they wouldn¡¯t be allowed to tell others why or what was waiting for them here. It would be impossible for anyone to see this sign unless they took the final steps, all the way to the edge of the world.


    Adam fell silent, while Margaret chuckled. Both exchanged nces, and tacitly carved each other¡¯s names, with both of them having the same destination.


    ¡°Adam Han, a free warrior who seeks adventure. He seeks to go to the Dragontail Bar in the 100th level of the Chaos Abyss, also known as the Ashen Furnace.¡±


    ¡°Margaret, a mage who searches for love and the truth. She wishes to go to the Dragontail Bar in the 100th level of the Chaos Abyss, also known as the Ashen Furnace.¡±


    There was a sh as in the very next instant, everyone in the Dragontail Bar looked with astonishment at the two people that just appeared.


    Adam and Margaret exchanged nces. Adamughed uproariously, while Margaret covered her mouth and smiled. This was truly an unexpected surprise, a wonderful little present that made them happy.


    Both looked around this bar that they still remembered. As always, all sorts of demons and devils gathered here. The one-eyed subus owner stared in astonishment at their instantaneous teleportation arrival. Everything here still seemed to be the same. However, a familiar female voice suddenly interrupted their fun little time together.


    ¡°Stupid Adam, and Margaret, why did you only arrive just now? I¡¯ve already been waiting for almost a month...¡±


    At the familiar bar, a familiar person was already waiting for them while proudly looking at them and holding a ss of orange cocktail wine.


    ...


    Meanwhile, despite the fact that thepanions a certain person summoned had all arrived at the meeting location already, that certain person was still having ¡°fun¡± in the desert. And when he finally arrived at the meeting location, he was destined to find even greater ¡°fun¡± waiting for him.


    Even though he was the one to leave first by so many days, and even though Rnd chose the best and shortest path, he would still be the final one to arrive at the Dragontail Bar. Perhaps this was due to Rnd¡¯s despairingly negative luck stat, or perhaps the world simply had it out for him.


    ¡°Fresh meat!¡±


    When the tiefling Cassandra Carolyn woke up from her unconscious state, the first thing she saw were blood-red eyes, and the first thing she heard was that strange shout. Meanwhile, a droolingrge mouth was opening up right in front of her face. It was quite evident that this person wanted to eat her.


    ¡°Don¡¯t eat me! Tieflings aren¡¯t delicious at all! My meat is stinky!¡±


    At this moment, Cassandra truly wished that she was unable to understand the humannguage from the mortal ne. She had finally managed to escape from her enemies, yet she was captured by a desert human cannibal?


    Cassandra Carolyn was the daughter of the rich and powerful Roan Carolyn, who ruled over the Hass Oasis. In their tiefling tribe, they would start learning the main humannguage of the mortal ne since young, as well as receive schrs¡¯ educations. Although Cassandra was a tiefling, she was also the scion of the Hass Oasis.


    In thenguage of the Chaos Abyss, the word ¡°tiefling¡± meant bastard. And in fact, this was the truth, as tieflings were half-blood descendants of demons and devils. No matter what species the other half was, tieflings would usually answer the summons of the Chaos Abyss ande reside down here.


    In the Chaos Abyss where the strong preyed on the weak, tieflings couldn¡¯t be considered very strong even though they could be considered decently powerful in the mortal ne. Most tieflings down here would either die in battle, the mostmon result, or be forced to join a tiefling tribe for protection.


    Perhaps due to the demonization in their blood, it was rare for those of high moral character to appear amongst the tieflings. Robbers, thieves, and rogues were forever the mostmon ¡°standard jobs¡± in the tiefling tribes.


    However, the rich and powerful Roan was a legend amongst the tieflings. He was a proponent of peaceful trade and expansion through merchant routes rather than warfare. This imperceptibly made him into a major personage among the tieflings.


    Meanwhile, Cassandra Carolyn was Roan¡¯s only daughter and heir. She was also the prettiest tiefling in the Jinta Desert, known as the most beautiful ¡°ck Pearl¡±.


    However, ck Pearl Carolyn now had an expression filled with fear. Apart from the cannibal right in front of her who was excited to the point of jumping up and down, the ck-masked and ck-caped assassins hunting her down had also surrounded her.


    The assassins all brought out their swords and rapiers. Nobody would be allowed to live during this assassination. Since this cannibal had been unlucky enough to meet them, they would simply have to add one more corpse.


    But suddenly, the cannibal who was going through Cassandra¡¯s pockets startedughing wildly with obvious delight. He joyfully looked at all the assassins around him while constantly drooling everywhere as if he was a ghoul who was looking at a delicious feast.


    ¡°So much meat! Fresh meat!¡±

 Chapter 585 - Tieflings

    <h4>Chapter 585: Tieflings</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°In our profession, we need to have such resolution. When we deal in handing out death, death may alsoe for us at any instant,¡± an old tiefling assassin said to a much younger tiefling assassin. The older assassin had an epting expression that said he epted it if he were to die here. This was because the two assassins were each tied to a pole.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine for someone as old as you, but I¡¯m still so young, and haven¡¯t even gotten married yet...¡±


    The young assassin felt quite unwilling as this had been his very first mission, yet he had been instantly defeated. He had been defeated without even seeing his opponent clearly, which was still fine as that was a difference in power level. However, he felt quite unwilling to be eaten by a human cannibal like this as it was unlikely that his soul would be able to rest in peace and return to the embrace of the great Demon God Sback.


    Meanwhile, I was ravenously devouring the assassins¡¯ dried meat rations that I had worked so hard to obtain. I also asked a question despite my mouth being filled with food. ¡°ck girl, what are they saying?¡±


    The other residents of the Chaos Abyss would think that tieflings spoke with a strange mortal ne ent as they liked to study the mortal ne¡¯s humannguage. This made tieflings seem like rural hicks down here in the mortal ne. Only the tieflings would think that their own ent sounded lovely.


    But right now, Cassandra only felt aggrieved from listening to this stranger speak with a mortal ne ent in the Chaos Abyssnguage.


    This young warrior was amazingly powerful. The elite assassins who¡¯d killed her guards were all nothing to him. All the assassins had been instantly defeated. However, it was evident that there was something wrong with this human¡¯s interests.


    Even though Cassandra was clearly a famous individual in these parts, this human didn¡¯t even spare her a second nce. He instantly started taking off the male assassins¡¯ pants... Cough, cough, don¡¯t misunderstand, as Rnd was simply searching for food. The snacks that Cassandra carried weren¡¯t even enough for an appetizer to him.


    Rnd exined that he was a traveler who had met with difficulties. However, the frightened Cassandra definitely didn¡¯t believe him. Nor would she properly act as a tiefling trantor for him. Instead, she directly told the tiefling assassins after her that this human was a cannibal, intentionally making them afraid that they would be eaten.


    I was having a headache on what to do next. Although I knew how to speak the Chaos Abyssnguage, the tiefling dialect had too many cacuminal sounds. Only demonic descendants with curled tongues would be able to pronounce these sounds. Their dialect also had nothing to do with magic, so it would be impossible for me tomunicate with them.


    But from the little I could understand from the tieflings¡¯ conversation, I learned that many different species lived here in the 102nd level of the Chaos Abyss. The tieflings were one of the most populous species here, and since this level was particrlyrge, there was no single ruler in this dimensional level. Instead, there were more than ten powerful existences ruling here that kept a subtle bnce between them.


    As for this little tiefling girl who had already peed her pants but was pretending that she was fine, it appeared that she was the daughter of a major tiefling lord. Not only that, it seemed like her domain was fairly close. In that case, I knew exactly what I should do next.


    I would go to this little tiefling girl¡¯s domain, obtain some food and a map, and then find a guide. It would be best if there was a teleportation portal leading directly to the 100th level, but if not, I would simply climb up to the 101st level, and then the 100th. That would be fine as well.


    ¡°I refuse. As a member of the Carolyn Family, I could never possibly bring an unknown individual to our oasis.¡±


    I felt rather helpless about this. I had just saved her life, yet she was refusing to be grateful already?


    ¡°Are you still holding a grudge against me for scaring you earlier? Fine, just tell me the direction, and I¡¯ll go there by myself.¡±


    However, this ck-skinned, red-haired female tiefling suddenly fell silent. A long whileter, she said something to the oldest assassin tied to a pole, and he swiftly replied in a tone that sounded like they were arguing about something. The tieflings kept ncing over at me as they spoke.


    Even though I couldn¡¯t understand the tiefling dialect, I could pretty much guess what they were saying.


    ¡°Sheesh, you really don¡¯t even know what direction your home is in?¡±


    Alright then, her ck face instantly turned a bright red, and her tail listlessly fell down to the ground. It would seem that she was truly easy to embarrass.


    I felt rather helpless about all this. However, my rumbling stomach reminded me that I still hadn¡¯t had enough of the food that others ¡°were generous enough to donate to me¡±, and that I needed to hurry and find a ce to stock up at.


    Twenty minutester, aical scene appeared in the desert. I was urging the tiefling scion to lead the way, and she urged all the ck-caped assassins who were previously after her life to lead the way.


    Cassandra had just reached an ord with the assassins. When they reached the Hass Oasis, she would let all the younger assassins go, except for their leader. Both parties had sworn an oath using the name of the great Demon God Sback, an oath that no tiefling would dare to go against.


    And since this was a dimensional level with many tiefling tribes, I also intentionally showed some demonized traits in order to avoid trouble. For instance, I showed off my Original Sin Demon Form¡¯s demon wings, as well as dragon scales and dragon ws, all traits that would easily be misunderstood as demonized traits.


    And so, these tieflings now saw me as an unlucky demonized human who had answered the summons of the Chaos Abyss.


    No matter if it was the assassins or the scion, they were all now looking at me with more sympathy. There were countless rades¡± that were brought down here to the Chaos Abyss by their bloodline¡¯s summons in each and every year. However, while those who answered the summons might believe that they were returning home to family, the Chaos Abyss would be nothing but hell.


    ¡°Actually, since you have the power to hide your demonized traits, there was no need for you toe down here to the Chaos Abyss...¡±


    Cassandra had apassionate expression as she said this.


    ¡°What do you know, little girl? You¡¯re a native descendant of the tieflings who came here. You know nothing about how irresistible the summons of the bloodline can be.¡±


    Only the most powerful tieflings would be able to hide their demonized traits as this would mean they were capable of controlling their own bloodline. Such tieflings would always have high status in their tribes.


    And so, I casually swore an oath to the tieflings¡¯ great Demon God Sback. I promised that I wouldn¡¯t do anything to harm the Hass Oasis or the tiefling tribes. However, I actually felt nothing about this oath at all.


    ¡°You think that oaths sworn in front of the Demon God Sback are unbreakable? Ha, even if Sback appears right in front of me, I can still swear in his name all I want with no consequences.¡±


    Although it might sound scary to hear about a ¡°great¡± Demon God, Sback wasn¡¯t really that strong amongst the Chaos Evil Gods. However, he was originally a tiefling/demon halfblood who managed to obtain divinity and the Divine Concept of bing the Guardian God of the tieflings, which made him the most amazing tiefling worshipped by all other tieflings.


    But in all the dimensions out there, Sback was only the dimensional ruler of the 245th level in the Chaos Abyss. He was only a weak Low God with few believers. Neither was hisbat strength all that powerful. On top of that, he had no special abilities or powerful allies. In fact, he couldn¡¯t even keep full control over his own dimensional level. His incarnations were always being killed off, causing him to lose power. It could be said that he was a failure amongst the Low Gods.


    But to the tieflings, Sback was the most venerated existence of all. They worshiped him even more than the Chaos Main Gods.


    This was mainly because of the tieflings¡¯ status. To the other higher-level existences in the Chaos Abyss, the tieflings were nothing but ¡°bastards¡±. Tieflings could have anything from demon, devil, or even an Evil God¡¯s bloodline. Also, more than ny percent of tieflings lived in the mortal ne.


    That was right, more than ny percent. It could be said that most of the tieflings down in the Chaos Abyss had formerly been residents of the mortal ne!


    Tieflings had either ck or brown skin, sulfur-smelling breath, and unique demonized traits. Every tiefling would have a different demonized body part. The mostmon and obvious traits would be all sorts of horns or curved tails that would be impossible to hide.


    Physically, they would somewhat resemble subi, but tieflings were far weaker and easier than subi. This was why many devils and Demon Lords would keep tieflings around as pets.


    There were many reasons for tieflings¡¯ existence. Perhaps an Evil God or a Demon Lord would descend in the mortal ne, stealing someone¡¯s physical body. Or, an incarnation would leave behind a descendant. Some demon or devil armies would alsomit rape after conquering a city. There were also dark cultists that performed demonization rituals on themselves, Evil Gods that schemed to demonize those in the mortal ne, the children of witches, and so on.


    However, the tieflings were quite different from pure demons or devils. The pure demons and devils were also pure evil. Generations had honed them into the purest ughter machines, and they were the precious children of the Evil Gods.


    Any demon or devil in the mortal ne would surely try to stir up major trouble or plot some dastardly scheme. For instance, in history, there was Charnam, the son of an Evil God. Charnam slew Gods and demons alike until he ascended to be a God of ughter. Meanwhile, tieflings were mere ordinary species that had be slightly demonized. They had been invaded by demon corruption while still inside their mothers¡¯ wombs, causing them to have some slightly demonized traits. Tieflings would bepletely different from the native residents of the Chaos Abyss... but other mortals wouldn¡¯t care.


    ¡°Demonic children¡±, ¡°the jinxed¡±, ¡°the harbingers of misfortune¡±, and so on were all nicknames for the tieflings. There were countless negative insults heaped upon them. And, their mothers (most tieflings would be raised by single mothers) would typically be vilified as witches or sluts who had sex with demons and devils and so on. None of the Gods¡¯ Churches in the mortal ne would even try to defend them. My original world of Earth wasn¡¯t the only one that burned witches. Tieflings living in the mortal ne would suffer nothing but misfortune, and their families would rarely meet a happy ending.


    In the mortal ne where people viewed things as either ck or white, most tieflings would have nightmarish childhood while growing up. The tieflings¡¯ nightmarish abuse also extended to their rtives.


    But, the nightmare was only beginning in childhood. Most tieflings would be incapable of hiding their demonized traits. While there were still some barely passable methods for disguising horns and tails, their unique skin color was the hardest to conceal. In order for tieflings to live among humans, they would forever need to wear masks and capes.


    Not only would it be difficult for tieflings to find normal jobs and establish social rtionships, even identally having a veil fall off might result in the tiefling being burned to death by an angry mob.


    And even for the lucky tieflings that made great efforts in using their outstanding natural talents to help others, such as defeating a rampaging horde of magic beasts that threatened a city and gaining the reputation of hero, their demonic blood would always bring misfortune upon them in the end. Perhaps there would be a long drought, or an unavoidable cmity, or some suddenly arrived God¡¯s church job ss member. Even the hero tieflings would still end up being med for bringing bad luck or used of scheming against the city, so those tieflings would silently be forced to leave in the end.


    No matter what a tiefling did in the mortal ne, that tiefling would only be treated with suspicion and distrust.


    Unfortunately, this stereotype-focused attitude toward them could also be said to be mostly correct. Since they had partial demonic or devil bloodlines, this would make them easier to anger, impatient, greedy, lustful, and so on. Their natural talents were also small magic tricks rted to darkness, such as invisibility, short-distance teleportation, night vision, and so on. These natural talents just happened to be so especially well-suited tomitting evil deeds...


    Their ¡°ugly¡± appearances made it difficult for the tieflings to find proper jobs. Human stereotypes against them and their powerful natural talents (well, only powerful whenpared to humans¡¯) made it quite normal for tieflings to take improper paths in society. Thieves, rogues, assassins, and so on would forever be the most popr jobs in the tiefling species. And even in the Chaos Abyss, there were quite a few tieflings.


    Tieflings had longer lifespans than humans, so no matter what they experienced, they would always taste the coldness of the world, and see their rtives dying off and leaving them behind, so they would no longer relish the mortal ne...


    A schr had once proposed a theory that most tieflings ended up answering the summons of the Chaos Abyss not because they weren¡¯t able to resist the summons, but more because they had despaired, doubting their ever being able to join human society in the mortal ne.


    And even if they entered the Chaos Abyss... the Chaos Abyss was no warm and weing location. The pure demons saw tieflings as nothing more than weaklings they could toy with. It would only be going from hell to an even worse hell for the tieflings.


    Inparison, the Order Gods¡¯ descendants were known as ¡°Asmos¡±, which meant the ¡°venerated¡±.


    An Asmo would have bright eyes that gave off light and special golden skin that would glow along with glowing golden hair. Basically, they would look like light bulbs. It would be quite easy for an Asmo to find a job at any God¡¯s Church. It would only be a matter of time for an Asmo to be a high-ranked member of a particr church. And, any Asmo who went out adventuring would easily obtain ordinary people¡¯s trust and support. It would be ridiculously easy for an Asmo to be an idol.


    Strictly speaking, angel bloodlines were also a type of Asmo bloodline. The treatment I received back in the Bardi Empire was the most obvious evidence of this. Of course, many tieflings felt aggrieved about such unfair treatment, but I would say...


    ¡°Ha, immigrants want topare themselves to the treatment received by the locals? Ha, why don¡¯t they try asking the politicians in charge if they agree or not?¡±


    Cough, I seem to have identally said too much.


    Getting back to the topic, the reason why Demon God Sback was fervently worshipped by so many tieflings was because he had established a noble goal of saving the tiefling race. He often performed divine miracles in the mortal ne, sending out an incarnation or a God Envoy to save tieflings like himself. And then, he would be hunted down like a pitiful dog by the Order Gods...


    Although Sback wasn¡¯t all that reliable, the very fact that such a bullied species like the tieflings even had a Guardian God was a supreme joy to all tieflings. They were far more fanatical believers of their great Demon God Sbackpared to any other species. So, Sback would forever be the #1 God worshipped by any and all tiefling tribes.


    There were reasons why I understood so much about tieflings.


    Strictly speaking, Elisa who had been demonized by the River Styx was also a tiefling. For quite a long period of time, she had been a pure tiefling. And since the Underground was a ce for the exiles from the aboveground world, it was only normal that there would be many tieflings underground.


    However, Elisa received far too much favor from the Chaos Abyss. In the end, she demonized far too much, and became a half-demon. As long as she wanted to, she could achieve even deeper demonization and be a true demon at any time she wanted. It was as if she was the Chaos Abyss¡¯s bastard daughter.


    It wouldn¡¯t be that easy to transform into aplete demon in normal circumstances. Even if a tiefling ¡°gave up on trying to be a human¡±, there would be a great price to pay for such a transformation. You would need to already have enough power, as well as need to somehow obtain a powerful demon¡¯s or devil¡¯s pure bloodline, along with obtaining a great deal of demon or devil blood. This would be no easy matter.


    Now that I thought about it, since the Chaos Abyss had a will of its own, and the will of the Chaos Abyss was actually Cynthia¡¯s will, and Cynthia had always been giving Elisa so much power, this basically meant that Cynthia had been constantly spying on us. It would seem that the affairs from back in the day were truly messy indeed.


    Perhaps Elisa had been Cynthia¡¯s spy and a ticking time bomb all this time. Maybe she would have betrayed us at a critical moment... Should I actually be grateful to Karwenz for dragging Cynthia into a pitfall? Otherwise, this truly would have been troublesome.


    Deserts would always be hot during the day and cold at night. However, this desert was far different from the normal deserts in the mortal ne. In the 102nd level, there were three suns cycling through the sky, and each night had less than two hours of darkness. Just this alone would make anyone feel like they were in a living hell.


    Not long ago, I had been in a damp and dark swamp. Yet, I was now in a desert filled with nothing but sunlight. The tremendous change in environment was difficult to get ustomed to.


    ¡°Heh, this is probably still a decent environment. Down here in the Chaos Abyss, there are many ces that are even worse than this one.¡±


    From what I could recall, there were indeed far worse environments in the Chaos Abyss. Some dimensional levels would be filled with toxic gas, while others would have raging mes or nothing but ocean. There were even some dimensions with no breathable air whatsoever. This environment filled with only wind and sand was already quite friendlypared to many other Chaos Abyss levels. At the very least, this ce was far more hospitable than the Earth Elemental ne.


    But when I thought about the Earth Elemental ne, I suddenly recalled a certain someone who must not be named. I suddenly had a terribly ominous premonition.


    ¡°No way, he wouldn¡¯t... I didn¡¯t summon him toe join me...¡±


    At this moment, after passing several desert hills, the brightest pearl of the 102nd level of the Chaos Abyss, the Hass Oasis appeared before us.

 Chapter 586 - Hunter

    <h4>Chapter 586: Hunter</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Hass Oasis was also known as the capital of the desert. This was the only oasis in this desert within a radius of several thousand kilometers. Thus, the Hass Oasis was an absolutely mandatory stop for all three merchant trade routes that crossed the desert. This made the Hass Oasis a veritable gold mine. I figured that just the tariffs alone from the travelling merchants would bring uncountable riches.


    The previous rulers of the Hass Oasis had all taxed any merchants who travelled through here. However, when the rich and powerful Roan Carolyn took over the Hass Oasis, he reduced all tariffs to zero. Although this obviously reduced tariff ie to nothing, this brought more than ten times the number of merchant caravans to the Hass Oasis. Soon, this ¡°foolish¡± policy became viewed as the number one reason for the Hass Oasis¡¯s astounding flourishment.


    Perhaps some people would say that this was only a simple strategy. However, good policies with good intentions would often bring about negative consequences¡ªnot because of the policy or intention, but because ofx enforcement.


    In order to truly have the Hass Oasis benefit from this policy, many other factors would have to be taken into consideration. The Hass Oasis would need to eliminate other elements that might impede merchants from visiting here. They would need to eliminate bandits, deal withpetitors, send out regr patrols to hunt down magical beasts, develop safe rest areas in the desert, and so on. None of this would be simple. On the way here to the Hass Oasis, I had already listened to Cassandra praise her father Roan endlessly.


    But when we finally arrived, I felt like this city wasn¡¯t nearly as friendly as she described it to be.


    As I walked around the capital of the desert, I felt many hostile gazes directed at me. The guards, who were equipped with ck batons, were all staring at me with unfriendly expressions.


    ¡°...I haven¡¯t done anything, have I?¡±


    When even all the local tieflings were looking at me with such vignce, I finally realized what was going on.


    ¡°This ce is too xenophobic.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not it. It¡¯s just that our Hass Oasis was almost conquered twice already due to information provided by spies from other species. You¡¯re an unknown human who just arrived, and it¡¯s obvious that you¡¯re in a warrior job ss.¡±


    Even though Cassandra Carolyn had just returned to her own city, she still covered herself with a thick cape as if she was hiding from someone.


    ¡°...Then why did nobody even try to stop me or ask any questions when I entered the Hass Oasis?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because every time that the Hass Oasis was attacked from both inside and out, the traitors on the inside were always local tieflings. Our enemies finally discovered that as long as they paid enough money, tieflings wouldn¡¯t hold much loyalty to their own tribe. Local tieflings would also be much cheaper to hire than spies from other species.¡±


    Alright then, I could now pretty much guess why Cassandra was still hiding her presence despite having returned to her own city.


    She was worried that the ones trying to assassinate her still hadn¡¯t given up? Or, maybe it would be more urate to say that she had no confidence in the ordinary guards and their ability to protect her life.


    Still, it was annoying being stared at with such hostility by all the tieflings. So, I sprouted two dragon horns on my head and added dragon wings to my back while beginning to emanate an aura of demonization. The tieflings here instantly stopped viewing me with such hostility.


    However, with my current appearance, why did it remind me of a certain character... I really wanted to quote the line ¡°You are not prepared¡± here, but felt like I was rather bored of quoting things from my original world that nobody would understand.


    ¡°Um, adventurer, could you take me home? My family is probably searching for me. There will be a great reward for you.¡±


    Cassandra kept blinking as she recalled her etiquette teacher¡¯s lessons in diplomacy. She used her most sincere words to invite the ¡°human cannibal¡± adventurer to her home as a guest, but she was actually cursing at him in her heart.


    ¡®You actually dared to scare me to the point where I peed my pants... You dare to scare ady? Just watch what my father will do to you!¡¯


    Cassandra wasn¡¯t angry to the point where she would repay the benefactor who¡¯d saved her life with evil intentions. However, she still intended to take some minor revenge. Cassandra was a scion who had only experienced a wonderful life up until now; she would feel aggrieved unless she was able to minorly get back at him.


    ¡°No need, it¡¯s too troublesome. Where are the most famous taverns, bars, and restaurants in this area?¡±


    Even without seeing the flickering expression in the redhead¡¯s eyes that gave her intentions away, I fully knew that she intended to do something to me. It might be something as harmless as a naughty child¡¯s prank, all the way to an attempt to murder me. That would depend on how evil her personality was.


    I refused not because I was afraid, but rather because I didn¡¯t want any trouble. Yep, it definitely wasn¡¯t because I was starving to the point of not wanting to move!


    ¡°How could any restaurants here possiblypare to my family? Our family¡¯s chef is a super chef that we invited over from Shaloyu¡¯s most famous tavern. All the food supplies in our family are purchased from thousands of kilometers away...¡±


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll go visit your family.¡±


    In front of my stomach, I would simply allow my face or whatever to be gone with the wind.


    But, I suddenly felt an evil wind above me that caused a chill to run down my spine. It felt as if I had been targeted by a vicious beast.


    I raised my head, and saw in the sky a figure that I had seen just several days ago.


    ¡°Lasnina!?¡±


    She now appeared far more wretchedpared tost week. The thick dark circles under her eyes indicated that she had slept quite poorly over this time. Her long hair hadn¡¯t beenbed and was a mess. Her originally beautiful appearance was diminished yet again.


    The bandages and streaks of blood on her body indicated that she had been unable to escape from the aftereffects of my ¡°Stare of the Hell God¡± ability. That was likely why she hadn¡¯t slept well over the past week.


    ¡°Damn it, have I wasted too much time in the desert?¡±


    I felt that it would be impossible to have tracked me down. Even the most wondrous prophecy magic in the world would be unable to find my existence in the river of Fate. It would also be nothing more than a joke to think of tracking someone through endless sand. In that case, I must have stayed here in the 102nd level for far too long. She probably followed me here after a tip from Voka, and used the process of elimination to search for me in each and every city here.


    Since Lasnina was openly floating above the oasis, this naturally caught much attention from the residents of the Hass Oasis. Some aerial knights riding on gigantic bats and a mage had already flown up to approach Lasnina, who was below the clouds.


    However, the Devil Lord casually waved her hand, and sent down some chain lightning that ignited all the aerial knights. Even the ck-robed mage who had a spell shield around him was unable to resist this. All of them were instantly vaporized.


    This evil invader made it perfectly clear that she had nothing but vicious intentions towards the Hass Oasis. The city¡¯s rm bells instantly started ringing as all the residents began preparing for war.


    More powerful mages and guards walked out of their fortresses and mage towers. Numerous attack magic spells formed on top of their mage towers. As the Hass Oasis was the single most important merchant city in the entire area, it was naturally heavily defended.


    However, Lasnina seemed topletely ignore the threats gathering to attack her as she silently recited a curse.


    ck magic spread in the air, tainting the clouds in the sky ck. Judging by how much magic power was gathered and how those clouds were now turning a dark green, Lasnina was about to give everyone a lesson about what a forbidden spell was truly like.


    ¡°Don¡¯t let her finish casting that spell!¡±


    Of course, there were some mages in the Hass Oasis that recognized how powerful her spell was. If this dark green curse magic forbidden spell was allowed to finish, it was likely that the entire Hass Oasis would be nothing more than another patch of sand in this endless desert of the 102nd level.


    ¡°She hunted me down all this way in such a method? Just how many cities has she destroyed along the way?¡±


    I was confident that she actually had no clue that I was currently in the Hass Oasis. That was because it would be utmost foolishness to immediately start attacking with such a powerful forbidden spell. While her type of forbidden spell would have incredible attack power and a tremendous AOE, the very fact that it was an AOE would mean that it wouldn¡¯t even be as effective as a single-target nine circle spell against powerful individuals like myself. In that case, this could only mean that she felt like destroying this entire city.


    ¡°...I don¡¯t know where you are right now, but as long as I keep destroying all these cities, you¡¯ll appear before me sooner orter.¡±


    Perhaps it was in order to vent her anger. Perhaps it was in order to cut off her enemy¡¯s supplies. Perhaps it was in consideration of how na?vely heroic most Holy Knights would be. In this past week, while Rnd was busy messing around in the desert, the ¡°insane Devil Lord¡± had caused a horrifying cmity upon the 102nd level of the Chaos Abyss!


    Previously in the 75th level of the Chaos Abyss, that level still had some semnce of order to it due to having Snake God Voka being in charge. That type of situation had obscured the truth of what the Chaos Abyss was really like.


    From a certain standpoint, everything that happened in the Chaos Abyss where no single existence ruled supreme anymore was the true face of the Chaos Abyss¡ªa wild environment where only thew of the jungle reigned supreme.


    In the countless levels of the Chaos Abyss, people and entire cities were being destroyed constantly at every second, and many times the deaths of the weak were nothing more than source of amusement for the strong.


    ¡°Curse her!¡±


    ¡°Milord, please have mercy and spare us!¡±


    ¡°Why? Why? Why is she attacking us?¡±


    The angry roars and pleading of the ants underneath Lasnina reached her ears. She actually smiled gleefully upon hearing this. In fact, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that she was in a hurry to find Rnd, she would have behaved like she usually would, and cursed the entire city of the Hass Oasis, making the ants beneath her die as slowly and painfully as possible.


    She suddenly felt like perhaps she could have a fun vacation here by spending an entire year listening to their death screams and curses against her.


    A reason for this? Would you need a reason for casually stepping on an ant? Do you still remember how many annoying mosquitos you¡¯ve killed before?


    Perhaps there were some people out there who spat upon Order. But, when even the most basic amount of Order waspletely nonexistent, when those with power had zero restraints upon them, when the powerful viewed the weak as nothing more than ants below them, it was only natural that anything could happen.


    Arge-scale ughter? Nope, never happened. Got any witnesses? Oh, everyone¡¯s dead? Then there¡¯s no evidence that I evermitted such a ughter!


    What, you¡¯re saying that I bombed a neutral medical facility and diplomatic embassy? That was just an ident! I wasn¡¯t careful, and used a map from ten years ago along with some wrong information. I suppose I could send you my condolences.


    Oh, you¡¯re saying that I¡¯ve caused cmity, famine, and waves of refugees? That¡¯s just an unfortunate ident. It¡¯s their own fault for having an evil master!


    You want an apology andpensation? No way, I¡¯ve already told you that it was only an unfortunate ident! Since it was only an ident, don¡¯t think too much into it! Yep, allow me to send you my condolences again.


    War crimes? Haha, young one, no matter what world it is, war is forever urring. It¡¯s just that you might not know about it.


    When there were zero restrictions on the powerful individuals, and when the simple act of using force would bring tremendous personal benefits, even the most horrifying of evil actions would be a daily urrence.


    And to take this a step further, once evil actions became habitual, a daily urrence, personal benefits were no longer necessary when causing ughter and bringing destruction to entire countries. If the person doing so thought it was fun, that was enough.


    Such individuals were nothing more thanbat machines that had be totally addicted to ughter and destruction. In the end, they would destroy far more than just themselves.


    Over the past five days, Lasnina had already destroyed a total of 36 cities. The Hass Oasis would be the 37th city that she was about to destroy. To be honest, she had already given up on using the process of elimination to find Rnd in the 102nd level. She knew that it was highly likely that he had left this dimension already after a week.


    However, the endless ughter, destruction, and victims¡¯ howls of pain gave her immense pleasure, just like a drug addiction. It made her feel wonderful all over to see the ants begging for mercy and dying in extreme pain while being stomped to death by her. It made her feel like the injuries on her body no longer hurt.


    For someone like Lasnina, who had beenmitting evil deeds for countless millennia already, the attack that she¡¯d received from her own soul¡¯s conscience not only failed to help her reobtain the conscience she¡¯d abandoned so long ago, but it even made her angry to the point where all she wanted to do was vent her own pain on every single weakling that she saw.


    ¡°Hahaha, cry, scream, and die for me!¡±


    Her hystericalughter echoed loudly above the Hass Oasis city. But, the next instant, a transparent sword of ice pierced right through her heart.


    Lasnina looked around with an expression of disbelief. Meanwhile, the ice de piercing through her heart was burning furiously.


    The assassin that suddenly showed himself in the clouds had extravagantly beautiful wings. His War Angel form had fiery wings that were emanating an astonishing amount of heat and Holy Light.


    This sword-wielding angel furiously roared, directly dispersing the cursed dark green clouds that Lasnina had been preparing. His killing intent was so overwhelming that it was obvious for all to see.


    ¡°Lasnina! It¡¯s time for you to receive your judgement!¡±

 Chapter 587 - Unexpected

    <h4>Chapter 587: Unexpected</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Lasnina must die.¡±


    I had now discarded the bandages wrapped around my eyes. Although my eyes were still bloody, and unable to physically see, something as trifling as eyelids would never be able to obstruct my divine soul vision.


    In the world that I saw, countless dead spirits swarmed around Lasnina.


    Those souls were all using their empty eyes and helpless screams to indict Lasnina for her crimes.


    ¡®Just how many people has she killed in her life?¡¯


    A mysterious rage was burning up within me. Even though I was also someone whose hands werepletely covered in blood, I was still unable to agree with such senseless ughter.


    Every life had its own value. The killer who took away someone else¡¯s life would have to bear the burden of the dead.


    No matter what noble reason there was for killing, or how beneficial killing that person would be for the world, that would still never serve to conceal the fact that killing another was one of the most wicked actions in the world.


    If you chose to use killing as a method to solve your problem, then you would need to bear a heavy sin. In the end, those whose hands were stained with blood would always be judged, no matter what dimension that person was in, and no matter what reason that person had for killing another.


    Killing for the sake of a country¡¯s glory and benefit? What a joke. How could the action of killing possibly represent justice?


    ughtering purely for the sake of pleasure? That would be the worst possible, lowest-level third-rate hoodlum! That would disgust me even more than a maggot would.


    ¡°Lasnina, die for me, just like a lowly worm would!¡±


    I furiously waved around a sword of ice that possessed extremely high-purity Holy Light that harmed both Lasnina and myself. Harloys was howling in pain in my mind, but at this moment, all I could do was tell her to bear with it.


    I cut as I pleased with my sword on Lasnina¡¯s still rtively beautiful face and body. The sun-like Holy Light was burning every part of the Devil Lord¡¯s body. Yet, despite all the mes, Lasnina¡¯s distorted expression wasughing maniacally and hysterically.


    ¡°I¡¯ve finally, finally found you! I couldn¡¯t possibly be satisfied otherwise, no matter how many worms I killed...¡±


    The body that my holy mes were burning was instantly vaporized into dust. Yet, her insaneughter still hadn¡¯t stopped.


    ¡°...As expected, only you... only your soul! Only your fresh blood! Only you can satisfy me, satisfy my pain!¡±


    And not far away from me in the sky, the dust from her body gathered and formed a new andplete Lasnina who had recovered. There was pure hatred in her eyes as she red at me.


    No, she wasn¡¯tplete and recovered. Judging from her significantly weakened power level, it was evident that she had taken some damage.


    ¡°Those were the highest-level pure holy mes capable of instantly vaporizing a Demon Lord. Yet, that was all they could do against her?¡±


    Lasnina¡¯s counterattack that came right after didn¡¯t give me any more time to sigh about how powerful my enemy was.


    In just a single moment, the sky became filled with distorted magical runes. Uncalctable amounts of magic power jumped between the runes like electricity. Magic power constantly leaked as the very sky of the Chaos Abyss was torn open. Demonic beasts from other dimensions could be seen through the dimensional cracks, just waiting to pounce on new prey. I could sense that countless demonic eyes had their attention fully on me.


    The next instant, all those demonic beasts filled with evil intentions transformed into a ck liquid that poured out from the dimensional cracks. The moment that they arrived in this world, they transformed into twisted demonic beasts.


    This was a pitch-ck monster that had countless eyes floating around it. Its constantly distorting body was covered in all sorts of magical runes. I could sense that this was a pure amalgamation of curses, a demonic beast born from thepression of the purest curse magic.


    ¡°Ahhhh!!!¡±


    However, Lasnina was the one who screamed in pain right now. She had just used her famous God Equipment magic sword to stab herself through her one remaining eye!


    The next instant, Lasnina dug out her own eyeball, and crushed it before looking over in my direction with an even more distorted smile. I could already tell what she was thinking even without her saying it out loud...


    ¡®I can¡¯t see anymore, so that ability of yours which needs me to look into your eyes is useless now!¡¯


    Of course, I wasn¡¯t foolish enough to believe that she had actually gonepletely blind. It was quite likely that the living curse demonic creature could act as another pair of eyes for her. Still, herpleteck of hesitation in destroying her own eye like that was the best indication that she was nowpletely insane... or perhaps I should say that all of the Devil Lords were insane to begin with!


    I took a deep breath, and rewrapped bandages around my eyes. This type of enemy couldn¡¯t be dealt with simply through being hot-blooded. Since she was still overwhelmingly more powerful than I was in power level, a hot-blooded charge would be nothing more than utter suicide.


    I had dealt with plenty of undying or indestructible enemies before. However, Lasnina¡¯s undying properties were also foundationally different from Emordilorcan and my previous enemies¡¯.


    The five non-Main God Devil Lords had the titles of Curses, Jealousy, Lust, Betrayal, and Violence. They all represented the purest and most negative emotions of the intelligent species. None of these five Devil Lords were Gods, so they didn¡¯t have Divine Concepts. But, just like how all intelligent living beings would definitely have negative emotions, these Devil Lords would naturally possess an endless power source as long as intelligent living beings still existed.


    From the first generation until present, the number of Devil Lords that had died due to outside factors could be counted on one hand. As for the Devil Lords who were reced, they were either reced by a younger and more powerful individual, or a new Sin took the ce of an old Sin.


    The most ancient Devil Lords had all lived from the first generation until the present. Their very bodies were the definitions of undying and indestructible. As for the newer-generation Devil Lords, even though Lasnina was the youngest of the nine Devil Lords, she was stillpletely different from an ordinary great devil.


    Back when creating my own Seven Original Sins, I had researched the nature of the Devil Lords. The Devil Lords weren¡¯t actually indestructible and undying like they imed to be. Creator Goddess Eich was the only one in this world who was truly indestructible. Strictly speaking, although the Sins that the Devil Lords represented were indeed undying, the Devil Lords definitely weren¡¯t undying. If that had truly been the case, it would have been impossible for any Devil Lord to ever be reced.


    ¡°The Lord of Curses? Ha, strictly speaking, you should be the ¡®Lord of Jealousy¡¯. Your jealousy and evil intentions towards any existence that surpasses you in any aspect is your very foundational being. Jealousy and hatred are your food.¡±


    I closed my eyes, but I was actually preparing my trump card. Since I already knew that I had a Devil Lord enemy, of course I would make preparations beforehand for our next battle.


    There were only two possible theoretical methods topletely kill a Devil Lord like Lasnina.


    The first would be to use normal attacks and kill her over and over again. This would cause her to use up all of her power by repeatedly reviving herself. Naturally, the end result would be that she would be forced to reincarnate. And in that period of time, the empty position of Lord of Curses would make all the other devils go insane. Unless she was able to swiftly awaken again, her position would likely be stolen away by another devil.


    The second method would be to use a unique attack method that could directly attack Lasnina¡¯s soul and foundation, either destroying or sealing herpletely. This would be more direct than the first method.


    The first method would require an existence that surpassed Lasnina¡¯s power level, such as a Main God. The second would require a power that exceeded her realm and special abilities. Both would be incredibly difficult. Otherwise, I wouldn¡¯t have immediately started off by using an ace like my Stare of the Hell God.


    The Stare of the Hell God was capable of directly attacking the soul. It was an attack that used the powers of karma and Fate itself. If Lasnina had been unable to take that attack, it was likely that there would have instantly been a new Lord of Curses born at that moment.


    At my current power level, it would be absolutely impossible for me to kill Lasninapletely. At most, I would be able to force her into a state of revival. This was truly displeasing.


    But since I fully intended to kill her for real, then I would only have one choice, although I would likely have to pay quite a diforting price...


    ¡°Conservation, I need your power...¡±


    ...


    Unlike the mortal ne, where only the Gods¡¯ incarnations or representative species would war with each other, the Chaos Abyss was a location where the highest-level existences were capable of using their full power. If some Chaos Gods started fighting against each other down here, there would always be some God dying in the end, along with countless innocent victims dragged into the process.


    When Rnd and Lasnina got locked into a bitter battle, another Devil Lord and Salor the Berserk ughterer began rushing over to the 102nd level when they received the news on the 101st and 100th levels, respectively.


    Due to a certain unexpected incident, the devils now valued Rnd even more. They simultaneously sent out three of the remaining five Devil Lords to hunt him down. And even if they lost Rnd¡¯s whereabouts, two of the Devil Lords and Salor the Berserk ughterer would continue hunting him down.


    If the power levels of two indestructible existences was simr, then both sides¡¯ undying traits, Divine Kingdoms, armies, and revival capabilities would be their support. This would easily be a battle of attritionsting several months.


    Apart from a few exceptions, the Main Gods warring against each other during the battle of Hell had fought for several years without achieving any results. As for Emperor Yongye, it would be impossible to ever kill him without killing his army first.


    But suddenly, a person with an identical appearance to Rnd¡¯s appeared in front of the Lord of Arrogance near the entrance to the 101st level.


    Ast, the Lord of Arrogance, was first delighted, then astonished, and finally ended up with a despairing expression of shock.


    ¡°Karwenz! Why are you here!?¡±


    The Abyss Prince seemed like he hadn¡¯t changed at allpared to seven years ago. He simply yawned while asking a question. ¡°I had a question for you as well. This is the demons¡¯ territory. You can barely hold on to what territory you have left, so why are you here? Could it be that you devils are scheming something?¡±

 Chapter 588 - Unreliable Reinforcements

    <h4>Chapter 588: Unreliable Reinforcements</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Conservation¡ªshe was a powerful Undead Emperor, a genius who managed to achieve Main God power level all by herself, and an individual with the greatest... misfortune possible.


    In her first fight against Rnd, she¡¯d gained much inspiration from him, and advanced herself significantly in her field of energy research. She sessfully entered a realm that nobody had ever achieved before. But just as she ambitiously began her ns to conquer the mortal ne, she met with Rnd yet again.


    In her second fight against Rnd, Conservation hadn¡¯t been in top condition, as she had only recently descended into the mortal ne. Neither had she had the time to use her trump cards when she was seriously injured by Rnd¡¯s shameless tactics. Then, since she started absorbing the power of death from Rnd¡¯s Hell in order to help herself recover, she became bound by the dimensionalws of Hell, and became a part of Hell for eternity.


    This hadn¡¯t been Rnd¡¯s original n. Even he didn¡¯t expect Conservation to instinctively start absorbing the power of death from Hell after she was injured.


    This was an idental trap, the most difficult type to defend against.


    But since this was already set in stone, Conservation could only let it be water under the bridge. One advantage that geniuses had over ordinary people was that geniuses would rarely be stubborn about something. They would know how to be flexible <sup>1</sup> . And for any mage, being foolish would be the most uneptable character trait. It would also be impossible to be a mage if you had a low Intelligence stat.


    Since she was an Undead Emperor, Conservation¡¯s Intelligence stat couldn¡¯t possibly be any lower than 30. She soon epted the fact that it would be impossible for her to leave Rnd¡¯s personal Hell world... Yep, by soon, that actually meant after she sent a barrage of several hundred forbidden spells against his world, confirming that his world was indestructible. She then theorized that even if this world was somehow destroyed, she would end up destroyed together with it. That was when she finally calmed down.


    ¡°Rnd, you still dare toe see me?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Just think about it. Maybe it will be easy for you to kill me, but if I die, will this world of mine still exist...?¡±


    As he was the creator of this bug-like world, this world would only exist as long as Rnd lived. And if this world no longer existed, then it was easy for Conservation to understand that she would no longer exist as well, for she was now permanently bound to Rnd¡¯s world.


    Alright, it seemed that Rnd had indeed done a wonderful job, judging from the results. But if you looked at it morally, this truly seemed like a crime.


    And once Conservation calmed down yet again, Rnd sessfully had a difficult yet effective negotiation, which pretty much went like this...


    ¡°Just try killing me if you dare! Haha, just kill me! Wahahaha!


    ¡°Hahaha, you really don¡¯t dare to kill me anymore, eh? You don¡¯t dare to kill me, right? You don¡¯t dare to kill me, heeheehee!


    ¡°Wahaha, if I die, you die. If you die, I¡¯ll still have a fun life out there. The world out there is so beautiful! The weather today is truly wonderful!


    ¡°Cough, I should stop acting ridiculous now, so we should probably talk about serious matters now. Yep, let¡¯s start with the rent. There¡¯s also the water utilities and electric utilities along with the rent. Do you intend to pay me with your body? Or pay me with cash? How do you feel about camping outside? I do have a trailer home here, but it¡¯ll be a little expensive. Of course, I can also help to purchase any consumables or extravagant items that you need...¡±


    Perhaps this seemed like the author intentionally trying to pad the word count. Still, it would be difficult for the author to describe just how childish Rnd had been without quoting these words.


    Naturally, Rnd still had a grudge regarding Conservation beating up so much on him. Since he now had the opportunity where he could do anything he wanted during negotiation with no consequences, it was only natural for him to act so childishly.


    Of course, Conservation could have refused to negotiate with Rnd. But for someone as sly as Rnd, as long as negotiating didn¡¯t go well, he would unhesitatingly disappear for an entire day at a time. He would then reappear the next day as if nothing happened. He was actually hinting to Conservation with this.


    ¡°Hey now, it doesn¡¯t matter to me. I can just abandon this world if I have to. What about you, though? Are you intending on isting yourself from the outside world forever? You want to live by yourself in this tiny world for the rest of your life? You¡¯ll be all alone in a pitch-ck dimension for countless years. You¡¯ll also have to worry every day that I might suddenly die, which will cause my world and you along with it to die as well. Heeheehee, this is probably even more pitiful than being exiled to another dimension.¡±


    Since the sides in this negotiation were onpletely unequal footing, this negotiation basically became nothing more than pure one-sided extortion.


    Conservation would have epted this result sooner orter even without Rnd acting so ridiculously. But, with Rnd acting like this, even though this only made both sides¡¯ distaste for each other grow even further, this indeed helped Conservation to calm down quicker and reach an ord with Rnd.


    Actually, just the fact that Rnd had directly caused Aso¡¯s death, when Conservation was Aso¡¯s lover, would already make Conservation and Rnd into mortal enemies. Conservation and Rnd had already battled to death every time that they met. And even though they now had a ¡°ceasefire¡±, it was impossible for the two of them to start a friendly rtionship.


    Rnd agreed to all of Conservation¡¯s conditions... he put the floating Yongye City into his personal world for Conservation to live in, he put some of Conservation¡¯s servants into this world, and purchased some female articles for everyday use for her... Since this unfortunate Undead Emperor was no longer able to leave Rnd¡¯s world, that was just about all she could ask for.


    Meanwhile, Rnd¡¯s conditions were way overboard.


    ¡°I will provide you with research topics and materials. You do the work researching them for me, but you have to share all your research results. You need to develop this world and be its manager, yep, basically bing an administrator in my ce. You have to help me whenever I need you to. Rx, I would never ask someone who has Main God level power like you to deal with any ordinary opponent.¡±


    And so, Rnd gained a personal magical assistant who absolutely hated his guts, yet she would be forced to pray for his safety. That arena which Rnd previously used to trap the Onibabas in was also something that Conservation¡¯s servants had constructed. His personal bug-like world of Hell seemed like it could now potentially develop into an undead country.


    Of course, Conservation could refuse to cooperate. In that case, all Rnd needed to do was stop visiting her at set times, which would truly iste Conservation from the outside world.


    Rnd was also capable of leaving his personal world at any time he pleased, so he wasn¡¯t worried about Conservation doing anything to him.


    ¡°She¡¯s so simr to me from back in the day, but I think she¡¯s even more pitiful than I am...¡±


    Harloys¡¯ assessment seemed mysteriously sad. Things seemed even more sad with Rnd¡¯sment of ¡°If I die, you die. If you die, I¡¯ll still have a fun life out there.¡±


    And now, it was time for Conservation to act out her half of the agreement. It was time for her to fight against Rnd¡¯s enemy.


    I opened up my miraculous world, where a gigantic arena now surrounded myself and Lasnina. This time, not only were there undead spectators watching, there was also the Main God level Undead Emperor watching from the sky in my Yongye City.


    ¡°Conservation, I need your power!¡±


    ¡°I refuse.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    Hey, this wasn¡¯t supposed to be how the story went! How could she go against me at such a critical moment?


    When I looked up at the sky, the ethereal figure floating in the sky had already transformed into a physical one. Her beautiful face covered by a ck veil seemed so pale as ifcking any blood. It was unmistakable that her eyes were burning with pure hatred for me.


    I instantly understood with a single look. Conservation had gone insane! She intended to kill me no matter what, even if it cost her life!


    [As expected, her previouspromises were only in order to lull you into mistaking her true intentions.]


    ¡°Those whomit too many evil deeds will definitely meet a deserving end. Women are such creatures who view their emotions with more importance than their lives.¡±


    ¡°System, could you please stop stating such things after the fact? Silly cat, why act like you¡¯re an expert in this area? At most, you count as a female cat! You don¡¯t even count as a woman!¡±


    But for some reason, maybe I had some type of harem luck upon me? Recently, there had been so many powerful women trying to kill me.


    [That¡¯s not what harem luck is supposed to mean...]


    ¡°Hey, stop ming fate for your problems. Please first self-reflect to see if there¡¯s a problem with your own personal character. Since your ability to attract hatred is wondrously strong, you should stop ming the pitiful God of Fate.¡±


    One beautiful woman was above me, and one beautiful woman was in front of me. Both of them were directly staring at me with death res. It was unmistakable that both Conservation and Lasnina wanted me dead even if it cost them their lives. I suddenly became rather excited.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, isn¡¯t that the wrong style for this story? I¡¯m almost dead, so why would I be excited? Harloys, can you please be a little more serious with the narration? Stop pretending to narrate in my voice!¡±


    I no longer had any time to waste. In just this short moment, Conservation had swiftly begun casting spells. She already tossed several spells in my direction.


    Some of her spells were buff and healing spells on Lasnina. Some of her spells were undead curses to debuff me. Even though she already knew that it was probably impossible for her to stop me from leaving with any space magic, she still sent plenty of dimensional anchoring and slowing spells in my direction.


    ¡°You stinky woman, I¡¯m going to lock you up for half a year to self-reflect when I get out of here!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll have to survive first, heehee.¡±


    Conservation smiled so beautifully as if she was a blooming night lily. She appeared to be very self-confident and schrly. To be honest, this was the first time I had ever seen her smile. She even appeared to be somewhat cute. However, it was impossible for me to be happy as her smile was because she looked forward to my death.


    ¡°Crazy woman!¡±


    I didn¡¯t immediately leave my personal world. Instead, I raised both my hands and shouted, ¡°Fire at Rnd!¡±


    At that instant, every single cannon and mage tower in Yongye City lit up, and countless attacks and fireballs all shot towards... Conservation.


    There was no helping it. I would have preferred to attack Lasnina, but I had already preprogrammed my Yongye City to attack another target.


    ¡°Both of you are so underhanded...¡±


    Even Harloys wanted to make ament about how dirty our tactics were as smoke clouded our vision. It would seem that both Undead Emperors who¡¯d signed so many cooperation and alliance agreements with each other had still been trying to kill each other after all.


    I didn¡¯t have any time to joke around with the silly cat anymore. When Lasnina confirmed that the powerful existence in the sky was truly my enemy, she unhesitatingly used a sudden ultimate attack against me.

 Chapter 589 - Being Hunted

    <h4>Chapter 589: Being Hunted</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Return!¡±


    I then unhesitatingly exited my bug-like personal Hell world. Now that Conservation and I had openly turned against each other, it would be the utmost foolishness to stay here and be attacked simultaneously by two powerful enemies. No, that wouldn¡¯t be foolish, it would be suicidal.


    The next instant, I appeared by myself in the middle of the sky above the Hass Oasis city. All around me were confused aerial knights and mages.


    They had immediately flown here upon hearing the emergency rm. However, the devil culprit suddenly disappeared, and this young knight in front of them appeared to be a friend rather than an enemy. The leader of the aerial knights tried asking me what happened.


    ¡°Sir¡ª¡±


    ¡°Back away, it¡¯s not over yet!¡±


    His cautious and polite inquiry was answered with an angry roar. The aerial knight leader, who wore a yellow crown, now had an angry expression. But, before he could say anything out of dissatisfaction, he lost the ability to speak forever.


    The aerial knight leader choked his own throat as his eyes rolled around while he foamed at the mouth. He killed himself before he could even make any screams of pain.


    The other mages and aerial knights reacted simrly. They either killed themselves with their swords, or crushed their own vitals. They all had pitiful deaths that seemed very mysterious.


    ¡°What type of curse is this?¡±


    ¡°Who knows? We Gold Elves were no experts in curse magic. Perhaps it might even be the effect of Lasnina¡¯s personal domain. These ordinary people don¡¯t have such high magic resistance like yours.¡±


    I had a bout of sudden realization. The aura of curses was still strong in the sky. Although Lasnina¡¯s curse demon creatures had also been pulled into my world, just the aura they left behind would be far too much for these novice tiefling knights and mages to deal with.


    To use an analogy, this was like a fight between an ice magic archmage and the Water Elemental Goddess. While the two having the fight would still be fine, anyone else around them would end up either frozen or drowned to death.


    The Hass Oasis tiefling city was now in utter panic. Large amounts of tieflings were abandoning everything they had as they furiously ran out of the city. The veterans among them could tell that two powerful individuals strong enough to be dimensional rulers had chosen this location as a battlefield, meaning that there would be no hope left for this city.


    ¡°Tsk.¡±


    I was quite displeased as I waved my wings and flew up into the clouds.


    ¡°ROLAND!¡±


    As I expected, Lasnina suddenly appeared behind me in the next instant. Since my personal world didn¡¯t have the power to lock my enemies inside, Lasnina had been able to find her way out in just a short ten or so seconds.


    Originally, I had only wanted to fight in the clouds in order to avoid affecting the Hass Oasis too much. But, when I entered the clouds, I suddenly stopped as I had a new idea.


    ¡°Ice magic is an evolution of water magic. In the magical theory of Eich, although there¡¯s no such thing as cloud magic, clouds are indeed an extension of the concept of water. Perhaps...¡±


    I stepped into the clouds, changing the water vapor within them to ice that I casually tossed behind me.


    ¡°ROLAND!¡±


    The angry roaring from behind me indicated that I had apparently hit Lasnina.


    And so...


    I now focused fully on stepping amongst the clouds, leaving ice rain, ice needles, ice bullets, and ice flowers behind everywhere.


    These instantly summoned ice shardscked attack power. However, I hadn¡¯t counted on being able to kill Lasnina so easily in the first ce.


    What I intended was...


    ¡°Ro...nd... you... co... ward...¡±


    Although Lasnina¡¯s words sounded full of stuttering and quite awkward, she wouldn¡¯t notice a thing at all. Of course, this was because my [Hibernation Chill] ability was taking effect on her. Her sense of time was now being slowed down.


    However, just this alone would be unable to change the fact that she was far more powerful than I was.


    I left the power of my [Hibernation Chill] behind in each and every cloud. Every time she passed through a cloud, the chill would affect her and bring her one step closer to defeat.


    Perhaps I had unintentionally discovered an excellent new strategy with nice effects.


    The slowing of Lasnina¡¯s senses naturally served to greatly slow Lasnina¡¯s speed. Meanwhile, I intentionally lowered my own speed and kept the same distance between us. Although she was unable to catch me, I still gave her false hope that she could. This was the most basic kiting strategy.


    ¡°I... can¡¯t... catch him... have I... been... slowed...?¡±


    Lasnina dripped her own blood in the air. She then confirmed that her own sense of time had been slowed when she saw that her blood dripped faster than she anticipated.


    Her stuttering words sounded ratherical, but revealed an astonishing amount. She knew about my ability? Impossible! This ability of mine was one of my top-secret trump cards. Anyone who had experienced my [Hibernation Chill] should have been dead already. No, wait, there was one person who was still alive and well.


    ¡°Conservation!¡±


    The answer was quite obvious now. Even though I had never said anything about my own ability, I had already exposed many of my abilities after two fights with Conservation.


    This information leakage caused me to be at a disadvantage. My nned trap to kill Lasnina with [Hibernation Chill] was now renderedpletely useless. Lasnina also seemed to be the proactive one in this battle.


    What would she do now that she knew that her senses were being slowed?


    Forcefully attack me? That would make her be at a disadvantage instead.


    Hide until the slowing effects wore off? Then, I would escape far away quite easily.


    My senses continuously locked on to the devil behind me. Suddenly, Lasnina¡¯s aurapletely vanished. She then reappeared with an evidently weakened aura.


    ¡°...Did shemit suicide? Or, did she tear off a part of herself?¡±


    I was unable to tell what she had done. It seemed that she had broken free from the effects of the sensory slowing. But, no matter what, it would be correct of me to keep my distance from her. If she wanted to chase after me, she would be slowed all over again.


    However, Lasnina suddenly turned around and flew down towards the ground. Was she heading towards the Hass Oasis?


    ¡°Ha, who do you think I am? Would Yongye care about the lives of such trifling existences?¡±


    ¡°...That woman told me you would! She said that Yongye is far weaker and softer than normal Undead Emperors, that you actually feel sympathy andpassion for ordinary people!¡±


    One¡¯s worst mortal enemy would forever understand you better than your best friend. At this moment, I truly realized how true this saying was.


    ¡°Damn it!¡±


    Just as I turned around, I suddenly backflipped three times in midair as my heart was almost pierced through by a magic sword that suddenly shot through the clouds.


    A venomous blood-red snake peeked out from the clouds. This sudden ambush had been swift and urate, as if... as if it had already locked onto my position, waiting to ambush me at this exact location!


    I looked around, and saw Lasnina amongst the clouds.


    She was holding onto a soulfire skull that had tightly locked onto my location. This was an undead magicalpass that had probably locked onto my aura of life.


    Obviously, Conservation knew that I was able to instantly enter and leave my personal world as I pleased. It would be far too difficult for her to kill me there, so she was hoping that I would ask her to help me when I met with a strong enemy from the very start. Thus, Conservation had prepared many methods to help my enemy.


    Of course, helping my enemy would also mean helping herself to meet her own death as the price.


    ¡°She gave Lasnina information and magic items. What else could there be?¡±


    This time, I had indeed shot myself in the foot. I had underestimated how much Conservation hated me. Sheesh, women were truly such strange creatures with no sense of logic or reason whatsoever.


    ¡°Hey, you shouldn¡¯t paint all women with the same brush.¡±


    Harloys flew over to me by herself. She also knew that the current situation wasn¡¯t good. Was she intending on intervening now?


    We weren¡¯t facing only Lasnina anymore. We also had to be on guard against Conservation¡¯s tricks and traps. We would have to be absolutely careful.


    ¡°Rnd, Little Red¡¯s egg is moving.¡±

 Chapter 590 - Counterattack

    <h4>Chapter 590: Counterattack</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    There were three great mistaken impressions in life. ¡°Someone¡¯s looking for me (someone else¡¯s cell phone rang)¡±, ¡°She likes me¡±, and ¡°I can defeat them¡±.


    But when Harloys notified me that Little Red was actually waking up at this time, I was certain that this was no mistaken impression.


    ¡°My chance is here! I really can defeat her!¡±


    I was quite familiar with Little Red¡¯s power level. Her foundational path for powering up was to retain as many of her previous abilities as possible. Her old abilities would only be even stronger. Then, with me plus Little Red, I truly could counterattack and win!


    The dragon egg in my backpack kept jumping around. Fire magic mana constantly emanated from the egg, indicating a lifeforce that was as powerful as a volcano about to erupt. There was no mistaking it. Little Red had finished powering up, and was about to break out of her egg.


    Seeing Lasnina get ever closer to me, I gritted my teeth, and tossed out the dragon egg.


    The dragon egg had extremely powerful magical wavelengths, to the point where Lasnina hurriedly dodged. She was on guard against something like a forbidden spell scroll, magical explosive, and so on.


    ¡°I choose you, Wargreymon... er, tiny fire dragon?¡±


    As expected, fiery clouds enveloped the dragon egg while in midair, and a mighty... tiny fire dragon appeared in midair...


    She was less than 1.5 meters in length. She had a round stomach and head, and red dragon wings that pped slowly. She breathed out a tiny me with a yawn. Indeed, she looked just like a tiny and cute fire dragon.


    ¡°Ein Mezus?¡±


    The confused tiny dragon turned around as if there was a giant question mark on her head. No matter what her power level evolution was like, wasn¡¯t there clearly a problem with such a cute form?


    A strange silence permeated the entire battlefield. But, the next instant, Lasnina¡¯s venomous snake form magic sword covered the entire sky. She was no idiot who would stand around doing nothing on the battlefield.


    Seeing the Devil Lord violently attack, Little Red paused in surprise as she had just woken up. She then began to panic.


    ¡°Hiss.¡±


    What a strange word. Could it be that Little Red was so shocked that she had lost the ability to speak?


    ¡°Damn it!¡±


    This sudden development astonished me as well. But, I knew that if I waited around for a few seconds without doing anything, it was likely that Little Red would die here.


    A silver sword shed against the blood-red magic sword. With my dragonarmor on, I squarely blocked the snake-shaped sword that aimed for the tiny fire dragon. This was actually my first full-force direct physical confrontation with Lasnina.


    Without even needing to look up, I could tell that the sky was filled with sword slices, and my back was covered in cursed creatures. In just a single exchange of blows, I was nowpletely at a disadvantage.


    ¡°She¡¯s far too quick...¡±


    Lasnina could wield her magic sword at a far quicker speed than any ordinary person would be able to react to. Although I was a Sword Saint at the very peak of humanity¡¯s sword skills, this was still insufficient in front of a Devil Lord with millennia of experience.


    A one-sided beating now urred. Lasnina¡¯s magic sword seemed tond blows on every inch on my body, which felt as disgusting as Lasnina¡¯s hystericalughter.


    The next instant, an ice wall appeared in front of me. Although the ice wall was instantly shattered by the magic sword, I was able to catch my breath.


    I wasn¡¯t skilled enough to forcibly cast spells while being beaten up by a Devil Lord.


    Red fireballs, ck gravity bombs, white ice bullets, and various other colorful magical attacks suddenly covered the entire sky.


    ¡°Harloys...¡±


    I turned around, and saw a flying ck cat floating in midair. Perhaps it was because this opponent was truly too troublesome for me, or perhaps it was because Harloys had finally umted enough power. The several dozen magical arrays behind Harloys kept spitting out magical attacks of different colors.


    The ck cat had given herself a pair of bat wings to float with. She seemed exactly like a witch¡¯s familiar out of a western fairy tale. She even clutched a tiny magical staff in her cat paw that she constantly waved around. She was also wearing a magical hat on her head that buffed her abilities, along with a tiny cape. Her other paw was constantly glowing as it held onto a silver magical hourss.


    Harloys seemed somewhatical. What was more, she was really cute.


    The dozens of magical arrays behind her constantly turned as if they were alive. Actually, Harloys was controlling all of them to constantly change as the magic arrays touched each other.


    Fireballs, inferno explosions, me drills, sea of fire, fire dragonbreath. Lightning strikes, lightning balls, chain lightning. Magic arrays of the same typebined with each other to constantly upgrade to higher-level attack magic spells. However, what I found the most inconceivable was that these magic arrays weren¡¯t using even one bit of Harloys¡¯ mana. Somehow, these magic arrays were self-sustained.


    Harloys¡¯ assistance finally gave me the chance to recover. Now that the silly cat had finally entered Myth rank together with me, she would beparable to when she previously had been at the peak of her power. When considering all her experience and her ¡°real age¡±, perhaps she was even more powerful than Little Red.


    ¡°A magical version of a perpetual motion machine? Is this for real?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a simple application of bnce between the four elements. Ha, don¡¯t bother studying it. You¡¯ll never be able to learn it in your life.¡±


    These ordinary low-level elemental attack spells became incredibly fancy under Harloys¡¯ control. I focused slightly on checking all the magic attack spells being used, and saw that some spells had far surpassed what ordinary magic arrays of the four elements should have been able to produce. I saw highly difficult elven secret moon and star magic, alchemists¡¯ metal separation and destruction magic, and even ogre witch doctors¡¯ curses.


    Now that the silly cat was no longer limited by an undead physical body, she could fully use all of her tens of thousands of years¡¯ worth of umted knowledge. All the various colorful magical attacks in the sky seemed like they came right out of a magical museum. Just the variety alone was astonishing.


    Every type of magic attack came from a different branch of magic. All of these magic attacks would also require different forms. Dyed explosions, attacks that flew in curved arcs, cluster bomb attacks, bouncing attacks, and so on filled the sky as if a willful child had drawn randomly upon a drawing board.


    The spells in the sky were uncountable. Although most of them were low-level magic spells at four circles or lower, there were still more than half that I couldn¡¯t evenprehend.


    Once again, I confirmed just why Harloys had the renowned nickname of ¡°All-knowing¡±. Perhaps the silly cat had simply been limited in power by her physical body for far too long. Maybe it was now time for her to truly show her strength.


    Even an entire angel army would probably be instantly destroyed by so much widescale AOE attack magic... But, a Devil Lord would be far more difficult to defeat than any angel army!


    Lasnina¡¯s magic sword once again began to maniacally slice at everything, casually tearing dimensional cracks in the air. Countless cursed creatures came out from the dimensional cracks. Some of these creatures became Lasnina¡¯s shields, while others went up to and began to devour the pure magic attacks.


    Perhaps it would have required unique measures to deal with each magic attack individually. However, summoning sacrificial cannon fodder to absorb the attacks indeed seemed like the simplest and most direct measure to deal with this.


    Harloys also knew quite well that it was impossible for these low-level magic attacks to be a life-threatening danger to Lasnina. However, she continued to utter magical incantations. Meanwhile, she angrily roared at me in our soul connection.


    ¡°Hey, idiot, stop standing around and watching the show! Can¡¯t you see that I¡¯m uttering an incantation? Go act as a cannon fodder... er, tank for me!¡±


    Tsk, since my sword techniques were absolutely suppressed, and my magic level was immensely inferior to Lasnina¡¯s, it indeed seemed that my defensive prowess was all I had left going for me.


    I could only smile wryly as I instantly shed in front of Lasnina. I would have to act the role of tank in this fight now.


    And at this moment, the forgotten tiny fire dragon... Little Red suddenly appeared in front of Lasnina and spat out a fireball.

 Chapter 591 - Seal

    <h4>Chapter 591: Seal</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    If dragons had to describe their own power level progression, they would say that dragon power level progression was an improvement on their own natural talents and choices. Mages would say that dragon power level progression was a unique type of evolution determined by dragon genes... But, perhaps a more direct and vulgar description would be the most urate.


    ¡°Go back to the womb and reforge yourself.¡±


    This was a choice that allowed for power level progression. Naturally, there would also be devolution attached to this choice that allowed for evolution.


    For most dragons that fought after progressing in power level, the dragon would be like apletely different dragon. However, most dragons would take already predetermined paths for progressing in power level.


    ¡°What type of evolution will Little Red choose for herself?¡±


    Even without having to ask her, I could faintly guess that it would be rted to her personal talents.


    Dragons¡¯ ability in melee and magic would naturally improve as they grew older. This was a special racial advantage for dragons. However, this also made dragonszy and overallck the motivation to cultivate their own power levels.


    ¡°Rather than spending two hundred years working hard and studying magical knowledge every day, I might as well instead take a nap for two hundred years, which will also greatly improve my magical power. Why work so hard?¡±


    The world was forever unfair. Some species had individuals that were naturally weak and short-lived. These species would need knowledge passed down through the generations, along with cultivation in order to be stronger. Meanwhile, other species were born at the very top of the food chain. However, these top-level species naturallycked the motivation to progress.


    However, Little Red was different from most other dragons.


    Ein Mezus, Belon¡¯s Catastrophe, Immemorial Red Dragon, Dragon Queen, grandmaster of both fire and wind magic. Little Red seemed to be equally adept in physical and magical skills, but actually, she had her own obvious preferences.


    Dragons¡¯ martial arts techniques... were simply wing sweeps, tail sweeps, and their sharp fangs and ws. At most, they would also pounce or maybe roll to dodge attacks. Calling such techniques ¡°martial arts techniques¡± would probably make martial artists from other species want to cry.


    However, dragons were born with an innate physical advantage, having tremendously powerful and durable bodies. It was unlikely for even other species¡¯ Sword Saints to defeat them in physicalbat. In the end, martial arts techniques were foundationally about how to more efficiently use your physical body. However, if the difference in physical body between dragons and other species was so overwhelming, then any amount of martial arts techniques would still be useless.


    Techniques would require passed down knowledge along with actual experience gained in practicalbat. Dragons¡¯ so-called martial arts techniques were almostpletely reliant on their natural talents. However, this would naturally never satisfy Little Red, who greatly desired greater power for the sake of revenge.


    Little Red had been able to defeat her mother Molly in melee even when thetter was far more experienced. This was because Little Red had great equipment advantages, as well as being young and energetic. But, when analyzing this from the angle of a melee expert, Little Red still wasn¡¯t foundationally different from other dragons that only relied on natural instincts for melee. Even though red dragons had outstanding meleebat instinctspared to other dragons, there was still no foundational difference. It was simply that red dragons had faster reaction, sharper fangs and ws, and thicker skin than other dragons rather than having actual martial arts techniques.


    This was why giants of the same power level would forever be able to easily defeat dragons. Since giants and dragons were two species that had simr physical advantages and strength, the giants had far too much of an obvious advantage as thetter would use tools, techniques, and their brains inbat, which was vastly differentpared to dragons that only relied on bestial instincts.


    Of course, these minor issues would no longer be issues as dragons grew older. Dragons¡¯ power level progression would also allow their already ridiculous physical bodies to be even more ridiculous, forcefully making up for their minorck in martial arts techniques.


    Little Red was no dragon who had the habit ofzily sleeping and waiting to be stronger. She focused all her time and efforts on fire and wind magic.


    Fire magic was the red dragons¡¯ natural elemental magic. Red dragons were naturally born as Eich¡¯s strongest fire element creature in all dimensions. Like all dragons, red dragons would see their magic power improve even as they slept. However, not only would red dragons be at disadvantage when learning wind magic, their powerful fire magic abilities would negatively impact their control over wind magic. Red dragons would have to put in multiple times the effortpared to others in order to reach a wind magic level equivalent to other species¡¯.


    Very few people knew that Little Red¡¯s fire magic had already achieved the standard of human Myth rank mages. Not only that, her abilities in wind magic even exceeded her abilities in fire magic. If she was at the Mage Country, her magic level in two fields would equal any mage from the Truth Overseers. Also, as Little Red had a mana pool that exceeded any average human mage by more than ten times since she was a dragon, it was quite possible for her to be powerful enough to join the Truth Symposium.


    Whenbining the four elements, using them well inplementary fashion could achieve effects that were greater than 1 + 1 > 3. The wind element was an excellentplement to the fire element, fueling mes. And if the wind and fire elements werebined for a forbidden spell, that would basically be a super forbidden spell with a fire that was impossible to stop.


    Previously, Little Red had few opportunities to ever cast such powerful magic. That was becausebining her two elements would bring about far too much attack power. She would need to be careful not to burn the entirety of Sulfur Mountain City. Back when we were still adventuring, we had often needed to run away due to the major fires that she caused.


    Back in our adventuring team, her AOE attack power had far surpassed that of anyone else in our team. It was unmistakable that she was a bona fide ughtering machine... And she also helped Adam and I to improve our fire resistance. There was no helping it, as we were the tanks. In real life, there was no such thing as ¡°no friendly fire¡± like in video games. Being on the front lines as the tanks meant that we would have to suffer attacks from both enemies and allies.


    The seemingly young tiny fire dragon opened its small mouth, spitting out a tiny fireball that was dark red with gold in the middle. This round fireball seemed almost solid, and it traveled in a straight line as if it was a rolling red marble.


    This tiny fireball appeared cute and elegant, but the energy it contained had surpassed even nine circle magic spells from human mages.


    *Crackle!*


    Some distorted cursed creatures blocked the fireball as consumable sacrifices for Lasnina¡¯s sake. However, the fireball prated through them all with only a tiny sizzle. Those powerful distorted cursed creatures didn¡¯t even get a chance to scream in pain as they were all instantly burned to death.


    This seemingly cute and harmless tiny fireball continued unimpeded as it approached Lasnina with its seemingly slow speed.


    Blood dripped from Lasnina¡¯s eyes as she opened her eye sockets that were nowpletely empty. She opened her mouth to scream soundlessly.


    The next instant, the entire earth and sky began to shake as if countless banshees were loudly singing death shrieks next to us.


    Even more countless cursed creatures dropped out from dimensional cracks. These disgusting creatures piled up into an even more disgusting mountain of flesh.


    ¡°If a few can¡¯t block it, then I¡¯ll simply use even more.¡±


    Although this was an extremely simple strategy, it would also be extremely effective in most cases. It was standard strategy to use cannon fodder to block powerful magic attack spells. As long as there was sufficient cannon fodder, even the most powerful curse or magic spell would be used up against the cannon fodder.


    And as expected, this tiny round fireball prated through another one, two... and finally shattered when it prated through the seventh cursed creature. After that...


    *BOOM!*


    A thunderous explosion gave us the scene of a volcano¡¯s eruption.


    mes shot up for several hundred meters in a blinding explosion. However, the thunder and chain lightning contained within would be even more fatally dangerous.


    Large swathes of cursed creatures were either incinerated or electrified. They died in countless numbers.


    This seemingly simple tiny fireball was actually the repeatedpression of multiple forbidden spells. Judging from the power of this one attack, Little Red had seeded in progressing to the next power level!


    However, Lasnina revealed a vicious smile. No matter how powerful this attack was, and even though she had sacrificed more than half of her summoned cursed creatures, Lasnina had still sessfully blocked the attack.


    But, Lasnina¡¯s smile froze over in the very next instant...


    The tiny red dragon opened her mouth again, and spat out an identical tiny fireball once more...


    Before Lasnina could even summon more sacrificial cursed creatures to tank for her, Little Red took another deep breath, and spat out another fireball, then two more, three more... ten more... one hundred more...


    When the tiny red fire dragon finally stopped breathing fire, the sky was already densely packed with several thousand tiny fireballs! They seemed just like a bee swarm as they approached Lasnina with seemingly slow speed that was actually pretty quick.


    And then... there was no more ¡°and then¡±... Harloys had previously used dimensional anchoring spells on Lasnina to prevent her from using instant teleportation magic to escape. The swarm of fireballs reached their target, filling everything before us with countless explosions as Lasnina had an expression of despair.


    Lasnina¡¯s earlier curses seemed like they were shaking the world, but Little Red¡¯s chain fireball explosions seemed like they were destroying the world. Some timeter, when the smoke and thunder finally dissipated, all that remained was arge pitch-ck dimensional crack, revealing nothing but the endless dark void outside.


    Even though the Chaos Abyss was a dimension that was renowned for being one of the sturdiest among all dimensions, the Chaos Abyss was still unable to withstand such a furious barrage of explosions.


    Even the best-made scheme would still never match heaven¡¯s schemes. Although Conservation leaked information about me to Lasnina, it was impossible for Conservation to know about Harloys and the powered up Little Red.


    ¡°Where¡¯s Lasnina? Has she been forced into a state of waiting for reincarnation?¡±


    However, the snake form sword that reached out from the dimensional crack answered my question.


    *ng!*


    Trying to ambush me would be meaningless. After an exchange of sword blows, I found to my delight that Lasnina was incredibly weak.


    I freed my right hand while I used my armored left hand to grab and pull on Lasnina¡¯s sword. As I tugged, I was able to pull out something ck. The Devil Lord hidden in the darkness was tugged out of the dimensional crack as if she was being fished out.


    Her current appearance was quite wretched and ugly. Only half of her body was left. A majority of her head was still intact. Both her hands were gone, and her snake sword was now twirled around her arms.


    But even so, her empty eye sockets red directly at me. The hatred and grudge she had against me would be forever endless.


    ¡®Even if you kill me, I¡¯ll stille back and take revenge upon you...¡¯ This was an adamant will that wouldn¡¯t need any doubt. This was also what made devils and demons most disgusting to deal with.


    ¡°Hey, stop looking at me like that! If you keep looking at me like that, I¡¯ll, I¡¯ll, I¡¯ll eat you!¡±


    But of course, I would never give such a difficult opponent a second chance toe after me like that.


    Perhaps I was only a third-rate mage with my foundational knowledge. However, I knew an extremely high-level magic spell that was probably at the very top of this world. And, this magic spell was the perfect counter to all indestructible existences.


    ¡°The Seal of the Four Elements...¡±


    My right hand provided pure ice magic mana. I then adjusted my mana slightly, changing it to water magic mana.


    Little Red opened her mouth, providing a red spell formation and a green spell formation that provided fire and wind magic mana, respectively.


    As for the remaining element of earth, Harloys, the master of all magic types, would provide that for me.


    Naturally, it was far easier to take down a boss as a team rather than individually.


    ¡°...Go ahead and sleep eternally for me for eons ever after.¡±


    The four elementsbined as thousands of magical lines interconnected. The elements achieved a perfect bnce among these magical wavelengths.


    Lasnina had an expression of disbelief as the four elements devoured her. The dimensional crack began to close.


    My version of the Seal of the Four Elements, which had been repeatedly modified by us, had likely even surpassed the original version from Creator Goddess Eich. It was likely that even in the next millennia down the road, this Devil Lord position would continue to remain empty.


    The next instant, all the Devil Lords were astonished or terrified. They could instinctively sense that the position of Lord of Curses was likely to remain empty for a long period of time.


    ¡°What happened to Lasnina? She disappeared?¡±

 Chapter 592 - Unexpected Harvest

    <h4>Chapter 592: Unexpected Harvest</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    I obtained a crystal-clear gem that was about asrge as a walnut. This gem shone with the colors of the rainbow under the sunlight¡¯s illumination.


    In the core of this gem was a translucent female figure who was quietly sleeping. Her previously demonic beauty now seemed so peaceful as if she was an angel who was having a beautiful dream.


    This gem far surpassed any natural or magical gem¡¯s beauty. The light it reflected appeared holy, pure, kind, and divine. Perhaps this gem had been customized for Lasnina herself.


    [Lasnina¡¯s Cursed Gem: this is a miraculous God Equipment level item which represents the foundational source of all curses in the world of Eich. Lasnina, the Lord of Curses, is sealed within. The devils will definitely be willing to pay several entire dimensions¡¯ worth of treasure to trade for her. Of course, they would be equally willing to pay the same price for your head. PS: if you donate this to your majestic System, you¡¯ll be able to obtain 10,000 Fate Points, interest free!]


    Even though this was clearly the most corrupt item in the world, it still appeared so holy and beautiful. I would hardly dare to believe what this item was if it weren¡¯t for my System¡¯s typical shameless jokes.


    As I held this gem in my hand, its beauty attracted endless female attention... I could see that both the dragon and the cat were drooling. Forget about Little Red since it was in her dragon nature to like shiny objects, but why was the silly cat also interested?


    ¡°I¡¯m going to sue you for racial discrimination! Isn¡¯t jewelry a gift from the heavens to all women? I strongly request that you pay me sry andmission! You ck-hearted boss, I¡¯ve already worked several hundred years for you, but you haven¡¯t given me even a single cent!¡±


    To be quite honest, counting all the way back to when I was Yongye, I truly hadn¡¯t given Harloys a single cent all this time. However, was there such a thing in the world as an undead army that would receive a sry?


    Now I finally understood why evil forces would forever lose to the side of good. Evil armies wouldn¡¯t be paid any sry or benefits. Winning would bring no reward, and losing might even bring about freedom and a new status. Such an army would naturallyck motivation!


    I stopped letting my thoughts get off track as I waved my hand in boredom, telling Harloys to go off and y in a corner somewhere. Weren¡¯t magical pets supposed to be lifetime free servants that a mage would never have to pay?


    She wanted me to give her a sry? She would have to wait until the next lifetime... And then, as always, a cat hat added itself to my head.


    After the Seal of the Four Elements waspleted, it would seal away the targeted existence in some type of object, which would often gain many miraculous uses. For instance, the ce where the Fire Elemental God had previously been sealed became an eternal volcano, being affected by the fire element power constantly emitted there.


    Considering Lasnina¡¯s powers, despite how astonishingly beautiful this gem appeared, it was likely that any ordinary person who possessed it would die of unfortunate circumstances within a week.


    I was also certain that Harloys, Little Red, and Astrya all wanted this gem for reasons other than its abilities.


    ¡°It¡¯s said that Lasnina was originally a fallen angel. I¡¯ve never thought that the rumors would be true...¡±


    ¡°If a single sealed Devil Lord gem is so beautiful already... If only I can gather several and make a ne...¡±


    Several? A ne? There were only four more Devil Lords left in the world! They were a super endangered species! Stop hunting down endangered species!


    Of course, my three femalepanions were only saying such things offhandedly. Lasnina¡¯s seal gem taking such a form was most likely rted to her personal traits only.


    I put the gem on top of my head, which made me seem like I was wearing a brilliant rainbow with the sun¡¯s reflection.


    ¡°Perhaps we really do need to gather some more Devil Lord seal gems...¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but mutter that to myself as I felt the power within this brilliant gem.


    ¡°Does this gem even have any attributes of light? Howe I can only feel the purest power of curses within it?¡±


    I could only shake my head. In nature, the most beautiful creatures would always be the most venomous. This gem was probably capable of poisoning an entire city full of people to death just by soaking it in some water. This gem had absolutely nothing to do with light attributes.


    ¡°This will make a great resource for the materials I need for my death magic sword, my nned magic sword with the greatest attack power...¡±


    My highest-level aplishment in the field of undead magic would be my Seven Original Sins, who represented the negative emotions within all intelligent lifeforms. My Seven Original Sins were also very simr to the Devil Lords.


    Since their fundamental powers were all negative emotions from darkness in people¡¯s souls, it would likely be even more effective to use a Devil Lord¡¯s seal gem to craft my swordpared to pure undead resources.


    ¡°Since I have the resources now, why don¡¯t I try making the sword¡¯s mold...¡±


    I casually put away the gem as I used a snakeskin bag to gather up the broken metal shards on the ground. Perhaps these broken metal shards were the most valuable shards in the world.


    All of these shards were ck and red, and many were stained with rust, while others were stained with blood.


    ¡°Magic sword Sostya, the Snaketail Whip...¡±


    The moment that Lasnina was sealed away, countless captured souls had poured out from the sword. That had been far more a majestic sight than any forbidden spell could be. All that remained of her God Equipment were these shards.


    The magic sword God Equipment had previouslybinedpletely with Lasnina. All the souls that were bound in the magic sword were naturally set free when Lasnina was sealed away, and the magic sword ended up shattering into tiny pieces.


    It was quitemon for Myth rank or SemiGod individuals¡¯ personal weapons to break if the holder died of unnatural causes, for the weapons were a part of their very bodies. But even so, the broken weapon would still be an excellent resource, especially since I also possessed Lasnina¡¯s soul gem.


    Now then, as long as I used this soul gem as the core to create a mana cycle, and then used her broken sword shards to create a new de, it was probable that I could at minimum recreate 40% of her weapon¡¯s attack power...


    ¡°I strongly protest our ck-hearted team leader taking all the equipment for himself! Forget about not sharing the boss¡¯s equipment, he even wants to take female essories for himself! Our bastard team leader wants everything for himself! Pay me for all my hard work!¡±


    I casually threw away the silly cat who was holding up a sign while protesting against me.


    Where was I just now? Oh, right, there would be another benefit to making Lasnina¡¯s magic sword part of my nned magic sword. It would be absolutely impossible for Lasnina to ever break free until I died.


    Now, if I could only harvest resources from a few more Devil Lords...


    ¡°...Their deaths might look even more majestic than Lasnina¡¯s death.¡±


    I turned back and saw that certain people were still staring at the soul gem with obvious greed. Yep, by certain people, I meant a certain cat and a certain dragon...


    ¡°Paha.¡±


    I finally couldn¡¯t take it anymore, and let out augh.


    ¡°Haha, Ein Mezus, are you intending to pretend to be a loli again while joining adventuring teams? Have you yet to throw away your ¡®Dragon Princess Adventures in the Human World¡¯ novel?¡±


    Currently, Little Red was angered to the point where her entire face was red. She appeared to be about eight or nine years old. She stood on tips of her toes while doing her best to maintain her dragon pride that was alreadypletely nonexistent in this form. She was currently wrapping her petite body in some cloths to cover her private parts.


    Yes, that was right¡ªthe biggest contributor to our victory, the majestic red dragon Ein Mezus, was now in the form of a little girl, who was working hard to cover herself so that she wouldn¡¯t be exposed.


    ¡°How was I supposed to know that this job ss would turn me back into an egg! That damned dragon God didn¡¯t even exin anything in his inheritance!¡±


    The dragon job ss that Little Red chose was named energy-devouring red dragon. She had obtained this job ss as aplete inheritance from that dead dragon God. This job ss had a rather unique path... unique to the point where Little Red literally reforged herself starting from the womb!


    Dragon egg, baby dragon, infant dragon, young dragon, adult dragon, mature dragon, elder dragon, ancient dragon, Immemorial Dragon... Little Red basically became the main character of a reincarnation novel!


    Of course, Little Red still retained her foundational power. Her growth through all these dragon life periods would be far more rapid than the first time. Little Red had reached the dragon life stage of Immemorial Dragon over several thousand years. This time, if she relied purely on natural growth to achieve that stage again... it would probably only take her about one hundred years or so.


    Perhaps this would be nothing more than a rather long nap to the long-lived dragons. However, this was an utter nightmare to Little Red, who had long since given up on long dragon naps.


    ¡°Hahaha, don¡¯t you love naughty children? Now you can be one as well! Is this the curse of the mummy where you be one if you find one...? Wait, what are you doing? You¡¯ll kill me with that fireball!¡±


    One¡¯s physical body would affect one¡¯s way of thinking. It was incredibly dangerous when a naughty child like Little Red started spitting fire at me. But, when I turned around and saw her current form, I used my hand topare her height to mine. I smiled proudly once again when I saw that she only reached my waist.


    At the very least, Little Red would likely look great in princess dresses for a long time toe.


    And then, I proved that my taunting had been greatly sessful, with all the fireballs in the sky being the evidence... Hey, hey, hey, stop burning me! I really will get angry! I¡¯m the biggest counter to all naughty children in Sulfur Mountain City! Be careful, otherwise I¡¯m going to steal your lollipop!


    But, seeing the teary-faced dragon princess spit out a dozenpressed fireballs at me, I figured I should probably behave a bit more... Yep, let¡¯s have a celebration party when I meet Adam and the otherster! Rather than having fun by myself, I should share the joy with everyone!


    [Little Red is truly pitiful. No matter which bar you have your party at, that bar will definitely be destined to turn into rubble...]


    I did my best to keep a serious expression. But, when I saw Little Red¡¯s angry little round face, and thought of her mature adult woman form from before, I couldn¡¯t help butugh loudly again. Some timeter, I finally took some deep breaths under the threat of her dangerous fireballs. I suppose I finally had enough fun.


    ¡°Sorry, sorry, you can ask Margaret to make you something like a time ne.¡±


    Little Red instantly paused upon hearing this. Her expression stated clearly ¡®Damn, why didn¡¯t I think of something so simple?¡¯ But the next instant, her expression of sudden realization changed to an angry re directed at me yet again.


    ¡°You should have one on you right now! I¡¯m going to steal it from you! Give it to me immediately!¡±


    ¡°Never! Just wait for Adam and the others tough at you! Haha, just think about how much youughed at me back in the day! I¡¯m returning it all to you ten times over, wahahaha!¡±

 Chapter 593 - Ashen Furnace

    <h4>Chapter 593: Ashen Furnace</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Chaos Abyss would naturally be forever chaotic. However, even the most chaotic of locations would still have rtively safer ces.


    The Ashen Furnace was the name of a city on the 100st level of the Chaos Abyss, the Ashen ins. The Ashen Furnace was a must-visit location for any Chaos Abyss dimensional traveler.


    This ce was thend of giants...


    The gigantic metallic buildings were so tall that you couldn¡¯t even see the roofs. Endless giant buildings covered half of this entire dimension. If you looked at the sky, all you would see would be distorted gray together with ck metallic color. Since smoke and metallic sounds were here all year round, the entire city seemed like a gigantic furnace.


    Some people said that this was a Titans¡¯ ruin. However, even the Titans would probably think that these buildings were too big.


    Some people said that this dimensional level was connected to the Mechanical nes. However, it would be impossible to exin why a Mechanical ne would appear in the Chaos Abyss, when Mechanical nes were pure Order dimensions.


    How many residents lived here? That was probably impossible to answer.


    This city didn¡¯t have a border or any walls. Nor did it need them. But, if you wanted to walk into the Ashen Furnace and travel by foot to the other end, well, it was probable that any short-lived species would probably die before they reached the other end of the city.


    It was said that there were thousands of districts in this city. Every district would be equal in size to a human country. Each district had its own rules and ruling species. A fenced in metal district would sometimes be a small kingdom for a weaker species.


    There was no dimensional ruler for the 100th level. However, there were countless big bosses from all the factions. There were nows or rules that could be enforced. However, there would be very few weak adventurers here. Anyone who had already reached such a deep location in the Chaos Abyss had already proved their own strength.


    This was a paradise for adventurers. Countless dimensional travelers would gather here in the Ashen Furnace, where countless miracles awaited them.


    Of course, misfortune would alwayse far swifter than fortune. Countless neers to this city would vanish in this gigantic city¡¯s alleyways and gutters.


    And now, just like always, new adventurers arrived today...


    ¡°I think we should almost be at the Dragontail Bar in the 11th district of the Ashen Furnace...¡±


    After I killed the third local hoodlum that pretended to be warm and weing, and after Little Red lost her patience and killed the thirteenth individual that attempted to kidnap her, I felt like I had finally found the right direction... By the way, wasn¡¯t she simply in the appearance of a little girl? Were there that many gentlemen these days?


    No, true gentlemen should only observe from a distance! Those who dare to try and touch wouldn¡¯t deserve the title of gentlemen! They deserved having their penises viciously kicked in by Little Red before their deaths!


    ¡°Although I don¡¯t know why you suddenly have such a proud look on your face, let me remind you that this is the 5th time you say you¡¯ve found the way. And, trouble hase for us the previous four times already,¡± Harloys said, yawning.


    The first time, we had entered a dark elf gang¡¯s territory. The second time, we had entered a frost giant¡¯s nest. The third time, we intruded on an illegal sacrificial ceremony being performed by dark cultists... Hey, wasn¡¯t that only three times?


    ¡°Did you forget about that group of Holy Knights? They were ridiculously tense. They definitely would have attacked you if you hadn¡¯t shown Holy Light in time.¡±


    Oh, now I remembered. It was truly incredible to see a medium-sized team of Holy Knights here in the Chaos Abyss. They had indeed seemed overly tense. The moment that I got close, they were pulling out their swords to attack me. They had probably suffered too much from the residents here.


    Even though I showed them that I was a Holy Knight, they still showed no friendly intentions towards me. It was quite surprising that they still seemed to be highly on guard against me.


    No matter which God you served, or even if you only worshiped Holy Light, Holy Knights always had a good rtionship with each other due to mutual respect and piety... They could have fun chatting about their difficult lives of being so poor that no women would want to be with them, andin about how they chose the wrong job ss. At any rate, it was quite easy for Holy Knights to strike up friendship with each other.


    ¡°They must be here to carry out a mission from some God. Their team had more than thirty Silver- and Gold-ranked Holy Knights, along with two Myth ranks, and even a SemiGod. That¡¯s truly a powerful team to send...¡±


    The Holy Knights had erased all traces of any emblems from their armor and weapons. This meant that not only were they here on a suicide mission, nobody would even admit who they were after their death. They would be nameless, with nobody iming their bodies. Since Holy Knights were also knights who viewed honor far above their own lives, this meant that their mission¡¯s sess was far more important than anything, including even their own lives and honor.


    I was slightly curious what would cause such a group of Holy Knights to abandon everything for a suicide mission in the Chaos Abyss. Yep, I was only curious, and didn¡¯t intend to cause any trouble! I definitely didn¡¯t see Harloys sending some clones to sneakily follow them!


    ¡°Is there any information?¡±


    ¡°None. Those Holy Knights are ridiculously cautious, to the point where they don¡¯t seem like Holy Knights. They¡¯re not saying even a single word to each other. However, it looks like they¡¯re constantly searching for someone or something.¡±


    In any location down here in the Chaos Abyss, having power would forever be the only way to go around unimpeded. I was in no hurry to meet with Adam and the others. Based on how much time had passed, I felt it was likely that they were still on their way here. It would be quite fun to tour this chaotic city filled with countless species and cultures.


    However, out little vacation was once again interrupted by a scream of pain.


    ¡°Awoooo!¡±


    I turned around, only to see a furry fellow rolling around on the floor while Little Red constantly used her tiny feet to kick him.


    ¡°...Is this the fourteenth? He sounds like a wolfman. Yeah, but after a few more kicks, he¡¯ll probably be a pigman.¡±


    ¡°The sixteenth. Little Red killed an ogre and a Berserker Demon by crushing their genitals while you weren¡¯t paying attention,¡± Harloys told me.


    I could only shake my head helplessly as I watched the tiny dragon girl get even angrier. This would have been slightly better if only Little Red had chosen an elf or beastman humanoid form. But, she now looked like a tender young human female, which would be an incredibly exotic species down here in the Chaos Abyss.


    Although there were indeed some who were incredibly powerful despite having loli-like appearance, Little Red was wearing nothing but a tattered cloth while silently walking behind me. She looked just like a little ve following a ver.


    This wasn¡¯t because I had such interests or anything like that! It was simply that she had shrunk far too much. All of her old clothing that she had was no longer wearable. We had also rushed all the way over here in order to avoid any other Devil Lords, so we didn¡¯t have any time to purchase clothing suitable for young children. Thus, Little Red had still been wearing nothing more than a tattered cloth for all this time...


    Little Red constantly kept her head lowered ever since she entered this city where everyone stared at her. She had been slowly following me without saying a word. She looked just like a weak and cowardly human girl, which attracted lots of attention from all the vers here.


    To be honest, she was king slowly because she needed to hold on tightly to the tattered cloth. She would otherwise expose herself to any slight breeze when it came. She kept her head lowered without saying anything because she was already angry to the point of almost exploding. She was doing her best to suppress her draconic might. Her eyes had already transformed into dragon eyes, filled with furious mes that might shoot out from her eyes at any moment (okay, I admit I was just making thisst part up).


    ...For the sake of my personal safety, I decided to stay farther away from her.


    ¡°You must be taking revenge on her. I refuse to believe in such a coincidence that we found zero tailors on the way here, or that all backup clothing just happened to be burned up while you two were messing around.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, this is my revenge on her. It¡¯s her fault for trying to make me into aughingstock in her stead...¡±


    On that day, since Little Red tried to forcefully steal my time ring for the right to be an ¡°adult¡±, we had a difficult ¡°battle¡± and ¡°negotiation¡±. In the end, my ace which helped me defeat her was the sentence ¡°All of our food is in my dimensional storage bag. Do you want to starve to death as a t-chested loli dragon? That would be utter humiliation!¡± But even though I won our battle, I would never be satisfied until I had some revenge.


    ¡°Actually, she could simply transform into her infant dragon form...¡±


    My expression distorted as I hurriedly stopped Harloys from saying anything else in our soul connection.


    ¡°You can¡¯t tell her!¡±


    ¡°...I know. She¡¯s probably almost at her limit. If she learns that all of her suffering along the way was needless, and mostly because of you, she¡¯d definitely explode.¡±


    I shook my head as that wasn¡¯t what I was thinking about. Little Red was the type who was stubborn and wouldn¡¯t easily change her way of thinking.


    ¡°It will be more fun once I tell her when we arrive at the Dragontail Bar!¡±


    Harloys paused in surprise, and then shook her head helplessly. She could no longer be bothered to participate in this boring sh that was on the level of a fight between elementary schoolers.


    I didn¡¯t ask the residents here for directions. That was because it would be obviously unwise to reveal to the locals where we were going. I had previously visited the Dragontail Bar twice before, so I figured I would be able to find it if I looked around a little more.


    ¡°Are you certain that you don¡¯t just want Little Red to suffer some more?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s just out of convenience. I won¡¯t be able to make her suffer much longer. Information spreads very quickly here. Soon, there won¡¯t be any more idiotsing to meet their deaths.¡±


    ¡°...Information spreads quickly here?¡±


    Harloys nodded to herself, seemingly thinking of something. She didn¡¯t ask anything else, as she had apparently understood my intentions.


    ces such as taverns and bars had many peopleing and going. Many information brokers and underworld merchants would have permanent posts at therger taverns and bars. I had chosen a bar as our meeting ce primarily because it would be easy to obtain information there. And if our luck was good, we would even be able to trade with previous information brokers that we already knew.


    For any veteran adventurer, information was life itself, especially in an unfamiliar and hostile environment.


    If Adam and the others arrived early, they would surely gather information and hire informants. I hadn¡¯t disguised my appearance, so Adam and the others would naturally receive information that I had arrived in the Ashen Furnace. I was making all of thisplicated because...


    ¡°You¡¯re using yourself as bait, trying to fish up your enemies...¡±


    That was right, we were in the open, while Adam was concealed. We had alsoe into this city separately. Those who weren¡¯t familiar with us would never know that we were secretly allies. It would be such a pity to let go of such an informational advantage.


    If anyone was trying to follow us, or if some powerful enemy was lying in wait here for us, they would naturally be exposed if they tried to follow us.


    For instance, all the Devil Lords, Demon Lords, Undead Emperors, and Chaos Evil Gods that I had previously antagonized... When I counted about all the potential enemies I might meet down here, I could only sigh that I had truly made many friends down here who truly missed me (fine, they all wanted me to die). I kept feeling more and more like this decision of mine was wise.


    As long as there was an appropriate opportunity, Adam would also make quite a suitable assassin hidden in the shadows.


    ¡°What if they haven¡¯t arrived yet? Or, what if you¡¯re just being overly paranoid, and none of our enemies are here?¡±


    ¡°Then this will simply be some fun while watching Little Red suffer. Don¡¯t you agree that it¡¯s quite amusing?¡±


    I watched as Little Red appeared to finally have an idea. She began taking off the clothing from the wolfman that she just killed. However, the moment that she got closer and had a whiff, she wrinkled her tiny nose, and unhesitatingly kicked the stinky clothing far away into the sky.


    At this same time, Harloys smiled rather strangely. She was currently seeing several hundred different images likepound eyes would. These were all images from her clones left along the way.


    All of these ¡°security cameras¡± that we left behind were indeed effective. The seemingly sleeping cat on my shoulder had actually been constantly observing this entire city. At this moment, one scene raised Harloys¡¯ interest.


    ¡°Rnd, this time you weren¡¯t too paranoid. However, it¡¯s truly your good luck that caused you to fish up a whale.¡±

 Chapter 594 - Acquaintance

    <h4>Chapter 594: Acquaintance</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°So, he¡¯s the one who came for me. I¡¯ve never expected him...¡±


    I had many enemies in the Chaos Abyss. Out of all my enemies here, it was likely that the devils hated me the most. I had just killed Lasnina, so it would be normal if the remaining Devil Lords teamed up to attack me.


    Apart from the devils, Sophocles the Deceiver was one of the most likely toe looking for revenge on me. I would also expect it if that bastard younger twin brother of mine came looking for trouble. However, I¡¯d never expected that this existence woulde looking for me...


    Under his gray armor was a physical body as solid as steel. Therge ck sword he carried on his back was ancient and in. However, he possessed an aura that was impossible to ignore as he was a Chaos Main God¡ªWar God Donatis.


    Even though he was doing his best to hide his godly power, and even though this didn¡¯t appear to be his true body, I had ¡°interacted¡± with him for so long back at Hell that I knew plenty about his soul wavelengths, magical wavelengths, and divine power traits. It would be impossible for him to conceal himself from ¡°Greed¡± Harloys.


    ¡°Why is it him...?¡±


    I was rather astonished as it was quite rare to see Main Gods. They had very few things they wanted, and very few opportunities to improve in power. Most of the time, they would leisurely spend their time in their personal dimensions, having fun there.


    But, now was the time of the Holy War. Yet, the Chaos War God who had been on the frontlines in countless previous Holy Wars was hiding his identity as he entered this city. He also came to this city right after I did. There was only a tiny chance that this would be a coincidence.


    Since this was no coincidence, then Donatis was probably here for me...


    ¡°Is that a clone or an incarnation?¡±


    ¡°Regardless, it¡¯s not his true body. Still, no Low God will be able to handle even his incarnation.¡±


    I was even more astonished. If Donatis was really here for me, why did he only send an incarnation? Was he looking down on me?


    He was clearly the type who should have been fighting a direct battle on some bloody battlefield. Why would he be here? I found this impossible to understand. Back at the battle of Hell, he had basically lost nothing. He had simply ended in a stalemate while facing Bastian for several years before he left. It was quite obvious that he hadn¡¯t fought seriously.


    It could be said that Cynthia met her end in Hell due to these Chaos Main Gods¡¯ck of loyalty to her. Although he had been stalled by Bastian, he hadn¡¯t shown any signs of using any trump cards or explosive power. It could be seen that the so-called #1 War God of the Chaos Faction definitely wasn¡¯t as loyal as in the rumors.


    ¡°He¡¯s not the only one who¡¯s here.¡±


    As Harloys spoke, she showed me another scene. Near the city entrance, a strangely deformed devil was currently tearing an Inferno Demon apart and cruelly enjoying the boiling golden blood within.


    All the spectators watching this didn¡¯t dare to approach any closer due to the devil¡¯s powerful aura.


    ¡°Salor?¡±


    I nodded as now I felt like everything was right with the world... By the way, was I really so unfortunate that I had gotten ustomed to people trying to hunt me down? I would always feel that something was wrong if I felt safe. Could my paranoia still be cured?


    Harloys showed me yet another image. This time, I saw another ¡°acquaintance¡±.


    ¡°...Who¡¯s that? ¡®Red Parrot¡¯ Aiver?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s ¡®Red Vulture¡¯ Ai! She already became fallen because of you, so shouldn¡¯t you at least remember her name!?¡±


    I saw a young fallen angel who had a rather serious expression on her pretty face. Her ck wings filled with negative energy appeared to be burning. Her dark gray crystal armor seemed highly valuable. The burning greatsword on her back appeared to be Legend rank at minimum, something you couldn¡¯t simply purchase.


    Seven years had passed since I previously met this former Holy Knight who had been na?ve in her beliefs. She had now be a veteran in her own right. She was also followed by several clearly veteran adventurers.


    If you only looked at the outer appearance, this fallen angel would seem far more powerful than the Chaos War God or Salor the Berserk ughterer.


    ¡°Why would she be here...?¡±


    I was rather surprised to see her. Several years ago, she should have finished all of the Holy Light and Law sses in the Nortnds, and then set out on a journey to search for her sense of self, just like a normal chuunibyou girl would upon realizing how immature her past had been... By this, I meant that she should have been on a journey to find what she could truly believe in. Why would shee down here to the Chaos Abyss?


    Herpanions were also widely varied, from many job sses and species. There was a tiefling warrior, an elf mage, an inferno centaur archer, and a dwarf priest... Judging from that golden emblem, this priest was a high-level priest who worshipped Shield Dwarf Goddess Mary who was allied with us.


    This was a standard five-person team, a typical team formation for adventurers. They had melee and ranged members. This game... er, this team had five different job sses, and a priest who could heal them. It was well bnced.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you feel that the centaur looks familiar as well?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t all centaurs look the same...? Hmm? Pah, Casio!¡±


    When I looked closer, I finally knew why his face seemed so familiar. If I eliminated his inferno traits, and forgot about the beard covering half his face, that was definitely Casio, the handsome golden centaur prince!


    Compared to before, he was no longer wearing his exquisite golden armor. He also no longer carried his magical bone bow that would attract so much attention. He was now wearing in and simple ck chainmail, and wielded a wooden bow with no decorations or runes, making it easy to underestimate him. Even though his gaze seemed to be dull, if you looked at him long enough, there was actually a strange sharpness to him as if the person watching him was actually being stared at by a predatory eagle.


    ¡°I recall that he left a message saying that he was going out on a journey...¡±


    ¡°Yeah, his message left everyone with such a deep impression that it became one of the ten biggest news shes of the year...¡¯I treated him as a brother, my most trustworthy brother, but, he, he, he actually wanted to have sex with me!¡¯¡±


    I was speechless as I recalled that ridiculous scandal which caused so much utter chaos. From a certain standpoint, since Beifeng had scared away one of his best friends who was also his staunch supporter, this was also why Beifeng had lost his position as Absolute Gentlemen Alliance mercenary group leader¡ªdue to his overwhelmingly terrible reputation... I must have banged my head too many times against a wall to have chosen that bastard to be the mercenary group leader in my stead.


    I thought that Casio had returned to the Underground, so I had tried toe up with my best excuses to exin things to the old beastman tribe leader at the time. I was the one who had brought Casio out, after all. Yet, this was what happened in the end. However, I thenter heard that Casio hadn¡¯t returned to the Underground¡¯s beastmen ins. He had continued his journey in the outside world.


    In the past seven years, half of Casio¡¯s body had be demonized with inferno traits. It would seem that he either met with some type of ¡°miracle¡±, or that he had stayed in the Chaos Abyss for quite a while, and voluntarily allowed himself to be demonized.


    Two acquaintances in a five-person adventuring team? I was rather interested now.


    ¡°Should we greet them?¡± Harloys asked me.


    ¡°...My instinct tells me that they¡¯re nothing but trouble, enormous trouble. If we casually get in contact with them, we won¡¯t be able to stay out of their trouble.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to do anything about them? They almost seem like refugees. Isn¡¯t that rather heartless?¡±


    Indeed, their faces were filled with fatigue, their armor was covered in dust and mud, and their weapons still had traces of blood on them. It was obvious that they still hadn¡¯t recovered from theirst battle.


    This would have been normal for the others. However, elves were a species whose adults would be perfectly fine even if they didn¡¯t sleep for an entire week. Yet, even their elf mage showed obvious signs of fatigue. That was unusual.


    ¡°Let¡¯s send one of your clones over to eavesdrop on them.¡±


    Now that Harloys had entered Myth rank, her cloning abilities had be even stronger. Now, her clones could easily take any form or color that she wanted, along with being invisible. This would be the best information gathering method of all.


    As we walked around this city, we had already left behind several hundred slime clones. Not only that, the slimes would be capable of splitting and cloning themselves on their own. After one more night here, it would be impossible for anything that happened in this district to escape our attention.


    However, we only sent a few slime clones to follow Donatis and Salor from far away. With their power level, their senses and instincts would be far too acute. Having too many eyes on them would only make the clones easier to discover.


    Of course, Ai and Casio weren¡¯t nearly so skilled. An invisible bat slimended in front of them, transforming into mud that they then stepped in, so the slime adhered to their shoes. This would be the best eavesdropping device of all. We also sent another slime to follow them from a distance, so nothing they did would be able to escape us.


    I was in no rush at all. I walked towards an information stand that was marked with a familiar fairy emblem. These tiny fellows had extended their information business even to the Chaos Abyss several hundred years ago.


    I could pretty much guess what the biggest recent headlines would be. I had killed Lasnina, and the death of a Devil Lord would naturally be the most important recent news.


    The fairies¡¯ information sources were even quicker than thieves¡¯ guilds. It would be the simplest to obtain thetest ¡°headline news¡± that was impossible to conceal from the fairies.


    I tossed out a gold coin and flipped through the newly printed newspaper that a ck fairy handed me. I was indeed in the headlines, but apparently someone else had stolen my thunder.


    <Unbelievable news! The devils are seriously weakened even more! They lost two Devil Lords on the same day! Just why did the Abyss Prince kill a Devil Lord!?>


    ¡°Karwenz? He came here as well?¡±

 Chapter 595 - Information Brokers

    <h4>Chapter 595: Information Brokers</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Elite adventurers affiliated with our Nortnds, the incarnation of a Chaos Main God, a sudden arrival of a suicide squad of Holy Knights... One of these appearing in the Ashen Furnace might still be a coincidence, but when putting all this information together, it would be far too na?ve to think that it was all a coincidence.


    When in need of information, no organization in the world could possiblypare to the fairies¡¯ informationwork. I also had a very solid alliance with them...


    ¡°This is my Diamond VIP ount card. I need thetest information from this region. Yeah, not only for this dimensional level, I also need the recent important information for the entire Chaos Abyss.¡±


    The fairy before me hurriedly invited me inside the store after seeing my VIP ount card. Inside, tiny fairies wearing equally tiny red suits were running around everywhere. They appeared just like the fairies in the mortal ne.


    The manager fairy ran off with my ount card. A few minutester, he returned with a serious expression.


    ¡°...I¡¯m sorry, your limitless information ess ount has expired. Your Diamond ount rights have also been cancelled. You are now a Gold 1 ount.¡±


    I was stunned to hear this. Meanwhile, Harloysughed at me in our soul connection.


    ¡°What a solid alliance you have with them indeed. What does it feel like to have them taking advantage of you after they no longer need you?¡±


    ¡°...As expected of the goblins¡¯ distant cousins (okay, I was just making this up). They¡¯re already taking advantage of me so early.¡±


    For a rtively long period of time, ever since I returned to the Nortnds, the fairies had established a solid alliance with us, giving me this VIP card that allowed me to limitlessly obtain free information from them.


    Although I didn¡¯t particrly trust free information, it would still be a waste not to use it. As time passed, it was proven that their intelligencework¡¯s uracy and speed had far surpassed those of any other spy organization in the world. Thus, I naturally established a long-term working alliance with the fairies.


    ¡°Although you are no longer a Diamond ount member, we can still provide any information to you that¡¯s below SSS level. And, we¡¯ll even give you a 30% discountpared to other ount members.¡±


    Tsk, I understood quite well what the fairies were saying. The free trial period had now ended. If I wanted to continue enjoying their service, I would have to pay money.


    As I looked at this ck fairy, I kept feeling more and more like he might actually be rted to the goblins. They were all such scammers. When you didn¡¯t need them, you would see their advertisements everywhere, iming to have all sorts of free benefits. And when you really needed them, they would suddenly raise their prices.


    ¡°Your Highness, please don¡¯t think that we are trying to target you specifically. Your Gold 1, 3 star ount is still the highest-level customer ount with us. It¡¯s just that a while back, we reorganized all of our Diamond ounts. We no longer have any Diamond ounts that can obtain permanent free information from us.¡±


    ¡°A while back? How long ago?¡±


    ¡°Five years ago.¡±


    Oh, so it seemed that I wasn¡¯t the only one whose free trial had expired. Everyone¡¯s free trial had expired, so everyone would have to pay money!


    Judging from the time, this happened right after Hell becamepletely stabilized, which meant that the total destruction end for the world had been averted. Now that I thought of this, it really did seem like the fairies were taking advantage of us after no longer needing us.


    ¡°Can I pay in soul coins?¡±


    ¡°Yes, since this is the best currency in the lower nes. We ept soul coins.¡±


    However, I didn¡¯t particrly mind even if the fairies were now charging fees for their services. I even felt somewhat disgusted to be carrying these soul coins I obtained from the dark dwarves.


    Now that they were charging fees for their services, I secretly decided to give them more business in the future.


    That was because someone like me would feel less assured about using a free service.


    This wasn¡¯t because I had any strange hobbies of wanting to spend money. It was because the world was so difficult to survive in. Apart from bait and traps, nothing would be free. I would always be suspicious of anything free.


    And even if they truly wanted to help me, owing and repaying favors would be far more difficult than having to pay them money. If the fairies wanted to ask for something of equivalent value sometime in the future, that would be truly difficult to deal with.


    And if the fairies had their own motivations and ns, then even if their information had always been 100% urate before, who knew when they might suddenly give misinformation at a critical time?


    I had forever been on guard against these fairies that I didn¡¯t know about enough. It would always be best to use a personal spywork. Relying on a third party¡¯s intelligence would only lead to major trouble sooner orter. Most of the time, I only used the fairies¡¯ information to confirm information from my own sources.


    But, I was currently in the Chaos Abyss. I would be unable to ess the Nortnds¡¯ or Church of Law¡¯s spyworks here. So, I would only be able to rely on the fairies who were everywhere.


    I tossed them a sack of soul coins, and watched them work as I tasted their tea. As always, they were outstanding workers. In less than half an hour, the table in front of me had a pile of files with important information from numerous dimensions.


    Meanwhile, one of Harloys¡¯ clones finally reached the Dragontail Bar. She told me that Adam and the others had actually arrived already, which was a pleasant surprise for me. However, Harloys had a mysterious attitude as she told me there was another nice surprise waiting for me there.


    With my excellent understanding of how much she enjoyed making me suffer, this surprise was probably the type that could scare me to death. When considering my ever more frightening negative luck stat recently, I decided to purchase an escape route from the fairies as I told Harloys to find a way to contact Margaret, who would be more reliable than Adam...


    The fairies treated any Gold ount customer who was willing to pay money quite well.


    However, the very first piece of information I received gave me a tremendous shock...


    ¡°A certain Dracon who¡¯s now in the top 10 of the Cmity Rankings has caused another incident which attracted public outrage in the mortal ne. Several dozen Gods and SemiGods have teamed up to hunt him down. He has now vanished from public view.¡±


    Yep, a certain Dracon, who was in the top 10 of the Cmity Rankings now? I would have to be an idiot not to know who that was. Another piece of information I received told me that he had recently been seen in the Chaos Abyss...


    ¡°Just what did he do that would make so many Gods ally together to hunt him down...? Forget it, please don¡¯t tell me, I really don¡¯t want to know.¡±


    Iid down on the fairies¡¯ soft sofa as I calcted my odds of ¡°coincidentally¡± running into that bastard. When considering how gigantic the Chaos Abyss was, the odds logically should have been astronomically small. But when considering my luck stat... I decided to purchase a second escape route. It would be far too humiliating if I died because of being dragged down by Beifeng.


    With all the information ced before me, Harloys and I split up and read through it together. The highly useful information wouldn¡¯t always be that easy to discover. I was only memorizing everything as it was impossible to know when some information might be useful. Some information that appeared to be nothing more than unimportant gossip might reveal its importance at ater time.


    As expected, there was no specific information about Karwenz, whom I wanted information on the most. The only information avable was that he had suddenly appeared and killed an unfortunate Devil Lord. There was no difference from the simple headline reported in the fairies¡¯ newspaper.


    For Main God level existences like Karwenz and Donatis, even the fairies who were everywhere would have their limits in obtaining useful information.


    But, apart from purchasing information, I also had some errands that I needed the fairies to help me with.


    ¡°I have two letters here. This one is for the Church of Law, and this one is for the Southern Sect.¡±


    Since I had agreed to help Snake God Voka and received his payment, it was only natural that I would keep my promise to him.


    Actually, I originally had a much easier way to contact the Hell Gods... But when I thought about how that hateful Undead Emperor was still forcibly upying my personal world, and that she had Main God power level which far exceeded mine, I could only bear with things for the time being.


    ¡°Once I gather enough powerful allies, we¡¯re going to attack the Undead Emperor dungeon together as a team!¡±


    I also needed the fairies¡¯work to start gathering information on top-level resources I could use for my Myth-ranked weapons. Although I didn¡¯t have high hopes, perhaps I would be able to obtain something as long as I offered rewards high enough.


    ¡°Resources rted to the Concepts of gathering and spreading light. Resources rted to pain, despair, and other Concepts of pure negative emotions. Top-level resources rted to ice. It would seem that you¡¯re preparing yourself for the final step of Myth rank... Your Highness Rnd, if I may be so direct, apart from the final request of top-level ice resources, the others will all be highly difficult to find. And, any ice resources that we find might not be as good as what you can obtain on your own.¡±


    ¡°Just try your best.¡±


    I nodded as this was within my expectations. If spending money could take care of every problem, then there wouldn¡¯t be so many unfortunate individuals out there forever stuck at Myth rank.


    The precious resources that could be the core of Myth-ranked weapons would be highly valuable resources sought after by all Myth, Saint, and even SemiGod ranks. If any of them luckily managed to obtain such resources, they would never give them away so easily, as this would potentially strengthen their enemies, even if the resources weren¡¯t fit for their personal use.


    Also, powerful existences at that power level would rarelyck money. The mostmon way of doing things would be to trade an item of equivalent value. But, when considering how rare such resources were and both sides¡¯ mutual distrust, even if both sides had previously traded items before, it would be highly unlikely for any trades to be finalized and seed.


    ¡°Right, also help me obtain some information on this adventuring team.¡±


    I showed the fairy an image of Casio¡¯s adventuring team on a memory crystal. Since their team seemed decently powerful, I figured that they would have at least some reputation and information avable.


    But this time, this fairy, whose name was Didi, fell silent.


    ¡°...Do you need more money for this?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯d probably have to pay you money to tell you the information about this team¡¯s arrival in the city. This time, they¡¯ve truly caused great trouble, tremendous trouble. We really don¡¯t want to get involved... As long as you¡¯re willing to resolve this trouble, we¡¯ll refund all your money and give you all the information you requested for free this time!¡±


    ¡°Please don¡¯t tell me, I suddenly don¡¯t want to know at all!¡±

 Chapter 596 - The Warhorns of Dimensional War

    <h4>Chapter 596: The Warhorns of Dimensional War</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°In the Wildsnow Forest Mountain district of the seventh level of the Chaos Abyss, the demons and devils had a major battle. The only remaining Main God Devil Lord, the Lord of Tyranny, participated in this battle against Demon Main God Sophocles the Deceiver. The end result was that the devils achieved a major victory. Sophocles the Deceiver was seriously injured. However, the devils immediately retreated overnight, and gave up all their territory here.¡±


    Out of all the information I received, this one attracted my attention the most. Both sides had sent out Main Gods, so this was obviously an important strategic location.


    The demons lost, but gained more territory. The devils won, but actually lost territory. While this may seem inconceivable, this would actually be quite normal for fights between devils and demons.


    The demons had almost limitless numbers. One Demon Lord¡¯s failure would only make even more Demon Lords want to try. They would forever wage internal wars amongst themselves.


    Meanwhile, the devils had a pyramidal social structure and limited strength. While they were capable of obtaining strategic victories with their militarization and well-run organizations, they would be unable to handle any long battle of attrition. When calcting the losses, it wasmon that the demons lost nothing more than some cannon fodder, while the devils had lost their elites.


    It was absolutelymonce for there to be wars in the Chaos Abyss. There would be suchrge-scale wars happening once every few months. Even with the Main Gods appearing, that only made the information¡¯s price go up a few levels. Still, I could tell that there were some things which were off about this information.


    ¡°...The seventh level? I remember that dimensional level is filled with ice and snow. I think it¡¯s the territory of an Elemental Lord allied with the demons. This is strange. The first few levels of the Chaos Abyss have all been overly developed. What are they fighting over?¡±


    The first few levels of the Chaos Abyss had already been developed for countless years by their various rulers. Even if these levels had some treasures or mines, anything valuable would be long gone. Although demon poption or whatever might also count as resources, this wouldn¡¯t be very valuable.


    There would definitely be a reason behind such a major battle. Although war in the Chaos Abyss didn¡¯t really need reasons, this involved someone as sly and selfish as Sophocles the Deceiver. There would definitely be tremendous benefits to be had there that caused him to personally attack with his entire personal army.


    Attacking the devils while they were weak? While this might have been a possible reason for another Demon Lord, this would never be Sophocles the Deceiver¡¯s style. There would definitely be some great reason for him to willingly face off against the only remaining Devil Lord Main God.


    But then, I couldn¡¯t help butugh at myself. Wasn¡¯t I here at the fairies¡¯ information services already? Why would I need to guess? And so, I simply asked the fairies my question directly.


    ¡°...It¡¯s said that there¡¯s a portal leading to the mortal ne on the seventh level! It¡¯s even a natural portal.¡±


    This was truly... a surprise? At this moment, I truly felt like I was in the middle of the eternal Holy War.


    During the Holy War, the rise in the Elemental Tide would cause powerful individuals to appear at a far higher speed. Countless Dimensional Doors would bring visitors from other dimensions to the mortal ne. Some Dimensional Doors would be natural creations of the Elemental Tide¡¯s rise. Some doors might have been left behind by previous Holy Wars. Some doors might be created by special locations with unstable nature. But, most Dimensional Doors would be artificially created by powerful existences who were willing the pay the great price necessary to do so.


    Although the doors didn¡¯t seem all that different, there would actually be a tremendous difference in influence and danger they brought to the mortal ne¡¯s residents.


    A demon invasion would be the mostmon dimensional threat to the mortal ne. A major demon invasion would ur once every several hundred years, and a small one would ur every few years. But, if you looked at the foundational reasons for these invasions, they would be either schemes from powerful existences in the Chaos Abyss to harvest flesh and blood, or a heinous summoning performed by some idiotic mortal ne resident.


    Since these Chaos Abyss teleportation portals to the mortal ne were all artificially created, they naturally had their limits. Dimensional Doors created in the mortal ne would require a sufficient number of souls and sacrifices, and those in the Chaos Abyss would also have to pay a tremendous price. There would also be limits on the size and power of the army that could go through the portal.


    And even if the demons sessfully entered the mortal ne, they would constantly have to fight against the mortal ne¡¯s dimensionalws in addition to dealing with the Order Gods and mortals hunting them down. Not only would they bergely weakened, they would need to constantly pay a price for the temporary right to remain in the mortal ne. It would only be a matter of time before they were forced to return to the Chaos Abyss.


    In that case, such a cmity would have limits in its danger... Karwenz being able to destroy multiple countries with just a few demon armies was only a special exception.


    But, during the Holy War, the natural portal Dimensional Doors that would open up in this period of high Elemental Tide would be truly fun to deal with. Existences on either side of the portal coulde and go as they pleased. There would be zero limits on how many coulde, or how long they coulde for... So, this would be the new main battleground of the Holy War.


    During the Holy War, with the rising Elemental Tide as the prerequisite, as long as enough of a price was paid, artificial Dimensional Doors could be transformed into eternal natural Dimensional Doors. But, perhaps due to the dimensional will of the mortal ne, the sess rate would typically be very low. All sorts of heaven-sent cmities or man-made disasters would typically cause such Dimensional Door transformation ns to fail.


    If we hadn¡¯t gone to the S Dukedom a few months back, it was likely that the Haletdam generation schrs¡¯ ruin would have likely transformed into a Dimensional Door leading either to the Death nes or the Chaos Abyss. However, the very fact that we arrived and stopped this could also be viewed as the mortal ne¡¯s dimensionalws fighting back with the power of Fate itself.


    But, there was nothing that could be done about natural Dimensional Doors. They didn¡¯t need much time to expand to their limits. There were no warnings or limitations on their appearances. Any ce that they appeared would naturally be a battlefield, a bottomless pit that would be impossible to fill in during the Holy War.


    Why would it be impossible to fill in this bottomless pit? When one Demon Lord lost his entire army here, a second Demon Lord would immediately arrive. The first would also retreat with the souls and blood that he harvested, helping him to evolve and obtain the favor of the Chaos Abyss. He would only need to recover for two years before establishing an entire new demon army.


    One historical record from the previous Holy War was that there was a stalemate at a natural Dimensional Door. But, the entire demon army there changed their battle g overnight. It turned out that a Demon Lord sessfully ambushed the other Demon Lord already at the portal in the Chaos Abyss side, sessfully killing the original Demon Lord. The new demon army¡¯sbat strength was several times greater than the original army¡¯s, and the defending Order army ended up beingpletely annihted.


    Although the will of the Chaos Abyss would do her best to decrease the conflicts between Demon Lords during the time of Holy War, if an internal conflict was beneficial to the overallbat situation, Cynthia would naturally pretend not to see anything.


    Also, unlike other wars where the first wave of attacks would be cannon fodder, the mortal ne would typically have a hard time defending against the demons¡¯ first wave. There wouldn¡¯t be much resistance, and the demons could obtain a tremendous amount of souls and blood from ordinary people. This was highly beneficial for the demons.


    So, with all that as the background, it was now perfectly understandable why the demons and devils were fighting there.


    It was now also perfectly understandable why Sophocles the Deceiver never came to find me when I entered the Chaos Abyss despite him being famous for holding a grudge over even the smallest things. He had no time to deal with me.


    But, what could I even do after learning this information?


    Go chase away the demon army and close the natural portal? First of all, trying to shut down such a natural phenomenon would be about as difficult as trying to use your bare hands to close a ck hole... And, it would be impossible to kill the entire demon army. If you killed one Demon Lord, ten more would arrive. If you destroyed one army, more than ten allied demon armies from other dimensional levels would arrive.


    This was probably the first natural Dimensional Door that appeared in this Holy War. Until a powerful existence tookplete control of this portal, the demons¡¯ internal conflicts would likely be so cruel that they would exceed the Holy War itself. Many Gods would likely be appearing on the battlefield at the seventh level of the Chaos Abyss. Main Gods would directly fight against each other. The current me had no hope of even being able to survive after trying to reach such a battlefield.


    In fact, this natural portal might even be rted to why Karwenz suddenly killed a Devil Lord for no discernible reason. This would greatly weaken the devils even more and make them give up on that Dimensional Door.


    With all this information, it seemed that the first mega-level battlefield of the Holy War had now appeared.


    All I could do was try and find out where in the mortal ne this portal led to, and warn that country or district so that they could prepare early to defend themselves. However, even this likely wouldn¡¯t be that easy...


    ¡°Is there any information on where this portal leads to?¡±


    The fairy adamantly shook his head. ¡°...The Dimensional Door has been constantly guarded by mega powerful existences. It¡¯s impossible for us to even get anywhere close.¡±


    This was within expectations, albeit somewhat depressing. However, I thought of another possibility.


    ¡°Astrya, is there any record of this in the game¡¯s history? Where was the first mega Chaos Abyss invasion in the mortal ne?¡±


    [Typically you call me System or just ¡®hey¡¯. Now you address me by name? I will be responsible enough to tell you that there¡¯s not even a clue. Hell¡¯s establishment has sent the Elemental Tide into utter chaos. All of the original battlefield locations can no longer be used as reference. All of this is your fault.]


    Damn, I could no longer use my game walkthrough to cheat my way through anymore. This meant that my precognition was now more than half useless, and all of it was my own fault.


    However, I had zero regrets about creating Hell as it was precisely Hell¡¯s establishment that helped us break free from the despairing end with no hope in sight no matter how hard we worked.


    At this moment, Harloys suddenly jumped on my shoulder.


    ¡°What is it? You discovered something in the information?¡±


    ¡°No, it will take too long to organize so much random information. It¡¯s that Margaret has contacted us. They¡¯re prepared, and want to know whom you want them to attack?¡±


    I had already given Adam and the others the information about Salor and Donatis. No matter why those two hade to the Ashen Furnace, neither was a friend that we could have a friendly chat and drink tea together with. I naturally wouldn¡¯t waste a chance to use a two-pronged ambush and eliminate a threat to myself.


    However, there would only be one chance for an ambush. With a fight against such a powerful opponent, let alone this city, it was likely that this entire dimensional level would be able to find out about it. Not only was a second ambush going to be impossible for us, we would also have to be on guard against enemy reinforcements.


    I needed to make a decision swiftly. If I dyed too long, Salor and Donatis would meet each other sooner orter. It would be difficult for us with our current strength to deal with any additional changes in the current situation.


    Judging from long-term benefits, this would be a great opportunity to weaken War God Donatis.


    The more powerful his incarnation here was, the more power he would lose if it died. He had originally lost a decent amount of strength after finishing with fighting for several years in Hell. If I could force him to recover for an additional two years, making it so that he couldn¡¯t be the Chaos vanguard in the Holy War, that would be far more valuable than killing Salor the Berserk ughterer. But, Donatis had yet to show enmity towards us for the time being, and Salor was definitely hunting us down.


    I was really hesitant. I wanted to kill both, but I had insufficient strength at my disposal to do so.


    I looked over at the fairy, but instantly shook my head, giving up on the idea before I even asked.


    While the fairies¡¯ faction would have somebat strength of their own, they had remained neutral, and never interfered in other species¡¯ affairs for countless millennia. It would be absolutely impossible to convince them to give up their neutrality just to help me.


    ¡°Eh?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ surprise interrupted my thoughts. When I asked her what was going on, she let me listen in on a conversation.


    ¡°...Will we really meet with reinforcements here? We¡¯re in the Chaos Abyss, with demons everywhere, and we¡¯re carrying something so important...¡±


    This was Casio¡¯s voice. His voice was much deeper than before, and he sounded highly anxious.


    ¡°This was the guidance of my God. The divine message indicates that reinforcements for us are within this city. As long as we wait patiently, they¡¯ll automaticallye to us.¡±


    This was an unfamiliar voice, but it obviously belonged to the dwarf priest in the team.


    ¡°A prophecy? Since when has the Goddess of Wealth had such a scamming ability?¡±


    Ai¡¯s condescending words were filled with disrespect for the Gods. Compared to when she had been a Holy Knight who always had the utmost respect for the God of Holy Light previously, her change into a fallen angel was probably the greatest change after her faith waspletely shattered.


    However, I almost wanted to cry as it seemed that I had fallen into yet another pitfall. I would likely have to work for free...


    ¡°Damned Mary.¡±


    It seemed that the Goddess of Wealth <sup>1</sup> in the Hell Faction had guided them here to look for reinforcements. As for the reinforcements that they were waiting for? Reinforcements who would be closer allies to Order, down here in the Chaos Abyss? Who could that possibly be apart from us?


    If Donatis wasn¡¯t looking for us, then he was definitely looking for them. If they met up... Just the fact that Casio was in this team meant that I couldn¡¯t simply watch them die. It seemed unavoidable that I would have to intervene.


    But even if I couldn¡¯t leave them to die, I would never work for free...


    ¡°I¡¯ll make them pay with their bodies to repay me for saving their lives... Ahem, don¡¯t misunderstand, I mean that I¡¯ll have them fight for me. Notify Adam and the others, and tell them that the n has slightly changed. We have new people to help us, so let¡¯s split up into two teams and ambush our enemies simultaneously! Harloys, you and Little Red go with Adam¡¯s group to have some fun with Donatis. I¡¯ll take this group of adventuring brats to have a chat with Salor about his travels!¡±

 Chapter 597 - Trap

    <h4>Chapter 597: Trap</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Salor the Berserk ughter, a famous personage in many dimensions... At least back seven years ago, he could be considered one of the highest-tier powerful existences in the Chaos Abyss as well.


    He wasn¡¯t a Devil Lord. However, his reputation with devils had actually exceeded that of the Devil Lords since thetter rarely appeared. Salor had participated in two previous eternal Holy Wars, and was themanding general on the bloodiest frontlines. If you wrote down the names of all powerful individuals that he had killed before, the list would probably be even thicker than a phone book.


    However, the devils had now greatly weakened as a species. The fragile bnce between demons and devils had been broken. Salor went from being a leading frontline general to nothing more than a vagabond in a single night. It could be said that he had fallen low.


    Other devils had always viewed him as a ughtering machine without a brain. When he heard news of the devils¡¯ loss on the battlefield, he had gone berserk, and tore apart numerous Inferno Demons in front of his subordinates to vent... and then, he was exiled for the crime of ¡°killing allies¡±.


    Obviously, such a crime was ridiculous to pin upon him. However, only Salor knew that he had voluntarily requested to give up the status and position of a generalmanding on the frontlines.


    ¡°...This war will bepletely different from all previous wars. The Chaos Abyss has lost its master. All Chaos Gods and Demon Lords no longer have any restrictions upon them. It¡¯s only a matter of time before a full-scale war breaks out between demons and devils. Although it¡¯s inconceivable, the Chaos Abyss is indeed establishing a new order. That person is actually organizing the Demon Lords. And when the Demon Lords are finished organizing, if I¡¯m a devil with such an important position... I¡¯ll still be able to retreat if I leave now, but I won¡¯t be able to stay alive if I¡¯m toote!¡±


    That was right. Even though Salor was scarily deformed, spoke coarsely with no apparent logic, and often vented his anger on others, which all made him seem like a ssical musclehead without a brain, he had managed to survive for so long already. Not only that, he was the generalmanding a ce as important as the frontline. It was impossible for him to actually be an idiot with no brains.


    Although everyone believed he was just like a demon in devil skin, this meant that either something was wrong with the Chaos Abyss itself, or that he had given others a false impression of himself... Since the will of the Chaos Abyss was never wrong, this meant that Salor had sessfully fooled everyone!


    ¡°Just because I¡¯m ugly, does that mean I can¡¯t enjoy what¡¯s beautiful? Just because I¡¯m deformed, does this mean my heart and mind must also be twisted? Just because I¡¯m muscr, does this mean I must be brainless?¡±


    Very few people knew that not only was Salor an expert in strategy and warfare, he was also an incredibly skilled artist. He was also a top-level grandmaster sculptor and musician. He even had his own theories on finance and politics. It was his deep search for the foundational nature of things that helped him gain a special understanding and control over the Concepts of Mass and Existence.


    Salor, this ugly and deformed devil, was the one and only devil that Sarwenstan, the Lord of Tyranny, truly trusted. Salor was also Sarwenstan¡¯s direct descendant!


    As for why Salor was entrusted with the very important mission to capture Rnd, even Lasnina, who was nominally in charge, only knew the official reason. Only Salor, the sole rtive of Sarwenstan, knew the true goal and reason.


    Even though two Devil Lords had perished recently, Salor still had no intentions of giving up. He still had a trump card. As long as he could find Rnd, and sessfully find a chance to ambush him, he would definitely be able to...


    ¡°Hey, Salor, what are you thinking about? Howe you¡¯re concentrating so hard?¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m thinking about how to catch Rnd...¡±


    Someone greeted Salor in a familiar and friendly voice as if they were old neighbors. Salor answered instinctively, but he immediately realized whom this voice belonged to. Salor opened his mouth wide and stared with disbelief at the person before him.


    ¡°Rnd! You, why are you here!?¡±


    Sitting at a streetside table in front of a store was someone who seemed to be on vacation. This person with a coffee and newspaper was exactly Rnd, whom Salor had recently been trying to hunt down.


    However, I frowned when I heard Salor¡¯s words. This meant he wasn¡¯t in this city because he had followed me? He hadn¡¯t followed me here, so he had to have other reasons toe here...


    *Boom!*


    Yet, I no longer had any time to think about things. The alreadyrge devil before me expanded even more as his sawtoothed axe viciously mmed into the ground. An entire restaurant on the street was smashed into a deep pit.


    Salor¡¯s gnome-like arm waved, causing countless amounts of dirt to go against thews of gravity and fly into the sky. The entire location that we battled at now appeared as if a giant had dug around here and emptied most of it out.


    Whenever Salor fought in battle, he would be a pure ughtering machine. Clich¨¦s like an antagonist dying due to talking too much would never happen to a true military devil general.


    Salor¡¯s unique ability to control mass was already well known through all the dimensions. Any target that he hit would enjoy being exploded from within into several pieces. Anyone who knew about his abilities would never be so foolish to have a direct melee battle against him. Yet today, Salor saw something that truly shocked him.


    His war axe that nobody ever dared to try and block had now been blocked by a thin ice shield!


    The enemy he faced had clearly been unarmed just a moment ago. But now, Rnd was wearing some half-translucent ice armor.


    Before Salor could recover from his astonishment, several dozen ice des floated up in the sky. After whirling a bit to amass greater force, they directly shed at him.


    One, two, three, and more. The sharp ice des continuously assaulted him.


    I took a deep breath. It seemed that my trump card I personally prepared against Salor was indeed effective.


    Unlike hot-blooded protagonists that could limitlessly increase theirbat strength simply through shouting mysterious slogans, I firmly believed that sess or failure in battle was mostly depending on how much you had prepared beforehand. This was a mage¡¯s typical way of viewing battles.


    That was also how it went for me against Lasnina. The first time that I fought her, I was gathering information. The second time, I would naturally have a much greater chance at victory. And when I knew that Salor was highly likely to be our enemy, I naturally made preparations against his incredibly dangerous ability.


    ¡°I never thought that my Absolute Zero ice armor would be used again...¡±


    Salor¡¯s ability was just as famous as it was unreasonable. He could forcefully modify the mass of any object that he touched. This was obviously a Concept-level attack that could change the veryws of physics, invalidating any enemy¡¯s magical or physical resistance. His enemies would forever be taken apart by their own flesh and blood exploding from within. This was why Salor was renowned as undefeatable in melee.


    I found it impossible toprehend how he obtained such a cheat-like ability that seemed like an illegal game hack ability. Neither did I know where he¡¯d got such an overly powerful special ability from. However, I could still extrapte the theories behind his ability and defend against it.


    I theorized that he was capable of modifying the physical status and even existence of any object that he touched. However, he would likely need to first understand the existence of that object. For instance, he would have to know whether this object was iron, steel, or ice before activating his ability and changing its very nature... So, if he touched something that wasn¡¯t even from Eich, my ¡°Coldest Ice¡± that also broke thews of physics, would he be able to modify it?


    ¡°This should be impossible. His ability is basically like a game mod for cheating. He can edit the foundational data of this game (the world), but this doesn¡¯t mean that he will have the power to edit data from other games (other worlds). And even if he¡¯s truly capable of this, he will still need enough time and attempts to adjust his own ability.¡±


    And now, what happened before me proved that my theory had been correct. The ice armor I had stored away in my dimensional bag had indeed defended against Salor¡¯s mass-based attacks.


    Of course, I could only grit my teeth and bear the fact that I would suffer severe frostbite after using this armor. It would be quite worth it to kill off a powerful existence in exchange for some frostbite.


    Although the storm of ice shards I sent at Salor seemed vicious, I was only tossing shards of ice that he would be unable to control at him. Considering how tough-skinned devils and demons could be, I had zero hope of being able to kill him with this.


    Salor indeed stood up right away with no signs of injury. As expected, his true power wasn¡¯t limited to only his unique special ability.


    But even though he was uninjured, he had a panicky expression. It seemed that this was the first time he had met an opponent who waspletely not scared of his special ability.


    ¡°You... just how did you do this?¡±


    ¡°Ha, just take a guess.¡±


    I would never be stupid enough to exin my own abilities to an enemy. Icy mes started spreading on my ice sword and ice armor. Since I was already destined to suffer from frostbite, there was no need for me to hold back with my double-edged weapon of the Coldest mes.


    Their pale white mes enveloped my ice armor, which also caused Salor to instinctively retreat. His devilbat instinct told him that if he touched those mes, he would never wake up again.


    ¡°As expected of that person¡¯s brother. It seems that the rumors were real...¡±


    The deformed devil general wasn¡¯t violently angry like he always was. Instead, he took a deep nce at me as if he wanted to remember what I looked like. And then... he turned around and ran!


    Correct, the devils¡¯ glorious frontline general, this devil who had never been defeated before, unhesitatingly turned around and ran.


    The price for his extremely powerful ability was that he had zero ranged attacking capabilities. Was he supposed to wait around for death against an opponent that countered him so much?


    As a long-time general who fought on the frontlines, something like a warrior¡¯s honor was nothing more than a joke to him. Not only had Salor run away before from powerful enemies he couldn¡¯t defeat, he had even jumped into piles of corpses and faked his death in order to escape before.


    However, Iughed out loud as I shouted a prearranged code...


    ¡°Tank¡¯s resistance and defense is good enough, so we should take things seriously and defeat this boss! Wait three seconds for attracting aggro before attacking, and don¡¯t just go through the motions! The person with the lowest damage output won¡¯t receive any payment!¡±


    The next instant, a female fallen angel knight appeared in front of the escaping Salor. She held an ice shield and wore ice armor that looked rather familiar.


    And then, a centaur wearing all ice armor jumped out from a rooftop. He was actually using an ice bow and ice sword...


    An ice-armor-wearing Goddess of Wealth priest jumped out from a corner...


    The devil general red at me with hatred in his eyes. He sensed that he had entered a death trap prepared directly for him.


    ¡°...Would you believe me if I said this was a coincidence? Isn¡¯t it quite normal to carry some extra sets of ice armor? You¡¯re still ring at me? If you re at me any more, I¡¯ll eat you!¡±


    I kept acting ridiculous, but my secretmands to the other adventurers were all serious. This was no time to act rxed, as a powerful devil could easily take others down along with him even at the end.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get close to him. Even with the ice armor, he can easily tear you all apart. He has no ranged attack capabilities. We¡¯ll slowly use ice arrows and ice spears to bleed and kite him to death!¡±


    Harloys suddenly transmitted Adam¡¯s angry shouts to me at this time. His party should have ambushed Donatis at the exact same time, which meant that they had only fought for two minutes...


    ¡°The target is too tough! It¡¯s too dangerous! It¡¯s time for tactical retreat... What I mean is we¡¯re running away!¡±

 Chapter 598 - Mystery

    <h4>Chapter 598: Mystery</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Adam¡¯s group lost?¡±


    I was stunned upon hearing this.


    Simultaneously ambushing both of my enemies was no overconfidence, but a decision I¡¯d made only after careful analysis.


    Adam, Margaret, Little Red, and Harloys was the four-person team that would fight against the Chaos War God¡¯s incarnation. All four of them had actualbat strength surpassing that of average human SemiGods. They were all veterans with several hundred or even several thousand years of experience. It shouldn¡¯t have been difficult for them to deal with a God¡¯s incarnation.


    Meanwhile, mybat strength for dealing with Salor was rather insufficient. I had a group of novices against a world boss... If my ice shields and ice armor were insufficient to defend against Salor¡¯s unique ability, then we would tactically retreat, or basically run away, and stall for as much time as possible.


    This was something I considered highly probable from the very start. While my Absolute Zero ice had properties that were a strong counter to Salor¡¯s ability, my Absolute Zero was still foundationally simr to ordinary ice in sturdiness. With Salor¡¯s brute force, he would easily be able to shatter the ice simply by throwing a tiny stone.


    However, he had yet to try such a thing. It was unlikely that he hadn¡¯t thought of it yet. It was more likely that he was incapable of doing so.


    ¡°Such a bug-like ability like his will definitely have its limitations. Otherwise, he could simply throw stone projectiles and limitlessly expand the mass, which will mean instant kill against anyone. He could fly with an entire mountain and then cancel his ability, crushing anyone under a mountain. Who would possibly be able to fight against that...? Could it be that the Buddha who sealed Sun Wukong away was the leveled up andplete version of Salor?¡±


    It was exactly as I had surmised. In fact, things were even better than I expected. Salor¡¯s weapons were unable to leave his body. In fact, he was incapable of even kicking up a single rock. Any object that touched his skin or weapon would naturally stick to him, and this ¡°stickiness¡± was something that he was incapable of cancelling.


    ¡°Perhaps his real ability isn¡¯t as powerful as people think. He isn¡¯t actually changing the mass of other objects. Instead, hees into contact with another object and mixes with it, just like how alcohol can mix with water. When he mixes with something, he adds his own traits to it... So, he can only activate his ability on something that he¡¯s physically touching. He¡¯s incapable of changing that object¡¯s position, just as how everyone knows it¡¯s physically impossible to pull yourself up to the sky by pulling on your own hair.¡±


    If he had been able to break free from this restriction, it was likely that he could have achieved Devil Lord status.


    Powerful veterans would have the advantage of plentifulbat experience and a reliable fighting style. However, reliable meant ack of explosiveness. His special ability had been seen through, and this was a trap specifically meant to counter him. Salor now met the greatest danger of his life.


    ¡°A pack of ants dares to challenge me...?¡±


    Unfortunately, no matter how furious he was, he was still unable to break free.


    The adventuring team that surrounded him forever remained right outside his effective reach. However, the sharp ice spears and arrows that kept shooting at him proved to be ever more dangerous.


    Every time that Salor tried to forcefully break through, that fallen angel would always appear by his side. Her burning greatsword covered in gray mes was difficult to defend against.


    Meanwhile, the inferno centaur roaming around the rooftops was even more dangerous. His dusk yellow eyes had double reflections. Even though Salor wasn¡¯t visible behind a wall, the centaur¡¯s ice arrows were capable of turning corners and urately shooting straight at Salor. It was obvious that the centaur was an incredible archer.


    At every moment, Salor needed to concentrate greatly to remain on guard against the centaur¡¯s arrows. Salor hated that he couldn¡¯t have been born with four eyes to watch everything around him. This only served to rapidly tire him.


    But, in his mind, the most dangerous one was still Rnd.


    Rnd was quite famous. After all hisbat achievements, his reputation had spread even to the lower nes. However, all his glorious aplishments and titles probably still couldn¡¯tpare to the status given to him by birth... He was the older brother of Abyssal Prince Karwenz, someone who had once been Karwenz¡¯s equal.


    Karwenz Mist was such a gigantic headache for all powerful existences in the Chaos Abyss. Naturally, his older brother Rnd Mist would be viewed with equal importance.


    Salor, who had previously suffered against Rnd before, didn¡¯t dare to rx his guard one bit even though it appeared like Rnd was cking off in the back. He focused thirty percent of his attention on guarding against the centaur archer and forty percent against Rnd. But, the more tense he was, the more unavoidable it was that fatigue and anxiety woulde looking for him.


    Salor knew that anxiety would only bring further difficulties upon him. However, he was unable to rx his guard one bit. He only became more and more tense.


    ¡°Wolfpack tactics...¡±


    Wolves would typically act in packs. However, they would rarely use the full force of their numbers to win. They would typically surround their prey and continuously circle around it in order to avoid losses on their side. The wolves would continuously harass the prey to cause it to lose concentration and stamina after a long battle where the prey had to fully concentrate. Finally, when the prey lost focus, the harassment would instantly turn into fatal attacks. The fatigued prey would find release as the wolf behind it would bite through its neck.


    A wolfpack¡¯s tactic of surrounding prey without attacking was no highly difficult or rare tactic. Bandit groups in the mortal ne and all sorts of flesh-eating existences were equally skilled at using this basic tactic. But right now, this was the most suitable strategy to use against Salor. It made him feel quite aggrieved. He was unable to escape, he was unable to catch any of his enemies, and his injuries kept umting. Yet, he was unable to simrly injure his enemies.


    Kill the ¡°wolf leader¡± to resolve this situation? The wolf leader was far stronger than the little wolves. Rnd was also hiding in a safe spot while still threatening Salor. To Salor, even breaking free from the wolf leader¡¯s threat was nothing more than an extravagant desire.


    Salor felt like he was burning up with anxiety. He knew that his shorings had all been discovered by Rnd. If Rnd sessfully stalled him here and no reinforcements came, it was likely that he would die here in a battle of attrition sooner orter.


    Meanwhile, even though I clearly had the advantage, I was unable to be happy.


    ¡°It seems that we won¡¯t be able to win here so easily, either...¡±


    Even though my arrangements had been effective, I was just as anxious as Salor was. The very reason why I had chosen stalling and kiting tactics was because I figured that Adam¡¯s party had a great chance at victory. As long as I stalled Salor long enough and waited for them to reinforce us, of course our odds at victory here would be even better.


    ¡°Yet, Adam¡¯s group actually lost. Just how much longer can Casio and the adventuring team hold out...?¡±


    Even though Harloys¡¯ clone gave me information about how dangerous the situation was for Adam¡¯s party, I was in no hurry to go and save them. They were two districts away, so by the time I got there, it was likely that it would be toote. Also, if I left this ce, it was likely that not a single one from Casio¡¯s party would survive here.


    My newpanions¡¯ situation wasn¡¯t all that good. Apart from the fact that they were all individually far weaker than Salor, their seemingly powerful ice equipment was actually constantly draining them of their energy. They were wearing my Absolute Zero ice equipment right on their bodies, yet they were constantly active and sweating. With hot and cold shing against each other, that would be fatally draining on their stamina.


    And even without considering this, the frostbite on their arms and joints would eventually force them to toss down their ice weapons sooner orter.


    Although I didn¡¯t know how long Casio¡¯s party could hold out for, it would be obvious that Adam¡¯s party would copsepletely if I didn¡¯t do something. This was because their opponent was...


    ¡°Chaos War God Donatis actually came here in his true body? Does he have so much free time? He even concealed his true self as an incarnation! What could possibly be so important that he would keep such a low profile?¡±


    Indeed, Adam¡¯s group filled with top-ss SemiGod strength had been unable to beat Donatis¡¯s incarnation because that was no incarnation at all. It turned out that it was Donatis himself in his true body!


    Just what could possibly make Donatis personallye here, and even disguise himself as an incarnation in order to attract less attention...?


    At this moment, I suddenly connected all the dots. I instantly raised my head, and decided to ask them about what was on my mind.


    ¡°Casio, just what did you all discover? What was it that even made a Main God personally arrive here? Tell me the truth! Right now!¡±


    My words made the adventurers all pause in surprise. They all nced at each other, apparently unable toe to a decision.


    But the next instant, Casio gritted his teeth as he decided to tell me about this important secret for them.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, we met a person in the sixth level of the Chaos Abyss, someone who came in from the mortal ne...¡±

 Chapter 599 - Coincidence

    <h4>Chapter 599: Coincidence</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°...You¡¯re saying a mortal ne resident was dragged into a dimensional portal!? You met such a person in the 6th level of the Chaos Abyss?¡±


    I recalled that the 6th level of the Chaos Abyss was also a level of ice, just like the 7th level. The 6th level was also physically connected to the Wildsnow Forest Mountain district of the 7th level. I would be far too dumb if I couldn¡¯t guess what had happened.


    I was filled with immense delight, along with being slightly apologetic towards that unlucky individual. After all, there would be a 99% chance for an ordinary person who was teleported to the Chaos Abyss to die almost instantly. However, this person¡¯s arrival provided some incredibly important information¡ªthe ce where this Dimensional Door led to in the mortal ne!


    ¡°Where is that person? Is he together with you all?¡±


    I looked around at all the adventurers. The tiefling warrior had obvious inferno demonization traits. The human obviously wouldn¡¯t be the elf mage or dwarf priest. I couldn¡¯t see any humans with them, so could it be that the human was somewhere else?


    ¡°He was already dead before we even saw him. I should say that we only met his corpse.¡±


    The dwarf priest retreated to my side. This dwarf had a face covered in arge beard and a deep voice. It was impossible for me to tell if this dwarf was male or female... Many female dwarves these days were choosing to shave their beardspletely due to the beauty standards of other species. However, it would still be quitemon for dwarven adventurers not to shave often during an adventure, especially while running for their lives.


    ¡°Dead? Are you joking with me? Oh, I see...¡±


    I was astonished at first. Why would so many people be hunting Casio¡¯s team down if that human was dead already, with no more information to give? But then I thought about it some more. It would be incredibly unusual for an ordinary person not to die when suddenly teleported to an icy level in the Chaos Abyss.


    And in this magical world, information could still be obtained even from the dead.


    ¡°His belongings?¡±


    ¡°We have them.¡±


    That was all I needed to hear. Either Casio¡¯s adventuring team had been truly unlucky to meet with this, or they had to have received a mission from an Order or Hell God to search for that corpse and take his belongings.


    The corpse probably had no obvious identification on him. Otherwise, the dwarf priest would have informed our Gods already, and this incident would be over. There would be no need to take the corpse¡¯s belongings then.


    But, in this magical world, as long as there were clues and you were willing to pay a price, even the dead could talk.


    An undead archmage¡¯s soul-summoning spell, a space and time mage¡¯s Memory Recovery spell, an arch druid¡¯s Soul Scent spell, a God¡¯s prophecy-type Divine Art, and so on could all obtain information from a dead body or its belongings.


    As long as the price was paid, it would be quite easy to find out where this unlucky person hade from, especially since Gods would be willing to help out. It would even be possible to revive this dead person and have himself tell us where he was from.


    The adventuring team had obviously met with several battles already. It was obvious that they were fatigued and injured. It was likely that they had fought their entire way here. But, judging from their angry yet spirited attitude, and how they were fatigued but still had high morale, it seemed that they had yet to suffer a major loss. It also seemed that they hadn¡¯t lost any of their members yet.


    But, right when they entered the Ashen Furnace, even the Chaos War God Donatis personally came over. It would seem that the powerful existences in the Chaos Abyss had already noticed that information might leak about the Dimensional Door¡¯s location in the mortal ne, so they came over to personally crush the adventuring team that would be nothing more than tiny insects to them.


    ¡°I never expected that the famous Rnd would personallye to meet us. Our God truly takes such good care of us. However, are our Passion Knight allies still safe?¡±


    Passion Knights? That was a rtively famous Holy Knight group from the Lanbing district. The moment that I heard this name, I recalled that group of overly tense Holy Knights...


    ¡°Paha, I voluntarily took work that I didn¡¯t have to again?¡±


    At this moment, I finally realized everything. It wasn¡¯t that Beyana and the other Hell Gods had wanted me to work for free. They had already arranged for this Holy Knight group to be Casio¡¯s team¡¯s reinforcements. It was just that I had too many years of experience of being pushed into pitfalls, so I thought too much into things, and voluntarily took this work...


    Donatis personally arriving here was also something we couldn¡¯t do anything about, since the information that we might find out the location of the Dimensional Door in the mortal ne had leaked already. Donatis even personally came here just to prevent anything unexpected from happening. He wasn¡¯t even targeting me to begin with. Perhaps he would be quite astonished to see me here.


    ¡°Rnd...¡±


    ¡°...Harloys, don¡¯t say anything. I know exactly what you want to say. Life is like a box of choctes. You never know what you¡¯re gonna get... So let¡¯s just let the past be the past. I just have to get used to my dark history...¡±


    ¡°I just wanted to tell you to hurry up ande help us! He¡¯s too powerful, we can¡¯t handle him anymore!¡±


    Fine then, this was not quite the time for joking around. I would have to hurry and deal with the trouble before me.


    As I looked at Salor, who was still filled with energy, and the Chaos War God who had already erged himself visibly in the distance, I was actually quite relieved.


    It was lucky that Casio¡¯s team had met us. Otherwise, if their Holy Knight group reinforcements met with Donatis and Salor, it was likely that even all of thembined wouldn¡¯t be enough to stop these enemies. The information would have been cut off before it could leak.


    ¡°This guy is incredibly durable...¡±


    Even though Salor was trapped with no escape, andpletely unable to even counterattack, he didn¡¯t show a single sign of fatigue. In fact, he seemed like he became more energized as the fight went on. Even though he was focusing fully on defense, his concentration didn¡¯tpse one bit. If this went on, it was likely that the ¡°youngster¡± adventurers would be defeated first.


    Rather than worrying about the enemies in front of him, Salor suddenly paid more attention to the tremendous War God who suddenly arose in the distance. Salor kept looking over in that direction with an expression of unmistakable... fear!


    Yes, correct¡ªfear. The devils and demons had just finished a vicious war in the 7th level of the Chaos Abyss, a war which involved Salor¡¯s direct boss, Sarwenstan. Since Donatis had personally arrived here, it was natural that Donatis would be rted to the demons fighting for control over the 7th level¡¯s Dimensional Door. It could be said that Salor and Donatis were mortal enemies on opposite sides.


    ¡°What will Donatis do if he arrives right now at this battle between us and Salor? Will he instantly kill Salor first?¡±


    ¡°...He would kill you first. Just think about what you did to the Chaos War God! Can anyone in the worldpare to you in taunting ability?¡±


    What did I do? All I did was lock him away in Hell for a few years, had my pet dog beat him up for a few years, and then Iughed at him, saying that he couldn¡¯t even beat my pet dog. After that, I tossed him into the Order Gods¡¯ upper nes so that he could enjoy a Holy Light bath... I suddenly felt like it would be quite normal for him to want to kill me first. It would be best if I wasn¡¯t so suicidal.


    But, for some strange reason, Harloys no longer sounded as anxious as before. She even had the free time to snark at me. I could also hear some strange mor on her end.


    ¡°What happened? Someone intervened?¡±


    ¡°A group of idiotic knights suddenly rushed over. They actually dared to charge at Donatis directly. This is nothing more thanplete suicide. However, we¡¯ll be able to hold out for a while longer until they¡¯re all dead.¡±


    ¡°...Are those knights shouting slogans like ¡®for the Holy Light¡¯, ¡®for our God¡¯, and so on?¡±


    ¡°No, they¡¯re all gritting their teeth in silence while dying. However, they told us to ¡®run away with the items¡¯, ¡®you must bring it to that ce¡¯, and so on as they challenged the Chaos Main God with their physical bodies... They¡¯re not even trying to dodge his attacks. Don¡¯t you agree that all of them areplete idiots?¡±


    I was unable toment on this. Even though the Holy Knights clearly had such praiseworthy wills to sacrifice themselves, Harloys made it all seem almostical.


    We had misunderstood whom Donatis was hunting down, and ended up voluntarily attracting trouble by challenging a frighteningly powerful enemy like him. We had even mistaken his true body for his incarnation. Meanwhile, this Holy Knight group mistook Adam¡¯s party for Casio¡¯s party on the wrong battlefield, but found the right enemy despite these two wrongs... Why do I feel so confused? Why do I feel like it was so hard to be serious here?


    ¡°Stop thinking already. With all that chaotic stuff you just thought about, you¡¯re confusing me as well. The rtionships here are so messy... It seems that we can¡¯t have all these cannon fodder guys dying. Little brat Adam, your rest time is over. Go up and tank for them.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words were still ringing in my ears. I would have to speed things up here.


    Since people were dying every minute over at Adam¡¯s end, I naturally would no longer be able to take things so leisurely here. It was now time to kill Salor at any cost.


    ...


    Very few people knew that the fairies¡¯ information stands which were everywhere would also sometimes offer bounties. However, there were some bounties that nobody ever picked, or bounties that nobody was ever able to aplish. These bounties became known as the ¡°Terrible Bounties¡±.


    The fairies¡¯ bounties, #3 ranked Terrible Bounty poster.


    Most Wanted Target: Beifeng Herault.


    His crimes: Beifeng. Guilty of: Beifeng. (If you don¡¯t understand this word, please check the ¡°New Generation¡¯s Dictionary (San Antonio Official Edition)¡±. There¡¯s a detailed exnation of this word, but minors and women should refrain from looking it up.)


    Dead or alive? For the sake of world peace and your personal health, please kill him at all costs. We will only pay the bounty for a dead Beifeng. We don¡¯t want a living Beifeng!


    Recently seen at: Holy Lake, Source of Elves, Ardell Lake.


    Victim 1¡¯s statement (the head priest of all silver elves ranked #1):


    ¡°The Holy Lake is a holy ground for all elves. Legends say that this is where our Gods created us. This is also the bathing ground for our divine beasts and Superior Elves, the holy ground where we worship our Gods. That bastard dared to do disgusting actions in our Holy Lake, polluting our water source for several hundred days, causing... causing several hundred of our divine beasts that bathed and drank from theke water to... be pregnant.


    ¡°Nobody dares to stop his ugly actions. Our female noble Superior Elves and priestesses were all seriously psychologically scarred. Many elves evenmitted suicide... I, the highest-ranking head priest of all silver elves, dere that as long as this monster is killed, I am willing to reward the yer with the noble title of Elven King, elven artwork worth one million gold pieces, and two pieces of God Equipment! We only want to see him dead!¡±


    Victim 2¡¯s statement (Mother Earth Goddess priestess):


    ¡°He dared to desecrate our Goddess in front of everyone in broad daylight... he did such a thing to the sculpture of our Mother Earth Goddess, and somehow transformed the sculpture¡¯s appearance as if she was pregnant. That¡¯s so...¡±


    Victim 3¡¯s statement (a half-deerman that Beifeng abandoned):


    ¡°He lied to me! He said that he loved my strong muscles, but actually only wanted me to get pregnant with his child. Oh, by the way, I¡¯m male...¡±


    Alright, since victims one through ten (there were more, but there was no more space on the wanted poster) all brought out the entirety of their riches to reward whomever couldplete this bounty, anyone could easily go from a pauper to a king in a single night if only they could kill Beifeng...


    Just the God Equipment alone offered in the reward had already totaled seven or eight. This tremendous treasure would make even the Gods tempted. So, when the Gods teamed up to hunt Beifeng down, he was no longer able to remain in the mortal ne, so he jumped into a dimensional portal leading to the Chaos Abyss...

 Chapter 600 - Death

    <h4>Chapter 600: Death</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    This cruel battle seemed like it was nearing its end. The surrounded devil general was nowpletely bloodied all over as if he was a wild bull trapped by a wolf pack. His gigantic and deformed body was covered in injuries all over. His red blood kept dripping onto the metallic streets of the Ashen Furnace.


    The young tiefling warrior in the adventuring team, Alswin, was delighted to see this. It would be such honor and glory to so easily kill off an incredibly famous devil. He could already see his newfound reputation as he gloriously returned to his hometown...


    ¡°The great Demon God Sback will be so proud of me. Maybe he¡¯ll even promote me to be his God Envoy...¡±


    Alswin¡¯s blood boiled as he thought about how he could potentially bask in the glory of Sback. Since Alswin was a demon half-blood tiefling who had survived for one hundred years down in the Chaos Abyss, he experienced countless humiliations that made him feel absolutely zero kinship with his ¡°rtives¡±.


    Demons and devils would view these half-blood tieflings as weak andcking in potential. The tieflings¡¯ innate bloodlines would also be suppressed by true demon and devil bloodlines. Whenever a pureblood demon met a tiefling, it would be quitemon to hear the word ¡°bastard¡±. Casually insulting and killing a tiefling would be nothing more than habitual fun.


    Apart from incredibly few tiefling gathering grounds, devils and demons were the mostmon residents of the Chaos Abyss. Alswin no longer remembered just how many demons and devils had humiliated him before; now that he had the chance to personally kill Salor the Berserk ughterer, that would be such glory and honor!


    Salor¡¯s entire body was now covered with ice spears and ice arrows. He looked just like a living practice target. His most dire injury was an arrow that had directly pierced his right eye. Copious amounts of blood constantly oozed from that injury. If it weren¡¯t for devils¡¯ incredible durability, he should have long since died already.


    At this instant, another ice arrow turned a curve and shot in from Salor¡¯s right eye¡¯s blind spot. This arrow instantly pierced Salor¡¯s remaining left eye, and now he was truly blind.


    ¡°...Salor, I, Alswin Dimo, will be taking your head!¡± Alswin roared as he leaped up into the sky. He had this chance to take down someone much greater than him right here and now, so of course he wouldn¡¯t let it go. Although Rnd had previously said that he was forbidden from getting anywhere close to melee range, Salor was blind already! How was Alswin supposed to be famous if he let go of such a chance?


    Even though Alswin got along quite well with his teammates, he would still never give this chance at striking the fatal blow to another!


    ¡°Wenna from my hometown is still waiting for me. When I be famous, I¡¯ll return home and get married to her... Eh, why does that headless corpse look familiar? What¡¯s Casio and the others shouting...¡±


    ¡°Alswin!¡±


    ¡°...They¡¯re shouting for me? I... I died?¡±


    The head flying through the airnded on the ground. The head with an expression of disbelief was definitely not Salor¡¯s. Judging from the shocked expression, the tiefling warrior still didn¡¯t believe that he had already died.


    The tiefling warrior who entered the melee range, intending to strike the fatal blow, had now be a headless corpse with blood spurting everywhere. Alswin had been instantly killed by Salor.


    ¡°Heehee, this is the first one...¡±


    Only two horrifying holes were left where Salor¡¯s eyes had been. However, Salor had an expression of utter delight. He was using his curved tongue to lick his gnome-like deformed right hand that was still covered in hot enemy blood.


    Salor squinted, and seemed quite happy with the taste of this fresh blood. His rxed attitude showed quite obviously that he looked down on his enemies.


    He then opened up his eyes once more as they had now been regenerated. His murky yellow eyes were filled with a prideful expression.


    ¡°As expected, it was a trap. However, that tiefling...¡±


    I felt quite helpless about suddenly losing an ally.


    Didn¡¯t I already tell everyone that the n was to fight a slow battle of attrition from range? Why did this idiot rush up tomit suicide? Even if he believed that Salor was blind and wanted to ambush him, why would he shout as he charged? Did he think that it would be unfair? Was he worried that Salor wouldn¡¯t be able to pinpoint his location?


    Demons and devils would always have powerful regenerative capabilities. The higher level a devil was, the more difficult it would be to kill himpletely. Although these ice arrows and ice spears were made of my Absolute Zero ice, meaning that Salor would be unable to destroy these weapons with his ability, they were only ¡°ice weapons¡± that didn¡¯t have any anti-regenerative properties.


    The strongest member of Casio¡¯s team was probably the fallen angel Ai. However, she was still only at the peak of Saint rank. She was still quite far from entering Myth rank, so she would be far from being a match for Salor.


    ¡°If only Adam was here...¡±


    A weapon¡¯s attack power would be directly proportionate to the wielder¡¯s power level. If I gave an ice sword to Adam, it was likely that Salor¡¯s head would be cut off here instead. However, when used by these adventurers, at most the ice weapons would cause Salor to bleed and be scratched on the surface. The adventurers would be unable to cause any fatal injuries. Neither was I counting on them to actually kill Salor. After I determined that Salor had no ranged attacks, the mission I gave to them was to do nothing more than circle around and constantly harass him.


    What if it turned out that Salor could use ranged attacks? Not only would I not have these weak adventurers go up against him, even I would be running away. However, Salor had leaked information about his own abilities in his previous fight against Little Red.


    Although Salor seemed quite wretched as he waspletely covered in blood, I knew this was most likely nothing more than a trap¡ªpretending to appear weak. I had already told the adventuring team about this possibility, telling them not to be too greedy. However, someone among them had still fallen for such a simple trap.


    Even though Casio and the others were all veteran adventurers that had experienced hundreds of battles, they were still quite obviously shaken by their teammate¡¯s death. Now that their hands and feet were either trembling or pausing slightly, many mistakes were made. Sometimes, being slow by even half a second would make the difference between life and death.


    Even more fatal was that this tiefling warrior¡¯s unexpected death caused an obvious weakness to appear in the formation surrounding Salor.


    ¡°We¡¯re also almost out of arrows...¡±


    My Absolute Zero ice had all been stored from when I first made it. I didn¡¯t have that much to begin with, nor had I prepared that muchbat equipment with it. Casio was using ice arrows unsparingly as if they were metal arrows, so the consumption was huge.


    ns would never be able to adapt fast enough to actual situations. Perhaps my original n had been derailedpletely already from the point that we discovered that Donatis was here in his true body.


    *ng!*


    My ice sword once again shed against Salor¡¯s battle axe. But this time, his saw-toothed battle axe was frozen solid. I would have to make up for the formation¡¯s weakness myself now.


    ¡°Rnd!¡±


    Salor¡¯s angry roar echoed in my ears. However, I threw away my ice sword that had shattered from the impact, and brought out a new one.


    In just one exchange of blows, Salor had actually managed to swing his axe nine times. His speed exceeded the speed of sound like it was nothing to him.


    Salor had hidden his true abilities quite well. His distorted left side¡¯s muscr body had astonishing physical power. Meanwhile, his distorted gnome-like right side that everyone viewed as a failure in leveling himself up actually possessed astonishing speed!


    Salor had a strange body with a strange bnce and a bug-like personal ability. It would be impossible for most people to defend against his attacks without knowing about his super speed, especially since all his attacks would be definite one hit kills if they evernded. No wonder Salor had the wondrous reputation of ¡°being undefeatable in melee against anyone who was not a Main God¡± despite not even being a Devil Lord.


    I didn¡¯t have much time left. Adam¡¯s party¡¯s battle was bing ever fiercer. The gigantic Chaos War God was already destroying the entire battlefield. It was probably time for me to resolve myself.


    ¡°System, I¡¯ll give you Lasnina¡¯s curse gem. Exchange for ¡®that¡¯!¡±

 Chapter 601 - Dawn

    <h4>Chapter 601: Dawn</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Holy Light, do you see that enemy...¡±


    I kneeled with one knee on the ground as I fervently prayed. However, I wasn¡¯t praying to any God.


    Pure Holy Light. Light of Salvation. The Holy Light which could dispel Chaos and return anything to Order. I believed in the Holy Light, just as how I believed in Law.


    Power itself had no justice. However, what power could bring was where its value would show.


    Karn, the God of Holy Light, had brought Holy Light into this world. I looked down on him as he had be nothing more than an automated divine power server with no sense of self. I viewed the Holy Church, which was blessed by this Holy Light, with hostility. However, I had never viewed the Holy Light itself with enmity.


    That was because I knew why Holy Light had been born, its true meaning...


    ¡°In the long, dark night, pure light is the only hope for the weak. Even if the messengers of Holy Light have fundamentally changed, Holy Light still has the power to protect people.¡±


    A golden light was created in my tightly sped hands. The light of hope ascended to be the light of protection. Yet, this was only the beginning.


    I had studied the history of this world before. Karn had brought Holy Light into this world for the sake of ordinary people. As history passed, the Holy Church was born, followed by Holy Knights, priests of Holy Light, and so on, all in order to fight against the endless undead and demons, and in order to protect weak and ordinary people. I respected, and even venerated, such a Karn.


    However, he had fallen in the end. After he achieved sess, he gave up his own sense of self. That was no different from dying...


    What was fatal was that after Holy Light lost its sense of self, the Holy Church lost their just leader, and pure authority finally transformed into overwhelming pride. The Holy Church and the teachings of the Holy Church were now overwhelmingly filled with the original sin of pride. They had gone off-track from the original path of protection that Holy Light was supposed to be.


    Priests of Holy Light no longer lived lives of ascetism while traveling between viges. They no longer cured the farmers¡¯ pains from their hard work or the city guards¡¯ injuries. Instead, priests of Holy Light now lived in extravagantly beautiful churches, living off of farmers¡¯ donations, but only serving nobles and kings, curing minor aches and pains that were unimportant.


    Even more fatal was that starting from an unknown period of time, the authority in the Holy Church started resting with the Cardinals. These Cardinals that never went outside now ruled over those who had many aplishments in the field. Those who did nothing but waste time at the Holy Church¡¯s headquarters were actually ranking far higher than those on the frontlines who sweated and worked hard every day.


    Past heroes¡¯ descendants were able to rank even higher than frontline Holy Knights and priests of Holy Light just because of their bloodlines. Devout belief and Holy Light Divine Art cultivation was reced by overlyplex religious rituals. Hard work for the sake of obtainingbat achievements wouldn¡¯tpare to a single vicious rumor spread about you. Ten years of hard work cultivating couldn¡¯tpare to a single sycophant at a party. Holy Light had originally been the light of protection, yet this role had been forgotten by the original heroes¡¯ descendants.


    When the highest-ranking members of the Holy Church became paper pushers who only wore extravagant robes, when the pope changed from a warrior into a highly skilled scheming politician, and when the true warriors voluntarily covered themselves up, feeling that their appearances covered in blood were embarrassing, didn¡¯t that mean that some things had fundamentally changed?


    ¡°Since there won¡¯t be a present and a future without the past, then let us seek the past, the true essence of Holy Light... Karn¡¯s spear!¡±


    I was now holding a holy artifact that I had exchanged from Astrya by using Lasnina¡¯s cursed gem. It was an old and battered iron spear that the God of Holy Light Karn had previously used when he was still human.


    This formerly sharp spear had now beenpletely dulled with the passage of time. There were zero decorations on this spear, and it was just one of manymon spears that had been mass produced. However, this spear had apanied Karn for the entirety of his difficult journey in establishing Holy Light. This was his weapon of protection that he had used to develop his entirely new path at the time. This was also the highest-level holy artifact that the Holy Church¡¯s records indicated as being lost.


    Although I held this iron spear, I didn¡¯t intend to use it as a weapon. I slid my finger down the end of the spear, and its pointed tip vanished into dust in burning holy mes. The entire tip portion of the weapon fell off.


    ¡°Its sharp point has already been corroded by time. However, this spear¡¯s body can still represent the source of Holy Light...¡±


    This holiest spear of all had already been reimed by time. All that remained was an unassuming iron spear body.


    While the resources used for constructing a Myth-ranked weapon would be important, even more important would be the ¡°way of thinking¡± within the resource, for it couldbine the resource and Concept together. This was the foundational theory for crafting Myth-ranked weapons, as well as the source of their power.


    Back in Hell, the Light of Salvation was a Concept that also represented Time. Meanwhile, the core concept of my nned Holy Light sword was naturally the long history of Holy Light, which meant Holy Light¡¯s past, present, and future...


    Nothing would be more suitable to represent the past of Holy Light than this run-down remnant of the origin of Holy Light!


    ¡°The past of Holy Light was the light of protection. It¡¯s always remained so... Even in the long, dark night, we knights of protection have never forgotten to seek guidance from the light.¡±


    I opened up my tightly clenched hands, igniting my palms with a divine light that dispelled the endless dark grayness of the Chaos Abyss.


    I enjoyed studying history because only by understanding history would one be able to understand the present. Even though the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups had bepletely rotten to the point of fundamentally changing, Holy Knights still trod the original path of protection.


    Many years ago, the first batch of Holy Knights in history had fought for the sake of protecting their homes and people. Ever since then, whenever this world met with catastrophe and disaster, Holy Knights had always been present to defend the world.


    Next to my side, the old battle hammer which represented protection and salvation slowly floated into the air.


    When holy mes that represented rebirth and destruction ignited on the battle hammer, this God Equipment battle hammer met its end and rebirth. I felt conflicting feelings within my heart. I felt pain, but also delight and joy.


    ¡°Even though time has passed, the inheritance of Holy Light¡¯s path of protection has never been lost. It¡¯s simply changed its form. While the holy artifacts may be destroyed, the will of the path of protection will still be passed down...¡±


    The holy mes dissipated, only to reveal that nothing except the hammer head remained in the air.


    I let go of the spear¡¯s body, and it naturally flew by itself to meet with the hammer head.


    *ng!*


    This metallic shing sounded to me as if it was the most pleasing divine melody. However, the demons and demonic ascendants felt pain as if they had all been struck by thunder.


    The next instant, Holy Light lit up the entire world. Apart from myself, everyone lost their senses of hearing and then sight.


    Salor¡¯s just regenerated eyes directly exploded, andrge amounts of blood also poured out from his ears. His entire body had the stench of burning flesh. As for the unfortunate demons in the nearby areas, they were directly vaporized. The demons farther away probably barely retained their lives.


    Yet it wasn¡¯t only my enemies that received a powerful attack...


    Casio, the inferno demonized centaur, was crying in pain, having copsed on the ground. His inferno runes and body parts had transformed into nothing but ck dust under this Holy Light¡¯s illumination. Fallen angel Ai¡¯s ck wings curled up as tears streamed down her pretty face. However, all her tears were ckish-red with blood. This prideful fallen angel had an expression of utter despair and panic as if she was a helpless child confronted with something she couldn¡¯t control.


    I could only shake my head helplessly as I looked around. Right now, I didn¡¯t have the power to help them, nor was it the time to be thinking too much about such things.


    I reached out my hand, and took the slowly descending ball of light.


    ¡°What... what is this...?¡±


    Salor still had the strength to ask this question as he writhed around on the ground in pain. However, I had no intention of answering him.


    Even though it was probably impossible for Salor¡¯s pierced and melted eardrums to hear anything, I was unable to answer him regardless. Controlling two top-level resources tobine into my Myth-ranked weapon was already the very limits of what I could do. Talking would be an extravagance.


    I touched the ball of light. In just an instant, all the light dissipated, and I now held a broken sword with only the hilt part.


    The sword hilt was crafted out of the earlier spear¡¯s body. The small portion of de attached to the hilt had been transformed out of the battle hammer¡¯s head.


    This sword had no decorations, nor did it need any decorations. The sword hilt was round, simple, and primitive, yet it would attract the attention of countless top-level existences.


    I lifted up the sword hilt, causing endless light to rise up behind me as if a sun was slowly rising from my back.


    ¡°As expected, this is all that can be done for now...¡±


    Even though I had achieved thebination of my resources and Concept required for creating a Myth-ranked weapon, I stillcked two core resources representing my desired Concepts of ¡°spreading¡± and ¡°gathering¡± light, along with a top-level resource which represented the ¡°future¡± of Holy Light. That was why my Holy Light sword was still only halfplete.


    ¡°...But, this is enough for now!¡±


    I slowly lowered the sword hilt. Nothing was in front of the broken sword, but the famous and powerful Salor was screaming and crying and despairing. He knew that when this broken swordnded, he would meet his end.


    The moment that I swung my broken sword, everyone¡¯s vision was blinded by the light yet again, and when the light dissipated, all that remained was some ck dust that represented Salor¡¯s previous existence.


    A gust of wind blew past, scattering the dust. The former Salor the Berserk ughterer had now disappeared into history.


    Only now did I have the energy to answer Salor¡¯s question, giving the name I had in mind for my Holy Light.


    ¡°This is ¡®Dawn¡¯. My holy sword, Dawn.¡±

 Chapter 602 - Scheme

    <h4>Chapter 602: Scheme</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck


    <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Light Which Illuminates Despair From the Brink, the Guardian Battle Hammer of Dawn Envoys!¡±


    This was the original name of this God Equipment battle hammer.


    During the long, dark night, the Holy Knights who brought hope to ordinary people had the most glorious title: Dawn Envoy. This was the origin of this battle hammer¡¯s name as it slowly evolved to be a piece of God Equipment through receiving more and more inheritances.


    Perhaps this God Equipment battle hammer filled with history no longer existed now. But, at the very least, I felt that my new holy sword should continue the inheritance of the Dawn Envoy name.


    The previous generation¡¯s Dawn Envoy was Estrada. As for this generation... since Estrada gave me the inheritance, I suppose that would make me the Dawn Envoy.


    My short sword hilt was even simpler than I¡¯d expected. This sword would never need any decorations. Its history and inheritance would be the greatest embellishment possible.


    Of course, while the Dawn Envoy inheritance remained unbroken, its future inheritors would have to practice how to wield a sword instead of a battle hammer.


    ¡°...Why am I bothering with things so far in the future?¡±


    I shook my head. I didn¡¯t have a single Holy Knight disciple. It was still far too early to find a new inheritor, and neither was I on the verge of death... Should I find some useful seeds and give the inheritance whomever lived the longest? Oh, now I finally understood why Estrada gave me the battle hammer. All of his other disciples had probably died (haha).


    ¡°Dawn holy sword... it¡¯s still iplete.¡±


    I ced the sword hilt at my waist. My holy sword stillcked a main resource rted to the future of Holy Light, along with two core resources regarding the Concepts of gathering and condensing light. It was still like a machine thatcked several of its main parts. I would be reduced to tears if I used my sword to attack someone but it ended up breaking instead.


    ¡°...Even though it¡¯s only the spear left behind by Karn back in the day, my System actually charged me 150,000 Fate Points. Such a ck-hearted merchant.¡±


    If I had a choice, I would have preferred to only craft my sword after all the resources had been gathered. A half-finished product would remain unstable. It didn¡¯t matter if its functions and attack power were iplete, but it would be truly troublesome if the sword self-destructed due to its instability.


    I had seen this spear avable through my System¡¯s shop long ago, and chosen it as one of my nned resources. I had also been saving up my points to purchase it. Now, I had spent all my points. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that defeating Lasnina had rewarded me with 20,000 Fate Points, along with me using her curse gem as a deposit, it likely would have taken me another six months at minimum to obtain enough Fate Points.


    My System... Astrya had several other simr items avable for purchasing. For instance, a crown belonging to some ancient Sea God, demonic sculptures from the great demons¡¯ empire, and so on. While such items all sounded amazing and filled with history, the original owners had all been dead for countless years already. Besides, I didn¡¯t know what these items¡¯ functions were, and they were all ridiculously expensive.


    Although I was able to take out a loan, the power of karma was something that wouldn¡¯t ept anything being owed. It was most likely that Astrya was taking some kickbacks for herself.


    Of course, she would never admit to such a thing. If it hadn¡¯t been for the fact that the curse gem was so appealing to her, I wouldn¡¯t have even been able to take out a loan.


    ¡°It would seem that I need to obtain more Fate Points...¡±


    Previously, Astrya had constantly urged me toe down to the Chaos Abyss. She kept bbering on about how ¡°It¡¯s not only Karwenz who can be stronger by fighting down in the Chaos Abyss.¡± Perhaps it was all for this current moment.


    Astrya as Karn¡¯s System from back in the day wouldn¡¯t have nearly been so powerful. Only I had the opportunity to obtain points and exchange for resources after killing my enemies, which would lead to me swiftly leveling up. This was all mostly because Karwenz and myself were the split-off twin souls of the Child of the Abyss.


    I shook my head, and decided against pondering such a matter too deeply.


    ¡°Right, Astrya, I¡¯m going to pay off my loan immediately with the points I just earned. Give that curse gem back to me.¡±


    Although sealing away Lasnina had given me 20,000 Fate Points, killing Salor had rewarded me with 40,000 Fate Points just now. This wasn¡¯t because Salor was stronger than Lasnina, or that he had stronger karmic connections. It was simply because Salor had died morepletely.


    Lasnina had been sealed away. Even though my Seal of the Four Elements was theoretically indestructible, she still hadn¡¯t died. It would be impossible topletely kill high-level demons and devils except under special circumstances. Meanwhile, as for Salor... Salor was no longer alive at all.


    Holy Light was forever the natural enemy of all undead, demons, devils, and other creatures of Chaos. Such creatures¡¯ very existences were fundamentally the distorted power of Chaos. Meanwhile, Holy Light had cleansing properties that could remove all distortions and dispel Chaos. This would mean fundamentally erasing their very existence.


    But, in most situations, Holy Light would at most be able to exile demons back down to the lower nes. This was because a tiny amount of water would be unable to put out a major fire.


    To use an analogy about why Devil Lords and Demon Lords were so difficult to destroy, an ordinary Holy Light priest¡¯s Holy Light would be like a bucket of water, while the Devil Lords and Demon Lords would be the equivalent of raging volcanoes. Not only would a single bucket of water be useless, even the Gods¡¯ powers that were like torrential rainstorms inparison would still be unable to put out the volcano. Apart from the amount of water that was stillcking, the most important reason was that the source of these volcanoes would be in the endless Chaos Abyss.


    Meanwhile, my Dawn holy sword that I¡¯d paid such a great price to obtain would be the equivalent of a weapon that could use earthquakes to dig through to the fundamental source of the volcano, directly attacking the source and cleansing it.


    Being able to do this was far beyond the evolution of a Concept. This was using an enemy¡¯s very existence as a clue to surpass all limitations and attack their fundamental origin, cleansing all distortions.


    This would have been absolutely impossible to aplish without the Concept of Time. However, the two major Concepts of Time and Holy Light had already beenbined into one at Hell, which was how this holy sword of mine could theoretically be born.


    In theory, in front of theplete version of this sword, not even a Devil Lord or Karwenz would be able to boast indestructible, eternal bodies.


    Correct, I had crafted this sword especially to deal with the most powerful demon and undead enemies. As for the final boss I expected to deal with? That was probably obvious.


    In this sword¡¯s design, it didn¡¯t even have a sharp de capable of hurting ordinary people. Basically, this sword would have nothing more than some blinding light abilities against enemies that weren¡¯t creatures of Chaos. But, if my enemy was a creature of Chaos... Salor had been the best experimental subject. I was lucky that he was only a devil general. If I had been facing a Devil Lord or a Demon Earl, I wouldn¡¯t have dared to bring out a halfpleted product. I would¡¯ve regretted it endlessly if my holy sword had broken by itself.


    Now, in front of this holy sword that was the natural counter to all creatures of Chaos, Salor the Berserk ughterer directly became the first cleansed target of this newly born sword. No matter how many techniques he had prepared beforehand to revive himself, they would all be useless because his very fundamental ¡°source¡± had been cleansed.


    If I could gather the remaining resources toplete my sword, giving my sword itsplete powers and functions... I felt like I could change my title to something like ¡°Dust Envoy¡±, for all undead and demons would be nothing but dust before me.


    I put away my holy sword. Fallen angel Ai and inferno centaur Casio had yet to recover, so I had their teammates take care of them while I focused on the other battle raging on not far away.


    The gigantic War God was so familiar. Even the giants¡¯ buildings weren¡¯t tall enough for him, as he broke through the ceilings. Donatis had given us plenty of trouble in the several years that he stayed in Hell, but we had had plenty of Main God existences with thousands or tens of thousands of years of experience to keep him in check back then. Right now, all thebat strength we had were some SemiGods with only a few hundred or few thousand years of experience. How to take him down would truly be a problem.


    The sword hilt at my waist gave off a faint glow that aimed straight towards the Chaos War God. It was as if my sword was inviting me to take it into battle again right after being born. Even though the holy sword was still iplete, true Myth-ranked weapons would have their own will and pride. Yet, I unhesitatingly restrained my sword.


    ¡°Stop joking around. It would be suicidal to have you fight against such an unsuitable opponent. You weren¡¯t created as a counter to him...¡±


    Donatis¡¯s species was Chaos Evil God rather than demon. That was the truly troublesome part.


    To ordinary people, perhaps a Demon Main God would seem no different from a demon. However, the truth was that the so-called Chaos Evil Gods were no fundamentally different from the Order True Gods. Their Concepts were their personal Divine Concepts and right to be Gods... It was likely that some perceptive readers among you might be able to tell already that Chaos Evil Gods were actually a type of order creature to begin with. It was just that the Chaos Abyss had granted them the powers of Chaos. Many of the Chaos Evil Gods had formerly been Order True Gods to begin with.


    Would Gods of darkness, filled with negativity, also be Order Gods? Just think about it. Weren¡¯t darkness, violence, revenge, and assassination also Concepts among Order? Any discipline that went overboard would be tyranny. Judgement meted out in the name of justice would only be separated from bloody revenge by the thinnest of lines. If you distorted those so-called Divine Concepts just slightly and gave them different names, that would be the truth of the Chaos Evil Gods.


    Winds on the sea could help boats travel swifter. However, stronger windstorms would only sink boats to the bottom of the sea. The Queen of Storms, whom countless fishermen and sailors feared, had previously been a Guardian God who protected the peace of the sea. Anslo, the Elf Main God, had just recently fallen and joined the Chaos Abyss. Now, he had already begun taking over all administrative rights over fallen elves. His new fallen elf priests were incredibly active now.


    My Dawn holy sword had the power to cleanse distortion and Chaos. But while the Chaos Evil Gods possessed the power to distort Order, the Gods themselves were fundamentally still Concepts of Order. In order to defeat Donatis, I would require another sword, my magic sword capable of destroying all Order. But that sword... If my Dawn holy sword only had its sword hilt, then, well, that sword¡¯s design blueprint was still iplete.


    ¡°Such a headache. Meeting a final boss level opponent right away? How am I supposed to y such a terrible game?¡±


    I could only helplessly clutch my head. I thought about every single ace I possessed, but not a single one would be able to deal with Donatis. If he¡¯d had any weaknesses we knew about, he would have died back at Hell already.


    Besides, the previous fight against him at Hell had also exposed many of my aces. He had personally seen all of my new four major elements of Hell. As an experienced veteran warrior, he would naturally analyze those elementspletely. He also knew the traits of my new Cycle of Reincarnation. It would be basically impossible to take him by surprise.


    As for negotiating peace...


    ¡°...When mentioning Hell, I remember how he summoned all his heroic spirits to the battlefield. ording to the dimensionalws of Hell, not a single one of his heroic spirits would be able to leave. The heroic spirits he¡¯d umted over countless millennia were all ruined as so many of his devout worshippers and God Envoys either died or were stuck in Hell. No wonder he would hate me so much, always dering that he would kill me. There¡¯s probably no choice except to fight seriously against him now.¡±


    What should I do? As long as I was around, negotiation would be impossible...


    However, a scheme suddenly popped into my mind when I looked at the adventuring team that was the cause of all this mess. Perhaps I could think outside the box with some new tricks.

 Chapter 603 - Warrior’s Honor

    <h4>Chapter 603: Warrior¡¯s Honor</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Ashen Furnace city, which had experienced countless years already, seemed like it might finally meet its end today. This was because the city met with its most dangerous invader ever¡ªChaos War God Donatis.


    The gigantic God was furious for an unknown reason. Every time that he sliced with his ck greatsword, the entire city trembled as thend of the Chaos Abyss was unable to withstand his attacks.


    The mighty aura around the furious War God tore apart even the gray sky. When the local residents found that Chaos War God Donatis was involved in a fight here, even the most vicious Demon Lords in the area tucked in their tails and pretended not to be at home.


    ¡°No matter who they are, they¡¯re all dead meat!¡±


    Donatis¡¯s name was famed throughout the entire Chaos Abyss. Even the most idiotic of demons would still know who this famous Chaos Faction vanguard was.


    Most residents here shut themselves in their homes, praying in despair that this battle would swiftly end. However, there were also many tiefling thieves, demon warriors, ck knights, and so on who hurriedly ran out. Most of them were Donatis¡¯s worshippers. They simply desired to watch the battle between the strong from front-row seats.


    The nearby rooftops around the battlefield were filled with powerful individuals. Even the weakest would be Gold rank... As for why they were all powerful individuals, this was because the weak would instantly be killed by stray projectiles before they even got close to this battlefield.


    ¡°Haha, I actually got an opportunity to watch my God¡¯s majestic form in battle!¡±


    Most of Donatis¡¯s worshippers werebat maniacs. A few years back, Donatis held a heroic spirit ceremony among his worshippers, having them kill each other, and picked the survivors as his heroic spirits and God Envoys. This made Donatis even more famous in the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°Such a pity that we missed that opportunity. Otherwise, we could also have be part of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s vanguard!¡±


    Manic demon warriors were running around on the streets. They were filled with bloodthirst as they watched the mighty figure of the Chaos War God from afar. In their minds, no matter why Donatis was so surprisingly angry, his opponent would soon be sliced and diced into tiny pieces. They all felt that they would miss the show if they arrived toote.


    Yet, a surprising scene suddenly happened...


    A bolt of lightning streaked through the sky and struck Donatis right in the head. The next instant, the gigantic God was knocked into the ground, nted face-first into the ground. All the nearby houses were crushed into rubble, making dust and shattered stones fly everywhere.


    Everyone who knew of Donatis was astonished to see him in such a humiliating fashion.


    ¡°Who could his enemy be?¡±


    Obviously, Donatis wouldn¡¯t do such a thing just for fun. Since he had fallen down in such humiliating fashion, this was evidence that his enemy was capable of resisting against him.


    Still, Donatis was actuallypletely uninjured, although he did appear quite wretched. The next instant, he jumped back up onto his feet, and startedughing uproariously.


    ¡°Interesting! Amusing! Powerful warrior, you actually managed to aplish the feat of knocking me over one time despite having the body of a mortal! This is truly wonderful! I will ask you once again. Are you willing to be part of my collection? We can travel through the endless dimensions together, enjoying eternal life and battles!¡±


    The Chaos War God was delighted that he had been knocked down onto the ground. Although this seemed rather strange, everyone in all the dimensions knew that Donatis¡¯s favorite hobby was collecting powerful warriors from all dimensions.


    In the myths and legends about Donatis, he would often send his incarnations to arenas and battlefields and reward the most determined and unflinching warriors with astonishing rewards and honor. Also, he would personally punish cowards and those who ran from battle.


    ording to legends, his heroic spirit temple had countless powerful warriors. They would eternally fight against each other and improve their fighting techniques. The number and quality of his heroic spirits far surpassed that of any other Chaos Main God.


    ¡°...Um, the way you asked that was so terrible. My girlfriend is still next to me!¡±


    On the battlefield, there were some Holy Knights who had copsed on the ground. There were also some individuals who attracted a great deal of attention.


    The person whoughingly refused the War God¡¯s invitation was a red-haired young warrior. Lightning and mes shed all around him. He stood in front of all hispanions and blocked the windstorm the gigantic God kicked up when he fell.


    Right behind him was a caped mage who wielded a wooden staff, a leather-armor-wearing magic thief who hid in the shadows and hadn¡¯t shown their face, and a cute little girl with tremendous power over mes who appeared rather angry.


    Donatis didn¡¯t really want to fight anymore. This wasn¡¯t because he felt he couldn¡¯t win. This was because he admired their talent, feeling like they were all rare geniuses. He found the idea of killing them a tremendous pity.


    Souls¡¯ scents would easily reveal one¡¯s true age. Donatis¡¯s senses told him that none of his enemies were older than five hundred years old. The three mages plus the incredibly outstanding and durable warrior had actually managed to fight against him for more than ten minutes.


    Furthermore, Donatis had already attacked more than ten times with his sword. Not only did the red-haired warrior not retreat, he even managed to knock down Donatis one time.


    Even though Donatis wasn¡¯t being serious yet, this aplishment would still be more than enough to make the warrior famous in many dimensions.


    ¡°Power over both the elements of lightning and fire? With your abilities, you should have be famous long ago, yet I have never heard of you. Young warrior, tell me your name. I will ask you once again after your death if you are willing to be my child.¡±


    ording to legends, Chaos War God Donatis would adopt the most outstanding warriors in his heroic spirit temple as his children. It would seem now that the rumors were real.


    Since he was inviting Adam so many times, this was clearly also because his heroic spirit temple had been emptied due to the battle of Hell. He was now delighted to meet such an outstanding talent.


    ¡°Me? Okay, my name is Dick, Dick Cain from the Sabutuar district.¡±


    Perhaps this was the admiration that powerful warriors would have for each other. Or, perhaps he felt Donatis¡¯s sincerity. Even the typical jokester Adam had such a serious expression as he told Donatis his name... Well, except that he unhesitatingly gave a fake name.


    ¡°The child of the Wind Gull? I never thought that you would be far stronger than the stories about you.¡±


    Donatis nodded as he stood up and slowly brought his sword forward. Now, he was about to be serious.


    No matter how much he admired the warrior¡¯s talent, he had no reason to retreat, as this warrior was trying to stop him. All he would have to do was kill the warrior and then use the warrior¡¯s true name to summon the soul and create a heroic spirit body.


    However, Donatis didn¡¯t know that the enemy team¡¯s mentalmunications were all abuzz.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell him your real name? We don¡¯t have any reason to conceal our identities, do we?¡±


    ¡°...Let¡¯s be honest. He knows Rnd, right? He knows Rnd really well. How many people do you know that don¡¯t grit their teeth in hatred and anger when Rnd¡¯s namees up?¡±


    Margaret thought for only a moment before she unhesitatingly shook her head. ¡°Zero...¡±


    ¡°See! We should try and learn something after that bastard¡¯s dragged us down so many times!¡±


    Painful and bitter memories from the past shed in Adam¡¯s eyes. After suffering so many times due to Rnd, even Adam had learned his lesson.


    ¡°That Dean or whoever is a real person, apparently? Aren¡¯t you pushing him into a gigantic pitfall then? Does he owe you money, or did he attack you before?¡±


    ¡°No, he¡¯s still far toocking to attack me. He did cut Annie once with his sword while Annie was out adventuring...¡±


    The next instant, Margaret and Little Red simultaneously exploded with loud interrogating questions in Adam¡¯s mind.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say such a thing before!?¡±


    ¡°That bastard! I¡¯ll roast him on a volcano for three hundred years!¡±


    Adam could only smile helplessly. He knew this would be the result, which was why he hadn¡¯t said anything.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, wouldn¡¯t it be too unseemly for an adult to get involved in a fight between children? Both of you are still too immature.¡±


    ¡°...Shut up. Once we deal with the big guy before us, we¡¯ll go deal with that bastard who dared to cut Annie. I¡¯m going to petrify him and stick him as a statue in some magma!¡±


    However, Little Red recalled something else first.


    ¡°Wait a moment, Annie¡¯s not weak at all. Neither does she like to cause trouble. Someone who could cut her wouldn¡¯t possibly be her age. Why are you saying that it was a fight between children? The big guy in front of us probably wouldn¡¯t know of anyone that young.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, that brat is probably two hundred years old or so, and only at the peak of Saint rank. He actually attacked a fourteen-year-old little girl. So unseemly. However, I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll be able to enact your revenge.¡±


    ¡°Why? He died?¡± Margaret inquired.


    ¡°What did Rnd do?¡± Little Red asked.


    From a certain standpoint, Little Red understood Rnd better as she had messed around and acted ridiculously together with him more often.


    Rnd¡¯s way of dealing with things was typically to find out information via side channels, and then make someone suffer so much that they would want to die.


    ¡°What happened to him? The story¡¯s so pitiful, do you really want me to tell it? He was taken away by ¡®Pride¡¯ Omar for one full year of training. He was then tossed to Eaglestorm and trained for another half a year. In the end, he became mentally unstable, and his cognitive abilities were no different from a wild beast¡¯s. He no longer wore any clothing, and jumped around between trees like a gori would. And then, Beifeng took him away...¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s far more pitiful than being roasted in a volcano or petrified in a statue.¡±


    Dick Cain¡¯s fate greatly pleased the two ¡°mothers¡± present. However, someone else was finally unable to stand such a distraction on the battlefield.


    ¡°Hey, could we gossipter? That big guy is watching all of us.¡±


    The three gossipers turned around to see that Donatis was waiting like a gentleman for them to finish chatting. When he saw that everyone¡¯s attention was back on him, he chuckled loudly.


    ¡°It would seem that your strategy conference is over? I hope that you have managed toe up with an amazingbat strategy!¡±


    Warriors in the Chaos Abyss would desire to do battle. The Chaos War God desired a difficult battle that would satisfy him. To Donatis, nothing could possiblypare to a battle that could bring him new glory and scars.


    Donatis was strong, while his opponents were weakpared to him. If the weak desired to defeat the strong, they would naturally need tactics and strategy, and to Donatis, not only would strategy be a part of power, even luck could be viewed asbat strength.


    Since these were rare opponents that he valued for their talent, and the warrior might even be his adopted child in the future, it would be his responsibility as a War God to give his opponents more time so that they could show off their very best in battle.


    After Donatis said this, what he saw was that the calm warrior he was fighting against suddenly paused in surprise. The red-haired warrior then nodded with a serious expression filled with appreciation and expectation as if he also looked forward to a glorious battle.


    ¡°...Please wait a moment longer, we still want to discuss for ten more minutes! We have disagreements over our strategy! I swear in the honor of my name, Dick Cain, that this will be a battle that you¡¯ll never forget!¡±


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll wait!¡±


    And so, Donatis actually sat down... and started waiting!

 Chapter 604 - Pit digger

    <h4>Chapter 604: Pit digger</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Warrior¡¯s honor? What¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°...I guess it¡¯s something like bragging in a bar while everyone¡¯s drinking, such as a tale about killing off an entire nest of goblins on an adventure.¡±


    In a way, Donatis had trusted the wrong person. While Adam was indeed an outstanding warrior, he definitely didn¡¯t have anything like a so-called warrior¡¯s honor or a knight¡¯s pride. He was purely a rural boy from a tiny vige. The only adventuring team he had ever joined was led by someone like Rnd. How could Adam possibly have the mysterious sense of pride that noble knights and warriors would always have?


    He would fight if he could win, and instantly run away if he couldn¡¯t. Fighting to the death against a powerful opponent that he couldn¡¯t defeat for the sake of pride and honor? While nobles may believe in such romanticism, Adam had always been a frence mercenary. Any mercenary who was so idiotic would be nothing more than sacrificial cannon fodder, the favorite type of mercenary that employers loved since even the employment fee could be saved.


    Back when Adam was younger and weaker, he had lied, pretended to be a good boy, or pretended to be pitiful quite often. Now that he was far more powerful... even though his enemies were also far more powerful now, Adam still had the same personality.


    Perhaps he would sometimes show he had a warrior¡¯s honor, but it would never be for the sake of an enemy.


    ¡°No matter how slow Rnd is, he should be able to get here and reinforce us in ten minutes...¡±


    ¡°Then, should we pretend to talk about something during this time?¡±


    ¡°Yeah... Yep, if Rnd still can¡¯t arrive in ten minutes, let¡¯s just say that we¡¯re waiting for reinforcements and ask Donatis to wait a little while longer.¡±


    ¡°Will he really agree?¡±


    ¡°Nobody else would, but I think he will. Just look at him, he even agreed to wait for us to discuss a strategy to defeat him. To use Rnd¡¯s phrase, acting suicidally arrogant is the ssical right of all major antagonist bosses.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t Rnd also love to act suicidally arrogant?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. He also said that if an antagonist boss constantly acts suicidally arrogant but doesn¡¯t die, that¡¯s no longer a boss, as that would be... a main character.¡±


    Alright then, a certain person¡¯s twisted logic had already corrupted many previously normal people. And, right now, the mage dressed up as a female thief was mysteriously excited at being able to soon meet Rnd again.


    It was just that Rnd probably didn¡¯t want to see her one bit...


    But sometimes, ns would always swiftly change ording to the situation. After only a short three minutes, a tremendous pir of light told everyone that something had fundamentally changed on the battlefield.


    ¡°Holy Light? In this city? Who died? A devil?¡±


    Donatis was no idiot. Before he agreed to wait, he had already confirmed that all the members of the Holy Knight group trying to stop him had copsed, and that his target was still probably within this city.


    However, that tremendous pir of Holy Light reaching the skies was the best evidence that there was an extremely powerful Holy Light user here in this city. In all the countless dimensions, there would be extremely few Holy Light users capable of using such pure Holy Light...


    ¡°Rnd...¡±


    From a certain standpoint, although Rnd had just entered the middle of Myth rank, he was indeed one of the strongest Holy Knights in the world.


    Any strong power would have its own unique traits, and the powerful light pir had its own unique colors. Donatis had already seen this strange and pure Holy Light with the miraculous power of the Light of Salvation back in Hell. He knew that it was likely that only Rnd would possess such a Holy Light.


    His previously sculpture-like expression started changing. First, he was delighted to the point of frenzy, but then he seemed rather hesitant.


    It was unexpected for him to meet with Rnd here, as well as a pleasant surprise. However, Rnd wouldn¡¯t be that easy to deal with. Although Rnd¡¯s power level wasn¡¯t even at SemiGod yet, the Chaos War God viewed his danger level on par with any Main God¡¯s. More than one Main God had already suffered when put against Rnd.


    The first thing Donatis thought of was whether this was a trap targeted at himself. The next instant, he thought of the sudden appearance of ¡°Dick¡¯s adventuring team¡± before him, and finally realized that the situation was wrong.


    ¡°Red Lotus Hero, Adam Han?¡±


    Information on Rnd¡¯s allies was no secret, and it would be impossible to keep secret. Adam¡¯s fiery red hair was like his personal signature. While Donatis hadn¡¯t thought of Adam as there was no reason to, of course he would realize that this warrior was Adam when he thought of Rnd.


    ¡°Margaret? Ein Mezus?¡±


    With all the connections made, Donatis also realized who else was with Adam. Now that Donatis realized he had been fooled, and that the people who fooled him were close allies of the one he hated, Donatis¡¯s expression became quite ugly.


    ¡°Damn, we all underestimated him. Rnd has yet toe reinforce us, but he already pushed us into a pitfall.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Rnd had now sessfully made a new achievement¡ªpushing his allies into a pitfall without even personally appearing.


    The Holy Light pir not far away was busy dispelling Chaos. Even the War God paid close attention to the ¡°strange¡± Holy Light there.


    The gigantic Donatis stood up once again. He viciously red at Adam, who had a foolish grin. This time, Donatis would no longer hold back.


    ...


    ¡°I¡¯m going to have to ask you all to die. Your information is far more important than your lives.¡±


    Just as Casio¡¯s adventuring team was celebrating how they had survived against the devil general Salor, I made such a statement right as Casio was recovering from the impact of my Holy Light and Ai was still trembling from the aftereffects.


    The next instant, all members of their adventuring team picked up their weapons and looked at me with great vignce.


    ¡°...Did I not exin myself clearly enough? All of you can see that big guy over there as well, right? He¡¯s Donatis. You should all know quite well how powerful and difficult to deal with he can be, and he came here to chase you all down. In that case, he¡¯ll naturally treat things as missionpleted as long as you all die in front of him. He¡¯ll then return to his own Divine Kingdom. Of course, I need you all to give me your information first...¡±


    Alright, this time, everyone truly started pulling out their swords and magic staffs, while preparing spells forbat.


    ¡°That¡¯s why you¡¯re going to sacrifice us? As a servant of my God, returning to her embrace afterpleting her mission will be the greatest honor. However, as a member of this adventuring team, and as a priest, I refuse to allow my allies to die right in front of me!¡±


    The previously smiling bearded dwarf priest now had apletely angry expression. The dwarf kept twirling around their ck iron cudgel, although their techniques were truly unimpressive.


    The elf mage didn¡¯t say anything. However, a softly whispered magical incantation told me all I needed to know.


    ¡°Is this my fate, after all? I couldn¡¯t escape it in the end, as expected...? Come, take my life. Since this is my destiny, at least my death will have meaning...¡±


    Fallen angel Ai was the first to reply to me as she struggled to stand up. Her face was filled with despair. But, her trembling words had resolution and expectation within them.


    ¡°Stop being so foolish. His Highness Rnd isn¡¯t someone who¡¯s like that. Let him finish speaking.¡±


    Casio, who was the only one among them that knew me well, understood me much better.


    I nodded as I snapped my fingers.


    ¡°Youngsters these days are so impatient... Harloys, give me some of your clones.¡±


    I walked over, picked up the tiefling warrior¡¯s head, and ced it back on his corpse.


    After that, ck death magic poured into the corpse as the tiefling warrior¡¯s body regained the ability to move. Right after that, several dozen slimesbined with each other as if they were putty, creating humanoid forms. Finally, the slimes ended up resembling Casio and his team exactly.


    It was far too easy for Harloys to create some clone copies of Casio¡¯s team as she had the ability to change her form at will... Actually, I would have used this ability of hers to make money if it hadn¡¯t been for her strong objections... Hey, I wasn¡¯t going to do anything illegal, as I only intended to sell freebor. Did some of you readers think dirty thoughts?


    ¡°If they¡¯re all fake, Donatis will suspect things. I will have ¡®all of you¡¯ die with such shattered bodies that noplete corpses will be left behind. However, the tiefling warrior¡¯s corpse will appear in front of Donatis. All of you need to find a ce to hide yourselves, and definitely can¡¯te out until this incident is resolved. It¡¯s fine for you to carry the important information with you.¡±


    I left those words behind as I directly turned around and left. The tiefling warrior corpse and the group of slime clones followed after me.


    ¡°You spoke that way on purpose, didn¡¯t you?¡±


    Although Harloys didn¡¯t say it directly, both she and I knew that I had intentionally tried to make Casio¡¯s team misunderstand my words.


    Harloys knew that I must have done so intentionally. She wanted to know why.


    ¡°Of course. My eloquence isn¡¯t thatcking... It¡¯s easiest to tell what a person¡¯s foundational nature is like in life and death situations. I still have some trouble on my hands, as well as some benefits. However, that will depend on their luck.¡±


    ¡°It seems that you¡¯re quite satisfied with the results of testing them?¡±


    ¡°The test didn¡¯t go badly at all. If they had been willing to abandon theirpanions so easily, it probably would have been a good idea to just kill them. Everything I said was the truth. The information they carry is far more valuable than their lives.¡±


    ¡°...You should prepare some extra sentences like that on how much you value yourpanions. You¡¯ll need them soon.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because yourpanions are almost about to explode with anger because of you. They¡¯re all cursing the nutcase Rnd who¡¯s so slow and deserves to die...¡±


    [Congrattions. Your professionalism in making your allies suffer has received the recognition of your System and Fate itself. Which of the following titles do you prefer? ¡®I¡¯m a professional three-hundred-year-old pit digger¡¯ or ¡®So what if I¡¯m an elementary school student? Give me midne or I feed!¡¯]

 Chapter 605 - Reunion

    <h4>Chapter 605: Reunion</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Even without personally witnessing the battle, I pretty much knew what was going on in this city thanks to the information I received from Harloys.


    War God Donatis¡¯s explosive increase in aura, along with killing intent aimed directly in my direction, was the best exnation for everything.


    ¡°Tsk, he recognized me through my Holy Light? As expected, it¡¯s not good to be too famous.¡±


    ¡°...Shouldn¡¯t you say that you antagonized too many people so you have too many enemies instead?¡±


    Adam¡¯s party was already having a difficult battle, and Donatis seemed like he had now gone berserk. In that case, what I needed to do right now was... turn around and run away!


    Yes, run away. Was I supposed to go feed Donatis free kills when I couldn¡¯t beat him?


    Without a second word, I brought out my wings, and immediately started running while taking the cloned adventuring team with me.


    ¡°ROLAND!¡±


    Just as I expected, when I started running away, Donatis unhesitatingly stopped fighting his current opponents, and flew directly in my direction.


    Rather than Adam¡¯s party that Donatis knew very little about, the fact that Rnd whom he hated so much was actually in the Chaos Abyss would naturally be a rarer ¡°opportunity¡±. I knew that Donatis, who hade to the Ashen Furnace by himself, would definitely choose to chase after me.


    For any Main God, any physical distance between him and his target would basically be meaningless.


    The next instant, a gigantic God appeared above me, crashing down like a mountain.


    ¡°All of you, hurry and escape to the teleportation portal!¡±


    It seemed that I didn¡¯t even have the time to take care of myself as I told the adventuring team who carried such precious information to hurry and escape ording to n.


    Even though Ashen Furnace, which was thergest city in the 100th level of the Chaos Abyss, didn¡¯t have any teleportation portals to the mortal ne, there would be plenty of teleportation portals to other levels in the Chaos Abyss. It would be truly difficult to find the adventurers again if they sessfully entered a teleportation portal.


    However, my actions attracted Donatis¡¯s attention. He looked where I was pointing, and saw the adventuring team that he had specificallye here to target.


    1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Not a single adventurer was missing!


    This was an unexpected ¡°pleasant surprise¡± for Donatis. But, before he could do anything, golden Holy Light Bullets blocked him.


    *Boom!*


    Sessive explosions covered up all other sounds. I had now blocked the gigantic God while in my War Angel form.


    ¡°Evil! Don¡¯t even think about taking another step further. As long as I¡¯m still standing here, don¡¯t even dream about killing them. Your evil n shall be fruitless!¡±


    Donatis fell silent. But, the next instant, I heard screams from behind me.


    I looked back, and saw that the adventurers had been ambushed. The inferno centaur archer¡¯s entire body had been shattered by ck magic, while the tiefling warrior¡¯s head had been cut off by an assassin.


    ¡°The Chaos War God¡¯s worshippers?¡±


    Indeed, this had been done by the surrounding spectators who were Donatis¡¯s worshippers. Many residents of this city were his believers. They had previously acted as Donatis¡¯s sources of information, and now the War God had summoned them to be his sharp des.


    I tried turning around to rescue the adventurers, but this time, Donatis¡¯s ck greatsword blocked my way.


    ¡°...Rnd. I think it¡¯s time for us to calcte what you owe me.¡±


    This time, I was the one in a dangerous situation.


    Have a direct confrontation with the Chaos War God? Even though I was now closer to achieving SemiGod rank thanks to my Dawn holy sword¡¯s creation, singlebat against a Main God wouldn¡¯t even be an option until I truly reached the peak.


    I, Rnd Mist, was someone who would level himself up to level 999 and finish grinding all secret bosses, treasure chests, hidden achievements, and best equipment before I would challenge a video game¡¯s final boss who was only level 50. Only when I was no longer able to improve my video game character one bit would I go to suppress the final bosspletely. That was how pletely solid¡± my style was!


    ¡°Taste my Dawn holy sword!¡±


    I unhesitatingly pulled out my sword and summoned Holy Light with full power. The entire sky shook as pure Holy Light spread on my holy sword. It seemed as if a sun was rising behind me. The scene from a few minutes ago when I slew Salor was reenacting itself.


    ¡°Holy Light! Listen to mymand, and y evil!¡±


    But this time, my Holy Light didn¡¯t attack my enemy. Even Donatis had ced himself on guard when the blinding pir of light appeared.


    And then... I disappeared.


    ¡°Holy Light is also highly effective to blind people¡¯s eyes.¡±


    On the ground, although the War God¡¯s worshippers had achieved some results with their sudden ambush, the remaining three adventurers still managed to break out of their encirclement. The winged fallen angel especially seemed likely to rush away first.


    ¡°An instant teleportation ability? Damn it!¡±


    Rnd could no longer be seen anywhere, but Donatis saw his main targets right before him. It could still be barely passable to say that he was distracted earlier, but letting his targets escape right in front of him would truly be humiliating.


    In Donatis¡¯s mind, he didn¡¯t actually care all that much even if information about where the Dimensional Door was located in the mortal ne was sessfully leaked to the mortal ne. He figured that he might even be able to have a more fun fight as the vanguard that way. Still, all the diforting Holy Light in the area made it impossible for him to find Rnd.


    And when Donatis finally made up his mind to kill the adventurers first, no traces of Rnd could be found anywhere.


    Meanwhile, I had just met up with Adam¡¯s party. My first reaction was to turn around and leave...


    ¡°Rnd!¡±


    That clear female voice was so familiar. Yet, I would have preferred not to remember it.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t I say before not to let her out? How did she get out from the Land of Spring?¡±


    ¡°...Are you an idiot? She¡¯s a demon, and this is the Chaos Abyss. While she would have difficulties going anywhere else, here she only has to answer the summons of the Chaos Abyss to return.¡±


    ¡°The will of the Chaos Abyss is gone already, yet this ability is still avable?¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you try directly asking her? No matter what, she¡¯s still your girlfriend. Is it really good to just ignore her when she travelled thousands of kilometers just to meet you? Isn¡¯t that too heartless?¡±


    I could only helplessly turn around again and do my best to smile. However, my eyes suddenly lit up when I saw the woman whom I viewed like a daughter.


    ¡°Long time no see, Elisa... Eh, this the equipment that you previously used as Lisa?¡±


    The tan leather armor she wore wasn¡¯t particrly powerful. The only enchantments on the armor were quite basic¡ªthey were ¡°Low Speed Increase¡± and ¡°uracy¡±, which were both two-circle spells. This was because Margaret¡¯s abilities back then were also third-rate. However, this leather armor had still been made from dragon skin, and would be top-notch for any newbie adventurer.


    I remember that ¡°Lisa¡¯s belongings after she died¡± had been left behind in the Underground¡¯s library... and since Elisa had this, it could only mean...


    ¡°Oh, heavens, you went in there?¡±


    I could only cover my face. That library was still underground below my old home in Sulfur Mountain City. It would be impossible to enter without the password, and my password, if I recalled correctly, was something simple so I wouldn¡¯t forget it...


    ¡°The only password more idiotic than your birthday is using your own name as the password. When considering your amazing memory, I only had to try three times to figure out the password. Rx, I didn¡¯t read your diaries. I respect your privacy. Besides, with so many diaries, it would be impossible to finish reading them all.¡±


    ¡°Ahhh! You must have read them! You must have read them!¡±


    When your diary drawer had been opened and the diary locks were unlocked, would you really believe your mom when she imed that she only helped to clean your room but didn¡¯t read your diary?


    ¡°So embarrassing! Why didn¡¯t the tower spirit self-destruct? Ahhh!¡±


    Naturally, I would have defenses on such an important information trove. The tower spirit would have self-destructed if any outsider came in.


    ¡°Oh? That tower spirit? He said I was on the guest list. I¡¯ve been on that list since I was one year old.¡±


    I almost wanted to cry. Now that she said this, I finally remembered. I was a single father taking care of a little brat back then, and I couldn¡¯t count on any undead to be nannies. Not only did I have to feed Elisa milk and take care of her, I could only personally change her diapers as well.


    Back then, I had to take her with me everywhere that I went. I¡¯d probably registered her at the library for convenience so that the mechanical tower spirit wouldn¡¯t react and treat her as an intruder. But, I forgot to take her off the guest list afterwards.


    I¡¯d never thought that this actually became a method for her to openly see everything I had. I could now only pray that she hadn¡¯t stayed in there for too long, and that she hadn¡¯t seen all those random things inside, such as my romance novel drafts that I wrote when I was bored, or the adult yuri hentai I wrote for making money which I left on the table... Damn it all, I truly had so much dark history from back then.


    ¡°Ahem, Nova angrily red at Carrie, saying, ¡®You damned brat, I didn¡¯t see you allst night, so you were probably messing around with Gianna again...¡¯¡±


    ¡°Ahhh! She read it!¡±


    As an author, the most embarrassing thing of all would probably be to hear someone reading your written words right in front of you. I rolled around on the floor out of humiliation, while Elisa smiled in satisfaction.


    Elisa knew that after messing around like this, Rnd would probably no longer be able to chase her away after losing so much face... Since she had plenty of ckmail material to work with, she didn¡¯t have to worry about Rnd using his status to act unreasonably.


    I was still filled with regret and depression. However, the furious gigantic God not far away was reminding us that this was no ce to have a chat.


    If all of us surrounded and attacked the Main God at this time, it might be possible for us to win. However, it was likely that several of us would die, which definitely wouldn¡¯t be worth it. It would be far better to find a safe ce first.


    Soon, the adventuring team members (Harloys¡¯ cloned edition) would all ¡°be forced to their ends¡± and choose to self-destruct. The only remaining tiefling warrior¡¯s corpse would have very little information left on it. Then, all we would have to do was think of a way to take the real adventurers out of here, and no problems would be left.


    The moment that I met with the adventuring team that obtained such a strategically important secret, it became highly likely for this secret to be brought back to the mortal ne, and as long as the secret was leaked, hunting the adventurers down and the veracity of the corpses would no longer be important.


    Then, all of the rest would no longer be Donatis¡¯s concern. He was busy, and would likely leave soon. As long as the Main God left, whom would we even be afraid of?


    ¡°ROLAND!¡±


    Just let him shout all he wanted. We were going to find a ce to rest.

 Chapter 606 - Recovery

    <h4>Chapter 606: Recovery</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Not even one day after the news that Chaos War God Donatis was seen in the 100th level of the Chaos Abyss spread everywhere, a group of dimensional travelers hurriedly took some rooms at a hotel in the Bloody Arena, a city in the 137th level of the Chaos Abyss.


    These adventurers seemed quite rich. They instantly took every single room in this three-story hotel and paid the rent for two months in advance. In the mortal ne, this would be seen as an extravagance of the rich, and maybe attract some looks of envy at most, but here in the Chaos Abyss where there were no rules orws, this would only attract vicious viins who were intent on killing to rob money.


    But, anyone who tried to enter this hotel was instantly tossed out again. When a six-armed snake demon who attempted robbery had all his arms broken and was tossed out by a red-haired warrior, nobody dared to disturb these adventurers anymore, at least for the short time being.


    However, the adventuring group didn¡¯t dare to rx their guard in the small and cramped hotel. The mages constantly cast and reinforced all sorts of magical defenses and guard spells. I guarded the front door, while Adam guarded the back door as we sent off all ¡°curious visitors¡±.


    Donatis was a pure warrior, so it was unlikely that he had any tracking abilities. To my knowledge, plenty of pure warriors were the type who trusted their instincts more than anything. For these warriors, they would either have ridiculously good instincts for tracking, or they wouldn¡¯t be able to tell north from south on a map. Considering how it took so long for Donatis to catch up to the adventuring team, I felt it was far more likely that he was thetter type.


    But even if he personally wasn¡¯t skilled at tracking, he would surely have subordinate heroic spirits or demons who were skilled trackers. We had spent a great deal of money to purchase the use of a teleportation portal from the fairies in order to prevent us from being followed. We directly escaped to the 137th level of the Chaos Abyss.


    Oh, was there a prerequisite that I hadn¡¯t mentioned? Indeed, our escape n had the prerequisite of Donatis knowing that we had left.


    Since our enemy was the Main God Donatis, it was likely that he would be able to find out that we had escaped to the 137th level. However, every dimensional level was gigantic, so finding us would be no easy feat.


    Even though Margaret promised on her job ss¡¯s honor that as long as I, Rnd, was around, all detection spells would bepletely inurate, we still took anti-detection measures as well as made preparations to leave at any moment.


    Since we had already antagonized a powerful opponent who was truly difficult to deal with, I had no intention of staying here for long. We would temporarily stay here to reorganize ourselves before immediately heading out again.


    But before that...


    ¡°I¡¯m so tired. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.¡±


    After confirming that at least the nearby surroundings were safe, I immediately headed to a room on the third floor and fell asleep.


    I wasn¡¯t the only one to do so. Ai, Casio, and the other adventurers all immediately went to sleep in the foyer right after entering this hotel. They were injured and fatigued, and it was quite difficult already for them to withstand everything until now.


    They were indeed quite pitiful. Powerful enemies were hunting them down, and they had to constantly remain in a state of high vignce. They had kept retreating as they fought many battles. When they finally reached an area that they viewed as ¡°safe¡±, a Main God arrived to hunt them down. They also had a deathmatch against devil general Salor, and one of theirpanions had died in battle. All of them were suffering from frostbite after using my ice equipment. They werepletely exhausted, with both physical and mental trauma.


    They also had to go through dimensional teleportation and rush here overnight before they could recover. Their mana and stamina werepletely depleted. Casio and Ai were in the worst condition as they had been severely burned by my cleansing Holy Light. If it wasn¡¯t for Adam helping them on the way here, it was likely that one or both of them might have died already.


    ¡°You were the one who struck Casio and Ai with such fatal injuries, weren¡¯t you? Wasn¡¯t this avoidable?¡±


    ¡°...Would you believe me if I said it requires lying to one¡¯s own allies in order to fool the enemy?¡±


    I could only shake my head helplessly. Even I¡¯d never expected that I would be forced to create a halfpleted holy sword. Neither had I expected that my halfpleted holy sword would be so strong. Reminding my allies to watch out hadn¡¯t been possible from the very start.


    ¡°Still, the adventuring team downstairs should finally be able to get a good night¡¯s sleep tonight...¡±


    This hotel¡¯s facilities were quite average. However, having clean nkets and hot water was more than enough for me. I could no longer even remember just how many days I had spent outside in the wilderness.


    Despite Adam¡¯s mysterious confidence in his sense of direction, his senses would indeed always be quite sharp whenever he was on guard at night. With him guarding the door, not even a SemiGod rank thief would be able to sneak in. Plus, we also had defensive spells from Harloys and Margaretbined cast upon this hotel. This should allow us to sleep safely in peace.


    Adam¡¯s party was in the best condition out of everyone among us. They had rested at the Dragontail Bar for so long already. Even though they¡¯d had a battle against Donatis, the War God hadn¡¯t entered his serious mode, so Adam¡¯s party¡¯s energy and mana consumption was within eptable limits.


    Actually, even though I seemed quite spirited, I was probably in the worst condition out of all of us.


    The battle where I defeated and sealed Lasnina had used up a tremendous amount of my mana and stamina. Before and after that, I had spent so much time trying to survive in the wild. I had finally entered the city of Ashen Furnace and intended to rest and recover, but then I had to directly fight against Salor and face Donatis.


    I had also suffered severe frostbite from using my own Absolute Zero ice. I had also been forced to create my holy sword. Even Harloys¡¯ mana pool was nowpletely empty. My mana and stamina were all used up, which brought me physical weakness along with a powerful headache.


    Seeing how unwell myplexion looked, both Adam and Elisa let me rest even though they really wanted to chat.


    Yep, I definitely hadn¡¯t used Holy Light to pinch my blood vessels to make myplexion look unwell so that I could escape a tribtion!


    ¡°Will you really be able to run away? You¡¯ll have to face things sooner orter.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll just stall for as long as I can.¡±


    I wiped myself slightly with a towel before Iy down on a bed. I stretchedzily as I enjoyed the sensation of a soft nket. I finally felt like I was alive again.


    The silly cat also washed herself slightly in a washbasin, and shook herself before jumping onto my bed and under my nket.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, how many times have I told you already? Dry the water on your paws first before getting on my bed!¡±


    While I wasining, I really had no energy left to kick the silly cat off. As I rxed, I felt even more howfortable this bed was. I truly didn¡¯t want to get up again.


    ¡°Ah, I¡¯m alive~¡±


    ¡°I can finally rest well now. I really want to report you for cat abuse.¡±


    Just as we were both sighing about how wonderful life was, the door to my room suddenly opened. Elisa, who had a slight smile, directly walked into my room.


    Seeing that it was her, I suddenly shivered as I hurriedly covered my lower body with my nket. I nced around everywhere for where I tossed my pants since I recalled throwing them on the ground right when I entered...


    ¡°It¡¯s sote already...¡±


    But before I could scold her as an elder, Elisa already walked up to my bed and grabbed the silly cat by the tail, slinging her around by the tail.


    ¡°Master, you really need to be more careful. How could you casually allow a female on your bed, especially such a thing? As your current girlfriend, it¡¯s only natural that I should take her away.¡±


    She was so logical that I was unable to counter her!


    Not only did I pause in surprise at the strange way she spoke and addressed me, even Harloys gave up her struggles that were only an act.


    And then, Elisa brought out a pair of underwear from her dimensional storage and ced it by my bed. She also cleared away my dirty clothes.


    ¡°You should go to sleep early. I¡¯ll wash your clothes tonight so that you will have something clean to wear tomorrow. Tomorrow morning will be your favorite food for breakfast. Anything else can wait until after you¡¯re awake to discuss.¡±


    *Click!*


    The sound of the door to my room closing snapped me back to my senses. Elisa being so reasonable made me feel quite happy, but I still felt like something was off. I also felt mysteriously reassured as I looked at the clean underwear that happened to be a perfect fit for me.

 Chapter 607 - Too Calculating

    <h4>Chapter 607: Too Calcting</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°I never thought that this legend would be true...¡±


    ¡°What legend?¡±


    ¡°The legend saying the better luck a species has and the stronger they are, the more pitiful and unfortunate their lives will be after being dethroned. Still, having such misfortune is truly...¡±


    Right when I walked downstairs, I heard some people from my party discussing luck. I felt as if nobody would possibly be more experienced than me in this topic...


    ¡°Indeed, nobody could possibly be more experienced that you on the topic of misfortune.¡±


    The silly cat who suddenly jumped on my shoulder was making snarkyments aimed at me like always. But, in our soul connection, I could sense that she was extremely delighted as if something really good had happened.


    ¡°What good thing happenedst night?¡±


    ¡°Nothing, I was tortured like hell allst night. Cough, you should be mature and stop trying to hear about a girl¡¯s private matters... But, there will be something good today. Just wait and see.¡±


    It seemed that I had woken upter than everyone else as most of our party was already in the entrance hall. Margaret was sitting by a table with a serious expression as she calcted something. Adam wasughing foolishly like he always did as he flipped through the gossip magazines. Little Red was taking a nap in front of the firece. But, what was with the lollipop in her hands? Was it that her mental age had regressed as well?


    ¡°Good morning, Rnd.¡±


    As always, Elisa soundlessly appeared right behind my back, startling me.


    She was no longer wearing her Lisa¡¯s leather armor from yesterday. Her familiarce maid attire was quite nice to look at... Cough, cough, I meant, a good fit for her!


    I followed her line of sight, and saw some breakfast on the table that had obviously been prepared for me.


    ¡°...Is this the final meal before execution?¡±


    Although I kept feeling more and more like something was off, I felt like the best way to deal with things right now would be to maintain my silence.


    I looked all around, and everyone seemed to be acting normal. However, the elf mage from Casio¡¯s party, whose name was Yur, had a worried expression. Yur was constantly asking Margaret some questions. On the table in front of them was a silver dagger.


    From what I recalled, this dagger was an object that the unfortunate fellow who was teleported into the Chaos Abyss had left behind. This dagger was also the foundational reason why the adventuring party was being hunted down.


    ¡°...Were you able to locate the first major battlefield of the Holy War?¡±


    I had a sudden realization. Earlier, I had been thinking of returning to the mortal ne to find a God or an archmage with the ability to investigate the deceased¡¯s belongings and find where he hade from.


    However, Margaret was definitely highly skilled even among archmages. With her mastery of space and time magic, determining the origin of the dagger¡¯s owner probably wouldn¡¯t be difficult at all. I just hadn¡¯t thought of her.


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve located it. The San Hein Empire, a district in the Moonwheel Capital. Elf Empress Afina¡¯s dream of ruling over all elves will be crushed even though she ascended to her position less than ten years ago.¡±


    ¡°...San Hein Empire? Isn¡¯t that ce still embroiled in the elves¡¯ internal war? That internal war which has been going on for ten years, but few High Elves had died?¡±


    I was astonished as my first reaction. This was truly incredible news. It was quite surprising to hear that this natural dimensional portal led to the elves¡¯ territory in the mortal ne.


    The will of the Chaos Abyss could somewhat influence the location of the portal in the mortal ne. The elves were truly misfortunate if this was all a coincidence.


    But at this time, I couldn¡¯t help but think of Anslo, the former Elf Main God who had be fallen and transformed into a Chaos Evil God. Anslo had intentionally stirred up internal warfare among the already fractured elf tribes so that some elves would survive no matter if Chaos or Order won. Yet, the elves¡¯ territory still became the first major battleground of the Holy War. Right now, I really wanted to know how what Anslo would think of this...


    ¡°Coincidence? Highly unlikely.¡±


    While others might have believed that the portal¡¯s location was a pure coincidence, I kept feeling like this was no coincidence at all.


    That would be too much to believe it was just a coincidence. Humans were currently the ruling species in the mortal ne. Thus, human kingdoms took up the majority of thend in the mortal ne. The elves¡¯ territory was pitifully small. Not only that, the portal just happened to choose the elves¡¯ most important capital city.


    All of the first major battlefields in the Holy War¡¯s history had now either bepletely uninhabitable wastnds, or even worse, areas where no lives could enter without perishing. This was because the first major battlefield would always have to face the Chaos Abyss¡¯s first demon wave.


    ¡°Endless darkness covered the skies. The Moon Goddess¡¯s illumination was unable to pierce these dark clouds. The legendary demons of the night are nothing more than the first wave of cannon fodder. These legendary demons and devils are nothing more than foot soldiers. Even the majestic dragons are nothing more than steeds under the demon generals. There is no hope for us. Do the heavens wish to destroy us elves? The silver elves and moon elves are still at each other¡¯s throats even in such a time? The silver elves refused to send us reinforcements...¡±


    In a diary about the previous Holy War¡¯s first battle, the elf schr Wendair had written despairing and realistic records about everything that happened during the first demon wave. He even included a long list of the dead higher-ups and how many elves had died.


    All records about the first demon wave of any Holy War would all be records of such despair. The end result of ordinary vigntes, who were only capable of dealing with local wild beasts, facing off against the Chaos army vanguard was only natural.


    If you wanted to survive the first demon wave, you would need luck more than power level. Apparently, this elf schr Wendair had been seriously injured and left for dead in a river ditch, which was how he luckily managed to survive and write his records.


    The ironic part was, the elves had been the ruling species in the previous Holy War. Since they were so powerful, they held control over the most territory in the mortal ne, as well as the richest. It was no surprise that the first battlefield had appeared in the heart of their territory. However, it was a great surprise that the Chaos Faction was attacking the elves yet again even though the elves had long since lost their glory.


    And from what I remembered, the elf schr Wendair was a moon elf who constantly called out for peace ever since experiencing the demon wave. He was still alive and living in the elves¡¯ Moonwheel Capital. In that case, it seemed likely that he would be able to add a ¡°Volume 2¡± to his diary of despair.


    No wonder Harloys was so happy. To her, those ¡°lowborn bastard elves who repaid kindness with ingratitude¡± were about to meet their doom, and not having a celebration party was already low-key for her.


    But to me, this wasn¡¯t good news at all.


    The first demon wave would be highly difficult to deal with. All the human kingdoms in the mortal ne knew about this. That was why they had all signed various military cooperation agreements with each other. Perhaps the human kingdoms would still have many conflicts with each other, and these military cooperation contracts would normally be nothing more than useless scrap paper, but the human kingdoms would still be willing to temporarily set aside their conflicts when it came to the Holy War. These emergency military reinforcements would immensely improve the survival rate for whichever unlucky human country was the first to receive a demon wave.


    I had extrapted several dozen possible scenarios, including the first portal being in the Nortnds where transportation was inconvenient, in San Antonio¡¯s hearnd that produced so much food, or in the Underground which had an environment simr to that of the Chaos Abyss. However, I had never even tried to calcte the possibility of the first portal opening up in the elven kingdoms. Apart from the possibility being too low, this was even more because of my grudges against the elves.


    ¡°If the first portal really does open up in the elves¡¯ territory? This is far too low a possibility. If it really happens, they deserve to have their species go extinct,¡± I had half-jokingly said back at the time. Yet, I never expected that this possibility would be real in the end.


    That was right, I hated the elves. I especially loathed all High Elves other than the wood elves. The only other elf species I had friendly intentions towards would be the half-blood wild elves. That was because the wild elves didn¡¯t have the other elves¡¯ strange sense of superiority and clean freak tendencies. Not only was it me, but also most human kingdoms would likely have the same loathing towards the elves.


    The reason? There wasn¡¯t much need to exin. Apart from the open conflicts, there were also so many ridiculous things.


    After the elves no longer had overwhelming power, the elves who believed they were smarter than everyone else proved that they were indeed skilled at ying an ¡°international bncing¡± game. The elves constantly made all sorts of schemes targeting various human kingdoms¡¯ royalty with constant spies and backstabbing involved. If a scheme seeded, it would weaken humans, and even if a scheme failed, the elves would lose very little. Back in the day, the elves had also contributed to the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction. I had also very directly taken revenge by destroying elven kingdoms.


    In ordinary fairy tales, such stories would idolize and glorify the elves. Elven ves were also highly popr with human nobles. However, there wasn¡¯t a single human kingdom or royalty who was friendly towards the elves. The higher-ranked the individual, the more that person would loathe the elves. This was just theplex way that human society viewed the elves.


    The fracture between elves and humans was bing more apparent every day. This was also why the Elven Gods and elven kingdoms were already making movements so early in this Holy War... If elves and humans had a good rtionship, and the Elven Gods had afortable time in the Order Faction, then there would be no need for them to betray Order and join Chaos.


    Currently, the entire world knew that the moon elves and silver elves¡¯ current internal war waspletely fake. Everyone simply allowed them to keep up the act.


    The elves had two reasons to keep up this act.


    Judging from the overall situation, no matter who won in this Holy War, the elves could be on the winning side. At least one species would survive. And since the Holy War was about to start, no matter where the main battlefield was, the elves could refuse any human kingdoms¡¯ requests for reinforcements ording to the Order Faction alliance by saying that ¡°we¡¯re currently in the middle of an internal war.¡±


    In the first few years, the elves¡¯ internal war was quite vicious. However, only ordinary elf warriors had died. In the recent few years, while conflicts still urred, the scale became smaller and smaller. Even up until now, not a single High Elf had died. Still, even then there would be a new conflict every ten days to two weeks. It was probably that since the Holy War was beginning, the human kingdoms couldn¡¯t care less about the elves, and the elves becamezy about keeping up the act.


    My guess was that the elves¡¯ internal war would continue until the Holy War ended. It was likely that Anslo had achieved some sort of secret agreement with the will of the Chaos Abyss when he came down to the Chaos Abyss. For instance, a promise such as ¡°the elves will remain neutral in this Holy War, and the Chaos Faction won¡¯t attack the elven kingdoms¡±, something like that... In fact, when considering the elves¡¯ typical personalities, this was highly likely.


    The human rulers were also no idiots. They could also discern all of this, nor had they ever counted on the elves being able to help out in this Holy War. It would be quite good already if the elves didn¡¯t drag everyone down.


    But if the first dimensional portal was going to appear in the elven capital...


    ¡°It¡¯s even possible for us to go help the beastmen, but it¡¯s impossible to even think about helping the elves. Don¡¯t me us, since you¡¯ve already done the same thing. It¡¯s already kind of us not to spread salt on your wounds.¡±


    The most likely development would be that the leading human kingdoms would simply watch the show. Even a weakened species would still show strength when faced with the threat of their home¡¯s destruction. It would be a perfect opportunity to test the demons¡¯ strength by using the elves.


    Since the rtionship and contracts between elves and humans as members of the Order Faction had be nothing but empty words and scrap paper starting several centuries ago, this alliance was obviously an empty one.


    ¡°Ha, Anslo and the elves have always been like this, so calcting. But this time, they calcted too much. They always took advantage of small benefits, but now¡¯s the time for them to return everything.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ sarcastic jab at them was quite convincing. Ipletely agreed with her.


    If the Elf Main God had still been in the Order Faction, then the elves could at least have requested reinforcements from the Order Gods. At the very least, the Holy Light Faction would be forced to protect them, and if the Holy Church got involved, the human kingdoms would at least have to make a show of helping out.


    If only the elves hadn¡¯t used up so much of their strength and lost so many of their footmen in their internal wars, and if only the elven species could all cooperate with each other, their ability to deal with the first demon wave would have been much stronger.


    If the High Elves hadn¡¯t yed around with their ¡°elven elegance style of diplomacy¡±, they would have at least had a few irond allies who would help them in their time of need. I could one hundred percent guarantee that if the first portal had opened up in the dwarves¡¯ territory, the surrounding human kingdoms would all have sent the dwarves their full support.


    ¡°No matter how you look at it, the only possible result is to use the entire elven species to fight against the first demon wave, followed by the destruction of all elves...¡±


    No wonder why this elven mage was so anxious. It was likely that he¡¯d never thought that any of this would concern himself before, but now that he discovered that his people and kingdom were in a crisis, and he was one of the individuals in the middle of it all with the most danger, of course he would be panicked and anxious. It would be strange if he wasn¡¯t.


    ¡°Could it be that the elves and demons secretly formed an alliance?¡±


    ¡°Absolutely impossible. Demons are pure chaos. The first demon wave will absolutely destroy everything without caring about enemy or ally. Don¡¯t underestimate the fundamental nature of demons. The most famous part about Donatis is that he¡¯s capable of maintaining his reason in the midst of a demon wave.¡±


    Harloys unhesitatingly showed how delighted she was. However, I truly had a headache.


    I was quite clear about the elves¡¯ personalities. I really couldn¡¯t just casually give out this information that the first portal would be in the elves¡¯ capital. It would still be eptable if the elves tried to immigrate elsewhere on arge scale, but if the elves instead tried to fight the human kingdoms for more territory before the demon wave arrived, this would start a brand-new internal war in the Order Faction.


    Hope that the elves would ept their terrible fate and fight to the death against the demon wave? I wasn¡¯t so na?ve.


    ¡°I¡¯d really like to know what Anslo is feeling right now...¡±


    At this moment, in a certain dimension of the Chaos Abyss, three Main Gods were currently locked in an internal battle on the Chaos Faction. One of the three participants was Anslo, the former Elf Main God who was now in such a crisis regarding his species.

 Chapter 608 - Decision

    <h4>Chapter 608: Decision</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The firewood burning in the hotel¡¯s firece crackled. Little Red and the other members of my party were all enjoying this rare break from all the busyness. However, Casio¡¯s young adventuring team was unable to rx.


    Not only was the elf mage Yur unable to rx, Casio and Ai also had tense expressions.


    ¡°Ha, don¡¯t be so tense. Even if the sky copses, a taller guy will hold it up for you. No matter how nervous or serious you are, what wille will stille. You might as well rx and do your own things instead. As long as you face things with a normal attitude, even the most difficult things will be resolved one day.¡±


    Adam¡¯s words made him sound like a respectable senior. His moving speech and convincing words were all quite heartwarming. However, the fact that he was also sneaking peeks at a book of jokes aimed at young teenagers andughing to the point of almost crying while giving such a motivational speech made him seem unconvincing in the end.


    ¡°Youngsters, just keep normal mentalities, normal mentalities... Snore.¡±


    Little Red¡¯s mentality seemed overly normal as she said this as she fell asleep again by the firece. The way she looked like a little girl while acting like a senior mysteriously seemed rather... cute?


    ¡°Don¡¯t listen to those two heartless bastards. They¡¯re not worrying about anything, because others are worrying for them. They don¡¯t need to use their brains, because there will always be others who will be in charge of thinking up ns to deal with the situation. They only need to beat people up,¡± I said as I red at Adam. I didn¡¯t want them to bring the youngsters down the wrong path. Adam and Little Red¡¯s life attitude definitely wasn¡¯t something for these youngsters to learn.


    ¡°Do you have the right to lecture us? At the very least, we managed to sessfully teach Annie. Just look at all of your disciples. Is there a single normal one among them?¡±


    Adam picked at his nose while looking down at me. He seemed absolutely nothing like the legendary Sword Saint that he was.


    No normal disciples? How so? Elisa was slightly extreme... Fine, I admit that she was overly extreme. Perhaps she was somewhat in love with her father figure... Reyne was the same way... Glina? Recently, I felt more and more like I had no idea what she was thinking. I kept feeling like she was scheming something, and I didn¡¯t even dare to ask what...


    Cough, cough, but at least Cohen and Barton were more normal.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you basically let Cohen do whatever he wanted? He just tried to imitate the image he has of you as the ¡°perfect Rnd¡±, which is why he¡¯s the most normal now. As for Barton, all you did was teach him martial arts for one year. He¡¯s already be quite sly. If he learns from you for a few more years, it would be strange if he didn¡¯t be just as sly and scheming as you.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ment made me rather displeased. This made me sound like I was a source of mental pollution!


    ¡°You mean to say that you aren¡¯t?¡±


    [You are the biggest source of mental pollution! I personally guarantee this with my own personality as the evidence!]


    Ahem, we should probably get back on topic now.


    ¡°Margaret, have you confirmed it for certain?¡±


    I walked over to Margaret to confirm that the dimensional portal was in the elven capital. Although the odds of Margaret making a mistake were very small, investigation and prophecy magic would always have a fixed chance to fail. It would be impossible to find out anything with a 100% guarantee.


    ¡°Yes. I used twelve different magic spells, including six that are highly urate. First, I viewed the history of this dagger. Two months ago, this dagger and its master were both in the Moonwheel Capital. Also, this dagger is enchanted in the elven style. ording to my knowledge, this enchantment is something that only elven enchanters will know. This dagger is made of silver mixed with mithril. The weapon¡¯s owner has a rtively high status in the elven tribe. I used alchemy to analyze the raw materials used to make this dagger. The silver was produced in the West Puton Mountains, which is in the elves¡¯ territory...¡±


    When talking about her magic specialties, even Margaret, who was usually so terse, would be talkative to the point of being a chatterbox. At first, I listened to her seriously. But when she said ¡°I investigated all the data on moon elves¡¯ emblems to determine the emblem on the dagger. I proved that the dagger¡¯s owner was the eldest son of the Kaso Family. The Kaso Family is one of the ten highest-ranking moon elf families. Since he¡¯s the eldest son who will inherit everything, it¡¯s very unlikely that he would leave the capital¡±, I felt more and more like all of her other evidence had already became meaningless. As always, Margaret was overly serious.


    ¡°Ahem, I suppose that we can say that it¡¯s confirmed, then.¡±


    Margaret then red at me. She basically meant ¡°I worked so hard on this confirmation, yet you¡¯re summarizing it so simply?¡± But then, she nced over at the elf mage by her side. I pretty much understood why she had done things so seriously this time.


    The elf mage Yur seemed like he was about to cry, so I should probably say less here.


    ¡°Margaret, do you think that we should notify the elves?¡±


    ¡°...You decide. You¡¯re more skilled than I am with these types of political decisions.¡±


    I nced over at Yur again. Although Margaret didn¡¯t directly take a side, her attitude of letting me decide already exined a lot.


    With her typical motherly nature and status of the only normal person in our party, typically she would have directly requested for me to inform the elves. However, she also knew just how difficult it would be to deal with the elves.


    The elves also had a poor rtionship with the Mage Country. The elves always felt ¡°We are the source of all magic. You should all be incredibly grateful that we¡¯re teaching you magic¡±¡ªa mysterious sense of superiority.


    However, human mages constantly created new magic spells and types, bringing along greater power. Human mages had long since far exceeded the abilities of elven mages, who were overly traditional and unwilling to try new things. The elves were jealous, yet still maintained their mysterious sense of superiority. They forever felt they were better than human mages for no other apparent reason. The fracture between human and elven mages was incredibly apparent.


    Back when Margaret studied in the elven kingdoms for the sake of learning more magic, she had been bullied quite often there. Since holding a grudge forever was basically a passive ability of all intelligent women, even though Margaret was now a greatly sessful mage, she stillcked patience towards the elves.


    Now, she was willing to help Yur simply because they were both mages. There was also the fact that this was greatly important and indeed needed multiple sources of confirmation.


    I nced at all the other bastards in my party. Not a single one of them seemed like they intended to give me any ideas.


    ¡°How much longer until the first demon wave explosively arrives?¡±


    ¡°ording to historical records... Actually, every time has always been a sudden arrival with zero hints beforehand. However, even for pure creatures of Chaos like demons, gathering such arge-scale fighting force will require time. We still probably have at least one or two months.¡±


    ¡°Then no matter what decision we make, we¡¯ll have to act swiftly.¡±


    Should we simply do nothing with this information? That seemed like too much of a waste. While I was still hesitating, a pitch-ck bat suddenly pped its way into our room through the window,nded on my shoulder, and tossed a fairies¡¯ special edition report onto my hand.


    <<Why did three Main Gods suddenly fight each other in the middle ofst night? Why was Anslo seriously injured?>>


    ¡°Damn, the fairies are so good at writing super headlines that will attract attention!¡±


    I nced over the report and saw that most of it was only spection. However, there were some things that were confirmed. This fight took ce in Anslo¡¯s personal Divine Kingdom. The three Chaos Main Gods who fought there were Anslo, the Guardian God of the Elves, Abyss Prince Karwenz, and Sophocles the Deceiver. I checked the date to see when st night¡± was, and saw that it had only urred two nights ago. The result of this fight was quite obvious already from the headline.


    Any Main God who was seriously injured would require far more than one or two years to recover. I truly couldn¡¯t understand what had happened.


    ¡°The elves are going to be finished in this case?¡±


    I no longer hesitated. Since Anslo had been rendered useless for the time being, it would be inconceivable for the demons not to hurry and use this time to do something. It seemed quite likely that the first demon wave might happen at any moment.


    If there had been half a year, the elves could have attempted to directly try and conquer human kingdoms¡¯ territory. If there had been three months, the elves could have organized a major escape. But if there was only one month, the number of things that could be done would be quite limited.


    ¡°I¡¯ll discuss things with the fairies and have them sell this information to the moon elves as the fairies¡¯ information channels are the quickest. I¡¯ll give 60% of the money earned to your adventuring team since this information was mainly your aplishment. The remainder...¡±


    ¡°Cough, cough, cough.¡±


    The dwarf priest who had been silent up until now suddenly interrupted me. I instantly understood what he wanted when he awkwardly pointed at the gold coin emblem on his chest.


    ¡°I¡¯ll give 50% to your adventuring team, and 20% to the Church of Wealth to shut Beyana up. The rest will belong to us.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t that wecked money. It was that these were simply the rules of society. Since we were participating in this incident as adventurers, we would naturally receive payment ording to adventurers¡¯ rules.


    This wasn¡¯t only because adventurers needed money. If doing good deeds had no benefits whatsoever, adventurers would definitely stop helping out as often. The main reason why adventurers would be able toplete highly difficult missions so often was because missions would always pay a reward ording to the difficulty scale.


    ¡°I can save the world, but you must pay me a fee on the scale of saving the world.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, this was the foundational reason why adventurers couldmonly be found in every dimension.


    Currently, giving half of the information sale proceeds to the adventuring team could be considered quite generous since we had basically saved their lives with our intervention. ording to adventurers¡¯ rules, splitting the reward 50-50 in such a situation would be normal. Also, Beyana had guided this adventuring team all the way here too. It would have been impossible for this adventuring team to reach the 100th level of the Chaos Abyss without her assistance, so Beyana also had the right to be paid. Still, giving half to the original adventuring team who had put in most of the effort was the right thing to do.


    Even though this was only a piece of information, it was critical information relevant to the potential destruction of an entire species. With the fairies who were such skilled extortionists acting as our intermediary, and considering the moon elves¡¯ astonishing wealth, I felt that we would likely receive at least several pieces of God Equipment in exchange for the information.


    However, the dwarf priest cracked an awkward, wry smile.


    ¡°...My Goddess Beyana says she wants 30%. Apart from her personal portion, she also needs to pay that Holy Knight group their fees and condolence money for the deceased.¡±


    ¡°Okay, that¡¯s fine.¡±


    I would have forgotten about that Holy Knight group if Beyana hadn¡¯t mentioned them. Although they hadn¡¯t been very useful, they had tried their best, and several of them had died. After the fight against Donatis concluded, the surviving Holy Knights told us that they had their own path of retreat, so we split up back at the 100th level.


    ¡°Did they sessfully return to the mortal ne? Or did Donatis find them?¡±


    The bearded dwarf priest nodded at me and confirmed that the Holy Knight group had safely returned. This was good news.


    Now then, the rest would be our own tasks.


    What, you¡¯re asking why we weren¡¯t going to the Moonwheel Capital battlefield? I had no intention of being sent back to Hell to reincarnate again. Not even a Main God would likely be able to directly resist against the first demon wave.


    ¡°Ahem, since everyone¡¯s here now for our party, let¡¯s go grind against a boss first, a Main God level boss.¡±

 Chapter 609 - Unexpected

    <h4>Chapter 609: Unexpected</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In the forever pitch-ck sky of my world, there were no clouds, yet this ce was forever shrouded in darkness. The faint golden tower in the distance was the only source of light. Unfortunately, this light was far too faint to serve as lighting, and could only indicate direction.


    The sky was ck, and the ground was also ck. However, the strange part was that everyone could see quite far in here. Perhaps from the moment that someone entered my world, their physical sight would be reced by soul vision.


    ¡°Wow, you actually had this with you? Others have grandpa spirits with them, but you have an entire world and a Main God?¡±


    Adam was indeed quite astonished to learn about my personal world. However, I felt like what he wasmenting on seemed off...


    ¡°...Don¡¯t mention it. I have more with me than just this, but nothing at all that¡¯s easy on me.¡±


    Other people who had Systems would have protagonist plot armor, using their cheat powers to fight bosses and swiftly level up. But my System? She enjoyed making me suffer every day, and 99% of my Fate Points ended up being exchanged for something useless. In the end, I discovered nothing but schemes within schemes. Not to mention, my reputation was entirely ruined thanks to us constantly trying to make things difficult for each other.


    Every time that I met something good that seemed like a protagonist¡¯s benefit, there would be a 90%, no, with my experience, 100% chance that it was some sort of trap or pitfall.


    Having a grandpa spirit with you? I had a grandma spirit in my world, and if I wanted to be technical, she was a super senior who had indeed given me much information. But, Conservation betrayed me at a critical moment, and almost seeded in killing me. Now, she had also be a boss monster that I needed to get rid of.


    That was right, we were now grinding this boss fight, the Main God level Undead Emperor Conservation.


    My unique bug-like world of Hell was highly important to me, not to mention my Yongye City castle. If Conservation took over this ce and remained my enemy, this would also sever my connection to the Hell Gods. It would be the equivalent of having her hands around my throat.


    Since all thebat strength of my party had arrived, it was the time for us to clear out this underlying threat.


    The fight against Conservation had already begun. However, we were all quite rxed. Even Adam, our party¡¯s tank, was quite free right now. There was a reason for this. Today, none of us were the main characters...


    Although the sky in my Hell world remained dark, the ck ground was covered in ice and mes.


    On one side was a snow mountain and blizzards where countless undead roamed within. Frost dragons and small ice dragons acted as aerial troops in the sky. The constant outpouring of ice shards and snow were all part of the ice magic attacks.


    Amongst all the undead and ice was a giant skeleton constructed out of crystallized ice and snow. He was so tall that his head reached the clouds. Inside his skeletal bones was a small snow-white pagoda, where the Undead Emperor sat down while wearing her extravagantly beautiful clothing.


    The other side of the battleground in my world was covered in a sea of mes. Magma was spreading everywhere and covered all the ground.


    Uncountable fire elemental creatures were leaping around in the sea of magma. The moment that they jumped out, the me sea would bestow them with magma armor and fire weapons. The next instant, these fire elemental creatures wouldugh manically as they charged at the ice creatures and the undead.


    Amongst all the low-level, mid-level, and high-level fire elemental creatures, three giant beastsmanded the most attention.


    The leading one appeared like an abyssal beast constructed out of mes. His four hooves tore apart the ground, and volcanos were erupting on its gigantic body. His blood-red eyes were filled with hatred.


    His weapons were a fire-wreathed greatsword and an Inferno Demon whip. Every time he wielded his whip, the ground would split apart as more magma and fire elemental creatures poured out. Anyone who was familiar with this individual would be able to recognize him and his two pieces of God Equipment¡ªLadvioka, the Lord of Putrefaction.


    The next beast was quite a nostalgic st from the past. This was Kakajil, who had led his army before to attack Sulfur Mountain City. He was still carrying the same God Equipmentmp as before, except that this time, manicallyughing me skeletons jumped out from within to self-destruct amid their enemies.


    The final beast was rather unfamiliar to me. It was a gigantic tortoise lizard covered in mes. He was twice asrge as Ladvioka. His entire gigantic body was a living volcano, and each part of his body was as sturdy as a mountain. He didn¡¯t walk around, as he simply remained where he was and locked onto his enemy with a single eye.


    A single horn was on his forehead, where a castle could be seen. The master of this me army was residing in that castle.


    I had never seen this beast before, but myths and legends had told of his name and image¡ªthis was the ancient Fire Elemental God, Arweiss.


    ¡°She¡¯s now Main God power level?¡±


    Adam had a ratherplex expression. I knew that he wasn¡¯t referring to Undead Emperor Conservation, since it was no secret that Conservation had already achieved Main God power level. He was referring to the woman that both of us were highly familiar with.


    ¡°...It¡¯s difficult to say. There¡¯s no set power level to determine if someone¡¯s at Main God power level. At any rate, anyone who¡¯s capable of easily suppressing powerful Gods will be at Main God level. But, judging from this situation, even if she¡¯s not at Main God level yet, she¡¯s not far from it. Right, Margaret, how does it feel to have your disciple surpass you in all areas?¡±


    ¡°Ratherplex. I feel that you should be the one who finds this more difficult to ept.¡±


    I could only nod silently. The powerful existence on top of the tremendous beast was the half-demon whom I viewed like a daughter¡ªElisa.


    ¡°...Although her Devourer ability seems quite ridiculous, more ridiculous is probably Fate itself. Perhaps she will break the record that Karwenz set of bing the youngest Main God in history.¡±


    A bleeding dragon head was violently fighting against a ck beast. These two beast heads furiously fought against each other until thest moment, finally forming an imprint of the two beasts biting at each other. That was Elisa¡¯s Soul Imprint, Devourer.


    The was a unique Soul Imprint that was the perfect representation of Chaos¡ªthe strong preying on the weak, where only the strong survived and evolved by feasting on the flesh and blood of the weak!


    ¡°As long as the element is appropriate, all power that the host can handle can be devoured. This is truly a cheat-like ability. She was given an easy ticket to the top right after entering Legend rank. The will of the Chaos Abyss... Cynthia truly spoiled Elisa. It¡¯s lucky that Cynthia isn¡¯t here anymore. Otherwise, I truly couldn¡¯t rest assured.¡±


    Nine years ago, right when she entered Legend rank, Elisa devoured the Fire Elemental God and a Demon Earl¡¯s heart in order to obtain the power to control her own fate. Demons¡¯ hearts were the crystallization of all their power. Elisa, who had the favor of the Chaos Abyss itself, used these two miraculous Chaos resources to sessfully improve to Demon Duke power level, breaking all records of how quickly a demon could level up.


    Seven years ago, during the battle of Hell, I had worked so hard to y the Main God Ladvioka, the Lord of Putrefaction. The best spoils of war I received was Ladvioka¡¯s demon heart as he was the strongest Inferno Demon in existence. In order to protect Elisa from Karwenz, I had directly given this heart to Elisa to devour at the time.


    ¡°An ancient Fire Elemental God, a fire element Demon Earl, and a Demon Main God who¡¯s the strongest Inferno Demon. It¡¯s almost as if Fate itself is trying to help her achieve the peak...¡±


    I had no idea how strong Elisa currently was now. This was because the weak would be unable to determine the true power level of the strong. Correct¡ªElisa was now far stronger than I was.


    I only knew that her current strength had already far surpassed that of ordinary Demon Lords and powerful Gods. Judging from how it seemed that she was having an equal fight against Main God power level Conservation, Elisa definitely wasn¡¯t far from achieving Main God power level herself.


    ¡°I heard that she was working hard at cultivation back at the Land of Spring. She asked the Titans and the Hell Gods to teach her. Still, I never expected that she could achieve so much. I no longer have anything I can teach her.¡± Margaret was quite satisfied as well as regretful. As Elisa¡¯s magic teacher, she had taught such a powerful disciple. Yet, Elisa hadn¡¯t walked the path of magic in order to achieve her power level. Margaret probably felt quiteplex inside.


    ¡°...If she had been serious earlier and brought out her true power level, we probably wouldn¡¯t have had to run away from Donatis earlier.¡±


    However, I shook my head. I could understand pretty well why Elisa had chosen to hide her true power level. Even if we had won and killed Donatis, we wouldn¡¯t have obtained much apart from attracting even more dangerous amounts of attention.


    It was quite within reason that Elisa would hide her true power. This would be a sudden trump card that very few would know about.


    In a critical battle, an unexpected trump card could yield important results. However, casually leaking information about such a trump card for the sake of a coincidental battle with no benefits involved would be quite foolish.


    Additionally, she suddenly revealed her true power level here because she wanted to show it to me, along with the fact that this was a sealed off world where information wouldn¡¯t possibly leak.


    ¡°I can finally stand by your side...¡±


    I didn¡¯t even know how to reply to Elisa¡¯s sudden words...


    Harloys suddenly jumped onto my shoulder at this moment.


    ¡°Princess Peach, if she tries to force you to bed her, will you be able to resist?¡±


    At this moment, myplex feelings became even more difficult to describe.

 Chapter 610 - Dual Hearts

    <h4>Chapter 610: Dual Hearts</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    My personal world of Hell seemed like it was split into two halves: an ice mountain and a me sea.


    I had seen Conservation¡¯s techniques many times already. There wasn¡¯t anything new. However, Elisa¡¯s abilities truly impressed me.


    In all the dimensions, the sea would be the source of life for all normal carbon-based lifeforms. However, I¡¯d never expected that a me sea would be able to give birth to life in a world of fire.


    As for those three gigantic beasts she controlled, even though they appeared quite fearsome, it was obvious that theycked will of their own, and their power levels were much weaker than the originals¡¯... If these beasts had identical power levels to the originals, then Elisa would have easily been able to defeat any Main God.


    While those who knew nothing would simply watch the show, those in the know would look to see what was truly going on. What truly astonished me was the me sea itself, despite its unassuming nature.


    Magma slowly flowed underneath the me sea. However, all the fire elemental creatures that jumped out were living creatures with their own souls.


    A suddenly arrived phoenix streaked through the skies. The feathers it dropped all exploded like bombs. This phoenix¡¯s size rapidly expanded to the point where it was four or five timesrger than when it was born. Its energy level had multiplied by more than ten times.


    There was also a pack of fire wolves that self-destructed. But, in an instant, more than double the number of fire wolves jumped out from the me sea.


    ¡°Creation magic? At this level, it¡¯s pretty much no different from wielding the Concept of Creation...¡±


    Back in the day, Elisa had gone down quite a different path when studying magic. In order to resist her inborn demon instincts of being drawn to mes and the Chaos Abyss, Elisa had also studied ice magic. She was skilled at using ice to create animals, nts, and weapons. These ice items would serve as physical attacks alongside her ice magic attacks.


    Now, perhaps she had given up on ice magic in the end after finally answering the call of her inner nature. However, her astonishing creativity and talent had transferred to creating fire creatures.


    To her, this me sea was the source of life itself. She raised her hands and squeezed the air, causing the me sea to give birth to new life.


    Perhaps her army had been suppressed by Conservation, who appeared to have limitless mana. However, in terms ofbat techniques and magic ability, Elisa was equal to Conservation, and thetter¡¯s fighting style was evidently set in stone. It would be difficult for Conservation to improve further.


    When considering the great difference in age and experience between Elisa and Conservation, it was quite obvious that Elisa had achieved even greater things. Additionally, reaching the realm of Creation with her abilities was truly ridiculous. Even I was unable to predict how much further Elisa could power up still.


    ¡°...I think that¡¯s enough of enjoying the show. We should swiftly deal with her now.¡±


    In a way, Elisa revealing her true power level helped me to rx.


    Not only had Elisa showed me her true power, she also helped us to learn more about Conservation¡¯s fighting style and abilities. All of us sitting here while sipping tea and chatting were veterans. Although we appeared to only chat and rest, we were actually using our own ways to gather information on a powerful enemy. Once we went out there to fight, we would understand everything about Conservation and put it to good use against her...


    ¡°Oh, I can¡¯t drink anymore, I truly can¡¯t drink anymore. Heehee, you want me to drink more? Do you have designs on me...?¡±


    Cough, cough, that was Little Red rolling around whileughing and talking in her sleep. She definitely wasn¡¯t trying to p my face! It was just a coincidence, a coincidence! We should all forgive such an irresistible species like a loli. Just take a look at Adam over there, he had such a serious expression as he studied the information in his hands!


    But in the next second, Adam¡¯s foolish face appeared right in front of me. He had a mysterious expression as he showed off the precious item he¡¯d obtained down here in the Chaos Abyss¡ªa colored special edition magazine.


    ¡°Rnd, this magazine is truly outstanding. I truly don¡¯t know how the fairies aplished it. The moon elves¡¯ half-naked festival, female panthermen in bikinis, the gnomes¡¯ cute hotpants, fiery, passionate subi in leather clothing... Margaret, what are you doing, please don¡¯t aim Little Red at me! Aaaah!¡±


    I was rendered speechless as I saw howical things were as always. By the way, Little Red was still asleep despite all of this? That was truly amazing as well.


    At this time, I didn¡¯t need to do anything. Margaret swiftly suppressed the scene as always. For veterans like us,bat preparations wouldn¡¯t take long.


    Adam was the first to be tossed out to act as the tank for us like always. Judging from his jumping and gliding speed, he was actually even quicker than before.


    When he passed by the me sea, the mes enveloped him as he transformed into a fieryrge bird. He then pped around the me sea and erged himself even further.


    ¡°...He reobtained it?¡±


    Even I was rather astonished to see the current scene before me.


    He had given the phoenix heart to Annie, which meant giving up all of his previous umtion. While the thunder element Titan heart wouldn¡¯t be any less powerful than the phoenix heart, his Concepts and martial arts as the previous ¡°Red Lotus Hero¡± should have all be useless.


    Of course, I believed in Adam¡¯s abilities. It would likely only be a matter of time for him to cultivate a set of abilities to go along with his Titan¡¯s heart. But, considering that he would need to cultivate from the very foundations again, that would be the equivalent of having an author learn how to write in an entire newnguage. It would be quite difficult to achieve the same power level without several years or even several decades.


    ¡°...Why wouldn¡¯t he be able to reobtain it? We¡¯re no longer the weaklings who had to risk our lives just to obtain a phoenix heart.¡±


    I paused in surprise after hearing this. Indeed, we had worked so hard fighting the phoenix back then, hunting and being hunted down for several thousands of kilometers, fighting it so many times until finally forcing it to be reborn in order to steal its phoenix heart. But now, there was no need for this at all.


    ¡°We had the Mage Country¡¯s Truth Symposium help us, along with the Hell Gods as support. We purchased an old phoenix that was almost about to be reborn from the Nature Faction, and then we had one of our teachers help us with a surgery... Adam is now a man with two hearts.¡±


    ¡°...He has two simultaneous cores? Isn¡¯t he truly about to be capable of literal multitasking, then?¡±


    Although I was saying random things, I was truly shocked. Although it sounded simple to have two hearts with differing elements, the difficulty and trouble involved would be unimaginable.


    Phoenixes were incredibly exotic divine beasts. Purchasing such a precious creature from the fanatical druids would be incredibly difficult.


    Besides, even if Adam obtained another phoenix, the safest method would be to remove the Titan¡¯s heart and use the original blueprint to give him a phoenix heart again. Why keep the Titan¡¯s heart? There would be so much shing and pain from having two hearts of different elements. This was no generation where more powers were better. Only a power suitable to oneself would be the best.


    Margaret nced at me... fine, I felt that she was viciously ring at me.


    ¡°He said that he felt there was a need to be even stronger.¡±


    I suddenly understood, but didn¡¯t know what I should say.


    Humanity¡¯s strongest warrior? The hero who saved the world several hundred years ago? It was likely that Adam¡¯s current abilities would still be quite insufficient in front of our powerful future enemies. No, his abilities wouldn¡¯t even be enough in front of the powerful Gods and Main Gods.


    While phoenixes were of the fire element, phoenix fire contained Concepts such as Indestructible, Rebirth, Reincarnation, Revival, and so on. These Concepts would be particrly suitable for tanks. The destructive attack power of mes would also be quite high. However, there would also be many shorings. The most obvious shoring of all would be one of the most obvious weaknesses of tanks¡ªshort range.


    Perhaps a phoenix¡¯s ability to fly would be quite practical. However, a phoenix¡¯s flight would still be insufficient on the highest-level battlefields. Adam¡¯s phoenix wings would be far too insufficient whenpared to an Immemorial Red Dragon flying at full speed.


    As for the thunder element, without even mentioning the other traits of thunder, just the fact that thunder would improve reaction time and speed would make any warrior desire such abilities.


    If Adam possessed a Titan¡¯s heart and phoenix heart simultaneously, with dual cores powering him, his strength, speed, and revival capabilities would reach the peak. Perhaps Adam really would be the theoretical perfect warrior.


    ¡°It¡¯s too difficult...¡±


    ¡°¡®Rnd even managed to aplish keeping four different powers in bnce. I only have two different powers here, so it¡¯ll be fine.¡¯ Didn¡¯t you set the example for him?¡± Margaret imitated Adam¡¯s tone in her lilting voice. I finally understood why Margaret was ring at me.


    However, my case waspletely different from Adam¡¯s. I had umted a great deal of experience over many lives and self-cultivated my abilities. The foundational reason for my sess was that I was dual-job-ssing as both warrior and mage. Meanwhile, Adam was a pure warrior who was unable to naturally use the power of the elements.


    Adam had forcefully obtained a powerful bloodline through surgery. Even if he could use his former power to suppress the phoenix heart, the sh between two different elements would be the equivalent of cing two constantly exploding bombs within himself. It would be a daily urrence for his internal organs to be damaged. Until the two elementspletely achieved a harmonious bnce, he would be experiencing extreme pain on a daily basis even with the phoenix¡¯s power of rebirth to protect his life.


    ¡°I self-cultiv¡ª¡±


    I only finished half of my words before I realized that anything I said would be meaningless with how calm Margaret¡¯s expression was.


    Adam, Margaret, and the others had all been powerful for many years already. Of course they would understand such things. Adam had already resolved himself to bear all the consequences before he made this decision.


    Both of us knew that Adam was telling nothing but excuses. The real reason was that he felt he wasn¡¯t strong enough, so he wanted to be stronger.


    Everything said before was useless. For a pure warrior, there was only one reason necessary¡ªwanting to be stronger. Margaret was purely ming me for his actions.


    If Adam overcame the sh between his two elements, and created his own thunder element martial arts and Concepts, then leveled up his new phoenix heart to the old one¡¯s level, these would all be difficult steps that no ordinary warriors couldplete in their lifetimes. But, since this was Adam, perhaps he would one day foolishly smile and say that his martial arts had now beenpleted and were undefeatable... wait, why did this style seem so subtly familiar?


    The phoenix form Adam in the sky was now enveloped in thunder. The undying phoenix put on thunder feathers, allowing it to fly even faster in the sky, just like an unstoppable lightning bolt.


    I could only shake my head helplessly. Since even the tank was self-aware enough to charge in, I probably shouldn¡¯t waste time anymore.


    Also, Little Red had already vanished unnoticed some time ago, and judging from the countless fireballs that the phoenix suddenly spat at Conservation, I had been quite slow to act.


    ¡°When did Little Red jump on him?¡±


    Judging from how Conservation¡¯s magic attacks against Adam suddenly vanished, Little Red had already mastered the ability to devour magic in her new energy-devouring red dragon job ss.


    Meanwhile, Margaret floated up towards the sky as her rainbow-colored Philosopher¡¯s Stone floated in the air with countless magic spells jumping out.


    ¡°elerate¡±, ¡°Star Armor¡±, and other such support buff spells were cast on our party, while ¡°Decelerate¡±, ¡°Curse of Misfortune¡±, and other such debuff spells were tossed onto our enemy. As a Great Saint, Margaret would know at least more than one thousand magic spells.


    ¡°...It really is just like the old times.¡±


    I had already dared to challenge the Main God power level Conservation even though I hadn¡¯t known about Elisa¡¯s truebat strength. The foundational reason was because we had so many people... err, I meant that we had all cooperated for so long over the years already, so ourbination was far more powerful than even 1+1 > 3.


    Adam blocked the powerful enemy, Margaret observed and gathered information while giving targeted support, and Little Red would take chances to suddenly sneak up on the enemy. As for me, since I was an all-rounder, I would typically do whatever was needed in battle, and in the current battle, what I needed to do the most was...


    My golden wings shone with golden light as I lifted up my right arm which was covered in Holy Light. My Dawn holy sword was glittering with blinding light. This powerful holy sword even attracted the attention of the Hell Gods.


    And then, I reached out...


    ¡°Holy Light!¡±


    Holy Light shone on Adam¡¯s body as I milked him... err, I meant healed him.


    Cough, since our party had a tank, a DPS, and a support, we justcked a healer. Since I was capable of using Holy Light, didn¡¯t it only seem natural that I stood in the rear and healed everyone?


    Hey, don¡¯t underestimate the healers. It was precisely because of healing job sses that we humans could use small parties to challenge super bosses far more powerful than the party¡¯s level. This was human intelligence!


    As long as the tank could persist and the healer could keep up, and as long as nobody died in the long battle of attrition, we would always win one day. Even the most vicious boss was nothing more than a helpless boss in front of a raiding party! Also, healing would be the foundational reason why any party could win a battle of attrition against a boss.


    ¡°Every Holy Knight has a heart that desires the DPS role, but most will have to take the role of the healer due to practical reality...¡±


    Most adventuring teams wouldck healers more than any other job ss. It wasmon that only the most novice priests who needed experience would join adventuring teams. This was why Holy Knights became the first choice for any team to help their injuredpanions. Due to the practical situation, many youngsters who wanted to be heroes in the Holy Knight job ss unknowingly turned to bing full-time healers. Their sword techniques gradually became worse than their healing techniques, and they wouldn¡¯t even know what to do on the frontlines anymore. They would then spend their entire lifetimes without even realizing it as healers...


    This definitely wasn¡¯t my personal experience or anything like that!


    Cough, ahem, but at least my healing was quite effective.


    With the buff effect from my holy sword, my Holy Light healing was incredibly effective. Adam, who already had powerful regenerative abilities of his own, instantly recovered from any injuries he had. Little Red also constantly devoured Conservation¡¯s magic attacks, and Margaret was supporting him. With us three protecting the tank, Adam had already gotten close to Conservation.


    Any pure mage who allowed a warrior to get into melee range would typically meet death!

 Chapter 611 - Schemers

    <h4>Chapter 611: Schemers</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    While Rnd was busy dealing with his internal threat, the world still kept moving. When the fairies spread the information about the Holy War¡¯s first major battlefield, this meant that the horns of war had started blowing. The entire world erupted inmotion.


    ¡°The Holy War¡¯s first main battlefield will be in the elven kingdoms! It will be in the Moonwheel Capital!¡±


    As the most professional information brokers in this world, the fairies weren¡¯t the ones who leaked this information.


    This information spread swiftly because the moment that Moon Elf Empress Afina received this information, not only did her heart almost stop working, she unhesitatingly asked the silver elves for a ceasefire, along with asking for reinforcements from all neighboring and allied countries.


    Some people doubted or suspected the veracity of this information. However, the evidence was the moon elf dagger with the power of the Chaos Abyss within it. Additionally, when archmages proved that this ordinary weapon had already traveled through a dimensional door multiple times, the truth was ced in front of everyone.


    ¡°The person who obtained this information and told us to tell you is that Prince Rnd. He even had a fight against Main God Donatis, and killed off two high-ranked devils for the sake of this matter. Lasnina, the Lord of Curses, and Salor the Berserk ughterer have both died.¡±


    The fairies were quite generous with adding this additional information. Such important news made even the doubters into believers.


    The news that Anslo was seriously injured had only recently spread before this information. At the time, even Anslo himself was confused why he had been attacked. No Main Gods would fight each other without sufficient personal benefits involved. Anslo had kept an incredibly low profile after joining the Chaos Abyss, so why was he attacked for no apparent reason?


    If the only attacker had been the Abyssal Prince Karwenz, someone whose thoughts were a mystery to everyone, that would still be understandable. However, Sophocles the Deceiver was mighty famous for being selfish to the extreme. Only tremendous benefits would possibly motivate Sophocles to attack another Main God.


    Previously, all the moon elf strategists, mages, and nobles had such a headache trying to figure out why Anslo had been attacked. Now, the answer had arrived. Instead of headache, now their hearts ached. It was said that some veteran family elders with several thousand years of inheritance had fainted on the spot upon hearing the news that came from Rnd.


    ¡°Fate wants to destroy us moon elves... no, destroy the entire elf species?¡±


    Communication between major countries was quite fast. Once all the Superior Elves started taking action, the elves received a flurry of responses from neighboring countries all within three days at the elven pce.


    ¡°Empress Rosemary from And and the Emperor of Bardi, respectively, received our ambassadors. They sympathize with our plight, but both said that reinforcements would have to wait until they defeated their current enemies...¡±


    As an important faction in the continent, the moon elves had embassies in all the major empires (how else were they supposed to scheme and spread chaos in the human kingdoms?), and the elves¡¯ secretmunication spells caused all the ambassadors to swiftly take action. The first batch of responses would also likelye from the most important countries.


    And and Bardi were rtively polite. At the very least, their higher-ups met with the ambassadors, but their sincerity level was unknown. That was because these two countries were dealing with the Sea Tribe and Undead Emperors, respectively. It would likely take many years to ¡°eliminate¡± their enemies and be able to reinforce other countries... So in this type of situation where it was known already that they wouldn¡¯t be able to send reinforcements, of course it would be natural to respond politely to show how nice they were to their ¡°allies¡±.


    Empress Afina wasn¡¯t counting on the mega empires And and Bardi to send reinforcements in the first ce, as she also knew that these two countries were busy with their own enemies. She was focusing on the responses from the other major countries.


    ¡°San Antonio refused to meet with our ambassador. They said that their emperor is currently busy making preparations for the hunting season, and won¡¯t be able to meet our ambassador for three months... The hunting season of this year just ended two months ago. Are those bastards intending on preparing for an entire year!?¡±


    This was already quite shameless, but there was another country that was even more shameless.


    ¡°The Suolo Federation says that this is an election year for them. Yep, even though the Holy War is upon them, they don¡¯t intend to cancel their election. The parties that we support say that it¡¯s fine to send reinforcements, but we will need to donate triple the usual amount in political contributions for them to take more than half of the parliamentary seats away from the dove factions. Only then will they be able to pass any aggressive ns...¡±


    The Suolo Federation was an extreme rarity among the human mega empires as it was a federation with a parliamentary system. All the other countries had forever viewed the Suolo Federation¡¯s political system as something truly weird. Now that war was upon everyone, they were still busy voting for new parliamentary members, which seemed even more mysterious.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it already the time of the Holy War? Why are their dove (peace-wanting) factions receiving so many votes?¡±


    ¡°Because their citizens don¡¯t want war...¡±


    ¡°...Do they really think that war won¡¯te just because they don¡¯t want war!? Are they just going to watch while others invade them, kill their family members and friends, and steal away their wealth!?¡±


    Even the other human kingdoms couldn¡¯t understand what the Suolo Federation was doing at this time, not to mention the elves.


    However, it was unlikely that the parliamentary members that the elves supported would receive any political donations this time. Even if these parliamentary members sessfully controlled more than half of their parliament, and proposed a war n... one year would be considered fast for their parliament to debate, vote, and finally take action. The elves would be unable to wait for so long.


    Previously, the Suolo Federation¡¯s factional political party system had given the elves many chances to influence this country. The elves¡¯ good image in this country could even help the politicians to receive votes. It could be said that out of every human country, the Suolo Federation was the friendliest towards the elves. But now, the elves who had endlessly praised the Suolo Federation¡¯s ¡°advanced political system¡± hated the Suolo Federation¡¯s slow, gridlocked political system more than anything.


    ¡°Perhaps having a dictator is better in a time of war. At least only one sentence will be required to deal with a problem in that case...¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be such an idiot. If a dictator is ruling another country, the entire country is his personal wealth. How are you supposed to fool him into paying a tremendous price for the sake of another country?¡±


    As for the other mega empires¡¯ responses?


    The Em Kingdom which had their Divine Sea Troops? This kingdom was in the southwesternmost archipgos of Eich. These inds were far too away from the elven kingdoms. Although the Divine Sea Troops would indeed be quite powerful during naval battles, innd battles... The most important part was that the elves had no diplomatic rtionship whatsoever with the Em Kingdom. This was because these ¡°barbarians who reek of the stench of fish¡± were the mortal enemies of the Suolo Federation, as well as because the Em Kingdom was too far away to be interested in the overall political situation of the continent.


    How about the Mage Country and the Cloud Tower? Indeed, this country was the one with the best conditions to send reinforcements. However, the best conditions didn¡¯t mean the highest possibility. While archmages and the Cloud Tower could send reinforcements faster than anyone else, when considering the elves¡¯ terrible rtionship with the mages, the likelihood of support would be almost zero.


    After all the mega empires used various excuses and reasons to reject the moon elves¡¯ request for reinforcements, the moon elves still panicked even though this was all within expectations.


    But despite all the bad news, there was still some good news. For instance, the silver elves agreed to a ceasefire with the moon elves, and were even willing to send reinforcements.


    ¡°What? The silver elves split into factions?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Majesty...¡±


    But, more bad news arrived yet again the day right after the silver elves agreed to help the moon elves.


    Unlike what Rnd thought, the silver elves and moon elves¡¯ internal conflict wasn¡¯tpletely faked. Anslo and the other Elf Gods had nned it so that the victor in this war to determine the ruler of all elves would indeed be the new ruling elf species of all elves.


    ¡°It¡¯s time for us elves to be unified in order to survive this catastrophe.¡±


    What humans didn¡¯t know was that the Superior Elves¡¯ leaders had discussed and agreed to be unified... Fine, when considering how the wood elves only stayed as hermits in mountains and forests, and how dark elves had long been mortal enemies with all other elves, the only unification possible for determining a ruling elf species would still be between the moon elves and silver elves.


    The fierce warrior silver elves and the wise moon elves both hoped to be the ruling elf species. Their supporting Elven Gods also split off into factions. Although the elves¡¯ internal war was 70% faked for outsiders to watch, 30% was real in order to determine what the ruling elf species would be.


    In order not to lose too many elites before the Holy War, the Elven Gods oversaw this war as both sides forbade all Superior Elves from participating in the war. Elite elves from high-ranking families were also kept away from the battlefield. The end result was that mercenaries and ordinary elves fought to death while Superior Elves were only allowed to bemanders.


    This internal war hadsted for seven or eight years already. Although the higher-ups on both sides had begun to intentionally reduce the scale of the warfare starting from the middle of the war, both sides had already suffered serious losses to their ordinary soldiers.


    Now, the silver elves and moon elves suddenly arrived at a ceasefire. The silver elves even agreed to send reinforcements to support the moon elves. Perhaps this was indeed good for the sake of the entire elf species. Perhaps this could be exined by saying ¡°the overall situation¡± and ¡°for the sake of all elves¡±, but this would seem like aplete and utter betrayal to the ordinary elven soldiers fighting and risking their lives on the frontlines every day.


    ¡°What? He/she/they killed my friends and family, yet I still need to go there as their reinforcements? This isn¡¯t even funny as a joke!¡±


    This wasn¡¯t the older times when the upper ss hadplete rule over all society. While the Superior Elves were indeed the elven leaders thanks to their outstanding natural talents and historical inheritance, the fact that Superior Elves were even morecking in fertilitypared to ordinary elves meant that the Superior Elves were forced to give much power over to ordinary elves.


    Thus, as time passed, the Superior Elves were no longer superior in poption and overallbat strength in any elven kingdom since long ago. However, in the elven kingdoms Elven Gods still ruled and guided, the Superior Elves still remained as elven leaders.


    The silver elves had now split into factions as a result of the announcement that silver elves would send reinforcements to the moon elves. The militaristic silver elves had originally kept excellent control over their army. However, the silver elf military officers were already quite filled withints about how the leading silver elves were all absent from this war. Now, not only had the silver elves directly agreed to peace with their former mortal enemies, the silver elf army was expected to go and save yesterday¡¯s mortal enemy? No matter what, this seemed like aplete and utter betrayal to all ordinary silver elves.


    ¡°Our rulers have betrayed us!¡±


    Not only did ordinary silver elves feel this way, many silver elf military officers rted to powerful families were also unable to ept this reality. The young Superior Elf silver elf military officers had already been quite aggrieved with not being able to participate in battle, as this meant they would be viewed as cowards in their militaristic society. So when the news of ceasefire and sending reinforcements was announced, these youngster Superior Elf officers directly took their personal armies and made a break from the leaders.


    Without going into details about the process, this was truly internal chaos and enmity amongst the silver elves. But, in the end, the silver elf tribe leaders still had their authority. The silver elves eventually didn¡¯t go to war against themselves, but they had now split into twopletely opposing factions.


    Only about 40-50% of the silver elves¡¯ total military forces were willing to support the moon elves and go as reinforcements for the sake of all elves. The remaining portion, which included most silver elfmoners and young Superior Elves, all felt that it would be far better for the silver elves to immigrate and move far away from the uing battlefield in the Moonwheel Capital. They felt that it would be a good idea to retreat to the southwestern mountains.


    This time, the overly scheming elves had shot themselves in the foot. Perhaps the God of Silver Elves knew that he had been too overboard before as he maintained a strange silence.


    Perhaps this was because the God of Silver Elves was looking at things from a different angle. From the viewpoint of silver elves, this would likely be the ¡°smart¡± choice as they wouldn¡¯t lose out no matter if the moon elves won or lost the battle against the first demon wave in the Moonwheel Capital. And if the moon elves were entirely destroyed as a species, the silver elves would still survive this way.


    When using the most vicious and cruel way of thinking to judge the silver elves, perhaps it was likely that they wanted all moon elves to die. In that case, the silver elves would be the only possible candidate for ruling elf species.


    But, this was the worst news possible for Moon Elf Empress Afina. She felt as if she could hear the bells tolling for the total destruction of her species...

 Chapter 612 - Battle Without Honor

    <h4>Chapter 612: Battle Without Honor</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In the wastnd of a battlefield, even though both sides tacitly avoided the only group of buildings nearby, thend here was still filled with countless craters as every inch ofnd was washed over countless times with magic.


    ck undead crawled out from the ck earth, answering their master¡¯s summons to join the battlefield. However, this was ¡°clean earth¡± that didn¡¯t have a single skeleton within it. These seemingly ordinary skeleton soldiers were nothing more than puppets created from the aura of death.


    These false undead that had no souls would use twice the usual mana to summon. However, their effectiveness for undead magic would be even lower than even the weakest goblin corpses.


    ¡°Dawn, cleanse them all.¡±


    I only needed to lift up my holy sword, and my light of cleansing would instantly cause these artificial skeletons to scatter. The faintly shining Tower of Holy Light off in the distance could even give me additional strength.


    ¡°I hope that Estrada has poor eyesight, and that he won¡¯t notice that I modified his hammer into a sword...¡±


    At this point in the fight, I had imperceptibly be a full-time support role. With Elisa and Little Red¡¯s attack power, and Margaret¡¯s incredibly varied support magic spells, I would be far more effective by concentrating on healing and support rather than attacking when I was only at Myth rank.


    ¡°Dust to dust, earth to earth.¡±


    Under my summoned Holy Light,rge amounts of artificial undead were instantly eradicated the moment that they awoke.


    If the Holy Church exined this phenomenon, perhaps it would be called a high-level Divine Art, but to me, this wasn¡¯t anything close to a Divine Art. All I had to do was let Holy Light radiate its natural properties, and these undead would naturally be dispelled and return to death again.


    There was too much of a power level difference between me and Conservation. Although my Holy Light had an advantage at first, its effective radius ended up being suppressed, and some artificial undead managed to survive.


    However, I didn¡¯t really mind this too much. Would these low-level undead really be able to threaten my powerful allies who were all SemiGod at the minimum?


    I really wanted to see this. Conservation was no idiot or novice. It was only natural that she wouldn¡¯t summon these skeletons just for the heck of it while fighting against my cleansing Holy Light.


    As expected, the ck skeletons suddenly changed in the very next instant.


    Many low-level skeletonsbined with each other, and their bones scattered and rearranged themselves within the amalgamation. The new mass speedily gathered together, seeming like a teeming horde of ants that were all on top of each other.


    Soon, many gigantic bone giants crawled up from these masses. Each one of them was thebination of countless low-level skeletons.


    This seemed like an ordinary undead mage¡¯s technique, but it was actually foundationally different. Undead mages¡¯ corpsebining and sewing monsters together would only be thebination of organs and physical body parts.


    Since each different organ would have apletely different soul shard as the source, it would be impossible tobine body parts from different sources together with excellent results. In undeadbining, 1+1 < 2, 100+100 < 150, and it would be considered quite good if 1000+1000 still equaled 1000. Otherwise, any undead mage would only need the simplest umtion of body parts to create a super monster more powerful than anything.


    Super top-level undead creatures would require top-level resources. As for low-level undead creatures, even if you increased their energy level, the base resources would be unable to handle the energy, and directly copse.


    However, the bone giants that Conservation crafted all had pure,plete skeletons¡ªevery single one of them. There appeared to be no problems whatsoever that all otherrge undead constructions would have with low-quality resources or ipatible parts. It was as if each bone giant was made from an exquisitely packaged set of building blocks, and that some simplebining was all that was needed to perfectly create the bone giant from the said building blocks.


    Each bone giant had been born from nothing. Their energy levels varied in strength from Gold all the way to Myth rank, but we all sensed that each bone giant was aplete individual.


    ¡°Conservation is truly incredible to have such a technique.¡±


    Not only were Harloys¡¯ eyes shining with desire, even I wanted to master this technique.


    I had previously thought that we had forced her to the point of having no ability to summon any additional creatures here, yet she was still capable of constructing artificial skeletons and then using those as the foundation to construct high-level undead.


    Some bone giants were down on all fours and roaring like beasts. Some flew up into the sky, transforming into bee swarms or bone giants. Some charged around everywhere on the battlefield like tanks.


    I was now certain that if it weren¡¯t for the fact that I had dispelled most of the undead, Conservation would have been capable of summoning enough building blocks to even create a SemiGod level undead creature.


    It was likely that only Conservation could use such a technique effectively as she had a ridiculous unending reserve of mana.


    ¡°If only I had such a technique, I wouldn¡¯t need to constructpletely artificial undead. I¡¯d only need to give undead better artificial body parts that don¡¯t sh with them, which would greatly reduce ipatibility issues. No, that would seem like such a waste. I could use artificial body parts to act as the core skeleton and nervous system, and then pick out appropriate organs to strengthen...¡±


    For a pure warrior, it was likely that they would only be able to tell the usefulness of such a technique on the battlefield. However, I could tell that this would be a revolutionary step forward in undead magic. This would absolutely be a groundbreaking innovation. Without even mentioning the effects on undead magic progress, just the fact that corpses were no longer required as resources would be more than enough to change the entire undead mage society.


    ¡°I absolutely must obtain this technique.¡±


    Just as I was burning up in passion, Margaret suddenly shed to my side, and said, ¡°It¡¯s about time, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    I calcted the time. It was indeed about time, so I nodded. The next instant, Adam flew back to me together with Little Red, and Elisa appeared behind my back.


    *Snap!*


    With a single snap of my fingers, all of us returned to that rundown hotel in the 137th level of the Chaos Abyss as if the cruel battle from earlier was nothing more than an illusion.


    What would be the most difficult for a boss to handle when that boss was trapped within the dungeon?


    Enemies with excellent cooperation and disgusting healing that fought a battle of attrition?


    Enemies that clearly had the strength for a direct fight yet still chose a battle of attrition?


    Being forced to sit on your throne, watching the enemy kill all your subordinates and then discuss how to defeat you right in front of you?


    I felt that the most disgusting part was that no matter how great of an advantage you obtained as the boss, your enemies could instantly leave any time that they wanted (including if they died, for they would stille back), and then the enemy team woulde back after being fully healed for a second, third, fourth... or even twenty-seventh battle.


    Correct, this was now the twenty-seventh time that we were fighting against Conservation.


    I didn¡¯t have a great deal of power over my personal bug-like world of Hell. However, just the fact that I could enter and leave as I pleased, together with any of my allies, would be one of the greatest powers and advantages if I used it properly.


    Conservation had managed to achieve Main God power level despite having an iplete undead physical body. This was unimaginably difficult. I was impressed with her astonishing talent and hard work. However, I had no intentions of causing any losses to my side for the sake of someone who was already trapped in my world. That was why I brought out the most shameless strategy possible¡ªwe would use a slow battle of attrition at the lowest cost possible to us to defeat her in the end.


    When we returned, Adam copsed on the carpet without caring about his image while panting loudly. Little Red grabbed arge pitcher and demanded water. It seemed that she had spat fire to the point where her throat was smoking... No, wait, this was the scent of alcohol, not water. Where did she scam someone for some good alcohol again?


    Margaret was probably the only normal one and a person that I didn¡¯t need to worry about here. She was sitting while ncing over her notes on our fights, calcting Conservation¡¯s true power and aces left, as well as calcting the weaknesses that we exposed in our battles.


    ¡°Honestly, having a Main God power level Undead Emperor be our training partner? Truly so extravagant.¡±


    Yes, that was right. Since my full party was here, of course we needed to train. It was indeed one of my goals to improve our tacit cooperation through actualbat. We needed actualbat to better understand each other¡¯s current abilities andbat styles.


    Our party hadn¡¯t fought together for so long now... Or, it should be said that there had been no enemy that required our cooperation. Now that we had such an excellent training partner, of course I would want to use her for as long as I could.


    I felt that Conservation was probably in a terrible mood. What we thought was quite obvious. In the constant battles, not only were all her trump cards discovered, her abilities were no longer secret, and defeat¡ªin fact, a humiliating defeat¡ªto a group of individuals all far weaker than her would only be a matter of time.


    Whenever we finished a battle, we could simply go back to the hotel to eat, sleep, and recover. However, she would need to reorganize and prepare for the next battle. No matter if we were at disadvantage or advantage, we could retreat at any time we wanted. However, she had to persist no matter the situation. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that her mana seemed to be limitless, she would have lost long ago, and after so many battles, I felt like I had reached the truth at why her mana seemed to be limitless.


    ¡°So, you really intend to win against a Main God in a battle of attrition like this?¡±


    ¡°Of course. Even if she still has mana, her energy and concentration will have limits. Our tension and her tension are onpletely different levels. As she has no allies, she¡¯ll have to constantly focus all the time, and as her concentrationpses, it¡¯s only a matter of time before she reveals a critical weakness.¡±


    I left other things unsaid. Slowly forcing Conservation to the brink would be the only way to expose even more of her trump cards. As she was a powerful individual who was famous long before human society started ruling the mortal ne, she had truly umted many things. Just those artificial skeletons of hers were enough for me to research for several decades.


    For any mage, a critical research result would be far more enticing than any treasure. Every trump card that Conservation exposed truly helped myself and Harloys to learn so much.


    Although we still didn¡¯t know how she aplished what she did, with the samples that we obtained plus our theories, along with Aso¡¯s knowledge of the Tark Republic¡¯s undead magic that he¡¯d left to me, we could have a rather basic attempt at reverse engineering. As long as we truly defeated Conservation, none of her secrets would remain secrets any longer.


    Another benefit of these fights was for the Dawn holy sword at my waist. As it constantly dispelled undead, not only did my holy sword seem undamaged, it even seemed like it was strengthening itself more and more.


    I drank some water and wiped my mouth. Rest time was about to be over.


    ¡°Everyone¡¯s rested enough, right? Let¡¯s continue with the twenty-eighth battle. This time, Adam and I will both act as the vanguard and pressure her some more. If she focuses her attacks on me, I will teleport out and back in again. Don¡¯t mind me too much. Margaret, create some extra cannon fodder to deal with her summoned creatures. Little Red, Elisa, are you still able to use thebination magic attack from earlier...?¡±


    I felt that the only thing more disgusting than an unkible tank was an unkible tank that could suddenly vanish if you focused your fire on him too much...


    We kept trying various different strategies against Conservation. Any weaknesses that we exposed would then be fixed. Ourbat strength was solidly improving. Without my realizing it, it seemed like I had be our party¡¯s leader yet again.


    ¡°Let¡¯s slow down and not force her too much. It¡¯s so rare to have such an excellent training partner. We¡¯ll try to have one hundred battles against her!¡±

 Chapter 613 - Victory Without Glory

    <h4>Chapter 613: Victory Without Glory</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°No matter how you look at it,pletely limitless mana is impossible...¡±


    I started with somethingpletely obvious. However, the other mages in my party were listening quite seriously.


    First of all, in magical theory, having limitless mana was the equivalent of creating something (mana) from nothing. That would be within the realm of the Creator Goddess¡¯s power of Creation, somethingpletely unreasonable.


    And looking at it from another angle, if Conservation truly had limitless mana, she could simply toss out limitless forbidden spells against us. Why go to such trouble while fighting us?


    If someone truly had limitless mana, there would be endless tactics avable to deal with any enemy. For example, creating a limitless number of artificial bone giants. Even if the bone giants would never have enough power to instantly kill a SemiGod, the power of infinite numbers could slowly defeat anyone.


    ¡°...In my first fight against Conservation, she still hadn¡¯t achieved Main God power level. It¡¯s likely that she learned much from her fight against me. At that time, I had used my personal sealed-off Frigidwinter Earth world to defeat her by creating the ¡®Law of Energy Conservation¡¯ in my world, making all the energy that she stole paid with a cost to her true body...¡±


    During our thirtieth battle against Conservation, we strengthened our attacks, forcing her to constantly summon cannon fodder and protect herself with powerful spells. Margaret used a simple magic wavelength analyzation spell and determined Conservation¡¯s mana usage condition. We confirmed that Conservation¡¯s mana pool was at a fixed upper limit.


    ¡°Should I say that it¡¯s to be expected of a Main God level mage? Such a ridiculous mana pool, but it¡¯s still within eptable limits.¡±


    Conservation¡¯s mana pool was approximately twelve times greater than Margaret¡¯s, and Margaret was a pure mage who had thergest mana pool out of any of us. Elisa was a demon, so her mana pool wasn¡¯t actually thatrge. Conservation¡¯s mana pool was also her greatest limit in how many spells and summoned creatures she could maintain. After we started measuring her mana level, no matter how much we forced her, the number of total spells and summoned creatures she maintained never exceeded her mana pool¡¯s limit.


    ¡°...Since there is a limit, then truly limitless mana will be impossible. Then, there are only two possibilities. The first is that her mana can recover incredibly quickly, almost instantaneously...¡±


    If that was really the case, then this would be almost no different from truly having limitless mana. However, the possibility of this being true was almost nil. Mana regeneration would forever be a headache for all mages. The physical body required rest and meditation in order to recover mana. This was a well-known magical theory. It simply went against all established magical theory to be able to recover mana faster than one could use it.


    And so, during our thirty-first battle against Conservation, Margaret cast a mana seal spell, Harloys cast a Curse of Dulling, and Elisa cast a mana burn spell. All of these spells were especially effective against mages and were anti-mana regeneration spells.


    Our thirty-second battle against Conservation took ce five minutes after the thirty-first. She was still under these debuffs, yet she maintained the same mana output that she had previously. Having all these mana regeneration debuffs on her didn¡¯t affect her mana usage one bit. In that case, we could eliminate the possibility that she had incredibly powerful mana regeneration.


    I also heaved a sigh of relief when I arrived at this conclusion.


    ¡°...The second possibility is that she¡¯s capable of constantly maintaining a state of ¡®Conservation¡¯ around herself. This means that no matter how much mana she uses, all the mana that she used will return to her right when the spell disappears...¡±


    Although this might seem no different from having limitless mana, as long as we knew the theory behind her power, we could naturally use some ways to counter her ability.


    ¡°...For the thirty-third battle, let¡¯s go somewhere else to fight. There¡¯s a little experiment I want to perform...¡±


    We left the hotel and went outside to an uninhabited wastnd.


    This time, we finished the battle against Conservation even quicker than normal. All I did wase into contact with one of her undead creations, and then I used instant teleportation to bring it out of my personal world of Hell!


    Even though I had intentionally selected a powerful SemiGod rank undead creature, this undead onlysted one minute against all of ourbined attacks. To our surprise, even though this SemiGod undead creature was no longer in the same world as its master, it was still capable of magical self-destruction.


    Next up was the thirty-fourth battle against Conservation. This battle finished just as quickly. The only thing we did was measure Conservation¡¯s mana pool before retreating.


    ¡°How is it?¡±


    ¡°Her mana level has decreased by 5.88%. Your theory was correct. This is the first time that she¡¯s showed any sign of using up her mana pool. She is indeed using a special method to have all the mana she spends return back to herself.¡±


    I nodded in satisfaction. At this point, Conservation¡¯s greatest technique had now been revealed. Even if we still didn¡¯t know how she aplished it, we could now counter it.


    In the thirty-fifth battle, we took out eight gigantic undead beasts from my world. Conservation¡¯s mana pool instantly shrunk by another 14%.


    In the thirty-ninth battle, Conservation now only had two-thirds of her maximum mana pool. She no longer summoned undead creatures. Since she no longer had cannon fodder to tank for her, we managed to reach her, and Adam sliced off her right hand.


    Starting from the forty-second battle, Conservation started to toss out all sorts of forbidden spells and high-level magic spells without any regard. Meanwhile, I started experimenting with taking ¡°magic¡± out of my world.


    In the forty-seventh battle, thanks to Adam and the others¡¯ protection, my experiment finally seeded. Although the sess rate for teleporting a magic spell out of my world with me wasn¡¯t very high, at only approximately 15%, every time I sessfully teleported a magic spell out, it would cause Conservation¡¯s mana pool to permanently drop.


    During the fiftieth battle, after much practicing, my magic spell teleportation sess rate now reached 30%. The wastnd that we chose to teleport back to in the Chaos Abyss had now bepletely devastated rubble thanks to all the magic spells I teleported out there.


    During the fifty-third battle, Conservation¡¯s mana pool was now less than 20% of her maximum. It seemed as if victory was right before us. Losing nothing whilepletely defeating a Main God would be setting a new record in history.


    During the fifty-fifth battle, Conservation suddenly cast a spell which had the form of a tan crown. All of us failed to stop this spell. Adam, who helped to block this spell for me, was instantly KO¡¯d from full health. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that our healing efforts were quite swift and for his own powerful regenerative capabilities, he probably would have died for real... It seemed that we had been numbed by Conservation¡¯s performance. She had still kept a trump card capable of overturning the situation. But next time, we would be even more careful and give her no more chances.


    In order to let Adam recover, we rested for an entire day before starting the fifty-sixth battle. Conservation also received an opportunity to rest from this.


    When we started the fifty-sixth battle, Conservation had recovered less than 10% of her mana. My theory had received yet another confirmation. Her mana regeneration abilities weren¡¯t that strong. Her limitless mana usage waspletely dependent on recycling all the mana that she used in a state of conservation.


    In the sixtieth battle, Conservation¡¯s mana pool was now lower than Margaret¡¯s. Conservation made a critical mistake, so Adam sessfully took revenge and nailed her right to her own throne.


    However, she unhesitatingly started using magical self-destruction, and silently watched us, intending to take all of us with her. And so, we directly teleported out, and she stopped her self-destruction.


    In the sixty-first battle, Conservation¡¯s mana pool had fallen to SemiGod level. She was soon forced to the brink as she took a sword attack to her waist. Once again, she had to threaten us with self-destruction.


    In the sixty-second battle, she immediately began by threatening to self-destruct. Was this supposed to be her way of showing us that she would rather choose death than submit?


    In the sixty-seventh battle, the number of times that she had started self-destruction and then stopped had apparently caused Conservation¡¯s soul to suffer permanent damage. She was already losing power level ranks. Her mana pool was now so low that analyzing her mana amount was no longer necessary.


    In the sixty-eight battle, I informed her directly that with her current mana level, even a self-destruction would no longer be able to cause any fatal injuries to us, and that it would be a meaningless death and most humiliating end.


    I also told the Undead Emperor that, as she knew, death wasn¡¯t the end to any undead mage. As long as she died, I would use soul magic to drain her soul of every useful secret.


    During the seventy-second battle, after forcing her to the brink too many times, Conservation no longer had any mana left. When I approached her as she was copsed on the ground, she actually jumped up like a wild dog to bite me, leaving teeth marks on my arm. And so, I created a doghouse to put her in, and also put a dog chain on her.


    In the end, we were unable to reach one hundred battles against her. I now imprisoned a Main God Undead Emperor who had no more mana left in my Yongye City¡¯s magical prison. I was thinking about directly connecting her to my mage towers¡¯ mana batteries, using countless tubes to drain every bit of her mana as it recovered. Perhaps my floating city would soon have an infinite mana battery if I did this.


    As I hummed a song while cleaning up the battlefield, someone wasmenting on me behind my back.


    ¡°He actually truly managed to defeat a Main God without any losses at all. This is Rnd¡¯s fighting style...¡±


    ¡°Yes, this is Rnd, Yongye, the heartless and highly efficientbat strategist.¡±

 Chapter 614 - New Target

    <h4>Chapter 614: New Target</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    From the very start, Conservation¡¯s defeat had been set in stone the moment that she became bound to Hell.


    I had also given her a chance to set past grudges aside. I had even given her part of my research materials and the right to reside in Yongye City, giving her a ce to live. This was my way of showing my friendly intentions.


    Actually, I wasn¡¯t only showing friendly intentions towards Conservation herself. I had wanted to hold back for the sake of future rtionships. If I could get along well with Conservation, this would also help me in the future when negotiating with the undead Tark Republic.


    ording to my spies, the Tark Republic Senators didn¡¯t actually have that much of a grudge against me. Even though Aso died because of me, the Senators felt that Aso¡¯s death had been glorious. The Senators viewed death quite lightly with how they wanted to revive the ethereal concept of the Tark Republic. In fact, they even felt recognition towards me, their ¡°junior¡± who managed to force the more senior Aso to kill himself.


    ¡°Only by aplishing so much can one be recognized as a ruler of undead¡ªan Undead Emperor.¡±


    Thanks to Aso¡¯s final gift, I had discovered back at the Forest of Dreams that even ordinary high-level undead recognized me as an undead ruler. However, I was an ¡°enemy ruler¡±. In fact, some undead even viewed me as Aso¡¯s sessor who deserved Aso¡¯s inheritance.


    This was how undead society was. Power level was viewed as more important than anything, and undead society was strictly ruled by the powerful. If Aso¡¯s corpse ghoul disciple had survived but was unable to prove that he was stronger than me, then undead society still wouldn¡¯t have given him any recognition.


    I wasn¡¯t hostile towards the undead. I was even impressed and sympathized with the Senators who reminisced about the past and wished to rebuild their country. However, personal feelings would be irrelevant when it came topetition for survival space that involved many countries and species. I wasn¡¯t foolish enough to try and be a peace broker.


    Right now, the undead armies and human kingdoms were busy killing each other. Neither side had any intention of stopping this war for the sake of survival space. Only when both sides were no longer able to take the losses would I, ¡°Aso¡¯s sessor¡±, ¡°The newest and strongest Undead Emperor of this generation¡±, be able to stand up and act as a mediator.


    ¡°I can give you a new ¡®dimension¡¯ of your own. Thisnd is rich and abundant with resources. It can be used to reconstruct your Tark Republic.¡±


    Providing my Land of Spring as a newnd for the undead would be my greatest show of sincerity. My sincerity was because I knew that Aso and the other undead wished to revive a country where the living and dead could coexist.


    However, I also knew that the Undead Emperors currently had no interest in anynd other than Eich¡¯s mortal ne. The Undead Emperors would only possibly consider my sincere offer after they became convinced that they were unable to return to the mortal ne.


    I voluntarily showed my sincerity, which naturally meant that I hoped for a friendly response. I had hoped for Conservation to be a bridge between myself and the other Undead Emperors. But, when she betrayed our contracts during a battle and allied herself with Lasnina to kill me, there was no longer any possibility of Conservation and myself ever getting along anymore.


    I was no saint who was willing to turn the other cheek when pped in the face. Neither was I the type who would intentionally step into the same pitfall twice. Now that my party members were all gathered, my first priority was to deal with this internal threat... If it came to it, I would simply negotiate with the other Undead Emperors instead. Perhaps they would be much easier to talk to than this insane woman.


    In that case, since Conservation was no longer useful as a peace mediator with the Tark Republic, her only worth was now her personal value.


    Kill her? That would be impossible. It would be far too difficult topletely kill a Main God level existence. Not to mention, high-level mages would have countless tricks for escaping death up their sleeve. It was likely that if her soulfire was extinguished here, it would be reignited in a new location.


    Considering how her soul was now bound here, it was likely that her new physical body would revive here or be forcefully teleported to her soul¡¯s location. However, there was still a chance that she might escape. I didn¡¯t want to take this risk.


    Even if she was reborn as nothing more than an ordinary skeleton soldier, an even more powerful Undead Emperor would return in less than a century. Even if I wasn¡¯t scared of trouble, I would have to think for the sake of my descendants...


    Wait, was I overthinking things? With my luck, it would be impossible to have descendants...


    I... I would definitely have a wife and descendants! Even the world¡¯s evil intentions wouldn¡¯t be able to stop me! Asst resort... I could always adopt a child!


    Cough, cough, getting back on topic, in order to deal with someone truly troublesome like Conservation, the only practical method would be to seal her, just as how I sealed Lasnina, forcing her to sleep for several tens of thousands of years.


    However, I would never let her go to sleep so easily before I made up for my own weaknesses.


    Previously, I had offered to peacefully exchange magical information as equals, but now that she was trapped in my clutches, I would never rest until I forced her to reveal all her magical research results.


    The final reason, fine, I admit that this reason was more than fifty percent that I had no guarantee of being able to seal a Main God. While the Seal of the Four Elements was incredibly strong, there were far too few Main Gods out there. It would be impossible to ascertain if the Seal of the Four Elements could sessfully seal a Main God.


    The power of any seal would be like a lock. Making its design more advanced and the lock stronger would depend on the lock creator¡¯s abilities and resources used.


    In order to even semi-forever seal a Main God, I would need to prepare God Equipment of each element. That would be quite an investment, and I would also need to reach SemiGod rank first.


    From a certain standpoint, Main Gods were truly troublesome. They were so difficult to truly kill, and would be a huge pain to deal with if one escaped. There was no perfect way of dealing with them.


    However, in history there were only records of Main Gods who died in battle. Not a single one had ever been captured alive before, especially by those of lower rank. While there was no good way to deal with Conservation, there also seemed to be no incorrect way.


    ¡°Let¡¯s treat her like a top-level mage captive.¡±


    Any mage with no mana would be useless. A contraption to drain a mage of their mana would also be quite easy to create. This was amon punishment device used in the Mage Country on criminal mages. A mana draining room plus mana draining tubes would cause any mage to be unable to maintain any mana whatsoever.


    ¡°...I won¡¯tment on the mana tubes, but isn¡¯t that a dog chain on her neck? You even drew a terrible picture of a two-headed dog. Were you afraid of the dog getting lost?¡±


    The magic sealing ne Conservation wore had been specially created by Margaret. I happily added my Absolute Zero ice with many secrets into it, and since I was worried that Conservation would be depressed, I even drew my cutest dog Bastian on it. I was truly so kind, treating my captive so well!


    ¡°Look at her expression. She definitely wants to kill you at all costs. No, she probably wants to die together with you.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m used to it already. Everyone I locked away in prison before also had the same expression.¡±


    As for all the other extremely effective dirty tactics I used against other prisoners, which was experience I gained from earning Fate Points while building my prison under my mansion, those tactics would be truly inhumane. Yet, Elisa was already preparing them... I suddenly felt that having Elisa around was also a good thing. At least she would help me out with many things.


    Cough, cough, that was enough about Conservation. Time would prove everything.


    ¡°Our next target is Sun God Aloyo, who should currently be residing on the 372nd level of the Chaos Abyss.¡±


    I hadn¡¯t forgotten my original objective ining down here to the Chaos Abyss. Although the demons and devils had interfered with me several times,pleting my Myth-ranked weapons as quickly as possible and improving my power level to deal with future problems was the most important thing right now.


    With so many years of umtion, and the strongest bloodline I had ever possessed, I really looked forward to what power level I could achieve in the end.


    ¡°Aloyo? Who¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°The venerated Sun God worshiped by the ancient Xian Tribe. However, this tribe died out in a Holy War more than 20,000 years ago.¡±


    What surprised me was that even though most people didn¡¯t know Aloyo¡¯s name, Margaret still knew this name. Was it that the Mage Country still had records of such an ancient time?


    ¡°There will always be records of anything that has existed before. This tribe is rather unique. Those eagle-headed Xian Tribe members were quite aplished in history and astronomy. Our current constetion maps are improvements on their maps as the foundation. Also, they addressed the ¡°eternal star¡± as ¡°Aloyo¡± in theirnguage, which I wouldn¡¯t possibly forget.¡±


    I had indeed forgotten that Margaret was probably the only one among us who was capable of some prophecy magic spells. Prophecy magic scammers loved to talk about astronomy more than anything, saying that a meteor represented some cmity, a ck spot on the sun meant requiring blood sacrifice from ordinary people, and so on. At any rate, there were never prophecies about good things.


    I suddenly felt like the stars were quite pitiful. Putting on some makeup or having a ck spot meant they represented the end of the world? Even though they lived so many light years away, they were somehow responsible for destroying us?


    People always med the stars for everything, But, were the stars really capable of expressing so much with just a few shes of light? How wonderfully eloquent they had to be!


    Right, didn¡¯t it take a long time for light to arrive here from the stars? In that case, anyone watching the stars would be seeing light from many years in the past. Light from many years in the past was capable of prophesizing somethingpletely unrted? Just how ridiculous... cough, I meant amazing was that? Could it be that the stars themselves also had the ability to prophesize?


    ¡°...You¡¯re biased. We Gold Elves were also skilled at prophesizing with the stars. This is an incredibly deep field of magic that requires extremely high talent. It¡¯s something that you¡¯ll never be able to touch in your lifetime. Besides, prophecies of disasters are made in order to avoid the worst possible result.¡±


    Harloys seemed quite angry for some mysterious reason. Had I angered her somehow yet again?


    ¡°I was the one who prophesized the destruction of my own Gold Elf species. In the end, my prophecy was proved correct...¡±


    Harloys¡¯ voice kept decreasing in volume. No wonder she was such an unfortunate princess of a dead species. Her own prophecy of destruction hade true, and her own country was destroyed?


    ¡°...Didn¡¯t you try to avoid the prophecy¡¯s oue?¡±


    Harloys shook her head. However, she wasn¡¯t referring to never having tried.


    ¡°All of our efforts made the prophecy happen even faster. Perhaps our efforts were also part of the prophecy itself. Ever since that day, I swore that I would never prophesize again.¡±


    So Harloys would rather face apletely unknown future instead of facing a future with no hope apart from absolute destruction?


    The silly cat seemed to be quite displeased as she jumped off my shoulder and went upstairs in her Gold Elf form.


    I suddenly felt rather afraid. So, the number one jinxer in the world had always secretly been by my side? I felt quite fortunate that she hadn¡¯t tried to make a prophecy out of boredom. And then, I suddenly felt likeughing out loud. I was no longer the number one jinxer!


    ¡°Does Aloyo have any special abilities that we need to watch out for?¡±


    Little Red¡¯s question brought me back to my senses. I shook my head regretfully at Little Red as she hugged an alcohol barrel while appearing slightly drunk.


    ¡°An ancient God is that easy to deal with?¡± Little Red had a look of astonishment. She had only been casually asking.


    The next instant, I realized what was going on. It seemed that we hadn¡¯t been on the same page.


    ¡°What? Easy to deal with? No, he¡¯s incredibly difficult to deal with. If my guess is correct, he¡¯ll probably be more difficult than even Conservation.¡±


    Aloyo was an original God who had ascended through his own personal strength. He had also formerly been a Main God. Perhaps he had now been a hermit for countless generations, and was no longer well known, but it was unlikely that he would have lost much power.


    A Main God level Sun God? One who had formerly been the highest God worshiped by an entire tribe? This would be no different from the God of Holy Light. Just thinking about it gave me a headache. I really hoped that I would be able tomunicate with him and talk things out. If talking didn¡¯t go well, we would at least need enough power to run away. This was also why I had my party practice against Conservation so much recently.


    ¡°Even if we can¡¯t win, we have to at least be able to escape. Since he hasn¡¯t fought for so many years already, he probably doesn¡¯t enjoy fighting.¡±


    [No, Aloyo was also once a War God. Of course he would love fighting, and when considering your typical luck, even if he no longer enjoys fighting... You¡¯ll probably cause some trouble somehow that will antagonize him.]


    ¡°...So you were a jinxer as well! But, you¡¯re so reasonable that I can¡¯t counter you!¡±

 Chapter 615 - Bloody Ritual

    <h4>Chapter 615: Bloody Ritual</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Although our battle against Conservation had been won with zero losses on our side, with our fighting style, it had taken quite long. More than one week had already passed, and as the information on the first major Holy War battle¡¯s location spread, I figured that the mortal ne was probably in a tremendousmotion.


    I slowly walked around on the streets of the city of Bloody Arena in the 137th level. I was rather curious about the sights here. This was my first time visiting this rtively famous city.


    Over the past few days, we hadn¡¯t gone out of our hotel except to the wastnd. Only now did I have the time to enjoy the sights. Bloody Arena? Such a strange name for a city.


    A human ran past me. A flying axe followed him, slicing him in the head. Ah, he died.


    A Berserker Demon ran past me. A fallen angel chased after him. The Berserker Demon¡¯s head was sliced off. Ah, he died.


    A half-elf ran past me, and a group of demons chased after him. The half-elf¡¯s head was sliced off, and blood was sent flying everywhere. Tsk, the blood sttered on my body, how disgusting...


    I had already seen many pitiful deaths today. I felt like I pretty much understood the culture of this particr Chaos Abyss city now. Basically, there probably weren¡¯t any rules. But, I felt it was rather strange. If people here killed each other every day so regrly, then there wouldn¡¯t even be enough residents...


    Not only that, those killers actually all ignored me. When considering my normal luck, this was truly astonishing.


    ¡°Youngster, are you new here?¡±


    Seeing how I was walking around idly on the streets, someone actually stopped me. She was wearing a ck cape and appeared quite mysterious. However, her witchcraft-filled staff and disgustingly warty hand revealed her true identity. She was an Onibaba.


    Since there was someone willing to exin things to me, I nodded and admitted that I had just arrived in this city.


    ¡°Haha, youngster, this isn¡¯t a safe ce. Let¡¯s talk over there.¡±


    Behind the Onibaba was a dark alleyway. She indicated for me to follow her there to continue the discussion.


    Iughed. It was truly wonderful that someone volunteered to be my tour guide. I had been wondering how to obtain information about dimensional portals in this level. Onibabas would usually have excellent information sources.


    And so, I smiled and reached out my hand, cing a silver-white ice sword on the Onibaba¡¯s neck.


    This wasn¡¯t because I was intending to rob her. It was just that if I truly followed the Onibaba into the alleyway, it would be inconceivable for there not to be ambushers waiting to kidnap me.


    As for whether I would be sold as a ve, have my organs harvested, or my soul made into a soul coin, that would depend on what trade this Onibaba was in.


    ¡°You... what do you intend to do to me?¡±


    ¡°Actually, I think that talking here will be just fine. Tell me everything that you know. I will give you what you deserve based on the value of your information.¡±


    ¡°You... You dare to antagonize us of the ¡®Crow¡¯s Eye¡¯? You idiot from the mortal ne, you seek death...¡±


    ¡°By the way, my name is Rnd Mist. You¡¯ve probably heard of me before.¡±


    *tter*


    The Onibaba instantly dropped her wooden staff on the ground. She was shaking all over as if she was having a seizure. It seemed that I was indeed known here. Such a rare sight made me slightly delighted inside.


    ¡°You¡¯re that most wanted criminal who robbed the Onibaba Market? The golden egg worth 1000 soul coins? Sisters, we¡¯ve struck it rich!¡±


    The Onibaba had already dropped her cape on the ground without realizing it. Her murky eyes were filled with joy as she pointed at me like I was some sort of valuable treasure.


    ¡°Paha!¡±


    The silly cat on my shoulder unhesitatinglyughed at me. I also paused in surprise. I tried my best to recall things, but didn¡¯t remember robbing the Onibaba Market.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough, stop thinking about it. Can you really believe the Onibabas? They only need an excuse to find your current location and hunt you down. The true person offering the reward... Well, options are Donatis, the devils, Sophocles the Deceiver, and so on. You¡¯ve antagonized countless already, so just pick one.¡±


    A four-armed snake demon, a high-level vampire, and two more Onibabas came out of the alleyway to surround me. It seemed that their team had a decent power level.


    ¡°Sigh, it seems that I should have gone into the alleyway for a chat after all.¡±


    ¡°Heehee, you¡¯re so humorous. We can still go into the alleyway if you like.¡±


    ¡°Oh...¡±


    It seemed that they were actually worried that our fight would attract attention? Did this city have rules after all? And so, I truly did go into the alleyway.


    Five minutester, the entire alleyway had been sealed off by ice. All members of the Onibaba¡¯s party had copsed on the ground. The Onibaba in front of me was passionately exining the rules of this city to me.


    The Bloody Arena was perhaps one of the most dangerous and bloodiest cities in the world. Its ruler was a subus... yes, indeed, a subus¡ªa type of demon famous for having some of the lowestbat strength, focusing instead on seduction and schemes.


    Perhaps in the mortal ne, beauty was something that no ruler would be able to resist. But in the Chaos Abyss, beauty was far more useless than muscles. Subi had low status in the Chaos Abyss. This particr subus was able to rule over this city because of her pet.


    Her pet was a Void Devourer, an incredibly dangerous creature. The physical appearance of this creature was a distorted void with a gigantic mouth the size of a mountain. An adult Void Devourer would easily be able to eat a Demon Earl as if it was lunch. The only reason why these creatures weren¡¯t a ruling species was because they had rtively low intelligence.


    ¡°...So you¡¯re saying that the ruler of this city obtained the trust of a Void Devourer because she obtained it as a free gift while purchasing something else? Are you joking with me? You might as well tell me it was a free gift for recharging money in a mobile game.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s a mobile game? No, I would never dare to lie to you. This information is known in half of the Chaos Abyss already. It¡¯s said that baby Void Devourers are really cute and resemble human-faced maggots. That¡¯s why the ruler here is known as ¡°Didina the Fortunate¡±.


    Human-faced maggots? Just imagining them made me disgusted. Keeping such a thing as a pet? It would seem that females in the Chaos Abyss had problems with their standards of beauty.


    After the Onibaba exined all that, I could pretty much guess at the rest.


    A Void Devourer¡¯s food requirements would be simr to that of a Demon Lord. Souls that died in the greatest despair would be the most delicious meals. However, soul shards that ordinary demons consumed would still return to the Cycle of Reincarnation when the demon died. On the other hand, any souls that were eaten by a Void Devourer would never be able to return to the Cycle of Reincarnation. This was why both the Order True Gods and Chaos Evil Gods viewed such creatures as mortal enemies.


    Anyway, since the ruler of this city had obtained her position because of her pet Void Devourer, she naturally needed to feed her pet. In that case, she would probably require tens of or even hundreds of souls every day.


    ¡°...Every day at noon, the mysterious Blood Fate Clock will activate and randomly choose twelve targets who will be marked with special coloring. These targets will be the hunted prey for the entire city. The hunters who kill them will be handsomely rewarded by our ruler Didina.¡±


    Now I finally understood why this city was called the Bloody Arena. Every day at noon, when the bell tolled, the entire city would be an arena. The unlucky fellows chosen would be the arena fighters, while the others would either be wild beasts hunting the arena fighters or spectators enjoying the bloody ughter.


    I didn¡¯t know how much poption this city had, but when considering its size, there would be at least several hundred thousand. If there were only twelve sacrifices per day, most people would probably think that ¡°I definitely won¡¯t be so unlucky¡± while continuing to live here... And when considering all the dangers in the Chaos Abyss, having something like a one in ten thousand chance to be chosen to die didn¡¯t really count as much. Perhaps this would even bring tourism into this city.


    ¡°If the marked target doesn¡¯t choose to hide or escape from this city, and instead openly survives in this city until the noon next day, they¡¯ll receive Didina¡¯s recognition and get to personally meet her. But, ever since she became the ruler, less than five powerful individuals havested so long. Mostmonly, the marked targets will all die in less than one hour. The fear and despair in their souls won¡¯t be enough, and the Void Devourer will be dissatisfied...¡±


    *ng! Dong!*


    The tolling of a bell suddenly interrupted the Onibaba¡¯s words. She suddenly became excited again.


    ¡°Right, right, that¡¯s exactly it. If the hunt ends too quickly, the Blood Fate Clock will toll yet again and find another twelve unfortunate souls. Let go of me, I need to find a ce to hide, if I¡¯m chosen, I need to immediately leave the city...¡±


    The panicking Onibaba suddenly stopped struggling as she widened her eyes and stared directly at me.


    I also paused in surprise and looked up at the sky. The sky seemed rather red above me.


    ¡°...Let me ask something. Will the chosen prey have a red light over their head?¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s Didina¡¯s Blood Spear. It¡¯s used to guide the hunters to their prey.¡±


    ¡°Um, is it really red over my head?¡±


    ¡°Completely red... Why are you still so calm? You¡¯ve now be the enemy of the entire city!¡±


    I didn¡¯t answer the Onibaba¡¯s question. But if I had to say, the reason was simply because...


    ¡®I¡¯m used to it...¡¯


    I didn¡¯t even know what to say. I couldn¡¯t even be bothered anymore toin about my bad luck. Right when the Onibaba started exining, with my many years of experience... of taking arrows to my knee, I could already guess that I would be chosen in this lottery.


    Judging from hurried footsteps rushing over, hunters were already approaching. Meanwhile, the Onibaba in my clutches was furiously struggling.


    ¡°Let go of me! I don¡¯t want to be dragged down by someone so unlucky! Don¡¯t give me your misfortune!¡±


    ¡°Paha, even the Onibabas now know how misfortunate you are!¡±


    As always, the silly cat on my shoulderughed at me without regards for my face.


    ¡°Shut up, ck cat of misfortune... Damn, what¡¯s with suddenly transforming into a white cat? Are you trying to make fun of me?¡±

 Chapter 616 - Gathering of Those Who Are Single

    <h4>Chapter 616: Gathering of Those Who Are Single</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Didina the Fortunate¡± lived a life that her fellow subi were incredibly envious of as she was the ruler of the Bloody Arena. Not only did she have authority, the addictive feeling of being at the top was something those in authority would never be able to give up.


    Didina didn¡¯t need to suck up to anyone in order to be a ruler. Many subi viewed her as their idol. Didina¡¯s harem also contained many other subi... in the past.


    Have the perceptive readers noticed something off? At any rate, subi weren¡¯t limited to only targeting males.


    What was the sexual preference of subi? This had always been a mystery. However, subus was also a type of job ss that other demons could evolve to and enter, and when demons evolved their physical bodies, they were capable of changing their gender. Males were more suited to physicalbat, which was why the majority of demons were male. Then, in order to seduce the males who were in power, it was only natural that more than 99% of all subi were females. As for whether Didina¡¯s soul had originally been male or female when she had only been an ordinary demon... Let¡¯s not pry too deeply into certain matters. Yep, everything was Lucifer¡¯s fault!


    The demons were also proof that if every single individual out there was capable of voluntarily choosing their own gender... The male to female ratio would definitely be incredibly skewed, and all sorts of morals would likely go out the window.


    Due to all of these ridiculous reasons, the subi society had always been incredibly messy. The subi had gotten used to it, and having fun was considered the most important.


    Even in all the dimensions, subi were uniquely different from other demons as they were truly enthralled by the concept of authority. They were naturally born skilled at approaching the powerful, seducing the powerful, and enving the powerful. Subi were probably the most skilled species when it came to scheming and power struggles. Any human ruler¡¯s pce that had a subus hidden within would probably meet with cmity sooner orter... Why did this all feel like subi were actually the main characters of Chinese pce concubine television dramas? Cough, cough, I had to be having a mistaken impression! I shouldn¡¯t be makingparisons like that.


    Didina¡¯s harem back in the day had more than three hundred subi at one point... Just think about it. If there were more than three hundred female leads all skilled at scheming and pce infighting within the same pce, just how glorious would that scene be? Today, a concubine¡¯s child would mysteriously suffer miscarriage (just how did she get pregnant in the first ce?), tomorrow some servant would mysteriously crash into the ruler¡¯s favorite concubine, and simr scenes would be urring tens of times simultaneously. Even the famous detective Conan would probably be unable to find the truth... And even if he could find the truth, it would still probably be meaningless.


    Cough, cough, I should probably stop referencing things from my original world. Getting back on topic, while this would probably be a fun drama to watch if you weren¡¯t a part of it, having such drama ur on a daily basis by your side would probably be extremely tiring. Even a True God would probably be unable to take it, not to mention how rare it was for a subus to achieve such a high status.


    The final result was that Didina kicked out every single member of her harem. She even said a sentence that became a famous phrase in the Bloody Arena.


    ¡°It¡¯s best to be single, it¡¯s best to be single...¡±


    Well, probably in at least this area, she would truly resonate with Rnd.


    After Didina kicked out her harem, she did something that no other subus could understand or was capable of¡ªshe remained single for a full one hundred years! This actually caused Didina¡¯s poprity to rise even further among the subi.


    ¡°The way she restrains her lust is so icy and alluring!¡±


    Cough, cough, don¡¯t misunderstand. Subi were skilled at creating sex addicts, but they weren¡¯t actually sex addicts themselves. The correct way to trante this sentence would be: ¡°it¡¯s so difficult to conquer her, so sessfully conquering Didina will feel like even more of an achievement!¡±


    And so, Didina nowmonly ¡°met with beauties¡± whenever she went out. Her nightmare carriage would always mysterious crash into some beautiful woman who suddenly jumped out from behind a corner, she would always meet some beautiful woman who had ¡°forgotten¡± her umbre when it was raining, or there would be an old man who ¡°just happened¡± to have a beautiful daughter begging for her help...


    Some bored person had once calcted the frequency of such urrences. On average, Didina would meet with such beauties approximately 120 times per year. The scenes were actually quite varied and different each time, although neer subi to the city would asionally repeat old scenes. Watching the city ruler¡¯s luck with women also became one of the biggest entertainment activities in the Bloody Arena together with the Blood Fate Clock¡¯s hunt, and as time passed, the Bloody Arena became the Chaos Abyss city with the highest subi poption of all.


    Originally, Didina was also amused by all of this. However, over the past few days, she had been in no mood to go out and enjoy herself.


    Due to a certain reason, Didina¡¯s pce had now been closed for three consecutive days, refusing all visitors. Her mood had been terrible for all this time. Only the hunt at noon each day would make her feel a small amount of pleasure.


    ¡°Come, let me see what people will be our prey today.¡±


    Didina had short purple hair and tiny fiery red horns. Her snake-like forked tongue was gently licking her red lips. Even though she was wearing extravagantly formal attire, this attirebined with her mature beautiful female face which was red with desire made her seem demonically beautiful.


    Didina was fully focusing on the giant crystal ball before her. Under the Blood Fate Clock¡¯s bloody illumination, the unfortunate individuals with blood-red lights above them were doing their best to run for their lives.


    ¡°Hurry and catch that little brat! Haha, her head was shattered!¡±


    But suddenly, Didina¡¯s beautiful eyes focused on a solo hunter. This individual had just cleanly in a rather powerful inferno giant who was one of the twelve targets.


    ¡°...I want that hunter. He reminds me of the two-headed gori demon from fifty years ago. That was truly enjoyable. He was such a monster. Perhaps I should properly reward this hunter tomorrow in my personal method...¡±


    Didina¡¯s face was pinkish-red from excitement, making her seem even more demonic.


    ¡°...How long will he howl in pain before he dies as I slice off his flesh bit by bit? I¡¯m really looking forward to it.¡±


    The hunters who arrived at Didina¡¯s pce for their rewards in ying the twelve targets would always mysteriously vanish. Most people thought that they had taken the ruler¡¯s rewards and run away from this city. However, few knew that Didina¡¯s personal dungeons actually contained countless bones of the strong that attracted her interest.


    Subi were also a species of demons, and it was in demon nature to love ughter. There were plenty of methods out there to find food for a Void Devourer. It would be quite easy to take care of the Void Devourer¡¯s food requirements just by sending out a small team of demons. Using a method like choosing twelve random targets to be hunted down every day was far more for entertainment than efficiency. In fact, it was mostly to satisfy Didina¡¯s own desires.


    Perhaps it was simply good luck that she had obtained the Void Devourer. However, obtaining power didn¡¯t always represent being able to easily obtain anything else. Many demons would choose to evolve into subi in order to avoid battles. However, Didina voluntarily joined the bloodiest fights in the Chaos Abyss. Having reached her level, Didina was truly an anomaly among subi... And to be honest, even though her personal power level couldn¡¯tpare to true Demon Lords¡¯, she wasn¡¯t much weaker than them.


    ¡°Didina the Bloodthirsty¡± was the nickname given to her by those who truly knew what she was like. But, Didina was someone ¡°smart¡± who far preferred the nickname ¡°Didina the Fortunate¡±. That was because this nickname would cause others to underestimate herself. As for ughter and so on, she could simply have her pet take care of that for her.


    However, today¡¯s hunt seemed to have poor luck. Didina¡¯s once-a-day leisure event ended far too quickly. She hadn¡¯t had enough fun watching yet when the twelve unlucky targets were all hunted down and the game ended.


    Didina was still far from satisfied at this time...


    And so, she rang the blood-colored bell again, without realizing that she was tolling for her own doom.


    ¡°Eh? What¡¯s that target? A Holy Knight? Wonderful! I¡¯m so lucky, that¡¯s such an exotic species! I¡¯m truly Didina the Fortunate!¡±


    But for some strange reason, on Didina¡¯s blood-colored crystal, the blond-haired Holy Knight who released Holy Light from his hands was looking up at the sky as if he could see Didina.


    ¡°Can he see me? Impossible!¡±


    However, what happened next forced her to believe he could indeed see her. The blond-haired Holy Knight suddenly released a powerful pir of Holy Light that reached the clouds. Right after that, several powerful individuals released their auras in Didina¡¯s city. She sensed that none of them would be weaker than her.


    ¡°Five powerful auras? How is this possible! Why didn¡¯t I receive any news of such powerful individuals!?¡±


    And when all these powerful individuals started moving together, it was quite obvious whom they were targeting and where they were heading. They were all targeting Didina, who was in the center of the city!


    ¡°Damn it, if only Victor was still here...¡±


    Victor was the name that Didina had given to her Void Devourer. The reason why Didina had been in such a foul mood over the past three days was because Victor had suddenly been kidnapped three days ago... Well, a more urate word might be that he had eloped. This was because a certain legendary man had taken the Void Devourer with him.


    ¡°Damned Beifeng Herault, why couldn¡¯t you have stayed behind in the mortal ne to cause havoc there!! Why did youe to the Chaos Abyss!! One day, I swear I¡¯ll slowly strip all the flesh off your body...¡±


    Didina viciously cursed the Dracon who had caused her Void Devourer to elope as she swiftly prepared to escape. She was no idiotic Berserker Demon who only knew how to fight until the end.


    ¡°As expected, this was a prenned ambush against me. All of this is a scheme targeted at me!¡±


    Multiple powerful individuals had sessfully infiltrated her city without her realizing it. A strange individual had sessfully convinced her pet to leave her. This ambush came right when her pet wasn¡¯t by her side. Didina felt that she had seen through everything with all these clues.


    ¡°Once I figure out who nned this scheme, who managed to invite this living top 10 Cmity Rankings monstrosity... No matter who it is, I, Didina the Bloodthirsty, shall return this favor three times over!¡±


    Didina unhesitatingly opened up her secret passage leading outside the city. As long as she could find her pet again, she would be able to reim the position of the city¡¯s ruler. But if she died, that would be the end.


    *Crack!*


    However, the walls that suddenly shattered revealed visitors, which told her she was toote.


    A gold-winged Holy Knight blocked her path, while a red-haired swordsman appeared by her side. A tiny red dragon with powerful magic wavelengths aimed her mouth directly at Didina, and an archmage also arrived through a dimensional tear.


    Didina realized that she had nowhere to escape to.


    ¡°Damned bastards, you actually had that person kidnap my baby! You all dared to use Beifeng against me, do any of you have any conscience or moral boundaries whatsoever!?¡±


    Didina was only instinctively venting her anger. However, the blond-haired Holy Knight¡¯s expression suddenly distorted and he suddenly backed away upon hearing Beifeng¡¯s name. It was as if he wanted to run away instantly.


    Right after that, the Holy Knight changed his expression to a serious one, perhaps feeling that his behavior was far too embarrassing.


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t know him. I¡¯ve never heard of anything called Beifeng, nor would I ever use a Beifeng! We¡¯re just here to ask for directions. We¡¯ll be leaving soon. Right, little subus, do you know how to reach the Sun God¡¯s Divine Kingdom?¡±


    Even though subi weren¡¯t particrly skilled liars, Didina still knew that the Holy Knight was just spouting rubbish. Everyone knew Beifeng¡¯s name by now. Furthermore, this Holy Knight was asking her how to reach the God of Holy Light¡¯s Divine Kingdom? Wasn¡¯t this the same meaning as ¡°I¡¯ll send you to heaven¡± or ¡°Evil, let me cleanse you¡±!?


    ¡°No, please don¡¯t kill me, at least not today! I¡¯ve already been single for one hundred years! I don¡¯t want to die as a subus who¡¯s still single! At the very least, let me find a lover before I die!¡±


    Even though this was just a random excuse that Didina came up with, she saw that the blond Holy Knight seemed mysteriously moved as if he was about to cry.


    However, his reply was rather confusing.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it. As a veteran fire mage, I¡¯m going to burn all heterosexuals to death! You¡¯ve been single for one hundred years already, but still want to leave us? Dream on!¡±


    Even though he was clearly a Holy Knight, he was burning up with passion for a mysterious reason. The other powerful individuals around him seemed like they didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry.


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not heterosexual! Ah, no...!¡±


    Didina¡¯s next words were said without consideration. She was scared to the point of breaking out into a cold sweat after realizing what she just said.


    For any traditional believer of Holy Light, being homosexual was considered one of the greatest desecrations most deserving of the death penalty.


    However, that Holy Knight actually inconceivably smiled and nodded at her as if his earlier viciousness was just an illusion.


    ¡°You¡¯re not heterosexual? There¡¯s no problem, then! You¡¯re allowed to stop being single!¡±

 Chapter 617 - Guide and Parting

    <h4>Chapter 617: Guide and Parting</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Originally, I didn¡¯t intend to go look for trouble with the ruler of this city. This was because I didn¡¯t want a reputation of causing trouble everywhere I went.


    But due to certain reasons, I went looking for trouble with her in the end...


    Fine, she was the one who targeted me first, although it wasn¡¯t intentional.


    Since I had been marked by that mysterious marking, rather than wasting time with weaklings in the city, of course it would save me far more time to take down the boss first.


    I had originally prepared myself for a battle against the Void Devourer, but I heard some news along the way that it had eloped together with Beifeng... I was quite relieved that I had been either in the hotel or outside in the wastnd over the past few days. Otherwise, it would have been so difficult to deal with things if I¡¯d run into Beifeng.


    It was even more so because Casio was at my side. No matter if they had a wonderful reunion on Brokeback Mountain, or if Casio tried to fight Beifeng to the death, either scene would be too wondrous to behold.


    Additionally, when I learned that the Void Devourer was more than four hundred meters tall, and that its physical appearance was nothing more than a round, gigantic mouth... I became even more impressed with Beifeng¡¯s techniques, and felt that his tastes were bing ever more ridiculous.


    Perhaps others would call this subus ¡°Didina the Fortunate¡± as she had sessfully raised this Void Devourer from the size of a human-faced maggot. I became more and more interested in this incredibly humble subus.


    ¡°Tsk, your official girlfriend is right by your side, yet you¡¯re showing interest in another woman. How unseemly is that? Just as expected of someone who has such a subordinate like Beifeng. You¡¯re a mega scumbag.¡±


    ¡°...You know that I¡¯m not talking about that type of interest. Also, don¡¯t mention me together in the same sentence as that person. I¡¯m afraid of being dragged into his affairs and getting beaten to death.¡±


    The silly cat and Margaret were busy searching the city ruler¡¯s treasuries, while Adam and I were in charge of guarding this subus. But, with how obedient she seemed, I was wondering if there was even any need to guard her.


    However, some things still needed to be asked¡ªwhat I was interested in.


    ¡°...Didina, how old are you?¡±


    Little Red¡¯s face was filled with astonishment as she had been eavesdropping. Furthermore, my silly cat¡¯sment arrived right on time as always. ¡°I give you zero points for this attempt at flirting.¡±


    ¡°Shut up. You know that¡¯s not what I meant.¡±


    Typically speaking, the more powerful a species was, the slower an individual of that species would reach maturity. Dwarves and elves would both require a hundred years before they were considered adults. I didn¡¯t know how long it would take a Void Devourer to reach maturity, but when considering the legends and how incredibly rare that Void Devourers were, it seemed quite possible that this subus was even older than Harloys.


    This would be quite understandable if she had been a different type of demon. However, subi were a species of demons thatcked personalbat strength. Many demons would only spend some time in the subus job ss before moving on. It was truly quite rare to meet such an ancient subus. Perhaps in other ces, age wouldn¡¯t always corrte to strength, but in the Chaos Abyss, surviving for so long was the best evidence of strength.


    ¡°Someone so ancient being a subus. You¡¯ve truly piqued my interest. Perhaps you could tell me how you survived in the Chaos Abyss before your Void Devourer reached maturity?¡±


    ¡°You truly enjoy your jokes. Is there any other method of survival for a subus apart from staying by the side of the strong?¡±


    Didina remained at a perfectly appropriate distance. She had a friendly but not sycophantic light smile. She was graceful and knew etiquette well. This ancient subus really gave others a friendly impression. Perhaps her natural personality was like this, but it was more likely that she had already seen through what type I preferred. If this was also a power of seduction, it was likely that it had already surpassed Legend rank.


    I smiled without prying further. There was no need to treat what such an ancient existence said as real. I wouldn¡¯t have believed it anyways if a few simple sentences could answer my question.


    ¡°Well then, perhaps we could talk about a business deal. You can probably tell already that none of us are residents of the Chaos Abyss...¡±


    I had long since been thinking about such a deal. Whenever a person vacationed in an unfamiliar ce, having a local as the tour guide would save so much trouble. At the very least, you wouldn¡¯t mysteriously fall into a pitfall or meet your end, especially when the vacation spot was the Chaos Abyss filled with death traps everywhere.


    If I had to fight a boss every time that I wanted to use a teleportation portal, this would make me no different from a bandit or a robber.


    We needed a Chaos Abyss local as our guide. The smarter and more experienced, the better. The older ones would always know many secrets. Perhaps several thousand years ago, information such as the personality or abilities of a certain Demon Lord would have been known by everyone. However, as time passed, such information would be top secrets that were difficult to purchase no matter how much money you had. Such information mighte in useful at any moment.


    As for how to make her obediently behave? There would be countless ways to do that. Additionally, since she was a subus who was ustomed to following the strong, she would be much easier to talk to than other demon species.


    ¡°Then, have you heard of Aloyo? Please answer cautiously. While lies might be useful, if they lower your value, do you know who will be the unfortunate one?¡±


    I was just spouting rubbish, but in demon society, those who were considered worthless would have no reason to be left alive. She should interpret what I said as a naked death threat. Didina still didn¡¯t know my personality yet, so she probably wouldn¡¯t risk her life and make things up.


    Didina paused in surprise for a moment as she thought things over. She closed her eyes as if she was searching for this name in her memory.


    ¡°...Please wait.¡±


    Right when I used my right hand to touch my sword hilt, she instantly came up with the memory.


    ¡°It¡¯s better not to address such an ancient existence directly by name. If you must refer to him, please refer to that God as the ¡®Eagle of Light.¡¯¡±


    I chuckled. It would seem that Didina was indeed an ancient artifact who could have an ¡°age¡±petition with Harloys.


    ¡°If you keep using the word ¡®ancient¡¯, or if you keepparing her to me, I¡¯ll, I¡¯ll...¡±


    Harloys was quite sensitive, and objected to my words. However, she was unable to think of anything that would threaten me. Hahaha, I was already undefeatable!


    ¡°...I¡¯ll send a clone to bring Beifeng over here!¡±


    ¡°I was wrong! Please don¡¯t!¡±


    Damn it, that was something which would truly give me a headache. Wasn¡¯t she scared of her clone being unable to return?


    ¡°I¡¯m not scared at all! All I have to do is change my clone into a human form. Now, even my clones are capable of taking human form!¡±


    It would seem that Harloys¡¯ cloning abilities had strengthened yet again now that she achieved Myth rank.


    ¡°This, this... doesn¡¯t this mean that you can cosy the Sexy Jutsu!?¡±


    ¡°Sexy Jutsu? Of course I could. At my current level, I can finish reading every single book in an entire library in only a single afternoon. I can also finish arge-scale experiment with only my clones and no other assistants. Are you envious?¡±


    ¡°Tsk, that¡¯s not what I¡¯m envious about...¡±


    [You¡¯re not envious about being able to cosy the Sexy Jutsu; you¡¯re probably envious about being able to cosy an entire harem.]


    Cough, cough, what rubbish was this? I was such a gentleman, so why make such assumptions about me? System, you actually thought such things about me? So dirty.


    [Hmph, just keep pretending. Why else would you have been so excited just now if not for that?]


    I pretended to hear nothing as I focused on other matters instead. When I had contacted Adam and the others to have them ambush the city ruler¡¯s castle, the young adventurers hade along afterwards.


    ¡°Youngsters from the Silver Avengers. What do you intend to do next?¡±


    This strange name was the name of the adventuring team that Casio was in. As for why they used this name, and what they wanted to avenge, that was destined to remain unknown. This was because the person who¡¯d named their team was the tiefling warrior who was now dead.


    We were going down to an even deeper level of the Chaos Abyss next. Nobody would be able to predict what type of enemies we might face there. It was unlikely that we would have the strength to protect them as well as take care of ourselves.


    Although I could toss them into my bug-like world of Hell if things became dangerous, there would still be no saving them if they were instantly killed due to the enemy being too powerful for them.


    ¡°Can I follow you? I wish to follow you in search of the true path of salvation.¡±


    Ai was the first to speak. This was within expectations. When I awakened my Dawn holy sword, although it had harmed and shocked her, it had also subtly caused her foundational source of power to change. As she was a fallen angel and former Holy Knight who had lost her source of belief, following the light was probably now part of her very instinct.


    I said nothing as I looked instead at the other adventurers.


    ¡°I must return to my Goddess to continue acting as her priest. However, my Goddess has informed me that I should serve you if you have any needs.¡±


    The bearded dwarf priest had an expression as if he was willing to sacrifice himself and enter Hell itself if need be.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to return.¡± Meanwhile, the elf mage Yur had a resolute expression. ¡°I shall be together with my people, even if we must face... destruction.¡±


    Yur put down his hood. His resolute expression made him seem even more willing to sacrifice himself than the dwarf priest.


    ¡°Yep, you two can go talk to that subus. Ask her where you can find a nearby teleportation portal to the mortal ne. Our party indeed needs a healer, but you¡¯re not high-level enough. Pass Beyana a message for me. If she or someone else has an appropriate candidate, send them over to me.¡±


    I was just casually saying this as I was the only healer in my party currently. This was something displeasing. However, I would likely be dooming the dwarf priest to his death if I asked him to participate in our battles.


    ¡°Casio?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll follow you,¡± Casio answered quite simply, expressing his attitude. I nodded in response. Since we knew each other already, there was no need to ask too much. It seemed that he didn¡¯t want to return to the surface quite yet. ...Oh, I had forgotten to tell him that Beifeng was now in the Chaos Abyss. Forget it, they probably wouldn¡¯t meet each other anyways.


    While my party was filled with powerfulbat job sses, we indeedcked job sses that were strong survivalists and information gatherers such as hunters, druids, and thieves. With Casioing along, our wilderness tracking and anti-tracking capabilities would no longer be at a casual level.


    ¡°Okay, let¡¯s do this, then. Casio, Ai, I¡¯m going to tell you two beforehand that if we meet any powerful opponents, I¡¯m going to put you two in my world for safety¡¯s sake. You must listen and obey. No exceptions.¡±


    Both nodded in agreement.


    ¡°Now then, next is the most important matter of all...¡±


    I intentionally raised my voice, attracting everyone¡¯s attention.


    ¡°...I, Rnd Mist, shall give our new adventuring party a grand name!¡±


    ¡°Please don¡¯t!¡±


    ¡°No! I don¡¯t want to beughed at anymore! Have any of your names ever been normal?¡±


    After hearing me say this, Adam instantly covered my mouth, while Little Red sat on my head. It was as if they were afraid to let me say anything else.


    What did they mean, no normal names? The mercenary group that I¡¯d named was now considered the #1 mercenary group in the world. They were sincere, trustworthy, and would always keep your secrets. Their gentlemanly mercenary spirits were well known throughout the entire mercenary society!


    [Are you sure that the so-called gentlemanly spirit is the same as the ¡®Gentleman¡¯ in that mercenary group¡¯s name?]


    ¡°Of course they¡¯re the same! At the very least, they¡¯re the same word!¡±


    Hmph! Since they didn¡¯t want me toe up with a name, I would definitelye up with a name! I would even secretly register us and put advertisements in the fairies¡¯ magazines about us! Hmm, what would be a good name? Right, the fried Chaos Abyss octopus tentacles I had yesterday were quite delicious. How about I name our new party the Takoyaki Squad? What about the Tentacle Alliance? Eight-footed Family? Happy Group of Soft Creatures?

 Chapter 618 - Status

    <h4>Chapter 618: Status</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    While Rnd was busy starting a new adventure in the Chaos Abyss, the mortal ne was experiencing a hugemotion.


    ¡°The elves are formally establishing the Elven Empire? At this timing? Are the elves insane?¡±


    While most human kingdoms were preparing to watch the show of elves vs. demons, this news truly shocked the humans.


    The elves had announced that they were establishing an empire. This was no ordinary elven kingdom. This was the Great Elven Empire from the elves¡¯ memory.


    ¡°San Hein Empire. Moon Elf Queen Afina will be elevated to be Elven Empress Afina the First. The ascension ceremony will take ce one week from now. The San Hein Empire shall worship all Elven Gods. The ruler of the Order Elven Gods will be War Goddess Sonya, Guardian Goddess of Silver Elves. The capital will be the Moonwheel Capital. Twenty-seven different royal elf bloodlines have sworn fealty, including the moon elves, silver elves, wood elves... as well as the night elves. That¡¯s right, all four Superior Elf species.¡±


    Previously, Afina had also announced the establishment of an Elven Empire. However, there were far too many elf tribes and elf royalty that didn¡¯t recognize the moon elves¡¯ empire. This caused internal strife and conflict amongst the elves. It could be said that Afina¡¯s title of empress had been only nominal.


    Also, in the elves¡¯ official announcement, all four Superior Elf species¡¯ main ruling families¡¯ crests were stamped upon it. Several hundred major families from the four Superior Elf species had given support to this Elven Empire, and if the Superior Elves had all agreed to submit to this new Elven Empire, the ordinary elves would obviously be unable to object. It would seem that the Elven Empire, which had been dead for several tens of thousands of years, had suddenly resurrected itself.


    However, everyone soon saw the problems with this announcement.


    Without even mentioning anything else, the original night elves had now transformed into the dark elves. After Lorci¡¯s death, the great majority of dark elves should have be intimately connected to the new mega Mist Alliance in the Nortnds. Why would the dark elves appear in this announcement?


    All of the night elf family crests in the announcement were real. However, emblem experts and historians carefully researched them and found that these family crests belonged to night elf families that had already disappeared from history. Some of these families had died off due to elven internal wars, while other families had perished due to their refusal to follow Lorci. Perhaps these families still had a few descendants alive, but that would never be enough to be considered a major family.


    But ording to new information, it was indeed reported that ck-skinned elves had been seen in the Moonwheel Capital. It would seem that the moon elves had long since prepared for this.


    No matter if these ¡°night elf nobles¡± were dark elves from the Underground or night elf descendants who had refused to follow Lorci, this still technically and legally counted as even one person could count as a ¡°family¡±.


    The moon elves and silver elves¡¯ families needed no perusing. They were all real. As for the wood elves... When considering how the wood elf tribes were all scattered in the mountains and forests, it was perfectly understandable that a few wood elf tribes which were willing to support the moon elves¡¯ rule could be found.


    Then, legally speaking, this Elven Empire seemed to meet all the requirements. Meanwhile, all humans had the same opinion of the Elven Empire.


    ¡°...This? They must want to enjoy the glory before their death.¡±


    Some people said that the elves were doing this in order to gather all their strength for a defensive battle in the Moonwheel Capital with their backs against a cliff. However, anyone who knew anything at all about the demon waves in history would know that this would be absolutely ridiculous. Currently, all the elven tribes added together still wouldn¡¯tpare in strength to a single human mega empire. How could the elves possibly stop the demon wave, which was capable of destroying any mega empire?


    Furthermore, even if the Elven Empire was revived, meaning that all elves had the duty to protect their empire... Modern-day elves might not feel much affinity towards this empire, and it was also quite obvious that it would be dragging all elves into a pitfall.


    The moon elves had apparently realized their wish, truly bing the elven rulers and unifying all the elves. However, some people... some elves were no longer able to watch this.


    ¡°What a joke. With the elves facing such a great crisis, rather than thinking about how to survive the danger, they¡¯re doing such useless things instead. Just this alone makes us refuse to recognize the moon elves as our rulers.¡±


    The biggest reaction didn¡¯t actuallye from the dark elves from the Underground, nor did ite from the grayblood elves who had joined the Mist Alliance. Instead, the greatest reaction unexpectedly came from the silver elves.


    The anti-moon elf faction of the silver elves refused to recognize the Elven Empress and the Elven Empire. In fact, these silver elves even dered that they were still currently at war with the moon elf ¡°kingdom¡±.


    The next biggest reaction came from the wild elf viges and tribes. Their bloodlines were mixed and impure, so the Superior Elves had always looked down upon them. These wild elves didn¡¯t have the inheritance that the Superior Elves did, passed down since the previous Elven Empire. These scattered wild elf tribes were quite angered after having the Elven Empire and Elven Empress nominally be their new ruler.


    Most surprising of all, the Nortnds Mist Alliance, whom everyone thought would say something, remained silent... when they were actually the faction with the greatest right to say something.


    The Nortnds had the grayblood elves (gray elves were also formerly moon elves themselves), pure moon elves (the three elven kingdoms in the Nortnds had also joined the Mist Alliance), wood elves (Kelly¡¯s tribe had already immigrated several years ago), and the great majority of dark elves in the world. Imperceptibly, the Mist Alliance had now grown to have more than half of the entire Superior Elf poption. Furthermore, most inconceivably of all, unlike the Moonwheel Capital elven pce where internal battles and schemes constantly ran rampant, these Superior Elves were all able to peacefully get along with each other. In fact, there were already examples of elven interspecies marriage and half-blood children being born.


    Unlike traditional elven customs where half-blood elves were viewed as bastards who could only remain wild elves, the Nortnds elves weren¡¯t so hostile towards mixed-blood elves and half-elves. In fact, the Nortnds government was even intentionally encouraging the birth of more half-blood elves... This unusual action made the ordinary elves and wild elves feel quite grateful to the Nortnds.


    As for the higher-ups, the Nortnds had Kelly, the legendary wood elf teacher from the Mist Kingdom, Victoria, the first Desecration Priestess, Moon General Diana, Queen Suana, the Dove of Peace During Crisis, the grayblood elves¡¯ Squadron of Despair, Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s Town Security, anti-Holy Knights and regr Desecration Priestesses, and so on. These Nortnds elves were quite well known throughout the entire world now.


    ...Sometimes, a widely spread reputation would be even more important than actualbat strength, particrly when it came to being so-called pureblood.


    Perhaps, with the entire Mist Alliance supporting the Nortnds elves, along with the newest magical engineering technology and the support of mixed-blood elves and half-elves, along with four powerful modern-day job sses of Law Knight, anti-Holy Knight, Desecration Priestess, and Four Elemental Swordcaster, the Nortnds elves wouldn¡¯t be any weaker than the Moonwheel Capital¡¯s Elven Empire.


    Perhaps the only part where the Nortnds elves couldn¡¯tpare to the Moonwheel Capital elves was that the Nortnds elves didn¡¯t have the support of the Elven Gods. However, when considering that the Nortnds elves were supported by the Hell Gods, the Nortnds elves actually had even stronger backers.


    ¡°All they need is an appropriate status...¡±


    And before the Nortnds elves said anything, this ¡°status¡± arrived by itself.


    Some of the younger families from the anti-moon elf silver elf faction had understood the current political situation well. These silver elves unhesitatingly chose to travel to the Nortnds. Meanwhile, the human kingdoms they traveled through not only didn¡¯t stop them, but even sent out knights or army squadrons to protect the silver elves as if the humans were worried that the moon elves would try to stop the former.


    And so, this issue arrived in the Nortnds Mist Alliance. More urately, this issue arrived for the Nortnds elves¡¯ higher-ups as well as Annie, Reyne, Xueti, and the others in charge.


    Silver elves, grayblood elves (moon elves), wood elves, and dark elves. Alright then, the Nortnds also had theplete set of all four Superior Elf species. There was also arge number of mixed-blood elves, wild elves, and half elves supporting the Nortnds elves. Since the Moonwheel Capital could call themselves the Elven Empire, it was only natural that the Nortnds elves could also dere themselves to be the Elven Empire, and since the Nortnds elves had a moreplete Superior Elf inheritance and even more elf nobles, the Nortnds elves seemed like they had a stronger right to be the Elven Empire.


    Rumors instantly started spreading in the entire Nortnds that a second Elven Empire was about to be a new member of the Mist Alliance. These rumors were highly detailed. For instance, rumors said that the veteran wood elf Kelly would be the empress, ying a role that was more ceremonial than authoritative. The rumors also said that dark elf Victoria would be the head priestess of the new Elven Empire, while gray elf Diana would be the suprememander, and grayblood elf Suana (currently also a banshee) the prime minister.


    Considering how some of the rumor starters were actually dark elves and grayblood elves, the veracity and believability of these rumors seemed quite high. This also proved in a way that the Nortnds elves also indeed desired aplete Elven Empire.


    But at this critical moment, the Nortnds government continued maintaining a strange silence on the matter. All the Nortnds leaders imed to know nothing about such a thing. Their seemingly foolish acting skills made them seem likeplete political novices.


    The ¡°denseness¡± of the Nortnds government made all the other human kingdoms¡¯ leaders anxious. Ambassadors and envoys from countless countries were beginning to show up at the Mist Alliance government¡¯s doorstep on a daily basis.


    Actually, this wasn¡¯t because the Nortnds government wasn¡¯t worried about this matter. Reyne and the others were already losing so much sleep over it. They kept having countless conferences, but were still unable to finalize a n. They were also unable to contact the person who could truly create a n that everyone else would listen to.


    Even more critical was that this certain person had by his side another person who had the most noble elf bloodline remaining in the world. When it came to the name of the Elven Empire, nobody would deserve to inherit this empire more than her.


    Previously, she had been dead, and no longer counted as an elf. However, she was now alive again and was indeed the best candidate to make such a choice for the fate of the entire elven species.


    ¡°Gold Elf Princess Harloys, the final royal member of the former Great Elven Empire. In name, she is the ruler of all elves... All of our spy agencies and organizations, take action on this matter! Send contradictory rumors to conceal the fact that she is now alive again! This news absolutely can¡¯t be allowed to leak, at least until we can contact Rnd for his decision!¡±

 Chapter 619 - Difference Between Life and Death

    <h4>Chapter 619: Difference Between Life and Death</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Holy Light, Ice, Death, and Law. Any of these four major fields were enough to take an entire lifetime to research.


    Everyone would be naturally talented in different areas. A so-called genius in all areas would typically never reach the top in any area. The deeper the field of study, the more time would be needed to umte understanding. While longer-lived species could use their longer lifespans to umte more understanding, the short-lived humans didn¡¯t have such excellent conditions.


    Rnd¡¯s path for ability growth had been quite unique. He had reached the peak in all four areas. This seemed to break a maxim, but he actually wasn¡¯t multitasking at all.


    Rather than treating each of these fields as a type of power and knowledge, Rnd viewed them all more like philosophical ways of thinking.


    Holy Light¡¯s path of belief. Estrada had been Rnd¡¯s first teacher. Rnd had thus started down the historical Holy Knights¡¯ path of protection. He had also received the favor of Holy Light, which was how Rnd managed to achieve the peak. But, when he evolved the path of Holy Light into the path of Salvation, it was just as if he was using theology and philosophy to research Holy Light rather than being like other Holy Light users who simply researched Holy Light and its usage.


    Rnd hadn¡¯t invented any special Divine Arts for high-level priests and Holy Knights to use. As for Holy Light usage, techniques, and mastery of high-level Divine Arts, not only could Rnd notpare to SemiGod rank Holy Knights and priests, it was likely that Rnd couldn¡¯t evenpare to a Legend-ranked Holy Knight who worked hard at researching Holy Light.


    There was no need to go into detail about Law. This was what Rnd sought after his umtion from both Earth and Eich. This was also about his understanding of human social rules.


    Rnd had invented the Concept of Law in Eich. However, he wasn¡¯t a dedicated researcher of Law. Rnd hoped that Law could change the world of Eich. However, he wasn¡¯t interested in further researching the usages of Law. Right now, the great majority of new Law Incantations in the world had been developed by other Law job ss members... and Rnd didn¡¯t even know how to use these Law Incantations.


    Since he was focusing less and less on Law these days, Rnd had also started using the power of Law in his battles less and less. His power of ice was also in a simr situation.


    Ice was probably the field that Rnd had the weakest mastery of. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that he had to have four elements and had a cheat-like System helping him all the way, it would be unlikely that he would have achieved what he did in ice magic.


    Rnd¡¯s understanding of ice had only improved recently. While he knew more about ice than ordinary ice mages, Rnd would count as nothing more than an acolyte inparison to ice magic grandmasters... The number of ice magic spells that Rnd knew couldn¡¯t evenpare to a Legend-ranked ice mage who finished all his sses at magic school.


    Truly powerful individuals had reached the peak slowly, step by step. Mages would need to know a tremendous amount of magical knowledge. They would analyze the foundational workings of low-level spells to obtain knowledge about magic¡¯s inner workings. Only after slowly being able to control mid- and high-level spells, achieving the peak and reaching a bottleneck, would one start researching their personal magic.


    The way that Rnd understood the fundamentals of ice magic but couldn¡¯t apply them practically meant that he was unable to trante his ice magic mastery into actualbat strength.


    Mages who knew thousands of spells weren¡¯t only for show. Rnd, who only knew how to cast ice arrows, blizzards, and Ice Aeon, was one of the ice mages in the world with the worst repertoire. That was why he would often forget to cast spells while fighting and always resort to melee, which he excelled at.


    People would naturally rely on and trust what they were the most familiar with when they were in dangerousbat. In a way, this was the best evidence that Rnd had put far more effort into swordsmanship than ice magic. At the very least, he trusted his sword more than his ice magic.


    His only high-level ice spell, the forbidden spell Ice Aeon... Apart from the fact that his System had helped him with this, Ice Aeon was also the umted knowledge gained over two separate lives, along with Rnd¡¯s understanding of ¡°Death¡± and ¡°Destruction¡±. The Ice Aeon spell was the end result of having a lich¡¯s body and the ability to reincarnate.


    Correct¡ªthe area that Rnd had truly focused most of his time and effort on, along with his being naturally talented in, was the Concept of Death.


    Rnd had been focusing on finding the ¡°truth¡± behind his Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction at that time. He was in despair and insane back then. It was also the time when he desired strength more than anything.


    A weakness of smart people was that they would always try to think of ways to ck off. It was alsomon that they would overthink things and miss an opportunity. At that time, Rnd strongly desired more strength so that he could obtain revenge. He even broke all moral boundaries and directly unraveled the secrets of the soul.


    ¡°Rnd is the only new Undead Emperor to appear in the past thousand years. He has reached the highest peak possible in soul magic. He is the creator of undead construction.¡±


    This was how the dead and the mages referred to Rnd. This was the best evidence of how much Rnd had achieved in the area of Death. At the very least, Rnd was already at the top of the top when it came to his research about the nature of the soul... In fact, the reason why he was able to master so many different powers was also because of his understanding of the soul. He was already capable of transforming belief and feelings into actual power!


    His experience in the River Styx and his memories gained from truly dying and being reborn several times all helped him to far better understand the nature of death than any other existence in the world did. In fact, his understanding of death had already exceeded Creator Goddess Eich¡¯s.


    Rnd¡¯s true research results hadn¡¯t even been publicized. What Rnd would truly be known for in Eich¡¯s history wasn¡¯t even his frightful Seven Original Sin undead creations. That was because former Undead Emperors before him had constructed even more fearsome creatures. Not only that, his Seven Original Sins were only a byproduct of his research into the soul for the sake of power.


    ¡°Rnd has broken the boundaries between life and death.¡±


    Indeed, this was truly Rnd¡¯s greatest achievement. Before Rnd, death meant death. No matter if you entered the River Styx or the Cycle of Reincarnation, death was death. Nobody was truly able toe back after death.


    The moment that Lisa fell into the River Styx, she had already died. Even though Rnd pulled her out and gave her a new life, she was now a new individual. It could be said that Elisa¡¯s past life was as Lisa.


    People were capable of bing undead, God Envoys, angels, or so on. However, these were all alternate methods of extending life. The living were still the living, and the dead were the dead. Nobody was capable of breaking this boundary.


    No matter if you were an Undead Emperor or a True God, including even the Creator Goddess and the Main Gods, nobody was capable of breaking the boundary between life and death. Rnd was the only one who¡¯d ever achieved this. He researched topics that nobody else even dared to. He also seeded.


    Perhaps, foundationally speaking, he was still that crazy lich with no limits whatsoever.


    Such research results were no result of miraculous luck. No miraculous luck could bring about such research results. Rnd¡¯s research had taken an obvious course.


    Even though the Seven Original Sins were a product of undead construction research, they had also been a product of Rnd¡¯s research into the nature of souls, along with dissecting the essence of what desires and feelings were as natural traits of the soul. As the Seven Original Sins werepleted, Rnd¡¯s understanding of the nature of souls had exceeded that of every other existence... That was because nobody else would be insane enough to dissect themselves, cutting off a portion of their own soul to put into an undead creation in order to observe the changes in the nature of the soul. Besides, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that Rnd was known as the ¡°Undying¡±, doing this would normally be no different from suicide.


    His experience in the River Styx also gave Rnd the world¡¯s only personal experience with living and dead souls (nobody else would be capable of leaving the River Styx or the Cycle of Reincarnation). By using his knowledge of souls, Rnd was able to solve the foundational difference between life and death.


    Thus, Rnd opened a crack in the door between the secrets of life and death. However, some things would be impossible to aplish even if you understood the theory... Rnd hadn¡¯t intended on breaking the limits between life and death. In his calctions, that would have required a tremendous amount of energy as well as a giant price.


    Actually, his research results were only a byproduct of researching Creation. It was his search for the essence of life that led to this. He hadn¡¯t intended on reviving anyone.


    Back in the Nortnds, Rnd had sessfully created life in the incident that caused Ai to be a fallen angel. However, he hadn¡¯t created a soul. He only proved that the extreme end of light was darkness, and that Death of Chaos was actually capable of being used together with Holy Light from Order to create life. This was enough to make him the God of Holy Light¡¯s mortal enemy.


    The end result of his research into Creation was the dimension of Hell. Without mentioning this for the time being, since Rnd was already capable of creating physical bodies, didn¡¯t that mean that he could artificially create an actual life if he could create souls? That would be different from any alchemical puppet or living creation. This would be truly ¡°living¡±.


    The power of the Creator Goddesses... No, even the Creator Goddesses had limitations to their abilities. After they created a species, they could only let the species slowly evolve by themselves. Rnd was creating an individual from zero. Perhaps this was glory that far surpassed that of being a Creator Goddess. Even Rnd was tempted by this opportunity right before him.


    And so, when Ayer cut off the Earth Elemental ne from the mortal ne, making it so that all high-level existences were unable to know what was happening in the Earth Elemental ne, Rnd gritted his teeth and performed an ultimate experiment there.


    Rnd used Harloys as the experimental subject. He ignited the soul of the Divine Sin Shadow, and injected Shadow¡¯s soul into Harloys¡¯ body, trying to make up for her insufficiencies for being undead, transforming her from undead back into living.


    The end result? Everyone should know that already. Harloys was now alive again. Although she still had some undead traits, she was indeed alive.


    Her soul and physical bodybined once more. From now on, she no longer needed hatred to power her soul. She was once again capable of having children. She could limitlessly be stronger again... although it was meaningless as Rnd had never counted on the silly cat bing a powerful fighter.


    Had Rnd seeded? Maybe not. Although he had aplished this, which meant that Rnd¡¯s research results and theories about life and death were urate, reviving Harloys had used up an incredibly rare and powerful Divine Sin¡¯s soul. A life was paid for a life, in addition to the tremendous amount of energy used. Such a revival technique would be practically useless.


    Of course, many unexpected research results would appear quite meaningless when they were first discovered. They would only sit around looking pretty in aboratory. However, such research results would be more and more meaningful as other technologies and industries were developed.


    Over the past two years, due to various objective factors (technology from the Haletdam schrs¡¯ generation), Rnd had developed two applications for this technology. As long as he publicized them, he would surely receive endless des from the Truth Symposium, and obtain the title of the most outstanding Undead Emperor in the past tens of thousands of years. However, when considering the social effects that might ur if he publicized his information... well, a more urate term might be revolutionary change... Rnd obediently locked away his information in his treasury.


    Harloys knew Rnd better than anyone through their soul connection. She knew that he absolutely hadn¡¯t thought of what her status as the only living Gold Elf in existence would represent if she became alive again.


    ¡°The dead don¡¯t have rights, but it¡¯s different for the living.¡±


    The most regal of all elven bloodlines, the Gold Elves, had been extinct for countless millennia already. Even though Harloys still existed as an undead, she no longer had the status of an elf. No elf would possibly recognize her as a Gold Elf.


    But, if she was living, would that mean that she could still reobtain the status of an Elven Empress...? Although the elves¡¯ rules would say nothing about this, as long as the proper inheritor was still alive, all the usurpers would feel ufortable, and elves could make their choice.


    When elves were faced with such difficulty, and when the current Elven Gods were unable to help improve the elves¡¯ situation, the elves would naturally think back to their former leader, the Gold Elves.


    This matter was one that someone... or, more urately, a certain God... had already anticipated.


    ¡°Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom...¡±


    Old Kalumandas was quite nostalgic about the past as he was formerly a half-elf who had still been a mortal during the Gold Elves¡¯ generation. For quite a long period of time, he had protected Harloys and prevented her from dying a mysterious death at the hands of the Elven Gods.


    Also, back in the battle of Hell, he descended to Hell with his true body. Although he was nominally working for the Order Faction, he actually made many alliance agreements with Hell instead of attacking Hell. Of course, a Main God like Kalumandas who was so concerned with Harloys would naturally notice the changes in her upon meeting her again.


    At that time, Rnd and Kalumandas had a secret discussion. Rnd finally learned then that he had unknowingly brought himself so much trouble.


    ¡°You absolutely can¡¯t reveal that she¡¯s alive. Otherwise, the Elven Gods will pay any cost to kill her... Oh, you¡¯re telling me that she has a soul connection to you, and that it¡¯s impossible for her to die unless you die? Then, those grudge-bearing Elven Gods will try to kill you at any costs. Also, if you don¡¯t want to be hunted down by countless Gods, you can¡¯t reveal that you have the ability to revive the dead.¡±


    Rnd took Kalumandas¡¯ advice quite seriously. Rnd knew that even if Harloys didn¡¯t stir up any trouble herself, just the fact that she was the rightful inheritor to the Elven Empire and just her bloodline alone would mean that the Elven Gods would never let her go.


    Rnd had never even mentioned this matter to Harloys. Perhaps Harloys had also willingly forgotten about the potential consequences of her revival.


    Things were quite simple after death. However, the living would have to bear responsibilities, and this was a heavy responsibility that wouldn¡¯t be so easy to bear.


    Dealing with the elven traitors and elven internal wars, reorganizing the elven tribes and Elven Gods, and leading the entire elf species. Just thinking about all this was such a headache. Rnd, who hated trouble, chose to have the Gold Elf species disappear in history.


    ¡°Even if Harloys wants to raise her g and reconstruct the Elven Empire, that would mean a direct confrontation against the moon elves. The elves still have decent lives these days. Since their lives are alright, who would be willing to rebel against the current elven society and follow her? Since this isn¡¯t possible to aplish, then let¡¯s not even mention it.¡±


    However, some things were impossible to hide from even if you wanted to. Thanks to the ironic workings of fate, Rnd had created such trouble for himself, and some troubles... responsibilities had to be faced sooner orter.


    Although Rnd¡¯s party was cut off from the mortal ne in the Chaos Abyss, they were still contactable through the fairies¡¯ informationwork. It finally became time for Rnd to make a decision on this matter.


    ¡°An Elven Empire created with only nominal support from the four Superior Elf species, versus an Elven Empire led by a Gold Elf with the inheritance of ancient past,bined with support from all four Superior Elf species. The former is at risk of meeting its doom, while thetter has the proper inheritance and strong supporters. Isn¡¯t it quite obvious which Elven Empire will more easily receive support from all elves?¡±

 Chapter 620 - Fate and Elves

    <h4>Chapter 620: Fate and Elves</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Elves¡ªthe most spoiled and loved children of the Creator Goddess.¡±


    If the Creator Goddess was biased, then the elves would doubtlessly be the most spoiled children of all.


    The elves had beautiful appearances, long lives, powerful and useful natural talents, and the ability to excel in both physical and magical pursuits. The Superior Elves and Royal Elves had incredible potential. All of this was a blessing from the Creator Goddess.


    And these blessings also led to a unique elven culture. Their powerful talents and long lives allowed the elves to reach the peak in magic as well as martial arts in all dimensions. The elves created a strict social hierarchy where everyone had their role.


    With their inborn beautiful appearances and inclination towards pursuing the beautiful, the elves¡¯ expertise in art, music, and performance all reached the level of opulent extravagance. This also gave them a longstanding racial inheritance that withstood the test of time.


    The elves were the most spoiled children of the Creator Goddess. This was a fact that no living individual would disagree with.


    No other culture in the world of Eich possessed such a long history. The most ancient Gold Elves had been born simultaneously with the first dragons and demons. It could be said that the Gold Elves had existed ever since Creator Goddess Eich created the entire world.


    In history, the elves had fought against the demons, exchanged technology with the Haletdam schrs, and even taught both ancient and modern-day humans about magic. The elves¡¯ glory hadsted for far too long.


    ¡°Don¡¯t talk about history or art in front of the elves, just like how you wouldn¡¯t brag about being courageous in front of a beastman.¡± This was a well-known phrase that was the best exnation for everything.


    The Holy War was cruel. Other ruling species that lost their ¡°ruling¡± status would typically disappear entirely in history. For instance, the great demons¡¯ empire, the Haletdam schrs¡¯ generation, the dwarven city-states, and the undead Tark Republic. However, the elves who had experienced countless Holy Wars had only gradually retreated from history.


    This wasn¡¯t only because of the Creator Goddess¡¯s blessing and the elves¡¯ potential. This was also because in the past, the elves were highly skilled at maintaining diplomatic ties with other species. In many critical turning points in history, the elves had always been on the victor¡¯s side.


    The Tark Republic, the Haletdam schrs, and even the modern-day Mage Country. All of them had received various amounts of benefits from the elves. With the guidance of the ruling Gold Elves, the Elven Empire had forever shown all other important species, except for the great demons, a mysterious amount of friendliness.


    However, perhaps it was precisely due to this diplomatic style that appeared weak that the Superior Elves rebelled against the ruling Gold Elves, for the Superior Elves desired even greater glory and forever being at the top.


    ¡°Why must we lower our heads and treat those lowly monkeys with such politeness!?¡±


    ¡°Why must we remain in the forests and mountains!?¡±


    ¡°Why can¡¯t we simply destroy those lowly species!?¡±


    As time passed, with many ebbs and flows of the Elemental Tide, the Gold Elves met their end, just like other ancient species from the first generation. The lessening of the power of the elements caused an ancient species like the Gold Elves to gradually lose fertility. Near the end, the birth of any single Gold Elf would be a cause for national celebration in the Elven Empire.


    Not only that, all of the Holy Wars and internal wars in history had caused many of the top-level Gold Elves to die. The weakening of the ruling Gold Elves along with their low fertility rate meant that the lower-ranked and more numerous Superior Elves gradually took over the upper ss of elven society.


    Did all of this seem familiar? Yes, the current moon elf and silver elf society was now having the exact same problem. The lower-ranked ordinary elves were now more numerous and overall more powerful than the Superior Elves. Of course the lower-ranked elves would want to rece the ruling elves who had gotten weaker and weaker. This had nothing to do with the rulers making decisions that were wise or foolish. This was simple social change. As the power in society rebnced itself, the new main social ss of any society would choose a new ruler that was more suitable to itself.


    This was just like how the Industrial Revolution in my original world had spurred social change. In a magical world like Eich, social change would also naturally cause the rulers and those in charge to change. Perhaps it could be said that society itself would call out for change.


    At such a time, anything that the Gold Elves did would be considered wrong. And so, the Superior Elves all rebelled in the name of ¡°freedom¡±. This major rebellion didn¡¯t only take ce in the mortal ne. The most important of all was that the Elven Gods wanted to overthrow the Gold Elf Gods. The final result was that the entire Gold Elf species was killed by the Superior Elves. The Gold Elf Gods were also all killed. Harloys was the only Gold Elf who remained that woke up several hundred yearster, but she was undead after that.


    However, sess and defeat for the Superior Elves woulde for the same reason. The Gold Elves, who had ruled over all elves for countless generations, were quite wise. Since they obviously needed to delegate authority due to their own insufficient numbers, the Gold Elves delegated the most important four national matters of military, religious, civilian, and diplomatic affairs to the four different Superior Elf species. Although such a political structure caused the birth of powerful Superior Elf families, this also limited their power because the different Superior Elf species would each be in their own factions.


    This also became the reason for the Superior Elves¡¯ future downfall.


    When the ruling Gold Elves were killed off, the four Superior Elf species, who all had roughly equivalent strength, found that they had a major headache. Since there was very little difference between their strength, none of them were willing to be another¡¯s subordinate. However, they all considered it too foolish to immediately start fighting each other right after having sessfully overthrown the Gold Elves. So, for the time being, an elven government led by a council of elders became the only possible choice.


    The end result? The scattered elven tribes and elven kingdoms of today were the best evidence. Some things were easy to tell simply by looking at the result. The elves had gone from glorious to weak. The turning point had been the destruction and copse of the Elven Empire, caused by the Superior Elves. Without the Gold Elves keeping all other elves in bnce and acting as the adhesive, the elves had gone down a slippery slope.


    Lorci and the dark elves had been exiled as they had lost in the elves¡¯ internal war. The wood elves and the druid alliance withdrew themselves from the Elven Empire and joined the neutral Nature Faction instead. The other Superior Elves warred against the wood elves for leaving the Elven Empire, and then the moon elves and silver elves ended up warring against each other. If the Gold Elves had still been around, none of this would have happened.


    When the Elven Gods and Superior Elves obtained what they wanted after killing the Gold Elves, the delight of victory and pleasure of authority had made them all incredibly arrogant. They all believed that they were much better than the ¡°rotten and weak Gold Elves¡± and that they could lead the elves to a much better future... And then, the Superior Elves who were all naturally suited to different areas started interfering with other Superior Elves¡¯ specialties. Constant friction finally elevated into internal war, followed by a Holy War that immediately caused the former Elven Empire to be reduced to nothing more than scattered elven tribes.


    When it came to how fast a species¡¯ downfall was, no other species could probablypare to the Superior Elves. Of course, the Superior Elves would never admit this. Everything that happened to them would be ¡°the fault of others¡±, ¡°the fault of the world¡±, or even ¡°the Gold Elves¡¯ scheme¡±...Although some of this was indeed due to the Gold Elves¡¯ original political structure, it was quite pitiful that they were still being med even after being dead for so long already.


    When the elves first split up into different tribes and started living separately, they had all been quite happy. They probably all felt like ¡°We finally don¡¯t have such burden with us¡±. But as time passed, the elves¡¯ lives became more and more difficult, so of course some elves would start missing the past. And as the entire elf species became surpassed by the ¡°short-lived monkey¡± human race, and as elves became more and more insignificant in the world, the elves started missing the Elven Empire even more as their lives became even more difficult.


    As time passed with so many years of hardship, more and more Superior Elves started to miss the glory of the past as well. This seemed rather ironic in the eyes of some ancient existences.


    And now, the elves were once again at a turning point of fate.


    The moon elves had established a new Elven Empire in name. This was thepletion of an elven dream, and right now, this elven dream indeed had practical meaning.


    First, this meant that the moon elves were now the rulers of all elves in name. Now then, since their capital was under threat, didn¡¯t that mean that all powerful elves had the responsibility to go defend the capital? And if someone decided to run away from the Moonwheel Capital at this time, couldn¡¯t that elf be dered a deserter, a loathsome traitor to the elf species?


    The answer was an obvious yes. The elf species had an exceedinglyrge number of rules and traditionalists. The moon elves still hadn¡¯t given up hope. They still wanted to hold on, even if there was only a sliver of hope.


    Every day, countless reinforcements from everywhere were arriving at the Moonwheel Capital. These reinforcements included wood elves, druids, and rangers from the forests, half-elves and human mercenaries who admired the elven culture, and young warriors who desired glory andbat achievements.


    ¡°Perhaps the information that the first battlefield will be the Moonwheel Capital is wrong? Or maybe the first demon wave isn¡¯t as hopeless as history records? Or maybe we¡¯ll receive even more reinforcements? We have the protection of our Elven Gods, so we can make it past this cmitous demon wave.¡±


    Perhaps this hope seemed quite foolish. But, just think about it from their standpoint. To use an analogy on Earth, if there was somehow a highly urate prophecy that said that Japan would suddenly sink entirely into the ocean ten days from now, perhaps due to a natural phenomenon, what would happen?


    Due to Japan¡¯srge poption and the overly short amount of time, a major evacuation would be impossible, and even if all the residents of Japan were kindly epted into other countries, they would be nothing but refugees. Their country would be finished. Without even a homnd, would their nationality continue to receive recognition? And even if they still existed as a nation, would they still be independent and free?


    Unlike Japan, the elves were surrounded by hostile human countries. Humans even viewed elves as the most valuable ves. Thus, the elves were in a much worse and frightening situation than my hypothetical analogy regarding Japan.


    If a major elven escape urred, countless elves would chaotically try to escape to other countries. Wouldn¡¯t that mean that several dozen human ver organizations would appear on the human kingdoms¡¯ borders to enve the elves? The human nobles would have no shame or limits to restrain them.


    To be honest, such hypothetical situations would be too difficult to pull off regardless. But no matter how you looked at it, no matter how the elves responded to their crisis, it would still be a situation full of despair.


    If the elves decided to organize a major escape, this would be the equivalent of immediately dering the end of their new Elven Empire right after establishing it. This would definitely lead to a major cmity for the elves. This was a heavy responsibility that would definitely be recorded in history, something that no Superior Elf leader wanted. In their eyes, that would be the equivalent of a slow death for the entire elf species. They might as well band together to face off against this crisis instead.


    In fact, due to those hoping for the best, a certain rumor was already spreading that the first demon wave wouldn¡¯t appear in the Moonwheel Capital. The rumor said that this was nothing more than fake information spread by the humans in order to cause the copse of the Elven Empire.


    In fact, as this rumor spread, plenty of elves started believing it. This was because no matter the species, people would always prefer to believe what they wanted to believe.


    Not only that, the human kingdoms were astonished by the moon elves¡¯ attitude. The moon elves didn¡¯t even try to suppress this rumor! It seemed like the new Elven Empire was tacitly allowing such a rumor to spread. The moon elves were actually trying to proim that all was well?


    The moon elves¡¯ attitude was quite apparent. At the very least, they could enjoy for the time being the taste of having ¡°revived¡± the Elven Empire from history. They would truly have a wonderful time afterwards if they survived this crisis, and if they could use the name of the Elven Empire to recruit more reinforcements, perhaps it would be much more likely that they could survive the first demon wave.


    But in some people¡¯s eyes, this type of hope was the utmost foolishness. The moon elves were already in a deep pitfall, yet they were dragging others into this pitfall along with them at such a time? Was it that fun to drag others to their deaths?


    At such a time, the most logical thing to do would of course be to loudly shout ¡°Don¡¯t mind me¡± and then obediently die in the pitfall. This would be the best course of action to preserve as many elves as possible. But, quite often, especially when one¡¯s life was at stake, the power of emotion in an intelligent being would far overpower the power of logic.


    Perhaps the anti-moon elf faction of silver elves had seen through all of this already, which was why they chose to immigrate to the Nortnds. However, it seemed that they hadn¡¯t acted quickly enough.


    Perhaps the Creator Goddess still didn¡¯t want to see her most spoiled children annihted, so she activated the invisible power of Fate at a critical moment to set a certain person in motion.


    ¡°Rnd,e over here! I discovered something really important in Didina¡¯s treasury!¡± Harloys suddenly shouted to me, which surprised me. That was because she was rarely this astonished and delighted in our soul connection. What discovery would possibly make someone as knowledgeable as Harloys so happy?


    I didn¡¯t have too many expectations for the subus Didina¡¯s treasury. This was because old veterans would all have the same habit¡ªthey wouldn¡¯t leave truly precious treasures by their side. Otherwise, if they were attacked by an enemy and lost, they would lose the battle along with their treasures... Fine, I admit that I also dug some treasuries with mediocre treasure and drew a bunch of treasure maps leading to those mediocre treasuries.


    As for the treasuries right in my home? I still left at least some valuables so that others would be able to take something valuable and not feel like killing people to vent if they found nothing valuable. This was because it would be impossible for anyone to always prevent thieves.


    I looked at Didina in astonishment. I hadn¡¯t thought that she would be such a novice? But, she had an immediate look of astonishment that she didn¡¯t even try to hide. It seemed that even she didn¡¯t expect this.


    I walked into Didina¡¯s treasury. As I expected, I saw so much gold everywhere that it was blinding. However, I knew even without needing magical appraisal that this gold would either be illusionary gold coins or the devils¡¯ cursed gold coins.


    Amongst all the gold, Harloys and Margaret were busy with some rundown ancient furniture. They were currently using a damp towel to constantly polish an antique dressing table that seemed to be made of white oak wood.


    ¡°Rnd, this is the dressing table that I used back in the day!¡±


    Harloys showed it off to me as if it was the greatest treasure. Perhaps she was overly excited from seeing this dressing table that she had used before, but it seemed as if her mental age had regressed to that time as well.


    ¡°You called me over for such a small matter?¡± I remarked in exasperation. ¡°Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that any of your furniture from that time can be considered a mega artifact today, so once again, you¡¯ve proved that you¡¯re as old as a fossil... Wait, something¡¯s strange?¡±


    Typically at this time, the silly cat would have already flown towards me, biting my head and adding herself to my head as a cat hat. But today, she was strangely excited and didn¡¯t even care about my sarcastic remark.


    ¡°Hmph, I knew you wouldn¡¯t know what¡¯s so good about it. Take a look at this.¡±


    Harloys stood in front of the dressing table¡¯s mirror. Even though she was clearly in her adult Gold Elf form, the mirror reflected her much younger Gold Elf loli form.


    Harloys then took a deep breath and lightly touched the mirror with her finger, causing waves to ripple within.


    She then touched her own neck. The younger girl in the mirror copied her movements. However, she had an extra golden sapphire ne on her neck. The next instant, the same golden sapphire ne appeared on Harloys¡¯ neck.


    Harloys then cutely nodded, causing a small and cute golden crown to materialize on her head.


    She then reached out her hand towards the mirror and shook her hand. A golden staff suddenly appeared in her hand both in the mirror and in real life.


    ¡°The Tear of Avis, the Will of the Elven Emperor, and the Final Gold Crown... These are the three God Equipment pieces of the Gold Elf royalty! This is the lost inheritance which can prove one¡¯s identity as elven royalty!¡± Didina actually managed to recognize these lost artifacts that had disappeared for so long in history. I had to once again recalcte just how old and valuable Didina might be. But more than that, I suddenly felt like something was off about the situation as if some mega trouble had just caught me.


    I should have been happy as well for Harloys unexpectedly picking up this nostalgic and valuable treasure from her past. However, all of these ¡°coincidences¡± caused me to recall a previous conversation I had with Catio, the God of Fate who joined the Hell Gods.


    ¡°Catio, can you truly control Fate? Then, could you help me change my Fate... I don¡¯t need wealth or anything like that. I just want some better luck with women. Please, I just want a more normal woman in my life...¡±


    ¡°...I feel like this is so embarrassing. Can I pretend not to know you?¡±


    At the time, we were having a secret discussion right after Hell was sessfully established. Catio was in a good mood, so he even cracked a rare joke.


    However, I wasn¡¯t joking at all! I had countless ¡°daughters¡± already, yet I was still a several-centuries-old virgin! It wasn¡¯t even at the level of humiliating anymore if I said this as it would be utterly pitiful instead! All I wanted was a rtively normal girlfriend that I could have a normal family and two normal children with! Was that too much to ask for?


    But right after his joke, Catio became serious again. Since this was about Fate, he had to take it seriously.


    ¡°Change Fate for you? While I could perhaps do this for anyone else, it¡¯s impossible for you. Every single individual is bound by countless lines of karma. While some may shout loudly about breaking free from the chains of Fate, they don¡¯t realize even that is part of Fate itself. Every single existence has their own Fate. Perhaps some will be ordinary for their entire lives. Perhaps some will be renowned heroes. But, they¡¯re foundationally no different in the River of Fate. These lines of Fate were decided right when they were born.¡±


    Catio nced at me as he said this as if he left something unsaid.


    ¡°As I am the God of Fate and the Guardian of the River of Fate, I am capable of cutting the lines of karma and reconnecting them. However, if I give any individual some type of good luck, I must give that same person an equal amount of bad luck. This is the basicw of Fate. Also, my changing has its limits. While I am capable of viewing another person¡¯s Fate in the River of Fate, I will automatically forget that person¡¯s Fate after I leave the River. Even I am not allowed to reveal another¡¯s Fate, and no matter what I change, that itself is also part of that person¡¯s Fate.¡±


    Rather than being surprised, I was actually delighted to hear all this.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care any bit about my luck with money. All I want is to improve my luck with women.¡±


    ¡°I would be able to improve someone else¡¯s luck with women at the cost of their luck with money. However, you weren¡¯t in the River of Fate to begin with. You are capable of changing the fate of those around you. However, you don¡¯t even have any good luck or bad luck. You have no luck at all... but you could also interpret this as the most terrible luck possible.¡±


    Even now, I still recalled how Catio had looked at me with such an expression of sympathy that also said he didn¡¯t understand my plight.


    ¡°While I am capable of giving you a marriage fate that should have rightfully belonged to someone else, this will be equivalent to challenging the fundamental rules of the River of Fate and tossing karma into the void. Not only will I be punished, your luck with women that I give you will definitely be transformed into bad luck with women in the end...¡±


    ¡°Then what use are you!? The God of Fate is so useless when ites to Fate!? You¡¯re supposed to be a powerful God! Just how useless can you be!¡±


    I had been quite angry at the time and ended up directly insulting him. However, Catio had responded with augh.


    ¡°That¡¯s right. In front of the invisible and formless Fate, countless coincidences will create a definite. The God of Fate is indeed quite useless...¡±


    Even though Catio was talking about how useless he was, it seemed as if he was praising the grandness of Fate.


    ¡°...And no matter how I try to modify Fate, even I cannot escape from Fate¡¯s arrangements. Rnd, let me give you a sincere piece of advice. Perhaps you aren¡¯t in the River of Fate, but everyone and everything connected to you is still in the River of Fate. Unless you are willing to cut off your attachments to everything and everyone, even you will be unable to escape from Fate in the end.¡±


    His joking smile gave me such a headache. Once again, I confirmed back then that I hated prophets more than anyone else in the world, especially prophets who only said half of everything.


    And now, as I watched Harloys show off her treasures, I felt even more of a headache.


    ¡°Damned prophet, what pitfall have I fallen into this time?¡±

 Chapter 621 - Riddle and Emergency Report

    <h4>Chapter 621: Riddle and Emergency Report</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Other protagonists would receive a system, a grandpa spirit, or a miraculous ring, followed by a broken engagement, face-pping, leveling, someone considered trash bing a genius, and ending with either defeating all enemies or starting arge harem. How enviable... er, I meant speechless... it would make me!


    But if I ever picked up any treasure or received some mysterious great fortune or luck with women, my first reaction would always be that I needed to be careful of a trap with the treasure, that great luck would always be followed by doubly great misfortune, and that any luck with women I had would always turn out to be as scary as a dinosaur, or a man dressed as a woman...


    And what made things even worse was that with all my experience, this truly wasn¡¯t paranoia on my part. This was a concrete fact backed by hard data and experience.


    With my vast amount of experience of suffering, my first reaction after seeing these three famous pieces of God Equipment was to...


    ¡°Throw them away, hurry and throw them away! Randomly picking up three pieces of God Equipment just like this? Am I going to be unfortunate for the next hundred years?¡±


    ¡°...Hmph, don¡¯tpare yourself to me. My luck has always been good.¡±


    Harloys was proudly making adjustments to the three pieces of God Equipment. She even put on an extravagant golden-white ceremonial clothing on her ideal adult form as she started prettying herself up in front of the mirror.


    ¡°Do I look beautiful?¡±


    Harloys started twirling around me. Her golden sapphire ne had dreamlike bubbles around it which reflected the golden light. When paired with her absolutely perfect, beautiful Gold Elf appearance, she seemed like an elf princess right out of a fairy tale. She indeed had heart-moving pureness, nobility, and resplendence.


    ¡°You are indeed quite beautiful. You¡¯re the most beautiful woman I¡¯ve ever seen.¡±


    I was no idiot. It would be best to tell the truth here. I casually praised her beauty. However, I kept feeling an itch on my head that warned me of some great misfortune about to befall me.


    ¡°Killing intent!?¡±


    As expected, there was killing intent! Who was trying to ambush me? Oh, it was Elisa who was ring at me? It didn¡¯t matter, as I had already gotten used to it from her.


    Wait, why was Elisa smiling? That smile made me feel so uneasy. Could it be that she was truly determined to dissect me now?


    ¡°...Your rampant paranoia must be incurable? You always think the worst of everything.¡±


    ¡°No, this is personal experience. If I find a wallet that has two copper coins in it, I¡¯ll definitely have an ident the next day that causes me to lose four copper coins. This really happened to me. Why are you all looking at me so strangely? You don¡¯t believe me?¡±


    Harloys shook her head. ¡°No, we believe you. You¡¯re not lying. But, you can actually find a wallet with your luck?¡±


    Hey, that didn¡¯t seem like the right part toment about? Still, I nodded proudly. Don¡¯t look down on me! Even I had picked up money before! Twice, even!


    ¡°Of course. I found a wallet once approximately two hundred years ago. On that day, someone stole money from my wallet, and while chasing the thief, I tripped and fell on the ground. I then found a wallet under my butt. I even recall that the wallet had two Bardi copper coins in it. That was the first time in my life that I had ever picked up money. The next morning, I even ordered an extra pancake to celebrate. Unfortunately, I was then robbed again during noon, and lost all my money. The second time that I found money was fifty-odd years ago. I picked up a single silver coin, a silver coin! I didn¡¯t even dare to believe it, but I lost it on that same night... Why are you all looking at me with such pity? I¡¯m telling the truth! I¡¯m not making this up!¡±


    [...It¡¯s more pitiful because it¡¯s the truth.]


    ¡°You¡¯ve had such a hard life.¡±


    I could only crouch on the ground in depression as I recalled my own words and experiences.


    However, Harloysughed.


    ¡°I finally understand why you use such a disgusting strategy of constantly obtaining information, calcting all possibilities before battle, obtaining as many small advantages as possible, and finally forcing your enemy to the brink before suppressing thempletely.¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡±


    ¡°No matter how low the chances of failure are, they¡¯ll stille into y if you have such bad luck. Your strategy is probably the best method to eliminate all unknown factors and luck. You¡¯re the type who¡¯s forced to view a 1% chance of failure as 100%. You can¡¯t count on any elements of good luck whatsoever. You¡¯re truly pitiful.¡±


    ¡°...What are you saying? I don¡¯t understand at all. Ah, by the way, howe your furniture is here in the Chaos Abyss?¡±


    ¡°Although your way of changing the topic is just as terrible as always, I also want to know why my dressing table is here, so I¡¯ll let you go this time...¡±


    We all focused on Bloody Arena city lord Didina, who had been pretending to be background scenery for all this time. I originally thought that she would be quite depressed at finding out that three pieces of God Equipment had been right under her nose for all this time without her realizing it. However, she chuckled as if she didn¡¯t really mind.


    ¡°These are just some random pieces of furniture that I purchased in order to expand my treasury right after I became the city lord. Even I don¡¯t remember where I purchased it. I probably purchased it from some dimensional merchant together with all the other furniture.¡±


    There was another bunch of furniture in the treasury. Most of the furniture was in the elven style. They all seemed to be mega artifacts from the Elven Empire era. Indeed, there were many artifact collectors that particrly loved Elven Empire era products. All of this furniture would likely be highly valuable.


    However, no matter if it was in quality or artisanship, the other furniture didn¡¯tpare at all to Harloys¡¯ dressing table. That was because products personally used by the royalty would be outrageously rare to find now.


    ¡°...No, wait, I remember that our pce was burned down. I thought that the three pieces of God Equipment had been destroyed together with the pce. The only possibility is that someone took out my dressing table before the pce was burned. However, someone who would take it out would naturally know of its worth. Would someone like that truly sell it for money?¡±


    Harloys somehow recovered her intelligence again after finally waking up from her great joy at reobtaining her treasure. Right when she said this, Didina¡¯s expression changed. The subus suddenly retreated, but a tiny red dragon instantly descended on top of her head. The mes that singed Didina¡¯s hair slightly informed her of the potential consequences of moving without permission.


    I inspected this treasury more carefully. Gold was piled up like mountains everywhere, while some rundown furniture was ced in the corner. A rash and inexperienced invader might take away all of the gold here, but nobody would even nce at all of this heavy and useless furniture, not to mention the inability to identify the most valuable dressing table among them.


    As for veteran invaders, they wouldn¡¯t even have much hope for this treasury to begin with, just like myself. It was far more likely that a veteran invader would interrogate the subus about the location of her real treasury. Such invaders would also ignore this furniture from the very start.


    In fact, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that Harloys recognized her personal furniture, we would have missed it as well.


    If all of this was actually intentional, this was truly cleverly arranged. No matter who the invader was, they would ignore all this furniture.


    If all of this was to conceal the existence of this dressing table, then it seemed highly likely that this subus knew the importance of the dressing table from the very start.


    ¡°Harloys, this is probably one of the greatest secrets of the Gold Elf royalty, right? There should be very few who know the true value of this dressing table.¡±


    ¡°...Yeah.¡±


    Harloys didn¡¯t answer me in much detail. However, her beautiful eyes werepletely focused on Didina. I had never seen such a serious expression on Harloys before. Even I was surprised. It seemed that she had gotten serious for once.


    If that subus dared to try and run, not only would Little Red on her head roast her, Harloys would instantly stop her.


    I was bing more and more interested in the true origins of this subus. Just as I was nning on properly interrogating her, a window suddenly opened as a fairy flew in.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, an emergency report for you! It¡¯s marked as highly urgent! Highly urgent!¡±

 Chapter 622 - Responsibility

    <h4>Chapter 622: Responsibility</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Admit it! It must be your fault that your misfortune has spread to me!¡±


    Harloys¡¯ cute face was right before mine. The loli was jumping up and down on top of my head, and the way she gritted her tiny teeth was quite cute. Her vicious expression as if she wanted to devour me seemed evenical to me.


    ¡°Paha! Haha, it¡¯s your fault for previouslyughing at me. Of course you would have this befall you as well.¡±


    Alright then, I trulyughed out loud. Iughed arrogantly, tyrannically, and rolled around on the floor whileughing.


    But right after that, I crouched on the ground in depression. This was because I had suddenly realized that since Harloys was bound to me, her troubles were my troubles. In a roundabout way, I had beenughing at my own misfortune.


    Currently, the people in charge of the Mist Alliance were unable to make such an important decision, so they tossed the trouble over to me. Who managed to teach such disciples who were so irresponsible? (Harloys: You!) ...In the end, I had to take the responsibility for everything, and this responsibility would determine the survival of an entire species. This responsibility was too much for me!


    ¡°It¡¯s all your fault! You were the one who found this information, then you shamelessly tossed it out to those in the mortal ne. Of course it would turn out this way with how you did things! It¡¯s all because you didn¡¯t want to take responsibility in the first ce, which is how you ultimately became responsible!¡±


    Damn, Harloys¡¯ logic actually made sense. The elves wouldn¡¯t have gone crazy if I hadn¡¯t obtained this information, and I wouldn¡¯t have been forced to take responsibility now...


    Why was it all my responsibility? The others didn¡¯t even need my advice or anything like that. Right now, there were simply two choices before me. Either I could ept the anti-moon elf silver elf faction into the Nortnds, and also establish an Elven Empire in the Nortnds so that the elves could have somewhere to retreat to, or I could watch the elves behave ridiculously and prepare to clean up their corpses.


    Choosing the first option would likely create a permanent major fracture amongst the elves. The second option would basically be watching the elves die. No matter which decision I made, the moment that I made this decision, I would be the mortal enemy of a significant portion of all elves. Perhaps I could even add additional nicknames such as ¡°Elf Annihtor¡± or ¡°Destroyer of the Elven Empire¡± to my already long nickname list. Wasn¡¯t that taking too much me?


    The demon wave was approaching. The elves were facing a crisis. However, their behavior once again refreshed the limits of my understanding.


    Actually, the most logical and effective method to protect the entire elven species would be to dissolve all elven tribes, which would rx the guard of the human kingdoms around them. Then, the elves should organize a great escape. No matter if the elves became ves or refugees, they should run away as far as possible, which would preserve thergest number of elves. As long as enough elves survived, they would always one day be able to reestablish their country.


    Even if the adult elves weren¡¯t afraid of death, they could organize an escape for the elderly and the young. The human kingdoms would be willing to ept refugees far more readily if it was only the elderly and the young.


    However, any elven leader who made such a decision would probably brand themselves with the infamy of having personally destroyed the glorious Elven Empire that was just restored. That elven leader would be a heinous criminal for all ages... But hey, in this generation, weren¡¯t leaders supposed to be professionals at taking insults and receiving me? Without even that much courage, the elven leaders couldn¡¯t evenpare to a single little finger on Bardi Emperor Orloss the ¡°Foolish King¡±.


    The elves¡¯ current decision seemed courageous. ¡°None of us will run away¡±. However, this actually meant ¡°All of us will die together¡±. If the demon wave was as scary as recorded in history, this was the equivalent of waiting for death.


    Actually, ording to our calctions, this demon wave¡¯s strength was likely strong enough to break all historical records. When it urred, not only would the elves meet their doom, it was likely that even the neighboring human kingdoms who wanted to enjoy the show would be involved and get destroyed. Also, even if the elves started a great escape right now, and all the neighboring kingdoms guaranteed free passage for them, it was unlikely that all the elves would be able to escape.


    I was no saint. Not only that, I had a deep grudge against the elves. However, I truly didn¡¯t want to see the entire elf species be annihted. Apart from the clich¨¦ fact that this would mean losing allies, I had an even more important reason that people didn¡¯t know about.


    ¡°The elves are indeed quite weak right now. But in twenty years, no, just ten years, they shall usher in a super golden era...¡±


    Did this seem inconceivable? Actually, in my eyes, the elves had far greater potential than any other species. In fact, it seemed likely to me that they would flourish in this Holy War. The reason for this was due to the battle of Hell which had urred eight years ago now.


    So many things which were destined to be recorded in history had happened in that year. However, many things wouldn¡¯t happen immediately. Time would be needed to see the effects.


    In that year, the God of Fate, Goddess of Wealth, and several other Order Gods chose to join Hell. The moment that they joined Hell, they abandoned their former Divine Kingdoms and heroic spirit temples. Countless heroic spirits fell back down to the mortal ne. They became the children of the Dawn Generation. It just happened that this coincided with me establishing a new Cycle of Reincarnation to rece the old. Thus, these spirits were able to be reborn anew as infants without the mandatory memory wipe that the old Cycle of Reincarnation would have performed on everyone and before the new Cycle was fully established. They became the ¡°luckiest¡± people who were reborn.


    When other Gods discovered how the Hell Gods were basically cheating to help their heroic spirits be reborn, many other Gods also did the same thing!


    In the Dawn Generation, the theoretical difference between a heroic spirit¡¯s reincarnation was very simr to an undead spirit bing a demon. They were both processes for transforming the dead into the living. However, unlike with my revival of Harloys, these newborn spirits would havepletely new lives, albeit with past memories and knowledge. Foundationally speaking, however, they would all be new individuals.


    Perhaps none of them couldpare to their past lives. However, as long as no idental death befell them, these heroic spirits would all aplish many things as they had their past life¡¯s vast experience and knowledge to draw upon.


    Even if a Myth-ranked hero couldn¡¯t swiftly surpass his former self, it shouldn¡¯t be all that difficult for him to at least reach Legend again.


    Then, what did this all mean? This meant that within the next ten to twenty years, the new versions of heroes from history would appear inrge numbers all over Eich. This would bring a new heroes¡¯ generation to Eich.


    This was my ultimate defense n against the Chaos Faction. While this n wouldn¡¯t see any effects for the short time, it would indeed increase the overallbat strength of Eich by a significant amount. While a single hero might not be able to change the course of an overall battle by themselves, defending a vige from magical beasts shouldn¡¯t be that difficult.


    The issue was, out of all the heroes who were reincarnated, at minimum 33% of them were elves!


    The reason for this? The elves had the longest history of any species, so they had the most heroes. Apart from this, there was also a coincidental reason that I was speechless toment on.


    Elf Main God Anslo had just happened to choose this timing to betray the Order Faction. His heroic spirit temple was filled with elite heroes. The heroic spirits that a Main God umted over the years would be countless. They had all received the opportunity to be reincarnated when Anslo fell down to the Chaos Abyss and abandoned his heroic spirit temple. I couldn¡¯t even begin to imagine how many mega powerful elven heroes would thus be reborn with their memories intact.


    I highly doubted that Anslo would have known that this would happen. It was probably the result of luck. Or, perhaps Fate truly wanted to still protect the elves.


    ording to the basic principle of reincarnation, elven souls who were reincarnated were highly likely to choose to be reincarnated as elves. And, the demon wave was about to descend on the location with the greatest elven poption in the world...


    If the Moonwheel Capital, which had more elves than any other location, was destroyed by the demon wave, countless future elven heroes would be killed before they could even have the chance to develop while they were still young children. From this standpoint, the demon wave had truly chosen the correct location to begin its first attack.


    ¡°Damn it, my n needs to be changed now. In this situation, not only will it be impossible for Reyne, even I might not be able to personally deal with this.¡±


    I¡¯d originally had a n in ce regarding the future elven heroes who would grow up soon. The moment that I gave the mortal ne the information on the first demon wave¡¯s nned attack location, I had also contacted Reyne and told her to take the new Borealis Squadron to the Moonwheel Capital, saying that they were there to help the elves.


    Our purported reason for going there would be to sell some munitions and purchase some magical items, making a profit from the elves¡¯ uing battle. However, the real purpose would be for the elven children.


    Even the most fearless or courageous warrior would still have a soft heart for their children. Even if the warriors were willing to bravely face their deaths, they would never be willing to watch their children die together with them.


    After Reyne finished selling the munitions stocked in the Borealis Squadron, all she would have to do was say that it would be meaningless to fly back with empty airships. Out of moral obligation and kindness, she would be willing to take elven children and the elderly with her to the Nortnds¡¯ elven kingdoms to live there. When considering the fact that the Nortnds was the only ce in the mortal ne where the elf ve trade was illegal, and adding the excellent reputation of the Church of Law, this n should have had a very high sess rate.


    Hardly would Elven Empress Afina force her species to end their own bloodlines for the sake of glory. It would be impossible for her to enforce such an order even if she issued it. It was likely we would be able to obtain some royal or noble Superior Elf children.


    I had also told Reyne not to be greedy. It would be good enough as long as we could obtain some of the young elf poption. Neither was there any need for Reyne to check the children for who was actually a reincarnated hero. We just needed to treat it as doing a good deed. The Borealis Squadron had more than enough room to rescue 20,000 elf children from the demon wave. But, right before the demon wave was truly about to arrive, Reyne was to use sneak attacks and even illegal kidnapping tactics to steal away another several tens of thousands of elf children, which wouldn¡¯t be too difficult for the Borealis Squadron.


    This n of mine could be described as quite underhanded. However, its sess rate would be quite high. This would both preserve the elf species as a whole as well as greatly improve the Mist Alliance¡¯s overall strength. It would be a win-win situation for all of us.


    But in this current situation, the elves would even be more willing to send their children to be human ves rather than sending children to the Nortnds Elven Empire that couldpete with them as the proper Elven Empire. It was likely that Reyne¡¯s group would instantly be kicked out the moment that they entered the moon elf Elven Empire¡¯s borders.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t good. I need to personally go there. It will be quite difficult for Reyne and the others to deal with it.¡±


    I made up my mind. However, Harloys truly had a headache.


    For the sake of my ¡°elf children kidnapping¡± n, it would have been best not to establish our own Elven Empire that would attract far too much hostility from the Moonwheel Capital elves. But now that it seemed that we truly had a good opportunity to reestablish a true Elven Empire, not only did Harloys seem like she didn¡¯t mind the trouble, her eyes were shining with expectation.


    Additionally, if the Nortnds established an Elven Empire, not only would this greatly improve the Mist Alliance¡¯s status, all of the Nortnds elves would have a ce they could call home. Countless elves from other ces would alsoe to the Nortnds. This wasn¡¯t a rare chance that woulde once in a hundred years, but more like a chance that would onlye once in ten thousand years.


    If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the Moonwheel Capital elves and the Elven Gods were in such a crisis that they couldn¡¯t even protect themselves, we wouldn¡¯t have possibly received this opportunity to be recognized as the real Elven Empire.


    And it just happened that Harloys reobtained the three pieces of Gold Elf royalty God Equipment which symbolized the Elven Empire at such a time. If I hadn¡¯t personally witnessed that this was all a joke by Fate, even I would have probably thought along with everyone else that this was all a scheme by the Nortnds elves.


    ¡°The princess of a destroyed country became undead and roamed as a vagabond for ten thousand years with her country¡¯s national treasure. Finally, she went through such hardships as she finally was revived, and brought out the three national treasures to reestablish the Elven Empire... This ssical story sounds like one that will remain popr for centuries toe, with countless retold versions and ys written about it.¡±


    No matter if people believed that this was Fate or a scheme, as long as a living Gold Elf appeared in front of everyone together with the three pieces of God Equipment that symbolized the Elven Empire, the Nortnds Elven Empire would instantly be the officially recognized one.


    Countless amounts of information whirled around in my head, giving me a headache.


    I¡¯d originally had backup ns regarding the elves, or perhaps they should be more urately referred to as schemes, for none of them was something that could see the light of the day. My various schemes all had different objectives. As for which n to finally take, that would depend on the opinion of the person at the center of everything.


    ¡°Harloys, what do you think of everything? Do you still hate the Elven Gods? Do you wish to destroy the entire elf species? Or do you want to bring a renaissance to the elf species and revive the entire Elven Empire?¡±


    ¡°Of course, I want to take revenge¡ª¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t answer me so quickly. Think it over carefully. You are now the only living Gold Elf. Your decision will decide the future of the entire elf species. Ask your heart. What do you truly want? This is your responsibility.¡±


    I didn¡¯t want to force her. But at this moment, I had to force her toe to a decision. Although it was quite cruel, this was a responsibility that she deserved to bear.


    ¡°I...¡±


    Harloys sank into deep contemtion. When she spoke up again, she seemed like she had resolved herself.

 Chapter 623 - Ironic Fate

    <h4>Chapter 623: Ironic Fate</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    A family was a gathering of those who were rted by blood, while a country was a gathering of countless families who all had the same roots. These families would share mutual benefits and live and die together as a country... This was the mainstream view of countries and families back in my original world. However, this view wouldn¡¯t be so appropriate for the world of Eich.


    Eich¡¯s environment was far more dangerous inparison to the rtively peaceful Earth. There were all sorts of dangerous magical beasts, along with the hostility of other species. Even the most basic action of ¡°living¡±was highly difficult.


    Back on Earth, the countries were typically gatherings of those who had the same ethnicity, nationality, culture, and so on. However, that was too extravagant to hope for in Eich. Although the humans of Eich also had countless different tribes, nationalities, and differences, all other species and Gods viewed them all as humans.


    The reason? There was only one. Life was difficult. Teaming up to protect each other was primary priority. There was no time or effort spared to separate humans into different categories. If humans had to deal with an alien invasion for several hundred years back on Earth, it was likely that racial discrimination and so on would be much less prevalent as humans would band together against a much greatermon threat.


    With such an environment, Eich¡¯s countries and human society were foundationally different from those on Earth.


    ¡°The weak will serve and worship the strong, while the strong will protect the weak.¡±


    This was a very simplistic symbiotic rtionship that served as the foundation of human society. The weak desired to be the strong as it would mean being able to gain reputation and status, and when someone became strong, that meant taking on responsibility to protect the weak.


    So, with such a social structure, feudal lords became the mainstay of Eich¡¯s human society, and from a certain standpoint, this was indeed the most appropriate social structure for this world. The local domain lords and knights were responsible for being local militarymanders who had to protect their own citizens!


    What, did you think that I would try and set upmunism here just because I was originally from China? Or that I would try and establish capitalism, or at the very least get rid of the feudal system? Then who would be in charge of protecting everyone? Was I supposed to count on the ordinarymoners who had never learned any magic or martial arts?


    Some were born with high status as rulers or royalty due to their bloodlines. These individuals would be taught military knowledge and the responsibility of protecting family, country, and people from the start. This wasn¡¯t due to any sense of nobility or justice. This was simply societal pressure due to the environment and external threats.


    In this world, since magic and martial arts existed, there was a tremendous gap between the weak and the strong. Professional warriors would have different jobs frommoners. As this became the norm in human society, a knights and nobles system was naturally produced.


    Even back in my original world of Earth, in primitive society when life was extremely difficult, those in charge were nothing more than the military leaders of their tribes or people, such as Chinese King Wen or Emperors Huang or Yan, Alexander the Great, King Arthur, and so on. All of them were known for their military exploits. It was just that the long eras of peace and extravagance that followed afterwards caused their descendants to be rotten, living off and enjoying their ancestors¡¯ aplishments and forgetting their true duty.


    But even despite all this, whether it be the dark Middle Ages of Europe or the chaotic Warring States Period of China, domain lords all needed to fight for themselves and their people¡¯s future.


    Thend of Eich had a much more severe situationpared to Earth. Perhaps there was also extravagance that could be enjoyed here, but there had never been a long period of peace in Eich. The Holy War, other species, magical beasts, and so on would forever be threats to all humans and their countries.


    Perhaps the current human nobles were already absorbed in enjoying their extravagant lives. Perhaps the Superior Elves were concentrating mostly just on power struggles. Perhaps the beastmen tribe leaders had already returned to a primitive tribal structure. However, as long as any of them had theirnds invaded, they would still need to pick up their weapons and lead their people in defending their homes.


    In Eich, the nobles were allowed to be foolish, greedy, ignorant, or arrogant. However, no noble would ever allowed to be useless or cowardly.


    If a threat appeared, and the domain lord abandoned his own domain to escape, not only would he lose his domain and noble title, everyone would look down on him... And this ¡°everyone¡± would include even the lowestmoner farmer down to criminals scheduled to be executed.


    Perhaps the countries in the central portion of Eich had already rxed their guard due to being at peace for a rtively long period of time for Eich. Their nobles and knights had indeed be fallen and corrupt. In this area, the short-lived humans indeed couldn¡¯tpare to the elves. However, for someone like myself born in the Nortnds, the responsibility upon me since birth was right before my eyes.


    Ever since birth, the threat of the Nortnds beastmen and the cruel natural environment had constantly reminded me that this was no peaceful like Earth. This was Eich, where anyone and any species could die at any moment.


    With our being sessors to the Mist Kingdom, the first toy given to me and Karwenz was actually a wooden sword. Ever since young, we had to ept knight training and military education. A great Sword Saint from the royal knights was our sword instructor, and the royal instructor Kelly didn¡¯t teach us etiquette, but rather political and military knowledge.


    It wasn¡¯t only myself and Karwenz that had to directly go onto the battlefield before we even reached adult age. Countless domain lords¡¯ sessors had the same experience as us. In fact, some ces even viewed this as a trial, using this type ofw of the jungle to select the best sessor.


    ¡°The domain and the citizens are forever the foundation of a domain lord. The citizens support you and give you resources in order for you to protect them.¡±


    ¡°Thend and the citizens are the foundation for any ruler...¡±


    ¡°The tribe¡¯s territory and people are forever the foundation for any tribe leader...¡±


    Countless other simr phrases existed out there. No matter if you were an ordinary town mayor, or an exalted emperor high up above, you would still have a contract to protect your foundation. This was the most basic sense of trust that people had in each other in this world which was so dangerous.


    A high status not only represented power, it also represented the responsibility to protect. The glory of the ancestors wasn¡¯t only for show. It was something that had to be upheld.


    I didn¡¯t know if the Gold Elves had a simr education to the human nobles or not. Still, I had never found any differences before in this area¡ªno matter the species.


    ¡°Harloys, what do you think of everything? Do you still hate the Elven Gods? Do you wish to destroy the entire elf species? Or do you want to bring a renaissance to the elf species, and revive the entire Elven Empire?¡±


    This was quite an underhanded and cruel question. That was because not only was I spreading salt on her wound, I was forcing her to choose from two difficult decisions... and I knew her answer right from the start.


    As thest descendant of the Gold Elves, although Harloys had only been a princess rather than a ruler herself, she still carried the responsibility of the empire. If she had still been a grudge-filled undead, at this time she would likely be shouting ¡°I want revenge, kill all the elves!¡± or something like that.


    But now, Harloys was alive again. I highly doubted that she had never considered her responsibility as the only living Gold Elf. However, every time that she thought of ¡°will they ept an ancient artifact like me from so many generations ago¡± or ¡°why think about such meaningless things?¡±, she would stop herself from thinking deeper.


    How did I know? Would you believe me if I said that it was because I was also someone from a destroyed kingdom...? Fine, I admit that our original magical pet contract had been signed too hastily. I would always mysteriously obtain certain thoughts of hers.


    I knew how Harloys would answer, just as how she knew I knew how she would answer... Although this seemed quite confusing, that was how it was.


    What happened to Harloys had been so long ago in the past. Although Harloys would always go berserk when mentioning the elves, this actually confirmed in a way that she still cared about the elves. And if I wrote down all herplex emotions towards the elves in words, I would probably have enough material for an entire series of novels.


    In the end, Harloys finally broke her long silence.


    ¡°You¡¯re so sly... The bastards from that year must pay the price.¡±


    Any lies or haggling would be meaningless when talking to someone with a soul connection. Harloys had just spoken of the limit of what she could ept.


    However, the Elven Empire had been destroyed more than ten thousand years ago. Four or five Holy Wars had urred since then. Those from that year... Fine, there were still some who were alive. The booklets that Harloys had given me all recorded the original names of those Elven Gods. Anslo and Lorci¡¯s names had been at the forefront.


    As for Harloys¡¯ elven enemies in the mortal ne? Not even Gold Elves would typically have lifespan exceeding ten thousand years. When considering the pitiful survival rate in the Holy Wars, it was likely that the number of elves from the Elven Empire generation who were still alive could be counted on one hand.


    Well, the elves had also put an insane amount of energy into trying to hunt Harloys down over the years. Without mentioning anything else, when I was Yongye one hundred-ish years ago, Harloys would first focus on hunting down the oldest elves on her list every time that we destroyed an elven kingdom.


    ¡°There¡¯s more than you think! There¡¯s still five of them alive! Silver elves Savor and Ostan. These two are both traitors from the Silverspear Family. They were guard captains of the royal guards back in the day. Moon elf Finna Moonshadow. My father, the emperor, trusted this priestess more than anyone else. However, she betrayed us all. Wild elf Vincent. I was blind back then to have promoted that bastard. Wood elf ¡®Elder Tree Sleeper¡¯. He was the one who forcefully sent all the guardian elder trees to sleep back then!¡±


    Damn, there wasn¡¯t a single easy one to deal with among them. They were all ancient artifacts at SemiGod or above. After so many years, these individuals and their families were major powers, withrge numbers of Superior Elves. Dealing with even one would be like prodding a ho¡¯s nest... Well, this was only natural. If thesest elves that Harloys wanted revenge against had been easy to deal with, she would have killed them long ago.


    ¡°Alright. I will personally send them down to the infernos of Hell. This is my promise to you.¡±


    Originally, my promise to help Harloys obtain her revenge had only been an exchange of personal benefits for our alliance. I hadn¡¯t paid too much attention to my promise. I had only dealt with the elves out of convenience if I happened to run into any. I hadn¡¯t intentionally gone out hunting elves. But now that Harloys had resolved herself andpromised thanks to my convincing her, I felt that as a man, I should help her carry out her revenge.


    These five elves were simply a group of bastards who betrayed their master. I would spend some extra effort without caring about the price to kill these five elves within the next three years.


    Harloys¡¯ face actually flushed red. Maybe it was because she felt that my promise was a serious one for once? Her eyes were bing watery... Wait, wasn¡¯t something wrong with the style? Normally, she would never be this moved, but she was so moved by a promise to help her kill others?


    But the next instant, she calmed down again. She averted her gaze as if she was rather embarrassed.


    Still, the red flush on her pointy ears soon receded. Her beautiful eyes now stared directly at the subus Didina. Harloys¡¯ expression constantly changed as she opened and closed her mouth several times. She wanted to ask a question, but was also afraid of finding out the truth.


    It was obvious that the three pieces of Gold Elf God Equipment were one of the greatest secrets of the Gold Elf royalty. It was certain that very few would know about them. Harloys had probably already guessed who Didina really was. There were probably only a few candidates to choose from.


    ¡°Mother...?¡±


    Didina smiled bitterly as she shook her head. She also knew that it was impossible to hide the truth anymore.


    ¡°Aunt Betty?¡±


    This time, Didina fell silent for quite a while. But still, she shook her head in the end.


    Harloys then covered her face and lowered her head without asking anything else. However, her expression while looking at Didina through her fingers became even moreplex. It seemed that there had only been three candidates who knew about the three pieces of God Equipment. Now that two wrong answers had been eliminated, there was only one correct answer left, no matter how inconceivable it might seem.


    At this moment, I also covered my mouth. This wasn¡¯t because I had learned it from Harloys, as she was blocking off our soul connection to the maximum. However, it had been quite simple to guess who Didina had to be based on basic family structures...


    ¡°I can¡¯tugh, I can¡¯tugh, I¡¯ll really die if Iugh out loud. Harloys will kill me for sure...¡±


    I did my best to hold in myughter while thinking about what I should say. After all, if I wanted to be technical about it, Didina was actually Harloys¡¯ senior.


    ¡°Father... no, Mother, please allow me to marry your daughter!¡±


    Astonishing words echoed throughout the hallway. Everyone focused their attention on the person who was suddenly kneeling and asking for Didina¡¯s daughter¡¯s hand! Didina had an expression of absolute astonishment and disbelief.


    ¡°Paha, Harloys, you have a Void Devourer little sister now? How do you feel about your little sister getting married before you? Hahahaha!¡±


    In the end, I was unable to take it any longer as I rolled around on the floor whileughing. The next instant, a familiar cat attacked me while attaching herself to my head.


    Hey, don¡¯t misunderstand. I wasn¡¯t the one who asked to get married just now. The person who was kneeling while asking for forgiveness was a certain Dracon from myths and legends.


    However, Beifeng was sneaking peeks behind him while kneeling and asking for Didina¡¯s permission to marry the Void Devourer. A certain centaur archer had aplex expression while looking over at Beifeng.


    ¡°The topic was so serious just earlier. However, things suddenly became soical the moment that Beifeng arrived. He really knows how to steal the spotlight... What does this count as? A shuraba between a centaur and a Void Devourer? Sheesh, it¡¯s so rare for me to be serious for two minutes. Let¡¯s not watch this bastard ruin everyone¡¯s worldview.¡±

 Chapter 624 - Request

    <h4>Chapter 624: Request</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The ¡®Light of Sinzor¡¯, the ¡®Wise Schemer¡¯, the legendary Elven Emperor Abr the Seventh. He had countless aplishments in history, along with an equal amount of praise.


    He was thest Elven Emperor of the Elven Empire. In order to increase the Elven Empire¡¯s strength which was weakening every day at that time, Abr broke elven traditions and taboos. Not only did he allow other species¡¯ individuals as well as half-blood elves to be higher-ups in the Elven Empire, he even raised many great talents from wild elves and ordinary elves, promoting the potential from the lower elven social sses. This helped the Elven Empire to enter a period of great flourishment thatsted more than three hundred years under his rule... But, Abr was now dead, and it was the lower-ranked elves who he¡¯d personally promoted that betrayed him in the critical moment, leading to the Elven Empire¡¯s demise.


    As the Elven Empire¡¯s situation was bing more and more unstable in its final moments, Abr had used various schemes to creature fractures amongst the Superior Elves. He had intentionally promoted so many wild elves and half-blood elves in order to keep the ever more arrogant moon elves and silver elves in check. This Elven Empire on itsst legs hadsted more than one thousand years under his rule in total... But, Abr was now dead. The moment that he died, the wild elves and half-blood elves, who tasted the allure of authority thanks to his promotions, immediately rebelled against his daughter, Harloys.


    Abr had weakened the authority of the royalty in order to appease the Superior Elves. Many important jobs originally held by the royalty were given over to the Superior Elves. He also bribed many major Superior Elf families in order to keep the order... But, Abr was now dead. The moment that he died, the fact that the important jobs were with the Superior Elves meant a death toll for his daughter.


    From a certain standpoint, Abr had indeed been an experienced politician. At the very least, while he had still been alive, the power among the higher-ups of the Elven Empire had been subtly in bnce. But, the moment that he died, the subtle bnce was instantly shattered as everything became utterly chaotic.


    If he hadn¡¯t died, perhaps it was possible that the Elven Empire would have been restored to even greater heights under his rule with his policies of promoting individuals from other species as well as half-blood elves.


    However... there were no ifs in history.


    Would a leader bringing about revolutionary change be considered wise or kind? There was only a thin line between revolutionary change and failure. Judging from the end result, how different was Abr from an utterly foolish and tyrannical despot who destroyed his own country? I felt quite a lot of pity for Harloys, who had to receive such a burden. Her father¡¯s overly excellent reputation in history made her carry so much tarnished reputation as the princess of a dead country.


    She was considered foolish and shortsighted because she didn¡¯t continue the policies of her father? But, all those veteran Superior Elf nobles were in the elven royal pce. How was a young princess, not even of adult age, supposed to stop them? She was forced to cancel her father¡¯s policies of promoting wild and ordinary elves. But, this ended up antagonizing those half-blood and ordinary elves who¡¯d newly obtained power. Harloys ended up being disliked by both Superior Elves and ordinary elves.


    It was impossible for her to maintain a bnce amongst the Superior Elves? So many generations of grudges all exploded at once, so how would it even be possible to suppress them? It also so happened that Anslo sessfully leveled up to Main God at that time. The moon elves now had the most powerful Elven God of all, so it was impossible for everything to be bnced.


    She didn¡¯t notice the ambitions of those traitors? They were all old nobles with entrenched power from the previous generation. It was already an era of weak royal authority, so how could she possibly get rid of those elven nobles without sufficient reason?


    Shecked political and diplomatic talent? She was just a little girl who had still been ying with dolls a few years prior at the time. You wanted her topete with sly elves who had been in power for thousands of years already? You would be the one who was inconceivable if that was the case.


    However, just like what was said earlier, there were no ifs in history, nor would history care about the process. The end result was that the Elven Empire had perished. However, in my opinion, this was ny percent the fault of her father who had schemed too much. He had taken too many small benefits that caused even more umted grudges. However, he had been unable to deal with everything cleanly. The result was that he died early without any preparations to protect his daughter from the ensuing cmity.


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t say such things out loud to her. I knew that Harloys had always viewed her ¡°wise¡± father as her idol. She believed that she was the one who had failed the Gold Elves¡¯ tradition and glory. If I spoke on her behalf, she would probablyin about me instead, and I wasn¡¯t foolish enough to tell her things that she wouldn¡¯t like hearing.


    That was why I wanted tough even more precisely because I knew how much Harloys worshipped her father as I watched Didina and Harloys stare at each other.


    Abr the Seventh had lost in battle outside, and then he was hunted down and assassinated. He then died in a bed in the royal pce. It was confirmed that he waspletely dead.


    That was the final page of the Elven Empire. The Gold Elf True Gods had been reced by the Superior Elf Gods. Although Abr should have originally been able to one hundred percent enter the Gold Elf Gods¡¯ Divine Kingdom after death and enjoy a new life there, he instead fell into the River Styx, and was reborn as a demon.


    This was different from how Elisa changed to having a demon¡¯s body. Abr had directly changed species entirely. Being reborn as a different species meant having an entirely new life.


    As I previously mentioned many times already, whenever a dead spirit crawled out of the River Styx and became a demon, everything would start over from the beginning. You would start all over again as the lowest-level demon, experiencing the most primitivew of the jungle. Any demon who managed to obtain their first evolution would have devoured at least hundreds of their own kind.


    Any existence that gradually became a high-level demon would have a possibility of regaining their previous life¡¯s memories. However, that demon¡¯s personality would have already been altered by the countless ughtering that all demons would go through. Thus, the demon wouldn¡¯t care too much about their previous life¡¯s matters. They would simply be treated as memories and umted knowledge.


    Typically speaking, by the time that a demon had grown powerful enough to recover its previous life¡¯s memories, it would take several decades at the quickest, and the slower ones would take several hundred, or even several thousand years. By that time, it would bemon for most of the demon¡¯s original rtives to be dead already. It was also quite difficult for demons to go to the mortal ne. Who would care anymore about a few decades of a previous life after several hundred years as a demon? However, Abr just happened to be a Gold Elf whose lifespan was measured in the thousands...


    Didina wasn¡¯t Abr. She was no elf, as she was a subus. However, she had Abr¡¯s knowledge and memories. This technically counted as a reincarnation. Harloys probably felt quiteplex inside as she looked at her ¡°father¡± who was in front of her.


    ¡°What ¡®Didina the Fortunate¡¯? Just the secret Gold Elf magical knowledge and previous life¡¯s umtion will mean that Didina¡¯s power level isn¡¯t weak at all. Of course. Void Devourers are no kind creatures. Without the power to tame such a beast, she would have been devoured long ago.¡±


    Harloys and Didina were still staring at each other. I kindly walked out of Didina¡¯s treasury, giving them precious ¡°family time¡± and space together.


    ¡°Beifeng,e with me.¡±


    Beifeng had always been particrly emotionally intelligent. He also noticed that the situation didn¡¯t seem like a good time for asking for the Void Devourer¡¯s hand in marriage. So, he simply followed me.


    ¡°Why did youe to the Chaos Abyss?¡± I asked him.


    ¡°To take a tour and see the sights everywhere, along with witnessing the famous passion of the Chaos Abyss.¡±


    The Dracon lifted up his head and gazed at the sky with an expression filled with expectation, fatigue, and excitement as if he was really nothing more than a vacationer... The famous passion of the Chaos Abyss? Wouldn¡¯t a better term be the famously dangerous wild beasts?


    He wasn¡¯t lying, but he also wasn¡¯t telling the whole truth...


    ¡°Do you know yet that your most wanted poster made the headline, that all your crimes have been unearthed, and that the reward for your head is making even me tempted?¡±


    I mulled it over for a moment, but finally gave up the idea of obtaining the reward money for a dead Beifeng. Besides, this really wasn¡¯t the time to worry about his affairs. If I wanted to do something about the elves, every single day was critically important. It was likely that I would need to return to the mortal ne. However, I hadn¡¯t finished things down here yet. Perhaps I could have Beifeng, who was now ranked top 3 in the Cmity Rankings, help me out.


    ¡°Have you heard of Sun God Aloyo? He lives in the 372nd level of the Chaos Abyss. It¡¯s said that he¡¯s supremely handsome...¡±


    Beifeng yawned as if he was bored.


    ¡°...Aloyo is an eagle-headed mystical creature. He¡¯s thest one remaining of an ancient tribe.¡±


    ¡°You want me to kidnap him? Although I haven¡¯t done illegal acts for many years, since it¡¯s your request, since it¡¯s for the sake of justice, I¡¯ll make an exception just for you! I¡¯ll do him!¡±


    Beifeng instantly switched to having such a serious expression. However, his murky yellow eyes were filled with excitement. I was too speechless toment. I could only pray for Aloyo¡¯s sake.


    ¡°Aloyo was formerly a Main God. No matter what, Beifeng is still only a new SemiGod. There won¡¯t be any major problems, right...? Forget it, I shouldn¡¯t care about the process, as long as the result is fine.¡±


    Even though there was supposedly a tremendous power level difference between Aloyo and Beifeng, not a single one of us felt like Beifeng would be killed by Aloyo...


    I brought out a pen and some paper as I wrote down in great detail my requirements for resources that I needed for my Myth-ranked weapons. I gave this list to the excited Dracon.


    ¡°As long as you help meplete this mission, I will do my best to convince Didina regarding your marriage to the Void Devourer¡ª¡±


    ¡°No, I will personally obtain the agreement of Mother Didina. I made this promise to Tina!¡±


    Tina? Oh, that Void Devourer¡¯s name.


    ¡°Okay, okay, whatever you like.¡±


    I waved my hand helplessly. Anything regarding Beifeng always made me feel mysteriously helpless. I felt as if I would somehow lose or be foolish if I took him seriously or became angry.


    ¡°Right, you should have a chat with Casio. You¡¯re sworn brothers, after all...¡±


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s my responsibility. I will take it seriously.¡±


    Beifeng nodded with a serious expression as he walked towards Casio. Seeing how fearless Beifeng appeared, I couldn¡¯t help but feel like he was a warrior knowingly heading to his doom on a battlefield rather than the pervert that he was.


    ¡°You¡¯re here?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here.¡±


    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t havee.¡±


    ¡°However, I dide.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all your fault!¡± Casio seemed to lose control of his emotions here.


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s all my fault. However, those were my true feelings. I don¡¯t regret telling you about my feelings for you. Friendship and intimacy will always change. This is the choice of fate, and my feelings for youe from the bottom of my heart...¡±


    Beifeng had a pained expression that said his heart ached for the sake of love. He seemed quite sincere, but why did these words of his sound so familiar...


    [They¡¯re so simr to the eight o¡¯clock soap operas you used to watch.]


    ¡°Oh, thank you for reminding me...¡±


    Seeing these two men... er, the centaur and the Dracon exchange soap opera lines, and how they were about to hug each other and cry, I was finally unable to withstand the heaving in my stomach as I hastily retreated.


    [Wait, please wait, I want to see the love dodecahedron!]


    ¡°...Love dodecahedron?¡±


    [Tina, Beifeng, Casio, and Aloyo will join them in two days. This is a ssicalbination of three men and one woman.]


    ¡°...A romance story with three men and one woman? This sounds like a regr soap opera, but the fact that the woman is a subus that was originally a man means it¡¯s only for those with heavy tastes. This will be more suited for fujoshi, and the additional fact that Beifeng is involved means that this will only be suited for furries with heavy tastes.¡±


    I went and hid myself in a corner so that I wouldn¡¯t be corrupted any further by what I heard. However, not even five minutester, the door to the treasury opened as Harloys and Didina walked out. Harloys had a serious expression as if she had resolved herself.

 Chapter 625 - Beginning of the End

    <h4>Chapter 625: Beginning of the End</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Moonwheel Capital. This was the capital city of the San Hein Empire, as well as the birthce of Elven Empress Afina the First.


    Since this ce was chosen as the elves¡¯ capital to reestablish the Elven Empire, it was only natural that this ce had great natural advantages. The Moonwheel Capital was located in the center of the magical Starfall Forest. Thanks to many years of cultivation, this forest possessedrge numbers of magical traps and mana batteries.


    Forests were quite special to the elves who were the children of nature.


    Dense forests would forever be the elves¡¯ best allies. The elves¡¯ subordinate species like centaurs, forest dwarves, and other nature creatures would all live within the forest. Not only that, moon spirits, an incredibly rare species, also lived in the Starfall Forest.


    Moon spirits were elves, but also not elves. Only the strongest warriors and mages amongst the elves would be capable of leaving their souls behind in this forest after death. This entire forest was a special realm of its own. Pure souls would be covered in starlight here and transform into undying warriors of starlight.


    Well, ording to undead mages¡¯ exnation, this would be a type of undead. However, the elves believed this to be another type of existence method for their ancestors¡¯ heroic spirits. But if I had to say... weren¡¯t heroic spirits also just a type of undead?


    The moon spirits would often appear during the night while patrolling the Starfall Forest¡¯s borders, punishing all invaders and poachers. Their starlight forms had incredible power under the moonlight.


    Yet, this was only the border guard portion of the Starfall Forest¡¯s power...


    Typically, this forest had always been guarded silently, but now the silence was gone as busy scenes could be seen everywhere.


    The forest which was always asleep at night had now woken up from its moonlight and insect chirps. Elven guards were escorting white-robed priests and druids. The moon spirits watched with hostility as they selected arge tree with a long history.


    An ancient oath and song could be heard. There was a mystical white light as the earth shook. Countless amounts of mud and stones were transformed into dust as the tree stood up as a treant. The roots transformed into tremendous feet as the crown transformed into the head. This forest was now filled with war treants moving about everywhere.


    The entire forest came alive as gigantic treants stood up one by one. They didn¡¯t need any directions as they slowly proceeded forward with heavy footsteps. However, their footsteps and sighs were filled with sorrow.


    ¡°...Even if we survive this uing cmity, the Starfall Forest will be finished.¡±


    Esar, a young white-robed Druid, had tears stream down his cheeks as he looked at all the powerful ¡°giants¡± whose footsteps were strong enough to cause earthquakes.


    Any tree capable of transforming into a treant had finished the evolution from a nt into an intelligent creature. Even with the druids¡¯ assistance, this could only be done to ancient trees that had lived for thousands of years.


    Even though the Starfall Forest had a long history dating back to the Elven Empire, when considering the elves¡¯ losses in so many wars, the number of such ancient trees was limited. Yet, the druids and nature priests were now summoning a major army consisting of about ten thousand treants. This meant that not only were mere hundred-year-old trees being summoned, even trees only a few decades old were being used.


    Treants of such a young age would not only becking in intelligence, but it would be impossible for them to beplete treants. Without the providence of the earth, these treants would soon die. Not only that, such a loss would be impossible to make up for.


    Large amounts of forest were withering to death. Draining the power of nature to forcefully create treants went against all teachings of the Nature Faction. This was forcing the ancient forest to a premature doom. Many druids and nature priests were crying. Even if these druids and priests survived the uing demon wave, they would never rest easy again with what they had done here. It was certain that their power levels would all drop. It was also likely that many of them wouldmit suicide out of guilt.


    This was the result of being the moon elves¡¯ forest. If this ce was held instead by the wood elves who lived for the sake of the forest, it was likely that the wood elves would rather all face their death than force the forest to its demise... But from another standpoint, any wood elf forest would have far more nature creatures and ancient trees, and if the wood elves met with life-threatening danger, the forest itself would voluntarily fight for the wood elves. It wouldn¡¯t have been necessary to forcefully summon treants in the first ce.


    Both weaker treants and war treants were incredibly important to the elves¡¯rge-scale warfare strategies. The elves were skilled at producing mages and archers. Even the elves¡¯ famous Silvermoon Rangers were mostly more skilled atbat tactics relying on their outstanding Dexterity stats. The elves would be at great disadvantage in a melee.


    The elvescked meat shields... or, in other words, theycked powerful cannon fodder. This was the elves¡¯ most obviousbat weakness from ancient times to present. While such a weakness wouldn¡¯t be so apparent in smaller-scale battles, it would forever be an Achilles heel inrge-scale battles. No matter if it was human cavalry with powerful charges or bloody battles against beastmen berserkers, enemy warriors had always been mysteriously able to prate through the elves¡¯ battle formations. The elves could only mourn at losing their battles.


    If all the frontline warriors copsed, even the most powerful archers and mages in the backline would be nothing more than easy pickings.


    The elves¡¯ typical fighting style was to use summoned creatures, subordinate species, and treants as their meatshields. However, thebat strength and will of such cannon fodder was quite worrisome. Only the treants and war treants would be slightly more reliable, yet those would requirerge amounts of resources and time to raise. Losing even one was a permanent, irreceable loss. Not to mention, treants had the critical weakness of extremely low movement speed.


    In past battles, many elven enemies would either change battlefields or go around the treants¡¯ defense line, easily ignoring the powerful defensive capabilities of war treants. However, this battle would be a defensive battle to protect the Moonwheel Capital, so it was certain that the war treants would be highly useful.


    However, the moon elves¡¯ method of forcefully summoning even young treants meant that they had killed off the treants¡¯bat potential for centuries toe. But of course, if the moon elves didn¡¯t go all out here, it was likely that there would be no future for them whatsoever.


    It was also worth mentioning that due to the moon elves¡¯ typical behavior, other species were quite unwee in their territory. Even though forest dwarves were a traditional subordinate tribe to the elves, there were very few forest dwarves in the Starfall Forest. There were even fewer centaurs capable of melee or rangedbat. In the end, the moon elves could only rely on themselves.


    The moon elves never would havemitted such a ¡°crime¡± destined to antagonize all druids and wood elves if it weren¡¯t for the fact that they were in such a crisis.


    Suddenly, a mountain began to shake as gray mud fell like raindrops. The next instant, the pitch-ck mountain transformed into a ck treant covered in mud.


    This treant was several hundred meters tall. The moment that he appeared, his personal domain caused the entire sky to be covered in clouds that brought a torrential rainstorm.


    Endless rain nourished his withered tree bark and washed away the mud on his body. New dark green sprouts swiftly started spreading on him at a visible pace. His eyes opened, revealing a sad silver light.


    ¡°...Isn¡¯t he ¡®Wall Who Blocks All Despair¡¯? Wasn¡¯t he critically injured in the battle against Yongye more than one hundred years ago? ¡®Dragonsteel Guardian¡¯, ¡®Ain¡¯s Anchor¡¯, and so on have all awakened as well? Don¡¯t any of them intend to live any longer?¡±


    The elder treants all sighed pitifully as these legendary treants awoke from their slumber to meet their doom.


    The druid Esar looked on in disbelief. These elder treants hadn¡¯t been forcefully awakened. They were elders who had been seriously injured in past wars. Even the most outstanding nature priests would be unable to heal their injuries. The elder treants could only use hibernation to temporarily lengthen their lifespan and wait for a miracle to descend one day. However, now the elder treants had all awakened by themselves. It was likely that they had also realized that no miracle wasing, and that the final moment was upon them.


    ¡°The Starfall Forest ispletely finished...¡±


    Hundreds of druids and nature priests surrounded the elder treants, and green and white light representing healing magic shed everywhere on the elder treants¡¯ bodies. However, this would do nothing more than slightly extend the elder treants¡¯ lives which were already nearing their end.


    ¡°No, wait! The elder treants won¡¯t be able to move around for very long. Since they¡¯ve awakened at this time, does this mean that the demon wave is about to arrive already?¡±


    The druid Esar looked in disbelief at the sky. The dark night had been shattered, and the moonlight guiding the moon elves was now covered by dark clouds. Countless dimensional cracks appeared in the sky. These cracks constantly expanded, bringing along the destructive aura of Chaos from within.


    A wild wolf came into contact with the aura of Chaos. The wolf instantly distorted, transforming into an inferno wolf covered in warts and corruption. The wolf immediately pounced on its former pack. Even more aura of Chaos started spreading everywhere asrge numbers of wild beasts transformed into dangerous demonized creatures.


    ¡°The information was real! The Holy War is starting...¡±

 Chapter 626 - Demon Wave

    <h4>Chapter 626: Demon Wave</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Even though it was almost dawn, pitch-ck clouds still covered the sky, giving all elves an oppressive feeling.


    The rangers¡¯ Eagle Eye technique and the elven mages¡¯ Farsight spells all made the dimensional cracks in the sky quite easy to discern. The aura of Chaos emanating from the cracks made the elves instinctively afraid and their stomachs heaved.


    The moment that this aura from the Chaos Abyss descended here, it brought great trouble to all the local elves. Gentle domesticated pigs swiftly transformed into incredibly aggressive demon hogs, whilerge numbers of demonized beasts appeared in the wild. These demonized beasts all instinctively attacked everything living that they could see, tearing apart and devouring other life forms in order to achieve their own strange self-evolution.


    By now, no elf doubted the information about the demon wave¡¯s arrival any longer.


    ¡°The eternal sun and moon shall be covered in clouds as countless cracks appear in the pitch-ck sky. The wind will blow, carrying only the stench of corrosion and sulfur. Even the clean water stored in jugs will be tainted and ck as domesticated beasts begin to demonize... Everything is identical to theing of demon waves recorded in history. Oh, venerated Anslo, why must we elves suffer so much misfortune? Are we truly unable to escape our doom?¡±


    At this point, all lies meant to keep the elves from panicking became meaningless. Even if the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire government refused to admit the veracity of Rnd¡¯s warning, there were plenty of lucky older elves who had survived and experienced the previous Holy War. They had been lucky to survive until today. Of course they would remember the aura of the Chaos Abyss.


    Everything in the description was caused by corruption stemming from the high purity aura of Chaos, and as the demon wave descended, this location would soon be more Chaos Abyss-like than the Chaos Abyss itself.


    While the aura of Chaos here wouldn¡¯t be able topare to what was in the Chaos Abyss itself, the aura of Chaos here would actually be of far higher quality than in the Chaos Abyss!


    Normally, Chaos Abyss existences which tried to forcefully descend upon the mortal ne would have to go through a filter constructed out of the power of Order. This would take time and effort, as well as reduce the existence¡¯s power while in the mortal ne. It was also likely that most existences could only descend as incarnations or projections rather than in their true bodies. However, since the Holy War was starting... or maybe calling it a dimensional war would be more urate as the mortal ne and the Chaos Abyss would be directly dimensionally connected here.


    Any location which became connected to the Chaos Abyss would be demonized and corroded. This was caused by the very nature of the Chaos Abyss. This was also why the Chaos Abyss was known as the Endless Abyss.


    The mortal ne of Eich represented the foundational source of Order and Chaos. This was the most important battlefield for the Order and Chaos Factions. Every time that the Chaos Abyss connected to the mortal ne, not only would it bring catastrophe for the linked location in the mortal ne, it would also bring catastrophe to the Chaos Abyss¡¯ linked location.


    The Chaos Abyss itself was like a wild bloodthirsty beast that had detected prey. It was expectant, it was roaring, and it was furiously absorbing the delectable scent of the mortal ne. The will of the Chaos Abyss would send tremendous amounts of the aura of Chaos to the location in the mortal ne that it connected to. This amount would even break all dimensional limitations.


    For Chaos Abyss creatures, the aura of Chaos was naturally a good thing¡ªit was a reward from the will of the Chaos Abyss. Absorbing the aura of Chaos could help Chaos creatures to be even stronger.


    However, just as how an appropriate amount of nutrition would be helpful in bing stronger, an overly excessive amount of nutrition would be a toxin.


    Right now, in the Wildsnow Forest Mountain district of the seventh level of the Chaos Abyss, countless Chaos Abyss creatures, demons, and devils were fully enveloped in the aura of Chaos. They were distorting painfully and rolling around on the ground in pain, but alsoughing manically as if they had gotten the best deal ever.


    Some small demons were unable to take it as their bodies directly changed forms. A tiny demon that had only been one meter tall directly distorted to be a great demon more than three meters tall. However, these newly transformed demons had tears all over their bodies from which they constantly bled. Yet, they felt no sense of pain at all as their eye whites showed. They were also drooling while crawling on all fours like wild dogs. They were roaring at that Dimensional Door leading to the mortal ne.


    These were war ves of the Chaos Abyss. They were failures who were unable to handle the power of Chaos. When the two-way Dimensional Door connected to the mortal ne opened up, these demons would be the first wave of cannon fodder for the demon wave.


    Overly stimted physical bodies would be highly unstable. However, they were now filled with magic power that would allow themselves to easily self-destruct. The countless number ofrge demons would all kill themselves with self-destruction if they met with powerful enemies, destroying anything that obstructed them in the mortal ne at the cost of their own lives.


    The victors who sessfully powered themselves up with the aura of Chaos here would also be unable to leave this location. They were bound by the will of the Chaos Abyss to also be part of the vanguard. The aura of Chaos was constantly powering them up, but this woulde at the price of their ability to reason and think. When the Dimensional Door opened up and they went out in the demon wave, their intelligence level would only be slightly above that of the war ves.


    However, the powered-up victors were different from the failure war ves destined to die as cannon fodder. As long as these victors survived the first period of the demon wave, they would be able to recover their ability to reason and think. In fact, in Holy Wars of the past, many great demons that had reached bottlenecks or the end of their lifespan had used such a gamble-like method to finally seed in powering up to be Demon Lords.


    Any great demon that had recently been doing well would never approach the seventh level of the Chaos Abyss at this time. That would be the equivalent of volunteering oneself to be cannon fodder. As long as a demon was close enough, even a Demon Lord would be unable to resist the forceful conscription of the will of the Chaos Abyss. For the Demon Lords, even if they improved their power levels here, having reduced intelligence would mean more danger despite greater power. If they wanted to enjoy ughter and blood in the mortal ne, they would simply wait for the first demon wave to end first.


    Of course, since the first demon wave had its own rules, there were also those who did their best to bend the rules. Near the border of the Wildsnow Forest Mountain district were many demons that were voluntarily absorbing the aura of Chaos to improve their power levels. Although these demons would be unable to absorb much aura of Chaos, they would still be able to avoid getting involved in the first demon wave, which would be the most dangerous. This would be worth it for them.


    Even though they were only stealing some aura of Chaos from a great distance, the demons here still had to constantly retreat, nor could they steal too much for too long. This was because as time passed, the chaotic area covered in the aura of Chaos would constantly expand. Soon, the aura of Chaos would envelop the entire seventh level rather than just the Wildsnow Forest Mountain district. That wouldn¡¯t even be the end of things.


    The nearby sixth and eighth levels were connected to the seventh level. They would also be infected with the aura of Chaos, bing aplete and unified dimension of its own. This dimension would be the conscription area for the first demon wave¡¯s soldiers. Soon, all lives in these three levels would be members of the first demon wave, and this entire dimension would be connected... or maybe a better term would be ¡°inserted into¡± the mortal ne. When the Holy War ended, it would actually be impossible to return these levels to the Chaos Abyss.


    And once the will of the Chaos Abyss and the aura of Chaos covered this entire newly crafted dimension, the will of the Chaos Abyss would activate its next step. At that time, nowhere in the Chaos Abyss would be safe.


    The Chaos Abyss was greedy. It would think that this would be insufficient to sessfully conquer the mortal ne. The will of the Chaos Abyss would constantly connect additional Chaos Abyss levels to this crafted dimension, conscripting even more soldiers until the first demon wave ended.


    The levels of the Chaos Abyss were only a unique dimensional concept. The will of the Chaos Abyss wouldn¡¯t only choose from the nearby dimensional levels. This was, in a way, a type of lottery system. Any chosen dimensional level would be forced to join the demon wave. The victors and those lucky to survive would then receive blessings from the Chaos Abyss. Perhaps the will of the Chaos Abyss indeed had a sense of self as itmonly choserge dimensional levels with extremely high poption.


    And when the Dimensional Door to the mortal ne finally opened up, all ordinary creatures and tiny demons would lose their sense of reason and be cannon fodder. The number of soldiers would be uncalctable.


    This was the foundational reason why the first demon wave would be basically unstoppable. No matter how powerful the country behind the Dimensional Door was, the first demon wave would destroy it. That was because the first demon wave would contain the destructive force of several dimensional levels. The bloodthirsty Chaos Abyss residents would manically destroy everything before them.


    Countless powerful empires in history had already been destroyed, falling prey to the first demon wave of each Holy War. That was just how fatal the first demon wave had always been in history.


    If the first demon wave had only relied on wild beasts that instinctively ughtered, that would have been much easier to deal with. Forbidden spells and traps were all capable ofrge AOE attacks against cannon fodder. However, there was a ck giant currently sitting right next to the Dimensional Door. His ck obsidian greatswod was dripping with silver divine blood.


    This giant was the overallmander of the demon wave¡ªDonatis.


    Chaos War God Donatis was themander of the demon wave. Nobody knew how he was able to maintain his logic and reason, but he was indeed able to do so during the demon wave as he calmly directed this destructive wave.


    In past Holy Wars, he always had arge number of heroic spirits as his personal guards. They would be the frontline demon wavemanders under Donatis¡¯s protection, helping him tomand the demon wave. Unfortunately, Donatis was a lonemander this time as he had lost all his heroic spirits in Hell.


    An army without any mid-levelmanders would be totally different from one with them. From a certain standpoint, the fact that Donatis lost all his heroic spirits in Hell had been a tremendous loss for the Chaos Abyss. It would be on par with losing a Chaos Main God.


    The Chaos War God currently had his eyes closed. He seemed just like a gigantic statue which was asleep. His breathing was as loud as thunderps. Not a single demon dared toe close to him.


    Any existence with even the slightest amount of power could instinctively sense that Donatis was gradually improving his power level by absorbing the aura of Chaos. Well, perhaps a more urate description would be restoring himself to his peak.


    In the world of highest-levelbat strength, everyone knew that only the Donatis in the demon wave would truly be the Chaos War God capable of destroying anything and everything. He would tear apart any obstruction, even if that was a God!

 Chapter 627 - Proper Status

    <h4>Chapter 627: Proper Status</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Something¡¯s wrong with the situation...¡±


    Since we intended to do something about the first demon wave, gathering information was naturally of utmost importance. But, when I truly gathered all necessary information and analyzed it, I discovered that something was truly bad about the situation. The Chaos Abyss had been ¡°overlyplete¡± in its actions this time.


    Since the will of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s ultimate goal was the evolution of all species, pure destruction was only a process, not the final goal. Many of its choices would be quite random. However, this time, its vicious intentions were quite obvious.


    The location of the Dimensional Door had been far too intentional. This was the elves¡¯ final sanctuary. Having the first demon wave here would be no different from trying to kill all elves.


    There was also a major problem with the location in the Chaos Abyss for the Dimensional Door.


    It was located in the seventh level of the Chaos Abyss. That wouldn¡¯t have been much originally, but when thinking about the demon wave¡¯s traits, and the nearby levels, clearly visible vicious intentions could be seen.


    The ninth through thirteenth levels of the Chaos Abyss had originally been the personal territory of Demon Main God Ladvioka. That was right, Ladvioka, the Lord of Putrefaction who had died back in Hell.


    After his death, at least 20 great demons iming to be his personal descendant or reincarnation had suddenly shown up. They were now busy with infighting for the sake of obtaining the inheritance of the deceased Main God.


    But now, they would no longer have any reason to fight. Considering the abnormal way that the aura of Chaos was spreading down, the ninth through thirteenth levels were also likely to be conscripted for the first demon wave. It just so happened that these levels would be quite bad for the elves.


    Back at the battle of Hell, the Lord of Putrefaction had showed us the frightening abilities from his personal dimensions. His territory was filled with his creations and creatures from various other dimensions. Although he had previously limited them in what areas they were allowed to go to, these dangerous creatures were now no longer under control after his death.


    These few dimensional levels of his were highly dangerous. Who knew if a seemingly innocent kitten would suddenly transform into a several hundred meter tall tiger monster? It just happened to be that Ladvioka loved giving his most dangerous creatures the appearances of being ¡°cute and harmless¡±.


    The former territory of a Main God would definitely be far more dangerous than ordinary Chaos Abyss levels. Not to mention, Ladvioka had been an expert in raising the most dangerous creatures possible. They would be the worst possible enemy for the elves who were already in such peril.


    Alright, the rest should be quite obvious. These creatures would likely all be tossed over to the mortal ne. Perhaps a few new rising stars of the Chaos Abyss would appear after a culling of the weak. But, this would be a nightmare for the elves.


    Even I felt rather helpless after analyzing all this information. Anybat strategy would still require looking at the strength and number of both sides¡¯ chess pieces as the foundation. However, the current situation was like the elves having only a king and a bishop against the enemy¡¯s ten full sets of chess pieces. No matter how I looked at it, death was the only possible result.


    ¡°We should learn from the Chaos Abyss¡¯s strategy, where only basic autoattacking is required to win...? Since it seems quite true, I really can¡¯tugh at all.¡±


    Comparingbat potential or trying a battle of attrition with the Chaos Abyss would be the most foolish strategy possible. I didn¡¯t even need to give this information to the elves, as they had likely started gathering information already themselves. This hopelessbat situation would likely force them to use their full power andbat resources. However, even that was improbable to help them survive for long.


    ¡°How much longer until the first demon wave?¡±


    ¡°...That will depend on the Chaos Abyss. But, it will be ten days at the maximum,¡± Harloys answered while perusing a map. Ever since she¡¯d met Didina, she maintained her Gold Elf form. She became a lot more serious, and was even wearing clothes... Wait, why did this sound so awkward?


    The current situation was quite obvious. The Chaos Abyss was filled with vicious intentions towards the elves, wanting all elves to die. And, the will of the Chaos Abyss was...


    ¡°It¡¯s your younger brother, isn¡¯t it.¡±


    ¡°Theoretically speaking, that¡¯s indeed a possibility. However, we know that fate¡¯s guidance is always difficult toprehend. Perhaps even your inference is part of fate itself...¡±


    ¡°...I was the one who taught you prophecy magic. You never received a single passing grade. Just talk normally.¡±


    I could only helplessly take a deep breath.


    ¡°I suppose it¡¯s perhaps possible... Fine, it¡¯s definitely Karwenz.¡±


    Did Karwenz have a grudge against the elves? Obviously. One of the direct masterminds behind the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction had been the elves. I had already taken my revenge, but he had yet to do so. Karwenz wouldn¡¯t have such a poor memory that he would forget.


    Was he truly capable of controlling the will of the Chaos Abyss, or even a portion of it? I could still remember him dragging Cynthia into the void with him.


    The evidence? That bastard twin of mine had just beaten up Anslo severely a few days ago. What other reason could he possibly have for severely injuring the Elf Main God?


    ¡°Such a ck sheep of the family...¡±


    I sighed insincerely while trying to think about what exactly Karwenz wanted. While taking revenge was perhaps his goal, it definitely wouldn¡¯t be his ultimate goal.


    However, I had far too little information avable. Guessing wouldn¡¯t be that meaningful, so I decided to focus on the topic at hand instead.


    ¡°Is there a response from the Nortnds?¡±


    ¡°Yes, they¡¯ll do everything ording to your orders. They should make it in time. We will board their airship at Sindair. They will first go to pickup the silver elves, which will dy them by two days. If they arrive on time as scheduled in two days... We should be able to reach the Moonwheel Capital one week from now.¡±


    The silver elf group trying to reach the Nortnds was still far away. Reyne¡¯s Borealis Squadron was also on the way, so I directly told her to pick up those silver elves.


    ¡°What about the preparations to establish the Elven Empire?¡±


    ¡°Everything will be done as simply as possible. The coronation ceremony will begin immediately when we arrive at Sindair. Diana, Victoria, Suana, and Kelly are all on their way.¡±


    I nodded as it seemed like my n was proceeding smoothly. The coronation would take ce in the small town of Sindair. There would be a high-ranking representative from each of the four Superior Elf species, so this coronation ceremony didn¡¯t count as too casual.


    ¡°...Harloys, are you prepared to be an empress? You¡¯re so calm.¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m rather numb because it all happened so swiftly.¡±


    Indeed¡ªwe were going to coronate Harloys and establish our own Elven Empire. Although we were truly intending on helping the elves, how to help them was still a problem.


    Since the Nortnds elves also desired to establish an Elven Empire, it was fine to meet their expectations. This wouldn¡¯t be the first empire in the Mist Alliance.


    If we reinforced the Moonwheel Capital elves in the name of normal human allies, we would be a ¡°guest army¡± that would be no different from free cannon fodder. In that case, rather than helping for free with no benefits received, it would obviously be far better to help the ¡°branch family elves¡± with the status of the ¡°proper Elven Empire¡±.


    Not only would this be better for us in name, it would also bring many practical conveniences.


    From what we already knew, directly fighting against the first demon wave would be utterly suicidal. But if we wanted to help the elves organize a retreat, that would likely mean fighting for authority with the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire. So, I was really looking forward to the uing scenario of Elven Empress Harloys and her four major Superior Elf subordinates going over to suppress the fake Elven Empress Afina...


    We were both helping the elves in their time of need, as well as extorting them. Our assistance wouldn¡¯te for free. The price would be the proper status of the Elven Empire.


    ¡°What? You refuse to recognize Elven Empress Harloys and the Nortnds Elven Empire as the proper one? Fine, we¡¯ll be leaving immediately.¡±


    If the Moonwheel Capital elves refused to recognize us as the proper Elven Empire, they would either all die there, or have their ¡°Elven Empire¡± destroyed. That was something that I wouldn¡¯t really mind seeing. Actually, it was all just an act as no matter what the Moonwheel Capital elves chose, I would never let them have any authority.


    This was because I knew from long years of experience that rather than any godly opponents, garbage teammates would be even worse to have, and if a garbage teammate had the right tomand anything, that would be nothing more than suicidal death.


    ¡°...Stop talking about your younger brother. You¡¯re just as vengeful as he is.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you looking forward to the Moonwheel Capital elves¡¯ downfall as well?¡±


    Of course Harloys was looking forward to it. She would be able to return to the elf species as the Elven Empress, and even use her newfound status to punish the original traitors. She was excited to the point where she couldn¡¯t even sleep at night.


    Before, this would have been unimaginable. But, the three pieces of God Equipment representing the Gold Elf royalty had just happened to appear at this time, and the Nortnds also just happened to have the support of all four Superior Elf species. It really felt as if Harloys was fated to be Elven Empress.


    I was also looking forward to what expression the Superior Elves would have when the fairies started reporting that Gold Elf Empress Harloys had returned. The Superior Elves would surely haveplex expressions then.


    Right now, everything that we were doing was really important politically.


    When the moon elves went overboard with their schemes, the Nortnds Elven Empire and Elven Empress Harloys not only didn¡¯t watch the traitors be destroyed by the demon wave, but even lent a helping hand. Then, no matter what happened afterwards, this would mean that Elven Empress Harloys didn¡¯t intend to take revenge for what happened before.


    When considering how much trouble the elves had previously stirred up, an extremely magnanimous and powerful Elven Empress would be far more likely to receive the recognition of all elves.


    Also, the Nortnds elves, Mist Alliance, and Hell Gods would all support Elven Empress Harloys. This would be her solid foundational power for making a im to the throne.


    The result of helping the Moonwheel Capital elves would be her first aplishment. How she did would be directly rted to how secure her ¡°proper¡± position as Elven Empress would be.


    Don¡¯t underestimate the position of Elven Empress. This would be the most venerated person possible in the hearts and minds of countless elves. As long as she obtained the proper position of Elven Empress, countless elven mages, druids, and rangers would voluntarily join her side. Judging from the long-term benefits, gaining the proper status would be immensely beneficial.


    The Borealis Squadron had brought the elites of the Mist Alliance in order to fight against the first demon wave. The Nortnds elves had also sent their strongest fighters. However, this still wouldn¡¯t be enough. Forcefully resisting the first demon wave capable of utter annihtion would be foolish as well as suicidal.


    Perhaps you would be able to resist for a day and kill ten thousand demons. But, would you be able to resist for the entire duration of the Holy War and kill every single demon in the Chaos Abyss? It would be impossible to calcte when the first demon wave would finally stop. That was because every single location in history that the first demon wave descended upon had be nothing but rubble where only Chaos Abyss creatures lived.


    I felt that since Karwenz as the will of the Chaos Abyss was behind this particr demon wave, it was likely that the amount of cannon fodder would be practically infinite. In the end, moving the elves away and retreating would be the only possible main strategy.


    ¡°The other human kingdoms will give us some face if four mega empires make an announcement together, right?¡±


    ¡°...I really hope so.¡±


    Not only was Harloys not confident, even I could not guarantee this. The Mist Alliance, Bardi Empire, And Empire, and the Mage Country, four mega empire level existences, had all made abined request for the elves¡¯ neighboring human kingdoms to open their borders for elven refugees to pass through. But as of now, there had still been no response.


    If this had been a time of peace, thebined announcement from four mega empires definitely would have been greatly effective. However, since it was confirmed that the demon wave was arriving, the elves all running away would only mean catastrophe for the neighboring human kingdoms.


    Open their borders? Wouldn¡¯t that mean the demon wave would follow close behind the elven refugees? It was obviously the wisest decision for the human kingdoms to make the elves fight the demons to the greatest extent possible.


    These human kingdoms would obviously know that they were also facing such a cmity. How could other countries¡¯ empty diplomatic requests possibly matter to them? And if it wasn¡¯t for the sake of giving face to me and the Mist Alliance, And, Bardi, and the Mage Country wouldn¡¯t have made such an announcement, either. That¡¯s why I didn¡¯t have any expectations for this. I had other preparations underway as well.


    ¡°I hope that we¡¯ll be in time...¡±


    ¡°...It might be quite difficult. Honestly, I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    Margaret was rather embarrassed and feeling awkward as she said this. As for the reason?


    ¡°I also think that it might be difficult. We shouldn¡¯t be overly optimistic,¡± Adam added while chewing a rice ball with his mouth open. He seemedpletely like some tourist from a hick town.


    ¡°You dare to say something like that! Didn¡¯t you say that you knew the way!?¡±


    I felt that I must have been utterly foolish to have allowed a bastard like Adam to lead the way. Where were we now? Had we taken the wrong teleportation portal? What level of the Chaos Abyss was this patch of desert supposed to be?


    I was quite speechless as I looked at the three moons in the sky. Where was this?


    ¡°We got lost at such a time? Do the heavens want the moon elves to perish so much?¡±


    ¡°...No matter how you look at it, this looks intentional. Are you certain that you didn¡¯t intentionally have him lead the way?¡±


    Didina, who hade along with us, was filled with obvious vicious intentions. Harloys was also viciously ring at me. She seemed to be grinding her teeth. If it weren¡¯t for the sake of preserving her image, she probably would have bitten me already.


    I didn¡¯t know whether I should cry. Since the n was now confirmed, why would I still act ridiculously? I truly hadn¡¯t intended on setting any more pitfalls. It was just that Adam seemed highly confident when he said something about knowing a shortcut.


    ¡°Forget it, I¡¯ll lead the way.¡±


    Finally, Didina, our Chaos Abyss guide, made herself useful.

 Chapter 628 - Awkward Reinforcements

    <h4>Chapter 628: Awkward Reinforcements</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The eighth year of the Dawn Generation waster recorded as one of the bloodiest years in history. This was because this was the year that the final Holy War started in full force. The days toe afterwards were destined to be filled with blood.


    But right now, I was in an incredibly good mood as I looked at the bright sun.


    With a veteran like Didina guiding the way, we had managed to arrive at the agreed upon meeting ce on time. Of course, this wasn¡¯t the main reason why I was in such a good mood.


    ¡°You must be in such a good mood because you¡¯re free from Elisa?¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous. I¡¯m really heartbroken and in such pain right now.¡±


    ¡°...You¡¯re totally unconvincing with the big smile you have as you say this. I¡¯m going to tell her!¡±


    ¡°...Harloys, isn¡¯t it quite wonderful that your ¡®father¡¯ is able toe along with you? How much money do you think the fairies will pay to obtain this explosive information?¡±


    After a short period of silence, Harloys and I achieved a tacit understanding as we looked at each other with mutual sympathy.


    ¡°Why must people harm each other?¡±


    ¡°We should fill the world with love and peace.¡±


    We nodded in tacit understanding together as we let everything be gone with the wind... Fine, I¡¯ll talk normally. Basically, this meant that our ckmail would cancel each other out, and that we shouldn¡¯t bring both of us down with our infighting.


    That was right¡ªElisa had helplessly left our party. We had taken a teleportation portal back to the mortal ne. It was impossible for a Devil Lord like her to take this portal, so she could only temporarily stay behind in the Chaos Abyss.


    Regrettably... er, I meant happily, this was indeed only temporary. When the demon wave descended, the mortal ne would be directly connected to the Chaos Abyss. Even Donatis would be capable ofing to the mortal ne, not to mention Elisa.


    I had randomly given Elisa the task of causing trouble for our demon enemies just to give her something to do in the meantime.


    However, to our surprise, Didina, who should have also been on par with a Demon Lord, had easily been able toe through the teleportation portal with us as if dimensionalws didn¡¯t even apply to her.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be so surprised. Subi like myself are quite weak. I probably can¡¯t evenpare to an ordinary Myth-ranked Superior Elf, nor am I a Demon Lord. Why would the dimensionalws possibly stop me?¡±


    Actually, not only I was surprised¡ªAdam, Maragaret, and even Harloys were all looking at Didina with astonishment. What we all had expected was that since Didina was the reincarnation of the previous Gold Elf Emperor, just the inherited memories and knowledgebined with all the time that Didina had been alive should have helped her to reach the peak already.


    ¡°Elven Emperor Abr was Abr. I am myself. Every individual will choose a different lifestyle. I think that my personal way of living is quite fine. At the very least, all the legendary demons I¡¯ve heard about from that generation have all died already. Meanwhile, I¡¯m still living quite fine without needing to fight.¡±


    A hero¡¯s reincarnation might not choose to be a hero. Maybe a wise schr¡¯s reincarnation would choose to be a butcher instead. An individual who was reincarnated would be apletely new individual. That was how it was logically supposed to be. However, I still felt like something was off about it all.


    Anyone who lived in the Chaos Abyss should understand quite well that might made right regarding thew of the jungle. Subi might be considered treasures to other species, but demons were a species that thought with their muscles. Subi would only be a rtively useless subordinate demon species to other demons.


    It was a natural instinct for all living beings to try and improve their lot in life. Serving others or borrowing power would never be a good long-term way of living. Who knew when some idiot demon would suddenly change their mind and try to kill you in order to raise their own reputation and power level? Didina didn¡¯t seem so foolish.


    As long as she used the magical knowledge from her memories, it would be quite easy for her to be a powerful individual. There should be no restrictions on subi not being able to cultivate magic skills.


    I nced over at Harloys, but she shook her head. This didn¡¯t mean that she didn¡¯t know. It meant that she knew what was going on, but didn¡¯t want me to ask about it.


    I could only helplessly shrug and mentally sigh.


    Ever since we met Didina, Harloys had yet to return to her cat form, and when Harloys truly became the Elven Empress, it was likely that I would no longer be able to carry my pet cat around.


    ¡°No, that won¡¯t happen. You always toss your responsibilities to others, so why can¡¯t I do the same?¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s not the same. Right now, I don¡¯t have any official position. Meanwhile, you¡¯re the Elven Empress of the Elven Empire. How could you possibly just leave as you want?¡±


    ¡°Tsk, what empress? I¡¯m the only Gold Elf left. All of my subordinates will be Superior Elves. No matter what I do, I¡¯ll probably only end up as a figurehead Elven Empress. Even if I¡¯m not a puppet, I¡¯ll be nothing more than a flower vase. That will be so boring. I¡¯m just going to leave a clone of myself in the pce. Don¡¯t even think about getting rid of me.¡±


    The silly cat suddenly got closer to me. She was taller than me by two heads in her mature Gold Elf form. She was wearing the beautiful golden God Equipment crown and extravagant ceremonial clothing. Her perfectly proportioned body actually made her seem so feminine, especially with the herbal scent on her blonde hair.


    ¡°Cough, Harloys, could you tell me about the most recent situation of the elves? I¡¯d like to know which elves from our generation are still alive. Perhaps some of them will be able to help out.¡±


    Harloys instantly had a bitter expression upon hearing this from Didina. Ha, saying that she was the only Gold Elf right in front of her dad? So unfilial, she deserved it!


    ¡°...You¡¯re the one who deserves to be single for your entire life.¡±


    As always, I had no idea what Little Red meant with herment. Currently, she was in her tiny red dragon form. However, her tiny dragon form had only been one meter long when she first progressed in power level, but right now she was already three meters long.


    Little Red benefited from this short trip to the Chaos Abyss more than any of us. At our power level, progressing even one step would be incredibly difficult. Although Little Red might seemingly be slightly weaker overall from returning to baby dragon form, she had basically changed her entire bloodline. This would greatly improve her overallbat potential. This was something highly difficult to achieve through cultivation.


    From a certain standpoint, this was identical to how I had changed my bloodline. However, her growth would be even swifter than mine.


    Yet, I was the one who had gone down to the Chaos Abyss in search of strength. Although I had slightly improved in power level, I still hadn¡¯t made much progress apart from gaining some Fate Points. I had made very little progress with my most critical four magic swords.


    ¡°Tsk, even though I have some points now, I can¡¯t exchange them for blueprints or resources. System, you¡¯re so useless.¡±


    My System... The Goddess of Order¡¯s powers were limited. Everything she could help me exchange for would be an exchange of equivalent value through the power of karma. They would be items that already existed, but those items would be of incredibly limited use to me who had created a brand new path.


    The Holy War was about to start, yet I had onlypleted half of one of my nned four magic swords. I was also still far from achieving SemiGod rank. Although I might have been acting casual, I was truly anxious inside.


    SemiGod wasn¡¯t only about power level. If I could reach SemiGod for this uing demon wave, I would be able tomonly use one of my supremely powerful aces. This would be a foundational change in me.


    But if I casually tried to force my Myth-ranked weapons into SemiGod rank, not only would there be countless consequences, I would also feel quite unwilling about it.


    [...You truly are such an idiot. Death and ice are both powers of Chaos. Right now, you have someone in front of you who¡¯s both a veteran demon and Elven Emperor. Didina was formerly the ruler of the Elven Empire for many centuries. She was also the one who taught elemental magic to the humans. Why aren¡¯t you asking her instead of me?¡±]


    Indeed, Harloys hadn¡¯t even reached adult age back when she died. Only after she became undead did she furiously start learning magic so she could obtain power. Logically speaking, she shouldn¡¯t be able topare in magical knowledge to her father, who had millennia more of experience. But, for some reason, ever since I learned Didina¡¯s true identity, I felt quite awkward whenever I looked at her...


    [Besides, since you¡¯ve already had that Beifeng bastard go to Sun God Aloyo to help you obtain top-quality resources, you should just rest assured and wait. I¡¯m quite confident when ites to him...]


    Well, I was also quite confident in Beifeng¡¯s abilities. I was even more confident that he would do something majorly overboard. He wouldn¡¯t be Beifeng if he didn¡¯t do something that was impossible to face directly.


    ¡°...Don¡¯t mention him. The elves¡¯ Holy Lake is still in a state of pollution because of him. I don¡¯t even dare to admit that I know him. Otherwise, all elves will be trying to kill me.¡±


    The Ardell Lake area was a holynd under the control of the silver elves. In the elves¡¯ myths and legends, this was where the Creator Goddess had created the first elf as the source of all elves. But now... due to a certain individual doing unmentionable acts in theke waters, the Holy Lake was polluted, affecting countless divine beasts in the area. This was also the main reason why Beifeng had been unable to stay in the mortal ne.


    Right now, silver elf head priestess Cecily was having the same frustrations as Rnd. She hated the legendary top-ranked Cmity Rankings Dracon more than anyone.


    ¡°That damned bastard, that damned bastard, what am I supposed to say to everyone else...¡±


    Currently, Cecily was riding on a unicorn. Her pure priestess attire was beautiful and extravagant. She was also in the prime of her youth, but had an embarrassed expression right now.


    As the aura of Chaos became ever thicker through the dimensional cracks, the citizens of the Moonwheel Capital panicked more and more. But, today, they received some news that helped them to feel reassured.


    The silver elves¡¯ reinforcements had arrived to help the moon elves. Not only had the silver elves brought alongrge numbers of elite silver elf aerial andnd knights, they also brought along arge number of nature divine beasts. These divine beasts were the pets of the Elven Gods, along with being powerfulbat strength.


    Deer, elephant, and bear form. These nature divine beasts typically had the physical appearances of natural wild beasts, but more beautiful and pure. They also possessed far stronger natural talents.


    Typically, only the most devout of elves would be allowed to the Holy Lake to listen to the Gods¡¯ blessings and witness these pure and beautiful divine beasts. When the moon elves saw these divine beasts in their own city, of course they would be overjoyed, gaining a massive morale boost.


    Everywhere that the divine beasts passed by, thick patches of green grass would crop up like carpets. No matter what season it was, flowers would naturally start to bloom. The beautiful divine beasts glowed with the aura of nature. Just looking at them would make one feel reassured.


    However...


    ¡°Mommy, why are the divine beasts¡¯ tummies so big? Are they about to give birth to small divine beasts? Can I get a closer look¡ª¡±


    A young elf child was interrupted in the middle of his words by his mother who was scared witless. This was something that everyone was pretending not to see, so how could he possibly be allowed to say it out loud!


    *Plop*


    A certain pointy-eared head priestess with excellent hearing ended up falling off her unicorn upon hearing this...

 Chapter 629 - Precious Fruits

    <h4>Chapter 629: Precious Fruits</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The eighth year of the Dawn Generation was destined to be a difficult one. Astonishing news kept popping up everywhere. But, one of the biggest news shes right before the demon wave was rather surprising.


    ¡°The wood spirits have begun selling two new products, ¡®Dusk Fruits¡¯ and ¡®Dawn Fruits¡¯. Each fruit is sold for the price of 500 Justice Points. Each fruit is worth ¡®five years¡¯. Each person is limited to purchasing only five Dawn Fruits.¡±


    It was only natural that this new advertisement would be headline news. When even time was a purchasable product, that would be truly a precious treasure without tangible value.


    There had always been legends about the Fountain of Youth, Elven Tears, and other such time-rted mystical treasures. I had also seen the real versions of such treasures. However, it was iprehensible how a time-rted treasure could be mass-produced.


    The wood spirits¡¯ advertisements also exined the limitations of their age-changing fruits. The Dusk Fruit, which would age an individual by five years, had no limits on how many you could purchase or eat. You could eat enough to end your life if you really wanted. However, the Dawn Fruit, which was capable of making a person younger by five years, could only be eaten five times in a person¡¯s life. Otherwise, that person¡¯s physical body would copse, and they might instantly die.


    However, this was more than enough to make human rulers go crazy...


    Five times five years of life with this fruit was simple math¡ªit would extend a person¡¯s life by twenty-five years. For ordinary humans, this would be equivalent to one-third of their lifespan. For any ruler, this would be a continuation of their years at the peak, along with a way to receive the highest glory and best historical rating as they would remain rulers in this uing Holy War!


    With the current Justice Points exchange system, 500 Justice Points was the equivalent of the points you would receive for killing five Legend ranked demons. An adventuring team ranked Gold at average would be able to obtain 500 Justice Points in approximately one year by working hard at several major battles. When this amount of work could obtain an extra five years of life, it wouldn¡¯t be expensive at all. In fact, it could even be said that it was ridiculously cheap.


    At this moment, the exchange rate for gold coins to Justice Points reached the highest it had ever been. The amount of gold coins that could purchase 500 Justice Points would be enough to purchase a noble title in a medium- to small-sized human kingdom. Despite this, there was nobody willing to sell their Justice Points for gold.


    Meanwhile, Iughed out loud upon hearing this news when I reached the meeting location.


    ¡°Has she finally seeded? This is just in time.¡±


    As I previously mentioned, the wood spirits¡¯ Forest of Dreams was a ce that had the power of Creation through Amelia. However, the wood spirits¡¯ creations were only limited to fruits and nts. The fruits and nts would also only have buff or debuff effects on the living who consumed them. Previously, the wood spirits¡¯ most popr and expensive items were their fruits that could permanently increase an individual¡¯s base stats.


    Due to certain reasons, I had long ago requested Amelia to research a fruit that could change the age of an individual. I had provided her with cell division, gic, hormonal, pituitary nd, and all sorts of other scientific research topics from my original world that were considered nothing more than ridiculous concepts in this magical world. Regardless of the fact that I was no expert in any of these fields, Amelia would be capable of rewriting thews of reality itself within her Forest of Dreams. Her will would be capable of changing the dimensionalws there as she was the Creator Goddess of that dimension. Even if these seemingly ridiculous scientific concepts were iplete, they could still be real if Amelia forced them to be real... Although this sounded ridiculous, this was indeed the mostmon research method of mages who followed idealism. They were quite skilled at creating something from nothing.


    However, the finished Dawn Fruit product definitely didn¡¯t have the same effects as in the wood spirits¡¯ advertisement. There were many treasures out there that could forcefully extend someone¡¯s lifespan, but not a single one would destroy your physical body if you consumed too much. However, it was indeed true that no ordinary human with an ordinary lifespan had obtained an undying body just from using a time-rted treasure.


    This was because the aging of one¡¯s mind and soul would be even more incurable than the aging of one¡¯s physical body, and thetter would begin to reject an overly old mind and soul ipatible with itself. In the end, the final result would be that the physical body and soul would separate. That would mean either bing a powerless spirit unable to control their physical body, or a living astral spirit that constantly and uncontrobly suddenly left their own body. None of the lords in fairy tales who tried so hard to find elixirs of immortality had ever met a happy ending.


    That was why the advertisement saying that the Dawn Fruit could only extend your lifespan by 25 years wasn¡¯t aplete lie. 20 years would be a change in generation. Any individual¡¯s worldview,mon sense, and basic knowledge would mostly be formed in the first twenty years. The soul would be stable in this time period. The longer after that, the more likely it was for problems to appear.


    Actually, it was possible for arch druids, master alchemists, and arch priests to aplish the feat of forcefully lengthening someone¡¯s lifespan by 20 years. Many people indeed did such a thing. However, those who did this all met with tremendous consequences.


    Of course, if you were capable of resolving the most troublesome issue of your physical body¡¯s lifespan, these other problems were also resolvable if you were willing to pay the price. The easiest method of all would be to have those rulers learn martial arts or magic to a certain extent. If the person¡¯s soul and physical body had high affinity for each other and were both stable, there would naturally be no problems.


    However, the fact that everyone being undying would break the Cycle of Reincarnation would mean that the resource bnce in Eich would be broken, along with other troubles, which meant that no even slightly intelligent individual would try for such a thing.


    ¡°The Dusk Fruit that¡¯s capable of adding five years to someone¡¯s age? Is your problem now curable?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ smile was filled with vicious intent as she nced knowingly at my crotch... Damn her, what was she trying to say!?


    ¡°Damn it, I didn¡¯t have this developed for myself, I don¡¯t care about such a thing at all! Really! Hey, hey, why are you all looking at me like that? I truly didn¡¯t develop the Dusk Fruit for myself!¡±


    Everyone else¡¯s looks of sympathy infuriated me. I had truly been wronged!


    ¡°Fine, fine, everyone realizes that you just wanted to grow taller...¡±


    I was rendered absolutely speechless. I hadn¡¯t developed this Dusk Fruit in order to grow taller, as a time bracelet would be far more effective than any secret shoes... Ptui, I meant that I would never wear secret shoes as I didn¡¯t need such a thing!


    ¡°...Forget it, I¡¯ll just directly tell all of you. I had the Dusk Fruit developed for the sake of the Dawn Children. Perhaps I¡¯m doing things prematurely by pulling up the seedlings to help them grow, but it will still be much better than the seedlings dying while they¡¯re still seedlings.¡±


    As I previously mentioned, many heroic spirits had been reincarnated, leading new lives in the current Dawn Generation. Many of them had already shown their talent, and they were now renowned as the Dawn Children. However, even the oldest among them would only be a little kid of seven years old. They would be forever physically limited at that age... And even with their previous life¡¯s knowledge, the physical body would affect personality, so the young children wouldn¡¯t have the same courage as their previous heroic selves, and even with their past lifetime¡¯s umtion, a young physical appearance would make them unconvincing to others.


    This time, I had the Dusk Fruit developed for the sake of the Dawn Children. In my opinion, rather than having these reincarnated heroes helplessly remain as young children... When considering the current situation in the mortal ne, their childhood would likely be extremely bloody. It would probably be better to help them to slightly better be able to control their own fates.


    The Dawn Fruit was the most attractive new product on the surface. Although life-extending items were precious and expensive, they could still be found for sale on the market every few years. However, nobody had ever tried to sell a product that would age you before... as nobody would want to die earlier.


    However, the Dusk Fruit was something absolutely necessary to my ns. The human Dawn Children would grow up and mature in a few more years, but what about the elves¡¯, dwarves¡¯, dragons¡¯, and other longer-lived species¡¯ Dawn Children? ...A seven year old elf would be nothing more than an infant in elven years. Would you count on an infant to be a swordsmaster who could defend you? Do you think that an infant dragon the size of a puppy could toss out forbidden spells?


    I had previously considered using the Curse of Aging in undead magic. However, Iter discovered that this was using negative energy to forcefully age a body, which would permanently inflict serious damage upon both the physical body and the soul. This meant that right from the very start, all undead magic spells would be no good for what I wanted. I would have to find someone from the Nature Faction to help me develop something which could age people safely, with no negative consequences. But, I truly had few contacts in the Nature Faction. In the end, I tossed this task over to Amelia¡¯s Seven Virtues.


    Last time I saw the Seven Virtues, I had asked about this, but heard that there were no results yet. It would seem that they had only recently made a breakthrough in this area. (Muchter in the future, Rnd finally learned that Amelia had forgotten about thispletely until the Seven Virtues reminded her about it, so she finally started working on it and instantly managed to seed.)


    ¡°Right, everyone, loan me some of your Justice Points. I¡¯m going to exchange for some Dusk Fruits,¡± said... Little Red, not me. She had a delighted expression as if she couldn¡¯t wait.


    I suddenly felt like the heavens were so unfair. Why was it that Little Red always benefited the most from my schemes?


    But right after this, her expression turned sour. Although it was still currently impossible with the Justice Points system to directly trade Justice Points, it was possible to exchange for an item and give that item to someone else. Unfortunately, Little Red had just learned that none of us had any Justice Points to spare for her.


    ¡°I exchanged all my Justice Points for books...¡±


    That was Margaret. The Gods¡¯ treasure trove of books had attracted countless mages to exchange for them. That would truly be a bottomless pit. The ancient magical secrets had emptied out our mage¡¯s wallet.


    ¡°I spent them all on eating, drinking, and having fun. I still have seven Justice Points, who wants them...?¡±


    We all directly ignored Adam¡¯s words. None of us was counting on him. This was not only because he was the type to instantly spend any money he had, but even more because any time that he had enough money, Margaret would surely clean out his wallet.


    ¡°...¡±


    Little Red herself was also quite poor. She had never grinded against weaker monsters for Justice Points before. How could a prideful dragon like her possibly work so hard at something so menial?


    In the end, she focused her attention on me. Considering how often I would meet enemies and my past umtions, it seemed most likely that I would have the most Justice Points out of any of us.


    I proudly raised my head and smiled.


    ¡°Indeed, I have two thousand or so Justice Points, but... I¡¯m going to use them to buy secret shoes! I don¡¯t even have enough for myself!¡±


    I then broke out into uproariousughter. It was her fault for previouslyughing at my height! Did she really think that I would forget how sheughed at me before? I hadn¡¯tughed enough back at her yet, so there was no way I was going to let her return to adult form!


    The vicious dragon revealed her teeth and started breathing mes as if she was trying to threaten or rob me. However, I fearlessly used my trump card.


    ¡°Besides, one Dusk Fruit will age someone by five years. Dragons take even longer than the elves who require two hundred years to reach adult age. The more powerful the dragon, the slower they will reach adult age. So at a slight estimate, even if we sold you off, we wouldn¡¯t be able to afford enough Dusk Fruits to help you reach adult age again. You should instead try to eat some more and grow faster.¡±


    [System notification: Little Red is currently inhaling a deep breath. Hurry and dodge, hurry and dodge...]


    Sheesh, was telling the truth something that would get fire spat on me these days?


    ¡°Wait, I have an idea! We could rob... Yeah, you could rob other dragons!¡±


    When considering the dragons¡¯ overall power level, this would definitely be the fastest method to earn Justice Points. But with my understanding of red dragons...


    ¡°But, to my knowledge, those guys didn¡¯t try to earn any Justice Points themselves. Even if they have something they want to purchase, they would also try to rob others...¡±


    ¡°Are you an idiot? You¡¯re the Dragon Queen. Just order them to earn some Justice Points and then rob them.¡±


    Just as we were nning on how to make a huge profit, someone surprising suddenly spoke up behind us.


    ¡°Actually, I have some Justice Points. My demon servants in the mortal ne earned them for me.¡±


    Didina was actually the one who spoke up here! Didina, a ruler in the Chaos Abyss, actually had Justice Points, a currency only used in the mortal ne?


    ¡°Even demons are starting up smurf ounts and international trading in this day and age?¡±

 Chapter 630 - Chaotic Revival

    <h4>Chapter 630: Chaotic Revival</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Originally, I had intended on properly recording the coronation ceremony for the revival of the Elven Empire. This was because it would obviously be a major event recorded in history.


    In order to help history have a better understanding of this event, I even intended to use the ancient Chinese ¡°eight-legged essay¡± style that I was familiar with to describe it and analyze its effects on the world.


    ¡°In the year FD8 of the Dawn Generation, the Elven Empire was revived under Elven Empress Harloys in the small town of Sindair in Danbor. This ceremony represented the establishment of the Elven Empire, an important moment in history. Representatives of the four Superior Elf species attending this ceremony included wood elf representatives Kelly and Fenkar, dark elf representatives Diana, Victoria, and Stere, moon elf representatives Suana and Marst, and finally silver elf representatives Sartis and Karxin. The ceremony waspleted perfectly in a serious and solemn atmosphere, totaling eleven minutes and seventeen seconds...¡±


    I apologize, I couldn¡¯t make up any more words. That was because I had no idea how to describe this event that only took 27 minutes in total, with 70% of the time being used to recite the elves¡¯ ridiculously long and useless ceremonial incantations.


    Well, if I really had to describe what happened in more detail, I could only record these things below.


    The master of ceremonies announced that the ceremony began. Everybody pped.


    The master of ceremonies began reading a list of names of the main members in attendance. At first, everyone listened quite seriously as these names would likely be the main yers in the power pyramid in this new Elven Empire. However, the master of ceremonies used perfect cacuminal sounds in the difficult to pronounce elvennguage to sing out the elven noble names like an opera song. Large amounts of the audience fell asleep or into stupor.


    Considering that time was limited, the master of ceremonies only read off the names of the most important individuals and representatives as they would need to be recorded in history as the leaders who revived the Elven Empire. However, just reading the names alone took about 23-24 minutes.


    This would have been better if there had been any meaning to it. However, all of it was difficult to understand in elvennguage that was intentionally lengthened for no apparent reason. The elves also had way too many unnecessary ceremonial lines. Perhaps even the elves themselves would be bored... Fine, I admit that I didn¡¯t know if the elves themselves would be bored, but Adam, who was in the first row as a witness to this ceremony, had instantly fallen asleep while the elf next to him red at him.


    Finally, it was time for the main show. Harloys got on stage, put on her golden crown, picked up her staff that represented royal authority, and then gave her first speech as Elven Empress.


    ¡°I swear in the name of my father that I¡¯ll do a good job. That¡¯s all.¡±


    Yep, that was literally all Harloys said. She was met with a certain person¡¯s astonishingly loud cheer...


    ¡°Can we finally eat now!?¡± Adam woke up at this time while drooling everywhere. The elves around him were looking at him with disgust. Although everyone had been quite bored with the elven ceremony, Adam had been the only one who didn¡¯t give the elves any face whatsoever with his brazen behavior.


    Indeed, I was recording Adam¡¯s actions in extra detail so that I could send this report to the fairies tomorrow and make him into headline news!


    ¡°What did Adam do to make you angry this time?¡±


    ¡°He said that he wants a dozen children so that he can assemble basketball teams. He also said that it¡¯s not safe now, so he will have children after the Holy War ends! He already broke free from being single already, and now he dares to show off how blissful he is in front of someone who¡¯s single? I can¡¯t tolerate it! Ha, I¡¯m going to make him famous! It¡¯s his own fault for behaving so unseemly and antagonizing those grudge-holding pointy ears.¡±


    ¡°...Why do I feel like Adam is creating the most dangerous type of death g?¡±


    ¡°Eh, you... you changed into a cat again?¡±


    Only now did I notice that the beautiful and extravagant Gold Elf up on stage was nothing more than one of Harloys¡¯ clones. The real Harloys jumped onto my shoulder.


    ¡°This is to prevent myself from being assassinated. In this day and age, the average rule of emperors and empresses is far too short...¡±


    The ck cat casually stated something that even she didn¡¯t believe as she rubbed and licked my face. It felt cool and itchy.


    ¡°I feel far morefortable like this,¡± Harloys added.


    ¡°...You¡¯re so sly.¡±


    My words made Harloys pause in surprise. She looked at me in astonishment as if she was seeing something exotic, as if metal could bloom with flowers or as if there had been a meteor shower.


    ¡°You actually understand?¡±


    ¡°Tsk, I¡¯ve never been an idiot...¡¯I swear in the name of my father that I¡¯ll do a good job?¡¯ If your father had vanished into the Cycle of Reincarnation, you¡¯d probably take that seriously, but in this situation, don¡¯t you mean ¡®I swear in the name of Didina that I¡¯ll do a good job, but if something happens, go find her?¡¯ Of course you¡¯re so sly!¡±


    The silly cat suddenly chuckled uproariously, and Iughed as well...


    ¡°Damn it, why are you biting me!¡±


    And then, a cat-eared hat was added to my head.


    Although the coronation ceremony had been simple, what it represented wasn¡¯t simple at all.


    In the past, when elven emperors or kings ascended the throne, either an Elven God¡¯s incarnation would personally put the crown on the elven ruler, or an elven head priest representing an Elven God would crown the ruler. The elven emperor or king would also have to show gratitude and submit to the Elven Gods. This represented how the elven royal authority was still subservient to the Elven Gods¡¯ authority.


    But in this ceremony, Harloys had directly been crowned without a single Elven God present. The ones who came uninvited had all been beaten up and kicked out. We even had two Hell Gods¡¯ incarnations present among the audience as witnesses to the coronation ceremony. Obviously, I didn¡¯t need to exin why they were here.


    The coronation ceremony itself had beenpleted in less than half an hour. However, the work that came afterwards continued until midnight. Thankfully, all the work could bepleted on the floating airship. Otherwise, I would have been pained about how much time was wasted.


    Well, rather than work, perhaps the phrase ¡°dividing the spoils¡± would be more urate.


    A new empire had been established. Although this empire was a member of the Mist Alliance, it would definitely require its own territory, organizations, and citizens. At that time, with its own citizens, it would have its own society, and with its own society, it would have its own social sses and the upper sses taking advantage of the lower sses... er, I meant division ofbor in society.


    Perhaps the elves would be able to break free from their old traditions after joining the Mist Alliance. But, at this time, it would be best not to overly stimte the elves, and let them stick to their traditions for the time being.


    In this ¡°revived¡± Elven Empire, the four Superior Elf species supporting the Gold Elf¡¯s rule meant that these four species would also take part of the ruling authority and glory for themselves. In that case, the positions and responsibilities of the four Superior Elf species had to be determined here. Time was limited, so the finer details couldn¡¯t be decided here, but it was absolutely necessary to establish an overall framework to make the elves feel assured.


    ¡°Others are busy fighting life and death battles, yet you¡¯re all here, dividing up authority and positions. How is this any different from dividing the spoils?¡±


    ¡°...This is clearly supposed to be the Superior Elves acting out their proper roles ording to their natural talents, all under the guidance of a Gold Elf who leads the elves in this revived empire. Why does something so bright and open sound so underhanded and dirty when you describe it?¡±


    ¡°Ha, just look at how allured and extraordinarily greedy those elves look. There¡¯s no difference from dividing the spoils. You know that I always speak the truth.¡±


    Harloys was rendered speechless. While elves indeed physically resembled their counterparts in fairy tales, internally they were so much different. The pointy-eared elves were naturally vain and prone to holding grudges. Superior Elves were born with higher status than ordinary elves, so they were already ustomed to all sorts of power struggles. How could Superior Elves so easily make any concessions?


    Over the entire night, dividing the spoils... er, the discussions hadn¡¯t stopped for a single moment. However, what I didn¡¯t expect, although it was only natural, was that none of the ¡°temporary leaders¡± of the four Superior Elf species in our Elven Empire were my people.


    The wood elf tribe leader was ¡°Elf of the Forest¡± Fenkar V. Cas (his name was actually much longer, but I¡¯ll skip the rest). Fenkar was a famed arch druid of the wood elves. He was also famous for being a moderate who believed in getting along with others. It was only natural that he was chosen as the tribe¡¯s leader.


    Fenkar was only four hundred something years old. He was arge wood elf with a red face. As a wood elf arch druid, he had probably just reached adult age. However, he seemed rather strange as he kept trembling when he looked at me.


    ¡°...Your Highness, we have previously met once before. I had only recently be a druid at that time, and you left me with a truly deep impression. The voice of nature tells me that your soul is even more powerful than back then.¡±


    We had met before? I had no recollection of ever meeting this wood elf arch druid. Hey, wait, he dropped his staff? Why was he running away?


    ¡°...Cough, I¡¯ve heard of him before. Fenkar is a lucky survivor of your Ice Aeon spell. It¡¯s also said that he¡¯s suffering from the aftereffect of constantly shivering whenever it snows. He¡¯s also trembling because he sees you...¡±


    Harloys¡¯ true body was on my shoulder, yet her Gold Elf clone was still talking to the other elves. She was truly a skilled multitasker. I instantly understood everything from her words.


    ¡°Oh, so this is like injuring your tooth on a popsicle when young, getting an automatic reaction of shivering when seeing popsicles? I understand.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s definitely not the same thing! Do you really use Ice Aeon to make popsicles...? Damn it, I need to stop being influenced by you!¡±


    I felt rather awkward from being nced at by the arch druid in the distance who kept sneaking peeks at me... This wasn¡¯t because I was afraid of him taking revenge or anything like that. It was just that having a middle-aged male constantly sneak peeks at me with a red face made me feel rather ufortable.


    The temporary leader of the wood elves was truly ¡°temporary¡± since there weren¡¯t that many wood elves in the Nortnds. The few here right now were mostly just for show. Of course, the wood elves wouldn¡¯t have much power. However, the other three Superior Elf species in our Elven Empire were quite numerous.


    Dark elf leader Stere had no family name. It was rumored that she was the younger sister of Lorci¡¯s holy maiden (Lorci¡¯s illegitimate daughter). Yep, that unfortunate individual Harloys had killed and taken the body of. However, Stere didn¡¯t have Lorci¡¯s bloodline... When considering how the dark elf society was messy to the point where it was impossible to know who someone¡¯s father and mother might truly be, and how everything in dark elf society was filled with so much darkness that couldn¡¯t see the light of day, that was all I needed to know. It was likely that Stere¡¯s family history would provide enough material for several novels filled with love and hate.


    Victoria had always been incredibly ambitious. As the inventor of the Desecration Priestess job ss, she was the most powerful Desecration Priestess in the world. The entire dark elf society no longer had any ruling Gods. There was a lot of power of belief to go around, but even Anslo had failed in obtaining the dark elves¡¯ worship... I felt that if I ignored Victoria for another two hundred years, it seemed quite possible that she would suddenly be a Goddess.


    Victoria¡¯s greatest trump card, apart from my support, was that she had an incredibly powerful older sister whocked any ambition. Diana was basically the dark elf ranked #1 now.


    It could be said that Victoria had full control over the strongest military and religious authority in dark elf society. Although she had no official position, she was the most powerful dark elf individual. However, Victoria was evidently quite sly. She had no intentions of personally taking any leadership positions, nor did she have her older sister Diana, who was greatly unskilled in politics, take a leadership role.


    ...If Victoria really did try and take a leadership position, I would be on guard, and maybe do something. Victoria also knew that I was on guard against her, so she had always remained humble and cautious. Neither did she interfere too much with the dark elves. However, what she didn¡¯t know was that the more she acted this way, the more I felt like her true intentions were deeper than a swamp. She was incredibly dangerous. Considering ¡°her¡± (his) glorious aplishments in the game¡¯s history, if I died and nobody was around to suppress her anymore, it was likely that a major catastrophe would happen.


    ¡°So you¡¯re a puppet leader... Sorry, sorry, I identally spoke the truth out loud.¡±


    I hurriedly apologized sincerely to the dark elf girl leader named Stere who seemed like she was about to cry. But, when I apologized, the little girl ended up truly crying.


    Even though it seemed like Victoria didn¡¯t actually do much, the dark elves were actually the strongest Superior Elf species in the Nortnds. The dark elves still had most of their strength, as well as a high poption from the Underground. A naturally magic-resistant species like the dark elves would be incredibly useful as the Elemental Tide furiously increased in the future. The dark elves also hadplete power and job ss systems of their own. Now that they also had powerful new job sses like anti-holy knight and Desecration Priestess, it was only natural that they would be even stronger.


    ¡°It would seem that I need to suppress the dark elves for the sake of bnce... Ah, I said it out loud again by ident! I¡¯m sorry, so sorry. Little girl, please don¡¯t cry. I won¡¯t hit you. I¡¯ll only suppress you, suppress.¡±


    Uh-oh, now she was crying even louder. Alright then, I had already scared two elf leaders into crying, so I should probably go have a rest on the sidelines.


    The silver elf tribe leader was named Sartis Rufen Camusi Silverspear (another dozen or so names skipped for convenience). He was an incredibly handsome silver elf who was a war hero. He was also one of the leading youngster silver elfmanders, and one of the main leaders of the anti-moon elf silver elf faction that caused the silver elf fracture... However, Harloys was ring at Sartis with a vicious, unfriendly expression.


    ¡°The Silverspear Family...¡±


    Of course I wouldn¡¯t forget that the Silverspear Family had previously rebelled against the Gold Elves. Two of the oldest Silverspear Family seniors, Savor Silverspear and Ostan Silverspear, were on the list of names that Harloys absolutely wanted to see dead more than anyone. However, since the silver elves had just recently joined our Nortnds Elven Empire, of course we would still use their current leader. It would be impossible for us to rece their leader without sufficient reason.


    ¡°Tsk, he has such pretty eyes, and he¡¯s trying to suck up to Harloys (well, her clone)... Harloys, as both an observer and the main person involved, how do you feel?¡±


    ¡°Silverspear, Silverspear, Silverspear...¡±


    Alright then, Harloys¡¯ Gold Elf clone wasughing loudly at some joke that Sartis Silverspear had just told her, yet the real Harloys on my shoulder was constantly gnashing her teeth while uttering the word Silverspear. It would seem that she was doing her utmost to restrain herself from doing something to this Silverspear Family member. Regardless, it would seem that this young leader from the Silverspear Family would be receiving much bullying from Elven Empress Harloys in the future.


    Finally, the issue of the moon elf leader was the most troublesome.


    As of now, they had yet to decide their leader. The three Nortnds moon elf kingdoms were unable toe to an ord. Meanwhile, Suana, the moon elf most closely connected to us, adamantly refused my request to be the moon elf leader.


    ¡°I am now undead. I should not be taking a position of authority meant for the living. Since my species will now survive the uing cmity, I also intend on saying farewell to Your Highness.¡±


    However, the issue was that only three of the original four moon elf kingdoms in the Nortnds now remained. Originally, the moon elves had only unwillingly joined the Mist Alliance because they had been forced to by the situation. The moon elves¡¯ political situation was incrediblyplex. For the sake of mutual trust, Suana was the only candidate that both the moon elf kingdoms and I could ept as she wasn¡¯t from any of the three moon elf kingdoms.


    ¡°No, please don¡¯t leave! If you leave, whom will we find to take the me and be the mediator? It¡¯s not easy to find someone willing to listen to angry people from all sides...¡±


    But after much consideration, I said something that attracted everyone¡¯s attention. Or, more urately, I scared everyone witless who heard it.


    ¡°Suana, would you like toe back to life? I can aplish that for you.¡±

 Chapter 631 - Truthful Lie

    <h4>Chapter 631: Truthful Lie</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Suana, would you like toe back to life?¡±


    I said this out loud in public in front of so many elves. This was no sudden idea of mine, as this was an important part of my overall n.


    This wasn¡¯t for the sake of something small like bncing the moon elves¡¯ power struggles. Actually, the dark elves and Nortnds were capable of suppressing the moon elves, so the moon elves wouldn¡¯t be able to cause too much trouble. Rather than the three Nortnds moon elf kingdoms which were already scared witless, I was far more worried about Victoria and the dark elves who were bing more powerful every day.


    I had mentioned revival at this time mainly in order to decrease my troubles.


    Harloys had been revived and was now alive again? It was a fact that she was now alive. This would pass any magical or Divine Art examination. However, I would need to give an exnation about how the dead person was revived. Otherwise, I would truly have a great deal of trouble.


    This wasn¡¯t something ethereal like punishment for breaking taboos. This would be a concrete sh of benefits.


    Maybe one day, some Myth-ranked hero woulde up to me with an important subordinate of mine as a hostage, demanding that I revive some unfortunate individual who was only a skeleton.


    Basically, just the knowledge that I had the power to revive others would be truly troublesome. Even if I was famously known as an ¡°incredibly evil viin¡±, as long as it became known that I possessed the power to revive others from the dead, one of the most miraculous powers possible, it would still be so much trouble for me.


    Many powerful individuals had lost people extremely important to them while they were younger. Even if they knew that time couldn¡¯t be rewound, and that revival would definitely require a tremendous price, it would still be incredibly tempting. It was likely that endless people would start trying to use me somehow.


    In that case, rather than those people trying to ckmail me and so on, it would be much better for me to find an excuse and publicize the conditions and restrictions for revival. Even if some still didn¡¯t want to give up, at least the majority would believe this, and I would have far less trouble.


    ¡°Suana, I can revive you because you¡¯re a natural undead,¡± I said out loud in front of all the elves. However, I was no idiot who would tell the truth here. If I had said instead that a sufficient amount of souls and power would be required as equivalent exchange to revive the dead, even if this sounded evil and selfish and as if it was a bad deal, there would always be those who didn¡¯t care about the lives of others. I had already seen countless people among dark cultists and so on who would shout things like ¡°I¡¯m just doing this to revive my beloved, who cares about the lives of ordinarymoners? I¡¯m doing this for the sake of justice!¡±


    Additionally, if I stated the truth that I was capable of reviving any undead whose soul had yet to enter the Cycle of Reincarnation, it was likely that soon,rge numbers of tremendous blood sacrifices would appear in Eich. Perhaps I would even receive a nickname like ¡°The Man Who Can Destroy the World with His Words¡±.


    That would be no joking matter. Any powerful individual considered neutral or evil who received the chance to revive the person most important to them would unhesitatingly ughter entire cities to harvest souls. As for the powerful individuals who appeared to be on the side of good, just how many of them would be able to resist the chance to undo the greatest regret of their lives?


    ¡°Revival was an unexpected byproduct of my research. Natural undead and ordinary undead are fundamentally different. The former are closer to the living. That¡¯s why, as long as a suitable physical body is created, I can use my secret technique to repair the inadequacies of the soul andpletely revive that person.¡±


    Everything I said was the truth. However, it wasn¡¯t theplete truth. Indeed, natural undead had greater potential than even the living. It would be far easier to revive a natural undead. Yet, this didn¡¯t mean that I was incapable of reviving ordinary undead.


    However, those who heard me here would likely misunderstand me. They would believe that I meant Harloys had only been revived because she had been a natural undead.


    ¡°Natural undead... Those who still remain in the mortal ne after death, yet without relying on the power of death. There¡¯s probably less than ten natural undead in the entire world. Yes, they are fundamentally different from ordinary undead. They¡¯re not bloodthirsty like them, nor do they require the power of death to power their physical bodies. Their physical bodies operate almost exactly like a living person¡¯s would. From a certain standpoint, a natural undead is simply the spirit of a living person who lost their physical body!¡±


    Arch druid Fenkar¡¯smentary on natural undead was quite helpful. As an authority on nature and life, Fenkar¡¯s words werepletely factual. His expression of sudden realization and his reputation all made this sound even more convincing.


    Natural undead were the dead who had been unwilling to die. The natural undead were able to naturally revive themselves in a state of undeath without any outside assistance. These undead would be far more powerful than ordinary undead, and possess growth potential far more powerful than that of ordinary living individuals. The birth of any natural undead would also represent an extreme grudge or desire, typically born from some major grievance.


    There were incredibly few natural undead in the world. Naturally, the first natural undead in the world had been Ayer. As for the natural undead currently in the world who were quite famous, there were only myself, Harloys, and Suana.


    I was the ¡°Undying Rnd¡±. This type of undying trait which exceeded even the power of the Cycle of Reincarnation seemed inconceivable to others to begin with. But now, I was saying that it was possible to revive natural undead. This basically gave an exnation to my own ¡°undying¡± ability¡ªI, Rnd Mist, was a natural undead, and I had the power to revive the natural undead, which was why I was undying.


    I was probably one of the only existences in the world who simultaneously possessed the powers of Holy Light and Death. Back in the Nortnds, I had shown everyone the power to create life bybining these two powers. This was evidence of my unique mastery over life and the soul.


    Not to mention, the other person I ¡°revived¡± had been the natural undead Harloys. This all seemed to be convincing evidence for what I just imed.


    Yep, that was right, my way of dealing with this was to make everyone misunderstand that revival was limited to only the natural undead. It would greatly decrease my troubles.


    This was no pure lie. It would be impossible for me to revive any soul which had entered the Cycle of Reincarnation already. Basically, I would be unable to revive anyone who had died too long ago. In that case, someone who could be revived would have to be a recent corpse and soul brought to me, or a container would have to be used to store someone¡¯s soul. This would eliminate more than 99% of those I could revive... Cough, cough, I was getting off topic. Regardless of that, revival was far too miraculous and imbnced, so it would be better to seal this power away.


    ¡°I, I... I?¡±


    Everyone nced over at the banshee Suana. She was so shocked that half her body became translucent. It was likely that she had never even considered the possibility ofing back to life.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be in a rush. You can think things over slowly. Right now, I don¡¯t have the time to perform the revival ritual for you. I can do it for you in the Nortnds after the current trouble is resolved. Rest assured, there¡¯s no need to be afraid. It already seeded for both myself and Harloys. It¡¯s not that difficult to revive a natural undead.¡±


    Everything I said was the truth, as well as intentionally designed to mislead. I also heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing the elves around me nodding in apparent understanding and exchanging nces with each other.


    ¡°Life and death are eternal parts of the Cycle of Reincarnation.¡±


    Large-scale revival would definitely break the natural bnce of things. Perhaps some Nature Faction powerful individual or God would suddenly try and attack me for it. asionally reviving a few might still be eptable, and druids who weren¡¯t extremists probably wouldn¡¯t try and attack me for it... But when considering how passionate those nature worshippers were and how dangerous their fanatics could be, I felt it would probably be best for me to stay far away from those naked-loving individuals in the future.


    ¡°If the druids dare to cause me any trouble, I¡¯ll send out my super anti-druid weapon... Beifeng!¡±


    Well, I didn¡¯t actually say that out loud, as using such a terrible weapon of mass destruction in the mortal ne would likely make me public enemy #1 of the entire world. At this moment, Suana finally reacted and shook her head. It seemed like she intended to refuse.


    ¡°...Thank you for the offer, Your Highness. However, I¡¯m already dead, and the rules of nature¡ª¡±


    However, I personally covered her mouth and prevented her from continuing.


    ¡°So you mean that I and Harloys should both go dig pits and bury ourselves somewhere?¡±


    ¡°Your Highness, I, that¡¯s not what I meant...¡±


    I patted Suana on the head and touched her body. Her spiritual body felt quite smooth.


    ¡°Little girl, don¡¯t be so stubborn. Learn to ept the kindness of your elders. That¡¯s also a type of respect.¡±


    ¡°Elder...¡±


    Suana paused in surprise as she lowered her head. The shing of her soul body revealed the turmoil in her heart.


    ¡°Oh, you probably didn¡¯t know? Your father was previously my first disciple ever. When thinking about it, there¡¯s no mistake in saying that I¡¯m your elder.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    Not only was Suana shocked, even all the other elves had looks of disbelief. The former king of the Tassel Elf Kingdom had been Rnd¡¯s disciple? What was this?


    ¡°Heeheehee, I was called Rnd ckhand back in the day. Adrian was my disciple. I¡¯m sure that you can find out this information? He even personally killed me back in the day, sessfully ying his teacher. As expected of a neer from this generation. He really did a good job. Right, Harloys also taught me my magic, and she helped me greatly in both ice magic and death magic. I truly have such a connection to the elves, heehee.¡±


    Iughed out loud in a proud tone, but received nothing but forced dry chuckles. The elves were evidently shocked and feeling helpless, likely unable to ept this for the time being.


    Since I had already revealed that information, I might as well reveal even more. From a certain standpoint, I was truly deeply connected to the elves. Gold Elf Harloys had taught me my magic, and then I used the magic I learned to kill many elves. During the process, an elven disciple of mine had also backstabbed me. To begin with, I took the path I did because of the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction, and the elves were also responsible for that... This all felt connected in a roundabout way.


    The elves had betrayed Harloys. She was filled with hatred and grudges due to this, and taught someone who became Undead Emperor Yongye. Yongye then caused the scariest cmity to the elves in all of history... The God of Fate had been correct. Sometimes, Fate was just so ironic and dramatic in its arrangements. Everything had been perfectly arranged by karma. The elves¡¯ betrayal had directly caused their own cmity. This invisible chain of karma was so ¡°coincidentally¡± perfect to the point where I didn¡¯t know what to say.


    Oh, right, Adrian killed his own daughter Suana, and then I killed him. It would seem that apart from killing teachers, our generation also had the habit of killing children.


    ¡°Stop calcting it all. My head hurts. Are we really cursed...¡±


    It would seem that even the silly cat was no longer able to handle these messy karmic connections.


    Actually, we all knew that this was no curse. Adrian and I had only been a disciple and teacher who took advantage of and schemed against each other. It was only natural that we ended up killing each other.


    However, I wasn¡¯t exposing my teacher-disciple rtionship with Adrian just to convince Suana to ept my friendly intentions. After all, back when I fought Adrian, our teacher-disciple rtionship hadn¡¯t helped at all. I was saying this out loud mostly to inform the elves that Suana was under my protection, so they shouldn¡¯t meddle with her.


    It was true¡ªI truly didn¡¯t trust the elves. There were far too many obvious differences between short-lived and long-lived species. I was truly worried that if we didn¡¯t suppress the elves, they would cause huge trouble.


    Without mentioning anything else, the Mist Alliance currently had a system where all species had equal opportunities. If long-lived species like elves worked together with shorter-lived species in the Mist Alliance¡¯s organizations, the recement of other species¡¯ individuals wouldn¡¯t be able topare with an elf who could hold the same position for decades. All the elves simply had to do was wait for theirpetitors to die of old age, and then they would likely be able to take higher positions for themselves. And when the elves were in higher positions, it was likely that they would only promote other elves.


    From a certain standpoint, since all species were unequal, the so-called system of equal opportunities would only create inequality. If ability was rted to species, then the final result would naturally be that the longer-lived, more talented species would gain power in the end. Would the shorter-lived species which were more numerous be willing to ept the longer-lived species standing on top of their heads? In the end, violence and infighting would be the expectable result.


    Even though an equal opportunity policy seemed fair and equal, it truly wasn¡¯t suitable for a magical world like Eich with tremendous differences between intelligent species. The prerequisite for equal opportunities would be that lifespans needed to be equal first.


    ¡°Why think about so much right now? We won¡¯t have any future if we don¡¯t ovee the current trouble before us.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words made me stop my thinking. I shook my head and stopped thinking about such useless things.


    Indeed, the current uing demon wave had yet to be dealt with. Worrying about the future of the Mist Alliance was indeed unnecessary right now.


    ¡°After this incident is finished with, I should go modify the Codex of Law again, and at least make the Law more flexible...¡±


    ¡°Is this a death g?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s just confidence that I can survive. We¡¯ve already survived so many difficult situations before, so what could possibly stop us now?¡±

 Chapter 632 - Miracle Airship Squadron

    <h4>Chapter 632: Miracle Airship Squadron</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Eight years could be long or short. The heroic spirits who had reincarnated would still be little brats. Still, the Nortnds which had experienced multiple defensive battles hadpletely started flourishing thanks to a sufficient amount of benefits from drawing powerful individuals there.


    The power of the newborn Mist Alliance inparison to the human mega empires... It would probably only need a battle to prove its strength.


    Eich was quite different from the far more peaceful Earth. Everyone knew that the Holy War was about to arrive, so naturally all countries focused on improving their military strength first and foremost.


    The Nortnds had been profiting greatly from munitions sales over the past few years. However, the most advanced andplete weapons and equipment were only for our own people... What? You¡¯re saying that you saw the newest Nortnds weaponry on other battlefields, weaponry which even the Mist Alliance¡¯s members weren¡¯t using?


    Err, those newest weapons would perhaps soon reach the Mist Alliance members¡¯ hands as well, or perhaps they would never reach our hands. After all, these were experimental weapons, such as the goblins¡¯ super death grenade which had a muchrger explosion radius than you could possibly evade when you toss it, or the goblins¡¯ highly unstable super methrower which would supposedly self-destruct within three seconds... Well, these weapons were now termed ¡°super bombs¡±, and some major countries were actually buying them inrge numbers.


    Over the past few years, the Mist Alliance¡¯s military observers, weapons merchants, and great engineers had been travelling all around the world. Various weaponry and equipment was graduallypleted through experiments and data from actualbat. However, some things we simply wouldn¡¯t sell.


    ¡°The new Borealis Squadron, the most advanced floating airship unit in the entire Mist Alliance. Compared to the first-generation Borealis Squadron, these airships have longer bodies, heavier armor, and stronger cannon fire¡ª¡±


    ¡°I know better than you. No need to exin it to me.¡±


    I sent off the engineer who was excitedly trying to exin the data to me. I then carefully began to inspect the data of the new Borealis ship.


    The new Borealis. The mothership, and North Star airship type. It had a length of 302 meters and width of 60 meters. It possessed 20 heavy magical crystal cannons, four defensive mage towers, and one offensive mage tower. Two main cannons at the front had a range of 30 kilometers. The airship¡¯s storage contained 16 Vulture assault airships, two Hurricane submarines, and 40 Goblin Phoenix assault airships.


    If this didn¡¯t seem like much, the differences would be quite obvious if Ipared the data to the original Borealis.


    The original Borealis mega airship had a length of 243 meters and width of 40 meters. It possessed nine heavy magical crystal cannons, seven mid-sized mage towers, and one super mage tower. It also possessed 32 small- to mid-sized cannons. The main cannon¡¯s range was 30 kilometers, and the storage had only enough space for 3 Vulture assault airships.


    Back in the day, the Borealis was a prototype that the And Empire had spent great effort on researching. It was indeed quite powerful. It had a powerful main cannon, mage towers to increase mages¡¯ strength, and storage for smaller assault airships. Its functions were overall quiteplete. However, the Borealis had still exposed many defects in actualbat.


    Whenever the main cannon was used, its attack power would be strong to the point that even a SemiGod beast would be unable to take the attack head on. However, the energy used in it would be tremendous. Any mage tower thatcked energy would be nothing but a decoration. And if aerial knights attacked the Borealis, the airship could then only rely on the regr cannons which had been removed from castle walls. The uracy and trajectories of ground cannons against aerial knights would be absolutely terrible, even to the point of ignorable.


    Nor was the main cannon usable in most circumstances when attacking ground forces. The regr engineered cannons still acted as the main firepower. Although the Borealis was an airship, it still basically specialized only in air-to-groundbat. This would be far too dangerous and wasteful. As for the Vulture airships, nobody would be counting on those.


    The original Borealis was a ssic example of a theoretical blueprint. Although it seemed quite wonderful with so many all-around functions, it was still filled with problems in actualbat. All-around generalist would mean incapable of being the top in any area. If it hadn¡¯t been for the fact that I changed the Borealis into an undead airship with endless energy, it probably would have sunk long ago.


    Meanwhile, the new Borealis was far more focused on its functions.


    The new Borealis gave up on the overly expensive and impracticalrger mage towers. Only a few defense-focused mage towers were chosen as the primary towers. The main role of the mages on the airship would be to provide various sorts of defensive spells for the airship. As for the one attack-oriented mage tower, it was likely that it wouldn¡¯t even be activated unless an archmage was on the airship.


    The new Borealis alsopletely abandoned the engineered cannons which had be obsolete in the current generation. Magic crystal cannons which used magic metals and gems as the attacks had instead doubled in number. After abandoning most mage towers, which were huge energy drains, an extra main cannon was installed for dual main cannons, directly doubling the overall attack power. The midrange attack power of the airship had also greatly increased.


    As for air-to-ground and air-to-air capability, the most important factor would be the different types of airships contained within the airship¡¯s hangar. The Borealis itself had been transformed from an assault airship into a mothership. This was doubtlessly the best exnation of its new most important function.


    I also saw from the data that several hundred griffin knights and twelve Aurora Knights were residing on the new Borealis. This doubtlessly meant that Reyne was determined to strengthen its aerial capabilities... It was likely that even two dragon knights would be swiftly defeated by the Borealis.


    The Mist Alliance¡¯s engineers were no idiots. Even if I didn¡¯t do anything, they would gain practical experience frombat and unhesitatingly abandon the previous generation¡¯s doctrine of exchanging cannon fire and magical attacks. Instead, they chose to have a mothership with a fleet of smaller airships, strengthening the general aerial and ground support capabilities. This maximized the floating airship squadron¡¯s overall strategic meaning.


    ¡°All seven airships in the new North Star Squadron are motherships?¡±


    I recalled that none of the ones under construction at the time had been mothership types.


    ¡°All ships in the North Star Squadron are motherships with significant attack power. The older generation¡¯s models were either sold off or directly modified. These new motherships are all primarily focused on being aircraft carriers. Practical battles have testified to the strength of this newbat doctrine. However, our aircraft production capabilities are limited. Only four out of the seven North Star airships are currentlypletely outfitted with smaller airships...¡±


    I nodded without needing to ask about the reason. Indeed, building airships would cost a lot of money. It would also require a significant amount of industrial, magical, and alchemical technology as the foundation. The Nortnds was weak industrially, so I was highly satisfied with what we had already aplished. It would seem that we had earned much money over the years from munitions sales.


    Additionally, since all of these ships were now designed as motherships, it would take lots of time and effort to equip them with smaller assault aircraft.


    ¡°So are the other three motherships currently empty?¡±


    ¡°No. This time, Her Highness Reyne brought the Avnche Squad, the Silver Cross Knights, and several dozen other infantry and knight squadrons. She also brought archers and mages from the Nortnds elves. They¡¯ll be used in ground battles. Also, sixteen adult dragons are with the airship squadron. However, they¡¯re all rather young dragons who are only ten meters long in size.¡±


    I nodded in satisfaction. So far, everything seemed quite reliable. Reyne and her airship squadron had already arrived before us. It was just that the new Borealis was sent here to pick us up.


    As for the dragons, this was because the ck and red dragons from Underground had already be the Mist Alliance¡¯s mercenaries as the Mist Alliance became ever closer to the Underground Dragon City. Although the dragons would have ridiculously high sry requirements, they cooperated excellently with the motherships. They had swift attacks, powerful aerialbat capabilities, and could cast magic. This would make up for theck of maneuverability on the motherships¡¯ side. The dragons were quite popr with the Nortnds military.


    Of course, the older dragons were quite prideful. Even Dragon Queen Little Red would be unable tomand them. Only the younger ck and red dragons with no homes (dragon nests) and money (treasure mountains) would be willing to work for money as they didn¡¯t have much sense of shame to begin with. Besides, since the Dragon Queen had given themand, they wouldn¡¯t lose face, and would also earn money. Battles between humans were quite easy for dragons, so this would be far less risky than trying their hands at robbery and potentially meeting dragonyers. There was also guaranteed high ie with good reputation and glory, so of course the dragons would be willing to work.


    ¡°It would seem that Reyne isn¡¯t only here to save the elves...¡±


    If she had purelye here to save the elves, it would have been far better to keep the airshipspletely empty for the sake of carrying more elves. Reyne hade here with all her firepower and strongest warriors, so it was obvious that she wanted to have a good fight.


    ¡°Her Highness said that this is the first major battle of the Holy War, so our Mist Alliance airship squadron should make the best showing possible...¡±


    ¡°...And then the fairies will spread the news, acting as free advertisement for more munitions sales?¡±


    The young captain of the new Borealis smiled without responding. However, his silence already proved my guess was on the mark.


    ¡°Are the weaker versions of the motherships already being mass produced?¡±


    ¡°...The first one was sold to Bardi two months ago. However, please don¡¯t call it the weaker version. It¡¯s officially known as the Bardi version.¡±


    I smiled without saying anything else. The motherships had limited capacity, and were supposed to be here for saving elves. Reyne wouldn¡¯t be foolish enough to fill her airships to the brim with elite soldiers. It was likely that she had only brought one squadron of each troop type, intending on using actualbat to obtain data and test the Mist Alliance¡¯s various troop types against the demons of the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°She¡¯s really bing more like a proper leader...¡±


    I could only exim at how things were. Perhaps Reyne wasn¡¯t a queen talented in all areas, as she was unskilled at politics. However, she was outstanding in all military affairs. Her constant victories in battle had given the Princess Knight endless glory. Her outstanding decisions had always been correct and farsighted. As the Mist Alliance gradually became stronger, her reputation was bing ever more brilliant. She was faintly bing one of the greatest military authorities in her age group.


    ¡°It would seem that I truly chose an outstanding sessor.¡±


    One dayter, the new Borealis and North Star squadron met up again. I also saw Reyne, but this time, something was odd about her situation.

 Chapter 633 - Concubine and Rumors

    <h4>Chapter 633: Concubine and Rumors</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The higher-ups in the Moonwheel Capital probably felt quiteplex emotions right now. The Nortnds Elven Empire¡¯s revival and the return of the Gold Elf Empress had all likely been a direct p in the face to them.


    The Moonwheel Capital elves had originally wanted to restore the Elven Empire to glory. They would havepleted the revival of the empire, and could die in glorious battle this way. However, they were then informed that they weren¡¯t the proper Elven Empire... this face-pping was rather severe.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to sacrifice myself for the sake of the Elven Empire! My sacrifice will be worthwhile and recorded in the elves¡¯ history to encourage future descendants... What? I¡¯ve been exiled by the Elven Empire? And I¡¯m considered a traitor?¡±


    If it wasn¡¯t for the urgent crisis right now, Moon Elf Empress Afina could probably be called the most pitiful person of the year. She would likely be aughingstock for quite a long time toe.


    Afina had just happened to establish her own Elven Empire and proim herself the Elven Empress right when Gold Elf Empress Harloys appeared with the three Gold Elf royalty God Equipment pieces. Harloys also had the support of all four Superior Elf species, and the Nortnds Elven Empire had a far more proper status than Afina¡¯s... Afina had dered herself to be Elven Empress, but it turned out that the rightful Gold Elf inheritor was still alive, so iming to be the Elven Empress had be nothing more than a joke.


    Like all ancient species, the elves highly valued proper status and traditions. The Superior Elves who learned the truth all had their belief in the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire severely shaken, not to mention the ordinary elves. Right now, even if the moon elves survived the demon wave cmity, it was likely that their Elven Empire dream would be shattered. Naturally, the leading moon elves were feeling quite awkward.


    As for why the moon elves were fellingplex emotions rather than simple fear or loathing? That was because the first action the Nortnds Elven Empire took after its establishment was to offer to save ¡°their own people¡±.


    It was quite evident what this offer truly meant. If you epted the offer toe help save you, you would be an elf of the Nortnds Elven Empire rather than belonging to some other country or people.


    epting the offer of assistance would be the equivalent of recognizing the Nortnds Elven Empire. However, not epting the offer...


    It seemed like nobody would be so foolish not to grab this lifesaving opportunity in this time of dire crisis.


    And so, the elves were in inner turmoil, unsure of what to do. However, the uing demon wave wouldn¡¯t give them any time to be indecisive.


    Tremendous amounts of the aura of Chaos were pouring through the dimensional cracks. The forest which had been full of wild creatures of nature suddenly became the elves¡¯ trouble. The wild beasts were unable to resist against the corrosion of Chaos, and transformed into Chaos demonic beasts inrge numbers. All the viges near the Moonwheel Capital had urgently requested assistance. These dangerous demonic beasts desired to taste flesh and blood.


    There was no such thing as dimensional stability anymore. Reports were constantly pouring in about demons appearing at some location. In fact, ever since the clouds covered the skies, the Moonwheel Capital had yet to see the sun or moon again. Panic was spreading under this perpetual darkness. The elves were forced to use the power of nature or other arcane magic to maintain an artificial light that would help to restore their morale. However, the high upkeep required to maintain this artificial light truly pained the archmages and arch druids.


    The Moonwheel Capital had already ordered all nearby viges and scouts to abandon their positions and return to the capital. However, there were some elves who hadn¡¯t returned in time, still hoping that they could make it through this crisis without having to leave their homes. When elven vigers started being attacked by demonic beasts, the Moonwheel Capital began to send out rangers and druids to help the remaining vigers move to the capital.


    Even so, bad news was being brought to the Moonwheel Capital on a daily basis. It seemed that even dealing with merely the prelude to the demon wave was quite difficult for the elves.


    Of course, things weren¡¯t nearly as bad as they seemed. The Superior Elves were using every moment to train and gather their elite forces and organize themselves for cooperation in battle. However, the ordinary elves wouldn¡¯t know about such a thing. Not only that, since all the elven mayors and town leaders had tried to conceal the reality of the demon wave¡¯s arrival, along with the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire¡¯s attitude of denying that the demon wave would happen, panic and anger from feeling like they were lied to started spreading amongst the ordinary elves.


    ¡°The real Elven Empress from the Nortnds will save us! She¡¯s brought reinforcements; she¡¯s forgiven our sins. There¡¯s still hope for the elves...¡±


    This rumor started to swiftly spread. Even though most elves were only half convinced by this rumor since the Gold Elves had been dead for tens of thousands of years already, far too long a time ago for most of them to know about, the seeds of this rumor still started to spread.


    As for the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire, they were naturally quite angry about this. However, there would always be many rumors during any time of war. It would be impossible to find the source of the rumors.


    What, you¡¯re asking me if it was us that spread the rumors in the first ce? Would you believe me if I said it wasn¡¯t us?


    Haha, but with us spreading such rumors, our arrival would attract even more attention. Then, we would wave the g of the Gold Elf everywhere, giving more veracity to the rumors. It would be impossible for the moon elves to hide this information even if they wanted to.


    We were willing to help the elves. However, we definitely wouldn¡¯t be foolish enough to work for free with zero benefits. We activated every single spy we had in the Moonwheel Capital in order to spread the rumors as far and wide as we could.


    The more rumors there were, the more detailed they became. Even the fact that the floating airships would arrive became known beforehand.


    This was an open scheme. Unless the moon elves refused to ept reinforcements, they could only grit their teeth and bear it.


    Currently, I had just finished dealing with all this. I was quite astonished to see Reyne, whom I hadn¡¯t seen for so long.


    I met Reyne on the bridge of the Mizar airship. Two strangers were by her side.


    One person was a tall blue-haired female knight who had a pretty appearance and nice figure. Even though she was wearing bright red armor, there was the aura of magic around her. This feeling was familiar... She seemed to be a dragon¡¯s descendant.


    The other one was a ck-haired female noble who seemed to be about fifteen or sixteen years old and was of an average height. She seemed rather weak, but if I saw her family crest correctly¡ªa tiger and lion both wielding shields¡ªshe was from the Fenso Family, one of the top three mega families of the Suolo Federation.


    I wouldn¡¯t have paid too much attention to them if they had only been regr strangers. However, the tall and average-sized women were currently holding onto Reyne¡¯s right and left hands, and they sat down adjacent to Reyne on either side. If I recalled correctly, this represented...


    ¡°Greetings, Your Highness Rnd. I am Helen Winston, concubine to Her Highness Reyne. You... You should be quite familiar with my older brother Halent.¡±


    This tall southern beauty had a copper, healthy, and sexy skintone. Judging from her aura, she was probably the forceful type, but she actually appeared rather hesitant right now.


    ¡°Hello, Your Highness Rnd. I¡¯ve long since heard about you. I am Avi Fenso. I¡¯m also Her Highness Reyne¡¯s concubine.¡±


    When the ck-haired noble girl spoke to me, I discovered that she was even younger than I¡¯d thought she was. She had to have intentionally applied a great deal of makeup to make herself look older. She sounded only thirteen or fourteen years old.


    Both women were looking at me with some astonishment as well as hostility, along with otherplex expressions.


    ¡°Pu!¡±


    I couldn¡¯t take it anymore, and almost spat my saliva on them inughter.


    The next instant, I realized that it would be a severe diplomatic gaffe if I did so, so I hurriedly stood steady and did my best to hold it in.


    ¡°Your Highness Avi and Your Highness Helen. Nice to meet you. I am Rnd Mist.¡±


    And then I automatically reached out my hand for a kiss on the hand greeting... But, actually, I was taking this opportunity to lower my head andugh manically.


    ¡°Hahaha, Reyne, you little brat, such a day came for you? So funny!¡±


    Even without her exining, it would be quite easy to guess what had happened. Reyne was now a queen. She had also long since passed marriageable age. In that case, for the stability of her rule, she would have to carry out one of the most important duties of any ruler¡ªgetting married.


    Even if she didn¡¯t want to have an official marriage, having concubines would be absolutely required. Something like a political marriage would be a definite requirement, and since she was the renowned Yuri Princess, this meant that other countries sent female nobles to her instead... It was likely apromise after Reyne rejected all male candidates. It was probably known through all of human society now that the Yuri Princess waspletely uninterested in men.


    Reyne now had two concubines. One was the younger sister of Halent, the dragon knight emperor of Bardi. The other was from one of the most important noble families in the Suolo Federation. They were both princesses from human mega empires. This was befitting Reyne, who had the status of the ruler of the entire Mist Alliance. It was one hundred percent certain that these were political marriages that represented the alliances between mega empires. It would be impossible for Reyne to refuse.


    Political marriages regarding the royalty had their own unwritten rules that were quite reasonable. It was nice if the married couple got along as they could then be a regr husband and wife. If they didn¡¯t get along, the emperor would still do whatever he wanted, while the concubine would be a decoration in the pce. As for whether or not the concubine could also find her own lovers to relieve her boredom, that would depend on the magnanimity of the emperor.


    There were also plenty of previous examples of those with homosexual preferences in history. There were quite a few emperors in history who had been gay. Some concubines were also lesbian, although that wouldn¡¯t be publicized. Things would still be the same no matter the sexual preference.


    Reyne would definitely need a husband for her official marriage. That was because she would need to leave behind descendants and start a family, and people would need to see this to ept her... Hahaha, when she was forced into a marriage with a man because she had no descendants, I would be able to enjoy the show yet again!


    I originally thought that Reyne had agreed to take two concubines of extremely high status in human society to block off all other pressuring marriage proposals. However, I noticed that these two girls were looking at Reyne in quite a different manner.


    ¡°His Highness Rnd looks just like a male version of Her Highness Reyne...¡±


    ¡®Hey, girl, where are you touching me? Where¡¯s the dignity of a concubine? You can¡¯t just casually touch a man¡¯s chest!¡¯


    The ck-haired girl had a lovestruck expression as if I was her lover. The next instant, she came to an astonished realization as she hurriedly backed away. But, when she saw my face again, her expression once again became enthralled as she reached out her tiny hand to me.


    ¡°Miss, please respect yourself...¡±


    I backed away and rejected the hand of Concubine Avi who seemed rather confused between me and Reyne. I then nced over at Reyne, who had a helpless and dismayed expression. I was no longer able to take it anymore, and instantlyughed out loud.


    ¡°Hahaha, little brat Reyne, so today came for you after all. How does it feel to be forced into marriage?¡±


    The guards around her instantly backed up one step and all pretended to be looking elsewhere as if they heard nothing.


    Reyne shook her head helplessly as she pulled on a red rope attached to a bell next to her. All of her guards immediately exited the vicinity. Unlike eight years ago, Reyne was a ruler in both name and actuality. It seemed that her pride and so on were now important.


    ¡°Cough, Brother Rnd, it¡¯s actually like this...¡±


    Right when Reyne started speaking, just the way she addressed me caused the dragon descendant princess to viciously re at me as if I was her enemy... maybe more urate term would be ¡°love rival¡±?


    But soon, I was immersed in Reyne¡¯s story which sounded like a tale out of legends. She had invited two princesses high in status to be her concubines to block off all other proposed marriages just like I thought, but mysteriously underwent a series of adventures together, and the two concubines who should have only been her spouses on paper truly fell in love with her after the adventures... That was the summarized version of what happened.


    The more Reyne recounted her story, the more bitter her expression became. But at the end, she had a super serious expression filled with sincere passion as she looked directly at me.


    ¡°...So actually, there¡¯s only pure friendship between us. Who I really love is¡ª¡±


    ¡°Perhaps it¡¯s only friendship now, but one day friendship can turn into love! Love as passionate as fire and thunder!¡±


    The blue dragon descendant princess¡¯s eyes were filled with fiery love. She interrupted Reyne¡¯s passionate attempt at dering her love. At this instant, Reyne¡¯s expression was as if she had just eaten some insects. I almostughed out loud yet again.


    ¡°Yep, yep, I believe it. Heterosexual partners should only be for the sake of having descendants. Only love between those of the same gender, which requires so much sacrifice, can be considered true love!¡±


    Right after I said this, the two concubines¡¯ expressions became far friendlier towards me. It seemed that they had also been under much pressure.


    This was all truly so amusing. If it wasn¡¯t for how busy I was, I could probablyugh all day. However, I truly did have some actual matters to talk to Reyne about. I could only shake my head as I asked her, ¡°Reyne... Your Highness Reyne, has your bloodline ancestor, that bastard younger brother of mine, contacted you recently?¡±

 Chapter 634 - Dusk’s Arrival

    <h4>Chapter 634: Dusk¡¯s Arrival</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    From a certain standpoint, Reyne had been raised as a boy who would inherit the throne ever since her birth. After the king passed away, she always wore male attire or knight attire while meeting others. Her pattern of speech was alsopletely masculine.


    She also had a knightly aura polished by a long-term military life. It could be said that if she covered her face, she would be manlier than most men...


    Her face appeared rather gender neutral to begin with. Since she behaved and acted like a man, and had a knightly aura that was handsome and straightforward due to her military life, along with incrediblebat achievements that other people her age could only be in awe of, she became the princess on a white horse that noble girls idolized... and it would be quite easy to think of her as a prince.


    As for her two concubines, the story of how they began with a political marriage that both hated, then going to mutual understanding, to love that surpassed gender boundaries, to absolute love that didn¡¯t care about anything else, that would be enough for many books... Hey, I¡¯m talking about normal books, not porn books!


    Still, when considering the high status of these two concubines, just modifying the story slightly¡ªno, no modification was probably needed¡ªjust telling the original story as was could probably produce novels, dramas, ys, rumors, and so many other versions.


    People would always be interested in gossip regarding the royals. The more novel and fresh the story, the more popr it would be. When considering how Reyne¡¯s tales were so legendary that they were now known as the ¡°Hundred Flowers Legend of the Yuri Princess¡±, it seemed likely that many authors and actors would be able to survive on this story alone.


    What? You¡¯re asking me if I already came up with a name for this novel? Of course! I felt that this novel would have great potential. I had already settled on this as my next, slightly tititing novel. I would write the story with this true story as the foundation.


    Of course, readers were highly difficult to please these days. That was why I was going to expand the harem by one hundred times, multiply the fighting and killing by ten times, and have the story be about abusing young masters and collecting beauties for the harem every day. I would then insert some famous actual people into the story as guest appearances. People loved to read such things these days. I was confident that my novel would be a huge hit.


    Wait a moment, why was Reyne pulling out her sword?


    ¡°Oh, I identally said everything out loud again? Haha, it was all just a joke, a joke! Reyne, you¡¯re my descendant after all, so would I casually taint the Mist Family name like that? Do I look like someone who would do such a thing?


    ¡°What, you¡¯re saying that I totally do? Please. Look directly into my pure eyes. What impurity do you see... What? You¡¯re saying that you see nothing but impurity and schemes? Tsk, you must be seeing things.¡±


    Now, in order to prevent theical scene of an obedient grandchild trying to chase down and attack her grandfather, I changed the topic back to a serious one and asked about Reyne¡¯s demon bloodline.


    Previously, I had checked Reyne¡¯s body¡¯s condition. Although she had epted the power of Chaos and became a knight job ss member capable of controlling Chaos, after so many years of continuously giving her blood transfusions, her Chaos Bloodline from Karwenz had been almostpletely reced by my far more moderate bloodline.


    Reyne had also lost a power level because of the weakening of her bloodline since she¡¯d had a Main God level bloodline from Karwenz. ording to the rules of Chaos Abyss Bloodlines, she would have been capable of borrowing power from the Chaos Abyss itself. However, she would also be restrained by the Chaos Abyss¡¯s rules if she did so. As for using my bloodline... Reyne would only be able to rely on herself.


    Not only that, the instability of constantly changing bloodlines caused her to constantly have headaches, which also made her temper more violent than before.


    When looking at this from the long-term perspective, it should be a good thing. Only something thatpletely belonged to oneself would be the safest. My Mist Family Bloodline that my system had worked hard on modifying probably wouldn¡¯t be much weaker than the Chaos Abyss version Karwenz Mist Bloodline. At the very least, my bloodline would be more suitable for the mortal ne.


    As Reyne¡¯s bloodline was purified, her potential would also improve. But for the short time being, her power level would definitely decrease. As for her chaos knight job ss, the demons and Chaos creatures she summoned definitely wouldn¡¯t be as obedient as before. That was because previously she would be considered to be under Karwenz¡¯s protection.


    Of course, the demon wave¡¯s imminent arrival meant a direct connection to the Chaos Abyss. All Chaos Abyss rted job sses such as chaos knight, ck knight, dark cultists, demon warlocks, and so on would all be strengthened.


    But now, Reyne no longer needed to rely on individual strength. I should mention again that I hadpleted blood transfusion for Glina even earlier. Just like Reyne, Glina who was queen as well as a great engineer had no need to rely on a bloodline of Chaos.


    I¡¯d originally thought that Karwenz would try to do something before Reyne¡¯s bloodline waspletely changed into my own. But, strangely, Karwenz had yet to contact me even once since west saw each other in Hell, no matter if it was direct or indirect contact. He seemed like he didn¡¯t even care about losing an important chess piece like Reyne.


    But, the Chaos Abyss was about to be directly connected to the mortal ne. It was also obvious that Karwenz was involved in this. What was his objective? Why did he take the risk of serious injury to personally injure Anslo in thetter¡¯s Divine Kingdom?


    For the sake of killing a specific elf? For the sake ofpletely annihting all elves? Was his grudge that deep?


    I wasn¡¯t afraid of opponents who were more powerful than I was. However, I was indeed quite worried about this opponent who I had no idea what his overall goal was.


    ¡°Has Karwenz contacted you recently?¡±


    Since I was wondering about this, I simply asked directly. Reyne and Karwenz had previously had a soul connection. If he truly was up to something, it was possible that Reyne might know something.


    Perhaps Reyne would be able to pick up a single word or a desire. It would be impossible for anyone topletely control their own brain. It would be possible to gleam information through a soul connection. That was the main reason why I hadpletely left Reyne and Glina out of the loop back when I was nning to establish Hell.


    Reyne fell silent after she heard this. After a while, it was as if she thought of something, but she appeared rather hesitant.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid to say anything you can think of. No need to be afraid of being wrong. I¡¯m just asking casually.¡±


    ¡°My ancestor... he seems to be searching for some location that¡¯s highly important to him.¡±


    ¡°A location?¡±


    I was rather surprised to hear this. Karwenz¡¯s main goal wasn¡¯t rted to the Holy War itself? He was searching for a certain location? What location would possibly be so important?


    I shook my head, and decided against thinking more about this for the time being. The uracy of this information wouldn¡¯t be high to begin with. It might also even be nothing more than a smokescreen intentionally set by Karwenz. I could only use this information as reference. I would be the one falling into Karwenz¡¯s pitfall he dug for me if I thought too much about this.


    Meanwhile, the two beautiful women¡¯s looks of hostility and vignce caused me to abandon the idea of chatting for fun with Reyne. I directly ignored Reyne¡¯s imploring expression and left her alone with her two concubines.


    Since we knew that we were about to face the first demon wave, there was no such thing as too many preparations. I might as well use this time for serious matters instead.


    ¡°There are probably some archmages on the airships. Let¡¯s find them to chat about the modifications and preparations for the mage towers. Perhaps that will be useful...¡±


    The seven aerial battleships were organized into a squadron. We hadn¡¯t chosen to glide above the clouds. Instead, we flew low above the ground, right over densely popted areas. We weren¡¯t here solely for a military operation. This was also a political operation. All the attention we attracted on the way here also served to give the witnesses an urgent sense of tension and danger.


    Meanwhile, the situation was bing ever tenser at the Moonwheel Capital.


    The great majority of elves in the area had now entered the Moonwheel Capital. However, the solid walls and magical towers didn¡¯t give them much sense of safety. The ever darker and thicker clouds overhead, the constantly shing lightning and tremendous thunderps, and so on all served to suppress their morale.


    The result of the aura of Chaos bing ever stronger was that many an elven child was beginning to mutate, and even some divine beasts were feeling ufortable or falling ill.


    Of course, there wasn¡¯t only bad news.


    The good news was that the Elemental Tide was increasing at a noticeable rate. The elven archmages¡¯ mage towers and mana batteries all became mysteriously filled with energy. All the magical defense arrays¡¯ powers were improving noticeably as well.


    Every day, it was said that some mage or magic knight who had been stuck at a bottleneck for many years would suddenly make a breakthrough to the next power level. It seemed as if every day of progress would count for the same gain as a year of hard work. However, this actually made the moon elf higher-ups panic even more as they knew that this strengthening effect was two-sided. In that case, it was obvious that the Chaos creatures which were used to a high magic environment would benefit even more.


    Another both happy and sad piece of news was that the Elven True Gods were constantly sending down divine miracles. The Elven Gods¡¯ priests and shamans were travelling around to calm everyone down. Holy elven knights and holy rangers who were previously hermits also came out of the forests to join the elves¡¯ defending army. Even the True Gods¡¯ incarnations had been spotted multiple times.


    ¡°At least the Elven Gods are by our side...¡±


    But as for why this news was both happy and sad, that was because some people had already noticed what was wrong with this.


    The Gods were supposed to be mysterious. The distance between them and mortals would bring worship. Worship would bring the power of belief. All Gods who ascended through the power of belief would carefully maintain their distance from their believers. Divine miracles couldn¡¯t be allowed to ur to often. This wasn¡¯t because they were a significant power expenditure, as it would only be minor effort for a God. Instead, it was because too many divine miracles would decrease the mysteriousness of the Gods, thus leading to less power of belief.


    Since divine miracles were now happening so often, it meant that the Elven Gods were truly paying a great deal of attention to the demon wave and trying to protect the moon elves. However, this also meant that even the Elven Gods were forced to the brink here.


    Actually, it was quite simple to analyze the Elven Gods¡¯ current hopeless situation. It was likely that they were even more anxious right now than the mortal elves.


    The current Elven Gods were now the third generation of Elven Gods. The great majority of them were Gods who had ascended through the power of belief. More than eighty percent of their worshippers were elves. Their greatest source of power of belief was the Moonwheel Capital. If the elves and Moonwheel Capital were destroyed by the demon wave, it was likely thatrge numbers of Elven Gods would either lose a great deal of power or even directly die.


    Meanwhile, the Nortnds Elven Empire had announced quite clearly that they were supported by the Hell Gods.


    The strength of an empire would typically be directly rted to the strength of their supporting God or Gods. The Hell Gods didn¡¯t require the elves¡¯ worship one bit, as they weren¡¯t Gods who ascended with the power of belief. However, the Elven Gods truly required the elves¡¯ worship.


    If the Elven Gods¡¯ worshippers all died, they would have no more source of belief. Not only that, the Elven Gods had lost their only Main God to the Chaos Faction. As long as the new Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire was destroyed, it would truly mean death for all Elven Gods.


    Not only that, the Elven Gods couldn¡¯t possibly tell this to their followers...


    ¡°The Elven Gods intervening so much for the sake of their followers can only mean that they have zero guarantee about the uing demon wave...¡±


    It was likely that this demon wave would see direct interference from the Elven Gods. As the Holy War was formally arriving, the tremendous rise in the Elemental Tide and the direct linking of the Chaos Abyss meant that it was likely that the Elven Gods would descend in their true bodies rather than mere incarnations.


    The Elven Gods were forced to the extent of having to descend in their true bodies? This seemed ratherical, and even more pitiful. The Elven Gods had previously been the rulers of the entire world. Since when had they fallen to the extent of having to personally participate in battle in the first demon wave? Not only that, it was highly likely that they would lose!


    However, misfortune would always apany itself. It was just like Murphy¡¯s Law. The final dimensional crack appeared, and shattered as the demon army descended.


    Perhaps dusk had finally arrived for the Elven Gods...

 Chapter 635 - First Wave

    <h4>Chapter 635: First Wave</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    On Month 12, Day 7, Year 8 of the new Dawn Generation, at 2:04 AM, the Holy War which had been brewing for so long finally exploded in full force. The pitch-ck clouds which had shrouded the Moonwheel Capital for the past four days suddenly dissipated. However, the elves didn¡¯t see the bring moonlight and night sky as usual.


    Blood-red moonlight illuminated thend. Powerful gusts brought nothing but the stench of sulfur and rotten flesh. There were also faint sounds of demonicughter in the sky.


    Not far away, it appeared as if the stars themselves were falling. Starlight kept gathering everywhere. This was the protective sta that the God of Fate and Goddess of Moonlight had previously created together. Every invader who came uninvited to the mortal ne would be marked by the sta.


    This was a forbidden spell that caused two High Gods to directly decrease in power level to Mid Gods. Not only would the starlight mark all dimensional invaders, the brightness and density of the starlight could also indicate the strength and number of the enemies.


    Dimensional invader scouters were a verymon item made avable through the Justice Points system. All Contract Heroes possessed these smallpasses that aided them in hunting down their targets. Still, the overlyrge number of shing red dots on therge-scalepass in the Moonwheel Capital¡¯s elven pce meant that this item wasn¡¯t even necessary.


    Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. The numerous dense red dots constantly increased until the scouterpass showed nothing but bright red. Since the number of demons covered the entire map, all calctions would be meaningless.


    The overly corrupt aura of Chaos here naturally caused everyone¡¯s vision to be tinted with red. When fighting under this blood-red moonlight, there would be much higher chances than normal of losing all sense of reason and going berserk. At the horizon of everyone¡¯s vision, countless berserk demons with fire element power were casually wielding their mes. Any forest they stepped through became a sea of fire. Yet, even the most nature-loving druid didn¡¯t dare to go chastize the demons for their destroying nature.


    ¡°Starlight Meteors!¡±


    The first defense magic spell was activated. The skies opened up yet again as countless meteors rained down. Constant sounds of pain and anger could be heard from the demons. Yet, the next instant, everything returned to normal again. However, all the blood-red demonic eyes kept shing in the dark night as if the demons were scoffing at the elves¡¯ helplessness.


    When the light of the forbidden spell faded, two bright stars shed with red light in front of the elves. But, when the fire of the meteors faded, even the bravest elven ranger dropped his bow in fear.


    Those were no bright stars at all. Those were the eyes of a ck giant!


    The gigantic ck creature was asrge as a mountain. He slowly proceeded forward. Even though he was still clearly more than ten kilometers away, every single elf on the Moonwheel Capital¡¯s walls could see the ck giant clearly. Every single step the giant took caused the earth itself to tremble in fear.


    A ck wind filled with the corrosion of the Chaos Abyss blew away the dark clouds, and blood-red moonlight illuminated the pitch-ck ins. Behind the ck giant, countless demonic beasts born from nightmares crawled out from the portal. Some of these monsters were from myths and legends, while others were unimaginable. Yet, they were all real.


    There was a centipede giant with one hundred legs and one hundred heads. There was an inferno demon whose steps left sulfur everywhere. There was a gigantic white wolf whose breath brought tornados. There was a disgusting lump of rotten flesh. There was an inferno dragon which breathed thunder. Not a single demonic beast was identical, but it was evident that they were all at the top of the food chain.


    All the brave elven rangers inhaled cold breaths. Even the ones among them who had previously in dragons were trembling in fear. Such a demonic beast army was far beyond theirprehension. This was an enemy that only Gods could face!


    The ck giant, who was Donatis, raised his head and nced at the blood moon which seemed like an observer. Finally, Donatis pulled out his ck obsidian sword and pointed towards the distant elves.


    ¡°Kill them.¡±


    His thunderous voice echoed everywhere. Even though he was just making a in statement, it sounded as if it was an indisputable fact that would happen. The elves that his sword pointed to all lost their will to resist in this moment.


    The ck sea of demons around Donatis finally moved at this time. They appeared like countless tiny insects at this distance, but the rangers¡¯ Eagle Eye skill left the elves with a hopeless conclusion¡ªeach tiny insect was actually arge demon more than three meters tall.


    Those demons and demonic beasts kept following their master. However, Donatis and his army had far too much of a presence, standing out to the point where all the elves watching him ignored the other simrly dangerous existences.


    Gigantic war beasts and demons walked out from the crowd of demons. Their bodies were covered with ck demons that seemed like ants. Even the shortest of theserger demons were more than a dozen meters tall. Theserger demons needed no equipment to besiege city walls. All they needed to do was reach the walls, and then they could toss the demons on their bodies up over the walls.


    A violent Demon Lord seemed to be annoyed with how other ¡°ants¡± were blocking his path. He grabbed up some demons and stuffed them into his mouth and devoured them with one hand while tossing out other demons with his other hand.


    The demons struggled helplessly in midair. Since the distance of more than ten kilometers was still too far away, the great majority of demons was smashed into smithereens before they arrived at the walls. However, a few demons managed to survive as they flew over the walls, causing much chaos amongst the elves.


    A gigantic Inferno Demon Lord used this opportunity to transform into a meteor whichnded on the city walls. However, before he could unfurl his body again, a streak of moonlight pierced through his forehead, and shattered his meteor form into tiny stones.


    ¡°Warriors! Even Chaos War God Donatis shall be unable to destroy our final home!¡±


    Under the blood moon, on one of the tallest towers on the city walls, a white-robed elegant figure attracted a great deal of attention. The silver bow in her hand was covered in moonlight. This bow had powerful magical wavelengths emanating from it. It was obvious that it was an incredibly powerful piece of God Equipment.


    ¡°Empress Afina!¡±


    The elven warriors recognized their Empress Afina in her. Their morale was instantly restored.


    At the same time, various mage towers suddenly lit up as fireballs and firests shot towards the wave of demonic beasts. Every single magical attack was more powerful than a nine-circle magic spell.


    When the demon wave began, this meant that Eich¡¯s mortal ne had entered a period of high magic. The same magic spell from before would have more than twice the powerpared to the period of low magic!


    There was still far too much distance between the elves and the demons. The elven archers had no intention of wasting arrows. However, thanks to the buffs from the mage towers, the elven mages started casting the simplest and most practicalbat fire magic spells. Constant onught of fireballs ignited the demon wave.


    However, the Chaos War God in the distance seemedpletely unaffected. His sculpture-like expression didn¡¯t change one bit, just as if the opponents before him werepletely unable to attract his attention. However, the pitch-ck demon wave around him seemed to start moving quicker in the direction he gazed in.


    Before the first demon wave could arrive at the city walls, countless tall treants stood up outside the walls. They blew on ancient horns as the entire forest started moving. Numerous trees all transformed into living treants that would defend the city.


    Rangers jumped into the treants¡¯ branches. Some even brought ammo carts filled with arrows. The rangers all knew that they were nothing more than ants inparison to the demon wave. However, the rangers would fight their very hardest before they died to make up for the treants¡¯ critical weakness of being slow andcking ranged attacks.


    Both sides got closer, closer, and even closer to each other. When the ck demon wave and green elven wave were about to crash into each other, all elves forgot to breathe.


    Countless arrows rained down from the treants¡¯ branches. The arrows¡¯ elegant arcs marked the start of battle. Every single arrow pierced right through the head of a demon. However, the elven rangers didn¡¯t even have time to be proud of their outstanding uracy, as the demons whose heads were pierced hadn¡¯t actually died. These demons furiously pounced on their enemies. No matter if they met an enemy or not, or even if they crashed into an obstacle, they all unhesitatingly used the most powerful self-destruction possible.


    A thousand-year-old treant was the first treant to fall over. He hadn¡¯t died from the demons¡¯ attacks. Instead, this treant had been fully covered in demon war ves crawling over him, so he was no longer able to maintain his bnce and copsed. The elven ranger on this treant had long been torn into tiny pieces before the treant died.


    The rampaging demon war ves continuously self-destructed at the feet of this treant. Although war treants were renowned throughout all dimensions for their incredibly high durability and defense, this war treant was instantly vaporized by all the self-destructions.


    Yet, these demon war ves could only be considered trash among trash, cannon fodder among cannon fodder in this first demon wave. Under the heartlessmander Donatis¡¯s orders, these demon war ves unhesitatingly self-destructed, giving up their own lives.


    Five minutes. It took only a short five minutes. The demon war ves unhesitatingly self-destructed, causing hordes of hundred-year and thousand-year-old treants to perish. These war treants, which were supposed to be the elves¡¯ final defense line, were as fragile as paper in front of the demon wave.


    Finally, the moon elves blew their warhorns, and silver-armored knights rushed out, riding on silver unicorns and divine beasts. Meanwhile, the allied treants began to retreat back behind the city walls.


    The elves had originally intended on using the powerful treants to stop the demon wave¡¯s charge and make a sacrifice in order to raise their side¡¯s morale. However, the reality was that the elite treants were being exchanged for the lowest-rank demon cannon fodder. This was obviously a tremendous loss for the elves.


    In just a short five minutes, more than 30% of the treants had died. Almost 500 treants had died on the retreat back to the city walls. There were also more than 1000 elven rangers who had died together with the treants.


    Even a human city would be unable to sustain such losses, not to mention the elves who had a much lower overall poption despite being individually stronger than humans.


    In this one exchange of blows, the demons had concretely showed the elves what the eternal Holy War really was, along with why the first demon wave would always be unstoppable.


    ¡°...Can we really win?¡±


    If this was Donatis¡¯s strategy to intimidate the elves, he had indeed seeded. Right now, even the most optimistic elves were beginning to doubt if they could survive.

 Chapter 636 - Civilization’s Evolution

    <h4>Chapter 636: Civilization¡¯s Evolution</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    When the dimensions became unstable, when countless nightmarish creatures arrived in the mortal ne, countless powerful individuals who had been in long hibernation or hermitage raised their heads to look at the skies in the southwest of Eich.


    The stars themselves were also pointing at the dimensional invaders there. This ce was the source of the change. Powerful individuals could discern the direction to the battlefield even with their eyes closed.


    The fluctuation of the elements was now no mere small tides. The changes were like tremendous tidal waves, each higher than the previous. These dimensional invaders had broken the dimensional walls of Order around Eich. Immeasurable amounts of elemental power poured into the mortal ne. The period of high magic had truly arrived again.


    Ancient dragons awoke from their long slumber and stepped out of their nests. Ancient species hidden deep in forests and mountains walked out again. These powerful creatures only capable of surviving in high magic environments had finally entered their generation again.


    Meanwhile, in the chaotic sky, our airship squadron which consisted of seven motherships met with some trouble.


    This wasn¡¯t because of any malfunctions. Instead, since the Elemental Tide had suddenly increased by such a great amount, all of the magical engines suddenly started working with several times the previous power. The airships all suddenly rose up much higher, and zoomed above the clouds.


    Thankfully, we had already nned for the sudden rise in the Elemental Tide. All the airship pilots were veterans. They acted ording to n and turned off the sub-engines in time, adjusting the airships¡¯ bnce and steadying the center of gravity. The mage towers also activated anti-gravity magic spells in time. Thus, theughable situation of all of us crashing and dying before we even met the enemy was averted.


    However, while we were prepared beforehand for this, it wasn¡¯t the same for others. All other magical airships would be in great danger, and flying magical beasts which relied on magic to fly, even including dragons, weremonly losing their sense of bnce in midair and spinning down, crashing into the ground.


    To use an analogy from Earth, this was as if the value of gravity and an airne¡¯s engine output suddenly all changed simultaneously. Unless you were prepared beforehand, it would only be natural for there to suddenly be many airne idents.


    If Eich had the concept of insurancepanies, just the payouts from today would likely make any insurancepany bankrupt many times over.


    ¡°Heeheehee, such a majestic scene...¡±


    Our airships were fine, but, as expected, the ck and red dragons crashed down into the ground. Still, judging from their energetic roars, my guess was that none of the dragons died from the impact.


    ¡°You must have done this on purpose. Why didn¡¯t you warn our dragons about this?¡±


    ¡°No, I did warn them about this.¡±


    Still, of course I had done this on purpose. Our hired ck and red dragons were all incredibly arrogant. When I requested that they temporarily stay inside the airships for the sake of their own safety, they allughed at me, telling me that I didn¡¯t understand aerial battles, because I didn¡¯t have wings. ¡°We won¡¯t feel safe inside an iron lump¡±, ¡°We¡¯ll all be finished if we¡¯re suddenly ambushed¡±, and so on were theirments. Now, I was having fun watching how they would fly even though they had wings.


    Any older dragon with plenty ofbat experience would naturally know how to readjust their bnce in midair. Also, any older dragon who knew of my reputation and temper would never ignore my words. But, these younger dragons were all only one or two hundred years old at the most... Heehee, I bet they enjoyed the sensation of a bungee jump with no rope.


    Even if other flying magical beasts weren¡¯t flying that high, it was likely that they would die if they crashed into the ground from their height. However, all dragons knew how to buff their physical bodies with magic spells. They would also be able to cast some magic spells before the impact to mitigate it. That was why no dragon was likely to die from the impact. However, it was natural that they would still be in great pain.


    Now that our dragons had all fallen to the ground, our airship squadron naturally needed to stop and reorganize. It wasn¡¯t only the dragons that needed to rest and recover.


    The difference between a high magic and low magic environment would be the difference between ancient Earth and modern-day Earth. The difference in ¡°oxygen¡±, to use an analogy, in the environment would mean a tremendous difference in the physical traits of the main ruling species. The most directparison I could make would be to say that it would be the difference in physical body between a dinosaur¡¯s body and a modern-day human¡¯s body. Since the ancient beasts of Eich no longer had sufficient ¡°oxygen¡± to support them, their overly powerful physical bodies were unable to get ustomed to the ever-worsening environment. Finally, these ancient species all disappeared from history.


    But now, the oxygen level... or magic level had returned to the high magic level of ancient times. The ancient species had returned from their hibernation or hermitage. A fierce battle between dinosaurs and humans was about to begin.


    When considering the most dangerous levels of the Chaos Abyss that wereing here, those residents that even I considered highly dangerous, the difference between those demons and the main residents of the mortal ne was probably evenrger than the difference between that of dinosaurs and humans back on Earth.


    This would be no exaggeration. For quite a long period of time now, only the top-level Legend-ranked individuals would dare to venture into the Chaos Abyss, and only in teams with other simrly strong individuals. Even the ordinary residents of the Chaos Abyss would be truly troublesome for such teams to deal with. Meanwhile, there was still the issue of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s top-level strength. Not to mention, the Chaos Main Gods along with all the Demon Lords would all be incredibly difficult to deal with.


    The most basic foundational difference would be the difference in strength of foot soldiers. 80% of mortal ne residents went about their ordinary daily lives every day. Rather than worrying whether they would be suddenly devoured by some hungry demon, they were more worried about the price of food on the market, price intion of luxury goods, and so on. War was only the responsibility of warriors.


    However, this type of daily life would be seen as far too na?ve in the lower nes. There was no such thing as someone who wasn¡¯t a warrior in the Chaos Abyss. Every single existence down there would need to fight for its own survival. Every single scrap of food or gulp of water would need to be fought for with your life. Not to mention, you would need to ughter and devour in order to evolve and obtain the strength to survive.


    cing mortal ne and Chaos Abyss residents in the same world would be the equivalent of cing a rampaging hungry dragon in the same cage as an ordinary person who was unarmed. The end result would be quite obvious.


    And now, since the restriction of ¡°not enough magic level in the atmosphere¡± had beenpletely eliminated, ancient beasts who hid in the Chaos Abyss had returned to the mortal ne. Not only that, Cynthia, the Goddess of Chaos who had always restrained the scale of the Holy War, had disappeared. It was likely that there would be absolutely zero bnce in this war between ¡°dinosaurs¡± and ¡°humans¡±. This war would continue in the cruelest fashion until one side waspletely annihted.


    However, all hope wasn¡¯t lost...


    ¡°Hurry, drag out those big pieces in the airship warehouses.¡±


    The airships stopped on a patch of grassy ins. Dwarf and goblin engineers were working swiftly as they dragged out various strangely shaped equipment and weaponry.


    The next generation magic crystal cannons, the 2nd edition magic energy condensing heavy cannons. Not only could these cannons consume mana or magic metals to fire powerful shots, they were even capable of absorbing elemental power from the air to power up their cannon shots. The longer the cannon charged for, the more powerful the attack would be. However, in the low magic environment, the 2nd edition magic cannon was actually even weaker than the 1st edition.


    But now that we were in a high magic environment, the maximum power of this cannon¡¯s attack would be more than triple its previous one. It would be no joke to say that a single cannon shot would be capable of destroying an entire castle wall.


    Crystallized armor. These were defensive armors constructed out of countless smaller magical shields. This armor was stronger defensively by more than several times whenpared to the current strongest known alloys. Yet, this armor had only half their weight. Still, without a doubt, this armor would use up a tremendous amount of energy to power it. However, in front of the next new pieces of equipment, its energy consumption would seem like nothing.


    Mana crystal core engine 3rd edition (high magic environment usage only). Anti-gravity engine 3rd edition (high magic environment usage only). These engines were no different from their previous editions. But, you probably understand just from the name that these engines had been prepared for the high magic environment of the Holy War. These engines were far more powerful, and also used far more energy.


    K3 rocket shooting system, goblin sniper helicopters, and so on... Various new theoretical weapons prepared for the new generation were taken out of the warehouses. They had been waiting for this day for far too long.


    In the game¡¯s history, when the hopeless Holy War finally began, magical engineering reached an era of great development. When the Chaos Faction sent countless nightmarish creatures, the high magic environment ushered in a battle involving the newest high magic technologies.


    The foundational source of making all this high magic technology possible was still the Olivia¡¯s Magic Box from ten years ago. It was the Olivia¡¯s Magic Box¡¯s invention that caused the extravagant but impractical goblin engineering and alchemy tobine together, creating the brand-new field of magical engineering. This also caused magic swordsmen equipped with magically engineered weapons and equipment to gradually rece the pure warriors and knights of old.


    This was no coincidence. This was the decision made by the generation itself. In a high magic environment, the power of magic would be greatly amplified, meaning that pure melee job sses or ranger types would be greatly weakened. Changing oneself and controlling some power over the elements through magical engineering equipment was a definite choice that warriors who still wanted to do battle would make.


    Thanks to my involvement, Olivia¡¯s Magic Box invention was brought forward by a decade. Magical engineering should have only started its development after the Holy War began, but it was now everywhere already. In that case, that also meant that the invention of all these weapons and equipment, along with the rise of new magic swordsmen job sses like Four Elemental Swordcaster, had also urred ten or more years before it should. In fact, all of this urred even before the high magic environment arrived!


    The seeds I nted back then had finally sprouted.


    And so, the moment that the Elemental Tide started rising with the Holy War¡¯s arrival, our Mist Alliance airship squadron had long been prepared, and started changing out all equipment. Although these new theoretical weapons would be far more powerful, it was only natural that they would also have many undiscovered problems. However, we had no free time to be testing everything right now. We would have to check the new equipment¡¯s functions and gradually improve them in actualbat.


    ¡°Even if this entire airship squadron is lost in battle, it will all be worth it as long as we can gain the actualbat data.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the Holy War was indeed a battle between the Goddess of Order and the Goddess of Chaos.


    While the Chaos Faction was using thew of the jungle where the strong preyed on the weak to achieve the ultimate individual evolution, the Order Faction was also evolving. What the Order Faction evolved was the entire society as well as civilization. Perhaps the Order Faction individuals¡¯ strength would be far weaker overall than the powerful individuals from ancient times, but every technological advancement and revolution would mean progress for the entire civilization. Also, the evolution of the civilization would also mean concrete power.


    This wasn¡¯t limited to only humans. The Great Demon Empire¡¯s advancements in voodoo magic and witchcraft, the Haletdam schrs generation¡¯s advancements in alchemy and soul research, the dwarves¡¯ smithing of stones and metal, the Undead Tark Republic¡¯s research of undead magic and the nature of death, and so on were all such examples. However, in this generation, thebination of magic and engineering made magical engineering into the new spoiled child of the current generation.


    I could only exim at the busy scene before me. I was both happy and pained.


    I was happy that we had managed to keep up progress on par with the new generation and even bing the leading innovators. I was pained because what I really believed in had taken such a major hit again, a really severe one this time... What I meant was that swordsmanship would probably be outdated. When a Sword Saint who worked hard at swordsmanship for decades could no longerpare to a newbie magical swordsman equipped with a magic sword, who would still be willing to spend so much effort on learning swordsmanship?


    ¡°In the future, it¡¯s likely that basic swordsmanship sses will involve teaching meditation and magic sword control.¡±


    As an aside, mages, the main users of magic, would also naturally be the spoiled children of this new generation. Their magical power and mana regeneration would be greatly improved, while mana consumption would be greatly decreased. Reaching the next power level or developing new spells would also be incredibly easy for them.


    Not to mention, there were summoners, soul mages, demon warlocks, and other such mages who were connected to other dimensions. It would be far easier than before to borrow power from powerful existences in other dimensions. Additionally, since magic had greatly improved in power, with basically 2¡Á2 = quadruple power, mages would be incredibly strong.


    Casually being able to summon an entire horde of cannon fodder, or casually casting meteor showers, blizzards, thunderstorms, and so on? Bullying melee job sses would be far too easy. Pure warriors could finallypete with summoned creatures for the job of cannon fodder.


    ¡°Alright, as expected, Riot really hates fighters and loves their mages. The mages are overpowered, so let¡¯s nerf Irelia...¡±


    Cough, I was getting off topic. Just like in any game, there would always be some job ss at the top. Since the current game patch favored mages, those who went against the flow... Well, I probably wouldn¡¯t need to exin the ending of idiots who tried to y other job sses that weren¡¯t the most powerful in this generation.


    Since it was now a high magic generation, we would need to get ustomed to this.


    Still, thanks to my knowledge of what would happen beforehand from the so-called ¡°game walkthrough¡± that Astrya had provided me with, along with our war practice in the high magic environment of Dragon World before I transformed it into Hell, the Mist Alliance was far more ustomed to the high magic environment than anyone else in the mortal ne. That was the advantage of being a beta tester.


    When I came back to my senses, the engineers were still busy working, while Little Red was scolding the young dragons who had arrogantly refused to listen to my advice and ended up falling down so painfully. The mages and warriors were also doing their best to get used to the new environment. Meanwhile, Harloys was also incredibly delighted.


    As she was a pure mage, nothing could make her happier than a high magic generation. Not only that, this high magic generation was different from all others before it. The power of the elements no longer had any limitations whatsoever. This was the strongest high magic generation in all of history.


    ¡°I dere that the elves¡¯ magic generation has arrived!¡±


    Although her face was filled with worry as if she was anxious for the Moonwheel Capital elves, I could tell through our soul connection that she was absolutely delighted.


    Indeed, what she said made sense. Humans had learned their magic from the elves. There were also plenty of top-level elven mages. Not only that, the elves also had many mystical secrets passed down from long inheritances. This indeed seemed like the most appropriate generation for an elven magical civilization.


    After so many high magic and medium magic level Holy Wars, it was likely that the elves had plenty of ancient magic spells in their warehouses. As long as they used them properly, it seemed that their entire species could soon flourish again.


    However, I knew that this would be impossible.


    ¡°Harloys, you¡¯re wrong. In the game¡¯s history, the elves were finished before they could do much. That¡¯s because they¡¯ve hardly ever had any contact with magically engineered products.¡±


    ¡°What? Why?¡±


    ¡°Magical engineering is the product of magic and engineering. What do you think those traditionalist elves think of engineered machinery? How many goblin engineers can tolerate the elves¡¯ attitude? Also, magical engineering has greatly decreased the difference inbat strength between individuals. Do you really think that it is a good thing for the elves who have low poption but more elite fighters?¡±


    Harloys contemted over this deeply. The current her truly did seem like the Elven Empress. After a while, she lifted her head again. Her pretty face was filled with resolution as if she hade to a decision.


    ¡°This time, that won¡¯t happen. At least, the elves under me won¡¯t be rejecting change that this generation will bring.¡±


    ¡°Yep, of course. We¡¯ve long since changed the game¡¯s history. The future is in our hands.¡±

 Chapter 637 - Worsening Combat Situation

    <h4>Chapter 637: Worsening Combat Situation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Even though we were still on the way, and even though we were changing out all our weapons and equipment, we didn¡¯t have time to stop and rest.


    Combat reports from the frontlines were constantly delivered to us. The war of diplomacy was also ongoing, so our information gathering had never stopped. The Mist Alliance¡¯s diplomats were doing their very best to negotiate with all sorts of various human kingdoms to obtain permission for the elves to safely retreat.


    Compared to ordinary information sources, the fairies were mysteriously able to appear everywhere, and they weren¡¯t afraid of death. This made the fairies the best information brokers. Also...


    ¡°Ding! Your VIP ount has been recharged... Damn those goblins¡¯ cousins, still charging me money at such a time.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re pretty good to you already, giving you a 20% discount on their services. It¡¯s quite nice already that we can still obtain new information at such a time, and at least this means...¡±


    ¡°...This means that the fairies are on our side.¡±


    The fairies sent their salesmen to contact me. Of course, we wouldn¡¯t refuse their intelligence. In any war, information would be of critical importance. The fairies¡¯ current actions also indicated which side they were on.


    Gathering up to datebat information on the frontlines would be both dangerous and inefficient. Not only that, the information would need to be transmitted quickly while it was still relevant. With the fairies¡¯ charges forbor, it was only natural that the information fee was expensive. The fee was still ridiculously expensive even after a 20% discount. But, that was totally fine with me... since I took on all expenses in the name of the Mist Alliance!


    Thebat reports indicated the scale of the dimensional cracks. They were termed as being ¡°half-permanent¡±. This helped us to learn that it would be impossible to stop the Chaos Abyss¡¯s invasion any longer.


    Both sides had already started fighting. It was probably still the early stages where they were just testing each other out. The elves had suffered some losses, but still within eptable boundaries.


    The battle had already arrived right outside the city walls. However, typical big capital cities in the mortal ne would have multipleyers of walls. From the information we had, the Moonwheel Capital was a super-sized city with fiveyers of city walls. In that case, the true battle had yet to begin.


    As expected, the Chaos Abyss demon wave had already begun spreading everywhere. Although the Moonwheel Capital was like a nail that blocked the demon wave, one nail would be unable to stop a tidal wave. Countless demons and demonic creatures directly ignored the obstacle in front of them as they spread everywhere in the elven territory.


    These demons and demonic beasts were no longer under the control of the Goddess of Chaos. This meant that they were destroyers with zero sense of logic and reason. Just like a ho swarm, they would simply destroy everything that they saw.


    The ancient forests here would be corroded, turning into demonic forests. The mountains would be ttened. The great majority of living creatures here would be instantly eaten or in. The few creatures that survived would also be demonized themselves.


    These demons and demonic beasts didn¡¯t fear sacrifice or death. In fact, they even weed death. When they died on thisnd, their corpses would meld into the earth and taint the entire area with Chaos.


    The aura of Chaos was tainting the sky and the earth. The death of these creatures of Chaos would directly begin corrupting the natural cycle on a deeper level. Soon, this ce would truly be a part of the Chaos Abyss, bing the frontline base for the Chaos Faction.


    Creatures¡¯ corpses were an important part of the natural cycle. However, thanks to the power of Chaos, this natural cycle would be sped up to be a hundred times faster than normal.


    In this patch of Chaos Abyss, wild beasts would naturally transform into demonic beasts. The residents here would also naturally demonize. Even the farmers¡¯ crops would be man-eating nts. After this new food chain and natural cycle was established here, it would be impossible for ordinary people to survive here.


    What about the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire? This empire was destined to be part of history. Even if the Moonwheel Capital elves were fortunate enough to survive the demon onught, this territory would no longer belong to them.


    From a certain standpoint, territory equaled poption. For the Gods, a species¡¯ future potential was directly rted to poption, for poption would equal power of belief. If the territory was greatly decreased, the poption would greatly diminish. This meant that when the moon elves lost their territory, it would basically be the prelude to the Elven Gods¡¯ death.


    The fairies¡¯ information¡¯s veracity and timeliness were astonishing. I was even beginning to suspect that the fairies weren¡¯t even from the mortal ne. Meanwhile, as time passed, the elves¡¯bat situation constantly worsened.


    So far, it had already been confirmed that Donatis was indeed leading the Chaos army. However, it seemed as if he had no intention of personally fighting. He simply allowed the demon war ves to attack as they liked, yet the elves still seemed like they were about to lose their outermost city wall.


    The treants had suffered severe losses in the first sh. Although the war treants and hundred-year-old treants could be grown again, with their growth rate, they were no different from unrenewable resources. It was likely that the treants wouldn¡¯t recover even by the end of the Holy War. It could be said that the elves had already suffered a major loss in the first battle.


    The greatest good news from thebat report was that the silver elf elite knights had charged at the demon wave twice in order to prevent thebat situation from worsening even further.


    Even back in the ancient Elven Empire generation, the silver elf knights represented top-levelbat strength as silver elves were the most militaristic of all elves. Their steeds would be high-level magic beasts at the minimum, and it would bemon to see them riding on exotic, rare beasts like unicorns. Plus, they had secret riding techniques and their own silver elf natural talents. When the silver elves charged, even a beastmen behemoth army would retreat in defeat.


    I had previously witnessed a desperate full-strength charge of a small team of silver elf knights. The silver knights constantly cast various Divine Arts with effects such as increasing morale or increasing strength. The silver elves also used their natural talents to buff the strength of their weapons and equipment. Their unicorn steeds also cast various buff magic spells on the silver elves. By the time that the silver elves¡¯ charge arrived in front of their enemy, they were glowing in rainbow colors from more than ten different buff effects. Their charge¡¯s strength would also be multiplied in power by more than ten times over from when they started.


    The silver elves¡¯ natural talents were capable of buffing the defense of their armor and attack power of their weapons. With the faint silver light buffing their equipment, their spears would be incredibly durable and sharp, with frightful attack power.


    To assess them by current power level standards, that silver elf knight squadron I witnessed would be able to attack with Legend power at average across all of them¡ªas long as they were given enough time and distance toplete their charge first.


    In historical records, there were even records of a silver elf knight squadron directly managing to knock over a castle wall with their charge. When I thought about that silver elf knight squadron I¡¯d previously witnessed, I felt that such a story would be true.


    However, the more powerful the troop type, the more expensive it would be to maintain and more difficult to obtain the equipment. The steeds would also be difficult to raise, and the knights difficult to train. That silver elf knight squadron I saw had been led by an unlucky prince of an elven kingdom, together with all his remaining royal guards.


    The silver elves were just as low in number as the other Superior Elf species. It could be said that every single silver elf was noble ss. Plus, in this new generation, steeds like unicorns became even more difficult to raise. Not only that, only a well-organized squadron of knights would have sufficient power. Too few of them would be no good. Most countries thought that silver elf knight squadrons were now nothing more than history. It was a surprise to find out that the elves had hidden such an ace up their sleeve.


    ¡°The silver elf knight squadron numbers approximately 2600. This is truly a well-hidden ace. Perhaps even the silver elf tribe leaders and princes are personally participating in battle... Still, this is strange. Why does thebat report say that many of the steeds appeared to be pregnant? The silver elves actually dare to abuse their steeds like this, riding them while pregnant into battle? The elves have truly gone overboard!¡±


    As a long-time knight, I was quite angered at the way they abused their steeds, and swore that I would issue an officialint... What? You¡¯re telling me that most of their steeds were divine beasts from the elves¡¯ Holy Lake? This was all rted to a certain crime that someone who could never be namedmitted? I... I decided to act as if I saw nothing.


    I frowned as I read over thebat report. The demons had sent out nothing but cannon fodder, yet the elves had already been forced to use their ace troops. It was obvious who was at a disadvantage here.


    Any cavalry¡¯s charge would be synonymous with high losses. Although the silver elves¡¯ two charges had been outstanding, ying many demons, they had also lost two hundred-ish silver elf knights. Most of the silver elf knights who died had been dragged off their steeds by the cannon fodder demons who didn¡¯t care about their own lives. Additionally, any elf who fell off their steed in such a battle was basically dead.


    The two charges had achieved goodbat results. The treants sessfully retreated behind the first city wall, and the charges also sessfully raised the morale of the defending elven army. The silver elves unhesitatingly retreated right afterwards. It seemed that they couldn¡¯t handle such losses.


    Thebat situation ended in a stalemate after that. Even for the first demon wave, it wouldn¡¯t be possible to conquer the elven capital in a single day... Also, there was no need for Donatis to be in a hurry. The Chaos Abyss would only send him more and more reinforcements as time passed. Time was on the Chaos Faction¡¯s side.


    The demon wave was constantly spreading outwards. A portion of the demons surrounded and attacked the Moonwheel Capital under Donatis¡¯smand. As the cannon fodder constantly charged at the city walls, the elves¡¯ ordinary defending army didn¡¯t even dare to face the demons in direct battle. If it wasn¡¯t for the elves using their mage towers and mages to support the defenders with ranged attack spells, it was likely that the first city wall would have been lost already.


    ¡°The elves were forced to use their mages so quickly...?¡±


    ¡°It would seem that the demon wave is more difficult to deal with than expected. It also seems that the elves are even weaker than everyone thought.¡±


    Harloys and I were onplete agreement on this. We had both originally thought that the elves would start using their mages on the third night of the demon wave. We¡¯d never thought that the elves would use their mages on the very first night. This was definitely a bad sign.


    The demon wave¡¯s arrival had brought an entirely new Elemental Tide along with it. Although the power of magic had explosively increased, the explosive increase in power also meant that mages would have a much more difficult time controlling the magic. The mages would need time to get ustomed to the new high magic environment. Sending the mages into battle right away meant a chance of losing control while tense and blowing oneself up.


    Magic wasn¡¯t something where more was better. All magic forms focused on exquisite designs where not even one little thing could be out of bnce. A fireball suddenly powering up to be a fire wall or even inferno explosion might not even be a good thing. Overly powerful elements and magic would be incredibly dangerous to the casters themselves.


    For example, if a child¡¯s strength suddenly became on par with an adult¡¯s, this child would likely injure himself if he used the newfound strength right away. However, if the child was given a few days to get ustomed to his newfound strength through various types of training and games to learn how to control his body again, then there would be no problem. It would be the same for the great increase in power of the elements and magic.


    Two days, 48 hours, was the time that our mages extrapted would be necessary. For any ordinary mage, even if they started meditating right away to readjust their bodies, it would take that amount of time to begin getting their newfound magic strength under control.


    If a mage from the mortal ne went to a different dimension, that mage would also require several days to get ustomed to the new environment. This wasmon sense among mages. Immediately getting intobat was very likely to result in an idental death.


    It wouldn¡¯t require much knowledge to know about this. All mages¡¯ instincts and experience would warn them about the potential dangers of magic power running amok. The elven mages naturally knew this as well, yet they were already participating in battle. So, either they were foolishly suicidal, or there was an absolutely crucial reason for them to participate in battle already.


    ¡°The outer city wall has been damaged? Just the cannon fodder¡¯s self-destructions created holes in the city wall? Hey, hey, hey, was their city wall built by a shoddy constructionpany?¡±


    Of course, I knew that the moon elves would never use a shoddy constructionpany for something as vital as their important capital city walls. However, the city walls were supposed to be strong enough to block cannon fire and siege weaponry, yet holes had appeared so easily? This was the same as using physical bodies to break the city walls. This sounded too ridiculous.


    Even without the important reason that the mages would need time to get ustomed to the new high magic environment, there were also other problems with having the mages participate in battle so early.


    Mages would have limited mana pools. Mage towers would also have limited mana batteries. Entering battle earlier meant using up mana sooner than nned. Good metal should be used for forging a good de. However, using elite mages¡¯ mana merely to kill off some cannon fodder seemed like such a bad deal.


    ¡°It would seem like the elves don¡¯t want to lose their outermost city wall so easily.¡±


    Perhaps it would be quitemon tactically to lose the outermost city wall on the first day. However, there was also the potential loss of morale to take into consideration. Right now, the elves were surrounded by enemies, and couldn¡¯t even count on reinforcements. They would absolutely need to be careful about maintaining the defending army¡¯s morale. In that case, they had basically been forced to send out the silver elf knight squadron for those charges.


    ¡°The Elven Gods should be intervening soon... How long will it take us?¡±


    ¡°If we can finish modifying our equipment and set out again by tonight, we¡¯ll arrive two days from now at night at the very quickest. However, it will probably take one more day for all our personnel and mages to get ustomed to their new weapons and equipment.¡±


    It would seem that we would likely arrive in time. I hoped that the elves could at least hold out for a while longer. If the elves were annihted without even the War God Donatis needing to personally take action, that would be far too humiliating.


    But if Donatis personally attacked... I had no idea how the elves were possibly supposed to counter him.


    ¡°Those rebellious traitors aren¡¯t so simple to deal with. Just have fun watching the show,¡± remarked viciously the brightly smiling Elven Empress on my shoulder, referring to the elves we were going to rescue. Still, as the old saying went, the person who understood you best would always be your worst enemy rather than your best friend. Her statement was truly convincing.


    ¡°Alright. Tell our mages that they should focus on adjusting the new Borealis¡¯s mage towers and finish the modifications. Perhaps they will be used in battle.¡±

 Chapter 638 - Intervention

    <h4>Chapter 638: Intervention</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    After a night of bitter battle, the elves finally made it to dawn of the next morning. However, the demons were different from the undead. Demons weren¡¯t afraid of the sunlight. In fact, since the sunlight in the mortal ne was much gentler and soothingpared to sunlight in the Chaos Abyss, the demons instinctively felt delighted and excited.


    Additionally, since both demons and elves had night vision natural talents, it was the same for both sides whether it was dark or light outside.


    The sky was now bright. Yet, the battle at the Moonwheel Capital became even fiercer. The defending elven army which had battled through the entire night needed to rest, eat, and sleep, meaning that elven troops needed exchanging. High fatigue would also mean highbat losses. But the demons... since they were one-time sacrificial cannon fodder to begin with, these demon war ves¡¯ lives were each on countdown right from the time that they were conscripted. The demons were also almost limitless, so the Chaos Abyss didn¡¯t value their lives at all.


    The elves needed logistical backup support for food and supplies. However, the demons¡¯ low-level cannon fodder no longer had any sense of logic or reason. They didn¡¯t even feel the concept of hunger anymore. Even if they were starving, they could simply rely on their instincts and eat some dirt or tree bark. If a high-level demon became hungry or thirsty, that demon would just casually eat apanion orpetitor demon.


    ¡°Nice, chicken-vored.¡±


    Fight a war of attrition with the Chaos Abyss demon army? Those muscleheads would have to first understand what attrition even was. Unless the demons werepletely annihted, no objective condition would ever possibly obstruct them.


    The long first night had ended. All the forests outside the Moonwheel Capital had been trampled into corroded wastnd. The beautiful and solid outermost city wall was filled with dents and holes all over. There was a disgusting stench of blood and sulfur in the air that made elves want to vomit. The ground closest to the city wall was stained bright red with blood, and the stench of blood there was thick to the point of suffocating. Countless demon war ves had ended their lives there.


    The elves had also suffered serious losses. Their treants had suffered majorly. One of the elves¡¯ aces, the silver elf knight squadron, had suffered 10% losses. Also, after the demon war ves reached the city wall, the ordinary defending elf army had fought an even more vicious battle. The elves were either eaten alive or killed off by the demons¡¯ self-destruction.


    If the elves couldn¡¯t win in melee, what about picking the demons off with ranged attacks? The elves indeed wanted to do this, and employed such a strategy, but it proved to be greatly ineffective.


    The elves¡¯ melee fighters were all focused on the Dexterity stat rather than Strength or Constitution. This meant the elven warriors were nothing more than third-rate at best for being tanks. However, the elves had always been proud of their ranger squadrons. Very few species had such well-organized ranger squadrons.


    The elves naturally had high Dexterity stats and agility. Combined with their simple Nature Divine Arts, not only could they buff themselves and summon animalpanions, their sharp arrows could suddenly ambush any enemy. This was the worst nightmare for anyone who invaded the rangers¡¯ territory. The elven rangers were basically undefeatable in any forest or gueri battle.


    However, the elven rangers¡¯ archery that they were so proud of met with the worst possible enemy of all.


    Sharp arrows were indeed quite fatal to humans and other simrly sized creatures. Prating a single vital spot could cause death. However, just as how humans¡¯ greatswords could only be considered toothpicks to the giants, unless the elves could discover a demon¡¯s weak spot, the elven arrows would be nothing more than slightly painful porcupine pricks to the incredibly thick-skinned demons.


    Where was a demon¡¯s weak spot? That would be the greatest secret of any demon. Every demon had taken a different path of evolution. Every demon would have a different body structure. This naturally meant that the weak spot¡¯s location would be different on every body. For instance, maybe a demon would have three hearts and two brains, but only one of these organs was the most important. The other ones were all capable of regenerating. Attacking any part other than the main part would be meaningless. Some demons would perhaps grow their most important organs in their feet, with the entire head and body being nothing more than a distraction, with the bottom of the feet being the only weak spot.


    Dexterity-type elven warriors whose typical tactic relied on attacking the critical weak spot were almost perfectly countered by such an enemy with almost no weak spots to speak of. However, it just happened to be that elemental creatures, demons, undead, and other such creatures withoutpletely physical bodies would all be simr. In this sort of situation, an elven warrior couldn¡¯t evenpare in physical effectiveness to an ordinary muscr bull.


    Not only that, these demons and demonic beasts had all lost their sense of pain. They were also toorge, big to the point where ordinary prative injuries would be ineffective against them. They were basicallypletely brainless and berserk. Even if their heads were pierced, they wouldn¡¯t feel any fear. With all these factors, even if a demon was pierced with arrows all over, that would be unable to stop him.


    Typically in such a situation, the elves would use their enchanted moonlight arrows and explosive arrows which would be greatly effective. However, the enchanted moonlight arrows and alchemical explosive arrows were incredibly preciousbat resources. It would be such a waste to use them against ordinary demons.


    In the end, the ranger squadrons that the elves were so proud of were forced to be nothing more than spectators in the battle. In fact, in order to avoid wasting precious ordinary arrows, another limited resource, the rangermander even forbade the rangers from casually shooting arrows as they pleased.


    The elves suffered far too serious losses in melee, and their archers were greatly ineffective. In the end, the moon elves could only helplessly use their mages to support them.


    On the first night, in only a single night, the elves were forced to use their mages and mana batteries. Numerous fireballs exploded on the city walls. Countless blizzards AOE¡¯d the demons into oblivion. In just a single night¡¯s bitter battle, elves used up more than 20% of the elven mage towers¡¯ mana storage!


    This wasn¡¯t because the elves were forced to the brink already. This only meant that their typical fighting forces were far too ineffective against the demons¡¯ cannon fodder. The endless amount of demons in the first demon wave forced the elves into a battle of attrition, the worst situation possible.


    Right now, the area between the first and second city wall was filled with wailing and pitiful scenes.


    Injured elven soldiers were constantly being carried down on stretchers from the first outermost city wall. Those who had lost a hand or foot were already lucky to have survived. Elven healers were doing their very best to prevent the seriously injured from dying. Blood, sweat, and sulfur mixed their stenches together everywhere. The smell was disgusting to the point of elves wanting to vomit. However, at this time, even the formerly most clean freak Superior Elves no longer had the time to be disgusted by this.


    Elven Empress Afina watched all of this with eyes filled with pity and sadness. Her main retainers around her also remained silent.


    None of them had thought that the first city wall would almost have been lost in only a single night. Back when the moon elves designed the Moonwheel Capital, they had thought of some human mega empire as the hypothetical enemy, and designed their first city wall to be one of the sturdiest in order to buy enough time to wait for other elves¡¯ reinforcements. Yet, the first city wall seemed so flimsy in front of the demon wave.


    The thunder defense magic formations on the city wall... The energy for these defense spells had been entirely used up already.


    The several hundred year old magical vines that were supposed to strangle all invaders to death... The demons had finished devouring all the vines.


    The powerful elven mage towers and ranger squadron that could provide ranged attack support... They had used up too much mana and arrows, and needed to stop to rest and resupply.


    The war treants nted next to the city wall... The demons indicated that they were quite open to having the asional vegetarian meal.


    The elven earth mages¡¯ continuous repairing of the city wall... Their repairing speed couldn¡¯t keep up with the demons¡¯ destructive speed. Quite a few earth mages had already been forced to retreat after using up all their mana.


    Aerial support from the horned eagles, giant eagles, and pegasus knights... In front of all the countless demon cannon fodder, they were no different from ground forces. Some demon war ve would even asionally jump high up into the air and kill two aerial troops by self-destructing.


    Even the best-designed defense spell or mechanism would have its limits. The demons didn¡¯t even need to think of ideas on how to break past any defenses. A vast amount of cannon fodder was more than sufficient for autoattacking past everything. The elves of this generation finally understood why their own ancestors had always stated that the first demon wave was undefeatable.


    Individually, the berserk demon war ves wouldn¡¯t be weak at all. Even if they had lost all sense of logic and reason, they obtained even stronger power in exchange. However, such a warrior would have plenty of weaknesses. As long as there was enough time and space, even a Silver rank warrior would be able to defeat a demon war ve in one-on-onebat. However, since these berserk demons were almost limitless in number, and they could only attack without even thinking about retreating, it was only natural that the demon war ves all became harvesters of flesh and blood...


    ¡°The city wall being broken through is only a matter of time...¡±


    Everyone had such a suspicion. However, not a single elf dared to say this out loud. It seemed as if no matter what ace the elves brought out, the demons could simply counter the ace by using a sufficient amount of cannon fodder.


    ¡°When will our reinforcements arrive...¡± Empress Afina muttered in a bit of a daze. However, nobody dared to answer her, because all of the elves¡¯ reinforcements had arrived already. The only ¡°reinforcements¡± still on the way had an impressively awkward identity for the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire...


    In the end, the silver elf knight general who had the most special status forced himself to respond helplessly. ¡°Your Majesty, theirst message to us stated that they would arrive by evening two days from now at the very earliest...¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t they say that they could arrive this afternoon!? Could, could it be that those bastards are taking advantage of the situation even more to threaten us? Those bastards, we¡¯ve already agreed to their shameless conditions! What else do they want! Could it... could it be that they still intend on raising their price!? Those shameless, underhanded bastards...¡±


    Afina was still considered young for an elf. However, she was from a regal bloodline, and she was also outstanding at politics, which earned her a great reputation. However, her current hysterical behavior was somewhat ruining her previous image.


    ¡°...They said that the change in the Elemental Tide affected their airships, and that their mages and equipment all needed time to adjust. Our mages agreed that this is absolutely necessary. Last night, several of our mage towers suffered permanent damage, and two of our elven mages died...¡±


    The elves naturally also knew the potential consequences of forcefully ordering mages to cast spells without adjusting to the new high magic environment first. However, the elves had still given such a cruel orderst night because they knew that losing the first city wall on the very first night would deal the elven army too serious a blow for their morale to recover from.


    Perhaps it was because outsiders were present, or perhaps it was because Afina¡¯s hysterical screams had managed to help her vent some of the incredible pressure on her right now, but Afina indeed managed to calm down quite a bit.


    ¡°...Please request that they hurry toe reinforce us as quickly as possible. We... we will continue making concessions... They need to hurry and arrive one day quicker... no, even half a day quicker.¡±


    Afina¡¯s heavy words were filled with unwillingness. Not a single elf had expected the current situation. However, vicious reality had struck a heavy blow to the elves¡¯ confidence. Before the battle started, the elves had been mysteriously confident that ¡°we¡¯ll definitely be able to defeat the demon wave, and maybe even counterattack, invading the Chaos Abyss itself¡±, but that confidence hadpletely evaporated by now.


    ¡°We... we¡¯re unable to stop the demon wave by ourselves...¡±


    Fine, she was finally admitting that she couldn¡¯t handle the situation.


    Actually, due to theck of bnce in information throughout thend, this type of seemingly inconceivable confidence was quitemonce. Even if information on an enemy¡¯s army sounded amazing, people would think of it as nothing more than embellished rumors. Meanwhile, even if the whole world told someone that their fighting force sucked, that person might still think that their force was the best.


    Sometimes, it was because of spies doing a good job at giving misleading information. Sometimes, it was because the leaders lied to the people in order to give their people confidence. And sometimes, even the leaders believed such ridiculous things.


    ¡°Even if the enemy is indeed stronger than us, our warriors aren¡¯t to be trifled with. We can probably win!¡±


    In fact, such foolish overconfidence wasmonce on countless battlefields, and it would typically take only a single battle for this mysterious confidence topletely vanish.


    Afina¡¯s being willing to make ¡°concessions¡± at this point was the equivalent of letting the Nortnds Elven Empire have whatever they wanted. At the very least, it was certain that the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire would no longer even be able topete for proper status.


    ¡°Your Majesty!¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty! Think about our ancestors¡¯ dreams and the Elven Gods¡¯ ambitions! They wouldn¡¯t want to see this!¡±


    ¡°No, Your Majesty, this can¡¯t be done!¡±


    Afina¡¯s retainers started expressing their loyalty, and some of the high-ranked elves even red angrily at their empress as if they were witnessing a disobedient child trying to sell off their own property... But actually, the majority of elves present here was absolutely delighted inside that somebody else was finally willing to take the me.


    To these elves, it didn¡¯t matter too much, as they would simply have to support a different empress. This result would be far more preferable to death from the demon wave. Furthermore, since Afina had voluntarily brought it up herself, there was a 99% probability that she would be a sacrifice of this generation.


    Actually, since Afina had already agreed to let her people immigrate in return for the Nortnds Elven Empire¡¯s assistance, she was already destined to be the greatest criminal of the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire.


    ¡°No, our people finally managed to break free from their restraints. We don¡¯t need to lower our heads to, or beg from remnants of the previous generation!¡± a booming voice interrupted the elves¡¯ discussion suddenly. The elves looked in the direction it came from, only to see a hazy silver-robed figure d in an aura of light. It was obvious from his holy appearance that this was an Elven God who had descended, either in an incarnation or his true body.


    Around the Elven God, various dimensional portals from the upper nes opened up as his God Envoys, elven heroic spirits, divine beasts with starlight around their bodies, and so on arrived.


    The Elven Gods had begun intervening...


    Meanwhile, Harloys and I were casually discussing the elves¡¯ currentbat situation.


    ¡°With the Elven Gods around, the elves probably won¡¯t die off that quickly, right? I think they should at least be able to survive until we get there,¡± Harloysmented.


    ¡°...I¡¯m more worried that the Elven Gods will intervene. That will probably make the elves die even quicker. Just think about it. Can Donatis still ck off if the Elven Gods intervene? And if Donatis gets involved, there¡¯s a more than 70% chance that the elves will die even quicker.¡±


    Just as Rnd surmised, right when the Elven God appeared in front of Afina and the other elves, the statue-like ck giant suddenly stood up and picked up his ck obsidian sword covered in divine blood. Donatis finally had some prey worthy of being hunted by him.

 Chapter 639 - Death of the Gods

    <h4>Chapter 639: Death of the Gods</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The blood-red moonlight guided our way. The high density of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s taint became immeasurable. Seeing the beasts on the ground run amok, even the most optimistic people would feel tense.


    Today was the third day after the demon wave explosively arrived. ording to our ns, we were supposed to arrive to help the elves tonight. However, ns were forever flexible. We had also met with several obstructions on the way here. It would be quite fortunate already if we could arrive by tomorrow morning.


    It seemed that the flying demons and demon dragons that came to obstruct us weren¡¯t targeting us specifically. These flying magical demonic beasts had likely just instinctively attacked us. But, since they were only attacking our airship squadron one at a time or in small numbers, this was nothing more thanplete suicide on their part.


    Our motherships didn¡¯t even need to act. Just the smaller aircraft on the motherships were able to shoot all the flying enemies down.


    Although the demon dragons seemed powerful, they were nothing more than Chaos Abyss variants of wyverns and other dragon subspecies. While the demon wave might have given these creatures stronger bodies, they still didn¡¯t have any brains for aerial battling or avoiding danger.


    These flying demonic creatures posed zero threat to us. However, they indeed slowed down our overall speed. We had to send out scouts and readjust our new engines multiple times. Our expected arrival time was now slowed by another four to five hours.


    As for Afina¡¯s message to me that ¡°she would make more concessions if we arrived earlier¡±, I treated that as nothing more than empty words. Such verbal promises would hold very little weight to begin with, not to mention how we were already taking advantage of the situation. It would be far too likely for the elves to turn on us and not agree to what they originally promised. I had no intention of taking on more risk for the sake of unreliable benefits. That was why I informed our pilots to focus on safety foremost over speed.


    As for the thought that I also wanted the elves to kill at least a few more demons, and us being more valuable as the elves would be in a dire crisis? If I said I never had such a thought, would you believe me?


    Harloys was highly supportive of my safety-first approach. I figured that she probably wanted to see more of her enemies dead from the demon wave. Otherwise, if her enemies became her subordinates in the new Nortnds Elven Empire, that would actually be more troublesome to deal with.


    The earth beneath our airships was already pitch-ck. The dense ranks of demonic creatures below us would probably give some people trypophobia. It seemed that the demon wave didn¡¯t even care about the Moonwheel Capital obstacle in its way. The demon wave was simply expanding around it.


    It was likely that the neighboring human kingdoms would find that their hopes had been for nothing. Even if the elves werepletely annihted, the elves would still be unable to do much to the demon wave before dying.


    I was looking out at the sky while standing on the bridge of the airship. There was a scene I sawst night that I just couldn¡¯t forget.


    ¡°You¡¯re still thinking about the meteor shower fromst night?¡±


    ¡°...I hope that we won¡¯t havee here for nothing.¡±


    Meteor shower? More urately, that was a group of Gods who had died. I was having less and less expectations of the elves now. Last night, four gigantic white stars had fallen from the skies. Everyone who saw them instantly understood that several Gods had died.


    New information was soon brought to me. Two weak Follower Low Gods and a Mid God had died in battle. Their Divine Concepts included Music, Sightseeing, Guiding Those Who Are Lost in a Forest, Muse to Artists, and so on... What, you¡¯re asking me why I only listed three instead of four dead Gods? The fourth was a weak Follower God of the God of Art. This God hadn¡¯t even participated in battle, but directly perished due to losing arge amount of belief.


    It could be said that many of the Elven Gods rted to the arts had directly diedst night.


    Among the Elven Gods, there were 13 who could be called True Gods. However, only two of the thirteen were powerful enough to be High Gods. Those two were War Goddess Sonya, Guardian Goddess of the Silver Elves, and Somn, whom moon elf shamans worshipped. Sonya was considered strong even among the High Gods. Her Divine Concepts included War, Protector of Heroes, Guardian Goddess of Rangers, and so on.


    Somn had always kept a low profile. He had always been close to Anslo, and it was said that Somn had previously been a Follower God of Main God Anslo. Somn¡¯s Divine Concepts were mostly religion-rted. Some of his Divine Concepts included Overseer of Elven Religious Ceremonies, Protector of Nature, Helping Elves Find Their Homes, and so on. Many druids worshipped this High God who was quite close to the Nature Faction.


    The Elven Gods were not united at all. All the wood elves¡¯ Gods were in the neutral Nature Faction rather than counting as the Elven Gods Faction. As for the dark elves¡¯ Gods... they had all died already. The silver elves¡¯ Gods were more focused on Divine Concepts like War and Protection. All of the Elven Gods who had Concepts unrted to War would naturally be Somn¡¯s subordinates.


    The Elven Gods rted to the Concepts of the arts were quite close to the moon elves. However, these Elven Gods were alreadycking power of belief due to the moon elves¡¯ low poption, and now that the moon elves were facing a life-threatening crisis, these Elven Gods had also reached a dangerous brink of almost not having enough power of belief to maintain themselves. Although these Elven Gods of the arts weren¡¯t skilled in battle, they had still been forced to fight. It was only natural that they were the first ones to die.


    Challenging Donatis in the middle of the demon wave? That would be the same as challenging a Main God right in the middle of their personal Divine Kingdom. Any existences lower level than High God wouldn¡¯t even be able to retreat with their lives intact.


    Besides, if Donatis decided to be serious, then what could the elves possibly do to stop him? I could only wonder if my preparations for Donatis would be effective or not.


    All that I could hope for was that Donatis would bepletely uninterested in the mortal elves... But even if he didn¡¯t do anything, it seemed like the demon wave was more than capable of annihting the elves.


    From a certain standpoint, when the Chaos Abyss¡¯s first demon wave chose the elves¡¯ territory as the first target of the invasion, everything here had already been set in stone. It was an absolutely hopeless battle.


    The Chaos Abyss vs. the elves... There was far too great a difference between the two sides.


    The elves couldn¡¯t evenpare in any area. No matter how hard the elves worked, they would only be able to obtain some temporary small victories. When looking at the overall situation, the best the elves could do would be to reduce their overall losses. The elves would be ineffective here at best. Although this sounded cruel, this was how war was.


    *Boom!*


    Suddenly, I heard a loud sound in the distance. A blinding golden pir of light then appeared in the sky. This pir was made of pure magic power. The shock waves and powerful gusts from this spell messed up our airship squadron¡¯s formation.


    The light was so blinding that looking at it hurt my eyes. Meanwhile, everyone else around me was covering their eyes and had copsed. This pure magical light was far too much for others to directly look at.


    ¡°A forbidden spell?¡±


    ¡°Impossible. Donatis wouldn¡¯t possibly give the elves enough time to cast a forbidden spell. If the elves started casting a forbidden spell, Donatis would unhesitatingly attack. That would cause the elves to die even faster.¡±


    ¡°Then what was that?¡±


    The magic power in that light had surpassed all measurements already. With such a powerful magical shock wave, it was likely that this pir was definitely equal in power to any forbidden spell.


    An instant-casting forbidden spell? Without even talking about whether that would be even possible, if the elves had truly been capable of doing so, they wouldn¡¯t have been in such a crisis to begin with. In that case, the most likely answer was...


    ¡°Divine power crystal shards? I never expected that they would seed...¡±


    As always, the person who understood you best would forever be your enemy. Harloys actually knew what that light had been?


    ¡°The elves are different from humans in their worship of the Gods, and are more like mages in their understanding of Gods. We elves have long since secretly started treading upon the Gods¡¯ taboos...¡±


    In the old Elven Empire, the moon elves had been in charge of religion. They knew more secrets about the Gods than any other Superior Elf species. Divine power crystals were an experiment to use physical objects to contain divine power, an experiment to allow ordinary people to utilize divine power.


    If divine power could be stored just like mana in mana batteries, then belief would be another type of currency. From a certain standpoint, the elves had been truly daring.


    Normally, whenever a divine job ss member wanted to use a Divine Art, that would require the ¡°blessing¡± of a True God. The frequency with which someone could use Divine Arts would definitely be limited. That was because the True God would definitely want to use more power of belief on strengthening themselves. This was just like how any smart government would make sure that tax ie exceeded expenditures. The amount of Divine Arts and divine power that the True God granted to their believers would depend on the God¡¯s personality and how much they spoiled their believers. But regardless, the overall number and quality of Divine Arts and divine power would be limited.


    But if a storage container could be invented to store divine power, like an equivalent of Olivia¡¯s Magic Box for mana, then perhaps everyone would be able to use Divine Arts even without the Gods. The power of those Divine Arts would also theoretically increase greatly.


    And if this actually seeded, priests would be capable of using almost limitless amounts of Divine Arts... However, this would obviously infuriate all the Gods. Foundationally speaking, this would be no different from the Desecration Priestess job ss, which robbed divine power from the Gods.


    No, if divine power could be stored and traded just like another type of currency, the mystery of the Gods would be greatly decreased. The Gods¡¯ venerated statuses and positions would be severely challenged. It was likely that the divine power crystal would be treated even more seriously by the Gods than the Desecration Priestess job ss.


    ¡°The elves are truly going so overboard. The Elven Gods would allow them to behave so ridiculously?¡±


    ¡°The divine power crystal is a research project from the Gold Elves¡¯ time. It was just that the moon elves continued it...¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words were filled withmentation. The Gold Elves had to have disyed back then just what it meant that doing whatever you pleased would be foolishly suicidal.


    I didn¡¯t even need to ask how Harloys knew about the divine power crystal. She had countless students and spies in the Mage Country, so how could she possiblyck spies amongst the elves? Considering how she had thousands of years to prepare already, it seemed likely that she even had spies working for her among the moon elf higher-ups.


    In that case, what we just witnessed was quite easy to understand. The moon elves had to have used their secret trump card since they were forced to the brink, detonating their stored divine power. This pure positive energy would have tremendous attack power against demons. However, using this would be a double-edged sword. Even if the elves survived the current crisis, the humans¡¯ Order Gods wouldn¡¯t be letting the elves go...


    ¡°Latest news report from the fairies! Somn, Guardian God of Elven Shamans, descended in his true body, yet was seriously injured by Donatis. Somn was forced to self-destruct in his true body. Somn has now died!¡±


    Alright then, it would seem that Harloys¡¯ idea on what just happened had beenpletely wrong. That was no divine power crystal at all. That was clearly the final light from a True God¡¯s death. By the way, it seemed that even I had never seen the divine power self-destruction during a High God¡¯s death before. So that was what it looked like!


    ¡°Ha, Harloys...¡±


    After the pir of light finished with its light explosion, a gigantic white meteor streaked through the sky. That was a Divine Kingdom shard which had now lost all meaning.


    I interestedly nced at Harloys, wanting to see her current expression. She had been so confident in her earlier analysis, yet she had been instantly proven wrong.


    ¡°Somn is dead? Haha, we really need to celebrate! Yeah, we¡¯re going to have the biggest feast possible tonight! What, you¡¯re saying that we¡¯re not allowed to drink alcohol on the battlefield? No, we¡¯re doing it to improve our courage!¡±


    Harloys had an absolutely delighted expression, and was behaving like she didn¡¯t know north from south. The other Superior Elf tribe leaders still with us all had awkward expressions, but they also couldn¡¯t stop her ridiculous behavior.


    I almost forgot¡ªI would have if Harloys didn¡¯t bring it up. Harloys had plenty of enemies amongst the Elven Gods. Since that Somn or whatever was so close to Anslo, it was likely that Somn was also one of Harloys¡¯ greatest enemies.


    As for Harloys¡¯ misanalysis just earlier? She didn¡¯t care at all, since she received the wonderful news of one of her enemies dying.


    When I saw how Harloys was going crazy to the point of really trying have a party with the Superior Elves, I could only shake my head helplessly.


    ¡°It seems like she truly trusts you,¡± Didina told me as she suddenly appeared; it was somewhat diforting. This was because she had still been a ruler in the Chaos Abyss. I had constantly kept someone to keep an eye on her. Still, Didina had been quite obedient all this time.


    ¡°At such a critical moment, she still feelsfortable enough to behave so ridiculously. Naturally, this means that she trusts in your being able to deal with the current situation. I just wonder how you¡¯ll deal with Donatis...¡±


    ¡°Heehee, you¡¯ll see in a bit.¡±


    I had no intention of exining anything more to Didina. Even though her identity was rather unique, trust would still need time to umte. It was quite generous of me already to have brought Didina along. However, telling her about our uingbat ns would be unthinkable.


    This wasn¡¯t because I was expecting Didina to betray us or anything like that. It was simply that an abundance of caution would forever be necessary. For some things, it would always be better if fewer people knew about them.


    I could understand why Didina would be worried for the elves. Still, I wouldn¡¯t be giving her any exnation.


    ¡°Then, could you please tell me how you intend to rescue the elves from the demon wave? Just these airships probably won¡¯t be enough.¡±


    Of course these airships wouldn¡¯t be enough. Even if all of the airships werepletely empty, that still wouldn¡¯t be enough to contain the full poption of the Moonwheel Capital ¡°Elven Empire¡±. In fact, there wouldn¡¯t even be enough space for only the elven children and elderly. Not to mention, the elves wouldn¡¯t possibly be able to leave by themselves, nor could I possibly let myself leave here empty-handed.


    Still, the scene of trying to guide such arge elven poption through the demon wave seemed too wondrous to even think about.


    ¡°Have you heard of the Herit Mountains?¡±


    ¡°...Do you intend on going over those cliffs? However, the repeated trips will still require several days toplete, if you make multiple trips...¡±


    Crossing through the neighboring human kingdoms would take time, effort, and be incredibly dangerous. The nearby Herit Mountains were considered impossible to scale. The demon wave probably wouldn¡¯t be idiotic enough to try and climb these snowy mountains. In that case, going over these mountains would naturally be the safest path. Also, my goal was only to help the elves survive this cmity, nothing more. I would simply leave the elves to their own devices afterwards, although I would bring the young elves with potential back to the Nortnds.


    As for how I was going to bring the elves through the demon wave and over those unscble mountains... that was for me to know, and for Didina to find out.


    I simply smiled and nodded without saying anything else to assuage Didina¡¯s worries. I then directly got up and left while saying goodbye.


    Next, I calcted the time. It was indeed almost time. I still had approximately 24 hours to prepare before we reached our destination.


    ¡°Sorry, I have some private matters to take care of.¡±


    After I said goodbye to Didina, I directly went to the Borealis¡¯s mage tower, where modifications had been taking ce since we set out. Now, the preparations here should beplete.


    ¡°Now then, let us prepare a gift for Donatis. Ha, I wonder what the elves will think of my gift? This should be really interesting.¡±

 Chapter 640 - Forbidden Spell

    <h4>Chapter 640: Forbidden Spell</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    At dawn of Month 12, Day 10, the third morning after the demon wave invasion began, the entire elven territory had be corrupted by the Chaos Abyss. The elves were in a dire crisis.


    The blood moon was now ruling over this area. The elves were forced to use all of their aces. Meanwhile, the Chaos Faction simply sent out more and more cannon fodder without any care, no matter the number of demons sacrificed.


    Even if you weren¡¯t paying attention to thebat situation here, the meteor showers that kept happening every few hours were something unignorable as all existences could instinctively sense that Gods were dying.


    The Elven Gods were dying constantly. The entire Elven God Faction was finished...


    Not only would a God need astonishingly good luck and outstanding personal talent, the God would also need to create their personal Divine Kingdom while growing. After that, the God¡¯s people and other mortals who agreed with their teachings would be the God¡¯s power in the mortal ne. Belief from those who worshipped the God in life, and the souls of dead worshippers would all help the God to grow.


    This was why the Gods of Eich were typically limited to only one specific species. Every God had been raised by countless resources from their people. History had given the Gods their position, but this didn¡¯t mean that the tremendous resource expenditure used up during the process of bing a God could be ignored.


    If the species was flourishing, then that species¡¯ God would be powerful. This seemed to be quite logical. However, even more logical would be that if the God was powerful, then the species would flourish.


    There was a faint symbiotic rtionship between the God and the God¡¯s species. Most ordinary people didn¡¯t realize this. However, True Gods and the truly powerful individuals all understood this.


    That was why it was impossible for the Elven Gods to sit back and watch the Moonwheel Capital be conquered. That would mean losing all of the elven power of belief, making so many long years of umtion turn into nothing.


    Looking at it from the moon elves¡¯ angle, if all Elven Gods perished, or if most of the Elven Gods perished, that would also be uneptable as it would mean that the moon elves would be a third-rate species with no or only few Gods¡¯ protection.


    After the Beastmen Empire and all the Beastmen Gods perished, the beastmen had been exiled to the Nortnds and the Underground. This was the best evidence.


    From the very start, I had been absolutely confident that the Elven Gods would intervene, even if this would mean certain death for them.


    That was just how it was for Gods who had ascended through the power of belief. They would seed or fail all thanks to the power of belief. While such Gods might enjoy great power due to their believers¡¯ worship, they were also bound by that same worship.


    On our way to the Moonwheel Capital, we met some true inferno dragons. That was an evolutionary job ss that a true dragon could choose after joining the Chaos Abyss. These berserk beasts had alsoe up to the mortal ne to taste new flesh and blood. Without a doubt, this was only more bad news on top of everything else.


    Just like in the mortal ne, dragons would be some of the highest-levelbat strength in the Chaos Abyss. Being able to meet several demonized dragons like this simultaneously was probably no coincidence. It was likely that some Demon Lord had intentionally brought them to strengthen the demon wave¡¯s aerialbat strength.


    Also, ever since a dozen or so hours ago, when I started preparing a certain something, our airship squadron started proceeding at an even slower pace.


    This wasn¡¯t because we were intentionally slowing our pace. It was that we met with more and more obstacles. Previously, the demon wave had ignored us, but now, even the berserk demons on the ground were trying to jump up and get to us.


    ¡°...Ice Aeon is about to descend upon us; the new generation will bring about change...¡±


    As countless snowkes fluttered around us, my incantation could be heard everywhere. A tremendous snowfall began in the sky. Our airships were alreadypletely covered in snow.


    Countless ice fairies danced in the air. They yed with each other while tossing snowballs and sculpting the snow crystals,pressing the power of ice here, transforming this location into a ce simr to a snow mountain.


    Even though our people were prepared beforehand for this, the engineers and airship crews were still freezing. They could only deal with it by enveloping themselves in the warmest and thickest clothing they had.


    That was correct, I had been using a full 24 hours to prepare for Emperor Yongye¡¯s signature attack: the forbidden spell, Ice Aeon!


    As I previously mentioned, the greatest difference for me entering Myth rank was bing much closer to my previous peak of SemiGod. While I was still incapable of casting theplete Ice Aeon, I could now cast a simplified version of it.


    A minimum of Legend rank was all that was required to start casting a forbidden spell. Mages had always specialized in making weaker versions of forbidden spells that could still act as major killing weapons.


    A particr Law Incantation that I¡¯d used multiple times before had the effect of temporarily raising my power level. With double assistance from the airship¡¯s mage tower and Harloys, I had nowpleted 75% of my forbidden spell incantation.


    Considering how my current bloodline strength and my personal power level had far surpassed myself at this stage back then, not to mention the high magic environment¡¯s strengthening effects on all magic spells, my simplified Ice Aeon was likely to equal or even surpass the original... But the fine details didn¡¯t matter all that much. Perhaps a hydrogen bomb and a prototype nuclear bomb would have differences in overall AOE size and destructive force, but there would still be zero difference for those struck by the impact.


    ¡°How to deal with an endless wave of cannon fodder? The only solution is to forcefully use thergest AOE attack possible.¡±


    The elves also had forbidden spell mages. However, they wouldn¡¯t be foolish enough to cast forbidden spells, as that would mean forcing the enemy to attack them at all costs. Additionally, the more powerful the forbidden spell, the more time would be necessary to prepare. Three hours would be a small forbidden spell, and 24 hours wouldn¡¯t even be considered long.


    I was still quite far away. Yet, those demons which had lost all sense of logic and reason could still sense a powerful threat on the elemental wavelengths. They all instinctively attacked our airship squadron. Our warriors were quite fatigued from dealing with the constant attacks.


    ¡°Of course they would try their hardest to attack us. Otherwise, they¡¯ll just all die.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, this design of having mage towers on airships was quite wonderful. Perhaps the original intent was just to have magical defenses on the airship, but if the mage tower held a forbidden spell mage instead, that would be the equivalent of giving mobility to ¡°nuclear weapons¡±. If a slow forbidden spell incantation could be prepared in a rtively safer location like this, the threat would be magnified more than tenfold.


    To use an analogy from Earth, just the existence of nuclear weapons alone still wouldn¡¯t be that much of a threat. It would be impossible to shoot them farther than the explosive radius. An overly powerful bomb with toorge of a radius could only thus be used in a way that would bring nothing but destruction to both sides.


    However, when nuclear bombs were put onto bomber aircraft capable of delivering them to the target, this meant that the nuclear bombs had gained mobility. This tremendously increased their threat level, meaning that nuclear bombs became a serious tactical threat.


    Forbidden spells required incredibly long incantations. It would be impossible toplete one while riding on a steed. However, not only did mage towers have gravity bnce mechanisms, there would also be plenty of mage support buffs. The main attack mage tower of the airship provided an excellent ce for me to cast my forbidden spell.


    What? You¡¯re asking me why I didn¡¯t use the mage tower in my personal Yongye City floating castle to cast spells from instead? When considering the flying speed of my floating castle... just forget about it.


    ¡°Perhaps the future battles will all be about airships carrying forbidden spell mages and exchanging long-range powerful attacks!¡±


    The long incantation made me rather fatigued. Thankfully, I still had my soul connection, and could chat with Harloys to relieve my boredom. She could also keep me updated on thetest developments.


    ¡°That type of future won¡¯t happen. Nobody is an idiot. People will be on guard against it after seeing it one or two times. What do you think you¡¯ll do if some SemiGod rank assassins suddenlye for you while you¡¯re incanting?¡±


    What would I do? I would simply die! Casting a forbidden spell would be a double-edged sword. Simply interrupting a forbidden spell¡¯s incantation could cause a magical bacsh strong enough to make the caster self-destruct. Right now, I was unable to move or talk. I was basically a defenseless target.


    Harloys indeed made sense. While this strategy might work the first few times, after people knew about it, they would be trying their very hardest to kill the forbidden spell mage at all costs.


    Still, that didn¡¯t mean that this strategy would be meaningless. Smaller forbidden spells requiring only three hours of incanting could still be used. Also, it would still be easy to use such a strategy against any enemies who didn¡¯t have airships or aerialbat strength.


    ¡°How much longer until we enter the stable period?¡±


    ¡°Three hours. We¡¯ll probably also arrive at the Moonwheel Capital at that time.¡±


    ¡°Such an exact calction for timing both simultaneously. You already expect that we¡¯ll meet with more obstacles?¡±


    ¡°Not at all. I¡¯m just ustomed to leaving some extra hours of time just in case... Actually, that¡¯s not even what¡¯s important here.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, the most important is the explosive period after the stable period. That¡¯s the most dangerous time.¡±


    Forbidden spell casting would bepletely different from normal spell casting. Forbidden spell casting wouldn¡¯t use only the mage¡¯s personal mana. Forbidden spells would also draw power from the sky, earth, and Elemental Tide for a ime powerful effect. This had great requirements on the mage, and not a single mistake would be allowed during the process.


    The first step would be preparing beforehand, constructing the magic form and preparing the mana necessary. Only after repeated confirmations would the forbidden spell casting then begin. Mages were used to categorizing forbidden spell casting into several periods. This one was known as the only safe period, the preparation period.


    The second step was naturally the long incantation period. During this portion, countless elemental fairies would be summoned, and the power of the elements would be rearranged ording to the mage¡¯s will. Sometimes the power of the elements would bepressed, while at other times it would be arranged into a magic formation. All of the elements would then finally transform into an exquisite magic form and enter a rtively stable status.


    That part was where the forbidden spell¡¯s form would be formed and prepared for casting. This period before the forbidden spell¡¯s casting was termed the stable period.


    Meanwhile, the most dangerous, final step was known as the explosive period.


    Casting the magic form wasn¡¯t an instantaneous process. In order to cast a spell capable of changing the entire world around it, the spell would need to connect itself to the surrounding natural environment and use the entire power of the world to destroy the mage¡¯s enemies.


    It would be impossible to cast any forbidden spell instantaneously. Also, since the mage would need to connect the spell to the world around it at this time, it would be absolutely impossible for the mage to move. In fact, even any distractions could be fatal here.


    Since I was going to cast a forbidden spell in the Moonwheel Capital, I obviously needed to enter the final explosive period in the Moonwheel Capital... and I would also have to face Donatis in his true body there.


    ¡°How long do we need tost? I think that at least ten minutes shouldn¡¯t be a problem for us,¡± Harloys informed me.


    ¡°I have some good news, and I have some bad news for you...¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to know either.¡±


    ¡°Er, the good news is that thanks to various influences, such as my understanding of ice, the buff effects from having an ice magic mage tower, and so on, this simplified version of Ice Aeon should be equal or even greater in power to the original version. The bad news is that...¡±


    ¡°...The bad news is obviously that the explosive period will take even longer than we originally thought. How long, then?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words were filled with anxiety. At this time, every single minute would represent countless dangers and potential changes to the situation.


    ¡°A minimum of an extra 30 minutes, to a maximum of an extra three hours.¡±


    ¡°...Can we still stop right now?¡±


    ¡°If you want to see our airship squadron exploding together with me, sure.¡±


    ¡°You want us to defend against Donatis and the demon wave for three hours? I, I¡¯m going to kill you first!¡±


    ¡°Cough, cough, please don¡¯t mess around, we¡¯ll all blow up.¡±


    I teased the silly cat to pass the time, but I was also secretly praying.


    Since we already knew that we were facing the demon wave, of course I would make preparations beforehand. However, some schemes relied more on the heavens to work. There were far too many examples of overly calcting individuals who had messed up and gotten themselves killed out there. Since there were far too many people and uncontroble factors involved, I had absolutely no guarantee of my n¡¯s sess.


    ¡°I hope that Elisa can seed. Otherwise, I¡¯ll truly have a wrongful death this time.¡±

 Chapter 641 - Desperate Choice

    <h4>Chapter 641: Desperate Choice</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    When we arrived at the Moonwheel Capital, even the bravest warriors inhaled cold breaths.


    We had never underestimated the strength of the demon wave. However, we had indeed underestimated the demon wave¡¯s sense of presence.


    The Moonwheel Capital was originally well known to be a beautiful white moon city, holy and pure. But now, it was nothing more than rubble and debris. The dangerous magical forest around it which had been filled with countless secrets was also nothing more than deste wastnd now.


    The Moonwheel Capital originally had fiveyers of city walls, but only the final twoyers remained. Not only were themoners fighting for their lives, even Empress Afina and her closest retainers, together with the elven pce maids, were all fighting on the frontlines.


    In between the shattered walls, red blood trails could be seen everywhere. The entirend had been painted red with blood. However, there wasn¡¯t even a single scrap of flesh to be found anywhere, as the demons had long since devoured all flesh outside.


    Outside the elves¡¯ final sanctuary, nothing could be seen apart from various demons and demonic beasts of all colors and types.


    The demon wave devoured everything before it under the will of the Chaos Abyss. Perhaps these demons and demonic beasts would all turn to destroy each other after the first demon wave¡¯s conclusion, but before then, they would be an unstoppable, allied tidal wave.


    We had arrived together with a sudden snowfall. Snowkes began fluttering down upon this scene... Although it was indeed scenic, the powerful ice element wavelengths were the equivalent of activating a super mega AOE taunt ability. All attention instantly focused on us.


    What would it feel like to be stared at by a hundred people? How about a thousand people? What about being stared at by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of demons filled with killing intent towards you?


    For a single moment, the entire world fell silent, but the next instant, everything came alive again. All demons unhesitatingly stopped attacking the Moonwheel Capital¡¯s final two walls that they hadpletely surrounded, and started charging towards us.


    It was as if the skies were filled with insects, while an infinite number of ants covered the ground. It would definitely give anyone with trypophobia a seizure. When thinking about how every ¡°insect¡± was actually a powerful demon capable of berserk self-destruction, that would be even more horrifying.


    In fact, the demons on the ground began climbing on top of each other, creating a livingdder to reach and attack us.


    Right after that, a loud angry roar shook the skies.


    ¡°Anslo, if you don¡¯t want the entire moon elf species to die here, stop these demons right here and now!¡±


    Indeed, my preparations for Elisa in the Chaos Abyss was to have her meet Anslo and make him block Donatis and the demon wave for us. Anslo would have to act as our meat shield... er, I meant he¡¯d have to personally save the moon elves!


    While it was indeed difficult for a Main God to descend to the mortal ne, it was now the time of the demon wave. All dimensional restrictions had been removed here. I highly doubted that anything on the Chaos Abyss end could prevent a Chaos Main God froming here.


    All I did was have Elisa bring a message to Anslo and point the way.


    All Main God level existences would be beyondmon sense. Even if all the Elven Gods perished and the entire Moonwheel Capital was destroyed along with all the moon elves, I was still unsure if that would cause Anslo to perish. However, just his actions in joining the Chaos Abyss for the sake of preserving at least one elf species in this Holy War indicated to me that he absolutely would be unable to simply watch elves die.


    Was this a trap I set for Anslo? Indeed, it was. Not even a Main God level existence would possibly do well against the despair-inducing demon wave and Donatis who was now at the peak of his strength.


    While defeating a Main God was still possible, killing a Main God would be almost impossible. Only inbat situations such as this one where no retreat would possibly be allowed would there be the possibility of killing a Main God.


    ¡°Anslo,e out here! Your people are waiting for you to save them! You had the guts to rebel against the Gold Elves, but you don¡¯t even have the guts to watch this directly, divine ruler of all Elven Gods? So many of the Elven Gods under you have already died, and now your final believers are in the most hopeless crisis possible. Do you dare to still hide like a coward!?¡±


    A vicious voice echoed throughout the entire world. Harloys revealed a delighted smile, for the name ranked #1 on her list of revenge targets was naturally the main mastermind behind the annihtion of all Gold Elves: Elven Main God Anslo.


    I had promised her before that I would help her kill Anslo. Now, I was living up to my promise.


    This was both revenge for past history as well as expectations for the future... Anslo had ruled the elves from above the clouds for far too long. If Anslo didn¡¯t die, not only would the Nortnds elves be uneasy in their new Elven Empire, it was definite that Anslo woulde attacking us after the Holy War ended. Bing the mortal enemy of a Main God would spell endless trouble.


    Besides, Karwenz had also targeted Anslo. Anslo was my personal enemy as well.


    ¡°Since the elves need to be saved, then Anslo must die.¡±


    Was this a scheme? Of course it was. But, when considering how all our vicious intentions were quite obvious, and we were openly inviting him here, this was more like an open scheme... no, a deal.


    Even if the moon elves were destined to all die here, Anslo might still be powerful enough not to die. However, I was now giving him a chance to save the moon elves, but he would have to risk his life and fight against a powerful enemy. What would he choose?


    Was this a chance to save the moon elves? Indeed, it was. As long as Anslo stopped Donatis and gave me enough time toplete my Ice Aeon incantation, even if Main God level existences could defend against my forbidden spell attack, the more troublesome demon war ves would definitely bepletely annihted. That would open up a path to survival.


    However, facing off against the elite Demon Lord vanguards, a furious Chaos War God, and endless amount of demon war ve cannon fodder, blocking them from their desires... Just what were the odds that the already injured Anslo would be able to survive this? Also, my forbidden spell would be an indiscriminate AOE attack. While Ice Aeon was perhaps incapable of ying a Main God by itself, it was more than possible that it could strike a fatal blow to an already injured Main God.


    And even if Anslo was lucky enough to survive this battle... he had already betrayed the Order Faction, and fighting Donatis here would mean that he had also betrayed the Chaos Faction right as the Holy War began. Although Eich wasrge, there would be nowhere that he could go anymore after betraying both major factions.


    The choice between life and death was right before Anslo. If it was you, what would you choose? Oh, venerated Elven Main God Anslo, protector and guardian of all elves, the most glorious lord of them all! The destroyer of the previous Elven Empire!


    ¡°Please save us, dear God of all elves.¡±


    ¡°Save us, our venerated and grand God of all elves.¡±


    The sound of prayer could be hearding from the Moonwheel Capital¡¯s final defense lines. My spies as well as truly despairing elves all simultaneously uttered the divine name of the Elven Main God. They prayed that he would appear to defend them from this despairing crisis.


    The moon elf higher-ups had rather ugly expressions right now. The moon elves¡¯ priests and other holy job ss members even started using dirtynguage in anger. With the current situation, those who knew far more than the ordinary elves naturally realized that this was a trap specifically targeting Main God Anslo.


    However...


    Even many priests kneeled as they devoutly prayed for the descent of Elven Main God Anslo. This was because the Moonwheel Capital was the final main location of all the remaining Elven Gods¡¯ source of belief. If everyone here was lost, all of the Elven Gods would definitely perish.


    ¡°For the sake of elven belief and culture, so that they may spread in the future, please save us...¡±


    Actually, this sentence would be much easier to understand if I tranted the literal meaning: ¡°Oh Elven Main God, please die so that we may live.¡±


    ¡°Save us, we still have a future!¡± -> ¡°Anslo, please die.¡±


    ¡°Elven glory must continue onward! Our people can¡¯t die here!¡± -> ¡°Anslo, please die.¡±


    ¡°Glorious God of all elves, we believe that you¡¯ll definitely be able to destroy the demon wave here.¡± -> ¡°Please hurry up and go die.¡±


    Obviously, Anslo would be able to hear all these prayers. The vicious curses contained within those seemingly devout prayers would truly be a toxic venom to him.


    ¡°Mortals want to live, so they want their God to die... what a moving scene that brings warm tears to my eyes.¡±


    Unfortunately, I was currentlypletely unable to move, and could only share my delight with Harloys through our soul connection. Meanwhile, I could sense that she was excited almost to the point of hysteria.


    ¡°Yay! Die, die, die, die...¡±


    Alright, maybe insanity would be a more urate term than hysteria here. However, Harloys had pursued her revenge against those who¡¯d exterminated her entire species for more than ten thousand years now. She was finally having her best opportunity to vent with one of the main culprits.


    What would Anslo do? What would he choose? Was he truly a saint? Or was he only pretending to be magnanimous to his own? Regardless, it was all meaningless as he was finished.


    If he appeared here, he would die. The Elven Gods Faction had already been broken. The other Main Gods would never let go of such a juicy opportunity or let Anslo safely survive the rest of the Holy War. The entire Elven Gods Faction was finished.


    If Anslo didn¡¯t arrive, then I would unhesitatingly jump into my personal Hell world and have my almostpleted forbidden spell explode there instead. I would then turn around and run from this ce as quickly as I could. As for what happened to the moon elves, whom I had a grudge against anyways? Who cared?


    If Anslo didn¡¯te here, then we would all definitely die here if we tried to stay. I naturally needed to focus on our own safety first and foremost. This would be an easy excuse for me to give the Nortnds elves. ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sorry, but I really did try my best already.¡±


    Additionally, if all the Elven Gods under Anslo died, and he still didn¡¯t appear even as his believers died... He would then be destined to die afterwards regardless of whether he was still fine or not, because not a single elf would worship such a Guardian God afterwards. Since Anslo had the Divine Concept of Guardian God of All Elves, perhaps he would even meet a fate worse than death.


    Perhaps the elves might still be able to survive, but the Elven Gods Faction was destined to die here.


    ¡°Anslo, you¡¯re at a dead end no matter which path you take! What will you choose? What can you even choose!¡±


    Meanwhile, the gigantic figure who appeared in the sky, with that silent and incredibly fatigued divine expression of his, seemed to indicate his answer.

 Chapter 642 - Cat

    <h4>Chapter 642: Cat</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Gods¡¯ true bodies were typically gigantic and strong. This was the end result of receiving so much power of belief from their worshipers, as well as a natural result of having tremendous power.


    Although there were also those who had small sizes with tremendous power, those were only special exceptions. In most situations, the strength of a God could be easily determined by their physical appearance.


    Those who were absolutely gigantic, seeming like they could change the entire world just by standing there, with very powerful auras, and perhaps even their own background music, would definitely be a major boss.


    However, Anslo¡¯s arrival was quite silent, and even pitiful.


    If one decreased his size by many times, he actually appeared like a middle-aged elven schr. He always held a scroll in one hand and a sword in his other hand, which was supposed to represent how he was at the peak of the world in both wisdom and physical strength.


    Actually, Anslo had many nicknames. However, the mostmons ones were ¡°Anslo the Wise¡± and ¡°Anslo the Knowledgeable¡±. His image as a wise schr seemed to be the deepest impression he gave others. However, ancient individuals from other species knew him far better as ¡°Anslo the Schemer¡±.


    Anslo had personally nned the eradication of the Gold Elves, sessfully destroying the Elven Empire that the Great Demon Empire, Beastmen Empire, and countless human kingdoms had all tried to destroy but failed to for so long. Anslo had helped the elves start a new generation... even if the result of the new generation was that the elves weakened and separated into factions.


    But, no matter what, Anslo had previously been someone nameless who reached the peak of the world. His slyness and wisdom was praised by countless people.


    Anslo had been the ruler of all elves for so many years now. Even though the elves were weak, under his guidance, the human kingdoms suffered from many internal conflicts, growing weaker. The phrase ¡°elven friendship¡± became synonymous with ¡°trusting a devil¡±.


    If the elves creating instability and internal conflicts amongst other species¡¯ countries could be considered a political strategy, then Anslo was doubtlessly the individual who came up with it. He was the foundational source of the elves¡¯ schemes.


    In a way, anyone who currently hated the elves would definitely hate Anslo.


    In order to save the elves from the demon wave, it would be necessary to fight against Chaos War God Donatis. This was something unavoidable, and everyone knew that in order to deal with a Main God, another Main God would be necessary in the great majority of cases.


    Naturally, I wasn¡¯t going to endanger any Main God on our side for the sake of the elves. So, of course, I would force the Elven Main God to fight instead.


    But right now, this Elven Main God had quite a pitiful appearance.


    He no longer held his scroll and sword as always. This was because arge portion of his right half was now missing. His entire right arm, from shoulder to hand, hadpletely disappeared. It seemed that the rumors of him being seriously injured had been true.


    Well, this was only natural. He had betrayed the Order Faction to join the Chaos Faction. Changing his power type from Order to Chaos would definitely weaken him significantly. Additionally, right after he joined the Chaos Abyss, two Chaos Main Gods teamed up to attack him. It was only normal for Anslo to have been seriously injured.


    A God¡¯s true body being injured meant that the God¡¯s final lines of defense had been broken through. Just the fact that Anslo was appearing in such a form would make his believers feel fear, and even despair.


    The gigantic Elven Main God didn¡¯t instantly block the demon wave upon arriving. Instead, starlight twirled around him as his elegant golden sword became covered in silver light. A tornado whipped up around Anslo, blowing away countless demons. Existences that weren¡¯t strong enough wouldn¡¯t even have the right to directly face him.


    However, Iughed loudly. This was because Anslo would definitely have a powerful and wild opponent to face him.


    The gigantic pitch-ck Chaos War God had yet to take action. However, Donatis slowly unsheathed his obsidian greatsword which was covered in divine blood, and then pointed it at Anslo.


    Chaos War God Donatis. On any true battlefield, he would never waste any words. His ritual of pointing his sword at his enemy was his recognition of a powerful enemy. It also represented his killing intent towards any who tried to stop him.


    The next instant, Donatis moved. The blizzard currently falling was unable to slow him one bit. His footsteps were swift and heavy, and each step crushed several dozen demons under him.


    Donatis was moving in my direction as I was currently casting a forbidden spell. However, his attention was fully focused on Elven Main God Anslo.


    This was giving Anslo a final opportunity to choose. If Anslo chose to block Donatis, then these two Main Gods would be battling to the death.


    *ng!*


    As expected, Anslo¡¯s fine silver sword blocked Donatis¡¯s obsidian greatsword. Anslo expressionlessly looked at Donatis. While Anslo didn¡¯t reveal any emotion, I knew that it was likely that he could only swallow down his bitterness and helplessness.


    Anslo had no choice. The current situation was quite obvious. Only by stopping Donatis here would it be possible for the elves to be saved.


    Donatis would never retreat here. How could a seriously injured Main God possibly stop him...? No, in fact, he was delighted with the current situation.


    Donatis smiled. For the first time, this ck giant revealed a smile. This was his extreme delight. He had experienced peace for far too long, and now he finally had a chance to go all out against a powerful opponent like he wanted.


    Donatis didn¡¯t waste any words, as words would be meaningless at this point. No matter who it was, anyone who opposed the demon wave would be his prey.


    He jumped up and viciously sliced into thend. The sword energy from his greatsword directly created a canyon that countless demons fell into.


    The thin silver sword kept shing against the ck greatsword. Just the shock waves from their fight crushed countless demons into dust. It seemed as if the earth was unable to withstand such frighteningly powerful energy waves, for the earth itself began to crack. Vicious gales were also roaring in the sky. A dimensional crack was being torn amongst this blizzard.


    This was a hopeless battlefield. The two giants roared angrily while trying to kill each other, and just the shock waves from their battle were enough to destroy the world. A battle between two Main God level existences was exactly this direct and barbaric.


    Both Main Gods¡¯ Divine Kingdoms and natural domains were spreading here, but also cancelling each other out. Anslo didn¡¯t even use the magic that he was highly skilled in. At melee distance, simple curses would be far more efficient as they might be able to directly tear apart Donatis¡¯s armor.


    The Main Gods¡¯ true bodies that contained all their divine power would be the most powerful weapons of all, which was why both Main Gods unhesitatingly chose the most barbaric melee style possible.


    The demons of the demon wave were truly unfortunate here. Not only were countless demons killed by the shock waves, the dimensional cracks and fissures in the ground were also fatal.


    No matter what the end result of this battle was, since this ce had be the battlefield of two Main Gods, the dimensionalws here would remain unstable for quite a long period of time afterwards. This ce would bepletely uninhabitable.


    But even so, the demon wave still attempted to charge at us. Even though allied demons¡¯ heads were being crushed right in front of them, the demons still instinctively attacked the greatest threat to them.


    ¡°Sonya! Also, the remaining Elven Gods who are hiding and being cowards! Your boss is fighting his hardest now, so can you still all hide and be cowards!? Your people are watching you! Foolish Elven Gods, is this how you repay your believers who worship you!?¡±


    Angry roars echoed in the sky. The next instant, all lives on the battlefield heard a sigh containing endless amounts of despair and helplessness that was easily understood.


    Countless dimensional portals from the upper nes opened up in the skies. Various silver- and gold-colored Order Gods walked out from the portals. Behind them, their heroic spirits and angels unhesitatingly stepped out and immediately attacked the demon wave.


    ¡°Right, right, right, this is how things should be. Fight for me, my brave warriors!¡±


    Sardonic and maniacalughter rang out, filled with obvious derision for the Elven Gods. However, even Silver Elf War Goddess Sonya, who was famous for her terrible temper, didn¡¯t try to respond.


    The Order Gods stopped the Demon Lords in the demon wave. The heroic spirits and angels started fighting against the demon war ves. Both sides became locked in a bitter struggle.


    ¡°Heehee, such a group of good doggies. Properly block those rabid dogs for me, sacrifice yourselves for me, fight for me, die for me. I¡¯ll help you all to save the elves. Haha, you¡¯re all such garbage, actually needing an outsider like me to save your people.¡±


    ¡°Rnd...!¡±


    Anslo, who had remained silent all this time, finally spoke up. His killing intent and fury were deep and obvious. Just this single word was apanied by tornados and thunder.


    ¡°If you dare to talk back against me, I¡¯ll immediately leave this ce!¡±


    Anslo and Sonya¡¯s mouths twitched, but in the end, neither of them said anything. A rare awkward silence actually appeared on the battlefield. Meanwhile, Anslo¡¯s opponent, Donatis, unhesitatinglyughed manically.


    ¡°Haha, garbage Anslo! Such a fitting insult. Indeed, when a Main God had fallen to the extent of having to fight for the sake of a mortal, there¡¯s no mistake in calling you garbage.¡±


    However, nobody responded to hisughter. The voice in the sky ignored Donatispletely, continuing to make sarcastic jabs at the Elven Gods.


    ¡°Garbage Elven Gods, stop those demons for me! If my forbidden spell fails here, the elves will be annihted, just like how you annihted the Gold Elves back in the day. Do you want to kill off all the remaining elven bloodlines? When you destroyed the Elven Empire, that already sent the elves from flourishing to decline. Now you want to destroy your own species? Such perfect Guardian Gods!¡±


    Although these words were quite vicious, they were indeed stating the harsh truth. Every single word hit where it hurt most. Yet, the Elven Gods didn¡¯t dare to talk back at all, as they were afraid that the only person who could save the elves would turn around and leave.


    It would be no secret to the Elven Gods how the elves had previously been involved in the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction. With so many umted grudges between myself and the elves, it seemed quite likely that I would be willing to leave and abandon the elves to their fate.


    Not only that, if these words became publicized, the Elven Gods would likely no longer possess any pride or any belief in them.


    The Elven Gods were so aggrieved that they all felt pure killing intent. Yet, they could only vent it on the demons, and they would even have to risk their lives to protect the person who was making such insulting remarks aimed at them. This aggrievement was so much that they wanted to spit up blood.


    ¡°Yes, yes, yes, good doggies, go and bite them! I think you have a good chance of winning! May you be blessed with victory! Kiss! Dear Elven Gods, dear Anslo, I, Rnd Mist, love you all! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!¡±


    Rnd¡¯s voice that sounded everywhere even had sessive flying kisses. Finally, Sonya was unable to tolerate this anymore as she turned around.


    ¡°Yongye!¡±


    But, she shut up in the very next instant, as now the ice magic spell had beenpleted. Major snowfall began over the entire area. The Ice Aeon forbidden spell had begun connecting itself with the entire world around it, and was now entering the final explosive period.


    The demon wave instinctively sensed that their end was near, causing all the demons to furiously start attacking. The Elven Gods and their subordinates could only work even harder to try and stop the demons.


    Meanwhile, on the new Borealis, I was still in the midst of casting Ice Aeon, which meant that I waspletely unable to physically speak. I was currently feeling rather helpless.


    ¡°Are you having fun?¡±


    ¡°This is amazingly fun. I¡¯ll owe you a good favor in the future for this.¡±


    Alright then, the readers should understand by now. All those vicious words from earlier weren¡¯t actually said by me. It was my magical pet who pretended to be me, using words to goad the Elven Gods into action. If it had been me speaking, there would have been no need to attract so much hate.


    Right now, Harloys truly looked rather special. Although a blizzard was falling, she was excited to the point where her face was red. Her ceremonial clothes were also drenched in her sweat, revealing her curvaceous and perfect figure.


    Her eyes were filled with tears, and her legs were trembling as if they had gone numb. She was also constantly hopping up and down while angrily ring at the Elven Gods. Perhaps she had been waiting for this day for far too long.


    Actually, I could have stopped her from doing this, but it was rare for her to have so much fun. Why would I stop her?


    Besides, after her jabs at them, the Elven Gods would lose all of their pride. How could Gods who weren¡¯t even proud of themselves possibly receive devout worship?


    While this would attract a great deal of hate under my name, intentionally pointing out how the Elven Gods had caused the elves to go from flourishing to decline, and angrily scolding the Elven Gods for their mistakes, would all help to further solidify the position of the Nortnds Elven Empire. However, if Harloys had been the one who was seen speaking up, there would naturally be old elves who would hate her for it. I was perfectly clear on the potential benefits and downsides to all this.


    My reputation? Would that be edible? In a terrible world like this one, it was probably better to have a terrible reputation.


    ¡°Heehee, so what if you hate me? If you have the skills, thene bite me! You want to kill me? Remember to take a ticket number and wait your turn in line. There¡¯s so many waiting in line in front of you useless Elven Gods!


    ¡°Heehee, hate me...¡±


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, Harloys...! Forget it, just have fun as you like. Just think of today as your birthday. Have as much fun as you want.¡±


    Thanks to Harloys¡¯ vicious intentions, what I thought in my mind about the Elven Gods was all transformed into actual insults. Seeing how swift Harloys was toe up with insults and how proud she was of herself, I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry.


    ¡°Silly cat, I¡¯ve aplished what I promised you. Remember that you owe me a favor.¡±


    ¡°Meow.¡±


    The Gold Elf cooperated and grew a cat tail and cat ears. She really did look rather cute like this. Her meowing by my ear was rather soft and tender, to the point where I was getting goosebumps all over. However, I didn¡¯t really understand what she meant by all this.


    ¡°Meow meow, I¡¯ll pay you back by apanying you for the rest of my life!¡±


    ¡°...Forget it, it¡¯s like your birthday today, just go crazy like you want.¡±


    ¡°Idiot, meow. Wooden block, meow.¡±

 Chapter 643 - Beginning the Rescue

    <h4>Chapter 643: Beginning the Rescue</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The blizzard kept increasing in magnitude as well as area. Even from several dozen kilometers away, demons in the demon wave could sense impending danger. They either turned around and ran, or killed their own allies for the sake of opening up a path. They all instinctively wanted to get away from this threat.


    The eternal battle between Order Gods and Chaos Abyss demons had reenacted itself countless times already over all the Holy Wars. However, it was extremely rare that a battle would be so brutal right at the beginning of a Holy War. The venerated Main Gods seemed just like lions locked together in an arena as they viciously tore at and battled against each other without retreating.


    Every single second, countless heroic spirits and God Envoys were perishing. This was an unavoidable battle with no path to retreat. Elegant elven martial arts techniques couldn¡¯tpare to the demons¡¯ violent, berserk natures andbat instincts. Magic spells would only cause the furious demons to prematurely self-destruct. In front of the endless waves of demon cannon fodder, the legendary elven heroes were all torn apart or exploded and killed by the demon war ves.


    However, the Elven Gods had no space or time to be retreating here. They were gambling their countless years of umtion, just like an addicted gambler who couldn¡¯t stop gambling. They were betting everything on this meat grinder that was absolutely hopeless, all for the sake of obtaining a little more time.


    Behind the Elven Gods was a pitch-ck floating castle that flew above the Moonwheel Capital. This floating castle had already opened up all its passageways. Countless floating airships andbat airships were flying all around, helping the surviving elves enter this floating city.


    Yongye City was now serving a critical purpose at this moment. Once Yongye City was filled, I could either ce it back inside my personal Hell world, or have it drive off at its turtle-like speed. Either option would be quite safe.


    By the way, as I previously mentioned, my personal Hell world was also a part of Hell itself. Although the aura of death there wasn¡¯t as powerful as in the main Hell, it would still be a type of negative energy which would be harmful or even fatal to the living. This was why my Yongye City had never had living residents on board all this time.


    For powerful individuals, it would be possible to defend against this type of negative energy that didn¡¯t have any negative intent as long as they weren¡¯t foolish enough to try and absorb it. However, this negative energy would be a fatal killer, impossible to defend against, for ordinary people with no special abilities.


    I had previously performed some experiments in my personal Hell world¡¯s environment. For an ordinary person, it would take three hours at most before they would be permanently stuck here. Any living person would be the dead in my personal Hell world, but they would still be able to live on there in the form of undead spirits. However, I figured that the elves probably wouldn¡¯t enjoy permanently living in my perpetually dark world.


    Considering how elves had even worse physical bodies than humans, it would probably only be safe for elves to stay there for less than two hours. But, if they were also within Yongye City which activated its defense spells to keep out the aura of death, this time limit could probably be extended.


    Still, when considering how typical mage towers and floating castles would have limited mana, activating such a defense spell for a long period of time would be suicidal, and no defense spell could be kept up for too long... Alright, the perceptive readers among you might have noticed how I used the word ¡°typical¡±. Of course, my Yongye City was different! It possessed an ¡°infinite mana core¡±!


    Cough, let us ignore how I managed to obtain infinite mana for my Yongye City. Still, even though the defense spell could be maintained permanently, the dimensionalws of Hell would still constantly invade anyone who entered. The defense spell would only somewhat lengthen the amount of time that someone could stay without dying. Those who left Hell afterwards would be lucky to get off with only a major illness. If they stayed for too long in Hell, they would still die. Thinking back on the unlucky bandits I experimented on, some of them had already started transforming into undead on the fifth day, and all the bandits had be undead by the seventh day. I felt that for the elves, it would be only safe for them to stay three or four days.


    Of course, unless it was absolutely necessary, I didn¡¯t want to expose my personal Hell world, as this was truly one of my aces among aces. However, when considering the situation today, some things would be unavoidable.


    My original n was that the floating airships should have been enough to only take the elven children with us. If too many elves came along with us, then I would bring out my floating castle and slowly fly them.


    If we were forced onto the brink, then I would put the elves in Yongye City, and then into my personal Hell world. I would be able to easily escape by myself, and then rush across the snowy Herit Mountains that everyone considered impossible to cross before the elves in my personal Hell world died. I would then open up my world on the ins across from the Herit Mountains and release all the elves, leaving them to their own devices there.


    Of course, the prerequisite for all of this would be to have all the elves enter my floating castle. This way, we could be much freer in our nning.


    ¡°Children, elderly, and women first. Hey, you¡¯re a young male elf, so why aren¡¯t you off fighting against the demon wave? You¡¯re trying to fight for a spot with women and children? Aren¡¯t you embarrassed?¡±


    Harloys kicked away a young male elf who had been attempting to rush forward for a spot. Her appearance helped to restore elven morale.


    Harloys had brought all four Superior Elf species along with her to wholeheartedly participate in rescuing the elves. Her unique Gold Elf appearance with brilliant golden hair, fair white skin, and tall figure attracted a great deal of attention. Her three pieces of God Equipment representing Gold Elf royal authority attracted even more attention. Many silver elves and moon elves were looking at her with trulyplex expressions.


    As for why I had the elves do most of the work in rescuing the Moonwheel Capital elves, apart from the reason that the elves would be reassured and less on guard against other elves, it was also because I felt that a rescue effort would be the best possible method of improving reputation.


    Our rescue effort hadn¡¯t yet received the express permission of the ¡°Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire¡± and its Superior Elves and royalty. However, judging from the current situation, while they still didn¡¯t intend to retreat yet, they didn¡¯t at all try to stop our rescue efforts. This was despite how we were making it obvious that we were stealing their poption from them... It wasn¡¯t like they could stop their own people from trying to find a way to survive.


    Yep, when it came to it, I would toss a fewbat airships over to pick up the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire royalty and higher-ups.


    At this moment, the new Borealis was no longer moving. It was incapable of moving as countless amounts of ice, snow, and frost had enveloped the entire airship at the core of the spell. A tremendous blizzard was blowing everywhere around the airship. Between the sky and thend were countless flying and dancing ice fairies.


    Even more astonishing was that right around the new Borealis and right below it in the Moonwheel Capital, even though the wind was still freezing, there was no snow. This was the only area with no snow as far as the eye could see.


    Even a forbidden spell would have a safe area. That would be where the caster was located. Right now, all of the Chaos Faction forces were approaching this direction.


    Apart from the Borealis that I was on, all the other airships and warriors were now participating in battle. However, they weren¡¯t on the frontlines of battle with the Elven Gods, as they weren¡¯t going to be cannon fodder. Instead, they were outside the remaining walls of the Moonwheel Capital, stopping the demons and demonic beasts that made it through.


    This would greatly reduce the risk, as well as help receive gratitude and favor from the elves. This would also be quite appropriate for these mortal human warriors to umtebat experience and obtain equipment data rather than instantly dying to the demon wave.


    The other airships¡¯ main cannons took turns firing. Every explosion killedrge groups of tens or even hundreds of demons. This highly efficient and low-risk fighting style made the elves discover that they were indeed behind the times.


    However, what attracted the most attention in the air wasn¡¯t actually therge airships. Instead, it was the much smaller Gnome Phoenixbat airships thatmanded the most attention.


    The Gnome Phoenix was a modified and improved version of gnome helicopters. Gnome helicopters weren¡¯t a new invention, yet they had never been chosen by aerial knights before, primarily because gnome helicopters were highly prone to mechanical problems. Also, if any mechanical problems urred on a gnome helicopter, the helicopter and pilot would both crash and be smashed into tiny pieces.


    However, the Gnome Phoenix model was different from the original version which had been so prone to mechanical problems. The Gnome Phoenix had two ovepping rotors that both helped the helicopter to fly. That way, even if one rotor broke, that would only lower the helicopter¡¯s mobility, and it would still be possible to descend safely. Additionally, even if both rotors broke, we had prepared parachutes for the pilots... This type of ¡°rebirth from death¡± was why this new model was named ¡°Phoenix¡±.


    The Gnome Phoenixes weren¡¯t even equipped with weapons. They were merely quite simple mechanical contraptions. Calling them a type ofbat airship would be somewhat of an exaggeration as their only function would be to help someone fly. However, these simply designed, incredibly cheap, and weakest airships of all had earned gloriousbat achievements.


    The Gnome Phoenixes constantly sprayed a special potion down on the ground. This potion was known as ¡°Cleaning Agent #2¡±, an idental byproduct from one of Olivia¡¯s experiments. This potion was originally intended to beundry detergent. However, the results of experiments showed that this potion was actually an excellent stimnt and aphrodisiac... Cough, cough, shouldn¡¯t we all be used to such ¡°surprises¡± identally invented during the course of scientific research?


    An appropriate amount of stimtion on the battlefield would be a good thing. Fear and anger would both be excellent stimnts that could help warriors to utilize their full power. However, overly excited minds and emotions would actually negatively affect one¡¯sbat potential. People would make mistakes from using too much force, or overload their own muscles and cramp up. There was also extreme fatigue that woulde after too much stimtion. All of these would be fatal.


    But when such a super fast-acting stimnt met with the demon war ves who would all self-destruct upon being overly stimted, it would make such a perfect pairing. Thebat results obtainable from this were obvious.


    Everywhere that the Gnome Phoenix helicopters went, they opened up potion bottles and sprayed down potion and powder, followed by sessive sounds of explosions from below. Not only that, the demons were now densely packed together in order to surround and attack the remaining Moonwheel Capital city walls. The self-destruction from a single demon war ve would kill another several demon war ves, and several of those would also self-destruct... A single potion that cost less than ten silver coins to produce could actually kill several dozen mid-level demons in one go? This was something almost inconceivable.


    There were 300 or so Gnome Phoenix helicopters that weren¡¯t armed with anything other than this potion. Yet, they attracted the most attention in this battle. Everywhere that they went, countless explosions came from below. However, I knew that such greatbat results wouldn¡¯t continue for long.


    We had brought along many new weapons, equipment, and potions to experiment with in actual battle. Every single type was limited in number. But, since this particr potion was so highly effective, I would be having it mass-produced in much greater quantity in the future, and then selling it as an expensive new weapon.


    ¡°You¡¯re selling a potion that¡¯s abination of a stimnt and aphrodisiac as a new biological weapon? I don¡¯t even know how toment anymore...¡±


    However, considering how only ordinary demons would be entering the mortal ne after the demon wave ended, it was unlikely that this potion would be selling well. Well, it was still likely to be effective against fire element demons. As long as a single inferno demon was lured into self-destructing, that would cause a tremendous amount of damage to its demon allies.


    ¡°Forget it, let¡¯s stop thinking so much. There¡¯s still more than 40 different potions that are still awaiting experimentation.¡±


    Ice Aeon was now in its final explosive period. Its magic form had stabilized, which meant that I could now multitask and concentrate on other things. Although I still needed to physically speak this ridiculously long incantation, I actually had more freedom to pay attention to the battle.


    The ground battle was also in a stalemate now. The addition of the Mist Alliance¡¯s human warriors helped the elves to recover. However, something displeasing was that the human warriors already suffered injuries and death right from fighting their first demons.


    Although it seemed like the elves were having an easy time against these demon war ves, the Mist Alliance¡¯s heavy infantry and magic swordsmen immediately suffered against these demon war ves that had tremendous physical strength and didn¡¯t fear pain. Not only that, the demon war ves might self-destruct at any moment. Indeed, this made them an incredibly difficult foe to face in melee.


    Even with all our preparations made beforehand, fresh soldiers could still only be veteran soldiers through actualbat. They didn¡¯t have experience fighting against such an enemy, so injuries and death were unavoidable. Thankfully, Reyne personally participated in battle, and managed to stabilize thebat situation with her fierce fighting.


    What surprised me was that her two concubines also participated in battle. One was a hardened, swift swordswoman, while the other was a skilled mage who knew how to cast both magic and Divine Arts. They were actually surprisingly skilled.


    ¡°How much longer for your forbidden spell toplete?¡±


    ¡°About one hour.¡±


    ¡°...Didn¡¯t you tell me earlier that you only needed another half an hour? Ten minutes have passed since then! Now you¡¯re telling me that you need another hour?¡±


    Reyne was quite angry as she talked to Harloys. Since I was unable to move or talk right now, anything I wanted to express could only be said through Harloys.


    More than one hundred elite warriors had already died in the first round ofbat against the demon wave. While Reyne could only inwardly sigh at the demon wave¡¯s well-deserved reputation, her heart ached for all the dead warriors. Naturally, this also caused her temper to re.


    ¡°Whenever he says half an hour at most, he usually means three hours...¡±


    Harloys¡¯ voice trailed off as she spoke. This was indeed a bad situation. Every second, countless warriors were dying. The strength of the enemy was far stronger than expected.


    But at such a time, both sides could only fight with all they had. There was no turning back for either side. The first side that was unable to take it and backed down would be finished.


    ¡°Rnd, you truly are the #1 pit digger to appear in the past thousand years. Not only do you dig pitfalls for your enemies, you also dig them for your allies!¡±


    Cough, what did this have to do with me? Why was I being wrongfully med like this?

 Chapter 644 - Battle of Ice and Snow

    <h4>Chapter 644: Battle of Ice and Snow</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The snowkes kept increasing in size. The ground was now thickly nketed in snow. An ordinary person¡¯s vision could now only see a few meters ahead. The snowkes were literally asrge as a person¡¯s hand. In fact, a snowke falling on a person¡¯s body would cause noticeable pain.


    Extremely condensed ice element separated itself in midair and descended in its natural forms, snowkes, snowballs, and snow bricks. However, they were foundationally no different. They were all part of the forbidden spell which was creating a world of ice and snow.


    Saying that this ce had be a world of ice and snow was no mere description. It was a concrete fact. As the forbidden spell spread, all other elemental powers were naturally rejected in this location. All non-ice magic spells would see their power decreased by an extreme amount, or even be renderedpletely unusable. This was the anti-magic zone that aplete forbidden spell would bring.


    The foundational reason for this was quite simple. The ice element had gathered in far too great an amount here, which reduced the space for other elements to exist. Since mages needed to make use of the power of the elements, it would obviously be a nightmare for those who weren¡¯t ice mages.


    The most pitiful would be fire mages as fire was the opposing element to ice. Near the end of the forbidden spell Ice Aeon¡¯spletion, even a Legend-ranked fire mage would be unable to throw a single fireball.


    The appearance of the anti-magic zone doubtlessly meant that the forbidden spell was nearing its end. It was already in the final parts of the explosive period. The powerful forbidden spell, capable of destroying everything, was almost ready to be released at any moment.


    ¡°Kill him! Stop him!¡±


    Everything would be dying in the next instant? Perhaps death was simply another form of ¡°eternal life¡±. However, all living creatures had instinctual fear of death, which was currently warning them with full force. The already berserk demons became even more berserk. Yet, the demons found it difficult to proceed forward in the blizzard.


    Demons also had their natural elements and natural talent abilities. The fact that most demons reeked of sulfur was already the best exnation. The great majority of demons would be born with excellent fire and poison resistance. Many demons would also be experts at using fire magic.


    Not only was this a natural-born ability, explosive attack power would be necessary to survive in the dangerous Chaos Abyss. This naturally meant that fire magic, which was easily usable in most environments and possessed great destructive power, was the most popr magic type. A high-level demon job ss like inferno demon was what many demons would consider the perfect job ss.


    Now, the will of the Chaos Abyss had forcefully conscripted demons and turned them into demon war ves, giving them the ability to self-destruct. Self-destruction was one of the mostmon techniques avable to all fire element creatures. This basically meant that the demon war ves had all been bestowed with the fire element.


    But now, these natural fire element demons met with great trouble. Not only did the blizzard constantly sap them of warmth and stamina, it was also expelling the burning fire mana in their blood. In fact, some of the demon cannon fodder even became unable to self-destruct.


    However, it wasn¡¯t only the enemies that suffered from the blizzard. Elven clothing styles all had one thing inmon¡ªthey were quite light and simple as elves typically used low-level magical essories and spells to keep themselves warm. However, all low-level magic equipment had already started to lose their effect in this anti-magic zone. The elves were starting to shiver and regret how little they were wearing.


    Luckily, the human reinforcements from the Nortnds were likely the most skilled army in the world when fighting in snowy environment. In fact, their ice mages even came prepared with sleds. The snow would be their natural ally. The demons became much easier to deal with after bing slowed and dulled by the snow, and even if parts of the city wall were destroyed, snow could be stacked up to solidify the walls again.


    ¡°Ice Aeon...¡±


    The trembling Empress Afina the First managed to squeeze these words out from between her chattering teeth. All the Elven Gods were shouting the names ¡°Rnd¡± and ¡°Yongye¡±. By this time, everyone had recognized this ultimate ice element forbidden spell.


    A bit more than one hundred years ago, it was precisely Ice Aeon which destroyed multiple elven kingdoms. Some of those elven kingdoms¡¯nd was still even now locked in an eternal world of ice and snow. Emperor Yongye had been quite famous for loathing elves. The elves had also viewed him as their mortal enemy, and Ice Aeon became a taboo buried in history, not to be spoken of again.


    Forbidden spells were also categorized into different levels based on the power, area of effect, and functions. But, no matter how you tried to categorize Ice Aeon, it would definitely be top-tier among all forbidden spells.


    Theplete version of Ice Aeon was all about creating a world of ice and snow. The area of effect and duration could all be modified based on the caster¡¯s desire. Of course, the more powerful the spell, the more mana and preparation time would be required. The Ice Aeon spell had already created countless cmities before. Thergest ever usage of this spell had directly frozen the territory of an entire elven kingdom.


    That was only a smaller country that only had several mid-sized cities. However, even that elven kingdom¡¯s territory was several thousand square kilometers in size. The power of ice magic had frozen over this entire territory for more than a century by now. Even in the current day, this location showed zero signs of thawing. However, some powerful individuals had still managed to survive that incident. In that case, most people understood that Ice Aeon¡¯s strengths were its tremendous area of effect and long duration, but its overall attack power wasn¡¯t that ridiculous.


    Just one use of Ice Aeon would likely transform the new Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire into anothernd of ice and snow for more than a century. It was likely that not a single elf would be able to calmly leave here when thinking of this.


    The elves could only have tears in their eyes as they said goodbye to their home. They would then board the airships in the sky while having incrediblyplex emotions and expressions. Without a doubt, Emperor Yongye was currently casting Ice Aeon from the sky.


    Events that happened one to two hundred years ago would be nothing more than bedtime stories or legends to other species. However, the long-lived elves could remember such events like they happened just yesterday. Every elf would tremble in fear when talking about the forbidden spell Ice Aeon. Yet, Ice Aeon had now resurfaced, and was even being cast in order to protect the elves. It was truly ironic.


    But right now, I didn¡¯t have the free time to care about the elves¡¯ feelings. The current situation was giving me a headache.


    ¡°I think I used too much mana... I think I used three times more than what I was expecting?¡±


    As I was always overly cautious, I personally felt that the forbidden spell¡¯s explosive period would only be half an hour, which was why I added some extra time just to be safe in case I went overboard, but I really did go overboard in the end...


    Ice Aeon was probably the forbidden spell cast the most over the past three hundred years. I could be considered incredibly experienced inparison to unfortunate mages who either exploded themselves or suffered a decrease in power level after casting a forbidden spell.


    As I was one of the few mages in the world with the experience of casting forbidden spells repeatedly, along with the fact that I personally invented Ice Aeon, there would be no need to emphasize how familiar I was with this spell.


    However, while the spell Ice Aeon hadn¡¯t changed, I, and the surrounding environment, had changed.


    Compared to before, since I now had a far more powerful bloodline, along with better understanding of ice and death magic that improved my mana pool, my magic power and mana pool seemed to be equal or even greater than when I was previously Yongye. My improved understanding of the fundamental nature of ice, along with the foundational ice magic I learned from the Frigid Nightmares, meant my magic abilities had greatly increased. Something that I previously would have needed to give 100% of my magic power to would now likely only require 50% or less.


    Even I didn¡¯t expect that my foundational ice magic would be sopatible with Ice Aeon.


    As I previously mentioned before, my foundational ice magic was the most basic ice magic of all: ice sculpting, creating what I imagined with ice. Meanwhile, Ice Aeon was a spell to materialize a world of ice and snow that I imagined in the actual world. Foundationally speaking, Ice Aeon was also a type of ice sculpting, although of course the scale was muchrger, and the final form far moreplex.


    To use an analogy, I was like an artist who had previously required three hours to paint a single person¡¯s portrait. But then, I worked hard on my fundamental skills, and also changed my drawing tools. Now, three hours would be enough time for me to paint an entire family. Since I was still calcting time by my previous abilities, it was only natural for me to make a mistake with the estimation in the end.


    The end result was that I used the same amount of magic as before, but with about twice the results. Plus, my new physical body also strengthened the effects of my magic, along with the new high magic environment also buffing all magic power. It seemed likely that the Ice Aeon I cast here would far surpass all Ice Aeons in ¡°historical records¡±.


    This wasn¡¯t a good thing.


    Only a novice would try to cast the most powerful magic spell possible. An overly powerful magic spell would quite often be beyond the ability of the mage to control it. Basically, an overly powerful magic spell was like a bomb that might detonate at any moment, and even if it didn¡¯t, the casting time required and difficulty of the spell would be greatly increased. Currently, time was of the essence, and equaled lives...


    ¡°I still need at least another half an hour? I¡¯ve truly gone overboard this time...¡±


    The battle between mortals and regr demons was still alright as the blizzard had greatly reduced the demons¡¯ attack power. However, Anslo¡¯s situation was constantly worsening in his battle against Donatis.


    As I previously mentioned, in normal situations, during a battle between Main Gods, it would be quitemon for the battle tost several years or even decades rather than just a few days or months.


    However, this was no normal situation. The demon wave was Donatis¡¯s home territory. Hisbat strength was at its very peak. Meanwhile, not only had Anslo lost his Divine Kingdom, he was also seriously injured, and most importantly of all, Anslo would still be weaker than Donatis even if Anslo was also at his peak. With all these factors added up, the difference between them was now even greater.


    The gigantic Anslo was knocked over yet again. His head, which had just been crushed, speedily regrew. The entire head had finished regenerating by the time that Anslo got up again. However, this would consume precious divine power.


    Every single part of a God¡¯s true body would be crafted out of their divine power. The God¡¯s true body would be the final line of defense. Although regenerating a head seemed quite easy, that would mean losing several hundred years¡¯ worth of umted power.


    Meanwhile, Anslo¡¯s opponent, the even taller ck giant, was also covered in injuries, but had yet to be knocked over even once.


    Time was limited. Donatis didn¡¯t fight like normal by testing the waters first. Since his heroic spirit temple waspletely empty, he was unable to summon any helpers. So, Donatis unhesitatingly chose a melee fighting style where he was willing to risk injury in order to kill his opponent. This was already the fourth time that he had ¡°killed¡± Anslo.


    It was quite obvious to everyone that this was a terrible situation for Anslo. Nobody could guarantee how much longer Anslo could hold out. Without his Divine Kingdom and countless worshippers, it would be difficult for him to even replenish any divine power.


    When his divine power became used up to the point where he was no longer able to regenerate himself, that would result in his death... And, the death of any Main God would mean the end of their entire faction.


    Since we were on the losing end in the Gods¡¯ battle, it naturally meant that more Demon Lords and demon war ves were able to pass through the Elven Gods¡¯ blockade. The mortals also met with even more powerful enemies, while even I wasing under threat.


    Some inferno dragons had already neared the new Borealis. Although they were instantly killed and shot down from the sky, the inferno dragons were still a threat, and if the new Borealis was knocked down from the sky, that would mean that the forbidden spell would fail.


    I didn¡¯t know how much longer Anslo could hold out, but I felt like it might even be possible that my people would lose first.


    My anxiety transformed into motivation as I did my very best to think of what I could do. Yet, the anti-magic zone brought by the blizzard also decreased my own options.


    ¡°Wait a moment, perhaps I can make use of all this ice element.¡±


    My previous experience with constructing ice walls to block off Conservation¡¯s undead army reminded me that I was the one who controlled this forbidden spell. All of this ice element had been born because of me. In that case, I could also use this ice element how I wanted.


    Right now, I was still muttering the Ice Aeon incantation and constantly making hand gestures to control my forbidden spell. It was impossible for me to focus on casting other spells. However, mages had long since invented a workaround to cast spells while they were busy casting another spell: using the other half of a soul connection to cast spells in their stead!


    That was right, having the magical pet who signed a soul contract cast spells for the mage!


    ¡°Harloys!¡±


    I unhesitatingly gave her all of my relevant knowledge, memories, and creations regarding ice magic. Her magical knowledge far surpassed mine anyways, so I might as well teach her everything I knew.


    Elven Empress Harloys, who was currently on the city walls andmanding the battle, was suddenly stunned for a brief moment as if someone had hit her on the head. She then immediately understood as she helplessly shook her head.


    ¡°This is... forget it, I¡¯ll just treat it as grinding reputation.¡±


    Harloys looked around her and saw that the other Elven Empress and her retainers weren¡¯t far away. Both sides were looking at each other with rather awkward expressions. This was especially more so for Empress Afina the First. She had a trulyplex expression as she looked at Harloys.


    Harloys then started floating up in the sky as floating snowkes gathered around her, transforming into a staircase of ice and snow. She had her eyes closed as she stepped high into the air, causing shouts of astonishment from below.


    *Snap!*


    One snap of her fingers caused several dozen flying snow birds to appear. These were ice element creatures that had just been born.


    Harloys was borrowing my abilities over ice to gather the ice element and create ice elemental creatures. This would be no different from using a mage tower¡¯s assistance to cast magic spells. There would be barely any mana consumption at all for Harloys personally.


    These snow birds were soon torn apart by the demons and returned to ice and snow. However, Harloys chuckled at seeing this scene because it meant that her experiment had already seeded.


    ¡°Arise, my guardians of snow and ice.¡±


    At Harloys¡¯mand, ice element creatures were continually given life from the snow. They then unhesitatingly attacked the demon army.


    Snow wolves, horses, dragons, and so on. The ice element creatures had many different forms. There were hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, and even more of them in an astonishing amount. The most critical of all was that even though they were soon shattered into tiny pieces, the snow and ice would then reform into a new ice element creature.


    Right now, the Moonwheel Capital appeared more like the Ice Elemental ne than the Ice Elemental ne itself. Challenging the ice element creatures here was basically no different from challenging the limitless Elemental Tide.


    Even more astonishing was that these ice element creatures were actually evolving in battle. These newborn ice element creatures were indeed quite weak, but after multiple rebirths, they became sly and skilled warriors. The elite elemental creatures who survived longer even started melding together to create even stronger ice element creatures.


    Any Elemental ne would require hundreds or even thousands of years toplete the path of evolution. Yet, evolution waspleted here in just a short few minutes. Additionally, as various higher-level ice element creatures were born, it seemed like Ice Elemental Lords were about to be born soon as well.


    There was a tall and muscr ice giant, an arctic wolf king whose roars could summon blizzards, and a tremendous ice dragon that covered the skies. These were all extremely rare elemental creatures. Yet, these ice element creatures showed everyone how they evolved right in public. They had all evolved from the most basic ice element creatures.


    The creature that attracted the most attention was an ice phoenix. She didn¡¯t fight on the frontlines, but everywhere that she went, ice eggs would appear. Soon, young ice phoenixes would jump out of the eggs, and then these ice phoenixes would dance in the wind and snow and soon grow to the size of their mother before unhesitatingly jumping into battle.


    These high-level ice element creatures obviously already possessed intelligence. After they were born, they would first nce at the Borealis in the sky. Rnd, who was still casting his forbidden spell, was the source of the magic that gave birth to them. It could be said that he was their father. Then, the ice element creatures would lower their heads to Harloys as she could be considered their mother who created them.


    After that, the ice element creatures would unhesitatingly step into battle. They instinctively understood that if this forbidden spell was interrupted, they would all return to being nothing more than ice and snow. Furthermore, as long as Ice Aeon was cast sessfully, this entirend would be a frozennd of ice and snow, and they would be able to be truly independent ice element creatures.


    It was evident that at this time, Rnd and the Goddess of Order¡¯s powers over Creation had miraculous usages here.


    Due to the addition of these ice element creatures, the battle which had been going poorly for us was now in stalemate once again. Meanwhile, Harloys¡¯ tremendous disy of power by casually summoning such powerful ice element creatures so easily truly astonished all the witnesses.


    ¡°Is this the power of the ¡®most naturally magically gifted species of all, the Goddess of Order¡¯s most spoiled children, the Gold Elves?¡¯ Or, is this something unique to ¡®Harloys the All-knowing?¡¯¡±


    Before, working to rescue the elves had given others the impression that Elven Empress Harloys was magnanimous and kind. But now, Harloys had disyed the power necessary to any leader in this dangerous world.


    Being magnanimous to one¡¯s own people as well as being incredibly powerful would mean that her crown would be ever more solid as long as she didn¡¯t do anything too foolish.


    Meanwhile on the floating airship, Didina finally came to a decision as she watched what unfolded before her.

 Chapter 645 - Brink of Despair

    <h4>Chapter 645: Brink of Despair</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°...I have previously crossed countless ice ins, witnessing the hardiness of life and grandness of nature. I have previously been allured by the magnificent beauty of the ice river. True beauty can only be found in the frozen ice underneath the ice river...¡±


    On the battlefield, my passionate voice was eximing over the hardiness of life and describing my understanding of the ice river. This long incantation was finally nearing its end. My deep voice was guiding all the living in this blizzard that now obscured vision entirely.


    All the demons instinctively understood that once my voice finished incanting, everything would end.


    If they wanted to survive, they would have to stop me from saying anything more!


    However, the demons¡¯ path to survival was blocked by even more newborn ice element creatures. These countless snow monsters, ice magical beasts, and various other ice element creatures were spawning endlessly.


    In any other location, it would be impossible for newborn elemental creatures to resist against the demon wave. However, in this unique location, these newborn elemental creatures were capable of using the power of the ice element topletely suppress the demons that were no longer able to use their fire element abilities.


    ¡°...Even farther north than the Nortnds, I was already dead as I crossed that eternal sea of ice. Yet, I still struggled for survival in those extreme frigid caves. The fatal arctic winds there could freeze even the soul. I was fortunate enough to witness the beautiful aurora there before I fainted. On those snow-white ins, the skies disyed such magnificent beauty that I will never forget it...¡±


    All of this was my previous understanding of ice and snow, and part of the original Ice Aeon¡¯s incantation. However, what came after was slightly different.


    ¡°...In thatnd of reincarnation before the void, ice is the foundation of all life. For undead spirits, every ice crystal will be flesh and blood. Bodies of flesh and blood are no different from bodies of ice and snow. The secrets of life will be unraveled by ice and snow...¡±


    The mostmon magic spells in the mortal ne were of the four elements of water, fire, earth, and wind. These four elements were the foundational source of all magic spells. The foundational reason for this was that these four elements made up the entire world of Eich. The naturalws of the elements finally developed into Eich¡¯s modern-day science and civilizations. Research into the secrets of Eich and how the elements worked had also created elemental magic and a glorious magical civilization.


    However, the world of Eich was no longer the only main mortal ne.


    Death, Law, Ice, and Holy Light. These were all previously extended orbined Concepts of the four main elements, but now, these four Concepts were the four major elements of the world of Hell. They were all equivalent to the water, fire, earth, and wind in Eich. Hell¡¯s four elements would be easier to ess and more ubiquitous every day. The fact that these four elements would be easier to ess would greatly increase the number of users of Hell¡¯s four elements, along with improving these four elemental magic types¡¯ effectiveness, functions, and so on. Furthermore, as their users and the magic spells improved in power, Hell¡¯s four elements would also gain more and more rted Concepts.


    Although exining the theories behind all this would be quiteplex, showing by example would be quite simple. Hell¡¯s new version of Holy Light had gained the additional function of being the Light of Salvation. Law and Death hadbined with each other and gained many new abilities such as Hell¡¯s power of judgement that could instantly judge and even punish an individual with death. Meanwhile, the element of Ice now represented the life and power of undead spirits in Hell. A new Concept and effect was also born¡ªIce Life.


    The Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm was a newly created Ice Elemental ne. The Frigid Nightmares there had already begun aplete new evolution. Ice magic, which was originally only an extension of water magic, had now be more and more independent.


    And when certain spells were capable of using power from the Elemental nes, ice magic and skills would increase in power even further. The most obvious change was already known to everyone.


    ¡°Summoning and creating ice type creatures and magical puppets is now much easier than before. Pure ice element creatures are now possible. It¡¯s quite easy to help ice and snow gain their own sense of self and will. It¡¯s also be easier for undead to evolve after gaining bodies of ice.¡±


    These were new maxims of the world that mages had recently discovered. However, ice mages weren¡¯t thatmon in this world at all, so the effects weren¡¯t that obvious. The most obvious change would be that ice mages were now capable of summoning some extra ice elemental creatures as meat shields, and that more undead mages would also study ice magic. However, as I was the most famous undead mage and ice mage in the world, my personal forbidden spell naturally incorporated my new knowledge.


    ¡°...Ice Aeon is about to begin. This will be a paradise for all life forms of ice and snow...¡±


    My modified incantation contained my newly gained understanding of ice. The ice element, a byproduct of my forbidden spell, was developed even further as countless additional ice element creatures were created. Ice and snow gathered together as they naturally opened up an elemental portal. On the other end of the portal was a familiar endless snow mountain¡ªthe Ice Elemental ne I had previously created, the Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm.


    This portal wasn¡¯t an actual dimensional portal. However, the higher-level ice element creatures had imprinted their own lives upon this portal. This basically meant that they had anchored their own souls in the Ice Elemental ne, so even if their physical bodies were destroyed, it would be the same as if a Fire Elemental Lord died in the mortal ne¡ªthey would simply be sent back to the Ice Elemental ne upon death.


    Not only that, this elemental portal was also helping the ice element creatures to evolve even further! Under this portal¡¯s illumination, many more elemental creatures gained sentience. They even started evolving of their own volition.


    By now, Ice Elemental Lords had seeded in appearing. That gigantic ice phoenix which had spawned several hundred smaller ice phoenixes had already obtained her own true name from the Ice Elemental ne. She had even sessfully gained a human form!


    Her human form of ice and snow wore an extravagant crown made of ice crystal. Every time that she waved her icicle magic staff, piercing icicle rain would fall down from the sky. Everywhere that her ice phoenix subordinates passed by, the entire areas would be sealed in ice. Any demons that came into contact with this ice would be renderedpletely unable to self-destruct. Her ice phoenixes were basically the perfect counter to the demon war ves.


    The most ridiculous part was that there were countless amounts of ice element in the ¡°narrow¡± area under her control. The power of the ice element here wasparable to an infinite Elemental Throne. Ice element creatures were speedily evolving here. Even if they were killed, they would speedily regenerate after replenishing their ice element here.


    These ice element creatures were a sudden creation after we were forced to the brink. It just happened to be that this particr ¡°magical pet¡± had even greater skill in magic than her forbidden spell casting master. My new Ice Elemental ne also desired to have its own Ice Elemental Lords and ice element creatures, which was how these miraculous creations came about.


    The blizzard froze the countless demon war ves. The demons were no longer able to use their most powerful abilities as they faced off against equally countless ice element creatures. However, since the ice element creatures could use the power of ice, they were actually individually stronger than the demon war ves. Finally, for the first time since the demon wave began, the endless demon war ves were suppressed.


    Then, under Harloys¡¯ control, the ice castle from before appeared once again. After this ice fortress was repeatedly solidified and heightened, it was fatal to the demons who were stuck in the blizzard and sliding on the ice.


    The demons¡¯ attack had been stopped, and the forbidden spell¡¯s incantation had almost ended. It seemed as if victory was near, yet at this time, a beam of ck light descended.


    *Boom!*


    The newly erected walls of ice were sliced apart together with the Moonwheel Capital¡¯s city wall. The ck giant approached, causing the elves still remaining in the Moonwheel Capital to sink into fear and panic.


    Donatis¡¯s ck obsidian sword hadn¡¯t only sliced through the final city wall of the Moonwheel Capital. It had also shattered the defending elves¡¯ final hopes. What the elves saw next basically broke their proverbial backs.


    ¡°Our most venerated light of all elves...¡±


    When Donatis appeared, two pieces of loot could be seen attached to his waist. Those were two heads still dripping with divine blood, and belonged to the two highest-level existences among the Elven Gods: Anslo and Sonya!


    These two Gods¡¯ eyes were still filled with fear and disbelief as if they couldn¡¯t believe that they were now dead.


    Right now, even though Harloys had just seen some of her most hated enemies die, she was unable tough. That was because Donatis¡¯s next target was the new Borealis in the sky not far away!

 Chapter 646 - Final Trap

    <h4>Chapter 646: Final Trap</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    No matter the number of schemes and preparations, the final battle would still require brute force.


    The magical blizzard obscured the vision of both sides. The defending elven army had instinctively defended against the demons¡¯ attacks. The elves had been delighted to discover that the demons¡¯ attacks had greatly weakened in the blizzard, but they hadn¡¯t noticed death descending on them.


    *Boom!*


    Donatis¡¯s first sword attack sliced through the Moonwheel Capital city wall. His next sword attack directly sliced through all the elven guards and ballistae on the city wall. The gigantic God was covered in pitch-ck shadows, while his silent eyes seemed to burn like an eclipse.


    Behind Donatis in the cold snow were countless headless Gods¡¯ corpses, piled up like a mountain.


    The Chaos War God had once again proved with his astonishingbat achievements just how powerful he was. In less than one hour, all the Elven Gods had been personally annihted by him. Donatis¡¯s next target was the airship in the sky.


    As long as he eliminated the forbidden spell caster, this blizzard and forbidden spell capable of threatening the entire demon wave would stop, and everything would return to how it was.


    However, what astonished Donatis was that the mortals weren¡¯t despairing at all despite some temporary fear. Instead, the mortals organized a final defense line.


    The treant elders that had been seriously injured in previous battles rushed forward first. Donatis stomped them into tiny splinters, but more treants transformed themselves into a thorny forest to block Donatis with their very lives.


    The elven rangers had long since used up all their arrows. They charged while howling barbarically like beastmen whom they looked down on so much. The rangers wielded their swords while charging to their deaths, all for the sake of slowing Donatis down by a few seconds.


    After all the Elven Gods died, the Elven Gods¡¯ priests and shamans either went insane or directly died. Only a few younger priests remained, and charged forward with teary eyes, swinging their staves and dying just like the rangers did.


    What about the warriors who were supposed to be on the frontlines, you ask? At this time, any elf in a warrior job ss who was still alive and capable of walking wouldn¡¯t even deserve the title of warrior.


    What about the silver elves¡¯ nobility? The moon elves¡¯ royalty? The wild elves¡¯ bastards? At this time, there would be no difference between anyone. All the elves knew that not fighting their hardest here would result in death. While fighting their hardest would probably still result in death, there would at least be a sliver of hope... All of the elves¡¯ children and books had now been moved to my floating castle. They would be the future hope of all elves.


    The Mist Alliance¡¯s reinforcements had alreadypleted their mission. The ordinary human warriors had already received orders to return to the airships. Still, Reyne had aplex expression as she watched the elves charge forward to their deaths. Even though she also felt no friendship whatsoever towards the elves, she was still moved with how willing the elves were to sacrifice themselves to protect their own.


    Yet, the one who was actually the most moved by all of this was Chaos War God Donatis himself.


    He delightedly epted every courageous elf¡¯s challenge. In fact, his delight even exceeded his earlier delight when he¡¯d been fighting a deathmatch against Elven Main God Anslo. Donatis carefully avoided usingrge AOEs to ughter all the elves. He slew every single courageous elf one at a time, directly from the front. Whenever an elf¡¯s physical body was torn apart, Donatis¡¯s empty heroic spirit temple would gain an extra soul.


    ¡°The foundational requirement for bing a heroic spirit is that the soul must courageously face death head on even in the most hopeless of situations... Are we being too underhanded?¡±


    ¡°Not at all. We simply told the elves this information. They made this choice for themselves.¡±


    Indeed, the elves¡¯ sacrifice would be worthwhile. Since Donatis had now gotten addicted to epting the elves¡¯ challenges one at a time as he admired the light of their souls before death, he had been significantly slowed down.


    Back in the Chaos Abyss, an identical event urred while Donatis was fighting Adam¡¯s party. It was famous, and no secret, that Donatis truly admired the weak who dared to challenge him. He would give the weak all the time they needed to attack him with their full power and potential. However, the fact that I now used his personality against him as a way of stalling for time meant that not only was I absolutely shameless with no moral boundaries ining up with this cruel idea, it also meant that we truly had no other methods left avable to us at all.


    Reyne was still far too young. She was the one who had given this information to the elves, creating this current scene before us. She felt too much mysterious guilt that made it difficult for her to even breathe.


    ¡°Is there much difference? Even if the elves try to scatter in all directions, if Donatis starts being serious and ughters them as quickly as he can, the elves will just die even quicker.¡±


    Harloys was far more open-minded about this.


    But even so, the elves¡¯ sacrifice wouldn¡¯t gain that much time for us, because Donatis would likely soon realize that we were trying to stall him. Meanwhile, the newborn Ice Elemental Lords would be even less useful at stalling him because Donatis was still far more overwhelmingly powerful, even to the point where the Ice Elemental Lords werepletely insignificant to him.


    There was a phrase that when two enemies met on a narrow road, the more courageous would win. This seemed to be a maxim of the battlefield. However, very few people would realize that this maxim would only be true if both sides were simr or equal in strength. In front of pure and overwhelming power, courage would do nothing more than slightly slow down the speed of dying.


    However... there was an additional version of this phrase¡ªthe wiser one would win instead.


    When courage waspletely meaningless, perhaps the side that nned and schemed more beforehand would obtain victory more easily.


    ¡°This is the final battle. Activate our backup n!¡±


    A certain decision had been made 10 minutes ago. At this moment, some violent explosions could be heard from the original source of the demon wave.


    If people were capable of seeing through all the snow in the sky, they would then see that snow was also starting to spread from the source of the demon wave, but at a far more explosive speed.


    ¡°Margaret¡¯s copied version of Ice Aeon? Have they started already? Donatis is undefeatable in the midst of the demon wave, but if he¡¯s no longer in the demon wave...¡±


    Several of my allies had been missing from the very start. Adam, Margaret, and the other members of my party had alsoe here together with us in the airships. Yet, they had separated from me not long ago.


    When calcting time and distance, they should have arrived even before us as they had taken smaller assault airships. Of course, their destination was different from mine.


    Their mission was a sudden attack when it was necessary, interfering with the dimensional portal bringing demons into the mortal ne and temporarily cutting off the source of the demon wave.


    This was our n B that we¡¯d previously made as insurance. It couldn¡¯t be helped that we could only do things this way. After all, what would happen if I kept Adam¡¯s party by my side as outstandingbat strength?


    Since Ice Aeon would create an anti-magic zone like all forbidden spells would, Margaret would instantly be useless as she was a pure mage. Little Red was of the fire element, and still currently in infant dragon form, so it was likely that she would even freeze to death here. Elisa was at the peak of the inferno demon job ss, so it would likely be the same for her. Adam, who should have originally been in the best condition in Ice Aeon, just happened to recently install a dual element phoenix heart in himself, with wind and fire elements. He would also be greatly weakened by the ice, and it was possible that his heart might even stop beating.


    The final result was that one of the strongest adventuring teams in thend would be forced to fight the Chaos War God while they were in their worst possible condition, which meant that they would easily be pped to death.


    Oh, now that I thought of it, those Elven Gods had truly died wrongful deaths. Everyone knew that elves were more skilled with magic than physical fighting. Yet, the Elven Gods were forced into melee against the Chaos War God due to the anti-magic zone. This would be the equivalent of forcing a human to fight weaponless against a gori... I suppose that Anslo probably wasn¡¯t as weak as I thought, after all. So I had been the terrible teammate this time!


    Cough, cough, of course, trying to cut off the source of the demon wave would also be incredibly dangerous. I wouldn¡¯t have sent the message to do so unless it had been absolutely necessary.


    Did I forget to mention something? That was right, Elisa had also arrived. Since she had sent Anslo the message, and since Anslo had been able to use the natural dimensional portal toe to the mortal ne, it was obvious that Elisa, a Demon Lord, would also be able to use this portal. Currently, she was guarding the Chaos Abyss entrance of the dimensional portal. When Adam¡¯s party attacked the dimensional portal from the mortal ne¡¯s side, she would join them for a pincer attack from the other side.


    Permanently closing an already stable natural dimensional portal would be impossible. However, simultaneously disrupting the dimensional portal¡¯s connections from both sides and temporarily cutting off all teleportation was something easy to aplish, ording to Margaret.


    Although the Chaos Faction had indeed left some powerful Demon Lords to protect the dimensional portal, Anslo had killed them all as he used the portal. This made Margaret¡¯s n go very smoothly. For the time being, the demon wave¡¯s source had truly been cut off.


    How long could the demon wave be cut off for? 30 seconds? One minute? Three minutes? Nobody could make any guarantees. However, it would be possible to stall for at least several dozen seconds before the will of the Chaos Abyss realized what was going on.


    I could immediately sense that right after this, Donatis was obviously weakened. Yet...


    ¡°There¡¯s still no change in the situation. Even if an elephant is suddenly halved in weight, it can still easily crush a mouse to death...¡±


    The Chaos War God¡¯s expression didn¡¯t change one bit. Meanwhile, the change in the situation caused him to wake up and stop admiring the performances of the elven souls around him. He instantly started charging towards the Borealis again while beginning to ughter elves inrge numbers by using AOEs.


    ¡°No, there is indeed a change in the situation... Oh, glorious Order Main Gods, your mortal enemy Donatis has been cut off from the demon wave. He¡¯s now greatly weakened. Will you all possibly let go of such an opportunity?¡±


    I didn¡¯t need to do anything else. Countless Gods¡¯ eyes had been on this location ever since the demon wave had started. If the Order Main Gods really wanted to do something, they definitely wouldn¡¯t miss this opportunity!


    ¡°Good job, youngster.¡±


    This praise came from a white-bearded old man who suddenly appeared in the sky. He raised his staff and pointed at Donatis, creating a mystical cage that suddenly locked the Chaos War God within it.


    This old man was Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom who had long since allied himself with Hell. Of course, he was nowhere near strong enough to be Donatis¡¯s opponent, nor would he risk his life for our cause. But, ording to our previous secret agreement, he would appear whenever we needed him the most to slightly interfere with our enemies.


    This was known as beating up on someone while they were down. This was also known as scamming others into fighting for me!


    Kalumandas¡¯ incarnation instantly vanished right after appearing. The next instant, a chain lightning attack from somewhere struck Donatis. A gigantic hammer descended from the skies and smashed into his head. A tiny tree root suddenly tangled his feet. As Donatis was still reeling from these attacks, the reinforcements I wanted the most finally arrived.


    Just like before, the God of Holy Light arrived in a golden incarnation that was impossible to see clearly. However, he was now far stronger than when he¡¯d descended in Hell eight years ago.


    As the God of Holy Light was an Order Main God who would only make decisions in aputerized fashion, he would naturally never miss the chance to y a powerful Chaos Main God while thetter was weakened, as this would greatly help the God of Holy Light to gain even more power of belief with this achievement.


    Perhaps this was all a vicious trap set by me. However, my trap wasn¡¯t only targeted at the Elven Gods!

 Chapter 647 - Great Escape

    <h4>Chapter 647: Great Escape</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Topare Creator Goddess Eich to an artist, she gave every dimension and ce their own color. Most ces were mixtures of many different colors. That would be a natural result. However, there were a few extreme locations which were forever mono-color due to overly powerful dimensions or dimensionalws.


    For instance, the deepest part of the ocean was blue, and only aquatic species would be able to see the colors there. The Chaos Abyss was red, for chaos demons used their own and others¡¯ blood to repeatedly bathe thatnd with red. The heavens¡¯ mountains were golden as that was the overly powerful color of the light of Order. These districts were all too much mono-color, making it difficult for ordinary people to survive there. Right now, the Moonwheel Capital was also such a mono-color location.


    White was now the only color here.


    ¡°...Ice Aeon will be eternal!¡±


    Right when the golden God of Holy Light appeared, that seemingly endless incantation finally finished. Ice Aeon had now descended.


    With me as the center, the colors of the entire world began to change. All color was eliminated. The only remaining color in this world was endless snow white.


    The countless demons of the demon wave finally stopped in their tracks. The inferno dragons in the air transformed into ice statues, which shattered on the ground. The formerly noisy demon army instantly transformed into countless ice statues that still seemed like they were alive. However, even the naked eye could tell that the demons¡¯ hearts and soulfires were rapidly being extinguished.


    The ice river was spreading, and the snowynd was devouring everything. The trees, mountains, and water all became white. There was no mercy, and there were no exceptions. Even the clouds within the range of the forbidden spell were frozen solid. Even the sunlight was frozen solid. Even the magma deep underground was frozen solid.


    The ice river continued spreading. All the ins transformed into snowy ins. The rivers transformed into ice rivers. The forests transformed into snow forests. The mountains transformed into snow mountains. More than several dozen kilometers, or even several hundred kilometers, away, the tremendous demon army all transformed into exquisite ice statues when the ice river came upon them, bringing eternal death to all the demons.


    The Moonwheel Capital was finished. Its broken walls and pce had transformed into ice statues, just like the demons had. Although the core portion hadn¡¯t been frozen solid yet, the extreme frigidness around it was gradually invading the only unfrozen ce. In the end, this entire ce would be sealed in ice and snow.


    Even though the Chaos Abyss dimensional portal was several hundred kilometers away, it was also frozen solid by the forbidden spell. Many unlucky demons were directly frozen during teleportation. Only the most powerful Demon Lords were still fighting to prevent the ice from covering their skin.


    The previously noisy battlefield suddenly became quiet, quiet to the point where one would be afraid.


    With so many factors influencing this Ice Aeon, it had already broken all historical records. The entire territory of the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire was frozen solid. Everything here was forcibly painted white. The number of casualties here was uncalctable.


    The tremendous ice river even forced itself into the dimensional portal, freezing the entire Chaos Abyss level on the other side into an ice river. Countless demons waiting to be teleported here were instantly killed before they even knew what was going on.


    It was likely that the furious will of the Chaos Abyss would soon notice what had happened, and a new demon wave would soon be forced into the mortal ne. But at this moment, the demon wave invasion and all the Demon Lords had indeed beenpletely annihted. The demon wave had been stopped.


    If it was possible to view this portion of the mortal ne dimension from space, it was likely that this entire part of the continent could be seen aspletely white from space.


    It wasn¡¯t that others hadn¡¯t thought of using forbidden spells to fight against the demon wave before. However, I was actually the first one in history to seed. Even if forbidden spells were rare, they weren¡¯t impossible to cast. However, in front of the demon wave, casting any forbidden spell would attract enough attention to kill the mage one hundred times over. It wasn¡¯t like other mages had Main Gods ¡°willingly sacrificing¡± themselves to be meat shields for them.


    However, I wasn¡¯t really happy right now.


    ¡°...I¡¯m going to die, die, die!¡±


    Not only had I used up all my mana, I felt like I had used up my entire lifetime¡¯s worth of energy and magic power. I was in pain everywhere, and I couldn¡¯t even move a finger. I had an especially bad headache, just as if 500 ducks were having a party in my head while talking in different ducknguages.


    ¡°If you can stillin, that means you¡¯re still far from dying.¡±


    While I was so dizzy, Harloys wasughing at my troubles. Still, she helped give me a checkup, and heaved an evident sigh of relief.


    ¡°...This is such an inconceivable conclusion. You didn¡¯t even suffer any permanent negative side effects.¡±


    ¡°...You want me to die so quickly so that you can leave? Are you supposed to be the Zhu Bajie to Sun Wukong?¡±


    I did my best to crawl up again while spouting rubbish. When I discovered that the only negative effect on my body was having used up all my energy and mana, I heaved a sigh of relief together with Harloys.


    Casting a forbidden spell would require a price. Even a tiny bit of magical bacsh from a forbidden spell could easily destroy the caster¡¯s soul.


    The mostmon price for casting a forbidden spell would be the caster¡¯s life and soul. The next mostmon price would be the caster¡¯s lifespan and health. No matter if the forbidden spell seeded or failed, it wasmon for forbidden spell using mages to die rather quickly.


    This was why only extremely few special existences such as Yongye were recorded in history as having cast multiple forbidden spells. Back when I was Yongye, I was a Silver Bloodline lich who had the assistance of my System. If my soul was damaged, I could forcibly repair it by using some Fate Points. That was why I had been able to act so ridiculously.


    And this time, the fact that I suffered no negative consequences was most likely because my current physical body¡¯s bloodline was incredibly strong, even to the point where it could withstand the bacsh of casting a forbidden spell.


    ¡°Right, Fate Points! I killed so many demons, so shouldn¡¯t I have some reward?¡±


    [Yes, but the reward is still being calcted. Still, you should have some help now for your Myth-ranked weapons.]


    This was an unexpected pleasant surprise. However, I didn¡¯t have the time to be happy right now.


    ¡°Notify all airships that we¡¯re going to begin our retreat!¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re already running away. You don¡¯t need to give themand.¡±


    Indeed, the airships had already begun moving. Right before the forbidden spell exploded, my floating castle Yongye City hid itself in my personal Hell world, and after the forbidden spell ended, our airships began making their escape.


    Behind us were two gigantic snow-covered Gods¡¯ statues. One statue¡¯s back was covered in distorted wings of light, while the other was an enormous giant.


    Even these two Main Gods had been instantly frozen solid due to close proximity of the forbidden spell. Soon, our sensors brought us images of what was happening in real time.


    The God of Holy Light¡¯s ice statue shattered into tiny pieces. Evidently, this was only one of his incarnations. This still made me somewhat happy as killing off one of his incarnations to vent was already one of the best possible scenarios in my calctions. If he hade in his true body instead, that would have been too much for us to handle.


    Meanwhile, Donatis instantly broke free from the ice a moment after being frozen.


    The tall Chaos War God gazed in our direction, seemingly intending to chase us. But, he also frowned as if he was hesitating about something.


    Seeing this, I knew that another part of my scheme had seeded. Luring the Order Main Gods to attack Donatis wasn¡¯t truly for the sake of killing him. Considering how cutting off the demon wave would only be a temporary effect, and how strong the Chaos War God truly was, the sess rate of killing him was truly low.


    However, what had happened just now rmed Donatis that the Order Main Gods were willing to attack him. If he wasn¡¯t in his home territory of the Chaos Abyss, and without the support of the demon wave, it was indeed likely that he would be ganged up on by several Order Main Gods. That would be quite troublesome for him.


    Of course, even if Donatis didn¡¯t immediately chase us, that didn¡¯t mean that we were safe. Even if tens of thousands of square kilometers had been sealed in ice by me, the demon wave would soon attack once more. Donatis wouldn¡¯t be able to maintain his reputation anymore if he didn¡¯t attack us to save face in the future.


    Still, the current developments were already the best possible results I¡¯d nned for.


    The demon wave had attacked. Although it had temporarily been beaten back, the Order Faction had seen just how powerful a threat the demon wave was. They would finally be able to focus on preparing for battle.


    Even without my recordings of the demon wave, the fairies would also help inform all the kings and emperors of this world about how scary the demon wave was. Also, although a portion of the elves had managed to escape, they had indeed helped kill arge portion of the demon wave. The other human kingdoms would be able to ept this result and the elves¡¯bat achievements. At least, this would help the other human kingdoms to recognize the rise of the Nortnds Elven Empire, and recognize that the elves were part of the Order Faction... Of course, the foundational reason why all this became possible was because Anslo and all the Elven Gods had perished here. In this Holy War, the elves would no longer be a threat to the human kingdoms. With the Mist Alliance making a guarantee for the elves, the humans would be willing to let the elves go.


    Although the elves had lost their Elven Gods, they obtained the possibility of being epted by other factions in the mortal ne. They also obtained the opportunity to recuperate until they became powerful again. As long as their inheritance and history remained,bined with the countless reincarnated elven heroes who were maturing, the elves¡¯ future would actually be brighter than when they had the Elven Gods.


    Oh, I should mention that the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire¡¯s Elven Empress Afina the First and the four major Superior Elf tribe leaders in her empire all chose to perish together with their country. All of them had refused to ept taking refuge in my airships.


    ¡°She truly died like an empress...¡±


    At such a time, all elves would understand that the elves¡¯ future belonged to the Nortnds Elven Empire. But, as long as Afina was still live, there would always be some moon elves who still wanted an empire ruled by moon elves. The other Nortnds elves would surely be on guard against the moon elves in such a situation. In that case, invisible fractures and schemes would gradually cause major internal conflicts amongst the elves, which would be quite difficult for Harloys to deal with. The best possible result in such a scenario would be to slowly marginalize and take away power from all the moon elves who supported their Elven Empire.


    But if Afina and the higher-ups of the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire all died in battle, the ordinary moon elves and moon elf nobles would all ept the reality. As long as Harloys and the other Nortnds Elven Empire higher-ups didn¡¯t change the old elven system or treat the moon elves differently, it was likely that the moon elves would receive treatment equal to the other Superior Elves. It was unlikely that the moon elves would bepletely powerless.


    All the elves could easily understand such an idea. However, nobody would say it out loud. Although Afina¡¯s final decision wasn¡¯t a good one with her status of the Elven Empress, she definitely did what was best for her moon elf species.


    ¡°The sky is so blue...¡±


    When I looked outside the window, there was no more snow. The sky waspletely bright and clear. There wasn¡¯t even a single cloud, as the forbidden spell had knocked down all clouds from the sky. This type of weather was indeed quite suitable for running away... or a vacation.


    A short ten minutester, Adam¡¯s party sent me the signal that the demon wave had started up again. This time, the first group of demons to jump out was all incredibly high-level demons. The inferno dragon army that just charged out of the Chaos Abyss sounded really scary. Several Supreme Immemorial Demon Dragons had actuallye out from deep in the Chaos Abyss.


    Our next stop would be to break past the Herit Mountains in the north as quickly as possible, just like in my n. After passing that incredibly difficult to climb snow mountain range, at least the Chaos Abyss¡¯s ground troops would no longer be able to follow us.


    Why weren¡¯t we passing through the human kingdoms, you ask? When considering the armies chasing us, I felt like any semi-intelligent human ruler would forbid us from entering their territory right now.


    ¡°This will be such a difficult road...¡±

 Chapter 648 - Goal

    <h4>Chapter 648: Goal</h4>


    <b>Trantor:</b> imperfectluck <b>Editor:</b> Kurisu


    Although the airships had been retreating for more than five hours, and I slept during that time, all I saw outside was still nothing but white snowy ins. The sunny day didn¡¯t seem like it fitted with the snowy environment. This entire area had been permanently changed by my forbidden spell, even to the extent where Eich¡¯s maps would likely be updated. But as for me...


    ¡°Ahh, in such weather, it would be best to rest in a warm bed while enjoying the snowy scene and fragrant hot cocoa... while also having fun watching others fight to the death.¡±


    ¡°...If making others angry and being able to taunt could be considered Concepts, you¡¯d definitely already be a Main God by now.¡±


    The battle still wasn¡¯t over. Just ten minutes ago, we had beaten back a wave of inferno dragon attacks. The inferno dragons were still following us from a great distance.


    The first wave only had three inferno dragons. However, they were two Immemorial and one Supreme Immemorial Dragon. The Supreme Immemorial Dragon was far stronger than Little Red had been before her recent power upgrade. That wasn¡¯t easy to deal with.


    Our hired mercenaries were useful here. However, it was far too difficult for our young ck dragons and red dragons to deal with these enemies. It was our airships¡¯ anti-air artillery that forced the inferno dragons to retreat. At the most dangerous moment, even Reyne¡¯s blue dragon descendant concubine personally participated in battle.


    This ce was now an ice tundra, and the mana in the air was still thin due to the recent forbidden spell. Since inferno dragons were of the fire element, this ce would be highly ufortable for them. Not only that, for since they had only recently teleported to the mortal ne, it was likely that they couldn¡¯t even use half of their full power yet.


    Those three inferno dragons were probably only the first scout team that caught up to us. They had probably sent a message that would soon gather other inferno dragons here... But, when considering how chaotic and selfish those of the Chaos Faction would always be, it was quite likely that the inferno dragons would act individually rather than in teams to attack us, wanting to hoard all the spoils for themselves, but getting killed because of that.


    ¡°Ha. Compared to the true trouble, Donatis, this really isn¡¯t much.¡±


    The only good news was that Donatis hadn¡¯t personallye to hunt us down. Since he was themander of the demon wave, I had already expected that he would be unable to abandon the demon wave. However, he definitely wouldn¡¯t just take this lying down. It was quite likely that he would try and take revenge somehow.


    The conclusion of the Moonwheel Capital battle would be somewhat eptable to both the Order and Chaos Factions.


    It was quite difficult to say who was the actual victor. Judging from thebat results, we had killed an amazing number of demon war ves, and even saved the elves¡¯ future and inheritance. These elves would all join the Nortnds Elven Empire, greatly expanding the Mist Alliance¡¯s foundational power. The vast number of elven artisans, mages, druids, and so on would bring incalctable wealth.


    If you looked at things in that way, we would be the main beneficiaries and victor of this battle. But looking at this from the Chaos Faction¡¯s angle, the demon wave had sessfully descended and eradicated the ¡°Elven Empire¡± in their way. All the Elven Gods had died, including even their Main God. This would be their best beginning ever for any Holy War so far. Whenparing overall power levels with the Chaos Faction, they were actually the major winners.


    It seemed that the elves were the only loser? But from a certain standpoint, the result of this battle had given the elves their brightest future with the greatest potential ever.


    A rich person that had authority would be quite fortunate to have their wealth. However, a poor person who obtained a priceless family treasure would only bring trouble upon themselves, and if that poor person had a rich ancestor who umted countless others¡¯ grudges, then rather than worrying every day about your life with that ancestor¡¯s treasure, it would probably be better to throw it away and start all over again.


    ¡°At least the elves have broken free from those Elven Gods that I feel so helpless toment on. This will probably make their lives much better.¡±


    As for the Elven Gods¡¯ deaths... This was a definite. The elves previously had such a magnificent culture and ruled the entire world. Now, the Elven Gods had caused the elves to lose almost everything. Yet, the Elven Gods still ambitiously wanted to rebel and revive the elves¡¯ former glory. The end result was that both the Order and Chaos Gods wanted the Elven Gods to die. Thus, the Elven Gods truly died.


    The Elven Gods wanted to be a third party in this eternal war between Order and Chaos. However, they were no third party that did their best to remain neutral. Instead, they constantly yed tricks and schemed against both factions. They were a third party that tried to suck up to both factions in order to gain an advantage from ying Order against Chaos. Yet, they didn¡¯t have enough strength and wisdom to pull this off sessfully. Since the most powerful existences of both major factions weren¡¯t idiots, it was only natural that the Elven Gods ended up dying.


    Even if the Chaos Faction hadn¡¯t invaded from the Moonwheel Capital this time, the Elven Gods still likely wouldn¡¯t have had a happy ending. No matter which of the two major factions ended up attacking them, the other faction would likely happily watch the Elven Gods die. Did the Elven Gods actually think that their fake internal wars would fool anyone?


    As long as the Elven Gods didn¡¯t die, both major factions would forever view the elves with hostility, or at least never truly treat the elves as members of their own factions, and with both major factions¡¯ hostility, not having enough power to protect themselves and trying to remain a neutral third party would only lead the Elven Gods to their deaths.


    This was the power of major factions. The Elven Gods were quite helpless to change the end, which had been caused by abination of so many different factors.


    Perhaps it was because the Elven Gods had understood this that they had bravely faced their deaths. At least they died quite heroically...


    ¡°No, not at all. They all fell into your pitfall. Don¡¯t praise them like that. Moreover, don¡¯t try to whitewash yourself.¡±


    Harloys was quite open-minded about it all. She was currently peeling an apple for me and also sneaking bites for herself, humming while sitting with one leg crossed on top of the other.


    Right now, Harloys¡¯ true body was sitting by my bed. That was because I was forced to bed with my current condition. Even a lowly ordinary thief would be able to kill me in my current condition. Somebat strength would be needed to protect me, and she was the strongestbat strength on the airship right now. But... why was she wearing a split skirt dress in such snowy weather, and even crossing her legs! Didn¡¯t she realize that she was revealing her underwear!?


    Ahem, I retracted my gaze that kept wandering. Pale white legs, an ample bosom, and so on were all useless. They were nothing more than essories on a slime figurine, so why would they possibly be nice to look at...? ¡°Please put down that fruit knife; please don¡¯t wave it over my nose! We¡¯re still good friends!¡±


    Ahem, ahem, getting back to the topic, I really hadn¡¯t done much over the past few days. All I did was rush to the forefront of the demon wave, toss out a forbidden spell, and immediately run away. Hey, this was the legendary running away right after acting cool, just for the sake of stimtion...


    ¡°No, you really aplished a lot this time. There¡¯s some recent news from when you were asleep. You¡¯re now ranked #7 on the Cmity Rankings. Should I congratte you?¡±


    ¡°Damn, I improved my ranking yet again? Wasn¡¯t I supposed to be considered quite ¡®safe¡¯ now?¡±


    ¡°Safe? How can you possibly be called safe when you tossed out a forbidden spell with no apparent negative consequences? Who else could possibly count as a living cmity if not you? In one or two days, it¡¯s likely that all the major countries will cklist you and be on guard against you. You also need to be careful against assassins, even while you¡¯re in human kingdoms.¡±


    I could only nod, not knowing whether tough or cry. I understood this even without Harloys¡¯ reminder. It was quitemon in both this world and my original world that seemingly irond allies would secretly steal weapons and technology from each other, and sabotage such things if they were unable to obtain them.


    ¡°Right, I need you to do¡ª¡±


    ¡°I already took care of it. Yongye City has gathered up all those souls. However, things are too sensitive right now, so you shouldn¡¯t activate <i>it</i> quite yet. Still, I think that no matter what you want to do, you should have enough souls now.¡±


    I nodded inplete satisfaction. This time, I was happy to the point where Iughed loudly.


    Out of my four chosen powers, the power of death was the bloodiest and cruelest. No matter what reason I had for taking this path, being able to go far down the path of death would absolutely require a sufficient number of corpses and souls as resources.


    Before, I mentioned that corpses were no longer necessary at my power level, but if I wanted to construct my own Myth-ranked weapon with the Concept of Death, I would require a tremendous number of souls. My sword of death was theoretically the one with the strongest attack power out of my four nned swords. Not only would it require a tremendous number of souls, it would be even better if the souls were filled with the most hopeless and negative emotions possible.


    Back when I was in the Chaos Abyss, I had even been tempted to go talk to the oldest demon in existence, The Eldest One, who was the inventor of all death magic. That was because I had no other avable options at the time.


    There would be no ce better to harvest souls than a battlefield. The more powerful the soul, the more powerful the emotions, and the more negative and hopeless the emotions were, the better. Morover, the battlefield, where so many brave warriors¡¯ souls red to the utmost, was the easiest ce to create powerful undead creatures. Many ancient battlefields had thus be eternal ces filled with death.


    It was unknown how many demon war ves there had been when my forbidden spell descended. Rather than sending their souls back to the River Styx where they would be reincarnated as demons again, it would be much better for me to make use of their souls as resources. However, I would have no time to focus on other tasks while casting a forbidden spell. This was why I asked Harloys to help me gather the souls of the dead before the battle began.


    It was something that couldn¡¯t see the light of day. Only Harloys was capable of helping me with this. Seeing her current proud expression, she probably harvested quite a significant number of souls.


    ¡°Do the two of you realize that your current actions havepletely enraged a certain person?¡±


    We were both rather astonished that someone else suddenly entered our room. Harloys instantly shielded me with her body.


    I could sense that an astonishing amount of magic power was gathering in Harloys¡¯ hands. If this person dared to take one more step forward, she would be torn apart by explosive magic, even if... even if she was in a way the only family member Harloys had left.


    ¡°Didina, you really are quite surprising. It seems that you¡¯re hiding many things.¡±


    Didina smiled, although her smile was rather bitter. ¡°I should probably start talking from the very beginning, about the grand goal that my lover, Karwenz Mist, has.¡±

 Chapter 649 - Karwenz’s Plans

    <h4>Chapter 649: Karwenz¡¯s ns</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°I should probably start talking from the very beginning, about the grand goal that my lover, Karwenz Mist, has.¡±


    Right after Didina said this, my first reaction wasn¡¯t delight at learning some secret, but rather...


    ¡°These rtionships are so messy that they¡¯re impossible to describe. If this is how things are, and if I call Didina my sister-inw, doesn¡¯t that make Harloys my niece...¡±


    Could it be that all my luck with women had been given to my bastard twin brother? He had to be the type who loved older women. Not only was he involved with Devil Lord Ilmisya, he was even together with a more than 10,000-year-old subus! How jealous he made me... er, I meant, how insane and ridiculous he was! Yep, we should all stand against such wanton behavior!


    *Shing!*


    The fruit knife that went whizzing past my head eliminated all my ridiculous thoughts. I could tell through our soul connection that even though Harloys seemed to be smiling quite happily, she was actually almost going insane.


    ¡°Sister-inw... Cough, I mean, Didina, you have information about Karwenz?¡±


    Several explosions sounded outside my window. It seemed that a battle had started up again outside with the inferno dragons. But right now, it was difficult for me to even sit up in bed, so all I could do was listen to the story. Meanwhile, Didina shook her head as she began telling her astounding tale with a mncholic voice.


    ¡°Karwenz is searching for the Abyss of Chaos. That¡¯s far too dangerous...¡±


    The Abyss of Chaos? Wasn¡¯t the entire Chaos Abyss already known as the Chaos Abyss, so what was the Abyss of Chaos? Harloys and I paused in surprise for a moment, but we both instantly came to a realization when Didina pointed downward.


    ¡°The end point of the Cycle of Reincarnation, the true bottom of the Chaos Abyss?¡±


    Nobody else would likely know what the ¡°deepest part¡± of the Chaos Abyss was, yet I just happened to know, and ced immense importance upon it. That was because...


    ¡°The ce where Cynthia¡¯s physical body is sleeping?¡±


    It was now Didina¡¯s turn to be astonished. She found it inconceivable how a ¡°youngster¡± like myself who was only 300-ish years old would know about such an ancient secret.


    ¡°Ha, perhaps in several more centuries, this won¡¯t be a secret any longer...¡±


    The eternal Holy War between Order and Chaos was all for the sake of the respective Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos, aiming to absorb lives and souls as a tremendous amount of nutrition for their sleeping and heavily injured physical bodies. If even one of them awakened, it would bring about the end of the entire world.


    Logically speaking, we had created Hell and cut off a portion of the Cycle of Reincarnation. Order species that worshipped the Hell Gods would no longer be sent to the Pir of Order. Part of the River Styx had also been transferred into Hell. The awakening of the two Goddesses should have been dyed indefinitely.


    Not only that, the Goddess of Order¡¯s soul was currently with me, while Karwenz had taken away Cynthia¡¯s soul after the battle of Hell... Damn it, so that was the problem!


    ¡°Why does he want to go to the deepest portion of the Chaos Abyss? Does he want to awaken Cynthia? Or does he want to personally destroy her for real? Or, does he want to use his demonic abilities to devour the Creator Goddess of Chaos¡¯ physical body and soul...¡±


    There were too many possibilities, so it was impossible for me to determine what Karwenz wanted. Thus, I simply asked. It seemed that Didina hade to us to volunteer information anyways.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. He¡¯s never said anything to me. It¡¯s just that he¡¯s been searching for the Abyss of Chaos for more than 200 years already. Moreover, it seems that he¡¯s recently found some clues.¡±


    ¡°...So you were talking about Karwenz when you said that us collecting souls would enrage a certain person?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Several years ago, Karwenz said that this Holy War was incredibly important, and it would be best if the River Styx was filled to the brim with souls...¡±


    I nodded in understanding. In that case, it was understandable why Karwenz had been around causing trouble everywhere since the Holy War began. Since he wanted the Cycle of Reincarnation to speed up and give the Goddess of Chaos¡¯s physical body more nourishment, it seemed that he was indeed plotting something regarding Cynthia¡¯s physical body.


    Perhaps when he obtained Cynthia¡¯s soul back in Hell, it had given him the key to find and go to the Abyss of Chaos.


    But, just what did he want? He was already a Chaos Main God, so what else did he even need?


    The eternal Holy War between Chaos and Order? Karwenz would never care about something as boring as pride from belonging to a faction. Something definitely attracted his interest, which was why he was being so proactive.


    ¡°...Is that why you betrayed him?¡±


    ¡°We only had a simple sex friend and mutual benefits rtionship. This doesn¡¯t really count as betrayal. He needed my knowledge and memories to help him explore the Chaos Abyss. I needed his power to secretly support me.¡±


    Didina then paused for a moment as her face became mysteriously red.


    ¡°In every way, he was indeed a wonderful lover. We had great fun together. But, what he wants is too dangerous... If the will of the Chaos Abyss and Cynthia¡¯s physical body truly awakenpletely, everything will go out of control. Perhaps even the entire world will be destroyed. No matter what he wants, I still want to live a longer life, and judging from the current situation, you¡¯re the only one capable of stopping him.¡±


    If Karwenz aplished what he wanted, there was no perhaps that the world would be destroyed. It was a definite that the world would be destroyed.


    I fell silent. To be quite honest, I truly didn¡¯t want to get involved with Karwenz at all. My opinion was that if Karwenz was serious, he would be an even scarier enemy than Donatis. However, there were some things I couldn¡¯t simply ignore.


    Try to convince him by talking? Tell him that it might cause the end of the world? If he was someone who would listen to words, then he wouldn¡¯t be Karwenz anymore. Even if the end of the world was right before him, the only thing he would care about was how much fun he could have before the end of the world. He was such a bastard who thought only with his urges. It would be impossible tomunicate with him by using logic.


    I felt even more of a headache. If Karwenz did something ridiculous and managed to revive Cynthia, it would be impossible for any mortal to deal with. Would I then have to go and release Astrya¡¯s physical body? That would only put everything back to before I established Hell.


    I felt that Karwenz had spent too much effort to break free from Cynthia¡¯s control, so he definitely wasn¡¯t trying to revive her for her sake. But, no matter what he was thinking, the end result definitely wouldn¡¯t be good for anyone in the mortal ne.


    Meanwhile, Didina unhesitatingly got up, said goodbye, and left after telling us this shocking information.


    She said that she was leaving, but she didn¡¯t mean only this room. She had said goodbye to us, saying that it was rare for her to get an opportunity to stay in the mortal ne, and that there were her own things she wanted to do.


    We didn¡¯t stop her from leaving. We simply arranged a few contact points and methods, and let her leave freely. Afterward, both Harloys and myself felt as if we could heave a sigh of relief after seeing Didina leave.


    After Didina left, Harloys and I kept ncing at each other, not knowing what to say.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s first gather information. At the very least, we need to know what exactly it is that he wants to do.¡±


    ¡°Astrya?¡±


    [Everything that you know is all I know.]


    Well, wasn¡¯t she as useless as always. It would seem that I could only rely on myself. I helplessly shook my head. No matter what, it seemed that I would have to visit the Chaos Abyss again.


    ¡°No matter what Karwenz wants to do, if he wants as much blood to be spilled as possible so that the River Styx is overflowing with souls, we must prevent this from happening.¡±


    ¡°...Considering how a certain person just cast a forbidden spell andpleted one of the top-ranking mass ughters in all of history, that doesn¡¯t sound convincing at all.¡±


    Indeed, I was now regretting what I had done. My Yongye City was limited in its capacity to absorb souls. With how tremendouslyrge my Ice Aeon¡¯s area of effect was, it was definite that an equally tremendous number of souls had entered the River Styx.


    I could only helplessly shake my head. I¡¯d had no other choice. Even if I¡¯d known about Karwenz¡¯s intentions beforehand, I would probably have had to cast that forbidden spell anyways. Regretting things here would be meaningless.


    I had no intention of publicizing any of this information. Worrying about the enemy¡¯s life and not being able to kill too many? Wouldn¡¯t that equal stretching out one¡¯s neck for the enemy to slice off your head? When thinking about that, it would be the equivalent of tying heavy stones to yourself needlessly, restraining your own abilities. That would be no different from jumping to your own death.

 Chapter 650 - Another Battlefield

    <h4>Chapter 650: Another Battlefield</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    There were seven Order Main Gods. They were at the very top of all the various Order God Factions. They were unmistakably Gods above Gods. Meanwhile, there were 14 Chaos Main Gods, who each possessed one or even several dimensions, each having their own territory. They had always been viewed as the very top-level existences in the world, living pieces of history. In fact, mortals even viewed them as eternal, just like the rising and setting sun.


    However, these top-level existences finally started being changed out in the past ten years, proving that there was nothing truly eternal in the world after all. This also directly changed the power levelparison between the Order and Chaos Factions.


    During the battle of Hell, the Chaos Faction lost a Chaos Main God, Ladvioka the Lord of Putrefaction. However, his death was just like the battle of Hell itself¡ªsomething secret that ordinary people didn¡¯t know about. Only those with rted benefits and those with well-connected information sources or Godly connections would know that a Main God had died.


    Also, Anslo¡¯s betrayal of the Order Faction had tremendously shaken the powerful individuals among ordinary mortals. News of Anslo¡¯s death instantly spread around all the human kingdoms, causing everyone to sigh with how cruel the Holy War was, as well as helping mortals to understand reality...


    ¡°So, it¡¯s even possible for a Main God to die...¡±


    As of today, the Order Faction only now had five Main Gods, while the Chaos Faction still had 13 Main Gods. Although this still seemed incredibly unbnced, ordinary people wouldn¡¯t worry about such a thing. This was because the Chaos Main Gods had never attacked in unison in all of history before. Not only that, there would also be differences in power level among the Main Gods. It was universally recognized that the God of Holy Light, who possessed the great majority of belief in the world of Eich, was the strongest Main God of them all.


    However, very few knew that the Chaos Faction would have absolutely zero limitations in this Holy War. As long as the Chaos Main Gods desired flesh, blood, and souls from the mortal ne, they would be able to participate in this battle of their own volition. It could be said that this Holy War was destined to be the most difficult one in all of history.


    The demise of all the Elven Gods as well as the ¡°Elven Empire¡± attracted the most attention at the start of this Holy War. However, right on the very next day, another piece of news astonished the entire world.


    Fenbert. The Mist Mountain, in the Amu Mountain district of San Antonio. However, this city now had an even more famous name: Chaos Abyss Fortress Fenbert.


    Eight years ago, the great demons, a species of Chaos, walked out of the forests here. The great demons blood-sacrificed all the mortal residents here, exchanging the blood forrge numbers of demonic reinforcements. However, the demons weren¡¯t able to leave the mountains before they received a painful blow.


    San Antonio invited the Holy Church, which brought angel armies to the defense lines in the Amu Mountains. Both sides started fighting a frontline battle of the eternal Holy War here. Due to dimensional limitations, both sides tacitly limited the highest-levelbat strength participating on either side. So, this low-level battle had persisted for eight years already.


    But now that the eternal Holy War had truly begun again, all ¡°tacit agreements¡± naturally vanished instantly. An uncountable number of demons and demon war ves instantly poured onto this battlefield, and the low-level angel armies were seriously injured. The Holy Church¡¯s defense lines werepletely eradicated after defending for 16 hours. The ¡°Holy Warriors¡± that the Holy Church had been raising as apetitor to the Contract Hero system also suffered serious losses.


    After this happened, some people said that the Chaos Faction had slyly opened up two demon wave portals simultaneously. However, relevant information specialists investigated it, and found that the sudden massive wave of reinforcements had all been from many years of blood sacrifice performed by Fenbert¡¯s great demons. The demons had slowly but surely umted a massive number of soldiers, and then took advantage of the increased Elemental Tide at the beginning of the Holy War, usingrge numbers of blood sacrifices to summon two Demon Lords to lead their armies.


    One side suddenly gained more cannon fodder and high-levelbat strength, making preparations for a decisive attack, while the other side still thought that this would only be an ¡°exhibition match¡±. It was only natural that the Holy Church side lost terribly and swiftly.


    Yet, the biggest trouble was just beginning.


    Since the demon side obtained victory in this battle, they naturally obtained lots of flesh, blood, and souls with their victory. The Demon Lords enacted their highest-level blood sacrifice, and directly opened a semi-permanent Chaos Abyss portal. Now, the ¡°demon wave¡± had truly arrived.


    This was how the Chaos Faction would attack during the Holy War. They would use ughter and war to obtain flesh, blood, and souls, and use this to summon even more forces for even more ughtering and sacrifices. Once the snowball effect began, it would beparable to how an Undead Cmity would constantly multiply itself.


    Normally, demons in the mortal ne would have to pay a constant price to remain here. It would be impossible for them to stay long, so they would typically just ughter and rob a little before returning to the Chaos Abyss, just as if they were bandits. However, the demon army during the Holy War would be dimensional invaders who would trample over everything. The danger level was iparable.


    The end result was that even though thebat results at the Moonwheel Capital weren¡¯t too bad, the defense lines in the Amu Mountains had been destroyedpletely. Losing the entire Amu Mountains wasn¡¯t only a serious blow against the Holy Church¡ªthe entire interior of San Antonio was now also threatened.


    San Antonio was the human mega empire with the least preparations made for the Holy War. Yet, they were forced to be the first empire to meet the demons¡¯ sudden attack, and unlike the brainless demon war ves of the demon wave, it was a Demon Lord-led demon army at the new Abyss Fortress Fenbert. These were actual weapons of war with power, intelligence, and strategy.


    The Chaos Abyss portal at the Moonwheel Capital was still within the demon wave. Any low- or mid-level demons who took that portal to the mortal ne would pay the price of losing their intelligence. However, this semi-permanent portal here didn¡¯t require any extra price, making it far more attractive.


    It was likely that countless Demon Lords interested in the mortal ne would start taking action now, bringing their personal armies into the mortal ne in an effort to obtain as much as possible early on in the Holy War.


    ¡°...This is still eptable. At least San Antonio has a powerful foundation. They can probably still handle it.¡±


    Although this news was still eptable, the next piece of news was rather confusing, and made me tense.


    ¡°There¡¯s evidence of activity in the Demon Abyss, of the Magma Chamber district in the north of the former Mist Kingdom. Witnesses have reported seeing dark cultists and high-level demons appear there.¡±


    I was familiar with this location. Karwenz had previously guarded this ce as a prince of the Mist Kingdom. It was also the ce where Karwenzter opened up a Chaos Abyss portal to summon demons and eradicate seven countries.


    All these ces that the demons invaded were ces weak in Order. Invading these ces would save on sacrificial resources required. The demons were using the ssical strategy of ¡°safe and reliable¡±. Judging from the information, it was quite likely that a major demon army would appear there. Not only that, ever since the Mist Kingdom was destroyed, the Demon Abyss had fallen silent. There wasn¡¯t anyone on guard there anymore.


    Although Reyne didn¡¯t say anything when she heard this piece of news, it was quite evident from her expression how anxious she was. It was likely that she felt a fire burning in her heart that urged her to instantly return to the Nortnds.


    Yet, not only could we not proceed forward at high speed, we would be slowing down even more a few hourster.


    Our airship squadron was currently slowly passing over the snowy mountains. Once we passed the Herit Mountains, where almost nobody lived, we would need to release the elves from our airships and make them walk the rest of the way wherever they wanted to go. At that time, unless we didn¡¯t care one bit about how we released the elves, it was only natural that our airship squadron¡¯s speed would be reduced to one as slow as msses.


    However, it wasn¡¯t only bad news that we received. As our airship squadron went higher in altitude, those fire element inferno dragons finally seemed like they were unable to take the cold¡ªthey started giving up. As long as we passed the snowy Herit Mountains, we would enter all the human kingdoms¡¯ territory, and no longer have to worry as much about those chasing after us.


    Meanwhile, we also gained some uninvited guests along with us.

 Chapter 651 - New Generation

    <h4>Chapter 651: New Generation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: #</strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Before the Holy War, SemiGods were considered to be at the very top of the world. The very definition of SemiGod was someone that far surpassed mortals, but still wasn¡¯t a God.


    Ordinary powerful individuals would typically believe that this meant SemiGods were still weaker than Gods. However, there actually wasn¡¯t much foundational difference between the two. In a way, Gods were simply SemiGods who had Divine Concepts. While Divine Concepts would give the Gods tremendous powers, there would also be associated restraints too.


    It could be said that there was no upper limit to the SemiGod power level. Even the Demon Princes, Demon Lords, Undead Emperors, and so on who were Main God power level could technically be called SemiGods if they didn¡¯t have any divinity or Divine Concepts.


    Before, the power level ranking system in the mortal ne was to indicate the differences between the power levels, as well as give people a rough understanding that ¡°an opponent of this power level would require ¡ª¡ª¡ª number of ¡ª¡ª¡ª power level individuals to deal with.¡± But now, this power level ranking system was no longer sufficient.


    Before, the Iron, Silver, Gold... and all the way up to SemiGod power ranking system was quite convenient to use. That was because the great majority of powerful individuals and magical beasts in the mortal ne were at the lower to middle-level power rankings. Although there would be tremendous differences between SemiGods, there were very few SemiGods out there. Since there were only be a few hundred SemiGods in the entirety of the gigantic mortal ne, and each SemiGod would be the national treasure of some country, there was no need to further differentiate the power levels between SemiGods.


    Any ranking system would exist for the sake of practicality. The fact that the great majority of warriors would spend their entire lifetimes below Silver and Gold rank meant that this power ranking system was focused far more on the lower and middle-level power levels. But, after the demon wave brought about a rise in the Elemental Tide, entering higher power levels became much easier. So-called false Golds, false Legends, and false Saints appeared inrge numbers.


    The most obvious difference was how in the past, a Gold-ranked powerful individual would be addressed as ¡°Grandmaster¡±. This meant that they were an existence which had already surpassed ordinary mortal limits. Gold-ranked individuals were thus able tomand great respect and receive excellent treatment everywhere that they went. But, in the time of this Holy War, entering Gold rank would be as easy as entering Silver rank in the past. It would be 100% possible to enter the new Gold rank as long as you worked hard enough and had sufficient training techniques. In fact, even the new false Legends could be viewed as the limit of what ¡°mortals¡± could achieve. In that case, still viewing Gold rank as ¡°Grandmasters¡± would be far too much to expect.


    Not only that, in front of the powerful demon armies, there really wasn¡¯t much difference between Silver and Gold rank... There would be no need to differentiate between cannon fodder that died in three seconds or ten seconds, after all.


    It could be predicted that in less than ten years, there would also be false SemiGods appearing inrge numbers. Yet, the power level difference between strong and weak SemiGods then would be even more ridiculous than currently. Since there was currently no system to rank power level past SemiGod, then this entire power level ranking system had be meaningless.


    That was why when the demon wave descended, the Mage Country, adventurer guilds, and fairies used past experiences from previous Holy Wars to create a brand-new power level ranking system. The idea was to differentiate less between the lower power level rankings, and differentiate in more detail for powerful individuals who had surpassed Myth and SemiGod rank. This power level ranking system would be more meaningful for the practical situation formanding in this Holy War.


    It wasmon that the power level ranking system would be modified once every Holy War. However, this urred much earlier than normal due to how explosively quick this Holy War started.


    ording to the new power ranking system, the weakest individuals were ssified as Level 1 individuals. Level 1 included all of the previous Iron, Copper, Silver, and Gold ranks put together. All of these old power ranks had be generalized into the same rank since they were all rtively weak. These old power rankings no longer had their own individual names anymore, and were all now collectively known as Level 1. At Level 1 ranking, mortals would still be trying to develop their physical bodies¡¯ potential. Warriors wouldn¡¯t even have supernatural abilities at this level yet. If there had to be a name for this level, then ¡°peak of mortal abilities¡± would probably be appropriate.


    Level 2 would unmistakably be worthy of being called ¡°Grandmaster¡±. Level 2 now included the former Legend and Saint ranks. To be honest, these two ranks never showed much of a difference in actual battle to begin with. In Level 2, powerful individuals would begin searching for their own paths, and mages would begin borrowing great magic powers from the natural elements. Soul Worlds and Soul Imprints would be concrete realizations of ¡°one¡¯s own path¡± in Level 2.


    Level 3 could be considered ¡°Mythic¡±. The former Myth rank and the new SemiGods would be included in Level 3. At this point, powerful individuals would have developed their personal paths into unique fighting styles and philosophies. They would inject everything that they knew into their personal Myth-ranked weapons.


    Due to the old Three Heavy Doors of Myth rank, Level 3 was where people would get stuck the most in the new power ranking system. Once an individual surpassed Level 3, they would foundationally reach a whole new power level.


    Level 4 represented the ¡°Supreme¡± existences, or original SemiGods. All the powerful individuals in this level would be unique existences with talents and hard work that all reached the extreme. They would also have highly differing abilities and paths. Naturally, it would be impossible to ssify them based on how far they had advanced along their personal paths. However, it was still possible to assess them based on thebat strength they disyed.


    Since this new power ranking system would assess you based on yourbat strength and achievements, there were some rtively lower-level SemiGods who might actually be ranked higher than their true strength based onbat achievements. For instance, a forbidden spell mage, or a lower-level beastman king with a ridiculously powerful beast army.


    Those in Level 4 would be ranked by Star Levels, where more powerful dangerous individuals would be given more stars¡ªall the way up to 20.


    5 Stars would be a standard power level. Ordinary Low Gods¡¯ true bodies would be 5 Star power level. The maximum of 20 Stars would represent the strongest of the strong in the entire world. The Main Gods would be ranked at 20 Stars. Anything higher would be meaningless to ssify.


    Just like how powerful SemiGod individuals could easily defeat Low Gods, the standard power level for a Main God would be that they could easily defeat a regr powerful God. Right now, at the beginning of the Holy War, the great majority of Level 4 individuals would still be ranked at 3 Stars or weaker. However, I knew that as the Holy War progressed, ¡°SemiGods would be asmon as dogs¡±, and powerful individuals more than 10 Stars in rank would be everywhere.


    As for whether the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos would appear as the final bosses ranked 30 Stars in power level, that was unknown.


    The result of this new power level ranking system was quite obvious. Those who were at lower power level would have far fewer rights than before, while the super-powerful needed to be ssified in more detail.


    Also, the fact that Level 4 individuals were known as Supreme was perhaps a way of hinting that perhaps they were more supremepared to the Gods who had formerly been so venerated up above. Perhaps this new generation was one where a Low God would be considered lowlier than a dog.


    Level 1 was nameless, Level 2 was known as Grandmaster, Level 3 was known as Mythic, and Level 4 was known as Supreme. The new power level ranking system brought new meaning, as well as new... rewards!


    That was right, the Contract Heroes system that I¡¯d established was now recognized by the entire world. Justice Points had be a global currency far more eptable than any local currency. ying the dimensional invaders could bring countless amounts of wealth.


    Eight years ago, the Goddess of Moonlight and God of Fate hadbined their powers and paid the price of decreasing in power level in order to cast a forbidden spell, creating a star that would forever mark all dimensional invaders. ying a dimensional invader would reward an individual with a corresponding amount of Justice Points depending on how powerful the in dimensional invader was.


    ¡°What? You can¡¯t pay me? Are you trying to joke with me?¡±


    As for grinding money... er, grinding Justice Points, what job ss could possiblypare to forbidden spell mage? One forbidden spell from me had frozen so many countless demons for all eternity. Just how many Justice Points would I be able to obtain from this?


    My Hero¡¯s Armlet would automatically record mybat achievements. Yet, my request to be paid had actually been rejected.


    The fairy in front of me was sweating all over. Fairies were always able to mysteriously appear everywhere, so they had taken over the work of exchanging Justice Points. However, this fairy kept calcting things and found that no matter how much he calcted, my request had exceeded the upper limits of what he was allowed to exchange.


    ¡°Sorry, sorry, I need to ask my bosses about this.¡±


    Right after I recovered enough to move, I came here to exchange for Justice Points, wanting to obtain Justice Points as quickly as possible, because...


    ¡°I apologize, Your Highness Rnd. I just asked my bosses. There have been adjustments to the Justice Points exchange rules. The most Justice Points that anyone is allowed to be rewarded for a single battle is 200,000. ying more of the same species of demon or dimensional invader will also result in a reduction of Justice Points...¡±


    A different fairy popped up and prattled on about a lot of rules and regtions. I¡¯ll skip over the rest for the sake of you readers. The end result was that I would be unable to dream about having millions or tens of millions of Justice Points. The maximum allowed to be given me was 200,000 Justice Points, but since I had worked so hard and discovered a possible way of exploiting the system for Justice Points, I would be rewarded with an extra 1000 for a total of 201,000 Justice Points.


    ¡°...Why does this all sound like a heartless game developer, such as QQ or Blizzard?¡±


    I felt rather helpless. I wanted to curse someone, but didn¡¯t even know whom to curse. I had instantly requested to exchange for Justice Points precisely because I was afraid of this. Yet, I was also the one who mentioned that this loophole in the system for easily grinding Justice Points should be fixed... Should I go bash myself on the head for my own stupidity?


    There was no such thing as a policy that would be perfect. I had mentioned this loophole in order to prevent others from obtaining Justice Points too easily. Thus, the loophole in the system was immediately fixed, and I was given an ¡°appropriate¡± mary reward.


    What? You¡¯re saying that this wasn¡¯t technically a loophole? Wasn¡¯t being able to obtain arge amount of Justice Points easily a loophole? As long as it would have arge effect on the stability of the entire system, no matter what the reason was, I would simply treat it as a loophole.


    Indeed, no matter what the reason was, if I truly obtained several tens of millions of Justice Points here, I would have been able to exchange for a dozen or more God Equipment to y around with, which would probably make our Gods supporting the Justice Points system go broke. The entire financial security behind the Justice Points system would then copse.


    What was an ¡°appropriate¡± mary reward for me, then? ¡°Yeah, since I won¡¯t be satisfied no matter how much I get, then just make a show of things. At least give me 1% or even 0.1%...¡± Those were my exact words. I really wanted to p myself now. It seemed that I had truly shot myself in the foot.


    You¡¯re asking if I was worried about those who would lose Justice Points rebelling or causing incidents...? Of course not. This was because I had referenced game developer contracts with yers from Earth when creating Contract Hero contracts. Wumianzhe, the God of Contracts, personally enforced these contracts which all had non-disclosure agreements. Breaking the contract would result in negative reputation as well as penalties.


    ¡°...Actually, I have a really good rtionship with your bosses, especially the bosses behind the Justice Points system. Perhaps I could talk to them?¡±


    Alright, since I was unable to contractually get anything more, I would try using my connections. Of course I was familiar with the bosses of the Justice Points system as they would be the Hell Gods and the relevant local mortal ne factions. Goddess of Wealth Beyana was in charge of ounting, while Wumianzhe was in charge of enforcement. I also counted as one of the bosses, although I had no responsibilities or ie from this system.


    ¡°...Actually, they were the ones who told me toe talk to you, and, I quote, ¡®That¡¯s enough out of you. 200,000 Justice Points at most, which will be enough for you to get what you want.¡¯ There¡¯s also a blessing for you from Goddess Beyana. ¡®Don¡¯t go too overboard. I haven¡¯t even asked you for any portion of your proceeds, ahem. You understand what will happen if you ask for too much...¡¯¡±


    ¡°Cough, cough, I¡¯ll just take 200,000, then.¡±


    I refrained from saying anything else. Without even mentioning what Ayer would think, if that grudge-holding Goddess of Wealth started holding a grudge against me, well... I didn¡¯t want to experience always losing money every time I went outside.


    Previously, I¡¯d angered her for some reason, and the result was... I would always lose money when going outside, and my ce was constantly robbed. I tried to improve my food and drinks, and finally discovered that the curse of poorness wouldn¡¯t activate on me if I was eating and drinking what others treated me to. I thus started shamelessly freeloading off others, and finally became poor to the extent where I waspletely broke, scamming for free food in Barton¡¯s bar.


    [How many times have I told you already? You¡¯repletely immune to all curses, it¡¯s only that your luck is far too terrible...]


    ¡°Shut up! Ridiculous! I¡¯ve only been temporarily cursed, there¡¯s still hope for me in life! If it reallyes to it, I¡¯ll give Beyana some kickbacks... Er, I meant I¡¯ll give her some donations in order to improve my luck!¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you already permanently banned in all Goddess of Wealth churches? It¡¯s because of thest time when you freeloaded for half a year there while doing nothing. You¡¯re probably the first person in all of history who freeloaded so much that a Goddess angrily sent down a divine decree to have you banned from her churches...¡±


    ¡°Ahem, ahem, let¡¯s refrain from mentioning my dark history.¡±


    Right after the battle of Hell was over, I had no pressure or responsibilities anymore while traveling around the mortal ne. Those were some of the most fun days I¡¯d ever had. However, when I started living as an individual rather than part of an organization, that exposed the fact that I was rather poor at taking care of myself financially as well as at obtaining living necessities... Yep, so in order to live well, I did some slightly shameless things. Harloys, if you dare to mention my dark history again, I¡¯ll stop giving you kickbacks to buy your makeup products!


    In fact, not only was I nning on exchanging Justice Points for precious treasures, even Harloys and Astrya were watching my wallet closely. Both of them were already prepared beforehand for what products they wanted to celebrate.


    ¡°Right, ording to the new power ranking system, you have been assessed at Level 4, 7 Stars. When considering your past aplishments and your current factional standing, you¡¯re even allowed to take out loans from us.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t surprised at all to hear an assessment of me that was higher than my actual power level. Although I still hadn¡¯t reached SemiGod rank yet, just the destructive power of my forbidden spell far exceeded the attack power of any so-called ordinary God.


    Iughed out loud when I heard I could take out loans.


    ¡°I can even take out a loan? Okay, I¡¯m going to take out a loan for 10,000 Justice Points!¡±


    The fairies were different from the goblins who would y around with ridiculously highpound interest rates. Naturally, such a loan here would be for no interest, so of course I would take out a loan.


    ¡°Um, I apologize, the upper limit for the loan you can take out is 1000 Justice Points...¡±


    Alright, in a roundabout way, I was still getting 201,000 Justice Points. It would seem that this amount had already been calcted for me.


    But even despite the cheapness of the Justice Points system working against me, it was still a tremendous amount of wealth. Even the amount offered as reward for my death was only 50,000 Justice Points. Perhaps exchanging for personalized God Equipment would still be impossible with these many Justice Points, and none that I needed were avable, but I had more than enough Justice Points to purchase what I really needed.


    ¡°I recall that the Dusk Fruits which add five years to a person¡¯s age cost 500 Justice Points each? I¡¯m going to exchange for 100 of those. Even if I have a Double Diamond Bloodline, if I add 500 years to my age, this damned bloodline will finally be able to reach mature age or even adult age, wouldn¡¯t it? I also want techniques or manuals from ancient Sword Saints. Help me check what¡¯s in stock. I mainly want ice type techniques...¡±


    Spending money was always something that made me happy. My wallet would always empty itself without my realizing it, and my online shopping cart would always be filled even though I didn¡¯t have enough money to pay for everything in it. But now that I had some money, I instantly purchased 500 Dusk Fruits along with some magic and techniques that I personally needed, which instantly cost me almost 100,000 of the Justice Points I¡¯d just obtained.


    I saved the remaining Justice Points not because I was the type to save¡ªI far preferred to transform my resources into actualbat strength. It was just that the other things I wanted to purchase would require time to be gathered or purchased from other kingdoms¡¯ treasuries, or even exchanged from the Gods. Right now, all that I could purchase were items already in stock.


    At this moment, our airship squadron finally stopped. When I looked outside the window, there finally wasn¡¯t any more ice and snow. But for the elves, their cruel banishment was just beginning.

 Chapter 652 - Trouble

    <h4>Chapter 652: Trouble</h4>


    <b>Trantor:</b> imperfectluck <b>Editor:</b> Kurisu


    The Kerit ins had a typical wintry appearance. The grass was already withered, and hungry wolf packs were searching for food. There were also roars of beasts echoing in the distance. However, this ce was almost like heavenpared to the earlier Ice Aeon environment.


    Not far behind the Kerit ins were the Herit Mountains, which bore a simr name. These snowy mountains reached up into the clouds with sheer cliffs of ice that you couldn¡¯t even see the peaks of.


    On the Kerit ins, the elves had organized themselves intorge caravans that slowly yet adamantly proceeded north.


    The great majority of elves would have to walk. Thus, their caravans were really slow.


    They didn¡¯t have many carriages to begin with. The carriages mostly carried either the seriously injured or potions, medication, food, and other critical resources like that.


    Ordinary lifeless objects could be ced within Yongye City without a problem. However, food and medicine, which was meant to be eaten by the living, would likely turn those who ate it into undead if they were corrupted by negative energy.


    There were some lightly injured elves and elven children who were unable to walk anymore, and other elves had to carry them. There were also faint sounds of crying from the caravans. Perhaps the surviving elves had previously been numbed due to fear and despair, but now that they were finally in a safe location, the sadness from losing their homes and families washed over them.


    Even though our airship squadron was slowly advancing in the air along with the elves, using cannon fire to eliminate any nearby wild beasts, the elven aerial knights continued riding on their pegasi and falcons above the clouds. These aerial knights and their steeds were all injured, but perhaps they just wanted something to do something so that they wouldn¡¯t have the free time to think, which would plunge them into sadness and despair.


    While everyone in the mortal ne would be delighted at seeing the Elven Gods die, and while this would also bring about the best future for the elves, this future was far too distant and meaningless to the ordinary elves. They had just be war refugees who had lost their homes and families. They were crying because they had just lost everything.


    The entire caravan procession was enveloped in this mncholic aura. There were constant sounds of crying and sighing. However, I had no intention of interfering. Things would be even worse if their sadness had no outlet to vent.


    Perhaps the demons¡¯ first goal had already been achieved. Or, perhaps the Elven Gods had been an unexpected perfect sacrifice for them. Or, perhaps the demon wave was even more chaotic than expected. Whichever it was, we came under far fewer attacks than I had expected. However, the fairies soon sent me thetest intelligence, which told us that the demon wave was feasting upon new prey.


    ¡°The Diven Dukedom was destroyed? In just one short day?¡±


    ¡°More urately, it was destroyed in 18 hours and 40 minutes¡ªfrom the time that the demon wave entered the Diven Dukedom¡¯s borders to the time that Donatis personally broke through the walls of their capital city. Although the Diven Dukedom was only a tiny country with about one million people and three big cities, it was still destroyed far quicker than expected.¡±


    It seemed that even after the elves helped to take out arge portion of the demon wave, the demon wave and Donatis were still too much for ordinary small human countries to handle. Moreover, if I recalled correctly, the Diven Dukedom had rejected our request to transport the elves through its borders in order to avoid getting tangled up with the demon wave. However, the final result was this.


    I rested on my bed, appearing like I was focusing on the scenery outside the window. However...


    ¡°Is there any new information or development that requires urgent action? Is there any news on the Nortnds¡¯ Demon Abyss?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no new information from the Nortnds. The most important information is that the price of food has risen by about 30% in just two days, most likely due to the start of war...¡±


    There was a loud ruckus by my side, apanied by a highly passionate gaze. These caused me to helplessly abandon all thoughts of ignoring the other people in the room and ck off.


    ¡°Reyne, can¡¯t you let a patient properly get his rest?¡±


    I was still unable to move due to the aftereffects of casting a forbidden spell. I was now resting in the Borealis¡¯s infirmary, a room filled with the scent of medicine and alchemical potions. These were all to help me recover after all the energy and mana I used. Compared to Holy Light that would be hard on the body and even lifespan, I preferred these slightly slower methods of healing that wouldn¡¯t have any negative aftereffects. Even my bandages were infused with mana recovery potions, which was one of the best methods for mana regeneration.


    A desk had been ced in this rtively small infirmary, and Reyne was doing her work here without even asking me first. Her concubine, Avi Fenso from the Suolo Federation, was also dealing with her own political work in my room.


    Early in the morning, Reyne had brought her subordinates over to work here. When considering how she was just like me in working hard at cking off and leaving responsibility to others, she most likely wanted to make me deal with the work for her.


    ¡°I know that you¡¯re quite busy. Go to the Borealis¡¯s captain¡¯s room. Why are you here, disturbing a patient¡¯s rest?¡±


    ¡°Even if you tie yourself up like a mummy, it wouldn¡¯t necessarily mean that you¡¯re actually injured. The doctors say that you¡¯re perfectly capable of dealing with paperwork in your current state. If you have the free time to look at mechanical repair guides, you might as well do some proper work, such as giving us some advice, instead. By the way, that dwarvennguage mechanical repair manual you¡¯re reading is upside-down.¡±


    I hurriedly flipped the manual around, but the giggle from Reyne exposed the fact that she had just yed a trick on me. I had been holding it properly after all!


    Of course, I didn¡¯t understand such high-level engineering. Although I knew the dwarvennguage, I wouldn¡¯t be able to understand this manual filled with highly technical terms. I was just pretending to concentrate on reading as an excuse to avoid work.


    I could only helplessly toss aside the manual. It would be quite embarrassing to continue pretending now, but I stillined a little.


    ¡°You¡¯ve all done such a good job over the past couple years. You¡¯re already more than capable of being independent. Why do you need old bones like me? I should have retired long ago.¡±


    Myint had no effect. Reyne directly shook her head as she spoke. ¡°I should at least inform you of the recent changes in the Nortnds. Also, you¡¯re a true precognitor, so I should take advantage of you... er, I meant ask for your knowledge and guidance!


    Precognitor? Oh, my pretending to be a precognitor with the Gentlemen Alliance had actually been believed. Still, in a way, I truly did have the ability to prophesize ¡°precognitions¡±. Still, now that the game¡¯s history had changed so much, there were very few things that I could still prophesize.


    ¡°...Don¡¯t count on me too much for prophecies, especially with regards to the Nortnds. Prophecies will forever be unreliable when they¡¯re rted to the prophet. The Nortnds is too deeply connected to me. I won¡¯t be able to tell anything.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t just spouting rubbish here. The Nortnds in the game¡¯s history was far more pitiful than currently. Without myself and Karwenz, the Mist Kingdom naturally wouldn¡¯t have been revived, nor would there be a Mist Alliance. In the game¡¯s history, after the Mist Kingdom was destroyed, the Nortnds beastmen, who were the strongest faction in the Nortnds, took over the entire Mist Kingdom¡¯s territory.


    The Nortnds beastmen ruled over the former Mist Kingdom¡¯s territory for 300 years. They teamed up with the Underground to defeat the Nortnds elven kingdoms, even gaining the honor of having revived the beastmen¡¯s former glory. Only when the demons swept over the entire mortal ne was the Nortnds beastmen¡¯s glory snuffed out.


    I wasn¡¯t lying at all to Reine. The game¡¯s history had already changed far too much because of me. How could I possibly prophesize anything else?


    However, my little speech about ¡°the unreliability of prophecies¡± probably sounded like something that a random prophet on the street would say. That Avi girl from the Suolo Federation evenughed out loud with an expression that said she obviously didn¡¯t believe me.


    Reyne also overly trusted me as always. Since she heard that I didn¡¯t sound so resolute in my refusal, she had a big smile as she continued taking advantage of me.


    ¡°That means you promise to guide us, then. Cati, continue the report.¡±


    A Nortnds government official, whose face was covered in e, continued his report.


    ¡°...The price of food for winter has dangerously increased by more than 30% in just the past few days. People are now beginning to fight over food being sold. The logistics department director of the Mist Alliance rmends that we should open up our food storage in order to lower food prices and steady morale since our food storage is quite ample.¡±


    Although the Mist Alliance was an alliance of several dozen countries, the People of the Mist were by far a majority, which meant that Reyne had tremendous authority. Even if everyone in the Mist Alliance hade to an ord, she would still have to confirm things even if she wasn¡¯t the ruler in name.


    ¡°I¡¯ve already looked over the data on how much food we have stored. Based on current consumption rates, there should be no problem tost until next autumn¡¯s harvest.¡±


    Avi Fenso¡¯s father was a parliament member in the Suolo Federation, and she had also been raised as a politician ever since young. She was now trying her very best to help Reyne deal with political matters as she was now Reyne¡¯s concubine.


    Everyone else around me seemed to be nodding. Reyne was about to give her permission for this, but I could no longer ept this.


    ¡°No. In fact, not only should we not open up our food storage, we should be trying to purchase as much food as possible from the market.¡±


    I instantly overturned the political decision about to be made, and all the governmental officials looked at me with obvious looks of displeasure and dissatisfaction. The fact that none of them said anything against me was probably only due to my identity.


    ¡°...If my inference is correct, for quite a long period of time from now on, the prices of food will continue to furiously increase. Haven¡¯t you seen thetest news? San Antonio, the number one food supplier in the entire continent, has gotten fully involved in the Holy War. As long as their emperor¡¯s brain is still working, they¡¯re either going to sell zero food next year, or sell a greatly reduced amount of food. It¡¯s obvious that the price of food is going to furiously increase.¡±


    The San Antonio Empire had taken over the beastmen¡¯s holynd, the origin of all beastmen. It was said that those ins were so fertile that casually tossing a single wheat seed would result in a full harvest next autumn. San Antonio produced far too much food for their citizens to eat, so it was only natural that they exported the excess food.


    Even though the Holy War had yet to affect San Antonio¡¯s food production areas, any agricultural country would definitely begin stocking up food in a time of war as war resources even if they already had an abundant food supply. It was quite evident to me that they would sell much less food next year.


    ¡°We¡¯ve already considered this possibility. However, we mainly import our food from Bardi and And. Even if the food prices are affected, it¡¯s within our expectations to deal with.¡±


    Avi, who had a special status as Reyne¡¯s primary assistant, didn¡¯t even bother to hide her disagreement. Judging from the other Nortnds government official¡¯s expressions, they also agreed with her judgement.


    I was somewhat rendered speechless. This wasn¡¯t because I had been convinced. Rather, I didn¡¯t know how to exin how evil people could be. Merchants would always be greedier in times of war, wanting to make more profit off people¡¯s difficulties. It was also difficult for me to exin that no matter what calctions they had, they had definitely underestimated the severity and length of this Holy War. As long as the Holy War continued tost, the price of food would naturally multiply several times over.


    Due to Amelia¡¯s assistance, the Nortnds had nted many different types of excellent cold-resistant crops, but when considering the Nortnds¡¯ weather and poor soil, along with the mega increase in poption after the Mist Alliance was established, we still had a significant food shortage every year even with Amelia¡¯s food crops.


    Of course, this could be taken care of easily. Amelia¡¯s best cold-resistant wheat seemed to physically resemble Piranha nts, and had a strange taste that resembled dirt, but they were truly harmless with no toxins!


    But since the soil¡¯s quality was far too terrible in the Nortnds, production numbers were still quite low. However, the Nortnds had plenty of emptynd and lots ofbor. As long as more crops were nted, food production would eventually rise, and self-sufficiency would be achievable. The rich who disliked the taste andck of nutrition could still purchase food from other ces.


    As for the Mist Alliance government, being picky about the taste of food was far too much of a luxury. Being able to guarantee that nobody would starve despite the Nortnds¡¯ poor-quality soil was already a tremendous historical achievement.


    Everyone knew that this was something major. Over the past eight years, the young people who applied to be farmers enjoyed the greatest glory. The fields for nting crops around each city had massively multiplied in number. The Nortnds¡¯ food production rate was also growing at an exponential rate.


    It was precisely this exponential food production growth that gave these government officials a mistaken impression of the future. They felt that as long as they subsisted for a period of time, food prices would naturally bnce themselves out. However, I knew that the Holy War wouldn¡¯t let them reach that day so easily. As long as the Mist Alliance still needed food, all of the Nortnds¡¯ countries needed to stock up on as much food as possible. It seemed quite likely that there would be absolutely no more food that could be purchased in the international marketce at all when the Holy War reached its peak.


    I fell silent for quite a while as I organized my words. ¡°How can any of you guarantee that Bardi and And won¡¯t be involved in the Holy War next year?¡±


    ¡°How could that be possible...¡±


    Avi paused in her denial halfway through. She had wanted to ask how such a coincidence could possibly happen as it was against allmon sense, but then she realized that it was indeed impossible to make such a guarantee. Nobody would be able to predict the course of the Holy War.


    ¡°Also, none of you have experienced the chaos of an entire world at war. In such a situation, as long as the major food-producing countries be affected, the entire international food market will be affected. All the other countries will start only purchasing food without selling any. It¡¯s only natural that the prices of food will exponentially increase. In fact, it might even be a market where no food will be sold no matter how high of a price you pay.¡±


    I kept feeling like this was more and more possible. The world of Eich had no international peace-maintaining organizations. Moreover, greedy merchants could be found in every country. As long as they and various countries¡¯ rulers started intentionally raising food prices, it was likely that food would eventually be more valuable than gold.


    ¡°Okay, it¡¯s decided then. This year, we¡¯ll be purchasing as much food as possible, without opening up our food storage.¡±


    Reyne instantly made her decision after hearing me out. However, this caused Avi to worry.


    ¡°However, if the Mist Alliance¡¯s food marketcks food for winter, that will affect the citizens¡¯ morale and cause a panic.¡±


    Reyne looked over in my direction. I simply shrugged. I was quite skilled at handling such a situation, but I definitely wouldn¡¯t use a typical peaceful method.


    ¡°It¡¯s quite obvious that greedy merchants are behind the increase of 30% in food prices in just two days. Execute all those greedy merchants and take their food stock to help bnce the food prices. Right, if this is inconvenient for you guys to handle, leave this task to the dark elves. They¡¯re all experts at this. I guarantee that they¡¯ll be urate at catching them and making those merchants tell all about even their ancestors.¡±


    It was quite obvious that this was no typical way of dealing with things. Casually executing merchants would make the remaining merchants panic even more, perhaps making them choose to transfer themselves and their wealth elsewhere. This might seem like a decision with long-term consequences, but...


    ¡°This is already the time of war. Continuing to use peacetime methods of dealing with things will only make those greedy merchants look down on you. Killing some to scare the rest will make things much easier than having to fix everything down the road. Ha, this is the convenience of being in a feudal generation. Executing someone doesn¡¯t even require evidence.¡±


    Reyne nodded in realization at hearing my rather extreme method of dealing with things.


    She knew that I wasn¡¯t someone who enjoyed ughtering. In fact, I loathed ughtering. But, I obviously had my reasons for using such an extreme method here. She could also guess at the reason why.


    ¡°...The Nortnds will also get involved in war?¡±


    Since it was a time of war, even the most extreme methods would be understandable. However, Iughed after hearing Reyne¡¯s question. She was still far too young and na?ve. She waspletely underestimating this Holy War which would get the entire mortal ne involved.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not that the Nortnds will get involved in war. It¡¯s that the entire world is already involved in this war. Every single species, every single country, and every single individual everywhere will get involved in this war. It¡¯s quite possible that anyone will die, including you or me. This will likely be the final Holy War to end all wars, where everyone may die.¡±


    After saying these shocking words, I didn¡¯t care too much about their reactions. It didn¡¯t matter to me whether they believed me or felt that I was spouting rubbish. I had simply be interested after saying this.


    ¡°Alright, youngster, continue your report. Let me see how well you juniors have done.¡±

 Chapter 653 - Blueprint

    <h4>Chapter 653: Blueprint</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The small infirmary had been converted into a government office. Most of the time, I simply listened. I had been away from the Nortnds for so many years that I was somewhat unfamiliar with the new Mist Alliance. Casually giving my opinion on things I didn¡¯t know much about would obviously be quite foolish.


    However, I kept frowning more and more as I listened to their reports.


    The issue of food for winter wasn¡¯t a major or minor problem. Even if the Nortnds government had made the wrong decision by themselves on this matter, this situation was still fixable because I had noticed the problem in time. It would simply be that the next year would bring some more hardships, and the national treasury would be rather empty after buying more food. However, none of this would be a serious problem.


    However, what made me feel that something was wrong with the situation was the apparent way that all Nortnds people seemed to think.


    ¡°The Holy War isn¡¯t that scary. We¡¯ll be able to obtain victory in just a few years.¡±


    Once people start to lead overly sessful lives, they would naturally be filled with confidence, and if a country was doing too well, all the citizens would be overly optimistic. Over the past few years, the Mist Alliance had indeed been very sessful. The Mist Alliance had gone from a small faction to one of the major factions on the continent at an astonishing speed. It was understandable why the citizens would be overly optimistic.


    People would love topare the present to the past to emphasize their current advantages. The optimistic felt that humans had been the winners in the previous Holy War despite only having metal weapons. Holy Light, magic, and other supernatural abilities had been extremely rare among humans back then. Now, not only had humans surpassed the elves in magic ability, humans even had new technologies and a tremendous poption. They felt as if they were using magical engineering technology against primitive demons, so how could they possibly lose?


    No matter how much the higher-ups stressed the cruelty of the Holy War, the people still wouldn¡¯t take it seriously. In fact, even the higher-ups talking about the cruelty of the Holy War probably didn¡¯t actually believe it all that much.


    But as for me...


    ¡°...The Holy War is easy to win? It will be over in a few years? This is the final Holy War to end all Holy Wars, where all restrictions are truly lifted. It might not even end in several decades or centuries. There might not even be a so-called final victor in the end. Perhaps from the very first day since the demon wave started, all residents of the mortal ne will be involved in war. Perhaps the children of the future won¡¯t even know what peace will be.¡±


    This would be no exaggeration. In the game¡¯s history, the demon wave hadsted all the way until the entire world was destroyed. All the countless dimensions as well as the entirety of Eich was scorched by mes. That was a truly eternal war with no hope whatsoever. It was an endless dark night with no dawn that would ever arrive.


    Once the Chaos Faction truly removed all restrictions resting on itself, it would be impossible to predict their true attack power.


    Perhaps people would say that the Chaos Faction only had twelve Main Gods, so there wouldn¡¯t be much of a difference in powerpared to the Order Faction. However, the Chaos Abyss was the ce where all losers in the countless previous Holy Wars would go to reside. It was impossible to know how many tremendously powerful existences were hiding within.


    Without even mentioning anyone else, just to talk about some existences I previously mentioned before, there would be the former Main God, Sun God Aloyo, along with The Eldest One who had invented death magic, the oldest demon of all. Neither of these two was counted among the 12 Chaos Main Gods. However, I felt that it was likely that both of them would actually have power levels surpassing that of most of the Chaos Main Gods.


    The endless Chaos Abyss represented countless dimensions and losers, but when all restrictions were removed, all these former losers would receive the opportunity to be victors again. Just imagining what might happen was a scary thought.


    While the mortal ne was indeed the wealthiest ne of all, and also blessed and protected by the Gods, if all the countless dimensions which numbered in the thousands or more started invading it, I truly had no guarantee of how long the mortal ne wouldst.


    That was why the overall strategy I¡¯d nned was to protect the country¡¯s territory. As long as the defending side joined up with allies and survived the enemy¡¯s first¡ªwhich would also be the strongest¡ªattack, allowing our technology and warriors to be developed in war before trying to counterattack. However, judging from the current situation, the Nortnds¡¯ youngsters probably wanted to voluntarily take the fight to the Chaos Faction.


    ¡°The number of young people who have joined our army this year has far surpassed all calctions. After all departments had a discussion, we¡¯ve decided to open up twenty extrabat squadrons. Basically, 100,000 people more than we expected have voluntarily signed up to join our army...¡±


    Although this young government official giving me the report was a bit fatigued, he had a beaming expression while also speaking in an excited tone. He seemed to be delighted that the Mist Alliance was in such an excellent state.


    Indeed, if a country was about to face war, yet the young people still excitedly joined the army, this not only meant that the citizens trusted the country, this also meant that the citizens felt that joining the army would be good for their future. Young people who desired to be warriors all trusted that their country would help them survive this uing danger, and that they would be able to obtain glory and benefits through war.


    At this time, I wouldn¡¯t say something that wouldn¡¯t be believed, such as ¡°Are those youngsters all in a hurry to die?¡± Regardless, a cruel trial was awaiting them. Having some extra confidence... even if it was overconfidence, would still be better than depression.


    As I was a veteran at being a mastermind behind the scenes, I knew that telling the citizens about the cruel reality would only cause chaos and panic. It would be much better to transform their overconfidence into something useful that might help obtain victory in battle, even if the citizens would still have to face the cruel reality in the end... Even if the citizens managed to ¡°confidently¡± get through this difficult period, that would already be a good deal.


    However, while the citizens could be overly optimistic, and while the young army recruits could be overly optimistic, the government leaders andmanding military officers could never afford to be overly optimistic.


    It was of utmost importance to keep a clear mind in critical moments. Too much optimism would likely lead to overly optimistic assessments of the situation. Even a single wrong political decision like opening up the food storage instead of stocking more food might be a huge problem down the road.


    ¡®I think it¡¯s time to give them a good scare.¡¯


    Reyne also had a bright smile. She constantly nodded on hearing that everything in the Mist Alliance was going well. She even constantly looked in my direction with a proud look on her face as if she was trying to show off how well she had done.


    I also smiled back and nodded at her as if I was praising her. However, I was quite displeased inside.


    ¡®Forget about the others, you¡¯re someone who understand demons so well. Yet, you¡¯re still so optimistic as everyone¡¯s leader? It seems that I¡¯m going to have to give you a really good lesson... The first lesson is that as a politician, you have to constantly ensure that your real emotions aren¡¯t shown. In that case, the first lesson will be learning how to maintain a smile after eating an extremely spicy pepper.¡¯


    The more vicious ideas I cooked up, the brighter my smile became. The entire atmosphere in the infirmary seemed very friendly as if everyone truly agreed that the situation was wonderful.


    ¡°...You never told this to Reyne before, have you? In fact, you haven¡¯t even mentioned it to me before.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words caused me to suddenly pause in surprise. She was correct. I truly hadn¡¯t shared with anyone else the detailed information that I knew about the future. In that case, this really wasn¡¯t Reyne¡¯s fault for being overly optimistic.


    ¡°...While I haven¡¯t said anything, I¡¯ve been constantly taking action. If Reyne was truly outstanding enough, she should be able to tell what I think the future will be like based on my actions.¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t expect too much out of her. Who could possibly guess the thoughts of someone as sly as you? Even I can barely guess at your overall n, and that¡¯s only because I know your thoughts. You¡¯re intending on abandoning the entire continent to focus on defending the Nortnds? Such a passive and pessimistic style isn¡¯t like you at all,¡± Harloys said in my mind while I continued to smile and nod at Reyne.


    As I expected, Reyne smiled foolishly back at me, while I responded to Harloys in our soul connection. ¡°Yes, that¡¯s correct. How did you figure it out?¡±


    ¡°Moving the undead Xiluo Empire to the north, moving the Church of Law to the north, and even the dark elves and Dragon City have begun moving to the north. The Church of Wealth and all other Hell Faction churches¡¯ headquarters have also begun moving to the Nortnds over the past few years. These should all be due to your rmendations.¡±


    I nodded again while Reyne continued to smile foolishly. Meanwhile, her concubine Avi kept ring at me. What did I ever do to her?


    Since the demon wave had descended already, it was likely that things would develop as I expected. Perhaps it was time to n my blueprint for the future in more detail.

 Chapter 654 - Iron Triangle

    <h4>Chapter 654: Iron Triangle</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    What was my blueprint? Having all countries ally together in front of the demon wave, forming an irond alliance where all the members would freely exchange resources and technology with each other, improving everyone¡¯s magic spells and magical engineering technology together, creating a brand-new generation with technology far surpassing the times, thus bringing about a revolution that would kick the Chaos Faction out of the mortal ne... Okay, I admit that I just made all of the above up.


    I had mentioned long ago that this was what I had truly believed before. When an entire generation was changing, any individual¡¯s strength would be insignificant, or even ignorable.


    ¡°All I can do is nt some seeds, and then hope that these seeds can grow into tall trees that might be able to slightly change the pitiful future.¡±


    I had done my very best to create and then strengthen the Hell Faction. However, this still didn¡¯t mean that the Hell Faction was capable of directly resisting the Chaos Faction. It was simply that the creation of Hell had made it impossible to revive the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos¡¯ physical bodies, avoiding the worst possible oue of total world-ending annihtion.


    As for everything else? I never even considered it...


    Just think about it, if you were about to be expelled from school, would you still worry aboutpleting tomorrow¡¯s homework?


    Okay, perhaps this analogy wasn¡¯t the best one. Then, let¡¯s try another: if you were about to be executed tomorrow, would you still worry about what dinner tonight would be? Well, since I had multiple death experiences already, I would worry whether there was meat for dinner or not, but I felt that most people would be so nervous that they would be unable to eat.


    Cough, this wasn¡¯t my fault for not seeing far enough into the future. Creating Hell and breaking the Order and Chaos Factions¡¯ monopoly over the Cycle of Reincarnation was already a miracle considered impossible to achieve. Only after we truly managed to achieve this did we finally have the time to focus on the rest of the future again after our period of excitement.


    ¡°The worst possible ending of total annihtion has indeed been averted. However, there¡¯s still no difference in the fact that the Chaos Faction has so much more overwhelmingbat strength. Moreover, due to the disappearance of Creator Goddess of Chaos Cynthia, the Chaos Faction will truly have no more restrictions. This means the Chaos Faction will be even more difficult to deal with than in the game¡¯s history...¡±


    Although the game¡¯s history sounded quite scary, it was simply a matter of differingbat strength. To use an analogy, let¡¯s say that¡ªwithout any other objective conditions¡ªa well-equipped muscr man was attacking a much skinnier man who waspletely unarmed. No matter what thetter tried to do, he would still likely be beaten up in the end. That was the overall situation we were facing.


    Right now, the Chaos Faction was that well-equipped muscr man, while the mortal ne was the skinny man. Not only that, the mortal ne was still suffering from internal conflicts as people here still schemed against each other without worrying too much about the external enemy. It seemed quite obvious that the only result would be getting beaten quite badly.


    Overallbat strength would be one of the most important factors in any war. The fact that the entire Chaos Faction would be participating in this Holy War without any restrictions had made the difference even more evident. Although new magical engineering technologies were indeed a great potential lifesaver, the field of magical engineering still needed time to develop before it would be able to grow into a tall tree. Since the overall situation was that both sides¡¯ overallbat strength hadn¡¯t foundationally changed, no matter how I looked at it, it seemed that the mortal ne would be beaten up quite badly at the beginning of this Holy War.


    ¡°Defend until an opportunity arises to counterattack.¡±


    ¡°Fight a battle of attrition.¡±


    ¡°Conduct gueri warfare behind the enemy lines.¡±


    ¡°Use space to exchange for time.¡±


    Although these strategies all sounded quite solid, the prerequisite for using these strategies would always be because ¡°Fighting a direct battle would make it impossible to win.¡± That was just the harsh reality, and it couldn¡¯t be helped that the aforementioned strategies would have to be employed.


    The mortal ne of Eich did have a chance at victory. Magical engineering, along with the foundational umtion and potential of the mortal ne, would all truly show their power in the middle andter stages of the Holy War. Back in the game¡¯s history, countless heroes had appeared in this dire situation. However, the early stage of the Holy War would still have most people suddenly waking up to the fearsome and hopeless sight of the cruel reality. Everyone would be beaten up and killed quite badly until they became willing to truly throw 100% of everything they had into this war.


    I was no saint. There were things I would be incapable of aplishing, and neither could I create something from nothing. All so-called strategy and tactics would revolve around manipting chess pieces along with bluffs and threats against the other yer of the chess game. However, if the chess pieces on both sides were so different in strength that it was impossible to y a game of chess, when the enemy only had to autoattack you with all their strength, it would be utterly foolish to try and think of strategies to win. It would be far more practical to consider how to lose as little as possible so that enough seeds could be preserved for a future counterattack.


    ¡°The entire Mist Alliance will be an irond alliance that can survive the Holy War, and at least stall for time until the entire continent is ready to counterattack... And if there never is an opportunity to counterattack, then justst as long as possible.¡±


    This was an extremely passive and shortsighted strategy. In fact, if I said it out loud, it would also be considered a cowardly strategy. I, who always preferred proactiveness, finally chose this type of strategy in the end. The situation truly forced it on me.


    ¡°We¡¯re the weaker side by far. Although just autoattacking with full force will be quite fun, we¡¯ll probably have to type ¡°GG¡± after having our fun. The most basic part of strategy is to fight the enemy at a location and time that we choose.¡±


    As a veteran mastermind behind the scenes, I didn¡¯t need to tell others about my overall strategy that would surely cause much controversy and disagreement. All I needed to do was make my preparations, and then wait for time to pass and the continent¡¯s situation to keep worsening. The people of the Nortnds would then naturally make the decision that I wanted them to.


    From what I felt, choosing the Nortnds as the final bastion for mortals was indeed the best choice.


    Although thisnd had infertile soil, and was at the border of the world, the flip side was that the betternd would be fought over first. Nobody would be interested in such a poornd, especially when thisnd wouldn¡¯t be that easy to conquer.


    This was the extreme north, and of ice and snow. The great majority of Chaos Abyss demons were naturally of the fire element. While they would be fire resistant, the natural environment here would be the best natural barrier to keep the demons out. It would be difficult for any living creature to befortable in this environment, and the low temperature would impair any living creature¡¯s abilities. Only the undead would be able to fight at full power here. Thus, the Nortnds¡¯ ice and snow would be one of our best allies against the demon army.


    Yet, things were no longer the same as eight years ago. The Nortnds were no longer so poor.


    The Nortnds were no longer the same poornd on the border of the world. The addition of the Nortnds elven kingdoms meant adding a fertile ins and forest environment to the Nortnds territory. Taming the Nortnds beastmen meant that the Nortnds had a powerful tundra andbat potential. The alliance with the Underground meant that it would be impossible to cut the Nortnds off from the outside world. The northwards movement of the undead Xiluo Empire gave the Nortnds the foundational power of a mega empire.


    The Xiluo Empire, Underground, and People of the Mist were now the iron triangle of the Nortnds Mist Alliance. This iron triangle wasn¡¯t limited to only military and political dimensions.


    Large amounts of gray dwarves and goblin engineers had moved into the Nortnds. The magical metals and ordinary mining resources in the Nortnds had been greatly developed. The addition of the Xiluo Empire had also greatly improved the Nortnds¡¯ enchanting and industrial capabilities. Additionally, since the Nortnds was the origin of the new field of magical engineering, the arms sales here would be more than anywhere else in the world.


    Just the fact that the Hell Gods¡¯ churches had been brought here meant that the Hell Gods were blessing and watching over thisnd, and in this world of Eich, that represented Divine Concepts as well as the production of high-level job ss members working for these churches, bringing more high-levelbat strength, which would in turn improve everyone¡¯s morale.


    The isted Nortnds human kingdoms were nothing more than people living on the border. The isted Underground Faction was nothing more than a local ruler acting powerful in their own domain. The isted Nortnds elves were cowards whocked courage and the desire to progress. The isted Nortnds beastmen were only a group of injured beasts who had their ambition and teeth broken. The isted undead here were considered the mortal enemies of the world. But when we all allied together and made up for each others¡¯ shorings, a self-sustaining mega-powerful faction had begun to mature and show itself.


    Some things were quite obvious. Perhaps the Mist Alliance had indeed developed far too well over the past years. Since the other human kingdoms of the world were beginning to pay their respects to the Nortnds, the Mist Alliance¡¯s citizens and higher-ups were beginning to be overconfident.


    But once a full-out war broke out, and all the mega empires of the continent sunk into bitter battle, the entire Nortnds Mist Alliance would act as an irond alliance, and things here would surely develop as in my blueprint...


    ¡°The entire Nortnds shall be isted from the world, bing a tremendous fortress of ice and snow. The unending ice and snow here shall be natural walls against any invasion. The powerful industry and magical technology here will bebat potential for war. The courageous Nortnders will be the best warriors in all of Eich. The g of the Mist shall represent this ¡®Land of Protection¡¯, bing the worst nightmare of the Chaos Faction.¡±


    There were still many extra factors that I could take advantage of here in the Nortnds, which remained unknown to outsiders. These factors could all improve our odds in a defensive battle here, as well as be used to deal with any Gods who dared to invade us.


    Of course, thisnd still had many weaknesses. The most obvious one was theck of food.


    The humans here weren¡¯t even able to nt enough food for themselves. The Nortnds beastmen were unable to hunt enough food to keep themselves fed. The elves had some food store, but it would likely soon be insufficient. High-quality food had always been a criticalbat resource in the Underground, and the most valuable product of all were all sorts of mushrooms that didn¡¯t require sunlight to grow. As for the undead... okay, let¡¯s forget about them as they didn¡¯t need to eat. Even though I had been spreading Amelia¡¯s new cold-resistant crops in the Nortnds, thend was still far too poor to produce enough food to sustain a big faction. It would definitely take far longer to reach that level... even to the point where I really wanted to kidnap some druids and wood elves from the Nature Faction.


    I did mention to Amelia before how I would like for her to have some wood spirits immigrate to the Nortnds. However, she unhesitatingly rejected, saying that thisnd was far too cold and poor in quality. Magic forests and magic nts would hate this type ofnd more than anything. Most magic nts would directly enter hibernation in such an environment where it was difficult for their seeds to even sprout. Amelia would have agreed only if this was a warm and fertilend.


    The Nortnds elven kingdom¡¯s territory indeed fitted her requirements, and I had subordinates investigate that ce for me. However, the problem was that the elves had maintained a permanent spring-like climate there through the use of magic which had even stemmed from the Elven Gods. And now, the Elven Gods were all dead. The natural bnce of nature there hadpletely copsed. It would be impossible for thatnd to be eptable for a magic forest like the Forest of Dreams.


    Alright, since it would be impossible to make the Nortnds hospitable to the wood spirits for the time being, all I could do for now was to have the Nortnds purchase as much food as possible while there was still food avable to purchase on the international market.


    Another problem was the issue of poption.


    The Nortnds was quiterge. However, the terrible natural environment here made it so that the great majority of ordinary citizens would choose to live in rtively safe and warm mid-sized orrge cities. Thus, the Nortnds was a typical example of a country withrge territory but sparse poption. Inparison, the human mega empires of Eich would have viges and cities all over their territory, with a tremendous amount of poption. The Nortnds was far morecking in poption as a resource.


    Yet, this problem was actually easy to take care of. Perhaps I should even say that it wasn¡¯t even necessary to deal with this problem. As long as the Holy War kept continuing without end,rge numbers of refugees would naturally go to the safest location around. There was plenty of evidence to support this inference of mine. The Mist Alliance¡¯s poption was rapidly increasing every year due to refugees. Although the Nortnds was a bit colder and poorer than human mega empires, that wouldn¡¯t be a problem at allpared to the dangers of war.


    Another weakness the Nortnds had was a weak industrial foundation. In this magical world of Eich, there were two types of industry: the magical such as enchanting and alchemy, and the traditional such as smithing and engineering.


    Magical industry needed time and experience to umte. Skilled smiths would require resources and skilled teachers. Even the tools required in engineering would requirerge amounts of machines and resources to produce.


    The Mist Alliance ced great importance on improving industry. However, this was something that could only be improved with time and resources. Some techniques and magic couldn¡¯t even be purchased with money. I could only hope that so many elves joining us would improve this area... I should also mention that among the elves joining us were also many subordinate forest dwarves as well asrge numbers of elven smiths. I was hopeful that gaining the entire elf species as part of the Nortnds Elven Empire would bring us the elves¡¯ long and venerated history of experience and umted knowledge, which would likely foundationally strengthen and change industry in the Nortnds.


    The Mist Alliance had expanded far too rapidly, bringing along many internal weaknesses. The most critical weaknesses wereck of poption, insufficient food production making self-sustenance impossible, and weak industry. However, all of these could be taken care of.


    Of course, even though my strategy was to defend the Nortnds at the border of the world, this didn¡¯t mean that I wouldpletely give up on the entire continent. Any isted fortress would always be eventually conquered. You could only rest assured as long as potential reinforcements existed outside. While the Mist Alliance had its internal iron triangle, I had also helped to establish an international iron triangle alliance with two other countries.


    The Mist Alliance, And, and Bardi. There was no need for me to introduce any of these three countries. All three had incredibly solid foundations, and most importantly of all, they had no sh of benefits, along with many mutual benefits to be had. All three of us would soon face war, but were all mega empires with the mobility to send reinforcements to allies in the time of need. The alliance contracts between us were more than enough to fill an entire room. This definitely wouldn¡¯t be wasted paper.


    It might even have been a good thing for the And Empire to have experienced such a long war against the Sea Tribe.


    Since they had entered a period of war far before other countries, all of their industries were now fully ready for war. The long battle against the Sea Tribe had helped to greatly develop And¡¯s shipbuilding capabilities as well. And was already at the peak of the world in shipbuilding before fighting the Sea Tribe, so now that they concentrated even more on it, their achievements in this field were astonishing.


    It was said that they were now capable of building 30rge warships and hundreds of medium-sized warships within a period of just two years. Additionally, as floating airship technology became even better, it was only natural that these water-based warships would be upgraded into aerial warships. This had happened far earlier than in the game¡¯s history. And now possessed the strongest and most numerous airship fleet in the entire world.


    It was to be expected that as long as war didn¡¯t end, And¡¯s airship fleet would only be more ridiculous in scale. Considering how And was previously almost at a true mega empire¡¯s level with several generations of wealth and national strength, they had imperceptibly be a true mega empire at this time.


    And¡¯s floating airships had also be the main carriers of food, mineral resources, weapons, and equipment being shipped between our three countries. These highly mobile aerial forces would also be the most reliable reinforcements of all.


    The far more ancient Bardi Empire was hardly inferior. Ever since dragon descendant Archduke Halent became the dragon knight Bardi Emperor, the dragons¡¯ rtionship with the Bardi Empire improved even more.


    This was a coincidence of the times, as well as a wise decision made by Halent¡¯s predecessor, Orloss.


    The dragons on the surface made their choice when confronted with the imminent Holy War. They knew that they needed to ally with mortal ne factions in order to team up and survive the uing difficult war together. The Bardi Empire was naturally their best choice as so many dragons were already in Bardi.


    Currently, the Bardi Empire had the full support of all dragons. It was nowmon to see dragons in the sky anywhere in Bardi. Halent even became the representative of all dragons. As Orloss was still reviled in Bardi as the most foolish emperor in their entire history, the people of Bardi found it inconceivable how he had managed to pick the best sessor possible, one who had been just as inconceivably sessful.


    Thus, Bardi now had the strongest aerialbat strength in the world with their newly organized dragon knight squadrons.


    Not only that, I heard from my own information sources that the Southern Sect even managed to obtain angelbat squadrons... So with angels and dragonsbined, Bardi had the strongest aerial mobility of all in our iron triangle alliance.


    Of course, the Mist Alliance also had their own aerial forces, but due to the pitiful industrial foundations, the new Borealis squadron was still insufficient in numberspared to what Bardi could field. The young ck dragons and red dragons from the Underground also couldn¡¯tpare to the much older dragons in the Bardi Empire. However, the Aurora Knights and their Frigid Nightmare steeds were still the strongest human aerial knights in existence. As the Ice Elemental ne constantly strengthened, the Aurora Knights were also rapidly expanding in number.


    However, the awkward part about the Aurora Knights was that they would only be at their strongest in environments of ice and snow. But of course, this would make them excellent at fighting defensive battles.


    Meanwhile, the Mist Alliance¡¯s strongest mobile fighting power wasn¡¯t a regr force at all. Perhaps I myself, currently calcting everything in the infirmary after casting a forbidden spell, also counted as one of the strongest forces in our iron triangle alliance.


    All three of these countries had powerful aerial forces. We would all be considered at the peak of all human countries for aerial forces. This was also the foundational reason why we could have an equal three-way alliance. Any ¡°alliance¡± between a weak country and a much stronger country would be no different from thettermanding the former on everything to do. Only when all three sides in this three-way alliance were sufficiently strong on their own, along with having enough mobile aerial forces to support each other, would it bring about a truly equal and reliable alliance.


    The Mist Alliance had an internal iron triangle. Of course, now that the Nortnds Elven Empire had been established, I suppose it could now be called an iron square. I had also helped to establish an iron triangle diplomatic alliance with two other countries for mutual support and military reinforcements, which would help to protect the Nortnds even into thete stages of the Holy War. I had done everything that I could. If the Nortnds still couldn¡¯t survive the uing cmity, then I would have nothing to say.


    Some things were quite obvious for all to see, while other matters were kept secret. However, Reyne¡¯s marriage with Halent¡¯s younger sister had been one of the most critical portions of my n.


    In this feudal generation world, where the ruler of a country reigned supreme, the best representation of an irond alliance would be marriage between royalty.


    Emperor Halent had his blood-rted younger sister get married to another woman, which meant that she would lose royal status in Bardi and be unable to seed the throne. The Bardi Empire had actually done such a ridiculous and humiliating thing.


    This was the best evidence of Emperor Halent¡¯s determination and sincerity towards our alliance. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the And Emperor had killed off every single other member of the royalty, and that he was so in love with his wife that he adamantly refused to take any concubines, it would have also been a definite that And would have arranged a political marriage with us.


    Right now, I was smiling quite happily on the surface as I watched Reyne happily chatting with her concubine Avi. Yet, I was actually scheming inside.


    ¡®...Reyne getting married to other women like this means that they can¡¯t actually have any descendants, yet the other party¡¯s still happy with this. Reyne¡¯s truly such a prince on a white horse... so I should help arrange several more political marriages for her! I feel that this is a win-win situation for everyone! Yep, for the sake of the People of the Mist and the Mist Alliance, let¡¯s help her start a hundred-member yuri harem!¡±

 Chapter 655 - The Most Dangerous Descent

    <h4>Chapter 655: The Most Dangerous Descent</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Asolivis. In the undeadnguage, this city¡¯s name meant ¡°The ce where Aso rests¡±. This ce became quite famous for being the city that the undead established where Aso died. Now, eight yearster, this city gained another name¡ªthe ¡°Undead Capital¡±.


    Back then, Aso had decisively sacrificed himself, sessfully permanently connecting the Death nes to the mortal ne here. Over the past eight years, the six major Death nes of Corpse, Ice, Desecration, Blood, Darkness, and Deathmist had been constantly sending undead reinforcements. This had gradually made Asolivis into thergest Undead Capital in the entire world.


    This entire area¡¯s dimensionalws had been overwritten with the dimensionalws of death. Bone giants more than several hundred meters tall would slowly walk around the ins here, while dozens upon dozens of gargoyles and bone dragons flew around in the sky. But, actually, the people of the mortal ne didn¡¯t even consider this ce to be one of the most dangerous ces in the world where no life could live. In fact, this ce had even be a famous vacation site.


    This was because right in in sight of Asolivis was a certain verdant forest. It was the home base of the new Silver Species, the mega popr wood spirits.


    Right outside the forest were mountainous two-headed treants patrolling around. They wielded tremendous wooden clubs, made directly from the Forest of Dreams¡¯ mother tree. Mystical wooden airships were also patrolling the skies above the forest.


    Actually, these seemingly idle ¡°mob monsters¡± werebat strength at Gold, Legend, or above. After the wood spirits and undead had warred for so many years here already, this battlefield actually became known as an easy one, especially suitable for neers. Very few veteran Contract Heroes would choose to remain and train here.


    As for why? The fighting between the wood spirits and undead wasn¡¯t fierce at all. It seemed like they were only putting on a show... But actually, both sides were still enemies. It was just that an outright victory was impossible for either side. Thus, both sides felt that investing resources into this battle would be aplete waste, so there was now a tacit agreement to keep the war low in scale.


    The situation here had now changed significantly after the first few major battles against the undead. The wood spirits had matured, and the Forest of Dreams had be truly impossible to conquer. Meanwhile, since Asolivis was the critical entrance from which the six Death nes could send more undead, the Tark Republic had many powerful individuals stationed here, willing to protect the Undead Capital at all costs.


    Of course, heroes had previously tried to threaten the Undead Capital. However, if the Undead Capital became truly threatened, tremendous numbers of high-level undead and forbidden spells would start pouring out from the dimensional portal here. The multiple Undead Emperors were willing to pay any price to defend this dimensional door that Aso had created by sacrificing himself. Any forceful invasion to conquer Asolivis was thus deemed impossible, and even if this fortress city and all the undead were eradicated somehow, it was unknown how to close the Dimensional Door that Aso had opened with his life.


    Naturally, nobody wanted to fight a war that was unwinnable. It would be impossible to fully revive the former Tark Republic until the opportunity was right. The undead were patiently biding their time.


    The undead¡¯s main forces were also focused at the main battlefield of the Nightrain Fortress against Bardi. The wood spirits weren¡¯t really the type to expand outward, so humans of the mortal ne were still the undead¡¯s main enemy.


    However, Bardi constantly sent more and more troops to the battlefield. Dragons had also joined Bardi¡¯s side, and the Southern Sect had gotten much stronger. The undead were gradually bing suppressed as theycked top-level fighting forces.


    The Bardi Empire simply kept iron defenses over all the fortresses which blocked the undead¡¯s path northward. That was because everyone knew that fighting all out against the undead would be meaningless until the Undead Emperors descended. There would be no limit to the number of undead in the Death nes.


    However, Bardi had a bit of a headache regarding another facet of the war. The undead had achieved several results on a different ¡°battlefield¡±.


    The Death Council and other simr dark cults started spreading like wildfire. The lure of ¡°eternal life¡± was especially effective on nobles who feared death. The lure of life as an undead was also just as effective on ordinarymoners who were in pain and despair due to war or poverty.


    ¡°Are you afraid of death? Is life too painful? Are you depressed because youck power? Join us! You shall obtain the chance to change your own fate...¡±


    There had to be plenty of marketers and scammers amongst the Death Council¡¯s believers as such advertisements could be seen everywhere in Bardi¡¯s major cities now.


    In fact,pared to how some Gods¡¯ churches talked aboutpletely meaningless or empty teachings, the Death Council was actually telling the truth.


    Fear? Undead wouldn¡¯t have the emotion of fear. Hunger? Undead would never be hungry. You couldn¡¯t find a wife? The undead didn¡¯t require a wife... Cough, ahem, let me rephrase that. What I meant to say was: your lover had died? Let here back to life again in a different form.


    In any time of war, the most pitiful would always bemoners who had no power. When the powerful had no restraints ced upon them, when the peace in society was broken, not having power would be a sin... Victims would desire the strength to obtain revenge, those with ambitions would desire more power to further their schemes, and even ordinary people who had normal ways of thinking would want to have more power to protect themselves.


    Yet, obtaining power wouldn¡¯t be that easy.


    As mentioned before, it would cost lots and lots of money to learn magic. Even learning martial arts would require a skilled teacher along with enough nutrition to build up a strong physical body. Yet, all that was required for bing an undead was your corpse, and your willingness to abandon your morals as a human, and in a time of war, corpses and morals were the cheapest of all.


    The Death Council had been able to expand so quickly because it indeed gave those who desired power the chance to swiftly be more powerful. In fact, in some ces, ordinarymoners swiftly became powerful individuals after using undead or dark magic. These people were also treated the same as other powerful individuals were. The path of undead magic, which had extremely low requirements for talent and resources, actually started bing moremonly epted.


    Of course, things bing like this was also partly Rnd¡¯s fault.


    The Nortnds undead had constantly been working hard to whitewash the undead¡¯s reputation. Plus, undead magic was bing a part of daily life there, and the undead and the living coexisted in peace in the Nortnds. The Southern Sect had also been working hard to criticize the teachings of the Holy Church (one of the foundational reasons for the living¡¯s enmity towards the undead). Of course, the Tark Republic and their subordinate Death Council had also been doing their best to improve the undead¡¯s reputation.


    Also, after Hell was established, the new four major elements gained their chance to greatly develop. Ice magic started evolving, and an Ice Elemental ne was created. The power of death was also developing.


    At any rate... all of this was connected to Rnd.


    Cough, getting back on topic, on the day that the demon wave descended, the dimensional restrictions on certain exiled individuals had been lifted. The Bardi Empire finally received the chance to truly eliminate the undead threat. Or, perhaps they would instead be eliminated by this undead threat that just arrived.


    ¡°Hmm? Is this the smell of the mortal ne which I used to call home so long ago? It truly is...¡±


    A white-haired little brat just walked out from a dimensional portal as he eximed over the mortal ne. He looked just like a human child, but right after he arrived, he started licking the ground, and then bit off a solid piece of rock. He then loudly chewed on the rock.


    ¡°...So disgusting. The smell of the living is everywhere. There¡¯s such a powerful aura of life so close by. Just what have you all been doing for so many years?¡±


    He spat out some broken shards of rock. The snowy white-haired brat raised his head, revealing that his pupils werepletely white with cross-shaped soulfire burning within.


    Even though this was an undead temple, with powerful Undead Lords greeting the arrival of this venerated guest, not a single Undead Lord dared to directly gaze into that soulfire.


    ¡°Your Majesty Shupnus, your descent¡ª¡±


    A Blood Tribe Undead Lord greeted Shupnus, but he didn¡¯t get to finish his sentence, as he was interrupted by Deathmist ne Undead Emperor Shupnus, who was well known to be extremely impatient. ¡°Where are the others? Don¡¯t tell me that they haven¡¯t arrived yet.¡±


    The Blood Tribe Undead Lord hurriedly led the way as he knew about Shupnus¡¯ extreme temper.


    ¡°Of course not. The other Majesties have all arrived. They have been waiting for your descent.¡±


    Shupnus chuckled on hearing this. All the Undead Lords present knew that Undead Emperor Shupnus absolutely hated waiting for others and those who werete, and that his favorite thing was making others wait for him.


    The Blood Tribe Undead Lord was secretly happy with himself that he had intentionally notified the Deathmist ne Undead Emperor that the meeting time was one dayter than it really was. Only if Shupnus didn¡¯t have to wait for the other Undead Emperors would the Undead Lord not have to take the brunt of Shupnus¡¯ anger.


    Soon, in a tiny conference room where four out of five seats were already upied, five Undead Emperors gathered together now that Shupnus had arrived.


    Shupnus looked like a white-haired brat who was less than ten years old. The others resembled a sleepy old man, a white skeleton no different from every other ordinary skeleton soldier, a young woman who was slowly enjoying a red liquid, and a seemingly ordinary human.


    The only thing that these five Undead Emperors had inmon was that they all appeared quite ordinary.

 Chapter 656 - Wildfire

    <h4>Chapter 656: Wildfire</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    I wasn¡¯t even the slightest bit surprised when I heard thetest information that the undead army¡¯s offensive against the Nightrain Fortress of the Bardi Empire had suddenly be much stronger. It was somethingpletely within expectations. When the demon wave truly descended, that would represent the beginning of the Holy War for real. All battles for the sake of testing the waters would end, and the true battles would begin at full power.


    However, everyone inhaled cold breaths when they heard that five Undead Emperors had simultaneously appeared on the battlefield.


    It had been so many years already. There had only been one Undead Emperor in the mortal ne in recent times. However, the Yongye Cmity from a century ago had threatened the entire world. All the leaders of various species along with the most powerful individuals would all know and remember the name of Emperor Yongye.


    The more a powerful individual understood undead magic, the more they would understand what an Undead Emperor truly represented.


    The undead naturally possessed iplete souls. This meant that entering the old SemiGod or the new Level 4 rank would be almost impossible for them. Powering up to the next level would require the critical step of making one¡¯s own soul have apletely unique light. However, leveling up to the highest level would be theoretically impossible without aplete soul.


    Yet, there were always people out there capable of making the impossible possible...


    ¡°...Five Yongye-level existences arrived at the same time?¡±


    In fact, this assessment was no overestimation. It was actually an underestimation.


    When considering pure power level, Rnd as Yongye would be easily beaten by any other Undead Emperor since he had by far the least experience. His experience was so little that it was only a few percentage pointspared to the other Undead Emperors whose age was measured in the tens of thousands.


    In order to calcte the overallbat strength of any undead mage, you would have to add his personal undead army to his personal strength. Conservation had been in a hurry to invade the mortal ne, which was why she actually hadn¡¯t been able to bring most of her forces. Rnd would have lost to her had she waited for the Holy War to truly begin, lifting dimensional restrictions and allowing her to bring all her troops. Actually, Rnd as Yongye with his entire army would have still lost to Conservation by herself if it weren¡¯t for the fact that thetter became imprisoned and restricted within Rnd¡¯s bug-like personal Hell world.


    Since the undeadckedplete souls, it was far harder for them to reach the highest power level of Level 4pared to any other species. However, breaking past this bottleneck would mean that they had ovee such natural limitations, surpassing even the Creator Goddesses in certain aspects. It would be impossible for the Undead Emperors not to be strong.


    Rnd was an expert in soul magic. Conservation had her own unique understanding of energy conservation. Aso¡¯s talent was... well, he didn¡¯t get to use it before he died facing Rnd. However, the main foundational difference between Undead Emperors and Undead Lords was that the former would all have miraculous powers truly their own, and could transform the impossible into the possible.


    The Undead Emperors didn¡¯t choose to gradually add pressure to the undead attack. Instead, they went all out the moment they arrived, simultaneously fighting together against Bardi at Nightrain Fortress.


    The end result... was that Bardi suffered a massive defeat, and Nightrain Fortress was lost. 12 dragons and their dragon knights all perished. Now, a dozen newly born bone dragons could be seen patrolling the skies above Nightrain Fortress.


    The Undead Emperors had the temperament of ancient undead rulers. They didn¡¯t view the living as their own kind. During the battle against Bardi, they unhesitatingly used many kinds of magic considered extremely evil, such as biohazard poison mist, envement of dead souls, corpse summoning, and so on. The Undead Emperors also unhesitatingly cast an Undead Cmity forbidden spell after conquering Nightrain Fortress, transforming tremendous amounts of captives andmoners into the undead. The unending wave of undead then poured towards the next battlefield.


    This was the undead¡¯s ssical strategy: using an unending sea of undead. Although this strategy had barely evolved over the past several millennia... it didn¡¯t matter at all, because this strategy was quite practical. There was truly no good counter against the undead sea that would only constantly increase in size as it fought battles.


    Additionally, due to the now deceased Undead Emperor Aso¡¯s tampering with Bardi¡¯s food supply, the Bardi citizens¡¯ bodies had far more negative energy than usual, which would make them into excellent undead magic resources for cultivation and summoning. Many high-level undead and elite troop types appeared in this Undead Cmity, improving the undead army¡¯s overall level many times over.


    The Death nes were still constantly teleporting more undead over, and as long as the next fortress was conquered, a snowball effect would begin¡ªthe number of undead would more than double. This would instantly worsen the situation even more.


    All of Bardi was astonished that Nightrain Fortress had been lost. The extravagance of five Undead Emperors simultaneously appearing and fighting together was something that made everyone anxious and trembling in fear.


    The longer an Undead Cmitysted, the more difficult it would be to deal with. Once an Undead Emperor summoned enough troops, plenty of elite undeadmanders would be born from the tremendous number of low-level undead. A sufficient amount of undead would also mean that the Undead Emperor would have plenty of experimental resources from which they could produce even more powerful undead creations. The basic undead troops would also be gradually upgraded. As the entire undead army ¡°evolved¡±, things would eventually develop into a state where the undead could seemingly conquer the entire world.


    In the very first month after the Holy War truly began, Bardi faced its most severe challenge yet. However, their plight wasn¡¯t unique to them.


    San Antonio had also suffered massive losses in their battle against the demons and great demons. Murjin, the ancient tribe leader of the great demons, had personally arrived to defeat the defending allied forces of San Antonio and Holy Church.


    His witchcraft poison enchanted spear sunk an entire city into a light green swamp. Murjin, the great demon hero who was more than four meters tall, single-handedly destroyed an entire squadron of angels and human rangers. Not a single person was able to survive in front of him. The way how Murjin literally fought thousands by himself astonished many powerful individuals who had previously been looking down on the great demons.


    Perhaps the people of today had already forgotten Murjin¡¯s name, but he¡¯d been a hero from the ancient Great Demon Empire. After reports of hisbat strength were recorded by those who witnessed his fights, the fairies temporarily assessed Murjin¡¯s power level to be 17 Stars. Basically, even if he wasn¡¯t confirmed to be at Main God power level yet, he was already quite close to the Main Gods¡¯ 20 Star power level.


    The great demons, who were allied to the demons, had finally brought out their true power. Unlike elven magic which was exquisite, the great demons used extreme passion and fervent willpower to summon the power of the elements, and so many corrupted elemental creatures appeared on the battlefield inrge numbers. The great demons were actually capable of melding together with such creatures, transforming into distorted half elemental, half great demon monstrosities, which would know no fear of death, and feel no fatigue or pain. They were pure meat grinders¡ªbutchers¡ªon the battlefield.


    Evidently, the great demons¡¯ witchcraft and voodoo magic had their own unique traits that werepletely beyond the modern understanding of magic today. The arrival and intervention of veteran great demons meant that this ancient species was truly determined to attack with their full might. They wanted to prove that they had the power to challenge this new generation and be the ruling species again, taking back their former glory.


    The battles against the great demons and the undead weren¡¯t the only major battles. In the first month after the demon wave¡¯s descent, all the powerful countries in Eich met with enemies, and several hundred battles simultaneously erupted¡ªcountless ancient artifact-like existences crawled out from the trash heaps of history. All the battles were extremely vicious, andbat reports constantly flooded me as if the entire world had been swallowed by the fires of war in a single night.


    ¡°Then, has Bardi requested military assistance?¡±


    Reyne was going more overboard every day. She constantly sent me every political matter to deal with. Still, I was indeed quite interested in military affairs, and this would save me the trouble of having to find my own information.


    ¡°No, not at all. Halent is quite a stubborn man. It would be quite unseemly for a mega empire to request reinforcements so quickly. Besides, Bardi truly has a strong foundation, and they won¡¯t lose so easily. Their envoy just arrived, would you like to chat with him?¡±


    Just thinking about the Bardi Empire¡¯s truly frightening amount of territory andbat potential made it easy to realize that they could indeed fight a prolonged war against the undead. There was no need to worry about them quite yet. Besides, the Mage Country neighbored Bardi, and the wood spirits¡¯ territory was also within Bardi. Even if Bardi wanted to request reinforcements, they wouldn¡¯t request reinforcements from the Nortnds, which was so far away.


    Right, there was also the Southern Sect within Bardi. As long as they got involved, they would truly be a natural counter to the undead. There was no need for Bardi to request reinforcements.


    However, Bardi had voluntarily sent us war intelligence, and even sent a diplomatic envoy to deliver it. They were acting like a perfectly good ally. This wasn¡¯t the way that a mega empire like Bardi, which typically acted so domineering, would act. Being so ¡°kind¡± meant that they definitely had some type of request.


    ¡°That envoy did mention twice already the strange and miraculous Holy Light technique you previously used in the S Dukedom. I think he mentioned it on purpose.¡±


    ¡°...Holy Light technique? Is this envoy a priest from the Southern Sect?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Ha, I understand.¡±


    Forbidden spells would leave far too many aftereffects. It would be impossible to conceal from the major countries the information about the Seeds of Holy Light spell that I had used in S Dukedom. In fact, the Southern Sect had originally developed this spell for me. However, it would be impossible for them to cast the same spell with the same power as I had. Since the undead were their current enemy, this spell would indeed be greatly effective. Basically, they were using their own way to request my version of the Seeds of Holy Light spell.


    ¡°Sure, I can give them my spell form. I modified it based on their prototype anyways. They could probably develop something simr with some more time. But, the fact that my Seeds of Holy Light spell was so powerful was due to many factors. For instance, I had the elves¡¯ Tree of Life as a magical catalyst, buff effects from a mage tower, divine resources from Hell¡¯s Pir God of Holy Light, and other God Equipment. Moreover, I¡¯m a forbidden spell mage who¡¯s used to casting forbidden spells. Apart from mage towers and forbidden spell mages, the Southern Sect probably doesn¡¯t have anything else of the sort...¡±


    Still, even if that was the case, it would help everyone out, and I had no reason to refuse. How far they could develop my spell in the end wouldn¡¯t be rted to me.


    Besides, having a major country owe you a favor right now would be extremely valuable in this time of war. Since they didn¡¯t intend to officially request this in order to save face, I could charge a really high price... I wrote down my spell form to hand it to the Bardi envoy. The fairies¡¯ delivery system would soon take it back to Bardi, at an even faster speed than inte delivery from my previous world.


    ¡°Right, howe I haven¡¯t seen your two concubines over the past two days?¡±


    I was rather curious about this. Previously, whenever I saw Reyne, at least one of her two concubines would be by her side, constantly giving me strange looks, but now that they were absent for the past few days, I wasn¡¯t used to it anymore.


    ¡°Since Halent¡¯s country has met with such major trouble, his sister has been quite worried. I told her to go out and get her mind off her troubles. As for Avi... Avi received quite a huge impact from you being right and her being wrong. I think she¡¯s voluntarily working overtime on buying food right now.¡±


    ¡°Impact?¡± I paused for a moment, but instantly understood. ¡°Oh.¡±


    San Antonio had nowe under attack from a Main God level great demon along with the demons. Their food production had definitely been affected. We had all received several hundredbat reports over the past few days, and they directly dashed all the optimistic hopes of the Nortnds government officials about food prices stabilizing. They probably didn¡¯t have any time to regret their mistake, as they were now all busy trying to buy as much food as possible on the international market.

 Chapter 657 - Noisy Journey

    <h4>Chapter 657: Noisy Journey</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In a way, there were benefits to be had from the entire world being in utter chaos. At the very least, the elves¡¯ caravan traveling north had a much easier time.


    What would be the fastest way to be friends with other people or factions? Simply have amon enemy appear.


    Just a month ago, having so many airships escort so many elves through another country¡¯s territory would bring nothing but trouble. Even if a country allowed you through, believing that you weren¡¯t actually trying to invade them, there would always be elf vers to deal with and plenty of governmental red tape. It would be quitemon for the caravan to have to constantly stop. Having an easy journey would be nothing more than a pipe dream.


    But now, all the warnings had been realized. The Chaos Faction had attacked for real, and this gave the entire human society a mysterious sense of tension and danger. No matter what, the Nortnds would still be far easier to get along with than the demons. Since the Nortnds didn¡¯t have major shes of benefits with the other human kingdoms, and especially since the Nortnds was a major munitions producer and supplier, it would obviously be far better to have a friendly rtionship with the Nortnds rather than antagonistic at this time.


    There was a phrase that the rulers were far easier to deal with than low-ranking subordinates. That was because the ¡°rulers¡± typically didn¡¯t care too much about minor affairs, so they didn¡¯t care about these visitors passing through. The rulers didn¡¯t have well-organized disciplinary systems for their subordinates.


    Now that the local rulers heard how Reyne of the Mist Alliance wanted to pass through, not only was permission given every time, many domain lords even personally came over to pay their respects and try to set up connections or discuss munitions purchases. This was all done with plenty of pompous posturing, which helped the elves to see the Mist Alliance¡¯s status in human society.


    Of course, elves were tremendously valuable for those interested in the elf ve trade, and certain humans would view us as a walking procession of treasure. Even though this elven caravan was well defended by our airships, there were still plenty of knaves and scoundrels following us around. Plenty of people in ck clothes were flying around even in broad daylight. There were so many thieves and spies on the rooftops that they could probably organize card games on top of each building.


    It couldn¡¯t be helped. I sent out the ck and red dragons to make a show of force, asionally having them disy dragonbreath and dragon roars. Well, for these thieves and spies, the dragons from legends were far more ¡°convincing¡± than the metal airships. On that same night, there were far fewer spectators around us. As for the thieves who requested higher pay for being forced to deal with potential fire hazards, well, who cared?


    But the moment that we entered areas with few people around, there were still some people that wanted to attempt getting rich instantly by robbing us. There were somerge mercenary groups that would sometimes act as mercenaries, but also asionally moonlight as bandits. We witnessed many underhanded ambush tactics.


    A street stall selling ¡°medicinal wine¡±, digging arge pit in the road for an ambush, trying to ambush us at night, and so on. The funniest attempt of all came from two domain lords. Earlier, they¡¯d seemed so friendly during discussions with us, but then became the most valuable captives we gained from all the bandits we defeated.


    After an interrogation, I even learned that these two domain lords were repeat offenders.


    During the day, they would be domain lords, but they were up to constant banditry at nighttime. This was a major taboo for the nobility. Who would dare to live in their territory if it was known that the domain lord was personally involved in banditry? It would be far too embarrassing for it to be known that a domain lord was also a bandit. Not only would the domain lord¡¯s reputation be greatly impacted, even their ruler¡¯s reputation would be tarnished.


    Hence, I kindly considered the reputation of the two domain lords¡¯ king, and wrote a sincere letter to their king, promising to protect the reputation of his nobles and to keep this secret. The king was quite grateful, and gave me arge amount of treasure and food supplies to express his ¡°thanks¡±.


    ...Cough, ahem, this was all voluntary! How can you possibly say that I was extorting him! He clearly did this of his own volition!


    In this special time when the entire mortal ne was in chaos, we met with plenty of trouble on the way. But, since the human kingdoms had all started allying with each other against the demon threat, and because we were indeed powerful enough, we didn¡¯t meet with any major trouble that could actually threaten us.


    Two weeks had passed.


    I could sort of get out of bed now. Although my mana was still quite empty, I no longer had to sit in bed every day working at dealing with political matters... I swear on how rarely I worked hard! Over the past two weeks, I definitely did at least three years¡¯ worth of work, so... I deserved to rest for the next three years!


    I didn¡¯t really intend on interfering with the Nortnds¡¯ political matters. They had actually been doing a good job. The Nortnds government officials were all quite hardworking, and their government system was stable and highly efficient. This would obviously be far more reliable than having an unstable genius like meing up with crooked ideas for them.


    My focus was still on all the battles going on in the world right now, as well as the Mist Alliance¡¯s preparations for battle. This was one of my specialties, after all.


    Still, I didn¡¯t pay that much attention to the hundreds ofbat reports that were more than enough to bury me under them. They didn¡¯t have anything to do with me, so why bother so much? Moreover, for quite a long period of time afterward,bat reports would only multiply exponentially in number. I only needed to understand them a bit as caring too much would only make one angry yet helpless to do anything.


    The onlybat report that attracted my interest, or should I say attracted the interest of the entire mortal ne, was about the battle between Bardi and the undead. The extravagance of five Undead Emperors simultaneously arriving and fighting together was more than enough to attract the whole world¡¯s attention.


    Everyone was waiting for the fairies¡¯ assessment of the Undead Emperors. Unfortunately, the fairies¡¯ report was rather disappointing.


    ¡°All five Undead Emperors are assessed to be more than 5 Stars? Such a vague assessment?¡±


    This was far too disappointing to hear. The fairies¡¯ information was overly vague. Such an assessment only meant that the Undead Emperors were definitely stronger than Low Gods, but that wasmon sense that everyone already knew. Such an assessment was basically equal to no assessment.


    But, once the more detailedbat report arrived, I knew that this wasn¡¯t the fairies¡¯ fault. Those ancient Undead Emperors were simply far too sly, and hadn¡¯t revealed their real powers.


    None of the Undead Emperors disyed any rare or special abilities whatsoever against Bardi. All they did was constantly summon tremendous numbers of undead, and use verymon negative energy undead magic attacks. The difference between them and Undead Lords was that they could summon several hundred times the number of undead that an Undead Lord could, and basic undead magic attacks like Death Finger would have power equivalent to a meteor strike against fortress walls when used by Undead Emperors.


    But, everyone knew that the most dangerous trait of any Undead Emperor would be their personal specialty. Each Undead Emperor would have a personal field of research that they rivaled the Creator Goddesses in mastery and knowledge of. It was evident that these ancient, sly Undead Emperors wouldn¡¯t so easily reveal their true powers, and since these Undead Emperors were far too ancient and had been in the Death nes for far too long, it would be difficult for even the fairies to find out what their true powers were.


    Only by asking simrly ancient existences would it be possible to perhaps find out the Undead Emperors¡¯ powers. However, this would take quite a while, and when considering that the Undead Emperors had spent so many millennia in the Death nes already and likely improved themselves even further, past information could only be used as minor reference.


    The Undead Emperors hadn¡¯t even gotten serious. They sessfully conquered Nightrain Fortress only by using basic undead and autoattacks. In a way, this proved how powerful they were. At the very least, I definitely didn¡¯t want to have to face them.


    I truly did want to negotiate with the undead Tark Republic. It would be quite convenient if a peace agreement or even alliance could be established. Unfortunately, peace would only ever arrive and have its value after the devastation of war. Before the Undead Emperors were convinced that their objectives were impossible to achieve through war, negotiations would be impossible.


    I took a deep breath as I closed my notebook. Next, I got up and closed the window. Although the chill of early winter was quite good for energizing a person, it would be a bit harmful to a patient who could only recently get out of bed.


    It was my personal habit to write diaries. Not only would they help to record the past, they could also remind me if I had done anything foolish recently that I needed to fix.


    Right now, in my diaries, several of my most important goals had yet to bepleted.


    ¡°Gather top-level resources toplete my Holy Light sword, Dawn. ¨C I must wait for news from Beifeng. When considering the tremendous power level difference between him and Sun God Aloyo, the sess rate of his mission should be quite low. However, why do I feel like he¡¯ll definitely seed?¡±


    ¡°With Conservation as the mediator, try and negotiate with the Tark Republic and try and coexist in peace. ¨C Already failed.¡±


    ¡°Complete an iron triangle alliance between the Mist Alliance, Bardi, and And. Secure future trade routes for munitions and food. ¨C Seeded.¡±


    I also added one more addendum after that line. ¡°When considering the current effects of war, we cannot count on their being able to live up to their contracted promises. Perhaps we can consider obtaining food resources from the Nature Faction. However, it will be quite troublesome to owe them any favors.¡±


    ¡°With Halent¡¯s help, have the surface dragons forgive me. ¨C Already failed. Those stubborn old bastards will instantly spray me with dragonbreath upon seeing me.¡±


    ¡°Continue attacking the Holy Church¡¯s teachings, and weaken the God of Holy Light by reducing his power of belief. ¨C Currently in progress, but no signs of him weakening so far.¡±


    ¡°Help Harloysplete the establishment of the Nortnds Elven Empire. ¨C Currently in progress, but establishing the exact boundaries of the new Elven Empire is a major problem. I hope that this can be finished within the next two years.¡±


    ¡°Complete the opening up of the Ice Elemental ne and new alliances...¡±


    Several hundred tasks I had given myself were written in my diaries. Every single one of them could probably rank as a Myth-ranked Quest at minimum. However, among all of my tasks, the single one most important of all was also the most troublesome.


    ¡°Find out Karwenz¡¯s real goal ¨C ???¡±


    This task was the only one that I wrote nothing but three question marks afterwards. This was because I had no idea how to even start.


    Karwenz¡¯s whereabouts and current activities were aplete mystery to me. All I knew was that he was searching for the Abyss of Chaos, the deepest part of the Chaos Abyss. However, if I tried to investigate where it was, it would likely even help him out.


    I had already requested the fairies, the Mage Country¡¯s Truth Symposium, and the Mist Alliance¡¯s intelligence department to investigate Karwenz for me. However, apart from the fairies, I felt that there was no chance the others would find anything out at all, and it was unlikely that even the fairies would find any clues.


    Revive Cynthia? Without mentioning the grudges Karwenz would have against her, I doubted that Karwenz would be so uncreative as to revive a ¡°demon king¡± who could destroy the entire world, but end up being defeated by some hero. This was such a clich¨¦. If he wanted to destroy the entire world, why not personally do it instead of reviving Cynthia? Besides, if the entire world was destroyed, nobody would be alive afterwards to benefit from it. That was why all the fairy tales about demon kings wanting to destroy the entire world were so unrealistic.


    Devour Cynthia so that he could evolve? First, the chances of that seeding would be pitifully low. Second, this wouldn¡¯t be his style. Karwenz was quite simr to me in many aspects. He only trusted power that he gained slowly by himself, for only power that truly belonged to oneself would be the most trustworthy. Just imagining what he would have to devour, and the strange existence that would be in his body afterwards, melding together with his flesh and blood, was quite disgusting.


    Besides, even if he truly desired to be far stronger than he already was, strong to the point where he was willing to use a method as dirty as devouring Cynthia, he didn¡¯t really have to go as far as devouring the Creator Goddess of Chaos¡¯ physical body. All he needed to do was try and devour a Main God. It wasn¡¯t like Karwenz was at the peak of all Main Gods quite yet.


    After eliminating the possibilities that seemedpletely unlikely, the only answer that remained had to be the truth, no matter how ridiculous it was. I was already faintly able to guess at his goal, but I needed more evidence to confirm it.


    There were some possibilities where I felt like I didn¡¯t even need to stop Karwenz. However, there was a single possibility where I would need to pay any cost in order to stop him.


    ¡°I really hope that one isn¡¯t the case. Karwenz isn¡¯t that insane, is he...¡±


    ¡°...With how things typically are for you, isn¡¯t the one that you want to see the least always the one thates true?¡±


    I felt rather helpless about the silly cat yawning by my side. She was truly such a world-ss jinxer!


    Still, I was rather grateful to her for the past two weeks. Ever since Ipletely exhausted myself by using all of my mana and energy to cast a forbidden spell, she had guarded me and stayed by my side for all this time.


    Something slightly heartbreaking was that even though I was so seriously incapacitated, plenty of people came to ¡°visit¡± me... or, to put it bluntly, many people wanted me dead.


    Our airships¡¯ forces were sufficient topletely keep out ordinary weaker individuals. However, they weren¡¯t strong enough to keep out the top-level individuals.


    Over the past two weeks, our forces had already defeated almost 100 top-level individuals who had gotten close. I had already felt killing intent from top-level individuals or Gods more than 10 times by now. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that the Hell Gods were also invisibly protecting us, and that both sides were still showing restraint before the major battle erupted, a battle between Gods would have erupted already.


    Only four top-level individuals had been strong enough to physically arrive right before me. If it hadn¡¯t been for Harloys being around, it was likely that I would have died four times already.


    The silly cat truly was just one step away from reaching the Undead Emperor level herself. Those four individuals, who were all at Level 4, were easily killed by her. Their corpses were strung up on the main cannon of the Borealis in order to warn any more assassins to stop trying to kill me unless they were truly confident.


    I didn¡¯t even care enough to ask the assassins who sent them before they died. While I had plenty of allies, there were far more out there who wanted me dead, numerous to the point where they would be uncountable. It was quite obvious that I would currently be greatly weakened after casting a forbidden spell. Not only that, I was making my current location so obvious with therge elven caravan and airship squadron. Those with grudges against me naturally wanted to take this opportunity. There were even those with no personal grudges against me who tried to kill me, simply for the reputation and reward money it would bring them.


    ¡°Dragons, elves, dwarves, humans, beastmen, undead... Even if you ask, there¡¯s no meaning to it. With all these species wanting you dead, it basically means that the entire world wants you dead...¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words did help me recall that since I was the only living forbidden spell mage who had sessfully cast forbidden spells multiple times, all non-allied factions probably didn¡¯t want the Mist Alliance to have a living weapon that was capable of repeatedly using such a weapon of mass destruction like myself. In fact, considering how ¡°allies¡± would so easily betray you in this day and age, even allies wouldn¡¯t be that trustworthy.


    Since everyone wanted me to die, I was toozy to even care who sent these assassins. Meanwhile, I gained something unexpected that was quite a delightful surprise.


    ¡°There¡¯s news about top-level ice resources for crafting my sword of ice?¡±


    Although this was unexpected, it was also understandable. After all, what would possibly top an ice-type forbidden spell in being able to resonate with top-level ice resources?

 Chapter 658 - Choice and Location

    <h4>Chapter 658: Choice and Location</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Perhaps I¡¯d repeated this many times already, but reality would always remind you that no matter what world you were in, there never was such a thing as true fairness. It would already be difficult to even get close to fairness. True fairness was something that only existed in theory.


    Everyone in the world of Eich was already used to thew of the jungle, where the strong ruled over the weak. Any species thatcked top-level individuals would forever remain as mere ves or a subordinate species. The most obvious example would be how the Superior Elves, a Silver Species, had been subordinated by the Gold Elves, a Gold Species. Meanwhile, the wild elves and ordinary elves who had a Copper Bloodline were in turn the subordinate species of the Superior Elves.


    Were humans an exception to this? ording to the human history books, humans had never been subordinate species, but ancient existences would remember that humans had previously been the subordinate species of giants, great demons, and even elves. However, humans had learned magic and martial arts from these species. In this cruel world, the weak human species had been subordinated plenty of times before they finally became the ruling species of the world.


    Yet, the humans were still forever naturally at disadvantage with their human bloodline. A human would never be able to win at arm-wrestling against a giant. Some foundational inequalities were impossible to change.


    However, humans knew how to use tools. It was unknown which individual had firste up with it, but the idea of ¡°Myth-ranked weapons¡± imbued with an individual¡¯s personal Concept indeed gave human top-level individuals the potential to surpass top-level individuals from other species.


    The most obvious realization of choosing one¡¯s ownbat style would be the evolution of bat job sses¡±.


    Back in the primal age, there was no such thing as a warrior or a mage. Back then, powerful ancient existences would randomly attack with their physical bodies or instinctively control the elements. In a way, this reflected the saying ¡°There would never be any paths to begin with. Only after enough people walked the same way would there be a path¡±.


    The path to reaching the top of any job ss was to condense one¡¯s own personal understanding and path into a ¡°tool¡± that only oneself could use.


    While human skin wasn¡¯t anywhere nearly as tough as dragon scales, humans could team up to hunt powerful mythic beasts and use their tough hides to create armor and shields which had defensive properties surpassing that of even castle walls.


    While human magical talent and affinity for the elements couldn¡¯tpare at all to the elves¡¯ talent and affinity, humans could use special tools as extensions of their bodies. They could gather various elemental or magical creatures¡¯ cores in order to buff a certain type of elemental affinity or some specific magic spell, making up for theck of natural talent.


    While humans truly had no way ofparing in physical strength to a giant, humans could create magical ogre gloves that tremendously buffed physical strength...


    While humans were unable to fly, and alsocked stamina, they could fly with magical shoes...


    While humans couldn¡¯t travel through time, they could use the Concept of Time to create a Time Hourss...


    Myth-ranked weapons weren¡¯t actually all that mysterious. They were simply the evolved form of humans¡¯ instinctual usage of weapons. It was just that these ¡°tools¡± used by top-level individuals were recognized by the entire world. The Myth-ranked weapons, which all had their own unique traits, would each have obvious strengths and weaknesses.


    Every tool would have a specialty. Tools were created in order to make up for insufficiencies. However, the downside to a specialized tool was theck of general use.


    Maybe you could create a dragonscale shield. However, any ce you weren¡¯t able to guard with the shield would still be incredibly fragile, and if you wore a suit of heavy dragonscale armor instead, it still wasn¡¯t a part of your body. All the extra weight and difort on your skin would definitely negatively affect your agility and senses.


    There would always be losses for every gain. If you decided to use external objects to improve the weaknesses of your physical body, this would also mean that your physical body would no longer grow stronger. Other weaknesses would also be even more apparent.


    The moment that you decided to use a tool, the tool¡¯s usage would already be determined. The tool would improve you in its specific area of expertize, but you wouldn¡¯t have any obvious improvements in other areas.


    However,bat wasn¡¯t something so simple. Maximizing one¡¯s own personal advantages while avoiding and hiding your own weaknesses would obviously be the best way to obtain victory.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need to be stronger than my enemy in every area. Properly using my advantages in battle is the best way to victory.¡±


    Of course, the easiest method of all when one tool wasn¡¯t enough would be to obtain several more tools. But, when considering how difficult it already was to enter the new Level 4 and craft a personal Myth-ranked weapon, and even more how human bloodlines would be unable to withstand the creation of multiple Myth-ranked weapons, no ordinary powerful individual would be able to consider this.


    For humans whocked so much talentpared to other species, it wouldn¡¯t actually be good to enter Level 4 as quickly as possible. For the great majority of powerful individuals, they would have zero chances to regret whatever tool they had chosen for their own Myth-ranked weapon once they¡¯d made their choice. This was a one-time deal only. If a person chose wrongly, it would be the equivalent of voluntarily limiting one¡¯s own upper potential... To use a gaming analogy, it would be the equivalent of using your skill points and attribute points on poor skills and wrong attributes, so you would have to start over again with a new character.


    The creation of any Myth-ranked weapon would be the amalgamation of that person¡¯s total knowledge and experience. Sometimes, people would forcefully try and enter Level 4 without any preparation beforehand, or they would enter Level 4 without any guidance from another. That would mean that they would bepletely unable to select what they created for their personal Myth-ranked weapon. There were indeed many ratherughable existences at Level 4 rank.


    For instance, there was a well-known powerful water mage whose personal Myth-ranked weapon was the physical realization of his knowledge of how water naturally flowed. Thus, his weapon became an umbre that would bring a torrential downpour whenever he opened it. He had the venerated nickname of ¡°Divine Bringer of Rain¡±, and was quite popr in areas with long droughts.


    But... for any water mage in Level 4, it would be quite easy already for them to casually summon a torrential downpour. Thus, his Myth-ranked weapon didn¡¯t improve hisbat power even in the slightest. In fact, it even weakened him as its effects were in toorge of an AOE. Moreover, using his rain umbre would always cost him a tremendous amount of mana. Hence, using it would bring his power level far down below Level 4.


    Although it sounded quiteughable to be weaker after leveling up, he wasn¡¯t the only example.


    This wasn¡¯t only the result of mistaken choices or foolishness. Sometimes, there were indeed heaven-sent cmities that one couldn¡¯t do anything about.


    There was once a mage who was born with a weak body. He would always cough up blood every time he cast a spell. However, he was extremely intelligent, and entered Gold rank back when he was only 12 years old. He then reached the very peak of understanding in time magic, and his Myth-ranked weapon ended up being ridiculously strong. It was said that it was truly capable of turning back time itself, which was a true miracle.


    However, miracles would require a price. This Myth-ranked weapon would use up the caster¡¯s life force each time it was used. How much life force it required was unknown, because that mage only used it once and then died right afterwards.


    Overly strong willpower or belief would also lead to bad endings.


    There was once a Level 4 Holy Knight who desired for the Holy Light to forever apany himself as if it was the warm sun. He indeed aplished this, but the end result was that he died of dehydration... This Holy Knight had been far too hostile towards the darkness, and far too stubborn about the concept of ¡°forever¡±, yet he didn¡¯t think about how having the sun forever next to you would result in being baked alive. Still, this guy¡¯s belief and willpower had been truly incredible as he had survived for three months before he finally dried uppletely.


    Overly strong belief would unconsciously affect a powerful individual¡¯s created Myth-ranked weapon, yet Holy Knights who didn¡¯t have enough conviction also wouldn¡¯t go far. There were plenty who made mistakes among the priests and Holy Knights. Although it was rare to bake oneself to death like in the previous example, it was quitemon for someone to transform themselves into a 24-hour living lightbulb of Holy Light. In the end, the Holy Church had even incorporated these individuals into their teachings, warning people not to be like them.


    The exact opposite would be the Undead Emperors. The great majority of Undead Emperors had formerly been humans from long ago at one point in time. They had been stuck before Level 4 for an incredibly long period of time. However, the much longer time would allow for far more umtion. Thinking for far longer before reaching Level 4 would also be a good thing. Making the breakthrough would mean that the rest would be quite easy.


    Cough, cough, I was getting off topic. Anyways, since I had previously entered Level 4 before, I had an obvious advantage. Not only did I have the knowledge and umtion to create multiple personal Myth-ranked weapons, I also possessed a physical body and soul that could handle the creation of multiple Myth-ranked weapons. It was an extravagance that ordinary powerful individuals couldn¡¯t even dream of.


    Still, this extravagance couldn¡¯t be wasted. Unlike how other Level 4 individuals would typically think about how to strengthen their personal specialty and advantages, I could consider the functions I wanted from each Myth-ranked weapon and use them to make up for my insufficiencies and weaknesses.


    My Holy Light sword, Dawn. Its main trait would be the Light of Salvation. I had two different strategic forms nned for this sword: Chaos yer and Offer of Salvation. It would be able to majorly weaken Chaos Faction demons and undead in a tremendous area of effect as well as gather condensed Holy Light for strong attacks against powerful enemies. My Dawn sword would be my most reliable weapon in this long battle against the Chaos Abyss.


    My death sword, Original Sin. Well, I suppose I could also call it the Seven Original Sins sword. It would be a mega weapon that countered all soul existences. It would be my most powerful magic sword of all, but when considering the resources it required... it would likely be the final one of my four nned Myth-ranked magic swords to bepleted.


    I still hadn¡¯t finished the blueprint for my Law sword, but when considering the effects of Law, and how I wouldn¡¯t really need any more powerful melee weapons after my Original Sin death sword waspleted, I would likely create my Law sword as a weapon focused on restraints and defense.


    My knowledge of ice was the mostckingpared to the other three areas. However, since my other three Myth-ranked swords were focused on various effects such as attack, defense, debuffs, buffs, restraints, and so on, I had already determined what function I wanted my ice sword to have.


    ¡°An automatic sword, or at least a semi-automatic magic sword that can surprise my enemies. And if I¡¯m lucky, this sword will actually have the highest potential forbat.¡±


    ¡°...Most automatic Myth-ranked weapons will attack indiscriminately without being able to differentiate friend or foe. For instance, that Holy Light sun which baked that Holy Knight to death. Other simr examples are all too ridiculous to evenugh or cry at. If you¡¯re unlucky, this weapon will be nothing more than more help for your enemies. Although it has the most potential inbat, it also has by far the most potential to be a burden. Are you certain?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ attempt to convince me otherwise didn¡¯t shake my determination one bit. Since the majority of automatic weapons were the type that were a double-edged sword for both oneself and one¡¯s enemy, perhaps that would be the most suitable type of weapon of all for me as I was already so used to misfortune.


    ¡°I¡¯ve decided! I¡¯m going to call it Cmity sword... Nortnds Frost sword! Even if it will only bring about cmity and disaster, I feel like I can at least survive longer than my enemies thanks to my experience in dodging the endless ice and snow cmities in the Nortnds!¡±

 Chapter 659 - Return

    <h4>Chapter 659: Return</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In a way, the Nortnds was probably the single most unsuitable location in all of Eich for humans to live in.


    The Nortnds only had two seasons, spring and winter. Spring here would be the equivalent of winter in other ces, while one-third of the year, the region would bepletely sealed under ice and snow. Thend here was incredibly poor for raising crops, and very few creatures lived here... Yet, this ce was my homnd.


    Powerful gusts howled everywhere during the daylight. Since there were no trees, the winds would directly make everyone tremble with their icy coldness. But, while the chilly winds during day were incredibly cold, the night winds were truly cold enough to kill people. There wouldn¡¯t even be any need to clean up a corpse if someone stayed outside at night, as they would be frozenpletely solid... Yet, this ce was my homnd.


    Winter wolves, yetis, vicious snow bears, and so on. These demonized magical beasts would easily be apex predators in any other area¡¯s forest, yet they were incrediblymon beasts in the Nortnds. It was quitemon to hear bestial roars of hunger in the middle of the night. The worst of all would be to hear dragon roars as that would typically mean a pack of hungry white dragons had gotten too close to human settlements... No newbie adventurers would be able to survive in such and.


    Avnches, hailstorms, blizzards, frost, drought, severe cold, tornados, snowstorms, and so on. Apart from heat waves and floods, the people who lived here had gotten used to every type of natural disaster there was. As time passed, the people who lived here actually managed to find the advantages of thisnd through all the bitter experiences.


    The poornd and chilly weather meant that greedy nobles were unable to handle the severe lifestyle here. Compared to pampered ind nobles who were able to enjoy their lives, the domain lords who remained here were quite simr to their knight ancestors of old. Not only were they the rulers of their territories, they were truly the guardians of their citizens.


    Theck of resources and dangerous environment here made the people here used to allying with each other against the elements. The constant threat of invaders and magical beasts made the Nortnders used to fighting to defend themselves as well. Thisnd produced plenty of warriors and outstanding military talents, and produced even more truly courageous people who were willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the many. The Nortnders were viewed by the rest of human society as barbarians, but they were also a warrior people even though theycked a powerful bloodline.


    In the Nortnds, good morals and the importance of a promise were no empty concepts. The Nortnders were naturally like this¡ªin the snowy Nortnds, being isted or exiled would equal death. In front of the cruel test of nature, liars and cowards would never be able to make it for long. Honor, loyalty, and a good reputation were absolute requirements for survival here. True Nortnds heroes would prove themselves by their actions, bing pirs of support in theirmunities, while cowards and braggarts would always die filled with regrets.


    ¡°...The first snow of the year has truly arrived so early.¡±


    Even though I was still on the slowly flying airship, the chill of the Nortnds still made me rather ufortable as I was still weak. I rubbed my hands as I exhaled visible breaths, yet that familiar chill mysteriously helped to energize me.


    ¡°Your Highness, this is already the fourth snowfall of the year.¡±


    The young Nortnds government official¡¯s words revealed some new information that surprised me. I was quite familiar with the Nortnds, after all. The first snow would represent the arrival of winter. Issuing everyone food for the winter and organizing winter hunting squadrons would all need to bepleted before winter arrived. If that wasn¡¯t done, therge snowfall would greatly impede all other work. There was no reason for me to misremember the typical time for winter to arrive here. Normally, the first snow wouldn¡¯t even arrive for another two weeks.


    The silly cat jumped onto my shoulder. All the government officials instinctively backed away upon seeing her. It was well known on the airship that Harloys had been my bodyguard. As the Level 4 assassins perished trying to attack me, Harloys had be well known as the ¡°ck Cat of Misfortune¡±, ¡°Yongye¡¯s Pet Cat of Death¡±, ¡°Shadow of Misfortune¡±, and had other simr nicknames.


    Right now, the most popr rumor was that the ck cat was actually a Divine Sin/Undead Lord/God level undead that was only pretending to be a cat, and that she needed to devour several hundred souls per day or something.


    ¡°Great snow mountain.¡±


    Harloys spoke only a few simple words, but I instantly realized what she meant after a momentary confusion.


    I then asked the government official, and learned some facts that proved certain things as I expected. Ever since five or six years ago, the Nortnds¡¯ winters had arrived earlier each year, and leftter each year. The winters had also be colder.


    ¡°The Ice Elemental ne...¡±


    The great snow mountain filled with magical ice creatures waspleting its transformation into an Ice Elemental ne. Although this was in the Nortnds¡¯ mountains where nobody lived, since it was still dimensionally connected to the Nortnds, the ice element pouring through would make the already chilly Nortnds even colder every year.


    From a certain standpoint, this made the Nortnds even more inhospitable, but since major battles were soon about to erupt, this might not actually be a bad thing.


    The demons¡¯ greatest weapons were their powerful physical bodies and plentiful magic power. Without even considering how ice naturally countered the fire element, energy would always be consumed at high rates in any freezing environment. Since the demons instinctively fought with their physical bodies and magic, fighting here would greatly increase their energy consumption.


    Of course, energy consumption could be made up for by eating more. But, you should first be able to find prey if you wanted to hunt in the Nortnds, and even if you ate every single wild beast in the mountains, that probably wouldn¡¯t even be enough for a snack to demons who had tremendous appetites.


    ¡°Perhaps I can take advantage of this...¡±


    I also had some more ideas upon seeing this situation. Perhaps the Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm¡¯s ice element creatures could be used as part of the entire Nortnds¡¯ defense line. Perhaps we could also make use of this natural defense line of coldness. However, realizing these ideas would take more nning.


    We fully entered the Nortnds as I pondered these matters. Three motherships in the new Borealis squadron separated here. The new Borealis continued Northwards, going to Diffindor, the unofficial capital of the Mist Alliance. The Mizar headed for Sleuweir¡¯s industrial district for supplies and repairs, while the Alkaid went to the Xiluo Empire for supplies, repairs, and rotating the personnel.


    In a way, these mega airships¡¯ construction and repair bases were no longer unique in this world. However, the Mist Alliance stillcked industrial foundation. It was already quite difficult for one base to construct a single mega airship, and it would be impossible for any base to handle multiple mega airships at once.


    Oh, yes, that was right, only half of our new Borealis airship squadron had returned to the Nortnds. This was because the elven caravan was still continuing on foot. With their speed and having to constantly stop, they wouldn¡¯t arrive in the Nortnds until one yearter even if they met no other obstacles.


    We had originally intended to guard them all the way here, but the elven caravan kept slowing down, and once their estimated time of arrival was calcted, it became uneptable for our entire airship squadron to continue escorting them. The Mist Alliance countries would be unable to wait so long, especially since the Demon Abyss seemed to be active again and the entire world had entered the beginning of the Holy War. So, half of the airship squadron remained to guard the elves, while three motherships returned first.


    These motherships definitely didn¡¯t return empty. The seriously injured as well as people especially important to the Nortnds were on these ships. This also included half of the new Nortnds Elven Empire¡¯s higher-ups. They would need to use this time to do the early work for forming a new Elven Empire, choosing a location, constructing elven cities, fighting off wild beasts, preparing for battle, and other such important work. It was unlikely that they would finish even with one full year.


    It was unlikely that anything major would happen to the elven caravan now. We had alreadypleted formal diplomatic arrangements for the elven caravan to pass through all the human countries along the way. ording to the new n, the new Borealis, Mizar, and Alkaid would all restock and change out their personnel before bringing food and medicine, which the elven caravan direlycked. The other four motherships would then carry more injured elves to the Nortnds, keeping up this cycle multiple times as needed. However, two motherships would constantly remain with the elven caravan to guard them.


    This would be a difficult journey for the elves, but it was also really important for the future Nortnds Elven Empire. Due to the support of the Mist Alliance, this difficult journey would be a trial for the elves, as well as an opportunity for the entire elven species to finally unite once more.


    Unity. Perhaps another way of putting this would be munication and living together¡±. This wasn¡¯t only unity for the elves, but also unity between the new Nortnds Elven Empire and the Mist Alliance, as well as unity between humans and elves.


    In a way, this cmity for the elves had also brought its benefits. At the very least, it helped to tear apart the ancient elven traditions and way of thinking, destroying the elves¡¯ pride as the former ruling species of the past, giving this species a new chance to interact with the world.


    This would be a difficult journey for them. They would need to pass through half of the continent and all those human kingdoms first. They would personally witness the lifestyle and culture of humans, whom they had all viewed as barbarians. They would travel through countless war zones, witnessing the cruel Holy War and brave human warriors. And as elven royal authority returned, and as the situation in thend worsened, countless wild elves would also voluntarily join the elves on their journey. Every day, new explosive information was being brought to the elves, challenging their old worldview.


    I was really looking forward to what the elves would gain, understand, lose, give up on, and awaken to on their journey here.


    Of course, I had many other things to take care of, so I couldn¡¯t pay much attention to the elves...


    ¡°Hey, I¡¯m here already, of course I won¡¯t run away. No matter what, I¡¯m still the former prince of the Mist Kingdom. Don¡¯t you think that I understand my own responsibilities? Please trust me a little!¡±


    I was feeling rather helpless. Ever since I recovered the ability to move around, four Mist Kingdom government officials at minimum would follow me around everywhere, constantly reporting to Reyne on my movements. This seemed as if they were trying to keep me prisoner!


    ¡°Please allow us to correct your mistake with your wording. Your Highness, you are still a prince of the Mist Kingdom. Her Majesty Reyne has also sworn that the door of the Mist Kingdom royalty is forever open for you.¡±


    Although this sounded quite moving and sincere with a nice expression, why did he get one meter closer to me and send someone outside to block my path of escape? Howe they refused to believe that I wouldn¡¯t run away?


    I could only shake my head helplessly, seeing how tense these young government officials were. I abandoned all thoughts of trying to do anything to them.


    ¡°Two of them have already been scared so much by you that they required emergency treatment, and the guard captain¡¯s nerves are so tense that he¡¯s almost about to jump off the airship, yet you¡¯re iming that you won¡¯t do anything to them?¡±


    ¡°Tsk, they stillck training. I¡¯m simply helping train them for Reyne¡¯s sake!¡±


    Two days ago, I had been rather displeased with how close they were following me... I knew that they had good intentions, but this wasn¡¯t my fault! Having two strong men follow me even into the bathroom? Waking up to several strong men¡¯s faces right in front of me? That was just too disgusting. So, after I was disgusted for a while, I yed some minor pranks.


    I would suddenly vanish, suddenly scream, suddenlyugh loudly, or suddenly shout that there were assassins... Oh, I should mention that the time I shouted that there were assassins, two assassins really jumped out. They were under the impression that I had discovered them... Ahem, fine, I admit that this behavior of mine was quite childish, but it was indeed effective... in that Reyne decided to spend even more money, doubling the number of her guards around me, and making it so that I was constantly under surveince 24 hours a day. She would always smile when she saw me, making me feel as if she was an adult trying to act nice to a child. Was I that childish?


    ¡°Tsk, I truly don¡¯t intend to run away. Howe nobody believes me?¡±


    ¡°Who was the one who abandoned so much work in the Mist Alliance for eight consecutive years? Who was the one who reached top 10 in the world in reward money offered for him but still didn¡¯te back? Who was the one who still shamelessly wrote letters to the Mist Alliance government, requesting a governmental sry but never doing any work?¡±


    ¡°Whom could you possibly be talking about? What bastard would so shamelessly request sry when doing zero work, I¡¯m so jealous... I meant that person must be so shameless!¡±


    I averted my gaze while spouting such rubbish, but this time, I truly wasn¡¯t lying about not intending to leave. There were some things that I could only aplish in the Nortnds.


    ¡°The Nortnds¡¯ ice and snow is the only ce capable of giving birth to my Cmity sword...¡±


    Behind me was apletely white room. This mist-filled space was even chillier than the outside. Lifelike ice sculptures were recording the Nortnds¡¯ hardships as my past memories were awakened. I was just beginning to create my ice sword.

 Chapter 660 - Flourishing

    <h4>Chapter 660: Flourishing</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The wide castle walls were covered with thickyers of ice. The old walls had been repeatedly heightened over the long years, with towers, ballista holes, winches, crossbows, catapults, and other sort of equipment added over the years. Perhaps this could be called the taste of war.


    Thanks to hard work from both smiths and mages, the original castle walls had been thickened by more than 30 meters. The walls were also more than 100 meters tall, reaching into the clouds. Just looking at the physical appearance, this was probably the most solid castle wall in all of the Nortnds.


    But right now, this city was under no threat of war. All the castle gates were wide open, and there was plenty of people walking around even before reaching the downtown area.


    Beastmen were selling their leather wares and hunted prey right on the streets, simultaneously purchasing smokes, alcohol, warm clothes, and other such ¡°Nortnds exotic products¡±. Dark-robed undead were carefully avoiding the hot-blooded beastmen while purchasing dark but legal ¡°products¡± from stores deeply tucked in small alleyways.


    Adjacent to these dark alleyways were the dwarves¡¯ stores, where ck plumes of smoke from their forges could be seen rising up into the air. The dwarves¡¯ weapons would forever be bestsellers. Nortnds barbarians were showing off their martial prowess on the streets, hoping to find somebody to hire them. At the same time, the barbarians were also drooling while staring at the strong alcohol and excellent weapons in the dwarves¡¯ stores.


    Right when I arrived in Diffindor, I had even thought that I arrived in the wrong location. The Diffindor from my memories was a forever fiery city prepared for war, so this city filled with merchants and wares seemed like it was a mistake.


    ¡°Compared to eight years ago, the number of recorded transactions and business tax collections has increased by 337%. You can literally say that Diffindor is hundreds times more flourishing than before.¡±


    Reyne¡¯s words were filled with pride. I could understand why she would feel this way. The growth was truly too ridiculous. Although the original base numbers were indeed quite pitiful, this change still came about mostly because the people of Diffindor had worked so hard. What could possibly make one prouder than seeing your home be ever more flourishing?


    I nced at a map of Diffindor, and discovered that just the business district of Diffindor alone was alreadyrger than the entire city of Diffindor from eight years ago.


    I looked over the map legend. The great majority of stores was run by locals or goblins. Most outsiders were travelers or traveling merchants who had been drawn here by the city¡¯s reputation. It would seem that as the unofficial capital of the Mist Alliance, the improved status of the city had helped to greatly improve its economic and military status as well.


    Diffindor was highly suitable as a fortress city. This city¡¯s location had been chosen originally for its defensive properties. After so many generations of building here, Diffindor had be the #1 most solid fortress in all of the Nortnds. This was also a critical location that blocked off the Nortnds beastmen and the Demon Abyss in the northeast from spreading any further.


    But as the entire Nortnds entered a time of peace, with former enemies such as the beastmen bing allies, Diffindor no longer was so useful as a fortress city. However, this didn¡¯t mean that Diffindor would bow out of the stage of history. Instead, as the Mist Kingdom became ever more important in the Mist Alliance, Diffindor also became ever more important.


    Diffindor was no longer a lonely, isted city. Seven satellite cities surrounded Diffindor in a radius of several hundred kilometers. These cities included an engineering base for mining and alchemy, along with a warehouse for storing food and other material resources. Another city was the singlergest weapons, equipment, and munitions trading city in all of the Nortnds. Half of these cities was also training grounds for the Mist Kingdom¡¯s knights and warriors. Diffindor and its associated satellite cities were the biggest barracks in all of the Nortnds.


    Every day, traveling merchants and diplomatic envoys would travel thousands of kilometers toe here from countless different locations. Young knights and heroes with hopes for the future would alsoe here. Various species in the Mist Alliance would alsoe here for various reasons. The massive influx of people brought prosperity to Diffindor, along with the interaction of many different people and species. This all served to massively boost Diffindor¡¯s culture and economy.


    The more important the Mist Kingdom became to the Nortnds¡¯ politics, culture, military affairs, and economics, the more important that Diffindor became. Compared to eight years ago, the central part of Diffindor had been expanded by more than four times. If you counted the satellite cities as part of Diffindor, then you could technically say that the central part had been expanded by more than several dozen times. Over the short period of eight years, Diffindor had undergone so much construction, which meant that the streets here seemed rather narrow and chaotic. However, when looking at things from a different angle, countless differentnguages and species living here also represented endless potential and life force.


    Compared to other business cities, Diffindor had one great advantage that no other city had. This was also the foundational reason why it could flourish so.


    A holy silver light formed a faint barrier all around the city. An invisible eye seemed to be overseeing this miracle city. Not only were Mist Kingdom warriors patrolling the streets, Justice Knights and Church of Law priests with the Church of Law¡¯s scales emblem were protecting this city as well.


    Transactions here were quite unique and swift. In fact, outsiders would even consider transactions here rather inconceivable.


    ¡°I promise to the God of Hell and Law that everything written on my contract is the truth. I shall meet all the conditions written here on the contract, and give the product to the other party within three months.¡±


    ¡°I promise to the God of Hell and Law that we shall pay the money within one month of receiving the furs.¡±


    A barbarian and a goblin were simultaneously swearing an oath to Wumianzhe, the God of Hell and Law. They also signed their names on the contract in front of them. A Church of Law priest acted as the intermediary, and prayed to Wumianzhe. There was then a sh of silver light, which represented that Wumianzhe, who was also the God of Contracts, would personally enforce this contract. No mortal would dare to break such a contract.


    Eight years ago, back when I¡¯d returned with my army to the Nortnds, Wumianzhe had blessed the city of Diffindor. A divine forbidden spell had transformed this entire city into Wumianzhe¡¯s Divine Kingdom. Diffindor had truly be an almostpletely crimeless city as all criminals and scammers would instantly be marked with a red light indicating their crimes. Judgementors and Justice Knights would also arrive within five minutes of anyone being marked.


    And as Wumianzhe gained more Divine Concepts that kept bing stronger, his guarantee of contracts became part of his responsibilities. What would it mean and represent for there to be a city where there were truly no crimes or scams? Every honest merchant would probably go crazy about wanting toe here.


    Not only would everyone in the Nortndse here to perform any major transactions, even human kingdoms from maind Eich would choose to travel here for important trades. The Church of Law¡¯s ie from contract overseeing fees alone was already an astronomical amount.


    In fact, many people even rmended expanding Wumianzhe¡¯s Divine Concept of Contracts to oversee more than just business contracts. They wanted Wumianzhe to also guarantee more important diplomatic and military contracts. If that was aplished, it was likely that Wumianzhe¡¯s reputation would truly reach the peak.


    However, I knew after careful consideration that this would be a giant pitfall.


    ¡°Guaranteeing contracts between countries¡± sounded incredible. However, countries weren¡¯t individual existences, and rtionships between countries were purely about benefits. As long as it was deemed necessary or useful, betraying an alliance would be incrediblymonce, and if one truly attempted to guarantee a contract between countries, it wouldn¡¯t be realistically possible to send divine punishment upon an entire country for betraying the contract. Thus, countries would still betray their contracts.


    And even if the person who signed the contract between countries was divinely punished for the betrayal, the contract would still have been broken. This would naturally be a bad deal in the long run. After one, two, and even more sessive failed contract guarantees, the Divine Concept of Contracts would gradually be tainted, bing a negative influence on Wumianzhe himself.


    Err, I was getting off topic. Anyways, when Reyne mentioned how business taxes had explosively increased, more than half of this ie had actually been tax ie from contract guarantee fees. Since the contract guarantee fees were percent based, major transactions would be incredibly profitable, and since so many people would travel long distances to perform important trades here, Diffindor had be the financial center of the entire Nortnds. Diffindor¡¯s tax ie was increasing exponentially every year, with lots of profit even despite tremendous military expenditures.


    The tax percentage on transactions varied from 6% to 30%, from minor transactions like beastmen purchasing furs to resource and weapon sales between human mega empires. Just thinking about this would make one easily understand that the profits were enormous.


    Less than 10 years had passed since Diffindor had been an incredibly poor city. It seemed inconceivable how rich it was now. However, this was something quite normal for Eich, a world with Gods that would intervene for the sake of their believers.


    The rise in power of a God wouldmonly corrte with the rise in power of a country or the God¡¯s people. As the People of the Mist were the first people to worship the Church of Law as their national church, they were now benefitting from the rise of Wumianzhe and the Hell Gods. At the very least, it was certain that Diffindor would continue to flourish until Wumianzhe¡¯s death or loss of power.


    The direct attention of a God would also bring another factor absolutely necessary for flourishment: safety.


    No matter how much the profit, money would be useless if you weren¡¯t alive to spend it. Nobody was an idiot in this day and age. It was an open secret just who was truly behind the Nortnds Mist Alliance. Investing and trading would always look at long-term security, not just the typical ¡°safety.¡± Security would also include a country¡¯s political stability.


    Although the Hell Gods were a new faction, all these Gods were veteran Gods, including the Goddess of Wealth, God of Fate, Goddess of Moonlight, and God of Death. At the very least, they were all previously neutral Gods with good reputation. Meanwhile, the Concepts of Law and Justice that Wumianzhe represented would be what honest merchants desired the most.


    As for keeping important merchant trade routes to the Nortnds safe, thebat airships had already helped to develop multiple routes leading from major cities in thend to Diffindor. These cities also included the capitals of Bardi and And. Although the fees for taking these airship-protected trade routes were rather high, it was still far better than potentially meeting with bandits, magical beasts, or even the dangers of war. Such a fee would then be insignificant, and the merchants could simply increase the price of their wares. Paying the fee was far preferable to losing everything, including even your life.


    Safety, swiftness, and stability, along with an almost inconceivable fairness of enforced contracts. With so many different factors, Diffindor was already faintly bing the business capital of the entire mortal ne. Such a remote northern city had actually be a major business city, and might even potentially develop into the business capital of the world? I truly didn¡¯t know what to say.


    This flourishment brought the Mist Kingdom and all Nortnders more wealth. It wasn¡¯t like the Nortnds truly had nothing. For instance, while the hide of a Nortnds winter wolf might only be worth 50 gold coins here, it could be sold for thousands of gold coins in the center of the continent. In the past, people had also been interested in Nortnds specialty products, but the transportation costs were far too much due to the dangerous and lengthy journey. That was why most Nortnds hunters would far prefer to sell the hides for the much safer amount of 50 gold coins.


    Munitions, all sorts of various artisanry products from various Nortnds species, resources from magical beasts, alchemical products, engineering products, and so on were allmonly traded and sold here.


    Meanwhile, although I was eximing over everything here, I had to constantly wear a heavy white cape. I didn¡¯t dare to remove it even when I was eating or drinking.


    Even with how shameless I was, I couldn¡¯t really take it how statues of myself were everywhere, and how people were even praying in gratitude to my statues...


    ¡°I¡¯ll forget about how they¡¯re praying to my statue for more wealth or a better job, and I¡¯ll tolerate how they pray to Karwenz statues instead for good fortune in marriage, but why are people praying to my statue for safe families and having many children? Shouldn¡¯t they pray to a statue of Beifeng for that instead?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t mention it. There really are those who pray to Beifeng statues. However, that¡¯s a dark cult that¡¯s been forbidden everywhere in thend. They call themselves the ¡®Brotherhood of Truth That Reveals How Love Has No Boundaries...¡±


    ¡°...I don¡¯t want to hear another word about this.¡±


    I covered Harloys¡¯ mouth while recalling the person who must not be named in the Chaos Abyss. A while back, he had sent me a letter, telling me that it would take him some more time to conquer that birdhead, so I needed to be patient... I really wanted to respond with ¡°Who told you to conquer that birdhead? I only wanted top-level resources, just the resources! I¡¯m begging you, please don¡¯t cause another major scandal! Reputation is really important in this day and age...¡±


    But, I felt like it would be useless no matter what I said. I should trust my own subordinates, so I decided to let him do as he pleased. Yep, I definitely wasn¡¯t intending on selling out that bastard right after obtaining my sword¡¯s resources from him so that I could obtain the reward money for Beifeng¡¯s capture. Did you think that I would be someone so heartless, throwing a subordinate away after their usefulness was ended?


    ¡°You dare to say such a thing? Amelia and myself... You truly were so heartless back in the day. Do you even remember how many times you betrayed others? But, for the sake of world peace, it would be best if you really did betray Beifeng. The whole world will thank you.¡±


    As I sipped on some tea and chatted with Harloys out of boredom, Reyne suddenly brought something major to my attention.


    ¡°The Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom are applying to join the Mist Alliance? When did this happen? Why do they want to join?¡±

 Chapter 661 - Underhanded Alliance

    <h4>Chapter 661: Underhanded Alliance</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Mist Alliance was different from other mega empires in that it wasn¡¯t an independent country. The Mist Alliance was an alliance of many Nortnds countries.


    The seven Nortnds kingdoms that the ruling human society viewed as barbarians were the core of this alliance. Non-human species were also a significant part of this alliance. As the Underground, Xiluo undead, Nortnds beastmen, and Nortnds elves all gradually joined the Mist Alliance, this naturally transformed the nature of the Mist Alliance. Humans were no longer the core of the alliance.


    What helped this Mist Alliance to continue maintaining itself, however, were the two countries of the People of the Mist, Sleuweir and the East Mist Communal Country. These two kingdoms were the political core of the Mist Alliance, and they were also faintly being viewed as a brand-new Mist Kingdom.


    Five of the other countries in the Nortnds seven kingdoms were also human kingdoms just like the Mist Kingdom. This naturally made them good allies. The Mist Kingdom defeated and tamed the Nortnds beastmen. The undead, Underground, and Nortnds elves were all deeply connected to the Mist Kingdom. Due to all these factors, Reyne and Glina became the true leaders of the Mist Alliance despite not being the leaders in name.


    Not interfering in other member countries¡¯ internal politics was the foundation of this alliance. The Mist Alliance had given itself the definition of ¡°a rtively loose alliance that will stille close together in times of great difficulty¡±.


    But as everyone became more connected, and with the entire world entering war, the Mist Alliance started using its insufficient resources on military preparations. All the resources and military power needed to be organized. Naturally, organizing all resources and military power together would greatly reduce the independence of each country within the alliance.


    This was why dictatorial governments would easily appear during any time of war. In order to deal with the threat of war, a highly effective governmental organization with concentrated power would be necessary. Thus, those in the minority would soon find their voices and resistance suppressed as someone controlling all the power appeared.


    Nortnds Winter Food Storage Committee. The name of this organization was self-exnatory. It also sounded like something right out of an ancient Chinese history book. However, the truth of the matter was that even the king of a country would need to pay proper respects to the members of thismittee.


    Thismittee¡¯s main role was to adjust and hand out winter food rations in order to avoidrge-scale famines, as thismittee was in charge of food for the entire Nortnds. They had the power to distribute all of the Nortnds¡¯ imported food whoever they liked. They could also choose any country¡¯s food supply and designate it as war storage rations. This power was like a knife on the neck of all the Mist Alliance countries. Even though the Mist Alliance was nominally not supposed to interfere in other countries¡¯ internal politics, this was the most brazen type of interference around.


    Nortnds Defense Line Construction Headquarters. This organization was in charge of constructing strategically important defensive fortresses and other defensive structures. Basically, they were sort of like a major constructionpany... But if they were constructing fortresses in your home country, didn¡¯t that count as interfering in internal politics? Wouldn¡¯t the countries¡¯ kings have worries?


    But right now, all of this was necessary, and even received approval from the Mist Alliance members. Everyone knew that a major war was upon them. If everyone was still scattered like loose sand, what use would there still be for the Mist Alliance?


    Although the Mist Alliance had been developing as a whole over the years, it was natural that the Mist Kingdom developed the fastest due to Diffindor and being the home of magical engineering. With thebination of East Mist Communal Country and Sleuweir being the new Mist Kingdom, it was obvious to everyone who the number one ranking human country of the Mist Alliance was. In fact, even the other five human kingdoms of the Mist Alliance added together still couldn¡¯tpare to the one Mist Kingdom.


    Due to the power of the Mist Kingdom within the Mist Alliance, I wouldn¡¯t even need to say who was in charge of all these mittees¡±, ¡°headquarters¡±, ¡°organizations¡± and so on. As various war preparations were made, the entire Mist Alliance¡¯s member countries were being organized. The new Borealis squadron which had been built with the resources and power of various countriesbined was the most obvious example.


    It would likely take several decades for a single country to have enough resources to produce a single one of these mega airships. But now, in just a short eight years, not only was the first fleet of mega airshipspleted, the member countries¡¯ military, industrial, and shipbuilding technology had all been improved. As long as there were enough resources, a second mega airship fleet would soon bepleted as well.


    From a certain standpoint, as war preparations were made and various rules established, giving all thesemittees actual power, the independence of the Mist Alliance member countries was swiftly decreasing. Kings became the equivalent of domain lords who had to listen to their boss¡¯s orders. The member countries¡¯ domain lords were doubly restricted by the Church of Law and Mist Alliance¡¯s rules. Everything was bing unified under one organization, helping the Mist Alliance to flourish. But of course, there would naturally be people dissatisfied with this due to losing personal benefits.


    There would always be darkness along with light. Power struggles would forever take ce anywhere that there were people. The Mist Alliance was no exception, even if it was founded on ideals.


    I won¡¯t go into the details, but very few people would be able to out-scheme the dark elves. And right now, the entire dark elf society was working for the Mist Kingdom. The end result was that people with objections to the Mist Alliance¡¯s policies all ended up ¡°disappearing¡± for various reasons.


    Were there people that were dissatisfied? Of course, but as the Hell Gods and the Mist Alliance became every more powerful, tons of benefits were brought to everyone. Resources became more plentiful, the status of ordinary people became improved, ie increased, there were more work opportunities for everyone, and so on. At the very least, most people could tell that the situation was improving, and they were happy to be in the Mist Alliance.


    ¡°Why would I care who¡¯s in charge? As long as my life keeps improving, that¡¯s enough for me.¡±


    This was how most ordinary people would think. Indeed, the Mist Alliance had done much for the sake of its ordinary citizens.


    Of course, not everyone would be happy with these developments. At the very least, the ¡°kings¡± and their domain lords, who had less and less power as all this went on, were already faintly bing opposed to these developments. The greatest difference between the Mist Alliance and other mega empires was that the members of the Church of Law would constantly investigate the nobles and rulers¡¯ actions for anything improper. The Church of Law was strongly supported by the Mist Kingdom, which naturally made the old-fashioned nobles and royalty unable to ept being investigated constantly as they were used to doing whatever they pleased.


    For some people, reducing their power would be the equivalent of trying to kill them.


    The old-fashioned nobles were also skilled schemers. They also had family rtionships and tangible benefits with the countries in maind Eich. If it wasn¡¯t for our own forces which couldn¡¯t see the light of day acting fast enough, and also because the other human countries feared the power of the Mist Kingdom, there would have been at least four or five times already that the Mist Alliance would have almost copsed. And as the Mist Kingdom¡¯s position became ever more secure aftering out on top of all the internal power struggles, the other Mist Alliance member countries¡¯ power became ever more obviously diminished. This was basically an open secret.


    The Mist Kingdom, Xiluo undead, and Underground were the three pirs of support, the iron triangle of the Mist Alliance. Their overwhelming power negated all attempts at rebelling or scheming. Since there was a core faction, there would naturally be negligible factions as well. The end result was that the old-fashioned nobles and royalty became a negligible faction.


    The Mist Kingdom faction constantly announced that these new organizations¡¯ greatly increased power and forced distribution and control over resources would only be temporary, and that this would all be canceled after the Holy War was over. However, not only did the royalty and domain lords not believe this, even the government officials making the announcements knew that they were only paying lip service.


    ¡°Who would want to give up on power that they¡¯ve already obtained?¡±


    Actually, I would. As long as the Holy War was truly finished, I would immediately find a ce to retire and do whatever I wanted. It would be so boring for me to be some type of feudal domain lord or ruler. I would far prefer to travel around the world and see the sights. I really was telling the truth here, but as always, nobody believed me.


    Were the rulers who joined the Mist Alliance regretting that they had? I felt that it was likely that they were now regretting it, since they were no longer able to do whatever they wanted like before. The Church of Law members were all strict traditionalists who would severely strike down any injustice that they saw. But as the Holy War progressed, the facts would prove that joining the Mist Alliance had been correct after all. Their opinions would be changed.


    But at the current time, joining the Mist Alliance meant giving up on their royal authority. This was a feudal generation, which meant that this was incredibly taboo.


    ¡°The Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom are applying to join the Mist Alliance? When did this happen? Why do they want to join?¡±


    Not only was I surprised to hear this, the other Mist Alliance government officials in the room were also shocked to hear this news. While joining the Mist Alliance would definitely bring benefits to the entire country and its citizens, such a decision could only be made by the archduke and king of those two countries respectively. Were they actually willing to give up on their authority and voluntarily be restrained by our rules?


    The Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom were both to the south of the original Nortnds¡¯ seven kingdoms. There was also another small country between them and the Nortnds. The Soen Dukedom was only a small country, but the Feldis Kingdom¡¯s territory included the fertile Feen ins and Shawen River. Theirnds were vast, and the Feldis Kingdom had quite respectable power. It was quite sudden and unexpected for them to be applying to join the Mist Alliance.


    ¡°The application just arrived three days ago. Archduke Klein and King Vincent signed the papers together. They also submitted the tax ie, expenses, military information, and other such basic information of their countries. The government officials in charge of receiving applications believe that both countries are being quite sincere. We should seriously and carefully consider this.¡±


    Reyne was casually flipping through the information in front of me without actually looking at it, expecting me to deal with it as always. She had a wry yet serious expression. It seemed that I wasn¡¯t going to be sleeping tonight even though I just returned.


    No matter if I epted or rejected the two countries¡¯ application, this would be a major matter that could affect the Mist Alliance¡¯s development for more than a century. If I epted their application, the entire territory of the Mist Alliance would be expanded by about 33%. This would finally directly connect us to the maind human kingdoms, and we would obtain an extremely fertile territory renowned for its food production. And if we rejected their application, we would at least have to give sufficient reason.


    I looked over a map of thend, looking at all the tan and blue drawn on it whileparing things to my memories. At this time, my memories were probably more reliable than all this boring information.


    The Soen Dukedom had only been established one hundred years ago, and had only gone through two generations of rulers so far. It was a tiny country established in a wastnd, and it only had a few small cities. Nor did it have any famous specialties. The Soen Dukedom was basically nothing more than the Feldis Kingdom¡¯s subordinate country.


    What wastnd? It was a wastnd left behind by the Yongye Cmity... Cough, I supposed that these two countries were somewhat connected to me, although if I looked at it that way, there would be an extremely high number of countries in Eich connected to me.


    There was no helping it. The Mist Kingdom was in the north, so when I wanted to go take revenge on the Holy Church back then, I would obviously pass by these countries while making my way south. I had probably just destroyed them along the way.


    ¡°Ha, I remember now. The Feldis Kingdom shouldn¡¯t have a grudge against me. My Yongye army passed by next to them.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, they have a grudge against Karwenz instead. They were annihted by his demon army back in the day, and even their king was killed. Their current royalty is from a distant bloodline from maind Eich.¡±


    I was rendered speechless. Just what was all this? Had we brothers managed to sessfully antagonize all of our nearest neighbors?


    ¡°To tell you the truth, you¡¯re absolutely correct. With a southern demon invasion and a southern undead invasion, how many grudges would that create? Why do you think that so many assassins have beening after your life recently? You should be happy that humans are a short-lived species, and that domain lords and kings only care about their own personal benefits. They won¡¯t fight you to the death for the sake of their ancestors¡¯ grudges which have already been forgotten about. But if they were long-lived species instead, even if the leader didn¡¯t care about a past grudge, the leader¡¯s people would force him to fight you to the death.¡±


    The silly cat kept bragging about the advantages of long-lived species to me, while I thought to myself ¡°Aren¡¯t your elves being quite obedient these days as well? In this day and age, isn¡¯t having more power the most practical thing there is?¡± Of course, I would never say this to her, since she would quite easily anger about anything rted to elven pride. And right now, I still needed her protection.


    ¡°Also, the rise of the Mist Kingdom back in the past was the equivalent of forcefully conquering territory when they didn¡¯t have any to begin with. Back in the past, the Nortnds had nine countries, not seven. What do you think happened to reduce the number? You could try asking Reyne just how her ancestor managed to win as one against three united countries.¡±


    To tell the truth, I didn¡¯t really care too much about things so long ago in the past, either. Another side of being a short-lived species was that humans often sighed about how short life was and how they would never be able to achieve all their desires, bing the ruler of the entire continent or something like that, amon dream for many human kings. The end result was that human royalty and nobles all had a messy rtionship with each other. Many were blood rted with each other, but would still fight each other to the death.


    Well, all of my Yongye stuff was in the past. The relevant humans who would have a grudge were all long dead now since more than century had passed. Only if it was politically necessary would my Yongye actions be brought up again. Otherwise, who would normally care about something that happened so long ago?


    ¡°The short-lived species simply need to live in the present. That¡¯s a better life for them.¡±


    I ignored the silly cat who had such an expression of superiority. I focused instead on the information in front of me. Based on what I knew so far, I would likely reject their application.


    That¡¯s right, I intended to reject them, rather than approving their application which would immensely strengthen the Mist Alliance.


    A country wouldn¡¯t always be better by beingrger, especially since the Holy War was right upon us. Just with some simple calctions, I determined that if these two countries joined us, this would greatly increase the amount of border we would need to defend, and we would also lose many naturally defensive locations and fortresses on our current border. Our original iron-tight defense would have cracks naturally appearing in it. But if we didn¡¯t do anything to help defend the two new member countries at all... The Mist Alliance was intended as a military alliance to begin with, so if we abandoned trying to help any member country, that would make everyone lose all hope and faith in the entire alliance.


    ¡°Let¡¯s gather information first. At the very least, we need to know why they want to join the Mist Alliance.¡±


    I felt a bit of a headache as I rubbed my forehead and put down the scrolls in front of me. Yet, government officials kept bringing me even more books and information.


    ¡°History, culture, ie and expenditures, military information, the profiles of these two countries¡¯ important figures, and the true reason why they want to join the Mist Alliance... It seems that our information department will be overworked. Right, we also have to consider our overall border defenses if they join the Mist Alliance. It seems that ourbat strategy department is also going to lose sleep by working overtime, along with our diplomatic and administrative departments. So tiring...¡±


    I shook my head and sighed about my frustrations, walking around as I thought... But right when I arrived at the door, I saw that the door waspletely blocked. All the government officials has bright smiles as they refused to budge.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about running away! Don¡¯t even think about escaping from your work! Let us all work overtime together!¡±


    I heard Reyne¡¯s grudge-filledint behind my back, as my n to escape was seen through yet again...

 Chapter 662 - Misunderstanding

    <h4>Chapter 662: Misunderstanding</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    It was now the 27th day of the 12th month in the year FT8. There were three more days until the year would end (as Eich had only 30 days in every month).


    There was no sr or lunar calendar in this world. The New Year¡¯s celebration in three days would be the biggest holiday celebration of any year. As the snowkes fell, people started walking faster with expressions of satisfaction and expectation. The stores were covered in bright banners with celebratory phrases, and everyone carried a festive atmosphere.


    As the standard of living constantly improved, the flourishment and development brought along a tremendous number of job opportunities. For the citizens of Diffindor, as long as they weren¡¯t toozy to go out to get a job, their lives would naturally constantly improve. This was an improvement far more valuable than abundant resources.


    A constant improvement in the standard of living made everyone filled with hope for the future. Everyone worked even harder for this beautiful future, and they were all filled with gratitude for the Mist royalty who brought all this improvement.


    This time of the year would also be the busiest time of the year for the Mist government and royalty.


    Not only was there the year-end work to deal with, winter food rationing and winter hunts were all major affairs that could determine the survival of an entire country. Meeting various international representatives and participating in numerous events was also necessary to maintain the popce¡¯s morale.


    The door to the pce was wide open, and horse-drawn carriages constantly went in and out. The meeting hall was hosting the year-end celebratory parties. Numerous diplomats kept arriving and leaving. Reyne, who was the host, had smiled for more than five hours consecutively, to the point where she had a muscle strain.


    However, the visitors wouldn¡¯t care about such a thing. They excitedly waved their hands at the seemingly friendly queen, stampeding over to lower their heads and kiss her fingers.


    After the past eight years of development, the citizens truly viewed the previous Princess Knight as a queen now. Being able to see that the queen and her concubines were well meant that the Mist Kingdom would develop steadily in the next year as well. The citizens¡¯ only worry was regarding a certain side effect of the queen¡¯s personal preference...


    ¡°What will we do about the fact that there¡¯s no royal descendants? If anything happens to Her Majesty Reyne...¡±


    Although this sounded ratherughable, and nobody cared about such a topic back when the Mist Kingdom was still weak, as the country kept strengthening, a dangerous fact was noticed by everyone¡ªthe royalty had no descendants.


    Having an heir whose status was secure would naturally be of utmost importance to any kingdom. Although East Mist was a Communal Country in name, no matter if you looked at its territory or influence, it was unmistakably an empire. The benefit of having centralized authority was having a highly efficient government, but the downside was that if something happened to the person in authority while they had no heir apparent, the entire empire would copse.


    Moreover, this Princess Knight had been raised as a boy since young, which also caused her to be more interested in women than men.


    This was only something minor. The citizens wouldn¡¯t be dissatisfied with Reyne because of her sexual preferences. In fact, the streets were filled with funny stories about her, making her seem even closer to her citizens. However, Reyne¡¯s sexual preferences meant that she had been married for several years already without producing a single descendant.


    Of course, if any of her concubines ever got pregnant, her citizens would probably be the first to cause an uproar despite how much they loved gossip. Still, Reyne was the only member of the royalty even after so many years, which made the citizens uneasy.


    If only the Mist royalty still had branch bloodlines, then some distant rtive could have been brought over to inherit the throne. But in this situation, if Reyne continued not to have any descendants, even if nothing happened to her, she would grow old eventually, and if the ruler died, then it would only be natural for there to be a tremendous power struggle with no heir.


    As for adopting from other countries? Sorry, that wouldn¡¯t work, as the People of the Mist were quite serious about bloodlines. The ruler absolutely had to be from the royal bloodline of the Mist. The People of the Mist still remembered the ancestral kings who always protected their people and country. They wouldn¡¯t be able to ept any other bloodline.


    Thus, Reyne was constantly feeling awkward at this weing party. The diplomats would first offer New Year¡¯s congrattions, and then start indirectly mentioning their sons, grandsons, and so on. It was almost to the point where everyone was trying to directly tell her ¡°You should hurry up and find someone to have a child with,¡± which would be a massive breach of etiquette. Meanwhile, major nobles and powerful individuals in the kingdom were even more directly trying to introduce their nephews¡¯ and grandchildren¡¯s aplishments and experiences... Reyne had to suffer through this each year starting from three years ago. Considering how plenty of people got married at 14 years old in Eich, it was indeed expected that Reyne should have been a mother to two or three children already as she was now 22 years old.


    ¡°People are trying to force her to get married once again? Reyne truly is such a pitiful queen.¡±


    ¡°...Do you have the right to say that? Don¡¯t you feel any shame at all?¡±


    The silly cat sounded quite happy, but I felt like she meant more than that.


    ¡°What does it have to do with me? Isn¡¯t this all because of Karwenz?¡±


    ¡°Karwenz? Did you forget who¡¯s supposed to be Reyne¡¯s guardian knight in name?¡±


    Guardian knight? That was usually a euphemism for a noblewoman¡¯s secret lover. Reyne had a guardian knight? I felt like I had indeed found a guardian knight for Reyne back at And, and that was the time when rumors started spreading that Reyne was a yuri princess.


    ¡°Who was that? Oh... where can I find a time machine, Doraemon? It¡¯s time to go back to the era of dinosaurs!¡±


    I finally remembered now. Back then, in order to have a proper excuse to be involved in the Mist Kingdom¡¯s affairs, as well as to block off the rumors starting back then that Reyne was into women, I had indeed made myself into Reyne¡¯s official guardian knight, meaning that I was her personal knight who others might see as her secret lover... Now I finally understood why her concubines were constantly ring at me so angrily for no apparent reason. I really needed to go find a time machine now!


    Now, I no longer felt like I could simply enjoy watching the show. While watching a show would be quite fun, it would no longer be fun when I became part of the show.


    ¡°Now you finally remember. Reyne is also known as Yongye¡¯s woman... Do you think that anyone ordinary would still dare to pursue her with such a title? It¡¯s all your fault that she hasn¡¯t been able to get married.¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous! It¡¯s clearly Karwenz¡¯s fault! He was the one who slept with so many women using Reyne¡¯s body, creating all those yuri princess rumors!¡±


    ¡°Alright, let me correct myself. It¡¯s the fault of you two shameless twin brothers. You¡¯re a pit digger, and he fills in your pits. Both of you specialize in making pitfalls for your granddaughter. How do the two of you intend to make it up to her? You¡¯ve probably ruined her future marriage prospects forever.¡±


    I hesitated for a moment, and finally gave up on the idea of finding a time machine... Perhaps I should instead go searching for a dokodemo door.


    Typically, the pre-New Year¡¯s celebratory party would end quite quickly. However, things seemed to be slightly different this year. It seemed that not a single visitor this year wanted to leave.


    The visitors saw an astonishingly familiar person sitting at a table while reading a book.


    ¡°Who is that? Could it be him? Has he finally returned?¡±


    ¡°No wonder the reward on his head has finally been canceled. So, Her Majesty Reyne finally found him.¡±


    ¡°Shh, let¡¯s not talk about him. He might run away again.¡±


    Those coarse men all spoke quite loudly about me. Of course I would be able to hear them. I didn¡¯t even know what to say about these words that made me feel rather helpless.


    ¡°Run away? Reward on my head? They all think that I¡¯m a naughty child who left home?¡±


    ¡°Please, you¡¯re far worse than any naughty child. At least a naughty child doesn¡¯t really understand what they¡¯re doing. You understand perfectly well, and act ridiculously because you want to go along with your personality.¡±


    Even the people just two tables away from me were still pointing at and whispering about me, yet they didn¡¯t dare toe over to talk to me. It was as if they were afraid that I would run away instantly, as if...


    ¡°It¡¯s good that His Highness Rnd has finally returned. Now we no longer need to worry about Her Majesty Reyne having no descendants.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, our Mist royalty will finally have descendants. I hope that the first child will be a prince. Everyone will feel reassured then.¡±


    ¡°Haha. I didn¡¯t believe the rumors back then, but I finally figured out that the rumors were real when I saw that y.¡±


    ¡°y? Oh, the Princess Peach y? I remember that Her Majesty Reyne was acting as Princess Peach, while His Highness Rnd was a dragon knight. In the end, the dragon knight kidnapped the princess... Oh! So that¡¯s what the y meant.¡±


    Wait a moment, that was far too much information for me to take in, so I needed to organize it... Damn it all, this was too ridiculous to even organize! I didn¡¯t even know what toment on first!


    ¡°Teehee!¡±


    As always, the silly cat rolled around on the floor whileughing. She didn¡¯t care about her image one bit when she was a cat.


    I opened my mouth, intending to quell the rumors, but instantly closed my mouth again... How was I supposed to quell the rumors? Was I supposed to tell that truth that I was actually the one acting as Princess Peach? It seemed that the rumors had spread even more instead of vanishing after all these years.


    Now I finally understood why Reyne¡¯s two concubines were so unfriendly towards me. So they had thought that I was their biggest love rival?


    I felt incredibly awkward with how everyone was trying to secretly sneak nces over in my direction. However, I was attending this event for the sake of the citizens¡¯ morale, showing them that I was indeed currently in the Nortnds, and that I had no intention of going out to cause trouble for the time being. This would also help to pressure certain rats hiding in the shadows. Right now, the main event hadn¡¯t even started, so escaping would be quite improper.


    ¡°Forget it, I¡¯ll focus on the serious business.¡±


    And so, while others were happily chatting, drinking, and greeting each other, I focused on the documents in my hand, just like a pitiful student who had finally remembered his summer homework on the veryst day after three whole months of ying around... Cough, cough, I was only making an analogy! Was I someone who would forget to write his summer homework? Oh, right, I never turned in any summer homework at all, so of course I wouldn¡¯t write any.


    Documents had never left my hand ever since the day I arrived in Diffindor. There were far too many things for me to deal with, and far too much for me to catch up on. All these things were also quite important, and I had to take it seriously.


    Currently, I was holding one of the newestbat reports on what was happening in Eich. This was basically the biggest headline news recently.


    ¡°The powerful Undead Emperors of old fought against the upstart mages of today, and the fight ended in a loss for both sides! Yongye says that both sides are so weak!¡±


    ¡°...Those fairies are getting more and more skilled at writing attention-grabbing headlines. They even invited me to write a review for them, getting my name involved.¡±


    The undead army in Bardi had finally been stopped in their tracks. Bardi¡¯s dragon allies had finally intervened, along with another Bardi ¡°ally¡±, the Mage Country.


    ¡°...You even wrote, ¡®The Truth Symposium was beaten really badly by the Undead Emperors.¡¯ You dared to write such a thing? The old artifacts in the Cloud Tower are probably enraged by this. They¡¯re quite difficult to deal with.¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous! I¡¯m not stupid enough to write such a thing! All I said was, ¡®If you look at both sides¡¯ estimatedbat strength, the Truth Symposium members¡¯ individual strength is slightly weaker than the Undead Emperors¡¯.¡¯ Yet, the fairies changed my words into ¡®Emperor Yongye says that the Truth Symposium¡¯s mages are all garbage inbat with 1 in all stats¡¯! Those shameless goblin rtives, they actually twisted my words! Do the fairies want me to get killed by the old artifact mages?¡±


    Thisbat report was about what happened in Bardi. It was indeed mages on both sides of the battle, so the headline was at least partially urate. Since I had the unique status of being a member of the Truth Symposium (nominally) and I was also an Undead Emperor (retired), those fairies brought over a memory crystal to hear me say a few words on the matter. It seemed that their edited version of my review would bring me great trouble.


    ¡°...Are you a newbie? You actually trusted what a reporter told you? Should I help write a letter on your behalf to those artifacts in the Truth Symposium for you? I just want a little bit as a kickback.¡±


    ¡°No need. They¡¯re not idiots. Anyone who actually believes the fairies¡¯ headlines will be a real idiot.¡±


    Since the fairies were well known for being greedy and being everywhere there was money to make, the fairies had recently gained a new nickname, ¡°universal goblins¡±. Still, as fairies were professional information brokers, even if their headlines were rather ridiculous, the content was still quite factual.


    After reading over thebat report, I then thought back to two days ago, when I saw a memory crystal recording of the battlefield.


    The tidal wave Undead Cmity had finally been stopped. The archmages of the Truth Symposium had used a dual-element fire and earth forbidden spell to directly change the terrain in that location, creating a brand-new volcano mountain range there, killing much undead fodder in the process.


    In a way, those old artifacts were indeed keeping up with the times. They all teleported into the battlefield in floating mage towers, and then the forbidden spell archmage remained within the floating mage tower while incanting and waiting for the undead to enter his effective range. This shameless fighting method was foundationally no different from the tactic I used back when I cast Ice Aeon.


    The Undead Emperors had responded with an equally vicious forbidden spell. I didn¡¯t know how they managed to do it, but it was a mega AOE withering spell that had reached the level of a forbidden spell based on its tremendous AOE and killing power. This withering spell had drained all water from all life in its effective area, turning all animals and humans into dried mummies.


    This forbidden spell exchange was only the beginning. The following battle between the Undead Emperors and the mages would be more important. Bardi had invited over three Supreme Immemorial Dragons as well as seven Truth Symposium archmages. It seemed that they wanted a 2:1 advantage in numbers.


    All sorts of spells flew around on the battlefield. All sorts of ancient forbidden spells and secret techniques could be seen. I was unable to recognize most of them. However, I was at least able to tell how both sides were faring.


    I could tell that both sides were only testing the waters in this battle. Neither side had attempted to use their true power. After all, it would be foolish for any mage to go all out from the very start without a good understanding of the enemy¡¯s true powers, aces, and strengths.


    It was as written in thebat report. Between the five Undead Emperors, and Bardi¡¯s ten dragons and archmages, not a single individual died, nor was anyone seriously injured. The end result was just that the entire battlefield became a volcano mountain range, along with some newkes, mines, ice tundras, and so on. Old maps would evidently no longer be usable there.


    Judging from the battle, although neither side showed their true powers, it was evident that the old artifacts from the Truth Symposium were slightly losing. By the way, even Harloys¡¯ and Margaret¡¯s teachers had been among them. They were all old artifacts that even I wouldn¡¯t dare to antagonize.


    I casually tossed aside the newspaper. This was only the beginning. Both sides would be battling again. The mages would only bring out their ultimate trump cards after finding out the Undead Emperors¡¯ aces. Rather thanparing both sides¡¯bat strength, it would be more important to wonder about the will to fight on both sides.


    ¡°Have the sly old foxes from the Truth Symposium truly risked their lives for the sake of another country? The Undead Emperors are probably also testing to see how the mortal ne will react. This will still take quite a while.¡±


    Just as I was thinking such things, a sudden voice interrupted my thoughts. This announcement made me really want to run away immediately.


    ¡°...Her Majesty Glina from the Sleuweir Kingdom has arrived...¡±

 Chapter 663 - Adopted Daughter

    <h4>Chapter 663: Adopted Daughter</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Her Majesty Glina Caso has arrived!¡±


    ¡°Damn it, why wasn¡¯t I notified beforehand!?¡±


    While everyone else around me was still celebrating, I was doing my very best to find an escape route. I then understood from the evil smiles of Reyne and the other Mist Kingdom government officials that they had set up this pitfall for me.


    I had no idea why I wanted to run. However, I felt a mysterious sense of panic, that if I didn¡¯t run, I would truly be in major trouble.


    ¡°Do you need to be in such a panic? You simply didn¡¯t give her any living expenses for the past eight years. Although you¡¯re aplete failure as a father, you¡¯re a failure in so many other areas as well. Do you really need to mind it so much?¡± Harloysmented.


    I had a sudden realization. So that was what it was! Back in the day, to make things more convenient, I had officially adopted Glina as my daughter, and even changed out her entire bloodline to be mine. So legally, and by blood, she was now my daughter. But, I had been absent for the past eight years, and hadn¡¯t given her any spending money at all. So that was why I was feeling guilty!


    After thinking of this, I felt much calmer. I put on a smile as I faced the door.


    ¡°It¡¯s been eight years. She was a teenager back then, so she must be in her early twenties now. Women always change after reaching adult age. Perhaps she¡¯s now be a mature beauty!¡±


    However, reality would always be quite cruel.


    *Boom!*


    A gray mecha which appeared to be pure steel stepped into the hall, leaving faint cracks where its feet trod.


    My smile froze on my face as I had an ominous premonition.


    The next second, my ominous premonition became real.


    This gigantic mecha was more than three meters tall. Its body shape and the power pack on its back along with its powerful energy made me think of the Mage Country¡¯s adamantite puppets.


    When the mecha saw me, two light bulbs on its head lit up as if it was a vulture staring at its prey, or as if it was a demon from the Chaos Abyss.


    The mecha opened up its metal arms, pouncing towards me. There were loud shattering sounds as small rocks were kicked up everywhere, and the ground trembled as if there was an earthquake. The floor was pitifully cracked everywhere that the mecha passed by.


    It felt as if a tornado was approaching me with all the small rocks flying around so quickly. Or, perhaps I should say it seemed like a speeding train about to crash into me.


    I wanted to hide, and was already preparing to run when a familiar voice from the mecha¡¯s helmet stopped me in my tracks.


    ¡°Dad, I really missed you!¡±


    A youthful female voice came from the head of that steel giant. Her voice caused me to stop as I recalled how I had simply left without even saying a single word eight years ago. She still recognized me as her ¡°father¡± despite that? I felt a mysterious sense of guilt wash over me. So this was her way of expressing how she missed me? This was simply a moving reunion between father and daughter!


    ¡®I must behave like a proper adult here.¡¯


    I stood up and smiled as I opened up my arms to meet my daughter¡¯s embrace, and then...


    ...felt a powerful force m into me as I heard the sound of bones snapping. Judging from the pain, I had more than 10 broken bones. My pain soon left me as I fell unconscious. My final thoughts were, ¡®Ah, so it really was adamantite after all, not steel. This definitely looks and feels like adamantite. Daughter of mine, you¡¯ve be so heavy. Eh? That little girl waving her hand at me from the door looks so familiar. She, she really looks like Glina! Damn it, I fell into another pitfall! So it really was a pure adamantite puppet that crashed into me!¡¯


    At this time, I was still trying my best to remain conscious, although I really would have preferred to fall unconscious. That was because I saw that plumes of ck smoke were rising from this gigantic adamantite puppet¡¯s head. Judging from typical developments, next up would be...


    *Boom!*


    ording to what Iter heard, even people outside the royal pce heard a tremendous explosioning from the pce.


    ¡°Ahh, how familiar it feels to be stuck beneath white ceiling again.¡±


    When I opened up my eyes after waking up, that was the firstment I had. Of course I was familiar with the white ceiling and the scent of medicine. Recently, the royal infirmary had basically been my home.


    ¡°I need to rify that I didn¡¯t do thest one on purpose!¡±


    ¡°So, it¡¯s just a typical out-of-control self-destruction as always, and you mean that everything before that was on purpose?¡±


    I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. I recalled how I had abandoned Reyne and Glina, creating Hell without their knowledge, and even intentionally kept them out of the loop for everything I was doing, all in order to avoid information leaking to Karwenz. The guilt I felt from doing this made it impossible for me to be angry.


    However, when I looked in the direction Glina¡¯s voice came from, I was shocked to my core.


    ¡°You, you, you, how is this possible, you?!¡±


    Don¡¯t misunderstand, I wasn¡¯t surprised by her change into a mature adult woman, but rather...


    ¡°Why haven¡¯t you changed at all!¡±


    Glina had a familiar childish appearance, familiar short blonde hair, and an equally familiar eyepatch on her right eye. The only new thing about her was that her eyepatch now had a bear drawn on it.


    Glina angrily red at me when she heard my words. If I really had to say what was different, Glina now seemed far more humanlikepared to the emotionless ice doll she¡¯d been before.


    Back when Glina was only 12 years old, her sealed demon bloodline had affected her physical appearance, but now that she was in her twenties, she still looked exactly the same as eight years ago.


    ¡°I should be asking you just what blood you put into me back then!¡±


    I paused upon hearing this, then started breaking out into a cold sweat. Reyne had abandoned the idea of changing out her bloodline as she started cultivating the path of Chaos, but I had given Glina my own blood to rece the demon bloodline within her. So, in a way, she now had a slightly weaker version of my Double Diamond bloodline.


    Now, Glina hadn¡¯t changed in physical appearance one bit over the past eight years, which meant for me that...


    ¡°System, tell me the truth! Just how many years will it take this bloodline of mine to reach adult age?¡±


    This bloodline was the very essence of Order and Chaosbined, a miracle product that waspletely unique in the world. Not a single person in the past or present, apart from Glina and myself, would have this bloodline.


    [I¡¯m sorry, the phone number you have dialed is currently unavable. Please try againter.]


    My System was even pretending to be an unavable cell phone number? I really didn¡¯t know what to say to this irresponsible System of mine anymore. When I looked again at how young Glina still appeared to be, I suddenly felt that even eating the 500 years¡¯ worth additional age of Dusk Fruits I had saved up wouldn¡¯t be enough to help me reach adult age.


    Although it was rather fresh to see Glina with an expression of such dissatisfaction, I also felt such a headache about this legal loli.


    ¡°Even if she can somehow get married sessfully, her husband will probably be viewed by everyone as an extreme pervert. So, the issue of a sessor for the Sleuweir Kingdom...¡±


    No wonder why I had never heard any scandalous rumors about Glina in the past eight years. It would sound criminal for there to be any rumors about such a queen.


    I figured that the retainers of the Sleuweir Kingdom were probably in despair about ever having a royal descendant. With Glina¡¯s physical body, even if she got married, it would probably be impossible for her to have children for several centuries toe.


    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that. You¡¯re just like those annoying, naggy retainers of mine. Must women have children? I never thought that Dad would also be so ridiculously old-fashioned.¡±


    Little Glina was pouting with a dissatisfied expression, just like a teenaged girl who was dissatisfied with her father¡¯s arrangements. Was this a bted rebellious period? When Glina said those words, the silly cat froze in surprise, and even fell off the bed.


    This was a feudal, male-dominated generation. People here indeed felt that the most important role for a woman was to have children. It wouldn¡¯t be simple for Glina to be able to say what she did out loud.


    I took a deep breath. If she didn¡¯t want to have children, then that was fine with me. I owed freedom of choice in that matter to her. As her adopted father, I would help her with this matter! Although, I felt like it would sound awkward. Was there something wrong with what I was about to say?


    ¡°Rx, as your adopted father, I¡¯ll support you. You don¡¯t have to have children if you don¡¯t want to. I¡¯ll help you have children! Don¡¯t misunderstand, what I mean is, I¡¯ll go talk to the wood spirits as they have biological reproduction techniques that can create descendants without the need for marriage!¡±


    *Smack!*


    Upon hearing this, Glina paused in surprise, and the silly cat fell off the bed again even though she had just jumped up. Both of them were looking at me with astonished expressions.


    ¡°What, isn¡¯t this a good idea? We can even artificially create backup limbs for you with the wood spirits¡¯ technology, as well as create a gic descendant for you without needing marriage. It¡¯s technologically possible now!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not a matter of technology. It¡¯s a matter of morals. There must be something wrong with your head!¡±


    ¡°Haha, I feel reassured now. As expected, you¡¯re still the same Rnd as before.¡±


    Meanwhile, Glina recovered her senses and covered her mouth while giggling. I didn¡¯t know what she was thinking behind that bright smile of hers. She was the smartest engineer in the Nortnds, after all.


    However, I suddenly felt a chill rise up my spine. I was quite familiar with this sensation. It typically meant that I had mysteriously fallen into yet another pitfall.

 Chapter 664 - Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance

    <h4>Chapter 664: Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Glina was also incredibly busy as the ruler of a kingdom. However, while Reyne was rather na?ve in some areas, Glina was quite brilliant all around since she had experienced the coldness of the world ever since young.


    To be more specific, Glina had sessfully established a retinue of excellent government and military officials who were capable enough that Glina didn¡¯t have to personally take care of everything... Of course, Glina mostly set up such a skilled retinue so that she could make more time for her personal engineering research. Apparently, she had indeed made significant progress over the past few years. Nortnds explosives engineer Glina Caso was now one of the most famous explosives experts in the entire world. In a way, Glina was more like me with how she preferred to use her brain and her own hands, while Reyne was more like a certain monkey who had muscles for brains.


    Still, perhaps it was always the stupider child that would cause more trouble, thus also receiving more care and attention from the worrying parent. Looking back, I¡¯d indeed worried about Reyne far more than Glina. I always felt like Glina was someone I didn¡¯t need to worry about, but I always ignored her emotional needs. With so many years of separation, I also ignored my duties as a father, which gave me a heartache...


    ¡°...Um, Glina, I don¡¯t mind that you¡¯re pretending to narrate for me, and I alsopletely agree that Karwenz is a monkey with muscles for brains, but just look over there. The other monkey is about to explode...¡±


    Glina¡ªwho had been right by my side, pretending to narrate for me¡ªturned around, only to see that Reyne was smiling while unsheathing her sword. It seemed that Reyne had decided to properly deal with this older sister of hers that she hadn¡¯t seen in so long.


    Indeed, Glina was the older sister. I had almost forgotten due to Glina¡¯s young appearance, but she was actually one and a half years older than Reyne!


    Then, the seemingly young Glina started running instantly, making funny faces as she ran.


    ¡°...Come catch me, monkey sister! Show off your muscles in front of my adopted father!¡±


    ¡°As you wish!¡±


    Oh my? Sword energy? Even Reyne had be a Sword Saint? She was chasing down her own sister with sword energy? This really was such a familiar scene.


    I could only exim as I watched sword energy and explosions appear everywhere. These sisters that instantly started fighting each other when they saw each other for a holiday were so close to each other! I couldn¡¯t help but recall the past¡ªwhen my entire family would finally get together over a holiday, I also toyed with my monkey of a brother like this, but the result was that I was always beaten up in the end... Cough, ahem, time was valuable, so I should probably stop discussing my dark history.


    Still, Glina wasn¡¯t just making everything she said up. As a queen, she was indeed quite busy, especially with all the reports that would be necessary at the year¡¯s end. There would be no end to all the administrative work.


    The end of the year meant calcting and reassigning money for different departments for the next year. This would be more than enough for plenty of political infighting, with meetingssting more than ten days. It would be impossible to take a military airship and leave the Sleuweir Kingdom without an excellent excuse.


    Did my return not count? It really didn¡¯t, as I had a rather special status in the Mist Alliance. I had no official position, and technically didn¡¯t even exist as a member of the government here. However, it was doubtful that a single person would believe anyone who said I had zero influence in the Mist Alliance and Mist Kingdom.


    And so, I became ¡°that person¡±, the person that everyone in the Mist Alliance knew about, but one who wasn¡¯t supposed to exist on paper. I became an invisible person that nobody would address directly by name.


    This time, the official reason that Glina came here for was to discuss a major matter regarding the Mist Alliance, something major enough to get her out of all the countless administrative year-end tasks... This was why I felt like Glina was simr to me as both of us were skilled at finding great excuses to ck off... Erm, I meant that both of us were skilled at dealing with personal matters while also taking care of official matters!


    ¡°...Is there a difference?¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous, of course there¡¯s a difference. Not only does cking off sound bad, people will want a reckoning with you afterwards. If you ck off by using some official matter as an excuse instead, you can even request governmental funds to be paid backter. It¡¯s so awesome to use official funds to purchase old artifacts and books that you want! It¡¯s so fun to spend others¡¯ money as it won¡¯t hurt at all! There won¡¯t be any need to hesitate on buying what you want! Harloys, you¡¯re already rich, so of course you don¡¯t understand such joys... Eh? That didn¡¯t sound like Harloys¡¯ voice? K... Kelly?¡±


    I turned around and really wanted to p myself. Indeed, in front of me right now was the main administrator of the Mist Kingdom royalty, chief financial officer Kelly, whom I had been requesting funds from all these years!


    Kelly the wood elf was wearing beautiful clothes today. She was also smiling quite sweetly, yet I only felt a chill run down my spine.


    ¡°Oh, it seems that I should reconsider His Highness Rnd¡¯s spending money for next year. I feel that giving him only 10% ofst year¡¯s money should be good enough.¡±


    Kelly left as she talked to herself with a smile. As the #1 administrator of the Mist Kingdom, she was quite busy right now with all the year-end party preparations. This time, she made up her mind to give the prince she had spoiled too much a good lesson. No matter what excuses he came up with, she wouldn¡¯t be giving him any spending money whatsoever.


    Now my mood worsened. Since it was the end of the year, I had been hoping to obtain some extra money so that my life would be more enjoyable next year. It would seem that I needed to scam... er, obtain some more money elsewhere!


    Of course I was quite poor now. Anyone who didn¡¯t work would always be poor eventually even if they had a gold mountain. My wealth from my time as Yongye had all been given over to Annie and the others. I had barely taken any money for myself on my journey.


    I never cared too much about money to begin with. I could down a ss of wine which cost several thousand gold coins in a single gulp, and I was also fine with drinking beer that only cost two copper coins. I was also the type who was unrestrained when spending money, and I was toozy to work as an adventurer to make more gold coins. Whenever I did have money, I would typically spend it all within a month. Moreover, although I had many treasures, I wasn¡¯t willing to part with any of them, and even if I tried to sell my treasures, it was unlikely that many people would dare to purchase them.


    Actually, free adventurers who weren¡¯t a part of any faction were all like this. If they weren¡¯t hardworking but also were unwilling to resort to robbery, they would definitely be quite poor. I had been penniless back when I returned to the surface, which was why I had shamelessly asked Kelly for money each year...


    ¡°Father, you should just go get married to some rich woman. That way, you won¡¯t need to worry about breakfast every day.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, tsk, tsk, don¡¯t be so ridiculous. Do I look like the type who needs a sugar mama?¡±


    Although I said that, I indeed instantly thought of two women. Amelia, the Goddess of the wood spirits, and Harloys, the Elven Empress... They were the big bosses of their respective species, which meant that they were quite rich, right? If I got married to one of them, I would be able to ck off for the entire rest of my life? I swore that such a thought only entered my mind for an instant before I instantly shook it off!


    ¡°...Such ack of motivation. I definitely won¡¯t keep a useless handsome boy around...¡± the silly cat said,menting at such a critical moment as always. My face instantly flushed red out of embarrassment, and I was angered to the point where I picked her up and instantly threw her out the window!


    ¡°It¡¯s wintertime! As a cat, you should go capture some mice for me to store as winter rations... Right, Glina, since you¡¯re here, you must have new information about the application to join the Mist Alliance?¡±


    What, you¡¯re saying that I was quite forcefully changing the topic? Cough, cough, I felt that it was time to get on track and discuss serious international business, that was all!


    The purported reason for Glina¡¯s arrival was a discussion of international affairs. Something serious enough to require the two biggest leaders of the Mist Alliance to meet would naturally be the previous application to join the Mist Alliance.


    The Mist Alliance¡¯s spies and diplomats had been insanely busy over the past few days. Still, their hard work bore fruit, and we did obtain truly useful information.


    The Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom were sincere in wanting to join the Mist Alliance. Their leaders, Archduke Klein and King Vincent, had prepared themselves to give up part of their royal authority. Since they hade to such a decision, there was no reason for them to hide why they wanted to join the Mist Alliance.


    ¡°The Stanley Theocracy? The Holy Church yet again, sheesh...¡±


    The Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom had voluntarily given us the most convincing information they had on why they wanted to join us. The reason why they were willing to give up part of their royal authority in order to join us was because there was something worse waiting for them if they didn¡¯t.


    ¡°The Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance? Damn it, will the Holy Church ever stop causing trouble?¡±


    ¡°...You should first remember just how many incarnations of the God of Holy Light that you¡¯ve killed already. He¡¯s probably never suffered so many losses in recent years.¡±


    The silly cat suddenly jumped out of some corner again with a serious expression, and she discussed international affairs with me just as if the earlier awkwardness hadn¡¯t happened at all.


    With this information, the Holy Church¡¯s clumsy scheme wasid before us.


    A small country in the north, the Stanley Theocracy, hade up with the idea to establish a ¡°Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance¡±. The main idea was to establish a northern alliance of countries, simr to the Mist Alliance, who all worshipped the teachings of the God of Holy Light. The goal of this scheme was to seal in the entire Mist Allliance.


    The members of this new alliance would be the countries all around the south of the Mist Alliance. As long as this new alliance was truly established, it was indeed true that the Mist Alliance would be blockaded in the corner of the north.


    Although the Stanley Theocracy had less than 20% the national power of the Feldis Kingdom, it was obvious that the Stanley Theocracy would be the core leader of this new alliance. It was equally obvious that the Holy Church would be pulling the strings behind the Stanley Theocracy. In fact, two high-level Holy Knight groups and a cardinal had also been sent to the Stanley Theocracy.


    However, it was quite evident to the other countries that it was a huge pitfall. Joining the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance would meanpletely antagonizing the Mist Alliance, along with bing cannon fodder for the Holy Church. Plus, recent developments had already proved that the cardinals, who were experts at political infighting, were absolute idiots regarding warfare. They only focused on obtaining more personal benefits for themselves. Future prospects for any country which joined such an alliance under the militarymand of the cardinals were unimaginably dire.


    The Holy Church had already issued formal letters to each northern human country¡¯s royalty, requesting them to join the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance. These small northern human countries had never received so much attention from the God of Holy Light before. Basically, this meant that they could no longer remain neutral. They would have to make a choice between the Mist Alliance and the Holy Church.


    And so, the Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom chose to join us instead of the Holy Church...


    ¡°What are those idiots of the Holy Church thinking? They want to be on guard against the Mist Alliance? But we¡¯re supposed to be allies right now?¡±


    I was rather astonished and angry, but I felt even more pitiful helplessness. I felt like I had already been expecting something like this from the bottom of my heart.


    ¡°Cough, you just attacked your ally the God of Holy Light with an Ice Aeon forbidden spell recently... Don¡¯t be so surprised, don¡¯t you realize at all? For certain powerful existences of the Order Faction, they don¡¯t view the Hell Faction as any different from the Chaos Faction. Rather than an enemy that they¡¯ve fought so long and know so much about, wouldn¡¯t they think that it¡¯s more important to be on guard against ¡®their own juniors¡¯ that are about to surpass them?¡±

 Chapter 665 - Fracture

    <h4>Chapter 665: Fracture</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Holy Church had recently just received a major setback in San Antonio facing the Chaos Abyss. The Holy Knights and low-level angels had suffered severe losses due to the return of the Great Demon Empire and the demon army. Although the physical losses could be made up for, it would be far more difficult for the Holy Church to recover its reputation.


    Not only that, the Nortnds, a part of the Hell Faction, just had a glorious victory, which would make the Holy Church seem like even more of a loser... Indeed, the people of Eich viewed the result of what happened when fighting against Donatis and the demon wave as a victory. As for the death of all the Elven Gods? That was something destined the moment that the demon wave chose its first location to descend upon.


    Everyone had been watching the results of these battles. The Holy Church suffered major losses and was absolutely crushed in their battle, while we obtained plentiful results, saved the elf species, and even transferred the Elven Empire into the Nortnds. With such aparison, it was only natural that the Holy Church¡¯s reputation took a severe blow.


    For some people, when they suffered a loss in battle that came with a loss of face, rather than thinking of how they could regain face, they would instead think about how to strike a blow at their allies and subordinates in order to prevent others from rebelling against them due to loss of authority...


    The rise of the Southern Sect and the fact that the God of Holy Light had been impeded multiple times had all contributed to the constant diminishing of the Holy Church¡¯s reputation all around the world. In fact, the power of belief they were receiving had noticeably decreased as well. This was something that could shake even the foundation of the Holy Church. That was why certain factions within the Holy Church felt that the individual behind the Hell Faction was even more loathsome and dangerous than the Chaos Faction.


    Although it was understandable that they wanted to have a solid internal alliance first before dealing with enemies, the attempt to establish the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance was the Holy Church¡¯s way of testing us. If we didn¡¯t respond well, their new alliance would be greatly effective at perhaps even truly exiling us, cutting us ¡°barbarians¡± off from the maind continent entirely.


    As long as the Holy Church sessfully sealed us in, the Mist Alliance wouldnd in a worse strategic situation. If we wanted to go south at all, we would need to break through the blockade, and give the cardinals an excellent excuse to dere the Nortnders as ¡°those who would attack their allies when everyone needed to be united¡±. Additionally, if we were truly sealed in, there would be even more benefits to the Holy Church than there appeared to be on paper.


    The Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance¡¯s threat to the Nortnds was mostly because the Nortnds was still incapable of achieving self-sufficiency. We still needed to trade with other countries for food, munitions, weapons, equipment, clothing, wood, and all sorts of other resources. If all these trade routes were cut off, it would have a tremendous negative influence on us. Not only that, the elves were currently on their way to the Nortnds. If the elven caravan was prevented from reaching us... I would never underestimate theck of boundaries for the Holy Church. With thebination of their greedy Gods and fanatics, they werepletely capable of making even the most immoral actions sound righteous. They were definitely the type to dere every ordinary merchant on their way to trade with us as a demon worshipper and kill them all off. So, if the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance was sessfully established, we would indeed bepletely cut off from the maind.


    Not only would our troops be unable to proceed south if we wanted to send reinforcements to one of our allies, even our aerial forces would be blockaded by angel armies. The Holy Church was trying to strategically iste the entire Mist Alliance, and if the Mist Alliance tried to force its way through the blockade and go south, then we would be given the tarnished reputation of invaders who attacked their allies.


    In a way, at least on paper, this scheme indeed seemed quite vicious and sly, but in my opinion...


    ¡°Is the person who nned this scheme aplete idiot? The schemer really thinks that all the other countries are idiots who are willing to be used as chess pieces? Who would fall for such an obvious method to make others cannon fodder?¡±


    I was truly astonished. This was basically forcing the small northern countries south of the Mist Alliance¡¯s border to choose between the Mist Alliance and the Holy Church. Just why was the Holy Church so confident that everyone would choose them? Even a dragon would have to respect the local authority. Even though the Holy Church still had a strong foundation, their strength was in the maind continent. Here in the north, the Mist Alliance was still far more influential.


    ¡°...No, they¡¯re not idiots. They just haven¡¯t woken up from all their past years of glory yet. They still think that it¡¯s just like 10 years ago, when the Holy Church could dere anything they wanted in thend, and royal authority would always submit to church authority. In their eyes, everything theymand will be followed, and the northern barbarian human kingdoms should be grateful for this opportunity to lick their shoes and join their alliance.¡±


    Glina¡¯s words were quite vicious, but they were indeed the truth. Whoever made this scheme at the Holy Church probably felt that bringing a powerful army to the north¡ªalong with their advantage in having more belief in thend¡ªwould easily make these tiny northern countries submit.


    ¡°But, isn¡¯t the Holy Church already seeding with their scheme? There¡¯s a total of 12 countries on our southern border, and the Holy Church invited all of them to join the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance. Yet, the other 10 countries haven¡¯t mentioned anything to us? Doesn¡¯t this mean that the Holy Church has almost fully seeded?¡±


    Reyne¡¯s words caused everyone else to shake their heads. She was the type who could only see what was on the surface if nobody assisted her. She wouldn¡¯t know that someone had fooled her until it hit her in the face.


    Once again, I confirmed that I needed to arrange for an expert politician to stay by Reyne¡¯s side. Thankfully, her new concubine Avi would likely be able to fill that role. At this moment, Avi was secretly tugging on her wife Reyne¡¯s sleeve, indicating that Reyne shouldn¡¯t just bber whatever she thought, while also giving an analysis that was likely true.


    ¡°No, the other 10 countries are waiting right now. They¡¯re waiting for us to make an offer to them and respond to the first two countries which applied to join us as those two are testing the waters. They¡¯re waiting for us to have a ¡®showdown¡¯ against the Holy Church.¡±


    Courage would be needed in order to be decisive. No matter when and where, it would be mostmon for people to simply join whichever faction seemed stronger to them. Moreover, if those small countries were forced too far, it would be equivalent to pushing them over to the other side.


    Now, I truly felt a headache. The situation was different now. If those two countries had simply wanted to join our Mist Alliance for the sake of improving their defenses, we could have rejected them with any sort of excuse. However, if we rejected them now, that would mean pushing a previously neutral country into the arms of the Holy Church.


    If we agreed to let those two countries join our Mist Alliance, this would definitely be good for our long-term development. We would obtain a fertile territory withrge food production, something we direlycked. Yet, having them join us would be absolutely catastrophic for our defense lines, which would be greatly lengthened in the south, and we would have to abandon the natural obstacles in the Nortnds and instead try and defend open ins. That would be such a tremendous strategic loss.


    Perhaps it was just a coincidence, or perhaps it was all part of their plot. At the very least, the Holy Church¡¯s scheme was indeed giving us a difficult time.


    We were currently in the conference hall of the Mist Kingdom royal pce. Everyone present at this meeting was ranking very high in the Mist Kingdom, but when I mentioned the problems at hand, along with the potential negative influence on the Nortnds¡¯ defense lines, not a single person responded.


    I even handed out my prepared information and documents to everyone to make myself more convincing. For the next 30 minutes, not a single word was spoken in the conference hall as everyone read the documents.


    They all had strange expressions after they finally digested all the information. Basically, their expressions said, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say so earlier?¡±, ¡°Why are you so good at digging pitfalls for us?¡±, ¡°Why do you have such ack of trust in our allies?¡±, ¡°Why do you have no confidence in our defenses?¡± and so on. Yet, they all frowned at the difficult problem I ced before them.


    Afterward, time passed by with zero progress made. Some wanted to ept the two countries as new allies, but others asked them what to do about the defense lines. Some said to directly reject the two countries, but then they would immediately be asked what to do about potentially being sealed in.


    One individual even wanted to scam the two countries, saying to first ept them and then change our minds afterwards. That idiot was instantly kicked out of the conference. It wasn¡¯t easy in this day and age to obtain good reputation. It would be far too much of a waste to tarnish our good reputation for so little.


    In the end, I could only helplessly shake my head.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s just stall for time first.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t something that could be rushed. We needed more time to gather our opinions and think of a n. The small northern countries would also need time as well. But right now, it was still absolutely necessary to maintain a good rtionship with the northern countries.


    Most people had now left the conference, but I was still thinking.


    Was there truly no method? Of course not. I had plenty of schemes up my sleeve. I had alreadye up with a scheme that would push my enemies into a pitfall for 10 years before they noticed. However, right now something to stabilize the situation was more important than a scheme. While scheming against others was easy, cleaning up wouldn¡¯t be so simple. Rather than the current trouble, I ced more importance on how the Holy Church and other Order Faction members were viewing us with more hostility.


    In fact, this hostility wasn¡¯t even limited to only the God of Holy Light¡¯s faction. Even the more neutral Nature Faction and Dwarven Gods had distanced themselves from us over the past years. Not only were they not as friendly as eight years ago, their vignce and defensiveness against us was bing more apparent every day.


    ¡°...We¡¯ve made too much progress.¡±


    I knew why all of this was like that. It wasn¡¯t that we hadn¡¯t done well. It was that we had done far too well.


    For Gods who ascended through the power of belief, poption would be an important resource. Since people were a resource, this naturally meant that if someone gained more of this resource, others would have less of it.


    Previously, the more neutral factions had a good rtionship with us because our ideals and characters were simr, but even more so because we had a mutual enemy. Within the Order Faction, we all needed to resist against the overwhelming power of the Holy Light Faction, and we also had a shared mutual mortal enemy in the Chaos Faction.


    But now, the Hell Gods had been established as a new faction less than 10 years ago, but we were already overwhelming other Gods¡¯ factions. Not only did our sessive achievements and victories give significant pressure to the Holy Light Faction, even the neutral factions were having difficulty epting this. Also, the fact that we were no longer a part of the Order Faction also worried the more neutral members of the Order Faction.


    Plus, the Elven Gods had all indirectly died because of me recently. I refused to believe that the other Gods¡¯ factions wouldn¡¯t have any thoughts about this.


    Anyone who was too attention-catching would attract jealousy. Only those who were average or ipetent wouldn¡¯t attract hatred. Although this sounded easy, attracting far too much attention and making the entire world your enemy would be incredibly foolish.


    These were the unwritten rules of the many Gods¡¯ factions within the Order Faction. The Order Faction members had always warred against each other indirectly, without any direct fights. Basically, the power struggles of the Order Faction weren¡¯t allowed to reach the point where blood was shed, but anything else would be permitted. As long as some God¡¯s faction became too powerful, it was only natural that the other factions would team up to resist that faction. It was just that I didn¡¯t think that this would happen so quickly to us.


    I hoped that I was wrong, and that this trouble was simply from the Holy Church alone. However, my spies had given me information that the Nature Faction had been quite close to the Holy Churchtely, which made me think more about things.


    ¡°...The Goddesses of Joy and Laughter? Sigh, it¡¯s all Amelia¡¯s fault...¡±


    This time, I really wasn¡¯t just cing the me randomly. It was more than 70% Amelia¡¯s fault that the Nature Faction was bing ever more distant from us.


    The wood spirits had been born with far more authority over nature than the ancient children of nature. Meanwhile, the wood spirits and Amelia had been highly active over the past eight years. They helped to massively expand the authority of the Hell Faction. The wood spirits had also shown powers over nature, life, and nts that far exceeded the divine miracles of the Nature Faction.


    Some things would be quite difficult to exin, especially when it came to Divine Concepts...


    ¡°You im to be the Lord of Ancient Trees? The King of Treants? But, the wood spirits¡¯ mother tree is several times taller than any of your trees.¡±


    ¡°You call yourself the Guardian of Life? Are you capable of reattaching an entire limb that was cut off? What, you¡¯re saying that you need sacrifices and donations? You must first achieve incredible things for your True God? You must be a False God! The wood spirits simply require a payment of some Justice Points in order to construct an entire new limb for you!¡±


    Such things were far toomon now. I could definitely understand the frustrations of the Nature Faction. I also knew that the Nature Faction had shown friendly intentions towards Amelia, sending her a God Envoy to invite her to take a Nature Faction Divine Concept and be a Nature God in addition to being part of the Hell Faction.


    Actually, there wouldn¡¯t have been anything wrong with nominally being a part of the Nature Faction, but...


    ¡°This is Amelia, that insane witch...¡±


    Not only did she kick out the God Envoy sent to invite her, her response was now famous in the entire world. The three difficult tasks she proimed were proving the uselessness of the Nature Gods even today. Every time that someone mentioned this, it would be a p in the face to the Nature Faction.


    ¡°You want me to be a Nature God? Haha, as long as any of you are capable of achieving three things that I already can, I¡¯ll happily join the Nature Faction!¡±


    The first difficult task: the secret of life. Have someone with a nt body be capable of giving birth to sentient life. This waspletely impossible for any of the Nature Gods as it was far beyond their Divine Concepts.


    The second difficult task: the secret of nature. Have an apple tree bloom, flower, produce fruit, and expand into a forest from the fruit¡¯s seeds in a single day... While some Nature Gods were indeed capable of such a feat, such forceful hastening of the natural order was a major taboo for the Nature Gods as it broke the naturalws of nature.


    The third difficult task: the secret of souls. Have the souls of any nature species obtain true eternity within a forest. (The wood spirits were truly indestructible while within the Forest of Dreams. While it was possible for their physical bodies to perish, their souls would be reborn.) This was evidently breaking the Cycle of Reincarnation. Even the Nature Gods capable of it wouldn¡¯t dare to do so.


    These three difficult tasks were the best evidence of Amelia and the wood spirits¡¯ power. However, they also became the greatest humiliation to the Nature Faction. In fact, many arch druids were doing their very best to research methods toplete these three difficult tasks without breaking any of the Nature Faction¡¯s taboos even now.


    Alright, so this was basically a direct and vicious p in the face to the Nature Faction. The Nature Faction was already paying respect to the Hell Faction by not listing Amelia as a mortal enemy. For the Gods, it was often that their face would equal reputation, and thus power of belief. Concrete benefits and power would be involved.


    Numerous nature priests and druids had also betrayed the Nature Faction to join Amelia¡¯s side over the years, which further increased the Nature Faction¡¯s grudge against her. This grudge naturally expanded to affect the Nature Faction¡¯s view of the entire Hell Faction.


    I felt a headache as I thought of Amelia whose temper was bing ever stranger. Although it sounded amazing to be someone who was public enemy #1, in real life that would be the equivalent of people trying to swarm and kill you everywhere you went. I definitely didn¡¯t want such a development.


    ¡°Perhaps it¡¯s time for us to ¡®suffer some losses.¡¯ Rather than constantly having everything go well, which will only end in everyone teaming up against us, it might not be a bad thing for us to appear to receive an impact and suffer some losses... But, it won¡¯t be that easy to take anything from me, Rnd. They¡¯d better be careful not to actually lose more than what they obtain.¡±


    Aftering up with the general n, the specifics became much easier. I took out pen and paper, and started creating my first new scheme... er, I meant n for the next year.

 Chapter 666 - Winter Hunt

    <h4>Chapter 666: Winter Hunt</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    With the arrival of the new year, it would also be time for the winter hunts. The Mist Kingdom royalty and government was incredibly busy with so many things all together.


    Winter hunts were alsomon in other countries in Eich. The cold winters meant that starving beasts would be more aggressive and attack humans more often. The cold weather also meant that nobles couldn¡¯t enjoy other types of entertainment, which was why the nobles thought of the idea of winter hunts in their boredom.


    The nobles would ride their tall horses and bring along retinues of fully armed knights, chasing down the pitiful starving and homeless beasts with the aid of their hunting hounds, cutting off the beasts¡¯ heads to parade with as trophies, and decorating their rooms with the beasts¡¯ furs. Sigh, those pitiful animals met such a terrible end just because they wanted to find some food for their children. Humans were so cruel...


    ¡°...Glina, if you keep pretending to narrate for me, I¡¯m going to kick you back to Sleuweir! Also, our winter hunts arepletely different from winter hunts in other countries. How are the beasts and magical beasts here pitiful at all? They¡¯re all carnivores who will eat humans!¡±


    I felt rather helpless now. While it was indeed good that Glina was more human than the porcin doll she¡¯d been before as her previous emotionless behavior was due to the psychological trauma she received while young, she was now sometimes a little too lively. Even I was unable to take how she loved to spout rubbish with such a serious expression. I was even beginning to pity Sleuweir¡¯s government officials. They probably suffered greatly under the rule of such a queen.


    Upon hearing my threat to kick her back, the seemingly young queen expressionlessly pped the butt of the gigantic magic puppet she rode on. Another adamantite puppet came out from somewhere unknown (the previous one had died due to its idental self-destruction) and loudly rumbled as she and it went to go hunt down the pitiful beasts she spoke of.


    Naturally, Glina¡¯s retainers couldn¡¯t allow her to go by herself. Several dozen knights hurriedly rushed out of the procession and followed her. The wry smiles on their faces indicated that they were long since used to this, or perhaps they even enjoyed it? Since the delight and respect they showed seemed genuine, I felt that they actually enjoyed this.


    ¡°Winter hunt? Such a memory from long ago.¡±


    Frost was now on the ground. The horses¡¯ hooves made clopping noises on the ground. All exhaled breath instantly became visible white mist. Previous snowfall made the entire sky and ground seem white. There was nothing but endless ice tundra and snow mountains before us. Even though ourrge winter hunt procession contained several thousand people, we still seemed quite insignificant inparison to nature.


    Our procession had left right at dawn. Most of us were knights with steeds. The scouts had set out with the hunting hounds long before us. The aerial knights would likely bring us information on the beast packs¡¯ locations soon.


    Winter hunts in the Nortnds werepletely different from winter hunts in the maind. Others did winter hunts for entertainment, while our winter hunts were for the sake of survival...


    The Nortnds¡¯ environment was incredibly harsh to live in. The harsh environment wasn¡¯t only harsh for humans, as it was equally harsh for wild beasts and magical beasts. As long as the snowfall sealed the mountains, and the beasts were unable to find any more food on the mountains, they would naturally leave the mountains and attack humans inrge numbers.


    Any wild beasts capable of surviving in the Nortnds¡¯ environment had already evolved to the point of being simr in level to magical beasts. Under themand of a pack leader, the wild beasts could even form an unstoppable stampede that could trample any vige or town.


    Countless viges had been destroyed over the past several decades and centuries by wild beast stampedes. In a way, it could even be said that the Nortnds beasts had a tradition ofing out to attack humans whenever they couldn¡¯t find any food to eat in winter. Naturally, this also created a tradition for the Nortnders: when winter arrived, a winter hunt would always be organized in order to decrease the threat as much as possible before it arrived.


    Attack the wild beasts before they gathered enough numbers to form stampedes. Try and y the magical beast pack leaders as much as possible, causing the gathered beasts to scatter. This would reduce, and even potentially eliminate, the threat of beast stampedes.


    History and tradition had both proved that this method was far more effective than waiting for the beast stampede in a fortified castle. Passively defending would only allow the beast stampede to gather unstoppable numbers. If an entire mountain¡¯s worth of magical beasts all gathered together, it would be possible to meet all sorts of high-level creatures. It was already recorded in history that such a beast stampede would be capable of destroying any Nortnds city.


    The majority of countries in the Nortnds thus had a tradition of a winter hunt. However, more than just courage would be required to challenge the wild beasts or a beast stampede. The sly and vicious beasts would be difficult to handle even for a fully armed knight squadron. Anyone who wasn¡¯t strong enough would be volunteering themselves as a free meal to the beasts. In fact, the East Mist Communal Country had given up on winter hunts for quite a long while. This was a decision that had been made in helplessness.


    Back in those years, the people of East Mist had gotten ustomed to bringing their entire families over to major cities like Diffindor when it was winter. They would then hide in wooden shacks while trembling as they listened to the beasts¡¯ roars outside. They could only pray that the beast stampedes would end soon, and that their homes and businesses weren¡¯t damaged too badly.


    It was already lucky for those who made it to the big cities for protection. Every year, countless citizens would be attacked and killed by the beast stampede while on their way to the big cities. East Mist¡¯s knights¡¯s numbers werepletely insufficient to protect everyone.


    Yet, eight years ago, when we returned here, we started reorganizing the winter hunts. Not only was this to eliminate the beasts and obtain more food, but also to raise the people¡¯s morale and give them courage, providing them with a sense of safety again.


    Over the past eight years, East Mist and the entire Mist Alliance had been rising in power on a daily basis. East Mist¡¯s military might¡¯ve even reached the top of the entire Nortnds. There was naturally no more reason to stop the winter hunts.


    And as the winter hunts went on, the scale of the beast stampedes was reduced every year. This meant that the cities and viges faced significantly less pressure. If it was possible again to stop the threat of beast stampedes before they started, the people would no longer have to risk their lives on dangerous journeys to big cities every year.


    Although it seemed like our group of several thousand was ratherrge, this was only the beginning preparations for the winter hunt. Our main task was to investigate the size and location of the beast groups, and to discover the high-level and super powerful magical beasts as quickly as possible. We would defeat any smaller beast groups that we encountered, but any gigantic beast stampedes, which could number in the thousands or even tens of thousands, would be left for the actual army to deal with.


    The winter hunt waspletely different between the Nortnds and the maind. In the warmer central part of Eich, the winter hunt was an entertainment activity for the nobles to show off their military might. It was also an excellent opportunity to flirt with noblewomen. In the Nortnds, on the other hand, the winter hunt was a war, with true battles taking ce. It was the duty and responsibility of every royal to participate in the winter hunt.


    Why hadn¡¯t Glina returned to Sleuweir to organize the winter hunt there, you ask? Actually, since the Nortnds countries had been organizing winter hunts every year now, the beast stampedes¡¯ scale had alreadye under control. The winter hunts were no longer as dangerous as before. Just normal preparations would be sufficient now. It was just that East Mist had been weak for far too long, so the beasts here had even surpassed the number of beasts in all other Nortnds countriesbined. Controlling the beasts here wouldn¡¯t be as simple as rounding up and hunting them all.


    Glina was quite happy. Not only could she tease her younger sister over the holiday, she could even rx herself through participating in the winter hunt. That was why she adamantly refused to return to Sleuweir. I asked her retainers, and learned that everything in Sleuweir was well and stable, so I didn¡¯t forcefully kick her back to Sleuweir.


    All along the way, Glina was as hyperactive as a rabbit as she constantly created trouble for our winter hunt squadron. Still, she had a special status, which meant she had to be treated seriously. But for me...


    ¡°...Honestly, that Kelly. She even said something like ¡®If you want to obtain money from the royal coffers, you should carry out the duty of a prince.¡¯ I¡¯ve already participated in so many winter hunts before, which should be more than enough for my duty. It¡¯s so cold! I just want to sleep under my warm nkets, drink hot cocoa, and ck off...¡±


    We were currently being blown by cold winds while waiting for our scouts to report in. I simply got off my horse to rub my hands together and stomp my feet in an effort to keep warm. Yet, it still felt really cold. I didn¡¯t know what to say as I watched Glina even begin to make a snowman on the side of the road. This all made me feel even more like I wanted to go back and sleep.


    ¡°...That brat has so much energy. So physical age can affect mental age to such a degree...?¡±


    However, I soon realized that I had been under a mistaken impression. The snowman, which was more than three meters tall, soon revealed itself to obviously be the form of a new magical puppet. The little girl great engineer then inserted various objects into the snowman and uttered some mysterious words. The snowman then actually stood up and began to move! It started running, while Glina jumped up and down behind it... And then, the snowman actually started to build an evenrger snowman!


    ¡°Is this the max-level version of how a naughty child builds snowmen...¡±


    Glina, who had now jumped onto the snowman¡¯s shoulder, waved at me when she saw how I was looking in her direction. She was indicating that I shoulde over... But, I was no idiot. I already saw that she ced arge amount of explosives in the snowman! Why would I go over there? I still hadn¡¯t finished enjoying the previous explosion from her adamantite puppet, so was I supposed to go over to enjoy yet another explosion already?


    Wait a moment? This was the third magical puppet that Glina had brought out here, right? Indeed, Glina wrote a #3 on the forehead of the snowman. In that case, #2, the second adamantite puppet that had been Glina¡¯s ride in this procession would obviously have explosives nted in it as well... I reflexively backed away even more from Glina.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t seen Sister Glina so rxed for so long.¡±


    Unlike how everyone else was wrapped in warm clothing, Reyne was wearing ck form-fitting hunting attire that excellently entuated her curves. Suddenly, I noticed that she had already be taller than me!


    Although her hydra skin jacket seemed light, it would have incredible defensive power and cold-resistant properties. The hunting bow she carried made her seem even more handsome and heroic. The Princess Knight was bing ever more mature, but her two concubines kept ring at me because I was standing too close to Reyne...


    Reyne chuckled when she saw how surprised I was at herment.


    ¡°Sister Glina doesn¡¯t normally act like this at all. She¡¯s the pir and chief strategist of the entire Mist Alliance. She always acts so confidently and seriously. Only in front of you can she truly rx and not worry about everything so much, so she can show off traits normal for the age she appears to be.¡±


    I felt slightly guilty after hearing this. I had indeed been too selfish back then, abandoning everything and leaving just like that, tossing the responsibilities of the Mist Alliance onto two girls who had just reached puberty back then. Reyne and Glina had to have gone through much hardship to support the entire Mist Alliance by themselves. I really should make it up to them, so I should probably start by giving them extra spending money...


    ¡°...Glina, it¡¯s fine that you keep pretending to narrate for me as I indeed feel a little guilty, but I truly have no money to give to you two...¡±


    While we joked around, two Aurora Knights appeared in the western sky. Our scouts had returned. In that case, it was now time for serious business.


    However, I then heard shouts of astonishment as one of the Aurora Knights actually fainted on his own steed. The other Aurora Knight was also injured.


    I wouldn¡¯t need to describe just how strong Aurora Knights would be. It would be rare for even a novice knight to be injured like this on a mere recon mission.


    I felt incredibly uneasy at seeing this. It would seem that a certain inference of mine from before had been urate. My luck this time was good as not only was I correct toe here, I even met my target earlier than I¡¯d thought I would.

 Chapter 667 - Shadow

    <h4>Chapter 667: Shadow</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Aurora Knights were the ace troop type of the Nortnds. Back before the Holy War started, they were already the strongest Nortnds knights, all at Gold rank or above. Some even viewed the Aurora Knights as the strongest human knight job ss of all. Even though the Aurora Knights couldn¡¯tpete in numbers or grandiosity with dragon knight squadrons, they would still be one of the strongest avable knight job sses for humans.


    As the Aurora Knights were the aces, of course the militaristic East Mist Communal Country would treat these heroic knights excellently.


    The Aurora Knights didn¡¯t personally need equipment as they were capable of summoning ice as weapons. However, the royalty had custom-made magic metal alloy armor for every single Frigid Nightmare steed. This allowed the Frigid Nightmares to continue wearing armor even after transforming, and with the rise in the Elemental Tide and the influence of the new Ice Elemental ne, the Frigid Nightmares had greatly increased in strength over all, which corresponded with a rise in strength for the Aurora Knights.


    However, the Aurora Knights had the same weakness as dragon knights in that more than 90% of theirbat strength depended on the steed. Rather than calling them knights, it would be more urate to call them tamers... but that wouldn¡¯t change the fact that they were strong.


    To use the previous generation¡¯s standards, these Aurora Knights would be at a level where people would address them as ¡°grandmaster¡±. Many of them were at Legend rank or above in the previous generation¡¯s power ranking system. But now, one Aurora Knight was unconscious and the other was seriously injured just from trying to scout the beasts¡¯ location. This seemed quite inconceivable.


    ¡°...Burns? Here in the Nortnds?¡±


    Well, at least they still survived. Soon, the still conscious Aurora Knight, whose name was Lavin, told us what happened to them.


    Lavin had split up from his scout partner. It was a normal practice as it would help them cover as much ground as possible. While scouting, Lavin saw a distress signal re from his partner, and went over to save him. When Lavin arrived, his partner was being attacked by a pack of winter wolves, lions, and tigers. His partner had already copsed, while his partner¡¯s steed was trying its best to protect him.


    When Lavin went down to save his partner, he was suddenly ambushed by a red-clothed person. The red-clothed person knew how to use fire magic. Strangely, even the winter wolves were able to spit out ck mes. Lavin hadn¡¯t expected this, and was instantly put at a disadvantage. If it hadn¡¯t been for his Frigid Nightmare casting an ice shield in time to protect the two Aurora Knights as they escaped through the air, things might have been much worse.


    ¡°ck mes?¡±


    Nobody wondered how ice element winter wolves were capable of spitting fire. This was quite obviously the work of the lower nes. It would be rted to either a dark cultist who worshipped an Evil God, or someone who was a loyal follower of a demon or devil. It would seem that trouble had truly arrived.


    However, Iughed loudly when I heard this.


    ¡°I¡¯ve finally caught their tail...¡±


    One of the reasons why we had rushed back to the Nortnds was because of the new activity of the Demon Abyss.


    The Demon Abyss of the Nortnds. This was just the local nickname for this ce. Its official name was the Lugy Valley¡ªit was a deep valley where sunlight wouldn¡¯t reach the bottom even at noon.


    Since demons had invaded the mortal ne from this location multiple times already, the dimensionalws there were tattered and iplete. It wouldn¡¯t be that difficult for the lower nes to teleport something here.


    Previously, the Mist Kingdom had had a fortress here, but after the Karwenz¡¯s rampage from before, the aura of the Chaos Abyss became very weak here. No new demons had teleported here in several decades, and the new Mist Kingdom didn¡¯t have enough personnel and resources tomit to maintaining a fortress in this location.


    Still, the Mist Kingdom maintained an observation post here. Recently, powerful magic reactions had been detected from this location. It was quite evident that something had arrived from the lower nes. However, the scouts here were unable to find out what it was.


    The worst possible result would be a Demon Lord together with an entire demon army. That would mean all-out warfare. The best possible result would be just a few demons which might wreak some havoc.


    But, since our troops had yet to find any signs of the demons even now, it was likely that only a few demons had arrived. This was within expectations. Rather than a ce as tough as the Nortnds, other ces in Eich would be much easier to conquer, and would provide far more resources for the demons. Demon Lords weren¡¯t that idiotic. They wouldn¡¯t be interested in conquering a far more difficult location when there were easier locations to attack.


    Although there were several visitors from the Chaos Abyss here, this was neither major nor minor issue. If we didn¡¯t deal with this properly, major trouble could still ur. A demon gue or a blood sacrifice to an Evil God would be quite troublesome to deal with.


    The Mist Kingdom hadn¡¯t done anything on the surface over the past few days. However, every single spy was working overtime. They were all busy investigating the outsiders¡¯ identities.


    Yet, we still learned nothing. It seemed that the visitors from the Chaos Abyss didn¡¯t intend to disguise themselves as humans.


    But now, I finally located a sign of their existence. It seemed that they wanted to do something with the beast stampede.


    It was already expected that this year¡¯s beast stampede would be the strongest in all of history. Now that demons were also involved, it seemed that it would be an even greater headache, yet my heart was filled with delight.


    Powerful enemies wouldn¡¯t be that fearsome¡ªonly the unknown would. Over the past few days, I had constantly been calcting what schemes the demons might have, such as kidnapping people in power, trying to cause infighting between our Mist Alliance members, detonating a bomb at the Caso Dam and creating a flood, and so on. I kept scaring myself like that. Perhaps it was true that those who were evil would be the best at seeing through the thoughts of the others were even more evil. I was bing extremely paranoid.


    Only a hidden scheme would be scary. Now that the scheme was exposed, of course I was delighted.


    Still, the most important thing right now was...


    ¡°We¡¯re going to personally go out and capture those demons!¡±


    I transformed into my War Angel form, but right when I flew into the sky, a cold gust blew past and made me shiver to the point where I fell out of the sky. When considering how my ice resistance was at the peak of the world, it seemed that I was still a long way from recovering even though it had almost been a month since I cast the forbidden spell Ice Aeon.


    I helplessly shook my head, and decided against being a burden to everyone else. I watched the other aerial knights rise up into the sky. Perhaps now was a good time for me to find a warm ce and drink some hot cocoa!


    Meanwhile, the silly cat was abnormally silent as she rested on my shoulder. It was almost as if she was asleep with her eyes open. She had constantly been like this ever since I recovered to the extent where I could move around by myself.


    As she was now the Elven Empress, she really did have a lot to deal with for the elves¡¯ impending immigration to the Nortnds.


    Although her true body was by my side, she was quite overworked from having to direct her clone acting as the Elven Empress. If I didn¡¯t touch her, then she would seem just like a cat doll sitting on my shoulder.


    Well, it would be boring to wait around for more information, so perhaps I should try drawing something on her face?


    I was rather hesitant, but then the silly cat suddenly turned her head around 180 degrees, just like in a scene out of a horror movie.


    ¡°...Rnd, I¡¯ve discovered some new information.¡±


    ¡°I definitely didn¡¯t write ¡®sex ve¡¯ or ¡®use me as you please¡¯ on your head! ...New information? What information?¡±


    And then, I witnessed the silly cat forget what she just said as she touched all over her head, even bringing out a mirror to look at herself for quite a while.


    ¡°I was just joking, haha, I fooled you! You actually believed me! Do I look like someone who would do such a childish thing?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    The silly cat showed off herplete distrust of me as she checked all over her entire body. She was now carefully inspecting her tail as if she was worried that I left some tiny words which would be difficult to see.


    The aerial knights returned before this little drama was over. The Aurora Knights swiftly took action now that they knew where the enemy was located. It would be highly difficult to escape from the Aurora Knights¡¯ tracking here in the Nortnds.


    Several dozen high-level aerial knights personally set out, Reyne included. The pack of winter wolves was annihted before they could even react, while the red-clothed person was instantly captured alive. When he was tossed down in front of me, I saw something familiar.


    Although this thing was wearing a cape, underneath the cape was a demonic creature wearing a mask. After taking off the mask, his face had nothing on it at all.


    The creature¡¯s face waspletely nk, with no eyes, no ears, and no mouth. His limbs were as distorted as noodles, and barely counted as humanoid. He seemed like a mollusk, some type of nightmare right out of a fairy tale.


    ¡°What is this?¡±


    ¡°...Evil.¡±


    This was a scout creature that was the pure amalgamation of Chaos and evil. Its distorted body was red and ck, with a distinct ck glow. With such a high degree of pure Chaos, it was probably some species of devil.


    I nodded in satisfaction. The rest could be left to the professionals at dealing with the denizens of the lower nes. The only difference between demons and ordinary humans when it came to torture was that demons would be able to persist for a little longer.


    The knights who returned didn¡¯t only bring back this demon creature. They also brought back some winter wolf corpses. I conducted a brief inspection, and found the corpses had horns and scales on their bodies. This was obvious evidence of demonization.


    The great majority of Nortnds beasts would be of the ice element or no element. If they were capable of spitting out mes, even if it was demon me from the lower nes, this meant that they had been transformed into apletely different species. Such fast demonization was beyondmon sense.


    Now, I was no longer so delighted. This was no coincidence. If the beast stampede began to demonize inrge numbers, its threat level would multiply immensely.


    With this new change in the situation, the winter hunt procession troops who had previously been chatting and joking with each other suddenly becamepletely silent. It was as if something invisible was pressuring us.


    The Mist Alliance was facing the Holy Church¡¯s scheme on the outside and the devils¡¯ scheme from the inside. It would seem that others were truly cing great importance on us.


    Soon, other scouts returned with new information as well. They also located more red-clothed devils among other beast packs. It seemed that we weren¡¯t lucky after all. There were far too many of these amalgamations of evil. These devil creatures also wouldn¡¯t be afraid of incurring losses.


    ¡°A storm ising...¡±


    ¡ª


    To be honest, the reason why I hated governmental work wasn¡¯t that I waszy, but rather that if I started working seriously, I would always find that the harder I worked, the more work there would be for me to do. The more seriously I took my responsibilities, the more responsibilities would be pushed onto me.


    ¡°...That sounds quite logical, but the Holy Church¡¯s scheme is probably directly rted to the forbidden spell you¡¯ve cast at the Moonwheel Capital.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I admit this, but¡ª¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s the devils that are making trouble for us with the beast stampede. When mentioning the devils, who do you think they hate more than anyone else right now? Why are the devils even here in this icynd? Shouldn¡¯t you be taking responsibility?¡±


    ¡°I acknowledge this, but¡ª¡±


    ¡°Stopining just because you helped out the elves. Besides, who¡¯s behind the elves¡¯ mass immigration? Since you made theme here, shouldn¡¯t you be the one responsible for them?¡±


    It was truly troublesome when there was someone who knew you well, and if that someone was a silver-tongued woman, it would be utmost trouble.


    I was rendered speechless before I could evenin. I now sounded like the source of all evil, the cause of all trouble? Wouldn¡¯t that mean that everyone would have it much easier if they killed me?


    ¡°Hey, you said it yourself. Just think about your current Cmity Ranking. I feel like that¡¯s highly reasonable.¡±


    We were currently still at the Mist Kingdom¡¯s royal pce. It was just that the Superior Elf tribe leaders had arrived. They were currently discussing the territory of their future Elven Empire.


    Even though I was just joking around with Harloys right now, this was actually huge trouble to deal with. Internal warfare and chaos would likely follow if this wasn¡¯t dealt with properly.


    Although the Nortnds wasrge, there was nond that wasn¡¯t imed already. Even the emptiest and most barren ofnds would still already belong to some country.


    Perhaps others were unable to use thisnd to develop anything, yet they would still fight you to the death if you took thatnd away. Most people would be quite unreasonable regarding territory and nationalnd.


    However, there was one piece ofnd that had always belonged to the elves. In fact, this ce was the only ownerlessnd in the entire Nortnds currently.


    That was right. Perhaps the perceptive among you might have recalled already, but it would be the former Tassel Kingdom of the Nortnds. The death of the Elven Gods had caused the nature magic maintaining a permanent spring climate to copse. The karmic result of twisting naturalws meant that nature¡¯s wrath would descend upon that location. Countless natural cmities had utterly demolished thatnd.


    The former Tassel elves had all immigrated to East Mist already, bing citizens of East Mist. I had spent a great deal of effort on helping them immigrate and dealing with refugees back then.


    Now, eight years had passed. Thatnd had calmed down now, and be a buffer zone between the Mist Alliance¡¯s human kingdoms and elven kingdoms. Nobody was in control of thisnd.


    And now, it seemed that it was time to return thisnd to the elves. But when we really began, we found so much trouble waiting for us.

 Chapter 668 - Not a Threat

    <h4>Chapter 668: Not a Threat</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Back when the Mist Alliance had been established, the moon elves of the Nortnds had joined as well. Actually, since the entire Nortnds had joined the Mist Alliance, the moon elves would have isted themselves and be a weakling right beside the mouth of a dragon if they didn¡¯t join.


    But even though they joined the Mist Alliance due to the circumstances, their status in the Mist Alliance had constantly been awkward.


    How was the rtionship between humans and elves? There was no need for me to go into any further detail about this sweet and sour rtionship which could spawn countless stories.


    The core of the Mist Alliance were the two major Mist countries. The Mist countries were primarily human. Then, this naturally meant that the core species of the Mist Alliance was human. As for the other non-human species, such as the beastmen, barbarians, undead, Underground Faction, and so on, they were either allies to begin with or former enemies who had been subjugated. Since the main faction was powerful enough, and the subordinate factions weren¡¯t too resistant, establishing the alliance wasn¡¯t too difficult.


    A so-called alliance meant that someone would be in charge of saying what everyone should do together, and that nobody would object.


    Although the Mist Alliance seemed simple, all sorts of actions and effort were put into it.


    Some of the most important examples would be how roads were constructed and fixed between the alliance¡¯s member countries, how governmental responsibilities were reorganized, and how the military forces were all unified into one.


    Although none of this seemed like much, as they only seemed like surface actions, this was actually connected to whether or not the Mist Alliance would be truly unified or nothing more than scattered sand.


    Previously, the roads between the countries... If those muddy and messy mountain roads and paths could count as roads, then I suppose the amount ofnd in the Nortnds covered by roads could barely cover 5%.


    ¡°Creating wealth must start with constructing roads.¡± This was no empty phrase, especially in this generation of cold weapons. Horse-drawn carriages were far superior to walking in more than just speed. A horse-drawn carriage would be able to carry far more cargo than any individual, and if you weren¡¯t able to sell your wares, your food rotted in your fields, or the cost of transporting mined metals exceeded the price of the metals themselves, all so-called development would be useless.


    As for aerial transport? First of all, the ratio between aerial transportation quantity and cost was terrible. Also, the Mist Alliance airships wouldn¡¯t be anywhere near sufficient to withstand the demands of regr aerial trade. Although roads were unassuming, thousands or tens of thousands of people would walk upon them every day. A road would be a permanent investment. Meanwhile, every time an airship was used for cargo transportation, you would have to first calcte to see if the profits actually exceeded the expenses or not.


    Unlike the residents of my previous world who always desired better lives, the residents of Eich had spent countless generations living in this feudal age already. They were quite satisfied with what they had, and felt that it was only normal to continue working hard and living just like how their ancestors had.


    If road construction actually began by conscripting or hiringbor, they would think that the domain lord was wasting money and everyone¡¯s time and work, and that this domain lord was terrible.


    The domain lords weren¡¯t much better than the people. Many domain lords, to an astonishing degree, had no foresight whatsoever. In fact, some domain lords even believed that if they constructed new and better roads, it would only make things easier for other domain lords to invade them. Thus, such domain lords felt that constructing new roads would be akin to shooting themselves in the foot!


    The establishment of the Mist Alliance helped to eliminate the aversion to constructing new roads. Also, East Mist, Sleuweir, and other member countries developed extremely rapidly, raising the quality of life for the citizens. Of course, the most direct impact of all was brought by all the new inventions. This all indeed moved the hearts of the people who hadn¡¯t changed their lifestyles in countless generations. Many people indeed started desiring change.


    Although this sounded nice, the Mist Alliance was spending almost 20% of its total tax ie on road construction. Roads now covered roughly 10% of the Nortnds territory instead of the former 5%. These new roads were all two-way stone-paved roads with twones on each side... Although this might seem small and cheap, this already meant that there were now somewhat usable roads connecting all the major Nortnds countries. This meant that a major rainstorm or snowstorm somewhere wouldn¡¯t be enough to seal off all possible routes.


    As for the details of constructing roads to all the smaller cities and viges, that was the responsibility of the local countries and domain lords. The Mist Alliance had already done plenty in its role as a governmental alliance.


    Thepletion of roads between all the countries meant that governmental work and message delivery could all be standardized. Centralized authority began to gradually rece the feudal system of more authority resting with the domain lords. Secret messengers from the king, a trope which wouldmonly appear in novels and dramas, might represent the people¡¯s honest hopes about a just system and enmity towards evil domain lords, but such a trope was also a result of poor transportation and the difficulties inmunication resulting from poor transportation system.


    As transportation andmunication became far easier and more standardized, the reorganizing of governmental responsibilities made it so that the alliance member countries were no longer individual. Royal and domain lord authority was weakened, and the countries all started following the Mist Alliance¡¯s rules and ns. This gigantic faction in the Nortnds finally had a framework capable of supporting it.


    Of course, the Mist Alliance¡¯s policies were allpletely approved by the Nortnds rulers and domain lords, and they cooperated fully... If I said that, would you believe me? Let¡¯s not talk about such a subject, as the schemes and infighting here would take me several days to finish describing.


    Now then, as for military reorganization and unity, this meant having a single military rank system in the entire Mist Alliance so that everyone could recognize each other¡¯s military rank. Each country¡¯s ruler would nominally be the leader of their military, and be under the overallmand of the Mist Alliance. Of course, this was only to be used in a time of war. Normally, the local knight orders would still be free to do what they usually did.


    Only with this would the Mist Alliance¡¯sbat strength be able to fully cooperate and use its strengths in battle. It would probably be best if I skipped over the details on this as well, as the ridiculous things here would probably be sufficient for another full story. I would get too sidetracked if I talked about such things.


    As for the elves, or more urately, the Nortnds¡¯ moon elves... They were still stuck at the very first step of unity with the Mist Alliance.


    ording to the original n, there should have been a road established leading to the moon elf kingdoms. However, this naturally meant that part of the road would pass through the former Tassel Kingdom¡¯s territory, which was thend between the elven kingdoms and human kingdoms.


    There had originally been an excellent road there, previously constructed by the Tassel Kingdom. Although the natural cmities caused serious damage to many portions of the road, it would still be far easier to fix the original road rather than build apletely new one. This would save more than 70% of the time, effort, and money inparison to having to build a new road.


    However...


    ¡°This district doesn¡¯t belong to any elven kingdom. We elves refuse to pay the construction cost for building this road.¡±


    From a certain standpoint, the elves were truly spouting rubbish. This road would be leading directly to the elven kingdoms, so why wouldn¡¯t they help pay for the construction cost?


    ording to the Mist Alliance¡¯s policy, the local country would pay 70% of the road construction cost, and the Mist Alliance government would pay the other 30%. This was a rule, as well asmon sense. The local country would benefit the most from having a major road leading there. Even though the Mist Alliance was only paying for 30%, that would still be an astronomical sum when considering the length of all these roads.


    However, there was one tiny problem with this policy. As I mentioned before, the former Tassel Kingdom¡¯snd now technically didn¡¯t belong to any country. The elves indeed had some, although rather weak, standing to say that they didn¡¯t want to pay any money.


    Of course, there were ces in the Mist Alliance that previously were almost impossible to reach. Yet, the domain lords there had all happily paid the money in the end. None of them were too dumb. Refusing to construct a road would not only mean missing out on development opportunities, it would also mean istion within the Mist Alliance.


    Yet, the elven kingdoms refused, in the most adamant of tones at that...


    Were they poor? Nobody would possibly believe that. Their unique elven artisanry and magical products were highly popr and profitable. They would also have much foundational umtion.


    Were they stingy? Constantly maintaining an artificially warm climate in the frigid Nortnds would cost an astronomical amount of money and magical resources, while elven mages¡¯ daily lives were incredibly extravagant. It would be impossible for them to be poorer than human domain lords.


    Nobody was an idiot. But, since the elven kingdoms adamantly insisted that the Tassel Kingdom¡¯s territory didn¡¯t belong to them, so they didn¡¯t have to pay for constructing roads through it, the Mist Alliance held three days of consecutive meetings on this topic. In the end, the Mist Alliance government gritted its teeth and funded the entire road project for the sake of unity within the Mist Alliance!


    And then...


    Various strange things kept happening to the road¡¯s construction. Ghosts would start appearing, or thieves would rob the construction workers, taking even their tools.


    Such events happened more than 20 times in a period of three months. Even an idiot would realize that something was off. The Mist Alliance intelligence department sent out an investigation squad which returned on the very first day. It had been incredibly obvious that the elves were behind it all.


    Just what did the moon elves want from this? The Mist Alliance higher-ups were rather confused. In the end, former moon elf princess Suana told them the reason...


    ¡°The Nortnds moon elves have always looked down on humans, yet simultaneously been afraid of humans. The moon elves are probably afraid of being annexed...¡±


    Well, the elves didn¡¯t say it directly, but instead used such a method of uncooperativeness to express their distrust of us. Perhaps this was the elves¡¯ typical indirect, insecure, and... ¡°elegant¡± way of conducting diplomacy.


    Now then, the difficult problem was now with the Mist Alliance¡¯s leaders. What would the human countries do now?


    Forcefully continue the road¡¯s construction? That would be far too much of a loss of face, having to pay money, spend effort, and meet with nothing but such ingratitude.


    Forcefully intervene in elven internal politics, demanding that the elves fulfill their duties as part of the Mist Alliance? The elves had been quite careful with their meddling about the road construction. Even though everyone knew that the elves were behind it, there was no evidence. Moreover, even if evidence was obtained, would that be a good reason to use such evidence against the elves? That would be destroying the fragile alliance, making other alliance members feel like they were also in danger of being annexed.


    Now, it became quite evident why the moon elves had so easily joined the Mist Alliance. They had such an intention from the very beginning. Rather than resisting the unstoppable wave of the Mist Alliance, they would simply join it nominally, but still do their own thing in istion, without being cooperative.


    Still, this technique was actually quite effective against the far more direct (or simple) Nortnds politics. This was the crystallization of the elves¡¯ millennia of political experience. However...


    ¡°...The elves are always like this, constantly scheming for small things and wanting all the benefits from both sides. However, scheming too much and never being willing to let go of any advantage means being shortsighted and blinded by the benefits before you. That¡¯s why the elves lost in the end...¡±


    Thus, the n to construct a road through the former Tassel Kingdom district had now been stopped. Neither had any ns to construct roads to the other elven kingdoms even began yet.


    All the Nortnders had witnessed the recent swift development of the Mist Alliance. Yet, only the elves were still living their same, independent lives. Would the elves regret this?


    ¡°No, they won¡¯t regret it at all. They will only celebrate, thinking that they¡¯ve defeated yet another wicked human scheme to subdue the elves. As for the outside world¡¯s development? That has nothing to do with them. They¡¯re still living in a past that¡¯s from more than ten thousand years ago.¡±


    With my knowledge of the elves¡¯ typical habits, I agreed perfectly with Suana¡¯s words. Even if some of the younger elves of this generation might disagree with the elven customs, only the oldest elves would have power in any elven kingdom. Elves highly valued their traditions.


    The end result was that the elven kingdoms obtained the ¡°victory¡± that they wished for. They maintained their istion and independence. However, it wasn¡¯t like we humans had ¡°lost¡± anything. Regardless of whether the elves were with us or not, the Mist Alliance would continue to progress and develop. Since we were allies in name, we would be able to purchase elven products and even have students study abroad in the elven kingdoms, bringing us certain benefits.


    The entire Mist Alliance became more and more unified. The second major Mist Alliance unity project, which I had named ¡°Milky Way Program¡±, hadmenced two years ago. However, it was only the elves who hadn¡¯tpleted even the first phase of the project. The elves forever remained as an outsider within the Mist Alliance, which was an incredibly bad influence. Yet, the Mist Alliance leaders didn¡¯t have the time to y with them right now, so we could only let the elves be.


    But, even if we could previously put up with the elves¡¯ behavior, this time, it was no longer tolerable.


    ording to elven traditions, the moon elves of the Nortnds would be one of the four Superior Elf species of the new Nortnds Elven Empire. However, as moon elves were the ¡°biggest schemers¡± of all elven species, they once again started scheming right when they obtained ¡°some power¡± in the new Elven Empire.


    ¡°You¡¯re requesting that the Nortnds Elven Empire choose Moonflower City as its capital? That¡¯s a solitary city the farthest in the south of the three moon elf kingdoms¡¯nd. You want the entire Elven Empire to y at istion games with you?


    ¡°Since you moon elves are kindly offering thisnd, you¡¯re requesting that the moon elves keep the rights over thisnd? The Nortnds Elven Empire¡¯s government officials and mayors should all be moon elves? You¡¯re already intending on making Empress Harloys into a puppet before the empire is fully established?


    ¡°The moon elves and dark elves have many generational grudges, so you¡¯re requesting that the dark elves be forbidden to enter the new Elven Empire¡¯s territory... Of the four Superior Elf species, the silver elves are neers here, and the wood elves are few in number. Only the dark elves are powerful. So, you¡¯re intending on directly stealing all authority for yourselves?


    ¡°You¡¯re requesting independent diplomatic and military powers... There¡¯s no difference between this and secession. You moon elves want to start a civil war with the Mist Alliance?


    I chuckled as I slowly read out these documents to the moon elf tribe leaders, who were all trembling in fear. They could sense killing intent that was almost palpable. They probably felt that several dozen assassins would be jumping out soon?


    I wasn¡¯t targeting anyone in particr. I even smiled in a friendly manner at Suana, the moon elf representative who was pushed out to face me... But judging from how she backed away several steps, it seemed that even she wasn¡¯t confident in me. Or, was it that I had identally revealed my killing intent?


    ¡°You moon elves...¡±


    I helplessly tossed the documents aside. I had expected such a development, but didn¡¯t think that it woulde so quickly.


    Previously, when Harloys was being coronated, the Nortnds moon elves were unable to choose a representative leader that all three moon elf kingdoms could ept. In the end, they could only let the already undead gray elf Suana be their representative... Ever since then, the moon elves had probably been unable toe to an ord amongst themselves, and neither did they intend on recognizing their prior agreements.


    My previous rmendation to Suana to be revived was giving the moon elves a chance. If she became a moon elf again, she would perhaps be an excellent political chess piece as she had excellent reputation, which would change the current developments which I was feeling ever more helpless about... I had already lost all my patience with the moon elf elders who knew nothing about actual war and only knew how to stir up internal trouble! I was busy with serious things, yet those bastards were being a burden!


    At the time, Suana had asked me for more time for consideration. Okay, she could consider, and then I left things at that since I was too busy.


    And so, I did my very best to maintain a friendly smile as I continued speaking. ¡°Suana, you¡¯ve had enough time to consider, right? What¡¯s your final decision? Would you like to be revived, or maintain your current condition? I should tell you beforehand that you really need to make this decision carefully. I no longer have any more patience for the moon elves. I¡¯m not trying to threaten you, by the way! Still, it just so happens that your decision will affect the survival of the entire moon elf species. I think that the Nortnds Elven Empire will be just fine even with only three Superior Elf species!¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t scare her! If this isn¡¯t a threat, then what is?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ clone, the fake Elven Empress, finally spoke up after pretending to be a wallflower for all this time. The moon elf tribe leaders finally heaved sighs of relief. However, clone Harloys¡¯ next words made them not know whether tough or cry.


    ¡°Actually, I also hate the moon elves who always cause so much trouble. They led the rebellion back then... I¡¯m quite confident that the new Elven Empire will be able to develop excellently even with only three Superior Elf species. Suana, feel free to reject this idiot here.¡±


    None of the moon elf tribe leaders said anything, but their expressions seemed strangely as if they really wanted to go to the bathroom. It was almost as if they were all shouting, ¡°...With what you just said, Suana rejecting you will mean the death of the entire moon elf species! Who would dare to refuse?!¡±

 Chapter 669 - Thorny

    <h4>Chapter 669: Thorny</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°We must deal with the Chaos Faction¡¯s enmity from the outside, and the Order Faction¡¯s hostility and even some within our own Mist Alliance who want to secede on the inside. We¡¯re facing threats from both outside and within, stuck between a rock and a hard ce. Could this situation get any worse... No, I can¡¯t say something like that. ording to my experience, every time I say a simr phrase, fate truly can give me something worse.¡±


    Although there was much I wanted toin about, I simplyined a little out of habit. ording to my memories, this ¡°ship filled with holes¡± that was barely managing to proceed forward while people on the ship engaged in infighting against each other was simply the norm.


    Situations where everyone was shouting ¡°let¡¯s all be united,¡± ¡°let¡¯s courageously face the future,¡± and so on, where people wouldn¡¯t consider personal gains and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the future, were situations that only existed in stories and myths. If such a situation truly urred to me, my first reaction would be to pinch myself to see if I had unknowingly been struck with an enemy¡¯s hallucination magic.


    Reality as I remembered it had always been everyone having their own little schemes even as we fought against outside enemies. Everyone would always scheme against their own superiors as well as subordinates,ining that they had too little money and too much work while barely managing to proceed forward due to shared interests.


    That was how things were back at Sulfur Mountain City. We had personally conquered all that territory, and the foundation there was quite solid now. It could now be called a rare paradise in the Underground. However, the internal politics was still quite messed up. The councilors faction and judges faction were hostile to each other, and whenever we came under attack by another Underground Lord...rge numbers of citizens and government officials would betray us to join the enemy, and many of the councilors would even betray us as well as they only cared about personal benefits... Forget it, I should stop talking about such things. I much preferred knights and the military, and approved of how just and loyal knights were. One of the main reasons for this was because knights were far simpler. At the very least, they had to be simple in order to face this cruel generation.


    The moon elves were no idiots. However, they were used to treating other species as if thetter were idiots. They were stirring up trouble for us at such a time because they had seen the overall situation. They knew that with the uing establishment of the Nortnds Elven Empire, doing anything hostile to the moon elves would greatly shake the morale of the other elven species, which would be a tremendous negative influence. Thus, the moon elves used this opportunity to make numerous unreasonable requests, hoping that they could win on the negotiation table what they would be unable to win in war.


    But if we really fulfilled all their requests, there would no longer be any Nortnds Elven Empire. There would only be a new Moon Elf Empire. Not to mention, that empire would be an independent parasite within the Mist Alliance. The now deceased Elven Empress Afina of the previous Moon Elf Empire would probably faint frombinedughter and crying if she saw her dream realized so easily after her death.


    Of course, I doubted that even the most optimistic of moon elf elders would think that their unreasonable requests would all be agreed to. They were simply starting off with a sky-high price as a haggling method. As long as they could obtain something on the negotiation table, it would only bring benefits to them¡ªeven if only one of their unreasonable demands was fulfilled.


    They were confident that the Mist Alliance wouldn¡¯t use military force against any internal elements at this time, so they wanted to take advantage of this timing to gain any political benefits they could. This was quite calcting and extraordinarily greedy of them. But, they never considered that the Mist Alliance had previously tolerated the elves¡¯ independence games because the Holy War had yet to start back then, and that a steady foundation had been still needed for the newly established Mist Alliance. Plus, the people in charge were Reyne and Glina, who were both rtively moderate. Reyne and Glina also had far too much to deal with, such as developing the potential of magical engineering, undead, and beastmen, which was why they didn¡¯t care too much about the distant elf kingdoms within the Mist Alliance.


    But right now, the elves were dealing with me, who had previously organized the major bloodbath of Sulfur Mountain City, along with Gold Elf Harloys, who hated moon elves more than any other elf species. Obviously, neither of us would likely be considered a moderate...


    Tactically speaking, it would indeed be correct to first have your own faction be stable before dealing with outside enemies. When the outside threat was tremendous, your own faction being unstable would cause problems quite easily. When the ¡°inside problem¡± was like a part of your body that had already melded with your organs, clearing it out would be the equivalent of undergoing a major surgery which would require serious recovery efforts afterwards. Naturally, this meant that using military force would be a poor idea. But right now, since the moon elves were stillpletely outside of the Mist Alliance¡¯s system, they counted at most as a pus sore on the Mist Alliance¡¯s arm. Of course I would be willing to cut off such a pus sore.


    ¡°Harloys, I¡¯m going to prepare for Suana¡¯s revival for some time. You personally deal with the moon elves, and have the dark elves do all the necessary dirty work. It¡¯s fine to do everything in my name. I¡¯m already a professional at taking the me, anyways. We need to clean our house before the elven caravan arrives so that we can wee them properly.¡±


    A century ago, I had already gained nicknames such as ¡°Butcher of Elves¡±, ¡°Annihtor of Elves¡±, and so on. It might not even be that bad to gain some new anti-elf nicknames.


    I was toozy to waste any more time with the moon elves. Since they still couldn¡¯t see the overall situation and our determination clearly, then it was time for them to be abandoned by the current generation. I would simply have all the current moon elf leaders killed, perhaps reviving some of my reputation from my time as Yongye, and rece them with new moon elf leaders. I would then give the new leaders some candy. I was quite confident that Suana, who had extraordinarily high poprity with ordinary moon elves, would be an excellent choice.


    Before, I was still worried that killing off the moon elf leaders would negatively impact the Mist Alliance¡¯s reputation, and maybe cause the elves to be frightened of us humans. But now, I would be taking all the me, and other elves would be doing the killing. There was no longer any need to hesitate.


    Although rivers of blood would be spilled, why should I care?


    ¡°...Please wait. Many innocents will be harmed otherwise.¡±


    While the moon elf leaders remained silent, Suana stood up. Her banshee body was covered in a faint white light that kept scattering everywhere, a good indication that her emotions were in extreme inner turmoil.


    I chuckled when I saw this. She wouldn¡¯t have been the peace-loving Princess Suana that I knew if she hadn¡¯t stood up here.


    ¡°Okay, Harloys won¡¯t take action against the moon elf leaders, then. Suana, you personally decide who should die. You¡¯ve been the mediator between the elves and the Mist Alliance for all these years. You should know which moon elf leaders can be allowed to live and which are too toxic to be allowed to survive.¡±


    Suana paused in surprise. She didn¡¯t expect that I would agree so readily, but her body soon began to tremble violently. She knew that although she had supposedly saved her moon elf species, it would mean her personally acting as a butcher of moon elves.


    ¡°...I need to tell you beforehand that you can¡¯t show mercy. If I need to cleanse the moon elves afterwards, I¡¯m not going to let a single one go even if innocents are killed.¡±


    I left those words behind as I directly left. I didn¡¯t even nce at the moon elf leaders who were all standing still, stupefied. Suana¡¯s light kept flickering as her heart was in utter chaos.


    It was enough for me to say this much. The rest would be up to Suana and the moon elves. If the end result of cleansing the moon elf leaders didn¡¯t satisfy me, and they still continued to be a burden, not only would I kill every single moon elf leader, I was even willing to keep only thend but not the species... Of course, I wasn¡¯t extreme enough to indiscriminately ughter the entire moon elf species. What I actually meant was, if things really developed to such an extent, I would scatter all the moon elves and force them to live together with humans just like the Tassel Kingdom¡¯s grayblood elves. All moon elf kingdoms would thus be nothing more than history.


    ¡°...Did you really need to go to such an extent? I really do like that Suana girl. Did you have to force her so much?¡± Harloysmented.


    ¡°It¡¯s precisely because she¡¯s so nice that I¡¯m going to help her get rid of her naivety and softness... Ha, I bet she¡¯ll hate me.¡±


    ¡°Of course she will! You¡¯re forcing her to stain her own hands with blood. Not only that, the blood will be from her own people, yet you¡¯re simultaneously forcing her to be the leader of all moon elves. This is no different from tying her on a stake and throwing her into a volcano. All Suana wants is to have peace, but she probably won¡¯t have a single good day after this anymore.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, peace? Is there a single peaceful ce in this world? Ever since she was born among the royalty, she¡¯s enjoyed an excellent quality of life for all these years. She doesn¡¯t have the right to say such a foolish thing. Besides, isn¡¯t all of this for your sake? Suana can no longer turn back now. She¡¯ll probably be closer to Elven Empress Harloys from this.¡±


    Have Suana sessfully kill all the moon elf leaders that needed to be gotten rid of? That would be impossible unless she was willing to start a major ughter. Hidden problems would definitely remain. Besides, Suana wasn¡¯t the type of leader who could be cold-blooded and decisive. In fact, rather than a ughter, it was far more likely that the moon elf leaders would all be imprisoned. But, as long as the moon elf leaders weren¡¯t killed, there would definitely be problems afterwards. However, it would be Suana¡¯s problem to deal with then as she would be the leader of all moon elves.


    As for Elven Empress Harloys, she would be most afraid of a Superior Elf species being highly unified. Right now, the moon elves and dark elves were the two most powerful Superior Elf species in the new Elven Empire. It was highly unlikely for the dark elves to be highly unified, but the moon elves were actually fairly good at working together. Things would be difficult for us if all moon elves rebelled together. Thus, my true goal here was to create a permanent fracture among the moon elves by creating a Suana faction and anti-Suana faction.


    This was no joke by me. It would be quite good for Harloys for there to be constant friction and trouble among the moon elves.


    Suana¡¯s position as the leader of all moon elves would be unstable. She wouldn¡¯t be able tomand all of the moon elves. Thus, she would naturally draw closer to Elven Empress Harloys. This was our way of dealing with a deeply rooted foundational problem.


    ¡°Hmph, I¡¯d be an idiot to believe you. You¡¯ve definitely had more than enough of the moon elves, and will be absolutely willing to kill them all. It¡¯s good to be a skilled schemer, but if you do nothing but scheme all day every day, you¡¯ll never be satisfied and always want more. That will always lead to more trouble.¡±


    I shrugged without denying anything. The moon elves were far too troublesome. I was already tired of ying schemes with them. Dealing with them in one go would be far easier.


    ¡°...You really did go overboard with Suana. She¡¯s the only other of our kind. It¡¯s so rare to see someone as pure as her,¡± Harloys remarked.


    Na?ve? Pure? Those adjectives would be a praise in an era of peace. However, since Suana was going to be the leader of her people, naivety equaled foolishness, and purity equaled inexperience. None of this would be good.


    ¡°Of our kind? Oh, you mean how we¡¯re all natural undead?¡±


    I supposed that natural undead were indeed extraordinarily rare in the mortal ne. Any natural undead would be a vicious and sly bastard. It was almost inconceivable for Suana to be so pure.


    However, Iughed out loud.


    ¡°...Previously, it would have been correct of you to say that Suana was the only other of our kind. But now, that¡¯s no longer the case...¡±


    I gazed southwards. I had already learned that two of the five Undead Emperors in Bardi were also natural undead. Whether judging by experience or danger level, they were far more powerful than myself and Harloys, especially the Undead Emperor who had instantly cast a forbidden spell. He had instantly reached the top 10 of the Cmity Rankings. Meanwhile, how he managed to instantly cast a forbidden spell was currently the hottest topic of the Mage Country.


    I actually knew how he had aplished such a feat thanks to therge amounts of information I¡¯d obtained from Conservation and Aso. Yet, this information only made me find the Undead Emperors even more inconceivable.


    ¡°The south will be truly troublesome to deal with. I really don¡¯t want to meet those Undead Emperors on the battlefield. But, I¡¯m afraid some things will be unavoidable...¡±

 Chapter 670 - Old Residence and Temptation

    <h4>Chapter 670: Old Residence and Temptation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    This three-story brick building was rather tattered and outdated as it was constructed in a style from three centuries ago. Although the steps were scrubbed quite cleanly, the ce still seemed rather archaic. The decorative tapestries depicted the heroic deeds of ancient Mist Kingdom rulers. There was still the smell of fresh paint on the tattered walls as a result of recent renovation.


    Before this building was a pine tree, a patch of garden, and emptynd.


    A rusty copper gate encircled this little location. There were still some nts growing in the garden, although at this time of year, they were all withered and dry.


    ¡°I previously practiced swordsmanship right under this pine tree...¡±


    I was currently at a quiet ce within the East Mist royal pce. This ce had previously been the residence of myself and my idiotic twin brother.


    When news that I was still alive was proven to be true, Kelly opened up this sealed residence and ordered subordinates to clean this ce up again, cing new furniture inside. But eight years ago, when Ist returned to the Nortnds, this ce had still been under reconstruction, which was why she hadn¡¯t mentioned anything to me. This time, Kelly, who also served as the chief steward of the royal pce, simply had me stay in this residence, giving me quite a pleasant surprise.


    The building and garden seemed just like how they had been before in the past. Even the copper gate still had the etch marks from when my twin and Ipared our height with each other... But, since we were twins, was there really any meaning inpeting?


    These past memories came back to me as if they happened just yesterday. This ce seemed just like how it was in my memories. Was this the feeling of home? However, I still felt somewhat lonely with how empty things were here, making me want to sigh.


    I could no longer remember the appearance of my parents, nor could I remember the sses I took back then. However, these rusty and scattered memories had remained with me perhaps because of their unimportance. Should I feel fortunate?


    ¡°Sheesh...¡±


    *Click!*


    There was the sound of the rusty gate being opened. The metallic sound interrupted my thoughts. I turned around to see Reyne, the current master of this royal pce.


    ¡°You, you, you, you, you... Who are you? You¡¯re Brother Rnd?¡±


    I paused in surprise for a moment, and then had an instantaneous realization as I immediately adjusted my time essory, making my physical body appear to be 20 years old.


    ¡°Oh, this is a little toy that Margaret made for me. It can adjust my physical appearance.¡±


    This was a perfect truthful lie. Everything I said was indeed the truth. Combined with my actions and expression, this would fool anyone into believing that I had used this time essory to adjust my physical appearance.


    Reyne slowly nodded, yet a strange smile appeared on her face as if she had seen through everything already. Damn it! I had forgotten that monkeys like her would all think with muscles for brains, meaning that they could tell the truth with just their instincts.


    ¡°So, what¡¯s that, I think I remember... Dusk Fruits?¡±


    Although it sounded like Reyne was asking a question, her tone was absolutely confident. These fruits were highly recognizable due to their resemnce to skulls. Although the taste was alright, I still felt quite awkward eating them... I could sense the prankster intentions behind the design. It was probably a joke from Amelia herself.


    I was now regretting what I was doing here. I had already ordered the guards not to let anyone else inside, and started eating my Dusk Fruit supply here to increase my age and get ustomed to my new physical body. However, I hadn¡¯t considered that the royal guards would never be able to keep out the ruler of this pce. It was likely that just one word from her would mean that the guards wouldn¡¯t even inform me of her arrival.


    Yes, I was hiding here by myself in order to eat my previously obtained stock of 100 Dusk Fruits. It wouldn¡¯t be possible to eat all these age-increasing fruits in one go.


    Every time I ate one fruit, I would need some time for my physical body adjust and get used to its changes. This was to avoid any overly extreme changes to my physical body, which would cause ipatibility with my soul. This would also let me avoid transforming into Eich¡¯s version of Urashima Taro. I had obtained 100 Dusk Fruits two weeks ago, but I had only eaten 10 by now, meaning that I had increased my age by 50 years... But honestly, I was now feeling despair due to my bloodline. Looking in the mirror, I felt that the only difference was that I had grown from a fourth-grader to a fourth grader who looked six months older. It would be quite a long while until my physical appearance could graduate from elementary school!


    Still, these fruits did indeed bring me concrete benefits. I could feel more strength in my arms, and it also felt like my thoughts were clearer. To put it in my System¡¯s terms, the 50 years of age I gained also gave me the effects of +1 Strength and +1 Intelligence. These would be actual major bonuses.


    However, every time that I asked my damned System when my bloodline would mature and reach adult age, she would always somehow change the topic or pretend not to understand, which made me really uneasy.


    In a way, this world did have some fairness. The stronger the bloodline, the more difficult it would be to reproduce, and the longer the time required to reach maturity. Dragons, titans, and giants were all excellent examples of this. Elves would also require 100 or 200 years to reach maturity. Gold Elves, who had a Gold Bloodline, would require more than 1000 years to reach maturity... Now I felt even more that the moon elves back then were such bastards. They actually dared to bully a little girl right after killing her father!


    Silver Bloodlines would require 100 or 200 years to reach maturity. Most Gold Bloodlines would require over 1000 years. As for Diamond Bloodlines... When considering how my bloodline was even a Double Diamond Bloodline, theoretically speaking, it would seem only logical for it to require more than 10,000 years to reach maturity.


    ¡°Venerated Goddess of Order, if this bloodline truly requires over 10,000 years to reach adult age, do you believe that I¡¯llmit suicide together with you!? Just what were you thinking back then!?¡±


    [Tsk, ming me at such a time? Who was the one who wanted the most powerful bloodline of all? I was nice enough to add in my and Cynthia¡¯s personal bloodlines to your bloodline. You should be grateful to me.]


    Rather than making me happy, I felt even more despair after hearing that. No wonder something seemed off about the situation. A Double Diamond Bloodline wouldn¡¯t be easy toe by, even for a Creator Goddess. So, my bloodline was on the level of the Goddesses of Order and Chaos¡¯ bloodline? Wouldn¡¯t that potentially mean that it would take me over 100,000 years to reach adult age? Then what meaning would there be, no matter how powerful my bloodline was?


    ¡°...Let¡¯s not talk about the potential strength of this bloodline at adult age anymore. I¡¯ve already been a virgin for more than 300 years. Are you intending on keeping me a virgin for another several tens of thousands of years?¡±


    [...I had no such intentions. When Cynthia and I were born, we were already adults. I also didn¡¯t expect that you would be how you currently are...]


    For once, my System actually sounded like she felt guilty, as if she was unintentionally revealing some secret to me. So, me being like this wasn¡¯t actually her intentionally digging a pitfall for me, but rather an ident. Yet, I was still unable to feel happy about this. This was circumstantial evidence that things were already out of control, and that my System could no longer be counted on.


    I was even more displeased now. But, surprisingly, my System actually voluntarily made concessions to me.


    [Don¡¯t be like that. I can actually give you something that you need to make it up to you. Weren¡¯t you previously trying to find the Spring of the Drowned Woman? I can give you some water from that.]


    ¡°You¡¯re even capable of creating something like that? Wait a moment, I¡¯m not looking for the Spring of the Drowned Woman, it¡¯s Krose who¡¯s looking for the Spring of the Drowned Man.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re both the same. To use some words that you would use, it¡¯s simply modifying a few bits of data about an individual, which is quite easy for me. As long as you help me with one little thing, I¡¯ll give you the Quest reward... as payment.]


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡±


    I was really surprised now. This was the first time I had seen my System insist so much on giving me a Quest. I could sense how anxious she was. What would possibly make the Creator Goddess of Order worry so? Could it be that the Quest she was about to give me was to challenge a Chaos Main God? Or to hunt down some Supreme Immemorial Dragon?


    [Help me spray the Spring of the Drowned Woman on that subordinate of yours who must not be named! I can sense that the elves¡¯ divine beasts are about to give birth to terrifying creatures soon. This world is chaotic enough already. Even stranger creatures absolutely can¡¯t be allowed to be born! Absolutely not! Why would such a bastard appear in the world? I can¡¯t take it anymore! I definitely didn¡¯t create such a thing!]


    I was truly astonished. Beifeng¡¯s feats were ridiculously inconceivable. He was even capable of making the Creator Goddess of Order hysteric? It seemed that his descendants were truly creations that challengedmon sense and all norms.


    Suddenly, two magic bottles materialized in midair, one with a blue liquid inside, and one with a red liquid inside. Astrya was even giving me the Quest reward before I evenpleted it? This wasn¡¯t like how stingy she always was at all! It seemed that she had truly been frightened by Beifeng, who, by the way, was now ranked #1 on the Cmity Rankings.


    Using the Spring of the Drowned Woman on Beifeng? Just imagining it seemed too wondrous to behold.


    But, for some reason, I felt like even if Beifeng had his gender changed by the Spring of the Drowned Woman, that the System would still fail in achieving what she wanted... The end result would still probably be too ridiculous to behold. However, there was no harm in trying. It wasn¡¯t like I would be the unlucky one.


    As for refusing? I felt like I had no reason to refuse. This would be so interesting to watch... Ahem, I meant that I would be eliminating a menace for the world, and perhaps I could even have my name removed from the Cmity Rankings if I aplished such a feat!


    ¡°Brother Rnd, you¡¯re practicing swordsmanship?¡± Reyne spoke up beside me, bringing me back to my senses. I simply nodded. I was shirtless while standing here on empty ground, so how else was I supposed to exin things apart from practicing swordsmanship? It wasn¡¯t like I could tell her the truth that I was worried that my clothes might rip on me if I actually had any physical transformation from eating a Dusk Fruit.


    Reyne instantly had a delighted expression when she heard that I was practicing swordsmanship.


    ¡°Then, Brother Rnd, how about I practice together with you? I¡¯ve made much progress over the years.¡±


    I looked all around me,ughed, and said...


    ¡°I refuse. I won¡¯t practice swordsmanship with an idiot who¡¯s incapable of controlling her own strength. The moment that you fail to control your strength, this entire residence will be destroyed. This ce is really important to me...¡±


    I didn¡¯t even need to finish my sentence. My unhesitating refusal already caused Reyne¡¯s expression to crumple, which actually made me rather happy.


    ¡°...Right. Brother Rnd, I heard that you¡¯re about to revive Suana?¡±


    This was probably why Reyne hade over to find me. I nodded in response. Since I had already begun the preparations, it was only natural that this had be the hottest gossip around.


    ¡°Um... I heard that only the natural undead can be revived?¡±


    Reyne¡¯s eyes were filled with expectation. It was obvious that she wanted to hear something different from me. I frowned as I now understood why she hade to talk to me.


    ¡°You want to revive your family members?¡±


    ¡°...Yeah.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t do it. Not a single existence is capable of doing that for you.¡±


    Several minutester, I started feeling scared as I watched Reyne leave with her disappointment and depression.


    I hadn¡¯t lied, but I also hadn¡¯t told theplete truth. The restriction of only being able to revive the natural undead had beenpletely made up by me. My power to revive the dead was far stronger than what I disyed.


    Reyne already had an adamant will, but even she hadn¡¯t been able to resist the temptation of potentially reviving her family. If I told her the truth¡ªthat I was capable of reviving someone who had just recently died¡ªit was likely that the entire world would go crazy. Countless powerful individuals and rulers who were on the verge of death or had people close to them die recently would alle to give me trouble.


    ¡°...Luckily, I made preparations for this beforehand. But, it looks like I still need to make extra precautions against such trouble.¡±


    Even though I had announced my fake limitations on revival, there would always be people out there capable of discerning the truth. Or, there would be people out there who would think, ¡°What if he can still revive this person for me?¡± As long as more than 10 Level 4 individuals with such thoughts came for me, they would definitely go all out, which would be quite troublesome for me to deal with.


    ¡°In that case, I should really make this revival ceremony rather grandiose, even to the point where the great majority of people won¡¯t be able to afford the payment for revival...¡±

 Chapter 671 - Most Unreliable Alliance

    <h4>Chapter 671: Most Unreliable Alliance</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    I was still in my familiar old residence, facing another uninvited guest. However, this particr uninvited guest made me really want to shout for help.


    Sitting across from me at a tea table was a seemingly sleepy old man whose snow-white beard reached the ground. His scraggly hair made him seem like a homeless old man, yet the magic power within his body was as deep as the ocean.


    I could sense his endless amount of magic power as he was sitting directly across from me. Yet, not a single trace of his magic power reached outside this room.


    ¡°...Yongye? You¡¯re perfectly alive again.¡±


    He put down his teacup and slowly nced at the tea within, appearing to be highly satisfied with the tea. However, I knew that countless eyes were staring at me.


    Sandro, the ¡°Lord of Withering¡±. He was the ruler of the Corpse ne, as well an Undead Emperor even more experienced than Aso. Sandro was also a Senator of the former Tark Republic, and was one of the most powerful Undead Emperors among the ones who came here this time to the mortal ne.


    It was also Sandro who had recently disyed the almost inconceivable ability to instantly cast a forbidden spell right in front of the archmages from the Mage Country. However, only those who were familiar with Sandro¡¯s personal research field would know that he hadn¡¯t used a forbidden spell at all. He had only used a regr spell which possessed the power of a forbidden spell.


    Sandro should have still been currently facing off against the dragons and archmages in Bardi. Yet, he had suddenly appeared before me without even a warning. Just two days ago, I had received thetestbat report which said that he was still at the frontlines of battle. In that case, either Sandro had the ability to teleport over mega-long distances, or he had managed to fool everyone into thinking that he was still there.


    Sandro hadn¡¯t opened his physical eyes even once yet. He seemed just like a doddering old man who was about to fall asleep. Yet, his soul vision saw through everything. Hisment on me being ¡°perfectly alive again¡± probably wasn¡¯t only referring to my physical body, but also my soul.


    And as he analyzed me, I was also doing my very best to analyze his existence.


    Sandro had numerous nicknames, such as ¡°The Witherer¡±, ¡°Waterless Dust¡±, and ¡°Corpse Spider Emperor¡±. Every Undead Emperor¡¯s sess woulde from stepping on countless corpses. I didn¡¯t dare to rx my guard one bit against such an opponent.


    ¡°...Senior, why have youe to visit me? Revival?¡±


    Sandro was also one of the few natural undead in the world. It would be quite understandable if he came to me for the purpose of being revived.


    However, Sandro shook his head without saying anything. His seemingly smiling expression was almost as if he wasughing at me for looking down on him.


    ¡°The living belong to the sunlight, while the dead belong to the dust. I¡¯m no youngster who still lives in the past, so why would I be concerned about life or death? I¡¯m here to visit you because of the promise you mentioned previously.¡±


    Promise? I paused in surprise here. It wasn¡¯t that I hadn¡¯t promised anything, but rather that I had promised so many things to various different people before. Most promises I made to enemies on the battlefield were nothing more than ridiculous babble to shake the enemy. I had made plenty of such empty promises back when I was promising friendship to the Tark Republic. I didn¡¯t even know which one Sandro was referring to here so suddenly.


    But, I swiftly worked my brain. It was obvious that only something incredibly important would make Sandro leave Bardi ande to see me. Then, there would only be one possibility...


    ¡°Land?¡±


    Sandro slowly nodded, confirming my guess. I was now rather surprised.


    I had previously promised to give the undead a newnd that wasn¡¯t part of the mortal ne. This should have been nothing more than a possible backup option to the Undead Emperors who were absolutely determined to return to the mortal ne. My original expectation was that the undead would finallye to negotiate this with me after they suffered some losses. Currently, the undead army was at its strongest with the arrival of the Undead Emperors, yet they were already searching for a path of retreat?


    I didn¡¯t even try to hide my surprise, since I also needed to hear Sandro¡¯s exnation.


    ¡°...You¡¯ve done a good job, really. You¡¯ve done well to the point where we¡¯ve split into different factions.¡±


    I felt like I really needed a trantor here. Sandro really liked to say things that had no beginning or end, making others guess what he meant. If I guessed correctly, it should have been obvious, but if I guessed wrong, it would make me seem quite foolish.


    ¡°Oh...¡±


    In that case, two could y this game. Everyone could just guess together! I calmly stated this simple word, and then kept quiet, causing the room to sink into a strange silence.


    ¡°Cough, cough, Phil, help me exin things.¡±


    It seemed that Sandro was no longer able to take this staring session. One of Sandro¡¯s subordinates emerged from his shadow. Phil appeared to be a middle-aged gentleman, when in actuality, he was a... mummy?


    ¡°Greetings, Your Majesty Yongye. My master hasn¡¯t actually talked to anyone for countless years already, so please allow me to express his meaning for him.¡±


    He hadn¡¯t talked to anyone for countless years already? Indeed, that was understandable. In the Corpse ne that he ruled, he only needed to use his will to issuemands to all lower-level undead. There were no undead in his ne who were on the same level or higher than he was, and even if Sandro needed tomunicate with other Undead Emperors, he could probably also just send his subordinates to do so.


    It seemed that Sandro wasn¡¯t the type who loved to give riddles, after all. It was just that he had far too few chances to talk to others, so his eloquence had gone bad? This was quite an extravagant third-world problem. I nodded in understanding, inviting Phil to speak.


    ¡°My master means that you¡¯ve done such a wonderful job, to the point where we don¡¯t even dare to believe how well the undead and living are able to peacefully live together. This caused us to recall the most flourishing times of our past Tark Republic. Thus, the Undead Emperors have split into factions on how to treat the living...¡±


    This mummy named Phil wasn¡¯t like most mummies at all. He could speak quite quickly. Thanks to him, I was able to gradually understand what was going on.


    As I previously inferred, the Tark Republic Senators weren¡¯t unified in their intentions. Some Undead Emperors strongly desired the reestablishment of the Tark Republic. Some Undead Emperors simply wanted toe harvest flesh and blood in the mortal ne. Some Undead Emperors were quite satisfied with their lives in the Death nes, so they hadn¡¯t evene to the mortal ne.


    Morover, even the Undead Emperors who wanted to reconstruct the Tark Republic differed in their attitudes towards the living as well. This made them very different in their actions...


    To give an example for easier understanding, Aso had been one of the main members of the Tark Republic reestablishment faction. Aso¡¯s attitude towards the living had also been rtively moderate as he hoped to create a new Tark Republic where the living and undead could coexist together in peace, which would restore the republic¡¯s past civilization to how it used to be. Undead Emperor Sandro, another one of the Tark Republic¡¯s oldest Senators, had also been alive back in that era where the undead and living coexisted in peace. Thus, Sandro and Aso had simr viewpoints, and were irond allies.


    Meanwhile, even though Conservation was quite close to Aso, she was filled with enmity towards the living even though she was also a supporter of reestablishing the Tark Republic. Originally, she didn¡¯t have a strong desire to return to the mortal ne to begin with, and only joined due to being Aso¡¯s lover, but recently, she had been focused only on taking revenge for Aso¡¯s death, also taking up his cause for reestablishing a country for the undead in the Tark Republic. Due to her greatly improved personal power level, Conservation had even faintly be the leader of the ¡°ughter the living¡± faction.


    Now that the Undead Emperors had returned to the mortal ne, their biggest disagreement was whether or not to use Undead Cmity to simply ughter all the living in their path, transforming the living into the undead.


    ¡°Hey, there¡¯s so few of you, yet you cane up with so many different factions and disagreements? That¡¯s a lot of hard work...¡±


    I was unable to see Phil¡¯s expression due to the mummy bandages he was wearing. However, old Sandro seemed to be quite fatigued as if this situation was giving him quite the headache.


    ¡°There¡¯s no helping it. The Undead Emperors are all uniquely powerful...¡±


    I nodded as I naturally understood. Anyone who could surpass the theoretical limitations and be an Undead Emperor would have a particr obsession. Somemon traits of the obsessed would be extreme egocentrism along with being incredibly difficult topromise with.


    Not only that, the Undead Emperors were all existences that ruled over an entire Death ne, meaning that they were the most revered existences in theirnds. Plus, Undead Emperors were also mages to begin with, and would look down on the Gods. It would be strange if the Undead Emperors would be easy to get along with after so many years of istion.


    I had previously made my own inferences that since the Undead Emperors were also mages, they probably acted together as an organization simr to the Truth Symposium. Every Undead Emperor would be the greatest authority in their personal research field, so they were naturally obsessive individuals who wouldn¡¯t listen to others. Only mutual benefits would cause them to act together. There would never be something like an overall leader or goal, as nobody would ever be convinced by another.


    For other powerful existences, they would typically determine the leader choosing whoever was the most powerful. However, the Undead Emperors were all mages at very simr power levels. Besides, determining the leader by actual power? That would be just like barbarians, whom mages looked down on the most!


    Besides, it was quite often that intelligence mattered far more than power level in a mage¡¯s battle. Luck would also be quite important. The order in which you used your skills might be critically important. Two individuals at simr power level meeting again for a rematch might see a totally different oue than before.


    And even if power level was the determining factor, it was quite possible for any Undead Emperor to suddenly achieve another breakthrough in their specialty, greatly increasing their power level. The rankings would constantly change, meaning that determining the leader by power level would be nothing more than a joke.


    ¡°The most difficult people in the world to talk to are probably obsessive scientists and authoritarian dictators. Undead Emperors are both. It would be a miracle already for them to be able to peacefully get along with each other. Perhaps they will view the fact that they¡¯re of the same kind with some importance... but, I think there will be fissures I can take advantage of,¡± I concluded at the time of my analysis.


    Based on my analysis, I figured that any alliance of Undead Emperors would definitely be a very loose one, where all of the Undead Emperors had nearly equal status... That was why when I heard that five Undead Emperors were working together in unison to attack Bardi, I was floored with disbelief.


    ¡°Five existences simr to myself and Harloys peacefully ying mahjong together? Getting along well with each other? Dream on.¡±


    My guess about what would happen was that each of the five invading Undead Emperors would individually lead their own armies, open up their Dimensional Doors, and attack five different countries. Anynd that they conquered would belong to themselves. That should have been the strategy the most suitable for them.


    ¡°His Majesty Aso and Her Majesty Conservation are no longer here. The remaining Majesties are unable to evene to an ord about who gets to attack which location. That¡¯s why His Majesty Shupnus came up with the idea for the five Majesties to try and attack Bardi in unison... This is the first time that they¡¯ve ever tried working together. However, judging from the results, this will also likely be thest.¡±


    It turned out that the Tark Republic also had spies among the Nortnds undead for all this time. The more moderate Undead Emperors were quite moved by such a sight, so they rmended not to start any battles that would leave too much of a grudge with the living so that peace could be possible afterwards.


    However, the violent Undead Emperor Shupnus had immediately started with an Undead Cmity attack, starting a snowball effect.


    Shupnus had seen through everything quite clearly. He understood quite well that once certain lines were crossed, there would be no turning back. The more moderate Undead Emperors couldn¡¯t do anything once things became like this. It wasn¡¯t like the moderate Undead Emperors were actually good individuals to begin with, and neither would they be the type to show mercy to their enemies. Thus, the five Undead Emperors teamed up together for a unified attack.


    Although their attack was incredibly overwhelming due to theirbined strength, their alliance was already falling apart halfway through.


    Undead Emperor Anina, ruler of the Darkness ne, felt that just gaining a few benefits in Bardi was enough. She didn¡¯t want to continue attacking a country as powerful as Bardi, and preferred instead to try and attack a much weaker country to harvest souls from. Her experience was only average among the Undead Emperors. She still needed a tremendous amount of souls to strengthen herself. In a way, she was the only Undead Emperor who desired to do battle for practical benefits.


    The second Undead Emperor, known as the Undead General, was also from the Desecration ne, just like Aso. In a way, he was both Aso¡¯s brother as well as Aso¡¯s subordinate... He had been absolutely furious to hear about the revival of the Great Demon Empire as he had lived through the era of the great demons¡¯ rule. He had wanted to instantly turn around and go attack the great demons. By the way, I should also mention that Sandro also hated the great demons. The oldest Tark Republic Senators had all survived since the bloody battles between humans and great demons. The blood grudge between them and great demons would be impossible to arbitrate. In fact, their grudge against the great demons ran so deep that it would even be one of the main driving reasons reviving them into a state of undeath after death.


    The third Undead Emperor, Shupnus from the Deathmist ne, was both apparently and actually the youngest Undead Emperor among them. He couldn¡¯t understand one bit why the older Undead Emperors were so obsessed with the great demons. He was quite a chuunibyou, and had a good rtionship with Conservation. Both of them wanted to revive the Tark Republic as a country only for the undead, without the living. Shupnus¡¯ current goal was to conquer all of Bardi.


    Undead Emperor Sonuma from the Blood ne was the fourth Undead Emperor. He was the strangest of them all. Not a single person would ever know what he was thinking. Sonuma had suddenly left the battle against Bardi without saying anything at all to the other Undead Emperors. He had only left a clone behind. It was precisely because that Sonuma had left that the Undead Emperors had suffered slightly in the magical battle against the archmages and dragons.


    The fifth and final Undead Emperor was old Sandro here. His choice... well, he was already here to talk to me, plus he was one of the moderate Undead Emperors. This was the best exnation for everything.


    ¡°All of Their Majesties have such strong personalities...¡±


    Although Phil the mummy was still expressionless, I could tell from his tone that he actually wanted to cry.


    Indeed, the five Undead Emperors had all split into their own factions. In fact, most of them were the type who would act ridiculously without caring about their ¡°allies¡± one bit. Their personalities were indeed strong to the point where I couldn¡¯t evenment.


    Well, to begin with, I had already predicted that the invading Undead Emperors wouldpletely split into different factions. Although their unity at the beginning of their attack on Bardi was rather unexpected, the end result was no different from my predictions at all.


    ¡°All of you have it so hard...¡±


    It would be so pitiful to be a subordinate of these incredibly selfish bastards Undead Emperors. I spoke quite sincerely, in a tone filled with sympathy and understanding for Phil.


    ¡°It, it¡¯s good that you understand. As expected of the newest and only Majesty of this generation.¡±


    The mummy Phil had a grateful expression now as if he saw hope for the future.


    ¡°...You finally understand how hard we had it? Do you still remember things back at Sulfur Mountain City in the day?¡± Harloys said suddenly in my soul connection. Would she ever stopmenting about me? I was at least much better than these Undead Emperors...


    Then, I recalled how I was at Sulfur Mountain City in the past. I remembered all sorts of times where I dug pitfalls for others or explosive scenes. Making trouble for my subordinates? I could remember countless times where Diana was angered to the point of spitting up blood. Thus, my words trailed off as I lost the courage to talk back to Harloys...


    ¡°Cough, if only Conservation and Aso were still here... If only Aso was still here, I think it would have been possible for all of us to at least hold negotiations.¡±


    Sandro seemed to be feeling quite awkward as he spoke in a helpless tone. In a way, this wasn¡¯t the fault of the Undead Emperors for theirck of unity. Aso was the one who had originally organized the Undead Emperors¡¯ invasion of the mortal ne to begin with. But, he was now dead. Their unity would naturally be terrible without their original leader in name.


    I now finally understood. It turned out that it wasn¡¯t the Undead Emperors being decisive when they attacked in full force as five. It was that all of them understood that their loose alliance would copse soon as time went on. Thus, they might as well all attack together while they were still nominally allies to see if they could have an easy victory if the enemy wasn¡¯t prepared.


    However, Bardi had managed to stop their attack with the help of the dragons and archmages. Thus, the five Undead Emperors now had five different ways of thinking and five different courses of action. Even the God of Fate Catio would be unable to see what would happen next.


    I was now looking at the silent Sandro in a much friendlier light. Obviously, he didn¡¯t represent the five Undead Emperors, and only represented himself.


    The fact that he said that it was excellent how the undead and living got along with each other in the Mist Alliance was the best evidence of his attitude.


    This might be a rare opportunity that would onlye by once in a thousand years...

 Chapter 672 - Miracle

    <h4>Chapter 672: Miracle</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Fissures? If the Undead Emperors had never been solid to begin with, why would there be any fissures between them?


    Any mage would forever search for the endless truth. Archmage-level existences would pay a certain amount of respect to and treat each other with some friendliness since they would all berades searching for their own truth. They would only pay superficial respect to the Gods, out of deference only to the Gods¡¯ tremendous power and in order to avoid trouble.


    A pure mage would never truly lower their head to any powerful existence. A powerful enemy would only pique a mage¡¯s interest and curiosity, making the mage want to analyze, dissect, and learn from the enemy¡¯s power, and then be even stronger than their enemy.


    ¡°A true mage will never be a loyal follower of any God of belief. That is because the mage will only be curious about the source of the God¡¯s power, also believing that as long as they analyze the God¡¯s power, they can be even stronger than the God. They will even capture and dissect the God in order to prove their own research theories.¡±¨C Truth Symposium archmage, ¡°Levin the Desecrator¡±.


    Well, it was likely that the Haletdam schrs generation had gone more overboard than anyone else. They had indeed taken this doomed path with their research into time rewinding, the secrets of souls, and the Cycle of Reincarnation. The undead Tark Republic had also been crushed by the Gods due to the same reason.


    That was why mage organizations were typically quite loose alliances. This was due to mages¡¯ very nature. Mages who gave all their personal research over to royal authority or powerful individuals would find it difficult to reach the top.


    The reason for this? In the world of magic, knowledge equaled power. The foundation of research and seeking the truth would be doubt and analysis. If you lost your ability to doubt, how could you possibly break past a mystery and discover new knowledge?


    It would be impossible for there to be very strong ranking systems where a leader¡¯s orders were highly important in such loose alliances. At the very most, perhaps some respected individual could lead the rest with reputation and connections. Obviously, the Undead Emperors¡¯ alliance hadn¡¯t managed to deal with its issues.


    Aso¡¯s premature death caused the Undead Emperor alliance to lose its core, central member. The Undead Emperors all knew that their alliance would soon fall apart by itself, which was why they had chosen to all attack together for one time before the alliance fell apart.


    And the moment that their attack was impeded, they all left to go their own ways.


    In that case, what I could do here was obvious to me.


    ¡°...It¡¯s unbelievable even when I¡¯m witnessing it myself.¡±


    Sandro and I had now secretly slipped out from the royal pce. We were idly walking around on the streets while wearing thick white wolf fur capes.


    Sandro wasn¡¯t being astonished with our high-tech magical engineering. Rather, he was astonished that a high-level undead skeleton was openly selling his wares at a streetside stall. The skeleton was currently advertising his bone essories and toys for children. The buyer was an ordinary human citizen with no special powers.


    The skeleton was even haggling with the human. Even though the high-level skeleton could easily p the human to death, he was instead smiling while exining about the bone essory design and price.


    Even though the buyer was clearly interested, she was still trying to drive down the price.


    This was actually quitemon for any transaction. However, it would be impossible to see the living and the undead trading with each other anywhere else.


    ¡°...How is this possible? That skeleton general is truly trying to patiently sell things to that woman? He can clearly kill her so easily! And, that woman isn¡¯t even the slightest bit afraid!¡±


    I could understand why Sandro would think this way. For people like us, no matter what information we heard from our spies, we would always be suspicious until personally verifying the information. Oftentimes, even if we personally saw or heard something, we still wouldn¡¯t treat it as real.


    Sandro hade to visit unexpectedly. As an Undead Emperor, his understanding of soul wavelengths meant that it would be impossible to fool him in any matter rted to the soul. He could tell that this scene was absolutely real. This seemingly simple transaction was the best example that here in Diffindor, the living and the undead were both considered ordinary citizens, no different from each other.


    Yet, Eich was a world where power was everything. In this world where undead were widely considered evil, this scene would seem even more inconceivable to Sandro that even a forbidden spell.


    I was confident that this scene couldn¡¯t be replicated anywhere else, past or present.


    Previously, there were also countries where the undead and living could coexist together in peace, such as the ancient Tark Republic or the Xiluo Empire affiliated with us. However, in those countries, the undead and living would never be equal. Although they could coexist in peace in those countries, they would basically be onpletely different levels.


    In the original Xiluo, the great majority of living were ves, part of the lowest social ss. The upper social sses were filled with solely undead.


    Back in the Tark Republic, the great majority of living would choose to study undead magic. The political power rested with the Senators, who were the strongest undead mages. Thus, it wasmon for the living to actively seek to be the undead in order to improve themselves.


    It could be said that in both these countries, the undead ruled over the living. The natural differences between the undead and living meant that peaceful coexistence as equals would be incredibly inconceivable.


    ¡°...Just how did you aplish this?¡±


    I fell silent at this simple question. Indeed, achieving it could be termed a miracle. Countless definites and coincidences hadbined to create this miracle which would be impossible to replicate.


    ¡°I¡¯ll tell you as we walk...¡±


    We continued walking around the business district. Even though severalrge snowfalls had alreadye, this ce was still quite flourishing.


    The temperature had long since fallen below zero degrees. Even though there were no more horses or donkeys out in the streets due to the cold, there were still plenty of vehicles going around, purchasing or selling items. In the past, the business district would have long since stopped doing business at this time of year. It would be impossible to do most transactions with human strength alone. Any wares that couldn¡¯t be shipped would be nothing more than useless baggage that couldn¡¯t be sold.


    But right now, numerous caravans were hurrying past us. To them, this was actually just the beginning of their year-end and new year sales.


    Some of them were riding on winter edition snow Iron Horses (motorcycles). Some of them were driving vehicles which had treads instead of wheels. However, most were actually using undead modes of transportation.


    Skeleton horses, ghost horses, zombie horses, and so on. These creatures would typically be considered nightmarish rumors by the living, yet they were now dragging sleighs, carriages, and other vehicles as they proceeded forward, not knowing fatigue.


    Here in Diffindor, thepetition between magical engineering products and undead magic products was incredibly fierce when it came to transportation. In normal times, ordinary horse-drawn carriages would also be a fiercepetitor, but in the cold winter of the Nortnds, the horses could only hide in their warm stables as frostbite would be quite expensive to treat.


    The Iron Horses, magical versions of motorcycles, wouldn¡¯t have any problem traveling in winter. They also had numerous modifications for the snowy weather. The goblins, who were so skilled at making money, had long since started selling special winter editions. However, the rtively high price meant that they weren¡¯t particrly popr on the market.


    Meanwhile, an undead horse-drawn carriage controlled by an acolyte undead mage (with two free zombieborers thrown in) could be hired for an entire day for only three gold coins. This was far cheaper than an Iron Horse which would be sold for 500 gold coins at the cheapest. Thus, the undead transportation methods actually managed to conquer 70% of Diffindor¡¯s winter transportation marketce.


    And since undead magic didn¡¯t have high talent requirements, and was also cheap to learn along with being easy to make money from, ¡°ordinary citizen undead mages¡± became more and moremon in Diffindor, where studying undead magic was legal. In fact, due to supply and demand, the price for hiring an acolyte undead mage was even lowering. I heard that the undead mages were even discussing whether or not they should establish a guild to control the prices...


    I proceeded forward in silence, while Sandro seemed to have his own realization about what he saw.


    ¡°...Connecting undead magic to the citizens¡¯ benefits in order to remove their fears? This is indeed a good idea. However, our Tark Republic also aplished this in the past, but it wasn¡¯t anywhere near as effective.¡±


    I shook my head. Shared mutual benefits wasn¡¯t the critical point at all. It was only a result of the undead being epted by the world.


    ¡°...How should I exin? This is a coincidence that¡¯s impossible to replicate, but it¡¯s also something definite...¡±


    I recalled the past¡ªit all had probably started on that day. The remnant defeated undead knights lifted up their tatteredbat g as they hesitantly returned to their homnd. Yet, they were still epted and weed by the residents of Diffindor who still remembered quite well about the spirit of the Mist.


    This had been a chance, as well as a miracle. The People of the Mist still felt nostalgia about their destroyed Mist Kingdom, and they respected their heroes from history. Their respect for the undead knights, along with the promise of the Mist royalty along with my return all helped the People of the Mist to ept this undead army.


    These undead knights had all previously been royal knights of the Mist Kingdom. They deeply loved thisnd, and regretted that they weren¡¯t able to properly protect their people. They would never harm the living.


    Meanwhile, to the living, these undead knights were all heroes who had tried their best to defend the Mist Kingdom. Thanks to Princess Reyne¡¯s guidance, the undead knights who returned with Prince Rnd were viewed with respect and trust, as heroes.


    Trust needed effort to be put in by both sides. This coincidental return had achieved the best possible result. The undead started being epted by the living.


    Yet, just this alone wouldn¡¯t be enough. The undead knights became more active as they were sent to various core industries and jobs, such as alchemy, military, winter hunting, and even basic construction. These guardian knights were quite active in greatly improving the citizens¡¯ day-to-day lives, serving to also greatly improve the rtionship between the living and the undead.


    With this as the opportunity, we began to spread a new way of seeing the undead. These old undead knights were seen as still protecting the People of the Mist, which helped to eliminate the citizens¡¯ discrimination against the undead. Diffindor thus became a holynd that undead mages could only dream of. Countless undead mages would travel thousands of kilometers toe reside here.


    As for why I said it was a miracle, that was because there was indeed a miracle withter developments. The creation of Diffindor as the Crimeless City meant that even undead strangers could be seen as innocent. Only after people no longer discriminated could friendship and trust be truly established.


    After that were the great benefits brought from majorly developing undead magic here, along with helping undead magic studies bemonce. Only after all that finally appeared this scene where the living and the undead truly coexisted in peace, as equals.


    Although it all sounded quite simple, this scene was the amalgamation of countless coincidences, even including Wumianzhe¡¯s divine miracle. Yet, there were also definites. Without the return of my knights, without these cute citizens who were willing to ept their ancestor knights, and without this g of the Mist which had protected thisnd for thousands of years already, this miracle never could have urred.


    I didn¡¯t intend to hide any of this. I told about all this to Sandro, who also fell silent. He was contemting and recalling his past while making an important decision.


    ¡°It will be impossible to replicate this scene anywhere else in a short period of time. Still, this ce doesn¡¯t reject the undead, as you can see for yourself... So, what do you think about the Tark Republic? This will directly impact our future choices. If you feel that the Tark Republic is a country that should still belong to the old rulers, and that only conquering and for the undead is truly reviving the Tark Republic, then we¡¯ll have nothing to talk about. But if you instead believe that the past civilization is a type of inherited culture, perhaps we¡¯ll be able to have a good discussion,¡± I told Sandro.

 Chapter 673 - Shadowy Alliance

    <h4>Chapter 673: Shadowy Alliance</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The essence of negotiation waspromise. Both sides would need to give up certain things in order toe to an ord.


    That¡¯s why, if you identally revealed what you wanted the most in a negotiation, you wouldpletely lose initiative. If the other party caught on to what you wanted the most, then it would only be natural for you to lose the negotiation.


    Thus, when I learned what Sandro wanted the most, it was destined that I would have the upper hand in our negotiation. Since our positions were unequal, it wouldn¡¯t be possible for me to lose in negotiation.


    He needed my help. Meanwhile, I would be fine both with and without him. This unequal negotiating position allowed me to take the initiative as well as demand whatever I wanted.


    ¡°...At least I know that Aso definitely didn¡¯t desire a country only for the undead. He spent so much effort on corroding Bardi from the inside all in order to reestablish the Tark Republic as a country where the living and the undead could coexist. A country purely for the undead won¡¯t possiblyst long in the mortal ne.¡±


    A country only for the undead would break the Cycle of Reincarnation, cutting off the power of belief at the same time. Even if the Gods could tolerate it, the natural bnce of thend would gradually be destroyed.


    The Undead Emperors were also mages. It wouldn¡¯t be possible for them not to know about this. Even when the Tark Republic was at its peak, they hadn¡¯t been foolish enough to transform every single citizen into an undead. That would mean cutting off the entire country¡¯s future as well as hope.


    ¡°...Then, there¡¯s only one path you can take to realize the revival of the Tark Republic. Rather than spending so much effort to conquer somend from the humans, and then using countless years afterwards to try and obtain human friendship again through showing good will, you might as well instead join me. The Mist Alliance has already epted the Xiluo Empire, so it¡¯s no big deal to add a Tark Republic.¡±


    In a normal situation, actually reviving the Tark Republic would first require obtaining victory in the Holy War, as well as managing to secure somend during the vicious fighting between Order and Chaos. Only then could the Tark Republic be reestablished. Moreover, after the Tark Republic was revived, they would need to consider the diplomatic rtionship with other species, as well as the attitudes of any new Gods who gained power in this Holy War.


    This would obviously be of mythic difficulty. The Undead Emperors were no weaklings, as those old artifacts were powerful enough to give pause to even Gods and Main Gods. Although Conservation was at Main God power level, she wasn¡¯t anywhere close to being the strongest Undead Emperor. To my knowledge, Sandro who was currently before me was more dangerous than 10 Conservations put together. But, even if the Undead Emperors were truly able to work together well, the outlook of their winning the Holy War still wouldn¡¯t be that optimistic.


    The undead army was quite powerful. They had high-level undead as well as weapons of mass destruction. They had endless cannon fodder. The undead¡¯s greatest weakness was the living¡¯s natural enmity for the undead. It would be impossible for the undead to have any irond allies. The giants would worry about the undead making them into bone giants, the dragons would naturally loathe the undead for making them into bone dragons, and the Gods hated the undead the most for breaking the Cycle of Reincarnation and wasting power of belief.


    The undead didn¡¯t currently have a true territory of their own, so they were still in a weak position here. The world didn¡¯t view them with enough importance yet. In fact, the world even saw the undead as a pawn that could be taken advantage of. But if the undead truly did conquer enoughnd to reconstruct a new Tark Republic as an empire for the undead only, developing it smoothly... That would mean that the entire world would suddenly be their enemy!


    The Xiluo Empire would definitely vouch for this. After so many years, they still didn¡¯t have a single ally. Even though theirnd was territory that the living wouldn¡¯t be able to live in, with nothing but deserts and swamps filled with death, the other countries still viewed the Xiluo Empire with immense hostility, always being on guard against it. If the Xiluo Empire dared to attack any human country, they would definitely be met with an ¡°allied army of justice¡±.


    This wasn¡¯t fair. However, this was reality. Compared to racial discrimination in my previous world, the living¡¯s discrimination against the undead here had the additional traits of being viewed as just and only natural. It didn¡¯t help that the typical behavior of the undead and undead mages in history gave plenty of factual evidence to support this anti-undead discrimination.


    ¡°...Unless the Undead Emperors also find a territory that¡¯s inhospitable to the living, it will be impossible to sessfully reestablish the Tark Republic.¡±


    I believed that the individuals wise enough to be Undead Emperors would definitely understand this.


    However, Undead Emperors were existences that had broken past theoretically impossible boundaries for undead. So, Aso forcefully found another method.


    His n had been immense. He slowly moved his pieces, and invaded Bardi from the inside as a parasite would. He used the name of Bardi to slowly develop international rtionships as the living and the undead began to live together in Bardi. The undead also gradually became high-ranked members of the Bardi government. This would slowly make other countries tacitly ept the existence of an undead country and lower their hostility by using the appearance of the Bardi Empire. Once things reached a certain extent, Aso would then change out those in power for only the undead... Basically, he was performing a foreign takeover of the Bardi government without others¡¯ realizing it. This would lower everyone¡¯s hostility as well as reduce possible unknown factors.


    However, this was no longer possible.


    The moment that Aso died, the undead invasion had already half failed. Thanks to the memories and knowledge that he passed on to me, I respected him even more as I now better understood his ¡°intent¡± in passing these memories on to me.


    Aso had a ¡°nuclear bomb¡± aimed right at the Truth Symposium in the Cloud Tower. Aso had a potion that was capable of transforming all Bardi citizens into undead. Aso also had control over Emperor Orloss, along with a list of high-ranking humans in various countries who had fallen for undead temptations and were now working for the undead. All of these were major weapons that could cause inconceivable harm in the hands of anyone ambitious.


    This was all a gamble to Aso since he didn¡¯t have anything else to lose regardless. Thus, he felt he might as well toss all this nuclear information over to another Undead Emperor. He would only possibly win, not lose. If I had been a normal Undead Emperor... No, just an Undead Lord with a personality like Harloys¡¯, or even an ordinary human, would likely do fearsome things with all the information that Aso gave me.


    Aso¡¯s n was that I would take over all his information, and use it to transform all Bardi citizens into undead, continue controlling puppet Emperor Orloss, gain full political control over the entire Bardi Empire, kill all the strongest archmages of the Truth Symposium whenever I wanted, and thus finally end the most dangerous adjacent external threat.


    And then... the Holy War would truly arrive, bringing the Undead Emperors¡¯ descent and an Undead Cmity.


    During all of this, I would gain many personal benefits, and even be able to fully control the Bardi Empire, which was the strongest country in all of Eich. This would make me into one of the most powerful rulers of all. But at this time, the Tark Republic would also be able to sessfully revive with the Bardi Empire as its foundation, giving the Undead Emperors the best start possible. The Undead Emperors would never miss this golden opportunity to revive the Tark Republic, and this would also greatly reduce the likelihood of the Undead Emperor alliance splitting up, thus realizing Aso¡¯s dream.


    This was no guess of mine at all. As I analyzed Aso¡¯s memories, not only did I discover why my analysis had been slow to progress, I also discovered the key that Aso set for analyzing his memories: ¡°The desire to be stronger and gain more power.¡±


    ¡°Do you wish for power and higher status? I shall give you the information and strength necessary to reach the very top.¡±


    Although this sounded like something out of a chuunibyou anime, this was indeed the key Aso set to unlock his memories. Very few people would be able to resist such a natural temptation with such treasure right before them.


    Desiring more power and status would almost be a base instinct. Anyone ambitious who obtained such information that could help them would naturally use it, which would realize Aso¡¯s goal.


    It could be said that if it weren¡¯t for how strange I was... Ahem, I meant if I weren¡¯t a little different from others, I really could have fallen for his trap.


    Since I didn¡¯t have such ambition (which would be incredibly inconceivable for an Undead Emperor), my analysis of his memories was slower than others¡¯ would be. The nuclear bomb left behind aimed at the Truth Symposium would have likely been set off by one of Aso¡¯s other ns if I hadn¡¯t done anything about it. This would have destroyed the Undead Emperors¡¯ greatest threat had they invaded Bardi full force: the human archmages.


    Even right before Aso¡¯s death, he managed toplete his n which deeply understood the nature of humans. He would profit no matter what. Even if he died, his dream could still be realized. Even though I had countlessly raised my assessment of Undead Emperor Aso many times, I could only exim over how impressed I was.


    Ahem, I was getting off topic. In a way, killing Aso was truly a fortuitous ident for me. Aso¡¯s death also meant a huge obstacle for the Tark Republic¡¯s revival.


    The Undead Emperors were definitely no idiots. In fact, they would be some of the smartest individuals across all the dimensions. The reason why they had agreed to invade together with Aso was because the invasion would possibly seed. But now, the invasion¡¯s sess rate had been greatly diminished. This naturally meant that all the Undead Emperors now had their own ideas. Their alliance had failed, with everyone scattering.


    Although they all realized that their alliance would fail and everyone would scatter in the end, this was still an eptable result to them. It would be far better than gambling everything on something with a low sess rate and then losing everything... Actually, when I thought of all this, I truly felt that sometimes being foolish was better. Many idiots would manage to aplish grand feats that a ¡°genius¡± could never aplish simply through willpower. There were too many ¡°geniuses¡± out there who were actually quite capable but felt that doing something would be ¡°impossible¡± or a ¡°waste of time¡±, thus giving up on opportunities that should have been theirs.


    In a way, the undead didn¡¯t actually care too much about the mortal ne, which was the foundational reason why theycked the will to fight with all they had. They were different from other dimensional invaders who wanted survival space and a better future for their species. Apart from a few among them, most Undead Emperors had only returned to the mortal ne for the sake of the former Tark Republic¡¯s glory. The moment that they were impeded slightly, they all wanted to retreat to easier battlefields and scheme their own ns.


    Cough, cough, I was getting off topic again. I should get to the point.


    Aso¡¯s unexpected death caused the original undead invasion n topletely copse. It also caused the Undead Emperors to each have their own ideas. So now, Sandro, the Lord of Withering, hade to talk to me.


    ¡°So, what do you think of the Tark Republic? Do you want to revive its civilization, or the name and the return of the Senators? This will directly impact if we can cooperate or not.¡±


    Actually, it was just a rhetorical question. If thetter had been true, he wouldn¡¯t havee to talk to me at all, nor would he be so astonished or delighted at seeing the undead and living coexist peacefully in equality. Obviously, Sandro wanted the return of the Tark Republic civilization and culture.


    But right now, as long as he said that out loud, that would mean prematurely mentioning his objective during negotiation, which meant that I could ask for as much as I wanted.


    Sandro¡¯s mouth moved, but he didn¡¯t say anything in the end. Just as I was wondering if he was trying to force himself not to say anything in ordance with some new type of negotiation technique, he suddenly waved his hand, bringing out the mummy trantor like earlier. Right after that, Sandro held on to his neck while panting.


    I then understood how it was. Sandro hadn¡¯t talked for so long already that he had already forgotten how to talk when he was excited...


    It was likely that he was already ustomed to giving orders with only his soul voice. However, for existences like ourselves where the soul was our true body, casually letting out one¡¯s own soul would be an incredibly dangerous challenge. It would obviously be best to avoid doing so unless absolutely necessary.


    ¡°His Majesty Sandro desires the continuation of the Tark Republic civilization. At the very least, the Tark Republic¡¯s history and culture should spread in thisnd again...¡±


    Well, at least the mummy¡¯s exnation was eloquent and easy to understand.


    I could understand why Sandro would think this way, since this was also what Aso wanted. Aso had originally intended to forcefully start teaching the ancient Tark Republguage after the undead had full control of Bardi, along with forcefully teaching undead magic, the Tark Republic¡¯s history, and other simr courses. This would extend to politics, philosophy, art, and even sociology, gradually reviving the entire Tark Republic¡¯s civilization.


    It would require conquering another human country as the prerequisite, but for me, realizing this wouldn¡¯t be that difficult.


    The Xiluo Empire already had undead and living coexisting together. Not to mention, the Xiluo Empire didn¡¯t have much of a culture or inheritance. It would be possible to achieve part of the Tark Republic¡¯s revival simply by taking their undead into the Xiluo Empire.


    The Mist Alliance had already legalized and normalized undead magic. We had even revived the Elven Empire, so of course it should be possible for us to also revive the Tark Republic. We simply needed to allot some resources from the Xiluo Empire, which would be nothing inparison to the tremendous benefits we could obtain in exchange.


    Moreover, after the Holy War¡¯s end, if the Mist Alliance survived until the end, there would be plenty of emptynd around. Since we didn¡¯t have enmity towards the undead, reviving a new Tark Republic where the living exceeded the undead would be no problem.


    ¡°...The Mist Alliance is the only ce in Eich that will ept you. You can also see that the undead and undead magic are quite wee here. However, how much you can obtain in the end will depend on what you¡¯re willing to pay.¡±


    I had plenty to offer here, but would need to actually pay very little. No matter how I looked at it, this looked like a good deal to me.


    To be quite honest, I felt that as long as Sandro was willing to help me out, that would be worth any price. Without mentioning anything else, Sandro was one of the strongest among Undead Emperors.


    Of course, I wasn¡¯t telling the full andplete truth. Something like reviving a country couldn¡¯t possibly be allowed so easily.


    It would be impossible for us to sign any contracts on paper. On the surface, the Undead Emperors were still attacking Bardi. If rumors of our agreement spread, not only would it shake the undead¡¯s confidence and morale, it would also cause the Mist Alliance to be tainted with the reputation of secretly allying with the dimensional invaders.


    Not only would the Mist Alliance be diplomatically isted in such a case, the Holy Church would even finally have an excuse to formally attack us.


    ¡°Some things can only be done without saying them out loud...¡±


    Since Sandro intended to revive the Tark Republic in the Nortnds, then he would definitely send personnel, magical research, historical documents, and other simr valuables. The Nortnds would prepare emptynd and people to ept all this information and arrange for orphans and youths to begin studying about the Tark Republic. Once the Undead Emperors saw our progress in reviving the Tark Republic, we would achieve our goal.


    If they were satisfied with what we had done, that would mean that they recognized the new Tark Republic, and that anyone who attacked the Nortnds would be their enemy.


    As for what the other Undead Emperors who hated the living thought, that wouldn¡¯t matter to us. Currently, it was only Sandro of the Undead Emperors who had allied with me.


    Of course, nothing about all this could be recorded. No evidence could be left behind. As for rumors that might be leaked... there would always be countless rumors out there. I would only need to deny everything.


    The right of being the powerful included being a diplomatic hoodlum. All that was needed were some empty words to deny the rumors. As long as there was no solid evidence, it would be very easy to deal with for the Mist Alliance¡¯s diplomats.


    Finally, Sandro opened his eyes which were revealed to be nk. But, judging from his offered hand and the forced smile, he had ¡°agreed¡± to my deal.


    The living me shook the undead Sandro¡¯s hand, sealing this alliance in the shadows.

 Chapter 674 - Progress

    <h4>Chapter 674: Progress</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Without any notice, Sandro quietly left the Nortnds right after the new year.


    We discussed many things and made various agreements, in a way that both of us were happy.


    During all of this, both of us tacitly forgot about a certain missing Undead Emperor... Since I would never be willing to release Conservation, avoiding this dead-end of a topic would itself be a negotiation technique.


    ording to our agreement, Sandro would send a group of high-level undead to the Nortnds within two months. These undead would nominally belong to the Xiluo Empire, and they would bringrge amounts of resources and magical data, especially magic textbooks that would be important for training human undead mages.


    As for me, Sandro was indeed quite generous with what he gave me. He wasn¡¯t stingy even in the slightest, being willing to teach the new generation. Harloys and I both learned much from him. Of course, in exchange, we also gave him some of our research results.


    ¡°Permanent magic effects...¡±


    In a way, Undead Emperors were so dangerous because their research results had already surpassed the limits of the Creator Goddesses. It was often the case that even something seemingly insignificant would also be incredibly dangerous as long as one researched it long enough.


    This was a real world, where you would die if your head was cut off. This was no game world where people would only die when their hit points reached zero. Trying to figure outbat strength and levels would beughable. As long as you could strike a vital point, a rusty dagger would be no different from a forbidden spell.


    Sandro¡¯s personal research focused on making the magic effects of buffs and debuffs permanent. Basically, he studied why some magic spells were able to affect a person for a long duration, and why others wouldst only an instant.


    Then, he progressed in making short-term magic spells¡¯ effects permanent. It was a miraculous specialty that started from the mundane... Well, if you readers have difficulty understanding this, let me give you an example. For instance, if you made a fireball spell into a permanent buff magic spell, then the buffed person would constantly emit mes as if that person was a burning sun.


    ¡°Transforming the living into a state of energy, and then a state of magic... it¡¯s almost inconceivable.¡±


    As for how Sandro aplished this? He didn¡¯t exin it to me. I figured that it would be quite difficult to exin regardless, just as how it would be quite difficult for me to exin using words how I created my Seven Original Sins.


    So, let¡¯s ignore the process and only look at the results. The end result was that Sandro abandoned his physical body and transformed into a being of pure magic. His current entire physical body was just a spell¡ªan ultimate withering magic spell.


    Withering magic would be a seven-circle magic spell in undead magic. It wasn¡¯t particrly rare. However, it would be incredibly deadly to anyone living. Sandro specialized in draining all the water from all life forms within a certain radius around him, withering them to death. This would be incredibly effective against anyone living, but limited in attack power against the undead... But of course, with Sandro¡¯s power level, it would be quite easy for him to wither even skeletons into dust. The undead wouldn¡¯t be able to handle his withering, either.


    Sandro¡¯s physical body, which appeared to be corroding, was a constantly progressing withering spell. It was forever active and constantly changing. Previously, the fairies¡¯bat report had said that he instantly cast a forbidden spell. However, what really happened was that Sandro showed his true form, a withering spell that could envelop the entire ins, which allowed him to forcefully resist the archmages¡¯ forbidden spell and injure/kill ordinary warriors in an incrediblyrge radius.


    This was no major secret of undead society. Anyone who had records of fighting with other people would naturally see parts of their fighting style exposed. This was why Sandro had nicknames such as ¡°The Witherer¡± and ¡°Waterless Dust¡±.


    This was also how Sandro had broken past the natural barriers that undead would face with their physical bodies being unable to reach the peak. He had already transformed his physical body into pure magic, so why would he be limited? From a certain standpoint, he technically wasn¡¯t even undead anymore. It could be said that he was technically an entire new species of his own.


    I had long since learned this information on Sandro from Aso¡¯s inherited memories. This was why I mentioned previously that Sandro would be more dangerous than 10 Conservations put together. Human mages would have all sorts of restrictions when casting forbidden spells, and would always be significantly weakened for a lengthy period of time after casting a forbidden spell. Yet, Sandro could instantly transform himself into a forbidden spell with basically no restrictions. If he truly attacked with his full power, and started ughtering the living, he would be an unstoppable cmity.


    However, the price for Sandro¡¯s transformation into pure magic was that it appeared that Sandro was no longer able to use standard undead magic. However, whenpared to the destructive power of his forbidden spell form, this restriction would barely matter.


    Sandro was a major weapon of mass destruction. He simply hadn¡¯t attacked with full force yet. If he really did, he would easily create new areas on the map filled with death, where no living beings could survive.


    I should also mention that any ce that Sandro used the full extent of his abilities would see the entirend, all animals, and all nts be finished. All the water in thend would be drained, transforming the terrain into nothing but desert. Even the undead would transform into dust, withered away to death. No enemies or allies of his would be able to survive. Sandro would basically create an entire new mini Death ne.


    Sandro¡¯s ability could only be used for destruction. It was impossible for him to create, but he was capable of total annihtion.


    He didn¡¯t have a so-called Myth-ranked weapon. Or, maybe another way of putting it was that he himself was his own Myth-ranked weapon.


    Besides, he was pure magic himself. This would mean that in order to eliminate his frightfully powerful forbidden spell, it would be impossible to eliminate his magic without eliminating Sandro himself. This would be an impossible endeavor.


    The other Undead Emperors were also incredibly dangerous. However, Aso¡¯s memories unhesitatingly categorized Sandro as the most dangerous existence among them. Even the wars between Gods during the Immemorial generation hadn¡¯t managed to make Sandro as much as lower his head.


    This was why I mentioned previously that I would profit so much as long as I obtained Sandro¡¯sbat strength for my side. Even in my uing battles against the Gods, Sandro would be one of my best pieces.


    Perhaps it would be impossible still for Sandro to single-handedly kill a Main God. However, he would be fully capable of destroying everything the Main God had, and it would be impossible for a Main God to kill him.


    Actually, Main God was simply yet another power level assessment. Basically, Main God meant ¡°an existence capable of easily defeating a powerful God.¡± Ancient existences such as Sandro had long since been forgotten by history, and thus they weren¡¯t recorded as being on the level of Main Gods. However, not a single Main God could im that they could easily kill Sandro.


    But, judging by how Sandro had still lost in battle long ago and been exiled to the Death nes, he still did have a mortal enemy who countered him. Of course, his mortal enemy was also one of my enemies. This was why Sandro hadn¡¯t dared to act as he pleased. Still, I¡¯d talk about this topic at ater time.


    Sandro generously gave me and Harloys much of his research data. A lot of it was too advanced for me, and I would need time to study it myself. Meanwhile, Harloys benefited much more as she discussed many things with Sandro.


    In return, I also gave Sandro a new discovery of my own. Although it was only a lowly one-circle magic spell, in a way, this spell could actually change the entirety of undead magic society.


    Magical bone creation, a one-circle magic spell. The caster could spend a certain amount of mana to create some bones which were capable of casting undead magic.


    Alright, perhaps some perceptive readers might have already noticed that it wasn¡¯t actually my personal invention. It was really Undead Emperor Conservation¡¯s unique invention.


    When I forced Conservation to the brink, trapping her in an environment with no resources to create undead cannon fodder with, she had actually managed to create something out of nothing, using her infinite mana in a state of conservation to create bones that then stacked up into undead giants as one of her final aces in battle against me.


    And after she was defeated, I naturally obtained her research results.


    At the time, I even scolded her for how wasteful she was being. This magic spell had the potential to change the entire world, yet she was hoarding it as one of her personal secret trump cards. That was such a waste!


    Although undead magic was cheap to cultivate, it still required resources. You wouldn¡¯t be able to obtain corpses and bones out of thin air, after all. Even though obtaining corpses would be quite easy due to constant warfare all over the world, corpses were still a type of ¡°valuable resource¡± to some. As more people started studying undead magic, the nimble-footed... er, I meant graverobbers would constantly increase in number. Many problems would then arise.


    Besides, the spread of undead magic meant that undead magic was no longer solely the realm of undead mages.


    The development of new magical engineering techniques had brought major changes and great developments. But, no matter how technology developed, it would always be best for there to be as many mages as the source of the magic powering the new technology as possible. Since it was much cheaper to cultivate undead magic, with much lower requirements for talent as well, even an acolyte undead mage whocked the ability and talent to be a full-fledged undead mage could easily make a living by ¡°selling their mana¡± and ¡°selling zombieborers¡±.


    Undead mages were now like cheap mana batteries who were bing ever moremon on the market.


    It would be quite obvious that standardizing undead magic training would improve all of magical civilization. However, people would often mention the problem of ¡°resources¡±.


    Magically created bones were foundationally no different from magically created ice or earth. It would simply be a transformation of magic and elements. I felt that Conservation being able to seed with inventing this new spell was actually connected to the power of death bing one of the new four major elements of Hell. Otherwise, undead magic grandmasters from the past would never have missed such an important opportunity.


    Since Conservation resided in the Ice ne, and was already a powerful Undead Emperor, such an idental invention probably didn¡¯t mean much to her. This was because she could already casually summon as much cannon fodder as she wanted. However, this would be an incredibly important new foundational stone for all of undead magic.


    ¡°...You, as expected of being the only new Undead Emperor in the past 3,000 years. You¡¯re truly incredible, incredible.¡±


    Sandro appeared rather scary with his eyes open. However, his delight that came from his heart was real. I even felt rather awkward about taking the credit, but now wasn¡¯t a good time to tell him that it was actually Conservation that had invented this spell, which would bring up the topic that we had intentionally ignored: the missing Undead Emperor Conservation.


    Conservation had be my ve and an infinite mana battery for my Yongye City. I was even having an undead magic magical engineering factory being constructed with her at the core. This was a core n of mine for concretely raising my personalbat strength. I would never be willing to stop this.


    Ahem, let¡¯s get back on topic. At the very least, Sandro was quite obviously pleased when he left. We had also gained significantly.


    Harloys was now one step closer to bing an Undead Emperor herself. I also gained more ideas about my future death magic sword. As Sandro was an old artifact, he truly possessed an immense amount of knowledge. Since we now had shared mutual benefits, he wouldn¡¯t be stingy with his knowledge. He answered all of our questions about undead magic. His experience and knowledge from countless millennia helped us greatly.


    It would be quite rare that anyone could guide us at our knowledge level, and if we identally took a wrong path, it might take several years, several decades, or even several centuries to fix.


    As I gradually drained more and more knowledge from Conservation, along with unlocking more of Aso¡¯s memories, I was gaining a tremendous amount of undead magic knowledge.


    Harloys, Aso, Conservation, Sandro, and myself. Thebined knowledge of five Undead Emperors was all before me. It was likely that my four powers would be unbnced. My knowledge in all the other magical fields couldn¡¯t evene close toparing to my undead magic knowledge.


    But after learning so much, shouldn¡¯t I be showing off some things as well...?


    Anyways, I felt that I could now do a little something that would perhaps even shock everyone with all this undead magic knowledge.


    ¡°You should first focus on obtaining a Myth-ranked weapon and entering SemiGod rank. You¡¯re quite ambitious to want four magic swords, but you haven¡¯t even fullypleted a single one. You might run into a powerful enemy who will instantly kill you at any time. Not only that, I¡¯m getting impatient.¡±


    ¡°Hey, isn¡¯t this all because it¡¯s too difficult, so I¡¯m taking things slowly...? Wait... You¡¯re getting impatient? Are you about to make a breakthrough? You¡¯ve discovered a method to break through to the next power level?¡±


    I paused in surprise at Harloys¡¯ words, but then felt delight. A magical pet¡¯s power level was permanently magically bound to be impossible to surpass her master¡¯s power level. But since she was feeling impatient, her next breakthrough would mean a tremendous difference in power level.


    ¡°I want to try. There should be at least a 50-60% guarantee. It¡¯s also thanks to you...¡±


    I was rather surprised to hear this. While other types of breakthroughs could rely on taking certain potions or reading secret technique manuals, breakthroughs to be an Undead Emperor, which would surpass the Creator Goddesses¡¯ own limits, would mean creating one¡¯s truly unique path. How could Harloys possibly have relied on me?


    ¡°Not only have I also learned so much knowledge from the different Undead Emperors, this half-living, half-dead physical body you gave me has been a great help.¡±


    For once, the silly cat wasn¡¯t acting tsundere. It seemed that she had much to exim about. I supposed that transforming between the living and the undead a few times would indeed help one gain a better understanding of the power of death.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll do my best to improve my power level quickly. At least, I¡¯m quite satisfied with my progress on my ice magic sword...¡±


    My personal residence was already filled with all sorts of ice sculptures and drawings of snowy scenes. These weren¡¯t resources for my ice magic sword, but rather tools I was using to deepen my memories of the Nortnds. As the Ice Treader, and in order to sculpt my Nortnds ice magic sword, I would need to remember many past memories and disasters.


    But sometimes, when you thought about past disasters and misfortunes, thinking that your current life was so wonderful, new disasters would instantlye to visit you.


    It was now right after the new year, so all the governmental departments were having a short vacation. But when the government started operating again, I received nothing but bad news.


    As for cmities in the Nortnds, I would of course have to mention the yearly beast stampede.


    ¡°Our major winter hunt squadron was ambushed by the beasts? How are our losses?¡±


    Sandro¡¯s visit had caused me to set aside all other matters, so I left Reyne and the others in charge of the winter hunt. I was heartbroken to learn that Kelly showed no mercy on me, as she took away all of my spending money like she¡¯d promised...


    Ahem, I meant that I definitely hadn¡¯t thought that our Mist Alliance¡¯s current military forces would actually lose against the beasts!


    ¡°...The beast stampede was much smaller than expected. We barely suffered any losses. However, Her Highness Reyne felt that something was wrong with the situation. This is a letter that she personally wrote.¡±


    The messenger instantly left after handing me the letter, which I started perusing.


    Reyne wrote using simple and direct words. Basically, there was indeed something off about the beast stampede. The stampede was less than one-third the expected size, yet it unhesitatingly attacked therge Mist Alliance army.


    Beasts also had their own wild intelligence. They would avoid fully equipped military squadrons, and instead go to hunt weaker prey, such as regr viges. Since Reyne¡¯s army had such an obvious numerical advantage, the beast stampede shouldn¡¯t have tried to attack the main fighting force.


    But, not only did the beast stampede attack the winter hunt squadron, the beasts instantly ran away after the initial ambush, but not very quickly. Instead of hiding deep in the mountains, the beasts remained within sight as if they were luring Reyne¡¯s army into following them. Reyne and I both instantly thought of ssical gueri warfare and kiting tactics that would primarily be used for buying time.


    I couldn¡¯t help but recall those strangely distorted noodle-like devils. This was definitely all because of the devils¡¯ schemes. But, just what were they up to? Did they really think that the beast stampede could pose a serious threat to the Mist Alliance?


    The beast stampede was a lot smaller than expected. However, I didn¡¯t think that this was good news at all. The druids had long sincee to the conclusion thatrge numbers of ordinary wild beasts would transform into magical beasts due to the increased Elemental Tide. These magical beasts would be even more difficult to deal with than usual due to being in a stampede. Not only that, the magical beasts would increase in power level, rate of reproduction, and require much more food. These magical beasts would ravenouslye out to hunt, so it was expected that their numbers would rapidly increase.


    Reyne¡¯s calctions had been made with the previous year¡¯s beast stampede as the base number. Meanwhile, my calctions were more than double her expected numbers. This meant that more than 80% of the expected beast stampede had suddenly vanished, while the remaining beasts were trying to stall the Mist Alliance¡¯s major winter hunt squadron. Who would believe that there was no scheme behind this?


    ¡°Where has the beast stampede¡¯s main force gone...?


    ¡°Where else could they go? If they¡¯re not in the Mist Kingdom, they¡¯ve definitely gone to another country. This will bring great trouble for other countries in the Nortnds.¡±


    ¡°...Harloys, please don¡¯t say things so directly. Didn¡¯t you notice that I was trying my best to forget about this possibility? If my family¡¯s dogs bite someone else, I¡¯ll have to take responsibility!¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you just refuse to admit anything? It¡¯s not like it¡¯ll be the first time for you.¡±


    ¡°Excellent idea. I¡¯ll write back immediately to Reyne that Elven Empress Harloys suggests¡ª Silly cat, please don¡¯t bite me on the head! Do you still want to be an Undead Emperor or not!¡±

 Chapter 675 - Spy

    <h4>Chapter 675: Spy</h4>


    <b>Trantor:</b> imperfectluck <b>Editor:</b> Kurisu


    ¡°...As your country¡¯s most loyal ally, even though we are far away in the Nortnds, we are still concerned about your country¡¯sbat situation, and we heard that battles haven¡¯t been going well for you, and that muchnd has been withered, with the powers of death and evil behaving arrogantly, which is why we dared to take certain actions, which we hope you can forgive, that resulted in making a private agreement with Undead Emperor Sandro...¡±


    This was a ridiculously long and verbose letter thatcked punctuation as it was filled with boring diplomatic words. However, the trantion was quite simple: ¡°I heard that the undead are beating you badly, hahaha, isn¡¯t that embarrassing? But since I¡¯m your ally, I secretly talked to the strongest Undead Emperor, and he¡¯s now agreed to go easy and only pretend to attack you, so how do you intend to thank me?¡±


    Considering how this official diplomatic letter addressed to Bardi Emperor Halent Mn was likely to be recorded in the future as an important historical document, and maybe even be evidence to help Sandro be epted by the humans, a direct letter with simple wording would be overly improper. I had actually skipped the rest of this letter for your convenience¡ªit was filled with more than 10 pages of rambling diplomatic speech when less than one page would have sufficed to exin things clearly.


    However, I knew that all of the effort put into writing such a ridiculously long letter was necessary and worthwhile.


    ¡°...You¡¯re so sly. Even though you¡¯re clearly the one who would like to make peace with the undead, the way you wrote it makes it sound like you managed to convince Undead Emperor Sandro to betray the other Undead Emperors and join the side of the living for the sake of Bardi.¡±


    ¡°Haha, that¡¯s how it will look like based on the results. But this way, it¡¯s not me requesting Bardi, but rather Bardi requesting us. It¡¯ll be Bardi who owes us a favor.¡±


    For example, let¡¯s say two countries were at war, and Country A¡¯s secret weapon was impossible for Country B to deal with, yet a third party suddenly intervened and told Country B that they could deal with Country A¡¯s secret weapon. If the third party truly seeded, it would be major diplomatic assistance that would mean country B owing them a significant favor.


    Furthermore, with this as the reason, it would also give me a great chance to help Sandro be epted by the living. A defeated war general would be considered a butcher who would only be thrown in jail. However, people would always conveniently forget the sins of a general who ¡°realized he should join the right side after all¡±. Such a general would even be held up as an example to convince other enemies to switch sides.


    ¡°...The two Undead Emperors had a joyous discussion andughed off their previous grudges. Sandro forsook the darkness and joined the light. Perhaps your meeting will even be an epic tale in the future.¡±


    Although Harloys¡¯ words sounded rather ridiculous, this was actually quite likely. At the very least, Bardi would think that we had been quite friendly in helping them deal with the most dangerous Undead Emperor who could instantly cast forbidden spells. After all, only we would know the truth.


    ¡°Could you be any more shameless?¡±


    ¡°...Yeah! I can be more than twice as shameless!¡±


    And so, in order to show how shameless I could be, I unhesitatingly picked up a pen and paper and startedposing another diplomatic letter.


    ¡°My dear friends at the Truth Symposium, as I am a nominal member, I heard that you met with somebat difficulties in Bardi. Since I am an undead and ice magic mage, I happen to have a private agreement with Undead Emperor and grandmaster undead magic mage, Sandro. Perhaps I could do something for you, but of course, equivalent exchange is the foundational rule of magical society...¡±


    Rather than shamelessly obtaining benefits from two sides with the same deal, I figured that it would be even more shameless to obtain benefits from three sides simultaneously¡ªfrom Sandro, Bardi, and the Truth Symposium...


    I believed that due to my letters, as long as Sandro showed slightly that he was going to go easy now in his attack against Bardi, both the mega Bardi Empire and the archmages would repay me handsomely.


    This wasn¡¯t only for myself. This was also a way for Sandro to clear his name, and with him being epted by the humans, the future Tark Republic would also be more easily epted by everyone. It would definitely sound much better if Sandro ¡°officially joined the right side¡± rather than be defeated.


    I would also need to tell Reyne and Glina about these things after I finished. At the very least, I needed to tell them about the results of my secret discussion with Sandro. This would avoid making things difficult for me... No, I definitely wasn¡¯t exining why I hadn¡¯t joined the winter hunt! What a joke, would I really need to exin myself to two little girls?


    ¡°...You seem more and more like an unreliable cker dad who secretly skipped work and is trying to find excuses to tell your serious daughters. And if you can¡¯t find any excuse, you¡¯ll just use your status of a senior against them.¡±


    ¡°...Silly cat, I have a very interesting gender-changing potion here. Would you like to try it?¡±


    ¡°You, you, you, you... just what do you intend to do to me? No wonder you¡¯re not interested in women! So you were interested in cute boys instead! Actually, actually... I might be able to ept this, but you¡¯ll have to wear female clothing as Princess Peach is the cutest...¡±


    I was rendered speechless as I watched the silly cat acting all tsundere. I directly grabbed her by the neck and threw her out the window.


    ¡°Go calm down for me in the snow!¡±


    I was feeling such a headache. My soul connection told me that Harloys wasn¡¯t even actually joking. Just what exactly was this Elven Empress thinking!?


    She, she had such a dirty mind! Even to the point where a hentai manga could be drawn!


    But, when mentioning hentai manga... er, I meant the Spring of the Drowned Man, I couldn¡¯t help but think of Krose, whom I hadn¡¯t seen in so long. Although I had already written her a letter, telling her toe over here, she was far away in Bardi, so it would take her quite a while to arrive.


    Every time that I looked at the two bottled potions in my dimensional storage, I would instinctively feel uneasy. My many years of experience with pitfalls told me that if I didn¡¯t hurry and dig a pitfall for others... er, I meant, used up these potions quickly, trouble would likely soone for me.


    But unfortunately, the primary target for the Spring of the Drowned Woman potion, Beifeng, was still in the Chaos Abyss, despite the fact that his letters imed that everything was going well there and that he would soon return.


    I thought about the mega reward money out for him, and how he had gone to the Chaos Abyss in the first ce to go into hiding. I could understand that he wanted to avoid returning, yet...


    ¡°I don¡¯t care if he lives or dies! If he still doesn¡¯t return, I¡¯m going to have to think of some way to bring him back as I¡¯m about to go crazy...¡±


    [...Primates can typically be divided into the rtively primitive prosimians and the more advanced Anthropoidea, while prosimians can be divided into the lemur suborder and tarsiiformes...]


    My System was behaving ever more strangely recently, perhaps due to the imminent birth of Beifeng¡¯s ridiculous descendants. She kept muttering biology textbook phrases from my previous world...


    [...Spring has arrived, and life has revived. It¡¯s now mating season...]


    Alright, the System was now quoting Animal World? She was constantly making such quotes, which was driving me crazy! In fact, I was even beginning to miss the days when she would constantly set pitfalls for me!


    Her constant muttering over the past few days also helped me to understand what Beifeng had aplished.


    Right now, all the major species were technically the descendants of the Creator Goddesses.


    Titans, a Gold Species, had evolved into new species such as the giants and the dwarves. The Gold Elves had evolved into new species such as all the current elf species. Even the great demons were descendants of the very first bloodline.


    Even though this was now a mixed-blood generation, for a human mixed-blood descendant, such as a half-elf or half-beastman, the bloodline¡¯s inheritance would typically be rather weak. Even if there were descendants, the descendant would typically favor more traits of one species. For instance, a half-elf¡¯s descendant who had 75% human blood would basically be nothing more than a pointy-eared human.


    With two more generations after that, the mixed bloodline would no longer have much meaning at all, as that person would be fully epted as a human.


    To the Goddess of Order, the order between species was the foundation of everything. The countless variety of species out there was the foundation of this mystical world. This was also why she had been so crazy back then as to try and give every single species a natural job to perform, with a natural fate.


    ¡°Every species has their own responsibility. Dwarves and giants, who are skilled with their hands, should be smiths. Angels should be government officials and service representatives. Elves should be schrs and teachers. Demons should be soldiers and generals. Titans should be architects. Dragons should transport other species on their backs due to their powerful physical bodies and ability of flight...¡±


    Without even mentioning how ridiculous Astrya¡¯s vision of ¡°Order¡± had been back then, this was indeed the perfect society that she had envisioned as the Goddess of Order.


    At the very least, until dimensional invaders broke through the dimensional walls and shattered this perfect society, both the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos indeed viewed this as an eptable world.


    However, the end result of being defeated by the dimensional invaders was that the Goddesses of Order and Chaos teamed up to seal all holes in the dimensional walls, and that they started having different opinions about the proper path of evolution.


    The Goddess of Order adamantly insisted that her way of giving every species a proper role was correct. She even strengthened this further, having her species study their specialties, turning all her species and individuals into small gears that were part of the whole society, all in order to strengthen Eich. Meanwhile, Goddess of Chaos Cynthia took the demons down a path of self-evolution.


    The Goddess of Order couldn¡¯t ept Cynthia¡¯s choice. However, Astrya¡¯s only joy was that the great majority of species didn¡¯t be as chaotic as the demons did. The foundational ¡°order¡± of other species was still present.


    But currently, not only had this ¡°order¡± been broken, even the most basic racial purity had been shattered. Not only were Beifeng¡¯s half-blood descendants not half-Dracons, each and every single one of his descendants could be considered a unique species on their own. Additionally, all of his descendants had also inherited their father¡¯s powerful reproductive abilities, and they would be capable of creating even stranger descendants with other species in the future.


    To others, this might not seem like much, but to the Goddess of Order, this phenomenon hadpletely shattered her worldview. Soon, the entire world would be filled with thousands of strange creatures, so the original unified and peaceful bnce of species would be shattered.


    Not only would there be enough to fill in a biology textbook, Beifeng might even receive a new nickname such as ¡°Mother of Ten Thousand Species¡±.


    [...I swear upon my name as the Goddess of Order that if you don¡¯t deal with that source of pollution for me soon, I¡¯m going to think of a method to annihte those divine beast mothers...]


    ¡°Calm down, at least those divine beast mothers are innocent. Well, perhaps they aren¡¯t that innocent, but their children... Fine, I won¡¯t mention their children!¡±


    I could even see a shadowy item spinning around in the cold wind. If I saw the item correctly, it was another ancient nuclear bomb item, which I had previously used up before¡ªSalo¡¯s Crystal!


    I definitely didn¡¯t want to see if my System had the power to exchange for one of those for her personal usage, so I hurriedly told her to stop. The shadowy image of the Salo¡¯s Crystal disappeared, but this was definitely noughing matter.


    Even though it was freezing outside, I was sweating bullets. This was my first time seeing my System act like this. Beifeng truly deserved his spot of #1 on the Cmity Rankings for being able to make the Goddess of Order so hysterical.


    At this point, I was even getting worried that if Beifeng suddenly appeared in front of me, my System would suddenly try self-destructing in order to get rid of him once and for all.


    Soon, I no longer had the time to ck off.


    ¡°The ability to disguise themselves? So, they¡¯ve already sneaked into the Nortnds¡¯ cities?¡±


    ¡°Our warlocks indicate that the devils¡¯ disguise abilities are incredibly powerful, so it¡¯s highly likely that they¡¯ve already snuck in. Also, judging from our dissection of their brains, they should have intelligence exceeding that of ordinary people.¡±


    What just surprised me was a report that I just received. This was a dissection report that we invited the Mist Alliance¡¯s demon warlocks to perform on those previous ¡°noodle-like¡± faceless demons.


    Typically speaking, demons at the same power level would be stronger than devils. The biggest reason for this would be that demons¡¯ abilities would have countless variations. This would be an advantage in singlebat.


    Meanwhile, devils¡¯ job sses were fairly fixed. In fact, they would often choose or create their own special job sses in order to obtain certain abilities that they wanted. This would be an obvious advantage in military-scalebat or special operations.


    These ¡°weak¡± devils didn¡¯t have particrly strongbat strength. However, they possessed powers of corrosion and demonization, along with spiritual abilities of hypnosis and beast taming. They were probably a special devil species that focused more on the mind and magic.


    Our demon warlocks¡¯ dissection report also told us that these faceless devils actually had the ability to form any face that they wanted. Plus, since they were psychology experts, they were just like natural-born spies. In that case, it seemed highly likely that many such devil spies had already snuck into the Nortnds¡¯ cities.


    The missing beast stampede, along with excellent spies. These two added together made me feel really uneasy. Currently, the Nortnds cities had only nned for the beast stampede¡¯s attack. If these devil spies disguised themselves as human warriors, and then backstabbed the city guard and opened up the city gates, allowing the beast stampede to enter the city...


    ¡°Have the Nortnds countries been notified yet?¡±


    ¡°Not yet. Her Highness Reyne wishes to ask for your opinion.¡±


    ¡°...What opinion could I possibly have? Swiftly notify the other Nortnds countries. It seems that the devils really want to do something major here.¡±


    Originally, I had only an average assessment of this devil species, thinking that even though they had the ability to demonize and corrode, these were only low-level abilities in the Chaos Abyss, but now that we learned that these devils had the ability to disguise themselves, and possessed the intelligence and knowledge necessary to act as spies, then these devils definitely weren¡¯t as dumb as they looked. They probably also had some spellcasting abilities.


    ¡°...My original assessment was wrong. The first devil that we captured must have been pretending to be of low intelligence. These aren¡¯t low-level devils at all! They¡¯re all high-level! They¡¯re a type of high-intelligence devil species focused more on magic and scheming.¡±


    A group of low-level devils might mean that some high-level devil wanted to take personal revenge against me for whatever reason. However, casually tossing out several thousand or even tens of thousands of such high-level devils that didn¡¯t seem receable meant that the existence behind this was truly going all out. Being willing to sacrifice so much definitely meant that the existence wanted even more.


    I recalled my past interactions with the devils and how I had made them suffer, making me feel like even a Devil Lord personally attacking me soon wouldn¡¯t be strange at all.


    ¡°What is it? You have such a big frown.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s because your brothers have pushed me into such a pitfall.¡±


    ¡°Brothers?¡±


    Harloys still had snow on her head as she just flew back in from the window. But, she then looked at the dissection report, and thought of those distorted noodle-like devils, instantly erupting in anger.


    ¡°Slimes and noodles are no brothers... Ptui, I¡¯m not a slime, I¡¯m an elf!¡±


    I grabbed the silly cat who was about to pounce on and bite me and tossed her aside onto the wooden table.


    ¡°Stop messing around. I¡¯m quite frustrated right now. Just thinking about these things entering Diffindor, and that there might be devil spies around us right now, makes me so frustrated.¡±


    Harloys paused in surprise for a moment, but thenughed out loud.


    ¡°Ha! It¡¯s impossible for them to enter Diffindor. Even if they did, it would be impossible for them to act as proper spies.¡±


    I was the one who was rendered speechless in disbelief this time.


    ¡°Why¡¯s that? I highly doubt that the ordinary city guards will be able to tell the devils apart from ordinary humans.¡±


    ¡°Did you forget? Diffindor is the crimeless city, while devils... Can you find a single devil who won¡¯tmit a crime for 24 hours straight? Especially when the devil enters an unfamiliar city while penniless?¡±


    Penniless? I mulled things over, and that was indeed the case. Devils didn¡¯t have the habit of carrying gold coins with them. Their normal soul coin currency from the lower nes would bepletely unusable here. While they indeed had the ability to ¡°make money¡±, they would only do so by methods such as... stealing, scamming, illicit trading, and so on. Most devils would be outstanding at using illegal methods to make money.


    With so many devils, they would definitely have a high-level leader who knew the overall objective and n. Such a high-level leader obviously wouldn¡¯t be staying outside in the cold. The most likely scenario was that the leader had already arrived in Diffindor.


    Devils would also need to eat. They would also need to spend a great deal of money in order to obtain information. But, if they used their typical methods to make money in Diffindor, a beam of red light would instantly shine upon them, bringing over two Justice Knights who would capture them... A top-level spy being captured by traffic cops? This scene seemed soical!


    ¡°Perhaps we can look around in Diffindor¡¯s jails. Maybe our target is a vagabond who instantlymitted a crime right aftering to Diffindor!¡±

 Chapter 676 - Change

    <h4>Chapter 676: Change</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    How were we supposed to find devils among humans?


    ¡°Toss them into the water. Those who don¡¯t drown are devils, and those who drown are humans.¡±


    How were we supposed to resist the devils¡¯ evil temptation magic spells?


    ¡°...Loudly shout the name of the God of Holy Light. Wicked beings will be unable to harm devout believers. Our God won¡¯t give protection to believers who aren¡¯t devout enough...¡±


    That sounded quite nice. Those who died weren¡¯t devout enough? It wasn¡¯t like the dead could talk.


    How were we supposed to kill devils?


    ¡°...Burn them to death in holy fire. Those who die are devils, and those who don¡¯t die... well, the holy fire should be able to burn anything to death. This book didn¡¯t even write anything about what to do if the devil can¡¯t be burned to death, nor did it say anything about how to toss a devil into holy fire.¡±


    I helplessly tossed aside the small book, ¡°Holy Church¡¯s anti-devil guide st modified in AD 324)¡±. Although the book¡¯s title made it sound reliable, the methods contained within could only remind me of the witch hunts from the Middle Ages of my previous world.


    ¡°What is this rubbish? The Holy Church has used such garbage for so many years to find devils? This is clearly a guide on how to kill innocents.¡±


    ¡°Actually, this is nothing more than religious propaganda. Any devils capable of disguising themselves as humans in the mortal ne would have to be high-level at the minimum. Some would even be projections or incarnations of the most powerful devils. There were even historical examples of devils who sessfully became Cardinals in the Holy Church. How could ordinary people possibly detect devils?¡±


    ¡°...So, they issued a guide to help assuage people? A crusading army that burns people on crosses is supposed to make everyone feel better? Truly vicious. It seems that all worlds are equally dark.¡±


    I was currently walking along the long, dark corridors of Diffindor¡¯s jail district, which I didn¡¯t know how toment on.


    Since the jail was modified from the old city district, and also because Diffindor was now the Crimeless City, crime rate had plummeted immensely here. Thus, the jail was mostly empty, and seemed to have an ancient architectural style.


    The dusty smell in the corridor made me hold my nose. The torchlight illuminated all the empty jail cells. This empty atmosphere made the jail, which had the smell of blood, seem rather frightful. I listened to the head jailer¡¯s report as I observed the prisoners.


    Apart from hearing the head jailer¡¯sints about his work, I also learned the information I wanted to know. Only 127 new prisoners had been jailed over the past two months... Although this was an increase from before, as it would normally take six months to add so many prisoners, there was still currently the strange situation that there were several times more employed jailers than prisoners to watch over here.


    In fact, I was even beginning to wonder if jails were even necessary here in Diffindor anymore. Diffindor was a major city with several million citizens, yet there were less than 1000 people imprisoned in the jail here. This was all because any crimemitted here would result in being instantly arrested, thus lowering the crime rate to such an unprecedented degree. The great majority of those who stillmitted crimes hadmitted the unpremeditated ones.


    ¡°...It seems that I¡¯ve arrived at a good time. These prisoners will probably be sent tobor camps in a few months, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. The mines and stone factories have beencking physicalbor recently. They keepining about that to us, that we¡¯re not sending them enough prisoners. But, I¡¯ve heard that they¡¯re now beginning to hire acolyte undead mages for skeleton and zombiebor. Venerated mages can now be hired by usmoners? This generation is inconceivable...¡±


    Thisment was from a rather talkative young jailer. Still, what he said was within my expectations.


    Compared to my more peaceful original world, where prisoners were simply locked up as the main punishment, the countries in Eich weren¡¯t as rich... That was right, rich, because the prisoners in my original world had all their expenses paid for by the government. Such prisoners wouldn¡¯t be forced into heavy physicalbor, they wouldn¡¯t need to worry about clothing or meals, and they could even receive a minimal sry for the work they did in prison. They could have an easy life in jail. If countries in the Nortnds had such prisons, it was likely that the prisons would instantly be overfilled as countless people would startmitting crimes just so they wouldn¡¯t have to worry about their next meal.


    The great majority of countries in Eich would treat lighter crimes such as theft by sending the prisoner tobor camps for a period of time. This time would typically be two years at the longest, while most were sent there only for a few months. But, the prisoner¡¯s life wouldn¡¯t be made toofortable. Not only would the prisoner have to perform heavybor, they would also be periodically physically punished, and they would be given a permanent tattoo upon release as a mark of humiliation that they would have to work hard to disprove for the rest of their life.


    Aye, this was only for the lighter crimes. This was a chaotic era with heavy punishments, after all. For heavier crimes such as murder, the punishment would be far more direct¡ªthe prisoner would simply be executed. However, some ces would use permanent physicalbor or envement, or send the prisoner off to war as expendable cannon fodder in ce of the death penalty. Still, the fate of those prisoners would often be worse than being directly executed.


    Obviously, these punishments would often be quite unjust or inhumane. There were some whomitted light crimes, but would still be sentenced to permanent hardbor, which was no different from a death sentence. There were also those whomitted rather wicked crimes, but were still released after only two years in physicalbor camp.


    Still, people in this world saw all of this as perfectly normal since their society had been like this for thousands of years already. However, due to the painstaking amount of effort I put in, there was now a widely avable, extremely detailed codex ofw that set regtions for punishment types, length of punishment, and so on essible to everyone. Moreover, as the Church of Law became more prominent, this codex became more widespread, and punishments became stricter and more suitable for the crime. The main idea was that prisoners wouldn¡¯t be given free meals and care, but petty criminals didn¡¯t deserve to die for their crimes. The prisoner¡¯s life would be guaranteed, and work would have to be done to atone for their crime. Physical punishments that might cause permanent scarring or injury was eliminated, and tattooing was also eliminated as a punishment.


    Currently, the codex ofw was quite popr with many countries. The countries were saving money, and the prisoners were no longer worthless expenses. The prisoners also received opportunities to change themselves for the better. They would finally be able to reenter society and work at normal jobs again, without having to worry about never being able to hold a proper job again due to the prisoner tattoo, which would actually easily lead them down the path of crime again.


    Due to the influence of a transmigrator like myself, Eich had made far more progress in the realm ofw in the past 100 years than the past 10 millenniabined.


    But, even the best legal system probably never expected to meet a situation such as ack of criminals and empty jails. Mines, which typically relied on prisons as a source of freebor, now had the problem ofcking a sufficient number of workers. Of course, I wouldn¡¯t mind this too much, as ack of crime was obviously a good thing, while theck of convicts to perform heavybor could easily be resolved with the rise of cheap undeadborers.


    It was now winter, which meant that physicalbor outside would be impossible. If I had arrivedter by two or three months and it was spring, then these prisoners would have been shipped out already to various mines and factories, so it would have been far more difficult for me to find what I was looking for.


    It had been less than two months since the magical reactions were detected from the Demon Abyss. I simply needed to look for devils among these prisoners caught less than two months ago.


    Rather than using the unreliable methods in the Holy Church¡¯s guide, I had a much more effective and direct method.


    ¡°Look! A miraculouspass that can detect all devils! It¡¯s famous detective Rnd¡¯s miracle watch (and my watch doesn¡¯t shoot anesthetic needles!)... Fine, I¡¯ll stop babbling. This is just my Contract Hero Armlet.¡±


    The Contract Hero system was now incredibly popr. It was also one of the best ways to deal with dimensional invaders. Apart from automatically recording the number of dimensional invaders in by a Contract Hero, it would also help guide the Contract Hero to the location of all dimensional invaders who would be marked by the star right from the moment that they entered the mortal ne. Of course, the most powerful minimap radars would be quiterge, which meant that they could only be ced in churches and mercenary guilds. The much smaller Hero Armlets would have more limited minimap radius functionality, and focused more onbat recordkeeping.


    Although it didn¡¯t seem like much to simply mark the dimensional invaders¡¯ locations through the divine powered star forbidden spell, it was actually showing its tremendous benefits as the battle went on. Being able to predetermine the Demon Abyss¡¯s actions and learn roughly how many lower ne invaders it sent was also all thanks to this star.


    Since this star was a tremendous forbidden spell with permanent effects, it would have the same advantages and downsides as other forbidden spells. The advantages would be that it was effective throughout the entirety of Eich without missing a single invader, but the weakness was that it would be rtively weak against individuals, and that it could also be defended against.


    Back when we created this star, apart from wanting to encourage Contract Heroes to hunt dimensional invaders, it was all in order to be earlier on guard against full-fledged dimensional invasions. Any mass-produced anti-tracking magical item or powerful anti-detection magical spell focused around a few individuals would bepletely ineffective against the star.


    However, the devils had exposed themselves momentarily to the star when they invaded through the Demon Abyss, but then instantly became hidden again from the star¡¯s view. This meant that they were either mega powerful individuals capable of getting rid of the star¡¯s marking entirely, or that they had special anti-tracking magical items with them. Since the former would obviously be impossible, that meant it would be thetter...


    ¡°Strip those prisonerspletely naked for me, without leaving them even a single sock! Then, we¡¯re going to test all the prisoners with my armlet! I refuse to believe that they can conceal themselves still!¡±

 Chapter 677 - The Newest Elemental Plane

    <h4>Chapter 677: The Newest Elemental ne</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In a way, we were fortunate. At the very least, we learned about the devils¡¯ scheme beforehand, and were able to find the devils¡¯ spies among the unfortunate outsiders jailed as criminals.


    But in a way, we were also unfortunate because from the very start, we had unintentionally taken more trouble upon ourselves. This time, the devils weren¡¯t even targeting us, or, more urately, were notpletely targeting us.


    ¡°Elemental war? What a joke, at such a time?¡±


    From amongst the one hundred-ish prisoners, we discovered 32 who were actually those noodle-like devils. Through these devils, we learned their devil species¡¯ official name and title¡ªthey were the high-level devils species, Sosolian Devils, which in the devils¡¯nguage tranted to ¡°illusion face¡± devils, meaning that they were capable of constructing any face they wanted.


    They were a special devil species especially prepared for this Holy War, an ace troop type meant to be spies among their enemies¡¯ ranks. This devil species was an entirely new one, born less than five years ago.


    Illusion face devils had all sorts of unique abilities, which meant that they weren¡¯t low-level at all. It would require a mid-level devil to promote into this job ss. Naturally, being able to send out so many high-level devils at once, and even equip them with anti-detection magical items, meant that only a Devil Lord could possibly be responsible.


    As for which Devil Lord had specifically sent them here? These high-level devils before me didn¡¯t know. Devil society was as such: scams and schemes would never stop. Orders would be given from those of higher rank to those of lower rank. Anyone who was lower rank could only obey the order which came from directly above them. Behaving too foolishly or too proactively would both lead to death in devil society.


    The true mastermind behind the scenes and their goal would never be revealed until the final moment in these situations. However, the preliminary objective was known to these devils. They at least knew what they were supposed to do here.


    ¡°The Fire Elemental Lords are going to attack the Ice Elemental ne? They requested you devils to provide a bridge for them? Doesn¡¯t this seem like the wrong edition? Shouldn¡¯t the elemental wars have ended long ago?¡±


    I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry. I originally thought that the devils hade here to stir up trouble for the Mist Alliance, or to at least try and take revenge on me, yet it was about somethingpletely unrted instead.


    Still, I at least understood things quite clearly now thanks to what I learned from the unfortunate captive devils.


    It was the innate nature of the elements to war against each other. Ever since the creation of the world, wind and earth had eternally warred against each other. The same eternal war had also raged on for all this time between fire and water. All four Elemental nes were indestructible, so the wars between them would never end.


    But due to the establishment of Hell, four new Elemental nes were gradually being formed for Hell¡¯s associated four elements. The first new Elemental ne to bepleted was the Ice Elemental ne, which had been created using the Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm as the foundation.


    Although I viewed the creation of new Elemental nes as a natural result, the Elemental Lords would view this as a brand-new threat, with new enemies who broke the eternal bnce between the elements for the first time.


    This would be even more so the case for those of the Fire Elemental ne. Back when the Elemental Gods were revived, the Fire Elemental God was the only one who hadn¡¯t sessfully done so. This was why the Fire Elemental ne had been unusually quiet back when the other three Elemental Gods and their nes were stirring up such a ruckus with their wars.


    This quietness was really unnatural because fire elementals had always been the elemental creatures with the worst tempers. They had a good rtionship with demons and devils. In fact, they were even ¡°blood-rted¡± for the most powerful individuals. There were plenty of demons and devils who were half elemental. There were several very famous Demon Lords who would simultaneously be Elemental Lords. me Sea Marchioness Elisa and Chaos Main God Ladvioka both had fire elemental bloodlines as well. Moreover, if you looked only at overallbat strength of an elemental ne, the Fire Elemental ne would unmistakably have the strongestbat strength out of the four elemental nes.


    Due to the increase in the Elemental Tide, all the Fire Elemental Lords naturally saw their power levels massively increase. There were now actually almost 100 Fire Elemental Lordspeting for the vacant throne of Fire Elemental God. Their internal wars had been constantly raging without pause.


    Originally, the Fire Elemental Lords hadn¡¯t cared about the rise of the new Ice Elemental ne, as they preferred to focus on their internal battles, but soon, the Fire Elemental Lords discovered to their astonishment that the fire element¡¯s increase in power level growth was rapidly decreasing. The Fire Elemental Lords could no longer tolerate this.


    The creation of Hell meant that an entire new mortal ne and four associated elemental nes had been created, all bing connected together and rebncing the elements. The Elemental Tide would naturally work on readjusting the power bnce between the elements. This was a period of fluctuation, and with a bnce adjustment, there would naturally be those who gained and those who lost out. Since the Fire Elemental ne now had two enemy element nes instead of one with the establishment of the Ice Elemental ne, the Fire Elemental Lords became the biggest losers of this new bnce patch.


    The Fire Elemental Lords were easily able to discover the natural enmity between the fire element and ice element through simple investigation. The high temperature of fire and low temperature of ice were fundamentally ipatible. In fact, the enmity between fire and ice was even greater than the enmity between fire and water.


    And so, the Fire Elemental Lords gained a new enemy element out of nowhere. When they discovered that the master of the Pir of Ice was the former Water Elemental Goddess, theybined old grudges with new, and practical benefits with old hatred. It was quite understandable that they would attack the Ice Elemental ne.


    The eternal war between wind and earth, as well as fire and water, would actually be about fighting over obtaining more power from the Elemental Tide and improving one¡¯s own faction. Since the Fire Elemental Lords were now faced with a new enemy elemental faction, they instantly found a new target to attack as they already intended to do something in this Holy War in the first ce.


    However, there was a problem with attacking the Ice Elemental ne. The Ice Elemental ne had yet to bepletely independent and formed. This meant that the Fire Elemental Lords were unable to find a way to directly attack this newly born elemental ne.


    And so, the devils contacted the Fire Elemental Lords... The devils would only need to do some work behind the scenes and preparatory work, and would be able to see chaos everywhere. This would lead to their enemies¡¯ misfortune and their own gains, and was a style perfect for the devils.


    ¡°...Borrowing others¡¯ strength to attack their enemies. Should I say that it¡¯s to be expected of the devils? But, you seem to have forgotten some things, such as, where is the beast stampede right now? Also, why would the Fire Elemental Lords think that the frigid Nortnds are a perfect battleground for them?¡±


    The Fire Elemental Lords were no idiots. Even with the biggest grudges and endless potential benefits, it would be suicidal for them to fight a battle with no hope of winning.


    There would be no need for me to talk about how cold it was here in the Nortnds. This ce would naturally be advantageous for the ice element. In fact, for quite a long time toe, most of the ice element creatures of the world would be residing here. Starting an elemental war by attacking an elemental ne¡¯s home base? Even if the Ice Elemental ne was only newly born, the Fire Elemental Lords probably weren¡¯t so foolish.


    ¡°...Do you think that I would know? We devils...¡±


    The noodle-like devil that I was interrogating was still maintaining her humanoid form. Although she had taken the form of a blonde-haired female elf with voluptuous breasts, I only felt my stomach churn when I thought of her real appearance which was so ambiguously noodle-like. ording to the jail¡¯s records, she had been arrested for attempted prostitution. I suddenly felt sympathy for whomever she had tried to prostitute herself to.


    ¡°Perhaps I should record ¡®her¡¯ true appearance and send it to that unfortunate individual. He¡¯ll probably have lots of fun vomiting...¡±


    As for her im that she didn¡¯t know? ording to my understanding of devils, this would be quite normal in devil society. Lower-ranking devils would be nothing more than expendable chess pieces to the higher-ranking devils. A chess piece that knew too much would have their own ideas, but...


    I pressed my right arm against her neck, using some more force which distorted her soft and slender neckpletely. After a sh of light, her neck transformed into an even ¡°skinnier¡± noodle.


    ¡°...Would I believe a devil¡¯s words? Do you think that I¡¯m an idiot? It¡¯s far faster for me to directly ask your soul.¡±


    I unhesitatingly used soul searching undead magic in front of the other illusion face devils. A ck smoke gathered around my arm as I tugged on the devil¡¯s soul which howled in pain. Countless amounts of information shed before my eyes. Soon, the power of death drained the devil¡¯s soul into nothing more than soul shards. I browsed her memories as I pleased, but then finally shook my head slowly. When I looked over at the other captive devils, they actually began to tremble in fear while trying to retreat into corners.


    ¡°Oh my, she actually wasn¡¯t lying. She really didn¡¯t know anything... Alright, so it¡¯s everyone else¡¯s turn next. Don¡¯t be afraid, it won¡¯t hurt. Besides, you guys don¡¯t even have bones or nerves, so you probably won¡¯t feel any pain to begin with.¡±


    A cold breeze blew past as ice began to appear in the jail. The devils began to receive frostbite. But, what made them the most afraid was the ck shadow of death behind me. I was releasing my full aura as an Undead Emperor, without even the slightest attempt to hide my vicious intentions for the devils.


    I did my very best to smile in the most friendly fashion I could imagine so that I could enjoy the show. The only response I received were hysteric screams. Devils, whom ordinary people viewed as their nightmares, would actually be afraid of death? This was truly a rare sight.


    ¡°Hey, aren¡¯t you supposed to be unafraid of death? ¡®Killing me will only cause me to be reborn in the lower nes¡¯ is supposed to be one of your most famous catchphrases, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    It was highly difficult to truly kill an existence from the lower nes. It would bemonce for someone to escape with their soul down to the lower nes for rebirth after having their physical body destroyed. The most pitiful death for a devil was probably being returned to the River Styx, meaning that their next rebirth would bepletely unrted to their past self, with all umted memories and knowledge being wiped clean.


    ¡°...Wait a moment, I¡¯ll tell you everything...¡±


    The devil who pleaded for his life stopped midway as his surprised expression vanished into nothingness. I had already dragged out his soul. This was because I had no intentions of listening to the devils¡¯ ¡°art of lying¡±. There would be absolutely no mistake in killing the devil first and interrogating his soul.


    Ice froze over all the remaining devils¡¯ feet, preventing them from escaping. It was precisely because I knew how skilled the devils were at scamming and lying that I didn¡¯t intend on giving them even a chance to perform.


    The devils started attacking me with their full force in their despair. The various spells and curses they used allowed me to see the truebat strength of this unique devil species. However, in front of me who had gotten serious, their spells were akin to nothing more than tiny matches pretending to be fireworks. A snap of my fingers was all it took to eliminate everything they used.


    ¡°You¡¯re all so weak. I think that even the low-level Ironfeather Devil species is stronger inbat than you all...¡±


    The illusion face devils¡¯ noodle-like bodies were incapable of performing any type of martial arts. Their magic specialties focused on darkness and witchcraft, but nothing high in level. Their only strength worth mentioning was that they actually had significant mental spirit abilities, but not only would those be worthless against me, they would also be worthless against Justice Knights or Antiholy Knights who had strong wills. But, when used against ordinary humans, these devils¡¯ mental spirit abilities would make them irresistible masters of hypnotism. It seemed that these devils also possessed some power to read minds and memories.


    Evidently, these illusion face devils were a special devil species cultivated for the sake of espionage. Their directbat abilities were quite weak. However, their ability to wreak havoc on the enemy from within would be absolutely devastating. Inciting riots, creating chaos, hiring more human spies, disguising themselves as key personnel, and so on were already a headache to just imagine.


    I also found their devices that allowed them to evade the star¡¯s detection system. They all had pitch-ck monkey paw nes with anti-detection capabilities. But, even with those on their bodies, they could still be detected as devils by checking with a Hero¡¯s Armlet within one meter. The anti-detection capabilities were only average. However, any ordinary person who touched this ne would feel a mysterious sense of fear and panic. When crushed, the ne would even give off sounds of monkeys screeching. It seemed that some powerful devil had likely paid quite a price before to mass-produce these cursed items in one go.


    Large amounts of memories filled my mind. Many of these devils were individuals at least 300-400 years old. Stealing, scamming, lying, and all sorts of simr memories all mixed together. Some of them hadn¡¯t been weak at all. In fact, some of them had been overly strong and disyed too much ambition, thus leading their devil superiors to force them to join the illusion face devil job ss.


    I allowed all of these numerous memories to scatter in the wind. The devils¡¯ souls that I released were returning to the River Styx. I had no time left to organize the information. I directly abandoned any information unrted to the Nortnds, and only searched through the devils¡¯ recent and important memories. I highly doubted that the devils wouldn¡¯t try to discern their boss¡¯s real objective. Finally, a name of a certain location caught my attention.


    ¡°Shawen Free States, the mixed-blood free states? How did they get involved...¡±

 Chapter 678 - New Shawen

    <h4>Chapter 678: New Shawen</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Shawen Free States. What a nostalgic name. That was where everything had begun.


    Eight years ago, back when I just returned to East Mist, the entire Nortnds had been hostile and fully on guard against both me and the Mist Kingdom. The only ce in the Nortnds which had a friendly rtionship with us back then was the Shawen Free States, with their significant number of mixed-blood descendants and descendants of the Mist.


    Shawen was the ce where East Mist reentered the stage of history, allied with the barbarians and free state domain lords, and where the entire n to revive the People of the Mist began.


    Shawen was where the barbarians transported tremendous numbers of mining resources, giving us the money to import the equally tremendous amount of food we needed. More than 40% of the mining resources and magical metals required for magical engineering came from Shawen, establishing the first Nortnds supply chain.


    Shawen had the only warm valley in the entire Nortnds. Although this valley was quite tiny and couldn¡¯t produce enough food to feed an entire country, Amelia and I performed countless experiments there. In the end, we sessfully invented new cold-resistant crops there, making the Nortnds¡¯ food self-sufficiency no longer just a dream.


    Shawen was whererge numbers of mixed-blood individuals from various species lived together. Previously, they were all looked down on by the other countries, but their status rose as the entire Nortnds joined the Mist Alliance, and Shawen became East Mist¡¯s most solid ally. Due to Shawen¡¯s unique geographical advantages, it was a great location for international trading. Shawen was now one of the richest ces in the Nortnds.


    The People of the Mist hadn¡¯t forgotten that Shawen had been their irond ally during the hardest of times. Many policies and benefits were heavily biased in favor of this rtively small country. Just Shawen¡¯s own share of mining profits that they were allowed to keep would be more than enough to support all of Shawen¡¯s residents. Additionally, as cold-resistant crops became more widespread, the valley became one of the few warm ces in the Nortnds. It would be too much of a waste to make the valley into a crond, so the valley had instead be the most famous tourist spot and recuperation center in the entire Nortnds.


    Hmm? You¡¯re asking if all of this was caused by a certain someone¡¯s rmendations? Who knows?


    Each winter, Shawen would host a grand party to celebrate peace. Royalty and major nobles from each of the Nortnds countries would attend together with their families and spend winter here... Well, although this yearly party was nominally in order to celebrate peace in the Nortnds and the establishment of the Mist Alliance, the main activities would actually be hunting, dancing, performances, bathing in hot springs, and so on. Serious speeches by leaders wouldst for less than 10 minutes, and the rest of the party would be filled with all sorts of performances and amenities.


    Moreover, as the entire Nortnds entered a period of peace, everyone woulde to Shawen for winter. Not only was this a vacation for the Nortnds royalty and nobles, this was also a way to deepen the friendship of everyone in the Mist Alliance, and as time passed, the Nortnds countries actually gained the habit of engaging in diplomacy and business negotiations here in Shawen.


    ¡°First making others lower their guard with food and drink, then improving friendship through soaking in hot springs together before taking out your ace for a total ughter on the negotiation table. This strategy really seems so simr tomon business negotiation tactics from my previous world...¡±


    Since the Shawen Free States had many different species and mixed-blood individuals to begin with, they really did have an advantage when it came to the vacation industry. Stores in their vacation districts would not only have elven artisanry, beastmen totems, unique local beast bones, and so on, but there would also be plenty of dwarven sculptures and weapons. Everything you could think of could be purchased here. People who visited for the first time would often mistake such products for imported goods, but anyone more familiar with Shawen would know that these were all locally produced products.


    Singing and dancing performances by mixed-blood elves, war dance performances by beastmen, and so on were also quitemon. This culture brought about by many species was quite multidimensional. Although such performances weren¡¯t quite as authentic as the real deal, the observers would feel far more rxed when watching mixed-blood performances. As for whether or not something ¡°romantic¡± would happen after the performances... Well, it wasn¡¯t like Shawen was the crimeless city. Wumianzhe wouldn¡¯t directly intervene. Such industries which couldn¡¯t be talked about in public also became one of the main draws for Shawen¡¯s vacation cities.


    Typically, the closer to winter it was, the busier this ce would be. The warmest and mostfortable vacation vis would always be set aside in reservation for the various royalty from the other countries. But in this year, the Holy War began, making all the countries¡¯ leaders and royalty much busier than before. There were many war preparations to make and issues such as war provisioning. In the first year of the Holy War, reliability would be more important than anything else. You want a vacation, you ask? Wait until next year!


    What about if too few visitors came visit the Shawen royal pce? Actually, each year would see roughly the same number of guests, with very few here to actually travel. Maybe some of the younger royalty members were actually here to have fun only (very unlikely), but the nobles woulde bearing missions to improve rtionships with other countries¡¯ royalty and those in power. They would all be here for various transactions. Meanwhile, rich merchants who were unable to make connections with the royalty would alsoe here, viewing this as a good chance for them to improve their rtionship with at least the nobles, so that they could find a good opportunity to make connections among the nobles and find a way to help their children enter higher society.


    Of course, it was also because of the Mist Alliance¡¯s establishment that the royalty and nobles of the Nortnds countries could all sit down together and peacefully negotiate and improve rtionships. In the past, if they¡¯d all got together, they would have immediately started fighting due to umted grudges both new and old.


    Moreover, since the Mist Alliance was established, the member countries would need a neutral district where they could improve their rtionships with each other and make deals. This indirectly helped the Shawen Free States to quickly be prosperous. Of course, the Shawen Free States¡¯ prosperity was also rted to the Mist Kingdom royalty leading things. As for whether a certain person was behind everything or not... Let me put it this way. Each year, the Shawen Free States would send a certain person arge amount of money as their way of expressing their thanks. Unfortunately, Kelly, the chief financial officer of East Mist would always take that money for ¡°safekeeping¡±. I felt like I was an elementary school student who had his birthday money taken away by parents with the same excuse...


    This year¡¯s situation was rather unique. The royalty and powerful nobles of each country didn¡¯t have time for such idle pursuits this year. The end result was that the leaders in power didn¡¯te this year, and even lower-ranking individuals were much fewer than in previous years. Many ¡°tourists¡± who hadn¡¯t understood the situation for this year were now really regretting that they hade.


    This year, only 25% of the normal number of royalty was in attendance, and only 50% of the regr number of nobles. The vis and hot springs were thus more than half empty, giving the Shawen domain lords a serious headache because of how much effort and money they had put into this party. They realized that this year¡¯s party would incur a major loss.


    But soon, they wouldn¡¯t need to worry about the ount books for this year, because they would need to first worry about survival...


    ¡°...There¡¯s still no word on reinforcements? Has there been a response to our request for aid yet?¡±


    The Shawen Free States, which had been peaceful for so long, actually met with a threat¡ªarge group of wild beasts that arrived from some unknown location. Kakagar, the ruler of Shawen, found this iprehensible.


    Eight years of peace, along with the richer and more abundant lifestyle and environment, had caused the already plump Kakagar to be even plumper over the years. Eight years ago, people would secretly call him the Frog King behind his back, but now people were secretly referring to him as the Hippo King.


    ¡°...Damn it, where are all of our guards? Where¡¯s our Shawen barbarian elf archer squadrons and half-beastmen berserker squadrons? This is the time for them to disy their skills, but where have they all run off to? We still haven¡¯t finished gathering them?¡±


    ¡°Apologies, Milord. More than 70% of the warriors have be professional actors or dancers for several years already. Many of them refused our summons. Even the ones who answered our summons need time to find their weapons and equipment again...¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous! Our warriors have actually be clowns! This is serious governmental corruption! I¡¯m going to have a good discussion with my generals and find just which bastard did such a foolish thing!¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    The Shawen government messenger keptpletely silent as he recalled how it was precisely Hippo King Kakagar who had made such a decision in the first ce¡ªover the protests of the Shawen military, at that.


    Kakagar calmed down quite a bit after venting for a while. He had also recalled the foolishmand he¡¯d given back then. At that time, he figured that since everything with the Mist Alliance was quite solid, he could simply develop Shawen as a vacation spot. With the two major Mist countries as his shields, and the probability of internal warfare in the Nortnds near zero, Kakagar had felt that it would be far more profitable to disband the army and make the warriors entertainers to earn more money rather than pay for a useless military.


    Other countries in the Nortnds now had military strength several times exceeding that of eight years ago. Meanwhile, Shawen had tax ie which was several hundred times that of eight years ago, yet theirbat strength was now less than 5% of what it had been eight years ago.


    Not only were the Shawen nobles and domain lords busy trying to make more money, even the regr warriors were trying to make money through means other than fighting. The Shawen military was now apletely empty organization due to the warriors bing merchants and actors. How could such a military possibly have anybat strength left?


    From a certain standpoint, having no external threats or warfare would actually be one of the most toxic poisons capable of destroying a country.


    Bestial roars could constantly be heard from outside. Kakagar was quite anxious. He knew that now wasn¡¯t the time to push responsibility onto others. If he couldn¡¯te up with an idea soon, it wouldn¡¯t matter no matter how much money he had to spend anymore.


    His round little eyes kept spinning around as he stood in a daze on the tall wall of his mansion. He really did manage toe up with an idea, even though this idea would have endless consequences. Kakagar had formerly been quite renowned for his brains before.


    ¡°Tell the foreign nobles the truth, that we¡¯re currently unable to protect them. Have their bodyguards and mercenaries participate in battle.¡±

 Chapter 679 - Reinforcements

    <h4>Chapter 679: Reinforcements</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°To save them or not? That really is a problem...¡±


    ¡°Stop joking around. Of course we must save them. The entire Mist Alliance is constructed upon a rtionship of trust where allied countries assist each other in times of need. Do you really think that we can afford not to save them?¡±


    ¡°To be honest, I really don¡¯t want to save them.¡±


    Although I was saying such things, when the Shawen Free States sent us a request for reinforcements, East Mist unhesitatingly stopped all of its new year preparations and sent out its army to reinforce Shawen.


    However, I was saying such words about not wanting to reinforce Shawen due to another piece of information other than the beast stampede.


    ¡°A Fire Elemental ne Dimensional Door? This is such an obvious pitfall.¡±


    The Elemental nes were the easiest dimensions to connect to the mortal ne. Many mage towers would utilize elemental pools from an elemental ne. However, those small elemental pools could only be used to draw a small amount of elemental power or smaller elemental creatures.


    Elemental magic had to obey the basicws of the elements. All miracles would be the result of elemental power umtion. Opening up a Dimensional Door to an elemental ne would naturally require a location filled with that element.


    For instance, it would be much easier to open up a portal to the Water Elemental ne in the ocean. The same would went for connecting to the Ice Elemental ne on a snowy mountain, connecting to the Wind Elemental ne in a ce filled with thunder and tornadoes, connecting to the Earth Elemental ne while underground, and... connecting to the Fire Elemental ne inside a volcano!


    The warm valley of the Shawen Free States had always been viewed as a miracle of nature, a result of the mountainous terrain around the area. But, no matter how much the fierce winds were reduced by the tall mountains, the low temperature all around the Nortnds should have still affected the area. It would be inconceivable to have such a warm area without other reasons.


    And as Shawen became more developed, with the discovery of hot springs, this ¡°proved¡± something to everyone: this area actually had volcand underground.


    Yes, the word proved, not informed. Shawen¡¯s historical records actually noted that this ce used to be filled with volcanos in the past. However, the people of Shawen wouldn¡¯t actually admit this. That was because not only would courage be required to build your home on a volcano, it would even more be due to the helpless situation at the time.


    Back in the day, it would already be quite fortunate for the exiled mixed-blood descendants to be able to find some ce to live and develop. Not only that, thisnd was even fertile. That would seem like having a God¡¯s protection. It would be far too much to worry about potential volcanic eruptions down the road.


    ording to other nearby countries¡¯ historical records, it was indeed mentioned that there used to be an active volcanic district here around 700 years ago, along with a rtively famous red dragon family residing here.


    Right when I learned that this entire matter was rted to the Fire Elemental ne, I had already started searching for volcanic districts on the Nortnds¡¯ old maps. I also learned a location¡¯s name from the illusion face devils. When Ibined the information I learned, I understood everything.


    Perhaps Shawen was now a dormant volcano. However, for the Fire Elemental Lords, it would be quite simple to awaken a sleeping volcano. Not only could Fire Elemental Lords aplish this, even red dragons and fire archmages had the same ability.


    But of course, fire elemental creatures would be the most apt at doing it. Volcanoes would always be where the fire element had the greatest concentration anywhere in the mortal ne. Just as how Emordilorcan previously changed his underground Dimensional Door¡¯s location into a cavernous maze, awakening a volcano and changing the magma and mes into one¡¯s own nest would be basic instinct to a fire elemental creature.


    In that case, I knew the necessary information and likely developments. The moment that the warm valley area of Shawen Free States was conquered, the sleeping volcanoes there would soon erupt. Tremendous numbers of fire elemental creatures would pour out of the volcanoes, and considering the current high Elemental Tide, it was likely that fire elementalization would ur in the nearby area.


    If our attempt to reinforce Shawen failed, it was highly likely that we would get dragged into this matter. We would have to avoid the magma while fighting Fire Elemental Lords on their home territory. These damned elemental wars would have no end.


    Elemental creatures would boast endless numbers. Killing them would do nothing but send them back to the Fire Elemental ne¡ªthey would soon return. Plus, the fire elemental creatures would have the territorial advantage here. This type of battlefield was the type I hated the most as I would feel quite helpless. If there was any other possibility, I definitely wouldn¡¯t want to enter this endless meat grinder of a battlefield.


    ¡°Alright, it seems that we do need to go. At this time, we need an expert... Where¡¯s Elisa?¡±


    ¡°You only think of her when you need her? So heartless.¡±


    ¡°Shut up. Do you really think that she has as much free time as you do, Harloys? Of course I wouldn¡¯t bother her if there¡¯s nothing important. Forget it, I¡¯ll try contacting her and hope that she can make it in time, or at least give me some information...¡±


    A while back, Elisa, Adam, and their party had acted together to temporarily block off the Dimensional Door allowing the demon wave to enter. ording to our n, right before I tossed out my Ice Aeon spell, they would go hide in the Chaos Abyss to avoid being hurt by friendly fire as well as deal with various other affairs.


    Most of their party were of the fire element. Fire and ice were counters to each other, and a fire element individual would take double damage from an ice attack. It definitely wouldn¡¯t be pleasant for any of them to take an Ice Aeon forbidden spell attack. Forbidden spells wouldn¡¯t be able to separate enemies from allies. Ice Aeon would attack indiscriminately. If Elisa or Little Red, who were both purely of fire element, identally took an Ice Aeon attack, they might be seriously injured, or worse, directly die by my own attack.


    The end result had been eptable. Little Red, who was capable of flying swiftly, caught up to us and informed me that everyone was safe. Little Red hadn¡¯t returned to the Chaos Abyss with them, instead eating as many Dusk Fruits as she could to raise her age so that she could improve herbat strength as much as possible before the next major battle.


    For us, visiting the Chaos Abyss would be like taking a vacation, but as Little Red was the Underground Dragon Queen, she would have very few opportunities for vacation, especially since Dragon City was filled with arrogant dragons. She would absolutely need to return on a periodic basis to enforce her authority there.


    Actually, Little Red had a subordinate who was fully capable of taking over her role as Dragon Queen. Yep, that would be her mother, the former Dragon Queen Molly. However, when considering Molly¡¯s past acts, not a single one of us could trust her.


    Anyways, getting back on topic, East Mist¡¯s army swiftly gathered to prepare and reinforce Shawen. However, a little situation urred.


    Considering how the mountains were currently still covered in snow, it would be far too slow to rely on infantry. I also secretly considered how there was the threat of volcanic eruptions and the ability to escape would be important, so I gave up on all heavy infantry and other slower troop types, choosing instead only winter hunt knights.


    Winter hunt knights weren¡¯t a special troop type. They were simply the knights of the various Nortnds countries who had gathered for the winter hunt. All the knights had already been gathered, and they were organized quite swiftly. Since the various nobles and domain lords were also participating in this year¡¯s winter hunt, there were plenty of nobles¡¯ knights and guards among the summoned warriors, with plenty of high-level knights and warriors that were above average in power.


    In just a short half a day, Diffindor managed to gather approximately 50,000 elite knights. If their steeds were also counted asbat strength, there would be more than 1000 among them who could be called ¡°grandmaster¡±. There would also be several thousand knights at Legend rank who would have considerablebat strength whenbined together.


    Moreover, since they were able to participate in the winter hunt, that meant their steeds wouldn¡¯t possibly be ordinary donkeys or horses which would shiver in the cold. Military-use Iron Horses, magic beast steeds, tundra horses which had thick ck and white fur, and so on were their steeds. There were hundreds or even thousands of different varieties. Plus, since there were family gs of various colors along with personal gs, the colorful arrangement of gs and armor made the gathered army appear quite disorganized.


    When looking at this scene from high up in the sky, the entirely snow-white ins seemed like a cake that had been casually cut open by this ragtag army of assorted colors. Everywhere that they passed, birds and beasts would scatter to avoid them. This organized knight army had astonishing momentum.


    However, the aerial forces were far weaker inparison. There was only the New Borealis proceeding forward seemingly slowly by itself, with only a few mid-sized airships escorting it. There were far fewer aerial forces herepared to the battle at the Moonwheel Capital.


    The originally powerful Borealis Squadron had all been separated. Several airships were still guarding the elven caravan, while the others were still being restocked and repaired. Summoning and preparing anotherrge airship would take far more than one or two days. Only the New Borealis which was stationed in Diffindor could be deployed immediately.


    When considering the uing battle, aerial superiority would be incredibly important. However, the New Borealis was not anywhere close to being in good condition, as it had just finished a long-distance foray. The only part worth celebrating was that since Diffindor was the home base of the Aurora Knights, the Aurora Knights answered the summons as always when the Mist royalty called for help. We had two squadrons of Aurora Knights with us, totaling 200, which would be more than enough aerial forces for any national-level battle.


    We also spent some money to hire six ck dragons and four red dragons toe along with us. They would also be powerful assistance.


    Unlike most other opponents, the beast stampede was still part of the food chain, and since dragons were at the top of the food chain, they could use draconic might and roars to suppress the beasts and scatter any smaller beast groups. Additionally, if we had to face fire elemental creatures like I anticipated, red dragons with their excellent fire resistance and ck dragons with their excellent magic resistance would be some of the best aerial troops around.


    The only regrettable part was that the only dragons we could hire were young dragons and adult dragons. It was still impossible to hire any Immemorial Dragons or those even more powerful. Little Red would still need to improve her authority.


    ¡°...That¡¯s why I came along with you.¡±


    A seemingly young ck-haired girl was currently chomping down on a disgusting Dusk Fruit. Over the past two weeks, she was now famous as the ¡°Masked Dragon Queen¡± who had been constantly robbing other dragons of their Justice Points. Yes, that¡¯s right, Masked Dragon Queen, as Little Red¡¯s new physical appearance and draconic might were far too easy to recognize even if she masked herself. However, none of the dragon victims would dare to personallyin to the Dragon Queen about being robbed. Plus, none of the dragons were robbed of too much, so they could only let it go... though I personally felt that it was all because the dragons had gotten too ustomed to being robbed by each other.


    She was currently sitting on a windowsill and observing the snow outside. However, I kept feeling like it was really strange. Shouldn¡¯t she be in Dragon City right now, frustrated with countless official matters requiring her attention?


    Although I was indeed quite happy to see Little Red before the uing battle, I kept feeling like something was off.


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me that you felt like you couldn¡¯t deal with all the official matters, so you simply gave up and ran away... Why aren¡¯t you saying anything? Hey, hey, hey! Could it really be that you secretly ran away from your work? You¡¯re the Dragon Queen, the big boss of Dragon City, the ruler of the Underground! Can¡¯t you stop behaving like a naughty child who didn¡¯t do her summer homework, so she decided to skip sses entirely?¡±


    ¡°...Aren¡¯t you exactly the same? You¡¯re still so weak right now, can you really even fight? If we¡¯re going to use everyone to the best of their abilities, the most appropriate task for you right now is probably to deal with governmental work behind the lines. Oh, right, I can be your bodyguard. Yep, from now on, I¡¯m your bodyguard! Remember to pay me on a daily basis!¡±


    I felt rather helpless about the shameless Dragon Queen who was saying such ridiculous things in front of me, but with a super red dragon like her around, she would obviously have a tremendous advantage against fire elemental creatures, so I had no intention of sending her back.


    ¡°Alright, just do as you like. However, there won¡¯t be any money for you. Still, if our luck is bad, you red dragons will indeed receive the best payment of all.¡±


    Little Red had a look of surprise. She was just babbling without taking things serious earlier. Could it be that this battle to reinforce Shawen really did have some benefits for the red dragons?


    ¡°Volcanos! If live volcanos really do appear, you red dragons can move here inrge numbers... Silly cat, why are you biting me! Cough, cough, I was just making an analogy, don¡¯t take me seriously! Reyne, we¡¯ll definitely win!¡±


    Behind me, Reyne and the others were ring at me in displeasure. If Shawen really became a live volcano district again, that would be equivalent to Shawen Free States¡¯ destruction. It seemed that I had indeed been wrong to say something so jinxing before battle.


    But hey, I wasn¡¯t just making things up. As fire element dragons, the red dragons loved heat and hated the cold. Most red dragons would be unustomed to residing in the Nortnds. Meanwhile, volcanos were red dragons¡¯ favorite nesting grounds. If there really was a live volcano district in the Nortnds, it would be possible to construct a new Dragon City here, and maybe even invite some powerful Immemorial Red Dragons here to be our mercenaries.


    ¡°...I was just joking. Why re at me like that?¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t you know yourself just how great your jinxing sess rate is? If I recall correctly, it¡¯s 100%. It seems that the Shawen Free States are truly finished. It will all be Rnd¡¯s fault.¡±


    ¡°Ptui! Silly cat, stop making up rubbish that will tarnish my reputation! Then let me prophesize right now that we¡¯re going to be ambushed by the enemy. Do you really think such a prophecy would¡ª¡±


    ¡°Report! Arge number of beasts has suddenly appeared ahead of us! General Leid is asking what we should do. Should we go around the beasts, or attack them?¡±


    ¡°Rnd...¡±


    ¡°...I understand! From now on, I¡¯ll shut up... Actually, it¡¯s not all my fault, since the devils have been watching us...¡±


    ¡°Report, the power of Chaos has been detected in the skies to the southwest! Judging from the magical radar¡¯s reaction, it seems that high-level aerial devils have arrived!¡±


    ¡°...Today¡¯s weather is really nice, so I¡¯m going to take a nap. Remember to wake me up when the fighting is over...¡±

 Chapter 680 - Aerial Suppression

    <h4>Chapter 680: Aerial Suppression</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    War was probably the only thing about humans that never changed no matter how much time passed. Of course, war itself would change in its form andbat methods as generations passed.


    Back in the first generation of Eich, although the power level of those warring on both sides was ridiculously high, everyone fought using the simplest and most direct methods. In fact, many existences on both sides would even fight each other bare-handed. Battles were just like street fights between unarmed hoodlums, with punches and kicks being thrown around everywhere.


    But when the eternal Holy War became the main war of the world, the warring species kept changing, and the way of fighting naturally evolved as well. The main fighting forces became infantry, spearmen, shield warriors, witches, curse warlocks, ballistas, and knights¡¯ charges. It was an era of cold weapons and magic.


    In ¡°times of peace¡±, the changes in the species wouldn¡¯t be so evident. The main fighting forces would always be the same. At most, innovation would be limited to perhaps making armor slightly thicker, or improving a bow slightly so that an archer could shoot 10% farther. But, whenever the Holy War arrived, all sorts of new weapons would be invented at an astounding pace, changing the quality of weaponrypletely. It was quitemon that an ace troop type of an entire country would suddenly be proven useless in battle on the very next day due to an enemy¡¯s new invention. Such was the cruelty of the battlefield. Changes were so massive that it would be easy to think that the enemy had just been going easy on you previously.


    In any era of world war, massive changes would appear every year, with new troop types, new fighting styles, new strategies, and so on. Falling behind would mean utter defeat. Since all resources, both physical and all the brightest minds, were focused fully on the concept of war, with thousands of years of umtion all being used for war, it was possible for anything to appear.


    Right now, the Holy War was at its peak. The developments of magical engineering had greatly changed how war would be waged. There would be too many revolutionary examples to list. Countless new troop types and equipment attracted much attention, but the most obvious difference from the previous generation, the most brilliant sparkle of all, would be making aerial troops moremonce and essible.


    In the past, an entire human kingdom would only be able to afford a single griffin squadron. A medium- or small-sized country being able to afford aerial knights meant that the country was rich. Not to mention, since aerial knights were so expensive and precious, they weren¡¯t used for the sake of directbat on the battlefield. When considering the high costs associated with them, even if the aerial knights traded for enemy lives at a 1:100 ratio, the rulers would still feel like they had lost out.


    Back in the previous generation, it wasmon for the aerial knights to be members of noble families. Their main work would be scouting and acting as messengers. At most, they would help attack from the sky only if it was considered absolutely safe for them. Thus, aerial knights of the past were considered a reconnaissance troop.


    Moreover, even if you wanted griffin knights to attack enemies on the ground, when considering the pitiful hit rate of hitting targets on the ground with arrows, you might as well instead try spitting towards the ground, which would at least disgust the enemy and maybe even affect their morale.


    Even back when I¡¯d been Yongye, the expensive aerial knights were considered either scouts or honor guards. My bone dragons couldn¡¯t find any aerial enemies topete with whatsoever. Also, back when the Mist Kingdom had still been around, the Aurora Knights were considered a super top-level troop type that amazed the entire world.


    But now, just several decadester, the entire world had gotten used to how Bardi had expanded their dragon knights by several dozen times over. Ordinary people were now used to airships zooming over their heads as this was the new norm. Anyone who still viewed aerial knights as a decorative troop type would be far behind the times.


    ¡°East Mist¡¯s magical engineering technology leads the world! Mist technology is #1 in the world <sup>1</sup> !¡±


    Cough, let us ignore this engineer who said such strange things. At the very least, the Mist engineers had indeedpleted the task I gave them.


    Scout nes were patrolling constantly. Our scouts had discovered the beast stampede long before we did, and even if our scouts were mistaken, our engineers were using therge-scale magical radars on our airship, and had already locked onto the illusion face devils¡¯ anti-detection trinkets.


    Although the illusion face devils¡¯ monkey paw anti-detection trinkets had the ability to conceal them from the Hero Armlets¡¯ star detection system, now that we had obtained a copy of the exact item they were using, their anti-detection trinkets were cracked, and even became an easy way to locate their exact positions.


    The scouts sent us back memory crystals that transformed into illusionary images that allowed us to see our enemies¡¯ chosen battlefield.


    The enemies were on a road in a valley. Although the road seemed wide, both sides were actually surrounded by tall mountains. This road also had a bit of an upwards incline, which meant that our knights would have to reduce their speed. As long as the beast stampede blocked off the exit at the top and suddenly ambushed us from both sides of the mountains, it would indeed be possible to annihte all of our gathered knights.


    Our radars also detected illusion face devils on both sides of the mountains, which helped us to piece together their attack n through circumstantial evidence.


    ¡°Go, Senbonzakura... er, I mean Phoenix nes and Aurora Knights! Little Red, stop cking off. Have your dragons cooperate with us.¡±


    The Borealis was parked in midair as doors slowly opened on the airship. Fortyish gnome Phoenix nes and almost 100 Aurora Knights swarmed out from the Borealis, while the dragons with us also started making their move.


    I gave an order to the knights on the ground as well, and they stopped and made camp where they currently were. The uing battle wouldn¡¯t involve our ground troops at all.


    ¡°Eight years ago, if a dragon appeared on one side in a national battle, even if it was only a young dragon whose wings hadn¡¯t grown fully yet, the other side would likely lose all morale instantly. But now, it would be unusual for a battle not to involve more than 10 dragons. Even dragons have be amon troop type...¡±


    On our radar, our dragons were represented by magical dragon heads that glowed slightly. The four red dragons were faster flyers, and had already rushed to the very forefront.


    Red dragons would be skilled at aerial battles as well as ambushes. Their fire dragonbreath would be a ssical weapon against ground troops. Red dragons, who loved to fight, used their actions to express their desire to do battle... Of course, there was also the matter of their desire for reward money since our payment for hiring their services would be directly rted to theirbat achievements. The younger dragons would be quite in need of money to improve their personal nests, as well as to help them obtain female dragons¡¯ love... How was a dragon supposed to get married without a nest? Young male dragons actually had the same frustrations as humans.


    Meanwhile, the six ck dragons flew at a much slower pace. They assumed quite a loose formation, and guarded the Borealis from all sides, acting as the guards for the more ¡°fragile¡± Phoenix nes. This was no coincidence, as this was the tactic I hadmanded the ck dragons to adopt.


    ck dragons couldn¡¯t possiblypare to red dragons in aerialbat capabilities. ck dragons¡¯ melee capabilities were only slightly stronger than those of white dragons, which were considered the shame of all dragons. ck dragons¡¯ corrosive toxic dragonbreath had limited range, and would be slow to take effect. Yet, ck dragons were still viewed as a powerful dragons species, which was purely because their natural racial talents were far too powerful.


    Magic immunity¡ªthe natural enemy of all mages. Of course, it would be impossible for anyone to achieve true immunity to magic. ck dragons being immune to magic was just something said to scare others. Actually, ck dragons had a racial talent simr to what dark elves had, a powerful resistance to all magic. But, when ck dragons met novice human mages, they would be no different from having actual magic immunity.


    The older the ck dragon, the stronger their magic resistance would be. Although we had only managed to hire some young dragons and adult dragons, their magic resistance would be more than sufficient to make them immune to all spells seven-circle and below, as well as greatly reduce the damage they would take from any other spell below nine-circles.


    The ck dragons¡¯ mission was quite simple. They were to protect our other aerial units and act as tanks when necessary. The main forces of typical aerial battles would be heavy crossbows and instantly cast spells and magic scrolls. Since speed was of the essence in aerial battles, the typical circle strength of the spells wouldn¡¯t be high. Thus, these young ck dragons would sort of count as indestructible flying fortresses when facing regr mages and aerial foes.


    The dragons¡¯ arrival immediately attracted our enemies¡¯ attention, especially due to the red dragons¡¯ draconic might that started emanating from them.


    The beast stampede¡¯s aerial forces started gathering in a panic, but the red dragons¡¯ dragonbreath arrived first. The draconic might from being at the top of the food chain would be fatal against the beasts. When in front of dragons, lower-level magical flying beasts could do nothing but shiver in fear, not even daring to fly up and resist.


    As for the higher-level magical beasts which barely managed to fly, such as demon vultures, thunderbirds, wyverns, manticores, and so on, they were greeted by either angry dragons or the Aurora Knights¡¯ sudden attacks.


    Countless amounts of ice shards suddenly scattered in the air, clouding the flying beasts¡¯ vision as ice spears viciously pierced into their bodies. The magic power of ice exploded within the beasts¡¯ bodies, stealing away their lives and warmth. This was the Aurora Knights¡¯ mostmonly used aerial fighting style.


    In just a single exchange of blows, the powerful mid- and high-level flying magical beasts started falling down like snowkes.


    In the past, it had actually been a mistake to use Aurora Knights against ground troops. Rather than using them to ambush ground troops, it would have been far better to take advantage of their ice magic and heavy armor for aerial troops to have them gain tremendous advantage in the sky.


    Unlike flying magical beasts which fought simply based on their instincts, the Aurora Knights were used to fighting in organized squadrons due to their training. They constantly maintained their formation and ganged up on one magical beast at a time, using their numerical advantage. Whenever they met an especially tough high-level magical beast, they would simply go around it and leave it to the tough-skinned dragons to deal with.


    Ourbat training for the Aurora Knights had especially emphasized using allied dragons as meat shields for dodging attacks. Dragons were tough-skinned enough to ignore all regr arrows and magical attacks. This was a truly shameless strategy.


    Currently, each of our dragons had two small teams of Aurora Knights around them, around eight to ten knights in total. This would be a basic aerial unit.


    The Aurora Knights¡¯ cooperative tactics were well-practiced. They createdrge blizzards to affect the enemies¡¯ vision and flight, created ice armor and ice walls to defend against the enemies¡¯ attacks, and would suddenly ambush the enemy by hiding behind the dragon¡¯s back or wings. Their ambushes were sessful in constantly causing magical beasts to drop out of the sky, directly clearing patches of sky.


    The most evident part was that in the red dragon teams, the red dragons were the most powerful attackers of all, ying everything before them. The ck dragon teams were much slower as the ck dragons were mostly ying the role of tank for the Aurora Knights.


    This was a battle where one side relied on strategy and tactics, while the other side relied on only bestial instincts. Or, rather than calling this a battle, perhaps it could be called total suppression.


    The magical beasts, which only relied on their instincts, were utterly lost. They were facing enemies they couldn¡¯t resist. Dragons roars, draconic might, and the howls of pain from other beasts all urged the remaining beasts¡¯ instincts to escape as quickly as possible. No matter how much the illusion face devils urged them from below,rge numbers of flying magical beasts were now fleeing from battle, even though they still outnumbered the dragons and Aurora Knights by more than a 10:1 ratio.


    At this moment, now that we had taken control of the battle, the more fragile Phoenix nes finally enteredbat to begin their work.


    This time, their mission was the same as when they faced the demon wave. They tossed down various bottles and barrels filled with our ¡°special stimnt¡± that had been modified and improved sincest time. Soon, due to the stimnts, the beasts started rampaging chaotically amongst themselves.


    This was a foundational difference between how both sides battled, as well as the difference between intelligent creatures and wild beasts. We had far more advanced tools and potions that countered them, along with actualbat strategy. The victor had been determined from the very start.


    Our improved potions¡¯ effects started acting quite rapidly. The beasts¡¯ instinctive viciousness and desire to breed were greatly stimted. Since they were still on the ground, the only other target they could vent on were others in the beast stampede. The entire beast stampede became a teeming horde that battled against itself.


    Since we had takenplete control of this battle, the Aurora Knights and dragons began their next round of aerial attacks, but they soon discovered that the damage they could cause was quite insignificant inparison to the havoc wreaked by our ¡°potions¡±. Thus, the knights and dragons focused fully on protecting the Phoenix nes as they replenished their ¡°ammunition¡± and continued to toss down potions.


    The Phoenix nes returned to the Borealis about four or five times to replenish their potions. At the end, the beast stampede waiting in ambush was almostpletely annihted. Even though it was winter, the smell of blood could be sensed from quite far away. Magical beasts¡¯ corpses were littered everywhere. It would likely be impossible for us to discover the illusion face devils¡¯ corpses strewn behind them on this utterly chaotic mountain.


    Moreover, since the illusion face devils also died to the beast stampede that they were supposed to control, the remaining beasts started running away in all directions now that their controllers were dead. We obtained a total victory with almost zero losses to our side.


    And yet, I couldn¡¯t be happy at all.


    ¡°...We¡¯ve wasted an entire afternoon here, and used up more than half of our special potion stock. Those bastards don¡¯t know how to conserve ammunition at all! The most troublesome part is that our enemies now know the path we¡¯re taking. There will definitely be something else waiting for us ahead.¡±

 Chapter 681 - Awkward Situation

    <h4>Chapter 681: Awkward Situation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Shawen Free States. Just the name was quite self-exnatory. It wasn¡¯t an actual country, but rather just an ¡°autonomous region¡±. In fact, this ce had beenpletely isted diplomatically within the Nortnds for quite a long period of time.


    In this mystical world which had a feudal generation, human domain lords and nobles were a type of status, as well as a bloodline, inheritance and responsibility. Of course, they also represented a type of power.


    Since Eich was no peaceful location, nobles had plenty of special rights that would make others envious. For instance, a noble would typically be able to keep their life as long as they surrendered in a timely manner, and they would even be able to return home mostly untouched as long as they managed to pay enough of a ransom. Of course, such rules were only in effect for the human internal wars. This was why human nobles would always fight their hardest against other species, being willing to fight to the death. Inparison, the human internal wars were never so fierce and bloody.


    Another envious right of nobles was that bing a domain lord was almost exclusively the right of theirs. This was an unwritten rule of the human society that people couldn¡¯t do anything about, but everyone viewed this as only natural.


    There were very few methods formoners to be nobles. The best way would be to use brute force to develop previously undeveloped wilds, but even if you sessfully developed a domain of your own, those frontier knight domain lords would still be viewed as lower ss than the other nobles. At the very least, even back only three or four generations ago, it would be impossible for them to truly enter high noble society.


    Such a rigid social ss way of thinking was quitemonce all around Eich. The fact that the nobles of each country would marry only each other only served to deepen the ¡°noble culture¡±. Even if a country was destroyed, the local noble domain lords would still survive. This fact greatly weakened royal authority because it was quitemon that when a country faced a strong enemy, the royalty would try their utmost to fight, while the nobles were already betraying their country and joining the enemy for potentially greater benefits.


    The heraldry was already an established separate study. It involved researching the history, family crests, bloodlines, members, inheritance, and so on of various countries¡¯ nobles. Countless years could be spent on it. In a way, people in this world really did have too much free time... Ahem, I meant that this was a unique culture of this world!


    Although the Shawen Free States couldn¡¯t even be called an independent country, the Hr Family, a domain lord family from Shawen, was actually still recognized by the Nortnds¡¯ nobles. This was because Kakagar Hr¡¯s ancestors had originated from the Mist Kingdom, and were originally local nobles from the Mist Kingdom of the time.


    Something like history and ancestors¡¯ glory would be worthless if others refused to recognize them. But, the nobles who talked about ancestors¡¯ glory every day truly did view such things with importance.


    Unlike the central part of Eich which was more stable, the Nortnds¡¯ nobles¡¯ history wasn¡¯t as long, due to the map of the Nortnds countries constantly changing. A family with 300-400 years of history would be considered really old already. The Hr Family from the Mist Kingdom wasn¡¯t even officially recognized back when the People of the Mist were in decline, but when the Nortnds People of the Mist rose up again, the Hr Family benefited from riding along.


    So, even though ¡°Sly Fox¡± Kakagar Hr was only a domain lord from Shawen, he dared tomand other Nortnds nobles as he pleased. Due to Shawen¡¯s advantages and his own family history, the other nobles really did obey hismands, sending out their bodyguards and mercenaries.


    This was no battle between human kingdoms, after all. The hungry wild beasts wouldn¡¯t care about your noble bloodline or spare your life. In fact, the nobles would be considered even more delicious due to having more tender skin and fat on their bodies.


    ¡°Damn it, just where did this beast stampede arrive from? Our mercenaries have clearly dealt with all the beasts on the map already.¡±


    Shawen had already abandoned all outer defense lines against this endless beast stampede. All of the outer cities were conquered by the beasts. Any vigers who didn¡¯t manage to escape in time would have a 0% survival rate.


    The formerly renowned Shawen defenders and mercenaries showed a terrible performance in front of the beast stampede. They were chaotically organized andcked too many members. They also hadn¡¯t practiced regrly for quite some time, the result of which was that many members didn¡¯t even have all their weapons and equipment on hand. They lost their lives easily to the beast stampede. In fact, some troops even deserted in the midst of battle due to the beasts¡¯ threat.


    Shawen¡¯s condition taught all the other Nortnds nobles present a great lesson. Even though the Nortnds was now in a time of internal peace, that still didn¡¯t mean that you could leave your own protection solely to others.


    The Shawen army was supposed to consist of more than 20,000 soldiers, yet less than 4,000 were actually usable. Meanwhile, the temporary army of mercenaries and bodyguards gathered together from the various nobles easily made ten 1000-person squadrons.


    This was actually quite normal. Since wild beasts were always a threat, it wasmon for a domain lord to bring a hundred or even several hundred mercenaries or bodyguards around with him. With several hundred nobles visiting Shawen at this time, it was quite easy to gather more than 10,000 armed troops. They would all be elites such as professional bodyguards, mage consultants, and so on, so their averagebat strength would exceed that of an average army¡¯s.


    As for the nobles who dared to travel around in the Nortnds with only one or two bodyguards? That would be even better because that meant such a bodyguard¡¯s strength was sufficient topare with 100 ordinary mercenaries¡¯ strength.


    The higher ranked the noble, the more powerful their personal forces would be. There were many royalty members in Shawen right now. Rather than trying to hastily assemblemoners for a defense force, it would be far more reliable to rely on the nobles here.


    Kakagar really did live up to his nickname of ¡°Sly Fox¡±. He managed to find a way to survive in this desperate situation. His personal reputation and connection to the Mist Kingdom helped to make his summons to the nobles actually useful.


    Thanks to the mercenaries and bodyguards that all the nobles had brought, they managed to create a temporary defense line using the advantage of the castle walls to forcefully block the beast stampede¡¯s charge.


    However, there was still an endless number of beasts outside. Nobody knew just how long the mercenary and bodyguard army could hold out for. All everyone could count on was that reinforcements would arrive as swiftly as possible.


    ¡°What about the Eagle Tribe? They should be the closest reinforcements to us.¡±


    The barbarian tribes were allied to Shawen, and lived in the nearby mountains. Thus, it seemed like the barbarians would be the most likely reinforcements to arrive first. However, only Kakagar knew that their trustworthy barbarian allies couldn¡¯t be relied on here.


    ¡®...They¡¯ve made so much money off of mining recently. Why would they still live in the mountains where it¡¯s so cold? The majority of the barbarians have already moved to the big cities to enjoy life there. There¡¯s only a few miners left behind in the mountains.¡¯


    In a way, it would be an interesting research topic: learning what barbarians would do with money. Perhaps some people would think that they would spend the money on improving their own viges, but the Eagle Tribe barbarians gave the most direct answer of all: they took their money into the cities to enjoy lives there as the newly rich... Why would they still want to wear so little clothing and freeze in the mountains?


    ¡°What about the nearby wild elf and half-beastmen tribes? They should still have enoughbat strength, right? We can pay them toe help us! We¡¯ll pay any price they ask for!¡±


    Many mixed-blood individuals resided in Shawen. However, only a portion of the mixed-bloods would live in cities. Those would be the ones who epted human culture. There were also mixed-blood tribes that worshiped beastmen totems, wanted to live in nature like the elves, and so on. These tribes would be found outside the cities.


    These tribes had an ambiguously close yet distant rtionship with Shawen. They would oftene out of the mountains to purchase daily-use goods in the cities, but they still rejected human culture and assimtion.


    They had outstandingbat strength. If only this had been eight years ago, it would have indeed been a good idea to request for help from them as they would also be a part of Shawen. But now, Kakagar was filled with regret about why he had acted so swiftly without any hesitation.


    ¡°...There are no more primitive tribes left at all. Our tourism development ns opened up all those tribal locations as scenic vacation spots, with all sorts of mountain bandit camps, tribal locations, and so on being really popr with tourists. Those wild mixed-blood warriors...¡±


    ¡°...You couldn¡¯t have ughtered them all? Or had them exiled?¡±


    Kakagar¡¯s guard captain had an astonished expression. Even though he was the leader of the lord¡¯s guards, he had never heard of such a thing. Could it be that his lord had secretly started a bloody ughter?


    ¡°What generation do you think we¡¯re in? Who would do such a thing in this day and age? Rather than fighting and killing, it¡¯s much better to all make profit together. The wild tribes all received tremendous amounts of money for their moving costs. The wild elves directly went over to the Nortnds elven kingdoms to purchase homes there. They wouldn¡¯t be scared of bullying due to the Mist Alliance supporting them. As for the mixed-blood beastmen, they wanted to experience actual beastmen life, so they took their money over to the beastmen ins. I recently received a letter from them a few months ago. They¡¯re living like emperors over there. Even the mixed-blood beastmen can purchase tribe leader positions with money. I was getting envious of them.¡±


    In a way, Shawen had indeed developed greatly as a country. Kakagar had sessfully made every bit of thisnd valuable. However, the end result was that everyone focused only on money. Thus, all of the nearby potential reinforcements were no longer usable, having left due to ¡°progress¡± and ¡°development¡±.


    The only ones who remained were merchants who continued to make money. But, did you really want the merchants to fight for you on the battlefield? That would be tantamount to suicide.


    Perhaps Kakagar wouldn¡¯t receive a passing grade as a domain lord, but he was indeed someone that everyone in the Nortnds recognized as a genius... a genius merchant, that was. But right now, he had a pained expression as he regretted his past actions.


    ¡°I can only hope that the Mist Kingdom arrives in time. Their airships should be able to get here in time, right? No, for the sake of all my money, they must arrive and save me on time...¡±

 Chapter 682 - Volcano

    <h4>Chapter 682: Volcano</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Considering the rather long distance between the Mist Kingdom and Sharal, and that our army on the way to reinforce Sharal was stalled multiple times by beast ambushes, I already expected what I would see when I finally arrived in Sharal.


    ¡°...What a majestic scene...¡±


    In the distance, I could see an erupting volcano. Large amounts of volcanic gases and ash mixed together to form a dense gray smoke. Even through all the smoke and dust, it was easy to see the shiny mes spewing from the volcano as magma slowly poured out and baked the ground.


    The powerful eruptions caused the ash to reach all the way to the stratosphere. Therger chunks of ash would fall down with the force of meteors. Even from such a great distance, we could sense the majestic force of nature.


    But, no matter what had been there originally, it was likely that nothing remained alive.


    ¡°The Sharal Autonomous Region is finished...¡±


    We had been dyed by ambushes more than 10 times on the way. Yet, all the ambushing beasts added together hadn¡¯t been as numerous as the first beast ambush. It was evident that theter ambushes were only meant to stall us. But, if those beast ambushes were all we had to deal with, we should have arrivedst night already, before that volcano was awakened.


    However, the devils took advantage of the snowy, mountainous terrain and created several avnches and blew up two bridges, forcing us to take longer paths around. This was a typical devil tactic¡ªusing any means to achieve their ends without even giving you a chance to directly fight them.


    When our army was repeatedly stalled, we already mentally prepared for the worst. The end result was seeing this volcanic eruption before us...


    ¡°Kakagar, I shall be sure to burn some incense for you on your death anniversary next year.¡±


    ¡°...So volcanoes really erupted here. Rnd Jinxer, how do you feel?¡±


    [Ding! You have received the title ¡®Rnd Jinxer¡¯. Equipping this title will allow you to use mega long distance karma attacks, but limited only to ¡®I think it¡¯ll be quite good if it doesn¡¯t start a fire¡¯, ¡®This volcano definitely won¡¯t erupt¡¯, and other such special attacks.]


    I helplessly gazed at the sky. This clearly wasn¡¯t because of me jinxing things. This was all clearly because of our enemy¡¯s scheme which sessfully slowed us down at every step. How could this be the fault of me jinxing things!


    ¡°...Kakagar, rest in peace. Although you did skim off a little too much money for yourself over the past few years, since you¡¯re still a descendant of the Mist, I shall take revenge for you¡ª¡±


    ¡°Kakagar isn¡¯t dead. Our people have already located him. Although he¡¯s in rather wretched condition, he¡¯s still quite energetic.¡±


    I had just wanted to say a few words in mourning to set the atmosphere, yet I was awkwardly interrupted midway. The scary volcanic scene in the distance made me feel that it was quite unlikely for anyone to survive.


    ¡°How did they survive?¡±


    ¡°...They were originally prepared for death already, butst night, the beast stampede voluntarily opened up a path for them to leave. Someone even shouted that they were allowed to leave, so the result was that everyone really did leave the castle in a single night.¡±


    I was astounded to hear this. Something like this was possible?


    ¡°Wait a moment, this means that the beast stampede spared them... No, it also means that if they defended with all their might, they could have persisted until we arrived?¡±


    ¡°When calcting the time, yes, they could have persisted until we arrived. It seems that our impending arrival was the main reason why the enemy spared them.¡±


    I was rendered somewhat speechless. It seemed that our hurrying here as quickly as possible had indeed been useful, after all. At the very least, the illusion face devils controlling the beast stampede had feared our arrival, thus sparing the people of Sharal <sup>1</sup> so that they could take control over this territory faster.


    And with my understanding of Kakagar¡¯s personality, it seemed likely that he wouldn¡¯t hesitate one bit when grabbing at this chance to have his life spared, even if he could guess that reinforcements would soon arrive.


    ¡°Forget it, no use crying over spilled milk. It¡¯s good that at least most are still alive. Is that fat sly fox still doing well? Is he all depressed from going bankrupt?¡±


    The government official¡¯s expression became rather strange before he finally gave me the answer.


    ¡°Not at all. When he met our scouts, his first words were ¡®Bless the Goddess of Wealth. It seems that I¡¯ll have to change my business to volcano tourism in the future. I hope that I¡¯ll be able to recoup all the money I lost eventually¡¯.¡±


    ¡°Paha! He¡¯s still thinking about making money!¡±


    Everyone around me broke out intoughter at hearing this, slightly livening up the atmosphere.


    I could only shake my head and exim. Eight years ago, when I had first met Kakagar, he had been a leader and strategist with great foresight. But after only several years of doing business, he hadpletely transformed into a bona fide merchant.


    Still, no matter what, it was good that most of the people of Sharal were alright. My people were also starting to remove their thick winter clothing. It would seem that the weather in this area would undergo a major change. In fact, it indeed seemed possible that volcano tourism might be popr here in the frigid Nortnds.


    ¡°Wagggh!¡±


    But at this moment, angry roars from vicious beasts caught our attention.


    Our aerial knights brought us back images of gigantic fire beasts walking out of the volcano. Countless mid-sized and small fire elemental creatures were also jumping out of the nearby magma. It would seem that the Fire Elemental ne Dimensional Door had already been opened up here, giving us great trouble.


    ¡°Let¡¯s establish a defense line first. Sigh, it¡¯s impossible to get some free time around here...¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    We had already finished arranging the work for saving any Sharal survivors. Due to certain reasons, the Mist Kingdom¡¯s warriors were already quite used to saving others from cmity.


    Our arrival evidently gave the mastermind behind the scenes a significant amount of pressure. They gave up on the n to annihte Sharal. Although the Sharal Autonomous Region was indeed finished, the death inflicted upon Sharal¡¯s poption was still within eptable limits.


    And when the furious fire elementals arrived, the first to fight against them weren¡¯t actually the humans, but rather the beast stampede that still remained here.


    The moment that the volcano erupted, the Nortnds beasts which instinctively feared fire broke free from the illusion face devils¡¯ control. If it hadn¡¯t been for the illusion face devils¡¯ speedy escape, they would have likely instantly be food for their former subordinates.


    The beast stampede was constantly split up by the mes, and then trapped in a desperate situation, surrounded by fire. It would seem that we would no longer need to worry about a beast stampede again next year.


    In a way, due to the devils¡¯ maniptions, the entire beast stampede became a sacrifice to open up the Dimensional Door.


    Asbat strength in all of the Nortnds constantly increased, the beast stampede had be less and less of a problem. Since the beasts acted only on instinct rather than intelligence, it would be quite easy to deal with them as long as one knew the correct methods. No proper army would need to fear the beasts. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the Sharal Autonomous Region had weakened itself ridiculously, they should have been able to deal with the beast stampede as well.


    But while the beast stampede would be easy to deal with, an elemental invasion would be another matter entirely. The beast stampede would have no order or logic, but the elemental invasion would be an attack by an army led by Elemental Lords.


    ¡°Throw out a forbidden spell?¡±


    ¡°Stop joking like that. I¡¯m in no condition to cast a forbidden spell yet. Besides, even a forbidden spell might not be of any use here.¡±


    Looking at the volcano before us, I regretfully abandoned my desire to cast a forbidden spell here. It was so tempting to cast Ice Aeon here when the enemy¡¯s foundation was still unsteady so that I could grind some points. Unfortunately, in my current condition, not only would it be impossible for me to cast a forbidden spell, even ice magic at five circles or above would be impossible for me to cast. And even if the enemy was idiotic enough to allow me to incant a forbidden spell for several days here, just putting out this fire before me would be meaningless.


    The Fire Elemental ne Dimensional Door would definitely be located at the ce where the mes were the strongest. That would likely be the deepest part of the volcano. Even if my forbidden spell extinguished these mes, that would only be a temporary solution, just like with the demon wave. Without cutting off the Dimensional Door itself, the elemental creatures would keep arriving endlessly.


    This was the biggest headache of the Holy War. Before the Holy War started, there would be many dimensional restrictions on opening up a Dimensional Door in the mortal ne. Any teleportation would require a price. But now, as long as a Dimensional Door was opened, it would be almost impossible to close it. Teleporting here would be as simple as visiting one¡¯s neighbor next door. It would be quite easy for an ordinary small battlefield to suddenly be a meat grinder, a grueling war of attrition.


    ¡°Perhaps this is the devils¡¯ overall goal. Maybe they want to borrow the power of the Fire Elemental ne to stall us here...¡±


    The devils were realizing each of their schemes. Some things weren¡¯t that hard to guess at. One would have to pay arge price in order to deal with the Mist Alliance which was growing ever more powerful. However, the residents of the lower nes evidently didn¡¯t want to have a direct fight against us right now. Still, the devils¡¯ favorite tactic was to find a third party to give their enemy trouble.


    The mes in the distance kept roaring higher and higher. The Dimensional Door was wide open, allowing the power of the Fire Elemental ne to enter. The rapidly increasing temperature hinted at the change in the local environment. The explosive-tempered fire elementals didn¡¯t show any signs of leaving the volcano. They were also gathering power, preparing for the uing elemental battle.


    ¡°It would seem that we need a solid defense line... Reyne, go summon the leaders of the countries in the Mist Alliance. Don¡¯t forget to also notify the Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm and the Contract Hero guild. We need to have a good discussion. Even if we don¡¯t go looking for trouble with the Chaos Faction, they¡¯ll stir up some trouble for us.¡±

 Chapter 683 - High pressure

    <h4>Chapter 683: High pressure</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In a way, this ¡°volcano eruption¡± incident was a coincidence as well as an inevitability.


    We made many preparations for the Holy War, such as turning the entire Nortnds into an irond alliance. The Nortnds became a difficult ce to conquer, with few benefits to be gained here even if you conquered it. Additionally, as time passed, the Nortnds became ever stronger.


    While this sounded quite nice, even as we calcted, others were calcting against us.


    Although the Nortnds would be difficult to conquer, with few benefits to be had here, meaning that nobody wise would intentionally choose such a difficult opponent... the Chaos Faction still managed to find the Fire Elemental Lords, who wouldn¡¯t care about losses, forcefully turning the Nortnds into a battlefield.


    ¡°...You want to keep gaining power in a carefree fashion, easily bing the final winner in the end? Dream on! This world isn¡¯t as simple as you think!¡±


    The Chaos Faction gave us a lesson, letting us know that ns could never keep up with the changing situation. Nobody would be an idiot in this day and age. But, judging from the overall situation, this volcano incident still brought us at least one benefit. At the very least, we now had a great excuse to reject requests to send reinforcements to the ind countries...


    ¡°We¡¯re truly sorry. We really would like to send you reinforcements, but we¡¯re having difficulties with our own battles...¡±


    ¡°...Your Highness Rnd, please, which n do you feel is most appropriate!?¡±


    Many ns went through my mind, but I could only dismiss them. The reason? I was currently in the middle of the Mist Alliance¡¯s highest-level conference. All the Mist Alliance member countries had either sent plenipotentiaries, or their kings and princes hade in person.


    The tent we were in wasn¡¯t veryrge, yet it was fully crowded. Major domain lords such as earls and so on could only stand outside in the cold. The conference members inside couldn¡¯te to an ord no matter what.


    It was now one week after the Sharal Autonomous Region had been destroyed. All sorts of rescue operations for the survivors had already begun. Sharal didn¡¯t have a veryrge poption to begin with, so it was quite simple for the Mist Alliance to absorb their poption. Although a normal country¡¯s leader should have had objections to their country being dissolved, Sharal¡¯s leader was Kakagar, who right now only cared about making back all the money that he¡¯d just lost.


    It wasn¡¯t that we didn¡¯t want to help Sharal reim its territory, but that we really couldn¡¯t do much about the new volcano before us.


    A new dimensional battlefield appearing in the Nortnds would be a major incident affecting everyone here. It was only natural that we would invite the leaders of all the Nortnds countries here to discuss things. However, what really made me feel helpless was that everyone was unable toe to a consensus.


    ¡°...Those who live closer to Sharal feel that this is a threat. They want the Mist Alliance to swiftly destroy this new threat with all its power. This is understandable, but honestly pretty much impossible to achieve. Meanwhile, others believe that it¡¯s alright to simply blockade this area, and that it will even help raise the overall temperature in the Nortnds, which might even be a good thing in the long term.¡±


    There were even also some major nobles who believed that the Mist Kingdom and its affiliated Ice Elemental ne were bing overly powerful recently, and that a new Elemental ne appearing nearby would be a chance for their countries. In fact, there were some who already started attempting to secretly contact the Fire Elemental Lords.


    Everyone proposed their own ideas for the sake of their personal benefits. Of course, they wouldn¡¯t directly say that it was for their own sake. They would all im that it would be for the good of the Mist Alliance. However, neither side was able to convince the other, which meant that this conference would only stall indefinitely.


    Since the Mist Alliance was an alliance between numerous countries, listening to the thoughts of the various member countries was unavoidable. It couldn¡¯t be helped that some time had to be wasted like this. We would have toplete this boring process for the sake of appearance. But, in the end, it would still be those who held the power that could make the final decision... Yep, that meant Reyne, and of course myself as well.


    I directly dismissed all the member countries¡¯ proposals. Some people would always overthink things... I wouldn¡¯t even consider such proposals.


    ¡°...Negotiate with the Fire Elemental Lords? Go personally negotiate yourself if you don¡¯t mind being turned into barbequed meat. Does any of you know how to speak the fire elementnguage? Besides, does any of you understand what an elemental war represents? An elemental war is a life and death battle between mortal enemies. Do you really think that you can stop it?¡±


    I didn¡¯t tell them theplete truth. Actually, it would indeed be possible to negotiate with the Fire Elemental Lords if we invited an elemental expert. If we invited someone like Wind Elemental God Camdian as a mediator, it might even be possible topletely stop the war. However, I didn¡¯t believe that negotiating with the Fire Elemental ne would be useful for us at this time.


    Fire and water were ipatible. The Ice Elemental ne and Fire Elemental ne would forever remain mortal enemies. Since we had already chosen to align ourselves with the Ice Elemental ne, and we also had thousands of years of friendship between the Frigid Nightmares and the People of the Mist, there was no reason for us to change our elemental alliance.


    ¡°...Rising temperatures will be good for us? Does any of you understand what will happen if all the snow covering the mountains and all the frozen rivers melt? I hope that you¡¯ll all have learned how to swim by the time that major floods arrive. Otherwise, better hope that you¡¯ll have been transformed into frogs.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t lying here, but again, I didn¡¯t say theplete truth. While the entire Nortnds would be an ocean if all the ice and snow here was melted, it would be impossible for even 10 Fire Elemental Godsbined to achieve such a feat. It would actually indeed be eptable to have slowly rising temperatures to cancel out the Ice Elemental ne gradually lowering the Nortnds¡¯ average temperature on an annual basis.


    However, I wouldn¡¯t even begin to consider such proposals, because in my overall defense n, ice, snow, and low temperatures would serve as our best natural barriers. The Ice Elemental ne would of course be our mostpatible ally. Burning away our own natural defenses for the sake of a little more warmth would be utmost foolishness.


    I wouldn¡¯t be telling the other countries¡¯ nobles and rulers all these actual reasons, because that would mean an endless amount of exining and discussing, along with an equally endless amount of ¡°hypotheticals¡± and disagreements due to shes of benefits. Rather than telling the truth which would only lead to more trouble and wasted time, I preferred to use my truthful lies to obtain at least surface agreement since this would be far more effective.


    It wasn¡¯t that only a few people knew the truth. It was that everyone had their own personal benefits to consider, so they would instead choose the ¡°truth¡± that agreed with their personal benefits. Having so many people gathered together in an alliance meant an amalgamation of various different interests. It wasn¡¯t important whether my truthful lies were seen through or not. What was important was that this was the will of the two core Mist countries, East Mist and Sleuweir, so this would be the will of the entire Mist Alliance.


    ¡°From today onwards, the former Sharal Autonomous Region¡¯s territory is now ssified as a volcanic district and enemy territory. The Fire Elemental ne and the Fire Elemental Lords are ssified as the mortal enemies of the entire Mist Alliance. ording to the wartime regtions of the Mist Alliance, any attempts to secretly contact our mortal enemies... will result in the execution of all traitors, with zero exceptions.¡±


    I calmly stated these powerful words that suddenly caused silence to reign within the tent. Some people opened their mouths but didn¡¯t say anything, while quite a few others exchanged nces. However, in the end, nobody said anything in response.


    But judging from everyone¡¯s astonished expressions, they weren¡¯t used to the Mist Alliance representative being so direct and domineering. Well, this was only natural. Both Reyne and Glina were still very young women. Their ways of managing politics would of course be far gentler than mine. They would seek to reach an ord with everyone rather than try to act overly dictatorial.


    I, on the other hand... When considering my past reputation, perhaps I was indeed an excellent choice to y the role of dictator and bad cop. Thus, right in front of all the countries¡¯ rulers and nobles, I simply picked up all their proposals and casually tossed every single document into a trash can.


    ¡°Well, since we¡¯ve alle to an agreement, let¡¯s carry things out immediately. It¡¯s time for our Mist Alliance army to begin constructing a defense line against our new enemy.¡±


    Yep, since nobody dared to oppose what I said, that meant everyone was in agreement!


    Now, since all of the old proposals had be rubbish, and the Fire Elemental ne was dered to be our mortal enemy, it was time for new proposals.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    ¡°...How boring. Every time that I want to do something, someone will try to stir up trouble. I can understand that humans are social creatures, and that scheming and plotting against each other is almost like an instinct to them, but every time I find myself in these situations, I really miss undead society as undead will only listen to orders. Whatever the boss says is correct. That¡¯s so simple and easy!¡±


    I could only take a deep breath, stomp my feet, and jump up and down in an effort to warm my body as I gazed at the volcano in the distance.


    The argumentsing from the tent behind me became ever louder. However, I had no intention of listening to anything that the other Mist Alliance member countries said.


    The iron triangle of the Mist Alliance was bing ever stronger. Since the Mist Kingdom, Underground, and Xiluo Empire were all controlled by me, even if every single other member country of the Mist Alliance banded together, they still wouldn¡¯t be able to do a single thing.


    Moreover, as the Holy War went on, efficiency in order to better prepare for battle would always be more important than anything else. If everything truly required an agreement from every member country, with every country also giving their own proposal, then it would be impossible to aplish anything.


    This time, even though this emergency conference was nominally supposed to give the Mist Alliance member countries a voice, it was actually a way to strike a blow against the other member countries. Times of war were different. In a time of war, only one voice would be needed in an irond alliance. Naturally, this voice had to be Diffindor¡¯s.


    After I finished ying the role of bad cop, Reyne and Glina would naturally y the role of good cop to assuage the member countries¡¯ feelings. But no matter what, the fact of the matter was going to be that the Mist Kingdom¡¯s decisions were going to represent the decisions of the entire Mist Alliance. The other member countries had to understand this in order to prevent worse situations from urring.


    Although the internal politics of the Mist Alliance appeared calm, there were actually dangerous undercurrents present. That was why it was so necessary for me to y the part of bad cop.


    ¡°...Is there news?¡±


    ¡°Earl Ben and Prince Sedir have been quite active recently. Many major nobles have secretly been in contact with them. They¡¯re also responsible for sending people to start rumors that ¡®The Mist Alliance isn¡¯t an alliance for the People of the Mist, but rather an alliance for Nortnders.¡¯ It¡¯s also said that they¡¯re trying to secretly promote that humans are superior to all other species. Their xenophobia has actually attracted quite a few followers.¡±


    ¡°Oh, Earl Ben and Prince Sedir from the Cas Kingdom? There¡¯re always those who don¡¯t know what¡¯s good for them... Have them assassinated without leaving any traces. No, wait, let¡¯s instead leave as many clues as we can. Make it really obvious who killed them, and make their deaths as terrible as possible. Make sure that others understand what fate awaits them if they dare to scheme against us at this time.¡±


    Those who schemed and those with personal ambitions weren¡¯t actually in the wrong. Humans would always be selfish. If a politician only considered their personal benefits, they would be nothing more than a third-rate politician. Only a politician who tied their own personal benefits to their country¡¯s benefits and species¡¯ benefits would be a first-rate politician.


    But at this junction, anyone who tried to split apart the Mist Alliance for their own personal political benefit had obviously underestimated our determination to go to war. This meant that there was no need to waste any breath trying to talk to them.


    In front of absolute power, these idiots who couldn¡¯t understand the overall situation were probably nothing more than puppets tossed out by more powerful masterminds behind the scenes in order to stir the waters as the entire Mist Alliance¡¯s foundation became ever more solid.


    But if we took a softer approach with them, that would mean that the true schemers would be able to understand our boundaries. In any international setting, tolerance would never be a virtue. It would be a weakness instead. The moment that you showed tolerance in diplomacy, others would start wanting more and more...


    ¡°Well, since you¡¯ve reached out your hands, allow me to chop them off for you.¡±

 Chapter 684 - Sly Fox of Sharal

    <h4>Chapter 684: Sly Fox of Sharal</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    When I finally took some time to visit Kakagar, I had already thought of many hypothetical situations beforehand.


    Would he be heartbroken because of losing his homnd? Would he be burning with fiery passion, wanting to take back what had been his? Or would he be in a funk due to receiving a severe impact?


    ¡°No matter what, he¡¯s probably changed. It¡¯s so embarrassing for him to have fallen so far already in just a few years.¡±


    However, I never expected to see Kakagar like this...


    ¡°Dear courageous adventurers and Contract Heroes, evil fire monsters are right before us! But, have you truly fully prepared against them? This is the final stop before the frontlines of battle against the mes, so don¡¯t miss this opportunity! We have ice magic scrolls, ice magic potions, fire resistant staffs, and all sorts of ultimate anti-fire equipment for sale! Moreover, as we¡¯re the previous masters of thisnd, not only can you obtain free maps from us, we¡¯ll even issue quests to you! As long as you can bring us fire elemental soul cores and magic materials, you¡¯ll be handsomely rewarded by us!¡±


    No, it wasn¡¯t Kakagar who personally announced that via a loudspeaker. The person speaking had previously been his personal secretary. Kakagar was currently crouching by the list of exchangeable rewards, eating some pancakes without regard for his image. He was even sweating all over. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I recognized him, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to tell him apart from an ordinary merchant.


    For some reason, he wasn¡¯t staring at the volcano with hate in his eyes, nor did he seem to be depressed at all. In fact, there seemed to be no difference in how he acted from before.


    ¡°Hey, isn¡¯t this Your Highness Rnd? Are you here to take a look, or maybe for a tour? If you intend to go into the volcano on an adventure, I have plenty of good products for you. I guarantee that the mes won¡¯t harm you. I¡¯ll even give you a 40% discount.¡±


    In fact, he was the first to greet me. Yet, my face kept twitching. Had I been even a slightly military person, I would have likely already tossed this guy into prison.


    As for why? The wares that Kakagar was currently selling to the adventurers were all military resources just issued to the Mist Alliance military!


    In order to deal with fire elemental creatures, all the nearby military forces in the area received anti-fire equipment. In fact, Kakagar¡¯s wares were even marked with the seal of the Mist Alliance military.


    ¡°What happened to your military?¡±


    ¡°There were only 3,000 soldiers left to begin with, and more than 2,000 died on that night against the beast stampede. I think there were about 400 or 500 left, but they were pretty useless, so I told all of them they could go.¡±


    I paused in surprise for a moment before being filled with a mysterious sense of anger. However, Kakagar spoke up again first.


    ¡°Country... I know that you all never admitted that Sharal was a country, but at least it was a territory. But now, even the territory is gone, so what use is there for a military force belonging to this former territory? It would be better to just let them go back to their families. It wasn¡¯t easy for any of them to survive.¡±


    Kakagar stood up and rubbed his hands as if he was cold. Although his expression was still calm, my soul vision could tell that for an instant, he showed agony and pain.


    ¡°...Are you regretting it?¡±


    I didn¡¯t refer to what he was regretting, but I knew that he¡¯d understand.


    ¡°Regret? That¡¯s so meaningless. That¡¯s because the choice I made eight years ago wasn¡¯t wrong at all. Business development was the most suitable choice for Sharal. My people¡¯s lives improved so quickly all because of this choice. Our status in the Mist Alliance improved as well...¡±


    Kakagar paused for a moment of mysterious silence. But when he spoke again, he spoke even more directly.


    ¡°Even if I had the chance to redo everything, I would still have chosen this path. Sharal never had much of a standard military force to begin with. Our poption is insufficient, which makes ourbat potential insufficient. Our mixed-blood poption is also unable to keep up with the times. Rather than being on guard against this and that, missing the opportunity to majorly develop alongside the Mist Alliance, I would far prefer to take a gamble and focus purely on business opportunities. It was just that our luck was rather poor, and it turned out that a volcano was underneath us. Not only that, the Fire Elemental Lords had toe attacking...¡±


    I suddenly felt a mysterious sense of guilt as I kept mentally telling myself, ¡®This isn¡¯t my fault! It¡¯s not that I jinxed Sharal!¡¯


    ¡°...But since we¡¯ve already enjoyed the benefits of my choice from eight years ago, then it¡¯s also natural to have to pay a price. There¡¯s no meaning to regret. Rather than wasting time on regret, it¡¯s better to just focus on the future.¡±


    I could tell through my soul vision that everything he said came from the bottom of his heart. Perhaps, I... no, the entire Mist Alliance had underestimated Kakagar.


    Weak countries would also have their own path of survival. Strong countries could be forceful and act sly or domineering, or try and scheme or cause fractures between other countries. However, any weak country that tried this would be ying with fire.


    Kakagar had seen that the future Mist Alliance would have more centralized authority, and as power became more centralized, the Mist Kingdom would definitely eliminate those who opposed it within the Mist Alliance. And even if nobody openly opposed the Mist Kingdom, there would always be one or two that would be made an example of in order to force the other Mist Alliance member countries into submission.


    Since the overall unity of the Mist Alliance meant that no internal warfare would actually break out, with only cold wars transpiring, Kakagar seemed as if he was greedily enjoying peace and giving up on his military, but actually, he was disarming himself in order to reduce other countries¡¯ vignce against Sharal. He relied on having the two major Mist countries¡¯ support so that he could concentrate fully on business opportunities to develop Sharal. At the same time, he also slowly joined the Mist Alliance¡¯s political circle with the identity of someone harmless.


    The developments over the past few years had more than proven his choice to be correct. Just 10 years ago, who would even know the name of this ruler of Sharal? But now, the ruler of every Nortnds country would pay him their respects.


    As for other things, Kakagar was in no hurry. He could wait until the Holy War was over. Not having a military meant that Sharal wouldn¡¯t have to send forces to contribute to the Holy War. Sending financial assistance instead was quite eptable, and would even bring less pressure. And after the Holy War ended, that would mean a rebnce of all the great powers, which might even give Sharal an opportunity to rise up. At the very least, since Sharal¡¯s economy had improved so much, the country would naturally be more powerful as well, so Sharal would have greater influence.


    When looking at all of this from the perspective of a small country, not only was nothing wrong with this development n, it even showed signs of great wisdom and understanding of politics. Even if Kakagar¡¯s personal reputation was ruined along the way, as everyone would think of him as nothing more than a merchant, as long as he seeded, he could be viewed in the future as a greatly sessful ruler. But if his luck was poor... just like how it was now, he would likely be reviled as an ipetent and foolish ruler who caused the destruction of his own country. It would also be impossible to remove such a stain even after his death. It was likely that his descendants would have to bear with such a tarnished reputation for the rest of their lives.


    Actually, what was the difference between a foolish ruler and a wise ruler? What was the difference between someone insane and a genius? Sometimes, the only difference would be a tiny amount of luck, for the unlucky who failed, no matter how much they tried to exin things, would forever be considered to be in the wrong. As for the fortunate who seeded, no matter how much they emphasized that it had only been luck, others would only view it as their acting humble.


    ¡°...Do you want to recover Sharal¡¯s territory?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but it¡¯s almost impossible. I also understand what an elemental war represents. Also, for the entire Mist Alliance, for the Mist Kingdom, and for you... I believe that you don¡¯t wish to see the ¡®fire¡¯ here being extinguished. In that case, no matter if it¡¯s possible or not, it will be impossible to extinguish the fire here.¡±


    Indeed, I wanted the Mist Alliance to be engaged in battle. Best of all would be a battle whose scale could be controlled. This would give us the perfect excuse not to get involved in all the chaotic battles of maind Eich. Having an ongoing battle in the Nortnds would also make the Chaos Faction and Order Faction less on guard against us.


    While we weren¡¯t the ones who lit this fire in the Nortnds, judging from long-term results, this fire was indeed beneficial for the Mist Alliance. As Kakagar surmised, I definitely wouldn¡¯t let this fire be extinguished so easily.


    ¡°Sly Fox¡± Kakagar had a seemingly honest smile, worthy of a professional merchant. Yet, his words made it quite clear that he wasn¡¯t even trying to hide the fact that he had seen through everything.


    I fell silent. With Kakagar being so direct and honest with me, if I replied using some official governmental words, that would only make me sound foolish and vulgar.


    ¡°...Actually, there¡¯s already no more reason for the Sharal Autonomous Region to exist,¡± Kakagar stated.


    If some other Sharal person had said this, I likely would have believed them to be insane. But right now, Kakagar had finally tossed aside all appearances as he spoke such words quite seriously.


    ¡°Originally, my ancestors named this ce ¡®Sharal¡¯ as a homonym for the word chauvinism. This was to remind us that all of us were unfortunate individuals who were victims of ethnocentrism. We all had such difficult times due to being exiled by racists, and since other species didn¡¯t treat us as part of their own kind, we mixed-bloods would be a family of our own. No matter if someone was a half-elf, half-human, half-beastman, half-giant, or whatever, as long as that person was a victim of ethnocentrism or beliefs of racial purity, that person would be part of our family.


    ¡°...Over the past several centuries, there have been 11 generations of Sharal leaders. They have all lived up to our ancestors¡¯ promise, and the situation in the Nortnds didn¡¯t change one bit. The entire Nortnds was our enemy. Everyone else looked down on us, viewed us with hostility, and cursed us as half-blood bastards. Pure-blood humans even viewed us as beings lower than beasts. Apart from the Mist Kingdom which was blood-rted to us and the barbarians, the entire Nortnds viewed us as lowly outsiders.¡±


    Kakagar paused for a moment. Then, it seemed as if his murky yellow eyes started glowing golden as he became incredibly energetic.


    ¡°But, the appearance of the Mist Alliance changed everything. When the entire Mist Alliance began to ept the undead, elves, beastmen, dwarves, dark elves, and dragons, with your policies of racial equality and mutual respect, it became much easier to ept us mixed-bloods who had always been viewed as strange before. Your Highness Rnd, we mixed-bloods are truly grateful to you for this. At the very least, we can now walk openly out in the streets of the Nortnds without needing to wear capes and hoods. We no longer need to worry about being treated as thieves and bastards, or being imprisoned or enved for no reason.¡±


    Kakagar was actually many generations removed from being a half-blood, reaching the point where he appeared fully human except for having pointy ears, but he had always viewed himself as a mixed-blood in his heart, along with being the representative of all mixed-bloods. Although he seemed to be foolish and dull, he actually had a sensitive heart.


    ¡°I won¡¯t waste words by trying to ask for a ce where all species can truly treat each other equally. But as long as the Mist Alliance bes stronger and stronger, all species will finally be able to live together, and everyone will be a foreigner, yet nobody will be a foreigner. Sharal, thend that offers harbor to mixed-blood ¡®bastards¡¯, will indeed no longer be necessary in this Mist Alliance. That was when I finally decided to start developing business and tourism in Sharal. Due to the development of magical engineering, we mixed-bloods no longer have any advantages in battle. Our poption is low, and we¡¯re uncouth. Such weaknesses of ours are quite obvious. In order to keep up with the current generation, I had to find a way for the people of Sharal to support themselves, and now that Sharal no longer exists, it might actually be a good thing for all of us mixed-bloods to truly enter the entire Mist Alliance and the Mist Kingdom. The Mist Kingdom is a major country that won¡¯t possibly mistreat its own people.¡±


    ¡°Sly Fox¡± Kakagar dusted himself off, got up, and started walking off, leaving me with only the image of his back.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need anypensation for losing my country. As long as the Mist Alliance and Mist Kingdom continue to survive and thrive, that will be enough for us mixed-bloods.¡±


    And right after that, Kakagar¡¯s voice filled with wisdom suddenly be much sharper.


    ¡°...Everyone, don¡¯t miss out on this great opportunity! We¡¯re selling the newest and best military equipment here! These are outstanding wares that you can¡¯t purchase anywhere else, even with money! I obtained all this by risking my very life...!¡±

 Chapter 685 - Assassin

    <h4>Chapter 685: Assassin</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Modern day society would be the one to judge how good or bad a politician was because the moment that a politician¡¯s reputation was ruined, that would be the end of their political career. The end result of overly seeking to represent the needs of ¡°the people¡± would be a loss of self will, and in the great majority of situations, the majority opinion wasn¡¯t actually necessarily the truth or the best course of action, but rather just the one which appeared to be the best to everyone.


    Because of this, any politician who was supported by the masses would actually themselves be controlled by the will of the masses. Even the most skilled politician who had been in power for a long period of time would only be someone who was more skilled at riding the flow. What aplishments such a politician could achieve wouldn¡¯t be dependent on the individual¡¯s personal abilities, but rather how beloved they were by the God of Fate.


    It would take several years or even several decades before how good or bad a politician was could truly be determined. Only when the politician¡¯s sessor¡¯s sessor¡¯s sessor did a bad job would people recall the predecessor while cursing their current lives as they fondly recalled the past together with their old friends.


    Only by having worse lives and a foolish new leader forparison would people discover to their astonishment that their previous leader had actually done a decent job, and that all their previousints back then were actually about a golden age. That foolish leader they alwaysined about had actually done well, and now that people looked back at the past, the seeds that leader nted had all started sprouting, and the leader¡¯s seemingly foolish policies actually caused the people to benefit after so many years. Meanwhile, the sessor¡¯s seemingly beautiful ns and goals were still nothing more than ns or goals even decadester.


    There was also another type of person apart from regr politicians.


    Such people wouldn¡¯t even know why they started bing leaders. In fact, their motivation to keep moving upward wouldn¡¯t even be for themselves.


    ¡°...My country is about to be finished, and the people are having such a hard time. I must defeat the enemy and reim my country.¡±


    ¡°...If this continues, we¡¯ll have less and lessnd to live on. That won¡¯t do...¡±


    ¡°...I must work hard for the sake of my people. We must learn the strengths of other species...¡±


    Most would overthink things or have insufficient ability, dying along the way. However, there would always be those who were geniuses or simply more talented than others. They would have goals and dreams that maybe others would considerughable, childish, and impossible to realize. However, they would persist along their chosen path, and reach the peak as if they were blessed by the Gods, achieving what others could only dream of.


    Such people would finally leave their own mark in history. Or, perhaps it would be more urate to say that they created history. Since they were part of history itself, perhaps these people could most urately be referred to as ¡°historical figures¡±.


    But looking at it from another standpoint, their personal fates were the exact opposite.


    Politician would forever be a highly profitable job. Since they would have no opinions of their own, anyone could hire them to speak for their cause. As politicians would naturally try and choose to join the winning side, politicians would always be standing on top of society and enjoying endless mor and wealth until theypletely failed by choosing a losing side.


    It was easy for modern society to determine who was a skilled politician or not. Those who were the victors amongst all the endless schemers were naturally the more skilled politicians.


    However, leaders would have different fates awaiting them. Although they would do more, this also meant making more mistakes. Their glory would also be filled withints against them. The final result might be good or bad. But, when it was necessary, the leaders would also make their own decisions, even if such decisions would destroy their own future.


    Their aplishments would be discussed by future people. Perhaps future people would be grateful, or perhaps they would be furious. Regardless, the leaders would leave their traces in history.


    Historical figures would be even more extreme. They had spent a great deal of effort, but they might not have gained that much. Perhaps they might not even die a pleasant death. For instance, from my previous world, Yue Fei, Joan of Arc, Shang Yang, and so on all had grand aplishments praised by countless people, but they all met with tragic death before the end naturally came for them.


    Such people would be historical figures, role models for future people to look up to. Countless people would also exim over them. They would even be popr topics of fiction stories. The difference between historical figures and politicians or ordinary leaders was that people would never forget about their historical figures unless that entire species or culture was extinguished.


    Eich was a cruel world¡ªcruel to the point where centralized authority was the norm, and where the high efficiency brought about by dictatorial government was better than anything else. Politicians¡¯ survival space would typically be limited to only those specialized countries.


    Any chaotic era would produce heroes. All these years of war meant that countless new heroes would appear. However, very few heroes would actually be able to leave their mark in history. Those who did would often have some things inmon, such as forgetting about themselves for the sake of a certain purpose.


    As I watched Kakagar walk off, I recalled various people from my memories: Ayer, Aso, Orloss, and Estrada. Each of them had different goals, and some of those goals even conflicted with each other. However, they all had some things inmon.


    Although none of them was around in the mortal ne anymore, traces of them and their goals still remained in this world, influencing the future path of the world.


    ¡°Sly Fox¡± Kakagar had also seen through everything, yet chose to give up on his country, apparently using his own method to change the future as well.


    The sly fox who had just been discussing his thoughts on politics transformed back into a vulgar merchant in the blink of an eye, focusing whole-heartedly on his new role. I kept feeling more and more like I had underestimated Kakagar.


    ¡°...Of course you underestimated him. He easily managed to fool you into forgetting that you were going to punish him for selling off military resources that should have been meant for the army. Did you forget about that already just after a few words from him?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words caused me to pause in surprise. Indeed, no matter what reason there might be, privately selling off military resources marked for the Mist Alliance military was definitely wrong. The Mist Alliance was issuing these anti-fire resources for the sake ofbat preparations. Even if Kakagar no longer had an army which could use these resources, shouldn¡¯t he be returning the resources back to the allied army headquarters? What was with him privately selling off these resources? How were we supposed to enforce military discipline if everyone acted like him?


    ¡°Forget it, this is a matter for the Mist Alliance military. Why should I intervene?¡±


    Still, I didn¡¯t really care about Kakagar¡¯s actions, because of the current issue on my te.


    Just as some people used their ¡°foolish actions¡± to cause the world to underestimate them, there were others who were overestimated regarding their intelligence andck of limits due to longstanding inheritance from their ancestors. From a certain standpoint, ever since the elves lost theirst ruler of the old Elven Empire, their tribal system where elven kingdoms were ruled by elders kept producing slyer and slyer politicians. In fact, the political system of conferences and council members that was bing ever more popr was also an elven ¡°invention¡±.


    In a way, although the elven kingdoms needed to have authority and the support of their people to exist, not only did they have a council of elders system, they even had shes of benefits between the different elven species and elven social sses. Elven royal authority was also constantly restricted. If an elven king wanted to do something, he would first require the support of a majority of the elven elders within his kingdom. This really did fit my definition of politician.


    I wouldn¡¯t say that politicians were all naturally shortsighted or anything like that. However, the elven elders always refreshed my worldview of howcking in limits they truly were as they challenged my sense of reason.


    ¡°...Those moon elves had actually contacted the Holy Church? In fact, the moon elves even suggested the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance to the Holy Church as an idea to contain the Mist Alliance?¡±


    I had a secret missive from Suana in my hands, while the elven messenger in front of me was trembling in fear. A mysterious chill had frozen the ground within the tent, while an icy wind expressed my fury. I didn¡¯t whatsoever doubt the veracity of this news that Suana sent me. It was that I couldn¡¯t believe what bastards those moon elves truly were.


    Originally, I had only thought that the Nortnds moon elves wanted to be free from the Mist Alliance¡¯s control, wanting independence. Yet, I didn¡¯t expect that they would directly ¡°contact the enemy¡±. But, logically speaking, this was indeed a possibility I had missed. This was simply an extension of the ssical political strategy of ¡°attacking close neighbors and allying with those far away.¡± Since the moon elves wanted to break free from the Mist Alliance, and they couldn¡¯t count on the Elven Gods anymore, it seemed only natural that they would turn to join the Holy Church, one of the most powerful factions in Eich.


    And with the establishment of the Holy Church¡¯s Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance to contain the Mist Alliance, we would have to concentrate more on this southern threat, which would reduce the pressure on the moon elves.


    ¡°The moon elves still have yet another n...¡±


    The middle-aged elven messenger seemed rather hesitant. It would seem that some things probably hadn¡¯t been written down in Suana¡¯s message out of fear that the message would be intercepted, so the messenger would directly inform me.


    I snapped my fingers. Harloys added some extra anti-detection magic on our tent as I walked up to the messenger.


    He nced around nervously with eyes filled with anxiety. I became more and more interested in what news he could have to tell me. What could possibly be so difficult to tell me?


    ¡°...The moon elves intend to assassinate Empress Harloys, and have even sent out assassins already. Apart from that, they, they...¡±


    I paused in surprise on hearing this, but then felt that this was hrious. Harloys was currently my magical pet. It would be literally impossible to kill her unless I was killed first. Attempting to assassinate her would be meaningless.


    However, the elven messenger hadn¡¯t finished speaking, as he had a panicky expression while looking at something behind me. He finished by shouting, ¡°...and they also intend to assassinate you!¡±


    I hurriedly turned around to face him with my sword already unsheathed, yet he had suddenly vanished, leaving nothing behind but empty ground illuminated by moonlight. The next instant, I felt a mysterious chill on my back.


    Under the watch of the moonlight, that seemingly honest elven messenger suddenly charged at me while wielding a blue dagger coated with venomous toxin!


    Oh, so he was the assassin.

 Chapter 686 - Revenge

    <h4>Chapter 686: Revenge</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    I had never personally trained in the path of the assassination, but even if I had no natural talent suitable for bing an assassin, I had been the target of assassins far too many times already. Because of this, I intentionally learned some mon knowledge¡± regarding assassins to be on guard against them.


    Novice assassins would only be able to patiently wait for an opportunity. If no opportunity arose, the novice assassin would either have to risk their life on an assassination attempt, or simply leave, having failed to even try and attack their target.


    A veteran assassin would look down upon the very idea of waiting for an opportunity. A veteran assassin would instead try to create an opportunity. This was the foundational difference between a novice and a veteran assassin.


    Using words and actions to distract the assassination target in order to create an opening to strike. This would be the foundation of a high-level assassin.


    An even more powerful assassin would have many small techniques to increase the distraction of the target, such as using hallucination magic to create fake sounds, using hypnosis or mental maniption magic to easily deceive the target or excellent disguises to fake one¡¯s identity, and so on. All of this would only be for the sole purpose of disrupting the assassination target¡¯s concentration even a bit.


    The best of the best assassins would instead be much iner. They would return to the basic of waiting for an opportunity. This was because they had sufficient patience. If one day wasn¡¯t enough, they would wait for 100 days. If one year wasn¡¯t enough, they would wait for 10 years. They would wait for the one day that you revealed a moment of weakness.


    A top-level assassin would perhaps be your servant, or the friend of a friend, or your customer. They would use many years to get closer to you, several decades to obtain your trust and figure out everything about you, and then wait another several decades for an opportunity where they would be absolutely sure of sess.


    Even I would fear such a top-level assassin, but right now...


    The handsome elven assassin¡¯s face was distorted as his veins bulged. His slender body suddenly became muscr as if he had used some forbidden spell that cost him his lifeforce.


    His dagger was quite sharp, and the venom coating the dagger was evidently out of the ordinary. However, I actuallyughed. A poisoned dagger? A single first-rate assassin?


    ¡°That¡¯s it? You underestimate me so much?¡±


    I silently thought the word ¡®dragon¡¯ to myself, and the next instant, my entire body was covered in my dragonscale armor. Any normal weapon at Legend rank or below would be unable to even break past its defenses.


    ¡°You want to kill me without having even done your homework!?¡±


    I indeed met with many assassins on my way back to the Nortnds. The most dangerous assassins had even managed to break past Harloys¡¯ defenses. However, the benefits of my choice to create this armor back in the day now became obvious. My Guardian of Yongye armor had already evolved into SemiGod Equipment. I could easily defend myself with it until reinforcements arrived for me.


    Of course, its weakness was that this was one of my aces that I had exposed several times already...


    ¡°No, wait!¡±


    The moment that I recalled the fact that it was already known to the world that I had the ability to instantly summon heavy armor, I instinctively felt that something was wrong. Even though I logically should have no problems taking even a direct hit from that dagger, I still chose to retreat while using my sword to block the dagger strike.


    *ng!*


    The sh of our weapons was like a collision of two trains. My strength had recovered quite a bit. Even if my current Strength value was no match for Immemorial Dragons¡¯, I would still be significantly stronger than the average giant. Yet, the result was that my hands hurt from the collision as if they had taken an impact from a sledgehammer.


    The elf assassin¡¯s frightening brute force caused me to lose my bnce. I hurriedly stomped on the ground to decrease my momentum, kicking up much dust and small stones before I regained my bnce.


    My high-quality longsword that I had East Mist forge for me had already been shattered. That weapon had been an elite-grade military weapon worth at least 300 gold coins. Yet, my enemy¡¯s weapon only had a slight crack... No, that was no crack, but rather chipped paint as his weapon had been disguised.


    The chipped portion revealed a clear green jade. I only knew of one top-level dagger with such a color.


    ¡°Jade Tooth?¡±


    The moment that I noticed that something was wrong about the situation, Jade Tooth¡¯s Concept of Revenge had furiously reached me already. And when I recognized who this elven assassin really was, I truly felt a headache.


    The elven messenger¡¯s originally seemingly harmless face had already bepletely distorted. He didn¡¯t resemble the person in my memories one bit. However, his jade dagger was far too famous.


    ¡°Jade me¡± Sirar. He was a famous elven ranger who made a name for himself 700 years ago. He was also a SemiGod, or Level 4 in the new power level system. His personal Myth-ranked weapon was the ¡°Jade Tooth¡±, a weapon imbued with his personal Concept. Although this weapon was only a dagger, Sirar had be quite renowned as its wielder.


    Sirar was a guardian of the Rivendar Elf Kingdom from back in the day. Rivendar had been one of the elven kingdoms destroyed during my rampage as Yongye. Sirar had vanished in the midst of battle, with some rumors saying that he had died, while other rumors said that he had be a mercenary for hire.


    But right now, I was certain that Sirar had always been hiding in the shadows, waiting for a chance at his revenge.


    ¡°Revenge!¡±


    The elven word for ¡°revenge¡± echoed throughout the tent. A powerful dizzying sensation robbed me of my stamina. Yet, the first to be injured was actually the Level 4 Sirar. His eyes suddenly exploded, leaving behind two empty holes from which ck blood and tears poured out.


    His blood and tearsbined together with the distorted power of his curse. All of this power was then injected into his jade dagger. However, the jade dagger wasn¡¯t tainted ck, and instead shone an even brighter green.


    This was no evil sacrificial ceremony, but rather the elven ranger¡¯s desire for revenge against me. Sirar¡¯s personal Concept was the Concept of Revenge. He permanently sacrificed his vision as well as part of his lifespan, giving his weapon the property of forever locking on to his mortal enemy.


    ¡°Damn it!¡±


    At this moment, I abandoned all thoughts of toying with my opponent, and instead focused fully on survival.


    As a Concept, revenge would be the most suitable Concept for any warrior job ss, especially a shield warrior focused on defense. Whenever revenge was used as a Concept, it would be a type of counterattack power.


    The Concept of Revenge wasn¡¯t a unique one. Someone possessing this Concept could lock on to an individual mortal enemy. Their personal weapon would then obtain a major buff against the target of revenge. This buff could be limitlessly strengthened based on the power of the desire for revenge and how much injury one suffered due to the target of revenge.


    Jade Tooth, Sirar¡¯s famous personal weapon, was also one of the most famous double-edged swords. The moment that one used Jade Tooth to lock on to a target, extreme pain and cmity would descend upon the user¡¯s body if they failed to kill the target within a month. However, this pain would further increase the power of this weapon of revenge, as well as motivate the user to speedily enact vengeance.


    This pain would exponentially multiply every month. After one year, the pain would be more than enough to kill anyone who still hadn¡¯t seeded in their revenge. Although the user could cancel the target and give up on their revenge, the user would have to pay arge price of permanently losing power levels.


    Additionally, after Jade Tooth locked onto a target, it would be unable to harm anyone else at all. If it did, it would count as having harmed someone unrted to the revenge, which would result in the crumbling of its Concept of Revenge.


    The prerequisite for targeting someone with the power of revenge was a deep grudge and the target having harmed you! It was obviously impossible for me to have done anything to Sirar in recent times, which meant that he had targeted my soul ever since I had still been Yongye.


    Jade Tooth should have been a dagger clear like ss, yet it now resembled pure green jade. This meant that this weapon had already umted more than a century¡¯s worth of hatred for me. This nutcase Sirar had actually withstood the endlessly exponentially multiplying pain for hundreds of years! That meant that this dagger¡¯s attack power against Yongye, or me, had also multiplied for hundreds of years already!


    ¡°Sirar! You¡¯re insane! You actually still locked onto me as your target of revenge for more than a hundred years!¡±


    Sirar didn¡¯t reply, but his empty eyes still stared at me as he smiled. That was his tacit admittance as well as his pride and resolution.


    He was insane,pletely insane. I felt chills running down my spine at how deep his grudge against me had to have run for over a century. At this moment, I no longer had any confidence that my SemiGod Equipment armor would be able to block his dagger of revenge.


    The dagger¡¯s speed wasn¡¯t quick, but as I watched its seemingly frail de, I felt that I would be unable to dodge it. The dagger¡¯s Concept of Revenge had already locked onto my very existence.


    Combat would be instinctive for any top-level warrior. The more one¡¯s life was in danger, the quicker one¡¯s reaction would be, and the clearer their mind would be. At this moment, I actually thought of a method to save myself from this danger.


    ¡°Explode.¡±


    I uttered a simple word in the dragonnguage, causing my precious dragonscale armor to self-destruct. My armor that was strong enough to even defend against average God Equipment broke up into shattered shards that shot out, viciously attacking the now blind assassin as my personal aura filled the entire space within the tent together with the armor¡¯s shards. This would serve to disrupt my enemy¡¯s senses, especially now that he was blind.


    As expected, Sirar showed a moment of confusion as his hand slowed slightly while wielding his dagger. My dragonscale armor had originally been a part of my physical body itself. Since I had self-destructed it and sent its shards scattering everywhere, he would sense that ¡°Yongye¡± had suddenly shattered and sent himself everywhere, which would naturally confuse him.


    But in the very next second, his empty eyes locked onto my location once again.


    ¡°Revenge.¡±


    He uttered the exact same word in the elvennguage once more, causing me to be restrained again by an invisible force. He slowly aimed and pushed his dagger at me, yet his attack was actually almost unstoppable.


    However, hisg time of one second was more than enough for me to bring out another ultimate defensive weapon of mine.


    ¡°...I choose you, cat shield!¡±


    I grabbed the ck cat and forcefully used her body to block the dagger. Right after that, I heard Harloys¡¯ screeching simultaneously in my ears and deep within my soul.


    ¡°ROLAND! YOU BASTARD!¡±


    However, Sirar wasn¡¯t moved by this scene one bit, and viciously stuck his dagger into Harloys¡¯ body. But right after that, Jade Tooth stopped moving, while Sirar had an expression of utter disbelief as he copsed and fainted.


    I sat down on the ground and panted loudly. I truly had just escaped with my life by the skin of my teeth just now.


    Meanwhile, Harloys found to her surprise that the dagger stuck in her chest actually didn¡¯t hurt her one bit. She then pulled it out of herself and curiously looked at it while tilting her head to ponder what had just happened. She then realized the answer.


    Jade Tooth had locked onto my soul. After Sirar sacrificed his eyes, he further strengthened Jade Tooth¡¯s targeting and lock-on effect on my soul. Meanwhile, my personal magical pet also had my soul shard, and I had been using Harloys at close distance as my meat shield, so Jade Tooth would naturally automatically attack my magical pet first.


    However, Harloys was also a separate individual. Attacking her meant that Jade Tooth had attacked someone ¡°unrted¡± to the target of revenge, which would shatter its Concept of Revenge. This was why Jade Tooth hadn¡¯t dealt Harloys any damage.


    Yep, using my magical pet as an indestructible meat shield was an idea I hade up with long ago. It seemed that my theory had been correct as she was even able to tank the elven ranger¡¯s Concept of Revenge attack against me.


    Still, it was only thanks to Sirar sacrificing his vision that I was able to realize my n. He never would have made such a mistake with his dagger¡¯s target had he still possessed his vision.


    None of this was that difficult to understand. Harloys just hadn¡¯t realized it in the heat of the moment. Now she understood everything.


    I was somewhat displeased with Harloys, who was still ying with the dagger that had just been stuck in her. I remarked, ¡°Howe you finally woke up just now? What a terrible bodyguard you are... I should dock your sry!¡±


    Her expression suddenly changed upon hearing this as if she just remembered something.


    ¡°...Oh, I almost forgot that I needed to tell you something. I was just assassinated as well. What I mean is, my Elven Empress clone was just killed off in public in front of everyone. The clone has exploded into a pile of slimes. How am I supposed to exin that now?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±

 Chapter 687 - Mortal Enemy of Yongye

    <h4>Chapter 687: Mortal Enemy of Yongye</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Elven Empress Harloys and Rnd (whose identity is also you-know-who) came under attempted assassinations simultaneously. The assassins ¡®Jade me¡¯ Sirar and ¡®Akaba¡¯s Wings¡¯ Venven died at the scene, while the assassin ¡®Iron Emperor¡¯ Sarwin was seriously injured, but managed to escape. The Mist Alliance has offered a great reward for Sarwin¡¯s capture...¡±


    Before the next day¡¯s dawn even arrived, this shocking news astonished the entire Nortnds.


    Before it was even light outside, I reported to Reyne and the others that Harloys and I were still alright, and then we started analyzing this entire assassination incident.


    Facing a veteran like myself who was far too much of an expert in matters of the soul, it would be impossible to lie. In fact, lies would only arouse my suspicion and vignce. This meant that Sirar, who had disguised himself as Suana¡¯s messenger, had told me nothing but the truth in order to attract my attention and obtain my trust.


    Not only had Harloys been assassinated, her attackers had been two Level 4 elves. Those two elven assassins had managed to sessfully assassinate the new Elven Empress Harloys¡¯... clone while she was apanied by numerous other Superior Elves.


    ¡°One assassin was a Level 4 elven archer, while the other was a Level 4 druid who specialized in transformation magic, restraint magic, and magical resistance. Both of them would be natural counters to any mage. My clone was killed in just a single round of attacks, and has now exploded into a pile of shattered slime bodies. How am I supposed to exin things now?¡±


    Harloys was feeling quite frustrated. I now understood why she had reacted so slowly to my being attacked. It was likely that she had been concentrating mostly on her clone¡¯s political tasks, and that her clone¡¯s assassination had drawn all of her attention. By the time that she returned her mind to my side, it was likely that her assassination had already been over.


    Both assassinations had urred simultaneously. It was quite evident that this had been nned in order to prevent reinforcements from being sent to both of us at once. Simultaneously finding three Level 4 individuals whose abilities countered ours to try and assassinate us was truly such a grand scheme against us.


    But right now, Harloys was still worrying about having exposed the fact that her clone was made up of slimes. This didn¡¯t seem important to me at all.


    ¡°Well, since my clone exploded into slimes, I¡¯ll just say that it¡¯s actually an eastern ninjutsu technique.¡±


    ¡°A ninjutsu technique that exploded into slimes? Nobody will believe a ridiculous excuse like ninjutsu. Why not just say that you made your clone out of water? So what if you say that it¡¯s just water or whatever you want? Do you really need a believable exnation? Isn¡¯t it simply enough for you to show up and prove that you¡¯re still alive? At most, all you have to do is to show your cloning ability.¡±


    I felt that Harloys¡¯ frustrations were quite unnecessary. As long as she was still around to control the situation, she wouldn¡¯t even need to give an exnation, and if she was unable to control the situation, then no exnation she gave would be of any use.


    Besides, for individuals with such status as hers, it would be quitemon to have several lifesaving abilities. An exnation? You wanted me to exin to you how my secret lifesaving technique worked? Could it be that you want to murder me?


    This sudden incident meant that there were many things we needed to think about. The recently coronated Elven Empress was assassinated right away, giving Harloys much to sigh over.


    ¡°...This incident wasn¡¯t caused by the moon elves?¡±


    Harloys held back for quite a while before finally saying this. Although she was asking it as a question, she had a definite tone.


    ¡°Of course it wasn¡¯t the moon elves. If those moon elves had had such ability, they would have caused far more ruckus long ago.¡±


    Although all three assassins had been powerful elves, the more they acted like assassins sent out by the elven kingdoms, the more I felt like someone else was actually behind them. Additionally, there was no need to guess too much who that might be.


    ¡°...The Holy Church.¡±


    ¡°It has to be them. Only they have the foundational power.¡±


    The Holy Church was thergest human faction of all. Naturally, this meant that humans were the main members. However, there were also plenty of powerful individuals from other species who were loyal to the Holy Light. It wouldn¡¯t be that difficult for the Holy Church to find a few powerful elves who were loyal to their cause.


    ¡°However, the moon elves are definitely rted. Perhaps there are even human domain lords who suffered because of you that are involved.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s likely. Let¡¯s wait for the results of the investigation.¡±


    We both felt rather helpless. Even though we clearly knew who wanted to kill us, it was difficult to take revenge right now. This was indeed frustrating.


    ¡°...Sirar was an incredibly precious high-quality chess piece.¡±


    In this world, there was no such thing like the strongest or invulnerable. Every single ability would have advantages and disadvantages. The power of revenge was an ancient, powerful ability that was passed down in this world. It was said that this power originated from the ogres¡¯ hunting witchcraft. Many elven rangers still had secret techniques passed down among them on how to cultivate the power of revenge, and they even had special job sses for this power.


    However, very few would seriously cultivate the power of revenge, because this was a special power that would only work against one individual enemy at a time. So, even though the power of revenge was highly capable of allowing the weak to defeat the strong, its single-target nature made it quite impractical. Only those who had lives like the pitiful protagonists in stories would typically make use of the power of revenge.


    And for every user of the power of revenge, the power of their weapon of revenge would be multiplicatively buffed each month, together with a multiplicative increase in the pain that the power of revenge inflicted upon the host. However, how strong a buff a weapon could contain would be limited by the weapon¡¯s quality, and an individual¡¯s pain tolerance would have limits, which naturally meant that the strongest possible attack power of revenge would also have its limits.


    Logically speaking, with more than a century having passed, Sirar should have long ago died from his own self-inflicted pain due to never having canceled me as his target of revenge for all this time. Yet, he was still alive, with his hatred for me as if I had only done those misdeeds to him as Yongye just yesterday.


    ¡°The Holy Church preserved Sirar¡¯s life, keeping him around as a potential top-quality chess piece. Honestly...¡±


    I bent over and suddenly stabbed Sirar with his Jade Tooth dagger. Blood sttered everywhere as Sirar¡¯s own weapon stole away its master¡¯s life.


    I was no saint who was willing to let my enemies go to try and attack me once again. Someone wanted to try and kill me for revenge? They were more than wee to attempt it, but they would have to be prepared for the consequences of failure, which would be death.


    Although I wanted to learn more about what exactly had happened, I felt that it would be a waste of time to hand Sirar over for interrogation as a Level 4 individual like him capable of withstanding the self-inflicted pain from the power of revenge would feel that normal physical torture would be nothing more than light scratches.


    The pitiful part was that his personal Myth-ranked weapon Jade Tooth no longer had such a lustrous glow once Sirar died. The green jade turned into ordinary white jade, an obvious evidence that the weapon had lost power levels.


    I could faintly sense that something was changing about this dagger. I was carefully ying with it when Harloys nced over at Sirar¡¯s corpse, seeming like she was eager to try something.


    ¡°You want to try soul searching magic?¡±


    ¡°No, it would be too much of a waste...¡±


    Soul searching magic wasn¡¯t almighty. The more powerful the will, the more difficult an individual¡¯s soul would be to analyze. There was no need to doubt that Sirar had an indomitable will, as he was a cultivator of the power of revenge. Additionally, since I was the person trying to search his soul, his soul would have tremendous hostility towards me, which might even end up injuring me in the process should I try.


    So, rather than dragging out some mostly useless memory shards and wasting this precious corpse, I preferred to make the most of such a precious resource. Perhaps I could even have ¡°Sirar¡± personally tell me who was the person manipting things behind the scenes.


    I directly tossed Sirar¡¯s corpse into my bug-like personal Hell world as I started pondering just how Sirar had managed to survive until today. I had destroyed a significant number of elven kingdoms back when I was Yongye, and the power of revenge was no top-secret technique amongst the elves. It would truly be troublesome if another two or more individuals who cultivated the power of revenge suddenly jumped out to attack me.


    ¡°The easiest method is probably to separate the physical body and soul, put them both into storage, and then wake Sirar up when it¡¯s necessary to use him. As long as Sirar can assassinate me before the next rising of the blood moon of revenge, he could avoid dying from pain, as the pain from the power of revenge only takes ce once per month. Right, there¡¯s also high-level Holy Light Divine Art techniques that can forcefully preserve an individual¡¯s life. High-density Holy Light, along with taboo drugs, are capable of causing people not to feel pain...¡±


    As I extrapted, I kept feeling more and more like the Holy Church was definitely involved. Only a faction as ridiculously rich as the Holy Church would be capable of spending so much money to maintain a chess piece whose only possible use was to assassinate Yongye. Not to mention, Sirar¡¯s life had probably been maintained even when Yongye had ¡°vanished¡±.


    No, I suddenly felt that there was an even more likely possibility: the Holy Church themselves had forgotten about this ¡°chess piece¡± they had stored away so long ago, and they had only remembered about Sirar recently.


    ¡°...Rnd, look at the dagger.¡±


    Upon hearing Harloys¡¯ words, I noticed that the jade dagger attached to my waist had already shrunken to one-third its original size. Not only that, the ce where it touched my waist was actually causing me a faint amount of pain.


    I unsheathed the dagger and carefully looked over its de, which was still covered in its former master¡¯s blood. Not only was the de now cracked, it was also coated in a mysterious dark red.


    Just looking at this mysterious dark red hue made me instinctively feel ufortable as if there was still yet another assassin hiding in the shadows, focusing straight on me.


    [I will identify this weapon for you for a mere 5 Fate Points.]


    ¡°...Such a cheap price?¡±


    My System was actually volunteering her services? That was so rare! I unhesitatingly agreed to her price because 5 Fate Points was basically no different from free.


    [Dagger of Revenge: Death to Yongye (SemiGod Equipment).]


    [This weapon was formerly known as Jade Tooth, belonging to the renowned elven ranger Sirar. Yet, not only did he die to his mortal enemy, his favorite dagger even ended his own life. At the very end of his life, his soul attached itself to his blood, and he sacrificed his full power of revenge to permanently curse this dagger, creating this SemiGod Equipment.]


    [Death to Yongye has only one ability, (Mortal Enemy of Yongye). The holder of this dagger will instinctively loathe all undead, and view all Undead Emperors as mortal enemies. This dagger has a chance to instantly y any undead that it touches. The holder of this dagger will be visited by Sirar¡¯s curse of revenge every night, viewing Undead Cmities in their dreams every single night. Not only that, the holder of this dagger will start to subconsciously loathe the Undead Emperor whose name is Yongye. In addition, the moment that this dagger strikes the physical body of Undead Emperor Yongye, it will instantly pierce through all of his defenses, and directly destroy Yongye¡¯s soul.]


    [PS: Excellent job! You personally helped to create this weapon that can truly kill you! If for some reason one day you want tomit suicide, feel free to use this dagger tomit seppuku. I guarantee that you¡¯ll have a fast and direct death.]


    Well, now I understood why my System had ¡°kindly¡± volunteered her services so cheaply to identify this dagger for me. It was clear that she wanted to see my reaction to creating something that could threaten me so much.


    I shook my head rather helplessly. It was quite rare, and even a miracle, that this dagger had leveled up to be a SemiGod weapon rather than dropping in power level in the end as most Myth-ranked weapons should have upon the death of its original creator. However, since its miraculous power was aplete counter to me, I obviously couldn¡¯t just keep this dagger around.


    I held onto this dagger, and was about to have it destroyed when a certain idea suddenly entered my mind. I then changed my mind about destroying the dagger. Perhaps, as long as I used it correctly, this dagger would still have its uses, great uses, with its other abilities.


    As for myself...


    ¡°Actually, I haven¡¯t been undead for so many years already. Besides, my name isn¡¯t Yongye...¡±

 Chapter 688 - Revenge

    <h4>Chapter 688: Revenge</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Although the elven tribe leaders had mentally prepared themselves already that Elven Empress Harloys likely wasn¡¯t actually dead, her reappearance still truly shocked them.


    Elven Empress Harloys appeared together with a dozen additional clones of herself. She greeted the elven tribe leaders, and immediately began to work on her upleted political tasks.


    There were 13 exactly identical Elven Empresses now. Some worked on political documents, some were in discussion with the elven tribe leaders, some were nning major events, and there was even one who was helping with basic construction. The Elven Empress¡¯s work efficiency was instantly increased to 1300%. All witnesses were astonished.


    It wasmon knowledge in this world that existences could have clones and/or incarnations. Gods and demons would often have such abilities, leaving behind their true body safely in their Divine Kingdom or in the lower nes while an incarnation or clone would stir up trouble in the mortal ne. If the incarnation was in, then no matter¡ªthere would only be a small loss. Mages also had spells such as Elemental Clone, Mana Illusion, and so on.


    However, others would normally have limits on how many clones or incarnations they could control at once. It wasmon for a clone¡¯s power level to be less than half of the true body¡¯s. Weaker clones might even only have 10% of the true body¡¯s power (not counting dimensional restrictions). But even if you were able to create a more powerful clone, it would take talent to control your clone with great uracy and exquisiteness. If you wanted to have extremely precise control over your clone, it wasmon for the true body to need to be in a state of deep sleep.


    Although having more clones would seemingly raise efficiency, in actuality, there was still only one mind controlling every single clone. This meant that it would be almost impossible for normal individuals to have many different clones all performing vastly different tasks.


    Yet, Harloys had evidently made some sort of breakthrough in this field. Not only were most of her clones performingpletely different tasks, several of the clones were even holding conversations with others simultaneously without a single problem. It was as if the 13 clones were actually 13 separate individuals.


    As for the previous assassination attempt? Or what exactly had happened to the Elven Empress whose body had exploded into slimes? Harloys offered no exnations, and since she was the highest-ranking ruler of all elves, there was indeed no need for her to exin it to anyone.


    All she did was use her actions to inform everyone that yes, she had indeed died before, but that she had also surpassed the limits of death already. Killing her wouldn¡¯t be that easy. This message would be more than enough to cow most schemers who had evil intentions.


    ¡°You want to assassinate me? You¡¯re wee to try.¡±


    An undying ruler would probably make the ruler¡¯s potential sessor go insane, but since the elven internal situation was incredibly unstable right now, having an undying ruler would actually serve to unite the elves. As long as the Elven Empress behaved reasonably, the new Elven Empire wouldn¡¯t copse.


    At first, I had thought that Harloys was only acting, but when I discovered that she truly had multiplied her work efficiency by more than 10 times over, even I was truly shocked.


    Her incredible ability to multitask was something that even I didn¡¯t understand. When I asked her about it...


    ¡°Cough, cough, I actually just discovered myself to have this new ability as well. I wasn¡¯t trying to scare others on purpose. Even I didn¡¯t realize that I could use so many clones this well.¡±


    ¡°Theoretically speaking, this should be impossible. You¡¯ve already... broken past the limits of the Creator Goddesses? Is this your personal path to bing an Undead Emperor?¡±


    My question wasn¡¯t answered, as she responded with only ¡°Take a guess.¡± But, the more she tried to casually write it off, the more I felt that my inference had been on the mark because it would always be quite difficult to exin clearly how one leveled up to be an Undead Emperor.


    From a certain standpoint, ever since Harloys started following me, although she had constantly fallen in pitfalls, I also had treated her well as she would always overeat... Ahem, I meant that she had made massive progress in the area of undead magic. My Seven Original Sins, knowledge gained from Conservation¡¯s mana conservation principle and artificially created bones, Aso¡¯s knowledge and research on negative energy corrosion, Sandro¡¯s knowledge of magic buffs and debuffs, and so on had all massively benefited Harloys. Apart from Sandro¡¯s knowledge, which was just extra knowledge on the side, the other Undead Emperors¡¯ knowledge was all their ownplete knowledge systems, filled with practical experience. These all counted asplete inheritances.


    However, it wouldn¡¯t be so simple for one to be an Undead Emperor even with an Undead Emperor¡¯s inheritance. Us Undead Emperors¡¯ knowledge and memories werebinations of our own talents and experiences, creating paths suitable for us alone.


    To give a real-world example, even if you as a reader were personally given the full Olympics-level physical training and experience of such high-levelpetitions, you probably wouldn¡¯t have the talent necessary for such high-level exercise, nor would you have the physical body required forpeting in suchpetitions. So, you wouldn¡¯t be able topete in the Olympics even with all that given to you.


    Breaking past the limits set by the Creator Goddesses wasn¡¯t something achievable through hard work alone. You would need an explosive increase in your physical body¡¯s quality, talents, and life experiencebined, a definite as well as a coincidence with influence from countless factors. Perhaps Harloys¡¯ current physical body was the foundational reason for her breakthrough.


    I shook my head. Since it was difficult to exin, there was no need for me to search for the answer. But, unless we truly tried, it would be impossible to know the limits. It would be impossible for Harloys to make her next breakthrough until I achieved Level 4 first.


    ¡°...We need to hurry. We¡¯ve lost out on so much this time.¡±


    In this assassination incident, without regards to the political effects, at least Harloys hadn¡¯t lost out. Even though she was one of the main assassination targets, she had actually gained a chance to further improve her standing and authority. I was the one who lost out on so much.


    In order to dodge Sirar¡¯s dagger powered by revenge, I had sacrificed my SemiGod Equipment, Guardian of Yongye. That armor had been an actual part of my physical body as well, which meant that I had done the equivalent of self-destructing a part of my physical body... and once a person was crippled, bing permanently un-crippled again would be quite difficult.


    I had lost arge majority of my dragon bloodline through that self-destruction. I had no evil vampiric methods avable to me for recovering lost flesh and blood, which meant that I could only wait for myself to heal naturally. The time required for that would be... Perhaps I should learn from Little Red and try century-long naps?


    Dragon bloodlines¡¯ power would require time to improve. Once this power was lost, it was also only time that could recover the lost power.


    Of course, I didn¡¯t regret what I had done one bit. After all, if Sirar¡¯s weapon had managed to actually stab me, I wouldn¡¯t have been worrying about long naps anymore, but rather permanent naps.


    ¡°I need to hurry and achieve my own breakthrough.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t even at the level of determination anymore. This was an absolute that needed to ur. Although I didn¡¯t have a single official title in the Mist Alliance currently, my existence was absolutely necessary in order to keep the bnce between various species and scare them into not stirring up trouble. As long as I was around, nothing unexpected would ur with the Xiluo Empire or Underground Faction, and if I died, there wasn¡¯t a single person in the entire Mist Alliance who could fill my role.


    This fact had probably been understood by my enemies already. When I was escorting the elven caravan, that had been the first time that my current location was obvious as I typically concealed information about my whereabouts and current actions. Not only that, I was in an obviously weakened state back then after casting the Ice Aeon forbidden spell. Assassins had constantly been after my life ever since then. I doubted that they were all enemies of mine from the past, especially since I didn¡¯t recognize most of my assassins.


    As for my enemies, sending so many assassins after me fruitlessly still had benefits for them. At the very least, all of my aces would be revealed. My personalbat strength, special abilities, and natural talents would all be discovered. This would be the information gained from trying to assassinate me.


    Although Sirar¡¯s assassination attempt seemed to be his own independent action, it was actually an exquisitely nned attack after gaining countless amounts of information on me. The most obvious evidence for this was how he was the enemy that I would be most ill-suited to face.


    My always imprable defenses would bepletely useless in front of his mega-buffed dagger of revenge. My strengths in meleebat would be neutralized since Sirar was a Level 4 individual who was just as skilled. Not to mention, his attack was an unexpected ambush. The likely sess rate of his assassination attempt against me was frightening to think about. Moreover, I highly doubted that the Holy Church and my other enemies would be satisfied with merely frightening me. Now that the dimensional limitations had all been lifted, it was likely that I might even meet with a True God¡¯s personal attempt to assassinate me!


    I absolutely needed to make a breakthrough. I absolutely needed to achieve the next power level. Otherwise, I wouldn¡¯t be able to keep up with the times, and I would get killed without even realizing how. And right now, time was of the essence. I couldn¡¯t afford to get killed off and have to wait so many years to power up again after being reborn.


    But before any of that, I needed to properly consider how I should repay all those who showed so much ¡°concern¡± for my well-being.


    The effects of the assassination incident weren¡¯t dispersed so easily. Or, perhaps I should say that the assassination incident¡¯s influence had only just began to spread.


    I was considered an ¡°invisible person¡± in the Mist Alliance government. However, Harloys was the new Elven Empress of the new Nortnds Elven Empire. She was the ruler of all elves. Her royal authority would be even more venerated due to the fact that all of the Elven Gods had just perished.


    Her political level and status within the Mist Alliance would be far above that of any country¡¯s ruler. Even an arrogant king would need to maintain appropriate respect in front of the ruler of all elves.


    Trying to assassinate Harloys was the equivalent of a direct p in the face. If we added some propaganda, this would be more than enough reason for the Mist Alliance and Holy Church to turn on each other.


    However, since the Holy War was right before us, a direct fight against the Holy Church was something uneptable to both them and us.


    This was why the Holy Church didn¡¯t use its own personnel, but instead sent out elves to attack us. They also med all of this on the moon elf kingdoms. So rather than the Holy Church having masterminded this assassination plot, it nominally became the elves¡¯ own grudges against me that caused these assassination attempts.


    Of course, if the Mist Alliance truly wanted to investigate, these were only shabby excuses that anyone could see through. However, the Holy Church knew quite well that the Mist Alliance didn¡¯t want to directly turn on the Holy Church right now, so all they needed to do was give an excuse for everyone on the surface.


    Although the Mist Alliance couldn¡¯t take official revenge, I could take my own private revenge that would definitely cause the Holy Church much pain... Right now, my mind was filled with ideas on how to make the Holy Church suffer as much as possible.


    Lure an entire angel squadron into bing fallen? Have a Holy Church worshipping country convert to the Church of Law? Reveal scandals about the Pope and the Cardinals? Or use all of the above?


    Actually, ming all of this on the moon elves might not even be a bad thing. Since nobody else was going to say the truth, then it would all be the moon elves¡¯ fault. In that case, it would be quite reasonable no matter what the Mist Alliance did to the moon elves.


    Originally, I would have needed to find an excuse for the major ughter and cleansing I intended to do to the moon elf kingdoms, but now, the Holy Church had voluntarily given me such an excellent excuse. It would be foolish of me to not enjoy this opportunity to get rid of the most troublesome moon elf elders...


    This was amon pitiful fate of a small faction stuck between two far more powerful factions. The small faction wouldn¡¯t be able to control their own fate, and could only be cannon fodder or a chess piece, meeting a pathetic and evenughable death in the end.


    ¡°...Stop thinking about such useless things. Why don¡¯t you first think about how to recover yourbat strength? Do you really think that you can escape from a second Sirar?¡±


    My silly cat, who had be my 24-hour bodyguard, made a snarkyment at me. I could only smile bitterly in response.


    Of course I would want to recover mybat strength. I hated such a feeling of weakness. However, I hadn¡¯t recovered even one-third of my mana yet, and my stamina waspletely used up once again due to the attempted assassination against me. Now, it would take me even longer to recover.


    ¡°...Actually, I have a method to help you swiftly recover your mana. Perhaps it will even help you to achieve Level 4,¡± Harloys said as she looked at the rather close volcano. I could also guess at what she was referring to.


    ¡°Elemental war? If there was any other choice, I really wouldn¡¯t want to get involved in something as messy as this.¡±


    ¡°Stop spouting rubbish. Go and organize your magic textbooks. I have some high-level ice magic spell forms that you should copy down. You¡¯ll be needing them for what¡¯sing next.¡±

 Chapter 689 - Elemental Hunting

    <h4>Chapter 689: Elemental Hunting</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The entire world was filled with red mes, scalding magma, and an active sea of fire.


    At a great distance, this would feel like a sauna, but at a close distance, it would be no different from being baked in mes, and if you tried to walk through here, you would burn to death unless you had fire-resistant equipment and potions.


    The sea of fire wasn¡¯t quiet at all. Various strange creatures of fire were crawling out from within. They furiously attacked everything before them, including their own kind. And when their short lives reached the end, violent explosions and a return to the sea of fire would signify the end of their lives.


    Fire element creatures were everywhere. Fire lizards, low-level fire elementals, magma monsters, me wolves, and so on were all cruelly killing each other. The victor would be able to devour the loser¡¯s elemental core for swift growth.


    If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I knew how all of this came about, it would be quite difficult to imagine this taking ce in the famously frigid Nortnds. This seemed just like a nightmarish scene out of a story about the Fire Elemental ne. But, in a way, this ce really had be a part of the Fire Elemental ne due to elementalization.


    However, amongst all the mes, there was a throne of ice and snow that attracted a great deal of attention from all the fire element creatures.


    This throne was more than 10 meters tall. It was enveloped with an aura of ice and snow. Even the sea of fire would instantly be frozen uponing in contact with this aura. Any fire element creatures that approached would also be instantly frozen solid.


    There was a figure that appeared to be thinking about something while wearing heavy ice armor. It seemed almost as if he had fallen asleep on the throne of ice. However, his bright eyes shone with the light of intelligence, proving that he was still awake.


    Obviously, it would attract a lot of hate for someone to be summoning ice in a world of fire. Countless fire element creatures charged over, yet they all transformed into popsicles the moment that they got close. In fact, the ice-armor-d person had yet to be forced to personally attack.


    The ground was already covered in shattered ice shards. Those had previously been shards from the fire element creatures. Being able to kill and defeat such fire element creatures in suchrge numbers was more than enough evidence of the ice-armored man¡¯s strength, even if this was still only the very outskirts of the volcano.


    He remained silent on his throne, ignoring the fire element creatures roaring at him from below. His thinking pose made him seem like he was waiting for something that never came. Finally, he spoke when dusk began to set. His words were quite simple and meaningful, and his voice was deep...


    ¡°...Damn it, my butt¡¯s frozen to the throne!¡±


    Ahem, ahem, at this moment, I finally had a realization. No wonder why a certain prince could sit on his frozen throne for so long! He was probably in the same condition as me, having gotten stuck to his throne from sitting for too long, and when his home was invaded, he probably had to helplessly stand up... which likely hurt his butt immensely.


    I made up my mind to stop cosying as that unlucky prince, and that I should find a new look as I began to analyze my harvest here. But of course, before that, I first tossed out a signal re to transmit a message to the outside world.


    10 or so minutester, two gigantic red dragons appeared in the sky and charged at me with the speed of lightning.


    Since red dragons were of the fire element, they wouldn¡¯t be viewed with hostility by the denizens of this elementalized area which had the traits of the Fire Elemental ne. Red dragons also had incredibly high fire resistance, so theypletely ignored the fire elemental creatures¡¯ fire attacks against them. The two red dragons simply dived down, grabbed the throne which had retracted its aura of ice, and then turned around to fly off.


    And since I was hunting on the outskirts of the volcanic area to begin with, we soon returned to the regr Nortnds. The moment that I started breathing the cold air again, my harvest was obtained by me as a tremendous amount of ice magic mana poured into my body, chilling me to the bone and almost killing me from frostbite. It took nearly half an hour for me to finally slowly recover.


    ¡°...It seems that I need to hunt less next time. I didn¡¯t expect the Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm to be so generous, giving me this much again.¡±


    The Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm had just given me ice magic mana as a present. As for the reason? I would have to first talk about elemental wars and dimensional wills.


    Dimensions had their own wills. Although this sounded ridiculous, it was a fact that was epted by all mages. Dimensions would be the amalgamation of various rules. Although dimensions were simplistic and mechanical, they would indeed follow those rules... The exception would be the will of the Chaos Abyss, which was an unreasonable bastard that constantly cheated.


    Most of the time, the great majority of ordinary people wouldn¡¯t even notice the existence of the dimensional will. They would also be unable toe into contact with the dimensional rules.


    Every dimensional will would set different rules. Treating all of its residents equally was the only rule inmon (with the will of the Chaos Abyss again being the only exception as the Chaos Abyss was controlled by an individual). Still, even the Chaos Abyss had its rules, such as thew of the jungle where the strong preyed on the weak being one of its basic rules. Killing an enemy would mean obtaining a reward from the will of the Chaos Abyss, and the swift growth obtained after demonization would be an even stronger lure for you to follow the rules of the Chaos Abyss and continue to kill in order to be ever more powerful.


    Perhaps some people would say that devouring was the source of all growth. However, allowing... no, creating the rule of ¡°devouring¡± was something up to a dimensional will.


    In the mortal ne, if you made a contribution that benefited the dimension of Eich, the dimensional will would also support you. For instance, back when I sessfully transformed the power of Law into a brand-new Concept, the dimensional will (the Source of Order) had given out great rewards and support. Not only did the Source of Order incorporate the Concept of Law into the power of Order, it also rewarded Wumianzhe with divinity and Divine Concepts. That was a tremendous reward, the ability to be a God.


    The mortal ne¡¯s rewards were rarely actual items. The rewards were usually special abilities and invisible preferential treatment. You could take advantage of them if you knew about it, but in most cases, you wouldn¡¯t even know what you had been rewarded with. Of course, the mostmon type of reward would be a mysterious amount of good luck (blessed by the heavens), while the most obvious punishment for invaders and those who endangered the dimension would be mysterious bad luck (this was actually one of the true reasons why demon kings would always be defeated in the end).


    Damn it, I felt like I finally discovered why my Luck rating had always been E...


    The Elemental nes would also have their dimensional rules. As I mentioned previously, the elemental creatures would devour each other. This wasmon for any Elemental ne. The elemental creatures would constantly evolve through devouring, eventually evolving to be Elemental Suzerains, who would then fight with each other and evolve into Elemental Lords. The Elemental Lords would then war against each other andpete to be the next Elemental God.


    It could be said that the Elemental nes¡¯ dimensional rules were quite simple and direct. The reward would be power from the Elemental ne. This was actually quite simr to the Chaos Abyss¡¯ dimensional rules, but elemental power would at leaste without the downsides associated with the power of Chaos. As for who had giarized whose idea? I really didn¡¯t know, but when considering the age of the dimensions, it was likely that the will of the Chaos Abyss had been the one to do it.


    So, during any elemental war between Elemental nes, only sufficient benefits would motivate the elemental creatures to try their hardest to fight, and only the purest and most powerful elemental power would be the most practical reward for the elemental creatures.


    Did all of this sound familiar? This should be quite simr to two majorpanies fighting both openly and in secret over a share of the market. Thepanies would reward the employees who contributed the most in helping them to obtain the market, encouraging them to continue working hard for thepany¡¯s sake... This was a highly suitable analogy to exin the truth behind elemental wars.


    Mages had discovered the simple dimensional rules of the Elemental nes long ago. In an elemental war, using your element to defeat enemy elemental creatures (all Elemental nes would have this same basic dimensional rule) would see you rewarded by your own Elemental ne. Since the Ice Elemental ne and Fire Elemental ne were at war now, and I had just used ice element magic to kill numerous fire element creatures, the Ice Elemental ne had rewarded me with pure ice element power that could help any ice element creature to swiftly power up. But since I was an ice magic mage, I could instead transform this ice element power into ice magic mana, which would be far more practical for me.


    This was the main reason why the Mage Country had bases in each of the major Elemental nes. In the Elemental nes, mages of the ne¡¯s respective element could swiftly improve their power there. However, mages of the same element fighting each other would barely be rewarded by the ne. Only by fighting an enemy element in a time of elemental war would they get a great reward... and to continue mypany analogy from earlier, nopany would support their own employees fighting each other for market share, but would always encourage and reward their employees for sessfully stealing market share from thepany¡¯spetitor.


    For us element mages, elemental wars would be incredibly dangerous as we were no elemental creatures. Just having stronger elemental power would be mostly meaningless. Magical cultivation was the umtion of knowledge and experience. If your magic power exceeded your control of magic, you would basically be risking self-destruction at any moment.


    However, in my case, what Icked the most right now was elemental power. Not only did I need to replenish myself for how weak I was after casting Ice Aeon, I also needed to strengthen my foundation so that I could increase my power level. My ice magic abilities were already at the realm of Level 4.


    It was now the third day that I had been hunting fire elementals. Yet, for all three days so far, I could only do a small amount of hunting on the outskirts of the volcano. This wasn¡¯t because I was too weak, but rather because the Ice Elemental ne was being far too generous to me, giving me far too much. I figured that this was because the elemental war had just begun, so there were too few ice element creatures hunting down the fire element creatures. In fact, it was likely that I had be the Ice Elemental ne¡¯s ¡°#1 Salesman¡±, and was receiving the ¡°Best Employee of the Day¡± reward each day.


    When calcting the time, the ice element creatures from the Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm should be arriving soon. At that time, I would likely be receiving a more normal amount, so I could also consider hunting higher-level fire element creatures at that time. Hunting down me wolves, fire lizards, and so on every day was way too boring, reaching the point where I wanted to find new tricks to amuse myself with... Wait a moment, I needed to first figure out how to unfreeze my butt from this throne¡ªusing force here would be too dangerous. Perhaps I might not even be able to ride on steeds anymore... Wait, was this why a certain person had fallen off from his steed!?


    Cough, I should probably get serious now. Over the past few days, I had been rather pitiful. Hunting low-level fire element creatures during the day was incredibly boring, and at night, I would have to spend all-nighters taking extra lessons. Not only that, it was the same ice magic teacher as before who was giving me those lessons...


    ¡°...Rnd, for today, turn to chapter 153 of ¡®Compound Effects of Water and Ice¡¯. Let us properly discuss the effects of water and ice. But first, you need to forget everything that I taught you previously, because back then, I was digging pitfalls for the students...¡±


    I felt like I was rendered speechless. Was there such a teacher out there!? Digging pitfalls for the students on purpose? As expected! I knew already that there had been something wrong with the situation back then! I failed my ice magic sses three times back then... all because of Harloys!


    ¡°...No, it¡¯s because you were too stupid. Everybody else passed their ice magic sses. The pitfalls I dug were only to make the students take longer paths, but you were heading in the wrong direction before you even took your first step.¡±


    [I can guarantee that she¡¯s telling the truth.]


    Even my System made a remark at such a time to give me a bigger impact. Was my talent for magic that terrible?


    ¡°Believe me, I¡¯ve seen plenty worse students than you. Those students weren¡¯t even able to be acolyte mages. I truly don¡¯t understand how you managed to be an official ice magic mage back then.¡±


    How had I be an ice mage? I had relied on my System¡¯s cheat-like powers.


    But when I focused my attention on my System, the reply I received made me feel even more helpless.


    [From a certain standpoint, you aren¡¯t really an ice mage. More urately speaking, you¡¯re more simr to an ice element creature than a mage. Other mages analyze and understand theories in order to create magical spell forms to control the power of the elements. However, you directly use your instinct and will to forcefully control the power of the elements. Other mages use their brains, but you rely on instinct... Other mages are sketching the exact object that they see, replicating it as faithfully as possible, while you¡¯re using watercolor to draw what you sense, projecting your own reality instead. There¡¯re tremendous foundational differences.]


    At this moment, countless memories entered my mind. How my understanding of ice was so connected to the Nortnds, my mysterious foundational ice sculpting magic, and how Harloys hadter changed her teaching method for me, no longer telling me magic theories, and instead telling me to go sense the essence of ice... What exactly was sensing the essence of ice supposed to be? Was that something that a mage who was supposed to rely on research, knowledge, and experiments supposed to do? Now that I remembered all this, it all sounded like such a scam.


    ¡°Of course it was a scam! Have you ever heard of a mage trying to ¡®sense¡¯ things? That¡¯s so unmagical! And the most unmagical part of all is that I was just trying to fool you back then, but it actually worked... So that¡¯s why I switched to the method for teaching magical beasts with you.¡±


    Although I was quite displeased, I had a niceeback prepared.


    ¡°Hmph! You scientists wouldn¡¯t understand, because you only know how to y with your data! I¡¯m a literary student who believes in pursuing the romantic! Theories are crutches for idiots. Geniuses only need to rely on intuition and instinct!¡±


    ¡°...Okay then, dear romantic literary genius, would you like help curing the frostbite on your butt? Or, do you intend to crouch and apply medicine yourself? I definitely won¡¯t do something such as taking pictures to sell to the fairies and Reyne...¡±


    ¡°...Dear Teacher Harloys, please continue your ss! I can¡¯t wait to be an outstanding mage who¡¯s a master of magic theories!¡±

 Chapter 690 - Harloys’ Secret

    <h4>Chapter 690: Harloys¡¯ Secret</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Harloys, the ¡°All-knowing¡±. In mage society, where knowledge was powerful, this nickname would not only attract a great deal of attention, it would also attract a great deal of hate.


    All-knowing? Didn¡¯t this mean that she knew more than any other mage? Since mages were also schrs, this was like a mega taunt to all other mages. However, not only had Harloys solidly retained her nickname for thousands of years, she even had great personal sess at the Cloud Tower, where archmages were plentiful. She sessfully taught many outstanding students.


    But if she really tried to intentionally teach wrong things and guide students down the wrong path in magic, she would quickly lose her reputation and even be exiled from the Mage Country.


    So, what she said about misleading her students would need to be understood through a filter. What she really meant was that she didn¡¯t impart her true magical knowledge to her students, instead teaching them only themon knowledge in the magical textbooks.


    Basic magical studies in the Mage Country were supported by the various magic schools. Since there were schools, there were naturally textbooks and sses to choose from. The learnable content would all be ssics with thousands of years of history, which would be quite suitable for establishing one¡¯s knowledge foundation. But if you wanted to progress further, you would soon experience another truth of mage society: knowledge came at a cost.


    Basic knowledge wasn¡¯t that difficult to obtain. However, the search for magical knowledge would be endless. After a mage student graduated, unless they were satisfied with remaining an acolyte mage for the rest of their entire life, they would have to think about how to join a mage organization, how to find a personal teacher, or perhaps do both at the same time... That would also mean they would need to pay something. The rtionship between a mage teacher and disciple would typically be stronger than even the rtionship between a parent and child. The advantages were also all held by the teacher. Thus, many disciples would naturally follow the teacher and also inherit the teacher¡¯s worldview, goodness or evilness, research field, social connections, and so on. Some disciples would even be their teacher¡¯s personal property.


    The majority of disciples would sign a contract with their teacher first before the teacher would agree to take them in. The disciple would have to serve the teacher for X years, or would have toe up with X amount of gold and magical resources to purchase their freedom from the contract. While there were sometimes free grandpa mages who would drop out of the sky and teach you for free like in the stories, the probability of that actually happening would be equal to the realism rate of such stories.


    For veteran teachers, it was only natural to keep teaching old ssics that should have actually been tossed into the trash heaps of history long ago while intentionally leading their students onto longer paths in order to profit more from the students.


    In mage society, knowledge equaled strength. Knowledge could onlye at a price. Free or cheap knowledge would only mean that this knowledge wasmonly avable everywhere. If you wanted more, you would need to pay the price.


    In a way, Harloys truly was an outstanding and generous teacher. Over the countless millennia, she had sessfully taught countless powerful mages. Not only was she not miserly with her magical knowledge, she would even base her sses and teaching on her student¡¯s ability and talents, choosing the most appropriate methods and magical spells for them. Her endless magical knowledge was the source of her nickname of ¡°All-knowing¡±.


    And unlike other ¡°miserly¡± mage teachers, Harloys had very low requirements for epting new students. She was even willing to ept promises to pay her back in return for her teaching services in the future. Since these promises would be enforced by powerful magical contracts, Harloys wasn¡¯t one bit worried that her students would break their word. What she asked for was also much less than what other archmages would request.


    But in another way, Harloys was one of the most irresponsible mage teachers around. Unlike how other teachers would constantly test their students, or maybe take in only one or two disciples in their life and focus fully on those few disciples, and also unlike how dark cult mages would have their disciples fight each other to the death to select the most skilled disciple, Harloys didn¡¯t care at all about her disciples¡¯ growth. It really didn¡¯t matter to her one bit. Although she gave her disciples incredibly valuable magical knowledge, she didn¡¯t care about being repaid one bit.


    ¡°...My disciples must take revenge on the Superior Elves and Elven Gods at any chance that they get.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ contract that she required all of her disciples to sign had only this one use in it. So, in a way, human mages¡¯ enmity towards the elves was truly rted to Harloys herself. There were plenty of her students who improved to be archmages themselves in the future. With such power and authority, it would be quite easy for them to give the elves a difficult time. Even though Harloys¡¯ contract was quite loose and rxed, it would still be magically enforced.


    The Gold Elf Princess more than 10,000 years old had used her own method to take as much revenge as possible on the elves over the years, yet she had now be the Elven Empress. I could only sigh over the inscrutable workings of fate.


    Harloys¡¯ overly obvious exchange of benefits and taking advantage of each other with her disciples made it so that her disciples weren¡¯t all that close to or loving of her. Even though she had probably taught more disciples than any other mage out there, she had voluntarily chosen more evil and dark disciples because they would be more willing to help her with her revenge against the elves...


    Actually, whenever I thought about this, I would feel that Harloys had honestly set her sights too low. If she truly used all that time to truly teach a disciple with all she had rather than using such a simple magical contract which stated the benefits exactly, with her teaching ability, lifespan, and umted knowledge, and with the mage society¡¯s typical teacher-disciple rtionships passing down an inheritance generation after generation, Harloys might have even been recognized as the #1 authority in the entire Mage Country had she done this instead.


    Right now, for the Truth Symposium archmages of the Mage Country, the factions were mostly split up by mage organizations, and the most stable rtionships in any mage organization would be that of teacher and disciple, and their inheritance. From a certain standpoint, the entire Mage Country was an academic organization (or school), so the leaders would obviously be the principal and professors.


    Just the thought of Harloys having that many loyal disciples at hermand had she actually bonded with them was quite scary to think about. At that time, if she wanted to take her revenge on the elves and Elven Gods, all she had to do was to issue a simplemand as the mages would never be afraid of the Elven Gods.


    ¡°...Tsk, thankfully, the silly cat has more hair than sense. Harloys, the ruler of the Mage Country? Just imagining it is so frightening.¡±


    All-knowing would be considered such a glorious nickname by any mage. All mages would be jealous. Most people would probably be under the impression that Harloys had obtained her nickname through her countless years of experience and teaching so many students. However, only those who truly knew her would know that her nickname was actually because she knew about far too many different magical fields, having an incredibly vast amount of knowledge that would be far beyond a normal mage¡¯s ability to understand.


    Harloys was skilled in undead, fire, ice, lightning, illusion, alchemy, energy, and all sorts of other magic. In fact, I had never seen a single type of magic that she wasn¡¯t skilled in. It was impossible to understand just how she had managed to umte so much knowledge, because any single type of magic would require a lifetime to research and truly understand. Rather than being a jack of all trades, it would be far more efficient in this world to be an expert in only one type of magic and reach the peak in that field.


    In mage society, a jack of all trades mage would be considered nothing more than a joke since anyone¡¯s time and concentration would be limited. Once you reached a high level of understanding in some magical field, that would naturally take up arge majority of your thinking time. Your own personal knowledge system would be reconstructed around your understanding, your way of thinking would form, and researching this topic would be your life¡¯s work. Even if you had extra energy, it would be difficult to focus on other topics.


    More than 70% of mages would specialize in only one magical field. For the rest, having one main magical expertise and one sub-expertise would already be the limit. As for genius archmages who managed to simultaneously be experts in three different magical fields, there were less than 100 such archmages in the entire Mage Country. Meanwhile, for a mage with four different fields of expertise, I knew only one example in the entire world, which was, ahem, myself as I had a rather unique situation as well... Yet, Harloys had managed to reach the peak in every single magical field there was, which was incredibly inconceivable.


    ¡°...Even if she has the time and sufficient concentration, just where did she go to obtain all that magical knowledge and historical magical inheritances? Besides, magic isn¡¯t something easily understandable just by reading books. You also need to experiment, practice, train, and fight. A mage who only knows theory but has zero practicalbat experience is pure garbage. Just how did she umte so much practical experience inbat?¡±


    Today, Harloys showed me her greatest secret of all, the foundational source of her power.


    ¡°This is my Soul World, Temple of the All-knowing...¡±

 Chapter 691 - Soul Books

    <h4>Chapter 691: Soul Books</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    I looked all around in Harloys¡¯ Soul World, and saw an endless sea of books.


    There were various styles of bookshelves everywhere in this endless spiral tower. Magical puppets were constantly patrolling, and everything was quite organized. This was thergest library that I had ever seen.


    However, the books here were obviously quite different from books in regr libraries. There were bookshelves that even giants would find toorge to use, reaching higher than the clouds. There were also bookshelves so tiny that even Ratmen would be unable to use them as these bookshelves were only the size of my fingernail.


    Every single book had a faint magical glow around it, for every single book here was actually a book of magic.


    ¡°...This is my world, the Library of Secrets.¡±


    Harloys sat upon a floating disc amidst all the bookshelves, and had a serious expression as she introduced her personal world to me. However, I could only do my best to prevent myself fromughing out loud.


    The reason for this? Her baby red face still had tiny dimples, her neat and short blonde hair had a tiny golden princess crown on top, and she was also wearing red high heels for children, a whitece children¡¯s dress, and strawberry and bunny imprint panties that she identally revealed... Excellent, I had no reaction, which meant that I was definitely no lolicon!


    Harloys now appeared to be even younger than her regr Gold Elf form. Right now, she appeared to be no older than seven or eight. Yet, this was her reality.


    A Soul World would be the projection of a powerful individual¡¯s personal reality in the real world, changing how reality worked. It would be impossible to distort any person¡¯s recognition of oneself. Just as how I had died in ¡°Diffindor¡± at the age of 14, the current Harloys was probably a reflection of the age at which she had died as well.


    She was doing her very best to appear serious. However, a young girl¡¯s seriousness was having her round cheeks bulging. Not only did this seem harmless instead of being a threat, it was even quite cute... Ahem, ahem, the silly cat was grinding her teeth, so I should probably get back on topic.


    ¡°...Not only does this library contain all of the magical books I have gathered over the countless years, it even contains every magical book and all magical information from the ancient Elven Empire¡¯s generation. When I died, myst thought actually wasn¡¯t about revenge, but rather about how to continue spreading our Gold Elf culture and magic...¡±


    I became serious¡ªwhen an undead started talking about their own personal regrets and death wish, it was something that should be respected.


    If this library was the umtion of more than 10,000 years of magical knowledge, including the inheritance of the entire former Elven Empire, then it seemed to be somewhat reasonable that Harloys had so much knowledge. But, I thought about it for a moment, and then shook my head.


    ¡°...This shouldn¡¯t be all there is to it. This doesn¡¯t adhere to the most basicws of magic.¡±


    A Soul World would also be a part of the elemental power system. A Soul World would represent the host¡¯s innermost desire and obsession. I had never doubted before that Harloys possessed a soul world, because her obsession and umtion were the strongest out of those of any Undead Lord I had ever met before. One¡¯s personal desire for strength would also act as a catalyst to create one¡¯s personal Soul World.


    Yet, I had never heard anything regarding her Soul World before. Originally, I had believed that this was because Harloys had killed off anyone who knew it, but now, it seemed more like it was because her Soul World was one of the rarest types, a Soul World that was the full support type. That was why her enemies had never discovered it.


    However, I still felt like there was something off because Soul Worlds were also a type of elemental power. The basic elementalws would still need to be followed. A powerful fire element individual¡¯s Soul World would typically be a sea of fire or magma, being filled with fire element. Meanwhile, an undead mage¡¯s Soul World would usually be something about reversing life and death, having the living die, or making the deade back to life, and so on. My personal Soul World was thetter type.


    Harloys¡¯ personal Soul World seemed far too peaceful, unlike her usual style. It was alsopletely unlike undead mages¡¯ Soul Worlds, which typically had extreme and evil elements to them. If Harloys had been a pure schr or hermit, I could have understood why she might have such a Soul World, but it was quite evident that her personality wasn¡¯t anywhere nearly so peaceful. When considering how Harloys desired power and revenge more than anything, her Soul World should be something that directly gave her power.


    I directly asked Harloys regarding my doubts. She hesitated for a moment, and then casually pointed at something, causing a thick green magical book tond in my hand.


    ¡°...Open this book.¡±


    My expression changed the moment that I touched the book. My countless times of having dissected humans told me that this book was made from human skin. Only the most evil of devils and Evil Gods would use scrolls and magic books made from human skin.


    I kept feeling like things were even stranger now. The magical green lighting from this book should have been the green of wind magic. However, my questions were all answered the moment that I opened the book.


    ¡°...My name is Joey Sten. I am a Legend-ranked wind mage. My personal research specialty is wind elementalization. With my personal research as the foundation, I invented three personal wind element magic spells, Wind Blood Needles, Double Tornado, and Shining Windwheel. I experienced 372 battles in my lifetime...¡±


    Right when I opened the green wind magic book, I could feel myself being dragged into the book as Joey Sten¡¯s magical knowledge, magical experience, andbat experience were all given to me. I understood and learned everything as if I had personally studied his wind magic and been there for his fights. Apart from the fact that the book didn¡¯t contain anything about Joey¡¯s personal and daily life, the book was aplete version of his entire life.


    ¡°...My ¡®Library of Secrets¡¯ is also known as the ¡®Storehouse of Soul Books¡¯. Every single soul book here was once an outstanding mage. One-third of my personal disciples are also in here. This is the source of my nickname as the ¡®All-knowing¡¯...¡±


    Harloys did her best to speak calmly, but the trembling in her young-sounding voice along with an equal trembling in her soul wavelength indicated to me that she wasn¡¯t calm at all.


    What was she afraid of? Was she afraid that her greatest secret would be known by others? Then why would she show this ce to me? As long as she never exposed her greatest secret, wouldn¡¯t it be impossible for anyone else to know about this weakness of hers?


    What was she afraid of? Was she afraid that I would loathe her? Wasn¡¯t she already ustomed to being loathed and feared by others?


    What was she afraid of? Was she afraid that I wouldn¡¯t be able to ept her past? Then why didn¡¯t she simply hide her past from me...?


    ¡°Perhaps I¡¯m rather special to her...¡±


    I felt rather helpless as various memories passed through my mind. I was probably getting rather off track as I was thinking ¡®She really knows how to harvest the seeds she nted. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I ran off so early back in the day, perhaps I would have be a book in here as well.¡¯ Meanwhile, Harloys was standing silently in front of me as if she was waiting for me to pass final judgement upon her.


    [...Don¡¯t you intend to say anything? As the male lead of this novel, shouldn¡¯t you at least console her? For example, say some pretty words such as ¡®I don¡¯t mind your past¡¯ or so on.]


    ¡°Ha, I never minded such things to begin with, so they wouldn¡¯t be pretty words. How many thousands or tens of thousands of mages have died to create these books? Every time I cast Ice Aeon, I¡¯ve probably killed more than 10 times the number of dead mages here.¡±


    This was the truth, for it was impossible to lie through a soul connection. I truly didn¡¯t mind what Harloys had done at all. Harloys was no good person. I had known that from the very beginning. I was also no good person. Both of us were terrible bastards who deserved to go to the Hell that I had created. However, I also refused to believe that we had done anything wrong. Fate had given us such a terrible ending of despair. Were we supposed to just sit around, crying helplessly like powerless victims, epting the scripted end for this game world?


    ¡°...As long as we can turn around this despairing fate, we¡¯re willing to use any means. As long as we can obtain power, is there anything that we shouldn¡¯t use? Were we wrong? Were we supposed to obediently die while still weak and powerless? Are we not allowed to seek the power needed to obtain revenge when both of us have an entire kingdom to take revenge for?¡±


    Then, if we weren¡¯t in the wrong, were Harloys¡¯ innocent victims for her soul book library in the wrong? That seemed even more ludicrous, didn¡¯t it?


    Then if those victims weren¡¯t in the wrong, who was? Was the God of Fate in the wrong for arranging such a terrible fate for everyone? (Catio suddenly getting med!) Were the Goddesses of Order and Chaos in the wrong for having created life to begin with? (System suddenly getting med!) Nobody was able to give an answer. If there had to be an answer, the only one was probably that something was wrong with the entire world.


    ¡°Nobody is in the wrong. Everyone simply wants to do their best to survive. That¡¯s why I desire to create a world with fewer difficulties, a world where the great majority of people doesn¡¯t need to kill each other in order to survive.¡±


    That was why I invented the Concept of Law in this world. That was why I created Hell, an entirely new dimension that would judge all evil. For the sake of an even slightly better world, all wicked viins would eventually meet their judgement.


    Iughed as I looked at Harloys. Words weren¡¯t needed between us. She understood me quite clearly through our soul connection. When everything was finished, I would go to Hell myself, and I would reserve a ce next to me in Hell for the silly cat... But when considering the current situation, it was probably still meaningless for me to think about things which were still so far off.


    I admitted that I was a wicked viin who hadmitted many evil deeds, but before I was punished for my crimes in the Hell that I had created, I felt like there were still more things that I could do for the world. At the very least, I could make it so that there were fewer pitiful protagonists like ourselves.


    Meanwhile, the silly cat suddenly smiled beautifully, with tears in her eyes, as if she was quite satisfied with my judgement that both of us deserved to spend an eternity in Hell together.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, don¡¯te over here, your tears are so dirty... Don¡¯t think that I won¡¯t beat you up just because you¡¯re in the form of a little girl! Don¡¯t wipe your snot on my shirt! Hey, hey, hey, don¡¯t drool on me!¡±


    Once we stopped messing around, Harloys piled arge amount of blue ice magic books before me. This was the main reason why Harloys had brought me here.


    ¡°With your talent for magic, I estimate that it will take a minimum of another 300 years before you can acquire enough magical theory knowledge to reach Level 4 power. The Holy War will probably have ended long before then. That¡¯s why we¡¯ll have to use some abnormal methods just for you.¡±

 Chapter 692 - Ice and Snow

    Chapter 692: Ice and Snow


    Science was the umted knowledge of humans¡¯ understanding of the naturalws. Physics, math, chemistry, and so on would all find their own objectivews. Once everything was ssified into the most basic molecules and atoms for each substance, science in my original world started its greatest developments of all.


    But in the world of Eich, the elements were the basic unit of everything. All substances would beposed of the elements. Research and knowledge about elemental magic would be a constant of all civilizations and cultures as they developed. It wasmon sense in this world that magic existed.


    Mages were schrs. They would need to study and learn in order to umte knowledge and power. Myths about people who mysteriously obtained powerful magic and were able to instantly cast forbidden spells and high-level spells werepletely impossible in magic theory. It would be the equivalent of how impossible it would be for a seven- or eight-year old to be a professional scientist in my original world. If such a thing really happened in this world, it would either be the result of a reincarnated spirit, or a demon/devil pretending to be human.


    Even though magical knowledge was nowmonce andplete, all sorts of mysterious magical secrets would still attract a great deal of attention. However, the most fundamental part of magic was how to use the basic elements.


    Enchanting something with mes at high temperature would often cause explosions. The burning point of a substance would often mean the temperature at which it would die. Powerful winds would have powerful pushing and cutting force, a direct representation of power that wasn¡¯t visible to the naked eye. The prative properties of water were as important as it itself was for all life. The earth silently bore everything upon it, and all mortals also required the earth to survive.


    This was why fire magic had been developed to include all sorts of AOE magic attack spells. Fire magic hadrge AOEs, high temperature, and tremendous attack power. Water magic had the weakest attack power, but was the most flexible, and even had healing properties. Low-level earth magic was focused on defensive spells, but when you reached high-level earth magic, no matter if it was building walls or destroying walls, no other magic type couldpare.


    This was all simr to how science in my original world had been developed by using thews of nature. Didn¡¯t electricity, maism, force, and other such scientific fields alle about this way? A scientist would have to start from the effects that appeared to ur on the surface, gradually analyze and understand the reason why such a thing urred, and then use the naturalws and technologies discovered to change nature, using special man-made tools to create a higher-level civilization of one¡¯s own.


    ¡°...So, I had been wrong from the very beginning.¡±


    Learning through Harloys¡¯ soul books was far more effective than ¡°starting over from the very beginning¡±. This was especially more so because the ice mages had all been quite sessful. If I still couldn¡¯t understand after gaining all of their personal experiences, I would be dumber than a pig.


    Harloys hadn¡¯t simply just given me a pile of ice magic mages¡¯ soul books. As she was a master of all magic types, her understanding of magic had long since surpassed that of the mages in the soul books. She ssified all of magic into specific categories and subcategories, and had a deep understanding of all main and even umon schools of thought. With that as the foundation, she had specially picked a ¡°list of books¡± just for me so that I could have a God¡¯s eye view and understanding of the entirety of ice magic. Then, she would base the next books for me on my personal condition and needs, picking the necessary magical school of thought and giving me more knowledge from a mage of that school of thought.


    ¡°Although ice and snow are elements that exist in the natural world, they aren¡¯t basic elements. Ice and snow arepound Concepts that are thebination of two more basic Concepts. The first basic Concept is Water, while the second basic Concept is Low Temperature. Only when both basic Concepts are present will ice and snow be produced.


    ¡°This is the reason why the majority of ice mages will also study water magic as a sub-specialization. Perhaps it should be said that the job ss known as ice mage was just another job ss under water mage to begin with. It will be quite difficult to proceed down the path of ice magic cultivation without knowledge of water magic... Don¡¯t ask me how you managed to learn ice magic without water magic. Just think of it as your wild bestial instinct.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ categorization of all magicpletely abandoned the magic society¡¯s typical ssification of magic by spell effects and historical inheritance. Instead, she ssified magic in a more encyclopedic style.


    ¡°Many ice magic spells are simply extensions of water magic spells. A regr water wall magic spell can be cast just by summoning the water element. If you add low temperature to that, it will transform into an excellent defensive ice wall magic spell instead. As for icicle st, the ice magic spell known for astonishing killing power, more than 70% of its magical form is identical to the famously weak two-circle water magic spell, waterball.¡±


    The entirety of ice magic was taught to me by Harloys. This all came from the research results of countless people. However, their knowledge had all been only partial.


    And yet, when all that knowledge wasbined in Harloys, she was able to exin the entire magical system of ice.


    Under Harloys¡¯ ssification, there were two major categories of ice magic. One was ice magic itself, and the other was snow magic. In her eyes, snow magic was actually apletely different magic system from ice magic.


    ¡°Ice is a special form of water in low temperature. Ice magic spells are rtively simple in regard to magic forms. Typically, you only need to swiftly freeze water, and then kill your enemy with the hardness and sharpness of ice, or with low temperature. If you want to be skilled in ice magic, you must also have high skill in water magic in order to make the ice difficult to analyze and defend against.¡±


    Harloys showed me a little performance. A waterball on her arm froze into ice, and then easily changed into forms such as ice sword, ice hammer, ice shield, and so on. The most ridiculous transformation of all was transforming it into a gigantic electric saw, with the water portion responsible for keeping everything smooth and flexible, and the sharp ice portion responsible for killing.


    She also transformed her ice and water into a nine-sectioned whip, a three-sectioned staff, and an ice spear that she could extend or shorten the length of at will. Perhaps I had always been mistaken about how I had used my weapons of ice before.


    ¡°Some famous ice magic schools include the snow dancers from the northern ciers and the armed snowmen of the Bearmen. Many of them are magical warriors who cultivate both magic and martial arts. This is becauserge AOE ice magic spells use far too much mana, and are far too slow. This makes ice magic actually inefficient for pure mages. Mixing some ice magic techniques with martial techniques is an excellentbination. Among all ice magic warriors, your Aurora Knights are the best of all. Their ice swords and ice armor that they can change the shape of have incredible power. However, even though the Aurora Knights have thergest mana pools out of all ice magic warriors, their use of ice magic is far too rough. They¡¯re basically no different from a group of magical beasts with how undeveloped they are.¡±


    I silently nodded in agreement. Indeed, the Aurora Knights¡¯bat techniques were quite rough. When in the air, they would simply shoot ice shards and charge with ice spears. When on the ground, the Frigid Nightmares would be the primary fighters, with the Aurora Knights as their support. Even though the Aurora Knights clearly had good mana pools, their destructive power andbat strength in magic wasn¡¯t even close to mages of the same level. This was because Aurora Knights only knew how to charge and attack with ice shards.


    ¡°Snow magic is also a major type of ice magic that I categorized myself. Basically, snow magic imitates snow cmities in the natural world, mainly using low temperature to kill your enemies. There¡¯s far too many examples of snow magic, such as blizzard magic, avnche magic, hail magic, and so on. Your Ice Aeon is also categorized as snow magic.


    ¡°The benefit of imitating the natural world¡¯s snow cmities is that it¡¯s easy to create the magic forms. The attack power and area of effect are also quite satisfactory. There also won¡¯t be anyughable scenes such as spending 10 times the amount of mana for only 1% of results, which is quitemon in ice magic. However, the weakness of snow magic is that its magic forms are quite standardized, with the effects of the magic being obvious. It¡¯s easy for enemies to anticipate what you will do beforehand and easily avoid the spell.


    ¡°Also, therger in scale the snow magic, the more of a low temperature prerequisite there will be. This will require a tremendous amount of mana required as payment together with a long incantation time. What meaning is there in having such a slow-casting spell, no matter how powerful it is? Still, there¡¯s a certain idiot who created a spell where it didn¡¯t matter how slow it was, because it would cleanse the entire map, so what am I supposed to say? It¡¯s not mage-like at all; it¡¯s a pure and utter waste of mana; it¡¯s foolish to the point where I don¡¯t want toment... If I said that I wasn¡¯t talking about you, would you believe me?¡±


    Harloys exined the entirety of ice magic to me. But, the scary part was that this was only the beginning.


    ¡°...This, this, this, and this are all books that you must read. After learning all these, your incredibly tiny list of magic spells that you know how to cast can finally be expanded. If you only know how to y with ice swords and cast forbidden spells, don¡¯t dare to call yourself my disciple. That would be far too humiliating for me.¡±


    Harloys gave me more than 30 soul books, and more than 400 ordinary magic textbooks to read through. I instantly wanted to be a truant.


    Previously, it took me an entire night to finish reading my first ice magic soul book. I also sunk into a state of ¡°Who am I?¡± confusion for a short period of time. Forcing another person¡¯s entire soul¡¯s worth of knowledge into one¡¯s head as a method of learning wasn¡¯t something that ordinary people would be able to deal with easily.


    Soon after, Harloys piled yet another mountain of books on another table next to me. This pile actually included more than 60 soul books.


    ¡°As a top-level ice and snow magic mage, you need to at least learn enough water magic knowledge to match Legend-ranked water mages. Even if you don¡¯t know how to cast a single water magic spell, you at least need to match them in theoretical knowledge. You¡¯re truly fortunate as water is one of the major four elements. I have far, far more water magic knowledge umted here than for ice magic.¡±


    Soon, another floating disc brought yet another pile of books.


    ¡°Right, since your method of using magic is just like that of the magical beasts who rely on their natural talents, there¡¯s actually many warlocks and dragon bloodline mages who also do the same thing. You can try learning from their memories andbat experience... Where did Rnd go? I¡¯m being nice enough to teach you, yet you dare to y truant on me!?¡±

 Chapter 693 - Progress

    <h4>Chapter 693: Progress</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In a way, Harloys¡¯ teaching style was indeed incredibly effective. Not only were her soul books capable of directly injecting knowledge, even the practicalbat experience could be gained as well. This was absolutely cheat-like in its power.


    But on the other hand, this learning style was far too dangerous.


    Every individual would have their own characteristics. Apart from obvious physical characteristics, more important would be one¡¯s internal characteristics. The so-called internal characteristics could only be one¡¯s memories and soul, while a personality would be the product of one¡¯s memories and soul. But, since it was possible to transfer memories in this world, it would also be possible to transfer personalities... Besides, Harloys even gave me a concrete answer. She confirmed that she had indeed mass-produced identical clones of a low-level mage before.


    Now then, there was a philosophical issue that I had to deal with. If a person¡¯s memories were reced by an outsider¡¯s, would that person still be themselves, or would they be the outsider? While the physical body was still the original one, the personality and memories would be from someone else.


    ¡°I am myself. Is it because my physical body is me, because my soul is me, or even simply because my memories are me? Then, if my physical body is cloned and injected with my memories, is that also me...?¡±


    Ahem, not only was such a question a word game and tongue twister, there would be no real answer, so we shouldn¡¯t take this so seriously. It was just that with others¡¯ memories being injected into one¡¯s mind, with the contents of those soul books feeling like one¡¯s own personal experiences, anyone who didn¡¯t have a soul and will strong enough would easily lose themselves, finally losing their own identity and bing subordinate to the injected memories and knowledge, bing a host for the personality within the soul book instead.


    Harloys didn¡¯t say what the result of her mass-produced mage clone experiment was, but it was obvious that she would have been shooting herself in the foot. She had personally killed every single mage to create all the soul books here. If those souls trapped in the soul books were able to revive in new hosts, they would naturally first want to take revenge on their ¡°murderer¡±. It would be quite a chilling thing to even imagine having a group of subordinate clone mages who absolutely hated your guts.


    Even though Harloys had already stripped all daily life memories and anything unrted to magical knowledge out of the soul books, the secrets and memories of the soul still remained hidden beyond the mist. After reading and learning the memories of just a few soul books, I already started bing confused about my sense of self, and had to hurriedly tell Harloys to stop for the time being.


    My soul would obviously be one of the strongest in the world already as it had crossed the River Styx multiple times already with multiple deaths. So, if even I was having such problems, an ordinary mage who tried reading one of Harloys¡¯ soul books would likely be instantly brainwashed, and if that mage tried to read multiple soul books, it was likely that they woulde down with multiple personality disorder as a result. But, when considering how Harloys had been able to casually read all these countless soul books in her library without any problems, I could only say that everyone had their personal strengths... Moreover, I could also faintly understand now just why Harloys had been so adept at controlling so many of her own clones. Maybe she had the worst case of multiple personality disorder in the entire world already!


    ¡°Even if she has endless personalities already, every personality is still Harloys. That¡¯s an incredibly strong sense of self... Since she¡¯s a natural slime now, how about nting a Harloys in spring, and harvesting a dozen of her in fall... Damn it, don¡¯t bite me!¡±


    At first, the silly cat had been quite delighted to hear my praise, but then I identally said too much, causing a row of teeth marks to appear on my face.


    I also had another inference that seemed highly likely. Maybe the truth could actually be determined by reversing the cause and effect. Harloys had gotten ustomed to reading soul books and the confusion they could cause to one¡¯s sense of self, which was why her sense of self was now so strong and clear. As for me, I had ridiculously high resistance to all mental magic due to going through the River Styx several times, but Harloys was probably already at the state of almostplete immunity to mental magic.


    Even though I was unable to read through the soul books that swiftly as I needed to take time to recover and rest, my growth rate was still astonishing. During the day, I would hunt fire elemental creatures to obtain more ice magic mana, and at night, I would devour the knowledge of one or two archmages in their soul books. My skill in magic was improving at incredible speed. It was no exaggeration to say that one day for me equaled 10 years of progress for others.


    The only slightly unfortunate part was that this type of magical knowledge gained from forceful injection wasn¡¯t truly as easily used as knowledge you gained through hard work and studying. While understanding and using the gained knowledge wouldn¡¯t be a problem, using this knowledge as a foundation to improve even further on top of that would still require time to better absorb the knowledge.


    The tremendous amount of new ice magic knowledge I gained also helped to restart my n for creating my personal Myth-ranked sword of ice which had been at standstill for so long. Previously, I had made no progress on creating this sword, because my foundational knowledge had been obviously insufficient, but I was now gaining practical ice magicbat experience from the soul books, and I even had the chance to train in actualbat against the fire elemental creatures. I hadn¡¯t felt this fulfilled for so many years already. The feeling of being able to sense one¡¯s own growth on a daily basis was far too precious and rare for old artifacts like myself.


    I could also faintly sense that once I broke past a certain boundary, my future path would be limitless.


    Although I still kept my basic design for my sword of ice, it was absolutely necessary to greatly modify and improve it as my theoretical knowledge of ice improved. I also gained knowledge of a tremendous number of ice magic spells, which finally meant that I no longer had to be an ice mage who was limited to only fighting like an artillery piece, gathering mana and tossing it out for long distance attacks. I now had new tricks to y on the battlefield.


    Meanwhile, the elemental war between fire and ice was bing ever fiercer. The battlefield was just like a meat grinder. Every day, one would be able to witness endless fighting between ice element creatures and fire element creatures.


    The Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm had also established an elemental connection point here, from which a humongous amount of the power of ice poured out. On one side was an ice mountain with avnches of snow, while the other side was a volcano andva. Both sides¡¯ fighting became ever fiercer, but no high-level elemental creatures had appeared on the battlefield yet. It seemed that it still wasn¡¯t time for ¡°high-levelmunication¡±.


    Of course, this was a good thing in a way as a hunter like myself who only stayed on the outskirts could obtain even more benefits. This also meant that I wouldn¡¯t need to get involved in Elemental Lords¡¯ fighting just yet, as that would be incredibly dangerous to the current me.


    And so, the famous ¡°Ice Armored Harvester¡± appeared on the outskirts of the battlefield.


    As I stood there, icy wind blew all around the battlefield, directly killingrge numbers of low-level fire elemental creatures before they could even get close to me...


    Although this scene seemed rather familiar, there was still a foundational difference...


    ¡°Mommy, don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t freeze my butt on the toilet anymore! I¡¯m no kitty cat king, nor am I Guldan...¡±


    Actually, only now did I finally learn how foolish I had been. Not only had I injured myself by sitting on my own ice throne for too long, even my previous ¡°Coldest Ice¡± armor invention would always injure myself with frostbite as well. Actually, other ice mages would also use ice to protect themselves, but they would never suffer simr problems. Previously, I believed that other ice mages simply suffered in silence without telling others about it, but now I finally knew that it was all because I had yed truant and slept too much in ss, not learning critical information.


    Underneath the ice armor, it would be necessary to maintain an appropriate amount of water in between the ice armor and skin. Not only would this create natural instion, it would also make the ice armor even more flexible. It could be said that in order to be an outstanding ice mage, water magic knowledge was highly important. Yet, I never understood this until today.


    And so, I no longer needed to cultivate my ice magic resistance anymore. Previously, I¡¯d truly thought that all ice mages like myself would suffer together while cultivating their own ice magic resistance... A mysterious sense of sadness overtook me as tears fell down from my eyes, yet those tears instantly froze into ice crystals.


    ¡°...Even someone like you is capable of reaching Level 4 as an ice mage? Shouldn¡¯t all other ice mages be crying instead?¡±


    Okay, let¡¯s get back on topic. At the very least, I was having lots of rxing fun grinding low-level monsters here, but unfortunately, some others out there were unwilling to let me have my rxation. New trouble had alreadye for me.

 Chapter 694 - Secret Infighting

    <h4>Chapter 694: Secret Infighting</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The world had continued to revolve while I was having my ¡°vacation¡± at the elemental battlefield.


    The battle against the undead in ind Eich had mysteriously slowed down. Although the Undead Cmity still continued, they had greatly slowed down the amount of their attacks. Rumors even started spreading that there was internal discord within the undead army.


    The revived Ogre Empire <sup>1</sup> had also kept strangely silent after they shattered the Holy Church¡¯s defense lines. The Ogre Empire hadn¡¯t invaded the humans with all they had as was expected, which was somewhat confusing.


    For this moment, the wars going on in Eich achieved a temporary bnce. The Gods high up were paying attention, and the mortals of Eich were waiting. Everyone wanted to see which species would upset the fragile bnce first and attack the humans.


    Being the first to attack didn¡¯t mean that you would gain the most. It was far more likely that the first to attack would receive the most powerful counterattack and suffer the most. Even though the wars on thend had achieved a rtive bnce for now, everyone knew that such days wouldn¡¯tst for long... It was destined that there would eventually only be one ruling species in this world.


    Meanwhile, in the distant Nortnds, the stormy situation remained unclear. The aftermath of the assassination attempts against Rnd and Elven Empress Harloys was still ongoing, and the furious Mist Kingdom¡¯s and Elven Empire¡¯s allied armies demanded justice from the moon elves. In front of overwhelming military pressure, the moon elf kingdoms sunk into utter chaos, ming each other and trying to find the ¡°culprit¡±, wasting the little time they had left.


    When the Mist Alliance armies entered the moon elves¡¯ cities, the Mist Alliance didn¡¯t show magnanimity like before. It was rather the opposite. Several hundred moon elf nobles were hanged on their own city walls every day. At first, signs would be put on the dead moon elves¡¯ necks, saying ¡°traitor¡±, ¡°betrayal¡±, and so on, but a few dayster, even such signs were no longer made. Every day, rows upon rows of moon elf nobles were hanged on the moon elves¡¯ very own city walls.


    All moon elf government officials and organizations loyal to the previous generation moon elf kingdom were eliminated from the very roots. All old nobles werepletely cleansed. In the future Elven Empire ruled by only one Elven Empress, such moon elves with special authority weren¡¯t necessary existences.


    And in the south, the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance was tightening its grip on the Mist Alliance¡¯s southern border even further.


    ¡°...They still want to have internal battles at such a time? This is the vice of humanity. Those guys from the Holy Church are far too narrow-minded...¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re pretty much the same. Aren¡¯t you also digging pitfalls for the Holy Church?¡±


    I could only helplessly shake my head. If I had a choice, I really would be willing to let bygones be bygones and truly work together with the Holy Church. This was because the future would only be harsher and harsher. But even though this was the truth, it was likely that nobody would believe me if I said it.


    ¡°Temporary Mist Alliance member countries on a trial period. As expected of you,ing up with something like this. The Holy Church will probably be so angry. They spent so much effort on trying to blockade the Mist Alliance, but still managed to leave an opening...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s long past the generation of ck-and-white political thinking. At such a time, a new ally who changes to follow the strongest faction is more useful than an irond ally.¡±


    The Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom, as previously mentioned, had requested us of their own volition to join the Mist Alliance so that they wouldn¡¯t be cannon fodder in the Holy Church¡¯s campaign against the Mist Alliance.


    But if they were formally admitted to the Mist Alliance at that time, it would be the equivalent of putting the Holy Church and Mist Alliance¡¯s enmity for each other out in the open for all to see. Not only would the Mist Alliance have to modify all of its border defense ns to incorporate the two new member countries¡¯ borders, which would be a heavy responsibility, it was also likely that there would be quite a few kings in the south of the Nortnds who had trouble sleeping at night due to being on the border with the members of the ¡°Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance¡±.


    This would be the equivalent of having a tiger sleeping in your bed next to you. Even if the tiger told you that he wasn¡¯t a carnivore, would you believe him? At that time, the Holy Church could easily spread some propaganda and transform the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance into the Anti-Mist Alliance Alliance.


    It would have obviously been foolish to ept those two countries into the Mist Alliance. Without even mentioning the lengthening of our logistical supply lines, such an action would have transformed potential future human allies who had no conflicts with us into enemies. That would be far too much of a loss.


    This was also the Holy Church¡¯s objective. They didn¡¯t need to actually do anything to the Mist Alliance. They simply wanted to cause friction between the Mist Alliance and other countries so that we couldn¡¯t develop as we pleased.


    My response was to give the Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom a lower-level (candidate) membership (which I created on the spot). They wouldn¡¯t need to follow everything that the Mist Alliance did, but would be able to receive the Mist Alliance¡¯s assistance when it was necessary. However, the Mist Alliance didn¡¯t absolutely need to send military reinforcements.


    This was obviously an unreliable agreement. However, this contract was something that both sides were really happy with. The Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom could retain their independence, and if the Holy Church pressured them too much, they could ask for help from us.


    In fact, the Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom were even wee to join and be member countries of the ¡°Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance¡±. Of course, without any other restrictions, both alliances would be in effect simultaneously. Even though the Holy Church would have achieved a ¡°blockade¡± against us, there would still be an opening for the Mist Alliance, making the blockade meaningless.


    And if the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance tried to force the Soen Dukedom and Feldis Kingdom to truly blockade us, the Mist Alliance would definitely send military reinforcements. Who was in the right or wrong then would be obvious for all to see.


    Was such an alliance¡ªwith them being ¡°candidates¡± to join our alliance¡ªa reliable alliance? Not at all, but shared mutual benefits would make this alliance incredibly effective. Perhaps this was only a political word game, but this was far more effective than anything more direct. That was because there were concrete shared benefits between us. The two member countries needed their independence as well as a bigger faction to support them, while the Mist Alliance needed a supply line in the south.


    The political alliances in this world were still at the level of my original world¡¯s Middle Ages. Things were quite direct here. Either an alliance would work, or it wouldn¡¯t. However, strange alliances that were incredibly solid due to shared benefits was an idea I had obtained from examples in my original world.


    Of course, while ideas were wonderful, there would always be all sorts of unexpected things in reality.


    The political situation in the Feldis Kingdom had recently be unstable. The loyal believers of the Holy Church were beginning to host private gatherings, while the domain lords who worshipped the Holy Light were beginning to use the Feldis royalty of improper governmental management...


    ¡°I can already guess the uing developments. The royalty will definitely meet with unexpected incidents and all die, while the citizens will encourage a domain lord affiliated with the Holy Church to dere himself king, and then the whole country begins to convert to worshiping the Holy Church. The Holy Church is way too familiar with ying this old trick.¡±


    ¡°...And you intend to just sit back and allow all this to happen?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. Although this is happening in another country, we still need to fight for our voice in the propaganda war. We¡¯ve already sent out our scouts and spies. The Mist Alliance sent a thousand-person elite squad of spies in one go. Right now, the Holy Church and our spies are probably locked in bitter battle over there. Right, the Church of Law also sent out an elite squad¡ªwe can¡¯t fall behind the Holy Church in converting people to our religion.¡±


    Both sides¡¯ spies were locked in a bitter battle in a third country for the sake of their own faction¡¯s benefits. And even if they were dying, they wouldn¡¯t be willing to expose their identities as spies. This all felt more and more like a scene out of a major spy movie.


    Yet, my revenge against the Holy Church was only beginning.


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯ve been meaning to ask, but what have you been writing recently? ¡®Words from Estrada¡¯? Just what is this?¡±


    ¡°...What would possibly hurt a church more than arge internal fracture caused by differences in religious beliefs? Actually, in my opinion, Estrada far more deserves the title of Lord of Holy Lightpared to Karn.¡±


    ¡°...So you¡¯re trying to start a cult to weaken belief in the Holy Church?¡±


    ¡°Yep, a cult with a True God at the head. Don¡¯t you feel that would be interesting?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think that Estrada would agree...¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s already busy being a God in Hell. So what if he doesn¡¯t agree? Is he gonnae here and bite me?¡±


    Actually, I had always held such an attitude towards the Gods. They were already busy being idols up above in the skies, so why would they interfere in mortal affairs?


    I did my very best to recall Estrada¡¯s words, but could only remember the embarrassing fact that I was always cking off during ss while he was teaching me. So, I could only helplessly begin to make up quotes on Estrada¡¯s behalf.


    ¡°Tsk, others just make up their seniors¡¯ quotes as well, so it shouldn¡¯t bother anyone that I¡¯m doing the same. Yep, yep, Estrada said, ¡®The God of Holy Light is an idiot. Come bite me if you have the ability to!¡¯¡±


    ¡°...I think that Estrada really wille over and bite you instead.¡±

 Chapter 695 - Goods News and Bad News

    <h4>Chapter 695: Goods News and Bad News</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Wood spirits Nortnds immigration n? Wasn¡¯t this n rejected back in the day?¡±


    I paused in surprise when I saw the government document that Reyne handed to me. I really couldn¡¯t understand what was going on.


    Back in the day, I had done my very best to try and convince Amelia to at least allow some wood spirits to immigrate ande live in the Nortnds. That would greatly improve the Nortnds¡¯ environment and food supply.


    But in the end, no matter how many alluring conditions I promised her, Amelia had always responded with ¡°The conditions in the Nortnds are unsuitable for the wood spirits.¡±


    ¡°Why did Amelia change her mind?¡±


    ¡°Take a look for yourself.¡±


    There were many additional conditions listed on the document. Among them, a report on the possibilities of wood spirit immigration attracted my attention. ¡°Report on the potential of nting the Forest of Dreams in an active volcano environment.¡±


    The report was quite simple. It just listed the general ideas. Basically, as long as the local environment was adequately warm enough, seeds from the Forest of Dreams would be about to flower and sprout here. Then, as long as the environment¡¯s warmth could be maintained until the Forest of Dreams spread to a certain extent, the local section of the Forest of Dreams here would be able to achieve internal temperature regtion, and a brand-new part of the Forest of Dreams would finally be able to stand in the Nortnds.


    ¡°This is wonderful news! If this seeds, this will reduce our food importing necessities by more than half! We¡¯ll even have a strong nature power ally here. This will benefit the entire Mist Alliance... Reyne, why do you look so unhappy? Is there a problem with what I said?¡±


    ¡°...There¡¯s no problem. Please continue. I don¡¯t care about what you do.¡±


    It was quite obvious that she was angry at me for some reason. But based on my many years of experience, young women would always be frustrated over mysterious things. At such a time, asking the reason why would only bring more trouble upon myself. So at this time, as I was a mature gentleman, I should...


    ¡°Does your stomach hurt? Ahem, I understand it must be that time of the month. Here, I have some pain medication that I obtained from the elves...¡±


    Alright, she actually red at me and then walked off without even saying goodbye. So rude! Just who taught her to be like that?


    ¡°Weren¡¯t you her primary teacher...¡±


    Ahem ahem, let¡¯s not worry about such unimportant details. At the very least, having some wood spirits immigrate to the Nortnds would be excellent news for the entire Mist Alliance.


    The devils had worked so hard to start a volcanic eruption here. The end result was that not only did the Nortnds now have a perfect excuse to not get involved in the chaos in maind Eich, we were even now able to receive support from the wood spirits. And due to the elemental war, the Ice Elemental ne was also able to speedily develop and solidify its alliance with the Mist Alliance. When weighing pros and cons, it kept feeling more and more like we had gained far more than we lost. Could it be that the devils were actually trying to give us a present?


    ¡°...It¡¯s not that easy. Take a closer look at the requirements listed in the documents.¡±


    Indeed, previously I had also helped to expand the Forest of Dreams. The Forest of Dreams had really high requirements of the environment. And in order to form more sections of the Forest of Dreams, everything originally in the space would need to be cut down. It was obvious that this would receive bacsh from the current native residents of that environment. And once the trees of the Forest of Dreams started spreading, the fire elemental creatures would start attacking it.


    ¡°They¡¯re going to absorb heat through the ground...¡±


    This was obviously a way of stealing energy from the fire element of the volcano. It was quite evident how the fire elemental creatures would react. But when considering the potential benefits, getting attacked more fiercely by the fire element creatures was quite eptable. And once the Forest of Dreamspleted itself here, that would mean that the fire element creatures were blockaded by both the wood spirits as well as ice element creatures. It would be quite difficult then for the fire element creatures to do anything. Maybe the fire element creatures would even be an excellent thermostat for improving the temperature in the entire Nortnds... I kept feeling more and more like the devils and Fire Elemental Lords hade all the way over here just to give us such a great present.


    And since the entire situation in the Nortnds was stabilized now, with everything going well, I was feeling like it was about time for me to leave... No, I definitely wasn¡¯t trying to run away before Amelia arrived in the Nortnds! I would never do something as devious as that!


    Of course, there were still some affairs that I needed to take care of quickly, such as the construction of the new Nortnds Elven Empire, the ¡°revival ceremony¡± for Suana, and topletely kill off all the remaining devils here who were hiding like rats.


    Right now, the fires of war were spreading everywhere in Eich. However, most wars were maintaining a delicate bnce. The ce that caught my attention the most was the former Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire¡¯snd in the southwestern mountains.


    There, a ck torrent had already gonepletely out of control. Countless demonic creatures were crawling out of the Dimensional Door there. Under the lead of powerful Chaos Main God Donatis, the Chaos Abyss¡¯s destructive tidal wave was unstoppable.


    Including the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire, three mid-sized and eleven small countries had already been destroyed by the first demon wave. The number of dead and missing now exceeded 2,000,000. Meanwhile, the human mega empires of thend were still keeping strangely silent.


    The mega empires were waiting. They were waiting for the crazed period of the demon wave to end. They were waiting for the short-lived Chaos Abyss war ves to use up their lifespans in their fervor. The Order Gods were also waiting. They were waiting for the demon wave to start receding. Only then would they band together to attack the fatigued Chaos War God and go for the glory of beating him back down to the Chaos Abyss.


    After the first demon wave¡¯s end, various Demon Lords would start arriving from the Dimensional Door. That would be the true conquering army of the Chaos Abyss. That would start a battle of attrition that would determine the fate of the world.


    Due to the will of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s personal involvement, the first demon wave would be impossible to defend against. This was experience that everyone had learned from countless Holy Wars. The fate of the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire had once again proved the truth of this maxim.


    It wasn¡¯t really the fault of the human mega empire observers for being cold-blooded. Since it was destined that someone needed to be the sacrifice to the first demon wave, they would naturally choose to watch other countries be sacrificed instead of their own.


    Every day, tens, or even hundreds of thousands of warriors andmoners would die. Hungry demons wouldn¡¯t care if you were someone fighting them or just an ordinarymoner. And every day, refugees would appear in ten times the number of casualties. Farmers would run away from their fields, and militia troops would run away from their viges. Nobody would me them, because even the typically venerated domain lords had also run away from their ownnds.


    It was said that there had even been several thousand casualties so far among the military observers that various countries sent out. The military observers watched the battles from distant locations that they believed to be safe. Maybe they were watching from a fortress in the distance, but didn¡¯t expect to meet with Deepcliff Demons that were experts at tunneling. Maybe they were watching from tall mountains, but didn¡¯t expect to meet with demon dragons. Maybe they were gathering information from a buffer zone country with several countries between them and the warring area, but didn¡¯t expect that those several countries would simultaneously be destroyed with a single swing of Chaos War God Donatis¡¯s sword.


    It was natural for any tide to have a high tide and low tide. The demon wave wouldn¡¯t be able to keep up its high tide fervor forever. Everyone was waiting for the moment of the low tide to appear. Only then would a counterattack against the demon wave actually be effective.


    It was precisely having wars everywhere, especially the descent of the demon wave, that made every country be prepared for war. All the countries started expanding their militaries, and militarizing their national industries. However, there were two cmities that arrived earlier than expected.


    ¡°Famine for the living and gue of the dead. It¡¯s as if the four knights of the apocalypse have arrived...¡±


    The famine that we had been expecting arrived sooner than expected. All countries were now trying to buy food for their military rations, which made it impossible to find any more food in the international marketce. On top of that, the arrival of countless refugees and therge loss of human territory increased the rate at which famine spread. The only part worth being happy about was that this year¡¯s fall harvest had already been gathered. If the demon wave had urred just three or four months earlier, it would have been impossible to obtain this year¡¯s fall harvest, and all the countries would have far lower stockpiles of food. The famine would have been far scarier in such a case.


    Meanwhile, the gue of the dead was a new and strange type of gue. This gue was different from Undead Cmity, as it wouldn¡¯t produce very many high-level undead. Nor would any undead leaders appear from this gue. This gue simply transformed humanoid creatures into low-level zombie-like creatures who drooled and showed eye whites while attacking any living around them with everything they had.


    As for why I said they were zombie-like creatures, rather than zombies? That was because they were actually still living. In fact, it was even possible to use pure Holy Light to undo their transformations and restore them back to their living selves.


    In this world where forbidden spells could be found everywhere, this gue¡¯s destructive ability wasn¡¯t that scary. However, since this gue was highly infectious, unless the source was swiftly cut off, an entire town would swiftly be a dead town, and those ¡°zombies¡± would also die of hunger within approximately ten days. It wasmon for the ¡°zombies¡± to not even be able to walk far enough to reach the next town, so the overall destructive force of this gue couldn¡¯tpare at all to the ssic Undead Cmity.


    Regardless, no matter how the Undead Emperors tried to exin (fine, they didn¡¯t even try to offer an exnation), the me for this obviously controlled gue was ced squarely upon the Undead Emperors.


    The arrival of another piece of news signaled that my vacation here had nowpletely ended.

 Chapter 696 - Pleasant Surprise

    <h4>Chapter 696: Pleasant Surprise</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°If it was at all possible, I really wouldn¡¯t want to hear that legendary name...¡±


    The #1 ranked individual on the Cmity Rankings, the person who must not be named... hadn¡¯t returned!


    That¡¯s right, he hadn¡¯t returned. That man hadn¡¯t returned... Oh, I was repeating myself because I was far too happy.


    I had just received a package from the Chaos Abyss. Inside the package was a shiny red gem asrge as my hand. It was quite blinding to behold. But if you used magical vision to look at it instead, it would be quite capable of literally blinding you.


    [Divine Authority of the Sun God (ruby). Item level: God Equipment.]


    [This ruby was once part of the ancient Sun God¡¯s crown, whose name has been forgotten to time. This ruby contains the Sun God civilization¡¯s understanding and worship of light.]


    [Its value is uncalctable. PS: he really aplished it, and during the process, he actually... Just kill him as quickly as possible for me.]


    I really didn¡¯t want to know what the System had skipped for my sake. However, I could faintly guess, because also inside the package was a picture taken by goblin photographers. A certain Dracon was standing together with a birdman, with both wearing wedding veils. I felt it was wonderful that I hadn¡¯t been invited to attend their wedding.


    ¡°He really managed to seed at conquering the ancient Sun God...¡±


    In a way, I truly was rendered speechless when it came to that person. As for whether the birdman Sun God was male or female, and how he or she was conquered... I really didn¡¯t want to know, so I wouldn¡¯t even ask! Let us discuss instead about that person¡¯s message.


    ¡°Interacting with the mesmerizing Aloyo has helped me to understand the beauty of the outside world, along with just how alluring the endless universe and its infininte species are. Milord Rnd, I now finally understand what you meant by always saying ¡®My goal is the universe!¡¯ From today onwards, I, Beifeng Herault, shall also set my goal on the entire universe!¡±


    So, this meant that he wasn¡¯t returning?


    The universe? He intended on going to other dimensions? For someone of his power level, that wouldn¡¯t be that difficult, so why did he specially mention it? Wait a moment, if he wasn¡¯t returning, how was I supposed toplete the Quest that my System issued to me to turn Beifeng into a female? My System truly would punish me by sshing the Spring of a Drowned Woman on me instead!


    [Rx. I¡¯ll just treat it as if youpleted my Quest. I¡¯m highly satisfied with this result.]


    My System who had just been so angry just now was evidently quite happy. I was quite mystified by this, but Creator Goddess of Order Astrya was in such a good mood that she even gave me an exnation.


    [Beifeng has already left this entire dimensional system. He¡¯s now trouble for other universes to deal with.]


    What? Beifeng had left this dimensional system already? He directly managed to leave this universe and went to another universe? Just how did he aplish this? Such a thing was possible?


    I paused in surprise, not knowing whether tough or cry. But then, I felt some mysterious joy.


    ¡°...Perhaps we should hold a celebration party in order to celebrate that this universe is finally safe.¡±


    [Agreed.]


    ¡°Agreed!¡±


    Even the silly cat was happily nodding her head. It seemed that Beifeng truly was such a frightful existence.


    ¡°Well, let him be as frightful as he want, as we¡¯ll never see him again...¡±


    But unfortunately, it seemed that I had spoken to soon, as the hard-working package delivery fairies brought me a second package from Beifeng. I originally thought that it would be some more high-quality resources for me, yet inside was another letter as well as a map.


    The letter was from Aloyo. The other God Equipment that I wanted which had the property of gathering light was the ¡°Magic Ritual Mirror of the Venerated¡±, which had long been lost to history. However, Aloyo¡¯s divine power was able to act as a locator spell for this mirror, which was still in the mortal ne. Thus, he had drawn a map for me.


    ¡°Ha, what a nice person. Eh? There¡¯s something written on the back of this map...¡±


    ¡°This is Beifeng. That birdman kidnapped me and forced me to write that previous letter! He said that he wants to take me to see the various universes. Although I feel that it¡¯s nice to visit and see what it¡¯s like in other universes, he doesn¡¯t intend on returning! That¡¯s why I secretly left a dimensional portal with coordinates in the 212th level of the Chaos Abyss... I will definitely return!¡±


    ¡°Oops, my hand slipped.¡±


    I directly spilled a bottle of ck ink on the back of the map, obscuring Beifeng¡¯s message. At the same time, a ck cat paw spread around the ink and obscured the message even more. And then we nodded at each other and started preparing for tonight¡¯s celebration party... and actually, since Beifeng was no longer even in this universe, we may as well do something outrageous and go take the reward money on his head!


    ¡°Are you certain that you can take that money so easily? Be careful that your reputation may be ruined if he returns.¡±


    ¡°...Indeed, this seems as if the hero secretly went for a walk in the park to waste some time, then upon his return he dered that he killed the demon king. And then, two dayster, the demon king pops up and does evil as he always does. At that time, I¡¯ll really be so embarrassed!¡±


    ¡°Your analogy... it really is such a subtle one.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s expression was also rather subtle. But no matter what, we were still going to celebrate that Beifeng was currently not in this universe.


    ¡°You intend to go look for that mirror?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯ll be much better than trying to rob the Holy Church.¡±


    ¡°So, which ability of yours do you intend on using to break through to Level 4? Holy Light, or ice?¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯ll just take things one step at a time. The order isn¡¯t really that important.¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s extremely important.¡±


    I was somewhat confused at how stubborn the silly cat was about this, but the next instant, I noticed how she was reading my book, ¡°Words from Estrada¡± which I was still in the process of writing. I instantly understood. So what she cared about was which teacher had been the most influential to me!


    ¡°...I think that we can stay in the Nortnds for a little while longer and hunt some more fire element creatures. Let¡¯s try to get my breakthrough before we leave. That will also make things much safer in the future.¡±


    ¡°Yeah!¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s unhesitating agreement made me feel a mysteriousck of confidence. Although I had greatly improved my knowledge of ice, I had to repeatedly modify my design for my ice magic sword. I truly didn¡¯t have a guarantee that I would be able to make a breakthrough in a short period of time.


    ¡°...It seems that I¡¯m going to have to spend all-nighters working hard again.¡±


    In a way, the fact that Beifeng wouldn¡¯t be returning anytime soon had given me an unexpected present. The bottle of the Spring of the Drowned Woman potion now belonged to me. So at this time, it was an excellent opportunity to prank... I meant, uphold good and eliminate evil!


    Of course, another important reason was that I felt like I needed to use such a potion as quickly as possible, as I would definitely be the unfortunate one in the end if I didn¡¯t use it quickly!


    I wrote down a list of people who had antagonized me, but I hadn¡¯t taken revenge on them yet because it was difficult to do so...


    But when I looked at the list, the results were rather saddening... I really wanted the most to have some revenge against Reyne, Harloys, and the System, but none of the three would fear the Spring of the Drowned Woman at all, as it was only for transforming men into women. If I instead used the Spring of the Drowned Man potion on Reyne, I would probably have a lot of fun, but it was likely that Krose would cry herself to death.


    ¡°Actually, you can try and take revenge against all of society. Have you forgotten about certain individuals who are so blinding to behold...¡±


    A mysterious alluring voice spoke in my ears. I suddenly recalled the image of the naked Xueti and Eaglestorm. If I transformed one of them into a female... that was such a wondrous scene to behold that I really wanted to vomit!¡±


    ¡°Indeed, I think I can consider it.¡±


    I sunk into contemtion as I looked at the blue and red potions before me. What would be more interesting? A female Tauren running around naked at high speed, or a beastskin wearing naked female druid...? Didn¡¯t all druids wear beastkins, though? It wasn¡¯t like there weren¡¯t any female druids. There were also plenty of female druids who were ugly. If Eaglestorm transformed into a pretty female druid, wouldn¡¯t I be doing a good service for everyone?


    ¡°Cough, tell Xueti toe here together with Krose. I have something to discuss with them. Yep, tell them that it¡¯s a pleasant surprise!¡±


    Merry Christmas Eve everyone!!!????????

 Chapter 697 - Old Friend

    <h4>Chapter 697: Old Friend</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Every day, the situation in Eich became more chaotic. The undead, demons, and all sorts of invaders from other dimensions would cause bad news to be brought to us on a daily basis.


    The Holy Church was also bing ever more active. They had already sent out many Cardinals in a tentacle-like manner, spreading everywhere. The Cardinals were doing their best to grab as much attention as possible on the battlefields in countries everywhere. Of course, everyone would want free reinforcements and healing support, but when such ¡°free¡± help came with the requirement that you cede military authority to the Cardinal, then it would be unwanted.


    I knew that the Cardinals were so motivated because the God of Holy Light had promised them that the Cardinal with the greatest aplishments would be the candidate to be the next pope, as well as obtain eternal life in the God of Holy Light¡¯s divine kingdom. Although such promises caused even the greedy Cardinals who valued their lives above all else to start moving, sometimes, blindly taking action would be worse than not doing anything at all.


    Back in the game¡¯s history, the Cardinals had taken advantage of the Holy Church¡¯s reputation and howmon Holy Light worship was in the mortal ne to go to all the war areas with their personal guards and swiftly steal themanding military authority for themselves. The Cardinals then started doing whatever they wanted.


    There were a few Cardinals who knew that they understood very little about military strategy, so they left themand up to the originalmanders, which was a great thing. However, such Cardinals were an extreme minority. Most Cardinals were the type who would steal all achievements possible while cing all me on others. Even moremon was that even though these Cardinals had never been to military school before or even read a single military stratagem in their life, they all believed themselves to be military geniuses. They would instantly steal the right tomand and then give inexplicable orders that would cause easily won battles to somehow be lost.


    ¡°...The defeat of Cardinal Xisor, who left a sturdy fortress to instead try and ambush the undead outside in the open.¡±


    ¡°...The cmitous defeat of Cardinal Amuer, who led four knight squadrons in forcefully marching 1,400 kilometers, traveling in and out of demon-controlled territory several times, and losing because he didn¡¯t prepare any supply lines.¡±


    ¡°...The pitiful case of Cardinal Feen, who opened up the castle gates in front of a beastmen army, and angrily tried to personally scold the evil beastmen and teach them their wrongs, trying to convert them to the Holy Light. However, the beastmen instantly cut off his head and easily ughtered the city due to his opening the castle gates.¡±


    These were all names from the game¡¯s history. These Cardinals had done such ridiculously foolish things that they achieved ¡°eternity¡± in a different way... that was how much of a mark they had left on history.


    Of course, the human countries finally had enough of the Cardinals after learning enough of a lesson. Although the human countries couldn¡¯t directly refuse the Cardinals, they found plenty of excuses. They started either obviously or covertly refusing the Holy Church¡¯s interference, and by the end of the Holy War, plenty of human countries even directly resisted the Holy Church¡¯smands. The Holy Church also suffered a severe blow to its reputation after countless failures. However, the terrible losses incurred by the Holy Church¡¯s Cardinals takingmand early in the war would be impossible to recover from.


    Now, things were far better than in the game¡¯s history. The Holy Church was no longer the only ruling religious force in thend. Even the Cardinals understood that times were different. They would behave slightly less arrogantly, so such disasters caused by the Cardinals would be fewer.


    Of course, there would still be some military disasters caused by the Cardinals. The Cardinals definitely wouldn¡¯t be content to remain silent, as they desired ¡°eternal life¡± and the position of pope. They would definitely still want to take militarymand. Even if some countries would now reject them, there would always be human countries with steadfast belief in the Holy Light that would ept them.


    But regardless, the overall situation was still far better than in the game¡¯s history.


    The biggest difference was that the Underground Faction hadn¡¯t attacked, nor had there been a cruel human internal civil war. The losses from the elemental war were also within eptable limits. This was all great news, and the fact that the Holy Church had taken great hits to its reputation already was also a really wonderful fact.


    But, there would always be advantages and disadvantages to everything. Although we had eliminated Goddess of Chaos Cynthia already, which stopped the certain bad ending where everything would be annihted, this had also broken the eternal cycle of the Holy War. The Chaos Abyss was no longer under the control of the will of the Chaos Abyss. It was likely that the Chaos Abyss would send out its most explosive, unrestrained amount of power ever.


    Of course, I had already done everything that I could. The current situation was already much better than I had originally expected. This world didn¡¯t belong to myself alone. I still trusted the resilience of the humans, elves, beastmen, and other species. I believed that they could survive this uing cmity... And even if I didn¡¯t trust in them, there wasn¡¯t much else that I could do. This world was far too big. No individual would possibly be able to deal with everything when the entire world was at war.


    During the days, I continued to grind experience against fire element creatures, and at night, I continued to absorb magical knowledge through Harloys¡¯ soul books. Although my improvement was quite obvious, I still was unable to make a breakthrough. But, what made me happy was that some old acquaintances came to see me.


    ¡°Diana, Victoria, long time no see... Momo, long time no see.¡±


    The highest-ranking individuals of the dark elves had just appeared in front of me. Victoria was the high priestess of all dark elves, who held the highest religious authority. Diana held the highest military authority of all dark elves. They were both old acquaintances of mine.


    In a way, it was only natural that they would arrive here. As work continued on constructing the new Elven Empire, the dark elves would need to express themselves andmunicate as they were one of the four Superior Elf species. Rather than going to find the extremely busy clone Elven Empresses, it would be far more effective to simplye find myself and thezy cat on my head.


    If I only judged my three visitors by their physical appearances, the three of them seemed almost the same as before. This was because eight years would be almost nothing to a dark elf. However, there was a great difference in their auras.


    Victoria was still as astonishingly beautiful as ever. But, her past traces of softness hadpletely disappeared. She had a calm expression, and she wore a white priestess robe that appeared quite simple. Yet, the divine power on her robe was frightful to behold. Victoria still had a pretty face and seemed to be quiet, but there was something quite authoritative in her eyes. As she was the true ruler of the dark elves, she appeared more like their ruler now.


    Diana was also far steadier than before. She now had her long hair tied up in a single ponytail. She was obviously happy to see me, but not overly excited, instead simply nodding slightly at me. She wore an incredibly in set of ck armor. The heavy sword on her back didn¡¯t even have any magic enchantments on it. As Diana was the first ever anti-Holy Knight, her arrival caused the Elemental Tide in the area to decrease and be suppressed.


    As for Momo... cough cough, I should probably get on with the serious business. I refused to admit that this dark elf who stared at me while shouting ¡°It¡¯s harvest time! Her Highness Reyne was correct, a mature version is also quite nice!¡± was actually a proper knight. It was likely that Momo had changed the least out of the three dark elves, both physically and internally. The past eight years barely seemed to change her at all.


    Whenever old acquaintances met each other again, it was only natural to discuss the past and future. Although they had formerly been my subordinates, I no longer had any official position, so I didn¡¯t need to act so formal or pretend to be so respectable.


    The dark elves didn¡¯t have any specific mission here. They were here simply to chat about the past and make preparations for the construction of the Nortnds Elven Empire.


    I also learned from them that the situation in the Underground was quite good right now. Under the control and direction of the four Underground Lords, more and more Underground residents had sessfully immigrated to the Nortnds. However, what made me feel rather helpless was that no matter how much they had desired to live in a world with ocean and sun before, or how much they swore they were certain that they wanted to return above ground, more than 70% of the Underground immigrants would apply to return to the Underground by the next year.


    ¡°The sky is so scary. I feel like I might fall into the sky at any moment.¡±


    ¡°This wind is so scary. There¡¯s the scent of more than ten other species as well as magical beasts. I don¡¯t feel safe at all here!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s so cold here. The Underground is far warmer.¡±


    There were all sorts of strange reasons that they gave. In the end, it was considered quite good already even if only 30% of the Underground residents stayed in the Nortnds. And as the Underground residents went back and forth between the Nortnds and the Underground, the Underground residents now understood much better that the real world up above ground wasn¡¯t as beautiful as they imagined, and that their own world wasn¡¯t that bad after all. The number of Underground residents applying to immigrate naturally started decreasing in number.


    Of course, another reason why fewer people started immigrating was also because the Underground Lords were indeed doing a good job.


    Back in the day, nobody had counted on the Underground Alliance actuallysting for very long. But as humans, dark elves, beastmen, and dragons all became unified, they became a foundation for the new generation. The trading of mining resources brought plenty of other resources for everyone. The spread of the Church of Law in the Underground made the society quite safe. People were able to stay warm and have full bellies without needing tomit crimes. This heatednd of exiles was actually beginning to cool down.


    Theplete unity and alliance between the four Underground Lords, along with the constantly patrolling dragons in the sky caused those with ambitions to keep them hidden. Only idiots with death wishes and the reckless who thought they were the best in the world would dare to challenge the new order in the Underground.


    The Underground was bing ever more peaceful. This naturally meant that it had be a better ce for the natives to stay at. Trade brought them arge amount of products from above ground. The Underground¡¯s special products could also be sold for much higher prices above ground. Since staying in the Underground seemed to be better than immigrating, and everyone was having better and better lives, they would no longer consider immigration.


    Of the four major Underground species, the beastmen had immigrated in the greatest number, to the beastmen ins. That was because their own kind was waiting for them there. Dragons were simply too few and number and stillcked presence. The dark elves who abandoned Lorci worship were now peacefully interacting and even living together with other species. Although some time was still needed for everyone to get along better, it was at least no longer at the point where dark elves and others would instantly start fighting upon seeing each other. Of course, another main reason for this was that dark elf society was gradually getting rid of the very system.


    The busiest and messiest group to deal with were still the Underground humans.


    They had been thergest faction in the Underground to begin with. They had the most cities, which meant that they had the most poption by far. Compared to other species that were far more unified, the Underground¡¯s human city lords were simr to domain lords above ground. The city lords were only responsible for their own, and they had already gotten ustomed to a feudalistic, fractured Underground society. They would only pay surface respect to other lords.


    It could be said that Annie, the Underground Lord of the humans, had the most difficult job of the four Underground Lords. Just trying to avoid conflicts between all the human Underground cities under hermand would take up all of her efforts.


    I frowned, as this was indeed difficult to deal with. It would be awkward to pressure other city lords with Sulfur Mountain City¡¯s status. The human city lords were too ustomed to feudalistic society where each local lord ruled like a king. Forcefully trying to centralize authority would cause all the city lords to rebel. If it wasn¡¯t for Annie having sufficiently strong support from us, it was likely that even her position would be unstasble.


    ¡°It would seem that I need to find a chance to kick that brat Adam down there to take some responsibility. I think he¡¯s had enough free time to have fun outside. It¡¯s time to end his vacation.¡±


    ¡°Rnd! We¡¯re back!¡±


    Oh, speak of the devil. Adam actually returned right at this time! But before I even saw him, I heard his voice first.


    ¡°Eh? What¡¯s this bottle with a red liquid inside? Some potion that¡¯s the same color as my hair? Great, I¡¯m really thirsty right now, can I drink it?¡±

 Chapter 698 - Bad Luck Combination

    Chapter 698: Bad Luck Combination


    <strong>Trantor:</strong>imperfectluck


    <strong>Editor:</strong>Kurisu


    "Wait, don''t touch that! That''s the Spring of a Drowned Woman!"


    In a way, I truly was quite a nice guy.


    If Adam actually drank that potion, not only would Margaret and Annie never forgive me, just imagining the thought of a female Adam was too much for me, which was why I hurriedly told him to stop.


    "Spring of a Drowned Woman? The gender changing potion!?"


    The biggest reaction didn''te from Adam who hurriedly tossed aside the potion bottle, but rather from Victoria, who had constantly maintained an expression of calmness and elegance.


    I paused in surprise for a moment, but then recalled that when all that stuff had happened to Krose before, Victoria just happened to be there as well. Victoria had probably overheard the promise I made to Krose at the time.


    And back then, even if the "female" Victoria saw all that and remembered it deeply, "she" wouldn''t be able to express it. That was because it was the venerated Goddess of all dark elves, Lorci, who had transformed "him" into "her". Trying to cancel a divine punishment would be the equivalent of resisting divine will. That would have consequences too dire to bear for Victoria at the time.


    And, at that time, Victoria was also Lorci''s priestess. That was something she could only be if she was female. Dark elf society was matriarchal, and women held all the authority. Victoria was unable to give up the status and power that she would have as a female.


    However, "he" had spent several hundred years as a male already, and only a few years inparison as a female. Victoria would still mentally think of herself as male. Now that she heard of a chance that she might be restored to being male again, of course she would be overjoyed.


    "Your Highness Rnd, is this real? I can be a man again? This is so wonderful!"


    Victoria immediately came up to me. Her soft and beautiful face was right before my eyes, and her faint rose scent even had hypnosis magic effects. She had be even more difficult to deal with than eight years ago. Meanwhile, behind her back, her older sister Diana was looking at me with a begging expression, indicating that she really wanted me to give my agreement.


    "This isn''t easy to deal with¡­"


    It was indeed difficult to refuse the request of an old subordinate of mine, but I had already promised Krose, and it was almost time for her to arrive. This was why I ced the Spring of the Drowned Woman potion on the table. Although Victoria''s situation was also quite pitiful, I had already made a promise to Krose¡­


    "This potion is the Spring of the Drowned Woman potion. It''s only capable of transforming a man into a woman. The Spring of the Drowned Man potion is the one that''s capable of transforming a woman into a man¡­"


    "Your Highness Rnd, Your Highness Rnd, I heard that you found a Spring of the Drowned Man potion! Where is it, where is it!?"


    At this moment, Krose just happened to rush in with an incredibly big smile on her face. Her delight made her smile bloom like a flower as this wild elf kept smiling foolishly at me.


    "I¡­"


    I could only helplessly rub my head at this terrible timing. Perhaps this was all an borate prank on me by Fate itself. Or maybe my System was trying to set a pitfall for me after all?


    [Not at all. Did you forget? These two "girls" are the only two people in the world with luck stat lower than yours. With such luck stat, do you think that Fate would easily allow them to cancel their curses? Rx, bad luck is just for the two of them, at least for now.]


    When Krose saw Victoria here, she was happy at first. The two of them had the same problem, so they had quite a good rtionship with each other. They would often write letters to each other, and talk about their own private problems. Of course Krose would be happy to see a good friend that she didn''t expect to see here.


    However, Krose noticed that her "good friend" had a hostile expression while looking at her. Wild elf Krose''s face instantly paled as she just realized that the primary reason for their good rtionship was that they had the exact same "problem", but right now, there was only one dose of the antidote in front of them.


    "Even if we are just like sisters, this is the only thing I absolutely can''t give up."


    "Yes, indeed, Sister Krose. Let us have a fairpetition."


    Fairpetition? Those seemed like such strange words for a dark elf to speak. I really couldn''t understand at all, but I almost immediately understood what dark elves thought that the words "fairpetition" meant.


    "Your Highness Rnd, I will give you 200,000 gold coins, 10,000 Justice Points, and 30 beauties from various elven tribes. Please rest assured, all of this is my personal property and perfectly legal. And if you have any special needs, please let me know. No matter if it''s gold or treasures, or beastmen from the northern tundras, or mermaids from deep under the sea, I can satisfy any request that you may have!"


    Alright, this was indeed quite fair. Victoria was directly attempting to bribe me.


    Krose opened her mouth wide with an expression of disbelief. She was unable to say anything in the end, and could only helplessly look in my direction with a look of wanting to cry.


    Victoria was the true leader of the dark elves, although not in name. Not only did dark elf society still have very, it was heavily ruled by religious authority and the concept of property. From a certain standpoint, it could be said that Victoria had control over all of dark elf society. Krose''s meager amount of sry couldn''t possiblypare the amount of wealth that Victoria possessed.


    Also, this potion counted as my private property. Of course I could do whatever I wanted with it.


    Krose had an expression of despair as she realized the difference in wealth. Tears were silently beginning to flow from her eyes. Meanwhile, Victoria had a delighted expression as she kept increasing her offer.


    I shook my head. This was bing a ridiculous joke. I had to say something.


    "I promised Krose before already. Although it was only a verbal promise, I''m not in the habit of breaking my promises."


    "Cough, there''s me (Harloys), Amelia, Elisa, and all your enemies that have suffered because of you¡­ Are you certain that your words are convincing?"


    "Hey, don''t ruin my reputation. At the very least, they think that I''m excellent at keeping my promises."


    "You''re not moved by the offer of beauties at all? And since when were you able to resist the allure of money? Haven''t you been so poor recently that you can only leave IOUs for food money?"


    "Hmph, you underestimate me too much¡­ Fine, stopughing at me in our soul connection. I do admit that I was slightly tempted. If Victoria had tried instead to secretly negotiate with me, I would have considered it, but since she''s trying to bribe me so openly, I would gain the reputation of being a greedy elf-loving pervert if I agreed. Human society is quite different from dark elf society. Having such a bad reputation will make many things far more difficult."


    I brought out the red potion and was about to hand it to Krose, who was so overjoyed that she burst into tears. Victoria''s face instantly paled, but there was nothing that she could do.


    But at this moment, Diana came over. She kneeled to me on one knee while imploring, "Your Highness Rnd, Victoria is the only younger brother I have. I''m begging you, I''m willing to give you anything in order to obtain your magnanimity. Please, since I''ve served you so loyally for so many years, please give my younger brother a chance to be a man!"


    Ptui! What was with her phrasing! Give her younger brother a chance to be a man? If word of this got out, it would sound as if I was a pervert who was also gay! The guards outside were already secretly peeking at what was going on in here! Did everyone here really want to ruin my reputation that much!?


    I became even angrier, but it was difficult for me to scold this loyal female knight of mine who was always so direct and honest. And Victoria seemed to notice that I was far weaker to the soft approach, so she suddenly kneeled as well. She took it even further as she started crying loudly while hugging my right leg.


    "Your Highness, I''m so pitiful, I''m truly so pitiful! Nobody''s understood my pain for so many years now¡­!"


    Although Victoria was also gesturing with her eyes for Diana to also hug my other leg, that was too much for Diana. However, when Momo saw this situation, she instantly pounced on me. Not only was she hugging my left leg, she kept nudging her head ever more upwards while muttering some rather strange things.


    "What a wonderful sensation. Touch, touch, squeeze, squeeze¡­ If only I could lick it¡­"


    ''Woman? Where is your honor as a knight? Even if you don''t have any moral boundaries, shouldn''t you at least have some shame?! No, wait, don''t drool on me!''


    I would never go easy on a woman if the woman was Momo. I unhesitatingly kicked with my left leg, but suddenly discovered that I was unable to move my leg. Instead, Momo kept nudging ever higher up. Right before she was about to reach my crotch, I felt a sense of utter chilling disgust all over my body.


    I took a deep breath, and then smiled. Momo saw that I smiled, so she also smiled. And then, she froze into ice.


    My left leg had frozen together with Momo. However, this still felt far better than what I had just been feeling. I silently withdrew my right leg from Victoria''s embrace, and crookedly walked over to my chair before sitting down in silence.


    *ng, ng, ng!*


    The frozen dark elf knight made quite loud noises as she ttered against the floor when I walked. Momo still had her same foolish smile within the block of ice. Everyone watching this wanted tough, but didn''t dare to.


    Although I was losing a lot of face by walking like this with a dark elf knight frozen to my leg, my anger still had some use for keeping my authority in front of my old subordinates.


    "Where''s that brat Xueti? Didn''t I tell him toe see me?"


    Krose wiped her tears and shook her head.


    "¡­He dide here, but he heard about the Spring of the Drowned Man from me, and he said that he wanted to go enjoy the hot springs in the volcano, and that he woulde to visit Your Highness Rndter."


    "That damned sly cow. Even though he''s just a cow, how is he so sly?"


    It would seem that just the news of the Spring of the Drowned Man was more than enough to put Xueti on guard. He had to have sent Krose ahead just to check the situation. This truly wasn''t easy to deal with.


    However, I didn''t have the free time right now to worry about what the Tauren was doing. Even though this was clearly misfortune meant for the "two women", why did all of this seem to be my own misfortune as well? Just what did I do wrong here?


    [Both of them have super negative luck stats, and you''re not much better than they are. So much bad luck together will only summon even more misfortune. With them two together, it''s only natural that they''ll cause the people around them to suffer misfortune. You were simply unlucky to be around them.]


    I felt more and more helpless now. I also felt even more that the two potions in my hands were just like hot potatoes.


    Other things didn''t matter as much, as I wouldn''t care too much about what Victoria and Momo thought. However, not only was Diana so honest, she truly had been incredibly loyal to my cause. She had also helped to improve my reputation significantly. This was the first time that she had ever begged me for anything, and she was even willing to go to the extent to pay me anything that I wanted. If I rejected her, not only would this chill the hearts of my other subordinates, even I myself would feel quite bad about it.


    This was a ssical example of how it wouldn''t at all feel bad to scam a really smart person, but scamming an honest person would require you to check your own morals.


    "You guys should discuss it among yourselves. Just tell me the final result."


    In the end, I decided to shirk responsibility and make them decide, but soon, I regretted this decision of mine which was simply stalling for time.


    On that very same night, a certain prettiest dark elf in all of dark elf society snuck into my bedroom.


    "Your Highness Rnd, my dear, for the sake of ''that'', I''m willing to give you the most precious thing of all to me. I know that you have really high requirements, but I am the secret ruler of all dark elves, and the best sacrifice that my species has to offer. I can satisfy any and all of your desires."


    The "girl" was trembling as she started taking off her clothes. She had only revealed a delectable shoulder when I kicked her out with an awkward expression on my face.


    "I have no interest in men! Even if you''re only mentally a man! I''m not gay!"


    Then, on the next night, Diana came to my bedroom¡­


    It was impossible for me to convince the female knight to leave, as she had an absolutely resolute will to sacrifice herself. She was stuck in my bedroom as if she had sprouted roots. As she was the strongest anti-Holy Knight in the world, her personal domain cancelled out my magic, and even I was unable to forcefully kick her out. Luckily, she was so honest and simple-minded that it was easy for me to fool her, if not convince her. In the end, we discussed the spirit of Law and knightly beliefs for the entire night. I sessfully caused her to forget the mission that her younger brother had given to her. Finally, the next morning, she kept yawning as she walked out of my bedroom under the knowing looks of others.


    On the third night, I had only fallen asleep for a little while when I heard screamsing from outside. Momo had fallen into a lightning trap that I had set outside my bedroom. I had Harloys toss up a soundproof barrier, and then continued sleeping for the rest of the night, even having a pleasant dream.


    But, the result was terrifying. It was said that Momo screamed all night. For the first half of the night, she was screaming pitifully, but something¡­ changed about the nature of her screams in theter half of the night. By next morning at breakfast, Momo was quite energetic and even dered that she had awakened to a new interest, drooling as she said so. She even kept discussing what it felt like to touch His Highness Rnd''s leg¡­ My reputation waspletely ruined.


    Another contributing factor to ruining my reputation was that on the fourth night, Krose came in to my bedroom while severely trembling, wearing nothing but a skimpy white veil. She was just like the dark elves, trying to offer herself to me¡­ And then I had to spend half the night exining to Krose that it wasn''t necessary to do so, and I kept consoling her as she cried. I finally brought her out of my bedroom when her emotions had somewhat calmed down¡­


    But, the guards witnessed me bringing the crying Krose out of my room. Even though I hadn''t done anything at all, at that moment, I truly wanted to kill the guards to silence them.


    By the fifth day, okay, I was already known as the legendary "Seducer of Elves"¡­


    I truly hadn''t done anything to deserve such a nickname at all!

 Chapter 699 - Breakthrough

    <h4>Chapter 699: Breakthrough</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Rnd¡¯s absolute maxim on luck: when two people with bad luck are together, a third unfortunate person will soon appear.


    And in order to not be that unfortunate person, I chose the wisest possible method to deal with this situation.


    ¡°...I¡¯m going to leave the potion right here. You guys decide who gets to use it. I¡¯m going out for a walk.¡±


    Yep, that¡¯s right, I ran away. Even though I had never run away before, this time, I was truly afraid. I ran away not only because I was afraid of their supporters who were rushing over to help them, or because I was afraid of the rumors about me which were bing ever more ridiculous. It was because of my own maxim about luck. If I got too close to Klose and Victoria, it was likely that I would be the one who had the worst luck in the end. And if I had bad luck regarding this situation... I had plenty of fun watching Krose and Victoria¡¯s situation in the past, but it would be a tragedy if I experienced the same thing. It would be far better for people to continue thinking that Princess Peach had actually been Reyne.


    ¡°I¡¯ve run away now, so at least the potion shouldn¡¯t get spilled onto me. And if someone else is unfortunate instead... Hah, it¡¯s fine as long as it¡¯s not me. I can even enjoy the show then.¡±


    I, my System, and Harloys all mentally agreed that no matter what happened afterwards, it was incredibly unlikely that either Victoria or Krose would be able to sessfully take the Spring of the Drowned Man potion.


    I unhesitatingly stepped right into the Dimensional Door leading to the Fire Elemental ne in the volcano. I felt that I would no longer be so unfortunate if I went to an entirely different dimension. I also needed some time to continue practicing mybat techniques so that I could achieve a breakthrough with my power level as soon as possible.


    ¡°Separation des.¡±


    I reached out with my hands and took a deep breath, exhaling countless ice swords.


    These ice swords of mine devoured everything before them. Anything that was slow moving, no matter if they were magma giants or fire elementals, were instantly sliced into tiny pieces by the ice swords.


    Some fire lizards suddenly emerged from the magma sea before me. Fire lizards had a more militaristic society. They were either holding spears or shields. More than 30 of them had been waiting here in ambush formation for prey to arrive. This was actually a small military squadron.


    ¡°Double Tornado!¡±


    I suddenly waved my hands, casting a spell that I had already prepared beforehand. With me at the center, two icy tornados suddenly appeared which crashed into and tore at each other. All living creatures within a thirty-meter radius were all attacked and frozen by my blizzard tornados.


    The extreme coldness of the tornados soon turned the fire lizards into lizard popsicles. The mes on their heads and backs were extinguished, which meant that these half fire element and half physical creatures had died. There were only a few high-level fire lizard kings who were still struggling in the cold.


    *Shing!*


    The fire lizard kings didn¡¯t even get a chance to call for reinforcements when several ice arrows pierced them right through the middle of their heads, stealing away their final remnants of life.


    I waved my hands again, causing my ice bow and arrows to vanish. There was now nothing living around me.


    I had finished clearing away the mob monsters. Before me was a magma pool that still kept bubbling with mes. It seemed that on the other side was the Fire Elemental ne. This dimensional space was still summoning fire element creatures.


    For a typical elemental connection point to an Elemental ne, it would take quite a lot of effort and time to reverse engineer it using regr space magic. However, I knew that there was another method to break through an elemental portal, other than using the proper key.


    ¡°Judgement of the Ice River.¡±


    A hammer of ice appeared above my head. This hammer continuouslyrgened until itpletely covered my head. Only then did I have it swing forward and smash.


    Tbe gigantic ice river crashed into the magma pool, sending boiling hot steam everywhere. Ice element and fire element shed against each other in this location. Once everything calmed down, this magma pool became a pool of water.


    The temperature in this area rapidly began to lower. I had now sealed shut this Fire Elemental ne connection point. No matter what the principle was for how the connection point worked, it was a certainty that the fire element powered the connection point. In that case, all that was needed was for me to cover it with fire¡¯s opposite, the ice element.


    Of course, closing off one connection point would barely do anything. The entire Fire Elemental ne was now connected to the mortal ne. There were still hundreds or even thousands more connection points.


    In order to clear away this elemental connection point, I had used nothing but pure ice magic. I even dealt with it by using a ssical mage¡¯s way of thinking. In a way, Harloys¡¯ method of stuffing my brain with knowledge had indeed been effective.


    Her categorization of ice magic was something that really fit my style. With her assistance, my ice magic finally became more regr and systematic. It was just that...


    ¡°Separation des summons some ice swords, and Judgement of the Ice River is just summoning a ball of ice to crash down. Must I incant these names? It¡¯s so chuunibyou and humiliating!¡±


    ¡°Of course you must. A spell¡¯s name is not only a mage¡¯s subconscious self-suggestion which increases the effect of the magic form, it¡¯s also a standard by which you can categorize your own magical abilities. If the list of spells you know how to cast are all just some random nameless spells, how are you supposed to use those as the foundation tobine and create bigger spells...? Don¡¯t even mention that ridiculous Ice Aeon to me. That spell ispletely unmagical.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ involvement helped my ice magic to improve incredibly swiftly. But, the biggest change of all was the change in my fighting style.


    The separation of ice magic and snow magic helped me to better understand my own powers. Since I was skilled in martial arts to begin with, then I should have taken the appropriate path of bing an ice magic warrior. The core idea of this would be to simply create all sorts of ice weapons to kill my enemies with.


    Ice spears, ice arrows, ice swords, ice shields, and ice hammers. Various ice designs were standardized, and I became ustomed to using these ¡°weapons¡± in battle to kill my enemies with. Indeed, it was far easier to y a giant with a several dozen meters long ice swordpared to using a ¡°toothpick¡±. The only part that I hadn¡¯t gotten ustomed to was how Harloys kept giving these techniques rather embarrassing names.


    Ordinary ice mages used ice magic spell forms that were fixed andcked adaptability. Inparison, I was far more flexible. When I used ice magic, it was as if there was a giant behind me dancing with ice weapons and showing off his martial prowess, while ordinary ice magic mages were just simply and roughly throwing magical forms. Although this didn¡¯t seem like arge difference, there was a huge difference on the battlefield. It was therge difference between a veteran fighter and aplete newbiemoner¡¯s ability to fight.


    As forpared to my past self... Forget it, let¡¯s not talk about it, because I couldn¡¯t evenpare to ordinary ice mages previously.


    As for environmental type snow magic spells that mostly killed enemies through low temperature, I had only mastered ¡°Ice Tornado¡±, ¡°Avnche¡±, ¡°Hailstorm¡±, and suchmon snow cmity magic spells. This was in order to raise my overallbat strength, but even more to prepare for my reaching the next power level.


    Perhaps this was the difference between having a teacher and needing to figure everything out by oneself. Although it didn¡¯t seem like much of a difference, the more I learned, the more I was able to disy the difference on the battlefield.


    Several days had already passed since I entered the Fire Elemental ne. Although my magic power hadn¡¯t foundationally changed, if it was only my abilities in ice and snow magic, I was now confident that I could beat ten of the past me. Previously, my techniques in using mana were far too coarse. I would gather mana to summon the ice element and then toss it out. This would naturally waste more than half of the mana I used. Such a rough attacking method couldn¡¯t evenpare to directly using these ice swords to attack with.


    But now that my ice magic foundations were solid, it seemed that I was a lot closer now to making a breakthrough to the next power level.

 Chapter 700 - Calamity Sword

    <h4>Chapter 700: Cmity Sword</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    My ice magic sword, which I named Nortnds, was the most special of my four magic swords.


    Ice magic was the weakest of my four elemental powers. My Nortnds magic sword¡¯s design n was also the simplest. In fact, even its resource requirements weren¡¯t that high.


    ¡°Since it¡¯s an ice magic sword that¡¯s the representation of the Nortnds, I simply need to use the endless snow and ice from the Nortnds.¡±


    I do admit that this was slightly cking off on my part, but from a design philosophy point of view, this seemingly cheap resource was actually the most appropriate one.


    ¡°This time, it¡¯s a blizzard...¡±


    I reached out my hand as countless snowkes descended. A light blizzard had now covered thend. The endless snowkes seemed quite beautiful, yet they were actually incredibly deadly.


    All the fire element creatures within the blizzard¡¯s effective area were enveloped by the low temperature and lost their lives.


    Meanwhile, an ice... cudgel appeared in my hand.


    Yes, that was right, arge ice cudgel that was two meters long. Judging by the shape, it was obviously the type that trolls preferred to use. The cudgel had almost crushed me under it when it first appeared.


    *ng!*


    However, the violent impact from the cudgel caused a magma giant to crack all over and tremble as he copsed and returned to a state of being only the fire element.


    This was already the third Elemental Lord that I had hunted down in the Fire Elemental ne. In a way, my Myth-ranked weapon that represented ultimate ice was the natural counter to all fire element creatures.


    Suddenly, the snow stopped, while ayer of white frost appeared on thend. All life was enveloped by it as water was frozen into ice and life was swiftly ended.


    ¡°Fire Wall!¡±


    The silly cat on my head reacted quite quickly, instantly casting a Fire Wall spell which dispelled the frost and allowed us to survive.


    Meanwhile, therge troll cudgel in my hand had now transformed into a short sword which was less than half a meter long.


    The ice crystal sword waspletely clear, but there seemed to be something faint inside it. When I looked carefully, there were various cracks that kept expanding until the entire ice sword shattered.


    ¡°Cling!¡±


    That was a sound which resembled a mirror shattering. All the ice and snow around us vanished together with this sound as everything was restored to the hotnd of mes.


    ¡°How many times has it transformed now?¡±


    ¡°Four times.¡±


    ¡°Only four times so far? It¡¯s still quite far from beingpleted. Also, you can¡¯t find the order to the cmities?¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t I said it before? There¡¯s no order to the Nortnds¡¯ natural cmities at all.¡±


    ¡°...If there¡¯s no order, then what advantage will you have? It¡¯s glorious to be killed by your own weapon?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m confident that I can survive in the Nortnds cmities longer than my enemies.¡±


    Harloys opened her mouth, but gave up on trying to lecture me in the end.


    Ice magic sword Nortnds. Originally, it was supposed to be a sword that could automatically attack by summoning natural cmities for AOE attacks. With Harloys¡¯ help, the design of this sword became more detailed, but its fundamental design hadn¡¯t been changed.


    My Nortnds sword had two main special effects. The first was that it would forcefully transform the battlefield into an icy location filled with random natural cmities from the Nortnds. That would be the most advantageous type of terrain for me to fight in. In a way, from the design of this sword, my ice magic sword was the best substitute for my Soul World.


    The snow and ice cmities created by the Nortnds sword would keep changing as time passed. Each time the cmity changed, the original snow and ice mana would be conserved and reused, and the power would double. This was a research result I obtained from Conservation.


    The other special effect of my sword was that this personal battlefield of ice and snow would also randomly create an ice and snow weapon for me. The weapon¡¯s power would be stronger than an average Myth-ranked weapon¡¯s power.


    The only possible way to turn off this battlefield filled with ice and snow cmities would be to destroy the ice weapon which was the core of these cmities. This would be the only way out, for both enemies as well as myself.


    ¡°Creating an arena for life-and-death battles where the terrain favors me. That¡¯s the ability of this magic sword.¡±


    To put it simply, this sword would create an arena of ice and snow. If my enemy didn¡¯t want to die due to the endless random ice and snow cmities, they would need to try and either kill me or destroy the weapon in my hand. Otherwise, my enemy would die sooner orter to the cmities that kept multiplying in power along with the persisting low temperature.


    Of course, the ongoing ice and snow cmities would decrease my enemies¡¯bat strength. This would naturally increase my odds of victory even more. This magic sword had simr purposes to what a Soul World would do.


    ¡°...It¡¯s incredibly rare to see a personal Myth-ranked weapon that even makes the user suffer.¡±


    ¡°Everyone is equal in front of natural cmities. I¡¯m sure that the power of this sword would have massively decreased if I didn¡¯t have this resolution.¡±


    Soul Worlds would also have to follow naturalws. The more special the treatment a Soul World gave to its host, the weaker it would be. A host who required such a Soul World would always becking in self-recognition and self-confidence. Meanwhile, Soul Worlds which had rules that treated host and enemies equally would always be far more powerful.


    My ice magic sword was still iplete. Currently, it could only summon blizzards, frost, and hail¡ªonly three types of cmities. The sword would also only transform at most four times before it would copse. This sword was still far fromplete.


    Previously, I had been practicing drawing and ice sculpting in order to give myself deeper impressions of the ice and snow cmities so that I could replicate them in this ¡°Soul World¡± of mine.


    This was the main reason why I didn¡¯t require any high-level ice resources. This was all about the ice and snow cmities of the Nortnds, so the ice and snow from the Nortnds were all I needed as the ¡°base materials¡± in order to make my ¡°painting¡± more realistic and have better attack power.


    Harloys¡¯ encyclopedic categorization of ice magic had greatly increased the rate at which I couldplete my ice magic sword design.


    After I better understood the base theories of ice magic, my ice and snow weapons now had much greater attack power. Although the sword would often still transform into joke-like forms such as cudgels, toy hammers, and so on, the attack power would still be quite significant.


    Whenbined with the ice and snow environment, and Conservation¡¯s principle of mana conservation which would gradually multiply the cmities¡¯ attack power, the ice and snow cmities were so strong that even I was somewhat unable to handle them.


    ¡°If you activate the sword¡¯s effects at full power, how long can youst?¡±


    ¡°Judging from the current situation, the sword will copse on itself before even half an hour.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I¡¯m asking. I¡¯m asking for how long do you think you can guarantee survival in that world of ice and snow cmities after your ice magic sword isplete?¡±


    ¡°...You¡¯ve already seen the strongest way in which those cmities can kill. The cmities will continue snowballing in attack power, and the ongoing low temperature will be fatal sooner orter. When starting at regr strength, I would definitely die within five hours. If I meet with one of the most dangerous cmities right at the start, it¡¯s even possible for me to instantly die.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve truly created such an excellent weapon tomit suicide...¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t deny this, but I will do my best to survive longer than any enemy I drag there. It¡¯s impossible for any enemy of mine to possibly have more experience with the Nortnds ice and snow cmities than I do, after all.¡±


    Based on myplete design blueprint, I needed at least a dozen types of cmities and a way to constantly improve the ice weapon tranformations¡¯ power. This would require time as well as additional ice magic mana.


    This was why the Fire Elemental Lords in the nearby area here in the Fire Elemental ne had all recently be so unfortunate. They became my loot, transforming into ice magic mana to feed my Nortnds magic sword. But, judging from the current situation, some more time was needed for aplete breakthrough.


    ¡°You¡¯re already improving quickly. You passed Level 4 so easily.¡±


    ¡°...Easily? Fine, don¡¯t re at me. I know that everyone counts as leveling up to Level 4 so easilypared to you who¡¯s been stuck at Myth rank for more than 10,000 years. Right, Harloys, have you finished designing your personal Myth-ranked weapon?¡±


    ¡°Ha, take a guess.¡±


    I shook my head and didn¡¯t even attempt to guess. Harloys had umted far too much knowledge, so I had no idea what she would choose.


    Well, I had now rested enough, so I gathered more ice and was about to start a new cmity that caused the entire ground to tremble. This time, I was going to challenge an avnche!


    ¡°Insect! I, Fire Elemental Lord Lasdeer, have finally found you! You dared to kill my brother? You¡¯re dead meat!¡±


    A magma giant suddenly emerged from underground, causing thend to transform into magma as ice and fire once again started another battle.


    Alright then, this time I wouldn¡¯t need to challenge one of my own cmities, and I wouldn¡¯t need to go hunting Fire Elemental Lords, as one had voluntarily offered himself to me.

 Chapter 701 - The Broken Potions of Calamity

    <h4>Chapter 701: The Broken Potions of Cmity</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The entire world was burning in the boiling sea of fire.


    Yet, the elemental war had just begun. All sorts ofrge fire beasts were killing each other. In the hottest area, the Fire Elemental Lords were also killing each other.


    Some of them wanted to obtain more territory. Some of them wanted the right to invade the mortal ne and participate in the elemental war. Some simply wanted to destroy things as part of their basic instinct.


    Peace waspletely unsuitable for fire element creatures as they would naturally desire battle. It was just like how fire would never be able to remain at room temperature. Every single second, a fire element creature¡¯s instinct to do battle would be like an eruption within it, and right now, theck of a Fire Elemental God made the elemental war even more violent than normal.


    The Dimensional Door wasn¡¯t open wide enough, so they couldn¡¯t all pass through. Thus, the fire element creatures fought with and killed their own. They weren¡¯t allies with each other. Only those who survived the longest here would be allowed to enter the mortal ne.


    Among all the Fire Elemental Lords, there were plenty who were actually demons or devils from the lower nes. This was a rare opportunity for them to gain power, and they also loved ughtering, so of course they wouldn¡¯t miss this chance.


    However, one new Fire Elemental Lord among them was disying her endless potential. All the fire element creatures who died in front of her would transform into a portion of her endless sea of fire. This Fire Elemental Lord was Elisa, the me Sea Marchioness!


    She became ever stronger through devouring and evolving. Her special ability constantly strengthened her as she fought and killed in the Fire Elemental ne. Countless Fire Elemental Lords joined her army after being killed and reborn in a new form. Perhaps a new Fire Elemental God would soon be born. Elisa would be the only ruler of the Fire Elemental ne at that time.


    But right now, her tremendous figure was standing on top of her own sea of fire with a nk look in her eyes.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    In a way, when I returned from training in the Fire Elemental ne, I knew that it would be time for me to face the results of what had happened with those damned gender-changing potions. I had prepared for countless hypothetical scenarios and how I should respond.


    For instance, if Krose was the final victor, maybe Victoria wouldpletely erupt in anger. The dark elves and Church of Law would suddenly be mortal enemies instead of allies. It would be impossible for me to resolve the situation then.


    That was why I had Harloys notify Diana that should the situation require it, Diana was to use forceful means to resolve the problem. I trusted Diana¡¯s moral character, and also trusted that she could absolutely dominate any Church of Law job ss member.


    Also, if Victoria was hypothetically the victor in the end, the Church of Law would... hold a huge celebratory party that their idol was still so pure and beautiful. Krose would then cry to herself and do nothing. It felt like this would be the most eptable oue.


    ¡°Hey, Harloys, could you tell me which side won before I arrive? I would like some time to mentally prepare myself.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ clones had already transmitted the information over to her on the end result of what happened to the gender-changing potions, but no matter how much I asked, she would only smile mysteriously at me in response. This really made me worry even more.


    But before I reached the frontlines of battle against the volcanic district, a transparent banshee blocked my way.


    He didn¡¯t have a single trace of anger from holding a grudge like normal undead would. He was incredibly clean. His slightly pointy ears and handsome face indicated that he had been an elf while still alive.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd.¡±


    The male elf banshee smiled bitterly at me and greeted me in the elven formal style. However, the greeting used indicated that ¡°he¡± was actually female.


    ¡°A transvestite banshee...? No, wait, you¡¯re Suana!?¡±


    Suana¡¯s smile became even more bitter and even rather pitiful.


    At first, I was astonished, and then I was delighted... Ahem, ahem, don¡¯t me me for being shameless here, as Suana getting hit by this potion was probably one of the least damaging results possible. Although it seemed inconceivable how even a banshee could change gender, it would still be simple to deal with since Suana was the one affected.


    ¡°Rest assured, I will create a new physical body for you, a female one. Although things might be a little strange for you in the future, like maybe how you¡¯ll have a hard time with getting used to how to go to the bathroom, overall, it¡¯ll be fine!¡±


    ¡®So Suana¡¯s luck stat was even lower than those two unfortunate elves¡¯ luck stat? Is this the evil will of the world? Or is it that all natural undead have luck stats of E?¡¯


    Of course, I didn¡¯t say thest part out loud. I just tried my best to console Suana as I promised to help her resolve this problem.


    At this moment, it started to drizzle. Rain got on Suana¡¯s banshee body, and she instantly transformed into a female again. But wasn¡¯t this supposed to be the special trait of the Spring of a Drowned Woman? Didn¡¯t Suana get sshed with the Spring of a Drowned Man potion?


    ¡°System, you made an error with creating your potions?¡±


    [My replicas aren¡¯t the originals. These potions directly change the person¡¯s fundamental gender by rewriting naturalws. They shouldn¡¯t even have the trait of changing gender again when sshed by water. I don¡¯t understand why this would be the case?]


    Damn it, even the System didn¡¯t even know what was going on? Was this the legendary phenomenon: unexpected side effects from expired counterfeit drugs?


    ¡°...Actually, I came here to stop you from going back. Otherwise, there will be great trouble.¡±


    Suana¡¯s attitude was quite sincere. However, I really didn¡¯t understand. Didn¡¯t the critical Spring of a Drowned Man potion get sshed and used on her body already? Why would there still be major trouble? Even if there was trouble, shouldn¡¯t it be from Victoria and Krose giving Suana trouble?


    I then red at Harloys because she likely knew everything already, but only wanted to watch the situation unfold and have fun.


    ¡°Actually, it¡¯s like this...¡±


    From what Suana told me, after I left for the Fire Elemental ne, the two gender-changing potions indeed caused a battle, but at least both sides restrained themselves, and nobody died...


    ¡°One-third of the entire defense line against the volcanic district was eradicated. The Nortnds¡¯ rulers wereughing at what they watched...¡±


    But what happened next was truly ridiculous. Neither side was able to outright win. In the end, someone unknown came up with a ridiculous idea...


    ¡°Since these are such miraculous potions, let us find a professional alchemist to research the contents for us. The best alchemist in the entire world is here in the Nortnds!¡±


    ¡°Miracle Alchemist Olivia!¡±


    Olivia was now incredibly famous. She was no longer the novice alchemist from before. The moment that her Olivia¡¯s Magic Box became the fundamental invention which started the revolution of magical engineering, she became a household name.


    Olivia happily epted the job of researching the two gender-changing potions. Shebined them, took samples, purified them, and so on... Well, it was likely that everyone had forgotten that what Olivia was truly famous for was magical engineering, not alchemy. Her potions would always have the strangest possible effects.


    In the end, Olivia discovered that she was unable to replicate the gender-changing potions, so she disappeared, leaving only three bottles of potion behind. Oh, and the potions she left behind were now colorless and ubeled.


    ¡°Wait a moment, you said three potions?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. Nobody knows what Miracle Alchemist Olivia did to the potions. When they opened up herboratory, there were only those three potion bottles on the table.¡±


    Damn it all! Countless ominous premonitions filled my mind. Two potions were already too much, but now there was one extra? That seemed even worse!


    The request had been for her to replicate the Spring of the Drowned Woman potion, yet the end result was that shebined the potions, and both potions¡¯ effects would take ce simultaneously?


    So this meant that the trait of changing gender when sshed by water was something that Olivia added to the potion? She truly was a genius alchemist, capable of doing anything!


    ¡°What happened next?¡±


    ¡°When everyone discovered that Olivia had failed, they started fighting over the potions again. One potion was knocked away, and it smashed onto my head...¡±


    Suana seemed like she really wanted to cry. I definitely understood what it felt like to experience sudden misfortune, but just this alone shouldn¡¯t have been enough for Suana to want to stop me from returning.


    ¡°Her Highness Reyne¡¯s blue dragon concubine obtained one of the potions. Her hand then ¡®slipped¡¯, and she dropped the potion on Her Highness Reyne¡¯s body...¡±


    Damn it, how could that possibly have been a slip of her hand? She had been that urate? Would anyone believe that?


    ¡°ROLAND!¡±


    In the distance, I saw a blonde-haired knight riding a handsome horse, charging at me with killing intent. Why did that face look so familiar? No, wait, damn it, that face was identical to mine!


    ¡°The final bottle was identally smashed on Kakagar, the former ruler of Sharal, who came over to try and convince everyone to stop fighting...¡±


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, please save me!¡±


    I then saw a gigantic ¡°beauty¡± who was more than 1.8 meters tall and weighed more than 200 kilograms running towards me. The way that Kakagar¡¯s fat kept bouncing made me think of a pig awaiting ughter at the butcher¡¯s. I instantly turned around and started running.


    ¡°Damn it all, who ever said that changing gender to be a woman would result in bing beautiful? That¡¯s aplete lie!¡±

 Chapter 702 - Revival

    Chapter 702: Revival


    ¡°In order to sessfully enter Level 4 (SemiGod), I want to have some quiet time to myself in the south... Ahem, ahem, I mean I need to go to a certain ce in the south to search for the Sun God¡¯s magic mirror. That¡¯s why there¡¯s no need to wait for me toe home to eat dinner.¡±


    I left behind this slightly confusing letter before I unhesitatingly left my homnd. I wanted to find somewhere quiet to stay at least until the furious Reyne finally calmed down.


    Of course, before I left, I still had to perform a certain magic ritual.


    Holy Light suddenly lit up the sky in the entire Nortnds, yet there were also countless dark clouds created by the shadow element covering the sky.


    The Elemental Tide increased at a furious rate. Every single mage tower in the Nortnds could sense the huge fluctuation in the Elemental Tide. However, not a single detection magic spell would work on this area I was in.


    It was quite evident to everyone that a forbidden spell level magic ritual was taking ce here.


    ¡°Um, what if we get exposed since we¡¯re making such a huge ruckus?¡± Suana asked me.


    At the core of the elemental fluctuation, the archmage who should have been incanting a forbidden spell was actually idly chatting while drinking tea. Meanwhile, my floating Yongye City was actually responsible for spraying all that Holy Light and power of death magic.


    I was using a lot of precious mana to put on a meaningless light show performance. It would have been strange if the Elemental Tide still remained normal with how much of a fake show I was putting on.


    ¡°It would be more of a problem if we don¡¯t make such a big ruckus...¡±


    I could understand why Suana would be anxious, but my exnation was rather vague.


    ¡°Miracles can¡¯t be seen as too cheap.¡±


    Yep, that was how simple things were. Miracles couldn¡¯t be seen as too cheap. If a divine miracle like revival from the dead was truly seen as that easy, I would likely be swarmed by countless people who wanted to revive their friends, family, and loved ones. Not only that, not a single God who relied on the power of belief would ever let me go.


    In this current generation, the power of belief was 99.9% of the Gods¡¯ power. Apart from the current social norms, it was even more because all the Gods taught that ¡°devout believers will enter Divine Kingdoms, while the faithless will fall into the River Styx¡±.


    It was human instinct to be afraid of death and the world after death. This was the foundational reason why they worshipped the Gods and provided them with the power of belief. But, if revival could easily take ce, humans would be able to obtain an alternate form of immortality. Not only that, it would in a way prove that death wasn¡¯t actually that scary, and that believing in the Gods or not didn¡¯t actually matter at all. The likely result would then be that a tremendous number of human believers would give up on their faith, causing more than half of all Gods of belief to instantly die, while the remaining Gods would be seriously weakened.


    This was why all generations such as the Haletdam generation, which sought immortality and revival after death, had foolishly brought about their own demise as the Gods would personally crush those who obtained such research results. Even I, who was used to the most suicidal of acts, wasn¡¯t directly targeted by the Gods for my act of reviving Suana, but this was only because I added on two fake restrictions that ¡°only the natural undead can be revived¡± and ¡°revival requires an incredible price¡±.


    Of course, this was also because I was a well-known individual who would be incredibly difficult to kill. If an ordinary person proved that they had the power of revival, even if their power of revival was incredibly limited, that ordinary person would instantly be in by the Gods themselves.


    I had the ck power of death magic on my right hand, and the golden power of Holy Light on my left hand. I lightly pped my hands and created a crystal-clear white light.


    ¡°Eat this, and you shall be revived.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s... that easy!?¡±


    I shook my head and didn¡¯t respond to Suana¡¯s question.


    Easy? Casting the revival spell would only take me an instant, yet understanding how to actually perform revival would require more than enough knowledge to fill an entire textbook. Not only that, how many years would it take for someone to master both Holy Light and undead magic, twopletely opposing magic types? In addition, anyone else who wanted to replicate my revival magic would also need to surpass me in understanding the soul. This was because it was likely that my System had helped me cheat in being able to seed at revival magic.


    Although I hadpletely lied when I dered that ¡°only the natural undead can be revived¡±, the second condition I stated wasn¡¯t a lie at all. Revival indeed required a great price, and casting the revival spell would require a special resource¡ªsouls.


    This was equivalent exchange. In order to revive someone who was dead, hundreds or even thousands the number of souls of the living would be required.


    Back when I revived Harloys from undeath, my understanding of the revival ability had been iplete. I used my Divine Sin¡¯s soul to revive her. Not only did that sessfully help Harloys to bepletely living again, it also fixed the iplete portion of her soul... To put it simply, I cured her of being insane!


    Ahem, ahem, allow me to continue exining after I get a certain cat off of my head. Her attacks were bing ever more painful. Could it be that she had managed to evolve adamantite teeth!?


    It didn¡¯t seem like the living and undead were that different, yet they were actually foundationally different.


    The undead would be remnants of the living. No matter how much an undead evolved, their soul would only be weaker and more iplete. But if the undead forcefully devoured other souls in order to evolve their own soul, that would only make their original soul absorb too much trash and be unrecognizable.


    The ipleteness of their soul would create insanity. The undead would always be more isted and crazed in their personality.


    As for regr wild undead, no matter what noble reason they might have had originally to be undead and forcefully stay in such a state after dying, after many years passed, the end result would forever be that the undead would end up forgetting about the reason why they didn¡¯t want to die in the first ce. The undead would truly be undead rather than retain their former allegiances.


    Those who had truly strong will and noble personality could slow down this process significantly. Perhaps they would be able to remain as their original selves and retain their original allegiances for several centuries even as an undead. However, the undead could live for several thousands or tens of thousands of years quite easily. After such a long period of time passed, it would be impossible for anyone to avoid the degradation of their soul.


    For the living, until their lives were ended, they would forever change and evolve. The living were active and unknown. They were self-sufficient. They would be like a graph with a positive slope. Knowledge and the elements would be nutrition for the living to help them constantly grow stronger. But once a living individual entered undeath, they wouldpletely settle into a permanent form and be a graph with a negative slope.


    My secret technique of revival actually used pure Holy Light¡¯s Concepts of Cleansing and Restoring to return a body to its natural state, using the undead¡¯s soul shards as the original model to repair and restore their soul to aplete and living state. I would then use my power over souls thanks to undead magic to use high-quality soul shards from the living to repair the undead¡¯s soul, thus being able to make up for the undead¡¯s iplete soul.


    Indeed, revival was a miraculous feat only made possible by both Holy Light and death magicbined. This was an imitation of the Cycle of Reincarnation created by the Creator Goddesses, as well as a cheating technique which could even retain the soul¡¯s memories. In a way, this was an ability that only the Goddesses of Order and Chaos should have possessed, yet I managed to obtain such an ability for myself.


    Revival had been a research byproduct of creating the new dimension of Hell. It was an idental coincidence, but in a way it had also been a definite. The moment that I attempted to find out the secrets of the Cycle of Reincarnation and how it reincarnated souls, it was destined that I would obtain such knowledge.


    Suana hesitated for a while, but in the end, she swallowed the white light that I offered to her.


    A short momentter, although her body was still that of a banshee¡¯s and didn¡¯t appear any different, we could all sense that she was now living again.


    ¡°This...¡±


    The entire world now appeared different to Suana.


    The green grass now seemed to be filled with the power of life. The blue sky now seemed so fresh and alive. Even the humans¡¯ bodies now seemed so alluring and brought her joy.


    ¡°I¡¯m, alive?¡±


    Her face was filled with rapturous delight, while soul tears started dripping down from her spiritual body without her realizing it. Her tears then vanished into the air. The world hadn¡¯t changed. It was the person who saw the world that had changed.


    I smiled and didn¡¯t say anything else to her.


    As for the soul sacrifices required for Suana¡¯s revival? Reader of my experimental log, as you might recall, I previously had Suana personally cleanse the moon elf kingdoms of the elders that she viewed as too treacherous to keep. Moon elf nobles would all be rted to each other, meaning they were distantly or closely rted to Suana as well. That would make them the best possible living soul sacrifices for repairing Suana¡¯s soul.


    In a way, it wouldn¡¯t have been possible to revive Suana so easily without all those moon elf nobles that had been killed and disyed for all to see in their own cities.


    Of course, when considering Suana¡¯s personality, I hadn¡¯t told her the truth about all this. That would only give her unnecessary mental pressure and frustration.


    However, the process of revival was currently only halfplete. The next part would of course be constructing a new physical body for her.


    Actually, the ¡°resources¡± required for this were quite simple. Any random high-level undead mage would be able to aplish such a feat. Even if Suana didn¡¯t have the help of an undead magic grandmaster like me, as long as she didn¡¯t mind the physical body¡¯s appearance, she could even just find a random moon elf and forcefully take over the body. Of course, doing such a thing would mean lowerpatibility between body and soul.


    Suana¡¯s corpse from when she had died was still intact. It would be quite easy for me to use that corpse as the model to create a brand-new physical body for her. This way, her new body would also have 100% perfectpatibility with her soul. However, as I was also a grandmaster of undead construction, I felt like it would be such a waste of a great opportunity if that was all I did.


    ¡°...Suana, are you certain that you don¡¯t want a literally exploding flying fist and magic bullets installed within your body? I will do my best to conceal the weapons. In daily life, your breasts and hands will look quite normal, but the moment that you meet a powerful enemy, all you¡¯ll have to do is reach your right hand out and jut out your chest, and you¡¯ll instantly kill your enemy in explosions! This will be a top-secret instant-kill technique!¡±


    ¡°...No thank you. I appreciate the thought.¡±


    ¡°Then how about installing rockets in your feet? That will give you the ability to fly at subsonic speed for a short period of time. It will be a great lifesaving technique!¡±


    That was also rejected.


    ¡°Tsk, you¡¯re such a picky customer. Then how about this: a head made out of diamond! Diamonds are a man¡¯s romance! You can have three different heads¡ªan adamantite head to use as a weapon, a mithril head for anti-magic, and a diamond head to dig tunnels with when you need to run for your life!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a woman...¡±


    Unfortunately, no matter what I tried to rmend to her, including my favorites such as three different transformations, separating into five different fully functioning body parts, or 10,000 tentacles, Suana rejected all of my proposals for modifying her body.


    In the end, I could only helplessly design her the most boring body possible of all, a moon elf physical body identical to her original body.


    Suana sessfully fused with her new physical body. I then calcted the time, and figured that any nearby powerful individualsing to investigate the phenomenon I caused would likely be arriving soon, so I covered this entire area in explosions in order to create more mysteries for them to puzzle over.


    ¡°Alright, you use your own judgement in dealing with the moon elves.¡±


    I then said goodbye to Suana as I began a new journey of my own.


    ¡°Rnd, why didn¡¯t you let me chat a while longer with Suana? Just what did you do to her physical body? Aren¡¯t you afraid of her discovering what you did?¡±


    ¡°Rx, all of her new physical body¡¯s functions are currently in hibernation mode until the red button on her breast is pushed.¡±


    Harloys stared in disbelief at me for how I had dared to modify Suana¡¯s body without her consent.


    ¡°...Just how many did you install in her? Out of all of your ridiculous designs.¡±


    ¡°All of them. My techniques are quite good, don¡¯t you think? Exploding fist Princess Suana, triple transformation Suana, mecha Suana, tentacle Suana, the mortal enemy of all magical girls... Ahem ahem, ignore thest part. Rx, you should trust in my abilities. Those functions won¡¯t take effect unless she makes up her own mind to use them.¡±


    I then paused for a moment as I gathered words to defend myself. I truly hadn¡¯t modified Suana¡¯s body just because I wanted to do so after not getting to practice undead construction for so long.


    ¡°Besides, her personal strength is somewhat weak. She¡¯s also a really important individual. I truly can¡¯t rest assured about her current power level. If she dies again, it¡¯s incredibly unlikely that she¡¯ll be lucky enough to be a natural undead again.¡±


    ¡°...Reputation.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t all women consider their reputation to be more important than their life? Who can guarantee that they won¡¯t be in danger for all their life? If all those ridiculous things suddenlye out of her body when she¡¯s in danger, what is she going to do about her reputation?¡±


    ¡°Woman...? Haha.¡±


    ¡°...What else did you do to her?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything else to her, I swear.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t do anything else?¡±


    Harloys paused in surprise for a moment as she sensed from our soul connection that I was telling the truth about not making any additional modifications to Suana¡¯s body. All I had done was not modify her physical body, allowing it to keep Suana¡¯s soul¡¯s current trait of changing gender whenever she touched water!


    ¡°Hey, don¡¯t you know how incredibly difficult and advanced the technique of making a physical body change gender whening in contact with water is? Even I had to spend so much effort on creating a physical body for her which had such a trait... Ahhhh! Silly cat, stop biting me! I wasn¡¯t intending on making her suffer! Let me exin! This is for the sake of the entire Elven Empire! Do you really think I would do this only out of boredom?¡±


    ¡°Yes! You¡¯repletely inhuman when you¡¯re bored!¡±


    After much fighting, I finally managed to exin to the silly cat that I truly hadn¡¯t done this out of boredom.


    ¡°You see, while it¡¯s still fine for the other elven species, the moon elf royalty are all dead. Additionally, the moon elf nobles are so incredibly foolish. I really can¡¯t rest assured about them... See, I¡¯m thinking about the sake of the inheritance of all elves.¡±


    ¡°...Aren¡¯t you just worried that another group of bastards who want to secede from our Nortnds Elven Empire will appear? The moon elves still have other royalty members alive, right? I think it¡¯s more that you only trust Suana, so you intend on having Suana¡¯s descendants be the only royalty of the moon elves. With the ¡®mother¡¯ of the moon elf royalty watching over things for you, that will stabilize the moon elves in the Mist Alliance, isn¡¯t that right?¡±


    I fell silent as I tacitly admitted this. I was in fact worried that Suana would do something like never get married in her life, meaning that one day the moon elf royalty I trusted woulde to an end, and moon elves would stir up trouble for me yet again.


    ¡°Political marriage?¡±


    ¡°Yep, political marriage.¡±


    In a way, although political marriages were considered outdated relics in my original world, they were highly useful and meaningful in this world. If Suana was male, no matter how many factions there were in the moon elves, they would all likely offer their moon elf princesses to Suana.


    If Suana was a female, she could only get married once, yet men were able to get married many times in this world by having concubines. The more moon elf factions that could be stabilized via political marriages, the more stable that royal authority would be, and the faster that descendants would arrive. I was looking forward to the reign of the new moon elf royalty.


    And if moon elves, who could stir up more trouble than any other elf species, were stabilized, the entire Nortnds Elven Empire would also be far more stable. My time was limited. I definitely didn¡¯t want to have to deal with a moon elf rebellion once every few years.


    As for what Suana personally wanted... In most cases, political marriages wouldn¡¯t care about what the married couple actually wanted. I didn¡¯t need to personally order Suana to marry herself off for political reasons. When it was time, plenty of moon elves would step up and y the role of viin for me. Suana was the leader of all moon elves, and she was the type who would be willing to ¡°sacrifice¡± herself for the cause of the greater good.


    ¡°...I used to have a headache about the moon elves, but this coincidence gave me this great idea.¡±


    Harloys remained silent for quite a while. Finally, she looked directly at me and spoke in a serious tone. ¡°You¡¯re truly a bastard. You will go to Hell.¡±


    ¡°Ha, even devils get to dance freely in the mortal ne right now. Does that mean we¡¯re in Hell right now?¡±


    I had to scheme against the pure and na?ve Suana, which put both of us in a bad mood. However, Harloys finally broke the silence.


    ¡°...Then, with your abilities, it shouldn¡¯t actually be that difficult to resolve the gender change physical problem for Reyne and that fatty Kakagar, right? Could it be that you were hoping to entrap Reyne as a man in countless political marriages as well? This means that Kakagar was simply unlucky, and will be stuck like this because you don¡¯t want to cure Reyne?¡±


    ¡°What? I don¡¯t understand what you¡¯re saying!¡±


    I did my very best to look at the sky and not listen to what she said.


    As for whether I had the abilities to cure them or not? Like I said back at Sulfur Mountain City, this was simply a small surgery that was quite easy.


    ¡°Rnd, you¡¯re truly a bastard!¡±


    ¡°Tsk, silly cat, do you know why the cat died? Because the cat said too much!¡±

 Chapter 703 - Finally Remembering the Main Storyline

    Chapter 703: Finally Remembering the Main Storyline


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    Honestly, I really didn¡¯t want to have to deal with all these troublesome matters, but when looking at it from another angle, it actually didn¡¯t matter if I dealt with them or not.


    Magic civilizations wouldn¡¯t be any bit behind a scientific civilization in searching for secrets about life and the soul. In fact, due to the development of undead magic, impossible surgeries such as brain transnts or head transnts weren¡¯t difficult at all in this world. It was also quite simple to put together a body from different parts, such as how an Abomination would be the amalgamation of parts from corpses. Although it would seem like a miracle for a dead person to be able to speak again in my original world, even an acolyte undead mage would be able to aplish this in the world of Eich.


    Morals which should have restrained people would be meaningless in a chaotic world where strength was valued above all. The result of having no taboos was quite extreme.


    Chimeras or Abominations were often made from living people¡¯s body partsbined with wild animals¡¯ organs. Blood golems were also one of the mostmon types of magical golems. In mages¡¯ eyes, reconstructing a living being¡¯s body wasn¡¯t difficult at all. Changing out a single organ would be quite simple.


    Okay, I was talking so much because I wanted to express something that everyone might have forgotten about... I wasn¡¯t the only undead mage in the world. Transformations, changing limbs out, and so on were actually quite easy to aplish in this world.


    As for the difference between modifications made by surgery versus modifications made by magic...? As long as the technique was perfect, with no side effects, it would be analogous to the difference between a beautiful woman with inborn beauty and a beautiful woman who gained her beauty through cosmetic surgery. It would only be a psychological difference. I would be unable to tell.


    In my opinion, my System was still being far too nice to Beifeng. If it had been up to me, I would have simply performed a neutering surgery on him as if he was a cat that hissed all night.


    Ahem, ahem, I was getting off topic. Anyways, since I was no longer in the Nortnds, Suana, Reyne, and Kakagar would have to deal with their gender problems by themselves. There were plenty of undead mages in the Nortnds. It wasn¡¯t like I was the only one who could help them.


    I indeed had lots of other trouble to deal with.


    ¡°Karwenz?¡±


    Of course, it was quite easy for Harloys to sense information from me through our soul connection. I had no intention of hiding my worries from her.


    ¡°...Yes, that¡¯s what I¡¯m most worried about right now. Not to mention, he¡¯s currently searching for the deepest part of the Chaos Abyss, where Cynthia¡¯s physical body lies. That makes me so uneasy.¡±


    The overall situation in thend was rather chaotic, but still at an eptable level. Besides, due to the hard work of the Hell Faction and Order Faction, the current developments were already far better than in the game¡¯s history. If we still couldn¡¯t make it past this dangerous time, then I wouldn¡¯t have anything else to say... No, more urately speaking, there was nothing else that I could do.


    However, there was one thing that I had always remained highly anxious about.


    That was right, it was about Karwenz. Just what did he want to do? Just what had he already done? Just what was his goal?


    Karwenz was already a Chaos Main God, one of the strongest individuals in this entire universe. If he wanted authority, beautiful women, or wealth, he would easily be able to obtain any of those with his power. If he wanted to enjoy war and ughter, all he had to do was simplye to the mortal ne.


    In fact, if Karwenz suddenly wanted world peace and joined the side of good, with his power and factional support, it would be likely that he could seed at bringing about world peace.


    And even if he wanted to y the role of viin who wanted to conquer the world, I would understand that. He was a strange one who would be capable of anything.


    But right now, I was unable to locate Karwenz anywhere despite my spies in the Chaos Abyss and trying to exchange information from the Gods. A powerful Chaos Main God like him had disappeared from the countless dimensions together with his most loyal followers for almost four months by now.


    The scariest would always be the unknown...


    [It feels as if 99% of the minimap is lit up, with just one dark portion, yet you¡¯re still unable to find your target. It¡¯s as if you stockpiled 200 hydralisks in preparation for an all-out assault, but you keep feeling like you¡¯ll see your enemy prepared for you with tworge squads of carriers.]


    ¡°I don¡¯t think readers will be able to understand that joke unless they¡¯ve yed Starcraft before, although it really does feel like that...¡±


    It wasn¡¯t scary for an enemy to be powerful. The scary part would be having no idea what your enemy wanted to do and had already done... Honestly, with the information being so secret even now, I figured that it was likely that none of Karwenz¡¯s subordinates knew what their master¡¯s motive was, either.


    All that was known about Karwenz¡¯s current actions was that he was ¡°searching for the deepest part of the Chaos Abyss¡± and ¡°speeding up the progress of the Holy War¡±. Guessing his overall goal from just these two would really be quite difficult. It wasn¡¯t that I hadn¡¯t tried to guess. It was that I had too many guesses, and it was impossible to ascertain which was correct.


    ¡°...Stop scaring yourself. If even half of your guesses had been right, this world would have long since been destroyed already. But since we¡¯re still perfectly alive, this means that Karwenz isn¡¯t that insane.¡±


    I nodded without saying anything. However, it was still impossible for my anxiety to fade.


    I had already sent out countless spies after I cast Ice Aeon and was weakened. I also exchanged information with Gods who were either friendly or neutral with us. However, I had yet to find any information about Karwenz at all.


    I now had some free time, and had also gathered the necessary resources. Leveling myself up would just take some more time. I was finally free to go where I pleased, but no longer had the patience to wait for information. Since information wouldn¡¯te to me, I would start finding information for myself!


    ¡°...By the way, where should we even go look?¡±


    Harloys¡¯ question was quite simple yet also practical. Looking for Karwenz would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It would be difficult to know where to start.


    My spies in the Chaos Abyss were unable to find Karwenz, and even the fairies¡¯ informationwork which seemingly reached everywhere couldn¡¯t find him. It would be meaningless to look for him without knowing where.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s go talk to your father Didina first. Maybe he¡¯ll have some news. Or, maybe we should go south first to look for that mirror?¡±


    I could only take things one step at a time. I figured I should first focus on reaching Level 4 first as I had countless enemies out there. It would be such a joke if I suddenly died without even knowing how.


    ¡°By the way, could it be that Karwenz is in the mortal ne right now? Nobody in the Chaos Abyss can find him, so maybe he¡¯s hiding in in sight in the mortal ne...¡± Harloys suggested.


    ¡°There¡¯s only a low possibility. You also know about the star. Two major Hell Gods are watching over the entire mortal ne. Anyone who enters the mortal ne will be discovered. Catio and Patricia haven¡¯t mentioned anything to us about an energy reaction like Karwenz¡¯s.¡±


    I shook my head as it was unlikely that Karwenz was in the mortal ne. The water here wasn¡¯t deep enough right now. If he came here, he would be like a whale that entered a swimming pool. He would increase the entire water level with his presence. It would be almost impossible for him to conceal himself.


    ¡°System? Do you have any rmendations?¡±


    [No, but perhaps you could try asking a prophet.]


    I paused in surprise for a moment, but was then delighted. This was indeed a good idea. I was naturally immune to all detection abilities, but Karwenz might not have such an ability.


    [No, as a Main God, he¡¯s capable of concealing his own existence. What you need to ask is ¡°What location will I have the worst luck in?¡±, ¡°What location would Karwenz have the worst luck in if I went there?¡±, and other simr questions. If you ask without targeting him directly, you might be able to obtain a clue.]


    Unlucky? I would be even unluckier if I met Karwenz? Karwenz would be unlucky if he met me? From a certain standpoint, this was actually correct. This would also ask the least from karma. However, the one who made the rules about karma was now teaching me how to cheat. This made me feel rather awkward.


    ¡°...Why do I feel like you¡¯reughing at my misfortune?¡±


    [You merely have a mistaken impression.]


    I shook my head and decided to ignore her tone.


    ¡°Prophecies?¡±


    I really did know quite a few prophets, but as for where there would be the most and best prophets, it would obviously be correct to go south and visit the Mage Country.

 Chapter 704 - Theocracy

    <h4>Chapter 704: Theocracy</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    This was a truly a good generation for independent adventurers. The Elemental Tide¡¯s arrival brought change to this era. Every day, there would be a new opportunity and new changes...


    Fine, allow me to exin in more understandable terms. As long as you were strong or smart enough, there would be plenty of opportunities to make money and earn reputation. Money and glory wouldn¡¯t only be wealth. You could also purchase more strength or status. Someone could be a noble overnight. Some previously forbidden products from ten years ago were now being sold openly today.


    ¡°Military recruitment, military recruitment, most wanted, military recruitment, reward... Why are things so messy in this day and age?¡±


    I was currently looking at a public bulletin board which had lots of announcements and rewards forpleting certain quests. Still, whenpared to how this bulletin board would have looked in the past, it was the high number of military recruitment advertisements that attracted the most attention.


    I originally thought that since this was a time of war, it would be quite difficult for strangers to travel through new cities, since spies and so on were critically important to defend against. I had guessed that the inspections everywhere would be quite strict. However, I didn¡¯t expect that it was actually so easy for me to travel.


    All of the inspection points had be even stricter towards inspecting the merchants¡¯ wares, because all sorts of taxes had risen by an incredible amount. However, all weapon-bearing adventurers and knights were easily allowed in. In fact, even refugees, who were typically viewed as a disaster to deal with, were treated in an overly friendly manner.


    Why was this? At first, I was confused, but then I instantly understood because I saw all of the excellent payments offered for military recruitment. In a way, poption was also an important resource, especially in this chaotic era. Who would want to stop such a precious resource from entering their own domain?


    Although these were military recruitment advertisements, it wasn¡¯t only local kingdoms who were advertising. Merchants were hiring long-term guards, mercenary groups were hiring new mercenaries, the kingdoms were recruiting soldiers, the domain lords were recruiting soldiers, and even vige and town mayors were recruiting militia soldiers.


    The world being unsafe meant that the public¡¯s feelings would be the first to be affected. Not only were nobles and merchants spending more money to feel secure, the domain lords were spending all of their savings on hiring as many soldiers as they could. The human kingdoms and empires were creating all sorts of new knight groups and mercenary groups. The autonomous regions and slightly remote viges were all creating their own militias and so on.


    At all information stands and taverns, memory crystals with recorded images from the frontlines of battle were being yed repeatedly. The difficult battles on the frontlines and the images of how other human kingdoms had been powerless to do anything but despair in front of the demon wave caused all human countries not on the frontlines of war to start preparing for battle as much as they possibly could. New battles were beginning every day which made use of the new recruited soldiers on these endless battlefields.


    All of humanity¡¯sbat potential would be developed as the Holy War continued. This was still only the beginning...


    I went and gathered information along the way. There was plenty of information from all the battlefronts everywhere, yet nothing attracted my interest.


    ¡°You don¡¯t intend to join in these battles? Someone as powerful as you would instantly be able to change the result on any of those battlefields.¡±


    Harloys seemed more interested as she was voicing her own opinion as she flipped through thebat reports we had just obtained from the fairies.


    ¡°There¡¯s no meaning to it. There¡¯s too many battles.¡±


    That¡¯s right, there were too many battles. As the Elemental Tide became more active, harmless beasts were beginning to demonize. Magical beasts and evil Gods were beginning to break free from their seals. Countless invaders from other dimensions would being. The royal knights would need to deal with the dimensional invaders, while the domain lords would have to deal with the wild magical beasts. Even the militias would need to fight against magical beasts, evil cultists, and bandits.


    This was a trial that the Holy War was giving to the entire human species, who were the current ruling species. Individual victories or a single area¡¯s victories would be meaningless.


    But due to the existence of Justice Points and the Contract Heroes system, along with many other improvements, the overall situation was already far better than in the game¡¯s history.


    I passed by countless battlefields on the way. It wasn¡¯t that I was cold-blooded and didn¡¯t want to intervene, but rather that it would be impossible for me to intervene in them all. And in a way, these battles were chances and tests for ordinary people. I looked forward to their growth rate with the help of Justice Points...


    ¡°Sigh, if only my dragon armor was repaired, I wouldn¡¯t need to wear something so heavy.¡±


    Currently, I was wearing a heavy set of golden armor while wielding an enchanted golden sword, pretending to be an ¡°ordinary¡± high-level knight.


    I appeared to be around 17-18 years old. I had ¡°top-level¡± equipment and pretty good martial arts skills. I had a family crest and equipment which I intentionally made to look used. Someone like me would be far toomon a sight in this generation where adventuring could bring great harvests.


    The only part special about me was that I was riding a new steed: an iron motorcycle, a product of this magical engineering generation, rather than a tall horse. These motorcycles would be quite expensive.


    It wasn¡¯t that I didn¡¯t want to keep a low profile. The motorcycle had already attracted a dozen different bandit groups to me. It was that sometimes I would need to fly instead of ride my steed. I wouldn¡¯t be able to teleport a living horse into my personal Hell world without it dying.


    Still, the advantage of a magical motorcycle was that as long as it had enough mana powering it, it would operate. I wouldn¡¯t need to worry like with a horse about it tiring itself to death.


    Right now, the part most worth being happy about was that after I spent plenty of Justice Points, I finally had a physical appearance that befitted me more. I no longer needed to wear that bracelet which disguised my real age.


    There was no helping it. In order to show the armor¡¯s defense ability, I had to put ayer of copper paint onto the gold heavy armor and pretend that it was regr copper armor in before putting it on.


    ¡°Others paint gold onto their armor in order to show off that they have super strength or wealth. Yet, you paint copper onto gold. You make yourself look so poor...¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no helping it. Sharp weapons are dangerous. Safety first. If I made it clear that I was wearing gold heavy armor, well, that¡¯s not something an ordinary human would have the physical strength to wear.¡±


    Without my light and convenient dragonscale armor that was almost imprable, since I was a ¡°knight¡± who focused on meleebat, I could only use ordinary armor. But since I wanted to improve my defense, I naturally wore the hardest and most expensive magically refined gold armor.


    The durability of magically refined gold would be quite trustworthy. At the very least, I had passed through countless small battlefields already. Not only were arrows and bullets unable to prate my armor, even crossbow bolts and heavy cannons hadn¡¯t managed to damage it.


    The only weakness was that pure refined gold heavy armor was far beyond the weight limit that ordinary humans could wear. Even my refined gold Iron Horse Dawn War Memorial Edition #59 (my motorcycle) was almost unable to bear the weight of my armor. The motorcycle would leave obvious trails behind everywhere it went.


    Some roads were in poor condition, so the motorcycle would devastate the road, or sink into the mud.


    ¡°You¡¯ve loaded too much weight! You¡¯re ruining all these roads with this. Be careful that the domain lords are going to ask you topensate them. You should at least take off the armor while in cities. You basically have extreme paranoia.¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯ll consider it after passing through here. It¡¯s not a bad idea at all to be paranoid here.¡±


    I was currently in the Stanley Theocracy. This country was a tiny country that one would have to look hard for on the map. However, this country was also the core of the ¡°Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance¡±. Not only were high-level Cardinals from the Holy Church here, there were also several knight groups and angel squadrons.


    I had already passed through more than ten temporary checkpoints since I entered the Stanley Theocracy. It was obvious that the people manning the checkpoints were being quite serious and going through far more procedures when checking the identities of anyoneing from the north.


    Of course, I had more than a dozen ¡°identities¡± on me. Not only that, I was also capable of disguising myself with Harloys¡¯ slimes. These simple checkpoints were meaningless against me.


    I had chosen to go through the Holy Church¡¯s northern alliance here in order to check the situation and assess the God of Holy Light¡¯s ambition towards the Nortnds. However, the situation wasn¡¯t very good here. The majority of local residents were devout worshippers of the Holy Church. There were also high-level Holy Knights and low-level angels constantly patrolling. Since the Holy Church had put so muchbat strength in the Nortnds where they had no ongoing war, it was evident that the Holy Church ced great importance on this area.


    Due to my Nortnds ent and my motorcycle that was obviously a Nortnds product, I was checked far more than other travelers. However, this also helped me to learn who was in charge here.


    ¡°Bishop Habolo and Cardinal Soento...¡±


    A bishop and cardinal had simultaneously been sent here. This country was a theocracy to begin with, and there would be a local head priest in charge here. This meant that three high-ranked members of the Holy Church had all gathered here in the same tiny country, which meant that the pope definitely viewed this ce with great importance. I was also quite familiar with both these names.


    ¡°The Eagle of the Holy War and the Golden Shame? What an ironicbination.¡±


    Due to the importance of the Holy Church to human society, the cardinals¡¯ activities had been quite important in the game¡¯s history. They either had renowned deeds or terrible reputations that wouldst for centuries or even millenniums. It was actually quite rare for cardinals to be unknown.


    These two cardinals happened to be two extreme opposites.


    Actually, Bishop Habolo had yet to be promoted to cardinal at this time. But in the game¡¯s history, Cardinal Habolo had showed amazing skills in the future on the battlefield of San Antonio. He was one of the very few high-ranked members of the Holy Church who had excellent strategic insight.


    During the most heated period of the Holy War, Cardinal Habolo led an angel squadron, Holy Knight squadron, and magical engineering squadron, acting as a mobile support force that went around everywhere to rescue people.


    Meanwhile, Cardinal Soento obtained the legendary reputation of ¡°being willing to even make deals with devils as long as he was given enough money¡±. Anywhere that he went, he wouldn¡¯t care about the ongoing battle at all, but he would always make sure to make as much money as possible for himself. It wasmon for him to buy and sell military achievements. He was also one of the few cardinals known for directly negotiating with the enemy and selling out his own subordinates for the sake of money. Even though most other cardinals were ipetent and did more harm than good, they at least felt that they were trying their best for the sake of humanity, unlike Soento who was a traitor to humanity.


    I felt rather conflicted now. I had originally wanted to try and stir up trouble for those in charge here, but I felt that it would be a pity to kill Bishop Habolo here. Yet, keeping him alive would mean that he would be a threat to the Nortnds. And if I instead killed Cardinal Soento, I felt like I would actually be helping the Holy Church.


    ¡°I might as well leave Cardinal Soento alive. With him here, even if the Holy Church seeds inpletely sealing off the Nortnds, we¡¯ll be able to bribe him to let us through.¡±


    Traitors were incredibly loathsome. However, it might not be a bad thing for me to keep around a traitor in the enemy¡¯s ranks.


    Right now, the Holy War was still in its early period. The cardinals had yet to undergo the ¡°trials¡± of war. Cardinal Soento¡¯s true nature had yet to be exposed. However, he was a political expert who was also likely the current real leader of the Stanley Theocracy.


    Unless something major changed, it was likely that he would continue to remain here. In that case, I should probably even help Cardinal Soento obtain some ¡°political achievements¡± so that his position here would be secure.


    As for Bishop Habolo...


    ¡°Let¡¯s leave him alive as well. Yeah, he¡¯s one of the few higher-ups in the Holy Church who actually has a wise mind. Maybe I can even have a discussion with him.¡±

 Chapter 705 - Casually Digging a Pitfall

    <h4>Chapter 705: Casually Digging a Pitfall</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Bishop Habolo kept quite a low profile even though he was a high-ranking member of the Holy Church. He rarely appeared in public.


    He was in charge of military affairs and the defense lines. This meant he was in charge of setting the knights¡¯ daily patrols. He was quite a busy personage.


    ¡°Just sneak in and wait for him in his room. Aren¡¯t all secret discussions supposed to be like this?¡±


    Harloys viewed things quite simply, but I didn¡¯t have such miraculous stealth techniques like the silly cat. It would be quite foolish for me to attempt being stealthy while wearing armor which weighed several hundred kilograms.


    Even I would have a headache about all the angels and high-level Holy Knights who woulde and try to kill me if I was discovered.


    I thought about it for a moment. If I tried to sneak in, I might be mistaken for an assassin. Right after that, I had a sudden realization.


    ¡°I¡¯m so silly. I can just send Bishop Habolo a direct invitation.¡±


    Indeed, I had fallen for a blind spot in my thinking. Although the Holy Church and I were already secretly fighting and scheming against each other in many areas, on the surface, the Nortnds and the Holy Church were still solid allies.


    Would the Holy Church really attempt to kill me openly? That would be the equivalent of dering war on the Mist Alliance before their northern alliance defense lines had beenpleted. That would obviously be quite foolish.


    Secretly assassinate me? I felt that would be highly difficult. Maybe it would be a difficult for me to actually win a fight against all the forces here, but it would be super easy for me to let everyone in the entire city know that Rnd Mist had arrived.


    Also, if my inference was correct, there would be other benefits to my openly inviting Bishop Habolo to see me.


    And so, I immediately wrote a letter and sealed it with the Mist Family crest and my personal magical seal. I then had the letter delivered to the local Holy Church headquarters.


    In less than half an hour, the door to my hotel room opened as Bishop Habolo walked in with a steely expression.


    Bishop Habolo appeared to be around 40 years old. However, in order to reach his position in the Holy Church, it was likely that his real age was closer to 60. This meant that he had aged well. He was also wearing nice equipment. His white robe shone with magical light rather than Holy Light or Divine Arts. The magical wavelength on the robe was decently powerful. It was likely that an archmage had crafted a priest¡¯s robe for him. It seemed that Bishop Habolo believed in practicality over appearance.


    He had a squarish face and a rtively muscr body. He seemed to have considerable talent for Holy Light. He had probably also been quite handsome when he was younger. However, he currently had quite an unpleasant expression.


    ¡°...Your Highness Rnd, do you hate me for some reason? I don¡¯t believe that I¡¯ve antagonized you before.¡±


    I chuckled to hear this. As expected, Bishop Habolo was no idiot.


    ¡°I have no grudge against you. In fact, I like you more than any of those idiot cardinals. I simply wanted to have a chat with you.¡±


    What exactly did I do? I simply wrote ¡°I¡¯m currently in Room 302 at the Pig¡¯s Tail Hotel. Have Bishop Haboloe meet me. I have something important to discuss. I refuse to talk to anyone else.¡±


    I could guarantee that on this same night, the pope of the Holy Church would receive an emergency report saying: ¡°Rnd, the enemy of Holy Light, suddenly appeared in the Stanley Theocracy and requested a private meeting with Bishop Habolo.¡±


    I could also guarantee that no matter what I talked about with Bishop Habolo, and no matter what he tried to tell others in the Holy Church, Pope Caloma wouldn¡¯t believe him.


    Did this count as framing Bishop Habolo? Of course I was framing him. It was so obvious that I was digging a pitfall for him. However, with my status, it wouldn¡¯t make sense for me to personally dig a pitfall for someone who hadn¡¯t even been promoted to a cardinal yet.


    When considering how much of a bastard the main person in charge here was, it was highly unlikely for Cardinal Soento to let go of such a good chance to attack his political rival. He would probably send all sorts of nderous reports about Bishop Habolo to the pope.


    Despite the fact that this was clearly a huge pitfall, Bishop Habolo was still forced toe meet me. Otherwise, not only would it count as dereliction of duty, others would view him as feeling too guilty to meet me.


    Bishop Habolo¡¯s expression was plenty unpleasant already. Well, I decided to stopughing because there was still serious business to discuss.


    ¡°Hey, brat, what do you think of the current situation?¡±


    ¡°Terrible. No matter what situation you¡¯re asking about, it¡¯s all terrible.¡±


    It was quite fun to chat with someone so intelligent. If I had instead talked to someone who was a fervent supporter of the Holy Church, I would be far too bored listening to foolish words like ¡°The God of Holy Light will never lose¡±.


    Indeed, the current situation was quite terrible¡ªfor the Nortnds, for the Holy Church, for the so-called Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance, and for Bishop Habolo personally. Everything was quite terrible.


    ¡°I shouldn¡¯t havee here to the north,¡± Bishop Habolo stated.


    ¡°Yet, you were forced toe.¡±


    Bishop Habolo¡¯s voice had a rather forceful tone that also sounded as if he was giving up on himself. He didn¡¯t even try to hide his dissatisfaction with the Holy Church¡¯s policy regarding the Nortnds.


    ¡°Could you tell me what genius came up with the incredibly ¡®genius¡¯ idea of the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance to seal in the Nortnds?¡± I asked.


    ¡°What do you intend to do?¡±


    Alright, he wasn¡¯t even addressing me respectfully by my royal title anymore. Yet, he sounded rather expectant.


    ¡°Of course, I intend to properly <i>thank </i>him.¡±


    I especially emphasized the word ¡°thank¡±, making it sounded like I meant something else.


    ¡°It was that idiot Cardinal Soento. He also came here personally, and dragged me along with him.¡±


    Bishop Habolo had a delighted expression. It seemed that he really wanted for me to do something to hisrade.


    ¡°Yep, after I¡¯m done with my work here, remember to tell Cardinal Soento for me how thankful I am to him.¡±


    Bishop Habolo¡¯s hopeful expression instantly copsed. Although it didn¡¯t matter that I said such a thing, it would likely mean an instant fight if he really said that to Cardinal Soento.


    ¡°Right, if you could, also tell him that I¡¯ll do business with him after the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance ispleted.¡±


    ¡°Go tell him yourself.¡±


    Bishop Habolo¡¯s face waspletely red in anger. Even his neck had be red. Since he was currently Cardinal Soento¡¯s subordinate, it seemed likely that he already knew of Cardinal Soento¡¯s true nature.


    But, even if he told others about Cardinal Soento¡¯s true nature, nobody would believe him. Bishop Habolo wouldn¡¯t even have any way to report Cardinal Soento.


    Even if Bishop Habolo felt that I was intentionally trying to worsen his rtionship with Cardinal Soento, it wouldn¡¯t be good for him to be seen doing anything after talking with me. In the end, Bishop Habolo would only be able to keep everything to himself and stew in his frustrations.


    I kept feeling like this was really funny when I saw how aggrieved he was. Perhaps this was the fate of someone who was so loyal in a chaotic era. Hisrades were still living in a dream. It would be far morefortable to pretend to be asleep with them rather than being the only one awake and with a clear mind.


    Bishop Habolo was a highly devout believer in the Holy Light. He was also highly loyal to the Holy Church. I had no intention of trying to recruit him to my side, because I hated hearing refusals and wasting my time... But hey, if this incident became the catalyst for Bishop Habolo being forced to change sides due to internal factional struggles within the Holy Church, it wouldn¡¯t be my fault, right?


    ¡°I regreting here to meet you.¡±


    Bishop Habolo became more and more frustrated. He was probably so angry that he wanted to cry.


    ¡°It¡¯s toote.¡±


    I chuckled as I brought out a pile of books and documents. I really did have some serious business that I wanted to discuss with him.


    ¡°Words from Estrada? What¡¯s this book? Did Teacher Estrada really say these things?¡±


    Oh my, I really didn¡¯t expect that Bishop Habolo was also my junior under the same teacher... This made me feel even more aplished for having dug such a pitfall for him.


    ¡°Now, let us have a good discussion about the teachings of pure Holy Light and the pir of Holy Light in Hell...¡±


    Some timeter, I whistled to myself as I left the hotel, while Bishop Habolo still had an unpleasant expression as he hurriedly left.


    This was just a casual chess move by me. I didn¡¯t necessarily need to see any results from this move.


    Regardless, it would only be a good thing for me for the two leaders of the Holy Church in the Stanley Theocracy to have a conflict against each other. If Pope Caloma decided to move Bishop Habolo elsewhere due to distrust, that would be even better for me as I didn¡¯t want someone so skilled in charge here at the Northern Divine Battlefront Alliance.


    And now, it was time for me to run away. Otherwise, the dark side of the Holy Church would start gathering strong individuals to deal with me. The Holy Church still had a very solid foundation as of now. Even Estrada would have a headache dealing with some of the oldest ancient artifacts among the highest ranks of the Holy Church. Perhaps Bishop Habolo had even been sent here in order to deal with me to begin with.


    There were also bounty hunters and assassins after my head who would be everywhere. Even if they weren¡¯t too difficult for me to deal with, I didn¡¯t want to deal with the extra trouble they would cause me. The reward on my head would already be more than enough to construct a private city.


    ¡°Tsk, it¡¯s still quite safe in the city, but I¡¯ll be unfortunate the moment that I go out?¡±


    And so, the moment that I left the city, I unhesitatingly brought out Yongye City, my floating mage tower castle...

 Chapter 706 - Chaos Girls

    Chapter 706: Chaos Girls


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    While Rnd was being busy with searching for Karwenz with no clues, Karwenz was actually in a bad mood.


    Currently, Karwenz was standing in a special location that didn¡¯t have the power of Chaos. This was a secret location in the 33rd level of the Chaos Abyss, which was also secretly the deepest part of the Chaos Abyss.


    Above Karwenz¡¯s head was an endless staircase leading into the void. Yet, he could only angrily stare at the pitch-ck void door before him.


    At first, everything had gone quite sessfully for him. He managed to obtain the information on where the Abyss of Chaos, the deepest location of the Chaos Abyss, was located from Cynthia¡¯s soul shards. However, his progress was now blocked by this void door.


    This void door had been created from Cynthia¡¯s personal divine power. This was her final defense line. She was the only one who would be able to pass through it.


    Originally, Karwenz had believed that he would be able to break past this defense after he obtained Cynthia¡¯s soul. However, he had underestimated just how insane the Goddess of Chaos had be.


    Neither he nor anyone else ever expected that the Cynthia in his mind had only been a small and iplete portion of her. The real Cynthia had already begun a process of evolving herself in the way that she was ustomed to.


    ¡°Chaos Girls? Cutting her own soul into several hundred shards and then letting the strong cull the weak? She¡¯spletely insane.¡±


    Anyone who understood Cynthia¡¯s current situation would likely think that this Creator Goddess of Chaos had gonepletely insane.


    Over 200 years ago, the Goddess of Chaos had separated her own soul into several hundred shards and tossed them all into the River Styx to be reborn. Several hundred Chaos Girls had been born over the past 200+ years.


    Those souls were all nowplete individuals. They had their own personal memories and personalities. In fact, some of them had even died and been reborn several times due to various idents.


    Their special traits were that they would all have astonishing natural talent as well as natural enmity for each other. Two Chaos Girls who met each other would always ughter and devour each other. The victor would obtain everything from the loser.


    And during the Holy War, due to the workings of karma, all of the Chaos Girls would eventually meet each other. They might be human princesses, ogre huntresses, or even prostitutes used by nobles. But, no matter what identities they had, they would always naturally be drawn to kill each other in the end. The final victor out of all the Chaos Girls would return to the Chaos Abyss and be the new will of the Chaos Abyss as well as a new ¡°Cynthia¡±.


    As for the original Cynthia? She had probably lost her sense of self long ago. The current ¡°Cynthia¡± was far more like a system than an individual. Cynthia herself was the extreme personification of Chaos to begin with, an amalgamation of countless wills.


    As for whether or not Cynthia herself would be the final victor? ¡°Cynthia¡± probably never cared about such a thing to begin with.


    Throughout all this constant ughtering and devouring between the Chaos Girls, ¡°Cynthia¡± would obtain countless memories and knowledge, along with all sorts of experience regarding the growth from weak to strong. Cynthia was the essence of Chaos, thebination of countless personalities.


    In fact, this wasn¡¯t even the first time. Every Holy War would be an ¡°internal war¡± period for her. The new knowledge and powers she gained from the Holy War would all be nutrition for her.


    Even though Cynthia¡¯s physical body was still in a deep sleep, she could use this method to cheat as she held control over the Cycle of Reincarnation. She could still constantly evolve and grow even stronger. The so-called will of the Chaos Abyss was the most special soul shard amongst the several hundred soul shards. She would be in charge of controlling the Chaos Abyss, but even she wouldn¡¯t realize that she was only a small part of the greater entity of the Goddess of Chaos.


    The will of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s true mission had started more than 200 years ago before this current Holy War started. It consisted of tossing Cynthia¡¯s soul shards into the River Styx so that they could be born as new Chaos Girls of this generation.


    Only the final Chaos Girl who survived would have the ability to break through Cynthia¡¯s final defense and return to Cynthia¡¯s physical body,bining with it to be one.


    The fundamentalw of how things worked in Eich was that all power stemmed from the soul.


    Since Cynthia was no longer able to evolve her physical body, she chose this chaotic method to ¡°evolve¡± her soul. Once her physical body revived for real, her far more powerful soul would make her truly undefeatable.


    Every Holy War would be just like an abundant feast for Cynthia. Not only would all the souls that entered the River Styx provide nourishment for her physical body, all the brand-new knowledge and concepts of thetest generation would only strengthen her even further.


    ¡°How many Chaos Girls are still alive?¡±


    ¡°57. 13 are under our control.¡±


    57 crystals were lit up with a faint light on a void wall. Next to these crystals were 200+ additional crystals that no longer shone with any light.


    This proved that Cynthia had probably been insane enough to simultaneously tear her soul into more than 300 shards to create more than 300 Chaos Girls. Actually, it might even be that not all of the Chaos Girls were female.


    Over the past eight years, Karwenz had used his own forces to begin killing the Chaos Girls who had yet to awaken to their true natures. More than 50 Chaos Girls had been killed either directly or indirectly by him over these past eight years.


    His current goal was to kill all the Chaos Girls until only one Chaos Girl under his control became the new ¡°Cynthia¡±. This way, he would be able to pass through this void wall ande into contact with the Goddess of Chaos¡¯s physical body.


    ¡°Soon, even more Chaos Girls will be awakening. Tell Donatis and Sophocles the Deceiver to increase the progress of the Holy War so that the entire world is filled with war. We need to make all the Chaos Girls die and return here!¡±

 Chapter 707 - Information

    <h4>Chapter 707: Information</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In a way, I was in quite a good mood right now, especially since I had gotten away from so many troublesome issues.


    I knew that soon, people would learn about the news that Rnd Mist had left the Nortnds, and that certain people would try to find me.


    However, whether they would find me or not would depend on my mood.


    ¡°Harloys face changing masks are cheap, easy to use, and can even add height!¡±


    I was finding out that Harloys had more and more abilities now that made life ever easier... Ahem, since the silly cat was shining her sharp teeth at me, I should probably talk about other matters instead.


    Since I was gathering information, I would always go sightsee at several ces every time that I went to a new city.


    The local thieves guild, adventurers guild, and merchant association leader¡¯s home. These locals would have the best information in town (since those who didn¡¯t have the best information in town would have died already). This firsthand information would be incredibly useful to me.


    Those who didn¡¯t understand how the information trade worked might believe that it was simply a matter of gathering information from all ces and sending out enough spies as long as you had money. People would think that you could find out anything as long as you had enough money.


    However, such a way of thinking would be incredibly na?ve.


    Everyone would have their own methods. Every profession and trade had different ways of gathering information.


    The thieves guild¡¯s informants would be beggars and thieves. They would be in the lowest rungs of society. They could get a lot of information on many different topics, such as the price increase of food, or how some noble had gotten married to his eleventh concubine. However, since they provided far too much information, it would be organized until only information about power struggles, money, and battles remained. Not only that, they would only have local information from the city they were in.


    If you wanted to find a certain person in a city or find out more about that person, it would be the best choice to hire the thieves guild. This was also one of the thieves guild¡¯s most steady source of ie.


    However, if you wanted to do something like finding a treasure, you would need to worry about them stealing the treasure from you instead. You wouldn¡¯t be able to give highly valuable information to the greedy thieves.


    The adventurer guild was the exact opposite. Apart from very few adventurers who were professional scouts, the adventurer guild¡¯s information mostly came from the adventurers themselves. Although there would be a lot of unreliable information here, they would have information from far more ces. And sometimes, they would be the only source of information on locations where few people would go.


    Any information on magical beasts, ruins out in the wild, witness reports in remote locations, and so on could be found through the adventurer guild. However, their information had the same problem as the information from the thieves guild. They would have far too much scattered information, and it would be difficult to determine truth from falsehood. And since the adventurers were rarely professional information brokers, the scatteredness and reliability of their information would be even worse than the thieves guild¡¯s information.


    Still, the adventurer guild would have much better honor and trustworthiness. You would also typically be able to hire much stronger helpers than you would at the thieves guild.


    Half of the merchant guild¡¯s information woulde from having purchased it. They would purchase information from both the thieves and adventurer guild. The other half of their information came from searching through their own tremendous amount of information.


    Most of their information would be rted to money. However, their advantage was that not only would they have information from many ces, the information would also be effective for a long period of time.


    Maybe this sounded confusing, so allow me to give a simple example. For instance, the merchant guild in a ce which produced an abundant amount of wool would be able to know the price of wool in arge area around the merchant guild. This merchant guild would find out the price of wool in the nearby districts, in their own entire country, and multiple neighboring countries (although this would depend on the merchant guild¡¯s strength) and information rted to the rise or drop of wool prices. For instance, maybe there was an ongoing war in a certain location that would cause difficulties for a certain trade route, or how costs might rise by how much within half a year, or how long they expected a battle to go on for, how much stock they should keep in their warehouses, and so on.


    Although this sounded unreliable, due to the power of money, their information came from sources varied and wide. The merchant guilds also had professional information analysts. In fact, major merchant guilds would even themselves interfere in a war in order to control their own industry¡¯s development. Thus, the merchant guilds actually had the best information analysis and the highest-quality information.


    One product would involve information about weather necessary for production, amount of work put into producing it, the industry¡¯s overall situation, security in the local area, and so on, all the way to transportation security, safety in the area where the product was to be sold, any ces at war on the trade route, how greedy the nobles on the trade route were, how much their taxes were, the average sry of who would purchase this product, the buyer¡¯s average standard of living, why they would purchase such a product, and so on. Truly major merchants would always definitely be outstanding at gathering and analyzing information.


    As for the royalty and nobles¡¯ information, that was actually quite unreliable. The royalty and nobles¡¯ information would be directly rted to individual ability and family history. While some royalty and nobles could be ridiculously strong, others were so weak that they wouldn¡¯t even know of a rebellion until it hit them.


    The nobles¡¯ information was usually centered around war, politics, and the noble families. Theycked information about ordinary people, which made their information the most unreliable of all. I couldn¡¯t even be bothered with going to them for information. I could simply ask for information from the Mist Alliance, telling them to immediately inform me if they had any information on Karwenz.


    Also, the nobles felt that their information was ridiculously precious even though it was actually quite worthless. It would be quite difficult to negotiate with them, which was why I had no motivation to even talk to them.


    I waspletely opposite from a normal adventurer, as in my eyes, the best source of information was the merchant guild, followed by the thieves guild and adventurer guild equally, and the worst information would be from the legendary royal spies who were supposed to be capable of anything.


    But along the way, what I learned was...


    ¡°A legendary gold-armored knight is riding a motorcycle together with his pet ck cat as he travels throughout the ins. His sword desires to drink demon blood... Haha, Rnd, how does it feel to be known as a legendary demon hunter? Mr. Sword Knight?¡±


    Just what was all this! Even though I was looking for information, why had I be the most important information in town?


    It would be impossible for me to directly find Karwenz. Even if I put up a most wanted poster with his face, the end result would only be finding myself...


    But, Karwenz was the Abyss Prince. He had demons aplenty as subordinates. At most, maybe he would also have a few dark cultist subordinates. It wasn¡¯t like his subordinates would be skilled at hiding themselves like how devils would be. Demons were always impatient, while dark cultists often were paranoid. They would definitely cause trouble if they were in the mortal ne.


    No matter what Karwenz wanted to do, it would definitely be rted to the mortal ne in the end.


    Since I knew that his subordinates could only be demons or dark cultists, I only needed to target the demons and dark cultists.


    Alright, I knew that this wouldn¡¯t be reliable for finding him, but I figured there was no harm in trying until I reached the Mage Country. Maybe I would even find something unexpected.


    ¡°Yep, you¡¯ve saved beauties seven times already, destroyed three dark cults¡¯ altars, killed a dozen demon warlocks. Oh, grand demon hunter, you are undefeatable! Why is your sword so yellow? It¡¯s because your sword has been stained with the demons¡¯ sulfur blood!¡± (Harloys was singing a bard¡¯s song about my exploits).


    ¡°...I feel like those idiot bards need to improve their professionalism and uracy. Demon blood isn¡¯t yellow. Also, I didn¡¯t save a single beauty. I only saved four middle-aged woman, one grandma, and two naughty children. The demons can¡¯t even find any beautiful women to sacrifice in this day and age?¡±


    Of course, I needed to investigate the information on demons and dark cultists that I received.


    That was why I happened to find so many dark cultists¡¯ altars and demon warlocks¡¯ evil sacrificial ceremonies. Although I really wanted to apologize and tell them that I had found the wrong person, they would never believe me!


    Even though today¡¯s demon warlocks were stronger on average, I had to say, their sense for beauty had decreased significantly. At the very least, the demon warlocks I killed back in the day had only tried to sacrifice young and beautiful women.


    ¡°With your luck stat, do you really think that you¡¯ll be able to save any beautiful women? Be satisfied already with saving middle-aged women.¡±


    ¡°Shut up, silly cat.¡±


    The end result... was that I killed countless demons, dark cultists, and demon warlocks along the way. Apart from obtaining many Justice Points, I also obtained theughable reputation of being the ¡°Selfless gold sword wielding, gold armored demon hunter¡±. Wait a moment... didn¡¯t that make me into Garen from League of Legends? Maybe I should jump out from a bush and shout ¡°Demacia!!!¡± in order to improve the cosy?


    Since I had killed all those demons for free (since I happened to be passing by), and then leaving right after, not to mention how these demons were all difficult opponents that ordinary adventurers wouldn¡¯t be able to handle, and that I instantly killed all these demons, meaning that my power level was astonishing, I improved my reputation as this ratherughable identity quite quickly. The bards in the area must have been quite bored as they quickly started embellishing my feats in order so that they could make more money.


    Of course, there were also benefits to this. Before, I had to spend money everywhere I went to buy information, and I would be asked countless questions about why I wanted such information. I would even often have to resort to violence in the end. Now, since I was so well known, information would alwayse to me for free, as the local guilds really wanted me to deal with the dangerous demons in the area before their ¡°free help¡± left the area. They would always tell me where I could find demons and dark cultists. However, my new trouble was that I needed to differentiate between the real information and what information was simply the guilds trying to take advantage of me to kill off their enemies.


    ¡°Ha, you¡¯re basically the head spy of the entire Mist Alliance. It¡¯s already quite good that nobody¡¯s trying to hunt you down yet.¡±


    Indeed, along the way, I had gathered the rarest type of information, firsthand information on geography, war, business, nobles, and so on. By the time that I finally had free time, it was likely that the information map of the Mist Alliance could bepletely redrawn.


    Additionally, all this information was thetest information as the Holy War went on, not to mention it was geographical information on the countries that the Mist Alliance would have to pass through when going southward. As for whether or not I intended on sending an army southward... I had no intention, at least for the time being.


    I then arrived at a district known as the Abundant Valley. I then received some unexpected information from the local thieves guild that I viewed with great importance.


    ¡°A former saintess has be fallen and gotten pregnant with demonic spawn. She even became corrupted into a witch? Is this some hentai plot?¡±

 Chapter 708 - Divine Punishment

    <h4>Chapter 708: Divine Punishment</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In this magical world, the word ¡°saintess¡± couldn¡¯t be just used casually.


    This was a generation of divine authority. Pure holiness was something that belonged only to the Gods.


    In that case, only women beloved by the Gods would be allowed to have the title of ¡°saintess¡±. Only the True God Churches¡¯ chosen women would have this title.


    How pure they really were didn¡¯t actually matter. What mattered was that they would represent their chosen church. Basically, they were important spokespersons for their churches.


    Most of these saintesses would be young and beautiful. They were typically orphans that the church had raised. Most of them were also priestesses at the same time. While some saintesses would have noble status, most of them wouldn¡¯t, as having too high of a status would make it inconvenient for them to be paraded around.


    Being a saintess wasn¡¯t something all that special.


    Not only would they have to run around everywhere spreading their church¡¯s teachings, they would often have to appear on the battlefield in order to help raise their side¡¯s morale. It wasn¡¯t like saintesses were all that rare, nor would they be all that safe. Maybe their death would actually raise morale even more as the soldiers would want to take revenge for her sake.


    Moreover, as the women beloved by the Gods, how could they possibly be allowed to fall in love with mortals? While you were a saintess, not only would love be forbidden, you wouldn¡¯t even be allowed to get close to a man.


    It would be impossible for anyone to forever appear young and beautiful, yet saintesses had to be young and beautiful... Which meant that this job was something only the young and beautiful could do.


    It wasmon for saintesses to lose their position when they were around 30 years old. Their beauty would decrease by then, yet they would still be restricted from marrying, which was rather pitiful.


    This was why female priestesses who truly had good career opportunities would never choose to be a saintess even if they had the chance to. Only priestesses who were orphans ormoners by birth would choose to take on the seemingly glorious job of saintess.


    Although each church would likely treat their saintesses slightly differently, in my memories, the majority of saintesses would appear to be young and beautiful and seem so glorious. Yet, they were actually pitiful women who were destined to forever remain single.


    This time, the incident urred to Saintess Leona from the Church of Sword and Thunder. She was 30 years old. When considering how people were allowed to get married starting at age 14 in this world, she truly was an old spinster by now...


    ¡°I¡¯ve never even heard of this church or saintess before.¡±


    The Church of Sword and Thunder¡¯s God was named Shirvan, and was a recently born God who had ascended just a few decades ago. His Divine Concepts included Swords and Thunder, which were twopletely unrted Concepts.


    ¡°I sympathize with Shirvan¡¯s head priest. Just how is the head priest supposed to teach two Concepts so different?¡±


    ¡°A holy sword that brings the judgement of thunder? Sword techniques that are as fast as lightning? This sounds more and more like the plot of an unpopr knight story.¡±


    Divine Concepts weren¡¯t that easy to obtain. If there were two Gods who had simr divinities, for instance a God with the title of ¡°Knowledge Holder¡± and another God with the title of ¡°Holder of Books¡±, it was certain that these two Gods would have a deathmatch battle against each other.


    Simr natures and simr Divine Concepts meant that there were two people sitting on the same throne and sharing the same resources. That would always end in a fight until one died.


    Not all Gods would be capable of creating their own brand-new Divine Concept like Wumianzhe.


    For most SemiGods, they would be quite satisfied already with being able to reach Godhood. They would already be quite lucky to be able to gain a Divine Concept. They couldn¡¯t be picky about what the Divine Concept was.


    However, writing the teachings of a new God¡¯s church would be quite a headache.


    ¡°Our God holds the divine thunder sword of judgement. Swordsmen who worship our God shall act with the speed of lightning, swing their swords with the speed of lightning, and obtain thunderous sword techniques...¡±


    When I saw the Church of Sword and Thunder¡¯s religious teachings, I felt as if I was reading something that I had randomly made up. I did my very best to refrain fromughing, while the silly cat unhesitatingly started rolling around on the floor whileughing out loud.


    I had purchased all of the thieves guild¡¯s information on the Church of Sword and Thunder. What really surprised me was that when the incident happened to Leona, she had still been a saintess even then.


    ¡°A 30-year-old saintess. That¡¯s so...¡±


    [In this day and age, there¡¯s also 10,000-year-old... er, 30-year-old magical girl cats. I should remind you that she¡¯s currently sharpening her ws.]


    However, I then understood after reading the rest of the information on the Church of Sword and Thunder. This Saintess Leona was no delicate flower vase.


    Shirvan had only ascended to Godhood a few decades ago. He still had descendants in the mortal ne, and Leona was actually his granddaughter. This fact alone would make her different from other delicate saintesses. She would definitely enjoy Shirvan¡¯s divine favor.


    The Church of Sword and Thunder was also a new church. Leona had always been one of the elites in this church as she was an excellent swordswoman as well as priestess. She had singlehandedly saved her church from being destroyed multiple times already. She had even performed God¡¯s Descent several times before. She had incredible reputation within her church, and she was even faintly being viewed as the candidate to be the next church leader and head priestess.


    Normal female humans would start to see their beauty decline at around age 30. However, 30 years old was only the beginning for powerful individuals. Thus, it was easy to understand why she was still a saintess at age 30.


    However, the next part of the story was rather inconceivable.


    She had an affair with a certain man. This shouldn¡¯t have been a big deal originally, as Leona was one of the higher-ranking members of her church. Her grandfather was also her church¡¯s God, and he trusted her deeply. As long as news of this didn¡¯t spread everywhere, which would negatively affect their church¡¯s reputation, this should have been nothing at all.


    However, Leona suddenly became fallen during a public religious ceremony. Her divine power transformed into the evil power of the Chaos Abyss. The church¡¯s priests then discovered that she was actually pregnant, and that her unborn child had a demonic presence. Shirvan became infuriated and emunicated his descendant. The rest was obvious.


    The saintess became a former saintess. Her past aplishments became evidence of how she was pretending to be just. She was med for everything wicked. Everyone wanted her to die.


    Right now, she was tied up on a cross in the middle of a za, being disyed as a warning to everyone. She was scheduled to be executed by fire four days from now. It was unknown whether her soul would ascend to a Divine Kingdom or fall down to the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°Oh my, this saintess is really beautiful. That demon was so lucky.¡±


    In order to avoid beingte, I flew more than 300 kilometersst night after rushing over the past two days. I managed to arrive at Dewleaf City, the headquarters of the Church of Sword and Thunder.


    Leona had already been tied up in the za for eight days by now. Since she wasn¡¯t an ordinary human, she hadn¡¯t died from this. However, her lips were quite dry since she hadn¡¯t received any water at all. Her eyes seemed listless as if she had reached her limits.


    Even so, it was still clear that she was quite beautiful. She had long legs and a nice figure. Most importantly, her aura of a swordswoman made her seem heroic. She could still be called a beauty.


    I silently removed my hat as I came up directly to look at the listless saintess. This time, I was using my true appearance.


    In a way, Karwenz and I had the same taste in women... even though I knew it would likely be fruitless, I still wanted to try experiencing saving a beautiful damsel in distress who would then fall in love with me!


    ¡°It¡¯s him! It¡¯s him! It¡¯s Roan the swordsman, the one who seduced the saintess!¡±


    The first to react wasn¡¯t Saintess Leona, but rather her maid!


    At the same time, an rm rang as numerous high-level swordsmen and priests ran out from the Church of Sword and Thunder. Seeing how they were fully armed, they must have been prepared for this already.


    Most inconceivably of all, a Holy Light sudden ignited the ropes tying down Leona as she suddenly stood up right in front of me with all of her injuries recovered. Thunder was dancing in her eyes and on her sword.


    ¡°Roan! You really dared toe again!¡±


    No matter how foolish I was, even I knew that I had fallen into a trap, not to mention this trap had been intended for someone else.


    I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry as I shook my head at the saintess who was ring literal thunderbolts at me.


    ¡°Would you believe me if I said I wasn¡¯t Roan?¡±


    ¡°Of course I would believe you. Would a bastard like you really use your real name!?¡±


    The next instant, a thunderbolt struck me. This was a divine punishment from the God Shirvan.


    ¡°Shirvan, you idiot! You struck the wrong person! You should be looking for that bastard in the Chaos Abyss!¡±

 Chapter 709 - Sister-in-law

    <h4>Chapter 709: Sister-inw</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    I waspletely surrounded. There were archers on the rooftops, a swordsman squadron in front of me, and priests as well as the head priest casting buff spell Divine Arts.


    Thunder was gathering in the hands of a ck-robed warlock in the distance. These warlocks were able to obtain the power of thunder by worshiping Shirvan, so they were highly skilled at controlling lightning and thunder.


    Directly in front of me was a top-level divine swordswoman. Leona¡¯s golden hair was literally on fire due to her anger. The divine favor she received from her grandfather Shirvan transformed into an energy wave simr to draconic might that kept attacking my mind.


    In the sky, thunder kept rumbling as the furious True God Shivan watched what was going on through the eyes of his beloved granddaughter. He began to rampage and attack thisnd with thunder.


    ¡°Roan! It¡¯s time to meet your death!¡±


    Leona¡¯s hands hesitated slightly as she wielded her sword, but the sword still attacked swiftly with the power of thunder.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this all just about acting pretentious!? I know how to do that as well!¡±


    Holy Light suddenly illuminated me as I revealed golden wings of the purest Holy Light. I illuminated the entire area as a realm of Holy Light descended from the sky together with holy song.


    ¡°I am the strongest Holy Knight in the world. I wee your challenge.¡±


    At this moment, not only were all the priests stunned, even Shirvan was so surprised that he stopped in the middle of his divine punishment.


    This didn¡¯t seem to fit their expected scenario. They were supposed to attack someone who was like a demon king! Howe the demon king suddenly transformed into a Holy Knight?


    ¡°What? The strongest Holy Knight?¡±


    The strongest Holy Knight? Wasn¡¯t that supposed to be Estrada? That was the nickname that others had given him. In this generation, who apart from Estrada would dare to refer to themselves as the strongest Holy Knight?


    However, this Holy Knight had Holy Light purity which couldpare to the God of Holy Light¡¯s purity. It was obvious that he was no random novice trying to scam them.


    ¡°The strongest Holy Knight? Only the most famous disciple of Estrada would dare to use this title...¡±


    ¡°Rnd? Rnd Mist?¡± Leona asked hesitatingly as she recalled a certain vicious individual whose name was on the Cmity Rankings.


    I nodded slightly. As expected, my name was quite famous. Even a ce like this had heard of me before.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you mean infamous instead? Just look over there.¡±


    It would be impossible to lie with Holy Light. The misunderstanding should have been cleared up now that they knew I was Rnd, yet they actually added even more personnel. They even brought overrge ballista from the castle wall. It was as if they viewed me as a leveled-up version of the demon king!


    ¡°...I¡¯m not here to invade. I don¡¯t have an undead army or the Mist Alliance army with me. Nor do I have any floating airships with me. I swear on all this in the name of Holy Light. Everyone knows that Holy Knights can¡¯t lie, so do you believe me now?¡±


    Alright then, the clouds and thunder in the sky finally started to dissipate, easing the atmosphere slightly.


    20 minutester, I learned about the general story from Leona as I sat in Shirvan¡¯s church.


    This story had happened approximately two months ago. At the time, I was quite busy dealing with the establishment of the Nortnds Elven Empire, so I definitely had an alibi...


    Leona met with a hired mercenary swordsman who imed that his name was Roan. It seemed that he was a dark element demonic swordsman, yet he was also quite the happy-go-lucky type. Soon, he became rather popr and well-known in Dewleaf Castle.


    As for what happened between Leona and Roan, and how Roan managed to convince Leona to give up her chastity which she had protected for 30 years, that was something that only they would know.


    ¡°You¡¯re not Roan. He would never smile like you. Your smiles are so fake. His smiles are so sincere.¡±


    In a way, I was being looked down on yet again.


    I brought out a mirror and shed my professional Holy Knight smile. My teeth were sparkling perfectly. How was my smile fake?


    ¡°Ahem, I think I know who that Roan really is. Actually, since you recognize me as Rnd, then you should already be able to guess Roan¡¯s identity...¡±


    ¡°Abyss Prince Karwenz...¡±


    Leona squeezed out those words from between her teeth. She seemed to be filled with hatred.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, me the correct person for this. Shirvan can go to the Chaos Abyss for his revenge. Oh, I apologize, I forgot that Shirvan is only a weak Low God who can¡¯t deal with Karwenz. It¡¯s probable that Shirvan will be killed in a single second.¡±


    I unhesitatingly said such disrespectful words about a God right in the middle of his church. Hostile expressions were all around me, yet I was simply silently drinking my tea... or holy water.


    There was no helping it. The few tea leaves in my cup were all soaked with high-purity holy water. It would seem that they were still suspicious of my identity.


    Actually, I didn¡¯t really care what Shirvan thought. He was only a recently ascended Low God. Even if he descended here in his true body, I wouldn¡¯t be afraid.


    As I looked over Leona¡¯s slender body, my soul vision could faintly detect another life inside her. I could also sense that life¡¯s powerful demonic aura as well as Mist bloodline. I couldn¡¯t help but furrow my eyebrows.


    ¡°Yet another demonic descendant. This is truly troublesome.¡±


    While Karwenz was a bastard, he was also a Demon Lord. But, ording to my knowledge, it wouldn¡¯t be that easy for a high-level demon¡¯s descendant to be a Demon Noble right at birth.


    In a way, for a Demon Lord to have a descendant, he would need to give up a part of his power to the descendant. At minimum, he would need to give up 10% of his power, all the way up to approximately 50%.


    High-level demons wouldn¡¯t need to practice contraception. However, strength was everything in demon society. Exposing your own weakness would equal death. This was why the powerful Demon Lords rarely had many descendants.


    Additionally, powerful demons were capable of using their own descendants¡¯ bodies to reincarnate into if they died. It could be said that the demons didn¡¯t have any good intentions for their own descendants.


    Two months ago was when the demon wave first explosively attacked. The entire world¡¯s attention had been on the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire back then. Yet, a Chaos Main God like Karwenz had actuallye here to the mortal ne in order to have a fling with a human woman and make her pregnant? This seemed incredibly unusual.


    ¡°Is he worried that he won¡¯t survive the Holy War, so he¡¯s leaving a descendant behind?¡± Harloys suggested.


    I shook my head. This didn¡¯t fit Karwenz¡¯s personality.


    Did he impregnate Leona on a whim? That would indeed be possible, but it would definitely be no coincidence that Karwenz had appeared here at such a time. There had definitely been something here that he wanted two months ago.


    I looked all over Leona, even to the point where she started trembling. I felt that Karwenz¡¯s appearance here was highly likely to be rted to her.


    This unborn child was probably incredibly important. Or, perhaps Leona was also quite special herself.


    ¡°Right now, you¡¯re probably suppressing your unborn child¡¯s demonic power with divine power. Why aren¡¯t you killing it? I don¡¯t believe that you are soft-hearted. Or, is it that you already have feelings for it?¡±


    ¡°I really want to cut it into tiny pieces! But... if it dies, I die.¡±


    Leona¡¯s words were filled with anger, yet I onlyughed.


    ¡°Ahem, Sister-inw... Fine, Leona, perhaps I can help treat you. I¡¯m an expert surgeon.¡±


    [Ding! Congrattions to Rnd for obtaining the title of ¡®expert obstetrician.¡¯]


    While mentally telling my System to shut up, I saw how resolved to sacrifice herself my new ¡°sister-inw¡± Leona seemed to be. It appeared that she would agree.


    ¡°As long as this demon inside me can be killed, I¡¯m willing to pay any price.¡±


    Her resolution was quite evident. If this trap hadn¡¯t managed to catch ¡°Roan¡±, it was likely that Leona would havemitted suicide.


    However, I didn¡¯t want her to die. Don¡¯t misunderstand, as I didn¡¯t have any hentai scenarios in mind... I just knew that although Karwenz was a yboy, he still treated his women quite well. Perhaps I could use her as a lure to find Karwenz.


    ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll have to ask you to be tied to that cross for another few days.¡±

 Chapter 710 - Subtle Development

    <h4>Chapter 710: Subtle Development</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In the end, I was unable to convince Leona to get tied to the cross again...


    Cough, this wasn¡¯t because I was suddenly going easy on her because she was a woman. It was rather that using her as bait to lure out Karwenz was highly unlikely to seed now that the trap had already been exposed.


    With what Shirvan¡¯s church just did, even an idiot would know that there was a trap here now. I had also shown up here with my real appearance, so Karwenz would naturally know that I was here.


    In that case, he definitely wouldn¡¯te here unless he was willing to see me.


    Recently, I had made it obvious that I was looking for him, yet he still hadn¡¯t appeared... Someone like him could actually wait instead of bragging in front of me? That seemed not to match his style at all.


    Since this wasn¡¯t his style, then what ¡°noble purpose¡± could possibly cause him to suppress his very nature and hide from me instead? This caused me to worry even more.


    Although I had no more hope of luring him in, I definitely wouldn¡¯t let go of a clue like Leona.


    ¡°Sister-inw... Leona, the child in your stomach is half mine as well... Don¡¯t attack me with your sword! Cat on my head, don¡¯t bite me, either! I¡¯m being serious!¡±


    Maybe my words could be misconstrued as somewhat dirty, but I truly wasn¡¯t trying to scam anyone here. I was simply spouting rubbish that would fit the nobles¡¯ ridiculous social customs.


    When a noble family¡¯s leader had no descendants, meaning that the family line met an end, then illegitimate children who had been kicked out of the family and so on could be brought back to inherit the position.


    Although this sounded rather ridiculous, I indeed had no direct descendants. I was still the oldest son of the Mist Family, and I had no descendants, which meant that I could instead find a rtive of mine to be my inheritor.


    My younger brother¡¯s son, as ording to the ridiculous concept of noble heraldry, would indeed by the most appropriate rtive to be my inheritor.


    ording to the nobles¡¯ customs as well asws, I could even refuse to recognize this descendant¡¯s mother and father, and steal away this child to raise him as my adopted son... Actually, there were plenty of such examples back on Earth in the Middle Ages. Of course, others would happily go to inherit the family title, while this would be stealing on my part.


    ¡°Do you know what the child in your stomach represents? That¡¯s my only close rtive (rubbish), so you¡¯re also half a rtive of mine.¡±


    I was acting serious while spouting rubbish to Leona. ¡°Also, do you believe me when I say, if you make me have no descendants, I¡¯ll make Shirvan have no descendants?¡±


    Although the nobles really valued so-called bloodline inheritance, I wasn¡¯t really much of a noble at all. Rather than bloodline inheritance, I more valued cultural inheritance and a shared way of thinking.


    As for the Mist Family? The Mist Kingdom from back then no longer existed, and it was fine how things were now. The current Mist Alliance and East Mist were pretty good, anyways.


    Actually, I didn¡¯t really care about having descendants or whatever. Reyne and Glina were also descendants of the Mist. Having a direct bloodline inheritance didn¡¯t matter as much.


    Nor was there any need for me to make someone my descendant, which would only create trouble for me. Who knew how many children Karwenz already had over the years? Although normal Demon Lords wouldn¡¯t have many children, it would be strange if he was like any normal Demon Lord.


    My true objective was...


    ¡°I have two objectives. The first is to steal the right to dissect Leona from Shirvan... Ahem, I mean to possess her.¡±


    Leona was quite special. The more I looked at her, the more I felt this had to be the case. It wasn¡¯t only that she was especially beautiful. It was more my instinct and very soul that were telling me this.


    Karwenz was indeed quite a pervert. However, flirting with a girl and having a child which would weaken his strength at this time definitely wasn¡¯t his style at all.


    I then mentioned that I wanted to perform a physical examination on Leona to see if there was anything special about her, but everyone in Shirvan¡¯s church suddenly started ring at me as if I was their greatest mortal enemy and biggest pervert ever.


    ¡°...That Roan made the exact same request. He said that he had almost reached Level 4 power level, and that he needed to better understand divine bloodlines. Saintess Leona agreed to his request at the time...¡±


    ¡°And then she got pregnant? I understand.¡±


    I felt rather helpless about all the vignt res aimed in my direction. I then wasted another two days trying to convince Leona, and finally got blood and hair samples in the end (although I obtained the samples without consent). Still, just this alone obviously wouldn¡¯t be enough... I really should dissect Leona instead as I was also quite interested in divine bloodlines.


    The blood test results were highly disappointing. Apart from some divine power within her bloodline, Leona was a pure human. Not only that, her unborn child¡¯s demonic power was also corroding her own power.


    The mother and child¡¯s souls were already connected to each other. It was a fact that if the child died, Leona would also die. However, I also doubted that Leona would be able to survive the birth of her demonic spawn.


    Other mages would have stopped there, but for someone like me, the soul was the source of everything. Powerful individuals¡¯ true strength would stem from their soul. Leona¡¯s personal history also proved that she was quite excellent. Perhaps it was her soul that was truly special.


    ¡°Let¡¯s dissect her after all.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you tell her the truth that you might be able to save her instead?¡±


    ¡°...I don¡¯t have any guarantee of being able to save her. Also, I haven¡¯t decided whether or not to keep her demonic child alive yet. Karwenz¡¯s making a descendant at this time means that it¡¯s highly likely that this will be his ¡®backup body.¡¯¡±


    I kept using the nobles customs as an excuse to spout rubbish at the Church of Sword and Thunder. Yep, I was just bullying them because they wouldn¡¯t dare to antagonize me. It was likely that even Shirvan himself would be unable to defeat me.


    I was also making preparations for achieving my second objective.


    My second objective really was about the child, but not about the child himself. My objective was to use the child¡¯s bloodline to search for Karwenz himself.


    Spells to search for someone by using that person¡¯s rtive weren¡¯t that rare. The best possible catalyst for a prophecy magic spell to search for someone would be that person¡¯s rtive. I was going to try and use prophecy magic to find Karwenz to begin with. Now, I definitely wouldn¡¯t let go of this excellent catalyst.


    As for myself? I had already tried, but that didn¡¯t work. Either Karwenz had intentionally made preparations against me using myself to search for him, or our bloodlines had repeatedly changed too much, reaching the point where the prophecy magic didn¡¯t recognize us as brothers anymore.


    As for Reyne and Glina? They were too distant as rtives. Although they indeed had mutated bloodlines rted to Karwenz, they weren¡¯t his direct descendants, so they wouldn¡¯t be good enough as catalysts.


    It could be said that this unborn demonic child was the closest rtive of Karwenz that I had ess to. Of course I wouldn¡¯t let this opportunity go.


    And so, I shamelessly stayed in the Church of Sword and Thunder for 10 days and also spread the teachings of the Holy Light.


    Of course, I meant Estrada¡¯s version of Holy Light. Since I was highly skilled at Holy Light performances, I was able to attract arge audience each day.


    Maybe this wouldn¡¯t affect Shirvan personally all that much, but having someone from another church constantly spreading their teachings in your own church would be a huge loss of face that Shirvan¡¯s church and his believers wouldn¡¯t be able to ept.


    Finally, I came to an ord with Leona. She agreed to apany me in my travels.


    ¡°...Didn¡¯t she instantly agree toe with you the moment that you told her you were going to take revenge on Karwenz? Didn¡¯t you just waste time with your performances over the past couple days?¡±


    ¡°Silly cat, you know too much,¡± I said in a low voice while gritting my teeth.


    I really hadn¡¯t expected that Leona would instantly agree toe with me so easily when I mentioned that I wanted to get back at Karwenz.


    Leona came to an agreement with me that we would first go to the Mage Country to find an expert prophecy magic mage before going to see Karwenz together.


    Over the past few days as she traveled with me, I kept seeing her rub her belly. Sometimes, Leona would smile gently like a saintess, while at other times she seemed to go evil as she sharpened her sword. I was really looking forward to Karwenz¡¯s expression now when he saw Leona.


    ¡°A saintess, a demonic child, and a shuraba... I think that this will make for a good hentai scenario. Will there also be a dissection in order to check the demon spawn?¡±


    I was just joking around, yet the silly cat took me seriously.


    ¡°Promise me that you won¡¯t instantly dissect her. You also must work hard to resolve her problem.¡±


    ¡°...Harloys, this isn¡¯t your style.¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous. Leona is a mother. The child in her stomach is also blood-rted to you.¡±


    ¡°...You must be saying something so easily misconstrued on purpose. You must have some scheme in mind.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s chuckle made me really scared. Yet, I kept thinking about things and couldn¡¯t figure out any pitfalls that I might fall into.


    ¡°Ha, watch me guard my sister-inw as we travel thousands of kilometers on our journey!¡±


    ¡°I agree that there¡¯s probably some hentai scenario in here somewhere.¡±

 Chapter 711 - Sword and Personality

    Chapter 711: Sword and Personality


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    In this fresh spring, I kept heading south in the warm weather as flowers bloomed... well, if the blood spilled from the dead counted as flowers blooming.


    Every time I arrived in a new area, it would either already be at war, or currently preparing for war. Either an army would be gathering for defense, or an army would have already been sent out.


    The first year after the demon wave¡¯s explosive arrival brought spring rain along with news that the entire world had sunk into war.


    Large-scale dimensional invasions were taking ce. The Demon Lords had finished gathering their armies. Wars were now taking ce everywhere, greatly fatiguing the Holy Church.


    Yet, I was on a vacation...


    Yep, I was indeed searching for Karwenz everywhere that I went, but I had yet to find any better clues. The thieves guild, adventurers guild, and even the fairies who seemed to be everywhere were all unable to give me direct intelligence on Karwenz.


    I even tried to make a deal with the dark cultists, using them tomunicate with their Demon Lords and Evil Gods. All I learned was that Karwenz and his personal followers were still mysteriously missing.


    Since I was now traveling with my ¡°sister-inw¡± Leona, I couldn¡¯t move about as freely as before. A the very least, I needed to prepare a rtivelyfortable horse-drawn carriage for her as she was pregnant.


    Of course, she still wasn¡¯t showing anything yet, nor did her pregnancy affect her movements. She even insisted on riding her own horse... but in the end, I managed to convince her to ride the horse-drawn carriage.


    Then, on a moonless night, I achieved my goal in dissecting Leona...


    Ahem, at the very least, she didn¡¯t notice a thing by the next day, so let¡¯s just pretend that nothing happened.


    Her bloodline was normal. There was such a minute amount of divine power that it could be ignored.


    Her physical body was normal. The strength of her muscles and organs was within normal limits.


    Her condition for giving birth was good. The unborn child¡¯s data was normal. It was expected that Leona would give birth nine months from now... Erm, since I had already dissected Leona, I figured I might as well check how things were for her, since my skills were far superior to any quack doctor¡¯s.


    As for Leona¡¯s soul... I was unable to find anything special about it. If I wanted to do a deeper inspection, I would have to open up her soul, but that would make it almost impossible to put her back together again.


    In the end, I could only temporarilye to the conclusion that Leona had just a very normal divine bloodline.


    At most, Leona was quite hardworking and somewhat skilled, as well as courageous and lucky, which managed to help her aplish some things. She was still quite far from being the typical ¡°harem protagonist¡± of a typical hero¡¯s story.


    As for her being the reincarnation of some God or demon, I hadn¡¯t discovered any divine soul traits apart from Shirvan¡¯s. That meant Leona was just a divine bloodline descendant who was slightly special.


    ¡°If I had to describe her, she¡¯s just an ordinary person who worked hard. Could it be that I actually misinterpreted the situation?¡±


    Since I had no guarantee of being able to put her back together again if I opened up her soul, I could only helplessly let things be for now.


    Still, my opinion of Leona had greatly improved after spending some time with her.


    Originally, I¡¯d thought that she was yet another foolish girl who had been scammed by Karwenz. I thought that she would be the type withrge breasts but no brain. Maybe she had some strength, but she wouldck regr intelligence as well as emotional intelligence. Yet, Leona gradually proved to me that my impression of her had been wrong.


    ¡°I believe that the true worth of the Gods is to guide us humans to do good. Rather than listening to empty moral teachings, the nobles always have at least some basic moral limits because they¡¯re afraid of falling into the River Styx after death and not having any Divine Kingdom ept their souls if they do too much evil,¡± Leona stated.


    As a saintess, she actually had quite a good understanding of religion, which was quite rare for someone of her position.


    ¡°Perhaps you¡¯ve misunderstood the teachings of our Church of Sword and Thunder. Our God Shirvan managed to ascend to Godhood with his sword techniques. He was a pure swordsman. He has always taught us to work hard at self-cultivation and improving ourselves, and to use a strong physical body to host a perfect soul.¡±


    Oh my. Leona really was religious after all. She even tried to teach me about her church.


    ¡°I have also read your novel before. Many thoughts written in it caused me to self-reflect so much. I¡¯ve always wanted to meet you before, but I never expected that I would meet you in such a situation...¡± Leona caressed her stomach gently with a sad expression. Meanwhile, I was hesitating because...


    ¡°It¡¯s so rare to meet one of your fans. Aren¡¯t you going to ask which novel of yours she read?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m too scared and don¡¯t dare to ask.¡± I couldn¡¯t even retort to Harloys¡¯ment. I had written far too many ridiculous things before, to the point where I didn¡¯t dare to ask what Leona had read of mine.


    It would be fine if she read something normal such as my theories on pure Holy Light or Hell¡¯s power of judgement. It would also be fine if she had read something like ¡°The Master Thief¡± which was akin to a job ss guide. But if she instead read something rated R-18+ of mine... I recalled how I had written many stories involving mega harem conflicts and male harem protagonists who would have countless miracle opportunities all for the sake of scamming more money. I decided to let such dark history of mine be forever buried in the darkness.


    Ahem, getting back on topic, Leona also had her own opinions on military and political affairs. She could evenment a little on the continent¡¯s overall situation. This was quite something indeed.


    We were in Eich, not my original world of Earth. While information was extremely easy toe by back on Earth, here you would have to gather information with your own efforts. Just being able to mention international affairs meant that she typically paid attention to such things.


    It really wouldn¡¯t be easy for Leona to aplish this, both being a woman and in a church.


    Thus, I became even more curious how her heart had been conquered by Karwenz in less than a month...


    Don¡¯t even mention something like love at first sight to me. What veteran would actually still be so pure? Leona was already someone strong enough to be called a grandmaster. She had probably seen plenty of men over the years, including plenty of silver-tongued yboys.


    ¡°...Swordsmanship.¡±


    I tried to ask her in a roundabout manner, and that was how she answered me.


    ¡°My God Shirvan¡¯s experience says that the sword is like the person, and that swordsmanshipes from the heart. If the sword is straight, the heart will also be straight...¡±


    I then pretty much understood. Leona was yet another person who had fallen into a pitfall due to family teachings... Forget about listening to all this chicken soup! I really didn¡¯t want to talk about ¡°the sword is like the person¡± or other such ways of thinking.


    Even bastards who were murderers and thieves were capable of bing Sword Saints, you know?


    Leona became somewhat angered when she saw that I didn¡¯t care one bit about what she said.


    She then forced me to practice swordsmanship with her. At first, I was just ying around, but then I discovered that Leona really was quite skilled at swordsmanship. She had be a Sword Saint for at least seven or eight years by now.


    And so, I got slightly serious.


    Considering her current condition, it would be bullying her far too much to use my full Strength stat. I simply disyed my pure sword techniques without actually injuring her.


    Despite holding back, Leona¡¯s sword was knocked away after 23 seconds... Well, this was because I was still holding back. If I had gotten truly serious, it would have been easy to knock away her sword within three attacks.


    Leona stood there in stunned disbelief at such a result.


    When I proudly looked at Leona, preparing to give swordsmanship advice to this ¡°junior¡± of mine, Leona suddenly sighed unexpectedly.


    ¡°...Your Highness Rnd, you must have no luck with women. No ordinary person will be able to tolerate your personality.¡±


    ¡°Paha! Wonderfully said! ...Ahhhh! Rnd, you¡¯re just taking your anger out on me! I shall return!¡±


    I instantly tossed away the silly cat on my head that was snickering at me. Her shrill screams still remained behind in the air.


    Wasn¡¯t this the equivalent of cursing me to remain single? However, it would be far too unbing of me to worry about such a thing with a junior of mine.


    ¡°I¡¯m not angry, I¡¯m not angry...¡±


    I took a deep breath and then squeezed out a smile. However, Leona backed away two steps as if she was scared by something truly frightening.


    Soon, she calmed down and gave me an exnation.


    ¡°Judging by how swordsmanship can express individual personality... Roan, er, Karwenz is the exact opposite of you, although both of you have amazing swordsmanship that¡¯s beyond a normal level of understanding. There¡¯s actually two people in the world with such high swordsmanship skills? I wonder how the Red Lotus Sword Saint and Phoenix Sword Saintpare...¡±


    This pregnant woman had a bright red expression and was so excited that she seemed just like a young teenaged girl as she continuously talked about swordsmanship.


    I managed to restore her to her senses with a light cough. ¡°Ahem.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry... that bastard¡¯s swordsmanship feels like... like the vast sky itself. It¡¯s impossible to know what he¡¯s thinking, or what his swordsmanship is, yet his swordsmanship has its own system that¡¯spletely natural and pure. It¡¯s even purer and more brilliant than the endless stars...¡±


    ¡°Cough, cough.¡±


    I was now certain that Leona was probably Karwenz¡¯s fan far more than being my fan.


    ¡°Sorry... Perhaps you don¡¯t believe me, but I can indeed sense his character from his swordsmanship. Although that bastard deceived me, he¡¯s someone truly sincere. His heart and sword are both incredibly pure. He will do anything that he wants. Nothing can possibly stop him. He loves this world. He loves this world more than anyone. His purity and strong emotions are truly so mesmerizing...¡±


    ¡°Ahem, ahem!¡±


    I was doing my best to help her recover her senses. She was truly a star worshiper who easily went into a manic state of worship. No wonder she had been deceived so easily by Karwenz. If I kept coughing like this, I would probably need some cough drops!


    ¡°...His swordes from his instinct and his heart. His sword is the disy of his very nature. As for your sword... Your swordsmanship is the purest form of artificiality.¡±


    Leona sunk into a mesmerized state again as she kept describing my swordsmanship. But unlike the red blush from earlier that made her seem like a teenaged girl, she now had unconcealed loathing.


    ¡°Every sword move originates from one of the most basic sword techniques. Every sword move is limited by countless rules. Every sword move is calcting and scheming. Aren¡¯t you tired?¡±


    ¡°Hahahaha!¡± I instantly turned around and kicked away the silly cat who had returned some time ago and startedughing while rolling on the ground when hearing this.


    ¡°Although the basic concept of using sword techniques is to attack the enemy¡¯s weakness to gain an advantage, you are probably the only person in the world who can take things to such an extent. You carry out every rule perfectly. You perfectly force your enemy into making a mistake. You perfectly make others want to vomit...¡±


    Leona¡¯s mouth then really started twitching as if she did want to vomit.


    I understood. Leona really was someone addicted to the study of swordsmanship... And then, she really did vomit! Hey, this was probably because she was pregnant, and not something rted to me!


    I wasn¡¯t angry at all, honest! But, let¡¯s just say, if her exnation didn¡¯t satisfy me... I would dissect her again.


    ¡°The sword reflects the person. With such swordsmanship, you should be incredibly selfish, selfish to the point of ignoring all the rules of the world. You must be incredibly arrogant, arrogant to the point of always following the rules you set for yourself. You must be incredibly obsessed, obsessed to the point of believing that the world should operate by your own rules. It¡¯s just as if, as if...¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s a tyrant!¡± Harloys eximed.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, a tyrant! That¡¯s the word I¡¯m looking for. You are a born tyrant. Incredible selfishness and rule with incredible arrogance. How can any normal woman possibly withstand such a personality?¡±


    I nced at the silly cat who had now returned and was under my foot. Harloys was currently lifting up a sign that said ¡°10 out of 10 points!¡± It seemed that Harloys was highly satisfied with Leona¡¯s assessment of me...


    My mouth was now twitching. Why did all of this sound like Karwenz was on the side of justice, while I was the big bad of the story?


    ¡°I¡¯m clearly a good person...¡± I muttered... in a low voice, because even I didn¡¯t believe it.


    ¡°Actually, this is so urate. If only you and Karwenz had swapped ces back then, with him being a Holy Knight and you going to fight the demons, it would likely now be Abyss Prince Rnd and Strongest Holy Knight Karwenz now. Not only that, both of you would be even better at those roles. The slyest and most vicious Demon Lord of all versus the sunny and bright Child of Holy Light...¡±


    The silly cat unhesitatingly spread salt on my wounds. Had I forgotten to feed her cat food or something recently...?


    ¡°...However, such a hypothetical is useless to begin with. Personalities are personalities. Standpoints are standpoints. You¡¯re currently standing here on this side. Do you regret it?¡±


    Although I would perhaps feel pain and sorrow about the past, did I regret? I had taken every step myself and tried my very best. What would I want to regret?


    Regret? What a joke.


    ¡°Even if you asked Karwenz, he would probably respond in the same way. Since neither of you regret things, then why worry about such things?¡±


    I nodded and then shook my head.


    ¡°...He hasn¡¯t even evolved to the point of knowing what regret is. But right now, I really do hope that he will regret.¡±

 Chapter 712 - Karwenz’s Goal

    Chapter 712: Karwenz¡¯s Goal


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    ¡°...He hasn¡¯t even evolved to the point of knowing what regret is. But right now, I really do hope that he will regret, and that he will consider the consequences.¡±


    What exactly was Karwenz doing? What was his goal?


    I had some good inferences already, but I was unable toe to a final conclusion.


    The reason for this? I didn¡¯t dare to believe that he could possibly be that foolish.


    Leona had been correct. Karwenz¡¯s personality was quite pure. For his whole life, he always did whatever he wanted. If he wanted to cry, he would cry. If he wanted to cause a ruckus, he would cause a ruckus. If I as his older brother made him angry in some way, he would directly rebel.


    His natural talents and abilities had always supported him sessfully along the entire way. It could be said that in Karwenz¡¯s mind, everything had always gone well for him.


    It would only be natural for someone like Karwenz to do something that could be considered major international news. Hecked fear and respect due to being favored by the heavens. He would instinctively feel that everything going his way would be for the best.


    That all made him fearless.


    Meanwhile, I was the exact opposite.


    I could probably be called the embodiment of pessimism. Countless failures caused me to habitually ount for everything ¡°unexpected¡± in any n that I made. I wouldn¡¯t count on anything that possibly relied on luck. If even a 90% sess n could fail, then I could only scheme until the n reached 120% sess rate and eliminate all possible unexpected oues.


    Maybe this sounded too abstract, so allow me to give an example.


    For instance, if there was a lottery, Karwenz might buy two tickets on a whim and hope that he would win on that same day. With his luck, this was actually possible.


    As for me, I would never y a lottery to begin with, since I would know that I would never be lucky.


    If I actually purchased a lottery ticket one day, the only possibility would be that I had already bribed the lottery¡¯s organizer to let me win.


    As for this time, if my inference was correct, Karwenz intended on using the entire world to buy a ¡°lottery ticket¡±.


    The chance of winning would be infinitesimally small. If Karwenz didn¡¯t win his gamble, we would all be finished.


    ¡°...Rnd, just what does Karwenz want to do?¡±


    Indeed, just what did he want to do?


    Actually, the clues were before me already. I just didn¡¯t dare to think about what he might be doing.


    Karwenz was searching for the location of Cynthia¡¯s true physical body. He was trying to seize the power to control the Chaos Abyss itself. Basically, he was trying to seize the Creator Goddess of Chaos Cynthia¡¯s power and authority.


    Was he doing this for the sake of power? Actually, power by itself would be meaningless. Everyone in the world knew that the strongest individual existence in the world was the God of Holy Light. Yet, it would still be impossible for the God of Holy Light to defeat the entire Chaos Abyss by himself.


    Karwenz was already standing at the peak of the world in strength. What if he became even stronger? Even if he became able topletely suppress other Main God level existences, it would be highly difficult to kill them. And even if he became able to kill them, what would that change?


    This was a gigantic world with countless species and innumerable Gods. The death of certain individuals, including Main Gods, would indeed cause certain species to weaken immensely. However, this would still be far from changing the entire world.


    If you killed Main God A, that Main God¡¯s species would remain weak for the next several centuries. A new Main God B would naturally appear to take over the position left empty by Main God A¡¯s death, and a new species would take over under Main God B.


    Perhaps those species in question would really mind such things, but the world wouldn¡¯t mind at all.


    It wasn¡¯t Karwenz¡¯s style to only seek more power. If that was all this was, Karwenz definitely would have showed up in front of me to brag already... and I would have no reason to stop him!


    He had been constantly avoiding me, which meant only one thing: what he wanted to do was something that he knew I wouldn¡¯t be able to ept.


    He was trying to seize the authority of the Creator Goddess of Chaos in order to realize a goal. This goal was something I absolutely wouldn¡¯t be able to ept, to the point where I would likely try to fight him to the death.


    Karwenz¡¯s goal was now evident to me with all these clues.


    I hadn¡¯t dared to believe it, and had constantly searched for additional evidence as this time, he was going truly overboard.


    ¡°...Karwenz intends to open up Eich¡¯s dimensional barriers.¡±


    The silly cat paused in surprise for a moment, but then she had an expression that indicated she didn¡¯t care.


    In Harloys¡¯ eyes, she probably viewed the dimensional barrier as being around the world of Eich, but since the Holy War had started and plenty of dimensional invaders would be attacking, there wouldn¡¯t be much difference even without the dimensional barrier.


    ¡°I¡¯m not talking about the dimensional barrier that you¡¯re thinking about. I¡¯m talking about the dimensional barrier that cuts Eich off from the countless universes.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s expression became even stranger. As she was a native resident of Eich, this was beyond her original level of understanding.


    To give an analogy, this would be like trying to tell someone from the Middle Ages of my original world of Earth that there were actually aliens ons which were thousands of light years away. That person from the Middle Ages would likely first ask you what the word ¡± meant.


    ¡°What¡¯s outside the dimensional barrier?¡±


    What was outside? I really wanted to bring out the dimensional invaders from the game¡¯s history to p Karwenz in the face with... Yet, he would probably instead be filled with fighting spirit, wanting to challenge them. However, my System stopped me.


    [My abilities are only effective in Eich. The extradimensional existences are what I extrapted from previous information.]


    The Creator Goddess of Order¡¯s power was limited to only calcting things rted to the world of Eich. The mystical existences outside of the dimensional barrier were beyond her abilities to begin with.


    And in the game¡¯s history, the Goddesses of Order and Chaos had revived and fought each other to an end result of both dying. The dimensional barrier created from their power which protected Eich naturally then disappeared.


    Naturally, it wouldn¡¯t be possible to calcte things that were beyond the Creator Goddesses¡¯ abilities. That was why Astrya had used data on the dimensional invaders from back before her first battle with Cynthia... But, there really wasn¡¯t much meaning to it, as when the two Creator Goddesses died, everything else in Eich had died as well.


    In a way, the development of the world of Eich was incredibly distorted. Such distortion originated from the Creator Goddesses¡¯ battle over the world.


    Originally, this world had been quite peaceful under the rule of the Goddesses of Order and Chaos. Ordinary mortals coexisted peacefully in this world. Demons weren¡¯t born evil, as they had originally been the guards of this world. Nor had angels represented order. The Titans were the strongest artisans around. The dragons didn¡¯t see other species as insects back then.


    Dimensional invaders came to Eich. Cruel war destroyed everything. Although the residents of Eich were able to obtain victory under the lead of the Goddesses of Order and Chaos, all that remained to them was endless pain, sorrow, and rubble left behind by the war.


    In order to avoid such catastrophe from repeating itself, the two Goddessesbined their powers together to create a dimensional barrier protecting Eich. Since they had seen already just how powerful the dimensional invaders could be, there was a possibility that their barrier could be broken through, so they couldn¡¯t rest assured.


    And so, the Goddesses wished for themselves as well as the species of Eich to be stronger.


    That was the reason behind everything. Let us now look at the results.


    Ever since then, civilization in Eich began to develop in a distorted fashion. When countries and even entire species began to seek only greater power, and all cultural progress was measured by their effectiveness in war, this was evidently no longer normal.


    Whenever war was ongoing, art, music, literature, and other such ¡°luxuries¡± would be deemed no longer necessary. Only weapons and military industries would be supported. Progress in magic wasn¡¯t for the sake of making life easier for the citizens, but instead in order to kill one¡¯s enemies in an even better and quicker manner.


    But at this time, the mortals and Gods still had fresh memories of just how powerful the dimensional invaders had been. It seemed only logical to search for greater strength so that they could protect themselves.


    After that, the Goddesses of Order and Chaos disagreed with each other on how to be stronger.


    The Goddess of Order Astrya believed that Order was the greatest source of strength. She wanted to transform all of society into a mega behemoth where all existences were simply parts of the greater whole. Having strict Order enforced would help this behemoth to be even stronger... This meant to her that every individual of every species had a responsibility to carry out their own ¡°Order¡± assigned to them ever since birth.


    As for the Goddess of Chaos Cynthia... well, the Chaos Abyss and the demons were the best evidence of what she thought. The Holy War, in its own way, was also this world¡¯s version of a civil war. The Goddess of Chaos desired evolution and survival of the fittest. She believed that weaker civilizations and species deserved to be eliminated in the Holy War. Civilizations and species which were still able to progress would grow ever stronger on top of the corpses of other species.


    Of course, with the Holy War ongoing for countless years already, mortal species had long since forgotten the original reason for the Holy War. They would be quite happy already if they could survive until the end of the Holy War.


    But... what if the dimensional barrier protecting Eich suddenly vanished all day? What would happen if the powerful dimensional invaders from other universes reappeared?


    Such a thing shouldn¡¯t have been possible to begin with. The two Creator Goddesses still tightly held on to the keys to the dimensional barrier. Even if the dimensional barrier copsed, it would only copse on the day of Armageddon in the game¡¯s history.


    But now, Karwenz had sessfully rebelled against Cynthia. Perhaps he had already obtained the key to the dimensional barrier. In that case, it was possible for anything to happen.


    Maybe countless dimensional invaders would descend andpletely destroy this world?


    I wouldn¡¯t be able to ept that no matter what. I had worked so hard to ensure that this Holy War would be the final Holy War to end all Holy Wars. It was finally the dawn before the next morning, yet the battle¡¯s scale was going to be elevated yet again?


    I truly hoped that I was wrong with my inference, and that Karwenz wouldn¡¯t be so foolish... But I kept feeling like no matter what angle I looked at things, this was the most convincing conclusion I coulde up with.


    ¡°...Perhaps I truly won¡¯t have any ability to hold back anymore.¡±

 Chapter 713 - Choice

    <h4>Chapter 713: Choice</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    My days spent searching for information were rather boring, yet also not so boring.


    During the day, I would keep traveling. I would practice swordsmanship with Leona whenever I got bored, and at night, I would enter Harloys¡¯ Soul World to continue studying and improving my magic skills. At the very least, it felt like I was using my time productively.


    Leona¡¯s talent for swordsmanship was quite astonishing.


    Her swordsmanship level would still require time to further improve. However, she really was quite talented, especially at imitating other Sword Saints¡¯ styles.


    This was especially more so whenever she imitated Karwenz. She imitated him so sessfully that I was almost unable to hold myself back several times already...


    Soon, it became time for me to make a choice for our journey¡¯s next step.


    ¡°To the west is Bardi and the Mage Country. We can go to find a prophet to help us out there, but we might also get involved in trouble since Bardi is still currently at war with the undead. But with your abilities and connections, this shouldn¡¯t be of any difficulty.


    ¡°To the southwest is San Antonio. If the calctions are correct, the Sun God¡¯s mirror should be there. However, we also might get involved in trouble, the major kind of it. There¡¯s a proper demon army there. Reputation won¡¯t be as useful as violence there. Even the strongest individual might die if they get dragged into a direct battle against the demon army.¡±


    Harloys kindly exined our options to me, while also exposing her preference that I would go to the Mage Country.


    This wasn¡¯t because of her personal desire or anything like that... I thought about it, but at most it was because Harloys wanted face.


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s about face. So what? I¡¯m giving you supplementary lessons every night, yet you¡¯re still unable to progress in power level? You¡¯re truly the most idiotic student that I¡¯ve ever taught!¡±


    Fine, she even spoke the most taboo words for a teacher which would harm a student¡¯s self-confidence. I couldn¡¯t sense even one hint of joking in her tone. She was being serious! She really did think that I was the most idiotic out of all her students!


    ¡°...If you¡¯re so skilled, thenpete with me in undead magic and soul magic. I¡¯ll even give you a free power level handicap.¡±


    ¡°Sure. If you¡¯re so confident, then rank up to the next power level with undead magic!¡±


    The silly cat was always able toe up with words that I couldn¡¯t counter. Although I indeed wanted to power up via undead magic, not only did my incredibly dangerous death magic sword have extremely high requirements for the resources to craft it, the sword itself was also too dangerous. I was worried that I wouldn¡¯t be able to control it until I had enough power, which was why my death magic sword was lower in priority on my list of things I needed to aplish.


    Besides, it would be quite important to determine which type of power I used to achieve the next power level.


    Myth-ranked weapons were still a part of the physical body. The power would naturally belong to the physical body and somewhat influence the body.


    A Level 4 Holy Light user could have light that was blinding, warm and friendly, or solemn. But, any undead mage would appear as if they were surrounded by dark winds, giving them an ominous appearance.


    In a way, this was a passive effect of one¡¯s own power. I had yet to meet a single Undead Emperor who appeared like they were honest and on the side of justice.


    The impression that one¡¯s physical body gave others would also influence the spirit and the soul, creating a certain amount of change in one¡¯s personality and aura.


    Adam would appear to be the hot-blooded and passionate type. Margaret always seemed to be so mysterious. Although it sounded rather mystical to talk about the influence of auras, there really was such a thing.


    I didn¡¯t really care about my personal image. However, my death magic sword¡¯s design was overly extreme. It would definitely have a strong influence on my body. If I identally transformed myself into a lich again, that would be far too embarrassing.


    I was someone living again. I was a human, a species of Order. If I didn¡¯t want to change my image, then my best choices would be to level up using the power of Law or the power of Holy Light.


    Ice magic would only be my third choice. Leveling up using the power of ice magic would likelye with side effects such as always having a chilly aura and icy expression, but that was still eptable.


    I personally felt that Holy Light would be the best choice as Holy Knights seemed so shiny and proper, which would make it easier for me to find a wife... Ahem, I meant would make it easier for me tomunicate with leaders of other countries!


    ¡°You want to improve your luck with women? I think that if you choose the Holy Light path, you¡¯ll only receive even more ¡®You¡¯re a nice person, but...¡¯ rejections. Don¡¯t you know how bad Holy Knights have it in this day and age? The sunny guy type isn¡¯t that popr anymore. Right now, women really prefer icy but handsome CEOs. Your face is really suitable for going down the path of icy guy... Fine, I admit that I¡¯m just spouting rubbish.¡±


    Harloys was still trying to convince me to go to Bardi, but she was losing confidence as she kept saying so. The look in her eyes kept bing more pitiful as if she was aedy actress who was going to star in a tragedy instead.


    Her expression was basically saying, ¡°There¡¯s no saving you. You¡¯re just someone naturally born to be in aedy.¡±


    ¡°Harloys, you bastard! You actually did say it out loud in the end! I¡¯m really mesmerizing when I don¡¯t speak! An adult woman has said that of me before!¡±


    [You actually still remember what your elementary school teacher told you? You even morized her words in such a way... You¡¯re really so pitiful. If only I had eyes, I would surely shed some tears for your sake.]


    I now deeply understood just how devastating it was to have a mind-reading cat who was highly skilled at spreading salt on my wounds, along with having an ¡°auntie¡± who knew all the darkest memories in my mind.


    Cough, getting back on topic, the silly cat was concerned about the power type that I would use to level up, but it actually wouldn¡¯t matter too much in the long run, since all four of my powers would still find a bnce. It would only be a matter of which power affected my personal image more.


    I understood why she would be so concerned, since she didn¡¯t even try to hide it from me.


    She wanted me to power up by using ice magic, which she had personally taught me, rather than leveling up through Holy Light which Estrada had taught me.


    If I went to the Mage Country, she would be able to continue filling my mind with soul books. Plus, with the Cloud Tower¡¯s tremendous number of magical texts and plenty of ice magic grandmasters there, it would be highly likely for me to sessfully level up there.


    If I instead went to go search for the Sun God¡¯s magic mirror first, I would likely be able to level myself up if I found it. Naturally, that mirror would be a resource forpleting my Holy Light magic sword.


    This was why she wanted me to go to the Mage Country first as she would gain more face if I leveled up using the path that she taught me.


    But in the end, I still decided to first go search for the mirror andplete Dawn, my Holy Light sword... And from then on, the silly cat stuck her teeth into my head for aplete week, even to the point where I felt like I was bing anemic...


    This wasn¡¯t because I had chosen to favor Estrada¡¯s path of Holy Light, but rather because of my simple overall assessment of the situation.


    Indeed, Bardi looked to be quite safe. Emperor Halent of Bardi and I were on good terms, and we were even now ¡°rtives¡± since his sister had be Reyne¡¯s concubine. The Mage Country was sort of like a second home to us, and Sandro of the Undead Emperors was also allied with me.


    However, I couldn¡¯t just look at the good parts. I had to look at the bad. Although Bardi seemed to be quite safe, it would likely be the worst for my safety if my luck was bad.


    ¡°...Harloys, be honest. Are you certain that we won¡¯t just coincidentally run into an Undead Emperor, and that Undead Emperor will ¡®just happen¡¯ to take a great deal of interest in me? What percent chance do you think we¡¯ll have at winning in our current condition against an Undead Emperor?¡±


    Since I was far too logical and reasonable here, the silly cat was unable to refute me.


    Ice magic would be the worst possible choice against an Undead Emperor who didn¡¯t have body temperature in the first ce. It sounded far better to firstplete my sword of Holy Light before going to an area where I might meet Undead Emperors.


    ¡°Can¡¯t you think more optimistically?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve gotten used to being a pessimist. Actually, things could get even worse. For instance, the moment that we try to get a prophecy regarding Karwenz, some Main God level demon will suddenly jump out to try and kill us...¡±


    [Jinxer! Shut up! Don¡¯t you think you¡¯re already unlucky enough!?]


    My System was so correct that I was unable to say anything.


    And so, I promised that ¡°As long as situation permitted, I would use ice magic to level up first¡±, and went to go search for the Holy Light magic mirror first.


    Rather than some probably unreliable prophecy, this ¡°treasure hunt¡± seemed to be far more reliable, after all.


    However, I met with some small trouble at this time.

 Chapter 714 - Ogres

    <h4>Chapter 714: Ogres</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    My decision to go to San Antonio first to find the magic mirror I needed to level up was no impulsive decision.


    As various powerful individuals from other dimensions came to the mortal ne, Legend rank would be asmon as dogs, and even SemiGods would bemonce. There were already several Undead Emperors and Main Gods here in the mortal ne.


    I would definitely not be lucky enough to constantly avoid meeting them. Only by leveling up as quickly as possible would I be able to survive the longest.


    But at this moment, I met with a small obstacle.


    ¡°I¡¯m going with you.¡±


    Leona was quite insistent, but I really didn¡¯t want her to follow me anymore.


    San Antonio was now a war district with battles going on every day. It would definitely be dangerous there.


    What? You¡¯re asking me if Bardi would be the same? Things really wouldn¡¯t be the same in Bardi. In Bardi, the main factions were the Bardi Empire itself, the undead army, the Mage Country, and the wood spirits. Apart from the undead, they were all openly my allies, while I had a secret alliance with Undead Emperor Sandro as well. There would be no problem in Bardi as long as I didn¡¯t meet with any of the other Undead Emperors.


    As for San Antonio... there were the demons, ogres, Holy Church, San Antonio Empire, and angel squadrons. It seemed that just about every faction here would want to kill me.


    No matter what, I had the confidence that I would be able to at least escape even if I met with a battle that I couldn¡¯t win. But if I was burdened with Leona...


    ¡°You could just wait for me in Bardi.¡±


    But, no matter what I tried to tell her, she absolutely refused to separate from me. It seemed that she was afraid that I was trying to scam her.


    I felt a bit of a headache from this. Right now, Leona was still easy to take care of because it was early in her pregnancy, but in five or six months, was I supposed to keep traveling with her when she had a big belly? If someone tried to attack me at such a time...


    Wasn¡¯t this a ssical movie opening? A middle-aged man or young knight would try to escape together with a pregnant woman, but assassins hunted them down. The older man would single-handedly fight off the assassins and die in the process. The older man would typically be the unborn child¡¯s father/uncle/grandfather or something of the sort. The pregnant woman would sessfully give birth and then die afterwards as well...


    The following storyline would involve the child growing up and learning the truth, and then bing determined to get revenge for his mother and father/uncle/grandfather. He would then start walking the path of the harem protagonist. However, I felt that my character in such a plot was rather pitiful. My current role was that of someone who was destined to die in the prologue. Also, weren¡¯t harem protagonists horrible jinxers for everyone close to them? Harem protagonists would usually jinx their entire families to death without having even been born yet!


    ¡°It really feels like Leona¡¯s unborn child¡¯s background and identity match what a harem protagonist would have so well...¡±


    I kept sighing about how many tropes there were here while making up my mind to absolutely avoid bing a pitiful stepping stone for the sake of the ¡°main character¡±... Ahem, I meant that I made my decision for the sake of Leona and her unborn child¡¯s safety!


    *ng!*


    During my daily swordsmanship practice with Leona, I used slightly more strength instead of holding back as I usually did, and knocked Leona unconscious.


    Although her swordsmanship was indeed pretty good, my swordsmanship was still better, and my Strength stat far exceeded hers.


    ¡°Swift Dragon Delivery Service. You¡¯re mailing her to the Cloud Tower¡¯s Truth Symposium. Make sure that she gets there within 15 days. You¡¯llpensate me for three times the value if you lose her, yes?¡±


    A blue dragon knight descended in front of me with thunder, but she didn¡¯t know what expression she should have. She probably didn¡¯t know me very well, as she didn¡¯t know how to respond to my little joke.


    ¡°Smile, you just have to smile.¡±


    The blue dragon knight did her best to smile in order to avoid a diplomatic incident, although it seemed more like she wanted to cry. I started furrowing my eyebrows since she couldn¡¯t understand my jokes at all.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±


    ¡°Luna Halent.¡±


    Her blue dragon draconic might was rather familiar. It seemed that she was another princess who was rted to Bardi Emperor Halent.


    Of course, she wasn¡¯t working for some delivery service. She was actually a high-level dragon knight in Bardi¡¯s dragon knight corps. She had received a request from me to deliver Leona to the Mage Country, which was why Luna had swiftlye to see me, and as I requested, the other dragon knights under Luna¡¯smand were all female as well.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, I will safely bring thisdy to the Cloud Tower. Please rest assured.¡±


    Two female dragon knights whose arms were even thicker than my legs tied Leona to a cargo rack on a blue dragon¡¯s back. I hoped that Leona would enjoy her little aerial trip when she woke up.


    Now then, it was time for...


    ¡°The ogres? They really are so ancient. There¡¯s not enough information on them.¡±


    The ogres¡¯ history was far too old. Their civilization couldpare to the Elven Empire¡¯s. The ogres had once been a mega powerful species that ruled the entire world.


    Just like how humans currently were, back when ogres were at their strongest, they also had multiple Main Gods and countless countries. The entire world was their hunting grounds.


    Yes, hunting grounds. Unlike humans who mainly obtained their food through agriculture, the ogre civilization was more primitive and focused on hunting and gathering. What this meant was that the ogres were destined to be the mortal enemies of all other species, because they would hunt other species for meat. To the ogres, humans were nothing more than livestock with excellent reproduction abilities.


    The ogres were a tribal society, and would choose a king to rule the entire tribe. The ogres believed in very. They would eat other intelligent species. The ogres also worshiped the primitive shamanic sects of nature. Those were all ogre traits.


    In fact, the ogres even believed that eating powerful members of their own kind would help them to obtain the devoured individual¡¯s strength. Although this was quite primitive and barbaric, it indeed worked for them. The ogres had natural talents and voodoo magic that indeed allowed them to obtain power from what they ate.


    Many people would view ogres as all being the same. This was actually a big misunderstanding. As ogres were one of the former ruling species of the world, there were actually countless ogre subspecies.


    Just as how the elves had four major Superior Elf species and countless subspecies, and how the beastmen had powerful and weak tribes ording tobat strength, or how humans would have many half-human species, there were too many ogre subspecies to even count.


    Forest ogres, ins ogres, ice ogres, fire ogres, and so on. They would all have tremendous physical differences and different natural talents.


    The most obviousmon trait between all ogres would be that they would always have powerful physical bodies and fangs that protruded from their mouths, and whenpared to other species, ogres¡¯ regenerative capabilities and durability would be incredibly strong.


    Ogres weren¡¯t actually blood-rted to demons or devils. It was just that ogres were lumped together with demons and devils after finally being defeated.


    Ogre blood had no demonic traits about it. In fact, it was the opposite. Ogres possessed the power of the elements. Many ogres would have natural talents that allowed them to transform into elemental creatures, or absorb or release elemental power. This was obvious evidence that they were intimately connected to elemental creatures and the Elemental nes.


    Ogres had innate elemental bloodlines. They had a long history of voodoo magic and witchcraft. Ogres had a rather high proportion of mages. Since they also had powerful physical bodies and the special ability to gain the power of whatever they devoured, the ogres were indeed powerful to the point where they could easily suppress other species back in ancient times.


    I had researched the ogres¡¯ history before. The humans, elves, dwarves, and beastmen had all allied together in order to overthrow the Ogre Empire¡¯s rule. It could be said that it took the alliance of the three major species of Order together with the beastmen, which would be about half of thebat strength of the entire mortal ne, inbination with a bloody war of attrition before finally being able to defeat the Ogre Empire which trended more towards the side of Chaos.


    I should also mention that the current beastmen were also descendants of the former Ogre Empire. Their bloodlines were rted. The beastmen had stolen much of the ogres¡¯ inheritance. That was how they had managed to establish the major Beastmen Empire afterwards.


    ¡°Human undead mages and ck knights, beastmen warlocks and berserkers, elven magic warriors and mages, dwarf mountain kings and griffin knights. Back then, all of these job sses had actually fought together on the same side. How inconceivable...¡±


    The ogres hated humans because thetter had been the main leading force in resisting them, even though the humans were supposed to only be livestock. The human undead mages were the natural counter to ogre shamans and warlocks.


    The ogres hated elves because the sly elves had done much behind the scenes to organize all the other species to band together. The elves were the slyest maniptors behind the scenes.


    Then, the ogres hated the beastmen more than any other species because traitors would always be hated the most.


    The ogres didn¡¯t actually hate the dwarves that much. The ancient dwarves were almost as powerful individually as ogres were. In ogre culture, it was a type of glory to die to a powerful warrior. However...


    The dwarves absolutely hated the ogres!


    The elves were sly enough to manipte things from behind the scenes. The beastmen weren¡¯t afraid of losses because of their strong reproductive abilities. The humans were also quite sly and had strong reproductive abilities as well. It was the dwarves who had lost the most in the vicious battle to overthrow the Ogre Empire¡¯s rule.


    Many powerful ancient dwarven species went extinct in the war against the ogres. The ogres started many bloody ughters that caused severe losses to the dwarves, especially when entire dwarven species and inheritances were lost.


    During the difficult war of attrition, since dwarves always had the personality trait of not ever backing down, they suffered the most losses. The fact that the Superior Dwarves went almostpletely extinct also directly led to the dwarven civil wars afterwards.


    Therge loss of dwarven poption and loss of many dwarven inheritances caused the dwarves to gradually be a second-rate species, especially since their reproductive abilities weren¡¯t that strong.


    I even heard that there was a volunteer dwarf army fighting against the ogres on San Antonio¡¯s frontlines right now.


    The ogres hated most of the major species of the mortal ne, but of the major species of the mortal ne, only the dwarves still held on to their longstanding grudge against the ogres. The other short-lived species had long since forgotten about the ogres.


    Back then, the four major species that sessfully ¡°rebelled¡± against the ogres would never have given the ogres any chance to recover. For quite a long while after, ogre heads were worth a lot of money. In such a cruel environment, the great majority of ogre tribes either disappeared or moved deep into the mountains and forests,pletely regressing to bestial lows.


    In fact, the prevailing schrly theory of today was that the intelligent ogres had already be extinct. However, when this Holy War began, not only did the ogre tribes reappear in front of everyone, even Main God level individuals had reappeared.


    There was only one exnation for this. The ogres had left a path of retreat for themselves. They had to have realized already that their species would no longer be the ruling species. Since it was destined that they would lose the war against them, they left what they could behind to await a new opportunity to gain power. And now, this was probably their best and final ¡°chance¡±.


    ¡°It really is so difficult to deal with...¡±


    At the beginning of the Holy War, the ogres who returned to Eich seemed to change their past cruel ways. They were abnormally friendly to the humans in San Antonio. However, the ogres then revealed that this was all for the sake of having their demon alliese to the mortal ne, ripping off that fake mask of friendliness.


    The sight of ogres in the Chaos Abyss had long since been recorded in the history books. Judging from this,rge numbers of ogres had probably escaped to the Chaos Abyss back in the day. It could be said that they had a solid alliance with the demons.


    And since the ogres still had Main God level powerful individuals among them, this meant that their culture and inheritance had never been broken. Naturally, their ancient grudges would still be with them, even if the ruling human kingdoms had long since forgotten about the ogres¡¯ existence. Only the undead from the Tark Republic would still remember the ogres.


    In the Holy War, it would be rare for there to be anything right or wrong about any war between species. The only rule was thew of the jungle, where the victor would survive, and the loser would die.


    I absolutely hated this whole system. However, since I was a human, I was also someone who benefited from this system as humans were now the ruling species. So, when thinking about this in more detail, I would always feel rather contradictory. But at the very least, I wouldn¡¯t be foolish enough to say that human ancestors had been in the wrong, and that peace was the best thing in the world. That would mean that humans would be relegated to being a second-rate species again, and be livestock and ves for other species.


    Yet, there really still were traitors to all of humanity working for the ogres currently. Such people truly were so foolish and evil that I didn¡¯t even know how toment on it.


    The ogres¡¯ original friendly behavior had long since been abandoned with the arrival of the demons and ogres¡¯ powerful individuals. Right now, the eastern battlefront in San Antonio was bing ever more of a meat grinder.


    Unfortunately, as I analyzed the map, I became more and more certain that the ancient ruin with the magic mirror I was looking for was located right in the middle of the ogres¡¯ current territory.

 Chapter 715 - San Antonio

    <h4>Chapter 715: San Antonio</h4>


    San Antonio was an ancient and powerful human mega empire that would be a candidate for the most powerful country in Eich.


    San Antonio¡¯s territory was incredibly vast, and included the golden ins that was the beastmen¡¯s homnd, the wide mountain ranges to the south, and even a coastal wends region. It could be said that San Antonio had abundant resources and tremendous poption.


    Compared to other human mega empires, San Antonio treated other species more moderately. Perhaps this was because its territory was simply too vast. There were many gathering grounds for other species on the border of where humans lived, such as dwarven or gnome gathering grounds. San Antonio had astonishingbat potential.


    San Antonio¡¯s rulers in history had also been quite intelligent. They were quite good at strategy. Unlike Bardi, And, Suolo Federation, Xiluo, and other such powerful countries that liked to use forceful means, San Antonio preferred to use strategy to resolve their problems.


    Andpared to the elves who always managed to shoot themselves in the foot, San Antonio¡¯s diplomatic strategy was far slyer.


    For instance, in the Nortnds, San Antonio supported the Kasn Kingdom (Dukedom). The archduke of Kasn also held the status of being a noble of San Antonio. Basically, this helped San Antonio to establish a wall of defense against the beastmen in the north, as well as cing a spy inside the Nortnds.


    When San Antonio noticed that it would be impossible for them to prevent the Nortnds countries from allying together to form the Mist Alliance, and with the pressure from other major countries, San Antonio simply abandoned Kasn, and even summoned back its general and San Antonio nobility in the Nortnds.


    Strategically speaking, this would doubtlessly be the best course of action. Retracting one¡¯s defense lines before the Holy War should be a good thing. There was also no more need to be on guard against the Nortnds beastmen. Being able to unhesitatingly abandon useless ¡°limbs¡± was evidence of San Antonio¡¯s strategical wisdom.


    Right before the Holy War, San Antonio even started several wars and conquered several small countries, but when San Antonio confirmed the danger of the Holy War, they unhesitatingly returned thend to those small countries.


    San Antonio had the #1 poption of all countries, was the #1 producer of food, was #1 in industrial potential, and had the #1 economy. In all areas, San Antonio led the world.


    However, a certain matter had been greatly weakening San Antonio¡¯s strength over the past several years.


    Internal warfare. What apart from this would swiftly cause a decline in national strength?


    San Antonio¡¯s ruler, Emperor Hant the Second, suddenly died unexpectedly. His brother Winston, who held quite some power, started a war against Princess Maria. The warsted for three and a half years, with no victor in the end.


    The ever worsening situation of the Holy War caused the two factions to decide that they should make peace with each other. If I recalled correctly, San Antonio was now split up into tworge territories across the golden ins and golden channel. The northern portion belonged to Prince Winston, while the southern portion belonged to Empress Maria.


    In name, Empress Maria was the rightful heir. However, her rule was only effective across 40% of San Antonio¡¯snd, ruling over 35% of San Antonio¡¯s poption. Prince Winston had been the prime minister of the San Antonio Empire, and in his territory, everyone treated him like an emperor.


    It should also be mentioned that Prince Winston was also simultaneously the leader of the empire¡¯s royal knight order. More than 70% of royal knights were loyal to him. Meanwhile, Empress Maria was the strongest demon warlock in the world. Her mage groups and army of familiars were thergest mage army in the entirend.


    Originally, the citizens of San Antonio had loathed Empress Maria for being a demon warlock. However, she proved to everyone by ying countless demons in bloody battle that she wasn¡¯t allied with the Chaos Abyss. It was quite effective for her to use the Chaos Abyss¡¯s power against itself.


    What I found the most inconceivable was that Maria was also Ayer¡¯s Divine Envoy. This meant that Death God Ayer favored her tremendously. In fact, she was even capable of borrowing Ayer¡¯s power, which I found rather iprehensible.


    I tried to ask Ayer about this as he was now the Death God of Hell. However, he wouldn¡¯t reply to me. It seemed that Ayer had no intention of bringing Maria to the Hell Faction. He would only smile mysteriously whenever he was asked about her.


    Since Maria was still capable of borrowing power from Ayer even now, it was as if she was his daughter... In fact, there really were boring rumors about her being Ayer¡¯s illegitimate daughter, but nobody treated those rumors seriously.


    Getting back on topic, all of San Antonio was under attack by an allied invasion of ogres and demons.


    In Empress Maria¡¯s territory, the main enemies she had to deal with were Inferno Demons and me Ogres that had walked out of the Saffey Mountains. The volcanic mountain district there had already been transformed into an abyssal sea of fire. Countless Corruptors and Burning Demons were born there, and since Empress Maria herself was a demon warlock who ¡°needed to be cleansed¡±, she had an incredibly bad rtionship with the Holy Church, and received zero help from them.


    Meanwhile, Prince Winston¡¯s territory contained the Amu Mountains, which was now thergest meat grinder battlefield in all of Eich. The ogres¡¯ main army was located there. The ogre tribe leader Muljin had also been spotted there. The Holy Church established a defense line there, but the angel squadrons had already been eradicatedpletely three times so far. They¡¯d even lost their fortress.


    With such a setting, countless knights and mercenaries were heading there to realize their dreams every day. Countless corpses and permanently crippled warriors were also removed from the battlefield on a daily basis. I appeared to be an ordinary human Holy Knight when I arrived here, so nobody paid me any attention.


    ¡°War? That¡¯s so far off. That¡¯s just a minor problem in the border area. San Antonio will definitely be victorious in the end.¡±


    ¡°Have you heard? Her Majesty Maria and Prince Winston made an agreement that whoever achieved greater things between them in the Holy War would be the only ruler of San Antonio after the Holy War.¡±


    When I entered Kestan, the original capital of San Antonio, I saw no panic about the ongoing war. The entire capital had just finished with its new year celebrations. Everything inside the city appeared to be peaceful and flourishing.


    In fact, many San Antonio citizens were quite happy that the demons and ogres had arrived, because this meant that San Antonio¡¯s damned civil war had finallye to an end.


    Of course, their confidence and casual attitude had a basis. Obviously, they knew that San Antonio was one of the strongest countries in thend. Also, the war had only been limited to the remote mountainous districts of San Antonio so far. The major nobles and domain lords had yet to start participating in battle. That all gave them confidence.


    My first thing to do upon arriving in the capital of Kestan was to gather all sorts of information.


    This wasn¡¯t because I was itching to spread even more rumors of myself as a golden-armored demon hunter. It was just that the map I had obtained from Sun God Aloyo was far too ancient. His map¡¯s coordinates and markings were outdated by several tens of thousands of years. The current cartographical condition of thend was immensely different. I needed to find additional maps from modern to ancient times, andpare the historical data in order to figure out the specific location of the magic mirror I was looking for.


    When talking about having the best and most historical information, of course the royal pce would be the right ce to look.


    Thus, I simply went directly to visit the royal pce of San Antonio. I figured I might as well meet Prince Winston and see what type of person he was.


    But, I¡¯d never expected that I would first meet someone I hadn¡¯t thought I would see here.


    ¡°You¡¯re...¡±


    I met an old man who had a kindly appearance. However, the abundant Holy Light around his head made it difficult to see his face.


    Although I had never personally met him before, his portraits were stered everywhere in thend. I highly doubted that I would mistake him for someone else.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you the Pope of the Holy Church? Pope Caloma the First?¡±

 Chapter 716 - Coincidental Meeting

    <h4>Chapter 716: Coincidental Meeting</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Every country¡¯s historical and geographical information would likely be that country¡¯s important historical treasure and inheritance. This information was important enough to determine a country¡¯s survival. In the world of Eich, privately making or keeping your own maps would be considered traitorous evidence of rebellion.


    Such historical and geographical information would rarely be found in public libraries or nobles¡¯ libraries. What little information that could be found would usually be rather poor or fake. The best-quality historical and geographical information would usually be kept by the royalty. It would be rare for the royalty to loan this information out to others.


    I was toozy to search by myself. I directly sent the royal pce a greeting using my real name so that it would be easy for me to get an audience.


    Of course, I wasn¡¯t foolish enough to directly tell them my objective. I simply imed that I was here as the Mist Alliance¡¯s representative to discuss matters of the Holy War with them...


    ¡°Who can tell me why things have be like this...?¡±


    I was currently in an ancient and extravagant conference room. An expensive magical light was on the ceiling, expensive artwork was on the walls, and even all of the servants and maids bustling about were either incredibly handsome or beautiful, which was a rare sight.


    However, what made me feel the strangest were the identities of the two others who were sitting with me at a rectangr table in the conference room.


    Those two were Prince Winston and Pope Caloma of the Holy Church.


    None of us were speaking, while all three of us were smiling. However, all of our smiles were different.


    Prince Winston was smiling slyly as if he was only here to watch the show. Pope Caloma was smiling gently as an elder would.


    While I was smiling as well, inside my mind I was cursing, and wondering just what exactly was going on. Why did I just happen to run into the Holy Church having a secret meeting with San Antonio? Not only that, they happened to have a formal meeting right when I came here.


    San Antonio was currently allied with the Holy Church. They were fighting on a shared defense line against the demons and ogres. It seemed only normal for Pope Caloma to secretlye and visit San Antonio.


    10 minutes earlier, the two of them had been in the middle of a discussion when servants hurriedly ran into the conference room to notify them of Rnd¡¯s arrival. After that, since Prince Winston just wanted to watch the show, he told me that he would meet me immediately.


    And so, the two of them greeted me in front of the royal pce, and then we came to this conference room and sat around the table, awkwardly looking at each other.


    Prince Winston didn¡¯t really care, but Pope Caloma and I were feeling rather awkward. This was because in a way, Pope Caloma and I were mortal enemies who really wanted to kill each other, but on the surface, we were still supposed to be solid allies.


    Pope Caloma had arge beard and kindly appearance. He kept his eyes closed, and it was difficult to tell what he was thinking. My first impression of this pope was that he was a sly old fox.


    The atmosphere became even more awkward because none of us were saying anything.


    It was unlikely that Pope Caloma would be able to discuss the battles on the frontline with me around. Exposing their own secrets was only minor problem inparison to losing face in front of me, their enemy.


    If things were going well on the frontlines, then there would be no need for Pope Caloma to personallye here.


    I didn¡¯t say anything, as I felt that no matter what I said, it would only bring trouble upon myself.


    My original n was that once the situation of the Holy War was rtively stable, I would take some strength from every allied country and establish an elite international alliance army, called the Dawn Army, that would support every location which was in danger.


    This was no sudden idea of mine. I had indeed been nning this out for many years already.


    I had already chosen Barton, who had been born in a small country, to be the overallmander of the Dawn Army. Barton was currently undergoing cramming sessions in military school in the Bardi Empire. A few months back, he even wrote me a letter which reported on his progress as well as telling me that he was now feeling young again. It seemed that he was doing quite well.


    My new army was highly mobile. It included Bardi¡¯s dragon knights, the Mist Alliance¡¯s airships, undead bone dragons, And¡¯s fleet, and so on. They were all precious elite forces. This first group in the new army didn¡¯t have much overallbat strength, and their use would be quite limited on major battlefields and in direct fights. However, they would be a critical force when used to support smaller countries.


    Perhaps this army didn¡¯t mean much as of yet. However, the meaning behind this army was actually really important. The Dawn Army would be a catalyst for getting rid of the Holy Church. This would be the first allied army between countries that didn¡¯t need to rely on contracts to act.


    This was only a seed. However, this seed represented the possibility of mutual assistance between countries without a church getting involved.


    Perhaps this army would be a new foundation for international stability in the future. Perhaps the Dawn Army¡¯s system and way of helping countriesmunicate would greatly reduce the number of wars in the future.


    Perhaps, several decades down the road, an international organization simr to the United Nations in my previous world would be born here.


    Of course, these goals of mine were still far from being achieved. I wouldn¡¯t even tell others about them, as they would onlyugh at me. I was only doing what I could for now. Whether it seeded or not didn¡¯t matter.


    Originally, Bardi and And had already agreed to join the new Dawn Army. No matter if San Antonio agreed to join or not, it would be necessary to tell them.


    This was a diplomatic secret that was neither major nor minor. Until I seeded, it wouldn¡¯t be convenient to publicize the Dawn Army, and it would be especially inconvenient to let the Holy Church know about it.


    The birth of a new international world order would naturally require trampling over the old international world order. The establishment of a new international authority would mean the weakening of the current religious authority.


    From San Antonio¡¯s standpoint, it was likely that Prince Winston viewed both me and the Holy Church as unreliable allies. Thus, perhaps he would even be able to gain something by intentionally putting me and Pope Caloma together.


    Perhaps Prince Winston felt that my ¡°coincidental¡± appearance was because I wanted to prevent San Antonio from getting any closer to the Holy Church. The fact that he unhesitatingly told me that Pope Caloma was here right now was probably in order to show the Holy Church how direct he could be, in addition to the fact that it would be impossible to conceal the news of my arrival.


    Too many suspicions danced around in my mind, but all of this was actually meaningless.


    When leaders of countries dealt with each other, there wouldn¡¯t always be sincerity or directness involved. There were often situations like this, where none of us knew what to say. Only awkwardness reigned in the atmosphere.


    The air in the conference room felt like it was getting heavier and heavier. We just kept ncing at each other without saying anything. Although it would have been fine to say meaningless diplomatic titudes, that would be an insult to our intelligence at our level.


    And so, we all sat around for half an hour while sipping tea and smiling at each other. Nobody said a single thing. This was incredibly boring.


    Of course, everyone knew that the true secret discussions and negotiations would likely begin tonight.


    Finally, it was now lunchtime. In front of everyone, I directly made my request to look through the geographical information of San Antonio. Prince Winston directly agreed in front of everyone.


    Soon, I also learned that unlike how I was travelling alone, Pope Caloma had brought along four Cardinals, two Holy Knight squadrons, and an angel squadron with him, which was quite therge army for the Holy Church.


    It would seem that the situation on the frontlines was dire to the point where Pope Caloma and his Cardinals were personally taking action in order to regain some face.


    ¡°It seems like I¡¯ll be able to have some fun...¡±

 Chapter 717 - Truth and Rumors

    <strong>Chapter 717: Truth and Rumors</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    ¡°Chaos Girl? What¡¯s that?¡±


    As I habitually gathered information, I actually learned something quite interesting, although I should probably call it a rumor.


    Basically, the rumor said that Empress Maria of San Antonio was actually the reincarnation of some Demon Lord from the Chaos Abyss, which was why she had been born with such natural talent tomand the powers of the Chaos Abyss, helping her to be the strongest demon warlock in the world.


    The rumor also said that as long as she sessfully gained rule over all of San Antonio, the demons would invade and the world would be destroyed¡ªsomething like that.


    Nobody would actually believe such a rumor. Even the information brokers on the streets felt that this was a rumor that Prince Winston had intentionally spread in order to discredit his main rival.


    After all, over the past few years, there had already been too many rumors around about how Maria was the daughter of some demon, secretly allied with the demons, and so on.


    However, someone actually believed such a rumor. That someone was Pope Caloma the First.


    ¡°I am the most devout follower of the Holy Light, Caloma the First. I dere that Maria Sin is the enemy of the Holy Light, and that all believers of the Holy Light must make it their mission to cleanse this evil and corrupt woman.¡±


    On the next day, early in the morning, posters with those words from Pope Caloma were posted all over San Antonio¡¯s capital city.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this all way too unseemly...?¡±


    I was feeling rather helpless. Didn¡¯t they think that it would be too much to y such political schemes at such a point in time?


    San Antonio¡¯s name had the word San in it, which was short for Saint. This was evidence of its religious preference. Most of San Antonio¡¯s citizens worshipped the Holy Light. Using divine authority to suppress royal authority would definitely sound like a good idea.


    Having Pope Caloma announce that Maria was a heretic would help Prince Winston take away her proper right of royal inheritance. Politically speaking, this would indeed be an excellent move.


    However, the Holy War was still ongoing. Weren¡¯t they afraid at all of Maria bing angered and actually joining the Chaos Faction?


    Even if you were the type who would kill the hound after the rabbits die, you would still need to at least wait for the rabbits to die first. Maria still held half of San Antonio. Prince Winston and Pope Caloma weren¡¯t afraid of losing control of their own scheme by breaking unwritten rules like this?


    Demons would never ept humans trying to join them. However, Maria was a demon warlock. She was a type of mage who had a demon bloodline in her. She could easily use a magic ritual to transform herself into an actual demon. Wouldn¡¯t that make things far worse?


    If things really became like that, then the rumor would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe that was what Pope Caloma and Prince Winston actually wanted to happen.


    ¡°I, Rnd Mist, the discoverer of pure Holy Light, the one who carries Estrada¡¯s inheritance, the strongest Holy Knight in the world, dere that Maria Sin is a devout believer of the Holy Light.¡±


    And so, at noontime, I shamelessly used my angel wings to fly into the sky while cosying as an angel to make a loud magical announcement that everyone would hear.


    The Southern Sect¡¯s belief in the pure Holy Light was already widespread in the world of Eich. San Antonio would have plenty of believers in the pure Holy Light. I also wrote a letter to the Southern Sect. In just a few days, it was likely that she would be officially dered a saint.


    Two different churches here were now dering her to be either a heretic or a praiseworthy and devout saint. This had now be a religious conflict between different church branches instead.


    When I descended from the sky, Pope Caloma was ring at me so much as if he wanted to devour me. However, I simply shrugged, indicating that all of it had nothing to do with me.


    ¡°I... I really did receive trustworthy information that she is a heretic who¡¯s an incredibly evil Chaos Girl!¡±


    It really was amusing to see the pope having such an angry expression. Naturally, I replied with great sincerity.


    ¡°I also received very trustworthy information that Empress Maria is indeed a devout worshipper of the Holy Light. I swear on this in the name of the Holy Light.¡±


    Pure Holy Light descended upon me, proving that I wasn¡¯t lying. In fact, ording to my private information sources, Maria the demon warlock was indeed a ridiculously strange worshipper of the Holy Light. I wouldn¡¯t have told them this, though, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I really wanted to contradict the Church of Holy Light right now.


    Pope Caloma was so enraged that he wanted to fight me with his forces right here, but his subordinate Cardinals stopped him from doing so. It was likely that the Cardinals had been worried that he would lose in a fight against me.


    I really wouldn¡¯t be afraid of fighting powerful Holy-Light-wielding individuals. I was already one of the strongest users of Holy Light in the entire world. I wouldn¡¯t fear the great majority of Holy Light Divine Arts. At most, maybe Pope Caloma could use God¡¯s Descent, but I could simply run away then.


    No, wait, perhaps this was actually a good chance for me.


    ¡°Go ahead and perform God¡¯s Descent, Caloma. I¡¯d really like to meet the God of Holy Light¡¯s fourth incarnation. Three of his incarnations were already killed. One by Ayer, one in a certain dimension, and one by a forbidden spell. Heeheehee. He¡¯s probably used up a lot of divine power by now.¡±


    Pope Caloma was so infuriated that he almost had an aneurysm when he heard how I was spheming his God right in front of him.


    In the end, Pope Caloma reached the point where he would angrily be short of breath whenever he saw me. Still, he took his forces to the frontlines as had been originally nned. I was more than happy to enjoy some peace and quiet.


    Meanwhile, I had originally thought that Prince Winston would try to kick me out since I was defending Maria, but he actually treated me even friendlier instead, and invited me many times over for private discussions.


    ¡°Please don¡¯t misunderstand. I really didn¡¯t start that rumor. The pope dered Maria to be a heretic of his own volition; it¡¯s really giving me such a headache. As a person belonging to the military, I do havemon sense. Starting yet another civil war at this time would make me the greatest criminal of our San Antonio,¡± Prince Winston told me.


    He sounded quite sincere, but he was still a politician, which meant I could only listen to his words without believing them. I had seen countless far more ridiculous and foolish decisions by politicians before, all made for the sake of what they believed would bring them more power and benefits.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, I really am telling the truth. No matter who started this rumor and attracted the pope¡¯s attention toe here and dere Maria as a heretic, this person doesn¡¯t only want Maria to be killed. This person is trying to destabilize San Antonio¡¯s entire foundation.¡±


    I hurriedly nodded as it must have been too obvious from my expression that I didn¡¯t believe him.


    ¡°Yes, I understand. I believe you.¡±


    ¡°...Your expression says that you don¡¯t believe me one bit. I really am telling you the truth. Even if I wanted to start another civil war, I would at least wait until the Holy War ends.¡±


    ¡°Yep, yep, you¡¯re definitely telling me the truth.¡±


    Prince Winston was still quite handsome despite his age. He seemed like he really wanted to cry, but in my mind, I was actually praising him for his superb acting skills. His expressions seemed so realistic that I almost would have believed him.


    How much was almost? I would have believed him if only I was 300 years younger. My 14-year-old self definitely would have believed him.


    I didn¡¯t have any intentions of staying for long in San Antonio¡¯s capital city. Afterparing the Sun God¡¯s map to the royal pce¡¯s topographical information, I confirmed a few locations that were most likely to be the ruin I was looking for, so I immediately said goodbye and left.


    My only regret was that I would probably have to leave the matter of inviting San Antonio to join my Dawn Army untilter. Judging from San Antonio¡¯s current situation, they weren¡¯t even able to finish resolving their own problems, so of course they wouldn¡¯t have the time to do anything else.


    But, before I left, I unexpectedly received a thank you letter and invitation from Maria. Basically, she wanted me to pay her a visit so that she could thank me for my assistance.


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t refuse an opportunity to cultivate a rtionship with the other main leader of San Antonio. I would go there even if it was a bit out of my way.


    Not to mention, San Antonio still had the most food stored out of any country in all of Eich even now. Meanwhile, my Mist Alliance was the biggest weapons exporter in all of Eich. As long as we partnered together, trading would naturally benefit both of us immensely.


    What? You¡¯re asking me why I wasn¡¯t selling weapons to Prince Winston instead?


    Prince Winston had his royal knights and the assistance of the Holy Church, and even Pope Caloma and several Cardinals had personally arrived to help here. Why would Prince Winston possibly need our weapons and equipment?


    It could be said that the moment that the Holy Church dered Maria to be a heretic, this made her into a potential ally based on the principle of ¡°the enemy of my enemy is my friend.¡± She would naturally be a good ally for us based on this.


    But as I traveled to meet her, I suddenly noticed that something appeared to be really off.


    ¡°This rumor about Maria being the Chaos Girl is spreading far too quickly and far too wide.¡±

 Chapter 718 - Meeting Gift

    <strong>Chapter 718: Meeting Gift</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    The entire world was burning...


    That was my first impression when I got close to the battlefield.


    No, I hadn¡¯t gone into the Amu Mountains. The Holy Church was still busy fighting against the ogres and demons there. I definitely didn¡¯t want to die without even realizing how.


    The San Antonio royal pce¡¯s topographical information was quite excellent. However, the problem was that the Sun God¡¯s map that Beifeng had mailed me was just far too outdated. Afterparing this several tens of thousands years old map to modern maps, I finally confirmed that the ruin I was looking for would be in one of three possible locations.


    One location was in Maria¡¯s territory, one location was in Winston¡¯s territory, and one location couldn¡¯t be located on the maps. It seemed that the final location was located somewhere in the mountains.


    Since I didn¡¯t want to go into the Amu Mountains to apany Pope Caloma any longer, it was only natural for me to ept Maria¡¯s invitation and check out her territory.


    But, in Brunsel, the temporary new capital city of her territory, I learned that Maria wasn¡¯t here. I was told that she had gone to the frontlines.


    And so, I went to the frontlines of battle to find Maria. That was where I saw even the sky burn.


    The entire sky was on fire. The red clouds in the sky were nothing natural. This was the result of absorbing too much fire element.


    Every single second, injured warriors were being carried off the battlefield. Every day, new warriors woulde join the frontlines of battle.


    The Chaos Faction members here were mainly Inferno Demons, me Ogres, and other such fire element enemies.


    If it weren¡¯t for the fact that I had recently returned from the Fire Elemental ne, I would have wondered if I had mistakenly returned there again.


    These were the Saffey Mountains. The name sounded rather ominous.


    This area had originally been a famous volcanic district to begin with. Right now, so many portals had been opened up here. The situation here was even worse than in the Sharal Autonomous Region.


    Fire element creatures were famous for having terrible temper and zero patience. The Sharal Autonomous Region had only faced an unorganized horde of powerful fire element creatures that wouldn¡¯t cooperate or work with each other. However, the demons and me Ogres here were a proper, actual army.


    Thoro Fortress here on the frontlines was a highly sturdy fortress. Its thick stone walls even had the blessing of Holy Light. Countless corpses were already scattered under its walls. But even now, the fortress was still shaking under a constant bombardment.


    Meteors would keep falling down from the sky. They would explode and instantly kill any normal living beings in a radius of several dozen meters.


    Judging from the meteors¡¯ arcs, they had been tossed from the peak of the distant volcano. It was unknown whether gigantic catapults or Inferno Demons hadunched these meteors.


    Since there was far too much distance between the volcano and the fortress, the meteors¡¯ uracy was quite low. However, there would still be an asional meteor thatnded a direct hit, causing the fortress walls and all buildings inside the fortress to shake.


    Outside the fortress, demons were fighting against other demons. The demon warlocks on the fortress walls were constantly opening up portals to the Chaos Abyss, summoning hell hounds and low-level demons that unwillingly fought to their death at their masters¡¯mands.


    The human soldiers mostly stayed inside the safety of the fortress, and operated various cannons and long-range artillery weapons to attack the demons down below.


    I could see right within my field of vision that there were almost 10 Level 4 power level individuals fighting against each other.


    ¡°...Did I arrive at the wrong location? This looks like a battlefield in the Chaos Abyss.¡±


    While I had indeed witnessed such high-intensity battlefields before, I had never seen anything like this in the mortal ne before.


    The situation at the frontlines in the Saffey Mountains was far worse than I had expected, yet the news being sent out from here didn¡¯t sound anywhere near as pitiful as the situation in the Amu Mountains.


    ¡°...Since I¡¯m here, I might as well give them my greeting. Magic sword Nortnds, whip up some wind and snow!¡±


    I retracted my wings of Holy Light as I stood in the center of a group of demons who were trying to attack the fortress. I then opened up my personalbat domain.


    The fire clouds from earlier suddenly vanished. A sudden blizzard arrived, bringing hail and snow cmity to end the demons¡¯ lives.


    Actually, I loved Inferno Demons. This was because I loved to fight with an elemental advantage!


    The descent of snow cmities from the Nortnds instantly caused the field of vision in this area to decrease to less than 10 meters. The me Ogres and Inferno Demons seemed so tiny and helpless amongst all the snow.


    The incredibly low temperature was rapidly robbing heat from their bodies. For these half fire element creatures, keeping a high body temperature was critical for their very lives.


    I stood in the middle and casually slew anything that got close to me as I cleared out the surrounding environment.


    ¡°A mage! There must be a mage somewhere!¡±


    It was quite fun for me to listen to the demons panicking as they spoke in the demonnguage. Unlike antagonists in stories and shows, I didn¡¯t have the bad habit of introducing myself or exining my abilities. I simply created an ice house and hid myself inside...


    If there was a powerful individual or archmage here, they would naturally be able to trace the source of the mana to me. However, as for these Inferno Demons and me Ogres that had probably never seen snow in their lives before... they would have to first get ustomed to the environment.


    I had especially designed my Nortnds magic sword to clear out trash mobs to begin with. This would be a good time to test things on these demons.


    I could still hear amotion outside as enemies constantly approached my position, but none of them actually discovered that I had sealed myself into this house of ice and snow.


    It was likely that these fire element demons and ogres had already started panicking since they had never seen snow before.


    Since it seemed that none of them were able to find me, I simply started solidifying my ice house. ording to my experience, as long as my luck wasn¡¯t so bad that my Nortnds summoned a high-speed hailstorm, my ice house should be able tost for at least half an hour.


    And so, I really did stay in my ice house for half an hour. I even almost fell asleep... Finally, my iplete magic sword Nortnds was no longer able to maintain the ice and snow environment, and everything naturally melted away. Everything was now silent outside.


    When I came out from under the snow, the previously noisy battlefield had already transformed into a silentnd of snow. Countless corpses were buried in the snow. Even the outer walls of the fortress were covered in ayer of snow.


    Since the source of the magic had disappeared, thisnd of snow was now melting rapidly. The countless demon corpses were released from the snow, revealing that there wasn¡¯t a single sign of injury anywhere on their bodies, yet they were definitely dead.


    ¡°It seems that my experiment was a great sess.¡±


    And so, I happily waved towards the fortress walls, but the Level 4 demon warlock standing there was so scared that he hurriedly backed away, while all of the artillery operators nervously aimed in my direction...


    10 or so minutester, I finally managed to meet the person I came here to see while being surrounded by fully armed knights and highly nervous mages.


    I met Empress Maria, the strongest demon warlock in the world.


    Naturally, she woulde out to check the situation with such arge ruckus happening in front of the fortress. But when I personally met her, I began to suspect if I had mistaken her identity.


    Maria had red hair, a freckled face, and was slightly pudgy... fine, she was actually mega obese. I was quite worried about the lifespan of the rickety wooden chair that kept creaking and groaning under her weight.


    From far away, Maria looked no different from a standing bearman.


    She looked far different from the highly dangerous and seductive beloved child of the God of Death that I had been expecting. I almost shouted out loud that she looked just like a red-haired version of Ruhua 1...


    However, her eyes were quite active. Even though it was already impossible to identify her chin, she still appeared quite young and filled with energy.


    Maria was a Level 4 demon warlock. All of the chaos magic wavelengths around her werepletely under her control. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that all of the other Level 4 individuals here appeared to truly respect her from the bottom of their hearts, I never would have believed that someone like her could have achieved the peak in her chosen job ss. She didn¡¯t show any signs of her power at all.


    Well, physical appearance was only something minor. I had already gotten ustomed to all sorts of individuals with far stranger physical appearances. Compared to certain existences, Maria could definitely be called friendly and kind.


    The strange thing was that even though I had clearly never met Maria before, I kept feeling more and more like she was so familiar the more I looked at her. Her chaos magic wavelengths felt even more familiar.


    But, no matter what I thought, I would have to keep my thoughts to myself. I couldn¡¯t afford to be diplomatically impolite, as Maria was the empress of a mega empire.


    ¡°Empress Maria, I am so honored by your invitation, which is why I rushed over as fast as I could. I happened to see that some viins were blocking the entrance, so I took it upon myself to clear them away as a meeting gift for you.¡±

 Chapter 719 - Getting Closer to the Truth

    <strong>Chapter 719: Getting Closer to the Truth</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    In a way, Empress Maria gave me a rather good impression.


    She was quite polite as she thanked me for my assistance. She didn¡¯t even make any requests of me, such as asking me to help them on the battlefield.


    Our first meeting ended in less than five minutes. Since there was still an ongoing war right outside, this was indeed a poor time to be talking.


    Even though I cleared out this portion of the battlefield, even more fire element ogres and demons would swarm this ce soon.


    The Chaos Faction hadn¡¯t sent any mega powerful individuals here, because there was no need. In a long war of attrition, cannon fodder would have almost no value. The Chaos Faction would neverck for cannon fodder.


    I didn¡¯t volunteer to help here, since this had nothing to do with me, but even more because I needed to recover my mana.


    Although it was great fun to clear out arge number of enemies with an AOE spell, every time that I used such a spell, I would require a long time in order to replenish the mana that I used up.


    This war didn¡¯t end just because I arrived. Rather, it was the opposite. After a momentary silence, some Fire Demon Lords arrived to check out the situation. They started an even more vicious battle against the humans.


    I simply watched from the sidelines, but there was much to exim over.


    This frontline battle was already nearing the level of bloody battles in the Chaos Abyss. San Antonio¡¯s foundational strength was also truly astonishing. No matter if it was the aerial knights fighting in the sky, the mages on the fortress walls, or even the regr soldiers, they were allbat veterans.


    On other battlefields, they would all be considered strong individuals who were capable of holding their own, but such individuals were incrediblymon here. I even saw several mages whose magical wavelengths were more powerful than average Level 4 mages, yet I had never even heard of these mages¡¯ names before.


    While most people would only look at the surface, those in the know would analyze deeper.


    Although the battle here seemed chaotic, there was actually plenty of order among the chaos. The battle was far from being utterly chaotic.


    Themanders were unhurriedly giving orders. The lower-ranking military officers were steadily transmitting orders from above. However, what attracted my attention the most were the seemingly ordinary mages.


    The mages appeared to be highly experienced at fighting while cooperating with the ordinary warriors. They used all sorts ofrge AOE buff magic spells. They also effectively used attack magic spells to suppress the enemy.


    Every single bit of mana was used to improve the situation on the battlefield rather than trying to immediately destroy the enemy before them. Although this seemed rather basic, this was actually the core strategy for any mage on the battlefield.


    Every explosion had a standard radius and standard attack power. They would all be precise at supporting whoever needed it, further improving the warriors and mages¡¯ tacit cooperation. The benefit of such standardized spells was that they would really help to conserve mana and concentration. Not only that, any other mage would be able to rece a mage with no mana at any time.


    After the first attack wave of magic spells ended, a second mage would rece the first, and continue a barrage of spells for 10 minutes. After that, a third mage would rece the second.


    Perhaps this would be insufficient to destroy the enemy, but it would ensure that their own side would always have magical support.


    I had already seen far too many mages who were the type that could only fight for three minutes but then require two hours of rest, or fight for 10 minutes but need to rest for an entire night... Fine, I admit that the Mist Alliance still wasn¡¯t experienced enough at using mages on the battlefield in cooperation with warriors.


    San Antonio was known to be potentially the strongest human mega empire of all. Perhaps this didn¡¯t sound much different from other powerful human mega empires, but the difference in foundational strength here was quite obvious.


    The differences were in all areas, in traditions as well as minor details. All such things would require time to gain.


    At the very least, the moment that I returned to the Mist Alliance, I would immediately be writing a newbat mage strategy guide for cooperative warfare.


    By dusk, the battle returned to how it had been originally, as if nothing had happened at all. It was as if the major AOE cleansing that I had performed had been forgotten entirely.


    Perhaps this was why both sides¡¯ higher-ups were staying tacitly uninvolved. On a frontline battlefield where countless thousands were fighting, individual strength would be far too meager.


    1000 people would be more than enough to fill someone¡¯s field of vision, but if the battle was instead on a scale of millions, even if one person cleared the entire battlefield that they could see in front of them, the battlefield would soon be filled with other fighters again.


    And to the demons, losing a few thousand or tens of thousands of low-level demons didn¡¯t matter at all.


    It would be impossible to change the battlefield and the map without using a forbidden spell. Using a forbidden spell would mean a battle to the very death. In a way, using major weapons like forbidden spells had its own troubles.


    The battle finally endedte into the night.


    Maria directly weed my arrival at a simple weing party. As for business and trade, she told me to talk to someone named Xn, who was her chief financial officer.


    Although Maria wasn¡¯t a member of the Hell Faction, due to her rtionship with Ayer, we had a rtively friendly rtionship.


    Besides, whenpared to Winston, who simply waited for news from the front in his capital city, I preferred to deal with Maria, who personally dealt with things on the frontline herself.


    ¡°The ancient ruin of the Sun God?¡±


    I directly told her what I was looking for at the weing party for me.


    Searching by myself for some ruin that might not even exist while alone on the battlefield? I still wanted to live longer, thanks.


    Since I was here already, I decided might as well ask the person in charge about any information that she might have.


    I brought out Sun God Aloyo¡¯s holy emblem, along with a drawing of what Aloyo looked like with his eagle head, but the end result was rather disappointing.


    Maria simply asked the local elders about this, but nobody knew a thing.


    It would seem that I would have to try and think of something by myself then.


    Since Maria had some free time now, I naturally chatted about the ongoing war with her. She was somewhat interested in my new weapons, and even asked for some experimental data on them.


    However, I could tell that she wasn¡¯t actually that interested, and that she was only asking out of politeness.


    It was evident that she was quite confident in San Antonio¡¯s traditional military and magical might. At the very least, the current war wasn¡¯t at a scale that she couldn¡¯t handle.


    As we discussed, we then went to the topic of the Chaos Abyss and the demons¡¯ movements.


    Maria hesitated for a moment before she described a dream that she had recently been having. She would constantly repeat this nightmare in which she would constantly kill others and be killed.


    ¡°You¡¯re probably overthinking things due to the war here. Don¡¯t think too much about it.¡±


    I had zero interest in the worries of a ¡°little girl¡± like Maria, so I was only going to ignore her with a bad excuse like that, but I hadn¡¯t expected to hear a familiar name from her mouth.


    ¡°You are a mage as well. You should understand how important dreams are to us. Sometimes, dreams are a mirror that can reflect another dimension. Sometimes, dreams are a prophecy. Recently, I¡¯ve always been dreaming that I¡¯ve been killed, but the person who¡¯s dying isn¡¯t me... I can¡¯t exin it. It¡¯s such a strange feeling. It¡¯s as if I¡¯m both the killer and the victim.¡±


    Maria was rather confused. She had asked for help from her ¡°adopted father¡± Ayer, who told her that Rnd was an expert on the soul that might be able to help her.


    And, for some reason, even though this was clearly their first meeting, Maria felt like Rnd was trustworthy.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been repeatedly having such dreams ever since I was young. There are many different killers. But recently, I¡¯ve been dying more and more. The one who keeps ¡®killing¡¯ me is a silver-haired half-demon that I refer to as ¡®Elisa¡¯. I even call her ¡®Sister¡¯ in my dream, and keep asking her why she¡¯s being so cruel to me.¡±

 Chapter 720 - Truthful Dream

    <h4>Chapter 720: Truthful Dream</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Back in my original world, many people had repeatedly studied dreams before. However, nobody had been able to find anything conclusive.


    Why did people dream? Why did people see certain dreams? Were dreams connected to reality?


    Even now, science was still unable to give an exnation for dreams. Only religion and philosophy had exnations for them. Some people even started practicing divination by interpreting dreams.


    Oftentimes, dreams were viewed as precautions or warnings. Modern science was still unable to exin dreams, as there were many things still unknown about the brain.


    But in the magical world of Eich, things were different. Eich wasn¡¯t a world of science to begin with.


    While people were asleep, the soul would still drowsily move around. Pure consciousness would create an illusionary realm that mages referred to as the source of dreams.


    Due to the existence of mind magic, dreams were actually a type of weakness. Casually opening up one¡¯s own thoughts and soul would be utmost foolishness.


    Apart from the Gods themselves, the powerful demons and devils of the Chaos Abyss, as well as the Evil Gods, also really loved to try to influence ordinary people through dreams.


    There was a certain type of dream voodoo curse that could mark an ordinary person. An Evil God or powerful demon would thene to talk to you during your dreams.


    Threats and temptations were actually the easiest to deal with. Scarier would be realistic dreams that had been created with divine power or magic, which would then corrode or test the person¡¯s inner nature. This could imperceptibly modify your personality and soul without your own realization. People would often start going down the wrong path due to this.


    The Gods also knew how to cast such an evil spell. People who imed that they received divine revtions or visitations during their dreams were pretty much the same as those visited by demons.


    Of course, this would require a great deal of divine power, and the effects were quite slow. This wouldn¡¯t be done to ordinary people.


    Top-level warriors would intentionally train their own willpower and close off the window to their soul. Mages would be even more careful about protecting the integrity of their soul. Only prophets and demon warlocks would treat their own dreams as a type of precious resource.


    ¡°Did you recently project your soul into the Chaos Abyss?¡±


    Top-level demon warlocks were capable of using astral projection while they slept, attaching their soul to some low-level or mid-level demon or a demon corpse in order to obtain knowledge from the Chaos Abyss.


    Foundationally speaking, this worked using the same principle as the Gods¡¯ incarnations in the mortal ne. However, for ordinary humans, they were only capable of having their soul leave their physical body safely while they slept. Not only that: if a human¡¯s soul astral projection died, then the human would suffer incredibly serious damage.


    Demon warlocks would often create artificial demons or demon half-bloods with their own bloodline injected in order to protect thepleteness of their will. Such demons would then be tossed into the Chaos Abyss as the demon warlocks¡¯ puppets.


    Demon type job ss growth couldn¡¯t be done without the Chaos Abyss. A demon warlock would either control the demons or be controlled by the demons. Not only would there be no demon warlock who had a normal way of thinking, it would already be incredibly rare to find a demon warlock who wasn¡¯t insane and possessing multiple personalities or other various mental illnesses.


    The demon warlocks would either develop their personal demon bloodline, or project their will into a demon¡¯s body to learn everything about demons. As many demon warlocks did this, they would imperceptibly be pure demons themselves, from physical body to soul.


    The biggest taboo for demon warlocks was to send their physical body into the Chaos Abyss. Other job sses could enter the Chaos abyss and still leave, but if a demon warlock entered the Chaos Abyss, the will of the Chaos Abyss would cause their bloodline to instantly go out of control, permanently transforming them into a demon. They¡¯d forever lose their identity as a human.


    No ordinary person would be able to seed in the demon warlock job ss, and after a long period of time, no demon warlock would be a normal person anymore.


    As the saying went: ¡°if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee¡±. The price of borrowing demon power for personal strength was that you would have to constantly be on guard against the Chaos Abyss¡¯s attention.


    ¡°Could it be that your soul astral projection was captured by a powerful demon, and that he¡¯s using it as a catalyst to give you trouble?¡±


    However, Maria shook her head.


    ¡°Soul astral projections are far too dangerous. I never use such a thing.¡±


    High-level mages were capable of locking their own dreams. However, there were a few mage job sses that would take advantage of their own dreams. Still, it was indeed quite unusual for the most famous and powerful demon warlock in the world to keep having nightmares.


    ¡°But, what does any of this have to do with me...?¡± is what I would have said if it weren¡¯t for the fact that she mentioned ¡°Elisa¡±, which really caught my attention.


    By now, I understood why Maria¡¯s magical wavelengths seemed so familiar. Her wavelengths were really simr to Elisa¡¯s when thetter was in half-human, half-demon form.


    Yet, I found all of this to be even more iprehensible.


    Magical wavelengths were just like fingerprints. Although a magical wavelength would be rted to the mage¡¯s personal type of magic, it would be more affected by one¡¯s personal traits. Magic stemmed from the soul. The individual¡¯s personal traits would also naturallye from the soul.


    ¡°A divine bloodline? Descendants from the same Evil God bloodline?¡±


    Some Evil Gods would create arge number of their own descendants right before death. However, those descendants would basically be backup bodies for the Evil God¡¯s revival.


    I shook my head and rejected this possibility. Elisa had never visited San Antonio in her life before. Her original identity, Lisa, had been nothing more than a rural vige girl. Meanwhile, Maria was San Antonio royalty, in and that was more than 10,000 kilometers away. There was almost zero possibility that they would have a closely rted bloodline.


    As for the Evil God¡¯s descendants, the closer the rtive, the easier it would be for the Evil God to hijack the rtive¡¯s body for personal use. Only siblings and direct descendants would be the best for this purpose.


    I went through all of the knowledge and theories that I knew, but I was unable to find any precedent to exin the current situation.


    ¡°Silly cat, what do you think?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Nothing in my memories can exin this. Isn¡¯t the soul your area of expertise? How about you dissect her?¡±


    Dissect the empress of a human mega empire, who was also Ayer¡¯s adopted daughter? I wasn¡¯t that suicidal.


    ¡°What she described sounds simr to her soul entering another¡¯s body and experiencing their death... This is indeed quite simr to demon warlocks¡¯ technique of soul astral projection. In that case, could it be that there¡¯s another special individual out there who has a really simr magical wavelength to Elisa¡¯s? Maybe that¡¯s the cause.¡±


    I kept contemting things as I looked at the demon warlock before me. Back in the Underground, Elisa had also been known as the beloved daughter of the Chaos Abyss. It was quite inconceivable how much the Chaos Abyss seemed to spoil and love her.


    ¡°Since Elisa has been mentioned, how about I contact her...¡±


    I searched around in my dimensional storage bag, and finally managed to find the old ring used to contact her. I touched it lightly, but heard nothing other than background noise.


    Right after that, there was a much louder sound such as if something was flipping over. I also heard the sound of an explosion.


    ¡°Elisa? Where are you? Why is it so noisy? Are you on a battlefield?¡±


    ¡°...You still remember to contact me? I...¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s her voice! It¡¯s her!¡±


    Maria interrupted Elisa¡¯s words halfway through. The next instant, the messaging ring instantly went quiet as if themunication had been cut, even though it clearly hadn¡¯t reached its limits yet.


    I touched the messaging ring again, but received no response.


    ¡°That¡¯s her! She¡¯s the one who keeps repeatedly killing ¡®us¡¯ in my dreams. She refers to us as... the Chaos Girls!¡±


    Maria actually had a face filled with fear. In order for someone like her, the most powerful demon warlock in the world, to have such an expression...


    I was feeling more and more of a headache now. Wasn¡¯t the story about her being a Chaos Girl supposed to be nothing more than a rumor? Just what exactly was going on here?


    If all of this was real, then it meant that someone was indeed hunting down these ¡°Chaos Girls¡±. Someone was intentionally leaking information, then? Was Elisa someone in the know, or was she somehow involved?


    Why did Elisa cut ourmunication? Was there something that she didn¡¯t want me to know? Why did she immediately cut contact with me the moment that she heard Maria¡¯s voice?


    ¡°By the way, Maria.¡±


    Perhaps the answer wasn¡¯t far away from me. Maybe a little surgery was all that was required.


    ¡°Empress Maria, I have an idea regarding your problem. May I perform a little checkup for you and do a tiny experiment? Rest assured, I haven¡¯t dissected someone living for quite long already. Whoops, I meant that I would never dissect you, honest! Please look at how sincere I am! Fine, even if I dissect you, I can return you to normal. Please believe in the fact that I¡¯m a master of dissection.¡±

 Chapter 721 - Truth

    <strong>Chapter 721: Truth</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    The soul was the source of all supernatural abilities in the world of Eich.


    The entire world was the container as souls went through their cycle.


    Heaven¡¯s Pirs and the River Styx were the coreponents of the Cycle of Reincarnation. However, all of the Heaven¡¯s Pirs in the various Gods¡¯ Divine Kingdoms were far inferior to the River Styx in capability. The Heaven¡¯s Pirs only had to transport the soul to the Divine Kingdoms, while the River Styx went through all the countless dimensions.


    The foundational reason for this had to do with the difference between Order and Chaos. Since the Heaven¡¯s Pirs were part of Order, they naturally wouldn¡¯t change. Only transporting the souls would be impossible to help the entire Cycle of Reincarnation make progress.


    Thus, the River Styx which had its own natural cycle was far more useful to the world than the Heaven¡¯s Pirs. That was why even the new dimension of Hell had the River Styx¡¯s presence.


    The Gods had countless devout worshippers who were willing to sacrifice everything for their God. All that the worshippers wanted was for their soul to enter the God¡¯s Divine Kingdom after death so that they wouldn¡¯t have to enter the River Styx and go through the Cycle of Reincarnation again.


    However, very few people knew that souls would be consumed in the Gods¡¯ Divine Kingdoms as well. Their souls would be a part of the God¡¯s divine power. Once their soul shards¡¯ power was used up, the soul shards would then return to the River Styx unless the God specially spent some divine power to reconstruct an individual¡¯s soul.


    This was all part of Eich¡¯s natural cycle.


    Just transporting and cycling souls wouldn¡¯t change anything. Without any change, and without any deaths or new births, what cycle would there even be?


    The moment that a soul fell into the River Styx, perhaps that soul could no longer be described as an ¡°individual¡±.


    In front of the purest, primeval power of Chaos, the soul would gradually be dissected and broken up, bing a part of the River Styx.


    As for the soul¡¯s strength during life... Any soul that was even able to retain this concept would already be quite incredible. Still, even the strongest soul would gradually be dissected and transformed in the River Styx that was the essence of Chaos. The soul would then be a member of Chaos as well.


    The souls which crawled up into the Chaos Abyss, transforming into demons, were actually no longer individuals because of this reason.


    If an exnation had to be made, the newborn demons were using an old soul as nutrition and a resource. The memories of the mortal from the past would only be considered knowledge, but not the demon¡¯s own past.


    However, there were exceptions to everything. ording to my knowledge, there were two types of souls which wouldn¡¯t be corroded by the River Styx.


    The first type would be the Gods¡¯ souls.


    Their souls probably shouldn¡¯t even be called souls anymore. Their souls had beenbined with their personal Divine Concepts into something whole.


    This was especially the case for the Order Faction Gods. Their physical bodies and Divine Kingdoms would bebined as one. It wouldn¡¯t even really be appropriate to refer to them as ¡°individuals¡±. They were actually more like amalgamations.


    It could be said that the moment an Order God achieved divinity, they would no longer be their past self.


    The moment an Order God died, it would result in aplete and utter copse of their Divine Kingdom as well. As for the shards left behind, which could probably be referred to as shards of their divinity, these would be loot to be fought over by powerful individuals.


    It could be said that when a God achieved divinity, their soul¡¯s very essence had already changed. The soul wouldpletelybine with the God¡¯s chosen Concept, naturally making it impossible for the soul to enter the Cycle of Reincarnation again.


    As for the Evil Gods¡¯ descendants, they were actually using their own bloodline to wrap one of their own soul shards in some power, creating a poisoned candy, tempting their own descendants to be even better copies of themselves for potentially taking over the descendant¡¯s body. This wasn¡¯t rted very much to the Cycle of Reincarnation.


    The second type of soul that wouldn¡¯t be corroded by the River Styx was the soul of a certain Rnd Mist...


    Erm, I actually wasn¡¯t very clear before about why my soul was able to resist the River Styx¡¯s corrosion. In the past, I had thought that it was because I was a transmigrator. Thinking back on things now, the main reason was probably due to my personal cheat of having the System.


    Creator Goddess Eich had created the entire world. She was the highest-level existence of all. The Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos were in charge of Order and Chaos, respectively. They were the second-highest-level existences in the world. The power of Order transformed into the Heavens¡¯ Pirs which went through all of the upper nes and Order Gods¡¯ Divine Kingdoms, while the power of Chaos transformed into the River Styx that flowed through countless dimensions.


    My research helped me to reach the conclusion that life and the source of souls stemmed from thebination of Order and Chaos. In that case, life and souls were both lower-level Concepts belonging to Order and Chaos. Any life form that met the River Styx would naturally be dissected by Chaos.


    This was the absolute suppression that a higher-level Concept would have against a lower-level Concept. Higher-level Concepts suppressing lower ones was a fundamental naturalw of the world of Eich.


    Moreover, since the Goddess of Order was now bound to me, even though she no longer had much power, in status she was still the individual who was supposed to be in charge of all of Order. She was ranking even higher than the River Styx which represented Chaos.


    Thus, the lower-level Concept was naturally unable to harm the higher-level Concept. Since the System was bound to my soul, I naturally could sing or do whatever else I wanted in the River Styx.


    However, I myself wasn¡¯t an existence that surpassed the River Styx in rank. Death and the River Styx would still make me pay an appropriate price, such as losing part of my memories. I was the only one who would be forced to pay this price, not Astrya.


    In a way, I also reached a despairing conclusion from this. ording to how the naturalws of Eich worked, even if the Goddesses of Order and Chaos were killed off, it would be basically impossible topletely destroy their souls with any power that was from this world, as the Concept of their very existence was ranking too high to be affected by anything from this world. No wonder both their souls kept wandering around in the world and causing new trouble.


    In that case, no wonder Karwenz had gone all the way to Hell in order to search for a new power of Death which could eliminate Cynthia¡¯s soul that was bound to him.


    I suddenly reached another rather strange conclusion. Perhaps I wasn¡¯t alone in being the ¡°Undying Rnd¡± in the world. It seemed likely that Karwenz had also been the ¡°Undying Karwenz¡±. It was just that nobody would know how many times he had died before as he continually grew more powerful. But since he had now exiled Cynthia¡¯s remnant soul from his body, he probably no longer possessed this undying trait.


    With Astrya¡¯s guidance and assistance, I sessfully analyzed Maria¡¯s soul. However, I found the conclusion to be rather inconceivable.


    ¡°Chaos Girls? How is this possible...?¡±


    Just now, I had discovered a third type of soul which had surpassed the River Styx itself.


    Although the specific traits still required further analysis, there would be no mistaking the higher rank of this soul.


    [This is Cynthia¡¯s soul shard. What did she do...? No, she isn¡¯t Cynthia. She is a brand-new individual, but it¡¯s impossible for me and her to reincarnate. No, wait, no, wait, no, wait...]


    Alright, Astrya definitely wouldn¡¯t make a mistake about this. I had never seen her so emotional before. My System sounded quite uneasy and anxious.


    I habitually ignored my System, who was actually panicking for once, as I carefully mulled over all the clues that I had.


    Just what had Cynthia done? I really wanted to know the answer as well. However, it was likely that anyone who knew the answer wouldn¡¯t tell me.


    I sank into deep contemtion as I gazed at the gigantic lump of flesh known as Maria who was on the operating table in front of me. Should I dissect her a bit further in order to obtain some better understanding? But, if I did so, it would likely be impossible for me to put Maria back together again.


    ¡°...How many years in jail will I receive for murdering the empress of the strongest country in thend? I need legal advice as soon as possible. It¡¯s really urgent!¡±


    I cracked a boring joke, but I could only sigh as I gave up on the highly tempting choice to dissect Maria further.


    Not only would I no longer be able to repair her if I did so, I was really afraid that even if I dissected her more, I would still be unable to dissect her soul shards. Just as how the River Styx was lower in rank than myself, my own rank was definitely lower in rank than these soul shards. It would have been impossible for me to analyze Maria¡¯s soul without Astrya¡¯s assistance, but my System was basically half useless right now.


    Still, this didn¡¯t affect my logical thinking abilities.


    ¡°Evil God descendants?¡±


    The way that Maria mentioned ¡°sisters¡±, the strange rtionship, and how the Chaos Girls in her dreams kept killing each other all made me think about Evil Gods¡¯ descendants.


    The Evil Gods¡¯ descendants would often fight and kill each other in order to steal the divine power and strength within the other¡¯s body. In the end, the victor would lose their own sense of self, and sessfully revive the Evil God.


    In that case, were the Chaos Girls killing each other also for the sake of stealing the others¡¯ power and making oneself more plete¡±? Could it be that Cynthia would be revived through this in the end?


    This seemed possible, especially since we had all witnessed Cynthia¡¯s backup body before during the battle of Hell. In that case, since she had a backup physical body, could she also have a backup soul?


    [Impossible. Our souls can¡¯t be replicated. There¡¯s not a single resource in the entire world that can host our soul. It¡¯s also impossible to create an artificial replica of our souls.]


    Alright then, the Goddess of Order immediately denied this possibility.


    [But even though our souls can¡¯t be replicated, our souls can be split into hundreds of soul pieces. I can pretty much guess what Cynthia is doing now. Give me some time. I need to organize my thoughts. It would also be best if you can find two more Chaos Girls for me so that I canpare them.]


    ¡°Two more? Where am I even supposed to go find them?


    [...Perhaps they aren¡¯t even that far away from you. I¡¯ve already memorized this soul wavelength. Your sister-inw Leona, along with Elisa...]


    ¡°Elisa? Impossible! Lisa was just an ordinary human back in the day, a pure and ordinary human! How could she have possibly remained an ordinary human if she had such a soul!¡±


    [Are you certain?]


    ¡°I¡¯m certain!¡±


    [Are you certain about how you picked her up from the River Styx, or?]


    I was rendered speechless as past memories shed though my mind. Back when Elisa was Lisa, her magic and martial arts abilities had been quite terrible. But ever since she was born as Elisa, her magic and martial arts abilities were both outstanding. Not only that, she was deeply favored by the Chaos Abyss...


    [This woman before me is also deeply spoiled by the Chaos Abyss. There¡¯s also that Leona. From a certain standpoint, the Chaos Abyss is also favoring her.]

 Chapter 722 - Source of Chaos

    <h4>Chapter 722: Source of Chaos</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    [The original Cynthia has already died long ago at an unknown time...]


    Astrya¡¯s tone sounded quite calm, yet her emotions were reallyplex. Perhaps she never expected that her sister who had fought with her for half their lives was no longer around.


    Thanks to her analysis, I was shown the essence of what Chaos Girls really were.


    What was the innate nature of Chaos? Evolution.


    In that case, if there was a highest point of existence at the peak of evolution, a super apex existence that was impossible to surpass no matter what, then what meaning would there be in evolution?


    Cynthia thus decided to be more vicious to herself than anyone else possibly could as she was the purest ruler of Chaos.


    She abandoned her self will and transformed into pure Chaos.


    Every single Chaos Girl was Cynthia. However, they also weren¡¯t Cynthia.


    As Chaos Girls, each of their souls contained one of Cynthia¡¯s soul shards. However, they were also their own independent individuals. For the Chaos Girls, Cynthia¡¯s soul shard was simply a ticket to a grand feast.


    A venerated grand feast where all the ticket holders would ughter each other, that was.


    The losers would lose everything, including their life and Cynthia¡¯s soul shard. Each victor would obtain everything from the loser. These soul shards which stemmed from the same source would instinctively desire each other so that they could beplete.


    And once a certain time was reached, the victor who had the most Cynthia soul shards would be the new ¡°Cynthia¡± together with all the powers and memories of the defeated Chaos Girls.


    The moment that this victor ascended to Godhood, she would be the true Goddess of Chaos and gain Cynthia¡¯s memories and power, reaching the top of power in the world.


    ¡°Ha, the top of power in the world? After a mere 1000-2000 years? Won¡¯t Cynthia simply disassemble herself again for the next Holy War?¡±


    [In Cynthia¡¯s opinion, the old ruler being torn to pieces or exiled by a younger ruler is a show that she enjoys watching over and over again.]


    I didn¡¯t even know how to respond to this. Both Creator Goddess sisters had gone to opposite extremes. Pure Order became focused on eternal rigidity andck of change. Pure Chaos became focused on limitless evolution and chaos.


    ¡°...But this time, things are different.¡±


    [But this time, things are different.]


    Astrya and I simultaneously came to the same conclusion regarding a certain problem. This time, the final victor amongst the Chaos Girls would likely be unable to be theplete Cynthia.


    The Chaos Girl victor would only be at the peak of mortal power after having devoured the most Cynthia soul shards from the other Chaos Girls. She would then still need tobine with the will of the Chaos Abyss and obtain the Goddess of Chaos¡¯s past umtion before she could truly transform into ¡°Cynthia, the Goddess of Chaos¡±.


    ¡°The will of the Chaos Abyss is in Karwenz¡¯s hands right now!¡±


    In the previous generation, the eternal war between Astrya and Cynthia had given birth to myself and Karwenz, two Children of the Chaos Abyss. Karwenz truly hadn¡¯t been saying something ridiculous back when he said that with karma and bloodline, Cynthia was technically our mother.


    However, the will of the Chaos Abyss had been controlling Karwenz until he suddenly managed to turn the tables during the battle of Hell. In the end, Karwenz dragged Cynthia, who was also the will of the Chaos Abyss, away into the void right in front of us.


    Perhaps that Cynthia had beencking in self-will, intelligence, memories, and knowledge due to having split off so much of herself into soul shards. Still, Cynthia was the essence of the Goddess of Chaos. Without this all-important portion, it would be impossible for her broken soul shards to have a foundational transformation back into the true soul of the Goddess of Chaos.


    Our theory was that normally, whenever a single Chaos Girl became powerful enough, the will of the Chaos Abyss would automaticallye to find her.


    ¡°...But for some people, this will indeed be excellent.¡±


    [All that¡¯s needed is to ughter the other Chaos Girls in order to obtain all of their memories and power, and the victor won¡¯t even need to take on the responsibility of bing the Goddess of Chaos. Where else can someone find something so wonderful?]


    Without the role of the Goddess of Chaos, there also would be nothing to restrain the victor. That meant that there would also be no ¡°time bomb¡± where the victorious Chaos Girl would be forced to automatically split her own soul as Cynthia again. This meant that the final victorious Chaos Girl would be thest Chaos Girl ever, as well as the strongest one ever in all of history.


    [Your theory is highly likely to be correct. In past history, there were truly intelligent Chaos Girls who managed to escape their unfortunate destiny by sitting out the ughter. But this time, it¡¯s likely that even the ancient Chaos Girls from the past will take action because there will no longer be any restriction or danger for the winner. This means that the old Chaos Girls of past will definitely start joining in the ughter to gain power.]


    I broke out into a cold sweat as I carefully thought this over.


    Not all seeds would sprout, because the smartest seeds would be afraid of being harvested. However, the farmer doing the harvesting had now disappeared. This meant that all the seeds would start sprouting and even furiously absorb nutrition from each other in order to grow more powerful, even if this would result in the death of other seeds.


    With no more restrictions, all Chaos Girls were now no different from food for other Chaos Girls. Who would want to live every day in fear for their life? In that case, the natural conclusion for the Chaos Girls on how to best preserve their own life would be to be the only survivor, the one who was left alive and at the top of the food chain.


    This final battle between all Chaos Girls would be just as insane as this final Holy War to end all Holy Wars. Since the final Chaos Girl would no longer be transformed into the Goddess of Chaos, this would actually make the ughterpetition into a true deathmatch to the end. In the past, the will of the Chaos Abyss would always im the most powerful Chaos Girl once that Chaos Girl had absorbed enough Cynthia shards, but nothing would get in the way now.


    ¡°Lisa wasn¡¯t a Chaos Girl. Yet, Elisa is a Chaos Girl. That means there¡¯s only one possibility. The will of the Chaos Abyss must have embedded a Cynthia shard in her when she was floating in the River Styx. But, how did Cynthia know that I woulde for Lisa¡¯s soul...?¡±


    [She had no need to n for you. Cynthia simply wanted to see her seed sprout in the Cycle of Reincarnation. She was already casting hundreds of seeds at random to begin with. There was no need for her to even consider anything else.]


    It seemed that Maria had yet to meet any other Chaos Girls before. Her instinctive desire to kill the other Chaos Girls had yet to awaken. This was an instinct that would be carved deep in the soul of all the Chaos Girls, an influence from the Cynthia soul shard. This instinct would be activated the moment that a Chaos Girl met another Chaos Girl.


    If Maria had awakened this instinct already, she would have understood all of this already. There would have been no need for Astrya and myself to investigate this matter.


    Judging from how there were rumors everywhere that Maria was a Chaos Girl, someone really wanted her to die. Perhaps it was even another Chaos Girl who was behind this scheme. Maybe Maria¡¯s identity as a Chaos Girl had already been discovered.


    Leona was also a Chaos Girl... Karwenz definitely knew something due to having taken away the will of the Chaos Abyss. He also intended to do something with his knowledge.


    Karwenz had always been the type to treat his own women well. Could it be that he had a good opinion of Leona, and felt that she would be the final victor?


    I didn¡¯t know when Elisa had awoken to her Chaos Girl nature. However, it was quite evident that she had alreadye to a decision that she would pay any price necessary in order to be the final victor.


    Now that I knew the truth about the Chaos Girls, there was an even bigger headache in front of me.


    ¡°Should I tell Maria about all this or not?¡±


    ¡°I think you should. She¡¯ll soon learn on her own regardless. At the very least, it¡¯s a fact that someone wants to murder her. What do you think will happen if she dies a mysterious death?¡± Harloys had remained silent during my discussion with Astrya, but she suddenly interjected at this time.


    I was rather confused for a moment. So what if Maria died? What would it have to do with me?


    But then, I soon became uneasy as I realized what Harloys meant.


    If Maria really died, no matter who killed her for real, the prime suspect would be Prince Winston. It was just like how I refused to believe that Prince Winston wasn¡¯t the one who had started rumors about Maria. It would be impossible for Prince Winston to defend himself against the usation that he had murdered Maria.


    Maria was currently single, with no descendants. Her death would mean only one of two things.


    The first was that her faction wouldpletely copse, and Prince Winston wouldugh in delight at having suddenly benefited so much. This was an extremely unlikely scenario, so...


    ¡°The other possibility is that civil war will re-erupt. This San Antonio civil war will be a battle to the very death. Maria¡¯s despairing retainers will start another war for the sake of revenge. However, starting an internal war at this time when San Antonio is surrounded by outside enemies from the Chaos Faction will mean that no winner will possibly emerge from San Antonio¡¯s civil war. As long as the ogres and demons take advantage of this, San Antonio, the strongest human mega empire in Eich, will instantly be destroyed. The entire world will be shaken by this news. The bnce of the Holy War will tip in favor of the Chaos Faction.¡±


    Harloys had analyzed quite clearly that I couldn¡¯t possibly just sit back and watch all of this happen. But, I started panicking a bit at what happened next.


    ¡°Her Majesty Maria was assassinated!! Your Majesty Maria!¡±


    ¡°Catch the assassin! The assassin!¡±


    ¡°Heavens, what will we do!?¡±


    Judging from the tremendousmotioning from outside the window, the entire fortress city had gone into a major crazed ruckus.


    Maria¡¯s personal magic wavelengths in the distance were rapidly dissipating. Even Harloys was no longer able to remain calm at this.


    ¡°It¡¯s over, San Antonio ispletely finished!¡± eximed a knight outside the window. He stated exactly what I was thinking.


    ¡°It¡¯s over, San Antonio is truly finished!¡±

 Chapter 723 - Framed

    <strong>Chapter 723: Framed</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    ¡°The assassin is Rnd! The Undying Rnd murdered Empress Maria!¡±


    ¡°People saw him! It was definitely Rnd!


    Just a moment ago, I had felt that Maria¡¯s death would have nothing to do with me even if she died. But now, I was truly astonished.


    ¡°Me? What joke is this?¡±


    Before I could respond, hurried footsteps sounded from outside the temporary residence I was in. Dark magic power was also gathering outside as powerful mages made their preparations against me.


    ¡°Damn it all!¡±


    Now wasn¡¯t the time for me to think. If I really allowed myself to be surrounded, Maria¡¯s incredibly angry loyal retainers would never give me any time to exin.


    ¡°F*ck! I really fell into such a major pitfall this time!¡±


    Even someone like me couldn¡¯t help but curse at the situation.


    Maria was assassinated soon after I arrived. Who would be able to so easily assassinate the strongest demon warlock in the world, as well as make everyone believe that I had done it?


    ¡°Karwenz, you bratty brother, you¡¯re making people mistake me for you yet again!?¡±


    My first reaction was that I must have once again fallen for my identical twin¡¯s scheme.


    Perhaps he had already started targeting me while I was searching for him. Perhaps everything around Maria had been personally arranged by him.


    But right now wasn¡¯t the time for me to exin things to Maria¡¯s retainers. It would be impossible for me to exin regardless.


    I unhesitatingly jumped out of the window, opened up my wings, and started flying high into the sky.


    While I was still ascending, sword energy and magic attacked me right away, together with flying demons and stone gargoyles under the demon warlocks¡¯ control.


    I looked down below. Even though it was now nighttime, countless torches were lit up. I could see a tremendous crowd down below me.


    The fortress city was now burning. Many districts were in utter chaos. The soldiers underneath me all had looks of utter hatred for me in their eyes.


    Mages and aerial knights kept rushing over in the distance in the cloudy sky.


    Was I supposed to wait and reveal the truth since I was innocent and logic was on my side? In this world, there were concepts such as ¡°torturing a confession out of you¡± and ¡°dering you to be guilty after you were dead¡±.


    Exin that I was innocent? If I slowed down by even half a second, I would be killed instantly.


    Everyone¡¯s eyes were filled with blood-red hatred for me. It would be impossible for them to listen to any exnation. It seemed that Maria must have been assassinated right in public, and that they were certain that ¡°I¡± had been the assassin.


    I shook my head as I soared even higher into the sky. At the very least, I was quite confident that I would be able to escape before they could surround me.


    ¡°Damn it all. This is probably only the beginning...¡±


    ¡ª


    I was now in a windy desert.


    My vision was obscured by a sandstorm. The powerful winds brought along fatal sand that covered everything.


    This ce was beyond the Saffey Mountains. This ce was a deste, lifelessnd. I saw nothing but sand and more sand all around me.


    But as I kept digging through the sand and calcting map coordinates, I found that I was getting ever closer to the potential ruin I was looking for.


    Two weeks had now passed since Maria¡¯s assassination.


    I had unhesitatingly traveled along the mountainous district after escaping from that chaotic fortress city.


    My ability of flight helped me to avoid all of San Antonio¡¯s cities. I knew that in such a human mega empire, the only possible way to avoid their spies would be to avoid people altogether.


    I had a fairly easy time traveling like this. I was already used to hunting food for myself and camping outside.


    As for exining myself? I had already contacted the Mist Alliance and used their diplomatic channels to give an exnation.


    My exnation was that I wasn¡¯t the assassin, and that someone had disguised themselves as me. As for whether San Antonio believed me or not... that would depend on their next step.


    Actually, I was afraid that they would believe my exnation and admit that I wasn¡¯t the assassin.


    If San Antonio didn¡¯t want a civil war, then Maria¡¯s faction would be able to ept Prince Winston¡¯s rule. That would mean that I would be the perfect scapegoat to me Maria¡¯s death on. The Mist Alliance was thousands of kilometers away, so dering war on the Mist Alliance would be infeasible for San Antonio.


    This way, Maria¡¯s retainers could cede power without losing face, as well as give themoners an eptable exnation. At most, they would viciously curse at me, which wouldn¡¯t matter at all for the Mist Alliance far away in the north.


    At most, San Antonio might also send some assassins after me and put a bounty on my head. But with my countless years of experience of being an assassination target, this didn¡¯t matter at all.


    I had already been public enemy #1 of thend as Emperor Yongye before. Even if I was now judged guilty of the crime of having assassinated one of the two leaders of San Antonio, it wouldn¡¯t really matter at all as long as I didn¡¯t visit San Antonio again in the future. At most, there would be a few more people after my life and one more group that hated me.


    As for the Gods? Karwenz¡¯s performance probably wouldn¡¯t fool them. Nor did I need to worry that Ayer would misunderstand and think that I had killed his adopted daughter.


    But if Maria¡¯s retainers believed my exnation, or at least said that they did on the surface, then that would be really troublesome...


    If the Mist Alliance and Rnd weren¡¯t responsible, then Prince Winston would be the most likely culprit behind the assassination as he would benefit the most from her death. This would mean that Maria¡¯s retainers would start a civil war against Prince Winston.


    Not only that, it was no secret that I had recently been meeting with Prince Winston right before I came to meet Maria. This would also be endlessly troublesome.


    Rnd was the assassin? But, he didn¡¯t have any conflicts with Maria! Someone must have been behind this assassination! The person who asked Rnd to assassinate Maria must have been Prince Winston! Time for civil war!


    ¡°No matter how I look at it, the situation doesn¡¯t seem good for San Antonio...¡±


    I was nearing the end of my search for the ruin in this desert. Today was also the appointed day for me to receive information from the Mist Alliance.


    However, I didn¡¯t see anyone present at the agreed upon location. I only saw a bag that was lightly buried in the sand.


    I opened up the bag. As I expected, I found a document box sealed with self-destructing magic. The key to open the magic lock was my personal magic wavelength.


    I injected my mana and opened up the box, only to discover a stack of the fairies¡¯test news reports and articles.


    ¡°Duke Barrot has dered war against Prince Winston! He and 12 earls under him have organized into the Avengers Knight Order. They swear to take revenge for Empress Maria¡¯s sake!¡±


    The article on the very top had such an attention-grabbing headline.


    As I flipped through the fairies¡¯ information, I found that the situation was actually even worse than I thought.


    On the day of Maria¡¯s assassination, she had been assassinated during a party out in the open. Many higher-ups of her government had also been present, along with plenty of merchants and elites among themoners.


    The assassin was ¡°Rnd¡±, who had returned not long after he just left. ¡°Rnd¡± had arrived together with a Cardinal and two Holy Knights.


    It seemed that ¡°Rnd¡± had brought along these uninvited ¡°venerated guests¡±. Maria would of course be polite enough to meet them directly.


    Yet, the assassination then urred.


    ¡°Rnd¡± and his group all attacked Maria together. Although the two Holy Knights were killed by Maria¡¯s final counterattack before her death, and the Cardinal was torn to pieces by the angry mob, ¡°Rnd¡± managed to escape. Not only that, ¡°Rnd¡± ran right in the direction of my temporary residence...


    I had been framed quite sessfully. After the assassination, it was determined that the Holy Church group had indeed been diplomatic envoys sent by Prince Winston and Pope Caloma. Cardinal Rost had actually been a very famous diplomat. Yet, he met his end, torn to pieces by a mob of angrymoners.


    All of the assassins were nowpletely dead, apart from ¡°Rnd¡±, the only remaining assassin who managed to escape alive.


    But actually, I had an alibi for the time of the murder.


    After I returned to my temporary residence that Maria had provided for me, I ate some dinner in the cafeteria, and then yed some cards. I even cheated while ying cards and won a little bit of money. Only then did I leisurely retire to my room while bringing somete-night snacks with me. I even ordered room service, asking for two fried chickens to feed my pet cat. All of this had happened at the exact same time while Maria was meeting with the other ¡°Rnd¡± and her assassination.


    I highly doubted that nobody would discover such obvious clues after everyone calmed down.


    Not only that, Cardinal Rost was someone who was powerful enough to reach the rank of Cardinal in the Holy Church, no matter what he was really like. The fact that he had so easily been killed by a mob of angrymoners with no special powers was also an obvious clue that he probably wasn¡¯t the real Cardinal.


    Of course, this Duke Barrot was probably the one who held power now in Maria¡¯s faction after her death. If such developments weren¡¯t what he wanted to see, he would naturally ignore these clues.


    ¡°The knights who swore vengeance finally managed to defeat the evil schemer Prince Winston in the end. That means that they¡¯ll also be fully in charge of San Antonio. In the end, due to the death of all members of the old royal bloodline, and also due to their subordinates¡¯ endless pleas, whoever the new ruler is will helplessly crown themselves to be king... Such an old clich¨¦ scenario, yet its allure is still quite real. As expected, the chaos is only beginning.¡±

 Chapter 724 - Unsalvageable

    <h4>Chapter 724: Unsalvageable</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The best scheme didn¡¯t actually need to be unnoticeable, with no clues left behind.


    The best scheme simply needed to perform the ¡°correct¡± move at a critical moment and then let everything else develop naturally.


    ¡°San Antonio is in utter chaos.¡±


    Any bystander, or even a child, would be able toe to such a conclusion right now.


    The now deceased Maria¡¯s faction voluntarily reduced the amount of their territory by a great amount. They even gave up the Golden ins, which was the #1 food producing region in the entirend of Eich, the most preciousnd in all of San Antonio.


    Duke Barrot tookmand of Maria¡¯s faction. He was the one who gave the order to abandon their own territory in order to improve their defense lines. In just a short two weeks, he mysteriously came to some sort of agreement with the demons and ogres in the Saffey Mountains, reaching a ceasefire on the frontlines here.


    Right now, the new Duke Barrot faction was furiously recruiting as many soldiers as it possibly could for battle. However, Duke Barrot¡¯s faction was nning on attacking other humans rather than the demons and ogres.


    Meanwhile, Prince Winston who was about to face major battles from two directions was probably so anxious that he could barely sleep. His ally, the Holy Church, also became quite serious about helping him.


    Apparently, not only did the Holy Church send two full Holy Knight squadrons, they even sent two Gods.


    Wendy, the Goddess of Forgiveness, and Fein, the God of Wheat (Harvest). Although they were both new Gods who were at the weakest level of Low Gods, they had both descended in their true bodies.


    They had achieved Godhood 120 and 95 years ago, respectively. They were both Follower Gods of the God of Holy Light.


    The fairies¡¯ assessment of their power level was that they were both Level 5, just barely reaching the standard of Low Gods¡¯ power level in their true bodies. Just 10 years ago, they definitely would have been the most powerful existences around here in the mortal ne, with nobody able to defeat them. However, that would be a difficult im to make now.


    The True Gods descending in their true bodies would mean that the battle¡¯s level would be elevated even further. The battle had elevated from mortals¡¯ battles to the Gods directlying down for personal battles.


    Although higher-level powers had also directly participated in battle during the demise of the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire, that was only because it was a custom at the beginning of the demon wave.


    Moreover, it was also said that the Chaos Faction had first used top-level strength, which broke the unwritten rules.


    A top-level existence had appeared during Maria¡¯s assassination? Currently, the fairies were spreading everywhere the information that Maria¡¯s real assassin had been Abyss Prince Karwenz. Apart from Duke Barrot who couldn¡¯t support this in order to have his reason to dere a civil war of revenge, most other factions in thend of Eich had recognized this as the official exnation.


    In other factions¡¯ opinions, I had already done much in the Holy War already, after all. The Mist Alliance¡¯s existence was the best evidence of whose side I was really on.


    Perhaps this was why most human kingdoms were willing to ept the exnation that Karwenz had been the assassin. The Mist Alliance¡¯s importance in the world was constantly increasing, after all.


    Bardi, the Mage Country, and And were the most exaggerated in giving me their praises. They proimed my innocence everywhere, giving me an incredible deal of praise.


    Although this sounded slightly moving, I also knew that this was because they were bing ever closer to the Mist Alliance. Giving such an exnation would be beneficial to themselves as well.


    Unfortunately, even though the bystanders could see things quite clearly, the two involved parties couldn¡¯t see anything. One side was pretending not to see, while the other side was unable to exin clearly.


    Information was also unearthed about that Duke Barrot. He was Barrot Cais, the current head of the Cais Family which had more than 500 years of history. He was also an incredibly powerful demon warlock as well.


    Barrot Cais had previously been an adamant supporter of Maria who also tried to romantically pursue her... When I saw this information about him, I felt that he really must have great tolerance in order to try and pursue someone with Maria¡¯s appearance.


    At any rate, it would be the same old clich¨¦: there would always be those who were various nobles, generals, and so on, along with someone who would always take the position of king.


    ¡°It seems that San Antonio really will be quite chaotic.¡±


    I thought things over carefully and calcted the resources I had at hand, but finally gave up on the idea of intervening.


    San Antonio could vaguely be considered the strongest human mega empire in thend. Being the strongest would attract a lot of attention. Now that the world was in chaos, it was only natural that San Antonio would be the first to suffer.


    The former emperor¡¯s unexpected sudden death, the princess who used the power of the Chaos Abyss, and the emperor¡¯s younger brother who represented traditional knights. These had all helped to sew the seeds of discord beforehand.


    This wasn¡¯t a coincidence. It had all been due to San Antonio¡¯s national situation.


    San Antonio¡¯s territory was vast, and it had abundant resources. However, this would mean requiring sufficient strength to protect such a country.


    Eich was a world wheremunication was normally slow. Militarymand would have to depend on the regional leadership. Sending a single message from San Antonio¡¯s capital to its border would likely take two months by normal means.


    It would be impossible for the capital to normallymand the border. Thus, San Antonio had a very rigid knight hierarchy, which was disyed quite purely by the princes who guarded the border.


    Since someone needed to be inmand at the border, why not have it be a member of the royal family instead of an outsider? All of San Antonio¡¯s border fortresses were the princes¡¯ territories.


    There was a total of 12 princes in San Antonio¡¯s current generation. Most of them had begun as younger sons or concubines¡¯ sons. They had then developed themselves in the border territories until now.


    It would be easy to assign princehood. However, demoting a prince would make things difficult. In this feudal age, the eldest son of the noble inheriting everything was the foundation of how society worked. Even the king couldn¡¯t make a prince¡¯s descendants give up on their father¡¯s territory.


    Over the years, the San Antonio royalty had noticed this problem, and stopped assigning princehood. However, it was already toote.


    Knights were pure military personnel. They would want to have military achievements. In order to get military achievements on the border, they would need to have a close rtionship with the princes rather than the royalty in the capital.


    As time went on, it was only natural for a fracture to appear between the royalty and the princes who held power on the borders. However, San Antonio was an incrediblyrge and stable country. The royalty had been dealing with this issue carefully, so no major problems had urred up until now.


    At the very least, the princes themselves would also keep each other in check. The main royalty would also be the strongest feudal lord in San Antonio, so unless the royalty went overboard with something, nobody would be foolish enough to be the first to rebel.


    But, over the several recent generations, the royalty had few children, so the princes all became tempted.


    Things were still barely at peace during the previous emperor¡¯s generation. However, the princes were already plotting for their ambitions. ording to the rules of noble hierarchy, if the main royal bloodline died out, it would only be natural to search for a sessor amongst the branch bloodlines.


    This was why Maria¡¯s only younger brother also died unexpectedly only two months after the old emperor¡¯s unexpected death.


    Prince Winston was the leader of the princes. He was also the representative of all the knights and feudal lords.


    Meanwhile, Princess Maria represented the venerated royal authority. Those who were loyal to the royalty would naturally gather by her side. However, Maria had done many things to suppress her ambitious uncles in order to strengthen royal authority.


    Maria¡¯s faction included mages, knights who weremoners by birth with military achievements, small-time merchants, demon warlocks and other dark magic users who were considered evil by most others, and so on. Maria was the type who wouldn¡¯t care about your birth status as long as you were loyal to her and the royalty.


    Any new type of faction would naturally be ipatible with a traditionalist faction. A conflict arising between them was only a matter of time.


    The death of the previous emperor was simply a catalyst to start the conflict.


    Only the Holy War had caused the two factions to barely manage toe to a ceasefire. But now that Maria was dead, the temporary peace and ceasefire would bepletely torn apart.


    The new faction cobbled together would lose all meaning without the idea of taking revenge for their previous leader. As the members of this faction were all San Antonio citizens, they should submit to the new ruler of San Antonio.


    Maybe the meaning behind all this sounded quite empty and vague, but the meaning would indeed influence people¡¯s motivation and loyalty.


    Maria¡¯s faction had originally only been kept intact by her leadership. The faction would soon copse without her. However, it was evident that some in her faction weren¡¯t willing to ept such a result after finally changing their own fate.


    Maria¡¯s faction¡¯s members would be executed as traitors if they surrendered to Prince Winston, or they could try and fight and perhaps be the new leaders of San Antonio. Which decision they should make for themselves was obvious.


    Duke Barrot was still busy preparing for battle. I didn¡¯t know which day exactly the San Antonio civil war would start, but I already knew which day it would end¡ªit would only end when both sides had lost all their blood, when the cities were all demolished, and when everyone frommoner to ambitious schemer had suffered severe losses. Only when everyone was no longer able to bear the pains of war would they sit back down together at the negotiation table.


    Additionally, Duke Barrot¡¯s alliance with the Chaos Faction made the truth even more obscured as everything became rather hazy.


    It would be impossible for anyone to calcte just how many schemes were currently ongoing in this matter right now. Still, those who were the strongest would always attract attention. San Antonio¡¯s current situation was probably the result of multiple different factions¡¯ simultaneous schemes against it.


    Perhaps the other major human countries in Eich were busy having celebration parties at San Antonio¡¯s imminent demise rather than wanting to save San Antonio right now.


    ¡°There¡¯s no saving San Antonio anymore...¡±

 Chapter 725 - Solo Traveler

    <strong>Chapter 725: Solo Traveler</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    Originally, I had no intention of caring about or intervening in other countries¡¯ internal wars.


    However, the chaos in San Antonio was destined to have far-reaching consequences.


    At the very least, there would also be a great deal of trouble for me.


    I was currently searching around for the Sun God¡¯s ruin in an empty desert. I indeed managed to discover the ruin recorded on the map in an area filled with sandy hills. I directly opened up arge pit, and somehow managed to find the ancient ruin that had sunk deep into the sand.


    But soon, I discovered that I had found the wrong ruin.


    ¡°This is some Snake God¡¯s ruin instead?¡±


    Although I could write a lot more here in order to jack up the word count, I was no expert archaeologist. Still, the abandoned ruin in front of me didn¡¯t require me to have much archeological knowledge.


    The most valuable ce in any ancient ruin would be either the graves or the temple. Such locations typically contained many treasures and magic items. Graverobbers... ahem, adventurers would typically be able to easily find anything valuable by using simple spells which could search for traces of magic.


    ¡°It seems that I¡¯ve wasted my time here.¡±


    But when I saw that the temple¡¯s walls were filled with drawings over various snake-headed humanoids, along with random objects like straw figures, wooden spears, and witchcraft cauldrons lying around, I knew that I had found the wrong ce without even needing to take a closer look around.


    Still, I could faintly sense magical reactions within this ruin. It was evident that there were some magical items here that hadn¡¯t been discovered before.


    In the past, I would have been quite eager to adventure in an abandoned temple since a lot of God Equipment, miraculous treasures, and ancient magic had all been unearthed in such a manner before. Graverobbing... ahem, adventuring in ruins was always such a profitable business.


    However, adventuring in a ruin would require plenty of patience and limitless time, neither of which I had.


    There were so many troublesome issues waiting for me in the mortal ne right now. I didn¡¯t have the mind to idly stay around here.


    I had previously determined that there were three likely locations for the ruin: one each in Maria¡¯s and Winston¡¯s territory, and one in the middle of nowhere in San Antonio. Since I had already confirmed that this location in the deste desert wasn¡¯t the ruin I was searching for, nor was the ruin in Maria¡¯s territory, the final location in Prince Winston¡¯s territory was the most likely one now.


    ¡°For me to travel through half of San Antonio at this time...¡±


    Just thinking about it gave me a headache. I was now the most wanted person in all of San Antonio. Although no higher-up in San Antonio would treat this seriously, the lower-level knights and guards would treat this with utmost seriousness.


    It would likely bring me nothing but trouble for me to expose my identity in San Antonio now.


    However, there were some things that I absolutely had to do. Things were bing ever more chaotic. It seemed likely that the Gods would soon descend in person. If I couldn¡¯t break through to the next power level quickly enough... As I recalled, I had plenty of enemies amongst the Gods. I had antagonized quite a few Gods back when I was Yongye, so if the Gods really all started descending...


    ¡°...Will I be the first mortal the Gods team up against for a major raid? That will probably be more than enough for me to achieve fame for eons toe. However, I¡¯d rather not have such a glory...¡±


    I had antagonized quite a number of Gods back in the day. Back then, I had antagonized them as much as I wanted since I figured that they wouldn¡¯t really descend in their true form to deal with me, and also because their incarnations weren¡¯t strong enough to beat me.


    I had eradicated several Gods¡¯ churches, meaning that I had cut off all of their source of belief. The ones who didn¡¯t die from this would be the more powerful Gods. The Gods would hold a grudge against me that was even greater than if I had killed their fathers for this.


    As for which specific Gods were my enemies... I really couldn¡¯t remember¡ªwho would bother to count how many ants one would casually walk over? I had also killed quite arge number of True Gods¡¯ priests along the way.


    ¡°I should keep a low profile...¡±


    I kept thinking about things, but could only conclude that I would have to hide for the time being, at least until I obtained several of my nned magic swords. It would be unwise to directly fight against the Gods before then.


    That was right, as long as my nned magic swords had the effects that I wanted, I wouldn¡¯t even fear the Gods descending in their true bodies.


    I had sacrificed everything back then for my current reincarnation. It would be quite foolish of me if I was unable to be stronger.


    ording to my theoretical blueprint, as long as I had a single fullypleted magic sword, I would be able to at least stay alive when fighting against any God. If I was instead able toplete my most dangerous magic sword, the death magic sword, it likely wouldn¡¯t be that difficult to even do some God-ying.


    ¡°It¡¯s time for me to head out.¡±


    I put on a cape and used my time ring to fake my age. I also put on a fake beard along with some tattered chain mail. This time, I chose to disguise myself as a middle-aged adventurer who was rather poor.


    Middle-aged mercenaries who weren¡¯t doing well were quitemon amongst adventurers. As long as I was careful, I doubted that I would be exposed.


    I was also personally immune to the great majority of inspection magic spells. I didn¡¯t need to worry that I would suddenly be surrounded before I realized it.


    Now that I thought back on it, if I hadn¡¯t exposed my own whereabouts by appearing in public at Prince Winston¡¯s pce, my enemies wouldn¡¯t have possibly gotten a lock on my current location in order to make their preparations against me.


    I felt quite the headache as I thought about the long and slow journey I would have to take on my way back.


    I wouldn¡¯t be able to fly in the sky as I liked. Although flying would be more than seven times faster than walking, San Antonio was no small country. There were all sorts of aerial knights patrolling the skies everywhere. It would be quite troublesome if I suddenly became surrounded.


    Although it was quite simple enough for me to exit the desert in a single day as I could still fly here since nobody was around, the rest of my journey would obviously be far more difficult.


    I felt even more depressed about how I would likely have to camp outside rather than enter any city along the way. I really wanted to simply fly past everything despite the risks.


    I indeed took a risk and entered a city along the way in order to obtain information from information brokers. What I learned made me even more depressed.


    Apparently, it was a definite in Maria¡¯s faction¡¯s portion of San Antonio that I was the prime suspect in Maria¡¯s assassination. What made me even more displeased was the ridiculous idea that I had been working together with the Holy Church in this. All of the news here was ming the Holy Church for having instigated all of this chaos. Prince Winston was branded as nothing more than the Holy Church¡¯s loyal dog, while I was supposedly the assassin that they had sent.


    I could understand that political propaganda was made up more than half the time, but this propaganda¡¯s being so ridiculous was probably hard on those who had to say it this time.


    Rnd, the worst enemy of the Holy Church, would actually work together with the Holy Church? All in order to assassinate some empress who was thousands of kilometers away from their bases? Just how ridiculous was this? Who would manage to believe such a ridiculous story?


    Yet no matter which city I went to, I could see wanted posters with my face stered everywhere. I could only helplessly avoid going into cities as much as I possibly could.


    I found a random store and purchased some food which wouldn¡¯t spoil but tasted disgusting to replenish my supplies before heading out again.


    I considered whether or not I should find some merchant group or adventurer group to join up with as traveling with them would be better concealment than going about by myself. But when I thought about the fact that ordinary groups would move at turtle speed, I helplessly gave up the thought and continued by myself.


    Everywhere I went, I could see soldiers who were training in a tense atmosphere and knights patrolling everywhere. It was as if the shadow of civil war had already shrouded San Antonio.


    When I was soon about to reach Prince Winston¡¯s territory, at a ce near the Taro River, I received some news which was absolutely confirmed.


    The civil war suddenly erupted one day ago.


    Duke Barrot¡¯s personal knight squadron ambushed Tardin, a border city between Maria¡¯s and Winston¡¯s territories, in the middle of the night. Not only that, they ughtered everyone who resisted.


    This fortress city was so tiny that it would be difficult to locate it on a map. Its standing army was less than 2,000 soldiers. Yet, this location had now attracted the attention of everyone, even including the Gods. That was because this attack represented one thing: the San Antonio civil war was now fully reignited.


    Rather inconceivable was that demons and ogres even appeared in Duke Barrot¡¯s army. Maria¡¯s former worst enemies had now be her faction¡¯s allies.


    When thinking about how Maria been killed by Karwenz, who was a demon himself, she would likely die of anger upon hearing that her faction was now working with demons if she were suddenly to be revived.


    I checked my maps and discovered that the city of Tardin was actually quite close to my current location. I hesitated for a moment, and then decided to take a longer path around.


    Unfortunately, I had acted a bit toote. My pursuers had already caught up.

 Chapter 726 - Seven Sins of Creation Sword

    <h4>Chapter 726: Seven Sins of Creation Sword</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    This angel¡¯s fiery wings were burning behind him. He held a giant two-handed sword that was simrly illuminated by holy mes. There was even a faint aura behind his back. Such an image made him seem like something out of a holy image.


    He was more than four meters tall, but he didn¡¯t seem pudgy at all. His proportions were perfect. His gigantic body was covered in golden armor. His solemn expression was filled with seriousness and justice. Under his bushy eyebrows, his eyes burned with hatred for all things evil.


    However, this angel was no ceremonial angel. His greatsword, the gigantic bow on his back, and his tower shield were no decorations at all. He was a rare angel species that was at the top of the food chain for both melee and rangedbat. He was a six-winged warrior angel, a veritable flying fortress.


    He was a Level 2 Skyfire Angel, who had the powers of judgement and sanction. ording to my knowledge, there were less than 100 of his kind in the world. Various veteran Gods would keep them around as honor guards. It was rare for them to be sent out.


    Did his image seem rather familiar? Perhaps I should use a moremon description. He was known as one of the strongest beings that wasn¡¯t a God¡ªa Seraphim.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, Pope Caloma wishes to meet with you. Pleasee with me.¡±


    It was the Holy Church¡¯s angel squadron that hade for me rather than any demons trying to hunt me down.


    The angel¡¯s low and heavy voice produced a resonance which was a holy voice that all high-level angels would naturally possess. Those who didn¡¯t have strong enough willpower would bepletely unable to resist his natural charm.


    Of course, the Seraphim had no expectation that I would be convinced by his words.


    Although he was nominally inviting me, his tone sounded rather doubting as well as respectful of me. It was apparent that he was used to it being only natural that others would obey him.


    ¡°So this is how you¡¯re inviting me?¡±


    The Seraphim hadn¡¯te by himself. There were 11 mid-level four-winged angels floating in the sky together with him. Some of the angels wielded bow and arrow, while other angels wielded staves. They were faintly surrounding me in a battle formation.


    Dragons would disy their might through size. Therger the dragon, the more powerful they would be. Meanwhile, an angel¡¯s level would be disyed through the number of wings. Low-level angels would have only two wings. Mid-level angels would have four wings. High-level angels would have even more wings than that.


    Previously, only the lowest-level angels had entered the mortal ne before. But even so, the low-level angels would still have individual strength that was at Gold rank or above.


    Meanwhile, four-winged mid-level angels would have at least Saint-ranked strength or higher. It was also possible for them to even have Level 4 strength.


    As for the high-level angels? They would be born with Level 4 strength right from the start. The strongest among them would be strong enough to even directly fight against the Gods. These high-level angels were truly a species strong enough to influence a war between Gods.


    Seraphims were famous even among the high-level angels for being highly capable fighters. These Skyfire Angels were incredibly rare, and would all have their own names.


    ¡°Are you Sinot? Or maybe Winton?¡±


    ¡°My name is Winton. I am the right hand of my master, and act as his hammer.¡±


    Winton¡¯s tone sounded just like a devout prayer. His voice naturally contained holy sound. Yet, I was unable to hear any traces of emotion in his voice.


    Winton An, the Glorious Hammer. He was a God Envoy who worked directly under the God of Holy Light.


    Evidently, he wasn¡¯t here to give me any sort of friendly invitation. Could it be that Prince Winston and Pope Caloma believed that they would be able to end San Antonio¡¯s civil war by killing off the ¡°culprit¡± behind Maria¡¯s assassination?


    No, Winton was actually ranking higher than Pope Caloma in the God of Holy Light¡¯s faction. Was this a sign that the God of Holy Light had finally lost his patience? Maybe he wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to finally get rid of me.


    The angels tightened their formation around me ever so slightly. Although a few steps of distance was meaningless for us, they were using their movements to emphasize their existence. If I showed any signs of trying to escape, they would immediately attack.


    ¡°...Uh-oh, I just happen to have urgent business right now, so maybe next time¡ª¡±


    I was interrupted midway by a spear of Holy Light that materialized right in front of me, which was the best evidence of the angels¡¯ attitude.


    It would seem that this wouldn¡¯t end peacefully. However, I actuallyughed in delight.


    This was no forcedughter or attempt at a scam. I was delighted from the bottom of my heart. I finally, finally had this chance now.


    ¡°Do you know what I hate most in this world?¡± I asked Winton.


    ¡°A negative emotion like hate is bad for you. As you are a user of Holy Light, you should learn how to control your own emotions.¡±


    Winton¡¯s voice was calm as always. He sounded like a teacher who was trying to teach me a maxim. This was an emotionless angel¡¯s way of looking down on humans. In the angels¡¯ culture, emotions were consideredpletely unnecessary.


    ¡°...As for me, firstly, I hate idiots who think that they¡¯re better than others. I love more than anything to break their haughty noses. Secondly, I hate morons who have no will of their own and know only blind obedience. Scamming and toying with them will truly makes me delighted from the bottom of my heart. Thirdly, I hate all sorts of birdmen. Seeing them makes me feel itchy all over. You guys are all three simultaneously, which is quite rare...¡±


    My words didn¡¯t contain much emotion, either. The hate deep within me didn¡¯t need to be shouted out loud. I would simply remember, find a chance, and then kill my most hated enemies.


    Back in Bardi¡¯s ins, the angels had ughtered devout believers of the pure Holy Light, which was what Holy Light really was. Estrada and his followers had all died to the overwhelmingly more powerful angels.


    Holy Knights and priests of Holy Light, who all worshipped the Holy Light, had actually died to the hands of angels sent out by the God of Holy Light. Just how ridiculous and pitiful was this?


    Yes, I knew that the angels were only the God of Holy Light¡¯s puppets. The angels were nothing more than war machines that had no sense of self. Even so, I might as well reim some interest owed to me by these puppet war machines.


    Since the angels were just like swords with their own souls that were being controlled by their master to kill others, then it would be quite fun to shatter the God of Holy Light¡¯s sword here.


    As I expanded my personal domain of death magic, dark magic power spread all around me. I transformed into my Original Sin Demon form that I hadn¡¯t used for a long time by now.


    The power of Holy Light would only buff angels. My half-baked ice magic power would be limited in attack power against them. The power of Law would basically be powerless against anyone who hadn¡¯tmitted a crime.


    My skin started distorting as scales and demon wings appeared on my body as signs of demonization. The next instant, the angel squadron unhesitatingly attacked me. Their original orders had been to ¡°kill Rnd if he resists capture¡± to begin with.


    Iughed. The shadow of death now belonged to my personal dance.


    ¡°...Despair! Seven Sins of Creation Sword!¡±


    Countless howling dark shadows gradually appeared in my own shadow. These were despairing souls that I had gathered during the demon wave¡¯s first attack.


    These shadows transformed into humanoid figures. A tear appeared in the world from which ck mud-like humanoid figures poured through.


    Even though my death magic sword was the farthest of my four magic swords from beingpleted, it definitely had the greatest attack power, especially against all sorts of Gods and heavenly creatures.


    My Holy Light sword, Dawn, was created to counter all demons and undead. Meanwhile, my death magic sword, Seven Sins of Creation Sword, was designed to especially counter all Order Gods and the angels.


    The soul had always been my main topic of research for death magic. Moreover, emotions were the key to opening up the secrets of the soul.


    The entire sky was polluted as white clouds darkened, the wind began to smell tainted, and the fertile soil was instantly corrupted ck. This ordinarynd suddenly transformed into a ne of death.


    Yet, this was only a side effect from my death magic sword¡¯s Concept.

 Chapter 727 - Complete Soul

    <h4>Chapter 727: Complete Soul</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    What exactly was the soul? Everyone had their own opinion, but it was likely that nobody¡¯s opinion was close to the truth.


    That was because there was no standard answer on what the soul was to begin with.


    Creator Goddess Eich had never designed the soul in the first ce. Souls had managed toe into existence by themselves. It was just that different researchers would analyze the soul from different angles.


    Back in my original world of Earth, in Chinese Daoism, there was a belief that humans had three celestial and seven earthly souls.


    The three celestial souls were heaven, earth, and human. These three souls hadpletely different functions, respectively being a human¡¯s self-consciousness, honor and the sense of shame, and lifespan.


    My interpretation was the three celestial souls represented self-recognition, personal values, and the lifespan of your soul. These would form the basic hardware of any soul, and typically were fixed conditions.


    Meanwhile, the seven earthly souls were dead dog, hidden arrow, Yin sparrow, thief swallower, flying poison, remover of filth, and stinking lung. Respectively, they corresponded to joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, wickedness, and lust. Basically, these were considered to be the most original emotions and instincts.


    Did all of this seem familiar? Actually, it was quite simr to the western concept of having Seven Original Sins. At most, there were some slight differences of interpretation regarding the angle from which to analyze some specific emotions.


    Regarding human nature, nobody should be considered higher than anyone else. In a way, everyone was the same.


    My research about the soul also started with the foundational structure of the soul. The difference between the soul¡¯s hardware and software was the foundation of everything.


    The three celestial souls were the hardware. They would remain the same for any short period of time. However, the seven earthly souls contained a person¡¯s emotions. They were constantly and forever changing. Maybe a person would be incredibly happy just one second earlier, but then instantly change to incredible sadness.


    In my opinion, the greatest difference between humans and non-humans was the ability to have emotions. No matter how fast aputer¡¯s artificial intelligence was capable of performing calctions, the artificial intelligence still wouldn¡¯t be alive. Any so-called random number calction would be nothing more than a simple scam. Numbers would never be able topare to emotions which came from the heart.


    Back in my original world of Earth which relied on science, research about the soul could only rely on guesses. But here in the world of Eich, there was actually solid evidence regarding souls.


    The key was the seven emotions that the seven earthly souls represented.


    Fear. Undead mages would love it when others were screaming in fear as that would help them to utilize negative energy.


    Happiness. There were many Divine Arts that would make people feel calmness or joy. Holy Light would instinctively cause others to feel warm and reassured.


    Anger. Going berserk could provide more energy and power. A furious soul would cause your blood to start boiling; thus, berserkers obtained the power to tear apart anything before them.


    Lust. This emotion would promote sexual desires. Certain human jobs and subi from the lower nes would use this emotion the most.


    Amongst these emotions, some had stronger powers, while others were weaker. Some were reallymon, while others were far rarer. However, these emotions really did reach the deepest part of the soul, an unopened Pandora¡¯s Box which represented the ¡°seven emotions¡± or the ¡°seven original sins¡±.


    When injecting mana or energy of a certain frequency, you would be able to incite a specific emotional reaction. Perhaps, from a certain standpoint, human souls were actually quite interestingly simr toputer programs.


    And so, I slowly researched the soul over several centuries, gradually understanding the soul wavelengths which represented each emotion.


    How did supernatural powers affect the soul?


    How could one adjust their own supernatural powers to increase or lessen the influence on the soul?


    Just what exact part of the soul did supernatural powers affect? Which portion of the three celestial and seven earthly souls?


    Was it possible to literally split off your own emotions? Was that the true form of multiple personality disorder?


    The result of my research was that I split a normal soul into many different pieces, sessfully isting one pure emotion in each soul shard, artificially creating souls that would only be obsessed with one pure emotion.


    Yes, that was my Seven Original Sins.


    Of course, things weren¡¯t that simple. The birth of each one of my Seven Original Sins had required me to use up thousands of times the quality of their soul in soul resources. I also had to pay with a portion of my very own soul each time.


    The immense strength of the Seven Original Sins was because of how unique, how pure, and how extreme their souls were.


    A soul which only had love would be a saint. A soul which only had hate would be insane. A soul which only had lust would be unsalvageable. Any soul that went to an extreme wouldn¡¯t possibly be ordinary.


    The soul of each of the Seven Original Sins, if judging by quality, would be thousands times better than any ordinary person¡¯s. If you only looked at the quality of the soul, their souls wouldn¡¯t be any different from a Level 4 individual¡¯s soul.


    In the world of Eich, the soul was the source of all power.


    For any undead existence, as long as they had such a soul, and their physical body was of good enough quality, they wouldn¡¯t possibly be weak.


    Yet, this was only a byproduct of my research regarding the soul and soul creations.


    The flip side was that the most highly skilled doctor in the world would also know how to kill people the quickest. With birth, there would also always be destruction. Since I now understood the foundational essence on how to create a soul, I thus naturally also understood how topletely destroy a soul.


    ¡°Seven Sins of Creation Sword...¡±


    Countless grudge-filled souls crawled out of my shadow, forcefully transforming this entire in into a hellishnd.


    I was capable of removing a part of the soul. Now then, what would happen if I added something extra to an alreadyplete soul instead?


    What would happen if an extra soul was added to the three celestial and seven earthly souls? In a way, this was quite an interesting math problem. And so, I performed a rather interesting experiment.


    *BOOM!*


    A grudge-filled soul crashed into a mid-level four-winged angel, who instantly exploded into tiny pieces of meat and blood.


    There was no magical wavelength. There was no fight. There was no sound (the boom was just a visual effect). A powerful angel who was more than 1,000 years old instantly died just like that.


    Countless grudge-filled souls continued to emerge from my shadow. Some of them had died while feeling despair. Some of them had died from hunger. Some of them had died from indulging in too much lust. Some had died while filled with hate. Due to my modifications, their pure emotion became their only essence. All of these grudge-filled souls were now pure souls that felt only one negative emotion.


    These souls instinctively desired to beplete. They instinctively desired to return to the Cycle of Reincarnation. They instinctively desired to be part of another soul.


    This was no attack. This was actually a blessing. This was the instinct of the soul.


    They were just like soul shards in the River Styx which wouldbine with each other to be moreplete.


    As Iughed uproariously, countless dark souls emerged from underneath my feet as the world around me transformed into something resembling a haunted house.


    The powerful warrior angels were actually useless in front of these weak little grudge-filled souls. The moment that a grudge-filled soul touched an angel, either the angel¡¯s soul would copse while the physical body remained perfectly intact, or the soul and physical body would distort together. Those who died from instantaneous explosions were already the luckiest.


    If the River Styx could be considered the ultimate ¡°dissolvent¡± that could dissolve any soul, then these one-track grudge-filled souls of mine were the ¡°glue¡± of the soul.


    Did you want to try and attack these grudge-filled souls? They weren¡¯t even undead. They were pure life forms. The Holy Light was supposed to give rest and blessing to souls. How would Holy Light possibly attack them?


    ¡°Demon!¡±


    In the sky, the furious Seraphim Winton roared as he swung his sword at me. His sword swung with such thunderous speed that it even left a dimensional tear. It would be impossible for me to dodge.


    But, why would I even need to dodge?


    Just as his burning holy sword was about to touch my face, Winton An, the Glorious Hammer, stopped with an expression of disbelief.


    Countless grudge-filled souls crawled out of his body. His expression was so furious that even veins started bulging. It seemed that at this instant, even an angel like Winton had gained emotions.


    ¡°Ha, how does it feel to have aplete soul? It must be quite fun to experience anger and despair for the first time in your life? You should thank me for helping a puppet like yourself to gain emotions for the first time.¡±


    Sadly, my words were meaningless as Winton could no longer hear me.


    The Seraphim still remained in his attack pose, but he was no longer able to move, as the soul within his body had alreadypletely copsed.


    Meanwhile, I picked up my cape, opened up my shadow, and started retrieving all of these grudge-filled souls. They were all resources for me to construct my death magic sword with. They weren¡¯t easy for me to gather, so I couldn¡¯t afford to waste them.


    ¡°Sigh, I wasted so much today...¡±


    I was eximing both because I had wasted a lot of grudge-filled souls today, as this three-minute explosive attack had used up more than 20,000 grudge-filled souls in my possession, and because I was sad that Winton¡¯s soul hadpletely been ruined, which meant that I was unable to do anything with such a high-quality soul like his.


    I then restarted my journey, leaving behind a few angel ¡°statues¡± who were fortunate enough to still have intact bodies. It was likely that they would remain standing here for a long time toe.


    Three dayster, the Cmity Rankings of Eich were updated once more. I now ranked in the top three for the first time ever. This time, I didn¡¯t have any ambiguous nickname like ¡°Undying Rnd¡±. I was now known as the ¡°Ruler of Souls¡± and ¡°Emperor of the Dead¡±.

 Chapter 728 - Shock wave

    <strong>Chapter 728: Shock wave</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    ¡°Just because a tiger hasn¡¯t eaten anyone in a long time, you thought that he became a vegetarian? Youngster, this old dog still has some teeth!¡±


    It was within my expectations that the Holy Church would try to assassinate me.


    As long as the Holy Church was still a gigantic and powerful faction, and as long as their God-levelbat strength was able to enter the mortal ne at this time, it was only natural that they would want to eliminate an unstable factor in their ns such as myself.


    In that case, I would have to either go into hiding or cut off the dirty hand that tried to kill me as a warning to them.


    ¡°You want to kill me? Sure, but you¡¯ll have to pay a sufficient price first.¡±


    Showing off my Seven Sins of Creation sword would likely be enough to make the Order Gods who looked down on mortals quiet down for a period of time.


    By now, apart from my Law sword which was still in its design blueprint phase, I had shown off each of my other magic swords¡¯ design philosophies and abilities. My personalbat style was now quite certain.


    I would start with my ice magic sword, Nortnds, which would create a death arena with only myself and my enemies. In this area, I would be able to fight in a snow and ice environment, the most advantageous type of environment to myself.


    Also, my Holy Light sword, Dawn, would activate its effects in the wide area of effect mode. Dawn would buff mybat strength while constantly weakening the strength of any being of Chaos. Activating Dawn would be a shameless fighting tactic equivalent to forcing a vampire to fight in the open under the direct sunlight.


    Dawn would also have powerful anti-undead and anti-demon properties.


    Yet, that still wouldn¡¯t be enough.


    My Holy Light sword would be meaningless against the Order Gods, angels, and ordinary mortals which were beings of Order. Yet, I still chose to create my Holy Light sword because I had also designed the biggest killing weapon of all¡ªmy Seven Sins sword, which could easily y even a God or anything with a soul.


    The Seven Sins were the seven major negative emotions that humanity also viewed as the Original Sins. This was evidence that beings from the upper nes viewed lower-level life forms as inferior.


    Angels, who had already transformed into pure robot-like ughter machines loyal to the God of Holy Light, had gone most overboard of all with this way of thinking.


    ¡°Since you treat mortals¡¯ negative emotions as sin, then the name Seven Sins sword is definitely most befitting of this sword which contains only the purest negative emotions of mortals.¡±


    There was no need for me to repeat the workings of this sword. It would be constructed out of a tremendous number of souls. ording to my calctions and theoretical design, it would likely require several millions or several tens of millions of souls rather than any number in the thousands in order to bepleted. Moreover, the more pitiful the death, and the more of a grudge that the soul held upon dying, the better it would be for me.


    No matter what angle you looked at this, and even when looking at the entire history of all of undead and death magic, this magic sword of mine could likely be called the most evil creation in all of history.


    Once this sword was sessfully created, anyone struck by it that had an existing soul would instantly be overwhelmed by an enormous amount of negative emotions which would shatter their soul¡¯s bnce. Any physical body that had lost its soul would be a meaningless empty shell.


    I had now proved that my design philosophy was indeed workable. The main problem that I had always beenining about wasck of resources.


    Ever since I had designed this sword, and even down in the Chaos Abyss, I had always beenining aboutcking resources. I had even wondered if I should go and rob souls from the Death nes. Unfortunately, undead who had lived for too long would actually have few negative emotions remaining. It would be most effective to use the souls of the new dead.


    Since this was such an urgent matter, I had even been tempted to go contact The Eldest One, who was the demon that had invented undead and death magic. I probably would have done so already if it weren¡¯t for the elves¡¯ incident.


    I had been unable to gather even a tiny percent of the souls that I required. However, the battle at the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire had given me an unexpectedly great harvest.


    From a certain standpoint, I had benefited far more than anyone from that battle in which the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire had been destroyed. I had cast a forbidden spell there to destroy the demon wave. Even I couldn¡¯t count just how many millions of souls I had sessfully harvested there.


    Not only that, I also received the soul shards of the Elven Gods, especially the final soul essence of Anslo, a Main God. This was a treasure that I would never have been able to obtain under normal circumstances.


    These divine soul shards greatly improved the overall quality of my soul resources. The curses and grudges left behind by the Elven Gods even identally helped my sword to obtain the property of ¡°Curse of the Dead Gods¡±, which gave it even more additional attack power against the Gods. This made me even more determined to finish my Seven Sins sword¡¯s construction.


    The core of my death magic Seven Sins sword was Elf Main God Anslo¡¯s soul shard. The process of constructing this sword was currently slowly progressing in the shadows.


    I hadn¡¯t brought out my still iplete Seven Sins Sword against the angel squadron that tried to kill me. Instead, I had only opened up a small portal to where I was storing my magic sword, allowing the ¡°soul resources¡± toe out by themselves.


    If I had really brought out my iplete magic sword... Well, just let me exin by analogy of telling you to look at the status of smaller countries which were still trying to research nuclear weapons on Earth inparison torger countries which already possessed nuclear weapons.


    ¡°It was more effective than I expected.¡±


    In a way, this had been an experiment for me.


    Angels were pure creatures of Order. They obeyed the heavens¡¯mands, and viewed being emotionless and stoic as glory and virtue. Their souls were also rather special, being especially exquisite and bnced.


    Yet, the angels had been unable to withstand even the grudge-filled souls which bore negative emotions. The Seraphim counted as quite high-ranking in the upper nes, but even he hadn¡¯tsted very long.


    The angels weren¡¯t even my presumed ultimate enemy that I would have to take on with this magic sword...


    Yes, it was probably easy to guess that my presumed ultimate enemy that I would need to use this sword for was actually the Order Gods!


    The Order Gods hadbined themselves with their own Divine Concepts. In a way, they were also existences without their own, individual will as they would have to carry out their own Divine Concept and expand it.


    The better the God¡¯s Divine Concept was doing, the more powerful the God would be, such as the God of War during a time of war, the God of Wisdom during a cultural renaissance, or the Rain God and Ocean God during a time of major storms.


    Their Divine Kingdoms were their personal domains. Their physical bodies were thebination of their soul and Divine Concepts. They were basically Concepts which had their own will. If they were injected with too much sense of self... they would probably die even more pitifully than the Seraphim had!


    Theoretically speaking, once a God¡¯s body was touched by my Seven Sins sword, their originally Order-based body would naturally be filled with many impurities, causing their body to be imbnced inside. The Gods didn¡¯t have an independent soul. The copse of their physical body would also represent irreversible destruction.


    Godyer Seven Sins Sword. This was the true name of my death magic sword, which I was unable to shout out loud as of yet.


    As for when it would finally bepleted? That would likely depend on when enough people had finally died... Perhaps I should go visit more battlefields in order to harvest more souls.


    My gold Holy Light sword Dawn would transform Chaos into Order. It would be the ughterer of demons and undead. The cleanser of Chaos.


    My ck death magic sword Seven Sins would inject Chaos into Order. It would be the ughterer of angels and the Order Gods. The destroyer of Order.


    Theoretically, as long as Ipleted these two magic swords, I wouldn¡¯t be too disadvantaged against any opponent. Unfortunately, both of these magic swords were far too difficult toplete.


    ¡°Perhaps I really do need to go visit some battlefields when I have free time.¡±


    ¡ª


    The death of Winton An, the Glorious Hammer, sent a huge shock wave throughout the entire world.


    The Holy Church had originally been in high spirits due to the arrival of their reinforcements. This news suddenly dealt them a great blow that really doused their spirits.


    This was quite understandable. Winton had been a legendary individual as well as the angel considered to be the God of Holy Light¡¯s right arm. Every day, Holy Light worshippers would hear about how amazing Winton was, how he would y evil and powerful magical beasts, and so on. They would really want to personally achieve such mythic feats together with him.


    However, an undefeated myth like Winton had just descended to the mortal ne, yet he mysteriously died in a backwater alleyway, killed while he and a full angel squadron were attacking a single person who wasn¡¯t even a God...


    This seemed to be quite inconceivable. In fact, many felt like they had been deceived, that their angelic reinforcements weren¡¯t as powerful as they had believed, that the undefeated Winton had been quite weak, and that perhaps they should consider a path of retreat for themselves.


    The Holy Church¡¯s Cardinals were no idiots. They were doing their best to suppress this news. But unfortunately for them, others were also no idiots. Others would never let go of this excellent opportunity to strike a blow to the Holy Church¡¯s reputation. This was all the more so for the fairies, who were bing ever more dissatisfied with the Holy Church.


    Special edition reports were already flying everywhere on the day right after Seraphim Winton died. In the fairies¡¯ typical style, the headlines were really exaggerated and attention-grabbing, with examples such as ¡°Seraphim Winton felt that he must have had a great advantage, yet he was actually killed by a mortal¡±, or ¡°How horrid! A certain person deres that he loves to eat fried angel wings!¡±. Still, the fairies¡¯ description of what had actually happened was as truthful and detailed as always.


    The fairies vividly described how the angel squadron had surrounded me, how the angel squadron had felt that they had a great advantage and attacked me all at once, followed by how I had instantly defeated all of them.


    In fact, it was even recorded just how long the battle hadsted. The grand Seraphim Winton would probably be so angry that he would revive himself if only he knew that he was now being referred to as the ¡°Three seconds angel¡±.


    Of course, the fairies added various pictures of what had happened in the battle. Next to several masses of shredded meat, the tall and magnificent Winton, who appeared just like a hero out of legends, stood there like a statue. Yet, his eyes werepletely nk as his powerful physical body was now nothing more than an empty shell.


    Just how had I aplished this? How did I seed with such a mysterious attack method? Would anyone really be able to escape if I tried to assassinate some important political target? What type of attack method would destroy my enemy without even harming the physical body, especially when my enemies were warrior angels, one of the species with the strongest magic resistance in this world?


    Of course, I would never give any exnations about my own special abilities. Only an absolute idiot would do that as it would allow others to find the special ability¡¯s weaknesses.


    Only when the world¡¯s important figures and kings received this report did everyone recall that I wasn¡¯t simply a military arms merchant and diplomat who was skilled at international diplomacy and secret deals. They finally recalled that I had also been someone mega dangerous who had challenged the entire world by myself¡ªand that I had almost won.


    Thus, the Cmity Rankings updated and put me directly at #3.


    #2 on the Cmity Rankings was also a familiar figure: Chaos War God Donatis. It was likely that countless had just died because of him during the recent demon wave, either directly or indirectly.


    Meanwhile, #1 on the Cmity Rankings was still a certain Dracon who must not be named...


    Anyhow, since Beifeng was considered to be an existence even more dangerous than the Chaos War God, didn¡¯t this mean that he truly was undefeatable in his own way?


    It was quite likely that Beifeng would solidly remain as #1 on the Cmity Rankings unless news spread that he had already left this entire universe.


    As for myself, my new improved Cmity Ranking indeed helped to make things easier for me.


    Certain factions and organizations which might have been thinking about making a move against me would now reconsider if they truly could take me on or not, and if they could handle my revenge.


    Moreover, if I wanted to express my friendship towards another faction, that faction would have to take me far more seriously. The world was a practical ce. No matter how famous the reputation or incredible someone¡¯s past was, that would neverpare to actualbat achievements performed recently.


    Perhaps many people were under the impression that I was far weaker now after revivalpared to when I had been a lich. But now, their previous analyses of my current power level could all be considered useless.


    Another benefit of my newfound Cmity Ranking was that I no longer needed to hide my tracks. I openly entered cities, stayed in hotels, and ate in restaurants out in the open as myself. Not a single person dared to stop me.


    Even the Holy Church that had just attacked me fell into a strange period of silence. Perhaps they hadn¡¯t expected that their ace card would¡¯ve been vanquishedpletely just like that without seemingly giving me even a tiny bit of trouble.


    Unless the Holy Church sent a Middle God or High God in their true body to deal with me, it was likely that I wouldn¡¯t be afraid of anything else. I would just feel some pain at losing some souls necessary for constructing my death magic sword.


    Since I had already exposed my power as ¡°Emperor of the Dead¡±, I no longer tried to hide anything. All along the way, I intentionally visited every San Antonio civil war battlefield that I could, traveling in my soul carriage through the battlefield and taking away all of the pitiful souls I could which had died in this useless civil war.


    Of course, there were plenty of Level 4 individuals who noticed what I was doing. Still, when they saw that I had no intention of getting involved in the actual battles, they simply pretended that they didn¡¯t see me.


    Maybe the action of harvesting souls would damage my reputation even further, but I wouldn¡¯t mind such a small thing.


    When I noticed that I didn¡¯t have to disguise myself or hide from others anymore, I even started openly crossing through battlefields, which further increased my traveling speed.


    I arrived at the Amu Mountains in less than a week. However, things were different here from the civil war battlefields. Here, humans were fighting against the demons and ogres. It would be too difficult to expect that both sides would pretend not to see me anymore.


    ¡°This is probably the correct location now...¡±


    With the process of elimination, it was only natural that the final potential ruin location in the Amu Mountains was the correct one... Although my bad luck made me feel helpless as always, at the very least I would finally be able to truly power up to Level 4 and beyond once I obtained the Sun God¡¯s mirror necessary as a top-level resource for my Holy Light sword.

 Chapter 729 - Treasure Hunting

    <strong>Chapter 729: Treasure Hunting</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    Inside the pitch-ck cave, only the sound of my and Harloys¡¯ footsteps and water dripping broke the sound of silence.


    *Sizzle!*


    I used an alchemical potion to brighten my torch, allowing me to better see my surroundings.


    This rough cave evidently wasn¡¯t the proper entrance. I saw nothing but wide space before me.


    The cliff above me was actually more than 100 meters tall. A group of silver pces was at the end of my field of vision. Steps made from silver bricks created a path between the pces.


    Underneath the pces were small brick houses. However, only broken brick walls now remained.


    This ruin probably belonged to some civilization from the past. It was evident that this ruin had been robbed multiple times already. Apart from the stone statues that were too heavy to move, the robbers hadn¡¯t left anything behind. All of the gold and gems on the statues had been cleaned out.


    Perhaps the craftsmanship wasn¡¯t high in quality enough, or maybe things here were just too old. The wall drawings were nowpletely ck. Even the sheepskin scrolls had rotted away and were iprehensible.


    ¡°Did we miss yet again?¡± Harloys¡¯ment caused my heart to skip a beat. If the magic mirror that I was searching for had really been stolen by a graverobber already, then it would¡¯ve be impossible to find as it could be anywhere in the entire world now.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s ask the guardians here first.¡±


    I summoned various undead to walk out of the ruins. Most of them were previous graverobbers. Still, there were a few who were bird-headed members of the Sun God¡¯s old species.


    ¡°Undead spirits?¡±


    Seeing these, I actually heaved a sigh of relief. Undead creatures of all sorts were quitemon in these types of ruins.


    Looking around, most of these undead were skeleton types. There were low-level skeleton soldiers moners), skeleton archers, and skeletonborers. Even the highest level were only a few skeleton mages. There were no liches among them.


    The fact that these undead still existed here was evidence that these ruins hadn¡¯t been cleaned outpletely yet. There were probably still valuables inside.


    Even if there were high-level undead here, it was likely that they wouldn¡¯t have any intelligence. Even mega recluses like liches would still want to go out once in a while. It might be eptable for a lich to stay underground in a ruin like this for a few centuries, but several millennia or tens of thousands of years would be too much even for a lich.


    Many people thought that the older an undead was, the more powerful they were. In a way, this was a mistaken impression.


    Indeed, an intelligent undead who had lived for a long period of time usually wouldn¡¯t be weak.


    ¡°Tsk, they¡¯re already weathered almost to nothing. I need to be careful not to break them before I draw out their memories.¡±


    The skeleton soldier before me was already losing its negative energy. Its bones were almost fossils. Some other skeletons fell apart before they even reached me. They had nobat strength at all.


    It wasn¡¯t that the longer an undead lived, the more powerful it would be. It was actually that only powerful undead would be able to live that long.


    A low-level undead with no intelligence that was left alone for too long would see its negative energy begin to dissipate. In normal situations, this undead would gradually be weaker, and even die again. If this area¡¯s negative energy concentration was very high, then it would be possible for new undead spirits to appear from the corpses and bones, but that was somethingpletely different from natural undead.


    Only intelligent undead would intentionally gather more negative energy and gradually be stronger, slyer, and more isted.


    The undead creatures before me seemed as if even a light breeze would blow them over. It was likely that they were still intact only because this environment had given them enough protection.


    Back in the day, these undead guardians might still have been able to bully some graverobbers who weren¡¯t too powerful. However, these undead werepletely meaningless in front of an undead mage like myself.


    I used a low-level undead magic spell, and easily took control of these masterless undead.


    I directly drew out their memories from their soul shards. I then frowned at what I learned.


    ¡°The oldest undead here is less than 1,000 years old. Not only that, it crawled out from all these remnant bones. This ce was already aplete ruin by then. After that, this ce became even more hidden due to tectonic movements. Since there wasn¡¯t any treasure here to be found, nobody came at all.¡±


    I far preferred to meet with an undead bone dragon blocking my way rather than this current situation... If I had to slowly search through this ruin, just how long was I supposed to look? I might not even find anything in the end.


    Yet, I was unwilling to just turn around and leave like this.


    ¡°I smell the scent of the living. Who dares to disturb the magnificent Grinka¡¯s rest?¡±


    An angry roar suddenly sounded from the direction of the pces. This was a soul roar that only high-level undead could use. Judging from the magical wavelength and the fact that it was spoken in the dragonnguage, apparently it was a bone dragon?


    Soon, a ghost dragon flew out from the pces. However, it was only a tiny dragon that was less than five meters long. It wasn¡¯t even at the standard of an infant dragon, although its voice reached me far before it did.


    ¡°My jinxing ability was useful for once...¡±


    Two minutester, the ghost dragon which had been roaring at me now clutched its head as it submitted to me. I made a ¡°friendly request¡±, and he ¡°passionately and weingly¡± introduced the situation around this ruin to me.


    ¡°I¡¯m looking for a mirror. It¡¯s something shiny. It¡¯s something shiny that can reflect other objects?¡±


    It turned out that this tiny ghost dragon didn¡¯t even know what a mirror was. But thanks to my ¡°friendly assistance¡±, he soon recalled something.


    ¡°I think I saw something like that long ago. But, it was too hard for me to bite into, so I tossed it aside somewhere. I don¡¯t remember where I threw it, but it should be in here somewhere.¡±


    Seeing how stupid this ghost dragon was, I couldn¡¯t even be bothered to get angry.


    If I tried to draw out his memories, it wouldn¡¯t be very useful if he even couldn¡¯t remember them clearly. I had no intention of slowly searching through several hundred years¡¯ worth of memories from this stupid ghost dragon.


    In that case...


    ¡°This dragon is still somewhat useful. At the very least, he provided evidence that the magic mirror is highly sturdy. In that case, everyone, start working. You must find that mirror for me even if you have to dig up this entire ce.¡±


    Various skeletonborers started rising up as they picked up shovels and various weapons left behind here to start treasure digging with.


    I was worried that they wouldn¡¯t be enough, so I even summoned a group of my own undead creatures to help with the digging.


    As a veteran graverobber... ahem, adventurer, I had indeed searched through other ruins before. I could guarantee you that treasure would never be like in video games, waiting for you in a treasure chest, or dropping if you killed some specific monster.


    Anything with a powerful magical reaction that obviously appeared to be something good would typically actually be a cursed item or a trap. Nobody would be dumb enough to carry everything they owned that was valuable with them. It wasmon that even a low-intelligence monster would know how to disguise its own treasure hoard and set traps.


    Without a certain amount of appraisal ability, it would bemon to treat a priceless artifact right in front of you as nothing more than scrap metal. I had seen countless novices who treated gold-painted copper swords as treasure before. While there were indeed lucky individuals who managed to find God Equipment in a random store like in the stories, the prerequisite for this was that there was an idiot out there who treated the God Equipment as garbage and sold it off in the first ce.


    Although 99% of such stories came from merchants trying to scam newbies, there really were a few real examples. Not every adventurer team would have a veteran appraiser with them, after all. If the adventurer team had obtained valuables through improper means, especially if they had robbed the grave of some noble, they would be more than satisfied with being able to safely sell their stolen goods. It was quitemon that they would thus sell off their valuables for less than what the valuables were really worth.


    ¡°Does this mean that you¡¯ve gotten lucky before? You managed to buy something miraculous at a really cheap price?¡± Harloys was rather astonished at what I just mentioned.


    ¡°No, but I¡¯ve seen others have such luck. For instance, Karwenz two times, and Adam two times...¡±


    I kept feeling more and more like this world was so unfair. Why was it that those with low intelligence always managed to get lucky? I clearly inspected and checked every item I came across, yet I had never been so lucky to find anything good, which was why...


    ¡°Back at Sulfur Mountain City, I opened up my own shop. I specialized in selling ¡®fenced goods that haven¡¯t been identified¡¯, ¡®artifacts picked up in underground tombs¡¯, and so on for 500 silver coins apiece. Business was actually quite good at first.¡±


    ¡°...You could even make long-term profits with such a ridiculous business? You must have arranged for shills who ¡®won¡¯ good items.¡±


    ¡°My archaeological counterfeiting abilities are still quite good. I also sold off all of the random rubbish that my System gave me...¡±


    Harloys shook her head as she guessed at what happened next. ¡°So, you must have been exposed, causing your business to copse?¡±


    ¡°...No. Although I indeed closed down afterwards, it wasn¡¯t because I was exposed.¡±


    ¡°Then what? Did you get bored?¡±


    ¡°...I identally missed some God Equipment and really did sell it off for 500 silver coins. I lost so much potential money and cried so much that I couldn¡¯t bear running that business anymore.¡±


    ¡°With your personality, you actually didn¡¯t try to get it back? Oh, I understand. It must have been Adam who purchased the God Equipment from you?¡±


    I nodded with a heavy heart. This was a dark memory of mine. With that one transaction, I had lost more potential money than I would have been able to earn in 10 years. That was why I never ran a store again.


    Harloys and I continued to chat in order to pass the timem.


    The low-level undead were searching for the magic mirror for me. However, it was unknown when they would be able to actually find it.


    ¡°A shard that can reflect light.¡± ¡°A very sturdy stone.¡± I gave the low-level undead very rough orders to search for such an object as they were incapable of understanding moreplexmands. Skeleton soldiers were beginning to bring strangely shaped rocks to me now. It would seem that this would take a while.


    Would this take one year? Or maybe six months? In the end, the God of Fortune must have taken pity on me for once. After enough stones of various shapes were piled in front of me to create a small mountain, slightly less than one weekter, a skeletonborer that was almost falling apart managed to bring me the magic mirror.

 Chapter 730 - Breakthrough Step

    <strong>Chapter 730: Breakthrough Step</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    What exactly was the Sun God¡¯s magic mirror like? As it was formerly God Equipment, would it have many miraculous uses? Actually, that wouldn¡¯t be meaningful at all to me.


    To me, it was only one piece of the puzzle. All I needed from it was its Concept as a top-level light-type resource.


    The mainponents of my nned Holy Light sword Dawn in my design were one foundational resource and two additional resources to help support its main abilities. The quality of the final resources I used in constructing my sword would directly affect the sword¡¯s final power level.


    Back when I was locked in bitter battle in the Chaos Abyss against the Devil Lords, I had forcefully started creating my Holy Light sword. The foundational resource I chose for it was actually two items: Karn¡¯s spear from before he had ascended to be the God of Holy Light and Estrada¡¯s battle hammer filled with the inheritance of Holy Knights.


    Karn¡¯s spear was a holy weapon containing the history of the arrival of Holy Light. It represented the source of Holy Light itself. It had the highest-level religious meaning possible. Thus, Karn¡¯s spear would help my Holy Light sword Dawn to be the highest-level weapon of Holy Light.


    Estrada¡¯s hammer contained thousands of years of inheritance regarding the path of protection that humans took to protect others as Holy Knights. As a foundational resource, that would give Dawn the quality of being unyielding, and transform into durability and strength, two of the most important qualities for any weapon. Additionally, Estrada¡¯s hammer was also one of the mostpatible resources with Holy Light possible.


    The foundational resource didn¡¯t have to be just one item. Most Myth-ranked weapons¡¯ foundational resources would be rare treasures or special items. There was no specific requirement for the resource in the design to begin with. The design only asked that the resource bepatible and high-level enough.


    As for the two supporting resources, I needed a resource with the power of spreading light in order to send Holy Light out as far as possible, utilizing the cleansing ability of pure Holy Light in arge area of effect, just as if my Dawn sword was a lighthouse. The other resource I required would need the power of gathering light in order to condense high-purity Holy Light for greater attack power, just as if my Dawn sword was aser beam.


    Originally, I had thought that I would need two different light-rted items in order toplete my design. However, Sun God Aloyo had truly given me a great gift here.


    The very Concept of the sun itself was about spreading light to begin with. Meanwhile, a mirror would be just like a magician of light. ording to the mirror¡¯s designed shape and angles, a mirror could either gather or spread light as well.


    Since Sun God Aloyo¡¯s magic mirror possessed both the properties of gathering and spreading light, then I could simultaneously fulfill both requirements with just this one item.


    I summoned my Dawn magic sword in midair. Aloyo¡¯s magic mirror transformed into a silver liquid that entered within Dawn.


    I sat down underneath Dawn to meditate as I sculpted my sword.


    Holy Light poured out from Dawn. It was like I was bathing in Holy Light.


    Achieving SemiGod rank, now also known as Level 4, wouldn¡¯t be as simple as just sculpting one¡¯s personal Myth-ranked weapon.


    Sculpting a Myth-ranked weapon was only a technique. Powerful traits andbat strength would be added in passing. The true goal was to use the Myth-ranked weapon as an extension of one¡¯s own physical body, making up for the natural weaknesses of humans, elves, and other humanoid species.


    A human body was just like a cup. As the human became more powerful, the process would be like filling the cup with water. By the time that the human reached Myth rank, the cup representing their body¡¯s ability to hold power would now be full. The limitation of being human would limit their development potential. In that case, it would seem like the human would have to switch to using an improved vessel in order to gain more power. This would be the equivalent of changing your entire species and physical body, which would require starting over from the very beginning again.


    In that case, the actual correct answer was to open up a small hole in the cup, allowing some water to pour out into a backup vessel. This was the foundational theory behind how Myth-ranked weapons could help people break through to the next power level.


    Although this sounded quite simple, aplishing it would be extremely difficult.


    This would be the equivalent of making up for your natural weaknesses.


    This new Myth-ranked weapon would absolutely be a very part of you. Only then would this new powerup not be wasted. You couldn¡¯t afford to take too small of a step with this. Otherwise, it would be meaningless if it didn¡¯t do anything.


    Creating a Myth-ranked weapon would be the equivalent of creating a new and fully functional organ of the human body, allowing you to break past the original limits of the human body.


    SemiGod? Level 4? If you could reach this step, you would no longer be considered a mortal. You would have surpassed mortal limits already, hence such a name describing the power level. You would no longer die of natural causes.


    That was right, any Level 4 individual¡¯s lifespan would be massively increased even if they made no special preparations regarding how to increase their lifespan. As long as the Level 4 individual wasn¡¯t the idiotic type, they typically wouldn¡¯t have to worry about lifespan anymore.


    However, just strengthening the Myth-ranked weapon to develop a new path wouldn¡¯t be enough. During this process, your own physical body would also need to evolve and change in order to get ustomed to this new ¡°organ¡± in your body. You would need to undergo simultaneous evolution of your physical body and Myth-ranked weapon in order to reach the next level.


    It could be said that this was the most important as well as most difficult step of all. How you did here would directly affect your future development potential.


    There were some who would intentionally stay at Myth rank for several hundred years, all so that they could do as best as possible on the final step. Usually, they either still hadn¡¯t gathered enough top-level resources, or there was still a problem with their design, so they didn¡¯t want to force themselves to level up, which would actually cause them to lose more than they would gain by limiting their maximum potential.


    There were some who might spend only a few years in Myth rank before breaking past the Three Heavy Doors with some genius Concept that transformed into reality, finally achieving miraculous things.


    There were some who might spend several centuries working hard before finally making that final breakthrough, thus allowing their future potential to be limitless.


    There were some who had lost the ability to reach the peak from the very start due to physical deficiencies or taking the wrong path. The most pitiful of all would be the example of the tremendous gap between Myth-ranked undead and the Undead Emperors. It was impossible for the undead to pass the final Heavy Door of Myth rank due to having an iplete soul. Yet, the Undead Emperors who did so had indeed achieved the impossible, so of course they would have far surpassed the regr Myth-ranked undead.


    However, the great majority of Level 4 individuals had barely managed to pass through the final Heavy Door. They would already be more than satisfied that they had managed to achieve Level 4 in the first ce. It would be considered far too extravagant to desire even more on top of that.


    Every single Myth-ranked weapon would be different. Every single individual¡¯s path to Level 4 would also be different. In that case, it was only natural that their future paths and potential would also be different.


    Before reaching Level 4, you could learn from your predecessors¡¯ experience and even imitate them.


    The path after reaching Level 4 was as wide as the entire world. Nobody would be able to guide you. You would no longer be restrained by past experience. Nothing had limits anymore. How much more you could power up would entirely depend on yourself.


    Holy Light created a cycle between myself and Dawn. A mysterious change was currently happening.


    I felt like my back was really itchy. Suddenly, my golden wings sprouted from my back, without my ordering them to do so. They had automatically appeared without me transforming into my War Angel form.


    ¡°Damn it! Am I going to turn into a birdman?¡±


    I was really astonished at this, but thankfully, my System gave me a message that helped to calm me down.


    Apparently, from the very start, the so-called War Angel and Original Sin Demon form transformations were only a part of my physical body¡¯s bloodline. It was just like how an angel bloodline would naturally have wings as part of the physical body.


    However, my Arbiter Bloodline was far too powerful. An overly weak physical body would be unable to handle it. My System had thus helped to separate my Arbiter Bloodline from my body, instead turning it into a temporary transformation ability that I could make use of.


    But now that I had entered Level 4, my physical body would finally be strong enough, so it was time to return my Arbiter Bloodline to my physical body.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to transform into a birdman, am I...?¡±


    However, I still suspected that I might permanently turn into a birdman. That would be quite difficult for me to ept.


    [Do you really hate my personal creation, the angels, so much? Rest assured, it¡¯s just like how a tiger won¡¯t show its ws for no reason. You¡¯ll be able to hide your angel traits. It¡¯s just that you¡¯ll now have an angel¡¯s strength as an additional buff to your normal stats, and that your physical appearance will change slightly.]


    I heaved a sigh of relief upon hearing that I wouldn¡¯t be a birdman. That helped me to get rid of my reluctance and allow this transformation to continue naturally urring.


    As Holy Light constantly shone upon me, my originally hidden Arbiter Bloodline power was fully activated. It felt like something warm was flowing inside my entire body, filling me with never-ending strength. Yet, I was currently unable to move.


    My Arbiter Bloodline was now returning to my physical body, giving me far more than just the ability to transform into angel or demon. A tremendous amount of the power of Order was concretely transforming my physical body.


    Angels were the Goddess of Order¡¯s favorite and most spoiled species. Power of Order far surpassing what a Seraphim would possess was cleansing and making my body pure.


    I could see that my arm was thickening at a visible rate. It also seemed as if the stones beneath my feet were shrinking. This abnormal phenomenon could have only one exnation: my physical body was growing up.


    [Actually, you would have reached adulthood at this time even without eating all those Dusk Fruits.]


    Only now did I discover that this was apparently a present that my System had prepared for me beforehand. However, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to receive this present until I managed to reach Level 4.


    Having the most foundational power of Order enter my physical body meant that my physical body¡¯s foundational quality had been massively improved. This would give me the best potential possible for my future development.


    However, I wasn¡¯t worrying about this right now.


    ¡°Am I going to be even taller than that Seraphim who was more than four meters tall...?¡±


    I started shaking in worry when I thought about how high-level angels¡¯ true bodies were actually even more ridiculouslyrge than giants¡¯ bodies. I definitely didn¡¯t want to have to be like Little Red, needing to use transformation magic all the time while being around humans.


    [Stop worrying over nonsense. Rest assured, at the very least I have a better sense of beauty than Cynthia does.]


    I suddenly recalled Gaar, that strangely shaped Chaos Main God who was actually Cynthia¡¯s backup physical body. Considering how Gaar was nothing more than an amalgamation of half-dead demons and corpses, a lump of rotting flesh... Having a better sense of beauty than Cynthia did was truly a low standard topare by.


    Judging by how my Holy Light sword Dawn was currentlypleting itself in midair, when I woke up again, my breakthrough to Level 4 would beplete as well.

 Chapter 731 - Windstorm

    <h4>Chapter 731: Windstorm</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    A white sword of light shed through the air, leaving behind only afterimages of light and a burnt smell.


    I kept making fancy movements with my sword of light, filling the entire area with afterimages.


    I demolished the ruin in front of me into rubble. I then shed the rubble into dust. After that, I happily put away my deless Holy Light sword away in my sleeve.


    Yes, that was correct. My sleeve was more than enough to act as my scabbard.


    ¡°This sword really only has a sword hilt?¡± Harloys asked. I nodded with certainty.


    My sword didn¡¯t have a de. This wasn¡¯t because it was iplete, but rather because I had designed it without a de to begin with. This sword of mine was a lightsaber, a design that had never been seen in this one before and which I had giarized from my original world.


    ¡°May the force be with you. Cough, I mean, may Holy Light be with you. The God of Holy Light is scamming (protecting<sup>1</sup>) you.¡±


    I was pretending to be a devout believer of Holy Light who was making a prayer to the God of Holy Light. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have any audience to enjoy my performance or makements for me.


    I refocused my attention on my sword of Holy Light.


    Its hilt was less than one foot long. Its color was just like white jade, and it was warm to the touch. There was only an empty opening in the hilt where the de should have been. That was an opening I designed from which it would emit the lightsaber.


    There were no extra decorations, nor was there any gem to make it look fancier. The only decoration it had was an emblem of intersecting thorns and dragon scales. The emblem also had a practical function: to prevent my hand from sliding.


    I willed Holy Light to gather on the sword hilt, forming into a lightsaber.


    I casually tossed out my sword of Holy Light, making it whirl around in the air as if it was an agile swallow. As it flew, it slew seven skeleton soldiers in quick session, without even leaving behind any dust.


    ¡°Buzz!¡±


    When Dawn returned to my hand, its de of light which was both ice-cold yet also scorching hot was humming as if it was still unsatisfied with its harvest.


    I nodded with satisfaction. As my weapon, I could find no faults with my Holy Light sword, Dawn.


    ¡°Next up, I should try mode #2...¡±


    I reached towards the dragon scales on the sword hilt. There was a switch there which would change Dawn¡¯s functions.


    ¡°Stop wasting time. You¡¯ll have plenty of time to y around in the future. Help protect me right now.¡±


    I was rather surprised to hear Harloys¡¯ words. There were no enemies here, so why did she need my protection?


    I instantly understood when she suddenly opened up her Soul World library, sending countless magical books flying around in the sky.


    Harloys was currently in her young girl Gold Elf form while smiling at me from the center of her library.


    ¡°You intend to ascend to the next power level at this time? You¡¯re going to be an Undead Emperor?¡±


    ¡°Stop stating the obvious. Protect me. If I seed in leveling up, I¡¯ll carry you through our battles.¡±


    Harloys then began uttering an incantation, causing the flying magical books to be stirred up into a frenzy.


    I had already stayed here in this ruin for one full week in order to finish leveling up to Level 4. Since I had achieved the next power level, Harloys could now do the same. It seemed that I would have to wait even longer here for her sake.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    It was now two months after the start of San Antonio¡¯s civil war. This war didn¡¯t seem to be slowing down one bit. It was rather the opposite. The war seemed to only be more vicious as battles raged on.


    With this much time having passed, it was now known who was behind Duke Barrot, as well as who had been powerful enough to make the demons and humans temporarily ally with each other.


    This individual was quite familiar to me. He was Sophocles the Deceiver.


    This Chaos Main God Demon Lord who loved schemes and art had used a simple yet old trick to sessfully fool the world.


    Since two Chaos Main Gods, Sophocles and Karwenz, had been involved, it was no surprise that Maria had died due to this scheme.


    As for whose situation was the most unfortunate and awkward due to this San Antonio civil war, that would naturally be myself... erm, I meant the Holy Church.


    Although I was an innocent who had gotten dragged into this, I was far luckier inparison to the Holy Church, which had lost soldiers as well as reputation.


    In a normal situation, the Holy Church definitely wouldn¡¯t have gotten involved in a country¡¯s internal war, especially if that country was a human mega empire. Since San Antonio was a devout worshipper of Holy Light, this meant the Holy Church absolutely shouldn¡¯t have gotten involved.


    The Holy Church was a religious faction, after all. Not to mention, the Holy Light religion was the prevailing religion of San Antonio. No matter who won or lost in San Antonio¡¯s civil war, San Antonio would still be a Holy Light worshipping country. The Holy Church wouldn¡¯t lose anything that way.


    And if the Holy Church participated in the civil war, not only would the royalty of other countries be extremely worried as this would be a precedent for religious authority to interfere with a country¡¯s royal authority, but if the victor of the civil war wasn¡¯t the side that the Holy Church supported, then the victor would obviously have an incredibly bad rtionship with the Holy Church.


    San Antonio was one of the Holy Church¡¯s most adamant supporters to begin with. Since the Holy Church had already taken many blows to its reputation, it wouldn¡¯t be able to afford such a major blow.


    Unfortunately, this was no ¡°normal¡± time at all. The Holy Church had been forced to get involved from the very beginning.


    Information was leaked, using San Antonio¡¯s proper sessor, Princess Maria, of being a Chaos Girl who was naturally inclined to favor the demons and Chaos Faction. Plenty of evidence had been given to support this im.


    When the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups saw this information, they immediately felt that they had to intervene. San Antonio was one of their core areas of support. They absolutely couldn¡¯t afford to lose it. That was how Pope Caloma and several major Cardinals were lured into involvement with San Antonio¡¯s situation.


    Pope Caloma and the Cardinals were no idiots. It was a basic political instinct to bet on both sides to win. Although the Holy Church used Maria of being an enemy of Holy Light in public, they didn¡¯t cut off all possibility of reconciliation. They actually sent secret envoys to negotiate with Maria.


    The Holy Church¡¯s negotiation proposal was basically something like asking Maria to make an announcement that she was cutting off all rtion with the Chaos Abyss, and that she was a devout worshipper of Holy Light. In exchange, the Holy Church would cancel its disy of enmity against her¡ªsomething like that.


    If this negotiation had really worked, Maria indeed would have agreed as she didn¡¯t have a good rtionship with the Chaos Faction to begin with, and she surely would have considered how the great majority of her subordinates and citizens were worshippers of Holy Light.


    Yet, the problem appeared with the Holy Church¡¯s envoy.


    The envoy was real. He even had Pope Caloma¡¯s personally-written letter. However, when the envoy was captured by the furious citizens, the content of the letter had been swapped. Originally, the Holy Church was just trying their best to ask for Maria¡¯s surrender, no matter if it worked or not, but the letter was swapped for one which announced that the Holy Church was starting a crusade against the heretic Maria until she was dead.


    This lit a fire in the citizens¡¯ hearts. The mastermind behind the scenes then added even more fuel to the fire.


    Sophocles the Deceiver was a veteran schemer and mastermind behind the scenes who had been ying with schemes for even longer than Holy Light had existed. On top of this, Karwenz had been personally carrying out this scheme. With so manyyers to the scheme, they dug a tremendous pitfall for the Holy Church.


    Right after Maria¡¯s assassination, Duke Barrot, who was under Sophocles¡¯ control, stood up and announced that he would swear to take revenge for Empress Maria. It was only natural that Duke Barrot would dere war against Prince Winston and the Holy Church, who were med as the real culprits behind Maria¡¯s assassination.


    In a way, the Chaos Faction¡¯s primary goal here had always been to target the Holy Chuch. Rnd had just gotten coincidentally involved.


    Originally, Karwenz had intended to follow the unwritten rules of the Holy War, and not personally get involved. But when he saw his older twin brother Rnd here, he happily took action personally in order to give his older brother some trouble by framing him.


    Looking at the overall situation, it was only natural that the Chaos Faction would want to cause trouble for the Holy Church. Just like how San Antonio was too powerful, and would thus attract far too much attention, the Holy Church was basically the Chaos Faction¡¯s #1 mortal enemy in the mortal ne. Of course the Chaos Faction would want to make the Holy Church suffer.


    Compared to the Nortnds Mist Alliance that was still stuck guarding the north, the Holy Church was still the #1 most powerful faction within the Order Faction. The tremendous number of Holy Light believers also made it so that the God of Holy Light was the most undisputed powerful existence in the world, as well as an almost undefeatable existence. In that case, it was only natural to first attack the source of Holy Light faith.


    San Antonio was one of the Holy Church¡¯s most loyal supporters. Since it was a core area of support for the Holy Church, naturally the Chaos Faction would want to get rid of this ce.


    With two Chaos Main Gods personally arranging this scheme and taking action, even a True God would likely die. Maria had no chance of survival at all.


    And now, the Holy Church¡¯s position was bing ever more awkward.


    Duke Barrot¡¯s subordinates were now viewing the Holy Church as the true culprit behind their former ruler Maria¡¯s assassination. Not only that, the Holy Church¡¯s Holy Knight squadrons and angel squadrons that they had brought along were supposed to be used against the ogres and demons in the first ce, yet they all helplessly became involved in the meat grinder battlefields of San Antonio¡¯s civil war. This was because nobody could just sit still and let themselves be killed, after all.


    Duke Barrot¡¯s faction wanted war. They wanted to be the only rulers of San Antonio. Prince Winston¡¯s faction naturally couldn¡¯t just let Duke Barrot¡¯s faction trample over them. Since neither side in this war had any desire to stop the war just yet, it would be impossible for this civil war to stop.


    As both sides umted more losses, both sides became truly enraged with each other. There would never be a true victor in this civil war to begin with.


    War refugees, deserters, and adventurers. Countless such people ran away from thebat areas every day. Countless people could be seen on the roads, trying to escape the warfare.


    As the civil war progressed, news about how the Holy Church was ughtering other humans was embellished and then transmitted everywhere in the world. This naturally seriously damaged the Holy Church¡¯s reputation as the defenders of humanity. This reputation was something that originally should have kept supporting the Holy Church no matter what.


    The Southern Sect and many other factions hostile to the Holy Church would never miss this opportunity. The Holy Church wasing under heavier and heavier verbal attacks. In addition, there was now also the recent incident where Seraphim Winton had died. The Holy Church¡¯s reputation was worsening rapidly on a daily basis.


    Finally, two Gods of the Holy Church appeared on the battlefield. The emotionless Gods gave mortals the fate of death, but were unable to restore the Holy Church¡¯s reputation...


    Everyone knew that at this time, it would be best for the Holy Church to withdraw and no longer involve themselves in San Antonio¡¯s civil war. However, this would be the equivalent of giving up on all of San Antonio. This would also chill the hearts of other Holy Light worshiping countries. That was why Pope Caloma was still unable toe to a decision.


    Now, some more guests appeared on the edge of a battlefield.


    A little girl who appeared to be less than 10 years old was following a figure in a ck cape. They had just walked across a meat grinder battlefield, yet not a single drop of blood was on their bodies.


    ¡°Harloys, how do you feel now that you¡¯re an Undead Emperor?¡±


    ¡°Absolutely terrible. I¡¯ve never felt before that there¡¯s still such a long path in front of me.¡±


    It seemed like Harloys was having trouble keeping up with me in her young body. I really wanted to help out, and I offered to let her stay on my head just like how she always did in the past, but she was unwilling to for some reason.


    I shrugged, and didn¡¯t insist.


    Compared to myself who already had previous experience in achieving higher power levels, Harloys had more of a roadblock in achieving the next power level. She had failed several times during the process. She took two entire months in the ruins before she finally seeded in leveling up.


    Another small trouble with leveling up was that after her physical body evolved, even though she still had cloning and transformation abilities which were even stronger than before, her true body was forced to maintain its real form.


    In a way, this was a trait of achieving Level 4 power level. Although you would be undying, your physical body¡¯s age, appearance, body shape, and so on would be rtively fixed.


    Harloys had a lot of clothes magically stashed away. She looked quite cute in herce princess dress. However, she constantly tripped and fell while walking. Without using magic to strengthen her physical body, she was nothing more than a weak and pitiful little girl.


    Right now, Harloys was panting heavily. I definitely didn¡¯t see how she could carry me, while her much shorter legs than before made her quite frustrated.


    It was quite clear that it would be most convenient for both of us for her to continue riding on top of my head, yet she kept refusing to use her original method of travel for some reason unknown to me. This meant that our already slow journey became even slower because of her.


    ¡°It¡¯s been so long. I wonder if the Nortnds are alright?¡±


    ¡°Yes, everything¡¯s fine there. Winter has already ended. Everyone¡¯s working hard to nt seeds during the spring. The new seeds look quite good...¡±


    A great benefit to having Harloys along was that her clones were the best information sources around. I was able to receive constant updates on what was happening in the Nortnds.


    In the past, there was a limit to the distance her clones could leave her for. This power of hers seemed to have improved after her recent breakthrough.


    I felt slightly more reassured after hearing this about the Nortnds.


    San Antonio in the southwest of Eich was locked in bitter battle. Yet, the Nortnds¡¯ situation was far better than I expected.


    Since a lot of the Holy Church¡¯s attention and strength was now concentrated on the battles here, they naturally didn¡¯t have much time to care about what the Nortnds were doing anymore. In fact, they were probably worried about the Mist Alliance wanting revenge. The overall situation wasn¡¯t good for them, so their Divine Northern Battlefront Alliance stopped their anti-Mist activities as well for the time being.


    In a way, the Holy Church still owed me. It was a fact that they had just tried to surround and assassinate me recently. I had yet to take revenge for this.


    Logically speaking, I should have casually assassinated one or two of the Holy Church¡¯s higher-ups for fun, or at least give them a warning that touching me would require them to pay the price.


    However, with the current situation, taking revenge on the Holy Church would be the equivalent of helping the Chaos Faction. It wasn¡¯t at all my personality not to take revenge against others, but I felt rather conflicted about how taking revenge here would help my enemy. I had been hesitating over the past days, but in the end, I decided to record this grudge in my diary and temporarily do nothing about it for the time being.


    ¡°You don¡¯t intend to join in and have some fun?¡±


    Harloys was quite casual with her question. Ever since she achieved Level 4 rank, she actually seemed more ¡°human¡± now. The death of the Elven Gods also signified the end of her hate. For the current Harloys, as long as the Elven Empire and Mist Alliance didn¡¯t copse, and they developed properly, she indeed had the right to enjoy her free time.


    Harloys no longer had any wishes or goals. She was feeling no psychological pressure at all. Even while on the battlefield, she kept searching for wonderful foods and beautiful scenes, having lots of fun. It was as if she was on a vacation every day.


    However, it was absolutely correct that Harloys was definitely able to carry me through many difficult battles now that she had sessfully became an Undead Emperor after umting so much. Since she was my personal bound equipment, this really was an excellent deal for myself.


    I nced over at the battlefield in the distance. My magicpass¡¯s needle was pointing at the sky. This could only mean that the magic power of those participating on both sides of the battle was ridiculously strong.


    ¡°Even True Gods have gotten involved. They¡¯ll probably self-destruct if they lose. I don¡¯t want to get involved at all.¡± I shook my head as I rejected the rather tempting advice.


    Right now, San Antonio was the focus of not just the entire world, but also many different dimensions. And unlike before, it was possible that all sorts of veteran Gods would personally descend.


    No matter if it was a magic battle, swarm of angels, human-wave-tactics, a True God, Demon Lord, or a Level 4 self-destructing themself, or all sorts of forbidden spells, techniques, andbination spells, they would all be highly dangerous. It really would be humiliating if I got dragged into something like that and couldn¡¯t make my way out.


    Basically, San Antonio was now the frontline of battle for the entire mortal ne. I only had myself, a sword, and a cat... I definitely wasn¡¯t that suicidal to want to fight with only a young girl to defend me.


    ¡°They have their civil war, and we also have our own matters to deal with. This matter of Chaos Girls definitely isn¡¯t so simple. There¡¯s also Karwenz and Elisa...¡±


    ¡°Then shall we return to the Nortnds? Or maybe go to Bardi?¡± Harloys inquired.


    ¡°We¡¯re going to the Mage Country. But, before we leave San Antonio, I want to go talk to a certain person.¡±


    ¡°Who? Prince Winston?¡±


    ¡°No, there¡¯s no meaning in talking to him anymore. He¡¯s in a situation that¡¯s out of his control. He has to fight in this civil war even if he doesn¡¯t want to. What he actually thinks ispletely irrelevant. Who I want to talk to is... Pope Caloma.¡±

 Chapter 732 - Alliance Destined to be Broken

    <h4>Chapter 732: Alliance Destined to be Broken</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The pope was so annoying... What I meant was that the Holy Church was one of our biggest potentialpetitors, and as Pope Caloma was the messenger of the God of Holy Light in the mortal ne, he was the most authoritative and respected person in the world. Pope Caloma was a tall wall that was impossible for us to go around.


    I had previously imagined if some assassin wouldn¡¯t do me a major favor getting rid of him, or maybe Pope Caloma would someday suddenly choke to death while eating a walnut. That would be quite nice for me.


    Still, it would be unrealistic to think that would actually happen.


    Since Pope Caloma was able to stand at the very peak of the Holy Church, which was filled with talented individuals, it was obvious that Caloma was someone who was both incredibly powerful and intelligent. While there were many popes in history who had died of old age, very few popes had ever died inbat.


    Being able to reach this position meant that he would have to be at the peak ofbat power possible in the mortal ne. Even though popes in history always looked like doddering old men, a pope would hold power for 170 years on average. Pope Caloma was a recently ascended pope who had only been in power for about 10 years so far. It was likely that he wouldn¡¯t die of old age even by the time that all the current Cardinals were dead.


    Back when Caloma had still been Cardinal Caloma, there was already a record of him personally ying the God of Ocean Waves. Now that he was the pope, it was a definite that he was one of the strongest mortals in the world.


    Still, when I saw the faltering old man in front of me, I was quite delighted at his current condition.


    ¡°Hey there, old man. You¡¯re still not dead?¡±


    Although Pope Caloma still looked mostly the same, hisplexion was much worse than before. He no longer had such a kindly appearance nor aura of unfathomability. Now, he was emanating an astonishing amount of power, but I felt that it was onlyical. He was just like an old lion king whose authority was being challenged due to weakening in old age, which meant that he needed to show off his power all day long in order to express his existence.


    Iughed quite happily at his plight, not even trying to conceal my delight at his misfortune.


    ¡°R... Rnd? Rnd!¡±


    He squinted at me, but then his eyes suddenly widened with surprise and disbelief, followed by unconcealed hostility.


    ¡°Yep, it¡¯s me. You recognize me, right? That¡¯s right, I¡¯m now a Level 4 individual. Without you guys pressuring me so much, I wouldn¡¯t have needed to rush and take this step.¡±


    I was filled with evil delight as I looked at the old man in front of me. Just two months ago when Ist saw him, he had seemed to be incredibly steady. But now, he was just like a frightened bird. Seeing his wrinkles and fatigued expression, it made him appear like he had aged by more than a decade in these two months.


    What would make me happier than achieving great personal progress? Naturally, that would be seeing that my enemy had taken a huge step backwards after I sprinted so far forward.


    For any Divine Arts practitioner, mentality would be the most important. In this world where Will could be expressed with a number, having a resolute will was the most important statistic of all for any divine job ss member. If your belief was shaken, or if your soul became fallen... Those would be the biggest sins possible. Any powerful priest or Cardinal would always be the stoical type who could remain calm in any situation. But as the pope, Caloma¡¯s mentality was quite obviously in an imbnce. It was a definite that he would lose lifespan because of this, and it was also highly likely that his power level had significantly decreased.


    ¡°Why haven¡¯t you died yet? It would be so much easier on me if you simply died.¡± I made a snarkyment.


    ¡°Heretic!!¡± the pope¡¯s personal guards all shouted in anger. The rashest of them all directly unsheathed his sword and charged at me.


    A ck shadow shed. A ck wind blew past, and the warrior instantly vanished. His angry roar continued to echo in the air, yet he was now nowhere to be seen.


    This abnormal scene caused the pope¡¯s bodyguards to all stop in their tracks as they automatically arranged themselves in front of Pope Caloma.


    I had no intention of exining to them what just happened. I simply brought out a nail file and casually lowered my head while filing my nails, not even ncing at them. Everyone fell silent for the time being.


    ¡°You¡¯re not here to just enjoy the show, are you?¡±


    Of course I wasn¡¯t here simply to watch the Holy Church. I had plenty of my own affairs to be busy with. I had no free time to simply watch others.


    Pope Caloma also realized that if I hade here with hostile intentions, I wouldn¡¯t even waste time with words. I would simply attack them directly.


    Since I kept speaking and insulting them, this actually meant that I was here with sincerity to negotiate with them.


    Still, if any of them intended to point their sword at me, I had no objections to taking back some of the interest that the Holy Church owed me.


    I continued to remain silent as I patiently filed my really long nails. I had been so busy on the road these days that I had neglected the length of my nails.


    After a long period of silence, I finally spoke up first.


    ¡°I¡¯m here as a representative of the Mist Alliance and the Southern Sect to establish a new alliance with you. Be happy, since I¡¯m here to help you out.¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Who in this world had the biggest grudge against the Holy Church? I would probably be somewhere at the top of the list.


    Who in the mortal ne wanted to see the Holy Church¡¯s eradication more than anyone? I would definitely also be somewhere at the top of this list.


    There was my personal grudge, the Mist Kingdom¡¯s destruction, Estrada¡¯s death, the grievances that the Nortnds People of the Mist had suffered, and the recent schemes, both obvious and hidden. Not to mention, the Holy Church had recently just tried to assassinate me with Seraphim Winton. All of these added together meant that my grudge against them was as deep as the ocean.


    I truly wanted the Holy Church to be eradicated as swiftly as possible, but if I instead looked at it in the context of the entire world¡¯s current situation, it definitely would be a terrible thing right now if the Holy Church was swiftly eradicated.


    Those who were the most powerful would always attract the most attention. Right now, the most powerful Order Faction allied faction in the mortal ne was definitely the Holy Church without a doubt.


    It was only natural that the Chaos Faction would furiously attack the Holy Church. Even if the Chaos Faction didn¡¯t try to attack the Holy Church in some way, then they would create trouble for other countries and organizations in Eich.


    The current situation was doubtlessly a gigantic pitfall that Sophocles had devised for the Holy Church to fall into.


    If the Holy Church continued to involve itself in San Antonio¡¯s civil war, not only would the Holy Church¡¯s reputation be damaged, they would also be forced to continuously send reinforcements to battle here, weakening the Holy Church¡¯sbat strength like a leech constantly draining blood from a giant.


    If the Holy Church instead abandoned San Antonio, their reputation would simrly be damaged as well, and they would be greatly weakened by losing San Antonio, one of their greatest supporters.


    Normally, not only would I not help them, I would have to be in a really good mood not to attack them as well.


    But right now, the Holy War had only started a short 10 years ago. It was far too quick for the Holy Church to be copsing right now. Even in the game¡¯s history, the Holy Church had persisted for almost 200 years after the start of the Holy War before it was truly destroyed.


    Even though the Holy Church had so many countless useless Cardinals and priests who hurt the Holy Church more than they helped, the Holy Church¡¯s foundational strength was truly phenomenal. That was why it had taken nearly two centuries for the Holy Church to die. But now, the Holy Church was in a far more dangerous position than it should have been in the game¡¯s timeline only 10 years after the start of the Holy War.


    If you looked at why the Holy Church met with danger so much quicker, it was of course because I had constantly been chipping away at the Holy Church¡¯s support, making them rue countless small losses. They also no longer had the full support of all of humanity. Whenpared to the game¡¯s history¡¯s Holy Church, which was the mega faction that led all of the human mega empires, this Holy Church was obviously far weaker in influence, if not overall strength.


    The Holy Church could copse. I even hoped that they would copse. The God of Holy Light deserved to die. I would curse him to die as quickly as possible. However, their deaths weren¡¯t something that could be permitted to ur within the next 20 years.


    It was quite simple to extrapte what would happen next if the Holy Church was to copse right now.


    For ordinary people, they would lose everything that they had believed in. It would be as if the sky itself had fallen. They would also lose all confidence in being able to win this entire Holy War. This would be a chain reaction affecting confidence and morale. Although such things sounded vague and ethereal, they would definitely concretely affect battles all over the world.


    While a g that had been knocked over could be reced with a different g, if the Holy Church¡¯s g was knocked over so quickly, the Chaos Faction would never give us enough time to establish our own g to lead everyone.


    In my nned timeline of events, the Holy Church was supposed to gradually decay and die slowly. During this process, new heroes from everywhere, along with new Gods, would gradually establish their own new factions and organizations. The entire world would be filled with new factions, so the major Holy Church faction¡¯s dying would no longer be as important.


    Also, there was the matter of the highest-levelbat strength. If belief in Holy Light was severely shaken, the reduction in the number of worshipers would further weaken the God of Holy Light even more after I had also worked hard to weaken him. If the God of Holy Light was weakened to the point of no longer being ¡°undefeatable¡±, then that would be immensely troublesome.


    If that really happened, all of the Chaos Main Gods and Demon Lords would lose all fear of the God of Holy Light. They would unhesitatingly invade the mortal ne immediately. Who would lead the fight against the Chaos Main Gods then?


    Right now, the highest-levelbat strength between the Order and Chaos Factions had a very subtle bnce. As the God of Holy Light was indisputably the strongest existence in the entire world, he held far too much influence in the Holy War. If he was weakened far too much, all of the so-called unwritten rules of the Holy War would instantly vanish. All sorts of powerful Chaos Faction existences would immediately personally invade, immensely pushing forward the timeline of the Holy War.


    Although this would still happen sooner orter, it still needed to happen only after new seeds had finished sprouting so that many outstanding heroes could appear all over thend. But right now, it would still be quite a while until the heroes could be independent. The heroic spirits who had reincarnated into the world when I created Hell were still only 10 years old now. Once they reached adulthood, their strength and leadership would greatly improve the situation all over thend.


    From the Mist Alliance¡¯s standpoint, the Holy Church copsing right now wouldn¡¯t be good, either.


    That would mean losing an allied tank who would attract all firepower for your sake. The Mist Alliance¡¯s current situation was really good to the point where everyone knew about it. In that case, the demons would naturally know about it as well. Compared to far more ancient factions that would be difficult to foundationally shake, the Chaos Main Gods would of course first focus on stomping on this small tree sprout which was developing well.


    New technologies were being invented every day. The longer that we stalled for, the stronger the mortal ne would be.


    So, at this critical moment, the Holy Church absolutely couldn¡¯t be allowed to copse.


    No matter how helpless I felt, and no matter how much I hated them, I was someone who cared more about the overall situation. I could only keep telling myself that I was doing this for my own good as I came to visit Pope Caloma and help them survive a little longer.


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t be telling them the truth about any of this. To them, I would simply appear to be a former ally who was here to establish a new alliance with them.


    ¡°An alliance with the Mist Alliance and Southern Sect? It indeed sounds like a tempting offer at this time. What about the price, then?¡±


    Pope Caloma supported himself with a staff as he reached his hand out while inquiring me about the price I wanted.


    ¡°Everything... ahem, what I mean is, of course there¡¯s a price. It wouldn¡¯t make you feel reassured if I didn¡¯t try to take advantage of this situation. Rest assured, I want a lot.¡±


    Since I was here, I naturally wouldn¡¯t be satisfied until I got as much out of them as possible.


    A bit more than two hourster, I happily left with some of the Holy Church¡¯s scrolls. Behind in the conference room, Pope Caloma and his Cardinals all had really dark expressions.


    What had I asked for?


    First of all, I asked for the entire Divine Northern Battlefront Alliance in the Nortnds.


    The Holy Church didn¡¯t have the time to deal with the Nortnds right now anyways. I didn¡¯t make any unreasonable request such as making all those countries in this alliance join the Mist Alliance. I simply asked that these countries loyal to the Holy Church in the Nortnds cease all hostilities against the Mist Alliance, and that they would stop the embargo against all Mist Alliance products and transportation. I also requested that the Holy Church retract everyone currently stationed in the Nortnds from its main headquarters.


    This was something that the Holy Church could ept since they didn¡¯t have much territory in the Nortnds to begin with. The Divine Northern Battlefront Alliance defense line had also caused much controversy within the Holy Church. The Holy Church had invested much personnel and resources into establishing a defense line against the Nortnds for no benefit in return. They also needed to be worried about provoking an all-out war against the Mist Alliance. Since things in maind Eich were ever worsening as the Holy War went on, investing more resources in the Nortnds which had no direct rtionship now seemed even more foolish.


    And if the Holy Church confirmed a new alliance between itself and the Mist Alliance, then that defense line would seem even more wasteful and meaningless.


    What would the Mist Alliance gain from this? I could only say that it would be a lot, reaching the point where the benefits were countless.


    Additionally, I requested that the Holy Church officially recognize the Southern Sect¡¯s teachings on pure Holy Light to be an official branch of the Holy Church, and that Estrada be posthumously dered as a loyal follower of Holy Light who had died in its service, and that he be dered a saint.


    Even though I merely made a verbal request, after I said it, the entire conference room remained silent for a full five minutes. Every single Cardinal had an expression as if they wanted to devour me.


    A church was a religious organization first and foremost, not a political organization. Different branches of religious interpretation were extremely crucial for any church. Even if the entire church was destroyed, the church would still refuse to change its teachings for a different interpretation.


    If the Southern Sect, which didn¡¯t worship the God of Holy Light, was considered to be an official branch of Holy Light teachings, then what would the God of Holy Light count as? What would the Holy Church count as when they worshipped the God of Holy Light as the most venerated existence?


    This request was something that the Holy Church would never possibly agree to in the first ce, even if the entire Holy Church was destroyed.


    But, since the Holy Church was going to reach a certain level of alliance with the Southern Sect, the Holy Church would at least need to tacitly admit thetter¡¯s religious eptability. In a way, it would be recognition of the Southern Sect¡¯s existence.


    For such a matter, it would normally be fine to just leave everything tacitly unsaid. Yet, I still brought it out in the open. This would be considered extremely foolish as a diplomatic move. Still, I felt absolute delight in my heart as I saw how all of these old men were so angered that their faces reddened. There were even some who had to cast Holy Light healing spells upon themselves because their anger was physically affecting their hearts.


    I knew already that they wouldn¡¯t possibly agree to ¡°official recognition¡± for the Southern Sect. I had simply made this request in order to anger them. As for my other request that Estrada be posthumously dered a loyal follower of Holy Light who had died in its service, not only had I done this to anger them, I definitely had no good intentions in mind besides that.


    With Estrada¡¯s past reputation and aplishments, it truly would be no exaggeration to say that he deserved to be dered a saint, as well as having died in service to Holy Light. In fact, some people within the Holy Church were even saying this. However, in the end, everyone tacitly decided to forget about this old Holy Knight who had given his entire life over to the Holy Light.


    Why? It was because the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation had personally killed Estrada. This represented the God of Holy light¡¯s will.


    In that case, if Estrada was dered as a saint and having died in service to Holy Light, then what would his murderer, the God of Holy Light, be?


    When I mentioned ¡°official recognition¡± for the Southern Sect, these old men had only been angered to the point of angrily stomping and having some heart palpitations that required Holy Light healing. However, when I requested that Estrada be dered as having died in service to the Holy Light as well as being made a saint, two old men even directly copsed while holding on to their hearts. I was almost able to witness old men trying to resuscitate each other through CPR.


    And when this happened, I also saw the Holy Knights¡¯ and priests¡¯ representatives seem like they really wanted to say something. But in the end, they nonverballymunicated with their eyes, and all chose to remain silent withplex expressions.


    100 years down the road, it was likely that Estrada would be the darkest stain on the Holy Church¡¯s history. But right now, Estrada¡¯s disciples, those who had learned from him, and those who owed him were still everywhere in the Holy Church.


    There were many regr Holy Knights and priests who secretly sympathized with how Estrada had died for the sake of the pure Holy Light. They would feel that the God of Holy Light had gone far too overboard. Many basic members of the Holy Church thus had their foundational belief shaken. That was why there were still those who vouched for Estrada within the Holy Church.


    I was confident that after I left and when the Southern Sect and Holy Church privately maintained a certain amount of distance and peace, more and more people would start crying out for justice for Estrada. In that case, as time passed, this would likely shake the ordinary members¡¯ foundational faith.


    ¡°I am Estrada¡¯s disciple, as well as currently the strongest Holy Knight in the world. I¡¯ve also inherited the Holy Knights¡¯ battle hammer and path of protection. Isn¡¯t it quite normal to ask for justice for my teacher?¡±


    My words were quite in, direct, and sincere. I was speaking only the truth here, truth which came from the bottom of my heart.


    Right after I said this, my Holy Light sword Dawn, which was at my waist, became the center of attention for everyone in the conference room. When they all ascertained that I had indeed managed to achieve Level 4 with the Concept of Holy Light, the other Holy Knights and Holy Light priests had an obvious change in the way that the looked at me. Although they were still on guard against me, their expressions now also contained some respect and understanding.


    The inheritor of the Holy Knights¡¯ battle hammer had always been the leader of all Holy Knights, in both name and spirit. My current identity was indeed quite awkward for them to ept, but as mature Holy Knights, they would at least express friendliness and basic etiquette to me.


    Still, I decided to move on as I didn¡¯t expect them to actually be able to agree to this. I was here to establish a new alliance, after all. If I went on about this topic any longer, I would likely start a religious war. The God of Holy Light was also an existence that we wouldn¡¯t possibly be able to go around.


    ¡°Alright, I know that you have difficulties. In that case, at the very least you can cancel the gag order on even mentioning Estrada¡¯s name, right? The gag order isn¡¯t something that the God of Holy Light requested you to do. Estrada worked for the Holy Church for his entire life. At least let the juniors know who he was. This request isn¡¯t too much to ask for, now is it?¡±


    The Holy Knights and priests who were watching this all silently nodded. Seeing this, Pope Caloma sighed as he finallypromised.


    Although he hadn¡¯t agreed to dering Estrada a saint or to officially recognize the Southern Sect, Pope Caloma had managed topromise. Privately maintaining peace with the Southern Sect was agreed upon as part of the alliance. The ban on even mentioning Estrada¡¯s name was also lifted, so people could now privately discuss and memorialize Estrada again.


    Yet, this was only the most non-controversial and most eptable portion of this alliance which was destined to enter history.


    ¡°In Year 10 of the Dawn Generation, the Holy Church secretly signed an alliance agreement with the Mist Alliance and the Southern Sect. History now refers to this as the ¡®Traitors¡¯ Alliance,¡¯ and with this alliance at the catalyst, the incredibly strong Holy Church went down a path of constant weakening... Haha, I like this description. I should write it down in my notebook.¡±

 Chapter 733 - Tacit Agreement

    <strong>Chapter 733: Tacit Agreement</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    The previous things I mentioned were all just additional conditions of our alliance. The true core of this alliance was still the fact that the Southern Sect and Mist Alliance had managed to secretly achieve reconciliation with the Holy Church.


    This was no small matter at all. If news of this was to spread, it would likely make a super headline that was more important than a God¡¯s death or San Antonio¡¯s current situation. Commentators and strategists would likely review and discuss this for more than half a year.


    The Southern Sect wasn¡¯t just another Holy Light worshipping sect. The Southern Sect now had influence in every corner of Eich. The Southern Sect¡¯s teachings were easier to understand and more approachable. The Southern Sect was able to show concrete Holy Light miracles. Most importantly, the Southern Sect wasn¡¯t as arrogant and forceful as the Holy Church, which allowed it to gradually rece the Holy Church as the prevailing church in more remote areas.


    If the Southern Sect and Holy Church were to join in alliance, these two churches alone would possess more than 70% of the power of belief of all humanity.


    Also, the mega empire Bardi was behind the Southern Sect. When considering the Mage Country¡¯s rtionship with Bardi and the Southern Sect, this was a gigantic southern alliance.


    Meanwhile, the Mist Alliance was something I didn¡¯t need to exin. The Mist Alliance dominated the entire Norhnds.


    The Mist Alliance had elves, beastmen, humans, and undead. Although the prevailing religion was Law rather than Holy Light, the Mist Alliance would still have astonishing influence in human society.


    Additionally, the Hell Gods were behind the Mist Alliance. The Hell Faction was a mega faction that was powerful enough to stand against the entire Order Faction. The world still didn¡¯t know what else the Hell Faction might have.


    The Order, Chaos, and Hell Factions were all hostile to each other. Each faction would be on guard against the other two, but secret negotiations and agreements would never stop between the factions.


    In the Holy Church, there were quite a few who viewed the Mist Alliance and Southern Sect as the #1 enemy, a threat more dangerous than even the Chaos Faction.


    Even though the Holy Church and the Chaos Factions were mortal enemies who wouldn¡¯t stop until one of them was dead, the Holy Church had a rather strange rtionship with the Mist Alliance and Southern Sect where the Holy Church worried that these two would take advantage of the situation in the end if the Holy Church finally managed to defeat the Chaos Faction.


    What did this alliance represent for the Holy Church? What would they gain from this alliance?


    The alliance didn¡¯t write anything about this. In fact, the alliance only stated everything that the Holy Church would give to us. Was the Holy Church that foolish?


    No, of course not. The Holy Church would be able to obtain tremendous benefits that they could¡¯ve only previously dreamed about. However, those things couldn¡¯t be written into the alliance, since they were far too underhanded and shameless.


    ¡°With the Holy Church allying with the Mist Alliance and Southern Sect, this will mean that all of human society will recognize the Holy Church¡¯s ¡®right to lead the Holy War¡¯. At least on the surface, the Mist Alliance and Southern Sect won¡¯t publicly challenge the Holy Church¡¯s authority. This means that the Holy Church can make better use of itsbat strength that was previously on guard against us. Also, they¡¯ll be able to do something major that ¡®goes against morality.¡¯¡±


    Indeed, the major something I was referring to was betrayal¡ªbetraying all of San Antonio.


    Before this alliance with us, if the Holy Church dared to abandon San Antonio and retract itself from San Antonio¡¯s civil war, all kingdoms and factions would verbally attack the Holy Church forever by iming the moral higher ground, challenging the Holy Church¡¯s ¡°right to lead the Holy War¡±.


    ¡°You can even abandon San Antonio, one of your most loyal supporters? You still want others to trust you? Who knows if you won¡¯t sell us out next time?¡±


    In this world, the Holy Church¡¯s authority didn¡¯te from royal authority. Since the Holy Church was relying on religious authority to rule and lead, having its reputation be tarnished would be no small matter at all. Damage to its reputation would cause irreparable losses.


    However, if the Holy Church allied together with the Mist Alliance and Southern Sect, as we represented major factions in the north and south, then betraying and abandoning San Antonio would be a decision made by all of human society, or at least thebined factions which represented a majority of humanity.


    This wouldn¡¯t only make ming the Holy Church impossible; only San Antonio would be harmed by this decision. This was the foundational reason why I nicknamed this alliance the ¡°Traitors¡¯ Alliance¡±.


    There was no more saving San Antonio, so we should simply give up on San Antonio.


    Even if this was the truth, anyone who said such a thing was destined to be shamed by history.


    Of course, it would be the Holy Church who officially made this decision. The Holy Church would also be the one shamed by history for this, but at least all of human society would tacitly permit this to happen, and view it as some ¡°dark history¡± for the time being rather than using it to attack the Holy Church.


    That was the true benefit of this alliance. Both us and the Holy Church knew about it, but nobody would say it out loud.


    Still, it was a definite that the Holy Church would do this as their next move now that they had allied with us.


    Although the Holy Church would suffer serious losses, it would still be better than constantly losing more and more in this bottomless pit, along with constantly losing reputation by being forced to ughter fellow humans.


    Betrayal? Yes, this was indeed a betrayal.


    San Antonio was a ticking time bomb. The people of San Antonio would forever remember the day that the Holy Church betrayed them. All San Antonio survivors would forever view the Holy Church as their mortal enemy. They would hate the Holy Church even more than the demons and ogres who had destroyed their country.


    However, the prerequisite was that anyone from San Antonio even managed to survive their current cmity.


    Meanwhile, we would obtain precious time to prepare forbat.


    San Antonio was still the most powerful human mega empire, after all. It had plenty of foundational strength, which was more than sufficient for them tost at least a few more decades. No matter who won in their civil war, and who ruled San Antonio in the end, the ruler definitely wouldn¡¯t allow their country to be filled with demons and ogres.


    This was simply the way that countries would interact with each other. Only benefits mattered. Emotions wouldn¡¯t even be considered. Even if another country had to suffer, that was better than oneself having to suffer.


    Moreover, we wouldn¡¯t be the traitors. We were only observers on the sidelines. We were even generous enough to help the Holy Church out in its time of need, so the Holy Church should be grateful to us.


    ¡°Grateful to you? Just this matter alone has made Pope Caloma destined to be greatly shamed in history. He probably wants to devour you right now, yet he still has to smile at you and try his best to forget previous unpleasantness. Today is probably the most aggrieved that he¡¯s ever been in his life.¡±


    The silly cat... er, the silly little girl¡¯sments were as sharp as always. Judging from how distorted Caloma¡¯s expression had been, Harloys was probably right.


    We tacitly agreed to forget about any previous unpleasantness between us and the Holy Church. All of us pretended as if Seraphim Winton¡¯s attack on me and death had never even happened. Perhaps this was the boring way that politicians would make tacit agreements.


    Of course, how long this alliance between us couldst would depend on who first gained an advantage between us. As long as there were enough benefits as motivation to break it, this alliance would be meaningless, but as long as there were shared benefits to be had, this alliance would be unbreakably solid.


    Actually, all international alliances and agreements were like this. Without a powerful arbitrating organization enforcing things, anyone who broke an alliance or agreement would have no fear at all. All so-called alliances and agreements could only be maintained by using shared benefits. The moment that shared benefits weren¡¯t possible anymore, the alliance would naturally be nothing more than scrap paper.


    I left by myself with the scrap paper alliance. I then directly got on a flying airship headed northeast. I had no intention of sticking around here and enjoying the sensation of being surrounded by assassins. There were countless within the Holy Church who wanted me to die.


    It was likely that everyone who participated in this secret meeting today wouldter be reviled by history. Still, I didn¡¯t care about my own reputation, since my reputation was already bad enough. It was also good for me that the Holy Church¡¯s reputation would be tainted a bit more by this.


    The only one who would really lose from this agreement was San Antonio, the uninvited third party. However, sacrificing San Antonio would help the entire world to obtain more time in order to strategically prepare for war against the Chaos Faction. That was why even though we and the Holy Church were so hostile to each other originally, we still tacitly agreed to sell out San Antonio.


    I disguised myself as an old man who required a walking staff as I sat on the edge of the flying airship and looked down at the flourishing city beneath me. I couldn¡¯t help but exim.


    ¡°How many San Antonio citizens even realize that their country, the strongest country in thend, is already finished...?¡±

 Chapter 734 - Journey

    <h4>Chapter 734: Journey</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Two weeks had now passed since the secret alliance in the shadows. Many things happened, many things changed, and many things remained the same.


    Within three days of allying with us, not only did the Holy Church not send any new troops to San Antonio, they were already beginning to pull back some knight squadrons that had suffered too many losses from San Antonio.


    It seemed like the Holy Church had also reached some sort of secret agreement with Duke Barrot. The Holy Church¡¯s forces were able to retreat really sessfully. The enemy Duke Barrot factionpletely ignored these retreating forces.


    This was only the beginning. All of the Holy Church forces began to retreat from San Antonio. The angel squadrons, which were the most elite, left the quickest.


    As this went on, soon, there really would only be citizens of San Antonio left in San Antonio to fight their own civil war.


    Was the Holy Church abandoning Prince Winston? Was the Holy Church abandoning San Antonio?


    Many rumors and much information spread everywhere. Pope Caloma made an announcement, saying things like ¡°The Holy Church will forever take care of San Antonio¡±, ¡°The God of Holy Light is watching over allnds of Holy Light¡±, and other such useless titudes in order to console people.


    Of course, the official announcements always sounded so warm and reassuring. At the very least, Pope Caloma still had plenty of authority as the representative of the God of Holy Light in the mortal ne. Devout believers still really trusted him.


    As for what would happen afterwards... By the time that San Antonio¡¯s civil war was in its bloodiest stages, the survivors wouldn¡¯t care about what Caloma had previously said.


    All of this would have nothing to do with me, anyways.


    The spread of magical engineering technology helped to greatly reduce the time it took to travel between countries. Although airship tickets for transporting people or cargo were still very expensive, and limited to only travel between major cities, my departure city and destination city were both capital cities of powerful countries, so it was quite a good deal for me to take afortable and safe flying airship.


    But as war went on, these new aerial flight paths would also meet with new threats.


    Along the way, our airship met with more than 10 waves of flying magical beasts, one green dragon passing by, and more than 10 aerial knights.


    The green dragon and flying magical beasts had been searching for food. The aerial knights were various countries¡¯ aerial border guards. The current world wasn¡¯t peaceful at all, so they would watch every single aerial target that passed by.


    But in the end, the flying magical beasts were all defeated by the airship¡¯s magic cannons, while the green dragon and aerial knights simply followed the airship for a while before turning around and leaving.


    One reason that they left was because thisrge transportation airship was equipped with almost 100 medium-sized magic cannons. The more important reason was because of the gs on this airship.


    Bardi¡¯s g, a dragon¡¯s head. The Mist Alliance¡¯s g, a castle in a blizzard. And¡¯s g, a crowned king. The fairies¡¯ g, their emblem of the Listener. The four gs on this airship represented that this airship had the protection of four major factions.


    The reason for this was simple. Currently, only the Mist Alliance and And had the technology to createrge transportation airships capable of moving cargo and people between countries. Neither faction would ever miss such a wonderful business opportunity. Rather than viciouspetition, we instead cooperated to monopolize the entire airship transportation market. We also had Bardi join us for extra protection, as well as for other reasons. We had also invited the fairies to join us as a shareholder in our business because their informationwork and organization was far too useful for the aerial transportation industry.


    Since the fairies were famously neutral, they were able to advertise airship transportation to merchant guilds around thend. The fairies¡¯ participation would also help other countries to feel more assured about participating in aerial transportation flight paths. They would trust the fairies more than gigantic powerhouses like Bardi or the Mist Alliance.


    In this world, there was no such thing asws regarding airships. The idea of flight paths was also something quite new. The airship operators and captains had all been selected from experienced ship crew members. Even the tools to measure direction and coordinates were made to copy the tools that would be used on the ocean. The airship crew would still try and operate the airship as if they were operating a ship in the sea. It was quitemon for the airship to thus identally deviate from the flight path.


    When on the ocean, deviating from the nned path wouldn¡¯t matter too much. You could simply fix this by turning around a little. However, when flying overnd instead, it could be considered as entering another country¡¯s borders without permission, which would be major trouble. Plus, since the airship was highly armed, it was possible that even a battle might start because of it.


    That was why we often saw aerial knights following the airship all along the way. Still, maybe it was because the Mist Alliance¡¯s, Bardi¡¯s, and And¡¯s gs were enough to protect the airship, or maybe it was because the countries along the flight path had gotten used to it, so in most cases, the aerial knight would simply follow us until they saw us exiting their country¡¯s border, and would then leave us alone.


    As for the remaining cases? Sometimes, the aerial knight would evene board the airship. Although this would indeed be to monitor us, I could also often hear the aerial knight chatting about their own country¡¯s stories and customs. An aerial knight who was the friendly type would even put on a performance for the guests from faraway countries. There was a dark-skinned female manticore knight who was also an excellent dancer. Her desert style twisting dance left me with a really deep impression.


    Such situations happened several times along the journey. Local song and dance were a way of expressing friendliness all over the world. Not only did this help to ease the airship guests¡¯ tension, it also made them look forward to uing journey.


    Of course, judging from how the aerial knights who were also performers headed straight for the airship crew to receive red packets of money, perhaps there was even agreement between them already. It was even possible that the aerial knights had been intentionally invited over to help the airship guests rx.


    Looking at how things currently were, transporting people long-distance between countries was immensely profitable. I did some calctions. This airship would take one flight approximately once every three days. The number of passengers would be around 300-400 people. There were several different levels of airship tickets, just like how airne tickets in my original world were separated into economy, business, first-ss, and so on. Even the cheapest airship ticket would cost more than 2,000 gold coins. The first-ss tickets would cost 10,000 gold coins for a single ticket, which was more than enough to buy a respectable manor in a country. Only a major merchant or major noble would be able to afford a first-ss airship ticket.


    With just one airship flight, plus maybe some extra cargo transportation or smuggling, if nothing unexpected happened, the flight would likely bring in revenue of over several million gold coins. This was far more profitable than robbing any bank.


    Still, there would also be significant expenses in running the airship flights. Not only would there be upkeep costs for the airship, the magic cannons¡¯ ammunition and the guards protecting the airship would also be quite expensive.


    Over the days, I idly walked around the whole airship and saw two Legend ranks as well as a Saint rank ¡°youngster¡± who were wearing uniforms indicating that they were airship security. Basically, they were probably the airship¡¯s guards.


    Still, when considering the current chaotic situation in the world, perhaps this was already a great deal. The tariffs and checkpoints that various countries would impose for entering their borders were extremely annoying to deal with. Some countries were also current battlefields, and passing through those ces would be the equivalent of suicide.


    Although there were also problems in the air, the problems were far fewer than onnd. Flying magical beasts were far rarer thannd-based magical beasts, and deserter soldiers and bandits were even more dangerous than magical beasts on the ground.


    So far, as far as I could tell, due to the gs of the major factions, these transportation airships were still running at a safety rate of 100%. The guests really trusted the airship crew to keep them safe.


    Although this trust was greatly tested when the green dragon arrived, the trust was restored to a peak when the green dragon chose to leave rather than attack.


    ¡°As expected of the Mist Alliance. Even dragons don¡¯t dare to touch their airship.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you mean the Bardi Empire? My country¡¯s dragon knights are famed all over the world. That dragon is definitely afraid of my country¡¯s powerful dragon knights hunting it down.¡±


    Although the Bardi citizen¡¯s im made all other Bardi citizens on board really proud of their own country, I almostughed out loud as I was the only one here who could understand the dragonnguage. I had heard what the green dragon really said.


    ¡°...Wow, a flying iron can! I heard that meeting one will bring me great luck! Flying iron can, please bless me so that Natasha can ept my love, please bless me that I¡¯ll have lots of treasure, please bless me...¡±


    The green dragon¡¯s roars had really frightened all of the guests, but he was actually someone who believed in the newest rumor going around the dragons¡ªthat anyone who met a ¡°flying iron can¡± would be blessed with great luck. So, all he was doing was praying for what he wanted, and when he left, it wasn¡¯t because he had judged that it wasn¡¯t worth it to attack the airship, but rather because he was leaving quite happily after he finished praying for everything that he wanted.


    Still, the guests were right about some things.


    Due to Bardi¡¯s special rtionship with the dragons, any dragons who were rted to Dragon City wouldn¡¯t attack any airship with Bardi¡¯s g.


    In fact, the rumor about ¡°flying iron cans¡± bringing great luck had intentionally been spread by Bardi¡¯s Dragon City and Little Red¡¯s Dragon City. The rumor even had an additional part that any dragon who attacked an airship would suffer misfortune.


    Still, this was technically true as Dragon City was also taking a cut of the airship transportation profits. Attacking the airships would be the equivalent of attacking the dragon leaders¡¯ profits. Any wild dragon would of course suffer misfortune if they dared to do so. This was another reason why Bardi had been invited to join in the airship transportation business.


    Of course, there was no such thing as absolute safety in this world. As the Holy War progressed, an ident would happen to an airship sooner orter. Not all enemies could bemunicated with. For instance, maybe an airship would meet with arge horde of flying demons or something of the sort.


    But as the Holy War progressed, traveling onnd would only be more difficult and more dangerous, so airship transportation had immense development potential.


    Another benefit of the secret alliance with the Holy Church was that this airship transportation business could be expanded to the Holy Church¡¯s areas of influence. This would greatly expand our profits.


    All these profits would represent even more military investment and food. It would mean that the Mist Alliance¡¯s national strength was constantly rising. Perhaps we were the ones who were most ustomed to this time of Holy War...


    ¡°There¡¯s a group of flying demons in front! There¡¯s subi and four-winged Berserker Demons!¡±


    A warning rm started ringing as the airship crew hurriedly urged all passengers on the airship¡¯s deck to take cover in their rooms. Meanwhile, Harloys nced at me in dissatisfaction.


    ¡°Is this my fault for jinxing things? Isn¡¯t this quite normal? The demon wave is over, and the Chaos Abyss is active. There¡¯s probably countless portals from the Chaos Abyss right now. Meeting a demon army or a Demon Lord is just somon...¡±


    ¡°You two over there, old man and little girl! Please hurry and get to safety! Grandmaster Raikage, please prepare for battle! The radar reaction shows that a Demon Lord has appeared!¡± An airship crew member urged myself (disguised as an old man) and Harloys to get to safety.


    Alright, it seemed that I should shut up and stop jinxing things.

 Chapter 735 - Afu the Faker

    <h4>Chapter 735: Afu the Faker</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The beginning of the demon wave was a historical event, as well as a critically important event in the Holy War¡¯s timeline.


    The demon wave¡¯s arrival signified that the Chaos Abyss had sessfully connected to the mortal ne. It would be very difficult for any Chaos Abyss resident toe to the mortal ne when it wasn¡¯t a time of Holy War, and the Chaos Abyss resident would also be quite weakened and easily kicked out of the mortal ne. But now, not only was establishing portals easier, even powerful demons would no longer be restricted by dimensionalws in the mortal ne now.


    However, there would always be demerits together with benefits. Previously, due to dimensionalws¡¯ restrictions which forcefully suppressed those from the Chaos Abyss, the Demon Lords were only able to send out incarnations, clones, descendants, and so on. Even if they suffered some losses in the mortal ne, it wouldn¡¯t mean their actual death.


    But right now, with the current situation, other demons were alling to the mortal ne in their true bodies. You would be viewed as an embarrassment if you merely sent an incarnation. Not only that, an incarnation would be weaker, so you wouldn¡¯t even be able to get anything for yourself when contending with the other demons. The incarnation being in repeatedly would also keep weakening your true body, and a powerful mage who captured the incarnation would even be able to use it to attack the demon¡¯s true body, steal its power, and enve it by finding out its true name. This would obviously be a poor deal.


    So, all the demons came in their true bodies. Although their true bodies were more powerful, the downside was that they would be undergoing great risk. For most of them, death would truly be death.


    Demon Lord Inferno Soulchainer Shark Shikir was a rather rare demon species, a River Styx Corrosion Shark who had leveled up to be a high-level demon. He appeared like arge ck shark that was swimming around in the middle of ck mist. Only his scarlet bloodthirsty eyes could be seen clearly through the mist. He would definitely be quite scary if he appeared at night.


    His species loved to feast on souls. Although River Styx Corrosion Sharks were unable to actually enter the River Styx, they would always live near the River Styx and ambush newborn demons who had just climbed ashore. They loved to eat the flesh and blood of souls that hadn¡¯t finished transforming yet, which was why they were also known as scavengers.


    Every single living creature would have the instinct to protect infants of its own kind. Even the demons would automatically attack any River Styx Corrosion Sharks that they came across. Any demon who was lucky enough to escape from a shark would also carry a grudge ande backter for revenge after bing more powerful.


    River Styx Corrosion Sharks were a low-intelligence demon species, so Shikir being able to level up to Demon Lord was the best evidence of how out of the ordinary he was. Currently, within his protective mist, ck chains were binding the souls of howling mortals. Shikir enjoyed fresh souls as snacks, and howls of despair would give him pleasure.


    As he was a Demon Lord who possessed the ability of flight, most of his subordinates were also flying demons. But unfortunately for Shikir, it was far too umon for those of his own species to level up enough to gain intelligence, so most of his subordinates were winged demons and subi.


    Winged demons were a major subtype of demons. Any demon which had wings and could fly would count as a winged demon. Most of them were regr demons which were really muscr. Some were demons who had devoured something with the ability of flight, gaining the power of flight themselves.


    The winged demons¡¯ appearances were widely varied, from what looked like a gori with wings, all the way to wolves with wings.


    But since these winged demons had chosen to keep the ability of flight, this would naturally mean decreasing their weight and increasing wingspan, which would also weaken their meleebat ability which demons were so proud of.


    Winged demons weren¡¯t usually that difficult to deal with. Normally, these demons that had chosen a wrong path of evolution would evolve a second pair of wings to further improve their ability of flight and how much weight they could have.


    Meanwhile, subi were one of the few demon species which would keep humanoid form. There was no need to introduce them, as they were far too famous.


    ¡°One Demon Lord, who¡¯s the very rare species of Soulchainer Shark, the leveled-up version of River Styx Corrosion Shark. He has 13 subi and more than 200 random winged demons under hismand, as well as a small special squad of evolved four-winged Berserker Demons. This will be slightly troublesome...¡±


    Ordinary guests all hid in their rooms, while the airship crew and warriors prepared for battle on the deck.


    The magic cannons on the starboard and port sides of the airship kept firing, but achieved very little as the winged demons were quite agile.


    The winged demon squadron was now following the airship. The slow airship wouldn¡¯t possibly be able to outrun them. However, the winged demons didn¡¯t immediately attack. They were also observing us.


    ¡°Grandmaster Raikage, please take action!¡±


    The airship captain was apparently asking a monk named Raikage to protect the airship...


    ¡°Asking a monk to protect an airship? Which genius came up with this idea?¡±


    I really felt like this was unreliable. Everyone knew that monks were experts in meleebat. Any monk who got within melee distance would easily be able to neutralize medium-length and long weapons.


    I had previous experience of being beaten by undead monks before. Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan was also the strongest monk I had ever seen in the world. He was ridiculously cheat-like powerful at meleebat.


    I wasn¡¯t trying to say that monks were weak. In fact, high-level monks would always be quite ridiculously strong. However, monk was a job ss with one of the shortest effective ranges among all job sses.


    Hire a monk to protect an airship? How was the monk supposed to deal with aerial enemies? Send out an energy st or Spirit Bomb like in an anime?


    The monk Raikage appeared to be only around 30 years old. He definitely appeared quite young as he smiled with his eyes closed, yet he was already Saint rank. This didn¡¯t actually mean that he was a young genius. It was because the monk job ss was really good at slowing the aging process already as this job ss focused on developing the physical body¡¯s potential.


    Raikage currently had his eyes closed as he meditated. It seemed as if he had a n.


    ¡°Hey, maybe he has some ultimate technique, such as a special bloodline or skill, a magic item which forbids flight, a magic item which increases gravity, or something. He might even be an expert Saint rank with a Soul World.¡± Harloys disagreed with my opinion. Seeing how calm that Raikage seemed to be, maybe he really did have something up his sleeve.


    All of the airship¡¯s guards came out. There was the Saint-rank monk and three Legend ranks: one archer, one swordsman, and one mage. There was also a random assortment of Silver and Gold ranks... Just a decade ago, Gold ranks had been viewed as grandmasters, but now they had been relegated to being nothing more than cannon fodder. I could only exim over how the world had changed.


    The magic cannons on the airship were quite powerful. However, they were still a bit insufficient for fighting against demons. Chaos Abyss creatures were naturally fire resistant, which also meant that it was normal for them to be resistant against explosions. Plus, these winged demons could fly quite agilely. The magic cannons were very little threat to them.


    In order to save money, it wasn¡¯t possible for the transportation airship to also have a guard airship escort. This meant that the transportation airship could only rely on its own regr guards.


    A dozen or so winged demons began their attacks rather rashly by charging at the airship. Although their attack was just a test of our defenses, if any of them crashed into the wooden airship deck, it was guaranteed that arge hole would appear in the airship.


    The monk Raikage took action. He suddenly left afterimages behind as he continuously jumped and shed around. Dull thuds of his fists meeting demon flesh could be heard in the air. When Raikagended on the deck again, all of the approaching winged demons had been smashed into unrecognizable tiny pieces of flesh.


    And then, Raikage angrily red at the remaining winged demons in the sky. His aura then swirled around him as if he was about to release some ultimate technique.


    ¡°...Come down here and fight me if you dare!¡±


    Alright then, we had indeed overestimated him. Was this some new taunting technique of this generation?


    It seemed that hiring a monk in order to guard this airship wasn¡¯t because this monk was special, after all. Maybe this monk had been the only Saint rank avable for hire, or, more likely, the airship captain had just wanted to save money.


    Monks were the cheapest job ss to maintain, after all. They didn¡¯t need any special weapons or equipment. Monks were ascetics, so they would ask for the least to hire them. In fact, some monks were even willing to work for free as long as you gave them free food and boarding...


    ¡°As expected, I shouldn¡¯t have tried to save money after all...¡±


    I heard the airship captain muttering this to himself. The airship transportation service had an advertisement that every single airship would be protected by at least one Saint rank. It seemed that this was how the airship captain had ensured the truth of the advertising. I was at the entrance to the deck and heard his muttering, so of course the monk would naturally hear him as well, as monks excelled in developing their five senses.


    Raikage¡¯s face reddened in anger, but he had nowhere to vent it. He could only viciously re at the flying demons in the sky.


    The demons were in no rush. Although normal demons would be going crazy right now over fresh blood, meat, and souls, they had hunted plenty over the past few days, sating their bloodthirsty instincts. Currently, they were more like a pack of wolves which was hunting prey only for fun.


    Unlike other demons, Inferno Soulchainer Shark Shikir hadn¡¯t intended to stay in a single ce to begin with. He and his subordinates would casually fly wherever they wanted, enjoy a feast wherever they stopped, and hunt whenever they became hungry. They would also hunt whenever they were bored. No single aerial knight would possibly be able to stop them.


    Flying demons were just like roving bandits of the sky. They would be one of the most dangerous demon groups around for ordinary people as no ordinary vige would be able to defend against their sudden aerial attacks.


    Right now, the flying demons surrounded the airship, testing our defenses. If they found a powerful enemy, they would unhesitatingly run away, and if they found that this enemy wasn¡¯t capable of threatening them, then they would immediately devour every person on the airship.


    So what if the monk was a capable fighter? As long as the flying demons brought down the airship, not a single person on board would survive.


    ¡°Honestly, I¡¯m going to rmend that they bring aerial knights next time. They can¡¯t be this stingy with money.¡±


    ¡°...Actually, I don¡¯t think they would have met with this level of enemy if it weren¡¯t for you being on board.¡±


    Harloys was using me of being a jinxer again, but I refused to take the me.


    ¡°The endless Chaos Abyss has how many levels and how many millions of demons? As the Holy War continues, there will only be more and more hordes of demons appearing. If they don¡¯t meet them this time, they¡¯ll meet them next time. Using the samebat strength to guard an airship as one year ago is already outdated. The demon wave has ended already, and it¡¯s now the middle of the Holy War.¡±


    The times were changing too quickly. Yesterday¡¯s standards forbat strength needed to protect an airship might be outdated even today. Even if my personal negative luck stat multiplied the chance of misfortune by 10 times, wouldn¡¯t it be the same if the airship flew 10 times and met with a group of demons once?


    ¡°It looks like we¡¯re going to have more expenses on guarding the airships,¡± Harloysmented.


    ¡°Just make the guests pay for their own safety. We can simply double the airship ticket prices. Yep, in that case, let¡¯s simply start hiring dragons. That will even give us a great excuse to increase the airship ticket prices. I should have a discussion with Halent and Little Red about hiring dragons when I return. If we keep trying to save money, then an incident really will happen.¡±


    At this time, it was basically impossible for me not to intervene.


    ¡°Sigh.¡±


    I sighed, causing this entire aerial area to shake slightly. Everyone heard this sigh as powerful winds started up while dark clouds gathered.


    Right after that, even though the weather had clearly been warm, snowkes started falling.


    The snowkes then suddenly transformed into a roaring blizzard as the winds suddenly increased in strength. Snow began umting on the airship at a visible rate.


    Since I had now achieved Level 4, this meant that my physical body no longer had its limitations. This was foundational progress that had also allowed for my power of ice magic to greatly increase in strength.


    Controlling the power of the elements would also require a correspondingly strong physical body. Level 4 was a breakthrough point. At this level, even though my ice magic sword wasn¡¯tpleted yet, I would no longer be like before, in a half-dead state due to magical bacsh after tossing out just one forbidden spell. I would no longer need to rest for several months afterwards.


    This was the difference between mortals and those who had surpassed mortal limits. This was also why demons, angels, Gods, dragons, and so on seemed to be so cheat-like with how powerful they were. As they would put it, ¡°My blood contains mana,¡± ¡°My will can control the elements,¡± ¡°My anger can destroy mortals¡¯ puny contraptions,¡± and so on.


    For instance, if a mortal¡¯s physical body had a rating of 10 for how well it could contain the elements, representing elemental quality, then these Gold Species had physical bodies with ratings over 100. The foundational difference in ¡°elemental quality¡± between mortals and the Gold Species made it so that the mortals¡¯ spells were rtively ineffective against Gold Species. I had seen multiple times before how a dragon could dispel a mage¡¯s curse with only an angry roar. Such abilities were indeed worthy of them looking down on mortals.


    The Gold Species had the power to act as ridiculously as they wanted, and a human acting ridiculously in front of a Level 4 individual would only get themselves killed. For instance, if you tried to lift up a truck with your physical body, maybe you could do it for a few seconds with the help of adrenaline, but it was more likely that you would identally crush yourself to death.


    Now that I had reached Level 4 status, and had ess to the full power of my highest-level angel bloodline, I would be no ordinary Level 4 individual at all. My War Angel transformation¡¯s strength had concretelybined with my physical body. If a red dragon had elemental quality surpassing 100, then my elemental quality had long since surpassed 1,000.


    ¡°Let¡¯s try things out...¡±


    I gathered ice magic mana in my hands as I intended to test the might of my ice magic sword. But suddenly, the airship started tilting, so I almost fell over. I also heard the airship crew shouting in panic...


    ¡°The airship is tilting! The left engine has gone out because of too much snow!¡±


    I paused in surprise as I naturally dissipated the power of ice and snow on my hands. Harloys had been pulling on my clothes in order not to fall over. We exchanged nces.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I don¡¯t even know what type of expression I should have at this time.¡±


    ¡°Awkward, just like always.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s smile made me really want to chuck her off the airship. Meanwhile, a white-haired female mage hurriedly came over. As she was a Legend-ranked mage, it was only natural that she could sense the tremendous magic powering from near her.


    ¡°...Grandmaster, please stop casting your spell. This airship won¡¯t be able to handle it.¡±


    When she saw that I had a scraggly beard and countless wrinkles on my face, she paused in surprise to see that this mage seemed like he was almost dead of old age already. Still, she immediately asked that I stop my spell, and also asked me to go up to the deck to help them.


    I felt really helpless now. Things really weren¡¯t going well for me recently. I couldn¡¯t even just hide in the airship and take care of things without showing myself.


    I casually tossed away my staff as I suddenly straightened my bent back, also simultaneously changing my aura and physical appearance. I instantly went from an old man back to my youthful appearance. I twisted my neck and felt muchfortable all over.


    ¡°...They actually need a guest to step up and protect them. They should refund my airship ticket fee.¡±


    ¡°Howe I recall that you asked for a free ticket from the local manager? You didn¡¯t even spend money in the first ce.¡±


    As always, the silly cat countered everything that I said. I decided to simply ignore her logic.


    ¡°Then they should pay me somepensation for mental damage as I¡¯ve been really poor recently... Well, if I can¡¯t userge AOE magic spells, how about I use my ice magic sword¡¯s Nortnds environment death arena ability...¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll all fall out of the sky.¡±


    ¡°...Seven Sins death magic sword?¡±


    ¡°All other guests will die, and we¡¯ll still fall out of the sky. Or, are you able to control those grudge-filled souls not to harm the living?¡±


    I was feeling even more helpless now. I felt like I should avoid taking airships in the future. This type of unique environment made even trying to attack quite troublesome.


    Well, there were mainly only some subi and winged demons here, mostly just weaklings. If a Chaos Main God caught up with me here instead...


    ¡°Waah... I didn¡¯t even say it out loud! You¡¯re not even allowing me to think it anymore!?¡±


    I did my best to remove Harloys¡¯ tiny hands from my mouth. Was I really such a jinxer? She didn¡¯t even want to allow me to think things anymore?


    ¡°Rnd! Come out here! I¡¯ve long since expected that you would be on this airship! I¡¯ve waited for you for so long!¡±


    That voice was rather familiar...


    ¡°Afu the Faker?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Sophocles the Deceiver!¡±

 Chapter 736 - Challenge

    <h4>Chapter 736: Challenge</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Sophocles had two wings, two horns, and a dark gray and ck perfectly proportioned body with proper hands and feet, carrying a gigantic sword on his back.


    His murky yellow eyes containedplex emotions. Just his eyes alone wererger than my entire body. He was staring at me with a vignt expression.


    Apart from him being slightlyrge, he wasn¡¯t really all that much.


    ¡°...The entire airship is smaller than his hand. Are you sure that he¡¯s just slightlyrge?¡±


    ¡°Tsk, you think he¡¯s incredible just because he¡¯srge? Maybe he¡¯s nothing more than a fluffy pillow.¡±


    Sophocles¡¯ gigantic head approached the airship¡¯s deck. His breath was just like an eruption of magma from the lower nes, but this was actually the standard breath of any gigantic demon.


    ¡°...Rnd, you¡¯re still the same as before.¡±


    Just the wind from him speaking almost blew me away. The nearby Saint-ranked monk and the three Legend-ranked guards were alreadypletely suppressed by Sophocles¡¯ demonic aura to the point of not even being able to move.


    ¡°Fine, being big is indeed a big deal.¡±


    Things were unlike back when I¡¯dst seen Sophocles in Hell. At that time, I had been supported by Hell¡¯s Four Elemental Pirs, and I also had many powerful individuals supporting me back then, including those who were at Main God power level. But right now, Sophocles hade in his true body. He was a super existence that was capable of destroying an entire country, no, arge part of the continent just by himself.


    When standing straight, he reached far higher than the clouds. Judging based on size alone, this famous scammer and deceiver was actually muchrger than even Chaos War God Donatis, making Sophocles seem more like a War God.


    ¡°Long time no see, Afu. What business do you have with me?¡±


    ¡°Afu? No! I am Sophocles! The venerated Chaos Main God, Sophocles!¡±


    Sophocles instantly exploded in fury. His sulfuric breath made me feel as if I was inside a volcano. The airship¡¯s deck started creaking as cracks started rapidly spreading on the airship at a visible rate.


    ¡°Tsk, tsk, tsk. Your temper is just as bad as it was before, Afu.¡±


    ¡°Sophocles! I am Sophocles the Deceiver, Sophocles the Scammer! I am the idol of all scammers and schemers! I am Sophocles, the wisest demon of them all!¡±


    ¡°Okay, Afu.¡±


    I shook my head¡ªSophocles seemed to be surprisingly easy to anger by my intentionally getting his name wrong.


    ¡°I, Sophocles Elostankaven Wast (102 more sybles skipped for the reader¡¯s convenience)... Oops, I almost told you my full true name! I know you! This must have been your scheme! You were just trying to scam my true name out of me! How scary, what evil curse is this? Even I, the wise Sophocles, almost fell for your trick!¡±


    I sighed rather helplessly. Sophocles was overly in love with using the exmation mark. It seemed that he was also a bit of a chuunibyou. Howe I never discoveredst time that he was so hrious?


    ¡°Afu, a demon like you is calling someone else evil? It¡¯s just that you have low intelligence, isn¡¯t that right, Afu? Are you still alright, Afu? Did you have lunch yet, Afu? Is your mother doing alright, Afu?¡±


    Sophocles viciously mmed the ground with his ws. The resulting impact was as loud as a thunderp each time.


    Meanwhile, that shark Demon Lord was trembling in fear while hiding behind him, yet misfortune suddenly descended upon him. The Chaos Main God suddenly grabbed the shark Demon Lord and then tossed him into his mouth.


    *Chomp!*


    As expected, in every world, people who were in a bad mood would really want to eat something. Sophocles chewed on the Demon Lord for quite a while before finally calming down.


    When he opened his eyes again, the red light in his eyes was now calm again.


    ¡°Afu, do you still remember how it felt like to be surrounded and attacked by Hell Dragons... Eh?¡±


    I was going to keep teasing him, but our ¡°little chat¡± was suddenly interrupted. It turned out that the white-haired Legend-ranked female mage was pitifully tugging on my clothes.


    ¡°Milord! Your Highness Rnd!¡±


    She pointed at the airship, which was now filled with cracks while shaking all over, while imploring me with a tear-filled expression.


    ¡°Please stop teasing Afu. Even if you¡¯re still fine, we can¡¯t take his pressure anymore... Lord Afu, no, Lord Sophocles, please don¡¯t look at me like that! Please don¡¯t steal away my soul!¡±


    The Chaos Main God viciously red at her, causing her legs to constantly tremble. She was probably almost about to pee herself... Er, the airship deck and her mage robe were now wet. It seemed that she had already peed herself in fear. As I was a gentleman, it would be best to pretend to have seen nothing.


    And so, I gave a big thumbs-up as I turned around and smiled at the angry Chaos Main God.


    ¡°Good job, youngdy. I have a good opinion of your fearlessness. Come, let us pee together at the Chaos Main God.¡±


    And so, I really took off my pants right in front of Sophocles and aimed directly at him... What? You¡¯re saying that this wasn¡¯t a gentlemanly action? A true gentleman wouldn¡¯t care about boring etiquette! I was using my actions to relieve the young female mage¡¯s embarrassment!


    Since she had peed herself, if I also peed right in public, then it would make her seem less dirty inparison... well, probably. Didn¡¯t it work this way at least in theory?


    ¡°...Rnd, you should give up on trying to anger me. I, Sophocles, am no novice. I would never lose my sense of logic and reason just because of such a lowly challenge.¡±


    Before saying that, shouldn¡¯t he let go of the pitiful subi and four-winged Berserker Demon that he had twisted into pretzels? Also, he should really be reducing his powerful aura as he was even killing off the demons around him.


    I smiled as I refrained from continuing to tease him anymore.


    Sophocles was correct. From the very start, I had been trying to intentionally anger him.


    Anger was a very interesting emotion. On the battlefield, some would be even more vicious and powerful because of anger, while others would show weaknesses that would weaken themselves.


    If I judged correctly, both Sophocles and myself were thetter type. We were both warriors who would fight more with our brains. Losing the sense of logic and reason would only make our schemes have more holes in them, greatly reducing ourbat strength.


    Perhaps truly angering him would be rather difficult, but there was nothing wrong with trying. Even if it was impossible topletely anger him to the point of losing logic and reason, too much anger would still imperceptibly begin to affect the uracy of one¡¯s movements and the reliability of one¡¯s thoughts.


    Indeed, I was already prepared for an all-out fight against him.


    The moment that I saw him, I already realized that it would be quite difficult for today¡¯s encounter to end peacefully. I already started preparing for a cruel fight to the death.


    Demons were no kind individuals. Knightly chivalry, fair fights, and other such concepts were nothing more than a joke to them. A demon would only unhesitatingly get rid of any enemy who was a possible threat.


    Ever since the day that the demon wave descended, I knew that a Chaos Main God woulde to attack me sooner orter. However, I hadn¡¯t expected that Sophocles would be the first toe for me. He was someone used to scheming, so I figured that he would make use of others instead, which he would feel was more befitting of showing off his intelligence and wonderful schemes.


    I originally thought that someone like Donatis would be the first to find me rather than Sophocles, who had suffered multiple times before due to me.


    My Holy Light sword hummed at my waist as if this prey was one that it really wanted to hunt down.


    Since I knew that a Chaos Main God woulde to attack me sooner orter, of course I would make my preparations. My Holy Light sword was definitely the mortal enemy of all demons. Meanwhile, any ace or ultimate technique would always be the most effective the first time that it appeared in the world. My Holy Light sword Dawn was truly lucky to be able to show off to the world with Sophocles the Deceiver as its first sacrifice.


    I ced my right hand at my waist, causing my entire body to faintly glow with Holy Light. I smiled as I mentally prepared for a fight to the death.


    ¡°Holy Light¡ª¡±


    However, Sophocles suddenly took a step back.


    ¡°Just take a look at what¡¯s going on around you. Do you think that they¡¯ll be able to survive if we fight here?¡±


    ck smoke was rising from all over the airship. The airship¡¯s deck and body were filled with cracks. All of the most powerful guards were already copsed on the deck. Just being in such close proximity to the Chaos Main God was far too difficult for their bodies to handle.


    Since it was like this already for the most powerful individuals on the airship, then the ordinary people inside the airship¡¯s guest rooms had probably already started dying on arge scale.


    All powerful existences of Order would have their own personal domains of Order. Demon Lords and above would have a personal power of Chaos that could distort the environment around them. They would instinctively corrode the nearby environment. This was just a regr instinct such as breathing for humans, yet no mortal would be able to handle it.


    Of course I could see what was happening to them. I had been paying attention all this while. However, what could I even do?


    ¡°Ha, I can return what you just said to you. I, Rnd, am no novice, either. Do you really think that these people are capable of being hostages who will limit me? They were destined to die from the moment that you appeared. At most, I can pay somepensation to their family members, and then slice you even more viciously for their sakes.¡±


    I smiled as I threatened Sophocles. I was indeed telling the truth here.


    I wouldn¡¯t possibly hold back when facing a Chaos Main God.


    Rather than having too many worries, which would limit my actions and likely cause my death, I would instead choose to pretend that the other people on the airship didn¡¯t exist. At most, I would simply paypensation afterwards to take the moral high ground. It wasn¡¯t like I would be the one who killed them.


    A Chaos Main God had arrived, causing their deaths. That would be all.


    We didn¡¯t try to hide our conversation from the others. The airship guards who weren¡¯t dead yet were looking at me with ratherplex expressions ranging from hatred to fear. In a way, my choice to take this airship was also the cause of their potential deaths, so it wasn¡¯t unreasonable for them to hate me.


    Were they absolutely certain to die here? No, they weren¡¯t. And right now, I would try to slightly improve their odds of survival.


    ¡°...You achieved Level 4 by using the Concept of Holy Light?¡± Sophocles suddenly asked.


    I lightly tapped on my sword hilt, causing a lightsaber which gave off a pure glow to appear. The entire world was illuminated as Sophocles took yet another step back. This time, it was because of his demon instinct.


    ¡°Indeed. I knew that you Chaos Main Gods woulde for me sooner orter, so of course I would choose to use Holy Light in order to breakthrough to the next level. Right now, I am probably the strongest Holy Knight in the world.¡±


    Sophocles hesitated for a moment, until he finally forced a smile that looked even uglier than crying. ¡°Actually, I didn¡¯te here to fight with you today. I have some things that I¡¯d like to discuss with you,¡± he remarked.


    I smiled. It was exactly as I had expected. Sophocles didn¡¯t have the personality where he liked to personally fight his fights in the first ce, and if he really did want to fight me, he would have instantly attacked already. How could he possibly have given me any time to prepare, or evene up to the deck of the airship?


    But if I had shown any signs of fear or weakness, he never would have let go of such an excellent opportunity. At the very least, he would have definitely tried to test me with his attacks. Only by acting that I was willing to y him at all costs, and that I had an ace up my sleeve which he didn¡¯t know about, would it be possible for him to directly give up on even testing me and only discuss his real objective with me.


    Angering and trying to force him to attack me was actually because I had already seen through his overly paranoid personality. Acting as if I had a guarantee of being able to y him would scare him into not daring to even try and test me.


    That was the only chance of survival for the airship¡¯s passengers.


    And since I was trying my best to ensure the airship¡¯s passengers¡¯ survival...


    ¡°Afu, let¡¯s talk somece else.¡±


    ¡°Sophocles! I¡¯m Sophocles, not whatever damned Afu!¡±


    ¡°Okay, Afu. I¡¯ll remember, Afu. No need to repeat yourself, Afu.¡±


    ¡°Damned bastard who deserves to be burned to death by Holy Light! Fine, just call me whatever you like!¡±

 Chapter 737 - Mutual Goal

    <strong>Chapter 737: Mutual Goal</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    In a way, when I found out that Sophocles hadn¡¯te here in order to kill me... or at least, his main goal wasn¡¯t to kill me, then I already knew what this would be about.


    What would a Chaos Main God possibly have to chat with me about? The weather was quite nice today? How about we go out for a walk together?


    Chaos Main Gods would only be interested in ughter and souls, and how to better conquer territory in the mortal ne. On a grander scale, basically they would only be interested in how to obtain more power, a higher status, and even more territory.


    Did this sound quite simr to how a wild beast would behave? The Chaos Abyss was ruled by thew of the jungle, so this indeed created arge number of highly intelligent wild beasts.


    Sophocles might be known as the slyest and most intelligent demon who was the demon that was closest to being a devil, but foundationally speaking, he was still a demon. What demons wanted and needed was something I knew better than anyone.


    ¡°Afu, which powerful demon do you want to kill that it requires my assistance?¡±


    That was right, I was certain that he was here to betray one of his allies. For the most powerful demons, their true mortal enemies were never anyone in the mortal ne, but rather other residents of the Chaos Abyss.


    Back in the Chaos Abyss, they had forever been at war with each other. When talking about grudges and shes of benefits, the demons themselves would be each other¡¯s true mortal enemies.


    As for their battle with the mortal ne? From a certain standpoint, maybe it was quite urate to describe the Order Faction in terms of a ¡°war¡± between one country and another, but using the same description on the Chaos Faction would be quiteughable.


    Considering the context of the overall situation? Being willing to sacrifice oneself for the sake of the greater good? What a joke! How would I benefit if I sacrificed myself? If I thought about the overall situation, would other bastards do the same? Long-term benefits? We care about the long term? In this war, everyone was fighting for the same territory by force!


    From the very start, the Chaos Faction couldn¡¯t even be described as a pile of loose sand. They consisted of bastards who would attack members of their own side at any moment. This was the foundational reason why the Order Faction had been able to maintain a subtle bnce with the Chaos Faction for so long despite the Order Faction actually being far weaker overall than the Chaos Faction.


    Of course, the Order Faction wasn¡¯t much better. The Holy Church had just betrayed San Antonio. There was also the previous anti-Mist Alliance Divine Northern Battlefront Alliance that the Holy Church had established. I also couldn¡¯t remember just how many pitfalls I had previously dug for the Holy Church. Plus, Seraphim Winton had just tried to assassinate me recently... But at the very least, on the surface we would still all appear to be ¡°allies¡±. Even if we had just both tried to backstab each other before going to sleep, on the next day, if neither of us were dead, we would still smile and eat breakfast together in a friendly manner.


    ¡°Are you trying topare who¡¯s worse?¡± Harloysmented.


    ¡°Indeed, this isparing who¡¯s actually worse. That¡¯s how it is for most things in the world, especially for something like war. Isn¡¯t war just aparison of who¡¯s more foolish and who makes more mistakes?¡±


    Whenpared to the Chaos Faction, the Order Faction already seemed pretty good. At the very least, those of the Order Faction were still invisibly bound by certain rules and morals. It wasn¡¯t to the extent where anyone who showed weakness would instantly be devoured by a pack of ravenous wolves.


    And with the disappearance of the will of the Chaos Abyss, all of the most powerful Chaos Faction existences no longer had any restrictions at all. However, some things still wouldn¡¯t change. When they came to the mortal ne, they would all still have the same goal, wanting to conquer everything.


    Their benefits would be a direct and bloody sh against the benefits of those in the mortal ne. It was a rtionship like that between the hunter and the hunted, the invader and the invaded. Anyone who was known to be connected to demons would immediately be a mortal enemy of the entire mortal ne.


    With this as the backdrop, Sophoclesing to find me meant that he definitely wouldn¡¯t be hoping that I would target some faction or individual in the mortal ne. I would never possibly agree, even if the target was the Holy Church. This was for the greater good of the entire world. Anyone who broke this unspoken rule would be inviting endless trouble.


    ¡°...So, if you¡¯re looking for me, but not trying to kill me, then it can only be for the purpose of setting a pitfall for one of your allies.¡±


    Sophocles was currently standing before me in the form of a middle-aged gentleman with slightly dark skin and two horns on his head. He even had a pair of gold-rimmed eyesses to help him pretend to be gentlemanly.


    He even brought out a white wooden table covered by a parasol that we were sitting at in a stretch of endless barren wastnd. Sophocles was trying his very best to pretend to be gentlemanly in his human form as he was even drinking tea while reading a newspaper.


    He frowned when he heard myment. Just what was Rnd saying?


    Betraying his ally? But, that person was no ally to begin with. Sophocles organized his thoughts for quite a while before he finally stated his objective.


    ¡°...Karwenz is far too dangerous.¡±


    That was how Sophocles began his description. Just what exactly had Karwenz done in order to make a Chaos Main God view him as dangerous, when Chaos Main Gods would view destruction as a normal daily urrence?


    ¡°...He¡¯s trying to shatter the dimensional barriers protecting the entire Eich universe?¡±


    I was the one who said that in a definite tone rather than Sophocles.


    I figured that I already knew why Sophocles hade to visit me.


    Sophocles paused in surprise for a moment, but then showed an expression that this was only natural. It seemed that he was also expecting that I already knew some of what was happening.


    ¡°...Mortal, I have seen countless talented individuals throughout the endless eons, but none have ever beenparable to you two brothers. Even Karn from back in the day wasn¡¯t as ridiculous as either of you. In such a short 400 years, both of you have grown to such an extent...¡±


    As expected, any undying individuals would always love to chat about old history when they started chatting. Even demons were no exception.


    Such a short 400 years? Did he even have any idea of what I had experienced over the past 400 years?


    I smiled without responding since I knew that he wouldn¡¯t care at all just what a mortal had experienced. The uing topic of discussion was what this expert schemer truly cared about.


    Not long ago, Sophocles and Karwenz had just teamed up together in a scheme against San Antonio. But now, Sophocles was immediately trying to backstab Karwenz, so Sophocles must have definitely obtained something already.


    ¡°...I am not from the first generation of immemorial demons who experienced the most ancient Holy War of all. However, I have previously devoured immemorial demons and learned from their memories about how powerful and frightening the invaders from other universes could be. I have no desire to meet such powerful enemies like in the memories...¡±


    Sophocles described the ancient dimensional invaders and how powerful and frightening they could be, how they destroyed everything that they came across, demolishing all cities and devouring all the residents... but wasn¡¯t this identical to what demons would do?


    It seemed that Sophocles simply didn¡¯t want any additionalpetitors from joining in.


    ¡°Most of all, Karwenz shouldn¡¯t have tried to shatter the dimensional barriers. What ¡®true evolution¡¯? What ¡®breaking past the Creator Goddesses restrictions¡¯? Those pretty words might be able to fool some young demons from this new generation, but saying such useless things to me...¡±


    Sophocles was now chatting on and on, with lots of anger andints. In a way, he probably had it really hard as well, as he was one of the really rare highly intelligent powerful demons, while the rest of his own kind were all really berserk and chaotic musclebrains.


    I wouldn¡¯t treat hisints or whatever as real, but judging from the current situation, he was indeed intent on killing Karwenz in order to foundationally remove the threat of someone wanting to shatter the dimensional barriers.


    Even a demon wanted to save the world right now. Wasn¡¯t there something wrong with the style?


    Sophocles then naturally thought of me in his n to kill off Karwenz, who was incredibly difficult to deal with to an almost unfathomable extent. ording to Sophocles, there was one other Chaos Main God who had also agreed to help in this n to ¡°eliminate that maniac¡±.


    As long as we found an opportunity to ambush him as three against one, then even Karwenz wouldn¡¯t have a chance of victory, Sophocles imed.


    Since Sophocles was saying so much, it also meant that in his mind, I was pretty much on par with a Chaos Main God.


    I indeed wanted his information¡¯s assistance, but I didn¡¯t want to be his personal fighter, so I sunk into hesitation...

 Chapter 738 - Failed Test

    <h4>Chapter 738: Failed Test</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Working together with a demon would obviously be highly dangerous. No matter what the n was, and whether Karwenz was sessfully killed or not, it was certain that Sophocles and I would turn on each other in the end and attempt to kill each other.


    However, it would be rather regrettable if I refused to cooperate with Sophocles. He had urate information about Karwenz, it seemed. Such information was what I needed more than anything right now.


    As I hesitated, a gigantic w suddenly swiped at me from the sky in a sudden sneak attack.


    Unfortunately for Sophocles, he only smashed a slime clone into pieces. He had only attacked with a shadow, not his true body, which hadn¡¯t even moved.


    From the very beginning, neither of us had been discussing at the table with our true bodies.


    I was silently standing in the clouds, watching the demon humanoid figure down below which was still idly drinking tea. It seemed that Sophocles¡¯ sneak attack had been a message for me that it was time.


    Some things didn¡¯t need to be stated. No matter if I agreed to join Sophocles or not, I would at least need to show off a certain amount ofbat strength before I would even have the right to negotiate. This was the typical way by which powerful Chaos Faction existences negotiated.


    Since Sophocles had ¡°sincerely¡± stated his request first, he was now testing mybat strength now that I had achieved Level 4 to see if I was worthy of him negotiating with.


    If I seemed too weak in power level or showed any weaknesses inbat, he would then happily kill me. Of course, the reverse was also true. I would never miss this opportunity to eliminate a Chaos Main God if at all possible.


    Actually, since he had found me today, this fight had been unavoidable from the very start.


    ¡°Haha, you¡¯re unwilling to leave without testing me after all?¡±


    Although this was only a test attack rather than a life and death battle now, this didn¡¯t reduce the danger one bit. The moment that I showed any type of weakness, it would instantly transform into a life and death battle.


    Holy Light gathered all around me as I took a deep breath while holding onto Dawn. I fully opened up angel wings behind my back.


    For angels, wings were no mere decoration or organ for flight. Their wings¡¯ true function was storage, helping them gather even more power of Order. In a way, the number of wings and quality of the wings would represented an angel¡¯s upper limit on controlling the power of Order. The more powerful the angel, the stranger its wings would appear.


    Two wings, four wings, six wings, twelve wings, metal wings, wings of light, wings of fire... Angels¡¯ wings would have various appearances based on their level and job ss. In a way, wings were indeed an organ with practical functionalities for them.


    The most basic ability of angel wings was to draw the power of Order from the upper nes in order to replenish the angel and improvebat strength. This was why angel wings would always be glowing, and why angels extremely excelled at battles of attrition.


    I took a deep breath as I drew endless Holy Light from the upper nes. The entire world was bathed in a golden light. Compared to myself before I achieved Level 4, my Holy Light gathering speed had increased by more than 10 times.


    Previously, my War Angel transformation hadn¡¯t foundationally changed my strength, but my bloodline was giving me concrete power now.


    War Angel was the name for my Order angel bloodline. In the ancient job ss tree, this wasn¡¯t an ancient angel that would naturally exist, but was rather a glorious title for ancient angels who were given special gifts by the Creator Goddesses in certain areas. The name War Angel was also the best exnation for this type of angel¡¯s specialty.


    There was only one specialty for War Angels: excelling inbat.


    As the top-level fighter for the entire Order Faction, a War Angel¡¯s greatest power was how they could use the power of Order. What else would improve theirbat strength more than an endless amount of the power of Order?


    In a way, my pair of wings which faintly shone gold was also a top-level Myth-ranked weapon which specialized in absorbing and improving the power of Order.


    I could even faintly sense that my wings were drawing Holy Light directly from the core of Heaven¡¯s Pir (Pir of Order). The Pir of Order was the pir which corresponded with the River Styx. This pir was the source of all power of Order, as well as a river of light that was impossible for any existence apart from souls to touch.


    War Angels were capable of drawing the purest power of Order from the Pir of Order. It seemed that the Goddess of Order had truly cheated with creating this power.


    The entire sky was lit up with Holy Light. My wings transformed into majestic wings of light which were the length of a battleship. Yet, I still didn¡¯t feel like I had reached my limits.


    Thanks to the Goddess of Order bestowing me with such a ridiculous cheat-like ability, maybe the amount of Holy Light I could draw upon wasn¡¯t as much as a pure True God of Order¡¯s, but the quality of my Holy Light was likely even higher.


    Thanks to the support of this tremendous amount of Holy Light, the length of Dawn¡¯s lightsaber was extended endlessly. This was all part of my original design so that I could use Dawn to y gigantic demons and undead.


    ¡°Mode #2, activate...¡±


    I ignited the magical runes on my sword hilt, causing five small parts to fly off.


    One part swiftly flew high up into the sky, while the other four shot out in four directions, positioning themselves in four corners.


    Meanwhile, as I wielded my Holy Light sword, I glowed with Holy Light and literally became a source of light.


    Endless Holy Light kept reflecting off the four items, which were actually mirrors. Every reflection continuously buffed me. This was a special domain created by these mirrors with the property of light.


    Thanks to the repeated reflections by these supporting magic mirrors, the Holy Light became even hotter and more dangerous. Simultaneously, since pure Holy Light had the properties of cleansing and fixing, it was now cleansing and fixing this entire area.


    The next instant, as connections of light were established, I was no longer the only light source. On top of my head and at the four corners, five additional light sources simultaneously lit up, bathing the entire world in Holy Light.


    Even someone as powerful as Sophocles was instantly blinded after being bathed in this Holy Light domain which had never existed before in this world.


    Sophocles¡¯ gigantic body meant that there was even greater surface area that the Holy Light could reflect onto his body from. The steady pure Holy Light would cleanse and weaken all non-Order power within its area of effect. Maybe pure Holy Light wouldn¡¯t be as aggressive as the original Holy Light that the Holy Church used, but this constant weakening effect would actually be more effective against the most powerful enemies.


    Powerful demons had the special ability to distort the environment and instinctively transform the nearby environment into one simr to the Chaos Abyss so that they would always have home territory advantage. Meanwhile, my Holy Light domain was capable of erasing the traces of a Chaos environment without costing me anything.


    Sophocles¡¯ gigantic body actually became a weakness here. The high purity Holy Light in the air was now melting away his body as if the Holy Light was an acid.


    Perhaps this wouldn¡¯t be enough to threaten a Chaos Main God like him within a short period of time, but this continuous weakening effect would be endless. If only I had apleted version of my ice magic sword Nortnds right now, I could use both magic swords inbination and try and kill Sophocles forever right here and now.


    I hadn¡¯t wanted to immediately reveal my ace card, nor did I want to reveal this ultimate technique of mine before I had a guarantee of being able to kill a Chaos Main God. However, since my opponent was an existence as strong as Sophocles, holding back would be the equivalent ofmitting suicide.


    As this domain of light kept spreading, this was only the beginning. Even more Holy Light started gathering upon my sword Dawn. Its Concept of ¡°gathering light¡± would transform it into a fatal weapon of light.


    Once enough power of light gathered upon it, its lightsaber would have the power to y even a God in a single strike.


    Dawn was already several hundred meters long. Yet, I still held it solidly in my hands, although I was now pointing the lightsaber directly at Sophocles¡¯ core.


    ¡°Gather, gather, gather even more. For a Chaos Main God level existence, AOE attacks such as forbidden spells will bepletely meaningless. Only incrediblypressed pure power of Order will possibly break through their defenses and destroy their weakness, the demon heart.¡±


    ¡°Roar!¡±


    Sophocles angrily roared at the sky as the distorted power of Chaos erupted like a volcano, covering his body with ck mist and magma which resisted against the baptism of Holy Light.


    He grabbed the gigantic sword on his back, which then melded with his flesh and blood. This sword, which was the size of a mountain, was covered in a thick bloody light. When the Chaos Main God wielded his true power, it was as if the entire world trembled in fear.


    Sophocles suddenly took a deep breath, causing endless power of Chaos to emerge from under the ground. Without caring about the price, he hadpleted a direct connection to the Chaos Abyss, causing the entirend to tremble and dissolve as everything returned to Chaos.


    In this pitch-cknd, Sophocles became ever more vicious as his gigantic body expanded by another 30%. The corresponding increase in his gigantic sword¡¯s size made it so that it was sufficient to slice through any mountain.


    Finally, he moved.


    The gigantic Chaos Main God wielded his gigantic sword which was evenrger than his physical body, slicing towards the sky.


    Every step he took created an earthquake. A red bloody light suddenly extended from his gigantic sword, prating the clouds.


    The moment that I saw this attack, I instantly knew that no matter what angle I tried to dodge at, his attack would end up connecting with my sword of light.


    Sophocles¡¯ sword attack even seemed to contain the power of karma itself. This Chaos Main God demon who was so famous for being sly actually turned out to be an incredibly talented Sword Saint on top of that!


    Not only that, Sophocles had sessfully managed to forcefully connect thend here with the Chaos Abyss. His sword attack also contained the power of Chaos right from the Chaos Abyss itself.


    ¡°Damn it, isn¡¯t this supposed to just be a test? Why go all out? It¡¯s not like I can kill you. At most, I¡¯ll make you go back to the Chaos Abyss and sleep for a few centuries.¡±


    Currently, Sophocles was also cursing in his heart. Wasn¡¯t this supposed to be only a test? Why was Rnd immediately tossing out a nuclear bomb level ultimate technique right away? Immediately using ultimate techniques to start the fight? What type of test attack was this?


    Of course, Sophocles didn¡¯t know that Rnd would have an ace card like this that was directly a counter to demons right after making his breakthrough. This Holy Light nuclear bomb was something that he had prepared especially for the Main Gods.


    Both sides were worried that the test attack would result in a life and death battle, so both sides went all out. In the end, this basically became no different from a life and death battle after all.


    Since one side was immediately starting out with an ultimate attack, the other side could only do the same, unless he wanted to die.


    Sophocles was endlessly regretting his rashness. His goal had only been to test whether Rnd had a technique which could threaten a Chaos Main God or not. It turned out that not only was the answer yes, Rnd was even using it against himself.


    If only Sophocles had known, he would have immediately attacked all-out first. Who would be foolish enough tomit suicide together with an idiot? But right now, whoever stopped first would be giving the initiative to the other side, something no different frommitting suicide.


    *BZZZZZZ!*


    My pure white lightsaber extended and shed against the blood-red light, causing the entire world to reverberate with a buzzing sound. After a moment of silence, a tremendous silver pir of light shot towards the sky.


    This was an endless, super mega gigantic pir of light. Even though the airship I was on had left several hours ago by now, those on the airship could still clearly see this silver pir of light shooting into the sky.


    The next moment, the pir of light extended up even higher, while a fatal shock wave began to spread from below. This shock wave would turn this wastnd into apletely uninhabitable area.


    The powers of Order and Chaos constantly shed with each other and exploded. Even any creatures deep underground would be instantly killed by this.


    The shock wave constantly spread outwards as if it would never stop.


    Even the airship, which was now several dozen kilometers away, was struck by the remnants of the shock wave, bing even more tattered and pitiful.


    They were actually lucky enough to be in the air at this time. If they had been on the ground instead, all of them would have already died.


    It was likely that even several decadester, this entire area would still remain inhospitable to all life.


    Just like in past Holy Wars, history would record this fight and this barren wastnd as a location where Main God level individuals had fought each other, causing utter destruction.


    Perhaps incredibly strange new species would appear here a few yearster, just like in ancient battlefields of old.


    As the shock wave exploded, both sides who were fighting had already vanished.


    20 minutester, apletely ck figurended on the deck of the airship. He was burned sopletely that he was ck and fiery red all over. Order and Chaos were still fighting on his physical body, while distorted blood-colored mist was invading his charred body. The area of the deck that hended on was directly corroded and dissipated, while the outer portions were ignited with fire.


    The airship¡¯s guards were astonished by this sight. They hurriedly went to get water to put out the fire with, while someone suddenly discovered that this figure was rather familiar.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this His Highness Rnd who just left a while ago? Howe... he¡¯s been cooked?¡±


    ¡°As expected of the Undying Rnd. He¡¯s still alive even after being cooked so thoroughly. Wow, he can even re at me!¡±

 Chapter 739 - Weakness

    <strong>Chapter 739: Weakness</strong>


    Trantor: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu


    ¡°The Strongest Holy Knight had a fierce battle against Chaos Main God Sophocles, and seriously injured thetter to the point of exiling him from the mortal ne!¡±


    The fairies wouldn¡¯t possibly miss such an excellent opportunity for attention-grabbing headline news. This was the top news of every single news outlet the very next morning.


    ording to urate information sources, Chaos Main God Sophocles had fallen back into the Chaos Abyss while covered in Holy Light burn injuries all over. His injuries were definitely serious. It seemed likely that he would need to rest for several centuries in order to fully recover.


    This was doubtlessly a major victory. In fact, this was the first time in this Holy War that people were hearing about a Chaos Main God being seriously injured. Such a victory would of course raise everyone¡¯s morale, especially since so much of the world was currently embroiled in war.


    The demon wave had been unstoppable. War God Donatis had seemingly destroyed everything before him without so much as being slowed down. People still remembered this fresh in their minds, so the defeat of another Chaos Main God would obviously be a critically important achievement.


    At the very least, I had proved that Chaos Main Gods were indeed possible to defeat. Not only that, I had beaten Sophocles back all by myself.


    The entire world was dering this a major victory. Everyone chose to ignore the dark past of the ¡°Strongest Holy Knight¡±.


    Of course, some doubted the veracity of this headline news. However, the formerly nameless wastnd that I had fought Sophocles upon had now transformed into a dangerous battlefield filled with dimensional cracks everywhere. Traces of power which surpassed allmon sense were the best evidence of how violent and real this battle had been.


    Now, more people had a better opinion of the Mist Alliance. Top-levelbat strength would always be one of the best methods to assuage people, after all.


    One powerful individual might not be enough to influence to course of an entire war, but at least he wouldn¡¯t allow powerful enemy individuals to ughter as they pleased.


    When it came to top-levelbat strength, the Nortnds had always been at a disadvantage until the appearance of the Hell Gods. The Mist Alliance¡¯s top-levelbat strength was indeed weaker than the Holy Light faction¡¯s. But now, this weakness had been made up for.


    The Holy Church probably felt more awkward than anyone to hear this headline news.


    This wasn¡¯t about something as simple or ethereal asbat strengthparison or glory.


    Holy Knights were the defenders of humanity. This was something that all humans already treated asmon sense. Although the job ss of Holy Knight was difficult, paid poorly, and was highly risky due to all the dangers the job involved, Holy Knights still had outstanding reputation in human society.


    There were those who didn¡¯t like the Holy Church, and would ban Holy Light worshippers from theirnds. However, even those people would still need to maintain a certain amount of respect for Holy Knights.


    Holy Knights were the type who were strict with others and even stricter with themselves. Although such a type was often really annoying in many situations, they were really capable of bolstering everyone¡¯s morale and helping everyone to band together in a time of danger.


    This was just like how maybe people would dislike the police in daily life, but if some terrorist incident really urred, people would still depend on the police.


    ¡°There¡¯s always some really stinky and annoying fellow that you don¡¯t like, yet you still need them and trust them.¡±


    In a way, the title of being the ¡°Strongest Holy Knight¡± also meant that this person was the strongest defender of all humanity. This title would be no mere glory. It would also be a responsibility. In history, this responsibility had always belonged to the Holy Church.


    Strongest. This was no vanity gained only fromparison. Being the strongest meant that whenever this person was here, you could sleep without any fear at night because nobody would be capable of defeating the strongest.


    No matter how dangerous things seemed to be, as long as the strongest one wasn¡¯t defeated, everyone would still feel reassured. That was what people had felt back when Estrada was still with the Holy Church.


    The Most Just Holy Knight? The Fairest Holy Knight? The Oldest Holy Knight? There were countless other nicknames out there, but not a single title would make others as reassured as the Strongest Holy Knight.


    The most powerful individuals in other job sses would never be able to obtain the same amount of trust. Right now, this effect of being able to reassure everyone was obviously critically important in this chaotic time.


    After Estrada¡¯s death, since it would be absolutely necessary to have a Strongest Holy Knight for the Holy Church¡¯s propaganda, several top-level Holy Knights tried to im this title for themselves. They were all indeed really powerful knights, as well as actual disciples of Estrada. However, they would need time andbat achievements in order to prove their abilities.


    But now, it was no longer necessary for any of them to try and prove themselves. Being able to directly fight against and defeat a Chaos Main God, even if Sophocles had only been forced to retreat, was already something inconceivable for mortals. Even Estrada in his prime might not have been able to aplish this.


    Rnd Mist, the Strongest Holy Knight. Back when I was still in San Antonio, there had still been those who doubted my im of being the ¡°Strongest¡± along with my inheritance of the Holy Knights¡¯ battle hammer. But now, all doubts about my im hadpletely vanished.


    I, Rnd Mist, was doubtlessly the proper inheritor of the title of Strongest Holy Knight.


    But, this wouldn¡¯t be a good thing at all for the Holy Church. The Strongest Holy Knight had just in Seraphim Winton a few months back, when Winton had the wondrous reputation of being considered as the God of Holy Light¡¯s right hand.


    Some things would be impossible to publicize. The Holy Church and I would always be enemies more than allies.


    When considering the Yongye generation and all the stuff about the Mist Kingdom, my rtionship with the Holy Church was such that no matter how much someone tried to describe it in beautiful words, at most we would be allies on the surface, while secretly both wanting to kill each other off more than anything.


    So, the Holy Church probably felt more awkward than anyone else right now. They had worked so hard to create a Holy Warrior system that wasn¡¯t anywhere nearly as effective as my Contract Hero system which operated on direct benefits. The proper religious interpretation of Holy Light was in question. Now, even the glory of having the strongest defender of humanity was leaving the Holy Church.


    Of course, at this time, I was in no mood to think about any of this, nor did I know about what the fairies had done, or the entire world¡¯s shock and delight.


    ¡°That damned Sophocles, attacking me so seriously...¡±


    In a way, this passenger airship, which was named ¡°Progress¡±, had helped me out greatly. If I was instead still in that barren wastnd while being seriously injured, that probably would have been far more troublesome.


    I was really grateful right now for my trait of being impossible to find with all detection magic spells. Otherwise, my enemies would havee for me long ago to kill me right now.


    ¡°...I¡¯ll have to rest to recover yet again. How many months will it take this time?¡±


    I was currently in the airship captain¡¯s room as I stared at the unfamiliar ceiling. I began to wonder, was it that I had some sort of connection with airships where I would be hospitalized the moment that I boarded one...? Fine, I admit that I was just making all of this up. Although I appeared to be seriously injured, I actually suffered only minor injuries.


    After achieving Level 4, my physical body¡¯s regenerative abilities were massively improved. Normally, my current injuries would have required several months for me to fully recover from, but now, since I had achieved Level 4 with the power of Holy Light, as long as my core wasn¡¯t injured¡ªsuch as beingpletely out of mana or hit points¡ªI could deal with any problem simply through casting lots of Holy Light healing spells on myself.


    Ordinary people wouldn¡¯t be able to handle too much Holy Light healing, because Holy Light healing would have the negative side effect of reducing one¡¯s lifespan. However, such a side effect would bepletely meaningless for a Level 4 individual, especially if that Level 4 individual was also a Holy Light specialist.


    This was why demons would hate high-level Holy Knights so much. Holy Knights were ridiculously durable, and could light themselves up with Holy Light, meaning that they would hurt like a porcupine for all Chaos creatures touching them. Any Holy Knight who was forced onto the brink could also threaten them with self-destruction. Yet, Holy Knights were still ridiculously durable. It would be highly difficult to kill a high-level Holy Knight unless you cut their head off. They would be as disgusting to demons as an undying cockroach.


    On the other hand, since I wasn¡¯t seriously injured at all, and Sophocles¡¯ power level far surpassed mine, how could he have possibly been seriously injured as he returned to the Chaos Abyss?


    He had only pretended to be seriously injured as he returned to the Chaos Abyss. It was likely for the sake of disappearing from the Order Gods¡¯ and Karwenz¡¯s surveince.


    ¡°What a pity.¡±


    I really regretted that I hadn¡¯t managed toplete one more of my nned four magic swords. If only I had had one more, I likely would have been able to actually kill Sophocles back there.


    For instance, if my ice magic sword had beenpleted, then I could have locked him in my ice and snow arena, letting him enjoy a Holy Light bath together with Nortnds weather cmities. I could continuously weaken him for several hours, or even several days, before I¡¯d then gather Holy Light power to y him.


    And if my Seven Sins death magic sword wasplete, I probably would have been able to seriously injure even Sophocles¡¯ soul with just a single backstab. Of course, if my inference was correct, my Seven Sins sword likely wouldn¡¯t be that effective against demons and undead.


    Now, information about my Holy Light sword had already been leaked, so trying a sneak attack would no longer work. But, when thinking about it from another standpoint, I was actually happy that my other magic swords had yet to bepleted, which meant that information about them hadn¡¯t been leaked yet.


    Right now, all I had leaked was that I possessed a powerful Holy Light Myth-ranked weapon which had two abilities: spreading Holy Light and gathering Holy Light into a sword shape. Everyone would likely learn of this. If that was all they knew, then that would still be somewhat eptable.


    ¡°It seems like I¡¯m still quitecking...¡±


    Me being able to fight against Sophocles to such an extent wasn¡¯t actually because my power level was close to reaching a Chaos Main God¡¯s just yet. It was rather that I had chosen this power which was a natural counter to demons from the very start.


    There was no need for me to introduce how strong of a counter Holy Light was against demons and undead. Holy Light would cause more than 10x damage to demons and undead than to other targets. Still, this didn¡¯t mean that my power level was only 10% that of Sophocles¡¯. Many things would truly be uncalctable.


    For instance, the famous Dragon ughterer from history. He had in countless dragons and be a living nightmare to all dragons. Even Supreme Immemorial Dragons would avoid him. Yet, this didn¡¯t mean that the Dragon ughterer¡¯s power level surpassed that of all of Dragon City. He had simply chosen a power that was naturally suited for dragon ying. If the Dragon ughterer instead met a high-level demon, it was likely that he would actually perform worse inbat than an average Level 4 individual.


    Attack power effectiveness was only part of countering an enemy¡¯s abilities. Not only that, it would be the least important way of countering the enemy.


    Rather than attack power, increasing your uracy against dragons, decreasing dragon breath damage against you, bing immune to draconic might, enchanting your weapon with prative properties against dragon scales, having your weapon be poisonous against dragons to the point where the dragon would be unable to heal its own injuries, having the ability of flight, having the ability to identify the dragon¡¯s weak point, and so on counted more. All these disgusting abilities would be far more effective than simply increasing your attack power against dragons.


    Any attack which couldn¡¯t hit would still be useless in the end, after all. Damage which couldn¡¯t even break through the enemy¡¯s defenses would still be zero, and if you couldn¡¯t survive long enough, you also wouldn¡¯t be doing enough DPS. All of the abilities I mentioned were actual abilities that the Dragon ughterer had possessed, which was how he had be the most aplished dragon yer in all of history.


    Every single attack he performed would hit a critical weak spot. He was capable of ignoring the dragons¡¯ breath attacks and w strikes. The moment that he caused a dragon to bleed, the dragon would constantly weaken until death. Even a dragon whose power level surpassed his would be nothing more than an instant kill for him.


    Meanwhile, my Holy Light sword Dawn was a special weapon that I had designed to counter gigantic demons and undead.


    Its domain of pure Holy Light would constantly weaken my enemies. Meanwhile, its lightsaber would constantly gather the power of Order, bing stronger and stronger and ever more difficult to defend against.


    In the end, after my enemy was burned and tortured to an extreme by Holy Light, they would then face a fatal one-hit kill sword strike.


    Theoretically speaking, as long as I had enough time to gather sufficient power, this one strike would be more than enough to kill any demon or undead enemy.


    However, practicalbat against Sophocles had exposed the insufficiencies of my firstpleted magic sword.


    ¡°The enemy will be no idiot who will obediently watch as you gather power while they¡¯re constantly weakened.¡±


    Sophocles naturally had tremendousbat experience. He had instantly understood what was going on, and then he unhesitatingly sent his own ultimate technique at me, not giving me any chance to gather power.


    Moreover, if he had instead chosen to escape from my Holy Light domain from the very beginning, I wouldn¡¯t have had any method at all to stop him from doing so.


    I was the type who would always learn from my mistakes. At this moment, I truly felt that my abilities had their weaknesses.


    ¡°It seems that I will need to think of how to swiftly finish working on a second magic sword so that I can restrict my enemy¡¯s movements. Otherwise, if I meet another enemy on the same level, I¡¯ll really... Wuuuu! What are you doing, silly cat!¡±


    I spat out the feathered pillow from my mouth as I red at the silly cat who was pretending to be all innocent on the bed. Did she really think that I was so much of a jinxer? Was I really that powerful? I said that a Main God woulde, so one woulde? Did she really think that Main Gods were asmon as vegetables?


    Yet, I was suddenly forced to retract my words when rms furiously started ringing on the airship.

 Chapter 740 - Visitor

    <h4>Chapter 740: Visitor</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The airship ¡°Progress¡± had been produced in And¡¯s production facility in the city of Suerno. This airship had a length of 107 meters, and was a Wealth-ss extravagant passenger airship.


    ¡°Progress¡± had two third-ss passenger cabins rge shared passenger cabins), 90 second-ss passenger cabins (three-person rooms), 50 first-ss passenger cabins (either two-person or three-person rooms), and 20 VIP passenger cabins (10 two-person rooms and 10 single-person rooms). ¡°Progress¡± had a theoretical passenger limit of 500. On average, each trip had about 340 passengers.


    Unlike future airships which would even have game rooms, dance halls, and swimming pools, this first generation of airships hadn¡¯t matured that much yet. The great majority of storage units on the airship were used for constantly active engines and batteries. Even if there was extra space on the airship, when considering the dangerous environment outside right now, extra space would only be used for installing extra magic cannons and for housing more aerial knights.


    Although three and a half year had now passed since the ¡°Progress¡± airship had been constructed, and it had made almost 100 international trips already, due to the airship crew¡¯s careful maintenance and investment from the airship¡¯s powerful supporters, this airship still looked just like new.


    Noat, the captain of this airship, had always been proud to be its captain. He even privately referred to this airship as his ¡°favorite little daughter¡±.


    But now, it was likely that even Noat wouldn¡¯t recognize his own ¡°daughter¡± anymore.


    The airship¡¯s smooth yellow deck was filled with cracks all over. Of the airship¡¯s four floating engines, one was spewing ck smoke and hadpletely stopped operating, while another engine constantly stopped and started. The result was that the airship constantly tilted in midair, scaring the airship¡¯s crew so much that they had to constantly focus.


    The airship sail, which was for helping the airship to fly in powerful winds, had beenpletely torn off and abandoned after more than half of it was burned away. Yet, the empty gpole wasn¡¯t lonely, as it was broken off as well. The highest level, which contained all of the VIP guest rooms, had also beenpletely destroyed.


    Luckily, when the remnants of the shock wave had arrived, everyone had been taking shelter in therge passenger cabins, which was the only reason why the VIP passengers hadn¡¯t died. Currently, only the royalty, major nobles, and major merchants were able to afford the VIP ticket prices which we privately referred to as a scam. If 10+ such individuals had died all at once, the airship captain probably wouldn¡¯t have been able to afford the consequences.


    The VIP guests were quite understanding. Still, the airship¡¯s vice captain, head flight attendant, first mate, and other such high-ranking airship crew all had to give up their personal cabins on the airship to these still frightened VIP customers.


    As for the captain¡¯s room, which had the most extravagant andplete furnishings of all? It was now taken by a certain ¡°guest¡± who had boarded while concealing his real identity. Captain Noat himself had voluntarily given his room to this person.


    Captain Noat had 20 years of experience as a smuggler. However, he had voluntarily signed up for And¡¯s navy during the war against the Sea Tribe. Noat had captained a ship and specialized in attacking the Sea Tribe¡¯s supply lines. After three and a half years of gueri warfare, although Noat¡¯s military aplishments weren¡¯t astonishing, he was at least a passable military captain.


    After the Queen of Storms died, and And¡¯s battle to reim their capital became far more winnable, Noat chose to retire from And¡¯s military. After that, when And¡¯s government recalled Noat¡¯s former job, they rmended him to be the captain of this new experimental passenger airship. Over the past few years as the airship captain, he had indeed done a good job.


    As Noat was formerly a part of And¡¯s military, of course he would know who Rnd was.


    It was likely that And would¡¯ve still been covered by sea if it hadn¡¯t been for the Mist Alliance¡¯s reinforcements. The name Rnd was also directly connected to the Queen of Storms¡¯ death. Rnd¡¯s disciples and subordinates had participated in the entirety of the battle to reim And¡¯s capital. During that difficult battle, the gray elf Anti-holy Knight Diana had been a powerful new troop type that equaled a battleship in power. All sorts of newly invented weapons joining the war had solidified And¡¯s desire to ally with the Mist Alliance.


    The people of And couldn¡¯t be med for being pragmatic. International diplomacy had always been like this. Weak countries wouldn¡¯t even have the right to negotiate with the strong. Meanwhile, a strong country wouldn¡¯t even have to do anything to pick up followers. This was nothing new at all.


    That was why when Captain Noat recognized Rnd, he immediately took action to protect Rnd without any hesitation.


    That was right, protect. Since Rnd was burned all over like that, ording tomon sense, Rnd seemed like he was on the verge of death. It would be strange if there wasn¡¯t anyone who would want to take advantage of such an excellent opportunity.


    Captain Noat definitely had reasons to be worried about this. This airship had just left Prince Winston¡¯s territory in San Antonio, where Rnd was currently the #1 most wanted individual, used of having murdered Empress Maria.


    If there were some fanatic patriots from San Antonio on board who were willing to take revenge for Empress Maria at any price, then this would be the best chance possible for them.


    Unfortunately, all of the guests had also witnessed how Rnd had crashed onto the airship¡¯s deck. It was also natural that they could all see that he was seriously injured. It was impossible for Captain Noat to even try and keep this information from leaking.


    In the end, Captain Noat could only make a few small arrangements for Rnd¡¯s protection.


    Captain Noat hadn¡¯t wasted his time at all. Indeed, the Saint-ranked monk Raikage, whom Captain Noat had requested to act as Rnd¡¯s bodyguard, caught two hot-blooded young men with poisoned daggers, trying to attack Rnd on that very night.


    But soon, Captain Noat found that he had overthought things. In just a few hours, Rnd recovered consciousness and was healing at a visible rate. Right after that, Rnd started yelling about how bored he was, and that he wanted to have some fun to pass the time while healing.


    Captain Noat felt rather helpless as he sent his first mate and the three Legend-ranked airship guards to y cards with Rnd in order to help him pass the time.


    But, everyone quit ying cards with Rnd within two hours.


    The reason for this? This injured Strongest Holy Knight actually won all of everyone¡¯s money in less than half an hour. His amazing gambling skills... er, cheating skills made everyone suspect if he was truly a Holy Knight who was supposed to have no desires and adhere to strict discipline.


    Rnd then said something that made it clear to Captain Noat that there was no need to protect him.


    ¡°You don¡¯t need to protect me. Even if I¡¯m currently injured, any existence that can threaten me would be capable ofpletely ignoring all of you.¡±


    Although this was slightly depressing to hear, Captain Noat inwardly heaved a sigh of relief. If Rnd died on his airship, he wouldn¡¯t be able to take on the responsibility for that happening no matter what.


    Happily, things remained peaceful after that night, and on the second day¡¯s morning, Holy Knight Rnd¡¯s physical injuries had alreadypletely disappeared. He even started directly gambling in the dining hall with the ordinary passengers...


    Noat had indeed heard before about how powerful individuals would have many strange habits. For instance, Princess Rayne of the Mist Alliance was clearly a female, but had married several princesses and started arge female harem... For instance, Emperor Halent of Bardi would often start talking to stone statues whenever he was under too much pressure... For instance, his own country¡¯s And Emperor had the habit of wearing female clothing, while the And Empress had the habit of wearing male clothing...


    Of course, such rumors didn¡¯t sound real at all to Noat. Typically, he would only smile upon hearing something like this, without treating it as real.


    On slow and lengthy journeys, the male airship crew members could be even gossipier than female crew. Their favorite topic of discussion would be rumors regarding powerful individuals. After all, one of the best ways for coworkers to improve their friendship would be to gossip together about their bosses.


    But now, it seemed that such rumors indeed had their reasons for existing. At the very least, this famous prince from the Nortnds was just like the legends about him. He was definitely no proper rule-abiding Holy Knight at all.


    The legends about Rnd said that he was extremely knowledgeable and talented, but that he never used his knowledge for anything proper. It was said that he controlled more than 30% of all gambling industries and pornographic material production in all of the Nortnds. The legendary mercenary group known as the Absolute Gentlemen Alliance was also supposed to be his fangs that he controlled the entire Nortnds with.


    Rnd was in charge of military munitions deals, running a mercenary group, immigration for elves and beastmen, and so on. He would personally do all these things that ordinary people wouldn¡¯t even dare to imagine.


    Rnd was known as the ruler in the shadows, the crownless king, the one person you absolutely couldn¡¯t antagonize in the Nortnds, the ruler of the Underground, thest Nortnds Knight of the Mist, and so on. He had countless unofficial titles and nicknames.


    There was a certain saying in the Nortnds¡ªyou could antagonize any ruler there, but you absolutely wouldn¡¯t be able to say a single bad thing about Rnd. Otherwise, no matter who you were or where you were from, you wouldn¡¯t possibly be able to leave alive.


    ¡°I really couldn¡¯t have guessed that someone so famous and incredible is just like a hoodlum who loves to gamble. Not only that, he¡¯s a Holy Knight who gambles and is obviously cheating. I couldn¡¯t have even imagined... yet nobody¡¯s ever even tried to question his character,¡± Captain Noatmented to himself.


    Still, whenparing Rnd to other saints or viins who all simrly had countless nicknames, Rnd seemed to be extremely approachable and easy to get along with.


    Noat was someone who had seen much in his life, having been a former military captain for And as well as a smuggler who had traveled the world.


    In Noat¡¯s job field, the most important thing was to be an urate judge of characters. Noat had met countless others before, but had never seen anyone like Rnd.


    Noat had met other powerful individuals who were at Myth rank or Level 4. From what Noat saw, no matter what faction a powerful and undying individual was from, they all had one thing inmon: such individuals wouldn¡¯t really treat ordinary people as people at all. There were some powerful individuals who cared more about their reputation, so they would say nicer things, but they would still keep their distance from ordinary people.


    This could be seen quite easily from their behavior. When eating, they would ask for the food to be brought to their room. They would want their own private shower room. Any request that they made, even if it was simply for a spice to add to their food, might need someone lower-ranking to run all over the ce for them. The powerful individuals would even feel that this was only natural.


    If the powerful individual originally had a noble status or powerful bloodline to begin with, then the individual would be even more arrogant. Even ncing at you would count as him giving face. No matter how nicely you talked to them, if you dared to prepare coarse rye bread for them as lunch, then the powerful individual would immediately be angry.


    Yet Rnd, who was clearly one of the most powerful individuals in the world, was acting so normally with ordinary people... No, he truly viewed himself as an ordinary person like everyone else. He was eating rye bread, drinking the cheapest wine, arm-wrestling with the alcoholics, refusing to pay up when he lost, and happily enjoying this type of life. In fact, he would even pretend to be drunk and cheat money from the alcoholic gamblers. Noat had never seen a Level 4 individual like Rnd before.


    ¡°Ha, at the very least, he seems much better than any noble.¡±


    A cold breeze blew past as a new morning started with the sun rising from the east. The wind would be coldest right before the sun rose, so Noat carefully adjusted the cor of his coat so that he would be a little warmer.


    Noat was no longer worried about all the numerous things that he had heard as rumors before. None of the rumors would have much to do with him. Also, no matter what he felt about Rnd, that wouldn¡¯t affect himpleting his task. Noat would carry out his duties properly as a former military man. His current duty was to safely transport the airship¡¯s valued guests to their destination.


    After passing by these snowy mountains, the airship would arrive in Bardi¡¯s outskirts. With Bardi¡¯s dragon knights patrolling the skies in their country, Noat would no longer have to worry about safety anymore.


    Suddenly, Noat saw a familiar figure appear on the airship deck.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd? Howe you¡¯re up so early? Your injuries haven¡¯t fully recovered yet. You should get some more rest. Weren¡¯t you just inside...¡±


    This person only nced at Noat, causing him to instantly stop speaking. Although this person was identical in appearance to Rnd, and had the same smile, this person¡¯s smile carriedpletely different emotions.


    Rnd¡¯s smile was one which expressed his friendliness and happiness. His smile was one thatmunicated his own emotions to others. Meanwhile, although this person was also smiling, he was enjoying his own delight from the bottom of his heart. His eyes didn¡¯t value others¡¯ existences at all. The words he said were nothing more than absolutemands which he expected to be carried out.


    ¡°Hey, I heard that my older brother is here, so I came to greet him. How about you show me where he is?¡±

 Chapter 741 - Brothers

    <h4>Chapter 741: Brothers</h4>


    Once upon a time, there were two twin brothers.


    They were really fortunate.


    Just their very birth was celebrated by millions of citizens in their country. They were all delighted from their bottom of their hearts as they gave their sincere blessings.


    ¡°The old king has sons now! The Mist Kingdom now has new sessors!¡±


    Even though life was very difficult in thisnd and snow, everyone believed that the future would improve for them under the wise Mist Emperor¡¯s leadership.


    The old emperor was already past middle age. Since he had been injured while young, his body¡¯s condition was now rapidly deteriorating. The Mist Kingdom was quite troubled about the issue of having no sessors. Now that two princes had been born at once, perhaps this happy kingdom in the Nortnds would be more stable than ever.


    From that day onwards, the birthday of the twin princes became a new holiday celebrated by the entire country: the Twins¡¯ Festival.


    ¡°May the Gods protect the twins. May the twins swiftly grow up strong and support this country. May the Mist royalty have wise rulers in every generation...¡±


    Maybe such a prayer addressed to nobody in particr had actually been effective. Maybe the heavens really were watching over the twins. The twins, who carried so many expectations from the Mist Kingdom¡¯s citizens, matured quite swiftly and soon showed off how extraordinary they were.


    ¡°The heavens have blessed us People of the Mist! Not only are our princes outstanding, they¡¯re geniuses!¡±


    The older prince, Rnd, behaved incredibly maturely despite his young age. His strange ¡°inventions¡± brought much joy to the ice-and-snow filled Diffindor. He performed incredibly in his sses on politics and literature. He was renowned throughout the entire Mist Kingdom for being a child genius.


    Every time that people heard him reading political announcements in such a serious tone with his child¡¯s voice, they would always say, ¡°Prince Rnd will be a wise king in the future.¡±


    Meanwhile, the younger prince Karwenz was truly a genius regarding swordsmanship and magic. He would learn every single martial arts technique instantly. He was capable of learning any magic spell at a nce. His rapid progression through the power levels was inconceivable.


    Every time when Karwenz easily outssed everyone else in the same age group, and whenever he easily defeated his own teacher, people would say, ¡°Prince Karwenz will be an outstanding general in the future.¡±


    As the two princes became ever more renowned for being child geniuses, the People of the Mist became ever more hopeful about the future.


    Yet, only the older Prince Rnd knew that the two princes were really different.


    ¡°Karwenz is the real genius here. I¡¯m only a transmigrator who has knowledge from a previous world. All my so-called wisdom is only because of the head start that I have from reincarnation. If I don¡¯t work hard, I¡¯ll be left behind sooner orter.¡±


    Rnd knew better than anyone that he was only an ordinary person.


    He understood this all the more so because there was a true genius right next to him.


    ¡°A so-called genius is someone who has better talent than others, more efficiency in using what they¡¯ve learned than others, better concentration due to having more interest, and a more efficient method of learning. As time goes on, all of this added together will easily cause him to leave behind others of the same age. Ordinary people will probably think that¡¯s what a genius is.¡±


    That had been Rnd¡¯s original impression of what a genius was. However, his younger by only a few minutes twin brother severely shattered Rnd¡¯s idea of what a genius was.


    Karwenz didn¡¯t use any sort of high-efficiency learning method. Instead, Karwenz had an instinctual ability: being able to learn anything with just one nce.


    He didn¡¯t rely on umtion with sweat and time at all. He was able to cast sword energy on his very first attempt. He became a Sword Saint in less than three days. He had such outstanding instinct forbat that he defeated an old general who had experienced hundreds of battles before in his very first everbat simtion involvingmanding armies.


    Military tactics, martial arts, and magic. Karwenz would learn all such things instantly. He learned how rhythm worked and was capable of writing his own songs right after hearing someone else humming. He was capable of extrapting an entirenguage¡¯s alphabet and grammar just by looking at hieroglyphics. Even though he was supposedly weaker at politics, he wasn¡¯t bad at all with his wild instinct and outstanding ability to get along with others.


    ¡°It¡¯s really so simple. Why are all of you being so serious about it? Brother, you¡¯re so stupid. You don¡¯t even understand this? Hurry and finish your homework so that we can go y!¡±


    His childish words revealed to Rnd how cruel the difference between them really was.


    Perhaps there really were some people who were born superior to others in this world.


    Perhaps, to some people, they only needed to casually y around in order to achieve what had taken others decades of hard work to achieve.


    Perhaps, with a true genius right next to them, an ordinary person should have known their ordinariness, and obediently given up...


    ¡°Ptui! I¡¯m your older brother! How could I possibly be lesser than you?¡±


    However, Rnd was someone who didn¡¯t know the meaning of giving up.


    ¡°So what if I can¡¯t be a Sword Saint in just three days? I can probably do it if I work hard enough for three years, right? That will still scare plenty of people who hear about it.


    ¡°So what if I¡¯m not capable of learning everything with only a single nce? At the very least, I have two worlds¡¯ worth of knowledge and an adult mind. As long as I¡¯m willing to work hard, I can learn anything as well!¡±


    Rnd didn¡¯t give up at all, since he had his knowledge as a transmigrator. He kept bing ever stronger through his trials and hardships, as well as bing... ever more shameless.


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯m not capable of smiling in a sunny and na?ve manner like you, but I can imitate such a smile to express my friendliness.


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯m not capable of learning everything instantly and mastering it all like you, but at least I can focus my limited time on what I¡¯m the most skilled at, and focus on the most important areas, as well as use the highest efficiency methods to improve myself. The results won¡¯t be any worse at all.


    ¡°I failed? I¡¯ll simply try again.


    ¡°I lost? I¡¯ll simply try again.


    ¡°I¡¯m tired? I¡¯ll simply sleep it off and try again.¡±


    The ordinary older brother was unwilling to admit defeat to his genius younger brother because of pride from being the older twin. Although his heart was injured endlessly by constantparison, he unknowingly achieved the peak of what a mortal could do, bing a so-called genius in his own way.


    ¡°Tsk, isn¡¯t it fine as long as the results are the same? Is there any foundational difference between achieving the goal easily and achieving the goal with great difficulty?¡±


    At that time, Rnd still didn¡¯t know that not only was there a difference between the two, the difference was truly tremendous...


    The twins were really fortunate. There were countless people who loved them.


    The twins were really unfortunate. There were too many shadows in the darkness, waiting for an opportunity to strike.


    Finally, the twins lost everything.


    But at that moment, their differing personalities caused them to take different paths in their lives for the very first time. The two of them had foundationally different interpretations of their own misfortune, which then directly led to their opposite paths in life.


    ¡°It¡¯s all because I wasn¡¯t strong enough that all of this happened! If only I had worked harder before, and if only I had been 10 times stronger than I am now, those bastards never would have been capable of harming us!¡±


    The genius Karwenz constantly med himself as he endlessly regretted how he had previously wasted his talent and time. He hated that he hadn¡¯t been strong enough.


    After borrowing power from the Chaos Abyss to take revenge, he then stepped into the Chaos Abyss himself as only the Chaos Abyss which represented endless chaotic evolution would be able to satisfy his desire for power.


    ¡°Weakness is a sin...¡±


    That was Karwenz¡¯s final sentence before stepping into the Chaos Abyss. That was his final obsession as he abandoned his past in search for the peak of power.


    Meanwhile, the ordinary older brother Rnd also constantly med himself. However, his self-me was rather different from his younger brother¡¯s.


    ¡°...I shouldn¡¯t have trusted the Holy Church. I already understood the fundamental nature of the God of Holy Light, yet I still trusted those Cardinals. I was so foolish.


    ¡°...I should have been able to identify the neighboring countries¡¯ dangerous ambitions long ago. I shouldn¡¯t have created several irond allies without caring about the price. I shouldn¡¯t have yed at diplomatic power bncing games.


    ¡°...We also have constant problems with our food supply. The Nortndscks food far too much. I should have obtained several more safe and reliable food suppliers...


    ¡°...I still haven¡¯t managed to finish inventing modern gunpowder. I should have long since started improving our weapons and equipment...¡±


    Both twins suffered the same misfortune. The genius younger brother Karwenz had only thought of one reason for this. Meanwhile, the ordinary older brother Rnd thought of several hundred reasons. He kept a hobby from his previous life¡ªrecording every single mistake and worry in his own diary as a way to remind himself not to make the same mistake again. He then started to gradually make up for each and every self-identified mistake.


    After that, the two brothers would sometimes hear a little news about the other here and there, but they didn¡¯t meet again.


    Just from the rumors that they heard of each other, both realized that they were no longer on the same side.


    Since seeing each other again would only result in pain, it would be better not to see each other then. Both of them faintly felt this way without needing to state it.


    The younger brother Karwenz destroyed everyone that he came across in the Chaos Abyss. With his astonishing talent and cheat-like good luckbined, his growth broke countless records in history. He reached the very peak, bing a Chaos Main God in just a short 300 years. He could truly be called the harem protagonist of the world.


    Karwenz obtained the power that he desired. Karwenz obtained what he wanted.


    Meanwhile, the older brother Rnd...


    He died once, but then came back.


    He died twice, but then came back again.


    He died for the third time, licked his wounds, and came back yet again.


    He umted hundreds, even thousands of diaries, reaching the extent where they filled an entire library with the records of his experiences, weaknesses, and mistakes.


    The former ordinary person of an older brother had now be a true monster.


    Rnd was now a monster where his name alone could cause people to tremble in fear.


    He wasn¡¯t by himself. He was a team. His team all worked together towards the same goal.


    He didn¡¯t just stand for a slogan. He had his own way of thinking and ideas. He was using the Concepts of Law and Contracts to change the entire world and his new pure Holy Light to cleanse the world.


    His pure power level was the least scary thing about him. His sly and wicked schemes made him feared as the most evil individual of all.


    He was no longer blindly doing things by himself. He desired to understand and to be understood. He was standing together with hispanions.


    Now, his younger brother was standing all alone at the peak of the world, looking at him.


    ¡°Hey, we meet again.¡±


    Indeed, the brothers had met again. Imperceptibly, the twin brothers were now at the same level again. It seemed that this time, neither side would be able to go around the other.


    Both brothers were now at the peak of power in the world. But, when looking at their paths taken to get there, the paths had been so different, even exactly opposite...


    ¡°One individual¡¯s power has its limits. This world is worth saving. However, I shouldn¡¯t be saving it by myself. I want the world to be a better ce. It¡¯s enough that I¡¯m nting my seeds and findingpanions for my cause...¡±


    The older brother Rnd learned to understand others, borrow power from others, and to use his ideals and rules to change the world.


    ¡°Only those who aren¡¯t strong enough will suffer misfortune. Weakness is a sin. This world filled with the weak is so boring, far too boring. That¡¯s why misfortune exists...¡±


    The younger brother Karwenz still had the exact same way of thinking as before. The only difference was that he was now at the extreme peak of power possible in this world, someone literally at the very top.


    Unfortunately for the brothers... no, this was probably a ¡°definite¡±, as their personalities and pasts had determined that they would absolutely have different interpretations of the same event which had changed their lives so much.


    ¡°Rnd, don¡¯t you feel that this entire world is so boring? This sealed off world is a boring arena. Today, maybe you¡¯re attacking me, while tomorrow, I¡¯m attacking you. But, there¡¯s no foundational change. It¡¯s just like two insects who are trying to fight to the death, not realizing that the people watching them only find their fight to be an amusing spectacle. I¡¯m going to open up the dimensional barrier. I¡¯m going to jump out of this boring box. I¡¯m going to have this stagnant world begin to evolve again. I¡¯m going to foundationally end this boring Holy War. The Goddesses were afraid of the challenge, so they sealed off this universe? They were afraid of true evolution, yet they¡¯re still fighting this so-called Holy War in search of strength? Don¡¯t you feel that this is utter foolishness?¡±


    Iughed, although myugh was rather forced and pitiful.


    I already foresaw what would happen next, yet there were certain things that I absolutely couldn¡¯t back down on.


    ¡°Little brat, what you say is quite reasonable. I admit that the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos were ridiculously foolish to have done what they have. But, as your older brother, I... still don¡¯t agree! Evolution? Yes, I admit that no matter how terrible the invaders from other universes will be, some existences and species will still survive after you break the dimensional barrier. Perhaps the world of Eich really will be stronger than it is now because of this evolution. But, what will happen to the ordinary mortals? They¡¯re already having such a hard time of surviving in this Holy War. Since they probably won¡¯t be able to evolve when you break the dimensional barrier, they¡¯ll probably be the first to die. Do mortals deserve to be eliminated? The weak are born to be food for the strong to evolve with? Sorry, but I refuse to believe that! I, your older brother, was an ordinary mortal. Your father was an ordinary mortal. Your mother was an ordinary mortal. Your entire family are ordinary mortals. Karwenz, you little bastard who really doesn¡¯t know what he¡¯s doing, allow your older brother, me, to give you your final lesson¡ªdon¡¯t look down on ordinary mortals!¡±

 Chapter 742 - Determination

    <h4>Chapter 742: Determination</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Karwenz had arrived quite suddenly. He left even more suddenly.


    I had been about to attack, yet Karwenz unhesitatingly left, leaving only one sentence behind.


    ¡°Not this time.¡±


    Although I knew that this would be the end result of trying to talk to him, I still felt rather aggrieved after being unable to exin certain things to him.


    Perhaps this was exactly why Karwenz had appeared in front of me even though he clearly expected my decision as well.


    He had also been unwilling to let things go without trying to make me see things in his way.


    I felt rather sad as I eximed over things. However, regret would be meaningless.


    I could understand why Karwenz thought the way he did. In a way, all of this countless misfortune had been caused by this sealed-off universe.


    The Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos had been afraid of the powerful dimensional invaders from other universes. The Creator Goddesses also desired that they and their own species could be more powerful. However, the Creator Goddesses then disagreed about what ¡°powerful¡± meant, in the end leading to the Holy War.


    Theoretically, the Holy War wouldn¡¯t possibly have an end.


    That was because no matter if it was Order or Chaos, it would be impossible for either topletely destroy the other. Even if one side managed topletely suppress and destroy the other, as time went on, new Order or new Chaos would be born again.


    In a way, all this sacrifice hadn¡¯t been meaningless. Although the path was rather twisted, the entire Eich universe¡¯s power level was increasing.


    Although the immemorial species, tribes, and Gods all sounded really powerful, the way they would utilize power was still quite primitive. Their weapons and equipment were also primitive. Their Concepts were rather traditional and shallow.


    Of course, the ancient ones who were able to keep up with the times were still really amazing, but even more of them had unknowingly been left behind by the new generation, bing nothing more than outdated old artifacts from the previous generation.


    Such existences were incrediblymon in the Chaos Abyss. However, even though such existences might have really amazing reputation, they might not actually be able to even win in a real fight against a youngster who was only a few centuries old.


    The angels, giants, and dragons of the past had all relied solely on their overly strong physical bodies. They would use the most primitive wooden sticks and stones as weapons.


    Nowadays, there was plenty of high-level equipment out there. Magic spells and martial arts techniques had been passed down through countless generations already. There were countless curses and ultimate techniques out there. People would view the ancient species¡¯ really direct methods of attacking to be as childish as a hoodlum trying to pretend to know martial arts.


    It wasn¡¯t that the ancient dragons from the first generation of Gods and demons were so powerful that they were truly undefeatable. It was rather that any strong dragon who was able to survive so long in history to be known as a Supreme Immemorial Dragon would naturally be unimaginably strong due to how long they had survived.


    Immemorial God Equipment? You should first check to see if it had rusted.


    Immemorial powerful existence? Is your back still doing alright? Can you still jump?


    Ahem, I was getting off topic. Although there were always those who would like to say that everything was so wonderful in the past, in my opinion, the current generation would forever be making progress. Back in the days of the Elven Empire, there had only been the major four elemental branches of magic. Now, elemental magic had developed to have several hundreds, and even thousands of branch magic schools. Any legendary mage from that generation who was suddenly transported to this one would likely have to study magic for 30 years first.


    ¡°The current generation is always making progress.¡±


    This was something that I adamantly believed. Although an inheritance sounded quite vague and ethereal, as long as words and history existed, the entire world would naturally progress. Blindly worshipping the past was unnecessary as well as foolish.


    However, not only would the mortals not know, even the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos wouldn¡¯t know if this amount of progress was enough or not.


    The Eich universe was just like a cage. No matter how the beasts trapped inside did in their fight, they still wouldn¡¯t know if they would be able to defeat the vicious beasts outside... To use a more peaceful analogy, it would be just like how a high school student studying for their college entrance examination would never know if their preparations were truly sufficient or not without having taken the exam.


    Now, if this cage was unlocked, then this periodic Holy War would naturally be meaningless and no longer need to exist.


    However, I knew that Karwenz didn¡¯t desire an end to the Holy War...


    What he desired was an opportunity to evolve to even greater heights. He wanted to restart the stopped clock of the entire Eich universe.


    ¡°Periodic wars between species? Is this supposed to be a game for little children?


    ¡°Protect the bnce of the Cycle of Reincarnation? Why do I have to care?


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it quite boring to repeatedly run around in the same circle?¡±


    That was what Karwenz would say. As long as he broke the dimensional barriers, then the Eich universe would naturally be invaded by other universes.


    At that time, only those who were most suitable for the new age would survive. Anyone who survived would be the strong. Anyone who died would be the unlucky and weak.


    I could understand that a short and momentary pain might be better than long-term pain. I also understood that keeping one¡¯s own worldpletely sealed off was extremely foolish. However, understanding didn¡¯t mean agreement.


    In the history of my previous world of Earth, any country which remained a shut-in had always paid a serious price. When your borders were finally invaded, the invaders would always bring new technology that you had never seen before, easily crushing you under their heels.


    ¡°Anyone who is behind the times will get beaten.¡± This was no empty phrase at all. This was bloody experience.


    However...


    ¡°The Eich universe being sealed off is fundamentally different from how a human country might seal itself off. What if what¡¯s outside in other universes isn¡¯t other humans at all? What if they¡¯re all vicious monsters that eat humans? What if they invade Eich not to enve and conquer, but rather topletely eradicate and exterminate?¡±


    Indeed, it would be impossible for anyone to know what was out there in other universes that had made the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos afraid for all these countless years. However, just based on the game¡¯s history of the dimensional invaders from other universes, which was a reproduction of Astrya¡¯s memories, it was obvious that the situation in other universes wasn¡¯t friendly to us at all.


    Back in the game¡¯s history, both Creator Goddesses had revived, but that had still been meaningless.


    Even in the best case scenario, if the Eich universe managed to survive invasion from countless other universes, achieving so-called evolution, just how many would still be able to survive?


    10%? 5%? This was impossible for me to calcte. If the dimensional invaders from other universes were just as powerful as depicted in the game¡¯s history, then I would probably be really happy if even 10% of Eich¡¯s poption could survive.


    Perhaps some would say that ¡°This is a necessary sacrifice,¡± ¡°There will always be cannon fodder as history moves on,¡± ¡°There will always be those who can¡¯t keep up with the times,¡± and so on. However, I would say that you wouldn¡¯t be able to say something like that so casually if you were the one being sacrificed.


    Who should be eliminated? Who should be sacrificed? It wasn¡¯t easy at all for anybody to survive in this world. Why should they die because of someone saying one thing?


    Was anyone really capable of making such a grave decision?


    Again, in the hypothetical best-case scenario, that 10% of Eich¡¯s poption could survive, who would have a guarantee of being able to survive? In that case, even if so-called evolution happened in the end, what meaning would there be?


    Perhaps, things might end up in a single powerful country known as Eich, where all species lived in peace together, where the power of magic was only used to improve life, where everyone pursued only civilization and art, but...


    ¡°Is that meaningful at all? Will the people who were ¡®sacrificed¡¯ in this current generation be happy about that?¡±


    I finally saw a chance to end this Holy War forever. So, how could I possibly let Karwenz¡¯s goale to fruition?


    Was I wrong for making such a decision?


    I was indeed wrong. I was preventing a major historical development. Perhaps in a few centuries or a few millennia, a new species would bring about a new ¡°Holy War¡±.


    Was Karwenz wrong for his selfishness?


    He was absolutely wrong. He basically didn¡¯t care about other mortals at all. Countless people would die because of his decision.


    Was I right for making my decision?


    Of course I was right. The entire world had finally managed to develop to this current degree. How could I possibly take such a gigantic risk? I couldn¡¯t possibly use countless lives to exchange for a so-called chance at further evolution.


    Was Karwenz right for his willfulness?


    Of course he was right. He was right to the point where I couldn¡¯t counter him. The two Goddesses of Order and Chaos had been absolute idiots. I was just a coward who didn¡¯t dare to progress because of the necessary sacrifice. Only by opening up the dimensional barrier would Eich¡¯s stagnant time finally be able to move forward again rather than endlessly repeating the destruction of the Holy War.


    At this point, there was long since no more such thing as absolute right or wrong. Perhaps this was simply about different standpoints and different values, finally resulting in a definite sh.


    I knew that no matter if I saw Karwenz again, or if he saw me again, that next time...


    ¡°¡®Not this time?¡¯ So, that means it¡¯ll be next time, then? Ha, next time we meet, neither of us is going to hold back. Are we going to have to kill each other in the end...?¡±

 Chapter 743 - Unexpected Passion

    <h4>Chapter 743: Unexpected Passion</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Bardi Empire¡¯s capital city had a long and ancient history.


    Looking down at the city from above,pared to thest time that I was here almost a decade ago, this city was now several timesrger thanst time.


    No, to be more urate, the capital city had added several new districts with different functions, along with several new satellite cities.


    The most obvious part was the wide-open northern part of the capital city. This location had previously been a mountain range.


    The mountain cliffs had beenpletely hollowed out. Super long pces had been constructed on top. Dragons were often sighted flying in and out from these pces. This was Bardi Dragon City, which had only been established recently.


    Underneath the Bardi Dragon City was a new arena constructed out of white stone. Knights were dueling each other in this arena in order to improve their skills, as well as to show off their prowess to the dragons.


    Thanks to the Bardi Emperor and the Dragon City leaders¡¯bined efforts, as well as due to pressure from the outside, the dragons had slowly abandoned their past pride, and no longer viewed fighting together alongside human knights as something so humiliating.


    And nowadays, neither the knight nor the dragon needed to be of high level to pose a threat. Due to the invention of countless new equipment, many young dragons would choose to pair with a knight who had such new equipment. In fact, most dragons viewed such knights as nothing more than operators of the newest equipment.


    Three years ago, due to the invention of the newest magical cannon, Scorpion 2, along with the invention of mid-sized mana batteries, dragons were nowmonly equipped with multiple heavy magic cannons. They were truly bing the rulers of the sky.


    These dragons already had a new nickname, and it even seemed that they could be a new standard troop type¡ªmagic armor dragons.


    The new district in the capital¡¯s west was a ce for technicians, engineers, and mages to live.


    Even though the Bardi Empire had a long tradition of using dragon knights as their ace troop type, the Bardi Empire actually unhesitatingly focused on developing magical engineering after it noticed how important this new technology was.


    The Bardi Empire invested a tremendous amount of resources, wealth, personnel, and equipment into developing magical engineering. Most importantly of all, Bardi had enough of arge poption so that plenty of people were willing to learn how to use all of the newly imported magical engineering equipment as well as learn the concepts of magical engineering from teachers invited toe over. The Bardi Empire was well on its way to bing ever more powerful under Dragon Knight Emperor Halent¡¯s leadership.


    Actually, all of this was quite easy to understand. Halent had simply paid lots of money to us as we were allies in order to purchase our technology and hire talented individuals. He then issued an order that the schrs in his kingdom change to studying magical engineering, followed by investing in the researchers who showed potential. Even if results might not be immediate, the researchers would be more than happy to voluntarily study in such a research environment. This would then cause new talent to be interested in the magical engineering profession due to the avable benefits. The Bardi Empire would then benefit from such a policy in 10 or 20 years down the road.


    But unlike And, which also focused heavily on developing magical engineering, Bardi focused more on developing smaller magical equipment as well as practical equipment for warfare, while And focused more on developing heavy ships and tanks.


    The only thing their research had inmon was the focus on practicalbat.


    Magical engineering engines, portable mid-sized mana batteries, practical heavy artillery and cannons, magically engineered armor, and so on were viewed by other countries as unimportant technologies, but Bardi and And viewed them as tremendously important research.


    About the magic armor dragons that I¡¯d mentioned earlier, they would typically carryrge or mid-sized mana batteries to act as mobile mana storage. They would also usually be wearing several hundred pieces of magic armor equipment,bined with anywhere from four to 20 of the newest magic cannons. They were armed to the teeth. It was far too easy for them to fight five enemies of the same power level alone.


    This was a secret weapon that had only shown itself recently in the past few months while fighting against the undead army in Bardi. These magic armor dragons had achieved astonishingbat results and attracted countless attention.


    Only then did the world discover that the Bardi Empire, which was thought of as slow and traditional, had actually advanced very far with the new technology of magical engineering.


    ording to Emperor Halent¡¯s New Year¡¯s speech that he gave this year, magic armor dragons was now even a new standardized troop type that could be mass-produced. Currently, there were 312 magic armor dragons in all of Bardi.


    Magic armor dragons had excellent defense, attack power, and ability to fight extremely long battles. The dragons¡¯ stats had been massively buffed by magical engineering technology.


    The magic armor¡¯s defenses neutralized all ordinary liches¡¯ attack spells. The dragons¡¯ powerful physical bodies along with overwhelming magic cannon attack power allowed them to rule the skies and ughter as they pleased.


    Practicalbat also proved just how scary and powerful dragons were after beingbined with magical engineering.


    The fairies assessed this new troop type to be Legend rank in strength. This meant that this was a frightening squadron with all members having Legend rank or above inbat strength. On paper, this would already be the strongest squadron in the entire world.


    Of course, there were downsides as well. A tremendous amount of resources and money would have to be spent on this new troop type. It was said that Emperor Halent was already so poor that he had begun selling off his personal items and was eating in food.


    Also, most of the dragons who wore all the magic armor and magic cannons were younger dragons. Older dragons, especially Immemorial Dragons and older, would still rely on their physical bodies for true power. Moreover, magical engineering technology still wasn¡¯t of much use in fights against top-level individuals.


    Additionally, the magic armor dragons were rather slow due to wearing far too much heavy equipment, even if they would also be assisted by floating engines. In fact, if the floating engines were turned off or were damaged... it was likely that the magic armor dragons would fall out of the sky.


    ¡°No, that wouldn¡¯t happen. It¡¯s in our guidebooks. In such a situation, just immediately take off all the equipment and throw it to the ground. Emperor Halent said that ¡®If the equipment is destroyed, we can make more, but humans and dragons are irreceable¡¯.¡±


    Right when I entered Bardi¡¯s borders, two of the newest magic armor dragons arrived with a diplomat, who must have overheard me identally saying my own thoughts out loud. It was evident that Bardi had known beforehand of my arrival.


    This diplomat was a middle-aged man named Stere Zhou. He had previously acted as Bardi¡¯s ambassador to the Mist Kingdom, so I had met him before. Halent had indeed put thought into this by sending him to meet me.


    Bardi¡¯s method tossing away all the valuable equipment and preserving humans and dragons first was in a way yet more proof of how rich the Bardi Empire really was.


    The cost of making one full set of equipment and magic cannons for a magic armor dragon would be more than enough to create two smallbat airships for the Mist Alliance.


    Maybe this was the difference in strength between arge country and a small country. A small country with the same technology would only be able to gain a temporary advantage for a short period of time. The small country might not even be able to afford to create some of the most advanced technology. Meanwhile, the big country would standardize the most advanced technology¡¯s production and then think about selling off their older and outdated products.


    The ¡°Progress¡± airship¡¯s engine still hadn¡¯t been fixed, so the airship had been unable to fly as high as the clouds. From the airship¡¯s current height, it was quite easy to see what was below quite clearly. The two young magic armor dragons and their simrly young knight riders were flying to the left and right of the airship, respectively, while looking at us with curiosity.


    ¡°...It seems that these dragon knights aren¡¯t dragon descendants?¡± I asked casually, which actually caused Stere to break out in a cold sweat. In a way, I supposed that I was asking for military intelligence here.


    He was hesitating because he didn¡¯t know if he would be allowed to tell me or not. However, there was someone else who could easily make this decision.


    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re right. With the Holy War raging on like this, even the dragons who are older than ancient artifacts have understood the situation clearly. They¡¯ve realized that protecting their own species¡¯ descendants and status is more important than their dragon pride.¡±


    This thick and booming voice belonged to a middle-aged man who wore a heavy blue cape, heavy armor, and a crown.


    He walked over and directly gave me an overly passionate embrace, while everyone else around him kneeled in deference.


    ¡°Long time no see, Your Highness Rnd. Wee back to the Bardi Empire. I hope that you¡¯ve brought me good news this time.¡±


    This man was Halent Mn, formerly known as the Dragon Knight Archduke, now known as the Dragon Knight Emperor of Bardi.


    Compared to nine years ago, he was slightly taller now. He also intentionally grew a beard¡ªmaybe to make himself seem more mature¡ªbut I could tell that his physical body actually appeared even younger now.


    Tremendous power was contained within Halent¡¯s physically body. If I closed my eyes and used my soul vision instead, I¡¯d see only a powerful dragon in front of me. It seemed that Halent was currently now more dragon than human.


    Still, this was within expectations. The dragons had many secret techniques for improving dragon bloodline density. Halent would have no reason to refuse power.


    Compared to the previous shy youth that he¡¯d been, Halent¡¯s expression now seemed rather exaggerated.


    ¡°Oh, whoops, you¡¯ve already brought good news for me. One week ago, as a human, you managed to defeat a Chaos Main God, achieving incredibly glory. Come, let us all celebrate this glorious victory together for the hero of humanity!¡± Halent said to himself. He then excitedly started apuding me, causing the othermoners in the area to follow suit.


    I then received a round of thunderous apuse and cheering. All that was missing was the music.


    I was always naturally suspicious of those who would suddenly act friendly and praise me for no apparent reason. This overwhelmingly passionate wee only made me feel goosebumps and suspicion.


    ¡°This is just propaganda, propaganda,¡± Halent whispered to me so that only I could hear. He then pulled on my hand and had me wave to all the Bardi citizens.


    I then noticed that the ¡°Progress¡± airship had already docked in Bardi¡¯s airship port. An enormous weing crowd was waiting below. In the distance, I could even see young dragons waving banners with red lettered slogans.


    ¡°Warmly celebrating the eighth year of the Bardi Empire¡¯s friendship with the Mist Alliance!¡±


    ¡°Weing His Highness Rnd of the Mist Alliance toe share his knowledge!¡±


    ¡°Celebrating His Highness Rnd¡¯s return after defeating the Chaos Main God!¡±


    The weing crowd, flowers, ceremonial cannons, and even military band were all present. The only slightly strange part was how the ¡°Progress¡± airship was almostpletely ruined. Still, due to the magic armor dragons¡¯ escort, this actually made us seem even more impressive, just as if we were heroic warriors who had just returned from the battlefield.


    Halent kept forcing me to wave my hand at the crowd. The cheers from below were incredibly loud, reaching even up to the clouds.


    What I noted was that none of this appeared to be intentionally arranged at all. The cheers were all truly heartfelt.


    Many thoughts shed in my mind at this moment, causing my expression to stiffen for a second. I then instantly realized that this was inappropriate, so I immediately changed to using my standard Holy Knight smile as I waved at the crowd.


    And then... I was buried by the weing crowd.


    Among all the chaos, I faintly heard some rather concerning words, such as ¡°reinforcements¡±, ¡°frontline¡±, and so on. I then felt like I understood what was going on.


    30 minutester, we finally made our way out of the overly friendly crowd. I asked my question before any of us could even take some time to drink any water.


    ¡°Halent, you actually needed to make my arrival into political propaganda to raise everyone¡¯s morale? Has Bardi¡¯s situation deteriorated to such an extent?¡±


    Halent¡¯s stiff smile transformed into a bitter smile when he heard my question.


    He furrowed his eyebrows and gently massaged his forehead as a way to try and rx himself.


    ¡°As expected, nothing gets past you. Yes, you¡¯re right. The situation is awful. Major trouble has urred on the frontlines. We lost our battle there. We lost terribly. The Undead Emperors are 10 times harder to deal with than expected when they get serious!¡±

 Chapter 744 - Bitter Defeat

    <h4>Chapter 744: Bitter Defeat</h4>


    When Bardi Emperor Halent told me about the situation on Bardi¡¯s frontlines, I felt almost as if he was telling me a terrible joke with how fast he told me things. I really wanted tough, but couldn¡¯t, which felt so aggrieving.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t receive my information?¡± I inquired.


    After my secret agreement with Undead Emperor Sandro, I had sent my ally Bardi information on the undead, telling them much about the undead army¡¯s actual internal situation. I couldn¡¯t understand why things had gone so majorly wrong even after my informational assistance.


    Halent sighed as he shook his head in dejection.


    ¡°It was precisely because we learned that the five Undead Emperors weren¡¯t unified, with one of them missing and two of them only pretending to fight us, meaning that only two Undead Emperors are our true mortal enemies, that we made up our mind to eliminate this threat once and for all.¡±


    Although it might sound rather ridiculous, thebat situation had gone like this: Bardi felt that they had a tremendous numerical advantage, so they closed their eyes and turned on auto-battle mode, letting all soldiers attack by themselves, and then Bardi typed GG and admitted defeat.


    Was this foolish? Or suicidal? Or foolishly suicidal?


    Bardi had actually tried to calcte standard troops¡¯ numerical advantages when fighting against Undead Emperors! Bardi had tried to use the strength of numbers to overwhelm the enemy. What actually happened was that Bardi had attacked with multiple army squadrons in a rush, and then waspletely annihted by forbidden spells and ambushes. Bardi¡¯s forces on the frontlines were utterly annihted to the point of having to retreat 300 kilometers in a single day. They suffered massive losses and a great blow to their morale. That was also why Halent had made my arrival into a piece of political propaganda for raising everyone¡¯s morale.


    Moreover, all of this had happened while the Undead Emperors were still not unified.


    I gradually learned more details about what had happened from Halent.


    Only the two enemy Undead Emperors had attacked.


    Undead Emperor Anina, the ¡°Long-sleeping Witch¡± from the Darkness ne, and Undead Emperor Shupnus, the ¡°Undead Wizard¡± from the Deathmist ne. They were both rtively younger Undead Emperors. Neither of them had any outstandingbat achievements before, at least not in the mortal ne.


    It could be said that everyone underestimated these two Undead Emperorspared to the other three far more famous Undead Emperors who had invaded.


    However, these two were still Undead Emperors, existences who had achieved the impossible. They weren¡¯t known little because they didn¡¯t have the power, but rather because they hadn¡¯t needed to show their true power.


    Neither of the two had used any surprising strategy at all. They used the ssical strategy that all undead mages would use: an undead sea followed by support magic from behind.


    However, their magic power was far beyond that of any ordinary undead mage.


    They first intentionally allowed their own undead army to be eradicated by Bardi, which lured the Bardi forces deep into their territory. They thenunched an ambush once a tremendous number of human warriors and several dozen dragons had entered their chosen location.


    The two Undead Emperors thenbined their powers at spellcasting and sessfully opened up a dimensional tear, connecting the mortal ne to a Death ne, which caused a torrential amount of negative energy to pour out and ughter all the living. The scene had been incredibly horrendous to behold.


    Such a spell was somewhat simr to back when Aso had sacrificed his life in order to forcefully connect the mortal ne to the Death nes, opening up a permanent portal. However, the dimensional restrictions were much weaker now since the Holy War had started, so with two Undead Emperors working together, along with already having prepared enough sacrifices for the ritual, their chosen ambush location was instantaneously corroded into and of death.


    Yet, that had only been the beginning. What followed right after was of course the summoning of more undead.


    Countless high-level undead arrived from the dimensional tear. They started harvesting souls by hunting down any of the living who tried to escape.


    When the Undead Emperors had first arrived in the mortal ne, they had alle by themselves. Their current undead army was just a bunch of cannon fodder that they could summon quite easily. But this time, the two Undead Emperors had summoned their personal elite armies.


    More than 80% of a regr undead mage¡¯sbat strength would be tied to their subordinates. Since Undead Emperors were at the very peak of undead society, it wouldn¡¯t be possible for any Undead Emperor to only fight by themselves.


    To use Undead Emperor Rnd¡¯s Red Hunting Hounds as an example, it could easily be extrapted just how powerful an Undead Emperor¡¯s personal elite army would be after being alive in undeath for a long enough period of time.


    The ambush location had been in a valley surrounded by mountains. The humans had thought that they had cornered the undead, without expecting that this was actually a death trap designed by the undead.


    Theplex mountainous terrain made escaping nothing more than a dream when the negative energy wave arrived from the Death ne.


    Thebat results were incredibly pitiful. The Bardi army for this attack had totaled 250,000, yet less than 50,000 had managed to retreat alive to safety. Almost 100 dragons had also fought on Bardi¡¯s side, and 37 had perished, with a majority being young dragons, and half being the newest magic armor dragons.


    Yet, this was only the beginning of Bardi¡¯s troubles. Despite finally managing to destroy so many undead, the undead would now easily revive their army by using all of these dead Bardi soldiers. Not only would there be countless new powerful undead, the brave warriors who had just been fighting on Bardi¡¯s side would now be enved zombies on the undead side. The newest magic armor dragons would now be armored bone dragons on the undead side. This was a great blow to Bardi¡¯s morale.


    This battle had basically given the undead enemy several hundred thousand free undead troops. It was aplete and devastating loss.


    Bardi was truly foundationally strong. It could afford such a loss. In just a few months, it would be able to form another simrly big army again. Bardi was still capable of fighting.


    Bardi had been fighting losing battles for many years already, so this shouldn¡¯t have been a big deal originally.


    However, the most critical part was that the crushing defeat had been far too unexpected and sudden. Large numbers of injured soldiers ran away from the battle. Some deserted and ran to various major cities and domains. The deserters would of course tell everyone in exaggerated fashion about how scary and powerful the undead were. This news would start spreading and sink all of Bardi into an atmosphere of fear and panic.


    My arrival had thus been a chance for Halent to improve the morale of his citizens.


    In his propaganda announcement, my arrival wasn¡¯t due to my own personal matters, but rather because I was here as a representative of the Mist Alliance who was here to reinforce Bardi.


    Technically, Halent wasn¡¯t lying about this at all. Bardi¡¯s loss had been far too sudden. Its allies were indeed sending reinforcements which were on the way.


    By now, I understood what Halent meant. He was pleading with me as his ally for assistance.


    But as for me, no matter if I helped him or not, this was rather troublesome to deal with.

 Chapter 745 - Participation

    <h4>Chapter 745: Participation</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Everyone knew that the Bardi Empire had immense foundational strength. Destroying the Bardi Empire in a single direct battle would be basically impossible.


    Even though the undead had obtained a temporary victory, Bardi still had vast territory andbat potential. With such a tremendous poption and abundant resources, even if the undead wanted to invade and conquer Bardipletely, that would take several years, or possibly even several decades.


    It was the same way for San Antonio. Even though San Antonio was dealing with a civil war as well as a demon and ogre invasion, San Antonio was foundationally so powerful that it would take many years before it was fully defeated.


    Meanwhile, Bardi¡¯s situation was actually far better than San Antonio¡¯s. Bardi didn¡¯t have the biggest problem that San Antonio did, which was internal chaos and infighting. Bardi¡¯s previous ruler, Emperor Orloss, had left Bardi with an excellent foundation as well as international situation. Now, Bardi was under Halent¡¯s leadership and had the support of the Southern Sect. The entire Bardi Empire was improving its strength.


    During this process, Bardi would naturally also improve itsbat strength. Bardi would improve itsbat strategy, modernize its weapons and equipment, and focus all of its society and resources on total warfare. The result of getting bogged down in war would mean that its foundational strength would be tested on the meat grinder frontlines. Bardi¡¯s other allies also wouldn¡¯t possibly just sit back and watch Bardi be defeated.


    But while a speedy war was possible against a small country, it would be impossible to conquer any major country quickly unless you immediately broke its spine and absolutely suppressed them. The major country would also have to be foolish enough to send the majority of its forces for the enemy to devour. Otherwise, the war would have to proceed slowly. But, the undead wouldn¡¯t be given an opportunity to fight a long and slow war of attrition.


    Everyone knew that the undead would only constantly increase in number and strength due to their undead sea strategy as the battle went on. Precisely because of this, no enemy of the undead would ever give them that much time.


    Although Bardi had lost 200,000 soldiers in the previous battle, when considering Bardi¡¯s territory and poption, Bardi¡¯s foundational strength hadn¡¯t been damaged at all. The bigger problem was that Bardi had lost a significant amount of face, damaging the royal pride. That was why Halent urgently needed a way to raise his people¡¯s morale.


    Big countries could afford many losses. As long as the big country could win one major battle, it would be capable of winning everything. A small country with countless victories still wouldn¡¯t count as having won against a big country. The small country would lose everything if they lost even a single major battle.


    This was why war was also referred to as apetition between countries that tested their overall national strength. Major countries had abundant resources and plenty of strategic buffer zones. A single loss would rarely be catastrophic enough to cause the major country to lose the entire war. Only small countries whichcked foundational strength would prefer riskier strategies which might see sessive victories but then end up losing everything with a single loss, just like a gambler would.


    The undead might have gained 200,000 new undead soldiers, but that was actually quite easy to deal with. The newly created zombies and skeletons would be so weak that they wouldn¡¯t even be able to defeat a regr farmer who had received only the most basicbat training. Bardi was only afraid of the undead¡¯s powerful mages.


    Starting a few decades ago, former Emperor Orloss had changed Bardi¡¯sws and forced all Bardi mages to register with and serve the Bardi government. This had caused friction with the Mage Country. Many Bardi mages also chose to move to other countries because of this. Plus, the past Bardi hadn¡¯t focused very much on raising mages, so Bardi was only an average country with its mages¡¯ overall strength.


    Thus, Bardi had requested top-level mages from the Mage Country, wood spirits, And Empire, and Southern Sect in order to fight back against the Undead Emperors¡¯ advantage in magic.


    I had just sent a Chaos Main God back to the Chaos Abyss. I also represented the Mist Alliance. Since I hade here, Bardi naturally hoped that I would be able to help them.


    ¡°In the end, this is trouble caused by my title of being the Strongest Holy Knight...¡±


    Holy Knights had been considered the natural enemy of the undead for forever. I was also an Undead Emperor myself. It could be said that I was the person the most suited for dealing with undead in the world. It was only natural that Halent would want me to help out.


    However, I had a headache because it wouldn¡¯t be that easy to help out here, and it might not be that beneficial for me if I did help.


    Just how powerful were Undead Emperors? It would be really difficult to measure them by any standard. At the very least, it was a definite that they would have undead magic power far surpassing that of any regr Undead Lord. They would also haverge and high-quality personal undead armies. However, the biggest headache of all would be their astonishing achievements in their personal research field.


    More than 90% of Undead Emperors were outstanding mages and researchers. They would be vicious individuals who had reached the peak in their personal research field. Not knowing the Undead Emperors¡¯ true specialty and simply turning on auto-battle and sending an army to attack them would be no different from sending them free kills.


    I trusted Undead Emperor Sandro¡¯s sincerity in allying with me. He had mentioned a little to me about the other Undead Emperors¡¯ research specialties.


    Undead Emperor Anina, the ¡°Witch of Eternal Sleep¡±, supposedly specialized in researching dreams. Even though the undead clearly weren¡¯t capable of dreaming, she had managed to develop miraculous spells which affected the dream realm.


    However, I felt that dreams were intimately connected to the soul. It was likely that dreams were a lower-level concept under souls. It was highly likely that her research field ovepped with mine significantly. Moreover, she was the youngest of the five Undead Emperors, so she would probably be the easiest one to defeat.


    Undead Emperor Shupnus, the ¡°Undead Wizard¡±, was only slightly older than Undead Emperor Anina. He didn¡¯t have many knownbat achievements. It was said that he had many varied research fields, and that he was highly skilled at creatingpound undead species, so his personal undead army was very strong.


    My inference was that Shupnus was likely a mage who specialized in undead creations, but that his focus was simply on the undead physical body rather than the soul.


    If only it had been possible, I would have loved to have a friendly chat with these two Undead Emperors and exchange research information with them. I would likely learn much and be inspired with many new research topics by this. Unfortunately, it was quite a headache that they were my enemies.


    It would be quite foolish to view the five invading Undead Emperors as being in an irond alliance. They were just like a pile of loose sand. Some among them wanted to fight, some among them wanted peace, and there was even one who asked ¡°Can I go back now?¡± every day¡ªa perfect bystander.


    The good news was that only two of the Undead Emperors truly intended to go all-out against Bardi. The bad news was that just two Undead Emperors would still be a huge headache.


    Bardi had suffered a serious loss. Bardi¡¯s soldiers¡¯ corpses had even be more cannon fodder for the enemy. It would be a joke at this time to try and say pretty words like ¡°Let¡¯s abandon past grudges and make peace.¡± Bardi would definitely want to take revenge. Otherwise, it would be quite difficult to exin things to the Bardi citizens.


    These two Undead Emperors definitely wouldn¡¯t be willing to give up on conquering a portion of the mortal ne for themselves. Since they had already gone all-out, they wouldn¡¯t possibly stop now. No more restraint would be shown by either side. It was likely that there would be no more probing attacks, and that this battle would immediately elevate to a meat grinder Armageddon style battlefield.


    And once the battle¡¯s intensity was elevated, that would make the other Undead Emperors¡¯ standpoints rather awkward. It was likely that they would end up getting dragged into the battle.


    I would never doubt my ability to taunt others into focusing their attention on me. Even if I only wanted to stand on the battlefield as a bystander, it was likely that I would be the center of attention.


    In that case, it might even be good for me not to go fight the Undead Emperors, as this could prevent elevating the battle¡¯s scale even more...


    However, refusing would be quite inappropriate as Bardi was an irond ally of the Mist Alliance. Bardi was supplying the Mist Alliance with abundant resources. What a sucker... er, I meant important lifeline of ours.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll help you out. But, I need to first go visit the Mage Country. I need to consult with the archmage ¡®Truthful Environment¡¯ Akama regarding something.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t lying about this at all. Akama was the most outstanding prophecy magic archmage in the entire Mage Country. I did want to ask him for some prophecies.


    However, Halent¡¯s expression became rather strange. It seemed as if he really wanted tough, but was holding it in. Finally, he ended up coughing gently.


    ¡°Cough, archmage Akama arrived in Bardi just yesterday, and you¡¯ve arrived today. It seems that your luck is quite good?¡±


    ¡°What? My luck is quite good? What a funny joke... Haha, yep, I mean that my luck has always been quite good.¡±


    ¡°...Your Highness Rnd, are you feeling sad?¡±


    ¡°Not at all. It¡¯s just that some sand flew into my eye. Luck or whatever, I wouldn¡¯t care about such a thing at all!¡±

 Chapter 746 - Turning Point

    <h4>Chapter 746: Turning Point</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    After I arrived in Bardi, I went to go visit a woman who was single and pregnant, and then she kicked me out...


    Ahem, that sounded rather dirty, so to exin better, I simply went to visit my ¡°sister-inw¡± Leona. Previously, I had asked dragon knights to ¡°transport¡± her to the Bardi capital. It seemed that she was still angry at me for that.


    Leona¡¯splexion seemed to be better than it was several months ago when I saw herst. Maybe it was due to the pregnancy bringing out her motherly nature, but not only did she seem gentler than before, her face had also be rounder.


    ¡°She seems womanlier now.¡±


    Maybe my words were a bit sexist, but Leona had indeed obviously changed.


    At the very least, she didn¡¯t directly draw her sword against me the moment that she saw me. It seemed that her uing motherhood had softened her somewhat.


    When calcting the time, Leona was now approximately four or five months into her pregnancy. There was no evident bulge in her belly yet. It was also possible that her pregnancy wouldn¡¯tst nine months like an ordinary human¡¯s.


    Fine, all of that was just me making stuff up. I had been single for more than three centuries already. How would I possibly know anything about pregnant women?


    In order to avoid making a pregnant woman angry, I left after leaving just a letter behind. I arranged that we would go visit ¡°Truthful Environment¡± archmage Akama tomorrow for a prophecy. As for how I had just recently met Karwenz, I didn¡¯t have the time to tell that to her... Alright, I admit that I forgot to talk about Leona with Karwenz when I met him, which made me feel somewhat guilty now.


    For once, I had some rare free time to myself as I walked down the streets of Bardi.


    Prophets would always have a lot of rules, easily being able toe up with lots of excuses and reasons. Being able to easily ess prophecies would only make them seem cheap, after all.


    Being able to meet with Akama tomorrow was a rare instance of my reputation working in my favor. This was thanks to my Truth emblems, as no matter what, I was also nominally a member of the Mage Country¡¯s Truth Symposium.


    Actually, with the current situation as it was, I didn¡¯t have too much hope that Akama would be able to prophesize anything for me.


    ¡°Does Karwenz intend on destroying the dimensional barrier?¡±


    This was my original foundational question, but it no longer needed to be asked.


    ¡°How is he going to destroy the dimensional barrier? What is his ultimate goal? Where can I catch him and stop him?¡±


    Answers to these questions would be quite valuable to me. However, it was quite obvious that Akama wouldn¡¯t be able to prophesize such answers.


    The basic rule of prophecy magic was that ¡°yes or no¡± questions were the easiest to prophesize; the more specific the question regarding an individual, ce, time, and so on, the greater of a price there would be for the answer. Also, the more powerful the target of the question, the greater of a price there would be as well.


    This was just like trying to look up information on someone random on the inte in my past life. It would be really easy to find out if a random person was male or female, and if they were alive or dead. However, if you wanted to know what that person was thinking, what they were doing right now, or if they had any perverted fetishes... that would probably require dissecting their brain.


    Prophecy was a technique of its own. Skill was required in order to ask the questions which would be easiest to prophesize.


    This was even more so after the God of Fate cut off the River of Fate. All prophecies about the future became no different from trying one¡¯s luck on gambling on a horse race. But, if the question was about the present, and if more people knew about the information, then the prophecy would be easier to receive.


    Besides, the God of Fate was on my side as Catio was a Hell God. I could probably get him to go easy on me.


    I toured the streets of Bardi in my boredom while also thinking about the most appropriate prophecy question to ask Akama.


    ¡°Is Karwenz searching for the Chaos Girls?¡±


    If this was really true, then it was happening already. It was likely that some among his subordinates or allies also knew about the Chaos Girls. Asking this question probably wouldn¡¯t require arge price, and if I received confirmation on this question, then I would ask my second question.


    ¡°Is searching for the Chaos Girls the most important thing to Karwenz right now?¡±


    In a way, this question was asking in a roundabout manner if the Chaos Girls were connected to the dimensional barrier. Karwenz¡¯s primary goal was most likely to shatter the dimensional barrier, after all.


    My System also had her guesses about the Chaos Girls, but receiving confirmation would be even better.


    ¡°If I stay here, will that give Karwenz a headache?¡±


    This was quite an abstract question, but it was asking about the future. The more abstract the question, the less the required price would be. Of course, the answer received would also be quite vague, but even a vague answer would be somewhat helpful in making my own decision about the future.


    Since Leona and I were ¡°connected¡± to this question, the price for asking this question was probably eptable.


    After that was the most important part of all.


    Using indirect methods to ask about ¡°Karwenz¡¯s location¡± would require analysis of the specific information received. The most practical method would be to ask about important locations where he might be, and then directly make it a ¡°yes or no¡± question.


    That was the correct way to use prophets. Any novice who directly asked ¡°Where¡¯s the treasure?¡± or ¡°What¡¯s the demon king¡¯s weakness?¡± would either be scammed by the prophet or directly kicked out.


    After deciding on the questions that I would ask Akama tomorrow, I now felt more reassured as I toured the streets.


    I had visited Bardi¡¯s capital several times already. This ce was incredibly important and flourishing as it was one of the oldest human cities in all of Eich.


    Simply by sitting at a table outside a caf¨¦ and watching the busy citizens and horse-drawn carriages passing by in the street would help one to understand this city¡¯s condition.


    Everyone being busy wasn¡¯t a bad thing. It meant that there were things worth them being busy with. Not many seemed to be worried or depressed. In fact, many people kept pointing up at the dragons passing by in the sky with proud and delighted expressions.


    This waspletely different from numbness or despair due to major trouble about to befall. I felt reassured at seeing this as it meant Bardi¡¯s situation was still stable.


    With such a major problem in San Antonio already, if there was also a simr problem with Bardi, that would be two foundational pirs of humanity copsing, which would give a huge impact to morale and the actual situation. That would be quite difficult to withstand.


    ¡°Right, I have some bad news for you,¡± Harloys suddenly told me.


    These days, she often went into a nk state as her focus was on the elves since the elven migration caravan was getting ever closer to the Nortnds. She had much to be busy with regarding the government of the Nortnds Elven Empire.


    Sometimes, I would pull on her hand, which meant that an expressionless young girl would follow me obediently wherever I led... People would say things like ¡°Such a cute daughter you have¡± and ¡°Such a good girl, you¡¯re out having fun with daddy?¡±, while I would happily respond with sentences like ¡°Alice is really cute, isn¡¯t she,¡± ¡°She¡¯s afraid of strangers¡±, and so on. This greatly annoyed Harloys and worsened her mood.


    By the way, it should be mentioned that the appearance-altering age bracelet was ineffective on her because its designer had never even considered to adjust its settings so that it was possible to make one appear to be several tens of thousands of years younger.


    Harloys¡¯ state of mind then exploded on me. She even regretted sessfully reaching Level 4.


    So, she was telling me that she had bad news at this time with such an abnormal smile? Could it be that she was happy at another¡¯s misfortune? This was... too normal.


    ¡°Can you guess who¡¯s leading the wood spirits¡¯ reinforcements that areing to Bardi?¡±


    ¡°...You¡¯ve already said that it¡¯s bad news, so it¡¯s probably Amelia? Didn¡¯t she go to the Nortnds...? Indeed, it¡¯s been about three months, so it¡¯s about time that she returned.¡±


    Harloys continued to smile wickedly. ¡°Originally, only two of the Virtues wereing, but Amelia immediately rushed over when she heard that you were in Bardi.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a good thing. Our forces here will be even more powerful.¡±


    ¡°Ha, just keep pretending. Last time, you intentionally ran away from her. Don¡¯t run this time if you dare.¡±


    ¡°Haha, I did nothing to feel guilty about at all.¡±


    Although I was saying this, I was currently considering whether or not I should immediately run now after I asked Akama my prophecy questions... er, I meant starting a new journey! I felt like I had promised Halent too quickly to help him, so yep, I should probably go back and tell him that I had changed my mind.


    But at this moment, two royal guards located me.


    They had nervous expressions as if something had just happened, and when they carefully whispered to me what had happened, I became certain that even more trouble hade for me.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd, His Majesty Halent is asking you to return to the pce. Prophecy archmage Akama was just assassinated half an hour ago.¡±


    ¡°What? He¡¯s dead?¡±

 Chapter 747 - Return of the Death God

    <h4>Chapter 747: Return of the Death God</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°There¡¯s only one truth! The murderer is... you, Death God Rnd! You¡¯re the living harbinger of misfortune! You bring death and misfortune to everyone around you! You¡¯re the legendary Death God elementary school student detective who brings death to families all across Japan! Just admit it, you¡¯re the one who murdered Akama!¡±


    ¡°...Harloys, if I really did have such an ability, then you¡¯d probably be the first to die. I don¡¯t mind if you joke with me, but you really should hold back. If others believe what you say, causing new strange rumors to spread about me tomorrow, then I¡¯m going to make you eat nothing but cat food for an entire month.¡±


    The ce we were currently at wasn¡¯t very suitable for jokes, as we were currently in the VIP guest section of the Bardi royal pce. Royal guards with tense expressions were entering and exiting a certain room on the 3rd floor, where the elderly archmage Akama¡¯s corpse was lying on the redwood floor.


    Prophecy archmage Akama¡¯s eyes had been closed by someone already, but his expression was quite calm.


    There was no sign of a struggle at all. Akama had only one fatal injury located right on the chest.


    ¡°The assassin killed him instantly with one strike to the heart. The assassin must be a veteran.¡±


    I pulled off the white cloth covering Akama¡¯s corpse. When I saw therge hole in his chest and how there was very little blood around despite it, and that the attack had been quite clean and quick, I knew that this had to be done by a professional assassin.


    Normally, it would be quite reasonable that a veteran assassin ambushing an unprepared archmage would seed in killing thetter, no matter how powerful the archmage was.


    However, something was rather unusual in this situation.


    Although it wasmon sense that prophets were unable to prophesize anything regarding themselves, prophecy magic was a type of investigation magic, which would be the natural counter to all assassins. Akama was a veteran archmage who had long reached Level 4 already. It would be inconceivable for him not to have 10 or 20 investigation spells cast on himself.


    Detect Invisibility, Sense Hostility, Heat Detection, True Luck, Noise rm (a spell which would loudly alert all others in the area that the user was being attacked), and Ward of Protection (a shield spell that would automatically activate when the user was in danger). These were all standard investigation magic spells. It would be incredibly difficult to sessfully ambush any prophecy magic archmage. It would be impossible to ambush a prophecy magic archmage even for me.


    If I truly wanted to kill a prophecy magic archmage, I would far prefer to use a direct attack as that would be much easier.


    Just how amazing of a grandmaster would one have to be at concealing their own presence in order to sessfully assassinate Akama, who obviously hadn¡¯t been on his guard at all, when Akama was the most famous prophecy magic archmage in the world?


    I touched Akama¡¯s corpse which was bing cold, gathering dark magic upon him.


    I didn¡¯t have the deductive reasoning abilities like Death God Conan did, but I did some Death God-like abilities of my own. Eich was a magical world where having the dead talk wasn¡¯t that difficult, after all.


    Yet, my attempt to summon Akama¡¯s soul met with obstruction.


    ¡°Holy water to put his soul to rest after death? This is truly an experienced assassin.¡±


    Akama¡¯s face was still slightly wet, likely from holy water. Either an idiot priest had alreadye to cleanse the soul, or the assassin had intentionally poured holy water on the corpse.


    I asked the royal guards and found that no priest hade here.


    This meant two things. One was that the assassin was tremendously experienced because the fact that holy water could obstruct soul summoning was a secret that even the majority of undead mages didn¡¯t know. The second thing made me contemte even more...


    ¡°The assassin knew that someone would soon attempt to summon Akama¡¯s soul, meaning that the assassin knew that an undead mage woulde to check the corpse.¡±


    Drawing out a living or dead person¡¯s soul actually had many limitations. A corpse that had died too long ago would lose its connection to its own soul. While it would be possible to reanimate such a corpse as a skeleton or zombie, summoning its soul would no longer be possible.


    Under normal circumstances, souls would soon return to the Cycle of Reincarnation. After just one or two hours, even an undead magic grandmaster¡¯s soul summoning spell would likely fail. Additionally, soul summoning was a spell that could only be attempted once per corpse. Failing once would mean that it waspletely impossible to try again afterwards.


    Soul summoning was about trying to withdraw memories from the dead individual¡¯s soul fragments. Failing at soul summoning would cause the soul fragments topletely shatter, which was why it was impossible to try more than once.


    That was why more than 90% of the time, undead mages would actually use soul summoning magic against the living. Usually, it was to interrogate someone living for the information they knew. This was highly effective and would require a very low cost. The only side effect was that after using soul summoning magic on someone living, that person would die afterwards.


    Bardi was the home location of the Southern Sect. Although undead mages weren¡¯t directly ouwed here, Bardi wasn¡¯t exactly friendly towards undead mages due to the high number of dragons and Holy Light job ss members here. Undead mages were quite few in Bardi.


    Yet, the assassin had been certain that an undead mage would soon arrive here, which was why the assassin had prepared for this with holy water.


    The assassin knew of my arrival.


    In a way, this clue might actually be more valuable than having the dead Akama speak. Information learned from soul summoning would be fragmented and scattered. It was possible to learn something, but it would be equally likely to learn nothing from soul summoning.


    ¡°A traitor?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s possible. Confirmation is still required.¡±


    I waved my hand as I rose up.


    Rather than suspecting a mysterious top-level assassin from somewhere unknown, I more suspected the other mages who hade to Bardi together with archmage Akama¡ªthe culprit had been able to easily get close to Akama while being viewed by him as a trustworthy individual, on top of knowing that I had arrived and that I would use undead magic on Akama¡¯s body.


    Someone among these mages might not want me to get close to the truth of what I was looking for.


    It seemed that Halent had gone out of Bardi for the time being. He hadn¡¯t returned yet even though the Mage Country¡¯s envoy had been assassinated. I recorded my observations and analysis and tossed the information to the royal guards so that they could send it to both Halent and the lead archmage from the Truth Symposium who had led this team of mages that Akama had been a part of.


    As for finding out who the traitor might be? I didn¡¯t intend on personally getting involved. Reality was quite different from detective stories where it was quite easy to find the murderer. In this world and generation, finding a murderer would be highly difficult.


    The traitor wouldn¡¯t exactly write the word ¡°murderer¡± on their face. Without any obvious clues, using people would only provoke distrust and even more chaos.


    Of course, you could use someone with evidence, but they could also use you of nting false evidence to frame them. Mages were highly experienced at faking evidence, reaching the point where even they would be unable to tell real from fake. The end result was that nobody would be able to prove anything, which meant that only power and authority could determine what the ¡°truth¡± really was. The person who won might not always be the one on the side of truth.


    The Truth Symposium had never been an irond alliance of mages to begin with. Many of the archmages had broken taboos or even touched upon the Chaos Abyss. It was only natural that some members of the Truth Symposium were secretly allied with the Chaos Faction. They would be rewarded with taboo knowledge and the Chaos Abyss¡¯s power as well as ¡°truth¡±.


    Undead Emperor Aso had previously sessfully infiltrated the Truth Symposium. Archmages from other species and factions could naturally do the same. I had long since expected that there would be those among the Truth Symposium who weren¡¯t allied to my cause. Now, an enemy had acted in order to cut off my investigation. This might not actually be a bad thing for me. Someone powerful enough to kill Akama would never be cannon fodder or someone that didn¡¯t know anything. It was likely that I could unearth much from this.


    But, this was something quite troublesome that would easily drag me into a quagmire. I didn¡¯t intend on getting too deeply involved.


    Although this seemed like I had lost the trail of clues, prophecy magic was a major magic category, and the Mage Country wasn¡¯t far from here. I could simply go find another prophecy archmage.


    This incident had also indirectly confirmed yet another guess of mine.


    ¡°I¡¯m constantly being surveilled. Not only that, I¡¯ve trodden across my enemy¡¯s sensitive territory, forcing them to take action.¡±


    It was well within expectations that I was under surveince. However, the fact that my enemy had been forced to act actually let me heave a sigh of relief. I was more afraid that my enemies wouldpletely ignore me as that would mean they didn¡¯t think that I was a threat at all.


    It was almost certain now that the Chaos Girls were connected to Karwenz¡¯s goal of destroying the dimensional barrier. In that case, I probably needed to start focusing on gathering information on the Chaos Girls.


    The easiest method would be to talk to a Chaos Girl who had already awakened to her true nature.


    ¡°What a headache. Elisa is refusing tomunicate.¡±


    Harloys was always the type to instantly retort to anything I said, yet even she remained silent when I said this.


    Over the past few days, I had been hesitating on whether I should go find Elisa or not. However, I already had many things to deal with, on top of the fact that nobody knew where Elisa was right now.


    ¡°...Where am I supposed to go to find her? It would probably take at least several months to locate her.¡±


    In fact, since nobody knew where she currently was, that already exined a lot.


    It was likely that Elisa currently wasn¡¯t in the mortal ne, nor would she possibly go to the Chaos Abyss, so when considering her condition, the Fire Elemental ne was the most likely ce that she was in right now. However, the Fire Elemental ne was enormous as well as dangerous. If Elisa wanted to hide from me, it would be no easy task to find her.


    ¡°Forget it. I should probably watch over Leona really closely.¡±


    Leona was a Chaos Girl. My System had already confirmed this. Perhaps I would only need to keep Leona by my side in order to sooner orter learn even more about the Chaos Girls.


    With so many things for me to deal with, I no longer had free time to cultivate my power level. This naturally meant I would have to dy crafting my next magic sword. If I wanted to cultivate, it would be much more effective to find some isted mountain or forest than stay in the Bardi capital.


    However, I couldn¡¯t think like that right now. It was likely that I would need to soon fight against two Undead Emperors. Halent was probably busy because of this major matter.


    I had very little I could make use of here in Bardi. Entering the war at this time meant that I could only serve as Bardi¡¯s fighter. I would take the me if I lost, and I wouldn¡¯t gain anything if I won. I might even get disliked by both sides. This wasn¡¯t what I wanted at all. However, I had no excuse to refuse to help Bardi.


    ¡°Rnd.¡±


    Suddenly, a voice spoke my name right in my ear, but this voice didn¡¯t belong to my System or the chatty silly cat. This heavy and solid voice instantly reassured me.


    ¡°Boss Ayer? You¡¯re awake?¡±

 Chapter 748 - Hell’s Awakening

    <h4>Chapter 748: Hell¡¯s Awakening</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    I almost burst into tears when I heard Ayer¡¯s voice.


    ¡°You, you¡¯ve finally awakened. Wonderful, wonderful...¡±


    My voice was filled with gasping and exmations. I had waited for this day for so long.


    ¡°...I¡¯ll leave all troubles to you now, while I go take a two-week vacation, no, two months, no, two years!¡±


    Ahem, don¡¯t misunderstand. Although it was wonderful news that Ayer had awakened, the most wonderful part of all was that the big boss of the Hell Faction had awakened, which meant he could be in charge of everything now, and I no longer needed to care about anything!


    ¡°You probably have your own sources, so I¡¯ll skip reporting on anything to you. Feel free to do whatever you like regarding the Undead Emperors. I don¡¯t want to care at all...¡±


    Over the past several years, since Ayer was the highest-ranking leader of the Hell Faction in name and he was in ¡°hibernation¡±, the Hell Faction had always been in a rather passive state.


    Power between the other main leaders of the Hell Faction was rather bnced. If this was a time of peace, this would be a great thing. However, a power bnce was a bit of a headache in this time of war.


    The problem wasn¡¯t something as boring as a power struggle. It was rather that each leading God was too opinionated. They would have different ways of thinking about every single matter. It would take several weeks to several months for them toe to agreement on anything.


    Thus, for the past several years, the Hell Faction had mostly been operating on status quo, without a true leader.


    Hell¡¯s normal operations were perfectly fine. However, the Hell Gods were forever unable toe to an ord on proactively interfering with Eich¡¯s mortal ne and doing anything concrete.


    Although I was the main representative of the Hell Faction in the mortal ne, when based on seniority, I was probably rankedst out of everyone as I was only a mere 300-plus years old. If things were based on power level andbat achievements... I would also be rankedst, at least before I reached Level 4.


    Some among the Hell Gods only wanted to make more money, while some among the Hell Gods wanted to just observe the situation. There were also some among the Hell Gods who felt that it was fine to just protect Hell and the Land of Spring, and that there was no need to interfere with anything regarding the mortal ne.


    The Hell Gods weren¡¯t the only leaders of the Hell Faction. There were also many powerful individuals who represented other factions who joined uster.


    There was Hell Dragon King Samo, and Evelynn, the Strongest Hell Dragon. There was Titan, the boss of the Titans who were the guardians of the Land of Spring. There were also the Devil Lords who had joined the Hell Faction.


    They would all be Main God power level existences if they came to the mortal ne. Originally, because of Ayer being around, I couldmand them as I pleased, but now, I would only be able to ¡°request¡± their assistance. There really would be arge difference.


    Every major faction would always have its own internal factional division. Having internal factions would mean having disagreements. It would be strange for any faction to be capable of forever beingpletely united and in agreement on everything when there were shes of personal benefits and differences of opinion.


    That made things really difficult as I was only a ¡°basic member¡± of the Hell Faction. I recalled how in my past life there were always some people that others thought of aszily doing nothing every day at some government agencies andpanies, yet things would always go wrong or be majorly troublesome the moment that person was no longer there.


    Just one idea or rmendation being tossed out could cause countless conflicts and different ideas toe out. This really was such a headache to deal with.


    Back when Ayer had still been around, I had never thought that this would happen.


    Before the Hell Faction received a rebranding with the creation of Hell, it had been known as the Ayer Faction. That was the best exnation of all. Without Ayer being around to act as everyone¡¯s leader, everyone else would be nothing more than a te of scattered sand, especially since even more powerful individuals had now joined the Hell Faction.


    This problem had nothing to do with power level or intelligence. The Gods and other powerful existences had always lived like this for the past millennia. They were roughly equal in power, so they would squabble over small things like, ¡°You¡¯re not as old as I am, so why do you think you get to be the leader while I must follow you? I beat you up 3,000 years ago...¡±


    Ayer¡¯s awakening meant that the entire Hell Faction¡¯s different internal factions would all finally be united under one leader. The Hell Faction, which I had established with the intention that it would be the final powerful faction responsible for saving the world, could finally now start interfering with the mortal ne.


    ¡°How did Maria die?¡±


    However, Ayer¡¯s first question was about something entirely unrted to the Hell Faction.


    It seemed that he really valued his adopted daughter.


    He fell silent after asking this question. It seemed like Maria had been really important to him?


    I exined in great detail to Ayer about what had happened regarding Maria¡¯s assassination. I also mentioned the Chaos Girls and their connection to the dimensional barrier, and also told Ayer about my inferences and rmendations. It took quite a while before he finally responded.


    ¡°Chaos Girls? Why didn¡¯t you ask Beyana? She was formerly a Chaos Girl herself.¡±


    At this moment, I really wanted to cuss. Only then did I recall that I had such a group of ancient Gods as my allies. They would be more likely than anyone else to know about such an ancient secret as the Chaos Girls. Why hadn¡¯t I gone to ask them? Had I been blinded because they were my allies?


    The next instant, Ayer transmitted arge amount of information and knowledge into my mind. Most of it was ancient knowledge and memories. I suddenly understood just exactly what the Chaos Girls were.


    Every single Chaos Girl was actually a brand-new individual. They would always be astonishingly talented in a certain area. However, the end result would forever be that their instinct would force them to kill each other.


    In fact, I discovered that I knew even more about the Chaos Girls than Ayer did. From what I learned through Ayer, even the Chaos Girls themselves didn¡¯t know that the final victor would transform into a new ¡°Cynthia¡±. The Chaos Girls were nothing more than puppets who were forced by their instincts to kill each other.


    I had a long discussion with Ayer about what the Chaos Girls likely represented. Our discussion then touched upon our strategy for the future.


    Ayer was now one of the Four Pir Gods of Hell. He represented the Pir of Death, which meant that he was the ruler of all the dead. As a Pir God, it was now impossible for Ayer to leave Hell. Yet, this didn¡¯t meant that it would be impossible for him to interfere with the mortal ne.


    The God of Holy Light was overly powerful, which meant that he was restricted by the dimensionalws. He had been unable to directly descend upon the mortal ne for so long, yet he had directly interfered with the mortal ne countless times already. Not only could the God of Holy Light send incarnations, he also had plenty of Gods under him in his Holy Light Faction, along with countless angels and armies in the upper nes. The God of Holy Light also had the Holy Church in the mortal ne, which was the biggest faction in the mortal ne.


    The Hell Faction was the same. The Hell Gods who had Hell Concepts would be unable to leave Hell. However, the Hell Dragons were Hell¡¯s messengers, so they were capable of traveling to the mortal ne. Also, while there would be some limitations, the Hell Gods and Hell Devils were capable of sending incarnations or clones into the mortal ne to directly interfere with events. The most important part of all was that we also had the Titans and the mortal armies from the Land of Spring, as well as a tremendous number of dragons who were originally from Dragon World, the ne which had eventually be Hell.


    Just the Titans alone would be extremely powerful. Of course, the prerequisite was that I would have to convince them to be willing to help out first. The Titans were rather marginalized in Hell as they had been ckmailed by me into joining in the first ce. I would have to be careful so that they wouldn¡¯t turn on us and be our enemies instead.


    Over the past several years, the Titans had worked hard with their power over ¡°Creation¡±. The new dimension known as the Land of Spring was now developing quite steadily. The Titans had be the Guardian Gods of that newnd. In a way, this had forcibly tied them to the Hell Faction already. However, having them truly fight for our cause was more than what the original contract with them had asked for. Renegotiation would be necessary.


    Well, I only had to toss the problem and request over to Ayer. It would be his headache to deal with. It was such a great feeling to have someone else supporting you and taking the me for everything!


    Originally, there was also the worry about breaking the unwritten rules of the Holy War, but since the Holy Light Faction and Chaos Faction had both already started majorly interfering with the mortal ne, it was time for the Hell Faction to act as well.


    I casually enjoyed the sun as I sat outside a caf¨¦ and spent my time quite freely. I was also waiting for the Hell Gods toe to an ord. With Ayer personally getting involved, Hell¡¯s efficiency would likely be improved by 10 times, or even 100 times over.


    In less than half an hour, Ayer¡¯s low voice sounded in my ears again, perking up my spirits.


    ¡°It¡¯s time for the Hell Faction to show off its existence. The uing fight against the Undead Emperors will be the perfect stage. Rest assured and act as ridiculously as you like. I will personally take action.¡±

 Chapter 749 - Banquet

    <h4>Chapter 749: Banquet</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Mage Country¡¯s traitor was discovered three days after archmage Akama¡¯s assassination.


    The traitor was Trant Sodar, an archmage of dark witchcraft. He excelled in death summoning and rune creation. He onlycked a convincing research result which was sufficient enough for him to join the Truth Symposium.


    It was discovered that he was directly connected to the Chaos Abyss. He received orders from someone high up in the Chaos Abyss to murder hisrade, archmage Akama.


    I wasn¡¯t curious at all how the traitor had been discovered. The Mage Country had so many random mages with different specialties. Plus, Bardi¡¯s specialists had also been investigating. The assassin had also acted right under the watchful eye of the dragons. It would be strange for the assassin to have managed to escape discovery.


    Rather than cheat-like deductive ability like in detective stories which relied on science, all sorts of magic abilities and spells were of course far faster and more direct in being able to identify the culprit.


    Prophecy magic, star reading magic, lie detection magic, and so on. People in this world wouldn¡¯t care about human rights or evidence. Interrogation would only begin after catching and beating a suspect half to death. The suspect would also be force-fed hallucinogenic potions and truth potions and be interrogated while under hypnosis. Nobody would be able to refrain from telling the truth in such circumstances... unless they were capable ofmitting suicide first.


    Of course, such a method which only cared about efficiency would also result in many false usations. But in the current situation, finding the traitor at the quickest speed possible would definitely be the best way to assuage everyone.


    The information that I received was rtively simple. Basically, Trant had confessed that he had been allured by the Chaos Abyss and that he had ambushed archmage Akama.


    Indeed, it was possible for Trant to have killed prophecy archmage Akama in a single attack as Trant was abat magic specialist. However, this conclusion was still difficult to ept for most.


    Who was the true mastermind? Did Trant have other allies? There were many thoughts about such things, but the trail of clues had already been cut off. For the sake of not shaking everyone¡¯s morale, arge-scale investigation wouldn¡¯t be possible, as a major battle was uing.


    A side effect of this was that everyone would likely be highly on guard against each other from now on.


    Halent¡¯s request for reinforcements had been quite sessful. Reinforcements from all over kept arriving. However, from what I saw, not only did Halent view this battle against the Undead Emperors as an allied battle, he also viewed this as an opportunity to show off Bardi¡¯s international status and power.


    ¡°Look, these are Bardi¡¯s allies.¡±


    In a way, this was no longer a war. Rather, it had be a show instead. This was a major business performance that absolutely required a beautiful victory.


    Halent had used a huge amount of gold and resources to obtain concrete and powerful reinforcements from Bardi¡¯s allies. Whether this was a good deal or not could be calcted afterwards. At the very least, this current scene indeed seemed quite majestic.


    ¡°Nine members of the Truth Symposium came as Bardi¡¯s reinforcements? When counting Akama, that¡¯s a double-digit number. Wow...¡±


    10 years ago, there had only been 28 Truth Overseers of the Truth Symposium. As the Elemental Tide rose, in theory it would be the mage job ss that benefited more than any other job ss.


    Many topics of research which were only theoretical before had now be reality thanks to the Elemental Tide¡¯s activity. The result was that many archmages had gained much power as they became closer to gaining control over their own truth.


    The Truth Symposium now had 31 Truth Overseers. Although this number didn¡¯t seem like a big increase, there were actually 12 neers... Don¡¯t misunderstand. Mages weren¡¯t diators who always wanted to fight, and some Truth Overseers, not wanting the responsibility, had simply retired from their duties rather than died.


    The Truth Symposium was the greatest authority in the Mage Country. However, many mages were only interested in their personal research, so they viewed being a Truth Overseer as nothing but trouble. They preferred to use their free time on performing more research rather than boring governmental tasks. Although it was an opportunity to scam more research funding for themselves, overall it was still a bad deal for their time.


    Apart from archmages who had tremendous research expenditures, other archmages didn¡¯t value the position of Truth Overseer at all. They were naturally willing to give up their own positions as Truth Overseers to any junior who was willing to take on the job. In fact, many Truth Overseers even intentionally schemed so that their disciples or descendants would take over the duty for them.


    However, there were some things that everyone recognized. Arlodant, also known as the Mage Country, had more than doubled inbat strength over the past decade. The Mage Country had benefited immensely from the rise of the Elemental Tide.


    It wasn¡¯t only the top-level mages who increased in number. Originally, the mage job ss was the most difficult job ss to progress in power level for due to requiring control over the power of the elements, but after the Elemental Tide rose explosively, it became ridiculously easy for people to increase in power level as mages. In fact, there was even an abnormal instance when more than 100 mages improved in power level on the same day.


    Another effect of the explosive increase in the Elemental Tide was that many taboo or theoretical constructs in ancient texts and diagrams could now be created in reality. Alchemists and magical puppeteers were basically having celebratory parties on a daily basis. Summoners were summoning strange creatures from other dimensions which they were unable to handle. Even the taboo undead mages were increasing in power ever since Hell¡¯s establishment.


    The Mage Country was considered on par with other human mega empires to begin with. However, its territory was pitifully tiny inparison. The Mage Country¡¯sbat strength depended entirely on its mages. Now that the mages¡¯ power level had massively increased, naturally the country¡¯s power also massively increased as well. Saying that the Mage Country¡¯s power had doubled inparison to a decade ago was only a conservative estimate.


    Unfortunately, some things still hadn¡¯t changed. For instance, how the Mage Country had such a loose organizational structure...


    ording to current estimates, after the past decade of umtion, there were now more than 200 mages from the Mage Country who had achieved Truth emblem power level. However, there were less than 50 mages of such a power level whose contact information was known. It was likely that less than 30 of them would be willing to be sent out to fight. Additionally, the ones who were willing to fight would only do it as a favor or in exchange for some type of knowledge.


    With that being the situation, sending out 10 Truth Overseers at once along with several Truth level archmages who weren¡¯t Truth Overseers as reinforcements to Bardi counted as having sent out more than half of the Mage Country¡¯s highest-levelbat strength.


    ¡°The Mage Country is being so generous. Just what benefits did Halent promise to them? I doubt that it would be something like giving additional territory to the Mage Country. Territory is nothing but a burden for the Mage Country. Halent probably promised some type of ancient knowledge. Nothing ordinary would possibly lure so many old mages into all working together at once,¡± I muttered to myself while observing the archmages before me.


    Currently, I was at a banquet that Halent had organized for the reinforcements who were being treated as guests of honor.


    Due to certain events in the past, such as my acting ridiculously and arrogantly several times at the Truth Symposium... erm, I meant having friendly discussions with the Truth Symposium, many of the reinforcements were archmages who I knew already.


    Aloso, ice magic archmage from the Mystical de mage organization. He was truly a nice person, a rarity among archmages. He also had a big belly. He was currently licking a strawberry-vored ice cream bar, a specialty of Bardi¡¯s, with a serious expression... His face then reddened when he saw me. He turned his pudgy body around to face away from me as he lowered his head and continued to lick the ice cream bar.


    Am, who was Margaret¡¯s mage teacher. She was from the Star Revtion mage organization, and she always liked to pretend to be really young... ahem, I meant that Am was forever young and beautiful. Please, put back that monster you¡¯re hiding in the shadows!


    Meanwhile, an old archmage with a white beard I didn¡¯t recognize was smiling at me. He was even proudly pointing at the Truth emblem on his chest...


    ¡°Who are you? Stop acting so familiar with me.¡±


    ¡°Y-you... Rnd!! I¡¯m Kaid! I¡¯m earth magic archmage Kaid, your fellow ssmate for many years!¡±


    ¡°...Lolicon Kaid? You¡¯re still alive? Are you here to return the 100,000 gold coins that you owe me?¡±


    ¡°Of course I¡¯m still alive! I wouldn¡¯t die even if you became nothing but ashes! No, wait, it was clearly only 100 gold coins! No, wait, you were the one who owed me money! I was almost fooled by you! Aaah! You¡¯re doing this yet again! I¡¯m not a lolicon! There¡¯s nothing wrong with liking young girls! No, wait, I¡¯m not a pervert!¡±


    ¡°Such a familiar chain ofments. You really are lolicon Kaid, after all.¡±


    I sympathetically looked at the white-bearded old man, and then handed him a drink in a friendly manner.


    As he was getting older, he had said too much in one go, which caused him to constantly cough. He didn¡¯t notice that the other mages around him were silently backing away from him. It was likely that all little girls would be staying far away from him when Kaid returned to the Mage Country.


    ¡°Hah, hah, you do have a conscience, after all... Ptui, what is this!?¡±


    Kaid immediately copsed before he could say anything else. His face was really red and burning up as he copsed.


    I checked the tag on the drink I had handed to him. Oh, this was Dwarven Ent Wine? The wine famous for being able to defeat even dragons? Who left such a drink out at the banquet table?


    Kaid was now smiling mysteriously while lying on the floor and constantly grabbing at nothing in the air with his hands. Seeing how everyone else was looking at him with strange expressions, I felt that from tomorrow onwards, not only would young girls and misses stay far away from him, all women would be staying far away from him.


    ¡°Pitiful Kaid...¡±


    I made a cross on his chest as if praying for him.


    ¡°The most pitiful part about him is that he met you.¡± As always, Harloys¡¯ retort came just on time. However, she looked much different from usual today.


    Her pretty face had a happy smile. Her shiny silken smooth golden hair reached her waist. She was wearing a ck formal dress and golden moon earrings, a perfect match for her that made her seem noble yet mysterious.


    As she was the Elven Empress as well as a Truth level archmage, Harloys was naturally the center of attention. When considering how she was the diplomatic representative of the Elven Empire, she could only appear like this in public.


    Of course, people would take her more seriously only if she took on an adult form.


    For me, I only recognized some among the Truth level archmages who hade to Bardi. However, Harloys knew almost all of the archmages.


    It was quite simple for her to easily call out an archmage¡¯s nickname from their younger days, or mention embarrassing moments from their acolyte days without being too damaging to their face, causing ripples ofughter among the crowd.


    It was to be expected as Harloys had lived in the Mage Country by herself for so many years already. Now that she appeared to be really young, it helped her to soon get along with the archmages. Everyone eximed over her astonishing knowledge and connections. She was soon surrounded.


    Considering how most archmages had rather ¡°special¡± personalities, it was quite rare for them to all get along so well with someone.


    Actually, I was also quite well known in mage society. Not only was I a top-level undead mage and ice mage, I had also previously prophesized in public at the Cloud Tower about the danger of the Holy War, along with spreading the new technology of magical engineering. I had left the mages with a deep impression.


    As my prophecies were proved to be real, and as magical engineering proved its limitless potential, I was viewed as an astonishingly talented prophet and received the fame that I deserved.


    After I ¡°killed¡± Kaid, the archmages who had originally wanted to chat with me decided instead to wisely keep their distance... Sheesh, in this day and age, even a magical pet was more popr than her master.


    Even though this was such rare free time for me, I suddenly felt a headache when I heard a familiar young female voice speaking to me from behind my back.


    ¡°Father. Mother is inviting you toe over.¡±

 Chapter 750 - Your Majesty

    <h4>Chapter 750: Your Majesty</h4>


    ¡°Father. Mother is inviting you toe over.¡±


    I turned around to discover that Rosa of the wood spirits¡¯ Seven Virtues was looking right at me. Her small eyes contained unconcealed longing and tender feelings for me. Her cute face had a sincere smile.


    She really was so cute. If it weren¡¯t for the fact that it wasn¡¯t suitable for me to do such a thing in public, I would have already raised her high above my head and then brought out a lollipop.


    ¡°And then you¡¯d be treated the same as lolicon Kaid. Is that why you always carry snacks on you? For the purpose of luring young girls? You two really are alike as ssmates. Nothing more than fellow perverts.¡±


    Harloys even managed to make a perfect retort with this opportunity. Still, I felt that Kaid¡¯s unseemliness as he drunkenlyy on the ground was so pitiful. There wasn¡¯t even a single nice person around who was willing to drag him away from here?


    Am went over towards Kaid. She really was a nice person, as expected of Margaret¡¯s teacher... erm, why was she stepping on him? She was even stomping viciously on his face? Should I said that it was to be expected of Margaret¡¯s teacher?


    And then I could no longer bear to watch...


    Hey, hey, hey, be a little more respectable, Kaid. Why was he smiling mysteriously despite being stomped on? I¡¯d never noticed that he had such a preference before!


    ¡°Father?¡±


    The cutie Rosa behind me was frowning and pouting as if she was dissatisfied that I had forgotten about her.


    Actually, I hadn¡¯t forgotten about her at all. I was actually pretending not to see that my senior Amelia was ring at me from the corner.


    ¡°Cough, cough, Little Rosa, you should try this ice cream. It¡¯s strawberry ice cream with strawberries from Feen. It¡¯s a Bardi specialty. Do you see how that pudgy grandpa... er, pudgy uncle (I almost lowered my own status) is having so much fun eating the strawberry ice cream bars? He¡¯s already on his 15th. Ha, he¡¯s even licking the stick. Is the food at the Cloud Tower really that bad?¡±


    Mystint was ¡°slightly¡± loud, so probably ¡°nobody¡± heard it at all! I then saw to my ¡°surprise¡± that Aloso¡¯s face instantly became bright red... and then he instantly turned around and continued eating ice cream.


    However, he was unable to eat ice cream for long. The next instant, Am had a severe expression as she went over to the fatty mage who was losing face.


    ¡°Hahaha, he actually ran out of the room, and took the remaining five ice cream bars with him before he left, sheesh...¡±


    Seeing how shameless the archmages were acting, I felt like I was really respectable today.


    ¡°Rnd, how much longer are you going to pretend not to see me?¡±


    However, a familiar voice before me sent chills down my spine. I slowly turned around to see a familiar green color which was emanating such nostalgic anger.


    ¡°...Rnd, you¡¯d better go see a psychiatrist. You¡¯re bing more and more like lolicon Kaid.¡±


    ¡°Shut up, silly cat! Otherwise, I¡¯m going to make you transform into a little girl!¡±


    ¡°...You need to make it out of this alive first.¡±


    The silly cat retreated, maybe because she was afraid of losing face in front of her peers. Yet, I only had a bigger headache.


    I slowly turned around and put on my well-practiced Holy Knight smile. I scratched my head while managing to say, ¡°Senior, you look so beautiful today.¡±


    It would never be wrong to praise a well-dressed woman for being beautiful. Besides, this was no lie at all.


    Amelia wasn¡¯t wearing in clothing like usual. Today, she was wearing a light purple silken one-piece dress. Her pretty face was covered by a mysterious veil, making her seem serious and mysterious. Her originally naturally curly hair had been straightened and reached her waist.


    Unlike the other noblewomen attending this banquet, Amelia didn¡¯t have even one gold essory on her. She was wearing fresh flowers on her head, a vine around her arm, and a grass circlet around her bare feet, giving her attire a mystical and natural style.


    A pair of gold-rimmed eyesses helped to reduce her aura, making her stand out slightly less. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that no ordinary person was attending this banquet, someone probably would have long since tried to flirt with her.


    Today, Amelia seemed especially quiet and beautiful, as well as... slightly feminine? If I had to describe her, I would only be able to use the typical phrases such as calling her a Nature Goddess or fairy of the forest.


    But right now, this originally quiet fairy of the forest was quite angrily ring at me in dissatisfaction. However, she then smiled in the very next instant.


    ¡°Seeing how your praise is sincere, I¡¯ll forgive you for now.¡±


    Since when had Amelia been so quick to forgive? I asked her to go to the Nortnds, but then I skipped out on her, yet she was forgiving me so easily?


    ¡°Of course I wouldn¡¯t forgive you so easily. Promise me one thing.¡±


    I paused in surprise, but then silently nodded in agreement. This was more of what I expected. My senior would never be so understanding.


    ¡°...Rnd, I know several excellent psychiatrists. You really should consult with them.¡±


    ¡°Shut up, silly cat.¡±


    However, Ameliaughed. Unlike before, her smile was rather faint and difficult to understand.


    ¡°Come to the Forest of Dreams sometimes whenever you have the free time. Jill¡¯s already said many times ¡®Father has other children and doesn¡¯t love us anymore,¡¯ while Samantha¡¯s also been secretly looking at your picture and crying. Don¡¯t look at how those children are independent and speak harsh words. They actually really miss fatherly love. At the very least, you should visit them often.¡±


    Someone was tugging on my shirt. I lowered my head and saw that Rosa had a pitiful expression while trying to withstand her tears.


    ¡°I¡¯ll cry if you don¡¯t agree¡± was a wordless threat more powerful than any other.


    I was petrified at that moment...


    ¡°Father, responsibility...¡±


    I panicked, truly panicked...


    Amelia then straightened my shirt, came close to me, and gently brushed her red lips against my cheek.


    Amelia then immediately left together with Rosa. I was left in apletely confused and petrified state... while everyone also pointed at me.


    ¡°Rnd really is a pervert just like that Kaid. No, Rnd is even worse of a scumbag. His child¡¯s already so old, yet he¡¯s still ying around outside!¡±


    ¡®Auntie, you¡¯re an archmage, yet you really don¡¯t know what a wood spirit is? Could you please not say things that would make the situation worse?¡¯


    ¡°My angel Amelia! My eyes!¡±


    That fellow really was actually spitting up blood. It seemed like the legendary ¡°Angelic Amelia Support Club¡± would be issuing a bounty for my head yet again.


    ¡°My hands are burning! Burn this scumbag!¡±


    That was an ice magic archmage. Since when did he learn how to use fireballs? Using fireballs wasn¡¯t even the important part. He should at least try to avoid setting his sleeves on fire.


    ¡°Hahaha, Rnd, so this has happened to you today as well. You scumbag who always sets pitfalls for me, you deserve what¡¯s happening to you today!¡±


    This was... well, everyone else was only pointing and whispering, while he was openlyughing loudly and losing so much face as a mage. Of course, this was Kaid, who hadn¡¯t changed how foolish he was in the past 100 years.


    Kaid was currently shivering because Am had used a spell to summon rain and snow on him to make him sober up, yet he was still loudlyughing while pointing at me. He didn¡¯t notice how Am was already so angry that she was rolling up her sleeves right behind him...


    I felt that soon, due to all the face that the mages had lost today, Am would be suppressing all the other silly archmages with her fury and give them a new ss that they would be forced to attend¡ªmage diplomatic etiquette ss.


    ¡°...Amelia seems a bit different today,¡± I muttered as I watched her leave.


    But right after that...


    A tall white female elf rushed over and seemed to say something heated to Amelia.


    Amelia responded with something that didn¡¯t seem to satisfy the silver-haired Superior Elf. The elf then actually tried to pull on Amelia...


    *Boom!*


    Arge hole appeared in the floor. If I recalled right, this was the first floor, and underneath the floor was solid stone... If that female elf was still in one piece, she was probably buried underground already.


    Amelia took back her fist which was smoking as she viciously red all around her, getting rid of the curious gazes upon her.


    ¡°Your Majesty.¡± A male voice called out from behind me to excitement. I figured that only one person would likely address me like this.


    ¡°Lionheart? You¡¯re here?¡±


    I turned around and saw his familiar figure as I expected. The master of the ck knights was currently staring at me with an overly passionate gaze.


    Behind him was a short middle-aged man with a wretched appearance. I remembered who this man was. He was formerly the First Senator of Xiluo, the human form of the most shameless bone dragon of all, Gricasio.


    ¡°Thank you for your hard work. Please eat something here and take a rest.¡±


    I kept feeling like I had forgotten something as I asked the undead to eat... Wait a moment, Xiluo¡¯s representatives were here, so the female elf that had just been smashed underground... could she have been bone dragon queen Gria?


    I nced at therge hole in the floor as well as Amelia who was obviously still quite angry, and considered for two seconds what Gria might have said and the possibility that Amelia might direct her anger towards me. I then decided to wisely forget about Gria.


    Xiluo¡¯s undead army hade to Bardi with the identity of the Mist Alliance¡¯s reinforcements. The Mist Alliance had sent reinforcements because of Bardi¡¯s payment.


    There were actually two main portions to my previous undead army. One portion was the remainder of the Mist Kingdom, with Bastian and the Red Hunting Hounds as the main forces. After the battle of Hell, most of them had chosen to remain in and guard Hell. The remainder stayed in the Mist Kingdom or chose to reincarnate after the Battle of Hell.


    The other portion were my subordinates as Yongye. Harloys, Gricasio, Lionheart, Gria, and the Undead Senators were all examples of such.


    They all had their own lives and goals. Although they obeyed me and fought for my cause, they were different from my Red Hunting Hounds who were just like my family and retainers. I could make these undead subordinates of mine sacrifice themselves for my cause, but I would be unable to make them remain in Hell for my cause forever. Most of them had ended up with Xiluo of the Mist Alliance.


    Right now, even though only a few Undead Lords had arrived, nobody would understand the enemy better than they would.


    Of course, it was also correct to say that they were here to support me and give me face. They would be absolutely necessary in order to achieve my tactical objective.


    Lionheart, Gria, and Gricasio were the remaining Undead Lords from Xiluo. But, unlike Lionheart and Gria who werepletely loyal to me, Gricasio was definitely the strongest among them, but also the least reliable and trustworthy.


    Gricasio would still be alright when fighting a winning battle, but if he met with even the slightest bit of danger, he would either run away or surrender.


    Even though he had just arrived, not only did he not greet me, he was hiding in the back while nervously ncing all around him, acting as if he didn¡¯t feel safe because too many powerful individuals were here.


    Suddenly, Gricasio¡¯s expression changed as he shouted.


    ¡°Impossible! Impossible! Harloys, you, you, you actually... took that step!¡±


    This was yet another unexpected situation. Everyone naturally nced over at Harloys in the crowd because of Gricasio pointing at her.


    Lionheart also looked in that direction and instantly paused in surprise. After a while, he muttered something without realizing it. ¡°Your Majesty?¡±


    His words didn¡¯t contain the respect from before. He was referring to the only status in undead society which would be so venerated.


    ¡°Undead Emperor?¡±


    Someone who understood what was going on added that for rification. At this moment, the archmages who really understood what this meant all inhaled cold breaths. The circle of people that had originally been surrounding Harloys all instinctively backed away from her.


    Harloys was also surprised for a moment, but then she condescendingly nced at her old opponent who used to be ranked higher than her. She smiled proudly at Gricasio.


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯m an Undead Emperor now as well. This is the benefit of following the right boss... No, it¡¯s the benefit of warming the bed for the boss every night. Are you envious?¡±


    ¡®Harloys, I knew that you were quite proud about being able to show off in front of your old opponent, but what did you mean by thatst sentence? Why did you intentionally speak it in Amelia¡¯s direction? Aaah, she¡¯s ring at me! Silly cat, you want tomit indirect murder here!¡¯

 Chapter 751 - Secret Undercurrents

    <h4>Chapter 751: Secret Undercurrents</h4>


    What was an Undead Emperor?


    There was probably no need for me to repeat how difficult and inconceivable it was to be an Undead Emperor, nor would I need to repeat what this level represented. All of us Level 4s had gathered together already just for the sake of defeating two Undead Emperors.


    Although giving the most powerful individuals level categorizations was a rather foolish way of measuring their power, it would be impossible to assess the Undead Emperors¡¯ danger level without such level categorizations.


    Intelligent undead would revere Undead Emperors as the most venerated rulers of undead.


    It was supposed to be impossible for Undead Lords to reach the next level. Thus, Undead Emperors had all achieved the impossible.


    Of course, the most realistic of all was how ordinary people referred to Undead Emperors.


    Cmities.


    Apart from very few exceptions, every time a new Undead Emperor appeared in the mortal ne, that would be a cmity for all the living.


    Any new Undead Emperor would summon all Undead Lords in the area who had their own secret schemes, organizing a new undead army to attack the entire world with.


    After that would be a world war. This type of war was different from the Holy War. Fighting against an Undead Cmity was less severe, but it would affect a greater area. The losses would be astronomical if the Undead Cmity couldn¡¯t be stopped early.


    There were countless examples of this in the history books.


    The end result would typically be that the Undead Emperor was defeated. However, few Undead Emperors were directly killed. Most managed to escape to other nes. The Ice ne, Deathmist ne, and other such nes which were filled with negative energy that the living couldn¡¯t handle had gradually be nes for the undead.


    Were there Undead Emperors who didn¡¯t try to attack the living?


    ording to my knowledge, the only exceptions were some of the Undead Emperors from the Tark Republic as their situation was rather special, with no other exceptions at all...


    The reason for this was half because of the undead¡¯s status in the mortal ne, while also half because the undead would naturally be obsessive. Very few undead who had reached the peak would still have a normal personality.


    By the time that an Undead Emperor really appeared, the Undead Lords would have waited several decades or even centuries already. They definitely wouldn¡¯t pass up such an excellent opportunity.


    It was precisely because the Undead Emperors were the rulers of the undead, with the ability to gather Undead Lords under them, that they gained the title of ¡°Emperor¡±. That was why all undead would address them as ¡°Your Majesty¡±.


    In a way, the undead¡¯s veneration for Undead Emperors also reflected the endless irreconcble conflict between the living and the undead.


    The undead also desired salvation, their own country, and the existence of an Undead Emperor.


    Any Undead Emperor who appeared would automatically begin leading the undead in fighting against both the Order Gods and Chaos Evil Gods. The Undead Emperor would try and create a country for the undead.


    Although the Undead Emperors were nominally only Level 4, even a newly ascended Undead Emperor would still easily be able to beat a Low God. In any time that wasn¡¯t a period of Holy War, a new Undead Emperor would be so powerful that they could easily suppress normal Level 4s. Undead Emperors were just like demon kings who required a team of powerful individuals to take down.


    Every Undead Emperor¡¯s appearance would represent an escted conflict between the living and the undead, and that it was time for yet another harvest of the living¡¯s souls.


    The most recent Undead Emperor had appeared a bit more than a century ago. He had even defeated the Holy Church¡¯s allied armies and almost destroyed the entire mortal ne. In fact, even after he was defeated, his faction still remained intact, and sessfully established a country for the undead. This Undead Emperor ranked among the top of Undead Emperors in history... cough, I should probably refrain from mentioning more specifics as it wouldn¡¯t be humble of me to brag.


    ¡°I was so close! Next time, I¡¯ll definitely make the entire world into an undead world!¡±


    Actually, only the Undead Emperors themselves knew that this so-called ¡°almost¡± was really a practically insurmountable mountain.


    Unless the entire Order Faction and Chaos Faction were bothpletely defeated, it would be impossible for the entire mortal ne to only belong to the undead as that would mean that the Cycle of Reincarnation would havepletely lost its meaning. What meaning would there be in having a world that only had the unchanging undead?


    No Undead Emperor would be an idiot. They had realized such a maxim already after their defeats. Some were dejected and remained as hermits within their own Death nes. Some focused instead on their personal research and undead creation.


    But in a way, as long as undead still existed in the world, their unwillingness to die and previous grudges would produce more intelligent undead. Even viins needed someone to offer them salvation. The undead also needed their own ruler.


    Every Undead Cmity¡¯s threat level would depend on the particr new Undead Emperor¡¯s power level, but even more on how much time had passed since the previous Undead Cmity.


    To exin, the longer the time that had passed since the previous Undead Cmity, the more Undead Lords there would be. Each Undead Lord would represent their own army. Although these undead armies were of various sizes, umting them all together would be quite a frightening force.


    The Yongye Cmity had almost destroyed the mortal ne. Apart from Emperor Yongye being rather unique, it was also because the previous Undead Emperor before him had appeared more than 500 years ago. Too many undead had been umting since then.


    Although most Undead Emperors had been former humans, the ogres and elves had suffered the most from the Undead Cmities. That was because human history and lives weren¡¯t nearly as long inparison to the long-lived species...


    2000 years of history would be around 50 generations for humanity to learn about. However, the same amount of time was just one long story to the long-lived Superior Elves.


    The Superior Elves probably hated and feared seeing a new Undead Emperor appear more than anything...


    ¡°Undead Emperor? How can this be? The previous Undead Cmity was just slightly over a century ago.¡±


    Everyone¡¯s reactions were rather amusing. Some were afraid, some were on guard, and some even prepared to fight.


    Although Harloys revealing her power in order to dominate the initiative was one of our goals, I was still rather displeased to see how proud the silly cat was.


    ¡°Why did it be like this... For the first time ever, I had a pet as well as someone who truly understood me, ovepping these two types of happiness, which then brought along even more happiness, so I should have obtained a dreamlike bliss, yet why did things be like this... Even though I, I was clearly the first one... no matter if it was bing an Undead Emperor first, or being cursed at and feared first, or bing the center of attention... Alright, alright, I¡¯ll go out by myself without you all needing to beat me up.¡±


    I was no longer able to make up such rubbish anymore. Imitating the characters in White Album 2 was far too difficult for me. Anyone who enjoyed that trash anime deserved to be beaten to death.


    And seeing how Amelia looked right now, if things went on, she would probably soon try and kill Harloys.


    Things instantly became chaotic here, yet I actuallyughed.


    The current situation was actually quite good. Halent had summoned powerful individuals from various countries to ally together against two Undead Emperors. This was also Halent¡¯s way of showing off his own power and authority by showing his ability to gather such talent under hismand. Since he was the host and leader here, he would need to show concrete power on a higher level. Otherwise, his invisible status within this alliance would be lowered.


    The Undead Emperors were a threat for Bardi, but they were also an opportunity for Bardi to regain lost reputation and improve its status.


    Bardi¡¯s allies hadn¡¯t sent so many powerful individuals to do nothing here. In a way, this was our loose alliance¡¯s first allied military action. Authority would need to be supported by actual power andbat achievements. A mega empire¡¯s status would only be achieved through war, not words.


    Allies acting together was an opportunity for everyone to show off their own might.


    The Undead Lords from Xiluo wouldn¡¯t be able to assist much other than providing information on the undead. They would be at an absolute disadvantage against the Undead Emperors. They might even be a burden. Yet, I still insisted on theming here in order to show off the Mist Alliance¡¯s power.


    Originally, I hadn¡¯t understood why the Mage Country had sent such an extravagant group of archmages. Still, even Amelia had personally led her wood spirits, which was quite a good exnation of how things were.


    This was a silent and peacefulpetition. It was likely that we would have to fightrge-scale battles as alliester on in the Holy War. This first-time allied battle¡¯s results and power shown would directly influence future authority and the right tomand in this alliance. Nobody would be foolish enough to keep their best forces behind at such a time.


    It would be more convenient for all members of this alliance if they showed off their strength at this time for the sake of future internationalmunication, in order to avoid others thinking that they were weak and easily trampled over.


    Even And, which was involved in its own war, had sent troops as reinforcements to Bardi. It was just that And¡¯s ships were still en route.


    I knew that Halent would definitely have prepared some mega ace in order to awe everyone as the host. I was also confident that no matter what Halent brought out, it wouldn¡¯t attract anywhere near the amount of attention that I would. Harloys and I were two Undead Emperors whomanded several top-level Undead Lords. Not only that, this 2v2 sh of Undead Emperors was only the first card up my sleeve.


    As expected, Halent¡¯s expression became slightly strange when he heard that the Mist Alliance¡¯s Elven Empress had sessfully leveled up to be an Undead Emperor, but his expression was restored to the same typical faint smile in just an instant.


    10 years had passed already. Halent had previously been a pure military person, but now he had evolved into a good politician as well.


    Besides, Bardi absolutely couldn¡¯t afford to lose this battle against the two Undead Emperors after making such a grand show of everything by inviting so many allies. If Bardi still lost after this, not only would Bardi lose its citizens¡¯ expectations and concrete benefits, a loss would also severely damage Bardi¡¯s political clout in their capacity of a mega empire.


    ¡°Halent¡¯s still too na?ve. He¡¯s just like a young child who¡¯s in a hurry to show off a shiny new toy to his friends. Reputation isn¡¯t worth much at all. Bardi has such an incredible foundation that they don¡¯t even need to do anything. Their status is well known already. Why risk things in a gamble? If I was in Halent¡¯s position, I would quietly finish the war before doing anything so grand. Start doing things grandly after winning, and think of something else if there¡¯s another loss. The effects won¡¯t be worse at all.¡±


    ¡°Ha, you make it sound easy because you¡¯re only a bystander. It¡¯s actually all your fault,¡± Harloys said through soulmunication.


    I was rather surprised to hear this. How was this connected to me?


    ¡°Just think about how much pressure Halent must be under from you and the Mist Alliance making so much progress over the past few years. Back when Bardi allied with the Mist Alliance, Bardi was the big brother, while the Mist Alliance was only a remote backwater. What¡¯s the Mist Alliance like now? What¡¯s Bardi like now? Yes, it¡¯s really fun to surpass others, but the ones being surpassed won¡¯t have as much fun. As Halent is the leader of Bardi and Orloss¡¯s sessor, he has a heavy responsibility that someone like you who always shirks responsibility will never understand.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words were so logical that I was unable to counter them.


    Still, I felt more and more pessimistic about how there were so many powerful individuals gathered here.


    Right now, everyone was discussing the expectedbat results and how to divide the glory as if the Bardi¡¯s previous defeats against the Undead emperors had happened decades ago rather than just recently.


    Only Undead Emperors would know just how ridiculous other Undead Emperors were. Everyone here felt that they had won already? Weren¡¯t they underestimating the enemy a bit too much?


    There were no absolutes in the world. I had witnessed plenty of military forces that set out fully confident that they would win, only to bepletely defeated in the end.


    ¡°Perhaps I should find an excuse to stall a few days longer before heading out.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t say anything. With your jinxing abilities, I¡¯ll never ept being the first to go out on the frontlines.¡±


    Harloys was that confident in me? Er, I meantcked so much confidence in me? I was clearly quite confident this time!


    ¡°You¡¯re confident that something unexpected will happen?¡±


    Fine, she was correct in guessing that. Now then, what type of excuse should I find to remain behind for a few days?

 Chapter 752 - Main Character

    <h4>Chapter 752: Main Character</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Bardi, the Mist Alliance, And, and the Mage Country. These four mega empire-level factions were carrying out a joint military operation for the first time. This would doubtlessly attract a great deal of international attention.


    In a way, this alliance was now the second strongest faction in the mortal ne, so naturally its every movement would attract everyone¡¯s attention.


    That was right, only the second strongest. As long as the Holy Church didn¡¯t do something overly foolish, and the God of Holy Light remained alive, nobody else would possibly be the strongest faction in the mortal ne.


    Fairies were running around the banquet hall while carrying photography crystals. Everyone else carefully avoided these mystical paparazzi. Anyone who identally antagonized the fairy reporters would probably end up worse than when antagonizing a king.


    A king would at most put you in jail. Meanwhile, the fairies were everywhere, and would never rest at any hour of the day. They could easily ruin your reputation.


    The most famous and ridiculous such incident was about an unlucky noble who had antagonized the fairies.


    The fairies had reported how a certain powerful earl in San Antonio would casually ughter his own domain¡¯s citizens as he pleased. This earl got angry and banned all fairy news outposts and information exchange centers from his domain. After that, news started spreading that he was having an affair with his son-inw... that was right, son-inw. San Antonio¡¯s nobles felt that being bisexual was really cool.


    That was only the beginning. When the earl¡¯s furious daughter confronted him over his affair with her husband, a new report came out that the earl¡¯s daughter wasn¡¯t actually his at all. It turned out that the earl¡¯s wife had been cheating on him with one of her personal guard knights.


    This stunned both the earl and the daughter. They had lived for 30 years as father and daughter already without knowing that they weren¡¯t rted by blood, yet the fairies had still somehow discovered such information.


    The earl didn¡¯t even have the time to be happy (?) when even more astonishing news struck them.


    The fairies then reported how the daughter¡¯s really handsome and beardless husband was actually the earl¡¯s illegitimate son, whose mother was a maid as well as the earl¡¯s true love. Thus, the earl had been having an affair with his own son without realizing it.


    It was said that in the end, the earl, his daughter, and her husband all decided to be together as one family without regards to how wrong things were.


    This was too ridiculous to even be described by the phrase ¡°the powerful have messy lives¡±. This was messy to the point where I could barely handle it. At the time, I had responded without using a singlema to pause. ¡°These nobles have such messed up lifestyles that my eyes are being blinded so could you nobles please be a little more normal and care about basic morality because if you¡¯re like this I¡¯ll lose my confidence in humanity and it will affect world peace so that¡¯s no good...¡±


    Once this news started spreading, countless people reacted in a simr fashion to Rnd, either spitting out their drink or food. Normal people had once again underestimated theck of morals some people could have along with how messy noble lifestyles could be.


    Due to this incident, the royalty of every human country all banded together to pressure the fairies. Human rulers were no saints, and every ruler had done something before which they wouldn¡¯t want publicized.


    The fairies¡¯ actions made the human royalty start to panic.


    The end result was that the fairiespromised. They didn¡¯t have anybat strength of their own, after all. Even if the fairies would still be fine if they antagonized all human royalty everywhere, the fairies would no longer be able to continue their information trade.


    The conclusion was that the fairies normally wouldn¡¯t report on the royalty and nobles¡¯ private affairs. The fairies would first send their news reports to the local royalty for approval first, and only report after receiving approval... Did this all seem familiar? Yes, this was indeed quite simr to how certain countries back on Earth would censor the news and information.


    Of course, the fairies also received various benefits from this, such as credibility due to the local government¡¯s support and the permission to sell their magazines and newspapers everywhere.


    These mystical paparazzi were liked as well as hated and even feared.


    The fairies also knew that others didn¡¯t like them. They never cared about receiving recognition from others when gathering their information. This time, since so many powerful individuals from different countries had all gathered together, many fairies in charge of reporting on information in various countries had also gathered together.


    The fairies were used to powerful individuals ignoring or disliking them. However, what the fairies didn¡¯t expect was that this time, someone actually voluntarily invited them to report on something.


    Normally, a banquet such as this would be for everyone to interact a little with each other before dispersing and preparing for the uing battle.


    However, some people remained behind at my request after everyone else had left. Those remaining behind were the higher-ups of each country as well as powerful individuals who I felt were trustworthy enough.


    Since I also saw the fairies, I naturally invited them to report on everything. I was basically holding a press conference.


    ¡°...Since everyone here knows who I am already, I won¡¯t waste any words. Recently, I¡¯ve been running all over the world and even had two fights against a Chaos Main God. There were reasons for this. Maybe you all still feel that life is pretty good right now, and that we¡¯ll obtain victory in the end even if it¡¯s a little difficult. However, I¡¯m going to tell you that such a way of thinking is ridiculous. It¡¯s very possible that tomorrow will be the end of the world...¡±


    Actually, I never understood the main characters of video games and anime.


    Even though they clearly went through so many life-and-death experiences, sessfully unraveling the demon king¡¯s scheme to destroy the world, the hero would decide to challenge the demon king by themselves, risking their life to stop the demon king¡¯s final ns.


    Or, the hero would attack together with only a tiny party of allies, limited by an arbitrary head count, against the demon king. This sounded quite cool and moving, but when thinking about it more carefully, it would actually be incredibly foolish.


    Since the demon king wanted to destroy the world, why not publicize such information and have the military, police, and other professionals deal with things instead? Wouldn¡¯t that be far safer than risking your own life, and also more likely to seed?


    Why try and forcibly make the final battle against the demon king a duel or fight with only a few individuals?


    This world didn¡¯t belong to only one person. Since someone was suicidal enough to try and destroy the world, then it would be far wiser to let everyone know to target the demon king and use human-wave tactics instead.


    ¡°...I don¡¯t know what will happen if Karwenz destroys the dimensional barrier. You guys can imagine the rest by yourselves...¡±


    I brought out my prepared speech and told them the facts for more than half an hour. I started from when the Goddesses of Order and Chaos started their conflict with each other, all the way to Karwenz¡¯s foolishness and the clues about the Chaos Girls.


    In the past, many had described cmities as the end or destruction of the world, but usually, such a situation was only about having a new ruling species and new God dominate the world. This time, however, Eich truly would be finished if Karwenz aplished his goal.


    I swore on all this in the name of the Holy Light and also provided plenty of evidence. In addition, I brought up how prophecy archmage Akama had been immediately assassinated after arranging a time to meet with me.


    The more I said, the worse the kings and nobles¡¯ expressions became. I also heaved a sigh of relief to see their expressions change.


    Now that I had tossed the responsibility onto others, as long as they didn¡¯t want to die with the world, they would begin to voluntarily help me find, stop, and kill Karwenz.


    The fairies were also recording my press conference with their memory crystals. Soon, they would be spreading my information here through their channels to all over the world. At that time, Karwenz could finally experience what it would be like as the #1 public enemy of the world.


    Wanting to live was the most basic instinct of life. Anyone who was still sane would want to live. It would be quite difficult for them to agree with Karwenz¡¯s goal. Perhaps even Karwenz¡¯s ¡°allies¡± would soon be turning on him.


    ¡°Hmph, the main characters of video games and anime aren¡¯t that smart at all. My method is the correct and proper method.¡±


    Me, go into singlebat against Karwenz? I wasn¡¯t that bored with my life. I wasn¡¯t Karwenz¡¯s happy-go-lucky type of ¡°Having fun was the most important while the end results weren¡¯t important at all.¡± To me, after working so hard already, only the result was the most important. I felt that the end justified the means.


    ¡°Actually, if you change this story slightly, it really is just like a video game or anime. You see, Karwenz is the one fighting by himself against the world, which makes him the main character on the side of justice. Meanwhile, you¡¯re the one gathering countless subordinates to impede and attack him with strength of numbers, which makes you the demon king.¡±


    As always, Harloys¡¯ment was sharp and swift. It was truly difficult for me to counter her words. Every time this happened, I really missed her cat form.


    ¡°Meow? Cats are cute? You actually have a normal sense of beauty?¡±


    ¡°Yes, cats feel wonderful, especially when I curl a certain silly cat up into a ball and kick her away!¡±

 Chapter 753 - Public Enemy #1

    <h4>Chapter 753: Public Enemy #1</h4>


    I was likely already cklisted by all kings, nobles, and tribe leaders since I would only bring them bad news and prophecies about disaster every time I spoke up.


    Anyone who tried to counter my words or scorned me would always be proven by time and reality that they were the foolish ones.


    My Holy War prophecy, my Undead Cmity prophecy, my prophecy about the elves meeting the first demon wave... Well, perhaps it was rather strange to describe what I said as prophecies as I had simply analyzed the information I had and notified others so that they could make earlier preparations.


    But sometimes, people would really hate to hear the truth. There were people who would angrily reject others¡¯ words, but this wasn¡¯t always because of their own personal opinion. Sometimes, it would simply be due to loathing the person who spoke, or because the ¡°prophecy¡± had shattered their own expectations or affected their benefits.


    Thus, the majority of real prophets would only be able to choose between the gallows or being burned on a cross.


    Although it was likely that people would regret they hadn¡¯t listened to the prophet afterwards, and people might even make someone take responsibility for killing the prophet, what meaning would there be in it since the prophet was dead already and the cmity hade true?


    Actually, being able to give a warning by providing information beforehand was already the limit of what I could do as an individual. I felt that I was doing quite good already. I couldn¡¯t be expected to fight to the end against nation-level or world-level cmities by myself.


    Gathering information and nting seeds was my normal way of doing things. I would publicize information when it was necessary. I would also scam or fool others into doing what I wanted. That was also normal.


    In a way, I was quite lucky.


    Although my reputation was quite terrible since I was Emperor Yongye, a prophecy from a famous viin would still have more weight to it than a prophecy from someone unknown.


    I had given many prophecies in the past, always about misfortune. At first, people hadughed at me in disbelief. Afterwards, they only half doubted. Now, I was referred to as a ¡°damned jinxer¡±, and people would say ¡°let¡¯s hear who¡¯s the unlucky one this time¡±.


    My hard work hadn¡¯t gone to waste. Maybe my information support didn¡¯t seem very important to others, but only I knew just how much had already changed as I knew the game¡¯s history.


    My warning about the Holy War and the Chaos Abyss had managed to prevent the human kingdoms from acting against each other. The game¡¯s history had a catastrophic human internal war that never urred here.


    Due to my guidance as well as coincidence, the Underground¡¯s invasion had never urred, either. The entire Order Faction didn¡¯t suffer severe losses before the Holy War even started. This was a much better situation than in the game¡¯s history.


    And as the Holy War progressed, more and more powerful enemies appeared, making the future seem murky. The leaders of various countries all remembered my previous prophecies.


    Maybe the countries¡¯ leaders really disliked me, but at least they would listen to what I had to say.


    Bardi, the Mist Alliance, And, the wood spirits, and the Mage Country. All the leaders of these major countries and factions would give their recognition to the veracity of my prophecy. This would make Karwenz and his allies into public enemy #1 for the entire world.


    Benefits would cause war. War was also for the sake of benefits. But, what benefits could possibly be gained from joining Karwenz¡¯s side?


    Karwenz wanted to shatter the dimensional barrier. That would make the sealed off Eich universe¡¯s Cycle of Reincarnation and Holy Warpletely meaningless. The future for every single living being would be uncertain. Maybe this sounded nice, but it was well known that Eich had almost been destroyed by dimensional invaders from other universes at the beginning of Eich¡¯s history. Stories and fairy tales of such things still persisted even today. While such stories didn¡¯t mention what existed out there in other universes, they all mentioned the highly dangerous dimensional invaders who would try to destroy the world.


    Logic and knowledge were the most basic weapons of any mage. The mages found no meaning in even trying to y devil¡¯s advocate to support destroying the dimensional barrier.


    It was easy enough to hypothesize what was waiting for us in other universes.


    The most likely answer was that things were the same as Eich¡¯s immemorial generation, that ravenous existences were waiting to feast on this world.


    In that case, the entire mortal ne would suffer a tremendous cmity. As long as people managed to survive, Eich¡¯s natural cycle due to being sealed off would be shattered, and Eich¡¯s dimensions would be connected to the countless other dimensions and universes out there. This would be a good thing for the world of Eich. The sealed path of evolution would be reactivated, while science, magic, and civilization would all develop at an explosive rate.


    If people didn¡¯t manage to survive... well, it would likely be simr to Chaos Abyss levels which were dominated by demons. There would probably still be some survivors regardless, but what would the world be like? Would the surviving people be ves or food? That would all be unknown.


    But, no matter if Eich survived or not, ordinary humans who had no powers would likely suffer the most losses of all. Shattering the dimensional barrier would result in a natural cycle where the strong preyed on the weak. The most obvious result was that weak humans would be eliminated. I had no idea how many people would die, but those who died in thergest numbers would definitely be those who had no power and status to protect themselves.


    Of course, it was also possible that the other universes¡¯ ravenous existences had already left, and that there was nothing waiting beyond the dimensional barrier at all. That would mean that Karwenz had wasted his time and effort in trying to shatter the dimensional barrier.


    The dimensional barrier had been created by thebined power of the Goddesses of Order and Chaos. Theoretically speaking, no living being from Eich should have possibly been able to exit the Eich universe... Don¡¯t ask me how Beifeng managed to leave, as he had already aplished countless unimaginable things already.


    Still, my unreliable System informed me that she had created the dimensional barrier primarily to defend from outside threats, so leaving was highly difficult yet still possible, but reentry would be absolutely impossible.


    If Karwenz had had any information at all regarding what was outside the dimensional barrier, he likely would have shown it to me already in an effort to convince me.


    Right now, I couldn¡¯t understand what benefits Karwenz¡¯s allies could possibly stand to gain from helping Karwenz achieve his ultimate goal.


    That was right, I was only referring to Karwenz¡¯s allies. I could understand Karwenz¡¯s goal and that he had an unwavering will. However, what could he possibly offer to his subordinates and allies?


    A ticket to being safe from the world¡¯s destruction? I felt that it was more like a ticket to the world¡¯s destruction.


    A higher status or lots of money? Status and money would be meaningless when the entire world might be destroyed.


    More power? While that would be meaningful, didn¡¯t most people want more power in order to live a better life? Besides, would power gained from a Chaos Main God really be useful for helping them survive the potential destruction of the world?


    If nobody else was alive, what meaning would there be in having power?


    I really couldn¡¯t figure out just what Karwenz had promised to his allies. No matter what type of alliance it was, mutual benefits was an absolute. If one ally¡¯s goal was to ¡°kill¡± everyone, then this alliance would naturally be meaningless.


    It could be said that from the moment that Karwenz revealed and announced his goal, he had be the enemy of the entire world.


    When his allies had found out about his goal, all of them had already betrayed him. For instance, Sophocles the Deceiver was preparing an borate fatal trap for Karwenz.


    Karwenz¡¯s subordinates were probably quite shaken as well. Other thanplete insanity, I couldn¡¯t think of any reason to continue following Karwenz.


    Even though I usually preferred to be vague about my standpoints, in regards to this matter, I had to oppose Karwenz no matter what. It couldn¡¯t be helped even if this would end up with me personally having to kill my blood rtive.


    ¡°Is it worth it? Karwenz, you¡¯re still going to try and achieve your goal even if the entire world bes your enemy? Even if you destroy the world?¡±


    By the time that I finished the meeting with the other countries¡¯ leaders, everyone had a dark expression. It seemed like they all understood just how dangerous Karwenz was.


    I mentioned that I needed a prophet to help me locate Karwenz, so several powerful members of the Truth Symposium immediately agreed. Not only would they send out the best seers and prophets in teams, they would even use the Mage Country¡¯s stored God Equipment and the Cloud Tower¡¯s mana ocean in order to find Karwenz and unravel his scheme at any cost.


    The fairies immediately swore right then and there that for all of tomorrow, next week, and even next month, every single headline of theirs would be filled with this news so that the entire world could learn about Karwenz¡¯s wicked goal.


    Halent promised that the dragons would ce a great deal of importance on this matter and see it to the end.


    Of course, there was something even more practical. The aloof and arrogant powerful individuals from the dragons, mages, wood spirits, elves, and humans all promised me that due to the urgency of the situation, all that was needed was to notify them, and they would attack Karwenz with all their might.


    Did this sound like it wasn¡¯t much? This was somethingpletely different from how powerful individuals would typically only make a show of things on the battlefield.


    When powerful individuals from two different sides fought each other, there normally wouldn¡¯t be any deaths unless there was a special reason or arge difference between power levels.


    Anyone who had lived long enough would be a veteran. They would always hold back as long as the situation wasn¡¯t important. They wouldn¡¯t toss out forbidden spells, and they would only use shy techniques rather than practical ones. They would retreat when only at half mana or having used up half of their consumables. Nobody would try to hunt each other down, and everyone would simply return home.


    The most obvious and shameless example was how the Undead Emperors and Truth Symposium had been fighting each other. Both sides were top-level mages. More than 10 top-level mages had fought against the Undead Emperors for almost half a year already, yet there hadn¡¯t been any deaths at all amongst the top-level individuals. No matter how shy things seemed to be on the battlefield, not having deaths orbat achievements was already the best exnation of how things really were.


    But, Karwenz¡¯s goal getting achieved would mean that there was no longer any future. This gave the top-level individuals a reason to truly go all out. In that case, their power would be uncalctable.


    Originally, I was on the weaker side, but I had now received an incredible amount of support. The originally stronger Karwenz was gradually bing isted.


    As expected, the Cmity Rankings was updated on the very next morning. Karwenz hadn¡¯t been ranked highly before, as he didn¡¯t have manybat achievements in the mortal ne, but he instantly flew all the way to #1, finally discing the mega nightmare known as Beifeng who had monopolized the #1 spot for more than half a year.


    Still, I was in a bad mood as I carefully looked over the Cmity Rankings.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t your ranking go down by one thanks to this? Why aren¡¯t you happy? Could it be that you want to be ranked #1?¡± Harloys inquired.


    However, that wasn¡¯t it...


    ¡°Forget about still considering me to be dangerous and not removing me from the Cmity Rankings, and forget about not discussing things with me before giving me new nicknames. Why is it that Karwenz instantly gained a nickname like ¡®Chaos Destroyer of Worlds¡¯ while I gain strange new nicknames such as ¡®Cmity Prophet of the Night¡¯, ¡®Catastrophe Jinxer¡¯, and so on? Why am I getting such embarrassing nicknames?¡±

 Chapter 754 - Competing

    <h4>Chapter 754: Competing</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In stories about legends, the weather was typically nothing more than foreshadowing for the uing events.


    A sunny day would symbolize a hero¡¯s journey about to start. An ancient castle surrounded by dark clouds was the very symbol of an evil scheme. The climax would usually have some thunderps even if there were zero clouds in the sky.


    Reality wasn¡¯t anywhere near so dramatic. Major ughters usually urred in bright daylight because vision would be the best. True schemers typically lived in beautiful gardens. Not much usually went on when the weather was foul, as everyone would be holed up in their warm homes.


    However, sometimes mortals wouldn¡¯t have any choice in the matter. We met with the worst luck despite setting out highly motivated.


    Rain was quitemon when it was almost time for spring to change to summer. Bardi¡¯s rainy season was underway right now. We were currently heading for the location where Dragon Knight Emperor Halent had first gained power¡ªNightrain Fortress.


    Dark clouds covered the sky above us. A sudden torrential downpour paired with strong winds obstructed us from proceeding as well as ruined the visibility.


    We had left Bardi¡¯s capital one week ago. This ¡°allied army¡± with Bardi at the lead had grandly begun a second major campaign against the undead.


    The weather turned rather foul less than two days after we set out. The torrential downpours greatly slowed down the army¡¯s speed. The mages were unable to gather mysterious powers from the stars through the clouds. Our luck was truly terrible.


    Normally, knights and nobles would really care about their image, but militarymand was more important than anything on the battlefield. They were in great difort.


    The golden-armored warriors in the very front normally seemed quite majestic, appearing just like gold warriors under the sun¡¯s illumination.


    Their weapons were enhanced with adamantite and magically enchanted. The golden paint was actually a highly valuable adamantite coating that would allow the warriors to ignore any regr arrows.


    Their standard weapons were heavy spears which were almost two meters long, paired with a tower shield that was also coated in expensive adamantite. This equipment would also be magically enchanted by grandmasters.


    The spears would be enchanted with ¡°Sharpness¡± and ¡°Armor Pierce¡±. The solid tower shields would be enchanted with ¡°Resist Magic¡± and ¡°Sturdy Defense¡±. The spears¡¯ tips also had spiraling magic runes, while the tower shields had a lion and cross emblem which was a gift from Bardi¡¯s royal family. Just the worth of one spear and shield alone would be more than enough for a mercenary to work their entire life for.


    The ugly dragonhead helmet revealed only the eyes. Being covered in adamantite-coated armor all over meant that these warriors were even sturdier than mountain giants. This armor focused on practicality first and foremost. The only decoration on it was dragon scales, which could be used to block powerful impacts and stab attacks.


    These troops were known as Bardi¡¯s royal dragon knights. Although it was quite an ordinary name, this troop type had a long history that had continued through the ages.


    Although they were known as dragon knights, they were actually pure infantry. Their armor was so heavy that even trained young ground dragons would be unable to handle their weight.


    Being able to use such equipment meant that these warriors were strong enough and had enough of a power level on average. 10 years ago, this had been a scary group of warriors who were all at the peak of Gold.


    Another one of their roles could exin how special they were¡ªthey were one of Bardi¡¯s royal knight squadrons.


    Each country¡¯s royal knight squadron was typically the country¡¯s ace troop type and most well-known symbol. The royalty would keep a tight grasp on the royal knight squadron, who would act both as royal guards and the final sharpest de to fight against rebellion or external enemies. Bardi¡¯s strongest troop type was obviously the dragon knights. However, the royal dragon knights, who numbered 13,000, wouldn¡¯t fear even the real dragon knights.


    The royal dragon knights and dragon knights were just two out of three of Bardi¡¯s royal knight squadrons. And didn¡¯t have enough foundational power, so they were still constructing a new royal knight squadron. The Mist Alliance still had to use a mix of random troop types as the royal knight squadron. Meanwhile, the ancient empire Bardi had such foundational strength that their three major royal knight squadrons, ¡°Dragon King¡¯s Shield¡±, ¡°Bardi¡¯s Wings¡±, and ¡°Mn¡¯s Whip¡±, were all at the peak of human power in historical power as well as individual power.


    Yes, that was right, only the peak of humanity. Bardi had the dragon knights, after all. Comparing dragons¡¯ strength to humans¡¯ would be quite unfair.


    Still, the dragon knights were known as ¡°Bardi¡¯s Wings¡±, the leading royal knight squadron out of Bardi¡¯s three royal knight squadrons. Since the other two royal knight squadrons were able to equal it in status, reaching the point where the proud dragons wouldn¡¯t be displeased and challenge the others, it was already the best proof of the other two royal knight squadrons¡¯ power level.


    Humanity¡¯s advantage was in quantity and average bnce of power... so basically mass-production and standardization.


    Elven archers, mages, and so on would always have massively different personal traits and power types. The long years would help them all to learn their own specialties, and they would be better at fighting as individuals in gueri style warfare.


    Meanwhile, human warriors only had several years or a bit more than 10 years to develop at the most, but as long as they took a path that had been repeatedly proven before, their growth rate would be several times faster than that of any other species. Taking such a path would make human warriors¡¯ power be more simplisticpared to warriors from other species, but human warriors could utilize equipment which would make up for their weaknesses andplement their strengths. Since practical strength was everything on the battlefield, a human¡¯s power wouldn¡¯t be any worse than that of a 100-year-old warrior from another species.


    At the very least, even the dwarves¡¯ most elite braided warriors who were all over a century old wouldn¡¯t dare to forcefully charge at the royal dragon knights¡¯ formation.


    The royal dragon knights had outstanding attack and defense. They were all elite warriors who were chosen as one out of 10,000. These warriors were slow and heavy tanks that were impregnable machines of ughter if they were allowed to get within melee range.


    Standardized fighting techniques and cultivation shortcuts alongside specialized elite equipment and experience regarding strategies on using such a troop type. This was why humans were able to create standardized powerful troop types.


    Perhaps using the term ¡°mass-produced¡± would cheapen such troop types, so the word ¡°inheritance¡± would mean the same thing here.


    The alchemical techniques for creating the warriors¡¯ armor, applying adamantite, and countless other industrial and craftsmanship techniques would be umted in order to end up with the royal dragon knights¡¯ golden armor, silver horse armor, and cool spears.


    Meanwhile, martial art techniques andbat strategies¡¯ inheritance was even more obvious. Teachers would teach disciples in every generation, passing on the inheritance. Veteran knights would pass on theirbat experience and techniques that they were proudest of. They would also record their own thoughts about using their weapons. Anything worth standardizing would be popr. The juniors would then use the veterans¡¯ ¡°ultimate techniques¡± to learn as the very basics, and then develop new ¡°ultimate techniques¡± from that.


    As this inheritance was passed on through the generations, it was only natural that the royal dragon knights would be ever stronger.


    The longer the history of a knight squadron, the more powerful its inherited techniques would be. This wasn¡¯t because they would have some ancient secret technique, but rather because time and realbat would polish their originally rough techniques into exquisitely practical and wondrous techniques. Humans would have figured out all sorts of methods to help this path of cultivation already, choosing only the shortest and most efficient path.


    Those who hid away in forests and mountains to figure out their own techniques would usually have techniques that seemed beautiful but would never be as useful as iner techniques which had been well-used in the battlefield for thousands of times already.


    What was an inheritance? This was an inheritance. Every generation would learn, and every generation¡¯s juniors would keep making progress by stepping on their predecessors¡¯ shoulders. It was only natural that they would be stronger and stronger.


    It was said that the golden royal dragon knights¡¯ history was just as long as Bardi¡¯s. Every single member had a knight title which could be inherited. If any royal dragon knight died in the line of duty, their children would be able to choose to inherit the noble title and duty. It would be possible for one set of armor to be passed down through more than seven or eight generations, having experienced countless grandmasters¡¯ repairs and buff effects.


    The children of such families would know their duties from the moment they were born. They would train in the spear starting at three years old, and train in the tower shield starting at five years old. Only after undergoing countless processes of elimination would one finally be a passable golden royal dragon knight.


    A spear and shield, one for attack and one for defense. This seemed really simple, but really relied on true skills.


    Out of all the high-level troop types, the royal dragon knights probably had the least and simplest equipment of them all. Yet, the Bardi Mn family¡¯s ¡°Dragon King¡¯s Shield¡± royal dragon knights could be ranked in the top 10 of all human knight orders, no matter if it was in historical achievements or actual power level.


    In this current generation, the royal dragon knights even faintly seemed to have the potential to challenge Bardi¡¯s top-ranked knight order, the ¡°Bardi¡¯s Wings¡± dragon knights. Of course, that would only be the dragon knights from 10 years ago.


    Of Bardi¡¯s three major royal knight orders, the ¡°Bardi¡¯s Wings¡± dragon knights were royal guards in name only, and the ¡°Mn¡¯s Whip¡± cavalry focused on guarding the borders against foreign invasions, so they couldn¡¯t be withdrawn. Thus, only the ¡°Dragon King¡¯s Shield¡± royal dragon knights would guard the capital city and act as the emperor¡¯s most trusted ace.


    This time, it could be said that Halent was gambling everything he had.


    There were 13,000 royal dragon knights in total. 11,000 royal dragon knights hade with us on this anti-undead campaign, leaving behind only the oldest soldiers who were now teachers and the newest recruits who had less than three months of experience. Even fresh soldiers who had onlypleted the first year of training had been sent out on this campaign. This could basically be considered the full force.


    This heavy infantry squadron marched in formation without a single person speaking. All that could be heard was their heavy footsteps due to the heavy equipment they wore.


    ¡°Fight to the death and never retreat.¡±


    This was the royal dragon knights¡¯bat motto and style.


    To them, only retreat would cause their formation to be broken and expose their weakness. As long as they didn¡¯t retreat and their formation wasn¡¯t broken, even if one of them died, an ally would surely take revenge for them.


    Their orderly footsteps all mixed together in unison. This scary sound was ying thend as if a pack of Titans was silently proceeding forward. However, the royal dragon knights were the most pitiful of all right now due to their past training and strict military discipline.


    The sudden torrential downpour caused visibility to reach almost zero. These experienced warriors weren¡¯t confused by the rain at all. They persisted in maintaining their formation through the downpour. Not a single warrior panicked.


    Their superb armor was superbly heavy. They kept creating deep muddy pits as they walked, which must have been quite ufortable.


    If this was still tolerable, the next part was even worse.


    The rain was far too heavy. Water kept pouring into the armor through every crack and airhole. Since water filled up the inside of the armor, the excess water started pouring out from the cracks afterward... Yep, they seemed just like armored sprinklers who spouted water everywhere.


    ¡°I really want to give them background music, what should I do? For instance, the ssical Chinese song ¡®Good people will live blessed lives.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Bear with it. Otherwise, you¡¯ll be dragged out and beaten to death.¡±


    I didn¡¯t know what they were feeling right now, but I felt that it was already quite ufortable whenever my shoes were soaking wet. Just imagining having to wear heavy armor filled with water and then walking while maintaining formation without falling over sent chills down my spine.


    ¡°...Harloys, if I throw a piece of soap, or a banana peel in front of their formation, causing one or two to trip over, would that cause a chain reaction afterwards like with dominoes?¡±


    ¡°It wouldn¡¯t be of any use. Their shoes are all enchanted with ¡®Haste¡¯ and ¡®Anti-slip¡¯... but it¡¯s hard to say with howrge the rain is right now. You really could try. If they fall over, they probably wouldn¡¯t be able to get up right now. Dying to a banana peel is so amusing. It could be a headline for the fairies. Right, you can ask ¡®All-purpose Box¡¯ Johnny to teach you. His proudest personal spell is an AOE banana peel spell, which he modified from the ssic ¡®Oil Slip¡¯ spell.¡±


    Although I knew that mages would do more ridiculous things than anyone when they were bored, this archmage named Johnny must have had far too much free time to especially research such a spell.


    Unlike Bardi¡¯s military which cared about face more than anything, I was currently traveling with the Mage Country¡¯s mage team, drinking coffee while watching the troops outside march in the rain.


    In order to preserve the mages¡¯ unreliable stamina, it was an unwritten rule of the battlefield that no matter where, as long as the conditions permitted it, mages would always be transported in horse-drawn carriages.


    The rain was far too heavy. Visibility was almost nil, so the mages unhesitatingly all got into the horse-drawn carriages to watch everyone else trudge through the rain.


    I was already being quite respectable by only drinking coffee and chatting. Some mages were even ying cards, while others started performing what seemed like amazing magical experiments. There was even a space magic expertise archmage who simply vanished through a teleportation portal. There was also a summoner who summoned a horde of beasts and started having fun with the beasts... Although this performance was still rather normal, I felt a familiar sensation from this summoner. Perhaps this summoner was one of Beifeng¡¯s worshippers. Maybe we should secretly approach him from behind and drag him away to beat him to death.


    Military honor? Military discipline? Mages were ustomed to ignoring such things.


    If this procession only had Bardi soldiers, or perhaps only Bardi soldiers teamed up with the Mage Country¡¯s mages, then the Bardi royal dragon knights wouldn¡¯t have forced themselves like this.


    It was well known that vigorous exercise in the rain would likely lead to catching a cold. But sometimes, military persistence was about face, especially when all the allies werepeting with each other to show off.


    Not far away from the golden heavy infantry was another military force which was proceeding forward slowly.


    As if their colors were arranged to be in contrast to the golden heavy infantry, this group was silver-colored light cavalry. While Bardi¡¯s royal dragon knights went with the simplistic route for their equipment, that light cavalry¡¯s equipment was ridiculouslyplex.


    ¡°And is so rich. Their White Wolves squadron has changed out its equipment entirely.¡±


    The White Wolves squadron were And¡¯s royal knights, as well as And¡¯s ace that they ced their hopes on for surpassing other mega empires.


    Back in the day, the White Wolves¡¯ armor had been made out of mythril alloy. This was a light alloy that could provide stronger defense than even heavy armor. Mythril was also highly resistant to magic. Not only was the cavalry armor¡¯s design a top secret, even the mythril alloy¡¯s form was top secret in And.


    ¡°Yet you still managed to scam it for yourself.¡±


    ¡°Cough, cough, how could you call that scamming? It was simply militarymunication, ordinary militarymunication. How could that be referred to as scamming?¡±


    Back in the day, the White Wolves were equipped with explosive dragon spears, explosive javelins, and explosive swords. These were all high-quality alchemical products. The name made it obvious that these were explosive weapons. Every White Wolf warrior would be a moving explosives unit. This was the result of And¡¯s high skill level in alchemy.


    If the Bardi royal dragon knights were legendary warriors from ancient times, then the White Wolves would be a modern troop type that kept updating itself with the times.


    Compared to before, the White Wolves¡¯ equipment was far newer. Only a few knights riding in the front were still equipped with the long explosive dragon spears. The explosive javelins and explosive swords all seemedpletely different from before. Judging from the obvious Olivia¡¯s Magic Boxes, I could tell that magical engineering had influenced the new designs.


    Every single White Wolf warrior was equipped with at least three backpacks. There were obvious magical wavelengths emanating from these backpacks, so there was probably some new toy inside.


    Still, the greatest change was with their steeds.


    They had directly abandoned their powerful horse breeds from before. Every single warrior was actually equipped with an Iron Horse motorcycle. Although the White Wolves had been a troop type that relied on alchemical products and explosives to begin with, without needing to rely on the steed¡¯s power, it was still unexpected that they would be determined enough to directly abandon their original standard horses.


    The royal dragon knights proceeded in silence with heavy footsteps, while the White Wolf squadron was filled with the sound of motors.


    I wouldn¡¯t be so surprised if that was all there was to it.


    There were also iron turtles slowly proceeding in between all the Iron Horse motorcycles. Each iron turtle was about three meters long. They had five wheels of different sizes and thick iron armor to protect the fragile heavy artillery. Although the iron turtles¡¯ speed was really slow, I located at least four artillery openings on each iron turtle.


    ¡°These are actual tanks!¡±


    The design was quite rough, but I was quite certain that these iron turtles¡¯ design was simr to that of first-generation tanks from my original world. It was simply about putting heavy armor on an automobile so that the people inside could attack from safety.


    I wasn¡¯t bored enough to try and help others with ideas like this. Human wisdom couldn¡¯t be underestimated in any world. Thanks to the inspiration of Iron Horse motorcycle engines, others naturally managed to develop mechanical tanks on their own. Not to mention, tanks were still a usefulbat unit in this current generation.


    And¡¯s frighteningly powerful shipbuilding and alchemical industries were more than sufficient to transform any ridiculous concept into reality.


    There were many of these ¡°turtle tanks¡±. There was about one for every 10 knights. There were also horse-drawn carriages draggingrge objects covered in oil paper. I couldn¡¯t see what was inside, but I could guess that it was yet another powerful weapon.


    Bardi with its long inheritance that was also trying its best to keep up with the revolutionary times, and And, a nouveau riche which had grabbed on to the magical engineering revolution to rapidly develop. Both sides had long wanted topete with each other. Now, both sides¡¯ royal knight squadrons, representing honor for each side, had met each other, so they naturally startedpeting with each other.


    Even modern vehicles from my original world might still develop problems in adverse weather, not to mention And¡¯s inventions that were only prototypes. On the way, I witnessed three turtle tanks smoking to the point where they stopped moving. There were even more tanks which got caught in the mud. In the end, the White Wolf knights had to personally start dragging many of the tanks.


    Both sides remained silent, but it was obvious that they werepeting with each other to see who would be unable to take it anymore and ask to stop first.


    ¡°Military folk...¡±


    I could only helplessly shake my head. It wasn¡¯t convenient for me to deal with this, as I was only a guest. Since we were still far away from the battlefield, then I might as well let them y around.


    ¡°Honestly, they¡¯re adults already, yet they¡¯repeting like children. Wouldn¡¯t it be bad if the undead came at this time... Fine, Harloys, put down that eggnt, I¡¯ll shut up by myself.¡±


    ¡°Enemy ambush!¡±


    A ear-piercing shout shattered all the silence. I quietly took the eggnt from Harloys and stuffed it into my mouth...

 Chapter 755 - Silent Ambush

    <h4>Chapter 755: Silent Ambush</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°When fighting against the undead, especially against the Undead Cmity being led by Undead Lords, you can never follow the so-called mon sense¡± in war. The undead can easily ambush you at any unexpected time and location. Seas and rivers are natural camouge for the undead. Snow mountains that no living person could pass through are no obstacle at all for the undead. Even powerful sandstorms in the desert will only serve to obstruct the undead¡¯s enemies. Sigh, all of this is so correct.¡±


    ¡°Which military strategist said such a thing?¡± Harloys inquired.


    ¡°Yep, the amazing military strategist Rnd Mist. I was quoting myself from my 300 year old diary.¡±


    We were currently still in human territory. It seemed that not only were our movements exposed, the undead enemy had even prepared a trap for us.


    I could hear screaming right next to me. The mages who had taken off their clothes and shoes due to the rain were in a panic. It was understandable that others would be panicking since it obviously wouldn¡¯t be good to suddenly be ambushed by the enemy during a torrential downpour.


    However, only Harloys and myself continued to idly drink our coffee while chatting with each other. We had no intention of leaving thefortable horse-drawn carriage.


    This wasn¡¯t because we were that confident that we could remainpletely uninjured during an undead ambush. Rather, it was because we had already managed to determine the enemy¡¯s military strength since we were some of the few undead mages here.


    No matter how the undead had managed to fool our senses and the scouts, once the undead actually began their ambush, it would be impossible for them to conceal their forces anymore. It would be impossible for any low-level undead to hide from the soul senses of an Undead Emperor. Since high-level undead would be connected to the low-level undead through the soul in order to givemands, it was a basic ability for any Undead Emperor to have the ability to follow the trail and determine the enemy undead forces¡¯ overall power level.


    An Undead Lord would have to use their soul to givemands once a battle started. That would instantly reveal their position.


    Of course, the Undead Lord could choose to conceal themselves, but that would greatly reduce the undead army¡¯s attack power since nobody was controlling it.


    ¡°Six Undead Lords in total. Three are in the air, two are following behind, and only one is leading from the front. The undead number less than 20,000. More than 70% of them are skeletons and ghouls who have be undead only recently. Isn¡¯t it too obvious that this is only probing?¡±


    The undead¡¯s numbers would always be quite scary. Other species would be attacking with everything they had if they could manage an army of 100,000 or 1,000,000. Meanwhile, the undead could easily raise armies of several tens of millions.


    However, the tradeoff was that the undead¡¯s basic troop types were really weak. A skeleton sea without any mid-levelmanders would be nothing more than pure cannon fodder that could only be used for trying to decrease the enemy¡¯s stamina and mana. It would take more than 10x the numbers advantage for a skeleton sea to be able to defeat another species¡¯ army.


    ¡°...The rain¡¯s affected your senses after all. There¡¯s still one more underground.¡±


    I chuckled to hear Harloys saying this. I had sensed that Undead Lord long ago, but hadn¡¯t counted it as an enemy.


    ¡°That¡¯s probably an undead tunnel spider or something simr. Although burying itself and waiting for someone toe above it for an ambush is a fine strategy, I think this spider¡¯s luck wasn¡¯t very good...¡±


    Harloys doubtingly continued to sense around the spider when she heard my words. She then gave a subtle sigh.


    The undead spider had hidden itself underground not far away from us, at a ce where the royal dragon knights had just marched over. The pit that the undead tunnel spider had dug was filled inpletely by the soldiers¡¯ stomps. Moreover, rain and mud had filled in the pit, followed by the steamroller-like knights¡¯ march. The spider Undead Lord was likelypletely trapped underground now.


    Howe we knew all of this?


    ¡°Such a cowardly junior. He actually started shouting to save him before the fight even began.¡±


    I could sense his shouting through the undead¡¯s special soulmunication wavelengths. This Undead Lord tunnel spider was pitifully shouting to be rescued after beingpacted into the ground. He probably hadn¡¯t expected that digging a pit to hide himself in would result in a steamroller knight formation marching over him. Not only that, he had to wait for his undead allies to surround the humans first, so he could only bear the pain of countless knights marching on top of his head.


    His feelings were probably quiteplex at that time.


    Even though a battle had started, we were still having an easy time.


    The rain was far too heavy. The sound of rain crashing into the ground could be heard everywhere. Apart from the asional explosions, I couldn¡¯t even hear the sounds of weapons shing ormanders shouting that should have been present there.


    The rain was so heavy that it obscured all vision and sound. Commanders couldn¡¯t be relied on at such a time, as their orders couldn¡¯t be heard. Each individual soldier¡¯s skill level would be the most important here.


    In a way, it was quite lucky that our enemy here was the undead. This meant it was quite easy to differentiate enemy from ally. Otherwise, friendly fire would have been quite possible. Then again, an enemy that wasn¡¯t undead wouldn¡¯t have chosen such a time tomence their attack.


    With visibility and hearing so seriously affected by the rain, anymand system would be useless. Even the most well-organized army would still be reduced to individuals fighting for themselves.


    Meanwhile, most undead didn¡¯t need to use the five senses to sense the world around them. Theirmand system used soulmunication, which wouldn¡¯t be affected by the torrential downpour at all.


    I could sense that the royal dragon knights on the frontline were already shing with the undead army. However, the torrential downpour blocked off all of my senses. I would have to either get closer to ascertain the situation or passively wait for the results.


    The ¡°soundless¡± battle was ongoing. Inside the luxurious horse-drawn carriage that we were in, the archmages all nced at each other but decided to sit down in the end. Not a single one of us decided to set out by themselves to support the battle.


    A torrential downpour would be quite difficult for mages as well. The mage might make a mistake with spellcasting movements. Most critical of all was that since the mage¡¯s senses were greatly impeded, the mage would be in far more danger of dying from an unexpected attack.


    Worrying about assassins during the rain was one thing, but the foundational reason was that the mages didn¡¯t want to risk their lives for the sake of the Bardi Empire.


    Every country would have their own way of using mages, but in normal situations, the mages weren¡¯t part of the military. Even if a mage was nominally in charge of leading an army, an actual military officer would still be assigned to the army.


    Only when magical assistance was necessary would the military issue a request for help. This illustrated who held the upper hand in this rtionship.


    The mages and I were both guest armies. Attacking without the main force requesting us to would break the unwritten rules of allied warfare.


    It would likely take a personal invitation from Bardi to have these archmages attack right now. However, Bardi hadn¡¯t sent anyone here at all. It was likely that Bardi Emperor Halent didn¡¯t want to lose face by having to ask his allies to help right now.


    The chaotic battle outside continued. I was still doing my best to sense the situation outside, while the archmages continued ying around with what they had been doing previously.


    But this time, they obediently put on their mage robes and picked up their staves, preparing for possiblebat at any moment.


    ¡°An Undead Lord has died.¡±


    I suddenly sensed that a gargoyle Undead Lord in the sky was no longer alive after a magical explosion.


    ¡°Dragonbreath? It¡¯s just a bunch of skeletons, yet Bardi has already sent out multiple dragon knights?¡±


    I was rather worried as I looked at the torrential downpour outside. If it was no coincidence that the undead had chosen such a time to ambush us, there likely was a big problem of some sort after all.

 Chapter 756 - Sarcasm

    <h4>Chapter 756: Sarcasm</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Even though it was clearly the afternoon, it was stillpletely dark outside. A human warrior was dying every second. The royal dragon knights¡¯ and White Wolves¡¯bat strength would be seriously affected in such a situation.


    ¡°Something is wrong with this rain.¡±


    The first person to approach me was that familiar shameless former ssmate of mine, Kaid.


    Although I was allied with the Mage Country, I hadn¡¯t interacted much with the Cloud Tower for the past century, so I was still a bit distant from the mages of the new generation. As for the older archmages, most of them were far too sly, and preferred to think rather than act. They would be capable of sitting down together for several months without saying a single word as long as there was no need.


    Kaid probably seemed really old¡ªfine, he definitely seemed really old¡ªbut apart from his shameless personality, he really was an excellent candidate to soften up the prickly archmages. It was really convenient to have a friendly senior who was easy to get along with.


    And now, Kaid was also my mediator with the mages from the Truth Symposium.


    As for Harloys? Who was that? The tall elf who was happilyughing at the archmages¡¯ ttery wasn¡¯t my cat at all!


    Ahem, getting back on topic, although Harloys and I were both Undead Emperors, why was she so respected and weed while I was quietly forgotten in the corner?


    ¡°This? How about beauty? It¡¯s your fault for not being a girl or a pretty gay boy. Who would surround a stinky man?¡±


    Alright, Kaid, you actually dared to speak the truth? You¡¯d better watch out for my petty revenge against you.


    Although we were continuing to chat quite casually, we reached an ord regarding the current situation. No matter if this torrential downpour was coincidental or intentionally caused by a high-level mage, this rain was far too detrimental for the human side.


    I still highly doubted that such an undead army would be able to annihte our allied forces, but suffering too many losses right from the onset would be too great a blow to the morale.


    ¡°Is there any way to dispel this rain? Maybe a water magic archmage?¡± I asked, but unsurprisingly only saw a head shaking in reply.


    Mages would have their limits. Summoning a patch of clouds for rainfall wouldn¡¯t be that difficult. This would only require a water magic archmage or high-level druid.


    However, such clouds constructed out of the water element would also be quite easy to dispel. Those clouds also wouldn¡¯t have much rainfall.


    Trying to cancel out major rainfall which already existed was something which broke the fundamental naturalws since this was an already existing natural phenomenon. Trying to delete or erase a natural phenomenon would be the equivalent of trying to fight against nature itself and the order of the world.


    ¡°There¡¯s not enough time.¡±


    As high-level mages, we would have methods to deal with any cmity, but any forbidden spell or ritual magic would require time to prepare. Right now, there wasn¡¯t enough time for such things.


    I could sense that lives were being lost every second. These were elite human soldiers among the elites. They would probably feel quite aggrieved dying to ordinary skeleton cannon fodder.


    ¡°Masters, His Majesty requests that all of you help dispel the rain!¡±


    Finally, a messenger from Halent arrived, even if he was ratherte. Still, nobody had the heart to me the messenger after seeing that he was covered in blood.


    The mages had already begun preparing before he even arrived.


    ¡°Use fire magic which is countered by water magic?¡±


    ¡°Do you think that our side isn¡¯t dying fast enough?¡±


    ¡°Maybe we should try the opposite of what¡¯s expected, and use ice magic, a branch of water magic. We should try to freeze the rain!¡±


    ¡°That would just transform the rain into icicle shards or a blizzard, you know? You¡¯re such a genius, increasing the weather¡¯s attack power against our own side.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s just directly use earth magic to create a wall to block the rain... Fine, I¡¯ll shut up.¡±


    Sometimes, it would also be a problem to have too many mages since one idea would immediately be rejected by the others. If there were only a few archmages around, the final n would likely be whoever simply acted first.


    ¡°If only there was an Anti-holy Knight here.¡±


    ¡°Are you stupid? They can only dispel magic and divine power. How are they supposed to dispel a natural phenomenon?¡±


    I shook my head as these mages couldn¡¯t be relied upon. If this was a normal time, then I would really enjoy letting them debate and seeing what n they would finallye up with.


    Waiting around would also help to discover what aces our allies had. I was actually quite curious why Halent was so confident that he could suppress all the others and take the leadership.


    But right now, I could sense that someone strong was observing us from high up in the sky. If the undead found that their probing attack was effective, then this attack would transform into an all-out attack.


    ¡°...So an Undead Emperor has arrived? Such a fluctuating and impatient magical wavelength actually belongs to an Undead Emperor? Is this ¡®Undead Wizard¡¯ Shupnus of the Deathmist ne?¡±


    The restless power of death was active in the darkness. Various chains of death were being created. Even Shupnus himself probably hadn¡¯t expected that his probing attack would be so effective. Shupnus was currently summoning his personal undead army. If thebat situation continued to favor the undead so much, then Shupnus wouldunch an all-out attack.


    That would be an undead army numbering in the millions. If Shupnus sent his entire army, then the battle would be utterly chaotic, and it would be necessary to win as quickly as possible.


    If such a chaotic battle erupted, then having individually powerful mages like us wouldn¡¯t be that meaningful. Large AOE forbidden spells wouldn¡¯t be usable at all, as there was nowhere to cast them, so our only use would be to gang up on the Undead Emperor... which was such a terrible idea that I gave up immediately.


    ¡°Holy Light, your enemy is right in front of me, so I shall grant you the properties of Cleansing and Purity. Please protect me!¡±


    The archmages all had looks of astonishment as I sped my hands together and sincerely prayed to the Holy Light.


    Faint wings of light suddenly shed into existence on my back.


    I then directly stepped off the luxurious horse-drawn carriage and tossed myself into battle.


    ¡°Did you hear? He really was summoning Holy Light?¡±


    ¡°That light is so blinding. He¡¯s actually a real Holy Knight!¡±


    It was likely that most mages would find it inconceivable how an undead magic expert like me could also cultivate Holy Light. I was intentionally performing in front of them. As for my objective... I would reveal it when the time was right...


    ¡°The Holy Church is going to suffer misfortune yet again?¡±


    Harloys managed to guess my objective really quickly. I couldn¡¯t even understand how she had done so.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you always try to be a burden on the Holy Church whenever you do something with Holy Light?¡±


    I was rendered speechless. In a way, this was indeed true. Every time I made progress on the path of Holy Light, it would cause the Holy Church¡¯s authority to diminish.


    This was probably myst time trying to make trouble for the Holy Church... I wasn¡¯t trying to raise a death g here, as it was rather that there would be no more need to cause trouble for the Holy Church if I seeded this time.


    Everything before me was still pitch-ck. The rain was so heavy that it actually hurt as it fell on my body. The human warriors must have been working quite hard to persist and fight in such weather.


    I took a deep breath and half kneeled in the mud while extending my palms. My shining Dawn magic sword suddenly appeared in midair as glimmering Holy Light slowly burned upon it, making it seem like a beacon in the darkness.


    ¡°Holy Light, I praise you, for you bring hope to those lost in the darkness and give them guidance...¡±


    Although I was muttering prayers filled with praise and respect for the Holy Light, I wasn¡¯t praising the God of Holy Light like a normal Holy Light priest was. Instead, I was speaking my ownprehension and gratitude of Holy Light.


    That¡¯s right, my gratitude. It couldn¡¯t be denied how important Holy Light¡¯s blessing and Holy Light job ss members had been as humans went from weak to strong, from barbarians living in wastnds to ruling over the entire world.


    Holy Light provided a light in the darkness and brought order to this chaotd. Of course I was grateful to it.


    As I prayed, my Dawn Holy Light sword gradually rose up into the air like a rising sun.


    Back when I used Dawn against Sophocles the Deceiver, Dawn had been in its light-gathering form, but now Dawn was in its light-spreading form, simr to a lighthouse.


    At this moment, everyone on the battlefield stopped for a second, undead and humans included. They all instinctively looked in this direction since it seemed like a new sun was slowly rising.


    Pure Holy Light, thispletely new type of Holy Light, was now showing off its true form in front of the world for the first time ever.


    The intelligent undead and Undead Lords all started furiously retreating when they discovered that this ¡°sun¡± was actually emanating Holy Light. They couldn¡¯t understand why this Holy Light could illuminate the entire battlefield when Holy Light was clearly supposed to have a short range.


    They then discovered that this Holy Light wasn¡¯t as scary as they had expected. This Holy Light didn¡¯t directly burn them like normal. Instead, it actually felt warm andfortable, making them want to soak in it some more...


    ¡°Wait a moment, something¡¯s wrong. We can actually sense warmth?¡±


    At this moment, the intelligent undead noticed that something was wrong with the situation. This Holy Light filled with positive energy wasn¡¯t directly harming them, but it was gradually corroding and erasing their negative energy.


    Compared to the original Holy Light, the pure Holy Light was far weaker in attack power. However, even the strongest Holy Light priest in the world would only be capable of covering an area of a few hundred meters in Holy Light, while this sun of pure Holy Light illuminated the entire battlefield.


    The human warriors also felt warmed. They also discovered that their injuries were actually healing gradually, and as they fought the undead, they also noticed to their delight that the undead were bing weaker.


    This was abat strategy that I had especially prepared for major battlefields. My Dawn sword would buff creatures of Order in a megarge AOE while debuffing demons and undead in a simrly megarge AOE.


    This pure Holy Light wouldn¡¯t have powerful attack strength, but the pure Holy Light would have very little consumption, unlike original Holy Light which was only good for one round of explosive attacks. This lighthouse could be lit indefinitely, so as long as the battlested long enough, even the Undead Lords would be weakened and ignited.


    Of course, using this ability also had a downside...


    ¡°Kill him!¡±


    Furious soulnguage echoed everywhere. At this moment, all undead, no matter if they were lowly zombies and skeletons or Abominations and bone dragons, focused only on me.


    Their originally lifeless eyes suddenly be ignited with soulfire as every single undead targeted me.


    What surprised me was that I also heard cries of pain from the clouds. The pure Holy Light was actually dispelling the dark clouds and rain!


    The pure Holy Light had the power to cleanse the power of Chaos. This scene was obviously unnatural, which led to only one possible conclusion.


    ¡°All of these clouds are actually part of an undead¡¯s physical body? Is this the true body of an Undead Emperor? How fun.¡±


    My mood wasn¡¯t nearly as jubnt as it appeared. While ying a video game, a person would at most be able to taunt an entire screen of monsters. However, I had taunted the entire battlefield. Others would taunt one or two monsters at a time, while I had taunted several hundred thousand... and not only that, I had no tanks to block the enemy for me.


    I hesitated for a moment, but decided in the end to maintain this Holy Light sun as it was providing highly important illumination and support for the entire battlefield on top of debuffing the enemy leaders. This would be a battle of attrition to see whosted longer.


    I trusted that others would block the undead for me since I had shown my usefulness.


    What if others failed to block the undead for me? That was actually quite easy to deal with. If I was surrounded, then I would turn off my taunt ability and run away...


    ¡°Halent, have your people help protect me, otherwise I might just run at any moment!¡±


    Harloys transmitted those words to Halent for me. If we won and he mentioned this to me afterwards, I would never admit what I had said.


    And if we lost? I would have run away already, so what meaning would there be in admitting what I said?

 Chapter 757 - Victory

    <h4>Chapter 757: Victory</h4>


    There were two types of people on the battlefield who would suddenly use an ultimate ability without saying anything.


    The first type would be foolish newbies. They would want to be the center of attention, which would naturally result in their deaths in the very next moment.


    The other type would be veterans who would run away right after acting pretentious... ahem, I meant who were confident and strong enough to suppress the entire battle after a disy of their skills.


    Dawn¡¯s Holy Light illuminated the entire battlefield. My tactical weapon that I had especially prepared for the cruel Holy War had a strong buff effect, long duration, low consumption, and many other benefits. Although the debuff was only effective against the demons and undead, this was quite eptable whenpared to Dawn¡¯s strengths. The only real weakness was probably...


    ¡°...It¡¯s a little too good at taunting the entire battlefield.¡±


    The first to arrive before me was a bone dragon and two small squadrons of gargoyles. Bardi¡¯s dragon knights and griffin knights had been unable to block every single aerial undead troop.


    If this had been in the past, I would have required some time to deal with such a level of opponent, but now...


    ¡°Holy Light.¡±


    I praised the Holy Light in a low voice, causing the hovering Dawn sword to glimmer with even more blinding Holy Light. But this time, the Holy Light was gathering rather than spreading.


    One, two, ten, 100 streaks of Holy Light flew through the sky. The undead flying didn¡¯t even notice that they had been attacked until after they were destroyed.


    Although I needed to maintain my Holy Light sword Dawn, this didn¡¯t mean that I would be defenseless.


    I controlled the beams of light with my hands. Every movement of mine caused a beam of light to shoot towards an undead target.


    These beams of light were highly effective. Every single beam targeted a high-level flying undead.


    ¡°Towers 1 through 71! Ready, aim, fire!¡±


    Dawn created Holy Light turrets which made all this seem like a tower defense game. Combat was as easy as needing to click. The turrets¡¯ attack speed was far faster than the undead¡¯s reaction speed. All the targeted flying undead were directly sent crashing into the ground.


    The beams of light formed a of Holy Light as golden explosions kept urring in the sky, making the most beautiful fireworks. There was no space at all to pass through the turret fire.


    This was probably the easiest battle that I had ever experienced. I instantly killed several hundred high-level undead in just an instant. Even though the results were wonderful, I didn¡¯t intend on hunting the undead to the end.


    ¡°This uses up far too much energy...¡±


    In just 30 seconds, I had created 312 turrets of Holy Light, resulting in 1/3 of my Dawn sword¡¯s Holy Light being used up. If I did this two more times, then Dawn¡¯s light would immediately be extinguished.


    In a way, Dawn was also a part of my body. I also felt slightly weakened after using up 1/3 of its total Holy Light.


    Still, I had achieved my objective.


    The first wave of undead attacking me had been eradicated. The human side had also gained precious time from this.


    A thorny forest had been raised in front of me as Piranha nt warriors crawled out from within. The royal dragon knights and dragon knights were both protectively surrounding me.


    The slowly rising Holy Light sun dispelled all darkness. It was my understanding of Chaos and search for Holy Light that made me create this Dawn sword as the natural enemy of all Chaos.


    ¡°Pure Holy Light, please grant me the strength to dispel this darkness.¡±


    I half kneeled and prayed devoutly in a self-hypnotizing method to strengthen my connection to the Holy Light. The Elemental Tide in the area began to roil and furiously gather even more light.


    Meanwhile, the Holy Light sun in the sky began to glow yet again.


    ¡°...Isn¡¯t this too ridiculous? His Holy Light capacity and affinity are far more than the pope¡¯s.¡±


    It was quite understandable why I had been referred to as the God of Holy Light¡¯s illegitimate child back in the day. My outrageous affinity for Holy Light had evolved to its utmost thanks to the additional support of my Arbiter¡¯s angel bloodline.


    ¡°Holy Light, how is this possible...¡±


    ¡°Desecrator.¡±


    At this moment, even the most devout worshipper of the God of Holy Light would doubt their own belief.


    I spread open my wings of light from my War Angel form, causing countless amounts of light to gather on my wings at a speed visible to the naked eye. My elemental affinity for gathering Holy Light had far surpassed even the highest-level angel.


    Someone that the Holy Church treated as an evil heretic was actually such a powerful user of Holy Light? This made the Holy Church¡¯s teachings about how ¡°The God of Holy Light will grant power to only the most devout worshippers¡± into nothing more than a joke.


    ¡°Why does his method of using Holy Light seem so much like using magic...¡±


    ¡°Stop making things up. Do you want to be judged as a heretic?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no mistaking it. He¡¯s controlling Holy Light with the same method to control the elements.¡±


    ¡°He didn¡¯t pray or utter any religious praise. He didn¡¯t even connect to divine power...¡±


    I could easily hear the archmages discussing my Holy Light show with each other. Now that I had disyed my method of using Holy Light at such a close distance to them, they would likely look at Holy Light from a new angle in the future.


    This was exactly what I wanted.


    The rain suddenly stopped as the clouds in the sky began to distort, as if they were afraid of my pure Holy Light.


    ¡°Rnd!¡±


    The screaming clouds transformed into a gigantic undead face that cast a shadow over the entire battlefield. This face was rather familiar to me.


    ¡°Shupnus?¡±


    I could sense that Shupnus was an incredible master of water magic, which wasn¡¯t in my information about him at all. It would seem that this Undead Emperor had hidden much about himself which was worthy of researching.


    As for Shupnus hating me? It wasn¡¯t like there would be a lot fewer who hated me without him.


    Unlike what the information on Shupnus¡¯s personality suggested, he didn¡¯t rashly rush at me in a fit of anger. The low number of undead here wouldn¡¯t possibly be a match for the human allied army after the heavy rainfall and darkness favoring the undead had been dispelled.


    Shupnus red at me onest time and then retracted the clouds while flying off into the distance. He had retreated.


    The high-level undead also unhesitatingly began retreating, while the low-level undead cannon fodder were left on the battlefield without anyone to care about them. In fact, the low-level undead were forced to use their utmost strength to cover the intelligent undead¡¯s retreat.


    This was why Undead Cmities would always repeat themselves. It would be meaningless to only y some undead cannon fodder as long as the high-level undead and Undead Lords weren¡¯t eradicated. Yet, more than 90% of an undead army would consist of cannon fodder.


    Judging from the results, the human side had obtained a glorious victory... But based on everyone¡¯s serious expressions, not a single person would think that this was a glorious victory.


    The undead had attacked with a force that was less than 10% the size of the human allied army and still seeded in causing a great number of injuries and deaths. Injured warriors were moaning in pain and shouting for help everywhere on the battlefield even now.


    This had given a good impact to the arrogant humans that an Undead Cmity would never be easy to deal with. Even if the humans were superior in average power level, this was no hiking trip or vacation. Being careless would still lead to total annihtion.


    Meanwhile, all the archmages surrounded me. I could pretty much guess what they wanted to ask.


    I thus brought out a book that I had personally wrote. This was a book that the fairies would be publishing for me starting next month. This book¡¯s title and contents would surely shake the entire world.


    ¡°It¡¯s Time to Get off the Divine Altars ¨C the True Nature of Holy Light.¡±


    Perhaps this would indeed be my final attempt to steal believers from the Holy Church, since if the God of Holy Light lost enough worshippers to no longer be a God, there would naturally be no more need to steal any more worshippers from him.

 Chapter 758 - Protection

    <h4>Chapter 758: Protection</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°A transmigrator should at least try to invent something like ss in order to get rich. They should try to giarize some poems to be an epic poet in the new world. Or, at the very least, they should giarize some novels and be a literary great master in the new world.¡±


    Back in the day, maybe because I wanted to improve my financial condition, or maybe it was my way of being sardonic towards this strange fate, I really did try to do some things that I felt a transmigrator should do.


    However, it was proved that some things worked only in stories meant only for fun. Those ideas weren¡¯t reliable at all in real life.


    Indeed, Eich¡¯s technology was only at a primitive Middle Ages levelpared to my original world. However, Eich had magic and alchemy. Engineering here didn¡¯t seem very scientific at all, but it was more than enough to deal with daily necessities of life.


    I tried my very best to create something simr to ss, only to be informed that alchemists had invented something of much higher quality more than 1,000 years ago, which gave me a severe impact.


    As for charcoal, binocrs, how to create salt, how to smelt iron, concrete, soap, and other such inventions or knowledge which would be great to have in a different world... I had studiedw as my major, so I had long since forgotten all my sses on chemistry and physics. It would be far too much to expect that I could even remember the forms.


    Sometimes, I felt it really was quite strange how transmigrators in other novels had managed to remember such information. Even if you were an engineer, you wouldn¡¯t remember the most basic and useless knowledge, would you? I brushed my teeth every day in my original world, but I didn¡¯t know how to create toothpaste. Would you remember to bring a periodic table of the elements and forms on how to create useful goods with you when you transmigrated?


    As for writing poems? That was even more unreliable. Not only was thenguage in this world different, the poems were in apletely different style.


    The only usable idea was to giarize stories from Earth, which would be quite useful for making some money when you were poor... Fine, I admit that my ie was only part of the reason, and that the main reason was because of my own interests and wanting to bring something to this world since I had happened to transmigrate.


    Perhaps I should have been grateful that I was Chinese in my past life as China was probably one of the least religious nations on Earth. Yet, the Chinese also had their own beliefs.


    The Chinese believed in respecting their ancestors and cultural inheritance. The Confucian school of thought believed in morals,w, that the heavens were watching, and that good would be rewarded while evil would be punished. These beliefs weren¡¯t about worshipping any specific God, but they also made aplete belief system of their own.


    That was why it was impossible for me to truly be a devout worshipper of the God of Holy Light after transmigration as I hadn¡¯t been religious in my past life. No, I should instead say that I couldn¡¯t possibly be the same as natives of Eich in trusting my body, future, and soul to anyone else, even if that existence was a venerated God.


    Even when I was being called the ¡°Child of Holy Light¡±, I still only maintained a certain amount of respect for the God of Holy Light, just like I would with an elder. To the me that just transmigrated to Eich, the God of Holy Light was merely a hero whose grand aplishments I had heard of rather than a God I worshipped.


    Karn, the God of Holy Light. His birthdate was unknown. He was a grand existence who had dedicated himself to the salvation of all humanity. He had fought for the sake of the entire human species¡¯ safety.


    Karn had started with the basic Concept of Light and searched until he managed to discover Holy Light, which had the ability to dispel Chaos.


    However, Karn then ascended to be the God of Holy Light, taking Holy Light with him to the heavens and far away from the mortal ne, making it so that all who wanted the power of Holy Light would have to worship him in order to obtain it.


    I praised Karn¡¯s grand aplishments and sacrifice, but was unable to agree with his final decision at all.


    Worship was the farthest distance possible from the truth. Once someone ascended to Godhood and was treated as divine, then they would no longer be able to change. In that case, the practicality and functions would both greatly decrease.


    ¡°It¡¯s as you all guessed. Holy Light is just another type of energy or element.¡±


    I smiled as I exposed the true nature of Holy Light to all the archmages around me.


    Perhaps others had suspected the same thing in the past. However, anyone who said such a thing would either be treated as insane or executed by the Holy Church. Anyone who attempted such experiments in secret and managed to escape from the Holy Church and the world¡¯s notice had failed to obtain any convincing results.


    However, I was different.


    Holy Light was indeed a type of energy and element. However, Holy Light was an incredibly unique element as it was artificially created rather than a natural one. Using normal elemental theory to try and control Holy Light wouldn¡¯t possibly work at all.


    Praying to the God of Holy Light was about establishing a connection to his divine power server.


    Paying mana and energy was the equivalent of paying the necessary cost to maintain an inte connection.


    The God of Holy Light granting his power was the equivalent of your delivery arriving... erm, I meant the sessful summoning of Holy Light.


    No wonder the God of Holy Light was so powerful. He had basically monopolized an entire industry as he had total control of giving all Holy Light users the power of Holy Light. This was also why the God of Holy Light had managed to strip Estrada of the ability to use Holy Light back in the ins of Bardi. It was the equivalent of a yer getting his game ount banned on the game server.


    In a normal situation, this would have been fine.


    However, the God of Holy Light had already lost his sense of self. It would be impossible for him to be flexible orpromise. Thus, Holy Light would also stop changing in even the slightest, and if anything unexpected happened to the God of Holy Light... Maybe that sounded ridiculous, but this was indeed highly likely ording to my calctions.


    If the divine power server stopped working, then all user ounts would lose their connections... That would mean that all Holy Light users would lose the power to use Holy Light!


    This was something incredibly scary to even consider. It would have been barely tolerable if monopolization had only affected everyone¡¯s progress with Holy Light, but monopolization also meant that Holy Light would be finished if anything happened to the God of Holy Light. That was really uneptable.


    ¡°It¡¯s not impossible to summon Holy Light using magic. It requires a special secret technique to do so, which I¡¯ve written down in this book. This book will be published next month... no, wait, in order to avoid trouble (from the Holy Church), I think I¡¯ll start selling it tomorrow. If you¡¯re unable to instantly summon Holy Light, please familiarize yourself with the Southern Sect¡¯s teachings on the pure Holy Light. If you still can¡¯t understand, we also have a spare Holy Light divine power server, and you can use the old method by calling out to Estrada, the Holy Light Pir God of Hell. Yep, the Estrada that you¡¯re thinking of, my teacher who¡¯s now a Hell God.¡±


    I gave out all this information to the archmages and higher-ups of other countries. Two old priests immediately fainted on the spot, while everyone else looked at me as if I was insane.


    ¡°You really are insane. Even if this is all true, you¡¯re making aplete break from the Holy Church at this time?¡±


    However, Iughed because this timing was exactly what I wanted.


    After I made the ¡°traitors¡¯ alliance¡± with the Holy Church, the Holy Church had suffered a great blow to their reputation and influence due to having abandoned San Antonio. It could be said that the Holy Church¡¯s reputation was currently at its lowest point in all of history, so of course I should take revenge at this time by spreading salt on their wound... er, I meant that the Holy Church was my most irond ally!


    That was right, we were allies, and we had agreed that I wouldn¡¯t give the Holy Church any trouble over the matter of San Antonio, which I indeed wasn¡¯t doing. All I had done was exhibit my personal research result, which was just slightly different from the Holy Church¡¯s academic definition of Holy Light, and perhaps it would slightly affect religion.


    ¡°...Aren¡¯t religious differences the #1 cause of wars and death in history?¡±


    If this had been some other time, I would have been worried that the Holy Church would give me trouble, but currently the Holy Church was busy extricating itself from San Antonio. Even if the Holy Church noticed what I just did, they would probably just pretend to have seen nothing, although they would then pay me back afterwards... Still, I was already ustomed to this as this had always been our typical allied rtionship of mutual backstabbing.


    My attack against the Holy Church¡¯s teachings here was quite a vicious one. Still, it wouldn¡¯t shake the Holy Church¡¯s foundation within a short amount of time, since most of the Holy Church¡¯s believers weremoners, and they definitely wouldn¡¯t be able to ept a new religious teaching about the Holy Light so quickly.


    But as long as my revtion about Holy Light started spreading everywhere, it would be impossible for the Holy Church to stop this.


    Rather than backstabbing the Holy Church, this truly was pouring salt on their wounds.


    Although this was rather underhanded, this would be extremely beneficial to the entire world.


    It wasn¡¯t that the Holy Church losing religious authority was a good thing, but rather that this would simply improve Holy Light in a technological manner. Having to pray like a priest in order to summon Holy Light was far too wasteful and extravagant when every single bit ofbat strength was extremely necessary in this Holy War.


    ¡°These are the Holy Light magic spells that I¡¯ve invented. Yep, that¡¯s right, Holy Light can be categorized as a magic system of its own. Mages are capable of studying and controlling Holy Light magic.¡±


    ording to the Holy Church¡¯s teachings, it was impossible for mages to directly control Holy Light. However, it was indeed possible for others to use pure Holy Light. The most obvious evidence of this was how the Southern Sect¡¯s priests and Holy Knights didn¡¯t have any direct connection whatsoever with the God of Holy Light.


    I had also organized the Southern Sect¡¯s research results about pure Holy Light to create all of these Holy Light magic spells.


    This seemingly thick book that I handed out only contained three Holy Light magic spells¡¯ forms and principles, but they included all of the most fundamental principles and applications.


    The first spell was Holy Light Arrow, which was a simple Holy Light magic attack.


    The second spell was Holy Light Shield, which could enchant any armor or shield with ayer of Holy Light.


    The third spell was Weak Holy Light Healing, which required no exnation, as it was simply a healing spell.


    Although these spells were really simple, they provided a direction to the research of Holy Light and its practical applications. This book actually contained a brand-new branch of magic. It was quite amusing to imagine Holy Light specialty archmages appearing in the future.


    ¡°Amusing? Don¡¯t you mean scary?¡±


    The archmages were no idiots. They all realized what this meant after their temporary shock wore off.


    Meanwhile, anyone that I looked at would avert their gaze from me or even shamelessly turn around, or pretend that they were suddenly interested in the ants on the ground.


    These seemed like just some basic magic spells, but the archmages researching them would be capable of creating an entire new magic school just by modifying the current three Holy Light magic spells and borrowing from forms in other types of magic. It really would be quite simple to make several dozen more Holy Light magic spells.


    Mages would consider it great glory and wouldn¡¯t be able to stop their own curiosity from developing new magic spells. However, the prerequisite for this was that they could survive the Holy Church¡¯s enmity.


    ¡°Useless men.¡±


    Am from the Star Revtion mage organization used a long-range spell to catch my book and carefully ce it in her mage robe as she made such a remark with displeasure.


    I heaved a sigh of relief as Star Revtion was one of the most powerful mage organizations in the Cloud Tower.


    The mages wouldn¡¯t be able to suppress their greed for new knowledge. Once Holy Light became a magic school of its own, then not only would it be advantageous against undead and demons, countless new mages of the future would choose to study Holy Light magic for the sake of the always necessary healing magic.


    After that, alchemy and engineering would also get involved as they were deeply connected with modern magic as well. Holy Light explosives, Holy Light mechas, and so on were quite cool to even imagine.


    The inventions wouldn¡¯t stop after the tide began. The pressure of the Holy War would only cause new inventions to arrive even quicker.


    If Olivia¡¯s Magic Box counted as the first industrial revolution in this generation, then my rather small booklet on Holy Light magic would likely cause a second industrial revolution and give Holy Light a brand-new definition.


    I wouldn¡¯t have known when I could finally show the world this Holy Light magic book of mine if it weren¡¯t for the Holy Church suffering so much in San Antonio.


    ¡°I can finally tell Estrada...¡±


    I sighed and rubbed my hands together while feeling like my heart was much lighter for some reason.


    In the end, all of this had been thanks to Estrada bing the Hell Pir God of Holy Light so that Holy Light could finally have a new private server which would finally allow this to be possible.


    ¡°Holy Light requires salvation, which is why Estrada had to...¡±


    1I couldn¡¯t help but suddenly recall the countless sighs of Holy Knights upon thisnd as they were abandoned by the God that they had believed in when they finally chose to believe in the path they chose in their hearts.


    ¡°Holy Light should be used for protection.¡±

 Chapter 759 - Third Party

    <h4>Chapter 759: Third Party</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Some things would require time to prove and spread.


    Holy Light had dispelled the clouds. The undead retreated as suddenly as they had arrived.


    Since the clouds and rain disappeared, the warriors finally noticed that a bright and sunny sky was now above them.


    Even though the battle had been quite fierce, the short duration of the battle meant that it was only an appetizer in this war.


    Yet, this battle had left countless scars behind.


    ¡°The total number of dead, injured, and missing is more than 4,500. The royal dragon knights lost 129 of their members, while the White Wolves lost approximately 400. Of the dragon knights, Leishe was killed in action, while the young green dragon Soteshe was injured.¡±


    Morale was quite low as everyone had suffered such a heavy blow without even a major direct confrontation.


    Obviously, it was natural for there to be losses in any battle. However, it was difficult to ept only one side having such massive losses. The undead had lost nothing more than some low-level cannon fodder, while a significant number of human elites and even a dragon knight had died.


    By the way, it should be mentioned that the heroic dragon knight had forcibly fought in the sky despite the torrential downpour. He had killed one gargoyle before mysteriously falling down from the sky. Thinking back on it, it was highly likely that Undead Emperor Shupnus had ambushed him while still being disguised as the clouds.


    It would be impossible to conceal thebat situation as everyone here was a veteran who could easily see for themselves.


    While ordinary soldiers would be confused when facing a situation like this, the high-ranking leaders would feel so bad that they would want to spit blood. They wouldn¡¯t be able to ept such a blow to their morale, as the elites had been given such a blow before the proper battle even started.


    Everyone hade here to defeat the undead, full of fighting spirit, but suffered a serious impact before even reaching the frontlines.


    However, this was a good thing for me.


    It wasn¡¯t that I was really happy to see the human allied army suffering losses, but rather that I was analyzing things from my own standpoint. The current situation was actually better than I had expected, with the losses being within eptable limits.


    It would be quite simple when thinking about it from the enemy¡¯s point of view.


    If I was Shupnus, I definitely wouldn¡¯t have used an ace like his cloud body so quickly.


    I would first use cannon fodder to attract the humans¡¯ attention and intentionally lose several times in order to make the humans overconfident while secretly gathering an undead army to set a trap for the humans. Only then would I use such an ace for the final battle.


    Rather than a few hundred thousand low-level cannon fodder skeletons, if it was all the elites of the Death nes that came instead during such a dark day with a torrential downpour... then the losses would have been uncalctable.


    A surprise ace would be wasted if it didn¡¯t obtain enough results on the first time that it was used.


    I doubted that any Undead Emperor, even Shupnus, would be so limited in tactical acumen. Still, his ambush here really did feel ill-nned...


    ¡°It¡¯s as if he was watching and felt like there was a small advantage to take, so he immediately gathered bandits to steal things. As an Undead Emperor, he¡¯s far toocking in foresight.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ opinion was the same as mine. We exchanged nces and instantly realized that we hade to the same conclusion.


    ¡°There¡¯s only one possible exnation. There must be internal conflicts amongst the undead. Shupnus must be unable to control the situation, so there was a problem with the forces at hismand.¡±


    The undead enemy was in internal conflict, even though they had just obtained a nice big victory?


    This seemed inconceivable, but was actually highly possible.


    Although the five Undead Emperors were allied with each other, there was an obvious difference in power level and status between them. Shupnus and Anina, the two Undead Emperors who wanted to war with humans, were the two youngest and weakest of the five Undead Emperors. Sandro and the Undead General, the two most veteran Undead Emperors, had full control of the Dimensional Door. Meanwhile, the fifth Undead Emperor was rtively neutral, and nobody knew where he was or what he was doing currently.


    The Undead General was an incredibly rare warrior-type Undead Emperor. He had a really special rtionship with Aso. The Undead General¡¯s current goal was to target the ogres that he had an incredibly deep grudge against.


    Sandro had a good secret rtionship with me. The Tark Republic reestablishment n was secretly ongoing in the Nortnds, so Sandro was probably the person who least wanted to see the current situation.


    Sandro¡¯s Tark Republic reestablishment n would either be ruined or majorly inhibited if the undead and living¡¯s conflict became even fiercer. Sandro wouldn¡¯t be able to wait around if he couldn¡¯t establish the foundation of a revived Tark Republic during this Holy War, even if I could wait.


    Someone like Sandro wouldn¡¯t easily change their mind aftering to a decision. In that case, he definitely wouldn¡¯t allow Shupnus and Anina to continue acting as they pleased.


    Still, it wasn¡¯t likely that Sandro would directly attack the other Undead Emperors. However, it would be quite easy for him to tamper with the undead army.


    Give a reason for the tampering? The undead army would go together with the Undead General to fight against the ogres for the sake of revenge for the Tark Republic. What an excellent excuse this would make as it would gain the support and understanding of the intelligent undead as well as the full support of the undead who already hated the ogres.


    As long as Sandro and the Undead General controlled the Dimensional Door, they would be able to siphon away most of the undead army. Any Undead Emperor who didn¡¯t have an endless Undead Cmity wouldn¡¯t be able to achieve as much.


    ¡°I need information...¡±


    The human allied army had made a temporary camp to stop and bury the dead. The squires were busy with the actual burial work, while the priests and apothecaries treated the injured, and the generals held endless strategic meetings.


    What could they even possibly discuss? Retreat would be impossible. They would of course me each other and try to avoid responsibility, and then keep arguing and finally reach the conclusion that they should proceed, albeit more carefully.


    I couldn¡¯t be bothered to watch a bunch of muscr goris argue with each other, as I knew they wouldn¡¯t possiblye up with any results, so I gave them an excuse not to have to go.


    I then notified Harloys and directly left the campground.


    After leaving the camp, I took out a magic book and casually uttered an incantation, causing a ghost carriage to swiftly arrive before me in a swirl of ck mist.


    Death mist swirled around me as I walked. By the time that I got on the carriage, I was a lich enveloped in death mist instead of a living person.


    I used some illusion magicbined with the true power of death. I was confident that I would be able to fool any undead at Undead Lord or below as long as I didn¡¯t meet an Undead Emperor.


    ¡°I should pay a visit to the world of the undead that I haven¡¯t seen for so long.¡±


    Asolivis was the city where the undead gathered. This was a location which had formerly been on the frontlines of battle. An overwhelming amount of the power of death forever enveloped this city. This was the first stop where countless undead from the Death nes would arrive at in the mortal ne. The Dimensional Doors connected to the six major Death nes would never stop working for even a moment.


    In the past, this had always been a forbidden zone for the living, but many visitors had arrived here today.


    Even though Shupnus should have been quite happy to receive reinforcements, he was actually quite angry because of the painful injuries on the skin which kept reminding him of the Holy Knight that he met not long ago.


    Shupnus had transformed himself into the form of clouds. That made himpletely invulnerable to physical attacks, but it also meant that his fragile soul was no longer protected by a physical body. The injuries he received from the Holy Light caused him to experience extreme pain, a sensation that he hadn¡¯t experienced for several millennia already.


    Yet, Shupnus currently had to act supremely self-confident because these visitors were just like wolves who might turn on him at any moment.


    Still, Shupnus had no other choice right now.


    The senior Undead Emperors that he had thought of as his irond allies had betrayed him. He was basically the only one left to deal with this rotten situation. If he missed this opportunity, he would likely only be able to retreat in defeat back to the Death nes.


    ¡°Venerated ruler of devils, we agree to your conditions. Now, please open up a dimensional portal connected to the Chaos Abyss.¡±

 Chapter 760 - New Enemy

    <h4>Chapter 760: New Enemy</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The friend of a friend might not necessarily be your friend, but the enemy of an enemy would easily be your ally.


    The current situation proved this saying once again.


    The devils might not have been as strong as the demons as a species, but Kamiltias the Lord of Lies, Heimor the Lord of Despair, and Sarwenstan the Lord of Tyranny had been three Main God level Devil Lords, making the devils the second strongest faction in the entirety of the lower nes.


    The devils had the strange social structure of being ¡°orderly among Chaos¡±, along with being militarized and also functioning strangely simr to a corporation. Although the devils had many problems, they were capable of tripling theirbat potential through their outstanding organization and strategic abilities. They also had many tricks and schemes. In many ways, ordinary people viewed them to be on the same level as demons.


    Actually, what gave people the biggest headache back then was that Death God Ayer had also been secretly supporting the devils. This made all Main Gods, no matter what affiliation, mostly unwilling topletely antagonize the devils.


    However, some things had nowpletely changed.


    The nine Devil Lords were all infamous sources of sin in all the nes. But now, two of the Main God Devil Lords had actually joined the Hell Faction, bringing along one additional Devil Lord with them. There was also the double betrayal of Ilmisya, the Lord of Temptation, so now the entire devil faction only actually had one Main God Devil Lord, Sarwenstan, and four weaker Devil Lords remaining.


    After that, Lasnina, the Lord of Curses, waspletely sealed away by Rnd one year ago. Karwenz then slew another Devil Lord.


    The devils had formerly been a top-level faction with three Main Gods¡¯ worth of strength, but now only three of the original nine Devil Lords were still with them. It was just likecking one yer for mahjong... ahem, I meant that they didn¡¯t even have enough individuals to guard their territory which was shrinking every day.


    If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that it was now the Holy War, so that all attention was on the mortal ne, the devils would have likely been destroyed by the demons and Evil Gods already. In the lower nes, weakness was sin, and anyone weak who also possessed the best territory and dimensions would be the first to be destroyed.


    It was unavoidable that the devils would decline so much after losing more than half of their elites and most powerful individuals. Perhaps their final fate was to lose all of their extra territory and dominate only a single level of the Chaos Abyss, which wouldn¡¯t be much different from other Evil Gods and Demon Lords.


    Sarwenstan, the final remaining Main God Devil Lord, would never be able to ept that.


    ¡°Very good. Considering our simr situations, I believe that we¡¯ll be getting along quite well.¡±


    If one only judged on physical appearance, Sarwenstan seemed much more like a dragon than a demon.


    Currently, he had shrunk his size in the mortal ne, yet he was still more than 30 meters tall, a size impossible to conceal.


    Looking at him from afar, he seemed just like a gigantic two-headed dragon which was covered in shadows, but he actually had three heads.


    The ck dragon head was breathing faint green mes in the darkness. The white dragon head was breathing ck frost. But, the real decision-making head was the shadowy humanoid figure between the two dragon heads.


    This was a shadowy figure made out of darkness. There was no face and the figure was unclear, but it wore a crown of shadow from where its voice emitted.


    With such a physical appearance, it was natural that people would say that he had formerly been a dragon. Yet, even the oldest of Supreme Immemorial Dragons were still younger than this ancient devil. It was impossible to know Sarwenstan¡¯s origin.


    Currently, Sarwenstan¡¯s two dragon heads wereughing loudly. Just his tremendous voice alone would be capable of shattering pitiful skeleton servants.


    Shupnus seemed to be quite insignificant in front of Sarwenstan, but nobody would dare to ignore Shupnus.


    All around the two, liches were busy adjusting the Dimension Door leading to the Death nes. They were adjusting the coordinates to the lower nes.


    Meanwhile, many living individuals were howling in pain and despair as they were sacrificed to help activate the Dimension Door¡¯s new coordinates.


    Unlike what Rnd had expected, Shupnus and Anina hadn¡¯t had a disagreement with the other Undead Emperors. Instead, Shupnus¡¯s temper was so bad that he directly had a major argument with Sandro who came to discuss things with him, which ended up in all of the other Undead Emperors leaving Shupnus alone to fight against Bardi.


    That¡¯s right, even Anina, who had been allied with him for the longest, had now left him.


    Anina was the youngest Undead Emperor in the world apart from Rnd and Lorci. All she wanted was to harvest enough souls and blood to obtain her own undead country which could satisfy her daily needs for research.


    Originally, her goal had been quite simr to Shupnus¡¯s, as thetter had arrogantly been shouting about conquering humannd all the way to San Antonio. However, Anina had personally harvested 500,000 souls in the previous major victory against Bardi.


    The rest was obvious. Anina shamelessly took all of the spoils and ran off without sharing anything.


    Sandro even assisted her in transferring arge number of corpses and souls to her personal Darkness ne. Anina then unhesitatingly returned home as she was highly satisfied with what she had obtained.


    Anina had nned on running away right after obtaining what she could to begin with. Now, not only had she achieved her goal, she could even escape from the humans¡¯ revenge by returning to her own ne. She had no reason to hesitate.


    Since Sandro and Shupnus had already turned on each other, Sandro simply took the majority of the undead army west and into the sea in order to go fight against the ogres. Thepletely isted Shupnus waspletely unable to stop him.


    Shupnus was rather pitiful as he had ruined his rtionship with the other Undead Emperors, which meant that he had been cut off from Asolivis, the main Dimensional Door connected to the Desecration ne. Shupnus was no longer able to transport any more undead troops from his own home ne. Not to mention, Anina had shamelessly run off with all the recent spoils of war... Shupnus really didn¡¯t have many troops at hismand anymore.


    ¡°They¡¯re all so shortsighted, foolish, and cowardly. Is this all that it takes to satisfy them? I am ashamed to be allied with all of you.¡±


    Shupnus sessfully antagonized all of the other Undead Emperors, which meant that he was forced to personally take action in battle due tocking undead troops. Shupnus was then forced to use his backup n after he obtained only a minor victory with his ambush.


    Shupnus¡¯s options were really limited. Only the residents of the lower nes would possibly keep a long-term alliance with the undead. Shupnus knew quite clearly what the demons were like, and that it would be easy to invite them but difficult to make them leave, and that no matter what the demons did, Shupnus would only be able to obtain scorched earth and rubble in the end. This would be the opposite of what he wanted, as his ambition was to reestablish a country for the undead without the living.


    In the end, he was forced to contact the devils who were in a simrly poor situation. At the very least, it would be possible tomunicate and sign a contract with them. To Shupnus¡¯s surprise, not only did the devils respond, Devil Lord Sarwenstan even personally came here.


    But now, Shupnus felt unwilling in his heart as he watched the devils arriving through the Dimensional Door.


    He knew that he would lose the right to be the leader here once the devils¡¯ numbers andbat strength exceeded the undead here. However, the human allied army was marching upon him, putting him in a difficult spot and giving him no other choice.


    A tremendous number of human hostages were ughtered in order to power the Dimensional Door, giving this ce an overwhelming stench of blood. However, Sarwenstan was highly satisfied, as he had been waiting for this opportunity for so long already.


    Meanwhile, an antique style soul carriage arrived at this moment in Asolivis.


    I currently felt like things were bing even more difficult to deal with as I saw all the devils flying around in the sky.

 Chapter 761 - Evil Guest

    <h4>Chapter 761: Evil Guest</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°It really was worth it to personallye here. Otherwise, I wouldn¡¯t even have known that things had developed like this already.¡±


    Dark mist enveloped my body as floating dark mes followed behind me. This faint light would make all low-level undead instinctively afraid of and retreat from me.


    ¡°Only you woulde up with the idea to envelop Holy Light in antern made from the power of death. Still, aren¡¯t you afraid that you¡¯ll attract an Undead Emperor by using Holy Light right in the undead¡¯s main territory?¡±


    Harloys didn¡¯t have a high opinion of my little invention, but so far, we had continued here unimpeded.


    The low-level undead would instinctively retreat from us, and the high-level intelligent undead rarely bothered with things that weren¡¯t their own business. As for the undead guards... I had already prepared a fake Asolivis identity, but when considering that Sandro had prepared it for me, it probably counted as a real identity.


    Still, I kept feeling like the situation was getting worse as I walked farther into Asolivis.


    The pir of ck light reaching the sky was still present. However, the negative energy of death had lessened significantly. Instead, I smelled a familiar stench of sulfur that caused me to recall the ¡°warm and friendly¡± residents of the lower nes...


    ¡°What is there to even think about? The devils are right before you.¡±


    ¡°Silly cat, must you always have a retort for everything? How¡¯s the situation here? Are they still municating?¡¯¡±


    I was finding it harder and harder not to have Harloys... or her abilities, to be exact. I had Harloys¡¯s clones help me watch over the situation here and gather information while also hearing exactly was was going on. She really was so convenient and useful.


    Although I was joking, I was actually in a really bad mood.


    A jinxer was someone who would cause explosions everywhere he went, even if the explosions weren¡¯t his own fault. But with my luck, this was no longer at the level of explosions. This was basically having volcanoes erupt everywhere that I went.


    ¡°Why is it another Chaos Main God? Can¡¯t they just enjoy themselves without having to find me?¡±


    Main God level existences would be as obvious as fermented fish unless they intentionally concealed their presence. They would be really stinky... I meant that they¡¯d have far too much presence, reaching the point where even just a little was difficult for ordinary people to handle.


    Sarwenstan wasn¡¯t trying to hide himself. Even without seeing his gigantic dragon body which was several hundred meters long, his orderly domain of negative energy was also like his personal signature.


    Devils were constantly increasing in number. As time passed, the devil army was bing stronger with every moment. Due to the summoning of the Main God Devil Lord, the devils would bring out their utmost strength due to the devils¡¯ pyramid-like hierachy.


    I had no intention of getting any closer. I didn¡¯t want to test Sarwenstan¡¯s sensing abilities, nor was there any need to continue investigating here.


    The Dimensional Door here was the highest-level permanent Dimensional Door. Once such a Dimensional Door was activated, it would be impossible to stop unless it waspletely destroyed. As for challenging the Devil Lord Main God and his personal army all by myself... well, I still wanted to live a little longer.


    The devil army was bing stronger with every moment. Maybe it wouldn¡¯t be as destructive or explosive as the demon wave, but a devil army would be super troublesome to deal with even by the standards of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s bloody battles.


    I directly recorded what I saw with a memory crystal. The human allied army wouldn¡¯t be able to get any rest. I originally intended on immediately returning, but then, to my surprise, I met someone I knew.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that mummy Undead Lord Sandro¡¯s personal servant and trantor?¡±


    While Rnd was busy having a headache over the devils¡¯ sudden appearance, Anina also met with major trouble right after she returned to her home, the Darkness ne.


    Originally, she had been quite careful already to be on guard against other Undead Emperors trying to rob her of the tremendous amount of souls she had. Yet, she encountered someone with nefarious intentions after she finally returned to her home territory.


    The Darkness ne was a rare ne with apleteck of light. It would be quite difficult for ordinary people to imagine the emptiness and iciness in a world with no light. Even the intelligent undead wouldn¡¯t have an easy time in an eternal night. Anina¡¯s goal in returning with all these souls was to liven up this ne again.


    However, an insane wicked guest had arrived without being invited. He had destroyed everything before him, apparently in search of something or someone. Several hundred Undead Lords had already died to him before Anina¡¯s return.


    This was rather abnormal as a Death ne would have nothing at all apart from undead and negative energy. It would be meaningless to look for anything here that wasn¡¯t rted to the undead.


    Right after she returned, Anina discovered that this uninvited guest¡¯s goal was actually herself.


    He had been waiting all this time for her to return.


    ¡°Rnd? No, you¡¯re Karwenz, the Abyss Prince!¡±


    Anina was quite familiar with this face. She instantly realized who he was.


    ¡°So you¡¯re Anina? Ha, you¡¯re quite a beauty. It¡¯s such a pity that you¡¯re a Chaos Girl. Give me your soul and meet your fate.¡±


    The blond-haired prince who wore blood-red armor wielded a magic sword as he smiled confidently and told Anina thest words she would ever hear. He viewed even an Undead Emperor, an existence which would dominate in any dimension, as nothing more than a weakling that he could easily ughter.


    ¡°Kill him!¡± Anina screamed out of instinctive fear.


    Countless undead emerged from every corner. The Death nes were like heaven for the undead. This was the home turf of the Undead Emperors. The entire dimension trembled under the summons of the highest-level undead existence here.


    A grand undead army where the Blood Tribe nobles were only the frontliners appeared. Abominations which were several hundred meters tall were mere tanks, while the bone dragon hordes were nothing more than convenient modes of transportation.


    However, Karwenz only shook his head while smiling condescendingly in front of the endless undead army.


    ¡°Why does everyone have to struggle, even though it¡¯s meaningless?¡±


    Three hourster, the entire Darkness ne was annihted, while Karwenz took Anina¡¯s soul away with him, leaving only onement behind in the rubble consisting of countless undead bodies.


    ¡°Only 19 more Chaos Girls to go...¡±

 Chapter 762 - Unexpected Surprise

    <h4>Chapter 762: Unexpected Surprise</h4>


    Undead Lords would always have some strange habits. The stronger and older the undead, the more this would be true. Even undead would need hobbies to help pass the endless years. As time passed, causing past memories to be fragmented and new memories to be messy, it was only normal for an undead¡¯s personality to be somewhat unusual.


    ¡°Is this another way of saying that being too isted will turn you into a pervert? This really is rather convincing, old perverted Rnd.¡±


    ¡°Shut up, silly cat. How about we calcte the difference in age between us and see who¡¯s really the old and perverted one... alright, please put down that innocent eggnt.¡±


    This was even more so for Undead Emperors, as they were special undead amongst the undead. Only the most obsessed individuals would possibly reach such a status. I had yet to ever meet an Undead Emperor who was mentally healthy before. They would either have multiple personalities, or be insane, or be extremely obsessed. Basically, they were the type who would do whatever they wanted, and it wouldn¡¯t really be strange no matter how ridiculously they acted.


    So, I had been really surprised after talking to Sandro to find that he was rtively normal... that¡¯s right, surprised only because he was rtively normal.


    Sandro¡¯s way of thinking was quite logical. He was really reasonable and easy to talk to. It was even possible to joke around with him. Normalmunication was perfectly possible, which made me almost want to cry in gratitude.


    ¡°What do you mean? You make it sound like all other Undead Emperors are really unreasonable maniacs who want to destroy the world...¡±


    ¡°Ahem, look over there.¡±


    Harloys was rather dissatisfied with how I was making fun of all Undead Emperors, but I simply indicated to her that she should look at the devils constantly arriving from the Dimensional Door, which caused her voice to trail off.


    Shupnus had once again refreshed my knowledge of howcking in limits others could be. This Dimensional Door leading to the Death nes was currently being permanently transformed into a Dimensional Door leading to the Chaos Abyss. As long as things continued, this ce would be a new devil territory.


    ¡°Is he supposed to be a friendly helper? Shouldn¡¯t he know that by this point, even if thisnd is conquered, it won¡¯t be undead territory. Or, does he think that he¡¯ll no longer need thisnd after conquering it... Ahem, I mean that he just wants thisnd to be entirely destroyed if he can¡¯t have it.¡±


    Although I was joking, I was actually in quite a bad mood.


    I suddenly sensed a powerful devil in the distance. Another Devil Lord had entered the mortal ne. Normally, those who should have taken the responsibility... I meant the Order Gods who were in charge of ying demons and devils, were highly unlikely to take action this time.


    From a certain standpoint, my Hell Faction hadpletely antagonized the Holy Light Faction.


    Although we had obtained our independence, we would no longer enjoy certain past benefits.


    This time, only the human alliance and the Hell Gods would be fighting against the devil wave which contained one Main God and two additional Devil Lords. Whenbined with the endless devil army, this truly would be a great headache to deal with.


    But from another angle, this was also a chance to disy our foundational power.


    As long as we won here, this would prove that the Hell Faction was more than strong enough to protect its followers. This was a chance to be viewed as someone worthy to oppose the Order Faction. As long as we survived this, the originally unknown Hell Faction would receive a massive increase to reputation.


    This was basically a precipice between heaven and hell. One side of the coin was a chance, while the other side was danger. It would depend on how we dealt with this situation...


    ¡°He¡¯ll have left already if you keep daydreaming.¡±


    ¡°Cough, weren¡¯t you helping watch him for me? I¡¯m showing my trust in you.¡±


    Currently, we were following a bandaged mummy Undead Lord who actually wore a suit.


    He was clearly a mummy that wasn¡¯t able to move agilely, yet he wore a ck suit, round top hat, and monocle, making him seem like a noble family¡¯s butler from 300 years ago, leaving me with quite a deep impression.


    This mummy was Sandro¡¯s close advisor, Phil. He was no ordinary close advisor, as Sandro had even let him act as his trantor since Sandro was inept at using words after not physically speaking for far too long.


    Perhaps I would be able to find Sandro himself if I followed Phil.


    The gentlemanly mummy walked at a slow pace, which was normal for his undead species. It was quite easy to kep track of him. I decided to appear in front of him once he entered a soul summoning tower.


    We were supposed to be allies, after all. The real type, not the fake type. Rather than stalking him, I figured I might as well directly talk to him.


    ¡°...Um, Phil?¡±


    That was his name if I indeed recalled correctly. He was surprised and then delighted at my sudden appearance.


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd... Please, over here, and be careful of others watching.¡±


    His words were quite simple but also revealed a lot of information.


    He was Sandro¡¯s close advisor, yet he told me to be careful here. Be careful of who, and why?


    Ten minutester, wepleted our exchange at night... what I meant was, our information exchange as ¡°spies¡±.


    As I had pretty much expected, Sandro had already made a break with Shupnus before the previous ambush on the human allied army. Sandro had even taken most of the undead with him.


    He had left Phil behind specifically in order to provide information to the human allied army. Even if I didn¡¯t meet him here, he would have voluntarily contacted the humans to provide them with information.


    ¡°So sly.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, really sly.¡±


    Harloys and I had the same assessment, which made Phil rather awkward as this sort of counted as talking trash about his boss right in front of him. Yet, both of us were Undead Emperors that he couldn¡¯t afford to antagonize.


    Sandro was indeed quite sly. He was basically someone who could sit around and do nothing in the undead army. Nobody would be able tomand him to do anything on the battlefield. He then intentionally... it was obvious that he intentionally argued with Shupnus, which would give Sandro an excuse to ¡°join¡± the human side. This would also help Sandro dere that ¡°I¡¯m not with Shupnus, so don¡¯t count Bardi¡¯s grudge against the undead on me.¡±


    After that, we would also help to introduce Sandro and have all of human society ept him.


    The only victim here was probably Shupnus. Even though he had clearly just won a battle against the humans, he would find that everyone had suddenly betrayed him overnight. Shupnus had worked so hard to obtain a victory, but not only did his allies betray him, they even took away his source of soldiers and food, while leaving him alone to face the enemies he had made. This was quite overboard, so it was understandable why he was so angry that he called for Chaos Abyss reinforcements capable of destroying the world.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this selling out a teammate? It¡¯s a bit underhanded.¡±


    ¡°It is selling out a teammate! It¡¯s super underhanded.¡±


    Phil felt even more awkward now, as these two venerated Undead Emperors weren¡¯t saying anything else at all. Although everyone knew that this was the truth, it wasn¡¯t exactly nice to say such things in front of Sandro¡¯s subordinate. Was Phil supposed to tell Sandro such things or not? If he told Sandro, it would sound like he was being petty, but if he didn¡¯t tell Sandro, he would feel a little like he wasn¡¯t being loyal.


    Of course, I wouldn¡¯t care about what Phil thought. I simply felt that meeting him here had saved me quite a bit of effort.


    I then intended on escaping...


    Challenge the undead and devil allied army by myself? I had no intentions of dying young with a gravestone calling me ¡°foolish and overconfident¡± as the reason of death. I felt that Harloys and the others would definitely make such a gravestone for me.


    I would have to escape from here. I could have tried something if the situation was different, but Sarwenstan the Lord of Tyranny was right here, and I didn¡¯t want to try challenging a Main God to singlebat again.


    Although others felt that I was able to beat back Sophocles the Deceiver and instantly kill Seraphim Winton due to my personal power level, I knew quite well that I was still quite far away from a Main God¡¯s level. I had only been able to aplish what I had due to my special powers, as I had prepared special weapons against demons, angels, and devils...


    ¡°By the way, devils are also a type of Chaos creature. They should also be countered by my special weapon. Should I try it...¡±


    A courageous (suicidal) idea suddenly appeared in my mind. Perhaps, with mybination of abilities, and preparing against the unprepared, I could indeed do a little something.


    And if I failed?


    I was quite confident in my ability to escape. At the most, I would run for three thousand kilometers or something.


    Was I afraid of being hunted down by the devils after antagonizing them?


    What a joke. I had alreadypletely antagonized them. The Lord of Tyranny probably wanted to kill me more than any other mortal. If he won the battle here against Bardi and conquered this area, no, if he only managed to carve out a stable territory for himself in the mortal ne, he woulde hunting me down no matter where I was.


    ¡°Since sess or failure are both eptable (as things couldn¡¯t possibly get any worse), then I might as well try it.¡±


    After making up my mind, I smiled in a friendly manner (in my opinion) to Phil while ignoring his breach of etiquette as he suddenly took a huge step backwards. Now was the time to rely on a local power.


    But, first...


    I instantly teleported to the familiar cknd of Hell.


    ¡°I should first ask his previous teammate. Little Tias, that housewife of yours... erm, I meant the Lord of Tyranny, what powerful abilities does he have? What are his weaknesses?¡±


    While other protagonists might have a grandpa¡¯s spirit with them or something, I had Sarwenstan¡¯s former teammate, Kamiltias the Lord of Lies. Teammates were to be betrayed in this day and age, so I might as well prepare a nice little weing surprise for Sarwenstan.

 Chapter 763 - Crouching in Wait

    <h4>Chapter 763: Crouching in Wait</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Harloys, what do you think the most important factor is for a sessful assassination?¡±


    Since I was far too bored at the long wait, I started chatting with Harloys.


    ¡°Assassination? I¡¯ve never been an assassin before... But, I have received anti-assassin training before. The main thing is to be on guard against strangers, and to not go to dangerous and isted locations with no exits. If I had to say, the most important factor for an assassination is to appear at a critical location at a critical time when the enemy isn¡¯t on guard.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. The most important thing for an assassin is patience, patience...¡±


    We were currently in my personal Hell world, rather than Shupnus¡¯s personal pce. Preparing for an assassination wouldn¡¯t attract any attention from others here.


    I wasn¡¯t a professional assassin... no, I wouldn¡¯t even receive a passing grade as an assassin, due to my terrible disguising and stealth abilities. While I could fool some ordinary undead, I wouldn¡¯t even dream of being able to deceive an Undead Emperor who would have soul vision or a Devil Lord who would be a professional liar. That was why I decided upon a rather silly method.


    1¡°I¡¯m just going to keep waiting right outside their base. I refuse to believe that they won¡¯t go out.¡±


    Rather than entering the middle of the devils¡¯ camp and try and approach my target through countlessyers of defenses, I might as well instead wait for him toe out by himself.


    My difficult fight against Sophocles the Deceiver had exposed many of my abilities. However, my bug-like personal Hell was one of my biggest secrets. I had entered my personal Hell world at the entrance to Shupnus¡¯s pce, so when I exited, I would naturally be at the same location.


    Readers of my log could probably already guess that I was intending to hide in my personal Hell world until Sarwenstan came out. I would then suddenly appear and viciously attack him. The only problem as that...


    ¡°Patience, patience... to hell with patience! It¡¯s already been a day and a half! He¡¯s still staying inside withouting out! Why would I be patient!?¡±


    My patience was nearing its end. It wasn¡¯t my fault for not being able to take it anymore. I had already waited here for 37 hours. I had even maintained the exact same position for thest eight hours for the sake of the assassination¡¯s sess.


    ¡°Just take a break. Another batch of living hostages have been sent in to be his food. It seems like Sarwenstan has no intentions of leaving today.¡±


    I wiped away all of my sweat as I put down my magic sword. All of the light faded as everything returned to calmness.


    ¡°ording to legends, there¡¯s a group of mystical people who live in the distant east. They are capable of waiting in a bathroom for several days for the sake of information gathering or an assassination. They¡¯re so hard-working...¡±


    ¡°Stop being ridiculous. I¡¯ve also been to the east. Nobody there is so disgusting. Isn¡¯t that the same as watching others do... disgusting, that¡¯s truly disgusting.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t say it. Although I¡¯ve only heard rumors, there really are examples of such things happening. That¡¯s why they¡¯re called ninjas... for they can really, really endure.¡± [TL note: the ¡°nin¡± character in ¡°ninja¡± also means endure/persevere.]


    My memories weren¡¯t clear, but regardless, they could really endure. That was probably the meaning of the word, if I recalled correctly.


    ¡°That¡¯s why we should keep the ¡®spirit of enduring¡¯ and wait in the bathroom until the end. I won¡¯t leave until the enemy appears! Basically, it¡¯s like having someone above you while... I really should leave, then. This type of endurance is inhumane.¡±


    ¡°Stop saying anything. It¡¯s too disgusting. You¡¯ve definitely misremembered. How could there be such a job?¡±


    I shook my head helplessly. Nobody believed me these days even when I spoke the truth. Perhaps I had misremembered some of the details, but overall things should be correct. There really was such a job in history.


    I gave themand to take a temporary rest, causing the Pir of Holy Light in the distance to stop transmitting Holy Light to me as everything returned to calmness.


    I nodded in satisfaction as I nced at the Dawn sword in my hand which was losing its glow. My Holy Light sword¡¯s abilities had far exceeded all of my expectations due to the outstanding resources used in its construction.


    ¡°That whatever sword of yours is actually effective?¡±


    ¡°Of course it is, as long as I cannd an attack that¡¯s been charged for long enough.¡±


    Although I spoke really confidently, I wasn¡¯t actually feeling confident at all. Right now, I really regretted having fought with Sophocles the Deceiver.


    If I hadn¡¯t shown off my ability to actually endanger and perhaps kill the Chaos Main Gods, then they wouldn¡¯t have been on guard against me, meaning that I could have used far more potential schemes, rather than foolishly waiting here for Sarwenstan toe out.


    My Dawn Holy Light sword had two major attack modes. The second mode was the ¡°lighthouse¡± mode which I previously showed on the battlefield. That mode would illuminate arge area to cleanse and weaken Chaos type enemies.


    The other mode was gathering light at an incredibly high intensity, transforming into an iparably sharp de of light. The attack power¡¯s upper limit would be determined by the capacity of myself and this sword, which I still didn¡¯t know.


    ¡°At the time, Sophocles took an attack that had been charged to less than half of maximum power. Although he was only injured on the surface, the attack indeed managed to injure a Chaos Main God. Now, the charging limit has reached eight hours. The maximum attack power should have more than doubled.¡±


    This was a theoretical calction, as well as me trying to give myself more confidence. Any weapon which was outstanding in theory still wouldn¡¯t make me feel reassured without testing it in practicalbat first.


    Since the resources for my Dawn sword had been far too outstanding... A God Equipment belonging to the ancient Sun God, the original spear belonging to the God of Holy Light, and the inherited hammer of the Holy Knights. I had basicallybined three top-level God Equipment into one. Although this wouldn¡¯t reach the effect of having triple the power, the quality wouldn¡¯t be bad at all.


    I was still unable to determine Dawn¡¯s maximum power. The eight-hour charging limit was only my personal maximum capacity. That was the utmost amount of Holy Light that I could control. I could only maintain that amount of Holy Light for ten minutes at most. If I still didn¡¯t attack with Dawn or stop gathering Holy Light then, I would no longer be able to handle it.


    ¡°Stopining. At the very least, you don¡¯t need to use yourself as the vessel to gather Holy Light. You wouldn¡¯t be sufficient for that even if you were entirely drained.¡±


    Harloys was indeed correct. It was only my bug-like personal Hell world which allowed me to safely charge Holy Light for several hours with the help of Hell¡¯s Pir of Holy Light, all for the sake of one attack.


    ¡°...Indeed, on the battlefield, an enemy won¡¯t give you even three minutes, much less eight hours.¡±


    Injecting Holy Light into my Dawn sword wasn¡¯t simply a matter of time. The closer it approached to its limit, the more Holy Light and time would be required. After injecting Holy Light for only half an hour, this pitch-ck personal Hell world had already be a clearly-lit realm. Three hours after I started charging, even Harloys would start instinctively retreating from my Holy Light sword, and even I would feel numb while looking at it.


    The prerequisite for limitless energy was probably the time required to charge Dawn.


    From a certain standpoint, this was also a type of forbidden spell which required Holy Light to be continuously supplied to it as if it was a mage tower. I would then have to charge energy for several hours in order to transform all this energy into an extremely powerful attack.


    ¡°Sheesh, if I identally lose control and this explodes, we... Alright, please put down that innocent eggnt. I won¡¯t say anything more. You¡¯ve been ying with such things quite often recently, so could it be that...¡±


    I wisely then shut up as I saw Harloys waving the eggnt around, obviously wanting to use it.


    ¡°Okay, rest time is over. Let¡¯s start again.¡±


    I was feeling even more now the advantage of having reached Level 4. At least my stamina would now swiftly recover just with a minor amount of food, water, and rest... This all seemed rather familiar. Wasn¡¯t this how characters in video games restored HP by using food and drink? What kind of strange physical body and setting was this?


    ¡°Cough, concentrate.¡±


    I held my Dawn sword as I gathered Holy Light once again. The Pir of Holy Light in the distance also started glowing brightly as endless Holy Light illuminated me and started providing energy for me and my Dawn sword.


    This trick of mine could only be used once. It definitely wouldn¡¯t work a second time. Thus, I was seriously intending on obtaining a concretebat achievement with this opportunity.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to crouch here and keep crouching while showing off the spirit of enduring. I¡¯m going to wait here until the end of the world. I refuse to believe that he won¡¯te out to use the bathroom... whoops, I meant I refuse to believe that he won¡¯t go outside!¡±


    Shupnus felt that perhaps he had made a mistake ining to the mortal ne.


    He felt that he was really pitiful right now.


    He had arrived while filled with ambitions, thinking that he could finally create a world for the undead. However, he then received multiple impacts before he could even do anything.


    His Undead Emperor allies did all sorts of cking off andzing around, while he could only work his hardest at fighting by himself. He went to the effort of bringing out everything he had to win a battle, yet he then discovered that all his allies had run away. The Undead Emperor that he trusted the most actually stole most of the victory loot. Shupnus had worked and fought so hard, yet he obtained nothing except the enmity of all humanity in this area. Now, he was waiting for the humans toe attack him.


    From Shupnus¡¯s standpoint, this really was a tale filled with sweat, blood, and tears.


    ¡°Even though everyone was my ally, even though we all agreed to create a country for the undead together, even though ughtering humans is really fun, even though it¡¯s great to share fun experiences with fellow undead, why, why...? Why did all of you betray me so quickly!? Just how many times have you all betrayed others before in the past?¡±


    Those were words that I imagined Shupnus saying, so that wasn¡¯t a real quote... Honestly, people who loved White Album 2 should all be beaten to death.


    Only a saint wouldn¡¯t have a grudge when put in Shupnus¡¯s position.


    Was Undead Emperor Shupnus a saint? That was obviously impossible. He was quite infamous for having a terrible temper. Currently, not only was he incredibly angry, he couldn¡¯t find a ce to vent right now, so he was on the verge of exploding.


    However, Sarwenstan, who was the Lord of Tyranny, wouldn¡¯t care what Shupnus was thinking right now.


    Shupnus requested that the devils carry out the contract and immediately attack the human allied forces. However, he was informed that he had forgotten to specify a date on their contract, which meant that even though the devils would definitely attack the humans, when they would attack would depend on Sarwenstan¡¯s mood.


    Only someone in a position of power would get to negotiate. Shupnus didn¡¯t say anything as he simply left with a dark expression. It was obvious that his anger had reached a maximum.


    In a way, Shupnus really was quite young among the ancient artifact-like existences. Even the devils had easily scammed him. If he had instead met Rnd... Well, there was also a special reason why Shupnus was like this. He had likely never met anyone who dared to directly fool him like this. However, a Devil Lord would have no reason to give face to an Undead Emperor. The devils would scam him in any way possible without any fear that he would turn on them.


    Sarwenstan currently had no intentions of carrying out the contract. He was patiently doing nothing at all.


    Everyone knew that since the Dimension Door here was now connected to the lower nes, Sarwenstan¡¯s devil army would grow stronger on a daily basis, which would obviously mean that the undead would be weaker inparison. Shupnus and his undead would obviously lose influence.


    In fact, Sarwenstan even felt that it was rather regrettable how Shupnus had been scammed so easily. Sarwenstan hadn¡¯t even needed to use his typical contract traps or flowery wordy tricks in order to scam Shupnus.


    It was easy for Sarwenstan to tell that Shupnus¡¯s patience was at its extreme limit. Sarwenstan thus decided to go out tomorrow to take a look at the army in order to have the undead witness the majesty of the Devil Lord Main God.


    The next morning, when Sarwenstan finished discussing with Shupnus and right after they left the pce entrance, a mortal suddenly appeared before them.


    ¡°Howe he seems so familiar...¡±


    Sarwenstan¡¯s expression instantly changed. This face was obviously quite familiar to him as both twin brothers had the same face. Yet, both twin brothers were the devils¡¯ mortal enemies.


    ¡°Hi. Nice to meet you. Take this sword skill from me!¡±


    And then, Sarwenstan saw the blonde-haired Holy Knight giving him a friendly greeting, followed by...


    ¡°Sword? What sword?¡±


    Only then did he notice that this Holy Knight was holding a sword. This sword hilt was enveloped in a faint darkness, rather than any Holy Light.


    The sword hilt didn¡¯t even contain a de. Instead, there was only pitch-ck darkness made from stardust.


    This was the property of light at its most extreme, which then transformed into void simr to a ck hole.


    Sarwenstan didn¡¯t have the time to exim over his discovery. He hadn¡¯t noticed that Shupnus had already hid behind him from the moment that Rnd appeared. In a way, Shupnus really couldn¡¯t me the other Undead Emperors for betraying him, as selling out one¡¯s teammates was a ssical move for all Undead Emperors.


    ¡°Holy Light, this enemy is worthy to fight!¡±


    The next instant, a torrent of light washed over everything.

 Chapter 764 - Assassination

    <h4>Chapter 764: Assassination</h4>


    Although I had previously mentioned the idea that light and darkness were actually the same Concept, this wasn¡¯t a result that I arrived at due to my theories or research data.


    ¡°This is more like a philosophy... no, superstition, such as performing a ritual before trying to summon an SSR, or wanting to wash yourselfpletely before starting a new construction project. Since there¡¯s far too many unknowns, this is basically half analysis and half guessing.¡±


    As for this foundational way of thinking, my original world¡¯s eastern concept of Yin and Yang could probably be counted as well, or how the western concept of the elements was always about the fundamental four elements of earth, fire, water, and wind. And for the various creation myths, the east focused on Yin and Yang, while the west focused more on light and darkness. Maybe the western and eastern concepts of creation in my original world seemed like they were quite different, but they were actually quite simr in that it was always foundationally about contradictory powers that shed with each other while also working together to create everything.


    Although this sounded rather ridiculous, what made this seem more realistic was the fact that only when the Goddess of Order and Goddess of Chaosbined their powers would they have the power of Creation. Of course, I had already proved through experimenting that light and darkness, Order and Chaosbined together was indeed capable of creating life.


    ¡°Even the most ridiculous sounding theory on how things work can be treated as factual once there¡¯s experimental data that proves it.¡±


    And so, I abandoned all known logic and theories in this world and only analyzed pure facts. I proved that both light and darkness were both embodiments of Order and Chaos, and that it was fundamentally possible to transform one into the other.


    ¡°With a sessful transformation, no matter if it¡¯s light born from darkness or darkness born from light, it will be an incredibly high-level energy. This is probably the highest possible level of elemental power.¡±


    However, I had constantly failed in managing to transform light or darkness into the other. I even wondered if I had gotten my theory wrong. Yet, I didn¡¯t even know where I might have been wrong since there were far too many unknowns...


    ¡°Now, it seems like that random theory I came up with in my free time wasn¡¯t wrong at all. It¡¯s just thatpleting the transformation from light to darkness requires a far too ridiculous amount of umted energy.¡±


    How much Holy Light could the Pir of Holy Light in Hell umte? As Hell was aplete and independent world of its own, the Pir of Holy Light should have limitless power within Hell.


    Just what was the upper limit of Dawn¡¯s strength? Dawn had used three of the highest-level God Equipment as resources in its construction. Even by now, I had yet to find any resources which could have possibly surpassed the Sun God¡¯s mirror, Karn¡¯s spear, and the Holy Knights¡¯ hammer of inheritance.


    What was my personal limit in being able to wield Holy Light? My ancient Order War Angel bloodline was already fully activated. Thanks to this bloodline¡¯s buff, my affinity for Order had already exceeded that of any so-called Order God. I was likely just slightly lower in Order affinity than the Goddess of Order herself. My Double Diamond bloodline physical body was also strong enough that I wouldn¡¯t explode from trying to wield so much power of Order.


    My Dawn sword was a part of my body, which meant that Dawn¡¯s ability to gather light would be truly fearsome.


    ¡°Praise the Holy Light.¡±


    Although I was praising the Holy Light, I was still astonished by what I witnessed.


    After I charged power for half an hour, my entire personal Hell was illuminated, with no darkness to be found anywhere.


    After I charged power for four hours, Dawn¡¯s de of light had be physical in an incredibly solid and stable state, just like a real sword¡¯s de.


    After I charged power for six hours, the light began to turn to darkness.


    At first, there was only a shadowy speck, but as time passed, more and more darkness swirled around the de of light. Inconceivably, this newborn darkness didn¡¯t sh with the light at all. Instead, they mixed together peacefully.


    After I charged power for seven hours, Dawn was now half light and half dark. This seemed like a random mixture, but the energy faintly contained within had far exceeded the strength of any so-called forbidden spell, making me wonder just what exactly would happen if this exploded.


    After I charged power for eight hours, I finally reached my own limit. Dawn had bepletely clear, just like the void itself. This was neither light nor darkness. This was pure silence, just like the most primordial chaos...


    ¡°Holy Light, this enemy is worthy of a fight!¡±


    From a certain standpoint, Sarwenstan was rather lucky, as he hadn¡¯te out of Shupnus¡¯s pce when I had Dawn fully charged, as I was unable to maintain the maximum power charged state for very long. However, he was also unlucky, as I had already charged Dawn for seven hours and thirty minutes currently...


    Should I shout out the name of my attack? It wasn¡¯t like I was Saber, but since this was the usual trope...


    ¡°Anti-shoe sh (anti-evil sh)!¡± [TL note: untrantable joke. ¡°Shoe¡± and ¡°evil¡± are homonyms in Chinese.¡±


    Anti-evil sh was one of the most basic techniques for all Holy Knights. All that this technique required was to gather Holy Light on one¡¯s sword before swinging with all your might. As the Holy Knight cultivated and improved in power level, this really simple technique would transform into a nightmare for all evil creatures of Chaos.


    This was a sword technique that I had practiced countless times already. Charging power for it and attacking was as easy as breathing to me. It would be impossible for me to miss at such a close distance.


    Yet, the moment that I swung my sword, the de immediately copsed.


    Chaos transformed into light and darkness. The light took over the entire world. Even the undead¡¯s dark sky of death magic was unable to keep out the sun. The dark night transformed into a bright morning as the entire world was illuminated.


    ¡°The sky has brightened...¡±


    Even undead from several dozen kilometers away could see the arrival of the bright morning.


    Everyone who was at a closer distance waspletely blinded. It was impossible to see even with an Undead Emperor¡¯s soul vision.


    From outside Asolivis, it was seen that a beam of light prated through the entire city after originating from the center. This beam of light destroyed the skeleton soldiers¡¯ camp, ghosts¡¯ camp, and bone dragons¡¯ camp. The beam covered half the city before directly bursting out of the city and continuing to destroy everything in its path until it destroyed the mountains behind Asolivis.


    ¡°Did I seed?¡±


    I was panting heavily. I had no energy or mana remaining. Even I, the user of such a technique, had been blinded. Perhaps this was another side effect of this technique.


    Strangely, even though the technique had nothing at all to do with sound, I was currently deaf. No, not only that, I couldn¡¯t feel my physical body at all, as if I didn¡¯t even exist. This could only mean that all of my five senses had been blocked off.


    No, that still wasn¡¯t all. I could no longer sense my connection with my magical pet, Harloys. This meant that either she was dead, or that the so-called sixth sense of the heart had also been blocked off.


    I knew that no matter what the result had been, I no longer had anybat strength. Every single second was time that I could use to escape with my life.


    However, it would seem far too uncool to directly run away like this... Since my enemy had also lost their vision, then I would act ording to my n.


    I opened up a dimensional crack which transported me right back into my personal Hell world. My enemies would probably never expect that I had yet to leave this location.


    I rested on the ground of my personal Hell for 10 full minutes before my senses of hearing and then pain were gradually restored. It took more than 30 minutes for my vision to recover... It seemed that I would need to invent sunsses in this world before trying to use this technique again.


    ¡°How was the result?¡±


    Only now did I ask Harloys this question. She probably reported the result to me already, but our soul connection was temporarily cut off back then. This technique was truly abnormal to have managed to aplish this.


    Harloys showed me an image without saying anything.


    The powerful Sarwenstan was missing half of his body. His main human head on the middle and fire element dragon head on the right were missing. Only his ice element dragon head on the left was still connected to his neck. His skin was torn and injured all over. He appeared scorched ck everywhere, as if he was a burnt fried chicken leg. A strange golden glow was flowing on his injuries, apparently preventing him from recovering.


    I inhaled a cold breath at the sight. Was this really the Lord of Tyranny, a Chaos Main God who was one of the strongest existences in the world? He looked more like a leftover chicken leg... cough cough, I should be more respectful.


    Since it was impossible for me to miss at such a close distance, it appeared that Sarwenstan had taken the entire brunt of the attack. Yet, he still managed to survive, even if this was likely the most pitiful he had ever been in his life.


    Harloys showed me another image right after this ¨C a skeleton which was being bathed in thunder and mes. His pale white soulfire seemed like it was about to go out at any moment, yet still contained such powerful hatred which almost seemed like a physical curse.


    ¡°Shupnus?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. He used Sarwenstan as a shield and managed to survive. Apart from them two, everything else here waspletely annihted, including one Devil Lord and one Dimensional Door.¡±


    Harloys then showed me a bird¡¯s eye view image of Asolivis. It appeared as if someone had taken an eraser and wiped horizontally through the city. Arge patch of ground had been transformed into pure whiteness in an utmost unscientific manner. The beam of light had directly destroyed a Dimensional Door before prating through several mountains in the distance.


    ¡°Is this still a sword? Isn¡¯t this more like a map-wide cannon barrage?¡±


    [There are so many swords these days that are being used as cannons. Don¡¯t you see how swordsmen are leveling up to cannoneer job sses in certain video games? There are even seven or eight characters with nearly identical portraits. Those who only know how to slice are so outdated already.]


    I decided to ignore this mysteriousment. Still, it seemed like my System was in a rather good mood.


    [Now that you have this technique, you¡¯ll finally be able to beat up your younger brother. This will mean that my teaching ability isn¡¯t any worse than my younger sister¡¯s.]


    Her words were rather confusing, but I was finally able to understand what she meant. I never thought that she was still brooding on such a subject.


    [Ridiculous, of course I¡¯d worry over this. You and your younger brother are twins, yet you¡¯ve always been so much weaker than him. Isn¡¯t it normal for me to start doubting things? I wouldn¡¯t have been worried for so many years if only you were slightly more reliable. Still, this time... you¡¯re finally at the same level as him.]


    My System¡¯s voice started out with dissatisfaction, but then finished with calmness that was filled with exmations, as if, as if...


    [As if I¡¯m a mother who finally watched her son seed? In a way, I really am your mother.]


    I was instantly rendered speechless. In a way? In a way, she was also the mother of all life in this world! Please, don¡¯t just im to be someone else¡¯s mother so casually!


    [I really am your mother...]


    I wisely abandoned this topic and directly ignored my System who was stillughing at me in my mind. My brain would likely explode if I continued this topic, so I decided instead to focus on what was before me.


    Sarwenstan still wasn¡¯t dead? This was actually within my expectations from the very beginning. Chaos Main Gods would have countless lifesaving techniques. Even if I had struck Sarwenstan with my technique at maximum power, an energy level strong enough to threaten even a Chaos Main God, he still likely would have managed to use a technique to live.


    Being able to aplish so much was already quite a pleasant surprise. As for what came after... I would have to wait for the news headlines. My enemies were a Chaos Main God and an Undead Emperor, after all. They would definitely have plenty of lifesaving techniques as well as techniques to drag their enemies into death with them if they died. It would be far too foolish if I tried to attack and finish them off right now.


    ¡°This means that I¡¯m going to run away right after acting pretentiously... er, I mean that it¡¯s time for a strategic repositioning after a victory.¡±

 Chapter 765 - Change

    <h4>Chapter 765: Change</h4>


    Eich¡¯s news industry had be quite advanced ever since the fairies got involved. The fairies¡¯ news stands could be found almost everywhere. Anyone could subscribe to their daily ck Forest Report and learn about major incidents which had urred halfway around the world just a few days ago.


    However, the fairies were recently having difficulty keeping up with the news!


    This meaningless Holy War wouldn¡¯t possibly stop. The end result of the entire world being at war was that highly important news was happening every day.


    In the past, the death of a king or destruction of an entire army would have been headline news. Now, the destruction of an entire small or medium kingdom would only be on the second page.


    Did this sound like everything was bad news?


    The result of bad news being everywhere was that any bit of good news would be endlessly exaggerated.


    ¡°The Devil Lord Chaos Main God invaded the mortal ne, only to be directly beaten back by the Strongest Holy Knight!¡±


    On the very next day, the fairies had the more than 100 news agencies under their control all use this exact same headline.


    Under this headline was a memory crystal image of Sarwenstan who now had only one dragon head remaining. Even though he was in an incredibly wretched state, his image was still capable of striking primeval fear into people¡¯s hearts.


    Sarwenstan was a supreme source of evil that would typically only appear in fairy tales. Yet, he was now appearing in front of everyone in such a wretched state, which truly gave others a tremendous impact.


    To give an analogy using Christianity from my original world, it would be like Satan suddenly arriving on Earth to fight against God, but then Satan was hit in the head by a randomly thrown brick right after crawling out of hell, to the point where his head was seriously injured and bleeding... This was probably a rather strange analogy, but I¡¯m sure my readers will understand.


    The end result was that every single fairy news publication used more than half of their entire publication to report on this incident. They started from Sarwenstan¡¯s past aplishments, talking about his current status, faction, how incredibly many powerful individuals he had killed before, and so on. All news publications then came to the identical conclusion that I had aplished an incredibly amazingbat achievement that was so unbelievable and wonderful for morale.


    ¡°The greatestbat achievement since the Holy War started!¡±


    ¡°The Holy Church is nothing more than disorganized rabble that only knows how to argue about the Strongest Holy Knight who achieved so many incredible things.¡±


    There was a tiny postscript in all these exaggerated reports that Sarwenstan¡¯s ¡°ally A¡±, whom some referred to as an Undead Emperor by the name of Shupnus, was identally injured during this attack. There was even a picture of Shupnus¡¯s skull looking all pitiful in the center.


    Ally A? identally injured? If I was Shupnus, I would have been angered to the point of exploding just by seeing such a news report. Being at the very end in such tiny text would be even more humiliating than receiving a serious injury.


    Disorganized rabble? The Holy Church had received yet another verbal attack despite having nothing to do with this matter. The very fact that the fairies dared to criticize the powerful Holy Church was also circumspect evidence that the Holy Church¡¯s reputation had recently been decreasing significantly. If the Holy Church didn¡¯t aplish anything major soon, then not only would it be unable to be the humans¡¯ leader in the Holy War, it would likely be pushed out of authority by the royalty of the major countries.


    Actually, none of the above were the most pitiful here. The most pitiful one was the Devil Lord whose name wasn¡¯t even reported for his death. It was as if everyone had tacitly agreed to forget about his existence.


    ¡°I am the Devil Lord under Satan whose name is... Ahhhhhh!!!¡±


    He died in a suddenly passing by sh of light on his first appearance before he could even introduce his name. He really couldn¡¯t get any more pitiful.


    Even though a Devil Lord would clearly be a vicious existence that dominated the nes and even the Gods feared, he ended up as a tragic character who died aic death, which really made me want to exim.


    The battlefield at Bardi, which nobody had paid any attention to previously, suddenly became the center of attention, far surpassing the ongoing meat grinder battle in San Antonio.


    I also became the center of attention once more.


    This time, the fairies didn¡¯t readjust the Cmity Rankings, since it was impossible to raise my rank anymore. They even hesitated on whether or not to remove me, as the Cmity Rankings represented those who were dangerous to the world, while in a certain way, I had proved my own allegiance with my actions.


    However, my power level assessment was adjusted upwards by a significant amount. I had originally been assessed to be at Level 4, seven stars, but my rank was instantly changed to 17 stars.


    20 stars was a Main God¡¯s power level. 10 stars was a powerful God¡¯s level. This ranking meant that I was far stronger than normal powerful Gods, and that I was capable of threatening the Main Gods, although I had yet to personally y a Main God by myself.


    Actually, this assessment of my power level was really unreliable. Sophocles the Deceiver, Sarwenstan, and even Seraphim Winton and Undead Emperor Shupnus had all been my hypothetical enemies that my Dawn sword countered. On top of that, I had revealed my Dawn sword ace for the first time against them, which was how I achieved such goodbat results.


    If I had to face an enemy whose powers I didn¡¯t counter, such as a Dwarf God or a Nature God, or a Chaos Evil God who had formerly been an Order God, then I would have to run away even if the enemy wasn¡¯t a Main God. I had onlypleted one of my four nned magic swords, after all. I was far from reaching my utmost potential.


    Still, these so-called power level assessments were only useful for neers as a reference. Every powerful existence would have their personal path. There were countless strange abilities out there. Who was actually stronger or weaker? Who might have abilities that countered another¡¯s? This could only be determined by a real fight.


    The biggest use of a power level assessment was to warn neers to not bite off more than they could chew, so that they wouldn¡¯t challenge opponents who were far stronger than they were. This was better than dying in a hot-blooded manner due to foolishly not knowing any better.


    To me, the fairies¡¯ assessment was only something I would read to pass the time. There would be far more trouble waiting for me on the battlefield.


    My attack on Sarwenstan wouldn¡¯t end this battle at all, but rather the opposite. The furious Chaos Main God would rest and recover for a little while and then angrily open up even more dimensional portals without caring about the price he would have to pay. The furious ruler of devils would surely summon even more devil generals andmanders toe here.


    The human allied army with Bardi at the lead wouldn¡¯t be stupid, either. After they confirmed the veracity of this news, they unhesitatingly increased their marching speed. The two sides had already begun a cruel battle of attrition.


    The wood spirits¡¯ Forest of Dreams had also sent out their army to help deal with the devils and undead¡¯s forces. Bardi had already unhesitatingly started a direct battle against the devil army.


    Bardi was truly a country that had suffered many catastrophes. The Holy Church led an allied invasion against it, the Mage Country previously had a bad rtionship with it, the Undead Cmity chose it for its first invasion location, and now it was going through a second Undead Cmity, and on top of all that, the devils had now invaded. Although Bardi was truly unfortunate, this was also in a way proof that the country and people of Bardi had incredibly foundational strength and durability. They wouldn¡¯t be that easy to defeat.


    Meanwhile, I met with a new problem after sessfully escaping from Asolivis. The devils and undead were being far too ¡°passionate¡± about trying to find me. It seemed as if they would follow me anywhere, no matter where in the world I tried to go.

 Chapter 766 - Two Battlefronts

    <h4>Chapter 766: Two Battlefronts</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Summer in Year 10 of the Dawn Generation came rather early.


    Two weeks of heavy rain urred in the central area of the main continent. This short and ¡°fulfilling¡± rainy season caused the humidity and temperature to rapidly rise, immediately bringing midsummer.


    The swift end of the rainy season wasn¡¯t necessarily a good thing.


    Perhaps many people wouldn¡¯t understand. Even though heavy rain would be really troublesome for the local residents¡¯bat preparations and logistics, it would be the interdimensional invaders who had the most difficult time.


    From a certain standpoint, war was really fair as it would give both sides an equal amount of pain and difficulty. The rain would trouble the local residents while also sinking the demons, devils, and ogres into a quagmire as they had difficulties with logistics to begin with.


    Very few people would consider whether the demons and devils from myths would actually require logistical support while in the mortal ne. It seemed like they could fill their bellies simply by eating corpses, but the truth was that they required a tremendous amount of food as logistical support.


    Although demons would always arrogantly shout about eating humans and devouring their souls, there really weren¡¯t that many demons who would actually devour humans on the battlefield. There was still an instinctive repulsion for an intelligent creature to eat another intelligent creature, but this was even more because demons were also creatures with senses of taste and smell. They wouldn¡¯t enjoy eating rotten corpses if they had any other choice.


    Low-level demons weren¡¯t picky, so they wouldn¡¯t need to worry over ack of ¡°food¡±. The higher-level demons were the ones who actually needed more ordinary food in order to satisfy the endless hunger stemming from their soul¡¯s instinct.


    Meanwhile, the devils had always looked down upon ¡°barbaric beasts that needed to eat raw meat¡±. The devils would do their best to maintain their so-called elegance even while eating mortals¡¯ souls by using tes, knives, and forks...


    The devils wouldn¡¯t only want bread and cooked meat. The mid and high-level devils even had a special taste for drugs, alcohol, and tobo. These were all rtively expensive luxury items.


    If this was in the Chaos Abyss, no matter if it was the demons or devils, no matter which level of the Chaos Abyss they attacked, they basically wouldn¡¯t need to consider the issue of logistics. Even if they didn¡¯t bring enough food supply with them, Onibabas and other such dimensional merchants would automatically follow them. Victory would also bring them enough loot for their food supply needs.


    And if they lost? If they lost, they would be the victory loot for others, so thinking about such a thing would be meaningless.


    However, that would be impossible this time...


    The entire mortal ne was filled with the demons and devils¡¯ enemies. Apart from the insane and dark cultists, nobody would be friendly towards these dimensional invaders, so there would be nobody providing resources for them.


    The attack on the Lord of Tyranny wouldn¡¯t only bolster the humans¡¯ morale. This attack had shattered a Dimensional Door as well as the devils¡¯ attitude that this was a rxing vacation. All the devils had seen Sarwenstan¡¯s wretched state, which would also make all devils reconsider their future before entering the mortal ne. Voluntarilying to battle here versus being forced toe and battle would have totally different effects.


    As for the destroyed Dimensional Door, this wasn¡¯t as simple as there still were four more Dimensional Doors here after one was destroyed. The destruction of a Dimensional Door would mean aplete loss of energy bnce between the Dimensional Doors here. Dimensional cracks and shock waves had simultaneously appeared, meaning that massive explosions had urred over in the Chaos Abyss on the other side. The dimensional shock waves would need to calm down before the other Dimensional Doors could have resources invested into them for use again.


    This would greatly slow down the devil invasion, especially since the sly and selfish devils would now have a perfect excuse to observe the situation, or desert the devil army, or pretend they were listening to orders without actually doing much.


    The human generals wouldn¡¯t pass up such a rare opportunity. They immediately started an attack right after hearing this news. The royal dragon knights acted as the vanguard and forcefully attacked without caring about the price they would have to pay.


    Since the devils¡¯ leader was currently absent due to injury, the devils¡¯ already tattered leadership naturally became utterly chaotic. Most of the devils fighting on the frontlines could only fight for themselves. Since they had just arrived in the mortal ne, they would also need to get ustomed to the environment here. On top of that, the great majority of lower nes would never have any rain, which gave the devils trouble as they weren¡¯t ustomed to such weather.


    Of course, this was only a small amount of trouble, as the devils hade here nning on fighting the angels and dragons to begin with. They would be far stronger than ordinary humans.


    Devils were naturally born with elemental magic resistance and a certain amount of magic ability. Individual devils were far stronger than individual humans on average. The humans¡¯ elite forces got to taste what it was like to be cannon fodder for once.


    Both sides suffered incredibly serious losses. However, maybe the humans had gained fortune from misfortune. The elite human knights had be far more skilled at fighting in heavy rain due to the previous battle against Shupnus¡¯s undead forces in his artificial rain.


    Meanwhile, many of the devils had never seen rain in their entire lives. They were naturally resistant to acid and fire, but this was meaningless against natural rainfall. Additionally, the devils weren¡¯t familiar with thend here, and it was a terrible feeling to fight while surrounded by enemies on a pitch-ck rainy night, so the devils were deserting quite swiftly the moment that thebat situation seemed to be going poorly for them.


    It was impossible to calcte the losses on either side, since nobody would possibly know how many corpses had sunken into the muddy swamp created from all the rain. However, the generals on both sides were having difficulty epting how quickly their elites were dying off.


    At this time, the human generals were hoping to use the temporary advantage from Sarwenstan¡¯s retreat to gain as much as they could while gritting their teeth no matter how great the losses. Meanwhile, the devils knew that they would receive reinforcements if they persisted as the devil generals and leaders wouldn¡¯t be so easy to deal with.


    Many of the devils really regretteding to the mortal ne as they hade to enjoy themselves but instead were forced to ¡°wrestle with barbarians in the mud¡±. This also made it more difficult to recruit additional devil soldiers in the lower nes.


    But for the devils, things were only getting even worse.


    The devils had taken over the undead territory, which meant that they had also taken over the trouble facing the undead.


    Asolivis, which had been created coincidentally to begin with, actually wasn¡¯t very appropriate to be the undead¡¯s home base. This was because Asolivis was far too close to an enemy faction since the wood spirits¡¯ Forest of Dreams was right next to it.


    In the past, the undead forces had pressured the wood spirits, making it so that the wood spirits could only defend themselves with the forest¡¯s terrain advantage. However, things were different now. The wood spirits were going on the offensive. Even though their military force wasn¡¯t veryrge, it was a solid threat to Asolivis.


    Even without a battle of attrition, as long as the wood spirits sent a force to threaten Asolivis¡¯s outskirts, this would definitely keep a portion of the devil army busy. Besides, as Bardi and the other countries had requested, the wood spirits had sent out an attack squad with battleships that were capable of fighting a major war of attrition for several years.


    To the west of Asolivis was the battlefield with the Forest of Dreams, which had already be a meat grinder. 10 years had passed since the wood spirits were created. This Silver Species had already reached the peak of the world. These 10 years hadn¡¯t been peaceful at all for them. Although their ongoing war with the undead hadn¡¯t escted to a deathmatch level, the war had never stopped for even one moment. Every single wood spirit had matured through warfare. They were all experts at defensive battles and gueri warfare. Many powerful individuals had also appeared among the Contract Heroes fighting with the wood spirits after participating in the 10 years of warfare.


    Individually, the wood spirits were solidly more powerful than the devils due to the magical nts and terrain advantage. The Forest of Dreams¡¯ existence meant that the devils never had the possibility of an overwhelming quick victory to begin with, as the devils didn¡¯t have a solid foundation here.


    To the east of Asolivis were the Bardi knights and dragon knights who were doing their very utmost to attack the devils. These knights were the elites among the elites. They were willing to pay any price to protect their homnd. They also had excellent logistical support, so they could afford to go all out in a battle of attrition.


    The devils had to face major threats from both east and west. The size of their entire battlefield was alreadyrger than most small and medium-sized kingdoms. Theplex terrain was also a nightmare for logistical support, especially since the skies were currently ruled by the dragons. Trying to supply the frontlines was the equivalent of a suicide mission.


    In the end, the powerful devil leaders had to personally ensure logistical support for resupplying the frontlines, yet they only became high-rank targets for others to hunt down.


    The logistical support nightmare for the devils was only beginning. The overly long andplex supply line was identified by others as the devils¡¯ weakness. The Forest of Dreams issued arge number of devil supply line ambush missions to the Contract Heroes, which helped many of the newer Contract Heroes to learn the fun of grinding points.


    The wood spirits were now incredibly wealthy. The top 10 point earners for them in every month would be handsomely rewarded.


    However, it was likely that nobody else would be able to catch up to this month¡¯s #1 ranked point holder. This was because nobody wanted topete with this person.


    ¡°Rnd Mist? Why has hee to the Forest of Dreams? What¡¯s he doing grinding points here?¡±

 Chapter 767 - Free Time

    <h4>Chapter 767: Free Time</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Actually, it¡¯s not that I wanted to grind points, it¡¯s that the points wanted to grind me...¡±


    I truly was feeling quite helpless. I hadn¡¯t waned toe to the Forest of Dreams to grind points. It was that the moment that I appeared on the outskirts of the battlefield, all devils and demons would go crazy and start charging towards me, making it impossible for me not to grind points.


    1This was even more ridiculous than a map-wide AOE taunt. It was just like someone was shouting into the world chat channel about my location every time that I appeared.


    ¡°The boss Rnd has just refreshed at ¡ª¡ª¡ª, so everyone hurry ande grind him!¡±


    And then every single devil and undead ¡°yer¡± in the ¡°server¡± would set aside everything else that they were doing and team up to fully focus on trying to grind me.


    I hadn¡¯t even voluntarilye over to the Forest of Dreams. It was just that once I finally recovered a certain amount ofbat strength and left my personal Hell world, the humans and devils had already begun a bloody meat grinder battle.


    However, it seemed like neither side had forgotten about me...


    Asolivis was surrounded by several dozenyers of defenses. A patrolling ghost saw me not long after I exited my personal Hell world.


    The moment that my location was exposed, devil thanes and Undead Lords started partying to take down the raid boss. I killed the ones who came alone or only in a group of two, but I really wouldn¡¯t be able to handle 40, 80, or 120 at a time, even if I was a big boss. And as I fought, more and more lord-level cannon fodder would start gathering around me. They would also have cannon fodder underlings to deplete my stamina with. This was so shameless!


    I could only helplessly run away after casting a few ultimate skills. The end result was that my enemies kept trying to hunt me down.


    I did want to run towards the human allied army, but I discovered that not only would Undead Lords and powerful devils hunt me to the end on the battlefield, there were even long-range AOE spells aimed directly at meing from Asolivis whenever my coordinates were locked on.


    This meant that all the human forces and defense lines resisted my joining them. What happened next was that all the humans started running away whenever I appeared near them... They really did have to run as I would have several hundred boss-level devils and undead chasing me, so no human force would be able to handle it.


    Alright then, I admit that I identally truly became a jinxer who brought misfortune everywhere that he went. I pulled an aggro train everywhere with me... it was a pity that the Holy Church¡¯s people weren¡¯t here, as there would have been a fun show to watch then.


    I didn¡¯t know just how much Sarwenstan and Shupnus hated me, but the bosses chasing me right now were definitely more than 70% of the high-levelbat strength of the undead and devil forces. All of thisbat strength was being used solely to hunt me down, which seemed so illogical and overboard to me.


    ¡°Overboard? You¡¯re the one who¡¯s really illogical not to die even with so many lord-level existences hunting you down.¡±


    Harloys had canceled her clone and was watching the show as if it had nothing to do with her.


    I could only helplessly choose to go towards the west as everyone knew that the Forest of Dreams was the most solid fortress of all. Even the Undead Lords and powerful devils wouldn¡¯t be foolish enough to enter this forest which would only give them certain death.


    I truly couldn¡¯t guess just how much of a reward had been posted for my head. These Undead Lords and powerful devils should have been really busy, yet it seemed that they far preferred to camp outside the Forest of Dreams rather than go do anything else.


    The result was that I would always be spotted instantly and surrounded the moment that I tried to leave the Forest of Dreams...


    ¡°Something¡¯s wrong with this scenario. Other protagonists clearly defeat all the powerful enemies in their path after obtaining their ultimate ability. These protagonists get to defeat gods and everyone else while reaching the top of the world. Yet, why am I even more pitiful than before even though I¡¯ve clearly be stronger and obtained an ultimate weapon?¡±


    ¡°...Perhaps, from a certain standpoint, it¡¯s exactly because of the ultimate weapon you possess. Nobody wants to mysteriously be half killed like the unfortunate Sarwenstan and Shupnus. That¡¯s why they want to kill you first at all costs.¡±


    I instantly understood after hearing Harloys¡¯ assessment.


    To use an analogy from my original world of Earth, if a powerful country had nuclear weapons, then that would be a threat. But, if a small country had nuclear weapons yet wasn¡¯t able to prove their dominance, then others would try to suppress that country before it could do anything.


    ¡°It seems that I need to think of some idea for something even more major.¡±


    ¡°...Of course, it¡¯s probably even more because of the devils and undead¡¯s personal grudges against you. It would be strange for them not to want to hunt you down after getting into such a wretched state because of you. Sarwenstan and Shupnus will definitelye to personally hunt you down once they¡¯ve recovered.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words now made me suddenly feel like my earlier thoughts had been meaningless. As expected, personal grudges were the main reason why I was being hunted down.


    Since I was unable to leave the Forest of Dreams, I could only spend my free time here.


    I had killed a significant number of devils and undead recently. When I went to the local church in charge of exchangingbat achievements for points and updated my data, I suddenly and unexpectedly became the #1 points holder in the Forest of Dreams.


    The person in charge at the church asked me if I wanted to publicize my #1 points holder status or not. I figured that I might as well publicize it since the entire world knew that I was here regardless.


    Since I had earned so many points, I naturally wanted to spend them all on things I needed.


    The Forest of Dreams had many local specialties. Right now, the most famous local specialties were the Dusk Fruits and Dawn Fruits which could make a person older or younger by five years, respectively. Of course, the great majority of people only desired Dawn Fruits in order to lengthen their lifespan.


    I didn¡¯t spend my points on these fruits, as I had previously eaten plenty of Dusk Fruits already. Lifespan didn¡¯t hold any meaning to someone like me at all. I had yet to live a single life where I died naturally of old age. I had always died from outside factors.


    The wood spirits had far more treasures than just these two types of fruit.


    Long ago, the wood spirits had used the power of nature magic to create fruits which were capable of permanently raising one¡¯s stats. This could foundationally increase a person¡¯s Constitution, Strength, Dexterity, or other stats, making up for any natural insufficiencies.


    In a way, this was a miracle that had reached the powers of the Creator Goddesses.


    Ordinary people didn¡¯t have ess to a direct analysis of their physical stats like what my System could provide, but they could see for themselves that these miraculous fruits were capable of helping them to run faster, gain more strength, and react quicker, along with giving them a healthier and stronger body.


    Newbie adventurers would really love so-called ultimate techniques and forbidden spells. However, the veteran adventurers who had been through true life-and-death situations before would know that the base stats were more fundamentally important than anything.


    Adventurers who had reached a bottleneck due tocking talent were also really overjoyed.


    These precious permanent stat-raising fruits became immensely popr. However, the adventurers soon discovered the insufficiencies of these fruits.


    Firstly, these fruits were incredibly expensive, and only a limited number of each type of stat-raising fruit would be sold each month. Secondly, the fruits¡¯ effectiveness would rapidly decrease or they¡¯d even bepletely ineffective after eating a certain amount. Thirdly, the fruits¡¯ effectiveness was rather difficult to guarantee. A certain warrior worked really hard to earn enough points to exchange for a single Strength fruit, only to eat it and discover that the fruit didn¡¯t have any effect on his Strength stat at all. However, that same person ate three Speed fruits which all concretely worked to increase his speed, yet he was a pure tank-type warrior who wielded a heavy shield, meaning that he barely had any use at all for increasing his speed.


    It would be impossible to choose a different path after going too far down one¡¯s chosen job ss path. This warrior had paid a tremendous price for these stat-raising fruits. Although he indeed gained some permanent stats, his gain made others not know whether they shouldugh or cry.


    How this worked was actually determined by the foundational principle of these stat-raising fruits. These fruits were the pure energy of life. They were capable of improving and buffing a living individual¡¯s weaknesses. However, these fruits were also limited by the individual¡¯s maximum stat capacity and natural talent.


    For instance, the previously mentioned warrior was actually someone who would have been a highly talented thief. However, he had been born in a knight family, which was why he chose to be a heavily armored tanking warrior job ss. He worked extremely hard, but then reached a point where talent was even more important than hard work to progress. The natural limitations of his talent determined already that he had reached the peak of what he could achieve as a tanking warrior job ss. The stat-raising fruits wouldn¡¯t be capable of giving him a chance to start all over again in a job ss path more suitable for his talents. These fruits could only activate one¡¯s true potential and provide a small increase in stats on top of one¡¯s own foundation.


    This meant that those who had trained themselves the hardest had already achieved most of their maximum potential, so such people eating the fruits gained only limited benefits. Rather, they would instead find that the fruits would often activate their potential in other areas that they had never trained in before.


    But for me, I would almost certainly not reach any bottleneck any time soon while eating these permanent stat-raising fruits containing the energy of life.


    ¡°This is because I¡¯m someone who just recently achieved Level 4.¡±


    After a person achieved Level 4, their physical body would have alreadybined with their Myth-ranked weapon and evolved to the point of no longer truly being a member of the human species. This naturally meant that Level 4 individuals had already surpassed the limits and restrictions of humanity.


    Although Level 4 individuals would still have restrictions of their own, these restrictions were far fewer than what ordinary humans would have.


    Many years had passed already since the wood spirits started selling these permanent stat-raising fruits, yet it still remained a secret that these stat-raising fruits were capable of helping Level 4 individuals. This was likely because most powerful Level 4 individuals would think that they wouldn¡¯t be able to receive help from outside objects anymore. Or, perhaps there were a few out there who knew this secret, yet they wouldn¡¯t tell anyone else, because they wanted to have more fruits to themselves since the number of fruits that the wood spirits sold were only a limited number each month, after all.


    However, the wood spirits suddenly produced 10 times the normal number of stat-raising fruits this month, yet these extra fruits all went to me rather than being sold on the market to the adventurers. Of course, this was all because of my connection to Amelia and the wood spirits.


    Level 4 individuals who recently reached this power level would need arge amount of real battles and hard work at cultivation to improve even further after already having broken past their own species¡¯ natural limitations. Yet, I could improve my base stats simply by eating some fruits.


    I really was having a lot of fun these days. I went out every day to grind devils and undead for points to exchange for stat-raising fruits. This process kept repeating itself over and over... I felt like I couldn¡¯t be bothered to go anywhere else until I maxed out my stats. Not a single one of these extra stat-raising fruits was being sold on the market, as they were all just for me.


    ¡°Eating fruits can raise my base stats? What afortable method of cultivation this is. It¡¯s rare that I get to have such a fun vacation time...¡±


    Unfortunately, I had jinxed myself yet again. New trouble came directly for me right after I said this.

 Chapter 768 - Unexpected

    <h4>Chapter 768: Unexpected</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The Forest of Dreams had indeed changed quite a bitpared to 10 years ago. Still, these changes wouldn¡¯t be that evident without careful observation.


    The Forest of Dreams was a living forest with its own will. Or, perhaps the Forest of Dreams was more urately described as a part of Amelia herself... She was constantly expanding her own domain. Maybe those within the forest wouldn¡¯t feel anything, but if there was a satellite providing a bird¡¯s-eye view, then one would discover that the Forest of Dreams was increasing its area every year at a rate of more than 30%. Over the past 10 years, the Forest of Dreams had secretly multiplied its area by more than 10 times.


    Apart from the Forest of Dreams¡¯ natural expansion, the wood spirits were also working hard to expand their forest, or maybe it should be called their territory. This was one of the wood spirits¡¯ most important tasks over the past few years.


    The wood spirits started out by hiring adventurers to fight with them against the undead and help them nt seeds around the forest to expand the Forest of Dreams¡¯ territory. This kept repeating over the years.


    As time passed, all of the newly nted forests became connected, which naturally multiplied the Forest of Dreams¡¯ area many times over.


    A greater area would also represent more power of nature. This also represented that even more souls would enter the Forest of Dreams¡¯ natural cycle. The wood spirit poption was increasing explosively. Amelia¡¯s personal power level would also explosively increase with all of this.


    Amelia was the will of the entire Forest of Dreams. It could be said that the entire forest was a part of her physical body, and that every single wood spirit was her child and an embodiment of herself. The current Amelia now seemed quite gentle and low profile inparison to her past extreme self, which only made me feel like she was even scarier and more inscrutable than before.


    ¡°It¡¯s likely that she¡¯s already reached the level of being a so-called Main God.¡±


    I was quite confident of this. Just from the fact that the wood spirits¡¯ products were bing ever more inconceivable, I started viewing Amelia as a new Nature God or Life God right from the time that the wood spirits created the Dusk Fruit which was something that epassed the secrets of life.


    The Mother Earth Goddess was the only Nature God who had ever reached Main God level, but she had long since lost her own will. It was rather doubtful whether she should even still be ssified as a Nature God.


    Basically, the Mother Earth Goddess couldn¡¯t be counted on to help the other Nature Gods if the Nature Faction was endangered.


    It was a fact that there were many Nature Gods, who ranged from moderates to extremists. Still, none of the Nature Gods were the type who wanted to conquer the world.


    Of course, the Nature Gods were far too ancient, so they had many worshippers in the mortal ne. All druids and nature mages could be categorized into the Nature Faction. The Nature Faction¡¯s only obvious weakness was that they had alwayscked the highest-levelbat strength¡ªa Main God to lead them.


    Previously, the Nature Faction had been trying to make friendly entreaties towards Amelia to recruit her as a way of strengthening themselves. However, the Nature Gods then started to faintly keep their distance from Amelia after she showed off her newest creation.


    The Nature Faction would enjoy recruiting a powerfulrade who was around their level, but they would reconsider if they instead gained someone who became the boss of them all.


    Amelia had never made any response. She neither epted nor rejected the Nature Faction¡¯s invitation. She only focused on developing her wood spirits.


    I knew that this was because she looked down on the Nature Gods who were quite the loose alliance where everyone only did their own thing. Amelia was also waiting for the Nature Gods to make a better offer. She would be willing to be their boss in name if she could obtain major benefits.


    As for the differences between Amelia¡¯s and the Nature Gods¡¯ philosophy on life? That wasn¡¯t a big deal at all. Even within the Nature Faction, many of the Nature Gods had their own territory and ideas, so it really didn¡¯t matter much.


    If Amelia and the Nature Faction still couldn¡¯te to an agreement in the end, then that would be no big deal for her. The Seven Virtues all had potential power sufficient to reach Godhood. They wouldn¡¯t even be Gods who relied on the power of belief. As long as Amelia and the wood spirits had enough time, they would be capable of creating an all-new Wood Spirit God Faction... Actually, they were doing so already.


    Did this sound really mythical and inconceivable? But, since the elves had their Elven Gods (although all the Elven Gods were now dead), the humans had the Holy Light Faction Gods (currently in the process of bing ruined), and the dwarves had their Dwarven Gods (who became weakened and then allied with the Nature Faction), of course the wood spirits could have their own Gods.


    ¡°I¡¯ve already seen through Amelia¡¯s scheme! She just wants to recruit more people! I¡¯m a man, so I definitely won¡¯t join a God Faction that¡¯s entirely female!¡±


    I was simply spouting random ridiculous things while touring the Forest of Dreams in my free time. Just about every single wood spirit here knew who I was, so I was treated as a VIP for once, which actually felt quite nice.


    The battlefield in the distance would never stop its warring. Contract Heroes of many different species were busy everywhere. Although more than 70% of the Contract Heroes were humans, I also saw wood spirits, elves, and beastmen among the Contract Hero adventurers. There were even quite a few gray elves and half-demons.


    As expected, adventurer was the most inconceivable job of all. Any species and any job ss might meet as adventurers.


    Some of the adventurers had just returned from the battlefield, while others were making preparations to go into battle. Whether or not they would return alive would depend on theirpanions and personal power level.


    The Forest of Dreams forever remained the most popr battlefield for the Contract Heroes to earn points from. There was an uncountable number of people arriving every day. Apart from the allure of the wood spirits¡¯ wondrous products, the foundational reason was that this was the safest interdimensional battlefield in the mortal ne.


    That¡¯s right, the safest. Even if the enemy here was the endless undead army, and the current enemy was the endless devil army, this was still the safest battlefield for the Contract Heroes to grind points at.


    The reason for this? It was quite simple. As long as the Forest of Dreams was here, even enemy Level 4 individuals wouldn¡¯t dare to take one step into this ce. Having apletely safe zone for resting and healing that adventurers could retreat to when losing was somethingpletely unheard of on every other battlefield.


    The most dangerous part about an interdimensional battlefield wasn¡¯t actually the never-ending war of attrition, but rather that it was impossible for you to choose your opponent. If you met a Level 4 individual who was far stronger than you, it would be impossible for you to win.


    Currently, I was also borrowing the protection of the Forest of Dreams to hide from all those who wanted to hunt me down.


    ¡°As expected, having an absolutely safe base is truly enjoyable...¡±


    ¡°Bad news! The frontlines have been broken through!¡±


    When I heard that surprising shout, my first reaction was that this was impossible and that there must have been a traitor, and my second reaction was that there really was no end to my jinxing ability. Maybe I should shut myself up permanently by wearing a metal gag?


    ¡°Or, if I look at this from a different standpoint, this is actually a karmic weapon. In the future, I¡¯ll curse all my enemies... no, praise them...¡±


    Themon sense that everyone knew was that the Forest of Dreams was impossible to conquer. Yet, the current events proved that the impossible was indeed happening.


    The newest trees on the outskirts of the Forest of Dreams were now withering and dying inrge patches. The entire Forest of Dreams was beginning to shake slightly as if it was a living creature that was in pain.


    There was only one possible exnation for this.


    ¡°Something happened to Amelia? Who could possibly injure her?¡±


    My astonishment was real. My knowledge of Amelia was that she was currently one of the strongest existences in the entire world. Her nature and life magic attack power wasn¡¯t that strong, but it would be highly difficult to counter. Her nts also had rather unique living souls. None of my four magic swords would be suitable for fighting against nts which were filled with life. On top of that, Amelia was incredibly powerful at both magic and meleebat. I truly wouldn¡¯t know how to deal with her if she got into close range of me.


    But before I could recover from my astonishment, the loli Rosa of the Seven Virtues arrived behind me.


    ¡°Father, Mother was beaten up by Uncle. Mother wants you to take revenge for her.¡±


    I was utterly confused by this. Just what did this even mean?


    Uncle? Did that mean my brother? So, Karwenz?


    Wasn¡¯t he busy trying to hunt down the Chaos Girls? Why would hee fight Amelia, who was obviously incredibly difficult to deal with? Wait a moment, there was one exnation that would cause everything to make sense...


    ¡°Amelia is also a Chaos Girl?¡±

 Chapter 769 - Flower Garden

    <h4>Chapter 769: Flower Garden</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    There was an endless flower garden underneath the bright sun. However, unlike a natural flower garden, the flowers here were incredibly varied to the point of being uncountable. The mostmon types of flowers here were thorny flowers.


    LIvely red roses, elegant white lilies, mysterious purple tulips, and all sorts of other flowers with different blossoming seasons were all simultaneously blooming here despite that being quite unreasonable.


    Hundreds of different flowers¡¯ fragrances all mixed together. However, this didn¡¯t smell bad at all. Instead, just like in a cocktail, all the scents helped each other out. Just by standing at the edge of the flower garden, you would feel really refreshed and energized by the wonderful flower aromas washing over you.


    A green-haired woman wearing a straw hat was currently busy working under the scorching sun. She was carefully watering and trimming the flowers while also chatting with them. The flowers also shook in the wind as if they wer using their own method to respond to the love and care they received.


    A breeze blew past the flowers. The rustling nt sounds seemed just like a song of thanks.


    The gardener saw that I had arrived, so she put down her watering can and happily waved at me.


    Another breeze blew past like a prankster and sent the gardener girl¡¯s straw hat whirling into the sky. Her silky smooth long green hair flowed in the wind. She had a gentle smile filled with delight from her work. It seemed as if time had stopped at this instant.


    ¡°...Isn¡¯t there something wrong with this style? Shouldn¡¯t Amelia be nting Piranha Flowers and cursed mandragoras in a really strange garden? With such a nice appearing scene, is this the wrong story?¡±


    ¡°No, but there¡¯s something wrong with your head. It¡¯s rare to see this side of Mother. Don¡¯t you know what you should be saying here?¡±


    Behind me, little Rosa suddenly used her head to press against my back. It seemed like she felt I was treating Amelia quite unfairly. But, since she wasn¡¯t tall enough, she would have pressed up against a rather awkward location if it weren¡¯t for the fact that she was on her tiptoes with an expression like she wanted to hit me.


    ¡°Ady shouldn¡¯t use high heels to kick someone else in the butt... You really are kicking me!¡±


    I embraced little Rosa who was beginning to kick me and messed around with her hair. It was probably difficult for anyone to truly get angry with someone so cute.


    Meanwhile, Amelia was already beginning to walk over. She was also holding on to a flower basket that seemed to contain fresh fruits.


    This scene waspletely different from what I had expected.


    Wasn¡¯t Amelia injured? Wasn¡¯t she just ambushed by that bastard, Karwenz? Why did it seem like she was someone enjoying the start of a vacation?


    ¡°You¡¯re here now. Don¡¯t listen to how the young ones made it sound so serious. I merely died once.¡±


    1Died once? Merely? I was originally quite calm, but I was no longer as calm after hearing these words.


    This flower garden was trulyrge as it was the royal garden of the Forest of Dreams. I never expected that I would even see a mansion and swimming pool within a flower garden. Judging from the weathering on the wooden mansion, this ce was at least seven or eight years old... And there was even a kindergarten with all sorts of toys and ygrounds. I doubted that Amelia had such a secret interest, so this meant...


    ¡°...What are you thinking? All of this is for our newly born younger sisters. Rosa definitely doesn¡¯t need a swing or a slide! Rosa hates sand pits the most! They always get my clothes dirty,¡± Rosa eximed from my side.


    Alright then, Rosa truly needed to learn more from her older sisters. She basically told me what this was without me needing to ask. It seemed like this was simr to a daycare for the newborn wood spirits. Perhaps this ce could also be called the home of Amelia and the Seven Virtues.


    ¡°The royal pces outside? Those are just to show outsiders. Of course we¡¯d invite Father into our own home.¡±


    Little Rosa proudly exined things to me because she could tell what I was wondering about.


    Indeed, this seemed more like Amelia¡¯s style.


    ¡°Where are the other Virtues? Don¡¯t tell me that they¡¯re all busy. Apart from Samantha, your oldest sister, the other brats don¡¯t have permanent jobs, right?¡±


    Outsiders would never be able to understand wood spirit society. The first three Virtues had been born before receiving my ¡°blessings¡±, so they were rtively more normal, especially ¡°Temperance¡± Samantha, who was ridiculously disciplined and hardworking.


    Thetter four Virtues had probably received too many blessings from me, making them slightly more individualistic... Fine, I admit that they had slightly strong personalities, but at the very least, they were all good children... Fine, I was lying as it would be quite difficult by any standard for them to be good children, but at the very least, they were all really cute!


    Yep, that¡¯s right, cuteness was justice! A cute child being naughty would be only a slight headache, while an uncute child being naughty would be tied to a rocket.


    1What? Were there no children who weren¡¯t naughty? Um, I felt like there would be no meaning in having a cute child who wasn¡¯t naughty.


    Indeed, the wood spirits were all really cute. If I really did see a wood spirit being all proper, I would try to think of ways to liven the atmosphere and get her to smile. For instance, I recently purchased a potion from Olivia which was capable of corroding fiber-based clothing. This potion was truly effective at causing clothing to instantly evaporate. Unfortunately, the wood spirits were all really t-chested, so there wasn¡¯t much to look at.


    2Still, the wood spirits were bing more and more on guard against me, maybe because I was in a good mood recently with lots of free time, which meant ample opportunities to y jokes on them. Apart from Rosa, who was stupider than her other sisters, most of the other Virtues had hardly appeared in front of me at all.


    The only other exception amongst the Virtues who often appeared in front of me was Samantha, who was also the current leader of the wood spirits. However, she was far too much of the serious type who also constantly lectured me. I felt like there would be no point in even trying to joke around with her.


    I once again messed up Rosa¡¯s braids that she just fixed, teasing her to the point where she used her tiny fists and feet against me. I then really enjoyed myself as I looked down on her with the advantage of my height. Iughed out loud in delight at seeing how she was bing sadder and sadder.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine as long as I¡¯m taller than you. It really was a wise decision to eat Dusk Fruits so that I could grow taller.¡±


    Rosa instantly burst into tears and kept hitting me with her tiny fists, yet I keptughing even louder in delight, treating her hits as nothing more than a massage.


    ¡°...You really are just like a child who never grows up.¡±


    Meanwhile, Amelia had finished making me a fruit sd and brought it to me.


    The fruit sd was made from fresh fruits which seemed quite normal. Apples, oranges, bananas... and Harloys¡¯ favorite eggnts.


    1Since I mentioned Harloys, I now found it rather strange that I couldn¡¯t see any of her clones anywhere in this flower garden. I actually felt unustomed to not having my personal professionalmentator with me.


    ¡°My clones were all killed by this woman in front of you! Aaah! Another Piranha Flower! Can¡¯t she at least change it up? This clone is about to die as well... Amelia! Changing things up doesn¡¯t mean to change to tentacles! Let go of me! You¡¯re not Beifeng, so why would you be interested in cats...¡±


    Oh, so that was what was going on. Let us thank Harloys for always providing us with her professionalmentating, and mourn her sacrificed clone #107 for one second. Now then, let us once again focus on what was important in front of us.


    ¡°...How did Karwenze for you? Weren¡¯t you with the humans?¡±


    Amelia was a high-ranking member of the human allied army. She was both Bardi royalty and a member of the Truth Symposium, which allowed her to act like a lubricant between Bardi and the Mage Country, making her naturally indispensable to the human alliance.


    Even if I shirked my responsibilities with the human alliance and ran off, she shouldn¡¯t have been able to leave. Amelia should have been currently working hard on the northern battlefront, so why had she appeared in front of me? Also, what did she mean by saying that she had ¡°died once¡±?


    Amelia smiled bitterly when I asked.


    ¡°I really did die once this time...¡±


    I learned what happened as Amelia exined things to me.


    Amelia was suddenly ambushed by Karwenz as recently as 8:00 a.m. this morning.


    The Abyss Prince¡¯s method of attack was really direct. He descended from the sky with a fireball thatpletely ttened the nearby soldiers¡¯ camp, creating a gigantic pit in the ground with a radius of 50 meters.


    Amelia then had a big fight against him. Amelia lost in the end, but Karwenz didn¡¯t have an easy time.


    I clicked my tongue as I listened to her story. Although this story sounded ordinary, there really was a lot of information to learn.


    As I already expected, Amelia had indeed reached Main God power level. In a way, the power of nature did have a natural counter as nature would fear the power of Chaos which would distort all that was natural and had rules. Druids and nature priests would hate facing demon warlocks and evil cultists more than any other type of opponent.


    Nature Faction members would love fighting those who used Soul Worlds to change the environment. However, powerful demons would have their own personal Chaos domains that would distort everything natural around them, so these demons¡¯ powers were aplete counter for nature powers.


    If you summoned a nt, then the demon would cause the nt to corrode and die. If you summoned an animal ally, the demon would demonize the animal and make it into his underling instead. If you used nature magic to summon a powerful nature attack, a powerful demon would be capable of distorting nature itself with his will alone.


    Still, when considering how the Nature Faction had formerly been one of the greatest factions in the Order Faction, and that the power of Chaos had forever been the core of the Chaos Faction, it was quite understandable how the Chaos Faction had constantly be stronger and stronger as the Nature Faction weakened with how Chaos countered nature.


    Amelia¡¯s powers could counter me. My powers could counter Karwenz. Karwenz¡¯s powers could counter Amelia. This was a messy rock paper scissors power bnce... Even so, the people of this world viewed the different factions countering each other asmon sense already.


    Countering an enemy¡¯s powers could allow someone to win against an enemy who was several power levels higher.


    If Amelia really did make Karwenz suffer significantly in their fight despite the fact that she lost and how Karwenz¡¯s powers countered her, then that could only mean one thing.


    ¡°Amelia, are you already stronger than Karwenz?¡±


    However, Amelia smiled faintly as she shook her head.


    ¡°I¡¯m still weaker than the veteran Main Gods. I directly exploded that physical body of mine when I discovered that it would be very hard to quickly determine a winner and loser.¡±


    The entire forest rustled as Amelia spoke. Every single tree, flower, bush, and vine were making identical sounds. At this moment, I confirmed a certain guess of mine¡ªthat the entire Forest of Dreams was Amelia herself, and that Amelia would be undying as long as the Forest of Dreams and wood spirits were still alive.


    I felt ratherplex inside as I looked at her, even though I wasn¡¯t thepetitive type.


    Others who were extremely talented would work hard at cultivating for several hundred years while ying demons or Gods before finally ascending to Godhood. The goal was always to live longer and be more powerful.


    Yet, the undying trait received from such Godhood ascension would cause one to lose just as much as they gained. Amelia never had such ambition to reach Godhood in the first ce. To my knowledge, she didn¡¯t even care about gaining power. Yet, she managed to obtain true eternal indestructibility.


    In fact, Amelia¡¯s divinity was on the same level as that of the Creator Goddesses. This wasn¡¯t a realm that one could achieve with only hard work and talent. Even I didn¡¯t know any shortcuts to reach this realm.


    If I had to find a reason for Amelia¡¯s sess, maybe it was pure luck? Or, would the word fate sound better?


    The Order Gods were bound by their own Divine Concepts and Divine Kingdoms. Unlike them, Amelia¡¯s indestructibility waspletely free of all restrictions. She also had infinite potential for further evolution. On top of all that, her personal species shared her indestructibility. Most importantly of all, 99% of obtaining such indestructibility would depend on luck on the level of winning a lottery. Many Gods would likely go insane from jealousy if they learned the true nature of Amelia¡¯s power.


    The green-haired young woman in front of me smiled as she said, ¡°Actually, if you want this type of indestructibility as well, I can give it to you.¡±


    At this moment, I was finally certain that Amelia definitely had the ability to read minds.


    Although she was using a joking tone, I knew that she was absolutely serious. If I agreed here, I could have my soul bound to the Forest of Dreams. With my umted power, I would naturally be the second ever Wood Spirit God and obtain indestructibility.


    ¡°...This does sound really nice, but I truly apologize as there¡¯re still things that I must do.¡±


    ¡°Liar. You would have refused even if you had nothing to do at all. I¡¯m sorry that I can¡¯t give you the life that you want. I know that you like to roam around the entire world like a wild dog.¡±


    Amelia was pouting, but her eyes were smiling. It was obvious that she was only pretending to be angry.


    I really had a hard time dealing with such an Amelia who now seemed so ¡°human¡± and ¡°easy to get along with¡±, so I could only tell her the truth.


    ¡°You know that already, so why invite me? That¡¯s so insincere.¡±


    ¡°Hmph. I¡¯m filled with sincerity. Some things should be tried before they¡¯re given up on. You¡¯re saying that I¡¯m insincere? Who promised me that he would often return to visit the children? Who was it that disappeared for so many years without so much as a single message? My children have spent more than 90% of their lives without a father. Every day, they ask me, ¡®Where is Father?¡¯¡±


    Amelia had even learned how to pretend and cry. Rosa cooperated quite well with her by making a teary expression. This was even harder for me to deal with.


    This version of Amelia was far more difficult to deal with than her past forceful self...


    Thus, I directly brought out a white handkerchief and shook it as a white g to indicate my surrender.


    ¡°We should probably talk serious business instead. Just how powerful is Karwenz?¡±


    That¡¯s right, my main objective here was to ask about Karwenz¡¯s true power level rather than anything rted to the so-called Chaos Girls.


    Karwenz ambushing Amelia was already evidence that she was a Chaos Girl. Since I already fully understood what Chaos Girls were thanks to Ayer and my System, I had no interest in asking Amelia about Chaos Girls.


    Even if she was a Chaos Girl, she was still Amelia, just like how Elisa was still Elisa. Neither of them would be another person just because of the source of their soul.


    Besides, Amelia had already reached the level of a Creator Goddess. It would be impossible for other Chaos Girls, or even a Main God, to force her soul tobine with the other Chaos Girls¡¯ souls. I surmised that Karwenz had given up not because he couldn¡¯t win against Amelia, but rather because he found out that continuing to fight against her would be meaningless.


    That was why I found it meaningless to ask Amelia about her being a Chaos Girl. But as for Karwenz...


    ¡°That sly bastard, he¡¯s never seriously gone all out in front of me even once, nor are there any living witnesses to speak about his true powers. I don¡¯t even know what his personal Concept and Myth-ranked weapon are!¡±

 Chapter 770 - Information and Home

    <h4>Chapter 770: Information and Home</h4>


    In my opinion, the most important thing in any war was forever information.


    Know thy enemy, and you can fight 100 battles with no danger of defeat. This was an ancient saying that had always remained a ssic.


    If you didn¡¯t even know your enemy¡¯s abilities and weaknesses, and still fought in such a scenario, winning would also be due to luck. In most cases, fighting in such a scenario would only bring disaster upon oneself, though.


    In this world, everyone had their own path, while powerful individuals had countless strange and wondrous abilities. Whose powers countered whose? That was truly difficult to say.


    Nobody was fully capable at everything. If someone really was praised as being fully capable at everything, this also meant that he was only average at everything.


    In most situations, exposing one¡¯s own specialties and weaknesses would result in their enemies plotting against their specialties, which would then lead to death.


    Nobody would be an idiot. Everyone would carefully protect the secrets of their strength and weakness. However, ancient existences would be really disadvantaged in this aspect.


    With so much time having passed, and with them having been through countless wars as well as life-and-death battles, they would expose their abilities and weaknesses to quite an extent. However, the fact that they had survived so long with so much information about themselves exposed was also evidence of how strong they were.


    Still, newer powerful individuals could also take advantage of information and go farther down their paths. After a certain point, they would also naturally make up for their own weaknesses and be veterans.


    Those who were arrogant and prideful, wanting the whole world to know how amazing their abilities and ultimate technique were, would almost always die quite early, apart from an extremely few special existences.


    ¡°I¡¯m undefeatable!¡±


    Such a taboo sentence would not only bring about misfortune, it was the fastest way tomit suicide.


    ¡°Okay, you¡¯re undefeatable, so what are your abilities? What¡¯s your specialty? What¡¯s your ultimate technique? Whatbat achievements do you have? What are your chances of winning against ¡ª¡ª¡ª?¡±


    If you didn¡¯t answer, how could you possibly prove that you were undefeatable? And if you answered, you would naturally expose your abilities.


    Although this seemedughable, there really were countless talented individuals who really did such things. They wouldbel their abilities with cool names that were urate descriptions, praise their undefeatable Myth-ranked weapons, and exin their abilities to the enemy while battling... It was as if they were had a death wish, and were afraid their enemy wouldn¡¯t know how to counter their abilities.


    ¡°I have infinite strength as long as I¡¯m touching the earth.¡±


    And then this fellow was raised off the earth and died.


    ¡°Apart from the back of my ankle, my skin is imprable.¡±


    He was then shot to death by a poisonous arrow on his ankle.


    ¡°As long as my sword/jewel/God Equipment is on me, I¡¯m undefeatable.¡±


    And then, the precious item was stolen, and the owner died.


    ¡°My dagger is coated with a powerful poison... *Lick!* Aah!¡±


    Cough, thest one didn¡¯t count, as he died of utter stupidity.


    Such people would proudly praise their own talents and abilities while looking down on everyone else. And then... and then they really died.


    Even if you managed to survive once, exposing your information would only allow your other enemies to prepare even better counters against you. Your enemies¡¯ failures would only make them prepare even more for the next battle. Unless your power was overwhelming enough to suppress everything, you would definitely lose and die one day.


    That was why I always tried to act as a power in the shadows. Even if others forced out one of my aces, I would immediately prepare another ace. I would never take part in any battle that I wasn¡¯tpletely prepared for, with a guarantee of winning. This was my personal path of undying that I learned from my repeated deaths.


    Karwenz wasn¡¯t overly cautious like I was. However, he was no idiot. He was the Chaos Main God who had grown in power the quickest over the past few centuries. In this short amount of time (for a Chaos Main God), it was quite simple for him to ensure that information about his abilities never leaked, since he always paid attention to never leave any witnesses or survivors.


    Because he did this, there was no specific information about him in the Chaos Abyss at all.


    Ever since we got into contact again, both of us had been carefully trying to gain information about the other. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any records of him using his true power, while much information about me had leaked. Meanwhile, he hadn¡¯t exposed anything at all.


    Not only did I not know Karwenz¡¯s aces, I didn¡¯t even know what his basic abilities and traits were.


    All I knew was that he definitely had a Demon Lord¡¯s Chaos domain, and that his Soul Imprint with the power to make him stronger and stronger as long as his will remained resolute must have evolved to an even more ridiculous extent.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t enough, not even close to enough information.¡±


    A Main God would only be forced to use their aces if the enemy was also a Main God. However, the number of Main Gods who had fought with Karwenz before... Oh, pitiful Anslo, may he rest well in heaven.


    But this time, Karwenz had evidently made a miscalction. Not only had Amelia reached so-called Main God power level, she was also fundamentally indestructible. Since Karwenz had managed to force Amelia to self-destruct her physical body, then he must have used several of his strongest aces.


    ¡°What exactly are Karwenz¡¯s abilities?¡±


    I thought that Amelia would take advantage of this and bully me since I was asking quite a lot here.


    Not only would she be leaking Karwenz¡¯s information to me, she would also be leaking her own information to me as long as she told me about the battle. Amelia was someone who hid information about herself even more than Karwenz had.


    However, she actually held my hand and directly transmitted her memories to me, leaking her own informationpletely.


    I didn¡¯t even have the time to exim when I was astonished by what I learned.


    ¡°This, this isplete cheating!¡±


    Yet, Amelia still maintained her typical calm smile.


    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re right. At this level, everyone is cheating. Aren¡¯t you cheating as well?¡±


    Me? Of course I wasn¡¯t...


    However, Amelia then pointed at my back, causing me to instantly shut up. Fine, I admit that I was cheating as well. In this day and age, all the most powerful individuals had cheats. Those who didn¡¯t have cheats wouldn¡¯t be sufficiently good to reach this level.


    I could faintly sense now that perhaps so-called Main God-level existences had already surpassed Creator Goddess Eich in certain areas in order to obtain such unreasonable power. Main Gods would be able to casually toy with the world¡¯s naturalws as they pleased.


    Thus, the other powerful Gods who relied on the world¡¯s naturalws would naturally get beaten up really easily by the Main Gods.


    ¡°This is like how a video game developer can overwhelmingly defeat a pay-to-win yer with programming cheats. Where can I issue aint? Is the game developer a pig?¡±


    I was actually in a good mood right now. Although Karwenz¡¯s abilities gave me quite a bit of pressure, this was still better than knowing nothing at all.


    Since the main matter had been dealt with, this meant I could rest.


    It was quite nice andfortable to rest in this flower garden while drinking flower tea and observing the scenery and teasing the cute wood spirits.


    ¡°Just admit it. You¡¯re worried about angering Amelia if you run away immediately after finishing your main business here.¡±


    ¡°...Silly cat, why must you tell the truth? You¡¯re being suicidal here. Amelia, one of the silly cat¡¯s clones managed to sneak in. She¡¯s underneath the peach tree there.¡±


    Yep, I should mention that there was also the fun scene of nts eating cats. Such an enjoyable scene.


    I spent time here until it was almost dark... But why did I feel like more than 24 hours had passed already? Had Amelia adjusted the sun in her personal world?


    ¡°No, I adjusted the time.¡±


    Fine, I know already that you could read minds. I know that you were highly skilled. I would never be scared of you... it definitely was not because I was unable to run away from you!


    The sun refused to set. I ate two lunches, two dinners, two breakfasts, four afternoon tea snacks, and napped four times. I teased all of the Seven Virtues in turn lots of times until I finally got up to say goodbye while enveloped in the scent of flowers.


    As I was leaving, Amelia said onest thing to me.


    ¡°If you want to stop Karwenz, you need to hurry. Not many of us Chaos Girls remain. The Cynthia that appears this time will be the strongest Cynthia in all of history.¡±


    I was surprised to hear this for a moment, but then I silently nodded my head.


    Creating a new Cynthia didn¡¯t require all the Chaos Girls to be used. But, in order for Karwenz to realize his goal, the final Chaos Girl that he used would have to be stronger than the Cynthia from back in the day.


    I couldn¡¯t help but suddenly think about Elisa. She was all alone, so did she have any way to fight against Karwenz?


    ¡°If Karwenz really dares to kill Elisa...¡±


    A mysterious anger seemed to burn in my chest. It appeared that I didn¡¯t have much time left.


    ¡°I thought that you would say something like you¡¯d kill his entire family.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d be an idiot to say that. I¡¯m his only family left.¡±


    I suddenly stopped at this moment. In a way, Karwenz really was a highly difficult opponent to deal with.


    Not only would he not care about anything else, it wasn¡¯t even possible to find someone that he valued. It could be said that he had everything, yet he also had nothing. Before, I had sessfully schemed against Lorci, Anslo, and Emordilorcan because even they had things that they cared about. As long as they cared about something, they would naturally have weaknesses. Yet, Karwenz...


    ¡°You should pay attention to your reputation. Why do you keep thinking about using others¡¯ weaknesses to threaten them? Why do you seem more and more like the antagonist?¡±


    ¡°Reputation? Having a good reputation means I can win? Someone on the side of light and justice will definitely win? We¡¯ll have nothing at all if we lose. Let us win first before discussing if the tactics were proper or not. Oh, do you think he¡¯ll care if I go kidnap that Devil Lord on his side?¡±


    ¡°He won¡¯t. Someone who has as much of a harem as he does will actually be really heartless.¡±


    ¡°Sigh, that¡¯s what I think as well.¡±


    The silly cat fell silent before speaking up again. ¡°...Actually, I think he really does have someone he cares about.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°His older twin brother.¡±


    I was the one rendered speechless this time. Was I supposed to put a knife against my own neck and threaten him with suicide unless he surrendered?


    That was really the wrong style for this story. This was Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich, a magical fantasy world, not some Korean melodrama TV series.


    Besides, if I truly did such a thing, Karwenz would probably startughing loudly rather than surrendering.


    ¡°Stop being ridiculous. We should think first about how to deal with Karwenz¡¯s bug-like abilities. In this day and age, everyone is cheating after all.¡±

 Chapter 771 - Alliance Battlefront

    <h4>Chapter 771: Alliance Battlefront</h4>


    Although it was quitefortable to stay in the Forest of Dreams and enjoy its beautiful scenery, this ce was only a rare beautiful dream, as its name suggested.


    When I exited the forest, I saw the endless battlefield just like before.


    Over the previous few days, the eastern battlefront had been rtively ¡°peaceful¡± since the masters of the Forest of Dreams, the wood spirit residents, had yet to receive orders to attack in full force from their Creator Goddess Amelia.


    The main force fighting right now was the wood spirits¡¯ standard army as well as the Contract Heroes¡¯ battle squadrons. Although they had good attack power, their attack patterns were far more geared towards gueri warfare than regr warfare. Maybe such an allied army could obtain decentbat results, but it would be impossible for them to gain an overall strategic advantage without anyonemanding them.


    But, two days ago, a fleet arrived at the Forest of Dreams from the sea. This was And¡¯s navy which even started firing its cannons from the shoreline towards the ind battlefront. Their magic cannons had been leveled up many times already, so the cannon shots rained down like meteors and spreadrge swaths of AOE destruction.


    Their firing range even surpassed the frontlines. In fact, the cannons could shoot at ces more than 30 kilometers away. For the cannons to reach such a distance, it was the result of divination magic rather than high-level science.


    And showed off its new ace in this war. The cannons on their ships were assisted by diviners and enchanter mages as they constantly made micro-adjustments for the mega-long distance barrages.


    Maybe people from my original world would think that having long-robed wizards and witches dancing in front of cannons to enchant them with additional damage, fire magic, uracy, and range was something ratherical, but this was considered quite normal to the people of Eich.


    Ever since the day that magical engineering was born, it was destined that magical engineering would always be thebination of magic and science.


    And¡¯s foundational technology was much weaker than Bardi¡¯s as thetter did their very best to keep up with the times. And wasn¡¯t as strong due to being a younger country, and thus it didn¡¯t have powerful troop types from ancient times. However, And had always been at the top in industry, business, engineering, and alchemy. 10 years after the start of the magical engineering revolution, And was now taking an unusual path of war machines.


    Numerous ships had anchored themselves in the sea. The ships¡¯ decks began to transform and reveal the cannons stored underneath, and they all simultaneously activated at this time.


    Every ship was equipped with several hundred cannons. This fleet containing 22 ships, big and small, fired simultaneously and caused the entirend to reverberate.


    Cannon fire streaked through the air like meteors. The beautiful firestorm brought only destruction and explosions to the battlefield.


    Maybe there were far too many high-level devils on the battlefield, but domains of me and corrosion were reallymonce. The observers would see districts suddenly turning red or green. Such districts would immediately be the main target for the And cannons.


    Red, blue, green, and various other colors stained the battlefield, indicating the forbidden zones for living beings. These ces would have either fatally poisonous air or fiery explosions.


    It was likely that this scene would go down in history. Although the scale wasn¡¯t thatrge, this was indeed the first appearance of a fully mature magical engineering squadron on the battlefield. They were fighting against the devil army, a top-level fighting force from ancient times.


    The tremendous difference in shooting range made the devils unable to do anything but suffer attacks. The devils would have to try and break through the Forest of Dreams first before they could do anything about the fleet.


    Most flying devils chose to go around the forest, but the wood spirits¡¯ floating magical nts and And airships awaited them. The archmages from the Mage Country were already aboard these airships.


    The flying devils were shot down inrge swaths. They were unable to threaten the sea fleet whatsoever. And¡¯s fleet obtained a victory in this early stage of battle thanks to geographical and technological advantage.


    However, And didn¡¯t have the time to be proud. They split their fleet in two; half the fleet remained near the Forest of Dreams and continued to send covering fire towards the battlefield. However, the fleet¡¯s achievements would likely keep decreasing. All that the fleet could do was stabilize the frontline¡¯s location as the And ships¡¯ maximum range would be figured out soon enough as the battle kept going.


    Of course, some of And¡¯s ships also had the ability to fly, but when considering how dangerous the frontline was, leaving water would mean giving up on the wood spirits¡¯ protection. Any normal captain would never venture forth by themselves.


    Yet, supporting the Forest of Dreams¡¯ frontline of battle was only the secondary mission given to the And fleet. The other half of the fleet that left was protecting their transport ships. They were about to do something even more damaging to the devils¡¯ defenses.


    Perhaps my readers had forgotten already, but Bardi and the Mage Country were separated only by a sea channel. In fact, the Forest of Dreams was also located at Port Victoria, which had originally been thergest port in eastern Eich.


    Over the past few years, although the Forest of Dreams and the undead city Asolivis had suddenly appeared in this area, which forcefully cut off the direct connection between Bardi and the Mage Country, that didn¡¯t mean that the geography had changed.


    Currently, the transport ships were crossing the sea channel. The mages of the Mage Country were ready to board these ships. The world¡¯s strongest (and only) fully established magebat squadron would finally enter the battlefield.


    As for why And¡¯s gigantic transport ships were chosen to bring the mages over? That was because the mages wouldn¡¯t being alone. They would bring their enormous war puppets, magic puppets, summoned creatures, elemental creatures from other nes, and so on as part of their army. Such beings would be the mages¡¯ most trusted vanguard.


    The currentbat situation was quite obvious. The Mage Country, Bardi, and And were now going all out against the Lord of Tyranny¡¯s devil army.


    The eastern battlefront was given over to Bardi, the local force. The western battlefront was left to the alliance of And, the Mage Country, and the wood spirits. They were gradually pressuring the undead and devils¡¯ main base, Asolivis.


    This time, the alliance had made up its mind to eliminate this major menace.


    The And fleet would clear out all the devils and undead along the shore, which would then allow the Mage Country¡¯s vanguard to disembark. At that time, the three-way alliance would start attacking Asolivis from the west, while Bardi would keep tangling with the enemy forces in the east.


    In such arge-scale battle, individual strength would be of limited use. Powerful individuals would be saved to deal with enemy powerful individuals. It seemed that both sides of this battle were still observing this unwritten rule of the battlefield.


    As the battle progressed, powerful individuals would naturally appear toe suppress the ordinary soldiers. That would be the time for the powerful individuals on both sides to appear. Of course, I was the type who was an exception to the rules.


    ¡°Actually, won¡¯t this all end if I cast Ice Aeon here?¡±


    I was actually quite hesitant. The enemy¡¯s base was at a fixed location, which made me really want to blow it up with Ice Aeon.


    If I incanted my forbidden spell from the Forest of Dreams, it would definitely be almost impossible for the enemy to be able to stop me. Even if they could prepare defenses or escape, clearing this entire battlefield and making way for our alliance¡¯s army was also an eptablebat result.


    ¡°And then you¡¯ll be bedridden on a ship for two months again?¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t happen again. I¡¯ve reached Level 4 and I have more experience now... I¡¯ll probably recover from being bedridden after just one week.¡±


    ¡°One week? At such a time? Do you think that he would let go of such an excellent opportunity with the current situation?¡±


    ¡°If I was him, I definitely wouldn¡¯t let such a great chance pass by...¡±


    However, I was worried that a certain someone would take advantage of the situation if I was weakened after casting a forbidden spell, which made things a bit difficult for me.


    At this moment, the human alliance¡¯smand center contacted me and gave me a highly difficult task. As I was also a member of the alliance, I really couldn¡¯t refuse, especially as others were shedding blood and sweat.

 Chapter 772 - Alliance Battlefront and Resupplying

    <h4>Chapter 772: Alliance Battlefront and Resupplying</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    After a battle began, oftentimes it would be apetition between who made more preparations. Those who immediately fought without preparations would almost always die rather pitifully.


    This alliance battle was obviously no rushed battle.


    Several countries were working together, and had established a unifiedmand center. Themand center also oversaw two major battles in east and west that simultaneously kept the enemy forces busy. And¡¯s fleet then acted as protection to allow the Mage Country¡¯s main forces tond here.


    The humans¡¯ most desired finalbat situation was basically a pincer attack that gradually forced back the enemy and broke through Asolivis to eliminate those damned Dimensional Doors.


    Such a major undertaking involving several countries and species wouldn¡¯t possibly be decided over a few teatime chats at Bardi. Even one month¡¯s worth of preparation would be insufficient. I figured that they had been preparing for over a year.


    Asolivis was like a cancerous tumor growing in Bardi. This ce would always remain as a major threat unless it waspletely eliminated.


    And now, Bardi was prepared to pay any cost topletely eliminate this constantly bleeding tumor.


    The beginning of the preparations for this actually started back with the previous Bardi emperor.


    Back in the day, Orloss Mn had furiously expanded without regards to cost. Everyone thought that he had lost his sense of reason due to ambition, or that he had gonepletely crazy.


    Normally, expanding arge country should have been about conquering a new territory and absorbing it slowly, integrating the territory through immigration, cultural teachings, and religious teachings topletely eliminate traces of the old conquered country. The conquered territory would thenpletely be a part of the empire after just one or two generations.


    However, during Orloss¡¯s rule, he conquered other small countries every single year. After 30 years of his rule, he multiplied Bardi¡¯s territory several times over.


    Maybe this seemed incredible, but those who truly understood politics and history were all waiting for him to get into a disaster. They all knew that biting off more than one could chew was disastrous.


    Actually, Orloss was already being called the ¡°Foolish King¡± even back then.


    But now, looking back on things, the truly foolish ones were the ¡°wise individuals¡± who were the first to give him such a nickname.


    ¡°Orloss was doing it for the sake of saving Bardi rather than expansion.¡±


    Back then, the undead had already started infesting the gigantic Bardi Empire. The undead leader was Undead Emperor Aso, who was incredibly difficult to deal with. Orloss had no power at all to directly overturn the situation, especially since Aso also had control over Orloss¡¯s life.


    Thus, Orloss secretly supported the Southern Sect, which was an enemy of the undead. Orloss also secretly obtained the Crown of Thorns, which was the Mist Kingdom¡¯s God Equipment which bestowed immortality upon him for as long as he wore it. This helped to break him free from Aso¡¯s threat of being able to kill him at any time. Orloss also ¡°unwisely¡± expanded his border expansion warfare all the way to the Mage Country¡¯s border.


    Only by looking back now would one realize just how much thought he had put into things.


    He knew that only the Truth Symposium mages would be able to directly fight against the undead and Undead Emperors. However, the mages were famed for not caring about others¡¯ affairs.


    ¡°Okay, you all love not to get involved in others¡¯ mundane matters? I¡¯ll toss the trouble right at your doorstep and see if you care or not.¡±


    Orloss¡¯s influence was also responsible for the undead choosing Port Victoria as their home base originally. The sly old scorpion emperor pretended to be a loyal undead follower who idolized Undead Emperor Aso. He did everything that Aso told him to and acted as a ¡°loyal¡± human traitor for 30 years, yet he had always been waiting for the perfect opportunity to betray the undead.


    This was why Bardi back then had so unreasonably challenged the entire world. Bardi broke rtions with the Holy Church (and even reported itself as a heretic country) while also dering war against the Mage Country. If the Mage Country still tried to sit things out, then Orloss really would have started an all-out attack to force the Holy Church and Mage Country to pincer attack Bardi, which would then force the undead out into the open.


    ¡°Who cares? We can all die together.¡±


    But now, the situation had changed significantly due to Rnd¡¯s arrival. The worst situation didn¡¯t ur. Rnd even miraculously forced Aso tomit suicide, which was just like a gift from the heavens that allowed Bardi and Orloss to swiftly break free from the undead¡¯s control.


    In the end, Orloss paid a double sacrifice of his reputation and his life. The Hell Faction owed him tremendously. With his sacrifice as the catalyst, it also formed today¡¯s major alliance between Bardi, the Mage Country, and the Mist Alliance.


    If Orloss was a fool, then 99% of the people in this world would probably be considered retarded.


    Even today, his ns were still effective. The fact that Bardi now bordered the Mage Country became a difficult obstacle for dimensional invaders.


    Even the mages who didn¡¯t care about others¡¯ affairs would be unable to ignore a threat right next to them.


    The situation today was simr, just with the devils bing the enemy instead of the undead. Just like the undead before, the devils also had to face our attacks from many directions.


    In this overall strategic situation, even I wouldn¡¯t be able to directly go against themand center¡¯s decisions. I was no longer someone who was alone and represented only myself, after all.


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯m an advocate of peace, honest.¡±


    I sincerely spoke my praise of peace, but the people around me acted like always and looked at me with expressions that said they felt my joke waspletely unfunny.


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯ve always been telling the truth...¡±


    But sometimes, the more truthful something was, the less people would believe it.


    I actually was bing quite bored with this war. However, things couldn¡¯t be helped. There would likely be a great deal of trouble if I ran off at this time, especially since the others wanted me to do something critically important.


    And¡¯s fleet was still maintaining asional cover fire from the sea district west of the Forest of Dreams. This was to remind the devils and undead of their presence while protecting the mages¡¯ forces and allowing them to sessfullynd.


    Still, the And fleet¡¯s rate of cannon fire had decreased significantly. Just yesterday, they had truly been the rulers of the battlefield, but today they were only trying to remind the enemy of their existence.


    The enemy still had their doubts, and didn¡¯t dare to approach the shoreline. Most people on our side believed that this was a sign of easy victory, but only a few And ship captains knew that the real reason for slowing down the cannon fire... was because they were out of ammunition.


    In this generation, mana was a type of resource that could be regenerated. Professionals would also keep track of arrow consumption and production. However, the magic cannons used by And¡¯s ships would not only use up a tremendous amount of magic resources, they would also require specialized ammunition and all sorts of magic metals as part of their daily upkeep.


    Yesterday¡¯s ambush had been quite fun, but in order to overwhelm the enemy, especially since the devils and undead were enemies usually only seen in stories and legends, the magic cannon ship captains who had only recently been captains of ordinary military ships all ordered their subordinates to attack with everything. In fact, the ship captains even kept shouting...


    ¡°Increase the rate of fire on the left! Get off that cannon and let me personally fire!¡±


    ¡°More cannon fire is better! More cannon fire is justice! Show the entire world the truth of the cannon church!¡±


    ¡°Ahahahaha, blow up their mothers! You¡¯re so slow, did none of you eat breakfast today? Whoever the **** slows me down, I¡¯m going to shoot him out of a cannon!¡±


    Fine, I was only making those words up, but it was true that the And ships went all out on the first day. What would be more fun than operating a cannon? Probably the fact that you could shoot at your target with no fear of retaliation at all. However, a mysterious sense of emptiness started bothering these ships after a testosterone-filled day of excitement.


    1¡°...We¡¯ve already used up more than half of our ammunition after just half a day.¡±


    ¡°I thought that we could fire our cannons for three days straight, yet the cannons are almost useless already after just one day. So useless.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t only weapons themselves that needed time to be improved on the battlefield. How to operate the weapon, how to create an effective manual on using the weapon, and so on would also require time and experience to umte.


    The ship captains of the past had never enjoyed the ability to fire several hundred cannons like this. Just the issue of reloading ammunition and rate of fire with older cannons meant that the ship captains never had to worry about using up all their ammunition in a short battle that onlysted one afternoon before.


    New problems would easily arise since the captains were relying on old experience.


    The And fleet now had approximately 40% of its ammunition remaining. They could still fight a normal battle, but if they needed to provide arge amount of covering fire for the mages tond, that would likely cause the And fleet to use up all their remaining ammunition after just half a day and be reduced to nothing but spectators.


    Luckily, this problem didn¡¯t ur in the midst of battle, so there wasn¡¯t a heavy price to pay. This problem could still be fixed.


    ¡°...The prerequisite is that resupplying happens fast enough.¡±


    If And sent supplies via the sea route, that would take more than a month. However, flying here directly on an airship would only take about two and a half days.


    However, the shortest air route here would pass right next to Asolivis, which would be suicide.


    While it was possible to take a slightly longer air route, that would miss the nned date three dayster when the Mage Country¡¯s forces would make their majornding, and set back the entirebat n.


    The eastern battlefront had already began their attack in order to upy the undead¡¯s forces on both sides. If the western battlefront failed to live up to their promise, the pincer attack would be suicide, which was an uneptable result.


    Themand center thus decided that the ammunition resupplying had to be forciblypleted, no matter the cost.


    Unfortunately, this unlucky mission was given right to me.


    ¡°You want me to go with the supply airship and protect it? Are you certain?¡±


    ¡°...I think that you guys should reconsider. Having this jinxing man of misfortune go with any airship will probably cause that airship to go straight to Hell.¡±


    Although Harloys¡¯ words were rather unnecessary, I didn¡¯t say anything at all, which was a tacit admittance of my own luck.


    Yet, themand center kept insisting, while I kept refusing since I was the Mist Alliance¡¯s highest-ranking leader in name. Finally, themand center¡¯s messenger told me the truth.


    ¡°Actually, there¡¯s two airships that are rushing over. One¡¯s taking a really direct route, but has very few personnel and supplies. Meanwhile, the other airship will arrive slightlyter as it goes around the mountains...¡±


    ¡°Paha, you¡¯re basically just bait!¡±


    I really missed Harloys¡¯ cat form right now. It would have been quite fun to pick her up by the neck and viciously shake her before throwing her away.


    Anyways, everyone knew what this n really was. I was going to be bait by going to receive the airship on the direct route, which would attract the enemies¡¯ firepower and attention, so that the real supply airship coulde through unimpeded.


    ¡°Who came up with such a strategy? This is really making the best of what we have. A jinxer can even be used in such a way? What a great idea!¡±


    I really wanted even more to throw away Harloys, who was giving a big thumbs up. Still, I also wanted to hear the answer. Yep, I definitely wasn¡¯t going to record that person on my list of grudges. I was simply curious who understood me so well. I also wanted to toss that person into the ocean so that they could practice some swimming. As for revenge? Would I really be so petty?


    [Yes.]


    I ignored my System who was doing her best to make her presence known. I then heard the answer that I wanted.


    ¡°...Actually, the person who came up with this strategy is Her Highness Reyne from your Mist Alliance.¡±


    1Fine, that little brat was making trouble for her father again... or maybe I should say grandfather?

 Chapter 773 - Prelude to the Final Battle

    <h4>Chapter 773: Prelude to the Final Battle</h4>


    Since when had I known that this strategy would definitely seed?


    Ever since I became an incredible jinxer? Ever since I found out that Reyne came up with this strategy? Or...


    ¡°From the moment that you appeared. When you appear, all our enemies stopped fighting the humans and focused fully on only hunting you down. Just how amazing is your taunting ability?¡±


    ¡°Shut up! Don¡¯t you see that we¡¯re being chased right now?¡±


    Arge horde of high-level devils and undead was currently chasing after me. These damned fellows immediately gave up on fighting the humans to only try and hunt me down right when I stepped out of the Forest of Dreams.


    ¡°Damn it, just what did those bastards promise you? Is it worth trying to hunt me down like this?¡±


    I was quite dissatisfied as I shouted back to therge horde, but unexpectedly, I received lots of replies.


    ¡°God Equipment!¡±


    ¡°The secret of how to be an Undead Emperor!¡±


    ¡°The currently empty Devil Lord position!¡±


    ¡°The master of this area ofnd!¡±


    ¡°The city ruler of Asolivis. I¡¯ll be the master of thisnd, idiot before me.¡±


    ¡°I can be the disciple of a Chaos Main God!¡±


    ¡°Forbidden spells and countless magical knowledge!¡±


    Alright, I never thought that I would be so valuable. Even I was bing tempted to hunt myself down.


    ¡°Hahaha, they really love you so much.¡±


    ¡°...Do you want me to throw you to them?¡±


    Harloys and I could only keep running.


    But actually, for Harloys and myself, running was basically just an act. Naturally, no weak enemy would try to hunt me. My flying speed wasn¡¯t slow, but it wouldn¡¯t be much to the devils and undead who specialized in flying.


    Yet if only one or two enemies blocked my path, I would swiftly y them. Even if they surrounded me...


    ¡°What¡¯s with you all, not fighting me but continuously following me!!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re somebody living. You¡¯ll suffer from fatigue and rx your guard. The moment that you show weakness, heehee... Aah!¡±


    Would I show any signs of weakness? That was a matter forter. Still, there was nothing wrong with immediately shooting down the devil who talked too much with some Holy Light.


    My enemies were just a temporary alliance of devils and undead attracted by the potential benefits. Even if they had me surrounded, none of them wanted toe up first and be the cannon fodder. They got in each other¡¯s way more than cooperating with each other. It was quite simple for me to break out from their encirclement.


    It was definitely a mistake that neither Shupnus nor Sarwenstan had personallye to attack me. Without a super powerful individual to control the situation, trying to hunt me down like this would be meaningless...


    ¡°Your Highness Rnd! Please don¡¯te over here!¡±


    ¡°Aaah! Don¡¯t jinx us! Definitely please don¡¯te over...¡±


    Fine then, it was meaningful to other humans on the battlefield.


    ¡°Tsk, they¡¯re all cowards.¡±


    Although I was saying this about my cold-blooded teammates who didn¡¯t even try to help me when I was in danger (they weren¡¯t strong enough to help me), I wisely chose to avoid busy areas of the battlefield for the sake of my reputation which wasn¡¯t easy to obtain.


    Still, at this rate, when I finally met the fake resupply airship, I felt I would seem more like someone rushing over to jinx them far more than a supposed bodyguard.


    ¡°Even though I¡¯m only bait, it has to at least seem real...¡±


    Thus, I turned around and drew my sword for a proper battle, intending on reducing the number of those hunting me down as a warning to the old folks that even a young dog had teeth, but then...


    I turned around and kept running!


    ¡°Shupnus, how shameless can you be? An Undead Emperor like you is actually bringing a crowd to hunt me down!¡±


    ¡°Rnd! I¡¯ll fight you in singlebat if you stop right here!¡±


    ¡°...Only an idiot would stop here.¡±


    Earlier, there were only 100-200 chasing me, but now there were almost 500-600 just a few minutester. The neers were all powerful individuals. When I turned around to look, I even saw that Undead Emperor Shupnus was among them. How foolish would I be if I stopped here?


    ¡°This is probably thergest taunted mob in all of history...¡±


    ¡°...Your eyeballs are spinning around. Just who do you want to make suffer this time?¡±


    Sometimes it was quite fun to have someone who really knew you well, but sometimes it was also quite mysteriously unfun as well.


    ¡°I was just wondering if I had any ¡®good friends¡¯ nearby or not...¡±


    Right now, I was really missing the Holy Church. If only they were here right now, wouldn¡¯t it be so fun to bring this entire horde of enemies to their camp?


    Still, if I charged into the central area of the battlefield, that would probably create utter chaos for the battle... But, why couldn¡¯t I create utter chaos? Was I supposed to be a good person who cared about others?


    I instantly realized what I could do, so I unhesitatingly taunted my enemies right into the undead and devils¡¯ army. All the projectiles and curses aimed at me were more than enough to destroy ordinary undead and devil soldiers.


    Of course, there were also a few unfortunate individuals who suffered along the way...


    ¡°Rnd! You¡¯re taunting mobs and making others suffer yet again!¡±


    The silly cat was bing ever happier. Ever since she left the Forest of Dreams, her activeness and happiness were both increasing rapidly.


    Still, it wouldn¡¯t do to continue like this. Although I was confident in my patience and stamina, my enemies were the devils and undead. No living person could oust a dead person or a pervert.


    ¡°...When did you stop ssifying yourself as a pervert?¡±


    Without saying anything, I picked up the silly cat by her neck and threw her away. She was vaporized by the enemies before she could evennd.


    ¡°Where¡¯s People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals? Someone is abusing a cat here!¡±


    The silly cat reappeared and lightlynded on my shoulder while washing her face and then licking me with the tongue that she just used to clean herself.


    I really wanted to throw her away again, but didn¡¯t want to waste my efforts. Thus, I could only helplessly keep running.


    By now, I had an idea of how to deal with the enemies who kept chasing me.


    ¡°Shine, light of Dawn.¡±


    My Dawn sword rose into the air once more as a calm yet scorching pure Holy Light began to illuminate thisnd. The Holy Light sun started floating above my head as it cleansed and weakened the Chaos existences in the area.


    ¡°Keep following me, and I¡¯ll see if you all die or not!¡±


    Hmph, they wanted to fight with me? Keep chasing me then, and I would counterattack once they were all weakened to a certain extent!


    ¡°...Rnd, I don¡¯t know if they¡¯ll all die or not, but I know that you¡¯re going to die if you don¡¯t turn off this light bulb. Just look behind you again...¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    I was surprised to hear Harloys¡¯ words, so I turned around. I then started flying away even faster without a second word.


    No longer were there only Undead Lords and powerful devils chasing me. Countless low-level undead, as well as low and mid-level devils had all abandoned their own camp. The entire battle had stopped because of me, a single person... and everyone was hunting me down!


    ¡°This thing really is capable of suchrge-scale taunting...¡±


    Back when I used Dawn on that rainy day, all my enemies tried their very best to break through the human defenses and attack me. I never thought that simply bringing Dawn out and using it again could taunt the entire battlefield.


    ¡°Of course it would. If you really illuminated everything for half an hour, the undead generals would be undead cooks, and corpse ghouls would be huskie dogs.¡±


    The tremendous undead army now focused only on killing me. I could only helplessly turn off my Dawn sword. I finally discovered an insufficiency of my Dawn sword that I had been highly satisfied with.


    ¡°I should have installed a control mechanism that could adjust the light¡¯s power and area of effect...¡±


    ¡°The purer the power, and the fewer the restrictions; only then can such pure power be incredibly powerful. For such a tactical-level ability like yours, if it became a controble power instead, it would likely greatly decrease in power, you know? Would you really be willing to have that?¡±


    ¡°Of course... not.¡±


    Even though it seemed like Harloys and I still had the free time to idly chat, right now we really couldn¡¯t do anything apart from chatting...


    Meanwhile, Reyne who was on the eastern battlefront received reports on how Rnd was currently being hunted down. She then sent out critical reinforcements while having an idolizing expression...


    Naturally, the above would be impossible. Reyne simply smiled while having even more supply airshipse...


    ¡°I knew that Brother Rnd would be unparalleled as bait to attract all our enemies¡¯ attention. Now, all of our supply airships can finally set out.¡±


    Her words were then met with a round of apuse in themand center.


    After Rnd reported on Karwenz¡¯s n, this caused Karwenz to be public enemy #1.


    ording to the Contract Heroes¡¯ list of rewards, simply providing urate information on Karwenz¡¯s current location would see you rewarded with more than 100,000 points. This was tremendous wealth that was more than 10 times what any ordinary person could obtain in their lifetime.


    The fairies, who could be found everywhere, were searching all over for his presence. Every country¡¯s spies were searching for his location. Even the residents of the Chaos Abyss were unhesitatingly looking for him to betray his location.


    When someone intended to destroy the entire world, or when his actions were capable of destroying the entire world, it was natural that even the air, water, and earth would be his enemy.


    This would greatly impede Karwenz.


    If you wanted to buy some cigarettes but even the olddy next door could identify you as an internationally wanted criminal and would scream for the police, then it was natural that anything you wanted to do would be really difficult.


    The other Chaos Girls who learned the news of Karwenz¡¯s intentions would try even harder to survive. By now, almost all the Chaos Girls who were still alive had joined some mega faction in search of protection.


    Currently, there was confirmed information that the God of Holy Light¡¯s previous holy maiden Sophia was currently at the holy mountain which was the Holy Church¡¯s headquarters. That was the ce closest to the God of Holy Light. If Karwenz dared to go there, he would have to have a direct confrontation with the God of Holy Light.


    The other Chaos Girls¡¯ situations were simr. One joined the Nature Faction, one joined the Mist Alliance, and there was even one who exiled herself away in another ne.


    What was known to the powerful and influential was that five known and confirmed Chaos Girls were out in the open. How many Chaos Girls were still alive in total, though? Probably only Karwenz and Cynthia knew the answer.


    Karwenz currently wasn¡¯t in good condition.


    His gigantic body was currently in a deep sleep in the deepest and darkest part of the Chaos Abyss.


    Green vines kept crawling out from his golden body. These vines were rapidly growing at an abnormal speed. They were growing out from his injuries. Since Karwenz wasn¡¯t so bored as to nt vines on himself, this naturally meant that these vines were a result of injuries inflicted upon him by Amelia.


    Countless small demons withrge scissors and poisons surrounded him and kept eliminating the weeds and vines that kept sprouting. However, their nt removal speed was slower than the nts¡¯ growth. It seemed as if this sleeping sculpture Chaos Main God was going to bepletely covered in nts.


    Countless others were busy underneath Karwenz. Most of these others were female...


    There was a certain horned beautiful devil who kept cracking a whip as she held a parasol and made the other demons work harder.


    This was probably the person that all devils hated the most: Ilmisya the traitor to all devils.


    Meanwhile, there was also a subus who was cing some gems into empty sockets on the wall. This subus¡¯s face quite resembled Harloys¡¯ face.


    This was Didina, who was also previously thest Gold Elf Emperor, and Harloys¡¯ father in her previous life.


    The wall was the most obvious part of thisrge area. Dark shadows kept entering and exiting the ck wall as if countless female souls were trapped within. A human female was currently tied to the center of the wall.


    This female was Karwenz¡¯s chosen Cynthia.


    Didina was currently carefully controlling the soul gems that Karwenz had previously gathered. Every soul gem embedded into the wall would fill in another empty socket. This Wall of Creation was very close to bingpletely filled.

 Chapter 774 - Differences

    <h4>Chapter 774: Differences</h4>


    10 years ago, there were also many wars in Eich, but things were now fundamentally different.


    Ever since I started bing active in the mortal ne, it seemed like there hadn¡¯t been a single day where there were no wars here. This wasn¡¯t because of anything like how I always made fun of myself for being a jinxer, but rather because this damned world had entered the Holy War period again, meaning that there would be no peaceful ce left at all.


    Since the entire world was embroiled in war, it would be a joke to want individual peace and stability.


    Of course, there were still ¡°saints¡± and ¡°saintesses¡± who called out for world peace. There were also plenty of ambitious schemers who took advantage of the political situation. When entire tribes, countries, and even species had to battle for the sake of survival, individual futures naturally became impossible to ascertain.


    You could sing loudly about peace and give fresh flowers to the invaders. That was your freedom. But, would the invaders greet you with friendly smiles, or... a shiny sword?


    History informed us that no matter how much an invader pretended to have great reasons for invading, or how friendly their policies were to other species and other countries¡¯ citizens, once the invader truly had control of the situation, then a difference in treatment and all sorts of outright stealing would then ur.


    ¡°Ridiculous. Wouldn¡¯t it be a waste of their time if they didn¡¯t gain something? You really think that invaders woulde all the way just for charity work? War is also a type of expensive investment that requires the expenses to be recouped.¡±


    In Eich, this maxim was even more bloody and obvious. Wars here were already about different species fighting over survival space and world domination, only more cruel and direct.


    Equality between species? The winning species would obtain plenty of survival space. The ruler and powerful individuals from the winning species could ascend to Godhood and obtain undying bodies. The losing species and their Gods would all be swept into the trash bin of history. So-called equality between species was nothing more than impractical and unrealistic pretty phrase.


    If the winning species of this Holy War was the humans, just like how humans won the previous Holy War, then things would still probably remain rtively stable. At the very least, the humans would respect previous historical agreements and contracts with their ¡°allies¡±, the elves, beastmen, and dwarves. The allied species might not receive very good treatment, but it wouldn¡¯t be that bad, either.


    The elves, beastmen, and dwarves were all forced to survive in small corners of thend, so that didn¡¯t count as very bad? Actually, the victors of all past Holy Wars would always immediately start ughtering the former ruling species and all enemy species right after the Holy War ended. So, inparison, this really wasn¡¯t all that bad.


    Previously, I was on the human side, or perhaps I should call it the Order Faction. This was because I was a human myself, as well as because I didn¡¯t want to see past hatred be repeated anymore.


    The former humans of the Tark Republic who were now undead all hated the ogres. The ogres hated the undead back. The elves hated all other species as there were blood grudges between the elves and ogres as well as elves and humans. The dwarves and beastmen were also the elves¡¯ mortal enemies. The reason for all of this could be traced entirely back to the damned Holy War mechanism of this world.


    Every victory meant that some other species had failed. Grudges and curses would umte. Perhaps some would be lost over time, but most of the time, such grudges would transform into deeper and deeper racial hatred.


    ¡°My entire family died. My tribe leader died. It¡¯s all the humans¡¯ fault.¡±


    ¡°Our homnd is the Golden ins. That¡¯s where our species originated from. The wicked humans betrayed our alliance and stole ournd away!¡±


    ¡°We were forced to this remote ce. It¡¯s all the humans¡¯ fault.¡±


    ¡°My mom froze to death. It¡¯s all the humans¡¯ fault.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m so hungry. It¡¯s all the humans¡¯ fault.¡±


    As the generations passed, the losers would keep reminiscing about their glorious past, while the losers¡¯ descendants would me all of their misfortune on past umted hatreds.


    It was scary to even imagine what this hatred might be like in the end. This was probably also why the victor of every Holy War would always start a major ughter afterwards.


    This was a never-ending vicious cycle.


    Even if one species won a Holy War, there would always be a next time. The current victory would always produce even more grudges and people seeking revenge. Would the current ruling species be able to win again in the next Holy War? That was quite difficult to say. Even if the current ruling species did win again, what about the Holy War after that one? Or in a third Holy War?


    Eich¡¯s history was like a mirror. There had never been a dominant ruling species that could rule forever. It was impossible for any species to forever win in the Holy War. This was a cycle of misfortune and hatred.


    Would it be possible to end this all just by killing off all other species?


    It would be utterly foolish to think so. Even if all other species apart from humans were killed, there would still be differences in human skin color and tribes. Even if all humans of other skin colors and tribes were killed off, there would still be differences between where a person was from and their ent. Even if all such differences were removed and all humans were identical in appearance, as long as there were benefits involved, and something worth fighting over, or maybe even one person drank one more cup of water than another... People would fight over things like where someone was from, even to the death.


    This was human nature, or perhaps the instinct of all living creatures to develop themselves. This was a natural end result.


    The Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos had simply given this foundation a little push.


    Humans were like this. Other species were like this as well. Everyone wanted to live, but resources were limited. In that case, some excuse would be found to differentiate ¡°us¡± from the ¡°enemies¡±. After killing off the ¡°enemies¡±, there would naturally be more resources for everyone who remained.


    I loathed this type of world, which made me feel like I was a primitive and naked animal living in a primeval jungle.


    ¡°I can¡¯t change this world no matter what I do? Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it...¡±


    Perhaps it was despair at the logic of the world which seemed impossible to ovee that sent me into insanity back in the day.


    In the end, I discovered the power of Law in the Underground. That was the answer I arrived at for myself.


    ¡°Human instinct can¡¯t be relied on. Since morals can¡¯t restrain humans, then let Law be the restraint. We can create variousws. As long as everyone can obey thesews, perhaps Law can eliminate this eternal Holy War forever.¡±


    Actually, my actions were just like those of the first proponents of Legalism in China back in the warring states period. It was due to all the chaos and warring back then that the first Chinese legalist schrs began to search for the rule ofw in order to salvage society.


    Laws in every generation were different. That was because thews necessary for each generation were different.


    ¡°It¡¯s precisely because morals and self-restraint no longer work that we need Law as a restriction upon people.¡±


    Law wasn¡¯t anything that divine. Law was simply a set of restraints created for certain people. Law appealed to human nature that one should ¡°do beneficial things for oneself and avoid negative punishments¡±. Basically, this was an exaggerated version of the stick from the carrot and the stick analogy, and maybe some wise systems would also add a little ¡°carrot¡± so that those who obeyed thew could enjoy some small advantages.


    This was simply a possibility, a possibility that was almost impossible to achieve.


    This world had tangible Gods in it. In order for everyone to be restrained by the Concept of Law, there needed to be apletely fair judge who surpassed all the Gods.


    If the Gods could casually use backdoors in thew as they pleased, then not only would the Concept of Law be meaningless, it would even be a tool for tyranny.


    Fortunately for me, Ayer was truly moved by the possibility of creating such a world. Wumianzhe¡¯s ascension to Godhood made the impossible possible. In the end, after experiencing and paying far too much, Hell was finally established as a world where people would be judged after death.


    One day, souls would finally stop entering Divine Kingdoms and instead go to Hell, where they would be judged on personal character and good and evil deeds rather than how much they worked and sacrificed for their God. Only then would the gears of hatred finally stop.


    One day, everyone would finally fear being judged after death, which would truly make them pay attention to the potential consequences of their own words and actions. Perhaps that could truly eliminate war.


    Of course, such things were only possibilities. This was the utmost limit of what I could do.


    Now that Hell had been sessfully established, the war fanatics from both the Order Faction and Chaos Faction were quite bothersome. As long as they continued to fan the mes of war, then this Holy War wouldn¡¯t stop, and all sacrifices so far would be meaningless.


    And so, as I was in a hurry for revolution, the old Gods and their Divine Kingdoms seemed like they were really in the way...


    Thus, we had always been searching for an opportunity to eliminate as many existences from the old generation as possible so that this Holy War would be the final Holy War of all.


    But at this time, Karwenz provided an alternate choice.


    ¡°Won¡¯t everything end simply by opening up Eich¡¯s dimensional barrier, which willpletely eliminate the need for the Holy War?¡±


    I had constantly been thinking about Karwenz¡¯s words and actions recently.


    Would his method truly end the Holy War? Was his method correct? Rather than my ¡°possibility¡± that might not even happen or be realized for so long, perhaps his choice would be far more effective, with fewer sacrifices.


    ¡°Even if there are incredibly fearsome dimensional invaders outside, at least all species in Eich will stop their internal warring when faced with powerful enemies that threaten their ability to survive. Perhaps this can even be an opportunity to create an effectivemunication mechanism afterwards if neither Creator Goddess wants to stir up trouble anymore. Back in my original world, it was only after the Allies defeated the Axis that the United Nations was born.¡±


    To describe myself nicely, maybe I could be termed as overly cautious. To be more blunt, maybe I was the type who always overthought things, leading to poor sleep and premature balding... Cough cough, Rnd was the best, Rnd wasn¡¯t bald at all!


    But after much thinking, analysis, andparing, I decided to give up on Karwenz¡¯s idea.


    The reason? Maybe it sounded quiteughable, but I made up my mind due to memories of my original world.


    ¡°Earth never had any tangible Gods or a Holy War, but isn¡¯t it the same with major wars every decade or two? Will opening up the dimensional barrier really solve this world¡¯s problems? I highly doubt it. Although my method is slow, it will be concretely effective. At the very least, Law ismonce in my original world, and the United Nations did improve things slightly by providing somewhat of a military deterrent. If the dimensional barrier is opened, the chains of hatred will only change to having a new target, and the stage will be even bigger. Even morepeting species will get involved. What meaning is there to that? There will forever only be one victor, and there will only be more losers.¡±


    After much thinking, I decided in the end to reject Karwenz¡¯s idea. My understanding of him due to how close we were only made myself even more resolved to fight him until the end.


    ¡°Karwenz, from start to finish, you¡¯re probably only doing this so that you can have more fun. The stage of Eich is too small for you, so you¡¯re bored. Thus, you want to y on a bigger stage. What if you identally break everything along the way? That¡¯s fine to you, as long as you had fun while doing so. How can I possibly leave the future of the world up to a person like him...¡±

 Chapter 775 - Determination

    <h4>Chapter 775: Determination</h4>


    The Asolivis encirclement battle, or perhaps the Asolivis meat grinder battle. In my opinion, future history books would probably refer to this battle by such a name.


    Since I had been far too outstanding as bait (was that my fault?), reaching the point of attracting many powerful devils and even Undead Emperor Shupnus to personally chase after me, the western battlefront¡¯s high-levelmand of the enemy underwent a total breakdown. Not only were the supply airships able to sessfully resupply us, the mages¡¯ forcednding on the western battlefront also became significantly easier.


    The mages¡¯rge-scalending began at 3:45 in the morning, when all the ships¡¯ lights blinked three times, giving the signal to begin.


    20 battleships provided protection as 37rge-scale transport ships began forcing their way across the channel, followed by several hundred smaller ships.


    Starting from the northern Floyt Mountains on the western battlefront, and going all the way south, the entire shoreline became a battlefield.


    Unlike what I expected, the allied army didn¡¯t choose the central part of the Forest of Dreams which was formerly Port Victoria. Instead, they chose the farther north Silvershark Bay, a ce filled with dangerous reefs and whirlpools, making itpletely unsuitable as anding spot. Additionally, these dangerous waters also contained carnivorous magical sharks and flying fish. From the very start, this ce wouldn¡¯t normally be considered as anding location.


    No port had been constructed, as few people ever came here. There was dense coral underneath this area as well as lots of soft mud, meaning that constructing a port here would normally be quite difficult.


    Worst of all, the water here was extremely shallow to the point where a person could stand in the water¡ªthe water would only reach their waist.


    This was quite bad for ships as the reefs would only harm the ship hulls, but getting trapped in shallow waters would likely cause the ship to be stranded.


    Thus, this ce was obviously somewhere that would be overlooked as a potentialnding location.


    Even on the outskirts of the Forest of Dreams, the devils had still prepared gigantic stone catapults and cyclops tank formations to show the humans how fearsome the Chaos Abyss could truly be.


    Yet, the devils hadn¡¯t arranged a single soldier here.


    Even more critically, this ce had always been uninhabited, but this ce also led right to Asolivis!


    The end result was that the human alliance chose the most dangerous area around tond rather than the safe Forest of Dreams; this location would allow the mages whonded to directly ignore the enemy defenses and make a direct attack on Asolivis.


    This actually seemed like a normal decision?


    When the battleships approached this area, the devils and underwater undead automatically started attacking even though they didn¡¯t know the ships¡¯ goal here. The flying devils also unhesitatingly rushed towards Silvershark Bay in an effort to stop the ships from securing the shoreline.


    However, the devils and undead were greeted with even more cannon fire than previously.


    Numerous cannon shots streaked through the sky like meteors. Every explosion also spawned lightning, instantly causing the entire battlefield to sh white.


    Energy explosives. These were a type of newly invented ammunition. Every single energy explosive shot contained multiple Olivia¡¯s Magic Boxes. The type of magic stored within would automatically be activated during the explosion.


    This new ammunition had astonishing power and instantaneous destructive force. The only weaknesses were that every single shot was incredibly expensive, and it required a mage to charge its power. Still, such problems were nothing in front of the rich and powerful alliance of Bardi and the Mage Country.


    This new explosive ammunition had just arrived from the Mist Alliance¡¯s and And¡¯s production lines. The leaders of both factions had personally brought the ammunition to the frontlines. It was also thanks to Rnd acting as bait that the ammunition had arrived in a timely manner.


    When was the best time to use an ace card? That would be when your opponent felt that he hadpletely seen through everything you had. Then, you would bring out something new that would throw off all of your opponent¡¯s calctions. That was what an ace was.


    All of these energy explosives were charged with lightning and fireball magic, the two mostmon types of attack magic. While others had indeed considered ice, water, or earth magic, which would be more effective against the devils, practicalbat experience told them that such things weren¡¯t useful at all.


    Fire magic was forever the most direct and explosive when it came to AOE attack power. Once fire heated the air to a certain temperature, it was possible to even start boiling the air. As for high-speed and chaining single-target strikes together, nothing was more effective than explosive lightning magic, which was super effective at striking flying units.


    The end result was that all these energy explosives were injected with explosive fireballs and chain lightning spells. This was simple, direct, and effective.


    Thus, every attack from this new ammunition type was the equivalent of a high-level mage¡¯s high-circle spell attack. The only price for this were the mage acolytes who¡¯d copsed listlessly on the ships.


    The stronger mages all needed to preserve their mana for the uing battle. Only the weaker acolytes who weren¡¯t useful in battle could help charge the energy explosives. Since acolytescked mana to begin with, they could only make up the necessary mana required with numbers. The acolytes kept meditating to restore mana while also supplying the energy explosives with mana. The end result was that the acolytes were drained of all mana.


    The ship captains and cannoneers wouldn¡¯t care about the acolytes¡¯ pain, as they were going crazy over their new toy.


    This time, the ships were amply supplied, and had a critical goal in front of them. The ship captains would never give an order to conserve ammo at such a time. All magic cannons were fully activated, and colorful explosions kept appearing on the battlefield.


    I saw nothing but exploding fireballs and lightning bolts in front of me. It was as if thousands of high-level mages were all going all out without a single bit of care for conserving mana.


    ¡°...Is this really the mortal ne that¡¯s supposed to have weak magic? Even the Haletdam generation¡¯s magic rune army wasn¡¯t as ridiculous as this.¡±


    An ancient devil who had witnessed past Holy Wars couldn¡¯t help but exim in fright before secretly retreating.


    The overwhelming amount of fire element gathered here caused even the clouds to begin burning. Even more ridiculous was that some sort of magical reaction urred, causing the lightning tobine with the fiery clouds to suddenly create thunderous death districts for the devils.


    The overwhelming amount of attacks even rendered the high fire resistance that the Chaos Abyss residents were so proud of useless.


    Proud and powerful devils died inrge numbers under the fierce cannon fire. Even strong Devil Thans were stunned by the sight of endless high-temperature fireballs and lightning bolts. They had fought against high-level mages before, but they had never witnessed a scene resembling thousands of high-level mages tossing attack magic spells out together. All the elemental power gathered here even formed an elemental domain by itself.


    The most pitiful of all were the low- and mid-level winged devils. They kept falling out of the sky inrge numbers. The lucky ones were those who died before reaching the ground. The unlucky ones were paralyzed by lightning, and could only numbly wait for death as they fell to the ground.


    Even for the powerful devils, flying troop types were also rare and precious. But at this moment, there wasn¡¯t any possibility of retreat, as powerful Devil Nobles personally acted as themanders on the frontline, meaning that any deserter wouldn¡¯t possibly live to escape.


    ¡°...They absolutely can¡¯t be allowed tond there! We still have hope! Keep holding on until our nobles reinforce us,¡± a devil general shouted through the powerful gales, but what he saw next caused him to swallow his words.


    The ships didn¡¯t intend on forcing their way through the dangerous waters of Silvershark Bay. Instead, the ships raised their sails under the dark clouds and actually started floating above the sea!


    The ships shook as they started flying, but gradually and inexorably headed for the shoreline.


    *Boom!*


    Evidently, the old heavy battleships werepletely different in design and material from the newest flying airships. The floating engines temporarily installed in these ships soon overloaded and self-destructed. Many ships fell back into the sea... or maybe a more urate term would be crashed into the sea.


    Still, there wasn¡¯t much distance left. Any ship that didn¡¯t fall apart upon crashing into the shallow waters and reefs would unhesitatingly anchor itself and then start firing every cannon it had as a fixed artillery.


    Alchemists on the ships were tossing special potions into the water, causing the water to turn into ice at a visible speed.


    In thest small ship in the rear, four blue-and-white robed Truth Symposium archmages were uttering an incantation. They were going to summon ice and snow!


    If Rnd had been here, he would have discovered to his astonishment that the incantation here was quite simr to the Ice Aeon spell research that he¡¯d previously given to the Mage Country.


    The seawater gradually froze over, starting from the mages¡¯ small ship.


    All battleships and transport ships were tossing freezing potions into the seawater, causing the ice to spread even faster.


    People from the transport ships even jumped down onto the ice to test the ice¡¯s durability. By now, it was quite obvious that the humans weren¡¯t actually intending tond on the shore itself. They were simply going to freeze the entire ce over so that everyone on the ships could reachnd by walking on ice.


    *Boom!*


    *Boom!*


    By now, the battleships flying in the front had crashnded as well. They all established themselves on the shoreline, forming into a new fortress-like defense line.


    The cannon fire didn¡¯t rest for even one moment. When the Aurora Knights silently started flying out from thended battleships, even the devils started to feel fear.


    The most important part on these older battleships was the dragon bone under the ship. These crashndings would ruin the entire ship, even if the deck still remained intact.


    The human alliance had sacrificed every single battleship here only for the sake of a sessfulnding.


    The devils found that the human enemy was a lot more powerful than expected, but most fearsome of all was the humans¡¯ determination to eliminate their enemy once and for all, no matter the cost.

 Chapter 776 - Final Battle (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 776: Final Battle (Part 1)</h4>


    At the same time that the humans¡¯ major counterattack began on the western battlefront, a major change also urred on the eastern battlefront.


    Pincer attacks were quite amon war strategy. However, in order for pincer attacks to be truly effective rather than just suicidal, the most important part was timing.


    Back when the western battlefront was still quiet, the eastern battlefront was already quite raucous at 3:30 in the morning, the time when people would usually be the most tired.


    ¡°It¡¯s a night ambush!¡±


    The devils shouted a warning that echoed in the night. None of them had expected that the human alliance would ambush them at such a time in the night.


    Out of all the species, humans were probably the least suited for night battles. Humans didn¡¯t have infrared heat sensing abilities like the snakemen, or night vision like the elves. Humans were basically blind without sunlight or other lighting.


    Meanwhile, devils possessed night vision, along with soul vision that allowed their ¡°field of vision¡± to far surpass that of any human. Not to mention, light would never have any effect on undead vision to begin with.


    One side had vision that was the same in night and day while also being able to see several thousand meters far. The other side could only see a few meters away at night. All tricks andbat strategies would be nothing more than a joke. For any warrior fighting on the frontlines, not being able to see the enemy¡¯s attacks clearly would lead directly to death.


    Humans weren¡¯t good at fighting night battles. This wasmon sense in the world already. Yet, today, the humans really did choose a night battle against the devils and undead who could see in the night just as if it was day.


    Still, the devils and undead immediately learned why the humans chose this time of night, and what gave the humans the confidence to challenge the rulers of the night during the nighttime.


    Balls of light started rising up into the sky. Pure Holy Light began to transform the dark night into a bright sky. The pure Holy Light also began to cleanse and dispel the Chaos distortions. The undead and devils actually felt quite warm andfortable all over, without realizing that a fatal threat was right before them.


    But as for the Undead Lords who participated in the previous battle, the nightmare from yesterday¡¯s battle reenacted itself despite howbat reports clearly said how Rnd was currently on the eastern battlefront.


    Numerous white-robed Southern Sect priests were currentlybining their spellcasting powers under these balls of Holy Light. Their elite Holy Knights and temple guardians served as their protection.


    These strong Holy Knights wore thick silver armor while holding a holy silver hammer in one hand and a tower shield emzoned with a cross and holy sword in the other hand. They also carried heavy rusty crosses on their backs. These were the Southern Cross Knights, the Southern Sect¡¯s most elite Holy Knight troop type.


    At this moment, every Southern Cross Knight brought out the cross from their back. These bloody crosses contained the blood of those who had sacrificed themselves for the sake of the Southern Sect. These crosses which were blessed by holy blood then erected numerous circr defensive barriers.


    The barriers didn¡¯t protect arge area, but they were more than enough to protect the Southern Sect priests.


    Due to the blessing of the balls of Holy Light in the air, the barriers became even more holy and solid, and evil spells and arrows were immediately cleansed before even getting close. Meanwhile, in the sky, the ambushers¡¯ dragon knights had already begun fighting with bone dragons.


    Southern Sect priests kept sweating profusely and then retreating weakly, exhausted from the spellcasting. Other priests would then immediately rece them. Some of the Holy Light balls would dim during this process, but none of the Holy Light balls ever went out.


    Every spellcasting team involved at minimum three Legend-ranked priests or above. They still had trouble just maintaining the Holy Light balls with this since they were casting a new type of Holy Light spell that had only been created recently: ¡°Rnd¡¯s Dawn¡±.


    The theory behind this spell was copied from Rnd¡¯s Dawn Holy Light sword. He felt that only him being able to use it would have too many limitations, so he repeatedly modified the spell form until this lower-level version of Dawn¡¯s light was born.


    But due to theck of the highest-quality resources and Myth-ranked weapons, and because ordinary priests wouldn¡¯t possibly have as much affinity for Holy Light as Rnd, this so-called Saint-rank level spell actually had Level 4 difficulty along with requiring a tremendous upkeep.


    Despite this, once the Southern Sect proved with experiments that this Divine Art was incredibly effective against undead and Chaos Abyss residents, the Southern Sect unhesitatingly began to practice this spell for standardized use.


    It was required that the priests learn this high-level spell in just a short few weeks. Even with Rnd¡¯s total support in providing spell form information, this was still incredibly difficult. The Southern Sect had utilized its full power and resources in order to activate 15 ¡°suns¡± here today. In fact, even the Southern Sect¡¯s pope was personally here leading things on the eastern battlefront.


    That was right, the Southern Sect was out here in full force, with more than 70% of its main forces and Holy Light job sses.


    Meanwhile in the sky, scorching hot dragonbreath, blueish-white icy dragonbreath, corrosive green smoke dragonbreath, and so on kept streaking through the sky. The armored dragons charged at the forefront. The infamous evil color dragons were actually fighting for the sake of the humans here.


    The undead army¡¯s numbers were obviously diminished after suffering losses in multiple battles. While low-level forces could easily be reobtained, bone dragons were permanently limited in number. Shupnus had no way at all of replenishing bone dragons, since he was unable to return to the Death nes.


    Dawn¡¯s light kept shining as the weakened bone dragons found themselves locked inbat with powerful dragon knights. These bone dragons were instantly defeated before they could even react. This time, the dragon knights had also received advice on the primary weak spots on a bone dragon¡¯s body from the ancient bone dragon Gricasio, which helped to make the dragon knights¡¯ attacks even more effective.


    ¡°Bone dragons have two primary weak spots. The first is the spine as hundreds of bones are connected there, making the spine bone an exquisite yet fragile bone. A simple blow will cause the skeleton toe apart. The other weak spot is the wing bone...


    ¡°The weak spot of a gargoyle? Those are mostly created from corrupted statues, and they¡¯re just rocks, so they don¡¯t have any obvious weaknesses. But since they are made from stone, they¡¯re half earth elemental and half undead creatures, so they¡¯re really afraid of wind element attacks which are strong against earth, along with petrification magic that can make them lose their undead property. Petrification can turn them into real statues again, equaling an instant KO.¡±


    The Nortnds¡¯ undead advisors unhesitatingly revealed all sorts of undead troops¡¯ weaknesses. The humanmand center even contacted Dragon City in Bardi to deal with the undead aerial forces which were the greatest threat. This color dragon Dragon City managed to send five Copper and Bronze Dragons that possessed strong petrification magic.


    The current battle proved that these prebat preparations were highly sessful. The Copper Dragons were tremendously effective at eliminating gargoyles.


    The few bone dragons present were having an even more pitiful time. The new devilmander didn¡¯t value the undead¡¯s most precious high-level troop at all. The bone dragons received a forcedmand to ¡°eliminate the human mages no matter the price¡±, meaning that they could only attack and not retreat. These bone dragons were instantly surrounded by a muchrger number of dragons, and were instantly eradicated.


    The bone dragons kept falling apart, turning into dust in death before evennding on the ground. The flying bone dragons and gargoyles were defeated so swiftly that they couldn¡¯t even act as cannon fodder. The devils following right after them weren¡¯t even able to use them as a shield, and thus directly faced the dragons¡¯ attacks.


    And after stopping the enemy¡¯s aerial forces, Bardi¡¯s royal dragon knights and And¡¯s White Wolves simultaneously showed themselves under Dawn¡¯s illumination.


    They directly charged into the devils¡¯ formation. These brave warriors wanted fresh blood on their metal weapons to wash away the humiliation from the previous days.


    Strategically speaking, the eastern battlefront was only supposed to upy the enemy¡¯s attention, but the moment that the devils showed any weakness, the humans would instead change ns to an all-out assault.


    Currently, I should have been on the sidelines of the battlefield and observing, but I was astonished by some news that I suddenly received.


    ¡°Leona has gone missing? Karwenz isn¡¯t even letting go of his own woman and child?¡±

 Chapter 777 - Final Battle (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 777: Final Battle (Part 2)</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    Leona was a Chaos Girl whose identity was already exposed. She was also one of the rare weaklings among the Chaos Girls... Actually, her power level wasn¡¯t that bad, but whenpared to her seniors who were several centuries old, along with the Chaos Girls who had survived the previous, two previous, or countless previous Holy Wars, Leona was indeed far too weak.


    It was likely that even her ancestor who was a God wouldn¡¯t be able to protect her from Karwenz. The God of Sword and Thunder was just a newborn Low God, after all. He was far weaker than a Main God. Thus, I had scammed and kidnapped Leona to Bardi also as a way of protecting her.


    Since Leona was a critical chess piece who could influence the fate of the world itself, other higher-ups and factions wouldn¡¯t be as ¡°kind¡± as I was. Once Leona was in Bardi¡¯s hands, even though Bardi didn¡¯t imprison her out of respect for me, their protection and restrictions on Leona had far exceeded those for the ruler of any country.


    No ordinary king would have five Level 4 individuals as his bodyguards. There were also more than a dozen ¡°volunteers¡± hidden in the shadows.


    In a way, this was something that I tacitly epted and even expected. I had indeed scammed Leona since I had promised to take her to find Karwenz, and then ran into him on that floating airship afterwards, but never told her about the truth.


    Everyone knew that Leona wanted revenge on Karwenz, but when considering the power level difference between them, it would be nothing more than suicide.


    Still, Leona would see me as nothing more than a shameless person who betrayed her.


    Yet, would anyone really think that I cared about what she thought?


    I nced outside my room. I didn¡¯t have the free time to care about such matters right now.


    The fires of war would only keep burning ever fiercer until the final piece of grass fuel was used up. Both sides of the war would also serve as more fuel for the fire.


    Even though it was now dawn, the western battle showed no signs of ending. Instead, as the mages sessfullynded, they activated more and more war puppets as the mages entered the battle, making the fighting even fiercer than before.


    At such a time, talking about something like love and peace would be nothing more than a joke. Our human alliance had invested so much all for the sake ofpletely eliminating the devils and undead here, along with destroying the Dimensional Doors andpletely reiming this area ofnd.


    Once this area ofnd was reimed, then the Forest of Dreams, Mage Country, and Bardi would all be interconnected with no internal obstacles. This three-way alliance would perhaps then be the strongest faction in the mortal ne due to the momentum from such a major victory.


    Thisnd remation battle was the first major action taken by the entire Hell Faction and mortal ne¡¯s allied countries. This was the most important thing for us right now, so we wouldn¡¯t possibly allow this to fail.


    As for me, even though nobody could force me to do anything, just the requests from the others ¡°above me¡± meant that I couldn¡¯t possibly leave right now.


    Even though the battles were quite vicious already on both the western and eastern battlefronts, the biggest obstacles had yet to appear. The Devil Lords, powerful Devil Nobles, Undead Emperors, and ancient Undead Lords were all individually powerful enough to influence the entire course of battle.


    Ordinary people would only be ughtered by them. That obviously wouldn¡¯t do, so our own top-level individuals would likely end up fighting against the enemy¡¯s top-level individuals.


    In the past, human top-level individuals had always been weakerpared to those from other species, but this might not be the case anymore.


    Many of my old acquaintances were lying in wait on the western battlefront with me. They were mostly Truth-level archmages. Meanwhile, things on the eastern battlefront were left to the Immemorial and Supreme Immemorial Dragons from Dragon City.


    Dragons and mages. These were probably some of the strongest fighting forces in the mortal ne, and they were on our side. They wouldn¡¯t be any weaker than the high-level devils and undead.


    Now, it was a contest of who would be unable to take things anymore and act first. Anyone who acted first would expose their own position and abilities, naturally putting them into a more dangerous position.


    As long as the battle continued, someone would definitely be unable to wait anymore and show themselves first. That person would then be their enemy¡¯s main target.


    A royal knight messenger from Bardi was anxiously waiting for my reply in front of me right now. His slightly dark skinned face also had an awkward expression.


    I had given Leona over to Bardi. No matter what happened, Bardi had lost her, so naturally Bardi was responsible. In a way, I was also fighting for the sake of Bardi right now, so this made things even more awkward.


    However, I shook my head, indicating that I didn¡¯t mind, and that I wasn¡¯t going to say anything.


    I had also reviewed the amount of defense and protection that Bardi could provide Leona with. Even I didn¡¯t have a guarantee of being able to steal Leona away from everyone guarding her, nor was I capable of keeping so many powerful guards on her. Since Bardi was able to do much better than I could, yet they still failed to protect her, then there was no need for me to regret anything.


    ¡°Did you guys have a mage use Memory Rewind to check what happened?¡±


    ¡°Yes, we did, but the answer we received was truly inconceivable.¡±


    The messenger then handed me a report that was indeed quite inconceivable.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that Leona walked out by herself? And that she even easily killed two Level 4 individuals who tried to stop her?¡±


    I had quite an exaggerated expression, just as if I had read a fairy tale. How could something so ridiculous ur? But then, I said...


    ¡°Okay, I understand. Just tell them that I understand.¡±


    My reply was actually quite calm. ording to my understanding, something that sounded so ¡°ridiculous¡± was actually really believable.


    Many thoughts and facts shed through my mind as I analyzed various possibilities. I used logic to eliminate the impossible and to weed out false information. Sometimes, the more ridiculous a matter, the greater the possibility that I could find the ¡°truth¡± that I needed.


    I then faintly thought of a certain possibility that seemed more and more likely the more I thought about it. I was now regretting things...


    ¡°...Honestly, I truly should have directly killed Leona back then. I never thought that Leona would be a truly important chess piece in the grand scheme of things.¡±


    However, regret was probably more useless than anything in this world. At the very least, that nearbyrge ck devil who was more than 30 meters tall would probably think the same thing right now.


    Thisrge devil suddenly appeared probably because he was unable to take the ¡°weak insects¡± that he was used to looking down on forcing their way ever closer. This powerful devil started using his powers which were far superior to those of ordinary humans to ughter as he pleased. And then...


    Well, seven high-circle magic spells simultaneouslynded direct hits on him. I could only sessfully identify a misfortune spell from prophecy magic and a meteor spell. I had previously tried to secretly learn the first spell for myself, and meteor spells were simply far too easy to identify, especially since this unfortunate devil was crushed to death by it.


    ¡°As expected, idiots who casually show their ultimate abilities on the battlefield are always destined to die fast.¡±


    I quite proudly continued to wait in hiding, until an unexpected situation forced me onto the battlefield, making me into the idiot that I just talked about.

 Chapter 778 - Final Battle (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 778: Final Battle (Part 3)</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In any war, the side that started the fight first would always have many advantages. The most important benefit was the initiative. You would be able to fight at a location of your own choosing that you nned for.


    If you still couldn¡¯t gain an advantage from this, that meant there was a difference in power level that even strategy and tactics couldn¡¯t make up for. It would be quite difficult for you to win in such a scenario.


    Just as the humans¡¯mand center expected, starting a pincer attack on two battlefronts pressured the devils greatly. The dragon knights, elite squads, and countless balls of Holy Light on the eastern battlefront that started the fight first suggested the humans were determined to make this the final battle, but this was actually just a distraction to attract some of the devils¡¯ forces.


    The powerful devils guarding the western battlefront received this news. The Devil Lords made them head to the eastern battlefront immediately, but just a few hourster, the western battlefront began an even fiercer battle.


    The frozen sea became an ice bridge for the mages tond sessfully at a ce that nobody would ever expect to be used as anding point. The devils¡¯ fortresses on their original defense line became useless. Asolivis¡¯s close proximity to the western shoreline became a critical weak spot.


    As long as the humans attacked in full force, the forces on the western battlefront would soon reach Asolivis¡¯s outskirts. The Dimensional Doors within Asolivis were the devils¡¯st hope.


    This human attack could be described as really vicious, for the humans went immediately for their enemy¡¯s greatest weak spot, forcing the devils to defend this ce. Otherwise, the devils would be finished.


    And so, the powerful devils and devil army that had just gone to the eastern battlefront overnight immediately received a newmand to return and defend the western battlefront. In fact, the devils even sent forces from the eastern battlefront to reinforce the west.


    From amander¡¯s standpoint, this was the correct decision, but when considering the actual situation on the battlefield, this was obviously foolish.


    ¡°Going east and then changing to west so quickly? Old Three-Heads (Sarwenstan) is getting senile in his old age,¡±mented a devil.


    ¡°Did you receive amand to go east or go west? I only received amand to go east, but I¡¯m already on the eastern battlefront,¡± remarked another devil.


    ¡°Where¡¯s squad #3? How am I supposed to know where they are? They might have gone into hiding to ambush the enemy. You want squad #3 to return to the eastern battlefront? Go look for them yourself,¡± said a mid-level devilmander.


    In this generation, givingmands during battle typically relied on the primitive method of using messengers. At most, some would use magical items to transmit messages, but magical items capable of transmitting long-distance messages were quite rare. In normal wars, only generals and the overallmander would have such magical items. Even though devils were quite rich, only the high-level devils and powerful devils would have such magical items.


    Meanwhile, humans were already using magical engineering inventions for long-distancemunication. Other species were also imitating this and updating their own war messaging capabilities. However, the residents of the lower nes were all several centuries old at the very youngest. Having such age meant gloriousbat achievements, but they were also far too shut-in and ustomed to their own system, along with being overconfident in themselves to the point of being distrustful of all new methods.


    The devil army was still using the same method of fighting from several millennia ago. They sent messengers running around everywhere. However, the overly chaoticbat situation made it difficult for the messengers toplete their tasks. Thus, some devils received orders such as ¡°return to defend the west¡± before they even received any orders to head east, which was a ratherical situation.


    Some Devil Thanes who received twopletely conflicting orders found themselves with no idea which order to follow. In the end, the Devil Thanes simply decided to randomly kill off one messenger and pretend that the messenger was a fake sent over to confuse them.


    Devils were no good people at all. To them, weak mortals werepletely beneath them, and only their own kind were the ones they needed to be most on guard against.


    In the hierarchical devil society, a devil would always be most happy about their boss ¡°suddenly dying¡± rather than anything like glory or victory. This would mean that the devil now had an opportunity to ascend thedder. Thus, many high-levelmanders suddenly ¡°mysteriously¡± died in all this chaos.


    Normally, the devils would treat this as ¡°normal expenses¡± on the battlefield. Some devils even believed that this was useful to help devil society weed out the weak and determine the strong so that those who were useless would naturally be eliminated. However, the devils¡¯ habit of backstabbing their own only brought even more chaos for them in this battle.


    Most critical of all was themand to draw forces from the east to strengthen the defenses at Asolivis.


    Thismand seemed quite normal, but if you were a devil who was facing frightening dragons and Holy Light while locked in a difficult battle, and your allied devils were also barely holding on nearby... What would happen if the other devils suddenly ran off? You would lose this territory and be surrounded.


    ¡°They¡¯ve all run away? We¡¯ve already been abandoned! We¡¯d be idiots not to run!¡±


    Chaos would always slow down messengers. The more emergencymands that were issued, the more chaos there would be unless there was an orderlymand system in ce.


    In the past, this had never been a problem for the devils, since each devil squad was rtively independent. Every devil squad had its own fighting force and leaders, going up the ranking hierarchy one by one, all the way to a powerful devil swearing loyalty to some specific Devil Lord.


    In the past, the Devil Lords would personally take action to control their own ace squadrons, which would thenmunicate with the lower-ranking devil squads. That was how devils could keep things under control. But now, there were only two remaining Devil Lords, so the leaders of most of the devils¡¯ ace squadrons were absent. The most chaotic squadrons were thus the ones thatcked their highest-ranking leaders.


    Sarwenstan might have been a decent devil ruler, but he was definitely no outstanding general. Since the other Devil Lords were no longer around, Sarwenstan had unhesitatingly stolen the other Devil Lords¡¯ squadrons for himself, removing the highest-level members of those squadrons, and recing them with devils who were loyal to him only.


    Due to the establishment of Hell, a majority of Immemorial Devils who had experienced hundreds of battles before had all chosen to join Hell. The devil army thus lost its core fighters and elites, making the devil army far weaker than before already. With Sarwenstan also doing as he pleased with the devil squadrons, the ace squadrons now had less than 30% of their original strength.


    Although Sarwenstan¡¯s actions helped to cement his authority, this also meant that the old high-level devils who truly possessed authority and respect were no longer around in the devils¡¯mand system. Themanders were nothing more than Sarwenstan¡¯sckeys who only knew how to suck up to him.


    Plus, with the devils¡¯ traditions... With many devilmanders who possessed high ranks but insufficient power going missing right now, well... The chaos only got worse because certain devils intentionally created more chaos rather than try to stop the chaos.


    Drawing away the eastern battlefront¡¯s main forces made the devils¡¯ secondary forces on the eastern battlefront start panicking, believing that they had been abandoned. Many devil squads began retreating even without having received clear orders. The devils¡¯ eastern battlefront was beginning to copsepletely, far before any decisive oue had been reached in the west.


    Even Bardi¡¯s royal dragon knights and And¡¯s White Wolves, who were the elite human forces fighting in the east, didn¡¯t dare to believe that the legendary devil army was so easy to deal with. It seemed to them like the devils were imploding right after the battle began?


    Of course, the devils wouldn¡¯t simply watch and allow this to unfold. Sarwenstan personally went to the eastern battlefront to control the situation. The only other Devil Lord who remained with the devils was given the same task to control the situation on the western battlefront.


    Right now, I was hesitating as I nced at a gigantic golden phoenix that reached all the way into the clouds.


    ¡°He looks like delicious golden crispy fried chicken... Ahem, I mean, Little Tias won¡¯t be mad at me if I kill off all the Devil Lords, right?¡±

 Chapter 779 - Final Battle (Part 4)

    <h4>Chapter 779: Final Battle (Part 4)</h4>


    Devils were the oldest Chaos Abyss species of all. Most people thought of devils as an evil species equal to the demons, and that devils were highly difficult to deal with even throughout all the different dimensions.


    The devils had nine Devil Lords and three Devil Main Gods among them. Their society was militaristic. The devils were evil, sly scammers who also possessed actual power. Most people felt that they were even more evil and difficult to deal with than the more direct and chaotic demons.


    Nobody expected that the devils would weaken so quickly and pitifully.


    Still, when looking for the source of this, some things had already be definite starting from 10 years ago.


    ¡°The current devils are no longer the same ancient species from 10 years ago. Rather than saying the devils who joined Hell are traitors, it¡¯s more urate to say that those devils were actually the foundational strength of the devil species.¡±


    Devils were an ancient species that was originally the end result of some members of the first generation of humans betraying the Order Faction. Debating what might have happened was meaningless by now, but the devils¡¯ culture passed on since the first Holy War had settled down through history, and gradually formed terrifying evil with the influence of the Chaos Abyss.


    Devils were schemers and scammers who also used contracts. Devils didn¡¯t like to appear under the sun. If you antagonized the devils or became targeted by them, it was likely that you wouldn¡¯t even realize how you died.


    Devils had a ssical hierarchical society. The higher-level the devil, the slyer and stronger they would be as foolish and weak devils would be trampled on by lower-level devils who were more skilled than they were.


    However, the top-level devils had always abnormally remained the same. Compared to other species¡¯ equivalents, the Devil Lords were changed at an extremely slow rate, and the Devil Lords were also quite ¡°peaceful¡± among each other, a rarity for top-level individuals of other species.


    Anyone in authority who lost their status and authority would likely end up dying. Competition in the devils¡¯ lower and middle levels was extremely cruel, yet the top-level devils were on abnormally peaceful terms with each other. It was this ¡°unity¡± which was inconceivable for outsiders that helped the most powerful devils umte enough to be on par with the demons.


    Outsiders didn¡¯t understand how this came to be, but I knew about it all quite clearly.


    The devils had always maintained a rtivelyplete and stable societal structure. The top-level devils who seemed to be at peace with each other had actually always been split into two factions. The first faction consisted of the newer devils, who were led by Sarwenstan, the Lord of Tyranny. They were highly ambitious, and had their own goals and ns for the entire world.


    The other faction consisted of the ancient former humans. The younger devils viewed these devils as slow old folks whose ambition had been dulled by time. The younger devils felt that these older devils had lost the ambition that a devil should possess due to being in too many Holy Wars, and that the older devils could seemingly only hide at home and tremble in fear.


    However, likely very few realized that the older devils who hid at home ended up surviving countless Holy Wars, while the younger ambitious talents among the devils all ended up dying.


    10 years ago, these old artifact devils who seemingly lost their courage and ambitions suddenly stood up and took action. However, they didn¡¯t fight for the sake of the Chaos Abyss that they had always sworn loyalty to. Instead, they unhesitatingly fought against the Chaos Abyss as their grudges umted over countless years transformed into endless blood and angry roars on the battlefield.


    In the end, these old devils obtained the freedom that they wanted. They broke free from the Chaos Abyss¡¯s control, as well as from the endless Holy War and Cycle of Reincarnation.


    This major incident that would go down in history ended up hurting the younger devils more than anything.


    Only now did the younger devils learn that the ancient devils had never viewed them as their own kind at all. Silence and keeping their distance had been the best way to fool the younger devils; they felt that they had control of the world, but in reality, the younger devils didn¡¯t even have urate knowledge of what was really going on.


    The older devils hadn¡¯t actually lost their ambitions to fight. It was just that they had seen through how meaningless the Holy War was, which made them unmotivated to go all out for the sake of the Chaos Faction.


    The devils lost two-thirds of their high-levelbat strength due to this major incident. However, what the devils actually lost couldn¡¯t be calcted by numbers alone. To make an analogy, if a well-runpany suddenly had most of its leaders and elites headhunted by anotherpany, then thepany¡¯s remaining personnel would likely be unable to keep thepany running. If the head ountant left unexpectedly, then the entire financial department would likely be paralyzed. If the head of information technology suddenly left, then likely nobody else would be able to understand what was left behind. If thepany president went missing, then the entirepany would be in chaos. With so many high-level devils leaving, their entire society went into aplete copse due to the absence of so many leaders and elites.


    So many Devil Lords joining the Hell Faction caused the remaining devil society to go into utter chaos and panic. The demons then took advantage of the situation and attacked, causing even more severe losses for the devils.


    The end result was that the devils were instantly weakened to a tremendous degree. Even though the devils had been quite powerful prior to this, they were still unable to handle all this happening to them.


    ording to calctions, the entire devil species had suffered losses of more than 95%. Basically, the current devils had less than 5% of the power that they¡¯d possessed just 10 years ago.


    With such severe losses, the devils instantly went from a powerful first-rate faction to a third-rate faction. This was why they were now in such a hurry to try and make a foothold for themselves in the mortal ne when they usually would always prefer to stay scheming behind the scenes. The devils were no longer able to survive in the Chaos Abyss that operated on thew of the jungle where only the strong survived.


    Although I slightly sympathized with the devils¡¯ plight, that was absolutely no reason for me to go easy on them. The world would definitely be a better and more beautiful ce for every natural-born devil that was eliminated forever, after all.


    ¡°Now then, I need to first kill off this crispy piece of fried chicken...¡±


    The Devil Lord of Thunder. It was said that he ruled over the Original Sin of Pride. However, those who interacted with him would always feel that he was really nice and gentlemanly.


    The Devil Lord of Thunder¡¯s physical appearance was that of arge chicken with golden feathers of lightning. He was constantly surrounded by roaring lightning, and even his breathing could summon lightning. Gold shes of lightning would orbit around him like moons. It was impossible for lightning to ever stop within his personal domain, which also made him look really mighty. He was also one of the rare Devil Lords who focused on meleebat.


    His personal experience was just as wondrous as his physical appearance. It was said that he was formerly a creature of heaven, but he was unwilling to submit to the Order Gods¡¯ rules, so he fell into the Chaos Abyss and became a demon. That¡¯s right, a demon, not a devil. He then became a Demon Archduke, but then he betrayed the demons, and became a high-level devil.


    At the time, people were even cing bets on when he would betray his new faction, but millennia passed, and the Devil Lord of Thunder constantly remained the Lord of Tyranny¡¯s most trusted right-hand man.


    ¡°Anti-evil sh!¡±


    Blinding Holy Light descended from the sky, transforming the dark night into brightness. This Holy Light exploded right in front of the secondst remaining Devil Lord, causing white holy mes to begin burning everywhere.


    I walked through the holy mes and directly faced the angry giant golden chicken.


    This time, I was going for a direct confrontation rather than using an ambush!

 Chapter 780 - Final Battle (Part 5)

    <h4>Chapter 780: Final Battle (Part 5)</h4>


    Phoenixes were probably the rarest high-level magical beast in this world.


    Legends about them were told everywhere in the world, yet very few had actually witnessed a phoenix for themselves. Some even doubted that phoenixes really existed, but phoenixes also became a symbol of fortune.


    Many myths about phoenixes regarded them as the penultimate form of nature. In a way, phoenixes even had higher status than dragons.


    The mostmon legend about phoenixes was that they were ¡°undying¡±. This was a perfect type of undying, with incredibly strong regeneration abilities and wondrous elemental affinity. Phoenixes were capable of reviving themselves in me and lightning. This was a racial trait of theirs that had been repeatedly witnessed before.


    It was likely that Margaret was the foremost expert in the world regarding phoenixes.


    Back in the day, we hunted down a phoenix in order to obtain the strongest possible ¡°undying¡± bloodline for Adam. That was probably the most difficult battle I ever had back then. We paid a great price even despite our long preparations and making traps beforehand.


    It was precisely because of this that we understood phoenixes better than anyone. Only an enemy would do a deep investigation on all your information in order topletely determine your strengths and weaknesses, after all.


    ¡°Phoenixes are actually fluctuations in the Elemental Tide. Rather than saying that phoenixes are living creatures, it¡¯s more urate to say that they¡¯re a natural phenomenon created by the Elemental Tide. That¡¯s right, phoenixes are a natural phenomenon.¡±


    Maybe this made it sound like phoenixes were a type of elemental creature, but phoenixes were actually fundamentally different.


    The gathering of fire element would produce fire elemental creatures, whose bodies would consist of fire element being densely packed together. Meanwhile, the rise and fall of the Elemental Tide would affect the entire world. The Elemental Tide¡¯s powerful fluctuations created elemental phoenixes.


    Phoenixes were the shadows of the Elemental Tide. They were the result of fluctuations in the Elemental Tide. Phoenixes didn¡¯t have actual physical bodies. Although phoenixes were simr to elemental creatures, they far surpassed elemental creatures. Phoenixes were closer to Concepts, and were capable of choosing their own powerful traits of elemental creatures, which made them disgustingly difficult to deal with in real battles.


    Phoenixes were incredibly rare in number, as they would only be born when there wererge fluctuations in the Elemental Tide. More than 70% of phoenixes would be born during a Holy War, while the other 30% would be born in special circumstances.


    Fluctuations were able to interfere andbine with each other. Two elemental phoenixes of the same type meeting each other would alsobine and evolve, or perhaps exchange information and be more systematic.


    It could be said that this world only had four phoenixes representing each of the four elements, but it could also be said that this world had several hundred phoenixes, where each phoenix was a ¡°natural phenomenon¡±. The phoenix would exist when you observed it, but it mightbine or disappear at any time.


    The fire phoenix that we hunted had only been a small individual portion of a fluctuation. Completely hunting down and killing a real primeval elemental phoenix was something that even a Main God probably wasn¡¯t capable of.


    One of the most ancient elemental phoenixes resided at the Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm. This phoenix was the ruler of ice and snow who had been born the moment that ice and snow element had been born from the water element. This ice phoenix was the most ancient ice elemental creature of all.


    I didn¡¯t know how powerful the ice phoenix was, but I knew that it definitely wouldn¡¯t be weaker than any Elemental God.


    Meanwhile, the Devil Lord of Thunder in front of me was also a phoenix. However, he wasn¡¯t a primeval phoenix of the four elements. He was a phoenix of light, representing the natural phenomenon of how light was born from wind, making him the most ancient light elemental creature of all.


    However, when considering the history of light, he was still a young child inparison to the ice phoenix from the Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm.


    The Devil Lord of Thunder¡¯s existence was actually the birth of the natural phenomenon of ¡°light¡±. However, some people viewed this as a forbidden taboo.


    Very few people would think deeply about just what the venerated light and Holy Light consisted of, if the world was made out of the four elements.


    Perhaps there really were those who pondered this before, but they would either be burned on the stake by the God of Holy Light, or executed in secret.


    The unknown was the best way for those being worshipped to remain in power, after all. If something could be easily investigated and researched under a magnifying ss, then it would be worthy of respect and worship.


    But actually, the origin of light wasn¡¯t anything so mysterious. Just as how the wind element had given birth to the thunder element, the light element was also an extension born from the wind element. Holy Light was another type of light, so Holy Light naturally contained other elements, since everything in this world was created from the four elements. This was the same for allpound elements.


    The birth of the Lord of Thunder was also evidence of this being true.


    The Lord of Thunder had been born in the upper nes. He was born with perfect control over light and wind. However, his very existence was something that the entire Holy Light Faction was quite ufortable with.


    ¡°Light is a subordinate element of wind? Won¡¯t that make foolish mortals think that light is lower than wind?¡±


    Actually, the upper elements and lower elements didn¡¯t have a direct superior/subordinate rtionship. Being so-called upper or lower was only about birth order. In fact, most situations actually were that lower elements had the advantage. For example, it wasmon that an ice mage could easily defeat a water mage. But, sometimes, just a name alone would attract hate and dissatisfaction.


    And if the Holy Light Faction, which was the central faction in heaven, was dissatisfied with you...


    What happened next was only natural. Even if the Lord of Thunder was a top-level light elemental creature, a newborn phoenix would still be really weak, so he naturally went to the side of Chaos to protect his own life from being sealed.


    Maybe this sounded confusing, but darkness and Chaos weren¡¯t necessarily always connected. For instance, Holy Light had chosen the Order Faction, but that was only because the God of Holy Light had chosen the Order Faction.


    Meanwhile, a natural phenomenon like the Lord of Thunder didn¡¯t have much connection to Holy Light to begin with. Instead, he was closer to lightning and light of the natural world. An existence of light choosing the side of Chaos waspletely possible.


    And then, the Lord of Thunder naturally became the most wanted criminal in all of the Holy Light Faction, meaning that only the lower nes could protect him.


    However, the Lord of Thunder was a creature of light who had underestimated how chaotic demon society was. Too much chaos waspletely against his inner nature, so the end result was that he betrayed the demons and joined the devils, who were rtively orderly amongst the Chaos faction.


    Without a doubt, even though the Lord of Thunder was less than 2000 years old, this new phoenix of light was still one of the strongest devils of the new generation. It was only natural that he became a Devil Lord.


    Since he was simultaneously loathed by demons and the Holy Light Faction, it was only natural that he became an extremely loyal devil, as he had no other ce to go at all.


    Saying that he bore the Original Sin of Pride was a bit of a stretch. His light attribute would naturally suppress other demons and devils, so they would never be the same kind. He barely counted as being prideful, especially if a mortal said it, since the Lord of Thunder hadn¡¯t actually performed any astonishingly evil deeds despite bing fallen as a demon and then a devil.


    As a phoenix, he didn¡¯t have any desires for earthly possessions at all, and he would naturally grow stronger without needing to do anything.


    After so many years, he was naturally inextricably tied to the devil faction. Since the devils were in such panic right now, the Lord of Thunder unhesitatingly came out.


    The panicking devils felt that his lightning which always seemed so painfully blinding was now such a warm sight to behold. At the very least, it meant that this secondst remaining Devil Lord was still on the battlefield and dominating this domain.


    With him at the core, the devils swiftly established a new defense line. The human alliance tried multiple attacks, but were repelled quite easily by lightning that left only charred dead humans behind.


    The Lord of Thunder circled the air as blinding lightning kept shing and thunderbolts kept iling thend. The human alliance¡¯s forces were pushed back by him singlehandedly.


    ¡°Face me, you weak little chicken!¡±


    Certain existences would view certain words as taboo to say in front of them. ording to the fairies¡¯ information, the Lord of Thunder was easily offended by names such as ¡°little chicken¡±, ¡°female hen¡±, and so on. The fairies¡¯ information was indeed quite urate.


    I instantly sensed myself being targeted. An impending sense of doom caused me to break out into a cold sweat, so I hurriedly flew away as a bolt of lightning viciously struck where I was just standing. This bolt of lightning even possessed the ability to follow after me.


    With just an angry expression, the Lord of Thunder was able to create a cage of lightning right in front of me as lightning bolts intersected on my body.


    Countless lightning bolts danced around on my body at a speed that was impossible to react to.


    But soon, the lightning dissipated to reveal that I was still smiling while looking at the Lord of Thunder. This meager degree of lightning wouldn¡¯t even possibly injure me.


    My taunting smile made the extremely prideful phoenix go into a rampage.


    He unhesitatingly stopped targeting the human army in front of him and started chasing after me. However, I had no intentions of trying to dodge the lightning bolts that filled the sky.


    Perhaps other people felt that phoenixes were indestructible, and the Lord of Thunder had shown several times in history before that he was indestructible, but someone like me who had sessfully in a fire phoenix before could see that his indestructibility was filled with weaknesses.


    ¡°First of all, let¡¯s fight somewhere else instead.¡±


    The thunderingrge chicken was right in front of me by now, so I stomped my foot and transported us to my personal Hell world.


    The more that an ace was used, the more information about it that would be exposed. Previously, I could pass things off by saying that it was a special magical barrier when I put the elves into my personal Hell to help transport them, but my sessful ambush on the Lord of Tyranny and Undead Emperor Shupnus had undoubtedly exposed information about my private world, meaning that my enemies would now be on guard.


    Still, being able to activate a home-field advantage at any time would still be a tremendous advantage for existences of my level.


    The thunder phoenix unhesitatingly started flying high up into the sky when he saw the world around him change. He had amplebat experience, so his immediate reaction upon being faced with the unknown was to try and run.


    ¡°As expected, things won¡¯t be so simple...¡±


    I could bring anyone that I wanted into my personal Hell world. However, my enemies were also capable of simply normally walking out of my Hell world as long as they passed the border. With the Lord of Thunder¡¯s flying speed, he would likely be able to escape from my Hell world in just a few seconds.


    ¡°Stop him, Yongye City.¡±


    My ck floating castle showed itself from the dark clouds. Its shadowy mage towers gathered light that transformed into beams which shot directly at the Lord of Thunder.


    ¡°Foolish mortal, you¡¯re actually trying to challenge me with Holy Light!? I am the Lord of Thunder, the peak of existence of all light!¡±


    However, only more beams of light answered him.


    The beams of light intersected, forming into a that gradually shrunk and limited his movements. Finally, the Lord of Thunder was forced to start carefully dodging the beams of light which were actually quite low-level.


    Other people would likely be confused by this sight. However, I was someone who would never be fooled by the Lord of Thunder¡¯s words, due to my deep understanding of phoenixes.


    Indeed, light magic was his origin magic. ording to how elements countered each other, a normal person should have used death magic or dark witchcraft against him. However, phoenixes weren¡¯t elemental creatures at all. They were natural phenomena, fluctuations, and shadows.


    In that case, how was one supposed to shatter a shadow or stop a fluctuation? The most concrete method wouldn¡¯t rely on trying to attack the phoenix with anything else, as that would be meaningless. Only by sending an evenrger fluctuation to ¡°neutralize¡± it, by using an evenrger shadow to ¡°cover¡± it, was the method that we discovered to truly kill a phoenix back in the day.


    That was precisely the reason why I chose to fight the Lord of Thunder with Holy Light.


    ¡°You cowardly female hen, if you really are a rooster, thene down here and face me directly!¡±


    If I won this fight, I would need to really properly thank the fairies who gave me this information on the Lord of Thunder. A single taunt caused him to immediately turn around and unhesitatingly charge at me despite the fact that he had almost reached the border of my personal Hell world.

 Chapter 781 - Final Battle (Part 6)

    <h4>Chapter 781: Final Battle (Part 6)</h4>


    Holy Light illuminated my entire world as all darkness was forcibly dispelled. This was my chosen phoenix hunting ground.


    The golden Lord of Thunder disyed how he was a top-level existence of both wind and light. Under all the light and shadow, he changed his form, causing his eagle-like head to be sharper as the light he emanated became physical lightning, while his feathers and lower body became distorted light.


    He was now an existence who was half physical and half made of light, like no other in the world.


    ¡°Damn it, where did you go?¡±


    The eagle of light opened up his wings and shimmered brightly before...pletely disappearing.


    The Lord of Thunder vanishedpletely right in front of me, even though I hadn¡¯t blinked.


    His aura was still around. He hadn¡¯t left at all. He had simply rotated to my blind spot at an incredibly quick speed.


    He wasn¡¯t above me.


    He wasn¡¯t to my left.


    Everything that I saw waspletely dark, yet he was clearly still present. I trusted my instincts; anybat veteran would value their instincts far more than their vision.


    ¡°There¡¯s only one exnation for this... He¡¯s fast to the point where he can instantly rotate to my blind spot the instant that I turn my head to look for him.¡±


    ¡°Hmph!¡±


    Cold sweat ran down my spine as I heard a cold harrumph from him. I suddenly sliced the air behind me but hit nothing.


    ¡°Hmph!¡±


    This time, the cold harrumph came from in front of me.


    Sweat kept dripping down my forehead. Maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew this time. How was I supposed to deal with an enemy that I couldn¡¯t even see?


    ¡°...That¡¯s probably what you¡¯re thinking right now, Mr. fried chicken.¡±


    *ng!*


    I swung my sword seemingly randomly, but suddenly made solid contact with a loud ng.


    ¡°What!?¡±


    The Lord of Thunder¡¯s voice was filled with iprehension. He probably had no idea how I managed to locate him.


    What made him even more confused was the fact that he was unable to see through my actions despite having clearly read my mind.


    ¡°I truly do apologize. I¡¯ve already met too many enemies with the ability of mind-reading.¡±


    Phoenixes were capable of mind-reading and determining good and evil. This wasn¡¯t simply a legend, as it was also a racial talent. However, their mind-reading ability was different from the mind-reading ability of normal living beings.


    Phoenixes were existences from another dimension entirely. They were information strings to begin with. Their way of mind-reading was to read the information of others.


    Dealing with this type of mind-reading was actually quite simple. All I had to do was make some preparations beforehand, such as wearing some cat clone armor... Ahem, I meant that I was wearing a Harloys clone on myself to confuse his mind-reading.


    Of course, I would never exin to my enemy why it was that his mind-reading had misled him. Unlike idiots who wanted to make things harder for themselves in battle, my favorite thing in battle was to watch my enemy die in confusion, with as little information as possible being leaked regarding my abilities.


    All the lights in the distance disappeared as even Hell¡¯s Pir of Holy Light turned off its light for the time being. I then became the only source of light in my personal Hell world.


    This was an absolutely necessary condition forpletely killing a phoenix and sealing off its indestructible trait.


    My group and I all fully understood the true nature of phoenixes due to fighting with and analyzing the phoenix from back then. Phoenixes were creatures born into this world, but they didn¡¯t actually exist in this world. Thus, phoenixes possessed arge number of special abilities. For instance, a phoenix¡¯s physical body in the mortal ne was simply a type of information projection. Although this body was the phoenix¡¯s true body, it wasn¡¯t the phoenix¡¯s entire body.


    If you only killed the phoenix¡¯s physical body, the phoenix would still be capable of using its information transmission method to move around in this world and then jump onto a simr creature¡¯s body, bing reborn.


    It was like deleting a banned user¡¯s game ount; it would be almost impossible to stop that person froming back with another ount.


    Whenever we killed the fire phoenix from back then, as long as a location nearby (the maximum range would be determined by the phoenix¡¯s strength, and even the weakest phoenix could reach a distance of several hundred kilometers) had a single me, the phoenix would easily be able to project a new physical body and be reborn in that fire.


    The reason why it had been impossible to kill the Lord of Thunder even though the Holy Light Faction Gods had hunted him down multiple times was also because light was present everywhere in the mortal ne. Even if the Lord of Thunder was in at nighttime, he could make use of starlight to resurrect himself.


    But if there was no fire/light/corresponding phoenix element nearby at all, the phoenix¡¯s information would soon be lost without a host to contain it. The phoenix would weaken rapidly and start consuming its own information in an effort to maintain its existence. This was the only method with which a phoenix could truly be killed.


    Of course, this was something that could only be done in theory as the mortal ne was a ne consisting of the four elements. Since everything in the mortal ne was created as part of a natural cycle, it would normally be impossible topletely eliminate an element from such arge area.


    ¡°You¡¯re not the first weak chicken that I¡¯ve killed already. Of course I know about your weakness.¡±


    The Lord of Thunder responded with only furious lightning rather than words.


    There was still light in Hell, so the Lord of Thunder did his best to read and understand the fundamentals of the light here, but he discovered that he couldn¡¯t make use of the light here at all, since this wasn¡¯t the same light element that he was so familiar with.


    Even the Lord of Thunder wasn¡¯t foolish enough not to try and run away after discovering that the situation was so dire for him. However...


    ¡°It¡¯s toote for you now, little chicken. I¡¯ve heard that it doesn¡¯t snow in Hell, but allow me to show you snowfall in Hell regardless.¡±


    I had plenty of time to prepare already. I used my ice sword Nortnds during this time to create an inescapable blizzard arena. This forced us into close proximity while also serving to exile what little light element remained here.


    Hell¡¯s Pir of Holy Light had also been assisting me in drawing all the light element away from this ce. The only thing that still shone with light here was the Dawn Holy Light sword in my hand.


    I took a deep breath. The gigantic lightning bird in front of me was rapidly losing its light, but I still couldn¡¯t underestimate him.


    ¡°Now, it will all depend on this to see if I get to eat meat or have soup...¡±


    I was never someone who would do anything for the good of others for no return, nor was I the type to pick fights I didn¡¯t need to. I voluntarily challenged the Lord of Thunder to singlebat because phoenixes were filled with treasures!


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    While Rnd took the secondst Devil Lord into his personal Hell world, the battle outside still continued despite the Lord of Thunder¡¯s disappearance. Still, panic began to spread in the devil army as the Lord of Thunder didn¡¯t reappear as time went on.


    The human army was still unable to make much progress forward despite this advantage. The devils¡¯ temporary fortresses and defensive blockades became meat grinders that harvested endless amounts of blood from both sides.


    The mages¡¯ war puppets had entered the battlefield already. However, the mages discovered to their astonishment that even the incredibly strong adamantite puppets were disadvantaged against the powerful devils.


    Even though there was plenty of cannon fire as support, even though there was plenty of magical support as well, and even though the humans had clearly chosen this battlefield, the humans were still unable to make progress forward.


    ¡°Why can¡¯t we win even with so many advantages!?¡±


    The reason for this was quite direct and cruel. It was a difference in power level.


    Humans and devils hadpletely different power levels to begin with. Humans¡¯ high-level fighting forces and elite troop types were Gold rank, but such forces in the devil army would only be at the level of a corporal who had only a few subordinate soldiers.


    ording to Eich¡¯s old power level system, humans had the lowest-rank Iron Bloodline, while adult devils had the highest-level Gold Bloodline, just like demons did. Even though power level assessments weren¡¯t always urate at determining individual ability, this was still a direct and cruel representation of the tremendous average power level difference.


    Devils were capable of using an empty hand to casually grab a human warrior¡¯s heavy iron sword which was swung with full force. A spear that finally managed to strike the devil¡¯s stomach might not even be able to pierce it. Devils were also typically two or three timesrger than humans and could easily rip a human apart with their bare hands.


    And¡¯s mercenaries and scattered forces suffered the most losses of all. They were naval forces to begin with, so they barely had any armor or magically enchanted weapons. They went with the flow to attack the organized devil army, thinking that the enemy had already imploded due to the cannon fire. They thought that this would be an easy battle, but ended up running straight into far more than they could handle.


    The mercenaries from the Forest of Dreams were in far better condition, as they knew a lot more just how much the difference was between them and the devils. Thus, they hadn¡¯t tried to forcibly attack. Instead, they simply fought to keep the devils upied. The Forest of Dreams mercenaries¡¯ many years as Contract Heroes also helped them prepare many random things for battles over the years.


    Since everyone knew beforehand that this battle would be against the devils, they prepared coldsteel weapons and coldsteel armor, as coldsteel was a special magical metal that was known to be effective against residents of the lower nes. Just a slightly enchanted coldsteel weapon could cause a devil to break out into boils all over its body on contact.


    Despite all this,bat against the devils was still far too cruel for humans. The number of human dead was increasing at a furious pace, while more and more devils recovered from their chaotic state. The humans were now suffering more losses than the devils at a ratio of 3:1, and this gap was only worsening.


    Luckily, the mages¡¯ war puppets and summoned creatures were currently acting as the main attack force. They wouldn¡¯t even have anything such as morale, nor was there a need to worry that this type of army would copse on itself from suffering too many losses.


    As the mages in the rear witnessed thebat situation, they decided against getting anywhere close to the devil army. Instead, the mages focused fully on summoning even more cannon fodder and preparing more long-range magic attacks.


    And¡¯s fleet also started to reload its ammunition afterpleting its primary mission of helping the magesnd and fired cannons in an orderly manner on the devils¡¯ defenses.


    However, And¡¯s cannon fire could only act as support, as what they could hit was limited by the great distance. Breaking through the devils¡¯ defenses would still require a sacrifice of human infantry lives.


    Finally, the archmages from the Mage Country were unable to sit back and watch any longer after more than half of And¡¯snd forces (which were actually naval forces) perished. Many high-circle mages all stood up.


    The Truth-level archmages led them in forcibly attacking the devils¡¯ defenses. However, devil reinforcements that humans would have never imagined finally arrived at a location that the humans couldn¡¯t see.


    The leader of the devils¡¯ reinforcements was an old acquaintance of Rnd¡¯s. Or, maybe it would be more urate to say old enemy.

 Chapter 782 - Final Battle (Part 7)

    <h4>Chapter 782: Final Battle (Part 7)</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    The 100th level of the Chaos Abyss, the Ashen Furnace, the giants¡¯ city of metal, was one of the few safe districts in the Chaos Abyss. Since there were a high number of Dimensional Doors leading here, this level was one of the most highly popted in the Chaos Abyss, with the Ashen Furnace being thergest city and trading post of all in the Chaos Abyss.


    Not long ago, this ce had be a battlefield where Chaos War God Donatis fought against the strongest adventuring group from the mortal ne. The ce where the two sides fought was still rubble even now.


    Currently, this neutral city was no longer able to maintain its past independence.


    The silent Donatis was currently watching the ashen za not far away from the ck iron gate. Several dozenrge altars had been activated there, opening up a gigantic Dimensional Door that countless demons from various levels in the Chaos Abyss stepped into.


    Demons weren¡¯t simr to each other at all. They were capable of growing eight legs or nine arms if they wanted to. However, their power level couldn¡¯t possibly be faked. The demons¡¯ gigantic bodies and personal Chaos domains indicated that each demon here was a powerful elite with at least several centuries of experience.


    The gigantic Donatis watched the demon army gather in the distance. Even though most of these demons weren¡¯t his direct subordinates, Donatis¡¯s War God blood boiled as he forever desired to do battle.


    Wherever the Chaos War God was present, there would be an uing battle.


    Nobody was near Donatis. Even the most arrogant Demon Lord would carefully retract their aura and tread with caution around the Chaos War God.


    However, arge individual suddenly crashnded and sent tiny stone shards flying everywhere.


    Some of the stone shards flew right into Donatis¡¯s face, but he didn¡¯t even move or turn his head.


    He simply frowned as his expression became even icier, without even attempting to conceal his displeasure and disgust.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this the venerated Chaos War God? Howe I haven¡¯t seen the heroic spirits that you¡¯re so proud of?¡±


    Even though this individual¡¯s tone was quite humble, his words were really taunting. Everyone knew that Donatis had suffered significantly in the battle of Hell and lost all of his heroic spirits.


    Anyone who dared to taunt Donatis like this without fear of instant death would have to be an equal-level existence to him.


    ¡°Babarot, I¡¯ll properly have a fight with you if you manage to survive this uing battle.¡±


    ¡°Hah, battle? You¡¯re calling this a battle? You¡¯re actually saying that we¡¯ll have a battle when there¡¯s three of us Chaos Main Gods teaming up together!? All I see is a ughter and blood show. Donatis, you actually think that the hicks in the mortal ne will give us trouble? It seems that your continuous defeats have dulled yourbat fervor. Perhaps we should settle our old grudges right here and now!¡± the dark green Demon Main God Barbarot roared as he viciously stomped the ground with four feet, causing the entire Ashen Furnace city to tremble due to his tremendous size.


    Donatis was already taller than the tallest castle walls, but Barbarot was even taller than Donatis by a significant amount.


    Barbarot¡¯s upper half was a red demon figure, while his lower half was a lion-shaped beast that was currently devouring flesh and blood. Several hundred gigantic snakes curled up around his tail. These snakes were all alive, and they were currently devouring arge demon that they had hunted on the way here.


    ¡°King of Beasts¡±, ¡°Kills everything in his path¡±, ¡°Forever hungry¡±, and so on. Barbarot had many nicknames, but his most famous nickname was probably ¡°Devourer of Main Gods¡±.


    In the previous Holy War, Barbarot had personally torn apart and devoured two Order Main Gods. As for the number of other Gods that he devoured... sorry, would you remember how much bread you had eaten in your life?


    Barbarot was one of the most dangerous vicious beasts in the entire Chaos Abyss.


    However, Barbarot hated Donatis more than anyone as Donatis had previously pulled out his venomous fangs.


    Thus, the gigantic Chaos Main God Barbarot was shouting in pleasure at being so close to Donatis. Barbarot couldn¡¯t tolerate his urge to tear apart his mortal enemy Donatis.


    Donatis was frowning even more. He already had his ownbat n, but he also knew that Barbarot wouldn¡¯t possibly show self-restraint, and might go crazy at any moment.


    Donatis could only draw his sword and be on guard to defend himself. Barbarot only became more excited to see Donatis drawing his sword, reaching the point where arge amount of stinky blood started drooling out of Barbarot¡¯s lion mouth. Even the snakes on Barbarot¡¯s tail forgot to keep eating as they instead started hissing at the Chaos War God.


    It seemed like the two Chaos Main Gods were about to have an explosive battle against each other before the demons even headed out.


    However, a certain someone wouldn¡¯t allow such a thing to happen after finally achieving this coboration.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, let¡¯s not start fighting until we at least reach the mortal ne.¡±


    A bat-winged ck demon descended from the sky. This time, Sophocles the Deceiver wasn¡¯t equipped with the familiar greatsword on his back. He had quite a different appearance from how he usually only had a single sword.


    Sophocles, the leader of this demon alliance, was wearing golden enchanted heavy armor all over his body, making him appear like a golden sculpture. His entire physical body was concealed under armor. Apart from his face, he seemed even more like a War God than Donatis did.


    ¡°Haha, isn¡¯t this the little bat who ran away while panicking? Howe you look like a golden turtle? So it was true how a hick from the mortal ne scared you so much that you tucked your tail between your legs and ran back to the Chaos Abyss?¡±


    Barbarot instantly made Sophocles go into a bad mood just by saying some words. It could be seen that Barbarot really lived up to his reputation of being the most disliked Chaos Main God of all.


    ¡°Ha, I don¡¯t even know what you¡¯re all so afraid of. Can anything in the mortal ne even stop three of us Chaos Main Gods together?¡± Barbarotmented.


    ¡°Four, not three.¡± Sophocles smiled while holding up four of his fingers as he was really excited for his schemeing to fruition.


    ¡°Four? Who else is there?¡±


    ¡°Sarwenstan, the Devil Lord of Tyranny. But from today onwards, starting from the moment that we enter the mortal ne, the Devil Lords and all devils will be part of history. All that will remain is our most intimate friend, Demon Main God Sarwenstan!¡±


    Even the experienced Donatis showed an expression of surprise at this. Barbarot, who seemingly had no brains or ability to control himself, also carefully thought this over.


    The devils had always been considered as a powerful species equal to the demons. The two species had forever warred in the lower nes. In every Holy War, the demons and devils would still be busy fighting each other during the Holy War. Sarwenstan was also an incredibly powerful evil existence that everyone in all the dimensions feared.


    But ording to what Sophocles just said, the entire devil species and their Devil Main God were going to abandon their devil pride and status, transforming themselves into demons. This was probably the most astonishing victory of all for the demon species in the past 5,000 years.


    The other two Chaos Main Gods thought that there was something wrong with Sophocles¡¯ mind when they first heard this, and that he must have been joking. However, they then realized that there was a blind spot in their thinking.


    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t Sarwenstan give up on the devils?¡±


    The devils had weakened to such an extent that the entirety of the lower nes was ganging up on them. After this Holy War ended, the demons would be eliminating the devils entirely. Rather than dying a slow death with the remaining devils and their territory, it would be much more advantageous for Sarwenstan topletely abandon his devil pride and identity, and instead be a demon.


    Why couldn¡¯t he give up on the devils? Just because he was the leader? Nothing was more important than his personal survival. As long as he could survive, so what if he threw away his useless crown?


    ¡°Hahaha, I spent a great deal of effort on convincing Sarwenstan to ept my conditions. He was really so stubborn. I truly must thank Karwenz¡¯s older brother for forcing Sarwenstan to the brink. Otherwise, Sarwenstan would never have agreed to this.¡±


    Nobody replied to Sophocles, nor did he require a reply.


    Donatis continued to look forward, where the Demon Lords that the Chaos Main Gods summoned kept arriving. A tremendous amount of demons were currently entering the Dimensional Door in a noisy manner.


    Barbarot was currently reducing his physical size. An existence like him would have to make preparations to enter the mortal ne.


    Just as inconceivable as the devils surrenderingpletely to their old enemy was how the Chaos Main Gods actually teamed up together now that the will of the Chaos Abyss no longer restricted them. Unlike the past foolish method where they would keep separate from and interfere with each other, this time they would simultaneously attack with full force!


    The Ashen Furnace¡¯s neutrality waspletely meaningless in front of the three Chaos Main Gods. Countless demons passed through the teleportation portals here to reach the Dimensional Door leading to the mortal ne!

 Chapter 783 - Final Battle (Part 8)

    <h4>Chapter 783: Final Battle (Part 8)</h4>


    Likely nobody had expected that the Hell Faction¡¯s first major action taken by its human alliance would set off a chain of events leading to a worldwide war.


    Perhaps nobody had expected what Sarwenstan would do in this war, but for him, the situation couldn¡¯t possibly get any worse. While he was still busy doing his best to encourage the devils to fight for their species¡¯ glory and history (if devils even had such a thing), he was also secretly preparing a path of retreat for himself.


    ording to my understanding, Chaos contained Order, and Order also contained Chaos. This was an endless cycle, just as how no world would ever have a country that couldst forever, or that no oath couldst forever.


    The will of the Chaos Abyss controlled the Chaos Abyss and overly emphasized individuality and Chaos, which actually made Chaos lose its original purity.


    ¡°Forcibly preventing alliances is a type of alliance in and of itself. Is it really true Chaos to prevent all alliances and teamwork?¡±


    Cynthia actually wanted to see the powerful individuals in the Chaos Abyss being enemies with each other, along with species such as demons and devils treating each other as mortal enemies.


    If a certain individual was too powerful, then she would incite other individuals to be that person¡¯s enemies, and give rewards to the victor. If the powerful individuals dared to try something like allying with each other or establishing a country together, then they would face the enmity of the entire Chaos Abyss.


    Cynthia wanted to see powerful individuals bing even more powerful by fighting with each other rather than see any type of organization or country be formed.


    Thus, even the strongest Chaos Main Gods had never gained any territory for themselves in the mortal ne or tried to establish something like a country which would be more in the domain of Order. There were extremely few ces in the Chaos Abyss which could be termed as countries. One of the few exceptions to this were the devils.


    That was because it was necessary for the devils to exist.


    ¡°The meaning behind the devils¡¯ existence is perhaps because of the demons¡¯ existence. The devils are an alternate choice to the demons¡¯ chaotic evil. It¡¯s just an experimental possibility. But once this subtle bnce disappears, no, once the hand that acted as the bnce disappears, will there still be any meaning to the devils¡¯ existence?¡±


    Even without a majority of the powerful devils leaving, since the wars in the lower nes had fully broken out without Cynthia¡¯s presence, and all demons were now attacking all devils, would the devils possibly have any chance at victory when they were severely disadvantaged in numbers as well as top-level strength?


    The answer was obvious: the devils couldn¡¯t possibly win. Were the devils supposed to still count on the demons¡¯ internal warring against each other? Were the devils supposed to hope that the Demon Main Gods wouldn¡¯t possibly ever ally with each other?


    That wouldn¡¯t be possible. Perhaps the demons hated each other, but everyone knew that demons hated devils more than they hated each other. Now that there were no more obstacles, the Demon Main Gods would be more than happy to agree to settle their personal grudges after killing all devils first.


    The Devil Main God Sarwenstan had likely been scared countless times over the years as he thought about all of the possibilities throughout the long years.


    Was Sarwenstan overthinking things? That was quite difficult to say. Sarwenstan was an outsiderpared to the other two Devil Main Gods to begin with. And in this battle, he was now the only high-ranking leader of the entire devil species. Thus, he directly contacted Sophocles, whom he already had secret dealings with, and formed a hidden pact with Sophocles.


    This would be the devils¡¯ final battle where they wagered everything. If the devils could make a foothold for themselves in the mortal ne, then Sarwenstan naturally wouldn¡¯t need to use his nned path of retreat, and this secret pact would be nothing more than an empty promise.


    But, if Sarwenstan still lost this battle, then he would invoke this alliance when he was in the greatest danger. Then, the devils in the lower nes would let the demonse through as all remaining devils would voluntarily transform themselves into demons. Naturally, this meant that the devil species with such a long history would finally no longer exist in this world.


    Still, changing species wouldn¡¯t cause the devils to lose their intelligence, so if the sly devils all became really sly and violent demons, this wouldn¡¯t really have much difference for the mortal ne.


    But on the battlefield, nobody had expected such a situation to ur.


    Countless high-level demons suddenly emerged from the Dimensional Door. Their bloodthirsty nature made them instantly use their personal abilities to teleport to the battlefield.


    To ordinary mortals, there was no difference between demons and devils, nor was there any need to ssify the differences, as the end result for them would be the same regardless.


    But just as the human warriors thought that victory was before them after a bitter battle, endless fresh enemy reinforcements suddenly arrived. Several Chaos Main Gods¡¯ arrivalpletely smashed the bnce rather than simply tilting it towards one side.


    The humans¡¯ western battlefront immediately copsed the moment that the Chaos Main Gods appeared.


    It was now a bit past eight in the morning. The sun that should have been in the sky hadpletely vanished. Not a single bit of light remained in the entire area as the ck-winged Sophocles howled in the sky and devoured all the light.


    Donatis slowly picked up his greatsword from the ground while smiling in satisfaction. Two Truth-level archmages had just sacrificed themselves a few minutes ago so that others could retreat, which really satisfied Donatis¡¯s desire to see valiant warriors.


    Donatis decided to slightly break his typical rule and forget about his loathing of mages today as he gathered the two archmages¡¯ souls to give them a chance to be his fallen heroic spirits.


    Barbarot was the only one of the three Chaos Main Gods here who was a pure demon. He acted just like an ordinary demon, enjoying the fun of ughter and warfare. However, he seemed to have lost himself in enjoyingbat, and was now attacking the devils¡¯ camp.


    Still, there wouldn¡¯t be much difference for him regardless. In fact, he even enjoyed the taste of the slightly tougher devils more.


    This was the astonishing sight that I saw as I hummed while exiting my personal Hell world with great pleasure from the victory loot I just obtained.


    The entire sky was pitch-ck. I only saw hellfire meteors spreading mes and destruction as demons began a feast of ughter. The bronze gigantic Chaos War God was searching for his next target. Not only were the humans copsing against the tremendous number of high-level demons, even the devils were copsing and running... The moment that the demons arrived here, they never viewed the devils as allies for even a moment.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, we clearly had the advantage just now, so did I enter the wrong movie theater? Maybe there was something wrong with the way I opened my personal world? Let me close the door and try again.¡±


    I went back to and then exited my personal Hell world again, only to discover that everything was the same. I could only sigh helplessly as things had really be troublesome now.


    No, things actually were different now. For instance, the giant Chaos War God was now staring right at me as if I was some sort of precious treasure, despite the fact that there were two mountains in between us.


    Meanwhile, Sophocles the Deceiver in the sky also showed his unrestrained delight.


    ¡°Rnd! I found you!¡±


    At that moment, the entire battle stopped as everyone looked straight at me.


    ¡®Um, Afu, do you still remember our alliance of friendship? Alright, let¡¯s talk about thatter as a certain Chaos War God is already charging at me, and I must run.¡¯


    ¡°Donatis! I didn¡¯t do anything to you!¡±


    ¡°...Cough, have you forgotten about how you previously attacked him with Ice Aeon? That was back at the elves¡¯nd. Also, do you really think that Sophocles will care that there might be one less person to deal with Karwenz with regards to your ¡®alliance of friendship¡¯ as long as he thinks he has the chance to eliminate you?¡±


    ¡°...Silly cat, do you know what killed the cat? Too much honesty.¡±


    I kicked Harloys¡¯ clone far away while taking a deep breath and preparing my sword and shield forbat.


    Even though several dozen kilometers had been between us, this was a close distance for a Chaos Main God. At such a close distance, running would be meaningless, so I could only prepare for a bitter battle in order to survive.

 Chapter 784 - Final Battle (Part 9)

    <h4>Chapter 784: Final Battle (Part 9)</h4>


    What would happen when multiple Chaos Main Gods simultaneously appeared on the same battlefield?


    Everyone would sink into panic and fear. All dimensionalws would be distorted. The Chaos Main Gods using their full powers would cause the evident copse of Order in this area.


    No light remained in the sky. Even those with night vision were unable to see more than 100 meters away, as all light would be devoured.


    Clouds no longer needed to exist. Various dimensional crevices were torn open to reveal the void that nobodyprehended. Nobody had ever returned after being devoured by the void, after all.


    Thew of gravity was rewritten as gigantic rocks suddenly flew into the air before crashing down again. A cmity of mythic proportions was right in front of everyone as the mortals returned to an ancient time of battles between Gods.


    Thisnd had already experienced far too many wars. The dimensionalws here were already tattered, as thisnd had long since lost the protection of the Gods, unlike how the Hell Gods would maintain Hell¡¯s stability for the battlefields.


    Even surviving such a battlefield would be a feat of epic proportions, but this would be highly difficult.


    The bronze War God smiled in delight as he swung around his greatsword, shattering various mountains and castle walls. No mortal was able to attract his attention at all, but anyone unlucky enough to be within his sword¡¯s reach wouldn¡¯t possibly manage to escape.


    Those who were identally stepped on to death were probably the most fortunate, as their deaths were really quick and painless. Anyone who was caught within Donatis¡¯s domain of fury would forever be forced to battle furiously and ughter others until thest drop of their blood was gone.


    This wasn¡¯t even a special domain ability or superpower. It was simply that all intelligent creatures in the nearby area would be affected by Donatis¡¯s fervor for battle and be infected by his desire to destroy everything until nothing remained.


    The ck-winged demon in the sky also abandoned his prey as he glided around Donatis with seemingly slow speed that was actually quite quick. It was likely that even Sophocles himself didn¡¯t know whether his next prey was myself or Donatis, as every single word Sophocles the Deceiver said wouldck credibility and trustworthiness.


    ¡°Getting ganged up on by two Main Gods? This is such an honor...¡±


    I smiled wryly while releasing a blinding light with my Dawn sword that I gently held on to. Dawn became the only source of light here as it dispelled the darkness. However, Dawn¡¯s Holy Light also revealed my own burning desire to do battle.


    ¡°It¡¯s been so long since I was able to go all out without needing to consider anything else at all.¡±


    Perhaps Donatis¡¯s fervor had infected me, or perhaps it was because I had no way to retreat, as even I was feeling my blood boil now.


    Great distances would mean nothing to a Main God.


    *Boom!*


    My physical vision was meaningless. My instincts told me that Donatis was already right before me. The thunderous boom that rattled my eardrums was actually the sound of wind from his sword swing!


    My ears and eyes were useless, but my instinct was furiously warning me that a fatal threat was right above me. However, I simply started muttering in a low voice.


    ¡°Equality...¡±


    My tiny sword of light was less than a toothpickpared to Donatis¡¯s mega greatsword. But, when these two swords shed, the entire world heard the loud mor as the lightless battlefield became illuminated with a blinding white light which far exceeded what woulde from the sun. Everyone was blinded by the overwhelming amount of light after the tremendous darkness.


    Thanks to this sh of light, everyone witnessed something really inconceivable. Even the Main God Devourer Barbarot paused in his ughter as his mouth opened wide agape in astonishment.


    The undefeated War God Donatis was sent flying backwards and kept rolling around and around in the sky, as if he was someone unlucky sent reincarnated into another world by a truck. Donatis then crashed into the ground and kept rolling and rolling, destroying two fortresses and arge mountain along the way.


    The undefeated War God was sent flying like a bat hitting a home run ball, as if he was aplete novice.


    This frightening impact was difficult for even Donatis to absorb. Even though he mitigated much of the impact by rolling, he was still rendered unable to move for quite a while. But, judging by how his eyes were burning even brighter with fervor, this sensation of pain which he had forgotten for so long already had only served to ignite his desire to battle even more.


    ¡°Hahahaha, as expected of Rnd. That battle back at Hell before was really fun. Now, you¡¯re giving me new excitement! Let¡¯s continue!¡±


    Donatis supported himself with his arm, intending on getting up, but then he discovered that even his adamantite-like body was unable to bear the might of such an impact, as his entire arm was now covered in cracks.


    Donatis thenughed uproariously in such a loud voice that half the battlefield could hear him. Yet, he received no response, as I was currently... working hard at digging myself out of a hole after performing such a miracle blow.


    ¡°Ptui, ptui! So much sand.¡±


    I was half kneeling with my golden Dawn sword inserted into the ground. Blinding Holy Light wings surrounded my sword while I helplessly looked at where my right arm and right hand should have been there holding my sword.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this too ridiculous to lose this much of my body...¡±


    My right arm was nowpletely missing. I couldn¡¯t even cosy as Yang Guo if I wanted, because even my right shoulder hadpletely vanished. [TL note: Yang Guo is the one-armed protagonist of a famous wuxia novel by Louis Cha.]


    Such a severe injury normally should have immediately killed anyone, yet my injury was strangely covered in a faint white light that didn¡¯t allow even a single drop of blood to fall.


    ¡°I really shouldn¡¯t have been so foolish as to go for a direct exchange of blows. I was already forced to use the new ace that I just obtained. This is such a loss for me. I was intending on using this trickter during an exchange of injuries.¡±


    Dawn¡¯s light had expanded into Holy Light wings. The Lord of Thunder¡¯s shadow was furiously fluttering his wings, but finally everything returned to calmness as more and more light gathered upon my injury.


    However, I no longer had the time to be concerned about my injury.


    The ck-winged Sophocles was about to begin a second round of attacks on me. I originally thought that Donatis¡¯s pitiful condition would make the cautious Sophocles to retreat, yet this actually invoked Sophocles¡¯ vicious inner nature as a demon.


    Even though Sophocles appeared ratherughable in his golden armor covered with shing magical runes, his demonic and vicious expression had already exposed his determination. He was willing to even risk serious injury as long as he had the opportunity to finally kill such a scary enemy of his.


    The light on the right side of my body finally dissipated to reveal that my right arm and hand had beenpletely restored. I opened up my own wings of light and flew right towards him while holding my Dawn sword.


    ¡°You want to try and beat me while I¡¯m down? Measure your own strength first, Afu!¡±


    ¡°My name is Sophocles!¡±


    This time, Dawn didn¡¯t sh against a greatsword.


    My light form gradually got closer to the gigantic dark demon. Our light and darkness intersected and...


    ¡°Hah.¡±


    Right before we shed, I flew downwards while he flew upwards. Both of us missed each other.


    ¡°Stop dodging if you dare!¡±


    ¡°Cowardly mortal, it seems that you don¡¯t have the courage to have a direct fight after all.¡±


    We kept taunting each other. He didn¡¯t dare to have a direct confrontation since he couldn¡¯tprehend my ability, and I also felt that Sophocles absolutely wasn¡¯t the brawny type who would try a direct confrontation without any trickery.


    ¡°Ha, I¡¯ve already seen through your little trick. Isn¡¯t that the light-absorbing armor from the Haletdam generation? That¡¯s a toy that I threw away because I was bored with it. Did you obtain it from the Sky Tower?¡±


    ¡°...How is it possible? How could you possibly know? I already killed everyone who knows about this!¡±


    I was rendered speechless by Sophocles response. I was just saying somethingpletely random, yet it actually turned out to be true.


    I also carefully maintained my distance from Sophocles. It seemed that I had injured him so severelyst time that he even made a personal armor for himself out of a ¡°sun energy storage armor form x¡± blueprint.


    This rare armor invented during the Haletdam generation was the natural counter to light. Although it was called a type of sun energy storage armor, it was actually capable of forcefully absorbing all types of light within it. I had eximed how this armor was practically the natural enemy of Holy Light back when I saw its blueprint in the ruins. If it wasn¡¯t for how the base materials were far too difficult to obtain, I really would have wanted to make a set for myself and attack the Holy Church... Er, I meant I should probably research how a Demon Main God managed to obtain so many high-level light-type resources.

 Chapter 785 - Final Battle (Part 10)

    <h4>Chapter 785: Final Battle (Part 10)</h4>


    The sudden appearance of two additional Main Gods on the battlefield attracted a countless amount of attention. Nobody had expected that another two Main Gods would actually appear.


    A headless ck giant was currently fighting against Barbarot. Heimor wouldn¡¯t possibly hold back against a monstrous Chaos Main God by still remaining in his ck-haired, ck-eyed human youth form.


    Heimor, the Lord of Despair. He was previously one of the three Devil Main Gods, as one as one of the evilest existences in the entire Chaos Abyss... even now.


    Heimor¡¯s true body was a ck headless giant. There were only burning ck mes on his neck where his head should have been. The ck mes surrounding his physical body still continued to shout as he did battle.


    It seemed that the mes were his real physical body. He was using a chain sword to fight against Barbarot, while the mes transformed into various faces that taunted his enemy. Even though Heimor was a venerated Main God, he trash talked in a way that even hoodlums would look down upon.


    ¡°You almost, almost managed to bite me!


    ¡°Pee-yew, you stink! Did you not brush your teeth?


    ¡°Pahaha, I forgot that beasts aren¡¯t able to use floss.


    ¡°Hey hey, are you trying to bite me with your lower mouth? I rmend that you try stic surgery...¡±


    Heimor¡¯s trash talk became ever dirtier as his attacks became more vicious. It was obvious that he knew Barbarot from quite long ago.


    Heimor and Lasnina were both Devil Lords who used a chain sword as their preferred weapon, but the difference between the two was the difference between a teacher and a student (Iter learned that Lasnina really had learned her techniques from Heimor).


    Heimor¡¯s chain sword was bloody and putrid as well as obviously coated with a venom. The ck mes invaded the chains and caused the chain sword to separate into pieces that transformed into snakes, scorpions, wolves, and so on which furiously tore at and poisoned Barbarot¡¯s physical body.


    Meanwhile, Heimor¡¯s physical body fought like a hoodlum would, pushing Barbarot down onto the ground for a beatdown, looking for all opportunities to pull Barbarot¡¯s hair, p him in the face, and pull out his fangs.


    There weren¡¯t many legends about Heimor in the mortal ne. However, what people did know was that he was the master of all dream devils who spread hatred and nightmares, meaning that he was a master of mind magic.


    Back during the battle of Hell, Heimor hadn¡¯t appeared in Hell as he was busy on a trip to ambush the Queen of Storms. When Hell becamepletely separated from the mortal ne, Heimor had remained in the mortal ne as the highest-levelbat strength for the Hell Devils.


    There were no schemes behind this, as this was all a coincidence! Would anyone believe me if I said that? The devils were really sly. They had left a top-level member back in the mortal ne just in case... Ahem, let¡¯s not mind matters from the past. The important part was that we won the battle of Hell, and we were now irond allies.


    As I previously mentioned, this current battle was the first major battle initiated by the Hell Faction and its allies in the mortal ne. We couldn¡¯t possibly afford to lose this battle for the sake of face. Ayer had privately given me full authority over everything here in order to obtain victory.


    Full authority sounded simple, but this was actually quite a significant matter. Full authority meant that I could make use of the full power of the Hell Faction, including the Main Gods.


    That¡¯s right, we also had Main Gods. However, the ones who already received Hell¡¯s Concepts would find it far too difficult to leave Hell. It wouldn¡¯t be that meaningful for them to merely send incarnations, and it would also cost a significant price to try and interfere with things all the way in the mortal ne. It wouldn¡¯t be worth it under most circumstances.


    But since the enemy had Main God level existences, I would never walk onto such a battlefield emptyhanded, especially since I knew that I had identally taunted all of them already. It would be utterly foolish to directly jump out in front of them.


    Thus, I directly recruited Heimor for the purpose of having him fight against the Lord of Tyranny. I originally wanted to watch a duel between the Devil Main Gods, but now it became a fight between a Devil Main God and a Demon Main God, which was also quite a nice show.


    However, I was slightly regretting things now.


    Heimor was the Lord of Despair. The moment that he appeared on the battlefield, he started emanating an aura of despair everywhere. Weaker souls would instantly copse due to feeling an overwhelming amount of despair. Some people kneeled on the ground and bawled rivers of tears, while others evenmitted suicide with their own weapons.


    Those who were dumb enough to look at Heimor directly without having a resolute will would immediately be insane and hysterical. Their souls would soon be destroyed and they would transform into new dream devils unless they received assistance in time.


    ¡°...Why is it that I feel like we¡¯re the ones on the side of evil?¡±


    With the current style, Donatis and Sophocles actually appeared like mighty War Gods, while Heimor¡¯s domain of despair was transforming our own brave warriors into lunatics. If it wasn¡¯t for the special circumstances, Heimor appearing like this in the mortal ne with his true body would likely result in a unified attack on him by the other Gods.


    Right now, Heimor was even spitting on Barbarot, who was pinned to the ground with his chain sword. Whenpared to Heimor, even Barbarot seemed more like someone on the side of justice.


    ¡°If the silly cat was here, she would probably tell me ¡®Did you just realize that you¡¯re the antagonist disguised as a protagonist?¡¯¡±


    Unfortunately, nobody was here to makements like that to me. Harloys¡¯ true body was currently rushing here from the eastern battlefront. The moment that the Main Gods appeared on the battlefield, Harloys had canceled most of her clones and returned all of her strength to her true body, as we needed every bit ofbat strength we could right now.


    ¡°Although it¡¯s a terrible image, fine, an extremely terrible image, Heimor is indeed quite strong... Hey, hey, hey, Heimor, could you be a bit stronger for me? I was just praising you!¡±


    Before I even finished my sentence, Barbarot recovered and knocked Heimor onto the ground for a beatdown.


    Tsk, what a pitiful beatdown, as every blow was a direct hit.


    In a way, this was also something that I expected, as I had never counted on Heimor being able to defeat Barbarot. There was a tremendous difference between the two¡¯s special abilities, after all. Having the sly Heimor have a direct confrontation against Barbarot was something I could only choose helplessly.


    ¡°Persist, at least until Donatis loses.¡±


    ¡°You make it sound easy, soe fight him yourself... Damn it, you stinky lion, you think that only you know how to bite!? Take my poisonous fangs!¡±


    Although Heimor was disadvantaged, it sounded like he would at least be able to hold on for a while longer when judging how energetic his roar was. I hoped that he could at leastst until Donatis lost.


    Yes, that¡¯s right, I was expecting that the strongest Chaos War God Donatis, who had never lost a single time before, would lose here.


    Before this moment, nobody here had ever expected that Donatis, who was a master of direct confrontations, would actually bepletely suppressed in battle.


    ¡°So this is the true power level of Titan, the first ever Titan to be born? I¡¯m truly lucky that I didn¡¯t need to have a direct fight against him back in the day.¡±


    However, I didn¡¯t have the spare time to watch the other battles, as this fight was going to be three against three. Nobody could take it easy, as the first to lose would likely cause their entire side to lose.


    Thest Chaos Main God here was my old enemy Sophocles, who was already standing before me. Unlike his usual quiet expression, his eyes now showed the determination to kill me.

 Chapter 786 - Final Battle (Part 11)

    <h4>Chapter 786: Final Battle (Part 11)</h4>


    Even amongst Main Gods, some would be more outstanding than others.


    Chaos War God Donatis had forever been viewed as someone undefeatable who would always act as the Chaos Abyss¡¯s vanguard. He had experienced countless battlefields without ever being defeated. The long years and countlessbat achievements meant that no glorious nickname was even necessary as proof of his might. The simple reputation of being the undefeated War God was more than enough.


    Donatis was forever the center of attention on any battlefield that he appeared on.


    It was the same for this battle of Gods as well. However, nobody had ever expected that Donatis would bepletely suppressed.


    What mortals knew was that the tall bronze War God would forever look down upon the castle walls at his feet, and then easily crush the walls along with any mortals who tried to resist him. He would forever expressionlessly destroy everything in front of him and return it to Chaos.


    Donatis was absolutely, unreasonably strong. It was impossible for him not to view mortals as nothing more than ants.


    But right now, the undefeated War God seemed just like a young child getting beaten up by an adult. Donatis had always been proud of his gigantic size, but he didn¡¯t even reach Titan¡¯s waist.


    The thunder giant wore an ancient white cloth robe, a belt containing a staff, and grass slippers. These were all articles of clothing created from nts. He looked like the very picture of an old artifact who had jumped out of a myth.


    Titans had always been viewed as a powerful species equal to dragons in strength. However, it was likely that very few existences still remembered that the entire Titan species had been named after Titan, the first Titan.


    Donatis and Barbarot had been thergest ones on the battlefield before Titan¡¯s arrival. However, they weren¡¯t even half of Titan¡¯s height. Titan was wearing an olive circlet on his head which reached into the clouds. His very breathing dispelled the clouds as lightning streaked in his eyes. Everywhere that he focused his vision on would actually be struck by lightning.


    Titan was the eldest child of the Creator Goddess Astrya and her most beloved child. He was a super indestructible existence that had lived since the beginning of the very first generation. He was a tremendous God who had led his tribe in challenging the entire world.


    It was impossible for me toprehend how powerful he truly was, as I had been unable to find a single record in all of history of anyone surviving a fight against him.


    If one went by seniority, Titan was the oldest existence in the Eich universe after the Creator Goddesses. He had agreed to be the protector of the Land of Spring out of consideration for his species back when Dragon World had been copsing. Even with this, nobody would be able to issuemands to someone as ancient as Titan.


    I wouldn¡¯t be able tomand him. As for Ayer who was also someone from the first generation... he wouldn¡¯t be able to, either, as even he would be considered disrespectful if he tried to address Titan as ¡°bro¡±.


    Fortunately, unlike what the myths about Titan said, this ancient child of the earth had already gotten tired of battle. Over the past decade, Titan had focused mostly on the construction of the Land of Spring. He seemed just like a happy retired old man with a kindly expression who smiled every day.


    However, nobody would underestimate him because of his appearance. There was no doubt that Titan and the Titans were the strongest group of warriors in all of Hell.


    ¡°It would be such a pity not to use such a powerful existence who isn¡¯t even permanently bound to Hell.¡±


    Even with Ayer delegating full authority to me, I still wouldn¡¯t be able tomand such an ancient existence. If I instead tried tomand the lowest-ranking Titans, they might not be powerful enough, and I would even need to consider if they would still willingly return to the Land of Spring aftering to the mortal ne... Cough, since the highest-ranking Titans weren¡¯t exactly the type who were easy to talk to, after all.


    Thus, I personally went to find Titan for a discussion.


    The other Titans didn¡¯t even try to conceal their expressions suggesting that my discussion was nothing more than a joke. Nobody would be able to tell Titan to do anything. However, I ended up disappointing the other Titans.


    After a short private discussion, not only did Titan agree to personally help me, he even ¡°humiliated¡± himself by hiding in my personal Hell world, turning into my personal Charmander... er, something like a grandfather spirit.


    This made it quite easy for Heimor to hide in my personal Hell world as Titan would properly teach the incredibly arrogant Heimor how to behave.


    This was also why the Lord of Thunder was probably the single unluckiest phoenix in the entire world. When the phoenix of wind and light was brought into my personal Hell world, he thought that he would be able to fight me in singlebat, but he was actually ganged up on by Titan, who was just as skilled in controlling lightning and light, along with Heimor, a professional at sneak attacks. With two Main Gods ganging up on the Lord of Thunder with sneak attacks... well, he died in an incredibly pitiful fashion.


    The Lord of Thunder pitifully died 342 times in my personal Hell world. The longest that hested was 38 seconds, while the shortest hested was one second.


    After so many forced rebirths, the Lord of Thunder was finally restricted to being reborn in a location of my own choosing. He was thus trapped within my Dawn sword.


    I reused the blueprint and concept from creating a sword for Adam back in the day. The world¡¯s #1 artisan Titan also assisted me in adding the phoenix¡¯s spirit to my Dawn sword,pleting its first major upgrade and allowing me to witness Titan¡¯s inconceivable skill at smithing.


    Ahem, I was getting off topic. Perhaps some readers have already guessed how I managed to convince Titan to willingly help me. Indeed, there was nobody in the world who could tell Titan what to do, but my System wasn¡¯t a person!


    Whoops, my mistake, I didn¡¯t mean to imply that my System was a thing... Just recalling those quests that she made me suffer through made me realize that my System didn¡¯t even count as a thing!


    [...Your evil intentions are overflowing. If you don¡¯t start being more polite to me, trust that I¡¯m going to have that child beat you up. A single punch will definitely make you handicapped for life.]


    Hmph, Astrya was looking down on me too much. Did she think that a threat of violence would be enough to shut me up? Yep, of course it would. Was face something that could be eaten? I was going to shut up right now!


    Seeing how pitiful Donatis appeared right now, I considered what it would feel like to receive a punch from a fist that was evenrger than an entire castle, and then wisely chose to act manly (knowing when to retreat).


    That was right, the only one in this world capable of controlling Titan was my System Astrya. Titan considered her as his own mother since he had experienced even the creation of the world.


    Children would always miss their mother.


    Being family was carved into the soul and impossible to erase.


    An overly long period of time would only make one miss the other even more.


    A reunion would be joyful yet sad.


    Even now, I still remembered how the gigantic Titan actually sat down and cried rivers like a young child when he saw Astrya again...


    Ahem, in order to avoid bringing disaster upon myself, I should really shut up now. Currently, Titan was having fun beating up Donatis who seemed like a young child in front of him.


    The bronze War God was in a daze from the beating. He had probably never seen a fist which wasrger than his head before. Every thunderous punch that came from above was impossible to defend against or dodge. Donatis¡¯s mega greatsword hadn¡¯t taken any visible damage from the first three punches, but by now, it was nothing more than tiny shattered piece. Donatis thus could only take the blows with his physical body.


    Titan didn¡¯t use any special abilities. All he did was use brute force which was usually Donatis¡¯s favorite style. Every single punchnded a heavy blow on Donatis¡¯s physical body and soul. The very fact that Donatis hadsted so long without bingpletely shattered himself was evidence of how ridiculously strong he was as well.


    Titan smashed the powerful Donatis into the ground. Donatis angrily roared, causing the entire world to be afraid of this battle, but that still didn¡¯t help him. Titan maintained the same steady tempo while constantly punching Donatis.


    [No need to overthink things. This is Titan¡¯s only method of fighting. He doesn¡¯t really have any special abilities. This is how all of us fought back in the day.]


    Was this really the way the ancient Gods fought each other? The Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos each led a bunch of half-naked brawny Gods at mud-wrestling? This was far too wondrous of a scene for me to even dare imagine. I wanted the image of beautiful mythic battles returned to me!


    [...]


    ¡°Please don¡¯t remain silent! This will really make me think that ancient mythic battles were fought like this!¡±


    I was greeted by even more silence. Fine, let us not focus on these meaningless things, and return to the battle at hand.


    Nobody still believed that Donatis could win at this point. The only question was how long he couldst. Heimor and I had the mission of stopping the other Chaos Main Gods from being able to help Donatis.


    Heimor and Barbarot were still dueling on the ground. However, everyone knew that there wasn¡¯t much difference in power between these two old acquaintances. No victory would be determined anytime soon from this battle, much less life or death.


    My enemy, Sophocles the Deceiver, was clearly the only hope for the Chaos Faction on the battlefield right now. Yet, he kept fighting with me quite slowly, only slightly testing me with each attack as if he wasn¡¯t using his full strength at all.


    I was even beginning to suspect if he wanted to see Donatis die here, but I instinctively felt that couldn¡¯t be it. If Donatis died here, not only would that result in the Chaos Faction¡¯s invasion failing, we would also never pass by this opportunity to y him. Being able to y two Chaos Main Gods simultaneously in the mortal ne would be a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity.


    Finally, Sophocles started acting inconceivably as if something he had been waiting for had just urred.

 Chapter 787 - Final Battle Part 12

    <h4>Chapter 787 Final Battle Part 12</h4>


    Sophocles the Deceiver. His true abilities and aces were unknown. He was a rare demon who used his brains more than his muscles. There were many records of his battles, but he had showed off far too many different abilities. Therge amount of uncertain information meant that there was no useful information at all.


    It was obvious that Sophocles had been trying to intentionally hide concrete information about himself. He had always been hiding his true power.


    Judging by his actions and personality, and how he used schemes far more than brute force, he seemed far more like a devil than a demon. When I interacted with him, I also became certain that he was someone overly cautious and extremely sly.


    During the battle of Hell, Sophocles had shamelessly reneged on our agreements multiple times based on the current situation. Once he noticed that things weren¡¯t going well, he shamelessly only put up an act of a fight. At the end, he even more shamelessly admitted defeat. If such news were to spread, it would be aplete loss of face for any Main God.


    It was the same back in the S Dukedom. Even though Sophocles opened up a portal from the Chaos Abyss, he only sent subordinates to carefully test the waters. Once he discovered that we were there, he unhesitatingly abandoned his n to forcefully descend there, even if he imed to have never given up.


    Sophocles was sly, calcting, and cautious. These were excellent traits for survival, but they weren¡¯t suitable traits for being a powerful leader. His personality traits werepletely unsuited for his status of being one of the most powerful individuals in the world.


    It could be said that Sophocles ranked at the bottom of all the Chaos Main Gods in both reputation and power level.


    However, the very fact that he had survived until now was evidence that his personal path might not be so wrong after all.


    I was currently having difficultyprehending him.


    Sophocles¡¯ heroic armor of light didn¡¯t have even a trace of Holy Light. The pitch-ck demon wearing extravagant armor opened his bat-like wings which had a wingspan of several hundred meters, yet he didn¡¯t stir up any furious gusts.


    Instead, his wings were actually gathering light.


    All light particles in the area went over to his ck wings, or perhaps more urately, all light was being devoured by his wings.


    The ck wings spread out fully, and covered the entire sky as all light gathered and condensed upon them. This light actually made Sophocles appear more like an angel as his originally vicious expression became calm under the light¡¯s illumination.


    Only then did I clearly see his current face. His facial features all melted away to reveal a pitch-ck faceless individual who was nothing more than a shadow that devoured all light.


    With the light¡¯s illumination, Sophocles now seemed like his face was a hazily distorted ck hole. His wings seemed like wings of light and darkness ovepping one another. There was even faint holy song sounding around this many-winged Demon Main God as magical crosses appeared on his ck horns.


    Sophocles descended from the sky together with light and darkness. The abnormal divine and ritualistic aura around him made him seem more like an angel than a demon.


    This absolutely wasn¡¯t a power that any demon should have possessed, nor was this something that his armor would possibly be capable of doing. In fact, it was the opposite. His extravagant armor had been serving to conceal and suppress his true form.


    I faintly felt that the current Sophocles was his true form, an existence of both light and darkness.


    I was most confused by his current attitude of wanting to have a fight to the death against me right here and now. This was far too different from the previous Sophocles who would only fight when it was advantageous for him.


    ¡°Is he fighting his utmost for the sake of helping Donatis? That¡¯s definitely impossible. So, why is he doing this?¡±


    Today¡¯s battle attracted far too much attention from everyone, yet Sophocles unhesitatingly revealed this power of his. This waspletely unlike his normal personality.


    Originally, I had picked everyone¡¯s opponents based on our own power levels. Titan, the strongest among us, would deal with Donatis. I would then deal with Sophocles, who shouldn¡¯t have been motivated to go all out against me. But, he currently had no intention of even trying to talk as he made it quite clear that he would attack with full force. It seemed that I was unlucky yet again.


    However, Sophocles would never give me any time to wonder about what was going on. I had to put aside my doubts and focus on the battle at hand.


    As the battle between the Gods continued at the western battlefront and escted to mythical proportions, the battle at the eastern front still raged on as well.


    A corrosive wind blew past the mountains asrge patches of dark clouds gathered together. Powerful winds were blowing as rain fell quite unnaturally. Dawn¡¯s light was also piercing through this evil sky.


    The Southern Sect¡¯s priests of Holy Light had created numerous lights of salvation in the sky as if they had been prepared for this rain. The evil rain was unable to fall upon any location that the light shone upon.


    As light dispelled the dark clouds, the faint sound of a man cursing and shouting in pain could be heard from the thickest cloud.


    A cruel battle between dragons raged above the clouds.


    Correct, a battle between dragons, where one dragon fought against several hundred dragons.


    The furious Lord of Tyranny was curled up in a ball in the sky as his two gigantic dragon heads kept spitting fire and ice, respectively. The hellfire mes instantly evaporated the entire river that was so famous in the area, and then instantly transformed this ce into a hellish desert inferno.


    Yet, this powerful Devil Main God was currently in the greatest danger of his life.


    Several hundred ancient dragons were ganging up on this ¡°humiliation and traitor of the dragon species¡±, who was also known as the ¡°living ck stain upon all dragons¡±.


    Red dragons were flying swiftly and spitting mes, and bronze dragons jumped onto Sarwenstan¡¯s back and used their naturally hard ws and fangs to tear his scales. Even the weak and foolish Green Dragon and White Dragons would still be incredibly fearsome beasts of war after a sufficient amount of time.


    Dragonbreath and draconic might became incrediblymon sights in this battle. Both sides had incredibly high magic resistance and only average magic attack power, meaning that this battle between dragons would easily be a bloody physical fight.


    This meant that it would be a contest of who had tougher skin and sharper fangs and ws. It was evident that Sarwenstan was overwhelmingly powerful in this aspect.


    Dragons constantly fell out of the sky, while additional dragons kept flying up to rece them. Three major Dragon Cities had allied today, so the dragon army didn¡¯t need to worry about not having enough troops. All that was needed was to constantly weaken Sarwenstan.


    However, the main characters of this fight weren¡¯t from the legendary Dragon Cities.


    Translucent wings of night fluttered through the sky as these dragons¡¯ flowing bodies were obscured by ck mist, revealing only blood-red eyes which shone abnormally in the darkness.


    These were the dragons of death, known as Hell Dragons, the dragons of the Death God.


    These messengers of Hell didn¡¯t expose their real appearance. The mist around their bodies was actually a way to protect others.


    Hell Dragons were the incarnation of death itself, meaning that spreading death had be a natural instinct for them. Any weak existence from the mortal ne who saw the true body of a Hell Dragon or was looked upon by a Hell Dragon would likely die instantly.


    The bloody battle from Hell reenacted itself as the Hell Dragons flew around swiftly for a clever encirclement while the other dragons attacked Sarwenstan together.


    The Hell Dragons also surrounded the powerful Devil Main God, and kept aiming breath attacks at him. The Hell Dragons didn¡¯t even need to get close for physicalbat, as the aura of death from Hell in their breath was far more dangerous and fatal than any other type of dragonbreath.


    Dragons were incredibly proud of their astounding physical and magical resistance, but that was all useless in front of Hell¡¯s dragonbreath of death.


    Sarwenstan hadn¡¯t cared when he took his first Hell Dragon breath attack, but now he noticed that something was wrong with the situation. Even though he still hadn¡¯t seen through what Hell Dragons¡¯ traits really were, he noticed that every breath from them was dragging him closer to his death.


    Sarwwenstan was feeling tired and fatigued. As he recalled how he had lost so many battles recently, a mysterious fear welled up within him.


    ¡®Am I really going to be dragged to my death by a group of low-level lizards like them?¡¯


    Sarwenstan wanted to run, but waspletely unable to escape from the dragons¡¯ encirclement.


    Meanwhile, a familiar energy wavelength from the west made him really want to rush to the western battlefront as fast as he could.

 Chapter 788 - Final Battle Part 13

    <h4>Chapter 788 Final Battle Part 13</h4>


    The western battlefront was now in utter chaos.


    Multiple Main Gods appearing simultaneously at the same location caused the Elemental Tide to go into utter chaos. The dimensionalws here becamepletely tattered due to the demon army invasion.


    An area of elemental chaos, or dead magic, would typically be the aftermath of a forbidden spell or an ancient mythic battlefield. However, since there were far too many Main God level existences fighting all out here, just their very existence alone created an area of dead magic.


    The archmages participating in battle were the most affected by the elemental chaos.


    Ordinary mages and acolytes werepletely unable to cast magic in such an environment. Forcefully trying to cast magic in such an environment would only invite self-destruction from being unable to control the magic. For instance, a tiny fireball might suddenly transform into a major firestorm.


    Truth-level archmages all had personal domains here. Such an environment wouldn¡¯t prevent their magic casting, as their personal domains could ignore the natural world¡¯s dimensional limitations. This was a basic condition for top-level fighting forces participating in a battle against Gods.


    However, the archmages would still be tremendously restricted. Mages were a job ss that usually relied on outside forces and naturalws, so the elemental chaos would force them to only rely on their mana reserves. It was a definite that theirbat strength would significantly decrease until they got ustomed to this new environment.


    The sky was howling. The ground was being torn apart. The devils, demons, and undead were still unwilling to give up. The pitch-ck Demon Main God flying in the air actually became the only source of light in the area. Sophocles kept spreading light that made others feel panic and fear. In this chaotic battlefield, even an archmage would easily die to a skeleton archer who was almost about to fall apart.


    ¡°Awaken!¡±


    Curse archmage Moot was the oldest archmage in the Mage Country¡¯s attack force. He was skinny, and his face was covered in wrinkles. He always walked unsteadily with the aid of a walking staff, appearing like an injured ratman. He usually didn¡¯t appear in front of the younger mages, who even often made fun of him. However, Moot would only show his true colors in times of danger.


    Moot used all his power to control the elements of earth and wind. His small body suddenly increased several times in size while breaking out in a sweat with veins bulging. However, this spell that he controlled with full force wasn¡¯t an attack magic spell at all.


    Archmage Moot caused the earth to split open as numerous temporary floating discs were constructed. These floating discs were of various sizes, with thergest being the equivalent of floating inds, while even the smallest ones were capable of transporting several dozen people.


    All the floating discs slowly flew upwards, attracting much attention on the battlefield.


    Due to the appearance of the Chaos Main Gods, the battlefield had bepletely chaotic and incredibly dangerous. All the mages could only fight for themselves in such a situation. They would die instantly and worthlessly the moment that a powerful demon or devil suddenly appeared by their side.


    But, as long as the mages could gather together again, they would naturally be able to fight in teams based on their past training. Some would act as support, some would act as defense, and some would act as attack. By working in teams, the mages no longer needed to worry so much about an unexpected death, and they could finally utilize their true power.


    Just as Moot expected, the moment that the mages gathered on the floating discs, they immediately started crafting new defensive formations based on their personal specialties. Some mages provided additional flying power to the discs, some cast new defense spells, some started contacting their friends, and some started incanting powerful attack spells after reaching safety.


    Perhaps academic types would seem clumsy and panicky during unexpected situations, but as long as the situation was stabilized, their solid academic foundations would allow them to use explosivebat strength.


    Every floating disc acted as a mage team. The high-level mages even constructed teleportation circles among them to choose the most appropriate positions for themselves. Multiple floating discs then connected together to form simplified versions of mage towers.


    The top-level mages cast spells together with lower-level mages of the same magic type. Acolytes worked busily to solidify the defensive formations. When the first wave of incantations concluded, countless summoned creatures descended from the void. Now that there was the protection of cannon fodder, this greatly eased the pressure on the mages¡¯ defenses, meaning that the mages could finally rest assured, casting only attack spells to force the demons back.


    One of the smallest floating discs highest up in the sky had only 20ish mages on it, but this disc was actually the core of the entire battlefield.


    Kaid, Am, Oslowen, and Aloso. The Truth-level mages and their disciples naturally stood together here. Standing in the very center was archmage Moot who was doing his very best to maintain his spell. These top-level archmages weren¡¯t actually focusing on the battle between the ¡°acolytes¡± and the demons. They were looking over the entire battlefield to search for a chance to change the overall situation.


    This lightless battlefield was no obstruction to them at all. On this chaotic battlefield, the most obvious ce of all was of course the ce where the Main Gods were fighting.


    The messy battle between Barbarot and Heimor still continued. The two vicious beasts were tearing at each other, causing the earth to tremble with their angry roars. It was quite difficult for the archmages to intervene in these two beasts¡¯ battle, nor did the archmages want to intervene.


    ¡°Which side is ours?¡±


    ¡°Probably that lion-headed beast. The headless giant doesn¡¯t seem like a good guy at all.¡±


    ¡°Stop being an idiot. The ck giant is Heimor, the Devil Lord of Betrayal. Main God Devourer Barbarot is our real enemy.¡±


    Even though someone was able to identify enemy and ally, the archmages weren¡¯t interested in intervening in this battle.


    Another ongoing battle was a fistfight between gigantic Gods. Titan kept summoning lightning from the clouds, while heavy fists punched with such force that the dimensionalws were broken. Yet, the bronze Chaos War God still persisted in battle, even bing more excited despite being hit so heavily that he constantly spat up blood.


    Donatis¡¯s nose was broken. Blood from his noseically dripped down like rain, causing this area to speed up even further in chaosification.


    This was doubtlessly the most important battlefield, but when seeing how Titan¡¯s very arms were tearing dimensional cracks, even Level 4 individuals needed to stay far away from this battle. Just the wind pressure from Titan¡¯s fists was more than enough to easily kill a dragon. If such fists still couldn¡¯t kill Donatis, then the archmages in the distance wouldn¡¯t possibly be able to do anything.


    ¡°Give me 20 hours of time to incant. I promise to kill Donatis... er, killing him will be rather difficult, but I can definitely injure him.¡±


    ¡°Ha, I was saying to bring Arlodant¡¯s Cloud Tower here, and use the several hundred years¡¯ worth of mana reserves in the Cloud Tower to blow him up.¡±


    Two Truth-level archmages joked about the situation. This was supposed to be a ¡°regr battle¡±, but nobody had expected that they would meet multiple Chaos Main Gods and the Chaos Faction¡¯s main army here.


    Still, their joke really contained truth. If this had been the Mage Country and the Cloud Tower was here, even a Main God wouldn¡¯t do well against the magic power and mana reserves of the strongest mage tower in the entire world.


    ¡°Time is life on the battlefield. You should stop the idle chatter... The Cloud Tower requires 20 more minutes to arrive here. Anro, you¡¯ll have to live up to your promise at that time.¡±


    Am announced something astonishing with her eyes closed. The archmages had different expressions of surprise, with some having looks of sudden realization, and some having expressions of delight, while others looked depressed.


    Since the mages¡¯ highest-level organization was the Cloud Tower, it was naturally movable. It was just that the Cloud Tower never had a reason to move due to how overly strong the Mage Country was.


    When considering the Cloud Tower¡¯s tremendous area and size, its flying speed naturally would be quite slow. ns would be necessary beforehand for its movement to arrive at a specific time on the battlefield. The depressed mages were depressed because they obviously realized that they hadn¡¯t been informed about such ns.


    ¡°Don¡¯t me me for hiding things. There are too many people of all sorts among us. It¡¯s necessary to fool our own before we can fool the enemy. Only a few people on the ¡®inside¡¯ knew about this,¡± Am from the Star Revtion mage organization exined.


    The archmages then spread the information to everyone that the Cloud Tower was about to arrive, which greatly improved everyone¡¯s morale since reinforcements were arriving.


    Am then nced at the dark sky where an angel of light with a Holy Light sword was locked in bitter battle with a Demon Main God. The intersection of light and shadow made everything hazy here.


    ck holes, the void, dimensional cracks, dead magic zone, images from alternate dimensions, and so on. This battlefield was likely the most dangerous of them all.


    Light and shadow tore at each other as the two winged fighters furiously fought over controlling light. They were having a deathmatch that nobody else could understand.


    Although nobody could understnd this battle, it was currently an even battle.


    Without a doubt, the rumor previously seen as baseless was now proved to be true. The human Strongest Holy Knight was now someone strong enough to directly fight against a Main God.


    Even Am, who had lived through countless millennia before, could only sigh at the current battle.


    ¡°Humans are truly so inconceivable. He was just a brat just like Margaret back then, but he managed to reach this step after just slightly over a century.¡±


    Am was Margaret¡¯s teacher who had a good opinion of Rnd back in the day, but Am had never expected that Rnd could reach such a level in the end.


    Still, she didn¡¯t have much time to exim. Perhaps the battle¡¯s situation caused the pilot of the Cloud Tower to increase speed as a beautiful and extravagant castle descended from the sky, tearing through the ck clouds to expose the sun.


    ¡°Start the counterattack! Show them the power of mages! The power of humans!¡± someone unknown shouted as various ¡°fireworks¡± and ¡°flowers of light¡± started burning up the entire world.

 Chapter 789 - Final Battle Part 14

    <h4>Chapter 789 Final Battle Part 14</h4>


    Although the Mage Country Arlodant was a mega empire, it didn¡¯t have much territory. Most of its poption was concentrated in Arlo, its capital of magic.


    The Cloud Tower had existed in Arlo¡¯s sky for all these past millenniums. At first, it had only been a residence and experimentalboratory for high-level mages where they could avoid having explosions affect other residential districts.


    But as magic education became moremonce, the mages in Arlodant became older on average as more and more people achieved an undying power level. This meant that the Cloud Tower gained more and more permanent residents.


    The Cloud Tower was no longer just a simple experimentalboratory for high-level mages after all the constant expansion over the years. Mages consisted of 10% of the poption in Arlodant, and most of them resided in the Cloud Tower. More than 50% of archmages had their own permanent residences and experimentalboratories in the Cloud Tower. All academic organizations had their own mage towers in the Cloud Tower.


    Despite all this, the Mage Country had always referred to this ce as the ¡°Cloud Tower¡±, even though the Cloud Tower had actually be a city several centuries ago. This was simply because everyone had gotten ustomed to addressing this ce as the Cloud Tower.


    The Cloud Tower was no longer a simple researchboratory or mage tower. Every single resident of Arlodant would see this city in the clouds every day. The Cloud Tower¡¯s existence represented the entire Mage Country¡¯s glory and stability.


    ¡°Never challenge an archmage in their own mage tower.¡±


    This was already known asmon sense throughout all the dimensions. The extension of this would then be...


    ¡°Never directly challenge the Mage Country and the Cloud Tower, unless you¡¯re willing to simultaneously fight against thousands of top-level mage towers and tens of thousands of archmages.¡±


    The Cloud Tower had never aplished any outstandingbat achievements. Perhaps people had already forgotten that the Cloud Tower was actually mobile. Still, no existence who had even a modicum of intelligence would even possibly consider directly challenging the Cloud Tower due to how powerful it was.


    ¡°Attack Arlo, the capital of the Mage Country? The Cloud Tower is there, together with tens of thousands of archmages, an endless mana reserve, tremendous amounts of war puppets and magical creations, countless Dimension Doors and prepared curses. The Cloud Tower is more than half of the entire Mage Country¡¯sbat strength.¡±


    Even the most reckless king would still never consider attacking the capital of the Mage Country. The Cloud Tower was known as the mages¡¯ home, as well as the symbol of the entire country¡¯s stability.


    The only rogue king who dared to challenge the Cloud Tower was ¡°Foolish King¡± Orloss. But now, his wild challenge that embroiled the Mage Country in this conflict seemed like the wisest decision a ruler had ever made in this world.


    ¡°10 years ago, the members of the inner circle made a secret agreement with former Emperor Orloss that we would activate the Cloud Tower and fly across the sea for support when it was necessary. The Bardi Empire would pay for all of our necessary expenditures. Not only that, Bardi would even open up its national treasury and give us at minimum 100 kilograms of adamantite, tens of millions of gold coins¡¯ worth of magical resources, one God Equipment, and 10 SemiGod Equipment as payment for our assistance.¡±


    In the Truth conference hall of the Cloud Tower, Archmage Lain exined to the other mages about this secret agreement which guaranteed the legality of the Cloud Tower entering the Bardi Empire.


    Only Truth Symposium members would know that the Truth Symposium was actually split up into the inner circle and outer circle members. The outer circle members were more numerous and often changed, while the inner circle members were hidden. Only inner circle members would know the identity of other inner circle members.


    The inner circle members didn¡¯t have any special extra authority. They simply were viewed as more trustworthy and would receive more information.


    Am of Star Revtion and ¡°Miracle Prayer¡± Lain were two of the very few inner circle members whose identities were publicly known as inner circle members.


    ¡°When I heard of Orloss¡¯s death, I thought that our agreement would naturally be scrap paper. But, when Rnd brought the contract and Emperor Halent¡¯s writ of authority to us, I really didn¡¯t dare to believe it... They must have been secretly working together long ago.¡±


    The Truth conference hall which was typically empty was currently more than half full. Some people whose names had been forgotten for centuries and more, who had been famous names millenniums ago, now returned in front of everyone while wearing masks and hats to conceal their identities.


    Even though archmage Lain appeared to be calm, his back was actually covered in cold sweat. These senior archmages who had retreated into hermitage and retired long ago were all Truth Symposium members from generations long past. Some of them were the most respected authorities in their specialty. Normally, it wouldn¡¯t be known where they were most of the time, but they suddenly all arrived the moment that the Cloud Tower was activated.


    Legally, Lain didn¡¯t need to answer the retired senior archmages¡¯ questions, but this was simr to how a young junior would have a hard time standing up to elders in thepany who helped to establish it. The younger Lain felt rather panicky to be surrounded by these senior archmages. He really had to give them a reasonable exnation for activating the Cloud Tower.


    ¡°...So, Little Lain, you discussed things with the other inner circle members and activated the Cloud Tower. You sold the Cloud Tower for just some minor benefits? Do you know that the Cloud Tower has never been moved even once since the Mage Country was established? The Cloud Tower¡¯s stability is the foundation of stability in the heart of every citizen of Arlodant. Panic is now beginning to spread in themoners¡¯ hearts.¡±


    The ck-haired gentleman who said this wore a one-eyed mask and appeared to be quite young. Dangerous starlight shone in his eyes. He was Lain¡¯s teacher¡¯s senior brother, ¡®All-capable Hand¡¯ Noah, a past leader of the inner circle.


    Lain suddenly realized what was going on. All of these senior archmages in retirement had suddenly appeared because they probably hid themselves amongst themoners of the Mage Country. No wonder they were no longer able to remain quiet when they saw the Cloud Tower being activated.


    ¡°Heh, that Rnd probably expected this as well. Young people are so scary these days, truly. Still, you made the Cloud Tower which has never moved even once to enter another country just for these little things...¡±


    Noah didn¡¯t finish his sentence, but it was obvious to everyone that he was quite dissatisfied.


    Even Lain felt slightly frustrated to see this. He now understood why Rnd had strongly emphasized to him that the Cloud Tower¡¯s activation and movement had to be kept top secret. The senior archmages¡¯ reaction was probably something that Rnd had expected. Additionally, moving the Cloud Tower would naturally drag the senior archmages into the battle as well.


    Scheming against one¡¯s own allies wasn¡¯t something that could see the light of day. Still, scheming against one¡¯s own allies would still increase the human alliance¡¯s overallbat strength... Lain felt ratherplex inside, yet he still had to answer the senior archmages¡¯ questions.


    Still, he had already made up his mind long ago on why he had agreed to such an action.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not simply about Bardi¡¯s payment.¡±


    Lain thought things over carefully and organized his words, as he knew that his following words were highly likely to determine the senior archmages¡¯ attitude.


    ¡°This is a battle of survival. Although the Mage Country is a country for mages, therge majority of citizens are still just ordinary humans with no power. That¡¯s why we must fight.¡±


    Lain didn¡¯t try to give a long speech or give a list of reasons. Trickery with words would be useless against the senior archmages. Sophistry would only make them annoyed. The most practical reason of ¡°Because we are humans, we must fight for the sake of our species¡¯ continuance and glory¡± would be the most realistic of all.


    ¡°Is there a need for this?¡±


    Noah nodded slightly. Hearing this was within his expectations, as well as the only answer he would possibly ept.


    Continue passing on a secret inheritance? Search for the endless truth? Such things would require survival as a prerequisite. For any species, survival would always be more important than anything else. If the Chaos Main Gods really conquered the mortal ne, then the senior archmages obviously would no longer be able to maintain their past independence and free lifestyles.


    Noah¡¯s question was actually already giving recognition to Lain¡¯s reason. The senior archmages weren¡¯t deaf or blind, after all. Even though they were hermits, that didn¡¯t mean that they wouldn¡¯t receive information from the outside world. In fact, since the senior archmages lived concealed amongst ordinary people, they actually understood the current overall situation quite well.


    Was there a need for this? This question wasn¡¯t asking about if the Mage Country had to participate in battle or not, as nobody would possibly escape from this war since the very start. Hiding in one¡¯s own ivory tower and shaking in fear would be the equivalent of handing the enemy a butcher knife to ughter oneself.


    Noah was asking if the current situation was really at the extent of needing to use the Cloud Tower to settle everything in a final battle.


    Lain¡¯s eyes shone with resolution. Activating the Cloud Tower was the equivalent of dragging the entire Mage Country into battle. This wasn¡¯t a decision that he possibly could have made by himself. Still, Lain waspletely in support of this decision.


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s necessary. Only by participating in this battle and winning will we have sufficient authority and status in the new generation. For the sake of passing on secret inheritances and mages¡¯ pride, as we are the strongest group in the mortal ne who stand to benefit the most in this war, we absolutely must havebat achievements suitable to our status.¡±


    The logical mages wouldn¡¯t care about reason, politics or meanings. They were just like sly merchants who only talked about future benefits.


    ¡°The Hell Faction is more suitable for us than either the Order or Chaos Factions. This is a unanimous decision by all the Truth Symposium members.¡±


    Order, Chaos, and Hell Factions. These three factions were destined to fight to victory or defeat in this Holy War. Since it was destined already that the Mage Country wouldn¡¯t possibly be able to remain isted and run away from this war, then it would be far more beneficial to choose a side and attack with full force in order to obtain sufficientbat achievements.


    Rnd wouldn¡¯t have been able to persuade the Truth Symposium no matter what if the mages hadn¡¯t been able to see this clearly. All agreements would be meaningless without sufficient benefits to support things.


    Noah closed his eyes in considered things in silence. However, the senior archmages were actuallymunicating mentally in secret. Noah then opened his eyes after a while with a smile on his face.


    ¡°In that case, Little Lain, we old fogies will be bothering you youngsters for a while.¡±


    Lain paused in surprise, but then he was delighted to hear this. The senior archmages joining the battle would multiply the Truth Symposium¡¯s overall power by several times over.


    Noah then secretly handed Lain a piece of paper over the table. The paper contained a special curse used for contacting.


    ¡°Perhaps you guys can use this. It¡¯s...¡±


    Lain¡¯s eyes instantly widened and his heart nearly stopped when he heard the name that Noah told him. It turned out that the senior archmages had always kept on to the Mage Country¡¯s true ace without letting the new generation¡¯s inner circle members know anything.


    The senior archmages then disappeared from the conference room. Only Noah and a few others remained behind to act as contact points. The Cloud Tower increased its speed now that it had gained a significant amount ofbat strength, thus arriving quicker than expected on the battlefield.


    When the archmages arrived and looked down from the Cloud Tower at the ongoing battles, even the most veteran archmages among them who had experienced countless battles started feeling fear and felt themselves fortunate that they had used the Cloud Tower.


    The Cloud Tower entering battle represented more than half of the entire Mage Country¡¯sbat strength. The Mage Country was now fully invested in this battle for survival that they could only afford to win.


    In the game¡¯s history, the Mage Country had been incredibly foolish and only entered the Holy War when things were far toote already. The core reason behind the Mage Country¡¯s change in attitude in the current timeline was all because of Rnd.


    When I saw the Cloud Tower arriving quicker than expected, I finally heaved a sigh of relief. Sophocles was far too difficult to deal with. Additionally, the abilities that Sophocles exposed here had proved one of my previous hypotheses.


    ¡°Sophocles, you¡¯re not actually a demon.¡±

 Chapter 790 - Final Battle Part 15

    <h4>Chapter 790 Final Battle Part 15</h4>


    ¡°Sophocles the Deceiver. He is the most mysterious Demon Main God. He loves to tempt mortal heroes and powerful individuals into bing fallen. His favorite pastime is to arrange tragic fates. I¡¯ve always felt that he¡¯s more suitable for the title of Lord of Lies than I am.¡±


    That was how Devil Main God Kamiltias, the Lord of Lies, had described Sophocles to me before.


    Of course, Little Tias also especially mentioned Sophocles the Deceiver¡¯s greatest aplishments to me.


    ¡°He¡¯s most famous for establishing his own evil church in the mortal ne and sessfully having his incarnation ascend to Godhood as an Order God. A Demon Main God actually managed to get his incarnation to ascend as an Order God and even ally with many Order Gods. This was an incredible embarrassment for the Order Gods. Even now, Sophocles and his worshippers arepletely loathed by all the True Gods¡¯ churches.


    Perhaps this only seemed like unimportant background information, but actual research into this would reveal quite a bit of information about Sophocles.


    First of all, he had an incarnation pretend to be a human hero in the mortal ne. This incarnation then gained power and established his own church, gradually obtaining divinity and worship and ascending to be an Order God.


    Not only that, Sophocles¡¯ incarnation even obtained recognition from the other Order Gods, and became one of them.


    He then allied with the other Order Gods, meaning that not only did he have Order God allies, he hadpletely be a part of the Order Gods¡¯ system, and likely joined some Order God faction and be an important member of that faction.


    ¡°This is the equivalent of sessfully disguising yourself and joining your mortal enemy¡¯s family...¡±


    The Gods were no idiots at all. Sophocles being able to deceive them sessfully could only mean that he had used real divinity and a real Divine Concept. There was far too much that was worth thinking about from this.


    ¡°Harloys, what church did Sophocles establish back then? What was his Divine Concept, and what was his church¡¯s teaching?¡±


    ¡°Evolution and natural order of species. He said that all species had their own natural order, and that they should use hard work to encourage self-evolution. The core teachings included an evolutiondder for every species. The belief was that every species had their own position, but that humans were at the very top, and other species were only sub-species. Of course, other species greatly objected to this, but the human countries really weed such a way of thinking. The humans didn¡¯t think that there was anything wrong with this.¡±


    Nothing was wrong with this? There were tremendous problems with this!


    The church¡¯s teachings were self-contradictory. The teachings said that species had their own fixed positions in society while also encouragingpetition and evolution... The teachings also said that the powerful should be at the top, and that the weak shouldpete and fight in order to be the strong. This was all about thew of the jungle, which was the true essence of the Chaos Abyss!


    How ridiculous! How foolish! Sophocles simply reworded the nature of the Chaos Abyss and packaged it with human superiority, and managed to receive a great wee into the Order Faction which had humans as a supermajority.


    ¡°...No wonder all the True Gods¡¯ churches view Sophocles as their mortal enemy. As long as Sophocles is alive, he¡¯ll always be living evidence of how foolish the Order True Gods were.¡±


    Obviously, such an embarrassing history was already hidden in the shadows by those involved. Most Order churches¡¯ popes only knew that Sophocles was their mortal enemy without knowing the reason. However, Kamiltias and Harloys would remember such ancient events quite clearly.


    Asking about old times wasn¡¯t merely for idle gossip. Past experiences would form an individual¡¯s life experience, and what that person gathered and experienced would be their present.


    I came to a conclusion based on Sophocles¡¯ current appearance and the information I obtained from Harloys. Theoretically speaking, my conclusion should have been incredibly oundish.


    ¡°Sophocles, you¡¯re not actually a demon at all. You...¡±


    Correct, I could see through him now. His armor of light was only a distraction. No matter how ridiculous the Haletdam schrs¡¯ generation had been with their inventions, it was still impossible for a mere suit of armor to control the power of Order. If Sophocles was truly a pure demon, then the Holy Light and power of Order that he was now using would directly burn him to death, just like the unfortunate demon that I experimented on back in the day. That demon had been brainwashed into worshipping the Holy Light and summoning it, being burned to death by the Holy Light as a result.


    Demons were pure creatures of Chaos. No matter what the demon¡¯s mind and soul were thinking, the power of Order, especially the power of Holy Light which represented cleansing, would always sh with the demon¡¯s physical body.


    Currently, Sophocles was pretending to use his armor to control and absorb Holy Light. However, he was the one actually using the powers of Order and Chaos simultaneously. In that case, there was only one possible exnation.


    ¡°...Sophocles the Deceiver, you¡¯re not a demon at all! You¡¯re actually an Order True God!¡±


    My voice wasn¡¯t that loud. In fact, it was only a mutter. However, a mysterious resonance carried my voice across the entire battlefield quite clearly.


    The entire battle paused due to the absolutely inconceivable statement that I just made.


    I received a dual response from both a holy voice and an angry roar.


    ¡°Indeed, since Order can also be a form of Chaos, then thew of the jungle and self-evolution that Chaos represents is simultaneously a form of Order.¡±


    ¡°Haha, you¡¯re far smarter than those old folks. Even now, they still think that I schemed all this only for the sake of a big prank. They never even tried to think about what I gained from such a prank! Not only am I a ruler of Chaos, I am a far more evolved God than anyone!¡±


    Did Sophocles have two personalities? No, it was just that his true self and his incarnation were using two different ways of thinking. I mysteriously felt that Sophocles¡¯ method was quite familiar to me.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this the rtionship between you and Wumianzhe? It seems that someone¡¯s already taken this path before you to create a new God. But, no matter how I look at it, his method waspletely the opposite of yours.¡±


    I had an epiphany due to Harloys¡¯ reminder. Both Sophocles and I had created an incarnation from a soul shard, and sessfully had the incarnation ascend to Godhood. However, the end result was totally different.


    I had required a judge, which was why I had Wumianzhe bepletely independent andbine with the Concept of Law to be the perfect emotionless judge. In the end, Wumianzhe becamepletely separate from myself.


    Meanwhile, Sophocles had worked so hard to have his incarnation ascend to Godhood for the same old foundational reason of Chaos: to be even stronger.


    I could now basically understand what Sophocles had done.


    Sophocles¡¯ incarnation had ascended to be an Order God thanks to the power of belief. His incarnation¡¯s connection to Sophocles was discovered, so Sophocles¡¯ worshippers were viewed as a forbidden evil cult. The loss of this power of belief should have caused this weak Low God to die, but instead Sophocles devoured andbined with his incarnation as they were originally of the same source.


    Sophocles¡¯ Main God level power of Chaos substituted for the power of belief, and helped the Order God of Evolution to continue growing. Meanwhile, Sophocles secretly started transforming his true body into the body of an Order God. In the end, Sophocles sessfullybined his original body and his incarnation¡¯s bodies together, giving himself the powers of an Order God while still disguising as a Chaos Main God.


    ¡°...So this means that Sophocles has only showed off half of his true strength before?¡±


    Just that alone still wouldn¡¯t be enough to give me a headache. The most difficult part to deal with here was that it was likely that he simultaneously possessed the powers and special traits of both an Order God and a Demon Main God.


    Order Gods¡¯ special abilities were mostly reflected by their Divine Concepts. The Order Gods would be highly skilled at creatingbat environments most suited for themselves. They would take advantage of dimensionalws to buff themselves and weaken their enemies. Meanwhile, a Demon Main God¡¯s personal Chaos domain would weaken and devour their enemy¡¯s dimensionalws, and force a physical fight after getting rid of the enemy¡¯s advantages. Additionally, Demon Main Gods would always have fearsome and gigantic physical bodies after having reached the pinnacle of evolution through bloody ughter.


    ¡°An Order God of Evolutionbined with a Demon Main God who will already naturally be skilled at evolution. This is such cheating...¡±


    It was easy for me to think of countless possibilities on how Sophocles could take advantage of thisbination. For instance, he could use his Concept of Evolution to further speed up his own evolution so that his growth rate would be exponential. Or, he could give himself exponential experience growth in some specific area. This wasn¡¯t even the worst of it...


    ¡°Trying to simultaneously control Order and Chaos means that he¡¯s attempting to grasp at the Creator Goddesses¡¯ power. His current abilities mean that he¡¯s gaining far more than two years¡¯ worth of experience every single day. Just what has he learned over all these years? Just what other aces are up his sleeve?¡±


    I felt that my luck was truly terrible today. If all my inferences were correct, then Sophocles absolutely wasn¡¯t the weakest of the Main Gods. In fact, he would be the strongest Main God by an overwhelming amount.


    The slyest Main God suddenly revealed himself to be the strongest Main God of all. This was both expected and unexpected for me. Still, it was far toote for us to change our opponents now, so I could only grit my teeth and continue.


    I kept feeling like things were going wrong. Of the three Chaos Main Gods, I originally thought that Donatis would be the leader and central character. Yet, that was obviously incorrect. Just what was Sophocles thinking right now to go all out at this time?


    At this moment, the Cloud Tower descended from the sky and attracted the entire battlefield¡¯s attention. This was when Sophocles took action.

 Chapter 791 - Final Battle Part 16

    <h4>Chapter 791 Final Battle Part 16</h4>


    The Cloud Tower tore through the clouds, bringing more than just essential sunlight to the human warriors.


    The Cloud Tower was a city of mages that the Mage Country had run for thousands of years already. The Cloud Tower was far more than just a symbolic existence. Once this mage tower city was lit up and blue mystical runes illuminated the entire sky, the world finally learned concretely why attacking the Mage Country had always been viewed as utmost foolishness.


    Numerous mystical fireworks were ignited. Countless meteors then streaked through the sky after the magical forms werepleted.


    Attack magic spells such as meteors, blizzards, chain lightning, and so on rained down like raindrops. Thousands of attack spells were cast with no chaos or confusion at all as every spell locked on to a target.


    Simultaneously, various magical buff lights, magic armor, magic weapon enchantments, and so on suddenly appeared on the human army. The buffs included a wide array such as Chaos resistance, Strength buffs, Dexterity buffs, and so on. This was more than enough to transform kittens into tigers and cowards into heroes.


    The wise mages made such a grand entrance for the first time ever. It felt as if they were extravagantly rich with no end to their wealth. They unhesitatingly used their magic power to cast all sorts of spells both known and unknown.


    However, this was only the beginning, a prelude for clearing a safe area of distance.


    A deafening amount of incantations were being muttered. There were ancient forest songs as well as cursenguages filled with strange pronunciations. Several forbidden spell level magic sources were activated simultaneously. These forbidden spell level sources immediately created a new dead magic zone in the Elemental Tide.


    This was both expected and unexpected. The mages chose to immediately act as elemental powered turrets and unhesitatingly began to prepare forbidden spell level attacks, forcing the enemy into a deathmatch battle.


    The devils wouldn¡¯t simply just wait for their deaths. The undead also regrouped under themand of Undead Lords while demons roared viciously and searched for new prey. Countless creatures of Chaos all formed into a ck tide. They instinctively knew that they had to crush their enemy before therge AOE forbidden spells could bepleted.


    And so, the creature of Chaos needed to attack the Cloud Tower, which was a flying city that had countless archmages and mage towers...


    Various fireworks exploded in the ck tide. The creatures of Chaos would need to create a path of countless corpses to charge upon.


    The mages showed what it meant to be incredibly direct. Their extremely direct fighting style obtained a tremendous advantage on the battlefield. All the mages¡¯ spell attacks, mage towers, and archmages no longer needed to find individual targets on the battlefield, as the targets were voluntarilying to them. The creatures of Chaos would never dare to retreat from this attack due to theirmanders¡¯ threats.


    Maybe the mages had borrowed from Rnd¡¯s strategy for fighting against the demon wave back at the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire, or maybe the Cloud Tower was suited for such a strategy to begin with. The mages instantly took the initiative on the battlefield right from their appearance. A floating fortress would be far more difficult to conquer than an airship, making such a fighting strategy even more shameless.


    The mages had already gathered information regarding this battlefield. They had no intentions of joining in the fight against the Chaos Main Gods. Instead, they immediately started cleaning up the weaker enemies.


    The devils and undead had already suffered tremendous losses from all the fighting. All these sessive unexpected events created immense chaos on the batlefield. Due to the forbidden spells, some devils who didn¡¯t want to try a forceful attack on the Cloud Tower actually started deserting. The moment that the first deserter appeared, well, Undead Lords and Demon Lords were no idiots, either. It was only natural that they would start thinking about what was best for themselves. Once deserting started happening in the Chaos Faction¡¯s army on arge scale, the bnce of the battle was instantly tipped in the humans¡¯ favor.


    The human army felt like they had truly seen the dawn after fighting such a long and bitter battle and paying such a great price. The Cloud Tower¡¯s arrival represented the arrival of hope.


    Sophocles¡¯ eight-winged body flew swiftly towards the Cloud Tower as he unhesitatingly abandoned his current opponent.


    Donatis and Barbarot were both too entangled to help out. Naturally, this meant that only Sophocles the Deceiver could improve the situation for the Chaos Faction in this battle.


    I felt significantly less pressure due to Sophocles focusing his attention elsewhere. It was indeed rather difficult for me to deal with Sophocles who was now showing his real power. However, I would lose so much face if I allowed him to get away from me like this.


    ¡°Nortnds.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t that skilled at flying at high speeds, but I only needed a single thought to summon my ice magic sword Nortnds to create an ice arena that would restrict my enemy¡¯s movements.


    ¡°...It¡¯s an avnche this time? Should I say that my luck is good?¡±


    Countless amounts of snow gathered in the air and trasformed into a torrential avnche of ice and snow. Nothing could be seen apart from furious waves of snow in my ice arena.


    An avnche was the most severe type of ice and snow cmity. However, my ice magic sword Nortnds was still iplete, so I would never rely on it to be able to kill or injure Sophocles. However, all this snow was quite suitable for... ying hide and seek.


    I unhesitatingly entered the snow beneath the avnche. Since I would win as long as I restricted Sophocles¡¯ movements, I would properly use this battlefield to stall for time.


    *ng!!!*


    The next second, I went numb all over due to a thunderous sound as my ice magic sword Nortnds turned into dust in my hands.


    I looked over to see that arge hole had been opened up in my ice arena from which snow was escaping from. Sophocles had directly broken through my ice arena restriction on him.


    ¡°...So this is an absolute difference in power level? I really do have the worst possible luck.¡±


    Although I had already guessed that my iplete ice magic sword Nortnds would be unable to restrict Sophocles for very long, I still felt rather helpless at being forcefully broken through like this.


    My own dimensionalw had been shattered by brute force. This didn¡¯t mean that my dimensionalw was useless, but rather than Sophocles raw power had far exceeded the limits of my dimensionalw.


    Sophocles was already flying towards the Cloud Tower, while I actually stopped to reorganize my equipment. The Cloud Tower wouldn¡¯t be easy to deal with at all. If I flew a bit slower and caught up when the Cloud Tower had begun to defend itself, perhaps I could even pincer Sophocles.


    Um, this definitely wasn¡¯t because I wanted to see the Mage Country¡¯s secret aces or anything like that? Intentionally not giving it my all so that my enemy could find out my ally¡¯s aces for me? Was I someone who was bad enough to do such a thing?


    ¡°...It¡¯s not just you. Even I want to know just what aces the Cloud Tower possesses.¡±


    The silly cat¡¯s words sounded in my ears. But this time, her famiiarmenting came from her true body.


    I raised my head to see her familiar appearance, although she was currently rather bloody and dusty. It seemed that flying here from the eastern battlefront hadn¡¯t be very safe or fun.


    ¡°Things are going well on the eastern battlefront. The dragons are working hard, causing Sarwenstan to suffer significantly,¡± Harloys informed me.


    ¡°Let¡¯s not worry about them. We need to get past this major obstacle first...¡±


    I was really energized by her arrival, as she was yet another ace I could now use.


    Still, the Cloud Tower was forced to reveal a new ace since we were simply watching Sophocles viciously charge the Cloud Tower.

 Chapter 792 - Final Battle Part 17

    <h4>Chapter 792 Final Battle Part 17</h4>


    Main Gods were the peak existences of the world. Still, there wasn¡¯t much inmon between the Main Gods, as each would have their own unique path.


    The phrase ¡°Main God¡± was actually rather unnecessary, as it was simply a phrase that mortals used to describe the individuals who were the peak existences of the world and had already surpassed the normal limits of a living being¡¯s evolution potential.


    Main Gods were capable of creating new dimensions by themselves. They were capable of making an entire species go extinct. A singlemand from a Main God could destroy or establish a country. Main Gods were existences high above the clouds who would act to change the world behind the scenes.


    The Main Gods would show an appropriate amount of self-restraint during the Holy Wars in history. They would first send their subordinates into battle, and only indirectly fight when it was extremely necessary. It was quite rare that a Main God would personally participate in battle in their true body.


    This wasn¡¯t because of anything like a Main God¡¯s pride, nor was this simply because of the will of the Chaos Abyss restricting them. Rather than that, it was that the Holy War wasn¡¯t actually that important at the Main Gods¡¯ level anymore. They had already faintly escaped from the cycle of the Holy War. Many Main Gods had already experienced several or even dozens of Holy Wars already. There were plenty of Main Gods who resisted or ignored the will of the Chaos Abyss¡¯smands.


    In the Holy Wars of history, apart from a rare few like Donatis who loved to battle, the Chaos Main Gods were typically rather restrained inparison to the mid-level and high-level creatures of Chaos who were always really excited to invade the mortal ne.


    This was something that the will of the Chaos Abyss (Cynthia) tacitly permitted and expected. Of course, she wouldn¡¯t say it out loud, and she would even punish the Chaos Main Gods who ignored hermand to participate in the Holy War... but to the Chaos Main Gods, that didn¡¯t matter at all. A Demon Noble title or a blessing from the Chaos Abyss and so on wouldn¡¯t hold any meaning to them anymore.


    Everyone knew about the Main Gods who were the peak existences of all the dimensions in the Eich universe. There were only 20-30 Main Gods at a time, anyways. If every Main God participated fully in the Holy War every time, and four to five Main Gods died in each Holy War, then the Holy War would end after just a few times, making all the evolution meaningless.


    Since the Holy War wasn¡¯t that important to the Main Gods, they naturally wouldn¡¯t risk their lives or everything they had. This was the same logic as how the really poor would be daring to risk everything for an opportunity to change their fate, while the really rich would always be really afraid of death as they would lose everything they had.


    If a Main God took action, then the other side should, no, must also send a Main God to deal with things. Such a level of fighting would be really difficult to restrict or stop. Anyone might possibly die in such an all-out fight.


    Things were actually the same for the Order Faction. Every time, the Order Gods who truly got involved in the Holy War would always be the Gods who ruled over a specific species. These Order Gods would require therge amount of faith their species provided them in order to remain strong, but these Order Gods would also be restricted by this limitation. If the Order God¡¯s species was weakened, the Order God would also be weakened. Glory and weakness were thus mutual between the Order God and their species.


    It could be said that such Order Gods would be changed out the quickest. The moment that an Order God¡¯s species was challenged, that was the same as the Order God being challenged. Potentially bing the God of the ruling species in the mortal ne would bring about endless resources and power of belief. This was something that even Main Gods would be moved by, so many Gods were willing to risk everything for this.


    Back when Karn, the God of Holy Light, was still an ordinary human, he was just a slightly stronger-than-average SemiGod hero. At most, he was equivalent in strength to a Low God. But now, the God of Holy Light was publicly recognized as the strongest Main God of them all. His strength had even surpassed thebined strength of multiple Main Gods together.


    The current situation was truly abnormal.


    Normally, things should have happened like this:


    The Chaos Abyss would invade. The Demon Lords who desired blood would attack with the first wave and plunder everything that they could. The ruling species would have to worry about both external and internal dangers, while other species would all have their own ns and schemes to challenge the ruling species¡¯ status, starting various small conflicts.


    The constant wars would weaken the ruling species¡¯ overallbat strength and poption. Various other species would then enter the battle, wanting to be the new ruling species. The world would then be embroiled in chaotic battle until only one final victor remained at the end.


    The Chaos Abyss was more like a natural catastrophe or bandit passing by in this process. The Chaos Faction would ughter and steal as they pleased, bringing war and panic, and acting as the mortal enemy to the ruling species and their Gods.


    After everything was over, even if a new species gained the position of ruling species with the demons¡¯ help, most demons would still return to the Chaos Abyss afterwards. At most, if the current ruling species was a Chaos species, then there would be more interaction with the lower ne, and demon descendants would multiply in number very quickly in the mortal ne. But, after another 2000 years, the Order Gods up in the heavens would sound the horns of war again, and start yet another cycle of the unending Holy War.


    What would anyone possibly gain from this process? Was the entire world actually making progress? I felt that the answer was yes.


    Denying the progress and growth made during war would be the greatest disrespect towards those who were sacrificed in war.


    The danger brought by war would forever be the greatest motivation for technological revolution and new civilization. Every Holy War would always bring about countless inventions and sparks of wisdom that would far surpass the umtion of the previous several peaceful centuries.


    I would never deny the progress brought by war, because the innocents affected by war would need to think of everything they could for the sake of survival. They would have to use their original technologies for the sake of creating weapons. Even mathematicians would be codebreakers and physicists would be explosives experts in my original world.


    I was still against war because such astonishing inventions could also be slowly discovered and invented during times of peace. More peaceful and economical methods could be used to change the world. Those who believed that war would push history and civilization forward were only seeing a small part of the overall picture.


    [Are you that against Cynthia and herw of the jungle evolution theory?]


    ¡°Only war and killing each other can produce evolution? I have never seen a stupider theory, ever. Yes, that¡¯s right, I¡¯ve always felt that Cynthia is an idiot who¡¯s never graduated from her chuunibyou!¡±


    Actually, I also silently mentally added the sentence ¡®System, you¡¯re the same, just with a slightly different direction from Cynthia.¡¯


    Ahem, I was getting off topic. To get back on track, my impression was that Chaos Main Gods and the demon army would mostly act as a destructive weapon to shatter the ruling species, an ultimate test that the ruling species had to face.


    This time, everything had seemed off from the very start...


    Even if the will of the Chaos Abyss was now gone, the Chaos Main Gods had been far too active. Sophocles obviously wasn¡¯t the warmongering type, yet he stirred up lots of trouble since the very beginning.


    Not only did he enter the battle quite early, he even brought Donatis and Barbarot with him.


    The other two Chaos Main Gods were two of the happiest to participate in the Holy Wars, so they wouldn¡¯t require any payment to join in. They would simply have fun fighting and ughtering. However, why had Sophocles himself participated in this Holy War so actively?


    Barbarot and Donatis weren¡¯t the type who would need any reason to go to war. However, someone like Sophocles would definitely need a good reason.


    Sophocles was someone smart and ambitious. Themon point between these two traits was that such a person would only act for the sake of obvious benefits and an apparent goal. Glory and reputation would be meaningless to him. Working so hard at all this had to be for a certain type of benefit. Just what was Sophocles¡¯ objective?


    At this moment, I suddenly recalled how he had previously invited me to gang up on Karwenz together. A strange idea suddenly shed through my mind. Although this idea sounded quite ridiculous, perhaps everything could be exined in tandem with Sophocles¡¯ Divine Concept...


    ¡°By the way, is it really decent of you to simply watch? You¡¯ve stayed at the Cloud Tower for so long before. Shouldn¡¯t you at least feel something for them?¡±


    ¡°Harloys, didn¡¯t the Cloud Tower also raise and teach you? You were even a teacher there before. Feel free to go help them if you like.¡±


    Harloys and I were flying around unhurriedly and chatting while observing everything on the battlefield with a bird¡¯s-eye view.


    We had no intentions of immediately helping the Cloud Tower defend against Sophocles¡¯ attack. We had both stayed at the Cloud Tower for quite some time before, so we weren¡¯t worried at all that it would be defeated so easily. Currently, we were more interested in seeing as many aces from both sides being forced out as we possibly could.


    A golden rune in the shape of a pointy wizard hat was illuminated above the Cloud Tower, seeming like it was summoning something.


    Regardless, it was a good thing for our currentbat situation that Sophocles had abandoned being my opponent now.


    ¡°Barbarot¡¯s fight is far too disgusting. I don¡¯t want to get involved in mud wrestling. I should just go help Titan, then.¡±


    There was originally a three-versus-three match between the top-level existences. Since Sophocles had just left, then naturally his two allies would suffer misfortune. I would be truly foolish not to take advantage of the situation and gang up on one of the other Chaos Main Gods.


    As for why I chose to help Titan rather than Heimor? It definitely wasn¡¯t because Titan already had a tremendous advantage, or anything like me wanting revenge against Donatis... Cough, cough, even if a personal grudge was involved, defeating the weaker party first to obtain a greater snowballing advantage in battle would definitely be the wisest decision.


    Just as I was preparing to go and attack Donatis, I changed my mind due to what just happened over by Sophocles.


    The Cloud Tower¡¯s summoning had already finished. A certain old acquaintance of mine appeared in midair. Back during the battle of Hell, he and I had even chatted together over tea, even though he was nominally my enemy back then.


    This white-robed old man had a long white beard that reached all the way to the ground. However, he didn¡¯t seem like a frail elder at all despite using a walking staff.


    He instantly controlled all the magical wavelengths in the area just by standing there as the Elemental Tide formed a natural barrier to protect him.


    He was Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom, an Order Main God who was also Harloys¡¯ protector.


    The mages had just shown off an incredibly powerful ace here.


    Kalumandas was one of the extremely few Gods that some mages would worship. However, nobody knew that he had long since secretly allied himself with the mages.


    The Mage Country had revealed their own Main God levelbat strength, which was more than enough evidence that they werepletely sincere in participating in this battle with everything they had.


    Kalumandas entering this battle at this moment was also an indication that he was now making aplete break with the Holy Light Faction. As long as I did a good job here, we would gain yet another reliable and powerful ally here.


    This was why I immediately turned around to go assist Kalumandas. He wasn¡¯t a Main God who was famed for his fighting skills. If he still thought of Sophocles as the same ¡°Weakest Main God¡± from before, then Kalumandas would definitely suffer immensely.


    Still, when looking at things from another standpoint, it really wouldn¡¯t be much different, as I was still going to gang up on a Chaos Main God.

 Chapter 793 - Final Battle Part 18

    <h4>Chapter 793 Final Battle Part 18</h4>


    Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom. He possessed many Divine Concepts. Like the other Main Gods, he was the head of his own God Faction.


    His faction kept the lowest profile out of all the God Factions. Most of the Gods in his faction were rted to protecting books, academics, studying, schrs, and other such Divine Concepts. His God Faction was viewed as the most neutral God Faction of them all, and focused on preserving and protecting civilization and culture.


    But when the entire world was in chaos and started burning from the fires of war, even the schrs wouldn¡¯t be able to hide in their ivory towers. Since they would need to survive as well, they would have to make a choice in the end.


    At the very least, they would need to choose the side that they felt was the most likely to obtain victory in the end, and at least obtain some trustworthy allies.


    Kalumandas was an original God who hadn¡¯t ascended through the power of belief. He really looked down upon the fanatical believers of other Gods, and far preferred the mages who sought the truth of the world. He had signed a secret contract with the mages several centuries ago for mutual assistance.


    Kalumandas and the mages agreed to reveal their mutual rtionship publicly when the time was necessary. Obviously, this was now such a necessary time.


    Kalumandas had been wondering just what situation was necessary for the mages to activate their ultimate weapon of summoning him when he stepped out of the summoning formation.


    He wasn¡¯t afraid that there would be a trap here, because he was already at the peak of the world.


    However, he instantly no longer felt as confident.


    He saw a battlefield with no light at all. Instead, there was only the shing of several Main God level existences.


    The undefeated Chaos War God was getting pulverized by a tremendous giant. Demon Main God Barbarot and Devil Main God Heimor were ferociously biting at each other. The Main Gods¡¯ battle made the dimensionalws in this area incredibly unstable.


    Kalumandas instantly raised his guard due to the battlefield¡¯s situation. He also noticed the enemy who was approaching him.


    Kalumandas was quite familiar with the powerful existence that was approaching. Sophocles was an old enemy of his.


    As they were both venerated Main Gods, they had naturally fought against each other before over the long years. For existences as old as they, it would be incredibly difficult to have any additional foundational increase in strength.


    Kalumandas swung his mage staff with great familiarity, instantly summoning a blue magic shield which was as solid andrge as castle walls in midair. He then waved his staff around again, and summoned numerous elemental fairy knight squadrons that controlled thousands of high-level elemental creatures.


    Various additional mystical rune defenses were activated in midair. In just a short instant, Kalumandas created a 17yer defense with the assistance of his personal God Equipment.


    Kalumandas then stood where he was in midair, and gathered divine power as he started creating a tremendous magic array for a powerful attack spell. He intended to give Sophocles a vicious attack to remind thetter than even an old dog still had teeth, and that he was no senile old man who couldn¡¯t even hold a magic staff yet.


    ¡°This is bad!¡±


    Kalumandas was acting the way he was because he had obviously underestimated Sophocles. From what I now knew, this was a huge mistake because Kalumandas still thought of Sophocles as the same ¡°Weakest Main God¡± as before.


    As I watched, Sophocles suddenly split into two. An angel of light transformed into a sharp arrow that pierced through the elemental fairy knights¡¯ defenses, while a dark demon transformed into a hammer that shattered the magic shield.


    All 17yers of Kalumandas¡¯s magic defenses were instantly shattered.


    The solid defenses that Kalumandas had trusted so much were all instantly torn apart. At this moment, he was still busy with his head lowered while preparing a powerful attack magic spell.


    ¡°Aaaaah!¡±


    Twin meteors of light and darkness had already arrived before him by the time that he noticed the bad situation. His body was then prated before he could even react, leaving behind only his pitiful screams that reverberated through the entire battlefield, and his body which had been torn apart.


    At the instant of his death, Kalumandas looked at me with an expression filled with disbelief and astonishment, and finally hatred aimed directly at me.


    ¡°Kalumandas was defeated? He died? So quickly?¡±


    I could barely believe what had just happened. Kalumandas had died from a single attack. Even if he had underestimated Sophocles, Kalumandas was still a Main God. How could he possibly die so quickly?


    Something was off about this situation. I had just fought with Sophocles myself. If Sophocles had the power to instantly kill a Main God like that, then I would have long since been defeated already.


    Kalumandas¡¯s 17yer defense had seemed just like paper that Sophocles tore apart so easily. This was no normal situation at all. Since Kalumandas had dared to use such a defense to prepare his powerful spell behind, that meant he had felt his defense had an absolute guarantee. Even if he underestimated Sophocles, he still shouldn¡¯t have been defeated so quickly. This seemed just like...


    ¡°...Just like Sophocles knew the key to open up the barriers.¡±


    Harloys¡¯ words also contained some hatred, which rather surprised me. She then nced at me, and mentally transmitted me some information.


    It turned out that the Gold Elf Empire had previously received much assistance from Kalumandas as the Gold Elf Empire had invented elemental magic and ushered in a magic civilization. The Gold Elves had worshipped the God of Wisdom in addition to their own Gold Elf Gods.


    Kalumandas lived up to his name of being the God of Wisdom. He was friendly with all species who searched for the truth of the world. He never acted as someone mysterious who would only hand out information with confusing prophecies, but rather behaved more as arade to other species who would search for the truth together with them. He acted as a trustworthy ally and senior.


    Kalumandas was intimately connected to the Haletdam schrs¡¯ generation. He had more than 10,000 years of friendship with the Gold Elf Empire. He was also the ally of the Mage Country in the current day.


    Although Kalumandas had nominally been an invader from the Order Faction during the battle of Hell, he had done nothing except sit down and drink tea while chatting with us. The foundational reasons for this were because he was from the Haletdam schrs¡¯ generation as well as because he was the true protector of Harloys, which allowed her to cause trouble everywhere as she pleased over the years without getting killed.


    Someone like Kalumandas should have been undying and indestructible already. Yet, his defenses were prated through so easily as he was torn apart right in front of us?


    ¡°Those defense spells were a research result of the Gold Elf Empire¡¯s mutual research with Kalumandas. The Ultimate Shield of Protection, Halin Elemental Fairy Knight Squadron Summoning, and the 17 World Tree Leaves Defensive Formation. All of them were forbidden spell level ultimate defensive techniques from the Gold Elf Empire. Only Gold Elves who had the royal bloodline were ever permitted to know about this...¡±


    Now I understood why Kalumandas had red at me with hatred as he died. Since his ultimate defensive techniques were a Gold Elf secret, he must have thought that Harloys had exposed information about him!


    But to my knowledge, even though Harloys was really shameless, had a venomous tongue, was a tsundere that acted like a spoiled princess, and always tried to spy on my magical secrets... Cough, cough, she still had her own morals, and she would truly be nice in kind to others who were truly sincere to her.


    ¡°Abr,¡± Harloys said a name in a heavy tone, causing me to pause in surprise. Who was Abr again? Harloys decided to add a word of exnation. ¡°...Didina.¡±


    ¡°Oh, your mother... whoops, I meant your father. Ahem, ahem, the weather is really nice today.¡±


    I turned around to see that Harloys¡¯ pretty face had a really dark expression as I expected. It seemed that Didina¡¯s betrayal had made her furious, and that I should really refrain from talking.


    But now, I really did have a headache.


    It wasn¡¯t that I would now have to fight Sophocles myself now. I had just thought about why Didina would give information to Sophocles. In a way, this was evidence that a new inference of mine had just been proved. This was the worst possible result.


    ¡°Sophocles is Karwenz¡¯s true ally!¡±

 Chapter 794 - Final Battle Part 19

    <h4>Chapter 794 Final Battle Part 19</h4>


    The entire battlefield paused in surprise at seeing how Kalumandas had instantly died right after his arrival. Kalumandas was a Main God, after all. It was inconceivable how he had been killed so easily.


    The Cloud Tower¡¯s mages were panicking more than anyone else. They¡¯d never expected that a legendary Main God whose strength was at a mythic level in stories would die so easily.


    Even though Kalumandas was indeed known as not a skilled fighterpared to the other Main Gods, his reputation was still better than Sophocles¡¯ reputation, for thetter was considered to be the ¡°Weakest Main God¡±.


    ¡°Bind,¡± Kalumandas roared as he was dying, gathering all his magic energy that had been torn apart and transforming it into physical substance which then became ropes that weaved themselves into a.


    This magical tangled Sophocles and stopped him frompleting his hunt.


    Correct,pleting his hunt. Even if Kalumandas was suddenly and instantly defeated, he wouldn¡¯t actually die that easily as a Main God.


    A torrent of magic power and divine power gathered together as the upper body of a white-haired old man appeared from Kalumandas¡¯ torn body. Although he had a really wretched appearance, and the lower half of his body was nowpletely missing, he had actually managed to survive and not immediately die.


    The magical rope he weaved with all his might only stopped Sophocles for a moment, but...


    ¡°That¡¯s more than enough.¡±


    My Dawn Holy Light sword shed viciously against Sophocles¡¯ body. The dark Main God¡¯s defenses disappeared under the Holy Light¡¯s illumination. I followed my attack up with a flurry of fists, one of my favorite techniques.


    Behind me, Harloys was immediately trying to heal Kalumandas, but there likely wasn¡¯t much hope.


    ¡°Rnd.¡±


    ¡°Must you stop me?¡±


    Sophocles still spoke in two voices of Order and Chaos, but actually his voices were nowpletely emotionless. Sophocles seemed to be less and less emotional, seeming like he wasn¡¯t a demon at all.


    Stop him? Wasn¡¯t his goal to invade the mortal ne while leading the demon army? Why did killing Kalumandas now seem like his main goal instead?


    Something was wrong with the situation. Not only was Sophocles long since prepared to instantly try and kill Kalumandas, his main goal was also to kill Kalumandas? What would he possibly obtain from killing Kalumandas? The Divine Concepts of Wisdom and Academics?


    I kept feeling more and more like something was wrong with the situation, but I didn¡¯t allow my hands to slow down at all. I summoned my [Coldest Ice] ice armor, and even equipped my right arm with the outstanding shield [Emordilorcan¡¯s Wall of Sighs] that I hadn¡¯t used for quite a long while already.


    I had my Dawn sword in my left hand and the [Emordilorcan¡¯s Wall of Sighs] tower shield in my right hand. I held onto my sword lightly while solidly grasping my shield. I took a heavy step forward and prepared to react at any moment. This was a basic defensive posture that every human infantry soldier would learn.


    Although this wouldn¡¯t appear cool at all, this was a basic defensive posture that was chosen after other defensive postures were eliminated for being less useful after countless thousands of wars. It was quite suitable for buying time when you were the weaker one, and it would be absolutely practical.


    I was unhesitatingly adopting the most defensive fighting strategy possible against Sophocles since something seemed to be wrong with the situation.


    Numerous mage towers were also charging energy on the Cloud Tower. Multiplepound mega attack forbidden spells had all locked onto Sophocles. A ck dot in the sky consisting of senior archmages whom I would need to exin things to directly was also getting closer and closer.


    Although I didn¡¯t have much hope that Harloys¡¯ healing would be effective on Kalumandas, stalling should at least help Kalumandas to recover somebat strength.


    Since buying time would be advantageous for me, I naturally adopted stall tactics. The tremendous glory of ying a Main God or whatever wasn¡¯t something that I had even considered from the very start.


    At this moment, sonorous holy song suddenly spread through the entire battlefield as light dispelled the darkness. Everyone instinctively raised their heads to look at the sky, but found the light there far too blinding to look at directly.


    ¡°The God of Holy Light? Why is he joining in here as well!?¡±


    Things were already incredibly chaotic here. Yet another Main God was joining in? The strongest Main God of them all?


    I nced up at the sky. Holy Light would never be able to impede my vision. I heaved a slight sigh of relief to see that it was only an incarnation of Holy Light.


    ¡°Luckily, it¡¯s only the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation, although it¡¯s still a Main God level incarnation...¡±


    I was bing rather jealous. Just how foundationally powerful was the God of Holy Light? He could afford to waste so much divine power. He had already lost several Main God level incarnations, yet he could casually send another one out just like this.


    Although I was slightly distracted, I was still focusing fully on Sophocles. I faintly heard him saying something to himself.


    ¡°...He¡¯s finally here?¡±


    So, Sophocles had also attracted the God of Holy Light here? Just what did Sophocles intend?


    Sophocles suddenly stopped as his hazy face reorganized itself into a familiar face that had a rather mysterious gentle smile.


    He was sighing as if he was a worried mortal who had his own frustrations before finallying to a major realization, and smiling as if he had abandoned everything.


    ¡°Everything is for the sake of the purest evolution.¡±


    Damn it, why did such a phrase sound so familiar? Could it be? Was he going to do *that* after shouting out his catchphrase...


    *BOOM!*


    A deafening explosion appeared together with a light that destroyed the entire world. The incredibly powerful Main God Sophocles who had just revealed his true power simply smiled as he died a death like a ssic antagonist¡ªhe shouted his catchphrase as he self-destructed!


    A Main God¡¯s self-destruction happening right in front of me? My instinctive reaction to preserve myself acted faster than my mind did. The sense of danger caused chills to go down my back as I immediately took the most effective action.


    At the moment of Sophocles¡¯ self-destruction, I only had the time to throw away my tower shield, turn around, and drag Harloys into my personal Hell world before I saw everything outside my Hell world bepletely white.


    This was no simple divine power anymore. Thebination of light and darkness had created the most powerful divine explosion in all of history.


    Unlike before whenever I escaped into my personal Hell world, I was far too close to the source of the overwhelmingly powerful explosion. Despite being in my personal Hell world, the shock waves from outside began to tear through the dimensional barriers.


    My dark personal Hell world began to lose its color. Its connection to Hell was shattered by powerful divine energy. My entire world kept shaking as it began to fall apart and pieces started returning to the void.


    ¡°Yongye City!¡±


    I acted faster than my mind could keep up. My personal floating castle immediately teleported myself and Harloys into it. All magic power that Yongye City possessed was used for maintaining the mage towers¡¯ shields. Despite this, the divine power that prated through continued to rampage through my pitiful amount of personal territory.


    Divine tornadoes and dimensional cracks cut through my world. Yongye City¡¯s magic shields started whining scarily like balloons pushed to the very limit before explosion. My entire floating castle shook furiously in the winds, just like an ark being battered during an Armageddon of despair.


    The only good part was that I truly hadn¡¯t tried to save money at all back when I constructed Yongye City. Everything was made from the best possible materials. No matter how powerful the winds from outside, the strong magic shields still persisted. However, we were then directly tossed back into the mortal ne when everything ended, just as if we were fish who were beached at the end of a hurricane.


    We saw apletely different and unidentifiable world once everything barely managed to calm down.


    The world now seemed indescribably abnormal. The death of multiple Main Gods here had immensely disrupted the dimensionalws here. Countless dimensional cracks had appeared. The original blue sky and white clouds hadpletely vanished. The sky now consisted in a chaotic universe filled with stars.


    Sophocles had killed many Main Gods with his self-destruction.


    But currently, my attention was drawn to a certain person who had just arrived on the battlefield. If my guess was correct, he was the true mastermind behind this battle and the one behind Sophocles¡¯ strange actions.


    ¡°Karwenz! Just what have you done!?¡±

 Chapter 795 - Final Battle Part 20

    <h4>Chapter 795 Final Battle Part 20</h4>


    A divine self-destruction would forever be the final technique used by any God in order to transform their own eternal life and endless divine power into an explosion of despair that would drag their enemy to death with them.


    A Low God could even kill a more powerful God with this. The importance of self-destructions keeping divine society rtively stable couldn¡¯t be understated.


    However, was the current situation really that bad for Sophocles that he would need to go to such an extent?


    Things obviously weren¡¯t that bad for him at all. The Chaos Abyss army was still endlessly arriving through the Dimensional Door. The Chaos Main Gods weren¡¯t at an overwhelming disadvantage yet. Nothing would have ended quickly at that point... and even if the Chaos Faction lost here, wouldn¡¯t it have been fine for Sophocles to run away? Would he really be stupid enough to die for the sake of the Chaos Faction?


    Just how much had he invested into this battle? Why did he sacrifice everything he had? Why did he drag other Main Gods into dying together with him?


    I couldn¡¯t understand, but I knew that the person in front of me could definitely give me an exnation.


    ¡°Karwenz! Just what have you done!?¡±


    To me personally, the unknown was frustrating, and I especially hated the feeling of having someone else make me dance to their whims.


    However, I was certain that this person would give me the answer.


    The battlefield currently seemed like an ancient battlefield right out of a myth. There was no apparent difference between the sky and the earth. The blue sky and white clouds had been reced by the universe and the stars. All the basic dimensionalws had beenpletely shattered.


    I had never witnessed such a frightening scene before. Countless dimensional cracks had been torn open. Vision, sound, and even feelings were all distorted. Time and space had obviously be unbnced here. A distance that was clearly only a few meters away seemed as if it was more than 1000 kilometers away.


    No, it was indeed more than 1000 kilometers away. Taking one step would result in your next stepnding at somece unknown. Since the basic dimensionalws of space had beenpletely distorted here, nothing was stable and every step would represent countless possibilities. On such a battlefield, someone of Gold rank wouldn¡¯t even have the right to be cannon fodder.


    ¡°Answer me! Karwenz!¡±


    The most obvious existence on this chaotic battlefield was probably the gigantic God before me.


    ¡°Hey, isn¡¯t this my older brother? As expected of a cockroach like you. Even this explosion wasn¡¯t able to kill you.¡±


    Karwenz still had that familiar figure, appearance, and casual attitude. I never expected that I would be so angry to see my own face.


    I took one step forward, but then suddenly appeared at a location 300 meters behind me. It would seem that it was impossible for me to reach Karwenz since the dimensionalws weren¡¯t stable here yet.


    I looked all around me and saw endless destruction on the battlefield. However, there were still survivors.


    The Cloud Tower, which was emitting thick plumes of smoke, had crashnded onto the ground. It seemed like half of it was destroyed. Still, no matter how severe the damage, the very fact that the Cloud Tower hadn¡¯t beenpletely destroyed into smithereens of dust meant that the mages had managed to survive.


    Also, Titan, who was the most powerful Main God level existence on our side, wasn¡¯t near the core of the explosion. He was sufficiently far away to react in time to defend himself. Titan was currently kneeling on one knee while viciously ring at Karwenz.


    Titan¡¯s opponent Donatis was barely holding on, but Donatis had also managed to survive the explosion.


    However, things weren¡¯t so good for the other battle between Main Gods.


    I recalled that right when Sophocles self-destructed, he had used his special ability to split himself into two bodies. His Demon Main God half had dashed towards and targeted me, Kalumandas, and the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation, trying to inflict maximum damage with the countering element of Chaos.


    Sophocles¡¯ Order God half, the God of Evolution, had dashed towards Heimor and Barbarot¡¯s battle...


    Only shredded flesh and Chaos energy remained where Heimor and Barbarot had been battling. Incredibly valuable divinity, God Equipment shards, a Demon Main God heart, and so on were all casually strewn around as if they were garbage. I could sense Heimor¡¯s power was present, but not his existence. It seemed that both Heimor and Barbarot had perished.


    Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom. Barbarot, the Main God Devourer. Heimor, the Devil Lord of Despair. If I also included the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation, Sophocles had instantly managed to kill four Main God level existences with his self-destruction.


    These Main Gods weren¡¯t simply individuals. Order Gods would be the amalgamations of various dimensionalws. An Order Main God would be the peak existence of an entire God Faction and system. They were capable of changing dimensionalws with a single statement. They would be the controllers of certain dimensionalws.


    Meanwhile, the Chaos Main Gods were the products of chaotic evolution. They would have devoured countless souls during their growth. Every Chaos Main God¡¯s death would cause countless devoured souls to return to the Cycle of Reincarnation, reaching the point where it would even affect the River Styx¡¯s depth.


    Right here, in just a short instant, six Main Gods (Sophocles counted as being both an Order and Chaos Main God with his two bodies) had perished simultaneously. This was just like forcefully removing arge chunk of the ocean suddenly. There would be an enormous hole left behind. Plus, the items left behind by the Main Gods¡¯ deaths also contributed to the extreme instability in this area.


    I learned plenty simply by looking around me. By now, I could pretty much guess at Sophocles and Karwenz¡¯s n, but...


    ¡°Bro, since you¡¯ve already guessed it, why bother asking? Wasting words isn¡¯t your style at all.¡±


    The Abyss Prince hadn¡¯te here simply to observe the situation. Countless small demons flew out from behind him. They were carrying heavy obsidian as they descended and seemed to start constructing something.


    I fell silent. Indeed, I had guessed Karwenz¡¯s objective here, but I hadn¡¯t expected that it would be on such a grand scale.


    ¡°...For the sake of opening the door to the dimensional barrier? Just for the sake of opening that door?¡±


    However, I was really surprised when Karwenz directly shook his head.


    ¡°No, there¡¯s actually no door at all. The two old hags (Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos) went to an extreme and sealed off the entire Eich universe, making the Eich universe an enclosed room with no doors or windows whatsoever. In such a scenario, it would be impossible to open the door to the dimensional barrier even with the key, because there was no lock or door.¡±


    ¡°...That¡¯s why you must create a door with an explosion. The Main Gods were the necessary sacrifices for this?¡±


    Although I was asking a question, my tone was certain. This was the only possibility that would offer enough potential benefits for Sophocles to be willing to pay such a tremendous price.


    Karwenz shrugged and smiled as he showed me three fingers.


    ¡°Three Main Gods was the minimum that I required. However, Afupleted his mission quite wonderfully by giving me a sacrifice of six Main Gods. This area has already begun initialization. This ce shall be the door leading to new universes.¡±


    Karwenz wasn¡¯t even emotional as he simply stated the facts. However, such abnormal calmness obviously wasn¡¯t normal for Karwenz¡¯s personality, so I could faintly tell just how resolved he was.


    ¡°Ha, an initialized world won¡¯t be analyzed so quickly. Stop thinking so much about it. Rx, I¡¯m not interested in those parasites, either.¡±


    Karwenz then nced at the outskirts of the battlefield, where the Cloud Tower was slowly rising up into the sky again. It seemed that he had seen through my n of stalling him so that the survivors could safely retreat.


    ¡°Parasites?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that the case? Those guys are clearly humans as well, but they think that it¡¯s only natural for them to receive venerated treatment from ordinary humans just because they¡¯ve learned some minor inklings about magic and feel that they control the secrets of the universe. They think that they¡¯re much better than humans, and don¡¯t view themselves as humans anymore. They only want to enjoy the benefits, but never work to do anything for humans. Isn¡¯t that what a parasite is? Haha, these are the exact words that you previously told me.¡±


    I instantly fell silent after hearing this. From my standpoint back then, the Mage Country clearly possessed the strongest power in this world, yet never tried to do anything to change the world for the better. My extreme views and attitude back then meant that it was quite normal for me to say something like this back then... But I would need to be careful as it would be quite troublesome if the mages held a grudge over hearing me say this.


    ¡°Ahem, we all heard this already.¡±


    Harloys sent me that as a secret mental message while the light of teleportation magic illuminated me in the next instant. It seemed that the Cloud Tower had already finished analyzing the dimensional space here.


    I nced at Karwenz and asked another question in the end.


    ¡°...Why are you telling me all this? Why aren¡¯t you simply killing me?¡±


    Karwenz had a strange expression on his face as if he felt that this was a strange question for me to ask him.


    ¡°Why would I kill you? Ha, just by asking me this, I know that the old hag in your body still hasn¡¯t told you everything yet. Go back and ask her properly about our undying trait¡ª¡±


    I didn¡¯t hear the rest of his words, as I was instantly teleported back to the Cloud Tower. However, I had a big headache from thest thing that I saw on the battlefield.


    The Yongye City that I had worked so hard to construct was now mostly destroyed. Additionally, its core had also been opened due to all the destruction. I just saw a certain familiar figure crawl out of the core while ring at me with pure hatred¡ªConservation...

 Chapter 796 - After the Battle Experimental

    <h4>796 After the Battle Experimental</h4>


    ¡°Nobody won on the eastern battlefront.¡±


    The Cloud Tower was filled with a depressing atmosphere even though the sky was bright and sunny.


    The only good news was that Devil Main God Sarwenstan had also perished.


    ¡°The dragons surrounded Sarwenstan and attacked all out, not caring about the price they had to pay. Wood Spirit Goddess Amelia and Dunder, leader of the Dwarven Gods, personally assisted in the fight whichsted for 16 hours. Finally, they were able to y Sarwenstan. The Hell Dragons showed incrediblebat strength in this fight, especially the mythic nine-headed Hell Dragon Evelynn...¡±


    The fairies would always have information quite quickly. We really needed good news to help improve morale, especially due to what happened unexpectedly on the eastern battlefront.


    Sarwenstan was probably the most unfortunate Main God of all. He was surrounded and killed right after he gave up on being a devil and transformed himself into a demon.


    However, even if he had survived our attack, Sophocles likely would have sacrificed him. That was yet another pitfall waiting for Sarwenstan.


    In this battle, Sarwenstan¡¯s death even became minor news. The Hell Dragons had disyed their abilities as a legendary dragon species and received official recognition from the surface dragons. Sam, the old Hell Dragon who was formerly a Supreme Immemorial White Dragon, had finally gained face.


    The n was that the Hell Dragons would establish their own Dragon City in the mortal ne to create a rtively stable channel ofmunication with other countries in order to carry out their role as Hell¡¯s messengers.


    As for Amelia being together with the leader of the Dwarven Gods, that was the Nature Faction working closer together with the wood spirits. It seemed likely that Amelia would soon gain the astonishing title of ¡°Nature Main God¡± and leadership of the Nature Faction.


    Sessfully ying Devil Main God Sarwenstan was likely the most astonishingbat achievement of this Holy War so far; it was proof that my strategy had been correct. Having Amelia, the Nature Gods, and the Hell Dragons attack the western battlefront had been the best arrangement. They managed to kill someone as tough as Sarwenstan in quite a short period of time.


    ¡°Are you certain that you didn¡¯t also privately want Amelia to be far away from this battle?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not the God of Fate, so how could I possibly see so far ahead? Still, it really was incredibly fortunate that Amelia hadn¡¯t been on the eastern battlefront.¡±


    I was rather afraid of what might have happened. Normally, Amelia should have been on the eastern battlefront, but Sophocles likely would have locked onto her as his primary target without second thought simply because she was a Chaos Girl.


    I had pretty much figured out the strange situation regarding Sophocles, but I still needed some more time and evidence to prove my inference.


    It was now the morning after the ¡°Sophocles self-destruction¡± incident. The fairy magazines and special reports before us all carefully avoided mentioning the eastern battlefront¡¯s battle, only mentioning that a gigantic explosion had urred, and that the specifics were still being investigated. The fairies ced most of their news report¡¯s emphasis on the victory on the western battlefront.


    The death of Devil Main God Sarwenstan would have been an astonishing victory which would cheer up the entire world if it had happened only a few days ago.


    But now, this news was only enough to temporarily let us forget the pain of war...


    ¡°Analysis still hasn¡¯t beenpleted on the dimensional space of that chaotic domain? What about the most basic data? Temperature, atmosphere, and physics constants still haven¡¯t been determined yet?¡±


    ¡°Has the rescue team returned? There¡¯s still nothing?¡±


    ¡°Damn it, those unfortunate guys still haven¡¯te out of the teleportation room? We have no time left. This ce isn¡¯t safe. We must change locations swiftly.¡±


    The mages¡¯ courtyard wasn¡¯t as idle as it usually was. Its formerly clean streets were now covered with rubble and stone debris. The wise mages carefully conserved every bit of mana they could due to the chaotic situation. People were busy everywhere.


    The mages had lost more than they had expected in certain areas.


    The Cloud Tower, which was the Mage Country¡¯s national treasure, had suffered the destruction of five out of its seven main gravity engines. The Cloud Tower had barely managed to fly away from the battlefield for 10 or so minutes before it crashed into Bardi¡¯s Hake Mountains.


    More than 70% of the Cloud Tower¡¯s streets were damaged. More than 3000 residents had died due to the destruction from the earlier battle. The financial losses would bepletely uncalctable.


    The most important was thesting damage to the mage towers¡¯ functions. Although the Cloud Tower had been shielded from the brunt of the explosion by the thousands of mage towers and tens of thousands of archmages casting defensive spells, arge majority of mage towers with defensive functions would now require extensive repairs. The Cloud Tower wouldn¡¯t have muchbat strength again anytime soon.


    Additionally, all the magic puppets, war puppets, and summoned creatures that the mages had sent to the battlefield had all been instantly destroyed in the explosion. As it had been an army umted over many centuries, this was an astronomical loss of resources.


    The only part worth celebrating was that the Cloud Tower had arrived on the battlefield.


    Correct, the Cloud Tower arriving on the battlefield and suffering severe damage was actually a truly fortunate event for the Mage Country. This prevented even more losses and an unspeakable tragedy from urring.


    Mages would always leave dimensional portals in their personal mage towers. In a time of need, as long as the mage wasn¡¯t too far away from their mage tower, the mage could use a very simple spell to teleport themselves back to their mage tower. This was typically a mage¡¯s final method of escaping danger.


    The Cloud Tower had a record of every single registered dimensional portal within it. The moment that the self-destruction urred, archmage Lain and the others activated an ultimate defense spell which forcefully summoned back every single mage currently on the battlefield. This avoided the worst possible oue of countless archmages dying for nothing on the battlefield.


    Of course, there were also losses with this as teleportation would require a tremendous amount of energy. Summoning so many thousands of people simultaneously required an energy expenditure that really crippled the Cloud Tower on top of all the damage it took.


    There was an unexpected side effect of the teleportation that nobody had expected.


    Since the teleportation rooms had limited space, the mages who were teleported back didn¡¯t even react to what happened yet when other mages were teleported on top of their heads. Trampling incidents urred in every single teleportation room. The archmages¡¯ old backs suffered severe blows, with many of them still moaning with pain in their beds even now.


    The teleportation rooms became bursting with people. The mage tower spirits in charge of teleportation activated the backup n, and started teleporting the remaining mages out... Where had those unlucky mages been teleported to? Were they still alive or even in this dimension? That would have to wait until we had the free time to check every single mage tower spirit¡¯s teleportation records.


    Despite all this, there was still some joy at being able to survive such a cmity even though things had been so scary.


    The Mage Country hadn¡¯t suffered the most severe losses. Sophocles¡¯ self-destruction had caused an explosion that was far quicker than any tidal wave. Every single one of Bardi¡¯s ships along the shoreline waspletely annihted.


    There was no need to even try to search for survivors on the ground. Even now, the eastern battlefield was still a chaotic domain that was impossible to analyze andpletely inhospitable to any life. The mages¡¯ rescue teams were currently searching on the sea instead in hopes of finding more survivors.


    Imunicated with Halent by using a long-distance magic spell. His expression was rather subtle when he saw me.


    In a way, Halent had suffered severe losses in this battle, to the point of being a loser. But from another standpoint, he had also mysteriously obtained what he wanted, gaining both reputation and benefits.


    What benefits had Halent obtained? Sophocles¡¯ self-destruction hadn¡¯t cared about enemy or ally. Apart from the mages, Sophocles had killed every single ground unit from both the human alliance and the Chaos Faction. The self-destruction had also acted as an indiscriminate mega divine power shock wave and earthquake AOE.


    Asolivis, which wasn¡¯t far from where the battle took ce, also got caught in the st... or, more urately speaking, the rubble of what had previously been Asolivis.


    About half of Asolivis had be part of the new chaotic domain left behind. The explosion had destroyed the entire city¡¯s foundation. The powers of Chaos and Order had destroyed all the Dimensional Doors here along with the area¡¯s dimensional stability. The residents of the lower nes would have to find another route to the mortal ne in the future.


    Of course, all the demons, devils, and undead stationed here... well, none of them had strong magic defense, so they had all returned to the River Styx together with everyone else that died.


    The human alliance¡¯s primary goal here was topletely eliminate Asolivis as a strategic threat that was an open route for dimensional invaders toe attack through. Sophocles¡¯ self-destruction had achieved this goal for the humans.


    Ironically, Sophocles was the one who brought all the demons here, but he also personally killed all the demons.


    Thebat results from the eastern battlefront were far more glorious than from the western battlefront. It was nowpletely confirmed that five Main God level existences had perished due to Sophocles¡¯ self-destruction. Sophocles (Chaos), Sophocles (Order), Barbarot, Heimor, and the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation. ...When I saw this list, I made up my mind that I would run as far away as possible the next time that I met the God of Holy Light¡¯s incarnation. His incarnations always ended up exploding every time that they appeared. It was as if he was even more of a jinxer than I was!


    ¡°It¡¯s not the same thing at all. Karn is a God with no self-will. Once his mechanical way of thinking has been analyzed, it¡¯s actually quite easy to lure his incarnation to a fixed location so that the incarnation can be in in order to weaken his true body. This is the only method to even possibly defeat him to begin with... Judging from the results, it really is no mistake to run as quickly as possible from his incarnations. But, the fact that his incarnations always explode is absolutely rted to you being a jinxer.¡±


    Harloys seemed to still be in good spirits as she still took the time toment regarding me.


    Oh, someone seemed to be missing from the list of the dead Main Gods? Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom? He had unexpectedly managed to survive again in the end. However, he had lost his divinity as the God of Wisdom. His situation was quiteplex, so I won¡¯t be going into it.


    Ahem, so basically, there was no victor at all in this battle... if there had to be a victor, then only Sophocles and Karwenz likely counted.


    Karwenz was already public enemy #1 of the entire world. The Order Faction, Chaos Faction, and Hell Faction had all suffered severe losses from Sophocles¡¯ self-destruction. Karwenz¡¯s goal was also exposed already, so everyone was going to give him trouble.


    Unlike before, as the chaotic domain stabilized and was analyzed, Karwenz¡¯s was also now exposed to the world. Nobody would give him free time to do as he pleased in the new chaotic domain that appeared, as that would mean allowing the world itself to end.


    The end of this battle signified that a new battle would begin. I really didn¡¯t know what to say.


    The Truth Symposium members were focusing fully on analyzing the new chaotic domain. The time for the next battle might arrive really quickly.


    ¡°Sir Rnd, Lain and Margaret are requesting that you go to conference room #3.¡±


    ¡°Tell them that I¡¯ll be there immediately,¡± I casually answered a familiar as I got up.


    The mages were doing their best to regain face after suffering such severe losses. The first step to this was naturally analyzing the enemy.

 Chapter 797 - Truth

    <h4>Chapter 797 Truth</h4>


    Sophocles was a Demon Main God who was always quite active. He often had an incarnation and believers in the mortal ne. Only now did people discover to their surprise that his being so active was also a way to disguise himself.


    ¡°If my inference is correct, no, my inference can¡¯t possibly be wrong with my understanding of the Gods. Sophocles... was a God with no self-will. Our miscalction about what he really was resulted in this incident.¡±


    Only a few people were present in therge conference room. My expression probably didn¡¯t look that pleasant as I exined things.


    I hade into contact with Sophocles multiple times already, after all. It really would make me seem quite foolish to only realize now that I had been talking to nothing more than a divineputer who was only capable of mechanical logical processing.


    ¡°...At the very least, you¡¯re still far better than those who really suffered a big loss but never could find out why, since you still found the truth after the incident.¡±


    ¡°Harloys, are you... actually trying to console me?¡±


    ¡°...Of course you can think that since you¡¯re so ustomed to being a narcissist.¡±


    I nced at the silly cat who was trying to encourage me in her own way. I then took a deep breath and organized all the information and clues that I had. No mistake could be afforded now.


    ¡°Sophocles. Most urately speaking, he stopped being a demon long ago. He¡¯s actually a pure Order God. Although it sounds inconceivable, that¡¯s the only possible exnation for what happened...¡±


    Those listening to me in the conference room included archmages from the Mage Country, Halent¡¯s special envoy, high-level fairy editors, and Archduke Sn from And. Everyone really wanted to know just what had happened, and why the Sophocles self-destruction incident had urred.


    I was probably the one who had the most right to speak on this incident as I had been fighting against Sophocles. I also needed to give everyone a proper exnation so that we could all be unified for the uing battle.


    ¡°Sophocles seeded in having his incarnation ascend to Godhood. That was the God of Evolution that ordinary people have long since forgotten about. Perhaps the God of Evolution is now a secret to the world, but it¡¯s no big secret at all to everyone present here. However, there¡¯s something that likely nobody ever knew. Perhaps everyone believed that the God of Evolution naturally became nothing more than a joke and a piece of dark history once his real identity was exposed. But actually... the God of Evolution has always lived on within Sophocles¡¯ body.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what Sophocles was thinking. However, over the long years, he definitely transformed his main body into the God of Evolution which had no self-will. The Sophocles that everyone knew was nothing more than a fake puppet that the God of Evolution pretended to be based on Sophocles¡¯ past personality data.¡±


    Sophocles had long since died already as an intelligent individual. It was impossible to guess when he had died, but he probably died the moment that he perfected transforming himselfpletely into the God of Evolution who had no self-will.


    Correct, Sophocles had died long ago. Once an intelligent individual gave up their own self-will, even if he was the #1 most powerful existence in the entire world, how different would he be from someone dead since he no longer even had a concept of himself?


    However, someone dead had caused the entire world to tremble in fear. We had paid an uneptable price because of Sophocles.


    The reason? That was unknown. Maybe he went overboard in search of greater power, and was devoured by his more logical Order incarnation. Maybe he went insane from forcefully splitting his mind into two halves. Maybe he gave up his self-will of his own volition for some reason. Maybe someone scammed him into taking a wrong path...


    Ahem, maybe such things sounded familiar, but I was definitely referring to Sophocles, not myself.


    What? You¡¯re asking if I¡¯m afraid now that I might have reached such a state as well? Of course... I would be afraid! Thinking back on things now, if it weren¡¯t for the System cheating for my sake, I would likely have lost myself like this as well, since it had also happened to Sophocles.


    I revealed the truth about who Sophocles really was thanks to my detailed analysis. Although this seemed ratherical, the end result of what he did really wasn¡¯t something that anyone couldugh at.


    An Order Main God had arisen from the corpse of a Chaos Main God. This Order Main God continued to pretend to be a Demon Main God in the Chaos Abyss for countless years, acting as the Order Faction¡¯s mortal enemy. But in the end, Sophocles sacrificed everything he had in order to carry out his responsibility as an Order Main God, all in order to push his personal Concept to the highest possible level.


    ¡°The source of everything is Sophocles¡¯ Divine Concept¡ªEvolution.¡±


    A God with no self-will was nothing more than aputer programmed to think with mechanical logic and work their hardest for their Concept. Such a God would never deviate from their own program, even if the end result was their own death.


    A God with no self-will would highly prioritize their own personal safety, but the foundational nature of an Order Main God was that they would absolutely carry out their Divine Concept above all else, even if there was a conflict between carrying out the Divine Concept and their personal safety.


    This was why it wasn¡¯t actually that important how powerful a God with no self-will was. A fixed mechanical way of thinking would forever be the most foolish way of thinking.


    ¡°Gods with no self-will are far too inflexible in their actions. As long as I take advantage of your own rules, I can easily weaken you constantly. As long as I weaken you sufficiently, I¡¯ll be able to kill you quite easily in the end.¡±


    If my inference was correct, Sophocles and Karwenz had also lured the God of Holy Light into sending a Main God level incarnation to the battlefield by taking advantage of Karn¡¯s mechanical thinking.


    However, Sophocles had an advantage over the God of Holy Light¡¯s mechanical thinking. Sophocles had originally been a Chaos Main God, meaning that he had a stronger foundation before he died. The essence of Chaos meant that Sophocles had devoured countless souls and memories before. This gave Sophocles an excellent artificial intelligence that allowed him to pretend to be an incredibly sly and intelligent living individual. He sessfully fooled everyone in the world with his disguise. It was already toote by the time that the truth was revealed.


    Sophocles¡¯ Divine Concept as an Order Main God was Evolution. The main goal of the Chaos Abyss was also evolution. An Order Main God had been trying to push evolution forward in the Chaos Abyss for so long, which was why nobody had ever noticed anything wrong with the situation.


    ¡°The key person in this matter is the other Main God, Karwenz...¡±


    Karwenz had likely managed to see through Sophocles¡¯ true essence, and then told thetter ¡®I have a n that can realize true evolution.¡¯ Karwenz probably then showed Sophocles sufficient evidence and logical reasoning about being able to realize true evolution. After that, Sophocles would be willing to sacrifice everything in order to carry out his Divine Concept as he was only a God with no self-will.


    It could be said that Sophocles was already dead, nothing more than a tool or weapon when he self-destructed. The true culprit who caused such tremendous losses was the mastermind who used this tool: Karwenz.


    Sophocles had only been acting every time that he met me previously. He had even tried toy so many traps for me. Fortunately, I had never trusted Sophocles even one bit, so I hadn¡¯t fallen for any of his traps. As for who had been telling Sophocles to set traps for me? That was obvious.


    As for whether Karwenz himself really believed in so-called pure evolution... I swear upon my knee that has taken so many arrows already that if he truly believed that, then I should be the world¡¯s most pitiful person... by making me be single for the rest of my life?


    ¡°...I can sense evil intentions emanating from the world; I think I really shouldn¡¯t swear on this after all...¡±


    ¡°Things will be different just because you didn¡¯t swear such an oath?¡±


    Ahem, ahem, if Karwenz really did have some belief that I was wrong about, then my second uncle¡¯s grandfather¡¯s niece¡¯s second grandson¡¯s name would be ¡°Idiot Second Son¡±, and everyone would be wee to beat him up as they pleased...


    ¡°...Aren¡¯t you just saying in a roundabout manner that everyone should beat up Karwenz?¡±


    The silly cat reacted really quickly. I wasn¡¯t able to even slow her down one bit.


    ¡°No, I didn¡¯t even need to think about it. I simply sensed your own evil intentions.¡±


    I ignored the silly cat who was bing ever more arrogant, and refocused on my analysis regarding Sophocles. Since it was certain that Sophocles was a God with no self-will and Karwenz¡¯s tool, the rest could be figured out as well.


    We had all originally thought that Karwenz wouldn¡¯t have any allies, since nobody would possibly gain anything by standing together with someone who wanted to destroy 90+% of the world. However, there were always idealists who believed that their ideals were more important than their own lives, such as a special existence like Sophocles.


    Sophocles and Karwenz had been allies since the very beginning while constantly acting in front of us and everyone else.


    The other two Chaos Main Gods Donatis and Barbarot had fallen into their trap. Not only did Donatis and Barbarot be bait that attracted lots of firepower, they were even nned sacrifices to realize Sophocles and Karwenz¡¯s ¡°ideals¡±.


    Devil Main God Sarwenstan had also fallen into their trap. Sophocles had never intended on helping Sarwenstan to begin with. The Lord of Tyranny was nothing more than another potential sacrifice to help open a door to the dimensional barrier. Sarwenstan would have been yet another sacrifice if he had been on the same battlefield as Sophocles.


    And now, Karwenz had achieved his own goal. Sacrificing a sufficient number of Main Gods helped to create a chaotic domain where it was now possible to open a door to the dimensional barrier. Everything would be toote unless Karwenz was stopped soon within the new chaotic domain.


    Now that all the facts wereid before us, our next course of action was also quite obvious.


    ¡°We must analyze that chaotic domain! We must destroy the door to the dimensional barrier at all costs! And then... we must kill Karwenz and finish everything.¡±

 Chapter 798 - Reinforcements

    <h4>798 Reinforcements</h4>


    Bardi wasn¡¯t the only ce in the world at war. Although people were astonished at the news that several Main Gods had perished simultaneously, new information also arrived from other battlefields.


    Of all the new information, the most attention-grabbing piece of news was the headline ¡°In the battle of Sidi, an undead army from another dimension suddenly ambushed the ogres and helped San Antonio¡¯s human army obtain a major victory.¡±


    The news report also said that ¡°These undead say that they are the remnants of an ancient human empire who are now returning to the mortal ne. They will be establishing their home in the extreme northern ice inds, and have already established a formal diplomatic alliance with the Nortnds Mist Alliance.¡±


    Undead Emperor Sandro and Undead Emperor Undead General had finally made their decision and clearly expressed what side they were on.


    The extreme northern ice inds referred to in the report didn¡¯t even have an actual name on the maps. They were located even farther north than the Nortnds were. There actually was another continent across from the icy sea there, but due to the extremely low temperatures, only pr bears and ice elemental creatures could survive there... and now the undead would be establishing their country there.


    ¡°Adam can probably also live there. He¡¯s basically family with the native snow ogres there.¡±


    Margaret adjusted her eyesses as she spoke. Although her tone sounded calm, I could tell that she had a grudge against Adam. It seemed that her previous trip to the far north with him hadn¡¯t given her a good impression.


    Still, it seemed more like a curse than having no sense of direction to be able to get lost to such an extent to go all the way to the ice inds in the far north.


    I heaved a sigh of relief at Margaret and Adam¡¯s return. It was always good to have trustworthy allies by my side. I also received support from the Mist Alliance together with their return.


    Margaret became busy with all the rescue work regarding the battle¡¯s survivors right after she arrived. However, Adam acted the same as always. He had too much free time on his hands, and caused trouble everywhere. Currently, he had his head lowered as he weaved what appeared to be an extravagant feathered broom.


    However, we all knew that this was nothing more than a mistaken impression.


    ¡°...Um, Adam, could you please stop causing trouble? God Envoy Arthur has alreadyined to me about you. Even if a Seraphim has lots of feathers, they¡¯ll still go bald if you keep pulling out all the feathers.


    ¡°It¡¯s just a little warmup. I can barely take it when I think about the uing major battle! It¡¯s rare to meet such a powerful opponent. I don¡¯t even need to worry about identally killing them... Yep, I really should go warm up with the Seraphims! I¡¯m leaving now, and I won¡¯t be back for lunch.¡±


    Adam kept getting more excited, to the point where even mes began to rise from his hair. It seemed that he wanted to have a major fight against the angels as he hurriedly left.


    If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that I received a report regarding how ¡°Seraphim feather fans,¡± ¡°Seraphim tears¡±, and other such rare items were suddenly circting around the Cloud Tower¡¯s ck market, I might even have believed him.


    As for the information that a certain really poor individual suddenly had money now, and purchased all the porn books in the bookstores, I would never deal with such a boring matter myself. I simply gave such information to Margaret for her to deal with... On that night, the books burned away in such a bright fire as a certain person howled in agony about ¡°his prized collection¡±. This was rather quite sympathetic as I¡¯m sure many married men would shed tears of sympathy.


    Even more pitiful was how Adam felt that it was only an ident that Margaret had discovered his new collection. He actually intended on selling off even more Seraphim feathers and other such rare items at a high price in order to reestablish his collection. He wasn¡¯t going toe back for lunch? He was probably in a rush to buy more porn books during lunchtime.


    I was even beginning to consider whether or not I should act on my responsibility as a Truth Symposium member to crack down on all these ridiculous merchants. However, I could see out of the corner of my eye that Margaret¡¯s mouth was twitching. She was even smiling in such delight? Fine then, she had seen through everything already. Please take good care of yourself, Adam!


    Forget it, there was no need to remind him. It would always be fun tough at another¡¯s expense when I was feeling down.


    Angels? Yeah, the Cloud Tower now had two entire squadrons of high-level angels. Although they were really annoying in a way, it was also reassuring to have them as temporary allies.


    As the battlefield before us hadn¡¯t calmed down, we aggressively made ourbat preparations. By now, Karwenz had basically dered war on the entire world as his n to destroy the world was now known to everyone.


    We didn¡¯t even have the time to say anything when the God of Holy Light, who was the ¡°ruler of the world¡±, could no longer tolerate it. Having his incarnation exploded was already a severe challenge. Opening the door to the dimensional barrier would threaten the order of the entire world. His mechanical logic would treat this as the highest-level threat of all.


    The God of Holy Light wouldn¡¯t care about things such as pride, as he was a God with no self-will. He unhesitatingly sent countless Holy Light Faction Gods and angel squadrons to this battlefield, an army with more than a thousand years of umtion.


    It was impossible for the new chaotic domain battlefield to remain peaceful. The Holy Light Faction Gods and angel squadrons unhesitatingly got involved with the chaotic domain. Since the Cloud Tower was a floating fortress which was closest to the battlefield, the Holy Light Faction had sent two top-level angel squadrons and dozens of subordinate squadrons toe here as their temporary base. This was an army of more than 30,000 angels. The angels¡¯ leader, God Envoy Arthur, seemed to be some legendary individual renowned in history.


    As for whether the two top-level angel squadrons were truly here to protect the Cloud Tower, or more to threaten us ¡°heretics¡± not to get in their way, everyone would know such things without saying anything out loud.


    The mages¡¯ pride would obviously be hurt by this, but I actually convinced the other Truth Symposium members to allow the angels to stay here. It would be quite foolish to go against the God of Holy Light at this time, after all. If his mechanical logic started thinking that ¡°the internal threat must be dealt with first before the external threat¡±, and he instead started attacking us, then that would truly be major trouble for us.


    Besides, it was quite rare to obtain such precious single-minded fighters for your cause. It was nice to have someone else willing to go first and test the dangers for you for free. All I had to do was tolerate them for a few days.


    The end result was that we could all see angels flying above our heads every day. The angels really were treating themselves as the rulers of the Cloud Tower now,pleting ignoring the mages¡¯ pride... Ahem, so the mid- and low-level angels that went out on patrols were disappearing at quite a rapid rate, while high-level angels kept mysteriously meeting challenges from powerful individuals, which made God Envoy Arthur quite busy every day.


    As for whether the captured angels became experimental materials for crazy mages, or if they entered the ck market... When considering how the supply seemed to be plentiful and the price of angels kept falling, even I wanted to purchase a nice and cheap female angel servant. Although it was rather regrettable that an angel wouldn¡¯t have any emotions, not having any emotions also meant no cking off and no desire for any sry. A female angel would also be quite pretty. What a nice freeborer that would be!


    However, God Envoy Arthur had beening toin to me every day recently. If he saw me with a female angel ve... I probably should avoid causing a diplomatic incident at such a time.


    ¡°You can ask Adam to purchase one for you. It will also be really fun to watch the joke that happens.¡±


    I paused in surprise at Harloys¡¯ suggestion, but then immediately startedughing as I gave her a big thumbs up. What a wonderful idea!


    I immediately started writing a letter which I would have a familiar take to Adam. The letter was also created from a special paper which would destroy itself after the letter was read.


    ¡°...My friend, please select a young and beautiful female angel servant for me. I¡¯ll help stall Margaret for you...¡±


    As everyone knew, I was someone who never lied.


    ¡°Margaret, give me some face and let Adam go this time. Men always need to have something fresh. This isn¡¯t being disloyal, but rather just a normal male desire. At the very least, he hasn¡¯t been buying the recently popr angel ves.¡±


    ¡°...Your face? Is that worth any money?¡±


    Margaret chuckled coldly while leaving with mage staff in her hand. It seemed that I had only added fuel to the fire rather than calming her down. Her expression indicated that she was soon about to go on a rampage.


    Alright then, I had already tried to ¡°stall¡± Margaret, but unfortunately I had failed. So, Adam, please hope for the best.


    ¡°Rnd, it seems like you¡¯re holding quite a grudge against Adam?¡±


    ¡°...I was busy fighting a life-and-death battle on the battlefield, while he was busy outside having a date with Margaret and doing whatever he pleased. The moment that he saw me again, he started telling me about his fun travels with such a delighted expression. He even kept saying ¡®it¡¯s such a pity that you weren¡¯t there, you would have had lots of fun as well.¡¯ What would you think?¡±


    ¡°...I understand.¡±


    Harloys nodded and continued to pretend to sleep.


    My room was filled with the sound of my pen writing on paper. More than 10 letters were on my desk, with some addressed to me and some that I had written. I was extremely busy over the past few days, trying to summon all thebat strength here that I could.


    Harloys suddenly raised her head as both of us simultaneously nced at the window. Apart from the familiar starlight, someone we had been waiting for had finally arrived.


    ¡°Sandro, you must have made a decision since you¡¯vee here.¡±

 Chapter 799 - My Affairs

    <h4>Chapter 799: My Affairs</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    In a way, the Undead Emperors really were quite sly.


    When would be the best time to whitewash your own reputation? Of course, that would be when a powerful mutual enemy appeared. Karwenz suddenly bing public enemy #1 of the entire world made it so that even an Undead Emperor could be eptable.


    The ancient undead of the Tark Republic had already showed what side they were on by helping the humans against the ogres in San Antonio. The newly reestablished Tark Republic in the northern ice inds was no longer considered an extreme threat, but rather a trustworthy ally.


    At the very least, until this Holy War waspletely finished, nobody would want to make an enemy out of the Undead Emperors.


    I felt rather conflicted inside as I looked at the seemingly nice old man in front of me.


    Was Sandro trustworthy? Even if I thought about it with my knee that always got shot by arrows, it was quite obvious that all Undead Emperors were untrustworthy.


    However, I really did need their assistance, just like how they needed us.


    When fighting the powerful Karwenz and any allies he might have, other factions weren¡¯t actually that likely to go all out. Although winning against Karwenz was for the good of everyone, there were no actual concrete benefits or loot to be had. Even if everyone said pretty words about fighting for ¡°the sake of the world¡±, I would be quite suspicious of their morale and determination if it came to a life-and-death battle.


    However, Sandro and the other Undead Senators who were determined to reestablish the Tark Republic were different. Since they had chosen to ally with humans rather than be hostile, they would naturally need to prove their worth in this Holy War. First, they would need to deal with... other undead, their own kind.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have any other requests. I also won¡¯t try to give you ridiculousmands. Additionally, I know that you guys won¡¯t take my words seriously on the battlefield. Still, it¡¯s no mistake to say that you guys should clean up your own mess. I¡¯ll be asking you to deal with Conservation and Shupnus.¡±


    Although we were allies, if I requested too much, the effect wouldn¡¯t be very good even if Sandro agreed. It would be far more efficient to let him deal with his fellow Undead Emperors.


    Sandro quite directly agreed. He even offered something extra.


    ¡°...I will be personally joining in the attack against Karwenz.¡±


    This was definitely more than I expected. Would Sandro really be so friendly as to voluntarily fight against Karwenz? Such a free gift usually had a trap involved. For instance, Sophocles had also previously invited me to gang up on Karwenz together with him. I really wouldn¡¯t dare to ept such ¡°friendly intentions¡±.


    ¡°Karwenz killed Undead Emperor Anina from the Darkness ne. She was also a Chaos Girl...¡±


    ¡°...She and you?¡±


    I was really astonished. Undead Senators wouldn¡¯t be anyone friendly and intimate with others. Sandro had just agreed to attack his own kind. Would he really be the type to want to seek revenge on Karwenz for a fellow Undead Emperor?


    ¡°Anina was my disciple¡¯s granddaughter, as well as my adopted daughter.¡±


    Sandro¡¯s calm words didn¡¯t contain any emotion. It was impossible for me to tell if he was being honest or lying. Still, this was more than sufficient of a reason for me. At the very least, it should be impossible for someone with many desires like Sandro to be allied with Karwenz. A special existence like Sophocles would be almost impossible to find again.


    ¡°Okay, I will arrange for your joining in.¡±


    We established amunication magic spell. Sandro then suddenly vanished in front of me. Mine and Harloys¡¯ senses werepletely useless.


    Perhaps Sandro had used such an ability to enter the Cloud Tower which was filled with angels even though he was an undead.


    Sandro¡¯s promise to help us in battle was really a great relief. Undead Emperors Shupnus¡¯s and Conservation¡¯s condition was currently unknown, but they were far more likely to be enemy than ally against Karwenz, which gave me a significant amount of pressure.


    Shupnus might possibly not involve himself in battle, but if Conservation saw me anywhere on the battlefield, she would likely abandon everything before her and unhesitatingly hunt me to the end of the world.


    Conservation was specialized in attack curses, had basically infinite mana with her principle of mana conservation, and was like a super living turret... I felt that I should really make morebat preparations. Still, even though Conservation was at a Main God¡¯s power level, I still felt that she wouldn¡¯t be able to best Sandro.


    In a way, even though there was still a major battle before us, my assessment was that the current situation wasn¡¯t uneptable.


    ¡°At the very least, this is far better than the previous Armageddon future of the world where everyone dies.¡±


    I was never someone who would worry about how despairing or dark the situation was, or how powerful my enemies were. Even the most powerful enemies would still have their weaknesses.


    However, Karwenz and his allies had previously been scheming while hidden in the shadows, which truly was a headache.


    The worst wouldn¡¯t be having a ridiculously powerful enemy, but rather that he was hidden while you were out in the open. He would be busy digging traps for you to fall into, while you could only dance to his tune.


    Although Karwenz and Sophocles had obtained incredible results for their side, the chaotic domain they had created also exposed their location and weakness. Since Karwenz¡¯s location was now known, I could at least start nning against him rather than having to deal with everything that he schemed against me.


    I wasn¡¯t someone who was all-knowing. The most important prerequisite for making the bestbat preparations would be having concrete information.


    Since Karwenz and his allies were now exposed, his objective and his allies were also revealed to the world.


    Karwenz¡¯s objective was quite evident now. He was gathering the Chaos Girls in order to open up the dimensional barrier. The chaotic domain created here was going to be the door to the dimensional barrier leading to other universes.


    In that case, Karwenz had also exposed three major weaknesses.


    ¡°The first is to prevent them from finding any more Chaos Girls. The second is to attack the chaotic domain andpletely destroy the door to the dimensional barrier. The third is...¡±


    I paused for a moment before finally saying it out loud.


    ¡°...Kill Karwenzpletely in order to eliminate the threat.¡±


    Karwenz was the individual at the core of this entire matter. No matter how one looked at it, the easiest way to stop his scheme was to annihte his physical body.


    I would deal with my affairs by myself. He was my family, after all. Just as how I asked Sandro to deal with Conservation and Shupnus, I had every intention of personally dealing with Karwenz.


    So, Karwenz¡¯s recent victory was now a burden upon him.


    The chaotic domain was still unstable, yet the Holy Light Faction immediately started its attack against it. Since the door¡¯s location was now ascertained, the ¡°door openers¡± would have nowhere to possibly run.


    Now, the chaotic domain had be a true mythic battlefield where countless demons and angels fought each other without the possibility of a victor appearing.


    If this had been 10 years ago, the death of a God would have attracted the entire world¡¯s attention. But recently, the number of falling meteors indicating the deaths of Holy Light Faction Gods was uncountable. Even low-level God Envoys and high-level angels actually became cannon fodder on this battlefield.


    I didn¡¯t want to even get close to such a battlefield. Even the proud dragons wisely chose to stay back.


    However, the God of Holy Light, Karwenz, and other such Main God level existences were remaining abnormally silent. This wasn¡¯t because peaceful negotiation would be possible. Rather, both sides were umting power in preparation for the explosive final battle.


    Every day, War Angels¡¯ corpses were brought back from the frontlines, along with samples of the ridiculous mutated demons on Karwenz¡¯s side. Our chances of victory were constantly improving as we performed further analysis.


    Finally, a certain piece of information caused me to choose to go to another battlefield.


    ¡°Karwenz is attacking the Fire Elemental ne? At such a critical time?¡±


    I fell silent. I would know better than anyone what the Fire Elemental ne represented.


    ¡°Elisa...¡±

 Chapter 800 - Isolated Island

    <h4>Chapter 800: Isted Ind</h4>


    Mages would always have connections with the Elemental nes as mages made use of elemental powers.


    Not long ago, the mages had even established bases in each of the Elemental nes in order to gather the resources there as well as improve elemental powers. The smallest base in the Four Elemental nes was the one in the Fire Elemental ne. In fact, this base was so small that it could only be described as a camp.


    In the Cloud Tower¡¯s records, the other bases were recorded with names such as ____ City or ____ Town. However, the base in the Fire Elemental ne was only recorded as the Fire Elemental ne observatory.


    When I arrived at this ce, I discovered that even calling it an observatory was quite an exaggeration. All that this ce had was a Dimensional Door buried deep underground and some rations which were magically preserved.


    There was only one mage stationed here. When he saw me arrive through the Dimensional Door, he greeted me happily with astonishment. But, he then became obviously depressed when he found out that I wasn¡¯t here to take his shift.


    ¡°Master Rnd, if you could, please rmend to the higher-ups to cancel this location as an observatory. It¡¯s fine to just leave the Dimensional Door here. Last year, I only received two visitors for the entire year...¡±


    The mage was a middle-aged man named Moti. He began to endlesslyin about the terrible work environment here after he saw the Truth Emblem on my chest.


    It was quite obvious that he didn¡¯t know who I was. This was the best evidence that he hadn¡¯t been back to the mortal ne for quite a long while already.


    Although conditions were also harsh in the other Elemental nes, there were many benefits for a mage of the corresponding element to cultivate there. The high Elemental Tide would be extremely helpful for magic cultivation. The elemental resources there would maximize the mage¡¯s cultivation effectiveness. Many mages would volunteer to go to the bases in the other elemental nes for their own element.


    However, I learned from Moti¡¯sints that not a single mage ever applied toe to the Fire Elemental ne¡¯s base. The task of staying here was always forced upon a fire mage.


    The extremely harsh environment and high temperature were only some of the reasons why nobody wanted toe. The main reason was that the local residents of the Fire Elemental ne were far too ¡°warm and friendly¡±.


    Low and mid-level elemental creatures didn¡¯t need to eat. If nobodymanded them to do anything (all elemental creatures in the mortal ne would be under someone¡¯smand, as it was impossible for them toe to the mortal ne without someone summoning them), most of the time they wouldn¡¯t be that aggressive. However, only fire elemental creatures would forever be as aggressive as rabid dogs and unhesitatingly attack every living being that they saw.


    Additionally, fire elemental creatures were simr to extremist terrorists. If they lost, they would often try to self-destruct. Working so hard to defeat a fire elemental creature might not even result in being able to obtain any elemental resources due to the resulting explosion. This was the fire elemental creatures¡¯ home territory, and it would be impossible to kill them all. Nobody would like fighting against such opponents.


    From a certain standpoint, the Fire Elemental ne was the Elemental ne that was most simr to the Chaos Abyss. Many Fire Elemental Lords were both demons and fire elemental creatures. Many demons would also have some fire element bloodline, which was why they had such superb fire resistance.


    The high temperature and toxic sulfuric air here made it impossible for ordinary humans to survive here. The incredibly aggressive fire elemental creatures here made it highly dangerous for any outsider toe here.


    The mage Moti in front of me had faint runes flowing across his skin. The slightly flickering fiery light in his eyes indicated that he was obviously had the bloodline of a Chaos Abyss descendant. The red runes on his arms and legs indicated that he was a fire archmage.


    A fire archmage with a fire demon bloodline. It seemed like his power level was also quite good, which made him really rare.


    I was beginning to pity him. Apparently, he had been here for seven years already. Normally, the Mage Country would cycle out the mages stationed at a base once every three to five years, so someone else should have taken his shift long ago. Since Moti had alreadypleted his task here, he should have returned to the Mage Country for a promotion, sry increase, and get married to someone pretty and rich... Obviously, either nobody appropriate had been found toe here, or the Mage Country had already forgotten about him. Hence, Moti was now so warm and friendly towards anyone who came to visit him in hopes that they could remind the Mage Country of his existence.


    ¡°So few peoplee here each year. You won¡¯t even see a single person on average each month. You truly are unfortunate.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I originally thought that I was so lucky because my bloodline was suitable for this environment. Not only do I not see anyone on average each month, the worst was when I didn¡¯t see a single other person for one year and three months. Whenever I go outside here, there¡¯s only an endless amount of crazy suicide bombers. I originally had a disciple here, but he went outside without any protection after only staying here for four weeks, so he was sent back to the mortal ne while covered in burn injuries along with being poisoned. That little bastard was burnt like a piece of coal, but he was actually smiling when he left. I¡¯ll deal with him when I return to the mortal ne! But, I heard from myst visitor that he¡¯s already promoted to the same rank as I am, which is...¡±


    The result of not having anyone to talk with for so long was that Moti immediately became a chatterbox when he saw me.


    His former disciple now had the same rank that he did. Meanwhile, he was stuck in a dead-end job in a remote location for so many years now. He was wasting time while a younger person was rising above him. Wasn¡¯t this a fantasy version of a mid-life job crisis? This seemed even more realistic and pitiful to me now.


    No wonder he was so friendly to me. My Truth Emblem probably also worked in my favor because Moti was hoping that I would mention him to the Truth Symposium.


    ¡°Sure, it¡¯s no problem at all. I¡¯ll talk to the Truth Symposium about it after I return. Lain is the one in charge of sending people to various outposts, right? I know him quite well.¡±


    I agreed quite readily. When seeing how archmage Moti was overjoyed, I decided against ruining his good mood.


    Currently, Moti was basically like someone who was ¡°exiled¡± by hispany. He finally managed to meet someone ¡°high-ranking¡± in thepany, so of course he would do his best to get into my good graces in hope of improving his fortune.


    But from what I knew, the Truth Symposium had no time right now at all to care about someone in a remote outpost, as they werepletely busy with preparing for the uing major battle. This was just like World War 2 from my original world. When the countries were all at war, they wouldn¡¯t have any time to remember their own citizens far away in distant colonies. This was especially more so for people who were at ¡°isted inds in the middle of nowhere¡± that had no worthwhile resources orbat information to provide for the country.


    As long as the battle continued, it was likely that Moti would be forgotten for quite a long period of time. It might even be possible that the Mage Country would reorganize its hierarchy after the battle. If Moti¡¯s original superior died or was given some other position during this battle, then Moti would also be forgotten by the new superior in charge...


    Of course, saying anything now would be meaningless, as everything was still prone to change.


    Perhaps having bases in the Elemental nes would be meaningless as the Holy War continued. Maybe the base here would be canceled, which naturally meant that Moti could return. Or, perhaps the mages would have higher expectations for the Elemental nes and increase their investment here. Since Moti was an expert on the Fire Elemental ne, then that would be a great opportunity for him.


    ¡°Continue to work hard. At least the situation won¡¯t get worse than it is now.¡±


    I said something that was basically true and just normal encouragement. I really couldn¡¯t afford to just make random promises at this time. Still, such a response already made me quite happy. Moti¡¯s friendly attitude was also quite helpful for me.


    Moti had stayed here for so long while being attacked by fire element creatures on a daily basis. He was so bored that all he could do was cultivate. Although Moti didn¡¯t have a high rank, his power level far seeded that of others with the same rank. I could sense that this dark-skinned middle-aged man had actually passed Legend and faintly reached Saint rank already, yet his emblem still said that he was only Gold rank.


    If this had been 10 years ago, a Saint rank archmage would never have been left here to waste his time.


    Moti not only understood the situation in the Fire Elemental ne, he was also capable of traveling in this dangerous ne. His overly boring job had helped him to benefit much from staying here. At the very least, he could be called an expert on the Fire Elemental ne.


    Thanks to his exnation, I also gradually learned the recent events in this ne.


    ¡°A new Fire Elemental God? When did this happen? Why was there no report!?¡±


    ¡°I did report it five days ago. However, I¡¯ve yet to receive a response even now. Did something happen at the Cloud Tower?¡±

 Chapter 801 - Decision

    <h4>Chapter 801: Decision</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°A new Fire Elemental God? That¡¯s something incredibly important. Why didn¡¯t you report it?¡±


    ¡°I did report it five days ago. However, I¡¯ve yet to receive a response even now. Did something happen at the Cloud Tower?¡±


    Naturally, Moti¡¯s report wasn¡¯t going to receive any response, as the Truth Symposium was extremely busy ever since five days ago which was when the battle ended in Sophocles¡¯ self-destruction. The Truth Symposium naturally wouldn¡¯t have the free time to respond to an ¡°unimportant¡± report.


    However, this news was incredibly important to me.


    ¡°The new Fire Elemental Goddess has such a strange name. Apparently, she¡¯s called Alyssa.¡±


    Alyssa? If the new Fire Elemental Goddess was Alyssa, then I would be Ronald. Still, it was rather normal that names would sometimes be confused due to trantion and pronunciation.


    Still, rather than surprise or confusion, my first reaction was a strange feeling of ¡°it really was her, after all¡±.


    Elisa was the me Sea Marchioness to begin with. She also had the ability to control fire and ice and devour and evolve abilities. Due to all this, since the Fire Elemental ne was filled with ¡°delicious food¡± everywhere, as long as she had enough time, abandoned all limits, and ¡°constantly evolved¡± herself, she would likely be an existence that no Fire Elemental Lord could possibly defeat.


    However, I was rather frustrated and even sad, due to something else...


    ¡°It seems that she still doesn¡¯t trust you. No, perhaps it¡¯s precisely because she trusts you that she chose this path.¡±


    Sometimes, I really didn¡¯t know how to respond to the silly cat¡¯sments. This time, my response was silence as a form of tacit admittance.


    The death game between the Chaos Girls was probably nearing its end. Any Chaos Girl who was still alive would absolutely not be easy to deal with. Even I wouldn¡¯t be able to absolutely guarantee Elisa¡¯s safety.


    Karwenz¡¯s scheme was at its end now. The few remaining Chaos Girls had all be ¡°precious¡±bat resources. The mostmon method for dealing with such important resources was that if your side couldn¡¯t have them, then the resources would be destroyed rather than letting your enemy have them.


    If Elisa asked me for help, I would of course do my very best to protect her. However, fate was always unpredictable. There was always the possibility that the worst could happen.


    ¡°If the worst urs, and only by sacrificing Elisa can the world be saved, what wouldn¡¯t you be willing to sacrifice, since you¡¯re the type who¡¯s willing to even sacrifice yourself... That silly girl, she was afraid that you would have a hard time, or she didn¡¯t have confidence in you? Probably both,¡± Harloysmented.


    Even if the chance of this happening was quite tiny, it couldn¡¯t be denied that it was still possible. Just the tiny chance of this happening caused Elisa to choose to try and survive by herself.


    Or, perhaps she was afraid of me making a choice...


    When danger arrived, only you would be the most trustworthy person to take care of yourself. Although I had indeed taught Elisa such a concept, I was still rather hurt to be treated like this at such a time.


    ¡°That girl is underestimating me too much. If the world can only be saved by sacrificing a woman, then this world might as well just be destroyed.¡±


    I was no saint, nor was I someone who held the power of life and death over others. Living itself was a type of value. Every life had its own weight. Apart from the person themselves, nobody would have the right to request someone else to sacrifice themselves.


    I respected courageous warriors who were willing to sacrifice themselves. That was because there were indeed things which were more important than life in this world. However, I really hated bastards who said things like ¡°arge number of deaths are only a statistic¡±. I truly hoped that such people would be part of the ¡°statistic¡± they talked about.


    Was sacrificing oneself supposed to be a virtue? Anyone who said that should try sacrificing themselves first.


    The silly cat was rather surprised because she sensed through our soul connection that I really meant all of this.


    ¡°In that case, if you really did meet such a scenario, how will you deal with it? Will you watch the world be destroyed?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯ll do my best to find a third method that can have the best of both worlds. I¡¯ve actually already prepared a final n just in case for the worst. For instance, I could create a tiny house out of adamantite which contains plenty of food and defenses and have the Chaos Girl fall into a deep sleep before sending the house to the core of some other dimension. We can then release her after the war is finally over. Or, I can use the method and coordinates I learned from Beifeng to send the Chaos Girl out of the Eich universe entirely and into another universe. Although it would be a pity that she wouldn¡¯t be able to return here, it¡¯s still better than dying here.¡±


    ¡°...To certain people, this would be a fate worse than death.¡±


    Harloys shook her head as she felt that saying such a thing was useless. Elisa would definitely never agree to Rnd¡¯s n.


    I shrugged as I said that it was a final n just in case for the worst. At the very least, it would be much better than having to choose to sacrifice Elisa.


    However, it was obvious that Elisa had already chosen to believe in herself only. Sessfully ascending to be the Fire Elemental Goddess was also a type of sacrifice. Although she now controlled the Fire Elemental ne, she would also be permanently connected to the Fire Elemental ne. This connection should be eternal as long as Elisa¡¯s soul remained alive.


    If Karwenz still wasn¡¯t willing to give up his attack, then he would have to face the Fire Elemental Goddess Elisa and thebined might of the entire Fire Elemental ne.


    As I previously mentioned, an Elemental God wouldn¡¯t be any weaker than a Main God when in their home Elemental ne. Elisa wasn¡¯t weak at all to begin with. Now that she gained even more strength by ascending to Godhood, Karwenz definitely wouldn¡¯t have an easy time with her.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go see how things are on the battlefield.¡±


    The information I received was now three days old. The chaotic domain was still being analyzed. Very little was known about it yet. Karwenz was already attacking the Fire Elemental ne at this time. Considering the size of all Elemental nes, if Karwenz¡¯s goal was to kill the Fire Elemental Goddess, it would be quite normal to have to fight here for several centuries. No matter how special the circumstances might be, the battle should still be continuing even now.


    I kept feeling like Karwenz was bing unreasonable. Trying to forcefully attack the Fire Elemental ne was absolutely not a wise decision at this time. But, when looking at things from a different standpoint, it was perhaps Elisa¡¯s move that forced him into a difficult spot.


    ¡°Maybe there¡¯s a chance for us here...¡±


    If we could obtain Elisa¡¯s assistance, we could stall Karwenz¡¯s main army or even Karwenz himself here. That would significantly reduce the pressure on our side in the mortal ne¡¯s chaotic domain. Here in an Elemental ne, it was possible to endlessly create new Elemental Lords and high-level elemental creatures, making them the best possible source of cannon fodder in the world.


    I knew quite well that attacking an Elemental ne wouldn¡¯t be a wise decision. Back in the day, I had forcibly challenged Emordilorcan because he had gone far too overboard with his attacks against the Nortnds, but even more because he had been seriously injured already. Being able to win against and even kill him was mainly because he had been away from the Earth Elemental ne for too long. It was only normal that his connection to the Earth Elemental Throne was rather poor.


    I was quite impressed with Karwenz¡¯s confidence in trying to challenge an Elemental Goddess who was in perfect health, and had infinite power in her home ne and also infinite revival capabilities.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be so confident yourself. Karwenz probably has a guarantee since he¡¯s dared to do this.¡±


    I nodded in agreement with Harloys. Right now, our primary goal was to find out what Karwenz¡¯s guarantee was.

 Chapter 802 - Anxiety

    <h4>Chapter 802: Anxiety</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    I had been to countless dimensions before, including the upper nes filled with positive energy and Holy Light, as well as the distorted and chaotic lower nes. I wouldn¡¯t know which ne left me with the deepest impression as a suitable vacation spot, but the most unsuitable ne of all for vacationers or to live in would absolutely have to be the Fire Elemental ne.


    Not only was the air scorching hot, it also contained toxins. Additionally, I was attacked six times after walking around for less than ten minutes. I was attacked by a tremendous berserk fire demon as well as low-level fire elemental creatures that I could crush quite easily. These monsters would always unhesitatingly attack you the moment that they saw you. The only difference between them was the sound they made when they attacked.


    They would always forcibly attack if they felt they could win. If they felt they were losing, then they would simply self-destruct. The fire elemental creatures here were far more berserk and disgusting to deal with than those in the mortal ne.


    ¡°Is there an end to this? They¡¯re just like cockroaches. I have to stomp out every one that I meet. This is so tiring.¡±


    I began toin as I felt like we were making zero progress.


    ¡°...We¡¯ll probably be able to walk significantly faster if you retract your personal domain...¡±


    ¡°What? Turn off the air conditioning? Never. I¡¯d rather fight through all these mobs than die from heat stroke.¡±


    The air outside was scorching and toxic, yet the air around me was cool and refreshing. There was even some faint snowfall above my head. As I was a truth-level ice archmage (self-proscribed), it would be truly sad if I was unable to even change the environment around me.


    Moti was freeloading off of my air conditioning, and he clearly felt it was quitefortable, yet he kept trying to convince me to cancel my ice domain.


    ¡°...Master Rnd, if you summon such a powerful ice domain in the Fire Elemental ne, well, I apologize for previously underestimating your magic abilities. However, doing this is a challenge to all fire elemental creatures here. We should...¡±


    I waved my hand and interrupted him while smiling and ncing at the sky. A red crow covered in magma was flying in circles above my head. This energy level indicated that I had finally met an Elemental Lord level existence.


    ¡°He¡¯s finally here. It¡¯s far more effective to ask a guide rather than having to walk around without a clue. Elemental Lords should know where their God is. Yep, I¡¯m certain that he¡¯ll tell me.¡±


    10 minutester, a certain fiery bird had be incredibly obedient as it flew through the sulfuric smelling sky as Ifortably rested on its body and observed the scenery below.


    However, half of the fiery bird¡¯s body was dripping with ice shards. Its wings were also shivering pitifully. It seemed as if it was about to suddenly fall out of the sky.


    ¡°...Did I go overboard?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. In this dimension, as long as the fire elemental creature doesn¡¯t die, it will quickly recover no matter how serious the injury.¡±


    The silly cat was on my head as always. Although she was still in her ck cat form, she had transformed into this form rather than sending a clone, which I didn¡¯t understand.


    ¡°...Weren¡¯t you really busy?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t rest assured about your matters here.¡±


    ¡°Ha, what¡¯s there to not be assured about? If I can win, then I¡¯ll fight. If I can¡¯t win, then I¡¯ll run together with Elisa. My personal Hell world might be destroyed now, but I¡¯m still quite confident in my ability to keep myself alive.¡±


    Although I still wasn¡¯t very used to the silly cat¡¯s expression, she definitely red at me right now. She even started grinding her ws on my head. Just how had I made her angry again?


    ¡°...I can¡¯t rest assured precisely because you¡¯re thinking this...¡±


    She sighed yet again with an expression like I was an unsalvageable idiot. Even though she was just a cat, she dared to look down on me?


    Just as I was thinking about if I should give her cat food and milk, or throw her high up in the air again, the scenery before me finally changed.


    I no longer saw only bright red. The pitch-ck Dimensional Door in the distance was quite attention-grabbing. The familiar power of Chaos meant that this was doubtlessly another portal leading to the Chaos Abyss.


    I saw tiny ck dots and red dots shing against each other on the ground. Obviously, this was a battlefield where demons and fire elemental creatures were fighting against each other. I could also faintly detect several hundred existences who had high magic power. These were Elemental Lords and powerful demons fighting against each other.


    Evidently, we had just arrived at yet another battlefield. The battle here was quite fierce as well.


    Judging from the ck dots and red dots approaching us, we would havepany quite soon. At such a time, I had no desire to waste any time with a meaningless battle.


    Meaningless? Demons were uncountable in number. Even though Karwenz was the youngest Demon Main God, he would still have an astronomical number of demons serving under him. Karwenz had yet to use his main forces in the previous battles. It would be impossible to calcte the strength of his overall demon forces, but it was a definite that they wouldn¡¯t be beaten in any short amount of time.


    The Fire Elemental ne had a simrly uncountable army. Fire elemental creatures would recover from their injuries incredibly swiftly as long as they didn¡¯t die. Even if they died, they would be reborn rather quickly as well.


    I was bing even more confused. Attacking an Elemental ne would itself be a meaningless action. If I was Karwenz, I would directly just lead an ambush squadron of a few Main God level individuals for a kidnapping mission, which would be far more effective than trying to kidnap Elisa byunching a direct full-scale frontal assault.


    What confused me even more was that very few elemental and demonic existences here felt like they would be a threat to me. There were no powerful Gods or Main God level existences on this battlefield. If it was only this level, Elisa wouldn¡¯t even need to personally deal with such a problem.


    I originally thought that Karwenz would invest sufficient elites and powerful individuals in this battle. Although the demons down below couldn¡¯t be called weak, there was still an evident difference between them and the top-level strength that I expected.


    I casually summoned a blizzard upon a fire dragon that was viciously waving its ws too close to me. I then explosively released magic power that far surpassed what a Saint Rank would be capable of, so that I could get rid of the annoying pests who were looking at me with unfriendly gazes.


    30 secondster, my magic explosion attracted a certain someone¡¯s attention as I expected. A familiar and nostalgic magic wavelength rose up from the nearby volcanoes.


    This bright red magic wavelength transformed into a tidal wave that swept over the entire battlefield. Even Demon Lords lowered their proud heads in the areas where the tidal wave touched. The Elemental Lords who came into contact with the tidal wave had theirbat strength more than doubled.


    Compared to what I remembered, this magic wavelength was far stronger, to the point where it was the difference between antern light and the sun. In fact, Elisa was now far stronger than Emordilorcan from back in the day. Perhaps this was the true strength that an Elemental God should have possessed.


    Just as I had expected, Fire Elemental Goddess Elisa was incredibly strong.


    I knew that I had achieved my objective. Elisa, the ruler of this dimension, had noticed my arrival and sent me an invitation.


    ¡°Moti, you should go back and focus on your own work. I¡¯ll report to the Truth Symposium about you, rest assured and wait for news.¡±


    I changed my mind about riding a flying fire bird, as it would be faster for me to fly such a distance by myself.


    I directly had that fire bird take Moti back while I flew towards the volcanoes that sent me the invitation. However, the silly cat on my head seemed like she no longer wanted to act like a mascot character.


    ¡°...Rnd.¡±


    ¡°I know. No need to say anything. At least let me meet her first.¡±

 Chapter 803 - Familiar Person

    <h4>803 Familiar Person</h4>


    The fires of war in the mortal ne only burned even fiercer while Rnd was busy with the battle between fire elementals and demons.Halent never imagined that the battle he started to reim Bardi¡¯s lost territory would end up causing Bardi to lose thisnd permanently.


    The former forest area around the old Port Victoria was Asolivis just not long ago. But now, it was a battleground where Gods and demons, light and shadow fought against each other on the frontlines.


    Countless demons from various dimensions gathered here. These demons were all strange and unique. The only thing they had inmon was the fury that the Chaos Abyss instilled in them with the summoning, and the demons¡¯ typical quick to anger temper.


    Nobody knew how Karwenz managed to do it, yet he had indeed managed to aplish it. Countless creatures of Chaos gathered here from all the dimensions due to the will of the Chaos Abyss summoning them in order to participate in this final battle of Gods and demons.


    The chaotic domain had dense dimensional cracks rather than a blue sky. Angels and demons were fighting everywhere, yet it was impossible for either side to gain the upper hand.


    No matter how many troops were sent here, and no matter how many powerful War Angels and Gods were sent to this battle, the endless amount of demons would still stop their path.


    Trying to forcibly attack this chaotic domain wasn¡¯t a wise decision by the Holy Light Faction Gods and angels. The tattered and chaotic dimensionalws here meant that this was the most disadvantageous battlefield possible for any creatures of Order. However, demons would love this type of battlefield the most as they were skilled in meleebat and chaotic battles.


    However, the God of Holy Light, who usuallycked presence and aggressiveness, was now angrily summoning all his forces tobat. He kept forcing all his Gods and warriors into this death zone, as if he was a gambler who angrily throwing away all his money umted over the past millennia in this battle where no hope could be seen.


    ¡°Eliminate the greatest toxin of the world. Destroy Karwenz. Eradicate the door to the dimensional barrier.¡±


    This was the will and fury of the strongest Main God. Once Karn, the God of Holy Light, personally descended on the battlefield, his vague will made all Holy Light Faction Gods to utilize their full power and all their servants to express their final loyalty to the Order Faction for the sake of their master¡¯s glory.


    True Gods were dying on this battlefield. The number of meteors falling down was uncountable. Furious Gods used their bodies to sweep away any obstacles as they searched for prey. Heroic spirits that died here would have no chance to return to the Divine Kingdom. Here, there was no difference between a schr and a warrior. There was only predator and prey. Venerated God Envoys shouted furiously while beginning suicidal attacks of despair. Even newborn demons would scoff and respond with fireballs at their enemies¡¯ passion.


    The Chaos Abyss also suffered serious losses.


    Countless Demon Lords and Demon Nobles had already died here. Ancient individuals who had ruled over countless dimensional battlefields joined in this battle where there was no retreat. They died just like how a demon born just 10 years ago would.


    Since the Holy Light Faction had fully started the gears of war, the allied Gods directly tore apart all the demons¡¯ defenses. The will of the Chaos Abyss then forced both ancient demons and new Demon Nobles onto the battlefield. Several seconds or maybe several minutester, deaths and self-destructions would appear on both sides.


    There was also the furious God of Holy Light himself. Nobody was capable of stopping him on the battlefield. He kept prating the Chaos Faction¡¯s defenses repeatedly.


    His gloriousmand would make high-level War Angels self-destruct their life force when they were pushed to the brink. However, the War Angels would refer to this as a glorious sacrifice, rather than a self-destruction of despair.


    Meanwhile, the Chaos Faction would send an endless number of demons to impede the God of Holy Light¡¯s path. The Demon Nobles were no different from newborn demons at all. They would all have to use everyst bit of their strength before heartlessly being transformed into self-destructing bombs of flesh and blood to express their final loyalty to the Chaos Abyss.


    Gods and demons were dying equally in this battle that had no pity or retreat.


    Yet, the Holy Light Faction¡¯s goal, which was a primitive door made from basic iron and bronze, was actually bing more active rather than being destroyed. This door was decorated with a statue of the Goddess of Chaos and Goddess of Order on each side as pirs, and it only kept growing thanks to all the sacrifices made in this chaotic domain as countless demons, Chaos Abyss residents, Gods, and angels perished here.


    No battle in the mortal ne had ever raged this fiercely before. The heartless God of Holy Light had never been so angry on a battlefield before. His rage was also a sign.


    ¡°There¡¯s not much time left.¡±


    That¡¯s right, his rage was a sign that there wasn¡¯t much time left. Unlike what people thought, the door to the dimensional barrier had already been activated two days ago. It was now slowly opening. Only the God of Holy Light, who was under the direct control of the Source of Order, was alert enough to discover this problem. He was now willing to pay any price necessary in order to destroy this ce andpletely eliminate this ticking time bomb that would destroy the world of Eich.


    Karwenz didn¡¯t appear on this battlefield, because he knew that the moment that he appeared, the God of Holy Light would unhesitatingly attack him at full force without caring about any price. Still, Karwenz remained as the mastermind behind the scenes for everything.


    The sly Abyss Prince¡¯s trick was quite effective. This was only Karwenz¡¯s first trap. The God of Holy Light¡¯s mechanical logic made him unhesitatingly jump into this trap with the full might of all his forces. The arrogant Holy Light Faction also had no intention of asking for help from any other faction.


    Karwenz then set another trap, targeting a certain mortal due to how unpredictable he could be...


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    ¡°Damn it, isn¡¯t there something wrong with this situation?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but curse at the sight in front of me. In fact, I even wanted to turn around and run.


    After I crossed an endless sea of fire, I saw a familiar scene rather than any fiery volcanic district or scorching magma mantle.


    These were famiiar streets, familiar houses, and a familiar person.


    A silver-haired half-demon wearing ck-and-white maid attire was waiting for me in front of my old home in Sulfur Mountain City. The only thing slightly different was that the face which I always made fun of for having too serious an expression, which I felt was a waste of her beauty, now had a cute smile which was difficult toprehend.


    ¡°Wee home, Master.¡±


    I felt something was wrong with the situation because of the maid before me.


    Karwenz couldn¡¯t possibly seed in attacking and kidnapping her, because Elisa was far stronger than any Main God I had ever seen!

 Chapter 804 - Maid’s Ambition

    <h4>804 Maid¡°s Ambition</h4>


    men would always have their own methods of rxation.after being busy for the entire day at work, you would return home so tired that you wanted to go to sleep right out on the street. if a cute girl could greet you at the door ince maid attire with a sweet smile...


    ¡°master, wee home. would you like to eat first, or take a shower, or...¡±


    ahem ahem, male readers probably understand the rest without me needing to say it out loud.


    i admit that i was a huge maid lover. still, men had to have some hobbies!


    ¡°is a man still a normal man if he¡¯s not a pervert!?¡±


    i said such a sentence with great pride back in the day. i requested that elisa ¡°wee me back home¡± and ¡°wake me up¡± every day. of course, such services weren¡¯t perverted versions at all, as i was a skeletal lich back then, so what would i even be able to do? still, i would never forget how icy her expression was after i requested such services. she even treated me coldly for an entire month afterwards!


    in fact, in order to make elisa obediently wear maid attire, not only did i threaten her with how much she owed me for raising her, i even almost kneeled and hugged her legs... cough cough, i didn¡¯t mention anything at all!


    from a certain standpoint, fine, from a gentleman¡¯s standpoint, my ¡°education¡± for elisa was aplete failure.


    ¡°i don¡¯t understand. even though she was clearly so cute and obedient when she was younger, how did she grow up to be an iron maiden like margaret?¡±


    back when elisa was just a little girl, she really did do everything that i asked, such as smiling sweetly and greeting me with ¡°wee home, master¡±, ¡°be careful outside, master¡±, and so on. but once she grew up a little and understood more hings, her obedient child self instantly into my dark history where she would immediately go on a rampage the instant that i mentioned it.


    currently, the familiar iciness in her silver eyes had melted. she raised her dress and spoke my favorite weing words in such a sweet voice. her beauty and attitude would both receive full marks. she was basically the perfect maid that i could only dream of. yet, i kept feeling chills run down my spine as goosebumps appeared all over my skin.


    ¡°perhaps, i might truly die this time...¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    10 minutester, i was feeling even more confused as i enjoyed the familiar scenery and rxed myself in the yard of my old home.


    i was no novice who hadn¡¯t seen the world before. i had witnessed plenty of personal domains and environments. i had seen hundreds of soul worlds capable of creating environments that were incredibly realistic. however, my old home waspletely realistic and exactly as i remembered it.


    ck pearl grapes grew on grape vines in the back. this was a rare magical nt that was bitter and disgusting to eat directly. however, the wine made from these grapes would be incredibly delicious. the wine would even have the miraculous effect of calming the soul, meaning that these grapes were an incredibly rare magic ingredient.


    ck pearl grape wine was also one of the very few ¡°foods¡± that high-level dead were capable of enjoying.


    i had spent a great deal of effort in order to sessfully grow the ck pearl grapes. the entire garden was designed just for them. if the ck pearl grapes were moved from their original location, they should have instantly withered and died away, yet these tiny ck grapes were the same as what i recalled.


    the most iprehensible part of all was the rack underneath the grape vines, rather than the grapes themselves.


    the leftmost pir had hundreds of knife markings from a certain person measuring their height while growing up. the knife markings were identical to how they should have been.


    an illusion or soul world projection would have requirements for the caster. the soul world was only capable of containing things that the caster knew about and had memories of. even if the thing wasn¡¯t like that in real life, the soul world could change reality as long as the caster¡¯s will was strong enough.


    but from a different standpoint, anything that the caster didn¡¯t know about or didn¡¯t pay attention to would naturally not be within the soul world.


    i tasted the familiar taste of ck pearl grape wine in my mouth. this was a toxin for anyone living, but it caused me to recall the past.


    many tiny details that elisa wouldn¡¯t possibly have paid attention to back then were now fully recreated in front of me. it was as if elisa truly could control the world. i had never even heard of such an ability before. i really couldn¡¯t understand such an elisa...


    ¡°stop trying to randomly guess. this is the exact same old house from sulfur mountain city. i went there and transported the entire house here.¡±


    ¡°cough cough! you should have told me that much earlier. i almost choked to death.¡±


    i coughed out some blood. my expression right now was probably really awkward.


    once i calmed down and nced once more at the familiar scenery, i felt even more unwilling. how could elisa be so wasteful? once the fighting began here, wouldn¡¯t everything here be destroyed? this was my old home!


    that¡¯s right, fighting. i knew from the instant that i saw elisa that things wouldn¡¯t possibly end peacefully this time. not only had i fallen into a trap, the trap was set by someone i truly trusted.


    however, i would still have to face the truth in the end...


    ¡°elisa, no, cynthia, when did you ally yourself with karwenz!?¡±


    i smiled while asking this question with an angry tone. i hoped for an answer of denial, but reality would always be quite cruel.


    elisa was far stronger than any main god i had ever seen before. there was only one possibility to exin her inconceivable strength.


    elisa must have been the victorious chaos girl of this generation, as well as the new chaos goddess cynthia.


    karwenz was hunting down the chaos girls in order for a remaining chaos girl to be chosen as the true cynthia and obtain the creator goddess¡¯s powers. i originally thought that the victorious chaos girl would be someone such as didina or leona.


    the chaos girl who became cynthia would still retain her original personality, after all. she would simply have perfected her personal evolution in all areas after devouring other countless weaker chaos girls. she would be an existence stronger than any other main god. if i was karwenz, i would definitely have one of my own allies be the victorious chaos girl.


    ¡°karwenz contacted me after the battle of hell. we reached a mutual alliance due to certain shared benefits. to be honest with you, your younger brother is far easier to talk with than you are.¡±


    i finally knew why elisa would always go missing for such long periods of time now. once the chaos girl hunt began, elisa would naturally have exposed what she really was the moment that she appeared in front of me, due to her incredibly swift evolution.


    this all meant that elisa had betrayed me more than 10 years ago.


    perhaps much information had actually been exposed by my secretary, the highest-level spy of all, rather than human royals with a secret chaos abyss bloodline.


    i understood even less now. i was even getting quite angry.


    shared benefits? what benefits could karwenz and elisa possibly share? karwenz would find it fun to destroy most of the world and throw everything into utter chaos, but how could elisa possibly benefit from that? had she forgotten everything aboutw that i had previously taught her? could it be that elisa now agreed with demon society¡¯s foolishw of the jungle now that she became a demon?


    ¡°karwenz feels that you¡¯ll be a huge obstacle, so he wants me to restrict you, especially since he knows what you intend to do. as for me, what do you think i want more than anything else?¡±


    elisa sat down right in front of me. her cheeks were rather red since she wasn¡¯t used to drinking wine. a cool breeze blew past, causing her silver long hair to flutter in the wind; it was quite a beautiful scene.


    however, i was rather astonished to hear her words.


    i stopped to contemte. what elisa wanted more than anything else? perhaps i had never really considered this before.


    ¡°what you want? ever since little, i would give you everything that you wanted. you can tell me directly if there¡¯s anything you want, you know!? what could karwenz possibly give you?¡±


    ¡°rnd.¡±


    ¡°what?¡±


    why was she calling my name at this time? however, my head was really hurting now because harloys was digging her ws into my head.


    ¡°you¡¯ve probably never even thought before about why i was willing to do everything for your sake and follow you for all this time.¡±


    i fell into deep contemtion after hearing her words. perhaps i had already be ustomed to her following me, as i had indeed never considered deeply about why she was loyal to me.


    elisa was still speaking in a calm tone, but the slight trembling of her winess revealed her inner emotional turmoil.


    elisa took a deep breath and decided to finally be direct.


    ¡°to be a ruler? to save the world? the glory ofw? undefeatable power? what meaning do such things even hold to a woman? just why do you think that a woman like me would work so hard, even to the point of being willing to go to the chaos abyss, even to the point of being willing to devour disgusting demon hearts?¡±


    even if i was a pig, i would understand the answer by now. however, this type of answer was difficult for me to ept.


    ¡°idiot, i¡¯m still a woman. what i want is of course a woman¡¯s bliss. rnd, karwenz promised to give you to me, for forever, for eternity. i only want you... and now, you really havee.¡±


    elisa blushed with a shy and mysterious redness. however, my current exprsion was probably incredibly awkward.


    ¡°it really was as i expected...¡± harloys sighed, adding insult to injury.

 Chapter 805 - Not Understanding Others“ Hearts

    <h4>805 Not Understanding Others¡° Hearts</h4>


    ¡°karwenz, you¡¯re cutting ss again? you¡¯re dead for sure this time. kelly is really angry.¡±the past was always rather nostalgic for me.


    even now, i still remembered how karwenz had never been a good student.


    the mist kingdom wasn¡¯t very wealthy back then. however, the royals¡¯ homework was even more intense because of it. civilization, politics, economics, diplomacy, and endless homework on such topics. i always felt such a headache about the workload. to make things worse, karwenz only cared about ying around.


    karwenz had thick skin and wasn¡¯t afraid of getting a beating. besides, the royal tutors wouldn¡¯t dare to hit him too hard since he was a prince. it was quite normal that he often cut ss. i was the one who had to bring him back every time.


    no matter if he was on the roof of the royal pce, or in a corner of the barracks, or even in the garden of some noble¡¯s daughter, i would always be able to find him really quickly, as if i knew where he was... by the way, wasn¡¯t it quite early for him to already be a womanizer at that age?


    ¡°ha, only her words are harsh. i can easily get through everything by acting slightly pitiful and pretending to be cute.¡±


    i felt rather helpless. perhaps this was why karwenz was always so well liked despite being so naughty.


    whenever noble daughters passed by, they would always squeeze karwenz¡¯s face and joke around with him while even letting him touch their bodies. but if the same noble daughters saw me, they would always respectfully curtsy to me and then run away quite swiftly.


    ¡°even though we have the same face, why is there such a difference in treatment? i also want to act cute so that i can touch their bodies... ahem, i mean get along well with my citizens.¡±


    however, reality was quite cruel. karwenz became a famous yboy, and got to enjoy life while causing trouble all the time. meanwhile, i only had boring knights and even more boring politicians around me.


    even though i clearly worked far harder and was so much more serious in my studies, and my grades were good, maybe it was due to my adult mind and not wanting to pretend to act cute that i wasn¡¯t as good at making connections with others.


    even now, i still recalled how when i told karwenz this, that he looked at me sympathetically for quite a while, and then said...


    ¡°no, it¡¯s just that our future king rnd doesn¡¯t understand others¡¯ hearts at all.¡±


    at that time, i intended on using a ¡°fist of brotherly love¡± to properly teach him what understanding others¡¯ hearts was all about. i then discovered that i wasn¡¯t actually able to beat him in a fight, so i then used the tactic of telling kelly, ¡°karwenz says that he won¡¯t be punished as long as he acts pitiful, and is evenughing about how easy you are to fool.¡± that was my way of teaching karwenz how sly adults could be.


    and so, karwenz really did be pitiful, as he was forced to make up double the number of sses that he missed. kelly and i both watched to make sure that he didn¡¯t cut ss. karwenz didn¡¯t get a single chance to cut ss that entire month.


    however, even now i still recalled what karwenz told me afterwards. this was something that he had only said once.


    ¡°rnd, your way of thinking resembles exquisite gears, filled with wondrous calctions and set mechanisms, treating each person¡¯s limits and efforts as a definite on paper. although it¡¯s all quite logical, it really makes me feel ufortable. as a ruler, calcting so much doesn¡¯t actually have that much meaning. the entire country will be yours in the future. all you need to do is satisfy others at certain times. you¡¯ll have the best food and clothing, and you can order others to do what you want because of their beliefs.¡±


    this was his advice to me as my younger brother. although i listened to his advice and tried to change myself, an adult¡¯s personality really wasn¡¯t that easy to change.


    still, this caused me to change my opinion somewhat regarding karwenz.


    he wasn¡¯t brainless. he was simply toozy to use his brain most of the time. with an older brother to deal with the responsibilities for him, he was more than happy to shamelessly act as a carefree second prince. perhaps acting like such a character was also actually the most peaceful way for the royalty, so that ambitious political schemers wouldn¡¯t be able to find anything to help them make trouble.


    of course, habits would be quite difficult to change. karwenz indeed became rather brainless after not using his brain for quite a long while.


    however, he would often have shes of inspiration at critical moments. he would always see the critical point regarding the situation. sometimes, i would ask for his opinion as well, and make fun of his instinct for being like that of a wild creature¡¯s. yet, he would always respond with the same mysterious sentence.


    ¡°that¡¯s because i understand others¡¯ hearts, but you don¡¯t.¡±


    i would then prank him using various methods without giving him any way to vent, as another lesson to teach him how vicious human hearts could be.


    however, it seemed that i was the one who was on the losing end this time.


    ¡°that damned karwenz, i fell into his trap.¡±


    human nature was about satisfying others¡¯ desires? i felt that was only sophistry. however, karwenz¡¯s really simple scheme that used his understanding of others¡¯ hearts had managed to shake the entire world.


    sophocles was the god of evolution, so he desired evolution. thus, karwenz gave him evolution.


    the god of holy light was nothing more than the source of order¡¯s puppet. thus, karwenz gave him a reason to step into a trap.


    as for me, karwenz had likely identified my weakness already that i wasn¡¯t on guard against those closest to me... perhaps elisa wasn¡¯t even the only candidate he had in mind. perhaps he had previously treated reyne so well all in consideration for today. he then unhesitatingly gave up on reyne simply because elisa had already agreed to cooperate with him.


    my schemes were typically incrediblyplex. i would take advantage of the overall situation and gradually lead my enemy into my trap. my schemes were both hidden and out in the open.


    my personal feelings? that would be meaninglesspared with the overall situation.


    karwenz¡¯s tactics were incredibly simple. all he did was have critical individuals do critical things. just a few things were more than enough to give me such a huge headache.


    perhaps i had been so passive recently because deep in my heart, i was still unable to view him as my mortal enemy.


    karwenz had made ns of critical importance with elisa helping him. since she understood me so well, it was also understandable why i had been forced into such a passive situation.


    karwenz also indeed possessed something that would truly motivate elisa. even though i knew what that was, i was unable to promise her the same thing.


    ¡°what a major investment. having so many demons invade the fire elemental ne was for the sole purpose of luring me into this trap?¡±


    ¡°we both agreed that this would be worth it if it can avoid the worst possible oue.¡±


    elisa continued to fill my winess as she unhesitatingly spoke more words of betrayal. perhaps she had long since expected that this day would arrive.


    i felt even more of a headache now. i was no idiot. since they wanted to restrain me right now, that could only mean one thing ¨C we had all misjudged karwenz¡¯s progress. right now had to be the critical moment for karwenz opening the door to the dimensional barrier!


    it wasn¡¯t like what we surmised at all, that karwenz still needed to gather more chaos girls to create a cynthia to give him the power to open the door.


    karwenz attacked amelia solely to give me the mistaken impression that his preparations were still iplete. just by looking at elisa¡¯s current expression, i knew that he had long sincepleted his preparations.


    this scamming tactic ofbining truth with lies wasn¡¯t karwenz¡¯s typical style. in fact, this looked far more like a typical tactic that i would use.


    i now knew who was the one constantly scheming against me behind the scenes. elisa hadn¡¯t appeared in front of me for so long, which meant that i would keep worrying about her rather than being on guard against her. should i be eximing how elisa had already surpassed me in scheming?


    the winesses were now empty. elisa casually waved her hand and filled her ss again.


    she wanted to pour more wine, but i took back my empty winess.


    ¡°there isn¡¯t much time.¡±


    i sighed as i got up and unsheathed my sword.


    that¡¯s right, there wasn¡¯t much time left. their actions was a message that every minute here would increase the probability of opening the door to the dimensional barrier. even if i had to fight someone so dear to me, i wouldn¡¯t be able to stay here.


    ¡°rnd, i¡¯m only doing this for your own good.¡±


    ¡°i know. i¡¯m really grateful to you.¡±


    i silently brought out my dawn holy light sword. this was my choice.


    the sword hummed slightly, exposing the confusion in my heart. perhaps i had never expected that one day, i would have to draw my sword on the one i always viewed as a daughter that i wanted to protect so much.


    ¡°rnd, you don¡¯t understand others¡¯ hearts.¡±


    elisa¡¯s words were calm. her tears were also calm. however, this time, i was unable to wipe away her tears for her.


    ¡°yes, i truly apologize. perhaps i¡¯ll never be able to understand others¡¯ hearts in my lifetime.¡±

 Chapter 806 - A Northlands With Only Myself

    <strong>Chapter 806: A Nortnds With Only Myself</strong>


    Snowkes kept falling down as snow swiftly umted on the ground. It was as if a naughty child was coloring the entire world white with a crayon.


    I looked nkly at everything before me. My breath was visible in the air. All the mountains spreading out were covered in white.


    The entire world had suddenly be like this the moment that I brought out my sword.


    Endless snow stretched all the way out to the horizon. A frozen waterfall sat above ake of ice. The distant snow mountains seemed like a background, yet they also seemed to be close by.


    ¡°Elisa... Harloys?¡±


    A strange spatial sensation had affected my senses. I was the only one remaining in this quiet world.


    It was so silent and cold. I was really unustomed to such a world with nothing in it.


    I took one step forward. All I heard was crunching snow.


    ¡°Is anyone there!?¡±


    The only response I received was the echoing of my shout within the snow mountains.


    I tried to be on guard against this world, but found myself unable to concentrate on being defensive. My instincts told me that there was no danger here, that I was the only one here, and that this was a safe haven just for me.


    ¡°What type of evil curse is this?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t understand. What type of curse could have instantly trapped me in such a domain?


    Was this a Soul World? No, I hadn¡¯t sensed any magic.


    A teleportation curse? Forcefully teleporting me would almost be impossible.


    Was all of this real? That was even more impossible. I was just in the Fire Elemental ne which had endless mes, and I was facing the current Fire Elemental Goddess. It would be impossible for such a domain of ice to appear.


    Such and of ice and snow wouldn¡¯t be suitable for fire elemental creatures at all. It would be far more suitable for an ice mage like myself...


    ¡°Eh?¡±


    Only now did I discover that I was holding a translucent ice sword rather than my familiar Dawn Holy Light sword.


    This crystal-like longsword had a de which was more than 2.5 meters long, which far surpassedmon sense. Its streamlined body had no decorations on it at all. Its natural curves seemed abnormally beautiful.


    This sword naturally existed without any decorations. Its translucent de seemed as thin as an insect¡¯s wings, making me wonder if it would shatter with the lightest touch. It seemed more like a piece of artwork than a weapon.


    However, the chill emanating from it reminded me that this Nortnds ice magic sword was definitely a vicious weapon.


    Nortnds had no hilt. Its entire body was a de. Without me realizing it, my right hand holding it was now covered in blood. However, the blood transformed into red snowfall before it could even drip onto the ground.


    Blood flowed on the de as an icy chill swirled around it and mysteriously attracted my attention.


    ¡°This is a vicious sword.¡±


    I mysteriously started feeling this. I instinctively knew that this sword desired to take lives, no matter if those lives came from the enemy or the wielder. This sword¡¯s purpose for existing was to take lives.


    I inserted the sword into the ground and helplessly sat down on the snow. I then confusedlyy down as I gazed at the endless snow and white clouds in the sky.


    I finally figured it out after seeing this sword. No strange curse had taken me here at all. It was clearly I myself who brought me here.


    The reason?


    ¡°Ha, so I was nothing more than a coward after all, even though I resolved myself already...¡±


    Would a person truly be able to lie to themselves? I always felt that it was possible as one would believe even lies to be the truth after saying it enough times. However, it seemed that I had lost control this time.


    Perhaps even my Nortnds sword was more honest than I was. It chose a method for me that I couldn¡¯t ept¡ªto run away.


    I had originally thought that my Nortnds ice magic sword would require some more time toplete, since I was still unable to draw the truest Nortnds in my heart. However, it seemed that what Icked before were just some emotions.


    Despair? Pain? Confusion? Resolution? I was uncertain which emotion hadpleted this sword for me, since the Nortnds wouldn¡¯tck any of these emotions. However, I knew that I absolutely wasn¡¯t thankful.


    Escaping from reality was meaningless. Stalling the pain¡¯s arrival would only make waiting for the pain to arrive be a type of torture. What was destined to happen would still happen.


    My power level foundationally increased due to thepletion of this sword. Nortnds¡¯ power was also far stronger than what I had expected. Yet, I wasn¡¯t happy about this at all.


    Why had it made this decision for me right when it was born? Had it detected the anxiety in my heart? Had its abilities gone out of control right after itspletion? Fine, knowing the reason wasn¡¯t all that meaningful...


    ¡°It¡¯s alright now. Let me go outside.¡±


    I never thought that I would one day be talking to my own sword. However, what made me feel the most helpless was that my words were useless.


    ¡°I said, it¡¯s fine now. I¡¯ve already resolved myself. Let me go outside.¡±


    I suppressed a mysterious anger. Was I angry at my sword or at myself for how pathetic I was?


    Time kept passing by, yet this boring scenery didn¡¯t change at all. My frustration changed into a burning anger in my chest.


    ¡°Don¡¯t interfere in my business! You¡¯re just a mere sword! You¡¯re nothing more than a part of me! You can¡¯t make decisions for me! Let me go outside! Your current actions are meaningless.¡±


    Even though I knew that words were useless, a mysterious frustration in me transformed into angry roars that echoed in the snow mountains until everything quietened again.


    I was doing something meaningless in this snow and ice world where only I was present. Finally, my mes of frustration died out as every minute ticked closer to the end of the world.


    Time was being wasted as the end of the world neared. Confusion and fear mixed together in my mind. I had wasted four or five hours here already. My previous angry shouts changed into murmured begging.


    ¡°...I¡¯m begging you, let me go out...¡±


    The next instant, the entire world vanished as I saw my familiar home again rather than those snow mountains.


    Had my Nortnds sword reached its limit? Or was everything toote already?


    However, something about the scene before me seemed unusual. My maid was swinging a hammer around... er, I meant swinging my cat around by its tail. Judging by how energetic Harloys¡¯ shouts were, it seemed like I hadn¡¯t left for all that long!?


    ¡°Rnd, save me! Howe you disappeared for a moment just now? Where did you go?¡±


    ¡°How long did I vanish for?¡±


    ¡°Two or three minutes. Stop wasting time and hurry to save me! Eh? There¡¯s tears of ice on your face. Could it be that...¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s just a mistaken impression! Do you want me to save you or not!¡±


    I swiftly wiped my face. I didn¡¯t even know what to say now. It seemed that Nortnds¡¯ power was far stronger than what I had expected. I was even rather afraid. I also felt regret, but finally I felt relief. At the very least, I hadn¡¯t made a decision that couldn¡¯t be taken back.


    Staying by myself in that world of snow and ice for several hours had helped me to finally calm down after my emotions had undergone so much turmoil there.


    A future with only one possible path? Never. I had always believed that there was no such thing as only a despairing end for the world. Even when in despair, there was still endless hope. It was just that we had yet to grit our teeth hard enough to wait for an opportunity toe, and that we had yet to find the only possible hope.


    ¡°A world of despair? A situation of despair? I¡¯ve experienced far more despairing times than this. Crying isn¡¯t suitable for me at all when facing the world¡¯s end. As long as there¡¯s still a sliver of hope... No, even if it¡¯s an absolute situation of despair, I¡¯ll still create a path of hope!¡±

 Chapter 807 - Enemy Impossible to Defeat

    <h4>Chapter 807: Enemy Impossible to Defeat</h4>


    My impulsiveness and emotions had returned to logical calmness by the time that I returned from my Nortnds sword¡¯s domain.


    ¡°A story where the protagonist is so pitiful and feels like the entire world owes him or being a harem protagonist aren¡¯t suitable for me at all. Even if things are at hell difficulty, my typical style is to think of every method possible to obtain victory in the end.¡±


    But sometimes, after passion faded and you had to confront reality, no matter how much you tried to mentally prepare yourself, reality would always teach you that it was quite cruel.


    Right now, I was seeing the most heartless truth of all...


    ¡°I can¡¯t possibly win. There¡¯s no chance of victory at all...¡±


    Indeed, since my passion was frozen now, I could logically analyze the current situation and determine the most severe problem.


    I had zero chances of victory against Elisa who was right in front of me.


    To me, fighting was apetition in both information and power level. Some would try to win fights by suppressing others with power level, while others would prefer to obtain information and counter the enemy¡¯s fighting style in order to win.


    Without a doubt, I was thetter type.


    I would always gather information before every battle to target my enemy¡¯s weaknesses and aces. I would then win after weakening my enemy. But this time, since I hadn¡¯t prepared at all to fight Elisa, I was highly disadvantaged in information.


    Most of my understanding of Elisa was only about her from 10 years ago. After she demonized herself, she hadn¡¯t wanted to talk about her own abilities, and there had been no need for me to ask about them.


    My information on Elisa waspletely outdated since she was now also a Chaos Girl, Demon Lord, and the Fire Elemental Goddess, which would give her brand-new abilities.


    However, Elisa would know quite well what abilities I had, what I was skilled at, what bad habits I had, what my fighting style was, and what unchangeable weaknesses I had. Most critical of all, I had previously taught her in full detail about my personal understanding ofbat and why I selected my abilities. Not only did Elisa know my abilities, she also knew my fighting style and habits.


    This was really bad. Basically, I had a grade of zero points on prebat preparations and information, while Elisa would have 100 points.


    That wasn¡¯t even the worst of it.


    ¡°I truly can¡¯t see any hope for victory...¡±


    As I previously mentioned, Elisa was stronger than any Main God I had ever seen before. This was no meaningless description at all.


    The current Elisa was the Fire Elemental Goddess and ruler of the Fire Elemental ne, as well as the chosen Cynthia of this generation and lucky survivor from the Chaos Girls. I didn¡¯t know just how many Chaos Girls¡¯ memories and powers she must have absorbed, but just the aura she gave off was far stronger than that of Sophocles, the previous individual I had believed to be the strongest Main God.


    Most shameless of all, that¡¯s right, shameless, was that Elisa was the ruler of the Fire Elemental ne, which meant that she could endlessly replenish her strength through the Elemental Throne. It would be impossible for her to run out of energy. Even if she died, she could swiftly revive herself, unless I managed to directly destroy the Elemental Throne like I had wih Emordilorcan.


    However, I hadn¡¯t made any such preparations beforehand at all. I had no idea where the Elemental Throne was. Since Elisa also knew about the battle against Emordilorcan, she definitely would have hidden the Elemental Throne in a really safe location. It would be impossible to try expect to discover its location anytime soon.


    ¡°I really can¡¯t see any hope of victory...¡±


    I saw no hope of winning in either magic or mana. As for meleebat... when considering a Demon Main God and Elemental God¡¯s abilities in meleebat, I had no chance of winning at all even if I didn¡¯t consider Elisa¡¯s ridiculously strong physical fighting techniques.


    Sweat dripped down my face. The maid before me still remained silent, yet I was unable to find a single opening to attack. That bastard Karwenz had put me in a trap which was absolutely impossible for me to break free from.


    ¡°Master, please consider your actions carefully. Otherwise, perhaps I¡¯ll have to ask you to rest for a few months in the River Styx, which will be preferable to having to truly kill you.¡±


    Elisa even saw through my indestructibility. Just what was I supposed to do?


    Her silent eyes contained faint killing intent which represented her firm resolve. I had yet to resolve myself to kill her, yet she had already prepared for the worst possible oue. I really couldn¡¯t see any chance at victory when also adding on the difference in information and power level between us.


    ¡°Fighting isn¡¯t good for a rtionship. How about we y some chess and guess a riddle instead? You can let me go if I win?¡±


    I tried asking a question that even I wouldn¡¯t believe the answer to. Yet, Elisa smiled.


    ¡°I expected already that you would say that.¡±


    A 3-dimensional chess board and several hundred silver chess pieces and gold chess pieces then appeared before us.


    ¡°Warlock chess set with 500 pieces? Along with alternate dimension boards? Each chess piece is living and represents an entirebat squadron? This is an ultra-rare chess set that¡¯s capable of even acting out world wars? I¡¯ve always wanted to y this... is that really what you thought I would say!? The world would long since have ended already by the time that we finally finish one game!¡±


    From a certain standpoint, I actually felt like my heart was bleeding. Modern day warlock chess sets would only have 100 chess pieces and three continent boards at the most. This warlock chess set that had a multidimensional board was definitely the precious belonging of some powerful individual. However, ying a single game of this would take far more than just one or two days. ying a world war with this would take at least several months.


    ¡°Then let¡¯s guess riddles? I have Hemet Lais¡¯s entire riddle collection here, as well as the nine-circle mages¡¯ examination best questions, and the level four goblin engineer test quesions collection. I¡¯ll ask the first riddle?¡±


    Elisa miraculously managed to bring a dozen books out from her maid dress. Were maid dresses really just dimensional bags which could store anything after all?


    Hemet Lais was a mentally insane mathematician who left behind arge number of mysterious riddles that made math geniuses go crazy inter years. As for my math abilities... have I ever mentioned howw wouldn¡¯t require any calculus? My only confidence in dealing with Hemet¡¯s riddles was that... I absolutely wouldn¡¯t be able to even understand the questions.


    As for the magic examination and goblin engineering examination questions, I had heard of both those tests before. The prior was a required test to be a nine-circle mage, while thetter was a method for goblins to torture any engineers from other species who wanted to learn from them. The goblin engineering exam even had questions like ¡°what are goblins¡¯ favorite food, how many children can a goblin give birth to in her lifetime,¡± and so on. Being able to answer every question correctly had nothing to do with your engineering knowledge or logical thinking. It solely depended on if you were bored enough to learn as much about goblins as you possibly could.


    Most importantly of all, even if I could answer the riddles...


    ¡°Elisa, can you promise to release me if I can answer the riddles?¡±


    ¡°Of course... not.¡±


    Neither of us would be able to guarantee that the other would keep their promise. This was even more so because I had never viewed keeping promises as a virtue, not to mention how I taught this to Elisa as well.


    Once again, I felt how I had shot myself in the foot yet again. The smiling maid sealed every path of retreat possible to me. Even though I clearly held the initiative to start the fight if I wanted, I could instinctively sense that I would definitely be defeated instantly if I attacked.


    As for running away? Where would I run away to? This was the Fire Elemental ne, and Elisa was its ruler. How could I possibly escape?


    Elisa¡¯s power levelpletely suppressed mine. She knew all my information. She had the home terrain advantage. She was even capable of summoning helpers, replenishing her mana, and reviving. I couldn¡¯t find any chance of winning at all.


    ¡°Idiot. You really do have to rely on us in the end at such a critical moment.¡±


    I suddenly paused in surprise at hearing Harloys¡¯ words. Only now did I remember that she seemed to have expected this to ur. Could it be that she had been prepared for this?


    ¡°Us? Who else is there?¡±


    My question was answered in the next instant.


    A seed rapidly sprouted on top of the silly cat¡¯s head. The seed instantly transformed into a rose as tall as a person. A familiar green-haired beauty then emerged from the rose.


    At the same instant, I felt a killing intent that sent chills down my spine. The smiling maid before me finally had true killing intent.

 Chapter 808 - Resistance

    <h4>Chapter 808: Resistance</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    While Rnd was stuck in the Fire Elemental ne, the chaotic domain in the mortal ne was also dealing with a chaotic battle.


    Gods were dying inrge numbers. Angels were as weak as baby chicks in this battle. The chaotic domain was gradually being analyzed. The furious God of Holy Light gradually found his target. The price was that golden divine blood was spilled all over the chaotic domain.


    Just like always, Order and Chaos shed violently yet again.


    Evolution? That wasn¡¯t the focus here. It was rather ironic how previously important individuals died worthlessly in this battle. Of course, maybe certain existences would feel that these deaths were quite worthwhile.


    The chaotic domain was just like an ocean suffering a furious storm. Fatal currents and coral were hidden everywhere. The chaotic space and dimensional cracks were far more fatal than any death trap.


    Normally, the Order angels and Gods would have the power to gradually fix distortions and dimensional cracks. However, theycked time more than anything right now.


    Powerful existences were dying every single second on the battlefield as sacrifices on both sides.


    The Order Gods who died here scattered their divine souls, divine blood, Divine Concepts, and divine power in this distorted chaotic domain, creating a path to attack the door to the dimensional barrier.


    Was this really wasteful? Neither side of the battle would likely think so.


    The in bronze door devoured every sacrifice. The statues of the Goddesses of Chaos and Order were slowly opening their eyes. Their mouths were slightly open as if they were trying to say something.


    The Goddess of Order statue on the right side had a serious expression and wore extravagant clothing. Her long white robe seemed more like a piece of artwork than practical clothing. Her long blonde hair had a blinding golden glow. Her sky-blue eyes shone with wisdom and mercy. The white wings on her back trembled slightly as she sped her hands in prayer. Her eyes were filled with sadness as if she couldn¡¯t bear to see the harsh things happening in the world.


    The Goddess of Chaos statue on the left seemed devilishly beautiful. She had short ck hair, and her glowing pupils were red while her sclera was ck, giving her a rather frightening appearance. Still, the two horns on her forehead made her look naughty and cute rather than vicious.


    Unlike her two-winged older sister, Cynthia only had a single demon wing on her left side. She was wearing shiny red armor rather than any feminine clothing.


    The ancient ssical armor simply protected her weakest points while she held a red long spear, making it seemed like she desired to do battle. Her heroic appearance made her seem more like a War Goddess than the ruler of all demons.


    Cynthia was smiling as if she was delighted to see everything before her. It was as if she was highly satisfied with the abundant sacrifices. Or, perhaps she was delighted with all the fighting to the death before her.


    This was probably the first time that younger individuals had ever seen what the Creator Goddesses looked like before. The two statues were astonishingly simr to what the real Goddesses looked like.


    Still, the people who saw the door probably had no time to enjoy the Goddesses¡¯ beautiful appearance right now.


    In front of thisrge door, Karwenz was wearing heavy armor for once despite the fact that he usually equipped himself quite lightly. He was fully armed since he was about to face the God of Holy Light, who was previously recognized as the strongest existence in the world.


    Even if the God of Holy Light had been weakened repeatedly already, and even if he had lost multiple incarnations, the weakened God of Holy Light was still the strongest Main God in the world.


    He had thousands of years of worship from billions of believers providing him with the power of faith. The God of Holy Light, who had no self-will, had always been recognized as the strongest in the world.


    Karwenz stopped resting as he prepared to meet the Holy Light Faction in battle while he eyed the rising sun.


    Karwenz disyed an excited expression rather than any hesitation or worry as he prepared to fight this theoretically undefeatable powerful enemy. It seemed like he had expected this day since long ago.


    ¡°Let me say first that Karn belongs to me. I want to see the true power level of the previous generation¡¯s child of Chaos.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s words received no response. However, anyone standing next to him would naturally also be at the peak of the world.


    Demons, devils, undead, dragons, humans, evil cultists, and fanatical believers. Karwenz¡¯s army probably had the most random assortment in the world. Their leader¡¯s passion also served to increase their fervor for battle.


    However, not everyone was as happy as Karwenz to see the end of his n.


    Donatis, who typically desired battle more than anyone, seemed rather listless currently. He simply observed everything happen with disinterest. He had aplex expression as he constantly looked at Karwenz. Still, Donatis didn¡¯t really have much choice in the matter, since he was still seriously injured from the previous battle.


    Conservation, the Undead Emperor who was a master of stealing life and heat, who had also brought color to her undead soul, stood all by herself under the door. It seemed like she was researching the two statues, and that she had no intention of participating in this current battle. Her only objective was to take revenge on Rnd... but judging from how confusion kept shing through her eyes, along with her contemtive expression, she was unable to convince herself with this reason.


    Meanwhile, Undead Emperor Shupnus had been injured by the God of Holy Light. Shupnus was now trying his best to reduce his presence.


    Shupnus had entered the mortal ne filled with ambition, but now he had a depressed expression as he crouched in a corner.


    He really regretteding to the mortal ne now. Although he had managed to survive until now, he absolutely wouldn¡¯t have remained here any longer if he had had a choice.


    It was the same for the demons, high-level undead, and devils who had survived until now. Since they were now unable to leave this chaotic domain, their species¡¯ identity determined which side they had to fight for in order to survive the Holy Light Faction¡¯s attack.


    Since the main forces of the Order Faction and Chaos Faction were starting an all-out battle here, the other residents of the mortal ne naturally wouldn¡¯t just sit back and watch.


    Archmages and archdruids weren¡¯t useless at all. They had their own way of knowing things happening in the world. Even though the arrogant Holy Light Faction still remained silent, and didn¡¯t share information or ask for help, the fact that the door to the dimensional barrier was opening was something that was swiftly being transmitted throughout the mortal ne.


    Numerous airships, flying magical beasts, dragons, and so on all organized themselves into squadrons and started flying onto the battlefield, following the path that the Holy Light Faction had opened. The passengers on the airships were also a motley assortment that included humans, elves, beastmen, dragons, undead, mages, goblins, and even incarnations from other God Factions. There were even some Gods who personally came down to participate in battle.


    Since the end of the world was about to arrive, nobody would be able to calmly wait at home to see what would happen¡ªnot even the undying Gods.


    Although the Nature Faction technically didn¡¯t have a ruling God, more than 10 high-ranked Gods had already arrived on various strangely shaped divine beasts of nature.


    The Hell Dragons took action even though they had lost contact with Rnd. The gigantic bone airship among them had the aura of death and Hell. This mega monstrosity of an airship also seemed to contain the aura of Gods.


    The Sea Gods and sea beasts had finally left their personal domain. They were riding on gigantic magical sea creatures and mollusks as they slowly proceeded forward.


    The Cloud Tower was also moving quite slowly. The Cloud Tower had lost almost all of its mainbat mobility in the previous battle, yet it still appeared on the frontlines of battle, although it now had a rather awkward appearance since it was being dragged along by dragons and giant beasts.


    Elemental creatures also appeared in the sky. Wind Elemental Lords and Earth Elemental Lords who always fought each other whenever they met were actually peacefully staying with each other on the same airship.


    These former mortal enemies weren¡¯t the only ones who temporarily made peace with each other. Due to the pressure from the potential destruction of the world, even undead and angels were able to travel together in peace and quiet. Holy Light priests were also chatting amicably with undead mages.


    The wood spirits also sent their air forces. Although the Seven Virtues had all arrived, their Mother Goddess wasn¡¯t here.


    Technically, Amelia was currently fighting for the sake of protecting the world right now, although her situation was slightly different.


    The moment that Amelia arrived, she started by saying, ¡°Oh my, aren¡¯t you the t little girl whocks nutrition and still hasn¡¯t graduated from having a fatherplex? You should give up now. Look at that cat and also look at me. Don¡¯t you understand what Rnd likes by now? It would be impossible even if you weren¡¯t his daughter.¡±


    I was rendered speechless. Was Amelia truly here to help me rather than push me deeper down the pitfall? Why did she start taunting Elisa right away? Stopparing your breasts¡¯ size! Elisa was about to go on a rampage! Also, Harloys, don¡¯t show off your adult figure at such a time!

 Chapter 809 - Friends’ Decision

    <h4>Chapter 809: Friends¡¯ Decision</h4>


    [Rnd, there isn¡¯t much time left. The door is opening.]


    I suddenly heard a warning from my System, who had been really quiet recently.


    She had been quiet ever since Karwenz¡¯s scheme had been exposed. Could it be that she was regretting and doubting what she had done before? But, with my understanding of her, this probably wasn¡¯t it.


    ¡°Are you capable of stopping the door from opening? No matter what, Karwenz should only have Cynthia¡¯s powers...¡±


    [I could have directly closed the door if I was in myplete form. But now, I¡¯m only a wandering soul who doesn¡¯t even have a foundation... I¡¯ll try to slow down everything, but don¡¯t pin too much hope on me.]


    My System then fell silent again.


    But in the faraway chaotic domain, the statue of the Goddess of Order started to slowly close her eyes and fold her arms.


    The door then slowly lost some luster as its opening progress was stalled. However, the adjacent Cynthia statue started glowing bright red as it forcefully emanated more energy to make up for the lost power.


    A faint person could be seen on top of the Cynthia statue. This person was apparently howling in anger.


    ¡°...She actually was capable of interfering!¡±


    At the same time, Elisa received a magic message about what happened. Her expression facing me became even more hostile.


    Elisa had finally lost her patience with me, since I ¡°still didn¡¯t regret things when faced with death¡±, along with Amelia and Harloys who kept taunting her.


    *Boom!*


    The next instant, fist met palm as two beauties angrily red at each other. Elisa and Amelia had begun to fight.


    Strangely, neither of them were trying to use magic. Even though both of them had extremely high energy levels, they actually chose to engage in physical meleebat which seemed like it had no skill involved.


    Even though two beauties were fighting, their battle wasn¡¯t beautiful to watch at all. Vicious gusts which would easily injure or kill any normal person were being whipped up.


    Elisa transformed both her arms into ws. She took the initiative to unleash a torrent of attacks that seemed as vicious as a dragon, a full offense with no defense whatsoever. However, she was actually focusing 30% on offense, 40% on defense, and keeping another 30% power in reserve.


    Elisa was observing her enemy for weaknesses. The moment that Amelia showed a weakness, such as using too much strength and being unable to counter in time, Elisa would instantly use an ultimate technique to strike a fatal blow.


    Did this seem rather familiar?


    Maybe Elisa was far more powerful than me now, but her fighting style and strategy was still intimately connected to mine.


    Meanwhile, Amelia¡¯s fighting style was very... simple and direct.


    She used straight punches, powerful punches, and hook punches. Her punches were incredibly simple, yet there wasn¡¯t even any wind from them. Still, nobody would doubt the fearsome strength that her slender wrists contained.


    Light was distorted wherever her fists passed by. The dimensional space itself was faintly shaking. It seemed that her physical strength was sufficient to tear apart the dimensionalws through simple brute force.


    Unlike how most battles were fought, Elisa and Amelia were experts in both martial arts and magic. Neither of them used a weapon. Both of them had their own personal fighting style that had evolved from the most basic martial arts a mage would learn for self-protection. However, even the strongest martial artist in the mortal ne would instantly be killed when facing either of them.


    The reason for this? Pure power level suppression. Both women were using magic to buff their physical bodies, increasing their speed and strength to an unimaginable extent. No matter how wonderful your techniques were, your reflexes wouldn¡¯t possibly be fast enough. Even if your reflexes were fast enough, you wouldn¡¯t be strong enough, which would still end in total suppression.


    Fighting techniques and sword techniques were still foundationally about utilizing one¡¯s own physical body or a weapon.


    If your ultimate technique that you sacrificed your very life for still couldn¡¯tpare to your opponent¡¯s reflexive flick of a little finger, then even the most amazing technique wouldn¡¯t be able to make up for the physical difference between the two of you.


    Even though Elisa and Amelia were engaging in meleebat, the two of them were still at Main God level. It was just like back when Titan absolutely dominated Donatis in meleebat. As long as one had enough pure power, no fancy martial arts techniques or magic would be needed. Even the fanciest magical inheritance would likely be nothing more than useless fireworks in front of a meteor smashing straight at you.


    ¡°It seems that Elisa hasn¡¯t resolved herself to the extent that she ims.¡±


    I had much to ponder about regarding the fight before me.


    It was quite normal for Amelia to engage in physicalbat. Her primary power was wood-based, so she would have to be an idiot to try andpete in magic against Elisa who was a fire specialist. Amelia¡¯s greatest strength had always been her tremendous strength that she gained from the earth.


    Although Elisa was also quite skilled at fighting techniques, this absolutely wouldn¡¯t be her greatest strength. Elisa¡¯s greatest strength should have been her incredible magic power bestowed upon her by her double identity as a Demon Lord and Fire Elemental Goddess. The fact that Elisa was fighting like this meant that she still cared about this environment.


    Even if Elisa wanted to engage in melee, her true body should have been gigantic, just like any other Main God¡¯s true body. A gigantic body would have far more power. Using her true body to fight would be far stronger than fighting in a small body.


    No matter how amazing a dwarf¡¯s fighting techniques were, the dwarf would never be able to defeat even a young Titan in meleebat.


    I looked all around me and saw familiar streets, familiar houses, and my familiar old home. Not only was this old nostalgia that would tie me down, it seemed that Elisa still wasn¡¯t resolved enough to damage this ce just yet, even if she still hadn¡¯t realized it herself.


    Perhaps Elisa had already resolved herself to destroy everything that she treasured if she had to fight me, but if she had to destroy her own ¡°home¡± while fighting the ¡°outsider¡± Amelia whom she loathed, maybe that was uneptable to her.


    Meanwhile, Amelia was far slyer. She first taunted Elisa, then initiated meleebat, and intentionally used attacks that would affect the surrounding environment. It was evident that Amelia had already seen through Elisa.


    ¡°How underhanded... However, I really like that.¡±


    Although it wasn¡¯t very nice, I would naturally take advantage of any weakness that my opponent revealed.


    Of course, the restriction of not wanting to destroy the ¡°home¡± environment was limited. If too much time passed, Elisa would naturally start abandoning this location and go all out. Still, since it was evident that Elisa couldn¡¯t bring herself to entirely forget her roots, what I needed to do was quite simple.


    ¡°That brat Karwenz truly does understand others¡¯ hearts so well. Having Elisa go to such an extent is all because of her close family rtionship to me... Fine, silly cat, stop staring at me. Love also counts, doesn¡¯t it? In that case, can Elisa truly abandon everything else, including her friendship with others?¡±


    I unhesitatingly tossed out a magical signal firework that exploded in the sky. I originally really hadn¡¯t intended on using these ¡°reinforcements¡±, but perhaps their appearance here now would be more useful than me staying here, even if they only stalled Elisa to give me enough time to leave here.


    I originally thought that it would take them more than half an hour to arrive here after I notified them, but I unexpectedly received an instantaneous response.


    ¡°Ha, you little brat, you finally asked for help. I thought that it would take you a lot longer?¡±


    Little Red suddenly descended. Judging from her expression of enjoying my situation, she had already watched for quite a long while.


    ¡°You only make yourself suffer by wanting face.¡±


    Margaret was quite calm as if she already expected that this situation would arise.


    Since they were here, Adam was naturally here as well, but...


    ¡°What¡¯s with him?¡±


    ¡°The power of me within him is too unstable. It¡¯s too easy for Elisa to discover him, so we made him go to sleep.¡±


    A certain red-haired man was angrily ring from within a block of ice on Little Red¡¯s back.


    Although Margaret said something that seemed reasonable, why did I keep feeling like it was that Adam couldn¡¯t take things anymore and wanted toe out and help me, but was then ambushed by Margaret?


    I originally had them wait as reinforcements to help me rescue Elisa. However, it was evident that they had arrived here before me.


    I was still surpised that they were all so prepared, but then I fell silent and didn¡¯t know how to respond to Margaret¡¯s next words and the silly cat¡¯s expression.


    ¡°Don¡¯t me Harloys or us for not telling you. Since we knew that things woulde to this, we wouldn¡¯t possibly let you face Elisa by yourself. You always appear to be judicious, but you easily be impulsive and ruin everything when ites to such matters. You¡¯re an expert in choosing the most masochistic path. Although I don¡¯t know how you managed to calm yourself down, don¡¯t you agree that the worst would have happened if things had kept developing like they were before?¡±


    Margaret¡¯s exnation was quite reasonable, but right now I was feeling extreme embarrassment. Did this mean that all my sadness and resolution earlier was just a show for my old friends?


    ¡°No, no matter if you kill Elisa and regret it for the rest of your life, or if Elisa kills you and you two be enemies forever, that¡¯s not something any of us want to see. That¡¯s why we interfered. Don¡¯t me us for meddling with your personal affairs. You guys also interfered with Adam¡¯s resolution back then.¡±


    Little Red actually was serious for once. I nowpletely understood. So, my friends had long since guessed... no, were certain what Elisa would do and made preparations against her. I was the only one who hadn¡¯t seen through everything.


    Elisa and Amelia¡¯s fight had imperceptibly stopped. Elisa had a reallyplex expression as she nced all around at Margaret, Little Red, and Adam, until herplex emotions finally transformed into a sigh.


    ¡°Must all of you try to stop me? You guys understand what will happen if I don¡¯t stop Rnd?¡±


    ¡°At most Rnd will die. Ha, everyone¡¯s used to him dying already.¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t really matter. He¡¯s already died more than once.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m already used to seeing self-destructions and so on. He¡¯s really as indestructible as a cockroach.¡±


    Their words really made me angry, despite the fact that my friends were on my side.


    ¡°It¡¯s different this time! He and Karwenz have one soul from the same source...¡± Elisa roared angrily, yet everyone else simply smiled and looked at her.


    Would my friends really not know? It was obvious that they knew already. But just as how Margaret and Rnd had been unable to change Adam¡¯s resolution back in the day, Rnd¡¯s friends were also unable to change his resolution.


    Or, perhaps it should be said that they couldn¡¯t bear trying to change his resolution rather than being unable to change it.


    This wasn¡¯t for anything as nice as saving the world as being more important than personal feelings. They simply knew that it was far more uneptable to allow Rnd to hide from everything and then endlessly regret everything afterwards.


    Compared to the real Hell, a living hell where one constantly wallowed in regret was far scarier.


    Elisa fell silent. She also understood her old friends and seniors¡¯ resolution. However, all she wanted was for the man she loved to survive, even if Rnd endlessly wallowed in pain and regret afterwards, even if Rnd hated her forever.


    Finally, Elisa¡¯s silence was reced by an attack stance. An explosive amount of mes andva erupted, instantly demolishing Rnd¡¯s old home into nothing but rubble. Elisa had expressed her decision without having to say a single word.


    Adam, who had finally been unfrozen, went up first with eyebrows furrowed. Margaret smiled rather abnormally as the light from a space magic spell shed. I was then forcefully teleported away. Thest thing I heard were rather confusing words from Margaret.


    ¡°We¡¯ll stall her for you, so you should go left from your current position for 30 kilometers, where you¡¯ll find a cave with a teleportation portal leading to the farthest northern part of thend. After you reach it, head in the direction of your ¡®home¡¯, and you¡¯ll obtain what you want the most.¡±

 Chapter 810 - Inner Nature

    <h4>Chapter 810: Inner Nature</h4>


    ¡°So I was the only one not in the know since the very beginning...¡±


    Perhaps even Adam, Margaret, and the others had understood things better than I had. However, the problem was how they had learned the key to defeating Karwenz and the secret of my indestructibility.


    Elisa knew these things because Karwenz had told her. But, how did Adam and the others know? Actually, it was easy for me to figure out with just some basic analysis, since very few in this world would know about it.


    ¡°Silly cat...¡±


    ¡°You should be grateful to me, rather than getting angry. ording to your logic, the process doesn¡¯t matter at all as long as the end result is good. What do you think would have happened if I didn¡¯t make these preparations beforehand?¡±


    What would have happened? I would have done my best to kill Elisa, or Elisa would resolve herself to kill me so that I would revive in the River Styx? Both results would likely be uneptable.


    That¡¯s why, I...


    ¡°Harloys, this time, thank you so much.¡±


    Yep, I sincerely thanked Harloys as this was indeed the best possible result.


    *Plop!*


    However, the ck cat fell off my head and looked at me with astonishment and disbelief, as if she was seeing a ghost.


    ¡°Y-y-you... must be Karwenz in disguise!? That cold-blooded, awkward, insane, masochistic, overthinking, lolicon, maid lover, and tsundere Rnd would actually thank someone!?¡±


    My eyebrows were probably bing really distorted. Just what was all this? Was this what the silly cat thought of me?


    ¡°Cough, at any rate, I¡¯m really grateful to you. Even if I¡¯m cold-blooded, awkward, insane, masochistic, overthinking, lolicon, maid lover, and tsundere, I still know how to be thankful. As for what you just said, I won¡¯t hold a grudge about it at all. Yep, I don¡¯t remember any of it. Isn¡¯t it just cold-blooded, awkward, insane, masochistic, overthinking, lolicon, maid lover, tsundere, and cat abuser? Rest assured, I¡¯ve already forgotten it all.¡±


    ¡°You obviously remember it clearly! Wait a moment, howe there¡¯s the addition of cat abuser? What do you intend to do to me!?¡±


    I opened my right hand and released the dead body of an Elemental Lord who resembled a lizard king as the silly cat screamed into my ears.


    The me sea was still chasing after us. Adam had stopped Elisa, but she still summoned countless fire elemental creatures and Elemental Lords to hunt me down. The elemental creatures and Elemental Lords wouldn¡¯t care one bit if they died during the process, as this was amand from the Fire Elemental Goddess.


    ¡°Nortnds.¡±


    I grasped my sword of ice, gathered power, suddenly charged forward, unsheathed my sword, then sheathed my sword again. Even a magma giant with reinforced armor and a powerful body that he was proud of would easily be sliced into tiny shards as if he was butter.


    A domain and ice and snow had already overwritten everything around me. Although my Nortnds ice magic sword didn¡¯t activate its incredibly strange and powerful special effect, just the fact that it was a SemiGod Equipment pure ice magic sword meant that it was the natural counter to all fire elemental creatures.


    In a way, I actually wasn¡¯t very used to my sword. ording to Eich¡¯s standards, my sword with only a de was still technically a sword, but it was far too long for any regr infantry soldier to use properly.


    An overly long de might appear to be cool, but it would easily crash into something unnecessarily. It was quite inconvenient to use due to its length. If I pulled out my sword and then discovered that its point was stuck in the ground, so my opponent startedughing at me... This was just an example, not some personal experience!


    It would be far to foolish for me to fail an attack because my sword was overly long and got stuck in the ground. That was something I absolutely wouldn¡¯t ept.


    Although it was quite fun to attackrge magma giants, fire dragons, and other suchrge magical creatures from a long range, any enemy that got within close range of me would make my overly long sword into a hindrance. Yet, smaller and medium-sized enemies were the mostmon.


    I felt a bit of a headache. I had never practiced with a longsword before. I would probably be able to use one well if I had two weeks to practice, but time was more precious than anything right now.


    Still, I needed the power of ice and snow from my Nortnds sword when facing Fire Elemental Lords.


    ¡°If only it was a bit shorter... eh?¡±


    To my surprise, my magic sword suddenly became much shorter right when I thought this.


    I kicked away a me dwarf that approached me as I thought about the short sword in my hand.


    ¡°It would seem that my magic sword is even better than expected, with additional potential to be discovered. However, I¡¯ll likely require a great deal of practice to get used to it.¡±


    I then smiled as I gazed upon the endless amount of high-level fire elemental creatures before me.


    ¡°...There are so many great living targets for me to practice on! Ikorose, shinsou!¡± [TL note: Bleach reference.]


    My sword suddenly extended and instantly pierced two fire elementals which were more than 30 meters away. As those two fire elementals were returned to being the fire element, I sped my hands together and swung my sword with all my might, clearing all the enemies around me in arge AOE with the extended sword.


    ¡°Ha, this is so fun. What should I try next... how about Senbonzakura? Souten ni zase, hyourinmaru? Forget it, it seems rather difficult, so I¡¯ll develop themter. Let¡¯s just use the most basic technique. Hmph, how dare you block my way, red monster! Take this attack from old Rnd!¡±


    I could sense that the fierce battle behind me was constantly changing location. It was likely that Elisa was constantly moving forward and changing the location of battle to chase after me. But, judging from how Adam and the others still had plenty of magic power, they would be able to hold on for quite a while longer.


    Meanwhile, the enemies I faced weren¡¯t that strong. I ughtered all the fire elemental creatures and Fire Elemental Lords which were hastily summoned here, swiftly transforming them back into the fire element.


    However, I still hesitated when I saw a one-time-use Dimensional Door in the cave that Margaret told me about.


    Margaret had mentioned that this was a Dimensional Door which led to the northernmost part of the mortal ne. If I went there, who knew how long it would take to reach Bardi again? It would likely take almost half a year. Wasting so much time might even be worse than getting trapped by Elisa here.


    If this was Adam and the others¡¯ n to restrict me in their own way...


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you tired from overthinking things so much all the time?¡±


    ¡°I am tired, but there¡¯s no helping it. It¡¯s my fault for being cold-blooded, awkward, insane, masochistic, overthinking, lolicon, maid lover, tsundere, and a cat abuser. I can¡¯t change my inner nature.¡±


    ¡°...You still remember that! I¡¯ve never seen a man who holds grudges to such an extent!¡±


    ¡°Hmph, that¡¯s because you¡¯ve never met Rolo and Baron ckhand.¡±


    ¡°...Don¡¯t try to fool me, I know those are just your alternate ounts! You grudge-bearing...¡±


    I had fun with the silly cat as I prepared for dimensional teleportation.


    ¡°Since there¡¯s no other way, I might as well try it out.¡±


    Although I was saying this, I actually felt that Adam and Margaret wouldn¡¯t do bad by me, just like things were in the past.


    ¡°You¡¯re always so mysteriously trusting of the people next to you. You were just betrayed, so could you please learn from your experience?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no helping it. That¡¯s just my inner nature.¡±


    My words echoed in the cave. Everything became silent as Harloys and I vanished.


    Five minutester, the furious Fire Elemental Goddess melted the entire cave and even the volcano that the cave belonged to into molten magma.

 Chapter 811 - Destination

    <h4>Chapter 811: Destination</h4>


    In this world, it was possible to immediately go from a volcano to a cier.


    Earlier, it was so hot that I needed my personal snow and ice air conditioning, but now it was so cold that I wanted to find a firece.


    I casually killed the snow ogre in my way, clearing my path of obstructions. After half an hour of difficult traveling and climbing, I finally climbed all the way to the peak of this ancient snow mountain where few people had ever trod before. I became the first to counter these ancient mountain peaks... no wait, something was wrong with the style here, as this wasn¡¯t a mountain climbing story!


    The morning sun was gradually rising as I stood on the top of the snow mountain. I looked upon the endless snow-covered ins and the hidden predators concealed in wait... I didn¡¯t know if I shouldugh or cry.


    Even without using any type ofpass, just this fatally frigid temperature meant that this was the farthest north of the continent, a ce where no ordinary life could possibly live. This was close to the northernmost point of all of Eich.


    Normally, if I wanted to go to Bardi immediately, if I headed in Bardi¡¯s direction... even if I swap across the freezing sea in the north, that would only take me back to the Nortnds¡¯ shoreline. It would still take more about six more months to get back to Bardi.


    ¡°We¡¯ll stall her for you, so you should go left from your current position for 30 kilometers, where you¡¯ll find a cave with a teleportation portal leading to the farthest northern part of thend. After you reach it, head in the direction of your ¡®home¡¯, and you¡¯ll obtain what you want the most.¡±


    I naturally wouldn¡¯t believe that Margaret¡¯s vague words were meaningless. Too many secrets existed in this world. There were too many things that couldn¡¯t be stated out loud. The main reason why mages loved to speak in riddles and mysterious ways was actually because there were far too many things that couldn¡¯t be said or exined. It didn¡¯t have anything to do with acting mysterious in order to scam money... fine, that was also part of it, especially for the prophet scammers. I always felt like they would never try to say anything understandable on purpose. It was already a sick habit for them, far more than just a technique for scamming money.


    ¡°The direction of my home?¡±


    If I was to interpret this normally, since my home was the Nortnds, I should naturally head there, which meant I should head south?


    However, that would be far too normal. I absolutely wouldn¡¯t make it to Bardi on time by going that way. Was there some other answer here?


    ¡°Could it be that Margaret wants you to go north? The Nortnds is already considered the farthest north of the world by everyone else. The direction of your home means the direction that the whole world views it.¡±


    This was a rather forced exnation. However, Harloys¡¯ confident tone helped me to figure out that she knew more than she was letting on.


    ¡°Silly cat, do you know something?¡±


    ¡°Meow. Are you trying to talk to a cat?¡±


    Fine then, she was obviously pretending to know nothing. So, it was the type of secret that couldn¡¯t be stated out loud? In that case, it would be correct to go north. What was north of the far north?


    Since I was now certain of the direction, I unhesitatingly opened up my wings, jumped, and then... failed to fly.


    My wings had instantly frozen over due to the frigid temperature here. It would be impossible for a pair of ice cubes to fly, which was why I fell down right after jumping up.


    Luckily, I didn¡¯t have an audience, as that would have made things even more awkward.


    ¡°Ha, are you a penguin? Not knowing how to fly despite having wings? How foolish...¡±


    Fine, I had forgotten that the silly cat was a permanent audience member who would forever make snarkyments at me every chance that she got. However, right now I needed her help to summon mes to melt this ice for me.


    But just as I finished preparing to fly this time, Harloys transformed into her Gold Elf form, seeming like she didn¡¯t intend toe with me.


    ¡°...Eh?¡±


    ¡°You should go by yourself. It¡¯s my fault for doing too much. There¡¯s no meaning in meing along now.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a one-person teleportation portal? Or some sort of teleportation portal that¡¯s impossible to ess after knowing about it?¡±


    ¡°Meow? Are you asking a cat?¡±


    I felt rather helpless about Harloys, who had transformed back into a cat to pretend to know nothing. But in a way, this was actually more confirmation.


    Although I wasn¡¯t sure about Harloys¡¯ reason, I made up my mind since she had decided to stay behind.


    I floated in the air, nced back at her onest time, and then unhesitatingly flew forward.


    Half an hourter, as Harloys continued to wait in the same spot, a dimensional crack appeared as the world of ice and snow was melted by high temperatures emanating from the incarnation of the Fire Elemental Goddess.


    Harloys had a smile that said she expected all this as she looked at the Fire Elemental Goddess¡¯s incarnation in the sky.


    ¡°They were only able to stall you for this amount of time? Or, should I say that your true body is still being stalled, so it¡¯s only an incarnation that arrived?¡±


    The mes formed into a human shape which revealed that the pretty Fire Elemental Goddess was currently angered to the point where her veins were noticeably bulging.


    Additionally, it was quite evident that this was only an incarnation, as her transformation was unable to quite finish properly.


    It would be impossible to kill an existence of Elisa¡¯s level unless their true body was killed. It was basically instinct already for such existences to use astral projections, incarnations, or other such methods to move around in the mortal ne.


    All that was required for an astral projection was time, divine power, and to calcte the coordinates to send it to.


    However, an incarnation¡¯sbat strength couldn¡¯t be underestimated. Since the Holy War had lifted the restrictions on incarnations¡¯ upper limits, it would even be possible for an incarnation to be stronger than the true body as long as the God invested sufficient divine power. The current Elisa was already unimaginably strong. She hadn¡¯t skimped at all when constructing her incarnation, so no ordinary person would be able to deal with it.


    Just her existence alone was capable of changing the world. Ice and snow were forcibly melted as the ice fairies in the area were exiled. A domain of fire and magma appeared in this ce where they never should have belonged.


    The entire world was being rewritten at the same time while the ice and snow were being exiled by fire.


    Numerous library shelves started appearing as the frozennd covered in snow was instantly reced by luxurious purple crystal flooring. A gloriousrge library reced thend of ice and snow, while Harloys wore gold-rimmed eyesses, clutched a purple staff, and held onto a thick pile of books as she appeared in this library.


    ¡°Now then, Little Elisa, allow me to y a little while with you.¡±


    This sentence ignited the battle as the incarnation erupted in mes, transforming this ce into an inferno.


    As fire magic erupted in the far north, I finally reached the northernmost part of Eich.


    The endless ice tundra had created the edge of the world. The endless void was just one step in front. I could faintly sense that this location was perhaps even more appropriate than Bardi for building the door to the dimensional barrier.


    ¡°This is the end of the world. There is no path forward. But, in praise of the brave travelers whose courage and sacrifices brought them here, as well as praise for your fearlessness in not turning back, anyone who reaches this location may carve their names and the ce they want to go on this sign. I shall use my powers over Creation itself to instantly teleport you anywhere that you wish to go.¡±


    I saw that Adam and Margaret¡¯s names were at the end of the list. I now understood why they had wanted me toe here without exining things clearly to me.


    The moment that I saw this gigantic sign, my own instinct told me what this was.


    This was a surprise Easter egg left behind by Creator Goddess Eich for all her children. After using this sign to teleport and leave this location, it would be forbidden to tell anyone else about what was really here.


    It would be allowed to invite others toe seek adventure here, but it was forbidden to tell them what the surprise here was. It would be impossible to read this sign if one was informed of what was here beforehand.


    Anyone who learned of this beforehand would be considered a cheater who didn¡¯t want Creator Goddess Eich to have her fun, so such cheaters would lose the right to use this one-time-only teleportation portal to anywhere they wanted to go in the Eich universe.


    I counted as someone who hade here on an adventure by invitation without knowing what was really here.


    [Mother! This is something that Mother left behind!]


    My System kept shrieking in surprise in my mind. This was the first time I had ever seen Astrya losing control of her emotions like this. I had no idea how to console her after her shrieks turned into crying.


    Still, this current situation provided more evidence for other things as well.


    ¡°Since even the System doesn¡¯t know about what¡¯s here, then Cynthia wouldn¡¯t possibly know, either. Since Cynthia doesn¡¯t know, then Karwenz... and Elisa wouldn¡¯t possibly know of this ce.¡±


    Time was precious. I originally wanted to say ¡°Take me to the chaotic domain in Bardi¡±, but then I thought about how this teleportation possessed the power of Creator Goddess Eich herself, an almost absolute creator right simr to the developer of a video game. This was a one-time-only chance, so I felt that it would be wasteful to use it so simply.


    ¡°Perhaps I can reconsider my destination. Maybe there¡¯s some wordy that I can do regarding my destination...¡±


    This was a divine power teleportation that would be activated upon making a wish. In that case, the wording of the wish would be critically important. Of course, nothing was wrong with saying a specific destination, but I felt that I had a better choice...


    I knew that I didn¡¯t have much time left when I felt magic power on the level of a volcanic eruption washing over the entire world behind me.


    I took a deep breath and spoke my intended destination out loud. I would gamble my life or death on this.


    ¡°I, Rnd Mist, wish to go to... the ce that Karwenz wants to see me the least!¡±

 Chapter 812 - Misunderstanding

    Chapter 812: Misunderstanding


    Wish magic was a high-level type of magic that only archmages and powerful existences could use. However, wish magic wasn¡¯t actually that rare at all in this world. Wish magic would often appear in stories, ys, myths, and so on... but wish magic would always be on the evil side, or end in a bad result.


    Anyone who truly understood wish magic would never think about trying to rely on it.


    A wish could be real? Haha, if something so wonderful really was true, then mages would have long since conquered the world already. Anyone who had used wish magic before would likely arrive at an identical conclusion ¨C that they absolutely didn¡¯t want to ever use wish magic again.


    The main reason for this was because the great majority of wish magic spells followed the principle of equivalent exchange. The more that you paid, the more you could obtain.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be greedy.¡±


    This was the experience of those who had seeded in using wish magic. This was also why story protagonists would always win in the end. Powerful antagonists who used wish magic would always meet their doom due to their greed. The strange creatures, God Equipment, lords of alternate dimensions, and so on would always use strange methods to fulfill a person¡¯s wish.


    Stories always stemmed from reality. ording to my knowledge, most wishes that appeared in stories were based on real incidents.


    You wished for eternal life? You would be transformed into a statue and thrown into the endless void. This was indeed a form of eternal life.


    You wished for tremendous power? You would instantly obtain power sufficient to destroy a, and then you would immediately die as your body was unable to handle such power.


    You wished to be a God? You would instantly bebined with the divine corpses amongst the stars, or the same method as the previous would be used, and you would instantly die after ascending to Godhood due to your body being unable to handle divine power.


    You wished for a harem of beautiful women to always be by your side? The unfortunate mercenary king who made this wish in history had a permanent illusion spell cast upon him. After that, he saw all men as various beautiful women... in a way, this was a truly pitiful result, but the mercenary king who made this wish was highly satisfied. He even did end up creating a tremendous ¡°harem¡±, but when trying to imagine what hellish scenes that must have involved... ahem, it would be better to not pursue this topic.


    Wish magic wasn¡¯t something that could solve all your problems. Wish magic was simply a system that used a mysterious exchange to achieve your objective.


    Some people would say that the Gods were the ones who granted wishes. However, there wasn¡¯t a single God with the Divine Concept of Wishes. Most mages believed that the world¡¯s natural dimensionalws wouldplete the exchange in wish magic.


    In a way, wish magic was a type of trade that would definitely ¡°seed¡±. Of course, that would also be determined by how you defined sess. If you intended to obtain a mountain of gold in exchange for paying a mere fifty cents, then you wouldn¡¯t be able to me your death on the wish magic for twisting your meaning when you were buried and suffocated under a literal mountain of gold.


    No matter how wonderfully worded your wish was, the principle of equivalent exchange was impossible to change in wish magic. Even the most expert haggler wouldn¡¯t possibly manage to have a store owner sell a product for less than the base price to create the product. This would only be possible through scamming or robbery.


    However, there was no target to rob in wish magic.


    Those who seeded with wish magic would spend a certain amount of mana toplete something they could have done themselves, which meant that this was definitely a losing exchange to begin with.


    However, this didn¡¯t mean that wish magic was meaningless. I knew that archmage Lain was someone who truly knew how to utilize wish magic. His way of using wish magic really gave me much to think about.


    ¡°I wish for a bottle of ¡¯62 Sosi red wine.¡±


    ¡°I wish for my home to be clean.¡±


    ¡°I wish that my apple tree sprout will grow into arge tree and bear fruit in a single day.¡±


    He didn¡¯t use wish magic as something to try and reach the peak instantly or to achieve a distant goal. Instead, he used it as a tool to make life more convenient. He didn¡¯t view wish magic as being different from any other type of magic.


    ¡°I will only wish for things that I¡¯m personally capable of achieving.¡±


    Asking for a wish that was reasonable, losing only a little in the exchange, and paying a small price for the convenience. This was the correct method to make an exchange with the world.


    I could sense a power simr to wish magic on this sign located at the edge of the world. This sign was directly connected with the source of the world, making use of Creator Goddess Eich¡¯s power, so the world itself would pay the price for this wish, rather than the person making the wish.


    It could be said that this wishing sign teleportation portal¡¯s existence was even more precious than its power. If I could sessfully research the secrets of Creator Goddess Eich, even if only by a little, this would be a great advance in magical civilization. Unfortunately, I had no time to perform research right now at all. I could also faintly sense that once I left this ce, it would be impossible for me to arrive here ever again.


    The ¡°wish spell¡± cast upon this sign limited the type of wish that could be granted here, which made it really difficult to distort the wish with wordy.


    Since this wish spell was something that Creator Goddess Eich left behind as a gift to her children, I didn¡¯t need to worry that the wish would be granted in the worst way possible. In that case, I might as well take a gamble.


    ¡°I, Rnd Mist, wish to go to... the ce that Karwenz wants to see me the least!¡±


    If this wish wasn¡¯t grantable, then I would simply change to a more specific wish regarding my destination.


    If my wish was granted, then I would likely be teleported to the chaotic domain in Bardi regardless. However, if my wish was granted but I wasn¡¯t teleported there, then I would really look forward to where I went.


    ¡°I¡¯ve reallycked the ability to take the initiative recently due to all of Karwenz¡¯s preparations. I¡¯ve only been able to passively react. Even if I go to the chaotic domain in Bardi, is that really his greatest weak spot? I doubt it.¡±


    This was an opportunity to finally overtake Karwenz in initiative. Of course I wouldn¡¯t pass this by.


    I received no response when I spoke my wish. Just as I was hesitating if I should change to a different wish, the world in front of me suddenly changed.


    ¡°So this is the power of Creator Goddess Eich? I didn¡¯t feel anything at all...¡±


    I hesitatingly looked in front of me. A group of busily working tiny demons stared at me in astonishment since I had suddenly appeared. They were so surprised that some of them even dropped what they were holding. However, they then started panicking right away when they saw my face.


    *Crack crack crack!*


    A whip descended from above and scattered the tiny demons.


    The next instant, a high-level subus descended before me and kneeled on one knee.


    ¡°Milord, you have returned.¡±


    I was surprised for a moment, but then I instantly realized what was going on.


    This subus probably thought that I was Karwenz. It wasmon for Karwenz to go around in a human form that didn¡¯t expose his true strength. Anyone who didn¡¯t know us well definitely wouldn¡¯t be able to differentiate between us.


    I looked all around me. This ce appeared to be some sort of pitch-ck cave. Demons and humans were working busily here, seeming like they were building something.


    Many others also looked at me as I looked over everything.


    The next instant, I unhesitatingly changed into my Original Sin Demon form and enveloped myself in the power of the Chaos Abyss. The power of Chaos started emanating from my body. The subus in front of me seemed to tremble in fear as she sensed this.


    ¡°...Who are you? How is the work that I gave you going?¡±


    I was the one who immediately asked a question, rather than the subus overseer here.


    My tone was quite calm, but I didn¡¯t even try to hide the indifference and arrogance in my tone. I was doing my best to imitate Karwenz¡¯s manner of speech, gambling that this subus didn¡¯t know Karwenz that well at all.


    This subus was a mere high-level subus, of which there would be several hundred thousand or even several million in the Chaos Abyss. Even if she had seen a Chaos Main God before, she would only be able to see him from a far distance. Being able to recognize Karwenz would likely depend on having seen a drawing of him before.


    Since she already mistook me for Karwenz, then this tactic of mine was highly likely to seed.


    ¡°Venerated lord, I am the second level overseer, Tina. We have been working day and night here, and Lord Didina personally whipped 37zy bastards to death, but... but that grand mission is far too difficult, so we still need a little more time.¡±


    The subus kneeled and trembled in fear with her head lowered, as if she didn¡¯t even dare to look directly at me. It seemed she was afraid that the work here hadn¡¯t progressed well enough, so that I would casually tear her to pieces in displeasure.


    However, I smiled at the subus Tina before me. Although I figured that I wouldn¡¯t be able to keep up this ruse for long, I would never pass up on a free tour guide and information.


    ¡°Don¡¯t notify the others. I¡¯m here to secretly check on the progress to see if anyone dares to ck off. Lead the way for me and show me the ¡®results¡¯ of your hard work. If I¡¯m not satisfied... heh heh.¡±


    Tina just stood up but then almost fell over again, because she felt that the ¡°heh heh¡± uttered in a strange tone just now sounded like the worst tortures possible were waiting for her.


    For a subus of her level, even if a Chaos Main God wasn¡¯t directly angry at her, even some vented rage would easily kill her many times over.


    Demon Main Gods were never reasonable, because they didn¡¯t need to be.


    There were countless incidents in the past where subi had been torn apart by angry Demon Main Gods. Tina almost crawled as she scampered forward, but she didn¡¯t realize that the ¡°venerated lord¡± following behind her was now smiling teasingly.


    ¡°Now then, allow me to see just what else Karwenz is hiding here.¡±

 Chapter 813 - Bottom of the Chaos Abyss

    <h4>Chapter 813: Bottom of the Chaos Abyss</h4>


    The subus before me walked very slowly. Judging from how her body constantly trembled, she had been really scared by me. She also kept sneaking nces back at me as if she had already noticed my dissatisfaction.


    ¡°It seems that it¡¯s true how subi have the talent to naturally understand others¡¯ intentions as good or evil?¡±


    The subus Tina kept trembling in fear. She would instantly start shaking all over whenever I as much as looked in her direction. It felt like she would try and escape at any moment, but also that she didn¡¯t dare to run.


    Tina wasn¡¯t wrong at all to be afraid of my intentions. The extreme situation the world was in called for extreme measures. It would be foolish to even think about talking with demons about human rights. From the very start, various ¡°ideas¡± had been shing through my mind.


    I really wanted to use the most direct method of finding a dark corner and using soul-searching magic to immediately obtain all of the subus Tina¡¯s memories. That would be the fastest and most direct way, but we were on a main path, and far too much attention was on us.


    This was likely the enemy¡¯s main base. If I was exposed here... Well, it would be better to use a gentler and more indirect method.


    I had far too little information. The more I said, the more likely I would be to make a mistake. It would be best to obtain as much information as I could.


    ¡°Report to me on thetest progress.¡±


    This sounded simple, but was actually the most appropriate sentence for the current scenario. A boss wouldn¡¯t need to exin anything when asking for a subordinate to report on the progress of work.


    However, it all ended up being useless.


    ¡°We really aren¡¯t cking off, we haven¡¯t cked off at all! The recent progress... progress, two Berserker Demons just joined my small team, they¡¯re really strong, and work really hard, but they¡¯re a little stinky, so could we please send them somewhere else...¡±


    Tina kept stuttering as she said various useless things. She seemed to notice that I was bing more dissatisfied as she talked, so her voice got smaller and smaller.


    This wasn¡¯t because she had noticed anything or was trying to conceal information. It was simply that she knew far too little due to her insufficient rank.


    A small team leader would have to do anything that her bosses requested of her. She would only know a little. The overly minor details would be meaningless to me. I didn¡¯t know whether tough or cry as Tina kept reporting to me on how poor her team¡¯s food was and how idiotic her teammates were.


    I patiently listened to her for quite a while. All I learned was that they were building something.


    ¡®Where is this ce? Just what are all of you so busy working on?¡¯


    I really wanted to ask that out loud, but I could sense that there was much attention upon us. If I really asked that out loud, then I would likely have to fight my way out of here.


    I did my best to remain patient as I continued listening to Tina¡¯s ¡°report¡±. However, she was already beginning to cry a little, probably because my expression was bing ever darker. But I still didn¡¯t tell her to stop, which meant that she kept trying her best to tell me more.


    ¡°...I was previously a barmaid in the Capital of Rage, the 162th level of the Chaos Abyss, but I never expected that I would one day be here at the original source of all demons...¡±


    My eyes lit up as I finally heard something highly useful.


    ¡®The original source of all demons? So I¡¯m currently in the Chaos Abyss?¡¯


    I checked my memories and found only one possible location that fitted this description.


    I was at the deepest part of the Chaos Abyss, where Cynthia¡¯s physical body was in hibernation!


    We then turned a corner. I instantly understood when I saw the gigantic construct before me.


    This was a pitch-ck wall that was so tall and wide that the top and edges couldn¡¯t be seen.


    Countless demons were busy at work under this wall, seemingly constructing something.


    The door in the middle of the wall was gradually opening. I also saw to my ¡°surprise and delight¡± that a few old acquaintances were here, looking at the wall.


    The subus Didina, who was also previously the Gold Elf Emperor Abr and Harloys¡¯ father in her past life, was issuingmands to the busy demonborers at the wall. Meanwhile, Ilmisya, the former Lord of Temptation of the devils, was resting on the sidelines.


    I wouldn¡¯t be so surprised if it was only them, but I also saw another old acquaintance¡ªLeona who had been missing for quite a while.


    Currently, Leona the Chaos Girl didn¡¯t seem like she was in a pleasant situation. She was chained to the pitch-ck wall while a powerful demon carved magical runes next to her body. The strange posture she was tied in made her seem like a living sacrifice.


    Leona should have only been a few months pregnant, but currently her belly was bulging to the point where it seemed like she might give birth at any moment.


    It seemed that Leona sensed me as she looked over in my direction and opened her mouth slightly, yet she was unable to say anything.


    I had no time to respond regardless, as the moment that I discovered the plot here, the plot¡¯s schemers naturally noticed me as well.


    ¡°Capture him! That¡¯s Rnd! He¡¯s not Master!¡±


    I didn¡¯t know which demon first shouted that out loud, but Didina and Ilmisya instantly looked in my direction with surprise and even more unconcealed killing intent. I then knew that it would be impossible for any type of verbalmunication to work here.


    ¡°Y-y-you¡¯re not His Majesty Karwenz! There¡¯s an intruder! Guards!¡±


    Tina, who had brought me all the way here, finally realized what was going on as she summoned the demon guards, while I became even more amused by all this.


    ¡°I never said that I was Karwenz. I¡¯m Karwenz¡¯s older brother, yep, which means I¡¯m not an outsider. Right, thank you for showing me the way.¡±


    Tina paused in surprise. ¡°No need for thanks,¡± she even replied in a rather foolish manner. I smiled and shook my head after seeing how silly and cute she was. Such a silly subus was quite rare to see, which made me even want to spare her life.


    ¡°Tina! How dare you betray me! You dared to bring Rnd here!¡±


    But currently, Didina had likely lost her sense of reason already as she was shouting hysterically from the ck wall.


    The unfortunate Tina saw her boss¡¯s boss¡¯s boss with such an expression of hysterical rage, so Tina instantly made an expression of despair as if the world was ending.


    The little subus in front of me looked at me quite pitifully, wanting to hate me but not daring to, which only made me even more amused. What type of subus was this? She really didn¡¯t seem like a proper subus at all.


    I still wanted to chat a little, yet the demons had already surrounded me. I would doubtlessly have to fight and kill my way out.


    I would have to fight Didina, a top-level subus, and Ilmisya, a Devil Lord? And maybe a few dozen Demon Lords? Several thousand mid and high-level demons? That was nothing.


    It seemed that there really was something highly important here, which instantly improved my mood vastly.


    ¡°I¡¯m thankful to Creator Goddess Eich. It seems that we really were able to overtake Karwenz here. Now then, let me see just what else Karwenz is hiding.¡±

 Chapter 814 - Two Doors

    <h4>Chapter 814 Two Doors</h4>


    In a way, much of Karwenz¡¯s scheme had been exposed once I saw what was happening here.¡°A plot with one real and one false strategy? Layered preparations?¡±


    The demons before me were currently constructing a gigantic statue just like two Creator Goddess statues on the frontlines that I had read about in the reports. This was an altar identical to the door on the frontlines.


    Chills went down my spine as I started feeling instinctive fear. If my guess was correct, the most likely exnation for this was that this ce was another door to the dimensional barrier that was currently being activated!


    ¡°...This really is such a familiar tactic...¡±


    My muttering didn¡¯t receive anyment in response. It really did feel weird not to have the silly cat around.


    [Isn¡¯t this the tactic that you¡¯re most skilled at? ounting for the possibility of a loss before the battle even starts so that you always win in the end no matter how your enemy responds.]


    ¡°...Thank you for acting as a temporarymentator.¡±


    I nodded to Astrya as I slowly unsheathed my sword. The demons were beginning to surround me already.


    Many schemes were now revealed to me. This Dimensional Door being constructed at the bottom of the Chaos Abyss was evidently a real one that could also be activated. In that case, even if Karwenz lost the battle in the chaotic domain, he would still win in the end as long as this Dimensional Door here could be activated sessfully.


    He had twoyers of insurance from investing in two sides. On the surface, he had the chaotic domain that everyone in the world knew about, making it seem like the core of his scheme. However, that was actually nothing more than bait. No matter how the Order Faction responded, the door to the dimensional barrier would still be opened in the end.


    As for how he could meet the conditions for opening the door? He should have long since been prepared since he had done so much already.


    However, people could never ount for the machinations of the heavens. Someone who wanted to destroy the world would always be defeated by a harem protagonist... erm, I meant that the world destroyer would always meet with unexpected obstacles and problems. Perhaps this was the world of Eich itself borrowing my hand to stop him.


    [No, you¡¯re overthinking it. This is a pure coincidence. It would have been impossible for you to reach this location without that wish of yours. It would be impossible for anyone to arrive here by normal means.]


    I casually killed an Inferno Demon that blocked my path as I unhesitatingly made my way towards the door to the dimensional barrier. No matter what, there would be no mistake in first destroying this door. The longer I took, the stronger the enemy¡¯s reinforcements would be.


    However, my sword was immediately blocked by an umbre sword.


    ¡°Eh?¡±


    I hesitated as I was now facing Ilmisya, thest Devil Lord.


    Ironically, the other eight Devil Lords had either died or betrayed the devil species, so now the wanted traitor Ilmisya was the final remaining Devil Lord who was still a pure devil.


    The famous beautiful queen was three meters tall. She had a perfect curvy devil figure that was doubtlessly alluring. Her clean face seemed as pure as an angel¡¯s. She was the perfect living example of having an angelic face and devilish figure.


    However, her typical smile waspletely gone. Currently, Ilmisya¡¯s expression was filled with killing intent as she waved her sword like a flower and created many afterimages. It seemed that she was rather skilled.


    I couldn¡¯t help but recall the unfortunate Lasnina, Lord of Curses. She had been outstanding in swordsmanship, and it appeared that Lasnina and Ilmisya were lovers in the past... Ahem, just judging by Ilmisya today, she waspletely different from rumors about her.


    I could also faintly sense her resolution from her angry re¡ªshe wanted to stop me here no matter the cost, even if she had to pay with her life.


    I rubbed my head as I was getting a headache. It wasn¡¯t that her power level was enough to intimidate me. I had directly and indirectly killed several Devil Lords already, and Ilmisya was far from the strongest among them.


    But, no matter what, she was Karwenz¡¯s woman, which was something that shouldn¡¯t have stopped me.


    Yet, back in the day at Hell, Elisa had also stopped Karwenz for me by blocking his way. Judging from the situation afterwards, Karwenz had indeed held back against Elisa. If I killed Ilmisya now, that would make it seem...


    [Are you the type to go easy on women? Or do you think that you¡¯ll owe a debt? This isn¡¯t your style at all. You need to think about what it means if Karwenz seeds¡ª]


    ¡°Hey, at least let me hesitate for one second so I can appear humane.¡±


    [...]


    I rudely interrupted the System¡¯s nagging as magic entwined around my sword. I closed my eyes and reopened them to reveal unconcealed killing intent.


    I wasn¡¯t going to say or think anything unnecessary. No matter what the reason or what emotions there might be, I had no reason at all to hesitate here.


    ¡°Awaken, light of Dawn.¡±


    The entire world was illuminated, signifying the beginning of ughter. The light clearly illuminated all the demons¡¯ expressions of anger and fear.


    ¡°Ilmisya, I will seriously hold back. You better not die.¡±


    As all of that urred in the shadows, the chaotic domain was also embroiled in tumultuous events.


    Countless Order Gods that could typically only be seen as statues in temples had descended to the mortal ne. These Order Gods roared, charged, and ughtered on the battlefield before being ughtered themselves.


    The will of Chaos forced countless Demon Lords to enter battle. Some felt helpless, while others were excited to do battle.


    These Demon Lords suffered the same fate as their enemies. In fact, some suffered even worse fates as it was impossible for anyone to stop the furious God of Holy Light. Nobody even tried to stop him.


    Not a single person would have any free time here, as there would always be someone to act as your opponent.


    This Holy War between Order and Chaos was forcefully acted out in this tiny location. Venerated Gods and evil demon kings were the same here as both could only ughter in order to try and survive.


    Nature Gods fought against Gods of Poison and Corrosion, while dragons fought against Inferno Dragons. The ancient Snake God was in by the Dwarven Gods. Even Chaos Evil Gods that people feared so much were nothing more than cannon fodder on this battlefield.


    The battle that attracted the most attention was probably the battle between Donatis and the God of Holy Light.


    There was nothing but a vacuum where their battle was. No vision could possibly see through this ce. Senses were equally useless. All that people outside could sense was that there was a faint tremendous figure being burned by light.


    The Undead Emperors were also fighting here. Sandro felt quite conflicted inside as he looked at Conservation, who had a look of utter hatred.


    The Tark Republked strength to begin with, yet the undead had to fight against the undead. Sandro wouldn¡¯t possibly be happy about that. Still, he resolved himself after he thought about the new Tark Republic being constructed in the far north as well as the Nortnds where the undead and living coexisted peacefully.


    ¡°Do your best to breathe now while you still can as this will be your final chance. Everything shall return to dust.¡±


    Sandro tossed aside his flesh as if he was taking off a jacket. Undead Emperor Sandro became a tan tornado that sucked in the surrounding air and instantly expanded.


    Anyone that this tornado touched would instantly decay into a corpse, no matter if they were living or dead. It was just that the undead decayed even faster, at a frightening speed.


    At the same time, Conservation opened her own personal domain, creating a world of snow and ice.


    Meanwhile, the other Undead Emperor, Undead General, was furiously ughtering on the battlefield with a magic sword that wasn¡¯t his usual bone greatsword.


    This ck short sword appeared rather insignificant. The de didn¡¯t even appear that sharp. However, anyone who came into contact with this sword would instantly die, no matter if they were a Chaos God or demon. Even the Order True Gods and angels were trying to avoid the Undead General.


    This magic sword was currently devouring all the souls on the battlefield and growing at a furious rate.


    Right now, even the Undead General was beginning to fear the power of this sword. He could faintly sense that this magic sword was also devouring his own soul.


    Yet, he didn¡¯t dare to throw away this magic sword, as this sword was also part of the deal he made, and something that Rnd had personally told him was critically important.


    ¡°Junior, you¡¯re going to use countless Gods and demons as sacrifices to this sword to reach the peak of all undead again. You¡¯re far more amazing than any senior that I know.¡±

 Chapter 815 - Sacrifices

    <h4>Chapter 815: Sacrifices</h4>


    ¡°Um, actually, I have a private matter to request your help with.¡±


    A few days ago, Rnd had said this to Sandro after they made their secret agreement at the Cloud Tower.


    ¡°Actually, I have a death magic sword that requires absorbing both the souls of the living and the dead in order toplete its evolution. The battlefield at the chaotic domain will likely be the best meat grinder of all, as well as thest chance for me toplete my magic sword. But, as you know, my status is rather special...¡±


    Some things didn¡¯t need to be saidpletely.


    Sandro understood already. Rnd had many identities, such as being the prince of the Nortnds, the representative of the Hell Faction, and so on. But in the entire mortal ne, his most important identity and most epted one would be...


    ¡°The sessor of Estrada, the Strongest Holy Knight in the world.¡±


    Perhaps being the representative of the Hell Faction would be plenty for the highest-level existences, and perhaps the kings and nobles of the various countries would feel that the Mist Alliance was incredibly powerful, but most ordinary citizens in the world likely wouldn¡¯t truly understand what such status represented.


    Most ordinary people wouldn¡¯t care about Hell (what¡¯s that? Never heard of it), or the prince of the Nortnds (is that the royalty of some rural countryside?), but all of them would understand the reliability and power of being the Strongest Holy Knight.


    Rnd also had another important identity which had hidden importance.


    ¡°Rnd is the creator of the Southern Sect, and the discoverer of pure Holy Light.¡±


    In a way, Rnd and the Southern Sect were analogous to Jesus and Christianity or Buddha and Buddhism. Of course, the return of the original sect founder would be a disaster for the current leaders of any church, so Rnd and the Southern Sect both voluntarily forgot about this rtionship.


    However, some things couldn¡¯t possibly be eliminated. Just as how Karn was the one who brought Holy Light to this world, Rnd¡¯s achievement of discovering pure Holy Light was destined to be recorded in history.


    Originally, Rnd didn¡¯t care about such a thing at all, as he didn¡¯t care about reputation. However, some things couldn¡¯t be decided by him alone.


    Without regards to who won the final Holy War, if everything was sessful and Karwenz and the Chaos Faction were eliminated as threats, then the Holy Light Faction and the Hell Faction would definitely have ¡°much interaction¡± with each other afterwards.


    The Holy Church¡¯s biggest source of support was naturally themon belief in the Holy Light that most of humanity worshipped. Shaking the Holy Church¡¯s authority would naturally require shaking belief in the Holy Light.


    At that time, the fissure between the Southern Sect and the Holy Church would naturally be the most important breakthrough point.


    The Hell Faction would naturally support the Southern Sect, and fight against the Holy Church to the end.


    In that case, Rnd, the forgotten discoverer of pure Holy Light, would naturally be pushed to the forefront and be a hot topic of discussion.


    From ancient times to the present, the easiest and most practical way to smear a religious faction would be proving that the religion¡¯s founder was someone immoral who was a scammer, bastard, and scumbag. That would naturally make their religion a joke.


    This was amon tactic even in the modern day.


    The Holy Church was obviously an expert at starting religious conflicts and religious nder.


    It really was rather ironic. Victory hadn¡¯t been achieved yet, but these two factions which were allied on the surface were already scheming on how to stab each other in the back.


    Still, humans were already ustomed to endless internal conflict while fighting united against outside enemies for the past thousands of years already.


    Rnd was a critical individual in the Hell Faction and Southern Sect. His status was incredibly important. If his reputation was besmirched, then it wouldn¡¯t only be his personal reputation that would suffer. The entire Southern Sect¡¯s properness and legality as a religion would be called into question.


    Some things would be privately known to everyone while they all pretended not to know. However, far more people would be hurt if certain truths were brought to light.


    For instance, the Holy Church knew quite clearly that Rnd was Undead Emperor Yongye, but the Holy Church would never say anything about this to try and nder Rnd. That was because the Holy Church would then have to exin why they allowed Rnd to go wherever he pleased without trying to kill him.


    Perhaps after a few hundred or few thousand years, with Gods and indestructible existences voluntarily forgetting certain things, the creator of the Southern Sect truly would be regarded as a saint, while the so-called Undead Emperor Yongye would be forgotten by the annals of history.


    As for Rnd¡¯s current forcefully whitewashed reputation, it didn¡¯t matter what he did in secret, but it would absolutely be a major taboo if he started gathering souls on arge scale in public.


    Many ordinary people were already now willing to ept that undead magic wasn¡¯t evil, and that only certain undead mages were evil. However, everyone still believed that only those who were truly evil would forcefully drain soul energy from the dead.


    Ordinary people wouldn¡¯t care about how death magic was also part of the Cycle of Reincarnation, or how everything would always return to the River Styx and the Cycle of Reincarnation in the end. Ordinary people believed that undead mages who forcefully drained souls for themselves were no different from those who desecrated graveyards. It was considered to be far worse than even graveyard desecration.


    Rnd required arge number of souls in order toplete that final Original Sin Sword which was also his strongest sword. It was obviously expected that a tremendous number of angels and demons would die in the chaotic domain, and that even many Gods would likely die as well. Such excellent ¡°resources¡± were incredibly rare to find elsewhere. It would be a miracle opportunity for any undead archmage to find an ancient battlefield where Gods had perished before.


    In the chaotic domain¡¯s battlefield, veteran Gods of various factions would all likely appear. If Rnd absorbed souls here toplete his magic sword, not only would his reputation suffer, this would have many political consequences and ramifications afterwards.


    Thus, Rnd did his best to think of what else he could do, and came up with the idea of having someone elseplete the soul absorption for him.


    However, the candidates he could ask to help him with this were truly limited.


    The person would need to be an expert at undead magic in order to even consider soul absorption. Secondly, that person would need to be incredibly strong, SemiGod at the very minimum. Otherwise, that person would instantly be devoured by the death magic sword. That person would also need to dare to absorb souls right in front of the other Gods, which was an incredibly shameless action. That person would also need to be powerful enough to protect themselves... Who else could possibly be up to the task apart from the powerful, vicious, and shameless Undead Emperors who were also experts at undead magic?


    Rnd talked to Sandro and used this as a bargaining chip to help thetter revive the Tark Republic. Rnd forced Sandro to take the me for soul absorption for his sake. As for the Undead Emperors... since their reputation was already extremely bad to begin with, they wouldn¡¯t really care about taking more me for something else.


    Currently, the Undead General was wielding the ck death magic shortsword and ughtering others on the battlefield. The sword absorbed countless souls and divine soul shards as an uncountable number of grudge-bearing souls filled this entire area.


    Meanwhile, the currently opening altar door was also furiously absorbing the souls and life force of all the sacrifices here.


    The altar absorbed life force, flesh, and blood, while the death magic sword focused more on absorbing soul shards. The two had different focuses.


    Incredibly powerful demons and Gods were dying every moment on this battlefield, solely for the sake of bing sacrifices for a certain pair of twin brothers.


    Finally, the death magic sword representing the Seven Original Souls reached maturity as more Gods perished.

 Chapter 816 - Going to Play Outside

    <strong>Chapter 816 Going to y Outside</strong>


    Karn, the God of Holy Light, the most glorious existence in the world, who was at the peak of all Order Gods, the leader of his own Holy Light Faction, and the publicly recognized Strongest Main God in the world, someone undefeatable.


    It was only natural that he would be the center of attention the moment that he appeared on the battlefield.


    Endless light spread out from him as Holy Light cleansed everything before it. Just his very existence was quite painful for the undead and demons to bear.


    ¡°Ahh, the venerated God of Holy Light has illuminated everything. Not a single demon or devil hidden in the shadows can possibly hide from him. Look at how powerful he is! Even the strongest demon is unable to take a single spear hit from him. Even the slyest devil is unable to hide from his divine gaze.¡±


    A faint figure wielding a spear could be seen riding a huge dragon within the blinding light. Every time that he charged, everything before him would be cleansed. Even the strongest Demon Lord would instantly be vaporized from his attack.


    This scene made it seem like the praise for him was quite real, if only the praise hadn¡¯te from Karwenz, who was smiling in delight while enjoying the show.


    ¡°Donatis.¡±


    10 minutes prior, the furious War God battled against the God of Holy Light. Now, all that remained of Donatis was a pile of ashes on the ground.


    Even a Chaos Main God met the end of being cleansed in front of so much tremendous Holy Light.


    Even at the end, Donatis didn¡¯t cry in pain even once when he was pierced through by a spear of Holy Light and burned away. However, he never stopped roaring in anger.


    ¡°Foolish Karn! Let me go, weak and cowardly Karwenz! Face me! A true warrior should die gloriously inbat against someone stronger, notmitting suicide so foolishly like this!¡±


    Donatis¡¯s hatred wasn¡¯t aimed only at the venerated God of Holy Light. As Donatis died, it was likely that he hated the Abyss Prince who forced him to his death even more than the God of Holy Light.


    But unfortunately, the God of Holy Light didn¡¯t give Donatis any chance to take revenge on Karwenz, as Donatis withered away into ashes.


    In Karn¡¯s mechanical way of thinking, it was naturally the best choice possible to cleanse a powerful enemy that voluntarily came up to him.


    ¡°Donatis has been cleansed. A glorious victory. Next.¡±


    Karn then found his next target, as Karwenz naturally forced another unfortunate individual to fight him.


    ¡°Snake God Voka, just look at how wonderfully Donatis has done. Shouldn¡¯t you show what you can do? I absolutely didn¡¯t choose you because you weren¡¯t resolute in showing your loyalty and secretly making arrangements with my brother.¡±


    Snake God Voka was so angry that he trembled all over, but he could only go to the forefront and transform into a gigantic snake that tried to entwine around the Holy Light.


    As residents of the Chaos Abyss, the Chaos Evil Gods were all Gods who swore loyalty to the will of the Chaos Abyss. It was a spiritual contract that they had to fight for the Chaos Abyss, rather than being a mere duty or responsibility.


    Of course, such a contract was limited in power, and there were many restrictions. For instance, the Chaos Abyss had to be in danger, or the Chaos Abyss could only request help so many times, or the time of battle was limited, but currently, Karwenz wasn¡¯t giving the Chaos Gods any opportunities to find loopholes in the contract.


    ¡°Voka has been cleansed. Next.¡±


    The sly and ancient Snake God didn¡¯t even get a chance to change factions as the God of Holy Light instantly killed him with a single spear thrust.


    The will of the Chaos Abyss forced these Chaos Gods onto the battlefield. The spiritual contract would never allow the Chaos Gods to retreat in front of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s mortal enemy, the Order Gods.


    Luckily, the strongest individuals in the Chaos Abyss, including the ones on a Main God power level who were strong enough to resist the will of the Chaos Abyss, hadn¡¯te here to this battlefield. Otherwise, this battle would be even more elevated in scale.


    As for Donatis? It was his own fault for being here.


    Currently, Karwenz was forcing Demon Lords to go into battle one by one to attack the God of Holy Light.


    ¡°Haate, shouldn¡¯t you show your stuff after seeing how your seniors are working so hard?¡±


    The powerful Chaos Gods who always looked down on ordinary people and short-lived lifeforms were forced to line up and meet their deaths at the hands of the God of Holy Light, one at a time.


    The Chaos Gods then became divine souls and soul shards that acted as nutrition for the River Styx and the altar.


    Karwenz nced southwest, where he could sense someone stealing away control of the souls and the masterless divine power at the other door¡¯s location. The elemental wavelengths belonging to this person were oh so familiar to him.


    This other person was getting stronger and maturing. Although there was a great distance between them, Karwenz instinctively felt threatened, as this person was powerful enough to destroy all souls.


    ¡°Ha, this is fun.¡±


    Karwenz didn¡¯t have any intentions of stopping even though he clearly had plenty of chess pieces and felt a threat to him.


    In fact, he was amused and actually became bored of his current toys.


    ¡°Next, no, never mind, the rest of you are really low quality nutrition, so all of you just go and attack the God of Holy Light together.¡±


    Karwenz didn¡¯t even nce at the Chaos Gods¡¯ final looks of hatred for him. Instead, he actually couldn¡¯t help but exim for once as he sensed the altar constantly absorbing divine souls and divine power from the battlefield.


    ¡°Ordinary people worship the Gods, and the Gods will protect them? Ha, what a joke. It¡¯s clearly because ordinary people are cowardly, afraid, and far too weak, which is why they hand everything over to the Gods. Those useless cowards even gave their own self will over to the Gods. No wonder the Gods would look down so much on their own nutrition. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting, disgusting! That weakness is so disgusting! That cowardice disgusts me so much!¡±


    At the distant altar, the two Goddesses¡¯ eyes were fully open and looking directly at each other. At the space where their gazes met, a ck light was tearing open space itself as the door opened.


    ¡°The venerated Goddesses of Creation? Ha, they¡¯re just two foolish women who were ridiculously afraid. A shepherd and a flock of sheep? It¡¯s clearly a wolf and a flock of sheep instead. But, amusingly, no matter if you¡¯re a wolf or a sheep, you¡¯ll all be fertilizer for the newnd and be grass for the new sheep. Everything will return to the start in a new cycle, how grand... grand? F*ck the grand Cycle of Reincarnation, isn¡¯t it just a f*cking big cage? Why make it sound so great! Ha, I¡¯m so moved that tears areing out of my eyes.¡±


    Karwenz even wiped the edges of his eyes, as if there really were tears there. After all the cannon fodder Chaos Gods were sacrificed, the God of Holy Light, whose light had noticeably dimmed, finally locked on to the mastermind.


    Karwenz smiled and went up to the undefeatable Strongest Main God, and then... he transformed into a powerful torrent that would destroy everything in its path.


    The Abyss Prince, Chaos Main God Karwenz, unhesitatingly chose the most extravagant ending, the final technique for any God ¨C a divine self-destruction!


    After the frighteningly powerful storm ended, the God of Holy Light¡¯s figure was finally clear for all to see. He was still powerful despite being covered in injuries, but... he was no longer undefeatable.


    Also, nobody understood the final sentence that Karwenz spoke in the mortal ne.


    ¡°Bro, I¡¯m going to y outside now.¡±


    ¡°Bro, I¡¯m going to y outside now.¡±


    At the same time, at a certain location, a mortal¡¯s physical body just woke up from a deep sleep and said the exact same words. However, this muttering received an unexpected response.


    Karwenz couldn¡¯t believe that this familiar voice was right before him.


    ¡°You¡¯re not allowed to!¡±

 Chapter 817 - Needing an Answer Fas

    <h4>Chapter 817 Needing an Answer Fas</h4>


    Karwenz saw nothing but pale white in front of him after returning from death. He felt some ringing in his ears and also an ufortable and powerful urge to vomit due to the condition of this physical body.It was expected that his vision wouldn¡¯t recover immediately. It would take time getting used to eyes that hadn¡¯t been used for quite a while. This physical body that Karwenz had prepared for himself had been sleeping for almost a month.


    This body hadn¡¯t eaten or drank anything for the past month. Plus, due to the special condition of this body, the mortal¡¯s body had already reached its extreme limit.


    If it wasn¡¯t for this body originally belonging to an excellent swordsman, then ¡°he¡± would likely have to first rest properly for half a year in order to recover.


    ¡°Bro, I¡¯m going to y outside now.¡±


    Karwenz spoke raspily through the dry lips of his new body, repeating thest words he just spoke earlier. This was a sign that his soul had synchronized with his new physical body.


    ¡°You¡¯re not allowed to!¡±


    Karwenz had just woken up from his body¡¯s deep sleep and hadn¡¯t even gotten ustomed to the changes of his new body when a low roar greeted him with rejection.


    Karwenz wasn¡¯t greeted with weing servants or the sight of a busy construction site as he expected. He couldn¡¯t believe how this person filled with vicious intentions for him had arrived here.


    ¡°Rnd?¡±


    The demon elites that Karwenz personally selected were now nothing more than torn flesh and blood. A certain blonde-haired Holy Knight had his hands wrapped around the neck of a beautiful female devil.


    ¡°Hahahaha, as expected of Rnd. I never expected that you would appear here.¡±


    Karwenz paused in surprise for a moment, and then actually startedughing out loud.


    Meanwhile, I was also rather surprised.


    Karwenz had the same familiar blonde hair, familiar blue eyes, familiar face, but apletely different... gender.


    ¡°Karwenz? Leona?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but wonder out loud. Even though I could clearly sense that the person before me was that bastard younger twin brother of mine, and even though I had already expected this possibility, I was still quite shocked when it really happened in front of me.


    ¡°My foolish little brother... sister! Ahem, as I expected, Leona was your backup physical body from the very start!¡±


    Karwenz had just reincarnated himself into the body of Leona, the saintess of the Church of Sword and Thunder!


    This Chaos Girl had been able to avoid the ughtering between the Chaos Girls and was instead bound to the altar for the door to the dimensional barrier, as if she was a sacrifice. It had all been for this moment.


    The blonde-haired woman looked at me with disbelief. Her body was so weak that she was unable to stand up properly. It was quite noticeable that her pregnant belly was bulging. Still, from a certain standpoint, her pregnancy was the foundational reason why things had developed this way.


    ¡°For demons, descendants are a type of wealth as well. However, you really are insane for going as far as you did.¡±


    Just as how Karwenz had previously possessed Reyne, any blood-rted descendant of a Demon Noble or Demon Lord had the possibility of being possessed and controlled by one¡¯s ancestor.


    For any half-demon descendant, it wouldn¡¯t be much to be summoned by their own bloodline to act as freebor. The most pitiful end was to be a backup physical body for one¡¯s own ancestor.


    The descendant¡¯s consciousness and will would be deleted. Their knowledge and power would be food for the ancestor. Everything that the descendant had worked hard to obtain would all be devoured. Every bit of the descendant¡¯s existence would be eliminated.


    It wasmon for powerful Demon Gods and Demon Lords to revive in a descendant¡¯s body after dying in battle. However, this would only be a final backup n, as taking over the descendant¡¯s body would mean losing all of their umtion in their original body and having to start all over again.


    The descendants would typically only receive a portion of the bloodline¡¯s power. Their bloodline strength and upper potential would always be far weaker than the original Demon God or Demon Lord¡¯s. It would be quite difficult to surpass the original¡¯s strength, so no powerful demon would choose this method unless it was absolutely necessary.


    However, Karwenz was different, incredibly different.


    I had noticed since the very start that something was really odd about Leona¡¯s demon baby in her womb.


    ¡°Such a powerful and pure high-level demon bloodline. This is an investment that can affect one¡¯s foundational power level. This can¡¯t possibly be an ident. Most critically of all, this baby won¡¯t possibly have a soul.¡±


    After I secretly performed a series of dissection experiments on Leona... er, I meant examinations, I discovered to my astonishment that my future ¡°nephew¡± was actually a dead baby with no soul at all.


    The baby was only a pure amalgamation of the power of Chaos. Although Leona was his mother, technically she was nothing more than a host. Karwenz had actually created him by separating off a significant portion of himself.


    Once this baby matured and grew up, even if he was unable to swiftly achieve Karwenz¡¯s power level, it would only be a matter of time before he became a powerful God.


    Karwenz paid such arge price naturally because he desired to obtain even more. Since Karwenz had invested so much that it would foundationally weaken his power level as a Main God, it was quite obvious what he had wanted to obtain.


    Currently, Karwenz had possessed the unborn baby, and through the baby, he was also able to control the mother¡¯s body. This was all something I had just personally witnessed.


    ¡°Karwenz, you gave up on being a Main God level existence all for the sake of going through that wall?¡±


    Behind the altar was an endless pitch-ck wall. Judging by how the wall was decorated with art depicting the Goddess of Chaos, I knew what this ce was used for.


    ¡°...Only a Chaos Girl can be Cynthia. Only Cynthia can pass through this wall and reach the ce where Cynthia¡¯s physical body is sleeping...¡±


    This was a setting from the Goddess of Chaos herself to have the ultimate protection on her own physical body. Normally, it wouldn¡¯t be possible to pass through this wall with any means whatsoever, yet Karwenz had still managed to discover a method to cheat himself past this rule.


    A baby being hosted inside a Chaos Girl¡¯s body would naturally be able to pass this wall and obtain Cynthia¡¯s physical body, power, and rights!


    Cynthia¡¯s physical body would then descend upon the world as she used her Goddess of Creation powers to open the door to the dimensional barrier. This was Karwenz¡¯s final n!


    Karwenz wasn¡¯t panicking one bit at all right now, since the altar was adjacent to the wall. There was arge door in the wall that was open only for him. Nobody else would be able to pass through this door.


    ¡°Ha, Rnd, let¡¯s chatter.¡±


    ¡°She¡± turned around and was about to walk into the wall when I coldly uttered an underhanded threat.


    ¡°Karwenz, you better turn back, unless you don¡¯t want her to live anymore.¡±


    I still had Ilmisya¡¯s neck in my hands as I raised her. My small ice sword traced a red line on her slender neck.


    ¡°...You don¡¯t seem like a person on the side of good at all. Haven¡¯t you told me that antagonists who threaten hostages are all low-level viins who die off really quickly in the story?¡±


    Karwenz paused for a moment before saying some of my own words that I didn¡¯t even remember telling him. I originally thought that he would at least hesitate for a little, but then ¡°Leona¡± turned her head to roll her eyes at me andugh without a care.


    ¡°Go ahead and kill her if you want. Plenty of people have died already, so who cares if one more dies? Even more people will probably die once the door to the dimensional barrier is opened, hahaha.¡±


    Even though Karwenz was talking about something that would destroy the world, his lighthearted tone of looking forward to this made him seem like a naughty child looking forward to his birthday.


    The ¡°major elimination of survival of the fittest¡± after the dimensional barrier was opened was a huge celebration that Karwenz had desired for so long already. All of the previous sacrifices and deaths before this were nothing more than a minor prelude for the big party afterwards.


    At that moment, I understood. Ilmisya waspletely meaningless to him. He didn¡¯t care about her one bit. In fact, he didn¡¯t even care what would happen to himself in the uing cmity.


    Destruction? Evolution? None of that mattered to him. It was all fine as long as he had fun.


    Still, I knew what he did care about.


    And so, I took a deep breath and slowly moved my sword away from Ilmisya¡¯s neck. I then transformed it into a dagger and aimed it directly at my own heart.


    ¡°Karwenz, you and I were born from the same soul. You won¡¯t die as long as I¡¯m alive, and I won¡¯t die as long as you¡¯re alive. However, perhaps it¡¯s time for us to die together.¡±


    My ice dagger itself was meaningless. It was simply a way for me to express my attitude and resolution.


    Karwenz turned around once more. This time, he finally had his eyebrows furrowed.


    ¡°Elisa was correct. As expected, once you knew about the nature of our indestructibility, if I had a big advantage, you would use this strategy for us to die together. Honestly, it¡¯s so disgusting for me to have to die for love together with another man...¡±


    At that moment, I was disgusted as well...


    ¡°This is clearly a noble self-sacrifice. No matter how terrible this is, it counts as me acting out my responsibility as an older brother. Could you please not describe it in such a disgusting manner?¡±


    Goosebumps were appearing on my skin. This was clearly a battlefield, and the entire world¡¯s survival was at stake, so couldn¡¯t Karwenz at least be a little more serious?


    ¡°Sacrifice? For the sake of the mortals who betrayed us? Or for the Holy Church who destroyed our family and country? Hey hey hey, could you stop acting like such a saint? Such people definitely won¡¯t have a good ending and will definitely die quickly.¡±


    I was the one who paused here, as I had no idea how to counter him because his words were so right. I really needed an answer fast...

 Chapter 818 - Ship of Theseus

    <h4>Chapter 818 Ship of Theseus</h4>


    ¡°Karwenz is a bug.¡±This was no praise or insult. It was simply a statement about the existence known as Karwenz being a mistake of the entire ¡°world¡±.


    ording to my knowledge of the fundamentals of Order as well as the four elements that made up the world, only Time and Space were the most fundamentally Order type powers of all. Time and Space were like the X and Y coordinates of the world, creating coordinates for the entire world.


    Yet, these two powers had forever been at the very bottom of the naturalws of Order.


    Correct, the very bottom. They were the foundation for everything. All other naturalws and existences could only exist with Time and Space being rtively stable as the prerequisite. The powers of Time and Space were a foundation, but also a source and the very peak.


    Meanwhile, the two major corresponding elements of Chaos were Souls and Life... well, I won¡¯t get into that for now.


    The most incredible power of Time and Space wasn¡¯t the so-called miracle of stopping time, nor was it mysterious instantaneous teleportation, but rather the iprehensible and mysterious ability to give ¡°true prophecies¡±.


    Unlike normal prophecies, Time and Space prophecies didn¡¯t rely on trying to control the River of Fate, nor were such prophecies mere rubbish from some prophet. Instead, the power of Time and Space would be used to analyze the entire current situation as a data set and then extrapte along the X-axis and Y-axis to obtain new coordinates that would be the likely future.


    To give an example to make things easily understandable for my readers, an existence who had such a power could watch the world as if they were watching an anime episode. She would only need to drag along the episode¡¯s timeline to view the prerecorded data and skip to the story in theter parts.


    This ability was obviously far beyond mortalprehension, just as how those in 2-D would never understand the 3-D world. ¡°The people in the anime episode¡± would obviously never gain the ability to drag the episode¡¯s timeline. Such a game master-like ability could only possibly be held by the entire world¡¯s game master.


    Astrya, the Goddess of Order, was the only existence in this world who possessed such an ability.


    However, this ability had an obvious weakness.


    Whenever Astrya felt that the uing plot wasn¡¯t to her liking, she would have to try and personally change the present in order to change future developments. This was the equivalent of her giving up her ¡°3-D status¡± and joining the 2-D world. In that case, she would naturally lose her ability to continue viewing the timeline as she pleased.


    Astrya¡¯s very existence and all her actions had already changed the original plot of the game¡¯s history, making everything go out of control.


    She only had one opportunity to fix things, so she naturally wanted to find the critical point.


    ¡°Karwenz is a bug. Karwenz should never have existed in this world.¡±


    The Abyss Prince, the Child of Fate, Cynthia¡¯s most precious illegitimate child, the crystallization of the power of Chaos, and the most important character to her for winning the Holy War.


    In the original plotline that Astrya saw... the Abyss Prince named Rnd would have knowledge from his original world and be the ¡°protagonist¡± of the entire world. His fate was so wild that it would be enough for a novel of more than 20,000,000 words... but let¡¯s skip all of that. Rnd would then be heartbroken with human society which was led by the Holy Church, and finally lose all his trust in humans as he walked into the Chaos Abyss in despair.


    Rnd would then one day lead demon armies to the mortal ne, ending the era of humans as the ruling species of the world.


    Such a critical character was someone capable of changing everything. Astrya unhesitatingly used the same strategy as before as she attached her remnant soul to Rnd¡¯s pregnant mother, quietly waiting for Rnd to be born.


    Unfortunately for Astrya, Cynthia had learned her lesson due to the ¡°betrayal¡± of the previous generation¡¯s Abyss Prince Karn, who even ended up creating Holy Light and the Holy Church. Thus, Cynthia also attached the will of the Chaos Abyss to Rnd¡¯s mother¡¯s body, intending to personally guide the Abyss Prince¡¯s growth and shape his worldview.


    Two thieves had reached into the same victim¡¯s pocket... ahem, I meant that two sisters joyously met each other unexpectedly, and had a major scuffle.


    In the end, their fight was just like the story of the Judgment of Solomon, where two mothers both imed the same child. The end result was that the real mother was identified because she gave up on the child because Solomon dered that the child should be cut in half... However, the wise Solomon had probably never considered another possibility. What if both mothers weren¡¯t the actual mother at all!


    ¡°Such a tragedy!¡±


    The pitiful child was directly torn into two halves by two stepmothers before he was even born.


    As the host mother was still pregnant, the child¡¯s physical body was simultaneously changed due to his soul being forcibly torn into two. The one child became twins. However, having an iplete soul was one of the cruelest inborn deficiencies of all. Anyone who was missing part of their soul would be born as an idiot or severely mentally handicapped. The two stepmothers needed to do something unless they wanted to obtain two useless idiots.


    What could they do? Theypleted the two souls with their own.


    Correct, as could be seen today, the two sisters made the exact same choice. They used their own souls to make up for the tattered souls of Rnd and Karwenz, just as if they were mothers feeding breast milk to a newborn. However, this was far more overboard than that would ever be. The two Goddesses were basically using their own flesh and blood to make up for the newborns¡¯ insufficiencies.


    The two ¡°mothers¡± became connected to the newborns, and became a very part of them.


    The two newborns were also ¡°really lucky¡±. Due to having part of the two Goddess¡¯s souls, I would naturally be drawn to Order, while Karwenz would naturally be drawn to Chaos. This was no coincidence at all; it was a definite.


    This then created an amusing hypothetical question simr to the question about the wooden ship which had all its parts changed out so many times already. Was that really the same ship? When you changed out one person¡¯s ¡°parts¡± and created two souls from one, finally creating two people from the same person, were these two now independent individuals?


    Nobody should have known the answer to this question. There was no real practical purpose to it, either. However, a certain ident gave me the answer beforehand.


    I died.


    The Abyss Prince was also someone living who was a part of the Cycle of Reincarnation, and had no special ability to surpass the Cycle. However, I merely circled around in the Cycle and swam a bit in the River Styx before I was revived.


    The reason for this? It wasn¡¯t simply because of Astrya¡¯s existence. All she could do was protect herself in the River Styx. She wasn¡¯t capable of protecting the soul of a mortal. She was only a remnant soul who couldn¡¯t move anything but her mouth.


    ¡°The River Styx was unable to devour me, because... I¡¯m still alive.¡±


    Indeed, the world still viewed Karwenz and myself as the same existence. Only the ¡°Rnd¡± portion had perished, but he still wasn¡¯t actually dead yet. His living spirit had yet to be dead, and his soul was stillplete, so the River Styx was unable to take him, naturally meaning that I was unable to be returned to the Cycle of Reincarnation.


    What was the reason for this bug in the system being created? It was likely directly connected to the two Creator Goddesses¡¯ game master-like abilities.


    This was the truth behind the ¡°Undying Rnd¡± and my seemingly inconceivable ability to never stay dead.


    [Has Karwenz ever died before? That¡¯s probably something that only he knows. But, since he knows the truth behind our undying nature, he¡¯s probably died before as well. He¡¯s an Abyss Prince who doesn¡¯t fear death or failure. No wonder he grew in power so quickly.]


    Astrya knew the truth better than anyone, but she never told me the truth. In fact, it was rather the opposite as she encouraged me to think about my undying nature as a special property of being a transmigrated soul. Actually, when analyzing this some more, shouldn¡¯t a transmigrator¡¯s soul also have to undergo the same treatment as a local soul? What difference was there?


    The real reason why Astrya never told me the truth was...


    ¡°You were afraid that if the situation became bad, I would choose to try andmit double suicide in order to stop Karwenz?¡±


    [Isn¡¯t that exactly something you would do?]


    I thought it over and answered incredibly honestly for once. [Yes, I would. As long as I can stop Karwenz from opening the door to the dimensional barrier, I will make use of all possible resources and use any strategy necessary. Since Karwenz and I have such a connection, I¡¯ll naturally take advantage of it.¡±


    Astrya saw through me and told me a lie. Karwenz also saw through me and told me the truth. That was how he had seeded in convincing Elisa to try and stop me because Elisa had also seen through me.


    ¡°This really is... subtle to the point where I¡¯m displeased.¡±


    Currently, I really didn¡¯t know whether I shouldugh or cry as I looked at my ¡°younger sister¡±, who had Karwenz¡¯s familiar soul wavelengths in Leona¡¯s body.


    Fortunately, this current situation was also within my expectations. Karwenz wasn¡¯t undefeatable.


    Perhaps I could stop Karwenz without having tomit double suicide.


    ¡°There¡¯s a magic sword that¡¯s capable of destroying all souls...¡±

 Chapter 819 - Scamming

    <strong>Chapter 819 Scamming</strong>


    When I saw how Karwenz was visibly pregnant, even though I knew that he was actually attached to the demon baby inside, I still felt that this was rather...ical?


    ¡°I told you to stop always getting women pregnant. How do you feel now? Do you really want to throw up? Tsk, you really are unique, being a man who can experience what it feels like to be pregnant.¡±


    ¡°...Stop being ridiculous, since when have I always gotten women pregnant!? Oh. Rnd, you really are so sly as always, still trying to get information out of me even now.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s angry expression didn¡¯t seem fake. I nodded slightly as this was doubtlessly good news to me.


    Although a powerful demon¡¯s direct descendants would be resources and backup physical bodies for the demon, giving birth to such descendants would also concretely weaken the powerful demon, so such descendants would definitely be limited in number. Since Karwenz didn¡¯t have other descendants prepared, then...


    ¡°Although I¡¯m quite sorry for Leona... explode, you winner in life.¡±


    I then snapped my fingers and caused Karwenz to explode into tiny pieces right in front of me with an expression of disbelief.


    ¡°Leona¡¯s¡± head fell on the ground. Her eyes were still nkly looking up at the sky with a look that she hadn¡¯t epted her death.


    ¡°Your Highness!¡±


    Meanwhile, at my side, Ilmisya screamed incredibly pitifully and furiously crawled over to ¡°Leona¡¯s¡± shattered corpse as if what just happened had destroyed everything dear to Ilmisya.


    ¡°Tsk, he really didn¡¯t die... You over there, stop pretending. I¡¯m not dead yet, which means Karwenz still isn¡¯t dead. At most, he¡¯ll go back to take a shower in the River Styx. I refuse to believe that you don¡¯t even know this.¡±


    Although I was saying such cold-blooded words, I was still carefully on guard.


    Indeed, since I already knew how demon bloodlines worked, and I had already understood how special Leona¡¯s demon baby was from dissecting her before, I naturally made preparations beforehand back when I dissected her.


    I considered how Karwenz would likely be able to immediately take over Leona¡¯s entire body when he took over the soulless demon baby inside her, and how he would have abundant magical power. No normal strategy would possibly fool him, so I altered Leona¡¯s body... with goblin grenades.


    In undead magic, there was a certain category known as bone magic, which was basically controlling bones to make bone spears to attack, bone walls to defend, and so on. The basics of the basics for bone magic was drawing out bones and adjusting the bones¡¯ shape.


    A bone magic grandmaster would be capable of drawing out an entire person¡¯splete skeleton just by touching that person. Although I was no expert in bone magic, I was still capable of the basics.


    Through surgery and basic bone magic, I reced several of Leona¡¯s bones with bones that contained hollowed metal tubes.


    These hollow tubes had several bundles of special goblin grenades which were the peak of goblin engineering inside. Their might would be indisputable. Since these were pure physical products of science, it would be impossible to detect them using normal magic detection methods unless another dissection surgery was performed.


    This was a backup n I had made just in case. If it had turned out that this n was unnecessary, then I would have performed surgery on Leona once more after everything was all over and changed her bones for normal bones again.


    ¡°What a pity.¡±


    I coldly nced at the tattered flesh and blood before me. I wouldn¡¯t say anything like ¡°Your sacrifice has meaning,¡± ¡°Your death will save more people,¡± or anything useless like that, even though it would be true.


    This was a ughter. This was an evil act Imitted for my personal benefit. I had chosen this.


    Ilmisya kept clutching Leona¡¯s head and crying loudly like a child in front of me, but...


    ¡°No, wait. No matter how excellent their rtionship was, Devil Lord Ilmisya would never be so weak or expose her weakness in front of me like this.¡±


    Thus, I coldly drew my sword once more.


    ¡°Ilmisya, are you also pregnant? Let me give you a checkup...¡±


    I didn¡¯t need to say anything else, as Ilmisya unhesitatingly threw away Leona¡¯s head and immediately started crawling towards the wall to Cynthia¡¯s physical body.


    ¡°Tsk, so sly.¡± I was referring to Karwenz, who had pretended to be fooled by my attempt to get information from him, rather than Ilmisya. By this point, of course I had realized what was going on.


    Since Ilmisya was trying to pass through the wall to Cynthia¡¯s physical body, then it naturally meant that Ilmisya was also a Chaos Girl who had remained by Karwenz¡¯s side for all this time, and that she was also pregnant with his demon spawn.


    ¡°...This is so unpleasant.¡±


    Although this work was truly unpleasant, I really couldn¡¯t stop just because of that. I opened up my wings and gave myself explosive strength that instantly allowed me to rush in front of Ilmisya as both her legs were broken.


    ¡°It seems that I was correct to have broken her legs beforehand.¡±


    I silently looked at her as I gathered the power of Holy Light on my Dawn sword.


    ¡°Rnd! You bastard! You won¡¯t die a good death!¡±


    Ha, it seemed that even Karwenz in Devil Lord Ilmisya¡¯s body still acted like her and couldn¡¯te up with anything creative for an insult.


    By the way, I had just killed my sister-inw and nephew, and now I was trying to kill another sister-inw and nephew. I was indeed acting the part of a viin.


    As for me receiving a good death or not... I had died many times already, but it never stuck permanently with me, and I had even visited Hell multiple times now. It wouldn¡¯t be that bad to take another vacation in Hell sometime.


    ¡°My ending? At the very least, you won¡¯t have any opportunity to see it.¡±


    Holy Light gathered into a de of light and swiftly sliced down. Even a Devil Lord would be turned into ashes by this de.


    *ng!*


    However, the de of light was blocked by a dark gray magic sword.


    ¡°Ilmisya¡± stared at me and then smiled ever so slightly with a familiar expression in her eyes...


    ¡°Karwenz!!¡±


    ¡°Yep, that¡¯s right, Brother, this is exactly what I was looking forward to. Let us have a good fight!¡±


    Ilmisya¡¯s face was bright red as sheughed loudly and showed off a confusing fervor. However, I knew that this was evidence of Karwenz having be truly serious.


    Unlike Leona¡¯s weak and frail physical body, Ilmisya was a Devil Lord. Although Ilmisya wasn¡¯t at a Main God¡¯s level, she was still one of the peak existences of the world. Even for me, it would be quite difficult to defeat her. Being able to win earlier was mostly because I had relied on my Dawn Holy Light sword which really countered her.


    But now, Ilmisya¡¯s soul had been changed out for a Main God level core, and she was also being powered up by her demon baby inside from Karwenz. It was likely that the current Ilmisya couldn¡¯t bepared to her past self at all.


    At the very least, she definitely wouldn¡¯t be weaker than me.


    ¡°Come, dear Older Brother, we¡¯re about the same now. Let us have a good and proper fight!¡±

 Chapter 820 - Savior

    <h4>Chapter 820 Savior</h4>


    ¡°This person is worthy of a fight!¡±I took a deep breath, gathered my magic sword¡¯s power without releasing it, and focused fully on the opponent before me. This enemy wasn¡¯t someone I could afford to have even the slightestpse in concentration against.


    ¡°Haha, my older brother, do you know just how long I¡¯ve been waiting for this day? One year? 10 years? 100 years? Dimensionalws? No reason to fight? Today, all those stupid reasons are no longer able to stop us. Today, nothing can possibly stop me from having a proper deathmatch with you.¡±


    Karwenzughed wildly as his limbs started thickening at a speed visible to the naked eye. Demonic spikes grew out of his spine, while various demonic runes started glowing on his arms and legs.


    Karwenz¡¯s muscles were trembling as they rapidly expanded. His physically alluring body which had belonged to Ilmisya instantly lost its original form.


    Maybe Ilmisya¡¯s original body was quite attractive, but it definitely wasn¡¯t suitable for direct confrontations. Demons and devils were both experts at modifying their own physical bodies. I wasn¡¯t sure if this transformation was Ilmisya¡¯s ownbat form or Karwenz¡¯s custom modifications, but it indeed had a scary appearance as Karwenz¡¯s body instantly grew more than four meters tall.


    Karwenz had one wing, a long tail, sharp ws, and thick scales, all standard traits of demons.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, don¡¯t you know that the antagonist boss always dies quite quickly after his transformation? Also, you only call me older brother when you want to kill me?¡±


    Although I was spouting rubbish, I was actually carefully on guard against his transformation.


    Inbat, someone with arger body size would have more strength, so the advantage would be obvious. Although it would seem cool for someone smaller to have great physical strength, that was usually just a mistaken impression caused by toorge of a difference between the two sides. Only by havingrger muscles and a solid body would one have greater explosive strength. An advantage in speed would typically be apanied by an advantage in strength, but...


    ¡°Too weak!¡±


    My glorious Holy Light sword Dawn formed in my hand as it sliced with light that could tear through everything, along with creating a pir of light that was as fierce as dragonbreath.


    Correct, too weak. Since I already had experience fighting against Sophocles, I was easily capable of crushing many Demon Lords of this level all together.


    ¡°ng!¡±


    My sword of light was blocked by a magic sword that was bing ever darker. Karwenz smiled, but then his smile instantly vanished.


    My Dawn sword suddenly shed with blinding light, instantly vaporizing his pitch-ck magic sword. Ilmisya¡¯s very existence was beginning to vanish. Her magic sword had lost the ability to directly confront Dawn after decaying so rapidly.


    Even the strongest warrior would always have a moment of surprise and weakness when they lost their weapon. I would never miss such an opportunity.


    ¡°Karwenz! Take a proper nap for me!¡±


    Dawn shed in my left hand, but my true attack was in my right hand. Four balls of light intersected with each other on my right palm. The silver ball was Law, the golden ball was Holy Light, the ck ball was Death, and the white ball was Ice.


    Golden light swirled around my index finger. ck light swirled around my middle finger. White light swirled around my ring finger. Lastly, silver light swirled around my pinky. I snapped my fingers and created four colors of magical runes in the air. In just a short instant, 37 magical runes were allpleted, and then instantly sliced into Karwenz¡¯s stomach.


    ¡°Seal of the Four Elements!¡±


    Act cool by saving the ultimate technique forst? Only aplete idiot would do that. An ultimate technique that could determine victory should be used at the very beginning!


    ¡°I did it!¡±


    I could sense that my arm had already touched a soul. The spell I prepared beforehand was activated as the Seal of the Four Elements waspleted sessfully!


    The demon baby in Ilmisya¡¯s stomach was Karwenz¡¯s true body. The power of the Seal of the Four Elements enveloped him as the ultimate sealing spell bound the struggling soul within.


    However, Karwenz smiled in the very next instant, sending chills down my spine when I saw him from the corner of my eye.


    I instinctively sensed danger, causing me to unhesitatingly withdraw my arm and suddenly retreat.


    *Boom!*


    As I expected, a pitch-ck sickle crashed down in the next instant, slicing through dimensional space itself. The wind from the sickle swing hurt my face. I would likely have be mincemeat if I hadn¡¯t retreated in time.


    ¡°How can he possibly still attack with his soul sealed...¡±


    However, there was no need for me to think too much about the answer. ¡°Karwenz¡¯s¡± physical body which kept evolving was the best exnation of everything.


    ¡°Oh my, Ilmisya really is so pitiful and unfortunate. I¡¯ll properly console her after releasing the seal in the future.¡±


    Apparently, I must have sealed away Ilmisya¡¯s soul just now. The fact that her soul would be in that location doubtlessly meant that Karwenz had modified the structure of his physical body, and exchanged his soul¡¯s location with hers, using her as a shield for himself.


    I now clutched Devil Lord Ilmisya¡¯s ck sculpture within my hand. I shook my hand and put it into my dimensional storage bag. I had now lost another ace, and also expended a significant amount of mana.


    I felt rather mysteriously displeased as I saw how calm Karwenz appeared to be.


    ¡°Karwenz! Using your own woman as a shield? How low are you going to fall!?¡±


    Earlier, no matter how much I tortured Ilmisya, she adamantly refused to tell me where Karwenz was. Although Ilmisya and I were on different sides, I was still slightly moved by her resolution.


    ¡°Fallen? My woman? If I told you that she and I are simply master and subordinate, and that I¡¯ve never even touched her body before, and that I even used a special method to forcefully transfer my baby into her body, would you believe me? That¡¯s not all, would you believe me if I also told you that it was Ilmisya¡¯s idea to switch her soul¡¯s location with mine?¡±


    Would I believe that? When Karwenz was someone who had started touching nobledies back at the age of 12? When he was someone known as the charisma king who had conquered women everywhere across thend? I would never believe something like that!


    ¡°Haha, your soul is almost beginning to burn. Are these the mes of the FFF Group that you¡¯re always talking about?¡±


    Karwenz didn¡¯t exin anything else as heughed. Even though his im was quite ridiculous, I could instinctively sense that he was telling the truth, which made things even more difficult to understand.


    Sophocles and Ilmisya were clearly evil, chaotic, and powerful existences. Abr, the former Gold Elf Emperor, was someone incredibly wise and noble before he reincarnated as the subus Didina. Just what did this bastard Karwenz have that such people were willing to sacrifice everything for him?


    Karwenz seemed to see through what I was thinking as he proudly exined, ¡°Because I can give them hope.¡±


    I took a deep breath. My mana was gradually recovering from a powerful sensation of emptiness after just casting a spell which was on the level of a forbidden spell. It would take at least three to five minutes for me to recover enough to cast the Seal of the Four Elements again. Karwenz was also stalling for more time in order to better control his new physical body. Since both of us needed time, then we might as well keep stalling.


    ¡°Hope? Don¡¯t you mean destruction? Do you know what will happen after opening the door to the dimensional barrier? Do you know what¡¯s outside? Your wooden brain probably hasn¡¯t even thought about it!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, I just want to leave this boring world and properly have some fun. As for what will happen to this world? Who cares? It has nothing to do with me. Why would I need to think about that?¡±


    I originally thought that Karwenz would try to defend himself, but he actually directly admitted that I was right instead. Such blunt honesty only made me angrier.


    Someone like him... Someone like him actually had loyal followers who were willing to give everything and trustpletely in him? How foolish, and what selfishness...


    ¡°I didn¡¯t think that much about things, but they definitely have. Yep, they¡¯ve repeatedly thought things over.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s next words had some rare sincerity, maybe because he had been pent up for quite a while.


    ¡°They probably felt that it¡¯s preferable to open the door to the dimensional barrier and meet the Eich universe¡¯s destruction or evolution rather than let this eternal Holy War go on forever.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no need for that!¡±


    I was getting even angrier. What was all this? A brighter future was clearly in front of us, the two Goddesses of Order and Chaos were unable to awaken, magical engineering technology was improving, and war was decreasing, so the future would only be better, yet these bastards were gambling the fate of the entire Eich universe? How selfish, how willful, and how iprehensible this was...


    ¡°It¡¯s necessary.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s tone was abnormally calm as if he was describingmon sense phenomena such as ¡°rain will fall¡± or ¡°fish know how to swim¡±.


    ¡°Does your nice blueprint for the future have a position for demons and devils? How about for the Chaos Evil Gods? Or for Demon Lords?¡±


    A position for residents of the Chaos Abyss? Of course, I...


    I fell silent. How could I possibly consider a position for demons? That would be impossible from the very start. Demons were creatures of evil and chaos who loved to kill. Weren¡¯t they always like this in the Chaos Abyss for all the past millennia?


    Have demons work in construction? Or live peacefully with other species? That would be such a terrible joke. Not only would it fundamentally be impossible, the current residents of the lower nes were naturally born to be ughters and devourers, though I didn¡¯t know if that was the same for the first generation of demons. The current demons would only evolve through ughtering and devouring. Warring and killing was a very part of their lives.


    Souls were food for demons. Would it be possible to make a carnivore be an herbivore?


    ¡°Besides, can you guarantee that after the Holy War is over, when the ruler of the mortal ne bes strong enough to a certain extent, they won¡¯t try to conquer all the dimensions in Eich, and that they won¡¯t try to eliminate the evil and chaos in the lower nes?¡±


    I... was unable to make such a guarantee. Lies were meaningless here. If the mortal ne truly became strong enough,pletely eliminating the Chaos Abyss was something that absolutely needed to happen.


    Progress in magical engineering would definitely decrease the difference in talent between species. The greatest beneficiary would obviously be humans, who had their own civilization system and societal structure already. The greatest victim would probably be the demons, who relied on their natural talents for dominance.


    Perhaps it was actually truly a better choice for the demons, who were trying to fundamentally evolve, to choose the unknown from opening the door to the dimensional barrier?


    The tall Abyss Prince had almostpleted his final transformation. He shrugged with a casual expression.


    ¡°See? You forgot about us since the very beginning. They were the ones who chose me. I suppose that even viins need their savior. But as for me? I¡¯m fine as long as I get to have fun. But, Brother...¡±


    Karwenz smiled proudly as he nced at the strewn demon corpses all around the area. What type of strange proudness was this?


    ¡°...I have no reason to lose.¡±


    I fell silent in response. Four different colors ignited themselves in my palm once more. The next instant, everything lit up as our fight continued.


    ¡°Yes, yes, yes, Rnd, this is what I want! We were the only ones who understood even 300 years ago that useless words can¡¯t possibly change anything in this world! Only the strongest warrior who remains in the end is the one who¡¯s correct!¡±


    ¡°Shut up, idiot!¡±

 Chapter 821 - Vengeance

    Chapter 821 Vengeance


    Was only the victor the one on the side of justice? No, that was because only the victor would survive and get a chance to talk about their idea of justice.


    Would justice always win, then? No, this world had no such thing as justice or being absolutely right. Anything that soundedpletely correct, even if it represented benefits for the great majority of people, would always end up hurting some others.


    Strictws would protect the daily lives of ordinary people. However, criminals who were stripped of freedom or their lives by thesews were those eliminated under the system of such ¡°order¡±.


    Was goodness as people thought of it truly goodness? Ancient heroes ced in modern times with modern standards would all be considered mass murderers who should have been punished byw long ago.


    Back in ancient times, stealing and simr crimes were sufficient to be punished with hanging. Adultery and other such moral crimes were punished even more severely than ordinary capital crimes. Yet, a noble would only need to pay some money aspensation after killing amoner.


    Was that normal? At the very least, people of that generation felt that it was normal. In that case, were so-called good and evil simply the standards of the current generation? Were they something that could be changed easily?


    Ordinary people needed saving? Viins and demons didn¡¯t need saving, then? Could one really say that it was correct to kill the wolf in order to protect the sheep? What if the sheep evolved into a powerful civilization? The sheep would then probably hunt or lock up the past dangerous predators that used to be a threat to them.


    ¡°Shut up, idiot!¡±


    When a world-ending flood covered the world, who had the right to determine the final passengers on Noah¡¯s Ark? God? Something that you couldn¡¯t decide upon was tossed over to a God? How sly.


    No, it was arrogance. Who gave you the right to set standards for good and evil, to decide who could be saved in the future world, and who would be kicked off the ship?


    Benefiting the majority? The choice of the majority? What a joke, was having a majority equal to justice? Didn¡¯t many incredibly foolish decisions in history happen because of a majority decision?


    Perhaps Karwenz was the correct one, not having to choose anything and letting the cruel and natural process of elimination decide everything instead¡­


    ¡°Shut up, idiot!¡±


    I roared angrily as Dawn¡¯s light illuminated the entire world. Meanwhile, Karwenz kept smiling without saying a single word.


    I knew that he was trying to use words to shake my heart. I was really envious right now of his personality as not having to think too much about things was also a type of bliss sometimes.


    I knew that Karwenz hid the truth, and never mentioned anything to me previously, choosing to tell me right now instead all in order to shake my determination.


    However, he surely also knew that my resolution wouldn¡¯t be so weak!


    There was only one exnation, then¡­ He was doing this on purpose to disgust me!


    ¡°Holy Light, judge this evil.¡±


    Even though I was burning up with anger, my sword didn¡¯t shake or tremble one bit against the gigantic Karwenz. I judged the distance between us, jumped, spread my wings, and paused in midair for an instant to dodge the sh from his greatsword. I was now close enough to him.


    ¡°Anti-evil sh!¡±


    While the golden light was Dawn¡¯s de, my true killer attack was the fact that the de of light could suddenly extend.


    However, Karwenz expected this beforehand, and easily dodged my attack. It merely scratched his face.


    As I had expected, my previous fight with Sophocles had exposed far too much information about me.


    ¡°Come at me! Try shing me! You Holy Knights always love to talk about judgement, justice, and other such useless things. Why think so much about things? Regardless, the one who survives the fight until the end is the one with justice.¡±


    Karwenz pointed at his own head while dering something so maddening. He knew quite clearly that I absolutely hated the world¡¯s unwritten rule that only the strong were in the right.


    ¡°Thew of the jungle where only the strong are in the right? Why would we needws and morals, then? What difference would there be between us and beasts? If all that we want to evolve are ws and teeth, wouldn¡¯t it be better for humans to devolve back to monkeys?¡±


    Maybe it was due to the influence of my original life on Earth, but I was forever unable to ept a primitive society that lived by thew of the jungle. Unfortunately, thew of the jungle was the rule that the world of Eich lived by.


    Anyone who was forever unable to get ustomed to the prevailing way of life in a world would probably be considered ¡°abnormal¡±. 99% of the time, such people would be eliminated, but there would always be a rare few¡­ who were crazy enough to change the world. And now, there just happened to be two such individuals.


    ¡°Rnd, do you really think that even if everything in the future develops as you want, even if your Wumianzhe trulypletes the path of Law, that you¡¯ll actually be able to eliminate world wars? Ha, don¡¯t be na?ve. As long as intelligent beings have greed and desires, war will absolutely continue. Forcefully suppressing war will only make the next one explode with even greater cruelty.¡±


    ¡°Shut up! Karwenz! I know better than anyone that it¡¯s impossible topletely eliminate war! What I want is just¡­ just a slightly better world to live in, where at least the weak have slightly more rights and can survive easier!¡±


    ¡°¡­Rnd, if the weak have rights, then the originally strong will naturally be the weak. You still haven¡¯t discovered it yet? Your Concept of Law is just the same as how demons use fists to convince their enemies. To be honest, you¡¯re even worse than the demons. You¡¯re forcing wolves to eat grass and sheep to eat meat. At the very least, demons won¡¯t force other species to obey their own rules or decide others¡¯ way of life.¡±


    Our swords continued to sh amongst our verbal sparring. Both of us clearly knew that only the victor would have the power to decide things, and that obviously neither of us would be convinced by the other¡¯s words, meaning that words were useless. We both clearly knew that neither of us was wrong in our way of thinking, and that some things never had an answer in the first ce, yet it was impossible for either of us to stop.


    Blood went flying as I smelled burnt meat that had been scorched by Holy Light. Both of us kept umting more and more sword injuries on our bodies. We maintained a subtle bnce as neither of us had used many aces yet.


    However, I had already achieved my objective. I finally finished all the prerequisites for using my troublesome ace weapon.


    ¡°Condition one, the suspect has caused actual harm.¡±


    I blocked Karwenz¡¯s de once more. However, his sword energy instantly bloodied my right arm. I praised Holy Light in a low voice, and instantly recovered as if my arm was brand-new.


    In this battle of attrition, Karwenz¡¯s recovery abilities of a demon were obviously more advantageous. However, my Holy Light could also heal, so I wasn¡¯t afraid of trading injuries.


    ¡°Karwenz, you bastard, have you not considered how many people will die if you open the door to the dimensional barrier?¡±


    ¡°¡­Does that have anything to do with me? Isn¡¯t it only natural for the weak to die?¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s smile made me really want to beat him up.


    Condition two, the suspect verbally admitted to harming others, and exined his crime and motive¡­ Condition met.


    I fell silent as I nced towards Didina. Her legs were broken and she was unable to move. She was the only other living person in this entire area.


    Conditions three and four, having a witness and neutral observer juror¡­ Conditions cleared.


    ¡°All conditions have been met. It¡¯s time to start the court session, Law Sword Vengeance.¡±

 Chapter 822 - Double-edged Sword

    Chapter 822 Double-edged Sword


    ¡°What is the fundamental nature ofw? It¡¯s simply a tool to rule over the social sses. Law is the materialization of the will of the ruling ss. Law is a way by which the ruler will regte every part of society.¡±


    Back in China of my original world, everyw student who just started to studyw would have to learn this definition regarding the fundamental nature ofw.


    Maybe since China was deeply influenced by Communist thinking, China¡¯s definition ofw was also filled with ss conflict.


    ¡°Law is a tool for the ruling ss to control the social sses.¡±


    Back in China, this was considered the public opinion, orthodoxy, and a definite. In fact, most legal schrs and those in thew profession viewed this as a maxim¡­ but, at least in my opinion, that wasn¡¯t everything there was tow.


    It was quite evident that such a definition ofw could only be reality after a country and social sses were formed. But, what about a society that was still unstructured, such as a primitive society that didn¡¯t have written or systematic rules? In that case, weren¡¯t the basic social norms the same asws?


    My old world¡¯s definition ofw was endlessly battered in this new world where many different intelligent species coexisted together.


    For instance, to use the Silver Dwarves as an example, they were abnormally sessful in realizing equality for everyone in the tribe. They had no officials or tribe leaders, yet they were abnormally strict in obeying the tribe¡¯s rules. In that case, since there wasn¡¯t even a ruling ss in the Silver Dwarves species, the ssical Chinese definition ofw was nothing more than a joke.


    Another example would be the Antmen, a minority species. Every single Antman would be born for the sake of serving the Ant Queen. But actually, the Antmen had no self will at all. The Antmen had sessfully connected all of their wills as one. There was only actually one mind for an entire Antmen tribe. If there was only one person in the entire tribe, then it would be quite difficult to say who was ruling whom. It was also quitemon for the Ant Queen to be sacrificed.


    There were also undead tribes, as well as dragons who had even stranger societal structures¡­


    Such situations were actually quitemon. In this world, orderly societal structures like the humans¡¯ and elves¡¯ societies with nobles andmoners as separate social sses were actually in the minority. I had witnessed countless societal structures which were even stranger than that of the Silver Dwarves¡¯ before.


    Since the majority of species hadn¡¯t constructed countries for themselves, continuing to use social ss theory as the basis forw would obviously be nothing more than a joke.


    If I still used such a legal theory as basis, then the idea of ¡°unjustws are stillws¡± from my original world would only be an ever more vicious debate that would be impossible to solve here.


    Maybe abstract theories would be difficult for readers to understand, so I will give an example. If a tyrant¡¯s depraved rule, a terrorist organization¡¯s internal rules, or an assassin organization¡¯s unwritten rules about killing were all recognized asws, then the new power of Law that I created in this world would only be the strongest weapon of all for viins and tyrants in this world.


    Eich was a world where a person¡¯s will was equivalent to actual power. Not giving a definition carefully enough would absolutely lead toplete disaster.


    If there was a problem with the foundational definition that I gave to Law in this world, then my system for Law would either end up copsing or be distorted sooner orter.


    ¡°Is Law only a tool for ruling? Law¡¯s functions for guiding people towards kindness and punishing evil in society can simply be exined as ¡®maintaining social stability¡¯? Perhaps the kindness and benefit for society is what Law¡¯s true nature really is.¡±


    In the end, when creating the Original Codex of Law for this world, I abandoned the old Chinese ¡°bible¡± ofw on ssical legal theory, and instead wrote my personal understanding ofw based on the special nature of society in this world.


    ¡°Law is something that should guide people towards kindness.¡±


    From that moment onwards,w in Eich was destined to be different from the definition ofw in China. The debate over ¡°unjustws are alsows¡± would never happen here at all. Evilws enacted by tyrants would be disqualified from beingws in my Original Codex of Law.


    ¡°Law is something that should treat all criminals equally.¡±


    From that moment onwards, the power of Law would only act because of a crime, and the power of Law would never waver or change no matter the criminal¡¯s status or power.


    ¡°Law is limited to divinews and manmadews¡­¡±


    As Ipleted my definitions for Law, I discovered to my astonishment that a certain way of thinking which had long since been discarded by my original world of Earth was actually the best exnation for my personal interpretation of Law.


    ¡°¡­It¡¯s actually the bloody and primitive¡­ principle of retaliation.¡±


    Maybe legal retaliation had a certain definition, but what I meant was actually quite simple.


    ¡°An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.¡±


    Someone who harmed or killed others should be treated in the same way depending on how many crimes theymitted. Someone who tore out another person¡¯s eye should have their own eye torn out. Someone who killed another should be killed as well. In the most primitive societies, it was a blood rtive of the victim who would take revenge in the majority of situations. Thus, this concept had another name¡­ blood vengeance.


    Since taking blood vengeance was far too barbaric, vicious, and cruel, modern-day countries in my original world had long since forbidden such a thing.


    However, perhaps it was precisely because the world of Eich was too cruel and barbaric that my power of Law could be created in this world with such a form.


    The power of Law would use even crueler methods to scare evil viins. Even if a viin was able to escape judgement in their life, they would still be punished after death in Hell. There would be zero exceptions to this.


    Law gave victims the right of vengeance. Once an evil viin¡¯s deeds were exposed for all to see, once the Codex of Law at the River Styx Hall recorded a person¡¯s entire life, their heavy crimes would finally be a noose that would strangle them.


    Law was something that gave the innocent and weak a necessary sense of safety because the cut-off heads of viins would remain hanging high up on the castle walls in order to strike fear into the hearts of would-be viins in the future.


    Law gave the protectors and enforcers of thew an iparably sharp sword as they were the protectors of the weak and ordinary people, as well as the representatives of vengeance for the victims.


    Obviously, this was rather extreme, bloody, barbaric, and unreasonable.


    But in this cruel world, if I used modern-dayws from Earth¡­ which was a ce where some ces were already beginning to get rid of the death penalty, and the rich could simply pay money to get out of jail¡­ using such ws written in a peaceful generation¡± for this world would only mean that I was a huge idiot.


    To give a very simple example, if I continued to use legal theory from modern-day Earth as the foundation for Law in Eich, then my Justice Knights would have to act like modern-day policemen even if they witnessed a murder themselves. They would have to first gather evidence and witnesses, then send the criminal to court to ept a fair and just judgement¡­ in a way, the Justice Knights would be even weaker than modern-day policemen because the fixed Concept of Law would be far more inflexible and foolish than any justice system from Earth.


    I should also mention that the death penalty as a concept of vengeance was bing ever rarer on modern-day Earth.


    ¡°A murderer should pay with their own life.¡±


    This was consideredmon sense back in more ancient and primitive societies on Earth. However, many modern countries of Earth were already rejecting this idea that murderers had to face the death penalty. Laws on Earth were bing ever moreplex, which actually gave criminals whomitted horrible crimes even more opportunities tomit evil deeds once again.


    Eich was a world with limited resources. This was far too much of an extravagance to afford.


    ¡°A chaotic world requires strictws¡­ this world is more chaotic than the word chaotic can describe, so thews naturally must be endlessly severe.¡±


    Only after I confirmed the core of the fundamentals of Law that I wanted were Law Incantations born.


    Still, no matter what, Law was still a power of Order, and a type of elemental power in this world. While Law needed to obey the definition of its own Concept, it also needed to obey the naturalws of the elements.


    Setting rules was a power of Order. The power of Law wasn¡¯t the only power of Order rted to rules.


    Prophecy magic, wish magic, and other such types of magic relying on ¡°reason¡± were actually using the variousyers of rules. This was quite simr to the power of Law. The traits of such magic spells were also the same as either the spell would seed as expected, or the spell would fail and produce nothing.


    Wish magic would distort any wish that was difficult for the caster to achieve. It would be impossible for any major prophecy spell to determine something overlyplex or to try and force a specific future to happen. Thus, even if a pope tried to force a prophecy, he would still say that it was something really simple.


    The power of Law was the same. Using a Law Incantation was still apetition of power between the two sides. If the Law user won, then the Law Incantation would seed. If the viin was far too strong, then the attack-type Law Incantations would be weakened, and the binding incantations would be ineffective. It was still a contest of elemental power.


    The moreplex something was, the weaker its foundation would be. The more simple and direct something was, the stronger and more difficult to distort it would be.


    In the end, when I resolved myself to create my Law sword, I finally used the most basic and primitive method to achieve my goal.


    ¡°Begin judgement, Law Sword Vengeance, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth¡­ a life for a life!¡±


    My double-edged runic short sword suddenly appeared in midair. As Karwenz watched in surprise, his physical body was directly torn apart into several pieces. As Iughed at him, my physical body exploded at the same time.

 Chapter 823 - Arena

    Chapter 823 Arena


    My red short sword was decorated with silver runes of light. It was double-edged, but both edges were so blunt that it would be impossible to even cut vegetables with them.


    A statue of a silver masked figure served as the sword¡¯s hilt.


    He held a gavel in one hand, representing judgement of evil, and a silver bnce in the other hand, representing the equality between the crime and the punishment. The chain at his waist held a codex representing the Original Codex of Law, the source of all Law.


    These weren¡¯t the original God Equipment, but as representations and with the sword creator¡¯s special identity, this short sword in a way had also be Wumianzhe¡¯s incarnation.


    ¡°Judgement, Vengeance.¡±


    Wumianzhe¡¯s figure faintly arose from the sword. Whenever this God representing Judgement and Law appeared, he would judge all crimes before him.


    Wumianzhe¡¯s eyes, which contained no self-will, locked onto all existences before him without a single trace of emotion.


    What did it feel like to be stared at by yourself? It definitely wouldn¡¯t feel good to be judged by yourself.


    ¡°Guilty.¡±


    The moment that he mmed his gavel, I felt pain in my chest as a piercing pain went through my heart. I was unable to swallow all the blood I spat up, likely making my mouth quite bloody. Without needing to even look, just the pain from my limbs made me realize that my blood and flesh were flying everywhere and that I was seriously injured.


    However, I was still able tough because Karwenz, who was right in front of me, was even more seriously injured!


    The tall demon¡¯s left hand was already cut off. His ck magic sword was covered in cracks. It must have been a special weapon connected to his body. Everything below his right knee waspletely missing. His entire body was covered in injuries and holes from his blood and flesh being torn off.


    Any ordinary person would have died long ago in such circumstances.


    Karwenz was torn and tattered all over, yet he still managed to vaguely maintain a humanoid shape, sort of like a broken doll that had been forcefully put back together again using glue. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that Karwenz had the power level of a Chaos Main God, this one attack would have been more than enough to kill him.


    But, this was only the beginning¡­


    Law Sword Vengeance continued to float in the air. Wumianzhe¡¯s gaze remained fixed on the two ¡°sinners¡±. Wumianzhe was currently analyzing our crimes. The next judgement would be even more fatal.


    This was the first of two functions from my Law Sword Vengeance. The moment that the judge dered the court to be in session, the used suspects would have all their crimes analyzed, and the judge would then immediately issue judgement and punishment.


    There was no doubt that both I and Karwenz hadmitted so many crimes that it would give us the death penalty countless times. But, also as I had expected, the power of Law also obeyed the natural elementalws. For the power of Law to take effect, it would naturally need to sh against the target¡¯s own power.


    Would the power of Law be able to instantly kill a Main God? I never even thought about it before. Being able to injure Karwenz to such an extent was already more than what I had expected. This was a soul-level judgement, and when the soul was injured, the physical body would be injured as well.


    Currently, since Karwenz was forcibly keeping his physical body together after being torn apart, his soul was naturally torn apart as well.


    ¡°Ha, Karwenz, it seems that your crimes are far more serious than mine.¡±


    The most basic foundation of how the power of Law worked was that the more serious the crimes, the stronger the power of Law would be.


    In a way, I was thankful for the soul judgement I received from Wumianzhe when he ascended to Godhood. Wumianzhe also worked with the concept of not letting any crime be judged twice, which meant that my misdeeds back when I was Yongye weren¡¯t even considered by him. Otherwise, it would be quite difficult to say for certain that my crimes were much lighter than Karwenz¡¯s.


    My current crimes were basically the umtion of all I had done in the past 10 years. A good portion of my crimes would actually be the ughter I justmitted right here. Without this ughter, I likely wouldn¡¯t have even reached the level of requiring a death penalty. As for Karwenz¡­ without even needing to use a Law Incantation, I could see that his soul was stained with so many crimes that it was almost ck instead of dark red.


    But if I died before Karwenz did, since my Law Sword Vengeance was being maintained by my own power, Vengeance would naturally disappear, making me the biggest joke of the year. I would probably have my nickname changed from the ¡°Undying¡± to ¡°The One Who Committed Suicide¡±.


    ¡°This is only the beginning.¡±


    One minute passed. The execution of the criminals had yet to bepleted, so the next round of punishment began.


    Wumianzhe¡¯s incarnation¡¯s eyes shed with silver light as he mmed his gavel down once again.


    ¡°Guilty.¡±


    This time, I spat up even more blood. However, I was delighted to see that arge hole appeared on Karwenz¡¯s neck as even more of his flesh and blood was sent flying. Blood spurted out from this hole unstoppably.


    ¡°Ha, every judgement takes twice as long, but the damage will also be doubled each time. How many rounds can you persist for, Karwenz?¡±


    However, what happened next was beyond my expectations.


    Karwenz remained silent for once after being seriously injured. He suddenly waved his hand and caused numerous tattered souls to arise from all the demon corpses around us. He immediately tugged those souls over to him for his absorption.


    ¡°¡­Damn it, the demon ability to devour souls.¡±


    Devouring flesh, blood, and souls to heal oneself was amon ability for demons. Naturally, I wouldn¡¯t sit back and watch him heal himself. But, when I prepared to get close to attack him, I tripped and fell over in a pool of blood because I hadn¡¯t noticed that everything below my knee was alreadypletely broken and crushed.


    Karwenz instantlypleted his soul absorption. His copsing physical body stabilized. Still, Iughed as I watched this while barely managing to raise my head.


    ¡°Foolish. Soul absorption is also a serious crime. Your next judgement will be even more fatal.¡±


    ¡°¡­You die and I will live.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s words were simple and sinct, yet they meant that he had seen through everything already. As long as he could kill me before the next judgement, my Law Sword Vengeance would naturally stop taking effect.


    ¡°No, there¡¯s actually an even simpler method.¡±


    Karwenz instead suddenly turned around and started to leave. This was actually the biggest headache of all for me to deal with.


    My Law Sword Vengeance was automated and obviously couldn¡¯t move. It also had no ability to restrict a person¡¯s movements. It would be easy to walk out of its area of effect to choose a new battlefield. Karwenz, a veteran of countless battles, had instantly seen through the weakness of my Law Sword.


    Naturally, I could have added a power of restriction to my Law Sword when creating it, but adding more different powers would have only diluted and greatly weakened the overall strength of this sword.


    In order to obtain power strong enough to kill a Main God, the only special effect I created my Law Sword with was the ability to reflect one¡¯s own crimes upon the perpetrator.


    Even though Karwenz had seen through my Law Sword¡¯s weakness, I was naturally prepared for this as I had never designed my Law Sword to be used alone to begin with¡­


    ¡°Come, Ice Sword Nortnds!¡±


    Even though we had been inside the lowest level of the Chaos Abyss, the scenery here instantly changed to dark clouds and a snowstorm as snow started to rapidly pile up on the ground at a visible rate.


    Even Karwenz paused in surprise for a moment when the ice and snow began to fall. Perhaps he never thought that he would experience the weather of the Nortnds here.


    I carefully controlled my arena of ice and snow, and sessfully brought Karwenz¡¯s altar to open the dimensional barrier into this battlefield as well.


    The Nortnds¡¯ weather cmities likely wouldn¡¯t be that effective against us, but when considering the Nortnds¡¯ history, I was quite confident in the Nortnds weather¡¯s destructive force against buildings.


    Only after I trapped us in this ice arena would it also be possible to activate the second ability of my Law Sword.


    ¡°Now, it¡¯s a battle of attrition to see who canst the longest.¡±

 Chapter 824 - How to Obtain Victory

    <h4>Chapter 824: How to Obtain Victory</h4>


    Under all the snowkes flying in the frozen ins, the two brothers exchanged nces with each other as always under the familiar chilly air. Yet, the coldness was unable to calm down either side¡¯s heated emotions.


    The afterimages of swords seemed to be slicing through time itself.


    Blood and flesh flew mysteriously as the consciousness became mired in memories.


    Imperceptibly, I seem to have made another step forward with my power level after sessfullypleting all four of my magic swords.


    Previously, when I was fighting against Sophocles, I had taken advantage of my abilities which countered his in order to fight against a Main God, but now, ording to ordinary people¡¯s standards, I had perhaps also achieved a Main God¡¯s power level.


    ¡°Guilty.¡±


    Law Sword Vengeance and Wumianzhe¡¯s shadowy figure floated in midair. Every time that the gavelnded, snowkes were sent flying together with torn pieces of both our souls.


    Perhaps the best evidence of my power level was how my Law Sword was able to injure Karwenz to such an extent.


    As time kept passing. Law Sword Vengeance kept calcting more and more of our ¡°sins¡±, and Vengeance would attack our souls based on how severe our crimes were.


    Karwenz¡¯s crimes were far more severe than mine were currently, so he was always injured more severely than I was during each judgement.


    However, every judgement would use up arge amount of mana in my body. This mysterious sense of being empty was disgusting to the point where I wanted to vomit, yet I still had to maintain my sword.


    ¡°Ha, I¡¯m using my own sword to judge myself. This is no different from suicide. But, no matter which method I used to fight Karwenz, we would always arrive at this step...¡±


    I was paying a tremendous amount of mana in order to simultaneously maintain the special abilities of my Nortnds and Vengeance swords. Even though my now matured Arbiter Bloodline had ridiculous mana regeneration capabilities, I was still at a disadvantage in a direct battle because of all the mana I was using.


    Karwenz¡¯s ck magic sword had explosive speed that no naked eye would possibly be able to see. His sword suddenly sliced right past my face... but missed by a hair¡¯s breadth, and didn¡¯t hit anywhere that would be fatal.


    ¡°Ha, you should slice right here.¡±


    I pointed at my fragile neck, yet Karwenz didn¡¯t respond to my taunt.


    Indeed, it wasn¡¯t that he was unwilling to kill me. It was simply that he didn¡¯t dare to kill me.


    Currently, I had a deep injury on my right shoulder and chest that almost prated all the way to my heart.


    Karwenz had an identical injury on the same spot on his body that was also burning with pain.


    ¡°Vengeance. Blood for blood, and an injury for an injury.¡±


    This was the second ability of my Law Sword Vengeance. It was the same type of ability as the first, an ability that would punish a viin for their ¡°crimes¡±. The difference was that this punishment would be immediate.


    Once Law Sword Vengeance was activated, anywhere under the area of effect of the judge Wumianzhe¡¯s gaze would let any action which harmed another be immediately reflected against the perpetrator.


    If you sliced off your enemy¡¯s head, then your own head would be cut off as well. If you cut off your enemy¡¯s arm, then your own arm would fall off. Law Sword Vengeance was a magic sword that was impossible to win with, but it was also a sword that absolutely wouldn¡¯t lose.


    Indeed, from the very beginning, I never even considered trying to win against Karwenz in melee battle. All I had wanted was not to lose.


    ¡°He¡¯s so unreasonably strong...¡±


    Even though I was long since mentally prepared that my bratty brother would be superior to me in swordsmanship, magic, andbat experience, meaning that I wouldn¡¯t be able to defeat him in meleebat, it really was quite maddening to face him and ascertain that all of this was true.


    Karwenzpletely suppressed me in speed, strength, and technique. Every single sword attack of mine was instantly seen through and countered.


    No matter what trap I tried to set up, Karwenz would always respond with something ridiculous that would absolutely crush all of mybat ns and preparations. In the end, this became a chaotic battle relying on instinct where I was disadvantaged due to his overwhelmingbat experience.


    Neither of us used any ultimate swordsmanship techniques or powerful magic spells requiring long incantations. At such a close distance in this chaotic battlefield of winter cmities, these seemingly simple sword slices were actually the best choice for both Sword Saints.


    Snow kept falling as the ck sword and sword of light kept shing against each other. Blood and flesh flew everywhere, staining the ground red. Everything fell into a primitive cycle.


    Straight horizontal shes, straight stabs, dodges, counterattacks, and trading injuries, followed by the same injuries we inflicted appearing on our own bodies.


    This was like a repeat of our swordsmanship practice from childhood, although both of us now had killing intent. However, the result was still basically the same, with me being at a disadvantage.


    Even worse was that Karwenz was actually bing constantly stronger.


    Even though his injuries were indeed bing more severe, his strength, speed, finesse, and uracy were all slowly improving. Any technique that I used once would be ineffective the second time. My killing techniques that should have been effective were all forcefully countered. Karwenz¡¯s seemingly ordinary yet cheat-like talent forbat was as shameless as always.


    His instinctivebat sense was truly a headache to deal with.


    Most people would naturally hesitate when faced with a strange ability that reflected damage back at them. They would even consider if they could actually obtain victory, and it was possible that they would simply stop fighting.


    In that case, that would give me enough time to charge my Holy Light Sword Dawn and strike with a powerful blow that would definitely kill Karwenz (as well as myself).


    However, Karwenz immediately noticed that I started charging power after the damage reflection started, so he unhesitatingly started trading injuries in order to prevent me from charging power.


    An even bigger headache was that I could sense how Law Sword Vengeance¡¯s damage output against him was decreasing. Karwenz was actually faintly bing resistant to the power of Law.


    ¡°Ha, I¡¯ve already gotten used to this. Rnd, do you have any other aces?¡±


    Karwenz casually swatted away an icicle that suddenly fell down with a smile that really made me want to beat him up.


    I knew better than anyone that the power of Law wasn¡¯t capable of doing everything. Law was simply a lower-level Concept of Order on the same level as Holy Light. Law was simply a new supernatural ability born in this world that wasn¡¯t fundamentally different from magic. Law could be dispelled and resisted as well. However, it really was rather depressing to see Karwenz get ustomed to my trump card so quickly.


    ¡°Ha, anyone can talk big. Here, I¡¯ll stand here without moving. Do you dare to slice my neck?¡±


    Even if Karwenz was now resistant to Vengeance¡¯s first ability to judge sins, he was still unable to do anything about Vengeance¡¯s second ability of instant damage reflection, which turned this battle into a battle of attrition.


    Both of us knew that directly killing the other was impossible. He had constantly remained on guard against my empty left hand as the Seal of the Four Elements was still an ace that was capable of ending this battle.


    Karwenz mostly chose to attack my arms and legs with his sword. It seemed that his chosen path of victory was to eliminate my mobility andbat strength.


    Karwenz suddenly fell silent as he directly stabbed his sword into the snowy ground.


    ¡°...This is so boring. Rnd, it seems that you never intended on defeating me in the first ce. No, you never even considered it possible to kill me.¡±


    I wanted to deny this, but I was unable to say anything in the end as I looked at his familiar icy eyes.


    Indeed, the power of Law in my double-edged sword Vengeance seemed amazing, but was actually quite limited in its effects.


    Vengeance could limit the scale of the battle and damage inflicted upon each other, which would slow the battle down. However, Vengeance wouldn¡¯t increase my odds of winning.


    Someone who truly desired victory would invest their resources into improving their own advantages in order to try and suppress their opponent. Meanwhile, I had only considered how not to lose and how to die together since the very start.


    There was nothing wrong with such a strategy. Normally, Karwenz¡¯s power level should have been greater than mine, so there was nothing wrong with someone weaker considering how not to lose as their priority.


    Additionally, due to the special nature of our connected souls, it was quite reasonable to only think about how not to lose.


    So, Karwenz was dissatisfied with the current situation? Did he think that I wasn¡¯t going all out against him?


    Perhaps Karwenz was thinking something like: ¡®I¡¯m seriously trying to kill you, yet you¡¯re not even trying to go all out? Just what is this?¡¯.


    Karwenz then suddenly smiled quite evilly.


    ¡°It seems that I need to give you some extra motivation... Rnd, since there¡¯re already two doors existing, don¡¯t you think that it¡¯s possible that there¡¯s actually a third door as well? Do you really think that you can stop me just by killing my demon babies and the mother hosts? Have you forgotten that in the mortal ne... there¡¯s my bloodline that both you and I know about!¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    I thought about many things in that instant, but Karwenz guffawed loudly while wielding his sword that gave off a dangerous aura, which prevented any time for words.


    Even though I consoled myself by telling myself that my allies were in the mortal ne, that the Hell Faction and Holy Light Faction wouldn¡¯t simply stand back and watch things be worse, and that I had already left insurance regarding that bloodline, I was still shaken by all of my emotions.


    I also resolved myself in the very next second. A sufficient amount of ice and snow had umted by now. I had to end this battle as quickly as possible with an ace capable of achieving victory.


    I took a deep breath and inserted my Ice Sword Nortnds into the snowy ground, causing the entire snowy ins to begin boiling.


    ¡°Begin, Conservation¡¯s army.¡±

 Chapter 825 - Eight Original Sins

    <h4>Chapter 825 Eight Original Sins</h4>


    Perhaps choosing to use Ice Sword Nortnds had been a mistake from the very beginning.At the very least, it would be impossible to expect much from my Ice Sword since my opponent was Karwenz.


    We had the same background and upbringing. It would be impossible for a Nortnder not to be ustomed to ice and snow. Our warriors would y around in the snow ever since young. Only outsiders from other ces would be allowed the newbie excuse of having trouble advancing due to the weather here.


    Even though Karwenz hadn¡¯t returned to the Nortnds for a winter battle for many years already, it was impossible for me to expect that Karwenz had already forgotten about how to fight in ice and snow weather cmities.


    The knowledge and techniques carved most deeply in oneself would always be the ones from childhood, after all. What one learned ever since young wouldn¡¯t simply be knowledge and techniques, as it would also create the basic foundation for a person¡¯s personality and way of thinking.


    Fishermen living by the sea would fear the unknown of the endless fickle sea. Veteran sailors and ship captains would always be a bit superstitious about luck being more important than power level in the sea.


    Eich¡¯s mainders viewed Nortnders as taciturn, barbaric, unreasonable, and as sturdy as the tundra on the icy ins, as a people who were even less civilized than barbarians.


    This was indeed a type of bias, but in a way it was also a choice made in order to survive.


    As a Nortnder, when you constantly met nothing but bad weather, and had to face endless despair due to the extremeck of resources, no outsider would possibly understand how resolute your personality would be. Such a personality became a necessary condition for surviving in the Nortnds.


    You couldn¡¯t count on good weather here, as bad weather was always far moremon.


    You couldn¡¯t hope for good luck, as the dangerous natural conditions would always make anything worse with the fastest speed possible. Any young livestock or young nt exposed to the weather outside wouldn¡¯t possibly live for a single day. You would have to think everything over many times and prepare as much as you possibly could in order to receive a harvest.


    One ident or a sudden snow cmity might make one¡¯s ns failpletely. So, your hard work for the entire past year had be useless? You¡¯d better hurry up and crawl back up because winter wasing, and you would freeze to death unless you prepared enough food for winter. The cruel Nortnds would never give you enough time to sigh andin.


    Was it really depressing to always be pessimistic about everything? When the great majority of situations would always worsen beyond one¡¯s expectations, such pessimism would actually be a ¡°normal¡± way of thinking.


    One required tenacity, the resolution to shamelessly live on no matter how bad the situation became. Perhaps outsiders would consider this way of living quite stiff and sad, but it was indeed necessary in the Nortnds.


    ¡°...It¡¯s all actually the same. Even in ces other than the Nortnds, cruel reality is everywhere in this damned world. If you want to live a good life, then there¡¯s no such thing as too many preparations or backup ns. Only by calcting for as many things as possible and nning as carefully as you can will one survive.¡±


    ¡°Well, the world is just as unpredictable as the Nortnds¡¯ blizzards. Misfortune might descend at any time, so shouldn¡¯t we just focus on having fun in the moment? At the very least, when I die, I will be able to loudly dere to the entire world that ¡®I, Karwenz, had a far more enjoyable life than any of you did,¡¯ and ¡®I had plenty of fun in this life!¡¯¡±


    Karwenz and I were identical twins who grew up in the same environment with the same status. Yet, we ended up havingpletely opposite personalities and ways of thinking. Was this a joke of Fate? Or was it because of the Goddesses of Order and Chaos? Or, was it simply just a... coincidence?


    ¡°Rnd, your ice and snow is useless against me. You should stop it, otherwise you¡¯ll be dragged to your death by this meaningless mana consumption.¡±


    Karwenz wasn¡¯t lying at all. He was enjoying this fight against me, and he didn¡¯t want to obtain victory too easily because of something like this.


    Any ability that changed the entire area, no matter what type, would always require tremendous mana expenditure to maintain.


    Rather than opening the door to the dimensional barrier, Karwenz probably wanted more to have a proper fun fight¡ªthe crueler, the better. He was such a single-celled organism...


    ¡°You bastard single-celled organism, other people justify the means with the end, but you¡¯re actually forgetting about the end because of the means!¡±


    ¡°Other people? Are you talking about yourself? Your current objective should be quite clear. You can only stop the door to the dimensional barrier from opening by killing me. Why are you hesitating? Bring out any aces that you have! Let me have my fun!¡±


    I confirmed once more that Karwenz was the type who didn¡¯t want to use his brain rather than being brainless. He desired stimtion and amusement far more than anything that had to do with reason. He had incredible logic and intelligence, yet he only ever used those to think about ¡°how to have more fun¡±, that selfish bastard.


    ¡°If a human allows their sense of logic and reason to be subordinate to instinct, then what difference is there between him and a beast?¡±


    This blizzard was obscuring our vision. A snow mountain was copsing. Amongst all this snow, our voices were one of the only weapons we could still spar with.


    ¡°Thinking so much about everything and living ording to so many rules? What difference is there between you and a puppet?¡±


    I kept buying time while speaking seemingly useless things. My Ice Sword Nortnds was incredibly ineffective against Karwenz.


    ¡°Aaaah!¡±


    My shout of pain came slightly after the pain in my body.


    Every judgement would take twice as long as the next one while also doubling the effect. The next judgement woulde after 16 minutes, but I would likely be unable to wait that long.


    I was capable of using Holy Light on myself to heal by exhausting my life, while Karwenz could devour souls to heal his injuries. 16 minutes would be more than enough for both of us topletely heal our physical bodies. Using Law Sword Vengeance alone to determine victory would require waiting for the judgement to be powerful enough to instantly kill both of us. That would take far too long.


    Judging from the currentbat situation, Karwenz was already far more ustomed to this snow and ice environment as he was the type who thought mostly with his instincts. He easily dodged hailstorms beforehand and dug pits to protect himself from avnches. His reactions were quite swift. If this went on, paying so much mana to maintain a world of ice and snow around us would be incredibly unwise for me.


    Not far away, the altar was nowpletely covered in snow. Either hail or an avnche had already destroyed the Goddess statue on the right. The lower half of the altar waspletely buried in snow. It would be impossible to use without some repairs.


    Still, I wasn¡¯t working so hard at maintaining this environment simply to destroy the altar. I could have used many methods which were far quicker and more convenient if that was all I had wanted.


    I kept persisting in maintaining Nortnds¡¯ ice and snow arena effect despite knowing that it was incredibly ineffective against Karwenz. This was for more than just limiting his mobility.


    Since I had already achieved my first objective of damaging the altar, then I might as well test out this new ace I finished researching not long ago. This ace was definitely powerful enough to be at the Creator Goddess¡¯s level.


    Didn¡¯t Karwenz want to see my aces? This ace was probably more than enough to crush a Main God.


    ¡°Arise, Conservation¡¯s army,¡± I called out in a low voice, causing all of the frigidnd to tremble as countless white figures crawled out from the snowy ground. They had bodies constructed from ice and snow, with skeletons made from crystallized ice.


    These existences were clearly the crystallization of snow and ice, yet they didn¡¯t have the dullness and coldness of elemental creatures. They seemed more like newborns who crawled around on the ground in confusion.


    However, their figures were changing swiftly as skin of ice and snow grew on their skeletons. Their limbs began to evolve into ordinary limbs. It was as if theypleted an evolution from newborn to adult, from monkey to human in just a short instant.


    ¡°First is the physical body...¡±


    In the world of Eich, ice and snow was probably the least hospitable environment of all for any life. But in the Hell dimension, all undead physical bodies were constructed with ice and snow as the foundation. In Hell, ice was the element of life.


    In my eyes, the Nortnds wasn¡¯t a forbidden zone for life at all. Activating my Ice Sword Nortnds also meant that I had opened up my own domain of life.


    The ice and snow scattered by Ice Sword Nortnds became seeds for life that gave birth to various creatures of ice and snow. Still, I really needed to thank the ¡°selfless¡± Undead Emperor Conservation who donated all of her research results to me, enabling me to aplish this.


    Back during my fight against her, when she was trapped in my personal Hell world, she had shown me something inconceivable while using her nearly infinite mana¡ªthe magical creation of bones.


    Any Undead Emperor with no undead underlings would have theirbat strength greatly reduced. Corpses were forever a necessarybat resource for any undead mage... until Conservation¡¯s research results suddenly arrived out of nowhere.


    Conservation used magic to create bones which should have originally required something formerly living. She was then able to use these ¡°bone resources¡± just like ordinary bones and control them using undead magic to create undead cannon fodder and bone giants.


    To her, perhaps this was only a simple shortcut for saving time on having to gather undead resources. Only she would be able to extravagantly waste so much mana on creating artificial bones because she had practically infinite mana with her principle of conservation. But, when I saw her technique, it was as if I had received a heaven-sent revtion.


    Hell¡¯s existence allowed the ice element to be the element of life under certain conditions. That was the foundation.


    Artificial bone creation magic was about using magic to create bones with the properties of life. This was a process and technique for creating artificial life.


    Once I had the foundation and technique, all I needed to do was to use the two major tools of ice magic and undead magic to constantly experiment and extrapte until I finally arrived at my ownpleted research result.


    What just happened seemed like I had only summoned the lowest-level elemental creatures. However, this had actually touched upon a realm where only the Creator Goddess previously held power: creating life.


    Yet, this was only the beginning. This technique originally was nothing more than pure theoretical research. Creating a horde of babies on the battlefield would bepletely meaningless.


    However, something unexpected then urred. A¡±nice person¡± gave me a ¡°generous gift¡± and filled in the biggest missing link for my research, which instantly allowed this ultimate technique to be incredibly practical... no, incredibly scary.


    Perhaps some readers might have already guessed. The ¡°nice person¡± I referred to was the Sky Tower Spirit.


    His knowledge on artificial souls and knowledge injection technologybined with my own soul separation technique finally created a Creator Goddess level forbidden spell, which I named Rnd¡¯s Eighth Original Sin.


    Army-level, city-level, country-level, species-level, God-level forbidden spells, and so on. Forbidden spells had a simple ssification system based on the destructive power of the forbidden spell. However, if I had to ssify my Rnd¡¯s Eighth Original Sin forbidden spell, then I could only describe it as a world-level forbidden spell.


    I had originally nned for this spell to be used against multiple Main Gods and the endless Chaos Abyss army. Karwenz should be proud to die to this spell!


    ¡°Forbidden spell, Rnd¡¯s Eighth Original Sin, part one, Conservation¡¯s army has now ended. Part two, activate... the forbidden result of artificial souls.¡±

 Chapter 826 - Absolute Kill

    <h4>Chapter 826 Absolute Kill</h4>


    The Haletdam schrs generation could be described as the pinnacle of Eich¡¯s civilization. The Haletdam generation went too far with researching taboo topics, leading to their destruction by the hands of the Gods of the time. If not for that, the Haletdam humans would likely still be ruling today, with no chance at all for the elves, beastmen, and current humans.The Haletdam generation had three major achievements that they were incredibly proud of: everyone bing undying, artificial souls, and the creation of life. This was also why the Gods destroyed them.


    The most foundationally important and core achievement would be the artificial souls.


    Conservation had started to create souls. This was a power that exceeded even the limits of what the Goddesses of Order and Chaos could do. It was likely that only Creator Goddess Eich herself had such a power.


    ¡°Part two, activate... the forbidden result of artificial souls.¡±


    A pitch-ck sword came to me while breaking the rules and distance of time and space while answering my summons. When this sword which had absorbed countless souls arrived here, all the snow in the surrounding area was instantly stained ck by the corruption of dead souls.


    ¡°Death Sword Seven Sins.¡±


    My Seven Sins sword had just harvested countless living souls on the battlefield. As Seven Sins existed here, it seemed as if a door to hell had been opened, and countless souls were pouring out.


    ¡°Trying to obtain endless knowledge and truth, and to learn the Gods¡¯ secrets, even if that¡¯s an instinct of intelligent creatures to search for knowledge, is also a taboo like ying with fire. Once humans finally believe that they have surpassed the Creator Goddess¡¯s limitations, they¡¯ll naturally try the Creator Goddess¡¯s powers for themselves... But in the world of Eich, that¡¯s the equivalent of bringing one¡¯s own destruction upon oneself.¡±


    Every single person would have their own personal interpretation of human nature. There were many philosophies about this, and none could be described as right or wrong.


    As for me, I always believed that the Seven Original Sins which were viewed as the source of all human evil were also in a way the most primitive motivations which pushed every individual and even society forward. This Eighth Original Sin was the same.


    The Haletdam generation was destroyed because they touched upon the foundational nature of souls and endangered the Cycle of Reincarnation. However, their research results had been left behind in this world.


    ¡°Spell formplete. Artificial soul model blueprintpleted...¡±


    Although the Haletdam generation¡¯s technology was amazing to the point where they could create systematic artificial souls, I had to say that even if they had astounding technology, they were incredibly weak at using it!


    Creating an artificial soul with a certain amount of knowledge and self will just for the sake of having a freeborer or a calctor? That was such an incredibly foolish waste of resources.


    As for me, when I obtained the techniques of both creating artificial life with magic and creating artificial souls, I immediately discovered the tremendousbat potential ofbining these techniques.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this just... a magical version of having a clone army?¡±


    In a way, the pinnacles of magic and science were both about the foundational nature of life and souls. Science and magic were interconnected this way despite being opposites.


    Due to the current magical civilization¡¯s overwhelming advantage in soul research, ¡°copied souls¡± would be far closer to the original.


    Eich was a world where all power stemmed from the soul. If artificial souls could be created and copied, then didn¡¯t this mean that a powerful individual could be mass-produced?


    A personckedbat experience and fighting techniques? It was simple enough to use undead magic to copy memories. Harloys was an expert among experts in this field. Not only were her soul books capable of copying memories, they were even capable of copying personalities and self will.


    An artificial soul would have limitations? This could be solved with the soul splitting technique that I used when creating my Seven Original Sins. Cutting off the soul shards of a powerful ¡°host¡± to create replica soul seeds was an already matured technique I had for creating super undead creatures.


    In order to preserve the soul¡¯s liveliness andpleteness, I even used the soul splitting and replication methods I learned from Harloys¡¯ soul books. Every individual was a page from her soul books.


    Lacking an appropriate physical body? Ibined my research results with Conservation¡¯s, and used temporary lives made from ice and snow to break all limits with the miraculous power to create life that was the realm of the Creator Goddess.


    Insufficient mana? I was using the super special order-only version of Olivia¡¯s Magic Box. Each of these Magic Boxes were capable of supplying power for an entire city¡¯s mage towers. One such Magix Box had the storage capacity of 50 mana pools.


    Although the theory was fine, there were too many unexpected things that could happen. I was still missing too many technologies for everything in-between. The sess rate would be really low? Indeed, having these separate technologies be gears that worked excellently together to craft this entire forbidden spell was something with such low probability that it was almost impossible. But, when in my Nortnds arena, it was possible to turn the almost impossible into a special weapon that was definitely possible.


    ¡°...Soul World Nortnds is stable. ¡®Rnd¡¯ physical body modelpleted. Artificial soul injection beginning...¡±


    Even in my Soul World of ice and snow, each Rnd clone had only approximately 60-70% of my totalbat strength.


    Every soul was an artificial soul that I had created using my own soul shardbined with living soul resources. These Rnd clones wouldn¡¯t have high intelligence, and they had almost zero emotions, but their fighting techniques andbat experience would also be around 60-70% of my own.


    Each skeleton of ice and snow finished evolving in front of me. They all gained flesh and blood and put on armor created from solid ice while picking up swords of ice and snow.


    Still, I was a little creeped out by seeing so many familiar faces with such listless eyes.


    One Rnd, two Rnds, three Rnds... fine, an uncountable number of Rnds.


    Harloys, Rnd, and Conservation. This was the result of thebined research of three Undead Emperors who were all at the peak of soul research. The Haletdam generation¡¯s most precious technology was added to this in order to finally create this unstoppable miracle.


    ¡°...Karwenz, if you can survive against my army of 1342 Rnds for five minutes, then I¡¯ll... I¡¯ll win in the end regardless, so what if you can survive for five minutes? You¡¯ll die after 10 minutes anyways.¡±


    Karwenz ignored me as heughed wildly when faced with my endless clone army. He immediately started challenging this one vs. thousand battle without there needing to be any meaning to it.


    I heaved a sigh of relief at Karwenz¡¯s fervor forbat. Splitting my soul into overly many pieces meant that my vision had be hazy, and my head hurt so much that I couldn¡¯t feel anything else at all. My mana was being overloaded, which was destroying my magic power as well as life itself.


    Thispound forbidden spell was beyond the limits of any mage to cast. While this forbidden spell provided unstoppablebat strength, it would also cause the caster¡¯s physical body and soul to simultaneously begin copsing.


    Indeed, I had just lied to Karwenz. I hadn¡¯t lied for all of my lives all in order so that I could seed at fooling an enemy in a critical time like this.


    Karwenz had been fooled as I expected. If he instead stalled for time and ran away, I would definitely be the first to copse. But with his actions, he definitely wouldn¡¯t run away from here.


    How much longer could I persist for? One more second? One more minute? Until the next judgement?


    How much longer could Karwenz persist for? No matter what aces he had up his sleeve, I felt that it would be impossible for any of his aces to surpass this ace of mine.


    Would Karwenz die first, or would I end up killing myself first...? This really was rather interesting.

 Chapter 827 - Deathmatch That’s Unable to End

    <h4>Chapter 827 Deathmatch That¡°s Unable to End</h4>


    What was the definition of ughter? I would define it as an activity with the purpose of ending your enemy¡¯s life.


    The multiple Rnds before me were probably the purest weapons of ughter in this entire world.


    They had kindly smiles on their handsome faces, yet their eyes weren¡¯t smiling at all. They had no killing intent whatsoever, yet they acted in order to ughter.


    ¡°Honestly, whom did they learn this abnormal way of smiling while killing from?¡±


    [...Could you please have a little more self-awareness? Whom are they cloned from? Who¡¯s the one who smiles more happily when in greater danger?]


    ¡°...Karwenz.¡±


    [...Just keep acting...]


    Perhaps I knew that there weren¡¯t many chances left as I kept chatting with the foolish Goddess of Order who had messed everything up. I actually treasured our conversation for once.


    As for the battlefield? Things were going quite well, reaching the point where I didn¡¯t need to pay it much attention.


    Currently, Karwenz was just like a trapped beast who was being hunted. Even though he was still furious, arrogant, and threatening, his body was already filled with ice spears and ice swords. Just the amount of blood constantly spilling from his body was more than enough to kill any ordinary living creature of blood loss.


    This group of smiling Rnds had no pity, anger, or even hostility. Yet, each and every one of their attacks was highly dangerous.


    They transformed into dragons, used ultimate attacks, and traded injuries. Even if they had to pay with their lives, it was worth it as long as they left a single unheble injury on Karwenz.


    Even I, the creator of this clone army technique, hadn¡¯t imagined just how dangerous ¡°I¡± would be when going all out without regards to my life.


    Karwenz was incredibly strong when pushed to the brink. He was strong to the point where I wanted to despair. I discovered to my surprise that his power level actually faintly exceeded that of Sophocles.


    However, when confronted with 1342 Rnds, even though those Rnds were only about half my power level, Karwenz¡¯s strength was still meaningless.


    For instance, if a Sword Saint from the samurai generation had to face an unending horde of mechas, then he would be facing an enemy that he was incapable of confronting head-on due to an overwhelming difference in strength.


    Things were even more unfair for Karwenz because the moment that he attacked a ¡°Rnd¡±, the damage he inflicted upon the Rnd would be reflected right back at him, while the Rnds had no fear of death from Vengeance¡¯s damage reflection ability.


    Since the Rnds¡¯ power level wasn¡¯t too shabby, and Karwenz was unable to go all out, it was only natural that the side with the numbers advantage would win.


    ¡°Hey, Rnd! Do you dare¡ª¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t dare.¡±


    I could already guess what this single-celled organism was going to shout to me. It would basically be something like ¡°have a direct fight against me¡± or something equally useless. Would any verbal taunts have a meaning against me...? Besides, the current me only had enough strength remaining to watch the battle. In fact, even watching was rather difficult.


    My vision had be really hazy. I could only understand what was happening before me through my sense for life. It seemed that my sense of hearing was also losing effect as my physical body and soul copsed.


    ¡°Scram!¡±


    Karwenz appeared to be rampaging as his aura suddenly magnified significantly.


    The entire world was ignited as the chaotic domain tried to break space itself. As long as Karwenz managed to escape from here, it was indeed true that I would no longer have the strength to set up another battle against Karwenz.


    However, before Karwenz could tear apart the seal on space itself, the Rnds created a barrier of ice which stabilized the spatial distortion.


    Although I could no longer see things clearly, I could sense that Karwenz was gradually being weakened, weakened, and weakened even more. His life force was like a candle flickering in the wind that might go out at any moment.


    ¡°Haha, how pitiful.¡±


    The foolish Goddess of Order sent me an image. My wild younger brother was currently being pierced in the sky by a sea of ice spears. The Rnds werepleting the final harvest.


    Pitiful screams sounded in my ears. Karwenz¡¯s Demon God blood kept dripping on the snow. His soulfire was fluttering, yet it still refused to go out.


    ¡°Why must I always risk my life in battle?¡±


    Past memories kept shing in my mind like a movie. Just how many times was it now that I saw past memories before I died? Couldn¡¯t my enemies please be slightly weaker?


    My physical body had already lost its consciousness. Karwenz¡¯s screams still continued. It seemed likely that I would copse before him at this rate, but luckily...


    I could sense that Wumianzhe¡¯s shadow appeared above my head once more. His gavel swung down for the final judgement of this battle.


    ¡°It¡¯s finally over...¡±


    When a silver sh filled my field of vision, I smiled in satisfaction, a smile which truly came from my heart.


    And then, I saw nothing but familiar pitch-ck...


    ¡°...This time, I can really have a nice long nap.¡±


    ¡°Sleep? It¡¯s finally over? What a nice dream you must be having!¡±


    A familiar angry roar came from beside me. Could it be that Karwenz had broken free from my cage?


    I suddenly woke up in astonishment to discover that I was no longer in the deepest level of the Chaos Abyss.


    I was now in an endless river with such familiar dark gray water with countless souls floating within. The furious fellow in front of me seemed rather familiar.


    ¡°...Karwenz?¡±


    I was rather astonished because he was now before me as an equally weak soul.


    ¡°Ha.¡±


    I finally understood the current situation. It seemed that no matter who had died first, we were now both dead, which meant that everything was over.


    Iughed since I could still reincarnate, which was far better than the worst oue that I had expected.


    ¡°Finally over? Don¡¯t even think about it! Just stay here and suck your thumb while you witness how I open the door to the dimensional barrier!¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s words were rather ridiculous. What could he even do in such a condition? However, I immediately understood in the very next instant.


    Karwenz¡¯s soul¡¯s eyes lost the color of emotion and became no different from the other dead souls here who had no self will. Where could his consciousness have gone under such circumstances?


    ¡°...He transferred his consciousness? He has another descendant?¡±


    I then recalled Karwenz¡¯s previous threat: ¡°there¡¯s my bloodline that both you and I know about¡±. Damn it all!


    ¡°Reyne!?¡±

 Chapter 828 - The Price of Borrowed Power

    <h4>Chapter 828 The Price of Borrowed Power</h4>


    Demon bloodlines had always been a double-edged sword.


    In the mortal ne, there wasn¡¯t a single job ss that would have faster growth than demon warlock. Demon warlocks simply needed to rx their control over their own bloodline and borrow power from their own demon ancestor or a powerful demon in the Chaos Abyss. The demon warlock would then be able to grow at a speed like a story¡¯s protagonist.


    Reach Gold rank in one year, Legend in two years, and Saint rank in 10 years. Other job sses wouldn¡¯t even possibly be able to dream of this... but if that demon warlock really progressed like this, then he would no longer be ¡°himself¡±.


    Demons weren¡¯t exactly the type to be kind and generous to others. In fact, it was rather the opposite. They were far more wicked than even the most ck-hearted of people who handed out illegal high-interest loans. Demons would also demand immediate repayment for their services.


    ¡°There are no free lunches in this world. If you think that there¡¯s an exception, that¡¯s because you¡¯ve already paid everything without realizing it.¡±


    That was probably the best assessment of the rtionship between demons and ordinary humans. In a way, this was also a correct assessment of the rtionship between Gods and ordinary humans.


    As long as you proved that you were a worthy investment, a demon/God would give you plenty of power, just like how a loanpany would start out by greeting you with a friendly smile and hand you as much money as possible as if they had too much money on hand.


    What made Gods and demons worse than loanpanies was that they wanted everything you had rather than just your money. No matter if it was in the upper nes or the Chaos Abyss, the best currency was forever the souls of ordinary people.


    For high-level Gods and demons, their divine power or demonic power was a part of themselves. If you tried to obtain their power, you would be opening the door to your own soul, and inviting them toe in.


    If you really did casually use their strength as you pleased, then you would be connected to the God or demon. You might feel that you were controlling this power, but you were actually already corroded by power, and would be a part of it... Puppets, God Envoys, fanatical believers, dark cultists, chosen by the Gods, demonic descendant awakeners, and so on were possible oues for your final ending, depending on the demon or God¡¯s personal preferences. However, there was no actual foundational difference between these different statuses.


    Karwenz had been targeting Reyne since the very beginning... no, perhaps I should say that Reyne¡¯s very birth was something that Karwenz had prepared.


    Their identical Soul Imprints were the best exnation for everything. A Soul Imprint would be the crystallization of a person¡¯s talents and personal path. There were no examples in history of two people having identical Soul Imprints without another¡¯s guidance. When considering Reyne¡¯s talent and power level that I didn¡¯t need to talk about, her awakening such a super cheat Soul Imprint (with the power to be stronger as long as you believed yourself to be strong) seemed like nothing more than a joke.


    ¡°Karwenz created Reyne through his bloodline to use as a physical body substitute in the mortal ne.¡±


    This was my guess at Reyne¡¯s true identity. Back in earlier generations where powerful demons and Gods were unable to act in the mortal ne so easily, it was incrediblymon to see them using their own descendants as a temporary physical body through taking it over or with God¡¯s Descent.


    Of course, such physical bodies also had other uses, such as being a body to reincarnate in if the God or demon died. There was even a certain Chaos Evil God who intentionally left goblin, dragon, giant, insectman, centaur, deermen, and other descendants from several hundred different species. He had all his descendants ughter each other to determine who was the strongest, and the final victor became his vessel for revival. He actually increased in power level after reviving instead of having it decrease, so it could only be said that he had such heavy and varied tastes... ahem, that he was quite intelligent and well-prepared.


    It was quitemon to spread many seeds to find the best possible host for future revival. The shameless powerful existences would often keep breaking new records in how many children they had in the mortal ne.


    However, it was quite evident that Karwenz highly valued Reyne¡¯s physical body. She definitely wasn¡¯t a seed that he had casually sown.


    The fact that they had an identical appearance was just one aspect of it. Maybe outsiders would see this as a coincidence, but my inference was that her simrity to Karwenz had already reached the level of being the same in DNA and their very cells. Karwenz had perfectly replicated his own physical body, and spent a great deal of effort on modifying Reyne¡¯s soul in order to have the most perfect backup physical body possible. That was the most likely exnation for how they had identical Soul Imprints.


    At my and Karwenz¡¯s power level, Soul Imprints were no longer that important on the battlefield. However, Soul Imprints were the starting point for the path after Legend rank and the foundation for future development. It would be the stepping stone for creating one¡¯s future tform.


    For an ordinary God¡¯s Descent, it was fine to just use a random physical body. Although it would be better to have higher synchronicity, there was no such thing as requiring an identical Soul Imprint, for that would be almost impossible.


    It could be said that Reyne was Karwenz¡¯s clone. Of course, when considering how much effort Karwenz had spent on her birth, it wouldn¡¯t even be wrong to call Reyne Karwenz¡¯s actual daughter.


    Reyne was important, abnormally important to Karwenz, to quite an unusual extent... But, to the Mist Kingdom, Reyne was also highly important. I couldn¡¯t possibly just kill her and end things just because of a possibility that I might one day be enemies with Karwenz.


    Fine, I admit that I was likely unable to do such a thing to her.


    This wouldn¡¯t be a dead end. It wasn¡¯t guaranteed that a God or demon¡¯s descendant would definitely be controlled by their ancestor. Many powerful demons and Gods had previously started out as a demon or God¡¯s descendant themselves. As long as the descendant did their best to be their own person and break free from their ancestor¡¯s temptations, they could obtain a ¡°true name¡± and be truly independent. This meant it was possible to be independent and break free from the ancestor¡¯s control.


    I wasn¡¯t sure about the Gods, but in the Chaos Abyss where thew of the jungle reigned supreme, someone weaker oveing a stronger individual was considered a virtue that would be greatly renowned.


    I had tried to teach Reyne and guide her into searching for her own path without relying on the power of Chaos in her bloodline. That seemingly free lunch would actually end up being extravagantly expensive.


    Karwenz had possessed Reyne multiple times before. Although he did many ridiculous things, when looking at the big picture, he seemed like a perfect ¡°grandpa spirit¡± who helped Reyne through all her hardships, and even once helped Reyne to save the Mist Kingdom. It would likely be highly difficult to erase her grateful feelings from saving her life and country.


    It was likely that more than anything else, my rtionship with Karwenz had caused Reyne to rx her guard. Perhaps in her heart, she didn¡¯t view my younger brother Karwenz as a terrible viin that she needed to be absolutely vignt against, especially after he possessed her in order to save the Mist Kingdom, was so humorous, and also really ¡°wise¡±.


    It would be quite fatal to have such a friendly attitude towards Karwenz. Reyne was busy with politics and all sorts of national affairs, so she didn¡¯t have much time left for cultivation practice so that her power level wouldn¡¯t decrease, which meant that she kept relying on her bloodline power as a cheat to help her swiftly be more powerful... It was impossible for me to believe that Reyne could reject the temptation of her bloodline, especially since her personal talent was incredibly terrible. All of her previous foundation had all been created for her by the power of Chaos.


    More than 50% of the legends about Reyne being the ¡°Princess Knight¡± could actually be credited to her personal ¡°grandpa spirit¡±. It could be said that Princess Knight Reyne wouldn¡¯t have ever existed without Karwenz.


    One would be ustomed to relying on something. Trust would be buried deep in the heart, and be something akin to instinct.


    ¡°It was fine when I used it before. Why would anything happen to me in the future?¡±


    Once such an attitude formed, it would be incredibly difficult to persuade the person no matter how much an outsider tried to exin. Things were even more difficult because Reyne was filled with trust for Karwenz.


    In the end, I half forcefully changed out the blood in Reyne¡¯s body, which also caused the unfortunate Glina to suffer along as well when Glina shouldn¡¯t have required such a thing. She had been fighting against her own Chaos bloodline since young, and had an iron will to guard herself that made me feel quite reassured. Her willingness to work hard and outstanding talent also helped her to grow at an incredibly swift rate. Stealing the strength of her own bloodline toplete herself was also a shortcut.


    Changing out Reyne¡¯s blood didn¡¯t mean that it would be the end. It would only serve to slightly distance the connection between her and Karwenz. It was like installing an iron door in the middle of Karwenz and Reyne¡¯s connection.


    However, if the homeowner was unable to resist temptation and opened the door of her own volition to allow the burr to enter, then no matter how sturdy the iron door was, it would bepletely meaningless.


    Reyne was a Chaos Knight who was already in a powerful job ss that required the power of Chaos (simr to a demon warlock). Unless she abandoned all her power and started over from the very beginning, it would be absolutely necessary for her to remain connected to the Chaos Abyss.


    Did Reyne end up borrowing power from Karwenz? How much power had she borrowed? Had she identally sold all of herself? I didn¡¯t know, and it was quite difficult for me to interfere. However, I had felt that things were quite bad with how swiftly Reyne¡¯s power level kept increasing, which was why I had made some extra ¡°preparations¡±.


    When ¡°Reyne¡± woke up from a fatiguing deep sleep, someone blocked her way before she could get ustomed to the changes in her physical body. This person had a familiar face and an even more familiar yet strange dual voice.


    ¡°Ha, isn¡¯t this my foolish little brother/little sister? Little brat/little girl, are you lost?¡±

 Chapter 829 - Opening the Door

    <h4>829 Opening the Door</h4>


    It seemed that the battle at Bardi was nearing its end as the Chaos Gods died.


    The core of the battlefield was still a certain God enveloped in endless Holy Light. However, he now seemed far more disheveled than earlier.


    His previously blinding Holy Light was rather dim now. Karn had used a great deal of divine power in order to defend against the Chaos Gods¡¯ self-destructions.


    The God of Holy Light¡¯s Main God-level incarnations kept dying off, causing Karn to lose thousands and thousands of years of umted divine power and power of belief. Finally, his face concealed by Holy Light was revealed for all to see.


    Karn had blonde hair, blue eyes, a handsome visage, and even a milky-smooth facial skin, yet he was cold and expressionless, with not even a single trace of emotion. Maybe some women would really like his appearance, but his face no longer remaining concealed by Holy Light was evidence of his weakness.


    ¡°...Finally, the God of Holy Light is no longer undefeatable.¡±


    As the old phrase went, the enemy of an enemy would be a friend. It was quite easy to obtain friendship when there was a mutual enemy, but once the mutual enemy disappeared, it would be quite easy for the friends to then turn on each other.


    The Nature Faction and other such neutral God Factions would all want more power for themselves and to be the ruling God Faction of the gigantic mortal ne. Not to mention, there were plenty of powerful ancient existences from the Chaos Abyss who were waiting for an opportunity and watching this battle.


    The will of the Chaos Abyss was unable to control Chaos Main Gods. Cynthia¡¯s rtionship with the Chaos Main Gods was simr to that of an employer with mercenaries. The unfortunate Donatis, Sophocles who voluntarily attacked, and the inexperienced Karwenz were the only ones that Cynthia could control. Among the uncontroble Main God-level existences were numerous ancient existences whose names and past achievements had long since been forgotten by ordinary people.


    Most of these ancient existences were those who had lost in past Holy Wars. Some were previously venerated heroes, some were lucky surviving Gods of a species that had been eliminated from history, and there were even some who wanted a peaceful retirement, or were simply tired of the Holy War. However, there were definitely those who still had ambitions concerning the mortal ne, so they were waiting in the shadows for a chance of their own.


    These ancient existences hadn¡¯t taken action in previous Holy Wars due to the existence of the will of the Chaos Abyss, and also because it would be impossible for them to be the final victor of the Holy War without any tribe of their own. But now, the will of the Chaos Abyss had disappeared, and all restrictions had been lifted. It seemed that it was time for them to return to the mortal ne, but...


    The Holy Light was far too much of an obstacle.


    The God of Holy Light was the strongest Main God who was an undefeatable existence that no other Main God could possibly resist.


    The God of Holy Light¡¯s pure divine power server had reached the pinnacle of power in the entire Eich universe. The undefeatable God of Holy Light was more than enough to strike fear into the heart of any powerful existence who had ambitions regarding the mortal ne.


    The Chaos Faction¡¯s overall power level was several times stronger than that of the Order Faction. This was the fact that everyone knew. As long as a sufficient number of Chaos Main Gods teamed up for an invasion, then even the God of Holy Light would definitely be defeated... but of course, the invading Chaos Main Gods would also die to the God of Holy Light.


    The result was that none of the Chaos Main Gods were willing to sacrifice themselves, which meant that none of them started an invasion. This was all because of the God of Holy Light¡¯s existence.


    I knew this as well. I had tried to weaken the God of Holy Light in order to create an opportunity for the Hell Faction, but I had also carefully controlled how much I weakened him by. There were multiple critical decision points where I had refrained from weakening him.


    I knew that it was highly important for the mortal ne that the God of Holy Light remained alive and powerful until the Hell Faction and Nature Faction truly took over the Holy Light Faction¡¯s territory.


    But now, thanks to Karwenz¡¯s final n, everything had changed.


    Perhaps the God of Holy Light hadn¡¯t been weakened significantly, and perhaps he was still the strongest Main God in the world. However, he had already exposed his weakness in front of everyone, showing that he was no longer undefeatable.


    The wolves who used to fear him would now view him as weak prey. They wouldn¡¯t give him any time to rest and recover.


    Additionally, the God of Holy Light¡¯s current allies were also hatching their own schemes behind his back. Perhaps it was time for their old grudges to be calcted now that the mutual enemy had been eliminated.


    In a way, the Chaos Faction was far more proactive than the Order Faction. Maybe it was a lot more difficult for the Chaos Faction to form solid alliances, but the Chaos Faction would always unhesitatingly go all out if an opportunity presented itself.


    ¡°One, two... five. Normally they can¡¯t be seen anywhere, but all of them have now jumped out of the woodwork.¡±


    ¡°Reyne¡± was counting the number of Chaos Main God-level existences who were currently on the battlefield or about to enter the battlefield.


    This battle wasn¡¯t over. Chaotic domains kept opening as originally closed Dimensional Doors in the Chaos Abyss were forcefully opened. Powerful existences of Chaos were all focusing their attention on this location. This time, their target was the big ball of Holy Light who had showed some sign of weakness rather than Karwenz.


    The most frightening part about any powerful enemy would always be the unknown. Once the God of Holy Light lost his barrier of Holy Light concealment and showed his true appearance, he instantly went from predator to prey.


    All of this had been due to ¡°Reyne¡¯s¡± decision.


    ¡°Reyne¡± had just woken up from a deep sleep in the captain¡¯s office of the Borealis gship of the Mist Kingdom¡¯s airship squadron when she met with a legendary kabedon.


    ¡°My dear younger brother, where did you intend on going...?¡±


    Karwenz didn¡¯t answer my question. Instead, heughed out loud upon seeing my feminine face which carried an expression of icy rage.


    ¡°Haha, Rnd, I never expected that you had the hobby of dressing in female clothing and bing a loli¡ª¡±


    There was a bright explosion as something powerful shot out from the loli¡¯s dark and thick tube. Karwenz¡¯s insult was interrupted as he was forced to swallow the rest of his words.


    Glina Mist, my most outstanding disciple that I was the proudest of. I had previously used my own bloodline to rece hers, meaning that she basically had a weaker version of my Arbiter Bloodline.


    Glina¡¯s power level had already reached SemiGod several years ago. She was a highly skilled jack of all trades. Herbat techniques and experience were outstanding. Her incredible knowledge of engineering was a great support for her inbat. Her war puppets and explosives were at the peak of the world.


    Reyne Mist had a bloodline of Chaos. She was originally a Chaos Knight whose primary way of fighting was to summon demons. Additionally, she often cked off on cultivating her power level... It would be praising her to say that her power level was a mystery. The truth was that her power level was only average.


    My power level was very simr to Karwenz¡¯s before he took over his descendent Reyne and I used God¡¯s Descent on Glina, but when it came to singlebat, Glina was more than powerful enough to defeat 10 Reynes simultaneously.


    If the ¡°pilots¡± had very simr skill levels, then the ¡°mecha¡¯s¡± stats would be the most critical part to determine victory. Maybe Reyne appeared to be a far more outstanding warrior than Glina, but Glina had fought hard for everything ever since young, and had long since reached the peak of the world.


    Even worse for Reyne was that she was someone who used the power of Chaos. She was borrowing her strength from another, and the person she was borrowing power from, her ancestor Karwenz, had died. This would obviously cause a significant decrease in her power level.


    This was just like how a True God¡¯s priest would bepletely useless after that God died.


    Additionally, Reyne was definitely fighting back against Karwenz¡¯s will that had taken over her body, while Glina waspletely cooperating with me. All of these advantages rued to give me a tremendous advantage in power level over Karwenz.


    ¡°You have no chance of victory. Voluntarily leave Reyne¡¯s body and I¡¯ll only seal you away for 500 years. Otherwise...¡±


    This was no empty threat. There was an obvious power level difference between the two hosts we were in. Karwenz realized himself that he couldn¡¯t possibly win when he felt how weak his host body was. He now regretted that he hadn¡¯t been stricter with Reyne on cultivating more instead of letting her rest all she wanted. She had been relying far too much on only the power of Chaos.


    ¡°...Is this the end?¡±


    Karwenz was hesitating since he felt that it was a pity, but what he felt the most was displeasure that his game had ended earlier than he expected.


    Mentioning a third door earlier was only a lie in order to try and shake Rnd. At this point, it seemed that everything could only end like this. Perhaps it would be better to admit defeat in order to save face. If the end result was already predetermined, it wouldn¡¯t look very good to get beaten up before being sealed.


    *Click!*


    But at this moment, the entire world shook as something seemed to secretly changed. It felt as if a certain door had just been opened.


    The two brothers/sisters exchanged nces in the small captain¡¯s room of the Borealis. Both of them paused in surprise as this waspletely unexpected for both. What exactly had happened just now?


    ¡°The door was opened?¡±


    ¡°The door was opened.¡±


    Rnd and Karwenz then simultaneously realized who must have opened the door to the dimensional barrier.


    ¡°I should have hardened my heart and killed her, even if she was Harloys¡¯ father before... Didina!!!¡±


    ¡°Ha, don¡¯t cry over spilled milk. You couldn¡¯t have possibly done such a thing. You wouldn¡¯t even have been able to activate that ¡®Law Sword¡¯ thing of yours without a neutral witness, right? You wouldn¡¯t have possibly defeated me without that little sword of yours.¡±


    Indeed, the only possible exnation was that Didina had opened the door to the dimensional barrier.


    At this moment, Didina, the former Gold Elf Emperor, as well as a Chaos Girl, and the only survivor in the lowest level of the Chaos Abyss, had just opened the door to the dimensional barrier.

 Chapter 830 - Didina

    <h4>830 Didina</h4>


    Going back in time a little, to one hour before the door to the dimensional barrier was opened. This was when the battle between the twin brothers had just finished in the lowest level of the Chaos Abyss.


    ¡°Judgement: death penalty!¡±


    Wumianzhe swung his gavel for the final time, transforming everything into ashes as all shadowy figures were shattered.


    The battling twin brothers copsed simultaneously. All the Rnd clones simultaneously disappeared.


    The endless snow swiftly melted. The pitch-ck temple returned to the lowest level of the Chaos Abyss. The snow took away all corpses and rubble, leaving only an empty hallway behind.


    ¡°Couch, cough...¡±


    The only survivor in the entire lowest level of the Chaos Abyss was currently vomiting while crouching on the ground.


    Her vomiting wasn¡¯t because of any evil curse, nor was it because she was a novice who couldn¡¯t stand blood. Didina had simply rxed her body after feeling a tremendous sensation of fear. The natural instinct of having barely survived was difficult for her body to handle.


    When a frog was being stared at by a snake, the frog¡¯s natural instinct of fear would cause it to freeze up. The cruelest death penalty would be to inform you beforehand of the time that you would die, causing you to slowly enter death as your fear and anxiety kept increasing.


    The difference between Didina and Karwenz or Rnd was far greater than between a snake and a frog. This was the difference between a Tyrannosaurus Rex and an ant. Just the wind from the dinosaur passing by or the earth shaking from the dinosaur walking could bring absolute disaster upon the ant.


    The ¡°survivor¡± was forcibly trapped in the arena as a spectator at the closest distance possible. She was forced to enjoy the ¡°battle between monsters¡± thatsted more than an hour. Even though the smallest shock wave should have been enough to shatter her body, her status as a ¡°neutral observer¡± meant that Law Sword Vengeance¡¯s power would prevent her from dying.


    She kept dying and reviving endlessly. Even though she should have beenpletely dead, she was forced to survive without an injury due to the ¡°requirement of needing a jury for the court¡±.


    Maybe killing intent was just something intangible in stories, but high-level demons really were capable of using pressure or an angry re to kill ordinary humans or low-level magical beasts. The battle between the Main God-level Rnd and Karwenz ended up bing a chaotic battle with thousands of Rnd clones who were all at the level of powerful Gods. Didina had wished countlessly during the battle that she could just die.


    The end result of being forced next to death so many times was that the subus¡¯s physical body and soul were overloaded. A slightly weaker soul would have already perished.


    Even though Didina was still alive, she was currently in extreme difort.


    Her stomach kept heaving as she vomited all of its contents. Her snot and drool were flying everywhere. Although her sense of reason kept informing her that the threat was gone, she was unable to control her body. This was the only way by which she could vent her instinctive fear. Her appearance was incredibly humiliating despite the fact that she was a beautiful woman.


    Didina finally recovered slightly after her stomach waspletely empty from vomiting.


    She copsed on the ground and inhaledrge breaths, feeling as if this was the sensation of being alive. Even though her legs were still trembling, she forced herself to start moving. Her legs stillcked strength, but she forced herself to crawl on all fours despite how humiliating it was.


    ¡°...I can still do it.¡±


    Not far away was the altar of the Goddesses of Order and Chaos, which had been reduced to rubble. The snow was gone now, revealing the altar which had been buried under the snowy ins. The altar was broken in countless ces. It was evident that it could no longer be used.


    ¡°Chaos summon.¡±


    However, most people had forgotten how the seemingly weak Didina had once been the leader of her own level of the Chaos Abyss. Although she relied on her pet more than her own power level, she was also a Demon Lord who possessed the knowledge of demons and the Gold Elf Empire. She was definitely a top-ss archmage.


    Numerous low-level and mid-level demons emerged from a teleportation portal. However, they weren¡¯t ordered to ughter. Instead, the incredibly fatigued Didinamanded them to work asborers as they began to repair the altar under hermand.


    One of the mostmon demon abilities was the ability to summon other demons. However, demons didn¡¯t actually like to use this ability, because there was far too high a price to pay for summoning other demons of the same or even higher level. If you summoned a higher-level demon, you would be forced to answer their summons in the future, which would easily trap a demon in servitude. As for summoning weaker demons than yourself... What meaning would there be in that?


    However, subi were an exception to this. As everyone knew, subi were highly popr with other powerful existences in the Chaos Abyss. Many famously beautiful subi would have multiple lovers amongst the Demon Lords. This was why nobody dared to rape subi despite the fact that subi had some of the weakest power levels amongst all demons.


    Subus Demon Lord Didina furiously opened up numerous teleportation portals to summon her subordinates as well as high-level demons. The high-level demons weremanded to summon even more high-level and mid-level demons. These demons kept summoning each other while swiftly forming argeborer army.


    The low-level demons unhesitatingly carried out the Demon Lord master¡¯smands. However, the high-level demons had many thoughts of their own when they saw how fatigued the Demon Lord was, and that she was a subus who likely wasn¡¯t very skilled atbat.


    Yet, the experienced Didina immediately found an excuse to execute two high-level demons, which sessfully cowed the other demons into submission, preventing the seeds of rebellion from forming.


    Nobody had likely guessed that the designer of this altar and the person behind the theory on how to open the door to the dimensional barrier was actually Didina, a subus who attracted very little attention. Nobody had likely ever expected that this inconspicuous ¡°weak subus¡± was actually the foremost expert space magic archmage in the entire world.


    It was only natural that Didina, who had both the Chaos Abyss¡¯s knowledge and the legacy of the Gold Elf Empire, was capable ofpleting this miraculous task.


    ¡°...It¡¯s finally about to be finished.¡±


    Didina didn¡¯t feel reassured at all despite the fact that the repairs were being done quite swiftly. Her anxiety didn¡¯t reduce at all, as it was still impossible to exin how Rnd had suddenly appeared here.


    ¡°Scram!¡±


    Didina whipped aborer demon who was rather clumsy. She then became so impatient that she even personally worked on the altar¡¯s repairs herself.


    ¡°...Finally, everything can be finished... This damned Holy War and Cycle of Reincarnation can end...¡±


    Didina was unable to remain calm as she nced at the altar before her. She had been waiting thousands of years¡ªall for this moment.


    Nobody knew that the golden locket that Didina was clutching had an old and faint painting that she had recovered from the rubble of the Gold Elf Empire.


    The painting was of a certain smiling blond-haired elf girl who was making a flower bracelet for her parents. Her innocent smile seemed incredibly cute, yet if she saw this painting right now, she would unhesitatingly destroy this dark history from her past.


    ¡°My pitiful Harloys, I don¡¯t dare to tell you who I am even now... but finally, everything will be over starting today. Our wish is right in front of us.¡±


    This expressionless subus Demon Lord suddenly seemed like a middle-aged man who had lost much in his life.


    Rnd had never expected that Didina who he viewed as just an aplice was actually the mastermind behind everything!


    ¡°The rules of Order and Chaos? Fate and the will of the Gods? The ruling species is destined to be reced? From now on, the only rule will be that there are no rules. All lives in Eich shall obtain true freedom!¡±

 Chapter 831 - Gambler

    <strong>Chapter 831 Gambler</strong>


    The Light of Sinzor, the Wise Schemer, the legendary Gold Elf Emperor Abr the Seventh... who was now known as the subus Didina.


    Unlike how human rulers would always have very short lifespans, thest Gold Elf Emperor was from a long-lived species, and had experienced enough years to equate countless human generations. He had ruled for so long that he became an extremely experienced politician.


    The assessment of Abr was that he hadn¡¯t directly caused his own empire¡¯s downfall, yet his empire had been fated to die. He had the most pitiful fate of being the final ruler of an empire who had tried to do his best tobat fate.


    The Gold Elf Empire was already in shambles when he came to power. On the outside, the Great Demon Empire was still powerful, while humans were quietly amassing power as well. These species were beginning to challenge the elves¡¯ reign as the ruling species. Meanwhile, the Gold Elf Empire also faced internal threats due to the rise of Silver Elves and Moon Elves, who challenged the authority of the Gold Elves. The worst part was that the four Superior Elf species were all making arrangements with other species. The Gold Elf Empire¡¯s most precious treasure, magic, was spread to the outside world. The Great Demons weren¡¯t really affected, since they had their own magic system of shaman magic and witchcraft, but the weak and short-lived humans gained the chance to rise to power because of the Superior Elves giving them magic.


    Abr had shown his excellent talent in this situation filled with threats both external and internal. He supported the wild elves and half-blood elves who were elite enough to enter the Gold Elf Empire¡¯s upper echelons in order to suppress the ever more power Moon Elves and form a new bnce internally.


    As for dealing with outside threats, Abr rejected the typical elven policy of being forceful with other species. Instead, he seemed to be weak and conciliatory. He always showed restraint during multiple border shes. Not only was he really conciliatory towards the beastmen and Great Demons who were acting aggressively, he even constantly acted soft towards the weak humans.


    His political style made him seem like he was a coward who could only take a hard stance with his own kind, which naturally wouldn¡¯t make him well-liked. However, nobody had ever guessed what Abr was really thinking back then.


    ¡°We elves have been the ruling species for far too long, to the point where even the Cycle of Reincarnation has stopped...¡±


    Politicians would only see the present because of the need of votes for support. However, a statesman would be different. Some statesmen were capable of seeing far into the future, seeing things that their citizens wouldn¡¯t possiblyprehend.


    Back in that generation, the Gold Elves were one of the few Gold Species who had kept ascending since the first generation. The Gold Elves had witnessed the source and birth of all magic. Many of the elven elders had personally watched ancient battles between the Gods. The Gold Elf Empire had been strong for far too long, reaching the point where it was crushing the chances for any other species to rise up.


    The elves had the strongest Main God in the world as they were the ruling species. Almost half of all Order Gods were Elven Gods. The Gold Elf Emperor was the most authoritative and powerful mortal existence in the world. At Abr¡¯s level, he was thinking about far more than just his own species.


    Naturally, Abr knew about the unwritten rules of the Holy War. It wasn¡¯t merely luck that the elves had managed to defeat the previous ruling species, the giants. The Chaos Abyss would no longer tolerate the elves blocking the path of evolution.


    As for the Order Faction... without even mentioning all the grudges umted with the Nature Faction, the Giant Gods, and so on, the elves¡¯ ever decreasing birthrate was the best example of the entire world¡¯s attitude towards them. In fact, the elves¡¯ birthrate had be even lower than the powerful angel species¡¯ birthrate.


    It got to the point where the Gold Elves only had one newborn once every several centuries. Even the dragons¡¯ birthrate wasn¡¯t anywhere near this pitiful.


    ¡°Any species that doesn¡¯t have newborns will have no future. The higher one climbs, the harsher the fall. Once we lose favor in the next Holy War, our mortal enemies won¡¯t give us any chances whatsoever. The elves will only face the destruction of our species.¡±


    Abr was the ruler of the entire elf species during this tumultuous time. He knew quite well that the river in front of him was filled with countless dangerous undercurrents, yet he was unable to stop the ship. Trying to brake forcefully would also end up in the ship¡¯s and his people¡¯s destruction.


    That was why he chose to intentionally fail.


    He epted the destiny of failure for the elves. He felt that was the only possible path for the elves¡¯ continued survival. Voluntarily walking down the stage would be far better than being kicked off the stage.


    The Gold Elves started to remove themselves from the high ranks of the Gold Elf Empire. The ancient Gods began to fall into a deep sleep. The Gold Elf Empire began to reduce its borders and size, voluntarily giving up on territories on the outskirts. The humans and Great Demons began to take over thisnd and the associated resources.


    Abr almost seeded.


    However, history would never care about almosts or ifs.


    A ruler who kept striving to lead his people to victory and give them a better life wasn¡¯t someone who should receive criticism. However, the other elves viewed Abr as a foolish ruler who only knew how to suppress his own people and y political bncing games. They viewed him as a coward who was even afraid of warring with lower-level creatures like humans.


    In my opinion, assessing a politician should be based on developments after they were no longer in power rather than their actions while in office. Some seeds would take several years, decades, or even centuries before they would sprout. Once the seeds truly blossomed, even if the citizens had already forgotten the person who nted these seeds, the historians of the future could at least say a few things in the history books.


    In a way, Abr had indeed seeded.


    However, the betrayal of the Superior Elves changed the Gold Elf Empire from seemingly weak to truly weak. The Superior Elves¡¯ purge of the Gold Elves and the Gold Elf Gods, along with the Superior Elves¡¯ internal struggle for power, served to return the Gold Elf Empire to a loose tribal system. The elves were forced down from the stage of history... but this definitely wasn¡¯t the method which Abr had expected.


    Nobody would be able to resist the corrosion of the River Styx, even if a person was previously an incredibly venerated existence. Only the newborn demon Didina managed to climb out of the River Styx.


    But, perhaps Abr¡¯s umted grudges and stubbornness were far too much, or maybe he had been far too aggrieved at his death. The newborn demon Didina managed to awaken her past life¡¯s memories less than two weeks after being reborn.


    Didina felt endless anxiety and frustrations about her knowledge and experience as the previous Gold Elf Emperor. Her current two weeks¡¯ worth of memories were crushed by tens of thousands of years of memories. The new Didina¡¯s personality was more than half Abr¡¯s personality.


    Even though Didina was incredibly anxious and wise, she was still just nothing more than an ordinary baby demon. Even amon farmer soldier who had been trained for three years could defeat her by using a shovel. Didina would need to start over from the very beginning and follow the rules of the Chaos Abyss.


    No luck would be involved in the Chaos Abyss¡¯s bloody battles. It was several hundred yearster before Didina truly had the chance and power to leave the Chaos Abyss. However, the elven pce was nothing but rubble by the time that he returned to the Gold Elf Empire. All he could do was take a few legacies back to the Chaos Abyss.


    Didina was the most knowledgeable person in the world regarding the elves¡¯ research into prophecy magic. In order to avoid the new Elven Gods and Superior Elves trying to hunt him down... no, Didina was trying to hide from her previous rtives and subordinates when she finally chose the path of bing a subus, choosing this form in order toplete her mission.


    Didina was unable to meet with Harloys, even though she already knew that her previously innocent and pure daughter had now be the Banshee Queen.


    The Elven Gods from back then were all traitors who had betrayed the Gold Elves. The Elven Gods could somewhat tolerate a ¡°harmless¡± weak banshee since she hadn¡¯t even reached adult age yet and was already dead. It was the Elven Gods¡¯ way of slightly showing off how magnanimous they could be. However, it was definite that they absolutely wouldn¡¯t be willing to ept the return of a former Gold Elf Emperor.


    Didina didn¡¯t dare to be too strong, because having too much attention on her would only expose her true identity, meaning that the treacherous Elven Gods would pay any price to kill her.


    Thus, Abr became the female subus Didina, a ¡°harmless¡± Demon Lord.


    She also tried to plot revenge, but her n didn¡¯t have a chance toe to fruition, because the targets of her revenge died first.


    Too many things happened over the long years. The Superior Elves and their Gods also met with misfortune. The Elven Empire became scattered elven tribes. Didina¡¯s enemies kept dying off, so she didn¡¯t even know whom she should hate.


    Should she hate the traitors from back then? Should she hate the destiny of the Gold Elf Empire that was to be destroyed?


    Didina was wise and calm, yet also pitiful. In the end, she targeted the Cycle of Reincarnation that had caused all of this.


    ¡°Even if we voluntarily give up, you still won¡¯t let us go? Is it our destiny to have nowhere to escape...? Who made the rule that all of this was destined to happen? Misfortune will keep repeating eternally unless the Cycle of Reincarnation is stopped.¡±


    Perhaps nobody had realized that this seemingly ordinary subus was the one who had given Karwenz the idea of opening the door to the dimensional barrier and guiding Sophocles down the path of being the God of Evolution.


    Even without subordinates, Didina still had wisdom and knowledge. This seemingly harmless diplomat who used words was far more dangerous than a million-strong army.


    Did Didina want revenge? Did she want all the lives in this world to die together with the Gold Elf Empire?


    Did she want to save the world? Did she want to end the Cycle of Reincarnation which had caused everything?


    Perhaps even Didina herself would be unable to answer these questions.


    ¡°I have nothing more that I need to worry about regardless, so I might as well gamble...¡±


    Didina took advantage of Karwenz, and vice versa. In the end, Didina seeded in opening the door to the dimensional barrier.


    The sealed dimensional barrier was then immediately opened, causing the Eich universe to meet its new fate.


    ¡°Click.¡±


    Nothing changed in the world, but anyone with a decent power level could sense that a new door had been opened in this world, along with countless outsiders suddenly noticing this world¡¯s existence.

 Chapter 832 - God’s Death

    <strong>Chapter 832 God¡°s Death</strong>


    From the very beginning, the door to the dimensional barrier was something beyond mortalprehension.


    This door wasn¡¯t actually a physical door. It was actually a conceptual existence formed from naturalws. Even though there was only one more step to pass over the barrier, the original residents of this world would forever be unable to take that step. No, more urately speaking, they would be unable to even see the direction in which to step.


    This was just like how fish couldn¡¯t leave water, or how humans needed to live onnd. This didn¡¯t need any exnation. It wasmon sense; it was a naturalw.


    However, there were always exceptions to everything. There were certain special existences who could find loopholes in the naturalws and sessfully leave the Eich universe.


    But, nobody had ever returned...


    That was because the invisible dimensional barrier was constructed to keep outsiders out rather than prevent people from going outside.


    It would be impossible to enter the Eich universe without first having received the host¡¯s invitation.


    It was possible to leave, but nobody had ever returned. This fact made anyone who wanted to escape the Eich universe hesitate.


    However, was it really true that nobody from outside the Eich universe had ever entered...?


    There were always exceptions.


    ¡°Damn it.¡±


    The situation on the battlefield instantly changed, even though the world was still the same.


    The chaotic domain started dissipating, as if something was dispelling it. It seemed as if countless eyes were watching this ce from above the pitch-ck sky.


    The Chaos Gods who were just earlier trying to team up and kill the God of Holy Light all unhesitatingly turned tail and vanished. Even if running back to the Chaos Abyss was only hiding from things, that was still better than bing cannon fodder when faced with the unknown.


    The incredibly fatigued God of Holy Light could sense new existences faintly projecting their wills here, causing him to stand up once more.


    His mechanical and heartless gaze swept across the battlefield which was filled with corpses and rubble. However, the Holy Light Faction Gods, who were all in wretched condition, were avoiding their ruler¡¯s gaze.


    Most of the angels had also perished. Finally, the God of Holy Light retracted his gaze and focused on what was above the sky.


    Countless eyes were watching from up above. A countless amount of vicious intentions and wills were taking physical form there.


    Holy Light shed once again as the God of Holy Light flew up into the sky.


    As always, he was alone. As always, he didn¡¯t hesistate.


    ¡°Cleanse...¡±


    Perhaps his mechanical thinking determined his action, or perhaps this was the best choice for his divine power server, or perhaps this was his destiny, or perhaps... he still had a sliver of humanity left in him.


    ¡°...Protect...¡±


    The God of Holy Light transformed into a pir of light as he headed towards the unknown. His silver-white feathers fell down and scattered everywhere on thisnd.


    I paused in surprise at this sight.


    Perhaps everyone had still been underestimating him.


    But in the very next instant, I knew that I couldn¡¯t simply sit back and do nothing.


    Even though Karwenz and I had just been trying to kill each other over the door to the dimensional barrier, right now... the door was already open, so we no longer had any reason to fight.


    Even though the Order Faction and Chaos Faction were at the height of the Holy War against each other, even though both sides hated each other, and wanted the other faction to be annihted, right now... the door was already open, so the two sides were like a country in civil war that was now faced with external threats. The two major factions no longer had a reason to fight each other.


    ¡°Is this what you wanted?¡±


    My question didn¡¯t receive a response. Karwenz was actually in deep contemtion for once. Could it be that he finally realized he caused a great deal of trouble and finally regretted things?


    ¡°Damn it...¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°...Reyne¡¯s physical body is too weak. How am I supposed to go out and have fun in this body?¡±


    Karwenz smiled with vicious intentions. It seemed like he really wanted to see my reaction.


    As for me?


    My heart wasn¡¯t affected at all. I even wanted tough.


    Was there anything that I didn¡¯t understand about him? It was obviously impossible that he would ever regret his actions or self-reflect.


    Still, he was probably regretting something else now, due to what I was currently doing...


    ¡°Hey, could you please not beat me up so badly? No matter what, isn¡¯t this still your precious granddaughter¡¯s body?¡±


    I unhesitatingly punched Karwenz in the sr plexus. His expression distorted from the pain, but before he could react, I shattered his ankle and then knocked him unconscious.


    This pain I inflicted on him would count as a tiny bit of interest I collected for all the trouble he caused.


    Now that I had dealt with him, I still had a great headache to deal with.


    Karwenz was now trapped in Reyne¡¯s physical body. However, I was also trapped in Glina¡¯s physical body.


    As for our physical bodies? They were already dead. Not only were they dead, I had a hunch that my and Karwenz¡¯s Main God-level physical bodies had already be sacrifices which were necessary to open the door to the dimensional barrier. We had given such a great gift to Didina for free.


    ¡°...There¡¯s not much time left. I must hurry.¡±


    I unhesitatingly walked out as I held Karwenz in my hands. There was so much to do and so little time.


    The God of Holy Light had been doing his best to prevent the door from opening, yet he was now the first one to greet the unknown after the door opened. This made me feel ratherplex inside.


    Still, no matter what, he was the first volunteer to be a ¡°scout¡± for us. No matter what the God of Holy Light met out there, at least he would give us more time to prepare.


    ¡°Ha, I should stay positive. Maybe the outsiders have really weakened, and the God of Holy Light can defeat everything before him easily.¡±


    This was probably the first time that I ever hoped for the God of Holy Light to be victorious.


    However, I was no longer able tough in the very next instant...


    *Boom.*


    A soundless explosion transmitted itself through the entire world. All statues of the God of Holy Light instantly shattered as all his devout believers began to cry.


    Arge amount of angels on the battlefield chose tomit suicide in their despair. The God of Holy Light¡¯s death caused everything to sink into chaos.


    ¡°The God of Holy Light has... died!?¡±


    ¡°Haha, wonderful, it seems that there¡¯s many strong enemies outside... ow.¡±


    I unhesitatingly hit Karwenz to make him unconscious once again. The only reason why I wasn¡¯t sealing or killing him and sending him back to reincarnate at the River Styx was because Cynthia¡¯s knowledge might be critically important at this junction.


    I looked up at the sky. Even though I knew that wasn¡¯t an exit, I could sense that countless vicious intentions were gathering there. The only reason why they had yet to invade was likely because they were still gathering their forces to test the waters.


    Meanwhile in the Chaos Abyss, Didina who had just been praying was now half kneeling on the ground with an expression of pain. She was also able to see through the pitch-ck sky, and she also sensed the God of Holy Light¡¯s death along with all the countless evil intentions outside.


    ¡°...Have I lost my gamble?¡±

 Chapter 833 - Taking Over

    <h4>Chapter 833 Taking Over</h4>


    Even though there wasn¡¯t anything in the sky at all, it kept attracting everyone¡¯s attention without even trying to.


    ¡°Is this the calm before the storm?¡±


    17 days had passed since the dimensional barrier had been opened. The expected storm had yet to arrive. The mortal ne was incredibly and abnormally calm.


    The wars here that hadn¡¯t ceased for several decades had all finally stopped. All sorts of information and guesses about what might happen spread throughout the entirend. Ancient Gods reappeared in the world. A tremendous amount of information arrived every day, but none of the information had anything concrete.


    The fairies were furiously active in the world, searching for any information on possible external enemies. The most ancient texts in the Mage Country were perused, but judging from how those books were written in the modernnguage, such books wouldn¡¯t contain enough history to record the secrets of the Gods¡¯ wars from the first generation.


    The sudden death of the God of Holy Light brought not only shock to everyone, but also fear.


    In this world which had plenty of powerful or even undying individuals, the God of Holy Light represented the strongest Main God of them all. He was someone undefeatable. Even though he had been weakened by the battle in the chaotic domain after he killed numerous Chaos Main Gods, it was still beyond everyone¡¯sprehension how he died instantly the moment that he stepped outside the Eich Universe.


    Panic, anxiety, worry, and despair spread amongst the citizens. Even though ordinary people still didn¡¯t know yet about how the dimensional barrier had been opened, just the very fact that the God of Holy Light had perished was more than enough to unleash a tidal wave of despair.


    Since the God of Holy Light had died, arge amount of Holy Light priests lost their skills and source of power. These divine power users suffered the sensation of having lost their divine power connection. Some Holy Light priests went insane, some chose tomit suicide, and most fell into a silent despair.


    This wasn¡¯t like my original world of Earth where religions were mysterious and unprovable. This was a world with verifiable True Gods, and churches here were the Gods¡¯ representatives in the mortal ne. The Gods also provided actual support for the churches while also being the target for their believers¡¯ worship. If a True God perished, then their church¡¯s existence would naturally have no more meaning.


    Since the Holy Church had Cardinals and priests at its core, it copsed with unbelievable speed. Their leader Pope Caloma chose to immediatelymit suicide, while more than 70% of their Cardinals becamepletely incapacitated. The chain reaction from the God of Holy Light¡¯s death affected the entirety of human society.


    If such chaos continued, it could easily be predicted that human society would implode by itself before any outside invaders arrived.


    Luckily, this world had another God with the Divine Concept of Holy Light.


    In this critical moment when the Holy Light was about to be extinguished, the Southern Sect and Hell Faction stood up and decided to be an idol... ahem, I meant they decided to use Hell¡¯s Pir of Holy Light to be the new God of Holy Light.


    ¡°This is just a recement of the God of Holy Light. It¡¯s just some temporary chaos. The old God of Holy Light is tired, so he¡¯s chosen the Strongest Holy Knight Estrada as his sessor.¡±


    Would anyone believe such ridiculous words? No matter if you believed them or not, I still believed them... ahem, what I actually meant was that as long as a lie had value in existing, and as long as there were enough benefits from the lie, there would naturally be people who covered their ears and pretended to be fooled.


    Rather thanpletely having an authority overthrown, it would obviously cause a lot less panic by changing out the leader. As for whether previous grudges needed to be settled afterwards, that would be something for the future.


    The Holy Church, which was the core of human society, had shattered. Part of the Holy Church chose to join us and be part of the new Southern Sect. To them, perhaps it was simply having a new face for their God and changing a name when praying. They could still worship the God of Holy Light and use the divine power server to obtain Holy Light power for themselves. Additionally, the teachings of the Pure Holy Light had far fewer restrictions than the Holy Church¡¯s teachings.


    As for the others in the Holy Church, they ended up choosing self-imposed exile, either due to not wanting to ept reality or due to having grudges against the Hell Faction. But actually, there wasn¡¯t much meaning in their actions.


    This was because they had already lost their powers. The God they worshipped had died. As believers who didn¡¯t ept reality, and were now praying to an existence who didn¡¯t exist, this made them no fundamentally different from an Evil God¡¯s worshippers.


    It seemed that the Holy Light Faction Gods had no intentions of epting the new God of Holy Light. They returned to the upper nes and ignored the revolution happening in the mortal ne. It seemed that they were waiting to see what would happen in the future before making a decision.


    This was the same for the other God Factions. The Chaos Main Gods returned to the deep levels of the Chaos Abyss, and the Nature Faction Gods hid themselves in their own dimensions, content in their own fortresses.


    The Hell Faction started taking over the Holy Church¡¯s legacy and incredible wealth. When considering the Holy Church¡¯s intricate connections with human society, this instantly caused the Hell Faction to multiply several times in size.


    Hell¡¯s Four Pir Gods were gradually revealed to everyone in the world. The God of Holy Light was only one of the primary Four Pir Gods of Hell. Hell¡¯s teachings on how evil sinners would receive judgement after death also started to spread. It seemed that Hell¡¯s teachings would start recing the teachings of the Holy Church.


    Perhaps after a few hundred years and a dozen generations, the Hell Faction¡¯s path ofw and order would be the new prevailing mainstream religion in human society.


    However, many people currently viewed the Hell Faction¡¯s current actions as foolishly suicidal and shortsighted.


    ¡°...The Hell Faction isn¡¯t merely taking over the Holy Church¡¯s wealth and authority. The Hell Faction is also taking on the responsibility of fighting against external invaders. Although the Hell Faction has gained power, they have no path of retreat, and have made themselves the number one target forced to fight the invaders first.¡±


    But in my opinion, those who hid in their nests while waiting for others to be cannon fodder first, meaning that they were passively waiting to see what happened, were the ones who were truly foolish.


    ¡°Hide? Where can you possibly hide? You think you can hide in the rear and wait for others to be cannon fodder? There¡¯s truly nowhere to escape this time.¡±


    I knew better than anyone about how frightening the external invaders were as the Goddess of Order had recently been constantly injecting me with all sorts of information on how powerful and ridiculous those invaders were, even if her information was already outdated by several million years.


    ¡°The Void Distorter. He is a gigantic ball of distorted light who can devour anything, including even Gods and Titans. Yet, his true body doesn¡¯t even need toe to the Eich universe...


    ¡°Crystal Gravity Fish. He¡¯s not even actually a fish, but rather a terrifying soul devourer. Any life who gets close to him will have their soul absorbed. He also has countless other supernatural abilities...¡±


    I gave all of this information to the fairies for them to transmit to everywhere in the world. However, I also told the fairies to only tell those in power and authority about this information when these monsters truly appeared, so as not to cause even more unnecessary panic and fear.


    This was absolutely necessary. Not only were the fairies incredibly frightened by my information, even I somewhat understood why the Goddesses of Order and Chaos had decided to seal off the Eich universe once I learned all of this information.


    ¡°I should do as much as I possibly can. Even if there¡¯s a 99% chance that this is meaningless, it¡¯s best to have even 1% extra chance of winning if we truly do meet such monsters.¡±


    I soon learned that I hadn¡¯t done this for nothing, and that these ancient existences still existed in the other universes. Just as before, they attacked the Eich universe as the vanguard.


    ¡°A meteor shower appeared in the Caso Mountains. Arge number of Void Distorters have been spotted there!¡±

 Chapter 834 - Start of the Invasion

    <h4>Chapter 834 Start of the Invasion</h4>


    Disaster would always descend from the heavens. News of misfortune would always arrive in session. Justice would always be shot down before it could descend from the heavens... Ahem, I meant that when you heard bad news, there would almost always be more bad news on its way.


    After the first witness report, even more reports on outsider invasions kept arriving. Arge majority of invaders weren¡¯t among the information I provided, but the few which were confirmed were all inconceivably strong.


    It seemed that war was about to revisit thisnd which had experienced so many cmities already.


    New battles were starting every day. Although the defenders won every small battle so far since the Gods personally participated, everyone knew that this wasn¡¯t a good situation.


    Everyone in the know knew that these invaders were only the beginning¡ªording to the rules of war, only cannon fodder and scouts would charge first into unknown enemy territory.


    Yet, even the cannon fodder was strong to the point where Gods had to fight against them... the result of the Caso Mountains being attacked by arge number of Void Distorters was that two powerful Gods teamed up and ttened the entire mountain range with a single attack.


    Nobody would be foolishly confident enough to believe that they could forever win every single battle. Only a war maniac would blindly attack and gamble an entire country¡¯s fate when information on the enemy was unclear.


    In normal situations, the ace troops and strongest individuals capable of turning the tides of battle would only consider entering battle when there was plenty of information.


    We could sense that more and more attention from outside universes was ced on the Eich universe, and that these outside existences were bing more and more powerful. Even though they stlil hadn¡¯t personally invaded our universe, fear and despair kept spreading.


    We announced that ¡°Reyne¡± had a ¡°sudden illness¡±, so she was recuperating with her ¡°harem¡±. This meant that ¡°Glina¡± was now the sole leader of the Mist Alliance. All ¡°I¡± could do was do my best to ensure that the Mist Alliance would survive this uing cmity.


    The invaders appeared in random locations. It seemed that they were invading and attacking us, but even more so that they were testing the waters.


    I personally fought against the invaders several times as well. However, maybe even outsider invaders felt that the Nortnds were far too barren as no powerful invaders came here at all. Even the Aurora Knights and Borealis Squadron were able to easily deal with the invaders here.


    However, everyone knew that a far bigger storm was on the horizon.


    ¡°How goes the n?¡±


    ¡°Not very well. Most people who won the lottery drawing don¡¯t want to leave, because they don¡¯t think that it¡¯s necessary yet.¡±


    ¡°...Have those who are willing to leave get on the ark first.¡±


    Meanwhile, I had also forcefully activated my final disaster n, the ¡°Armageddon¡¯s Ark¡± n.


    Every day, more than 100,000 people were immigrating through Dimensional Doors to the Land of Spring, which was Hell¡¯s mortal ne. However, this still wasn¡¯t enough.


    If the future war situation seemed dire, all that we needed to do was to destroy all Dimensional Doors connected to Hell. This wouldpletely cut off Hell and its Land of Spring from Eich as the Hell dimension was actually a separate universe with its own dimensional barrier that was capable of blocking all external invaders from other universes.


    Humans, beastmen, elves, and so on were all weed in the Land of Spring. Eich¡¯s seeds could also sprout in this newnd and preserve the remnants of civilization and ensure a species¡¯ survival.


    However, very few were willing to leave their own world unless it was absolutely necessary.


    I wasn¡¯t doing this because I had no confidence in winning the future war. This was just my habit of preparing for loss before thinking about victory. At the very least, I needed to prepare a path of retreat.


    Ayer and the other Hell Gods also agreed with my decision. Judging from recent information, Gods from the Hell Faction, Holy Light Faction, and Nature Faction had all now personally taken action against the external invaders.


    Additionally, it seemed that the Elemental Tide had be even more active after the dimensional barrier was opened. This made it even easier for us to cultivate our power levels, but on the other hand, perhaps this was also a prerequisite for the outsider invaders to enter our world, just like how a low Elemental Tide previously restricted Main Gods and powerful Gods from descending to the mortal ne.


    ¡°How much longer must we wait?¡±


    ¡°Soon, soon.¡±


    The silly cat couldn¡¯t wait any longer, so she jumped onto the windowsill and took a nap, leaving the rest to Amelia for the next shift.


    I should mention that Harloys actually managed to stay alive despite being beaten up so much by Elisa. Also, since the dimensional barrier had been opened, Elisa no longer had a reason to oppose me, so she returned to my side.


    Naturally, I weed someone as powerful as her returning to my side since Elisa was now inconceivably strong. However, it seemed that Harloys and Amelia still didn¡¯t trust her, so they insisted that someone had to protect me, which was why they now took turns in shifts to guard me from Elisa.


    It also seemed that Elisa wasn¡¯t in a good mood recently with how dark her expression was. She kept venting her anger by gathering magic power and doing some things that would attract attention, yet what she did would never actually cause any real harm.


    Since she kept stirring up trouble, Harloys and Amelia were both fatigued from dealing with her, and needed to take turns in shifts.


    I knew that Elisa was just finding chances to vent her anger, while Harloys and Amelia were also mysteriously slightly not in the right, so the end result was that we all tacitly let Elisa do as she pleased.


    The atmosphere in my little ce kept bing worse. With SemiGods and a Main God mysteriously being angry at each other, ordinary mortals would suffer the most. There were already cases of people mysteriously fainting suddenly as they walked. It was rumored that the government officials were already trying their best to give the responsibility of reporting things to me over to anyone else that they could.


    ¡°...Elisa, a group of space ants have arrived uninvited in Ice River Town. You should go deal with it.¡±


    It was quite convenient to have Elisa around at such a time. With her personally defending the Nortnds, this made the Nortnds into the safest ce in the world. We also all heaved sighs of relief because Elisa had temporarily left.


    ¡°How much longer?¡±


    Amelia silently closed her book and suddenly asked a question.


    ¡°Wahaha, what are you saying? Ooh, Ice River Town is rather far away, so even if it¡¯s Elisa, it will take her at least four or five hours before she can finish and return.¡±


    ¡°...Stop pretending to be a fool. You know what I¡¯m asking about.¡±


    I silently siged as even I didn¡¯t know how to answer this question. ¡°A few hours? Tomorrow? A few months? To be honest, I don¡¯t know just how much longer I can hold on, but I¡¯ll definitelyst longer than Karwenz.¡±


    Amelia looked at me in silence without saying anything. However, it was difficult for me to bear with her slightly red eyes and silent gaze.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, there was no other way. I knew that Karwenz would be difficult to deal with, but I didn¡¯t expect just how difficult. You also know just how dangerous the situation was then, so I could only go all out...¡±


    Tears silently flowed down from someone as strong as Amelia, stopping all of my exnations.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry...¡±


    I could only utter a listless exnation in the end.


    ¡°Rnd, you¡¯re dying.¡±


    I was unable to counter the silly cat¡¯s words. Indeed, I was dying, or more technically, I was already dead.


    I was still in Glina¡¯s body, but I definitely didn¡¯t have any special interest for staying in her body. My physical body had already died together with Karwenz¡¯s physical body. Our souls should still be in the River Styx. Currently, it was only our wills which had forcefully descended in the mortal ne. As the River Styx corroded us, it would be questionable just how much longer we could persist in maintaining our wills here.


    Elisa¡¯s analysis had been correct. The final battle between Karwenz and I would only possibly end in both our deaths. Her betrayal had only been to avoid this possibility.


    Perhaps this was why Amelia and Harloys felt like they were slightly in the wrong towards Elisa since this final result was rather uneptable.


    This time, since my soul and Karwenz¡¯s soul had simultaneously fallen into the River Styx, the Cycle of Reincarnation had finally caught us cheaters at the same time, meaning that there would be no more sparing us.


    I was sensing the summons of the River Styx at every single moment. I could also sense that my soul was constantly weakening, but for the time being...


    ¡°Harloys, could you find some kindness in your heart? No matter what, I¡¯m still your master, and I¡¯ve given you plenty of cat food...¡±


    ¡°Meow, of course I remember. I¡¯m your magical pet, so I die if you die. Isn¡¯t it just the judgement of Hell and being punished in the Infernos? We¡¯ve already promised to go there together. Yep, we can finally have a good rest, so we should be happy about it. Master, thanks to your magical pet contract, we¡¯ll even be reincarnating together in our next life.¡±


    I was rather moved by Harloys¡¯ words, but could she please not smile proudly right at Amelia while saying such words? If Harloys was dissatisfied with the magical pet contract, I could cancel it since Harloys¡¯ taunting was so obvious. Amelia... Amelia¡¯s smile was bing highly dangerous!


    ¡°...I.¡±


    Amelia seemed to keep hesitating, but in the end, she was unable to say anything.


    Amelia was the Mother Goddess of the entire wood spirit species, and her physical body was the true form of the Forest of Dreams. If she died, then her entire species would die together with her. Amelia found it impossible to make a promise like following me even in death.


    ¡°Right, how about I write a will while I¡¯m at it... I should first have the precious books at my old residence destroyed. Also, should I give my treasures over to Adam... forget it, Margaret will probably find them in two days and burn them all. It would be far too pitiful if news spread that Rnd left only porn books behind as his inheritance.¡±


    I shook my head as I considered things after my death and how to erase my dark history before I died. Other men probably would never have such an opportunity to erase their tracks of browsing porn before dying. Still, this topic was rather morbid, so I should probably stop here.


    I kept idly wondering about such silly things while finishing up the work I had at hand... Actually, there would never be an end to political work, so it was quite precious already that I had been able to do as much as I could.


    Our current situation wasn¡¯t good. The entire world¡¯s current situation wasn¡¯t good.


    ¡°...It¡¯s as if we¡¯re justmbs waiting for the ughter.¡±


    The God of Holy Light went outside and was killed instantly. This proved that going outside was utterly suicidal. However, not going outside wouldpletely hand the initiative over to the enemy.


    I knew that all this political busy work would be for naught. I was simply using work to pass time without having to think about more worrying things. I kept preparing my Armageddon¡¯s Ark while waiting for the true invasion that would eventually arrive.


    ¡°...I won¡¯t have enough time if I don¡¯t hurry.¡±


    I helplessly nced at my petite hand which belonged to Glina. Her originally healthy skin had be pale white and icy cold. The longer that a dead soul like mine stayed in a living person¡¯s physical body, the greater the harm I would inflict upon Glina¡¯s body. Moreover, her physical body¡¯s unconscious rejection of my soul was also bing ever more obvious.


    ¡°Ha, with my condition of being a dead soul possessing a physical body, doesn¡¯t this make me a lich again?¡±


    I didn¡¯t have the time to exim over the unexpected workings of Fate and the Cycle of Reincarnation, because the window suddenly opened as the pale moon high in the sky caught our attention.


    It was currently deep into the night, yet there were now two moons in the sky.


    We didn¡¯t even need to think about which moon was real, because Eich¡¯s moon would never have gigantic teth which were longer than half a in length, nor would Eich¡¯s moon have a greedy and incredibly evil expression that seemed like it viewed the entire world like a delicious cake.


    Currently, the owner of this gigantic mouth opened up his mouth and began to devour Eich¡¯s moon.


    At this moment, the Moon Goddess¡¯s soundless howls of pain were heard by all living beings, but everyone was helpless to do anything.


    [That¡¯s the Star Devourer Demon God, the leader of those dimensional invaders...]

 Chapter 835 - Reinforcements

    <h4>835 Reinforcements</h4>


    Patricia¡¯s screams echoed in all living beings¡¯ ears. The moon, which was currently being devoured, gave everyone a most direct view of what despair really was.¡°Damn it, the star!¡±


    The moon wasn¡¯t the Moon Goddess¡¯s body or anything, but it was the Concept for her existence. For instance, if the Concept of Holy Light was deleted, then the God of Holy Light would naturally cease to exist. As Patricia was formerly an Order God, she had the same weakness.


    As her ¡°existence¡± was being torn apart, the star that she gave up arge portion of her divine power in order to construct was also being torn apart.


    Any dimensional invader would always be marked by the omnipresent star if they invaded the mortal ne. This seemingly unimportant design had already shown its uses countless times on the battlefield.


    Any marked dimensional invader would be hunted by the mortal ne¡¯s residents. Having one¡¯s own information and location permanently exposed on the battlefield would always make you into the hunted side, no matter how powerful you were.


    This powerful forbidden spell maintained by two Hell Gods was still effective even after the Holy War had ended.


    Recently, no matter what methods the other universes¡¯ dimensional invaders used to enter our world, as long as they chose to enter the mortal ne, which was by far the richest dimension in the Eich universe, they would instantly be marked by the star and hunted by countless individuals.


    This forbidden spell of the star had two parts to it. The God of Fate and the Moon Goddess controlled the two parts. The two Gods had hidden themselves in Hell after they weakened significantly from casting the forbidden spell. However, that Demon God who was currently devouring the moon seemed to have found a way around this.


    ¡°...The Moon Goddess! No, I absolutely can¡¯t let her die here.¡±


    Anxiety would be meaningless. I could already see the near future. If the moon really was devoured in front of everyone, then not only would Patricia lose her Concept for existence, she would also lose all her power of belief.


    What meaning would there be to the Moon Goddess if there was no more moon?


    The moment that one of the two core Gods of the star died, the entire star would instantly copse as well. The Contract Hero system for defending the mortal ne would naturally be useless when this happened. Even if things wouldn¡¯t instantly return to a chaotic generation where everyone was at war for themselves, it would still require arge amount of time and human resources to make up for.


    As for stopping the Demon God who was currently devouring the moon? Where was I supposed to find another star to feed him?


    ¡°...Patricia, remember, you¡¯ve long since stopped being the Moon Goddess. You¡¯re the master of the stars in Hell, and that star is your true Concept. The moon is just one star among many. You haven¡¯t lost your existence. You¡¯ve simply elevated your own existence.¡±


    Since there was no way to stop the moon¡¯s destruction, then I would first have to think of a way to protect Patricia.


    Perhaps this was only wordy, but it would provide a new way of thinking that the Moon Goddess was no longer the Moon Goddess ever since she joined Hell. If the moon was viewed as only one star [1]among many, then the Concept of the moon would be a subordinate Concept to the stars. Merely losing a subordinate Concept would still result in serious losses, but Patricia would at least still survive.


    If this was a different God or Concept, it would be impossible to change the Concept like this, but Patricia was a Hell God. I was the creator of Hell and intimately connected to the Four Pir Gods, so I basically had administrative privileges for changing something like this. As long as the other Hell Gods acted fast enough, it should be possible to protect Patricia.


    ¡°Patricia, we Four Pir Gods promote you to be the lord of the stars...¡±


    The Four Pir Gods spoke up as Patricia¡¯s screams finally stopped. Although she was still weakening, and the moon was one of her most important Concepts, she would no longer directly die from the moon being devoured.


    However, she wasn¡¯t the only one who would be hurt by the disappearance of Eich¡¯s moon...


    ¡°As expected, the is broken.¡±


    Although the moon was only one star among many, Patricia had been a core to constructing the star. Now that one of the two cores was greatly weakened, even though the was still there, its functions had gone offline.


    In a mystical realm that no physical eye could see, everything was losing its luster as the originally shiny silver star now appeared to be withered and dusty gray.


    But, as long as Patricia was still alive and the was still there, it would only be a matter of time before the star¡¯s reconstruction... if the enemies gave us time.


    Everyone in the world witnessed the moon being devoured by the Demon God. The remaining remnants of the moon floated in the air, just like cookie crumbs that were left after a meal.


    However, that Demon God which was asrge as a seemed to be hungry still. He now focused on the ground.


    He started moving at a seemingly slow speed that was actually incredibly quick. He was trying to descend upon Eich¡¯s mortal ne!


    As he descended, countless small ck dots descended together with him. However, if you looked closer, you would discover that even the smallest of the dimensional invaders was more than 10 meters tall.


    ¡°...I absolutely can¡¯t let him descend on Eich!¡±


    I was definitely not alone in thinking this right now.


    In the upper nes, portals opened up as countless angels flew out under the leadership of the Gods. They intended on intercepting that Demon God intent on destroying the world.


    In the Chaos Abyss, ancient Demon Lords and other such powerful existences opened up portals to the mortal ne as well. The demons and angels actually became allies in this battle.


    Various forgotten powerful existences from the Nature Faction and the Elemental nes also started jumping out of the woodwork. They were fighting for the sake of their own existence, as well as for the sake of the world.


    Even though it might be nothing more than the useless struggles of a cornered rat, even a cornered rat would struggle to thest when pushed to the brink.


    I shook my head as I got up and prepared to move. The entire Hell Faction was moving now, and Ayer and the Four Pir Gods¡¯ shadows were almost physical.


    Just as everyone in the world was despairing, countless lights appeared as they attacked the iing enemies in the air... This light brought hope along with it.


    ¡°We 350 Eternal Stars have received a dimensional request for aid from an individual named Karn. When we learned that this dimension was being invaded, we havee to assist you as ording to the Overwatch Contract between intelligent beings.¡±


    Various dimensional doors were opened as irond allies arrived.


    [1] ED/N: In Chinese, especially inpound words, star can also often mean a celestial body, not just a star per se (and that includes moons ofs other than Earth). Hence the wordy.

 Chapter 836 - Eich

    <h4>836 Eich</h4>


    Countless beams of light poured out from the dimensional doors to reveal numerous metal airship fleets.


    There were circr, square, cylindrical, small, andrge airships of all shapes and sizes. The majority were made of metal, but there were alsorge strange living creatures.


    ¡°Who summoned this fleet... Isn¡¯t there something wrong with the style!?¡±


    I rubbed my eyes, not daring to believe what I just saw. I could clearly see that small ck dots which were human individuals were flying amongst the airships.


    ¡°Individuals capable of crossing dimensions? Magical girls with staves? I think I need some medicine that can cure nearsightedness... System, give me two bottles of alcohol, and is there anything you want to say?¡±


    [...The universe is trulyrge.]


    I fell silent as this was doubtlessly something useless to say. Nobody knew what existed in the other universes when the dimensional barrier was opened. Naturally, the universe was quiterge.


    The battle in the sky had yet to end.


    Thanks to the Star Devourer Demon God¡¯s gigantic body, everybody in the world could see this battle.


    However, even a creature as gigantic as a like him didn¡¯t have the power to directly resist the beams of light pouring from the airship fleet.


    He started turning around and running away right when the tremendous airship fleet appeared. Judging from how well-practiced the assorted airships were at working together, perhaps this wasn¡¯t their first time hunting him.


    What I paid the most attention to was the attributes of some of the airships.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t this a Gundam? Even if it¡¯s obviously an imitation. Ah, it exploded from the enemy¡¯s attack, and there are actually people inside. Isn¡¯t this just a gigantic mecha Gundam that can fly across dimensions? Why does that airship look so familiar? It¡¯s the Enterprise? ...It seems that I¡¯vee across my old home.¡±


    Eich had been sealed off from other universes for countless years already. Sometimes, there would be an individual here or there who found a method to leave by themselves, but there had never been any stories of anyone from outside sessfullying in. Was it really true that there were no visitors from outside?


    Not entirely.


    I, Rnd, was someone who had transmigrated here with memories of Earth. ording to my memories, these airships¡¯ appearances were copied from famous science fiction manga and anime from my original world.


    Rather than saying that my original world had developed just like anime or manga, I much rather believed that the nerdy engineers who sessfully developed airships for dimensional travel had designed the airships based on their favorite stories, just as how they might start from building tiny stic models, and then finally constructing real Gundams which were as tall as skyscrapers. In that case, there was only one possibility...


    ¡°...Earth has actually developed so much in just a few hundred years.¡±


    Now that I thought about it, this seemed to be reasonable. I recalled that I left Earth in the year 201X, and by now, Earth¡¯s technology had already reached the point of exploring the endless universe.


    With the speed of technological developments from 201X plus another 400ish years of development and 20ish generations, it would now be the year 24XX on Earth, and it was quite possible that Earth had developed starships like in anime and manga... The prerequisite would be that people didn¡¯t go too overboard with nuclear weapons andying waste to the entire world.


    Judging by how more than half of the airships had designs from anime and manga from Earth, it seemed likely that my old home of Earth was actually quite close to Eich.


    [...This is really...]


    Even the System was rendered speechless. I had previously considered the possibility that the Earth universe was close to the Eich universe, but even the Goddess of Order herself had been unable to exin how I arrived in this world. It would be impossible to know the distance between Earth and Eich without opening the dimensional barrier.


    Since this airship fleet hade here after receiving Karn¡¯s request for aid, then I could pretty much guess at what happened.


    Where there was light, there would be darkness. Where there were thieves, there would be police. Where there were wolves, there would be sheep... I didn¡¯t get the order wrong here, as in this day and age, sheep were far more powerful than wolves. A wolf trying to eat some prey would be like an Epic Quest. A certain undying Wile E. Coyote [1]was unable to obtain a single meal even after thousands of episodes.


    Ahem, I meant that even though Karn¡¯s way of thinking was really mechanical, his mechanical logic would bepletely based on logic and possibility. Since the outside universes were filled with hungry ¡°wolves¡±, then perhaps there were ¡°sheep¡± who would hunt down and manage these predators... That would seem like the best possibility of saving the Eich universe.


    ¡°With so many having arrived, maybe Karn died from self-destructing himself after not being able to defeat countless enemies. For any God, their physical body is power, and power is will, and their divine shards can be transformed into light that can perhaps be used as the best way in the world to summon help...¡±


    I felt that my guess was on the mark. However, my System then rejected my inference in an abnormally heavy tone.


    [That¡¯s impossible. Actually, I already knew the reason for Karn¡¯s death two weeks ago, but I didn¡¯t tell you, because it was really embarrassing...]


    Embarrassing? Heroically blocking the door and fighting against countless gigantic Gods and monsters until the final moment, then self-destructing, and sending a message for help? How could that be embarrassing? Even I had a better opinion of Karn now.


    [No, there probably wasn¡¯t any battle. You know that Karn is a God of Order, a God who ascended purely with the power of belief. Outside the dimensional barrier is outside the service area for his power of belief...]


    ¡°What?¡±


    I thought about it for a moment, and then had a sudden realization.


    ¡°He rushed out and didn¡¯t even meet an enemy when he discovered... that his cell phone had no signal?¡±


    [...]


    Although my System was silent, silence was also a way of tacit admittance. In a way, this was indeed... quite stupid.


    ¡°...Although we were enemies in the past, I think that it¡¯ll seem like he tried to save Eich in his final moments, meaning that he¡¯ll be recorded in history as a true hero of light who saved the world, and future people will worship him... For the sake of all of Eich¡¯s honor, I think that we should probably pretend to know nothing.¡±


    I could already imagine how awkward Karn must have been feeling back then. A God who ascended with the power of belief wouldn¡¯t be able to leave their source of belief. Karn¡¯s very body was the amalgamation of a countless amount of belief. The moment Karn rushed out of the Eich universe, that meant cutting off his own source of power of belief, meaning that he became like a kite that had its string cut. He was unable to return. He was like a cell phone with no more signal. He became powerless.


    When he discovered that he was rapidly weakening and nearing death, he then... probably discovered that he was unable to survive no matter what he did, so he unhesitatingly chose to self-destruct himself. No wonder he had died so quickly.


    Due to how quickly he had perished after stepping outside the Eich universe, we had inferred that the average power level in the other universes was extremely high. It seemed that we had overestimated this...


    [Now that I take a closer look, this Star Devourer is far smaller than the one that I met back then. Perhaps this one is only a baby, so it shouldn¡¯t be that hard to deal with. As long as it descends upon Eich, it will have to modify itself ording to Eich¡¯s rules. ording to our calctions from back then, although it will cause severe destruction with its descent, you two brothers should be able to deal with it after it¡¯s weakened by Eich¡¯s dimensionalws.]


    We two brothers? Just two Main Gods would be enough?


    Alright, so the Star Devourer was weaker than expected. Did that also mean that the random assortment of airships that needed to team up in order to beat the Star Devourer was also weaker than I had thought? Judging from how chaotic and disorderly they appeared, they indeed seemed like a temporary alliance of a ragtag army.


    I performed some silent calctions. For science and magical engineering, as long as the basic theories werepleted, that would lead to a rapid period of development afterwards. With the progress of Eich¡¯s current magical engineering technology, it seemed like our airships would soon be able to leave the atmosphere. Perhaps our airships would also be able to enter other universes in just a few hundred years. We would then be able to spread the seeds of our civilization amongst the stars and be a true star civilization.


    At this moment, the Star Devourer waspletely defeated and was running away, but it seemed that the airship fleet had no intentions of chasing it. They hovered in midair, giving off invisible pressure to the Gods and mortals of Eich.


    ¡°Announcement, we have chased away the interster bandit Silver Star Destroyer whose threat level is 15623. We have carried out the mission of protecting intelligent beings as ording to the Overwatch Contract. We discovered that your civilization has already developed to the point where individuals are capable of leavings, which meets the lowest criteria to be a level B member civilization. ording to regtion 3 of the contract, we level B contractors invite your civilization to join the Overwatch Contract...¡±


    A contract for mutual assistance and protection? What a familiar system this was. Was this an interster version of the United Nations?


    ¡°Ha, it seems that every ce is the same. If there are wolves, there are sheep hunting them and a society. The small world of Eich has been opened up, but the world outside is just the same in a bigger version.¡±


    Mysterious runes were projected in midair. However, everyone, no matter what species they were or even if they were illiterate, was capable of understanding this ancient yet serious contract without any problems.


    ¡°Overwatch Contract between intelligent beings.


    ¡°1, you are not alone, you aren¡¯t the only one out there. Every time that intelligent beings meet in the endless universe, it¡¯s always a miracle that¡¯s worthy of praise. Please set down the butcher knives in your hands and heart, and search for the possibility ofmunication...


    ¡°12, watching over, protecting, and assisting each other is the duty of all intelligent beings...


    ¡°17, all power originates from the soul. There are no fundamental differences between soul energy, magic, science, and wisdom. Please never discriminate against other individuals or civilizations...¡±


    Various regtions of the contract attracted my attention. There was quite a lot of information and knowledge to take in. However, my vision was now getting hazy. It seemed that I had rxed too much after feeling that there was no danger for the time being, and that this rxation in my stubbornness meant it was time for me to report to my death at the River Styx.


    I hesitated for a moment, but then I thought about how troublesome it would be tomunicate with humans and aliens from other universes. I then became rather happy that I could leave all the trouble to others instead.


    ¡°Do I count as being the type who would rather die than go to work...?¡±


    [This... impossible! Mommy! It¡¯s actually Mommy!]


    What? What would possibly make the ¡°grand and venerated Goddess of Order¡± be shocked enough to call Mommy? Could it be a new anime edition of a Goddess¡¯s mother... ahem, ahem, maybe I was having too much fun with memes before my death.


    I forced myself to concentrate, and then was almost shocked enough to call Mommy myself.


    On the very bottom of the contract were 12 ancient signatures. They were probably the first existences who signed the Overwatch Contract, which was why their names had been left on the original version of the contract.


    Their names were just like physical Concepts where merely reading the names could help one to understand how inconceivably powerful they were. The fifth name on the list was quite familiar to me.


    ¡°Eich...¡±


    [1] Road Runner reference if you didn¡¯t get it

 Chapter 837 - Ending and Beginning

    <h4>837 Ending and Beginning</h4>


    ¡°...How unfortunate. How could things be like this? It¡¯s all over before I even got to have fun? This shouldn¡¯t be! Rnd! It¡¯s all your fault!¡±¡°Walk faster, idiot. I want to find my old acquaintances to hear thetest news.¡±


    Naturally, I ignored Karwenz¡¯sints. We had just crawled out of the River Styx. Tall ck mountains surrounded us on both sides, and the only silver path led to a group of pces in the distance. I could only exim over the familiar dark gray sky.


    ¡°Hell. I never thought that I¡¯d be here again.¡±


    Karwenz¡¯s exmation was filled with nostalgia. Perhaps it was the battle of Hell that had changed the path for the entire world.


    For Karwenz, he had broken free from the will of the Chaos Abyss¡¯s control here. He obtained Cynthia¡¯s knowledge and memories and gainedplete freedom, which was how he got the idea of opening the dimensional barrier to have more fun.


    As for me, the creation of Hell meant that the Cycle of Reincarnation which represented endless despair had finally been broken, and that we avoided the worst possible ending for the world in the game¡¯s history.


    It could be said that the battle of Hell had changed the fate of the entire world, and that the influence of this change would only keep increasing in the future.


    The copse of the entire Holy Light system, the avoided Armageddon ending of total destruction, the chaos in politics, different tribes, species, and countries, and all the other species filled with their own ambitions, and such changes were more than enough to change the ruling species of humans into a second-rate species.


    The nobles who obtained authority when a king lost the crown would never allow the former king any chances to recover.


    However, Hell¡¯s pure Holy Light system had taken over for this tattered world. As long as everyone made it through this time, many things would be different.


    The teachings of pure Holy Light were far more moderate. They werepletely recing the more extreme original teachings of Holy Light. Additionally, the Hell Faction was like a ¡°temporary government¡± which already consisted of many species, so racial discrimination was significantly less rampant. Although it was impossible topletely eliminate racial discrimination, there were no more foolish things such as being able to casually steal from or ughter the young of another species and being considered a hero for it.


    ¡°Honestly, I should really thank those friends from the other universes.¡±


    I knew quite a bit about how wicked people could be. No matter how friendly these visitors from other universes acted, no matter how their Overwatch Contract appeared to be fair and neutral, and no matter how loudly they shouted about ¡°not interfering with the internal politics of other species and other worlds¡±, as long as their metal airships remained in the sky and there was still the possibility of the Star Devourers and other enemies returning, then Eich¡¯s society would be far more peaceful due to the existence of an ¡°external enemy¡±, along with a significant reduction in the tension between the species of Eich.


    All intelligent beings had the same instinctive bad habit. They all liked to create social circles, where those outside their social circle were enemies, and those within were friends. They would then use glorious-sounding reasons to bully or eliminate their enemies, and let their enemies take the me for all mistakes or tragic events while hogging all the resources andnd to live on.


    So-called connections, so-called small social groups, so-called social sses, and so-called wars were all actually nothing more than what people cared about in their hearts as a reason to fight over.


    What people cared about could be religion, species, skin color, tribe, or even gender, where you were from, your ent, your level of education, if you preferred to eat sweet or salty snacks... Oh, I think I may be treading on taboos now, so I should probably stop here in order to prevent arguments between sweets supporters and salty snacks supporters.


    Earth was a world with only one dominant intelligent species, yet wars had never stopped there in all of history, nor had wars ever stopped in Eich where many intelligent species coexisted.


    In any non-Holy War period in Eich, religion and species were the two mostmon reasons for warfare. It was equally easy toe up with countless reasons for war between the same species. As long as there were benefits to fight over, it would be really easy toe up with any random reason for bloodshed.


    During the period of the Holy War, the Order Faction and Chaos Faction would draw natural boundaries for which side you were supposed to be on. Now, there was a boundary between the original residents of Eich and the external enemies, so it was easy to infer that things in the new social circle of all of Eich would be far more peaceful.


    If my guess was correct, that Overwatch Contract was no mere paper document with empty words. Although there would definitely be many insufficiencies and loopholes, the will of the 12 powerful existences that signed it was more than enough to make the contract¡¯s effects stronger than any soul contract.


    ¡°Right, I should thank you for opening the door to the dimensional barrier. My guess is that the world will be significantly more peaceful because of it. Should I rmend you for a Rnd ****** award?¡±


    Iughed happily and sincerely expressed my thanks to Karwenz, and then enjoyed watching my foolish younger brother explode in anger.


    As for the process? That wasn¡¯t important to me at all, since I was the type who only cared about the results. Only an idiot like Karwenz would be satisfied by simply having fun during the process.


    ¡°Who says that the result isn¡¯t important? Saying that the process is important is something that a loser would say to console themselves. If you can win, why try to lose? No matter how pretty the process is, if the result is terrible, was your fight just an act for outsiders to watch? Or, are you just an artist who¡¯s only in search of self-satisfaction?¡±


    I had always been someone who cared only about results. I was known for wanting victory at all costs no matter what tactics I used. Now was the time for me to enjoy the fruits of victory andugh at this idiot brother of mine who had worked so hard for nothing while also losing his life in the process.


    ¡°...You¡¯reughing at me? You lost your life as well. ording to your own philosophy, shouldn¡¯t you have stopped after you saw that I achieved my goal of opening the door to the dimensional barrier? Why¡¯d you end up losing your life as well?¡±


    I was the one filled with aggrievement now as tears almost burst out of my eyes. I had died such a wrongful death... I hadn¡¯t even had the time to destroy my ¡°precious books¡± in my old residence yet. My reputation would be ruined if word of those books spread!


    However, with the current situation, Karwenz was the one who probably felt the most helpless and regretted things the most. Not only did he lose his chance to go out of the Eich universe to have fun, things ended before he could start a big ruckus, so he probably felt quite aggrieved at his death.


    The end result of us two attacking each other was that neither of us was happy about the end result. Both of us kept our mouths shut and ignored each other, just like how things used to be.


    ¡°...The woman up ahead looks rather familiar.¡±


    A female soul who had her stomach pitifully exploded open was actually ring viciously at me.


    ¡°You want to keep looking at me? Keep staring and I¡¯ll eat you!¡±


    The River Styx was highly corrosive. Any dead soul would constantly lose their memories and sense of self in the River Styx... Basically, it was like having a constant stream of ¡°-1 Intelligence¡± debuffs until only the deepest obsessions were left behind. Yet, even those obsessions would disappear in the Cycle of Reincarnation.


    Such dead souls that didn¡¯t know anything were easier to send through the Cycle of Reincarnation, as well as more convenient for what was now Hell¡¯s judgement.


    Theoretically, my and Karwenz¡¯s souls had already been soaking in the River Styx for about a month, so we should have be idiots already, but it seemed that our souls had died too many times, making us resistant to the River Styx. The end result was that the two of us were the only ones who kept chatting with each other in the procession of dead souls nkly proceeding forward.


    ¡°Ilmisya? Or Leona? You died so pitifully!¡±


    I was really scared by Karwenz¡¯s sudden howl. Had I really met an old acquaintance coincidentally?


    However, that female soul ignored Karwenz and kept staring at me. Could she really be Ilmisya or Leona? I took a closer look and discovered... that I had been mistaken.


    ¡°Her skin color, face, and hair color are all different, did you think I was an idiot!?¡±


    ¡°Ha, scared you, didn¡¯t it? You love to feel regret, so keep regretting. Leona, you died such a pitiful death...¡±


    We kept verbally sparring with each other while following the procession of souls when suddenly, things lit up in front as the Tower of Holy Light focused on this path to guide the dead. The mountain path also became much easier to traverse here.


    Perhaps they had noticed me.


    ¡°...Rnd, you designed all of this, right? You should know what will happen next to us? Are there any loopholes?¡±


    Even Karwenz was hesitating now. It seemed that even he was rather scared of Hell¡¯s divinews.


    Iughed in delight as I had been waiting for this day for so long already.


    ¡°Of course... not. I personally created this judgement system, and it absolutely doesn¡¯t have even a single possible loophole. Even if the judge wants to be merciful, there¡¯s no possible way...¡±


    I suddenly felt mysteriously sadder and sadder as I said this. Although I was quite proud of the justice system that I set up for Hell, it seemed that I had broken yet another new record in shooting myself in the foot.


    ¡°After more than 200 years of punishment in the Infernos, there¡¯s still a chance of reincarnation afterwards. Those with extra serious crimes will receive even more punishment. Yep, no need to look at others, as I¡¯m talking about you, Karwenz Mist.¡±


    As the saying went, misery lovespany. I loved to share my misery with others whenever I was in a bad mood. Although I figured that my punishment would be lighter than Karwenz¡¯s, my punishment still wouldn¡¯t be very light.


    ¡°Ilmisya?¡±


    This time, I was indeed correct in recognizing Ilmisya¡¯s soul. She had an expression of satisfaction as if she was a saint as she sank into the ground while being enveloped in a pink light. It seemed that she was going to receive punishment in the Lust Inferno of Hell¡¯s Seven Infernos. In Hell, how much light your soul emitted was a sign of the severity of your crimes. Seeing how she was glowing like a lighthouse, she would be punished for a minimum of 100 years.


    ¡°Meow, so scary. Can I have the magical pet contract canceled now?¡±


    The cat soul who was constantly sleeping on my head yawned as she said this. I did some quick calctions and figured that this cat¡¯s punishment might be even longer than Karwenz¡¯s.


    ¡°Tsk, you refused to cancel it when I offered before. It¡¯s toote now. I¡¯ll be looking forward to being together with you again in the future, my dear cellmate.¡±


    In fact, since most of my and Harloys¡¯ crimes were rted to ughter and scamming, it was highly likely that we would be punished together in the same Inferno.


    Finally, the mountain path ended as we reached the hall of judgement. Even I inhaled a cold breath when I saw the familiar figure of Wumianzhe with his emotionless eyes sitting above me.


    ¡°Criminal Rnd, these are your crimes...¡±


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    50 yearster, in a certain Inferno of Hell.


    ¡°I¡¯m out on bail? My achievements will make up for my crimes? Hell¡¯sws that I created don¡¯t have such aw! I don¡¯t ept this, I want toin and sue! This is a corrupt government official abusingws for their personal purposes!¡±


    ¡°...Stop messing around. You think it was easy for us to find a loophole and let you out? We finally managed to pass a neww that was based on Earth¡¯sws so that those who have served more than half of their sentence can use their previous achievements to make up for their crimes. Stop giving me more trouble.¡±


    Ayer rubbed his forehead as this bastard before him was truly so much trouble for him to deal with. Even after Rnd¡¯s death, Ayer had to deal with two insane women who attacked Hell countless times in an effort to rescue Rnd from Hell.


    It just so happened that those two insane women were impossibly strong ever since they returned from the other universes. With Rnd jailed in Hell, Ayer had to worry every day that all of Hell would be destroyed by those two insane women, which was way too much trouble for Ayer.


    On top of that, Wumianzhe had an extremely rigid way of thinking and no understanding whatsoever of human emotion. In the end, since this matter was far too important, this meaninglessw was passed so that Hell¡¯s jailers could release a criminal early when the criminal¡¯s assistance was required if the criminal had served more than half of their sentence already and had made great achievements before.


    Why was thisw meaningless? In normal situations, Hell¡¯s jailers would never need to ask a criminal for help, and additionally, souls that had served long enough sentences would have long since lost their sense of self and then been reincarnated already.


    ¡°Besides, we truly do need you guys to do something, and this is something that probably only you guys can aplish.


    I fell silent. What would we be needed for? I had retired long ago and should be enjoying myself in my advanced age. Right now, I was waiting for my punishment to end so that I could be reincarnated.


    ¡°Eich. We must find Eich. You probably don¡¯t know since you¡¯re in here that Eich is one of the 12 Original Gods of the Overwatch Contract to protect all intelligent beings. That¡¯s why there¡¯s so much attention upon the Eich universe right now. Our Eich universe is being viewed as the magical civilization with the most potential that¡¯s been discovered in the past thousands of years by the Overwatch Association. That¡¯s because we are the original civilization of one of the 12 Original Gods. Our Eich universe needs more power and authority in the Overwatch Association for the sake of our Eich civilization, but in order to do that... we need Mother Eich.¡±


    Ayer then kept talking on and on about many things. It seemed that he had been under so much pressuretely that the original cool young man had swiftly transformed into a nagging middle-aged man.


    Finally, the Hell Gods decided that it was time to send the tadpoles out to find their mother... er, I meant send the Child of Fate to find Eich.


    ¡°Why me?¡±


    ¡°Ridiculous. That soul within you is Goddess of Order Astrya, isn¡¯t it? Don¡¯t think that we don¡¯t know about it. You have the Elven Empress and the Goddess of Order in jail together with you, it¡¯s so...¡±


    ¡°...It makes me so envious!¡±


    Of course, Ayer wasn¡¯t the one who said that, but rather Karwenz who had such a jealous expression.


    Karwenz was probably the most pitiful one being punished. The Infernos had an extra punishment for yboys, including meeting all his ex-girlfriends... By that, I meant it was more like a council of revenge. All of Karwenz¡¯s ex-girlfriends, who numbered around 4000, were transformed into imitation souls by the power of Hell and revived, so that fierce shuraba was so... enjoyable to watch. I didn¡¯t know what Karwenz himself felt about it, but I enjoyed watching it as aedy.


    Yep, the part where Karwenz¡¯s body was cut up into 4000 pieces by knife and fork and then all of his ex-girlfriends ate a piece was truly such an enjoyable scene to watch. If I had the chance, I would definitely write this into a new story as a warning to all yboys in life.


    ¡°Hmph, justice will always descend from the heavens!¡±


    Ahem, ahem, getting back on the main topic, due to a certain Goddess within my body, it seemed that in the end, I was determined to be the most likely person who could find Eich.


    Ayer and the other Hell Gods used this reason to convince Wumianzhe to finally let me finish my sentence early.


    I fell silent and actually hesitated.


    ¡°Actually, I don¡¯t want to go out yet.¡±


    This was no lie. I really didn¡¯t want to go out, as at least I finally had the peace and calmness that I wanted here.


    ¡°...If you don¡¯te out, we¡¯re going to put those two insane women in here to apany you.¡±


    I fell silent. I couldn¡¯t help but recall Karwenz¡¯s pitiful state after meeting all his ex-girlfriends, which sent chills running down my spine.


    [Rnd, I miss my mother.]


    I also hesitated due to Astrya¡¯s words since I did owe her.


    ¡°Rnd, I want a child, a real child, a healthy, living child.¡±


    The blond-haired loli girl behind me suddenly hugged me. Her overly stimting words surprised me so much that I almost spat on Ayer¡¯s face...


    ¡°Cough, cough, is it possible for a soul to choke to death...? Harloys, what ridiculous things are you saying?¡±


    However, her calm expression transmitted her determination to me. Not having a physical body naturally meant not having descendants, and she was unwilling to stay like this.


    Actually, I was even more reluctant to stay like this.


    I was now more than 400 years old, yet I tragically remained a virgin still, which was probably a new record in all of Eich... ahem, delete this portion¡ªnobody could be allowed to know this part of my history. I absolutely wouldn¡¯t allow such a record to be written about my life in history!


    ¡°Okay, okay, I agree. However, I don¡¯t have a physical body right now, so you guys need to prepare one for me. I have the ability to maintain my sense of self and my memories after reincarnation, but my physical body needs a sufficiently strong bloodline. Otherwise, it will be quite tiresome to start over from the very beginning again.¡±


    ¡°Rest assured, they¡¯ve already prepared one for you. I guarantee that you¡¯ll be satisfied.¡±


    ¡°They?¡±


    In the future, the thing I regretted most was that I hadn¡¯t asked in greater detail about who ¡°they¡± were at this time...


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¨C


    One yearter, a certain maternity ward in a certain hospital on Earth was receiving much attention from certain fanatics.


    The obstetrics director of this hospital hadn¡¯t slept in 48 hours already. That was because the first half-human, half-wood spirit descendants on Earth were about to be born here. The lucky man who managed to get married to a wood spirit had been cursed by so many people already. There were those who tried voodoo dolls against him, those who wanted to cut off his penis, and even those who wanted to change thews so that this man would be sent to jail for getting married to a ¡°legal loli¡±.


    However, the cute and intelligent wood spirits were outstanding interster diplomats who were easily liked by others. After several decades of interaction, the wood spirits now had countless fans on Earth. Countless people also blessed and had high hopes for the half-bloods who were determined to be twins in the womb... while the father also broke new records with how many threats he received.


    Although there were plenty of half-human, half-wood spirit descendants in Eich already, and although the scientists repeatedly promised that there were no gic differences between humans from Eich and humans from Earth, the doctors didn¡¯t dare to let down their guard one bit as they guarded the mother around the clock, until the twins were born a bit earlier than expected...


    ¡°...Where is this?¡±


    I woke up from a nk state. However, my question turned into the loud crying of a baby. I instantly realized where I was due to hearing the familiarnguage of Chinese from Earth.


    ¡°So I¡¯ve returned...¡±


    After going through everything, I had returned to my first life¡¯s home country. I could only exim over things as the past events in Eich seemed like nothing but a dream that was all behind me now with this new beginning...


    ¡°Haha, I¡¯ve had enough of those days with no inte and no television! Finally, I, king of games Rnd, have returned...! Wait a minute, I¡¯m in an infant¡¯s body with an adult mind, isn¡¯t this the legendary reincarnation novel plotline? Can I giarize those novels and giarize songs, giarize inventions, and get together with the school beauty? Has my misfortune finally ended, and someone else is writing the story of my fate for me?¡±


    The ¡°legal loli¡± wood spirit mother on the bed felt like her healthy older twin had such a pure, cute, and energetic smile.


    I could also faintly sense that a familiar soul was right next to me. As expected, that bastard twin of mine was here as well. This was only natural, since in a way, it was impossible to separate our souls.


    ¡°Ha, it seems that I¡¯ve won again. I¡¯m still the older brother, hahaha! My foolish little brother, just watch how I¡¯m going to deal with you.¡±


    I could sense that my lifeforce was slightly stronger than Karwenz¡¯s. It seemed that I was born slightly earlier than he was once again.


    ¡°Such a healthy pair of boy/girl twins. You¡¯re a truly fortunate mother.¡±


    I instantly started trembling after I heard those words from a young nurse. I did my best to raise my head in my despair, trying to struggle and look at my genital area. However, it was impossible for me to even move my body, not to mention how I was just a newborn infant who didn¡¯t even have the ability to clearly see the outside world.


    ¡°Handsome older brother, you need to protect your little sister well in the future.¡±


    Lips gently brushed against my cheek. This woman was actually taking advantage of me, but I didn¡¯t mind right now, as I was instantly filled with satisfaction and almost broke out in tears with joy. Meanwhile, I could sense how a certain unfortunate twin of mine was oozing nothing but despair.


    He... she was struggling at trying to crawl. I grabbed the bedsheet and did my best to look over... could it be that Karwenz was intending onmitting suicide by smashing his head against the baby bed?


    ¡°The little sister must be hungry.¡±


    ¡°...Give me my baby.¡±


    Unfortunately, the naughty little sister was discovered, and then forcefully given over to the ¡°legal loli¡± mother for breastfeeding... at this moment, Karwenz... or maybe I should call her Karwenna, was filled with such pleasing despair to witness... er, I meant heartbreaking, as no matter what, I was an older brother, and I should be nice to my younger sister.


    I heaved a sigh of relief at this time as another pregnant woman was pushed into the adjacent room. My magical pet contract reactivated itself at this time, meaning that a certain cat had sessfully reincarnated to be human... Wait a moment, I really hoped that Harloys didn¡¯t get her gender wrong, since if she did, that would be too much for me to handle as I was straight.


    I kept feeling like something was off about the situation. Normally, souls had their own traits, so there would never be a mistake with a normal person¡¯s reincarnation. Wasn¡¯t Karwenz way too unfortunate here?


    ¡°Have youe up with their names already?¡±


    The young nurse held me. Her ample bosom had such a familiar sensation... ahem, ahem, I meant that I was probably getting hungry, but I still had my morals. Where could I find a milk bottle?


    ¡°The older one will be named Rnd, and the younger one will be named Karwency.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re not going to have their father¡¯s surname in their names? I remember that their father¡¯s surname is Jiang?¡±


    ¡°Mm, these two children are truly fortunate as they were blessed by the Main God of my species. Mother Goddess even decided to be their godmother. She was the one who came up with their names.¡±


    The wood spirit mother¡¯s voice was filled with pride. This was the happiest moment of her life that the retired Amelia suddenly came out of retirement to act as the godmother to her children.


    ¡°Wahh!¡±


    ¡°Wahh!¡±


    Both twins suddenly started crying simultaneously due to fear.


    However, this wasn¡¯t actually real crying, but rather the twins arguing in infantnguage.


    ¡°Stupid Rnd, your misfortune has infected me as well! How many times does this make!?¡±


    ¡°Is this my fault? This is clearly... clearly the evil intentions of the world itself!¡±


    The world took needless me once again. The energetic twins caused their mother to misunderstand.


    ¡°Children, are you happy? There¡¯s something even happier that will happen soon. Mother Goddess said that she will personallye here to give you her blessings.¡±


    Both twins instantly stopped crying as they simultaneously started struggling in an effort to escape this dangerous location.


    Unfortunately, the newborn infant bodies they had were extremely weak. They struggled for a bit, but were unable to even escape the mother¡¯s and the young nurse¡¯s grasp.


    The young nurse¡¯s braid fell against my face and itched in a mysterious familiar manner. I instinctively reached out with my hand to grab it and touched smooth silver hair.


    ¡°By the way, you probably won¡¯t be able to take care of twins by yourself. Do you have someone already to help you raise your children? My internship is ending soon, and I don¡¯t think the hospital will hire me. How about Ie work as your nanny and help you take care of the twins? I¡¯ve learned infant care before.¡±


    How strange, the young nurse¡¯s voice also sounded really familiar.


    ¡°That would be so wonderful! Thank you, E...¡±


    The young wood spirit mother was overjoyed because she had been worried about having difficulty raising twins with her small stature, but then she recalled how she didn¡¯t even remember the young nurse¡¯s name fully.


    ¡°...Elisa Mist. I¡¯m a Russian mixed-blood. Please take good care of me.¡±


    At that instant, I felt as if the warm embrace Elisa held me in had transformed into the strongest jail of all. She really was holding me so much tighter than earlier! At this moment, I had no idea how I was going to escape.


    At this moment, another familiar voice sounded outside the door.


    ¡°Where¡¯s my godson? Bring him over so that I, the Wood Spirit Mother Goddess, can kiss him. Little Rnd, you¡¯re so cute. Come, try and call me Mommy.¡±


    My vision instantly darkened. Where was the baby bed? I should justmit suicide right here!

 Chapter 838 - Side Story 1 - Neverending Adventure

    <h4>838 Side Story 1 ¨C Neverending Adventure</h4>


    ¡°Two days ago, the 32nd group of diplomats finished their trip to the other universes. After their regr report, we confirmed that the basic information which the Overwatch Association provided to us is mostly true. All the countries have finally reached a preliminary agreement on joining the Overwatch Association.¡±


    The end of the Holy War didn¡¯t mean that products born of war would instantly disappear. The fairies¡¯ war intelligence organizations transformed swiftly into a tremendous media empire thanks to the other species¡¯ requests.


    In the past, one would need to have connections to their country¡¯s information organization in order to receive world news. Nowadays, a person simply needed to spend some money on a morning newspaper in order to enjoy reports on how other governments had low efficiency while enjoying their morning tea.


    ¡°46 years have passed (an entire generation for humans) since the Overwatch Association invited us to join. We¡¯ve finally reached a preliminary agreement to sign their Overwatch Contract after all this time, which really makes one exim over the enormous differences between all the species and countries in our Eich universe and how difficult it is to achieve unanimous agreement. There¡¯s also the tragically low governmental efficiency (the Elven Empire expresses that they think this efficiency is already ridiculously high, and that they would prefer to think this over for another 50 years because the world is changing too quickly for them to ept), it really is a mistake of the current allied government system...¡±


    Katerina set down the ck Crow Report newspaper in her hand and shook her head. The first part of this report was reliable, but thest part was filled with attacks on and disagreements with the current governing system.


    That would have been fine by itself, but this report kept attacking the leader of the current Mist Alliance, and iming without evidence that there were secret schemes and trades involved. It seemed the rumors regarding the ck Crow Report being funded by descendants of nobles from the previous generation were quite believable.


    ¡°It seems that I¡¯ll need to mention this to Reyne... Forget it, with how the Mist Alliance secret agents are capable of being everywhere, they probably long since know about this already. They¡¯ve probably already taken over the editing department of this newspaper, and are reeling in the fish right now.¡±


    The people¡¯s way of thinking had massively changed due to being in constant contact with the outside world, bringing everyone a new worldview. This change would be greater than any physical change. It was nowmon to see new political concepts such as ¡°entrapment¡±, ¡°double agent¡±, ¡°high-level traitor¡±, and so on bemonce in everyone¡¯s vocabry.


    Katerina was a high-ranking council member in the newly established country of Matart, the country for schrs and engineers. As Katerina was the person with the inheritance of the Sky Tower from the Haletdam schrs generation, she often interacted with the outside world for technological information exchange, and received a lot of inspiration herself. Even in all the universes, the Haletdam schrs generation had been top-notch in their expertise of creating artificial souls.


    Although the new country Matart had only been established recently, and Matart was physically a really tiny country, this was the holynd for thetest magical engineering and engineering, so countless magical engineers and engineers came here. In terms of technology and academic expertise, Matart was already on par with a major country like the Mage Country.


    In the past three decades, the Nortnds Mist Alliance led the way and created many policies aimed at letting Eich¡¯s countries ally and trade with each other with the excuse of eliminating war, getting in contact with outside universes, and bing ustomed to the revolutionary changes in the world, all ¡°in order to give all countries and species a chance to sit down and talk rather than kill each other¡±. This had the support of San Antonio, And, Bardi, and other such major countries. After so many years of development, Eich¡¯s countries now felt as if they were all one allied government.


    Without a doubt, this made it a lot more convenient for other universes¡¯ civilizations to interact with Eich, along with making Eich far more peaceful than before. However, there were always those who were still dissatisfied, such as remnants of the previous Holy Light Faction, or formerly strong countries who were no longer able to act like big bullies to their subordinate countries, or small countries who felt like they were being picked on by bigger countries in this ¡°allied government¡±.


    But overall, this was already an extremely rare peaceful period of history for the past 46 years. Being able to have far fewer wars and investing manpower and resources into nting crops and improving people¡¯s lives instead was already something unimaginable in the past.


    Things were quite obvious. Being able to achieve this wasn¡¯t because modern-day people were more noble than people from ancient times, nor was it because modern-day people loved peace more. This was simply because of major factors from both outside and inside.


    The outside factor was naturally the opening of the dimensional barrier. Although the other universes¡¯ civilizations still maintained the attitude that they would show restraint and not interfere with Eich¡¯s internal politics, more and more information about the outside universes was being transmitted to us every day. The outside universes were no peaceful heaven, and the unwritten rules of war and elimination of the weak still existed. Maintaining sufficient military strength, technological achievements, and overall strength would always be the foundation for having one¡¯s civilization survive in the countless universes.


    Pressure would give one motivation. Eich¡¯s species became far more unified than before due to the threat of the other universes. Peace was mostly achieved on Eich... Even the Chaos Abyss¡¯s Demon Lords were preparing recently to join the ¡°Eich alliance government¡± now, which really made people exim over how quickly the world was changing.


    The internal factor that pushed all of this along was naturally the Hell Faction, which was taking the lead at the forefront more and more these days.


    The death of the God of Holy Light exposed the weakness of the previously strongest God Faction. People discovered to their astonishment that the Holy Light Faction actually didn¡¯t have a single Main God after the God of Holy Light was gone.


    While the Holy Light Faction was busy falling apart, Estrada, one of Hell¡¯s Four Pir Gods, took over the God of Holy Light¡¯s Divine Concept of Holy Light. Estrada also took over the Holy Light¡¯s ¡°legacy¡± in the mortal ne.


    It would be impossible for the Holy Light Faction to take back what had previously been theirs after it had been lost, especially since Estrada swiftly became the Hell Faction¡¯s second Main God after Ayer. Estrada made the pure Holy Light the official standard of Holy Light. There was now a great power level difference between Estrada and the Holy Light Faction, and thetter had also lost most of its foundational source of belief. The Holy Light Faction that lost its divine ruler was naturally soon marginalized.


    It was also because this rtively moderate new Holy Light religion was acting behind the scenes in many ways that the Eich alliance government involving many species was sessfully epted by everyone. If things were still like how they had been before, it would be impossible for the Holy Light Faction to ept any non-human species.


    It could be said that everyone with a brain could tell that with the current overall situation, it was now an unstoppable tidal wave of history that the rtively more moderate Hell Faction would bepletely recing the overly warmongering Holy Light Faction.


    Another result of ¡°recing the ruling faction¡± was the assessment of historical figures¡ªhistorical heroes and criminals.


    The new God of Holy Light Estrada was the first to have his reputation whitewashed since he had now be the new God of Holy Light. Since he hadn¡¯t had a tainted reputation for long, and he already had had an excellent reputation beforehand, it was quite easy to give him the title of ¡°the strongest human who¡¯s also a protector of the pure Holy Light¡±.


    After time exposed the truth to the world, a controversy arose regarding how to assess two people... a certain pair of twin brothers.


    Rnd Mist, the creator of the Mist Alliance, the founder of the teachings of pure Holy Light, the inheritor of the Holy Knights¡¯ path of protection, the creator of Hell, and... also Emperor Yongye, who had almost destroyed the entire world of Eich!


    Karwenz Mist, a Chaos Main God, apletely selfish individual who acted as he pleased. There wasn¡¯t much controversy about his actions or personality, but he selfishly opened the dimensional barrier... When assessing this incident 46 yearster, this could only be viewed as a good thing.


    Meanwhile, Rnd Mist had tried his utmost to prevent the dimensional barrier from opening, and he had almost seeded. Even though he indeed had good intentions, he also had tried to prevent the progress of history.


    ¡°One twin was doing something bad with good intentions, while the other was doing something good with wicked intentions. It¡¯s so hard to differentiate right and wrong between them.¡±


    ¡°Without Karwenz opening the door to the dimensional barrier, all of Eich¡¯s species would still be fighting over resources, living space, and to be the ruling species. Even with the Hell Faction taking over as the most powerful faction, it would still be impossible to stop all the wars for personal benefits and survival.¡±


    ¡°...Aren¡¯t you just saying this after the fact? The endless number of ravenous wolves from other universes would have enjoyed the feast first if it hadn¡¯t been for the previous God of Holy Light Karn¡¯s sacrifice which attracted the Overwatch Association¡¯s peaceful civilizations to us. Eich might not have even survived if that hadn¡¯t happened.¡±


    ¡°I agree with the person before me. You think it¡¯s fine to simply assess a historical figure because of the results? With that way of thinking, Karwenz, who did so many evil things, is actually a hero who saved the world? He clearly didn¡¯t have any good intentions at all. You think that all his evil deeds can just be forgiven simply because the result was good?¡±


    ¡°...I think that it¡¯s fine. There are no ifs in history. Isn¡¯t having a good result more important than anything? The information¡¯s no longer ssified. Karwenz indeed didn¡¯t have good intentions, but there were others fighting with him for the sake of their ideals...¡±


    Information on the twin brothers had be unssified starting from about three decades ago. Controversies about how to view them had never ended since then. Since the twin brothers were overly powerful to the point where even the Cycle of Reincarnation couldn¡¯t wipe their souls clean, and they were still serving a sentence in Hell even now, many neutral observers gained trust in the Hell Faction¡¯s fair and just carrying out of the Concept of Law for everyone.


    ¡°Even the creator of Law and Hell will be judged after his death. In that case, there¡¯s no need to doubt the seriousness and truthfulness of Hell¡¯s divinews.¡±


    Katerina helplessly shook her head as she recalled all the controversies and arguments that would arise whenever the twins were mentioned. 46 years had passed, but her past memories weren¡¯t hazy even in the slightest. Katerina felt some mysterious regret and pain in her heart when she thought about how that oh-so-hateable Rnd was still being punished in Hell right now.


    ¡°...The strongest Main God Elisa has publicly dered that unless Hell releases Rnd Mist¡¯s soul within three months, she¡¯ll start the fourth War of Hell immediately. Wood Spirit Mother Goddess Amelia has expressed that she¡¯ll definitely join Elisa¡¯s side... This is repeating yet again.¡±


    This deration of war that others were helpless to do anything about had already happened multiple times before. Elisa and Amelia were respectively the strongest and second-strongest Main Gods in the world right now, and they had constantly been trying to attack Hell in order to save Rnd¡¯s soul from his punishment there.


    Ayer and Estrada were the only two among Hell¡¯s Four Pir Gods who actually had Main God power level. Additionally, both Elisa and Amelia had a special rtionship with Rnd, so they were unable to go all out against Elisa or Amelia. Whenever Elisa and Amelia teamed up to attack Hell and cause trouble, it really was a major headache for the Hell Faction.


    However, it was impossible for the Hell Faction to release Rnd. Not only would that be absolutely destructive for Hell¡¯s divinews, even Rnd himself adamantly refused to leave... Could it be that he had gotten addicted to being in jail?


    Additionally, Katerina knew from her own information channels that five years ago, during the third War of Hell, Elisa clearly had the power and opportunity to destroy all of Hell itself, but in the end, she had refrained from destroying all of Hell in order to save Rnd. Perhaps this was because Elisa knew that creating Hell had been Rnd¡¯s foremost desire and aplishment in his life.


    Katerina shook her head as she threw away a horrifying advertisement which said, ¡°Friend, do you know about Beifeng? You¡¯re wee to join the interdimensional Divine Church of Beifeng!¡±


    In a way, this legendary Dracon had be renowned throughout the endless universes. His church sprouted in countless worlds, and countless admirers were drawn to his teachings about how ¡°true love knows no boundaries¡±.


    It was said that back in the day, as he traveled alone through the other universes, he also managed to create a powerful team to help save Eich, but due to certain reasons, such as passing by developing beastmens, a of the apes, and so on, he was toote to arrive to do anything useful.


    Since Beifeng was ¡°far too active¡± in the other universes, more and more people from Eich were now too embarrassed to admit that Beifeng had also originated from Eich. For people of Eich nowadays, if someone from an outside universe asked ¡°Do you know about Beifeng¡±, that would be a humiliating p to the face which would cause a fight... apart from the dark cultists who worshipped Beifeng.


    Katerina shook her head and discarded the scary incidents and dirty information which she had just recalled. She then saw a posted bounty that made her not know if she shouldugh or cry.


    ¡°Bounty: hunting Adam Han, an idiotic red-haired vagabond. His traits are that he¡¯s incredibly stupid and that he has no sense of direction. He¡¯s someone irresponsible who left his wife behind while saying ¡®I want to see the outside world¡¯. If anyone meets him, please contact council leader Margaret from the Mage Country. I will give you an ample reward. PS: it doesn¡¯t matter if he¡¯s captured alive or dead. Please feel free to kill him if you¡¯re capable of doing so.¡±


    Katerina toyed with the bounty in her hand as she seemed to smile at the red-haired swordsman in the shadows in front of her who had his head lowered as he looked at a map in his hands.


    ¡°...You¡¯re quite skilled to have angered Margaret to such an extent when she has such a good temper. Still, when I think about the time, you should have left the city long ago, so why are you here asking for me to help open the city gate?¡±


    The red-haired swordsman fell silent upon hearing this. However, the reason was obvious due to how his arms trembled as he held the map... He was holding the map upside-down yet again!


    ¡°I... as an adventurer, I want to go out and see the endless universes outside. A ce as small and narrow as Eich can no longer satisfy me.¡±


    ¡°...It¡¯s really not in order to escape your responsibilities as the husband of the Mage Country¡¯s council leader and your position as the head warrior of the Underground Alliance?¡±


    Adam fell silent asrge drops of sweat kept falling from his forehead. After all these years, he still couldn¡¯t tell a lie at all.


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯ve learned some information that Rnd will soon be reincarnating in an outside universe. He¡¯ll probably need helpers...¡±


    ¡°...And then you¡¯ll continue acting as you please together? Count me in, but I don¡¯t think I can go right now...¡±


    The voice outside the door was quite familiar. Adam immediately perked up in high spirits as he was expecting someone to go together with him.


    ¡°Little Red, I knew that you woulde...¡±


    However, his voice trailed off at the end as his entire body stiffened, because he instead saw an even more familiar person.


    ¡°...Let¡¯s return home.¡±


    Margaret seemed to have a much kindlier appearance than she did before as she held a red-haired little girl¡¯s hand. However, the smiling expression she had as she nced over at Adam made him really want to turn tail and run away immediately.


    ¡°...Elisa has already finished her preparations. It will be at least more than a decade before Rnd is able to have fun messing around everywhere. You should return home first.¡±


    Margaret helplessly sighed as she nced at her daughter who had a pleading expression. She originally wanted to explode right when she saw Adam, but in the end, she decided to talk nicely and properly deal with her bastard of a husband after they returned home.


    ¡°At the very least, you should apany our daughter Lisa for some more years, and it¡¯ll be about time after she grows up to be an adult... Will that be fine? Dear?¡±


    It was rare for Margaret to speak so softly like this. What else could Adam say since he was bing more henpecked every day? He nodded in agreement.


    ¡°The adventure hasn¡¯t ended. It¡¯s just... I should rest for the time being.¡±

 Chapter 839 - Side Story 2 - Bastard Boy/Girl Twins

    <h4>839 Side Story 2 ¨C Bastard Boy/Girl Twins</h4>


    The doorbell at a perfectly ordinary apartmentbeled 402 kept ringing. The twins who were at home kept pretending to hear nothing.


    ¡°Ding dong!¡±


    ¡°Ding dong!¡±


    Finally, the older brother, who was on the sofa and reading a book, took action because he became annoyed with the doorbell ringing.


    ¡°Karwency, go open the door.¡±


    ¡°...If you call me that name again, you¡¯d better believe that I¡¯ll bite you to death.¡±


    ¡°Okay then, Jiang Shiyun, go open the door.¡±


    ¡°...I¡¯m going to kill you!¡±


    The angered younger twin sister threw down her game controller and bared her teeth as she pounced over... but she was instantly suppressed by her older twin brother.


    There wasn¡¯t actually much difference in strength between the two 13-year-old half-blood siblings. However, I held the key to victory because I was wearing shorts that were easy to move in and had simple short hair, while Karwency/Jiang Shiyun was wearing a dress and painfully had her twintails pulled on.


    ¡°Idiot, don¡¯t bother me when I¡¯m reading. You don¡¯t like the name Karwency that Mom gave you, nor do you like the name Jiang Shiyun that Dad gave you, so just what do you want to be named? Say it! How am I supposed to know if you don¡¯t say anything? My little sister, just tell me what you want to be called, okay?¡±


    ¡°...I think that she won¡¯t be able to say anything until you withdraw your foot from her mouth.¡±


    I felt rather awkward after hearing the young female voiceing from behind me. It really was rather unbing for my girlfriend to see me pulling on my younger sister¡¯s twintails while sticking my foot in her mouth.


    ¡°...Harloys? Howe you came in?¡±


    ¡°I saw that nobody opened the door for so long, so I knew that you two were fighting again, so I came in with the spare key. Rnd, stop teasing Karwenz. Be careful, or she¡¯ll make both of you die together again.¡±


    ¡°Hmph, a silly otaku like her? Herbat strength is less than half of a chicken!¡±


    However, I still obediently listened to my girlfriend¡¯s words, and let go of the still struggling Karwency.


    ¡°Aah! My female angel knight died again! Those stupid orcs! They only know how to ambush! I¡¯m going to kill them!¡±


    Right after she was released, Karwency didn¡¯t actually try to attack me, but rather rushed towards her game console while tears filled her eyes.


    She was ying an online game, and online games all had thismon trait where leaving the game for just a moment would easily cause your character to die.


    Indeed, that¡¯s right, the original Karwenz who loved adventure and stimtion so much became addicted to games at an incredible speed after she became an Earthling for the first time. She became aplete otaku girl.


    ¡°...Hmph, with her luck stat of E? She thinks she can kill me together with her?¡±


    Although we were reincarnated with a mission after our punishment was ended prematurely, the world still didn¡¯t like the former Abyss Prince. Karwency now also had the specialncer ability of a luck stat of E.


    The moment that she left home, her luck stat would continue to lower even more. Having a vase fall on her from above was nothing. It was even possible for her to have a meteore crashing down on her.


    After Karwency became even more of an otaku, this also became an excuse for her not to want to go outside.


    ¡°...I¡¯m not talking about the normal meaning of killing you together with her. Aren¡¯t you afraid that she¡¯ll act likest time, luring you into her room in the middle of the night, and then screaming that you¡¯re a rapist brother who wants to have his way with his twin sister?¡±


    I was instantly rendered speechless. When Karwency did that previously, it really became a huge incident. I had been caught ¡°right in the act¡±, and was almost sent off to juvenile detention by my furious parents.


    As for what happened after that? That was even more embarrassing.


    ¡°Rnd tried to rape Karwency...? Haha, let meugh for a moment. You two (Rnd¡¯s parents), you¡¯ve definitely been fooled. Without even mentioning the terrible rtionship between the twins, Rnd probably hasn¡¯t even reached puberty yet. A half-wood spirit should still be hairless down there at 13 years old...¡±


    Wood Spirit Mother Goddess Amelia vouched for me, and this was proved by having me take my pants off. Although this cleared my name, this also became a great humiliation in my life as my bastard twin sister had shouted ¡°hairless¡± at me endlessly for the past three months, which was truly a pitiful experience.


    When I thought about this, grudges new and old all welled up within me as I made up my mind, and lightly touched the wall socket.


    *Zap!*


    ¡°There¡¯s an electricity outage? Oh no! The boss only has 5% hp left! If I get disconnected now, my entire party will be annihted! My dragon kill points! My dragonyer sword!¡±


    Her screams sounded so pleasing to me right now.


    I smiled really, really proudly. Karwency then discovered that her console had been unplugged, and then naturally started fighting with me again.


    ¡°...I didn¡¯t mean this when I mentioned killing you together with herself. Actually, you can search F website for the novel named ¡®My Older Brother Can¡¯t Possibly Be This Much of a Beast.¡¯¡±


    I instantly jumped up after hearing Harloys¡¯ words. Just the novel¡¯s name alone made me realize that something was super wrong.


    I kicked Karwency aside and turned on theputer while going on F website, which was currently the most popr anime, manga, novel, and otaku interest website in the world. I then almost spat up blood when I found the novel.


    ¡°Otaku dance heavenly queen Wency is publicizing her family secret, u003cMy Beloved Older Brother Is a Beastu003e.


    ¡°Although my older twin brother is a beast, I still really love her (3000 words have been skipped for convenience)...


    ¡°That¡¯s right, her, because she likes to wear female clothing and likes it when I call her ¡®Sister¡¯. At home whenever our parents aren¡¯t around, I always call her ¡®Sister Peach¡¯ (another 5000 words of random fictional rubbish have been skipped here)...


    ¡°On that night, she wore female clothing while breaking into my room with a whip in her hand. Nobody else was at home (20,000 explicit words have been skipped here. Karwency probably copied some sex story with super heavy tastes)...


    ¡°...He had a huge fight with our parents. He said that I was too cute, and that not even breaking his bones would stop him... On that night, ¡®she¡¯ charged into my room again, but my parents pretended not to see anything, because they had given up...


    ¡°...I became pregnant, but she refused to be with me anymore, as her heart now belonged to another, since she had gotten really close to a bald, middle-aged, obese male teacher. I can sense that she wants to kill me so that everything can end... If I¡¯m unable to get online for three days in a row, the text message I¡¯ve set up will publicize my twin brother¡¯s name, address, and picture...¡±


    I silently closed the website as I nced towards the corner where a certain girl was retreating while trying to secretly slip back to her room.


    ¡°Karwenz! I¡¯m going to kill you!¡±


    This time, I didn¡¯t hold back during our fight. I rode on my twin sister¡¯s back and furiously tugged on her twintails.


    ¡°Stop pulling, I¡¯ll go bald, I¡¯m going bald, I¡¯m really going bald!¡±


    Harloys helplessly sighed as she watched her boyfriend fighting with his younger twin sister yet again. Although Harloys had reincarnated to be his next-door neighbor, and seemingly became the final victor in the battle for Rnd¡¯s heart, a half-blood wood spirit¡¯s bloodline would mature far slower than a human would. Not only that, whenever they went out on a date, many others would always be spying on them. Just when would all the drama over Rnd¡¯s heart truly end?


    ¡°Ding-dong! Ding-dong!¡±


    The doorbell rang again, but of course, the twins were too busy with their fight to care. In the end, Harloys helplessly went over to open the door, but then she was astonished by what she saw.


    ¡°What¡¯s the matter?¡±


    I found it rather strange how there was no sounding from the door, so I also went over to the front door, and then I was stunned by what I saw.


    Outside the front door, an innocent ck-d priest was looking at the strange kids in this apartment. He kept wondering why they had all frozen solid upon seeing him. However, he was a consummate professional at spreading the teachings of his church, so he immediately put on a friendly smile.


    ¡°Children, do you know how love has no boundaries, and about the Divine Church of Beifeng?¡±

 Chapter 840 - Side Story 3: New Beginning

    <h4>840 Side Story 3: New Beginning</h4>


    Everyone probably has memories of their youth that would make them smile happily, make them sigh in bitterness, or make them blush in embarrassment and want to forget about.


    To a certain someone, today was a very special day. He didn¡¯t know yet whether what he was going to do today would create a dark history which would make him smash his head on a table in embarrassment, or if it would be the start of an unforgettable sweet memory.


    ¡°I like you, please be my girlfriend.¡±


    With only two people standing on the rooftop of the building, with their friends spying from the corner, thepletely red-faced boy shouted out his feelings to the girl, and the entire world was filled with the scent of youth.


    ¡°Alright. Actually, I have liked you for a long time as well.¡±


    If the girl were to sweetly ept the confession of the boy like this, going by the story development, it could very well be the start of an incredibly sweet youthedy. However, most of the time, the recollections of one¡¯s youth would always be bittersweet. 99% of such developments would never be so sessful.


    ¡°...I¡¯m sorry. Actually, I already have someone that I like.¡±


    This was probably a more realistic development. The development might end up to be winding, but as long as the male protagonist worked hard in pursuing her, there might still be a chance.


    But sometimes...


    ¡°You useless trash, you dare to confess to me despite your background? How much money do you have? How much do you earn every year? What college do you intend to go to? What kind of job do you intend to do in the future? Let me rify that if your annual sry doesn¡¯t hit a million, you can scram.¡±


    Alright, this was probably an even more realistic development, as well as a pain in the hearts of countless mature men. However, this wasn¡¯t even the worst-case scenario.


    At the very least, there was still a possibility for the man to fight on. It wouldn¡¯t be as despairing as the following one.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I like girls.¡±


    This... The difficulty was really a little too high. If this wasn¡¯t an excuse cooked up by the girl to reject you, it would be best if you directly gave up.


    ¡°Haha. Actually, I am your mother/father/elder sister/younger brother.¡±


    This was even moreplicated. If that person didn¡¯t watch too much Star Wars or Korean dramas, if what she said was true... Anyway, before you bring her for a blood test to determine your rtionship, it might be better for you to bring her to a psychiatrist.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I am only into the 2D. I have no interest in 3D apes who grow leg and chest hair!¡±


    This was even more despairing. Of course, to a small portion ofrades who had unique life habits, this kind of female otaku might seem more desirable... However, the truth was that if the female shut-ins used the 2D as a standard forparison, they would have a much higher expectation for one¡¯s physical appearance. Thus, the male otakus would be in for a tragedy.


    Sometimes, the main difference between a novel and reality was that novels needed to be logical. However, reality didn¡¯t have to be logical.


    ¡°I like you, please be my girlfriend.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I am a vampire and my family said that I am banned from going out with humans. Although you are only half human, you are also part of the 3D. I am only interested in the 2D and I do not have any interest in 3D apes who grow leg hair and chest hair! The ones that I like the most are 2D girls! Furthermore, I already have someone that I like!¡±


    This scene... sorry, this third-person narrator has no idea how toment. There are too many points to even startmenting on...


    ¡°Smile, it is all fine as long as I smile... The hell! How is that any different from the tragedies up above!? Furthermore, it¡¯s all of the tragedies put together as one! How much of a failure does one have to be to meet with this kind of incident? Furthermore, what do you mean by vampire? Is this really a high school in the real world? Give me back the perspective of a normal scientific world!¡±


    In the ssroom, even though a day had passed after that absolute failure of a confession, Roxia¡¯s continuousments still echoed throughout the ssroom. His new friends that met him only two weeks ago reevaluated what type of person this young man was due to his energetic howls of anger.


    He was Roxia M. Harloys, a rather strange name. He had an appearance which was even younger than his true age. Even though he just had his 16th birthday recently, people would believe it if he imed he was only 10 years old. Others would oftenment that his golden hair and small red face were extremely cute. Yep, he had a natural babyface.


    Roxia¡¯s weight was slightly under 50 kilograms, and his height was about 1.5 meters. Considering how he was 1/4th wood spirit in bloodline, he could already be quite proud of his height as wood spirits were known to remain eternally youthful.


    Roxia didn¡¯t have any special features. In fact, he had much dark history in his life already due to his overly young appearance...


    ¡°I¡¯d feel a lot of pressure if I went out with you. I could ept it if I was simply viewed as being your older sister, but I look more like your mother... Last month, Asha was treated as an auntie when she simply went out shopping with you. That¡¯s too hard for me to handle.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. Although I¡¯m really moved by your confession, I¡¯ve actually always viewed you as my little brother/younger brother/little cutie/pet...¡±


    Roxia received rejections like these. Wait a moment, wasn¡¯t there something problematic mixed in with the word ¡°pet¡±? Shouldn¡¯t the police be called!?


    Although Roxia¡¯s physical appearance was rather unique, he really was quite an ordinary boy from Earth on the inside.


    If one had to find something out of the ordinary about him, that would be the natural talents he was born with as a mixed-blood. Roxia had outstanding athleticism. Even though he didn¡¯t exercise very much, he would always be a key member on any sports team. However, even this didn¡¯t count as much of a specialty in this special school that he just transferred to.


    ¡°Brave hero, no need to be heartbroken. It¡¯s your own fault for having such an unreachable goal. She¡¯s Isabelle, the daughter of the Ferd Family. However, her rejection has already be famous throughout the entire school. There¡¯s also many others who are heartbroken just like you. Tsk, she¡¯s in love with the 2D, which means that every single boy in this school no longer has a chance.¡±


    Kaen was a boy who sat in front of Roxia, as well as the first friend that Roxia had made at this school.


    ¡°Hero?¡±


    ¡°Indeed. You even dared to reach for the untouchable flower of our school who¡¯s shot down 100% of the boys who confessed to her even though you transferred here less than a week ago. Not to mention, there¡¯s the things that you did at the school this month. What else could you be apart from a hero?¡±


    This sounded nice, so Roxia felt slightly better after hitting the bottom. However, Roxia¡¯s deskmate, the human ss representative Su Nana, adjusted her eyesses, and teasingly said, ¡°Roxia is a trash hero. Still, we don¡¯t have the right toment about you.¡±


    Roxia was instantly rendered speechless. He could onlyin depressedly whileying his head on his desk.


    ¡°Trash or whatever? I don¡¯t think so. I was a top athlete at my previous school, and I was quite popr...¡±


    However, Roxia¡¯s childhood friend Su Nana, who came to this school with him together from Earth, didn¡¯t seem like she wanted to spare his feelings.


    ¡°Top athlete? What¡¯s your 100-meter dash time?¡±


    ¡°13.2 seconds! I was #3 for the 100-meter dash at myst school!¡±


    Roxia had high expectations ced on him by his school due to his outstanding athleticism. However, he had zero interest in sweating, so he unhesitatingly rejected the track team¡¯s invitation. Despite this, he was still one of the strongestpetitors at the school¡¯s sports meet.


    ¡°...10 seconds for the 100-meter dash is the passing mark for the athletics department here. Even a girl like me is under 11 seconds.¡±


    Su Nana set aside the suspicious drink ¡°Real Tauren Milk from the Underground¡± which she was drinking. Even though Su Nana was clearly a ¡°literature girl¡±, she was looking down on the ¡°athletic student¡± Roxia.


    ¡°10 seconds is a passing grade? It seems that the records at the Olympics are so weak. Aaah! Hurry and return an ordinary person¡¯s world and worldview to me! Also, return my literature girl childhood friend who idolized me so much to me!¡±


    ¡°Stop acting stupid. This isn¡¯t Earth. Besides, you never could have been an ordinary person since the start, wood spirit mixed-blood prince.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t joke with me like that. I¡¯m just an ordinary 25% mixed-blood. Those wood spirits must have made a mistake. Did you think that I wanted toe here? I met an irresistible force.¡±


    Indeed, Roxia really wanted to ask himself why an ordinary Earthling like him hade to another, and entered this mystical universe filled with creatures from fantasy. Roxia was now an alien (from Earth) who was a transfer student in Eich.


    Eich and Earth were both universes that were members of the Overwatch Association. However, Earth had developed far more scientifically, while Eich was obviously supernatural. The supernatural abilities in stories from Earth were real here, but part of Roxia¡¯s bloodline had also originated from Eich.


    Although Roxia was also somewhat of an Eich native with his 25% wood spirit bloodline, which helped him to get ustomed to the primal Elemental Tide here, he was experiencing a lot of culture shock as an Earthling who hadpletely different values from native Eich residents, causing manyughable situations.


    Roxia originally nned out his life already. He would properly go to school, properly study, find an average college to attend, learn a skill that could earn money, find an easy job that didn¡¯t have much room for promotions, work while continuing his hobbies, and once he could no longer stay single due to his friends and rtives¡¯ nagging, he would marry a wife who wasn¡¯t too beautiful or ugly.


    Once Roxia reached middle age, he nned on pushing his work over to youngsters who joined the samepany, and ck off as a sry thief until he retired. He would then pass away amongst his children¡¯sints about ¡°why is that old geezer still alive?¡± If he could scam some tears at his funeral, that would be perfect. As for all the mystical things in his family...


    ¡°I can leave all of that to my younger twin sister who likes those things. Compared to the ordinary eldest son, she¡¯s far more suitable for this crazy and inconceivable universe than I am in every way.¡±


    But unfortunately for Roxia, he received a letter one week ago whichpletely shattered all of his original ns and life goals.


    ¡°My dear older brother. By the time that you read this letter, it¡¯s likely that I¡¯m dead already. If you want to know who killed your beloved younger twin sister, please enter the Interster Overwatch Academy in Sor of Eich, and court the girl named Isabelle. By the way, Belle is an avid 2D loving otaku, so remember to attack her using her interests.


    ¡°Your cutest younger twin sister: Rori H. Harloys.¡±


    Indeed, on Roxia¡¯s 16th birthday, he didn¡¯t receive anything pleasant as a birthday present. Instead, he received the dying message and will of his younger twin sister.


    Ever since then, Roxia¡¯s entire world was overturned. He had no choice but toe to such a strange ce, and try to court a girl he had never met before in order to try and find out the truth behind his younger twin sister¡¯s death. On top of all that, he had to start his new life in Eich with the status of being a weak piece of mega trash.


    Originally, he didn¡¯t want to care about his family matters, and he wanted to ignore this and carry on with his nned goals in life, but Roxia felt most uneasy about the postscripts in the letter.


    ¡°PS: remember to offer me a Milos cake from the cake shop next to our home as a tribute to me. I really want to eat one.


    ¡°PPS: I want matcha, chocte, and strawberry vored cakes! A minimum of 10 each! I want double the number of cream-filled cakes! Thatdy at the cake shop is really easy to talk to. You just have to talk to her more often.


    ¡°PPPS: right, even if I¡¯m not around anymore, you¡¯re not allowed to sulk! You already have trouble getting along with other people, so you¡¯re forbidden from venting your anger on others!¡±


    After seeing these postscripts, Roxia was quite certain that this letter had reallye from Rori. Apart from his cute foodie twin sister, nobody else would possibly write such postscripts.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, Rori, are you really dead? Howe a dead person can still write a letter and wants to eat? Also, just who exactly killed you!?¡±


    Three days ago, when Roxia had just turned 16 years old, he had just finished the funnest summer vacation of his life. However, he was different from other naughty children who went crazy with ying after all the tests were over. Roxia¡¯s choice was quite practical as he worked the entire summer to earn money.


    In a way, Roxia had refused his family¡¯s arrangements for him as he stubbornly insisted on living an ordinary person¡¯s life. This was basically cutting off his own economical support. Although his younger sister would often try and give him some money, she wasn¡¯t very rich, either. On top of that, she was a huge foodie who loved to eat. Every time that Roxia secretly met with Rori, he could see her drooling at the cake shop next door. He also imagined himself going over and feeding his younger sister as there was nothing cuter in the world than a younger sister who was willing to be fed... Ahem, please forget about what was identally exposed just now. Roxia was simply thinking that it was time for him to be independent for the sake of his uing future.


    Working? What job would hire a teenager who was less than 16 years old? There was a reason behind this. A distantly rted uncle had introduced a part-time job to him where he could also study while earning sufficient living expenses. He was originally a ¡°novice who used connections¡±, but his past two months of hard work helped the seniors at his job give him some slight recognition. Roxia was also able to begin some tasks at work all by himself.


    Maybe some readers had managed to sessfully guess Roxia¡¯s part-time job. He worked part-time for an unknown magazine, running errands, writing simple articles, and writing novels to earn some money.


    Due to Roxia¡¯sck of life experience, he could only write articles such as game reviews, science fiction or fantasy short stories, and so on. His editor and the readers keptmenting ¡°this is too fake,¡± ¡°the emotional connections between the characters are such a mess, does the author not have any friends?¡±, ¡°the techniques and word choice is so chuunibyou, and it¡¯s really embarrassing to read. Author, do you dare to read these names out loud?¡±.


    The result was that Roxia remarked, ¡°I¡¯m so sorry for not having any friends, but since all of you are wasting timementing on holidays and weekends, it seems that we¡¯re pretty much the same. No, I¡¯m still salvageable since I¡¯m young, but you old otakus can just continue with your FFF Inquisition!¡±


    Since Roxia spoke the truth, his seniors hunted him down while hitting him with posters and magazines...


    Roxia had been working at this job for almost two years now, and had made quite a bit of progress, especially with his most recent novel. Since Roxia had started panicking due not to producing decent results recently, he wrote about the ridiculous adventures that he had heard from his godmother.


    The ¡°Crazy Lich¡± series was extremely well received due to its realism, wondrous plot, and really silly personality of the main character Rnd creating aical story. Although Roxia was really delighted to receive many supportivements from his readers, he also secretly prayed that his godmother wouldn¡¯t see the story he wrote, as otherwise he would likely meet with something terrible.


    Roxia was making some progress with his work now, and had received his seniors¡¯ recognition. He even started hesitating on whether he should drop out of high school and join the workforce early since his line of work didn¡¯t really require an academic resume.


    ¡°...Rori, I think that writing is the funnest time of my life. I want to write for my entire life. How about I drop out of school early? I feel that continuing to study will be nothing but a waste of time.¡±


    However, just mentioning this made his younger sister so angry that she wouldn¡¯t ept any calls from him for 10 days straight. She even scolded him by saying, ¡°I don¡¯t want Brother to be a useless otaku like those men in your editing department. If you dare to drop out from school, I¡¯m going to tell Dad that I won¡¯t do his work anymore, and make him capture you to go back and take over the family business.¡±


    Roxia received quite a heavy blow from this even though it was only through a cell phone. Not only that, the senior who tutored him in this field also opposed Roxia¡¯s way of thinking, and told him, ¡°If you don¡¯t have any real life experience, even the most brilliant imagination will stillck the element of realism. Even if you can temporarily attract some attention, readers will find that carefully tasting your novel will be like chewing wax. You should study more while you¡¯re still young. Don¡¯t be afraid of wasting time. Think of it as umting more for your own future.¡±


    Roxia couldn¡¯t tell if this pudgy senior of his really had good intentions for him or not. Moreover, Roxia felt extremely unmotivated about being forced to learn things which would likely be useless to him for his entire life in such a boring ssroom. However, his younger sister refused to let him quit school.


    Thus, the unfortunate Roxia could only ¡°continue to waste time in high school¡±.


    Actually, Roxia had already nned out his own future. Even if he still had to study, he would simply go to an average high school, and he could still focus mainly on writing. When it came time to sign up for college after college entrance examinations, he would sign up for some random second-rate college¡¯s Chinese major or journalism major. He would then keep cking off, but Rori would no longer lecture him as long as he was still ¡°studying¡±.


    However, everything that Roxia had, including his future goals and dreams, and his only rtive that he trusted, was all shattered by that ck letter which seemed so ice-cold.


    ¡°Rori is dead, so you must go to Eich and be an interster knight in her ce.¡±

 Chapter 841 (END) - Side Story 4 - A Simple Mission: Finding the Missing Mother

    <h4>Chapter 841: Side Story 4 ¨C A Simple Mission: Finding the Missing Mother</h4>


    <strong>Trantor: </strong>imperfectluck <strong>Editor: </strong>Kurisu


    ¡°Our mission? What¡¯s that? Don¡¯t bother me, my mission is to attack the secret realm raids. Hmph, don¡¯t even think about dragging me out of my fortress.¡±


    I felt rather conflicted inside about the ¡°otaku girl¡± in front of me who adamantly refused to go outside.


    With my understanding of ¡°Karwency¡±, the fact that she was willing to stay home and not cause trouble was not only good for me, it was also good for the entire world. However, I really couldn¡¯t help butment on how the former Abyss Prince had be so much of aplete shut-in NEET otaku... Perhaps she had rebelled against the entire world back in the day because she had simply been too bored, and saving the world from her only required a game console and a room filled with otaku goods?


    ¡°Ahem, do you still remember the contract from when we were released from Hell? If you don¡¯tplete our mission, you¡¯ll be brought back to Hell to continue our jail sentence. Do you want to enjoy that again?¡±


    My jail sentence in Hell wasn¡¯t as severe as Karwency¡¯s had been. Or, looking at things from a different angle, ording to the divinews of Hell, a person couldn¡¯t be tried and punished for the same crime twice, so my crimes from Emperor Yongye¡¯s days were cleared when Wumianzhe ascended to Godhood as the cruelestwful punishment was typically nothing more than death.


    Since it was nearly impossible to make a specialw just for dealing with indestructible individuals, my formerw expertise made me choose jail as the most severe punishment for such individuals, imprisoning them in Hell for countless years until they served their punishments. However, it was also due to this that Hell¡¯s administrators cursed me for being crazy for wasting so many resources on long-term imprisonment of such individuals...


    Still, I heard that Hell indeed started modifying itsws in order to prepare a special punishment for indestructible individuals who were impossible to send through the Cycle of Reincarnation. I heard that they would be imprisoned in underground dungeons to serve as demon kings for novice adventurers to practice against... This sounded rather fun, so maybe I should try it out sometime.


    Ahem, getting back on the main topic, Karwecy likely would never agree to go outside unless there was major trouble that only we could resolve.


    Correct, us. I wouldn¡¯t be able toplete this mission on my own. Karwency¡¯s punishment hadn¡¯t ended yet when she was released. We would still be imprisoned in Hell even now if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that we were necessary for this mission.


    ¡°Finding the missing mother. What a simple mission. Yep, it¡¯s just that this mother has been missing for who knows how many millions of years, and that we must search for her throughout all the endless universes.¡±


    After Eich became connected to alternate universes, many things changed, while many things also remained the same.


    The Overwatch Alliance indeed changed many things. Its principles of protection and mutual assistance had good intentions. Eich progressed greatly from interacting and trading with the friendly civilizations in the Overwatch Alliance. However, while there were friendly neighbors in the endless universes and civilizations, there were also countless greedy wolves.


    There were also plenty of civilizations which weren¡¯t members of the Overwatch Alliance, and didn¡¯t care about it. The Overwatch Alliance simply served to establish rtively safer and more stable areas.


    Opening Eich¡¯s dimensional door to other universes greatly lessened internal warfare of Eich, but wars with other universes only became even worse.


    Some civilizations viewed attacking Eich as a ¡°baptism¡± for this newly discovered civilization. They felt that it was a necessary path for all newly discovered civilizations to undergo. It would be fine if Eich could survive this, but if Eich didn¡¯t, Eich would be relegated to being a third-rate civilization or even a colony for another civilization.


    Not only that, Eich had plenty of powerful treasures that other Gods and civilizations from alternate universes desired. This made the baptism rather scary. All sorts of Evil Gods from various alternate universes either came personally or sent their representatives here. Even Eich¡¯s native species, which all had abundant experience with war, were having difficulty with the amount of war...


    ¡°The legacies of the 12 Pir Gods? What¡¯s that?¡±


    The 12 Pir Gods was an unofficial way to refer to the original 12 powerful Gods who had first created the Overwatch Contract. Most of them had nowpletely vanished to ces unknown, but what they created and their civilizations were mostly at the peak of all the universes.


    The 12 Pir Gods were incredibly strong, which meant their creations had enormous potential. These parent Gods would always favor their own creations, and typically had left something behind for their civilization, or gave their civilization guidance on the future, or gave endless resources for development. These legacies were more than enough to attract countless ravenous wolves.


    The Eich universe was the civilization belonging to Eich, one of the 12 Pir Gods, which meant Eich also had such potential. The legacy that she had left behind was likely the most valuable treasure in all the universes.


    ¡°So we need to go find that so-called legacy?¡±


    ¡°No, Eich¡¯s legacy has already been discovered. It was discovered right next to the dimensional barrier, so there¡¯s no need to search for it at all. Mother Goddess Eich has already considered that the Eich civilization would meet other universes in the future. What a kind Mother Goddess she is. However, it seems that she forgot to leave behind the key to unlocking her treasure, so we must find Eich herself.¡±


    [Yes, let¡¯s go find Mother.]


    As for who would be most likely to find Eich who had been missing for so long? That would be me, the Child of Fate who had a natural luck (or misfortune) buff, and host to the Goddess of Order, along with Karwency, who was formerly the host of the Goddess of Chaos. We were the people closest to Mother Goddess Eich.


    Eich had a special preference for twins. Her daughters were twins, and those daughters also invested their powers into us twins. It was said that such a rtionship would create a connection between us and Eich, making it possible to find her.


    ¡°Basically, the sess rate is now something like 0.001% instead of 0.0000001%, so it seems possible now.¡±


    Although the chances for sess were still tiny, if we seeded, then the Eich universe would have a supreme existence guarding it, and even if we failed, the only consequence was that we twins were wasting our time. No matter how one thought about it, this could only be enormously beneficial, which was part of why Ayer brought us out of Hell¡¯s imprisonment early.


    There were three parts to our mission. The first part was waiting for us to reincarnate and mature. We had now reached adult age, so it was time for us to start carrying out our mission.


    ¡°Let¡¯s be Star Guardians first. There¡¯s a test to be a Star Guardian taking ce tomorrow. I¡¯ve already signed you up, and it¡¯s mandatory for you to attend. Otherwise, I¡¯ll notify Ayer to take us both back to jail in Hell together.¡±


    ¡°Wait, I¡¯m just an otaku guy... girl who stays at home all day ying games. You want me to join such an extremely difficult test? Are you really my older twin brother?¡±


    ¡°Haha, take a guess.¡±


    Did she really think that I didn¡¯t know?


    I was still working hard to learn the knowledge and power from alternate universes. I hadn¡¯t cked off with my cultivation, either. New power systems and knowledge gave me even greater development paths for the future, and I would likely progress in my power level soon.


    Everything stemmed from the soul, after all. Even after reincarnation, I was still Rnd, and Karwency... was still Karwenz.


    The current me had zero guarantee of being able to defeat this otaku girl in front of me. This bastard twin sister of mine, she did nothing but y games and sleep in every day, yet herbat strength exceeded mine. This was so outrageously unreasonable!


    This was only my direct instinct, or maybe it was an invisible connection between twins, but I knew that my analysis of herbat strength was absolutely correct.


    I didn¡¯t know exactly what she had learned, or where she had learned it from. However, it was likely that she was learning the powers of alternate universes even quicker than I was. She had returned to peak power two years faster than I did.


    If I didn¡¯t find something for her to do, she would likely overturn the entire world again... If she got bored, she would definitely cause major trouble.


    ¡°Eh? I hadn¡¯t saved my game yet!¡±


    The lights in the room suddenly went off. Karwency was in the middle of a boss fight and was interrupted before she got a chance to save. Meanwhile, I nodded in great satisfaction.


    ¡°It¡¯s finally time.¡±


    ¡°Tsk, trying this tactic on me? I can still y mobile games. Wait, howe my cell phone has no inte connection?¡±


    Harloys had perfect timing with her electromaic ion pulse interference. As I had nned, I would have to cut off Karwency¡¯s inte in addition to electricity in order to finally drag her out of the house.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, ¡®dear sister¡¯. This is the end of your life as a NEET otaku. A bright and beautiful tomorrow is waiting for us... I¡¯ll pay for all of your ingame monthly expenses this month, and you can pick any two new games thate out next month. Don¡¯t go overboard wanting anything more.¡±


    ¡°Brother, you really are my dear brother!¡±


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